Navigating Turbulent Times: Insights from Immigration Lawyer and Author Andy Semotiuk

In this compelling episode of The Patrick Bass Show, join Patrick as he delves into a captivating conversation with Andy Semotiuk, a Canadian-born author, U.S. and Canadian immigration lawyer, and extraordinary storyteller. From the turbulent state of current affairs to personal anecdotes that shed light on the human spirit, Andy shares his unique perspectives on pressing global issues.

Discover the untold story of Solomija Kruszynicka, the star of opera's golden age, and how her remarkable journey inspired Andy's latest book. Learn the four essential rules for a successful life and enjoy a dose of humor as Patrick and Andy exchange light-hearted jokes and true stories that will leave you laughing.

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The Patrick Bass Show. Real talk, no limits. The home of undiluted truth. Listen up. This show isn't for the faint of heart or the easily offended. We're diving into the real issues. No nonsense and no sugarcoating. From exposing the lies you won't hear on mainstream media to waving the banner of truth and fighting for a better America. We're on a mission to set things straight. Brace yourself for bold conversations, raw insights, and a whole lot of truth. So sit down, strap in, and hang on. Now, here's your host, Patrick Bass. Welcome back to our two of the Patrick Bass show broadcast on the Vanguard Radio Network. You can check us out at PWBass .com. Thanks so much for tuning in. Got another great guest for you that we're going to be introducing here in just a moment. But before we do, I want to remind you to please go to our website, PWBass .com and also check us out on Facebook. Our Facebook website is Facebook .com slash real Patrick Bass. If you can go there and like us, I would definitely appreciate it. We're trying to get certain number of likes so that Metta will let us go live on their network. We're going to get right into our next guest, Andy Samocik, who is a Canadian born author. He's a U S and Canadian immigration lawyer, but that's really just the tip of the iceberg. He's got an amazing story and he's going to tell us all about it. And we'll hear more about it when we come back right after this message. We're just getting started. More real and raw takes that the rest of the media are scared to admit. Coming up next on the Patrick Bass Show. We're the Goo Goo Dolls. We're fortunate that our daughters have what they need to grow and learn. But that isn't the case for nearly 13 million kids in the US that struggle with hunger. Childhood hunger is a heartbreaking reality that Feeding America is working to change. Each year, the Feeding America Network of Food Banks rescues billions of pounds of good food that would have gone to and it to families and children in need. can help kids in need in your community by visiting feedingamerica .org. Brought to you by Feeding America and the Ad Council. Welcome back to the Patrick Bass Show. Thanks for being here with us. I love Neil Diamond. You know, I saw that we just lost another great actor, Andy. Did you see that on the news? Trying to think of his name is escaping me right now. Let me look at him. I'll have to look it up. It was right there. And then this is the second time that's happened to Dan. it happens to me all the Yeah, getting over a cold still, which is why I sound like a really rough guy. I'm not normally this gruff, but listen, hey, Andy Semotiuk is here with us and I'm really excited to have him as a guest. He's got really a diverse range of things that he talks about and a lot of interest. Everything from immigration law to history to humor and his different experiences. Welcome to the show. How are you doing? Thanks, I'm happy to be here, delighted to join you and I like your introduction. And I was just involved in a conversation that might be of interest to you. I know you're one of these heavy hitters, you like to the news and get right to the big issues of the day. And we were talking earlier with Well, we're talking about what's going on in the states with some immigration attorneys on a phone call today. And I mentioned to them that I've never seen America in such a raw state as it is at the moment. And listen, I go back a long way. As a matter of fact, I remember seeing President Eisenhower personally. I was in Washington, D .C. at an event where President Eisenhower was there. That's how far back I go. And I remember on that occasion, that was in 1967 in Washington, D .C. And after that event, the whole mass of us had to go walking to a Coliseum where we had an evening event. And we had to walk through a ghetto back then. It was a black ghetto. Now, I was from Canada. You mentioned I'm from Canada. I was born in Canada. But I spent half my life in the US. I practiced law 10 years in Los Angeles, five years in New York. When I was a kid, I went to school in Los Angeles in high school. So I got a bit of both societies. I got a view of what life was like up in Canada and also what life is like in the US. But one of the most shocking things I observed was going through that ghetto back in 1967 in Washington, DC on the way to the event. People living in such squalor, you know, kids playing on a dirty street, know, people lying on the pavement, sitting on balconies and things like that. It was shocking to me as a young kid that there's people like that, you know, that life is like that. in those circumstances. How could it be? How could it be? And here we are, 2024. Life is still like that in parts of the United States. And I'm not saying Canada's much better than we got in Canada. We got similar kind of issues. But why is that? know, why, what kind of people are we that we can't somehow sort out? you know, the economics of life and make life decent for everybody. And while we were talking like this, one of the attorneys asked me, well, hey, well, you you've been around a long time. How would you compare life today with, you know, Eisenhower days or whatever, you know, what's changed? And I thought to myself and answered, and this is what I thought I might share with you. I don't remember a time in all that history, and I lived through Eisenhower, Nixon, Kennedy, the assassination of the whole works, know, Cuban Missile Crisis, Iraq, the whole works. I don't remember a time when people refused to see the truth. Like, I can understand you have different views, you can fight over what is the truth, what are facts, and so I don't have any problem with fighting about facts. But this business of, I'm thinking of the election, the last election in the United States, the presidential election. Now, who am I to preach to you? I'm not God, you know, I'm Canadian in background. I don't have a right to preach, but this is my view, my personal view. I don't get it. How is it possible? for people, know, look, I've read into it. I've read all the books, you know, the congressional hearings, the Mueller report, the, you know, the book put out by Cheney about what was going on in the whole works and other books like, you know, these historians, the authors, Ann Applebaum, Timothy Snyder and so on. But 60 lawsuits, okay, you don't agree with the results of the election. You go to court, you fight it, you lose 60 times. You read all these books and they document everything that happened. Everybody went through it. The people who have been making rumors about the election, you know, being unfair and so on, being sued and actually losing. And here we are even today. Yesterday I was watching, forgive me for preaching from my pulpit, but yesterday I'm watching Vice President Vance saying If it was he, wouldn't have approved the, you he wouldn't have acted like Pence did. To me, that's just like awesome. That's like shocking. How could someone say that? Especially someone who's now going to be the vice president of the United States. You know, I don't have answers for that. We are definitely in a tumultuous time. And it's like there's dry kindling everywhere in our country and people are going around lighting matches and throwing them. Something's going to catch on fire pretty soon. And let me just preface what I'm about to say with this disclaimer. I don't advocate anything that would be contrary to law. or incite anybody to do anything. I am fearful that we are on the brink of failure as a country. And depending on how things go in these next few months and during the election, my great fear is that it's going to devolve and escalate quickly into something would ultimately damage our country fundamentally and prevent recovery. I don't know what's going to happen, but from one perspective, and if you followed my show at all before Andy, and I'm sure you have, you know that I have a Christian worldview of many things. And from my viewpoint and perspective, this is Ed, you said people don't want to see the truth. This is a sign from my viewpoint of the end times. Now, is it the beginning of the end or is it the end of the end? I think it's probably the beginning of the end. Now here's the thing. There have been other points in time where people have said that World War II, things like that. This is the end. Even going back into, you know, Roman times when Nero was, you know, burning, burning, Rome and blaming it on Christians. It was, as it turned out, just a really bad time in history. It wasn't the end after all. Life continued, the world had continued and things happened thereafter. So I'm not making any prophecies or predictions. I'm just saying that from where I'm sitting right now, it seems like it's the beginning of the end. I don't know. That being said, like I said, there's this dry kindling everywhere and people are just going Lighting matches metaphorically and eventually I'm afraid something's going to catch on fire. Yeah, I'm very disturbed by the assassination attempt on President Trump. I have no sympathy or, you know, like, I can't believe that that happened. I don't read anything into it. I just accept the fact that some guy who climbed up on a roof decided to take a pot shot at the president, a former president. I condemn that. I condemn all violence. I don't want any violence. don't want any hardship for anybody. I would just like to see some sort of a peaceful resolution of the political events that are coming. I am an optimist. I believe America will make it through this time period. I'm not sure that I think it's the end of the end or the beginning of the end. I'm not sure I share that view with you. But maybe, maybe it is. I'm not God. can't say what's happening here. But I believe we can do better as human beings. And if I were to portray it, I would divide the opinions into two worldviews. One worldview is, I love the Zig Ziglar, I don't know if you remember him, a speaker, he's a Christian, and he always used to say, his favorite saying was, you can get anything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want. That's right. I love that saying. I like to live by that world, that saying. The other view is, give me what I want and to hell with everybody else. That's, I think, a view that needs to change. yeah. So, go ahead. well, what I was going to say, and you had mentioned early on that you remember Eisenhower, the first president I remember was Ford. That's the first president that I had this understanding of this man is very important. You know, I was in grade school, like third or fourth grade. But you know, Andy, my entire life, I was born in 1969. my entire life, our country has been in some world conflict or another, some war, my entire life. We have been a nation at war my entire life. And, you know, in my youth, I, you know, I had this bravado that, you know, I want to go fight for my country and all these patriotic things. And I support and encourage that being patriotic. But time has tempered me. I think, And I've learned a couple of things. And this is probably no revelation for you, I'm sure. But one I've learned is that life is fragile. Our structure of society is also fragile. But I also realized that at our core, at the core, people are basically the same. We all basically want the same thing. We want to have a happy life. We want to be able to, you know, have... have things that are enjoyable and fun. We want to have all of our basic necessities covered. And we want to, you know, love our family and stuff like that. What I'm fearful of is when I start to see things where that no longer becomes true, where there's not this natural love among people, you know, where it seems like we're turning on one another and fighting it for no other reason than there's nothing better to do, it seems like. And that's very sad to me. you know, while I said that I think it might be the beginning of the end, I also have this hope and that is my desire that like you, we're gonna make You know, I can't help but be optimistic. think that, see, look, you know, I share the kind of viewpoint you do. You mentioned that you're sort of Christian in background. I have a story to tell you. from one of my books that might be interesting. It's not exactly on this topic, but I think it might help sort of lighten the discussion a little bit. It's about my mother. My mother was deaf. She didn't hear well. And she was raising me. My father died when I was nine years old. And so, you know, I lived with her all my life. But, you know, I grew up married and so I had kids. And one day my wife, my mother came over to our house and she says, now she didn't speak English very well. Before the program started, we talked and I mentioned I'm Ukrainian in background. You know, everybody comes from somewhere, know, Greek, you know, don't know, Italian, Jewish, whatever you are, you come from some, okay, I came from Ukraine, or at least my background is, I was born in Canada. Our family was in Canada for 110 years, but before that we all came from Ukraine. And my mother came from Ukraine. And so I said, you know, she's hard of hearing, doesn't speak English well, and she announces to me, I'm going to Lourdes, Lourdes, France. I said, oh, why are you going to Lourdes, France? First of all, She doesn't speak English. She can't hear. She could get on an airplane flight from Canada to Lourdes, France. Like, really? She says, yeah, I'm going to Lourdes, France. So, OK. Now, I knew why she wanted to go to Lourdes, France. And it was because all her life she regretted that she couldn't hear. And she believed that if she was to Lourdes, France, where miracles happen, that maybe, just maybe, she will have a miracle and she will hear. And the problem in her life was because of the inability to hear properly, she had a negative view of everything. Everything is bad. Nothing's good. know, like we'd be walking down the street and there was a cute dog and I would say, look, mom, there's a cute dog. And she says, yeah, he's cute, but he's probably got, you know, some kind of some kind of trouble with his fur, know, just like picky negative, always negative, always negative, always pining about, why I can't hear like everybody. If I could have heard, I could have accomplished so much in Sonia. But so, okay, so you're going to Lourdes, okay, okay. How long are you going for? I'll be there for a week, okay. I didn't believe she's gonna actually do it, but she did it. She got on the plane. She went to Lourdes, France. A week later she came back. And so help me God, a miracle happened in her But it wasn't quite the miracle she was hoping for. The miracle she was hoping for is that she would come back and be able to hear proper like everybody else. But the miracle that happened was she went there and she saw all these people suffering with all kinds of incurable diseases on crutches, on wheelchairs. struggling, struggling somehow to make it from day to day. And it turned her attitude around on life. She came back with a positive attitude. She said, my God, thank God for what I have and for the life I have in Canada. I don't have a life like those poor people back there in the woods. And for the rest of her life, thankfully, she was more, not perfect, but much better. And, you know, we're all struggling. Like, we've all got... a change of scenery and change of perspective can impact your entire outlook on life? Yeah. And so maybe we need to change a perspective on what's going on. And maybe we could be, you know, a little more supportive of each other in our lives. And you talk about war, if you'll permit me. You know, if you call me a Ukrainian, Ukrainians, we have a problem. Our neighbor came into the house one day and said, you know what? I've decided I'm going to live here. Wait a minute, this is our house. Well, that doesn't matter. know, like that's the problem over in Ukraine. know, unfortunately, it's being invaded. Now you could say, well, you know, Christ said, turn your, you Love your enemy and turn your face, you know, whatever. But that doesn't, unfortunately, it can work in a world where you could say the devil is operating, or if you don't like it at that level, then at least people are not functioning the way they should. lead your life whatever way you want, so long as you don't hurt someone else. But when you're hurting someone else, there's a problem. And so we got this problem. And America's helping Ukraine at the moment. Thankfully, thankfully. But it's not helping Ukraine because, know, for Ukraine, we're going to help Ukraine. What's happening here, most people don't realize this, but what's happening here is when the Soviet Union fell apart, Ukraine ended up with the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world, third largest with strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. And they had a meeting in Europe, Russia, the United States, France, China, and Ukraine. And they said, hey, hey, hey, we got to do something about these nuclear weapons, but this can't be like this. And they come, this is called the Budapest Accord in 1994. They said, okay, look, you surrender your nuclear weapons and we'll guarantee your sovereignty and independence. Surrender them to who? Well, to Russia. Russia, you give the weapons to Russia and we'll guarantee your sovereignty. So they did. Ukraine did. But now, now there's stuff, well, you know, like, well, you know, what do we need to support Ukraine for? We've got our own problems, know, like, you know, that. Well, welcome to the real world where we need each other. And if we think these are all my views, forgive me, maybe you may have other views. My view is we need each other. And you think America doesn't need other allies. You think we can surrender NATO. Go ahead, you go your way. We're going to look after our own work. This is the philosophy. Give me what I want and hell with everybody else. In my view, that's what's going on here. No, no, no. The philosophy's gotta be, we'll help you with yours if you help us with ours. 9 -11, what happened? We needed help. America was the one that it invoked Article 5 of the NATO Convention because they were, you know, like I worked for five years in your, let me tell you, I'm sorry, I'm like. You give me a microphone, I can't stop. You got to put on the brakes, you know, but forgive me. But I worked in New York in a law firm in the FIDI Financial District of New York in Manhattan. Forgive me, I'm gonna go on a little tangent, just a little humor. There's two kind of New York lawyers. A guy says, I'm a New York lawyer. If you're a New York lawyer, here's what you ask. where's your office? If the answer is you're in Manhattan, okay, you're a real New York lawyer. If your answer is you're in Albany, no, you're a New York lawyer, but you're not the, you know, this is not the first class. Okay, so I'm in Manhattan. in the financial district. I'm just kidding. I don't mean to demean New York lawyers. Don't get mad at me for saying that. That's just a side. Forgive me for that. Anyway, I'm in New York. I'm in Manhattan. I'm on the sixth floor of One Battery Park Plaza. I practiced there for a few years. A fire marshal comes in and they do a fire test. They turn on the alarms, we have to all come out of the office and the fire marshal takes us down the steps, sends us down the steps and then they call us up. And I realized, because I wasn't there at the time of 9 -11, but I realized there are all kinds of people who are very scared about low flying airplanes in the Manhattan area because of that. of that event. And I don't blame them. It's like real serious. Going through that World Trade Center every day is a reminder. Hey, hey, pal, like wake up. We've got to be careful. And my point is we need allies. Right now, Ukraine needs allies. It's fighting. And their men and women are dying, dying daily. There's a report that out of Ukraine, I think it's over a thousand Russian men are dying a day on the front. I don't know what they don't report to Ukrainian deaths, but surely they're high as well. A thousand a day. Ukraine reports that over 500 ,000 Russians have died in that war. And I'm sure Ukraine has, I'm not going to say 500 ,000, but I'm sure they have hundreds of thousands. That's what's happening on the front lines. But we're not dying, like Americans, Canadians, Europeans, we're not dying. But we're trying to help them. And it's good that we're trying, in my view. It's healthy for us and for them. And so that's my take on the world scene right now from those points of view. I actually agree that we should be helping. We should help any republic or democratic nation that needs it. I mean, that should be the mission, one of our missions. You know, you were talking about the Budapest Accord. I think people have forgotten about that. And it kind of underscores that concept that if you don't remember history, you're going to repeat I remember when the Soviet Union broke up and became all these independent nation states, one of them, of course, was Ukraine. There were others. Who would have ever thought that the Soviet Union would have broken up? It was extraordinary. And it was, I think, largely thanks to President Reagan, who was instrumental in that, I think. kind of goes back to my fear of what could happen to the US. Who could ever think that something like that could happen here? I sure hope not. You know, I've never been to Canada, Andy, but I was close to it once when I lived in Seattle. We were going to go to Canada and something happened at the last minute. We ended up not going. But I've been to Mexico. I've been, of course, all over the United States. I've lived in probably seven or eight different states. I've been to every state in the US except for Alaska, Hawaii and Maine. And I think this is the best place in the world. It has its faults, absolutely, but what doesn't? And there's, you know, different political ideals and things like that. But I think it's time for people in America set some of this aside and remember that above all and first and foremost, we're Americans. And I hope and pray that it never comes to it where we would fight one another again in a civil conflict. But I hope that we can be what we should. We should be leaders of the free world, helping others to achieve that same type of liberty. And for a lot people were a beacon of hope, were something that they would aspire to be like. we should at least set a good example. know, some of this infighting has just gotten ridiculous. And I know that we can do better and I hope that we do. No matter what these next months would bring in terms of who our new leader will be, I hope that we can be better and, you know, accept the results as they and just move forward with being a better country than what we've been. I feel like we've been through the wringer, but now I guess I'm on my soapbox preaching. You mentioned something about some humor. I have a feeling you've got some really good jokes, Andy. Okay, yeah, I've got a few. Here's my favorite joke. A lady, I love parrot jokes. A lady buys a parrot and she wants to teach the parrot how to talk. So she takes him home and you know, their neighbors coming, visiting from time to time. So she figures something good to teach the parrot is that. ask the question when someone knocks the door or knocks on the door, rings the door, who is it? So she's teaching the parrot, who is it, who is it, who is it? After a while the parrot gets it, who is it, who is it, who is it? So just then she has to go shopping. So she leaves the parrot at home, she goes shopping. And while she's away, the plumber comes by and he knocks on the door and the parrot says, who is it? And he says, it's the plumber. And the parrot says, who is it? And he says, it's the plumber. The parrot says, who is it? And the guy keeps saying, it's the plumber. And he gets so exasperated, he faints on the doorstep. And then the lady comes back from the grocery. She's standing there, and there's a guy lying on the doorstep. And she goes, my goodness. I don't know what happened. I wondered, who is it? And the parrot says, is the plumber. That's a joke that kind of grows on you, but after a while He learned it after so many times. That reminds me of one of those silly jokes. It starts off like a duck walks into a bar, that kind of thing. But I love humor. I love integrating humor into presentations and the writings. You've written a number of books. How many books have you written? I've written four, published five. My son wrote book called the 401 Goofy Jokes for Kids. That's the fifth one. When he was 12 years old. Yeah, was in school and they had this organization that was trying to teach kids a little bit about business, junior achievement it was called. So they said, oh look, you know. What could you do to run a business? And he came home saying, I got to do a business project. I well, what do you want to do? said, I don't know. said, well, what do you like doing? I like jokes. I said, well, OK, let's put together a joke book. So we published the book, 401 Goofy Jokes for Kids. All these books, by the way, are on Amazon, if anybody's interested. You can just look up any one of the titles or my name and you'll find them. I'd like to share this little touchy, but your program is one of these little hit -hard kind of things. I want to you a true story that's funny. One day was at an event at a hotel and while I was there I had to go to the washroom. And I was in the stall and the guy next to me in the stall next to me says, hey. And I'm thinking, yeah. He says, how you doing? I'm thinking this guy's weird. Okay. He says, you're going to be long. No. says, can I help you? No, no, can't help me. says, hang on Joe, there's some weirdo in the stall next to me trying to start up a conversation. He's on the cell phone. That's a true story. I got a true story for you that's kind of similar. You mentioned your mom was deaf. I have really bad hearing in one ear. In fact, I have almost complete hearing loss in it. So I put my phone on vibrate, as many people do, but I also had it at one point where when it would ring, the light would flash on it. Well, I was at an airport and I had my phone in my front pocket of my shirt. And I was at the urinal doing what you do at the urinal. And at that moment, somebody called me and my phone flashed. And the guy next to me, I thought he was going to hit me. He was convinced that I had taken pictures. It was, he got very loud, it got very embarrassing. I thought the police were going to be called. I finally gave him my number and said, call this number, it flashes when it rings. After I gave him the appropriate amount of assurances that I had not indeed taken pictures in the men's room at the urinal, I immediately turned that feature off. life's little events when you're not expecting that things you don't think about when you Yeah. Good. you've done a lot of amazing things. mean, you've been a UN correspondent, a lawyer, author, in the case of your son's book, a publisher. What do you think, in terms of a successful life, what do you think the four rules of a successful life Well, I'll give you a four. They're not as deep and profound as you're expecting, but I'll give you four. They're hard. They're hard to follow, but I'll give you the four. First rule. Do what you promise. Second rule. Come on time. Third rule. Finish what you start. fourth rule. Mean what you say and there I mean don't be cynical. Be honest, forthright. When you say something mean what you say. Those are my four rules. That's what we call dad advice. You know, and I think the world needs more of that kind of practical, I've been where you're at and I made mistakes and this is how you navigate it. Here's four rules to live a better life. I love that. And some of those I have used in my book, coincidentally, at least a variation of them. particularly, you know, and I've said this before, it's on my website, you know, that our reputation is what people think we will do, but our character is what we will indeed do. And so hopefully our character and our reputation are very similar. We're known to have a good reputation because we have a good character. That's the hope. But I love those four rules. There's a saying, who you are speaks so loudly, I can barely hear what you're saying. Well, that's deep. That comes from, I think that comes from Cavett Robert, who was the head of the National Speakers Association at one time. One of the big names in the US. None of this stuff that I'm talking about, I'm not smart enough to come up with this stuff. I picked it up from other people, you know. Well, you know what, Andy? mean, why recreate the wheel? mean, pick this stuff up as it goes and if it serves you well, then teach it to somebody else. Now, you just wrote a book, and I'm not even going to try and say this person's name, Salima Solamia. How do you say that last name? Solomia. You might have heard Solomia. know, some of the songs have the name Solomia. Solomia is her name. She was the, it's called Solomia, Star of Opera's Golden Age. And what led you to write a book about Okay, I'm going to tell you a little story I can tell you about that. I'm going to say this about it first. First of all, she was my grandmother's sister, my great aunt. That's a quick answer. But let me tell you a little story about that book. The first thing I got to say is, look, not everybody's an opera fan or follows opera. I recognize that fact. But this book is not about opera. It's about human achievement. It's about what a woman can do with her life. Now, we all have our own, you know, callings or vocations. I'm a lawyer, immigration lawyer, you're podcast host. Everybody's got their own, you know, you choose your field of endeavor and you do whatever you can in your field. So this lady, this woman, chose the field of opera. And she rose from obscurity to be the world's leading soprano in the first decade of the 19th century. That's the 1900s. know, talent was part of it, but there are certain things that she had that many others didn't. And in the book I described that. Among those were she spoke eight languages. She learned over 50 operas by heart, both the melody and the, you know, the lyrics and the melodies. And she traveled around the world. Like she was in all of Europe, North Africa. She sang in South America, in North America. In fact, she was in New York in 1928. She was in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia performing during the roaring 20s, 1928. That's the year that the Chrysler building was built, if you know the Chrysler building in New York. Listen, Harlem was hot with jazz back then in those days. Duke Ellington and all that stuff. And she loved music, all kinds of music. But there was one story in particular that I'd like to relate from the book that I think might be of interest to the listeners that you have. It's a story about the opera Madam Butterfly. And this is the 120th year anniversary of the staging of that opera, which is to this day, one of the top operas in the world. Now, if you're not an opera, maybe you don't know anything about this, you know, maybe you don't go to opera every day. But I'd like to share this little story about this opera and why it might be significant to you as someone living in America or wherever you It's the story, the opera, a little bit about the opera. It's the story about an American naval officer named Pinkerton who comes to Japan in the 1800s to open up Japan. America opened up Japan back then in the 1800s. And. He meets a geisha girl, a Japanese geisha girl named Chiyo Chiyo's son. And they have a relationship, the two of them. And following that relationship, which leads actually to a of a ceremony, a marital ceremony in Japan. And shortly after that, he announces that he's being called back to the United States and has to leave. But he promises Chiyo Chiyo -san he will return back to Japan to see her again. And she lets him go and does not tell him that she's pregnant and that her son, she's carrying his son. So he leaves. And four or five years later, he returns back to Japan. And Chiyo Chiyo -san is so happy to have seen that he's returned, but only to learn that he's brought in tow with him an American wife. And the Chiu Chiu's son and Pinkerton then face a crisis. And the crisis is what do do about this son? Should the son remain with a geisha girl in Japan or should he go back to the United States with Pinkerton, albeit with his new American wife? And they decide that the boy should go back, four -year -old, four and five -year -old, should go back to America with Pinkerton. But before he is sent off from Japan to the United States, Chiyo Chiyo's son takes him off to the side. And she says to him these words. She says, look at this face. It is the face of your mother. Remember it. You will never see it again. And with those words, she lets the sun off to go with Pinkerton and commits Harry Carrey kills herself. And that's the end of the opera. It's a very powerful story. And the way that Puccini, who is the composer of the opera, learned of this story and decided to put it on as an opera was that the storyline was picked up by an American journalist who was traveling to Japan and wrote the story in an American newspaper, magazine, and thereafter it was picked up as a play and put on in London, England. And Puccini happened to travel to London at that time, this is in the early 1900s, and saw the play. And as soon as he saw the play, he decided, I have to put this into an opera. I have to do it. He talked to the rights, the people who had the rights, and sure enough, he landed the rights. And he staged the play in 1904 in La Scala, which was the leading opera theater in the world at the time. And he had some of the leading opera singers perform in this opera, not solo Mia, but someone else. Her name was Storcio, Rosina Storcio, who played the lead role. And when they performed the opera, he was so confident that it would be a spectacular opera that he invited for the first time at a premiere of any of his operas. And by then he was a major composer. He brought his family in, his sister and his son. And unfortunately, the opera collapsed. It was a disaster. It was booed down, whistled down. They barely made it through the opera. And the next day, all the newspapers in Milan wrote, Puccini disaster, the opera was whistled down, et cetera. And he was just crestfallen. What should I do about this opera? And he didn't know what to do, but he went to see his good friend, a guy named Arturo Toscanini, who was at that time a director, opera director. And he went to Arturo, it's a good friend. says, Arturo, you know, what should I do? I don't know. I don't want to let this opera go. It's a great. And Toscanini said to him, There's only one lady who can put this opera on. Stortio, meanwhile, had left for New York declaring, I'm not going to perform in this thing. I'm gone. And Toscanini said, you need Solomija. Solomija Kruselnicka was her name back Now today, who knows about Salomea Krishnicka? Nobody knows, you know, Maria Callas if you're in the opera world, but you don't know the name Salomea Krishnicka. And that's one of the reasons why I wrote the book. Why is it that the world doesn't know about someone who was a leading soprano at that time and who was a star when the opera was proposed to her? This was like... asking someone like Julia Roberts to star in a new movie that was a bomb with Sandra Bullock. Like who would do that? Like that's, risking your whole career on the line. But because she knew Puccini well and Toscanini, she agreed. And so they took the opera to a place called Brescia, which is about 60 miles from Milan in Italy. And at the Teatro Grande in Brescia, they worked together to restage the opera and Salomea Krushinetska, my aunt, performed the lead role of Chiuccio's son. Now this wasn't easy for her. She was 30 years old, approximately, at the time, and she was playing a 15 -year -old geisha girl. But nonetheless, she had a beautiful voice. And through the preparations and the work that they did together, they staged the opera. And when they staged it, everybody was so nervous that even the audience was nervous because they're thinking, my gosh, another catastrophe. Puccini was so nervous, he smoked like nonstop through the whole opera, sitting on the side in the stage, smoking one cigarette after another through the whole opera. Like. they just didn't know what would happen. But luckily the audience loved it so much so that at the end of the opera it got seven standing ovations. And then it went on from there all over Europe and beyond. So Lomia performed it 100 times before she stopped and on the 100th occasion gave the lyrics back to Puccini saying that's it I'm not going to perform in that opera anymore. So that was 1904, the opera Madam Butterfly. And you can see it there, for example, is playing, it's gonna be in Toronto in January, upcoming January. And it's performed all over. If you look, you could probably find the opera being played somewhere close to you or in one of the opera houses of the world. Wow, so it's going strong for 120 years thanks to your aunt. So, Solomija Kruszynicka. Very good. Good way to pronounce, way to go. Patrick, you're ace. I like got it. got an ear for Accents and pronunciations, I guess we'll say that but Andy it's it's good talking to you. I know we've got a few minutes left here. I want to make sure we Cover anything that you want to talk about that you think is important also want to remind everybody the books that Andy has written and published will be linked on our website if you go to pwbas .com click on radio and then click on guest resources His books will be linked there as well as any other websites or resources that he would like. Be a good place to find them. So please check that out and I guess you can read all about the Solemnia and I guess you've got three other books that you've written as you said and then also the book that your son published when he was 12. Yeah, I just want to mention that Sulumiya, that book is available in audiobook format. You can get it off Amazon. And also, if you have the Apple cell, the books on Apple cell, can pick it up there. Sulumiya, Star of Opera's Golden Age. If you look at it, you'll find it there. Otherwise, if you want to find any of my books, can go to, I have a personal website, it's called myworkvisa .com. There you can find my books. Or if you want to go directly to my books, there's a web page by solomiabook .com and it'll have all the books or at least that book available for anybody who wants to go. we'll be sure to link those. Andy, any closing comments? I'd like to first of all, I want to thank you Patrick for inviting me onto your program. I enjoyed this hour immensely. Thank you for allowing me to comment on you know the things that I In terms of a parting comment, I'd like to let's see if I can think of something worthy of your program. There's a... I'll share a joke. A guy's at a bar, standing at a bar, and he says to the next guy over, says, you know, I speak three languages. The guy says, no kidding. But what languages do you speak? guy says, I speak English, I speak French, and I speak Spanish. The guy says, wow, say something in Spanish. The guy says, I'll be there soon. The next guy says, that's not Spanish, that's German. I says, well in that case, I speak four languages. Andy, I remembered, I started off the hour saying we had lost another actor. It was actually a great comedian and your jokes reminded me of it. Bob Newhart passed. my goodness, he was a star. Yeah, night night. believe they said he was 94. I remember I worked as a hotel night auditor and I used to listen to his jokes at night. You know, they had an album that he published. He was such a great comedian and a great man also. I Well, Andy, thank you so much for being with us. I greatly have enjoyed our conversation. I wrote down the four things that we should always do and I promise you I will try to integrate those into my life. think that is sage advice that anybody would be wise to use. It's been an honor and a joy talking to you and I wish you the very best in the future. Me too, to you. Thanks a million. Thank you so much for listening to the Patrick Bass Show. We'll catch you next time.