RUSH: Here’s Matt, Netcong, New Jersey. It’s great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, thanks. I wanted to try to tie this into the story you spoke about yesterday about the professor who says basically the American dream is not possible. I wanted to give the example that you give from time to time about not being afraid to ask for something ’cause you just might get it.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: I think too many people my age and younger — I’m 39, so I think this would apply a little bit to the people that are younger than me — think that it’s guaranteed that they’re going to achieve or they don’t have to work for it. The example I give, I just had a book come out last month. One of the things you have to do when you’re an author who’s an unknown is ask for help. Very rarely do you become a Stephen King overnight. What you have to do is ask other authors for help. In my case you have to ask for blurbs, and I’m sure you’ve been asked tons of times for that, and rarely, you know, sometimes they’re gonna say no, but the yeses that you get absolutely matter. And I’ve asked probably a hundred or more authors to read over my work and to see if they would blurb it. I got 10. Four from New York Times best-selling authors, four from other award-winning authors. That’s like a 6% success rate, but that 6% matters —
RUSH: 10%’s enough, right? I mean, 10 blurbs is plenty for what you need.
CALLER: For someone who’s just starting out to get four, you know, New York Times bestsellers, four Bram Stoker winners — that’s a horror award — backing you, it’s pretty big. And you have to do it professionally. And I think people don’t put thought into how to ask, and you have to tailor it to the specific author you’re asking why it would be a good fit for them. And I just wanted to let you know that’s something I’ve always kept any back of my mind listening to you for years, about applying yourself.
And, you know, this took a while for me to get done. I mean, I’ve had a book deal before that fell apart because the publisher went bankrupt, but you have to soldier on. You keep writing and you keep trying. And, you know, whatever happens from there, I guess I’ve achieved personal success, whether or not the financial success follows. You know, it’s up to my writing, it’s up to whether or not people like the book. But I guess what I want your listeners to know is that, for God’s sake, try, just try and don’t be afraid.
RUSH: See, this is what the guy was saying, the professor at UC Davis was defining the American dream, which he says doesn’t exist, as hard work pays off. His point was, how did this become something distinctly American? This has been the rule all over the world. It’s no different here than it is in Sweden, work hard you succeed. But his point was, it doesn’t mean that. His statistical analysis, he says, has shown that people’s ending station in life can be predicted by where they begin. What status are they born with is more important than whatever hard work they apply, engage in, or what have you.
He knew when he was releasing his data that a lot of people were gonna disagree, but his point was there’s no American dream. He was saying that what you are saying is exactly wrong. (interruption) Well, look, you can give real world examples of the professor being wrong left and right. I’m one. And there are countless others. My parents, you know, you talk about you end life where you begin, my parents wouldn’t understand my life. They wouldn’t believe it. They didn’t believe something like this was possible. And not because they didn’t believe in hard work or any of that. They just had no experience with this kind of whatever it is. I don’t want to characterize it myself.
They would be profoundly — they were proud and happy and all that, but they never thought it possible. I remember my father, when I quit radio, was the happiest he ever was. I quit radio at age 28 ’cause I figured I’d burned out, ’cause to him it was never a real job. “Playing records, son, what does that mean? I mean, where is that gonna take you? So you’re playing records on the radio, big whoop.” When I got that job with the Kansas City Royals making — I started at $13,000 a year, he was happier than he had ever been, and he said, “If you play your cards right, you’ll be there 40 years. You’ll become a vice president, and you’ll have a company car,” that was the route.
His formative event was the Great Depression. That’s what he grew up in. That’s why he was so insistent that I get a college degree. If you didn’t have that back then, you didn’t have a prayer. So he wouldn’t understand it. What I did was not possible to him. No greater patriot, no greater belief in the American dream. I’m not saying that. But there’s evidence all over the country that this is the most prosperous country on earth.
America was a poor country, but we were ordained I think by virtue of our founding that given the way our freedoms were documented to exist and from where they came, and the whole notion of free market capitalism, I don’t want say superpower status was preordained, but America is exceptional for a whole host of reasons. There have been countries that have been around thousands of years that can’t touch us, and we’ve been around not even 250, and they can’t touch us.
There is not a nation on earth that’s ever gotten close to the economic output, the prosperity, the power, the ability to project power, no nation has ever gotten close. And don’t throw the Soviet Union up at me. They might have had a First World military, but they were a Third World empire. And nobody has ever gotten close. By the way, this is one of the reasons why I have such a tough time understanding why people hate this place. It’s there if you want it.
But regardless, he’s out there saying that the American dream is really a myth, that there’s no hard work formula. Now, you can take any number of people and disprove it. Now, the caller’s other point about asking for help, he’s exactly right about that. But sometimes you have to ask for what you want. The idea that it’s just going to happen or that it’s going to be given to you is a stretch. Sometimes you do have to ask. And sometimes asking for what you want is no more than a job interview. I mean, asking, he’s not asking for charity. Asking for what you want does not mean ask for charity.
A lot of reasons people don’t ask for help is because they’re afraid they’re going to be seen as asking for a handout, and that’s not what asking for help means. I’ve gotta take a break. If I had more time I could give you real world examples of what I’m talking about. And you could probably supply some yourself, too, just in your own life experience, but now I have to take an obscene profit time-out. See? Need help here. I have to have somebody push the buttons that will play the obscene profit commercials.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: By the way, our author that called, he did not mention his books. He was very, I thought, restrained and respectful in not seeking to use… (interruption) Well, let me tell you who he is. He’s Matt Manochio. This is the guy Matt from Netcong, New Jersey. He is Matt Manochio, and he writes what are described as “supernatural thrillers.” At least that’s the genre of his latest book, which is called Dark Servant.
I looked it up. (interruption) Because I know how to search the Internet, that’s how! I had an author, Matt from New Jersey. All you gotta do is Google it; you’ll get the answer. That’s what I did. His name Matt Manochio, and his book is called Dark Servant. Looks like it’s… The genre is called supernatural thriller, whatever that is. (interruption) Well, I don’t. No, I don’t like vampire, Walking Dead stuff. No, I don’t. I don’t.
But that doesn’t matter. No, I try… (interruption) No, I never saw True Blood. I did watch The Walking Dead. You know, I watched The Walking Dead once just to find out what this is about, because it was killing everything. It had the highest ratings, and I couldn’t believe it. A, I came in the middle of it. B, I don’t get zombies. I just don’t get ’em. (interruption) Yeah, it’s kind of like a Dorito. “You can’t just have one.” I know.
But it just puked me out. Just the whole thing puked me out. I said, “What the hell? This thing’s the highest rated show?” I understood the basic premise that zombies are trying to get everybody and bite ’em and turn everybody into zombies. Big whoop. But I’ve had about the same reaction to vampires. I just don’t get it. I just don’t get it. But, anyway, that’s who the author is, and if you’re buying books… (interruption) What show?
Oh, Wire in the Blood. Wire in the Blood. You can find it on Amazon Prime. I don’t know if it’s anywhere else. I have different sources for these things. You can’t get it the way I did. Well, if you want to mess around with torrent sites you can, but I don’t even want to tell you how to do that. I don’t personally do it. Stuff just shows up in my inbox and I say, “Whoa, what’s this?”
But if you’re out there looking, don’t forget Al Michaels’ book. Don’t forget You Can’t Make This Up. Al Michaels’ sports insider book is awesome, and don’t forget the Rush Revere books. This latest one, Rush Revere and the American Revolution… Look, I don’t like talking about my own stuff, but I don’t go anywhere else to do it, folks, so you’ll have to put up with it. I don’t do signings; I don’t do book tours; I don’t go on Good Morning America and do this kind of stuff. Never have. I would be embarrassed to do it.
But I can tell you about it.
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