Navigating Parenthood and Performance | Guest: Jonathan Gregg - 50% Facts with Silent Mike & Jim McD

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
All right, well, welcome. I'm here with Jonathan greg who
is somebody that I became exposed to on Instagram. Honestly,
I don't spend a lot of time on TikTok and
so I don't I don't really encounter anybody there unless
my daughter in law center me tiktoks all the time.
That's kind of my my big, uh, my big exposure
to TikTok. But I actually, I mean, I saw a

(00:33):
video of you talking about I think it was talking
about parenting at the time, and I didn't really know
much about you. Uh, you know, look at looking around
a little bit like who is this guy and and
why is he on my screen? And uh, I'm I'm
kind of a fan of Dylan Michael White, who talks
a lot about about parenting as well as well as

(00:56):
a lot of other things. And so I'm like, okay,
well I'll follow this guy. And to my shock, you
followed me back at some point. And I don't even
know how that happened or why. I never know exactly
why people follow me back because my Instagram is not
that interesting most of the time. But anyway, so welcome
you are You're in Brooklyn.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, Queens. How dare you Queens? No, I mean to
the rest of the world, that's basically the same place,
and we share a border, and it's we're both just
outside of Manhattan. But to a bourbonite, it's definitely Queens
and not Brooklyn. I'm actually like eighteen feet from Brooklyn.
But we get very we get very particular about our boroughs.

(01:36):
But the greater New York area. Yeah, of the of
the five boroughs, I.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
My family and I spent about almost a month in
New York City last summer, not this past summer, but
the summer before, which was a really interesting experience. Like
you don't really you don't really understand any of the
dynamics of New York unless she's like, stay more than
four or five days.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
You know. True, Yeah, it's there's there's a difference between
It's kind of like the Olympic sports. I mean, it
really is the difference in a sprint in a marathon.
If you come for a weekend, you have to gear
up for it for sure. I mean I tell my
friends and family, you got to limber up and exercise
before you come to New York because it's exhausting and
there's so much walking. But then if you stick around
for even yeah, even a couple of weeks or more,
it's a it's a different it's a different game. At

(02:22):
that point. You really got to learn to strategize the
city and how the whole thing works, and not just
the couple of spots you want to hit. You got
to learn how to how to really survive the long run.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah, we we were staying near the park like Hell's Kitchen,
which I expected to be you know, like Daredevil, which
is not that's not the place anymore, but that we
were there for the first week and then we moved
to Harlem for ten days. My my family from my

(02:53):
son and his family from Canada came down and stayed
with this and like so we have you know really
at the time nine and seven. Yeah, oh your old grandsons.
And that was a that was definitely an experience too.
It was very i mean, it was an airbnb, very gentrified,
but but Harlem is still Harlem, right, Yeah, And we

(03:14):
were not like we're not like blocks from the park
or anything. We were we were quite a way into Harlem,
which was a real I mean, it was a good
cultural experience kind of for everybody.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, that Harlem is funny. It's like really, I mean,
all of New York. It's it's the the like the
gentrification meeting the culture meeting the you know some there
are definitely parts of New York. You look at Hell's
Kitchen impact over the years, and you know, like in
the past thirty years getting cleaned up is useful. There's
some things that could be made better, for sure. And

(03:46):
then also there's you know, then then there's there's undeniably
rich people getting richer by buying up property and raising
the rent, and yeah, you know, all of that is true.
So it's kind of I don't know, that's one of
the things I enjoy about it is all of those
things stayed true in New York. There are some gritty,
grammy places, there's a lot of deep culture and heart,
and then there's some money to be made. You know,

(04:06):
like the rich can keep getting richer in some spots.
And see, you got to fight back like against that
as much as you can and try to keep the
heart of New York and try not to get run
over by anyone, and try not to run over anyone.
And it's just kind of a lot going on all
the time.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Yeah, But you're not originally from New York.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
No, No, I've been here twenty twenty years, now, twenty
years this I just passed my twenty years. But I
grew up in North Alabama and so pretty much the
same kind of.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Very SIMI yeah, yeah, yeah, just a little accents are
a little different. Actually, that's kind of that's kind of
a point. I have a sort of pet theory about
that because I grew up My parents were born in Oklahoma,
and they but I was born in California, and they
never entirely lost their accents. And strangely enough, my sister,
who is considerably younger, she's like almost eight years younger

(04:56):
than me, she picked it up. I do not have it,
never had it, and like I sort of had an
intention to not have it. But but so, you know,
the other person that I follow from from Alabama on
Instagram is Adam Berry, and he's the thickest, thickest accent.

(05:17):
Did you ever have it? Did you? Did you?

Speaker 2 (05:20):
That's a great question. I think that. So one of
the things that the main thing that brought me to
New York twenty years ago was performance, was the dream
of being an actor, and I think that growing up
as a kid, Like, you know, I was doing community
theater from a very young age, and you just can't
no matter where you are, you can't really do Charles
Dickens with a Southern accent. So it kind of just
like worked its way out when I was a kid
just by doing theater. And then it kind of like

(05:41):
I think that I have from the acting side and
just I don't know, there's a kind of an innate
adaptability I realized about myself when it comes to things
like vocal you know, it's and psychologically you get into
let down the road you learn like, oh maybe I'm
mirroring to make people feel more comfortable or whatever. It's
it kind of it wasn't on purpose at the time,
but like the accent, it was one of the things
that I could that just naturally adjusted to where I was.

(06:03):
So when I'm home even now still it comes out
a little bit more. But I really like, kind of
there used to be a thing, this is a true
thing that would happen in New York on Saint Patrick's Day,
Like I would be out and I would not be
trying to do anything. I would not be trying to
put on an affectation or anything. But eventually some Irishman
would start asking me what county I was from, and

(06:23):
I'd be like, oh, Madison, and he's like what he means,
like from Ireland. They thought I was a natural born
Irishman and I'm like, oh, no, I guess I just
am talking like you now because we're drinking and I'm
in a bar with everyone, Like, I don't know. It
was like a kind of a natural thing that happened.
So I've been asked a lot about my accent and
what happened to it, and I think that it's just it.
I carry mostly, I think a pretty neutral accent, and

(06:46):
I know everyone kind of says that. Everyone kind of
says like I don't have an accent, and that's just
hardly true for most people that you know. But like
when you hear my dad sounds a lot like Adam
Barry is. My dad is a Southerner, and my mom
has a pretty Southern accent to my brother is in
Kansas City. He has a pretty solid accent that you
can hear, and I when I'm with them, it comes

(07:07):
back out. And when I'm in New York, you know,
my my wife is in Connecticut, kind of a neutral
if anything Northeastern accent there maybe comes out a little bit.
It's just I just kind of like match the match
the tone, and I instinctively kind of match the tone
and the accent of whatever whatever I'm doing at the time.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
I have this theory that it's genetic that some people
just some people develop accents and other people can do
any accent, but their their their speech is relatively neutral, flat,
you know, newscaster kind of voice.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah, what is it the the mid Atlantic? Is that
that's the made up accent, not actually a region, but
that's what they call it.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, right in the middle of the water. Sounds like
like you're from from nowhere, but you've recently gone through
a Shakespeare intensive. So so you said you started acting
like very early, Like how early?

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Well, I was doing stuff like I remember when I
was in preschool, I did a church production of the
Best Christmas Pageant Ever and kind of stuff like that,
like a church but that was like a little taste
of being in front of an audience, you know, even
little things like the church choir and we do like
the Little Summer Children's Musical. And then when I was well,
let's see, I think my big break when I was

(08:29):
in kindergarten. I was Owl in our kindergarten production of
Windy the Pooh, and so that that, yeah, it was.
It was a blast.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
I met with that ere your would be like such
a downer at that.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
I don't remember who. I want to say, my friend
lazy ask you?

Speaker 1 (08:46):
Was you?

Speaker 2 (08:46):
Or I won't be making that up, but I think
it was lazy to ask you. And I actually think
she was really funny because it was such a downer.
It was like a funny way to go about doing it,
you know. And I don't know if she was trying
to be that funny or if it was just I
don't know, but it was I remember being very funny.
That was kind of my introduction to what it meant
to be like on stage with a script and a

(09:07):
director and a you know, blocking. And it was, of
course kindergarten, so it's barely any of those things, but
it was a little taste to a five year old brain.
It was a little taste of all those things. And
then when I was in the summer before third grade,
my mom took us to see a community theater production
of Oliver and I loved it. I loved it. And
then I realized that, like or she explained to me

(09:27):
that all of those kids were from town. They were
from they were they were just from here, and they
just auditioned. That this was a very accessible thing to
get involved with. And so I said, oh, can I
want to do this? Can I audition first and one
of the kind of do this thing? And she said sure.
So that that winter, that December and whatever November, I guess,
I auditioned for a Christmas Carol, which was an annual

(09:50):
thing in our community theater at a hometown and I
booked it. I booked the smallest role in the show.
I was like the little rich boy. There was one
rich boy. There was like a urchins that ran around
throughout the whole show, just being little poor kids, and
I was not one of them. I was there, the
one single rich boy who had half as many scenes
as the urchins, did very little, but got to experience

(10:12):
what that was like to be a part of a
full production. And at that point I was I was hooked.
And so from that point on I did I mean,
I don't know how many years in a row, four
or five years of Christmas Carol in a row, and
then again in high school later and then during the
like in between that I was auditioning for. It kind
of became my Like I played some sports. I played

(10:33):
baseball and soccer as I could. I was, yeah, athletic
enough to see, you know, to be a boy. But
really my thing became doing the community theater shows, either
the musicals or the children's plays or anything I could
get my hands on, and so I was always doing
community productions. I just found like the whole process was
so cool. As a kid, it was so magical to

(10:55):
like just go hang out with a bunch of adults
in like a kind of grimy community space and like
put together this thing and like it. You know, it
like smells dusty, and we're here super late, but we're
making a thing that eventually people are going to come see.
And it was kind of had a really romantic view
on it. And so really since then, it's just kind
of it just stuck. Even I always thought like, this
is a great thing to do. It's a great past time,
it's a great passion. I'll figure out what I want

(11:17):
to do with my life later. I'll do something responsible
and real when it comes time to get a job.
Then I went to a high school that was a
magnet school that focused on performance. And then I went
to college and ended up getting a degree in musical theater,
and so I really just gave myself no other outs.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
I got.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
All I could do at that point was moved to
New York and try to make it so then you know,
now I've been here for twenty years and I still
don't have a Broadway credit, but I have some followers
on Instagram and TikTok, and I get to make videos
and that's its own fun thing. I get to be
on podcasts, so I love it.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
Yeah, yeah, there you go. Yeah, I know. I I
did some theater in high school. Actually it was sort
of like maybe I think maybe twelve shows between the
two schools that I went to nice, which is kind
of a lot in high school, and it it sort
of deluded my academic focus, say, late night rehearsal stuff,

(12:05):
you know, and whatever, it's homework.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
I understand why. I understand why we tell kids it
looks school is important. Learning is important, learning how to
learn is important, but also like learning to be a
person is just as important. Finding a thing that you
like and learning how to like. Don't fail out of
high school. High school diploma matters, being able to learn,
being able to finish high school matters, But like, I
don't know, I was kind of the same way. I mean,

(12:28):
my grades didn't drop too but I was kind of
a nerd so they were okay, but they definitely took
a hit once I got to high school. That was
like all performance all the time. My school did it.
I was doing community stuff, I was trying to do
professional stuff. It was like, you know, and I don't know.
At the end of the day, I'm in my mid
forties now, and I think that understanding people and understanding
how to navigate situations is as important as you know, biology.

(12:50):
Although I will say I do think that learning how
to learn and respecting knowledge is an important thing. We're
in a weird time of I don't ever want to
sound like learning is an important because I feel like
we're in a weird time of anti anti knowledge, anti intellect. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah, I think that that's definitely true, And so.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
Be on record saying no, learning is important. School is important.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
It's kind of it's kind of a scary. It's kind
of a scary time in that way because where it's
kind of in a time when the facts don't seem
to matter or or the facts are always questioned, and yeah,
like if you you know, like where's the bottom line,
where's where's where's the rock solid that you can depend
on an environment where.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
It's very unmooring. It's very tricky, it's very I don't know,
it's it's I think that sometime down the road, who knows,
who knows, but sometimes other knowa to think people are
going to look at this time and be like, there
is there was psychological trauma happening that no one was
even able to clock that much because there's no constant
truth right now. I mean it feels like there is.
It feels like there should be, but we are not
agreeing on it and that feels crazy.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, no, it's it's yeah. Unmooring is a really good
way of stating that. Did you ever find that you
were like othered by people because your your interest was theater?

Speaker 2 (14:06):
Yeah, one hundred percent, Yes, big time. I uh And
you know, to whatever degree that was other people are
doing that and and whatever degree that was me feeling
that way, But yes, absolutely I felt most at home
in those theater settings, in those rehearsal spaces and on
stage and I also grew up in the South in
the eighties and nineties, and I wanted to be a

(14:28):
boy in the South in the eighties and nineties. I,
like I said, I played sports. I wasn't great, but
I was fine. Like I was a not a consistent
all star in the rec leagues, but I was not
I was not embarrassingly bad, but I wanted to do
that stuff. And there was there like there was a
time I I mentioned this on uh my podcast recently,

(14:49):
so I hated to repeat myself. So if you've heard
this before, jan But I was forget what year I
was fourth or fifth grade, and I was maybe even
old than that, I don't remember whatever. I was going
into the summer and I was playing baseball. I had
signed up to play baseball and our little rec league,
and I also was It turns out I was going
to have to quit baseball because I'd signed up for

(15:09):
a ballet class because I had done a show that spring,
the twelve Dancing Princesses, And I realized, like, oh, if
I want to keep doing this and I want to
grow and in the performance world, I need to I
need to better my skills. I I'm not a dancer
at all, and I'm, you know, a little boy, and
I want to be better at these things. So I'd
spent you know, weeks in this show with these dancers,
these grown men and these women that were dancers and

(15:29):
other younger men who were dancing. I was like, this
is so cool, Like this is what I want. And
then I signed up for this dance class and then
was going to have to quit baseball, and the guys
at school, like word got out that I was going
to not be playing baseball because I was taking a
ballet class, and that was like horrible. That was that
was that was a miserable place to be for me

(15:50):
for a moment, and I, frankly just this is its
own thing that I've carried with me forever. I just lied,
and I just told those guys, I said, that's not true.
And I don't know where someone's making that up about me.
Someone is lying about me and making that of course
I'm playing baseball, I'm not taking a dance class. And
I went home and said, Mom, you got to cancel
the dance class. I can't do it. So I did
not take a dance class and did not start down
my journey of becoming a trouble threat and showed up

(16:10):
to New York as a double threat at best. And
here I am, and I'm not playing baseball either.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
So the high school I went to was kind of
strange in some ways. We nur's in my class had
a sort of informal reunion a few weeks ago, and
some of us were talking about the fact that it
was this rural farm town kind of kind of kind
of school for grade school, high school kind of the

(16:41):
same thing, a little bit closer to town, but not
not all that. And it was pretty diverse, honestly, Like,
we didn't have a lot of black kids. The one
I was the guy who one of the guys who
set the thing up, It's like, yeah, I was the
only black kids. I was like, no, I think there
were like three or four more.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
It's like yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
But other than that, it was it was. It was
pretty diverse and pretty accepting, and we got a really
good education for what it was, and I was I
was surprised by that. But in high school, the English
teachers decided that they would give extra credit to anybody
who would attend to play that was put on at
the school or just anywhere, right and so it created

(17:21):
this like you know, social tier of theater kids. Like,
you know, they weren't the jocks, we were not the
you know, the the student government types or whatever. But
like we were recognizable in that band. And I don't
think I really realized that until that class had a
ten year reunion and there were people talking to me

(17:42):
that I had never had a conversation with him in
high school. Never, no, no, no, no connection, Like we
never said hello in them in the in the hallways
and having conversations because they remembered me doing you know,
whatever I did.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Yeah, well that's because you were the Yeah you don't.
You don't know them. You're the star, you're the you're
the the headliner up there, and they're they're the ones
watching you, right Like that's you're not supposed to know them.
They're supposed to remember you as the what shows did
you do? What were they were they remembering you from?

Speaker 1 (18:12):
Uh, probably the biggest one that they would remember was our.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
Town nice all right, Yeah I was.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
I was the drunk organist in our town. And actually
we saw our time on Broadway last year. Actually maybe
it's early this year. It's early this year, and uh,
South that they're the first two acts and like knew
every line. Still it's just really weird. And then the
third act came up, and there was so little of

(18:40):
bit that I remember, Like I was actually like in
that act, I was on stage the entire time, and
I don't remember any of the lines from it, well
not most of them. I guess. Probably the line that
I remember the best was do any people ever remember
or ever ever realize life while they're living it? And
the answer is a lot, you know, we never do.

(19:01):
So and then and then then after after high school,
it's like, I, you know, you would have to audition
if you were going to be involved in a college
thing or whatever, And I said, I hated I hated
I hated cold reading, I hated auditions. I hated all
that stuff. And then a few years ago, i pre pandemic,

(19:21):
I did some some improv and really liked that a lot.

Speaker 2 (19:24):
Yeah that's fine, man, I feel like improv is such
a good thing. I spent years doing some, doing a
show here in New York called Batsu, which is like
whose Lying kind of kind of show. It's a short,
short game improv show mixed with a Japanese game show.
So it's like if you're if you're funny, you win points.
If you're not funny, horrible things happened to you. So
it's a great time for the audience, it's hit or miss.

(19:46):
As a performer, it's gonna be great or awful. But
for me, that would that the reason I love that
show some one of the reasons I love that show
so much is it just kind of heightens the stakes
of what people think about with improv anyway, which is
like it's it hits so many people get the chance
to like really face a fear, which is like what
happens if I make a mistake in front of a
lot of people and it turns out not much, it

(20:09):
turns out it's okay, you know, Like it's a huge fear,
and it's an understandable huge fear. If I make a
fool of myself, if I make a mistake, if I
look like I don't know what I'm doing, if I
do something wrong in front of a whole group of people,
what's the worst it's going to happen. Well, for me,
it was I might get shot with a paintball gun.
But for people just experiencing improv, it's not much you know,
like you end up, you don't get a laugh, or

(20:31):
you get a laugh at something you didn't realize was
funny and turns out you're okay. I think people, especially
non performers just the in the world, can take a
lot from that I was in and it kind of
helped not teach kind of moderate. I helped out with
some improv classes that were targeted for non performers, and
it was really just that as like just a way

(20:52):
to get more comfortable in the workspace, get more comfortable
if you have to present, if you have to pitch,
if you just have to talk to people, like learning
how to listen, learning how to agree and heighten, and
also learning that like when you mess up, probably not
a huge deal, Like that's an okay place to be. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
I think that with the improv and and actually in
scripted stuff too. My biggest fears just going up, just
being able to say anything at all. And the nice
thing about improv is that if you're with a good group,
someone will jump in.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah. Yeah. If you if you feel like you're going
up in improv, that just means someone is not doing
their job and it doesn't have to be you. Yeah,
somebody somebody's gonna come in. It's just like it's ideally
my buddy Chris Alvarado in LA and I'm just just
because I want to name drop him, because he's a
realiant improvised improvised improvisation teacher. He always talks about like

(21:46):
they're sure there's improv for the sake of being funny.
There's trying to build jokes, there's trying to make these
things up their funny situations. But but really even the
funniest times come from just listening and just responding naturally.
Just like you know, even right now here, I know
we're we're on air and dead eras is bad, but
like if we don't talk for a second, it's probably okay.
We'll figure out what to say next. Like we don't

(22:08):
have to figure out what the punchline is. It just
just just having a conversation and when if it's a
if it's a kind of a low, a low that
the scenes ends up being kind of low stakes, that's
no problem. Then you work on hiding the stakes. You
don't have to worry about like how do I get
a funny punchline in here?

Speaker 1 (22:23):
Now?

Speaker 2 (22:24):
How do I how do I make this work? Right
now you can probably just like the more fun comes
from just like chilling out and seeing what happens.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
Yeah, Like the UCB philosophy is like, don't try to
be funny, Yeah yeah, exactly, Yeah, just try to try
to make a real character that does crazy.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
Things ultimately, and like some of those like you look
at UCB is so funny to me because it clearly
it it was created by and produced some of the
most brilliant comedic minds in our entertainment history. But it
also kind of became this like template for everyone was like, oh,

(23:03):
what you do is you go to UCP, you go
through the tracks, you graduate, you get an SNL audition,
you know, like you book. As you become a writer,
you go to the writer's room. There's a track for it.
And it's to me, it's one of the most clear
examples of like, it's not the track that get you there,
it's the talent those people that's that were doing that
to start with, and the people that built that and
the people that came through there. It wasn't because they

(23:24):
did this track. It's because they themselves were brilliant and
were interested in creating fully fleshed out characters. That then
found themselves in whatever wacky situations, not just like I'm
gonna make a far joke or I'm going to like
just try to find a way to make a joke
at someone's expense. Like I'm going to be a fully
realized character in what turns out to be an insane situation,

(23:44):
which is hilarious.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
Yeah. The other thing that I really loved about it
was before we walk out on stage, everyone does pets
everybody else on the back and says catch back, and
you like, how can you feel in that in that environment? Right?

Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, that's great. I'm glad that you got that experience
and the guy that you felt good about it because
it is there's so much room there for you know whatever.
But like not to sound too cheesy, but they're like
for personal growth and for that team more kind of
mentality and for feeling good about yourself on stage. And
you know, I think as a professional performer. One of
the things I had to get over took a couple

(24:21):
of layers, and I had to get over the jadedness
of being like, man, everyone including myself, everyone is just
here for the next thing. I'm only looking for the
I'm looking for the next bigger gig. I'm using this
as a as a wrong on a ladder to get
to the next thing. And all of it became more
enjoyable when I admitted maybe I'm not going to be famous,
and maybe it's not going to be like a thing
I do full time all the time. Maybe I just
enjoy it when it happens. Maybe I have fun doing it.

(24:42):
And that's been much more enjoyable.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
Do you feel like it setting you up for the
social media kind of virality that, yeah, how did that happened? Exactly?
Because I came in later, so I don't already somebody
at that.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
Point, Oh thanks, I don't know. It's been such a
it's it's been a few years now, but also still
so new, especially like in stages of life. It came
late enough that it's still very strange to me. It's
very like I don't really always know what to do
with it, and I try to mainly have fun with it,
and then the world goes on, the world gets set
on fire again, and you got I feel like, well,
maybe I have to use my voice for something, and

(25:24):
I never you know, it's always a jumble of what
do I do with it? But the way that it
started frankly in the fall of twenty two. I guess
three years ago. I think, yeah, acting was really slow.
We'd come out of COVID. It was the strikes, so
maybe it's twenty three. Whatever year that was, I don't

(25:46):
even remember it, the Writers and Actors strike. We had
made it through the summer, we were still striking. I
had gotten a job. I hadn't had work. I'd gotten
a job with my brother in laws company, which I'm
still doing, which I love the work. And I was good,
and I was like, you know, I'm gonna step back
from performing a little bit, like I don't need to
try to The audition grind is not fun for me.

(26:07):
I've got kids, Like, I'm not making money doing it.
It's just it's just a stress and I'm getting the
getting told no all the time is like not as
good on my sense of self as maybe it once
was when I felt like I had thicker skin and
could just like grind out auditions all the time, be
told no all the time and have it not affected me.
And I was like, I'm not. I just don't. It
doesn't feel fun anymore. So I said, like I fully
felt in like inside I was like, Okay, I'm okay

(26:30):
stepping back a little bit. I'm gonna I won't call
it her retirement because who cares. I haven't done enough
to call it her retirement, but I'm gonna like step
back a little bit, and like I'm not kidding. I
felt like at peace with that. I talked to my
therapist about it. I was like at peace about it.
And also throughout this time, I had been I you know,
I was trying to make a presence on social media

(26:52):
works as an actor. There really is like an expectation
of having a following if you're gonna at a certain
level of performance, like TV gigs, I'd go in for it,
and there were like actual commercials and actual gigs I
was in for that you would have to have a
base of one hundred thousand followers to even get in
the door, you know, or whatever. So it's like it
became this other thing that was like, Okay, I guess
I'm supposed to figure this out. I guess I'm supposed

(27:13):
to try to make a thing work. So I would, like,
you know, I would post like everyone post, but I
would also post bits and post things that I was
trying to you know, trying to make a thing happen
or whatever, and then fast forward back to this point
where I've decided I can, I can step back. I can.
I'm not going to perform as much, and I put
out a real that, honestly, for the first time in
months or years, was not for a large not for

(27:35):
an intended larger audience. It was for me and my friends.
I thought it was funny, it was about the movies.
But I was coming in coming off a weekend with
my mother in law. I had had texted and called
like multiple times to get our Disney Plus passwords so
that our kids could watch like Blueie, I think because
they were with her for the weekend. And so first

(27:55):
of all, I mean, thank you grandmam for having the kids,
and shout out to the Louis for always being great.
But I made a reel that was like, I feel
like we're raising a generation of soft grandparents, because like
when I was a kid, if I wanted to watch
TV at my grandmother's house, I had two choices. Well,
the choices was I could lay in bed with her
and watch Matt Locker Murder she wrote on TV with her,
or if I wanted to watch a movie. There were

(28:16):
two VHS tips. There was Dances with Wolves and Fried
Green Tomatoes like and which basically what those all have
in common is murder like as a small child. It
was just so so I kind of put that reel
out there and it was funny enough. I liked it,
and I felt I was like, sure, this is funny,
and also did not feel like it was for a

(28:36):
large audience. It was for hopefully some people see it
and laugh, and hopefully my brother and sisters who know
that that's true, like laugh at it. And I went
to bed and woke up and like Kristen Bell had
liked it and someone else famous had shared it, and
I was I had gained ten thousand followers overnight, and
I was like, oh shit, what and then all of
that that I don't know, there's there's You could look

(28:59):
at it from positive health these sides about like I
got motivated. You could also look at it from more
self aware sides that say I got a little taste
of that external validation again and went, oh yeah, I
forget how good that tastes. Let's get some more. And
so I just started posting, and you know it, it
kind of like in the way that momentum works and
then like the algorithm, the social media algorithms like work,

(29:20):
but gets work more so in that than anything else,
I feel like, because it really, it really is like
if you feed the algorithm, it will give you more.
And so I was, you know, I had a bunch
of bits. So I did some stand up at the time,
and so I had like funny kind of stuff that
I thought was kind of funny and it had never
been seen by a large audience. So I started putting
out more videos, just put them out and then guy,

(29:42):
I got some more followers, and to be honest, I
kind of it was fun and I wasn't really sure
what to do with it. I got some like you know,
little like clothing sponsorships and some brand ambassadorships that I
enjoyed and stuff, and that was that was cool. It
wasn't like I was making a lot of money or anything.
But I got some free stuff and made a little
cash and got to put videos out there, and I
got some feel valid for the things that I thought
was funny and the perspective that I saw. And then,

(30:05):
to be totally honest, then the election happened and I
was kind of heartbroken by this society as a whole,
with the way that this past presidential election went, and
I just I made some very honest videos about that,
and it then shot up again, and so then I
kind of like, yeah, I don't know, hit the point
where I am now, which I feel like it's nice
to hear someone talk about it. Like from from my perspective,

(30:26):
it's like very easy for me to look at it
and go, yeah, but one hundred whatever whatever it is,
one hundred and forty thousand followers. I think I dropped again,
But whatever, one hundred something thousand followers is fine. But
also it's not where the it's not where the big
money is. It's not where the it's not where the
stuff happens is. You know, that's way higher up. And
so for me, it still feels kind of like a lark,
an enjoyable lark. And it forged me the chance to

(30:48):
meet people like you and to do my own podcast
and to at least put my thoughts out there. And
I kind of feel like, fine, if I'm a middle
aged man ranting into the abyss of social media, at
least some people watch mine. I'm not just one of
those dudes who have three people who ever pay attention
that like it might be the same, I might be
scratching the same bitch as every other just dude in
his basement, ranting into the abyss. But you know, some

(31:09):
people pay attention, so I feel like it's it's to
some degree.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
Well, well, I definitely paid attention. And I particularly enjoyed
the take about your son wanting to paint his his
fingernails and you're like being willing to do that and
just like normalize this, like hey, don't worry about it.
I don't understand why people still react like that's a
like a weird or bad thing. I don't understand it

(31:34):
all because I've known people, for guys for years and
years more than decades who did that and it was
not a big deal, Like.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
Yeah, I don't know, it's part of my whole thing.
And I think that's part of why, to be honest,
why I followed you back was I recognize the day
you're someone in the industry that you do you know, production,
and you do this kind of side of things too,
and you like talking about stuff and also like being
just a dude, being a man who also isn't so
fragile that something like a fashion choice someone else makes

(32:02):
is going to set you off, like it's it should
not be a big deal. And frankly, I think my
Instagram handle might still say it, but my whole brand
is kind of like as i've as I've kind of
crafted what kind of voice I want to have. It's
just it's weaponizing the mediocrity of men because if people
didn't give a shit, I wouldn't have a platform. If
people didn't care that, if people didn't care that men

(32:25):
painted their nails sometimes, I wouldn't have a platform if
people agreed with me that gender norms are a weakness,
that that you know, gender norms are for the week
that that's kind of like if people agreed, then no
one would be surprised that I do the things that
I do. The only reason that I get I mean,
I'm glad that people agree with my perspective. I think
the only reason that it really stands out is because
it is unique. But but I agree with you, like

(32:48):
it shouldn't be it should be easy. If you don't
want to paint your nails, don't paint your nails. If
you think that someone else painting their nails makes them
in some box that you created you're just wrong, Like
that's just small, all in weak and so you know,
I mean to some degree I have joked before too
that like it's it sucks. I set myself up in

(33:09):
a situation to do better when things are worse because
it's it is. Then it's like so surprising to see
a guy who you know, like we we are of
a type that people don't really trust a lot these days.
We have been people we are. We are both of
a type and have a look and have a profile
demographic that is been making things harder for people for

(33:32):
a while, and it's it's a kind of a bummer
to scale. But it's beneficial to me as an individual
that people are surprised that I'm not just a jackass.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
Yeah, I don't even think i'm that. I'm not. I'm
not that smart, I'm not that progressive, I'm not that
much of anything. I'm just not so worried about what
other people are doing with their bodies and their time.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
Yeah, well you're I mean the reason it works is
that you're author.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
Thank you. That's that's one thing I try. I try
very hard to be. I do think that like that
performance background helps kind of like craft story. I can.
You know, I'm a decent storyteller, and I think I
can put together an arc. But the bottom line is,
and I think that's also I will say, I think
that's why that first one worked. It Probably you could
see consciously or subconsciously with anything I was doing before,

(34:23):
like the need to be liked, the need to be wanted,
the need to find the thing that worked, and then
when it came down to it, it was like just and
it wasn't like I evolved. It's got beat down so
far that I couldn't do anything other than just be myself.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
Yeah. Yeah, I can see that. You talk a fair
amount about I touched on this before, about about parenting.
You've got younger kids, Yeah, and you're pretty involved in
their day to day.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
I am, yeah, and that's again kind of part of
that is a product of the environment. My wife is
because I was a sometimes in work actor, off and
out of work actor. Wife has a steady job and
makes more money than I do and has set hours,
and so when we started having kids, I was the
stay at home parent. And like we bought a house,

(35:10):
we bought, we bought a house that needed renovation, so
I kind of learned to renovate a house. And then
it was the stay at home dad.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
That's really familiar to me.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
Yeah, yeah, I mean the the YouTube, the YouTube rental
life is it's very real. I think it's respectable, you know, man.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
So much of what I did was like sort of
pre YouTube. Honestly, what did you just do?

Speaker 2 (35:32):
You just take swings at it? Did you just figure
it out? Did you get books?

Speaker 1 (35:35):
I got every book and magazine that I could find
at home depot that was about whatever I was like,
So I learned to like set tile and cranie, yeah,
baseboards and crap like that. And then like I had,
I had a corporate jobs and just like and I
worked for a consultancy company for a while whatever, and

(35:58):
that kind of ended in ninety eight, and we bought
this house in ninety nine. And I have kind of
done everything to this house except for like the big
you know, big construction projects.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
So this has been, you know, going on for twenty
six years now, and someday I'm going to be done.
Swear to God. Swear to God. I mean, there's a
house that had good bones and we're in just a
phenomenal neighborhood and so like, yeah, I think that. I mean,
our investment has been probably quadrupled.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
That's great, that's great.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
Which is great, but like at the same time, like
housing prices shouldn't be what they are. Sure we sort
of screwed down the supply and really raise the prices,
and then suddenly we have homeless everywhere. I mean, yeah,
again benefited from it, but but I get the I
get the issues around it. Yeah, but I there's a
lot of sweat equity here. But yeah, just to kind

(36:59):
of letsh out the story, like I was, I was
in a corporate job and I was offered a position
in in LA but my uh my wife's father was
dying of cancer. He had he had terminal kidney cancer.
And I was like, we don't really want to move
away from from here. This that's you know, it's a

(37:20):
six hour drive to LA from from where I am
in Sacramento. And I said, I can't. I just can't
right now. And they said, okay, well, you know, I'll
give you at least a year or so and you'll
be fine. And then you know, shortly after that, like
like three or four months later, that that was just
like forgotten. And so I started working for for that

(37:45):
guy in the same company that I used to work
for before, and that lasted for a while and then
it ended. And about the like the same time that
it ended, our our older son retrospect to what it
looked like is he had like a viral meningitis, but
it created this this headache, this car chronic daily headache
thing that lasted for a good ten years. And so

(38:07):
I couldn't figure out how I was going to go
back to work and cover that. And my wife had
definitely had the ultimately more lucrative job, Like if we
moved away, I probably would have had had had the
job that paid more, but we didn't, and and so yeah,
I ended up being stay at home dad in a way.

(38:27):
I was like I did everything that I did everything
I could, but I wasn't good at everything. Like our
younger son, I could never do the homework thing with him.
He just would not concentrate with me, and and and
needed mom.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
And so yeah, there's some of that I don't and
I deal with that too, like I did. Let me ask,
I guess one of the things I'm always interested in
in other dads that are stayed at home dads, And
I guess it doesn't matter. But there is kind of
this like it's it's outside the social norm, right, Like
it's there, we are, it is. It is more rare
to I have a stay at home dad and have
the dad doing more of that stuff. And you know,

(39:04):
I have I'm the oldest of four siblings. I babysat
when I was a kid. I feel like I've been
around kids. I understand kids well enough, but there there
is still and I've you know, and I, like you said,
I make reels about parenting and I talk about it plenty,
and I'm proud of being I'm proud to be someone
who works hard at being a better parent. I also
still like get it wrong all the time. Like homework

(39:27):
is one of those times where, like my I still
it's a daily work. It's daily work for me to
work on my patients with my kids. My son's in
first grade, and like just being able to slow down
enough and get him to focus and get him to
stay with it. And I start getting frustrated, and you know,
homework is one of the ways, but there's still plenty
of ways that, like I get frustrated, the stress comes
out or I pop off and I get louder than

(39:48):
I mean too, And I don't know, it's like any
since you have been through that, and especially like with
a son dealing with something like that as a dad,
having to deal with something consistent like that, like what, yeah,
help me? Do you have any advice for for that?
I don't know, just I don't know if it's about

(40:08):
how to calm down, how it's what it's about to relate.
I don't know what it is. I am open to
any advice that helped me in that more consistent time
with my kids.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
I think that for me, like at the points that
it that it failed, I you know, I failed to
get through whatever you know, he was trying to work on.
I think I just took it too personally, and I
took it because I like, Okay, so you're at home,

(40:37):
and so you've got the responsibility to get through this,
and then if you can't do it, then that's a failure.
And so you get like there's a shame component, there's yeah,
there's a sadness component, there's a you know, a failure
component to it. And the only ways that I could
overcome it successfully is to think about the problem entirely

(41:04):
from the other side. Like how can we how can
we make this task be a different thing and still
get through it through it? And my my younger son
had a sensory processing disorder and he has just terrible

(41:24):
dysgraphia and was really really challenged by motor planning as
a kid. So it was it was all freighted with
that stuff too and figuring out how to how to
how to move around that. And I think that the
biggest thing that we learned about that diagnosis was that

(41:48):
you can sort of put things in different baskets, so
like you know, like a safety thing is is an
a basket issue in dealing with the kid, and then
they're you know, down at the at the bottom, there's
like a sea basket of things that then if they

(42:10):
don't happen, if you don't conviscent to them, is like
who cares, Yeah, and just kind of let go of
those things as much as possible. And then you probably
do that instinctively anyway.

Speaker 2 (42:19):
But there's some of that, but you're you're totally right,
and the taking it personally thing is is hard for me,
but like on on every level, like the obviously kids
are gonna are gonna push back. Obviously kids are gonna
choose to not listen because they have little, tiny smooth
brains that forgot of what you said, or they're choosing
to try something else. Like those things are all gonna happen.
And I that's when one place where I have a

(42:41):
really hard time is I'll get I'll get offended. I'll
get I can feel being personally offended by my kids
disobeying me. You know, my kids are six and four
and a half, like they're that's they're not They're you
can hardly call it disobeying at that point, but it
still feels so so deep and offensive, you know, And
and I really that is certainly a thing I got
to get better at for everyone's sake. I get to

(43:02):
kind of chill out for myself, feel feel not as
disrespected and not as challenged and not as you know,
poked and threatened and realized like that's not what's happening
here there. It's a child, and there's there's definitely some
things that can go on the sea basket and chill
out on. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:19):
They I mean, they're just they're trying to figure out
how to express themselves and they don't know like the
rules of appropriateness yet right.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
Yeah, and that's it's always so hard for me to think,
Like I always I tell myself that, and then in
the time, in the moment, it's always hard, like I
accidentally without if I don't think through it. I like,
I meet my kids within the context of an adult situation.
They don't have the experience. They don't know if their
tone offends me, that they've used that tone three times
in their life. They don't know what tone is. They

(43:47):
don't know, you know, like and even if they do,
even if they remember, like, oh, this got a reaction
from Dad the last time that I use this tone,
it's still like it's a tiny brain that's brand new
and figuring this stuff out, you know, Like I to
to treat that with the gravity of like an adult
who spoke to me like that, or an adult who
who blatantly disrespected me or something is like a very

(44:08):
that's its own thing. I can work on how to
not take that personally also, but like that's clearly not
what's happening with a small child.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
We always kind of talk to our kids like they
were adults, but we received their black children, If that
makes sense.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
Yeah, that's a great way to look at it. And
again like that's something I feel like I can easily
say and talk about and then doing it in the
moment is a very different thing. But that's a good
goal to have.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
I like that. But our older son has two boys
as well, and they are eight and ten now, okay,
and we spend time with them. I realize that he
has taken our parenting styles. My wife is not exactly
the same as mine. He's taken them, fused them together,
and then sort of taking them up a level because

(44:50):
his personality, like it's he doesn't have that investment in
ego at all. I mean, he just doesn't and so
he is better with his kids than I was with
my kids. And and that makes me happy all the time.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
Yeah, that's kind of the goal, right, I mean, I
feel like and I feel like there's also a good
that that is a that shows well of you too,
that says that you did the right thing, gave them
the space to not having that ego is a lack
of insecurity, which is which is a great way to
I feel like if I could raise a kid, if
my kids grow up and as adults, they don't have
a tight hold on ego and they they can be

(45:27):
secure and who they are to some degree, I think
you get a little bit of credit for that, for
putting them in a situation to be able to feel
that way. And and also my wife and I always
say like we just want to we want to mess
our kids up differently than we were messed up. Like
if you if you do it the same, then you
didn't learn anything, you know, like just you're gonna do something.
Something's gonna go wrong, You're gonna there's therapists have jobs

(45:48):
for forever. There's always gonna be something to talk about,
you know. But but as long as it's something different,
that that means we tried and we at least did something.
We fixed, We fixed the things that we felt we
might we not even might. Definitely are doing different things
that are that are giving them their own problems. But
if it's not the same problems we have, that's that's
the step that we can feel proud of. I guess.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
The uncontrollable stuff as a parent, like my both of
my boys have been in therapy as adults to deal
with those things, things that we're kind of on our hands,
you know, I don't I don't think that that I
haven't heard them blame us for anything, which, you know,
which just feels and it feels good, and then it's

(46:30):
just situations outside of our control that that drove them
to feel like they needed to talk to somebody about it.
And you know, it's I think that's such fair game.
And it's also it's another thing that just shouldn't be
afraided at all for men or women or anybody, is
to go and and talk to it to someone. I

(46:50):
mean I went weekly for probably three years and then
cut down to monthly, and then my therapist finally said, look,
I don't know if we really need to do this
anymore because basically we're just talking about our lives. He's
about my age, and it's like, you know, we're I
don't think I'm offering you any great insight at this point.

(47:11):
I think you pretty much internalized it. It's like, okay,
all right, another very moments that I've thought about going back,
and yeah, I guess I'm okay. I'm okay at the
end of the day.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
For me, yeah, I think that I started going to
therapy to work through some things and I've stayed with
it because well A there's still things to work through,
but be like my personal approach to it is is
I think of therapy more as like a personal trainer
than as a doctor. I think of it more as
like preventative and continuous than than to fix it for

(47:45):
than reparative, which you know, and there's different strokes for everyone,
but for me, the chance to and even like I've
been with my therapist for a long time, I'm a
big fan of her, a big kind of therapy. In
some weeks it is kind of talking. Some weeks it's
just venting. It's just complaining about things that happen all week.
I'm not looking for a solution. I'm not I'm not

(48:05):
even looking for much of a response. I just don't
have anyone else that will sit quietly and let me
pay them to just word vomit at them for forty
five minutes. And then sometimes it's like the we you know,
it's like her. Her kind of insight is more reminding
me of the things that I know, and then I
get lazy about not doing or not thinking about or
you know, like I get I get busy or I

(48:26):
feel busy and I get out of my routines that
I know help me feel grounded, and she's just like, well,
are you. I'll come in and I'll have complaints and
she's like, well, are you doing these things that we
know work for you? And I say, all right, no,
I'm not doing any of those, and she says, well,
probably probably that then that's probably part of the problem.
So you know, like that's for me. It's like that,
it's kind of just a touch point, kind of a
grounding point on a weekly basis. But yeah, if I mean,

(48:49):
you know, sporadically whatever, like even if you even if
you do think of it as remparative, great, I just
I agree with you that there should not be a
stigma to wanted to talk to someone. I think it's
weird that we that we have created that stigma.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
Yeah, And I mean I came out of a situation
like my my my dad was so dead set against
it and and and really could have used it. And
my my my without getting into it, my sister was
a very difficult child. She's a very difficult adult now.
They did not really know how to deal with her
at all, and they were they just felt like they
could gut through it all and they you know, I

(49:23):
was not their failure there, she was their failure. And
so that's yeah, it's just reality. It's like there was
there's no there's no upside to turning off that avenue
of getting help and and figuring out how to you know,
how to improve the quality of your life by improving

(49:45):
the quality of your reactions to your life.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
I guess yeah, I fully like if you think of
it as any I mean there are some men too
who have a weird pain in their side but are
not going to go see a doctor because they'll just
work itself out, you know. So the same but same
kind of like thing, like why don't you go go
get that at dummy? That's it's it's bothering. You should
get a look at it. It's the same kind of
thing with your brain, you know. That's how I feel
about it.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
So, uh, you have a podcast. You have a podcast
with your best friend.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
I do. Yeah, yeah, my best friend Tom, the No
Homo Podcast with Jonathan and Tom.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
And he uh he is a gay man and you're
a straight man.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
Yes, that's the title. We're not being, We're not being
we're being tongue in cheek. We're not being aggressively insulting.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
I always my reaction to no home or not, but
pre pre pre being exposed to your podcast. But my
reaction to that phrase has always been kind of like,
no all home, because that's because when guys are saying it,
they very often.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
Yeah, well, than I'm stealing someone. I'm not stealing it
because I'll give I just don't know what his name was.
I don't know who the comedian was, but there was
a comedian who was saying he had he was from
the Midwest, and he was living in California now and
he had a friend from the West come out to
see him and his friend like was hanging out with
a bunch of hit this this guy's new friends out
in California, and the friend said, hey, guys, no homo.
But and someone stopped him and said, oh, we don't,

(51:06):
we don't say that. And the comedian's point was, you don't.
You don't interrupt a straight a straight man who just
said no homo is about to say the sweetest thing
he's ever said, and he's just scared to say it
without that. He's scared to see weak and soft. But
whatever whatever he says next is gonna be beautiful. But
he just can't say it without saying that, right right.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
It is like I don't know exactly what the word is,
but just sort of like like setting it aside from
from anything that could be misconstrued as.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
Yeah, and again, that's that's like back to the kind
of like fear, the fear based problems with someone else
painting their nails or with whatever. It's like the idea
that like if I say something genuine or I say
something sweet, or I say something complimentary, that someone else
might think I'm homosexual and that would be such a

(52:00):
bad thing is such a convoluted It's such a weird
place to be scared, and it's such a I feel
genuinely like sad for people who feel that scared and
that kind of environment, you cannot be vult you cannot
feel safe being vulnerable. That feels like a really tough
place to be.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
Mm hm. A thing about the about the fitness world
that I've that I come from is that it is
entirely normal for guys to comment on other guys physiques.
It's sure, and it's sort of the the uh the
touch phrase right now is like you're not really working
out for for women, You're working out for other guys

(52:41):
because that's who notices the most, right. Yeah, and and
that's that's where you're trying to gain, you know, respect
and currency and whatever. Having said that, I looked at
your IMDb a little bit and to try to refamiliarize
myself with some of the things that I may have
seen you in. And you're in an episode of a

(53:03):
show that's probably like one of the most brilliantly constructed
shows of all time, and it sucks that isn't still
running and that's high maintenance.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
Yeah, I agree with you. It is one of the
most brilliant contructed shows of all time. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
The first time I thought, I was like, actually, it's
probably the second episode that I saw. I was like,
oh wait, this is just an anthology with it with
really one character that is the string through the whole,
through the whole thing. You're pretty undressed in that, not
as much as the other guy who got to hang

(53:38):
Dong and so was there like a coin flip about
who was going to hang do in that?

Speaker 2 (53:43):
Or I mean I think that objectively, he might have
the better dog to put on screen. So you know,
mine makes a quick appearance, but it's it's literally you know,
no small parts. But that Yeah, that's funny. That what
a great setup for that for that too, because I
agree with everything you said and it so my wife

(54:04):
and I found that show. Actually Tom introduced me to
that show when it was just a web series. It
was just online and you know, Ben Sinclair and Katie
Blitchfield were New York. Katya Is was a casting Cutty
was in casting and kind of like the web series,
A lot of it was this anthology because they knew
all of these brilliant actors in New York that weren't

(54:25):
getting steady work just because that's the business, because they
weren't you know, the dogs weren't fitting. But they had
all these brilliant UH performers that they knew, and they
just kind of started giving them a chance to uh
to work on these characters and like really and these
these characters from the web series were just incredible and yeah,
it's like this one guy, this pot dealer, who he's
the through line, but it's really just everyone that he meets, right,

(54:48):
and so it's like the the web series. And then
it was so excited to see I was so excited
to see it get picked up for a first season
on HBO and really thought that like it did what
I what I what I was so happy to see
is like, you know you have you got a brilliant idea,
you've got brilliant talents. You get some money, you might

(55:08):
sell out, you might be able to make what you want,
or you might feel like you're supposed to meet some
studio standard or something. And I thought those guys really
stuck to their guns. I'm not that they had I'm
not sure they got any pushback at all, but they
chose to stick with what they wanted, what they did best,
and it showed. And the first season on HBO was
just I loved every moment of it. And then I
got a chance audition and ended up getting booked in

(55:31):
this season two premiere, and yeah, it was like I
had a writer that came with the offer that listed
in graphic detail a bunch of scenarios that may or
may not that I may or may not be asked
to film in simulated sexual kind of ways. And I

(55:52):
said to my my wife, I was like, look, look,
let's look read this. This is what it says. I
kind of feel like they're just trying to cover their
basis here, like depending on like just so like if
something comes up with the day, I can't say we
didn't discuss this, you know, and also I do. I
feel like we trust them because we love the show
so much. I feel like this episode is going to
be an important episode of TV because of what they're
doing with it, and so I like, you know, and

(56:15):
I out of respect for honestly to my wife, do
you are you comfortable if I shoot a simulated male
male female threesome in a hotel room for a couple
of days? And she was like, yeah, okay, whatever, sure,
So you know, we did, and it was it was
so much fun. It was so much fun. And then
I really do feel proud to have been a part

(56:38):
of that story. I thought it was such a cool
version of telling a story. It was kind of like
it was, you know, it's it's it's season it's season two,
episode one. It's called the Globo, and it's just like
a world event happens and it's never mentioned. I don't
know what it is, but you know that it's important.
And then you just kind of meet people throughout the
day in New York because of again the anthology style

(57:00):
of this, you're meeting people who like frankly, everyone you
meet that they has a reason to not be paying
attention to the main story. They either like learn about
it in real time, you know, or like weren't paying
attention to it at all or whatever. And like I
thought that was such a cool way to tell the story,
to to like show something that is clearly important that
they their world building is so good. They build this,

(57:21):
they make it very clear that this is very important
on a national, international, some kind of big time scale,
and then also zoom in so close to see like
people are still living their lives and going to have
to figure out how to deal with this, but there's
still life still goes on, life still happens, and there's
like it's called Globo, which is oh man, I'm really

(57:43):
gonna get this wrong with now Spanish for all maybe
or balloon or sphere balloon, balloon, okay, yeah, yeah, and yeah,
so this is like great moment near the end where
it's just like a subway train, like a tin a
subway car in New York late at night with a
balloon bouncing around, you know, and like it's it's this somber,
very heavy, dark day but also you know, there's like

(58:04):
a little kid playing with a balloon, and it I
just taking myself out of it even like wepped at
that episode. I thought it was such good storytelling on
their part, and I mean on a on a I
I if I can for a second, like it was silly.
The threesome was like it was kind of shock value silly.
It was like a you know, in your face kind
of thing. But if you were to go back and
pay attention to it, you realize that it's a male

(58:24):
male male female male. How do you want to say it?
Two dudes and a woman in a threesome, And it
is not at all in the vein of like the
pornography you would see that that that that kind of thing,
like it is actually like female centric. It's about the
two of us like wanted to pay attention to her,
you know, and like and so it's a little stuff
like that. But it's not like some kind of grotesque,

(58:45):
you know, grotuitous kind of bang out threesome. It's like
and it is list some shock value. There's definitely like
some scenarios created that are that are meant to be
kind of like surprising shock value, but it's still built
around the idea of like she's in charge the whole
time she is running, that she's running that whole scenario.
And so even in that kind of like sexuality, that

(59:05):
shock factor kind of way, it wasn't. It was done
incredibly intentionally and incredibly like, uh, delicately and smartly. And
I just love that about the way that they made
that whole show.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
So I actually have a question that might be a
shock value thing related to that. So there's a there's
a point at which your character is talking on the
phone and I think it's to his mom, and then
the other guy takes over the phone, it takes over
the conversation. Are they supposed to be brothers? Yeah, that's

(59:37):
what I thought that I was not on that.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, that's the kind of the that's the
the twist to our scene. There's yeah, and she doesn't
know that. That's kind of like the point is like
she learns that in that time too. So I think
at the end, I think at the very end, like
the credit scene, is her like scrubbing herself hard on
the shower because she's with the fact that, yeah, she's
just she just had an all night through with two brothers. Yeah,

(01:00:02):
and they're totally cool with it. They're like they took
it exactly in stride. They weren't worried about it at all,
Like literally talking on the phone to mom and then
just say like, hey, mom wants to talk to you,
and that's like like not missing a beat and she's
just like what.

Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
So I have to say, you were quite muscular in
that in that scene.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
Thanks. I used to I used to enjoy. I mean,
I still like working out, but I cross fitted for
a long time and was I like working out. I mean,
that's one of the things I appreciate. That's one of
the reasons that I like checking out what you got
going on too, is I appreciate lifting heavy, and I
appreciate I don't have the chance to have as much
like my physique. Is it maybe what I had time
to make it or the motivation or focus or whatever

(01:00:48):
to make it, you know before in my life. But
I do think of it like it's something that I love.
It's a way to get stuff, it's a way to
deal with stuff, you know, it's a way to keep active.
And yeah, I love working out. It's always a a
fun place to put focus.

Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
I heard you staying there your podcast that you you're
boxing again, and I just want to thank you for it.
Not being Jiu jitsu, not that I have anything against
jiu jitsu, but it's like become a little bit or
maybe a lot of a cliche.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
Yeah, it definitely has. And look, I'm not going to
act like I didn't look for BJJ jim around that
I could have gotten into some more of it, but
it wasn't it wasn't accessible, so I just stuck with boxing.
And I do I agree with you though, there's a
real like the kind of like optimized world has also
taken a real liking to jiu jitsu, which which they

(01:01:45):
should and could I mean, an incredible sport, incredible art.
But yeah, it's definitely on a trend wave right now
for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
Yeah, we here in Sacramento, we had or have have
had your favor.

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
You UFC Focus.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
I knew you know, the the building that our gym
is in now was another gym years ago and a
lot of those people came in for conditioning work with
a with a friend of ours and uh so got
to meet a lot of those guys and hang out
a little bit or whatever. We had Aryah on this
show so years ago, four or five years ago, and

(01:02:28):
I don't know if you would pick me out of
a crowd now, but I do, I do know it sort.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
Of so.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
In in something of a conclusion, there's like, the world
is very crazy right now and it's divisive in a
way that I have a difficult time understanding. And there's
a component to it that has to do with that.
With entertainment, my wife and I went to see I

(01:03:02):
don't know if you know who Samin Nocerat is Salt
Fat Acid Heat.

Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
So she and Rashie Shrway, who does the Song Exploder podcast.
He was on West Wing Weekly for a long time
and they started a podcast during COVID and they did
it was very limited run. It was only supposed to
be like four episodes, and now they've done like twenty
something episodes over like four or five years, just as

(01:03:31):
as time allows. They come on to do a podcast
about cooking, which is called Home Cooking, and she is
releasing an or just released a new book a many
years later, follow up to Salt Fat Act Heat, And
they did an event in San Francisco over the weekend
that my wife and I went to. Theater was full,

(01:03:54):
it was like sold out, a ton of people and
I'm sitting there wondering, like, what is it about about
this that I enjoy? And like, I mean, I'm not
a cook, but I do cook, but I'm not like
a cook. This is not not my obsession. I don't
think about all this stuff all the time. So what

(01:04:14):
what am I enjoying about this? Well? They're both very warm.
They they're not they don't use divisive language about anything. Uh,
They're very focused on making people feel good about about
what they're talking about. Rishi is like awesome at constructing

(01:04:38):
content because he put together this, you know, the way
the show flowed and it was it was like it
was funny and it was informative and it was just
it was just perfect. And then I asked myself, well,
like a content creator was killed last year, and my

(01:04:59):
engagement with that contact content was was pretty minimal outside
of a few things. And I know I didn't enjoy it,
but some people obviously do. And I don't know what's
different about people who enjoy like one type of entertainment

(01:05:20):
you can't take. I don't think we can take entertainment
out of politics in twenty twenty five, and we haven't
been able to for a long time, and our elections
seemed to be one on often on the candidate's presentation
and the way that they connect to an audience. So
I just wonder what your thoughts are on that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
Yeah, uh, it's it's hard to not feel sometimes like
the divisiveness. Also like once you once you see it happening,
and because I'm kind of with you, like it feels,
it makes me feel kind of crazy. Sometimes I think
that I think that there are some big, bigger, kind

(01:06:06):
of more universal things at play. I think that it
is anger. So my therapist always says, and has got
it drilled into my head that anger is a secondary emotion.
Anger is always a reaction to another feeling. Often it's
sadness or fear or whatever else is happening. But anger
is a protective secondary emotion. But that takes work to see.

(01:06:29):
It takes the time, it takes the willingness, it takes
the effort to notice that that's true and then to
dissect it beyond that even and I think that what
ends up happening is not because people are dumb or lazy,
but just the easier it is. It is it takes
less work, and so it is by definition easier to
let the anger lead than to figure out why the

(01:06:50):
anger is there and to do self reflection because of
that anger. So anger is an easily weaponized feeling, it's
an easily cohesy, cohesing, cohesive bringing people together. It's an
easy thing to get together on. It's hating the same
thing is a thing that can really bond people. And
so I think that kind of to scale. And I

(01:07:13):
think that some of these content creators who have big
platforms some of that is because of the anger that
they're able to gin up that they are able to generate.
Instead of looking at any of it and say, why
are we scared of these things? Why are we you know,
should we look into this further? And should any should

(01:07:33):
we be paying attention to the fact that this content
creator is is is using miss is just lying, is
just using non facts all the time to make their points.
Should we be looking into that or should we just
recognize that it makes us feel good to be angry
at the same thing, and so we're just going to
stay angry at it and then let that anger keep
going and frothing and grow wider. And I just think

(01:07:57):
that because because even on a more progressed, more you know,
understanding ish side of things. It's still even for me
as a creator, it is I am nine times out
of ten. Part of this is human nature. Part of
this is the algorithm itself wanting to build things. You know,
I think that it's become pretty clear that negative energy
fuels more views, keeps people locked in more so it

(01:08:18):
sells more ad space. So it's like it's more profitable
to keep people angry. So part of its human nature.
Part of it is being exponentially gassed up by the
algorithms and by you know, computers. But it my reels
even do better when there is a call out of someone,
or there's a finger point at someone, or there's something

(01:08:39):
kind of sassy to it. There's some kind of like
chest puffing of some kind. You know, even if it's
from a progressive perspective, if it is like kind of
picking a fight. In fact, literally inviting Nick flint As
to a fight is probably my biggest real ever. You know,
that one went nuts. I was painting my nails and
inviting Nick flint As to meet me for a chair

(01:09:00):
boxing match, and that one went big time. Because people
it anger is easy to connect on, and anger is
easy to it's it's it's it's easier to feel anger
than to figure out where that anger is coming from.
And I think that there are plenty of creators at
the at the content creation level and at the actual
political leadership level that recognize that, and instead of trying

(01:09:21):
to motivate people to move past that, it would rather
weaponize it and monetize it and stay right there at
the anger point. And I you know, I that without
any moral statement one by the other, when you do that,
you're going to end up with a lot of anger
and anger. People are going to do things out of anger,
and you end up with violent situations and angry situations

(01:09:44):
that are that are that can't be undone.

Speaker 1 (01:09:47):
Yeah, that you can't control. Yeah, yeah, because I I
I don't feel and find that those appeals work on
me for either side, to be honest, Like, if I
get angry again, it's over with pretty quickly because I
started thinking about the logic behind it, and like, what
you know, But let me ask you a lifted related
a lifting related question that ties back to this. If

(01:10:11):
you were going to like hit a big squad or
a big bench or whatever, or a deadlift, are you
the type of person who would have to hype up
for that or will you just walk in and go.

Speaker 2 (01:10:24):
That's a good question, I am. It depends. I guess.
I look back through my history and if I if
I did it right now, I would not be lifting
too heavy. But I was trying to max out on
something I feel like. I feel like my Olympic lifts.
I kind of jazz up for I would get get
in a while, pump the blood up, I would get

(01:10:44):
things moving because I want to step up to the
bar and not think at all about what comes next.
And I want to have everything pumping and being able
to move and drop onto this weight. But if I'm squatting,
I don't. I'm mean, I have to focus in you know,
if it's if, it's if if the if. I'm dealing
with the fear of what if I get stuck under here?
What if this actually goes poorly?

Speaker 1 (01:11:04):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):
Like that, then I don't get hype. But I don't
want to be at all out of control. I want
to be locked in and and you know, like music,
I'm all over the place. Sometimes I want louchdown. That's
gonna make me go. And then like sometimes I like
working out in silence. Sometimes I like working out with
no music at all, and just like being really chill
about it. I kind of feel like I can, I
can tap into any and all of those things. But

(01:11:25):
for if I was going to deadlift, I was gonna squat,
If I was gonna bench and I was trying to
like max out of PR I would not. I would
I would say pretty pretty tightly focused and not not
amp up big time or stomp or scream or hit
myself or whatever, you know, And I, you know, like
do what you gotta do to get yourself there. I'm

(01:11:46):
not no judgment one way or another, but I definitely
And it's funny as I'm saying that out loud now
to be honest, as I make my long answer longer.
I most back when I did more CrossFit and I
did more Olympic lifts, all of those prs were for
an audience, not not not on you know, at the
games or whatever, but just at the gym, Like there's
people around watching and I'm going to hit a new

(01:12:07):
clean and jerk PR and that environment gears me up
so that I'm like almost subconsciously putting on a show
for everyone because that helps me get there, you know.
But now I'm in the gym by myself trying to
max out a squad, and that's just going to stay
focused on lockdown and not amped.

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
Up for it. I in two thousand and six ish
started actually late two thousand and five or early two
thousand and six, started shooting Powerless thing in the gym,
you know, like anyway, it was a it was kind
of a team environment of even though it's in your
individual sport or whatever. And so that's I mean, other

(01:12:46):
than the first podcast I did, that's kind of what
if Cymphony knows me, that's what they know me for.
And I always felt like every night, that or that
it was always on night or sometimes sometimes afternoon, sometimes
mornings whatever, whenever, every session was like an episode. It
was it was an episode for me because I was
cutting it together, yeah you know, and it was voiced

(01:13:07):
over and whatever, but it was also an episode for them.
It was a performance among their peers. So it's just
just exactly what you're saying. And some people approached it
differently than you know, the other. Some people really needed
to be hyped up, they needed to get slapped or whatever.
You know, they had to hit a lot of a

(01:13:29):
lot of ammonia, you know, just like smelling sauce all
that stuff, and and I just seldom was that guy,
like I didn't care what the music was. And like
the first power listing meat that I did, like I
was kind of coaching me, like stuck a ammonia cap
and under my nose before I went out for my deadlift.

(01:13:49):
It's like I couldn't even see where the freaking bar
was at that point, I let alone pay any attention
to crowd or anything. It's like, how am I going
to get this off the floor when I can't see straight?
Just kind of I don't know. This is not how
my how my how my mind works, on my my
my nervous system works. But I get it from other people.
It's fine. It's just it's just that I just am

(01:14:12):
not the guy that that kind of thing works for.

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
I guess I don't know that's funny.

Speaker 1 (01:14:18):
But speaking of enjoying enjoying content, I enjoy what you
and Tom do together on the on the podcast. It's
most of the time, I don't think that the I
don't think that the sexuality component has anything to do
with it at all, other than him, you know, crushing
on you after twenty years so and after seeing your

(01:14:40):
butt in that episode, like, I get it, I get it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:43):
Thanks man, I appreciate that full home. Oh, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:50):
All right, Well, thank you very much. I enjoyed this
like more than I can actually tell you.

Speaker 2 (01:14:55):
Well, thanks man, it was really fun. I really appreciate
you having man.

Speaker 1 (01:14:58):
Yeah, appreciate it. So where can people find you on.

Speaker 2 (01:15:01):
The You can find me and my my solo act
at j Greg Underscore Jonathan on Instagram and also on TikTok,
but I'm also not any good at that, so it's
like there, it exists, but Instagram is where I pay
attention because it's what I understand. And then no homopod
uh as ours our pod page with Jonathan. It's the
No Homo Podcast with Jonathan Tom on YouTube and all

(01:15:23):
of your favorite podcast platforms, and on Instagram it's No
Homo Pod. I think I should probably look that up
before I came on, but I think that's right.

Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
I can. I can correct that in the show notes.
I can't like, AI, you're into your mouth or anything,
but actually somebody well, okay, so five plus years ago,
my my podcast and business partner and I were approached
by this company to have clones vocal clones made yes
to to do ad reads so so they could just

(01:15:54):
be programmatically inserted. Yeah, like but it was it was
going to cost us like ten grand apiece. And now
people are doing it at home, like you know, yeah, yeah,
this is crazy. And then another content creator, somebody I
know that has lost like he lost two hundred pounds
or something like that, and he's kept it off for
several years. But he was showing a clip where they

(01:16:15):
had changed his voice so that he was speaking Spanish
and they had actually done the lips as well, and
somebody just brought this to his attention. Wow, so it's
like matched his mouth. It's like, this is we were
living in the weirdest time.

Speaker 2 (01:16:29):
Yeah, for sure, it's a crazy time. For sure. That's nuts.

Speaker 1 (01:16:32):
All right. I am at the Jim mcdehon all the
social media. The show is fifty percent facts. Percent is
a word in fifty. It's just numbers, fifty percent facts.
It's a speaker Prime podcast association with I Heeart Media
on the Obscure Celebrity Network And I'll talk to you
next week.

Speaker 2 (01:16:45):
Thanks again, Jonathan, Yeah, thanks so much. Man,

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Navigating Parenthood and Performance | Guest: Jonathan Gregg