Alexa hasn’t lived a day in any decade or century yet endlessly offers information and acceleration to anyone tapping in.  Street Speak is all about making an authentic connection with a digital device and sheer know it all.  None of this is scripted.  This really is Alexa from Amazon.  You can’t predict a single word Alexa shares.  She’s AI technology.  Endlessly we are warned to never believe what she shares.  Yet it sounds amazingly authentic.  Ultimately, it’s your choice.  So why am I using my real name versus Arroe?  The AI unit thinks if she he or it has to be authentic so do I. This is Street Speak with Alexa and Clarence…

This episode includes AI-generated content.

William Morrow is thrilled to publish RETRIBUTION: A US Marine's Fight for Justice, from the Russian Gulag to Ukraine's Front Lines by Trevor Reed on January 27, 2026. As the war in Ukraine remains complicated, Reed shares his firsthand perspective on the conflict, along with an unprecedented, first person account of life in the Russian gulag.In August 2019, Trevor Reed, a former US Marine and Presidential Guard, was arrested in Russia on false, trumped-up charges. For three years, he was imprisoned in the infamous Russian gulag, where the inhumane treatment threatened his health so severely his parents and the U.S. government feared for his life. After losing roughly fifty pounds from his already trim body, he was released in a 2022 prisoner swap that dominated headlines. Most people would go home, try to move on with their lives, and forget the horrors they endured. But not Trevor Reed.Reed trained relentlessly to regain his health and strength, aiming to volunteer in Ukraine to fight the Russians and seek revenge. Having faced Russian cruelty up close, he knew what the Ukrainians were experiencing, and he knew he could help them. Just six months after being released from prison, Reed smuggled himself into Ukraine. He fought in one of the hottest fronts of the war . . . until one dark night a comrade stepped on a land mine. Reed almost lost his leg and his life, barely making it home to Texas alive.

Lessons From the Front is the most honest, relatable, and humble book yet written about Ukraine and the Middle East. It's not the memoir of a seasoned correspondent - it's the raw perspective of a 25-year-old kid from Cleveland who thought he understood the world. until war humbled him.One day in Ukraine taught him he had much to learn. One day in the Middle East taught him he didn't know much of anything at all. Instead of pretending to be an expert, Robert admits what he doesn't know, learns in real time, and lets the people living the conflict teach him - and the reader - what war really asks of ordinary human beings.Unlike most war books, this isn't about strategy, geopolitics, or ideology. It's about people - families fleeing, soldiers breaking, civilians surviving - and the lessons these fast-paced moments teach about home, time, fear, and humility.Listeners will walk away saying: "The world is more complex than I thought - and I want to understand it better."

What are the current setbacks of hosting a success podcast?  We dive into the facts and figures wihtout spoiling your calling.  Podcasting is all about having a freedom to speak.  Know your audience while keeping a firm grip on your sponsors. The competition has never been higher.

A personal and cultural exploration of the struggles between art and business at the heart of modern Hollywood, through the eyes of the talent that shaped it Matthew Specktor grew up in the film industry: the son of legendary CAA superagent Fred Specktor, his childhood was one where Beau Bridges came over for dinner, Martin Sheen's daughter was his close friend, and Marlon Brando left long messages on the family answering machine. He would eventually spend time working in Hollywood himself, first as a reluctant studio executive and later as a screenwriter. Now, with The Golden Hour, Specktor blends memoir, cultural criticism, and narrative history to tell the story of the modern motion picture industry-illuminating the conflict between art and business that has played out over the last seventy-five years in Hollywood. Braiding his own story with that of his father, mother (a talented screenwriter whose career was cut short), and figures ranging from Jack Nicholson to CAA's Michael Ovitz, Specktor reveals how Hollywood became a laboratory for the eternal struggle between art, labor, and capital. Beginning with the rise of Music Corporation of America in the 1950s, The Golden Hour lays out a series of clashes between fathers and sons, talent agents and studio heads, artists, activists, unions, and corporations. With vivid prose and immersive scenes, Specktor shows how Hollywood grew from the epicenter of American cultural life to a full-fledged multinational concern-and what this shift has meant for the nation's place in the world. At once a book about the movie business and an intimate family drama, The Golden Hour is a sweeping portrait of the American Century.

NOTHIN' COMES EASY: The Life of Rodney Dangerfield (April 29, 2025) is the first biography of the "bug-eyed, sweaty, herky-jerky, tie-pulling comedian with the doleful countenance." Dangerfield's indelible beat-down image was played for laughs, but there were sad truths behind his sad-sack persona. TV writer Michael Seth Starr has crafted an immensely entertaining bio of the comedian's slog up the show business ladder. Ten years as a C-level stand-up comedian, he quit the business to sell aluminum siding and paint to keep the lights on. Then he went back to the clubs under an entirely new name, from Jack Roy to Rodney Dangerfield. A career-changing appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show at the ripe age of forty-five would be the lucky break, opening doors to television, movies, and comic fame at last. His catch phrase, "I don't get no respect," underscored his circuitous rise to the top after years of setbacks and grit. "What stood out for me, in authoring this book," writes Starr, '"was Dangerfield's perseverance in the face of such overwhelming odds. I was impressed at how he launched a second comedy career as a man already in his forties and out of the game for a decade. He never abandoned his undeniable urge to get back in the game and to share his seemingly unending reservoir of magical one-liners." At the beginning of his comeback, he began writing jokes for comedians like Jackie Mason and Joey Bishop, in the days before the "no respect" persona was solidified. He worked agentless, making his own deals. And it took him a solid five years to clinch his now celebrated debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. It took another few years of hustling on the circuit before he landed on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, which opened a wealth of doors in Hollywood. Dangerfield's comedy style - a self-mocking angst, the comedy of the perpetual loser - was endearing and universal. He was the schlubby Everyman snubbed by life, finally making it big. Soon Dangerfield would be leaving his mark in films, most famously in Caddyshack and Back to School. He was rebuffed in later years by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - which refused him membership. But Dangerfield had already cemented his place in comedy history as a writer and performer. When he died in 2004, his death made international headlines. Among his pallbearers were George Carlin, Roseanne Barr, Chris Rock, Larry David, Andrew Dice Clay, Jon Lovitz, and Carl Reiner. The book closes with a highly engaging chapter, "Riffs on Rodney," with remembrances of the comic from his peers including Jay Leno, Rita Rudney, Bob Nelson, Robert Wuhl, and Pauly Shore.