Behind the Bastards - Steven Seagal Wrote a Book (We Read It)

July 23, 2021 - Behind the Bastards

01:34:43

Steven Seagal Wrote a Book (We Read It)

# will ferrell vulture tom morrissey author accountability conspiracy theories cultural appropriation deep state ice tactical unit islamophobia joe arpaio media criticism religious misrepresentation rothschild family sam altman steven seagal the phoenix new times the way of the shadow wolves

Steven Seagal and his co-authored book, The Way of the Shadow Wolves, face intense scrutiny for promoting anti-Muslim tropes, including a scene involving pig blood, alongside conspiracy theories about the Deep State and Rothschilds. Hosts critique the text's poor grammar, cultural appropriation regarding Native American heritage, and absurd marketing featuring Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Despite Seagal's alleged connections to Russian oligarchs and exaggerated martial arts skills, the episode concludes that this self-published work is a financial failure and unreadable garbage, highlighting the hosts' willingness to tackle controversial topics despite inevitable audience backlash. [Automatically generated summary]
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Trust Your Girlfriends 00:02:17
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	Listen to the girlfriends.
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	Hey, it's Nora Jones, and my podcast, Playing Along, is back with more of my favorite musicians.
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	You related to the Phantom at that point.
	Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that.
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	My next guest, it's Will Farrell.
	My dad gave me the best advice ever.
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	But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
	If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
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	Yeah, it would not be.
	Right, it wouldn't be that.
	There's a lot of life.
	Listen to Thanks Dad on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Punani Word Choice 00:14:44
	What's committing sex crimes?
	My actor who starred in Hard Target.
	I think Hard Target was all film.
	His best, best.
	There's no film called Hard Target.
	It's hard to kill, maybe you're thinking about it.
	Heart, is it hard to kill?
	Are you kidding me?
	I have no idea.
	I just control F's his Wikipedia page for Hard Target and there's no result.
	No, no, there's Hard Target.
	Yeah, he's in a final shootout with John Claude Van Damme.
	Oh, wait, or is Heart?
	Wait, no, Hard Target.
	Wait, no, yeah, it's Van Dam and Steven Seagal.
	Yeah, directed by John Wu.
	Let me double-check.
	Why isn't this on his filmography?
	Yeah, John Claude Van Damme is Chance Boudreaux.
	Huh?
	And wait, no, maybe he's not in this.
	I mean, Steven Seagal is not in Hard Target.
	I don't know why.
	Why don't you just trust me?
	Like, it's true.
	This is the episode, right?
	We're going.
	We're already into this show.
	Aren't his biggest in his biggest film on Deadly Ground?
	Exit all of these.
	All your shit movies are so wild.
	His latest movie, not rated, was Beyond the Law.
	Well, that is actually a good title for a movie about Steven Seagal because he's a China salesman.
	Like, this is so bad.
	While he was working as a cop in a questionably legal capacity, he rammed a tank into a guy's chicken farm and maybe killed a puppy.
	I think that's the allegation.
	He's like got allegations of sex trafficking against him.
	Sexual assault.
	Almost certainly sexually assaulted women.
	There's certainly allegations of sexual assault.
	Numerous.
	He's like basically every other year.
	He's been mobbed up.
	Yeah.
	And there's a lot behind.
	There's a lot of interesting evidence behind the mobbed up thing.
	He's connected to Putin.
	He's connected to Lukashenko, the dictator of Belarus.
	He's like, he's just a, he's a like a bafflingly bad person.
	Like Stephen Seagal, like, right, you hear action movie star, and you're like, okay, well, I expect that, you know, they've done some shady shit.
	They've endorsed products that, you know, are made through human trafficking or whatever.
	They've probably sexually harassed people.
	Steven Seagal is like a bad person for a male action star from the 90s.
	Like, he's the worst of them.
	And they're all almost all pretty bad.
	Like, he's the worst of them.
	I guess we'd say Arnold Schwarzenegger is the best of them, even though he also has allegations of sexual harassment against him.
	But as far as I can tell, never sexually trafficked a human being.
	He does have pet donkeys, which I believe.
	Or rammed a tank into a guy's house.
	I mean, even just his Wikipedia page is so wild.
	Like, first of all, it's unhinged.
	It's fun fact.
	Fun facts, he has an extensive sword collection and a custom-made gun.
	Yes, of course.
	Made for him once a month.
	Once had this happen for him.
	And then he also, nor do I.
	He also wrote.
	We find out Steven Seagal is writing Steven Seagal's own Wikipedia page.
	But also, like, there are other things that clash completely.
	Like, he's a Buddhist, and apparently, he wrote an open letter to Thailand in 2003 that was urging them to enact a law to prevent the torture of baby elephants.
	So, like, and then he was granted in 1999 a PETA Humanitarian Award.
	So, he's like, Yeah, he's gotten some weird awards.
	He doesn't deserve them at all.
	He's a weirdo.
	The bad outlays are good for sure.
	He cut an incredibly horny album that includes a song where he says that he wants the Punani tonight.
	We did a two-parter with Sean Baby about Steven Seagal, and he's like, He's pretty bad.
	Wait, he says the word Punani.
	He says the word Punani, Shireen.
	Can I leave now?
	Listen to it.
	You can't do the fact.
	Like, there's certain bridges you can't uncross, right?
	It's like the first time you see a dead body.
	Like, you're a little different every other day after that.
	Um, the first time you hear Steven Seagal sing that he wants the Punani tonight, nothing is ever the same.
	It funny.
	Even honestly, Robert, hearing you say that twice doesn't make me the same either.
	Wasn't necessary.
	Well, you know, it's kind of like a vaccine, Shireen.
	So, because it's going to have an impact on you, but because I've said it, when you hear Steven Seagal say it, it will have less of a toxic impact on you.
	I do want someone to just take that excerpt out and just have Robert saying whatever you said about the Punani.
	I don't want to, I hate that I've said the word three times now.
	Yeah, Shireen.
	I don't like when you say it.
	I honestly, if we're talking about this, I can't think of a word I hate more than Punani.
	It's one of the worst words that's ever existed.
	It really is.
	This is true.
	It's just such a like, if I were like really into somebody and we were about to, you know, do a thing and they use that word, I think I would stop.
	I think it would just be like, well, that's we're like, I can't, I can't, we can't proceed this.
	So, are we saying that?
	Are we saying the word Punani might be, oh, I hated that I said that word is the newest form of birth control?
	Yeah, I think it might be more effective than an IUD.
	Yeah.
	Okay, funny.
	But it simultaneously has all of the hormonal side effects of an IUD somehow.
	Do I know a fun fact about the origin?
	I just looked it up.
	I don't know this off the top of my head.
	Of the word or of Punani.
	Okay.
	Don't make me say it more than once, Robert.
	Okay.
	You've said it like six times, Shereen.
	I'm concerned.
	Yeah, if we need to do this with Punani now.
	Yeah, but okay, apparently it was first used in the Kama Sutra.
	And it's a word to describe the female daughteria.
	Surprise, surprise.
	But then the Hawaiian slang for vagina or vulva is also that word.
	And it means beautiful flower.
	So it's gross.
	You made it last night.
	I know.
	I feel bad now, but I also just hate it.
	I hate what a white person says.
	That's fair, right?
	Yeah.
	A white man.
	I hate what Stephen Seagal says.
	Yeah.
	I'm sure it's a fine word within its original context and the culture that it was birthed, but Stephen Seagal has done unmitigated damage to the target.
	Oh, yeah.
	Recording it on a song, it's done now.
	There's no more, there's no coming.
	There's no redemption on that.
	Yeah.
	And I'm sorry to the real meaning of it.
	You don't deserve that.
	You beautiful flower.
	Yeah, because Stephen Seagal, I don't even want to talk about Stephen Seagal and flowers.
	That just, that in and of itself feels gross to me.
	Shireen, do you like the written word?
	Sure.
	Novels, fiction.
	Yeah, I pretend to read sometimes.
	Yeah, who doesn't love a good piece of just really getting able to like dig in and get, you know, so to speak, Punani deep in a real work of fiction.
	That's what I hate.
	I hated that, Robert.
	Fiery passion.
	Do you want to know one of my favorite books?
	One of my favorite books, actually.
	It came out a couple years ago.
	The author is so fascinating.
	The author is, I should say.
	It's called The Way of the Shadow Wolves, The Deep State of Hijacking of America.
	Shireen, I have incredible news.
	Oh, really?
	That's what we're reading today.
	My favorite book.
	Oh, yeah.
	Yeah.
	It's going to be pretty great.
	So we talked about this during the Ben Shapiro's unreadable book episodes about maybe doing, you know, The Way of the Shadow Wolves with Katie and Cody.
	But then I got mailed actually an antique book from like a century ago that I'm going to read with them.
	And it just, but I still wanted to give people The Way of the Shadow Wolves because this is a special book.
	So it's written by Stephen Seagal and a fellow named Tom Morrissey.
	Tom Morrissey is a former U.S. Marshal, a businessman, a writer, and a musician.
	I'm getting this from the website where he ran for mayor of Payson, Arizona.
	And he looks like the guy, like, okay, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Tom started his writing career in the music business as a songwriter and performer.
	He wrote songs for such greats as Ray Charles, Richie Havens, Brooke Benton, and The Crazy Elephant.
	I only know who Ray Charles is, and I don't know if this is true.
	He might be lying.
	He wrote a book with Stephen Seagal, so keep that in mind.
	He says he spent a lifetime studying martial arts, including a rare form of Chinese internal martial arts known as Xing Yi under Grand Master Kenny Gong of Canton, China.
	I have to assume he's lying about that.
	Because again, Steven Seagal claims to be a martial arts master, but you can find videos of him doing his bullshit throw people martial arts.
	And it's just people who have been paid to make him feel like a big man.
	Yeah.
	Like he can't.
	Like martial arts to white men is what yoga is to white women.
	You know what I mean?
	Like they will, they shouldn't be there.
	Yeah.
	It's like they shouldn't appropriate it so much.
	I've known some people who get into like, you know, jiu-jitsu or whatever.
	And like, it can be, it's great for your health.
	It can be useful in a variety of ways.
	That's not what Stephen Seagal does.
	Steven Seagal pretends to throw people in videos where you can hear him wheezing hard enough that he nearly collapses.
	Every single person both on this podcast and listening to it could take Stephen Seagal in a fair fight.
	I feel incredibly confident of that.
	Like, there is not a doubt in my head that no matter who you are listening to this, you could take, and there's like a 12-year-old listening, and I want you to know, yes, you too could drop Steven Seagal if you had to.
	And it wouldn't be that big a deal for you.
	I promise you.
	You just gotta get him where it hurts, like in his knees.
	Like, he's like an old person now, you know?
	Like, I don't, he can't fight back, really.
	I don't mean to, you shouldn't beat up old people, but you should beat up Steven Seagal.
	You should beat up Steven Seagal.
	You should have done that no matter his age, because he physically abused a number of the women he was intimate with, probably all of them, based on what we know.
	Again, he's a monster.
	So, Tom Morrissey is his co-author on this because Tom Morrissey is a U.S. Marshal, and I believe the character Steven Seagal, Steven Seagal's self-insert character in the way of the shadow wolves, is also a U.S. Marshal.
	And as you noted, the sub-headline or the subtitle is The Deep State and the Hijacking of America.
	And on the front cover, the front cover of this book is one of the best things I've ever seen in my life.
	It's Steven Seagal wearing like a 70s leather jacket with like the tassels all down the front, which I think is a little bit different.
	Like the fringe, like leather fringe.
	And I believe it's, I mean, he claims to have indigenous ancestry, I think.
	I don't know how accurate that is.
	Because again, he lies about almost everything.
	I think the jacket is him appropriating native culture.
	He's got a belt buckle that I think is a headdress belt buckle, and he's wearing a huge, all of this is clearly photoshopped onto his body, a huge turquoise amulet.
	You can also see him carrying a gun the wrong way in a shoulder holster through a jacket.
	Because if you can see, I carry a shoulder holster a lot of the time.
	If you can see the gun through the split in the jacket when it's open, you're not carrying it properly.
	The point is that your gun is not visible because it's a con anyway.
	But like, no, but the way his hand is on the jacket, it's almost like, here it is.
	Like, he wants you to see, like, oh, once you see his packing, he wants you to see he's carrying a gun the wrong way.
	Because also, it's not just that it's visible, it's that the handle is visible right below his sternum in the center of his chest.
	I don't know how you could wear a shoulder holster in a way that would display the gun in that.
	It's, it's, it's wrong.
	Everything about him.
	You have to know he has a lot of fun.
	I love that.
	He's not a man.
	Yeah.
	I mean, I love that I already thought the cover was ridiculous, but I love that you brought like factual evidence that it is ridiculous.
	You know, I would never have looked at that and been like, well, how do you wear a gun that way?
	You know what I mean?
	So thank you.
	There's some chest rig stuff.
	I'm just looking at it, though.
	It's so there are some, it might, I guess it's theoretically possible he's wearing a chest rig for the gun.
	So there's shoulder holsters and then there's rigs where you strap the gun in the middle of your chest and it's meant to be open carried if you're like out in the backcountry in Alaska and you might encounter a grizzly bear and you want to very quickly be able to access a firearm because you're worried about bears.
	People carry guns that way for hunting sometimes.
	People like marshals don't conceal carry guns.
	Anyway, I'm going off too much on this guy's carry rig, but it's baffling to me.
	It's one of the many things about this book.
	Yeah.
	Just based off what I've quickly read that it's baffling.
	What's also funny is the photos used on the back cover.
	Have you seen that?
	Sophie, we have a lot to give you.
	I'm sorry.
	It's hilarious.
	It's like they found one.
	What?
	We have to take this one by one, Sophie.
	Otherwise, we're not going to get through any of this.
	Fair enough.
	On the cover, outside of the clearly heavily every aspect of the photo of Steven Seagal in the front of the cover is photoshopped.
	Behind him is a giant wolf that takes up half of the cover with its staring eyes.
	He's directly in the middle of the wolf's staring eyes.
	What gets me is that he probably thought he looked so cool.
	Oh, he thought this.
	He's got a fucking print of this book cover in his house, and it's 12 feet tall.
	You know, he does.
	Yeah.
	This gets him a half chub whenever he walks out into his living room.
	I don't want to imagine him getting a half chub, but okay.
	Nor do I.
	Yeah, we didn't want to imagine him saying Punani, but that's what happens.
	No more.
	No more.
	But I will say that he wants the Punani tonight.
	That's the way it goes.
	It was, but this book was self-published.
	Like, no one wanted to publish it.
	Yeah, this was, he found a vanity publisher.
	Who is it?
	I wonder if it's the same publisher who published Ben Shapiro's unreadable book.
	It says it was self-published on Wikipedia, but I wonder if they went through a distributor or something.
	Yeah, I think, I mean, they did to some extent because Stephen Seagal didn't figure out the Kindle layout himself.
	He didn't figure out how to print it.
	They hired someone.
	It just wasn't.
	The publisher did not say, we like this book.
	Here's money.
	He paid to have this published.
Vanity Publishers and Secrets 00:11:13
	Fifth Palace Publishing LLC.
	Yeah, it's bad.
	I'm trying to figure out why he has his payments.
	He wants you to know he's packing.
	He's like, look at me.
	I'm a big shot.
	Yeah, his hands, his hands.
	Wait, are you?
	I'm not going to jump ahead, but Robert, please tell me you're going to read some of these reviews of this book.
	Yeah, we might either start or end with that.
	I'm looking up his publisher right now, Fifth Palace Publishing.
	Well, why aren't they?
	Oh, they have a Facebook.
	Thank God.
	Let's see how their Facebook's doing.
	364 people like it, 372 people follow it.
	Oh, and the most recent post is from 2018, and it's about the Way of the Shadow Wolves.
	Yeah.
	Of course.
	Of course.
	Yeah.
	And it says, entertaining in the beginning, chilling in the end with big dot, dot, dots in between both.
	And it's credited to Amazon reviewer.
	That was my goal.
	This is so good.
	Oh, my God.
	It's amazing.
	So the, I, Shireen, we're having a tangent here because this is the last post.
	It's three years old.
	January 19th, 2018 was the last post from Fifth Palace announcing the publication of Way of the Shadow Wolves.
	The only commenter on that post, which has 18 shares and 118 likes, one guy named Ron Johnson commented eight times.
	All of his comments are in caps.
	And I'm going to read his comments from top to bottom, okay?
	And again, these are in all caps.
	I am not asking you for his phone number because I know you cannot do that.
	However, have him call my post one.
	Post two.
	Therefore, I truly would appreciate it if you could contact my cousin Tom and ask him to give me a call at my beach house in Smyrna, Florida.
	My home phone number is as fellows.
	I think he meant to type follows.
	And then he puts his phone number there.
	These are from a year ago.
	Okay, I hope he got help.
	Jesus.
	He keeps posting.
	He's talking.
	Tom also has a brother named Charles and a sister named Linda.
	When I was a teenager, Tom was, what is this about?
	Oh, so he knows Tom Morrissey, I guess.
	My name is Ron Thompson.
	I am a Suedo.
	S-U-E-D-O.
	I don't know what the fuck that means.
	Can I baffling?
	This is baffling.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	I do want to say, I don't, I just really may want to make sure people hear what actual publications said about this book.
	Like, Vulture called it completely batshit insane.
	The Phoenix New Times called it garbage and breathtakingly bad.
	Hard to follow who's speaking.
	Fight scenes that were even more boring than the dialogue.
	These are quotes from actual public comments.
	Amazing.
	Love it.
	So we're in for a real treat.
	Now, I want to cover, because I promised Sophie we would, the back cover, which is not in my Kindle, oddly.
	I'm going to look this up.
	Where are you seeing the back cover?
	Because it's not on my Kindle.
	I will fucking send this to you both.
	Send that shit into the chat, and we'll dig into this, son of a bitch.
	By the way, obviously, we're doing a book episode because I don't have time to write as much as I would like to.
	So you can just, what are you going to do?
	You're going to complain?
	You know, no, you're not.
	Gonna go listen to Come Town?
	Probably.
	Some of you.
	It's $20 on Amazon.
	This book, Come Town.
	I only paid $2.99 for the Kindle, but I'm just going to ask to.
	The thing that we always do with these is you get it on Kindle and then you immediately request a refund when you're done with the episode.
	And it generally works pretty well.
	I love that for us.
	Yeah, the back cover is absurd.
	So Tom Morrissey's photo on the back.
	Crystal, we'll get to Steven, but Tom Morrissey's photo on the back cover looks like they found a random photo on like a relative's Facebook page from like a wedding.
	Oh my god, yeah.
	They cropped it out.
	They came to a photo of him as an, it's clearly him at an event and they've just cropped his face.
	Yeah.
	He doesn't realize he's being photographed.
	Like the photo of him on the back of this book is the moment of him realizing he's part of a larger photograph and he doesn't look happy about it.
	And this is the best photo they could find for the book that he wrote with Steven Seagal.
	Absolutely incredible.
	So here's, and the Steven Seagal photo is easily 25 years old.
	Like, this is the photo for Steven is from the 90s.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And the book is very funny.
	Yeah, I'm going to just read it.
	I have to read the bios.
	Stephen Seagal is an actor, producer, screenwriter, director, alleged rapist and human sex trafficker, martial artist, sheriff, musician, and international businessman.
	Born in the USA with Mohawk heritage, he is passionate about restoring the Constitution as the foundation for our republic and a return to responsible stewardship of Mother Earth, such as practiced by the Native Americans.
	Tom Morrissey is a retired Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal, martial artist, veteran of the U.S. Army, musician, author, political leader, and activist.
	He was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, to a blue-collar family in a culturally diverse community.
	He loves to tell a good story about his dream of the return of his country's founding principles with power back to the people.
	And there is a blurb on the back that's like a huge paragraph from Louis McKinney, former director of the U.S. Marshal Service, the guys who've been assassinating people lately.
	Both that dude, Winston Smith, in Minneapolis and Michael Reinhold in Portland, the guys who, I don't know, probably tear gassed me.
	I mean, I think I only got gassed by the Marshals like a dozen times and shot with some musicians.
	Garrison got gassed by them more often.
	There was a fun moment where they were shooting specifically at Garrison, and he didn't realize it because he was so busy filming.
	Okay, as director of the U.S. Marshal Service, I fully understood the challenges which face all law enforcement officers in their day-to-day activities.
	This is the story of a tribal police officer who stumbles onto one of the most notorious cases of all time in the Arizona desert.
	Although it is fiction, the story could have come from today's headlines.
	I know both of the authors and I know their law enforcement experience, which is evident as they weave a tale of adventure, mystery, action, and betrayal.
	Steven Seagal is not only a master martial artist and film star, he's neither, but also is an experienced police officer.
	He is not.
	Tom Morrissey is a retired Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal from Arizona who has intimate knowledge of the work in the local area.
	Together, they have written a book which had me feeling like I was back on the street protecting the citizens of this great nation.
	So I have to, again, he was legally a law enforcement officer because he was deputized by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Arizona Sheriff's Putin.
	Who wrote the forward?
	One of the things that has been done for years is Arizona sheriffs will deputize any rich person, like especially in rural Arizona, any rich person who's willing to spend like a weekend or two a year pretending to be a sheriff's deputy.
	Is that like England knighting people?
	No, there's a real benefit to it, unlike being a knight.
	If you basically get a sheriff's deputy to deputize you, even if you only do it once a year and you don't live in Arizona, you can then carry a concealed gun basically everywhere because cops can't.
	Wow.
	So that's why like rich dudes will do it.
	Is you get this, you basically get law enforcement rights to carry a gun any fucking place.
	So that's the kind of cop that Joe Arpai, or that, well, that both that Stephen Zagal is.
	So, God, this has been quite the introduction to the way of the shadow wolves and the deep state and the hijacking of America.
	I want to read the dedication first so we can start after the break with Joe Arpaio.
	We dedicate this book to the Native Americans who were victims of genocide by the early invaders from Europe, to the tribal police who combined the old ways and the new to defend our border with intelligence and integrity.
	To the U.S. Marshals, most of whom represent the ideal of the Texas Rangers, who massacred indigenous people, whose job was to kill Native Americans.
	That's amazing.
	You start with like, we recognize the Native American genocide.
	Also, you know who's rad?
	The guys who did it.
	That's absurd.
	How does that work?
	That's fucking awesome.
	How are they that oblivious?
	I don't know, man.
	Because their knowledge of history is based on four episodes of Walker Texas Ranger and a statue of a guy with a cowboy hat.
	That's their knowledge of history.
	Of course.
	But you know who does understand history, Shireen?
	Raytheon?
	Oh, Shireen.
	You know, I think it was our friend of the pod, Benito Mussolini, who said that blood alone moves the wheels of history.
	And if anyone understands that, it's our sponsors at Raytheon.
	And because the wheels of history need to keep moving, they make sure the blood keeps flowing.
	That's the Raytheon guarantee.
	Never an end to the bloodshed.
	So celebrate death with Raytheon.
	10-10 shots fired.
	City Hall building.
	A silver .40 caliber handgun was recovered at the scene.
	From iHeart Podcasts and Best Case Studios, this is Rorschach: murder at City Hall.
	How could this have happened in City Hall?
	Somebody tell me that.
	Jeffrey, who did it?
	July 2003.
	Councilman James E. Davis arrives at New York City Hall with a guest.
	Both men are carrying concealed weapons.
	And in less than 30 minutes, both of them will be dead.
	Everybody in the chamber ducks.
	A shocking public murder.
	They scream, get down, get down.
	Those are shots.
	Those are shots.
	Get down.
	A charismatic politician.
	You know, he just bent the rules all the time, man.
	I still have a weapon.
	And I could shoot you.
	And an outsider with a secret.
	He alleged he was a victim of flat down.
	That may or may not have been political.
	That may have been about sex.
	Listen to Rorschach, murder at City Hall on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
	There's two golden rules that any man should live by.
	Rule one: never mess with a country girl.
	You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.
	And rule two, never mess with her friends either.
	We always say, trust your girlfriends.
	I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of The Girlfriends, oh my God, this is the same man.
	A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.
	I felt like I got hit by a truck.
	I thought, how could this happen to me?
	The cops didn't seem to care.
	So they take matters into their own hands.
	I said, oh, hell no.
	I vowed I will be his last target.
	He's going to get what he deserves.
	Listen to the girlfriends.
	Trust me, babe.
Sovereign Citizen Delusions 00:15:30
	On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
	Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing Along is back.
	I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting.
	Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians.
	Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Leve, Mavis Staples, Remy Wolf, Jeff Tweedy, really too many to name.
	And this season, I've sat down with Alessia Cara, Sarah McLaughlin, John Legend, and more.
	Check out my new episode with Josh Grobin.
	You related to the Phantom at that point.
	Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that.
	That's so funny.
	Share, stay with me each night, each morning.
	Say you love me.
	You know I.
	So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to Playing Along on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
	I'm Laurie Siegel, and on Mostly Human, I go beyond the headlines with the people building our future.
	This week, an interview with one of the most influential figures in Silicon Valley, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
	I think society is going to decide that creators of AI products bear a tremendous amount of responsibility to products we put out in the world.
	From power to parenthood.
	Kids, teenagers, I think they will need a lot of guardrails around AI.
	This is such a powerful and such a new thing.
	From addiction to acceleration.
	The world we live in is a competitive world, and I don't think that's going to stop, even if you did a lot of redistribution.
	You know, we have a deep desire to excel and be competitive and gain status and be useful to others.
	And it's a multiplayer game.
	What does the man who has extraordinary influence over our lives have to say about the weight of that responsibility?
	Find out on Mostly Human.
	My highest order bit is to not destroy the world with AI.
	Listen to Mostly Human on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
	Oh, we're back.
	We're fortunately celebrating death.
	Oh, God.
	So after the foreword, where he says, remember the genocide of the natives and also the cool dudes who did it, there's this disclaimer.
	This is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental.
	But always remember that the truth comes in many forms.
	Oh my gosh.
	Oh man, I'm so on board.
	All right.
	So the foreword by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who's police, whose sheriff's deputies in their prison, which committed a number of crimes against humanity, led women to have miscarriages by locking them in intolerable conditions without air conditioning, who beat and restrained mentally handicapped people who then died in summer heat waves.
	Fucking hell.
	Like fucking concentrate.
	He ran a concentration camp.
	Oh my God.
	Yeah, real bad.
	We'll get to Joe Arpaio.
	Like we've, I've been promising that for a while, but we really do need to.
	But anyway, here's the foreword to his book.
	I strongly identify with this book because in many ways I lived what is portrayed on its pages.
	During my over 26 career in the DEA, I worked as a young agent in the mountains of Turkey, often on my own, chasing illegal drug merchants as part of the war on drugs.
	How'd that go, Joe?
	You guys win?
	Oh no, it was drugs.
	It was drugs that beat your ass.
	Sorry.
	I had to work side by side with individuals who were actually sabotaging my efforts and even putting my life in danger.
	Dude, if fucking people in the mountains of Turkey had wanted you dead, you wouldn't be alive.
	You weren't worth the trouble.
	Anyway, this was because they were on the payroll of the illicit drug underground.
	I was promoted to regional director of the DEA office in Mexico and Latin America.
	What I experienced during that time brought me an understanding of the mindset and customs of the drug cartels, which drive those organizations to this very day.
	As the longest serving elected sheriff in Maricopa County, Arizona history, I brought my experience to that organization.
	Arizona today is and has been ground zero concerning illegal immigration and drug running.
	The deserts of this great state contain the hidden highways used by drug cartels as they pour across our unsecured borders.
	Wasn't your job to secure the border?
	Anyway, that flow has slowed under President Donald Trump.
	However, there are powers known today as the deep state working against his efforts.
	The activities of the deep state operatives are a grave danger to our country because they are working against the effort to secure our borders.
	It is my belief that books such as this bring a better understanding through fiction.
	This will help to bring an awakening which has been smothered by the entrenched leftist mindset that dominates the creative media in this country today.
	I know and have worked with Stephen Seagal, who is a law enforcement officer.
	You have to keep saying that because he's not.
	Along with being an international movie star, also not what Steven Seagal is.
	He has an unusual understanding of the world in which this story takes place.
	During his time with my office, he proved his skills as a fugitive hunter when he arrested one of our top fugitives within 48 hours after beginning the search for him.
	He brought us the way of getting the job done.
	You really can.
	I first met Tom Morrissey when he was a chief deputy U.S. Marshal for the Federal District of Arizona.
	We came to be close allies and united our agencies as we fought the good fight against the evolving threat of illegal drugs that were moving through Arizona.
	Both of these men bring their experiences to life on the pages of this book.
	It is my hope that you have not only enjoyed the storyline of The Way of the Shadow Wolves, but you will also think about the message portrayed here.
	It is less than a hair's breadth from the frightening truth of what is actually happening today in America.
	Wow.
	It's just like a Fox News wet dream.
	It really, really is.
	Here's the thing.
	I kind of suspect it might be a better book than Ben Shapiro's.
	That's not a zero chance possibility.
	Yeah, low bar.
	It's literally the lowest bar possible for if they don't like cut randomly between viewpoint characters without telling you and make it clear like the basics of the passage of time.
	This will be a better book than True Allegiance.
	I'm just, I just, I think that might be possible.
	Because what I what I will say, Ben Shapiro has never done anything but been Ben Shapiro.
	Both of these authors have gone out into the world and lived life.
	They've been terrible lives and they've left huge amounts of human shrapnel in their wake.
	But Steven Seagal has been out in the world.
	Yeah.
	You know, you can't take that from Steven.
	Again, been out in the world as a human sex trafficker, but been out in the world.
	I just think it's.
	Sorry, I was kind of glossing over a few things on his Wikipedia page, and I just have to mention this.
	I don't know if he mentioned it the first time, but he's had a lot of like just along the lines of him being some like good fighter or like saving the fucking city or state of Arizona or anything.
	But he's had a lot of altercations and like criticism of the stunt people he works with.
	And in one instance, I have to read this out loud.
	In one instance, the guy that made him crap his pants.
	Yes.
	Oh my God.
	We did a two-parter on Steven.
	Okay, I'm glad.
	I'm glad that was part of it.
	I'm just, I cannot.
	This guy has like, oh, no, it's always.
	I've got a pile of shit on him.
	Like, in every way.
	Metaphorically, I'm not.
	I just can't believe this one person has all this shit.
	Yeah, he was, he was a stunt man who was like an expert martial artist.
	And Steven was like, well, it's impossible to choke me out because of my Aikido skills.
	And the guy was like, it's not impossible to choke anyone out.
	Literally anyone can be choked out if you have a neck.
	And Steven was like, not me, man.
	And then the guy choked him out and he shat his pants.
	Well, because Seagal said, literally, he said, go.
	And then so he knocked him or he choked him unconscious and then he lost control of his bowels.
	Like, what?
	Well, it is just such a joke.
	It's an unhinged thing to say because, like, anyone can be choked out if you have a throat.
	Like, I'm not sure if you can see it.
	He says he was immune.
	Yeah, it said he, he said, he claimed he was immune.
	Like, who do you think he is?
	Anyone is immune?
	You have a throat.
	I mean, he does have a thick-ass neck.
	So maybe he thought that was.
	He's saying you're immune to bullets.
	Like, you know what?
	Alex Jones might be immune to getting choked out because his neck is about as wide around as like a human torso.
	But Jesus Christ, not me.
	Yeah, he's got a massive neck.
	It's bizarre.
	Anyway, I'm just, I'm glad that you mentioned that in the last one.
	I just cannot get over all of these things.
	Like his, I don't know.
	Oh, yeah.
	You got to check out our two-parter on Stephen Seagal, but we have to move in to the preface, which is, I think, is just starting with it, it appears to be a multi-page, well, it's a page and a half long rant about the deep state.
	What if the deep state is not, as some strive to suggest, unelected government officials, generally in the secret intelligence community in the military, who run amok outside the rule of law?
	What if abusive elements of the federal government are very much a part of the deep state, but they should be seen as the best of the servant class, not the masters?
	That's not a sentence.
	What if abusive evidence of the federal government very much?
	I have to diagram this sentence to you.
	We're doing this again.
	Sorry.
	What if abusive elements of the federal government are very much a part of the deep state, comma, but they should be seen as the best of the servant class, dash, not the masters, question mark?
	What is that saying?
	That's not a sentence.
	I can't.
	It's only the whole paragraph is nonsensical because he's saying, well, people say the deep state is unelected government officials, you know, acting outside of the rule of law.
	But what if the deep state is really elements of the federal government being abusive?
	It's like, well, yeah, that's you.
	You're saying like, what if the deep state isn't government officials abusing the law, but is instead government officials abusing the law?
	Yeah, exactly.
	What a like cyclical, weird point to make.
	Like, what are you saying?
	Shireen, I have to, I'm a man who can admit when he's wrong, unlike Stephen Seagal.
	I started this by saying this might be a better book than True Allegiance.
	I no longer believe that.
	Wow, that's very big of you.
	Very big of you.
	I think I was just impressed by the writing quality that Joear Paio represented, which is leaps and bounds above this first paragraph of the preface.
	I apologize.
	This is terrible.
	I mean, both of them have truly terrible front covers.
	Like both of them have the most absurd front covers.
	Not sure which one is worse.
	The font on Ben Shapiro's, what is that?
	What I'll give Ben Shapiro's, I think, is like competent bad airline fiction.
	As in, if I didn't know who Ben Shapiro was, if I was just walking through an airport bookstore and I saw that cover alongside 20 other, like James Patterson and whatever, it wouldn't stand out.
	I wouldn't be like, well, that's a particularly bad cover.
	I would be like, well, this looks like the kind of book you buy in an airport because your Kindle broke.
	I think the way of the Shadow Wolves, I would be like, the fuck is going on with this piece of shit?
	Yeah.
	Well, Robert, how is his punctuation?
	Is he overusing the comma like Ben?
	So far, we're two sentences in and neither of them are legally sentences.
	So they don't make sense at all.
	What if the deep state was the deep state?
	I am walking away impressed with Joe Arpaio's writing quality because he at least wrote proper sentences, broadly speaking.
	So second paragraph.
	What if the deep state begins with one of the world's largest churches and one of the world's most powerful families who control London, Wall Street, as well as the central bank?
	Okay, so we're getting Vatican and Rothschild conspiracies, I'm pretty sure.
	I wonder how much anti-Semitism in this, because when you talk about the most powerful families who control London and Wall Street and the central banks, you're talking about the Jews.
	That's what, like, not that they do, but that's what you are.
	If you're writing right-wing fiction and you talk about the family that controls all of the banks, you're doing that, you're doing a racism.
	Even if you don't say the Jews, you're doing a racism.
	What if God-sorry?
	Just to go back to our how do you say his last name?
	Arpaio?
	Joe Arpaio?
	Arpaio.
	Joe Arpaio.
	So in the Phoenix New Times, they wrote a piece in 2018.
	I was like, I've got a lot of coverage of him, yeah.
	That was like the nine most insane parts of Steven Seagal's novel, but part of it is that Joe Arpaio admitted he hasn't read it.
	Of course.
	In his forward, he made it seem like he did.
	I love that.
	In his forward, he said, I can tell you as America's longest-running sheriff that this book is absolutely accurate.
	And then he goes on.
	Why would I write it in this article?
	Yeah.
	In this article, he goes on to say he's very busy.
	He's got a lot on his plate.
	And in quotes, I've been busy doing a lot of things.
	Things.
	I mean, I will say this.
	One of those things was apparently basic proofreading.
	Because Jesus Christ.
	I just had to mention that.
	I just think it's so crazy that someone not only, like Lucia would admit that multiple times.
	So we're, we're not, here's the second part of the second paragraph.
	What if governments failed to nationalize the central banks, leaving the deep state to be controlled by one of the world's largest churches and one of its most powerful families with their personally appointed agents throughout the world of finance?
	What if the greatest crimes against humanity occur at the banking level, where bankers are able to manipulate interest rates and foreign exchange rates, create billions in digital cash without backing, manufacture derivatives they sell to unwitting investors, and start wars to impact the price of oil and other commodities?
	What if beneath the bankers are political parties, generally two parties per country that conspire to exclude all other political parties and independents from power?
	What if in the United States, one party controls 17% of the other of eligible voters and the other party controls 13% of eligible voters?
	What if another, okay, so this is like sovereign citizen shit?
	It was like, yeah, I mean, fuck banks, but you're clearly saying bankers are controlling world government in like a, like a, like a racism way.
	And also your issue is not so much stuff like, I don't know, the IMF pushing austerity on countries that like primarily damages the global south and cuts support systems out from under large numbers of poor people who have had resources stolen from them for decades by the West.
	You're talking about like they're not backed by the gold standard.
	That's your issue is that like the Fed doesn't use the gold standard.
	You have no issue with like any of the actual fucked up shit that the international finance, whatever you want to call it, does.
	Okay, so da-da-da.
	What if the mainstream media is a complicit partner with the banking political and intelligence communities?
	I wonder if Joe Arpaio said anything about, I don't know, when a bunch of journalists revealed the Panama papers and how rich people were hiding trillions in wealth and then some of those journalists, one of them was killed with a car bomb.
	Not a word on that.
	It's just fake news colluding with the banks.
	Which plenty of journalists or like establishment guys, but like journalists died to reveal the kind of crimes that you clearly have no issue with because you're angry that we're not on the gold standard, you fucking weirdos.
Fake News Colluding with Banks 00:07:51
	I do have one more tangent whenever you're ready for me to go into it, but I would love for you to continue.
	I just, I, okay.
	I can't.
	Okay, I have to read this next.
	Okay, please, please, please.
	What if the universities are also complicit in the deep state narrative?
	What if most history taught as a lie?
	What if few realize that the Pulitzer Prize was created to honor the man who invented yellow journalism, the original fake news, in which massive lies were told in order to justify wars?
	What if universities have refused for decades to actually study and publicize the true cost of specific policies, products, and behaviors because they've been incentivized by commercial interests to overlook the fact that most of what the West produces is both wasteful and harmful to human health and the environment?
	Cool.
	Wow.
	Impressive reading for someone.
	That was very impressive.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And it's always like, again, what makes this, I guess, potentially, I don't think this was effective propaganda.
	There's elements of truth in that, but also like, this is a guy who clearly thinks when he talks about universities not treating real history, he wants them to teach that Thomas Jefferson never repeatedly raped a child slave.
	Like, it's not that he wants them to teach, I don't know, about how the U.S. repeatedly intervened in Guatemala and backed death squads that resulted in the genocide of a quarter of a million Maya and other indigenous people.
	It's not that he wants them to talk more about the Trail of Tears or talk more about the bombing of Cambodia.
	It's that it's history doesn't talk about how fucking rad Andrew Jackson was.
	Right.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	I mean, he's right about Pulitzer, who was kind of trash.
	So, again, so far, it is more reasonable than Ben Shapiro's book.
	I will give it that.
	That's a lot to say after everything I've heard.
	You know?
	Yeah.
	So he just is ranting about like clearly stuff that like the way he frames it, you could interpret this in a way that's like not entirely wrong, but also it's clear by some of the things he says that number one, he's ranting about the Rothschilds largely.
	And number two, he's angry at the deep state for not for and like angry at colleges for talking about you know U.S. crimes against humanity and shit.
	Like it's, it's, it's nonsense stuff.
	It ends on the paragraph: what if this book is dedicated to the Constitution and the Republic?
	Would the answers to the preceding be in some ways answered?
	No.
	Nothing that you've like, you this is just a bunch of like weird.
	He's repeating the same question over and over again.
	He's not actually making any real statements.
	And I guarantee you, this book will not answer any of these questions.
	It's going to be about Stephen Seagal shooting people to death.
	Now, Shireen, before we get into chapter one, hit me.
	Okay.
	In the same Phoenix New Times thing.
	So I read in the Wikipedia this is about like how jihadists were being brought into the state or whatever.
	So apparently one of the plan or like this, the plot behind this is that Sharia law is apparently already here in the U.S.
	And the plan is that Obama is a secret Muslim.
	And then I have to read this one passage where they're fighting.
	Like the protagonist gets into a knife fight.
	Oh, fuck yeah.
	And he dips his blade.
	He dips his blade in pig's blood and then he sticks it in this Muslim.
	And it says, How does that pig blood feel, asshole?
	Is it starting to course through your veins?
	Maybe even pissing off the prophet.
	Maybe even pissing off the prophet.
	Oh my God.
	And then it continues.
	It says, I have a special delivery from you from the prophet.
	He laughs and then he does a deep stab into the Persian's throat.
	This is a quote from the book, killing him instantly.
	He drops to the ground on his way to meet Allah.
	Oh my God.
	It's worse than I thought.
	Yeah.
	Calling him the Persian is really, of course.
	Wow, there's this amazing.
	There's so much in like I skipped over a lot of stuff, but there is a lot of disgusting things that he says about Muslims and I don't know.
	I didn't think it was this gross.
	It's amazing.
	I didn't know what I expected, but it's this, it's based on like a really very basic misunderstanding of Islam, which is that like because something is haram, it's like kryptonite to Muslims.
	When in actuality, the prophet said, you can, if you're going to starve, it's okay to eat pork to save your life or your family's life.
	Like I'm not, we're not out of our mind.
	It's like with Ramadan, you can eat during Ramadan during the day if you're like fighting in a war and you need to.
	If you're sick.
	If you're sick, like it's not an unreal, it's not a, like, again, he treats like a thing that's like, hey, it's best to avoid this, which every religion has shit like that, including whatever religion he follows, and treats it like Muslims will explode if you touch them with pigs.
	And they all do it.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I mean, like, growing up, I had that reaction too.
	Just with like pee my peers.
	Like, I'd go to a party and there'd be like alcohol there.
	And even though I've had alcohol before, they'd be like, oh, don't show this to Shireen.
	Or like, if there was pepperoni pizza or something, it's like, oh, this is haram.
	It's not halal.
	It's just like.
	Because like that trickles down to people that think they're being funny.
	The second time I went to Iraq, I smuggled a bunch of cooked bacon packages because my fixer, my best friend over in Iraq, really wanted to try bacon and hadn't had a chance to and like had no issue smuggling.
	And also, the drunkest I have ever been on a plane in my life has been Air Emirates.
	And the guy pouring the drinks was a Muslim man who I don't believe had ever drank because of how he mixed the drinks, but they were strong as fuck, which is why I got why I vomited on an aircraft several times.
	But I made it to the point.
	Wow.
	It was fine.
	It was fine.
	I guess they're in the Mile High Club now in a different way.
	The amazing thing about Air Emirates is you can just ask them for four double screwdrivers and they'll bring you all four at once.
	They have, they don't give a shit.
	It's amazing.
	Hey, if you're paying, that's all they care about.
	Yeah, that is all they give a shit about.
	It's fucking rad.
	Anyway, I just love that like right-wing thing where it's like, yeah, you know, you guys as Christians, there's shit in the Bible you do that the Bible says don't do it.
	But I mean, like, we're seeing it even now, though.
	Yeah.
	Like, there are members of Congress and people, like, politicians saying terrible things about Muslims still to this current day.
	Like, I went to a megachurch as a kid that had an ATM, which I'm pretty sure is money-changing in a temple.
	I think it made, I think in Jesus' eyes, it would have been like, well, yeah, that's, you shouldn't be doing that in the fucking church.
	I literally, the only time I assaulted people was over this.
	Wow.
	Anyway.
	Anyway, sorry.
	I just needed to mention that it's horrid and terrible.
	And I just can't believe that's in a published book.
	I mean, I can't believe that people are trash, but yeah, they sell bullets that have at least touched pig blood.
	Yeah.
	Wow.
	For G-Hog defensive ammunition, peace through pork.
	Oh, it's not available anymore.
	It was at some point.
	This is, it looks like 2006.
	It's so weird to me.
	Because also, Jewish people also can't.
	They're pig in the paint.
	Yeah, Jewish people can't.
	Well, anyone who buys these bullets would be happy shooting a Jewish person, too.
	I guess that's fair to say.
	With G-Hog ammo, you don't just kill an Islamist terrorist.
	You also send him to hell.
	That should give would-be martyrs something to think about before they launch an attack.
	No, that's not in the religion.
	That's not how it works, bro.
	He was like, you should avoid eating pork.
	He didn't say if pig blood touches you, you go to hell.
Peace Through Pork Bullets 00:05:45
	Yeah.
	That would be, I don't think Islam would exist as a religion if Mohammed had been like, by the way, if a pig touches you, you go to hell immediately.
	People would be like, okay, this is kind of like, what?
	Yeah.
	Sorry to go on this tangent.
	I just, yeah, I can't.
	But it's, it's.
	Oh, also, it says that they might have plans for a sequel, according to Morrissey.
	Oh, fingers crossed.
	Fingers crossed.
	The only way it could be better is if they brought in the musician Morrissey, who might actually work with them on this.
	And it's the musician Morrissey teaming up with Stephen Seagal to fight probably Antifa.
	Probably Antifa.
	Yeah, probably Antifa.
	Probably Antifa.
	Okay, so chapter 0.
	Sorry, okay.
	We start with chapter 0-1, which in and of itself is kind of baffling.
	Actually, you know what we're going to start with before we get into chapter 0-1, Shireen.
	I'm not going to say Raytheon again.
	I already did that joke.
	No, no, no.
	We already did Raytheon.
	But there's other things that advertise on us.
	You know, it could be dick pills.
	It could be dangerous dietary supplements.
	Oh, really?
	It could be stuff that's basically speed because thanks to the state of Utah, dietary supplements are effectively unregulated in the United States.
	There's a discount code for that.
	Yeah, discount code, your heart will explode because this is just uncut ephedra.
	Okay, let me write that down.
	Hold on.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Your heart will explode because this is just uncut ephedra.
	That's our discount code for 20% off what is effectively speed.
	But it has a guy with muscles on the bottle, so it's a, yeah, it's unregulated.
	America.
	America.
	Joear Pios America.
	10-10 shots five.
	City Hall building.
	A silver .40 caliber handgun was recovered at the scene.
	From iHeart Podcasts and Best Case Studios.
	This is Rorschach.
	Murder at City Hall.
	How could this have happened in City Hall?
	Somebody tell me that.
	Jeffrey Hood did.
	July 2003.
	Councilman James E. Davis arrives at New York City Hall with a guest.
	Both men are carrying concealed weapons.
	And in less than 30 minutes, both of them will be dead.
	Everybody in the chamber's ducks.
	A shocking public murder.
	I scream, get down, get down.
	Those are shots.
	Those are shots.
	Get down.
	A charismatic politician.
	You know, he just bent the rules all the time.
	I still have a weapon.
	And I could shoot you.
	And an outsider with a secret.
	He alleged he was a victim of flat down.
	That may or may not have been political.
	That may have been about sex.
	Listen to Rorschach, murder at City Hall on the iHeartRadio app.
	Apple Podcasts are wherever you get your podcasts.
	There's two golden rules that any man should live by.
	Rule one, never mess with a country girl.
	You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.
	And rule two, never mess with her friends either.
	We always say, trust your girlfriends.
	I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of The Girlfriends...
	Oh my God, this is the same man.
	A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.
	I felt like I got hit by a truck.
	I thought, how could this happen to me?
	The cops didn't seem to care.
	So they take matters into their own hands.
	They said, oh, hell no.
	I vowed I will be his last target.
	He's going to get what he deserves.
	Listen to the girlfriends.
	Trust me, babe.
	On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
	I'm Lori Siegel, and on Mostly Human, I go beyond the headlines with the people building our future.
	This week, an interview with one of the most influential figures in Silicon Valley, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
	I think society is going to decide that creators of AI products bear a tremendous amount of responsibility to products we put out in the world.
	From power to parenthood.
	Kids, teenagers, I think they will need a lot of guardrails around AI.
	This is such a powerful and such a new thing.
	From addiction to acceleration.
	The world we live in is a competitive world, and I don't think that's going to stop, even if you did a lot of redistribution.
	You know, we have a deep desire to excel and be competitive and gain status and be useful to others.
	And it's a multiplayer game.
	What does the man who has extraordinary influence over our lives have to say about the weight of that responsibility?
	Find out on Mostly Human.
	My highest order bit is to not destroy the world with AI.
	Listen to Mostly Human on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
	Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing Along is back.
	I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting.
	Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians.
	Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Leve, Mavis Staples, Remy Wolf, Jeff Tweedy, really too many to name.
	And this season, I've sat down with Alessia Cara, Sarah McLaughlin, John Legend, and more.
	Check out my new episode with Josh Grobin.
	You related to the Phantom at that point.
	Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that.
Walking Back Into Darkness 00:15:42
	That's so funny.
	Share each day with me each night, each morning.
	Say you love me.
	You know I.
	So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to Playing Along on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
	All right, so we're back and we're talking about the way of the shadow wolves, chapter 01, tribal police, America's frontline in the desert.
	It starts in italics with the paragraph that's setting the scene.
	So, Shireen, close your eyes.
	Close your eyes.
	I want you to embody this world.
	I want you to taste it and smell it and all of it.
	Okay, my eyes are closed.
	Okay, my eyes are okay.
	Okay.
	This is my meditation for the day, too.
	I skipped meditation this morning.
	In a darkened Arizona movie theater, a somber male voice provides commentary over the Native American chanting and drumming that plays in the background of a documentary film.
	Perhaps the great, greatest morality play in American history is what occurred in the struggle between Indian tribes and those in the U.S. government who were hell-bent on civilizing them.
	Throughout history, the conquering of the land that once belonged to Native American tribes, which were actually nations in their own right by those who migrated here from other parts of the world, was a legacy of cruelty and bloodshed.
	So far, he's not wrong.
	He's not wrong.
	I'm just expecting the other foot to shoot it or something.
	Yeah, because again, we know he thinks the Texas Rangers who helped do this were rad as hell.
	So yeah, he talks about, you know, the forced relocations of 250 different tribes, the Trail of Tears, the Bureau of.
	My eyes are still closed, by the way.
	Okay.
	Yes.
	The government encouraged the creation of tribal constitutions, out of which came the tribal police departments.
	Within these departments was the genesis of the great trackers, many of whom were shadow wolves.
	I have to know before we make fun of this if this is a thing he's invented or if it's a real concept he's just butchering.
	I really hope it's just some fiction bullshit because I can't.
	Oh, no, no.
	This is a real immigration and customs enforcement tactical patrol tactical unit.
	It's part of ICE.
	They track smugglers through Tohono Odom Nation territory.
	So it's an ICE thing.
	It's not like some Native American.
	It's an ICE.
	It's an ICE unit.
	They're the first federal law enforcement agents allowed to operate on Tohono land.
	They are part of a treaty with the Tohono where the U.S. government agreed that...
	Officers of this unit would have at least one-fourth Native American ancestry.
	There's only like 15 of these dudes, but this is a real thing, I guess.
	Okay.
	That's an actual, this is an actual thing.
	Does that mean I can't make fun of it?
	No, I think we can make fun of Steven Seagal's coverage of it.
	Also, in 2020, the Sonic the Hedgehog film, Dr. Robotnik remarks that he learned his tracking skills from Shadow Wolves.
	So there you go, Shireen.
	Wow.
	Famous Shadow Wolves, Dr. Robotnik and Steven Seagal.
	This is a real thing.
	It's a part of ICE, which makes me inherently suspicious, but it's also the result of Native Americans getting a treaty with the government where they agreed if you'll let feds onto your land, we'll make sure they have indigenous ancestry.
	So I don't know.
	I'm not going to...
	That's not my call at all to make.
	So there you go.
	Yeah, of course.
	Yeah.
	It's a thing that happened.
	Yeah, it's a thing that happened.
	Yeah, or that exists.
	The closing moments of the film arrive, and the credits start to roll as the narrator continues.
	Native Americans have an innate and powerful spiritual connection with the earth and its creatures, an understanding of the true nature of all that is on this planet and how it works in the perfect balance of cause and effect.
	An elite group within the Native American communities, known as Shadow Wolves, are part of this perfect balance and are the best of the best with the ability to see what can't be seen with the eyes.
	They know without having to be taught.
	They blend in easily with the night.
	Right from wrong is ingrained in their souls, which makes them able to stand against evil no matter the cost.
	So they're like superhero ninjas?
	Like, yeah, like that's what we're being led to believe.
	I'm sure they're good at tracking, you know, and of course, but like there's a long history of indigenous people tracking for the U.S. and sometimes against like there would be Apache trackers that would help the U.S. government hunt down Apache bands.
	Because they probably had no other choice.
	Yeah, I'm not, I mean, obviously that's too complex a history for us to just like hold.
	That's true, that's true.
	That's something that happened.
	There's certainly criticisms of those guys.
	Absolutely, but it happened.
	And then there were Native American code talkers, Navajo code talkers in particular, who helped during World War II because nobody in the Axis understood what they were saying, which I think is less problematic because, you know, the fucking Nazis.
	Right.
	So yeah, whatever.
	It's like this ICE unit is part of a long tradition, you could say.
	A man sits alone, quietly watching the film in the back of the darkened theater.
	He stirs in his seat and comments to himself, it's about time.
	John Goad rises slowly from his seat.
	So we're writing all this in present tense, which is baffling.
	A weird call to make.
	He stirs and continues viewing as he backs up, slowly making his way out of the theater office.
	So he gets up from watching a movie and backs up out of the walks back.
	He walks back up.
	He's part of the movie theater.
	Yes.
	He walks back.
	Specifically let us know that he walks back out of the movie theater.
	That's the end of chapter one.
	What?
	Is this guy who is a John Goad is his self-insert shadow wolf character who is watching alone in a movie theater a movie about the thing that he is.
	And then he then walks backwards out of the theater so he can watch the credits.
	That's a baffling opening.
	Yeah, really paints an image.
	Chapter two.
	Deep state in the desert.
	Oh, God.
	The Arizona desert sky was full of color as the sunset, and the spirit of the night began to stir.
	The clouds, a brilliant orange, were hanging on the horizon with sun rays lighting them from the bottom up as the daylight crept behind them.
	Oh my god, what a sentence.
	We have to diagram again.
	I'm sorry.
	The clouds, comma, a brilliant orange, comma, were hanging on the horizon with sun rays lighting them from the bottom up as the daylight crept behind the mountains, comma, off in the distance, but not too far from where a man named John Goad was standing.
	Period.
	Wow.
	Wow.
	We're reaching Shapiro levels already.
	I am very impressed so far.
	Can you remind me of the protagonist's name one more time?
	Are they going to always call him by his two names?
	Yes.
	He has a longer name.
	Yeah, there's a dust devil, yada yada, this tall, lean man who in the approaching darkness could easily have been confused with a saguaro cactus.
	I've spent a lot of time in the Arizona desert at night.
	I've never confused a man for a saguaro, but I may be at a great distance, I guess.
	I do want to say, I just looked it up.
	Yeah.
	The last name God, the origin, is it's a name for a person who has performed good deeds and acts of kindness.
	So he really is.
	Certainly not Steven Seagal, human trafficker.
	Never mind.
	He's also tall and lean, which Stephen Seagal certainly is not a lean man.
	Anyway, yeah, he's projecting here.
	Yeah, this is his self-insert for sure.
	This is the ideal man.
	He's going to be an ubermensch for sure.
	He was fully aware of a man standing behind him, about 80 feet away in the desert foliage.
	At first, that man seemed to be taking photos of the evening desert that lay some 30 miles south of Phoenix and less than 10 miles, 10 seconds from Washington, D.C. What?
	At first, that man seemed to be taking photos of the evening desert that lay 30 miles south of Phoenix and less than 10 seconds from D.C. How?
	What?
	That doesn't make any sense.
	Anyway, the Native American...
	Maybe I guess he threw the internet or something, like a smartphone, I guess.
	Yeah, sure.
	The Native American, John Nantan Goad, had classic chiseled features and was born and raised on the reservation, which Steven Seagal was not.
	Leaving it at age 18 after graduating high school to join the United States Marines, which Stephen Seagal also didn't do.
	It was clear even in boot camp that he had something unique going on that had its genesis in the words of his grandfather, who had taught him the old ways starting when he was 13 years old.
	I can't diagram all these sentences.
	I just need you, the listener, to know none of them are legal sentences.
	This book is a crime against grammar in a way that has already surpassed Ben Shapiro.
	Well, again, I couldn't have been more wrong when I said this might be better.
	I was just shocked by the quality of Joe R. Pio's writing.
	It takes a very big person to admit they were wrong about two very horrible things.
	I will say this.
	Joear Pio hired someone who knew how to, broadly speaking, craft a sentence.
	Broadly speaking, Steven Segal and this Morrissey guy did not.
	His spirit was totally connected to the land.
	He knew that when he walked this desert, he was just stepping where many brave, bold, and sometimes naive men who preceded him once walked.
	He could feel their energy and sense their spirit with the ways things were playing out in their culture, how they had been led down a path of total dependence on an elite group of politicians who were concerned only with absolute power.
	Nothing more, nothing less.
	He's thinking about a lot of weird shit.
	He could hear what sounded like clicking behind him as the sound rode the desert air to his animal-like ears.
	What?
	Oh my god.
	We got a real legoless.
	What do your elf eyes see moment?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	There were others who had joined the man, but there was no conversation accompanying their arrival.
	The one with the camera device used hand signals to it's just a camera.
	You can just call it a we know what a camera, it's not a okay.
	Used hand signals to communicate with them.
	About 20 feet from where John was standing was a rise in the land.
	He proceeded with what he was doing despite the action behind him, moving slowly through it while shaking his fist in the air.
	This was his grandfather's old ways method of bidding the sun a good night and asking it to return in the morning.
	As he was ceremonially dancing and chanting towards the rise, he suddenly dropped to his knees.
	There he began his shaman-natured ritual, celebrating the spirit of the wolf, the dominant creature of the night.
	As he chanted, a shadowy wolf slowly approached him out of the encroaching darkness, kissed his forehead, and stood there for a moment watching him.
	I don't believe this is authentic in any way.
	Was that even a question, man?
	Come on.
	No, no, no.
	I just, I have to, I have to state this because one sec.
	Let's, let's, there's a question we have to ask Google because I did not come across this.
	I want to know if Steven Seagal has any native ancestry.
	I looked it up.
	I looked it up and a lot of people just say he's claimed it and he's like definitely claimed it.
	His paternality.
	There was one article where like, yeah.
	Yeah, he like made, well, he has Russian national nationality because it was given to him.
	He was native Jewish immigrants.
	Yeah.
	Oh, I see.
	Well, his grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants.
	His mother had English, German, and Irish, and Dutch ancestry.
	I think he's actually singular evidence that he has Native American ancestors.
	He's really tried to sell it, though.
	There are multiple articles where he has taken a reporter to meet with the elders of the Mohawk tribe.
	And he's really trying to convince people there.
	He says, he builds a spiritual connection.
	He's like the Rachel Dolazal of this is full of shit.
	And I want to make it clear that I don't, number one, I would be surprised if any of these are actual Indigenous rituals.
	But even if they are, we're not mocking indigenous rituals.
	We're mocking Stephen Seagal, who is culturally appropriating something that has nothing to do with him.
	Which is not to say, obviously, if you're writing fiction, you can write in indigenous characters and stuff like that.
	Like, obviously, you're not limited to just writing people who are in your ethnic group or religious group or whatever.
	This is a bit different than that because this character is Steven Seagal doing indigenous magic that he claims he can do because he lies and says that this is actually him.
	So again, that's what's wrong here.
	Not wrong as an author to write about cultures other than your own.
	And in fact, how you avoid whitewashing shit.
	Yeah, but like, let's just say, even if he does have some claim to that ancestry, even if he is bad writing.
	Yeah.
	He's purporting or like explaining all these rituals and like his grandmother taught him this, grandfather taught him that.
	Like that's definitely not true.
	You know what I mean?
	So everything he's saying to me is bullshit.
	Yeah, because his grandparents are Russian Jewish immigrants.
	Yeah, exactly.
	There's no way he understands that upbringing.
	Well, and I have to, this like, he does this ritual and a wolf kisses him.
	And it's like, you know, one of my favorite documentaries is Grizzly Man, which is about this white dude who like went to live with grizzly bears for years in the Alaskan wilderness and eventually they killed him.
	And one of the things that Werner Herzog does that's very good is he talks to indigenous Alaskans about what do they think of this guy?
	And they're like, he was really reckless.
	You don't, we know, you don't fuck with those animals.
	They're, number one, very dangerous predators, but number two, by directly interacting with them, you're endangering them because if they kill a person, the government's going to want to kill that bear or whatever.
	Like, all of this seems wrong to me, is what I'm saying.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Great documentary, though.
	Yes, great documentary.
	After a moment, the animal turned and looked at the men who had stopped dead in their tracks as they approached from behind.
	The mysterious wolf's fierce eyes glared at them as they froze in place.
	He then slowly turned his glance back to the kneeling Native American, kissing his forehead again before disappearing back into the shadows.
	Two forehead kisses?
	Two forehead kisses.
	Give him two.
	Gives him two.
	This wolf loves Steven Seagal.
	John heard movement coming from what sounded like three men.
	He got back to his feet and continued dancing his way into the darkness.
	He went behind the rise where he was able to observe them, but they could not see him.
	He was a ghost warrior known as a shadow wolf.
	Third time we've had the shadow wolves explained to us here.
	Ghost is good writing.
	You need to three times explain a very basic point.
	One who could easily blend with a knight, and then, this is just a whole sentence, disappear into the darkness at will.
	Lacking a couple of things to make it actually a sentence.
	Wait, he already danced into the darkness, though.
	Yeah, he keeps doing it.
	He's dancing into the darkness.
	He's also being so they're going after cartel guys, it looks like here.
	Yeah, and they're like apparently smuggling jihadists.
	That's like the plot.
	Is that like, yeah.
	Yeah.
	But in this scene, they're going after cartel supply lines and he's singing.
	Which I think actual indigenous trackers probably wouldn't sing while potentially going into dangerous territory with people who wanted to kill them that they were tracking.
	They'd probably be like very quiet because anyway.
	Yeah, I think in general, if you track and hunt dangerous things, you don't sing.
	Because it's you have to remind the people, though, that they're Native American characters with all these rituals.
	You just have that.
	How would we know they were if they weren't chanting?
	Okay, so Jesus Christ.
	As suddenly as so, yeah, he sees these people who are, I guess, tracking John and he's tracking them, and then they disappear when the wolf sees them.
	He pulls a gun, but they're already gone.
	I thought that we had gotten them all, but maybe I was wrong.
	Never underestimate the deep state, was John's lingering thought.
	We don't know actually who these guys are or what they're doing, but apparently they're the deep state.
Tracking the Deep State 00:03:00
	We learned that.
	Like, it was unclear up to this point if they were part of his shadow wolf unit that he was moving through the desert with.
	I don't know.
	Okay, so a few days earlier, things had started to get strange when he began hearing from a confidential informant that there were black SUVs doing a lot of driving in the night out where nobody was.
	Then who reported it?
	He mentioned that a young tribal member who might be of some help to him for a price.
	John made it his business to find that person so he can get an idea of what he knew about the going.
	Jesus Christ.
	The big law man tracked him down at the casino where he worked part-time as a gopher errand boy.
	He quickly engaged the errand boy in conversation.
	So we're just really more than we need to be explained here.
	So he starts talking with this guy who saw the weird people.
	John didn't have.
	So, okay.
	Come on, man.
	Before you go acting like you don't believe me, you want me to show you where it's at?
	You'll see what I'm talking about.
	The rangey young Indian was gangly and of average height, dark complexioned with long black hair and a constant, slightly hopeful smile.
	He wore a black Billy Jack-style flat-top cowboy hat.
	In his early 20s, he didn't light up the sky with his brilliance.
	John didn't have to think much before taking a moment.
	Wait, he didn't light up the sky?
	He made a point of...
	He's dumb.
	He's dumb.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So the tall wall man drives with him to the campsite where this kid saw some shit.
	It was early afternoon when they got to the campsite.
	John found an assortment of tire tracks indicating there was more than a little traffic running through there.
	This was a remote area loaded with snakes and scorpions, despite Sweet Tooth, that's the kid's nickname's claim of wanting to be alone.
	It made no sense for him to be out there in the middle of the night alone, but it made a lot of sense for the vehicles to be there.
	It was simple.
	Maybe the cartel had a new corridor.
	So this kid's suspicious.
	Yada yada yada.
	Okay.
	Jesus Christ.
	John.
	So, okay.
	So John asked the kid, you know, was he out here to find himself?
	John asked, not looking his way as he studied the tracks in the direction they were moving in while he spoke.
	This was a common occurrence in the Arizona desert between the Mexican border and Phoenix.
	Something, he thought, extremely dangerous, and if left unchecked, could go.
	Jesus Christ, this sentence.
	This was a common occurrence in the Arizona desert between the Mexican border and Phoenix, period.
	Something, comma, he thought, comma, extremely dangerous, and, comma, if left unchecked, comma, ah, could cause the eventual destruction of the United States.
	Not a sentence.
	The deep state within the mainstream media kept the eyes of the country on the flood of illegals that were coming across the border.
	They painted them as simple people in need of a better life.
	It was a cunning distraction to take the eyes off the drugs that billionaire drug lords were pumping into the U.S. John knew why it was working and saw it as a collusion between the paid-off media and the drug lords.
	His sense was that the then presidential administration in Washington was using the media as their potent tool for forwarding their open borders agenda.
	He felt that they were poisoning the minds of the many who drank up what they were spewing like thirsty nomads in a desert oasis.
	What troubled John even more was that the country was asleep when it came to the OTMs or other than Mexicans coming across the virtually open southern border into the country.
Cunning Media Distractions 00:14:34
	Yeah, trying to so other than Mexicans are coming in to assemble a jihadi caliphate.
	That's what he calls it.
	His fear that they were already spread throughout the country.
	Yeah, you remember when all of those jihadis came in through Mexico, established the thing that happened, the thing we've been warned about happening for fucking years.
	We did it.
	We should have built that wall, you know?
	Yeah, it's they've been warning, like the right has been warning about a jihadi caliphate for fucking ever, and like it just never, nothing like it ever happened.
	I mean, it's just like one of those tactics that makes everyone fear every Muslim person they see, like their Muslim neighbors and anything that being like, oh, they're part.
	I mean, I, okay, I don't know if I've ever said this on this podcast, but I was working like two years ago in a production office, and this boss I had that I had worked with the entire year, she knew me very well, she knew I was Syrian, she knew I was raised Muslim.
	We got into an argument about Scarlett Johansson playing an Asian person in Ghost in the Shell.
	And her argument was all about like how you're an actor, you can transform it to everything.
	Basically, it ended, and I was like, my face was a little disgruntled.
	And she was right across from me at the table, and I was on my computer.
	And she looks at me and sees my resting face, which is, I guess, mad.
	And she's like, uh-oh, Shireen's about to go jihad on us.
	And the entire movie, the entire room laughs.
	And I'm like stunned.
	This is not a stranger.
	This is someone who knows me very well.
	And I couldn't, I didn't know what to say.
	I was just like, the only thing I can utter was that wasn't appropriate.
	And then I was silent.
	And then just kept laughing at being like, you're so PC or whatever.
	No, that's not like a what the fuck.
	I know, I know.
	And I couldn't really.
	Wow.
	A lot of my income because I'm freelance was coming from this one person.
	So I regret to have I never reported it because I was like, I need money, right?
	I mean, that's often how it works, right?
	Anyway, my whole point is that everyone thinks every Muslim person is part of the jihad caliphate.
	Yeah, for sure.
	Or they're like one step away from blowing up physically.
	Yeah.
	Anyways, it's a good, it's a good country, Shireen.
	We're doing great.
	Anyway, that's just my little tangent.
	He starts to build a connection with this kid who's into something sketchy and seems to be like he's young and he's dumb and he's on a bad path.
	And John Nantan Goad thinks about his own upbringing with his grandfather who taught him the ancient ways, always in quotation marks.
	When he says old ways or ancient ways, it's always in quotation marks and he does it like every page.
	He thought about the way he was guided and kept on the path by two people who cared about him and the way his life should be.
	Did Sweet Tooth have anything like that in his life?
	My name is John Goad, John Nantan Goad, he answered with a trace of sensitivity.
	Cool, I like that.
	You are this quiet guy who moves around like no one I have ever seen.
	You are a res man, and yet you ain't.
	He had a curious expression on his face, but he seemed sincere in a crude way.
	How does a dude get himself into a job like you got?
	A dude gets himself a high school diploma for starters.
	You got one of those?
	So, okay, he's asking about how to be a cop.
	The dialogue is just the worst.
	Um, yeah.
	So he and this kid, he's he's he's he's mentoring this kid.
	Um, and then they talk, he talks about a crime he saw.
	It's probably the deep state blackbagging somebody.
	Um, okay, there was a feeling about this place that disturbed John, but he couldn't put his finger on what that feeling was.
	It stirred something in his memory that made him feel uneasy, though he couldn't quite get where it all came together.
	It seemed to take him back to things his grandfather had warned him about when he was spending time learning from the old man.
	Again, every page, a reminder that he learned things from his grandfather, right?
	Um, yeah, he remembered being told that he had the spirit of the snake in his bloodline and gave and that gave him power over some people and many snakes.
	Um, okay, I don't think that's how it works either.
	Um, it was, yeah, so he has power over some people and most snakes, it sounds like.
	So, that's good.
	Um, that's a fun power to have.
	Uh, da-da-da.
	Okay, so this just goes on and on and on.
	Um, they have an encounter with a guy with the gun.
	Uh, it looks like it's yeah, okay, here we go.
	All right, so um, so he meets a uh okay, he finds a uh a guy out in the desert uh with a gun, and they have a little standoff.
	Um, and then he finds the body of a Caucasian woman.
	Um, her face was totally covered with caked bloody dirt, and her teeth were all missing.
	He realized that he most likely had them in his pocket.
	Um, what wait, how is that a I must have missed a lot?
	Oh, okay, he finds teeth on the ground and he puts them in his pocket, which is not investigating a crime scene, right?
	You would want to leave clear the human teeth, but he puts them in his pocket, then he finds a dead white woman who's been horribly brutalized.
	Uh, and yeah, he decides to keep this a secret until he's run a DNA test in dental records, which again, not great law enforcement stuff.
	Um, so yeah, he reports that he's found this body in the desert.
	I'm gonna guess she was murdered by the deep state or the jihadists because it's a white woman, so it has to have been the jihadists.
	Um, of course, yeah, so that's good.
	Um, yeah, that seems to be uh, where this god, this is a long chapter, and it's mostly just these repeated unnecessary conversations between this kid, who we're supposed to see as the the the, the guy he's mentoring um, and uh and Steven Segal's self-insert character.
	Um, he does call CSI and uh, he does actually report the dead woman eventually.
	So so that's good.
	Um, I don't know.
	He eventually does his job.
	You mean he eventually does his job.
	So that's the end of chapter one.
	He thinks it has something to do with the deep state, even though he's just found a dead woman in the desert, but he's certain this is, this has something to do with the deep state.
	Um, he couldn't shake the notion that this could have something to do with the international deep state, the hidden actors who played hard with the truth and understood the real game and its dark rules.
	So that's the end of chapter two.
	Um, if we ever come back to this, chapter three, start.
	The title of chapter three is hot girl, bad boys.
	So you could be excited for that Shireen, we're gonna miss that okay yeah yeah, I mean we're at an hour and 14 minutes.
	We've talked about Steven Segal for too much uh, too long.
	I mean it was fun, I had a good time, it was okay.
	I mean fun is a stretch Robert, but yeah sure, fun is a stretch, tolerable is a stretch, not me wanting to uh go off into the desert and kiss a wolf.
	Uh is a stretch.
	Forehead kiss, Robert.
	Forehead a kiss, two forehead kisses.
	That's amazing.
	He just he wrote that right into a book and thought, like, this is gonna, people are gonna, this is gonna kill, you know, this is gonna kill me.
	Look at this cover.
	I look like a badass.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	People love it when I, Stephen Seagal, totally real Native American, uh, kiss, get kissed by wolves because I'm just so in tune with nature.
	And the wolves save me from the deep state.
	Um, anyway, even you saying that it's just funny to me.
	It's it's nonsense.
	Like I said, we may or may not come back to this.
	We'll see how people like it.
	It's, I think, worth at least getting into the bones of this nightmare story.
	Shireen.
	I do want to say I apologize.
	I didn't know we were talking about Steven Seagal today until right when we were recording.
	So I didn't listen to the other ones.
	So if I repeated myself, I apologize.
	Please don't come for me on Reddit.
	I'm afraid of all of you.
	People could always use a refresher on Steven Seagal.
	And well, you know, it's one of those things.
	I think it was worth kind of covering everything around this book, how it was marketed, the foreword.
	I don't want to go through this chapter by chapter like we did with Ben Shapiro because for one thing, it's super long and just interminable.
	But we might, if we come back, we might do like a greatest hits where we actually go through those like most horrible points and find articles about get some good quotes, you know, and read the actual text of the very worst parts.
	Yeah.
	You know, that makes sense.
	We could, we could do a follow-up that way.
	That excerpt that I, that I picked apart with the pig's blood thing is outrageous.
	Yeah.
	So, yeah.
	Yeah.
	So we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll figure something out.
	Um, but right now, I'm going to get a refund on this piece of shit because I don't want Steven Seagal and Tom Morrissey or whatever his fucking name is to get $3.
	No, please.
	That is too much money to be in either of their pockets.
	I wish we knew the profitability, like a split between the two.
	Like how much goes to Morrissey.
	This book or something.
	This book has not made a lot of money.
	Because like Morrissey didn't even get like a real headshot.
	He got a cropped photo from Facebook.
	He did.
	He did.
	They were hoping this would do well, and it did not because it's unreadable.
	It's darable.
	It's one of the worst things I've ever read in my life.
	They love comments, too.
	It compares poorly to True Allegiance.
	I mean, I didn't know you went through that whole book chapter by chapter.
	That sounds like 20.
	We did.
	It was a nightmare.
	It took a really long time.
	It was one of the worst things that ever happened.
	You're just a masochist.
	You're going to try to kill me.
	Robert, you know, this is your show, right?
	Like, you can do whatever you want.
	You just choose to hurt yourself.
	You know what it's better than, though, is writing another 5,000 words, which I just, sometimes you need a motherfucker to chill out.
	You just need to chill out sometimes.
	You need to not do everything in the world.
	And anyway, so we talked about Steven Seagal today.
	And I don't know about you, but I am not in love with him.
	I mean, I definitely learned a lot about him today.
	I wasn't aware just how fucked up he was as a human being.
	He's a monster.
	He's one of the worst people who's ever lived, for sure.
	Definitely one of the worst Stevens out there.
	Maybe the worst of the Stevens.
	Yeah, I would say so.
	I don't know if there's other.
	I'm sure there's a Steven or two who helped do some genocides.
	Yeah.
	Oh, for sure.
	Yeah.
	It's very colonizers name.
	Yeah.
	I'm kidding.
	Sorry to all Stevens out there.
	Please, I'm afraid of all of you.
	No, this is anti-Steven now.
	I'm kidding.
	We do.
	But yeah, thanks for having me on this ride.
	I have nothing to say.
	Do we have any?
	Do we, do you have plugs?
	Do you have plugs for us?
	Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	So I'm Shireen.
	I'm sure you either hate me or love me if you're listening right now.
	But I'm on Twitter at Shirohero666 and Instagram.
	It's just Shiro Hero.
	I co-host Ethnically Ambiguous.
	Blah de Blah.
	If you want to follow.
	If you don't, fine.
	Love that.
	That's my plugs.
	Follow Shiro Hero.
	You can find...
	I have a fucking...
	I have a fucking novel.
	It's free, so you don't have to pay anybody for it.
	And I don't know.
	I forgot about that.
	It's better than The Way of the Shadow Wolves.
	I mean, I forgot to congratulate you that you did that.
	So congrats.
	That's pretty cool, man.
	Oh, yeah.
	I mean, I did it a minute ago.
	But yeah, it's out now.
	You can find the e-book.
	It's being released sequentially, like sick.
	I don't know.
	A bunch of chapters will be out by the time you do this.
	Are you going to do an audiobook?
	Yeah.
	We have one out right now as a podcast.
	If you go to Africa, wherever you find podcasts, you can also go to ATRBook.com and get the E-Pub.
	It's free.
	There's no ads.
	Go find it.
	Yeah.
	Just go.
	There you go.
	It's my book.
	Check it out.
	Tell me that I am the Steven Seagal of fiction when all I've really wanted to be is the Joar Pio of fiction.
	Wouldn't that be such a hilarious discovery if people realized that you wrote like Steven Seagal and you loved commas and stuff?
	Like that was the biggest thing.
	That was his biggest big secret is that Robot can't write.
	I've been the ghost writer for Steven Seagal and Ben Shapiro all along.
	Absolutely.
	Anyway, this has been an episode of a podcast where we read a book.
	Next week, we'll come back and we'll do another normal episode.
	So chill out.
	It's fine.
	We don't do this every week, but my God, I'm.
	Do you get hate when you do these things?
	No.
	No, actually, people really like them.
	Most people.
	There's always literally everything we do.
	Some subset of people will be like, this was terrible.
	And if you keep doing this, I'm not going to watch it.
	But traffic keeps going up.
	So it's like, well, whatever.
	Like, you can't please everybody all the time, especially when you're talking about, we have like, we're closing in on 5 million downloads a month here.
	So some people are not.
	It's like, it's whatever.
	It's free.
	You know, next week there will be another two-parter.
	And it's one of those things.
	Some people don't like episodes where we talk about a doctor.
	Some people don't like the episodes where we talk about Nazis.
	Some people are just like, I'm here for the day.
	It's like, whatever.
	Tune in when we do the episodes you like or tune in every week.
	It's all good.
	And then everyone will always have an opinion.
	Same thing.
	You're not paying for the podcast.
	So just enjoy it or not.
	Yeah.
	Same thing with guests.
	People are like, every single guest we have, multiple people will say, this is the best person.
	You should make them your permanent host.
	And other people will say, I would harm this person if I got the chance.
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	Yeah.
	What do they say?
	Opinions are like assholes.
	Everyone has three or something.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Everyone has three assholes.
	The famous thing that every single ass person, every single person has.
	But the book episodes seem to do really, really well, and like people like them.
	So I think they're a good like reprieve, you know, like a little lighthearted stuff.
A Crossover of a Century 00:02:07
	I don't know.
	I hope this was lighthearted.
	I mean, at the very least, you can imagine Steven Seagal getting a fucking forehead kiss from a wolf twice.
	He sure did.
	Delusional.
	He sure did.
	And what the thing that is really heartbreaking about this is there was a chance that if this had done well, we would have gotten away with the Shadow Wolves movie where Steven Seagal had to play a tall, lithe Native American tracker getting kissed in the forehead by a wolf and that's been the funniest thing in the world because he can barely move now.
	He can barely move.
	You watch him in his action movies.
	He just sort of stumbles in holding a gun and just stands there because, again, he can barely move.
	It's amazing.
	I mean, Sophie brought up a good point that.
	Or wait, was it someone?
	I don't remember who said this, but like he was already old when he started his acting career.
	Action star.
	He was not a good action star.
	Yeah.
	He's mobbed up is why people think he got a career in the first place, right?
	Is that it was like a money laundering thing.
	But I would love what I actually would want most is for Steven Seagal to play Brett Hawthorne in the movie about true allegiance, Vince Rubier's self-insert character, but everyone else to be like his wife, to be a young woman like she's described in the book, all the terrorists to be like these terrifying like tactical operators and stuff, and just Steven Seagal having to fight his way through them, pretending to be the youngest general in U.S. history as he wheezes his way through action scenes.
	I want that so bad.
	Crossover of a century, really.
	Like Fox News would love it.
	Do it.
	Do it, you cowards.
	All right.
	Anyway, thanks for having me.
	The episode's over.
	Bodie Bois.
	When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands.
	I vowed I will be his last target.
	He is not going to get away with this.
	He's going to get what he deserves.
	We always say that.
	Trust your girlfriends.
Do It You Cowards 00:01:55
	Listen to the girlfriends.
	Trust me, babe.
	On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
	I'm Laurie Siegel, and this is Mostly Human, a tech podcast through a human lens.
	This week, an interview with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
	I think society is going to decide that creators of AI products bear a tremendous amount of responsibility to the products we put out in the world.
	An in-depth conversation with a man who's shaping our future.
	My highest order bit is to not destroy the world with AI.
	Listen to Mostly Human on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
	Hey, it's Nora Jones, and my podcast, Playing Along, is back with more of my favorite musicians.
	Check out my newest episode with Josh Grobin.
	You related to the Phantom at that point.
	Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that.
	That's so funny.
	Share each day with me each night, each morning.
	Listen to Nora Jones is playing along on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
	What's up, everyone?
	I'm Ego Mode, my next guest.
	It's Will Farrell.
	My dad gave me the best advice ever.
	He goes, just give it a shot.
	But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
	If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
	not be on a calendar of you know the cat just hang in there yeah it would not be right it wouldn't be that there's a lot in life yeah listen to thanks dad on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts This is an iHeart podcast, guaranteed human.

Chapters

00:00:00 Trust Your Girlfriends
00:02:17 The Punani Word Choice
00:17:01 Vanity Publishers and Secrets
00:28:14 Sovereign Citizen Delusions
00:43:44 Fake News Colluding with Banks
00:51:35 Peace Through Pork Bullets
00:57:21 Walking Back Into Darkness
01:13:04 Tracking the Deep State
01:16:05 Cunning Media Distractions
01:30:39 A Crossover of a Century
01:32:47 Do It You Cowards