Ep. 16 - Phil Mayo: Our Stories are Incomplete Journeys - A Life in Six Songs

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
like it has to come to that moment and you do it
right.
The only way, like if somebodysaid, oh, I can do that for you.
You know, what goes off in myhead is like you say that.
You say that.
You know.
It's like when you're orderingthai hot, it looks really good
on the menu.
It looks like a good idea whenit just says those two words on

(00:24):
the menu you know, 12 hourslater it's you say that.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
Hey everybody, welcome to A Life in Six Songs.
I'm your host, david Rees, andI'm joined by my co-hosts,
carolina and Raza.
Hey, hey, hello For those ofyou new to the podcast.
On each episode we embark on anepic adventure with our guests
to find the songs that are stuckto us like audible tattoos,

(01:29):
that tell the story of who weare and where we've been, to
help us understand where we'regoing.
It's a life story told throughsix songs.
We come to these conversationswith love, kindness and
curiosity to counter theprevalence of hate, anger and
judgment we see in the world.
Our guiding view with a nod toTed Lasso is be curious, not

(01:52):
judgmental.
Our goal is that by listeningto these stories, you can bring
more love, kindness andcuriosity into your own life.
With that, let's go have alisten together.
Our guest today is Phil Mayo.
Phil works in the preservationtrades, restoring historic wood
windows and doors.
He and his family currentlyreside in rural Northwest Iowa

(02:17):
where they are restoring their1912 arts and crafts house.
Earlier in his life, Philserved as an infantryman in the
Marine Corps and he and I metwhile both pursuing graduate
work in philosophy at theUniversity of Oregon,
specifically when we weretogether on a workshop on human
rights at Oxford University.
When not doing restoration work, phil enjoys gardening, bread

(02:37):
making and writing.
Phil, welcome to A Life in SixSongs.
Bill, welcome to A Life in Six.
Songs.
Hi, Great Thanks for being on.
We're excited to get into yoursix songs and hear the stories
attached to them.
But before we get into your six, just to kind of warm us up and

(03:02):
get going, you know what is itabout music and the role it
plays in your life.
That's wanted you to say yes tobeing on this show.
Like, how do you see musicfitting in your life?

Speaker 1 (03:28):
background, like what would politely be called a high
control group, and I think oneof the things about that like
all of our worship services andeverything like that like there
was always singing and so and mymom played piano, my dad played
guitar and oftentimes in thesesmall churches, like the worship
team is the husband and wifepastoral team, you know.
So we just kind of always hadmusic in the house, you know,

(03:50):
and we were singing at churchall the time and things like
that and so like that was, it'salways been a part of my life
but because of the nature oflike the religious beliefs, like
I was never exposed as a youngkid until I was like 12 or 13 to
like secular music and it wasjust because, like I, I had some

(04:14):
friends we'll probably talkabout this with the fourth
chamber song but like I had somefriends and they were like all
in kids that I grew up with inthe neighborhood that we lived
in in Chicago at the time andthey were like into hip hop I
grew up with in the neighborhoodthat we lived in in Chicago at
the time and they were like intohip hop and like you're playing
baseball or whatever andthere's a stereo there and it
gets playing and I liked it, youknow what I mean.
Like it resonated with me andit was something that we could

(04:38):
all share.
You know, beyond like justplaying you know basketball or
whatever playing you knowbasketball or whatever.
And from hip hop, you know, likehip hop in the 90s is like
sample laden, you know, and likethere are these snippets of
these songs that are comingthrough like a piano riff or a
bass riff, where you're justlike what is that?

(04:58):
What is that sound?
And like my friends all knew,oh, that's Steely Dan, you know,
or that's Lou Reed, you know.
But my response to that, oh,that's steely dan, you know, or
that's lou reed, you know.
And but my response to thatwould be I have to go find that
um right, right so not only isthe hip, pop new to you.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
But the things being sampled are like what is that?

Speaker 1 (05:16):
and you gotta go back that is referencing that whole
music history of pop music, rockmusic and jazz in america, like
it's all being referenced inhip hop, and so that just got me
in.
I would hear a sample and Iwould have to figure out what it
was and then find a way tolisten to it.
And then Tower Records blesstheir 90s soul.
You could listen to anything inthe store, right.

(05:41):
So, I would.
Okay, here's this, that's wherethis trumpet line is from.
I want to go hear that song,and so I go to Tower Records,
find the CD, you know, go in thelistening booth and bam and put
it in.
I'm not a musician, so musichasn't shaped my life in that

(06:12):
way, but it's always been such apart of my life.
In a worship service, the musicis intended to give you an
experience.
One of the most problematicaspects of that kind of
religious belief is that it'svery manipulative.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
problematic aspects of that kind of religious belief
is like it's very manipulative.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
You know the whole, the whole sequence of a worship
service and then like an altarcall and things like that.
So like being the sort of personwho was already like primed for
that, like attuned to that, andthen to just be able to hear a
song and have a transcendentexperience like that, but just
because of the way that the songsounded or how it resonates
with you, or like vibes with aparticular moment, um, and when

(06:49):
you came up with the idea forthis podcast, it was just like,
yeah, that's a, that's, it's agreat way to do two things at
once, you know, to talk about,like pieces of music that are
important to you in anon-critical way, and be able to
talk about things in your lifethat might otherwise be hard to
talk about, you know, and so,yeah, that like it.

(07:12):
As soon as you came up with theidea, I was seriously like kind
of fingers crossed like mandave I hope he puts me on there
because it was just like it'sjust like I want to be a part of
that.
You know, like, not like I haveanything important to say.
It was like that's such a goodthing to like even have a record
of somewhere, right, just like,like jason is bill said we

(07:33):
talked about this in our introphone call.
Right, there's only one truestory here's my life, there's
yours like, let's compare, and Ithink this is a really cool way
of doing that.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
Oh, that's awesome.
Thanks for the shout out forthat.
No, I really appreciate the wayyou connected that of sort of
like, you know, in the churchenvironment, sort of created
that like connection to music,right, you said, and in an
almost manipulative way.
Right, almost in a manipulativeway.
Right, we've had other gueststalk about that of like you know

(08:05):
, church being their firstexposure to music but at the
same time being very restrictive, right, lots of musicians,
right, learn to play in thechurch, right, they play in the
church band and things like that, and then they get exposed to
other stuff and boom they, youknow, they blow up in ways or
whatever.
And I love how the way youtalked about too, of sort of
being like almost like like amusic kind of treasure hunter,

(08:29):
explorer, right, hearing things,and you're like, I got to find
out more, I got to find outwhere.
That is right and that wasreally cool to hear.
So I'm going to pass it over toCarolina and let's get right
into that, that first song ofyours, and hear more about it.
So, carolina, what's our?
first, our first question.

Speaker 5 (08:47):
Our first question is what's a song that, when you
hear it, you're just instantlytransported to, like a specific
time or place.
What's that song?

Speaker 1 (08:58):
So the song is the fourth chamber, it's by the
genius, or just a.
He's a member of the Wu Tangclan.
This is off his solo album.
And, um, yeah, I, without goingtoo much into the history and
the lore of it, like there werea bunch of wu-tang solo albums
right after the big album andthis one just, I think everybody
has their favorite one, butthis one, just like, it struck

(09:22):
me on so many levels and I hadnever heard anything like it.
You know, sonically, thelyricism on the album is very
poetic and complex and it justreally hit me.
And then the thing that I thinkabout, like, with this song,
and I don't know why this memorysticks with me, but like, if

(09:42):
you grew up in Chicago in thenineties, you rode on one of the
green buses and they aredifferent in kind from the buses
that exist in Chicago now theywere just, I mean, they were old
, like probably from the 60s orthe 70s was, when they were
modern and they had, like thisvery sort of like, like, almost

(10:05):
like a soft trapezoidal shape.
So the front and the back of thebus, you know, like this and
the windows mimicked it and theonly way the bus had air
conditioning was you had toslide both of the windows like
this and it created like thisparticular.
You have to just have to haveridden on one of these buses
like.
If there's anybody that everhears this that grew up in

(10:27):
chicago in the 90s are going togo.
Yes, I know exactly what he'stalking about.
It's like a feeling of thesummer breeze and like being on
one of those buses in that hardplastic seat and just like
getting on after school.
And it was like man myheadphones, I hit the back seat
of the bus, my headphones wenton and I was just like somewhere
else.
You know, and this song inparticular is just like the

(10:51):
first verse.
The story that Ghostface tellsis just it's beautiful.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
Let's, let's take a quick listen and go back on the
bus with you.
How does it feel?

Speaker 5 (11:26):
to listen to it again now.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
It's just insane.
I don't often hear it throughheadphones anymore.
That makes it particularlyresonant.
It's just, I've heard thatwhole first verse.
I just know verbatim.
I can stand at the grill andgrill hamburgers and just say it

(11:49):
Because I've heard it so much.
But it's yeah, every time I hearthat song if it comes on when
I'm in the shop or I just get itin my ear and have to hear it
I'm just immediately in thatplace, like I'm on back of the
bus and there's wind in my faceand there's this crazy story
happening in my headphones andthe way that stall is.

(12:14):
And then why is the sky blue?
Why is water wet?
Why did Judas rap to Romanswhile Jesus slept?
That's an underappreciated kindof poetry, you know, and I never
heard anything like that and Icould just get like once I knew
I had to listen to it to get it.
Then I could just, like I said,I get on the back of the bus

(12:37):
and I was just somewhere else.
I was in the middle of thisstory and trying to figure it
out, you know.
But yeah, I, ah, I love thatsong.
It's yeah, it has.
And the crazy thing about thatsong too is it has like the mind
other than ghostface it has.
Like the minor members ofwu-tang on it and it it's like
it's their best verses you know,people talk about this, like

(13:01):
that song is so dope that kill apriest verse is good on it.
You know, it's like everybody,everybody just hit and the beat
and it's just yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
It's so easy to go back there yeah, I love the
story you you set up for us oflike the school bus and and the
environment on it and how likethat was key and how, like the
song you know puts you backthere.
You know, we, we buy, you knowthrough, through doing the show
and doing interviews, we, wekeep identifying these sort of

(13:36):
similarities with people, nomatter where they were in the
world.
Or you know things like that ofof these moments where music
seems to kind of find us right.
Whether it's driving in yourparents' car, whether it's a
cousin bringing an album to youor something like that or like
this on the school bus, eitherthat was your time to put your

(13:56):
own music on and kind of be withit, or that's where you got
exposed to other music, eitherfriends or I know.
For me, in my story, it was thebus driver playing music and it
was just like what is this, youknow, amazing, and so I just
love that of how it places, youknow you right there and I think
so many of us can can have thatour own moment and go.

(14:17):
Oh yeah, I remember being onthe bus and here the first time
I heard this artist, this typeof music, whatever it might be.
What was kind of like with you,how you set it up, of like
being raised in sort of a veryrestrictive, religious, you know
upbringing, and then now you'relistening to like Wu Tang and
things like that.

(14:38):
What was that like for you, wasit?
You know?
How did hearing the morepopular music make you reflect
on your upbringing?
Was it just like, oh, there'sjust more out there, or was it
was there like, was there anyresentment to being kind of more
restricted growing up?

Speaker 1 (14:59):
I don't.
I mean, that's an interestingquestion.
I'm not sure I have an answer,but I'll try.
I think that part of theexperience was just being able
to hear about something that allof the other kind of music that

(15:22):
you're exposed to you know isnot describing that reality.
But, when you're a kid andyou're growing up in Chicago in
a neighborhood that is eatenalive with homelessness and
heroin, Right Like I'm beingtold that there's this glorious

(16:04):
reality, right, but the realitythat I'm actually living in is
reflected in these songs.
You know, like, and I think thatlike it took me a long time,
like I lost my faith before Iresented my religion, and part
of the difficulty of losing myfaith was that it wasn't because
of resentment, you know, it wasother things and it took me a
while to resent it, you know,until I realized, like part of
the reason you know that I had adifficult time recovering was

(16:24):
because I still had so much ofthat internalized.
So I didn't like resent therestriction of the religion,
because, like I had headphones,you know, and a backpack Right,
and I kept my tapes, and then itwas like, but they were like
these two distinct realities,you know that like you had this
religious reality that you livedin all the time and then you

(16:48):
had your headphones and the busride, yeah, you know, and to
like hear these things and beexposed to them.
And then I think like past,like my sophomore year of high
school, I think really I was, Iwas into all kinds of music, you
know, like there were evenchristian music that I really

(17:08):
liked, you know, bands that Ilistened to and things like that
and like so then it just becamelike just part of a stoop, you
know, and yeah like it got to apoint where it was like the the
christian hip-hop artists that Iwas listening to are
referencing right, wu-tang andTribe Called Quest and these
other groups.
Just the way that hip-hop works.

(17:29):
Eventually, this is all justmeshing together.
It's all part of the music stew.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
It almost sounds like there wasn't a sort of conflict
that made you have to choose.
Like you said, you had yourbook bag and your headphones,
and then church and that musicand there wasn't a conflict that
made you have to like, becausesometimes there's stories of
people who, like you, you get,you get a hold of a wu-tang tape
or something like that and yourparents might smash it and say

(17:57):
don't ever do you know what Imean things like that and that
forces you to have to thenchoose.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah, that that would have happened, you know, if
they weren't like there was areason they were in the backpack
.
You know, right, definitelylike it was music that my father
did not approve of.
Yeah, you know, um, and that,like I said, that was heavily
controlled for a long time, youknow yeah, you know yeah, but

(18:23):
yeah, I can resonate with thatexperience as well, you know.

Speaker 7 (18:29):
I'm going to give a little anecdote, to kind of jump
in here for a second, becauseit was so.
I did not grow up in America, Igrew up in Pakistan in the 80s
and 90s and it's an Islamicrepublic, I mean it's, it's a,
you know, there's a democracy ofsorts and there's all sorts of
things, but so over there we hadaccess to pop culture which was

(18:51):
always American, right.
But then you always have theselike undertones of religious,
muslim, islamic sort of guidance.
Let's just call it that sort ofum, uh, guidance, let's just
call it that.
So so for the religious folks,anytime they'd see kids watching
um, like American, you know, tvshows, knight Rider, he-man,

(19:12):
whatever and listening orwatching MTV.
It's just like, oh, thosegodless people, you know, don't
listen to this stuff, it's allbad, it's all bad.
And I guarantee you, if they,if they realized you know that a
lot of that a has religiousundertones as well, it would
completely fucking blow theirminds.
They would have no idea that.

(19:32):
Oh, you know, there's praisemusic and there's this and that,
because the assumption was thatif it has guitars, drums or
samples or beats, if it soundsWestern, then it has to be
godless.

Speaker 5 (19:45):
Oh, you mean like the idea of like Christian rock or
Christian hip hop would blowtheir minds, because they're
like what Exactly?
Oh?

Speaker 7 (19:50):
I see Exactly, yeah and yeah anyway.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
So just quick little point there, the groups that I
was in when I was really young,like before I was 12, before I
was, like you know, 12 or 13,the christian groups that we
were in felt the exact same way,right, like a christian rock
artist or a christian hip-hopartist, like that's like the
tool of the enemy, right, andthey would literally that kind

(20:15):
of language.
Right, that's not glorifying togod.
Right, you're glorifying thecreator of rock music, or the
creator of hip-hop, or you know,hip-hop is about glorifying
yourself and yeah and like, therhythms of rock and roll are bad
and if you play, the recordbackwards.
It says staten and like rightand then um once we moved to

(20:38):
chicago I think my, my parentsdefinitely saw like loosened up
the reins, you know, on that andkind of like did not de
radicalize but definitely, Ithink, just understood the
reality of like living in thecity you know Right, yeah, right
and the limits like we can tryand limit this, but it's a

(21:01):
losing battle, so we just kindof have to.

Speaker 3 (21:04):
yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
But like growing up until I was yeah, like 10 or 12
we didn't have a tv in the houseyou know, stuff like that.
So yeah, it was pretty strict.
So yeah, I it's funny like Ihave this.
You know this similarexperience to what raza is
describing.
You know where it's like.
There is no such thing aschristian rock.

(21:24):
You know the similar experienceto what Raza is describing.
You know where it's like thereis no such thing as Christian
rock.
You know if it's rock, it'sjust all bad.
Right, you know Um so, yeah,it's um, it's been weird, like I
feel like all of the music thatI've that people come to over
the course of their lives youknow, I I kind of came into in

(21:47):
this compressed later period ofmy life, you know.

Speaker 5 (21:51):
So it feels a little like this this first song is is
transformative for you, but likein this good way, in this
freeing way, you're on this busand the breeze and you're like
trying something new and stufflike that.
So it feels kind of easy andeffortless and like wonderful.
For our second song we're goingto pivot a little bit, because
life isn't always easy andbreezy and and cool.
Um, so for your second song,what?

Speaker 1 (22:09):
what is that song that you struggle to listen to,
may, may need to turn it off,may have difficult memories
associated with it so this isthe secret of the easy yoke, uh,
by pedro the lion, which, whichis the band name for David
Bazan, who grew up as a pastor'skid Like, we had very similar
childhoods and he, in the early2000s, like late 90s, formed

(22:35):
this band, pedro the Lion.
It's like a Christian emo bandbut, like the lyrics were, it
was always about, like he wrotesongs about sex, he wrote songs
about gender, he wrote songsabout questioning your faith,
you know, and so for, likepeople who were in the place of
their life where I was, like,this was a form of Christian

(22:58):
music that had not been allowedto exist, you know, like,
actually, by theian musiccompanies had you could not make
, but the popularity of thisband was such that, like, they
were going to make the records,you know, and christian kids,
and it was youth group music,you know, and um, so he wrote

(23:19):
this song as he was losing hisface, um, and there's a live
version of it on youtube thatyou can track down, which is the
last time he played the songfor years and years, and years.
Somebody just shouted it out ofthe show.
He plays it.
He's like I'm never doing thatagain.
And he only recently startedplaying it at at shows again,

(23:42):
like in the last, I think, fiveor 10 years.
But what the song is about isabout the experience, of your
religious experience losing itspull on you and the sort of
devastation of that moment.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
All right, let's take a listen and we'll talk more
about it on the other side.

Speaker 6 (24:07):
Some concrete motivation when the abstract

(24:28):
could not do the same.
But if all that's left is duty,I'm falling on my sword.
On my sword at least.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
Then I would not serve an unseen, distant Lord
and the next line is someoneplease tell me the story of
sinners ransomed from the fall,which is the gospel, right?

(25:06):
And I just remember as a kidlike I grew up in a pastor's
house, right, I heard it all thetime and it never ceased to
touch me, right when I heardthat, and I lost my faith after
my second or during my seconddeployment, um, and like I know

(25:33):
exactly when it happened.
I remember that place, you know, and just sort of standing in
the middle of like prettyextreme violence and just having
this moment of realization oflike we're alone, nobody there,
nobody is watching this happenand doesn't care.

(25:56):
Nobody is watching this happenand they made it happen for some
higher purpose.
Nobody is.
We're just monkeys here andwe're just shooting the shit out
of each other and that's it.
And I came home and tried to goback to church for years with my

(26:17):
first wife and there was justnothing there.
It wasn't a.
I don't believe this anymore.
It was like that thing thatheld so much sway and pull on my
heart, like I feel nothing.

(26:38):
Right, I could be listening tosomebody read a book in Chinese
and it would hit me in the sameway.
Like I feel, this feels likenothing to me and that the way
that this song expresses thatfeeling, like he's looking at

(27:02):
church and all of the thingsthat used to, like, stir his
heart, it's not doing it anymore.
So the where he goes is like sojust tell me the gospel, right?
Just tell me the story aboutsinners ransom from the fall,
because I know that that hits me.
And you get to the end of thesong and even that is not there,

(27:23):
you know, and I I think thatlike part of it was me I can say
this now.
It wasn't conscious at the time, but part of it was certainly
me just beginning to deconstructmy faith in the light of the
experiences that I had had, likebeginning to realize, like the

(27:43):
things that I have been taughtand the way that I thought
reality was structured was notthe way that things were.
But, also there was like theemotional loss of like these
things that vitiated my life upinto adulthood are gone.
You know I don't feel itanymore.

(28:06):
Yeah, up into adulthood aregone.
You know I don't feel itanymore, yeah.
And that that was the hard loss, right, not the loss of like
the security of like a completemetaphysics, but the loss of
like this thing that hit me,that gave me purpose, that gave
meaning to the things I did inmy life, is gone can I ask a

(28:31):
question um?

Speaker 7 (28:33):
were you guys, dave?
Were you and phil deployedtogether?
So is this you?
You meant phil.
You mentioned your seconddeployment.
This is, I'm guessing.
This is like post 9-11, right,and?
And during that period of time,it's right in the.
My second deployment, this isI'm guessing.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
This is like post 9-11 right and during that
period of time it's right in the.
My second deployment was rightin the lead up and we were the
first responders to the coalbombing water.
When we got there and my fireteam were the security team for

(29:13):
the divers who were doing therecovery.
So the four of us participatedin the recovery operations and
Dave will understand like whatabout 6,000 pounds of C4 will do
to 17 people and the aftermathof that.

(29:37):
If you've ever been inside aNavy ship you know what it looks
like.
So you get a massive explosionand a massive amount of pressure
and a bunch of people who havenowhere to go but into a steel
bulkhead or a steel overhead.
So um a rough, gruesome sceneyeah, to say the least yeah and

(30:01):
like the smell of it neverleaves my nose, I like now, I
like right there, like if it'soutside the door, and I just
remember the second day I wasthere, like I was standing

(30:24):
inside the mess deck looking outof the hole and there's just
stuff like hanging from theceiling and I it was just like
nobody.
There's nobody out therethere's nobody out there.

Speaker 7 (30:36):
They that that concept, that that loneliness
concept, um is is something that, uh, I think someone referred
to it as this cosmic loneliness,and I think that that you know,
in reference to what is thepurpose of of belief and
religion and faith, it's toavoid that cosmic loneliness,

(30:56):
because if it's not faith, ifit's not god, then that there's
nothing else.
We're, we're alone in this andthat is very, very it's a scary
thought, it's the scariestthought, um, but yeah, no,
that's that's I'm yeah phil.

Speaker 3 (31:14):
Um, you know, you and I have have talked, and we've
even done work on sort of, youknow, breaking down myths around
veterans and things like that,and there's stories that people
tell about veterans or theexperience of war and it's like,
yeah, it's not always like that, and I think the story you're
telling here is is one that goesagainst a myth or a prevalent

(31:38):
trope out there of you know,there's no atheists and foxholes
, right?
This idea of when it is thatbad and, like you described,
we're just monkeys killing eachother and stuff.
When it gets that bad, that'swhen your faith is the strongest
, and what you're saying isbasically the opposite of that.
That extreme experience is whatkind of broke it down for you

(32:02):
is what kind of broke it downfor you?
And so I was just curious ifyou could say maybe a little bit
more about that of how you viewthat slogan of you know, no
atheists and foxholes, orsomething like that, and how you
view it in your own you knowexperience of this loss of faith
.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Yeah, I mean, it didn't take me very long, like
in the military, to realize likethere were lots of atheists in
the foxholes.
But like, yeah, like Idefinitely have had my own
experience.
So I want to, I don't want to,you know, go the other way and

(32:39):
say that this is the model Ofcourse, veteran experience.
Right, right, like I didn'tknow, I didn't see anybody on
their knees when it was go time.
You know what?
I mean um, but definitely like,and, and I think the marine
corps maybe is a, you know, themarine corps culty, you know,

(33:00):
like we believe in the marinecorps, you know, and um, so,
yeah, I think, like, for me, um,it was definitely that moment
of it put you know this, dave,like, war is like a sort of

(33:28):
distillation of the humanexperience, right, and like,
when you're in the middle of it,you understand that, like, the
causes of it are global povertyand the circumstances where wars
occur right are circumstanceswhere, like, extreme realities
of the world that we live in areall present and that's why

(33:50):
there's a war going on there,right?
This is a place.
That has reached the boilingpoint, right, right, and you see
the reality of the world in aclearer and different way, and I
think it probably pushes peoplein two directions.
Some people, like Raza says,they want to have that escape.
Right, tell me that there'ssomething beyond this, because

(34:13):
this is awful, right, myexperience was there are more
people like me who see this andare just like I don't know
what's out there, but at veryleast it doesn't care.
And it seems like there'snothing Right and like I, I

(34:36):
think, rather than saying likethat expression there are no
atheists in foxholes is wrong.
I think the thing that I wantto push back against is like and
it goes in with like like dave,you and I have talked about
like thanking culture, right,like it's a way of like
co-opting the experience of theveteran in front of you rather

(34:57):
than just letting them havetheir experience of that thing
you know, right, and it's likepeople want to ask you the
question like, oh, what did youshoot somebody?
Or oh, that was horrible, whatwas that?
Like they don't want theanswers to those questions, you
know that.
Or the answer right, which islike you know it made me

(35:18):
question my faith.
You know they want to hear likeoh, that was so terrible.
It's like everybody knows itwas terrible.
I I'm not like.
It made me lose my faith, youknow Right.
And like is this something wewant?
Are these the circumstances weshould want to be putting people
into?

(35:38):
You know, if this is the priceof my lifestyle, my lifestyle
worth it, you know.
But you like deny veterans theability to have their personal
experiences and you pretend likethese experiences are
monolithic in some way.
Right, and you don't people wantto fit it into their own idea

(36:01):
and own story yeah, and youdon't want to have to accept
that, like this person in frontof you isn't like just a site of
violence, like the person infront of you is the consequences
of your choices.
Mm.
You know and like you'reengaging in a behavior that
keeps you from having toconfront those you know.
Mm-hmm.

(36:22):
My presence as a veteran, thenecessity of somebody like me,
should be a provocation topeople.
Not I want to be like thatperson and do what they did.
But if the existence of aperson like Phil right, like if
the existence of that person isnecessary, right, and the

(36:42):
emotional toll that that personhas to pay to go do that job is
necessary for me to live thelife that I have, do I need to
make changes and the way wetreat veterans like?
Veterans have had thatexperience right, I've had to go
somewhere and do something thatmade me question the

(37:04):
foundations of who I was.
But the way that we treatveterans when they come back
home with, like, thankingculture and valorizing
militarism and things like thatkeeps us from having as citizens
who don't go do that job.
It keeps us from having toourselves have that experience

(37:26):
when we're confronted with them.
Having had that experience forour sake you know, yeah.

Speaker 7 (37:37):
So this is a question for both veterans, I guess.
Do you guys think that thatthat thinking culture, and and
and non veterans or sort of laypeople that that have not had
your experience, do you thinkthat that that that will change,
like over time, they will gainan understanding?

(38:00):
And here's the reason why Iasked the question.
I'm clearly not a veteran,right?
I mean, and I want to ask thisin a way that is, you know, with
humility and not to offendanyone, but I feel like there is
a sort of cyclical nature ofthings, like history repeats

(38:24):
itself a lot of times.
I'm a parent and I'm seeing,you know, I've got, I've got a
teen son and you know, forexample, if my son is
considering, like collegeoptions and things like that,
I'm thinking back to when my boy, dave from high school, was a
gator and then this horrific,you know, historical event
happened, which was nine 11,that caused him to join and

(38:46):
enlist and, and and in a servicecountry and things like that,
and I'm seeing all sorts ofturmoil now as a parent, now in,
you know, in the world, um, andI'm torn between, you know, on
the one hand, uh, you know,joining the military and joining
the armed forces is, is, is anoption for him, but he doesn't

(39:06):
have the insight and theexperience that that that people
from my generation have,veterans or not, that war is.
It's terrible, it.
It causes all sorts of turmoiland and and and the folks that
that enlist to do the rightthing, the experience that they
have there, that they come backwith, and a lot, of, a lot of a

(39:26):
lot of guys don't make it backRight, how do you, how do you
grapple with all of that?
How do you juggle with all ofthat?
How do you what?
Which?
How should the next generationlike, approach all of this in in
like a holistic way?
I don't know a holistic way.

(39:47):
I don't know how would you guysadvise?
You know people, um, lay,people, who, who, who think that
you know, yeah, war is overthere, go fix stuff, go blow
shit up and then whateverhappens happens.
How do you guys reconcile that?
How do you guys, you know what?
What advice would you give?

Speaker 3 (40:00):
I'm going to defer to phil to start, since is our
guest, and then I will jump inafter Phil's like damn it.

Speaker 5 (40:08):
I wanted you to go first.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
Unless.
Phil, you want to pass thebaton over to me?
That's fine, I will defer toyou and your choice.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
The Marines always have to go first.
So I mean I've had to do thisfor a couple of cousins and one
he was like I'm had to do thisfor a couple of cousins and and
one he was like I'm gonna go.
He told his mom I want to gokill Arabs and his mom was like
you need to call your cousinPhil and he was like no, I'm not

(40:38):
gonna do that.
Um, right, he has not me, buthe has not joined.
He has not joined up.
I think that there are aspectsof my service of which I'm very
proud.
I mean I have it tattooed on myarm the Memorial Day events

(41:01):
here and you know, marine Corpsbirthday.
My buddies and I are textingone another.
I that camaraderie and thatbrotherhood like even though,
like at this point, like we havepretty intense disagreement,
like political disagreements,but I know, like for the guys

(41:25):
that I keep in touch with, if Icalled them they would be here,
you know and like thatcamaraderie and that brotherhood
, there are not many placeswhere you get that you can have
that in the military withouthaving to have a combat
experience experience.

(41:47):
I think the way that we valorizewarfighting and combat
experiences in this country isreally problematic, like I wish
that I had never seen what I saw, and it did not make me a man
or a better person, it was justhorrible, you know.

(42:11):
So I think, if you're lookingat it as some kind of like, if
you're looking at it from theperspective of like, say like a
professional athlete or like arunner, right, I'm like.
This is like a like.
I want to just see if I can dothis Right.
Can I become a?
Can I make it there?
Can I do that?

(42:31):
Can I earn that and do my jobfor four years and become a
fricking fuel technician orwhatever like for four years and
become a freaking fueltechnician or whatever like,
where you can come out withskills.
It's a perfectly viable path andthey will do that for you and
you'll come out of that with youknow, having understood things

(42:53):
that will serve you while laterin life, about initiative and
camaraderie and loyalty andhonor and what those things
really mean.
If you're going into it with amindset that you have to prove
yourself in some way through thetest of combat, the experience

(43:15):
for you is not going to be good.
The jobs that you're going tohave are going to be the jobs
that do that and I'm very proudof being a Marine.
You know, one of the reasons Idon't I don't like being thanked
on top of the things that we'vealready talked about is like

(43:35):
I'm a Marine.
I don't need somebody tovalidate that experience for me.
I was there.
I did it.
They put an Eagle Globe andanchor in my hand on top of the
big hill that we hiked up.
You know, like I was in bootcamp.
I got thrashed by StaffSergeant Halkovich every day.
Every day I was there.

(43:59):
I don't need somebody tovalidate that experience for me.
So I'm very, I'm intenselyproud of it.
I'm protective of it, but, likeeverything else in my life, I'm
critical of it and I reservethe right to be critical of it
and to tell people like there'sa right and wrong reason to do
this, and the experience thatyou have, to a large degree, is

(44:20):
going to be dictated by thosereasons, by why you're doing it
and what you're doing it for.
You know, I wanted I need amoney for college, right, so
that was like.
And I was going nowhere in thelife that I was living, so it
was like, why don't we do this?
Flip side of that also was likewell, if I'm going to join the

(44:42):
military, I'm going to join thehardest branch.
And if I'm going to join thehardest branch, I'm going to be
in the infantry.
I had the asvab score to dowhat I wanted and I chose to be
an infantryman.
And my recruiter told me to myface I was was a fucking moron.
Yeah, he's like you could.
He's like you could go work inthe air wing.
He's like they'll put you inHawaii for four years.

(45:03):
I was like no, this is what Iwant to do.
And he's like you're a fuckingmoron.
And he signed the thing and offI went.
You know, but yeah, but yeah.
So I think to answer I hope thatanswers your question.
Rather, it's like yourmotivations for doing it and the
choices you make about whatyou're going to do when you're

(45:24):
there dictate the kind ofexperience that you're going to
have.
You know, and certainly somethings are beyond your control.
You know you might sign up forthe air wing and you end up in
ordnance tech and you're goingto be living in the desert for a
while, but you're also going tobe on an air force base that
isn't within range of anythingthat they've got.

(45:46):
You know, um, but you're goingto be deployed and you're going
to have a hard.
You're going to have a hardtime, you know but, I think it.
It depends on your like I said,your motivations and what you
choose to do when you get there.
I would never tell anybody thatwasn't.
If you're like I want to gokill people, I'm going to tell

(46:06):
you, like, don't do this,because even if you get to do
that, you're going to bedisappointed.
But if people have otherlegitimate, you know I want them
to pay for law school.
Okay, good, jag Corps sucks andthose dudes are dicks, but I'll
pay for your law school, youknow Right.

Speaker 7 (46:29):
So it's yeah, it's what you make of.
It is what it sounds like.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
It's what you make of it and why you're doing it, you
know, and it's just likecollege, you know.
If you choose to become aphilosophy major.
This is what you make of it andwhy you're doing it.
It's just like college If youchoose to become a philosophy
major.
This is what you're going toend up doing.

Speaker 7 (46:47):
I appreciate that.
That's really good perspective.

Speaker 3 (46:56):
I pretty much agree with everything Phil said.
I feel the same way, especiallythe thing about motivations and
what your motivation is to go.
I think a lot of us join forfucked up reasons.
Right, we're trying to fillsome kind of void.
We're trying to overcome someprevious trauma, some kind of

(47:16):
void.
We're trying to overcome someprevious trauma.
We're trying to, like Phil said, not prove something to ourself
, necessarily that I can do it,but prove something to other
people.
We're trying to.
I'm tough enough, I'm manenough, I'm big enough, whatever
it might be.
And so I think motivation ishuge.
I also think, in the US context,as long as the you know, in the

(47:38):
US context, as long as the USis the you know global hegemon
and you know militarism andmilitary bases everywhere, and
we want to keep a volunteermilitary, there's going to be
that valorization that happens.
And when you have that, you'regoing to have people that are
motivated to join to live up tothat.
You're going to have peoplethat are motivated to join to

(47:59):
live up to that and with thatthere, I don't think there's
much you can say to somebodywho's that's going to dissuade
them.
Right, I know with me when Iwas there, phil's story is
perfect, right?
You know I had graduated fromcollege and went and enlisted
and you know my ASVAB score,which is the test they give you,
that, based on how you score onin certain areas, qualifies you
for certain jobs, right?
So if you want to be a linguistor a translator, right, you've

(48:22):
got to have a higher scorebecause that's hard to do.
If you want to be aninfantryman, and pull the
trigger, you just have to bebreathing, basically right.
And they're like okay, come on,and my score was off the top of
qualified for whatever job Iwanted, and I'm like I want to
be airborne, infantry at the82nd Airborne, because that's,
to me, was like that's what itmeans to join.
I'm like.
I remember saying I'm like Idon't want to join the military

(48:44):
and sit behind a computer.
I can do that outside.
Well, my reasons were notnecessarily pure and I'm
learning through my journey andmy healing stuff of all the
things that went into mydecision.
But you know there's nothinganyone could have said to me
that would have dissuaded mefrom joining.
Right, if I had an Uncle Philwho, you know, my parents were
like well, go talk to Uncle Phil, and you know he's been there

(49:06):
and he can tell you that itwouldn't have dissuaded me
because I was just been like,well, I need to experience it
for myself.
And so I've struggled with thatof like.
If someone comes to talk to meand like, hey, should I join or
not?
You know it's, it's tough CauseI don't think there's much I
can say that can dissuade them.
If they're going for certainreasons, yeah, but I think it

(49:28):
comes down to a lot ofmotivations and I would as much
as possible, like Phil said,encourage them and try and steer
them into not just going forthe one that thinks that they're
going to be heroic and all ofthat, but something more
practical where they can gainthe life experiences and
different things.
But again, even that, if youtell somebody that that's going

(49:50):
for this glorification side,that's just going to make them
want to join the infantry or goNavy SEALs, special Forces, even
more, because they're like no,the whole reason I'm doing this
is because I don't want to bethe practical.
I want to be this mythical kindof hero Warrior.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
I don't regret it.
I certainly wish that therewere a lot of things I had done
differently, but I don't as hardof days as I have had.
I have never had a day where Ithought I shouldn't have done
that.
I should have done somethingdifferent, yeah, same here, in

(50:35):
ways, like you know, I don'tregret it and like there's
definitely a deep part of mewhere it's like when I say I
love the Marine Corps, I mean Ilove the Marine Corps, you know,
and it changed my life, youknow, and I think in some ways
that have really served me welland helped me.

Speaker 3 (50:55):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would say on my side like I
don't regret it, the experiences, cause that's made me part of
who I am today and to have thediscussions and you know, met
you, you know, after themilitary, but we connected over
that, right, and so all thesethings that happened from it.
I think for me it's a littlebit more of again going back to

(51:15):
the motivations of like, whatelse could I have done if I
didn't go do that Right, whatdid I give up on?
You know what I mean and thingslike that.
But again, that's that's withany decision you make on
everything right, theopportunity cost of like, well,
what else could I have done?

Speaker 5 (51:30):
So yeah, I'm going to take us, to take us to our next
song, because one, I think, athread we've noticed with a lot
of our guests are how music getsus through transitions in life.
You know we all have chapterswhere we move from one thing to

(51:51):
another.
And so, for your next song,question here is which song do
you associate with aparticularly weighty transition
in your life?

Speaker 1 (52:02):
so this song is pain of sorrow.
It's also called the bruisedorange song by john prine, who I
still think is probably myfavorite american songwriter.
Um and um the the song is about.
He read this story in anewspaper about this young boy

(52:22):
who worked at a church.
He was like crossing, I think,the the railroad tracks and he
got hit by a car or the train.
I can't remember exactly thestory.
He tells it in this, but he hadread this article and found out
that, like, the person who hitthe boy who had been coming from
the church was a parishioner ofthe church, right.
And so it's like thiscompletely internal tragedy.

(52:45):
And then the chorus talks abouthow, like you have these
horrible things that happen toyou in your life, you have these
traumatic experiences,experiences and you can grow
angry and you can grow bitterover these things, or you can

(53:05):
understand how, if you do thator if you have done that, it
like leaves a mark on you, right.
He says the heart stained inanger.
And that song I mean.
Well, I imagine we'll talkabout it afterwards, but it just
really resonates with mebecause it took me a long time
to go to therapy and to begin totry to unpack what had happened

(53:26):
, and I think that I uncoveredjust so much anger, right Like
this deep well of anger, rightlike this deep well of anger,
and I've spent, I think, therest of my life sort of

(53:46):
understanding how that hasmarked everything you know, and
how how deeply like bitternesscan go, you know so yeah, let's
take a listen and we'll hearmore about it on the other side.
Say what does it matter?
But it don't do no good to getangry, so help me.
I know.

Speaker 6 (54:10):
For a heart staining.
Anger grows a week and growsbitter.

Speaker 4 (54:14):
You become your own prisoner as you watch yourself
sit there wrapped up in a trapof your very own chain of sorrow
.

Speaker 5 (54:25):
I don't know the song , but just that line I think.
As David's gone through ahealing journey, you've gone
through a healing journey.
I've gone through a healingjourney from some other trauma,
it kind of resonates with thatline like pain demands to be
felt.
And if you don't, bad stuffhappens.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
I mean you scar yourself, right, like you.
You, I remember when we were inthe Marinesines we were doing a
training rotation, I jumped outof the back of the amtrak and
whacked my shin on the metalhatch and stayed out in the
field for whenever we were outthere a few weeks and came back

(55:12):
and, like, my leg is stillhurting.
So I go to the bas and I'm likeyou know, I banged my leg on
the track and they take an x-rayand the doctor's like, oh yeah,
do you see this little whiteline on the front of your shin
bone?
I said, yeah, he goes, that's astress fracture.
He's like, how long have youbeen walking around on this?
Like I don't know six or eightweeks.
He just takes the test.
Wow, I think that, like, um,like anger and bitterness

(55:43):
operate that same way.
Right, you don't treat thingsor deal with them that first,
right, you don't feel pain, yousquash it down.
You squash it down.
It makes scars, tissue and thathurts too.
You know, and it's justsomething that you're going to
have to deal with later.
You know, and it's justsomething that you're going to
have to deal with later.
And I get shin splints in thatstupid leg all the time when I

(56:04):
run and I have to do all thisextra stretching because I was a
moron when I was 22.
And I think that like yeah,it's that, and I still fall

(56:25):
victim to this.
You know, like, even like thewhole period of time when we had
to leave Detroit was super,super painful for Ann and I that
you stop hoping for anything tobe better and it just like
you're going to have to workthrough that later on.
Like, even when things do getbetter, you're going to be left

(56:50):
with this well of anger andresentment that now you're going
to have to deal with becauseyou didn't like you said
Carolina, like you didn't feelthe pain when it wanted to be
felt.
So now you, now you have to dothis.
You know, and tap into this.
You know, and it's so easy inthose moments, I think, to like
just like you know, the linesays like you get wrapped up in

(57:13):
a trap of your very own chain ofsorrows, right that you can
list this litany of reasons whyI'm not gonna feel good.
You know, I'm mad, somethingmade me mad and I'm just gonna
like tunnel down.
You know, and honestly, thatstill to this day, is the

(57:33):
biggest part of my struggle isjust not to like.
Anger is such a easy emotionfor me.
You know that it's very hard tonot just immediately go to that
place.
You know when you're stressedor when you are frustrated or

(57:56):
you're overtired, you know tojust go to that place of like
fueling what you think you needto do with resentment and I
think this song really speaks tothat.
You know you can stare out yourwindow and get mad and get
madder, throw your hands in theair and say, what does it matter
?
You know that's that's.

(58:18):
That's the easiest response, Ithink, for me.
You know yeah and it's aconstant struggle, and so the
song just sort of lives in myhead.
Like you can indulge thatfeeling today, you know, but
you're going to create anunpleasant environment in the
house and it's going to affectyour kid, it's going to affect

(58:39):
you, it's going to affect yourpartner, it's going to affect
the dog and eventually you'regoing to have to deal with that
because now you made everybody'sday bad, you know Right.

Speaker 3 (58:52):
Right, which then cycles back into the anger yeah
Right, then cycles back into theanger yeah, right.
And that's like I know.
You know, I think this song issuch a great description of the
experience of this, of you know,the you know technical term,
ptsd, whatever you're gonna callit.
I think this gets at it just soperfectly.
Because it's this, it's thisconstant feedback loop.

(59:14):
Right, like you said, you angry, so you do all this horrible
shit, you snap at your kid, you,you know, mean to the dog,
you're short, you do all thisstuff, and then you realize you
did all that and so now you'reangry about doing that, and it
just kind of keeps feedingitself and, like it says, it's
your own chain of sorrows.
It's this self feedback loopthat just keeps you stuck in it.

(59:39):
Yeah, I told you know I tend totry and keep Carolina and Raza
in the dark about the interviewsas much as possible.
I do all the prep work, I readthe questionnaires and kind of
develop it so they can kind ofcome with more fresh eyes, and
as I was, you know, getting yoursongs ready and stuff.
I told Carolina, you know,because we're married, so we
live together, and so I, and soit said, hey, get ready, because
as I was going through, uh, uh,you know phil's songs, I cried

(01:00:02):
on like four of them right offthe bat.
So just be ready and stuff, andI think you know it, it just
again, that pain deserves, needsto be felt, and you know this
song just gets at it so much andand gets at you know what.
You know we're trying to do withthis show and things like that
of the music is a way to feelthese things and it's an

(01:00:24):
entryway, a starting point Ifyou're not ready for therapy, if
you're not feeling that yet,pay attention to some of these
things and think what are youlistening to?
What's it telling you?
What's going on there?
Listening to, what's it tellingyou what's going on there?
Um, because it's it's notweakness right to feel these
things.
Um, it's not a problem, you'vegot a muscle through, right.

(01:00:45):
That's what we've been doingfor too long with it right the
pain deserves to be felt.
You don't have to feel it alone.
There's people that can helpyou feel it um, so yeah, so
thank you for sharing.

Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:00:59):
I have a question for folks, cause this is about how
music touches us right.
This, this whole conversationfor folks who aren't ready,
maybe, like who are stillsitting in the rage of it all.
Do you find that, like, musicwill speak to you and like,
clear through the rage, that,like, maybe a family member,

(01:01:20):
your partner, your kid or yourfriend won't?

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
I mean, I know it does.
It does for me oftentimes, youknow, um, where it's like I can
be causing tension in the houseand just kind of causing tension
in the house and just kind ofstomping around and being a bore
, and come out to the shop andlike a song come on, or like
this song will come.

(01:01:45):
You know, john Plain is notinfrequently played in my mixes
and it just like convicts me,you know, and I think that, like
, like Baldwin talked about this, like the the importance of
great art and why we shouldalways be afraid of a society
that wants to like censor art.

(01:02:06):
Art is the only medium that wehave where a person who's felt
an emotion can communicate thatemotion in a way that resonates
immediately with everybody elsethat's had that emotion.
Right, and I think, like thegift that John Prine gives you
in this song is like he'sspeaking from a perspective of a

(01:02:27):
person who does have a heartstained in anger.
You know he's not telling youthe way that your therapist
might like if you engage in thisbehavior, it's gonna have this
result.
He's telling you, like I havelived this life, I have walked
down those roads, you know, andthey think like if somebody

(01:02:49):
isn't ready, then then you'renot ready and you won't get what
you want or what you need outof a healing journey.
But just just understand thatwhen you're ready it's possible.
You know what I'm saying.
I think that what I mean this iswhat my dissertation ended up
being about or was going to beabout.

(01:03:09):
I didn't finish, but was this?
Like?
What post-traumatic stressdisorder sufferers have come
away with is like a moral injury.
You know and Jonathan Shea is aVA psychologist who's written a
lot about this and I think thatlike more important than

(01:03:32):
telling people like go get help,it's just to tell them like
it's possible.
you know and when you're ready,when you're ready to feel better
, you can feel better, you know.
And you don't have to have totake medication, but it might
help.
And you don't have to go talkto somebody about it, but it

(01:03:53):
might help, you know.
But just understand that it'spossible.
So in your low moments, whenyou feel like there's only one
way to not feel this way anymore, understand that there's a lot
of ways to not feel that wayanymore.
You know, and yeah, like Ihaven't struggled intensely with

(01:04:19):
suicide, but I have gonethrough ideation and things like
that.
But for me it was drinking.
I could always just drink itaway.
The bottom of the bottle waswhere peace was, but then it's
like the next day it's there 10times, but then that's why you

(01:04:42):
got to drink the next day, youknow, and right, it just got me
into those cycles of trying toescape, rather than like telling
myself in that moment where Iwant to get drunk, like there's
more than one way to feel betterthan you feel right now.
You know and like.
There's more than one way to notbe angry.

(01:05:04):
You know there's more than oneway to not like continue to
indulge in these cycles ofself-pity that just make you
angrier, and angrier, andangrier and become like
self-fulfilling, like david isdescribing.
You know, you walk around yourhouse all day and you're

(01:05:24):
intolerable.
And then you're angry at theother people in your house
because they don't tolerate youknow it's like what's the line
in?
justified, Like, if you run intoan asshole in the morning, you
ran into an asshole.
You run into an asshole all daylong.
You are the asshole, asshole.
You run into an asshole all daylong.
You are the asshole and and Ithink that way you know you get.
You get stuck in these cycles.
Say to somebody that's notready.

(01:05:45):
If you're not ready, you're notready but, it's possible, and
it's possible in more than oneway.
There are a lot of ways to totry to do it.
You know, find your combination, find your combination of
things.
You know it's not one thing forme and and it's not, I'm not at

(01:06:06):
a place.
You know like I'm on a journeyaway from anger and I am not
away.
You know, and yeah, that wouldbe my word.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:06:23):
Yeah.
Well, thank you for that.
For that and for sharing thesong.
I one of the my favorite thingsabout this podcast is that I
get exposed to all kinds of newsongs and new music and new
songwriters through our guestsand, like I said, I just
listened to one line and I waslike I want to listen to more of
this.
John Prine dude.
I really like that Prettysuccinct and deep and sort of

(01:06:46):
tells it the way it is.

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
His songs are very simple, but they're just songs
about emotions that he's had,you know, so there's like a
realness there.

Speaker 5 (01:06:57):
Yeah, that's awesome, alright, we will keep chugging
along here, you know, and sothere's like a realness there.
Yeah, that's awesome, all right, we will keep chugging along
here.
Oh, raza, did you havesomething?

Speaker 3 (01:07:07):
Yeah, sorry Delayed thought it's okay, don't be
sorry.

Speaker 7 (01:07:12):
That's the point of the show to ask questions.
I love all the talk about, youknow, music and emotion and how
certain you know lines resonatefor certain emotions.
This is a question for Phil,for you, or you know Carolina,

(01:07:33):
or Dave as well, probably forPhil, so have you guys.
So I'm interested, I'm I'minterested in grief, like
processing grief and the stagesof grief, and and that, and I'm
sure you guys are familiar withthis.
So there's, supposedly there's,five stages of grief, which is,
you know, denial is the firstone, anger, bargaining,

(01:07:54):
depression and then acceptance,and supposedly it's not linear,
it's you know it can go, in'snot linear, it's you know it can
go, and it can go sequentially,it can go in different stages,
but the goal is to sort of getto the acceptance phase.
So I guess, phil, a question foryou would be um, I've heard
themes of sort of resentment andthat that turning into anger,

(01:08:17):
and so, in some of the ways ofcoping with those and processing
that emotion, would you saythat you are sort of on a
journey toward acceptance?
Do you feel like you're sort ofthere, or do you feel like that
path is still ongoing there?

(01:08:42):
Um, or do you do you feel likethat path is still ongoing?
Um, or or and and, by the way,another way of of reaching that
acceptance phase is alsoaccepting but then going back
and sort of unpacking andreprocessing the other four.
You know emotions, uh, from adifferent lens.
So I don't know if you're, ifyou're open to commenting on
sort of where in that journeyyou find yourself now I mean, I
think it depends on like a lotof talk that you're talking like

(01:09:04):
.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
You know there are some things like as far as like
the loss of faith, like I'vethat for me is processed.
You know, I know how I feelabout that.
I'm comfortable with that.
I've dealt with it.
You know um the loss of that,um can I ask you yeah?

Speaker 7 (01:09:26):
that specifically, um , did that, um.
So so, thinking about loss andand trying to tie that with this
grief theme you know, peopleusually tie grief with the loss
of, like a loved one, or loss ofa, of a relationship, or loss
of, you know, like a humancomponent.

(01:09:47):
But to me, this idea of loss offaith is probably, you know,
that encompasses this entireemotional experience as well.
So if you want, yeah, I, I'dlove to know about that part of
it.
So you mentioned, you'vealready sort of you've reached
the acceptance phase of that.

Speaker 1 (01:10:04):
I get.
What that means for me is likethe way that I grew up or the
faith that I grew up with, islike it's the fundamental
characteristic of who you are.
It defines everything that youdo.
Your life is defined byparticipation in the rituals of

(01:10:24):
it.
You know praying before you eat.
You know of fundamentallyconstitutive of who you see
yourself to be, and so the lossof that is not just a like.

(01:10:46):
You know I used to believe thatthe Red Sox were a cursed
franchise, and they're notcursed franchise anymore.
It's like you're not believingin it.
It's not like I don't believein the curse of the great
bambino anymore.
You know it's uh, like thisthing that defined who I am is

(01:11:07):
gone.
I don't feel it anymore.
I have no idea who I am right,because now the point that I'm
at is like I was defined by thisthing.
I don't believe that thinganymore.
I can't even feel it.
I can't even force theexperience right.

(01:11:46):
Was I fooled by my parents?
You know like it destabilizesyour sense of identity on every
plane, and I think it's.
One of the dangers of that kindof faith is that it is so
singular to a person's ideaidentity in a way that, like,
people that don't undergo thatkind of religious conditioning

(01:12:07):
develop their personalities in adifferent way.
Um, and so, like it took a longtime for me not to be angry at
my parents, not to be angry atthings that had happened to me
in my childhood, not to be angryat religious institutions.
You know I'll still go out andtalk about how dangerous those

(01:12:30):
things are and about how theexperiences that I had as a
child affect me, but I'm not madabout any of that anymore, you
know.
But the flip side of that coinis like the gift of the Marine
Corps is they make you a Marine,but the curse of it is like
you're that forever, and likeone of the key ways to get

(01:12:55):
people to a point where theywill do the things that you're
asked to do is anger, you know,is giving people the ability to
tap into a kind of rage.
That is just this, like yourmotivation, you know, and like

(01:13:17):
you read your motivation, youknow, and like you read, you
read stories about peopletargeting machine gun death or
sitting in the top of a humveeunder fire and just taking it
like, and you wonder, like, howdoes a person do something like
that?
Because they have thepsychological capacity to tap
into a well of rage that youcan't possibly fathom, you know.

(01:13:39):
But you have to break somebodypsychologically to get them to
that point, and so I'm not angryabout that loss of faith
anymore in the way that I usedto be, but anger is still very
much there, you know you know,yeah, no, thank you.

Speaker 7 (01:14:03):
I mean I, I, I I appreciate you sharing that.

Speaker 3 (01:14:04):
um, yeah, thank you yeah, I think it kind of gets at
that a little bit.
I know carolina's trying tomove us along as we give her the
task of doing and we'reresisting that, but um, I have
one job and that's to keep us ontime.

Speaker 5 (01:14:17):
That's right, I know I know, I'm going to pull the
CEO duty.
I'm the host.

Speaker 3 (01:14:21):
I can do what I want.
You work for me, no no, but Ithink just just that point of,
like Raza, when you were askingthat question, and sort of, you
know how we know, like you know,the stages of grief it's not
this linear process and once youmove through one you're done
with it.
You kind of come back to it Withwhat Phil was talking about.

(01:14:42):
You know, once you kind of workthrough one thing and get to
acceptance of something, it'ssort of almost like you know
hiking and climbing a hill youget over one hill and you're
like, okay, I'm done.
And you're like, oh shit, well,there's the next hill now, and

(01:15:07):
I couldn't see that before, yeah.
And so it's almost like youprocess one area of it and then
that opens you to see anotherarea and you're like, well, now
I'm angry about that, and I Icouldn't be angry about it
before because I was so consumedby this other anger, right, um,
and so, yeah, I think that's away where it feels like you kind
of come back to it in a way.
It's not necessarily comingback to the same anger, but it's
like cycling back.
Now Is it something?
Something new, in a sense,almost.

Speaker 1 (01:15:28):
And because you've been taught how to use rage.
That is always the like.
Your brain knows how to gothere, you know.
So here's this problem.
I got to work through this.
I'm going to get pissed offabout it.

Speaker 3 (01:15:41):
Right, right yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:15:43):
I mean it's they call it a journey for a reason, and
like you just continue touncover shit and then have to
process that shit.
And processing that means youuncover something else.
And so I find people like youknow in my life, who maybe don't
do therapy or whatever it mightbe like you know, like still,
or you're still like, you'restill mad about that, or you're
still processing.
You know, and you're likebecause it's, it's a scab that

(01:16:07):
is on top of another scab, ontop of another wound.
You know what I mean.
Like it it really is like thisthis long journey.
It's not a quick fix.
No, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:16:20):
All right Back to you , Carolina.
Thanks.

Speaker 5 (01:16:24):
Um, all right, we're going to, we're going to pivot a
little bit to to just kind ofdaily life here, cause we've
gotten into big themes so far.
Um, so, for your next song,what?
What's that song that's justintimately connected to to
another activity?
It could be a book, or alocation, or a trip.

Speaker 1 (01:16:46):
What's that song?
So it's Flowers in your Hair bythe Lumineers.
And we went to Seattle to meether core group of friends for a
wedding and her friend Rachelsang this song at at the wedding
ceremony.
She just like, really simplylike, play the ukulele, sang,
song.
Really beautiful moment andjust I don't remember exactly

(01:17:10):
when, but I was like ponderingback on Ann and I's relationship
at one point and I was lookingthrough some pictures on my
phone and I saw a picture of usat the wedding and I was like
that was when I knew, like Ididn't.
I never thought like I'm goingto marry that woman, but that
was when I knew like I I loveher.

(01:17:31):
You know like I'm, I have anemotional connection to this
person, you know, and I've beendeliberately avoiding that.
And like it was just like this.
Yeah, it just sticks out to methat moment of like Rachel

(01:17:52):
singing that and be like beingoutside at the wedding and just
knowing, like outside at thewedding and just knowing, like
with her sitting next to me,like this is the person like
that I click with you know, likenot just somebody that I like
or have this strong physicalattraction to.
It's like, there's a like we'reconnected.

(01:18:13):
You know, and that was when Iknew it, you know, was at that
wedding.
I, I knew that was.

Speaker 3 (01:18:20):
That was when nice, let's take a listen.
This is the lumineers actualversion, not Rachel playing it
on the ukulele.

Speaker 6 (01:18:29):
I do not have access to that, here we go from mine,

(01:19:13):
it's a sweet song.

Speaker 1 (01:19:14):
Yeah, like, be in my eyes, be in my heart.
Yeah, it's like just thatmoment of like you just feel a
certain way about a person whereit's like I want you to be
inside of me no-transcript, yeah, it just.

(01:19:40):
I don't know, it's not like Ithink sometimes maybe people
want to chase that moment, likethey just want to have it over
and over again, and I definitelydon't want that.
But it like I think, like forme, like that was like the
moment that just reallysolidified the relationship to
me, like what it was, like whatwe were doing, you know which

(01:20:05):
was like we're falling in lovewith each other, like that's
what we're doing here, you know,like we've made a connection
with each other and yeah yeah,like the song fits the moment.

Speaker 5 (01:20:18):
It's just one of those serendipitous, you know
things yeah, well, I thinkthat's another theme we've found
with guests on the show inparticular is that you don't
always look for the song.
The song finds you and you'rejust like enjoying this wedding,
and then the song just hits youin this way and you're like
wait, what is happening here?

(01:20:38):
Oh, oh, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:20:41):
Yeah, what is happening here?
Oh, oh, you know, yeah, I,almost, I, I, as you were
talking about it before welistened, phil, I almost had
that idea because you, you weresaying how, like um, you know,
you, you started to have thisfeeling and you resisted it for
so long, right, and I had thatconnection back to the seinfeld
episode where he, finally, likecries for the first time and
he's like what's this saltydischarge, like what, what is

(01:21:03):
this?
Um?
And I, I had that sense, almostas you were telling the story
and then listening to the songof like um, which is where, like
, when I was preparing it, like,even this song, like some of
the other songs like that wealready listened to, brought me
to tears, just because I knowyou, I know the stories behind
it, I've been on my own journey.
This one brought me to tearsjust in that way because of,

(01:21:24):
like, I could feel it, of whatyou're describing, right, this
thing you've like resisted,right, the anger keeps you from
it and all these you know othertypes of things.
And then here it is just comingup and you kind of can't fight
it anymore and that almost like,what's what's happening.

Speaker 1 (01:21:45):
Yeah, it's like it's a spontaneous emotion, you know,
and we have so few of those,you know, like unmediated
emotions, that if you tried tomake it happen you couldn't.
You know, right, right, um, andyeah's, it's just one of those
very powerful experiences that'sjust like burned into my brain,

(01:22:08):
is like I mean, I can remembereverybody else that was sitting,
like in the row that we weresitting in, and I didn't know
like half of them.
I knew Anne and her friendKatie sitting on the other, but
I didn't know anybody else.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:22:25):
So what did you do with this feeling Like you're
hearing this song and you'rehaving this?
Did you turn to Anne and youwere like I love you, or were
you like I need to sit with thisfor a minute?
Like what did you?

Speaker 1 (01:22:34):
do Right.
No, I don't want to reveal liketoo much of Anne's business.
Sure, yeah, she was.
I don't want to reveal too muchof Anne's business, sure Fair,
she was.
Like the night that we met oneof the first things Anne said to
me was like I'm moving toDetroit when I graduate and
don't get in my way.

(01:22:54):
And I was like okay, fine, butpursued the relationship anyway.
But pursued the relationshipanyway.
But kind of the mantra of ourrelationship was like I had told
her at one point, like if all Ihave is six months and then

(01:23:16):
you're gone then I'll take sixmonths, because six months of
you is worth it to me, even ifit means, at the end of it, like
my heart is broken, like I'llaccept that.
You know, like by that point Ihad read enough nicha that I
thought I knew what I'm morefati meant, and so I was like,
yeah, I can do, I can say, yes,come on, yeah, yeah.

(01:23:39):
So, um, I just told her, like if, if it's six months, it's six
months, you know.
And I think in that moment,like I knew I wanted more than
six months, but I knew, like ifthat was all it was gonna be,
like I had gotten to have thisyou know what I mean and like it

(01:24:02):
wasn't a feeling, in thatmoment, of like I just have to
grab onto this person and holdthem and like possess them, but
it was more like just in anunmediated way, just feeling
that connection to anotherperson.
You know, like feeling how goodthat moment felt.

(01:24:23):
You know, like Vonnegut tellsthis story and he says you know,
at the end of it we turned toeach other and said, wasn't this
nice?
And he goes.
I think whenever you have amoment in your life that's
really, really nice, you shouldjust turn around and say to
everybody that's enjoying itwith you.
If this isn't nice, I don't knowwhat is, because it's like you

(01:24:45):
have to like, and so it was justlike allowing myself to have
that feeling completely in thatmoment and just like, actually
know, like I love this person,you know and like if we get to
be together, then we get to betogether, but I just don't even
care about that.
Right now it's like we aretogether and I love her and like

(01:25:09):
let's have this moment.

Speaker 3 (01:25:12):
You know, nice Right.
So almost like a radicalpresence of it, of like so often
, when we feel something, thinksomething or whatever, we
automatically jump to.
What do I do with this?
What's the next course ofaction?
And what you're sort of sayingis you didn't jump right to that
, it was more just anappreciation of the feeling in
the moment and an awareness ofit, rather than what does this

(01:25:33):
mean Now?
What do I do?
Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 1 (01:25:36):
Yeah, yeah.
And just like letting thatmoment be exactly what it was
and not reading anything elseinto it.
You know no future.
No, this is what's going tohappen next.

Speaker 7 (01:25:48):
Just like we're here and we feel this right now, and
let's just feel it right nowyeah, that's the idea of uh,
sitting with it like sittingwith the emotion, not doing
anything with it, but just justsit with it and that's all.

Speaker 1 (01:26:06):
I think a lot of times we focus sitting with pain
but, we don't sit withhappiness, it's true, if you
have a moment that is like Iremember when the Cubs won the
world series in 2016,.
That's something I neverthought I would see in my life

(01:26:30):
and when they made the last out,I didn't like jump up and
scream, or I was by myself inour apartment in Detroit.
I just sat on the couch andjust like in silence, just
soaked in that feeling, like Inever want to forget this exact
moment and I don't want anythingelse in the way of it.
You know, and I think, like sofew times do we take the time to

(01:26:55):
just like sit with anincredible moment of love or
fulfillment or, I don't know, agood state like you know, like
these, these little moments ofhappiness, you know, yeah, and

(01:27:16):
maybe they're little because wedon't sit with them right yeah,
because even the happy times,like we want to take a picture
of it or call someone or like wedon't just like sit in it.

Speaker 5 (01:27:27):
It's interesting I went to a concert recently at a
smaller venue, at the Rymanamphitheater, which is a very,
very small venue here inNashville, and I remember saying
I don't know if it was the bandor the night or whatever it was
, but it was the one concert Ihad been to where everyone
wasn't on their phones.
Everyone was just present anddancing and singing and I was
blown away by the lack of phonesin like today's you know,

(01:27:50):
society.

Speaker 1 (01:27:51):
um, everyone was just kind of present and it's so
rare yeah yeah, super cool I wasat a bon iver show and it like
people had cell phones but itwasn't like you know, the iPhone
thing.
And I remember like at onepoint he like it was back when
it was just him, so he, therewas a lot of audience

(01:28:13):
participation to get the effectshe wanted and, like the entire
show, everybody was just likeinto it and it was such an
awesome sound Like we're alldoing this together, you know,
and just to have the moment,like right on your phone and
load it up in youtube just likeright exist, because the

(01:28:34):
watching of that video you takeis gonna pale in comparison to
the experience you actually havein the moment.

Speaker 3 (01:28:44):
So enjoy the moment fully and don't try and document
it for some future time.
That is going to fall short ofit.

Speaker 1 (01:28:53):
Yeah, yeah, for sure Well all right, moving us,
moving us along Music cansometimes help us get through

(01:29:19):
difficult and challengingsituations also, not just the
good times, but also the badtimes.
They can bring us comfort.
So for this next song, what's aSong by Townes Van Zandt and
that we know of?
Like, townes Van Zandt only hadone really serious romantic
relationship in his life withanother female singer, and they
were kind of in and out of eachother's lives until his death.
This song just talks about thechallenge of being in love with

(01:29:44):
someone who is difficult to loveand recognizing that you also
are difficult to love.
And then you're faced with achoice, right Of like do you
just continue in thisrelationship until you're
naturally forced apart becauseof that difficulty, or is there

(01:30:06):
a way for you to embrace thatdifficulty, accept them for who
they are, or is accepting themfor who they are going to be the
thing that creates that finalwedge?
So it's a very intense song, Ithink, emotionally.

Speaker 8 (01:30:41):
So it's a Then on she goes to say I don't care, or
she knows that I do.
Maybe she just has to sing forthe sake of the song.
Who do?

(01:31:06):
I think that I am to decidethat she's wrong so what was the
situation?

Speaker 1 (01:31:21):
so, um.
So, starting in July of 2020, Igot diagnosed with testicular
cancer and it was bad enoughthat they wanted to get it out
immediately.
Pandemic be damned.

(01:31:41):
Wanted to get it outimmediately, pandemic be damned.
Um.
And so that when the va doctorcalled me and gave me the
diagnosis, he said how fast canyou be at the va hospital to do
your pre-surgery workup?
And I said, like half hour hegoes.
Okay, come down here right nowand you need to make a
reproductive decision.
On the way I was in the grocerystore mask on the whole thing,

(01:32:06):
go out to the car, tell ann,this is what happened, we're
crying.
On the way to the va, I said oh, he says we have to make a
reproductive decision.
So up until that point, we hadthought, like you know, we're
not going to have kids.
We're going to be two adultsthat live this life together.
And in the course of going overthere, talking with the doctor

(01:32:32):
and so on and so forth, we madethe decision we're at least
going to conserve some samplesin case we want to.
And then, eventually, we'relike we're going to try to do
this as soon as I'm healed up.
Eventually, we're like we'regoing to try to do this as soon
as I'm healed up.
So that's what we did.
We were quickly successful.
If it's a success, I don't know.
We talk about pregnancy in suchweird ways.
It's like scoring a field goal,like oh, it's a 50-yarder, so

(01:33:05):
yeah.
So we had a kid and, and thelast few weeks of and pregnancy
were difficult.
Um, the birth experience itselfwas very difficult.
She developed postpartum anemia, unbeknownst to us, because
they never gave her a bloodpanel afterwards, and so it was

(01:33:30):
just hard, very hard physicallyand emotionally on her and at
the same time I was trying tostart a small business.
The window company that I hadworked for had fallen apart.
Another guy from there and Iwere trying to get our business
up off the ground.

(01:33:50):
All these things are sort ofcolliding.
Then we realized quickly afterMaude was born, that the cost of
childcare in Detroit and theway that Anne was feeling and
things like we needed to move tobe near her family for some

(01:34:14):
support and to be able to afforddaycare for Maude.
So, um, then this house that wehad bought in detroit and we're
fixing up and we were part ofthe neighborhood and like
involved in, like the farmer'smarket and stuff in the
neighborhood.
Now we were going to have toleave all of that which was just
like brought up, like so muchchildhood trauma of mine, of the

(01:34:37):
like being constantly movedaround, and it really tested
anani's relationship, um,because of her state, you know,
it's like neither one of us areat the emotional capacity that
we needed to be at toreintegrate a relationship after

(01:34:57):
the birth of a child, you know,know, and it really tested our
relationship in ways that Inever really expected.
And I think that when you are ina relationship with somebody

(01:35:19):
where both of you really careabout the relationship, where
both of you really care aboutthe relationship, like things
take on a different valence, youknow, and like maybe this will
sound like an excuse to stay ina bad relationship, but that's
not what I'm getting at.
But sometimes people say thingsin those moments of extreme

(01:35:43):
stress and pain that are aproduct of where they're at and
that are a product of thatmoment.
And you have to, in that moment, I think, when you really love
somebody, let them say what theyneed to say.

(01:36:06):
You know you have to let themhave that moment in their way
and like we just kind of wentthrough this period of, like

(01:36:28):
very painful interactions witheach other.
Mm-hmm.
But at the same time it was likeI can't look at her and tell
her you're wrong for feelingthis Right, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:36:47):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:36:48):
Or you're wrong about it.

Speaker 3 (01:36:48):
Going back to, that thing of feelings need to be
felt.

Speaker 1 (01:36:51):
Right, you're wrong about what you feel.
You know, and if this is wherewe're at, then this is where we
have to be at, because I knowthat the person that I want to
be with is her.
I know that the relationshipthat I want to be in is this one
, and even if it means goingthrough this kind of pain, the

(01:37:15):
same way that I said, if it'sonly six months, it's six months
.

Speaker 3 (01:37:19):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:37:20):
If it's only this pain right now, now, and we just
have to be in this for anindefinite amount of time, then
I'm I'm in it with I'm in itwith you, I'm in the pain with
you, you know and I will acceptthe reality of this.
You know, in the song he makes adifferent decision.

(01:37:40):
You know, all that she offersme are her chains and I have to
refuse.
You know he can't accept therelationship, right?
If it's not on his terms.
But he recognizes that youcan't ask her to accept it on
his terms, right?
I think that sometimes inrelationships that stay together

(01:38:16):
it's one person that's willingto accept for a moment in time
that the relationship has tohappen on that other person's
terms.
Right Like you need to havethis right now and.
I'm going to let you have it andI may not like it right.
It may not be what I want, itmay be hurtful to me in some
ways or causing an inordinateamount of stress or strain, but
I'll accept that because itcomes with you.

Speaker 3 (01:38:40):
Right, kind of like how in the normal kind of
phrasing you say you got to givethat person their space, right,
you, you've got to let them beyou have to feel what you have
to hold space for them in therelationship, to just be them.

Speaker 1 (01:38:55):
Not them with you, but just them.
You know, and that's hard.
That's hard when like you'vebeen with this person and you
like the two of you together isan identity and you have this
emotional memory of times whenit was so easy.
And now it's not easy uneasy toget to the easy, and sometimes

(01:39:29):
you just have to stop and be inthe uneasy because they need to
be able to go through thismoment in their way and so
you're going to have to acceptthe relationship on their terms
for a period of time.
You know, yeah, I think that'shard to do in a romantic
relationship.
You know, to give up that kindof control, and I think for some

(01:39:58):
people that's the breakingpoint of the relationship and I
think for other people it tobuild, to build on top of that,
you know.

Speaker 5 (01:40:08):
Yeah, I um was it this morning, David, that I
asked you like advice on beingmarried, as long as we have
Sometimes we have these momentswhere we're like, we're married,
Like what?
What happened?
You know, and I'm like yeah,we've been married for like over
a decade.

Speaker 3 (01:40:22):
Like you know what?

Speaker 5 (01:40:23):
advice, do you?

Speaker 3 (01:40:23):
And I'm like yeah we've been married for over a
decade.
What advice do you have?
It was either this morning oryesterday, very recent.

Speaker 5 (01:40:30):
And you said it's hard and you have to work at it
all the time, and I think peopledon't always get that Like.
Sometimes with relationships,we bring our own like past
trauma that we bring to therelationship, our own like past
trauma that we bring to therelationship.
But sometimes in relationshipstrauma happens in the
relationship or during therelationship, and letting folks
process that grieve, that dealwith that, while like being in

(01:40:53):
the blast radius or, like youknow, having to do what they
need, is super hard.
That's like the stuff theydon't tell you about before
you're in a relationship withsomeone.
Yeah.
And.

Speaker 1 (01:41:04):
I like you don't have to sit through.
You know what I mean.
I'm not saying like if youreally love somebody, you'll put
up with all of their bullshitthat's.
That's not the lesson here.
But the lesson is, like in anylong-term relationship, there
are going to be periods wherewhat's going to be asked of you

(01:41:25):
is to put yourself completely toone side and let that other
person have the wheel.
You know, and be emotionallysupportive of them.
In that moment you know, youknow and I've tried to be that
you know and I have, like,certainly failed.

(01:41:46):
And in those moments you knowand have you know, been failed.
But you learn to trust somebodyemotionally and you learn
through going through thesethings that, like, when they can

(01:42:06):
, they will hold that space foryou you know, but you have to
actually do that.
You can't promise this tosomebody like it has to come to
that moment and you do it theonly way, like if somebody said,
oh, I can do that for you.
You know, what goes off in myhead is like you say that you

(01:42:29):
say that you know.
It's like when you're orderingthai hot.
It looks really good on themenu.
It looks like a good idea whenit just says those two words on
the menu you know, 12 hourslater it's you say that.
Right, I feel like thatsometimes, when people are like,
oh yeah, cause I've, I'vetalked to a couple of friends

(01:42:50):
like, and that's like reallylove, and it's like, no, it's
not, that's not like right, it'scommitment.
You know, yeah, and commitmentis hard and it's going to
require at times that you dothings that you don't want to do
and you be there for that otherperson and when you fall short,
in those moments like you'regoing to regret it, you know,

(01:43:16):
and it's hard.

Speaker 5 (01:43:19):
Yeah, because those moments really test your love,
yeah, and so it's like thecommitment, I think that
prevails, yeah, cause thosemoments really test your love,
yeah, and so it's like thecommitment, I think that
prevails, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:43:29):
And when you fail, in those moments you know you feel
it in a different way too, like, oh man, I've like it's not
just like I hurt her or I pissedher off, it's like I have like
let the relationship down andnot been an emotionally
functional member of it.

(01:43:49):
And I think that song it's justsuch a good distillation of that
moment of understanding.
I have to step completely toone side and I can't do it, and
that's hard, you know.
But I think it also makes methink about what's the flip side

(01:44:10):
of that same choice.
What does it mean in thatmoment to say, okay, all right,
I'll do?
It and you know.

Speaker 3 (01:44:22):
Yeah, and you know kind of how did that journey

(01:44:49):
happen, both physically but alsoemotionally and mentally.

Speaker 1 (01:44:54):
I mean, the truth is is, like you know, not all of it
was like great.
You know, one of the ways thatI have always struggled with
dealing with things since I camehome, it's just like you know,
I tell people like, when you getout of the military, like your

(01:45:16):
emotions don't have a ceiling,but there's a floor and there's
like a level of stress that Iget to where it's like below.
That is just nothing, just likea like turned off into that
rage, you know, and like I havereally struggled since we've

(01:45:41):
moved, to like not lapse intothat, you know that has been
like.
My constant struggle is likethis defense mechanism of like
turn off and get angry, turn offand get angry, turn off and get
angry is always wanting to likebecause it were it works you
know, and like sometimes it'senough space that I can begin to

(01:46:07):
process and work throughsomething, and sometimes it's
like I just get stuck, you know,and then you have to remind
yourself, like, even when itworks, it's not working.
You know, like you're stillreinforcing to yourself, like
you have to go to this place inorder to be well, and it's like
you can't find the living amongthe dead, like, um, you're not

(01:46:30):
going to the bad place to takeyourself to a good place.
So I think that, like, Ilearned a bad habit through that
process, but but I think that Ialso have come to a place of

(01:46:55):
understanding, like the thingsthat you went through will
always be with you, but theydon't have to be.
That just because a certainmoment or a passage of
circumstances might remind youof something that you went

(01:47:15):
through or might make you feellike this is happening all over
again, does not mean that it'shappening all over again.
This is happening all over againdoes not mean that it's
happening all over again andlike the fact that you're
feeling those same emotionsright is just a trauma reaction

(01:47:36):
and if you can understand.
This is not that thing, right,this is its own thing and you
have to take it on its own terms.
And it's been like since we'vegotten to iowa, it's been me
kind of slowly coming to realizehow to get to that place and
not go to the anger place, youknow.
But I'm not gonna pretend andapproach this conversation and

(01:47:59):
say like it's the finishedproduct and right, right, it's
hunky-dory, like it's still hardnot to go to that place and
still hard not to fall back.
You know on that.
But you know I what I try to dois one, do the things that I
know I need to do diet andexercise and work wise to like

(01:48:23):
keep myself in a healthy place,but also like, when I do fall
short and when I do go intothose places, like don't try to
explain it away to your partneras like it not being that.
You know.

(01:48:45):
And so like owning, like you'reright.
Like I went to an emotionallyvacant place Right and I created
a bad environment in the house,like you know I understand that
I did that and like so it'sbeen I mean humbling, you know,
I think for a long time on myhealing journey like especially

(01:49:07):
once I was in, had a really goodtherapist in Eugene you start
to feel like I see the way out,I see the light at the end of
the tunnel, and you're neverready for, like, at some point
there's going to be a bigsomething's going to happen.
It's life Right.
And like something's going tohappen, it's life right.

(01:49:27):
Right, you know.
And like how do you?
not, in those moments, fall backon what happened before.
You know, and I definitely likerelapsed into that anger.
You know when all of thishappened and it's been it's been
a long road even back to like aplace of recovery, you know,
yeah and think I think whatyou're describing there is.

Speaker 3 (01:49:46):
You know, we we've kind of talked a lot through
through this, you know,interview of you know giving
advice or guidance to someonewho is maybe earlier on the
journey of healing and whateverthat is of you know what, what
advice could we give and whatguidance?
And I feel like what you'regetting at here is an important

(01:50:06):
fact of what healing really is.
Healing isn't suddenly I don'thave these issues anymore Really
what it is is it's just buyingyou a little bit of space
between stimulus and yournegative response you used to
have.
It just widens that gap alittle bit to where, hopefully,

(01:50:28):
you can insert somethingdifferent in there, a positive
behavior, a healthy behavior, ahelpful, whatever it is.
But it doesn't make that kind ofstimulus response that you
learn kind of completely go away.
It's always like and that'swhat you, I think, describe so
well is it's always there and ifthings get tough enough, that

(01:50:50):
gap can kind of close and bam,you go right to that same, you
know darker, darker place.
And it's really, I think, whatyou know when people say like
it's, it's, it's it's.
The work never ends, in thatsense, right Cause you, you're
always working to keep that gapas wide as it can be, so you

(01:51:11):
have that space for the morehealthy.
You know responses and feelingsand emotions and thoughts to to
, to jump in there and breakthat connection, yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:51:23):
Yeah and I.
I think I never could have donethis if I hadn't stopped
drinking.
You know, that was the keypiece for me, even more than
therapy.
That had to be completelyremoved from my life.
You know, it was such a crutch,such a destructive behavior,
the way I was doing it, and thatwasn't curative on its own but

(01:51:52):
it made recovery possiblebecause there wasn't the crutch
there anymore and that's beenthe most important thing for me,
and that's been the mostimportant thing for me.
But it's hard, once you quitlike that, not to run into other
escapes.
And anger certainly is one ofthose.
It's addictive in its own way.

Speaker 5 (01:52:14):
With that we'll round you out.
We're at your last song.
We made it to the end here.
We made it Like we made it tothe end here.

Speaker 3 (01:52:21):
We made it.

Speaker 5 (01:52:22):
And so we'll leave us on a good cheerful note here
for your last song, Phil.
What's that song that instantlyjust puts you in a good mood?

Speaker 1 (01:52:32):
So the Magic Number by De La Soul and honestly, like
it could have been any song offof 3P High and Rising.
But this one is just like.
At this period in hip hop yousort of had like two hip-hop
songs right.
You either had like a party songlike hey ho, or you had a like
I'm the baddest and I'm gonnadestroy you, Right, you know

(01:52:53):
kind of song and like this De LaSoul record and this song in
particular, it's just like thesethree people are friends, right
, and and like what they'retalking about in the song is
like their friendship, right?
These are the things that we'reabout.
These are the things we talk toeach other about.
These are the jokes that wetell each other.
These are the girls that all ofus have dated, right, and it

(01:53:17):
was just like a completelydifferent right, but it just
like this song, to me, is justso joyous, the production, what
they're talking about, how youcan feel their friendship in the
song, you know, and it just,it's just.
It's a song about friends and I, I love it.

(01:53:40):
It always makes me feel better,I'm set.

Speaker 4 (01:53:42):
Fly around the store under Daisy Productions.
It stands for the inner sound.
Y'all in your Quebec that theaction's not a trick, but show
me how it functions.
Everybody wants to be a DJ,everybody wants to be an MC, but
being speakers are the best,and you don't have to guess
they're also.
Posse consist of three andthat's the magic number Three.
This is I like the beat on thatone, yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:54:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:54:10):
Yeah, like I said, that entire record is a like.
If you want to feel good on aSaturday, just play the record.
But that song is just I don'tknow.
It's joyous Like a piece ofcake.
I don't know it's joyous like apiece of cake, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:54:25):
yeah, yeah, yeah totally yeah, and you said it
well too of like that thing, Iremember the first time hearing
de la soul and you know memyself and I was the big, you
know popular single from fromthe album and and yeah, I think
you described it so well of likeit just had this feel to it
that was just different from alot of other other things.

(01:54:45):
That was just so great.

Speaker 1 (01:54:49):
Yeah, it wasn't like we're going to make.
We're going to make an albumfull of songs that you like, or
an album full of songs that areabout how awesome we are.
It's like we're going to giveyou a window into our friendship
.
You know, and it was such adifferent way of approaching the
form, but just like, in as muchas like I can listen to the

(01:55:12):
crime tales on a wu-tang recordand like be transported to this
other world.
You know, like de la soul wasdefinitely this group where it
was like you were listening tothat record, listening to this
song.
It's just like it could havebeen me and two of my friends
Right Sitting there crackingjokes on each other.

(01:55:34):
You know some random beat goingin the background, just kind of
like you know, like building iswhat we used to call it.
You know we're going to go overto Matt's house, we're going to
build, you know, and it likethat whole spirit in hip hop of
like building with your friends,like that's De La Soul and I

(01:55:57):
think we've not even now inpopular music like they're just
starting a lot of songs aboutfriends.
I remember I was doing anindependent study on Aristotle
with Malcolm in the classicsdepartment.
And.
Malcolm brought up.

(01:56:18):
You know, in the ethics,aristotle talks about friendship
more than anything else, and sothat was the path that our
independent study ended uptaking was like tracking down
all these notions of friendshipin the ethics and like what that
meant and like I just thinkthat a lot of times like that,

(01:56:44):
you know, we keep ourfriendships close, you know, and
we exclude people in certainways from knowing what the
friendship is like and what it'sabout.
And I think this song is cool,and this record in particular is
cool because it's like here'sthree people with this
incredibly tight friendship thatgoes back decades, just opening

(01:57:05):
the friendship up to you andsaying here's what it's about,
here's how we talk to each other, and I think that's a cool
moment, cool piece of art.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:57:17):
Yeah, and there's so much talk going to like what we
you know we've talked a lotabout trauma and addiction and
other things, and you knowthere's so many people that talk
about it now of like theopposite of addiction isn't
sobriety, or the opposite oftrauma isn't healing.
The opposite of addiction isconnection, right, and what

(01:57:38):
really addiction is is isolation, right.
And so this is a perfect way to, I think, to kind of wrap up in
this in the sense of your sixsongs of like this is this is
the message, right, this is thisis part of what healing looks
like is connection.

Speaker 1 (01:57:54):
Yeah, yeah I mean and that like ultimately that's
sort of the thrust of howAristotle talks about friendship
and the ethics.
Like, you cannot be an ethicalperson if you don't have friends
, because how else are youworking out your virtues?
You're just sitting in yourhouse.

Speaker 3 (01:58:13):
Friendship is sort of the foundation for it all.

Speaker 1 (01:58:15):
Right, because those are people that you're not
related to.
You didn't just choose them,they also chose you, and you
constantly have to maintenancethat relationship.
If you don't do anything withit, it dies.
It's not like if I don't talkto my sister for three weeks, I
can call her up and she's notlike why haven't you called me

(01:58:36):
for three weeks?
You know she's my family, she'smy blood, you know, but a
friendship isn't like that.
It requires you to walk outthese values and walk out these
things.

Speaker 5 (01:58:49):
Awesome.
Well, Phil, we made it.

Speaker 1 (01:58:53):
We made it just 15 minutes over time.

Speaker 5 (01:58:57):
These always go over To be fair.
The conversations are reallygood, we get into good deep
connections to things always goover like to be fair.
Yeah, because the conversationsare really good and we get into
like good deep, likeconnections to things and so
like we never kind of put a timeon it.
We we hope to get to there, butwe never.
We never put a limit on it.
Um, how does it feel to to hearyour life reflected in these,

(01:59:17):
in these six songs?

Speaker 1 (01:59:19):
I think I was prepared for the first half but
not the second half.
You know, I think I was likeready to talk about what had
happened and maybe less ready totalk about like here's what's
happening right now, you know,and here's um here's the you
know the hard part now.

(01:59:40):
you know, um, and sort of likeadmitting to yourself in real
time like you're still screwingthis up.
You know you're still doingthat thing.
Why are you doing the thingthat you keep doing?
Right, right, um, you know anduh, but I guess, like the way
that I feel, like about theveteran stuff that Dave and I

(02:00:00):
have talked about, this wholeidea like a good veteran is a
quiet veteran, like that's dumb,um, but also I feel in the same
way like, um, maybe we justdon't talk enough about like the
incompleteness of our journeysyou know, and like it's a lot

(02:00:25):
easier to go on a podcast andsay I found the way out and
here's what it is, rather thanto say like I'm still struggling
with this.
But it doesn't make it easier tomake that admission, you know,
and then to know that people aregoing to watch this, people are
going to see you say I'm stillan asshole.

(02:00:46):
So yeah, it's, I don't know.
Like I said, in some ways Ifeel like exactly what I had
hoped that the experience waswas what it was.
I think the vehicle works, youknow, it does what you say it's

(02:01:09):
gonna do and that's that's good.
Like, like I said, like even ifit hurts, you still have to do
it, you know.
And some of that, I think, islike me learning that it's okay

(02:01:31):
to make mistakes.
You know, I think when you growup, like in the kind of
household I did, like mistakeshave consequences you know, and
what that does is not make you aperson who's better behaved.
It makes you a person who liesabout the mistake you know, and

(02:01:58):
when you're a kid, you lie toyour parents.
When you're an adult, you lieto yourself.
You know, because you're theone that's going to give
yourself the worst punishment.
You know and um, I think it'sreally easy, like when things
are going well, to lie toyourself and not pretend that
like around the corner is youknow the thing, that's gonna,

(02:02:18):
that's gonna pull you down.
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (02:02:26):
I think one of the things we've seen throughout
this, specifically through thisepisode, but also, I think, kind
of a running theme here, isthat the focus is on the journey
, like not the completion of it,not the final product, because
there almost is no such thing asa final product, right like.
I mean, life is like.
The final product is whenyou're done, I mean it's with,

(02:02:50):
it's as.
As long as we're out there,living, breathing, kicking, I
mean it's, it's the journey, um,and I think that that that
that's a theme that at least forthis, for this show, and and
and and and trying to weave thatcommon thread with our guests,
you know, by way of music isjust to show, hey, it's a work

(02:03:10):
in progress and highlight thatand celebrate it and yeah, so we
definitely appreciate you doingthat with us.

Speaker 1 (02:03:17):
Yeah, I mean thanks for the opportunity, you know.

Speaker 5 (02:03:21):
Yeah, hopefully.
I mean thanks for theopportunity, you know.
Yeah, hopefully I wasn't Sorry.
I think it can.
I think it can in how we lookat that journey right, like I
think it can suck to be likeyou're still on this journey,
you know.
But I also think, for those ofus that are on a more of a
healing journey, hearing otherfolks say that like they're

(02:03:42):
still on it and they're stillworking at it, I think there can
be some comfort to that Becauseyou can, you could feel
yourself like why am I stillstruggling here?
And it can make you feel lessalone to think like, no, that's
kind of that's kind of normal.

Speaker 1 (02:03:57):
Yeah, or at least like it's.
It's a place along the way, youknow it's.
It's a place along the way.
You know it's a place along theway.
And it's frustrating, you know.
I think it's personallyfrustrating when you continue to
make a mistake that you knowyou shouldn't make.
It's frustrating for the peoplethat you're with.
You know, the people thatyou're around Like, why did it

(02:04:19):
get here?
You know, like, why did it here?
You know, um, but yeah, I just,I just think in general, you
know, I want to, um, yeah, nottry to present, present myself
as, like, I made it out.
You know I'm still strugglingout of the cave, you know with

(02:04:40):
everybody else, you know, andtrying to get away from the
shadows on the wall right andand the struggle is the way.

Speaker 3 (02:04:48):
Yeah, right to to like?
Um, that that's the point.
There is no like, like razasaid, there's no point to get to
, because what would that looklike?
Right, it is just a constantprocess and you just are either
on the journey or you're justletting it take you, you know,

(02:05:10):
and yeah, and hopefully alongthe way you get to some moments
where you can look around, likeyou said, phil, and say wasn't
that nice?

Speaker 5 (02:05:17):
Like wasn't that nice , this is nice, this is nice.

Speaker 1 (02:05:20):
Yeah, and it's right here and it's right now, but
it's nice yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:05:28):
All right, yeah, so we finish this out with kind of
a fun little lightning roundhere that Raza will guide you
through before we sign off.

Speaker 7 (02:05:40):
Yeah, all right, lightning round, yeah.
So this is our sort of thefinal piece of today's puzzle
and, basically, in keeping withour musical theme, we want to
know, we'd love to know, whatwas your first, last and best or
favorite concert that you wentto.

Speaker 1 (02:06:05):
The first concert is very hard to think of and I
don't know, it was probably someChristian Christian like decent
talk or something like that youcan say whatever you want, no
one's gonna fact check that hadto be it because, like like I
said, until I was like Iremember when I saw the beatles

(02:06:26):
the first time like until I was12 or 13, that would not have
been a like you know, public,your public music like that
would have been yeah, notsomething we would have did, but
yeah, it was either like Ithink, probably like carmen or
dc talk, like a contemporarymusic concert.

(02:06:48):
That would be my first.
The last concert I went to was,I think, william fitzsimmons
and slow runner at wow hall ineugene.
It was just like folding chairs, like 50 people, super intimate
, um which for like his with forvocals.

(02:07:09):
It was really, really it was afantastic show so they did like
slow runner open and then hecame out and did a set and then
they did like a 30 minute settogether.
Archipelago in the audience.
Oh man yeah, it was cool.
And then, uh, the best show Iwas at, I was at, I'm pretty

(02:07:31):
sure, in my answer I said thepearl jam show in 2006 and
that's probably it.
The bon iver show I mentionedearlier is like they're like
neck and neck the pearl jam showlike they were at the end of a
tour.
He had a cold so, like eddie'svoice was going, and towards the
end of the show, I think itmight have even been their first

(02:07:51):
encore.
Um, they started in the betterman and his voice cracked.
No, and he had to stop.
And the whole crowd in theUnited Center just waiting
watching the clock.
It's four o'clock.
They sang it for him.

(02:08:15):
Then the entire crowd sang therest of the first verse.
And then the pre kind of playedhim into the chorus and he came
back on the mic and he was likewe sound united.
It was at the united center.
He's like what a great crowd.
You all sound united you know,it was crazy because you could
tell that like people had beensinging along to the songs in

(02:08:35):
the show, so they already knewright where they were in the
song right the minute his voicecracked.
It was like there were 60 000people to just like, boom, we're
gonna, we're gonna bang thisright out.
And then they played two moreencores after that, um, which
were all just like the classicstuff um, that's awesome but it,

(02:08:55):
yeah, that was a great show.
And then the other cool thingabout that show when we showed
up to the show, we thought thatwe had front row seats on the,
because we knew the stadium, youknow right, we thought we had
front row seats on the seconddeck.
When we get there we realizewe're behind the stage and we're

(02:09:17):
looking at the backs of thespeakers and the backdrop yeah
so we were like oh, right right.
So we're standing there.
The opening act came out.
They played like three songsand they stopped.
We were like what in the world?
So then we see the band, we seepearl jam coming up, because

(02:09:39):
now we could, we're behind thestage, right.
So we see them coming up.
They come out.
They're behind the stage, right.
So we see them coming up, theycome out, they're on the side of
the stage.
We're like are they coming onalready?
Or like what's going on?
And all of a sudden we see thebackdrop coming down and
apparently the opening band hadgone back and said like there's
all these people behind thestage there's all these people

(02:10:03):
behind the stage and they.
They just moved the lights intoa square and then played the
concert in the round.

Speaker 7 (02:10:10):
So that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (02:10:11):
I mean, they kind of had stuff set up so they
couldn't do it purely in theround.
So he played like half the showthis way, and then Eddie and
Mike and stone cause it couldn'tturn around the drum kit.
It all set up, sure sure, yeah,eddie and mike and stone turned
around and eddie came around toour side and then they played

(02:10:32):
facing us for a while and duringthe incores.
He would kind of like eddiewould sing both ways and kind of
perform, and it was, it wasjust kind of a cool moment yeah
for sure.
And then the last.
Yeah, that was the best one, sothat's it, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, that takes care ofit.

Speaker 5 (02:10:52):
Thank you.
That's awesome, Phil.
Thank you so much for coming on.
No, thank you for having me onand trusting us with your story
and your songs and your musicand just thank you.
In the few minutes we have leftjust to sign us off, if there's
anything, we give you the floorfor a minute to tell folks what

(02:11:13):
you might have going on,anything you want to share and
if your story maybe resonatedwith folks, maybe how they can
contact you.
If you're okay with that.

Speaker 1 (02:11:21):
I definitely shouldn't be anybody's therapist
, unless we're already friends.
Wait, please don't come to mefor advice.
I'm working my way through myown battle.
So I'm here in Humboldt makingwood doors and windows and I'm

(02:11:44):
going to be maybe doing a littlebit of freelance work for the
newspaper here in town.
So that'll be fun Be able toflex the writing muscles again.
And Ann and I are kind of at.
This is Ann's behest.
I am very much like let's stayat home and be in the garden,

(02:12:06):
but we're embarking on somecommunity-minded endeavors and
going to be restoring an oldbuilding downtown and just doing
some different kind of thingsand, obviously, working on this
house.
So, yeah, that's pretty much it.
My life is my work and myfamily and I like it that way.

(02:12:32):
I like to keep it pretty boringthese days, but that's good for
me and it suits me.
But that's good for me and itsuits me.
But certainly, if you'rewatching this and you are a past
friend from life that David andI shared and you want to reach
out and we're not really incontact, you know, you obviously

(02:12:54):
feel free.
But yeah, I am definitely notcomfortable telling people yeah,
reach out to me, I'll tell youwhat to do.

Speaker 3 (02:13:02):
yeah, yeah no need for that at all.
I have a two and a half year meand it's like I'll tell you
what to do.
I don't.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No need for that at all I havea two and a half year old and
that's all my.
That's where all my life advicegoes, you know like there you go
, there you go I love that and Ithink you know also, you,
you've given everybody so muchalready by just opening up for
these.
You know two hours and so you,you've definitely, you've

(02:13:22):
definitely done enough and so,yes, you can um, like, like they
say to iron man, you can restnow.
You've done the work.
Yeah, um, yeah, um, yeah.
So again, thanks, phil, forcoming on, thanks for being
being open, thanks for sharingUm for everyone listening out

(02:13:43):
there.
You know, um, you all know whatto do.
If you've liked what you'veheard, share it with people.
If the story today resonatedwith you and you think there's
someone out there that couldbenefit from hearing this, that
they, they might are, um,needing a little help getting on
their healing journey, pleaseshare it with them.
Um, if we can help others,that's that's a win.

(02:14:04):
That's what we're going for.
So definitely share it, like it.
Uh, subscribe, follow whateveryour platform is, so you can
hear more episodes.
Um, and if you are someonewho's listening, who is
struggling, know that there'shelp out there.
You are not alone, um, it canget better, um, and so seek out
those places to find help.
Call someone, let someone knowyou are not alone.
It can get better, and so seekout those places to find help.

(02:14:25):
Call someone, let someone knowyou are not a burden to anyone.
The people in your life wantyou there, so make that call and
with that we will see you nexttime on A Life in Six Songs.
Thanks for watching andlistening.

All Episodes

Ep. 16 - Phil Mayo: Our Stories are Incomplete Journeys

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Crime Junkie

24/7 News: The Latest

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 16 - Phil Mayo: Our Stories are Incomplete Journeys