The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – American Robot: A Cultural Chameleon Rises Above Race and Religious Traumas by Aaron Anthony Vessup

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

American Robot: A Cultural Chameleon Rises Above Race and Religious Traumas by Aaron Anthony Vessup Aaroncultureshops.org https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G6CMBKDW Caught between family demands, social groups, and ostracized as a member of the religious “Holy Rollers”, the author of AMERICAN ROBOT, balances on precarious razor edges of sacred edicts, genetic mental illnesses, and toxic social stress. Aaron Anthony Vessup boldly confronts opposing social and spiritual quandaries. This writer narrowly escapes police bullets, suicide, and institutionalization. Interracial fraternizing has proven dangerous. With unabashed frankness, the author takes readers on a transforming journey beyond America, between social class intersections, cultures, and lifestyles. Torn between the guilt of social “causes” inactivity and passions for justice, doing the “right thing” becomes increasingly problematic as mental haunts seem to prevail. This story highlights strategies for escape and survival.

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Because you're about to go on a monster education role. rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. This Voss here from the Chris Foss Show.com. Ladies, the only thing that makes official. Welcome to the big show. As always today. We are the oldest existing podcast that publishes episodes daily.

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are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Voss show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it's not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today, we're an amazing young man on the show.

We're talking about his book, called American Robot. A cultural chameleon Rises Above Race and Religious Traumas by Aaron Anthony Vesop. We're going to end it with him. He's an award winner

in a myriad of venues. He's a retired college communications professor. Oh, he's going to give me an F today. Author of several, won't be the first one though. Other of the several textbooks, memoirs, poetry, and photography collections.

He's received honors abroad as a foreign expert in the People's Republic of China. He's a self-proclaimed global ambassador. His works reflect a cultural guru dedicated to a mission of community bridge building through information sharing and peacemaking efforts. Storytelling programs have fostered a foundation for his award-winning cultures in focus, cable TV programs, poetry programs, and story series for children. Welcome to the show. How are you, sir? Thank you very much, Chris. Glad to meet you. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm glad I'm still kicking it on this side of the earth. So give us a dot com's, websites, social media, where we want people to learn more

about you on the interwebs. Facebook is one, then is another. My other is cultures in focus. us. And then also Aaroncultureshops.org. That's me. You can find me just about anywhere on these various platforms. Yes. So give us a 30,000 over you. What's inside your book? Inside the book is how I became the cultural guru, as I call myself, that I am, and what I've gone through the different phases of growing up and experiencing different occupations and so forth, and how I became me. And it goes across races, and it goes across many experiences and many countries and many states in the USA, because I've taught a lot of places everywhere, and then I've taught abroad and lived abroad and so forth and so on. So it is about a person

who gets out of prison, a mental prison. Wow. And I believe that that's how we have to free our own selves, free our own minds. And it's up to us to be what we want to be, even though we are told many times as I was, no, no, you can't, you can't do this, you can't do that. And I learned that, no, you don't let what other people say define how you move, who you are and so forth. You have to know yourself. That's Michael Jordan's used to say that. You know yourself. After you've lost and you've been through many things. You know what you can do. And when you've tested the waters, and when you found yourself with shortcomings, then you work on yourself. You can't blame other

people I've found. When you didn't make something you wanted to make or reach a goal, you can't blame whatever happened. Oh, that's their fault. They didn't do this. No, no, no, no, no. What did I not do? That's how I always tried to move. I always try to look at, okay, what's my weakness, whether it's in sports or whatever? What's my weakness? What do I really need to work on? is it the backhand or whatever it is. What do I really need to work on? And that comes with other things. If you get it into sports and you learn certain things about how to win,

then you learn also how to apply this in other areas of your life. And it's very important for us to check ourselves. And that's what I've been doing most of my life. Finding out and giving myself a barometer and a test, okay, where are you now? You talk to talk, you talk. Can you walk? Doing all this cultural stuff on TV and having all these people. That was fun.

But what about what can you do? You can sit behind and talk all the time. But what can you do? Jump in. Jump in. That's what I've encouraged myself and challenge myself through all these years. And it's been a lot of fun because many times you don't know how the end is going to come out. But if you just trust and you just go and you believe and you pray, hey, it works.

It works. Yeah. So would you call this a memoir then? Yes, it is. It is a memoir. It covers four marriages. It covers many, many travels. Oh, man, I can write a book on Just That Alone.

But it does have stuff in it about those different relationships. And once again, you check yourself. Yeah, you can always point the finger on the other side. But what about myself? What about me? What have I learned? What do I do? How do I want to proceed and move on?

Where do I go from here? Rather than, oh, I'll just sit at the bar and cry and tell stories. And people say, oh, you're lying. You're lying. That's not true. Yeah, it is true. But I've met a lot of people. I've done a lot of things.

And I've had a lot of fun in my life. But I still enjoy living. That's the important thing. Enjoy living? It sounds like across your life you've focused on growing, educating yourself, going to new environments that maybe you're challenging and uncomfortable to make yourself comfortable with them. Does that sound like a good summation? Yes, yes, that is.

And you know what? At the beginning, it all started when I was in junior high school, I was in a shop class, and we had a Mexican guy. He didn't speak any English, and he was seated next to me. I don't know why, but they figured they'd seated next to me. And it was Compton, Junior High School, Enterprise Junior High. and the kids played a joke on him, a very mean joke, and I saw it. And so when he was called into the office to tell through his interpreter what had happened, and I was called in, I told, and I received all kind of bad behavior responses from the community on campus because of that situation.

But what it taught me was that I love to be the champion for the underdog or the little guy or whatever, the guy who doesn't really know he's trying to figure things out. And I always wanted to be new. I always envied people who were new to our schools, various schools, whatever the school was. I felt, oh, my God, they get all the attention to be careful what you wish for. Be careful what you wish for. Because as my life moved on, I found myself in those type situations. And I had to learn how to survive, sink or swim.

But you know, what really got me going was at the very beginning in high school, I read a story by a guy named Haywood Brown, B-R-O-U-N. He was a journalist in the 30s, and he ran against Roosevelt for president. He said, I'd rather be right than Roosevelt. And he lost, but he was a socialist, and he ran on a socialist ticket. But anyway, he was quite a journalist, and he formed the American Writers Guild and so forth and so on. But he wrote a story that caught my attention. It was called the 51st Dragon. And I was taking note class because I planned to go to college, even though to concerts.

Oh, no, no, no, your dad's electrician. You should be electrician like your dad. But I said, no, no, no, no. So anyway, I was taking notes and learning how to take notes in class, and I read the story, and it was so good called the 51st Dragon, I decided to make the voices, shorten it to 10 minutes, and get involved in the speech competition. And I did, and it was humorous because I made the voice as humorous,

the principal, the teacher, the counselor, and the guy he was winning, he was winning, he was killing dragons all the time, until he found out that the magic word that he was using to shield himself wasn't really the thing that made him successful. It was his practice. It was his belief in himself is what he did. So I love the story.

I love the story. I practiced it. I went to different classes. I said, oh, teachers before a roll call, let me come in. This is, I'm in San Bernardino at a, basically at that time, at all white school. I'd moved from California, from L.A. to San Bernardino. And there's very few of us minorities in the school. But I wanted to go in these classes and show that I could tell the story that make them laugh and have fun.

Bottom line, ended up going to Whittier College to make it. to the finals to go to national, to the state championships. But I overslept. I overslept because my dad didn't wake me up. I tried to blame it on him. I could not. I could not blame it on him because there was a ram in the bush. I took my ratty car.

I couldn't drive to the college of the desert. So I took my ratty car, drove to, because I missed the team. They left. They left. 5.30. They're gone. Okay. So I wake up, the sun is shining.

I'm scared. I'm upset. Drive my car. I go, I'm going to treat myself. I go to eye hop. or whatever it was to have pancakes and sit down and moan. And in walk-in, a coach with two competitors, I can tell they were going to the college of the desert

because they had the same golden pin on their lapels, on their suits that we all had in those days, if you were in the forensics. And instead of me asking, do you know my coach, can I catch a ride with you? I just sat there and looked mean. I was just angry, angry, angry. I could have easily asked for help, but I didn't.

Wow. And that weekend ended, The other three competitors from our school, they all came back with two feet, three foot high trophies. They won their events. And they said, what happened to you, man? Where were you? Why did you come? I couldn't tell them the truth that I don't know.

I couldn't blame my dad. I couldn't do anything. But it taught me, you can work very hard. I worked very hard to reach that level. But I never made that level because of my own self. I wasn't got in the way of myself. So later on, when I got to junior college, I got involved in competition and debate. and all that stuff again. And once again, I found out, once again, you have to know how to

know how to not blame others, but work on your weaknesses. And that's what I've been doing all my life, trying to work on my own weaknesses and try to be the cultural ambassador, whether it was in China or Mexico or Russia or Cuba or wherever I've been. Try to be the ambassador so people will know, okay, you've seen the stereotypes, you've heard the stereotypes, but this is me, okay? This is me. And then go from there. And you'll find you. find how the doors open and people are just wonderful all around the world, all around the world. And you find what you've been told and what you've seen in the media. It's not true. You have to meet the people on the ground. I think most times when we hear about other countries,

it's from a political leader aspect of whatever they're arguing. And that makes a difference when you meet the people on the ground that are the human beings, that they've, they're not the toxic politicians. They're always throwing rocks at each other and crap and bickering. and stuff. So yeah, that helps make a difference. So yeah, I think you were talking earlier at the beginning of the show when we were in the green room about something about bowls and stuff. Does that involve this book or a different book? No, it doesn't involve this book, but it springs from it because when I lived in China, I retired from teaching in the U.S. and coaching and having winners and all that wonderful stuff and then doing the TV thing. And then I thought, why don't you just jump in?

Okay. I try to say, okay, why don't you really, really jump in? And I always wanted to go to China. I always wanted to go. And our poetry group was a world Congress of Poets. They were guests of all different countries around the world. They rode out the red carpet for us and all that. So I've been to several countries. So they invited us to China. And so I'm going.

But then I've got the ticket. But then the invitation had been rescinded. But I'm going anyway. And so I went. Stay for one month, one week in one hotel, another week in another hotel, four weeks. And walk in the streets, take an attack. is doing this, doing that.

And I discovered, you know what, I really like this. It's a challenge at that time. I knew nothing about Mandarin. I'd take them a little Japanese. Oh, I can see Japanese. They don't like Japanese in China. I didn't know that at the time. I had no, yes, I had no clue.

But anyway, long story short is the invitation from China came again. This time it was in Taipei. I went to Taipei. It was totally different than the mainland. And I decided, you know what? I like the people on the mainland. I don't like all this glitzy stuff and all this wonderful. It was beautiful in Taipei.

I paid, I want. It's beautiful. But the difference was the people, the people. And when you sit down with somebody and you have a beer with them, you don't have much English or hardly any English between the two of you and you're trying to talk, conversation and all that. And you find that people are willing to just be themselves and just welcome you. It was a wonderful experience. I decided, you know what? I want to go over there. I want to teach for there for a while. And that's what I did. And so I ended up writing for magazines. I ended up traveling all over, going to Tibet and other places. And there were people. say, oh, no, you can't go there. You can't do this. Oh, you can do it. If you want to do it, do it. Do it. The thing that people don't realize is you get old, you get tired, you, you know, traveling can be kind of not fun when you're old. You're always like, where's the nearest bathroom? So you might as well enjoy it when you're young. And a lot of young people used to do that back in the day. They would go work with a peace corpse. Yeah. Or the big thing was they'd go work on a ship so they could get free, you know, transportation and then they would go walk around Europe and stay in the hostills and stuff. And the people would do that and that led to a really great group of people being in our society that

had a worldview that was very different than people who never leave their backyard, which is more popular nowadays and more dumber. So yeah. And so I think it's great you're doing that and it's great advice for anybody who who wants to go down that road because you can you can really learn some stuff there. You know what? What interest to me, I found out whether I was working in human rights at the beginning before I went solidly into education, working for a community government, first human rights director and all that. I found out that many people did not know what was around the corner or down the street or had never seen Mississippi or never. And then when I moved to Illinois, Chicago and

teaching into college there, and I found out many students that were afraid to go to Chicago. parents have never been. It's a dangerous place. You don't go. You don't go. And so my job now is becoming, oh, I've got to get these kids to go to Chicago. I've got to get them to see what's there, the Art Institute. I've got to get them to see not just Jerry Springer or Jenny Jones, but I got them to see other things about Chicago so that they wouldn't have fear because many people feared just the city because of the reputation. And it's a very beautiful city. It's a very powerful city. I find people that do that to They don't only do that to Chicago, but they do that to

Or California, they just Blank it, whatever they saw in Fox News About California And I've had people tell me that Yeah, California's going to collapse any second It's going to economically collapse. It's a shit hole. And I'm like, have you ever been there?

I don't know, I grew up in California. I've been back there living too. And yeah, it's doing fine. Or the tax is a little high in the traffic nightmare yeah it's a lot of people and i don't know i'm square michigan you'll hear people say too many people too many people too much there is yeah you guys have all that fog too but it's changing it's really changing yeah there there are two things that i wanted to mention one when you mentioned about the the california thing of my book called the the fiction book called twins focuses on these young guys

who are trying to make california become an island because they'd see riches if they can control and buy land on both sides, they're going to be rich when South California separates because they're going to make sure it separates through earthquake moving and all that stuff, which they can do with their psychic powers. So it's a very interesting thing that some people still have some of these goals in their minds and so forth and so on. But everywhere has its problems. Everywhere has its good things and bad things. What I found out recently going to China, recently it went back earlier this year.

I was in Korea and Hong Kong and China and so forth. Just the fact that an area that I hadn't seen, really seen, looked at called Shinjin is an economic, new economic zone in China across from Hong Kong, and the World Trade Center is there. And because I'm into this bulls thing, what really got into it when I was over traveling around in China, seeing so many different architectural artistic renditions of bulls that I got really carried away. And I thought I'd seen all the bulls in China, and I'd seen many, many. many, many, and all over the world seen many, many, many in Austria and Germany and everywhere. And so I thought, oh, I've got a handle on this. Then I got to Xinjiang, and man, I went to the World Trade Center. They said, oh, you're like bulls, huh?

And they took me, and I saw this bull in the front. Okay, it's big, almost like the one in New York, but not quite as big. And though there is one in Shanghai, just as big, similar with different posture as the one on Wall Street. So I thought, oh, I've got this in the bag. They showed me this bull. I said, ah, nah, not very big. And then I went up on the plaza. What you can't see up on the plaza, closer to the building above the street level,

are three huge bulls, huge, really, really big, artistic and everything. Beautiful and make you want to fall down on your knees. I'd say, wow, this is beautiful. So my point is, you might think you see something and you know something, but if you really pay attention to details, which I've started to do since I got into photography, and that's a long, long story. But if you really pay attention to details, you will notice things that a lot of people don't see. People do not see.

And that's what attracted me into photography in the first place, Robert Kappa, the famous war journalist. Yeah, my dad was in the Navy and so forth and so. And if you read my book, you'll find out how he disciplined us and how he made us become robots. I loved them to death, but I understood that if you don't see it, save yourself and think for yourself, man, you're lost. You are in trouble. And I can just see the handwriting on the wall. So I had to start not being belligerent, not being disobedient, but learning how to, as he would say, cope with a situation. Cope with a situation.

You learn that in the service. You learn to cope with the situation. And I learned, hey, you can see the world. You can learn to listen to radio. You can use the mail. You can fall in love with baseball. You can do these things that other people don't think are important if you really, really want to do them. So the desire has to be there and you have to write your own script.

That's what I've done, and that's what you will see in an American robot. You will see how I wrote my own script, how I broke my own, the rules, the rules, and then the rules, and then setting your own rules, but learning to stay within the law, use your gifts, and take advantage of opportunities, because they are there. They are there if you are open to them, and if you don't put the blame on others and put your own effort, I call it embracing the suck. You have to learn to embrace the suck and then find out the good in it because there's good and everything for it.

If you look for it. You'll find it. It's there. I do that in prison and embrace the suck, but I'm not sure what that means. Anyway, moving on. Oh, we do the jokes. I'm not sure what that means, but don't go to prison, folks. That's basically, so, yeah, you've, man, you've sold the whole book.

I'm sold. I don't need any more convincing to buy this thing. You'll enjoy it. Even if you don't read it, you can listen to it because we have it all. audio version of it. I ain't got an audio. So you can just plug it in. But my thing is, I fell in love with listening to Vince Gully and Jerry Doggett called the Dodger Games. I fell in love with listening to KGO Radio in San Francisco. Ira Blue had a talk show, which was fantastic. I loved radio. I loved radio. Made my own shortwave radio and all that. Really? A little transistor radio listening

to them. I loved how the guys talked and how they called the games and so forth and so on. I became a rabbit. I was going to say Raiders fan. No, I became a Rabbit, Dodger fan, and Rams fan back in the day. Back in the day. Now I'm a Raiders fan. I'm all kind of fans because I've been all over the damn place. From the Steelers to Chicago and the Bears and all that stuff. So I love the sports.

I love all of that stuff. But I also love the lessons in life that it teaches you. Meeting Ali was a big thing for me. Oh, that would have been amazing. Oh, it was amazing. And he was incredible and he was funny as hell. He was funny. You joke. They had to hold him back because he really could joke.

You had the whole chap back. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was a trip. But the other thing was Paul Simon, Senator Simon, long before Obama. I met Paul Simon, and I interviewed him in the Capitol in the White House underneath the Senate. It was fantastic. Those were highs for me. And he said, young man, and he'd written a book called The Tongued American. He said, whatever you do, whatever you do, go abroad, go abroad, go abroad. And at the time I'd been thinking about Zimbabwe and thinking about South, South Africa. This was before Mandela was out. And then I ended up going there twice, one who was in and then when he was out and experiencing South Africa in a different way, experiencing Zimbabwe in a

different way, experiencing Egypt in a different way, and crying when I went to the Nile and all that. I don't know why, but crying because it just gripped my heart what I saw and what I felt. And that's what will happen when you really meet people on their own terms and you learn to not judge, but accept and understand this is their way. They don't need to be my way, which is how I was raised. There's only one way. And everybody else is the devils, the devil, the devil, the devil, the devil, the devil, the devil, all the devils. I don't care who they're the devil.

Everybody's the devil. After a while, you find out the devils are within us or in our ranks, and we are our own doubles. And if you understand how to interpret what's going on in the main threads in life, you can have a wonderful life, an enjoyable life, and be wonderful people. And see how wonderful the world, as Louis Arnard from, you're saying, it's a wonderful world. You'd get a chance to see, and you'd love jazz.

You'd love all kind of music because that's the expression of God in us. Those are the expressions of the spirit, those inspirations, those musical geniuses, those writing geniuses. These people who are very creative and put their lives on the line, they are putting their lives on the line for a reason. And when they embrace, whatever they've embraced, they have to pay the price. You pay the price and you talk about being old and listen, I learned how to deal with wheelchair assistance. I love wheelchair assistance.

I don't mind tipping for wheelchair assistance because those damn airports are just too huge for these old hips and these old legs, man. I want to enjoy the end of the journey, the end of the trip and not the duress of trying to just get there. Yeah, I make the guys just carry me on their back. I pay them an extra 20. Yeah. Yeah. I used to argue in the Haiti. Just so you don't whip the damn don't duckies until they do.

It makes you feel like a kid again. I'm dead. We're carrying me and my back. Yeah, that's a good idea. I didn't know. Can you do that? The airports, even though you're not officially handicapped. You're just like, hey, I'm 58.

And they go, oh, yeah, you're a cripple. Okay, here you go. Listen, carry a cane. It helps. Carry a cane and they don't ask any questions. Oh, sir. People are so different and so hospitable. I'm getting two fucking canes.

This is a great idea. I love this. Yes, yes. I'm serious. I'm serious. You can have you, you can use your luggage. canes with wheels or you can have one cane and the luggage and then just pop in the chair and say, hey, I need wheelchair assistance.

I need wheelchair assistance. I need that. I got to work on my acting now because I got to, I'm in that senior thing. Some gal I went for a haircut last week and some gal. She met well. She wasn't trying to be evil. But she said to me, she said, do you want the men's cut or the senior cut? Oh, my God.

Wow. I'm like 58. I was like, honey, that hurt. That really hurt. You know what? I talk about race cards. No, I pull the age card all the time as many times as I can.

I was born in 1947 and people say, oh, you don't look like you. You don't know the bones. You don't know how I feel. You don't know about the midnight runs. You don't know about any of that stuff, but that's none of your business. I'm making my way because of the determination and the passion,

and I'm embracing the suck. and you'll find out there are many creative ways to embrace the stuff so you can enjoy yourself and not hurt yourself. And that's the key as you get older, you find out, don't hurt yourself. Yeah. And we used to say, if you're really performing, you hurt yourself. Hurt something. Hurt something. If you're playing an instrument or whatever. Hurt something. If you're dancing.

Hurt something. If you're hurting something, that means you're really doing it. You're doing it, man. You're doing it down to the bone. You're hurting something. Yeah. But if you're not hurting yourself, you know, especially in the long run, and I had to learn, you know, People can say gamba, gombie, cheer, cheers, all they want and swallow and all they want. But there's a point I know that as a youngster going up, there's a point you have to set your own limits and you have to know how much you can handle. And if you let other people direct how you enjoy yourself, you're in trouble.

But if you've set limits and people see your firm with your limits and you can enjoy yourself and have a good time, hey, go for it. But you have to have self-control. And that's the thing many of us have to learn because discipline is hard. hard. Discipline is difficult. I'm working on my core right now, so I don't have to use a cane that much anymore. I'm feeling great about it. But the whole thing is

discipline, discipline. And that's what's nasty. People hate that. It's not easy. With a keen, are you able to be the first one on the airplane? Yes. You're the first one on. I'm getting on Amazon right now. I'm buying me a cane.

I'm going to get a fucking walker. You know, because you want to be able to spring up after it and say, Thank you very much. You're gone. Oh, thank you very much. If you have a nice looking cane, they'll think you're the godfather or whatever. So you have to have a dumpy looking one to get you around if you need.

But have a good one just for show because they don't want to hurt that cane. They don't want to mess it up. They will give you a nice wooden cane before you go through the screener and all that stuff. So no problem. They can help you up or you can stay in your seat, your wheelchair, whatever you prefer. It's your business. But the thing of it is you have somebody with you all over the way, taking care of business to the hard stuff and zipping you through and all that.

And that's, if there's anything about this exercise of listening to me, you'll learn about being a robot is don't be a robot. Find a way to let others be a robot for you. What a guy. That's, you should put them on a coffee cup or a thing. No, I'm going to break out my pimp king from when I used to work the streets and put on my

pimped hand rings. And I'm just going to go, I'm just going to be Pimp Daddy. Where my big, I'm just going to, I'm just going to look. I won't look like an old bent over guy. I'm going to get one of them. I get my pimp suit out.

Yeah. Big fur coat. Godfather it, man. And I'll just, I'll just have that walk. And then just throw a limp in there every other. Every other than I try to throw a limp in there. Oh, oh, my hip. Oh.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you stand up too. Yeah. Don't be quick. Be slow. Be slow. Be intentional, gradual. And do it.

You got it. But, but, but, but, but, but don't let them know. And just don't go on the dance floor. You know, don't try to show off doing the chicken dance. I'm not good at dancing in there. I'm white. Listen, I found out that even though I'm black, I can't dance. And I thought I could. What?

I went to Cuba and I found, no, man, you can't dance. Really? Oh, listen. I said, I went because of the Canadian had an I Lego project and they had the dancers from all around the world. They invited them to go to Cuba through Canada. And oh, my opportunity to go to Cuba for the first time. I went four times later. But after one, I'm jealous.

Oh, man, it was fantastic. But the thing of it was, these guys work hard dancing and practicing. That music over there, dude, that's why I surprised you didn't dance because their music is. You know, I can probably dance to it because I'm just. You want to, but when you see the practice that they go through in the hot, dark, 20 gyms and all that for hours and hours, listen, I put out my camera, listen, I'm a photographer. I just really want to take photos. Oh, okay, okay, okay. okay, okay, they agree. This is fine, fine. Because I couldn't keep up with them, number one.

They would laugh, number two. And basic hot, cha, cha, nothing, sorry. And I could dance. I had dancing before and people thought, oh, yeah, on cruises and all that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can dance. No, I can't dance at all. Compared to those dances, they dance like water and fluid. No, no, no, no, no, no. I will watch. That cue music is something else, man, and the food. I am so jealous of you when they, I believe it was under Obama, they opened up Cuba, and I was doing photography back then with Canon. I tried to get Canon to pay for the trip, and I wasn't that great of photographer back then, probably still not. And they were like, yeah, that's cute. We'll keep supporting you with lenses and different things, but we're not doing that. And so I wanted to go when it opened up because that, that whole island

had been basically hermetically sealed locked in time in the 50s and 60s. And those old Chevy's and Yeah. And just I love old places like that. And I was like, I got to get there before Starbucks, McDonald's. Yeah. Jerk off things show up that are so American. They just ruin everything. Yeah.

And so I want to go there. Do you have your photos from Cuba? Yes, I do. I have them on my website. And in fact, one of the ones that I, early in the morning on my, I think it was my fourth trip or third trip or whatever, early in the morning, I caught these kids, the lovers in in the shambles and a beautiful. car in the front. You talk about an old car in the front, and I got the shot. It's called Secret

Love. That ended up getting an award at the Chicago Industrial Museum exhibition a while back. And that's on this secret love. It's a beautiful shot, black and white and all that, with the decay building and the beautiful car in the front and them hiding in the background. This early in the morning, it's hotter than hell. It's like five at a clock in the morning. And I'm walking the streets and I'm just trying to find the shot, the shots. That's what you do. Yeah, yeah, you got a fish, you got a fish. Looking for the moment. Oh, yes. You're just.

And it's fantastic. And that's why I enjoyed going to other places, especially all around China and other places. I had, here's my heartbreak story. I was invited just before the pandemic broke out with National Geographic to go to Iceland. Now, I'd been to Iceland before a thousand years ago. That's a stop off going to Europe and all that stuff. I'd been there before. And it looked like the moon.

I thought, oh, I really want to go back. So I looked it up again. And I saw, oh, these are some beautiful place I'd never thought was there in Iceland. They sent me the money. I ended up having to send most of it back because the pandemic happened. They went anyway. Really? Yes, they did.

I couldn't even get to the bank in Vegas. I was living at the time. And the banks were sold. You had to make an appointment. You still go. Oh, that's right. Yeah. It was horrible.

It was horrible. So they froze the funds and so forth and so on. But anyway, I saw later on what they shot and what they did. I was so happy I was almost jumping over the moon because I was going to be in that group that was going to. to Iceland through National Geographic. That was going to be my high high point. But anyway, bottom line is I saw what they did

and it was just really fantastic. So I still want to go anyway to Iceland to see what they saw because Iceland is beautiful. It's untamed really in many areas and untapped. Most people don't even know it's there. But that's the wonderful thing I enjoy about photography is learning how to appreciate small things, appreciate life through Robert Kappa.

I learned through war. This guy is shooting with bull. flying over his head and so forth. That's real, to me, that's real courage. When you can do that with your life on the line and you're shooting, you're shooting the death, you're shooting the agony, you're shooting real stuff, real shit. That's what I'm talking about. And that's the kind of life I like. And deal with in a humanic way and build bridges as you go.

I love your photos, dude. I'm going through them here on the site. I see the one, the Cuba one you were talking about. Yeah, thank you. The two lovers. Yeah. And I love your use of black and white. I love black and white photography. Me too. Me too. I'm going back to it. Yes. I'm going back to it. Yes. Yes. You could probably train in a Nikon for a Sony, but that's just me.

Listen, you're not preaching to the choir. I've done. Listen, from Amia to Nikon to Conan, it's now Sony. Is it really? Yes, it is. The long ones, everything. You're a real photographer now. I can tell you some story. The last one was the damn lens cap was had used a big camera in such a long time. The lens cap was sealed on and I had a screen thing on and all that stuff. And I'm going to this place where this bulls are supposed to be. It's in Mexico somewhere, way out somewhere, near some border somewhere. And I don't know where. This is recent. And I can't get the damn lens cap off.

I'm pouring hot and cold soda on the damn thing. Yeah, I'm desperate, man. We've driven all these hours to get to this place that's not the right place. And I can't get the lens cap off. So what am I going to do? And then the end of, so I used up the mobile camera, the small Sony, and I use my mobile. phone, blah, blah, blah, blah, but it wasn't much. And the place wasn't what I really wanted anyways.

It didn't matter. So by the time we finally got back to the city, Mexico City, I finally had gotten the lens cap off and so forth and so on. And was able to use the damn camera that I really wanted. But still, that's another long story. When you see the end of the project called bullishness, a naked bullishness, when you see that bulls all around the world, I'm trying to find what is the best looking bull in the world from a scope for standpoint. When you see what I've found, you're going to say, hey, man, you hit it. You hit it. Because that's my goal since 1995, Guatemala, thinking I'm a photographer at the very beginning, trying to shoot with cops all around in the intersection.

You're getting up to the bull on the high stand and trying to do some crazy silly shit. And doing it and not getting arrested, I'm like, oh, my God, I'm in. I'm a photographer now because I can do this stuff. And then that carries and you go here and you go there and you find other challenges and you make things happen. You make things happen. You are the news. Your photography is awesome. I like this picture of the bull looking down on the passerby and the bike going by. And it looks like these, it gives you this juxtaposition sort of thing. Timing, time.

Listen, when you scout things out, scout things out and think ahead. Think ahead. You do all kinds of things like that. But that was in Changsha, China in Hunan. That was my first contractual position there teaching there. I was there for about three years. And then I moved from there to another province, God Awards teaching there three years, then moved to another one, five years, da-da-da.

Different provinces teaching because I found that the information about Americans in general was not correct. And information about my people was not correct. And all the images they were seeing and being fed was just told, all they knew about was Alvin Iverson. basketball player, a guy changed his name to Iverson because he loved, he was so crazy about basketball, and Michael Jordan and Mike Tyson. Other than that, nah, they don't know anything about until these guys start going over there and Salina and Williams and all these other, start going over there and playing in front of, I'm a tennis fan from way back in the attic. When they start seeing real people

and meeting real people, then their attitudes change. And you can see it. I could see how China changed getting ready for the Olympics in 2008. And I I went in 2008 and stayed until 2015 and then just went back recently. And I'm going back again this fall. You know, the quality of life, it'll blow your mind. When you read, the reason I wrote American Robo was because in China, I wrote Black in China, published by a group in Shanghai. Okay.

And I was happy about it. Except they said, oh, but you can't say this. You can't say that. You take this out. Take this out. Oh, yes. It was censored. I said, oh, really?

Okay. Thank you very much. For you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, I wrote for a minute, South China morning a post. You know, big, big, big people, okay, national distribution. But anyway, bottom line, bottom line, when I got back to the USA, I said, okay, that was censored. It tells some of the things that happened, but it doesn't tell everything that really, what, really happened.

And now I'm going to tell you, you're going to find out the real things. I'm not holding anything back. And so that's what I was able to do with American robot. Not hold anything back, man. That's why I say four marriages, but other things, blah, blah, blah, blah, real shit, real stuff, real talk. I don't pull any punches. And that's what people loved about me was the fact that I said, okay, you go visit America, go, go, go. But I bet you you'll come back.

Go, go, go, go. You should go. But I bet you'll come back. And they do. They've always returned because the quality of life is so different. Man, it's hard for me to explain, okay, except the quality of life is different. You don't see people can't eat. Everybody eats. That's number one. Do I need to say anything else? Everyone eats. Okay. When I came back here and I took the train from Baltimore, Silver Springs, Maryland, all across back to Vegas to California, L.A. and then to Vegas, I literally cried because of what I saw at the main cities, the cities that I've been to, Philadelphia, Chicago, Pittsburgh, different places in Ohio, all across the country. And I'm seeing veterans. And I support the wounded warriors. I support doctors.

without borders, even if I didn't have any money. I support them because of the need. Because what you see in the street, what we do to our veterans makes me angry. What we do to our citizens, guys who put their eyes on the line, even though they may not agree with the politics, they do what they have to do. And then it makes me really angry. It really does. It's definitely unfortunate. Yeah, it is unfortunate. And then when you've been somewhere and when you see how people are treated, how people are treated who are local citizens who don't like the government, they will tell you They're against the government, but they fall in line because the government will make sure or you'll disappear. You're going to fall in line.

Okay. So you learn to cope with the situation, and that's the one thing about the Chinese character that a lot of people don't understand. They're very, very creative because they know how to get over all the hardships and obstacles. The writer that I really like, besides, I mentioned Haywood Brown, who really started me off, and different other writers like Lewis Lomax and, of course, Malcolm X and other writers. but the one who really got me going was the thing about understanding the scholar of Franco, Dr. Franco,

from Camp to Exeter, that book, really let me see. Listen, there are ways of surviving. You can be in prison, but you can survive. It's in your mind. And it's like to you to break the bars. Break them. Definitely.

Man, you got me sold. You have crammed a lot in this, four divorces and all this travel and photography and great stuff. You have lived a life, my friend. As we go out, help us wrap the show, give people a pitch out to pick up the book wherever fine books are sold. Yes, I would urge you to check out Amazon.com or the other ones is borders.

There are many. Just plug my name in, Aaron, Anthony Vesop, and you will see that I am visible somewhere. Okay. I'm putting this up here, which has some of my, I don't know if you can see that, contact thing. Okay. But I want to shout out to Los Los, what we call them, Los Roquero, San Isidro de Heredia.

It's a little rock group that's trying there. They're trying to get it together. They're pitching a lot of wonderful things about Costa Rica and the Gurgens Tim and Laura Gorgon. They're good friends of mine, good supporters. I want to shout out to them, but I want to also shout out to those who help me along

the way. I love you all. Love you all very much. Help me along the way. And when you read American Robot, if you have any questions, or if you listen to it, if you have any questions, please drop me a line, drop me a line because I'm there, a.a, Vespa, gmail.com

or PhotomanaV at gmail.com. You can find me. I'm in the world. I'm everywhere. You are in the book. So thank you very much for coming to show. I think there was a, was there a poem you want to plug in the last minute of the show? Yes, there is.

This one is called Home Run. Even though it said the title is Home Run, base hits matter in my book. Base hits always matter. I mentioned that I'm crazy about baseball. But they say he could hit. that ball, man, he could hit that ball, and fans would come from far and near just to see them fall. And stolen bases record fell. He took them without fear. And with his heart won many games,

his skills brought thousands cheer. But in the night, I saw his face tears streaming like the rain, for no one knew his loneliness and no one felt his pain. And although he gained some fame and wealth and many things he won, some Lao praisers only saw him as a native son. They say that Berlin Wall is gone that held its fix them down, but laws nor fame don't welcome some in other parts of town, and the game's now playing in Japan, and yes, in Russia too, but bricks held up by evil pride still wall out the few, for though we have our heroes, and to fortunes some have trod, can we not sure our love is pure the ones who claim is God? Remembering young innocence, life games not all show. The longest ball is faith and hope

in truth for all to grow. American Robot. Check it out, folks. Take it out. Thank you very much for coming to show, and we really appreciate it. Thank you, Chris. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Love the energy, my friend. If we could get whatever caffeine, coffee, or drinking, for the rest of our guess, that would be really appreciate it. I love it. Red bull, red bull. I'm a fan. I'm a fan. Are you?

I should really raws my kidneys. And so, I don't know. But I drink too much for a lot of years. But no, I love your, I love your whole. outlook on life. I love your energy. I love your perspective and more people need to do that. Folks, order the book where refined books are sold, American Robot,

a cultural chameleon rises above race and religious traumas. Thank you, Erin again. Okay, thank you, Chris. Thank you. Hang in there. Hang in there. Hang in there. No broppo dope. The old Ollie. Thanks for tuning in, everyone. Go to goodrease.com, forechestchus, Chris Foss, YouTube.com, Fortress, Chris Foss,

Chris Foss, 1 on the TikTokity, and all those crazy places. be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning. Consuming too much of the Chris Walshow podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult a doctor for any resulting brain lead.