Podcast focus: Police drummer Stewart Copeland’s story of life as expat kid of U.S. spy

“What matters is that you send a message [to Washington] that someone who is voting from overseas is keeping an eye on what’s going on back home,” he explained, in the VoteFromAbroad.org YouTube video, from which the above image is taken, and which may be viewed on YouTube by clicking here. 

“It really does matter. So just do it.”

As explained, although a resident of the Los Angeles area these days, Copeland grew up overseas, in an expatriate American foreign services family. Not just that. His dad, in fact, was a CIA agent. The rest of the world didn't know that, though. To them, "I was 'the American kid', all my life," Copeland told the AXFNJ.

"Even though I hardly knew America, except from TV."

Now, Copeland's recollections of his childhood as an expat brat are available in a new Audible podcast series, entitled My Dad the Spy. 

In the nine-episode series, Copeland, who is now in his 60s, describes growing up in a home in which the day job of his dad, Miles Axe Copeland II, involved being privy to such things as the overthrowing of governments, plots to assassinate people, and even the befriending of an infamous Soviet double agent. 

In the first episode Copeland reminisces with his sister Lennie on their culturally rich and pampered upbringing, a time that they remember being dragged around the Middle East by their often-absent father.

As the story progresses, Copeland details what later became known to him and his siblings about their father's role in the launching of the CIA in the 1940s, and his subsequent role in the organization over the next few decades. 

Copeland is helped in his story-telling by his brother as well as his sister, and others who knew of his father's world of politics and espionage.

The podcast, which runs just under five hours, may be purchased for £12.99 in the UK, or listened to free by signing up to an Audible subscription. (Audible is an online audio-book retailer owned by Amazon.)

Existing Audible subscribers also may listen to it for free.

More information about My Dad the Spy, including what each of the nine episodes is about, may be found on Copeland's website, by clicking here.

‘Thank you for your
interest in voting!’

As reported, Copeland’s Vote From Abroad message on YouTube lasts less than 60 seconds, but benefits from his forceful delivery, and eye-catching, musical instrument-cluttered setting, which happens to be his Los Angeles music studio, known as the Sacred Grove. 

“Hello, all you Americans abroad! Thank you for your interest in voting!” Copeland begins, looking intently at his audience through round glasses.

“Because the folks back home are making decisions that affect your life – your taxes, your citizenship, and even, there are different degrees of ‘American’, it turns out, and some of you will probably find that you are less American, because you’ve lived much of your life abroad. And your children are affected as well.

“So it’s very important that you exercise your vote as Americans.”

He ends his message by noting that those interested in voting from abroad who are not yet registered to do so can “accomplish this [by getting] your form from VotefromAbroad.org”.

VoteFromAbroad.org is a nonpartisan voter registration tool provided as a public service by Democrats Abroad. More information may be found at www.votefromabroad.org; also see posts on Instagram @votefromabroad or @students.votefromabroad; on Twitter at @vfaglobal; and on Facebook @VotefromAbroad.