DW Duke-Overcoming Confrontation & Conflict

Show Transcript

[00:01:01] DW Duke: Thank you. My pleasure to be here. 

[00:01:03] Mark M. Bello: Welcome to the podcast. Not with Not Without a Fight is your first book, as I understand it, based on a true story set during the Holocaust era.

[00:01:13] As most of our listeners know, I'm a Jewish boy and also, and I've written a Holocaust novella also based on a true story. But talk to us about your book, why you wrote it, and what message you'd like readers to walk away with. 

[00:01:27] DW Duke: Okay. Yeah. Actually my, sixth book. I used to write law books and I got tired of writing those because nobody Reads law books.

[00:01:32] Yeah. Nobody reads those except judges, lawyers, and professors. And that's boring . So I wanted to write books that would, have more of an impact on people. So I started writing these biographical novels. Cass Bieberstein was eight years old when Germany invaded Poland in September 1st, 1939. The book starts a few years prior to that to for character development and so on.

[00:01:54] And at that point he was forced into the ghetto like everybody else. He was living in a, large mansion. His family was very wealthy. They were forced into the ghetto about two years later. But first they lived around different places in Poland. They had owned apartment buildings around the city, and they lived in those until eventually they had no choice.

[00:02:14] They were forced to go into the ghetto. And so by the age of 10 he began to decide that he wasn't going to just accept everything that was happening like, so many people were around him, and he got involved in people who were actually resisting the, confrontation. And so ultimately he began fighting.

[00:02:34] He was a sniper. His grandfather was a major in the Polish army before the war and had taught him how to use a rifle. So at a very young age, he could use a rifle and was very good.. And so by the age of 10 he was fighting. He fought in the 43 uprising and then again in the the uprising when Russia invaded from the east.

[00:02:54] He fought in that as well. Joined the Russian forces coming eastward and the book takes us through all, the years of the war and then brings us into his life afterwards. A few chapters closing, but mostly focused on the war and what happened. 

[00:03:07] Bob Gatty: That really sounds interesting. Now your next book, the Duke Legacy also is based on a true story.

[00:03:13] It takes place during the Civil War era and tells a story of a young man growing up in the south and is deeply troubled, troubled by slavery. Now, it isn't lost on me that the kid's name, last name is Duke, is this book about your own family and why did you write it?

[00:03:31] DW Duke: It's about a relative and I wrote it because of stories that we had heard passed down through the family of events that had occurred in his life.

[00:03:39] And so I decided to investigate and see if I could find corroboration in the real world to what what I had learned as a child. And I did in fact find a lot of corroborating stories. Washington was from a very young age, was opposed to slavery. He grew up in the Methodist Episcopal Church and at that time that the church was, a opposed to slavery..

[00:04:01] Later there was a division and one of the branches accepted slavery, but He was part of that church that opposed slavery from a very young age and actually got involved in the Underground Railroad in at least one instance that we're aware of. He later built the tobacco empire that the Duke family for, and at that time they actually believed that tobacco had therapeutic medicinal value.

[00:04:23] So they went into it thinking that they were doing something of benefit to society. Then later they learned that tobacco was harmful. They divested their tobacco holding went into power, Duke Energy. But ultimately the financial empire grew. And, what we have today that most people know them for is Duke University.

[00:04:42] But I, like to tell his story because he was dealing with a confrontation that, that he struggled with and didn't fully understand. But he didn't accept, and so he, tried throughout his life to find ways to deal with what, he was dealing with. I

[00:04:56] Bob Gatty: don't know where you find time to write all these books.

[00:05:00] DW Duke: I don't really have it. . . 

[00:05:02] Bob Gatty: Our country is struggling with the problems of discrimination and racism, and we all know that. Is that why you wrote Racism Awareness? Talk to us about that. 

[00:05:13] DW Duke: It is. I, was actually contacted by a large school district who had not without a fight, was one of the books they had read.

[00:05:21] They're familiar with my material and asked if I wanted to tackle the issue of. And, because there was so much, there's so much confrontation over critical race theory and the 1619 project, and it just goes on and on. They said, can you just give us, tell us what you really think of all this? What's really happening here?

[00:05:37] And so I, what I gave was a straight up, unbiased view of what I see happening. And then we addressed ways to deal with it, ways to address racism that would be effective and have some meaning. And I believe the key is, empathy. I believe empathy is the key to overcoming racism. And so now the, school district asked me to, write two more books and then a series of books from K through 12, each level that addresses empathy in different contexts, teaching students what it is because it's something that we don't practice in, the world today. And I think that's the root of our problem. 

[00:06:14] Bob Gatty: You've said that empathy's a tool in overcoming stereotypes of discrimination sounds a little bit simplistic. Can you elaborate on that a little bit for us? 

[00:06:26] DW Duke: Sure. I can give you a story that, might put it in per to perspective, because this appears in the book Racism Awareness.

[00:06:33] Lord Mansfield was with justice in England back in the 17 hundreds. He was like, everybody else believed that, that black people were inferior, intellectually inferior and so on. It was taught and believed by everyone. That's just the view people had. He had a nephew who got into a biracial relationship on, he was a captain of a ship and got into a biracial relationship and had a daughter with that, with a woman he had a relationship with, and she passed away. And as a captain of ship, he couldn't raise her on the ship. So he contacted his uncle and said, can you help me with can you help me raise Bell? Her name is Bell. And, by the way, that's a really good movie called Bell Ddo Bells.

[00:07:14] It's really good. It's a story. He said, can you help me raise Bell and, take her in while I'm traveling. And so they said, okay. And then they were shocked when he showed up and, she was a biracial child. And at that point they weren't sure what to do, but they, thought about it and said she is blood, even though she's black, she's blood and we should take her in and, raise her like we promised.

[00:07:38] So they did, and what they discovered very soon was that all the stereotypes they had heard about black people were wrong. They learned that she was not inferior. In fact, she was probably a genius.. She studied law and, was master of law by the time she was a teenager, a concert pianist. And her skills go on and on.

[00:07:56] And he kept used to all these things that we learned are just not true. And so they realized and the way they had treated her, From the time she had first arrived until they came to this realization was wrong. And, so they started changing the way they treated her. But two cases came up that were very important.

[00:08:12] And in both cases, he rendered an opinion in favor of one, one was an insurance company that there was a ship that had a group of slaves on it, and they had become ill because he had not taken enough water on the ship and because there was not enough water, they became ill and he had eight ports he could have stopped at to pick up water, but he chose not to because it was cheaper to just throw the sick slaves overboard.

[00:08:40] So he killed 133 slaves by throwing them overboard. Then they, tried to collect money from the insurance company and the insurance policy said that if you have to kill the slaves to save the lives of the crew, that is okay, and the insurance policy has to pay. But if it's for any other reason, theirs insurance policy doesn't.

[00:09:01] And this was a, huge case in England. Everybody was listening and, wanted to see how it would go. Ultimately he decided that because there were all these ports that they could have gone to, and ultimately because the reason that they got into that predicament the first place was because he was greedy and didn't want to take enough water, wanted to put on more slaves instead, he decided that the insurance company didn't have to pay so that reverberated all through England everybody was shocked that he would give a ruling like that. And then the other case was a slave that had been brought from the United States to England and was to be put onto a ship and transported elsewhere.

[00:09:39] Some white friends who knew, had filed a writ of habeas corpus for his release. And Lord Banfield looked at the law and goes there's no law in England that authorizes slavery. Nothing that supports it. Nothing that said, that's legal, nothing. And on that basis, there's no legitimate basis to hold him as a slave.

[00:09:58] So he said he had to be released. Those two cases really, in my opinion, are what solidified and, began the real abolition of slavery in England, which again occurred in 1833. And Lord Mansfield I, think the primary catalyst along with the other people who had been working for years but not as powerful as he was.

[00:10:17] He was a very, powerful judge. So it was, those cases really made a huge difference. And it was because I believe of his empathy for his niece, and in fact, those allegations were made and a lot of people wanted him to be removed from the bench, but that didn't happen. I, think it, it's empathy, you learning that, that other people are not different than you.

[00:10:39] That if we learn that they're really the same, we may have different skin color, but we're really all the same, then it's easier to understand how they would feel. And, the concept of empathy as I teach it is, to place yourself in the shoes of the person who is injured or is the subject of some type of activity that you consider could be harmful, and ask yourself, how would you feel in that situation?

[00:11:05] So in the book Racism Awareness, there's nine chapters and every chapter begins with a short story to draw the attention of the students, to get them to follow. And they read the stories and then they can apply it as they read the chapters going through, and it goes through history, and then it goes into the law constitutional analysis, and then closes with an analysis of where we are today with critical race theory and everything that's happening at the present time.

[00:11:32] Okay. 

[00:11:32] Mark M. Bello: I agree with you a hundred percent. I, think the, distinction back then was that slaves were property. 

[00:11:39] DW Duke: That's right. 

[00:11:41] Mark M. Bello: That was a big problem. In terms of, using empathy as a justification to treat them fairly. But I wanna go back to not without a fight for a moment, okay.

[00:11:52] There's a rise in anti-Semitic activities and attitudes in America today as hatred is on the rise. Do you see many parallels between what's going on in America today and the rise of Nazi Germany in. 

[00:12:06] DW Duke: Absolutely. Absolutely. I, believe what is happening, is that politicians on both sides of the aisle. I'm not gonna point at one group and say they're bad. I'm not gonna point another group say they're bad. I believe that as, a rule, identity politics have taken over our, country today, and it's extremely dangerous. I had met with one of the deans of Duke Law School yesterday or Saturday.

[00:12:28] And we had that very conversation. He said what, is going on? That is causing all this intense confrontation polarization like I have not seen since, the 1960s. And I look at this and, we've, it's even worse than the 1960s. And we, said what it is everybody is trying to do, the old Pete Floyd, us versus them approach.

[00:12:48] In other words, you try to find somebody that you say is taking advantage of other people, then you try to identify the victims and you say, I'm here to help the victims. And sometimes they're victims, sometimes they're not. Sometimes they're just figments of the identity of the autocrats mind.

[00:13:07] They're really, they're not really victims. Sometimes they are. but what they're then doing instead of approaching it with a, let's look for a solution, let's find a way to deal with this that satisfies everybody's concern and takes us forward. What they're doing. They're using that as a to throw stones and to cause confrontations.

[00:13:24] And I'll give you another example. The, busing of immigrants to New York and different places around the country. A lot of people think that's a great idea. A lot of people think it's a bad idea. I'm saying, okay, now what they did unannounced, they just put these people on buses and shipped them.

[00:13:41] Now, if people were really thinking about what they should be doing, Greg Abbott, for example, would've called Adams and said, Hey we've got a, huge number of immigrants. They're, overloading us here. We need some help. You folks, you have expressed concern for the immigrants, your a sanctuary city, can you help us? Can you house some of these people? Then call Seattle, call other cities, call San Francisco. Other cities that have stepped up and said, we're sanctuary cities and yes, we can go together and we can help one another to do this. What would that have done? It would've made everybody look good in the political arena.

[00:14:16] Instead, they used it as a football. We're gonna kick 'em up there, we're gonna kick 'em over here, and we're just gonna let 'em drop where they are, that everybody can see what it causes. That was a confrontational way to handle that. That, in my opinion, was not the right way to do what he was trying to accomplish.

[00:14:30] Mark M. Bello: Not, to mention the lack of empathy, as you described. Yep. Cause you're treating pe you're throwing people on a bus as if they're cattle. 

[00:14:38] DW Duke: That's right. 

[00:14:39] Bob Gatty: Yeah. There's no empathy there. 

[00:14:42] Mark M. Bello: And no input from them at all as to where they want to be or where they want to go, or what they want to do.

[00:14:47] Yeah. Or just throw them on a bus. But anyway wanna talk to you about Thomas Bieber's Bieberstein yes. 

[00:14:55] DW Duke: Stein. Yes. Bieber, we call Stein. 

[00:14:59] Mark M. Bello: He's the, he's the focus of your of your not Without a Fight book. And I wondered in his life beyond the Holocaust, beyond World War II, did he continue his activism?

[00:15:13] What was his life like after the war? 

[00:15:15] DW Duke: Yeah actually, Tom is his son. Cass was the one who was in the in the war. And, what he did he remained fairly quiet like many people, they migrated to the United States and I had the opportunity to meet with him many times.

[00:15:31] He was recorded in the show, a project, and he was he was active, but he was reserved, And he didn't want people to know everything he had done. In fact, they changed their name from Bieberstein to Biebers, so people wouldn't suspect that they were Jewish. And the reason was he was always concerned that Nazism could come back and they, somebody would identify him from what he did as a kid .

[00:15:52] He did kill quite a few Nazis. I mean He really did. So he did have that concern. And, he didn't tell too many people outside of the family what really he had seen and what he had done, he did. And when he was interviewed for this Spielberg Show project, he did disclose a little more information.

[00:16:09] But it wasn't until he was well into his eighties that he really started to speak publicly about it. And that's when he talked to us and, we decided to write the book. And Thomas is the co-author. 

[00:16:20] Bob Gatty: Okay. Hey, dw. I know we you touched on this a little bit, but what do you think that we can do in this country to at least ease this political polarization that, that is just terrible, that is just Obsessing with everybody.

[00:16:41] DW Duke: Because autocrats have a, have an idea that if we can keep the general public fighting with each other, we can collect votes. Yeah. One thing I, think we really need to do is if you begin holding them accountable .They're not being held accountable. And there's, everybody says all this talk about all these things is gonna happen to him, and it never does.

[00:16:58] You know nothing ever happens. So that's one thing we could do. But the other thing is the education. And, that's why I'm approaching these with these books I'm writing for the school district is, primarily education. We are creating motion pictures out of our stories because I believe that the biographical novel is the very best way to reach the public, especially the young public.

[00:17:22] They don't like to read history books and. And when it's taught it, it's so dry and boring to them. But if you take, one person like Cass Bieberstein and you tell his life or what he experienced and you weave in the history, weave it into the story. So everything is, accurate.

[00:17:41] But you have his version as well. Then people can identify and they can develop empathy for him, for his family, for the little girl that, that he liked that was killed by the Nazis. You develop that and that's how you develop empathy. Currently I, just finished writing another, book that's in editing called, Because I'm Black.

[00:18:01] And, it's about the story of Jesse Washington, who in, 1916 was lynched at the age of 17 in Waco, Texas, for a crime that, looking at it as an attorney, looking at all the evidence, I do not believe he even committed. He was accused of killing the woman, the wife of the man who owned the farm when he was a sharecropper.

[00:18:23] And someone had beat her in the head around noon with a hammer and killed her. And it looked like the clothes were disheveled to give the appearance that she was raped, although she was not, according to the doctor. And then she was left in the house, the seat house. for the rest of the day, and they didn't find her until about five o'clock when Jesse, the young 17 year old boy, was coming in from the field. He, was in the field plowing the field all day long. Now that in itself should have been glaring. Wait a minute. The guy kills a woman. He's not gonna stay there on the farm and plow the field for the rest of the day.

[00:18:58] He's gonna run. Who would stay there and, plow the field. And so that in itself was a huge, glaring problem. And it was never addressed by anybody. The way they handled it when it was addressed, they said he's, they used the term mentally retarded back then.

[00:19:15] They said he's mentally retarded, which is what they used. If you look at all the lynching, you'll find that they did that with most of 'em. Somehow they thought that justified killing them. I don't know the logic, but they saw somehow thought we, they could just justify it that way. But when I talk about, and this is gonna, if you haven't read the story or heard about it, this is gonna shock you a little bit.

[00:19:32] The trial he was assigned five attorneys. Five or six. I think it's five, at least one of which we know was a member of the kkk. This was his defense counsel. We believe that three others probably were as well. Okay. The trial itself was supposed to be there. Texas had a law at that time. You, had to give a 30 day to prepare defense.

[00:19:52] They gave him one week. The judge in unilateral changed it to one week. They shoveled him around. No one brought in the Texas Rangers, National Guard, nothing. Nobody was brought in to make sure that things stayed safe for him. He was brought into the courtroom after he went through all this interrogation and he confessed.

[00:20:10] He confessed after being told, if you don't. What they'll do to you is horrible. They're gonna lynch you. Your family could be killed, all these things, right? So he had these threats and he, consented and agreed to confess because he believed that he had to do to save his family, number one, and to save himself from torture..

[00:20:29] That's what he believed. Okay, so they bring him into the courtroom after one week. No real defense trial lasted for one hour. The defense counsel asked one question. Gave no opening, no closing. The, jury went out for four minutes, came back in announced him guilty and ascribed to a punishment of death.

[00:20:50] So immediately the judge and all the sheriffs got up and ran out of the courtroom, except for one Jewish guy, one Jewish guy stayed there, and when the crowd rushed forward and, to grab him, like the mobs always do, this court Jewish fellow fought back with his pistol the best he could started hitting and everything else.

[00:21:12] And, pretty soon he was knocked over. And so they, were able to overcome him and, take Jesse out. They drug him downtown Waco over to the main street in the process stabbing him, cut it off his fingers, cut off his genitals, just doing horrible things to the guy. Took him over to a tree and tied him to the tree, upside down.

[00:21:36] Started a fire, doused him with oil and they roasted him for two hours until he finally died, and 15,000 people sat there and watched this. 15,000 people in Waco, half the population of the city, the mayor and the sheriff were upstairs in the second story window of the office that overlooked the square.

[00:21:55] Did not do a thing to try to stop it. You look at something like that and not only is there a lack of empathy that is just pure hatred. So you wonder how on earth could something like that occur in America, and most people don't know. So what we do, we're bringing these stories and yes, we know that a lot of people are gonna be shocked.

[00:22:12] A lot of people are gonna be angry. But by not learning our history, good and bad, we make the same mistake. The only way to change things is to learn from our mistakes of the past. And, what's happening right now is people wanna do the opposite. They're trying to erase it, and that's the worst thing we could do.

[00:22:29] Mark M. Bello: That kind of brings up my next question. Your, books are based on obviously some terrible periods in history. The first two books, you've got two protagonists, Biebers and Washington. and they hate what's going on in their respective countries during their lifetime. What do you, what would they think of modern day Germany and America?

[00:22:52] Would they be pleased or disappointed with our progress. 

[00:22:54] DW Duke: I think for the most part, Washington would be pleased until what's happening. I, think he would've wanted things to develop faster because racism was, his big issue. And I, saw somebody write an article recently accusing him of being a racist and everything else.

[00:23:09] It's simply not true. We know the story, but that's all based on speculation and conjecture. But I think he would look at it and say, we're headed in the right direction, but people need to calm down. He was a very peaceful man. He was known for, being very peaceful. Would he, oh, I'll give you an example.

[00:23:27] Duke University at the time wanted to at dinner was called Trinity College. That was before they changed the name to Duke. They changed it after in honor of him. 

[00:23:34] Mark M. Bello: Is that named, a family member too? I'm sorry? Is Duke University named after a family member too? 

[00:23:39] DW Duke: Yeah, the, yes. It's named after Washington. Duke, yeah. . Wow. Okay. What happened was his daughter got typhoid. And she was, I think in her forties if I recall, and it was in the, late 18 hundreds, 1890s, I believe, and she passed away and, he got to thinking about it. He thought, you know what, if she had wanted to go to Trinity College, she wouldn't have been able to go. She would not have been able to go because she was the woman and he thought that's just not right and Boston University at that time had, been I think they may have admitted their, first student by that point. But he walked into the president's office and said, what I would like to do is, make three donations to the university, three donations of $100,000 each. Now, back then, that was a huge amount of money.

[00:24:32] Today, really not that much, but back in the 18 hundreds that was huge. So they said, oh, that, that's really nice. He'd wanna do that. He goes, but there is a condition, you get two $100,000 donations, but to get the third one, you have to admit females to the university on the same status as men.

[00:24:50] So they took it to the board of trustees and they came back and they said, let's do it. So they, that was one of the first universities to admit women's students. That was that was Washington Duke. That's what he was, that was, he was about, he always, he was giving money to to black people to start businesses and do other things.

[00:25:09] Just right after the Civil War. Just almost immediately. He helps them build insurance companies and, different things. A very unique man and much of that you can find in a public, record. So it's not it's not just from family stories. A lot of it's available in public records now.

[00:25:25] His, great granddaughter Mary did Bill Trent, Siemens. Did almost something similar in, 1960. Now, Washington Duke later said I, should not have told the university what to do like that. He goes, I probably should not have done that. I to let the them do their job. We don't really know for sure what Mary Duke, bill Siemens did, but she went into the board of trustees.

[00:25:47] 1960, I believe it was. Had a conversation with them, locked them in all day long, kept 'em all there all day long, brought food in. They worked and worked, They came out a little bit later and said, Duke University will now admit black students. And it was the first, one of the first universities again to do that.

[00:26:01] And, it was because of something she had done. She told the story about her father one time. This was when she was very young. They were he had a, there was a an African man that had a, lived on a, railroad car and next to a lake and he would fish and binge him and go fish with him all the time.

[00:26:24] And one time he brought her with him and, they said they were eating the, they were eating fish. And they, he, they said Mary, would you like one? She goes, no, I'm not gonna eat that. and he scolded her, Benjamin scolded. He said, you never say something like that to a man who's offered you something.

[00:26:40] This was really good for him to do that. Scolded her. And she said, I never forgot that. I learned a very important lesson. And he was obviously wasn't a wealthy man, but he lived in a railroad car, so he always tried to reach out and have those communications with people of, other races. 

[00:26:54] Bob Gatty: Hey, D w I understand that Not Without a Fight's being turned into a movie. What's the status? 

[00:27:00] DW Duke: Several things are happening with that. We have contributors, we have funders who have agreed to fund it. We were ready to go right before the pandemic. We met with a number of production companies in Hollywood. I'm doing that part with my, cousin Pat Duke.

[00:27:18] And don't laugh when I tell you that. He's the narrator for television show called Swamp People . He's not a redneck , he does narrate that show . And, so he and I are writing, we're putting together all these screenplays and that was, that's one we're doing. and we did, we do have, we've had funding.

[00:27:37] It, was stopped because of the pandemic. We're told that it's still coming so far it has not yet, but we've got production companies. met with seven production companies, some of the biggest in, Hollywood. And there's one of them two of them actually leave it, but we focused on it and we'll probably go with one of those two.

[00:27:55] But at this point, we're still just waiting on funding. 

[00:27:57] Mark M. Bello: All right. The core message of your books seems to be that we shouldn't be erasing history, we should be learning from it. What do you think about the current discussion in America where they're banning books and they're sugarcoating history and they're and they're trying to essentially ban the truth?

[00:28:16] It shouldn't we be telling the truth? 

[00:28:18] DW Duke: We should. And, that's always been a problem. And, this gets into the, conversation of critical race theory. So people say then one of the things they wanted me to address in the book, Race and Awareness, what's going on with Critical Race Theory, we want you to tell us the truth.

[00:28:32] And I said, okay. As of now, 41 states have passed laws either to restrict or ban it completely. And you say, what is it that they don't like about it? Now, the book I wrote would be considered Critical race theory, but you have to understand critical race theory is not a thing. It's not an idea.

[00:28:49] It's a method of study. It's a method of study that incorporates a history of minorities and, it primarily has focused on black people. But my point is to bring all, minorities, all people of all races and, bring the history of things that they did and didn't do, and things that happened to them that have never been addressed.

[00:29:06] Our history books as kids were, that in, in our public schools and, even private schools that we have no idea what really, took place. Recently that we've developed this concept of, people call it woke and they, mean I've learned the history of the, of what happened to the black people.

[00:29:24] And Mayor Adams, New York, mayor Adams recently said that is really damaging the Democrat Party. The reason is some of us were never asleep. We always knew this and now everyone is acting shocked and they're angry. And he goes, it's driving people out of the Democrat party. Cause they're seeing this behavior that they're very concerned about.

[00:29:42] And he said, people need to calm down and, we need to regroup. Kamala Harris said the same thing she said, she was asked, is America a racist country? And she said, no, but we need to go back and learn things in history that before have not been brought forward. And it was sanitized, it was kept quiet.

[00:30:02] All of the things, so that happened in the Jim Crow era, the 5,000 lynchings that are known to have occurred during the Jim Crow era, that very few people know about them. People need to hear these stories. They need to learn these stories. And that's why, again, the biographical novel, I think is the best way to do it because people they, can watch something. in some ways, they're entertained.

[00:30:22] You don't want them to be so entertained, they don't get the message, but you want them to get some enjoyment out of watching the movie. And so you, bring it up, bring the good parts and, do it that way. 

[00:30:33] Mark M. Bello: We're out of time. I, oh, no. I'm a big, I'm a big fan of what, Rodney King said years ago.

[00:30:38] Can't we all get along? 

[00:30:40] DW Duke: Yes. , I remember that. Yeah. 

[00:30:42] Mark M. Bello: I, wish you success with your career and lots of luck with Because I'm Black and I'll let Bob close. 

[00:30:51] 

Bob Gatty:

 I just wanna thank you DW, for being with us on, for both of our podcasts. It's just great. What you're doing is awesome and I join with Mark in wishing you only the bes