Synchronized Failure: Why 'Eulogy for the Stripes' Should Terrify You | Michael McGehee

[00:00:10] Alright guys, today we are joined by a good friend of the podcast and recently debut author for his book, Eulogy for the Stripes. A book of epic proportions and a constitutional crisis, which unfortunately feels closer to home than we all wish it was. But welcome to the podcast, Michael McGee. Did I get it right?

[00:00:35] Appreciate you. Yeah, yeah, Michael McGehee. My family had this whole Braveheart thing where it was Matt Greger and they came over here to fight the English in the Revolutionary War and they wanted to blend in with the Irish. They switched it from McGregor to McGee and all that. So yeah, I almost wish they would have just left McGregor. For a lot of folks, that's complicated and there's a whole bunch of different ways to say it. Yeah. So you're going to be in the UFC cage soon? Is that what I'm hearing?

[00:01:03] I will not be in the UFC cage. I mean, you know, I've done a little bit of like hobby boxing and things like that, but I would get pummeled in that cage. Um, I, you know, sitting down from my day job and then sitting down for writing, um, I gained over 30 pounds writing this book. So it's like, uh, I'm pretty squishy now. So, but I'm, I'm working on building up, uh, you know, my regimen again and getting back into shape. So we'll see how that goes.

[00:01:31] Okay. The freshman 15, it's the debut author 30. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, when you have to sit down in your day job and I even have an elevated desk, like a dual quiet motor elevated desk. And even then, I mean, you can't be like a bank teller and just stand up all day. It's, it's, you know, it, it wrecks you. Yeah. Right. Right. Well, welcome, man. Welcome. Uh, sorry to end up. Sorry to start on that kind of note, but no, it's all good. It's all good. Love the banter.

[00:02:00] But, um, oh, you knew you, I have to say guys, the, if you want to join a vibrant community that we are growing by the week, uh, you need to get on this, uh, GroupMe may chat. Cause it is just, it's popping. I know Michael is, is very active.

[00:02:20] And, you know, just, we, we had this awesome, uh, conversation about an amazing book, uh, another amazing book, uh, I am pilgrim. Um, and so, yeah, I mean, first of all, one, I want to know more about you, your background. And then two, how did you like find two schmucks, uh, that just, you know, banter back and forth, uh, about books, uh, you know, also give us a little bit of a background about your path, like where you are now. And, you know, we just want to know, want to know,

[00:02:49] more about you as well as let the listeners know more about you. Absolutely. And it's such a long story. I mean, I grew up on the outskirts of, uh, New Orleans. Then we moved into the outskirts of Atlanta and then we moved to the outskirts of Houston. Pretty much. I lived my entire life in the Houston area.

[00:03:07] And, uh, and that's in Texas. And, um, my mom, she was a teacher. So I would go to the library a lot because she would be working in the classroom, doing things to, to help out her program and the children that she was teaching and all of that. So, I mean, I, I lived in a library for, you know, a couple of years. And, um, then I went into the air force after high school. It was a very interesting time because I joined in the delayed enlistment program.

[00:03:33] And so probably not too many people will be able to say that they joined pre nine 11, saw nine 11 happen when they were in high school and then figure out that they were going to still go into the air force. Um, my twin brother and I, there's, I have an identical twin brother. There's two of me out there. And, uh, we were walking home after nine 11 and we were just kind of talking about it, weighing pros and cons. And we said, you know what, we're going to do this.

[00:03:59] And so we stayed the course. Um, and so I worked in a civil, uh, civil engineering. So it's water and fuel systems. Pretty interesting skill. If, uh, we get to the apocalypse, the end of the world.

[00:04:11] So it's purifying water and it's fuel distribution systems. And so for, you know, to be able to purify water and it's reverse osmosis, water purification. So it's taking water and it's like, you know, pressing it 10,000 PSI plus, and you know, your fire hydrants, 40 PSI. So it just goes to, to show you the, um, you know, what, what that technology does. Um, but you know, there's all these, there's all these media filters that kind of,

[00:04:40] um, you know, and there's chemical feed pumps. Like, so you've got chlorine and, um, you know, polymers that coagulate all of the suspended solids. You have this whole process, but, um, and so there's a whole water treatment that goes into, um, reverse osmosis. So if you see like on a Dasani bottle or something like that, it says reverse osmosis. It's basically just high pressure, um, and using chemical feed and media filters and things like that to filter water anyway.

[00:05:08] So then, um, after the military, I started a small business with my twin brother. We were doing, um, it was like an aviation safety, small business. So a lot of like the danger in air traffic is like the landings and takeoffs. And it was involved. I won't give details, but it was involved in, uh, um, aviation safety.

[00:05:27] And so we saw that the government sequestration of 2012 happened, which basically they would fund, uh, the shrimp on the treadmill. Um, but they wouldn't fund a project like this. So any project that wasn't in flight basically was tabled. And so I said, okay, well, I need to continue my career.

[00:05:46] And so I got a job as a maintenance superintendent. And so I was working at the port of Beaumont and the port of Houston. And so it's a grain export facility. So another pretty interesting skill if like the apocalypse hit, um, so it's, uh, taking grain from silos and it's kind of like, you know, and I'll go into this when I go into, uh, working in global logistics supply chain, industrial automation.

[00:06:09] But you have like, uh, if y'all remember the board game shoots and ladders where you've got like all these drops and you've got these ladders going across and you're just, it's like, you're seeing like various different silos with various different protein and moisture count and things like that of the grain. And it could be like wheat, corn, sorghum, milo, soybean. And so it takes all that commodity and it puts it on barges or ships. And it basically goes out to the whole world.

[00:06:35] You know, all these different countries from around the world, uh, purchase those commodities and things like that. And so then I landed in banking of finance technology, which of course, you know, I go into my book, a lot of this stuff. I kind of go into my book. Like I mentioned farmer's lung. Uh, but I, I drip things like I'm telling a story the whole time, but I'm dripping things that I think that people would be interested in that kind of, you know, just little nuggets, uh, from my career. Um, so I don't want to go too technical on, on some of the

[00:07:05] this stuff, but working in banking and finance technology, everybody's like, well, how did you go to working in that space from being a maintenance superintendent? Well, you have enterprise resource planning, uh, software and things like that. So you're managing assets and, uh, maintenance schedules and things like that. So I'd already had ERP training, enterprise resource planning training.

[00:07:27] And so a lot of that kind of nexus into some of that, um, that experience, um, worked there a couple of years and then worked in industrial automation, um, and global logistics supply chain, which is kind of like, you know, if you think about like all your retail, like your Amazon, things like that, and you have your inbound traffic and you have your outbound traffic.

[00:07:48] And then the magic happens inside the facility where you have these software systems, uh, mechanical electrical systems, programmable logic controllers that all communicate. And basically that shoots and ladders magic sorts all of the different products and things like that. And then it goes out to, uh, to the exporting lanes and it just goes to store number one, two, three, four, or, or it goes to, you know, residents, you know, in, in certain neighborhoods and things like that.

[00:08:17] So just depends on how that, um, um, um, that warehouse distribution center is set up. So, you know, that's kind of a nutshell of that technical background in a couple minutes, but it's a long career, 20 plus years in global program management. Yeah. You've reached your tentacles across so many different industries and so many different skill sets. At what point did something click in your mind that you're seeing all these maybe points of failures in these systems?

[00:08:47] Or potential crises? You know, I kind of work. We're kind of living on the edge. If these systems are mismanaged or if there's a power abuse or these systems can be straight up manipulated for, you know, dominance. At what stage did you say, man, this might be a thriller. This might sound like the concept for a novel. When did you get that, that bug to start writing all this down?

[00:09:09] So I had this idea at first and it was in 1998. And I know that because I was playing the Resident Evil one, Resident Evil two games. I was always sitting down on the couch watching the news with my dad. And so we would see a lot of these stories. And of course, the news is a lot of sensational stuff. It's doom and gloom. So it's pointing out a lot of these failures directly to you. And sometimes they're good stories. Sometimes it's like, you know, this is what we want to see out of our government kind of thing.

[00:09:38] There's a lot of different themes that that come into these news programs. And sometimes even the different news program has their own theme. Then you start seeing 9-11 happen and you start seeing a bunch of these other things happen. But, you know, around that time in 98, I was also reading Stephen King. I mean, that's where I started in my novel journey. A very difficult place to start. But I loved horror movies when I was growing up. Like John Carpenter is the thing. Like I'm a huge John Carpenter fan.

[00:10:09] Like everybody always asks me, like if I were to ever do a movie on my book, I'm like, no, no. If John Carpenter, which to me is a legend, has issues where he becomes a cult classic afterwards. And I'm like, I would rather do the TV scene and at least get a full season. You know, if I can just get beyond a pilot, then have like a like seasons basically. But so I started seeing a lot of these dystopian themes happen. But my initial thought was it's going to be like and I don't want to give too much.

[00:10:39] But if in case I ever do that horror themed graphic novel or something like that, but basically just imagine it being like a more horrific account of a societal collapse. But then, you know, I started meeting folks like I met Tony Todd. I met Max Brooks, which, you know, I don't know if you all know Max Brooks. He wrote World War Z. His father's Mel Brooks. And so like they went completely in different directions. Right. But I met a lot of those folks when I was stationed in California.

[00:11:09] And so I was almost validated like, yes, I'm going to do this this horror. And I was always working. I mean, I kept myself very busy moving up in my career, getting my Master of Science in Project Management, getting a lot of certifications. And so I've always kept myself very busy and I just never had the time to write it. But then when we hit COVID, like right around, it was like right after my birthday, after, you know, COVID-19, then you get into 2020.

[00:11:38] Like they call it COVID-19 because that's when, you know, it started manifesting itself. But, you know, it was like early 2020. I had this dream and I felt like I was this overseer. And I was just, you know, like if you ever see those vampire movies and you're kind of like hovering over and you kind of have that view and then you kind of get down and you're kind of seeing all of this happen. But you can't do anything. You're powerless to do anything about it, which is a very surreal experience.

[00:12:05] It didn't feel like a horror, but it felt like something different. But then the second dream I had was a year after when they started telling people to double mask and like me being in the military. So like I had like nuclear, biological, chemical warfare training. Like sometimes we would suit up and get a mop four and things like that. And so you'd put on the whole charcoal suit. And I tell people there's an interesting thing a lot of people don't know. They have like the canister for your breathing on one side. And then on the other side, they have a tube where you can drink in your canteen.

[00:12:35] So like you don't have to take your mask out to hydrate. So it's kind of cool. You know, a lot of people don't know about that. But anyways, so with the double masking, I was like, wow, they're going to tell us whatever they're going to tell us. And, you know, it just felt even more dystopian. And so I had this second dream and it was my family, you know, about 11 years in the future. So I'll talk about 2049 later. But it was about 11 years later.

[00:13:02] My kids were, you know, my daughter was almost of age. And, you know, I saw all of these events happen, which is like, it's like the first couple chapters is the first dream. Then there's a couple chapters that are kind of like that bridge. And then the next couple chapters is that second dream. And so basically from that, I was like, OK, at this point, I think it's a dystopian thriller. So long answer to get there. But at that point, I was like, not only do I think that this is a dystopian thriller, I have about a third of a book.

[00:13:31] Once I figured out how I was going to bridge those two stories together. Wow. So your whole entire life and then more recently with COVID, it kind of gave you that little jumpstart impetus and then you started having these visions. But let's bring it back. Let's step back. That informs who you are and how you became inspired to do this. But tell us about the characters and who they are. Tell us what proud place is, what it's like in 2049.

[00:13:59] And what the heck has happened to our country when we open up this book? Yeah. And I guess just to piggyback off that, can you extrapolate more on like why choose this ordinary, you know, ordinary ish rancher veteran type of Charlie Doon? And like what what was your inspiration there? Yeah, absolutely. So all of that was just that I see a lot of different tropes that are always applied. It's like they always have the right tools.

[00:14:28] It's this perfect agent of destruction. They're just like battle tested. They're not like the average day to day person that has families to contend with, that has all of these other things where if you're in like this kind of dystopian environment, you're contending with moral dilemmas left and right. And so I really wanted I mean, in a lot of the story from the characters to everything,

[00:14:56] I just wanted them to be really relatable. Maybe people that I have encountered in my in my life and, you know, just a lot of that. I just really wanted everybody to be like there's a lot of characters and their names and their last names are very common. That was deliberate. It was kind of like an everyman play. And I really wanted this book to resonate with a lot of people.

[00:15:22] I know one way you can do that is like, wow, OK, well, this is you know, this person has my name, maybe my last name, something like that. Or, you know, at least enough people that could, you know, really put themselves into the shoes of the character, which, again, is is antithetical to what a lot of the a lot of the bestsellers are doing. But I figure that they're all doing things very well.

[00:15:46] I love all of those tropes, even like, you know, World War Z and and, you know, all of these stories. It's just I wanted to be able to differentiate myself because, you know, as a as a person that's not an author first, as somebody that has a lot of different tentacles and different subject matter expertise. But I'm kind of like a jack of all trades, master of none. That's what you are inherently as a program manager, like for global programs.

[00:16:15] So you basically want to you have to be different. You have to differentiate yourself. And so all of that was was exactly how I envisioned those characters. Well, I think the biggest part is of you being different is you wrote a book in the future, significantly into the future. And yeah, I think it's a cautionary tale. So so what are the lessons you hope we learn from seeing this vision of what it may be like in your mind?

[00:16:43] So and that's an interesting element to think about, like, you know, that this is a distant future. I wanted it to be and I think about like Ronald Reagan. He always said that we're one generation away from extinction. And so my thought was this. I wanted it to be far enough in the future where somebody couldn't say 10 years later, like, na, na, na, na. You got it wrong. The whole thing isn't about being 2049. Like 2049 is just a number.

[00:17:12] I wanted it to be one generation away. It could be 2069 or 2099, like, you know, for the Marvel fans out there that, you know, 2099 really resonates. But you want it to be far enough away where you can kind of see things like a couple moves on the chessboard forward. You also don't want to have it too soon to where it's like, well, you know, a lot can change in a short period of time.

[00:17:39] So, so that's kind of about the I still call it near future because with the exception of with, you know, one generational group, pretty much everybody's going to believe that they're going to be alive to see 2049 manifest itself. And so what I want people to and to answer your question about what I want people to to get out of this cautionary tale is that there's a lot of things that are happening in the background.

[00:18:07] So like they're already collecting certain data, like I mentioned, merchant category codes. And, you know, we're already talking about central bank digital currency. One thing I didn't talk about in my book, because it hasn't been like widespread news yet is about WeChat. And WeChat is a platform where if you're not paying your bills in China and like, let's say that you get kicked out of your place. Maybe you lose your job and then you get kicked out of another place for one reason or another.

[00:18:32] You can be effectively debanked and like you'll be homeless and you could potentially starve because you have no means to to exchange money and pay for goods and things like that and services. So I want people to see things holistically. It's about, you know, maybe your water will be impacted more rolling blackouts. Um, you know, if you start to look at the second great depression and you start to look at,

[00:18:59] um, things beyond like nuclear virus EMP, which is all tropes that I love, by the way, like I'm, you know, really into those, uh, those tropes, but, um, I wanted it to feel like the fall of Rome, the, you know, like a cautionary tale on this is what socioeconomic collapse looks like when all of your tenants in society, basically a road in front of your eyes.

[00:19:23] So it could be from agriculture where, you know, where we don't have enough fertilizer to, um, to, uh, put it in our crops. We get blight and then, you know, our crops get wiped out and you have tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people dying from that. There's like so many different aspects of this book, but I try not to do too much. So I'm telling a story the whole time, but I'm like trying to drip this stuff strategically across the story.

[00:19:53] Um, you know, of course there's a chapter in a clinic when I don't want to go into too much spoilers, but you know, I, I wanted it to really resonate with like the day-to-day American, like what could they face in this thing? And so we already know what happened in the first great depression. You had like just under a quarter of the population was unemployed. This is slightly above that, you know, like the devaluation of the dollar. We've got $40 trillion in debt.

[00:20:19] Like this is for like everybody to see a holistic picture of where we could be one generation or even before that. So it's, it's really just to wake folks up and get a discussion going on both sides of the aisle. Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, some of the best, uh, you know, uh, elements out there that have done this play is where it's, it's so far, you know, they're able to push it out that

[00:20:47] it, it seems so far away, but at the same time it has all the elements of like, you can see it happening nowadays. Right. Um, where like, Oh, you're starting, you kind of get that little bit of, you know, scaredness or like you get that anxiety inducing. Cause Oh shit. Like we're already like in this, uh, situation. And I think, you know, it's always, I'm not sure like if it's a, I had, I didn't need to

[00:21:11] Mike is the, is the, um, the quote guy, but you know, it's not going to be one action. Like odds are, it's not going to just be one action that leads to like the downfall of society, but it's more so like the slowing dripping away of like people's civil liberties, the slowly dripping away of, of people's, um, you know, taking away their money payment and all that kind of stuff that that is what is going to lead us. Synchronized failure. Yeah. It's called it in the book. Yeah. Yes. And I like that.

[00:21:41] And I, you know, now I didn't know, you know, besides like our, our chatting on, on the, I didn't know that much about you other than what I can read in front of your beautiful website. Um, but I definitely see, you know, just in this, you know, 30 minutes of talking to you, you can see where your specific, uh, you know, you say this jack of all trades, master of none, but like you could see it coming to your book, right? Where you, you're wanting to put all this stuff, but it's not like too overcrowded, but

[00:22:08] it's, it's a nice, like, uh, you know, I feel like you, you bring this very interesting perspective to be able to execute this kind of book. I was going to say, yeah, it's paced out well, where. You know, a lot of stuff. And there are some authors who go so heavy into the technical aspects and the tech night and actually sorts of sort of bogs me down. It's why I can't get through many Clancy books. I'll recognize them as absolute classics, masterpieces, but just that level of detail doesn't pique my interest. Same thing.

[00:22:36] A lot of people could say with Jack Carr and being a gearhead. It's do you need that level of gear and expertise? I feel like you gave enough to really freak us out, but didn't totally overwhelm us where we're so depressed. You don't want to read the book and the pieces fall into place. I don't want to say too much, but on the synchronized failure, I think what the characters in the book, the heroes realized this actually might have been planned by certain nefarious characters and actors in advance.

[00:23:05] They've every everything, every domino that is tumbling was was planned to tumble at that time in that place. And we can't go along with that. And so you kind of have to buck the trend. You have to stand up. You have to show courage. You have to identify patterns. You need the analyst. And that's why, again, another major character, a hero is not larger than life. Shoot him up. Navy SEAL. It's an analyst. It's someone who could see patterns, read the data, predict it, and ultimately rely on

[00:23:31] friends and family having the courage to join him and courage in himself to join up. I just think you're right. That hits on the everyman theme. It hits on all the expertise that you have. And the other thing that's really interesting is there is a constitutional crisis. So we didn't talk much about the legalism of this all. How much research did you go into with, you know, the National Guard and then being activated and deployed and and the actual processes by which there would be this standoff?

[00:23:58] Because, guys, there is a standoff in Texas, in Texarkana, bringing it back home to your roots. This is a Texas book through and through. There is a standoff that blows my mind how sometimes the balance of power of if our republic will survive comes down to a piece of paper. And if somebody interprets those orders, agrees with those orders, validates those orders, we are one step away from complete failure and chaos and Americans turning on Americans.

[00:24:24] How was it going down that whole like legal battle with the legal loopholes and the Constitution, 25th Amendment? You must have done a lot of research there. I did, but I wargamed a lot of things mentally. So, I mean, I've been wargaming this thing since like 98. Obviously, I didn't have the knowledge that I had when I joined the Air Force. And I mean, I was a humble guy. I mean, like I wasn't somebody that rose the ranks and, you know, was, you know, this all

[00:24:54] star person, I mean, most of my career success was post-military, which I know folks, family, friends, a lot of stuff where they rose in those ranks. And that's the beautiful thing about society, right? Everybody's going to find their place if they're persistent enough. And so I didn't find my place until post-military, but I gained a lot of experience like, you know,

[00:25:21] in water and fuel systems when I was in the National Guard. Like, I mean, you know, there would be kind of interesting talks that you'd have amongst folks about like Title 10 or Title 32 and things like that. So I don't want to spoil too much. But, you know, you start to talk about like, well, you know, how can somebody be federalized? You know, what, you know, what branches, you know, or what compartments can are actually part of the federal branch already.

[00:25:50] So like, you know, for the reserve units, they're already part of the federal, even though they're housed within a certain state. And so you have like all these different groups. And so you'll do research a lot of different things. And so, I mean, like researching the 25th Amendment and figuring out and seeing what people have to say online and a lot of this, I wish I would have been able to, I call it the black

[00:26:18] box where like, I'm kind of looking at this stuff myself and I can't really reach out to anybody because I really want this idea to be, to be mine and not somebody to run away with it or something like that and beat me to it. Because obviously it took me over three years to write it. Like when I almost three years, but then it took me over three years. When I think about the edits that I had to do with the publishing house and, and all of this other stuff. So, I mean, all of that time I knew it was going to take a long time to do this.

[00:26:47] So I had to do a lot of that research myself. Even though I had some kind of tools to guide me being in the military, being in the National Guard, things like that. Even for, for instance, like Samuel Holt, not to give too much, but me in the military, I don't like to assume. So like in the air force, you have a chaplain, but I didn't know without doing research that,

[00:27:11] you know, the, the Marines don't, doesn't really have like that formal of a chaplain compartment. They get their folks from the Navy and then they kind of work, uh, with the Marines and everything. And so, you know, having that story that was kind of like mine where I was in active duty air force and the international guard, I was like, well, it'd be really cool if a character had like this complicated past where it's kind of like, you know, they, um, and, and also

[00:27:38] with some of these complicated stories, the person can put themselves and, and one thing I've heard with other, um, like interviews and things where people say, I like doing something a certain way so that people can kind of like, you know, figure out, imagine like their own backstories and their own things as to why somebody went from the Marine Corps, which is a very big calling. Like people say like, you know, once you're a Marine, you're always a Marine.

[00:28:03] And then to, to, to be in the Navy, to become a chaplain, like what, what happened there to, to make that character, um, to transfer. But so there was a lot of like legal things that I was looking at. I was looking at, well, what happens if you get, and I don't put the actual term, it's going to go into book two. So, um, I've put it on my website. People have probably seen it in a blog or two, if they even read my blog, but I call it the authoritarian uniparty.

[00:28:31] And so I'm like, well, what if, what if either one of two things happen? Either there's like a Supreme leader that has like full control over like all of our branches of government, or there's an authoritarian uniparty where in that case they have full control either way. So in either one of those scenarios, what if there's like grounds for getting rid of that president? And you believe that like, there's a, like a no confidence in the vice president or the,

[00:29:00] um, I forget the term they use, like pro Senate. I forget. The pro-tem. Pro-tem. Yeah. So it's like, you know, there's like all that stuff, like, and I'm not a legal jargon person, but I mean, I had to look some of that stuff up. Like what's the, what's the succession? Like what if you like, it is a super majority and like people don't have that confidence, but you know, and we'll have to talk about this when, um, it goes into the post and we can talk spoilers and things like that.

[00:29:28] Cause there's some interesting stuff I would like to talk about, um, regarding why I took certain tactical decisions. Yeah. This book, you really want to talk spoilers so badly. I've been holding back from saying a few moves that a few characters make, but one thing we haven't touched on this whole time is the role of the media, because your book makes it very clear that that authoritarian uniparty or any other bad actors who end up being able to control the levers of government, they can only be as effective as the press will allow them to be.

[00:29:58] So once you control the press and we essentially don't have a free press anymore, cause that's all tied up with, like you said, social credit systems and the ability to get loans and to basically not disgrace yourself in public. You have to fall lockstep, you know, in with, uh, whatever the media, the authorities are pushing you towards. We see that going on right now. So what was your idea of putting so much of media and propaganda, uh, controlled by the government into the story? Well, I wanted people to see what might be going on behind the scenes.

[00:30:26] Like, Hey, there's this real truth. We'll, we'll just call it like a real truth. And that goes into some legal bin box for somebody to approve like a B clip or something like that. And here is like, what's really going down. And like, it sits there in that bin and nobody ever approves it. And nobody's bold enough to, um, to say what's really the truth because they're being fed an agenda.

[00:30:52] And it's kind of like, well, you know, these people are, and I won't use the terms to give any spoilers, but you know, you have all these different labels that they're giving these people. And so they kind of justify and say, well, these are bad actors anyways. It's kind of like, you know, these people, they they're kind of, um, you know, getting their due. And then you kind of have to step back and say, well, women, children, you know, there's like, this is a community we're talking about here. Right.

[00:31:19] And so to go back to the media aspect of that, um, you know, you're starting to see that there's protocol there. And this goes into the common theme of the whole book. There's protocol. There's, um, you know, people making decisions. There's gatekeepers of information. And I mean, control the narrative. It's yeah. You call it controlling the narrative. Um, I've heard it on talk radio a lot. People call it framing the discourse.

[00:31:48] Um, and so when you think about all of those themes and then you start to look at that gatekeeping, even of, of knowledge of, of what is actually the truth. And we have gatekeeping everywhere. Like if somebody doesn't like something on your, um, on your profile, like you may not get the job that you really want. Um, and you may never know why you didn't get that job. Um, there's a lot of different things that go into that.

[00:32:17] Um, that I, I think that, you know, it's a very human thing, a very flawed human thing, but a very human, uh, thing that happens within media. And it's, it's not to paint media in a bad picture. We've got some great folks that do guerrilla media stuff that, that are really trying to get the truth out. But the problem is when you look at the mainstream, they have like a huge monopoly. Like it wasn't until recent that you had a lot of podcasts.

[00:32:45] You had a lot of other folks that were saying, well, you know, you're hearing this and it may, what I'm telling you might not be the truth, but I'm at least going to give you an alternative perspective. And so that is kind of like, all of that is thematic to, to that premise. They try to discredit that though, the mainstream media, the dinosaurs want to hold on and discredit all those people with a microphone who are going out there showing another side of the story.

[00:33:12] So they have a pretty good, uh, they have a pretty good gig at it. I mean, there was whoever, whoever owns the, you know, I just think back to the whole 1984 of it all in terms of, you know, his job was to scrub to go through. And like anytime they were changing who they were at war with, he had to go back and show that they were always at war with that, you know? Like, so it's just, um, we've been in this place before, you know, it's not like it's a, it's a theme that keeps coming up. Whoever can use the media.

[00:33:42] Yeah, exactly. Um, and that's the hard power. That's the hard power facet, right? I mean, even though it's soft power because you're dealing with the media and this is what you're hearing kind of like in brave new world, you have pleasure, convenience and things like that. And I thought about things holistically from a hard power and soft power, uh, paradigm. And so like you start to say, well, these kinds of things interconnect. And that is a great point of 1984.

[00:34:10] So you have like hard power that's driving that, that soft power dynamic, right? Yeah. You also have big corporations and your book definitely hits on that with Atlas pay, which I'm just comparing to so many other companies. And it's almost like, you know, death by a thousand cuts. It's almost by death by terms and conditions. How many things are they going to basically take the control over our lives by saying, well, you click the thing. Oh, by using our service, you okayed it. Oh, you downloaded the app. You carried an iPhone in your pocket. You knew we could have been listening.

[00:34:40] You assented to it. Death by terms and conditions I feel like is the future. I've got to talk to y'all offline though. Um, it gets worse in book two. Oh, great. Okay. A little teaser right there. It gets worse in book two. You'd think it can't get any worse than that, but it gets worse. That's that's, I don't even want to, I cringe to think about that, but, um, all right.

[00:35:09] So we, Mike brought this up before, but proud place. Tell us, uh, obviously I'm, I don't, obviously again, I said, I don't know you, but, uh, religion is that something that plays an important role in your life? So it seemed to like come out in the book a little bit, but maybe I'm projecting. Yeah, no, absolutely. I was raised Roman Catholic. So, I mean, I went to like the, I went to every single Sunday school class. It wasn't like I was in high school. My parents said, Hey, you're going to get married one day and do confirmation.

[00:35:38] I was brought up in that early education, um, in, in faith. And so, um, I probably, um, it may have been a subconscious thing also. Like there was a lot of comments that were made throughout the book and, and trying to get back to faith. And I, I even feel like I, I really need to do that in my own personal life. And so it was kind of like, uh, you know, uh, you know, in the military, you kind of

[00:36:06] bust somebody's chops, you know, to try and motivate somebody. And, and I felt like that was my own kind of thing. Like, you know, I've really got to get back into, to reading my Bible, looking at scripture, things like that. And, and, um, really trying to understand the text and, you know, cause I'm reading all these other books for, for research and things, especially now, um, trying to figure out exactly how I'm going to, uh, frame book two, like I've got some really decent ideas, but I also want to be a pantser in some facets.

[00:36:35] So, um, you know, I don't want to overplot cause you know, my brain will naturally do that maybe from, from my career experience, but I'm trying not to do that. But so yeah, proud place. So, um, yeah, I wanted the church to be in the center of the community, like you would imagine. And, you know, I, I researched and I was like, okay, well, you know, what direction does the, you know, the entryway have to be? And, you know, did I get it right when I was dreaming? And, you know, like, you know, when I was thinking about the orientation of how things

[00:37:04] were happening from, you know, the, um, yeah, anyway, I want to give, I want to give too much, but yes. So faith is faith is a big part of that community. And I think it also is kind of nudging the audience to say, okay, this is a faith-based community and they're talking about tithe and, you know, sacrificing their own sleep to guard the community at night and things like that. And you're hearing like some values-based things from people that, you know, whatever side

[00:37:33] of the aisle you're on, whether you're an atheist or, or not, you could probably say like, these seem like good humans. Like I don't subscribe to their faith, but they seem like good human beings. And you know, what is going on? What really? And I had a couple of friends of mine tell me like, you know, the first couple of chapters, it was kind of like, wow, what is really going on here? And then they started to kind of put it together by the time they got to chapter five.

[00:37:59] And so, um, yeah, that, that right there makes me think of extremism and how you, you handle that in the book, because for as much as this is a future dystopian novel, the part that we should all recognize right now is that you give us a look inside proud place at who the humans are, who the faces are, what sacrifices they're making for each other, how they just want to be left alone, live their lives.

[00:38:25] Yet, if you were the rest of America, just taking in the mainstream media that is in bed with the government and the power players and nefarious actors, you would be led to believe these people are dangerous. They're a threat to society. They are un-American. They are against us all. If, if their way of life survives, we all die. You know, they are the enemy, if you will, the other. And I think proud place, what it did for me, it was really a peek behind the curtain to

[00:38:51] not listen to the media, the propaganda or, or other perspectives that have influences, but instead get to know the people. And so there's also a lot of scenes within the home, welcoming people into your home. So even outside of proud place with the Williams family, and I really appreciated your scenes, you know, again, something I think that differentiates you from a lot of other thriller novels is you took us home and you weren't afraid to spend time there where some authors want to get out in the action. They want to have the attack. They want to have the bomb.

[00:39:20] They want to have the shootout. They want to have the chase. We got there. You got all that. We got all the action with you. We absolutely did. You will get there. But the payoff was better because we, we spent time with the characters in their home, welcoming in the other and welcoming people that they might've been scared of. And if you just listen to the media, you might've labeled an extremist yourself. So it was your goal to hopefully help us see the humanity in each other and, and peel back the layers of terms like an extremist. Absolutely. I suggest the Amish, right?

[00:39:47] I mean, and, and how can we look at all of these different folks that now say, I want to live out in the country and, and kind of be away from all the crime riddled cities. Like I moved to the homesteaders. Yeah. The homesteaders. I moved to the outskirts of Houston because I got tired of seeing that the criminals were getting, uh, you know, they were getting favored in a lot of these cases like home invasion or things like that.

[00:40:13] Like you had to basically prove, you know, beyond any kind of, um, you know, uh, just castle doctrine of just defending your family. Like, I mean, there's so many stories where people go all the way into their closet. The criminal still goes to the closet and still comes for those folks that are, that are occupied inside those homes. So, you know, I, I just wanted people to see that if it goes really bad, if it breaks bad,

[00:40:38] like one generation from now, like everybody's not going to want to be in a city like, and, and you don't have to look at the folks that are, that are Amish and look, nobody looks at the Amish in a bad light yet that anybody that's going to do it aside from the Amish. Now everybody's going to say, Oh, well, that guy's a prepper. He's, you know, out of his gourd and, and like, and, and so they'll, they'll, they'll frame that in a bad light.

[00:41:04] But you see, like in the Amish community, they don't like, and I won't go too much into it, but you see, like, they don't have a lot of autism. You know, you see that they're living very healthy, full lives, big families, like they're like strong community. Like we really should be going back to that. Like how many people would love to just be able to really connect with their neighbor and not be like, you know, I don't even want to see my neighbors. Cause like, it's just, you know, the society has gotten to where it is.

[00:41:32] And, you know, I, I wish that people could get back to that. So I want people to get, kind of get back to humanity. Maybe that's a naivete on my part, but I mean, I really believe that, um, that we can turn things around and it's one person at a time that, that we'll get there. And so that's why, you know, there's, there's that welcoming back, right? It's, it's kind of saying, well, you know, and this is the problem too. Like on the other hand, it could have been a disaster for that family. You're welcoming somebody into your home.

[00:42:01] It could be an absolute disaster, but sometimes, you know, God leads people to do things. Um, and whether you believe in God or not, there's a lot of things that kind of connect in the story that just kind of bring things together that has happened in my own personal life. So whether I believed in God or not, I could also say kind of like in a crime scene or something like for serial killers. And you have like that, I forget what they call it, but the lines that kind of go across the room and they kind of intersect at different points.

[00:42:31] And, you know, I feel like my life has been like that in a lot of regards where I'm like, you know, it's such a surreal thing to live in that life and then see in retrospect, like just a lot of things happen that were very purposeful that I didn't understand at the time, but then I understood later and it just gave me more wisdom. And so like, I wanted that to be a part of the book. So there's a lot of human element in my book.

[00:42:59] That's my own personal, like, like, uh, things that my son and my daughter said when they were toddlers, like, you know, that's in there as well. Um, just like that. Providence, man. Providence. Exactly. Wow. I see you, you mentioned it a couple of times. Uh, what's the next step? You, you know, you obviously led a left us, uh, on a little bit of cliffhanger with the question mark at the very end. Um, you obviously mentioned your writing book too.

[00:43:27] Is this a direct sequel to, to this or what I mean? Okay. Okay. So there's at least going to be a trilogy. And then I think there's easily one more book after that. I have an idea, very high level. That's all I know. Very high level. I know where it's going to go for the trilogy, then one beyond. And then I even thought of a prequel where it addresses, um, you know, certain characters

[00:43:50] from proud place and, um, some background to certain things, um, to how that community got founded, what was going on leading up to that. So, um, you know, it could easily be, um, a full series, but I mean, I'm just trying to get the word out. Oh, and by the way, that was something that y'all mentioned and I skipped over it. So my publisher ended up telling me about y'all.

[00:44:15] So I, so I, and my publisher gave me some great advice. They were like, hit up all your libraries within a hundred miles, hit up all your bookstores, hit up these different podcasts. And a lot of them, they might've seen my email and they were like, ah, debut novel, dystopia, whatever, you know, there's so many dystopian thrillers out there.

[00:44:39] And I gave my pitch and they probably just kind of like, you know, went past it. Um, it feels like when I have enough time for folks to see what I have, like when I was at my book signing, uh, in Conroe, kind of, uh, um, North Houston, um, it was pouring down rain. I mean, I, the, the, the first two events that I had for book signings, torrential downpour, this one was even worse. I had even put my hazards on and slow down. It was so bad.

[00:45:08] And I almost sold out of the copies that they bought. Um, so I mean, they were already inviting me back by about 4 PM. Um, and I booked that for October 3rd. So, uh, all my appearances, um, on my website, there's like an appearances, uh, link at the top and then it goes to appearances events. And by the way, my website, um, I spent over seven months on it. I wanted it to be very different. So like when I was growing up and I can jump into different topics, like I can go on the

[00:45:38] rant sometimes. But, um, when I was reading Stephen King and Tom Clancy, and those were my two biggest ones, Michael Crichton, of course, um, those like the big three, like when I was growing up and I always said, well, I wish I would have known what was going on in their heads when they created this story or, you know, things like that. And so, I mean, in the internet was just out, like when I was, uh, growing up. So, I mean, like we never had all that. So I really wanted the website to be like this whole experience.

[00:46:07] And even in the late nineties, I was like hobby coding with HTML and things like that. But nowadays it's absolutely insane. It's like HTML, Java, CSS. Like, I mean, just to put like a countdown ticker, like there's so many things that I've put in my website, Easter eggs, even in the music playlist, the unofficial soundtrack. And we can go on all this like, you know, nerd stuff. But, um, there's even like Easter eggs within that, like the commentary for the, the unofficial soundtrack. So like, yeah, I try to put Easter eggs.

[00:46:37] I try to put different things like people could find till I get glimpses of, of different things that, that, you know, we're kind of going on in my, my, uh, mentality and everything when I was writing this and even post writing. So, um, so yeah, I wanted to give that to folks that it's not just you're done reading and you're like, now what? Well, there's like this whole world, uh, behind that, that, that I I'm really trying to build. And then I went into the attention to detail with that, um, that playlist, each chapter has

[00:47:06] its own song. So I would recommend people read first because if you don't, then you're going to get spoilers because, and, and by the way, it's on Spotify. So, and I call it an unofficial soundtrack because obviously I don't have any of those artists endorsing me. I wish they would. It would be fantastic. Um, but it's, it's like just a hint of country, but it's more, um, classic rock and eighties because that's what I grew up with. So I wanted that to be the first soundtrack that I did.

[00:47:32] I know I covered a lot just then, but no, you're all in, I mean, you are all in. And so my final question was going to be, how can the people follow you to stay up to date with all this? So your website is michaelmcgehe.com. It's mfmcgehe.com. And I realized that my last name is probably hard for some folks to spell. They're going to get some things wrong. And so, um, I wanted that to be the website so that way people can learn my last name.

[00:47:57] Um, but if you go to Google or any kind of search and put in eulogy for the stripes, my page should come up. I've even done the search engine optimization. I have a buddy of mine that does search engine optimization SEO. And so he gave me some pointers. And so I ran with that. And so now my page comes up, you know, pretty high. So if you just take the title eulogy, like you're eulogizing the stars and stripes eulogy for the stripes, you'll be able to find that, um, that website pretty easily.

[00:48:26] Well, folks, I think you'll realize from this conversation, that is a perfect title for this book. And we've done this for a lot of our authors. And I just wanted to say thank you for a great book. It was, it was a great story. Thank y'all. So much so that I wrote you a limerick. So you got a no limits limerick here about your book. Cool. A raid in the night was the spark leaving proud place all alone in the dark.

[00:48:52] But the pattern was found from deep underground where Governor Jones made his mark. Guys, you'll want to find out who Governor Jones is. You'll want to vote for him in 2028. Trust me. So pick up this book eulogy for the stripes and follow Michael at what was that website again? MF McGee.com. There we go. McGee. There we go. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Michael. Thanks for coming on. Thanks a lot. Y'all appreciate you. Thank you.