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Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello from London, where I'm traveling with my daughter. No

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Speaker 1: monologue today, but I'm so excited for you to listen

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Speaker 1: to my interview with John and Rasik from Five for

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Speaker 1: Fighting coming up next. Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz

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Speaker 1: Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is John Andrasick, also

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Speaker 1: known as five for Fighting.

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Speaker 2: Hi, John, thanks so much for coming on.

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Speaker 3: Hey, Carol, nice to be with you. Big fan of.

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Speaker 4: Yours, Oh, I'm a big fan of yours. I've actually

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Speaker 4: always been a big fan of your music one hundred

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Speaker 4: years has made me cry many times in my car.

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Speaker 4: But I've gotten to know you since you've been outspoken

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Speaker 4: on Israel, and so I have to ask. You're not Jewish,

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Speaker 4: why why would you.

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Speaker 2: Take such a chance with your career? Why would you

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Speaker 2: open yourself up to such a tax?

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Speaker 4: You can easily take the other side and get praise

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Speaker 4: and acclaim and you know, wealth beyond your wildest imagination.

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Speaker 2: Why why did you do this?

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Speaker 5: You know, I understand why you asked that question, because

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Speaker 5: very few were doing that. But it makes me in

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Speaker 5: a sense angry because I would assume everybody would be

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Speaker 5: doing this. You know, people say thanks for doing this

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Speaker 5: and wow, and I'm like, I'm just doing what any

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Speaker 5: person I believe of conscious would be doing.

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Speaker 3: And it's really frustrating that there are so few.

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Speaker 5: Like I wrote a song about Afghanistan because we abandoned

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Speaker 5: our allies and twenty million women.

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Speaker 3: Were thrown into the dark ages.

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Speaker 5: I wrote a song about Ukraine and you know the

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Speaker 5: evil that is putin and so October seventh. If that's

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Speaker 5: not evil, I don't know what is. So to me,

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Speaker 5: these are moral messages. It's not about Jewish, it's not

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Speaker 5: about politics. It's just kind of what we're facing in

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Speaker 5: this world, these kind of evil actors that in my

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Speaker 5: mind are all connected.

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Speaker 3: So I feel I have a platform. I have some songs.

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Speaker 5: I wrote a song about October seventh, and I'm just

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Speaker 5: kind of in my mind doing what what, What's.

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Speaker 3: The right thing to do?

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Speaker 5: And whatever backlash comes to me, I'm on the backside

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Speaker 5: of my career.

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Speaker 3: Would you doing this thirty years ago?

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Speaker 5: So not?

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Speaker 2: You're so not, That's the whole thing. You're so not

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Speaker 2: on the backside.

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Speaker 4: If you were, if you were like eighty five years old,

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Speaker 4: I'd be like, well, he's done so whatever, but you're not.

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Speaker 4: And so that's really the thing. You're actually you actually

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Speaker 4: are taking a risk. And like I mean, obviously I

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Speaker 4: love it, and I think that you're amazing and I'm

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Speaker 4: so proud to know you. But it's just it's not

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Speaker 4: something that everybody will do, and it's not something that

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Speaker 4: you know a lot of people are doing.

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Speaker 2: Actually, very very very few people are doing that, you know.

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Speaker 5: I think after Superman became a song for the heroes

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Speaker 5: of nine to eleven and I started working with our

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Speaker 5: troops and I see heroic people doing heroic things. Perhaps

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Speaker 5: my kind of feeling about backlash is different than others,

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Speaker 5: you know, when you meet with hostage families in Israel,

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Speaker 5: when you work with als patients.

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Speaker 4: Right.

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Speaker 5: I wrote a song once called can One Man Say

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Speaker 5: Not Sorry? A song called the Last Great American, and

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Speaker 5: it was really about John McCain and his kind of

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Speaker 5: decision when he was a prisoner of war when they

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Speaker 5: came to get him and said, no, take somebody else,

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Speaker 5: because they were here first. And I've always thought about

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Speaker 5: people like that, you know, doing the right thing under

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Speaker 5: severe consequences, you know, so somebody doesn't buy a ticket,

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Speaker 5: or I don't get invited to a party, or somebody

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Speaker 5: doesn't want to, you know, play my song at the

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Speaker 5: end of the day, that just seems so trivial to

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Speaker 5: these other people. So you know, again, I think, you know,

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Speaker 5: whatever backlash is coming my way is just is so

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Speaker 5: meaningless in the big scheme of things. And i'd also

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Speaker 5: see how it matters. You know, I got thousands of

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Speaker 5: emails from Israel. We still are trying to evacuate fifteen

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Speaker 5: girls from Pakistan, Afghan girls. You know, I talked to

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Speaker 5: my Ukraine pals all the time, So you know, my

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Speaker 5: life has been so blessed by meeting these amazing people.

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Speaker 5: So whenever backlash comes in music, I was never invited

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Speaker 5: to those parties anyways, Carol.

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Speaker 3: I've always going to miss bitjoy.

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Speaker 5: I've never really fit in that world, and maybe that's

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Speaker 5: because I have a different worldview than most artists you know,

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Speaker 5: who typically are on the left.

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Speaker 2: Well, you're invited to all of my parties. You can

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Speaker 2: come anytime we want, South Florida. We really do it

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Speaker 2: up over here, and you would be very welcome.

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Speaker 3: Be careful what you wish for.

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Speaker 2: Good.

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Speaker 4: So you were actually in Israel and you performed in

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Speaker 4: Tel Aviv the night of the Iran attack.

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Speaker 2: What was that like? Were you scared?

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Speaker 3: Yes, I don't know how you wouldn't be.

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Speaker 5: I went over initially to meet with some troops, which

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Speaker 5: I did, and meet with some of the hostage families

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Speaker 5: and just kind of show some support. And the Friday

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Speaker 5: night before the Hostage Square rally, as you know, every Saturday,

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Speaker 5: there's a rally at Hostage Square, the hostage family speak,

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Speaker 5: thousands of people come, it's broadcast to the whole state

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Speaker 5: of visual They asked me to come sing Okay and Superman,

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Speaker 5: which I was honored to do.

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Speaker 3: But it was so surreal. I mean, here's a good example.

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Speaker 5: I've never had a show where the announcement before I

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Speaker 5: walk on stages an event of a missile attack, please

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Speaker 5: shelter and take cover and Carol. The thing that kind

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Speaker 5: of just blew my mind was nobody left. Not one

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Speaker 5: person was ready to like run to my hotel and

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Speaker 5: hide under my bed, and nobody left.

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Speaker 4: Understandably, Yeah, I think I would feel the same way, right.

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Speaker 5: Well, and then it gets even more crazy, so I

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Speaker 5: perform incredibly meaningful surreal kind of reminded me of the

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Speaker 5: consert of New York, literally hostage families with their loved

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Speaker 5: ones picture ten feet in front of me, just and

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Speaker 5: I walked off and was hugging the hostage families and

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Speaker 5: the leader of the hostage forum said, hey, John, by

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Speaker 5: the way, you need to be in your hotel by eleven.

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Speaker 3: They're closing the airspace. And it was like eight thirty.

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Speaker 3: And my first question was why not? Now, why don't

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Speaker 3: we just go?

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Speaker 2: Why don't we just call it a day?

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Speaker 3: We run it, you know.

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Speaker 5: And then I talked to some of my entourage there

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Speaker 5: who brought me there. Guys, we've got to go to

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Speaker 5: a hotel. I not, this is not hyperbole, they said,

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Speaker 5: but we have a dinner reservation.

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Speaker 3: I'm like, what are you talking about. They're like weeks,

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Speaker 3: then three weeks to get this dinner reservation. And I go,

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Speaker 3: you guys are crazy.

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Speaker 5: And then as you know, you know, two and a

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Speaker 5: half hours I ran launched the drones. So yeah, I

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Speaker 5: was scared. I had my son with me. My wife

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Speaker 5: did not want me to bring my son, so she

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Speaker 5: was crying. And Sun he's twenty four, so he was,

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Speaker 5: you know, he was he made his decision, but my

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Speaker 5: wife didn't want me to bring him, so of course,

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Speaker 5: you know, especially well, yeah, yeah when they when I

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Speaker 5: ran launched the ballistic missiles, everybody was on edge. But

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Speaker 5: you know, thank goodness for the iron dome. I mean, look,

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Speaker 5: I've been in Ukraine and I frankly felt much more

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Speaker 5: nervous than Ukraine because there's no iron dome.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, I was scared, I think, you.

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Speaker 5: Know, but the next day you wake up and you

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Speaker 5: would never known that there was a tech. Everybody's going

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Speaker 5: to work, everybody's on the beach. Israeli's are just a

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Speaker 5: different breed totally.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, And you know that whole restaurant reservation thing,

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Speaker 4: like I want to be the kind of person who's like,

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Speaker 4: I have a restaurant reservation.

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Speaker 2: I cannot miss this, Like I'm sorry.

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Speaker 1: I ran your your missiles are inconvenient.

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Speaker 2: You know, I have to.

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Speaker 4: Go to the latest a yel Shawnee spot.

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Speaker 2: And that's it. But I'm not.

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Speaker 4: I'm not in Israeli and I feel like they have

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Speaker 4: some really good, tough toughness about them that I really appreciate.

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Speaker 4: Did you always want to be a singer songwriter? I did?

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Speaker 5: I did. My mom started me at the piano at

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Speaker 5: two years old and I kind of grew up doing

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Speaker 5: musicals and at thirteen she let me quit taking piano

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Speaker 5: lessons and I started writing songs. And of course I

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Speaker 5: loved the singer songwriters from the seventies, but I also

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Speaker 5: loved the classic rock and Zeppelin and the Who, and

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Speaker 5: it was my childhood dream and it you know, I'm

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Speaker 5: one of those fifteen year overnight success stories.

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Speaker 3: I didn't have success very late in my career, so,

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Speaker 3: you know, and it was all at once.

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Speaker 5: Well, you know, you grind, you grind, you get a

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Speaker 5: record deal, the record company closes.

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Speaker 3: Everybody has these stories.

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Speaker 5: But I was, you know, I was in my late

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Speaker 5: twenties when Superman came out, which is very rare, you know,

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Speaker 5: for music artists to kind of have a hit song

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Speaker 5: at that age. I know, it sounds very young to us.

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Speaker 5: To me, it sounds like maybe yeah, but in the industry,

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Speaker 5: it's very rare for someone in their late twenties early

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Speaker 5: thirties to start at least have a popular career.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 5: As I said, I've been writing and working for since

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Speaker 5: I was a teenager. But and I also think that

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Speaker 5: gave me a little different perspective on success, you know,

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Speaker 5: because so many people had to go to the wall

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Speaker 5: for me.

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Speaker 3: But but yeah, I've always wanted to do it.

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Speaker 5: I still pinch myself when I hear my song at home,

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Speaker 5: depot or whatever.

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Speaker 2: And yeah, that seems to be so exciting.

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Speaker 5: It is, you know, even now, it's you know, you

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Speaker 5: don't take it for granted. And the fact that you know,

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Speaker 5: here we are twenty years after Superman, one hundred years

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Speaker 5: and now there's kids coming to my shows that weren't

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Speaker 5: even born when the songs.

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Speaker 3: Came out, So that's also very humbling.

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Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break and be right

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Speaker 1: back on the Carol Marcowitch Show.

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Speaker 2: What would you be doing if it wasn't this? What

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Speaker 2: would be a Plan B for you?

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Speaker 3: Well, I'm doing it. Actually.

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Speaker 5: The other side of my life is a million miles

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Speaker 5: away from the music business. We have a family business

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Speaker 5: that's been in our family since the forties. It's called

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Speaker 5: Precision Wire Products, and our claim to fame as we

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Speaker 5: make the best shopping cart in the world and if

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Speaker 5: you shop at Costco, you use our cart.

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Speaker 2: I like the Costco cart.

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Speaker 5: Yes, that's that's our cart. And my dad's eighty five

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Speaker 5: and he still runs the business. My son works there,

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Speaker 5: and throughout my whole career I've worked at some capacity,

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Speaker 5: and of course at his age, I have a little

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Speaker 5: more involvement, and through COVID, I ran it. So I

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Speaker 5: have this weird kind of life where I may go

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Speaker 5: to a town. I may go to Florida and meet

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Speaker 5: with publics and talk about shopping carts and then be

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Speaker 5: playing you know, the plaza that night.

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Speaker 3: So this is amazing.

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Speaker 1: This is like the coolest story I've ever heard.

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Speaker 2: I really love that. Wow.

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Speaker 4: You know, I'm going to suggest of publics that they

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Speaker 4: get your shopping cart because the Costco shopping.

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Speaker 1: Cart is legitimately a very good one.

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Speaker 2: It's like a sturdy, sturdy cart.

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Speaker 5: Well, my dad was an astrophysicist at JPL, and when

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Speaker 5: my grandfather passed away and he took over the business,

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Speaker 5: he kind of re engineered the shopping cart and also the.

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Speaker 3: Machines that make it.

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Speaker 5: And the great thing about Precision Wire, especially when I

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Speaker 5: was having like you know, kind of a lot of success,

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Speaker 5: is you go in you see people working hard, starting

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Speaker 5: at minimum wage, growing with the company, becoming middle class,

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Speaker 5: putting their kids through Ivy Lee's schools, and you see

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Speaker 5: the American dream every day and people are sweating and

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Speaker 5: making things.

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Speaker 3: You have to meet a payroll.

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Speaker 5: So I think that also has really kind of, you know,

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Speaker 5: maybe provided me a different view than most songwriters. And

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Speaker 5: maybe that's why I have this kind of more centrist

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Speaker 5: kind of you know, to the kind of leaning right,

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Speaker 5: you know, worldview and some of my songs and some

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Speaker 5: of my kind of you know views.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it really just comes across in your music that

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Speaker 4: you love the country and you you know, I feel

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Speaker 4: like that you're a happy person, and just it really

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Speaker 4: does resonate.

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Speaker 2: And so do you feel like you've made it?

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Speaker 4: You have this amazing career, you have this you know,

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Speaker 4: plan b job that's amazing. Clearly you have a really

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Speaker 4: nice family, Like do you feel like you've made it?

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Speaker 3: I don't know, do you?

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Speaker 4: I mean, I think we're always My answer changes all

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Speaker 4: the time.

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Speaker 5: So, you know, look, as a songwriter, you always hope

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Speaker 5: that your your best work is ahead of you. As

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Speaker 5: an artist, you don't want to just kind of dwell

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Speaker 5: in the past. And it's been actually very kind of

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Speaker 5: rewarding the last few years to write these songs that

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Speaker 5: have had a significant impact without one spin on the radio, which.

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Speaker 3: Is very rare.

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Speaker 5: So right. You know, I don't want to say I've

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Speaker 5: made it because that implies that I'm done. But I

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Speaker 5: also think I'm proud of what the songs have done

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Speaker 5: and the work we're doing.

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Speaker 3: But it just gives us more momentum to do some

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Speaker 3: bigger things.

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Speaker 5: You know, we have some bigger things planned to kind

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Speaker 5: of fight back artistically what's going on in Ukraine and Israel.

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Speaker 5: But yeah, I mean, if you'd have told me, you know,

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Speaker 5: when I was twenty four, that we'd be talking and

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Speaker 5: there's I have a couple of songs everybody knows that

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Speaker 5: would have been making it.

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Speaker 3: So I guess in some ways I've made it. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: I love it.

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Speaker 1: So a question that I ask all of my guests

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Speaker 1: is do you what do you consider our largest cultural problem?

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Speaker 3: I'm interested in what your answer is.

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Speaker 4: Also changes all the time, you know, it depends when

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Speaker 4: you catch me.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I mean I think if you would have

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Speaker 5: asked me a year ago, I probably would have said,

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Speaker 5: like tribalism and kind of the bias in the media.

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 5: Uh, my old buddy Andrew Breitbart used to kind of

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Speaker 5: fight that and we talk about that all the time.

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Speaker 2: I loved Andrew. I didn't know.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah he was.

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Speaker 5: He was not my best friend one of them, and

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Speaker 5: certainly I wish he was here. It'd be a different

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Speaker 5: world if you was. But I think that the bias

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Speaker 5: in the media has been so kind of, I think,

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Speaker 5: dysfunctional for democracy. But I think now kind of, especially

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Speaker 5: seeing what's happened in the last five six months or

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Speaker 5: since October seventh, and what's going on in the country,

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Speaker 5: I think kind of the apathy or maybe cowardice may

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Speaker 5: be a better word for the middle for the centrists

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Speaker 5: in America. You know, you see that I'm at MIT

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Speaker 5: and I'm playing tonight, right, so they'll be there'll be

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Speaker 5: some crazy kids who've been indoctrinated, and then on the

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Speaker 5: right you have some crazy people. But for people in

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Speaker 5: the middle who haven't stood up and haven't said this

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Speaker 5: is not the America we want, that kind of apathy

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Speaker 5: really scares me. You know, in the music business, nobody's

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Speaker 5: talking about is your October seventh And you're like, well,

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Speaker 5: they're all lefties. Well what about country music? You know

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Speaker 5: where all the country.

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Speaker 2: Music artists point, so really like point.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, So to me, I think I'm scared about you know,

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Speaker 5: they talk about the silent majority. But I always believe,

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Speaker 5: you know, if the silent majority is silent for too long,

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Speaker 5: they become the silent minority. And I'm worried we're trending

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Speaker 5: that way.

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Speaker 4: You're absolutely right, So it's funny you ask, like what

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Speaker 4: mine is, and you know, I asked this question to everybody, so.

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Speaker 2: Mind changes from time to time.

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Speaker 1: But recently, for the last maybe month or two, I've

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Speaker 1: been talking about how my my biggest cultural concern is bystanderism.

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Speaker 1: How people will see something bad happen and they'll film

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Speaker 1: it and they won't do anything about it, and it's

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Speaker 1: just it's gotten so bad. And the response to that

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Speaker 1: off and is, well, if you step in, you end

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Speaker 1: up like Daniel Penny, the guy, you know, the marine

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Speaker 1: in New York who.

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Speaker 4: Stopped this belligerent homeless guy. It accidentally killed him and

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Speaker 4: you know, look he's being prosecuted. And that's what happens

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Speaker 4: when you step in. But I think if we live

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Speaker 4: in a culture where nobody steps in, and you're absolutely right,

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Speaker 4: and it's it's really similar to what you're saying, which

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Speaker 4: is the silent people, the majority in the silent majority, after

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Speaker 4: a while, they get kind of pushed out if they

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Speaker 4: don't step in, if they don't speak up, and the

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Speaker 4: fringes win because they're louder, and they end up scaring

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Speaker 4: everybody into submission. We saw it during COVID and that

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Speaker 4: was the what what ended up happening throughout the country

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Speaker 4: in the.

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Speaker 2: Last four years.

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Speaker 4: So I end up having the same position as you

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Speaker 4: on our cultural issues that if nobody speaks up and

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Speaker 4: nobody steps in, we're in real trouble.

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Speaker 3: I could agree with you more.

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Speaker 5: I think, you know, they like to talk about, you know,

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Speaker 5: courage is contagious, and you try, we're trying to do that,

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Speaker 5: but you know what else, Cowardice is contagious. Yeah, and

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Speaker 5: I think we're seeing a lot of that, not just

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Speaker 5: in the arts, but certainly in our politics. And you know,

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Speaker 5: you have many Jewish senators and congressmen who who frankly

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Speaker 5: won't stand up and and go against some of this

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Speaker 5: crazy stuff that's coming out of the White House. And

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Speaker 5: similarly with the artists, there's iconic Jewish artists, Jewish artists

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Speaker 5: grandparents who were Holocaust survivors.

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Speaker 2: Steven Spielberg.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, you know, look Spielberg Schreis and you know,

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Speaker 5: Springsteen go down the.

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Speaker 2: List and those Jewish No, he's not Jewish.

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Speaker 5: No, but he should have written my song, you know

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Speaker 5: he he stands up for people, right, they're way better.

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Speaker 3: Well, again, this shouldn't be a Jewish issue.

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Speaker 5: Look, Bono come came out and said something early on,

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Speaker 5: but since then he's been quiet.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 5: And if you know, if a couple of these iconic

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Speaker 5: people kind of came out and they don't have to

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Speaker 5: say I love Israel, they can say.

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Speaker 3: Of course, they could say free the hostages Hamas is bad?

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Speaker 5: Is that is that something that you're you're you're gonna

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Speaker 5: worry about your career for? And so, yeah, I agree

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Speaker 5: with you, And there's there's little leadership. I think if

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Speaker 5: we had more leadership, certainly in our in our administration,

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Speaker 5: in the arts, we may we maybe wouldn't be here.

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Speaker 5: But yeah, but at the same time, you know, we

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Speaker 5: can whine and cry about it all day, and.

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Speaker 3: We really can.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, you're doing a great job kind of.

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Speaker 4: And you're doing a great job, so you know, we

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Speaker 4: have to just keep going. We might not always get

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Speaker 4: the acclaim and the praise that you absolutely deserve, but

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Speaker 4: you just keep going and hope that it helps right, that's.

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Speaker 5: All we can do. We push back in our ways,

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Speaker 5: and sometimes miracles happen. We work with people that we

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Speaker 5: that we kind of share the same view of and

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Speaker 5: and uh, and then look I saw with Superman, you know,

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Speaker 5: that little song that became something nobody could imagine. That

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Speaker 5: miracles can happen, and the arts can be a powerful

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Speaker 5: forth and changing the world. And we're on the right side.

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Speaker 5: So that also makes it like there's a certain joy.

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Speaker 5: We're not wearing masks, all right, we don't have to

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Speaker 5: hide who we are, so it's kind of like, Okay,

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Speaker 5: we're fighting the good fight, and maybe we're in the

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Speaker 5: fox hole.

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Speaker 3: I think that gives us energy.

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Speaker 5: And I think tonight too, you know when I played

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Speaker 5: Mit and You're gonna have a thousand kids not wearing masks,

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Speaker 5: you know, celebrating being together, knowing we're on the right side.

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Speaker 3: I think that provides a lot of energy too.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Absolutely, I have loved this conversation. John, You are so

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Speaker 4: the best, And here with your best tip for my

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Speaker 4: listeners on how they can be happy like you and

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Speaker 4: improve their lives.

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Speaker 5: Well, many of my songs are posted notes to myself

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Speaker 5: one hundred years appreciate the moment, you know, And here's

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Speaker 5: what I'm not very good at, but I do think,

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Speaker 5: I do think it's something we can all think about.

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Speaker 3: I think the key to happiness is being grateful for

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Speaker 3: what we have.

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Speaker 5: It may not be perfect, our lives may not be

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Speaker 5: exactly what we want, and we may have serious hardships

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Speaker 5: and struggles. But you know, when you go to Ukraine

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Speaker 5: and you meet them, and when you talk to hostage

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Speaker 5: families and you meet work with als patients, you know,

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Speaker 5: most of us have no problems. We have problems, but

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Speaker 5: we have very problems. So if we're grateful, you know,

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Speaker 5: if we're grateful for what we do have and just

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Speaker 5: recognize that, then I think we'll all kind of have

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Speaker 5: a little better perspective and really be able to see,

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Speaker 5: you know, the joy that does exist in our lives.

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Speaker 4: As a great thought to end this on, I love

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Speaker 4: that he is John and Rossik. He is fight for fighting.

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Speaker 4: Check out his work, go see his shows. He's just

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Speaker 4: a fantastic guy. Thank you so much for coming on, John.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, Carol, thank you so much for joining us

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Speaker 1: on the Carol Market which show.

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Speaker 2: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.