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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

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Speaker 1: iHeart Radio. All Right, we have time for Niles in

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Speaker 1: Alaska and the back half of our last hour for

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Speaker 1: open lines on Coast to Coast Niles. Hi, and how's

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Speaker 1: it going doing great our things up in Alaska tonight? Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's raining as usual. You can tell me

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Speaker 1: on the rain. I love a good RAINA for anyone

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Speaker 1: out there who's never been to catch Can Alaska or

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Speaker 1: they've never heard of catch Can Alaska. If you've ever

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Speaker 1: seen Star Wars episode two, Clone Wars when Obi Wan

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Speaker 1: Kenobi goes to Camino, the planet where they make the clones. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's like there's a factory on a rock in

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Speaker 1: the middle of the ocean and it just rains the

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Speaker 1: whole time. That's yeah, catch a Can. Is that a

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Speaker 1: bad thing? It sounds great to me. No, it's just

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Speaker 1: kind of soothing most of the time. Actually, yeah, you know,

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Speaker 1: I would think. I think it is on my window

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Speaker 1: right now listening to it watching it. Yeah. What what

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Speaker 1: do you do for a living? Well, I'm a delivery driver,

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Speaker 1: a prep cook, and a karaoke host. Do you are

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Speaker 1: you a karaoke host? I'm a karaoke host. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: love what's the hot song these days for for the

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Speaker 1: drunk office crowd? Oh geez, you know, Um, it depends

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Speaker 1: on what kind of crowd you're looking at. Are you

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Speaker 1: looking at a like Filipino fisherman? Are you looking at Oh?

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Does I mean? There's a lot of country,

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Speaker 1: that's for sure, which is not necessarily my taste. But

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Speaker 1: i'd say, like, uh, you never call me by my

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Speaker 1: name or um, let's see. You know, it's gotta be

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Speaker 1: like sweet Caroline, which I'm sure is oh yeah and

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Speaker 1: done to death and karaoke bars all over the country

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Speaker 1: fairly universal, but yeah, right, I get that. How about

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Speaker 1: let's see if if you're ever working a night and

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Speaker 1: some up there is singing, uh swinging by John Anderson

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Speaker 1: or um. I could think about half a dozen other

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Speaker 1: country songs that that maybe the only time it would

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Speaker 1: be me Otherwise I don't sing a lot of country,

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Speaker 1: but I happen to. I find country songs very easy

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Speaker 1: to sing in a karaoke environment, and so I would

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Speaker 1: probably have to go country too if I were if

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Speaker 1: I were fourth involved. Yeah, and they're not hard melodically, right,

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Speaker 1: you know, well, good. I'm sure that's not why you

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Speaker 1: were calling, but I appreciate you indulging me. Where are

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Speaker 1: you going to take? I mean, I could probably talk

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Speaker 1: to you for half an hour about the church of karaoke,

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Speaker 1: as I called, I would definitely do that. I was

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Speaker 1: actually talking about doing a karaoke night with my staff

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Speaker 1: not too long ago, and I thought, Oh, that would

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Speaker 1: be really fun. And then I thought, no, I'll be

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Speaker 1: the only idiot getting up there. That's the people. You

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Speaker 1: wouldn't do it up on YouTube. You'll have another subscriber,

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Speaker 1: that's for sure. There you go, I like one. This

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Speaker 1: is my first time calling. Um. I've been listening to

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Speaker 1: the Coast to Coast for I mean since I was

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Speaker 1: a little kid, since I was like probably seven eight

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Speaker 1: years old, you know, I listened to Art Bell, George

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Speaker 1: Nor and it's always meant a lot to me. It

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Speaker 1: always kind of opened up my mind a bit, helped

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Speaker 1: me think about things in a different way, from a

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Speaker 1: different from a different perspective than I did. And there's

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Speaker 1: been a question that I've been wanting to ask for

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Speaker 1: a while. I've never called in and it's something that's

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Speaker 1: been pressing more and more on my mind. And so

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Speaker 1: my question is, and this is for you and for

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Speaker 1: anyone listening, because I don't know the answer. I don't

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Speaker 1: know if anyone knows the answer or if you ever

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Speaker 1: will um. And so this is a small town. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's not a big town. It's fairly isolate. It's an

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Speaker 1: island town. And I feel like growing up here. I've

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Speaker 1: lived here most of my life. People pride themselves, or

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Speaker 1: they have in my mind and from what I've heard,

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Speaker 1: and that everyone's neighborly. We all help each other out, right,

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Speaker 1: We all do our best to take care of each other,

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Speaker 1: especially when someone's down. And it doesn't matter who someone

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Speaker 1: is or what they've done or like or what you

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Speaker 1: think they are or who they are, like you help

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Speaker 1: out like you because you know it's hard to get

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Speaker 1: off this island if you don't have the means. It's expensive,

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Speaker 1: and it's expensive to live here. And my question is

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Speaker 1: right now, in this time, not just here and on

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Speaker 1: this island, or in this state, or in this country,

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Speaker 1: or on this planet, like as a species, as the

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Speaker 1: human race, in this time when we when we're more

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Speaker 1: interconnected than ever, when when many of us can reach

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Speaker 1: out at any moment and talk to people and see

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Speaker 1: the perspective of people all across the globe. Why isn't

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Speaker 1: there more understanding? Why? Why is there such a great

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Speaker 1: divide now? Why is it that now that no matter

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Speaker 1: what name or label you put on a person, whether

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Speaker 1: it's ideological, religious, political, spiritual, why is it that no

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Speaker 1: matter what someone is, there is another group of people

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Speaker 1: out there that is the that see themselves as the

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Speaker 1: opposite or too often as the enemy of that, and

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Speaker 1: they hate, Like, why is there so much divide and

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Speaker 1: hate now at a time when we have so many

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Speaker 1: tools to understand each other? And is it ever going

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Speaker 1: to get better? So profound questions the futurists of the

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventies would have predicted, you know, presumably if if

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Speaker 1: we had survived, you know, some of these cataclysms which

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Speaker 1: didn't materialize, that we would have we would have bonded

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Speaker 1: together by now, And that was the hope That does

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Speaker 1: seemed to be the teleology of the you know, the

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Speaker 1: human race or the American experiences that we were heading

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Speaker 1: in this direction. I wonder whether some of it is

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Speaker 1: just generational, and part of the argument I make in

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Speaker 1: my book that I co wrote with a rabbi and

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Speaker 1: with a Muslim scholar called how Millennials can get us

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Speaker 1: out of the mess we're in? Is the argument is

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Speaker 1: that we have become then older generation has become very spoiled,

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Speaker 1: and we are faced with and I include myself in

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Speaker 1: them because I'm a baby boomer, we're faced with the

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Speaker 1: prospect of our own mortality and that we will die

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Speaker 1: and then things will change rapidly. And that's made many

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Speaker 1: people hold under the wheel ever so tighter. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: by not being willing to let go of the wheel. Um,

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Speaker 1: we have seventy eight year old presidents, right, we have

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Speaker 1: all of these people who aren't going to right and

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Speaker 1: these long running you know who've been senators for six

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Speaker 1: election cycles and crazy numbers like this because they did

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Speaker 1: not they thought once they got there, this will never

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Speaker 1: be able to function without me. And it's this egocentricity

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Speaker 1: that I think is indicative of baby boomers. And we

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Speaker 1: just don't want to let go, and we want to

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Speaker 1: somehow dip the country in a kind of lacquer and

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Speaker 1: just because we want to seemingly think we're going to

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Speaker 1: preserve this forever and ever and ever so that when

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Speaker 1: we die everybody will have to have it the way

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Speaker 1: we had it, and all indicators are that that's not

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Speaker 1: going to happen. And with every Indica hatter that comes along,

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Speaker 1: we just hold on tighter. And I think that's kind

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Speaker 1: of where we are a little bit, is we're sort

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Speaker 1: of stuck in this hyper individualism, which is just I matter.

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Speaker 1: Why won't people pay attention to my opinions matter? When

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Speaker 1: really the thing and the last thing I want to

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Speaker 1: say is God talk about generations and you know, and

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Speaker 1: the Boomers and Millennials and now Gen Z. You know,

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Speaker 1: I grew up in the nineties and it seemed like

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Speaker 1: at the time to me as a child, and looking back,

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Speaker 1: that it was such a time of like peace, prosperity,

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Speaker 1: of acceptance, of like of understanding, and you would think

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Speaker 1: that my generation would have grown up and embodied those

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Speaker 1: traits and those values. But I look around at the

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Speaker 1: people that I know that are my age, and I

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Speaker 1: see so much egoism and so much narcissism. And I

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Speaker 1: don't know if that's a product of social media, if

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Speaker 1: it's a product of everything, yeah, having to be documented

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Speaker 1: and shown all the time, Like I don't exist unless

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Speaker 1: you see me exist. So I have to do all

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Speaker 1: these things for someone in this constant need for validation.

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Speaker 1: But it's I think you're onto something. And I think

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Speaker 1: what's interesting is that that that comes to you from

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Speaker 1: perhaps what other people might consider to be a distant perch,

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Speaker 1: and you see the same thing that the rest of

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Speaker 1: us see. And I think that the kind of tribalism

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Speaker 1: that we're going through, I am eternally optimistic, and I

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Speaker 1: believe it's a phase. I talked about this with George

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Speaker 1: nor when he was interviewing me about the about the book,

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Speaker 1: and I said, you know, I there was a reason

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Speaker 1: why Moses took a generation around the desert until they

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Speaker 1: went to the Promised Land is because they weren't They

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Speaker 1: could not handle the promised land. These are people who

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Speaker 1: had grown up with the aren't ready, and they weren't ready,

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Speaker 1: and they were never going to be ready. They had

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Speaker 1: grown up accustomed to slavery, they'd grown up accustomed to

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Speaker 1: idol worship, and much as they might have wanted to,

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Speaker 1: they couldn't make the jump. And Moses didn't either. He

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Speaker 1: died with him never saw the Promised Land, and I

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Speaker 1: don't think I ever will either. I don't think I

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Speaker 1: don't think i'd deserve to, and I think i'd I'd

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Speaker 1: like to think we could pull it out, and I'm optimistic,

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Speaker 1: but I think in some ways, really baby boomers have

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Speaker 1: to go. They have to either give up the power

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Speaker 1: and embrace being a role as mentors to the generations

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Speaker 1: that are coming behind us. Or we have to just

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Speaker 1: live in our own little communities and talk to ourselves

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Speaker 1: about how bad things are until we no one pays

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Speaker 1: any attention to us at all, because I don't see

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Speaker 1: us adding to anything right now. I see us hyping

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Speaker 1: up the anger and the rancor that's out there. And

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Speaker 1: I'm optimistic that is a people we can get better,

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Speaker 1: and that we can use the technologies and we can

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Speaker 1: reach out to other people and we can forget so

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Speaker 1: many of these things. And yet I don't. I just

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Speaker 1: don't see us getting there the way we're acting now. Well,

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Speaker 1: what do you think, my generation, what kind of mentality

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Speaker 1: do you think we need to foster amongst ourselves or

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Speaker 1: try to help move forward? Yeah, I think it's all

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Speaker 1: about forgiveness and forbearance and optimism and trying not to

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Speaker 1: take things so seriously that every little thing has to

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Speaker 1: become a bigger thing. I think your observation about growing

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Speaker 1: up in a time of always being on, always being in,

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Speaker 1: always being on Instagram, or having to be somewhere to

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Speaker 1: be validated, I think, you know, I think that's that's

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Speaker 1: true of people your age and much younger. UM, So

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Speaker 1: I think something's got to give on that. We all

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Speaker 1: we just you know, I'm not a Zuckerberg guy, I'm

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Speaker 1: not a Facebook guy. I don't think all those things

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Speaker 1: are helpful. I think we need better leadership, and I

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Speaker 1: think we also need better self restraint on what we're

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Speaker 1: going to constantly expose ourselves to every day. If we

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Speaker 1: can do that, I think there's hope and we've probably

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Speaker 1: got a fish more. Yeah, I think thank you. I

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Speaker 1: think fishing would be I think fishing would help us all. Nah.

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Speaker 1: I really enjoyed it, and I thank you for contributing

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Speaker 1: after all this time of being a listener. Listen to

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Speaker 1: more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at one am

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Speaker 1: Eastern and go to Coast to Coast am dot com

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Speaker 1: for more