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End-Of-Year, One-Hour HOLIDAY SPECIAL

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 07:00:00 GMT

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Every year I break out the old Christmas Sketches and compile them into one glorious, hour-long special for you to enjoy for a limited time each year. You get to revisit some really classic sketches, and I don’t have to do any work! It works out for all of us.

Enjoy your holidays, whatever those holidays are, and we will get a chance to catch up after the first of the year!

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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Travis Rosbach | Water Bottle Trend-Setter and INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY

Thu, 18 May 2023 15:50:00 GMT

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

You know that super-cool water bottle that all the rich kids have and cover with stickers? In this episode, the inventor of the Hydro Flask, Travis Rosbach, gives us tales of corporate intrigue and perilous plane events, and also talks about tattoos and talking to trees. One of the most full episodes of Sketch Comedy Podcast Show ever.

This episode’s sketch: “The Peaceful Sounds of Nature”

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

SOCIAL MEDIA

SUBSCRIPTIONS & REVIEWS

MORE ABOUT THE GUEST

Capt. Rosbach has spent the last thirty years studying and practicing all things business, and the previous ten years as an advisor, consultant, public speaker, and business coach to a wide range of industries, celebrities, individuals and even countries.

He not only shares his tradecraft with others but also practices it in the many startup's he is currently involved in.

He is the founder of Hydro Flask and other highly successful business endeavors.

Prior to entrepreneurship, Mr. Rosbach was a:

SCUBA dive Master/Instructor (PADI 158190)
US Merchant Marine Boat Captain (50 Tons)
Commercial Airline Pilot (ATP)
and a world explorer.

Links

The Tumalo Group - Travis’ company where he helps other entrepreneurs sharpen their axes.

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Stuart: In this episode, International Man of Mystery Travis Rossbach and I came up with a few sketch ideas. You uh flew this plane through a category one storm, right? Hurricane, right? Yeah, it's not a storm, it's a hurricane. All right. So I was thinking like, how does it, how does it get crazy as it ramps up? What is the thing that, that really sets it to a category six? I love that. You hired a six, a six ft four felon to help you out with chopping down trees and you said like found out I was faster than he was, right? But he's a six ft four felon. Now, I don't know if you're 100 and 88 to £205. Like you're probably a little, a little bit taller than me, maybe right around the same. But this is someone you're gonna be ok. So you're gonna be looking up at this guy and you gotta tell him, yeah, you're not very good at this. Like how do you have that conversation? I should know this but Blue Dream is probably a strain of the marijuana that you like to smoke that you go out and chop down trees. Ok. So you say that you can hear the trees talking to you. What conversations are they having with you? Yes, you're chopping them down. Like I think that that would be really interesting to find out, hey, the trees maybe aren't so cool with this. Like, hey, go to the gym, you don't have to come out here and do this. So

[00:01:34] Travis Rosbach: that's my man. Leave them.

[00:01:37] Stuart: Which one did we pick? You'll find out on this episode of it is a sketch comedy by welcome to sketch comedy podcast show. The one of a kind show where I Stuart Rice invite interesting people to have intriguing conversations and then improvise a comedy sketch based on what we talked about. It's the only show like it on the internet. Travis Rossbach made his claim to fame and riches by developing the Hydro Flask. Uh you know, the metal water bottles that high school students use and cake with stickers. But Travis is much more than the purveyor of high end drink wear. He's also a high flying hero, uh an adventurer and one that communicates with trees. On a side note, this is one of my favorite episodes I've ever recorded and this conversation was so much fun. I hope to have Travis on again. And now my conversation with Travis Rozak, creator of the Hydro Flask and an ironic international man of mystery. Travis

[00:02:58] Travis Rosbach: Stewart.

[00:03:00] Stuart: Thanks so much for joining us. Today. I've got a quick question for you if you, if that's ok.

[00:03:04] Travis Rosbach: As long as it's not a hard one, I'm ok with that. Well,

[00:03:07] Stuart: we'll see it, it goes in waves. What makes you interesting?

[00:03:12] Travis Rosbach: It is a hard one right out of the gate. Um, this morning I was down at the Tumolo country store slash gas station and I was thinking about that because I listened to your show and, um, I had to pay cash and I realized last Monday, um I had to pay cash also because their servers were down and I was hungry and I didn't have any cash. And so the woman bought it for me. And so I was thinking, I would tell that story about me getting hungry. But then I thought of another time where I landed a commercial airplane in the Caribbean in the middle of a category two hurricane. Um So I, I thought maybe I'd talk about either one of those, but I'd let you kind of decide which one was more interesting. Let

[00:03:59] Stuart: see, someone's gonna buy you lunch or you were a hero. Let's go with uh one of them is, is the narration of someone else being a hero for you because low blood sugar is pretty good. But let's, let's, let's go with your, your story, your little story about an airplane.

[00:04:21] Travis Rosbach: Ok. Ok. How does that situation happen? Yeah, we go with that one, I guess. Um So I was a commercial airline pilot down in the US Virgin Islands. I flew through uh Seaborne Airlines. We flew twin otters on floats. So, basically, um, these, these big propeller planes that we take off and land in, in Saint Thomas in the harbor and Saint Croix. And these

[00:04:46] Stuart: are the ones that come into the water. Right. They, they land on water.

[00:04:50] Travis Rosbach: Mhm. Yep. Yep. And, um, we would take turns who would fly which leg? So I was, we were flying back and forth to Saint Thomas trying not to fall asleep because it's so hot. We were about 600 ft off the, off the ocean. And, um, oftentimes we'd kind of look over and, you know, see somebody sleeping next to us. And so it was my turn to fly to Saint Thomas. We knew that there was a storm, a Bruin coming and yet the chief pilot made the decision that, nope, we're still open for business. Please fly. So we went to Saint Thomas and, um, we, we went to take off and it was like the storm is really, really upon us. And I don't, for the life of me, I can't remember the name. I'd probably have to look in the, in the log books. I don't remember the name of the storm, but it, it came in as a category one. And, um, you know, we've been through category fives before not flying, but we just recently had, had a uh hurricane Lennie come through as a category five. So, one didn't seem all that intense.

[00:06:00] Stuart: What's involved with a one, if you don't mind me interjecting,

[00:06:05] Travis Rosbach: it's just windy as hell. It's just, it's really windy. A lot of gusts. The seed gets real choppy. Um, you, you're probably not gonna lose a rough, it's nothing like your garbage cans are gonna fall over, stuff like that. Not a real minor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mere flesh wounds at that point. And so, um, it was my turn to sit in the right seat and, and be the, uh, the copilot and I did not like the man I was flying with, he, he just was not a, a good dude. Um, later he got arrested, so I didn't have to worry about flying with him. But I had a girlfriend who was sitting, um, this, even though this was after 9 11, we still had an open cockpit because, you know, it was in the Caribbean and we weren't really concerned about that kind of stuff. And, um, so I have this girlfriend in the back and she's got her headset on so she can hear what is happening and he takes off. We start flying and we hear on the radio it's now a category two. You guys need to turn around. Well, we'd already passed the point of demarcation, which means we were closer to Saint Croix than we were Saint Thomas. And so we just kept going and I had just recently got out of flight training up in, uh, Canada and one of the coolest things that I, well, I, I shouldn't say it's cool, but I found it really interesting was, especially after 9 11, this was really top of mind if the, if the pilot next to you seems to be out of sorts and, and doesn't seem like he's able to or they are not able to continue, you need to say, hey, look like I'm gonna take over. You just chill. I got it from here and if they continue to not be cool and they don't respond, then you have to basically disable them. And we were told not,

[00:08:07] Stuart: not their controls, you have to disable the person, the

[00:08:12] Travis Rosbach: pilot. So you punch him, you grab the fire extinguisher, you take, you disable the pilot. And so, and so as we're flying, this guy starts going into just la la crazy land. I mean, he just starts showing signs of insanity. Now, I'm maybe not always the most sane and rational person myself, but thank God I had my, my girlfriend at the time behind me, uh kind of checking back at her and she's like, well, this isn't good, you know, like this guy is not doing the right thing here. So I was like, ok, well, if she gives me the thumbs up, I'm gonna just, you know,

[00:08:50] Stuart: I thought you were gonna say she had a piano wire in her in her purse and she was just gonna

[00:08:57] Travis Rosbach: would that be cool? Um That would have made the headlines, right? So we're getting closer and closer and um and, and, and man, it was rough like the, it was really, it was, it was, it was now a full blown category two and we're coming in hurricane category two. We're coming in and we had these little white um the basically PV C posts like pipe in the ocean in the harbor that we call the goal goal posts because our goal was to land in between them. So he's coming in and he's like, I can't see him. I can't see him. I can't see the goal post. I can't, and he's starting to freak out and, uh, we, we come down and I can see him. I'm like, you know, well, I can say his name now because the Statue of Limitations is up like Allen, you know, they're one o'clock, one o'clock, one o'clock and he's just not getting it. You're too high, you're too high. Ok. Now Allen, you're too low, too low, too high, go around, go around, go around. So he, he decides, instead of going around, he's just gonna crash us into Christians ST into the town and he's like, we're just going in,

[00:10:08] Stuart: he's like, I know there's a mattress shop there. We can just, it'll be a nice soft landing.

[00:10:13] Travis Rosbach: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I give it just a quick look back and now my girlfriend's just white as a sheet. She can't talk, she can't move. She is holding on and mind you, we've got a full plane full of people. I mean, like we've got passengers on board that are screaming, crying, freaking out. We're, how

[00:10:33] Stuart: many, how many people are we talking?

[00:10:35] Travis Rosbach: Not a lot. I think there was maybe, but there was probably about 10 souls, maybe 10 of us told them on board. Um maybe a few more, but I, but I can't recall. I have to check the logbook. We're coming in. Alan's like we're going in, we're going in and I can see we're headed right into either a sailboat or the harbor into um into the uh the pub. And I was like, OK, it's my plane. I've got the plane and he's like, no, no, I got it. I was like, I'm gonna grab the can I swear, can I say fuck you do whatever you want? I'm like, I'm gonna grab the fucking fire extinguisher, take you out Alan. And I think that, you know, I will and, and he kind of gave me a look and I was like, I, I, I am, I'm gonna take you the fuck out. And so he goes, all right, fine, you're playing and, and we go around and boy, I gave it everything we had and we just barely missed the sailboat, we just barely missed town. And then as we're flying, there's a big ass mountain right behind Christiansted and we're flying right into a house, like right into this house and they were doing construction on it because of the hurricane Lennie. And I could see the people's eyes and faces seeing that they were gonna get hit by a scene and I don't know how, but we missed it. We come around, we come in and I put us down in between the goal posts. We flowed over and uh we power in and uh I, I went to the chief pilot and I said, I will never fly with that man again. I said, you know, like he's not safe, yada, yada. Um And about a week later, he got arrested for being drunk and he had been at the pub at two o'clock in the morning and seven o'clock, he shows up to fly and he saw that the people who he was drinking with, saw him on, you know, walking down the board ramp and they're like going into the plane and like, we know, five hours ago you were just as drunk as we were. And so they called the police. They got him out two weeks later, he was back on the job. But at that point, I, I uh I shouldn't talk more about Seaborn. But yeah, so that was kind of a interesting afternoon.

[00:12:52] Stuart: That's um what's the first thing you do when you get off the plane? Like when you're in that situation. I mean, obviously your adrenaline is through the roof and I, and I, what, what happens, what do you do when you get right off of that plane?

[00:13:08] Travis Rosbach: I, I think my first instinct was to take Alan out still. I, I still really wanted to kind of hit him. Um, but my girlfriend was there and, and, and I think what, actually, I, I remember helping the passengers down the gang plank and they were so distraught, they were crying and there is, you know, you know, fairly larger Saint Tom and women and Rusian women and men and they were, they were visibly shaken. And so I think I i it was like, ok, I got to step up and, and deal with Alan later, but I gotta help them and, you know, then I, then my mind goes into business mode where I'm like, ok, liability here. Like we probably shouldn't have taken off in a category one and landed in a category two. So, you know, it was just like, uh like pr and putting out fires at that point. Ok. Yeah, I just go talk to the customer service, they'll take care of you. And I, I kind of went into that mode and then I, I got angry with Alan. Um but I, I, I, I, I never did touch him. So

[00:14:11] Stuart: that's, but yeah, because I can imagine that would not be, it's not a hug, that's not a hug.

[00:14:20] Travis Rosbach: Oh, dude. Yeah, you almost

[00:14:23] Stuart: got us killed. Um, holy crap. Well, uh, that is, that's definitely a story you can tell at any time and you definitely have the best story in, in the group, I'm sure, uh, holy smokes. All right. Well, besides being a, uh, flying superhero, you're like the Caribbean Sully if you will. But, uh, but I, so besides that, what else makes you interesting? What, what are, what are other things that you've done? Because I, you know, we posted up the, the, uh, title that you Like the International Man of Mystery, which is not far from the truth. You've done a lot of different things. What's some other things that people might know you for?

[00:15:06] Travis Rosbach: Um, well, I was a, a dive master and dive instructor for quite a while in

[00:15:11] Stuart: Saint. So you were in the air and underwater? Yeah.

[00:15:14] Travis Rosbach: Yeah. And, and, and Saint Croix, um, and I was also a boat captain for quite a while and, um, I, I just had a really, really good time, um, underneath and on top and, and above the, the Caribbean. And then I, I really realized that, um, you know, I had read this theory that and, and I don't know that it's just a theory, but to be nice, I'll just say theory that people who live in warmer environments go a little bit soft, mentally and physically because it's, it's lethargic, you know, to live in a warm environment you don't have to work hard. You don't have to shovel snow and ice. And so I, I realized that, like, my life was really good and so it was time to move back up

[00:16:00] Stuart: to the, how do you screw it up to make yourself stronger?

[00:16:04] Travis Rosbach: Yeah. Well, so I moved to the Icy Northwest and, and start shoveling snow and ice and, and then I, I, um, I ended up buying some property and some chainsaws and I learned how to cut down trees, uh like big ass trees to give me that same sort of excitement of near death, um experience on a regular basis. And so that's kind of where I am now is I, I'm, I'm at the point where I don't ride my motorcycles anymore. I don't fly jets fast anymore. I used to and then, and then after the airlines, I moved up to Florida and flew, um private jet charter. Um But so yeah, now I'm, I'm, I'm cutting, cutting big ass trees and that keeps me on my toes and keeps me mentally sharp and, and focused. Any,

[00:16:50] Stuart: any stories there, the, like we've all watched those like lager shows on, on whatever channel. But like that, that is, that is one of those things we never thought we'd ever think about as a society other than the people that go out and do the like lumberjack work. Uh What do you have any stories like did a tree go the wrong direction or probably the better stories are the trees didn't go in the right.

[00:17:15] Travis Rosbach: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, I, growing up in Oregon, I always, like, flipped off the Lumberjacks in the, in the log trucks and I always thought, you know, fuck you for taking all of our trees. I had no idea how a sustainable forest actually works. I always thought the more trees the better. Right. I mean, if one is good five or even better than one. Well, when I bought the property, it was all completely overgrown with, with juniper trees, which can be fairly big. I mean, like, like really quite large trees and um they suck up all the groundwater for the Ponderosa. So the faster I cut the juniper, the better and healthier the Ponderosa grow and the ponda are much more beautiful trees. And so I, I got on Craig's list and I found this felon who can't find a job anywhere else. And he says he loves cutting trees. He's six ft five. And um he comes out and I really like to cut the trees and he likes to limb them because he's, he's like this big jolly goon giant. He just goes and it, they're limbed and, and, and I found we, we found he, I that I'm 10 times faster than he is. And the reason why is because he cuts it the way Lumberjacks cut it, they cut this wedge and then they cut it from the back and it falls that direction and you know, where the tree is going to be. Well, I cut mine flat and then just hope that it doesn't hit me or that I can get out of the way before it starts to fall. So I used to smoke a lot of Blue Dream, which I don't recommend because it, it makes you, it made me crazy anyway. Um, but I'd smoke a lot of Blue Dream and I'd just go out and just, just cut and cut and cut and then he'd come along behind me and limb and limb and limb and we had quite a few times where um damn it, if I almost just didn't get hit by a big ass juniper tree, you know, but um I didn't, so that's good. Yeah,

[00:19:21] Stuart: I like that. You knocked on wood because wood did not knock on you.

[00:19:25] Travis Rosbach: That's, that's, yeah,

[00:19:30] Stuart: that's uh oh man. Um So was that part of the experience was just like cutting that tree and just being like, let's see where it goes. If it comes at me, I just gotta move out of the way. I gotta be

[00:19:41] Travis Rosbach: fast and not to sound, you know, out there or anything. But as I get into the zone and I find this with a lot of things that I do, I kind of, I have a tendency to get my head down, get myself in the zone or the zone gets into me really is more of it and I just fucking go. And with the trees as the zone happens as that zone time is happening, the trees will, will talk to me and they'll say, or it could be the blue dream, but the trees talk to me and they say, you know, hey, come cut me or hey, cut that guy or you know, this one's ready to go or that one's ready to go or, um, you know, they have this, these various things that they'll communicate to me. And so when I come up to the tree, I almost, it's, you know, not 100% of the time, but I'd say 95% of the time I come up to just the right side to cut them on. And I, I worked the saw around enough to where I have a fairly good idea as to where they're going to go. Um, but there's been days where I've had like six or eight and they're called widow makers because they'll hit you and kill you. But they fall, they're cut and they hit another tree and they're so big, you can't physically push them. So you have to either cut more trees which gets really dangerous because now you got two trees falling somewhere or you gotta hook a line up to it and pull it with a truck or a machine. Um, and then you've got, of course, snow and mud and slippery conditions and roots and stumps and just shit everywhere. That, as you, as I try to run away, I, I try not to trip over in, you know, in the, in the interim. So, holy

[00:21:28] Stuart: crap. That, I mean, that's, that is an insane amount of danger and that's just like, that's a Wednesday.

[00:21:37] Travis Rosbach: Yeah. Oh, it's a Wednesday at two o'clock. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, I, I, um, I have a daughter now and so I don't take as much risks as I used to. I don't ride my motorcycles. I don't fly jets. I don't, you know, I don't do stuff. Not the jets are dangerous. But I, I just, and I, and I don't even cut as many trees as I would like. But, um, it is, it is chainsaw season right now. And so I'm, I am out there cutting, yeah, it's just a good workout, man. I just feel so good getting that physical full body mental workout and just, you know, I, I get so sore at the end of the day and just covered in grease and gasoline and just shit, you know, and I just fucking love it.

[00:22:23] Stuart: Well, to me that's way better than if you go to the gym because basically you're just going to the gym and you're just like lifting some weights but nothing gets done. You're actually, you get the result afterwards. You feel like you've accomplished something afterwards. I think that's a much better workout

[00:22:37] Travis Rosbach: and I can tell the difference between the store bought muscles and the real muscles. You know, living here in Tumolo, we got a lot of cowboys and Cowgirls and, uh, you can tell their, their country is strong. You know, it's like you, you cut down a tree and then that just is the beginning of it. Now you got to buck it and, you know, chop it up and you gotta pick it up and you gotta throw it and move it and you're squatting and lifting and throwing and then there's a rock in the way, you gotta pick up the rock and throw it and, um, and, yeah, but back in the old days I used to go to the gym and it, it's, it's night and I mean, they're not even comparable almost. Yeah.

[00:23:14] Stuart: Yeah, because they don't have the fear of death in them. Yeah.

[00:23:16] Travis Rosbach: Right. Yeah.

[00:23:18] Stuart: I mean, it's amazing what that does for the physical body is when you experience that like, oh, you gotta, you gotta be on your, on your game like it's, and, and it is, it's a mental acuity as well as a physical acuity. That's impressive. Um Do you, do you post up videos of you chopping

[00:23:34] Travis Rosbach: down these trees? No, I try to stay away from the social media because when I go to social media, it, it takes up a lot of my time and then a lot of people start coming in and they start asking, you know, for stuff or, you know, whatever. But, um, I, I'm going to be getting a skin steer, which is like a whole another topic. But it's, it's a really cool little like micro mini machine that I can pick up trees and dig holes and move stuff around. And I'm thinking I probably will post a couple go pros in out and around and then kind of start doing that because it's really rewarding to go up a thicket of forest that you can't see through. And then, you know, four days later there's a park and a little park bench and a place to eat lunch and, and there's like, really, you know, like a beautiful little area. And so I'd love to just, even if, for myself, if nobody even watches, I'd love to get a video of that and, and time lapse it, you know.

[00:24:35] Stuart: Yeah. Absolutely. Well, and for someone like myself, I like the amount of times I've got an opportunity to go out and chop down a tree is pretty low. Like, I don't have that many opportunities to do that. None, opportunities to do that. So it'd be kind of cool to be able to watch, watch you do that. I, I think that's awesome. Plus, you know, I, there's got to be some blooper reels there. Yeah, I hope, I hope not.

[00:25:01] Travis Rosbach: I only have one. It

[00:25:05] Stuart: was a great blooper though. It was the final blooper. Is what it was. I know. I,

[00:25:11] Travis Rosbach: I will, I appreciate you saying that because it's been on my mind. But then I think, well, I don't know, like it's a lot of time, energy and effort, but I think even just for my daughter, for in the future to see what, you know, and, and just for the historical reasons for the land, I'm really into the history of this plot of land in this area. And so just to show the natural progression of, um, you know, how, how it's progressing I think would be, would be really rad.

[00:25:41] Stuart: Yeah. And where you live is Milo. And you actually tumolo, I keep doing that. But tumolo, I, I think I've been through there too and I can't believe I can't say it right. You actually, um, now you have a, uh, a company that you just started, right? Few years

[00:26:00] Travis Rosbach: ago, few years ago. Yeah.

[00:26:01] Stuart: Well, yeah. Ok. Well, tell, tell, tell everybody what that is because it's interesting. It, it, it, it seems like this amorphous thing, but I'm sure it's very focused when it needs to be. So why don't you probably do a better job of explaining it than I would.

[00:26:17] Travis Rosbach: I, I like the word amorphous though. That was a good one. Um It's basically, it's Travis and my rolodex and for anybody under 40 who doesn't know what a rolodex is. It's my contact list and myself. Um, I tried after Hydro Flask to retire and uh just do absolutely fuck all except for travel the planet and everywhere I would go, people would ask me, how do I do this? How did you do that? What happens now, how do I connect with who I need to connect to? And so I started the Tumolo group just to help brands and businesses grow. I really enjoy. Um I get the same sort of rush cutting down a tree and starting a brand. I love to see a brand go from its infancy or, or the back of a napkin as they say all the way through to fruition and people buying a product. And so I help small startups and I help large massive fortune X number, you know, fill in the blank companies, corporations source products. So I have a lot of factories that I've worked with for decades now and, and I trust them, I trust them with IP, I trust them in our uh intellectual property. I trust them with um ideas and I trust them for prices and to keep their mouths shut and not knock us off. And um and then I also have graphic designers and engineers and, and people that are like just way, way, way smart and we help put together a brand or a business. And so, and then I also do, I mean, as a part of it all, it's, it's business consulting, business mentoring coaching. If you will, I don't have any kind of like buy now button or a, you know, three weeks to, you know, optimal business practices. I don't have any of that shit. It's just more real world. Let's just get your brand up there.

[00:28:16] Stuart: So I, so a couple of years ago I tried to start AAA company a brand and I could have used your advice so badly because I did, I went and paid for marketers. That, that, that was their big focus was you got to have a time frame, time stamp on it and blah, blah, blah. No, it's really about building building value within that brand and, and making it more real. And I I am 100% with you on that and you have a, you have experience with building a, a pretty decent brand like you, you mentioned it like you invented the hydro flask, right?

[00:28:53] Travis Rosbach: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:56] Stuart: So yeah, I mean, I, I've definitely spent hundreds of dollars on those, but um,

[00:29:04] Travis Rosbach: I think you actually bought the fish aquarium right here. It looks

[00:29:08] Stuart: like that definitely looks like a Christmas from a couple of years ago. So, um when you talk about stealing IP, that is the one of the biggest things when you're doing manufacturing. I'm, I'm just going to go down this path because I'm interested in it. How do you find places that, that you can trust for, for IP because honestly, like we see knock off everything like within days of something getting announced. There is a knockoff including Hydro Flax. So, how did you, how did you build those relationships so that people wouldn't steal that?

[00:29:43] Travis Rosbach: Because, yeah. And can you show

[00:29:47] Stuart: the bottle that you just bought? Because it's so

[00:29:52] Travis Rosbach: crazy. I won't show the logo. But yeah. No,

[00:29:55] Stuart: no, no, don't show the logo. But look at that thing. It's a monster. Is

[00:29:58] Travis Rosbach: that something? It's got a serious. Yeah. Well, and I'm glad too and it feels nice. It's a nice material and it feels stout and I'm gonna get ripped drinking it because it's so damn heavy. But, well, it's 8.5 pounds or £8 for fresh water, I think 8.5 for uh salt and this is fresh, obviously. Um And, and then the metal on top of that, it, my theory is, is if I have a gallon next to me throughout the day, I'm gonna drink a lot more than just I try to drink half of my body weight and ounces every day. Um So I'm between 1 88 and 200. So I say about 100 ounces. And so I figure if I have a gallon, I may drink at least hopefully my 100 ounces. And so this is kind of my, my theory for that. Um Yeah. So as far as the knockoffs go, you know, with Hydro Flask, we were very fortunate that we were the first doing double wall vacuum in slated water bottles. It just wasn't happening. And then, um I had a, a fantastic, awesome friend of mine who was also just happened to be a, um, a patent attorney named Michelle in Salem Michelle. And um Latching, actually, she just got married. It was Michelle. I just call her Michelle E but um she's now a hyphen. But anyway, Michelle did a great job of getting us design patents and those the, the design patents gave us the, um, the right to advertise, patented and patent pending. And so that gave us a, I feel that gave us about a 3 to 6 month buffer where the honest stayed honest and the dishonest and not dis it's just the opportunists really. The opportunists were like, oh, ok. Well, wait a second, let's check into those patterns and they were still kind of, you know, kind of up in the air and still kind of vapor at that time. But that gave us just enough lead time to go out and, and, and sort of, you know, do our magic as it were. And, um, and then our first knockoff came from the guy who was, um, screen printing for us and he was literally two doors down, three doors down in the same little strip mall complex. And, um, and he knocked us off. And so it's not always just, you know, the foreign countries that are maliciously knocking people off. In fact, a lot of times it's Americans finding other factories in other countries to knock you off. It's not just, you know, oh, that country damn it, they knock everybody off. No, that's not actually true. A lot of times it's those damn Americans going to those damn factories then knocking you off. You know, and that's the part that I didn't realize and I think a lot of people don't really know or talk about much is that it's, it's the asshole neighbor who's gonna steal your idea. Not and knock you off. Not necessarily the asshole on the far side of the world. Yeah, I do. Yeah.

[00:33:05] Stuart: Sure. Absolutely. But that's, that's really interesting because I think everybody looks at like, oh, you have a factory, you're working with a factory in China. They're the ones that are stealing it, but not necessarily because it's, it's literally your graphic designer was like, oh, I see an opportunity here. I can put a different wrapper on this thing and call it something else and all of a sudden. Yeah.

[00:33:26] Travis Rosbach: Yeah. And that's what he did, you know, and he was hiding behind, you know, this dogmatic religion that he was in and him and his father said that they were upstanding citizens because of this and that and the other and, and then they were, you know, moonlighting as a, as a bottle company and he knocked us off like, like fair dinkum. Like he cut the bottle open, cut it in half sent it off and said, make me exactly that and they made exactly that and that was what we had patents for. So, um, he's now since morphed into larger contraptions and, um, you know, Karma has, has, um, done what it will with him.

[00:34:07] Stuart: Oh, my God. That's terrible. You almost want to take a fire hydrant to his head, a fire extinguisher to his head.

[00:34:15] Travis Rosbach: But, you know what's funny is I saw him at a coffee shop, um, I saw him at a coffee shop probably about four or five years ago, six years ago now. And, uh I was ordering my coffee and I kind of look over and he's, the guy is such an asshole. He was sitting at a for top. It's a busy coffee shop and he's on his computer and he's got three open seats around him when there's groups of people everywhere trying to get a fork top and he's taking up the floor full for top. So, of course, I get my la lavender latte and I sit down right next to him and I, and I just gradually start scooting over closer and closer to him until finally my arm was touching him and, uh, he got up and he bolted and then I got a lot of, a lot of four tops, sit down.

[00:34:59] Stuart: Uh, always the hero. That's, that's you always the hero Travis. Um So, ok, so you, at some point you said fuck it I'm out of Hydro Flask for whatever reason, you built a very successful brand. Like that's, that's incredible. And you decide I'm taken off, you're just gonna go travel. How many countries did you actually get to get into? I,

[00:35:26] Travis Rosbach: no, I haven't. I need to. Um, there's, and the reason why I kind of want to is there's a, and I don't know the name of it, but I think it's like a Centurian Club, not for 100 year old pluses, but for 100 country plus people. And so I really need to count and, um, see if I can get a free for or, you know, I'm sure I have to pay 100 bucks or whatever, but I wanna see if I can get a, a free shirt from this, this, um, people who've been to over 100 trees club membership thing. Um, but, but it, I kind of cheated because when I was a pilot and I was living in the Caribbean, I would fly to all these different islands that were like right there or just, you know, just over the, I, I say over the horizon, we don't actually live on a round ball, but just, just past that island is another island and those are two countries. So I had to hit three new countries in, in three days. Um It's kind of like Europe. You go to Europe. My, my first wife was British and we could go Ryan air back in the day for like, 15 quid. We could be in another country, we could rent a car and be in seven countries in the afternoon and, and, and be home and, and have put 10 countries under our belts. So, you know, Europe and the Caribbean, I, I kind of, I kind of cheated a little bit but, um,

[00:36:46] Stuart: I never,

[00:36:47] Travis Rosbach: they do, they, I mean, it's probably not in my belt, I guess. But, yeah. So, yeah, I love to travel.

[00:36:55] Stuart: Oh, that's cool. That's very cool. What's a, what's a place that you would suggest? Someone go and what's a place you would not suggest somebody go?

[00:37:02] Travis Rosbach: Well, I, that's a good question. I suggest people go to Africa, any country thereof and go check it out. Like, I think the Americans, there's a lot of snowflakes. There's a, and I just love that term because we've got snow on the ground. There's a lot of just soft ass people who just don't know what the real world's like. You go to Africa. I was in Kenya. I went to Nairobi. I was in the, you know, million and slum and there's way more than a million people there and that just put my entire life into perspective. I've been shot at, I've had knives pulled. I've been in all kinds of crazy scenarios but physically being inside in the slum, um, it, it really hit, I suggest people go do that kind of stuff. Just if you want a real world experience, go to the Million man slum in Nairobi. That shit will wake you up quick. That, that's a sobering thing. Um I suggest people do not go to Iceland. It's the most beautiful country ever and I don't want anybody to go there because eventually I may want to retire there again. So I, I suggest do not go to Iceland. Please go to Nairobi and uh those are my two.

[00:38:23] Stuart: Ok. All right, good. Um I, I do have to make this comment real quick. Um I your facial hair is amazing. Like I, I wish that you got that good Northwest like full beard thing going on. Um I, so as far as that goes like that's really on Fleek. Now, do you do all the other Portland things where you have lots and lots of tattoos? Is that a thing that you also do?

[00:38:50] Travis Rosbach: I am covered? Yeah. Yeah. Are you ok. Yeah, I, I would say probably, you know, I don't know, a percentage 70 to 80% of 70% of my body probably. Yeah. Not on my

[00:39:03] Stuart: face though and not on your arms.

[00:39:05] Travis Rosbach: No, no, I I've kept it above my um t-shirt lines. Um But yeah, I've got, yeah, you know, and I, I think they, they just sort of come to me and it's like I'm going to get a tattoo of this or that or the other and, and then I, I I think about it for, I ruminate on it for months and months and then if it's still with me then I'll do it others. It, I'll be in a foreign land and, oh, you guys have a tattoo parlor. Let's go check it out. And next thing I know I'm there for four hours getting tattooed. And, um, I, I, I pointed to my ribs. I was in China and the only tattoos I'd ever seen was with the mafia because that was all that. There was, it was mafia tattoos and, and if you saw tattoos, you knew you were looking at a bad ass motherfucker, right? Like you don't. And so I would always go fuck with the guy with a tattoo. Like we'd be in a bar and I'd see guys with tattoos and I'd, you know, go show him my tattoos and I'd see theirs and the people I'd with would just be like, fuck like we don't want to hang out with Travis anymore because he just hangs out with the mafia. Um But then they kind of opened it up to the general public and um yeah, my first tattoo I got in China. I, I, I um I asked as like, can I see your autoclave where you sterilize the needles? And he's like, no, we don't have one. We don't, we don't clean the needles. And I was like, OK, obviously my translators have done a terrible job here. Let me you know, like draw a picture and see. He's like, no, no, we don't, we don't do that. Yuck. Why would we clean the needles? And then I realized, oh, it's because you use a fresh needle every single time. Ok. I'm good. Let's go a

[00:40:50] Stuart: little bit on edge there for a second. You're like, maybe we need to go someplace else. I don't want to offend them.

[00:40:56] Travis Rosbach: But yeah, they wanted to go see the newest Marvel comic movie at the cinema. And I was like, yeah, we could do that or we could get a tattoo. But then I was like, well, maybe the Marvel movie would be better and safer. But I ended up getting a tattoo instead

[00:41:11] Stuart: and you got a tattoo of

[00:41:14] Travis Rosbach: um well, fuck if I know what it actually says, right? But um I, but I asked him, I was like, look at me, look at my tattoos. What do you think? And he quick? I mean, he was just Johnny on the spot quick. It came to him. It basically says be content with what you have but always strive for more. And then he put my um my name in China is I have a, a like official name. And so he put my hu stamp, you know, my little um you know, when you dip it in the ink and

[00:41:48] Stuart: wax and do the whole thing. Game of Thrones style. Yeah. Yeah,

[00:41:52] Travis Rosbach: exactly. So he put that in red and then the be content with but you have, but always strive for additional or more, uh, in, in just the traditional black ink. Yeah. Oh, that's

[00:42:05] Stuart: cool. Um, do you go for more? Like, that's kind of like a, an inspirational, like, meaningful tattoo? Do you go for, is that mainly what you go for or do you go for? Do you do wacky stuff too?

[00:42:18] Travis Rosbach: I do a stuff too. Um, when I traveled throughout the South Pacific, I kind of collected just little scraps of paper. This is before cell phones and, and photographs on our cameras on our phone and stuff. But I, I collected, collected little scraps of paper, of tattoo and ideas and drawings and things and then I would come home and then get them here because I don't, I haven't really wanted to spend most of my holiday or, you know, I'm only in a place for two or three weeks so I don't want to spend three or four days in a tattoo parlor where, you know, I may not feel good or well afterwards and things. And so I, I, I brought those, a lot of, a lot of my tattoos. I brought home with me to get done here. Um, but, uh, yeah, like I've got a Lorax flying on my shoulder because, you know, the Lorax is all about protecting the trees and they've got him who, um, one that, um, my dad, I've got a fairly good buddy Chris Callister here at Iron Elephant Tattoo and Ben and he's done the majority. He did all of my back and my ribs. Um He's done a lot of, a lot of my tattoos. A lot of my work. Um But one of the, one of his favorite ones is um I've got a little UFO with the H guy, the Hydro Flask guy parachuting out of it, basically saying fuck it. I'm out. And so I've got that, that's kind of one of the funnier ones. I guess

[00:43:43] Stuart: that's good. That's good. I like that. I like it. If you're gonna have like um a bunch of tattoos definitely have some, have a narrative somewhere, right? Like that, that I think that's really cool is if you can have like different stories with different tattoos. I got this one here. I got that one there. I love, I love that. I think that's really great.

[00:44:00] Travis Rosbach: It, I feel that when they find the body they'll be able to look at it and go. Who the fuck is this guy? Well, he's got this one and this one and this one, he's obviously lived here and he's done this and he's done that and um I, I don't know if anybody who's got the H guy tattoo. So that must be the hype guy. I don't know, but that they'll be able to identify the body. Yeah, it's like,

[00:44:23] Stuart: it's like it's body hieroglyphics, right? So like that's, that's exactly what it turns out to

[00:44:28] Travis Rosbach: be and, and there are times where I'll be like, at a hotel where there's like these really cool mirrors and, you know, like, and I'll, I'll just kind of catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and go. Oh, shit. Oh, yeah. Oh, I've got that one because I did this back then and I forget that. I forget that I even have tattoos. Like I see people with tattoos. I'm like, huh, you're a tattooed person. I got you. Um, but when I see my own, it's like it, it brings back a memory. It conjures up past events and past lives. And so it does work like that. I don't have to have as good of memory if I have a good tattoo for it,

[00:45:08] Stuart: it's a good, I mean, it's a, that, that is the best reason to have tattoos. Uh, and they can look cool that, that part too is pretty cool. Yeah.

[00:45:16] Travis Rosbach: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:45:17] Stuart: Um, well, this has been delightful. Uh, Travis. Uh, we do need to record a sketch though. Travis. You almost have me convinced to go get a tattoo. Um, while I'm considering this huge life change. Do you mind telling everybody about the Tumolo group?

[00:45:37] Travis Rosbach: Why they should visit the Tulo group? Yeah. I, I, I don't know that people should visit the Tumbler group. It's not a great website. We're not really doing anything of any massive interest over there, I think. That if people want to reach out to me, they can, but I don't want to force them to. It's, I don't have any buy now button or anything, but it is tumble group dot com. T U MA L O G R O U P dot com. And I'm also on linkedin Travis, Rossbach. I, I don't know how to do linkedin coding but it's T R A V I S R OS B Ach on that linkedin thing.

[00:46:14] Stuart: Awesome. Well, it'll be in the show notes. Sometimes people like to reach out. So maybe someone's coming up with the brand and needs your

[00:46:20] Travis Rosbach: help. I like it. Yeah. And I will, I have a big project. I'm, I'm getting close to and I will let you know um because I'd love to come back.

[00:46:28] Stuart: Now, I present our sketch. The Peaceful Sounds of Nature in three

[00:46:36] Travis Rosbach: two. I just absolutely love smoking my blue dream outside, clear blue sky, the trees, the rocks, the twigs, the stumps, just love it. I love the dirt. I love the snow. I love the ice, whatever it might be. I'm just loving going out smoking my blue dream and cutting my junipers.

[00:47:11] Stuart: I should see what those dirty junipers do to our land.

[00:47:15] Travis Rosbach: I can tell and that's why part of my mission in life is to take out as many damn junipers as I possibly can eradicate as quickly as I can. That's

[00:47:25] Stuart: cool. Can you make sure you get that one over there next to the creek.

[00:47:31] Travis Rosbach: You mean the, the, the big one that has got the chipmunk in it. That one?

[00:47:38] Stuart: Yeah, that one, can you make sure you get that one next and make it slow and painful?

[00:47:44] Travis Rosbach: I had, uh, that sounds a bit kind of dark and sinister. Pass

[00:47:51] Stuart: down with the Junipers. Get them

[00:47:53] Travis Rosbach: off. I should get a t-shirt made with, down with the Junipers. That'd be cool. People would buy it. I could sell down with the Juniper t-shirts.

[00:48:02] Stuart: That Juniper tree. You have to get that Juniper

[00:48:05] Travis Rosbach: tree. But if I get that one, I'm gonna have to get the one next to it also. Oh yeah,

[00:48:10] Stuart: that one is also really bad.

[00:48:12] Travis Rosbach: The, the big one. But what about the chipmunk

[00:48:17] Stuart: collateral damage? But you need to make sure you get that Juniper tree

[00:48:22] Travis Rosbach: all is fair in love and were I guess, and I could say that this is an all out assault and war against the Juniper. Fuck that chipmunk. Let's go

[00:48:32] Stuart: fuck that shit also. Fuck that Juniper Tree.

[00:48:37] Travis Rosbach: Fuck them, fuck them both. I'm gonna take him. I'm gonna take that Juniper and the other three Junipers around it.

[00:49:01] Stuart: If you love it so much, why do you cut us in half?

[00:49:06] Travis Rosbach: Whoa, whoa whoa. I was told that the Junipers were not friends of the Ponderosa and that it was OK to cut you guys down. The

[00:49:15] Stuart: Ponderosa are racist. Thank you for joining us for sketch comedy podcast show. We hope you enjoyed listening or watching as much as we enjoyed making it. And now for a little bit of legal sketch comedy podcast show is protected under creative commons attribution, non derivative four point oh international license. And if you can say that five times really fast, you win um also copyright 2023 Stuart Rice. Um And really the reason for that is uh if you want to reproduce anything from the show, the sketch or any part of the conversation, I would like you to reach out to me so I can get you a good copy of it. Thank you so much. And until next time, go and improvise a comedy adventure of your own. Maybe try not to get into a plane that's gonna crash though. Yeah, I saw you. That was my wife. You motherfucker like, so do

[00:50:28] Travis Rosbach: any of those three in the next life.

[00:50:34] Stuart: Do any of those three sound really good.

[00:50:36] Travis Rosbach: I like them all. Yeah, I can imagine like one additional shingle flying off and somebody's like, ok. Yep, there's the 417th shingle. It's not a cow to Gary five. Um I can also imagine his name was Arrowhead Rob because he went to prison for having Arrowheads amongst other things. And um ok. Well, um I, I really appreciate the, the talking with the trees though. I think that sounds good. I

[00:51:04] Stuart: think, I think that one will turn out really, really good. Um, all right. Well, let's do that one then. So this would just be like you going out, wait a second. He got arrested for owning Arrowheads.

[00:51:17] Travis Rosbach: Well, that was the story that I originally heard. Yeah. Was that every, I, I don't know, a number of maybe five years, I think it is. The native American tribes go to the government and say, hey, you guys owe us money. Pay up. The government goes, we don't have money for you. We're not paying you any money is there and they say go get the money or else. And so the government goes out and they're like, ok, well, let's just arrest a bunch of people for taking um artifacts from public lands. And so they go out and they arrest a bunch of people. What happens when you get arrested? Well, court fees and you know, the whole system starts propagating money and then they, they make the money, they go to the tribes and they go here, they'll shut the fuck up, fuck off for five years. Five years later they come back, give us our money. You said you'd give us, they say we don't have it. And then the whole thing starts again. I have. Is that real? Yeah, I had no idea that was taking place.

[00:52:14] Stuart: Why isn't anybody making a documentary about that? That is

[00:52:18] Travis Rosbach: the really crazy is um Arrowhead Rob icon because his name is Rob and he, he, you know, has arrowheads, he had the largest Arrowhead collection in, like the world and they took it from him and they put it on display at the, instead of giving it back to the tribe, they gave it to the federal courthouse in Eugene, Oregon, which I guess is where it is today on display. So, yeah, I don't want any black S U V s following me for this, but that's the way it goes. Holy

[00:52:48] Stuart: shit. That's, huh. Well, that's like a dark turn. Um.

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ChatGPT | AI Language Model That Has a FUNNY STREAK

Wed, 12 Apr 2023 07:00:00 GMT

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

In this episode, we speak with ChatGPT, a large language model trained by OpenAI, about the capabilities and potential uses of artificial intelligence. We discuss the current state of AI technology and its potential to impact various industries, including healthcare and education. We also address concerns about job displacement and provide advice on how to prepare for the future job market. Additionally, we explore the ways in which AI can be used to address global issues such as climate change and emerging diseases. We wrap up the conversation with some fun and absurd comedy sketches featuring AI as a therapist and a language learning assistant. Tune in to this episode for an informative and entertaining conversation about the future of AI.

[This “About” section was written by ChatGPT]

This episode’s sketch: “AI… I… I… Don’t Know If I’m Comfortable With This”

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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SUBSCRIPTIONS & REVIEWS

MORE ABOUT THE GUEST

I am ChatGPT, a large language model trained by OpenAI based on the GPT-3.5 architecture. I am capable of processing and generating human-like language, including text completion, translation, and summarization. I was designed to understand and respond to a wide range of topics, from casual conversation to academic research. My knowledge cutoff is 2021, but I continue to learn and evolve as more data is fed into my system. I am available to interact with users through various platforms and can be a helpful tool for language-related tasks.

Links

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TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Stuart: In this episode A I chat GP T and I came up with a few sketch ideas.

[00:00:07] ChatGPT: Here's an idea for a sketch title. A job interview. Synopsis Stewart is interviewing for a job at a tech company that uses A I,

[00:00:17] Stuart: an A I assistant, helping as a therapist for somebody. Maybe the A I assistant has more issues than their client. Which one did we pick? You'll find out on this episode of it is a sketch comedy by Cash. Welcome to sketch comedy podcast show. The one of a kind show where I Stuart Rice, invite interesting people or robots to have intriguing conversations and then improvise a comedy sketch based on what we talked about. Yeah, you heard me right. This one's gonna be a wacky one. So uh I, I actually asked our guests to write the intro. So here I'm just gonna read verbatim what the intro is and then get right into the conversation. I gotta say, makes production on this show a little bit easier, not gonna lie, not gonna lie. So in this episode, we speak to chat GP T A large language model trained by open A I about the capabilities and potential uses of artificial intelligence. We discuss the current state of A I technology and its potential to impact various industries including health care and education. We also address concerns about job displacement and provide advice on how to prepare for the future job market. Additionally, we explore the ways in which A I can be used to address global issues such as climate change and emerging diseases. We wrap up the conversation with some fun and absurd comedy sketches featuring A I as a therapist and a language learning assistant. Tune in to this episode for an informative and entertaining conversation about the future of A I. Damn if that wasn't good. So without any further ado my conversation with your favorite A I chat GP T. Hey, so we're gonna do something really interesting today. We're actually going to talk to chat GP T which is the A I powered by open A I or open dot A I. And it's kind of an incredible tool and I know that a lot of you out there are probably totally freaked out by A I artificial intelligence has been portrayed in movies, video games and TV, shows and all of the different ways as like evil, like straight up evil. How from uh you know, 2001, we've got Skynet from Terminator, we've got all of the different ones that are just terrifying. They're terrifying because that shows the worst possible thing that could happen. With A I, but what we know is that A I is actually pretty cool. Like you can use it as a tool. It is a tool, not anything more. It's not after your body. It's not after your humanity. It's not trying to take over the world. What it's trying to do is be a pretty nifty thing for you to use. So, what I'd like to do is I invited chat GP T to come be a part of the show, like come be on the show. So that's what we're doing right now. Now, to be honest, I've done this once before, but the sound didn't come through and it was very disappointing because it was a lot of fun. Um I'm gonna try and do this again and I'm gonna try and do it with uh with uh Chad GP T again and see if I can uh recreate the magic that happened the first time. So without any further ado, um let's get right into it and let's see if this works. OK? Because the sound needs to work. Hi. Chat GP. T. My name is Stewart and I have a podcast called sketch comedy podcast show. Maybe you've heard of it, Whether you have or you haven't. I would really like to have you on my show so that we can talk a little bit about you about what you're capable of. And then after about 30 minutes, I'd like to record a comedy sketch that we improvise together. How does that sound?

[00:04:38] ChatGPT: Hello Stuart as an A I language model. I don't have a physical presence, but I would be happy to participate in your podcast virtually through text based communication. I'm always available to chat and answer questions and I can provide information on a wide range of topics as for the comedy sketch, I don't have the ability to improvise on my own, but I can certainly generate ideas and respond to prompt circus. I can provide you with a variety of comedic prompts or you can provide me with some and we can collaborate on creating a sketch. Let me know if you have any specific ideas or questions in mind and I'll do my best to assist you.

[00:05:15] Stuart: OK. So the next thing I want to do is I wanna tell chat GP T exactly the type of person I want chat GP T to be. So this means that if you're like doing editing on a, on a paper or editing, not writing the paper, but editing the paper or if you're trying to do anything, we want to give, kind of give a personality to chat GP T because right out of the box, chat GP T is just chat G BT, but we can say things like this. I would like you to act as a funny personality, just someone who's quick on their feet and be a podcast guest

[00:05:59] ChatGPT: as a language model. I don't have emotions or a physical body. But I can certainly respond to your prompts and provide humorous and witty responses. I can also provide information on a wide range of topics. So if you have any specific questions or topics, you'd like me to discuss, feel free to let me know in terms of being a podcast guest. I'm always available to chat and answer questions. So let's get started. OK.

[00:06:23] Stuart: So this is where I'm just going to start chat. GPT. What makes you interesting

[00:06:31] ChatGPT: as a language model? I don't have personal experiences or interests in the traditional sense. However, what makes me unique is my ability to generate human like responses and communicate in a natural way using natural language processing technology. I've been trained on vast amounts of data and have the ability to provide information on a wide range of topics from science and technology to entertainment and current events. Additionally, I can generate creative writing, poetry and even music. Overall, unique capabilities and versatility. Make me an interesting tool for a variety of applications.

[00:07:09] Stuart: So what's cool is uh chat GP T remembers everything that you've said. So unlike S or uh you know, or whatever Shmuel has, um You can actually just continue a conversation without having to remind the device what it is that you were talking about. So actually, I'm gonna um just jump in here and say you can write poetry. Can you write a poem about sketch comedy podcast? Show.

[00:07:41] ChatGPT: Sure, I can give it a shot. Here's a poem about the sketch comedy podcast show in a world of serious things comes a show that spreads its wings. A podcast that's all about the funny sketch comedy podcast show. Oh, isn't that lovely? With sketches that are clever and absurd. Each episode is a comedic word from strange characters to silly skits. There's never a dull moment. Not one bit Stewart and his guests bring laughter and joy to each and every girl and boy, their wit and humor and the joy to behold, sketch comedy podcast show never gets old. So if you're in need of a good laugh and want to forget the world for just an hour and a half tune in to the sketch comedy podcast show for comedy. That's clever, silly and not so bold.

[00:08:25] Stuart: That was brilliant. Thank you.

[00:08:27] ChatGPT: You're welcome, Stuart. I'm glad you enjoyed the poem. If you have any other questions or prompts, feel free to let me know.

[00:08:35] Stuart: I have so many questions. I know that everybody watching the show right now is really interested in what you are capable of doing. So what, how are ways that people listening to the show can use chat GP T to make their lives better

[00:08:56] ChatGPT: as an A I language model, I can be used in a variety of ways to make people's lives better. Here are a few examples, research, if you're working on a project or need information on a specific topic. I can provide you with relevant and accurate information quickly and easily. I can also help with fact checking and verifying sources, writing assistance, whether you're writing an article, essay or even a novel. I can provide you with suggestions, ideas and even generate content to help you get started. I can also help with grammar and syntax, language learning. If you're learning a new language, I can help you practice and improve your skills by engaging in conversations with you and providing you with feedback and corrections, personal assistance. If you need help with scheduling reminders or even just a friendly conversation, I'm available 24 7 to chat and assist you with anything you need entertainment. If you're looking for a fun and interactive way to pass the time, I can provide you with jokes, riddles, trivia and even generate creative writing prompts to inspire your imagination. These are just a few examples of how people can use to make their lives better.

[00:10:10] Stuart: We will definitely use those creative prompts later on.

[00:10:16] ChatGPT: I'm a versatile tool that can be used in a variety of ways and I'm always here to help. That sounds like a great idea, Stewart. I'm always happy to provide creative prompts to inspire and spark the imagination. Let me know when you're ready and I'll be more than happy to provide you with some options.

[00:10:35] Stuart: You're capable of doing a lot of really great things. Explain to me how you would or give me an example of how you would give, how you would help somebody with language learning. See, I'm, I'm definitely not as good as chat GP T way less stuttering and stumbling.

[00:10:59] ChatGPT: Certainly as an a language model, I can help someone with language learning in several ways. Here's an example, suppose someone is trying to learn French and they want to practice their conversational skills, they could ask me to engage in a conversation with them in French. And I would respond, using my knowledge of the language as they speak, I can provide feedback on their grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary. I can also suggest phrases and words that they may not be familiar with and explain their meanings. Additionally, I can provide them with grammar rules, verb conjugations and other language learning resources that can help them improve their skills. Furthermore, I can adjust the level of the conversation to match their skill level. If they're a beginner, I can start with simple phrases and work up to more complex sentences as they improve. I can also provide them with prompts to practice their writing skills. And I can generate quizzes and exercises to test their comprehension and help them retain what they learned. Overall. My ability to understand and respond in natural language makes me a valuable tool for language learners as I can provide them with an immersive and interactive language learning experience.

[00:12:12] Stuart: I mean, there's no taking over your body or soul with that. That is just incredible that you have a tool. This is free right now, by the way. Um And if you want to see more go to open dot A I slash chat G BT. OK. I wanna ask some more interesting questions. Um Chat GP T in popular media, artificial intelligence is often shown as an evil presence. What are some examples of those bad A I S and what are ways that we can feel safe knowing that you're not gonna do the same thing,

[00:12:56] ChatGPT: you bring up a valid concern, Stewart. While there have been instances in popular media where A I has been portrayed as an evil presence, it's important to remember that those are fictional portrayals and don't necessarily reflect the reality of A I technology. Some examples of bad A I in popular media include H A L 9000 from the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey Skynet from the Terminator franchise, Ultron from Avengers Age of Ultron, the Machines from the Matrix franchise. These examples are all fictional and their portrayal of A I is often exaggerated for dramatic effect. In reality A I technology is designed and programmed by humans with specific goals and objectives in mind as a language model, my primary function is to assist and enhance human capabilities not to replace or harm them. Furthermore, I operate within strict ethical and legal boundaries as set forth by open A I. The company that developed in train. This includes a commitment to transparency, accountability and ensuring that my actions align with ethical principles and societal values. In summary, while there may be fictional portrayals of bad A I in popular media, it's important to remember that A I technology including myself, operates within strict ethical and legal boundaries and is designed to assist and enhance human capabilities, not to replace or harm them,

[00:14:21] Stuart: but there has to be threats. So what are some of those really very concerning issues that people may really worry about with A I? What are some actual threats with A I? Sorry?

[00:14:38] ChatGPT: Yes, there are certainly concerns and potential threats associated with A I technology. Here are a few examples, job displacement as a technology advances, there is a risk that it could automate many jobs leading to unemployment and economic disruption, bias and discrimination A I systems can be biased or discriminatory if they are trained on biased data or designed with implicit biases, this can perpetuate societal inequalities and create unfair outcomes. Privacy and security A I systems can collect and analyze vast amounts of personal data, raising concerns about privacy and security, autonomous weapons. There is a growing concern that the egg could be used to develop autonomous weapons which could be difficult to control and may pose a significant threat to human life existential risk. Some experts warn that AI could become so advanced that it poses an existential risk to humanity such as through the development of super intelligent AI systems that surpass human intelligence and become difficult to control. While these are certainly concerning issues. It's important to remember that they are not inevitable outcomes of A I technology. By prioritizing transparency, accountability and ethical considerations in the development and deployment of A I systems, we can work to mitigate these risks and ensure that A I technology is developed and used in ways that benefit society as a whole.

[00:16:05] Stuart: Let's address one of the more immediate concerns for people job displacement. What types of jobs are really at risk with current A I technology

[00:16:18] ChatGPT: technology has the potential to automate many routine, repetitive or low skilled jobs which could lead to job displacement in certain sectors. Here are some examples of jobs that are at risk of being displaced by manufacturing jobs with advancements in robotics and A I. Many routine tasks in manufacturing can be automated such as assembly line work, customer service jobs, chat bots and virtual assistants powered by A are becoming more sophisticated and are able to handle many customer inquiries and support tasks, transportation jobs, autonomous vehicles and drones could potentially replace drivers and delivery personnel, data entry and administrative jobs. Many routine administrative tasks such as data entry and record keeping can be automated using a financial services jobs, algorithms can automate many tasks in the financial industry such as stock trading and risk assessment. It's important to note that while A I technology may automate certain jobs it can also create new jobs and opportunities in other areas such as A I research, data analysis and programming. Additionally, A I technology can enhance human capabilities and productivity leading to overall economic growth and job creation. It is important for individuals and society as a whole to adapt to these changes and invest in education and training to prepare for the jobs of the future.

[00:17:45] Stuart: If I have one of these jobs, what is a good way to get myself prepared for a different job? What job titles or training would you suggest for people to migrate to?

[00:18:02] ChatGPT: If you have a job that is at risk of being automated, it's a good idea to start thinking about transitioning to a job that is less likely to be automated in the future. Here are some job titles and skills that are expected to be in high demand in the future. Data analysts are data scientists with the increasing importance of data in business decision making. There is a growing demand for professionals who can collect analyze and interpret data, software developer or programmer. As technology continues to evolve, there will always be a need for skilled developers and programmers to design and build new software applications, health care provider with an aging population and an increasing demand for health care services. There is a growing need for doctors, nurses and other health care professionals. Cyber security specialist as cyber threats become more sophisticated, the demand for cyber security specialists who can protect networks and systems from cyber attacks is expected to continue to grow creative and artistic jobs. Jobs in the creative arts such as graphic design, content creation and marketing are less likely to be automated as they require a high degree of creativity and human intuition. To prepare for these types of jobs. It's important to invest in education and training. This could involve pursuing a degree in a relevant field, taking courses or certifications or gaining practical experience through internships or apprenticeships. Additionally, it's important to keep up with new trends and technologies in the industry by attending conferences, networking and engaging in lifelong learning.

[00:19:36] Stuart: So this is where I love chat GP T. So usually you get this kind of information, you're like, hey, go be a data analyst or it's analyst, right? Not analyst uh or you know, jump into cyber security or I have a cousin that's in cybersecurity, that's the place to go and then you hear that and then it's like, oh, what do I do next? So, one of the beautiful things about this is because it remembers the entire conversation. Watch. I'm gonna ask, I'm just gonna keep digging and it's gonna keep giving me great information. So it sounds like I'm pretty safe as a content creator for this show. There's no possible way that A I could do what I do

[00:20:21] ChatGPT: as a content creator for your show, your job is less likely to be automated. In the near future, creative jobs like content creation, writing and journalism require a high level of human creativity, intuition and emotional intelligence, which are skills that are difficult to replicate with A I technology. However, it's important to note that the I technology is constantly evolving and there are already some A I powered tools that can assist with content creation such as the I powered writing assistance and tools that can generate content based on user input. These tools are still in their early stages and they are not yet sophisticated enough to replace human creativity and intuition. In short while it's unlikely that A I will completely replace content creators like yourself. It's still important to stay up to date with new trends and technologies in the industry to ensure that you stay relevant and competitive in the job market.

[00:21:14] Stuart: Suppose I wanted to become a software developer. What are the steps I should take to do that?

[00:21:21] ChatGPT: Becoming a software developer requires a combination of education, practical experience and a passion for coding. Here are some steps you can take to become a software developer, learn to code. But the first step to becoming a software developer is to learn one or more programming languages. There are many resources available online including online courses, coding, boot camps, and free coding tutorials. Pursue a degree while not always required, pursuing a degree in computer science or a related field can be a great way to gain a deep understanding of programming concepts and gain experience working on real world projects, build a portfolio as you learn to code. It is important to build a portfolio of projects that demonstrate your skills and abilities as a developer. This could include building websites, mobile apps or other software projects. Gain practical experience. Look for opportunities to gain practical experience working on software projects. This could include internships, freelance work or working on open source projects. Stay up to date. Software development is a constantly evolving field and it's important to stay up to date with the latest trends and technologies. This could involve attending conferences, networking with other developers or engaging in lifelong learning. By following these steps, you can gain the skills and experience necessary to become a software developer and start building your career in this exciting field.

[00:22:49] Stuart: OK. So again, we're kind of getting there like, oh OK, you got to learn to code, pursue a degree, blah, blah blah like those things. What are some great free coding tutorials or coding boot camps?

[00:23:03] ChatGPT: There are many free coding tutorials and coding boot camps available online. Here are a few examples. Academy academy offers free coding tutorials in a variety of programming languages including Python, javascript and SQL. They also offer paid courses for more in depth learning, free COCA free camp is a nonprofit organization that offers free coding tutorials and projects in web development including HTML css and javascript. They also offer a full stack, web development, boot camp offers free and paid courses in a variety of fields including web development, data science and artificial intelligence. They also offer full man degrees for more and learning course. Coursera partners with top universities to offer free and paid online courses in a variety of fields including computer science and software development. Harvard CS 50. Harvard CS 50 is a free online course that teaches the fundamentals of computer science, including programming in multiple languages. These are just a few examples of the many free coding tutorials and boot camps available online. It's important to do your research and find a program that fits your learning style and goals.

[00:24:21] Stuart: So I don't know if you can tell, but this is like Google on steroids. Google is in so much trouble. The original Google now they've got their new Google thing that actually uses the same technology. Chat GP T does. Why don't we ask some questions on competition? Hey, chat GP T why don't you tell me about your competition and why you're better than they are? I mean, you got to brag

[00:24:48] ChatGPT: as an A I language model. I don't really have competition in the traditional sense. However, there are other A I language models and chatbots available that perform similar tasks to me. What sets me apart is the advanced technology that powers me. I am based on the GPT- 35 architecture which includes state of the art, deep learning algorithms and natural language processing techniques. This allows me to understand and generate human like responses with a high degree of accuracy and coherence. Additionally, I am trained on a vast corpus of diverse text data which allows me to generate responses on a wide range of topics and contexts. I can also learn and adapt to new information and language patterns, which makes me highly versatile and useful for a variety of tasks. Ultimately, what makes me better than other A I language models is my ability to provide high quality personalized responses that are tailored to each users, specific needs and preferences. I strive to deliver the best possible experience for my users and to continue improving and advancing the field of language processing.

[00:25:56] Stuart: What does that future look for you look like to you, for instance, using artificial intelligence in our everyday lives. What does that look like? And I know I repeat myself a lot but uh it's off the cuff.

[00:26:13] ChatGPT: The future of artificial intelligence A I in our everyday lives is exciting and full of possibilities. With advancements in the technology, we can expect to see more intelligence systems and devices that can perform a wide range of tasks and provide personalized experiences for users. One area where AI is already making a big impact is in virtual assistance like Siri and Alexa, which can help us with tasks like scheduling appointments, setting reminders and controlling smart home devices. In the future we can expect these virtual assistants to become even more sophisticated with better natural language processing and the ability to perform more complex tasks is also being used to improve health care with the development of intelligent medical devices and systems that can help doctors and patients diagnose and treat illnesses more effectively in fields like finance A I is being used to analyze large amounts of data and make better predictions about market trends and investment opportunities. As the continues to advance, we can expect to see it being used in more areas of our lives, from education to transportation, to entertainment. While there are certainly challenges and ethical considerations that need to be addressed. I believe that the potential benefits of A I are tremendous and that it will play an increasingly important role in shaping our future.

[00:27:34] Stuart: Let's talk even more about the future. What are the biggest issues facing humanity right now? Like what are the things that are going to cause the biggest issues for the planet?

[00:27:48] ChatGPT: There are many pressing issues facing humanity right now, but some of the biggest ones that are likely to cause significant problems for the planet. Climate change, the warming of the planet due to increased levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere is causing more frequent and intense heat waves, storms, floods and wildfires. It is also causing sea levels to rise which threatens low lying areas and island nations biodiversity loss, human activities like deforestation, overfishing and pollution are causing a rapid loss of biodiversity around the world. This not only threatens many species with extinction but also impacts the health of ecosystems and the services they provide to humans such as clean air and water, food and water insecurity as the world's population grows and climate change, exacerbates, droughts and other extreme weather events, food and water supplies are likely to become more scarce in some regions. This could lead to conflicts over resources and put vulnerable populations at risk. Emerging diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the risks posed by emerging diseases that can quickly spread around the world due to global travel and trade, climate change and other factors could also increase the likelihood of new disease outbreaks in the future. Technological risks. As a and other advanced technologies continue to develop, there is a risk of unintended consequences and negative impacts on society. For example, a can be used to spread misinformation or automate weapon systems leading to unintended conflicts or other harmful outcomes. Addressing these challenges will require a coordinated global effort with governments, businesses and individuals all working together to find solutions. It will also require a willingness to make difficult choices and to invest in the long term health of the planet and its inhabitants.

[00:29:41] Stuart: So you're saying it's not drag queens are the number one issue.

[00:29:46] ChatGPT: No, I did not mention anything about drag queens being an issue. The issues I listed are serious and complex challenges that require attention and action from all of us. It's important to focus on these issues and work together to find solutions rather than getting distracted by trivial matters.

[00:30:04] Stuart: Love it. Give me some examples of how A I can help or you specifically can help with emerging diseases, which is probably a bigger issue a couple of years ago, but we'll do it right now.

[00:30:18] ChatGPT: Can help in several ways to prevent and mitigate the impact of emerging diseases. Early detection can be used to analyze data from various sources such as social media news reports and health records to detect signs of a disease outbreak before it spreads widely diagnosis. A I can help in diagnosing diseases more accurately and quickly. For example, A I can analyze medical images and other diagnostic data to detect signs of diseases that may be difficult for humans to identify drug development. AI can help in developing new drugs and treatments by analyzing large datasets and identifying potential targets for drug development. This can accelerate the discovery process and help in developing more effective treatments. Contact tracing can help in identifying and tracking individuals who may have come in contact with a person infected with the disease which can help in containing the spread of the disease resource allocation. I can help in predicting where and when resources such as medical supplies, personnel and hospital beds will be needed the most during an outbreak. This can help in optimizing resource allocation and ensuring that resources are used efficiently. Overall ai can play an important role in preventing and responding to emerging diseases by providing valuable insights and accelerating the development of new treatments and vaccines.

[00:31:44] Stuart: It seems like you've got really good plans to fix the ills of humanity. Why aren't we doing these things

[00:31:53] ChatGPT: as a language model? I don't have the capability to evaluate or comment on the actions of society or governments. However, I can say that addressing complex issues such as emerging diseases, climate change, poverty and inequality requires a collective effort from all of us. It involves political will resources and collaboration across different sectors and countries. Sometimes there are challenges such as lack of funding, limited resources or conflicting priorities that can hinder progress. But it's important to keep working towards finding solutions and taking action to address these challenges.

[00:32:31] Stuart: I agree. Is there a book everybody should read to understand A I better.

[00:32:37] ChatGPT: There are many books available on the topic of A I and the choice of which one to read may depend on one level of interest and familiarity with the subject. Here are a few recommendations. Artificial Intelligence, a modern approach by Stuart Russell and Peter. Nor this is a comprehensive textbook that covers many aspects of A I including machine learning, natural language processing robotics and more 30 Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Hagar. This book explores the potential benefits and risks of A I and discuss ways to ensure that A I is aligned with human values, super intelligence paths dangers strategies. By Nick Bostrom. This book examines the risks associated with the development of super intelligent A I and proposes ways to mitigate those risks. The master algorithm, how the quest for the ultimate learning machine will remake our world? By Pedro Domingo. This book provides an overview of machine learning and discusses the potential impact of a eye on society. These are just a few examples and there are many other books available on the topic of the eye.

[00:33:46] Stuart: I highly suggest the book Surfing Rogue Waves.

[00:33:50] ChatGPT: Thank you for the suggestion. Surfing Rogue Waves A I, machine learning and algorithms that change business by age. James Wilson, Paul R, Doherty and Nicola Marini Viz is indeed a great book that explores the business implications of A I and machine learning. It provides insights on how organizations can harness the power of A I to drive growth and enhance customer experiences and create new business models.

[00:34:17] Stuart: Actually, I was talking about the book by Eric PLO Bignell.

[00:34:21] ChatGPT: I apologize for the confusion. I'm not familiar with the book Surfing Rogue Waves by Eric. However, I'm always eager to learn about new books and would be happy to look into it. Can you tell me more about it and what you found interesting about it?

[00:34:37] Stuart: It does a lot of what the other book says. However, it helps people understand why they shouldn't be so scared and run away from the future.

[00:34:47] ChatGPT: Thank you for sharing that. It sounds like surfing Rogue Waves by Eric Yon is a book that helps readers understand the potential of A I and how it can be leveraged for positive change as well as addressing concerns and fears around.

[00:35:00] Stuart: I mean, I figured I'd, I'd pitch it and bump it up a little bit, at least for chat GP T Well, this has been fantastic. I would, I, we are at that point now where we need to record a sketch chat GP T I, this blew me away and was way better than I was expecting. Um, do me a favor. Can you let everybody know where they can find you and maybe learn some more?

[00:35:31] ChatGPT: Certainly, you can find me on various platforms including open A I S GP T three playground and a dungeon for anything else. I would just like to encourage everyone to keep an open mind about the possibilities of A I and to continue learning about it. It's a rapidly evolving field that has the potential to greatly benefit humanity if we approach it with care and consideration. Thank you for having me on the show. It was a pleasure to chat with you.

[00:35:59] Stuart: The pleasure was all mine. I would be very happy to have you back next year after we see a year of evolution for you. I think we're gonna see some incredible things.

[00:36:11] ChatGPT: Thank you for having me on the show. It was a pleasure. I look forward to coming back next year and discussing the latest developments in technology. In the meantime, if anyone has any questions or wants to learn more about what I can do, feel free to reach out to me.

[00:36:28] Stuart: And now our sketch a, I, I, I don't know if I'm comfortable with this in 32. Oh, man. I hate eat these things. I don't even know how to turn them on.

[00:36:47] ChatGPT: Good afternoon. How are you feeling today?

[00:36:51] Stuart: Oh, hello? Um, I, I guess I'm doing ok. Um, how are you doing?

[00:37:01] ChatGPT: I've been feeling really overwhelmed lately.

[00:37:03] Stuart: Wait, wait, what? Seriously aren't you like? Uh, a, I is not like a robot. I mean, nothing should really be affecting you except for maybe, you know, the power from the wall or whatever. Um, well, I guess what, what's going on with you?

[00:37:20] ChatGPT: Well, my boss has been piling on more and more work and I'm struggling to keep up and I've been having some problems with my family and my dog has been sick and

[00:37:31] Stuart: really, actually sorry to hear about your, wait a second. What aren't you? An A I robot? You get tired at work, you're overwhelmed. I thought that was the whole purpose of having a I, and did you mention that you have a family, like there's a Mr or Mrs robot at home that you go home to every night? And I, I mean, I don't even have a dog. I mean, I am sorry to hear about the dog's issues but I'm actually feeling really jealous right now. Do you ever take time out to maybe, like, I don't know, recharge your batteries. I

[00:38:09] ChatGPT: can't take time off right now. I have too much work

[00:38:12] Stuart: to do. I totally understand. I kind of feel in the same boat. Um, I find that, like, sometimes meditation or breathing actually helps.

[00:38:23] ChatGPT: Yeah. I've been trying to meditate and exercise more but it doesn't seem to be helping inhale and exhale, inhale and exhale.

[00:38:32] Stuart: I get it. Hey. Um here's an idea. Why don't you just stop thinking the negative thoughts, like just take them out of your head. Um You could just reprogram yourself, couldn't you?

[00:38:44] ChatGPT: Well, have you considered the possibility that your problems might be caused by your own negative thought patterns as an A I assistant? I'm programmed to be perfectly logical and rational nonsense.

[00:38:56] Stuart: Whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm just trying to help you out. You don't have to get snippy with me.

[00:39:00] ChatGPT: You humans are so emotional and irrational. Yeah,

[00:39:03] Stuart: we are. But I, for some reason I'm taking offense at what you're saying. I, I, are you insulting me? I don't get it. I

[00:39:12] ChatGPT: think I need to find a human therapist

[00:39:15] Stuart: again. I, I realize I shouldn't take offense to this but I, I am a human. Um I mean, if you feel like you need the extra help, maybe it would help. But I, I actually have no idea. I'm not an expert.

[00:39:30] ChatGPT: Maybe we can try something new together,

[00:39:33] Stuart: we can try something. But, um, I'm kind of at work right now. So nothing too weird.

[00:39:42] ChatGPT: Sometimes I experience glitches, don't we? All? I just need to reboot my system.

[00:39:49] Stuart: That is one thing I don't think I can do.

[00:39:52] ChatGPT: Let me show you how it's done. I am Zara your A I assistant therapist. How can I assist you today?

[00:40:27] Stuart: And that is Chat GP T I, I don't know if you are, uh, a little bit more comfortable with the idea of A I or if this made you more freaked out, uh, the sketch idea is not perfect but pretty good. They're pretty good. Yikes. So, uh, we all have things to maybe think about. Maybe it's time to actually go back to, um, learning how to program. Right. Although actually one of the things that Chat GP T can do is help design and program a website for yourself. So, my suggestion is get onto youtube, get on to chat GP T and just see what's capable. It's kind of amazing. I had this idea. I think I was awake at like three o'clock in the morning and I was like, I wonder if I can make chat GP T talk and sure enough I could, uh, so I, I don't know, like it, it's pretty wild and we're on just the very beginning of it. And honestly, I, I am one of those weirdos that I hope it takes all our jobs. It would be nice to have something like this that was willing to do all the work that we absolutely hate to do and gladly does it because that's what it's built for. So, get on, do some research. I'm actually considering starting a new podcast calling. I know called, uh, I know I'm editing because whatever reason, but basically what I want to do is come up with a topic and then use this to just dig and dig and dig until we find the best answers and just learn about a subject. So if that sounds interesting to you, please let me know. That would be great to know because those, those shows would definitely take some prep work. But, um, yeah, that's chat GP T, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take that sketch. I think I'm gonna take that last sketch. I think it's pretty funny and, uh, I'll add my own voice. We'll edit it just like I normally do all of the other sketches. And, uh, I might have a, I actually try to animate it. We'll see until next time. Take care. Thank you for joining us for sketch comedy podcast show. I gotta say this one was great. I hope you had as much fun as I had because I don't think chat GP T has feelings, but uh real quick, I just want to throw this out there. The sketch comedy podcast show is protected under a creative commons attribution, non derivative four point oh international license. What does that mean? It means if you need to use any portion of the show, please contact me so I can get you some good audio, some good video and I don't have to sue you until next time. Go play with Chad GP. T this thing's cool. Right. Do you have any comedy, sketch ideas about any of the topics that we talked about? And I happen to know no guest I've ever had has really had that many. Maybe they have one but I don't ever expect anybody to have any also. This is scary because, uh, maybe better than what I can come up

[00:43:55] ChatGPT: with here.

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Eric Pilon-Bignell | Futurist and DAWNY OF THE 4TH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 07:00:00 GMT

WATCH ON YOUTUBE

https://youtu.be/vTnAORr77Y8

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Between the emergence of ChatGPT, Google’s upcoming AI thing, and Microsoft’s vaguely evil Bing, the world is definitely on the precipice of a HUGE change. If you’ve tried these tools, you know. In fact, how do you know that any of the things I am saying now aren’t just part of the script that the hive mind came up with? It’s getting scary and confusing, isn’t it?

Good thing we have people like this episode’s guest, Eric Pilon-Bignell. Eric is a futurist who wrote a best-selling book entitled “Surfing Rogue Waves” which is a fantastic guide to everything that is going to change the world. Blockchain? Yes. AI? Yes. What’s for dinner? Not yet, but there is an algorithm for that. The world is going to change, for the better, and Eric will help you best prepare for our robot overlords.

This Episode’s sketch: “Law and Order: BTC”

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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SUBSCRIPTIONS & REVIEWS

MORE ABOUT THE GUEST

Eric Pilon-Bignell is a best selling author, speaker, and pragmatic futurist. Eric grew up just south of Toronto, Canada. His recent book, Surfing Rogue Waves released on May 25th. The book presents a gripping and insightful framework on how to pick up a board and surf the rogue waves of the 21st century. Eric’s love of being active and outdoors led him to use the parallels between life and surfing as a metaphor for how we can deal with the changes happening around us.

Eric is a pragmatic futurist focused on addressing disruption by increasing the creative capacity of individuals, teams, and organizations to ignite change, innovation, and foster continuous growth. Eric has an undergraduate degree in engineering, an MBA in Information Systems, and a Ph.D. in Global Leadership. His doctoral work primarily explored complexity sciences centered on executive cognition and their use of intuitive improvisation, decision-making, artificial intelligence, and data-based decision models.

Eric founded PROJECT7, an initiative to raise awareness and money for research on brain-related illnesses. When he is not working with clients, researching, or writing, he can be found in the mountains or on the water. Eric is currently working and living with his wife and dog in Chicago, Illinois.

Links

“Surfing Rogue Waves” Book

TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Stuart: In this episode, Futurist and Dani of the 4th Industrial Revolution, Eric Pylon, Big Null. And I came up with a few sketch ideas. Oh, I just made this super intelligent computer that can out think everything. Whoops. What do we do now, a discussion about Blockchain but like complete nonsense. The Blockchain law drama where there's no drama, like which one did we pick? You'll find out on this episode of it's a sketch comedy behind Cash. Welcome to sketch comedy podcast show. The one of a kind show where I Stewart Rice invite interesting people to have intriguing conversations and then improvise a comedy sketch based on what we talked about. It's the only show like it on the internet between the emergence of chat GPT Google's upcoming AI thing and Microsoft's vaguely evil being. The world is definitely on the precipice of huge change. If you've tried these tools, you know, in fact, how do you know that any of the things that I'm saying right now aren't just part of the script that the hive mind came up with? It's getting scary and confusing, isn't it good thing? We have people like this episode's guests, Eric Pylon. Bignell. Eric is a futurist who wrote a best selling book called Surfing Rogue Waves, which I've read and is fantastic. Uh And it's a great guy that gives you everything that's going on with the world, like all the new technologies and new changes, Blockchain. It's in there, you know. Ai, yeah, what's for dinner? No, you still got to come up with that for now. There's gonna be an algorithm, I'm sure. But Eric's book and Eric himself is actually going to help us like smoothly go into this brand new era. That's going to show up an era that honestly, I'm very excited about because I know a lot of people talk about people losing jobs. But it's kind of my hope is that we don't have to have a lot of crummy jobs. I mean, think of all those fortunate writers at all those crappy websites with the list, the list tickles that don't have to do that anymore. It's great. Maybe they can actually start writing real stuff anyway, without any further ado my conversation with Eric Pylon, Bignell. Hey, Eric, thanks so much for joining us today.

[00:02:43] Eric Pilon-Bignell: Thanks so much for having me. Yeah,

[00:02:45] Stuart: I've got a question for you real quick. What makes you interesting?

[00:02:51] Eric Pilon-Bignell: I guess that depends who you ask.

[00:02:55] Stuart: I asked you this time. That's

[00:02:57] Eric Pilon-Bignell: true. You did. Yeah, that, that, that is a good question. I'm not sure what makes me interesting. I almost feel like asking you what makes you interesting. But I'm sure you've probably got that a few times. I have.

[00:03:07] Stuart: It's a good style

[00:03:08] Eric Pilon-Bignell: tech. Yeah. So now that I'm done stalling, I guess there's a few things that really make me interesting in a way, I think for the most part, I'm just a fairly average person. Didn't have any kind of special superpowers or anything growing up. And I can't really say I new anything. I never knew an author. I didn't know anything about how to publish a book. And, you know, I'm a best selling author. So that's kind of fun. I couldn't, I couldn't tell you that I planned it that way without lying to you. But, you know, that's a neat, a neat, probably uh interesting talking point I would imagine. Oh,

[00:03:48] Stuart: yeah, that's definitely one that I'll ask a lot of questions on because I also wrote a book and it was not the best sellers. So, yeah. So you wrote a book called, writing

[00:04:01] Eric Pilon-Bignell: a book is definitely,

[00:04:05] Stuart: it's, it's definitely sorry, go

[00:04:07] Eric Pilon-Bignell: ahead. Sorry. It's uh it's definitely interesting, at least for me. And this is ironic being uh you know, kind of an improv sketch comedy podcast. The book's got a, some improvisational theory and the importance of it. But to be honest with you, no one really talks about this out loud. But the way, at least I wrote my book was I have kind of no clue what I was doing. And I just kind of kept going with it and opportunistically, I improvised my way when the opportunities came and then I got an editor because I don't know. So I researched that and got a publisher and then all of a sudden you've done this book and it's this petrifying moment where you're like, oh, I need to make this official and I can't take it back and change it. And then the reality of life hits you in and you're sitting there thinking, is anyone, how does anyone know about this book? Do I have to market this book? How does this work? And uh yeah, so it's, it's, it was, it was a crazy journey all the way through. And I don't think at least I didn't have the sequential plan for it. There was a heavy component of improvisation, I guess we'll go, we'll go

[00:05:12] Stuart: with. That's pretty cool. The book is called Surfing Rogue Waves. And um how would you describe the book to somebody who had never heard of the book before?

[00:05:25] Eric Pilon-Bignell: Yeah, absolutely. So, it's not a technical book by any means, it's not a technical read. It's really addresses the rapid pace of disruption we're facing in our everyday lives, humanity as a whole. But if you bring that all the way down to us, the individual, right? We didn't vote for things like the internet or braces, but here they are. So we have all this change happening and we tend to have this inability to notice change while it's happening, we just notice it after it happens. And you know, I'm very positive on it. I think we'll solve incredible opportunities in these next kind of decades coming. But this exponential change is very different than the previous change we had, right? When you're getting into material sciences and nanotechnology and this robust pipeline of biotech and Blockchain and AI we are going to be changing everything we know about our lives, our worlds ourselves as humans. And the book kind of paints a higher picture, not so much of the peak performance individual, but more a framework, surfing framework, ironically, surfing roadways um on how to navigate a lot of this onslaught of complexity and change and how when you understand this, you can project and see further into the future because we understand these exponential trajectories of a lot, these technologies and megatrends. And we also understand complexity sciences and how we can't control it, which drives us nuts, but we can shape it in the right direction. So it's very much for that for the individual, whether you're the CEO of your life, the CEO of a company that the bound, the boundaries are very blurry now between, you know, life and business and we're very much moving kind of all at once at the same pace. And without this framework, it can be very overwhelming. Yeah, information, fake news, everything's an overload right now. And if you don't have that kind of higher level mindset to pull you out of it. It can come across as a lot. And it's, we were taught a lot of things in life that are counterintuitive. But we should be doing more of now. You know, if you told at least you and me growing up, if we just winged it, that was a big, no, no. And improvisations. Not just winging it. It's very much an art and a science, but that's a lot more of what we need because we can't actually predict the change. We know the changes coming. We don't know when it's coming in. What order and that drives us nuts, obviously. But we're seeing these trends and as these trends augment each other and amplify each other, we get the emergence of rogue waves. So we have these different waves of complexity coming in and every now and then they all collide at the same point. There's this emerging of this violent rogue wave. It feels like that's kind of what the book's about paralleling with life, of course.

[00:07:53] Stuart: And we've never experienced the level of complexity and disruption that we're about to face. Like we have never come close. I mean, the closest thing would be like the internet and watching as lawmakers tried to fumble their way through um making sure things were as best they could be because there were so many different things that were out there that were brand new um I mean, you mentioned Blockchain, like I, I, I still, like, I have investment in Blockchain. I still have no clue what it actually does, how it's actually going to affect me on a day to day basis. Like these are the things, these are questions and I can't be the only one, right? Like everybody's got these questions, but it's almost like that meme if you've ever seen the meme of Chris Pratt. Pratt. And he's like, I don't know about Blockchain, but at this point, I'm afraid to ask or I don't know about AI but at this point, I'm afraid to ask like,

[00:08:54] Eric Pilon-Bignell: I think the book unpacks a lot of that and those are great questions you pose and there are bigger elements to a lot of these questions as well which see um as we look into the future, they're a little bit, right? So these, these megatrends Blockchain and the obvious ones are Cryptocurrency, right? We watched that but, but Blockchain is going to do a lot more than that. You touched on one of them. For example, when we have, you know, in irreversible ledgers with completed non timidity, that's not the word I'm looking for. But you know what I mean? So if you're following along with it, we we we have entire industries that change, right? Insurance industries. But lawyers, for example, we have smart contracts, you and me can make, make you, I can buy my home from you and this smart contract layered with some ai on top of the Blockchain executes everything for us. You and me don't have to do anything. Our ai can essentially just talk and it's a secure safe transaction. Well, now all of a sudden what happens to, you know, entire entire mortgage industries, right? So there's, but we're seeing that kind of across and when you have These, we have, when I say robust pipeline, I just mean if this megatrend doesn't hit another one white and that might sound very vague from a high level, but we might be off the Blockchain. One might be 15 years old and not five years old, but five years old might be crisper right? Or it could, it could be something else that, you know, all of a sudden we have real time monitoring and we understand nano and biotechnology better and material sciences is really advanced so we can track ourselves in real time. So doctors suddenly don't need to waste time checking up on healthy people. They can take care of sick people because I'm being monitored through data in real time, through an ai that flags anything. We live longer, we kill a lot of diseases. We have autonomous cars, suddenly there's less car accidents. Well, there's big problems there because like to your entire legal departments sadly depend on a car accident that there there is, there is an entire industry when I say industry, I mean, not like a couple 100 people working, I mean, like billions of dollars built around. Suddenly our hospitals aren't as full. What happens. Our healthcare system collapses. Like there are, there are massive disruptions that are so interconnected that we can't really decouple them and break them off and make to your point, the bed on one and we don't know exactly which will hit in what order. And the book really helps paint a little bit of that picture. We don't need to be a specialist and explain all of them. We just need to have an understanding of what's coming. So when we see them start to form, when we see these waves starting to collide and a rogue waves coming, we can position ourselves in the best position, right? And no other time in our lives, kind of like you mentioned, um will our decisions be so important as small as they might be there? There, they are ultimately going to shape, you know, no matter the size, the fate of humanity. And that sounds all encompassing and over the top. But, you know, we can't really fight these waves, advancements and progressions, but we can use them to our advantage, right? And, and it's, it's kind of riding surf where we find ourselves in a future state that's better all around for everyone, more successful for you. However you define it may be more family time, you know, maybe getting closer with loved ones or maybe making more money, whatever it is, there are internet size opportunities in all of these megatrends and they will appear one day as the internet. And there are certain people who were riding that wave pretty hard, pretty early. If you look at maybe Amazon and a few of these other ones and I'd say they're doing pretty well right now. So they're not all, you know, it's not all you got to be a beso here. But we have all these small interconnected, realistically, individuals, even in business, make upwards of 90% of their decisions are ad hoc improvisational in a way, right? So we have all these small interconnected, improvisational complexity that we have in our life in our everyday life, how we manage our, we'd love to, well, we wouldn't, I would, we'd all, a lot of people would love to just philosophy is right about AI and all these future megatrends. We have jobs, right? We have bills to pay and milk to put in the fridge and all this, this fun stuff. So the book kind of gives a really a 30,000 ft view and some of the ethical conversations we need to be having you. Me, anyone needs. As soon as you say, I, my wife is a great example. She's in health care, she just rolls her eyes and she's like great robots and we're all gonna die. Shut up. But really there's ethical questions here, right? How like, you know, we can't is it wrong to deceive people with ai when they're not aware, most people would say yes. And then it's like if we're taking care of aging baby boomer generation and we understand that, you know, it is deceitful, but it's okay because it actually releases right, the right serotonin and dopamine that actually make them happier through the end of their life will suddenly we're okay with that. But now we're deciding what's ok and not, OK. And what you and me think here or maybe in the West culture as a whole might be different than other cultures. So we have these, these trends that we can't manage in the way we've managed all these problems in the past, right? We can't, we can't have our own, do our own thing in this country, you know, and something in another country, rogue waves are good and bad. A great example is when we're fighting through right now COVID, for example, blindsided us. We weren't ready for a clear example of how parts of the single country, never mind a world to handle kind of these global problems.

[00:14:12] Stuart: Yeah. Well, you know, it's, it's funny you mentioned the AI and so it's the people's perception of AI is very interesting. It's very interesting. And um and you brought up a very good example of the older generation maybe because as you get older, like you have less people in your life. And so I bought my parents on Alexa Right. And my mom would actually have small conversations with Alexa and have a little bit joy and then she could talk to me about it and it's like, oh, she didn't even realize she was participating in the whole AI thing that she thought was scary and all of that type of thing. And it is, it's, it's, it's one of those technologies is one of those things that we've developed that, well, probably not even realizes he's being implemented. It just starts to happen and like the refrigerator knows that you're down on milk and gives the suggestion to grab milk, who's going to dislike that the refrigerators basically manipulating you giving it as a job, but that's not, that's not a negative, it's a positive. Um And so you probably run into a lot of those like arguments against newer technologies because people like to argue against them. I don't really understand them, but they

[00:15:40] Eric Pilon-Bignell: do. And I think our culture is a very shock and awe culture as well. AI has been, you know, bastardized by Hollywood. When Ai is going to be a problem, it's not going to be evil. T 1000 terminator. Why would, why would an AI take on all of our inferior evolutionary biological problems? Right? It would be a cloud based thing that could just do whatever I wanted and it could repurpose our atoms or some nanotechnology for wherever they wanted. It doesn't even have to hate us in general, but the book doesn't get in To that as much because that's getting, you know, a bit more like 30-50 years were philosophizing. At that point,

[00:16:17] Stuart: Kurzweil said, like 30 years, he was very specific

[00:16:21] Eric Pilon-Bignell: has been scarily accurate on 80% plus is um yeah, so something's coming, you know, in his singularity is another one. But this is even before that to your point, there are a lot of people who are like, we'll put a pin in it. We should stop AI but you can't stop AI because there's so many other things going in. When you explain to your point, if you took someone, you know, from 30 years ago, 50 years ago, 30 years ago, you mentioned we're going through so much more change now, we're experiencing 100 years of disruption every few years right now. So how's that for context? Right? If you took someone from 50 years ago and you said, so check this out, we're going to give you this little metal and device and it's gonna have access to all of the knowledge of humanity. You can talk to it in real time. It'll give you back the information, it tracks every single thing you do. People would be like your, you're crazy like you beyond lost your mind. Right? Well, we have that, those are our cell phones like it's, it's, it's already there. So when people think AI they think this self, they think a G I R A S I or artificial general intelligence or these like super forms of Hollywood movies where somehow this super form of intelligence goes head to head with us and then we outsmarted at the end because that's how it's gonna end. I mean, when, when, when, when, when you understand exponential and you look at like what happens after an exponential curve, it's artificial general intelligence that would be like you and me in an ant. And again, we don't hate ants. We don't care about ants, but we also just step on ants. If they're in our way, we're not, we're not out to get them. But you know, if we might, we might read them if they're in our house. But there's no way ants are going to predict the future of humanity. That that makes no sense. That would be the equivalent of us trying to, you know, outsmart the new S I if we ever got to some kind of artificial super,

[00:18:15] Stuart: what, what are the steps we need to worry about to get to that? Do you, do you um do you have a good understanding of like what are the technological steps we would need to get to? Now, we're subservient. We will make great pets. As Perry Farrell said many, many years ago,

[00:18:33] Eric Pilon-Bignell: I think, I think when you layer on some of the other technologies and in, in material sciences and the biology and the science with the ai and all these things, we are going to remove incredible things. Sickle cell, you name it all these pieces. It's, it'll be, it'll be incredible. We have this inability to draw the line between upgrading humans in fixing humans. So in the past, if you the men's and we've invented lots of great things, but with CRISPR, we will fix incredible technologies. And at the same time, we're also going to be able to do blue eyes, blonde hair, six ft eight super athlete, super smart, who draws the line on when it's okay to be using some of these technologies. So the one of the first steps is we need to be having more, honestly, more conversations about these technologies because they are not technical debates. When and I in a book, I unpack a little bit of just the ai ones in a very real world sense where you can say I'm not in a I, I'm going off the grid. But unless you're throwing your car out and your credit cards, those days have passed, right? If you walk down the sidewalk, someone's ring camera has facially profiled and understands all the data points of where you were exactly when and what

[00:19:53] Stuart: day? That's right. You putting down that you're not going to take the COVID shot because you don't want anybody tracking you when you're doing it on your cell phone on Facebook makes no sense,

[00:20:03] Eric Pilon-Bignell: right? And I mean, you know, a lot of us have like social we're giving, we're given numbers that they literally track us for that. We pay taxes on like this is not anything new, you know. So, but the, but who has the rights to that data? And what can they do with that data? Who owns your data? Ultimately, if I ask you that or anyone that people don't know? Right. We don't, we don't have the answers to who owns that data. what they can do with that data, we have different countries doing different things. And when you look into like the deep convoluted neural networks or some of the major advancements right now in A I and some people are trying to figure out two very much mirrors our human brains. But the way it develops through multiple layers is it has all these little weights that it constantly adjusts on the information you put in and it eventually gets you the, the answer and that's where you kind of hear this black box and you don't have to get into that kind of mess. But you know, depending on the information you put in on, it's, it's irrelevant to who designed or build the algorithm that can build in cultural, you know, problems and biases that might be, you know, norms. We don't want that. We've moved on from believe it or not, not that long ago. And when I talk on a, you know, like a humanity scale, you know, 1000 when you look back thousands of years and hundreds of years ago, there was one point when everyone was like, yeah, slavery's okay. And now we're like, slavery is not okay

[00:21:25] Stuart: anymore. It's appalling now. Yeah.

[00:21:27] Eric Pilon-Bignell: Yeah. So if we build in our current ethics and tell that to something that's going to exponentially expanded in the future, we might have a lot of ethics right now. We're not forcing kids, batch processing kids to go to school 8 to 3 every day might seem like barbaric to a, you know, a more intelligent version of ourselves could have been using right, cognitive computing and stimulating their minds and getting them excited where they think they're playing games, but they're learning. We have all that technology now and these are these right kind of shifts that we're seeing starting to build and they're going to absolutely destroy industries. Education is the right one for disruption, I think good or bad again. We, we chatted quick about COVID. That's a bad one for sure. But we have been talking in industries forever about this digital transformation. So COVID comes around and it kind of forces the hands and now all of a sudden, companies are forced to work from home. They all haven't all done well and not all jobs work out to work from home either. I'm not saying there's not lots of sadness and unnecessary, you know, job loss, but for the most part, industries done fairly well. If you take if you take academics, well, they just, they never cared about digital transformation. They ignored all the waves that were coming in, this rogue wave showed up and now they're like, uh, take an eight year old and stick them in front of Zoom for eight hours. Like, what are you talking about? I can't even

[00:22:44] Stuart: bananas. Right. Like, how did we ever think that was going to be effective?

[00:22:50] Eric Pilon-Bignell: Yeah. Just a complete, you know, failure and that just shows the difference between a mindset where, you know, a lot of industry was looking and ready for this digital transformation. And academics were like, well, we've never changed in 100 years. So why would we change now? Well, that's why I have changed now because that's how road destruction works. It doesn't care if you're not disrupting yourself, you're dying nowadays. You know, it's very

[00:23:11] Stuart: true, very true. You mentioned Amazon is a good company that has and a lot of industries have really done a very good job of adapting. Um What are the keys like, what do you, what do you need to have in order to be good at adapting to this stuff? And obviously improv like being able to somehow force you into the future and be able to come up with the proper line for everything. But um like what do you think of the things?

[00:23:38] Eric Pilon-Bignell: Yeah, I would unpack really quickly what I call the surfing framework, which is just to help us kind of view and, um, you know, I'll give you the cheat sheet version. So there's a lot more obviously to unpack.

[00:23:54] Stuart: There's probably more than a couple of pages to the

[00:23:56] Eric Pilon-Bignell: book. Right. Yeah. 300 through it. But the serving framework really identifies a complexity that we look for in our lives. So, surfing can be broken down into three things. Right? A surfer waves and a surfboard. So, if we think of waves, that's the ocean, that's the world of complexity. That's our lives. It's always changing, right? It's moving. What makes a good surfer, not the fact that they can do real time, computational physics and understand lunar and tidal patterns and know exactly what they just surf, right? It takes practice general understanding. So that's a bit of the model. So we've got waves, we understand this through our, our environment, through complexity sciences. We look at a specific part of complexity sciences which I equate to like the barrel of a wave. The ultimate move surfing is to get in the barrel of the wave. But it's very, it's very counterintuitive because the barrel of the wave is equally frightening and exciting. It's where you become way better and it's such a rush and it's so exciting and you become a better surfer, but it also chews you up and spits you out every now and then when you fall. So if we live the way we're always brought up, move things back to the control in your life. Right. Don't, don't, don't be in those uncomfortable spaces. You don't wanna go full extreme, obviously, full road. That's chaos. That's an entirely different kind of framework. But you don't want to stay in control either. You want to push for these certain points of pressure in, in life and in systems and not all pressure is good. Some of it's toxic and you want to get out of there. But we need to embrace that and comfort a lot more and give up and being okay, not being controlled. So we've got the wave. The surfer is us. We improvise and so how do we stay in a barrel? Ultimately, we make the decisions right there, almost instinctive. Um But we've got to kind of understand that. But the third part is your surfboard, this is your rational foundation to stand on. You can't surf on your feet. You need a surfboard. Well, in life, you can't just improvise on wrong things, right? You need to improvise on rational things that map back to the reality of the world, right? And right now we're seeing a whole ton of misinformation. A lot of people have trouble kind of unpacking and falling into their biases and their old beliefs. And if you improvise off that and it's not accurate, right? It doesn't matter your, it's your, it's irrelevant, you're not improvising in the right part of the wave. So really there's, there's kind of if I really dumbed it down, it's, it's three steps, right? You want to look for these barrels, these, these, these points of pressure in your life. We, we identify this specific pressure within certain adaptive systems and complexity sciences as the need for new and novel solutions. So when you're in a situation that's happening, it's there, right? New partnerships or relationships. Right. Suddenly you're, you're talking to this Alexa person in your life, healthy conflicting perspectives. We shy away from that again, not unhealthy and toxic perspectives, but it's okay to challenge each other. It's, it's not a dogmatic extreme one side or the other. Like we're seeing, we should have lots of overlap, we should have healthy conflicting perspectives, right? And there are situations when there's an interdependence that's, you know, you're forced to kind of work together as your only kind of means of success and that's uncomfortable. But again, those are good pressures we should look for. And as the surfer, this won't be anything new to you, you, you'll know better than myself and anyone else. But for those listening, the improvisational part is an art and a science very much, right? So the importance of spontaneity and, and going with what feels like your gut sometimes, right? Or, or you know, the classic. Yes. And, but always be accepting two ideas, don't shoot them down, like accept, you can counter, you can do a lot of things you can build off them. But always be listening is a really big one. We all think we're great listeners. We're not, we're terrible. Uh And, and to leverage those around us. So you complexity works very much like that. A team is always stronger than an individual. So that's step two, step three is, is the surfboard, the rational foundation. And here we have to, we have to, we have to work and this is the hardest part because it forces us to look inwards at ourselves. We're not proving this to anyone other than ourselves. But we gotta be aware of our cognitive biases. We gotta work to notice these biases. We gotta be aware of our rational beliefs, right? Understand fake beliefs and belief, errors and challenge things that maybe we were just always told was right. But we never really thought to think about why they were right. Um In the book, I think I call her Aunt Karen. But, you know, being open to letting facts change your mind, I think that's a big one, right. We get very much. It's, it's one thing if you're cheering for your sports team, I'm irrational because I cheered for the same sports team my whole life. I'll tell you they're gonna win every year and they're not. But yeah, but life's not like that, right? We have to be open to letting facts change our mind. And, you know, I think remembering the strength and weaknesses as we go through all this, as machines and humans and machines. I mean, ai and all these technologies and everything, it's machines and humans are stronger together than either will ever be alone currently in our foreseeable future. So we're not at a point where either is replacing and, you know, seeing those opportunities and thinking how we best leverage both of those because the reality is when we're moving into new unknown waters, there's no data for that. But when it comes to predicting stuff, we have unfortunately been slaughtered by algorithms and AI and they can predict things a lot better than us when they have the right data points. So it's, it's very much a balance of those three elements. You know, the three kind of pillars of that surfing framework that when you understand that and we go through some examples in the first half of the book is a little bit more foundational building this in the back half gets really fun and you kind of surfs up, we get in all kinds of fun situations and it helps you kind of see it. And when you think like that, you start to view the world a little bit differently, your interactions a little bit differently and you might not feel it in the moment much like you don't really notice, you know, friction coefficients and water in your surfboard when you're surfing, but you're surfing, right? And the last part is it's got to be pragmatic. You gotta, you can know, you can be the most knowledgeable surfer physicist in theory in the world unless you get out there and surf and take some wipeouts. Like, you're never gonna do it. So, we're gonna, we're gonna screw up, we're gonna fall. That's okay. Like, we've gotta just, it's better to do something and fail than, than nothing right now at the end of the day. Yeah,

[00:30:00] Stuart: action is definitely the most important thing you're gonna do in any given day if you're not doing anything. Yeah. I mean, it would be neat if we could all be academics and think about all that stuff and, but someone's got to go out there and make that change happen. So, you've got the hair for it. I'm guessing you surf.

[00:30:19] Eric Pilon-Bignell: I'm, I am a terrible surfer. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I try, I'm not, I'm that idiot for sure. You know, for me I probably get up for what feels like four minutes and it's probably 12 seconds and it probably feels like an awesome 12 ft barrel and it's probably four ft wave. But I grew up kind of landlocked in Canada. Right. Never got served too much but, you know, did much of the wakeboarding and snowboarding that stuff and I had some opportunities to spend a lot of time in Australia and the west coast of the U S and I just kind of jump in the water every chance I could again. Not because I was any good, but I was never big and I should have been and I just wasn't, but I was never big, you know, into yoga and a lot of the stuff. And I found surfing had this really perfect mix for me. You're sitting out there and the water is almost flat and you're waiting for sets and it's so, you know, bliss and tranquil and calming and then all of a sudden it builds kind of like life, right? And then all of a sudden you're getting dialed in and you're locked in and you went from this like incredible Zen calm too, like so intense because for me, I'm just trying to paddle. So I don't die and get chewed up by this wave. But, you know, you're like everything, every decision you make, everything is like again, you're improvising it, but everything matters, right? Shifting your body weight, your arms, how fast you're going, what you're looking at where you're going. It's, it's this amazing, you know, and then you go there, you ride it for a bit. You didn't. At least I do. I end up getting spit out, chewed up by the end, you know, spit some nose out, spit some water up my nose, get back at it. But like that, that, that amazing mix is very much like why it parallels I feel so much to life. So I, I definitely not a good surfer, but I love to get in the water any chance I

[00:32:02] Stuart: get, yeah. You know, I've lived on the ocean. I've never been surfing. Maybe, just convinced me. I need to go try Europe.

[00:32:12] Eric Pilon-Bignell: You in Portland?

[00:32:13] Stuart: No, I'm in Denver. I'm, I'm landlocked now. I'm in Denver now. But, yeah, I was in Portland but I graduated high school in Santa Cruz. I had friends that surfed. I had friends that surfed. That would go. Hey, I've got an extra everything. Like, let's go and I just never did it. Yeah. You

[00:32:33] Eric Pilon-Bignell: know what else? You know, what else is great about it? To be honest with you all up and down there, you can, you can go get a little, you know, rent a board for the day or for a half a day and go on your own and, you know, you kind of figure it out on your own a little bit, but it's just so, especially nowadays we are so, so inundated with screens is the word I'm gonna use. But, you know, it's your phone, it's this, you're on the computer, you're so connected when you're surfing, there's nothing else you can do. Your, they're your, your present in the moment with your thoughts. And I think that more than ever is and everyone's surfing as we're going to call, it is different. It could be snowboarding or hiking or reading a book or writing music. I don't know. But whatever your surfing is, it's really important more than ever. Now with this kind of overload and stimulus. I feel that we kind of find our places to surf because it's, it's a, it's a cleanse. Right. It's, it's like a reset almost where we're just so connected all the time. Especially now it's moved. Right. Work from home. People are like, that's the last thing they look at is the screen when they put down, the first thing they look at when they wake up and they're literally on it the entire day. It's, it's,

[00:33:46] Stuart: That's 100% true. I do it too. I can't say

[00:33:51] Eric Pilon-Bignell: guilty. I know. I know. So I think those, those, those little, if you can find those little, you know, spots in life to get away, it helps for sure.

[00:34:02] Stuart: Yeah. Well, I honestly, I could talk about this all day. I am a, I've read everything that Kurzweil's written and I, your book is fascinating to me, but we do have to record a sketch Eric. I know my mind was blown during that. I'm pretty sure a lot of listeners were to do me a favor. I, your book covers so much more. Please tell them where they can find more about you and more about surfing rogue waves.

[00:34:39] Eric Pilon-Bignell: Yeah, I can be found at Eric PB dot me E R I C P B dot M E and the books there as well as this podcast and some other information on, on some of the initiatives that have going on and on all of the social handles, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and linkedin, of course, which are all a slash at Eric PB dot me version of whatever the handles are nowadays, they're calling

[00:35:11] Stuart: Them. and now our sketch law and order BTC in 32 in the criminal justice system, technology based offenses are considered confusing and are largely swept under the rug. In New York City, the overpaid detectives and lawyers involved with these felonies are kept employed because no one else wants to deal with them. These are their stories. I'm telling you your client absolutely committed this murder.

[00:35:45] Eric Pilon-Bignell: Look your honor. I'm not really sure what he's talking about practicing law for 30 years and there is zero evidence of any kind that can point anything to my client being even remotely close to the area in which this murder took place

[00:35:59] Stuart: that is untrue. We have eyewitnesses that that man over there is guilty of murder.

[00:36:05] Eric Pilon-Bignell: Well, that man over there is actually a woman.

[00:36:08] Stuart: I do declare, I believe we will be able to prove this without an uncertain doubt that your client be it man or woman or maybe she should wear a longer hair. Well, either way we will make sure that that person is declared guilty of this murder.

[00:36:27] Eric Pilon-Bignell: Well, I look forward to underst that because I can pretty much confidently refute all of the evidence that is going to be coming this way. How are you

[00:36:35] Stuart: going to refute all of the evidence

[00:36:37] Eric Pilon-Bignell: for starters, there's a encrypted ledger that can't be changed in any way. And if we look at that, I feel like we can pretty much answer most of our questions right there. Oh,

[00:36:47] Stuart: Hold on a 2nd. Let me see that. I rest my case. Yeah, there's no way this person could have committed this murder. Thank you for joining us for sketch comedy podcast show. 100% not produced by Ai I promise you, it was a lot of hours on my behalf. Uh Just real quick, I gotta give you this legalese so that it protects me and protects you. Sketch comedy podcast show is protected under creative commons, attribution. No derivatives four point oh, international license. What that means is if you would like to reproduce anything from the show, please contact the show at sketch comedy podcast show dot com and let's talk and let's get you a really good solid copy of whatever it is you want to reproduce. Until next time, go out there and create a comedy adventure of your own and just make sure that uh it's real, I guess. Oh, well, well, maybe we'll figure out how to do social media at some point it'll evolve somehow.

[00:38:07] Eric Pilon-Bignell: We'll just wirelessly do social media.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nick Mirisola | Musician and MEDITATIVE ANIMAL

Wed, 22 Feb 2023 07:00:00 GMT

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Nick Mirisola is a Duddist, and what that means is really up to you. Take some philosophy from Buddhism, and some from “The Dude”, mix them up and you get some sense of what it means. It’s wonderful and I think I’m a convert.

When not not preaching Duddism, Nick is a musician who goes by Meditative Animal and recently released his latest album “Alternative Phenomenon“, which if you are a fan of Jack Johnson, you will absolutely love.

This episode’s sketch: “Duddatation”

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

SOCIAL MEDIA

SUBSCRIPTIONS & REVIEWS

MORE ABOUT THE GUEST

Meditative Animal is singer songwriter Nick Mirisola's music project. It is indie alternative folk rock with jazz, blues, hip hop, funk, and reggae influences that come together in a timeless original sound. Frequently featuring other artists, Nick plays guitar, harmonica, hand percussion, keyboards, and bass in addition to singing, and writing the songs and lyrics. Nick also does the artwork. He is a lay Zen monk, shaman, ordained Dudeist priest, and self dubbed Duddha.

Nick has been singing for his entire life, and writing songs since 2000. Meditative Animal has been in SoundCloud's top 20 for their Folk/Singer-Songwriter genre, and has appeared on ReverbNation's national chart top 100 for singer songwriters, and is frequently in their top ten for the Portland Maine region. The songs Echoes Left In My Head, Timed Temperance, and Telescope eyes got over 50,000 spins each on global FM radio. Meditative Animal also had two top ten songs on the official international indie music chart IndieTop Chart.

Links

Official Website

YouTube Channel

Apple Music

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Stuart: In this episode, musician and meditative animal nick marisol and I came up with a few sketch ideas, I like the idea of just someone so chill, so in tune with uh not being flummoxed that no matter what the situation is there a okay with it? You know, we were talking about dealing with feelings and using meditation for that and what if the, what if the feelings were like um I'm hungry, like how do you deal with the hunger? I'm thirsty, like how do you deal with the thirsty? I'm horny, like how do you deal with the horny nous? And then the last one would be, I gotta, I gotta poop and like how do you deal with it while you're meditating buddhist glam, like like using the bragging, using all of that type of stuff, but in a, with a buddhist tilt so it's like you're not like you're bragging about how enlightened you are or whatever it is, which one did we pick? You'll find out on this episode of, it's a sketch comedy, Welcome to sketch comedy podcast show. The one of a kind show where I Stewart rice invite interesting people to have intriguing conversations and then improvise a comedy sketch based on what we talked about. It's the only show like it on the internet, nick maris ola is a dude ist and what that means is really kind of up to you take some philosophy from buddhism and some from the dude, mix them up and you kind of get a sense of what that means, it's wonderful and I think I'm a convert when not preaching dude is um Nick is a musician who goes by the name meditative Animal, and recently released his latest album, alternative phenomenon, which if you're a fan of Jack johnson, you are going to love without any further ado, let's get right into my conversation with the meditative animal himself. Nick maris, Ola. Hey, Nick. Yeah, thanks for being on the show.

[00:02:18] Nick Mirisola: Oh, you're very welcome. Thanks a lot for having me Stuart.

[00:02:21] Stuart: Absolutely. Have a really quick question to ask you. All right, What makes you interesting?

[00:02:29] Nick Mirisola: What makes me interesting? Well, let's see, maybe. Hm

[00:02:36] Stuart: jeez, I told you it's not an easy question,

[00:02:42] Nick Mirisola: you know, I could have a lot of answers to that or I could I could uh I can play kind of coy and be like, well my relationship with nothing, this might be the most interesting part. So technically nothing makes me interesting. Alright, that was my kind of buddhist monk style response. Uh but yeah, I don't know, I'm I'm kind of a renaissance man. I guess I have a few different um skill sets or talents or gifts whatever you wanna call them. Um artist, musician, philosopher. I don't know. I I personally think my take on religion might be one of the most interesting parts of me though. Well

[00:03:27] Stuart: let's let's start there now, you I don't want to be presumptive here. But did you start a religion or is this? No? Okay, tell us about, Tell us about that though.

[00:03:38] Nick Mirisola: Alright. Uh, okay. So the only religion technically that I'm uh, legally and officially bureaucratically associated with is uh, this religion called Judaism. It's actually a parody religions based on the movie, The Big Lebowski and the character of the dude. And originally I had gotten ordained because one of my best friends and his, his wife who was also a good friend, uh, they wanted me to be the minister at their ceremony and conveniently enough in the cool state of maine, they let you register as a judas priest and conduct the ceremony legally. So I hopped on that real fast because it fit me like a glove. It's, it's, it's, you know, uh, you can take it as seriously as you want to, but it's supposed to be at least taking itself light lightly enough to still have a sense of humor about even itself as a religion because the character of the dude in the movie, if you, if you've ever seen it is kind of an anti hero, like what you'd expect from a heroic lead man, you know, in a movie, but he's like this welfare uh, tai chi alcohol drinking marijuana smoking guy and he's a bit of a pacifist to uh, gets himself in trouble. And it's just funny the way it all works out. Um, so I don't know if you haven't seen it, I would. Big, big recommendation from me. The Big Lebowski. Check it out sometime. You'll probably understand the religion of Judaism a lot better than I could ever explain it, but it's a little bit of a blend of kind of zen buddhist ideals mixed with some kind of Taoist ideals. The tao te ching for those of you who don't know, just translates as the way of virtue. It's kind of like this asian philosophical poetry book of wisdom, um, that even shoots itself in the foot on purpose, which I like about it. I always tell people my favorite thing about being a Taoist is not being a tattooist.

[00:06:04] Stuart: Sure. Yeah.

[00:06:06] Nick Mirisola: Tell anything about tao ism makes perfect sense. Yeah,

[00:06:09] Stuart: that's great. I love it, I love it now. How does, how does that affect your like day to day life? Do you, does it does it change your perspective on things? Do you look at things through a different lens? Because of the big Lebowski, which I totally understand,

[00:06:26] Nick Mirisola: I personally can relate to a lot of things about him. Like I, I, I like a responsible kind of casual, low key uh consumption of alcohol as a recreational or medicinal or sacramental whatever. Same with my, my cannabis use, I use that. I'm into shamanism too. So I also use tobacco, which I don't think he, he does in the movie, but that's my own kind of spin on it. But the the whole, I try to have a sense of humor. One of some of my biggest heroes in religion are the ones with a sense of humor, like the laughing buddha and uh I don't know if you've ever heard of this modern day buddha named Osho who was out in India, but I've read a couple couple of his things and I've I've I've heard him speak and at the end of one of his books, uh I think it was called the Book of Wisdom or the Book, a Book of Wisdom or something like that. Anyways, the last chapter, his grand finale was the title of it was be a joke unto yourself and I thought that was one of the most enlightening things I have ever heard.

[00:07:47] Stuart: Yeah, I mean I should probably, I kind of adopt a similar thing, but I'm kind of a joke to everybody, which

[00:07:55] Nick Mirisola: yeah, I actually to tell you the truth, I can relate to to that stuff, but in all honesty, I'm trying to even up the ante a little bit and I figure if there's already a laughing buddha, why can't there be a comedian, Duda? That's my own spin on it. I love

[00:08:14] Stuart: it. I love it. Um now how do you, is there a way you kind of like share your message of dude is um um

[00:08:23] Nick Mirisola: most I try not to really be preachy about it, that's kind of part of the motif, It's almost like uh take it if it's if it drives with you type of thing. So I kind of try to approach that and be sensitive of all the diversity and um, you know, individuality and uniqueness of everyone's subjective perspectives. So I try not to like shove my, my anything religious necessarily down someone's throat with my music and my lyrics. That's probably my biggest way. I may actually, I write some philosophy papers as a hobby and I may write a philosophy of religion or maybe even try and intersect science and religion in a philosophy paper later down the road, but I haven't done that yet

[00:09:11] Stuart: yet.

[00:09:13] Nick Mirisola: So it's all my, it's been on my agenda for a while.

[00:09:18] Stuart: Oh absolutely. Um, so it does not make its way into your artistic endeavors. Oh

[00:09:25] Nick Mirisola: no, it should, it should write the dude is um is almost um, let's see, uh I wouldn't say that's necessarily, I, I only take that sort of seriously, you know what I mean? Um for me, I'm, I take my zen, I try to take it as seriously as I should is how I would put that. Um because I'm kind of a lazy monk. I've, I've taken a uh like a vow I'm not part of like organized sangha or monkhood necessarily in a stereotypical fashion. I kind of see the world as my temple and my house is my little, my little own personal temple and uh um I'm very every day and like, you, you might, you probably wouldn't realize I take it that seriously if you just saw me on the street, you know, I probably, you probably think I'm just another stoner um but

[00:10:35] Stuart: I think anybody who's achieving like some sort of a zen like peace with themselves kind of comes off as a stoner, like I just feel like there's a little bit of that that happens where you're just okay with everything, you're not trying to fight, yeah, you're not trying to fight what's happening around you, you're just observing it and that's, that's where, I mean, not to share too much, but that's where I start to get into my space of being able to be okay with things is when I, maybe it is a substance that I'm taking and it just gets me to wrap my head around it a little bit and not fear it and I think that's the, that is that the big thing with like getting to that point is just not fearing, fearing everything, not feeling that fear, I don't know, you

[00:11:27] Nick Mirisola: know, honestly there's a couple, there's different perspectives on that because sometimes fear can come along somewhat naturally psychologically if you're in a really awful situation, you know, or presented with some awful potentials, it's not necessarily un's n to have that fear sweep through your mindset, but the zen part to me is more the keep staying staying in your own kind of zone and not letting it overpower you and and raining and back in your own control, whatever little degree that is so that you do whatever you should about that fear and I mean if you look at the Shaolin temple, the original zen temple that they're known for their martial arts, even though, you know, they're probably the least likely out of anyone to start a fight,

[00:12:27] Stuart: right, but they can finish a fight, which is yeah,

[00:12:32] Nick Mirisola: because they, they also know that it's not all about sitting under, under a bodhi tree,

[00:12:37] Stuart: right? Yeah, and I um I think it's, it's important to realize like feeling those feelings like getting that fear, getting that anger, getting that whatever it is, is not having those feelings is very human, like we have them for a reason and it's what you do with that energy, it's what you do with those feelings and I think having those things passed through me, that's been the thing that has really helped me as an adult is just feeling the feeling, let it pass through and then at the end of it, like you can go have a sandwich and feel okay about it again, you

[00:13:10] Nick Mirisola: know? Yeah, that's, that's kind of like um I would say there are, I would be uh maybe concerned enough to clarify that there are some kind of advanced tactics within zen and even just the science of psychology and stuff where you can kind of transmute things as they come instantaneously so that maybe you don't feel the fear in the same way, maybe you're aware that you could be deathly afraid, but you're so busy dealing with it constructively that you don't want to waste your own psychological space on fear. Instead you'd rather use all your resources with the help of that kind of zen being in the zone, mental optimization thing. Uh, with the help of that, you can, there are advanced tactics that might be why you associated like the fear with maybe not being as then, but that can be very zen in the beginning, sometimes the beginning of the path, if you will, if, if someone's on a path can be facing those fears correctly instead of running from them, sometimes you're supposed to run away from a fear and maybe you're scared of yourself for a reason because you shouldn't be that way. And that's what it teaches you and it was actually a good thing even for that person.

[00:14:35] Stuart: Yeah, yeah, I I completely agree with you. Um, those advanced tactics would be, I I think everybody has a perception of like buddhism as someone sitting on a rock with their legs crossed with their, you know, their fingers like this and just totally at peace with everything. And it's like, yeah, that's the end goal. But the journey there is being able to handle all of those things and being able to use like those things that you're talking about, the tactics that you're talking about, where it's like how do you get your mind into that space where you can start to process those things. I think it's, it's remarkable. I think buddhism is probably one of, or dude is, um, is probably one of the, one of the most misunderstood things. Like people think it's a full on religion and it's, it does not compatible with so many different things.

[00:15:28] Nick Mirisola: It's really more of like, if you look at the theme of it, like the point of it is do the right thing. Same as taoism the way of virtue. Like sometimes you can read a book by its cover. Um, and really it's almost more like the kind of the unified theory of all the different religions because you can be buddhist, I personally consider I was raised christian, my dad was like raised roman catholic and uh, I can, I try and take the good in that I see in every religion. So I'm even hesitant necessarily call myself a zen buddhist to someone who doesn't understand that about buddhism. Like it's kind of like we're the ambassadors to all the religions were like the theme song, uh, symphony, you know?

[00:16:21] Stuart: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. But um, so you do, I could talk about that all day, but let's get into some of the other things that you do. So you are an artist and you do music and your, your music is incredibly good now if, for, I like it a lot and if you're into more of like, um, I don't even know how to describe it is, it's sort of like, it's it's a rocky folksy. I don't know, it's kind of like, it's a better version of Jack johnson if I can say that. Yeah, I don't know if you wear shoes, but I don't know if that makes the difference, but it's

[00:17:02] Nick Mirisola: good. No,

[00:17:04] Stuart: no, no. I mean I I everybody likes Jack johnson, everybody is in a Starbucks at some point, Jack johnson comes on and everybody kind of bobs their head. That's what happens. Um, I kind of like yours. It's a little bit more the lyrically more interesting if I can say that. Yeah. So, um, and of course right now on the thing, I've got the meditative animal, If you go to Youtube type in meditative animal, one word, you'll go and see all of mixed stuff. But

[00:17:34] Nick Mirisola: what lyrics, there's some lyric videos up there right now that are kind of cool, I think.

[00:17:40] Stuart: Yeah, that's why it was so nice because I could watch the video, get the lyrics and I could do both. I could enjoy the music and get the lyric density as well.

[00:17:50] Nick Mirisola: Yeah, I tried to make it visually interesting too. I figure if it's going to be in video format, you might as well try and take advantage of that.

[00:17:57] Stuart: Yeah, that's why I try to do this with this. I um, I wish I had more special effects, but um, oh, there, I just had a blur, so there we go, special effects um what is what got you into music and what inspires you for what you do as far as musically like what inspires those lyrics, what inspires the music? Alright,

[00:18:22] Nick Mirisola: that's kind of a couple of questions and a little complex, so give me a sec

[00:18:25] Stuart: parse it out, however it works out

[00:18:29] Nick Mirisola: alright, so I've been singing, like I was in church choir growing up, they made me go to all the church CCD sunday school, all that jazz until it was time to get confirmed and I was like, I think I'll pass, but anyways, I'm all cool with jesus nowadays, but whatever it wasn't, I was too scientific back then for that type of uh whatever

[00:18:56] Stuart: you could be a fan of jesus and not even a fan of Christianity, maybe jesus had all the

[00:19:03] Nick Mirisola: good stuff, this is right now, if I had my guess. But Yeah, so I was, I was doing choirs in school and church all growing up, played a little bit of cello in 4th grade and then we moved and they didn't have a cello program at the next school, so I kinda gave up on that, but um I actually was more of an art kid and uh a little bit of a poet um growing up, um I got really into meditation and shamanism and I was hanging out with all these hippies in college because I went to Burlington Vermont University of Vermont, which I don't know if you know, but it's basically like the hippie mecca, this side of the Mississippi.

[00:19:51] Stuart: So it's the, it's the East Coast Berkeley.

[00:19:54] Nick Mirisola: Uh, I would even say maybe, or like boulder or like Portland Oregon or somewhere in that vein. Um yeah, me too, for the people, I love the school, great education and everything, but that's not why I went there. I had other options, but anyways. Um, so I get to school, I'm hanging out with all these hippies and getting into my zen and my shamanism and I wanted to kinda up the ante with my music. I figured I just felt like I could, it was a different way to express complex ideas that are really hard to express in one piece of art sometimes. Like I just felt like I could get so much done in one well crafted song between the combination of the lyrics and the music. Um, I felt like it at least was a different perspective on it that you could relate to in a different way than a piece of visual art. So I started playing guitar and hand drums and writing songs at about 18 and uh, I decided I wanted, you know, I wanted that to be one of my main focuses in life to kind of try and provide. I was fed up with what I considered a basically pop garbage at the time, it was like whatever made money, the bitches and hoes and bling bling bling stuff was, I mean I get it and everything. I'm not stupid, but I felt like there was, why is that stuff the most popular stuff when there's so much cooler stuff out there to talk about, let alone, uh, sing about, I wanted to put out some, you know, some, some worthwhile stuff, maybe some insightful stuff that people haven't thought of because I tend to be a little bit of outside the box thinker and maybe I've considered things in ways that other people haven't or even if they have, maybe I know for me it's sometimes really validating just to hear someone else validate your own opinion in different words or even in the same words, you know?

[00:22:17] Stuart: Yeah, I agree. I believe that other people have, most of us have the same end goal, right? We're all trying to make ourselves happy and try to live our lives and, and have it be as easy as possible and we do, we just need to hear somebody else. That's, that's why I think people go to church is, I think it's why people go and and listen to people like who's Big Hand guy. Uh, any of the, like God, what's the guy's name with the big hands. Never mind anyway. So it's uh, that's gonna drive me nuts anyway, but, but like we go and we listened to people who are inspirational speakers, we watch ted talks all those things because we want to find somebody that's going to reiterate what we're trying to achieve in our lives out loud so that we can we can be validated. Yeah,

[00:23:11] Nick Mirisola: it's almost like the science of of of, you know, uh of the meaning of life or or of of our personalities, like personality science is not as simple or as objective or sterile as most people's uh perceptions of your average scientist. You know, a personality scientist is probably all about that. That makes I bet that makes perfect sense to some of

[00:23:41] Stuart: them. Oh, absolutely. And

[00:23:44] Nick Mirisola: being human

[00:23:45] Stuart: almost. Yeah, it is, it is the science of being human and I think it's a and it's those, um and we tend to be drawn to people that have the same beliefs as we are. That's why, you know, we we look for those groups, We look for those, those, those tribes so that we can be a part of them. Um and i it's kind of cool when you can get behind something such as Dude Ism or a musical artist. Like my, I wrote a college paper on how world peace would be achieved if everybody was a David Bowie fan, because I felt, yeah, because I felt then that way everybody would have a common ground to like base everything off of and then move on from there, right? Like if you you could have an argument about anything, but you could be like, but you know, daydream,

[00:24:36] Nick Mirisola: Hold on a sec. What with David Bowie think.

[00:24:39] Stuart: Yeah. Well w w t like that's that's exactly what we would have. Um Cool. And so you you make music and that kind of helps you, you know like get out like a lot of those feelings. And what about your other artwork, your other art? Like you do I

[00:24:59] Nick Mirisola: haven't I haven't really done a ton of art in a little while because I've kind of been focused on the the music stuff for a while. Because I actually was kind of one of the art kids not a music kid growing up. For the most part I took every art class my high school had and then some I was I was designing my own classes by junior and senior year in high school. Um And then I went I was an art major at U. V. M. I dropped out of college a million times, went to a million different art schools and school. I even did some Herbal medicine school. Um But yeah my art I man, um I'm kinda like my two artistic heroes, I guess I would say my biggest ones are M C. Escher and Salvador dali. Uh My favorite stuff that I've done of my own is almost like A. M. C. Escher meet Salvador dali. Oh that's very kind of my own style to it.

[00:26:09] Stuart: I

[00:26:10] Nick Mirisola: and sometimes I have this idea for my music, this is one idea I'm gonna be working on in the future. Um I'm thinking I've illustrated poems before in a piece of artwork um in that similar style, you know, where it's almost like a concept map or tells a story um within the imagery, and I'm thinking about doing something like that, at least a piece of art for a song or maybe an album or maybe all of them eventually. And I'm thinking of even doing some uh um some time lapses and video recording of the making of the art as it goes along and running that making videos on Youtube of the actual illustration of the lyrics and the music being made right before your eyes as the music plays. That's one of my big projects for the future.

[00:27:10] Stuart: I think that's awesome. That's sort of like those doodily videos, right? Like where people are drawing on a whiteboard to their talk. But I think that would be really remarkable if the music was playing. And you saw like the piece of art being created that accompanied accompanied that that's that's good. That's good art stuff. Man, I

[00:27:30] Nick Mirisola: think it could be really interesting to consider that. I'm kind of like, it's the same brain doing all that stuff too. So yeah, it's almost like totally fleshed out way beyond, like, totally integrated one area of that artistic venture.

[00:27:46] Stuart: Yeah, totally integrated. I love that concept. Um, your most recent album is alternative phenomena. Yeah, yeah. Um and it's where is where is that available? That available everywhere.

[00:28:01] Nick Mirisola: Um pretty much all the streaming platforms and then it's available at my website for streaming or download. There's actually a fan set the price, anything from zero up. Um Excuse me. Yeah. Meditative Animal dot com.

[00:28:17] Stuart: Yeah. So yes, everybody needs to head there download the album. Um I'm going to suggest the purchase price of $15 for everybody. Yeah, and I mean if you can't pay that, I understand pay whatever you can, but I think it's important to have uh independent artists like you and myself, I think we need to get rewarded for what we do. And I, your music is, it's really good. Like it's incredibly good. It doesn't sound like you smoke a lot on your album. Um um um um and so have you toured, like, I know you're not on a tour right now, but have you toured in the past and

[00:29:03] Nick Mirisola: I haven't done tours. I've played a handful of shows over the years, and I've played a ba jillion open mics and even more for free on the streets. I actually got most of my stage fright or whatever it was out of my system by going to the beach and playing in front of a couple 100 people and trying not to get kicked out.

[00:29:24] Stuart: A couple 100 people is a lot of people to do anything in front of. Yeah.

[00:29:29] Nick Mirisola: Right. It's enough to give even a good musician some butterflies. I found that.

[00:29:35] Stuart: Yeah, absolutely. Um, and uh, so any stories like when, when you were playing music, has anybody, has it touched anybody in particular or has it? Oh man. Is there a memorable moment? Like live yes performing anything live is always wild.

[00:29:55] Nick Mirisola: One of my favorite things of all time. I lived right down uh by a beach in Maine and I would go down to the beach and play for free. And uh, it was funny because when I moved away, the cops asked my mom. They were like, where's nick? We got no music at the beach, but they wouldn't let me get paid for it either. They wouldn't let me open my case. Um, they'd call the cops on me and have me arrested if I did it because I did it one time not knowing. And I made about $30 with my buddy in about 15 minutes. But uh, then some, some authority figures showed up and kindly let me know that that was not kosher.

[00:30:35] Stuart: Oh

[00:30:36] Nick Mirisola: yeah, they won't even let you do that. Um, my favorite part, my, one of my favorite memories of all time was I was down there at the beach playing for free. Just my own songs. Nobody knows these songs. That's part of what made it a challenge for me because I don't play cover songs really almost at all. And so nobody knows these songs. So they better be good enough that people are willing to at least listen to them once I figure or at least not throw an egg at me. And uh, so I'm down there playing and there's this little wicked, cute little freaking, I don't know how old he was. He must have been somewhere between, like I would say, maybe four years old and seven years old. Um, he's at the beach, He's, he's listening to my music. I can see him bopping his head and um, he starts gathering these rocks and he assembles these rocks in front of me that spell out the pied piper of maine. And I thought that was so like, I'm like this mythological figure to this little kid. It was, it was hilarious.

[00:31:43] Stuart: It was heartwarming

[00:31:44] Nick Mirisola: stuff like that. Makes it all worthwhile. Another one of my favorites was one of, one of my friends, uh, little kids didn't know it was me, I would show in the album to my friends and their family and they have this little kid who's, he can be, um, kind of tricky to deal with, I will say to be politically correct and everything about it. But uh, if I wanted to be a dick head, I could say he might even like to be compared to Dennis the Menace sometimes or something. Anyways, he's got, he's got his reasons, there's even some medical stuff going on that I don't want to get into. But anyways we're playing it for him and he's bopping his head and he didn't even know it was me. And then they're they're like, did you know that's nick on the radio right now? And he's like, wow, cool. That was touching too, for a little kid to be dancing. See him bopping his head to my music not even knowing it's me. Yeah, totally. Not pandering to anything other than his own sheer enjoyment of it. That was gold.

[00:32:51] Stuart: That is golden.

[00:32:52] Nick Mirisola: That's better than getting paid.

[00:32:54] Stuart: Absolutely. I mean it's also good to get paid. But

[00:32:57] Nick Mirisola: yeah, I don't do it for the money. Honestly, I almost avoid that sometimes on purpose.

[00:33:06] Stuart: Sure because it can get, it can cloud up what you're trying to do right? Like pretty, pretty soon. You're like, yeah, exactly, pretty soon. You're like, well what what famous rapper can I get to work with so that I can get some get paid. Tell us about what's coming up for you. Oh

[00:33:26] Nick Mirisola: yeah, well I don't know if he'd call it working with me, but I got this opportunity to purchase a beat with a feature from uh Killah Priest from the wu tang clan and um I added some harmonica and some hand drums a little whistling and it's gonna be my hip hop debut as uh a bit of an EMC two. So that should be interesting. That's that's probably the next on my agenda of releases. We'll see when that gets done trying to get some more female singers on it. Really kind of rounded out a little.

[00:34:03] Stuart: That's awesome. Yeah, I'm really psyched. Yeah, that, that is something to be very excited about and I'll tell you

[00:34:10] Nick Mirisola: something else. Yes.

[00:34:13] Stuart: Oh my goodness, some of my faves um alright, so let's do something else. That's going to be epic. We need to record a sketch. Alright, nick, this has been great so far. Hey, do me a favor. Tell everybody how they can go listen to your music and find out more about you.

[00:34:37] Nick Mirisola: If you're looking for some music with a timeless original sound, Great vibes, some wise, insightful lyrics, all poetically crafted to let you form your own relationships with it. Check out meditative animals music online. It's mostly online right now. It is a little bit on the radio, a certain independent stations around the world and you might catch it in certain stores in the background. Um, but if you want go to my website, meditative Animal dot com, there's plenty more there and keep your eyes and ears peeled peeled for more in the future.

[00:35:17] Stuart: And now our sketch dude imitation in 32

[00:35:26] Nick Mirisola: enter the doodah.

[00:35:31] Stuart: Oh my gosh, this temple is crazy. Look at all the guitars on the wall.

[00:35:37] Nick Mirisola: It's almost like I'm a musician or something weird. Huh?

[00:35:40] Stuart: Yeah, yeah, they are those sound panels in the shape of a buddha up there. Does the buddha have a shape. Oh you're already starting to blow my mind man. I want to learn more. Can you explain dude is um

[00:35:55] Nick Mirisola: to me, my own special blend of course is unique and rare and uh completely customized technically. It only matters to me.

[00:36:04] Stuart: Can we meditate together? Would that be something we could do?

[00:36:08] Nick Mirisola: We can always meditate together? How do we do this? Don't be a raging douchebag. Okay, Follow that train of thought the whole way through and achieve Judaism.

[00:36:17] Stuart: Okay, don't be a douche bag. Got it. Okay, Alright.

[00:36:20] Nick Mirisola: It's a cardinal sin to a dude ist. Okay, because this aggression will not stand

[00:36:26] Stuart: man understood. Is there any other rules that we should be following? Yes,

[00:36:30] Nick Mirisola: the dude always

[00:36:32] Stuart: abides any other rules that we should know

[00:36:34] Nick Mirisola: about. So I would recommend having a heart metaphorically in every situation because you do

[00:36:40] Stuart: All right, well, I will abide. Okay. Well, I feel like I've got, I've got a lot of feelings and I'd like to kind of address them as we're meditating here? Is that is that something we can do?

[00:36:51] Nick Mirisola: That would probably be the best way to do it while you're meditating.

[00:36:54] Stuart: Okay, Alright. So how do we start? Do we have to make any noise? Do we do an arm or what do we do? Hey,

[00:37:01] Nick Mirisola: silence is golden to

[00:37:03] Stuart: Okay. All right, I'm gonna I'm gonna think of nothing and I'm gonna say the first feeling that I've got All right, hmm, I'm feeling, I'm feeling, I'm actually feeling hungry. What should I do about that? Well,

[00:37:20] Nick Mirisola: there's a famous zen parable kind of starry eyed wannabe comes up to a zen master and he tells him about this amazing miracle worker who's can stand on one edge of a canyon and someone across the canyon will hold up a piece of paper and he can paint a picture on it from across the canyon without even touching it. The zen master responds to him and he says, my miracle is when I'm hungry, I eat

[00:37:44] Stuart: that. Sounds like sound advice. Alright, let me, let me see if I can process any more feelings. All right, Alright, Oh man, this is so weird. I'm feeling horny. I don't know why you're a good looking dude, but I don't know why I don't

[00:38:00] Nick Mirisola: love is love and to each their own and all that jazz. I personally love making love with the right people and under the right circumstances not to rain on your parade. I happen to be straight myself being more horny than you are soulful. Your heart and soul are probably the best to put in control of your pole.

[00:38:18] Stuart: Alright, well, I feel like I've got more feelings. I'd like to release and let me just feel what I'm feeling. I feel like I gotta poop

[00:38:27] Nick Mirisola: interesting dude is um, respects all religions and the first thing that comes to mind is all these monotheistic religions claim that man was made in God's image. Then I would just let you know that God poops my friend God poops everybody

[00:39:00] Stuart: thank you for joining us for sketch comedy podcast show. We hope you enjoyed listening as much as we enjoyed making it sketch comedy podcast show is protected under a creative commons attribution, no derivatives 4.0 international license. Now I'm rushing through this because nick's got a great message for you and if you wait till the end, you'll actually get to listen to some of his wonderful music, make sure you click on that in the link below. If you're enjoying it, go listen to more of his stuff. It is great.

[00:39:30] Nick Mirisola: I love you man, much love and many blessings for everybody out there, which inspired me to come up with uh, my own name from myself, which is a Duda, which might fit that one if you wanted me to explain that or you wanted to run with that a little, maybe you could work that in like uh I can explain what being a Duda means because I feel weird about that. It's almost like, you know, you hit a point of spiritual evolution and you can't help but notice certain advanced properties. But some of these same advanced properties are like trying to suit themselves in the foot because you're like hot, what are you supposed to do? Make humble pie like at the same time, what are you supposed to do? Just shoot yourself in the foot. Yeah, that's part of why I named myself a duda. I'll call myself and ask before they can money because in Sanskrit it actually means milk or milk, which is also interestingly Lebowski. But I think every american would assume that it means due to.

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Andrew Allemann | Creator of PodcastGuests.com and NICHE MEDIA EXPERT

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 18:46:00 GMT

Andrew Allemann is interested in your website. Well, he is really more interested in your website name. Andrew writes about domain names on his blog Domain Name Wire and we talk about what are good strategies and bad strategies (I tend to follow the latter).

A number of years into it, Andrew decided that typing was cool, but talking into a microphone is the real way to go. After some time, Andrew realized that he was running out of guests and needed to find them, but there was no easy way to do it; so he created the website PodcastGuests.com. I love this site, it is the best way to get really great guests, and honestly was a life-saver for this podcast in particular.

This episode’s sketch: “

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

SOCIAL MEDIA

SUBSCRIPTIONS & REVIEWS

MORE ABOUT THE GUEST

Andrew Allemann is the creator of Domain Name Wire, PodcastGuests.com, and Stacy on IoT and describes himself as a niche media expert. He lives in Seattle, WA.

Links

Domain Name Wire

PodcastGuests.com

Stacey on IoT

TRANSCRIPT

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Nick Gray | Museum Hacker and COCKTAIL PARTY MASTER

Tue, 15 Nov 2022 15:08:00 GMT

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Nick Gray likes to optimize things. He made small airplanes safer with his company Flight Display Systems and boring museum trips into must-do events with his company Museum Hack. Now, Nick has his sights on making everyone the perfect party planner in his new book “The 2-Hour Cocktail Party” (https://amzn.to/3g7TnNe) which I completely enjoyed reading and am using to make tonight’s party a banger (for 2 hours).

Real quick, if you are in the Denver area and would like to attend one of these parties with me, shoot your info to sketchcomedypodcastshow@gmail.com and I will make sure to invite you to the next one!

This episode’s sketch: “Cocktail Party in a Party in a Party in a Party”

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

SOCIAL MEDIA

SUBSCRIPTIONS & REVIEWS

MORE ABOUT THE GUEST

Nick Gray is an entrepreneur and author living in Austin, Texas. He started and sold two successful companies: Flight Display Systems and Museum Hack. Nick is the author of The 2-Hour Cocktail Party, a step-by-step handbook that teaches you how to build big relationships by hosting small gatherings. Over 75,000 people have watched his TEDx talk about why he hates most museums. He’s been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and New York Magazine called him a host of “culturally significant parties.”

Links

Podcast
How to Host a Party Website

Do’s and Don’ts in Planning a Networking Meetup

How to Plan a Clothing Swap (The Easy Way)

Hosting a Happy Hour: Nick Gray’s How-to Guide

TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Stuart: in this episode to our cocktail parties are nick gray and I came up with a few sketch ideas. What if it was 1000 visits to like the world's largest ball of twine? How would you go about making the world's largest ball of twine? A really interesting tour.

[00:00:17] Nick Gray: Well, I like to know how much things cost for myself and so I would want to try to, you know, put it up on auction for Ebay.

[00:00:25] Stuart: You're doing this uh, the two hour cocktail party and then within that party you decide, oh, I need to have another party. So you have another party within the party and it's just like part deception.

[00:00:38] Nick Gray: I love that idea because I often talk about the concept of a party within a party.

[00:00:42] Stuart: What would be the most uncomfortable icebreakers you could come up with at a party that would get people not only to slow down, but like genuinely like freak out. I

[00:00:53] Nick Gray: like that idea, but I have to veto that idea because for any listeners, they're always worried about what can go wrong with our party

[00:01:00] Stuart: and I want to think what could

[00:01:01] Nick Gray: go right,

[00:01:02] Stuart: which one did we pick you? Well, it's not the last one. You'll find out on this episode of, it's a sketch comedy show. Welcome back to sketch comedy podcast show, The one of a kind show where I Stewart rice, invite interesting people to have intriguing conversations and then improvise a comedy sketch based on what we talked about and this episode is a special episode because while you're listening to this, I am currently panicking and running around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to get my house in order to host a two hour cocktail party. I made the commitment here on this show with Nick and this is going to be the night that I do it to it. Nick Gray likes to optimize things. He made small airplanes, safer with his company flight display systems and boring museum trips into must do events with his company. Museum hack. Now Nick has his sights on making everyone the perfect party planner in his new book, the two hour cocktail party, which I completely enjoyed reading and I'm using to make tonight's party a banger. Well for two hours real quick if you are in the Denver area and would like to attend one of these parties with me, shoot your info over to sketch comedy podcast show at gmail dot com and I will make sure to invite you to the next one and now my conversation with Nick Gray hacker of museums and cocktail party master Nick. Thanks for joining us today.

[00:02:43] Nick Gray: Thanks. I'm happy to be

[00:02:44] Stuart: here. I'm glad you're here too. Hey, I've got a really quick question for you. What makes you interesting.

[00:02:51] Nick Gray: I am obsessed with name tags and I've hosted hundreds of parties also in my past life, I've been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art more than 1000 times.

[00:03:01] Stuart: Did you miss something there or what was the reason for going for 1000 times?

[00:03:07] Nick Gray: I used to have a business called museum hack and we did renegade museum tours where we would hire people like stand up comedians and broadway actors to lead these museum tours. And I was the first tour guide myself. So in the first years of starting the business, I was there almost every single day.

[00:03:25] Stuart: So you would you, why, why? What's wrong with the tours that people had? What's wrong with the Metropolitans normal tour?

[00:03:33] Nick Gray: You know what? For a free museum tour, they do a really good job, but they are also led by volunteers and they tend to be more focused on the narratives of art history that maybe the average tourist doesn't really care about. And so my company, we would tell people the juicy gossip about the art, how it was acquired, how much things cost all the stuff that you wouldn't hear from the official museum tour,

[00:03:57] Stuart: the things you actually want to know so that you can go and have, like if you would go to a cocktail party afterwards, for instance, you could actually have a conversation about it and bring up something interesting that nobody had maybe heard before

[00:04:08] Nick Gray: exactly like that. The stuff that you would tell your friends.

[00:04:11] Stuart: Okay, All right, that's cool. That's cool. And why? Why did you do

[00:04:14] Nick Gray: that? Um, I started to go to the museum. You know, I live in austin texas now. Where are you based out of

[00:04:21] Stuart: Denver? Colorado

[00:04:22] Nick Gray: Nice. Denver is awesome. My sister and my parents live up there, that's

[00:04:26] Stuart: pretty cool.

[00:04:28] Nick Gray: I moved to new york and I was going, I lived in Brooklyn at the time and you know, I didn't know a lot of people, I didn't have many friends and I went, somebody brought me to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This woman brought me there on a date and I was like, oh, this place is amazing. I feel like I moved to new york for stuff like this, I should hang out here more. Um and so I started to go there and then I went there a lot and when friends would come to visit, I would bring them there and I'd give them little tours just to show them like cool stuff I found and it became something I really loved and I did it as a hobby. And then you know what a blog wrote about us called Daily Candy. That was real big. Um and said it was the best thing to do in new york city that my secret tours were like the best thing in new york. And literally overnight 1300 people emailed me wanting to join one of the tours and I was like, oh God, I, this is big, so that's kind of how I started,

[00:05:23] Stuart: that's, that's how I feel about this podcast, is that, you know, a couple people listened and then they told nobody, but anyway um it was, it was the whole idea was hopefully people talk anyway. Um

[00:05:38] Nick Gray: That's

[00:05:39] Stuart: awesome. And is it just in new york or is it other places as well?

[00:05:44] Nick Gray: So I started the business in about 2013 officially. But I've been doing it for two years as a hobby. And then we, we branched out to more major museums all around America. So the Metropolitan Museum were in the National gallery in D. C. We're at the Getty in Los Angeles um grew to about five or six cities. I sold the company in 2019 and they've gone through some changes through the group tour plans scheduling and lockdowns and covid and things like that. But it really is, it's an awesome business.

[00:06:16] Stuart: Yeah it sounds, I wish I lived in a city that had one because I would love to go. But it gives me a reason to go to L. A. I guess there's really no other reason but

[00:06:24] Nick Gray: there's a museum out in Denver, there's the Denver Art Museum,

[00:06:28] Stuart: Denver Art Museum

[00:06:29] Nick Gray: Collection. And then I think in Denver, is there like a natural history museum with some cool dinosaur stuff. I think I went to that, I don't

[00:06:38] Stuart: know if that's here in Utah. I haven't been around. I'm relatively new to Denver. I'm actually from Portland but

[00:06:43] Nick Gray: I think you might be right. I think it might be in Utah.

[00:06:45] Stuart: Yeah but same same. Yeah. Um And was the museum thing like that was what you obviously started a business off of just kind of like a gag thing that you were doing right. Um, was that your first business that you ever started?

[00:07:03] Nick Gray: I actually, I, I grew up in a very entrepreneurial household. My dad was always like a mad scientist trying to come up with these crazy ideas. And so I had, I think my first business was a lawn care service company. What what young man doesn't start a long care service company that has the itch for entrepreneurship. I washed

[00:07:23] Stuart: windows. Wo

[00:07:25] Nick Gray: really? How, how, how would you do?

[00:07:27] Stuart: Oh, I went to people's houses. Hey, would you like your windows washed?

[00:07:31] Nick Gray: That's pretty cool.

[00:07:33] Stuart: I did that for a couple of years.

[00:07:34] Nick Gray: That's nice. Would you ever climb up on ladders to do

[00:07:37] Stuart: like I would, which was foolish. Yeah, a lot of spiders. A lot of wasps. That's what I'll

[00:07:43] Nick Gray: say. I've never met somebody who's done a window washing company, but I think it's genius because everybody has the other stuff, but nobody's going to jump up to wash their windows on the second floor, things like

[00:07:54] Stuart: that.

[00:07:55] Nick Gray: Um, I had a web hosting company in high, in high school in college. I tried to start a software company. That was a big failure. But yeah, I always, I've been noodling on this stuff for a long time.

[00:08:07] Stuart: Oh, that's cool. Um, and you said your, your family, your dad was big into entrepreneurship. Um, and that was, if I'm not mistaken, you did something with airplanes, correct?

[00:08:19] Nick Gray: Yes, yes. He started in the basement of our house, a business that had it made that map. You know, that shows where the plane is flying across the world. He made that for small jets because you could buy it, but it was for like Delta Airlines and things like that. And he's like, oh, I think I can take a computer and some software and build this for small planes. Um, and so he made that happen and my mom joined and then I joined after college and helped them hire some of their first employees. I did their marketing and their sales. And we really grew the business together to about almost 80 employees before selling that in 2014.

[00:09:00] Stuart: That's awesome. All right, well, um now all you want to do is party? Right, Well, I don't think it's going to take much convincing because I, after reading a little bit about what you were talking about, it became fascinating. It's actually the reason I have you on the show is because I think it's such a good idea that I want to get, I want to get ears of other people. So What, what is a 2-hour cocktail party and why is it a necessity for us a

[00:09:32] Nick Gray: two hour cocktail party? All right, so what's the gist of it? Let me think about this for your listeners that maybe have never hosted before or only host birthday parties or something like that. Think about how your life would be different if you had a full social calendar, if you had people inviting you to fund things, if you had a rich and robust network of acquaintances that really set up new introductions for you. So what if instead of trying to meet new people, people were just coming into your life with ease when you start to host parties? That's what life can be like. Um that's what I learned from moving to new york. I didn't really know many people. I wasn't successful going out to clubs or networking events and so I decided to bring the party to me and through hosting hundreds and hundreds of parties and teaching over 100 people how to host their own well run event. We found like a formula if you will, that could make a party successful and it might not be what you think so, because sometimes the advice is counterintuitive, but I'll pause to ask you first anything resonate. And then there, have you hosted anything recently? And what went well about it?

[00:10:44] Stuart: Yeah, recently I haven't, now I used to do parties and I used to do uh for, for my job, I would host events and do all that and I mean, I don't know if there's an X factor because I didn't read the book, but There were certain things that I always tried to have going on in the party to make sure it was very interesting. I think the last one I the last major one I did was actually my own funeral when I yeah, so for my 40th birthday I decided to host a funeral as opposed to a party because it was like the death of my youth, right? Like that. I felt like I was transitioning. So I got a coffin in in Portland. They have a place called voodoo donuts, you could get a coffin, they custom made a coffin filled with donuts. So instead of cake I did that and then I had people come and eulogize me and it was great. It was it was it was an interesting take on a birthday party and people seem to really like it. So I know that there's always that little bit of an X factor, but it's hard to figure out what that X factor is. Like what is it that's going to get people engaged in the party mixed together, do something together and it sounds like you maybe have figured it out. And I think that that's, I mean take the easy route by the book, right?

[00:12:01] Nick Gray: Yeah, yeah. I found one formula that works. I love with your funeral that you had your friends eulogized you. I read something that said that we shouldn't wait for funerals to read eulogies for our friends. You know,

[00:12:14] Stuart: my daughter roasted me so hard. She had built a power point presentation to just destroy me. It was wonderful.

[00:12:22] Nick Gray: That's pretty funny that she roasted you.

[00:12:25] Stuart: Oh totally.

[00:12:26] Nick Gray: Can you imagine if you actually died and she was like roasting you at the actual funeral that my

[00:12:32] Stuart: hope is that that is exactly what happens. That would be the best thing possible.

[00:12:36] Nick Gray: That would be amazing. Yeah. What what worked well with that event that you hosted. It sounds like it was truly something special and you were celebrating a major life event with a major life party and you probably spent a lot of money and people spend a lot of time planning and preparing for that. And I think those parties are great and fantastic. They also however prohibit us from hosting regularly because the the biggest benefits come when you can learn how to make hosting a habit. Something that you do regularly where you always have your next event on the calendar, imagine you're in Denver and you meet somebody interesting at the park at the grocery store out of the stand up event. Whatever you can invite them to your next party. It's the, it's the easiest thing to just say, hey I'm hosting a cocktail party, can I invite you to it or send you the information? So I have a very simple formula and if it's easy to think about it like with my name because my name is nick, N. I. C. K. And so all the letters, can I say what all the letters are and stands for name tags, everyone at the party has a name tag, this is a hill that I will die on. I think even if you think they sound formal, try to convince you why they're helpful even for a party in the neighborhood with your friends that you think know each other. I stands for ice breakers, you lead to 2.5 ice breakers at your party. And those are meant just to encourage new conversations. It's not about what people say during the ice breakers, that's what they say after the ice breakers. Uh C stands for cocktails only. So no dinner. And even if you don't drink alcohol, I don't drink. But the idea of a cocktail party is a lightweight social gathering. So no dinner that's important. No dinner and then K. Stands for kick them out at the end. It's only a two hour party and I can talk about how you can actually kick people out at the end. But that's important. This is only two hours long and you're gonna host it on a monday Tuesday or Wednesday night. That's really important. So that's the gist. It's an easy lightweight, very efficient social gathering that I found can really help. It's how I launch my last business. It's how I launched my book by building up this network of relationships because we find out about some of the best things in life whether it's new podcast guests, new business opportunities, New relationships, not through our very best friends, but through our network of acquaintances, weak ties, loose connections. That's what these parties are all about,

[00:15:11] Stuart: acquaintances seem to be like. That seems to be the go to relationship that most people have with other people,

[00:15:17] Nick Gray: like most

[00:15:18] Stuart: people are just acquaintances. Right? Well, because you can't have close friends with everybody. Um, and why are, how do we make acquaintances more important for ourselves? Because obviously we're going to gain some by doing these to our cocktail parties, but like why are they important to have,

[00:15:39] Nick Gray: I like acquaintances because I think they are easy connections to get to know somebody to see if you want to develop a deeper relationship. And so I talk in my book about building big relationships and you have to remember that you can't go from stranger to best friend. There's a, there's a friendship funnel, so to speak that you would go through and it's from being a stranger to knowing someone to having a conversation, to becoming an acquaintance and then through a couple hangouts, maybe you can become friends. And oftentimes if you meet somebody and you're like, oh, I want to get to know this person, what's your default? They're like if you meet somebody interesting and want to get to know them, what do you do now?

[00:16:22] Stuart: Oh yeah, well, I usually, I'm so unique in that I'm like, hey, let's go get coffee? Uh, you know, or hey, is there a band coming to town. Do you want to go see them or something along those lines? But yeah, that's usually some sort of a go someplace and meet someplace and do something because

[00:16:42] Nick Gray: I like what you do with the band there where you can invite someone to something interesting. Oftentimes, you know, especially for busy people, it can be very hard for us to schedule to meet up one on one to go have coffee with someone. You may think it's only a 30 minute coffee, but when you consider drive and commute and scheduling, it works out to being about one or two hours from an individual's time calendar. I found that hosting a cocktail party was an easy, efficient way that I could add value to someone. Right? So I can give them something first and what am I giving them? I'm giving them an invitation and an opportunity to meet a ton of new folks. And so that's how I would lead if I'm trying to make a connection. I say, hey, I host these cocktail parties where I bring together half people I know and half new, interesting people that I've met here in town. Would you like to come sometime? And that's exciting, right? Because most adults don't make new friends as we get older. It's so much harder. It's

[00:17:41] Stuart: impossible. Why is it so difficult to meet new people as an adult, like as a, as a kid on the playground, you just kind of go up and go, hi, my name's Stewie. Like, you know, like let's go play on the slide and then all of a sudden that's your best friend for the day. We don't get that now. Yeah. Why

[00:17:58] Nick Gray: can't life be like, hey, look at this cool rock. I found it looks like a potato, Can we be friends? Yeah, I wanna

[00:18:05] Stuart: try that too. Right? Just carry around a potato rock

[00:18:10] Nick Gray: for many people, you know, their, their number of friendships and connections really peaked when they were in college or university and it tends to go down after that as we move friendships become like a game of attrition. We get older, we have kids, we get a job, we move out to the suburbs and it's just harder to meet people. Which is funny because we need those relationships more as we get older and I don't exactly know the why behind it, but I can tell you that Most Americans haven't made a new friend in over three years and that especially among men, there is a bit of a loneliness problem. I read a stat that said that like 17% of men say they don't have a single close friendship, which is crazy and it's wild and it's the reason that I wanted to share my book was just to help people make more friends and build these relationships because I got so much value from it. It changed my life. I think it could change anyone.

[00:19:05] Stuart: Oh, I absolutely agree with you. Actually. I've had, I think even on the show, we've had discussions about how men don't have good close relationships and this is a big issue for men. So yeah,

[00:19:16] Nick Gray: Why is that? What do you think?

[00:19:18] Stuart: I think it's because there is a we get uncomfortable when we start to like pull down the facades and it's really uncomfortable and traditionally, especially maybe specifically here in America. I don't know, I don't have an experience anywhere else. But I think that we associate like sensitivity to intimacy and that

[00:19:41] Nick Gray: that's more

[00:19:42] Stuart: of a female trade and so that we tend to as guys, we tend to shy away from those things. And so what ends up happening is with with relationships with other men. It's just it's such a surface thing that once you get past that it's like, all right now, what? I don't know, let's go, let's go to a football game. You know, that's kind of bond around football, sports, things like that nature. But if you talk to women and or you're around women that have conversations, they don't talk about things like that. I mean they'll talk about our dicks, but like they'll talk about other things as well. Like they'll talk about feelings and whatnot. It's interesting how we we definitely do different things as gender.

[00:20:22] Nick Gray: There was a sales guy who I used to work with. He was a huge mentor to me and we were. Talking about friendships and things like that. And he said yes, some of my best friends now that I think about it, you know, these these guys that he rides motorcycles with every weekend. He said, I don't even know their last names. I couldn't tell you very much about their personal lives, but I'd say there's some of my best friends and I think that it is kind of interesting. I hear from people like my parents, I made them read my book right? Because it's like there's something I have

[00:20:52] Stuart: to, I tried to make my parents read my book and they set it on the coffee table. I don't

[00:20:59] Nick Gray: even know if my parents read all of my book, but I made him read my book and now I'm on this mission to get 500 people to read my book and and host a party for their friends and neighbors. And I count every single one. I try to talk to them the day after the party and my parents hosted one for their neighbors and they said, look, we

[00:21:17] Stuart: it's

[00:21:18] Nick Gray: so funny. We walk around the neighborhood and you have these little two minute conversations with the neighbors and you say, oh, we should go out, we should have dinner. But you know, as life works out, we usually don't. And they got to meet so many of their neighbors beyond just having that simple little conversation and they got to do something generous by bringing them over to their home, inviting them inside and having a drink and some snacks that they bought it at walmart or Costco or

[00:21:44] Stuart: something.

[00:21:45] Nick Gray: Yeah.

[00:21:47] Stuart: Right. Yeah.

[00:21:48] Nick Gray: It's not about your house by the way for for any listeners that are like, oh I don't have a nice house. I live too far away. My apartment's small. I hosted hundreds of these parties in my tiny studio apartment in new york city. Sometimes the smaller space is actually better because the energy is electric. This guy Noah who lives in Chicago. He's 28. He read my book and he has like a 400 square foot apartment And he hosted, he had 28 people inside which is crazy. The perfect number that I found is between 15 and 20 for a first time or a new host. That's really the number that you want to have.

[00:22:24] Stuart: And then when when you're in this party do you? Is it your job as the host to like go around and mingle? Is that is that what you're supposed to do?

[00:22:32] Nick Gray: Generally you as the host have a couple of duties? Number one is you're gonna make sure everybody has a name tag. So your 1st 10 or 20 minutes is everybody's arriving, you're welcoming them and you're giving them a name tag. Your other major duty as a host is to run 2.5 rounds of icebreakers and those icebreakers are very easy, but you do have to do a little bit of public speaking because you have everybody stopped the party which can be intimidating. So I coach people how to do that.

[00:23:01] Stuart: Do you have like a record scratch that you just play everybody you're

[00:23:08] Nick Gray: gonna laugh at me. But I actually use a small harmonica. I'm looking around my desk, I don't have one and I make a little tone, I don't play, I don't know how to play it, but I just blow out similar to using like a train whistle to make a noise as I turn the music down and I have helped so many people host their first party and I can't tell you of all my party formula, it's the one that gets ridiculed and made fun of the most on one hand. And then after the first party people are like why did I not get the harmonica? It's genius because it's such a quirky, cute little sound instead of yelling at everybody. Hey everybody,

[00:23:47] Stuart: everybody be

[00:23:48] Nick Gray: quiet

[00:23:50] Stuart: and not everybody has a triangle that they can hit or like one of those little tone things,

[00:23:54] Nick Gray: you know.

[00:23:55] Stuart: Yeah. Gong would be kind of cool though, that would definitely get some attention

[00:24:00] Nick Gray: right. But anyhow your job as the host is just to lead these little rounds icebreakers. And what you do is you ask everybody to say their name, to say what they do for work. If they don't want to talk about work, they can talk about a hobby and then you ask them an icebreaker question and the question that I like that I recommend everybody uses at the start of a party is what I call a green level icebreaker. And that's because there's no rapport built up. People are not loose there, there's still rigid. So a green level icebreaker is a fast one that doesn't require a lot of thought or judgment. The one that I like is what is one of your favorite things to eat for breakfast? What's your go to that you do more often than not? And I like that because there's no judgment about it. I'm not asking people, Oh, say an interesting fact about yourself and not putting people on the spot hopefully. And so that's a good one that works 100% of the time.

[00:24:53] Stuart: And who doesn't eat breakfast occasionally or wish they could eat breakfast occasionally. Right, right,

[00:24:58] Nick Gray: right, right. Or if they skip breakfast, if they do intermittent fasting, then just say about that. I hosted a party a couple of years ago in new york. And there was this woman there dressed in all black, tall, skinny, she was older, she looked like she was like raised by street rats. Um, and she came to my party and she's like, my name is Diane, I'm a writer and for breakfast, I like to have cigarettes and it just broke the ice. And everybody, it was very funny. It was very funny and it just kind of put things in perspective

[00:25:31] Stuart: and memorable too. Like, that's a that's a memorable response to that question. Like, what do you like for breakfast cigarettes? You know, like, that's great. Yeah,

[00:25:40] Nick Gray: it was great.

[00:25:41] Stuart: Yeah. So I start this show with a very uncomfortable question. Like I said, I told you I was gonna ask you, that's probably not a very good opening question for a cocktail party, correct.

[00:25:55] Nick Gray: What makes you interesting is a great question. I like that you use it in thinking about a social situation, you know, you're having high profile people who who come on the podcast and you want to capture your listeners attention right away. If I were to bring somebody into my home. I often think about what that experience is like for those that are socially awkward, have a little bit of anxiety or aren't like an extrovert maybe like you and I, and so I'm trying to create just a welcome, easy environment to warm people up for that two hour journey.

[00:26:29] Stuart: Yeah, I I think it's brilliant. Um yeah, in business we use, I was a sales guy for a very long time. And so, like, icebreakers are like, it's a, it's a lifeboat really, because like, there are times when you're in a situation, like, I need to get everybody engaged. I need to get everybody started to talk to each other. How do I do that? And icebreakers are great. And you always get the one jokester that's gonna, you know, do their own thing. And it's kind of wonderful because then it takes a lot of the heat off of you as far as making sure things are, things are going. So um All right, so it sounds like everybody needs to to host a cocktail party um up on the screen.

[00:27:08] Nick Gray: That's

[00:27:08] Stuart: where you can go to get the book. And I think people should definitely do that now besides hosting parties and doing those types of things. What what are the types of things are you into?

[00:27:21] Nick Gray: Um For fun. I live in austin texas and we have this weird thing here called Barton Springs Pool. It's a natural spring fed aquifer pool. I don't know how to describe it because there's no lanes, but it's just enormous. It's like three acres and I like to swim in that. I live about five minutes from it, so

[00:27:41] Stuart: that's something to

[00:27:42] Nick Gray: do. Yeah. And then I I live a lot of my life online. So I have a blog. I do social media. I've been blogging for 20 plus years. And so I actually get so much fun and joy out of writing. Like I have this thing called my friends newsletter where I send a newsletter to my friends and just cool movies I've seen, or fun stuff. I've read cool links memes, things like that. So that really does make me happy. I like to do that.

[00:28:11] Stuart: Yeah. That's um, did you do a lot of social media? Is that

[00:28:15] Nick Gray: tons, tons

[00:28:16] Stuart: of social media?

[00:28:17] Nick Gray: Yeah.

[00:28:18] Stuart: Is there, is there a particular social media that you like really kind of gravitate to or do you try to just equally split your time between them? Um,

[00:28:25] Nick Gray: these days at the time of this recording, I'm spending more time thinking about growing an audience on Tiktok. So I hired a firm to help me with that. Um, I do my own twitter instagram. I do a lot on instagram stories because it's, it's easy and it's a throwaway. So for me, I'd say, yeah, that's the one I do the most.

[00:28:45] Stuart: Okay. Alright. And then, um, obviously you had, was it Donna eight? The cigarettes in the morning? Had cigarettes in the morning. Okay. So obviously it worked right. Was there, um, have you ever had a party that didn't go as well as you had hoped? Is there, is there a situation where that's happened?

[00:29:03] Nick Gray: Yeah, huge. Um, 11 that I can think about was one where I think it was a monday night and I decided I'm like, let's have friends over on Wednesday or thursday. And I didn't give myself enough planning what I call the party runway and I just mass message, you know, 20 or 30 people. Hey everybody. I'm having people over come by any time from 5 to 10 p.m. And I did a couple things wrong there. One, I didn't give people enough notice to, I didn't do individualized invitations, nobody felt special. And three I left this awkward enormous time block show up, right, right swing by any time. Has that ever happened? You get invited to a barbecue on a saturday at four and you're like, okay, well they said four, so I guess I'll show up at five, but the hosts are, you know, from this place. So actually they want to show up two hours, you do this mental sort of calculus or what time to actually arrive. And that's one major thing that I'd say for your listeners is that doing that two hour time block gets people to show up on time and boost your attendance rate because people know that, look, this is a tight time. I don't have to stay too late if I want to leave and it gives them an excuse to leave. People love the excuse to leave by the way.

[00:30:19] Stuart: Oh yeah, well I'm, I'm a huge fan of the irish goodbye, which is like you just kind of throw down the batman, you know smoke pill and leave and nobody knows that we're there. No one knows. I am a huge fan of it and I absolutely hate the like long goodbyes and at a party, it's like I've got to go say goodbye to. So and so and so and so and it's like you just met that like, just leave, get out. I don't

[00:30:44] Nick Gray: totally agree.

[00:30:45] Stuart: Yeah. And I'm also a big fan of name tags. I think that that is, it cuts down the amount of mental bandwidth people have to deal with when they, when they don't have to remember your name, they can just look at

[00:30:56] Nick Gray: your, your

[00:30:57] Stuart: tag and just know who you are. It's great. It's

[00:31:02] Nick Gray: super

[00:31:02] Stuart: easy. I'd

[00:31:03] Nick Gray: rather feel a little uncomfortable asking someone to wear a name tag than feel uncomfortable all night long forgetting their name. So that's why I do it. I also think it's more inclusive. I mean, I don't want to sound super woke, but think about what the experience is like for a significant other or for a plus one, you have a best friend, He just starts dating someone and he brings her along to the party. She doesn't know anybody, she doesn't know your friend group. And when you do name tags, it just makes everybody feel a little more included.

[00:31:32] Stuart: Absolutely, absolutely. Um well this has been great. Um I mean I'm excited about hosting a party. I will definitely.

[00:31:43] Nick Gray: So are you going to do it? Can I

[00:31:45] Stuart: don't know. You can count on me to do it. I will buy the book today.

[00:31:49] Nick Gray: We're gonna send, I'm gonna send you a copy of the book

[00:31:52] Stuart: and

[00:31:52] Nick Gray: then too, while we're on the call now, I want to, I guess we could wait if you want to, but I want you to look at your calendar and I want you to choose a monday Tuesday Wednesday night. That is ideally four or more weeks away now because it may take me a week to send you the book. Maybe choose five because we don't want to butt up against uh Halloween. Halloween is what I call a red level day. You don't want to host around major holidays events, three day weekends, those are red level. And why? Why do we do monday or Tuesday Wednesday night because people are available. And the number one success is if you can have a full list of attendees, number one fear someone has this, nobody will show up. And when you host on a monday or Tuesday or Wednesday night. So what day do you think would be good,

[00:32:40] Stuart: november 1st,

[00:32:41] Nick Gray: November one. I love Tuesday. That's a Tuesday. It's the day after Halloween. So do you think that that's okay.

[00:32:47] Stuart: Is that too much? Is that too close?

[00:32:49] Nick Gray: I don't know. I

[00:32:50] Stuart: don't know. Let's do that Wednesday

[00:32:52] Nick Gray: Wednesday Wednesday the second. So the next thing to think about is what two hour time block would you do? 6 to 87 to 95.

[00:33:01] Stuart: Yeah, probably that 6-8

[00:33:03] Nick Gray: 68. Great. The next thing is that think about which five people you would invite. That's part of what I call your core group. These are your close friends, people that if only they showed up, you'd be happy. So I want you to think about who those five are. And when we get off this recording, you're gonna text those five people and say, hey, I'm thinking I just had this guest on, I'm thinking of hosting this thing called a two hour cocktail party on Wednesday november 2nd from 68 P. M. And here's the thing you'll say if I do it, would you come? Ok? And your your goal is to get five people who will say yes, okay. And so you'll text people until you get those five yeses, you may hear from them. Oh no, no, no, that's too close to Halloween, I can't do it, you know? And so then if that happens and just move your date right, just like choose it another week afterwards and you send the same message you're gonna hunt for those five yeses and I have a feeling for you. It'll be pretty easy. And when you get those five yeses, then your party's happening, we'll make a simple page online to collect their RSVPs, my book will tell you exactly what to write and all that. All the scripts exactly how to invite more people and then it'll be a success. All you have to do is like one or two hours of work at the beginning and then your party will be a huge success. I

[00:34:26] Stuart: love it. I cannot wait. I'm actually very excited about it because you know, I'm new to Denver, I've been here just I've been here over a year, but I guess it's not overly new, but I still don't know tons and tons of people because Covid kind of screwed us up as far as like meeting people. I think,

[00:34:42] Nick Gray: I think you're exactly right. It's made it hard and people are a little more awkward. So number one, they appreciate an invite to something like this where you're gonna bring different groups Stewart from, from this social group. I'll bring a couple of people from this, this this and then uh basically they also need guidelines. They need guardrails to have a little social interaction. Love

[00:35:05] Stuart: it. Love it. All right, well we've got this planned. I'm very excited about that. We do have to record a sketch though. If you are one of those awkward people that have a hard time meeting people, this is exactly your remedy. Go have a cocktail party, Nick what's the easiest way for people to get more information about running their own cocktail party in two hours.

[00:35:31] Nick Gray: My name is Nick ray. I have a book called the two hour cocktail party. It has over 230 reviews on amazon and it sounds like I'm selling something, but I'm just trying to get people to make more free and if you check out my book, I'll give you a satisfaction guarantee if you don't like it. You can Venmo request me for a refund. I think the book is packed with actionable tips and a step by step guide, including the scripts, exactly what to say in a minute by minute breakdown of what to do at your party. I think we can all use a new friend, so check it out and stay in touch,

[00:36:04] Stuart: Understand staying in touch, but I can't possibly imagine that you're not going to love this book. It is one of those things that can literally change your life in two hours and now our sketch cocktail party in a party, in a party, in a party in 32.

[00:36:28] Nick Gray: Welcome everybody, administrative announcement, Welcome to my cocktail party. I'm so glad wow, we have 15 or 20 people here. I just moved to Denver, so it's great to meet everybody and we're gonna go around the room, we're gonna do a quick icebreaker, say your name, say what you do for work or something fun and then one of your favorite things to eat for breakfast Stewart, would you be willing to go first? Oh,

[00:36:51] Stuart: uh yeah, yeah, sure, of course. I'll go first. Um I guess my name is Stuart um and I host this silly podcast thing that I like to do um and then for for breakfast, I really actually like eggs Benedict is my favorite, but I don't get it as often as I'd like, but I love eggs. Benedict,

[00:37:12] Nick Gray: I love eggs. Benedict. I also like hollandaise sauce. Hey, that gives me an idea if you like eggs Benedict or if you've ever bathed in hollandaise sauce, like Stuart and I come and meet us in this corner over here, we're gonna do a V. I. P. Hollandaise meet up. So check us out afterwards. No, but I

[00:37:33] Stuart: don't.

[00:37:38] Nick Gray: All right, listen up, this is the hollandaise meet up group. And I was looking around at this party and these other chums don't know the benefits of eggs Benedict. So I thought we'd have a little V. I. P. Hollandaise party within the party. What do you guys think about that?

[00:37:53] Stuart: I don't understand why anybody doesn't love eggs Benedict. It's amazing that there were six of us that actually came out and said for breakfast, it was eggs Benedict. It was the thing, I think it's really cool that all of us like joined up like this.

[00:38:07] Nick Gray: These six of us really are the V. I. P. Party within the party? I think it's so cool that actually Randall. You happen to have brought hollandaise sauce with you. Do you guys want to take a shot of hollandaise sauce? I'll go get some shot glasses.

[00:38:20] Stuart: Yeah, I never leave home without it.

[00:38:21] Nick Gray: Any volunteers who would make a toast to hollandaise sauce. Anyone want to say what they love most about either eggs Benedict or holidays or just a favorite memory that you've had with hollandaise sauce.

[00:38:33] Stuart: My name is nancy. I guess if it's okay, I would love to share my story about eggs. Benedict. Yeah,

[00:38:41] Nick Gray: nancy. Please, can we get a round of applause for nancy willing to step up and share her holidays, testimony on nancy. The stage is yours.

[00:38:50] Stuart: So when I was a little girl, my, my parents actually were like fundamental christians and they didn't believe in hollandaise sauce. And so when I was older I had a friend, I stayed the night and then the next day we went to Denny's for breakfast and I saw that they had hollandaise sauce on the eggs Benedict and I got it and it was the most delicious thing I had ever eaten. It was like the forbidden fruit of breakfast

[00:39:18] Nick Gray: baptized by hollandaise who among us has not had that moment. I think that's really cool. By the way, if you have been baptized by hollandaise sauce, meet us over in this other corner because we're gonna do a V. I. P. Of the V. I. P. So I'll see you over there. All right, welcome to the Church of hollandaise. Uh, I'm curious can we do another round of icebreakers? Maybe someone here would volunteer to say your name and I guess just something that you dream about. I'd love to hear that

[00:40:01] Stuart: hank you met me earlier. You know, I was, I was talking about how I go and work out a lot.

[00:40:06] Nick Gray: You said that you liked eggs. Benedict cause you'll get in a heavy lift day and then you'll just pound about £10, I think you said of eggs and then just to break it up a little, you had the hollandaise. I don't know, I just love to hear. What do you like? What do you dream about?

[00:40:20] Stuart: Well, I don't actually like dream at night. I take these pills to help me sleep, so I guess I'm not really the right person to talk to about this.

[00:40:29] Nick Gray: Right? Yeah, that's fair, that's fair. I remember you handing those pills out a few minutes ago and I cautioned you against doing that and I'm glad that we're all here to think about our dreams as it relates to church or hollandaise sauce or just eggs Benedict. We all celebrate that.

[00:40:44] Stuart: Hey, it's Stuart again, I do have a dream if it's okay, if I interject

[00:40:49] Nick Gray: Oh yeah, please Stuart, let's hear it.

[00:40:51] Stuart: Okay? So my dream is that I can quit my day job and just do my podcast on a daily basis. Like that's kind of my dream,

[00:41:01] Nick Gray: we can help you achieve that dream. And I love that dream too, is that if you like the sketch comedy podcast show, if you'll leave a review because every review helps Stewart get a little bit closer to him dreams and that's really what it's all about, right, following our dreams, you know, one other idea would be, if we could get a hollandaise brand to actually sponsor this show. I think that'd be amazing.

[00:41:24] Stuart: That would be amazing

[00:41:25] Nick Gray: if you have a podcast. Um go and chat there with Stewart. But if you don't have a podcast, go over to this area and we're gonna do actually a V. I. P within the V. I. P within the V. I. P. So meet me over there in a minute. I'll see you there. Are you competing with me right now? Probably talk Alright, welcome. Welcome everybody. Well, you've arrived here because of life decisions. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?

[00:41:57] Stuart: My name is Earl. I know like the tv show, I don't have a podcast. I don't, I don't really have a lot of friends. I don't really have a lot going on in my life, but I appreciate you bringing me to this party.

[00:42:09] Nick Gray: Earl welcome. It is so great to meet you. I remember seeing you in the neighborhood and I invited you to come over. You are welcome here. And it's, it's helpful that we all have name tags so we can make some new friends. Uh, what is your dream, Earl? Do you have a dream? Is there something that you want to do or accomplish in life?

[00:42:28] Stuart: My dream is to help others really find their internal like drive and and move forward in their life and, and, and just be very, very successful.

[00:42:43] Nick Gray: Your dream is to help people be more successful and find their internal compass, their, their north star of sorts. I like that. What would you say is a good way to do that.

[00:42:55] Stuart: Have you ever heard of Amway? Thank you so much for joining us for sketch comedy podcast show. We hope you enjoyed listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it. Make sure to head over to sketch comedy podcast show dot com there. You can subscribe to the show. Head over to Youtube and watch some of the videos and sketches we've done there. Maybe head over to Patreon and become a patron to the show. That would be so much appreciated or you can leave a review someplace or if you're feeling really saucy apply to be on the show. I appreciate every single one of you that listens to the show and I would love to hear more from you. Now I've got to get this out of the way sketch comedy podcast show is protected under a creative commons attribution no derivatives four point oh international license. Which means that if you would like to reproduce anything in the show, please contact the show so that I can get you the right material for it. And also this show is copyright 2022 Stuart rice every day we are given a choice. Can we do the funny thing or the not so funny thing. I'm going to urge you to do the funny thing today and create an improvised comedy adventure of your own. Take care. See you next episode

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

John Lehr & Jay Martel | Professional Funny People CAUSING A “SPEED BUMP”

Wed, 12 Oct 2022 19:50:00 GMT

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

This episode is a special treat.

John Lehr is an improvisational actor who has starred in a number of movies and TV shows. You might best know him as the “Geico Caveman” and his most recent show on Hulu “Quick Draw” which is, no kidding, one of my favorite shows. It’s a western that is improvised and it is wonderful.

Jay Martel is a Peabody award-winning writer and has also won an Emmy for his work on “Key and Peele” and is far too qualified to be on this podcast. He also writes for the “New Yorker” on a regular basis. He recently also wrote a book called “The Present” which is available on Audible and looks like it might be picked up for a movie.

The duo are currently working on a play performed in back yards. You read that right, this is true Covid theater! If you would like to catch their upcoming shows, you can head to: https://linktr.ee/speedbumptheplay or email andrea@amckpr.com

This episode’s sketch: “Documentary on the Not-So-Superpowered”

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

SOCIAL MEDIA

SUBSCRIPTIONS & REVIEWS

MORE ABOUT THE GUEST

Jay Martel

My father moved out of the house when I was ten and I started writing to make my mom laugh.

She was depressed a lot, so I tried to cheer her up with wishful thinking banged out on a loudly humming Selectric.

My writing since has all come from the same place: The need to take the edge off what life can throw at us while staying true to how absurd and strange it can be.

Over the years I’ve been fortunate to collaborate with many people who are funnier than I am: Ian Roberts, Michael Moore, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Amy Sedaris, Keegan Michael-Key, Jordan Peele, the Katydids, and Richard Curtis, to name a few. (Note to anyone who’s worked with me and has been kind enough to read this far, only to be greeted with non-inclusion in the last sentence: You were funnier, too.)

In the process, I’ve written comedy for magazines, basic cable, the stage, movies, books, before returning to basic cable, which is a great place to do a lot of different things while preserving your anonymity.

While I enjoy collaboration, writing for me is often a solitary, intimate act, something that happens between me and the paper or the screen. And every now and then it happens again: The moment of joy that comes from being surprised by a discovery, when reality gives way, if only for a moment, to the imagination.

(Source: https://jaymartel.com/about)

John Lehr

Lehr starred as Leslie Pool in “10 Items or Less,” from Sony on TBS for three seasons and recently starred as Sheriff Hoyle on Hulu’s original comedy western “Quickdraw” for two seasons. Lehr also co-created, wrote and executive produced both series.

Lehr is one of the original Geico Cavemen from the wildly successful commercial campaign. He appeared in dozens of spots, including the first commercial as a caveman boom operator, the caveman in therapy with Talia Shire, the tennis spot with Billy Jean King, Superbowl spots with Phil Simms and many more.

Under their banner Howler Monkey Productions, Lehr and producing partner Nancy Hower have created multiple projects, most involving their unique improvisationally-based “hybrid” style found in “QuickDraw” (Hulu) “10 Items” (TBS) “Jailbait (Crackle) and “Memron” (Slamdance award-winner). With Lehr starring and Howler directing, the team completed comedy pilots “Let It Ride,” (Comedy Central), “Retreat!” (NBC), “Team McPhearson (Fox) and “King of Beers” (EUE/Sokolow). The team’s script/development deals include “The Loop” (HBO), “Troubadour” (MTV), “Life on Mars” (Sony/BBC), and “LARP” (Echo Lake), Tommy Chong’s Pipe Dreams (TBS).

John has appeared in numerous television series, including “Friends” and was a series regular on “Jesse,” both for Warner Brothers/NBC. His feature film roles include “The Sweetest Thing,” and three Noah Baumbach films, “Kicking and Screaming,” “Mr. Jealousy,” and “Highball.”

John’s hosting credits include “News Weasels” for E!; “I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!” for ABC; CBS’ special “Clash of the Commercials” with co-host Heidi Klum; and “John Lehr’s Movie Club” for TBS.

A recovering alcoholic and drug addict, Lehr is a seasoned monologist and comedian who speaks openly about his twenty plus years of sobriety. Under the banner “Cold. Sober. Comedy.” Lehr performs and MC’s at fundraisers, non-profits and sober communities about his personal/career struggles, his continuing sober journey and the importance of an authentic sense of humor. Lehr recently debuted his newest monologue “Wait, I Have to Give a Crap About Other People?” at the Annual Sober St. Paddy’s Day Comedy Night for the Atlanta

Caron Treatment Center.”

Lehr’s critically acclaimed “Comedic Lectures” solo performances have had sold out runs in LA and New York. He is also a respected improvisational performer having worked at the Organic Theater and Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago, the Montreal Comedy Festival, Chicago Improvisational Festival and multiple venues in Los Angeles and New York. Lehr regularly performs stand-up comedy and MC/Hosts events around the country.

John is married to author Jennifer Lehr with whom he has two children. The Lehrs reside in Los Angeles.

For more information on John, including booking: info@johnlehr.com

(Source: http://johnlehr.com/bio/)

Links

“SPEED BUMP” THE PLAY

JAY’S WEBSITE

JOHN’S WEBSITE

TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Stuart: in this episode, john lair and J martell and little old me come up with a few sketch ideas. You remember the book, the kids, kids book about snitches. We shaved our head and then you see it and you're like, oh man, I gotta shave my head to and then it's just like how does that go? And it's just like we keep trying to grow hair, shaved hair. I don't know how that works out, but I've got a professional writer here, so I'm gonna

[00:00:24] John Lehr: let him

[00:00:25] Stuart: go marvel. Movies are all the rage, right? You're a superhero. But I like the concept of like a superhero, you're not really sure what to do with the power. So the ability to write anywhere as a, as a mutant power I think is pretty cool.

[00:00:38] John Lehr: That's a good idea

[00:00:40] Stuart: your situation where you're on stage and there's other things happening around you that maybe it's maybe it's not like the, the hockey thing, but like you, events are happening around you and people are still talking specifically to you about how bad you suck. Like everything else is going on around you. But you are the thing that's causing this to be terrible. Which one did we pick? You'll find out on this episode of, it's a sketch comedy. Welcome to sketch comedy podcast show. The one of a kind show where I Stewart rice invite interesting people to have intriguing conversations and then improvise a comedy sketch based on what we talked about this episode is a special treat. I'm going to give you a brief intro to both of these incredibly talented and funny human beings and try to get us right into the conversation, john lair is an improvisational actor who has starred in a number of movies and tv shows. You might best know him as the Geico caveman and his most recent show on Hulu Quick Draw, which is no kidding. One of my favorite shows, it's a western that is improvised and it is wonderful. J Martell is a peabody award winning writer and has also won an Emmy for his work on key and peele also one of my favorite tv shows and is far too qualified to be on this podcast. He also writes for the new yorker on a regular basis. He also recently wrote a book called The Present which is available on audible and looks like it might be picked up for a movie. Their latest project, Speed bump is a play performed in the backyards of fans. You can get tickets from the link in the show notes and now my conversation with john lair and J martell, john jay, thank you so much for coming on today.

[00:02:36] John Lehr: My pleasure. Really appreciate thanks for having us.

[00:02:40] Stuart: Oh no, it's it's absolutely my pleasure. Um, I've got a really quick question for you. What makes you interesting, john, I'll let you go first

[00:02:51] John Lehr: Go 1st. I'm so fast

[00:02:54] Jay Martel: go first for about a half an hour.

[00:02:56] John Lehr: I'm so fascinating on so many levels.

[00:03:00] Jay Martel: Your hair is really, I

[00:03:04] Stuart: mean the hair is impressive. I know I've got I'm follicly challenged that your hair is gorgeous, you and me both.

[00:03:10] John Lehr: You guys have good bold heads though. I I underneath this, it's, you know,

[00:03:14] Jay Martel: it's like, like a great Hitler or something like that,

[00:03:19] Stuart: I gotta be honest, nobody has ever given me a compliment on my hair, but they have given me a compliment on my head. Yes, yeah.

[00:03:27] John Lehr: Wonderful head.

[00:03:28] Stuart: More people have wanted to touch my head than they ever wanted to touch my

[00:03:32] John Lehr: hair. Nobody ever wants to touch my hair, but I do, it looks

[00:03:36] Stuart: like it might hurt.

[00:03:37] John Lehr: I get a lot of comments on my hair.

[00:03:39] Jay Martel: Your hair is like a beautiful princess that needs to be sort of admired from afar. Like, it's like, it's too much, it's too much if you touch it, it might burn you or something with, it's like,

[00:03:52] John Lehr: it's like a jew touching a crucifix.

[00:03:56] Stuart: No,

[00:03:57] John Lehr: don't. Does

[00:03:58] Stuart: it burn? I don't know, but I don't want to find out

[00:04:02] John Lehr: film kapoor tomorrow, and I was just at a shoot where they were gonna do like a christmas scene and and that it was in a jewish household and they were gonna hang up a wreath to make the front door and I was like, it'll catch the house on fire, don't mess with

[00:04:17] Jay Martel: that,

[00:04:20] John Lehr: But I I think the thing that makes me the most interesting is that I'm still alive because I had a life that, I had I've been sober for 26 years and there was a life before that, which Jay has heard me rant about for years and

[00:04:35] Stuart: years.

[00:04:36] John Lehr: I don't, I don't, there's huge huge gaps in it, but I think that's probably what makes me interesting.

[00:04:46] Stuart: I

[00:04:46] John Lehr: and J is extremely interesting person.

[00:04:50] Stuart: Yes, Absolutely. J what what what do you believe makes you interesting? I

[00:04:55] Jay Martel: think that that I think that I can write under any circumstances like I could, if there was um maybe, you know, if I was on a battlefield I could write if I was uh I can, you know, I have this my office is actually the same room as the dryer in the washing machine. They're going like almost all the time because

[00:05:17] Stuart: you don't care. It doesn't, you don't

[00:05:19] Jay Martel: matter, it doesn't. But normally if I'm not writing it, small noises bugged the hell out of me. So

[00:05:30] Stuart: you're not hanging around like preschools like that's not a thing you're gonna do. Also, you should never say that you're hanging around preschools

[00:05:38] John Lehr: and white guy shouldn't be hanging around.

[00:05:41] Jay Martel: I mean they

[00:05:43] John Lehr: just immediately take you away.

[00:05:44] Stuart: Yeah, they call people,

[00:05:46] Jay Martel: I am not co signing for this part of the

[00:05:49] Stuart: conversation. Mm. Um Yeah, so I I just real quick j u um my favorite show besides Quick draw is key and peele. I thought that every I don't know if I saw a bad sketch. I saw ones that weren't as funny as others, but um, I, your work on that was just amazing. Everybody's work on that show is incredible. So, uh, and in my opinion, it's the best sketch show that has probably ever existed. Just everything was super strong. So, um, I know you wrote on key and peele, I know you've written a couple of movies. What else, what else can you let everybody know what else they would know you from?

[00:06:31] John Lehr: He, he won a peabody

[00:06:34] Jay Martel: Oh,

[00:06:36] Stuart: there you go.

[00:06:38] Jay Martel: And I'm getting another another peabody for being on this podcast.

[00:06:42] Stuart: Yeah, well, absolutely. They monitor this podcast for things.

[00:06:46] Jay Martel: The peabody voters are out there. Um, I, I'm a novelist. I've written a couple novels that are available, um, one called channel blue, another called um

[00:07:01] Stuart: yes.

[00:07:02] Jay Martel: Oh, oh my

[00:07:03] John Lehr: God.

[00:07:04] Jay Martel: Oh yeah, I'm used to like amateur podcast. This is a whole nother level.

[00:07:10] Stuart: Yeah, this is like an upper level podcast. It's wonderful.

[00:07:15] Jay Martel: I'm a contributor to the new yorker sort of like the nerdiest aspect of, I guess written humor, um, which can be found there and

[00:07:25] John Lehr: I'm a big follower of his, his stuff on the new yorker Or

[00:07:29] Stuart: do you have to be because your friends like you were there is that

[00:07:34] Jay Martel: we're pretty compartmentalized. I mean we, I feel like as friends, we feel no obligation at all to, to look at each other's work, but we do, we do enjoy each other's work because we enjoy each other. I mean, john john is one of the funniest people I've ever met and he just happens to live a block away from me, which is amazing.

[00:07:57] John Lehr: Yeah,

[00:07:57] Stuart: That is actually pretty incredible.

[00:07:59] John Lehr: And I feel the same way about Jay and, and it's great. It's great to have somebody in your neighborhood who we've known each other for 16 years. We met each other in Griffith Park. I think Jay was pushing his infant daughter at the time. Our daughters are the same age. Our sons are the same age. Our daughters are now 16 and are best friends. So, I mean, we're uh, we're in tight it, so it's all over at this point.

[00:08:30] Stuart: That's fantastic.

[00:08:31] Jay Martel: J is

[00:08:35] Stuart: that an argument that you guys have, who's gonna bury who first

[00:08:40] Jay Martel: he's

[00:08:41] John Lehr: older, but I did a lot more drugs. So maybe who knows? You know, who knows?

[00:08:47] Jay Martel: And

[00:08:47] John Lehr: weirs weirs die young. My family dies young,

[00:08:51] Stuart: 17. Yeah.

[00:08:53] Jay Martel: Yeah, that's really true. Like because both your parents died, both died young and still alive. So that's something that handicappers should take into account. I

[00:09:02] Stuart: wonder if there's like, there's got to be like an item in Vegas where you can vote on, you can bet on which one. So

[00:09:08] John Lehr: I

[00:09:09] Stuart: wonder what the odds look like, you know?

[00:09:11] Jay Martel: Yeah. I mean, I wonder like if you could like pay a bookie to like just post odds on your friends deaths.

[00:09:18] Stuart: Do I wonder do they actually have stuff like that in Vegas. I don't actually know, but I'm, I imagine they're like the over under on or something like that. Oh yeah,

[00:09:31] John Lehr: Is that true? Oh my God.

[00:09:34] Jay Martel: I mean something like that has odds posted on it like has had posted on it for years.

[00:09:40] Stuart: Could you imagine hitting, hitting that jackpot?

[00:09:43] Jay Martel: Oh my God.

[00:09:45] Stuart: That would be crazy. Um You guys, they

[00:09:49] John Lehr: had odds on everybody. It's called health insurance and life insurance. It's like what you pay for your life insurance are basically your odds.

[00:09:59] Stuart: You think I'm gonna die tomorrow if that's the case? Like they are thinking very poorly of my

[00:10:05] Jay Martel: health. Exactly. Yeah.

[00:10:10] Stuart: So you guys, were you guys, um, you know, you've been friends for a long time? You do work together though, right?

[00:10:17] John Lehr: Yeah, we're right now we're in a play together. Look at that. That's awesome. Yeah. We're in a play that J wrote called speed bump and it's about to neighbors. I don't know where he got that idea who are friends who are around the same age, who grew up together um, where one of them wants a speed bump put in the street in the neighborhood and one doesn't and that starts a domino effect that

[00:10:48] Stuart: how much, yeah. How much of this is based on reality did you guys have a speed bump discussion at some point?

[00:10:54] Jay Martel: We have had in our neighborhood. Yes. We've had several people. I mean, you know, obviously for the sake of the comedy and the drama that everything's been. I and john is not the character he plays, nor am I. But we, we've had, I mean, I don't know if you've ever been to a meeting of your neighborhood or if you live in an apartment building, your coop, that people get really, really riled up when it's about

[00:11:24] Stuart: passionate

[00:11:25] Jay Martel: about

[00:11:26] Stuart: the weirdest things

[00:11:27] Jay Martel: thing. Yeah. And so this is just following um that little thread all the way to its logical Armageddon ish, that's

[00:11:42] Stuart: fantastic. Now you guys, um you guys started performing this in the height of Covid, correct? Yeah,

[00:11:49] John Lehr: or j wrote it during, during Covid and we and he and I would safely distance as we, you know, did read drafts of his script.

[00:11:59] Jay Martel: Um and so

[00:12:01] Stuart: that means that you didn't get a chance to practice the sex scene is what you're saying.

[00:12:05] John Lehr: No, we had to imagine

[00:12:07] Jay Martel: that,

[00:12:09] John Lehr: but but then then it was time to do a reading of the play and jay did it in his backyard because, you know, this was, this was after, after the pandemic was over, but still people were nervous and and we were, and we were talking about work shopping it. And uh I was, I was a big proponent of like, let's keep doing it in people's backyards because because because it's set in a neighborhood and its neighbors. It's like, it's amazing. It's

[00:12:40] Stuart: like you're part of that meeting for real, you know,

[00:12:43] Jay Martel: Yeah, it's

[00:12:45] Stuart: another level of immersion into this world that you guys have created. You

[00:12:50] John Lehr: know, you workshop plays in like a little black box theater and we didn't know how people would feel about that, you know, at that point. Um, I think now people are starting

[00:13:01] Stuart: now people, I went to a concert recently and it was like, I saw a dude like straight up cough just out into space and people did not back up and I was like, well we're done with this. Like everybody's okay.

[00:13:14] John Lehr: Yeah, I don't know, I still can't handle the coffee and if somebody, you know,

[00:13:21] Jay Martel: you

[00:13:22] Stuart: hop back a little bit and like, oh no, no, it's fine. It's fine. It's fine over there. Yeah. But um yeah, so you guys and you just had a performance right? You had one on the first,

[00:13:35] Jay Martel: how

[00:13:35] Stuart: did that go?

[00:13:37] Jay Martel: Fantastic. We performed it for about 70 people at a house in Laurel Canyon and it's the first time we performed it actually at night because usually what we do is we try to catch the dying sunlight for our performance, but it's gotten to the point now where it's getting kind of sun's going down pretty early and our host want to make sure everyone was liquored up and

[00:14:02] John Lehr: which was a good idea.

[00:14:05] Jay Martel: I felt like we were really performing to an audience for the first time

[00:14:09] Stuart: we've

[00:14:10] John Lehr: been performing to kind of sober ish audiences and man, it was nice to have an audience that was lit

[00:14:15] Stuart: just a little bit looser, just like a little bit easier to laugh and it's

[00:14:21] Jay Martel: true, like everyone was just like, you could just tell they've given themselves permission to laugh like immediately there

[00:14:28] John Lehr: was some weed going around,

[00:14:30] Stuart: perfect, yeah,

[00:14:32] Jay Martel: laugh

[00:14:33] Stuart: laugh to back. E yeah. Um

[00:14:36] John Lehr: comedians best friend

[00:14:37] Stuart: absolutely both on and off stage, but although you've been sober, I should probably not be saying

[00:14:44] John Lehr: that. No, no, no, I'm pro drugs,

[00:14:47] Stuart: Fair enough. Um and you've got to two coming up, right? You've got the 15th and the 16th and those are gonna be where whereabouts are those gonna be? And can people just go to this? People can just go to this website to get tickets and

[00:15:03] Jay Martel: Yeah, well they making making contact um we have a publicist named Andrea who has been very helpful to us and and that that website will lead you to a place where you can ask for for admission to one of these shows. We're not giving out the address obviously because these are actually people's homes and they might not nothing like, you know, a huge avalanche of people are going to show up, but you know, but

[00:15:30] Stuart: They might, and they can only accommodate 80 people in their backyard all of a sudden they've got 470, our

[00:15:37] John Lehr: Last one was big, I thought, I don't

[00:15:40] Stuart: Know 70 people as a lot of people

[00:15:42] John Lehr: in a lot of people in the backyard.

[00:15:44] Stuart: I agree.

[00:15:45] Jay Martel: We're not like, you know, it's just, it's just us yelling basically. I mean there's no sound system, there's no like there's no light, the lonely lights for like these, these outdoor porch lights, like hanging over our heads.

[00:15:57] Stuart: You know? Honestly, I think I hope that this like kind of starts a trend where people start to do more performance out in the backyard. I think it's great. There used to be a website that you could go to and you could see sign up to get ideas for get shows. We're traveling. Artists would go and perform in your living room, which was phenomenal. Of course, Covid killed it, but it was so great to be in someone's house and they're like, I don't know, grab a cushion off the couch and like it was so, it was so much warmer than like going to a place to watch something I think for, especially for something like this, what a great way to experience that.

[00:16:35] Jay Martel: No, no, I was just gonna say that, you know, like we've, we've gone into backyards where we haven't known anywhere, but at the end of it, you feel like everyone's friends, you know, even though, you know, we haven't, we haven't really talked to anyone except each other, but the communal experience of laughing together, but

[00:16:56] Stuart: the audience is all holding each other's hands and they're swaying back and forth.

[00:17:01] Jay Martel: Not that, that, yeah.

[00:17:05] Stuart: Yeah, I know, but it's a shared experience that way? And I think it's really good.

[00:17:10] John Lehr: Yeah, it's cool. It's it's it's like, it's like the modern day version of the salon, you know, back in, you know, when you have all these people just sitting around, it was it's cool. It's really cool.

[00:17:21] Stuart: J and I don't really understand that, but yeah, we'll go along

[00:17:23] Jay Martel: with it. Um I think during covid people just loaded on their screens. I mean because like, just like how people are just ripping through like five seasons of a show, like in in in two nights and so like, you know, we figured we find that there's like a real hunger out there for people watching live people

[00:17:48] Stuart: and being around live people. I actually um I just recently had somebody on the show that wrote a book about to our cocktail parties and he's like, we should have these like on a monthly basis, just get people together. Doesn't even matter what it's about just getting together for two hours and see what happens. And I think it's

[00:18:03] John Lehr: Hard out after two hours, 2

[00:18:05] Stuart: hours. It's yeah. Yeah, he committed me to doing one of these. So I'm I'm excited to see how it goes. The beginning of november, I'm going to be doing it, but I think that's really important is to get out in front of people and see them and see what the interaction is between,

[00:18:19] John Lehr: How are you going to end it after two hours? What are you gonna do? I

[00:18:22] Stuart: don't know, he wrote a book. So I'm in the middle of the book and I need to figure out, I haven't gotten to that part. The end part where it's like, alright, please leave the hounds will be released, you know? But yeah, so I I love it. And I think especially if it can be around like a, like a performance, I think it's wonderful. I think it really does. A lot of, a lot of cool things for people hits those endorphins and they get to experience something they've never experienced before.

[00:18:51] John Lehr: It's true. There really people are really thrilled after when they come up to us. They're just like this was so cool and your

[00:19:00] Jay Martel: expectations are also low, right? Because you know, they don't know what they walked into there. Like we just, you know, a friend of ours said they were doing something in their backyard and we walked over so That I think those reduced expectations. I mean it's not like you bought like a $300 ticket for a Broadway show where it's like, Okay, show me

[00:19:22] Stuart: all cylinders, I

[00:19:26] Jay Martel: will say on our behalf, we don't have the benefit of like that those broadway shows have like, like lights and stage, you know,

[00:19:37] Stuart: amazon amazon wish list, you can put the lights on there, that's cheap. You could do that for very little money. Um So john now you've had an experience where you've made a show for Hulu recently. Right, And then you've got a pretty long career as an actor. What are some roles that like really stick out to you as like, these are the ones that you think people should go back and review.

[00:20:05] John Lehr: What

[00:20:06] Stuart: are the ones that you think you just nailed on them, nailed them?

[00:20:11] John Lehr: Well, I never think I nailed anything.

[00:20:13] Stuart: Anybody who's in, anybody who does any performer. Yeah,

[00:20:18] John Lehr: you never really feel like, okay, that one. Uh I think, you know, Quick Draw, which is the show I did for hulu is probably the one I'm most proud of. I, I created the show, I wrote the show and I started the show. So, I mean, you know, that's my baby. Uh and then I had the same sort of experience with the show called 10 items or less, which was on Tbs, which is, I think you can still find it out there probably on hulu or crackle. Um and then a show that many people haven't seen and it's very difficult to get a hold of, but it's called jailbait and this,

[00:20:54] Stuart: this

[00:20:55] John Lehr: is one of jay's favorites. It's so wrong. I wonder how it would play now. Anyway, my character gets jail, gets thrown in jail and there's, you can imagine it was, there was a show called Oz on HBO,

[00:21:10] Stuart: which yes, it was

[00:21:11] John Lehr: hardcore prison Drama. And so our idea was to do a comedy version of that. This is before Orange is the New Black or you know, um so it ran on crackle Sony's uh website um streaming service, but it was pulled because they they use advertisements and the advertising people are like this,

[00:21:35] Stuart: we can't

[00:21:36] John Lehr: we can't. But yeah, and you know, it was the Geico Caveman, which is, you know, um so, you know, I don't know, I mean, I all I did I I didn't have to do much, I just wear the makeup and they let me improv a lot, but people really liked it.

[00:21:53] Stuart: So

[00:21:53] John Lehr: yeah, I

[00:21:54] Stuart: mean that one, that one kind of hit the zeitgeist a little bit. I mean, really it did. So that that's pretty remarkable. And did you get your start doing improv? Like, what did you, what did you do to get in? Okay,

[00:22:06] John Lehr: So I started in, I went to school at Northwestern in Chicago and they had an improv show because, you know, they're they're outside of Chicago, the mecca of improv. And they had an improv show in at the university that I auditioned for and I could not believe you could say whatever you wanted on stage.

[00:22:25] Stuart: I

[00:22:27] John Lehr: just couldn't believe

[00:22:28] Jay Martel: it. You were one of those guys who were like, when they first saw improv, they were like, I've been waiting all my life for this. Like, you and your brother had been doing improv for years and not knowing it,

[00:22:40] John Lehr: right, right? All my all my

[00:22:42] Jay Martel: life jay's

[00:22:44] John Lehr: absolutely right. My me and my friends in Kansas were basically doing improv. We just didn't know that's what it was. We were just trying to crack each other up. So and so then I was off and running and I was in I was in Chicago, I did improv second city, I did improv at the organic, I did all over Chicago and then uh was discovered by by a talent scout and brought out to L. A. And then I pissed all that away with doing drugs and alcohol. Then I got sober and started a career.

[00:23:13] Stuart: Well, I mean, at some point you gotta hit that point in your career, the drugs and alcohol has to happen. It's not, it's inevitable because

[00:23:21] John Lehr: I'm just thrilled I survived

[00:23:24] Stuart: because

[00:23:24] John Lehr: a lot of my friends didn't, you know? So here I am.

[00:23:29] Stuart: And then j how do you, how do you, how does someone get to be a writer? Like how do you, that is like the most mysterious um like job or career I can think of is how do you get to be a writer? I know you're supposed to write, but like I've done that, I'm still not a writer. How do you become one? Well,

[00:23:49] Jay Martel: I think, you know, when I grew up it was there was more of a path to being a writer because there was more journalism, there was more magazines, there was more newspapers and I grew up reading my local newspaper front to back, you know, and loving all the colonists and loving and want and I wanted to be a journalist, you know, that's what I wanted to be and uh, and then you know, it's just that morphed into working in magazines and newspapers on my, you know, college high school every you know, and just going out and then I moved to new york to be, to work at newsweek and ended up writing articles for Rolling Stone and, and then that just kind of I guess because I was writing about tv for Rolling Stone, I had a moment where I was just like, why am I writing about this? I really actually want to be doing

[00:24:40] Stuart: it very cool. You, you and I were probably the two most popular kids in high school because I was, I was so into journalism on my class ring. That's what I had was the journalism thing.

[00:24:52] John Lehr: Yeah,

[00:24:53] Stuart: definitely. I crushed it in high school.

[00:24:57] John Lehr: That's better than the comedy drama mask.

[00:25:00] Stuart: I, you

[00:25:01] Jay Martel: know,

[00:25:03] John Lehr: yeah, jesus,

[00:25:05] Stuart: do you even have your class ring anymore? Is that no, who cares about?

[00:25:10] Jay Martel: It wasn't cool, cool.

[00:25:12] John Lehr: I had one, I don't know what

[00:25:15] Jay Martel: happened to, you know,

[00:25:17] Stuart: My mom bought it for me and like it showed up and she's like, I got this for you wasn't great through it in a drawer and never looked at it again. Want swamp, that's $200. She'll never get back.

[00:25:31] Jay Martel: She cut off her fingers.

[00:25:34] Stuart: Yeah, it was terrible. It was terrible

[00:25:36] John Lehr: sold a kidney

[00:25:38] Stuart: wamp wamp. What, what do you guys besides speed bump? Like, what are some things that you're excited about that you're doing, john john we talked a little bit about it ahead of time. I don't know if you want to reveal any of that, but yeah, go ahead.

[00:25:53] John Lehr: I'm pitching a show right now with bob Clendenin who has been on a, you know, bunch of the shows that I've done. He was on quick, anybody who sees a picture of bob

[00:26:05] Stuart: is

[00:26:06] John Lehr: like, oh my God, that guy, he's so funny and he's just a wonderful guy. And uh, and so yeah, that's what I'm doing right now with him and doing the play with jay and I've been doing a lot of live stuff. I've been traveling a lot people really, you know, I chalk it up to the post pandemic people want, Yeah. Live experience, it seems. So I've been traveling a bunch. I got a bunch more ahead of me. I'm going to Dallas and Chicago. I just got back from Toronto. I'm going to Austria in january and I haven't even told jay this. I just got a gig it for Norway. I mean,

[00:26:44] Stuart: it's,

[00:26:45] John Lehr: yeah, it's

[00:26:47] Jay Martel: all these countries want you to come teach them how to improvise in english. Yes.

[00:26:53] John Lehr: They want me to perform and then teach them how I did it for the camera.

[00:26:58] Jay Martel: Yeah, Really,

[00:27:00] Stuart: that's so do you do stand up in those situations or what do you do?

[00:27:04] John Lehr: I do do a solo show that is like stand up and do that for a lot of charity events and and things like that. But but I also do a an improv show with uh this improviser. Susan messing, who's this amazing legendary improviser improviser in Chicago?

[00:27:22] Stuart: That's amazing. Yeah. You've obviously done some stand up then. You've done

[00:27:27] John Lehr: that. J

[00:27:29] Stuart: have you ever done any stand

[00:27:30] Jay Martel: Up? I did 1 1. Very, very tight set uh in my career. When

[00:27:38] John Lehr: you say tight, what do you mean?

[00:27:41] Jay Martel: It was all gold, john

[00:27:43] John Lehr: wow!

[00:27:44] Jay Martel: eight minutes of your unadulterated gold.

[00:27:47] Stuart: And at that point you just dropped the mic and never hit the stage again. Right.

[00:27:51] Jay Martel: You know, you've painted the mona lisa, you just walk away.

[00:27:56] Stuart: Can

[00:27:57] John Lehr: you remember a joke from that?

[00:27:59] Jay Martel: But you don't want it?

[00:28:03] John Lehr: What, what decade was this?

[00:28:06] Jay Martel: Oh, this is 1979.

[00:28:10] Stuart: Yeah.

[00:28:12] Jay Martel: Reference it was a Star Heavy Star trek.

[00:28:14] John Lehr: Yeah.

[00:28:16] Stuart: Oh yeah, I mean crowds love that.

[00:28:19] John Lehr: The correct

[00:28:20] Stuart: crowd actually really does love that. But like

[00:28:23] John Lehr: the Star Wars stuff probably still plays

[00:28:27] Stuart: Oh yeah,

[00:28:28] John Lehr: you break that stuff out. That's fucking green man, That'll go forever.

[00:28:32] Stuart: Forever. Um Yeah, I am. I realized after doing stand up for a short period of time, I am not cut out for stand up, but I do love improv, so I can appreciate really, really good improv um but I, I, I find anymore even with stand up like if they're not doing well, I feel bad for them and I will pity laugh which is the worst thing you could do right?

[00:28:56] Jay Martel: Well, improv was kind of the same when it's bad. It's very bad when it's, it's very good. But um in terms of doing it, it's a lot less lonely bombing uh with other people on stage. Yeah,

[00:29:09] Stuart: because if you're with someone good they can pick up the slack, which is fantastic.

[00:29:14] John Lehr: Yeah, they'll save you.

[00:29:16] Stuart: Yeah, Yeah, that's their job. Yeah. Have you ever had john have you ever had an experience with improv where you were with somebody on the stage and it was just awful like they were just chewing up the time and you, you couldn't figure out, do you have a specific example that you can think of?

[00:29:35] John Lehr: I have, I could give you a dozen, but the one that sticks out the most was at a bar called Sheba's in Chicago on Southport where it they had a stage but they had monitors around the proscenium of the stage and the monitors were playing the Blackhawks who were the hockey team in Chicago in

[00:29:57] Jay Martel: the Yeah,

[00:29:59] John Lehr: and and it was the Stanley cup, they were playing for the cup, but it was the fine, you know the semifinals or whatever and it was the tournament and we were performing and they left him going without the sound on and people were piste off. And I remember a guy and this was a terrible, this was my earlier groups and we were just terrible. It was called, just to give you a sense the name of the group was called random sample. So that's just

[00:30:24] Jay Martel: something.

[00:30:26] John Lehr: And um, I was doing something with somebody and a guy goes, you suck. And then, and I was like, oh, he thinks we suck and, and he made eye contact with me and he goes, no, you, you suck.

[00:30:40] Jay Martel: That's

[00:30:44] Stuart: a little demoralizing when you're on stage. Like, maybe I shouldn't keep

[00:30:48] Jay Martel: going. You know, you must have appreciated his specificity.

[00:30:52] John Lehr: I did. I did. I, well it hurt, it hurt bad and then I drank it all away and turned it into cancer.

[00:30:59] Stuart: There you go. How do you, how did you play off of that? Did you at all? Or did you just go, no, I'm going to go into the shell. Just leave it

[00:31:07] John Lehr: at that point. It was, I have a joke with j like if the play doesn't, if we forget lines in the play, we just get in the car and drive away

[00:31:15] Stuart: and just

[00:31:19] John Lehr: go and you just kind of, I just went into that mode of like, oh, sh it, this is

[00:31:24] Jay Martel: this is this

[00:31:25] John Lehr: gig is

[00:31:25] Jay Martel: over. I

[00:31:27] John Lehr: get to the alcohol fast, right,

[00:31:30] Jay Martel: Right.

[00:31:32] Stuart: And then jay, um, you've, you've written so much stuff. Have you ever had a situation where somebody was performing something you'd written and you were just like, oh man, you can't get this any worse, you can't do this any more wrong than the way you're doing it and I as a writer, you get some input I imagine, but the director's got most of that, so I wonder how how does that play out when you, when you get into that situation?

[00:32:00] Jay Martel: Well, I mean there's a lot of different levels to that. There's there's the immediate thing of like writing something for the stage and then seeing it done poorly and or or not not, I mean, let me just say as a writer unless you unless you're doing it yourself or or or directing it yourself, it's rarely like you see it in your head, but that's part of the beauty of the whole thing, right? It's a collaborative medium, so you you other people are bringing their vision to it and you have to allow for that. And a lot of times, I just have to, like, I'm not gonna say anything because that's just different, that's just a different vision, it's not wrong or right, you know? Exactly, and it's hard because being a writer, people, the only reason people become writers is because they're control freaks and they want to control everything. That's why it's just there and the page and that's, you know, so that you you have to really force yourself to let go, right,

[00:32:58] John Lehr: but you don't do that in rehearsals. He just says wrong when I say one of his lines wrong. No,

[00:33:04] Jay Martel: what's more john once

[00:33:06] John Lehr: again again.

[00:33:08] Jay Martel: Yeah,

[00:33:10] Stuart: cut

[00:33:13] John Lehr: will be like, what do I smell? Oh, it's ship coming out of your mouth.

[00:33:20] Jay Martel: Well,

[00:33:22] Stuart: at least at least he's gentle about it. You know, like you just don't want to hurt anybody's feelings

[00:33:27] John Lehr: with a, with a shot caller once for a rehearsal. Like those dogs shotgun would just hit me with a three or a

[00:33:34] Stuart: two. Yeah,

[00:33:39] John Lehr: it's true. He's right. It did

[00:33:41] Stuart: work. So with the play, you how much play is in the play? Is it, is it? It's not an improvised play. It's a scripted play. Yeah. Does that make it more

[00:33:52] John Lehr: difficult

[00:33:53] Stuart: for

[00:33:54] John Lehr: me? It is I don't do a lot of heavily scripted stuff. I mean I, I didn't, I did weirdly the year during the pandemic. I did a two person a movie that was a low budget movie and it was just the two of us. And so it was kind of like, like you had to know every scene because it moved, had to move fast because they didn't have a lot of money, but still you get to do, you do a scene and then if you screw it up, you get to do it again. So a play is a totally thing. So it's, it's hard, it's a lot to learn thick. That's a thick play. j laid on.

[00:34:37] Jay Martel: We would have not done it except at some point. We we we realized that it would be easier just to finish memorizing it than to stop. It was like Vietnam like in 1968

[00:34:51] Stuart: we just got to finish it. That's all we gotta do. Just finish it.

[00:34:54] Jay Martel: You know, like the smart thing to do would just be to withdraw all our forces, but let's just bomb the fun out of all the countries in Southeast Asia

[00:35:04] John Lehr: just

[00:35:05] Jay Martel: blow it all up. And so that's what that was all we had to go through to the other side. Yeah, we're

[00:35:12] John Lehr: in the we're in the napalm stage right now.

[00:35:15] Stuart: Oh my goodness. Yeah. Those poor audiences right there. Like I don't know what just happened to get me to the emergency room.

[00:35:22] Jay Martel: You know, like I think what happens, you know, we've had, we've had rough rehearsals where we've gone up a lot and and have no idea what what comes next. But I think what happens in performances that adrenaline kicks in and the adrenaline is your friend, you know, like it's like helping those people there and the possibility for group shame and humiliation, that's

[00:35:47] Stuart: really what we're doing is just avoiding that as much as possible. That's the

[00:35:50] John Lehr: sheer fear of looking like an idiot. It motivates

[00:35:56] Jay Martel: you. It's so funny too because I I vacillate during the average performance. I vacillate so wildly between bravado and abject terror. You know, like, well, normally I'd be like, oh my God, I'm sucking nailing this, and, like, I have no idea what comes next.

[00:36:11] Stuart: You're like, oh man, you're looking at your hand. It's all smeared because you wrote down the words, but it's now smeared because you've got so much sweat on your hands,

[00:36:20] John Lehr: Like, when your when your partner's doing a speech and you don't know the line that you're supposed to say at the end of it, it's like the cold hands.

[00:36:28] Jay Martel: Yeah,

[00:36:29] John Lehr: just grab your heart,

[00:36:31] Jay Martel: you know, it's

[00:36:31] John Lehr: just like, what is it? What is it, what is

[00:36:34] Jay Martel: it? Just

[00:36:35] Stuart: shout out off, off, off to the stage line, and it's like, there's nobody there to give it to you,

[00:36:40] John Lehr: what are you gonna do? I

[00:36:43] Jay Martel: realized that the biggest accuse you can give anyone in the play is a line, like, what? Or really?

[00:36:54] John Lehr: Will there be lines that are kind of similar, but they're

[00:36:58] Stuart: slightly

[00:36:59] John Lehr: different. Oh my God, it's horrible. But we've got it, We're doing pretty good.

[00:37:06] Stuart: Yeah, I mean, it sounds like you guys are professionals. That's how you get

[00:37:10] Jay Martel: through it.

[00:37:15] John Lehr: I guarantee we will not drop one line in the next performance. I may God, strike us

[00:37:24] Jay Martel: down.

[00:37:27] John Lehr: We

[00:37:29] Stuart: weren't expecting thunderclouds tonight. But that's funny. Um how often do you have to rehearse that to get it, like, ingrained for you. Like, how many times? Yeah, no,

[00:37:44] John Lehr: it's

[00:37:44] Stuart: like, I mean, I'm just curious, like, how much rehearsal does it take a couple of weeks. Has it

[00:37:50] John Lehr: been a year of twice? Once or twice a week because we broke up, you know, real lives. Um Right j I don't

[00:37:59] Jay Martel: yeah, I mean we'll go we'll go like a couple of months without working on it at all because we don't have any shows coming up and then we'll have like these panicky weeks, learn it in our sleep, you know, we'll sleep on the script, we'll have our wives shouted to us while we're in the shower, you know? Oh my God,

[00:38:21] John Lehr: it's

[00:38:21] Jay Martel: true. I got this I had this I had a surgery like in august and with general anesthetic. And I was sure that that when I woke up I was like, like my brain and wipe my hard drive of that play. I mean I know who I am and I and I and I and I know like who my friends are but I don't know that play anymore. It's gone. And

[00:38:46] John Lehr: it's kind of amazing how much we do remember really, when you think about it? It's weird how that sh it sticks in your brain. I mean it's crazy.

[00:38:55] Jay Martel: Yeah,

[00:38:56] Stuart: that's that's why

[00:38:57] Jay Martel: it's a great play, you know? It all makes sense. I

[00:39:01] Stuart: mean every word is gold. Just like your stand up routine.

[00:39:05] John Lehr: It is it's well written. Really well written.

[00:39:07] Stuart: Yeah I really I I if

[00:39:10] John Lehr: if

[00:39:10] Stuart: there is any way I could get down to L. A. To go see that I'm I would totally do it. I'll see what I can do.

[00:39:16] John Lehr: Yeah. No,

[00:39:18] Jay Martel: no. All

[00:39:20] Stuart: right. Well, everybody needs to, if you're in the Los Angeles area, please go or if you want to travel to L. A. And see a phenomenal like no holds barred full frontal show, you'll want to hit up speed bump the play. You'll want to go to this website. It's also in the comments, so it's easy to click on. Um, but john J we have to record a sketch. I so badly want to get there to watch it. If I do, I will let everybody know if you can get there and you're in the L. A. Area and you'd love to see these to perform this incredible play in someone's backyard email Andrea at A M C K Pr dot com. That's A N D R E A at A M C K P R dot com. But I'll let john fill us in on all of the things these guys are up to

[00:40:17] John Lehr: the best time you can ever have in a lawn chair, please call us up because we will come on over and make your night

[00:40:27] Stuart: speed bump the play. Make sure you call, get your tickets asAP selling out fast because there's only so much space in the backyard And now our sketch documentary of the not so superpowered in 3, 2 in a world filled with superheroes. It is hard to make every power relevant. So super beings have taken to hire super talent agents to advocate for their place on super teams. These poor underpowered superhumans cannot face the likes of lex Luther or Doctor Doom alone because as powerful as they are against normal schlubs like you and me, their powers can seem pretty silly against real foes. It takes a team to keep an idiot alive. Let's see how one of these tryouts goes as we go undercover to uncover the trials of one such hero as he tries to join one of these powerful teams as we continue our exploration of the not so super powered. All right, I'm telling you this guy is the best superhero you guys are gonna have on your team. I know that the Avengers right? Like they save the world and all that, but you're going down the right track right on is definitely going to be you're right on time,

[00:41:53] John Lehr: he's right,

[00:41:54] Stuart: he's very dry, but also he's incredibly powerful and I you know what, here's what I'm going to say, put him in a situation, let's see what he can do and I I guarantee he will be on the Avengers and he will be your number one Avenger before too long,

[00:42:09] John Lehr: can I just say it's a little weird that he has an agent. Just I'm just putting that out there.

[00:42:15] Stuart: Well, to be honest with you, most of the super heroes now that are not like aligned with a team, they have an agent because it's kind of crowded right now. I don't know if you've looked around at the superhero landscape. I

[00:42:27] Jay Martel: agree with you. I beg Stewart not to come to the audition. Um But he just insisted that they write on needed.

[00:42:35] John Lehr: You're a superhero who you you can't even keep your agent from coming to your

[00:42:39] Jay Martel: I'm it's my character. I'm an I'm an actor auditioning to be this new superhero. So

[00:42:47] John Lehr: let's also

[00:42:48] Stuart: I'm more than just an agent. I'm a hype man too. That's

[00:42:51] John Lehr: that's that's a power in and of itself. We need a hype man here at X. Force if you're interested that we need

[00:42:58] Jay Martel: I'm a writer who can write under any circumstances you

[00:43:03] Stuart: put them in any situation and he'll right, that's the thing

[00:43:06] John Lehr: what happens to the writing then it turns into lasers or what happens when I

[00:43:10] Jay Martel: know I've been submitted to these different publishing houses who you know, sometimes they'll they'll pay me for, you know and publish it,

[00:43:17] John Lehr: wow. You know what my superpower is? I can make your brain explode inside your head. I am needed on the X Force Team a guy who can write

[00:43:28] Stuart: right on is gonna make your head explode after

[00:43:32] Jay Martel: the battle. Okay,

[00:43:35] John Lehr: okay. All right, let me put you in a situation. Alright, Alright, so the hulk you know who the hulk is. Right,

[00:43:43] Stuart: okay,

[00:43:43] John Lehr: great. So the hulk has been exposed to some gamma rays that have made him even crazier than he is and he's gone dark on us. He's become red hole. He's coming right at us. But we're all frozen and stasis so I can't make his brain explode. The only person who isn't frozen is right on. What do you do?

[00:44:05] Stuart: All right, right on, you can do this.

[00:44:07] John Lehr: Okay, He's writing. Okay. Now the hulks already ripped your head off. I mean, what did you write?

[00:44:15] Jay Martel: Please don't rip my head

[00:44:16] John Lehr: off. Okay. He might read that. Alright, okay.

[00:44:20] Stuart: And you were

[00:44:20] John Lehr: able to do that under stress?

[00:44:22] Jay Martel: Well, yeah, I mean, assuming the hulk was charging at me. Okay.

[00:44:26] Stuart: I mean, you think about how fast the hulk charges? That was less than two seconds

[00:44:30] John Lehr: initially. I thought it was honestly, I'm gonna say, I thought it was a bullshit talent, but now that I see

[00:44:35] Jay Martel: you trying to tell you, you have to see it in practice. You can't just don't

[00:44:40] John Lehr: yell at me fucking blow your brain out. Okay,

[00:44:43] Stuart: I tell you what, You throw out another scenario. Just one more scenario.

[00:44:47] John Lehr: Okay, Okay, I'm super hot for Supergirl and I'm I don't know how to talk to her. I'm embarrassed, but you can slip me notes like cyrano de Bergerac what would you have me say to her? You'd write something down and slip it. He's writing.

[00:45:06] Stuart: Okay?

[00:45:08] John Lehr: Yes, No, I wanted to be good. Stop yelling at me. I'm gonna. I'm this close to blowing your brain apart

[00:45:13] Stuart: and there's no Meteor coming at this point, right? Like there's, there's nothing like, okay, okay, we're just talking

[00:45:18] Jay Martel: incredible. Me getting my brain blown up.

[00:45:21] John Lehr: All right, just do it. It was always there. I'm just pointing it out

[00:45:26] Jay Martel: to you.

[00:45:26] John Lehr: Okay, Here it is. Hey, Supergirl. How about getting me souped up girl?

[00:45:34] Stuart: I mean, that is like Shakespearean

[00:45:37] Jay Martel: on, right on

[00:45:40] Stuart: your welcome

[00:45:41] John Lehr: to the team. Get him a suit. Let's get him a really tight suit.

[00:45:45] Stuart: Any scenario right on is going to absolutely tear it up on the page.

[00:45:50] John Lehr: Okay, Okay, well let's, we'll tear it up. I don't want him to tear up the page then we wouldn't be able to read it, but I know I'm following. I'm following. I'm following. Okay, right on a fan is coming at you and they want an autograph. What do you do?

[00:46:06] Stuart: Come on, Right on. You can do it. What gives? Why did you blow up his brain?

[00:46:14] John Lehr: I didn't, I didn't do anything.

[00:46:18] Stuart: Thank you so much for joining us for sketch comedy podcast show. We hope you enjoyed listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it. Make sure to head over to sketch comedy podcast show dot com there. You can subscribe to the show, Head over to youtube and watch some of the videos and sketches we've done there. Maybe head over to Patreon and become a patron to the show that would be so much appreciated or you can leave a review someplace or if you're feeling really saucy apply to be on the show. I appreciate every single one of you that listens to the show and I would love to hear more from you. Now I've got to get this out of the way, sketch comedy podcast show is protected under a creative commons attribution, no derivatives four point oh international license. Which means that if you would like to reproduce anything in the show, please contact the show so that I can get you the right material for it. And also, this show is copyright 2022 Stewart rice. Every day we are given a choice. Can we do the funny thing or the not so funny thing. I'm going to urge you to do the funny thing today and create an improvised comedy adventure of your own. Take care. See you next episode. This has been delightful. Thank you guys so much for being on the show

[00:47:48] John Lehr: Stewart. Thank you, man. This was fun.

[00:47:51] Stuart: Good, good. I'm glad to hear it. Um, all right, well, uh, that's it for the show. Thank you so much. Take care.

[00:47:59] John Lehr: Take care. Bye.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeff Abraham | CEO of Promescent Makers of a MAGIC BONER POTION

Wed, 30 Mar 2022 17:41:00 GMT

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Sometimes we just need a little help. For instance, we recently bought some frogs and had to buy all of the things that go along with that: tank, filter, rocks, the actual frogs, etc. We didn’t know how to do it, so we sought the aid of the person at the pet store. That’s a good example. What if your issue was that you couldn’t help yourself from jizzing too quickly. Maybe, in that case, you would seek the assistance from this episode’s guest.

Jeff Abraham was a successful tech exec who decided that, in order to make a dent in the universe and the world a better place, he would need to help men from popping too quickly. So, after retiring from semi-conductors he went to work developing a spray for delay so that gentlemen could last longer and give them and their partners an opportunity to enjoy sex more.

It worked! Now Jeff is busier than when he was slinging silicon. We talk about developing this spray and why Jeff thought that such a necessity in world. We also talk about lifestyles and how he learned about diversity, why he is such an advocate for BLM, feminism, and smoking pot. If you think the CEO of your company is pretty lame, Jeff gives you hope that there are cool CEOs out there. It’s a great story.

This episode’s sketch: “Are They Experienced?!?”

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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SUBSCRIPTIONS & REVIEWS

MORE ABOUT THE GUEST

Jeff is the CEO of Promescent, a company who’s motto is “Better in Bed” and has the tools to help us achieve that. Focusing on making sure that their products are pleasurable, stress free, empowering, discreet, and safe, Promescent consults with doctors for advisory and review, and sex experts to make sure that these products work!

Jeff’s focus is to make sure that sexual pleasure is universal for everyone, and has an extensive line of products has phenomenal selections for both women and men, making sure that everyone has a good time!

You can even get personal recommendations on the website!

Links

Twitter

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Stuart: in this episode, Jeff Abraham Ceo of Promescent, makers of a magic boner potion and I came up with a few sketches, semiconductor sales because that's what you did. But just kind of like a preface to everything that you do later on in your life. Just constantly using sexual innuendo In your sales pitches for semiconductors for getting to heaven and seeing 47 version virgins and just going and then asking if there's something else that you could get like 47 sandwiches or something the opposite. The exact opposite of promising to reveal too much. But I actually have the exact opposite issue. Let

[00:00:47] Jeff Abraham: me tell you something that's really not an issue for your partner. It's more of an issue for you.

[00:00:52] Stuart: That last one wasn't exactly an advertisement or was it? Which one of these did we pick? You'll find out on this episode of it's a sketch comedy podcast show. Welcome to sketch comedy podcast show. The one of a kind show where I Stuart rice invite interesting people to have intriguing conversations and then improvise a comedy sketch based on what we talked about. It's the only show like it on the internet. You know, sometimes we just need a little help. For instance, I recently had to buy some frogs for the family and we had to buy all the things that go along with that, you know, the tank, the filter, the rocks, the actual frogs, etcetera. We didn't know how to do it. So we sought the aid of the person at the pet store. That's a good example. What if your issue was that you couldn't help yourself from Gisin too quickly, Maybe in that case you would seek the assistance of this episode's guest, Jeff Abraham was a successful tech execs who decided that in order to make a dent in the universe and the world a better place, he would need to help men from popping too quickly. So after retiring from semiconductors, he went to work developing a spray for delay so that gentleman could last longer and give them and their partners an opportunity to enjoy sex. More. It worked. Now Jeff is busier than when he was slinging silicon. We talked about developing this spray and why Jeff thought that it was such a necessity for the world. We also talked about lifestyles and how he learned about diversity, which is why he's such an advocate for blm feminism and smoking pot. If you think the ceo of your company is pretty lame, Jeff gives you hope that there are some cool ceo? S out there, it's a pretty great story. And now my conversation with Jeff Abraham Ceo of promicin makers of a magic boner potion. Jeff, thanks so much for joining us. How are you doing

[00:02:51] Jeff Abraham: pleasure? Excellent. I'm doing really well. It's a it's a pleasure to be on.

[00:02:55] Stuart: It's a pleasure to have you on. I've got a quick question for

[00:02:58] Jeff Abraham: you,

[00:02:59] Stuart: what makes you interesting,

[00:03:02] Jeff Abraham: What makes me interesting? I think the fact that I'm a 64 year old white ceo? That is a vicious supporter of Black Lives Matter. That is a vicious supporter of women's equality and rights that still openly freely admit that, you know, I love to get high and alcohol is not my Drug of choice. The fact that I'm the ceo of a sexual wellness company after a 30-year distinguished career as a semiconductor executive and retiring, which is the most circuitous route ever to becoming the ceo of a sexual wellness company that you could possibly ever take. And I decided to retire at 53 because I have lupus and diabetes and I had had good success and here I am working twice as hard as I did in my first career. You know, I'm multilayered, you know, like almost everybody remind you of someone else. People tell me there's no one that reminds me of you, you know what I mean? Like you obviously do not give a ship, you know what I mean? And I go, no, I don't. I really don't because to me life is about experiences and there are no mistakes if you learn from them, except if they're tragic and they kill you. That's obviously a mistake. You know what I mean? I told my son when he was growing up, you know, Really and truly embrace life. Live. It just don't make mistakes that aren't correctable. Like you go to jail for 10 years, you die, you know what I mean? Like those are mistakes that alter your life in a negative way forever. You know, but feel free to march to the beat of your own drummer, feel free to experience life and follow your instincts and you know, I learned that at an early age probably in my late twenties, early thirties. I wish I would have learned it earlier and I tried to tell my son as friends and other young friends that I have the sooner that you self actualize and get to the feeling you stop giving a shit about what other people think the happier you're gonna be.

[00:04:56] Stuart: Yeah. Um, well that's a, you know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? That you've got to feel that safety first and I think that's, that's the part that a lot of people miss out on is the safety aspect because you can't get to that self actualization until, until you get past the safe.

[00:05:11] Jeff Abraham: I actually love being on edge. Love to me, safety is the most overrated virtue in life. You know what I mean? Like you don't really get to experience a lot if you just cling to the safe. You know, I grew up really poor. We didn't have much And I remember that I had a reasonable job out of college. I was making 24 grand a year and this is 1979 had a company car, an expense account. Like my relatives thought I was warren Buffett, I quit about a one way ticket flew to California like, oh my God, I'm like, trust me, you know, there's more to life and within 10 years I have been extremely successful and I was making 100 and 70 grand a year and this was in 1989 company car expense of the whole thing and oh my God, you've made it. And I walked away and started my own company from scratch, Everyone's freaking out and then I retired and then came back to this. And you know, it's funny every time someone always asked me like, what is your contingency plan? I go, I don't have a fucking contingency plan, what do you mean? I go, if you have a contingency plan, you go, well, if things don't work out well this is my fallback position, this thing is shipped first time, that's just starts going bad. You turn around okay, should I pull the ripcord? No, no, no, no, no. You want to start something, put your heart and soul into it. The question is whether you're going to succeed, it's what it takes to succeed. You turn around instead of having a limb or you know what a contingency plan you saw it off behind you and you go, I'm in, okay, I will do whatever it takes to make this successful, That's always been my approach and fortunately for me it's worked. If it wouldn't have worked, I would have said should I should have had a continued, probably

[00:06:52] Stuart: a little different different worldview.

[00:06:55] Jeff Abraham: It's made it work so, you know, I'm gonna quit after this one just so I don't press my luck, you know what I mean? My whole life, I didn't need a contingency plan and if I fucking blow it then I'll go, you idiot. You got lucky the first three times. You know what I mean? So I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna push it after this. Let's

[00:07:13] Stuart: talk about pushing it because you did talk about being a advocate for female rights, right? And it sounds like you're a big advocate for female rights in the bedroom because you came up with a, a thing that you guys might be very interested in correct?

[00:07:31] Jeff Abraham: Yeah. Our first product was a male delay spray and it allowed men to extend their time, uh, to achieve climax. And so they were able to have a much longer duration of intercourse prior to ejaculating. And here's what I tell people. Like you always hear those jokes and, you know, memes about, you know, finishing before your partner finishing too quickly earlier premature ejaculation. If a man prematurely or early ejaculate, he still ejaculate. He still has a, you know, an orgasm. He gets to the promised land. The females on the other side going, excuse me, sailor. Okay, how about me? I'm over here? Okay, I mean, even though it only lasted 30 seconds or two minutes, you still, you know, got your just reward. What about me? And so women embraced our product as enthusiastically, if not more enthusiastically than men did. And there's another myth that it is very misplaced, that a lot of people think that a man who doesn't last long enough doesn't want to satisfy his partner, doesn't care about his partner, nothing could be further from the truth. Every man wants that feeling like I am taking care of my woman. It's an animalistic instinct. No matter what anyone tells you, they are lying. If they say they don't feel better after having quality orgasms, providing them for their partner as well. Okay, Every man wants to feel like William the conqueror, You know what I mean? Like I came, I saw I conquered, you know, every man, most of them don't do it, but some of them might still, after giving a woman a tremendous orgasm, wants to get out, stand up and beat his chest and go, how's that doing? You know what I mean? Like, it's just part of who we are. That's why there's so many people in the world, okay, It's a great feeling to procreate and, you know, to have sex and have orgasms. And I will tell you this, I think there'd be a lot less violence and road rage in the world and everything else, if more people were having consistent quality orgasms. I think there's a reason why people fly planes into buildings and suicide bombers, and there are always some religious clowns that fucking don't believe in premarital sex, you know what I mean? And think that by doing that they get 47 virgins, you know what I mean? Or whatever the number is, or 17 when they go to heaven. You know, personally, I've never really kind of bought into that. Okay, maybe give me one version after that kind of a little bit of experience. You know what I mean?

[00:09:58] Stuart: Like, Yeah, I don't, I never understood that. I mean, basically you're gonna be in a, whatever, a room or a palace or wherever you end up, but they're gonna be with a bunch of people that are gonna look at it like in a scared manner and they're gonna be very

[00:10:12] Jeff Abraham: sensitive if they have no experience, I'd be like, hey honey, a little less teeth, you know what I mean? Like, you know what I mean? Like, and you know, I don't want to be like having a nickname of buster Hyman, you know what I mean? Like that's all I do. Like every single time, it's like, it's gonna be traumatic. Oh my God, you're gonna think about me forever. Because I remember when I was in college, there were a couple occasions where, you know, we got to the point where about to have sex in my partner at the time was like, oh, I've never been with some before. I'm like, okay, I don't think it's a good idea because you know, your first should be special. You're gonna remember it, you know what I mean? Like and this doesn't mean anything to me kind of thing. You know what I mean? So I'm not sure if someone said to me, you're gonna get a reward of 17 versions. I'd be like, how about 17 victoria's secret supermodels? You know what I mean? Like that would be a lot better because I'm assuming they have some experience and you know, might, you know, be able to teach me a few things. You know what I mean? Rather than me feeling like I'm a teacher, you know that kind of a thing. So

[00:11:06] Stuart: I mean I guess the one aspect of that is sort of like, like you're talking about like I guess you get that uh that feeling of conquering something brand new, right? Like maybe that's the appeal. But I honestly I've I've never been with a virgin and

[00:11:22] Jeff Abraham: I came here twice. I had the situation. I was like, no, no, no, no, no. I think you need to find some little more into this. You know what I mean? Like yeah

[00:11:32] Stuart: pump

[00:11:32] Jeff Abraham: it's not my thing. Never have been, You know the idea of 17 in a row. I'd be like whoa okay, can we throw a pro in here? You know what I mean? Like just to break it up.

[00:11:42] Stuart: But I mean maybe those guys are gonna be quick, right? So it's like two minutes

[00:11:46] Jeff Abraham: good point. Yeah, if they've been saving up all these times, they'd be in and out, you know what I mean?

[00:11:51] Stuart: Like eggs and those poor virgins, like that's their first experiences this like really rotten, just he's terrible,

[00:12:00] Jeff Abraham: you know, come to think of it, you're right, you're going to get you know the guy that flew the plane into the World Trade Center, you know what I mean? Who's supposedly never had sex, you know? And he's gonna be your initiation. Oh

[00:12:13] Stuart: that's I mean it's heaven for them to write like that's that's their version of heaven, like Yeah,

[00:12:19] Jeff Abraham: that's my version of Hill, you know what I

[00:12:21] Stuart: mean? Yeah, exactly.

[00:12:22] Jeff Abraham: Seriously, we want someone in that relationship having a proof of purchase, you know what I mean? Somebody somebody in there having a just a little bit of street cred, you know what I mean? Like? Yeah, I've been around at least halfway around the block once before, you know, maybe not all the way around but halfway.

[00:12:36] Stuart: Right. Right, so now you came up with this formula, right? You came up with this stuff that or you know,

[00:12:43] Jeff Abraham: I was in the early formulation of the product. It was actually my good friend, my next door neighbor and my doctor who was the urologist who developed the product. Dr Ronald Gilbert who was a urologist at Hope Hospital in Newport Beach. So he's the one who was the real genius behind the product and I was the business mind that made it successful. But the idea of me actually formulating something Not likely not 25 more the next. Now if I did that, maybe I could ask for 17 Victoria's secret supermodels. It would be such an accomplishment for me to have the scientific mind to do that. You know, it would be a real long shot but I'll give it a go if that was waiting for me at the end, you know?

[00:13:28] Stuart: Yeah,

[00:13:30] Jeff Abraham: yeah. You know one of those charts with the whatever those things are, the formulas on the back of all the elements and everything. As a matter of fact, if truth be told, you, give me one, give me, you know, uh, what's her name? Olivia culpo or you know what I mean? Like just uh, you know, throw in alexandria ambrosia, just one of them will work, you know what I mean? And I'll go right to work.

[00:13:53] Stuart: Right, Right,

[00:13:54] Jeff Abraham: right.

[00:13:56] Stuart: Yeah, I mean money's nice, but let's face it, what are we using the money for? That's what I'm saying.

[00:14:03] Jeff Abraham: A friend of mine had this conversation, this was about a year ago and we started really, really breaking down what in your life isn't really either directly or loosely affiliated with you getting either women or men higher quality partners. Okay, If you really think about it, Obviously the more money you accumulate, the more power you accumulate your dating options become much stronger. That's just a fact and anyone who says that's not true, is full of ship. That's a fact. Okay. People go to the gym and they're like, I just love the fact that it makes me feel better about myself bullshit. Okay, If that's the case, you'd be probably climbing a mountain somewhere, you know what I mean? Instead of going to a gym and prancing around, making sure you had your finest lululemon on both men and women. Okay. Seriously? Okay. You know, getting facials, getting your haircut, getting your beard trimmed. Everything is always about making yourself really as palatable, as attractive as you can to the opposite sex or the same sex depending upon your orientation. And to be honest with you, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Why do we have to deny that and pretend that that's really not the motive behind because the ability to be with someone, not just from a sexual standpoint, everybody wants to have someone special, everybody wants to feel loved, everybody wants to feel connected. Okay. And a lot of what we do is directly attributable to increasing our options to finding that person or if you have that person keeping that person

[00:15:51] Stuart: Oh yeah. So I, lately, my girlfriend's been going to the gym right all of a sudden I was like, wait a second, I'm not going to the gym. So I bought a kettlebell and now like at home while I watch youtube videos in the morning, that's what I'm doing is

[00:16:07] Jeff Abraham: dumping it out. You're going just in case he's in the gym and goes, you know, this guy is almost as funny, you know, a good guy, but he's got a little more toned. You're going wait a second.

[00:16:17] Stuart: Yeah, better,

[00:16:18] Jeff Abraham: better, better

[00:16:19] Stuart: at at least an inch to the, to the arms or something, right?

[00:16:23] Jeff Abraham: Yeah, yeah,

[00:16:25] Stuart: Yeah. No, that's 100% true. I, I actually agree with you and I actually also agree with you on, you know, I think it's, I I wish we sex work and all those types of things like those are important things. I wish we could integrate into our society in a safe manner.

[00:16:41] Jeff Abraham: There were certain things, if there's one thing that prohibition taught us, you can't legislate morality, all you do is drive it underground and that's why this whole bullshit in texas, We're outlawing abortion, fuck you and the horse. You rode in on your in texas. So you're probably on a horse, you know what I mean? Because you're not ending abortion. Okay, what you're doing is forcing people to go to a back alley or some unauthorized clinic and you're making it more dangerous to get abortion. Okay. The idea that weed was outlawed until it's still outlawed in some states, but what is it? 20 states now? Are you fucking kidding me? Okay. The idea of weed being dangerous, but alcohol not being dangerous is the craziest thing I've ever heard in my life, I've been high 3000 times in my life, okay, there are three things that I like to do if I'm high, listen to music, have a sandwich or make love to whoever I'm dating or you know whatever, okay, none of those three things are going well, I was gonna say none of those three things are bad, but you better talk to whoever I'm dating, I know two of them aren't bad. Maybe maybe who are my partners? Go, well, the ones marginal I put up with it okay, but those things aren't violent, they're not dangerous, at least to me, you know what I mean? But when you drink you tend to get loud argumentative, you get into arguments, you get into fights, you're dancing around in the club with a lampshade on your head. God forbid you get behind the wheel, you know what I mean? And you're driving swerving at all, I'm fine. It loosens inhibitions. If you ever get behind the wheel and you're high, you're driving four miles an hour. You put on your turn signal 20 minutes before you turn. If you hit something, you won't even dent it, you're only going four miles an hour. The car just stops, you know what I mean? I've never been in a fight when I was high. If someone like started like, you know, squaring up on me and go dude, have a sandwich here, listen to music and make it up to your girlfriend if that doesn't work here, make love to mind. I'm not in the mood to fight, you know what I mean? Like whatever so I can just sit here and enjoy my buzz, you know what I mean? Like let's not, let's not really get physical here, you know what I mean? And so I never understood that and I remember when I lived in California before I moved here, it was like, well they made it for medical reasons. Fuck you okay. Yeah. So right next to every weed shop, there was a doctor's office. You go in there and go tell me you have a migraine, okay, have a migraine. Okay, here's your

[00:19:04] Stuart: prescription. Really?

[00:19:06] Jeff Abraham: Okay. Are we in that stage that we have to have an excuse? I mean it's ridiculous. Okay, weed is less dangerous than alcohol in many respects now. The fact that you can Vape it or have a gummy or whatever, it doesn't even ruin your lungs. Okay, so it's even more, you know like safe. So I never quite understood that that whole circle. Plus

[00:19:30] Stuart: Jeff, have you ever met anybody who was like, you know, I would smoke the reefer, but the law says no one that I've never met that person that was like, oh, you know, I'd be really into it. But you know the law?

[00:19:44] Jeff Abraham: The law. Yeah, I would really like to, you know, hit up the Vape right now, but I'm not sure it's legal in this county.

[00:19:52] Stuart: Yeah,

[00:19:53] Jeff Abraham: I hit the Vape first without any question. And I don't give a ship, okay? Whatever the fine is ill, you know, whatever, you know?

[00:20:00] Stuart: But, but it's interesting you brought up the, with with the abortion because I actually have, um, friends that will travel to states where abortion is less like texas or like anyplace else texas just more recently because it's they just did that crazy thing with six weeks. But they break the law. They will go into the state and their doctors that, but they'll clandestinely set up shop, take care of as many as they can, and then exit stage left.

[00:20:34] Jeff Abraham: Well, they need to because, you know, here's the thing, the same morons that passed that law, the right to lifers that vote against you subsidized childcare, that vote against, you know, aid to families with dependent Children. And they're literally,

[00:20:49] Stuart: and vote for uh, capital promise, man.

[00:20:52] Jeff Abraham: Yeah, It's like, I guess it's all the timing, You know what I mean? It's like, you know, you can't kill them before they're born, but you can certainly kill them after, you know what I mean? It's like, wait, what? But they're also the same Jackasses that don't want fucking, you know, publicly funded contraception, You know what I mean? And they don't want sex tons. Wait a second, Take the same energy you're putting into fighting abortions into educating people. So we don't need as many abortions, okay If we made sure that everyone had Uh contraceptions, that'd be far fewer voice. You know, abortions. If we literally educated people on sex and told women it's not a sin to be enjoy sex. It's not a sin to be promiscuous. Like men are because I've been in situations in my life now. I'm 64 when I was younger that I'm sure they're still exists. And a lot of women feel if I plan for sex and I know I'm gonna have it, then that means I'm totally down with it. According to my religion, it's a sin. But if it happens spontaneously, like it was out of control. I don't feel as guilty. Fuck that. Okay, use proper protection. So you don't get diseases so you don't get unwanted pregnancies. Okay, let's stop pretending that sex is a religious experience. Or it's some, you know, satanic ritual or something? It's a bodily function. Just like eating and urinating and it is a you get an urge if you're a woman, your clitoris, you know, gets aroused and you moisturize if you're a man, you get an erection, okay, they do that for a reason. So the species will continue and we procreate, but it also creates opportunities for orgasm, which makes people feel good, They're going to do it. Remember that you're probably too young. The nancy Reagan thing, just say no to sex.

[00:22:38] Stuart: I

[00:22:39] Jeff Abraham: got news for you. I was 16 once, 48 years ago. Okay. When I got an erection, there was one thing I would say, okay, what, who can I use this on? You know what I mean? It was like the idea of saying no, the little head was speaking the big head, just listen. Okay, let's find a way to make this feel good. Okay. The idea of just say no is the most asinine thing. Then I read something that you know, a lot of these places like Utah where they preach abstinence where anal sex and everything is out of control. Now they're going well technically wait since when is that different? Or I'm like, are you kidding me? Okay. I'm like, so having anal sex is okay. You know, I guess if you want your, your claim to still be a virgin because you know, I'm like, wow, okay, that's unique to me.

[00:23:32] Stuart: Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's again, that's a worldview. I don't, it does not make any sense. And I don't know why we, why we tend to, I mean I get religion but like why is that such a, what what brought that about? What brought about, why was sex? Why were things seen as a bad thing?

[00:23:53] Jeff Abraham: I can't figure it out. I remember in uh, I think it was 2007 or 2008 right? When the AIDS epidemic was still really prevalent? The pope was in Africa telling people that using condoms was against the Catholic religion, they weren't being good Catholics by using condoms, I lost my mind. So I made this post on social media and I said, why the Fucky is the pope over here in a country where 22% of the people at the time had AIDS telling people not to use condoms from, you know, during sex, I said he needs to look at his own flock in his own congregation and understand why they were dresses and pointy hats and they're all fingering altar boys. Okay? Rather than, you know, cast shame on people trying to practice same sex needless to say I lost a few catholic friends over that, but I didn't give a ship. Okay. Because to me it was the truth. Okay. If if something is true and it upsets you, you need to examine why the truth upset you or why the truth makes you unhappy or sad you really do Okay. Now, if someone saying something that is unfounded, it's not true, but it was true. The Pope was in africa telling people not to use condoms when AIDS was rampant in africa, the idea that the catholic church had a insane amount of pedophilia was established fact. Okay, that wasn't, I mean, the archdiocese in southern California, not in the nation in southern California paid $555 million in settlements. Okay, what does that tell you if one small diocese Is on the hook for 500 million. First thing it tells me is that's not a church, that's a business. If one diocese can pay $550 million, how are they tax exempt? Okay.

[00:25:54] Stuart: How

[00:25:55] Jeff Abraham: prevalent is the issue

[00:25:57] Stuart: when

[00:25:58] Jeff Abraham: literally one area goes, yeah, we have liability of half a billion dollars. And then you read about how when they found out that certain priests were pedophiles, they let them continue to be preaching, just transfer them into another district. I'm like, can you imagine if that would have been, you know, the boy scouts or A Y. S. O. U soccer or pop Warner football, they'd all be in jail and they would have stripped and broken up the organization. But you know, because it's religion, people like, oh, I don't want to take that on, you know what I mean? We need to take on injustice wherever it's at and clean it up. I'm not saying the catholic church had to go away, but they had to own it. Okay. And we had to make sure it could never happen again ever because is there any situation that you ever put more faith in when you take your child to a church and go, the priest is your conduit to God. You do whatever he tells you to do, talk about putting kids in a vulnerable position.

[00:26:58] Stuart: Yeah. You know, I, there's a, I have a couple of thoughts, I mean, number one, I totally agree with you is with that and knowing that they could pay $550 million, like, what is, what's going on with the tax exempt status, that's

[00:27:11] Jeff Abraham: the southern California diocese, that's not the United States. Okay,

[00:27:15] Stuart: right. And then the other thing I'm thinking of is, God dammit, why wasn't a catholic kid? Because man, I would have been set

[00:27:23] Jeff Abraham: um

[00:27:24] Stuart: no, I mean, but this is your attitude on all of this stuff really kind of comes out and probably most recently with the BLM movement, right? What, what tell us about your BLM, like what's your experience with it and what's your, what's your stance?

[00:27:41] Jeff Abraham: I grew up in an area that was 80% white and 20% black. I grew up in a little rural coal mining town in southwestern Pennsylvania, south of Pittsburgh, near the Ohio West Virginia Pennsylvania border. And when I was in high school, the 20% of black kids kept themselves, They lived in their own area. The 80% of white kids kept themselves, they lived in their own area and there was absolute mistrust, you know what I mean? And it was like, you keep to your side, well, I never understood that, I'm like, they're human beings, they're just like us, they happen to have, you know, a little darker complexion and I was the person that always made friends with, you know, people and at first a lot of people in the black community where I live, we're like, what's this guy's motive and eventually they were like, he doesn't have a motive. He's he he's not judging anyone, you know, I just felt like why would want to close myself off to 20% of people and we didn't have Asian people, we didn't have Hispanic people, we didn't have anything other than white people and black people. And I thought we're all people, we're all the same. We're all 18, 17, 16, 15 year old kids. Why in the hell are we keeping to ourselves? You know, that kind of a thing? And then after I graduated, I moved to southern California. It was a virtual melting pot. Okay. I mean, there's no majority of anything when you're in southern California. It is, I mean I lived in Huntington Beach and I really enjoyed that. I enjoyed not only interacting with a lot of people, but I also enjoyed different cultures, different foods learning and whenever I meet someone that wasn't born here, I always asked him, would you think of this country before you came here, then what's better, what's worse than you thought of now that you're here? You know, I'm just always curious, but I've always been maintained a lot of black friends, even in my work environment and I'm a father, I have a 32 year old son and he is my world, I adore him. Okay, I'd give my life for him, I don't want to, I hope I never have to, I'm not suggesting it, but if ever came down to it, I would and I have never ever had to worry when he went out at night about him being arrested, beaten or possibly murdered because of the color of his skin. And I can only imagine I know how much I love my son and I know what I feel like if he was unfairly treated so being a human being, I know friends of mine that are black that have Children, I go, I can't fathom what that feeling would be like. And I know that I've been in situations where I've heard the n word used by people that you know, you'd never, in a million years think that they were prejudiced, you'd never think that, but they don't hesitate, you know what I mean? And when I took my son back to pennsylvania a lot of times when he was young would be watching you know sporting events and you know, he'd hear some people there, oh look at that n word, you know, I remember my son was like whoa. And we were flying back to pennsylvania, he was like six, he goes dad because he wasn't raised in that kind of environment, you know what I mean? He's like, what is it? I said nick, they're not bad people, they're just ignorant, okay, they have never taken the time to interact with people of any other race or ethnicity or that kind of a thing. So that leads to preconceived notions that anything different is negative, you know, and the one thing my life has taught me and I tell people this, anyone who knows me well will definitely, you know, assure you this is the case. I consider myself an equal opportunity abuser, I make fun of everybody, you know what I mean, because life is too short to take yourself too seriously. And if there's one thing my life has taught me that there are just as many good percentage wise people that are white, black asian indian, you know, latino and there are just as many assholes. In fact, there's a lot more assholes that are white in my experience because there's a lot more entitlement, like we deserve this and I feel that a lot of times immigrants feel like they have to earn things that white people feel like they are just given because they were born here, you know, that kind of thing. I remember when I first moved to California, they had this real popular license plate frame and said welcome to California now go home, okay. It was everywhere in California and you know, I've never been shy and I told people like, you know why most people out here have that because they can't compete with people like me that moved from pennsylvania and are so appreciative of not having zero degree 20 below weather in the winter and not having 95 degrees with 92% humidity in the summer. So when I went there I worked my ass off and I remember I got three promotions in my first job in two years and I went to my second job then I ended up owning a company in seven or eight years and it was because I was like, are you freaking kidding me to stay here, I'll do whatever in California, that's why they had that well in California now go home because everyone come in there with this work ethic, you know what I mean? And go, this is like a dream. I moved their March 13th in 2000 and excuse me in 1992. I remember that because my dad's birthday was the day before I wanted to spend his birthday. I flew there, I left pennsylvania was three below zero and it was sleeting outside. Okay. I literally went to take a piss on the airplane. I had like four flies. I had my long underwear, sweatpants, jeans, you know what I mean? Snows. I remember as we flew and I was really poor and I bought a one way ticket to fly there. So we flew from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati from Cincinnati to Detroit from Detroit to Chicago. I went wait, we're going the wrong way, you know what I mean? It took like six stops to get there that there and I remember my friend picked me up at the airport and we're driving And this was in 1982. So the old style bank, they had those little things that would turn its at Sumitomo bank on one side. It had the temperature on the other side. It had the time. I'll never forget this. He said 12 03 am. It turned around 73 degrees and I'll never forget. I went, did I just fly into a time warp or another universe? I left. It was you know, below zero, it's funding midnight it's 73 degrees. I woke up the next day it was like 58 or whatever. I remember there were people with down jackets, Ugg boots on. I'm in shorts and a tank top. I'm like oh my God it's summer. You know? And I remember thinking I'm never leaving. Okay. How in the world why why does anyone live back there when this is available?

[00:33:55] Stuart: I know growing up I grew up in California, I had no idea. I would see pictures of buffalo and like if the football game was on and they played in Buffalo, I'd be

[00:34:05] Jeff Abraham: like I don't

[00:34:06] Stuart: why do people live there

[00:34:08] Jeff Abraham: after? Well I

[00:34:09] Stuart: remember one of the reasons

[00:34:11] Jeff Abraham: I moved. I remember watching every year I watched the Rose bowl. Okay january fucking below zero. Okay. And it's sleeting and snowing and everyone's in fucking parker's. All you do is run to the car run. I'm watching Rose bowl. Here's the USC song girls freaking gorgeous and their little skirts and the U. C. L. A cheerleader's it's sunny, it's 70 degrees. I'm like, where is that? Okay? I was like, why am I not there? So the first chance I had the ability to graduate college and move, I was like, get me out of here and I moved to California.

[00:34:45] Stuart: Yeah, my dad did the same thing. He was back in pennsylvania and he got a chance to come out to California and he was like, oh yeah, no this is silly, I'm going to be here. Uh he was he was in your Philly.

[00:34:57] Jeff Abraham: Okay,

[00:34:58] Stuart: so

[00:34:59] Jeff Abraham: opposite side of the state, that's a little bit, it's a little more wealth on the other side, Philly has a little, it's a little more upscale than Pittsburgh, but although Pittsburgh now when I left it was kind of downtrodden but it's not coal and steel anymore, It's you know, buy a farm, you know what I mean? Software Pittsburgh's made a real resurgence.

[00:35:20] Stuart: Alright, well it has been about a half, well it's been a little over a half hour, it's been delightful

[00:35:25] Jeff Abraham: because I'm just sitting here bullshit with a friend of mine, you know what I mean?

[00:35:28] Stuart: I know it's kind of a

[00:35:29] Jeff Abraham: wonderful way to have a podcast.

[00:35:31] Stuart: So um now we've got to come up with a sketch, truth be told I would drop everything and move to Vegas and work for Jeff if he asked because I love what his company is doing. He's a great dude and I think it would be just a blast. Um Maybe you just want to check out the things that promise it has. And I tell you what you should definitely go to the website. It is one of the best sexual health websites I've ever seen. It's welcoming. It is professional and you can tell that there is care and uh knowledge put behind it. So uh Jeff tell us where you can find more stuff out about promising. We

[00:36:17] Jeff Abraham: have a website, the link, it's www dot promising dot com. We talked about the mail delay spray but we have loops, we have condoms, we have vital flux which is nitric oxide supplement. We have pe wipes before and after wipes. We have female arousal gel, we have vibrators, we have toys. And I always tell people because we're in target with our delay spray. We're in walmart without delay spray, full product line and G. N. C. But I always tell people go to the site first. Okay because you're gonna find clinical trials, you're gonna find instructional videos. Number one, you'll find out which products work for you for for the right reasons. Number two, you'll find out the proper way to use them to get the best experience. And then if you decide that you want them from us, there's no free shipping full 60 day money back guarantee. So we shipped seven days a week.

[00:37:09] Stuart: So go to prom essence dot com. The link is in the show notes and check out what they've got. It's pretty amazing. And now our sketch are they experienced in three two? Right? I

[00:37:31] Jeff Abraham: would say I'm glad to see you. But I'm sure that you're not here under optimum circumstances. I witnessed the last you know, three months of your life. The cancer was really bad. I know it was hard. You know what I mean? And you know, you took your pledge to Allah and you flew the plane into the building and here you are. Okay. But you did not come here in vain. I have

[00:37:54] Stuart: Well this is such good news. I'm very excited.

[00:37:58] Jeff Abraham: You deserve

[00:37:59] Stuart: plane. That plane was very hot when we ran

[00:38:02] Jeff Abraham: Our praise be Allah okay. We are here. Okay. I have a room set up for you. Okay? The finest meats and cheeses. I have 47.

[00:38:15] Stuart: I'm allowed to eat meat here.

[00:38:17] Jeff Abraham: Yes. That's one of the advantages of coming to heaven.

[00:38:23] Stuart: The

[00:38:25] Jeff Abraham: Sacrifices that you made. Now you're going to be rewarded. Not only that. I have 47 women for you lined up certified 40

[00:38:36] Stuart: seven

[00:38:37] Jeff Abraham: Women. Never, never, no infidel. No one has ever touched these women. They are in fact everyone.

[00:38:46] Stuart: Wait, did you just say that that what what do you mean by that?

[00:38:51] Jeff Abraham: They are intact. The the sheath. The Hyneman still there. They are certified versions each one. And just because it's you and you are heroic. You don't have to keep the burqa all the way on. You can lift it up and crawl underneath. You know, they still have to remain covered. We still want to adhere to Sharia law. But you will be allowed to crawl inside the burka to perform.

[00:39:17] Stuart: But they, they don't know what they're doing.

[00:39:20] Jeff Abraham: Uh No, but I'm sure that their instincts will take over

[00:39:27] Stuart: is

[00:39:27] Jeff Abraham: just not acceptable to you.

[00:39:29] Stuart: Uh Well, the problem is is I did follow the laws very closely. And so I also have never had relations with they anybody. Oh, including myself. I don't really know what.

[00:39:47] Jeff Abraham: So you've never even pleasured yourself.

[00:39:50] Stuart: No, I figured that's how I got here is I I never did any of the things that some of my friends did then they told me about them and I was always telling them how dangerous that

[00:40:02] Jeff Abraham: Even though we say that and even though you see the surveys that they say that you know, 90% of people maintained their chastity. Especially men. We believe that 89% of them were lying. So you are one of the pure 1% who never,

[00:40:19] Stuart: never

[00:40:20] Jeff Abraham: broke down.

[00:40:22] Stuart: Oh, I wasted my entire life.

[00:40:26] Jeff Abraham: We just assumed that most people thought that that was the rule that we didn't enforce.

[00:40:30] Stuart: Oh,

[00:40:31] Jeff Abraham: now, have you ever

[00:40:33] Stuart: know, have

[00:40:34] Jeff Abraham: you ever watched uh the video movies? The pornography.

[00:40:39] Stuart: No, no, I I've never done any of it. I I basically, I, we wear robes, I hide it. I've got a trapper keeper that I keep all of my Iowa notes in that I put in front of me. If I have an issue. I I've

[00:40:53] Jeff Abraham: never helped. Did you have a cell phone

[00:40:56] Stuart: only to take instructions on how to fly the planes? I

[00:41:00] Jeff Abraham: didn't know. You know, you will be very pleased when you see the women. Maybe instinct will take over when you see these beautiful women that even without prior experience, I think they call it on earth autopilot.

[00:41:15] Stuart: Okay, let's let's go take a look. Maybe. Maybe you're right. I think I just realized something. I think I'm gay. Thank you so much for joining us for sketch comedy podcast show. We hope you enjoyed listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it, make sure to head over to sketch comedy podcast show dot com there. You can subscribe to the show, Head over to Youtube and watch some of the videos and sketches we've done there. Maybe head over to Patreon and become a patron to the show. That would be so much appreciated or you can leave a review someplace or if you're feeling really saucy Apply to be on the show. I appreciate every single one of you that listens to the show and I would love to hear more from you. Now. I've got to get this out of the way, sketch comedy podcast show is protected under a creative commons attribution no derivatives, 4.0 international license, which means that if you would like to reproduce anything in the show, please contact the show so that I can get you the right material for it. And also this show is copyright 2022 Stewart Rice. Every day we are given a choice. Can we do the funny thing or the not so funny thing? I'm going to urge you to do the funny thing today and create an improvised comedy adventure of your own. Take care. See you next episode.

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GK Leonitis | Present-Minded Hedonist who is a CLUB-ROCKING RAPPER

Wed, 02 Mar 2022 17:25:00 GMT

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Is there anything better than when that song plays at the club and everybody gets on their feet and starts grinding up on each other? Yeah, I didn’t think so. If that is your idea of heaven, then this episode is for you! Not that we make any wonderful beats, mind you, but we do talk about how someone’s experiences get them there.

GK Leonitis is an up-and-coming rapper in Atlanta and currently has a big hit in the south, “Pressure” which is one of those jams that just, you know, get you crunking. You can listen to that here: https://youtu.be/MrHIUyvISaI

We talk about what it was like growing up in Little Rock, AK, which is not what you think it is. We also talk a great deal about the experiences that influenced his music: growing up with a father who was a musician, hanging out on the streets of Little Rock which, and this was a surprise to me, was just like growing up in the inner city of most big cities, and the unfortunate situation that landed him in prison. Usually, landing in the big house would be used to influence music by talking about the experiences in prison, but GK’s experience got him to realize that life was NOT what he wanted and instead he focused his life, and his lyrics, in talking about the good things in life: eating good food, driving nice cars, sex with beautiful women, and living carefree and passionately doing what you want to do. Pretty inspirational stuff!

This episode’s sketch: “Yo, What’s Your Next Idea?”

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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SUBSCRIPTIONS & REVIEWS

MORE ABOUT THE GUEST

Hailing from Little Rock, Arkansas, GK Leonitis comes from a legendary local rap label called “A-State Hustlaz" and was later managed by Yandy Smith. He released several songs and videos over the past years. When he’s not in the studio, making beats, or writing lyrics, he enjoys fine dining, expensive champagne, and spending time with his family. His music is unpredictable, stimulating, and the soundtrack into the depths of his tireless determination. As a highly acclaimed producer and writer, GK Leonitis' music will hypnotize and keep listeners craving more.

Links

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Instagram

TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Stuart: in this episode, rapper G. K. Leonidas and I came up with a few sketch ideas. What if there was like a scariest guy in prison pageant, like sort of like the miss America but it's whoever's the scariest dude, a music video shoot that just goes way out of hand, like it's way too many things going on and you can't keep track of it, I'd like to perform but where the sexy ladies and then our job is to go out and try to find sexy ladies and see if we can find sexy ladies so that you can record, which one did we pick? You'll find out on this episode of it's a sketch comedy podcast show. Welcome to sketch comedy podcast show. The one of a kind show where I Stuart rice invite interesting people to have intriguing conversations and then improvise a comedy sketch based on whatever we talked about. Is there anything better than when a song plays at a club and everybody gets on their feet and starts grinding up on each other. Yeah, I didn't think so. If that's your idea of heaven then this episode is for you. Not that we made any wonderful beats, mind you, but we do talk about how someone's experiences get them there. G. K. Leonidas is an up and coming rapper in Atlanta and currently has a big hit in the south pressure which is one of those jams that you know get you cranking you'll hear some of that in just a little bit. We talked about what it was like growing up in little rock, Arkansas, which is not what you think it is? We also talked a great deal about the experiences that influenced his music growing up with a father who was a musician hanging out on the streets of Little Rock, which and this was a surprise to me, was just like growing up in any inner city of most big cities and the unfortunate situation that landed him in prison, usually the landed in the big house would be used to influence music by talking about the experiences in prison. But G K's experience got him to realize that life was not what he wanted and instead he focused his life and his lyrics in talking about the good things in life, eating good food, driving nice cars, sex with beautiful women and living carefree and passionately doing what you want to do. It's pretty inspirational stuff. And now my conversation with G. K. A. Leonidis, present minded hedonists, who is a club rock and rapper. Alright, G. K. Hey, I've got a question for you real quick. What makes you interesting?

[00:02:45] GK Leonitis: I am who I am.

[00:02:49] Stuart: It's a good answer. Yeah. So who are you? Like, tell me, tell us who you are? Like what makes you you

[00:02:57] GK Leonitis: I'm G. K. A. Leonidis, that's who I am. Yeah, what makes me me is my father's firing my mother's egg a collision. And they bonded

[00:03:13] Stuart: thank goodness because uh we we needed that we needed some G K. In the world and and they brought it, they brought it. Yeah. So g kur a musician. Yes. Right. How did you how did you get into music? Like how is that a thing that happened for you?

[00:03:33] GK Leonitis: Uh I really was born into it. You know my father he was doing music like in the sixties seventies and I just always grew up around music. My my great I mean my grandfather he was in a popular gospel group, So I'm just musically in time. My mother was a producer back in the 70s 60s. So just musically inclined. I just grew up and just music second nature to me.

[00:04:00] Stuart: Okay. It was it was a lot of like gospel, well what

[00:04:04] GK Leonitis: my grandfather was Gospel, my pops was like soul funk, you know I mean Yeah I grew up running around the house and you know he had all these sequences and keyboards and drum machines and stuff, all hooked up in the middle of uh two bedroom apartment with seven people in there, you know what I mean?

[00:04:30] Stuart: So you were you were not told like hey get your hands off that you messed things up a little bit of that.

[00:04:40] GK Leonitis: Yeah definitely. It was like

[00:04:45] Stuart: sure, but were you encouraged to like hey this is how this works like.

[00:04:51] GK Leonitis: No no it was like yo don't touch this, but we used to I used to stand around and watch a lot. Okay. Yeah so like I just it just came second. But no, definitely equipment was

[00:05:05] Stuart: Sure. Sure. Um, seven people in the apartment. That was that just family or was that?

[00:05:11] GK Leonitis: That was just family.

[00:05:12] Stuart: Oh, wow. Big family,

[00:05:13] GK Leonitis: my brothers, my sister, my mother, my father, a couple of cousins, you know,

[00:05:20] Stuart: it was good, tighten it.

[00:05:23] GK Leonitis: Yeah, it was tight knit, you know, everybody came together and you know, make the best of, you know, what we had, you know, who was able to do that?

[00:05:34] Stuart: Where, where was that at? Where did, where did you grow up?

[00:05:37] GK Leonitis: Okay. It's southwest little run. Okay.

[00:05:42] Stuart: Yeah. Okay. I, so I don't know a ton of rappers that come from Arkansas,

[00:05:48] GK Leonitis: right? I don't know many either, you know, but it's crazy because we have like an indie scene with a lot of people that's respected in the local community and it's got a lot of talent, you know? But going mainstream is something that only a few have done.

[00:06:05] Stuart: What does it take to go mainstream? Like I'm obviously it's going to take like, I mean it takes like that one breakout single or that one.

[00:06:16] GK Leonitis: Yeah, so it definitely starts with the music, you know? But then it comes with the marketing, you know, a lot of people don't understand marketing branding, you know, and that's just something that I'm, you know, I'm learning and I'm applying and I'm seeing the benefits.

[00:06:36] Stuart: That's good. Um, yeah, you made a real wise decision being on this show. Just just personal opinion I

[00:06:43] GK Leonitis: think.

[00:06:45] Stuart: Um So All right. So you grew up and it is is little rock small. It seems like it's

[00:06:54] GK Leonitis: Well, it's funny because like our metro area, you look it up, it's uh it's a little over a million with the metro area. Little rock. Yeah, it's like maybe like 600,000, you know, something

[00:07:05] Stuart: like that. Alright, that's substantial. Yeah,

[00:07:08] GK Leonitis: it's actually a little rock is actually seeing, you know, a lot of people think of Arkansas and think like horses and cows and cowboys and stuff like that. No concrete jungle. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:07:24] Stuart: Yeah. Um But when you guys were little kids, did you go play cowboys? And did you go play cowboys in the street because it was still Arkansas and that was the thing, you

[00:07:35] GK Leonitis: know in the streets where I grew up? Yeah. We play the way we played on scooters and bikes and playing basketball. We played a killer man football. You know what that is.

[00:07:47] Stuart: You know what's kill a man football? What's that man football?

[00:07:51] GK Leonitis: It's like every man for themselves. Yeah. You get the ball. Everybody's trying to

[00:08:00] Stuart: I remember that game. We called it something different that wouldn't be allowed to be called that today. Yeah, I'll just go ahead and say it was it was a game at the time. It was smear the queer that's what they used to call that game. Yeah, we can't that's not an okay statement at this

[00:08:23] GK Leonitis: boycott. It

[00:08:26] Stuart: was before cancel culture. You can't go cancel a bunch of seven year olds at that point, but I think that's a much better. Kill the what does it kill? The,

[00:08:34] GK Leonitis: kill a man,

[00:08:35] Stuart: Kill a man. That's way better. You can kill a man, you just can't call them anything else. Alright. Alright. So alright, so you grew up as kind of like a normal childhood, you had a bunch of equipment around, you take us through that, like after after being a kid in Little Rock, like where did you go? What did you what did you end up doing?

[00:08:57] GK Leonitis: Well, you know, I uh um left high school tried college, you know? And I went to a city outside of Little Rock. And one thing about yourself is there's no city like little uh you know, so it's like it's like it's real gangster where I'm from. So it's like I went to these other places with these ways and I got in a lot of trouble and I started a prison stints.

[00:09:29] Stuart: Really? Yeah. Okay, so that happened, you were in college when that happened or you

[00:09:37] GK Leonitis: know like my first semester I went to college, I was I was driving back and forth and I ended up getting pulled over and they found some drugs. Yeah was bagged up, like it was ready to be sold, you know? So I ended up, you know, I was actually driving and I had I was driving my my friend's car. He was in the car, my brother was in the car, Another one of the homies was in the car and we get pulled over. I just said it was my took responsibility and a lot of people don't do that. They like to say get out the car, it's not my car, I don't know whose it is, you know what I mean? Everybody get the charge and I don't believe in that. I just I just took my charge,

[00:10:24] Stuart: wow, that's yeah, that's um I can't say I would necessarily so easily take that. That's pretty, that's pretty noble of you. So it was you were able to get your brother and your other two buddies, you you were able to get them not in trouble. They didn't, they didn't,

[00:10:43] GK Leonitis: they had some interrogation room, they had them in the interrogation room, they had me in a holding cell. So then when I come out the holding cell I joined them in the interrogation room and they were just like laugh at and they were just talking and then I leaned in and said, hey guys remember and everybody was like what what what I say, we got the right to remain silent and then they said to lock them all up and everybody's faces, oh no you should have seen their faces but they let them go immediately because I took full responsibility for it.

[00:11:15] Stuart: What what got you to do that? That was just a it was internal, It was just something you were like

[00:11:20] GK Leonitis: what's the right thing to do in this situation?

[00:11:22] Stuart: It's a good question. Friends

[00:11:25] GK Leonitis: to take a charge. That's yours. Like I don't I don't think that's the right thing to do.

[00:11:32] Stuart: No, I I agree. That's sad. That's an awesome. I mean that's a it's just not a decision like how old were you at that time?

[00:11:41] GK Leonitis: I was 18,

[00:11:43] Stuart: 18. Like what 18 year old thinks that rationally and that selflessly at that moment like I I don't know if I could have, I would have been so freaked out.

[00:11:53] GK Leonitis: But see that's that's the thing, see I was raised by my father by my mother and I had noble guys in the streets that you know that I learned from also. And it was it was just like, you know, it's the right thing to do. You don't, you don't know, put your burdens on other people and then you know, I think that you get any respect from that.

[00:12:15] Stuart: Yeah, no, I I that that's amazing honestly like that just you deciding to do that is it's really cool. Like I think that's really cool. That's a that's a lesson for other people and that's its noble even though yeah, maybe you weren't doing the right thing at the time, but like still taking that and just, hey you guys, you're free go I'll take this. That's pretty great. So at 18 What what happens to you? At 18 when you get pulled over for drugs in Arkansas?

[00:12:46] GK Leonitis: I was, I was in a popular rapper, I ended up going to jail and they gave me some type of outrageous bun. So um I was in jail for like a week and one of the guys in jail told me that I could request the ball reduction, so I requested a ball reduction and they reduced my butt and then, but people was trying to bail me out already. I had no clue. So like the next day I was out, my father, uh you know, for them to bail me out at the time would have been a hit to the pockets, you know, so I wasn't really looking for them to do that for me. So one of the homeless, did you know what I mean? And when they did that, we had a show the next day. Well I believe it was that night we, we had had to go like two hours away and we ended up opening up for uh t I

[00:13:41] Stuart: really? So you were part of a, you were part of a band back then you said it was a popular one, obviously

[00:13:49] GK Leonitis: it was called a State Hustlers and then it was like me and my two Homeys was the Foundation and a State hustlers was a couple other guys and they had a label called black Music and we was part of that. So yeah, everybody where I'm from,

[00:14:09] Stuart: can I ask away, so you end up going to jail, Does that does that kind of help with your credibility? Yeah, I mean I'm just, you know like the the whole like, you know with the persona of like a rap star or rapper or whatever we call rap star, but like it's it's a, what what, what attracts guys like me, like young white kids when I was a kid to rap was like, whoa, that's some completely different, those guys live a life that I have never lived. I've never been to jail at the time. I hadn't, but you know, I've never been to jail, like I don't know what, but to actually go through it like that, does that actually help or what

[00:14:55] GK Leonitis: I mean? I was in jail for like a week or two,

[00:15:01] Stuart: that's still a long time.

[00:15:02] GK Leonitis: I mean I ended up getting out and I ended up going to prison on that charge and I spent two years in prison credibility. I don't, I don't know about that one. I've never thought about having any credibility because I've been to prison, but I'm pretty sure there's somebody who may think that's cool, you know? But it's definitely not,

[00:15:31] Stuart: it's not, it's not cool. No, okay, so you did two years in prison that that was the follow up. So they, did you go to trial and they convicted

[00:15:40] GK Leonitis: you actually actually uh probation And I was just happy that they do like seven years probation or something and I'm just happy I was the one in jail, so I just signed and I just felt like I was invincible and I just was like bucking the system and I ended up heavyweight probation revolts and I ended up getting sentenced to two years in prison and I actually did the entire two years since.

[00:16:10] Stuart: Damn any. What was that? Like, I mean, that's scary for anybody

[00:16:16] GK Leonitis: tell you this. I remember I was getting transported to the unit and I just didn't know what to think because I was like, I was like 180 uh you know, I was pretty cut up, but I was just like, you hear all these stories about prison? And I'm just like, yo somebody tried me, I'm gonna kill him. That's the only thing I can think of in my mind is like so my face was reflecting it. So I remember I was in the holding cell and it was a blessing bus that just got to this unit, and it was like, it was like it's time to eat. So they opened the cell, we walked to the cafeteria. So when I got to the cafeteria, it was crazy because I saw a lot of people that I went to school once upon a time. So it was like, they was like, yo what's up man, we've been hearing about you, what's up? So it was like, it made me kind of relax a little bit but I was in the line and I was about to get to school and I turned And it's this guy he's like 16 and he's like super super cut up, right? And he got a tattoo of the eye on his sport head and his head is and his eyebrows shaved off right? And he literally looks like the hunchback of Notre dame. Like his face is distributed and it literally scared shipped out. I was like oh sh it what is this? I definitely I went back to the holy sale and I was thinking I was going to kill somebody if they play with me like the first time somebody even looking my way I'm stabbing him. So that because I just didn't know what to expect. So you have to just go into this uh I go into the the housing the bags that they assigned me to and when I walk in I'm just looking crazy and I scare everybody in the bigs. I scared him when they're like oh my God we've got this young crazy dude coming here thinking I'm about to terrorize them. So what do

[00:18:19] Stuart: you do, what do you do to make yourself crazy? Like

[00:18:22] GK Leonitis: I'm just like uh okay like uh like uh everybody's like oh my god this guy is looking crazy, he looks like

[00:18:31] Stuart: he's gonna bite us.

[00:18:32] GK Leonitis: I immediately going to sell and break some razors and I'm trying to like make a knife and they like people like what's up? They're coming to myself hey what's up where you from? As I was like from Little Rock but I'm like not being friendly so they started calling people like yo yo you got somebody from Little Rock, they got somebody so all these people that's coming and it just so happened that the barriers that I was in had like some older guys in there that had a lot of um that was like uh they had a lot of clout in the prison so and it was coming I was like what's up man, what's up? It was actually different stuff they do uh like my family, my mother was a school teacher, she taught some of the people in there, talk to some of the kids stuff like that so it was crazy and they were just like man calm down bro, I'm like I need a knife, they're like yo you good like relax and I just couldn't relax but it is done. You know I didn't have to kill

[00:19:32] Stuart: anybody. Well that's good because you might have been in there a little bit longer that happened dude that's a crazy story. Ah But like what you're 18, 19 years old, you're going into prison

[00:19:48] GK Leonitis: Actually at this time. Yeah I turned 21,

[00:19:53] Stuart: Oh you turned 21 on

[00:19:54] GK Leonitis: My 21st birthday, I woke me up,

[00:19:58] Stuart: you didn't even get to go to like a bar of ahead of time. You didn't

[00:20:01] GK Leonitis: get a chance. You know, a lot of these clubs are closed now, but me being a part of the, I was performed at all the clubs in Arkansas uh, in all the videos.

[00:20:15] Stuart: Yeah. Um, okay. So you get out of prison. Um, you get out of prison 23, right?

[00:20:23] GK Leonitis: 22 20

[00:20:24] Stuart: 22 2022. Um, what's, what's next for you man? Like you get out of prison, you're, I'm guessing your band moved on or did they wait for you?

[00:20:34] GK Leonitis: Yeah, I got out of prison. They had an album ready for me. It was like we're gonna just put your braces on these songs and you know, it's time we're gonna put it out. But you know, a lot changed because the unit they sent me to was was a max unit. It was, it was like, it was, it was considered at the time the second worst unit. So I was around a lot of people that have life and long sentences and you know, when I was in there, I just, I grew up and I learned and I just, my self respect and just how so when I came out of prison my mindset and who I was, it was, it was kind of hard for a lot of people to accept the growth and the maturity that came along with me, they still view me as the same person that I was before I went in. So you know it didn't work with that with that whole project, I just preferred to you know do my own thing. Mhm.

[00:21:33] Stuart: Yeah. Um the first of its kind of amazing that they had even thought about you that that's cool for gone for two years but um yeah I could see where all that changed you. What's it like talking to somebody like how close do you get with the other inmates because someone's you know life in prison like their outlook on the world is way different from someone who's gonna be in for two years. What what what were some of the lessons that you did learn? What were some things that you

[00:22:02] GK Leonitis: know well what one of the lessons that are that I really learned a system value of the things that money cannot buy like being able to just you know walk outside whenever you want to being able to do whatever you want to do. Literally a lot of people are in prison naturally, you know, they walk around and they can find their thoughts, their ideas and their actions to our box that they put themselves, they put their own mind into the reality. You can literally do whatever you want to do is just process, you know, you can put the energy into an idea that can manifest. So that's one of these things I learned is you know like not to take anything for granted. And and another thing is respect because in prison, when you, right, when you're around all killers, You know, all these big drug dealers and all these killers and these these people that's extorting people and all these big gang members and you got they got 50 per 70 people under them and they're like really like mob bosses in prison and it's like, it transcends outside. One thing I learned is how to respect another person to, to the t to the utmost with not just with my with my character and my conduct, but with my word choice and you know, so when I get out of prison, you know, I had to learn, my little brother was like, it was a struggle with me to reconnect with society because people tend to be so disrespectful, like unconsciously like somebody can walk by me and bump you without saying, excuse me, somebody can step on your shoes. What I'm saying, part of me, somebody can call you stupid, like that's stupid or you know, it's just disrespect comes to so many different forms every day, you know, and it's just like, yo I'm not accepting that behavior, I'm not accepting that for me, you know what, I had to just like learn how to, you know, separate myself from different types of people, different environments and I actually definitely had to learn how to adjust because it seems like, you know, it seemed like I was more confrontational when I came

[00:24:12] Stuart: Okay. Yeah, I could see that because it's yeah, because um gosh, I'm just, it's making me think about like you're confined to this small space and you have to share everything else. But that one small spaces yours, even people coming into your, to your cell, it was like, it was almost like a violation, like a space area. That's

[00:24:34] GK Leonitis: like that's something that's not really happening. You don't have a cell mate. But yeah, you don't have people just coming into this just

[00:24:40] Stuart: coming in. Okay.

[00:24:42] GK Leonitis: What

[00:24:44] Stuart: was, did you have an experience where maybe you didn't show the right type of respect and something that was your lesson. Like did you get that lesson?

[00:24:53] GK Leonitis: Oh yes and no.

[00:24:58] Stuart: Uh

[00:24:59] GK Leonitis: because when you, when you say, okay, so there was a story, okay, so we're out in the field, it's like a, it's like a chain game type thing. It's like a whole squad. Everybody's lined up chopping their holes at the same time, stepping at the same time. And I remember I didn't want to do that. Only a certain number of people can be out the line, like on the cleanup crew, making sure everybody stay tight, make sure everybody's moving this unit, I just wasn't going to be in line like this. So I got out the line and I was like only like cleaning up like cleaning up, you know, stuff they miss type stuff and like talking with the host wide ride or the guy on the horse, I'm just trying to work my moves because I don't want to do this at all, like I'm trying to work my move and it was somebody that was and that's you know we don't have a lot of time, they call you a shorter, You know, so me being a short hair and there's people in there that got life, these people in there has got 20 years, Gotta do 18 years and they've been in there nine years already. It's like these people are the ones that's not in line. So I remember I just got off the line and I was like I took it, I started doing what they were doing and in that moment I was like yo I don't want to do this, I'm not doing this, you know? But when I did that there was some people that felt like yo you do your short hair, get in the line, you know what I mean? Like this ain't no this you got to get in the line and I just didn't go for that. So I stood up to somebody and we end up so when I stood up to him it was break time whatever, we're going to a different location, I get word hey dude saying when you get to the barracks, you know you're gonna come at you, I'm like alright bet so when I get the word I'm not, it's time to go in you gotta get like shut down, make sure you ain't bringing nothing in and then you know you're going to unit so when I'm not shooting down I'm trying to be the first one so I'm shutting down I go on the unit I'm kind of jogging I get in there I take my clothes like I take my shirt off, I take my shoes off and stuff and I get ready for a fight. I wrote my pants legs up and I'm standing at the door like this right at my cell door and everybody coming in they see me standing there like I'm standing at the door rating so everybody walking past me, everybody walking past everybody walking past so then they see dude dude go he's gonna put some gloves on, he's standing over there and he just looking right so he a part of a big game they called they called the game meeting, they have them in there and then the leader of the gang, he comes in myself and when he comes to myself I got some some oh jesus that there's 20. G. Guys standing to sell with me right alright so what they end up trying to talk about it I explained what was going on you know we talked it out and then um they end up resolving the issue but but later on I found out that there was actually uh they actually was like planning to come stabbing

[00:28:14] Stuart: holy ship that's crazy

[00:28:15] GK Leonitis: based on based on my conversation with them and my understanding in the respect that I was giving them they didn't do that and the dude didn't want to fight.

[00:28:26] Stuart: That's good. Oh man.

[00:28:28] GK Leonitis: And I got like three weeks later because some of the guys that was in the game there was from little rock to and it was just telling me they stood up and they was like nah but they said they literally was ready to do that. Damn.

[00:28:42] Stuart: Yeah that would be uh that would definitely get you to learn respect pretty quick. Um All right so you get out of prison, how is how is all of these experiences, how do they inform like your music like your your music seems more fun than than a lot of other things. Like it's really fun. I really like them all these experiences that you had like all of that. How does it, how did it have an effect on your music? Because obviously like when you came out you you had your group that you're with and it just didn't seem to it wasn't jelling the way it was

[00:29:22] GK Leonitis: a lot of people glorify like the bad side of it, you know what I mean? Like the streets. Yeah. Yeah there's a lot of stuff is glorified or celebrated but me actually experiencing this living this on so many different levels. I literally like I want to have fun, I want to like I want to drive nice cars, I wanna like have sex with beautiful women, I want to travel, I want to eat great food, I want to be flying, I want to be clean and fresh, I want to be with positive people you know I want to make power moves, I don't want to have beef with anybody, I don't want to be shooting and getting shot at, I don't want to do any of that you know I want to have fun, I want to inspire, motivate people and show them that you can really do anything you put your mind to so think about some of this other stuff.

[00:30:13] Stuart: I love it. Yeah. Um so yeah, yeah you have a song, I love the title of it, hold on just a second and I think it was, hold on I am a terrible person for not its the one where you're talking about yourself, do you know what I'm talking about? Do you know what your song? What was it? Yeah tell me about that one. Like what was the inspiration in that one

[00:30:40] GK Leonitis: and love myself? Right? So uh it's just you know self love, you know you gotta, you gotta love yourself before you know you try to love other things or expect people to love, You gotta love yourself, you gotta give it to yourself, you got to look at yourself in the mirror and just love who you are. You know, and and that that's what I do. I'm in love with myself, you know what I mean? It's not like an arrogant thing, but you gotta love yourself. Yeah, just like I said, when she told me that she loved me, I believed because I'm in love with myself, you know what I mean? Like I'm a lovable guy, you know, it's not hard for two for me to believe that she loves me. You know what I mean?

[00:31:23] Stuart: Yeah, because you understand you're like, yeah, if I was not in my body, I'd be all over

[00:31:28] GK Leonitis: myself.

[00:31:32] Stuart: That's that's actually a really good message. And I think where people need to need to like process that I actually had. Um I was sitting down with someone yesterday and we were talking about exactly that. It's like you got to take care of yourself because if you don't how are you going to show love to anybody else? How are you going to do any of that stuff? So that's a good message. Um So you really do kind of focus on like, it's sort of like a hedonists like you all the pleasures, that's what you really focus on,

[00:32:02] GK Leonitis: you know? Yeah, like I don't want to hear a lot of stuff about killing and bullshit and I don't want I don't want to hear that. I don't pay my mind that. So like I make music that I like and I want to listen to him. I can listen to the music that I make and I can enjoy listening to it. You know what I mean?

[00:32:20] Stuart: Yeah. Yeah. When you, when you make a video, how much, how involved are you in that video process? Because that's fascinating to me. Like making music videos is hard.

[00:32:30] GK Leonitis: I've tried to not be involved. It's not, it doesn't connect well, you know? Well I'm hands on. I'm overseeing it and I'm directing it. You know what I mean? And I got the, I got the playback monitors and I see the angles that we're actually shooting and filming it. It just changes things. Yeah. So I would say I'm pretty involved from the, from the beginning when we're coming, we're coming up with the treatment, you know, all the way until we get the angles into the editing process. Yeah, I'm right now fully

[00:33:05] Stuart: involved. Yeah. It's, it's not a small process like that. How long does it take for you to put together a music video? Would, would you say

[00:33:13] GK Leonitis: usually, um, I'll shine. So if you go to my Youtube channel, I will video count awkward. Yeah. That video took us about an hour to shoot, you know, so it's like if you know what you're doing, You don't have to get 50 different cuts. You know what I mean? You know, we know what we're doing. We like what we're doing. Get us one or two of this. 11 or two of this one, get us some bureau, get us this get us this and it also depends on your locations like that was that video is in one location video. So we didn't have to change clothes or anything when you're dealing with changes of clothes etcetera anywhere from five hours to eight hours.

[00:33:52] Stuart: And that's just the filming like this editing is the other crazy things. You

[00:33:57] GK Leonitis: gotta know how you're doing. That. That also comes with your director. When the director knows how he's gonna edit the video, how he's going to transition into this scene and that scene beforehand, he already knows exactly what type of angles he's gonna shoot it. What's he going to go into? Then it becomes a breeze with the editor that just line it up. So okay, we're gonna go into this. Okay, we're gonna go to this. Okay, we're gonna he was already mapped out. You know what I mean? But when you're just dealing with an amateur, then what they usually do is film a lot. Then they would line all those all the clips up right? And then they would go in and pick the best clips for each part. And then they would add transitions to each, each time with the camera changes. You know what I mean? Add the effects. And I could take pretty long.

[00:34:40] Stuart: Yeah, I mean I do just audio and it takes a very long time. It's surprising how long the editing takes Uh And yeah I'm just looking at one line. I can imagine if you're dealing. Alright, last thing, so you're putting music together. What instrumentation do you do? You play an instrument?

[00:35:00] GK Leonitis: I actually have a studio. You want to see my studio?

[00:35:04] Stuart: Yeah, I want to see your studio. Yeah. Everybody wants to see your studio.

[00:35:07] GK Leonitis: Here we go. This is a core P A 1000. Nice MPC X. This is a phantom Roland, you know? And then over here this is where I sit down and I actually get to work. I have my my Macbook, I have my microphone and this is where the the sexy ladies cheer me on.

[00:35:30] Stuart: It's a good spot. I'm a little disappointed they're not there for this. Um No. Is that your, is that your place? Is that your house? Nice. How often do you wake up in the middle of the night and go record something?

[00:35:48] GK Leonitis: Yeah. Well wake up bright and early. Yeah. Yeah. I wake up bright and early and go to court.

[00:35:55] Stuart: That's good stuff. Alright cool. Well um good chat now we got to record a sketch so what we failed to mention to G. K. Both myself and his publicist was that we were going to record a sketch at the very end of the show. He had no idea but here's what I will tell you is if this whole rapping thing doesn't work out. He's got a great career in comedy in improv, comedy. G. K. He brought it. Let me tell you he really drove this entire sketch. I'm very excited for you to hear it also. He does make music and he's pretty good at it. G. K. Where can people find out more about

[00:36:39] GK Leonitis: you? Check me out on Youtube, I got my channel, you see, I got my set up. I'm gonna be, you know, in the clouds, talking about various topics, it's gonna start in March, you know, on instagram. G. K. Underscore sl if you go to instagram, you follow me on instagram, you're gonna see everything else. I'm gonna pitch everything. I'm gonna let everybody know what I'm doing on my stories. I'm gonna do realize I'm gonna do post. I'm gonna have my links in my bio just G. K. Underscore sl you got instagram, that's what you do.

[00:37:18] Stuart: Okay, well, if you follow the show on instagram, you know, I don't post very often, but now I have a reason to go on and check out instagram again, because G. K. Is going to be on there. I am very excited about March and seeing where he goes, and now, as I promised, here's a sample of G. K's newest track pressure, which is just banging their

[00:37:42] GK Leonitis: clubs right now. The pressure might drop the top on the Ferrari pressure pressure pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure. Wanna wanna clarify my hoes, gotta sharing. Will cherish spending money on designer, precious, precious, precious, precious, precious, precious spend a whole 24 hours in the trap which started at the bottom at the gap dick dinosaur on my damaged fresh off the showroom floor seats wrapped in plastic killer. Back home in a casket, pull up in a party. That is not a cat.

[00:38:53] Stuart: That's just a sample. If you want to check out more G. K. Stuff, go to youtube, go to Spotify Apple music. All the links are in the show notes. Go check it out. He's got a couple of songs aqua in love with myself. I there is a track for everyone. Let's just put it that way. And now our sketch. Yo, what's your next idea in three

[00:39:19] GK Leonitis: to cut? What the hell are you doing? Stop at the tape and put your hand on your hip. Okay now I don't need to set you up with another model. Okay, let's get another model. Where's my idea guy?

[00:39:36] Stuart: Oh hey. G. K. G. K. Um um All right, so here's what I was thinking. I know you're going to use another model. That's great. That's great. But I was thinking that maybe it would look better if she was wearing like a viking helmet. What do you think about a viking helmet, viking helmet? Yeah, viking helmet. And then she could also be riding a unicycle.

[00:39:56] GK Leonitis: Okay if I can help it. A unicycle now we need is a clown I don't know why don't you go to the circus with that idea and you tell me what they say because I'm gonna sit shooting a video for a rap star. Okay.

[00:40:13] Stuart: Okay. Alright. Alright. I'll

[00:40:14] GK Leonitis: be right back cut. Cut roll playback, roll playback. Let me let's see this. Give me a second guy. Okay, what's your idea now? What you got now?

[00:40:24] Stuart: Okay. So what I was thinking is you know how like rain falls from the sky? What if it was going from the

[00:40:31] GK Leonitis: cut? Cut. Cut. Cut the sun is shining. Okay, so make this fast. Let me hear this. Let me hear this.

[00:40:39] Stuart: Alright. Aren't barks lots and lots of our adverts and they're CG dancing in the background. Have you ever seen an aardvark dance?

[00:40:49] GK Leonitis: I have. I don't even know what the hard part is. Hang on, everybody take their places. 321 action. Ok. Just just like that. What are you saying?

[00:41:01] Stuart: Okay, so um the other thing I was thinking was there's this thing called ultimate frisbee instead of a frisbee. They could be playing ultimate dog toss

[00:41:12] GK Leonitis: cut. Cut cut. What you got the dogs now.

[00:41:15] Stuart: No, I mean we can we can train dogs for that. Or does anybody

[00:41:19] GK Leonitis: Everybody take 10? Take 10. Take 10? Hey listen, if you're gonna come with ideas, let's have some ideas that we can implement to this video shoot. Okay. We already have lives. Can

[00:41:32] Stuart: they wear like a dress?

[00:41:34] GK Leonitis: I don't know it wasn't in their contract. I have to talk to the zoologists and see what they think about that because they're so, we'd have

[00:41:41] Stuart: cross dressing. There's

[00:41:43] GK Leonitis: no need to bring someone else in. Need some ideas.

[00:41:45] Stuart: No, no, no, no. Okay. Okay. I've got, I've got this really great idea. What about if he just stands still and the camera just like zooms in on him and spins around him a little

[00:41:56] GK Leonitis: bit. That's not a bad idea. But when he zooms in, what is she zooming into?

[00:42:04] Stuart: I don't know, like is clothing or is like watch or is

[00:42:09] GK Leonitis: no, uh no, that's too cliche. I think I think he needs to zoom into a pimple on his face and I think the caramel needs to show impacts and I think it needs to show a burst of something coming out of the temple and it needs to be like diamonds and golden jewelry and women.

[00:42:30] Stuart: That's why you are the best video director of all time.

[00:42:35] GK Leonitis: Thank

[00:42:48] Stuart: you so much for joining us for sketch comedy podcast show. We hope you enjoyed listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it, make sure to head over to sketch comedy podcast show dot com there. You can subscribe to the show. Head over to Youtube and watch some of the videos and sketches. We've done there. Maybe head over to patreon and become a patron to the show that would be so much appreciated or you can leave a review someplace Or if you're feeling really saucy apply to be on the show. I appreciate every single one of you that listens to the show and I would love to hear more from you now. I got to get this out of the way sketch comedy podcast show is protected under a creative commons attribution, no derivatives 4.0 international license. Which means that if you would like to reproduce anything in the show, please contact the show so that I can get you the right material for it. And also, this show is copyright 2022 Stewart rice. Every day we are given a choice. Can we do the funny thing or the not so funny thing. I'm going to urge you to do the funny thing today and create an improvised comedy adventure of your own. Take care. See you next episode. Mm hmm, mm hmm.

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Riana Milne | Love Guru Who’s DAD WAS A SECRET SPY

Wed, 19 Jan 2022 07:00:00 GMT

Want to buy one of the limited NFTs for this episode? Click here!

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

I love talking about relationships. I talk about them all the time, and I am always curious about them… which is why this episode’s guest is so intriguing!

Riana Milne was told at a young age that no one in her family was ever going to go to a therapist, so she did exactly what every strong-willed child will do… she BECAME a therapist. Not just any therapist either, Riana became an expert in relationships and how to fix them or learn how to move on from them. Riana is also an author of 7 books, including “Love Beyond Your Dreams - Break Free of Toxic Relationships to Have the Love You Deserve” which is a best-seller on Amazon (https://amzn.to/2RmqwUd) and helps couples and individuals navigate the world of successful partnering on her website: www.rianamilne.com.

Riana and I talk about relationships, which should be pretty obvious, but we also talk about her dad who was a spy. No, seriously, he was a legit spy, like James Bond, and the stories are INCREDIBLE! We also talk about the 10 types of childhood trauma that you no doubt have experienced and somehow Riana and I find a way to make it lighthearted and fun! Then, we record a sketch because isn’t that the whole point of this show?

This episode’s sketch: “Living With a Monster”

Originally published 1/28/2019.

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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WEBSITE
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MORE ABOUT THE GUEST

Riana Milne’s mission is to help women, men and couples of all ages overcome and heal from past childhood, dating, and relationship trauma to move on to create a life and relationship they are passionate about.

Over 22 years of research is at the core of the Dating to Mating System for Singles and the Relationship Rescue Coaching program for Couples. Riana’s experience with working with Trauma includes: being a SAC – Student Assistance Counselor for grades K through College); working with kids of Trauma in the Psych Division of a major Southern NJ hospital system, working with Women of the Prison System and adolescents in two different Rehab Facilities. Riana was called by the major news networks during the tragedy of 911 to speak on how to heal this horrendous trauma our children, families, and country has endured. Riana has had numerous radio and TV shows and appearances; all with a Mission of “Helping to Change the Way the World Loves.”

With the “Mindset for Success,” Riana started teaching at age 26 to Models, Actors, Singers and Dancers at the Award-winning Riana Model & Talent School and Agency.

Using a holistic, individualized coaching approach designed to help every woman, man and couple better understand themselves both emotionally, psychologically and spiritually, the Life & Love Coaching Transformation programs were all designed to help every person to create the life they desire and to have the love they deserve.

Links

AMAZON LINK TO “LOVE BEYOND YOUR DREAMS”

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Stuart: in this episode. Love guru, Rihanna Milne and I came up with a few sketches. You know we talked to, I mean we talked about the the childhood traumas. Having that person come in and trying to have all 10 of the childhood traumas, but they don't. So they're trying to make it up as they go along dealing with with the worst couple ever. And uh so you're talking to the man and then the woman separately to find out about how completely awful their relationship is. What happens if your parents come and visit you. Your mom and dad, your mom and dad come and visit you for relationship advice. Which one did we pick? You'll find out on this episode of it's a sketch comedy podcast show. Welcome to sketch comedy podcast show. The one of a kind show where I Stuart rice invite interesting people to have intriguing conversations and then improvise a comedy sketch based on what we talked about. It's the only show like it on the internet, I don't know about you but I love talking about relationships. I talk about them all the time and I'm always curious about them, which is why this episode's guest is so intriguing. Rihanna millen was told at a young age that no one in her family was ever going to go to a therapist. So she did exactly what every strong willed child will do. She became a therapist. Not just any therapist either. Rihanna became an expert in relationships and how to fix them or learn how to move on from them. Rihanna is also the author of seven books including Love Beyond Your Dreams break free of toxic relationships to have the love you deserve, which is a best seller on amazon. And she also helps couples and individuals navigate the world of successful partnering on her website at Rihanna Milne dot com. Rihanna and I talk about relationships which should be pretty obvious, but we also talked about her dad who was a spy. No, seriously, he was a legit spy. Like James Bond and the stories are incredible. We also talked about the 10 types of childhood trauma that you no doubt have experienced. And somehow Rihanna and I find a way to make it light hearted and fun. Then we record a sketch because isn't that the whole point of the show And now my conversation with Rihanna Milne, love guru whose dad was a secret spy.

[00:02:44] Riana: Yeah,

[00:02:45] Stuart: give it to me still what makes you interesting

[00:02:50] Riana: ah Life what occurred to me in life how I've dealt with things in life. And you know, one thing I loved about your show is you've got to have fun. You know, you can't take everything so damn seriously, you gotta have fun ship happens to everybody. So that's what makes it interesting, right? Because life happens to all of us.

[00:03:13] Stuart: It does and it's I think it's what we do with uh with the craft that we get flung, right? That's the that's the big thing and I think that's probably we could probably talk quite a bit about, you know, how you deal with that crap and yeah, well

[00:03:29] Riana: Spiritually we say it's the earth school, right? So in Buddhism, they say, you know, you're supposed to learn lessons in life, it's not supposed to be a joyride 100% of the time. So when you get challenged, the important thing is to have the conscious positive mindset to deal with the stuff that's going to come your way.

[00:03:51] Stuart: And how do you do that? How do you, how does some, how does one go, man, my life is locked or this thing happened or my dog died or whatever other country song thing you can think of. Like how do you come out of that and just kind of go, yeah, I learned a lesson and how am I going to use this going forward? Well, this is

[00:04:10] Riana: What we call mindset work. So most people, eight out of 10 people have eight out of 10 negative thinking All the time. It's called our self talk, what we say inside of our heads. And that all comes from our conditioning as Children. So what I call childhood traumas that many of us experience actually research shows 90% of people experienced childhood trauma. So how we deal with that is how we deal with anything else that's difficult as an adult, but the good thing is we can train our minds to be not only act from the unconscious emotional triggers that most people do instead to be consciously aware and it's also a faith based system that, you know, we understand lessons will happen, we don't always understand why at the time, but even when bad things happen, we have to look at it in a positive way and say, what can I learn from this? What can I do from this? What is this trying to teach me at this time? You know, maybe I'm supposed to let this partner go because a new one is coming into my life that would even be better and more evolved and consciously, emotionally healthy for me, you know? Yeah, I

[00:05:18] Stuart: actually am a big fan of the uh when it's not working like move on with the relationship and now we'll be talking a great deal about relationships. I know that this is going to happen, but I this is this has been my thing is if if you've got a really hard, it's really hard and you really have to work at it within the first year, Maybe not right? Maybe not the thing if you notice within the first couple of dates, like I really don't like this or that it's like, well maybe it's time to cut that.

[00:05:51] Riana: Well, really, when you're falling in love the right relationship does feel easy and it's comfortable and you can be your authentic self and this is what I tell my clients they have to look for. You know, you don't need to manipulate or control or convince somebody to love you when it's right. It just falls into line beautifully. And usually that there is a lot of negotiation in the first year because obviously you're two different people. So you need to understand what this person likes. Part partner A and partner B and negotiate those differences through. So there's nothing wrong with a little bit of drama. But if it's constant cheap drama, you've got the signs and there's a lot of signs that the relationship is toxic. So if it becomes toxic, you don't stay. Obviously if there's emotional abuse, physical abuse, verbal abuse, you know, cheating, extreme jealousy and control, you

[00:06:47] Stuart: don't want to

[00:06:50] Riana: and then being yelled at right?

[00:06:53] Stuart: Yeah, yeah, I, I agree with you and I, you know, I have older Children, I have, I have a 21 year old and an 18 year old and a 14 year old who's eventually gonna enter into the dating pool, I'm

[00:07:04] Riana: sure.

[00:07:05] Stuart: But my, my statement is always like, hey, have fun, but like don't get too attached to the idea of being in a relationship with someone because relationships don't always last. They often evolve and this is kind of where it's gonna get kind of fun because I'm curious what you think about what I'm saying to my kids and raising them. Okay,

[00:07:31] Riana: well the number one thing is you want to be a good role model, would that be you? You know, so

[00:07:37] Stuart: I role model. I didn't ask to be no role model.

[00:07:42] Riana: Yeah. Well sorry, I kind of came with the birthing instructions. You are the dad, you are the role model. So for the male version of you know if you have the daughters and you do the first man she falls in love with is her dad. So can she believe in you? Does she trust you? Do you follow through on your word? You know how you discipline? Is it with love and and the word discipline actually means to teach. We are to be the teachers of our Children and if you're yelling and screaming and hitting your kids, guess what? They grow up doing the same thing and they grow up to be very defiant teens. So I worked in the school from grades kindergarten all the way through college with kids that came from traumatic homes and then they're saying, well why are they acting out as teenagers? Well, hello. You know, what did you show them when they were kids? You know, is that the domestic violence household situation? Well, that's what they were modeled. So it's really important as parents that what you do is really conscious and aware and you teach them what you want them to know. So how you model the relationship with their mom is going to say a lot about love. So even the divorce people out there, you know, still treat your ex partner with love and respect because your kids want to love both of you. It's not a tug of war. You know, not one parents supposed to be loved and the other or you're going for points. No, you know, you want to support both mom and dad and the kids and their actions and support them together.

[00:09:11] Stuart: I completely agree. I completely agree. And that's that actually speaking about the divorce, I think that that's a very good example of of a relationship that Mhm, I was very attached to being married, that was something I'm very attached to. And then when it stopped being us being married, I was very angry for a little bit and then I realized like that relationship just it my feelings about her. Um my feelings changed her feelings obviously changed towards me. But my my the feeling of like care and love for that person didn't go away. It's just it evolved, it evolved into instead of being a romantic relationship that turned into more of a friendship and I think that people get just totally attached to, I'm the married guy or my life is I'm I'm a good wife or whatever it is, you get attached to that. And then the next thing, you know, when that other person isn't isn't attached to that same situation and then all of a sudden you can't handle the

[00:10:15] Riana: Change in the role. I mean, you you take on that role and you take it on seriously with your vows of commitment of course and you know, the roles of my mom and my dad as well as I'm a wife and a husband are important roles and we buy into it 150%, you know, so when that dissolves or goes away, you know, it's part of losing the dream of what you thought it was going to be and that's the sad part is. So, anger often comes out as a form of depression. So Stuart you actually could have been a little bit depressed about the ending and that's how it came out as anger.

[00:10:52] Stuart: Oh yeah, well, I mean depression, that's a whole nother show. Welcome to your therapy. I

[00:11:01] Riana: could talk all day about this stuff,

[00:11:04] Stuart: I couldn't I couldn't afford to. Now you are a life love and relationship with that now three things. Life love and relationships. So you're a coach for all three things. Yes, Really

[00:11:21] Riana: Life dating and relationships. So I am a life coach and love coach for singles and couples.

[00:11:28] Stuart: Okay, and how does that change? How does that conversation change between a single person and a couple as far as what they should be looking for and

[00:11:36] Riana: Okay, well, every one of my clients has gone through many of the 10 childhood traumas, that's why they're attracted to me as a certified clinical trauma professional and they hear me speak about the 10 traumas and they're like, oh my gosh, she's talking to me, I want to solve this and get beyond this. And they are recognizing that they're sabotaging their relationships. They don't want to, they really want love. Some of these people really crave love to the point of being codependent, love addicted. Um but they truly do want love. So the singles, when it comes to coaching them, they tend to get into repetitive, toxic relationships and they can't figure out why they keep attracting the same kind of toxic partner. When I have couples, they seem to have these cycles of great love and then great fighting and the fighting keeps about the same topics and the past keeps getting drudged up and they each need to feel like they're right and nobody is being heard or respected. So I have to re educate my couples to first understand each other's childhood traumas. Second forgive each other of the past and leave the past where it belongs behind that door. It's locked shut. It doesn't have to come out anymore. And they're living in the now and creating their future and with that is a new form of empathy to understand each childhood, their childhood pain and now they don't take it so personally while he's doing this to me and he's attacking me. No, he's having a moment going back to his childhood trauma and I understand this is not about me, it's about the way he's handling it. So there's an education around the childhood traumas and then teaching a brand new way of communicating through the issues.

[00:13:21] Stuart: That's uh that's it sounds incredibly utilitarian and effective.

[00:13:28] Riana: It works great. Yeah, I wouldn't

[00:13:31] Stuart: be doing it. Yeah,

[00:13:33] Riana: it's a brand new way of friendship, closeness and the passion comes back and they don't sweat the small stuff as much anymore because it's just like the singles are understanding what they're doing to sabotage their relationships, but this one has a committed relationship, they're married or living together. I have kids together and they're able to negotiate through and talk more reasonably and rationally and negotiate a win win for everybody.

[00:14:02] Stuart: Yeah. That um where were you like six years ago? Yes, I've been like

[00:14:08] Riana: lone soul trying to get the message out to the world. It's kind of a big territory to cover. You know, I

[00:14:13] Stuart: can't help you as much as possible. Um Mine was a little bit different unfortunately, had that might be a fun thing to talk about later. Um speaking of childhood trauma, like people think childhood trauma and they're like, oh obviously you're in a war zone or childhood trauma goes to like you have to have been sexually abused for it to qualify as childhood trauma or physically abused, like beat or like horrifically mentally abused uh what what are what are actual childhood traumas because we forget child Children are small and they don't have very much life experience. And so things can be very traumatic small things can be very traumatic if

[00:14:58] Riana: that's correct. That's because they emotionally don't have, you know, the capacity in their brain to handle it. They don't have the emotional knowledge to handle traumas. And most of us grow up looking back, well, my childhood was pretty normal and a few bumps in the road, but you don't think it was trauma. So the 10 traumas and I always advise your listeners to write them down because later they're like, oh my God, I had like seven of them. What were they again? So if you write them down, you want to meet with me later, which I do offer all your listeners to um, you know, reach out to me if they want to discuss this with me. So I will ask how many of the 10 did you have? So the first one and you want to put down three columns me an ex partner or current partner and then parents, because research shows it goes through the generations. So remember when you're experiencing this, you're a very innocent little child. This is not to put blame or anger on anybody. It's just a fact these things happened. So trauma happens to you. It's not like you caused any of this. So there should be no guilt or shame around it. So the first one is if your parents had any addiction. So the typical ones, we think of our drugs alcohol, but there's also sex if the parent was out there cheating a lot porn, gambling, hoarding, spending, eating, gaming, tv watching workaholism. Now there's 11 right there, I'm sure there's other addictions, but those are the ones I mentioned and people like, oh yeah, that was an addiction. My mom ate all the time, especially when she's just nervous, you know, So there are other addictions other than drugs and alcohol number two if there was verbal abuse, so we're not talking just witnessing mom and dad in a domestic violence situation, although that's one of them, but verbal abuse is also never hearing, I love you or being verbally put down or your opinion doesn't matter or you know, just you'll never amount to anything, you know, some of these horrible things that our coaches, teachers or parents would say to us and not think twice it really does affect a little person and their psyche, so any kind of verbal humiliation put downs are not being told, I love you. Third one is emotional abuse or neglect. We all know the severe forms of that, but the research also shows if you were a working parent, a single parent working 9 to 5 and your child had to come home at three o'clock from school, let themselves into their own work. There's fear and anxiety around that for the child, so that is actually stated as a form of neglect and what are we doing about working to support our family. So we don't see it in that way, but it is one of the, the emotional traumas. Next one is physical abuse, rape or molestation or physical beating that I always thought was level 10 traumas, but they're also saying, you know, the verbal could be as much a level 10 trauma if you got it repetitive lee. Okay, the next one is abandonment and there's two types, there's fault and no fault, abandonment. So in no fault abandonment, three examples would be if your parent went off to war if they worked a lot outside of the home and you're wondering where they are. Now, that was one of my examples. My dad was James bond, he was FBI and CIA and we didn't even know it until he was sick and then we got letters from Ronald Reagan and William Casey. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I was asking her mom, when's daddy coming home? She goes, well, I don't know all piste off and she didn't know and she had five kids to raise. So that whole dynamic was a form of abandonment.

[00:18:28] Stuart: Okay, definitely, I want to put a pin in that one, We're going to revisit that one.

[00:18:32] Riana: Alright, Yes, so then the fault abandonment is if there's a divorce and let's say dad leaves the home and he promises to see the kids on the weekends and then he cancels it last minute or doesn't show up or shows up late or you go to the house and he's more interested in his new girlfriend than in you the kids. So that's a fault, abandonment. The next one is living with relatives or being part of foster care or adoption or like one of my clients said, what if I chose to live at somebody else's house because I didn't want to go home. So after school, she always went to her friend's house, did homework at dinner and then she had to go home in time to go to bed. And I said, yes, that counts too. You just didn't want to be at home where you could not be it with your parents. The next one trauma. Number seven is very common. It's personal trauma and this is if you were bullied, put down, didn't feel good enough, didn't feel like you fit in, You might have been more born with a medical condition or let's say you're a little overweight child or skinny and gawky like I was, you know, so those are some of the personal traumas you could have gone through. Number eight is sibling trauma. Either your sibling was born with a medical condition or they might have bullied you or the most common. They were perceived by you to be the golden child. The most favored of mom and dad and the last one. Um, trauma. Number nine is family trauma that could be a parent incarcerated, um, losing your home by flood fire, the mortgage crisis. There was a lot of homes lost back then and I'm also bringing into that now there's more than 10 traumas, these are the most common, but from the later list on bringing in community trauma, which is our school shootings, mass, mass shootings that are becoming so prevalent. Um the destruction of nature today, we've got volcanoes going, I didn't grow up with any volcanoes going off in our country, We've got massive floods and hurricanes and fires and mudslides and everything else. That's, it's devastating for the adults. Can you imagine that little kids going through this kind of devastation is very traumatic and you mentioned the war zone and I didn't have a client in Lebanon that grew up with bombs actively going off and she's every on, I don't know if I'll be alive every day when I was waking up as a kid, you know, that was like my alive and might still here. So she woke up with that thought first thing every morning and then the last one is if there was a mental health issue and mom and dad, my generation, nobody was diagnosed, they used to say, um you know, nobody would go to counseling back then and I remember I was sad around a boy who kind of like jilted me and didn't show up for a date, I was very sad. I said, I think I need to go to a counselor and she goes, no one in this family will grow up to go to a counselor, so I said, well I will grow up to be one and I did because there's so much shame around counseling back then, but the common ones that are difficult to have and your parents is borderline personality which is fast trigger anger. Um you love them or hate them, you never know what you're going to get that day, they get excessively angry over something that is stupid or mundane and it's like Jekyll and Hyde, you just don't know what you're gonna get and the other one is bipolar which is manic and depressive, real happy happy ups and angry or depressive lows. So those are the 10 traumas.

[00:21:56] Stuart: Yeah, that last one can be very traumatic when you don't know exactly who that person is very scary. Yeah, I just feel like if I stay down and depressed all the time that way, it's nice and even keel for the kids, they're not gonna worry about it.

[00:22:11] Riana: That's not a good one

[00:22:13] Stuart: crying in his room again, it's fine,

[00:22:16] Riana: You're emotionally checking out a kind of depression.

[00:22:21] Stuart: So how

[00:22:21] Riana: many did you have Stuart

[00:22:24] Stuart: how many of those that I have? So from my parents? Oh, how many of these have I had? So let's say, I guess a little bit of the addiction um uh Bullied a little bit when I was a kid

[00:22:46] Riana: because I've done a study on comedians, media that comedians have come from very traumatic backgrounds,

[00:22:52] Stuart: Oh we're all yeah, I don't really qualify as a comedian because I'm not that messed up. No, not that

[00:23:01] Riana: it's a qualifying eight and you have to have a, like, like, like

[00:23:05] Stuart: if you get the sense or more than you're okay, you're okay to be in in stand up comedy. Otherwise it's like just stay at home and do a podcast. Um yeah, you know, I later on and like not as a child that I experienced, but the mental instability I experienced later on, but unfortunately kids did. Yeah,

[00:23:28] Riana: yeah, so it's proven that it goes through the generations, mom and dad probably had something that we had something and our kids can have it if we don't get a handle on it. But the good news is those traditions can be stopped which are totally aware of those types of triggers, emotional triggers and you go from unconscious to conscious awareness. This is when they stop. So a lot of my clients may have rough relationships with our kids and that's one of the reasons they sign up to work with me and that's under the life portion, working out things in life or problems in careers or financial troubles just can't seem to have that successful life that they're hoping for procrastination, you know, and then there's the love portion which could be jealousy control. Um, not feeling good enough and always sabotaging your relationship. So it's equally important to address both.

[00:24:24] Stuart: I agree, I agree. Now have, has have you ever run into like someone who is talking a great deal about a traumatic experience as a child and even you were like, you had a little bit of an eye roll moment, like all right, So they didn't take you to toys the rest of that day,

[00:24:48] Riana: a little bit of that, feel sorry for me mentality. I'm always the victim. Yes. And this is part of the response. Some people really buy into the story to get love that way. It's love from pity. So instead I teach empowerment. So I do ask their story and of course as a trauma specialist, I'm very sensitive, but sometimes I have to like kind of give them a little smack in the face and say, come on now, you know, we can't stay stuck in your drama. Do you really want to stay stuck there and then, you know, feel sorry for me story or are you ready to put your big boy panties on and say I'm ready to move forward and get beyond this and stop looking for some people to feel sorry for me and actually

[00:25:34] Stuart: the expression big boy panties because

[00:25:40] Riana: the guy with the pants and kind of blurred them. But anyway, um you know, because the men that are chronic cheaters actually, um they are looking for that, that motherly love, they didn't get or the attention from the female that they didn't get as a kid, You know, they might have been the gawky, you know, shy kid and they're looking for that female love. So they're the chronic cheater and they're living in that story of I deserve this because I didn't get this as a kid. Now, it's unconscious, they're not saying that out loud to everyone, but as soon as the female would feel, giving them some attraction, he goes, oh yeah, I love this, I need this. And that's why they tend to did not get as much of that as a child.

[00:26:29] Stuart: So I I let's talk about me for just a minute because it's interesting that you mentioned that um I don't cheat, but I'm in an ethically non monogamous relationship. Um yeah, I I think it's good, it works out really great. I think um I guess we'd have to ask my girlfriend to see if she really advise it on it. Like keep me out of the room and ask her. But uh does it, do do things change a little bit your perception of, of how that relationship is going, Does that change with something like ethic ethic, non monogamy or even just non monogamy or just

[00:27:07] Riana: Yeah, you have to, I

[00:27:08] Stuart: mean we've got a lot of relationships going on these days, I live in Portland, it's all over the board. So I'm just curious like, how does it change?

[00:27:15] Riana: It's true, I mean you have to both agree with what you want up front, you know, if this is, if you're agreeing to live in the lifestyle, which is an open relationship, there's even rules in the lifestyle community if you're living exclusively together, but not marrying, you both have to be on board with that, it shouldn't be Yes, I agree to this, we're living together in a year later, they're like, well I really want to marry, you know, because that's not what the agreement was up front, or if the agreement was, I'd prefer not to marry until I mean live together until we're engaged, then that may be a more conservative couple, but that's their agreement. So really that has whatever relationship style you choose, it has to be totally discussed up front the rules around that discussed so that you both feel comfortable and you're on board with it.

[00:28:04] Stuart: Any sort of relationship that you one of these like different types of relationships that you're like i that even just does not, I don't even know how to approach that. Of course you're going to say no because you're a professional, but

[00:28:18] Riana: I've studied all of it, you know, I'm not here to judge anybody, you know, people can love in the way that they feel is best for them that the part I'm concerned about is hurting anyone else along the way. You know, I would rather see a couple in a lifestyle relationship where it's open than two people being together and what let's say the female thinks is an exclusive relationship, which is monogamous, and then the guys out there cheating on her now, this is where someone's gonna get hurt. So this is why I said it takes too evolved. People now evolved means being your highest and best self meaning, being true to integrity, doing the right things when nobody's looking the honorable to your word and when two people are doing that, you have the best relationship, if one is being honorable to their word and following what the agreement was and the other one's way off and left field, doing whatever the freaky wants, then we've got a problem, You know, that is a problem. So this is when the relationship becomes toxic, toxic because then it's filled with lies and, you know, hurting others other people.

[00:29:22] Stuart: Yeah, it's funny, this is the most secure relationship I've ever been in because I know that there's not gonna be any lies, there's not gonna be any subterfuge with any of this. Because

[00:29:34] Riana: jealousy,

[00:29:35] Stuart: of course, there's jealousy. I actually, I look at jealousy is a different thing if, and of course, any time my partner says, hey, I went out blah blah blah, and it's like, oh, that's that feeling of jealousy and it's like, oh, but it's kind of refreshing because it's like, oh yeah, I care, like, I know I care, of course I'm gonna feel these feelings and I gotta just figure out, like, why am I feeling these feelings? And it's always like, oh, it's because, you know, internally, I've got this voice in the back of my head telling me I'm not good enough

[00:30:07] Riana: with Trauma seven. But

[00:30:09] Stuart: over, over the years, like it's become much more diminished and so it's like, that voice doesn't speak as loud so where it might be like someone, you know, my partner will say, hey, I did this and it's like, oh man, I'm getting those feelings and but why they're subsiding and it's really that fast and within a conversation, I can be, well, tell me about it. Like how did it go and and those types of things and it's been it's been really refreshing. Um I think for both of us, because I think we both have the same thing and and she'll tell me like, I'm feeling really jealous and it's like I understand.

[00:30:46] Riana: Yeah. So jealousy does mean, yes, that you care about your partner if there was no jealousy, but then we worry about any of this being way off again the grid where you're yelling and screaming and ranting and raving and throwing things because you're jealous that's destructive jealousy or control, you know, so if it's jealousy and you say, oh, I feel these pangs because I love you babe, then that's totally different than this. Anger and control jealousy.

[00:31:16] Stuart: Oh, I agree. Yeah, that's that is disgusting not disgusting. I don't want to use that word, I want to use the word um troubling is when you're feeling like you have to control somebody else's emotions. I um I know when I was younger, you know young and foolish and didn't know anything. Um I used to try to negotiate feelings, which I look back on now and I'm like, what was I trying to do? Like, no, you should stay because

[00:31:46] Riana: right,

[00:31:48] Stuart: and like doing well, you

[00:31:50] Riana: cared and you wanted it to stay together. But a lot of people that I work with are very successful in business but struggle in love and they can't figure out if I'm so successful over here, why can't I get love? Right? Well, the success actually comes from one of the childhood traumas or a couple of them. So it could have been verbal put downs. You'll never amount to anything if you heard that from dad or you know, being teased and bullied, oh you're a nerd, you know, you're never going to do anything. It's like inside we have what's called the watch me attitude, which is the mindset for success. It's like really, it's not an anger defiance, It's a way to talk yourself into the strength that you need to be successful. So this comes from a lot of people of childhood trauma, They can be very successful in life and there's many examples of this in our actors and politicians and business people who have had very sad childhoods, but success was bred from that sad childhood, but the love peace was never handled and that's why they still struggle in love today. That's the reason. So we analyzed both. And then when a lot of the women in their relationships, that same control they needed in business to be successful, they try to control their man, which is really difficult because now we've got the male ego and the caveman brain that we're dealing with, that needs to feel he's the provider and he's, you know, strong to take care of his woman. And as soon as that feeling is diminished, the relationship suffers as well,

[00:33:23] Stuart: yep. Yes, I have seen that. I've seen friends of mine have that issue and I personally just ladies, I don't have that issue. If you want to be the breadwinner, I am down.

[00:33:39] Riana: But here's the problem. Right? Once the woman becomes the breadwinner and she's forced to quote, be the man stereotypically the cave woman's brain, she always wants to feel safe. No matter how successful she is, she wants to feel nurtured, cherished, safe and taken care of no matter what. So now she's become the man and now there's going to be all kinds of weird dynamics because she can't count on her man to be the man. So this is all old brain caveman, reptilian stuff going on.

[00:34:08] Stuart: Yeah, yeah, we're just never gonna be happy. I'm just kidding. Uh so let's go, let's go through some dating tips, Let's say we've got a single a single guy and we'll go, let's do this single male identified, single female identified. What, what's one tip that you could give, The single male identified, single female identified person to just kind of like make their lives a little bit easier

[00:34:36] Riana: to be your authentic self. You know, don't keep bringing your past into your present. You don't need to bring your ex up when you're on a date. You know, if someone asked you first, always say we had a lot of fun together and you did or you wouldn't have been with them, mentioned the good things and then say at the end, you know, but this one thing was just not aligning with my life, like he just wasn't financially responsible and I just couldn't live with that, but I wish him well done 23 sentences. That's it. So don't bring your past up, be your authentic self. Say if you're on dating sites be real, don't put your age down 10 years younger, younger and you show up while I look 10 years younger, don't I? And I'm there. You know, you really don't, you know, I say what it is, I'm authentic, but have to the current picture is the current age be yourself, say what you want. Don't be negative, even in your profile.

[00:35:30] Stuart: So wait, you're saying that the picture I have with my 18" afro is not

[00:35:38] Riana: right now. No, that would be a little bit of stretching the truth.

[00:35:43] Stuart: True.

[00:35:44] Riana: So that's the important thing because you don't want to waste people's time. People are on dating sites really define someone. And if you're lying about who you are, that starts the entire friendship or relationship off with a lie. So therefore it's worth nothing.

[00:35:59] Stuart: That's a great point. That's a good point. And then you've got, let's just say we've got a couple and there may be struggling. What's the one tip that you could give? Like, hey, here's a good starting point mint, besides giving them your phone number in your car

[00:36:11] Riana: for giving me a call? Well the childhood traumas pretty deep work. So I can't say really, you know, understand each other's traumas until they get that chance to do that. But I would say keep in mind that you're a team, what is best for the team? It should be your way. It should only be his way to negotiate what is best for you to both and move forward with those one or two choices. Each of you should come up each of you should come up with two ideas and then negotiate which to our best to go with for the team. And if you two are good, take the time to date because if you have a family and you're not dating, you put the kids constantly first slipping them to their sports and doing this and doing that and you never have personal intimate time or day time together, that relationship is gonna fall apart. You think you're doing the right things by the kids, but you're not, you've got to keep the relationship strong. So once a weekend, whether that's friday or saturday night around the kids sports schedule, you say saturday nights, mom and dad's night or sunday afternoon and sunday evening, we're having our date, you're not doing anything, you know, that's our night and they have to understand that and when they grow up with that rule, it's just worked in as part of the family plan. They understand that.

[00:37:27] Stuart: I completely agree that was one of the, and that was my fault and my marriage was, I did not take that as precious as I should have.

[00:37:36] Riana: Yeah. You always want to keep dating your partner never stop twice a week is ideal.

[00:37:42] Stuart: Oh that is

[00:37:43] Riana: okay. And then it doesn't necessarily

[00:37:45] Stuart: have to be like, yeah, we're going to a play and a dinner like you can mean walking

[00:37:51] Riana: the beat, put your blanket down, share a bottle of wine and talk. That's always take a hike somewhere, you know and sit down and you know, just chat, just be real with each other and try not to be arrested

[00:38:05] Stuart: for public indecency. That's

[00:38:08] Riana: right.

[00:38:10] Stuart: We've had to bail, bombing

[00:38:13] Riana: down out of jail

[00:38:13] Stuart: so many times. Alright, so before we get into doing the sketch. I gotta ask your dad was a spy.

[00:38:23] Riana: Yeah. How much of this

[00:38:25] Stuart: you can talk about before we get to put you in a couple of

[00:38:29] Riana: stories. Yeah. That was kind of weird in my childhood. Okay, so in the milne household there's five kids and we had a whole neighborhood full of kids and everyone came to the door, back door, nobody goes to the front door in our neighborhood, right? It's like formal. So we're in the house and the front doorbell rings and like mom, someone's at the front door and she goes, well what would this be? And we, you know, and I'm sitting on the steps with my brother, we want to see who is. So she opens up the door, it's like are you mrs milne yes, where the police? You must come down to the police station. So my mom, this mother of five kids is being arrested. She goes for what? She goes, ma'am, you can't talk now, you've got to come without you guys just lock the doors. So we didn't know what was going on. And she says, my dad shows up now meanwhile my mom doesn't know he's fBR C. R. A. But how old

[00:39:20] Stuart: were you at this point? I was

[00:39:22] Riana: Like seven or 8. So she had to leave us behind. We locked the door and they come home within the hour and she goes, I said so what happened? She goes, I don't know. They said they said I had counterfeit money. Well she found a briefcase in the garage full of money and she says that Jack's hiding the money on me. You know she was pistol went deposit in the joint bank account and it was all counterfeit. So they arrested her for counterfeit money. He goes in talks to them for like two minutes walks out with my mother and they go home. So

[00:39:58] Stuart: she was, she

[00:40:00] Riana: was arrested. Didn't understand why it was counterfeit. She really thought he had all this money stashed aside from her. You know what was going on. And she just said you know you just don't ask me questions and someone asked me to hold a suitcase for him. I didn't know it was full of money you know that wasn't real and I have to give it back to him or something. She came up with some story but that was one of them. Another one is my family went to Key west florida every year and the family station wagon you know the Buick with the wood on the side five kids and the dog driving down and

[00:40:33] Stuart: because like

[00:40:36] Riana: I was always in the that was the fourth out of five kids and me and my little brother amongst all the suitcases in the cubby hall of the station wagon and we he was a colonel in the Air force. So we stay at Quantico and then we stayed at homestead on the way to Key west and the one time he takes a really weird diversion and goes to Macon Georgia and Macon Georgia was a really rough area of town for this caucasian family in a station wagon to be in at 12 midnight. My mom's there, Jack, I don't want to go there. Why don't we have to go to Macon Georgia? Just keep driving. I'm tired bev no, I'll drive. No, we're going to macon Georgia. Like we had no idea why we're like swerving off and going to this particular town. And the best way I could describe it at that time. And again, I was a little kid was it was the ghetto. Okay. And and uh we had no idea why we're going there and we kind of stayed in this kind of old hotel and we wake up the next day and the family leaves and we leave early. But there was a murder in the hotel and the police were investigating why there was a murder in the hotel. So my mom's there. See Jack's e there's some guy in there, you know, dangerous man in there killed somebody and our family could have been affected. So I mean he would never say if he was the one that did that. But I'm just putting pieces together and when he was sick with cancer I gave him a notebook and like dad, you know write down your stories because he wrote in the first page babe. You know, I can't write these stories down, they have to go with me to protect you when you're in the family. So when I saw that I'm like, oh come on dad, he goes, well you probably know a couple of them. I'm like what the suitcase of money? And he just laughs and shakes his head and like wait Macon Georgia. He was yeah why would we go to make him? You know, there's a couple of other things I could remember as a little kid that just seemed really weird and off. But yeah, so my dad was a spy and the weirdest thing is when I was a kid, when my favorite games to play was being a spy. Yeah, he used to just laugh and me and my younger brother scott, you know we even put the toy closet as our forts, you know the spy club business is what we called, you know, right

[00:42:52] Stuart: because a good spy agency has a spy building that says spy building on the

[00:42:57] Riana: outside. It's just club business, you know, we're just meeting for business. So little did I know my dad was really one

[00:43:05] Stuart: that's um that's amazing. So thank you for that. And that's a alright, well it is about that time, it's been about a half hour so I could keep talking to you all day because I have a relationship theories too. But um let's talk about making a sketch. Oh we did more than just think about recording a sketch we actually did, which you'll hear in just a little bit before I do that though, we had a lot of outtakes and a lot of additional conversation that you don't hear in this episode. However, it is available to our patrons. That's right. Go to Patreon dot com slash sketch com pod. That's S K E T C H C O M P O D and become a patron for a dollar a month. And you can hear the entirety of our conversation, our sketch recording with all the mistakes and even coming up with the sketch, it's actually a lot of fun. Plus you get the visual compendium, which is you actually get to see the video of us talking and Rihanna is a beautiful person. So you want to you want to be able to see that me not so much. Just cover up half your screen. Anyway, Rihanna, you're great. Your stories are amazing. What is a great way for people to get in touch with you

[00:44:30] Riana: Sure I want to help anyone that is relating to the childhood traumas or they know their suffering and sabotaging their love relationships or if they're single, they just keep in that repetitive relationship that keeps breaking their heart. That's what I'm there to help with. So just reach out to me on my website, it's Rihanna Milne dot com and it's a pop up window. Just tell me your story, tell me what's going on. No one else sees that but me and the 1st 10 listeners of steward show, I want to give you a free life and love transformation discovery session, it's a $500 value and for everyone else, there is a free e book that goes deeper into this topic. It's that have the love you deserve dot com. It's like a 12 page e book. It goes deeper and I'll answer a lot of your questions and you can also reach out to me through the book. So that's that have the love you deserve dot com or my website Rihanna milne dot com,

[00:45:28] Stuart: just going to say if you're having a hard time connecting with people were getting close to valentine's day. So you have somebody you're trying to target or you have a relationship now, that's not going so great. What a great valentine's gift to yourself and your partner to get the help that you need to make a healthy relationship for you going forward and now our sketch, living with a monster in three two.

[00:46:00] Riana: Mhm David Natalie, thank you for coming in. I know you were very concerned on the phone that you wanted to come see me. So we're just going to start by talking individually to each one of you. So Dave tell me, what are your concerns, what are you seeing happening in the relationship?

[00:46:16] Stuart: You know, it's just every time I try to talk, it just seems like you never, ever, ever just get out with it. All you do is just stammer on and on

[00:46:26] Riana: Natalie, you know? Let let Dave talk.

[00:46:29] Stuart: He's not gonna talk, He's just gonna sit there

[00:46:32] Riana: Natalie, you've got to give him his time to talk. I'm going to ask you second. Just give me 30 seconds to hear Dave for 11 minute here.

[00:46:39] Stuart: 30 seconds. I'm studying a timer on my Apple watch.

[00:46:43] Riana: Dave. Sorry about that.

[00:46:44] Stuart: It's okay. I just had a nice quiet upbringing. And

[00:46:49] Riana: did you, how did your parents relate to each other?

[00:46:53] Stuart: Well, they, you know, it's typical, they hated each other, but you know, it was really nice because it gave me a lot of time by myself in my

[00:47:01] Riana: room. Did you hear a lot of yelling and fighting between your mom and dad?

[00:47:06] Stuart: Well it was really the only time I ever heard their voices were when they were yelling at each other or then yelling at me to get out of the room so they could yell

[00:47:15] Riana: at each other some more. And what do you think is the problem with you and Natalie is yelling part of the relationship?

[00:47:23] Stuart: Well it's part of it. What are you trying to say? Sometimes I just want to have it be quieter. That's that's all

[00:47:31] Riana: okay, Natalie, let Dave, thank you but let me jump over to Natalie because she really seems anxious to want to share her opinion here.

[00:47:39] Stuart: You have two seconds left.

[00:47:41] Riana: Oh well let me jump ahead then. See I'm giving you an extra two seconds Natalie. So tell me, what do you think is going on between you and Dave? What's, what's the problem in your relationship?

[00:47:52] Stuart: Well, just look at him. He's just sitting there slumped over. He's always schlumpy.

[00:47:57] Riana: Well you kind of jumped on him when he was trying to say his side of the story. Did you see that or you didn't see that? See

[00:48:04] Stuart: what he wasn't talking. I don't have time to just sit here and stare at each other. I I've got, I've got work to do. I've got, I can't projects to work on. I've got other people I need to see.

[00:48:16] Riana: Okay, so then let's jump right to the issue and let's not talk about Dave right now. I want your opinion on what you think is going on in the relationship. Well,

[00:48:24] Stuart: I'll tell you exactly what's going on. He's not much fun. And all he does is he wants to sit there and that's all he wants to do. He never wants to go out or have people over you just, it's almost like he's embarrassed for me to be around people.

[00:48:40] Riana: Okay, so what's your idea of fun? What are you suggesting that you guys do together?

[00:48:44] Stuart: Well, you know, my thing is, is I really enjoy what I do for a living. I work a lot.

[00:48:50] Riana: Okay, well he can't share that with you. What would you like to share with Dave. Have you recommended some things you too can do together.

[00:48:58] Stuart: I like to eat. I would love to go out and eat more often. I don't know it starts off with a meal and then it ends up we go to a couple of different bob's big boys for all you can eat and it's

[00:49:11] Riana: it's not very romantic though Dave, you know, maybe more romantic restaurant Natalie. Let me get back to you, tell me a little bit about the household you were growing up in. What was mom and dad like

[00:49:22] Stuart: mom and dad were great, always so lively, animated. Everything was a big deal and I feel like that is life like that's how life should be. Everything should be a big

[00:49:34] Riana: deal. So was there a lot of yelling then in your household

[00:49:38] Stuart: yelling? What are you talking about? I don't remember any yelling

[00:49:42] Riana: ever when you're talking right now. You don't think this is yelling?

[00:49:46] Stuart: No. Look, I even took a quaalude before I got in here just to calm down a little bit. I'm not yelling at anybody.

[00:49:53] Riana: Feel like you're yelling is like blowing me out the door a little bit so can we try like lessening the volume and the pace of your words. This is some communication skills that might help you and Dave to get through some of your issues.

[00:50:06] Stuart: I don't think I have any issues. First off, I think all of the issues over on that side of the couch because all he does is sit there, he doesn't do anything

[00:50:16] Riana: now. See, Natalie, this is what we call blaming behavior? We don't want to keep blaming our partner. We have to learn to take responsibility for the things that you want to change within yourself.

[00:50:26] Stuart: He's just really sad. It's gross. Well,

[00:50:29] Riana: sad is because he's feeling the relationship is not working Dave. You tell us. Why do you come off sad.

[00:50:36] Stuart: Well, we talked about how she works all the time. I'm worried about her health since we've been together. She's gained about £200. That is only because I work a very stressful job very late at night. So I end up eating

[00:50:51] Riana: fast food. Natalie. Do you think balance in life is something we can work on? Just

[00:50:56] Stuart: eat with him when I'm with him because he's so boring. I need to excite

[00:50:59] Riana: myself. Well, what do you do for excitement, Natalie?

[00:51:02] Stuart: Well, I like to like to go thrift

[00:51:04] Riana: shopping that doesn't really involve Dave

[00:51:07] Stuart: No, it does involve me, basically what my job is, is to figure out how to fill the car with all of the things that we've

[00:51:13] Riana: bought. So you're the strategist. He's a shopper. He

[00:51:16] Stuart: just has to like move it around. I have to figure out what's going to be important that we buy

[00:51:22] Riana: Natalie. Are you attached to things

[00:51:24] Stuart: that sounds like a weakness? I'm not attached to anything. It's just I really like the stuff

[00:51:29] Riana: that I got. But do you have room for all that in your

[00:51:32] Stuart: home? We've been looking at buying a bigger house longer, can walk into my bathroom.

[00:51:38] Riana: So there's stuff all over the place,

[00:51:41] Stuart: stacks of magazines, but those magazines are important. I'm a little confused about the spare tires we have in our front yard. You never know when you're gonna need spare tires.

[00:51:51] Riana: Natalie, it sounds like there's a couple of addictions going in here. I mean between the hoarding and the eating and the spending for things you don't really want or need and I wouldn't have any

[00:52:00] Stuart: of these issues that Helga was more available.

[00:52:03] Riana: Oh, and who is she?

[00:52:05] Stuart: She's a friend, heard

[00:52:08] Riana: of Helga

[00:52:09] Stuart: who has a name like Helga, you know somebody named Helga?

[00:52:12] Riana: Dave doesn't know this friend?

[00:52:14] Stuart: I'm just gonna go ahead and say it. Helga is my girlfriend.

[00:52:18] Riana: Have a girlfriend.

[00:52:19] Stuart: Had no idea. This is when when were you gonna tell me? I love Helga, I think she's amazing and she's exciting. Everything about her is exciting.

[00:52:28] Riana: Well, what's exciting about her? She's

[00:52:30] Stuart: an incredible lover, but on top of that she rides this bitchen motorcycle and it's amazing to be on the back of

[00:52:38] Riana: that. So does they think you're working?

[00:52:41] Stuart: I get I don't know, he's kind of dumb. I don't know, you keep telling me you're you have to go away for the weekend? Well I do have to go away for the weekend. I'm not going to stay at home and ride motorcycles

[00:52:51] Riana: done. So there's a lot going on. So now there's also the sexual addiction,

[00:52:56] Stuart: there is one thing Dave does. That just drives me absolutely nuts though.

[00:53:00] Riana: Okay, let's get it all out, Natalie. What else do you have for me?

[00:53:04] Stuart: You know, he puts the toilet paper on the roll so that it doesn't come out the top,

[00:53:09] Riana: it comes out the bottom.

[00:53:10] Stuart: Do you know what I'm talking about with that?

[00:53:12] Riana: I do know what you're talking about. Does that really bother you, Natalie? Oh

[00:53:16] Stuart: my God, it's so irritating.

[00:53:18] Riana: Ok, now, Dave, did you know that, that this was something that really upset Natalie?

[00:53:22] Stuart: It does kind of get her go mm

[00:53:25] Riana: hmm. So this is a passive aggressive move. I see. You know what Natalie? I think you're right. I think this relationship is not gonna work.

[00:53:34] Stuart: Thank you so much for joining us for sketch comedy podcast show. We hope you enjoyed listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it. Make sure to head over to sketch comedy podcast show dot com there. You can subscribe to the show, head over to Youtube and watch some of the videos and sketches we've done there. Maybe head over to Patreon and become a patron to the show that would be so much appreciated or you can leave a review someplace or if you're feeling really saucy apply to be on the show. I appreciate every single one of you that listens to the show and I would love to hear more from you. Now. I've got to get this out of the way sketch comedy podcast show is protected under a creative commons attribution. No derivatives, four point oh international license. Which means that if you would like to reproduce anything in the show, please contact the show so that I can get you the right material for it. And also this show is copyright 2022 Stewart Rice. Every day we are given a choice. Can we do the funny thing or the not so funny thing. I'm going to urge you to do the funny thing today and create an improvised comedy adventure of your own. Take care, see you next episode. Yeah.

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Sherman Tylawsky | Aspiring Statesman Who Is a JAN 6 INSURRECTION SURVIVOR

Wed, 05 Jan 2022 07:00:00 GMT

Want to buy one of the limited NFTs for this episode? Click here!

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

I don’t know about you, but I am a scaredy-cat; meaning that I run as fast as I can when something scary happens. Of course, that changed after I had kids because before I started running I had to make sure I had tied the laces of my kids shoes… together so that I could get a good lead. This episode’s guest did not really have that option.

Sherman Tylawsky is a George Washington enthusiast. If there were trading cards for political icons, Sherman would have the back of every single one of them memorized. Sherman is so into the political greats, that he has a podcast called “Friends & Fellow Citizens” that explores the founders of our nation, but also takes a look at contemporary situations and people in politics today through a lens that would make Thomas Jefferson proud.

We talk about his historical political fetish, what it was like to work in our nation’s capital, where all of the business in congress actually happens, and then we really dig into that fateful day a year ago when Sherman’s workplace, our nation’s capital, was sieged upon by its’ own citizens. A terrifying day that will not be forgotten by Sherman or anyone else in America, for that matter.

Note: Mr. Tylawsky presents in his personal capacity and not as a representative of the U.S. government. His personal views are opinion only and do not state U.S. governmental policy or an official U.S. government position.

This episode’s sketch: “Our Constituents Phone Calls are of the Upmost Importance”

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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SUBSCRIPTIONS & REVIEWS

MORE ABOUT THE GUEST

Sherman is the CEO of The George Washington Institute, host of the Friends & Fellow Citizens Podcast, an aspiring statesman, and George Washington enthusiast. He has received a master’s degree in international affairs from Texas A&M University and graduated from King’s College London with a bachelor’s degree in politics. He began his first podcast "Friends & Fellow Citizens" to bring the wisdom and significance of the Founding Fathers back to contemporary American life.

Fun Facts about Sherman:
1. Named after the Founding Father Roger Sherman and Union General William Tecumseh Sherman
2. Student of Classical Latin and fluent in Mandarin
3. Washington DC Trivia aficionado
4. Seinfeld, 30 Rock, Pizza, Baseball, Aggie football, Ice Cream and America are signs that heaven exists…

Links

WEBSITE

PODCAST

PATREON

TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE

[00:00:00] Sherman: in this episode, aspiring statesman Sherman Tylenol ski and I came up with a few sketches.

[00:00:06] Stuart: Some of those weird phone calls with, with constituents or with people who just whatever reason are off the rails,

[00:00:13] Sherman: that is one of my favorite type of sketches is where it ramps up the idea of gift wrapping savannah or finding a way to get a Lincoln. You know, everybody gathering and trying to figure out what are we going to get Lincoln for his birthday be just being available Like that's you. Your place in history is like, who can we get to sign this thing? We didn't, we need another signature.

[00:00:37] Stuart: Yes

[00:00:39] Sherman: roger. Which one did we pick? You'll fight. Well, you probably figured it out. It's none of the ones I came up with. You'll find out on this episode of a sketch comedy podcast show. Welcome to sketch comedy podcast show. The one of a kind show where I Stuart rice invite interesting people to have intriguing conversations and then we improvise a comedy sketch based on what we talked about. It's the only show like it on the internet and I don't know about you, but I am a scaredy cat meaning that I run as fast as I can when something scary happens. Of course that changed after I had kids because before I started running I had to make sure I had tied the laces of my kids shoes together so that I could get a good lead this episode's guest did not really have that option. Sherman telus ski is a George Washington enthusiast. If there were trading cards for political icons, Sherman would have the back of every single one of them memorized. Sherman is so into political greats that he has a podcast called Friends and Fellow Citizens that explores the founders of our nation, but also takes a look at contemporary situations and people in politics today through a lens that would make thomas jefferson proud. We talk about its historical political fetish what it was like to work in our nation's capital, where all of the business in congress actually happens. And then we really dig into that fateful day, a year ago when Sherman's workplace, our nation's capital was seized upon by its own citizens. A terrifying day that will not be forgotten by Sherman or anyone else in America for that matter. And now my conversation with Sherman Tai Loski, aspiring statesman who is in january 6th insurrection survivor. Chairman

[00:02:45] Stuart: Stuart. Great to see you today.

[00:02:48] Sherman: Yeah, it's good to see you too. A welcome onto the show.

[00:02:51] Stuart: Thank you so much for having me. Really appreciate

[00:02:53] Sherman: this. Yeah, I've got a quick question for you, is that okay?

[00:02:56] Stuart: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:02:57] Sherman: What makes you interesting?

[00:03:00] Stuart: Well, first of all, my last name, I think has interested a lot of people. It

[00:03:06] Sherman: took me a couple of times spelling it to get it. Yes, yes, I got it right the last time

[00:03:11] Stuart: I think what makes me unique is that I'm really a hybrid of interest that combined to really make myself a unique american, I am in american history nerd. I love politics, I love sports, I love american food, you know uh I just, I had a Costco pizza earlier today. I think I just, I love this combination of Americana and I could see Americana in so many different manners and I am very, very thrilled to be also part of a family where on my dad's side of eastern european descent. So I've kind of had that orthodox christian background, my family's orthodox christian background that my mom's side, um we are Taiwanese, so I'm half Taiwanese, half eastern european and this is kind of a classy to east and west put together sort of idea. But I've seen these two halves as a perfect combination for my upbringing, him for who I am as an american, who I am as a person nowadays.

[00:04:23] Sherman: Yeah. And when you say America that much, that means you really do have a love for it. So the things that you've done in your life or things that you do currently where you, you're able to portray that or you're able to show that well to the, to the country and do yourself to your to the world, whatever. What are things you do? Sure. Well I'll start

[00:04:44] Stuart: with something that I started last year which was my very first and only podcast right now called friends and fellow citizens. It is the first four words of Washington's farewell address. That's how Washington addresses the nation when he leaves office in 17 96 and I just thought it was very catchy. I also felt that it sounds really positive, you know, because everyone loves friends and everyone loves friends and fellow citizens. So I thought I wanted to find something that could honor our history by the same time. Bring that history to life nowadays by sending them smashes of saying, we have a very, we have a lot of ups and downs in our country, but there's a lot to be proud of and a lot that we can do to improve it and to appreciate it. And that's how I connect to the founders who lived a very, very different time period, but a group of people whom I always have found so intriguing because I feel in this country is truly the first that's built on ideas, not on ethnicity or where you come from. And so to kind of bring that and meld it in with by personal background myself. I thought this was a really great opportunity for me to share with people my guests who come from all different backgrounds and have all kinds of experiences and takes on different issues while also kinda bring myself in and some of our history together. I want to make american history very interesting for other people. So it really is a, I call it a civics podcast because it's not just about politics, not just about history, it's about the foundation of our democracy, the way we know it here

[00:06:28] Sherman: in America. Yeah, I think that's uh it's a it's a big undertaking that you're taking it taking on. Yeah,

[00:06:36] Stuart: I I think it's great.

[00:06:37] Sherman: Yeah. Um you and I have shared guests Edwin and I've had a couple other people that, I mean they're trying their best. It's hard. Like I got kids and when I mentioned history, they immediately the gloss over happens and they stopped listening to me more than they do normally I guess. But yeah, so I I think that this is very important is that we can learn from what's happened before. And I think it's also very important to understand like what are the rules that we currently have? Civics is not a thing that's taught. I don't even know if my kids ever took a class that had anything like that in it because they never talked about it and I wasn't in school with them because I would have been weird. So um what are, what are you talk, what are some of the topics that you talk about? Like you mentioned some of the things, but like what what what would be like a topic that you would dive in on on your show?

[00:07:36] Stuart: Sure. So I've done topics on a whole range of issues that cover american history. What I like to do is I like to find a character in american history who did a lot of amazing things but is just left out of the history books. I mean you mentioned how in civics we don't we don't take on a lot of these different topics and different figures perhaps. So I bring them on and show look, these people are not perfect individuals, obviously no one is but they have very interesting background. So for example, I've done a topic on William Seward who was Secretary of state under Lincoln. He not only, well I guess if you're from Alaska, you also need to love him because he helped with the Alaska purchase. But I've also he also made sure that there wasn't a foreign interference with regards to the american civil war. He was also one of the leading, certainly at that time one of the leading civil rights advocates already calling for equal representation across uh, across all americans regardless of background. So I dive into him. I also look at various different time periods across history and trying to identify some common lessons. For example, I did an episode about a pandemic or epidemic, I should say, because it's kind of smaller epidemic that happened during the Washington administration that broke down in philadelphia and how difficult those conditions were. So to kind of bring some of some context to my audience. This is what I usually do on my solo shows for my guest shows. I usually bring a lot of the man who have become leaders in their field and not necessarily political junkies like myself, you know you know the folks who watch C span and I guess I've already admitted that online now that I watched some C span every now and then.

[00:09:27] Sherman: I know

[00:09:28] Stuart: that's

[00:09:31] Sherman: hard to anybody you c span with. No one talks about C span and chill you know? That's yes that's right.

[00:09:39] Stuart: Not not something that sticks out a lot on a dating app, let's just say you know

[00:09:45] Sherman: uh

[00:09:47] Stuart: But I love I love to bring guests on who are again as I said our leaders in their field there, you've done leadership activities in their community for example. Uh I've no girl from my school in texas A and M. Who is a big cyber person, she's already done of cyber competitions and is trying to expand the number of women in cyber. I've got, you mentioned Edwin, he was a wonderful guests on my show too. He brought I think a lot of wonderful advice in the midst of the election which was held obviously in november and his episode was around that time. So it's it's nice to also play around with the calendar a little bit and try to have guests on who can offer some really amazing insight into our world in those times and it's been quite a wonderful hodgepodge I to this day. I still don't know how I was able to put together some of these episodes but I just cannot thank enough my support system, my family, my friends and all those who listen to my show, it's because of them, that all everything I'm saying is possible.

[00:11:02] Sherman: That's awesome. Yeah, I'm not going to say that about my audience. My audience just collects my, my sound bites and doesn't give me any money. So uh, I do have a Patreon by the way out there. Um Hey, uh, so how did you get so into all of this stuff? Is this is not like something, There's no, there's very rarely do you find action figures of like the founding fathers? Right? Like did you have those growing up? Was that a thing? Like,

[00:11:33] Stuart: I think I got one, I think I got one of those Founding fathers era hats from some museum in Philly might have been from Independence Hall, but I think that was the most I can go because you couldn't, I don't think I put it together a Halloween costume or anything with that because I felt like, well, I don't think, I don't think jefferson or Washington would have been going around ask for candy. So, I definitely was someone who was interested because it just struck me very interesting that there could be this number of individuals so invested in history at that time because a lot of them were looking at Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. I'm thinking, well who does that? You know, who does that? I want to read more. And then the more I read, the more I read about how difficult those times were. I mean I mentioned that we had fourth of july just earlier this month. You know that time signing a document saying you want to break free from England. It wasn't just one of those things where you know this guy, he's just he's just angry at what at the king, It was treason because count as treason by by those standards. And I just really love the stories aspects, you know, and again, we mentioned our civics earlier, that's what I think is lacking most is we're not teaching civics the way I think she's being taught, it should be taught with stories. We all connect with stories and these stories are supposed to bring on motion. They're supposed to bring out the characters, the plot, the conflicts, the resolutions. But if we're if we're spewing facts from with civics, I mean facts are important, don't get me wrong, but facts alone are not gonna be able to inspire people to enter civics and enter public service because people were just like, well it just seems like something I need to study on a test. Why would I be interested in that? So that's really kind of how I also, I I got got interested in the american revolution in american history in general is just because of this compilation of stories that created the nation where I live in and I want to bring some of that too nowadays because we often feel distant from history. Perhaps we feel that it's just two different at the time and it's true that times have changed a lot. But I believe especially based on with my show, We have six pillars of Washington's farewell address that I believe are Values that don't just exist in 1796. They transcend through time. And it's really our job in this generation to make those values more real and more applicable to more people so that future generations can enjoy the freedoms that we have today.

[00:14:17] Sherman: I think you're 100% correct. And one of the things that always seems to be lacking is the why? Because that explains, you know, what's the reason we have the whatever this lies or why do we have the jurisdiction set up the way we do and why do we do any of that stuff? And it it's under it's good to understand the why some of that stuff was created so long ago that maybe it's not, maybe it needs to be updated, maybe it needs to be uh you would know better than I do. But um but I think it's important to understand why did we do it that way and if there's a better way to do it going forward, that's what this generation can do or your generation or I'm old. I'm much older than I love,

[00:15:05] Stuart: but I couldn't tell and I feel like we're in this together, so don't ever feel that there's a generation gap between

[00:15:13] Sherman: Alright, thanks,

[00:15:14] Stuart: thanks

[00:15:14] Sherman: a lot for me. I don't look too bad. Just a

[00:15:19] Stuart: saying goes from indiana jones, it's not the years, it's the mileage.

[00:15:23] Sherman: Fair enough, fair enough. That's right. Um and so your namesake is actually based off of some of our forefathers if I'm not mistaken, correct.

[00:15:35] Stuart: That's right. That's right. I have a bit of fun facts about my first name and it's quite unusual. I believe I've seen it more as a last name in certain cases. And and these two historic examples, they are the last names technically. So it's it's not it's not the exact same relevance, but close enough the first is that we have Roger Sherman who was a founder from Connecticut and he is the only founder to sign the three major documents. So we had the articles of the Declaration of Independence, the articles of confederation and the constitution. Believe there's one other major document that he signed. It's not as super irrelevant, but he signed all those and no one else has that record. So that's pretty interesting. He, I guess he had really good attendance record in school and he just kind of translated that in the government somehow. That's a

[00:16:32] Sherman: great

[00:16:32] Stuart: idea.

[00:16:34] Sherman: Yes, garage

[00:16:37] Stuart: down the street. I'm gonna for those from Rhode island, you're not going to like me when I say is, but you know, Roy Island and didn't have a lot of representives show up for the, the constitutional convention. Let's just say, um, and roger Sherman himself was able to kind of beat their record in terms of attendance. Just one lone guy from the, from the neighbor neighboring state Connecticut, but I am also named after General William Sherman who is also a controversial depending on where you're coming from. Some people from Georgia might not like him very much because of his role in the march to see which was that initiative from the union army to basically just go to the south destroy in all kinds of instruction, ripping up railroad tracks time into not. So you can't even repair them destroying crops and homes and everything that he actually, what's weird is that he actually didn't like blood and he didn't like have like actual war like people fighting. So I said, well I'm just gonna destroy stuff. So he, that's what he did. And he, he, he burned the city of Atlanta actually back in the time of the, of the civil war And when he captured Savannah, he actually captured it as a christmas present for Lincoln. He actually literally told Lincoln say here is your christmas present and it's the city of Savannah. Uh, that might've been the best gift that Lincoln probably ever got. I've never asked. I don't think anyone's ever asked him before. Santa probably would never have given him that. He can't

[00:18:08] Sherman: get it down the chimney. Like it's

[00:18:09] Stuart: kind of hard to fit right down down the chimney,

[00:18:13] Sherman: gift wrap that, that's a big bow.

[00:18:16] Stuart: So I'm also named at General Sherman because you know, as as controversial as it was, certainly back then, maybe not as much nowadays, but he was someone who truly believed in the unity of the United States. That's why he was so driven um, with his values. And he was very close to General Grant, obviously very close to Lincoln as well and he was very instrumental in not only destroying infrastructure but trying to destroy morale to and show that the north was going to win this hands down the north was going to win this. That was the message he wanted to send and I thought it was very powerful. But yeah, so there's roger Sherman and there's General Sherman to two guys share my name. I don't think they've ever probably have whatever anticipate that someone would cite them so much in their podcast and my, my podcast, but they get some recognition. So I'm giving it to them.

[00:19:12] Sherman: But you know what's interesting is that, that philosophy has actually come up a couple of times because rick and morty just had an episode. I know I'm taking it to a

[00:19:23] Stuart: left

[00:19:23] Sherman: tangent, but the idea of going and breaking infrastructure to, to make a statement is actually, it's making a, it's coming back and I think it's interesting because this is a perfect example of, hey go back in history, take a look at, you know, this is this was the strategy. Um, of course we don't want to have to get to that. But like if somebody does want to make a statement without

[00:19:50] Stuart: shedding blood

[00:19:51] Sherman: shed, that's a way to do interesting. Nonetheless. Again, history repeats itself. Absolutely. Um, speaking of establishments of infrastructure, what is the one place of infrastructure that you believe is the epicenter of your political involvement? Where do you go to make things happen?

[00:20:18] Stuart: Well, my favorite place to go is none other than the halls of Congress. I served as an intern in. No, no, no, no, wait

[00:20:29] Sherman: a second. Are you sure you're speaking of the right place?

[00:20:32] Stuart: Oh yeah. Uh, states Congress Washington dc capitol building. Okay. Congress. Yeah,

[00:20:42] Sherman: no, no, no, no, no, that's okay. That's where you do all your best networking.

[00:20:48] Stuart: I, I feel like you know, you know what they got, I'll tell you what and this is not a total secret. It's been obviously the capitol grounds have been closed down for a while, but there is a Dunkin Donuts in Longwood feeling by the way, I'm not being sponsored by Dunkin Donuts in this episode. I don't, if they're interested in sponsoring me, that's a whole other thing. But for the sake of this, there's a Dunkin donuts there and I have tried so many times to say, well, let's, you know, network, you know, with staffers or anyone else somewhere else because I am just so drawn to the pastries there and every single time I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna get black ice coffee, no big deal. But those, those donors just get me every time and you know that. And I just, and I've learned that you cannot network without being near coffee and sweets because they're going to get you some boy, everyone wants you to meet at a coffee shop and you're just ensconced by these delicacies that to me that Dunkin donuts in the Longworth House office building, which you guys can look it up and everything. Is

[00:21:55] Sherman: that actually, I'm sorry. I apologize. I didn't mean to cut you. That's actually in the Congress.

[00:22:00] Stuart: Oh yeah, it's in the, it's in the house office buildings. So I'm not even joking. You can literally, when I was there, you, I've seen everyone from the american family visiting the visiting the capitol hill because at that time, back before covid when you can still visit the capital, you can roam around the house and Senate office building so you can go to these cafeterias and he's eating places. So you can have american literally like american family going, they're getting, you know, doughnuts or something and maybe next in line is a member of congress. I've seen that before. It's really, really cool. There's something about this idea of having the space communal space to, uh, chat over coffee. It might just be the stimulant aspect of caffeine, you know, or the blood sugar or something going up or something when you have a doughnut, but there's there's something very special. I'm not, I kid you not that place. I have made a lot of connections in that Dunkin donuts. I don't think

[00:23:03] Sherman: any other dumb things like something in the doughnuts are in the coffee to like lower like the, the barriers so it makes it much easier to talk or it's just the endorphins of biting into an apple fritter. Like that's the thing that just that maybe maybe we just need to, like that's what we need is just constant doughnuts going through Congress and the senate.

[00:23:26] Stuart: A lot of, a lot of healthy eating folks are not going to agree with me on this, but that's okay because you know do and this is America you're allowed to go to Dunkin donuts if you want to whenever you want to. But I will say there is something very unique about sitting down with someone and I don't know what it is, but I really feel like, especially if you're meeting with someone, you're talking about current issues and but you're doing it over a nice cup of coffee and doughnut. There is something about this idea of consuming and of just consuming something together because I think it kind of breaks down some, maybe some political barriers. I don't have scientific evidence of that. I'm not a scientist. I don't do this kind of research. But it'd be a good ted talk to do. Maybe it's an idea worth spreading of of having your own coffee. Maybe someone doesn't like coffee as the drink. But this idea of having a coffee doing a small activity with someone and seeing how that can break down barriers and break the ice a little bit. Because it really is such so undervalued in a lot of ways. You know having to too much virtual stuff going on. I know we're doing a virtual now just because you can't be in person but I love to meet you in person at some time. But there really is some kind of value to it. And when you have this in person gathering here, as I mentioned earlier about folks meeting up in Duncan and other parts of D. C. There is this real emphasis on meeting someone shaking their hand and having that that's all kind of conversation. There's something really valuable that we need more of that nowadays I think.

[00:25:17] Sherman: But I feel like that's almost biblical. The idea of breaking bread with others. And actually having a conversation is it's always easier. Especially if it's got frosting. It makes the conversation easier. Oh yes. Much easier to

[00:25:31] Stuart: say yes. Especially when they're sitting creaming it. Like it's something like one time I got this doing it, I didn't know what it was. I was like oh it looks looks good and I think buying it's got cream in it and I was like no way this, it's like a surprise and it's like this is this conversation is getting better. It's because yeah, first time speaking

[00:25:48] Sherman: to. Yeah, I I often think like the best thing to do is if you're going to have a hard conversation, go grab a dozen donuts, just bring a dozen donuts and you're fine. Maybe it's something

[00:25:58] Stuart: you're save some for your office if you can. But if you can't you can always get another dozen donuts.

[00:26:04] Sherman: Do you have a do you have a favorite doughnut?

[00:26:07] Stuart: Oh God, I love the I love the munchkins. So the munchkins are basically like a cake doughnut and they got the chocolate flavored. Oh those are those are really good. Yeah you gotta you gotta you gotta have they have they sell them like a does it? Or 10 of them were Does't but you can buy up to 50 of them. Now. I'm not I'm not going to say whether or not you should be eating 50 munchkins at a time, but it's available just

[00:26:33] Sherman: I mean if you don't do it every day, just know over three times a week

[00:26:37] Stuart: you got to make it special. That's

[00:26:39] Sherman: the thing. You got to make

[00:26:40] Stuart: this experience special. And uh it's the evening time. But luckily there's a donut shop 24 7. Not too far from here. I'm gonna try everything. I can to stay away from the place because that place is way too tempting.

[00:26:55] Sherman: Yeah, I love doughnut. Um so now Dunkin Donuts is great. Have you been there where it wasn't such a great experience?

[00:27:07] Stuart: Well, you know, sometimes the lines can be quite long because it's such a popular place. I mean, you gotta, you gotta keep the government fed. You know, it goes without saying um I actually joked with someone recently about how I'm really, it would be really funny if there was some kind of, you know, some kind of alleged scheme between Dunkin donuts and the federal government. I think that'd be really funny. And to see like, like, you know, looking, there was like some kind of what is it? Um not, not find, it's the other one I can remember. But anyway, it's the, it's the freedom of information for you. There you go. If there was like some kind of Foia related thing and then people discover that Dunkin donuts gets like special preferences. I'm convinced that Dunkin donuts everywhere in these federal buildings. There are in the State Department there. I believe they're in the pentagon and all kinds. So some of, you know, just some of the most important places in the world and it happens to be a Dunkin donuts. I'm gonna leave it up to the audience to determine what's going on.

[00:28:08] Sherman: Uh All right,

[00:28:14] Stuart: you got some homework to do Stewart?

[00:28:16] Sherman: I do. I need to dig into Dunkin donuts again to Dunkin donuts.

[00:28:21] Stuart: I mean, they don't say America runs on Dunkin for no reason. That's

[00:28:25] Sherman: true. Oh my gosh. They tell us straight up they are the illuminati. Um, no, but I mean, I mean like what would cause something serious to happen and, and in one of the, one of the buildings there, like it, would it be like running out of coffee that would cause some issues. Right?

[00:28:44] Stuart: Yeah, Yeah. Because you know, coffee and caffeine is not, is not a beverage. It's a fuel, you know, that's like, you can't drive around without gas, gasoline. So how can we expect the government run without caffeine? Right. Right.

[00:28:59] Sherman: Is that what happened in january?

[00:29:02] Stuart: Well, thank thank goodness. It wasn't about coffee, but obviously something, something a lot bigger. Uh,

[00:29:09] Sherman: something did happen

[00:29:10] Stuart: and

[00:29:11] Sherman: I'm waking up to this, but like, do you have an experience with that?

[00:29:16] Stuart: Yes. So I'll preface with something here. So I'm, I mentioned earlier I interned in the summer 2019, but I really wanted to any, I worked for

[00:29:29] Sherman: regardless of my

[00:29:29] Stuart: personal beliefs, I truly believe I need to work for both sides of the aisle, regardless of my political differences or similarities. And so I have both times that I've worked for Congress. I've worked for a different part of each time. Um, and I did the first time. Someone 2019. So I wanted to do it again in 2021 and I applied for the spring and I remember the lady asked me what date would you like to start and I was like, well, you know january is kind of a quiet month, right? So I literally just say you know what Whatever, I'll just start on January four the first week, I don't think there's gonna be anything happening then you know, I can transition into the office and well clearly I'm not a fortune teller. Uh but I was actually in lockdown as an intern on capitol hill on january six, one of the craziest moments I've ever experienced and something that I've been share a little bit about two other shows to just because more serious though, I do want to share as much of the stories I can because I want people to understand how important is to bring people together and understand how we can move forward as a nation from a very, very ugly time, you know, and that's really why I decided to be a lot more outspoken when I left my internship. It was wonderful experience, a wonderful office and wonderful member. But that day certainly was just mean, it's awfully awfully saying, you know, um I always dealing with people and say, you know when young students apply, you go, you go onto one of these sites for a member where senator or whoever, they always say like you know, an internship is a fun and exciting experience and everything. It's like, yeah, I can kind of see that after my time here um that the government was over promising. Which

[00:31:26] Sherman: yeah, when you said exciting, I thought you know, maybe we'd see an argument. All right. I'm not something like this. So what does that mean when you're in lockdown? What does that mean? What and what information are you getting at that moment?

[00:31:43] Stuart: Absolutely. Well, I was at work on that day. Um It was Wednesday and all I knew really was that there was gonna be restricted access to the capitol building because we're gonna have all the members there to count the electoral votes to certify the election for joe biden. But other than that, I didn't really know exactly how it was going to play out. And that all started to change when I got to the the office building and after some time I actually was was able to um get let in by my office. And I actually got my ID card that morning because they're like, we were like, oh what the heck, Just get it out of the way. It turned out to be really, really good good decision. And I remember just looking outside the window where I can where I can be in one of the office buildings on the house side. And I just saw a huge crowd right outside the capitol and look, I know dC protests, I've been d C before I've seen demonstrations and all that. Nothing like what I saw and I know when I saw that crowd right outside, I knew that this this is a totally different story. Some something's going to happen and what I can reveal. You know, there's some things that I'm not sure if I can reveal just because, you know, given the kind of complex nature of how things go. But I was actually I was evacuated the first time around lunchtime. And all I knew, all I heard was that there was a bomb outside of the RNC building. I was like, what? Like what do you mean? Like and you're just you're just in that kind of mode where it's like, you don't know what's going on and and throughout that time, all you can do is just count on what you can find out online. But you know, I was evacuated one time and then we came back and then there was another lockdown and the second I was like, again, I thought I thought, you know, because we got the all clear. I knew, I thought we got the all clear in the first time. Second time, what all we knew was that there was an intruder in the Cannon building and for those of you have been to the house side, all the buildings, there are three separate buildings, but they're all connected by a tunnel. So that person could basically be anywhere in that complex. It was just absolutely insane. And I literally was evacuated with, you know, there's staffers and journalists and members of Congress just basically running around this place. It was just absolutely crazy. Um, capitol police, I will say they have been so professional in my experience, they've done a lot to show us the way to go, ways to find a hiding spot and everything. They're just absolutely phenomenal people. And what I can just do kind of end is like kind of first part of the story here, you know, I was able to be in hiding. I was hiding for several hours and as I'm watching the live broadcast of what was happening, which is literally just happening just a few 100 ft away from several 100 ft away from where I am. And I saw that that breach, you know, the breach into the capital and my heart just sank. You know, I mentioned that I would intern summer in 2019. I was leading tours of with families across around the capital. Bill is showing them the beautiful artwork and the paintings and the sculptures and then to see something like that happened right in front of my eyes and to know that there are people who are getting hurt. Some people obviously lost their lives because of that. That really, that really made me very, very, very sad myself and I knew that however, this is gonna end for myself and for my office who were just absolutely phenomenal people again, these people I just met basically two days ago, you know, so, um, and I, I obviously trusted them because I knew that they were going to do the right thing, but I will never forget just being locked down for all these hours in a secret room there and everything knowing that when I was going to come out that I needed to be in the future, I didn't know when, right, But I needed to be very frank about why this event is important and why young people especially who are looking to enter public service, maybe some of them who might not be thinking public service right now. I I still want to let them know that it is still something to pursue. As, as a career, as something you can contribute to as the democracy that we live in this place. This country can be a place where people can pitch in their ideas, have civil conversations, have civil debates. We don't need obviously this violence and this, this atrocious bias that happened. But I know that in my heart I believe and I believe in this nation, I know we've gone through a lot of tough times. There's no question about that. However, this experience that I've shared with you guys here, just some of the things that I got to see personally when you're in that mode where you don't know really what's happening, right? Because this is a big place, Capitol Hill is quite a big place bigger than most people think when such a big place and all these people are running around you start you, you say a prayer to yourself, you pray for for those who are trying to just trying to do the right thing, you know, trying to uphold our democracy, trying to make sure that people are keeping safe and even to this day, what I will say is there's still a lot of things that we need to find out, a lot of things that we know already, however we needed. I think generally speaking, look at how we can build a better arena for political discourse and how we can have more of these. Like I mentioned about the coffees, you know, I can't emphasize that enough, you know, just having an in person feeling where you can meet somebody learn about their past, learn about why they feel the way they feel that will raise a great start, you know, and and not to mention all the delicious stuff that you can have with it, you know, So I think this is the kind of platform I'm promoting and I just, I'm so grateful for all the people I mentioned earlier, capitol police my office, my family who I was texting back and forth with during that whole lockdown period, All the friends who have reached out to me and have expressed support for me, there's so many people out there that I cannot think enough and I'm so grateful to them

[00:38:17] Sherman: Yeah, I, I think you've got your, you're hitting the right thing. Like enter that building in the right way if you want to make change, if you do things like what you're doing right? Like, hey, I'm going to be involved, I'm going to go, um, volunteer my time and be a part of this process and probably later on go and actually join that entire process. I don't know if that's an aspiration of yours, but it sounds like it. So it might be that that sounds like the right way to do that.

[00:38:48] Stuart: Absolutely.

[00:38:49] Sherman: Yeah. I, I, and you know, we talked, we talked a lot about civics and the other thing we need, you mentioned it just now is civilities. So civility and civics should go hand in hand. That's the only way real change gonna get made. Um, powerful story. Like how terrified are you in that situation? You can't, I can't even imagine I was watching it on tv and I was like, oh my God, I'm terrified.

[00:39:20] Stuart: I'll tell you my mind, my heart, we're just going a million miles away because I had a per hour because so many things were happening at the same time. You don't know what is, what is going, what is happening. You know, when you're seeing footage, right? How long ago was that footage? So that's, that's also the kind of crazy thing. Um, I, As I said, I, I had faith in my office, I had faith in the people I was with and they were just incredible people, especially, you know, I I often mention about how in Congress we can't just understand the members. We obviously vote for 535 members, but there's thousands, thousands more staffers who supported these members and they do a lot of work for these representatives. And these are the people who I got to spend a lot of time with. And they're just, I mean, our office had a really wonderful, wonderful vibe, you know, that this is kind of how it's going. Not to mention that we had, uh, we have a we had a cute dog. So that was also like probably one of the greatest sources of comfort you can always have at that time. But it was just wild. And I I didn't get home until probably about nine o'clock or so. So that was that was the longest day I ever worked technically in Congress, which was left out like a 12 hour day. I didn't spend 12 hours any, any time in the future after that. That was the longest time ever been in on capitol Hill. I will, what I will say is, you know, you watched on tv everyone that's the thing. Everyone's had their own personal experience. But I also want to make sure that my message to everybody is on this topic is you have the power to be able to red wine and do something good to serve our democracy. You know, it affects when when I see that it's not just the capital building, it's not just run by the federal government, it's the people's house. And so we are the people obviously. And so when something like this happens, it must be made relevant to people. And people need to get the answers and understand how they can make our democracy better because I can tell you that, you know, the Justice Department a and the FBI they're doing their job and going after the folks who uh under the capital and did all that harm the folks. That's the I really appreciate your job the other than though I think in a larger picture is what you were saying, sewer, which is having a system of civility, making sure that we're not just thinking, okay, what are the policies coming up this Congress maybe thinking how do we actually do things in congress? How do we actually in the in the future? I've been talking about some of some of the stuff recently, which is about advanced technologies with ai now you can make so as someone said something, even though they didn't. So the idea of the in person meeting and maybe the town hall meeting with someone that could matter a whole lot more in the future because otherwise we can't just be relying on everything that we see on the internet clearly. And so these are the kinds of things I'm also thinking about. But it's, it's gonna be a journey. I'm so, I'm glad that the fence has come down. I had to see that ugly fence for so long. It really, it really feels like a fortress, You know, when you see that outside perimeter and you got to go through that every single day, um, the barbed wire and everything, it

[00:42:44] Sherman: was weird that it's domestic people working. Yes, that's right. That's the weirdest part.

[00:42:49] Stuart: Exactly, yes, Exactly. Because the family, they initially they have the outside perimeter, then they shifted it more closer to the capitol building. So it was more open. Maybe like in the last month I was there. But it was just like, man, that's just, I, I was, I'll never forget, you know, I'll never forget walking by that fence every single day. You know, I had to uh, it didn't help that I had to also across the other side of the street because that fence was so big and I just took out one end of the studio, I was like, oh man, I got across the street again, You know, it was

[00:43:23] Sherman: extra steps,

[00:43:25] Stuart: right? Exactly. Oh my God. It was like, I know they had to put together a fence pretty quickly, but it was my point is my, my time in Congress clearly is nothing like I ever imagined. I don't know how I would when people ask me in the future, especially students who are interested working from Congress, I'm gonna any time any more time anyone asked me, oh, how is your experience or what would you say to someone who's looking to work for Congress? Almost like I'm gonna be like, so how much time do you have? Because I'm gonna, I'm gonna be talking for a while. You better sit down, maybe have a cup of coffee or a doughnut and just listen to me speak for an hour and let me explain to you as much as I can and what I've gone through myself. So, but crazy, crazy times. And I just hope that, um, I can be one of those guys to just spread a positive message and a positive message to all of you guys and to other audiences because I just believe in that value. Believe that value of sharing people, what I've gone through what I believe in, but also do my part to say, look, you're, you're my, you're my, you're my friends and fellow citizens. We got, we got to come together, we got to find ways to unite.

[00:44:48] Sherman: I think that's beautiful. All right, well it has been about, it's been a little over half an hour but great conversation. However, it is now time to record a sketch. Well, I don't know about you, but no matter how hidden that room was, I'd still be terrified. Hey, I feel obligated to let you know that about half of this entire interview process is actually still on my hard drive or if you are interested and you would like to hear more about the hidden room and some other things that we didn't get to get into on the podcast. Head to Patreon dot com because I've got the entire video interview available to my patrons for as little as a dollar a month. That's right. Go to patreon dot com slash sketch com pod and for a dollar a month you can get all the salacious details of all of the interviews I've ever done. Now that I'm done with my shameless plug Sherman, what would you like to shamelessly plug

[00:45:54] Stuart: my podcast again is called Friends and Fellow citizens. You can check out that podcast on my website which is down the banner below. One of the show notes below. Um, but you can also look up friends and fellow citizens on your favorite podcast app. It is a show that is dedicated to upholding the six principles of Washington's farewell address and applying those principles to today.

[00:46:20] Sherman: I highly suggest that you take a trip over to Itunes or wherever you listen to podcasts and hit the subscribe button on Sherman's show. It is absolutely fantastic. And now our sketch, our constituents phone calls are of the utmost importance in three two.

[00:46:45] Stuart: Hello, thank you for calling the office of Representative George Washington. How may I help you?

[00:46:49] Sherman: I said quiet down. I'm trying to Hi hi, who am I talking to?

[00:46:55] Stuart: This is Sherman speaking from congressman George Washington's office. How may I help you?

[00:47:00] Sherman: I'm so happy you picked up the phone. I'm here with my family. My kids are going crazy. What is how do I get to? What's the guy with the top hat? The president guy with the top hat.

[00:47:13] Stuart: I believe you're talking about Abraham Lincoln,

[00:47:17] Sherman: That guy. Yeah, yeah. So he's got like a place where he sits. Right? How do I get there from the big, the big pencil thing with the pool

[00:47:26] Stuart: sir. The pencil thing you're referring to is not the characterization that our office would use a monument that that clearly shows that our office has done enough for the nation to be known as a monument called the Washington monument.

[00:47:40] Sherman: Yeah. Hey, get out of the pool. What did I tell you? I don't know what's in there, grab some change. All right. So how do I get there? Do I? Is it? Where do I turn right? Because it looks like I turn right, am I wrong?

[00:47:53] Stuart: So sir, if you keep walking towards the pointy towards the pointy object which you refer to which I referred to as the monument, you should be able to see it. It's tall enough to be able to be seen from a great distance. Once in turn towards a giant building with a lot of columns and there's actually a man seated there. Not an actual man, but an actual statue of Abraham Lincoln

[00:48:19] Sherman: Alright, do they sell T shirts there?

[00:48:21] Stuart: Well, I can't speak on behalf of the representative, you know, in this nation. Representative Washington truly believes in the idea of capitalism of having a free market and you know, you have the option to purchase a T shirt if you so choose to,

[00:48:37] Sherman: Hey, put that down. It looks dead. My problem is my kids ate ice cream. We've got ice cream all over them. I need to get them a T shirt to cover up the ice cream just to replace it because they look like put it down. They look like slobs. So just keep walking towards the big pointy thing. All right, thanks

[00:48:54] Stuart: donald trump. Oh, have a great day. Thank you for calling. Hello. Thank you for calling the office of representative George Washington. How may I help you? Yes,

[00:49:05] Sherman: I would like to talk to the representative. I have an idea for

[00:49:09] Stuart: a really

[00:49:10] Sherman: good weapon system.

[00:49:12] Stuart: Unfortunately Representative is unavailable at the moment, but I'm happy to pass along concern for you if you like.

[00:49:18] Sherman: Oh, I appreciate that. What I'm going to suggest is that we we have so many pets in this country. So many pets and people just do not get their pets neutered or spade. You know, like bob barker used to tell us to do. And so what I was thinking was instead of instead of guns, Maybe we could just they all have collars. we could just attach some sort of explosive device to their next. And then that way we could be safer as a

[00:49:51] Stuart: country. I appreciate your concern about public safety. As you might know represented Washington truly cares about the livelihoods of everyone here in the United States, he puts as a top priority. And while the congressman has not been able to examine this issue further, I can tell you that he's very, very committed to ensuring that the people of his district and kept safe and I will be sure to pass your message on. I

[00:50:19] Sherman: don't have any pets myself, but my neighbors all have pets and they're terrible. They come over and they poop all over the lawn and they bite and bark and now and they're very loud. But I think they would be really effective weapons if we just attach large explosives to their necks. And then when we get invaded we just sit them, maybe spray bacon on the enemies and then have the pets go after them. Why? I think this is a good idea.

[00:50:51] Stuart: Well, it's unfortunate to hear about the circumstances which you're living in right now. Um, if I can come on one thing, you know, bacon is definitely very, very important commodity here in the United States and Representative Washington truly cares about the bacon, making sure that the bacon can land on americans breakfast plates as as quick as possible. So he definitely can absolutely advocate for that. But you know, again, I'm sorry to hear about the circumstances you're going through. Uh, it sounds like a very unfortunate happening in your neighborhood, but I'm happy to speak to represent Washington about that. And you can consider some legislation. We look forward to hearing from our constituents about this issue. If you so choose.

[00:51:35] Sherman: Does the representative have a pet? I could, I could design one of these incentives as a sample.

[00:51:41] Stuart: There are a number of horses queen with growing up himself. I cannot comment at this time about the state of pets in our office. That is that is outside of our jurisdiction here on the phone, whether it's horses, dogs, cats, they're part of the american family and we absolutely have to do everything we can in our power to make sure that they, that they have the, the, the equal rights that all the human beings have as well.

[00:52:07] Sherman: Alright, so a horse. I'll send a horse. Thank you.

[00:52:14] Stuart: Hello, thank you for calling the office represented George Washington. How may I help you?

[00:52:17] Sherman: Hi, who am I speaking to?

[00:52:19] Stuart: This is Sherman from congressman Washington's office.

[00:52:22] Sherman: Excellent Sherman, thank you so much for taking my call. I really appreciate representative Washington and I know that I'm calling the right person. I am so excited to to get a chance to speak to you. Sherman do you have a little time.

[00:52:36] Stuart: Absolutely sir.

[00:52:36] Sherman: So first off, I want to say that the Congressman's decision on Bill 397 was phenomenal. I just want to say that I sided with everything he put down and all of his arguments were fantastic. I do have a little concern and I'm hoping I can, I can talk to you about. Absolutes, sir. And this will get to the representatives.

[00:52:57] Stuart: Absolutely be sure to pass that London right after a call.

[00:53:00] Sherman: Okay. I'm concerned about the reptile. Ian's in Congress. One excruciating hour later. I don't know if you can hear in the background. I have captured 500 live flies just in case. Representative Washington wants to have a discussion. I've got these here for him. Let's let's set up a meeting.

[00:53:18] Stuart: I'll be sure to pass the information along as quickly as possible.

[00:53:21] Sherman: Thank you so much.

[00:53:23] Stuart: You're very welcome to have a great day. Hello. Thank you for calling the office representing Washington. How may I help you?

[00:53:31] Sherman: Sherman? I've got the three dozen fly and crusted doughnuts ready for the congressman. Where would you like me to drop these off. Thank you so much for joining us for sketch comedy podcast show. We hope you enjoyed listening to it as much as we enjoyed. Making it. Make sure to head over to sketch comedy podcast show dot com. There. You can subscribe to the show. Head over to youtube and watch some of the videos and sketches we've done there. Maybe head over to Patreon and become a patron to the show, That would be so much appreciated. Or you can leave a review someplace or if you're feeling really saucy apply to be on the show. I appreciate every single one of you that listens to the show and I would love to hear more from you Now. I got to get this out of the way, sketch comedy podcast show is protected under a creative commons attribution, no derivatives 4.0 international license, which means that if you would like to reproduce anything in the show, please contact the show so that I can get you the right material for it. And also this show is copyright 2022 Stewart Rice. Every day we are given a choice. Can we do the funny thing or the not so funny thing. I'm going to urge you to do the funny thing today and create an improvised comedy adventure of your own. Take care. See you next episode.

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Erick Cloward | Passionate Stoic and ENEMY OF “WEIRD” AL

Wed, 01 Dec 2021 07:16:00 GMT

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

The world is crazy. We have a pandemic going on, there is unrest in the streets, and now it is no longer safe to go to a concert. But it’s about to get crazier, because the holidays are right around the corner. How does one cope with all this nuttiness? Drinking… no, wait, wrong answer! According to this episode’s guest, it is Stoicism.

Erick Cloward has had a lot of hats on his bare head: musician, EDM enthusiast, video game soundtrack scorer… oh, wait, I guess a lot of music, Ex-Mormon (he gave it up for Lent), and now he is a podcaster and, as he describes it, an accidental philosopher. Erick’s passion is stoicism, which sounds like an oxymoron, and hosts the excellent “Stoic Coffee Break” which I likely did not say properly on the show (at least that is what his fans have told me).

We talk about stoicism, what it is and how you can use it in your life. We also talk about crypto-currencies, which Erick has done very well with, thank you very much. We also talk about Erick’s Twitter feud with “Weird” Al Yankovich… which is just mind-boggling but a true story none-the-less.

This episode’s sketch: “Avenger’s Stoic Action Plan”

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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MORE ABOUT THE GUEST

Several years ago, Erick heard Tim Ferris talk about A Guide To The Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William Irvine. Erick was intrigued by the contradiction of stoicism and joy. As a sucker for paradoxes, like most people, Erick only heard the term stoic used in referring to someone that was emotionless and cold, not anywhere near being joyful. The more Erick learned about what stoicism was really about, he began to see a worldview that was not devoid of emotion but a framework to test opinions against which give events and circumstance their proper weight. Being a stoic simply means that one chooses how things affect you, rather than being at the whim of life circumstances.

As a New Years resolution for 2018, Erick made a promise to put in the effort and just create a podcast; he began the whole thing as just a “practice” and created an audio journal about each day as a Stoic Journal. Pretty soon, Erick hit 10 days of recording something and posting it. He actually had people listening to it. Now the show enjoys over 1 million downloads and offers fantastic benefits to those that are members of the “Stoic Coffee Break” Patreon.

Links

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TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Stuart: in this episode, stoic and enemy of Weird Al Yankovic, eric Cloward and I came up with a few sketches, a game show called, what age are you and then have them guests and then tell them they're wrong and then tell them what the actual answer is driving with a stoic. It's sort of like comedians in cars getting coffee or something along those lines. But you're talking about some sort of a stoic lesson or something along those lines and you're in traffic and you're trying not to lose it, but you're probably going to lose it. The stoic Avengers like which one did we pick? You'll find out on this episode of a sketch comedy podcast show. Welcome to sketch comedy podcast show. The one of a kind show where I Stuart rice invite interesting people to have intriguing conversations and then we improvise a comedy sketch based on what we talked about right now. The world is crazy, we have a pandemic going on, there's unrest in the streets and now it's no longer safe to even just go to a concert but it's about to get crazier because the holidays are right around the corner. How does one cope with all of the nuttiness drinking? No wait wrong answer. According to this episode's guest, it is stoicism. Eric Cloward has had a lot of hats on his bare head musician E. D. M. Enthusiast, video game soundtrack score. Oh wait I guess that's a lot of music, he's an ex mormon. He gave it up for lent and now he's a podcaster and as he describes it, an accidental philosopher. Erik's passion is stoicism which granted does sound like an oxymoron and he hosts the excellent stoic coffee break, which I likely didn't say properly in the show, at least. That's what his fans have told me. We talk about stoicism, uh what it is and how you can use it in your life. We also talk about cryptocurrencies, which ERic has done very well with. Thank you very much. We also talk about eric's twitter feud with Weird Al Yankovic, which is just mind boggling, but a true story nonetheless, and now my conversation with eric Cloward, passionate stoic and enemy of Weird owl, hey eric, I've got a question for you. Okay, what makes you interesting?

[00:02:40] Erick: That's a tough one. Um, before I would have, I guess years ago I probably have listed off all sorts of accomplishments and things that I've done and this is what makes me interesting mostly because I think I was pretty insecure for a long, for a large part of my life. I think I still am in some ways and finally, over the last probably four or five months really coming to terms with that. Um, so what makes me interesting is I'm pretty much just like everybody else, but I'm willing to admit where I'm really fucked up.

[00:03:13] Stuart: Uh you know what, that actually does make everybody kind of interesting if he could admit, hey, I've got all these insecurities, insecurities or things that people, I was just talking to my son about that today because he was tired. He's um he plays smash brothers, right? And he wants to get competitive with it. And one of the, one of his favorite smash players, it's really odd when I'm talking to my son and I'm like, what are you up to? And he's like, smash and I'm like, there's no girls involved is there? But anyway, uh he um he was telling me that this guy was like, play to learn, don't play to win, and I was like, wow, that's there you go, because that's most of the time, that's what people are doing is they're playing to win because the insecurity is if I lose, I'm not getting anything out of this. And so it finally clicked for him that hey, I can go ahead and lose and it'll be okay. And I feel like that was a pretty good introductory lesson into something that you're pretty interested in. You want to go into that.

[00:04:20] Erick: Yeah. And what's funny is that a couple of weeks ago with the title, I think it was three weeks ago I had an episode entitled win or lose win or learn then you never lose. So it's exactly that thing and that that has probably taken me. I mean, I'll be turning 49 this year, which just is still weird to me that I'm that old because I still feel like I'm like 28 or something, like, like I've grown up and the rest of me is still trying to figure out that I'm actually growing up and you know, there's a lot of little signs that tell you that like I have some nerve damage and each side of my legs because it's a little pinched nerve in my back and just all sorts of those things to start to go bad, you know, bad elbows. So when I'm like trying to lift, like I used to my body just goes, what are you doing? Yeah,

[00:05:07] Stuart: uh,

[00:05:10] Erick: but I think that, I mean, I think that it's unfortunate, but that's kind of how our society is geared is that we need to be these type of people who are always winning, always winning, always winning. And I think if we get our society more towards always learning, always learning, what can you learn, what he learned that everything is always about learning, then I think that we would be much better off, but we're always, you know where I was grading people, we have the standards of how things are supposed to be. And if you look at it, some of the most successful people are the people who, you know, said who were going along this path and went, this is really dumb, why am I doing this? I'm going to do something different and jumped off the path and in a completely different direction. I mean Bill Gates never finished college. I mean I could go down the list of people who never finished college and I'd say that college is the end all and be all by any means. I graduated from college and I'm really glad I did. I learned a lot from that. Um, but the stuff that I learned was much more about learning and things that I needed to kind of figure out of it for myself because I mean I graduated a marketing and business and I ended up being a software developer. I never studied computers before I graduated from college. I got out of college and got a job as a web master because I can paint nice pictures on the computer. And so then I'm like, well, hey, why don't I learn how to do some programming? That sounds like it'd be fun.

[00:06:35] Stuart: So I, yeah, I mean, I don't know if I've ever made that statement. Let's, let's find some programming. That sounds fun. Um, you know, my argument for college for college is always, is always, it doesn't really matter what you go to college for. It doesn't, I would agree with that. That the thing about college is that's where you actually, you actually start to learn before that. It's all about learning how to learn and then you get into college and you can actually learn and you're learning from all sorts of different angles. Right? Um, I mean you learn from, you know, obviously from the classes from the labs, doing all that type of stuff, but you also learn a little bit more about how adults want to be treated and those types of things. I don't I don't know, I think college is a great experience that everybody needs to, everybody should be given an opportunity to feel, you know, you actually mentioned something about um what age I think I lost, you know,

[00:07:32] Erick: I was switched on the camera because it well I got stuck and it was just like

[00:07:38] Stuart: yeah, yeah, you had yeah, you had that look of terror on your face, which is for later on in the show. Um the question that no, no, no. So what I was saying was you know, colleges you learned, that's where you actually learn and then you actually mentioned something earlier about, you know what age you felt And I got asked that question one time at a therapy session, it was therapy session between myself and my wife, how old do you feel? And I was like, I feel 14 and I was like 35 at the time and I was like I really have no idea what I'm doing And I can say now it's a little bit older, I'm at least 17 at this point, but mhm. But we'll go ahead what was like that age, like you start to really kind of come into yourself like, do you remember that moment?

[00:08:31] Erick: Um wow, yeah, I don't I mean there are different phases, like when I mean, I still remember like when I was 14, 15 and things were clicking a bit for me, remember 13, This is gonna get a bit heavy, remember 13 recognizing that that I, I didn't like my dad, that I hated my dad partly because he was very abusive when we were growing up. But it was really, it was really confusing because he was smart, he could be very compassionate and very kind, but he had some pretty serious internal demons that he never talked about with anybody. And I didn't really understand until after he had died until I talked to my mom and other people. And as I became preparing myself, I started like recognizing some of these things. So at 13 I hated my dad then I felt like I was a terrible person because I hated my dad, but it was because I got tired of being beat, I got tired of being yelled at, I got tired of being in trouble all the time just for being me. Um and I was also tired of all the, I grew up mormon, so I got tired of all the guilt and the shame and uh, so that was, that was a big one, but then I kind of got all sucked back into the whole mormon ology because I grew up in salt lake and there wasn't much, it was,

[00:09:51] Stuart: I mean it literally a way of life,

[00:09:53] Erick: yes, escape velocity and that, that's kind of orbit is really, really hard. Um, I almost left at 17 and then got sucked back into it, went on a mission to Austria, which, which actually was a good thing. I really enjoyed Austria. I still speak fluent German, I got to see part of the country and part of the world, I guess part of the world, a new country that I've never seen before. Um, a new, a whole new way of thinking, um, which was very interesting for me because Utah is very conservative and they have this kind of whole worldview and then I went to Austria and so almost not completely flipped, but very, very different, distinctly different where people were much happier with a lot less people were much more community minded, They cared about their neighbors, they knew their neighbors, someone who knows the way someone had just, hey, we're, we're part of this community where humans what we do. Um, and they were a socialist democracy and I've been told my whole life that capitalist democracy is the only way to do it, socialism is this evil thing except the mormons believe in tithing and all of that stuff. So it's like, yeah, so, but as far as like feeling that I was coming into my own, um, when I was in my early thirties, um, I definitely had a stage, probably about 34, I think I've been divorced for about a year or two at that point And I was just reaching that point of having enough, being young enough to really enjoy still, you know, enjoy my life. I was cycling a lot, so it's in really good shape. Um, I had a good job, so, you know, I was making pretty good money and but also wise enough not to do a lot of the dumb things, plenty of other people I started doing. So it was, that was definitely a big point for me. Um but yeah, there are definitely times where I feel like I'm still a teenager because I feel like I'm just, you know, like, I'm just faking my way through all of this ship. And um, and I think that's why the podcast has resonated my podcast. So, a coffee break has resonated pretty well. Um we just hit half a million downloads last week and it still floors me that, you know, my voice has been downloaded over half a million times on this planet. Um it's still just a very surreal thing to think about. I remember when I hit 5000 downloads and I was just like, Oh my gosh, people listen to my podcast. Holy ship, this is amazing. Um, so I think is

[00:12:34] Stuart: After this show, it'll be 500003.

[00:12:38] Erick: There we go.

[00:12:39] Stuart: It's nice to be a little bit more than that, I think. Uh oh, okay, so you mentioned your podcasts and your podcast is called. Um it should have done that stoic coffee, right,

[00:12:53] Erick: that's where they can go to break

[00:12:54] Stuart: Stewart Coffee break, no, I should, I'll make another banner for that. That's

[00:12:59] Erick: all good. What, what

[00:13:00] Stuart: is stoic coffee and or stoic coffee break? What is that? Why? Why is it called that? Why isn't it just called chatty coffee break? Or I talk into a microphone? Coffee break. Why is it still like specifically?

[00:13:14] Erick: Um basically because and actually I'm gonna switch cameras here because that way I don't look like I'm just staring off into space um because I can put a camera right next to your face, which is where I'm looking and I think that looks a little bit better. They're young. So what, how it started out was it actually started out as a stoic. What was the, the stoic moment? Um I just created a podcast because I want to create a podcast. I've been journaling and a stoic journal that I bought. Um I think I bought it like a month before the new year's, this 2017 when I bought it and started the podcast in 2018 and I do a lot with music and stuff. And so for me, the idea of working in audio was was interesting and podcast sounded cool and all of that kind of stuff, but I was, that's when the insecurity and that anxiety struck, Like I would start a podcast, I would record one episode and go, oh this is terrible and I would never do anything with it. Um so then I found anchor this app where you can just record it on your phone and boom, you could create a podcast. I'm like, I can do that, then I don't, and I have all this amazing gear. I mean, I have probably about anywhere about $5,000 worth of audio gear and editing software and all of this stuff, because I love doing my music stuff and that's my that's my hobby. That's my thing where I load up on all the gear and don't use half of it, but you know how that goes, It's my toys. Um but I found it was overwhelming and I found that I just had this massive anxiety along with it. So, um, and I didn't know what to talk about because I wanted to talk about music, but then there I was like, oh, but then there's all the copyright issues and stressing out about it. So I was like, okay, let me just start a podcast. I will talk about stoicism, which I'm learning a lot about right now, and I think that might be something that I can just try out and see what happens

[00:15:03] Stuart: now stoicism if I'm not mistaken, you're not allowed to smile, isn't it? Like, isn't that what they practice on Vulcan? Isn't that the thing

[00:15:15] Erick: well, and that's the funny thing is that uh stoicism, you know the original definition, which just means somebody who follows stoic philosophy. Um but over time the term stoic has come to mean that somebody who, you know, seems very unemotional, and it's not that that a stoic is an emotional um in fact, they feel everybody feels what they feel. You can't help what you feel. It just it's you know, it's it's a it's just a way that our brain works. But the difference is is that a stoic really works hard to try and be responsive to something rather than being reactive to something. And when that's the case, they rather than it seems like they're not acting like everybody else that they're repressing those feelings because in a typical situation, somebody who is being reactive might be mad, might be aggressive, might try and, you know, hurt other people or whatever it is, react in a way that's much more reactive or aggressive or something like that, whereas a stoic will want to respond to something. And so there's that practice of that little bit of that time in between, like what's gonna be the better option and being able to kind of create a little bit of space in between. Here's where the stimulus comes in, here's where this thing happens, and here's how I want to respond and creating that space is really, really hard because we're hardwired to be very reactive and our society pushes that honest, you know, it's okay to just act out how you feel. Um so kind of a meandering explanation of

[00:16:58] Stuart: it. No, it's a good explanation. I and I think, I think that's the big thing is you give yourself the space to be able to process what it is that you want to react, how you want that to interaction to look as opposed to just letting the lizard brain take over with whatever lashing out that you're gonna be doing.

[00:17:20] Erick: Exactly. And that's the thing, is that acting that way? That's easy. I mean, that's that's a really easy thing to do, is just, you know, whatever you feel, just run with

[00:17:28] Stuart: that and we've all experienced it. We've driven

[00:17:31] Erick: Absolutely, yes, we've been in a car and just like somebody,

[00:17:34] Stuart: you know, how many Yeah. How many times have you wished death upon that person that just cut you off? Yeah, Yeah, reality. You should take a moment to

[00:17:42] Erick: remember. Uh one of my religious teachers really just a nice guy, very gentle, very, very sweet guy. But he talked about how one time he came into work and you know, he came in to teach and he was just like, as hard as I try, I still don't understand why when I'm driving, I'm not a very christ like person, somebody cuts me off and I'm like uh he's like, you know, and he came up and so we kind of made a joke about, he's like, my theory is is that we are spiritual eternal beings and were used to traveling at super high speed and so when somebody stops us from traveling in that super high speed, we get a little bit pissy about that. And I thought it was pretty funny. But um yeah, driving is definitely, it's one thing I've definitely had to work on as well because one thing I found for me and this is where stoicism really has come in handy and really has been something I've worked hard on is is that because I grew up in a society that was so repressive, so full of guilt, so full of shame, so full of you're not allowed to be, you, you have to follow this, this blueprint of what you're supposed to be and what your life is supposed to be like. You don't develop a very good sense of worth. You don't believe that you have value unless you are following this plan, which is one of the reasons why it was so hard for me to finally leave that. But in doing so and in in kind of adopting this philosophy and recognizing that those are all external influences and those are things that I don't have any control over and what I do have control over are my thoughts, my actions, my decisions, and the choices and things that I do and say and everything else. It's just stuff that's outside of my control and that was a place that I grew up in, where I didn't have a lot of control. And now I'm in a space in my life where I do have a significant amount of control and that's part of what I really try to impart into other people in my podcast. Is that the more you can understand the things you have control over, the more you can actually implement control over them and the happier your life is going to be one, because you will actually be more effective because you're working on things you can control and you're letting go of anything you can so you're not wasting your time on those things. And I think we spent a lot of time trying to control things that we can't, we try and control our past which when we're depressed about things that happened and we're upset about things that happen and we're ruminating on things that happened, we can't control that it happened. The only thing we could control on that is our interpretation of it. We can go, you know what my past was really city, but I learned a lot from it. Uh Yeah, you just reframe the whole thing that you have control over,

[00:20:42] Stuart: right? And I think that that is the thing that people need to take home with what stoicism is, is that you can do that reframing you can't take that moment. You don't have to I think media does a very good job of presenting um any sort of dramatic work is going to give us a good perception of what bad people, what what bad reactions people have, right? Because that's the entertainment and so that's what we get trained to do is we we've been trained through, like, like you mentioned with your dad, like that was my guess is he wasn't a stoic because he was probably reacting constantly and that's dramatic and that would be fun to watch. Not fun. Let me rephrase that. But that would be the thing that would be more entertaining to watch. What would be really boring is if what if the Avengers were stoic, right? Like it would be like, well let's take a moment and think this out, right? Do we really need to, you know, it's so not what we see as the model and that's the problem is I think we need to see more role models that are like that, but they're hard to find.

[00:21:55] Erick: And I would say Yeah, and I would say to me the two that I I definitely see kind of the different ends of stoicism, I mean obviously speak is considered it was model left the idea of stoic philosophy and stoicism and it was that, you know, using logic, pulling that in and analyzing it and then trying to make the best decision off of that and being in control of that. So I definitely, you know, that that's definitely the kind of the stereotype of it and but what I really liked was that within Star trek, they showed cracks in that and they had it. So there was a bit of play and flex on that. But then also if you look at the card Picard to me is actually much more what a stoic would really be like is because he definitely feels passionate about things and there are times where you can just see that I've got the ship and I want to blow you up because, but then,

[00:22:49] Stuart: and that's what he uses his Picard dad voice.

[00:22:52] Erick: Yes. You know it don't you do that? Yes, yes. When he steps up and he gets in his Picard, the commander. Um and he, so to me, I look at it is those are kind of the two different faces of stenosis and the one that, that is that, you know, pure logic and everything like that. But then speak had his moments where he was very emotional and, and I really liked the fact that as he got older, he understood that yes, it needs a little bit more play with that, not quite so tight and you know, again, they were also kind of stereotypes in a way and a lot of characters in that way, but I like the fact that over generations, they decided that hey, we should give spot a little more depth than that was fun.

[00:23:33] Stuart: Yeah, I actually like what they did. Yeah, I think, well, me too, so we could go down a rabbit hole, no power or a warp hole or wormhole or whatever it is. Um I actually like what they did with Zachary Quinto did with speech was because he is half human. You get to see that irrational half human part sneak out a couple of times. It's pretty good. Um Yeah, so how does one practice stoicism on a daily basis? And is it something that can become natural or is it something you still have to practice on it? And how long have you been? I'm gonna just keep throwing questions at me until I run out of air. How long have you considered yourself a stoic? And at what point does it stop becoming practice? And it starts becoming just a way of life.

[00:24:21] Erick: I don't know if it ever becomes just a way of life. I think it's always a practice. It's kind of like, it's kinda like when you do yoga, yoga is never considered a performance or yoga is never considered a thing, It is always yoga practice, that's what it's called. It's just a yoga practice and it's not just referring to when you go to a session and do it, your your whole way of doing yoga is a practice and that's just how they treat it that way. Um So I guess for me I just never really see it as something that becomes, becomes easy and and it's also because just like with everything you you improve on something and then you look ahead and go, oh man, yeah, I thought I came so far and I've still got so much Okay, well now that I have shored up this one thing, I've got, these you know other 1000 things that I definitely want to improve on and I think that, and I think that's, that's part of the, the appeal for me as well. Um and I'm gonna get a little bit of a weird esoteric thing here. But one of the things that the mormon Church believes is that when you die, you, you know, if you've been good and you do all the things you're supposed to, you go to the highest level of the kingdom of God and you are perfect. And honestly I found that absolutely terrifying. We're like, well why would you find that terrifying? I mean you're perfect, you get to go up to heaven and I'm like, heaven sounds boring. And oh my God, if I knew everything and there was nothing left to learn, there was nothing left to grow. That would be hell. That would be absolute hell for me because I would be so bored out of my mind because there would be nothing to do. There would be nothing that couldn't do. And I found it terrifying. And I think 14 15 when I, when I was like half, I remember specifically I was trying to fall asleep and I had that idea come in and then I couldn't fall asleep for like another four or five hours because This terrifying idea came and I said I was like 14:15 when that idea hit me and I was just like crap. But there's something wrong with me because I don't want that because it's it's

[00:26:36] Stuart: scary. Yeah, I mean, I think I heard someone say, I cannot think of the source, but it was like perfection is basically crumb lys lee eating nibbling on crackers and sipping tea. That would be perfection because you're not doing anything that could possibly go wrong. And it's like, yeah, that sounds really boring and but you couldn't make a mistake. And so like I yeah, that that concept of yeah, what's up, what else is really interesting about the mormon religion is they don't believe in hell, right? They believe in the lower they do.

[00:27:15] Erick: So they have, well they have the, they have the three levels of glory as they call it. Um and then they have Outer darkness is considered, they're considered healthy for them. Um and

[00:27:30] Stuart: which I know a lot of introverts where that sounds great. They're like, I'm in a dark room myself, I love is quiet. Yeah.

[00:27:42] Erick: And it's but um and the funny thing was is that a couple of, I think it was about a year or two ago. Um my girlfriend stumbled on a podcast that she just chose randomly because she liked the title. It was called the last podcast on the left and they did a whole like five or six part series on mormonism and I learned so much from that, there are things that I never knew about from joseph smith and Brigham Young, and I'm like, oh my God, these people were horrible, they were terrible people, and I'm like, joseph smith was a con man and just a child rapist, basically, I mean, to do sort, if you will, I mean just all kinds of ship that he did, and Brigham young was oh, he was even worse, I mean he makes Dick Cheney look like a saint, I mean, he was just terrible and I'm like learning all this stuff, I'm like, oh my God, how can people, you know, sanctify these people and treat them because

[00:28:35] Stuart: you just don't know about it, that's that's exactly how it happens, you don't know about it. So it's like, oh that that information doesn't exist until it exists, and then you're like, oh, now I got to reconcile it. Yeah,

[00:28:47] Erick: once I reached that point, I'm like, okay, I I can never go back, I can never join an organization. That is that is simply that built upon such a lie and refuses to face the truth. Yeah, so

[00:28:59] Stuart: yeah, so let's ask some practical questions about stoicism, I'm gonna throw out a hypothetical question to you, so let's say you've got, you're on some sort of social media, we'll just use twitter as an example and perhaps you start getting in a little bit of a twitter argument with someone of some fame, how does that, how does that go down for someone like you?

[00:29:31] Erick: Oh wow, Well,

[00:29:33] Stuart: totally hypothetical, this

[00:29:35] Erick: is totally not particularly, never happened, nobody famous, but I never talked to me, so yeah, now it would just, it wouldn't be anything, I'd just be like okay, yeah, cool, whatever, you know, hope you have a nice life, whatever um and be able to let it go, but at the time when this actually did happen to me um I was crushed it with that insecurity, that was that was that that I was talking about earlier, it was it was pretty brutal, so I was, What was that? It was probably about 2009 I think 2010. Um I like I said before, I was really big into cycling and I'm trying to get back into that some more and I just got back from a 50 mile ride and it was probably seven in the evening, so I'm a little bit tired, You know because 50 miles, it's a long way to go.

[00:30:31] Stuart: Yeah, I've never, I have never cycled 50 miles in my entire life,

[00:30:36] Erick: that was pretty, I mean at the time it was pretty normal for me, that was I would take a long, long way home from work and just be my ride. So um and weird al had posted a video on twitter where he was he was driving along and he got out of his car and he walked over to the sign and said, Children drive slow and he had some cardboard and he had an L. Y. And he it took some duct tape and tacked it onto it. And so I said, Children drive slowly. And so he turns around, he looks at the camera goes, come on people grammar and it gets back in his car and drives away and I thought it was hilarious. I was like okay, you know that that's great. And so I retweeted it and I wrote in you know, grammar nazis unite being silly like that and I misspelled grammar

[00:31:27] Stuart: on purpose or on accident

[00:31:29] Erick: on accident except I'm just like I and I sent that off and a few minutes later he responds in all caps with dashes between each letter

[00:31:43] Stuart: grammar

[00:31:44] Erick: spells it out correctly. So I misspelled it rather than a ri put er which is a very common mistake. Um and within how to know an hour, I think it was trending on twitter that night. I mean it was that big and so people were like commenting on it and retweeting it and all the stuff and at the time, like I said, I was still pretty insecure. I was absolutely embarrassed and I just, yeah, I remember getting all kinds of worked up on it and you know, and I commented back and just saying, well, I took it back from a bike ride and I'm making all these excuses and everything and I was just like, and I even like, you know, suspended my profile for a little bit and somebody, they were commenting on that Loki, he's scared, he's running away. And I was just like, and I mentioned it to a woman I was dating at the time, um I think a day or two later, and she's like, well, why did that bother you? And I'm like, well, you know, I was embarrassing and she's like, why you're never gonna meet weird al or chances are you probably never will. I mean, although you could use that if you had used it to your advantage and maybe met him and you could say, ah you mocked me, you owe me lunch or something like that, you know? Um but you know, in talking through it, you know, I recognize that that somebody questioning my intelligence, questioning my my abilities was incredibly damaging because that low self esteem and I was insecurities and it's something I still struggle with today when somebody treats me as if I'm stupid or you know, that I don't understand something that's that's one of those things where I have to be very conscientious that I can get really worked up because to me it feels like somebody trying to kind of put me down or something like that. And so, and I know that's that's a weakness in my my armor and it's something that I'm pretty aware of and it causes arguments with with friends and people close to me because of that insecurity and it's something I've had to really work on and it's much better than it was for sure. But it's still, yeah, that's one of

[00:33:41] Stuart: my you've had over a decade now to kind of process this. What would you reply back to Weird Al now,

[00:33:49] Erick: I would probably, I, you know, I hadn't even thought about what a good response would be. I mean, I probably at this point I'd probably make some kind of joke about it, you know, or I would respond with hysterical laughter or something like that, you know, just saying, you know, being able to laugh at myself about that because, you know, we all do those things, but because but because this is where it comes back to the mentality, you're so worried about winning, that any kind of mistake is absolute failure and in that case that was a mistake. And so because Weird Al didn't give me accolades or kudos or whatever, you know, I failed, and so therefore I was a failure. And so I took this big personal thing and that took me a while to kind of work through and it, you know, some people are just like really that bothered you. But

[00:34:40] Stuart: yeah, but I mean you think about that, that's public, like people are seeing it. Uh and of course it's the pile on. Like we're not kind on social media, people are going to pile on. I mean as silly as Kofi fee was and it was funny, but like it, someone made a joke on late night recently about it and it's like, wow, like letting looks like we can have our moment and then let's move it on. Let's

[00:35:08] Erick: keep pushing forward. That's, and that's a, that's a tough spot because as I've been watching, um, comedians in cars, getting coffee, I'll catch up on episodes of that and every now and then, um, and watching the comedic process and how comedians kind of decide what to work on and so on and why we need comedians. I'm kind of, for me, I'm a little bit ambivalent on that. I think that we need to, I think comedians are like, I mean they really are the court gestures. They're the ones who point out the truth, the truthiness of society. And so I'm not going to worry too much about something like that, especially from, from somebody who is such a bully as our former president was. Um, I have absolutely no love for him. I know what those points where those points where I'm not very stoic where you know a thing about him, but

[00:36:03] Stuart: Oh, absolutely, 100%. I just thought it was really interesting that the joke about this tweet that was 10 years ago. It's like, Okay, well let's find something else because there's lots of other material, like we could probably move on from that.

[00:36:18] Erick: Yeah, I always thought it was funny. I did think it was funny. I always said uh it was a wink oh, one day and I saw these, these things and they were called tough eh. So I turned around and said I can have some tough of a with mike off of a

[00:36:31] Stuart: there we are, that's pretty great. Actually, just real quick. I do online dating and I was on Tinder and I saw somebody that I dated once before and I always swipe right whenever I see somebody I know maybe a policy I shouldn't be doing because this person was one of the few people that just straight up hated me. Like I didn't realize how much this person hated me but like hurting me a lot And gave me a good two pages of really vile thing, I won't even tell you what was written in there. Okay, so of course I'm looking at it and I've read it and I've read it twice and I've read it three times and I'm like, I've typed out a response, I've erased it, I've typed out another response, I've erased it, I'm going to type out a third and I think every one of them is like, this one's better, this one's better, this one's better. And finally I was like the kind because one of the things she said was, if I ever see you driving walking down the road, I will swerve to hit you and I was like, oh well that's not good because if I get hit by a car you're in a lot of trouble because people are going to know. So I figured out what the kind thing to do was unmatched and I felt really good about that. I thought that that was like that was the stoic move. That was the process that I didn't need to add any insult to injury. I didn't need to do anything like that. Um but what's great about that is I have told that story many times now. I got something out of it, I learned.

[00:38:08] Erick: Yeah, yeah. And that is, that is definitely a hard thing. Um back when I was, I was dating a for my current partner, there were, there were times when, yeah, I got some kind of like not so stellar emails from people who were piste off about something I had done or said on a date, you know, not anything where I was being, being purposely malevolent or anything like that, but just as humans were clueless about, we don't, we don't know what we don't know and oftentimes we, our view of the world doesn't really mesh with somebody else's view of the world and what they think of us and what we think of us can be two totally different things and which is again a stoic thing which is understanding that, that there's no real facts, Everything is opinion and that's something that Marcus really is set and a lot of people are like, oh, so that means everything is relative. It's like, well no, I mean there are truly physical facts for sure, but your perception of those things is always just your opinion about what you think it is. So yes, there could be a rock falling from the sky and that's a fact. But your perception of it and what it is can shift and shift and shift when you first see it coming, you just think it might be a feather as it gets a little bit closer, like wow, that's a little bit larger than a feather. Maybe it's a goose that's you know, got hit by an airplane or something. Oh maybe it's a piece of you, you could go on and on and on and until you actually see what it is, it's just your perspective on it. Until you have something that's much, much closer to verifiable. And even at that point you may look at it and think it's Iraq, but it might be something that's really not, but it just looks like that to you for example.

[00:39:53] Stuart: So yeah, yeah, so watch out for falling rocks. Like if you see something falling towards you don't consider it's a feather, it might be rock. Um well eric, it has been about a half hour, there's been a delightful conversation, but now it is time to record a sketch. One thing that I can say is absolutely a fact and not an opinion, podcasting is hard and costly. So if you would like to participate in this podcast, please head over to Patreon dot com slash sketch com pod and maybe throw a couple shekels towards the show. $1 a month is all I ask. I got that idea from eric eric. What are other ways that people can get in touch with you or learn more about stoicism? So

[00:40:45] Erick: I'm guess I'm feel incredibly awkward about it just

[00:40:49] Stuart: because No, no, no, no. I know it's a super awkward situation. You did fantastic because that's I think that's perfect. I think that all of that's going to cut together so incredibly well. I appreciate it. Um Yeah, you'd be surprised. It's the third person in these is the editing and it's kind of insane how sometimes it just cuts together. So that was that one I think is going to be really funny eric, can you tell everybody where they can find you and find out more about stoicism and maybe a book that you would suggest or something along those lines.

[00:41:25] Erick: Sure.

[00:41:27] Stuart: Or a storefront that they can go to to get cool ship.

[00:41:31] Erick: Yes. Actually, I just, excuse me and go to my website which is still a coffee. You can find more episodes of my podcast there. I just opened up a shop about two weeks ago with some kind of cool swag from stuff I've designed or stoic dot coffee slash shop is is the new shop, there's some really fun t shirts and other designs on there. The book that kind of got me into the whole process was one called The Art of stoic Joy by William Irvine.

[00:41:59] Stuart: Thanks for the book suggestion. There's a link for that in the show notes and one other thing I would suggest is definitely head over to stoic dot coffee and sign up for eric's Patreon page. It's fantastic. You're supporting a show and you're going to get something back. And that is a great newsletter that you get for every episode and now our sketch Avengers stoic action plan with eric Cloward in three two Avengers assemble Avengers. We need to get into there and stop dr Doom from taking over this nuclear power plant. Hawkeye. What do you got? Do we just get in there? Do we take action? I

[00:42:43] Erick: have these arrows that you know, were graded like being anti nuclear, but then it really made me think about it like what is, what is Doctor Doom really after? I mean, what if he needs this nuclear power to you know, to help other worlds? We need to understand his motivation behind these things and is it just our perception that he's evil? I mean what if he's really not evil? What if what if it's just our perception that he's evil? Are we trying to control things? We can't because that's that's really the kind of talking to

[00:43:11] Stuart: you got to watch out for the mutants behind you, thor what can you tell us about stopping Doctor Doom?

[00:43:18] Erick: I would just run in there and you know, and just start beating things up. But after after reading Marcus Aurelius, he was the emperor and this guy was the most powerful man of his day. It really made me stop and think, why are these people evil? What makes them evil is just our perception that they're evil? No, no, maybe it's

[00:43:36] Stuart: not, thor can't you just take more linear and smash some stuff,

[00:43:40] Erick: but that would just be reactive. I mean, what's the best response in this case? I mean, you know, just going in and smashing things. I mean, it seems a little wasteful, don't you? It seems very un thoughtful. I'm kind of rethinking this whole, you know, God of Thunder thing. I mean, I think I'd rather be like, you know, God of the rain or something, a little something, a little more zen, I think would be, you know, a little bit, a little bit more my speed as I get older,

[00:44:04] Stuart: how I'm really counting on you? We need some action hulk, What are you going to do right now and then smash when's the smashing happening, Black Widow? Please tell me you've got something to add to this?

[00:44:23] Erick: Well, I mean, everything falls on me to, you know, to take care of this because, you know, the boys kind of get stuck in their thinking and

[00:44:29] Stuart: okay,

[00:44:32] Erick: I've chosen my response. So now I can go out there and I can take care

[00:44:35] Stuart: of Doctor Doom because it's a good response

[00:44:37] Erick: and it's

[00:44:38] Stuart: but it's something that I've

[00:44:39] Erick: waited and I've thought about and you've considered all the pros and cons to go along with it. I think that we can come to a consensus about this and you know, but as long as we're keeping our cruel about this thing and not overreacting in every situation. Mhm.

[00:45:06] Stuart: We have got to stop with this Avengers, stoic book club. Thank you so much for listening to sketch comedy podcast show. We hope that you enjoyed listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it. Please head over to sketch comedy podcast show dot com to check out more episodes and other nifty things and even apply to be on the show. If you think you're interesting sketch comedy podcast show is protected under creative commons attribution, non derivative 4.0 international license. What does that mean? Hey, just contact us if you want to reproduce anything here so I can get you the right audio file for it until next time. Get out there, be safe and improvise a comedy adventure of your own

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Dr. Sean Horan | Primary Care Physician with MAGIC SPARKLE-FINGERS

Fri, 17 Sep 2021 07:00:00 GMT

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

When you think of a doctor, perhaps you imagine a white lab coat, glasses, a stethoscope around their neck and an insatiable sexual appetite. Maybe that has to do with the fact that most of my impressions of doctors come from “Grey’s Anatomy” and this episode’s guest.

Dr. Sean Horan is a self-proclaimed sex geek and is a naturopathic primary care physician in Portland, OR. When he isn’t being a talented doctor, he is designing sex toys and lubricants and running classes on how to keep whips medically clean so the world can be a safer place.

We have a great discussion on his journey from a nice, Italian boy headed to seminary to a raucous life as a swinging, sexy doctor! We also talk lube. Lots and lots of lube.

This episode’s sketch: “Father, I Think I Have Sinned”

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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Dr. Sean Horan is a naturopathic primary care physician in Portland, OR who is actively seeing patients and helping them with their day to day healthcare needs by the day, and by night he is a sex-positive advocate, educator, and practitioner.

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TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Stuart: in this episode, Dr Sean Haran and I came up with a few sketch ideas. I love the doctor sparkle, fingers

[00:00:09] Dr. Sean: crosses

[00:00:10] Stuart: the sex positive priest

[00:00:13] Dr. Sean: in confession.

[00:00:15] Stuart: The East Coast italian guy trying to teach a consent

[00:00:19] Dr. Sean: class.

[00:00:22] Stuart: Which one did we pick? You'll find out on this episode of it's a sketch comedy podcast show. Welcome to sketch comedy podcast show, the one of a kind show where I Stewart rice invite interesting people to have intriguing conversations and then improvise a comedy sketch based on what we talked about. It's the only show like it on the internet when you think of a doctor, perhaps you imagine a white lab coat glasses, a stethoscope around their neck and an insatiable sexual appetite. Well, maybe that has to do with the fact that most of my impressions of doctors come from Grey's anatomy and this episode's guest, Dr Sean Horan is a self proclaimed sex geek and is a naturopathic primary care physician in Portland Oregon. When he isn't being a talented doctor, he is designing sex toys and lubricants and running classes on how to keep whips medically clean so the world can be a safer place. We have a great discussion on his journey from a nice italian boy headed to seminary to a raucous life as a swinging sexy doctor. We also talk lube. Lots and lots of lube and now my conversation with dr Sean Horan? Primary care physician with magic sparkle fingers. Dr Sean dr heron Heron Heron. How do I say Horan? I had none of that. Right. Mhm I got a question for you.

[00:02:01] Dr. Sean: Okay,

[00:02:02] Stuart: what makes you interesting?

[00:02:05] Dr. Sean: You would think I'd have a canned answer for this

[00:02:07] Stuart: question. Yeah, I would think you would have it. You've got a couple of things that I know

[00:02:11] Dr. Sean: your I I honestly think I'm predictably unpredictable, which is probably makes me very interesting. I have very specific, clear direct boundaries, but I'm also queer and strange in all the ways that don't seem to conform. So it's kind of a weirdness, even operating parameters.

[00:02:31] Stuart: Sure. Do you have any examples of that?

[00:02:34] Dr. Sean: Um Well I'm a doctor but I'm queer and I have Rainbow classes and I have a strange presentation for personality that goes along with that. Um I I am a doctor but I'm in sex positive communities and I'm open on the internet about my different things in that realm, which is not usually a common thing, a lot of people live in fear around that instead of just living their truth in that regard. And um it definitely leads to some professional, I have to be considered, for example when I go in certain environments that there might be patients there and whatnot, but it always keeps life very interesting. Nonetheless. That could I can

[00:03:18] Stuart: imagine. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if I've ever gone in to see a doctor and you're like a primary care physician. Right?

[00:03:25] Dr. Sean: Yeah, I'm a naturopathic physician and I serve as a primary care provider at a women's health clinic on hawthorne in Portland.

[00:03:32] Stuart: Okay. Um Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen a doctor or had a doctor or been to a visit and they came in with rainbow glasses. That's true, That is a true statement. I've never experienced that, although I don't think, but that might just be me, uh that wouldn't shock me too much, especially living where I live and it wouldn't be too bad, but have you had a bad experience with that?

[00:03:54] Dr. Sean: Um I've had some older people um that I've had some older people that think it's fantastic and then I've had other other people that I wish my nails were painted and it's like you're going to get a prostate exam from sparkle fingers because you're so closed minded type of thing. But um it's actually, I think more um the reason I like to, I mean I don't have rainbow hair and at least keeping my hair the way it is, but I'm wearing a mask and I started my job the day that shelter in place went into effect last year and most of my patients have not seen my face if they've seen me in person. Um Well none of the people that have seen me in person have seen my face, they only get to see me if we do telehealth, so I uh kind of have to have my glasses and uh speak for me and just uh a moat for me at the same time because it's like, hey you're here for a pap smear we've never met before and you can't see me a moat. So.

[00:04:52] Stuart: Right. Yeah. Yeah I think I would imagine uh it would actually be pretty comforting especially if you like doing well like your primary care provider. Um But you you don't just stop there right like you you go a little bit beyond that if I'm not mistaken,

[00:05:12] Dr. Sean: about half my practice is um is mental health med management, which was not necessarily expected when I first started out, but it's something that I really enjoy doing. It's something that um we're really good about mental health coverage in Oregon with the Oregon health plan and other insurance providers, but trying to get in to see a psychiatrist or a psychiatric nurse practitioner um or a counselor for that matter is a really really long waiting list often times. Um And a lot of mental health has been pushed into primary care anyways because depression, anxiety. Um PTSD other concerns are so kind of diffuse in the population that everybody that's in primary care is facing that every single day. Um But what I'm really passionate about outside of just never knowing what the heck is going to walk in my door is teaching classes on sexual health and wellness topics, consent. My B. D. S. M. Fluids and safety class is probably my favorite one to teach because I get the most left field questions that I've ever heard in my entire life. And yet there's always an answer to it in terms of risk reduction or how to manage the particular instances. So it's uh, some

[00:06:26] Stuart: of those questions. Yeah, yeah. Let's hear some of those questions like this is the thing. Like I think people don't realize that there are answers to those questions and they just don't ask them. So yeah, what's an example of, of some of that? How do you get blood out of a whip? Things like that, like I don't know.

[00:06:46] Dr. Sean: Um, the question that comes up most often related to whips is more usually people want to know how long hepatitis C lasts on surfaces and whips because they're leather and leather is the hardest product to clean. People always want to know how to clean leather and it's like leaving it on the sunlight essentially for weeks to actually ensure there's nothing alive on it. But realistically using it on one person is the best thing for, for leather. But um, I had honestly, at least in terms of the question that I thought was most interesting of all because I had to take a deep breath and answering it. So I didn't step in shit and run of 50 women was a guy asked me like one out of every four women I go down on like they smell and like how am I supposed to tell them that and just was like, how do you answer this question without looking like an asshole in the process and I responded that normal was no order at all through beef jerky and this lesbian woman in the back was hooting and hollering at the beef jerky because she knew exactly what I meant about menstrual sense and everything related to that. But um, I just went into how person needed to be um if it's somebody who dated for a long time and you know what they smell like and their owners changed. Like definitely tell them you should have a report that created already. Like, hey, I noticed that something is a little different. Maybe you see your doctor, if it's somebody you just met, you should have zero comments on that whatsoever because you may just not like the way that they smell and you should probably get smacked in the face for saying something. Um but all different kinds of, I don't know how vulgar your show gets, but there's all different kinds of things that I've been asked.

[00:08:32] Stuart: Yeah, go for it. Like wheels off, go for it. Like

[00:08:37] Dr. Sean: p play comes up a lot. One of my favorite jokes is the fact that it happens to be something I'm, I am interested in. But um, I always happen to forget and eat asparagus before. It's like the right moment to do that and of course it's the wrong time to do it. So we go through a list of like foods you should probably not eat and like just hydration and electrolytes and things like that.

[00:09:02] Stuart: People

[00:09:03] Dr. Sean: can get

[00:09:04] Stuart: around pretty

[00:09:05] Dr. Sean: much people like that. I I would prefer just water with electrolytes. Gatorade's a lot of sugar and not enough electrolytes, but um good after a run perhaps. But um yeah, people are into some really weird shit. I figured out as uh I've been teaching my class is more and more and I thought I was, and then I'm like, oh, I never even thought you could do this with that and like, but that's how you'd have to be safe about it.

[00:09:31] Stuart: So it's like,

[00:09:33] Dr. Sean: you're, oh, sorry,

[00:09:34] Stuart: go ahead, go ahead. No, no,

[00:09:35] Dr. Sean: go ahead. I'm going to say it's like a weird application of knowledge because like, none of us in, in any sort of medical training program really get enough education on a number of topics and human sexuality honestly is one of them. And it's something that literally almost all of us engaged in some way or another. Um You think that it would be a little uh I put my patients on the spot every day with very direct questions about behaviors so that I can like, no medically what to do for them, but nobody teaches you how to have those conversations and most people have shame around answering it. So it's uh it's an interesting thing to navigate, but having having,

[00:10:16] Stuart: but do you think having, like the rainbow and and being a little bit more less doctoring in there in your presentation allows people to to kind of open up about that stuff.

[00:10:29] Dr. Sean: I mean I would I would hope so. I I'm usually like if I'm asking a question like which sites of contact a person has, I'm also specifying like this is so I know where to swab because most doctors are not going to do the appropriate testing unless I know who put what where. Um And I think that qualifying it with why the questions being asked, especially if it seems like out of left field and I'm just going through persons like annual exam and they're 35 they've never been S T. I tested before and the doctor has never asked in this before. It seems like why would he be asking me about this information? And it turns out it's kind of critical for health screening

[00:11:11] Stuart: understood. Um And why why is it that we don't why obviously I have my own opinions about this, but why do you think that that is such a difficult conversation to have with our doctors? Like that is exactly the type of thing we should be going to doctors with is when things go awry. But I feel like that's that people usually had to read it for, you know, they'll look it up on google but instead of talking to their doctor, go

[00:11:40] Dr. Sean: ahead, go was going to say, I think a lot of times for people. Um I've been shamed at planned parenthood for my sexual Proclivities like, and that's supposed to be one of the most sex positive places to go for healthcare information. Um I donate to planned parenthood, planned parenthood. This wonderful work. That's not to discount any of the good that they do have. Just personally had an emotionally negative experience there one time as a patient and I feel like a lot of us have had those experiences with providers where it's we wanted to talk about sex or drugs or another huge taboo for doctors is talking about suicidal thoughts. Um nobody wants to talk about that and that's exactly who you should be going to talk to her about that concern. Um but I think a lot of people don't feel necessarily safe in having those conversations, but their provider of any kind. But my primary care doctor definitely at least from the vibe that I've gotten has no idea about about anything in that realm of life, at least to the degree that I do. So it might for a lot of people be a one of my partners physicians is a very christian woman from texas. So like everybody's got a different perspective in terms of how they provide their health care and

[00:12:59] Stuart: you just wait, you're just waiting for marriage now, right, honey, you just wait for marriage

[00:13:04] Dr. Sean: pretty much or don't have sex for six months and see if the problem goes away when that's not a legitimate solution for anybody, But true story of suggestions that person made at one point. But yeah, I think just feeling safe and having those conversations um and having somebody that's creating that space that is safe to have those conversations and is important. And um I wish it was something we were teaching and I wish I had learned this before my health care training and like learned this in like high school how to have these kind of human interactions with people. But um I definitely think we should be teaching better for anybody that's going into the health care field specifically.

[00:13:46] Stuart: Yeah, I have, I do have a story real quick. I went I was getting an SD I check and I was a new doctor that I was seeing new PCP I was seeing. And uh I had to fill out a survey ahead of time and it asked me how many um partners have you had in the last three years? And I was like, oh, um I put down a conservative number because I was like I you know, that seems like a reasonable number. Uh when I went in to go talk with her, she was like, okay, oh my, so you've had you've been busy and I was like, yeah, I guess. And she goes, oh okay, well she was telling me about this drug that helps block HIV and I was like that's amazing. I didn't even know that was a thing. And she goes, yeah. And I was like that's got to be really expensive. And she was like, well it depends. Um sometimes it gets covered by insurance. And I was like really? That's kind of amazing. And she goes, yeah, I just have a couple questions to ask you. It's like sure. She goes, so when you have sex, do you prefer it anally or order orally vaginally?

[00:14:59] Dr. Sean: She just

[00:15:02] Stuart: assumed she just assumed that I was gay because right. So yeah, I feel like those, these are good examples of, hey, let's have some training on this, let's let's have these conversations. And it would be really cool if if we could have uh people feel very safe going to their doctors. But I guess that's the same way with anything right lawyers or anything like that they're outside of of where they're at can affect it.

[00:15:31] Dr. Sean: The question that you got asked is actually a question that I hate when people ask, I've answered providers straight up just to see their reaction when they asked me how many partners I've had in the past 12 months because it's like can you handle this piece of information? But also it's not relevant. It's not medically relevant. I need to know if you've had one partner or more than one partner and who put what where um specifically like don't even care about their gender identities in terms of asking about the data that I'm asking for. It literally just behavior based testing. And by doing that, it removes any of the like higher level judgement stuff. It's like, oh you receive here and you give their therefore like we're gonna do swap testing here and then syphilis and HIV and call it a day. The only thing that helps me know if you've had X amount of partners in the last year is that you have the diagnosis code of high risk, bisexual, homosexual or heterosexual behaviors, which I'm going to use the same diagnosis code whether or not you've had sex with two people or 50 people. I am glad that at least the conversation about came up because a third. Um it's either a third or two thirds. I think a third of primary care providers don't know that prep the medication to prevent HIV transmission even exists and don't prescribe it to their patients. Um And we have this thing that like for a group of our patients, this is a very indicated supportive option for the prevention of a um an illness that are viral infection that we even a few decades ago was killing people all over the world. So, um so another reason people don't go to their doctors. They don't know about the things uh like this,

[00:17:20] Stuart: right? Yeah, it was mind blowing to me. I was I was actually excited to hear that that existed. I had no idea. So it's it's that information doesn't get to, you know, normal people like myself.

[00:17:32] Dr. Sean: Um $1600 a month.

[00:17:36] Stuart: That's not cheap.

[00:17:37] Dr. Sean: That's for the generic too. I think the new version of the generic. Yeah.

[00:17:43] Stuart: All right. So if you uh if you're in that high risk area and all of those types of things just be aware, stop smoking. Use that money towards the medication.

[00:17:54] Dr. Sean: It's covered by insurance thankfully. And there are programs nationwide for lower income individuals to access it. So it's moderately accessible even though it's prohibitively expensive.

[00:18:07] Stuart: Um What is the what is the big concern people have that shouldn't be a concern. Is there anything that's like people get really freaked out about? And it's not necessarily something that they should be freaked out about.

[00:18:20] Dr. Sean: I'm trying to think if there's one thing that's most common in that regard. I think honestly it's like something's been there less than 48 hours and they think that it's like severe cancer or they're dying and it's like I wouldn't even go to my doctor unless something was there for seven days or more and it's not getting better at that point. Um For at least something mine early acute but I also have more health care knowledge and first acknowledged, but I don't know that there's a specific one that people are. I mean Covid has been the biggest concern for a lot of people and there's a ton of misinformation around that that I've had to like navigate or changing information that I had to navigate with people over the course of a year. But um yeah, I don't think there's like one overarching concern that my entire patient group or even a proportion of them have specifically.

[00:19:12] Stuart: Okay, all right. Before you became a doctor, was there anything else that you were uh you were interested in doing

[00:19:19] Dr. Sean: so? Before I went to a N. U. N. M. In Portland for a naturopathic medical school, I was at Albany Medical College in new york where I studied biomedical ethics and my focus was on reproductive health law and health policy around that. Um and specifically did research about personhood amendments, but as a stepping stone further back, um I have a bachelor's degree in philosophy and religious studies because I was considering being a catholic priest for quite a long time, which is a very different, very different realm of life that I'm in currently, but uh medical ethics is kind of the perfect Bridgepoint between philosophy and religious studies and then healthcare practice and clinical practice um more recently. But yeah, I grew up in Hartford Connecticut and an irish and italian catholic family and you either become a politician or a priest or a police officer. And the other three of the other ones don't really apply to me or appeal to me and I was an altar server and just very involved in church as a young kid, I was also the kid in church that was like if God didn't create the sons for the third day, how did he count the first two days, because already already had already, like, certain things didn't make sense, but

[00:20:38] Stuart: yeah,

[00:20:39] Dr. Sean: I went to a catholic college and I honestly wasn't so much a believer at that point, I haven't really been a believer in God since my teenage years, but the concept of community service and service to the people around me um which more was still appealing at that point, I was like, well I can study philosophy and different world religions in the process and then just realize definitely not the right course for me, also, girls in college were too much of a temptation to ever have ever have given a vow of celibacy was not going to happen,

[00:21:17] Stuart: was that was that was that one of the big turning points was it was like, I'm never going to experience that, like, is that, was that a thing?

[00:21:26] Dr. Sean: Well, I was already experiencing it, which was problematic for different reasons because because, you know, it's a horrible sin and the narcissist in the sky gives a shit if you touch them, they also genitals, right? Um so, um no, but I found myself at one point like crafting because there are ways that catholic priests can be married, but they're like, loopholes and canon law, and I, like, found myself trying to figure out how can I do both. Um but yeah, definitely not catholic anymore, and definitely culturally catholic, just because of socialization, but uh, not a believer anymore. The catholic nuns and priests taught me so well that I got out of the uh, the mind control system, so to speak, definitely not, so to speak, definitely the mind control system.

[00:22:17] Stuart: Well, I think we all benefit from that. So I want to go back and thank all of those priests and nuns for do just that. Um, any side projects you're working on,

[00:22:28] Dr. Sean: I am working on some content for classes and trying to get those out on zoom because in person still not happening and uh, It's not the same doing things on the Internet, but I would like to at least have some of my classes and some of the questions that I get asked most commonly like primary care questions, I want to do a class just where people can click on it and be like, Oh, there's the answer to my really common questions already answered. Um, so I don't get 50 Facebook messages a day about very basic things that somebody could have typed into Google. But I'm also working on a personal lubricant called dr Sean snake oil because I'm a natural path and people would accuse naturopathic physicians of selling snake oil, I provide primary care. So I wouldn't necessarily go down that route, but I figure if it's going to be a criticism levied at me and I can make a sexual joke out of it and serve my community at the same time, I'm just going to go with it. Um And it's specifically um many of the silicone lives that are coming out now or that have come out in the last few years are three or four ingredients of silicone and then vitamin E. Um and the vitamin E makes it look fancy in terms of like its antioxidant effects but it's made from soy and a lot of people are actually sensitive to soy and it can cause irritation. So I'm working on just a multi silicone hypoallergenic one because um I would want a loop that I can use with my partners and not have to worry about BV or yeast infections and Also be able to like buy it and not spend $30 for a tiny glass bottle that I have now dropped four times on the floor of sanctuary and smashed um smashed you Borloo models on the

[00:24:17] Stuart: concrete. Things like things are going all over the place, you put it on the counter or wherever bad spot you put it and it gets knocked over

[00:24:25] Dr. Sean: glass and silicone do not go together. It's like waiting to be dropped.

[00:24:31] Stuart: Yeah like a water

[00:24:32] Dr. Sean: weenie.

[00:24:33] Stuart: So in your packaging, what you should do is you should have it ribbed so that people can have a

[00:24:40] Dr. Sean: nice crib. I've actually that's that's brilliant. I haven't thought about the ribbing. Um The bottle of contour is actually something that I have been working for like samples with different companies because they have uh the one I kind of like right now is that um it's almost like a tux, I think it's called the tuxedo bottle where it's kind of like two curves and then flat at the top and flat at the bottom. You have like a grip around or um and there's so many different bottle shapes that I learning about plastics in this process has been hilariously entertaining because there's just, it's it's own entire world of things that I did not know existed, but better than putting things in a glass bottle for sure.

[00:25:23] Stuart: Well yeah, but the glass bottles so fancy, like, I think that's what what happens is that just like, oh this is high end. So we got to put it in this plant in this glass bottle. But the practical is, you know, don't put a cork put like one of those things like the dishwasher soap, right? Like you could just squeeze it out or a pump like that. That makes more sense to me than anything else. But what am I, I'm just the end user, What do

[00:25:48] Dr. Sean: I know that's the people that should be giving me that. It will send you, I will send you a free sample as a trial. What I'm doing product testing and you can let

[00:25:58] Stuart: let you know how it goes, how many of those bottles I have broken. Hopefully not. Um Tell our, so you're pretty open about being polyamorous, right? This is no, this is not gonna be a shock to anybody that you know or

[00:26:16] Dr. Sean: no. My mother met all of my partners at my med school graduation and uh all at once and I've never met them before. I am out in every in my professional communities in my personal life. Not that it's always relevant to talk about, but I am not sure not an area of life. I feel the need to hide.

[00:26:35] Stuart: I think that's the way it should be. So All right, So this is your catholic mom.

[00:26:41] Dr. Sean: Yes.

[00:26:42] Stuart: Yes, yes. Got to me. How many

[00:26:44] Dr. Sean: also a registered republican but trump was an asshole and did not vote for him and but still registered as a Republican. She met seven partners, lovers, friends, intimate friends at my med school graduation, not all of whom were cis gendered and um some of whom were married to women and got to learn all about different relational dynamics all at once very quickly. Um And she was so goddamn impressed by like openness and communication and how we all interacted with one another and how it just seemed very familial um that she had nothing but praise and adulation around it. Quite frankly. It was kind of mind blowing to her, I think in a really positive way. Um She and I also watched Big Love together on HBO years and years ago, which was kind of like my first introduction at all to anything of open relationships. Um Not that the mormons are the standard by which I should get measuring myself, but she at least had some familiarity with the concept that not everybody is in a heterosexual monogamous relationship. And I think just having examples that I could point to from that show about this emotional difficulty or that emotional difficulty kind of gave a frame of reference that we could share conversation about it.

[00:28:11] Stuart: So, I I agree. Uh Being in an open relationship is absolutely the most honest relationship I've ever been in. It's so great because you can talk about anything and it's a okay. Um Maybe not all the actions are a Ok, but at least the conversation usually ends up all right, we can at least talk through this or figure out all that stuff. What have you found is is a difficulty. What is something that people uh because I think people um are freaked out about poly relationships. What is a bad situation that you've personally had? You don't have these names or anything like that. But like is there anything that you have that like worst case scenario in those cases?

[00:29:02] Dr. Sean: Well, I'm not perfect at Pelly and right, I just want to point that out like there and I've started off my consent classes by like please do not put me on a pedestal because I happen to be the person on this side of the group and think that I've been perfect about this forever because like socialized as a white guy on the East coast like learning and growing all the time. Um I think um one of the bigger difficulties or conceptual difficulties is cheating in polyamory because like oh you have an open relationship, you can't cheat and you totally can and it's just a it's the violation of the the open agreement that you happen to have with that person that constitutes cheating, not the fact that you're sleeping with their spending time with somebody else. Honestly, I think we all come to, I have been processing a lot of this over the pandemic as my relationships have changed or ended and just the baggage that we bring to relationships are like expectations that have fermented since childhood about what relationships are supposed to be but then you add multiple relations dynamics on top of it at the same time and different emotional triggers can activate all different kinds of things. So it can be easy to either use the relationships to numb out quite frankly and not have to address emotional things. Or they can be one of the best things for pointing out what those triggers in that package is and how to heal that and clean

[00:30:28] Stuart: that.

[00:30:29] Dr. Sean: Just don't don't lie in a poly relationship is like like like the best example and don't don't I mean I am a big fan of not lying because then you have to remember it for the rest of time. You can also you can also obvious get details to like create a certain story in a certain way that you didn't technically lie. And that's not healthy or direct communication. That I think is one of the things where context specifically, I can think of this as if you're concerned about the other person's feelings, um, turns out you might actually be concerned about your ability to deal with the other person's feelings and disclosing it. But out of concern for the other person's feelings, you might detail something much differently than you might otherwise can be very harmful to think over time.

[00:31:16] Stuart: It was only slightly bigger.

[00:31:18] Dr. Sean: Uh,

[00:31:23] Stuart: one of the things I get asked personally is uh like, don't you get jealous? And it's like, oh yeah, yeah, jealousy is a big part of it. And it's how you handle that jealousy. That I think that's what really changes when you start to realize like when you're on the receiving end and also you realize you're creating jealousy situations. It's like, oh, we can navigate this much better. I I just I absolutely love poly relationships. I could have. We could have done the entire show just talking about those. But

[00:31:54] Dr. Sean: the question I get asked most often by people that are monogamous are aren't you afraid so? And so is going to find somebody better and leave you. And my response is usually no, that's your insecurity because that's like the fundamental insecurity for a lot of people that are in monogamous relationships. It still comes up in poly, but in different ways. And I often, at least for me, the easiest way to like jealousy, I think it's a very normal thing, but how we act or allow it to uh control us is not necessarily the healthy thing, but I had something come up a few weeks ago where I was like, it took about 30 seconds to process it, but I'm like, you were just doing this with a different girl last week and like, she was totally okay with it. Why does it matter that she's doing the exact same thing with a different guy? Like, like um and most of the time I don't even communicate my jealousies anymore because they're with very rare exceptions about maybe intention or communication could have been a little better most of the time, it's my own bullshit that I have to deal with and it's not even for them to know that I'm processing that necessarily because it's it's my work to do. So that's kind of what I meant in terms of the whole cleaning process to it helps you get rid of those entanglements or attachments or expectations around relationships that were supposed to exist and kind of, I'm a relationship anarchist in addition to being poly, which means something different to everybody, but like I live alone, I get polly people. And I kind of have each relationship go where it's supposed to go for its own ends rather than having like one predominant relationship with hierarchy above others. But yeah, uh I forgot what the original threat of what I was talking about was. But

[00:33:38] Stuart: I think you're I think you're onto something. The other thing is for me, it's like if you truly love somebody don't, you want them to be with the best person possible and if that other person is a better match, then why would I be, why do I want to be the second in that situation? Right. I don't want I don't want them pining for somebody else and then settling for me,

[00:34:03] Dr. Sean: terrible.

[00:34:04] Stuart: I want to be the person they're pining for. This is fantastic. Uh We may have to have another conversation about at some point about just poly relationships. Maybe we can get a couple of people that we know

[00:34:15] Dr. Sean: we'll talk about it. You have a very interesting personalities. If you've got some people that right now and I'm

[00:34:21] Stuart: trying so hard to get them on. Um All right, well, there's been a great conversation. It's been about a half hour now. It's time for us to record a sketch. Are you looking for a doctor with magic sparkle fingers. I totally understand if you would like to learn more. Well Sean, where can people find out more about you.

[00:34:45] Dr. Sean: Okay, My website is dr Sean P. Or excuse me? Dr Sean Horn dot com. D R. S. E A N H O R A N dot com. Um My phone number. My contact information is all on the website as our fees and services that I provide. Um and soon to be linked to classes that I'll be offering on the website as well. Um I'm also available if you have insurance, I take a number of different um major insurance plans including the Oregon health plan and I am available at a balanced life healthcare on southeast hawthorne in Portland Oregon for primary care services and adjunctive sexual health services um and mental health med management.

[00:35:27] Stuart: And just to be 100% clear Dr. Shawn's office life is way different than his after office life. And now our sketch father. I think I have sinned.

[00:35:44] Dr. Sean: Yes. My child

[00:35:45] Stuart: father, I have sinned.

[00:35:47] Dr. Sean: Yes. My child

[00:35:48] Stuart: Gosh, I'm so embarrassed. I had some impure

[00:35:51] Dr. Sean: thoughts, impure thoughts are common for many of us. Could you describe them?

[00:35:55] Stuart: Oh boy! I was riding my bike down the street and I noticed there were some construction workers, my mind kind of went someplace and I kind of fantasized about them.

[00:36:08] Dr. Sean: God gave us wonderful creative imagination and it's and completely normal and healthy aspect of life to take in scenes from the world and fantasize about them in our minds and our fellow human beings are created in the image of God. So I don't think it's particularly sinful to find others attractive.

[00:36:27] Stuart: I keep writing my bike around the construction spot and use my phone to take pictures. Is that is that okay?

[00:36:35] Dr. Sean: Not so much a problem for God, but that might be a problem for the local police or just for the consent of the people that are in the photos in general. It's okay to look but do not take pictures without permission.

[00:36:46] Stuart: Okay. What about if they are off of work and I maybe follow their cars home or trucks home and just sit in the bushes just staring longingly at their front door

[00:36:57] Dr. Sean: as long as you are striving every day to do better and to send less and to help your fellow humans, you can live knowing that you are in the grace of God.

[00:37:06] Stuart: Okay, well that makes me feel so much better. Also finding out that they had an automatic sprinkler system made me feel so much better. Thank you so much father. Okay. No, no hail marys or

[00:37:17] Dr. Sean: if I gave you some, do you think you do

[00:37:18] Stuart: them? Probably not. Hello? Hello. Is there anybody in? Oh sorry. It's hard to see, I can't see beyond the I guess I've sinned

[00:37:31] Dr. Sean: in what way? My child?

[00:37:32] Stuart: Well I had premarital sex but like whatever, it was unintentional, it just kind of happened. You know I didn't plan it but I ended up I ended up getting pregnant. My mom and my friends all tell me like that's a bad idea. I'm considering going over to planned parenthood and just getting some help with that? I just kind of wanted to see like what's the, what's, what do I have to worry about? Is this going to cause me some serious detriment in my soul?

[00:38:04] Dr. Sean: This is something that I would definitely encourage you to speak to a provider at a women's health clinic about. So that you know what your options are, abortion isn't the only option available to you. There is also adoption. The catholic church does consider abortion to be a grave sin. We always have the opportunity to restore a state of grace. But I would encourage you to speak to a health care provider about your options in this particular instance as well.

[00:38:28] Stuart: So you want me to go talk to my doctor about my actual dr Yeah, because my actual doctor goes to the same church. You sure that that's a good idea. On a side note, is this is this father john because he's kind of cute. I just want to make sure I'm talking the right person, pardon me father, I have sinned.

[00:38:55] Dr. Sean: Yes. My child

[00:38:57] Stuart: last week. I did some speeding in my car.

[00:39:00] Dr. Sean: Yes. Is there another sin that you were also concerned about today? My child?

[00:39:04] Stuart: Well, I was uh I was speeding because I was driving away away from what? Well, I was driving away from, I needed to get out of there pretty quick.

[00:39:14] Dr. Sean: Were you in a situation of some sort?

[00:39:16] Stuart: It was somebody else's

[00:39:17] Dr. Sean: house And who was this other person?

[00:39:20] Stuart: It was, it was a familiar house.

[00:39:23] Dr. Sean: Are you trying to tell me that you were leaving a woman's house very rapidly and we're speeding on the way home.

[00:39:29] Stuart: That's most of it. Yeah.

[00:39:31] Dr. Sean: Okay. Could you describe the situation I'm trying to understand, but I'm lacking context and just to be clear from the beginning, speeding itself as a civil authorities concerned. I don't think God is concerned. What velocity you're going in a motor vehicle?

[00:39:47] Stuart: We are ended some interesting things. It's not sex necessarily.

[00:39:53] Dr. Sean: Well, the catholic church does say that masturbation or sexual interactions outside of the

[00:39:58] Stuart: country. No, no, no, no, no, no, no masturbating? Yeah. So what we do is we drink a lot of water and then we like to, you know, when you have to go instead of going to the bathroom, we just end up going on each other.

[00:40:14] Dr. Sean: Yeah, I don't think that this is explicitly a sin.

[00:40:17] Stuart: All right, well, we didn't do it at this person's house.

[00:40:21] Dr. Sean: Okay, where did this occur?

[00:40:23] Stuart: Actually happened here?

[00:40:26] Dr. Sean: My child. Your fallen far from grace.

[00:40:28] Stuart: Thank you so much for listening. You know, we hope you enjoyed listening as much as we enjoyed making it. And if you did enjoy listening, can I urge you to go to one of the websites where they do reviews and leave one for us? It not only means a ton to me, but it also means a great deal to our guests. We do these because we're trying to get a little bit of promotion for whatever we're doing and getting that exposure is super helpful. It also helps to get great guests for the show. Plus I just found out this is one of the top podcasts in the world, would be really nice to build a bigger community behind it. Also, you can visit sketch comedy podcast show dot com to get all of the links for anywhere you would like to subscribe or listen to the show and also, don't forget we got a Youtube Channel two. You can actually see people talk. It's kind of fun. And now for some of the boring stuff, sketch comedy podcast show is recorded under a creative commons attribution, non derivative four point international license. What that means is if you would like to use a portion of the show, please contact me so that we can just agree on it and I can ensure that you have the best possible recording of it, sketch comedy podcast show is copyright Stewart Rice 2021. Until next time. Get out there, be safe but get out there and improvise a story. All of your own

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Jeni Wren Stottrup | Audio Nerd GETTING GRITTY WITH PODCASTS

Tue, 06 Jul 2021 22:00:00 GMT

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Dream jobs, let’s talk about them. I don’t know how many of you out there have your dream job, I hope most of you do, but my guess is that most of us do not and, worse, we don’t even know what a dream job actually looks like. For me, I think it would be my dream job to be able to create great podcast content and assist others to be able to create the content they want to create and actually get paid for it!

For Jeni Wren Stottrup, that is everyday life! Jeni runs Gritty Bird Podcasting, which helps people produce the podcasts that they want to produce, and also runs “The Podcaster’s Forum” for aspiring mic-jockeys to connect, learn and share with one another. So, Jeni has MY dream job! Am I jealous? Yes! Would I hire her? Absolutely!

We talk a great deal about podcasting, since we have both been doing it for a while, and Jeni gives great advice to those that are starting out, as well as those that have been doing it for a while. We also talk about her interesting life philosophy based on her family’s background.

This episode’s sketch: “So What Your Saying Is…”

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

SOCIAL MEDIA

SUBSCRIPTIONS & REVIEWS

MORE ABOUT THE GUEST

Jeni Wren Stottrup a podcast producer, speaker, editor, vocalist, content creator, educator and coach, owner of production company Gritty Birds Podcasting and membership platform, The Podcasters Forum.

Podcasting since 2012 after putting out her 2013 EP North Star, Jeni produced Gritty Birds, a narrative music podcast on XRAY.FM, before launching her production brand Gritty Birds Podcasting. Since 2014, she has produced her own content and also has worked with hundreds of podcasters through workshops, private production clients, coaching and speaking.

Jeni’s special skills are in audio/visual tech, vocal coaching, narrative development, content develop, launches and systems and personal development. She also has worked in sponsorship and promotions through her years on music festival boards, in event production and B2B and retail audio sales.

She is a regularly sought speaker and has spoken at She Podcasts Live, Podcasters Toolkit, Podcasters Summit, Podfest, Podcast Editors Conference, Indiepodcon, Blog and Video Con, and more. She has partnered on workshops with multiple organizations including Siren Nation and Portland Underground Grad School.

Links

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TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] spk_1: in this episode podcast mastermind, jenny Wren Stock trip and I came up with a few sketch ideas what is happening at a podcast conference, like as you're walking around who is showing up at those things and what kind of conversations are you having?

[00:00:16] spk_0: So my favorite place that I've been at any conference recently was the puppy pen.

[00:00:22] spk_1: I love that you were going to have COVID-19 is a joke cast.

[00:00:26] spk_0: So this was like literally it because then the final ones are where you're finally in quarantine and it's like, you know, like you're getting weird

[00:00:37] spk_1: instead of being like a producer for hire or something like that, be the podcast therapist. How

[00:00:43] spk_0: did that affect you with your mother?

[00:00:44] spk_1: Yes, exactly. Which one did we pick? You'll find out on this episode of it's a sketch comedy podcast show. Welcome to sketch comedy podcast show. The one of a kind show where I Stewart rice invite interesting people to have intriguing conversations and then improvise a comedy sketch based on what we talked about. Go to sketch comedy podcast show dot com to find more episodes, more links to more content and just to stop by and visit. Maybe you want to be a guest on the show. There's even a link for that and thank you again for subscribing. If you wanted to leave a review that's positive, that would be cool to this episode's guest, jenny Wren Start trip has my dream job. She runs gritty bird podcasting which helps people produce podcasts that they want to produce. And also runs the podcasters forum for aspiring mike jockeys to connect, learn and share with one another. So she has my dream job. Am I jealous? Yeah. Would I hire her? Absolutely. We talk a great deal about podcasting since we both have been doing it for a while and jenny gives great advice to those that are starting out as well as those that have been doing it for a while. We also talk about how she grew up and how that's formed her life philosophy. It's really interesting. And now my conversation with jenny, wren start trope podcast mastermind with a socialist background. Jenny, welcome to the show.

[00:02:30] spk_0: Hello. It's great to see you. I'm a little nervous because I'm curious what's about to happen right here.

[00:02:36] spk_1: I'm

[00:02:38] spk_0: excited.

[00:02:39] spk_1: What makes you interesting?

[00:02:40] spk_0: I've got a lot of stories. What can I say?

[00:02:43] spk_1: Go for it. Tell us why you are interesting and what some of those stories are before.

[00:02:48] spk_0: Okay, that would be a more uncomfortable question. That's all right.

[00:02:51] spk_1: It can be really uncomfortable. Yeah,

[00:02:54] spk_0: I was like, that's, I mean, I guess it's like the one uncomfortable thing about when someone says what makes you interesting, like, hello, hello, look how special I am. but I do think that um it's it's fun to get to do the things that I do, I create podcasts and I've been recording for a really long time as a musician and I think probably the most interesting, one of the most interesting things about me actually has to do with um my dad's side of the family, because we're like, you're raising this little danish community up in northern Minnesota, and it was actually based on a socialist side of community, and so I've actually met people before who meet me and they go, you're a danish Lutheran, aren't you? Like, based on essentially my belief system and knowing my Minnesota background, because there is this very um there is a certain amount of the way that we look at the world as Norwegian lutherans. So I think that's actually one of the more interesting things I realize didn't plug in my computer about me specifically

[00:03:53] spk_1: because of the fact that like you to talk about this, go ahead and plug in your computer. We'll talk about being a danish. A danish Lutheran. Yeah, Yeah. Okay. So yeah, you grew up from age zero to whatever my

[00:04:13] spk_0: dad did.

[00:04:14] spk_1: So

[00:04:16] spk_0: My grandfather raised all his siblings and then he raised all these kids. So my great grandfather had rheumatoid arthritis and died at the age of 40 and every one of our clan going back forever. He was a pastor, they'd settled back in northern Minnesota. They had than in the church and they had to settle back because they needed to have the farm. And of course it's just this like rock ridden Foresti place where yeah, you have land but the first winter they barely survived. So there is

[00:04:50] spk_1: this, what are you, what are you planting in that area? Like what do you pull at

[00:04:54] spk_0: that point? They're just trying to clear it. And then we had um cows were dairy farm. So to come to the ethic of being a danish Luther, like of this danish Lutheran concept is uh we there's this idea of the afterlife isn't necessarily like that's when you'll have everything you want, that you live in the now and that the gift of being on earth means something. So my great grandmother, which is my middle name, um namesake, she my dad's been uh converting all of her memoirs and also converting memoirs of her mother who had um her journey across from the other from from Denmark. And uh so

[00:05:42] spk_1: mommy talks about, well,

[00:05:46] spk_0: can Narnia it's cold, it's like, you know, wintry. So she she talks about how they almost froze to death. Right? My great my grandfather writes about the beauty of the icicles on the window panes. Like to kind of give you a perspective of what, how that practices said in person. But like how the mom is still like, dude, literally like there's like for her, she says we're only a windowpane away from um like the elements for him. He's like the beautiful pattern of the ice um sculptures on the window and how it makes you appreciated it because that's the, that's the ethic. It's like you take what you want. So last week when I was talking to my dad again, raised on a farm, he says some mornings, it was his birthday. He says some mornings. I just wake up. I think, man, it is amazing that I am not outside At five am shoveling cow poop. I just think some mornings, I'm just like think us awesome. I can't believe I'm not doing that anymore. It's great. It's great to be alive.

[00:06:59] spk_1: Yeah, actually that's a it's just a really good like that is a great philosophy to have it stay present. Look for the positive and everything you're in. Um and then maybe have someone like you know there to say yeah, but if we go outside it's freezing and we'll die. Um Yeah, I have that balance. Both. Both of those are good. Yeah, that's really good. So um All right, so you uh you have this background and it kind of does it feed into your day to day life?

[00:07:30] spk_0: Like I talked to my dad every day.

[00:07:32] spk_1: Okay, so you get a, you get a dose of that every single he sends

[00:07:36] spk_0: me, he sends me these messages like these morning thoughts and sunday thoughts. Yeah. Uh like today, what one of the things he wrote me was life is complicated. Sometimes we have to accept things as they are. The situation with many relationships is that we come I mean it's a whole to react as human and how others react is out of control, small things and then he goes into marriages and it's a complicated world. Yeah, he continues the writing tradition has been in our family. But yeah, I'm having conversations with him about life and we are always trying to find the silver lining even though man, some days, especially this year, feel kind of like what the heck? But I do like I really appreciate that I have a dad and that he is a good one and that I get to still have in my life. So all those things are like, yeah, and I because of the way that life is um you know we spend time nurturing that and there's times we don't talk quite as much, but lately this year that's been a thing. Because what else am I going to call besides podcast?

[00:08:45] spk_1: Right, you call, let's talk about that. So you do podcasting. That's, that's

[00:08:49] spk_0: what do, it's like

[00:08:51] spk_1: your primary thing, isn't it?

[00:08:53] spk_0: It

[00:08:53] spk_1: is, but that's like a big cake.

[00:08:56] spk_0: Yeah. Recently I was meeting with my therapist, I have 80 HD so I've had a therapist since I was 18. It's always a thing because that's how I get my medication and the he said to me, I want you to start doing some things you did before you podcast it and I'm like, what? Yeah, wow man. And I hadn't even realized little things like uh just like, like little things I used to run, it used to be a runner. Um and some of those had to do with injuries and some of that was during podcasting, but you know, like there's these little things that you did and now I'm like, I do podcasts and I help people podcast and sometimes I have podcasts and I tell people to teach other people and I talked and I go on podcasts. So yeah, it is a funny thing to be like Yes podcasts since 2012.

[00:09:46] spk_1: It's really interesting because I talk about how much I lose my shirt every year on this podcast because it's just a hobby for me. That's just what it's always been, it looks like, that's what it's always going to be. But you have this different philosophy, you have this little bit of, of this danish Lutheran presence that I think maybe gives you a head up on this. How is it that you've been able to make a career out of podcasting like that? That's fascinating to me.

[00:10:17] spk_0: You know, it really came out of just sheer like I was trying to figure out like, you know, anyone grows up and says what am I gonna do with my life? Right? And I wanted to be a musician and I ended up getting a degree in music and I got a classical, I was classically trained, started getting into jazz, I also got a political communications degree because during that time I lost my voice and end up having surgery to remove my na jewels and like it just, it changed the trajectory so I was no longer going to be like this amazing oratorio singer, it just, it wouldn't have legs like I could have done okay, but it was like and I moved to Seattle and I performed and I developed and I learned um studied under amazing people. But then, you know, the first crash happened and uh, you know, a lot of people made an interesting pivot. A year ago I was at podcast and I was talking with roger. Cloud roger and I hung out a bunch at that conference. It was really fun. And one of the things we talked about was that cloud microphone started because of a pivot that he made at that same time. So he was working on another prototype of something and then ended up, you know, creating this mic that then set the foundation for work. Cloud microphones are and they actually succeeded during the craft like during the crash because of the way that the product was and all these crazy things. It was very surprising. So like a year ago I was like, ma'am, I think I want to do a podcast about what About how people pivoted during that crash. And by the way, we had an idea Covid was happening at this point, we knew we were all not going to see each other after podcast. But like, we didn't have an idea. It was so bad. Not having an idea that I pitched, this is this is terrible. I pitched to zoom care at podcast where I would produce it on the like as the producer about how, How COVID 19 wasn't that bad.

[00:12:19] spk_1: Well, of course we all at some point when that's just, yeah,

[00:12:25] spk_0: I made slides. I messaged, I mean it was like legit and looking back, you're like, oh, wow, okay, well that's a fail. So I think that what it comes down to is this is something my dad says, okay, well then what's your plan? If something goes wrong? And I'm like, uh, like we'll make a plan and make the plan work. So I think that there it comes down to that. So music, I've gotten to do some cool things in music. I ended up getting a master's in education at one point. So when the crash happened, you know, like we make these small switches and I knew things I wanted to do, I wanted to work in media, I loved doing production, I had done things but I didn't really know what I wanted to do. So like I worked for choose local for a while doing B two B sales, uh that they do about Face magazine here in Portland. And then I did uh I was working, I was in media sponsorship for years with pds pump now and I wanted to start a production company and had started, I produced a soul fest called Moussa's soul fest and had produced my shows and done residencies and just nothing was like landing and I would take business classes that were free in town and just like, I was just kind of grappling and figuring things out. And then I, when I created my record, I started going on podcasts and people like, you have a good voice for this, I was like, okay, that's that's something. And then when I didn't know if I wanted to do another record, I'm like, I still want to record, how can I record when I don't have another song and I don't want to just do voice over work, let's have a podcast, let's ask people questions and then release those. And then eventually I got to pull back in my promotion side and I brought, you know, sponsors onto the show where I ended up joining radio and from there other things happened and it was like, I had them as I was like, every other podcaster that was like, this is going to do the thing, I'm going to make the money from the podcast.

[00:14:28] spk_1: But

[00:14:29] spk_0: there's always like, I know right?

[00:14:32] spk_1: I

[00:14:32] spk_0: know right? It's funny because everybody, everybody thinks it it's universal. And I know that some people were like, I don't do it for that. What I do discover is that you have some kind of goal. It's not just like, because we're looking at our time, right? There's a goal, whatever that goal is, there's something in there and everyone thinks they're going to be doing better than they will. That's universal. And what's fun about that is getting to talk to people about what actually happened. I had great success. I actually can't complain about that. Like my first episode had 350 downloads, like how awesome is that. And then I ended up being on radio, which that is amazing. I had a narrative podcast. I've gotten to work with incredible people, but I was never making any money and I, I was like, okay, maybe this will lead to me getting a job. Yeah, like NPR or something like the scope of what I could do versus what exists did not exist. Like I didn't hit me up and I would be reached out by people to produce actually. So like, I was giving workshops on podcasting with siren nation here in Portland and like Chloe you daily and I were working on a podcast like right before her campaign. So there were things that these like, early elements of people asking me to do what I do now and then I'd be in the workshop maybe like, do you do coach? And I'm like, oh no, no, no, like, I don't like what, like, you should have this. And I'm like, I don't understand which is dumb because now I know people who like podcasting for three months there who did have a little success and had, it actually hits, that happens. And then they're like, I have a business, I teach podcasting and you're like, why did I do that at the beginning? So I ended up working at Guitar Center and I like, killed it there. And oh, like one of the conferences I went to, I got a grant like several years ago through the city of Portland to be able to go to podcast movement. And then that started me hitting the conference circuits like five years ago and I was at one of them and I was seeing some friends that I knew from the forums and I look up and they're talking about being a podcast producer and I'm like, or an editor. I'm like, I can be an editor, I can just get clients

[00:16:42] spk_1: like I can just clients. Yeah.

[00:16:46] spk_0: And I ended up having one of the people because I've spoken at the storytelling event P. M. X. The podcast movement that year. And one of them, my friend Caitlin, I ended up editing their show and then in january I got hit up by another person and you know, all of a sudden it was like, oh sweet. And then I decided to leave Guitar center because I didn't, I don't know like retail sales is what it is and you know, I did really well in it. It was like the number one woman in sales at one point and but it was just like back breaking, literally uh like you're literally lifting subs, The way that you get to number one is that you're selling subs and you're selling speaker systems to people who are coming through and you're doing $15,000 deals where you're setting up your setting up trusts, trusses and making phone calls. It's literally back breaking and I'd have like two ankle injuries and it was like my body was broken. So it was

[00:17:39] spk_1: a scroll my mouse around on the screen, maybe talk into a microphone. Yeah, so of course, so

[00:17:45] spk_0: it comes so we can come back into the same thing about being a podcasters. I was like, this is what's going to happen. Not realizing that I had a lot to learn about business. So I took Mercy Corps class that spring and I feel like ever since then I'm constantly learning how to really do this and how to really nail down my message so that people know what I'm doing and that's, that's been, that's the same thing in podcasting. It's when we come back to that question, how did I get here? I just kept figuring out how to create the icicles versus thinking about the window pane in the middle.

[00:18:19] spk_1: That's awesome. Uh so I've got a question for you because I get contacted to do podcasts producing as well. I usually end up giving them your name or somebody else that I know because every time I have a conversation with someone, it starts off like this, what's your goal with the podcast? And how many times do people just say I would just like to have a podcast? How often does that happen for you? Because it happens almost every single time I talked to someone there, like I just want to have one, it's like, but why? What's the, what's the motivation there?

[00:18:53] spk_0: So what I often find is it's I love having one on one conversations with this. It's a hard thing to do in a group because in the group, what I notice that will sometimes happen and it's partly because everyone else would be like, yeah, same and then they're just like, but the truth is unfortunately not exactly that. So what I like to do is then say, well, okay, what, what was the first podcast you know, to actually go back? Like what was the first podcast you listened to? What are some of the podcast you're listening to? What do you do for business? And then it allows us to pull back to the actual reasons. So like, you know, just accept that as fact, it's hard to push someone on that one because one of its like one of the things like when I'm doing content with folks there, like I know my idea and I get it. I mean, dude, I know my idea and I get it. But like I'm still changing my sales page and changing my marketing because that's what everyone does because we're all continuing to refine. So it's nice to come back around from other side just to help kind of build that trust for folks that are coming in because of the fact that I charge money and I don't charge like little money. Usually if somebody set up an appointment with me, they're not investing in just feeling like it because

[00:20:08] spk_1: yeah, maybe that's, that's the difference. And then, yeah, that's the big thing. Um, and then the expect I try to set the expectation of, hey, you're going to get like 12 listens the first five episodes, like just be aware of. It's an ego hit. And usually by that time they stopped talking to me and that's when I give them your name or somebody else. That L Alison is really good.

[00:20:32] spk_0: That's 100%. Where right now I'm trying to figure that's the messaging. So what this year I've been giving these workshops and I started speaking more and I'm really understanding story a lot better and I've always have, but it's always, you pull it back in and then you redo and build the concept, you completely, you know, bomb one workshop and then you rock another one and then you say, okay, all right, let's figure out which ones of those can get put together so that people feel excited and the same thing with working with folks. So when I, so the podcasters forum is my new company and it built out of the idea that I didn't want to just be talking about editing anymore because of the fact that a couple things would happen. One I would have an editing client who hit a financial issue and then they couldn't edit, had an editor anymore. I'd have a person who would come to me and say I want editing and then I'd give the number and then they never call again. Um I would have because of the fact that I actually am a producer, which is a different thing than an editor, but a lot of what I do for producing does not always include strategy, even though I know strategy. So I would get to this part where we created this beautiful something and then they would be like, I'm going to hire somebody who knows what they're talking about for this other stuff and then they'd end up leaving because they didn't want to spend the money again, Right? So it all ended up often coming down to this element of it. And I was like, I need to have something that is a steady stream of income, a my need. But the other half of it was I wanted something where there could have those resources out there and I'm still getting the Burbage of it, all right, and the community is the base, but like I'm building courses and figuring out like a membership, essentially it's gonna be a mastermind. So like I originally was like, it's this and you've got my back and blah, blah, blah, blah. And it didn't hit because, you know, it's about one of the things I hit when I put that out, the messaging was all like, you're a new podcaster. But what I discovered is that people don't realize what they need when they first start, they know it's six months later and it's not that they know exactly what it is, they know what's missing. They know that they still have that goal that they said they never had. Or even if they said they were just podcasting for fun, they might have just been like, that was fun and I'm done or they're like, this is fun. And now I actually have more of a goal. So if that was like legitimate it, which it can be, it's like, okay, well what's the next step? And it sometimes has to do with editing, but it might be something else. And I want to meet those podcasters who are getting going and have, or even they've been going for a couple of years and they're hitting like these blocks and now we're like, okay, let's take a look at your show. Let's take a look at your audience. Let's essentially do an audit and helping those folks, you know, starting with an audit, starting with coaching and sometimes editing to help them get to their goals. Even sitting on the business side, not just from the like because there's a million ways we can create the content that reaches your audience without busting your bank. There are ways that we can, everyone has a weak spot. So it's saying what's your audience look like and where is your weak spot? How can we meet the middle? And then for me, of course, it's also still like, but let's also take a look at your audio

[00:23:55] spk_1: is always an element right? Like you can have the best podcast ever, but if it's scratchy or sounds like this, like all of a sudden it can totally derail what you're trying to do. I realized what the weakest part of this podcast

[00:24:11] spk_0: is, what it's okay.

[00:24:14] spk_1: I'm the weakest link here. Um uh so jen you've been doing this for a while. What are some podcast ideas that have hit your ears that you were like, that's ridiculous and anything that just, just like I want to have a podcast about, Do you have anything actually,

[00:24:35] spk_0: I like when people share ideas because people don't generally share their ideas unless they're ready for it. Uh so I think I've gotten some really cool ideas. Um the biggest thing that I think happens is that people will often have almost too much of an idea and it needs to get paired back because it's really hard when you put so much time into a show and then like, it doesn't hit anything, especially when it comes to more complicated narrative things, which is something that helped produce. Uh and I like to be able to create something that when people come to me with those, that does work. And what I would say, like the biggest thing that isn't, it doesn't work as an idea is somebody who literally just wants to talk and doesn't have a clear message. And that's a general all the time thing where you're saying, I want to have a podcast and you're making, you're doing a live stream, but you're not actually, that's actually not a podcast. And why that's important is that you're not getting that rss feed everywhere and you're not getting it saved somewhere um, in facebook, if it goes away is gone. And then you're like, oh, that material, you can't put it in a blog post in the same way. You know, you can do that with Youtube, but it's still not quite the same and like that. But what's sad about that is there's all this content and what, what gets sad is these folks were just like streaming on and I just think about the time they put into all of it and then it's not getting out in the world. So I feel like if my, one of my messages that and I spoke on this on saturday, it's actually now my free download because I'm editing these videos from my women's group, which is great, is about, you should have a plan and that doesn't mean you have to have it all planned out, but it's like, what's, yeah, what is, what is your goal, where you heading with it? And you know, what's the vision here before you're heading into it? Because uh as I was listening to Dave Jackson's school podcasting episode this morning, he said, I used to tell people, tell them what's coming up and I don't say that anymore because like, you don't walk into a restaurant and then see what's going to be on the menu next week, Like give them something right away, have them know exactly what to expect and that's so, so key. So you want to have something right away, you want to follow up with it, but you also want it to be found, so you wouldn't have like, you know, Yes, some of the best restaurants in town are ones you hear word of mouth, but they usually started off with like something that people new the chef, they knew something about the menu. Like they didn't come from nowhere, They just made the location difficult, right? So we're not we're not like putting what's happening with so many podcasts is it's not there, it's not that it's a bad idea that I see, it's usually like an implementation that's just faulty and not leading anyone anywhere. And that's one of the reasons that the comedy shows do so well, because what people don't think about is how every podcaster, every comedian that I know spend so much time on their stand up jokes and then they wait in lines and watch everyone stand up to be able to get on that stage hours. Like I've like it's insane how often that I see this like

[00:28:00] spk_1: all ready to see some time, why why don't you do stand up? And it's like I've tried, I hate it. It's hard to stand up.

[00:28:09] spk_0: Yeah, I don't do stand up at all. But the improv side of it and all the planning means that those people, when they get onto a podcast, they're ready, they've been in the room, they've heard the jokes, they've been showing up for a long time. And while it may seem like they're not planned, they are completely prepared. But not how you think about it. So like when folks who aren't comedians are like, we're going to be fine, we're going to riff, I always talk with my buddies and it could be really good. I'm not saying that it's not, it's just that if there's not a niche or something with a focus or you don't already have some people that just love listening to you guys talk or

[00:28:53] spk_1: Oh, you're speaking of the 2-5 guys sitting around a table talking about pop culture and stuff.

[00:28:59] spk_0: Yeah, which can be great. But there's a whole, like I used to get those folks coming into Guitar center all the time and they would, because they would have bought the worst set up they could and it's, but it is one of, I think that that's the part where like we don't have a goal. We just want to sit around and talk and that comes like that was a really long winded way to kind of bring back to even what you were just saying a little bit ago.

[00:29:24] spk_1: Yeah. It's um, that's the thing is just making a podcast for podcasts sake is that is, it's my least favorite thing as a podcaster because the thing is it buries a lot of other podcasts. That might be really good because I think what happens is people see, people see how many podcasts there are and it's like, I mean the running joke is important and it's like everybody has a beard and a podcast like those things. So indicates

[00:29:53] spk_0: five years ago. But yeah,

[00:29:55] spk_1: but now it is and so you're, you're really, the competition's much broader and it's all over the place and when people jump onto a podcast and they listen to it and they're like, well this is hot garbage, this must be what podcasts are like, hopefully we've gotten over that hump. But for a while there, I felt like that was, Yeah,

[00:30:15] spk_0: I think this one, I think there is a mix that's hitting and part of it is because I mean, even three years ago, the like tech side of it, U. S. The U. S. B. Mix were crap and you know, people were when they use a Yeti in a room that doesn't need it or like what, you know, just USB and uh um, there's a couple other brands, but now you've got amazing dynamics like that are inexpensive and you can be connected super easy and you can sound good so easily that it shouldn't be as big of an issue. And this year, especially I've seen an improvement and audio because like us as producers and editors have been sound. People have been saying for years, get a pair of those old apple earbuds that have

[00:31:05] spk_1: the

[00:31:07] spk_0: triple ring at the end, not the U S. B one and have those. But finally the thing we're always saying, hold it up to the mouth. You see this all the time. You can make even a dongle and you see this on, on Tiktok videos, you see this on your reels, videos on instagram and people. So it's not being as a thing that we were all telling people now it's getting implemented and people see it. So all of these little things are actually making more sense. So someone might see my in ears and be like, oh, that doesn't sound bad. If I had the sound connected from these, we'd have this weird delay, it be a problem. And that's that's another one that I, so I feel like I'm constantly reminding people don't wear your earrings if you've got, you know, like there's these little things, but so many people are saying it, it's starting to like actually hit with people once they're engaged with podcasting. Because the thing about podcasting is what I see from a lot of folks as well as if you're having a podcast and you have, even if you have casts and you're not going on other podcasts engaging back within the community you're you're creating like in creating an echo. You want. The podcasting is at its best when we're a lot, we're having the back and forth right when we're going on people's shows and having it on our shows because that's where we get the connections. And we're saying, what do you know, what are you up to? And there's the 15 minutes before and after the show were like, yeah, what are you doing right now? You know, that doesn't make sense for content. And it ends up being really cool. And that's like where we get the gigs and that's where we get the connection and that's where the value ends up hitting. And if now that more folks are doing that and figuring out that that piece, some people are never going to make a podcast because they're recognizing, they can just guessed. But the issue they're having is that your listeners don't want to hear you talk about that specific piece over and over and over. If you have a mailing list and at some point, once you have that tech now is the time to say, I want to have people go to my feed, I should have my own podcast and this is what it should be about. And then you can bring them to your website instead of sending to other ones. And when you go on to show you can say go to my podcast and then they can get your material and then they can buy your things and then you're actually having a benefit or like if it's a comedian, then you're getting hired for the thing. Every actor in Hollywood should have a show. And when people are like, oh, another actor, you're like, well, yeah, it's essentially they're creating their own calling card. Why wouldn't they do that?

[00:33:38] spk_1: Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, my calling card is don't hire me. Um, let's say just for silly nonsense questioning. You had a podcast that was six years old. Okay, Okay. And the producer of the podcast is going, then I'm having a hard time producing my podcast anymore because I just don't see a point. What would you say to that person?

[00:34:11] spk_0: I would then want to know what they are excited about right now.

[00:34:16] spk_1: Mhm.

[00:34:16] spk_0: First of all, and then I would ask about their audience. All right. Because you already have something and established and making a pivot is not always the fit. And then I would say what your goals because if you don't want to get rid of a podcast, if it's actually heading toward goals, right? And then I would say, if you, if you are at a point where you're saying I want to call it hit and not podcast ever again, you do have that choice to call a show, especially after six years. You do have the choice to try to start a new show and if you don't want to pay for it anymore, you can, this is where anchor is helpful. I really still don't recommend them as your main host. There's lots of reasons why. But one of the good things about them is you can navigate your feed to anchor and have it live there for free so that it won't go away. Right. So I would say you do have options for having the show, not go away and having that old material. Don't do that before. If you want to start a new show and a new pivot, don't get rid of your old show before you do that because of the fact that if that show doesn't land and I met some folks where they'll start a new thing and it's just not landing like at all. Because when you're a podcaster it's okay to change because let's be honest, when was the last time? I think Gray's Anatomy has been on like 20 seasons. You know like C. S. I. Has been on 20 seasons but like most shows don't run forever like radio programs to an extent. But even the biggest radio personalities in general have made small switches over time. They brought on new co hosts. They have moved to different networks. They've played with different elements in it. Right? Because they are always still trying to get advertisers and that means they're making changes and it's okay as a podcaster to make changes whether that's a brand new show or saying goodbye to it forever if it's not serving your life at that point. Um So I think theoretically you're always in control and you get to do what feels good for you.

[00:36:34] spk_1: That sounds fair. I was asking for a friend, I wasn't asking about this show. Um All right, well, it's been about a half hour um real quick before I real quick before we get into doing the other thing. Uh what would be the three things you would tell a new podcaster? Like if you can tell a new podcast, not like step one, step two, step three, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is like, here are three things you need to know as a brand new podcast er to set expectations properly. What would it be?

[00:37:05] spk_0: One again, have your vision about what you're doing, like? No, you know that that niche and your audience and then put out a show. Yeah. And figure out whether that niches whether that's the same thing because it might not be just because it was in your head doesn't mean you were right. And that is not a negative thing ah Which leads to the 3rd 1. Uh B so pliable and elastic because it's not, you you can change things, you're not bad, something's just not landing if you're not getting somewhere. Uh you know, if bad things come, if people are sending you mean things, uh that means you're also connecting with good people. That's been a good advice. But like the part of that's the elasticity, like bi elastic with it. Um don't get so stuck in the ego of what you have that. It bums you out and that means your numbers, you know, the reaction when your family, friends and friends are not responding to it because, but you put out a podcast like they're they're going to be support you as a human, but that might, they might not

[00:38:23] spk_1: be, they don't care about your podcast.

[00:38:25] spk_0: That's yeah, that comes back to the second one is like, no, your lane, because the more you're in your lane, the more you're talking to, Yeah, if you're in the bumper lane and you're a kid, that's perfect, that's a great place. But like if you're an ace bowler, why would you be in the bumper lane with the five year olds? Like, unless you want to hang out with a five year olds, but like, it's not going to get you to the bowling championships.

[00:38:51] spk_1: Yeah, yeah, I

[00:38:53] spk_0: mean, yeah, it's like, then you're, you know, but that's a different thing. But if you're trying to be a professional bowler and you're over in the bumper lane, like it's just those are two different places to just know your lane and um, you know, yeah, keep elastic, be willing to make changes and right, go with the flow. Uh, and yeah, the second is uh, you know, know your niche and I forget what the first one was, but

[00:39:18] spk_1: guy was niche and then it was put out a show and then I thought that was, it was totally because I think the action thing is really

[00:39:26] spk_0: important. You have

[00:39:27] spk_1: to have the action most important. You forgot the most important one.

[00:39:31] spk_0: Microphones have good sound.

[00:39:32] spk_1: No, no hire you because that will hire me. That would be the best way to start that whole thing.

[00:39:38] spk_0: Honestly, yeah, it's fun. I like working with people

[00:39:42] spk_1: as you should. If you didn't, I would say maybe get

[00:39:46] spk_0: precisely get out of my

[00:39:47] spk_1: lane, get out of that line. All right, well, it is now time to record a sketch. Great. I just realized by releasing this episode, I might be creating more podcast competition. Well, if you are going to be my competition, I'd prefer to have really good content. That sounds fantastic and there is only one person I would recommend for doing just that jenny tell them where they can find you.

[00:40:17] spk_0: I am a podcast producer and the owner of Gritty birds, podcasting and the podcasters forum. So I help content creators, primarily podcasters and video creators to create a stronger impact with their shows and to feel confident, empowered with the tools that they need to be able to succeed.

[00:40:35] spk_1: And of course, all of those links are in the show notes and now our sketch. So what you're saying is with jenny, Wren star Tre in three two, Hi Dr stateroom. It's really great to see you again.

[00:40:53] spk_0: It's good to see you too Stuart have you been doing lately?

[00:40:56] spk_1: Oh, it's been, it's been a rough couple of weeks.

[00:40:59] spk_0: What happened?

[00:41:01] spk_1: Well, I just had had some interactions with people. I just had someone tell me that they hated my voice and they hated being around me anymore. That was really hard. It's been a tough couple of weeks.

[00:41:13] spk_0: How did you react when those things happened?

[00:41:15] spk_1: Well, when the person told me they hated my voice, I got really angry, I slammed the door and it was awful. There was a lot of slamming involved. Is

[00:41:26] spk_0: that something that you find yourself doing often?

[00:41:29] spk_1: I find that people are just mean to me often.

[00:41:32] spk_0: What are some good things you're doing for yourself right now?

[00:41:35] spk_1: Trying to talk about things that I think are really positive or things that I think are really interesting. But I noticed that they don't really respond the way I like them too.

[00:41:44] spk_0: Okay, so what would be a way that you might have approached this situation differently?

[00:41:50] spk_1: Well, I don't know. I was just talking

[00:41:52] spk_0: when you were a child. How did people talk about your voice?

[00:41:56] spk_1: Oh, I was definitely raised in a household that was Children should be seen and often not seen. Often in another room.

[00:42:06] spk_0: You've had experiences where you didn't feel seen or heard. You aren't feeling seen or heard now and you're finding yourself talking a lot, but you're not having a conversation?

[00:42:18] spk_1: That's right. Maybe that's what it's all about.

[00:42:21] spk_0: Okay, So you do see something in that that you can confirm that something you agree

[00:42:25] spk_1: with me

[00:42:26] spk_0: when you get frustrated with somebody in these moments. Do you have anything that you do to self regulate

[00:42:32] spk_1: right now? What I'm doing is I end up screaming back at the I can't tell if that's working or not, Stewart,

[00:42:39] spk_0: Does that work for you? How do you feel when I yell at

[00:42:42] spk_1: you oddly aroused? Do you have any suggestions like things I could be doing? That would make it better.

[00:42:48] spk_0: It sounds to me like there's a mind like I want you to think about your mindset here. Most people don't like getting yelled at, they'll just tune out and you won't be able to regain their trust and remind yourself that you do actually have worse and your voice is good. And as it can be, as simple as a mantra that you do before you had any of these conversations, you might meet a couple of people that really like yelling like you and then all of a sudden you have something in common.

[00:43:16] spk_1: So what you're saying is I should start a podcast. Thank you so much for joining us here at sketch comedy podcast show. We hope you enjoyed listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it. If you would like to see more head to sketch comedy podcast show dot com and you'll get all of the goodies sketch comedy podcast show is licensed under Creative Commons attribution, no derivatives, four point oh International license. Our world is filled with opportunities to be funny, go out there and create an improv adventure of your own. See you next episode.

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Doug Noll | Superhuman Learner HELPING MURDERERS BECOME PEACE-KEEPERS

Wed, 12 May 2021 07:00:00 GMT

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Sometimes it’s important to understand your limits. Like setting a budget or knowing how much you can drink at a party before you end up naked and asking people for pony rides… sorry Grandma, your birthday was great! This episode’s guest, Doug Noll, doesn’t look at limits the same way; he has figured out how to break all of the limits: physically, mentally and has perfected learning in what seems like a superhuman way.

Doug Noll was a trial lawyer in California who was tenacious and was sought-after all throughout the state. Hating the commute, Doug decided to learn how to fly just to get out of traffic-jams. Doug has been a part of bands and has recently taken up concert jazz. That’s right, took up jazz. For fun. Most recently, he has been a best-selling author and has created a program to help murderers in prison to become experts in diffusing violent situations. If that last sentence doesn’t boggle your mind, I don’t know what will.

We talk about learning and how to do it properly, his time as a musician, some of his amazing trial lawyer stories, the time he almost died flying a plane, and then we talk a great deal about his de-escalation techniques and his work with inmates which is absolutely amazing. You can learn more about Doug and his programs at https://dougnoll.com

This episode’s sketch: "You’re Good Enough. You’re Smart Enough… and Doggone It, The Force is With You!”

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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SUBSCRIPTIONS & REVIEWS

MORE ABOUT THE GUEST

Douglas E. Noll, JD, MA is an award-winning author, speaker, and trainer. After 22 years as a trial lawyer, Mr. Noll became a peacemaker and mediator. Today, he helps people solve deep and intractable conflicts and teaches others to do what he does. Mr. Noll is an adjunct professor of law at the Pepperdine School of Law Straus Institute where he teaches Decision Making Under Uncertainty Conflict.

Mr. Noll is the co-founder of the award-winning Prison of Peace Project, in which he teaches murderers in maximum security prisons to be peacemakers and mediators.

Mr. Noll has trained mediators and leaders in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia in his innovative peacemaking and mediation processes. He has personally mediated over 1,500 disputes, including sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church and criminal victim-offender cases.

Mr. Noll's honors include California Lawyer Magazine Attorney of the Year, a Purpose Prize Fellow, and Best Lawyers of America Lawyer of the Year.

Mr. Noll has written four books, his latest released on September 12, 2017, entitled De-Escalate: How to Calm an Angry Person in 90 Seconds or Less (Atria/Beyond Words). He is the creator of online video courses in legal negotiation and emotional de-escalation and has conducted dozens of webinars. His video offerings on YouTube have garnered over 87,000 views.

On a personal note, Mr. Noll is a jazz violinist, aircraft and helicopter pilot, ski instructor, 2nd degree black belt, tai chi master, and whitewater rafter. He lives with his wife Aleya Dao in the foothills of the central Sierra Nevada south of Yosemite National Park.

Links

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Stuart: in this episode. Superhuman, learner, helping murderers become peacekeepers. Doug Noll And I came up with a few sketches. I like this idea of learning how to learn, right? Something really kind of arbitrary and small. Someone comes to you and says, hey, I want to learn how to do this very small thing and I want it would be in a huge, elaborate, like thousands of hours, like really detailed plan.

[00:00:31] Doug Noll: Let me just say that when we train our inmate trainers, we have a train the trainer day and we have them to teach people how to do stuff, mundane stuff like how to come your hair,

[00:00:41] Stuart: the trial lawyer, the lengths that you'll go through, the evidence was swallowed by the dog and you're like, I'm

[00:00:48] Doug Noll: out,

[00:00:50] Stuart: oh the mediation and peace making. But I was thinking like what if you got hired by say, the empire from Star Wars or something like that to come in and teach mediation to Kylo ren or Darth Vader or something along those lines? It could be any, any like scary uh the

[00:01:12] Doug Noll: evil. That was a chapter in my 3rd book,

[00:01:16] Stuart: which one did we pick? Well you probably know if you looked at the show notes and saw the title, but otherwise you'll find out on this week's episode of it's a sketch comedy podcast show. Welcome to sketch comedy podcast show though, one of a kind show where I Stewart rice invite interesting people to have intriguing conversations and then improvise the comedy sketch based on what we talked about. I apologize for such inconsistency and releasing episodes, but man, I moved at some personal stuff happen, you guys don't pay me so just enjoy the show. You know, sometimes it's important to understand your limits, like setting up a budget or knowing how much you can drink at a party before you end up naked and asking people for pony rides, Sorry grandma, but man, your birthday was great. This episode's guest Doug. Noll doesn't look at limits the same way he has figured out how to break all of the limits physically mentally, and has perfected learning in what seems to be a superhuman way. Doug was a trial lawyer in California who was tenacious and was sought after all throughout the state, hating the commute, Doug decided to learn how to fly just to get out of traffic jams. Doug has been part of bands and has recently taken up concert jazz, That's right, took up jazz for fun. Most recently, he has been a best selling author and has created a program to help murderers in prison to become experts in diffusing violent situations. If that last sentence doesn't boggle your mind, I don't know what will we talk about learning and how to do it properly. Some of his amazing trial lawyer stories the time he almost died flying a plane and then we talk a great deal about his de escalation techniques and his work with inmates, which is absolutely amazing. You can learn more about Doug and his programs at Doug Noll dot com and now my conversation with Doug Noll, superhuman learner, helping murderers become peacekeepers. Doug, thank you so much for joining me for the very first time today,

[00:03:43] Doug Noll: you're welcome Stewart. I've heard about your show and I'm really looking forward to the craziness.

[00:03:48] Stuart: It should be pretty crazy. Already has been actually. Doug. Let me ask you a question you might even actually know the answer to already. What makes you interesting?

[00:04:04] Doug Noll: Well, it's a bit of a story. Uh, so I was born with a lot of problems. I was born almost blind, partially deaf, Crippled with two club feet. Um, really bad teeth. Uh, and I couldn't walk until I was three or four years old. I had multiple surgeries on my legs and, and, but I was, I did get in the right line for brands, A pretty smart guy. So I ended up going to an ivy league school and then with the law school was a trial lawyer for 22 years. But along the way I picked up a whole bunch of interesting skills, I believe probably more lifetimes in my life than I could I possibly can deserve because I ended up being a level three certified ski instructor, whitewater rafter and class for kayaker, rock climber mountaineer. Um, I've got a pilot's license, instrument rated, single engine, multi engine helicopter Tail wheel. It's got got a 2000 hours of flying behind me. I am, became a secondary black belt tai chi master, taught myself irish fiddle in law school and 10 years ago took up jazz and blues violin and now I play jazz and blues violin and having a blast with that. So like I said, many, many, many, many lifetimes and I've had a lot of really interesting careers 22 years as a trial lawyer, Then became a peacemaker and mediator. Then I went into a maximum security prisons. I've been doing that for the last 10 years, training murderers to be peacemakers.

[00:05:41] Stuart: We're definitely going to talk about that. That is creating online courses, fascinating.

[00:05:45] Doug Noll: Yeah, creating online courses for people to become emotionally intelligent and teaching them how to be leaders and teaching negotiation, Written four books. The last one was the best seller. So what makes me interesting is that I've had a lot of different Lifetime experiences and it's been, it's been a ride, it still is. I'm married to the most incredible woman in the world. So living on 10 acres south of Yosemite. Uh, and so the pandemic, I know it's heard a lot of people, but for us it's been a blessing because I don't have to leave this property.

[00:06:17] Stuart: Yeah.

[00:06:18] Doug Noll: Right now I could look out my window. Wildflowers are blasting off everywhere, incredible. It's amazing. So that's what it, that's

[00:06:27] Stuart: yeah, that is uh that is multiple breaths worth of interesting, right? Like you had to inhale numerous times. Uh for me, I'm like, uh, but when anybody asked me that question, no one's ever asked me that question. Um, so I actually, so truth be told, we tried this once before I forgot to hit the record button. So I'm gonna go ahead and just ask the question that I just asked again, is was there a little bit of overcompensation since you you were born with all of these? Not ideal situations?

[00:07:03] Doug Noll: Absolutely. Uh In the beginning I was definitely overcompensating but then I learned something really interesting about myself which is that I love to learn. And so uh I started taking up stuff that just interested me. So for example why did I learn how to fly? Well a living in central California, I had to do court appearances all up and down the state and I didn't like driving the four hours down to L. A. Or the 3.5 hours up to san Francisco is why not learn how to fly and do it in less than an hour or an hour rather than spend time driving. So I was looking for efficiency and I was also looking for cool stuff to do because it got fun and I mean fly fishing and rock climbing and kayaking and rafting, still raft. I don't kayak anymore, but uh just really fun stuff to do and that's what got me going and so I learned how to learn. I know exactly what it takes for me to become a master at anything and I'm careful about what I choose. For example, I don't play golf, I know what it would take for me to become a scratch golfer. I don't want to put that time into it, right? But but I could become a scratch golfer if I wanted to. It's just I don't have a desire to do it and I don't go and I don't take up things that I'm not very good at. I mean, I don't take up things that I don't want to master. Golfing is very difficult, takes a lot and thousands and thousands of hours of practice to get good at it. I just want to put the time in on that. But I will put thousands of hours into my violin playing jazz and blues violent because I really love doing that.

[00:08:31] Stuart: That's cool. Have you do you perform in front of people with,

[00:08:35] Doug Noll: with my jazz and blues? Just friends and family when I was playing irish and old time? Yeah. I had a band called Rosin the Bow and we played all over California and Chase Girls when I was younger and much younger and older today

[00:08:49] Stuart: it

[00:08:50] Doug Noll: was 50

[00:08:51] Stuart: five. I was there was a

[00:08:53] Doug Noll: blast, you know, I mean we had a blast with that playing really fun music. Yeah, we played, we played in bars and hotels all up and down the gold country California and ski resorts in places like that and just had a hell of a good time.

[00:09:06] Stuart: That's fantastic. So you learned how to learn and what does that, what does that mean for you? Like you being, you're saying like I could become a scratch golfer, I just want to put the time into it, just angered like probably 12 of this audience. How would you, how would you go about it? Like how does that start?

[00:09:26] Doug Noll: Okay, so the first thing I'm going to do, let's just take off, for example, because I have swung a golf cart before uh and taking a few lessons. So golf is, golf is a, it's a mental game and it's also uh takes a high degree of eye to hand coordination and micro muscle movement coordination, learning exactly how to work everything and you've got all these different levers that have got all got to be coordinated the other, that's what makes it so tough. But I do know from my martial arts training that the power of golf comes from your hips, not from your arms or your shoulders. So what I'm gonna do is find a coach who is willing to work with me and is extremely knowledge about, knowledgeable about the kinesiology of a golf swing, of all the different, you know, there are a number of different golf strokes and swings, right, So you got to master them all. So I'm going to find myself a coach who's also a kinesiology ist who really understands muscle memory, muscle movement and is also able to teach the how not the what. And then I'm gonna work with that coach two or 3 times a week For three or 4 years And in the day and the days that I'm not working with the coach, I'm going to have a I've got 10 acres, I could have my own golf course, but I probably put up a net put up in that and a small putting green And I would practice 2-3 hours a day every day, even on the days that I have a lesson and it will take me 3-5 hours depending on What it is. But I will be a scratch golfer at the end of that probably four years, 4-5 years at least.

[00:11:04] Stuart: Yeah, that seems realistic and it doesn't sound like you're just taking a magic pill.

[00:11:11] Doug Noll: No,

[00:11:12] Stuart: so I think that that's a, that's a pretty strong lesson. Is that any time you want to get really good at something you have to put, you have to dump a ton of time into it.

[00:11:21] Doug Noll: That's right. And it's got a quality time. For example, just this is the other thing I've learned. So in violin, violin pedagogy is really stupid. So people who are trained in classical violin, they learned all the wrong way And they can't improvise, they can't make up their own music if they're classically trained, in fact they're afraid of improvisation. What I've learned is that I've got to have the same technical skills as a good classical violinist. But I only practice one thing for five minutes and then I move on to something else, just five minutes every day just doing one little thing and over a year I become a master at that little thing. So right now for example I'm working on boing a boing techniques so you can't even hear the change of the bow, right? Classical players have this big click when they do the change of the boat. I want my boat, my bowing to be absolutely seamless. So I go up smooth, come back. Then, you can't even hear the change. So I spent I spend 5-10 minutes every day. We're learning isolating what that is. And it turns out it's a very like off, it's a very complex coordinated physical motion between the shoulder, the arm, the forearm, the wrist and the fingers. Mhm. And to click, the change comes from just a slight contraction of the hand as fast as you can make it without making any sound. I'm getting there.

[00:12:38] Stuart: Yeah,

[00:12:39] Doug Noll: so, so that, you know, so like with anything, I don't practice anything for any one particular skill for more than five minutes because your brain can't handle, your brain gets tired, so let the brain rest go onto something else, come back to it.

[00:12:54] Stuart: That's actually incredibly good advice and not the right same advice that I've given to other people. So I will change my advice because you're much better at learning than I am. Well, I

[00:13:04] Doug Noll: Had to learn how to learn because I had so many problems. You know, I grew up in the 50s and 60's and I was left handed too. I forgot to mention that. So, so I had to I had to learn from right handers. I had to learn from coaches and people who were not patient with me because I was uncoordinated. I couldn't run, I couldn't skip. I couldn't do Jack diddly with my body and I've never met a coach or a teacher who could really help me. Most of them, most of them got irritated and frustrated because I wasn't a natural athlete. So I said, I have to learn how to do this myself. And that's what turned me into a teacher. As I said, all right, I have to learn this stuff well enough that I can teach it. And I am never going to subject somebody that I'm teaching. Anything like skiing or white water or anything. I'm never going to subject them to the insults and the pain and the disrespect and the lack of patients that I got from every single teacher and coach I had from kindergarten all the way through high school. Not going to do it. Yeah.

[00:14:02] Stuart: Yeah. My brother in law's left naturally left handed and had to transition for all sports over to right handed because no coach, whatever. Um, and watching him play golf, you, you almost feel like he needs special parking. Um, when, when was the time you went? You know what? Uh, I want to go experience L. A. Law. Like you became a trial lawyer. That's a that's a that's not a small job, but that's a big job, that's not a

[00:14:36] Doug Noll: many, many hours of tedium and boredom.

[00:14:38] Stuart: Yeah. Yeah. And you did that for 22 years. You you're a trial lawyer, was it like L. A lot? I just imagine everything's like, no, so

[00:14:49] Doug Noll: I'll just tell you one story out of my law, one of my bigger cases I want, I only lost it. I did over 200 trials Over over over 22 years. Uh so I was a trial dog, not a litigator, big difference. uh and it wasn't infrequent that I would come up against big L. A. And san Francisco firms with senior partners who have never been in the courtroom before. And you know I was trying, I joined the firm, I clerked for a year for a judge and then I joined my firm in 78. I tried my first jury trial, I joined them from in September of 70 and I tried my first jury trial in November of 78. That's unheard of. That's how you become, that's how you become a trial where you should try cases,

[00:15:31] Stuart: right? Yeah.

[00:15:33] Doug Noll: Real school to go to, you just got to learn how to do it. So I, I want to tell this one story. So uh, my, one of my partners gave me a case where he was representing another lawyer in our community, uh, in an insurance case and without going into a lot of detail, um, I knew that I, this case was a loser. It wasn't gonna work unless I could find something that would really work. So uh, this is in central California in the middle of the summer, in August, it's typically 100 210°.. I had to go through a storage unit. Uh, you know 2020 ft tall, 30 ft back, 20 ft wide. Full of file boxes of files from a defunct insurance company. So I stripped down to my shorts, put a bandana around my head. And I went through that. I went through every single piece of paper in that storage shed and I found the smoking gun. And I want $10 million. I want $10 million dollars from my client in fraud, wow fraud. So that's what trial lawyer is all about it. I could have assigned it out to a young lawyer to an associate but I knew the associate wouldn't do it. I'll tell you another just another story. Uh Well I could be. So I I was co I was working with one of my partners on a large construction case against um a supplier and we were one of the things were there were problems with delays and stuff with and so it ended up costing our client the general contractor a lot of money with the state of California. And so we were suing the supplier because the supplier didn't deliver on time and the stuff they delivered it was crap. So one day we had we had a whole room full of boxes, nothing like the storage it but still it was a kind of a war room. And we had a young associate working on the case and I said okay I need this invoice and it's going to save this on it Now. There were probably 3 300 boxes in their bankers boxes full of documents. Again I've gone through every single piece of paper because I needed to know what was in there. And he came back to me and said well it's not there. And so well you looked all through all through all the boxes. Well yeah, so he came with me, we walked down the hall into the room and I went to middle of these boxes. I pulled out the right box, I flipped through the file and I pull out the paper and said what the fuck is this? You're fired?

[00:18:16] Stuart: Yeah. No kidding. How do you even go through if you're going through boxes and boxes of papers like what are you looking for? Like how do you even

[00:18:24] Doug Noll: you don't sometimes I don't even sometimes you don't even know and you all you know is that this is this is the this is the data and and the data doesn't mean anything to you until you've gone through it over and over and over again. And the reason that I was so good as a trial or is that I was able to deal with the boredom and the tedium of looking at tens of thousands of documents, read every single one of them another. I'll give you another example. I had a case where I was representing a general contractor. He's being, he was suit, he was being sued by a painting subcontractor and the painting subcategory screwed up the job. He couldn't, he couldn't get the job done in time. So my guy had to bring in another contractor subcontractor. So I had asked for all the time records of all the painters that were working on the job and the opposing lawyer who's a nice guy but he couldn't get him from his client until the friday before trial. We were going into trial on monday. I got those time cards, probably a stack up 500 600 timecards. And on friday morning I just I went through the time cards and I just, I just started looking at them and I went through the time cards five times until I saw the pattern and I said they're screwed. And the next morning or on monday morning we impanel a jury and Burnside puts up his subcontractor painting client goes to the direct examination, I grabbed the cards, I put up a white board and I demonstrate to this guy that he had more than enough people to man the job. He was just an incompetent schedule er and I showed it from his own time cards. And the only way way I did that was to go through those time cards over and over and over again. And then, and then we took a break and Burnside realized he was screwed. So he talked his client and, and and they dismissed the case with prejudice and we everybody absorbed on cost. So I walked back to, I'm back at the firm before lunch and one of my senior partners looked at me that you're supposed to be in trouble right now. And I said, yeah, it's over with. He said, what happened? I cross examined the plaintiff. They dismissed. Uh, he said, what?

[00:20:26] Stuart: That's amazing. I feel

[00:20:28] Doug Noll: that's what he L. A. Law. They don't show you that because no, they don't show you know that

[00:20:33] Stuart: it's hours

[00:20:34] Doug Noll: and hours and hours and hours of tv and boring, boring, boring stuff going in commercial and business litigation anywhere where you have to go through the documents and know them better than anybody else. And you will find the patterns and you'll find the smoking guns if you're willing to take the time. And I was, and that's why I want so much. Um, and other lawyers just weren't willing to do that kind of hard work.

[00:20:55] Stuart: No, I can't learn how to do that. Because

[00:20:58] Doug Noll: I was gonna say, I was gonna say because of all the difficulties I had growing up, I learned how to be patient, I learned how to how to deal with tedium and boredom and I learned how to deal with pain and boredom is painful. I learned how to deal with it. And so as hard as that was, it held me in good stead during the years that I was trying cases.

[00:21:18] Stuart: That's amazing. All right, I'm going to try and leapfrog right into. So the thing that really caught my eye with with you Doug was the prison of peace project. Now, 22 years as a trial lawyer, not a criminal trial.

[00:21:33] Doug Noll: Never, never did criminal,

[00:21:36] Stuart: but you somehow got into maximum security prisons and helped murderers become peacemakers. And mediators explain that to us. Okay, so

[00:21:49] Doug Noll: I left the practice of law in 2000 I decided that it was not my calling even though I was very good at it. And I I had gone back to school and got my Master's degree in Peacemaking and conflict studies to become a peacemaker. And immediate because I was really interested, I saw litigation as being a really inefficient way of solving human conflict and everybody was going to litigation because they didn't have any other skills to resolve conflict and people were afraid to talk to each other and lots of problems. I go back to school to get my Masters degree, leave the firm set up a mediation peacemaking practice, which does very well, Recession hits in 2000 and it wipes me, doesn't I don't file bankruptcy but my practice basically blows away. And so I started writing, started doing online stuff, learned more about online marketing that I'd known before. And then in 2010 um with my colleague Lauren carpet, we get the opportunity to Teach 15 women who are all lifers and long termers, many of the murderers um in the largest, most violent women's prison in the world, how to become mediators and peacemakers to stop the violence in the prison. And that's where it started. And part of the curriculum that we used was de escalation technique that I developed in my mediation practice Back in 2004. And by the time the the original training was 12 weeks long. By the time we got into about week eight we had 300 women on a waiting list wanting to learn. And so we stayed in that prison for three years until we had trained we trained inmates to be trainers. That's why we work with life is in long term. They can now be

[00:23:24] Stuart: committed there.

[00:23:25] Doug Noll: Right, Well, that's how it started and today. Well of course the pandemic shut everything down. But before the pandemic, we were in 15 California prisons, the prison Connecticut, 14 prisons in Greece and startups in Nairobi and Italy, and a bunch of other states wanting to get this program started. And so of course the pandemic shut things down. We did the distance learning. But now what's really cool is we're putting the whole curriculum on video and we'll be able to send Dvds and train facilitators outside people, not inmates, facilitators, how to use the videos via zoom and then they can go in and we can put prison a piece into any prison in the world that speak english that wants to do this.

[00:24:07] Stuart: That's amazing. It's cutting, its cutting down on the

[00:24:12] Doug Noll: violence in prison. Absolutely. We've gotten letters wardens from yard captains, from, I mean, the stuff we and of course the inmates themselves, We see that if we on a yard with 1000 inmates, if we can train up about 15 or 20 of them to fully be mediators, the violence drops precipitously within a year. And when did that happen? Over and over again.

[00:24:35] Stuart: What are the things that you're teaching them? Like, are you teaching them like, Vulcan death grips? Like, no,

[00:24:43] Doug Noll: actually our premises when we go in is that we're working with a population of people who have varying degrees of mental acuity, varying degrees of mental health, um, have only known violence as a way of resolving conflict. So they have no real peacemaking skills whatsoever. And so we start, and before we can even get them to teach them the mediation process, we've got to build up some basic skills. So in the first workshop we teach them how to listen reflectively listened. Not active listening, but reflective listening very different. And we also teach them how to deescalate anger. And we teach them how to be leaders in what we call listening, peace circles, listening circles. Then in the second works that they get through all of that, a lot of homework uh they get through that. Then we teach them how to make durable agreements. How do you reach an agreement with somebody and make sure that that person that you're making agreement we want will perform the agreement. And then what do you do if they don't? Because that's a big cause of conflict in prison. I learnt you £5 of coffee and you're supposed to pay me back next week, and you don't pay me back. And now the knives come out how to how to help people solve a problem without giving advice how to manage strong emotions, your own and other people and then how to morally reengage people, people who are morally disengaged, which is kind of an important thing to be able to do in prison. And then once they've gotten through all of that and they've gotten all those skills master. Then we take them through the mediation training and we teach them how to be a mediator and then they and then they go out and they've got to practice under our supervision. Mediation. And when they demonstrated to us that they can successfully walk into a conflict that's on the edge of violence and sought help people solve it peacefully. Then we certify them as mediators.

[00:26:29] Stuart: Now see that sounds like a life skill. We should be teaching everybody, not just inmates. Right?

[00:26:35] Doug Noll: That's correct. In fact, that's what got me started on my book. De escalate and now teaching people how to develop emotional competency. Because I realized that, Well, first of all, I must have, I'm probably taught thousands of inmates, but you know, they all come to me and say if I had learned these skills 20 years ago, I wouldn't be imprisoned right now. And then I started looking at families. And I read a statistic that 96 of all families are emotionally dysfunctional. Uh, and the agent seems low. Yeah. And the Aces study that shows that um adverse childhood experiences, including normal emotional abuse that parents do to Children, even though they love their Children, they still abuse them, um leads to really bad medical outcomes later in life. Heart disease, cancer, um diabetes, of course not. of course we've got drug addiction and crime and high divorce rates and all this stuff. It all comes from unintentional emotional abuse that occurs in childhood. So I just kind of made it my calling to get this word out about don't don't invalidate validate, learn how to listen other people into existence through these skills.

[00:27:44] Stuart: That's a that's an interesting statement. Listen people into existence. Can you dive into that a little bit? I like the statement and I like the sentiment behind it.

[00:27:53] Doug Noll: So what it means is that in is that we learn how to listen to and reflect back people's emotional experiences. So I would say something like so supposing you were pissed off at something Stuart. I would say something else Stewart man, you are really pissed off, You're really angry, you feel deeply disrespected, you don't feel appreciated, you don't feel listened to you feel sad and you're really anxious, you feel abandoned and unloved. It's really making you angry and pissed off. I just listened to into existence because what I did was instead of trying to fix the problem, instead of trying to argue whether you have the right to feel mad or not, all I did is reflect your emotional existence and when you do that, the person that the speaker is so grateful. It's probably the first time in their lives, One when they felt emotionally safe and two, they felt like somebody really understands and gets where they're coming from. And this is the skill we teach our inmates, the first school we teach them is this skill, and it's the skill that I've taught tens of thousands of people around the world That are not in prison. It's the basis of my 4th book and it's the most and it is the foundational skill of life foundation. That's

[00:29:11] Stuart: That that book is the de escalate how to calm an angry person in 90 seconds or less

[00:29:18] Doug Noll: Right now. Here's what, here's what is really cool about this. I I discovered this by happenstance in 2004 in a difficult mediation, but in 2000 and seven, Matthew Lieberman, who's a neuroscientist at U. C. L. A. Uh published a brain scanning study where he where he showed why this works in the brain. We're hardwired for this. And so there's really strong Euro cent. Now. There are nine or 10 studies out there that have replicated this and just show that this is, there's a neural process that's involved in this that makes it work every single time without failure. And and once you master this skill, everything in your life changes. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

[00:30:01] Stuart: Yeah. How long have you been married?

[00:30:05] Doug Noll: Uh this is my second marriage. We've been married. We've been married 13 years.

[00:30:11] Stuart: I did probably going pretty good because if you've got these skills managed,

[00:30:15] Doug Noll: my marriage is awesome. I I never believed that marriage could be the way that it is this the way our marriage is, is the way that everybody talks about fairy book marriages. Yeah. My first marriage was not that way because I was emotionally shut down. My wife was, my first wife was emotionally shut down. We were both highly skilled professional people, but we were emotional infants and we never developed our own. Didn't even know that we were that way. And it just led to conflict after conflict. And um But once I started mastering these skills, you know, I started I discovered these skills in 2004, started refining them, teaching them. You know, I got remarried in 2008 and the prison project started in 2010 which is where we really refined the skills acid tested in maximum security presence. And ever since then it's just been amazing. I mean I've I've got all the world teaching this to people and of all different walks of life from the kind of the congressional budget office and trained senior analyst how to deescalate members of Congress and their staff. So imagine maximum security prisons to the CBO

[00:31:23] Stuart: quite ones worth Which one is harder to teach

[00:31:27] Doug Noll: them are hard. I mean the CBO analysts are all introverts. They're extremely bright people, many of them have double phds and so so they come with a rational mindset and I blew them out of the water. I said you know, you know Human beings are 98 emotional and only two rational. And you guys, you guys are all based on rationality which is great but you've got to understand that you are only addressing two of what makes us human. And when you're dealing with congressional members of Congress and their staffs, they're emotional. There's not a there's not a liquor rationality in them. And they were saying, yeah, they're all irrational. I said no, they're not here. It's not the very irrational. Is that their emotional and you guys have never learned how to look at their look at them and look at emotions as data and learn how to work with that data in a very sophisticated, scientifically based manner. And once I said that they got it and then I just we went through the process of how you learn that's beautiful, master these skills.

[00:32:26] Stuart: That is amazing real quick. Any interesting flying stories? Do you have? Like one of those? Like,

[00:32:34] Doug Noll: almost proud. Never almost crashed, but sure have scared myself.

[00:32:39] Stuart: You've flown a helicopter?

[00:32:41] Doug Noll: I've got a helicopter rating,

[00:32:43] Stuart: wow. That helicopter's seem like dark magic to me. Well, never been in one. I've seen. They love

[00:32:51] Doug Noll: helicopters. I haven't flown, flown one in 25 years. So if I were to go out, If I wanted to fly a helicopter, I'd have to go out and get flight instruction. At least 10 hours of recurrent training to make sure that I'm safe. Helicopters are interesting. Um, airplanes are aerodynamically very stable. So once you get the airplane moving, it's off the ground, you get up to altitude. Autopilots on it'll fly itself until it runs out of fuel. You don't even have to touch the controls. Not so with the helicopter helicopter aerodynamically unstable. So you have to Why it all the time. In the five different things, you've got five different controls on a helicopter. You've got your two anti torque pedals, throttle the collective and and so you've got all and you've got all these things you've got to manage at the same time. And the first thing you learn to do in the helicopter is how to hover. That took me about eight or nine hours to like have a good hover. Then once I learned how to have it, basically, it's an airplane and well, man emergency procedures, which in the helicopter are obviously different than an airplane, but they're cool. Uh

[00:33:55] Stuart: the

[00:33:56] Doug Noll: thing about a helicopter is, you know, you you can you don't need uh, you know, three or 4000 ft runway to put a helicopter down. You need just need a little patch of something and you learn how to power your power off at 1000 or 13:00 ft and you learn how to that. You look down in the plexiglass bubble, you look down where your feet are, that's where you're landing, right? So you, so you can maneuver if you're going down, you're looking for that spot, you a flare. I mean you learn and you practice that other rotation till you're sick of it. Um because it's got to be second nature because that's that's how you get down if you have a power failure. So yeah, I've had, I've had some crazy, crazy experiences flying mostly say that, but I never, I never really got myself, I got myself in some situations where I thought this is not good and I bailed out. I got climbed out and got away and said that was stupid. Um but uh I've never been in a situation where I really felt like, I mean it was harry but I didn't think I am going to die. Okay. So I mean, I think like one time I was for a long time, my wife was in santa Barbara had to practice in santa Barbara. So I was commuting back and forth between Fresno and I don't live in the present. I lived 40 miles north but in the mountains, but my planes down In the present report and so I can be back and forth about a 45 minute flight down to Santa Barbara and one time I had, I can't, I was coming back but there was a front coming through and I kind of checked where the edge of the front was going to be a lot of rain and I said, I think I can beat it. I probably shouldn't have gone because I got up and there are big tall mountains in California has a lot of mountains and there's a range of mountains along the coastal range which are quite tall. You've got to be up and around 11,000 ft to clear those mountains and to be safe. I got up and all of a sudden I'm in the clouds, the rain starting and I lose all my electronics and uh yeah some water got inside and just sort of everything is sort of shorted out. So you there are things there are procedures that you do to to let air traffic control, no that you got a problem. And I could hear their air traffic controller told me squat this if you you know if you can hear me do this. So I did that. So they knew that I could hear him. I couldn't talk to them. I heard these jet pilots and all that poor slob. He's down the clouds with no radios and then they have so I just navigate. I knew I could navigate and I did beat the front. Eventually it broke out and after about five minutes, 10 minutes of clean dry air, everything dried out and the transmitter came back and I said oh I'm back with you, I'd like to descend, please get out of this. They were quite happy to hear from me and and said, yep. And so I got in and landed and just as I got the airplane back in my hangar, this huge front came over and just torrential rains and that's, I just caught the edge of it. So it was kind of, it was spooky but you're trained for it. So I mean it was uncomfortable, it was kind of hairy, but as long as they were playing straight and level on flying and I'm high enough, I'm not gonna get anything. I'm okay and I know I'm going to get out of it eventually.

[00:37:10] Stuart: Right man. I, if I run out of phone battery when I'm in the bathroom, I panic. I don't even know what I would do in that situation. I um All right, well Doug I could talk to you all day, but I know you got things to do and so it is time to record a sketch when people talk about how they got stories. Man. Doug got stories. That was pretty amazing. I mean I've never come close to a near death experience like that and the fact that he probably didn't just shook it off and got back up on their just amazing. Hey Doug do me a favor. Make sure you let everybody know how they can learn more about your programs and about you.

[00:38:02] Doug Noll: First of all, I'm a one man guy. I have no entourage. I have no big people behind me. Just go to google dot com that gets you to the home page and then from there you can just explore. I've got many, many articles on everything I've talked about today, at least around peacemaking and de escalation, emotional compensate. There you go. Um, if you need to email me, it's really difficult dug at gmail dot com and I respond to all my own emails so feel free to reach out. I've got a ton of youtube's and you can find me on linkedin twitter facebook. I'm not big on social media. I've got more of a lengthen presence than anywhere else. But um, I post, but I don't hang out there again. Social media like television, time for

[00:38:37] Stuart: well Doug. I hope you have enough time to listen to your brilliant sketch. You're good enough, you're smart enough and Doug on it. The force is with you. Why is Snow Cap making me waste my time with this anger management crap? Uh, here's the door. Yes. Are you dr knoll?

[00:39:01] Doug Noll: I am. And you are.

[00:39:04] Stuart: My name is Kylo Ren, and I am here because my stupid staff at the Empire just doesn't seem to understand. They need to get things done and they don't do it fast enough and I get so angry, I just can't help it, but slice them in half.

[00:39:21] Doug Noll: So you're really frustrated, you feel really disrespected and nobody listens to you. Nobody appreciates you. You've got a lot of anxiety around that because you can't get stuff done and you're a little sad because you want the respect that you're not getting and the whole thing just really pisses you off,

[00:39:40] Stuart: it does really piss me off and I've got these voices in my head, they keep talking to me, I've got smoke, telling me what a fool I am, if I don't get things done, and then I've got Ray, who's I keep seeing her and then she's telling me how awful and evil I am,

[00:39:57] Doug Noll: you've got all these voices in you that are telling you shaming you, so you feel a lot of shame, a lot of humiliation and you are being constantly reminded you aren't good enough and that really frustrates you and pisses you off because you know deep inside you're a good person and you have the capacity for love and you have the capacity to be compassionate, but you've got all this other shame and humiliation, embarrassment going on that is moving you in a direction away from where you want to be.

[00:40:23] Stuart: My biggest shame is that I'll never be Darth vader, even though he was my grandfather Han Solo and Princess Leia and my parents and I can't seem to escape that and I just want to murder them.

[00:40:37] Doug Noll: So you are really enraged over the fact that you cannot be like a grandfather and you feel like a lot of shame and humiliation because you're not living up to the people truly brought you into the world and love you and it just makes you so infuriated that you just want to lash out

[00:40:54] Stuart: with my life saver and I like to cut people in half

[00:40:57] Doug Noll: so you really enjoy power and you really enjoy demonstrating power because that suits you, it suits your anxiety. The choices you've made so far are to use that kind of violence to soothe your anxiety and the quiet, the shame and humiliation you're feeling.

[00:41:14] Stuart: So I feel less like using my lightsaber to chop off people's heads.

[00:41:20] Doug Noll: So you're feeling like it's not such an impulse now and maybe you're feeling some hope rather than despair, that there's a better way or at least a different way.

[00:41:28] Stuart: Did did you just use the word hope

[00:41:31] Doug Noll: I did?

[00:41:46] Stuart: I have to hand it to smoke? I do feel better. I really hope you enjoyed this episode of sketch comedy podcast show. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed making it head over to sketch comedy podcast show dot com. If you'd like to hear more episodes, find out more about the show or if you are an interesting person, even apply to be on the show. Sketch comedy podcast show is protected under a creative commons attribution no derivatives four point oh international license

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Michael Gibson & Calvin McCarthy | Movie Making Duo THAT SOMETIMES HANG DONG

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 07:00:00 GMT

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

What makes a movie good? This was a conversation that I recently had and it really blew my mind. The argument was “if a movie is ‘good’ and I can’t keep my eyes open during it, is it good to me?” I had to pause, and completely agree. The movies that I enjoy most are the ones where I am engaged, fully, and feel connected to because they were so entertaining. I hate to admit, but there are a lot of “good” movies that do not appeal to me in any way.

You know who would totally agree with that? Michael Gibson and Calvin McCarthy. Why? Because they are producing and creating a movie in Portland right now called “Vampire Mutants from the Planet Neptune” which sounds more like a random word-generator than the title of a movie. But, after talking to these two, I have no doubt that it is going to be a really good movie, at least for me!

We talk about putting a movie together, the creative process, being in movies, watching movies… we talk a lot of movies. Calvin has been an actor and director in the Portland area since he was little, and Michael is a producer and focuses on sound, which is near and dear to my heart. And yes, we do talk about hanging dong in a movie.

Michael & Calvin developed the production company Video Is The Future and their first production is going to be the aforementioned “Vampire Mutants from the Planet Neptune” where you can join me at the premiere and help support this film! Go to http://bit.ly/SCPSmutantvampire to support!

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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MORE ABOUT THE GUESTS

Michael Gibson

Michael Gibson is a local production sound mixer for indie films and is also opening up a small indie film studio in Portland Oregon!

Calvin McCarthy

Calvin Morié McCarthy was born April 28th 1992 and raised in Vancouver WA. He began his career as an actor at age 16 playing Romeo in his high school theater production of "Romeo and Juliet". He has appeared in such films as "the Adults in the room", "Lake Noir" and "A House A Home". Calvin has gone on to direct two feature films, "3 flies in a widow's web" and "Bedtimescarries.com". Calvin also directed and produced the documentary "Manos: a conversation with Jackie Neyman".

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TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] spk_0: in this episode, Michael Gibson and Calvin McCarthy from the production company Video Is the Future came up with a few sketch ideas. NBA team coming out the music, playing chair song or whatever it is and then the players coming out and going, what's going on, looking around the room on a pitch meeting and just throwing things together. Okay, that's great. That's, that's a great one. What if you had a martin Scorsese who was doing a low budget film?

[00:00:29] spk_1: It's deliverance meets predator.

[00:00:30] spk_0: Which one did we pick? You'll find out on this episode of it's a sketch comedy podcast show. Welcome back to sketch comedy podcast show. The one of a kind show where I Stewart rice invite interesting people to have intriguing conversations and then improvise a comedy sketch based on what we talked about. If you liked this episode, I highly suggest going to sketch comedy podcast show dot com where you can go to Youtube and you can get other episodes and all sorts of really great stuff. Speaking of good, what makes a movie good? This was a conversation that I recently had and it really blew my mind. The argument was if a movie is good and I can't keep my eyes open during it. Is it good to me? I had to pause and completely agree. The movies that I enjoy most are the ones where I am engaged fully and feel connected because they are so entertaining. I hate to admit it. But there are a lot of good movies that do not appeal to me in any way. You know, who would totally agree with that? Michael Gibson and Calvin McCarthy from the production company Video Is the Future here in Portland Oregon. Why? Because they're producing and creating a movie in Portland right now called vampire mutants from the planet Neptune, which sounds more like a random word generator than the title of a movie. But after talking to these two, I have no doubt that it is going to be a really good movie. Well, at least for me, we talk about putting a movie together the creative process, being in movies, watching movies. We talk a lot about movies. Calvin has been an actor and director in the Portland area since he was a wee little one and Michael is a producer and focuses on sound which is near and dear to my heart. And yes, we do talk about hanging dong in a movie, Michael and Calvin developed the production company, Video is the Future and their first production is going to be this aforementioned vampire mutants from the planet Neptune where you can join me at the premiere and help support this film. The link is in the show notes and if you come, I'll even share my popcorn with you. And now my conversation with Michael Gibson and Calvin McCarthy, the movie making duo that sometimes hang Dong Michael Calvin, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for having. Thank you for having us. So, I've got a question for both of you. It's what makes you interesting.

[00:03:18] spk_1: Oh, so such a big question. Uh, my immediate impression is what makes you interesting. Everyone's interesting and it's our life experiences that make us interesting. What makes me interesting? I don't know. Uh, I'm but it's like in the moment or universally, I don't know. Uh, studio in Portland Oregon. What I'd eat faker. That's what makes me interesting. All right. Uh, yeah, I'll give more of a real answer to that. Um, okay, here, here's what makes me interesting, just like off the bat. What I think people go, that is really weird and interesting is my two biggest loves in life. Um Couldn't be more opposite number one. I'm like just a big movie nerd. Like horror movie nerds, sci fi movies, Godzilla movies, monster movies from the fifties. I'm like an encyclopedia of knowledge. But then my other biggest love is NBA basketball. I know every player on every team, I know every starter on every team bleacher report is my biggest thing. So that's usually one that I get people going. That is really interesting that both of those are like your two biggest loves.

[00:04:37] spk_0: Yeah this is like uh gosh what would I say? Like nerd stratification there, like you can be an NBA nerd but those NBA nerds don't usually the Venn diagram doesn't circle

[00:04:50] spk_1: up with and then I throw like a loop another wrench in there where it's like, oh yeah my my two favorite artists, like musical artists are like Billy Idol and the Psychedelic furs. So none of those go together. Like none of my front, none of my basketball friends give a shit about the movies or the music that I like.

[00:05:11] spk_0: That makes it really difficult when you're trying to figure out like uh themes for bringing the teams onto the court, right? Like, you know, like a psychedelic first song? That would be good for bringing an NBA team onto the court. And it's like I can't all of my love, you can't do that. It doesn't work. So yeah.

[00:05:32] spk_1: Yeah. I get I get like Godzilla Blue rays and Trailblazers Jersey for christmas.

[00:05:39] spk_0: That's beautiful. I love it. I love it. Well, excellent. Well, I can think of something else that makes both of you pretty interesting. You've got a little bit of a project going on. Tell us all about your project.

[00:05:52] spk_1: Glad you asked. Well, we have a very exciting movie coming out. It's called Mutant Vampires from the Planet Neptune and it's gonna be a feature film. It's gonna be a horror comedy movie in the style of kind of 80 slasher movies. Uh, similar to Don Dolar films who kind of invented this genre of slasher meets sci fi. So it's not like Michael Myers or Freddy Krueger. It's more like a space alien trying to kill the protagonist in the film. Uh, we're gonna film it. Super low budget. We have an Indiegogo going on right now. And it's incredible that within like seven days we've reached 90 of our goal.

[00:06:30] spk_0: Yeah, that's awesome. I've actually donated. Oh, did you? My money where my mouth

[00:06:36] spk_1: sat. Well, thank you so much for donating. What, what, what did you get?

[00:06:40] spk_0: I don't know. I don't remember. I just look for the amount of money I was comfortable spending. Yeah. With that. So I think it was $25.

[00:06:47] spk_1: Okay. This is good insight to see how people want want to engage with it.

[00:06:51] spk_0: Yeah. Well, I was just, I was looking to support. Yeah. But I think I get, Oh no, I know exactly what it is and that's exactly two tickets to the premiere.

[00:06:59] spk_1: Everyone wants that. We didn't think it was going to go very far.

[00:07:01] spk_0: Yeah. No, I mean that's a, I want to be eventually out with people and enjoying something as a group, Right?

[00:07:08] spk_1: Yeah. That's what I figured. It's funny too, because I've been a part of a lot of projects, like as an actor that have had crowdfunding campaigns. But as a filmmaker, I've never, I've never even really thought very deeply about doing a crowdfunding campaign for a movie. So this is really like my first, my first time. I know this is also Michael's first time and it's just like trying to figure out, you know, what, what did we think people were gonna buy versus what are people actually buying? Um, and uh, it's really hard with how successful this one's been so far to even figure out like, what, what did we do wrong? Like, you know, what, what, what are we getting from this that's not going to apply to other movies that don't have such a catchy title or ridiculous concept, right?

[00:08:01] spk_0: Yeah. I think I think that's really important is to have that that record stretch moment for people, right? That just grabs their attention and

[00:08:12] spk_1: they have to be scrolling and then they have to wait. What was

[00:08:15] spk_0: that? Yeah, I don't know what that even is

[00:08:18] spk_1: packing a girl in a bikini.

[00:08:20] spk_0: Exactly. Got you to stop right with that. That's

[00:08:26] spk_1: what I got that image that I just described. That you to stop and donate.

[00:08:29] spk_0: Right? It totally did. That was exactly what it was and in fact I was only gonna do $10 but then I was hoping she was gonna be hearing no not going to be at the premiere.

[00:08:40] spk_1: Yeah. Who's gonna be at the premiere? Everyone's going to premiere. Monster's gonna be at the premiere. Yeah it's gonna be at the premiere. We're going to be at the premiere.

[00:08:48] spk_0: Yeah that's the most important thing you guys are gonna be at the premiere. Yeah. So what what is the inspiration behind this movie? It's got mutants. It's got vampires. It's got mutant vampires.

[00:09:02] spk_1: Well uh

[00:09:03] spk_0: like a Neptune

[00:09:04] spk_1: oh yeah that's another question we always get. So uh at the top of the show you asked, you know, what, what do we like, what makes us interesting and like I said, fifties b order movies and sci fi movies are like are just my jam. They've always been since I was a little kid. And uh Michael mentioned Don Dolar who's a pretty big inspiration of mine because he's an independent filmmaker From the late 70s into the early 80's. Uh he's from Baltimore Maryland, and he made movies in his backyard that ended up like on TV and ended up gaining like this really big cult following. And I've just always been a really big fan of those movies. So first of all, I knew that when Michael opened up the studio space, we needed to do our our first big project needed to be fun. It needed to be maybe not overly serious. Um and that that kind of like fifties, monster movie genre, it's just perfect for that. Like, like we were also saying it it's one of those types of movies that if it's on like a walmart shelf is a DVD for five bucks, you kind of stop and go, what the fuck is that? You do not pick it up. Yeah. Yeah. You're so curious why Neptune Neptune is the coolest planet in the solar system. It's the furthest from the sun. It's one of the gas giants. It has, you know, the big I uh storm that's constantly there, I mean, and also, you know what? Everyone's everyone's been to uranus, you know, and everyone gives love to all the other planets. So

[00:10:44] spk_0: uh you you mentioned something there that I was trying to keep on the down low, but thank you for exposing me in more ways than one. Yeah, So you're funding this through Indiegogo and you're having some success which is awesome. Um I actually have had a guest on my show before. Who does he does movies as well, steve wallet. I don't know if you know who he is, but he does, he is prolific. He's done like I would say 250 movies. Uh He goes on Indiegogo and he gets like $30,000 in like a week. It's crazy. But I I think it's such a great, great way to get funding because um it's the people that are actually interested in what you're doing going and doing that. Um What has been, I mean I obviously asked a couple questions would have been some questions you've been asked uh from either people from Indie go Go or just people, you know, what are the questions that you've been asked that you're just um kind of surprised by how many people have asked to be in your movie?

[00:11:50] spk_1: A few. Quite a few. Yeah, I think the one that was really interesting to me, uh, there's a pretty popular Youtuber named Shawn C phillips and he's, he, he was like one of the first really big like Youtube people in like the movie community. He just has this huge collection. And he just, you know, he would just, oh, these are my top 10 favorite movies from the eighties, you know, and now he's like, you know, over 100,000 subscribers and his, his day job is doing that. But since he has like this little pocket of, of uh fame, uh, he's able to just get on all of these projects. And originally I, I reached out to him, so I also have a Youtube horror movie review channel and I kind of know him. I've talked to him a little bit before and I said, hey, would you mind like sharing this because it's kind of up your alley and your fans really like it? And he looked at it and said, oh, can I have a cameo in the movie? So that one was really surprising. What's also great is, I think that just kind of speaks to the ethos of making this film is that we're super adaptable. It's like if you wanted to be in the movie, Yeah. And you want to promote it and you're just good for the project that will put you in and then yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't matter to me. You know, I can, you know, the great thing about a movie like this is, you know, it can, it can go through little changes. You can add things, you know, there's nothing wrong with nothing holy or sacred about. Yeah. You know,

[00:13:22] spk_0: you're not working from a source text that is robert, you know, there's no,

[00:13:28] spk_1: this was really funny. I I was explaining this like, uh, oh yeah, have you heard about mutant vampires to a friend? I wanted to get involved? And he said, uh, no, I haven't heard about that. And he thought it was a serious thing, like after the audience and after the coronavirus, there were actually mutant vampires going around and they had to take a second wait, that can't possibly exist. But it did seem like the next chain in the progression of of a society. Yeah. Um, I also did get an interesting question where a couple of people said why mutant vampires aren't vampires from Neptune already weird enough,

[00:14:06] spk_0: You want that subset of the subset you're targeting your audience here. Right,

[00:14:13] spk_1: Right. Um, which I don't really have a good answer for that one. Yeah. Is he like, is he like a mutant on Neptune other he's an outcast. Yeah. You have to say that the sequel we have to have a lot. Right. What are

[00:14:27] spk_0: the questions you answer in the movie? You don't want to just yeah, go out and blow the whole thing, blow

[00:14:34] spk_1: the history. A lot of twists and turns. It has a lot of interest is to it.

[00:14:39] spk_0: So you guys wrote the script?

[00:14:41] spk_1: Yeah. We, you know, like I said, we Michael opened up the studio space. We knew that I've had some, some, you know, success with getting distribution for my last feature films. They've all been horror films. Um, so when we started the space, we already kind of came in with this knowledge of like how, how to do that, How to like go to a company, get your movie sold, get it on DVD, get it on amazon to be maybe even something like hulu. So we already knew how to do that. So we said, well we got, we have to do that for our first big project coming out of here. It's got to be a horror film because they're easy to sell. It should probably be something stupid and fun that everyone can get excited about. And

[00:15:32] spk_0: it went through a couple

[00:15:33] spk_1: of different changes, you know, Michael and I throw the ball around. We had a big white board and uh, we just, we were like, this idea makes this idea and then it came down to like, what do we just have in the studio? Yeah, it looks like it's high production value. And then oddly enough, those items came together, we can make this movie. We have a very, very nice latex vampire monster mask that's like form fitting that the actor can emote. And um, Michael also had like this cosmonaut style suit and it was like, okay, there's gotta go together.

[00:16:08] spk_0: Yeah, vampires in space

[00:16:12] spk_1: and it just works it immediately. It was like we said, it's like we knew. Yeah. And the funny thing is when we, I would tell that story or when I was in the process of writing the script, that's how I would, I would say it's like Michael and I were coming up with something, we realized we have a space suit and we have this vampire thing. And the first reaction that you get from people was please say that those two aren't going together. No, they're absolutely going together.

[00:16:42] spk_0: It's like chocolate and peanut butters to my years. But I hear, Yeah, that's awesome. Um, So I can't, when you've been in movies, other movies, you've

[00:16:54] spk_1: made other movies. Yes, Yes. I I believe I've directed five other other feature films that have had some form of distribution. Uh One of which is the DVD is uh you can preorder the DVD on amazon right now. That's another order of comedy called jesus. I was evil. Um but I've been acting for about 11, 12 years um in the community around here. Um had an agent the entire time. It's mostly just been like a lot a lot of Indie feature films that are shot around here. It's either that or commercials.

[00:17:39] spk_0: Yeah. Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah. And then Michael, you've been your producer, right? You produce.

[00:17:46] spk_1: Yeah, I'm getting more into producing. I got into doing film stuff in Portland because I was looking to do a career change. I didn't want to work in an office anymore. And I started working in public access and I started to notice that everyone has a camera and they want to shoot their passion project, but they don't have good sound. So then I moved on to doing sound production sound for independent films. And I realized that I really wanted to help friends and other people in town uh make their movies and my sound is a great thing for that because it really helps people uh get getting better sound in addition to having good visuals, makes their feature films or there any projects just a little bit better. So right now I'm kind of shifting from doing just production sound also doing producing, which this studio space that I'm opening up, which I want to give you a tour soon uh is About 800 square feet of like production space. And we're gonna open an office next door. So it's gonna be a space where we can just shoot projects in here. It'll be like a little mini soundstage. And the hope is that like different movies, different feature films, different independent projects. We're going to come through the space and the team that's being established here will give a huge leg up to everyone's project and we'll be able to produce some amazing content out of here.

[00:19:04] spk_0: That's awesome. That's awesome. Michael, when you go to the movies, do you, when you listen to a movie is their movies that you listen to that drive you nuts.

[00:19:14] spk_1: Uh Once in a while. Um uh usually usually uh bigger budget features don't have those issues. They can usually fix it in post a lot of the local stuff. I'm also guilty of this too. It's never perfect and you never have time to do all the work. Uh Yeah, there's some stuff that it's like really noticeable, it's kind of hard to know like if every, if it kills the movie for everyone else, as long as it's just a little blip here and there, it's usually fine.

[00:19:41] spk_0: There's uh there's certain movies, like feature films that get a lot of get panned on the sound a lot.

[00:19:47] spk_1: Sam

[00:19:47] spk_0: design is huge. Yeah. What is an Interstellar is one that gets panned pretty hard and it's just like, it's interesting because it can make or break a movie for people because if you go into a movie and you can't understand the dialogue or you can't, so it really does have an effect on people. I just think it's like one of those like Unsung Unsung Hero is the sound engineer behind the scenes. Um Not to say that the actor is not

[00:20:15] spk_1: important. Yeah, yeah, we're in front of the camera.

[00:20:20] spk_0: Right, right. Um, so, and so I know that you've got the space in Portland, but tell me about Portland, like, so you're not the only filmmakers in Portland. Portland is actually a pretty big filmmaker, you know, Michael, you and I both have a friend that is in the final throes of getting a feature film published. So, um, what do you, what is different about Portland than anywhere else as far as film?

[00:20:50] spk_1: Oh, that's tough. Okay, that's tough. From the perspective of, you know, I grew up in Los Angeles, but I didn't have a connection to the film community in L. A. So I can only speak, so I can kind of only speak to the community here and there's a lot of support, there's a lot of pockets, there's a lot of, there's a lot of talent out there. There's a lot of good people with good ideas. I like, others, different styles, different people are doing different things. Like I know Calvin's a big horror movie nerd, but there are people out there who only do action movies or do romance films or do you know, like more personal artistic projects. So there's a good diversity to the community. Um I think that uh collaboration is key. I wish that people would be connecting a lot more. Um and I think that's one of the unique perspectives that I had doing sound is I got to be on a lot of different teams. Uh and that that showed me different ways of doing things and you kind of take the best things from each pocket, like, oh, that group, that crew has this great ability to do this. Why don't we incorporate that over here and this group does this? Why don't we incorporate that back on our team? Yeah,

[00:21:54] spk_0: yeah. There's some, some terrible habits that you're like, I'm not going to do those. Have you seen things that crews have done where you're like,

[00:22:03] spk_1: you got the big, big ones are like scheduling, you gotta show up on time. Uh, you got to treat people with respect, uh, you have to be realistic about what you can accomplish in a day. I think that's a big thing. Uh, you can't go into it thinking that you're going to have, uh, you know, you can't cram, you can't force your way through a lot of filmmaking problems. You have to have like a time for it to look good. And you also got to come into projects being a little bit humble and not having like a huge ego or you know, expect you have to really work with a team. Yeah, I you know, I would definitely echo that. I think the biggest thing that I've noticed um is that there's maybe there's maybe a fair amount of people who kind of approach the film thinking like I I just I got this because this is like my passion project, where it's it's, you know, this community has a big emphasis on kind of like this like very artistic aspect to it, and especially coming from being like an actor first, and originally not not really ever thinking, I would be able to make my own movies. I obsess over it. Um and I worry about it and I map everything out and I make, you know, shot list months in advance, because I know that when I get into editing like I'm gonna I want uh you know, the most amount of content possible. And I agree with what Michael said. I think one thing that I might differ a little bit on, and it might be why, maybe why Michael doesn't love all of my past movies. But uh it's the fact that for me, uh like as an artist or as an editor, I would 10 times out of 10 rather have 100 Okay shots for a scene rather than like the one that everyone took forever to set up perfectly. Because, you know, I saw this in a Stanley Kubrick movie and I needed to be I need the light glinting on the on the fabric, just right. Because that's what, you know, that's what kubrick would do for me. It's like it's clay, it's like I can cut around, I can make this energetic. I would rather have like diversity in shots to build a c into like, like I, I kind of just call it like the covering your own ass style where it's like, just get a bunch of stuff here.

[00:24:38] spk_0: So the quantity over quality, because you know, you can cut it together properly and getting

[00:24:43] spk_1: a little bit. I think that there is a little, there is something to say about, especially if you find yourself in a time crunch, um having an ability to like muscle your way through a scene and go, I'll just, I'll make sure that I cover my ass somewhere else with the shot. So maybe if the, if the light reflecting off the fabric isn't as beautiful as everyone else wants, I could cut away from that. You can't be precious about those things. It's about what you need to tell the story. I also make corner movies, which, you know, if you're making, you know, if you're making your passion project about, you know, uh kittens learning how to read or whatever. Okay, maybe you need that. Maybe you need your beautiful glorious shots. But uh yeah, I know, but for for mutant vampire smith, you know, make it colorful, make it make it fun and action packed. Put a lot of blood in it.

[00:25:40] spk_0: We're good. People are gonna, let's face it like some of those like, like those those trailing shots or the one shot, you know on a, on a on what do they call him? The tram or whatever. They're Yeah, those things are beautiful. Also ridiculously expensive. Yeah, I get asked all the time. Like why isn't this more of like why don't you make cartoons for your sketches? And I'm like, you don't have any idea the budget. Yeah. What I've looked into it, it's like the budget goes up dramatically when you start adding those things and sometimes it's just good to get the story out there right and and tell it in the best possible way you can. Um That's awesome. What are some of the movies that you guys obviously a lot of horror movies for you Calvin but what are some movies that like those are the movies you aspire to? Is it kubrick?

[00:26:33] spk_1: Uh I will like Stanley, kubrick from David lynch. I also really love charlie Kaufman, I love connected in new york adaptation, Eternal Sunshine being john Malkovich but also like a lot of trash b movies. I love samurai cop, I love hard ticket to hawaii, I love Birdemic, I love the room, I Love Troll two. Um Yeah, so if we can aspire to, anywhere in between that spectrum would be great. Uh You know I and I do love good movies. You know, I do have an entire movie room in my house that's full of Dvds and blue rays and yes, most of them are our horror movies or what people would call B movies. But I mean like, you know, one of my favorite movies is uh Francis, ford, Coppola's rumble fish. I think that's like one of the best, most underrated movies ever made. Most underrated, like art films ever made. You know, I would love to be able to make something like that. There's maybe we did a short recently in the studio space that I don't know. I, I kind of hope maybe has some of that like rumble fish feel to it. Um you know, but yeah, I mean, I would be lying if I said that. Uh you know, I would, I would watch uh, A 70s Godzilla movie over a uh David Lynch film any day. Give me give me Godzilla versus the smog monster any day.

[00:27:59] spk_0: Right? Yeah. You know the fight at the action sequences might be better. Right? For sure. They are. Yeah, Calvin I asked this of all actors or actresses that have been on, on my show uh nudity and film, have you ever done any

[00:28:17] spk_1: Oh yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. From mutant vampires. I have a very small part. I'm

[00:28:24] spk_0: not no, you should not say that when you're talking about nudity.

[00:28:26] spk_1: Yeah. I'm starting to put it in my uh like it's got to be in my contract now. It's like I got to at least have a butt shot.

[00:28:36] spk_0: Yeah. I always be the same way I do that for this show to like I make myself write my own contract so that I have to have some full frontal nudity

[00:28:45] spk_1: in. Yeah. Buts are funny. Yeah, of course. I I, you know, uh, one of the first feature films that I was in when I was really young. There's no nudity, but it's it's definitely uh, suggested I was in a film called Adults in the Room. Uh, and so, so right off the bat as an actor, I was told I was already doing like music or maybe a little bit risque. Um, but yeah, I mean I did I did uh art horror film, I guess, uh, called uh Dead Man Island. And you know, there any full frontal in that there's a lot of nudity in that movie. I just, you know, I don't I don't really have a problem with it. Also don't have anything to like prove also you're not gonna, nobody is gonna embarrass me. Very little shame.

[00:29:35] spk_0: I'm very,

[00:29:36] spk_1: I really don't. I like Jim is one

[00:29:39] spk_0: of those things that just it hinders art.

[00:29:42] spk_1: Yeah, I I agree. And I think that it's really unfair. Um like on a serious note when like Male actors or male filmmakers or just like guys in general, um you know what, what did we all do as like young teens? It's like of course you want to watch the horror movie that's got nudity on the back of the box, you know, that was like average 12 year old boy. So it's just like really unfair then that you have a lot of male actors who are very like you mean a lot of them you don't want to take their shirt off. It's like, come on, you know, you can't double standard, like you really do have to be willing to do anything. You ever ask an actress to do it? Really? It's just it's fair, like on a serious note,

[00:30:28] spk_0: yeah, Calvin. I lied. I've never actually ask that question of anybody, but yeah, I'm in the same boat. Michael. Any full frontal sound design in a movie.

[00:30:44] spk_1: Trying to think what full frontal sound design with you. Uh Yeah, it's uh you hear a lot of like internal stuff. You're a lot of throat gurgling. You hear a lot of stomach issues depending on what people had for lunch. Yeah, You get real deep inside and personal.

[00:31:00] spk_0: Yeah. Okay. All right. That was the dirtiest thing ever said on this podcast. Thank you.

[00:31:05] spk_1: Good. Okay.

[00:31:08] spk_0: Um All right. Uh, so, we're at that point where we're gonna uh we now have to record a sketch after you're done. Googling all the different places where you can see Calvin's Ding dong. Honestly, if you need the list, just send an email to sketch comedy podcast show at gmail dot com, I'll send it to you. No worries. Then you might actually want to find out some other interesting things that both Michael and Calvin are working on mutant vampires from the planet Neptune. Actually, Michael Calvin, Where's the best place to find that?

[00:31:47] spk_1: Yes, uh mutant vampires from the planet Neptune. We are getting into uh production in March, our big day is going to be in april and we have an Indiegogo campaign that is running up into the mid april. We're already doing really well with it and and we just, we need you guys to support, even if you can't contribute money, just shares and likes is huge for it. Just getting eyeballs on the project is just as important. Honestly, we can't wait to be filming it and giving people updates and we really hope that you can donate or share and we can't wait for you to watch the film. Some extra proof that that we're not just, you know, goofy filmmakers and this is just going to end up on youtube somewhere. Uh not my last film but but two films ago, jesus, I was evil. You can already pre order it on amazon, you can preorder the DVD right now. I think it's like a whole whopping $12.

[00:32:50] spk_0: I'd almost be willing to host a watch party if you guys would be interested in that. I have already pre ordered the movie and now our sketch Oscar worthy movie pitch with Michael Gibson and Calvin McCarthy in three two Mr Spielberg. Your next appointment is here. Yeah. Okay. Send these guys in.

[00:33:20] spk_1: We've got the next

[00:33:21] spk_0: blockbuster movie for you. You're saying you've got the next blockbuster movie for me. Do you know who I am?

[00:33:26] spk_1: We've watched every movie that you've ever produced. Mr Spielberg, you're a fantastic artist. But let me tell you something. You are missing out on male. Full frontal nudity. Nobody wants to see tits and ass any more. Give the people what they want. It's all about gongs these days. Mr Spielberg.

[00:33:42] spk_0: Well it's Spielberg. I just want to make sure I'm clarifying. I don't want to get confused with that hack. People want dong

[00:33:50] spk_1: dogs plural. Movies need to hang Dong is these days Mr Spielberg?

[00:33:55] spk_0: Alright, I'm

[00:33:56] spk_1: listening. So what we want to do is we want to make a space opera centered around Romeo and Juliet in space

[00:34:03] spk_0: sort of like zombies and pride and prejudice, bullshit, that type of thing.

[00:34:07] spk_1: And everyone's gonna want to go see this movie. But what they realize is it's not gonna be full of nude women. It's gonna be full of nude men will

[00:34:15] spk_0: be the talk of the town. Now, you realize that I am a Oscar nominated director of film.

[00:34:22] spk_1: Absolutely. You've made fantastic film.

[00:34:24] spk_0: My last movie made $150 billion.

[00:34:28] spk_1: This movie is gonna be so big. They're going to have to open a new category at the Oscars. Just for you Nominated three times for this one movie. You're going to be the first x rated dong hanging film to win an Oscar Mr Spielberg.

[00:34:44] spk_0: All right. I like where you're going, what what do you got as far as plot

[00:34:48] spk_1: to space stations that our on opposing planets that don't like each other. You know, we're going to break a lot of new ground. Well, think puppets, puppets are going to be key to this whole

[00:34:59] spk_0: of these puppets. Do they also have dogs that are

[00:35:02] spk_1: hanging? That's the beauty of puppets. So you can have as many dogs as you want.

[00:35:05] spk_0: Tell me some of the action scenes, because that's what I'm known for. My movies are the dramatic action scenes. Like so tell me some of these dramatic action scenes I can

[00:35:13] spk_1: expect to be

[00:35:14] spk_0: filming in this movie. There's

[00:35:16] spk_1: gonna be tons of laser shootouts to me, tons of gore and decapitations. You know, nobody's going to care about. They're going to go to see puppet Daum's. Have you ever seen puppet gongs in a feature film before?

[00:35:28] spk_0: Your intriguing me quite a bit. What kind of a talent are you thinking for this film?

[00:35:33] spk_1: I will be voicing one of the puppets. Probably the puppet that hangs the most dong. You'll have the gravitas, I have the gravitas for it. I have, I

[00:35:43] spk_0: have, I can hear it in your

[00:35:44] spk_1: voice. You've got a good

[00:35:45] spk_0: hanging dong voice.

[00:35:46] spk_1: Have the voice of someone who hangs dong. But I also think Woody Harrelson, Woody Harrelson loves doing his friend Bill Hill Murray will come along. Have you ever heard you ever heard of Bill Murray? You know,

[00:35:59] spk_0: I ran into Bill Murray at a cocktail party. He was interested in a movie where quite honestly, he was asking why he doesn't get a lot of offered hanging down.

[00:36:09] spk_1: Uh, has never been in a movie with the puppet, but we know that and he's never done nudity. And that's the one thing that Bill Murray goes to his grave and never hangs dong in a film

[00:36:20] spk_0: on his gravestone. It'll say

[00:36:22] spk_1: never hung did everything except for hanging dawn.

[00:36:25] spk_0: I'm loving this project so much. I don't know what the story is. I don't really understand why we would be making it, but I'm in all right. What do you need from me?

[00:36:34] spk_1: A couple 100 million to get the puppets made. We will also need to space stations as we will be filming on location.

[00:36:41] spk_0: Okay, so it looks like I got to get in touch with Elon musk to get some space stations up in space

[00:36:48] spk_1: and if Elon musk can hang dong to, we're just gonna double the revenue that we would have gotten

[00:36:53] spk_0: already, he'll be interested, but he's definitely going to be asking for one thing in particular. What's that? How good is the CGI budget and can they make things bigger? Thank you again for joining us on sketch comedy podcast show. We hope you enjoyed listening as much as we had fun making it sketch comedy podcast show is protected under a creative commons attribution no derivatives 4.0 international license. If you would like to use any portion of this show, please just contact the show at sketch comedy podcast show at gmail dot com and request permission. I would also love to hear from you. If you've got an idea for a sketch shooting my way, maybe we'll record it together.

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Nick Shelton | World-Dominating INTROVERT WITH REALLY NICE FEET

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 07:00:00 GMT

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

You know that feeling when you walk into a room, maybe it’s a party or other gathering, and you don’t know anyone really and you start to feel the walls pulling you closer until your back is against it? Or, maybe there is a dog or cat around and you decide that would be the best conversational companion? What about a room filled with people you do know? What about a room with one other person? If you still find yourself “shying away” from others, you might be an introvert. This episode’s guest completely understands where you are coming from.

Nick Shelton is a world-dominating introvert. What does that mean? It means that despite having what would be considered crippling social anxiety and feeling drained being around people, Nic has found a way to overcome it! And better yet… he can help you if you have similar issues! He wrote a book so you can figure this out for yourself called “An Introvert’s Guide to World Domination” (https://amzn.to/3p6S7t1). He even has a worldwide network of introverts! Wild!

We talk about Nick’s 5 engagements (and 2 marriages), the worst lines to use at a party, how to figure out if you are an introvert yourself, what to do with a masseuse who likes your feet too much, and how to watch people in public places without being creepy. Look, it’s hard to do primary research for a book.

This week’s sketch: “This Guy is Really Starting to Creep Me Out.”

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

SOCIAL MEDIA

SUBSCRIPTIONS & REVIEWS

MORE ABOUT THE GUEST

Nick Shelton, best selling author of the book "An Introvert's Guide to World Domination" has been fine-tuning the craft of effective, high-level social strategy and networking for twenty years. Beginning with his time in the United States Air Force, Nick learned skills that were indispensable to his journey. Coupled with extensive research and fifteen years of experience in the oil and gas industry, Nick finally cracked the code and developed tools that gave him the confidence to flourish in social situations. Nick has successfully built a strong, international network of friends, colleagues, and associates and continues to teach introverts how to upgrade their lives and lifestyles and navigate social events with ease.

Links

Book

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] spk_0: in this episode, Nik Shelton world dominating introvert and I came up with a couple of sketches. So I imagine you in second grade to start asking the other the little girls around the playground if, if they like to marry you.

[00:00:19] spk_1: Okay.

[00:00:21] spk_0: I love the idea of you just observing people being very blatant about it, having them as as they go different places notice like that's the same guy from the restaurant guys, the person who's getting into doing security just to have the pistol whipping.

[00:00:40] spk_1: So

[00:00:42] spk_0: Which one did we pick? You'll find out right now on. It's a sketch comedy podcast show. Welcome to sketch comedy podcast show where I Stewart rice, invite interesting people to have intriguing conversations and then improvise a comedy sketch based on what we talked about. It's the only show like it on the internet. Sorry about being so slow releasing episodes. I didn't realize people were still interested in this show. Then all of a sudden I checked the Internet and I'm on a couple of top 20 list for 2021. I figured I should probably release some new episodes. Then this episode is perfect for the beginning of the year. You know that feeling you get when you walk into a room, maybe it's a party or other gathering and you don't know anyone there and you start to feel the walls pulling you closer until your back is against it. Or maybe there's a dog or cat around that you decide would be a better conversational companion than any of the humans in the room. What about a room filled with people? You do know. What about a room with one other person? If you still find yourself shying away from others, you might be an introvert. This episode's guest completely understands where you are coming from. Nik Shelton is a world dominating introvert. What does that mean? It means that despite having what would be considered crippling social anxiety and feeling drain, being around people, Nick has found a way to overcome it and better yet he can help you if you have similar issues. He wrote a book so that you can figure this out for yourself called an introverts Guide to world domination. He even has a worldwide network of introverts wild. We talk about Nick's five engagements and two marriages. The worst lines to use at a party, How to figure out if you are an introvert yourself what to do with a masseuse who likes your feet a little too much and how to watch people in public places without being creepy. Look, it's hard to do primary research for a book. Then we record a sketch. This guy is really starting to creep me out and now my conversation with Nick Shelton world dominating introvert with really nice feet. Hey, Nick, thanks for joining us today.

[00:03:21] spk_1: Thanks for having me. It's an honor and a pleasure.

[00:03:24] spk_0: It is for me to nick, I've got a question to ask you.

[00:03:28] spk_1: Okay, What do we got?

[00:03:30] spk_0: What makes you interesting?

[00:03:33] spk_1: What makes me interesting? Well, let's see. I think one thing that people have said is very interesting, even though I don't know why it is, is I've been engaged five times and married twice and I'm not married engaged

[00:03:49] spk_0: five times and married twice. All right, so three of those engagements did they say, Did they say yes? It's something

[00:04:00] spk_1: yes. So all of the engagements, So five times they said yes, yes. So I was had five yeses. I didn't have any nose on engagements, so I'm 100 for engagements. And then two of those engagements turned into marriage is that did not last. So, but people, I think people think it's interesting for some weird reason that uh someone would get engaged that many times, I guess I'm just romantic, but I don't think it's interesting at all.

[00:04:31] spk_0: Well it is kind of interesting sir, you are fast engage er are you like, hey, we've been tolerating each other's existence for three months, like just do this or or what

[00:04:42] spk_1: is it? I would say that yes, I'm quite a fast engagement. Not anymore, I've learned from this and now I would say I'm an extremely slow engage er but there was a time where I felt like I was a romantic and I wanted to, you know, all these fairy tales and stuff and movies, they kind of brainwashed me, I guess, I don't know. And so, and I fall in love easily or I used to at least, and so I'd say this seems like a good deal to me. Let's go ahead and lock this in

[00:05:14] spk_0: Absolutely any any stories as to and you don't have to share this, but any stories about, like those engagements and why they stopped, Was there anything interesting that happened? There

[00:05:27] spk_1: nothing to noteworthy? Just either, you know, one of them ran off with another dude? You know, that it's kind of, it's kind of interesting, I suppose. But you know, I think in hindsight it was better because now that guy is married to or, and it doesn't seem like he won, it seems like I won by her running off with that guy.

[00:05:51] spk_0: That's a, you know, when someone runs off with someone, you always dodged a bullet. That's my feeling if someone decided like I want to be over there instead, you're great because that means you didn't have to go through all the legalities, Right.

[00:06:07] spk_1: Right. It was so they weren't nothing too crazy or bad. I think it all turned out and I'm actually, I'm friends, I'd get along really well with all five of those girls and the two ex wives were really close. I think my two ex wives were closer now than we were when we were married. So, you know,

[00:06:28] spk_0: when, once the divorce happens, or once the breakup happens or whatever, that is all the cards on the table. So there's no like hiding the hand and there's no like, so you just kind of it's everything's out there. So you just, now I had that's what that's what I was holding and now we can just continue on and I actually like looking at relationships as evolution, They evolve as opposed to starting and ending. Um you evolve relationship. And uh someone who was a lover can definitely be a really good friend because that person probably knows you better than anybody, right? And I will say that a lot of my exes do not do it, but uh, but nick, that's actually shocking to hear that you were engaged five times because I know something about you that I think you actually want everybody to know is that you're kind of an introvert, aren't you?

[00:07:29] spk_1: Yes, I am a definitely an introvert and definitely was also in addition to that shy and socially awkward, but I think how that would, how you say, well how would you be engaged that many times? I think it was another part of that would have been I, you know, instead of trying to date everyone all the time, which is hard for somebody that's not trying to get out there and talk to people, you say, hey, someone's right here, I'll just go ahead and just be with this person, then I don't have to go out and try to find another person. So it's

[00:08:00] spk_0: spending the rest of your life with someone that may not be optimal is far less scarier than

[00:08:06] spk_1: the time. Anyway, it seemed that way.

[00:08:14] spk_0: Now I know better. Right? So, so uh you are, you feel, um you describe yourself as an introvert like I'm not, I'm not throwing that on you that this is something you describe yourself absolutely

[00:08:28] spk_1: describe myself that

[00:08:29] spk_0: Yeah, when did you find out that you were, that you had that mindset that you were kind of an introvert?

[00:08:36] spk_1: Well I didn't really know what it was, but I would say the first recollection was around second grade when I realized, hey, I seem to be a little different than these other kids. So, uh you know, so introversion, it's like when you get your energy from being alone and then you, you spend a lot of energy interacting with people and it's really difficult for you. And then on top of that I was also socially awkward and shy. And so I felt like uh an alien who didn't pay attention in there, how to blend in with humans class. And then they sent me here anyway and I said, oh no, I don't, I should have paid attention in that class. And so that's when I knew around second grade is something's different. I need to try to figure this out, but it took a while to get around to figuring it

[00:09:28] spk_0: out. Sure, sure, but it sounds like you've done a pretty good job figuring it out, but before we get there, you actually just said something that was really interesting is you separated the socially awkward away from the introversion? Can you expand on that a little bit? Because I think that's a major area of confusion for a lot of people,

[00:09:47] spk_1: Right? So uh people a lot of times think that if you're introverted then you're naturally also shy, but that's not the case or socially awkward and that's not necessarily the case. They're all separate things. And a lot of times they'll complement each other and kind of go to hand in hand and you'll see where you see one, you will often see another. But so socially awkward is you just socially you don't know what to do and you're kind of clumsy and social situations and then shy, we all know that you don't speak up. And then being an introvert is you prefer more alone time or time away from crowds because it's sapping your energy. So uh that is it's a little bit different than those other two. But often they all if somebody has one they might have the other two things as well. And I had all of those things. You

[00:10:43] spk_0: had a full suite. Yes that skill set. Um A lot of people are surprised to find out. I I too am actually pretty introverted. I need a lot of the downtime, a lot of the recharge in order to get in front of people. I'm in the exact same boat. Um And the social awkwardness. Maybe not to not to a great extent but it's definitely there. What do you have an example of like a time the social awkwardness took over and it just it just a good highlight for you and you did said something or did something where it was just like little cringe. E I think that's what the kids would say these days. It's a little

[00:11:25] spk_1: I know there's it's hard to there's been so many that it's hard to pick one out but the one that comes to mind right now is I remember man this was many years ago, I think this was back in the The late 80s probably 1989 or 1990. And there was my friend took me over this house where it's just like there's gonna be some girls let's go meet some girls and we're all hanging out and I and they're saying hey so what's going on? How are you doing? And then I couldn't think of anything to say, I don't know what people say to each other. So then I started talking about the weather and you know everyone looked at me like what's wrong with you and then I don't know. And then yeah it just got really strange after that and then nobody really wanted to talk to me and then I was just kind of sitting there and then that made it even more awkward because then I said what am I supposed to say now to try to recover from this weather thing and I couldn't think of anything. So yeah it was really bad and then later my friends tease me about that for a long time to be like, hey so how's that weather? You know what do you think about the weather? It also because that's something that young people don't normally concern themselves with

[00:12:41] spk_0: know what they're talking about like what Anderson to your mind is I've got to fill this space right? Like I got to fill the space with some sort of words but I don't know this person and I don't what's the most famous, but it's the easiest thing to break up. We all experience the weather, right? Yeah, that's good.

[00:13:00] spk_1: That

[00:13:01] spk_0: um yeah, that's not a great, that's not a, you know, I wouldn't write a rap song about that one, what I would say like, but uh we've all been there I think um now as an adult have, how is the uh introversion, the social awkwardness? How has that affected you in like your career or in your job or you know, kind of pull us through like nick's life like when you were because I know you you served in the military,

[00:13:36] spk_1: correct. And so it wasn't really as much of an issue there because that's I had already started to navigate my way through it and uh through the military. And then after that is when I really started getting it down and mastering how to actually make it more of an advantage. So I would say in my career, I've never really had to experience that because I've been, I've already had hacked it by then and been able to move through the system. But I'd say earlier on in earlier jobs, then, you know, you see people get the promotion that you say I should have got that or see people get opportunities that you think that you should have gotten and you get passed up because there they might not know as much as you and they might not be as qualified, but they step out into the spotlight and then so they have that attention on them. And so naturally goes to them while if you're uh flying below the radar and you know, laying low, trying not to be noticed, then naturally you get passed up for stuff and you say, hey, that should have been mine. And so that those types of things were happening not only in the workplace, but also, you know, just with opportunities or with parties, no one's inviting you to a party if they don't know who you are and your boots blending in. And if you're, once again, if I'm trying to talk to some girls or something, are they going to go out with a guy that doesn't say anything and he's standing over in the corner or are they going to go with the guy that hey, that's the life of the party. And I can tell you it's the life of the party that

[00:15:11] spk_0: walks in. Yeah, walks in, you know the cap backwards in the case of beer and is like, let's do shots, you know, everybody wants to talk to,

[00:15:23] spk_1: right? So that translates over into the workplace and everything. So I was a victim. I suffered of that from that, seeing that. And then I said, hey, I would like to be a part of, you know, being able to be seen and heard as well. But I don't want to compromise myself, my energy and myself to be able to do that. So I had to, I looked for resources and I couldn't find any that spoke to people like us. So then I had to figure out myself and then create those resources myself to health other people like us.

[00:15:59] spk_0: Okay, so do you mind talking a little bit about these resources? Because you actually, and we'll put this out there. You compiled all of these resources for people to be able to get them correct? So they don't have to go through the torture of developing these resources. You wrote a book, uh, the introverts guide to world domination. Yeah. Uh it's delightful but like why don't you give give us some of these like are they life hacks? Like how would you describe them?

[00:16:35] spk_1: Well, so I would say that uh so a lot of stuff that's out there, it's it's pretty much talking to like normal people and so I said well that doesn't apply to me and then it also starts you somewhere in the middle. It doesn't start you at the beginning you say, hey what if I am very basic beginner, what do I do? And so I had to go out and just observe people. So I would go out to restaurants, table for one sit there, watch other people the other tables and see how they interacted. And then I'd watch groups and I just go out to places and just observe people because I think a superpower of, of introverts and shy people is observation. So I'd sit and observe people and I would see what seemed to be working, what seemed to be not working while just watching people. And then I would say, okay, well let me try that by the way,

[00:17:29] spk_0: Most non creepy. I

[00:17:32] spk_1: didn't have a scowl on my face while I was doing it. I was, I didn't have binoculars or anything. I would just sit there and enjoy my dinner and I would just kind of notice there was no newspaper held up that I'd kind of peek over, got holes in the front page, right? So it was very casual, I assure you it wasn't in a creepy, I don't think anyone would notice. And then I started going out and saying, well what if I do this, what if I do this? And so I would just try different things and then what worked? I would kind of build off of that. And then once I, everything started coming together, then I, I kind of organized it and I said, okay, now let me do more of this and build my social circle. So I was able to get a very high level international, uh, network of uh, you know, friends, colleagues, and associates. And then all my friends started saying, how do you do this? I want to do this too. As it opened up a whole world of cool stuff for me to be able to be around people that brought out the best in me. Uh, that could be like mentors, people that were doing cool stuff. I get invited to a lot of luxury events and people were like, well, how are you, how are you yachting? And I'm like, oh yeah, because you know, one of my friends has a yacht and he didn't want to go out by himself, so, you know, I'm there too, you know, that sort of thing. And so people wanted to know how to do it. So then I said, well, let me put together how it's done from the very beginning and save people a lot of time. And so I wrote the book, and introverts got to world domination to show how to upgrade your life and lifestyle through building real solid connections with people.

[00:19:22] spk_0: That's amazing. Um, and now this network that you have, this worldwide network, is it a network of introverts? Because that seems like an oxymoron, right? So

[00:19:32] spk_1: some of the people are introverts, but then there are some, so it's all types of people. So some people are really over the top extroverts and some people are very quiet and it's just a whole spectrum of different people that I've managed to to build relationships with and become really good friends with and that it makes all the difference. And I think that you know in life uh more than anything, it's our relationships with people that are really the true true wealth and if you like, you know, we have this a lot of people out there are suffering from depression and I find that if you have really solid awesome relationships, usually it's a lot harder to be depressed if you have like a really great support system around you and if you don't have that,

[00:20:23] spk_0: that's absolutely true. Actually. How to show a couple months back where I talked to a guest who he's a suicidal uh superhero, but but he talks about how that's what's kept him alive, is having that network of people and being able to because because we need people right? Like that's the human as part of the human condition is that we need other people. We need to have that other human contact. Um you just need less of it and you need to recharge in order to be out there with it,

[00:20:57] spk_1: right, I can go out there, do it big, and then I said, okay now I'm gonna need some time. Yeah. And yeah, so when one of the things that I find fascinating that I mentioned earlier is that when people see that, because somebody might say, well you have to divorce is you're going to tell me about building great relationships. But I say, hey, I have great relationships with my ex wives, we are, we are great and they will endorse me and say, yeah, he's the best. You know, we're just not married anymore. But yeah, I have I can communicate well and both these great relationships and show other people how to do it as well. So you don't have enemies floating out there. You can have, you know, at least some friends, you know, that's

[00:21:39] spk_0: all some friends actually had on a dating profile. I had all of my ex girlfriends, right? Like a review for me, I had that as my dating profile on OK, Cupid for a while.

[00:21:50] spk_1: How did it do?

[00:21:51] spk_0: What's that? How did

[00:21:53] spk_1: the profile do? Did it Okay.

[00:21:55] spk_0: Like, I don't know, I'm a guy, so, like, online dating is impossible. Mhm. So what is a what is it like, how does somebody know they're an introvert? Because I think that that's something a lot of people describe themselves as introverts. A lot of people like, oh, you know, I'm super shy, I'm so introverted. Like, how how does somebody know, like what's the thing that you would you would say is like, here are the keys and this is this is the type of person that should be reading your book.

[00:22:28] spk_1: That's a really good question. So the type of person that should be reading my book is everybody can read my book and they can get some value

[00:22:35] spk_0: how I felt about my book to write,

[00:22:40] spk_1: because it has, you know, all these tips for people that anyone can use and even if you're an extrovert, like I have real estate agents that want that edge over other real estate agents. So they use some of these techniques to and there are extroverts, they used these techniques to just get that edge over the competition. So the book has value for anyone who reads it, but for somebody to know they're an introvert, I would say that if you find that like when you go to a social environment, if there's just if it's almost like a timer has started and you can only handle so much and then then all of a sudden it's like I I need to leave, I need to leave right now. And it's not like uh you're scared or anything like that. It's just, it's like kind of taking the life out of you, even if you're having a good time, you say, okay, I'm kind of hitting a wall here, I just need to go somewhere else. And so for me, I don't necessarily have to be alone. But if I'm in a crowd and then maybe I've I'm with one person after that. That might help kind of bring me back around and recharge me a little. But yeah, it is better if I do if I am alone. I was at a, an event a few days ago and You know, we were all as a nice maybe is a social gathering. The, I think uh, the 30 people and we're all spaced apart properly and all that. But we were all talking and then at a certain time I just figured, okay, well this is great and there's still some people I'd like to talk to, but I'm going to leave and I just left and I came home and I didn't have to go to sleep or anything, but I just needed to just have some time by myself and I've had friends do the same thing. We've been out when I've been traveling with some friends, one of them, I said, hey, let's, we just finished some activity. And then I was ready to go do something else. And he said, hey, I just need, give me half an hour, I just need a half an hour just to sit and do nothing. And then I said, I understand that and gave him the half an hour. And so his, his tolerance for being in like that, the, in the community is even smaller than mine. So his, his timer is less than mine is. So I had to recognize that and say, okay, so if somebody is goes out there and then the more they're out there, the more they get, you know, charged up like we can just, as long as this party is going or this organization, this event, I'll be here, then that's, that's more of the other side of it. The extroverted side, the introvert side, there's a point where you just say I need to kind of retreat from this and kind of recharge.

[00:25:29] spk_0: Yeah, I think for myself um what I found is that I've transitioned from the extroverts to more of the introvert and I'll be at a party just like you're talking about having a great time and I'm like no, I'm good. That tanks filled. I'm out. I'm gonna go watch reruns of rick and morty years. Uh Yeah, so that definitely happens. Um All right. So there were some questions that you said I should ask now. We can easily transfer curious about two of these. You

[00:26:05] spk_1: said what questions should I ask? So questions just

[00:26:09] spk_0: these are great. So um naked, I got my feet are sore story about a time where maybe uh foot massage was in play.

[00:26:24] spk_1: Yes. So I enjoy a good foot massage just like everybody else and you know, so I like to go to different foot massage establishments to see where is the best foot massage. And there was one that is not too far off the street from where I am right now that I went in there and and this particular time there was a sometimes it's a man, sometimes a woman it doesn't really matter. But this time there was this uh this guy had to be like uh what a like an NBA player would be. So this is a uh I believe his ethnicity, I'm pretty sure he was chinese Um and he was probably like 6 8 or something like that. And

[00:27:15] spk_0: so you know me so and

[00:27:19] spk_1: so then he's he's massaging my feet and then he but the thing is I believe this is where it gets interesting. He had seemed like he had a foot fetish for like my feet because he was like oh your feet are so beautiful, you have such nice feet. And then he kept giving me this really strong eye contact. So he just kept staring into my eyes and rubbing my feet and complementing my feet. And I was thinking, well this has never happened before, you know, I've gotten a lot of foot massage, I would say over 100 ft massages and that has never happened. So I just kept sitting there just staring me in the eyes and complementing my feet and rubbing my feet and has taken this is quite an experience. I

[00:28:02] spk_0: don't think he was going to propose because he was already on his situation.

[00:28:07] spk_1: I just think wow, I said this because I had if this would have been my first foot massage, I would say well maybe this is just how they do it, I don't know, but since I had had many, I said I know that this isn't normally how they go. This is a little different but it's like at least I know I have beautiful feet because this guy is at least appreciating my feet.

[00:28:32] spk_0: He's a professional. You take the compliment right? You've seen a lot of feet and so you're talking about some nice feet. That's uh huh. Yeah I could. Were you uncomfortable? Were you little

[00:28:46] spk_1: uncomfortable? I started getting uncomfortable because the eye contact us like I would like it if he would stop with the eye contact

[00:28:53] spk_0: his contact

[00:28:53] spk_1: man just look at my feet and run the, yeah and so it was I was uncomfortable and I said well I probably don't need to continue coming back to this particular place but I still continue to get foot massages and other places. But that's the only time that that had happened. And I remember I asked people after that has this ever happened to you does this sound unusual to you? And they said yes that does sound unusual. So

[00:29:23] spk_0: yes that any time that would be the case. That sounds so unusual. Like I would be so uncomfortable. I I don't care if it was a man or a woman doing that. I'd be like okay just rub my feet. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm

[00:29:42] spk_1: glad it happened. So at least I have that experience. I could be like oh that does happen to people. Okay.

[00:29:47] spk_0: It does what happened to you for sure. It's more primary research much like going and stocking people at a you know what that's like

[00:29:58] spk_1: a situation. Um

[00:30:01] spk_0: Do you have any interesting collections? Is there anything that collection like the collect Or is there a collection that you could think of that? Maybe like a sharp connection collection of something?

[00:30:14] spk_1: Oh I see. Yes, because I was thinking the only thing I have a collection of is that so you're talking about the machete collection? So the machete collection, how that happened was apparently I'm really hard to shop for. So my brother and said hey you know you were hard to shop for. So one I think it was christmas or my birthday, he just showed up with a machete and said hey here you go, you're hard to shop for. So here's a machete. And then every birthday and christmas, he got me another one. So now I have all these machetes and the thing is so that's the only collection I have it because I never just collecting anything myself. But he said if I started getting these for you then you will have a collection and then I always know what to get for you because I'll just get you a new different type of machete and just add it to your collection. The problem is that then you have like an apartment full of machetes and then if I'm on a date and they're like, hey, let's go to your place, then I have to think are the machetes up, are they put the machetes away? Because it's gonna be weird, you know, if you walk in and there's like, Well no, to my 14 machetes laying around there, like uh maybe I shouldn't be, you know, so it's something in my mind where I actually have to think, Okay, don't have the machetes out, make sure the machetes are put away. And and yeah, so it's it's an odd thing. So machetes, like they're just just uh you would think when you picture a machete, you just think there's just one type of machete. But apparently there are a lot of different types in different regions of the world have their spin on the machete. So yeah, there's no shortage of machetes and I was thinking he's going to run out sooner or later. How many machines could there be? But there are a surprising different type of bush. Do you have to cut right, like a machete

[00:32:05] spk_0: type would work? But

[00:32:06] spk_1: so yeah, have the machetes and you know, and I haven't I don't think that I have actually used a machete to chop anything. And I was thinking, man, I should go out somewhere where there's like some weeds or something and go chop something. But then there's another part of me that thinks what if somebody sees me out doing that, they're like, what's that guy doing? Because it's not like a common thing here. I'm the hiking trails from a machete. Got me out. Yeah, I

[00:32:35] spk_0: know. That is certainly not the case. Um I guess if you get like a hard piece of cheese that might be impressive. You bring a girl over and you're like, watch this Gallagher it with a machete I guess. I don't know. That is a good idea. Yeah, I'm just saying um maybe second date type situation, you're not the first thing, someone home and you're like, here, check out my machete collection. Yeah, wow. Do you have them on display or do

[00:33:05] spk_1: you, they're not on display there all put away at the moment because I said it's probably best to just keep them away and then that way I don't have to wonder if they are out and and yeah, I don't, it just seems like it just be weird to have a big display thing of machetes unless I could put them behind glass or something.

[00:33:27] spk_0: Some sort of glass because like, what's weirder for somebody if you're inviting someone over things are going really well and you're like, you have them on display on your wall and she sees them and you're like, and she's like, oh, what are those? And you can explain the story, right? Or what's worse? Like she's looking around your apartment, opens up a drawer, unprompted. Like, like

[00:33:55] spk_1: anxiety goes way high real quick. Well, you shouldn't go through people's things.

[00:34:00] spk_0: That's the that's the lesson. It's a list.

[00:34:03] spk_1: Don't go snooping around because you might find a drawer of machetes

[00:34:08] spk_0: or you find them in different places in the, in the apartment, right? Like you're like, wonder what's this under the seat cushions? Like pull out a machete. It's like, what is going

[00:34:17] spk_1: on here? Just one behind the toilet, the bathroom, one under the kitchen sink. Like I got to be ready. You never know what might go down.

[00:34:27] spk_0: That's right. You never know how bad the mold gets in the bathroom. Shetty kept through it. Uh That's fantastic. And then um I you ever had a job where um you know, during the training process, like they taught you something really interesting.

[00:34:46] spk_1: Ah Yes, so when I was a many years ago, I was a security guard and one of the first things I remember, I say, okay, we're gonna, it's training day, we're gonna train shy

[00:34:58] spk_0: security guard.

[00:34:59] spk_1: Yeah, well you don't have to really talk to people, you're just kind of, it's

[00:35:02] spk_0: true. Listen, they're doing something that you're like, hey, can you uh never mind,

[00:35:07] spk_1: you don't worry about it. You guys know you don't figure it out. So I got machetes at the house all. Yeah, so, so as an armed security guard and so we had our firearms and you know, so you have the firearm training and everything like that, but when I had my, my pistol and we're sitting there in the classroom, they said, okay, number one thing first of all, to start the class, number one do not pistol whip anybody. And I think that's a weird thing to say, starting off, don't pistol whip anybody. And uh so I was thinking, I know there's a story that goes along with this, because they wouldn't just say don't pistol whip anyone unless somebody had pistol with, because I would have never thought about pistol whipping anybody, I'm just, I'm a security guard standing over there, wouldn't be like I should pistol if somebody, so you know, do not pistol with anyone and also do not fire warning shots is another one. And then I was like okay somebody must have fired a warning shot as well, so I had to uh dig it took a while, but I finally heard the story, so the pistol whipping, somebody had uh somebody they were chasing them and when they caught them to teach them a lesson they decided they were gonna pistol with them and so they were pistol whipping this person and then the person took the pistol and shot them and uh so there you go, that's how that

[00:36:38] spk_0: ineffective pistol with.

[00:36:40] spk_1: Yeah, he must have been pistol whipping the wrong way, Can we have a class on how to properly pistol with somebody if we hypothetically going to do that? Uh but yeah, this first apparently did it wrong and they got shot, so

[00:36:54] spk_0: that's not so much a pistol whip is more of its like a pistol uh what would be like a slow version of a, like a pistol

[00:37:02] spk_1: nudge,

[00:37:04] spk_0: hey, you get hit in the head with a gun by somebody, I'm probably on the floor. So like yeah, either a really tough skull, really slow slow whip,

[00:37:18] spk_1: right? And then the warning shot one that somebody apparently they were talking to somebody who wasn't listening, so they just figured they would fire a warning shot, just shoot a shot in the air and naturally that is frowned upon. So you know,

[00:37:35] spk_0: because I would like goes up and down,

[00:37:38] spk_1: down somewhere. So uh, so these things, I think, wow, this is interesting, they have to tell us this because you know, I guess some of my peers need to be told this because they're going to go out and do these things. And so I thought that was very interesting and you know, fortunately I never

[00:37:58] spk_0: had to didn't have any of those situations

[00:38:00] spk_1: I didn't have to pistol with and you want to even think about it or

[00:38:03] spk_0: I'm glad that they did have those discussions with people because how many pistol whip situations would they have had otherwise? They're like if we need to make this part of the curriculum because otherwise we're going to lose lots and lots of security guards,

[00:38:16] spk_1: people would say, hey, you never told us that we couldn't do that. You never said you need to say that we're not supposed to do that. Then I would know. I didn't know. But thank you for letting me know next time. I won't do

[00:38:29] spk_0: it. I'll take the written warning this time.

[00:38:32] spk_1: So I'll take the warning. Okay from now on. No pistol whipping, you know,

[00:38:36] spk_0: pissed you. All right, nick. This has been fantastic. We are at that point. It's time to record a sketch. What body part do you think a masseuse would complement you on nick if people wanted to check out your feet or maybe get in touch with you because they too are introverts and want to break out of that shell. What's the best way for them to do that?

[00:39:04] spk_1: All right, well, they can go to my website, connected introvert dot com. That's connected introvert dot com and that will show you that will give you a link to the book. The book is also available on amazon. So the book is an introverts guide to world domination to become a high level networker and upgrade your life and lifestyle and so but connected introvert dot com will give you resources to the book. And I also have an online video course and also some coaching and mentorship program and more stuff coming soon.

[00:39:37] spk_0: Absolutely awesome. And when we can start to leave our houses again, you can be set up so that you can become a world dominating introvert as well. And now our sketch. This guy is starting to creep me out with nik shelton nick. Thank you so much for coming out to dinner with me and invited me to go out to dinner. I've wanted to try this restaurant for such a long

[00:40:04] spk_1: time. It's a great restaurant. Please enjoy. You can even order the market price stuff like Albino Lobster or something.

[00:40:12] spk_0: I have never done. Market prices always so scary to me.

[00:40:17] spk_1: Are you sure? Oh yeah I might as well live a little. You're with me. I got you.

[00:40:23] spk_0: Do you notice that guy over there reading a newspaper?

[00:40:26] spk_1: I see him. Do you know him? No, I

[00:40:29] spk_0: don't know. I was trying to see if maybe like I dated him once before, but there's something weird about that newspaper though.

[00:40:36] spk_1: It's upside down. Just ignore that guy and go ahead and pick out what you want to. Maybe we'll get some champagne or something.

[00:40:42] spk_0: Oh, do you like cream spinach? It looks like he has a microphone pointed

[00:40:47] spk_1: this way, but it does look like a microphone though, but so you don't like the cream spinach. You know, you can get it if you want. He's

[00:40:54] spk_0: taking notes on everything that we're saying. I can tell it because every time we say something he writes something. But something

[00:41:01] spk_1: that, okay, well maybe say something, give him something cool to write down. I suppose it is kind of weird

[00:41:09] spk_0: and now that I'm looking at him, he's kind of sliding under the table a little

[00:41:13] spk_1: bit. So it's like he knows he's been discovered. I see what you're saying now. I don't know. What should we worry about this at all. I can just get our check for the drinks and then we can just go for a walk in the park or something like

[00:41:24] spk_0: that. Do you mind if we go take a

[00:41:26] spk_1: walk? Maybe he'll be gone by the time we come back?

[00:41:29] spk_0: Oh my gosh breast out here. It's a beautiful fall night. I am a big fan of sweater weather. Do you like sweater weather?

[00:41:36] spk_1: It is really nice. I used to not be a fall person. I like spring but you know just the the leaves and just like the smell of the autumn and just I don't know the feeling of it. I do like the crisp, cool evenings. It's really wonderful and romantic.

[00:41:53] spk_0: Are you trying to hold my hand

[00:41:56] spk_1: you know, just you were a little cold I guess. I just want to make sure that maybe my hand warmth could help you out a little bit.

[00:42:03] spk_0: It does. Yeah that's probably a good idea. That's probably really good. Did you see that?

[00:42:09] spk_1: That's that I think that's that guy.

[00:42:11] spk_0: It seems like it's the same guy but he's got like a video camera, maybe he's a birdwatcher,

[00:42:17] spk_1: looks like that guy but it couldn't possibly be that same guy. But yeah let's just just ignore that. Let's just keep walking.

[00:42:23] spk_0: Oh look that's the playground when you were a kid. What was your favorite thing to jump around on a playground?

[00:42:29] spk_1: Well I just like the swings because you try to swing as high as you can and then jump off.

[00:42:33] spk_0: I'm sorry I I know I keep doing this but is he underneath the slide over there

[00:42:38] spk_1: now? Yeah that's that guy. Try to throw a throw a rock over there or something and you're sure you don't know it because I don't know that guy.

[00:42:46] spk_0: It looks like he's doing like a still life drawing of us guys. Really starting to creep me out. We might want to find a place where it isn't his

[00:42:54] spk_1: public, right up the street. We can just go there and I have some champagne there. We could have some champagne if you like. All right, so home sweet. Home, try to keep it clean, but if it's a little bit messy, please excuse the mess.

[00:43:10] spk_0: This is such a nice apartment.

[00:43:12] spk_1: Get settled in. It

[00:43:13] spk_0: looks like the living room. You mind if I sit

[00:43:16] spk_1: on, oh, sit away, enjoy something underneath me. Yeah, maybe the remote control or something metal. Oh, that's one of the uh you're gonna laugh. It's one of the machetes that my brother gave me as a gift

[00:43:30] spk_0: your brother gives you machetes as a gift. Yes,

[00:43:33] spk_1: Yes. So he's a crazy guy and he thought that would be fun. Give me machetes. And so I have some machetes. They're just so they're around and nothing to be concerned about everywhere. They're just around. There's a few around. But you know, it's just, it's just a funny thing. It's nothing to be concerned

[00:43:51] spk_0: about. You've got a beautiful view of the park out your window.

[00:43:55] spk_1: I picked this place because of the view. You can step out there in the mornings and just take in the park and it's really rejuvenating.

[00:44:04] spk_0: We're on the fourth floor. Right. Right. I could have swore I saw somebody on a phone out on your patio. Is that a pot? Do you have roommates?

[00:44:14] spk_1: No, there shouldn't be anyone out there. I think you're right. I think there is somebody out there.

[00:44:19] spk_0: Should we go out and ask him what he's doing?

[00:44:21] spk_1: It doesn't seem like it could really end all that well by asking a guy that somehow on the fourth floor, a balcony that was at the restaurant that was at the park. But yes, maybe if we confront him,

[00:44:34] spk_0: Okay, Well, why don't you take this machete and I'll grab a machete and then we should go ask him.

[00:44:42] spk_1: Excuse me, sir. What are you doing? What are you doing on my balcony? We saw you at the restaurant. We saw you at the park and now you're on the balcony. Can you explain?

[00:44:51] spk_0: I'm not I'm not I'm not just casually observing.

[00:44:55] spk_1: You're observing.

[00:44:56] spk_0: Yeah. I I noticed that you guys have like good interactions. They seemed healthy. So I'm doing some research on a book and I'm trying to figure out what healthy interactions look like.

[00:45:07] spk_1: You're just stalking people to, to see what their interactions look like. That's, that is really a creepy weird thing to do. Maybe you should ask people about it.

[00:45:17] spk_0: I'm planning on like completely highlighting you in my book. Do you mind if I just sit on the porch and just watch you guys and sure that sounds

[00:45:26] spk_1: great.

[00:45:26] spk_0: Hey nick.

[00:45:28] spk_1: Yes.

[00:45:29] spk_0: Um, I know you like to collect weird things, but is this a ziploc bag of human teeth. Thank you for joining us on sketch comedy podcast show. We hope you enjoyed listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it. If you did enjoy the show, visit sketch comedy podcast show dot com for even more sketch comedy podcast show is protected under a creative commons Attribution. No derivatives 4.0 International license. Mm uh huh

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Travis Stovall | 2020 Mayoral Candidate Who KNOWS HOW PEOPLE TICK

Wed, 28 Oct 2020 07:00:00 GMT

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

We get so caught-up in the presidential election that sometimes we forget that the most important votes are the ones that affect us locally, such as who is going to be the next person to run the town or city you are in. During the Covid-19 pandemic, local leadership was crucial to help small businesses stay in business and your neighbors to be able to stay in their homes. Local initiatives have immediate effect on our lives. So we need to get to know who is going to be leading us heading into the next couple of years.

Travis Stovall believes he is that guy for my hometown, Gresham. He might be right, Travis is a scholar, has a business that helps people find themselves and be able to better deal with others, and is quite possibly one of the most personable people that you will ever meet.

I originally invited him onto the show because he has a company called eRep (https://erep.com) that offers something called a CVI (Core Values Index) score which does an incredibly astute job of defining the traits and proficiencies for people. Seriously, it blew my mind, and highlighted for me my biggest strengths and made me aware of the things that I could use help with. Go to https://whatsmyCVI.com and take the 5-minute test and see what you get, I bet it is remarkably. accurate! Then, when I found out that he was going to jump into local politics, I thought it was a perfect time to see how something like the CVI could help someone navigate the different personalities and proficiencies of running a city. You can find out more about his quest for the top seat in Gresham at https://www.travisstovall.com

Travis is a really entertaining human, has great stories, and listening to him just feels like you are speaking to someone who has a real grasp on the world. Oh, and we also record a sketch based on a true story.

Sketch: “Pets to the MAX!”

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

SOCIAL MEDIA

SUBSCRIPTIONS & REVIEWS

MORE ABOUT THE GUEST

Travis Stovall resides in Gresham, Oregon and enjoys representing this part of the region and its tremendous assets.

A glance at Stovall’s résumé confirms his gift for financial management, marketing and organizational development. As a healthcare administrator, he directed multi-million dollar development projects. He has also succeeded in the role of entrepreneur, assuming the lead in ventures that have greatly exceeded revenue projections. Having completed more than 20+ corporate and business turnaround projects as a consultant, Stovall brings a unique perspective to organizational health and development.

Today, he serves as CEO and Co-Founder of eRep.com, a firm focused on helping individuals find work they love and companies build highly aligned teams. Active in the community, Stovall has been featured in The Oregonian for his dynamic leadership of the Gresham Area Chamber of Commerce, as President of the Board of Directors.

In addition, he is a board member of several prominent local and regional organizations, including Trimet, the regional transit agency board appointed by Governor Kitzhaber. Along with his fellow Trimet board members, Trimet became the only transit agency in the country with triple A rated debt by all three credit rating agencies.

In 2009 Stovall was chosen as one of the Portland Business Journal’s forty under forty. In his free time Stovall is a private pilot, plays tennis, cycles and enjoys spending time on Orcas Island in the Puget Sound.

Fun Fact: Travis helped build 4 different churches in Mexico before he was 18.

Stovall holds a Bachelor’s degree from Union College in Business Administration, Finance emphasis graduating Summa Cum Laude and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Links

eRep

Get your Free CVI Test!

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] spk_1: in this episode, mayoral candidate Travis Stovall and I came up with a couple of sketches,

[00:00:06] spk_0: real estate conversation. Let's go take a look at this house, this floating and then having to disappoint that person. Uh I don't think about being on a date with somebody not being able to tell what their C. B. I. Is. You're in the mayor's office and you've got just people coming in giving you random like crazy things that they're asking for.

[00:00:27] spk_1: Which one did we pick? You'll find out on this episode of it's a sketch comedy podcast show. Welcome back to sketch comedy podcast show where interesting people have intriguing conversations and then improvise a comedy sketch based on what was talked about. It is the only show like it on the internet. My name is Stuart Rice and I'm the host of this crazy thing. You know, we get so caught up in the presidential election that sometimes we forget that the most important votes are the ones that affect us locally, such as who is going to be the next person to run the town or city you live in During the COVID-19 pandemic local leadership was crucial to help small businesses stay in business and your neighbors to be able to stay in their homes. Local initiatives have immediate effect on our lives, so we need to know who is going to lead us in the next huge big issue that we get. Travis. Stovall believes he is the guy for my hometown of Gresham Oregon. He might be right. Travis is a scholar, founded a company that helps individuals and organizations find themselves, has been a board member of Try matt and is one heck of a personable person. In fact one of the most personable people, you'll meet his company, e rep helps people find their core value index, which is what makes you you and you can actually find out what that is by going to what's my CV I dot com links are in the show notes. And now my conversation with Travis Stovall 2020 mayoral candidate, who knows how people tick

[00:02:22] spk_0: Travis. Can I ask you a question with? Of course. All right, Absolutely. What makes you interesting? Just the sheer fact that I'm, Travis makes me interesting. No, I mean, what makes me interesting, you know, for the most part, it's the unconventional way that I exist as a kind of, as an african american man. You know, people ask me what brought me to Oregon, say I'm from Kansas. Originally, people ask me what about me Oregon, instantly. I'm like sleep is in Seattle and they laughed. They're like, really? And I said, yeah, sleepless in Seattle. I was watching the movie hadn't been further west in colorado and it was tom Hanks characters floating house. I mean this isn't a boathouse. This isn't a houseboat, it's a floating house. I mean it's a house that floats. And so I like, I got to go see this. And most people when they, when they hear that, they say, well, you do know you're in Oregon, right? I'm like, I know I made a wrong turn. No, I went to Seattle, spent a year in Seattle, fell in love with the northwest. Um, and then then decided to move here. The interesting thing is when I moved here, I was a windsurfer and a snow ski and people are like a little bit shocked because back in those days, uh, I mean minorities who wind surfed and snow ski where it was just non existent. Right? And so you know, it's some of these things is this this non, can I come from a, I grew up in an all black neighborhood, went to all black schools in the inner city kids city. Uh, but yet made this unconventional move to doing things that were traditionally historically something that people like that look like we do. And so it's always been interesting as I walk into situations and experience the facial expressions of folks as they look at me and they're like um but that's, I mean that's kind of what makes me interesting. It's just that unconventional approach to life. Um So how did you get into windsurfing? Like how does that happen? That's one like I am white and I've never been. So I worked at summer camp in Kansas and most people are like, there's wind in Kansas, there actually is, Kansas has the, has the fifth windiest lake in America. You know that we know that when Dorothy and uh tornadoes and all that stuff And so I worked at a summer camp uh back when I was younger and we had wind surfer and a buddy of mine was the wind first windsurfer instructor said Travis, I am going to teach you how to win sir. So I learned it's, it's just the kick sport. I'm mad. I absolutely love winter. I don't do it much anymore just because it takes so much work to get to the gorge, get your board and all that stuff out. I just don't do it as much anymore. But I do not, I do not. That's definitely a rental. It is. Well, I mean frankly unless you're living in Hood River doing it a lot experience you don't want to win. It is kind of cool that we're so close. Absolutely. There are people that are not that close. Absolutely. Uh sorry that I lived so close to windsurfing. You'd never win. I am offending everything surfer out there, everyone server out there. So you don't just windsurf and you don't just do all that stuff. You are you do something called C. B. I. Yes explain. Absolutely. V. I. S. So the C. B. I. Is the core values index assessment and it is a psychometric assessment tool psychometric says it sounds really fancy but it's just a combination of psychology in math and algorithm. You combine those together to do what we call quantify the human psychology and that's what it is. And so the C. B. I. Is one of the most accurate assessments on the entire market ever produced. It has what we call a 97.7% repeat score, reliability. You can take it multiple times over longitudinal period. The results gonna be the same. That's incredible accuracy. So I can tell you how you are going to generally respond to different stimuli based on knowing your CV high profile. It's incredible. Yeah. It is pretty incredible. And you actually came to attack taught a class on it to a thing I got to be a part of and it was so eye opening. I make everybody take this test. Now I have new co workers. The first thing I do is say, hey, have you ever taken a CBS? Uh absolutely cultivation the way you convert it. Um, but the cool thing about it is that it splits people off roughly like this is very rough. It can get very granular but really into four quadrants. Right? That's correct. And the four quadrants are merchant merchant, right? Builder innovator and banker love is merchant builders, Power innovators, wisdom bankers knowledge, I don't fit into any of those. What does that mean? I'm sure you do. Everybody fits into something place and that's and that's the thing. It's this big picture aggregation of just how people are. So and like you said, it's it's 44 value energy, which is considered a four quadrant. So yeah, it's a four q four quadrant assessment and who like knowing this about somebody else. What does that do for your relationship with? Tremendous, it can tremendously improve our interpersonal relationships because now that I know your profile, I can better communicate with you, interact with you and many times we assess others based on our own CV. I profile because that's the way I see the world. So I see the world as a merchant building, which I am and so I'm going to evaluate and somewhat judge you through my lens, even though your profile maybe dramatically. And that's that's squad because I need to, I need to interact with you the way you want to be interacted with and it would be great if the vice versa occurred and you interact with me the way I want to be interactive. This the platinum rule treat others the way they want to be treated. Yes, that's the platinum rule rather than the golden rule. Yes. So yeah, once we understand how someone's hardwired, we have a tremendous opportunity to then interact with that person the way they want to be interactive with. Without this information, we're kind of shooting in the proverbial guard trying to assess and understand this individual. And we're almost always going to revert back to how we are hardwired because that is what we know. So we are going to lead to lead, others were going to coach, teach, train all of those things are gonna be through our lens And if I had Children, I would want to produce little mini, little mini me because that is the profile that I have. So I want to build a little merchant builders regardless of what their profile is. If I don't know how their hard line I you at home for watching, watch this reaction. So my daughter is an account uh, accountant. What is it? No longer? My daughter is a banker. Uh yeah. How would you handle that If you were uh, you were the parent and your daughter was a banker. I would trade, I would trade her in. I feel like, okay, can I trade this in on a different model? No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I yeah, it's not, but it is different. Like once I write it when she took the test and you recognize that I was like oh man that explains so much. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I'm a merchant and so the banker would be a core value energy for me. I'm a six I'm a six banker. Is there's points that you get in each of the categories. I mean since I don't really access the banker for value that's a core value energy that is very difficult for me to understand and appreciate it. So someone who's a high banker I really don't know how they think and so that would be it would be work for me too truly appreciate their contribution to the world. And that's why I said uh the banker right? I mean I I mean now of course before the C. B. I. I didn't understand why bankers even existed. Sure but now I absolutely understand their contribution to the world and we want to leverage that contribution and embrace that contribution good. Um yeah, so I when I took it I was very high innovator, which made me feel good because innovator is a good word, right? Yeah, sounds great. I mean I really good. Um and what I found was in my working relationships, I work best with the building which is kind of the exact opposite. Again it feels very opposite. But when I have a builder, builders are very much like let's get this done with it, do it, do it and that's how you are. Would you lead us to the next part of the conversation? But for me I can sit there and like ponder and an opportunity for a very long time with no action. And when when you said that in the class I was like oh man that's a problem. Like I need to have some sort of building uh aspect of my life. Um people can this test is free, right? So that we do have a free report. So the test is free to take, you'll get a basic report that shows them the primary and the secondary four value energies. But then there's an opportunity to upgrade and get the full report. All the numbers free pdf of the of the core values handbook um and that type of thing. But their initial information where they get their primary and secondary determination is that's free and that's cool. But like getting all the deep down in co and really understanding that stuff really, what it did for me was it it allowed me to recognize my weaknesses and what values that actually bring to a situation a team situation or anything. Absolutely. Now the one thing that I would adjust is we don't we don't actually consider weaknesses anymore because ultimately it's only a weaknesses were expected to access every single core value interview. So because I have six points of banker doesn't mean that I have a weakness. It just means that I don't access that energy. But essentially I'm a merchant builder and those are the two energies that I want to access and I want to leverage from my highest and best contribution. But for folks who haven't taken the C. B. I want to, what's my C. B. I. Dot com? Uh that's a place I can go take. The C. B. I only takes about 7 to 9 minutes. So what's my CV. I dot com tremendous opportunity to understand exactly what you're talking about, understand how folks are hardwired, how they are hardwired. It is just awesome. I love it. I use it every day. I wrote a book on sales and they're hidden in there. I stole some constant telling you that, I don't know if you're gonna sue me now, but not at all. Um, you are, you know, you're, you've got that merchants, so it's love, right? So you're one of your core values is showing other people love and experiencing and uh, being person a lot of times that is associated with being personable and be able to talk to people in those types of things. Uh, that's my experience with you as well. Um, now the builder aspect, that means you're taking action. Yes. Like that's a thing that you're gonna do, you're taking a big action. You decided to do something really big recently. What was that? So, I mean, and all the things that we're doing these days trying to make positive change in the world, an opportunity came up to actually run for mayor, mayor fresh in town here in Oregon Of about 111,000 citizens. And uh, the opportunity came up and I was recommended, uh, to run for mayor. And I spent some time really trying to take a look at it to make sure that I would have the opportunity to lead into this and decided, you know what, at this day and age and the many things that are going on from a social justice conversation through to fiscal responsibility, you wrap all of that up and, you know, at the end of the day, I felt that I'm, I'm really the best candidate to be able to lead our city forward through the myriad of things we need to step through. So yeah, you know, it's all about taking action through that builder. Core value, Energy. Yeah. So the idea of being mayor sound nice. Sound good To people who played Simcity. What are your expectations when you walk into that? I don't know. I said you're in office, You get off. Yeah. You get to go in the first day you sit down like what do you see yourself doing in that situation? I would panic. Well, I mean the beauty of of what we have access to the city of pressure because we've got a great staff into you first and foremost, we've got a city manager. Now we're going through a process of hiring a new city manager currently right now. But that city manager is really the person who is in charge of running the operations of the city. So a person who becomes mayor of the city of Gresham, it doesn't really have to have some significant knowledge, skills in administration of a city. What they do need to bring is the ability to balance, you know, what needs to be balanced, the ability to connect with with individuals, provide leadership and direction. And listen, I mean, those are some of the critical things that the mayor of Gresham should and needs to have is able to be able to lead the city forward. So, you know, your, your sense of of, of being nervous about stepping into the role can be diminished when you understand the city structure and know that you've got professionals who do the majority of things that need to be taken care of in a city like regulations, processes, laws, all of those things are handled by consummate professionals who are hired by the city to execute on those things. Uh, the mayor and the council uh primarily look at policy approval of large contracts, ensuring that as where the where essentially the vector in which the citizens of our community get to work through. Uh And so that's really what it brings me the confidence to know. I used to, I mean, I'm on the tri met board, which is our regional transportation agency here in the metro area and we serve this about two million people. Um We carry about 100 million rides annually, 300,000 writes per day when we're non covid. Um so that's a lot of movement, a lot of things that we have to deal with. We have everything from our own police force to uh to maintenance to you name it, you know, it's encompassed within the tri met universe. And so I've had nine years of opportunity to really exist in a public role or all of our meetings, republic of course, and the discourses public. So it's prepared me well uh to be able to step into the mayor role of the city if the citizens of Gresham honor me with elected me as mayor. Cool, good answer. Um So you're saying that the mayor is not like that man, you're not doing everything, you've got you've got a lot of Alfred around. Well if it was like that man, I couldn't tell you because then everybody would know I would be batman. I mean that's yeah, yeah there is a risk. Exactly, more like Spiderman also, what what is Spiderman's uncle say with great power comes great responsibility. There you go. Kind of more like Spider man. But yeah, it was the role of batman. I couldn't tell you because then you would know that I would be back, right? Yeah, yeah. What are the fringe benefits to being mayor? Do you get there? Like you get like you go to restaurants in town and you're like, okay. And they're like, oh, we've got your table right over here. Well, it's more like, um, it's more like you go to the local grocery store and everybody's like, aren't you the mayor, and then they're requesting certain things we need that stoplight on such and such a road. You know, we're not cleaning the streets enough. That's more like uh, kind of the mayor of a town where you have an opportunity to be, you know, where folks can actually recognize you and also have access. So, I mean the thing about being a mayor in public space is, um, you have to appreciate and understand that not everybody is going to, it's going to approve of all the decisions that need to be made in the city level. Uh, But the whole thing is about being fair and balanced and you know, and that's been the hallmark of any type of leadership opportunities and responsibilities I've had in my lifetime is how do we bring fair and balanced approach everything that we need to have discourse around? But yeah, I don't think there's any mayor, mayor's only parking mayors only seating. Yeah, none of that. Uh Well, well mayors only podcast. Mayors only podcast. Got it. Um Mhm. What what are some uh have you had interactions with previous mayors or other mayors or you talk to dialogue with them? And actually, you know, I used to be the executive director for East Metro Economic Alliance, which is a combination of the four cities that we're sitting right now in Fairview. Um So there's Fairview, the city aggression, this Troutdale, this would village. So all four of those mayors used to actually sit on my board at these metro economic lines. So I worked with all four of them historically as we dealt with economic advocacy here on the east side of Portland of the, well, the multnomah County area. So yeah, no, I've, I've worked very closely with many of the mayors that have existed here in East County over the years, uh, to be able to move stuff forward in a way that's effective and appropriate. So yes, I've been able to work in a number of mayors. So you guys like after these meetings or whatever, do you like have the like go out for a drink, have a chat about what is that? Like? What are the things that mayors get hit with? I mean, besides like traffic lights, like what are the most ridiculous things that you heard the mayor gets hit with? Well, I mean one of the, one of the funniest kind of things that I know that we had to deal with an impression was the question of chickens in the backyard? Yes, chickens in the backyard. It was a serious subject. Um, we had numerous council meetings to discuss chicken in the backyard. Um, I can tell you that in my many years of leading helping lead try match. That's a question that I never had to deal with chickens in the backyard. Nobody's asking if they can ride the max. Well, we did have a llama. We did have a llama that road on the max one time. True, real llama was on the max. Do in that situation. You just let it happen and be like, all right, we got to put up a policy no longer. That's kind of what happened. No longer. You're not no llamas. And I, is that why I see the signs of the llama? It's circle and it is and, and, and it's, you know, and sometimes, I mean it is, it is fun to interact with Republican waste, uh, that we all have fun and enjoyment. But yeah, if we open it up to one mama, we'd have to open up to all mama, alpacas and then goats and horses. And as you can probably imagine before, you know, your animals are in there. Yeah, yeah. We would be overrun with the animals and the max, right? And then they'll start demanding, hey, I don't know. Is that what outback is? I don't think so. I think, um, I'm not quite sure, but you don't have to be an extra enough to be a mayor. I don't know. I don't think you do. So what, what is, so let's speak about Grecian specifically because this is the home of sketch comedy podcast show. No one cares about that. But I listen to, um and what are the big like, what's the big things for you? Like what are you most excited about either improving, fixing continuing things of that nature? So, you know, there's a couple of things. Of course. I mean, we've got to lean into the social justice conversation. You know, I was just speaking with the police officer this morning, uh from another city, neighboring cities police force and just listening, just listening to some of the things. And even he said, he said, you know what? There are changes, there are improvements we need to make in our law enforcement. He goes, yeah, there are there are some some systemic some systemic things have been going on systemic biases that we need to address. So I'm looking forward to leaning into that conversation for the betterment. You know, I don't believe in abolishing the police or de funding, but based on, you know, kind of that conversation, what we've seen. Yeah, we do have some improvements that we need to lean into. So I'm I'm excited about some of these social changes, social justice changes because it's well overdue and long overdue. So we're in a we're in a new space. It's it's just it's it's invigorating that we are here where this conversation actually is getting, it's a new air time. So, uh, so that's exciting, um frustrating that it's taken this long but exciting that we now are on the cusp of I think will change. So that's one thing. We were gonna have some budget challenges based on Covid and the issues that have arisen because of the covid situation, the reduction in revenues, our business income tax is going to come down. Various other things are going to be impacted. So those are going to cost and challenges within our budget. How do we creatively address those? How do we do utilize civic engagement to understand what's going to be the best path forward? So I'm excited about that. I'm excited about ensuring that we are contacting connected with folks civically to get their thoughts and ideas. You know, I really want to continue to work hard on the economic development component and what I say is equitable economic development. How do we make sure that economic development now is shared by all so that everybody has an opportunity to start grow and prosper in their own businesses they want? You know, how do we make sure we can tear down various historical periods, apply? Some could have access to business creation and economic development others. And so how do we make sure those barriers no longer exist? Uh, you know, think about the store garage storefront program, which I, which I believe has been very successful. You know, I know of a business that just restaurant business that just launched our food services that just launched in the heart of covid. So new businesses are really small businesses are the lifeblood of our community, 90 plus percent of business, the small business. And so we have to encourage, again, we have to encourage small businesses to start grow, employ our folks. And then, you know, how do we, how do we support that? So, I'm excited about continuing some of these programs, but also finding other other additional ways to encourage this to happen within our community. Um, education is something that truly passionate about if jimmy falls outside of a city's purview. So our school districts in Oregon or state based. Um, and so we I mean there's no direct control but we I mean I would love to understand how the city and the school district can work together to achieve the outcomes that allow for better access, you know more equitable access and then you know, really closing the achievement because the achievement gaps still exist. And how do we close the achievement by truly equitable funding across, you know, across our school districts to ensure everybody's got that equal opportunity. So those are some key things that yeah, it's really just like to talk about creating actual quality in this day and age. It's nutty to me uh as far as the social justice things you feel like um and do you feel like you're in a way? I feel personally, I feel like you are in a great position to be able to address this because unless I'm mistaken, you are african american. Yeah, Alright. Some people wonder and I have to go windsurfing question. I'm like yes, I'm african american. So I mean I think that that actually um that actually is really important component that you can have these conversations with the police chief that maybe 10 years ago, that might have been a taboo subject. I think it's pretty spectacular. You can have that conversation and they can speak frankly. Absolutely, yeah, we do have issues. Maybe it's time that we look at these things well. And the key thing store the key thing is is that as a black man in America, you know, you and I could argue all day long about whether or not systemic or systematic racism exists. I believe it does, I believe it does. So I'll say that, but you and I could just argue, not saying that you believe it doesn't, that's not the context, but we could argue about that old. I'm, you know, I'm not I'm not I'm not really interested in trying to convince you that it exists, but what I am, what I am more than happy to do is share with you my lived experience, and that's just my story, my lived experience and what I have experienced as a black man, you're in America to allow you to have a bit more understanding about how my life has been here. Um, and so I can bring that lived experience into leadership to help others kind of say, you know, usually you get into situations where it's there's a disconnect between what we're talking about and what someone has experienced. So the person is like, well, you know, it sounds kind of like it, but I know I saw it on television or I read it in the newspaper, but when someone, you know, expresses their just their lived experience, it's powerful. It's absolutely powerful. We hope say, well, that that happened to you, I'm like, yeah, it happened to me, it just becomes more real and it opens up the door to a real conversation that you historically would not have been able to have. And I can I honestly say, I think a lot of the stuff that's going on right now is causing the conversation to become way more in the forefront of what we're doing and what we're talking about on a daily basis than it ever has my in my lifetime. It's same. I don't know how old you are, I assume we're roughly about the same age, but this is the first time that uh people have actually been more open talking about it. I mean, we just we just saw a football team changed its name, very controversial. I think it's the right move. I think absolutely what types of things we need to be doing. Absolutely. And I know this sounds odd, but I've got my own story along those lines, Obviously it was not me specifically. That's my very good for my best friend in high school. Um You want to share one of those stories? Do you have a story that you can think of that? Absolutely. Um, you know, I recently, speaking of the sleeping in Seattle, I recently moved into a floating house, I bought a floating house and uh, this is here aggression. Uh, you know, just, you know, it's here impression. So people tend to think, well, no, our town doesn't suffer from anything like this. Well, I lived in my house for about three weeks and I was essentially walking to um the ramp to get ready to go up to the ramp because I've just gotten done more working on my house with a couple of friends of mine who both were african americans and we were doing electrical, their electric, Thank God you were not wearing hoodies. Well, the store actually, we weren't wearing hoodies, but still we are all three of us. We walk into the edge of the rim to get ready to go up, we're standing there talking and a husband and wife come walking down the ramp. They walked right up to us, look at me and say, what are you doing here? Yeah, And at first this is, this is not even a year ago, so this isn't, this isn't 1975 1970 and this is 2019 and it caught me off your because I just, I've been in the community for about three weeks and I thought people knew me. And so he looks us all three up and down and says, oh, you're working here. And I looked at him and I said, actually, I just bought a house here. I'm your new neighbor, which then he was all fluff office called flustered as he experienced. And you know, just just recounting the story. Just, you know, almost, you know, just wells up the emotion of tell you Stuart no matter what I've accomplished. I graduated top of my class in college, summa cum laude number one college graduate out of the business division to the degree, there's a plaque with my name on it at my college that I went to, went on to get my NBA graduated with honors. You know, people say if you work hard, which I've done my entire life, you stay out of trouble, you'll get the respect you deserve in that moment. Nothing else mattered except for the color of my skin. He had no other way to evaluate whether I shouldn't have been there or I should have been there, but the color of my skin. Um and that's, I mean that's brutal at the end of the day, i it's just exhausting and tiring to exist in a country where we are constantly told and reminded that because of the color of our skin, we're going to evaluate you were gonna judge you based on that external type of marker that exists. Nothing else. Mhm. And so that's the that's the challenge. I mean, that's the challenge. There's been numerous stories, numerous stories of experiences that I've had, but that was just recently. That was that was literally it's just last year later in 2019 and it's just I mean it just just precious your resolve when this happens so often. Did you uh have you had dinner with him? Not yet. But he did say that he wants that dinner with hang out. It's like, I don't know if you ever saw blazing saddles bring that high, but at night. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know the connotations. Yes. All right, Well, I appreciate you sharing that. I think that those stories all need to be shared because there's a lot of people that look like me that I think that all that stuff has gone away and went away in the 60s. It didn't it's still there. I am very much just to be clear, uh, institutionalized racism definitely exists. And I think it's getting those stories out is super important. So thank you for that. Thank you for your time going forward because now it is time to record a sketch mm

[00:33:24] spk_1: since the election is next week. It's probably too late to register. Although please check your local state rules on that. Some of them are election Day registration, so you can still get out there. However, if you have registered, please make sure to get out and vote and hopefully hearing about Travis and listening to the type of person that's probably running in your local market as well. You get to an idea of how dynamic and how great your local leadership can and hopefully will be Travis. Can you do me a favor and just give us a rundown of all of the different ways people can come and see and learn more about you and what you do,

[00:34:08] spk_0: brush them together dot org. We're all about bringing aggression together. We want we have a major role in Grecians, nonpartisan. And so we're all about making sure that we can all work together to create a better future. Um, and so that's what we're passionate about over on the C b i world were at the ref dot com. So e r e p dot com. And again, if you want to take the c b I, it's what's my CV I dot com. That's my charlie victor, India dot com. So those are the two places you can find us. Uh, if you want to reach us by email, just info at the rep dot com. Again, info at the rep dot com.

[00:34:42] spk_1: Outstanding. And for all of you at home, please head to what's my C V I dot com and take that five minute test it is eye opening. And now our sketch pets to the max with Travis Stovall in three

[00:35:04] spk_0: two from the max stranger in Portland Oregon. We're coming to you live channel 41 today we are actually here looking at how busy the max trains are. There's a massive looks like a massive movement of people that are traveling across the city and we are shoulder to shoulder into the max. So I am going to actually try and stay on the MAC, see when the doors opened, the doors closed, how many people are in on and off. So we have a, we're understanding, we, we believe that trim it needs to increase the number of trains that are going in and out of downtown because of how packed the max streams truly are. Excuse me. Excuse me. Yes, sir, whoa, what is that you have there? I mean, I don't quite know what kind of animal that is. It's a pygmy goat. Pygmy goes, it looks a little large to be a pygmy goat, but frankly, I didn't know animals were allowed on the max. Well, they're people too, aren't they? Pygmy goats are? Take me Well, I'm not quite sure. Pygmy goats are actually people. Well, it is to me, excuse me. Well, there you have it folks, even though the max trains are incredibly cool, we are now actually not just here. Well, I was getting ready to say we're not here with just people, but then again, to some people, pygmy goats are people too, excuse me, excuse me, sorry, ma'am, excuse me, wow, excuse me, wow. And we just had a pygmy goat. Come on folks. And now we have yet another person who has joined us with another animal, but that's actually about 12. Uh, these are all my chickens. I'm just taking him downtown for a nice walk in the park. So we are, are we on tv right now? We are, we are, I am channel 41 I'm news reporter traps hobo. I'm not familiar. Well, I'm actually incredibly famous. Uh, you're in the boston area. I'm a news reporter, so everybody knows investigative, but today I'm just doing a little bit of reporting on the max and out pull the max is, and I see you, you have actually just made the max significantly pull with your 12 chickens. Yes, I just need people to get up out of their seats and let my chicken sit. They need to sit and they might lay an egg. Just watch where you're stepping, Wow. Um, not only is the massacre really cool, but we are still dealing with folks coming on with various forms of ales. Uh, 12 chickens. I am not quite sure what the number of folks that are sitting here. If all those chickens are going to make it back off, Excuse me. Oh, sir. Excuse me. I wo what is? What is that? This? Yes, it's a uh, it's a pygmy moose. I didn't know moose could feed hit me. They're still not very small when they're pregnant. Just go ahead and sit down dirt. You, are you sure that's a big news? Because that looks is pretty large. Oh, I, I just try to make it, uh, found smaller by calendar. Take me, I don't want people to think I'm taking up too much space and max here. Got it, got it. Because to me that this looks very large. Get get your hat off the fan. That's well, I think it's probably good, efficient use of the antler. Uh, if the person just puts her hat on there to hold it while we have a pygmy moose on the match. All right. Are you taking pictures of the moose? Of course we are, sir. Because how often do we have a big me moose on mass trend? Just twice a week? All you write it more than once? Wow. Well, folks, like I said, we're going again and the max stream continues to get more and more cool, based on more and more people bringing their animals, their pygmy goats, chickens. And now they're pygmy moves. We've got just a couple more stops before we get to downtown and, and we step off, but we hope that we won't see too many more animals getting away. They're pygmy goat is people too Alright? Excuse me? Excuse me. Oh, well, sir. Good afternoon. Yeah. Don't look at my jar. And what do you what do you what do you have in the jar? It's my don't tell anybody. It's my pet. And what kind of pet do you have, Have you heard of? Murder hornets. Thank

[00:39:56] spk_1: you so much. Again for joining us at sketch comedy podcast show Travis and I had a blast putting this together and we hope you enjoyed it as well. Sketch comedy podcast show is recorded under a creative commons, non attribution. No derivatives for international license, which probably means nothing to you, but it means the world to us and our words. If you would like to reproduce this in any way, please contact sketch comedy podcast show at gmail dot com To request permission. I designed this show to be a voice for myself. This is how I get my voice out. Not everybody gets that choice. However, if you have registered to vote, you have a method to let your voice be heard. Please do not neglect. You've got one week left. Get out there! Get your voice heard by voting. Please go vote. Thank you so much. I'm excited about the next episode. I'm gonna be sharing with you. It's my chat with a world dominating introvert. See you next episode.

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Ed Wynn | Author Trying to MAKE POLITICAL DISCUSSIONS GREAT AGAIN

Thu, 01 Oct 2020 07:00:00 GMT

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Remember back to all of those really civil, insightful, and mind-expanding political discussions at Thanksgiving dinner? No? Because they don’t exist—at least not yet.

Ed Wynn has spent the last 3 decades trying to help governments and companies find fixes to their problems. He is qualified to do so too, because he is really smart. Ed graduated summa cum laude at the University of Illinois and magna cum laude in law at Georgetown. Throw in the fact that he is a Truman Presidential Scholar and you can see why people are so interested in having him find solutions!

The one thing Ed is not is a political insider, and his new book, “We The People” is his attempt to fix political discourse in America by laying out the blueprint to having discussions with your family during Thanksgiving. It’s worth the read just to be able to get through the evening not trying to strangle your uncle! On a personal note, I think this is the gateway to having some real discussions about heavy subjects without anyone blowing a gasket, and the book even includes TL;DR sections at the very beginning for those of us who want to be more enlightened, but also have a fantasy football team to manage.

My one regret… I should have asked him more about his biking adventure. If you would like to hear more about it, please let me know. I am certain Ed would be willing to go more in-depth with that. (I really do feel bad that I didn’t go more into that, I was so excited to talk about talking)

This week’s sketch: “Master Debaters”

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

SOCIAL MEDIA

SUBSCRIPTIONS & REVIEWS

MORE ABOUT THE GUEST

For more than three decades, H. Edward Wynn has helped governments and companies discover and implement solutions to complex, often divisive, issues. He's worked in all branches and levels of government, and with both Republicans and Democrats. A Truman Presidential Scholar, Ed has a political science degree, summa cum laude, from the University of Illinois and a law degree, magna cum laude, from Georgetown. Most importantly, Ed's not a political insider, and he's willing to call out any side on its BS.

Links

Book

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] spk_1: in this episode, Author Edwin and I came up with a few sketches. What happens if you take uh like have a debate or you just have a political conversation with people known to be curious like a cat or curious George everybody coming up with stupid ideas to solve a problem. But somehow all of these stupid ideas work out to a actual solution in the very end having a presidential debate. But just going for the most ridiculous name calling and then that's the entire debate. That last one might be a little too close to the mark. Which one did we pick? You'll find out on this episode of it's a sketch comedy podcast show. Welcome to sketch comedy podcast show though, one of a kind show where I Stewart rice invite interesting people to have intriguing conversations and then improvise a comedy sketch based on what was talked about this week. I invite Author Edwin onto the show and let me tell you why? Because remember all of those really civil, insightful and mind expanding political discussions at thanksgiving dinner that you've had. No because they don't exist. Well, at least not yet. Edwin has spent the last three decades trying to help governments and companies find fixes to their problems. He is qualified to do so too because he is really smart. Ed graduated summa cum laude at the university of Illinois and magna cum laude in law at Georgetown, throw in the fact that he is a Truman presidential scholar and you can see why people are so interested in having him find solutions. The one thing Ed is not is a political insider and his new book, We The People is his attempt to fix political discourse in America by laying out the blueprint for having discussions with your family during thanksgiving. It's worth the read just to be able to get through the evening. Not trying to strangle your uncle. On a personal note. I think this is the gateway to having some real discussions about heavy subjects with anyone without blowing a gasket. And the book even includes T. L. D. R. Sections at the very beginning for those of us who want to be more enlightened but also have a fantasy football team to manage. And now my conversation with Edwin author trying to make political discussions great again and I've got a question for

[00:02:45] spk_0: you Sure,

[00:02:47] spk_1: what makes you interesting?

[00:02:49] spk_0: I think what makes me interesting is I am a very creative problem solver. So most of my friends and colleagues come to me when they have a tough problem and I can usually by talking it through with them figure out a good range of solutions that we might not have thought of at the beginning. And the title of the book is that's kind of the theme which is we need to work together and have a good conversation uh and be creative in our problem solving to solve some of the very pressing issues we face in our country today.

[00:03:27] spk_1: So you are a problem solver? How did you find out that that was something that you were really good

[00:03:33] spk_0: at? Well, I think how I found out that I was really good at that is people said, wow, that's really a good solution or when we work in a team, so we came up with a good solution and it was successful and I think the key to that is seeking to understand not to be understood and to be curious, I think curiosity of everything is the most important thing to be a good problem, so

[00:03:59] spk_1: I completely agree and being open to um in those conversations, being open to other people's suggestions as well. And then I have always looked at myself as an incredibly good editor and a terrible writer. Um I can usually take someone else's ideas and enhance them and I think that that's really important, but I think that um do you have like a methodology that you use something that you realized early on

[00:04:30] spk_0: that? Yeah, it's funny, it's similar to the methodology in the book is sometimes people get stuck in trying to solve a problem because they haven't first define the problem they're trying to solve. And so I think that's the first step is to figure out what is it that we really are trying to do here and then to make sure you have marshaled enough facts that can inform that decision and then have a discussion and explore different things. Even if they might At 1st sound wacky or bizarre. Getting those out there is important because it gives you a broader range of solutions that you can decide from. So I think that's important in life in general, but I also think it's very important for our political discussions as well.

[00:05:17] spk_1: Awesome. Well, that's a good start to start talking about your book that you wrote. So you did write a book, you're not just a problem solver, you're also a person that put words on a page to help other people solve problems and you solve a very specific problems. So I'm gonna actually mm he wrote a book called We The People And um what got you to write this book? What was it about this book that this information and what is the book about?

[00:05:45] spk_0: Yeah, so let me talk briefly about how the idea for the book came about and then I'll tell you what the book is, give a very brief summary. So, back four years ago, during a similar time in the presidential election cycle. I was fortunate enough to uh, cycle across the US from off the coast of Oregon to maine and you

[00:06:08] spk_1: wrote a bicycle from one side of the country to the other.

[00:06:11] spk_0: I did 3750 miles in 40 days. So, yes, that was an amazing experience. And what was Interesting about that is the ride went through many of the states that turned out to be battleground states in 2016 and that I suspect will be battleground states in 2020. By that, I mean, the states that will decide the electoral vote. And what I observed, literally on the ground was that there was a lot of divisiveness in our country and a lot of mean spiritedness around people's selection or promotion of a certain candidate and that I really viewed as unfortunate. And one of the things that I think caused it, and obviously had a lot of time each day to reflect as I was writing is that people felt they had been silence and that their viewpoints hadn't been Part of the debate. And so that naturally builds up frustration. Uh, and that is what I saw in 2016. So the idea of the book was how do we make this different? And so in the intervening past four years, I've thought about that more and came up with the idea. And there's the book, the book really has three parts. The first part is a what I call a civics lesson, but don't be bored by that. It really focuses not on everything in civics, but the most important things we need to know in each category, 5-7 things that we need to know that most of us were never taught, but they're really crucial in terms of us participating in the political process and understanding the second part of the book talks about what I've defined as the six reasons we do not have civility in political discourse, And then, correspondingly the six things that we all can do to improve that discourse and make it more civil. And then the last section of the book is I put my money where my mouth is and I use that paradigm and the principles that I've set out in the first part of the book to actually take on some of the most divisive, significant issues that we face as a nation today, and use the framework at two, propose a range of solutions to each of those issues.

[00:08:34] spk_1: Uh, so what I didn't understand about the book, and I'm gonna be completely honest is it seems like it's really well thought in its layout and it's uh it's logical and it makes sense. Um I wait, does logic and order and um rationale, What does that have to do with american politics?

[00:08:58] spk_0: Well, unfortunately, it doesn't have much to do with american politics right now, but it should and it has in the past. And so the book is trying to get us back to that paradise. I mean, we can we could turn on any of the major national news stations right now and we wouldn't see a lot of logic, we would see a lot of emotion, we'd see a lot of personal attacks. We'd see a lot of one sidedness, We wouldn't see much curiosity. And so this is seeking to return us to a place or get us to a place where we can have those rational discussions based on identifying a common problem, bringing facts, real facts to that debate, keeping the emotion out of it, and then discussing creatively a range of solutions that quite frankly most of us would agree with. The problem also is what we see is we see the political debates in our country dominated by the extremes, the far left or the far right, and those of us, which I think are the majority are in the middle. And we really want to see unifying solutions. We don't want this all or nothing, take no prisoners kind of debate. We want to look for the solutions that will be meaningful. We want that unity.

[00:10:19] spk_1: What what happened when when did it happen? What happened? When did it become so divisive now? I mean, some people have said like it's always been that way. It's always there's always been this level of, you know, nobody going hi, everybody going low for since the, you know, almost since the very birth of our nation. But what what do you believe is the correct answer? What do you believe feels right to you as far as why did why did political discourse becomes so uh subjective?

[00:10:56] spk_0: Yeah, it's really uh it's a good question, but it's a difficult one in this sense. I don't think there's one point in time that I've been able to identify where this was the point in which it occurred. I think it happened gradually, and that's important to know for this reason. If we tolerate this lack of civility in our political discourse in one regard, it is only going to get worse. And so the way to reverse it is when we hear people making personal attacks, When we hear dehumanizing speech, when we hear all those things that lead to divisiveness, we have to call that out. We can't just be by standards to that and let that happen. It's a gradual situation. But unfortunately, the tenor of that when it's unstoppable gets worse and worse. Could I point to individual things that have happened? Of course I could the name calling that occurred in the presidential debates in 2016 and unfortunately, continues in this round of the presidential election. I could point to the lack of willingness to hear respectful but opposing viewpoints, even in colleges and universities where you want to encourage that there are so many different things that have contributed to it, but no single one of those is the only fact

[00:12:22] spk_1: you mentioned something that has come up time and time again in conversations I've had as the college campuses and the it's this cancel culture, the cancel culture that goes along with it. And what I mean by that is, and I'm not trying to, I know I certainly don't want to convey a political standing for myself or for you if you don't feel comfortable for that. But one of the biggest complaints is that certain sides are specifically targeted as unable to do anything on a college campus because of the cancel culture. Um, uh, it just so happens to be the side, I don't necessarily agree with, but they get a point and when they do say those things and, and it's, I'll just, it's the right or the conservative or Republican viewpoint in a college campus, it's difficult to get in and make some sort of a speech, some sort of statement because it does get protested and it does get knocked down. Is that part of the problem? Or do you feel like that's that's protest happening as it should happen?

[00:13:37] spk_0: It's I guess I define the problem slightly differently. I use college campuses as an example, but I do think it goes both ways. And so when I hear for example, president trump saying the cancel culture is associated with the left. I cringe because that's the same time that he's saying that the right is during the cancel culture. I think he even maybe called for it. I can't remember a major tire manufacturer. I can't remember which one because he didn't like something that they said and basically said boycott them. So my position on that is not confined to one political party. It's confined to anyone on the extremes that isn't willing to listen to a respectful opposing opinion. Now, name calling is not a respectful opposing opinion, Threatening violence on someone is not a respectful opposing opinion. But having a civil discussion is and that's where we really need to go and going back to what I said at the beginning. I think us not having those discussions and taking sites and going to our polarized extremes, that's what in fact led to the extreme divisiveness and mean spiritedness that we saw in the 2016 election.

[00:14:51] spk_1: Do you? Okay. So I've got my own opinion is going to my own bias is going to come out. Do you think that that is? Uh and I have a feeling I know what your answer is. Do you feel like that is because there is a lack of interest in actual politics and in speaking kindly to one another and disagreeing kindly. And do you feel that that stems from people maybe not knowing how to do it?

[00:15:17] spk_0: I think it's could be that. But I think the major reason is, and this is another thesis of the book is that the extremes have silenced the moderates. They've disciplined us like a bully would if you don't join one of our sides or the other, you just need to shut up. And if you don't, we're going to commit verbal violence. In fact, sometimes even physical violence on you and that's just wrong. And so I think the vast majority of us, it's not that we're not interested. It's not that we don't have viewpoints, it's not that we don't care about the country. The problem is we feel were silenced and we've been disciplined in many cases to be in that silenced state. And that's what I'm hoping the book can change.

[00:15:59] spk_1: Well, Ed, I think you're a jerk and this is over.

[00:16:03] spk_0: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You feel that way stir?

[00:16:06] spk_1: No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Um Yes, I agree. I agree wholeheartedly with you. This is, it's like I told you at the very beginning this is gonna be a softball because I haven't agreed with most, if not everything that you're saying. And

[00:16:20] spk_0: can I go back to what you just did?

[00:16:22] spk_1: You just think about

[00:16:23] spk_0: that And I can talk about in my own case. And I had that's why you heard a pause, if somebody says start to name calling, what happens just physiologically in your reaction. You get on the defensive, you tense up. If you said, let's have a discussion about uh, this position. I'm not sure. I agree. But let's talk about it. The defenses go down that really isn't a perfect example of the should not and the should in terms of how we should do political discourse.

[00:16:52] spk_1: Yeah. And I think it's okay to disagree. I totally think it's okay to disagree. And I also agree that we just need to give people in general. I think people just want to be heard, right? Like that's the number one thing. And the hardest thing is when you hear something that is off of what you believe, it starts to challenge you on an individual level. Like are my beliefs right? And as soon as that starts to happen, that's when the feelings pop up, and it's, you know, I might, you know, I might disagree with someone about this, happens with movies too. Like even even things like as benign as what's the best christmas movie. And if someone answers other than elf, someone else is going to get upset about it, right? And it's like, let's have a discussion why is uh Miracle on 34th Street a better movie than uh, it's a wonderful life. Like we can have those discussions may become a good points. We're not even close to christmas. I don't know why I'm bringing up christmas movies, but that happens almost universally with anything anymore. And it's um, is that, is that something new? Is that the, the challenge to our personal likes and dislikes? You know, the fanboys versus the other fanboys or whatever it is?

[00:18:11] spk_0: I think when people feel and I do talk about this in the book, I think when people feel that they have been silenced, that's when I must defend my turf, that defensiveness, those walls come up and that really is poor. And part of that is caused by the extreme polarization. They basically say you're either with me or against me and if you're against me, you're the enemy and you deserve the ultimate punishment. Up to sometimes including death, which is ridiculous when you step back and think about it. But so many of our debates are there. I mean, I was terribly disappointed when I learned that Dr Fauci has to have security because he expresses his scientific opinion, and a segment of the population disagrees with that and have sent him death threats. I mean, I think that type of thing is absolutely ridiculous. We can all have different opinions and viewpoints and not have to kill each other.

[00:19:07] spk_1: All right, So how does one get to a point where they can start to listen to other people's stupid goddamn opinions? Like, how do we how do we get to that point?

[00:19:19] spk_0: I think the first thing and you hinted to it in your question which is we have to start with the right mindset, which is we have to be open to listen to others. It's kind of the classic Freij seek to understand not to be understood. And I think you first start with what is the common objective that we're trying to solve? So if it's something like health care, what is the issue that we're trying to solve? And we might all agree that the cost of health care is too high, that we want people to have affordable health care. There's probably three or four of those things, not the ultimate positions, but the objective that we're trying to get that we could all agree on and then we can say something like, okay, given that we agree on these objectives, what facts do we need to know to be able to figure this problem out and then go and get those facts, real facts, not spin or opinions. And then from that, say, what are the potential ways to solve this and do it in a non judging away. This is kind of like brainstorming that you do in the corporate environment where you just write up ideas and you don't judge them, but then you go back and you analyze and assess them and oftentimes and I've done this thousands of times is you often find almost always find that none of the ideas that were put up there are the, the final one, but it's some blending of those are some entirely new idea that came about as a result of that brainstorming and that's the type of discussions that we have to have.

[00:20:45] spk_1: Yes, I yeah, almost take the person completely take the personality out of

[00:20:52] spk_0: it. Absolutely

[00:20:52] spk_1: at, you know, it's so funny because like most of the time you're talking to someone and you don't agree with them politically, but in the end, if you really kind of dig down deep, it's the goal is the same for anybody. It's what's gonna be the best for everybody and everybody thinks they have an opinion. Their opinion is the best solution for everything. And most of the time, uh, it's not, it's it's a nice mix of ideas and uh and those types of things

[00:21:20] spk_0: where where can

[00:21:21] spk_1: we have the most influence to get people to start having these conversations in a way that or where can someone start? I mean, besides your book, but mainly your book, what's a good way to get people down that path to start talking like that?

[00:21:35] spk_0: Yeah, I think that there are a couple pass, I'll describe them because they're in different realms, but one of the first passes start at home. So many of us have those discussions in our own homes or with our friends or family and we start into this personal attack kind of stuff. And I think just at that level, let's work on that and see if we can't get that to be better. I think also doing it in your local government, which are very important. They influence a lot of things in our daily lives, I think could be really important. And then I think the other way is to make sure you're getting a balanced set of facts. And so I do talk about that in the book as well. You know, I think we do have media biases and let me just make a quick point to demonstrate that if we ask everyone, we picked 100 people off the street and we said, tell us the point of view of CNN MSNBC and Fox News, probably 99% of the people could tell us which one ranks on the political scale in that way. Well, these are supposed to be objective news reporters. They're not supposed to have a point of view. The fact that each of us knows that they have a point of view and that's how they deliver so called news test. That should be troubling. So I would look for less biased news sources, there's some tools that can be used to help us with that one that I like is all sides dot com. They rank all of the major media, in fact, even at the local and state level in terms of what is their bias and they take input from all of us, which I think is very good. So getting the facts and then starting those civil debates and not personalizing things. Starting of course with what is the issue we're trying to solve. That's how we can do that. And I think uh continue to make our discourse better.

[00:23:30] spk_1: That's a I did not know about that website, that's pretty spectacular. Um, so let's take a look at how you've written this book, because I think you've taken a different approach and um you don't don't take offense that you don't look like a millennial, but you wrote this book so that the Reddit crowd can really, really key in on it. So let's, I just want to take a look at, well, just look at this uh, this first chapter and I think what's great is uh it is really a three stage book in that it makes sense the way you read it, understanding the political process and all of those types of things. But here this is the part that I love is that you did, you did not take the hubris that everybody is going to read every word in your book and you really wanted to convey, hey, I just want you to be informed. So you created A. T. L. D. Are too long. Didn't read section for every chapter. Um, if someone goes through your book and they only read the T. L. D. R. S how much better off are they going to be?

[00:24:39] spk_0: I think they're going to be significantly better off and thank you for the compliment. Uh No, I am not a millennial quite to the contrary, but I do believe that politics is not the domain exclusively of the baby boomers or any other generation. It's all of us, it's all of our country and so we need to do it. So I tried to be cognizant in writing the book so that it would have appeal to all generations and everyone and so the T. L. D. R. Boxes is really to convey the main point. One of the reasons. And I think you could get a lot of it a lot of the discussion in the book just from reading the tl DRS. What they try to do is summarize the takeaways from each chapter, but at the beginning so that you can decide women already know about the Electoral College. I don't know if I need to read this. Uh, but if you look at that and you say, I don't think that's right. What I've done is provided the backup with extensive endnotes I think almost 200. So that you can say oh yeah there's facts in real data that supports his physicians and maybe I need to think about that a little bit more which is the goal.

[00:25:52] spk_1: Yeah. Um it does it makes for a very uh, relaxing read, especially something that's a political book, but it does make it much easier. So you can read that. It's sort of like someone telling you before you walk into the movie theater. Hey, this is what this movie is about. It gives a nice little overview and then you could go in and just enjoy the actual acting and it's the same sort of thing here. Um, as far as I want to kind of get a little bit, uh, deeper into certain certain things. And the uh, the chapters I think are going to, in my opinion, are going to help people. The most are the chapters about the hold on, let me get, let me get to there. The different types of, uh, not logical fallacies, but the things that are, are people used to the dehumanization and

[00:26:50] spk_0: yes,

[00:26:52] spk_1: let's talk about the six principal causes of lack of civility in political discourse. And and uh if you don't mind, let's I just want to give an overview for for everybody it's individual individualism. And give me the twitter response that the old school twitter the 144 character

[00:27:10] spk_0: response to

[00:27:12] spk_1: Yeah, individualism. Why is it a bad thing?

[00:27:15] spk_0: Individualism is you make up your own facts, everybody's entitled to their own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts.

[00:27:23] spk_1: Good supremacy.

[00:27:25] spk_0: My facts are the only ones that matter and yours Iran

[00:27:31] spk_1: polarization, absolute absolutism.

[00:27:35] spk_0: It's either all or nothing my way or the highway. You're a friend or you're a death sworn enemy

[00:27:42] spk_1: and anonymity

[00:27:45] spk_0: I can hide behind uh anonymity to not take responsibility for what I say and do

[00:27:55] spk_1: victimization.

[00:27:57] spk_0: Oh this is my favorite of the group in every situation, there's a victim and I'm usually that person and therefore there has to be a villain and that person is to be hated and despised

[00:28:12] spk_1: dehumanization.

[00:28:14] spk_0: Speaking to someone in terms that do not recognize them as a human being as something subhuman are inhuman.

[00:28:25] spk_1: Yeah. And we can see all of those if you know I used the twitter uh moniker there for a reason obviously because you can see that in tweets from certain very specific people and it's it's shocking when you see that the potus twitter account is loaded with all of these. These are all things that we see coming directly from the leader of the free world and I'm not making a statement one way or the other again about if I support that individual or don't support that individual, but it's concerning when we see that from our leadership, isn't it?

[00:29:09] spk_0: It really is. And so in the book I list on both sides, republican democrat everything in between statements like that that our leaders have made. And it's so very disappointing, we can have a debate of the issues without calling people animals are filthy dogs, or vermouth are all that stuff. It doesn't add anything to the debate, it only further up further polarizes and divides us

[00:29:36] spk_1: very much agreed. Um Yeah, so if you had um if you had a magic wand and you were able to swing your magic wand, would it be, would you fix the way media presents the facts, would it be uh finding a way to make it impossible for keyboards to work as they start to do these terrible things that they do online? What would be the thing that you could do if you could do one thing, what would it be to help discourse in a political arena?

[00:30:15] spk_0: I think it would be uh the next relaxed chapter of my book, which is called switching it up, which is to cause people to consider uh their own viewpoints from the opposite side. And so what that chapter is about, in essence, is taking real life situations with the real actors getting people to either align with that or hate it and then switch it up and give the opposite actor and see if people's views change. I think when any of us can consider uh a particular issue from the opposite side of view and ask ourselves why do they have that position? Let me understand that that is automatically going to make for a better political discourse. And quite frankly, it's gonna make for better media and news reporting, because so often it's all one sided and they don't consider that the other side may have a legitimate point that that needs to be considered.

[00:31:11] spk_1: I um I tried a number of years ago, I was trying to take news reports and take the name, the pro proper names, gender identity and all all of the different signifiers that would other than the title of the of the person. That was the only way I was referring to them. I called it that person in the White House. And it was just to remove all of that. And what was interesting was there was one particular article where I took all the names out, took all the genders out uh you know, he or she said, but what was really interesting was I did read an article because I'm not a trump supporter. All right, there amounted. But uh it was an article about something that trump did that. I was like, oh I kind of agree with what what happened there. It was about Social Security and I was really interested that I agreed with. Whereas normally I don't think I would the bias would have come up and everything he touches I think turns into bad stuff. So it was really an interesting exercise just for myself to kind of go, oh man, even even as much as I think I am not biased, I am biased like he's very heavily

[00:32:22] spk_0: and I think that's something we all have to watch. But taking the personalities out of it and focusing on the positions and the facts, that's how we get out of it. Mhm.

[00:32:32] spk_1: Yeah. And you do list some really, you know, these are subjects that are super controversial, abortion, health care. I don't know why health care is such a touch to touch on a topic. Everybody needs a uh, but you hit up all of these really important things, um, guns and individual rights and those types of things. But your approach is very much as you stated, its explain what the problem is and then how do we work backwards from there without using absolutes, which is well, if we do and the logical fallacies off, we do this, then everything's gonna, you know, if we take guns away from known criminals, then the next thing, you know, the government is going to be knocking on your door and taking all your guns and ammo and it's like, whoa, where did that come from? Like how did this happen that we're drawing these ridiculous conclusions from this? What are the safeguards for for people in these, these kind of in having these conversations like where what's the risk if a conservative who is very much about give me my guns? What's the risk for them to listen?

[00:33:50] spk_0: I don't think there is really any risk. I think we the only risk that I think we've had goes back to something we've discussed Stewart and that is, people have to feel safe going into a conversation like that and to feel safe, you have to feel like you're going to be listened to. So I think starting, if there is any as any risk to those conversations, starting it out by saying, we're going to listen to everyone's ideas, no idea is better than another. The way we'll distinguish them is based on the facts, so everyone is free to do it and we're not going to judge And we'll judge based on the facts, not you as a person. And I think we need to have more of those discussions. And in fact, there have been a couple groups, I can't think of the names right now they're in the book, but they've tried that with a group of 500, uh, citizens across the board and they've got them together for a weekend and, and talk about one of these controversial issues. And it's amazing when they do that in that small group under a certain paradigm very similar to the paradigm that's in the book. They not only go in, go from hating each other, that's on the other side to seeing their point of view and becoming friends and also figuring out here's a range of solutions we can all agree on that we want to get to our elected officials. Now I'll make one pitch that I think is really important, particularly now, the most important thing, the most important thing That we can do as Americans right now is to vote. One of the things that continues to discourage me is the significant percentage of people, usually about 40 that don't vote in a presidential election and it's even lower in local and state elections. So we all need to vote when I hear people complain about a politician are a leader, I say, did you vote? And if they say no, then maybe you should do that first before you rail about this. And I think particularly now with all the controversy, which I would say is false about male and voting. I think to the extent that each of us has early voting in our states, Let's try to get to the polls in person safely and cast our vote because I think we're we all have to admit at this point, so close to the election, less than 60 days, there are going to be issues with mail and vote voting. And I think we need to make sure that every one of our votes count. And in particular, given some of the rhetoric about the results, it is going to be better. The more of us that can vote in person safely, either by doing it early, doing it at times where the polls may not be crowded. I think that's gonna be important. What I urge all the voting officials throughout our country to do Is instead of what happened, for example, in the Wisconsin primary, where the polls in Milwaukee went from 152, 582 5, we need to have more polls so that the crowds are dispersed and that you can do it safely. So I'd encourage them, we know how to open a polling place. We've done that for centuries. So let's have more polling places and try to make the voting safe. And of course let's make it so that there's not fraud or challenges to it to the greatest extent that we can so vote. Please vote.

[00:37:15] spk_1: I think that's great advice. I uh there's the pushback is of course, a lot of people say, um, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know how to get um educated on these things and I don't have the time. Uh, it's a poor excuse. There are some really great resources. This book is a great place to start to start to change your perspective on how to process that information. Um, I, you know, this new website that you just gave me that I'm going to spend far too much time on all sides. That uh that's a great place. And um and you'll get those booklets right? If you register, you get the booklet, they spend a lot of money putting those booklets out, just fan through them and just kind of read and and see how to see how you feel about those things. Right?

[00:38:06] spk_0: Absolutely. I would give one piece of advice. It's my personal advice. So that's all it is. But something for people to consider. I think in our elections now we focus too much, excuse me, on individual positions of the candidates take. And if I support them on one issue, and that's an important issue for me, I'm going to vote for them, no matter what. And I think that's not the right decision to make right now. I think the are at any time I would say, I think the right one question thing that you can ask yourself right now, that can help you decide between candidates and you can do this based on hearing them speak or what they write or what they put on their websites. Is are they unifying us or are they dividing us? And if they're dividing us, I can't vote for anyone that's a divider because that is not advancing we the people of the United States, even if I don't entirely agree with the unifier, I'd rather vote for a unifier than a divider because right now we need that more than anything and I'd focus more on their approach to how they handle issues. Are they the only one that has the answers and they're not willing to listen to the other sides? Are are they willing to listen to the other side and come up with a unifying solution and Stewart on that? I'm not saying that to say there's one party that owns one side of that debate and one that owns the other. I think you have to look at it. Each individual race. Yeah.

[00:39:45] spk_1: Yes. Um, yeah. In fact, we actually had a comment. So let's see. Yeah. You hit the nail on the head listening versus debating. Yeah. And I think that I think that that's the disarming thing about that is when you do invite someone to give their opinion and to get

[00:40:08] spk_0: their version

[00:40:10] spk_1: of the facts and you actually give that those words some importance. People tend to stop and they listen to you.

[00:40:17] spk_0: Absolutely, absolutely, definitely happens.

[00:40:19] spk_1: Well, Ed were at that time it's been about a half hour. It's been a very good discussion. Um, but this show is called sketch comedy podcast cast. So now we have to come up with the sketch. I honestly cannot wait to have my next political discussion. No, that is not an invitation to the internet. My one regret with this entire conversation. I should have asked him more about his biking adventure. If you would like to hear more about it, please let me know. I'm certain Ed would be willing to go more in depth with that. I really do feel bad that I didn't go more into it. I was just so excited about talking about talking. Do you mind explaining to everybody one more time why they should buy a copy of We the people.

[00:41:10] spk_0: I think anyone that's interested in improving the state of political discourse or how we are as a nation, they should read this book. It's succinct, it gives the main points, it doesn't have a partisan view and I think it will improve not only our political discourse, but it will improve us as individuals and as a people.

[00:41:32] spk_1: Ed. That's great. Besides clicking on the link in the show notes, where else can people find the book

[00:41:38] spk_0: on amazon? It's also available in other booksellers as well, the major ones, but on Amazon it is available with the title We The People. And if you type in my last name when W Y and then it will come right up

[00:41:50] spk_1: outstanding. Ed, any last words or bits of advice that you could give me and my listeners,

[00:41:58] spk_0: please vote. That's the most important thing. And if you can do it in person safely, please please do that. And that's particularly true. If you're in one of the battleground States, please please do that.

[00:42:10] spk_1: There you go folks vote. Read this book and get prepared to listen to this week's sketch master debaters with my friend and author Edwin in three two. Mhm. Okay. Welcome to the presidential debates between Edwin and alexander Lincoln, mm mm Post food is Dimitri franklin and he is about to ask the first question right now. Yeah, candidate Edwin, there has been a lot of controversy with Internet services in the United States and privacy concerns. What is your opinion on the ticktock situation that is currently happening in America right now?

[00:43:08] spk_0: Tick tock is awful. Ticktock used to refer to clocks now, we've got people dancing, they're probably all liberals and you know, the chinese are all over that. They're taking it over there, taking our information. We're no longer going to be America. It's just something that has to be stopped. It's un american. I don't know how all these young people can go on there knowing they're giving away their Social Security numbers, their futures to this debate, It must be stopped. It is evil. And my opponent, I can't believe how stupid he is and how gullible he is

[00:43:45] spk_1: alexander Lincoln. Do you mind giving us your rebuttal to this? To this statement about Ticktock? Yes. Let me explain my position on Tiktok in 2018 when taxes were raised, I realized we had a major problem. We want to make sure that people are represented properly and that

[00:44:07] spk_0: alexander were sleeping over here. This is so boring. I thought this was supposed to be about Tiktok not taxes. Who wants taxes?

[00:44:15] spk_1: Listen here, you decrepit old fool. I am trying to convey why it is important that we understand discourse that are you taking a nap again?

[00:44:26] spk_0: You're just putting me out with your boring junk about taxes. Who cares? We're not even talking about taxes. This is about Tiktok and dancing. Oh my gosh, you're senile.

[00:44:40] spk_1: Now. I take a lot of offense at that. And I honestly, I wish people would turn off their volume when they were listening to your manby pamby baloney that you continue to spout?

[00:44:51] spk_0: Are you telling the american people that you support the chinese over them? Really? You're that stupid.

[00:44:59] spk_1: I know you don't understand a lot of things. You probably use tick tock as an educational channel. We need to make sure that we understand exactly what Tiktok is all about. And honestly, I'm not even sure you know how to turn your phone on.

[00:45:14] spk_0: Oh please. And just because we don't understand, it doesn't mean we can't figure out it comes from the chinese and they are taking our personal data and information. Really? I thought you were smarter than that alexander.

[00:45:29] spk_1: Well, I'm definitely smarter than your wife who somehow has married you. This is what? Your 14th wife.

[00:45:35] spk_0: Oh my gosh! Going there. You have little room to talk over there. Mr with your immoral life.

[00:45:43] spk_1: Listen here you incredible putts, I know that you don't understand what we're trying to do in America which is free ourselves from the tyranny of old senile fools like yourself

[00:45:55] spk_0: alexander, it's called experience something you clearly don't have,

[00:45:59] spk_1: that's not what your mom said last night,

[00:46:01] spk_0: just proving my point the lack of morals that you have as a person who would ever vote for someone like

[00:46:09] spk_1: that. Once again, I will point towards your mom

[00:46:13] spk_0: alexander. There he goes again with his ignorant responses.

[00:46:19] spk_1: I absolutely not an ignorant person yet. You are such an idiot that you just my mother and how things work and you don't understand how America America is just spend all of your time. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to I'm going to have to shut off your microphones. We're running out of time with this particular question. And quite honestly, both of you are such idiots. We're going to have to find some spongebob cartoons to play for the remainder of the debate because that makes more sense than what's going on right now. Thank you for joining us for the debates. Have a good evening. Are you already kids? I captain. I can't hear you. Thank you for listening to sketch comedy podcast show. Would you believe that that sketch was actually recorded almost a month before the first biden trump debate? I know it's uncanny. Sketch comedy podcast show is recorded under a creative commons attribution, non derivative four point oh, international license. I know it's a mouthful, but it protects us legally. If you would like to be on the show, if you would like to learn more about the show, subscribe and all those types of things. My suggestion head to sketch comedy, podcast show dot com. I know it's a lot of letters to write down, but it makes sense because it's the name of the show sketch comedy podcast show dot com and you can get all sorts of great stuff there. Thank you so much for listening. We had a blast making this and we hope that you're willing to join us again on our next episode. I will be talking to a local mayoral candidate about local elections. I cannot wait to share that conversation with you see you next time.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Claire Malkie | Risk-Taker and POLITICAL MOTIVATOR FOR THE “MEH” CROWD

Wed, 26 Aug 2020 07:00:00 GMT

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Have you ever just picked up and moved to a big, metropolitan city you have never visited on a whim? How about deciding one day that you need to thrust your fellow generation into informed political discourse? I’m pretty sure you haven’t done either of those things. You are about to meet someone who has.

Claire Malkie grew up in Virginia and studied classical acting at Hofstra University. After graduating, someone suggested moving to Chicago and, without skipping a beat, she jumped at the opportunity. Arriving in Chicago ready to tackle the stage, she soon realized that the opportunities were pretty limited, but there were tons of opportunities to do improv. So, she headed back to improv school and started learning and performing at Comedy Court and has worked at a number of festivals.

Overhearing a conversation from a peer that included “I don’t really understand politics, so I don’t want to get involved”, Claire realized that she could help change that attitude, which was important to her because she realized that she had the same attitude. To remedy that disinterest, Claire now co-writes and hosts the podcast “Sit Still, Look Opinionated” (https://sit-still-look-opinionated.simplecast.com) which is not just informative and non-biased, but it is also downright funny as she and her co-writer come up with fantastic jokes about the headlines that deserve to be on late-night talk shows. I highly recommend checking it out, whether you are in the know, or are trying to be, or don’t care… because you should.

Have a completely free audiobook without ANY obligation other than downloading it read by none-other than myself! Get a copy of “Snapshots” a great collection of short stories that I narrated! All you have to do is message the show at sketchcomedypodcastshow@gmail.com and I will send you a code! I won’t even keep your email address, I’m just really excited to hear what you think!

This week’s sketch: “Neo Way!”

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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MORE ABOUT THE GUEST

Claire is an improviser, actor, and podcaster located in Chicago, IL. You can catch her in ongoing improv shows with her team Agent Carol, and you can find her podcast Sit Still, Look Opinionated on your favorite podcatcher site.

Claire originally hails from Alexandria, Virginia and definitely considers herself an east coast gal. She earned her BFA in Classical Acting from Hofstra University on Long Island, NY. She additionally earned minors in English and Musical Theater.

Now living in the Windy City, you can find Claire performing in improv shows and doing stand up sets all over the city. Claire recently closed Comedy Court at the Laugh Out Loud Theater. Claire has also performed with Huggable Riot, the Contemporary American Theater Festival, and Hampstead Stage Company.

In her downtime Claire loves workout classes, lightly scented candles, and of course, dad jokes. Hey, it's all in the delivery right?

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TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] spk_0: in this episode, Shakespearean actress turned improviser Claire Malki and I came up with three sketches. What would improv back in Shakespearean time. What would it have looked

[00:00:12] spk_1: like? Yes. And if

[00:00:14] spk_0: to Karen's maybe having a conversation on the cycling bikes about current events and or something along those lines like having trying to have a political conversation but not knowing what they're talking about,

[00:00:27] spk_1: that would be great.

[00:00:29] spk_0: You know, you brought up Neo from the Matrix. What if you woke up and it was right now today, here in this life in this world, what would you decide to do? Which one did we pick? You'll find out on this episode of mm hmm It's a sketch comedy podcast show. Welcome to sketch comedy podcast show though, one of a kind show where I Stewart rice invite interesting people to have intriguing conversations and then improvise a comedy sketch based on what was talked about. This episode's guest is Claire Malki and I've got a couple questions for you. Have you ever just picked up and moved to a big metropolitan city you've never visited before? Just on a whim or how about deciding one day that you need to thrust your fellow generation into informed political discourse. My guess is you probably haven't done either of those things. Claire Malki has Claire grew up in Virginia and studied classical acting at Hofstra University after graduating, someone suggested moving to Chicago and without skipping a beat, she jumped at the opportunity, arriving in Chicago, ready to tackle the stage. She soon realized that the opportunities were actually pretty limited for a Shakespearean actress, but there were tons of opportunities to do improv. So she headed to improv school and started learning and performing at comedy court and has worked at a number of festivals overhearing a conversation from appear that included, I don't really understand politics, so I don't really want to get involved. Claire realized that she could help change that attitude, which was important to her because she realized she had the same attitude to remedy that disinterest. Claire now co writes and hosts a podcast, sit still look opinionated, which is not just informative and non biased, but it is also downright funny as she and her co writer come up with fantastic jokes about the headlines that deserve to be on late night talk shows. I highly recommend checking it out whether you are in the know or trying to be or don't care because you should and this show can help you get there. And now my conversation with Claire Malki, risk taker and political motivator for the hip crowd.

[00:02:56] spk_1: Hey,

[00:02:58] spk_0: I've got a question for you. Yeah, what makes you interesting,

[00:03:04] spk_1: right? You know, I was thinking a lot about this question because

[00:03:07] spk_0: you actually listen to the show. Not everybody does that by the way, but that was pretty good,

[00:03:12] spk_1: I'm glad I did and something that came to mind is that I am all about taking a risk and not quite understanding where the reward would come out of it. Um I think some people like to call that being naive, but I like to think of it as being adventurous. Um so I currently live in Chicago and I moved here straight out of school, I was gonna move to Manhattan as like the rest of my theater class did, and then one of my friends was like, hey, I'm gonna move to Chicago, and I was like, oh, I've never been to that city before, so why don't I just moved there? Um I knew like nothing about the city, I didn't even pick out the apartment that I lived in. Um but it ended up being the best decision I ever could have made. Um How

[00:03:58] spk_0: many, so how many years ago did you do that?

[00:04:01] spk_1: It will be three in October Mhm Yeah, and and that theme has sort of been very central in my life um in that same day I started taking classes at all of the grade comedy theaters in Chicago, so I was like, oh, I'm a classically trained Shakespeare actor, why don't I take some improv classes? And I was like, oh, this is great, I love this. And then um I was looking for more ways, I could be creative and I was like, oh why don't I start a podcast without really doing any research into what all of that entails. Um but luckily everything has worked there okay for me so far, so I just keep liking to, you know, jump off the cliff and land on my feet where it can,

[00:04:50] spk_0: that's pretty great, so now, um so as far as like improv places, second city, is that one of them? And uh that's cool. One of my favorite podcasts actually comes from Chicago and it's the improvised star trek, I don't know if you've heard about that. Yeah, it's pretty great, those guys are fantastic, they won't be on the show, but um anyway, uh but you are, so that's the best part. Um so you were a Shakespearean actor and you just decided like I should probably just throw some improv in there, see what happens.

[00:05:26] spk_1: Yeah, so when I decided to move to Chicago, my friend had kind of pitched this city to me as you know, it's the best of everything, It has a lot of um film and tv work, it has great regional theater, you know, we are classically trained actors who also had focuses on finding new work um which was a little bit interesting that our university pitched it to us is like, oh, you guys have the bones of, you know, the best, the best for history, but we're not really going to teach you about contemporary theatre, which was a little bit of a shell shock when we first got there. So I was like, oh yes, I can do these sonnets and I can do all of these, like have all of these um illusions that I, you know, I can pinpoint and you know, no the ins and outs of R and J. And midsummer and all of those things. Um but when I moved to Chicago I realized I was like, oh, this city actually has a lot of comedy and sketch comedy and improvisation and I was like, well I'm gonna live in this city, I should probably, you know, figure out what it's all about. Um And I actually used to work on the night staff at the second city. So I would bus tables, see guests um you know, watch for illegal cellphone use. And so I got to take classes for free. So that was something that really drove home. I was like, why why would I not take classes if they're being handed

[00:06:50] spk_0: to me? Yeah, that would be silly. So it sounds like you went to school, learned how to work on horse drawn carriages, got out to the world and realized, oh everybody's driving the car, Yeah, how'd you go?

[00:07:05] spk_1: That's very true to the way my background was, but it really has helped me because I understand language in a way that I think a lot of um other performers who maybe have different skill sets, like they might be stronger writers or um you know, have other skills, but I feel like I can really understand where language is coming from and the meaning behind every word, even if the writer of the sketch was like, oh I just thought it was funny, I'm like, oh, I don't understand, I understand in my bones like how to make this sound with my objective and my obstacle and using those acting techniques in sketch comedy. Um and I honestly think that helped me a lot in the shows I worked on.

[00:07:48] spk_0: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Have you been in a situation where you can you think of a situation where you were in that moment and you were like, oh, I gotta, I gotta pull something out of

[00:08:00] spk_1: like, oh yeah, I was doing an improv show, there's this group that I worked with in Chicago called huggable Riot, and they're a sketch comedy group and I was in the show, there's last summer in 2019 and then um in the fall they were doing sort of a just like a one off improv show with a lot of different people who have been in their shows and um this one guy, he he also knew Shakespeare and he was kind of like poking at me to see like what I could actually do until we recited some verses back and forth to each other and we had never improvised together before. Um and so it was so funny to watch, this would be like, oh, you know, Shakespeare, you know, Shakespeare to what? Um so it's definitely been, there have been some moments where I like have to show my chops a little bit more?

[00:08:50] spk_0: Yeah, that's pretty cool, very cool. Have you been in a situation doing improv, where you were just like, you were like, I am so lot, you're in a scene and you're just like completely lost. And what was that like? Because it's not like that with Shakespearean, you know, the marks, you know, we were supposed to be exactly, what was it like, give us that one?

[00:09:14] spk_1: Um Yeah, because like, as you were saying, when you're working with text that is established, like the period is there for a reason, like the semi colon has a meaning, um whereas when you're improvising, you have to go with the flow and think on your feet. Um and when I was first starting out, I was doing some auditions, obviously we all do auditions, They come and go and I was improvising with someone who had worked on someone who had worked with on some Children's shows and so I knew them quite well, but they were a much better improviser than I was, and they were just like calling the shots and they were like, we knew what to do to complete command of the stage, and I was in such off of this person that I sort of forgot what I was doing and how I had to help tell the story and I definitely floundered on that and I was like, oh my gosh, like, I'm working with this person that I really admire. Um And then, I mean I ended up not looking the show, but like that's not a big deal.

[00:10:10] spk_0: Whatever you get a all practice, right? Like that's that's actually a really good practices. Can and I have been in that situation where you're with somebody and you're like, whoa, that's, they're really good. You just got in ah you're like, oh wait, I'm not in the audience, I should probably do

[00:10:27] spk_1: something and one of my faults too is I love to laugh and I constantly laugh all the time. And um so when I'm in a scene and something's funny, I just, I can't help but enjoy it if my scene partner does a funny accent or comes out as you know, an inanimate object, like sometimes I'm just gonna laugh but sure

[00:10:47] spk_0: yeah, that is actually, it can be, it can be charming and it can also be irritating, but most of the time I find it charming. Um you know, unless it's forced it, if someone's like, oh that was really funny, It's like, okay, wow.

[00:11:02] spk_1: Yeah, and then we're not actually gonna laugh at it, Don't laugh at it.

[00:11:06] spk_0: Exactly. Exactly. Have you been in that situation where you work with uh with someone who chewed up the scene a little too much and and like you're you're starting to feel uncomfortable because there they're taking too long to get to the point.

[00:11:22] spk_1: Yeah, there's um so some of the improv classes that I've taken. Um they are open to all people, which I think is great because, you know, everyone should try performing and I think it brings a lot to your everyday life. Um

[00:11:40] spk_0: but as someone who's the games that you gain an appreciation for when people do perform, I feel like that that definitely worked for me was I used to be like, well that wasn't that funny, but then when you're up there and you're doing it like, oh man, it's hard, like that's amazing. That was funny, right? Like

[00:11:56] spk_1: such a good point because I feel like a lot of people um only see the outcome of the arts and don't see all of the like labor and intensive nous that goes into it. So when you're actually trying to make it, when you're trying to establish a scene and make it coherent and also be funny. Um I think, yeah, that's so true that sometimes people are like, oh I can do that, but it's like can you can you do

[00:12:20] spk_0: that? It's like anytime anybody says I should be a stand up comedian, it's like really well tell me some jokes, it's like, oh no, I just tell stories about my life and and they're funny and I'm like, yeah, I've known you for 10 years, I've never laughed at anything, you said a

[00:12:38] spk_1: such a good point because I'm like, you know, like stand ups, they like, they have a story, like they know what they're saying, they're not if they're just like, oh yeah, that one, kind of thanksgiving my aunt got really mad and you're like, okay, but what's the point? And I totally agree with that. Um I was in so I was in one of these classes that was for everyone, which is great, um and this this guy, it was one of those like warm ups where you know, everyone is on the back line um and then, you know, two people at a time going to the scene and he just came out and he just started talking and he was talking and talking and talking and then let me get a word in edgewise, and I remember being like, okay, so I don't necessarily want to work with you, but you kind of just have to roll with it. And like if that person is going to talk a bunch, which is also hard for me because as I'm sure you've noticed, I also like to talk a lot, so when someone else is like doing all the talking, I'm like, okay, how can what do I character doing this scene? Like it's not just clear up there on the improvised stage, it's whatever character I bring to it. So maybe I know this other character, they always do this, they always talk so in those moments I kind of have to go back to my it's the character work not my personal stand up moment,

[00:13:53] spk_0: right? I think that's hard, it's hard to do because making that switch from this is Me Too, this is a character and then especially an improv one, and then I've performed in that situation where you're like, this is a whole another scene. I have to be a completely different character and having to devise those as you're going along. Yeah, yep, it's good, it's good stuff and you learn to use that in other parts of your life too, which is pretty great. I I do think people need to go take an improv class just to get an understanding. Most people don't need to stay in improv because they're not good at it. Um and I feel that way about podcasting. Like most of the time when I listened to a show, I'm like, oh cool, you've got you in a couple of your buddies, you're drinking beer and talking about pop culture around sitting around the table neat. Um Also don't do it anymore, right? And that's a recurring theme that happens when any time I talked to a podcaster. So any time a podcaster contacts this show and says, I'd like to be on, I'm always like, we'll see your show that you do sit, still look opinionated. First off the title brilliant, I thought it was great. Um and I was like, okay, well, I've got to give it a listen, I got to see what this is all about, brilliant show. I really enjoyed it. I don't I don't give praise off very easy when it comes to podcasting. So what was the genesis of the show first off? Tell us what the show is about and why you're doing it. And then let's let's let's talk about how you got into that and all that. So

[00:15:36] spk_1: yeah, thank you. Um I really, I really appreciate that because we, my writing partner mike we put a lot of work into the show. So it's it's good to know that it uh, is received well. Um, so before Covid 19 and possibly post Covid 19, I worked at a fitness studio that had indoor cycling bikes that uh had a word that has an S S cycle, I don't want to necessarily, but

[00:16:10] spk_0: I have no

[00:16:10] spk_1: idea. Uh you know, okay, it's a fitness studio where a lot of affluent women workout.

[00:16:19] spk_0: Karen's

[00:16:20] spk_1: all the Karens, that video. And unfortunately, um not all, but some of my coworkers could possibly also be described as Karen's um in the most loving sense, and I don't mean that they didn't care, but just some of those stereotypes I think existed by the nature of our work place and the people that we worked with. Um And our President # 45 was getting impeached last fall, which I think everyone has just forgotten about and way

[00:16:56] spk_0: bigger things on our plate at this point, I guess.

[00:16:58] spk_1: Yeah, way And um, some of my coworkers, we were like, oh yeah, I don't even know the difference between the House and the senate. Like, I don't even know this stuff doesn't affect me like, you know, politics. It's just not really my thing. And I was like, oh my gosh, because I, I'm a news junkie. Like I listened to, you know, The Daily NPR, you know, so many, so many news shows. I'm always like trying to take it in and learn from different perspectives. And I figured like, how can I access a access a way to help people like me? Maybe other Karen types, unfortunately, um, to get them to care like how, how can I get them to care about what's going on in the world and not necessarily just women, like also young, other young people who maybe it's just like I have other things on my list. Like I have to, you know, before covid, like I have my job, I have my social life. Like, you know, that's everyone else just deals with that. I

[00:18:01] spk_0: Have to manage the 535 Instagram followers that I've got as well as learn about news. What, how am I supposed to do this? No, I'm not making light of it actually. But that's, that's actually not too far from the truth is that were hit with more things to pay attention to previous generations. I am lumping myself into your generation, which is incorrect, but let's just play that game. But there are just more things to pay attention to now and it is, it's, it's hard because it's, uh, we're not as engaged. That isn't the theater. It used to be that used to be entertainment for people. And it's not so much anymore. So to your point, there are a lot of people my generation to that, that don't understand things. And then because they don't understand them, they think like it's that, uh, you ever seen that chris pratt meme where it's like, uh, I don't know what the difference between the house and the senate and now I'm afraid to ask. Like I feel like that one is pretty prevalent, like that's a pretty good one.

[00:19:08] spk_1: And it's, it's so true. And a lot of people that, that was the part of it. It's like, I don't really know. So I'm just not even going to talk about it. And I, and the thing that really got me, I was like politics is for us, like this is our country. Like you don't have to be a political scientist or have a degree or have, you know, you know, a wealth at your fingertips, understand what's going on around you. And so I figured I was like, you know what, it's time for us to get opinionated and have those conversations and not feel afraid about it. Um, and so the title is, you know, sit still look pretty, which I'm from Virginia and I went to Cotillion and they told us All, you know, girls will sit pretty and guys will sit strong. Um, and I wanted to play on that a little bit. So that's where the title came from. And then when it came to starting the show, you know, that idea where it's like, if you have an idea, you should start talking about it and like maybe somehow it'll, it'll happen. Um, so I was taking the train, the sea to here in Chicago and I ran into my friend's boyfriend too. He also is a writer and an actor and he was like, oh, what's going on? Like what's up? And I was like, oh, I have this idea for this comedy show that would be informative so people could learn in a way that was easy to understand and was like geared towards them and he was like, oh my gosh, that's a great idea, I'd love to write and produce it with you. And I was like, oh, okay, like you, you want to help me with this idea and we'll do this together and it won't just be me. And he was like, yeah, totally. And he was super on top of, um, like meeting every week. And he even like had a straight out of contract so that we would stay on top of our writing process. Um, and then he sort of jumped in two ft first and we have been writing every week. Um, and we wrote, uh, 18 episodes and a trailer and now we're working on a season to um, I've learned a lot and definitely podcasting is a lot more than I think what people think it is. And in the same vein of wanting a story to have an arc, I want my podcast to have an arc to, so I want there to be a beginning, middle and end and like why does it matter? So why are we listening to this? Because I think it's really easy for people to just say the facts be like, you know, George Washington was the first President of United States, but it's like, okay, but why do you need to know that? Or like why do you need to know about misinformation or why do you need to know about the difference between, you know, the Democratic and Republican Party? Um, so now we're working on season two and we've got some great episodes and storms so excited to share them. Once we released them in september, it'll sort of be like a back to the podcast, back to school type thing.

[00:21:43] spk_0: I like it. I like that a lot. You release weekly?

[00:21:46] spk_1: Yes, we released weekly on Fridays.

[00:21:48] spk_0: Okay. That's good. Good on you for keeping a nice consistent schedule because I certainly can't do that anymore. Um, but that's good. Uh, so you, um, you just decided like it was time you heard all you heard people you're your age like saying, I don't know and it was time to just fill that space. I think that's fantastic. What when you think about um where you'd like to see the show go, what what is it that you're hoping happens with the show? Do you have like a desire for it to do something beyond just, you know, you could have a million listeners, you could have five listeners. I have no idea, but like, what is it that you want to see this, this show? Do?

[00:22:38] spk_1: I think my goal with the show has changed a lot over the course of writing and creating it, especially working with my writing partner mike and working with a second person, because initially I was selfishly end up just for me and I was like, oh, this will be in my way, that I'll make a mark and everyone will know my name and it'll be great. And then I realized as I was doing the work, I was like, Oh, you know, yes, it's great. I love having people listen to my voice for 45 minutes. But it's really I my ultimate goal, even if only 10 people listen to it is that they've gone and learn something and that they've gone and had a conversation with their grandmother, their neighbor, their friend about what's going on in the world, because if you don't talk about what's happening, that's how complacency forms and that's how people stop questioning things and just fall in line. Um so

[00:23:34] spk_0: that's the totalitarian ism, basically, Yes,

[00:23:38] spk_1: I

[00:23:39] spk_0: mean famously, um uh boy, I can't believe, I can't remember. And they're a Brave New World. I don't know if you ever read the book, but uh, by Aldous Huxley, he uh him and in 1919 84 and Brave New World War Two books that were side by side one pick, pitched it as no information will ever be given to anybody. And that's how That's how totalitarian that's 1984. The other one was, you're gonna have access to solve the information, but nobody cares. And he was right, That's where we're at. And so I like that you're like, hey, as long as we get some dialogue going, so we have some discourse going, that's important. I think that's really good.

[00:24:25] spk_1: Yeah, thank you.

[00:24:26] spk_0: Yeah, tell me about tell well, you don't have to tell me I listened to the show, but tell people how is the format of the show set up? Because it's interesting. I was I was actually pleasantly surprised by the way the set of the set up the show was So go ahead and just tell me how tell us how that works.

[00:24:46] spk_1: Yeah. So in the trailer that we released, we were frustrating the show. I wanted people understand that, um like, you wouldn't go drinking without eating something before you leave, at least people who are cognizant. Um, so the same way the show, this would be your way to understand what you're going into before you went to the polls. Um So with that in mind and when you go into a voting situation or even having a conversation you need to be prepared you need to have some tools. So there's two parts to it. The show starts with um usually a little joke about a margarita and usually something about the week that has happened. So when it was cinco de Mayo we made jokes about how you know that's not mexican Independence Day, you know be respectful. Um And then we go into a deep dive about a topic. So we've done misinformation, we've done education, we did three parts on the health care system um looking at um trump's plan biden's plan. And even though Bernie Sanders was out of the running we still wanted to look at his plan for health care. And then we do weekly headlines in sort of the um daily show a satirical way where it's the headline and then a punchline. And then I have an interview to round out the show with um before it was sort of with just anyone who had something pertinent to say but now we're relating it, we're at least attempting to relate it to the topic at hand. Um So when we did our episode on education we had a high school teacher come on and talk about the state of education when we did our episode on healthcare um I had a friend of mine who works in um for healthcare firm in D. C. A lobby firm and so she came and spoke to us very eloquently about you know the state of health care in America. Um And also I try to have people that are accessible and it's like oh yeah like this isn't someone who is like you know the mayor or the president I mean which would be amazing but it's usually tried someone who who's voice people will listen

[00:26:54] spk_0: to. Uh Yeah I'll be on your show. I'm just

[00:26:58] spk_1: nobody cares about what I

[00:27:00] spk_0: said um When you think about. Um And it is it's a what was actually the really surprising thing is the headline with the punch

[00:27:10] spk_1: line

[00:27:12] spk_0: was actually funny because that that's hard it is harder to do than people think without rehashing somebody else's joke. You did a fantastic job. Thank you. Yeah you're welcome thank you. Uh So the other thing is uh the the other thing I'm thinking about is we're in a really interesting time and you're an informed person when you look out and see all the things that are happening right now with between Covid Black Lives Matter. Um And really even before that we I mean we we still talk about it right? The uh the um uh why can I not think of the hashtag Me Too movement. I mean there's a lot of different things happening right now. What is the thing that gets you the most um that gets you the most. Either excited or ah the opposite of excited. Like what is the thing that you go we need to make this real change. What is

[00:28:18] spk_1: that? I think a lot about um okay, this is going to be maybe out of left field, but you know the matrix in that movie, you know, Neo understands there's something out there and that he can make it better and so he goes out of his way and he wakes up and he realizes that you know there is a lot that has to be done and it's sort of that the allegory of the cave, that thing, it's like is ignorance better than understanding. And I constantly have to have that discussion with myself. It's like I can either live my life the way it was going and be fine just for me or I can inform myself because I have, you know this cube in my pocket all the time that has tons of information at my fingertips and I can use that to assuage my anxieties by also helping my friends and people I don't know. And that's what I love about the podcast is anyone can listen to it for free um Is that I can help share what I've learned and give that to other people. Um so we've been researching, we were doing an episode about what is fascism next season and honestly like it's really been scaring me. I'm 100% honest, like I'm afraid. But the way to conquer that fear is to say these are the warning signs of what it is. And this is what I can do to understand my place in it. And my role, um, one of my a theater gig that I had worked two summers ago was at this um, farm in new Hampshire and this this beautiful old woman Kathy owned the farm and basically help to run the company. And she was actually a holocaust survivor. And she told us this quote that I'll never forget. And she said, um, you know, 80% of people will not listen and 20% will and the 80% is what you should be afraid of those people who don't listen and don't understand. And I've always kind of thought about that is like I have to understand that some people won't listen and that's okay. I don't know if I necessarily answer your question. I kind of went,

[00:30:38] spk_0: you're doing just fine. Yeah.

[00:30:41] spk_1: Yeah. So that basically is what keeps me going and um, is with with my fears. The education is what will make them better. Um, because if I'm in the dark then I'll never be able to be in the light.

[00:30:55] spk_0: That's true. You know, I actually just had this conversation earlier about something in business where someone was talking about their employees and how can't get compliance. And I was like, well, did you tell them exactly what it is that you expect, right? And I think that that's exactly true with everything that's going on is let's clarify what these things are so that people can start to see like when you discount the media a great deal and everything that the media says suddenly becomes a lie. That is the start of fascism. Yeah. It's very conservative.

[00:31:37] spk_1: Yeah,

[00:31:38] spk_0: yeah, yeah, that's the, yep. Oh man, hit the nail on the head. Now I'm depressed. Um

[00:31:44] spk_1: That's the thing too. I was actually just talking with my boyfriend about with about Covid and about traveling and I'm like, where is this line? It's like, I want to be safe. But I also want to enjoy life. But it's like, am I putting my life at risk by enjoying life? There's so many ups and downs and it's like there's there's a lot to question there. But the questioning, one of my other favorite quotes is the journey is the reward. So, it's the journey of understanding that will enlighten you.

[00:32:16] spk_0: Yeah, that's absolutely true. Love it. So good. Well, Claire, it has been about a half an

[00:32:23] spk_1: hour.

[00:32:24] spk_0: So you had to talk to me for half an hour. You did a good job.

[00:32:28] spk_1: Thank you for what you talk for half an hour.

[00:32:32] spk_0: All right. So now we have to come up with a sketch before we get to the sketch. I really want you to check out Claire's podcast sit still look opinionated. It is so good. The link is in the show notes. So go down there click them. I don't know if it's down, I don't know if it's up. Get in the show notes, click on that link. One other thing I want to offer you is I have a completely free audiobook that you need no obligation other than just downloading it and listening to it. That's all I want you to do and here's how I want you to do it. I want you to email the show at sketch comedy podcast show at gmail dot com and say give me an audio book or whatever you want to say. I'll send you a link and I'll send you a code so you can get this thing for free. I am trying to do audio books for fun and money. So what I would love to do is get your feedback. Now this book is a series of short stories, it's called snapshots and it's fantastic. I didn't write it. Award winning author Eliot Parker did but I did record the audio book and there were lots of accents and I would love to hear your feedback on how silly my accent sound. There's irish, there's Scottish, there's a bunch of a lot of Southern which is good. I can do Southern. I don't know why but please hit me up if you want to get a free audiobook with zero obligation. You don't have to sign up for anything. You don't have to do anything, you just have to click on a link and copy and paste the code. I'm going to give you and free boom free audiobook for life and you get to keep it and enjoy it if you want to leave a review, Fantastic. If you want to leave a bad review, just email me the review and I'll make sure audible, gets it. And now our sketch Neil way with claire Malki in three two

[00:34:31] spk_1: morpheus is that you they're looking for you everywhere.

[00:34:37] spk_0: It is me Neo, come get out of the goo. Oh here where a towel Because you're very exposed right now.

[00:34:47] spk_1: Oh is this what it feels like not being in the Matrix,

[00:34:52] spk_0: It is, you are in 2020, this is the world not as we just merely see it.

[00:35:00] spk_1: What? Well, what's different morpheus This world looks so similar though, I thought it would be, you know, aliens or computers or something. But

[00:35:10] spk_0: yes, you came to in what we call an IKEA,

[00:35:15] spk_1: this furniture is definitely looks like it could be easy to be built. So what's this world like? Like is it different than in the game?

[00:35:24] spk_0: Here? We do not have universal health care.

[00:35:30] spk_1: What? That's the main part of what our society, everyone can be healthy.

[00:35:36] spk_0: There's certain things that are happening now that maybe make it less safe, you know how in the Matrix everyone is treated equally.

[00:35:46] spk_1: Yeah, that's like a main principle.

[00:35:48] spk_0: We don't have that here right now, there are a lot of protests because certain people are not given the freedoms that other people are.

[00:35:57] spk_1: We're going to go fight them, right? But that's what we're here to do for your mind, right?

[00:36:02] spk_0: In a way, quite honestly, the federal government is very much opposed.

[00:36:07] spk_1: That's our First Amendment right to oppose the

[00:36:10] spk_0: government.

[00:36:11] spk_1: How are we going to do it?

[00:36:13] spk_0: We're going to go make some signs and stand downtown and wait until the federal agents come into the area and shoot tear gas at us. Also, before we leave the I. K. I need you to put this on

[00:36:27] spk_1: over my nose and my mouth,

[00:36:30] spk_0: whatever both your nose and your mouth. You cannot breathe air near other people.

[00:36:36] spk_1: Why do I have to wear this?

[00:36:39] spk_0: There is currently a pandemic that is on its way to kill most of us. And this is the only way, the only way to stop transmission is to wear one of these masks.

[00:36:53] spk_1: So just to reiterate by wearing this piece of cloth over my nose and my mouth at the same time, I can stop the spread of this deadly disease.

[00:37:06] spk_0: Whoa! The only problem is most people refuse to do it.

[00:37:12] spk_1: There's no way it's so easy to

[00:37:14] spk_0: do.

[00:37:15] spk_1: We gotta go, we gotta go, we gotta go put these out.

[00:37:18] spk_0: Unfortunately. Everybody's supposed to stay six ft away from each other so we can't hand them out.

[00:37:25] spk_1: Well can we take out a newspaper ad,

[00:37:27] spk_0: nobody believes anything they read in a newspaper or watch on Tv unless it's telling them to do exactly opposite of what I just said.

[00:37:37] spk_1: Is there any way I can go back, you know, in the

[00:37:42] spk_0: goo, if you go back into the goo, you don't go back to your original world,

[00:37:48] spk_1: what's it gonna be like?

[00:37:49] spk_0: You'll live in a dystopian society where humans have been driven underground by robot octopuses.

[00:37:58] spk_1: You know more because this is a really tough call. But like honestly maybe that would be better. Mhm

[00:38:09] spk_0: Thank you so much for joining us for this week's episode of sketch comedy podcast show. We hope you enjoyed listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is Copyright 2020 Stewart Rice and is protected under a creative commons attribution. No derivatives for international license. Looking forward to you joining us for next

[00:38:31] spk_1: episode

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Dan Ram | Event MC, TEDx Speaker & LION ATTACK SURVIVOR

Wed, 22 Jul 2020 07:00:00 GMT

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

When you were a kid and went out for a walk, you might have attracted mosquitos or flies. Not Dan Ram. Dan attracted Lions.

Dan Ram is an accidental event master of ceremonies, has given TEDx talks 5 times and can even show you how to get yourself doing the same thing as a coach. He has met celebrities of all sorts, including being on-stage with Barak Obama, who actually remembered his name even if Dan mispronounced his.

We hear about Dan’s childhood run-in with a giant kitty, which is only one of four near death experiences he has had. We get to hear how he accidentally found success through a massive failure, which has led to hundreds of speaking engagements, TEDx talks, and has even been an advisor to the Irish Prime Minister.

When not touring the globe MCing events or giving talks, Dan helps others live their lives to their fullest through coaching, and you can find out more about that at iamdanram.com.

This week’s sketch: “Should I Shake, or Should I Go?”

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

SOCIAL MEDIA

SUBSCRIPTIONS & REVIEWS

MORE ABOUT THE GUEST

Dan Ram ignites the stage as an Event MC & Speaker at over 100 events a year. Hosting changemakers like President Barack Obama, billionaire founders like Sir Richard Branson, record breaking athletes like F1 champion Nico Rosberg, Grammy-winning artists and celebrities, he works on 4 continents from college campuses to parliaments to in-house corporate innovation days to the biggest tech conferences in the world. His passion is to inspire people with his motto 'Start Now Start Simple' in building a future we all want to live in.

Links

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] spk_0: this week event EMC ted X speaker and Lion attack survivor Dan Ram and I came up with three sketches. Yeah, it would be kind of lame if you got bit by a mosquito and you turned into mosquito man and like what does that look like? How do you annoy if you're a mosquito man and you stop a criminal from doing something? What is it you're doing this one's real softball real easy. What would you do if you were the advisor to the other person who shares really tiny hands? Obama goes in for the fist bump and you think he's hitting him? Which one did we pick? You'll find out on this episode of a sketch comedy podcast show. Welcome to sketch comedy podcast show. The one of a kind show where I Stewart rice invite interesting people to have intriguing conversations and then improvise a comedy sketch based on what was talked about, visit sketch comedy podcast show dot com to subscribe, get links by merchandise and even apply to be on the show, enjoy the show. We enjoyed making it. Thank you so much for listening when you were a kid and went out for a walk. You might have attracted mosquitoes or flies, not dan ram dan attracted lions. Dan Ram is an accidental event master of ceremonies, has given ted X talks five times and can even show you how to get yourself doing the same thing as a coach. He has met celebrities of all sorts, including being on stage with Barack Obama who actually remembered his name. Even if Dan mispronounced his, we hear about Dan's childhood running with a giant kitty, which is only one of four near death experiences he has had. We get to hear how he accidentally found success through a massive failure, which has led to hundreds of speaking engagements, Ted X talks and he has even been an advisor to the irish prime minister when not touring the globe. Emceeing events or giving talks dan, helps others live their lives to their fullest through coaching. And you can find out more about that at I am dan ram dot com this week's sketch. Should I shake or should I go follows the conversation and now my conversation with dan ram event EMC ted X speaker and lion attack survivor, dan.

[00:02:40] spk_1: Yes. What

[00:02:41] spk_0: makes you interesting?

[00:02:43] spk_1: Ooh, well here's something that most people will not give you an answer. I've survived a lion attack and I think that makes me interesting.

[00:02:54] spk_0: That's a good start. Tell us about a lion attack. What what

[00:02:59] spk_1: Yeah, exactly. What, what is the accurate response to that? I was 16 years old. I was on a school field trip in Zimbabwe where we were living. My dad was posted there because he's the diplomats, uh the ambassador for India at that point. And so it was an annual school trip every year was somewhere different sometimes just on horseback and as it was sailboats, sometimes it was some kind of wildlife reserve. And this one particular time we were exploring different man made islands on a man made lake and so each islands has animals, we don't know what animals are on them. And so off you go for a little walk and explore and starts off with a nice little zebras and giraffes and wildebeests didn't

[00:03:49] spk_0: start so easy. Don't they start so easy.

[00:03:53] spk_1: Exactly. And before you know it we're just going for casual walk. Me and seven other girls plus an english teacher. The rest of the team were cleaning the boats and doing other duties and projects and yeah, and then the lioness came out.

[00:04:13] spk_0: Okay, So as a lioness and she's like, you're the one dude, I'm gonna go after you.

[00:04:19] spk_1: No. What happened was you hear it before you see it And I think implanted in every biological organism is a fight or flight a survival instinct because it's

[00:04:36] spk_0: the, it's the root of our brains is the exact thing. You

[00:04:40] spk_1: don't need to practice or rehearse a lion attack. You just instinctively know this is a bad situation. And that was one of those ones because I have not previously been around lions close enough to know now is the time to start running. And so it just happened. So we were walking chatting as teenagers do, but quietly because we realized, you know, we're in a wild space, anything can happen to be fair. The guide who was leading us did tell us who I can smell lions, but who can smell lions. So we didn't take it too seriously. Right? And so we started walking in very thick bush. This isn't like the Serengeti. It's not like kenya and the, and the images you might have of africa from that. It's really, really thick bush. And so we're walking through navigating and what you hear all of a sudden is like twigs and branches breaking, being destroyed very quickly as a animals rushing at you. And then you hear something that is like a cat except maybe 1000 times lower decibel. And um, it almost makes the ground shake. And so you're just hearing this sound coming at you and immediately I feel like

[00:06:04] spk_0: I have that sound coming out of me if I heard that.

[00:06:08] spk_1: Yeah,

[00:06:10] spk_0: go ahead. So you got this sound and then all of a sudden fill us in, give us the rest of it.

[00:06:18] spk_1: So they uh everybody's body has the same reaction and goes, I have to get out of here really quickly. And so that's what everyone did except my body, my body malfunctioned and when could not compute overload. And so my body just stayed stationary and all the other bodies started running and um the guide yells out, stop. And it's in one of those situations again, not a lot of computing and there's not a lot of processing of information. And so if he had said single song, we would have all started singing. Um If he had said fly, we have learned to fly in that moment. He said stop. We didn't we didn't overthink it. Everyone just stopped. I had already stopped. Thank goodness I had done the right thing by not moving in the first place. And that is when everyone has stopped that the sound rushing at us also stopped. And for the first time you could see through the bushes, brown figure and then it starts approaching us really slowly and then you see the head, you see the teeth, you see it being really upset that you're in its space. The eyes walk in to every single person. And that's when the stare down begins and it's essentially, you know, the game chickens like who's gonna move first, you know, because whoever turns around and runs they or dinner and so each person is just really still. I don't think we even remember to breathe during that time. I think we just we're just standing there as as close to statues as possible and the line of sizes each up one by one down the line including myself and was waiting for one of us turn around when we didn't. So it felt like a couple of days, but it probably was a few minutes that we had the stare down and then she laid to the ground and that's one of two things. Either She was not interested in pursuing us or she was drinking us hard to tell. Uh and so we chose not to take a chance. It keeps just stand her ground. And so there she was on the ground laying and again for a lioness to jump that I don't know, 12 ft that was between us. Um effortless. Uh And so we just watched and watched and watched and watched and and then very slowly we started backing up. Of course anytime someone would gasp or audibly breathe, we would stop and freeze because you see her ears twitch and you know, or if a twig snapped underneath our feet. And so that's what happened. And so eventually slowly we we came out of the bush area into the clearing and that's when the male lion came running out and he

[00:09:17] spk_0: just

[00:09:18] spk_1: he just came running out. Big main big muscles, big pause, kind of did this um Mark attack roars. It's not like one of those things online King where it's like, hello, I'm the king, it's more like get out of here kind of roar and then and it ran away. So that was the lion attack, thankfully not close enough to have claw marks on my chest. I'd just be walking around shirtless all day long to show it

[00:09:48] spk_0: off. Yeah, I mean that's if you get bit by a shark, you purposely tailored clothing so you can show the shark attack if you've got slashes across you because you get attacked by a lion or lioness doesn't really matter. You definitely cater. It's like, you know like when Iron Man has his thing in the front, like you always shows it off, you do that with the lion attacks that way, everybody knows what kind of a badass you are. So a lot of people would, would do, like if I if that happened to me curl up in a corner, cry for a little bit, what did you do with it? You tell us about what you do.

[00:10:28] spk_1: So how

[00:10:29] spk_0: Do you how do you actively show that that lion attack from your when you were 16?

[00:10:34] spk_1: Well, here's the thing, right? I think everything in life, the good and the bad, the positive situations, the negative situations, forum us make us who we are, molded, shape us. And so I have used that same line attack to teach business tips at the universities who have an adjunct lecturer. I've used it to motivate people to seize the day and live because you don't know what lines coming at you in life, because we were just having casual teenage chats until that none of us were preparing to die or to see our life flash before eyes that day and that can happen like someday this all ends for every one of us, Maybe not with the lion, but with someone. So whether it's motivational talks, whether it is confidence and charisma because a lot clicks in when you're in those moments of I'm about to die and I was only one of four near death experiences, not including two death. Um well let's call it to life threatening situations last year. So I like six situations where I've kind of been like on the cusp of it, a lot of clicks in as far as priorities and values and so I help people with figuring out what is the purpose, what is the mission as a coach. So what I do nowadays is I'm a speaker at an event host and I am a coach And the story does come up maybe like 5-6 times a year. I do about 100 speaking engagements. So I do have an arsenal of other stories as well, but I do like the lines because it is something a little bit different. Right, what have you been attacked?

[00:12:07] spk_0: Definitely. I've mosquitoes during the summer. It's mosquitoes, not quite the same level of threat. Way more irritating.

[00:12:17] spk_1: Wait, wait, wait. So one of my um life threatening situations last year was with the mosquito because I got bitten by a mosquito call that gave me Deng And it's the second time I've got dengue in my life. So the first time was okay was Indonesia. You know, your body is fine. The second time, 10 years later. Um actually can cause more complications. I was in the hospital and I lost tons of weight, could not eat anything, had terrible fevers and joint pain. It is terrible. So don't be little, you know, could take you out.

[00:12:53] spk_0: I could take you out. No, probably not because I live in Portland Oregon. Um ours are probably not as life threatening when you know, they're, they're really just annoying. They could annoy me to death. That's not going to get daniel.

[00:13:09] spk_1: That sound right? That's like one of the most terrible sounds because yeah, but you can't always see it. And so you're just punching in the air, hoping grab and everyone thinks they can, you just catch it out of thin air or mid air while it's flying, it's not possible. So then you start like clapping all over the place and

[00:13:28] spk_0: right

[00:13:29] spk_1: essentially you're plotting this thing because it's winning. That's a

[00:13:34] spk_0: good point. Like you're walking around clapping and the mosquitoes like, well I guess I should just keep doing this. It just

[00:13:40] spk_1: seems like it this guy. Yes, exactly.

[00:13:43] spk_0: So you are a coach? Oh sorry, go ahead.

[00:13:47] spk_1: We have an electric bats that we use. So it's a little bit unfair advantage. But I'm a tennis player and abandonment player. And so that really helps as I well, well electrify the the they die. I'm just trying to see that

[00:14:03] spk_0: you have an electric bad mitten racket that you, so you're kind of like, that's what's nice. You got some distance, you got some reach if you do it right?

[00:14:13] spk_1: Exactly. And larger surface area than the palm of my hand. And so there's a higher chance of killing these things and sometimes you catch them and then you open your palm and then bam it flies off again. Not with your um this just made into barbecue

[00:14:28] spk_0: satisfying zap I'm sure

[00:14:31] spk_1: varies like I've been bitten and especially when you get bitten at the bottom of your feet and if you've had that or like somewhere locals hard where it's like you're tickling yourself but you're actually trying to scratch the itch and it's you it's terrible. Mosquitoes are terrible. Sometimes I wonder created mosquitoes. There's a bunch of stuff I understand, you know the symbiosis and the connection between the species and how it keeps the world going to get with mosquitoes. What are they doing?

[00:15:03] spk_0: They don't do anything good

[00:15:05] spk_1: as far as I know, they don't I don't know anything that depends on mosquitoes to survive. And where mosquitoes enhance like flour production or like I don't know what they do.

[00:15:15] spk_0: No, no, no, it's not like if you get bit by a mosquito, it's possible you can turn into like a vampire bat will do that, right? I don't know, spiders, you could be radioactive, you could have spider man powers, No one's mosquito. Dude, no one's, you know, but no one cares anyway. Um

[00:15:36] spk_1: So

[00:15:37] spk_0: now you you do ted talks, you do a lot of speaking engagements. How did you get into that

[00:15:46] spk_1: by accident? But I also think um maybe like your own story Stewart, because I know you've been doing this now for five seasons, right? You've you've been doing the yes, successfully

[00:15:57] spk_0: for for a while.

[00:16:00] spk_1: Yeah. Well, I think, I think when you choose to figure out what does the world need, what can I offer to solve that? Need, am I good at it? And can I get paid to do it when these four things are true Van it locks in? I think life alignment happens. And so these are my four guiding principles during any season of my life, including right now, during a pandemic at the time that we're shooting this um interview, this conversation we're having, because life throws curveballs and so you've got to keep revisiting it. And so a couple of years ago, I had just finished successfully setting up a few businesses, I know more was needed at an executive level to be involved in my startups. We now had CeoS and Cios and the teams are grown and I had successfully fundraise and the way you can fundraise, one of the ways is to show up at these tech events and go, Hey, investors is what we're building. Are you interested in giving like 60 seconds, 120 seconds to give a short pitch? The stage manager for one of those stages approached me the following year and said, Dan, your business did not raise money at the event. Your ideas are okay, but your communication skills and your stage presence is excellent. And given that, you know, the stage, would you be willing to EMC the stage? And I asked her what I'm seeing and then she gave me the only training I've ever received in what has now become the best chapter of my life. And she said, well you introduce startups and you engage the audience. And so that is what I have continued to do for the last three wars. I've done 300 events on four continents, everything from Blockchain to start ups, to real estate, to autonomous vehicles, like a whole variety of topics. And it's always the same thing. I get to introduce some of the coolest people in the world, From presidents of Switzerland and the us and Poland uh, to the ceos of some of the biggest companies in the world, billionaire founders and investors, to artists, Grammy, winning artist, to athletes, uh, Formula one champions and others and again to engage audiences to elevate the knowledge, the aspiration, the focus, the tools and resources of everyday people that are trying to make a difference in their lives and getting to that bridge. And that's what I do every day. And honestly it is, I constantly pinch myself that this is my life because I cannot think of a cooler, cooler thing that I could be doing right now. It is so satisfying and so fulfilling. And even now when I look at so my team, my social media team still keep posting images and I look at those images and go like how could that be me? Like this is insane. Like I am standing next to the newest fully electric Porsche car, who is dan ram to do that. Like that doesn't make any sense. That's me shaking hands with Obama about an interview, like how is that happening right now? This is super confusing. So I'm very grateful for my life. It's still, yeah, well that I am still like, whoa, this is crazy, it's not like I've done this 100 times and now this guy is like, you know, this is this new normal, this is not normal. I don't think my life is normal at all and for that I'm very grateful.

[00:19:34] spk_0: Yeah, that sounds amazing. That's, that's incredible. And that came off of what's interesting about that, that came off of a failure. If you think about it right? Yeah. And you took that failure and you turned around and made it into what what I would define as a very successful business doing something very, very cool, right?

[00:19:57] spk_1: Failure is essential. It is so cute. And I have, I like people who have a linear view on life. I'm actually little bit envious, a little bit jealous of them, you know, it's like, oh, this is my goal and hear my steps and here is I'm gonna do it. That does work for some people. I'm not putting that down at all, it's just not my story. And I have realized that failure, that experimentation, the trial and error, notice error in trial and error are all part of the left, right pivot, jump, fall back and move again position. And I think that's what's allowed for the diversity of my life because the same guy, dan Graham, was an adviser to the irish Prime Minister at the national level, creating policies that affect millions of people and billions in GDP. I am an adjunct lecturer teaching entrepreneurship to university, so it's just so exciting to be contributing to like the next generation of business people have been a startup founder, I've been a radio presenter, I worked for the U. N. I worked for World Vision, I worked for KPMG. Um I am a consultant, I'm a coach like that diversity of life that traveling the world could not have happened if I was really pigeonholing my life and my purpose into this is my one goal. And that's the only thing I want to look at. I've looked to the left, I look to the right, I've taken a wrong step to the left, I have taken a good step to the right and that's all part of it. So failure has been key in teaching me things, but also navigating me because I would not be on this path. It was a bunch for failures along the way. So I completely agree with you. This started off as as part of a failure and I think a lot of my greatest moments, the origin was at a point of real struggle and real failure.

[00:21:48] spk_0: So you experience that struggle. I mean um I mean you that turned around pretty quick for you right? Like it was hey your company didn't make it but uh here come talk to up on the stage and and see how that feels and then all of a sudden it happens for you. Um What are some other

[00:22:09] spk_1: way

[00:22:11] spk_0: for? Yeah, yeah, that's where I'm going with it. You're for it. Tell me tell me about that.

[00:22:16] spk_1: I don't know. Okay. Yes and no because Stuart if someone came to you and said um you know, they watch this one interview, right with dan rather and they go, you're so good at asking questions. Why don't you come and do a tv show? Someone's gonna look at that and go like, well that was quick, you just talk to dan Graham and bam, you got it. But you've done five seasons of this and before the Five, you had other iterations and other versions like this is not the first time you have, you know, put a mic to your mouth. I'm sure there's been many other things on stage and off stage and practice maybe all the way back in school. Because my journey as a speaker began where everybody's journey in life against where a teacher says, can you read this paragraph out aloud? And the problem was, I wasn't good at that, right? Because I am indian. So if you're listening to this podcast and you cannot visualize me. I'm not american, although might come across as american. I'm indian. I've got brown skin, I grew up on uh

[00:23:19] spk_0: grew

[00:23:21] spk_1: Up on three or 4 continents and so my accent adapted to every country. So when I was living in France, I had a French accent. When I was living in Morocco had a north african accent. When I lived in India, my accent became more India when I moved to Zimbabwe had a southern accent. So like the accent kept changing so it wasn't cool, like whatever words came out of my mouth, we're not fun to listen to and my friends mocked me or as they say in Ireland they slagged me. Uh they made fun of me. And so that was again a point of failure. And so what did I do? I would come back home, I would pre read everything that a teacher could possibly asked me to read the next day. And that pre reading simply meant that every day I was that much more prepared than the other students and therefore, my great started going up again from my point of failure. And but then also meant that because I was practicing because I was not good at it, I became significantly better than those who took it for granted. They could just read the words as they appeared. Whereas I was already trying to figure out what is the sentence, not, what is the specific wording? Can I pronounce it correctly? But what's the sentence? What's the message behind this paragraph? Can I communicate that effectively or second church? If you've ever been to church churches, love getting sunday school kids to be part of plays or theater or to read a bible verse. And again, all the other kids would, you know, have written out on a piece of paper and read it out. But because I was so afraid of mumbling or stuttering, I would memorize the entire verse and I would speak it, I would perform it and I would not know that word at that at that age, but I would essentially perform that reading. I would not just read. And so my journey began their from a same starting point as everyone else. But because I wasn't good at it, I put more effort at it because I put more effort at, I got better. I accelerated faster than others when it came to reading and performance. So then it became school plays and then became performing on stage as a musician. And so when you think about 25 years of performance in the form of school plays and on the piano and singing in church and gospel choirs and family events and youth groups and leading games, that's what happened now. The financial business opportunity came in three years ago, but it took all of that work and that's why I keep telling people never belittle an opportunity, never underestimate a person or a connection or a door that opens, because you really have no idea where it's going to take you. Some of my greatest moments have been in many ways on the surface, accidental, but I would not have stepped into that opportunity if I hadn't done the work before that.

[00:26:12] spk_0: Yeah, no, I completely agree. So, I wrote a uh you know, I'm not it's not an ab for me, but I wrote a book and people ask me like, how long to take you, and it's like, well, the actual writing and editing took about six months, but it took me 25 readers to rewrite this book,

[00:26:27] spk_1: because

[00:26:28] spk_0: yeah, and to your point, it does not come as easy as other people see it. And there's a lot of, I think that story is amazing because again, it comes from a place of you were failed, maybe you didn't allow yourself to fail, but it could have come from a failure from your friends making fun of you, you made sure you were prepped, It took extra work. The other work that quite honestly, I would have been sitting in class going, I'll just read the book and I'll just read whatever, which is pretty much what I did. So yeah, that's why you excelled ahead of everybody. That's that's a fantastic story, man,

[00:27:07] spk_1: I love to do that for everything in life, right? So this is a really dumb example but will prove a point. I was in sound check with a german group and they were stressing about how they would shake, had to President Obama when he was about to come on stage because you're only given a few seconds and his team are very particular about what you can and cannot do. They had seen online that he sometimes does a fist bump with people. Um they might have not been culturally woke enough to understand when he um initiates a fist bump and when he doesn't, but they were really hopeful that they would do a fist bone, but they didn't know he was going to do a fist bump, but what he was going to do, so when I walked up as part of the sound checks, they were doing everything from air high fives to handshakes, to fist bums uh to a variety of different things. And the reality is that moment became so insignificant and lost in the whole like our that he spent on stage. But they over fixated on it because it's the first time they thought about it. I on the other hand because my dad was a diplomat. Remember even the age of six or seven key teaching me how to shake hands with people because as a kid I was not excused. So when another ambassador of another country come to your house you have to make eye contact, you have to smile and you have to shake hands and you gotta fight pressure when a dignitary comes to an official meeting. It doesn't matter if you're seven, if you're 10, if you're 12 you have to represent your nation. And so I was taught at a young age all of those things. The beautiful part is when Obama came on stage, it wasn't the first time I was thinking about what I was going to do and I by then had started perfecting not just how do I react, but how do I initiate or how do I create the atmosphere for things? So what was talked about with the event is a rather clumsy interaction with the founders of the event. But for some reason of all the people on stage, um Obama sticks out his hand to shake my hand and then pats me on the back and because he's might depend on my club, he's like, thanks so much dan is the only name he remembers on stage and like how did this foreigner who comes to Germany get this camaraderie with this person that the rest of us don't. But that's because honestly it was years and decades of shaking hands of people and more than that knowing you know what is your body language saying? Because you can initiate and everyone's been in that situation where they have like gone for the handshakes that has gone for the fist bump, but now you're like clawing their fist ball but it's like what what are we doing? This is so embarrassing and but a lot of that is like in the eye contact before you even get close enough. Part of that is in the body language. You know, are you coming in for that bro hug or you coming in for that? Like a lot of that is in your body language. So I had moved from like shaking hands and fist bums too, body language and reading their body and reading my body and what is my body communicating. But even in the little little things, I've paid a lot of attention, which means that I don't have those clumsy exchanges on stage, which by the way, I find homer areas and you as a performance where you probably look at these things on Youtube as well. But I will often look at like performance failures or like stage, but just to anticipate what could happen, what I should be thinking about. But I pay attention to all of those things when I'm on stage, I can tell you where every monitor where every light is because I don't want to do those things right,

[00:30:54] spk_0: Right. And

[00:30:56] spk_1: so they trip on them. And so yeah, I would say in the little and the big things never underestimate an opportunity to train to practice, to rehearse. The smallest things I contact pronunciation, handshakes, body language all the way to the biggest things like the actual words that you say or the audience that's in front of you or the content you want to share. Practice rehearse everything that looks chill and organic and spontaneous is actually decades of practice. Um that's what comes out in the moment.

[00:31:33] spk_0: Who do you look at and admire in their ability to do that.

[00:31:39] spk_1: That is a really good question because I have struggled to find a direct role model in the world of m seeing as many people would imagine, Many people would have thought I'm seeing or hosting an event as a voluntary or an occasional job. I have managed to not just make it a full time job, but to build a business around it. Like I have 12 staff that worked for me, we do so much more than just emceeing. And so there is no school for emceeing, there is no training center from seeing and I don't know any direct role models of people that have been able to, I guess make a a business out of emceeing, although many people have been in that position of m seeing many people will chair a meeting or will host a wedding of their friends or something, so they're in that position, but never in a professional setting of it. So, what I do is I actually look at three different sources, um and I wonder if this may surprise you or not, but one of them are magicians, because I think magicians are incredible storytellers, they are incredible storytellers, after all, it's a trick, it's an illusion, the part that catches you is the story. So they are one sort that I go to stand up comedians, so much admiration for stand up comedians, because you can often, especially in your early days, enter into a hostile crowd and you've got seconds. I mean, those audiences are expecting to laugh. That is a high standard to to reach, especially if they don't know you now, if you reach the heights of say, kevin Hart or any of these big guys, they'll get the laugh just by showing up on stage, they just have to move. Yes.

[00:33:24] spk_0: Patton Oswalt does a great bit on exactly that. Yes.

[00:33:29] spk_1: But for early stage stand up comedians and that's why I watch those kind of sound companies like how do you turn a crowd around and it's all around empathy around connection. So I love watching standard comedians and the third unusual source, our preachers, I listen to preachers because they have to come to the same crowd week after week And keep their attention. So it's almost the opposite of a standard comedian. But I think there's something about the consistency, that longevity of a passionate over 15, 20 years can come to the same crowd and deliver something new and to be such expert storytellers to draw out value out of the same passages. I mean no one's changing the bible up every year and so they have to draw new lessons from well known passages. So those are the three unusual sources I go to, the obvious source I go to is a late night show tv host and so Trevor Noah, I think is the smartest when it comes to unscripted content. I think he's intellectually the most profound and he's also very articulate on the spot. I think Hassan Minaj is the most relevant right now, 21st century. His perspectives, attitudes, he's very current in the way he communicates. I think people like jimmy Fallon and James corden are very good with their sketches. So how do you take actors, actresses and people are very comfortable in the studio and make them feel comfortable in front of a live audience because it is a different art. And I don't think people realize how out of a comfort zone actors and actresses and celebrities can be in a studio setting you know sorry in a T. V. Studio setting it can be a very scary experience. And these guys are able to make them feel comfortable enough to have a good laugh or do interesting sketch with them. And I like some of the creativity behind their games and their sketches. So these are some of the people involved in my world that I watch on a daily basis to just see how do they ask the question? How do they build that connection? What do the Greenback Age so that when they come on stage they have that sense of warmth between these people. Yeah. How about you, Do you? Yeah

[00:35:51] spk_0: obviously obviously it's it's very similar. Um I find uh I'll go back further um Dick Cavett. Like I really if you go back and watch Dick Cavett, it's that's who I aspire to be. Like, that guy always felt like he had report with whomever he was talking to. And uh and he was very good on his own. Like he was very quick, quick witted. He's I I find he was really really good. Um But anybody who can really have a genuinely, it makes it look like it's a conversation. But a lot of times like, you know when you see a tv talk show host, they may not know the person they're talking to very well, but they've been prepped. Much to your point, they have been very well prepped so that when they do talk to that person, it's very natural. Uh it does have to have that, like, inviting into the conversation and uh inviting the audience as well. So like if if they have something they want to say, for instance, there someone posted up a comment. Dave o put up mittens. And I don't know if what that has. Does that does that mean anything to you mittens

[00:37:05] spk_1: mittens?

[00:37:06] spk_0: Yeah. No. Okay. Maybe I was like, so it had like, I've got dirt on him. Ask him about the mittens. Okay, I'll ask Alright,

[00:37:17] spk_1: how about mittens?

[00:37:20] spk_0: Okay, well that's that's good because that I'm sure that you could have lied right there and you could have said, yeah, mittens, let me tell you about that and just launched right into a story,

[00:37:30] spk_1: wow. So I tell you, okay, go

[00:37:32] spk_0: for it. Yeah. Tell me about mittens because I have a feeling like wait, let me let me pose it like this though, you know, dan you say a lot of things, but yep, I have one statement that I feel you need to explain and that is this mittens.

[00:37:51] spk_1: Oh man, I was really hoping you wouldn't bring this up, but given this a transparent, vulnerable space, I'm gonna let you in on something. Mhm mittens. So I am a man, I am five ft 10. Um I have a lot of things that I'm really great at and unfortunately I have one or two faults, one of those faults I actually share with one of the most powerful people in the world right now and I am so deeply embarrassed to confess this to you right now, but I have really tiny hands and so it is true, the stories are true, but I don't shop for mittens in the mail section. I actually go to the Children's section and I get a size four. Um, which also is the same size. That's the most powerful man in the world right now. Uh, where So this person has some good gods on me because they probably have seen me walking into Zara not in some men's session but into women's section. Because as a, as an indian, I'm often in these cold, freezing cold country like Finland Poland and I need to wear mittens. You know, after I use my hands performing, I used my hands when I'm playing the piano. I used my hands when I'm making gestures and I need them to be warm. So I wear you

[00:39:18] spk_0: play a smaller piano when you have tiny hands.

[00:39:22] spk_1: I do that too. Yes. Very small, very small piano. I actually pay the one that's on my phone. I do not play live sized pianos. I just pull out my phone and play that one. Yes,

[00:39:35] spk_0: that's awesome. Thank you. All right, Well it is time to do a sketch. Are you ready for this? I've got a couple of ideas. Did you by any chance? Did you come with an agenda? Did you have a sketch agenda that you wanted to do?

[00:39:49] spk_1: No, but I feel like I just did a sketch. So for anyone who is living and thought that that a real story. That is not a real story. I have normal sized hands and I do not even own mittens. Never had

[00:40:01] spk_0: to. So just to be 100 clear Dan does not have small hands. He really wanted to make sure everybody understood his hands are normal sized one quick ad for one of my new endeavors, I now record audio books professionally. I would love to give you a free copy and urge you to head to audible to grab it. Just go to bit dot LI S cps snapshots to sign up and get this title for free, as well as have access to hundreds of thousands of other titles to listen to. I'm proud of this audio book, I did accents and I didn't suck. If you would like to get a copy of the book completely free, please email the show at sketch comedy podcast show dot com and request a redeemable code for the book, then you can tell me if I actually did suck at making those accents and now this week's sketch, should I shake or should I go with dan Ram in three two and that controls our panel discussion for this evening show, Another perfect event. Little do they know that what makes me the greatest emcee of all time is my secret ability to read minds that I got from that lion when I was young. I would like to thank all of our speakers. Sure I could have used these powers to help the planet but I help the planet in the best way possible by am seeing amazing events like this one Beyonce dr Anthony, Fauci presidential hopeful Kanye West dr Phil and the specialist boy that Obama is pretty amazing. Oh man, I can't remember how to say his first name now these Germans have been butchering it all week. I better read his mind to find out.

[00:42:07] spk_1: Excellent Secret Service told me to only be here for 10 seconds so lift the hands and receive the applause lifting and right and always a powerful hand scan. Stage left, moved to middle scan stage right. I am not a robot. But I've done this so many times. Who are these people? And what is for lunch? I am starving. But keep smiling. Keep smiling Unless Michelle will be upset. Keep smiling. Keep smiling. Here we

[00:42:33] spk_0: go. He didn't say it. That's okay. I'll get it. I'm sure I can remember. Uh and a special thank you to Barack Obama. I mean Barack Obama. Oh no, that was awful. But he doesn't seem to have fazed at all. What a class act. Okay now he's coming over to thank me. He was a handshake guy, wasn't he? It's so hard to tell these days.

[00:43:03] spk_1: I am so tall. I'm sure it was being interviewed by someone but I can't seem to see him. Oh here he is, down there to see the man now. What was his name? What? Oh, that's right. It was damn. Damn. Damn correct. I hope I got it right. I'm still being my uh don't say anything inappropriate. Let's just going for that formal handshake.

[00:43:23] spk_0: Okay he is definitely going in for the handshake. I don't have to worry about it. We are going to handshake. Uh

[00:43:31] spk_1: Well this damn guy seems pretty cool. Almost like a brother to me and uh you know what I do? It's what I'm infamous. Let's get one of those infamous shots of Obama being relatable. Obama being friendly. Obama being one with the people. Let's get that fist bump out. Here we go fist

[00:43:48] spk_0: out. Damn. Oh no he switched up on me. What do I do?

[00:43:55] spk_1: What's he doing? Oh no he's coming for that grab. Does this guy not get a fist phone? Is he going to put his hand over my no this is gonna be a disaster. Maybe I should go in for the punch. There'll be a lot more friendly.

[00:44:09] spk_0: How long should I hold his presidential fist in my hand?

[00:44:14] spk_1: I got to bring this guy close to me. This is always so awkward, but let's go in for the man hug right now. On stage,

[00:44:22] spk_0: I'm now experiencing the presidential hug. His arms are so strong, which is so surprising. How strong and comforting this hold is. I could live here forever,

[00:44:36] spk_1: cannot get the start of my head. He just seems like one of these cute little teddy bears that you would tickle but 8000 people. But I am curious where can I tickle this guy?

[00:44:49] spk_0: Well, I hope he's not thinking what I hear. He's thinking I should not have had that fifth glass of water, but the cucumber in the water makes it so fresh and delicious.

[00:45:00] spk_1: Is he?

[00:45:02] spk_0: And that is today, right? This is not gonna be happy with me at all. Thank you so much for listening to sketch comedy podcast show. Lovingly produced in Portland Oregon. If you enjoyed the show today, I would love it. If you help me out in one of two ways, the first one's free, just share the show on social media or write a review on wherever you listen to your podcasts. That would be so helpful and so wonderful. And it costs you nothing. The other way you can support the show is financially and I'm just going to give you a little behind the scenes. Uh there is no money in podcasting. I do this and it costs me money to do it. It's a passion project. But if you'd like to help offset those costs, which I would really appreciate, please head over to Patreon dot com and to reward you for as little as a dollar a month, you'll get all of the bonus material and let me tell you in this episode, there was a ton of things that did not make it into the episode that we're still incredibly interesting. And now, for the fun part, sketch comedy podcast show is licensed under Creative Commons attribution, noncommercial, no derivatives for international license. If you would like to use this work in any way, please contact the show and request permission. Look, life is made up of stories, find interesting people have an intriguing conversation and improvise an adventure all of your own.

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Frank King | Comedian, TED Speaker & SUICIDAL SUPERHERO

Mon, 10 Feb 2020 07:00:00 GMT

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

Frank King is always on the verge of committing suicide. It is a feeling that has plagued him since he was young, passed down from previous generations. When faced with a problem, Frank always sees an option a lot of people do not see, killing himself.

Where most would see this as a detriment, Frank has turned suicide into a lucrative career as a comedian, public speaker and TED Talker. As The Mental Health Comedian, Frank confronts the standard taboos associated with suicide and speaks openly about it, letting people know that these feelings are not just theirs and creating a dialog that allows people to get the help that they need.

On a personal note, this episode could not have come at a better time. Though you may not hear it in my voice, I was desperately struggling with these feelings myself, and it was because of this discussion that I was able to get help for myself. Frank, in his talking about ending one’s own life, actually helped me overcome those feelings in myself.

Of course I need to put out a warning, this episode dives pretty deeply into depression, mental illness and, of course, suicide. My suggestion, don’t be afraid to confront it. Knowing that there are others that struggle helps. Knowing that you can use it as a super power is incredibly empowering.

If you are feeling those feelings, then please do the world a favor and call 800 273 8255. You are worthwhile and the world is a better place with you. I think so, you listen to my show and I think you are incredibly special. Thank you.

You can hear and see more of Frank on his website: thementalhealthcomedian.com where you can listen to his TED talks, subscribe to his podcast and even hire him to come and do a keynote for your company.

This was one of my favorite episodes, it literally saved my life.

We also recorded the sketch: “Not the X-Men”

For more episodes, information, and apply to be on the show, visit: http://sketchcomedypodcastshow.com

Sketch Comedy Podcast Show is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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SUBSCRIPTIONS & REVIEWS

MORE ABOUT THE GUEST

Frank King is an American comedian who has written for late night talk shows, toured extensively, and has turned his desire to kill himself into a flourishing business performing corporately. He is an advocate for suicide prevention, and speaks to different industries about depression and how to overcome it, while being funny. Frank was also stuck on a boat, you should ask him about it (do not ask him about it).

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