August 15, 2023 • 58 mins
Step into a world of resilience and creativity in this episode
of (not so) Secret Dads Business]. Nate engages in a profound dialogue with Nemiah VanGuilder, a gifted author and artist, as he shares his courageous journey from the clutches of addiction to the realm of artistic inspiration.
Nemiah's unfiltered narrative unveils the arduous battle with addiction, a struggle many face in silence. Through sheer determination, he emerged from darkness, harnessing newfound clarity and purpose. His story is a
testament to the unwavering human spirit.
Explore the depths of Nemiah's creative process, especially his latest work, "The Unseen Gift: A Christmas Love Story." As he peels back the layers of this enchanting tale, you'll uncover the profound connections between creativity and healing.
Join Nate and Nemiah for an intimate exploration of the intersections between adversity, recovery, and imagination.
Buy Nemiah's Books: www.vanguilder-kane-books.com
Be a Guest on (not so) Secret Dads Business:
Email Nate at notsosecretdadsbusiness@gmail.com or on the website https://www.notsosecretdadsbusiness.com/be-a-guest-on-nssdb
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Coming up in this episode of NotSo Secret Dad's Business.
Yeah, I had to. I had to go through like 5 or 6
rounds of editing with with my illustrator to make sure
everything was exactly the way Iwanted.
Like you can see, you know, in in the first opening shots,
there's no pictures on the wallsand then there's a picture of
(00:23):
the baby sonogram. And then there's two pictures,
and then there's three pictures,and then the wall is colored.
Yeah. So there's a lot of things I I
put in there that are are for parents who are going to look at
it again with a more discerning eye than just, you know,
glossing over it the first time.Are you new to fatherhood?
(00:47):
Not sure if you're doubting to your full potential where you've
come to the right place? Most dads aren't talking to each
other about their lives as dads like it's some kind of secret.
Well, this is the podcast that takes the secret out of
fatherhood. This is not so secret.
Dad's business G'day G'day. And welcome to another episode
(01:16):
of Not So Secret Dad's Business.We're back.
After a few sporadic episodes here and there, I've finally got
a bunch of awesome content recorded.
And we're going to be rolling out weekly episodes again as of
this week. So thank you for your patience
guys. I've had a recently massive
(01:37):
influx of guests booking with meto be on the podcast, so I've
been madly booking and recordingand editing and doing a bunch of
stuff to to get this show back on the road.
Now obviously without my guests,I don't have a podcast to bring
to you guys, so I'm going to putthe call out again.
(01:57):
I've already done it on Facebook.
I'm putting it out here as well.If you're listening to this and
you'd like to be a guest on the podcast, please feel free to
send me an e-mail, hit up my website at the be a guest page
on my website. Or if you know know somebody
else that would be awesome to have on the show and you think I
(02:17):
should be speaking to, please get them to reach out to me, or
even just let me know who they are and I can reach out to them.
Speaking of awesome guests though, this week I have on the
show the illustrious Nemaya Van Galda.
So I caught up with Nemaya this past week to talk about his
(02:38):
latest creative endeavor, which is a children's book called The
Unseen Gift, A Christmas Love Story.
Now I've read the book, I've looked it over myself.
It's a fantastic little book andI think the kids will love it.
But as you'll hear in in this episode, Nemaya actually likens
it to the movie up very much because, you know, it's more
(03:03):
it's a book more for the adults than it is for the kids really.
And I think the adults are goingto notice more in this book than
anybody else. But it was really cool.
I really resonated with it. The interesting thing about this
episode is that talking to Nemaya and not just listening to
his background and where he's come from, we ended up going
(03:25):
down a bit of a rabbit hole of addiction.
Now, I've been meaning to talk to somebody about addiction for
a while now, not so much how to get over it, but more how it
affects those who are afflicted with addiction.
And I'm not talking just, you know, with drugs.
I'm talking addiction right across the spectrum, whether it
(03:46):
be alcohol, drugs, gambling or even creative endeavors that we
get really hyper fixated on. That being said, you know, I
have to admire and admires openness talking about this
because it wasn't a topic that we planned on touching on.
But you know, that's just the way this podcast rolls
(04:07):
sometimes, you know, we don't know where we're going to go and
what we're going to end up with.But it's all about dads having
conversations and and seeing where that goes.
And I just, I hope that this episode has something there that
can help other dads. And that's all this shows about,
is trying to help other dads as well.
(04:27):
Now, if you are a reader, Nemayaalso has a horror novel out at
the moment, and it's called Wellspring of Malignancy.
Now it is under a pseudonym because he didn't want to
confuse it with the children's book.
But both his horror novel Wellspring of Malignancy and his
children's book The Unseen Gift,A Christmas Love Story, are both
(04:53):
available on Amazon. Failing that, you can go to his
website which is www.vangeldercanebooks.com and
you'll be able to get your handson those right there.
I will make sure that link is inthe description.
So if you don't remember it, nota problem.
(05:14):
Just go into the description, hit that link and it'll take you
straight there. Anyway, guys, I'm not gonna
waffle on much further. Housekeeping sorted.
Introduction sorted. Let's get into this week's
episode with Namaya Van Gulder. Hi, good eye, NIA.
(05:46):
Maya. How you doing man?
Hey, Nate, how are you? Thanks for having me on.
I appreciate it. Hey man, it's great to have you
on the show, man. Thanks so much for reaching out
to me. Yeah.
A couple of weeks ago you sent me what you called a short bio
and I think it's about two or three pages long.
So I've been looking through that, man, and you've, you've
lived in an interesting life. So to kick us off, man, like
(06:10):
give us a little bit of a background of yourself and and
who you are. Sure.
My name is Namaya Van Gother. I grew up in a small town in
upstate New York where there wasnothing to do except, you know.
Party and get into trouble really.
And I joined the army in my junior year of high school and
(06:34):
did an 8 year enlistment where Ispent most of it in the 101st
Airborne Division as an infantryman.
After that I I went home and with all of the wonderful bad
habits that the army instilled in me, I.
I drank and drugged all of my savings away, and once I had an
(06:58):
awakening, and by that I mean after a case of beer and a
couple bottles of whiskey and some hash, LSD, Coke, weed, you
know, all in one night, I realized driving home in a Jeep
that I was going to kill myself,that this was eventually going
(07:20):
to end up with me and. A ditch somewhere.
So I cleaned up, lost all my friends and then went to school.
And luckily when I went to school and I met my, I met my
now wife, She was my resident advisor in the dorm and we've
(07:41):
been together ever since. So, you know, going on 30 years
now. Yeah.
Wow, that's awesome. There's there's one thing I want
to touch on with that man. Because you're saying that you
left the army and you just drankand drugged everything away,
right? Oh.
Yeah. Now obviously when when you go
into the army, they break you down and they build you back up
(08:02):
into the the soldier that they need, right?
Like they they completely deleteevery part of you.
Absolutely. What How do you feel about the
fact that they just sort of let you back out into the civilian
world and don't really give you any preparation to to be able to
cope? Because you end up just being a
soldier going into a civilian's world.
(08:23):
You don't go back to the way youwere.
Yeah, that's that's true. But on the other hand it is, it
is only true for a small percentage of enlisted soldiers.
So you have, you know the the 2%or what have you of, of citizens
who enlist in the military and then of that 2% you only have.
(08:47):
10% or 12% who actually enlist in a in a combat arms unit.
So having had the opportunity to, you know, mingle with other
soldiers, there is a completely different mindset between
between different units. Doing doing a combat operation
(09:08):
job and you know working in an office is 2 completely different
things. And I think one of the things
that was hard for me to come to terms with when my enlistment
was coming to a close, and it really only came to a close
because most of my unit came down on orders to be stationed
in Korea. I was not interested in going to
(09:29):
Korea, so I I decided to ETS. And unlike being a mechanic or a
cook or working in an office, there are only so many job
opportunities. When your training consists of
shooting at people and blowing things up.
(09:50):
So I decided fuck it, I will, I'll go, I'll go home and I'll
go get my criminal justice degree and I'll go be a cop.
I figured it was the closest thing that fit unless I wanted
to get into private contracting and I didn't really, really want
to go go back on deployment again.
So so that's what I did. The problem is at least in the
(10:13):
States. When you're deployed so much and
you don't use your leave time, your leave time accrues and then
they pay you out for that leave time at the end.
So you have a young 20 somethingfull of testosterone idiot.
And you give him a lump sum of money and say okay, here's your
plane ticket. Go home and.
(10:36):
And I did and. All of the bad habits that I
would intermittently have when we were not on deployment, you
know, drinking primarily. There was nothing else to do.
So we drank. And unfortunately I had a close
friend of mine from from high school who who left the army at
(10:59):
about the same time I did. And so that's what we did.
Every day, every night from months on end, I would wake up,
my breakfast would be a bottle of Jägermeister and then I would
go, I would go work out and I would drink a six pack of beer
while I was working out, while I'm chain smoking cigarettes.
(11:20):
And then after that, then we would start partying.
And yeah, you know it doesn't. It doesn't take too long to blow
through 10 grand and booze and drugs when you really put your
mind to it. So yeah, they didn't, they
didn't really prepare you to handle all of those negative
(11:41):
coping mechanisms. So what What happened then?
Because you you went to school and got your degree and then the
the Academy shut down or something along those lines,
right. So you didn't end up becoming a
police officer at all? Oh yeah, I I took, I took my my
NYPD exam. Passed it with flying colors.
(12:04):
I got my number for the Academy class and then the New York City
had a big budget issue and they cut 2 consecutive NYPD classes,
of which mine was one. So I was like, well what am I
going to do now? And my wife was working at a
mobile medical diagnostics company and.
(12:28):
Initially, they just needed, they needed a career.
They needed someone who would bewilling to drive around the
entire tri-state area. And I said, shit, I can do that.
It's fun. Isn't it funny how that works,
right? Like you, you start a job with
the thinking of I'll do this fora while until I can really do
what I want to do and you just end up stuck.
(12:49):
You don't move and I think sometimes it's one of the most
soul crushing things for a man, you know, It's like you've got
this dream and it never fucking eventuates because just life
gets in the way. Yeah, and the problem was that I
unknowingly stepped further and further into that myself because
initially I thought, hey, this is this is fun and there were
(13:13):
certain things about the job that I loved.
The way I started working up theladder was because things would
break, you know, this was, you know, a long time ago.
You're talking, you know, 18 years ago.
So the medical industry, especially what we did with
mobile diagnostics, was, you know, 3 generations
(13:35):
technologically passed. So it's it was the kind of stuff
you always see on TV with the doctors where they're taking
Xrays and they're holding the film up in front of a light box.
It was all that crap that doesn't exist anymore.
Anytime you see that in a movie,it's bullshit.
But we would have these big X-ray processors and they would
break down and I was like, it's already broken.
(13:56):
What's the worst thing that can happen?
Fuck it. I'll take a shot at fixing this
and I was able to figure it out and fix it, and that made me
invaluable. And that got you more money, and
that got you a promotion, and that was fun.
But then you're teaching other people how to do it, and that's
less fun. And then you're just working on
paperwork and answering emails, and that's even less fun.
(14:19):
And then you're just spending your time placing orders and
doing meetings and you realize you're never getting out of this
fucking chair and all the thingsyou set out to do for yourself,
you're not doing. And then after having been, you
know, clean for for so many years, because of all of the
(14:42):
pregnancy issues that my wife and I were going through, I
didn't know how else to cope with that.
And so I started drinking heavily again.
And yeah, it was it was a downward spiral.
Yeah, I can only imagine, man. Again, from reading your bio,
it's just man. Like your pregnancy journey just
(15:04):
must have been fucking heartbreaking, you know?
So let tell us a little bit about that, because yeah, it's
one hell of a journey for to become a father, man.
Yeah, so my wife and I, not unlike a lot of parents, I
imagine, in our same position. I grew up in upstate New York in
(15:25):
a small town where. You know, there was, there was
no money. It was all slate quarries and
factories, you know, hardworkingfarmers and, you know, slate
splitters. And my wife grew up in the
housing projects of the South Bronx.
Neither one of us grew up with any money, and we decided that
(15:47):
what we wanted to do was to be completely financially stable
before we decided to have children.
And so that's what we did. And you know, we had a great
time. We we bought 2 houses and cars
and we went on, you know, cruises around the Mediterranean
(16:09):
and trips to Europe and all of these wonderful things that our
parents would have never been able to even imagine doing.
But time waits for no man, as they say.
And when you hear women. Talk about their biological
clock ticking. That's not bullshit.
And and we waited and we waited and then we were like okay, it's
(16:31):
time and you know it it happenedpretty quickly.
The first time my wife got pregnant we were super duper
excited and and then we were at work and my wife and I, you know
we worked the same shift. We worked at the same office so
we would travel together and I got out of a meeting.
(16:51):
I went to the car and my wife was just curled up in the
passenger seat in agony and we rushed to the hospital and she
had an ectopic pregnancy and they had to remove the Fallopian
tube and it was one of those things they couldn't foresee it.
It didn't come up on any of the tests and because.
(17:15):
It was still early enough in thepregnancy where they they hadn't
done the ultrasound yet. We we had no idea, but they took
the fallopian tube. And of course, you know, being
an inquisitive gentleman myself,I made one of the biggest
mistakes when the doctor asked me if I wanted to see my child
and he showed me the picture of the removed fallopian tube,
(17:37):
which I can never ever forget. So it took a while to recover
from that. And then we decided we would try
again. And we did.
And we tried for about four years, all natural and nothing.
Nothing worked. And so we went and saw a
(17:57):
fertility specialist and you know, they did all the normal
stuff. Take, take these supplements, do
this, do that. That didn't work.
So we moved on to the next step.And we finally got to the IVF
point and we went through 11 rounds of IV.
(18:19):
F3 of three of them were successful and we lost three in
the first trimester and each onewas successively more
heartbreaking. And you know when you do I VF.
(18:40):
And they give you the breakdown of like the embryo health and
all of that good stuff. You know they they tell you
right away like what the what the sexes of the embryos are and
and we only had one male embryo out of all of them which was
kind of crazy and my wife reallywanted wanted a boy and.
(19:09):
When we lost that one towards the end of the first trimester,
that was a huge hit. It was a huge hit for her.
And although I had always told my wife and even told myself
whether I was, you know, in denial or not, I said I'm, I'm,
it doesn't matter to me. As long as we have a healthy
(19:31):
child, I'm fine. And then we lost the only boy
and it occurred to me that you're never, you're never going
to have a son. This is it.
I took that really, really hard and then we did two more rounds
of IVF and finally one took and we got to, we got through the
(19:52):
end of the first trimester into the second trimester and you
know it felt like we won the Super Bowl just to get that far.
And man, I tell you the The first time we did an ultrasound
and I saw that baby's heartbeat,I cried right there in the
office. Cried like a baby.
And then everything was everything was going good until
(20:12):
they realized my wife was dilating way too early and so
they had to stitch up her cervixand call it a cerclage.
They said if if that worked, great.
If not, they were going to have to put her on bed rest for the
rest of the pregnancy, which luckily she didn't need to do.
(20:33):
We had an appointment to get outthe cerclage and the night
before that appointment my wife's water broke.
We were having dinner and thingsstarted to happen.
So we had to call the hospital and and rush in.
And then my daughter was born. Born the next day at 5:06 in the
afternoon. Best moment of my life.
(20:56):
And then as they handed me my daughter for the first time,
after they took all of her measurements and put her
adorable little cap on her, theysaid okay, you can go over and
sit in the corner in that chair.And as as I was sitting there
holding my daughter, I heard a noise.
(21:18):
And I can only equate it to the sound of someone just taking a
cup full of water and throwing it on the floor.
And I looked up and it was bloodand there was blood everywhere.
And then they say, I know the room was in chaos and they're
(21:39):
unhooking my wife from from all of the tubes and cables and
everything else that they've gotconnected to her and they're
racing her out to the ER and I'mjust left sitting there.
The floor is covered in blood. I'm holding my daughter and no
one is there to tell me anything.
(22:01):
They didn't say a word. They just raced her out.
It was, it was pretty rough. And then she was, she was back
later that night, you know, dopeto the gills as one would
expect. And she was, she was fine.
And then we discharged with the baby a couple of days later, had
(22:23):
our first doctor's appointment the very next morning where we
had to go back to the NICU because even though they would
just discharge us the the day prior, they were so worried
about her jaundice levels that they thought there was something
possibly wrong with their liver.So we had to go back and be in
(22:44):
the NICU for the better part of the next week.
And then we went home. And now my daughter is, you
know, 17 months old and she's doing absolutely wonderfully.
But of course, you know, before we got to that, it was, I got
home and my wife was clotting. Now when when a woman tells a
(23:09):
man, Oh yeah, I'm, I'm doing some clotting.
We have no idea what that means,you know, generally speaking,
unless they're showing it to you, which is almost never going
to be the case. So when my wife said I'm, you
know, I'm clotting, I was like okay.
(23:30):
And after a week I was like, well, did you call the doctor?
She said, no, no, I have to, youknow, I have to go for a
followup appointment anyway, Okay until she actually saved
clot in the refrigerator. And trust me, that's not what
you want to see when you're looking for your eggs in the
(23:51):
morning. And I saw the size of this
thing, and I was just like, no, you need to go to the doctor
now. So she did.
And they admitted her after a long wait.
And she went into the the surgery room at around 7:00 at
(24:16):
night when she was supposed to go in at 3:00 in the afternoon.
And I had no idea that she didn't go in at 3:00 in the
afternoon. So, you know, I'm just sitting
on my hands and they called me at like 10:30 that night.
And the doctor said she's out ofsurgery, she's doing okay, but
(24:38):
she lost a lot of blood. I kind of lost track of what she
said after that until she said again, she lost a lot of blood.
And after she told me she lost alot of blood the third time, I
was like, you need to be a little more specific for me.
What do you mean by she lost a lot of blood?
And the doctor said, well, she lost 6 units of blood.
(25:01):
And if you're familiar with the human body, the human body holds
approximately 10. So she lost more than half of
her blood on the operating table.
And so she was in the ICU for the next week and and then
finally discharged. And of course, this was, you
(25:22):
know, during the height of COVID, so I couldn't even bring
the baby in to see her, which, you know, was kind of a double
whammy. But yeah, so she's good.
She's an absolute savage and andeverything is, everything is
(25:42):
good. But it was a long, long road to
get my daughter here. Jesus Christ, what a roller
coaster ride, man. Well, I can only imagine now,
because you know. Through doing this podcast, I've
learned that there are a lot of lot of couples out there dealing
with infertility and you know, complications with pregnancy and
(26:05):
childbirth and that sort of thing.
And and what I've learned is like nobody really talks about
it, so you don't know how prevalent it is.
But yeah, like my wife and I, we're doing a similar thing and
I even even personally, I did itwith my exwife as well and it
was one of the one of the things.
I mean, there are several reasons why we're divorced and
(26:26):
again, me being young and dumb and you know, drinking a case of
beer every day and and just using the bong like a snorkel
and all this sort of shit, you know, that all added up.
But the fact that we've been trying for children for five
years and then having a look at fertility treatment as well,
with her having PCOS and me having a low sperm count and
(26:49):
everything, it was, it was just.Something we couldn't come back
from. We we worked strong enough in
our relationship to be able to move forward.
Fast forward to today, You know,I'm now with my wife.
I met her when she was four months pregnant.
And so I've just automatically became like the facto dad, you
(27:09):
know, I was there for the childbirth.
I was there for, you know, sonograms, ultrasounds, all that
sort of jazz. And it was really cool having
that experience, even though I didn't get the fun of making him
still being there and seeing allthat progress and seeing him be
born and then being there for the last seven years, raising
(27:32):
this kid. It's been phenomenal.
But that being said, you know, like it still kind of feels like
our family's incomplete because we don't have a child of our own
together. And so yeah, we're we're at that
point. We haven't haven't moved forward
into the IVF stages yet. We've still.
We're seeing the doctor and they're like, you're gonna lose
another 10 kilos. You need to lose a bit more
weight. You know, we can't start
(27:53):
anything until we're at this bench line.
So we kind of put it on the backburner and if anything, put on
weight. So now we're even further behind
that ball. So you know, again we're we're
doing that and it's it. Emotionally even, especially in
the beginning stages. It sucks.
But then I have to go through everything else that you've
(28:15):
you've been through. Man.
I don't know how you hold. You hold your shit together like
Well, I didn't. I I crawled.
I crawled into a bottle. Yeah, How?
How do things? Not both.
It's up. Just like just like the first
time around, it kind of just wasa a, a dawning to me.
(28:36):
And yeah, like I mentioned to you, I think off the air when
when my wife was going through all of this, she was able to get
get into certain social media groups that were kind of support
groups for women going through IVF.
And there, as much as I look there, there really wasn't that
for for dads or prospective dads.
(28:59):
And so I was left to my own devices.
And my own devices was whiskey. So I would, you know, seclude
myself away down in my little cave and do my creative
endeavors and drink. And I I tried.
(29:21):
I knew. I knew it was getting out of
control when I couldn't remembercoming back upstairs.
And so as most addicts you try to figure out a way around that.
And I I was like, OK, well here's here's what I'll do.
I won't, I won't bring the bottle down with me.
(29:42):
I'll pour myself a couple of fingers and I'll just have that.
And all that accomplished was meneeding to walk back up the
stairs 20 * a night. So, you know, that didn't work.
And I know it, I know it sounds strange, but I I think you'll
find that a lot of guys probablydo the same thing.
You know, we we lose ourselves emotionally in something.
(30:10):
And for me, it was not necessarily my creative
endeavors, but it was the ritualof the creative endeavor.
So I would, you know, I would belistening to certain certain
music and I would have my drink and that would be it.
And you know, sometimes as musictends to a certain song at the
(30:36):
right time will tell you what you need to hear.
And it was, it was after we had lost our only male embryo and
there's a Tool song called Jimmy.
Another one. OK And that was it.
I heard that song and damn near had a mental breakdown.
And I was just like, you're doing this again, you're doing
(30:59):
this all over again. And I talked to my wife about
about my seeing a therapist, andshe was totally on board with
it. And so I went and started seeing
seeing a therapist. And right away he was just like,
you're not an alcoholic, You're an addict.
(31:23):
There's a difference. And I was just like, but but I
don't. I haven't done, I haven't done
drugs in, you know, 20 somethingyears.
It's just booze. I'm an alcoholic.
Like, no, no, no, no, no. Look at everything else in your
life. If you didn't have the booze,
you would find something else tofocus on, good or bad, whatever
(31:46):
you put in front of you. And I was just like, shit,
You're right. You're fucking right.
Until you're clean, you don't hear the voice because you're
open to the voice all the time. That little lizard brain that
talks to you when you're all alone and you're not doing
(32:09):
anything, maybe you're bored. I clearly remember one Saturday
morning and my wife was at work.I was just brushing my teeth and
it was like I heard a voice thatwas not my voice saying, why
don't you go to the liquor store?
And I was like, son of a bitch, look at that.
(32:30):
That was the first time I ever really heard it that way.
And you know, it gets better. I've been sober for a few years
now, but it never goes away. And you know, then certain
things happen, like here in the states with all of the changes
in laws regarding, you know, marijuana and THC and all that
(32:52):
stuff, there are, you know, dispensaries and smoke shops on
every other block. Now.
It's ridiculous. But still, especially as a as a
writer and I'm working on I'm working on a new book right now
and you know sometimes you hit like this creative block and
you're just like oh man, I need something to shake me out of
(33:13):
this. What the hell?
And that little voice is like, dude, there's pot right up the
fucking street. Just just go get some gummies
and knock one out you'll you'll break those gates down and and
you're like you little son of a bitch, you think you can con me
into doing this again, huh? So you just always have to have
your guard up because you know if you're an addict, you're an
(33:33):
addict for life. It's never going away and you
have to be able to face that. So yeah, I went to therapy.
He got me to admit that I quit drinking.
I was lucky enough that my therapist was a recovered
alcoholic. He gave me the giant a A book.
(33:54):
The Big Blue Book. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He gave me the Big Blue book andhe said you don't have to go to
any meetings if you don't want to, but start looking through
this. And I did.
And I've still got, I've still got that copy of the book that
sits on my night stand. If I if I needed, it's there.
(34:14):
But I never went to a meeting and I've never had another drink
since. Congratulations, man.
That's great to hear. Well, thank you.
It's most days you don't even think about it, and some days
it's all you think about. Look, as an addict to myself, I
know exactly where you're comingfrom.
You know? Again, for years I always
thought I was an alcoholic. And I always said I was a
(34:37):
functional alcoholic. You know, I was still going to
work this, that and the other. And but it was it was ruining
job prospects. It was ruining relationships.
And I was like, okay, I'm an alcoholic.
Wasn't until four, maybe five years ago, not long after I met
my wife, that I actually realized that I was an addict.
Because I've I've got this saying right that I I don't like
(35:01):
drugs. Drugs really like me, you know,
and people have offered in the past and I've, I've had to turn
it down. Not because I didn't want to,
because man, especially drugs. I love doing drugs.
I love the way it makes me feel all that shit.
But I know for a fact that if it's just that once I'm going to
lose control, there's there's absolutely no way I'm going to
(35:24):
be able to recover from it. So I have to like, no, I'm not
touching that pipe today. I'm not doing this.
I'm not doing that. That being said, though, man,
like booze is a big issue for mestill.
Because I've been, I tried goingsober and I I'd go three months
sober and then I'd relapse, and then I'd go two months sober.
I'd relapse, got another three months.
(35:45):
And I thought, again, like you said, you find that excuse, You
know, I'm a bit blocked at the moment or I can't.
I can't deal with these emotionsright now.
I need something just to take the edge off.
But then you don't take the edgeoff.
You completely blunt in the whole fucking blade, you know,
and and next thing you know you're waking up with a
hangover. Your mouth tastes like a bird is
(36:07):
just shit in it, you know, it's it's it's a fucking nightmare
and it's a vicious cycle and andnow even I'm convinced myself
that I'll have a couple of drinks on this special occasion.
I'll be good. Next thing I know I've got beer
in the fridge. You know when I didn't before.
So yeah, I understand what you're saying then.
(36:28):
And it's it. It's a bitch.
Ah, fuck yeah. Yeah.
After I. After I.
After I stopped drinking, I secluded myself from any
situation whatsoever where anyone would be drinking,
isolated myself from family gatherings, You know, people
just thought I was being an asshole and they had.
(36:50):
They had no idea that I had stopped because I didn't tell
anyone. And you know, I was the guy who
would walk in the room and go, who's doing shots with me.
And you know, being, you know, Idon't, I don't live in the city
currently. But you know, having lived in
(37:11):
the city, I had a, I had a lot of friends who were in in bands
around the New York City area. So I was always at at clubs and
music venues and you know that'sthat's what you do.
Yeah, how are you going to get, how are you getting the getting
the pit if you're not shit faced?
(37:31):
So I was really, really, really worried and I had bought concert
tickets for for a show. And I don't know if you're
familiar with the guitar player Nita Strauss.
She plays for the band Alice Cooper.
Yeah, man. She not long ago did a song with
(37:51):
with David Dryman. Oh yeah.
Yep. Yep.
Yep. She's she's fucking amazing.
She really is. So she was doing, she was doing
a show and I had VIP tickets to to go because at the same time
she was also doing like this this fitness competition thing
called Body Shred and I had clearly fallen from my former
(38:16):
military glory. So I was trying to get back in
shape and you know, I lost a bunch of weight and it was, it
was good. But I went to the show and to
get into the competition you hadto write like a like an intro
letter. And in my intro letter I
admitted that that I had addiction issues and booze was a
(38:40):
big problem. And I know that, you know, in
her past she she got sober too. So when we met at the VIP and
she saw my name, she remembered the letter that I had sent in.
And she, she took the time to speak with me before the show
for a little while. And I told her, I said this is
(39:03):
my first sober show. You know, I go to a lot of
concerts, but I haven't gone to a show since I got sober.
And she said don't worry about it, it'll be just you and me
having club soda. It's it's all going to be good.
So show was great. They were amazing and after the
show I hung out outside and bothher and her, her now fiance
(39:28):
Josh, who was also her drummer, who's amazing.
They hung out with me for probably close to 45 minutes
after the show, to the point where I felt bad that I was
boguarding all their time. And they talked with me about it
being my first sober show and the struggles that they went
through. And yeah, just absolutely
(39:49):
amazing people as, as well as amazing musicians.
But once I broke that barrier, Iwas good and I felt like I could
go back to, you know, a a normalsemblance of of life and go to
these family gatherings. I was like, man, if I can handle
a fucking Hard Rock show. I could go to fucking Christmas
(40:11):
dinner and and not get shitfaced.
That was kind of the that was kind of the tipping point.
And you know it. It wasn't until after all of
that that my wife kind of came to me.
And she said, you know, it's it's a really good thing that
that you went to get help because you were getting really
bad. And she didn't know how much
(40:32):
longer she was going to be able to put up with it without, you
know, telling me how bad it was getting, you know, which had to
be hard for her because she was,you know, at the same time going
still going through all of the pregnancy things.
She's doped to the gills on medicine and me giving her shots
twice a day, every day, All the psychological and emotional
stuff that goes along with all that.
(40:55):
That's, yeah, Look, I mean, I understand where you're coming
from as well because like, one thing I struggled with with
sobriety and I'm glad you pointed out Christmas, because
this is a big one for me, right,Growing up.
There was a tradition in my family where my father cooked
the Turkey. He would carve the Turkey.
Turkey was Dad's thing. That was his contribution to
(41:16):
Christmas. And I I took that on as my own
thing where because we don't do Thanksgiving here, so Turkey,
Turkey day is Christmas Day for us.
And so I took that on for myself.
But it would be okay. I'm up at 5:00 in the morning
prepping the Turkey. Well, shit, I'm in the kitchen.
I'm cooking. I've got to have a drink while
(41:36):
I'm cooking, right? So it's, it's five in the
morning. I'm cracking that first beer.
It comes to lunchtime. I'm too shit faced to even carve
the Turkey. So I'm like, OK, look, I've
cooked, you guys, do the rest, dish it up.
Let's see. But then because I'm, I'm
already on that roll. I've got, you know, as we say, a
loaf in my belly. So let's say 30 beers.
(42:00):
You know, I'm not hungry, so I'mnot eating.
I'm still necking them back. And so yeah, coming, coming with
Christmas is a big one for me because it's like, what do I do
with myself, man? I'm not drinking.
And and that that was a strugglefor me last year.
And again I ended up caving and drinking on Christmas Day.
But it's it's I'm at. I'm at a similar point where
(42:23):
I've got to go to therapy and I've got to find new coping
mechanisms and work out how I'm going to get through life
without. These negative coping
mechanisms, because this is the beauty of addiction.
It doesn't start because you're an addict.
It starts because you don't havehealthy coping mechanisms and
then you become an addict. Like somebody addicted to heroin
never put needle in their arm because they were addicted to
(42:48):
the stuff that were looking for an escape, you know, And then
that escape became an integral part of their life.
And that's where, like really where I'm at with with.
Alcohol. I love it because it is an
escape. But at the same time, there
comes a point where it's not an escape, it's just a crutch.
It's just something for you to be able to keep going through
(43:09):
the motions every day. Yeah, and it's a bitch.
Yeah. I mean, you know, professionals
can debate the nature versus nurture all day long.
But from my perspective, what I have observed within myself is
that a lot of people are using drugs and alcohol as an escape,
(43:35):
like you said, from something intheir life that they either
don't want to or don't know how to deal with.
And their life gets progressively worse.
But they don't understand that part of the reason that your
life is going downhill is because you're doing exactly
(43:56):
what you're doing to try to escape it.
And like you said earlier, for me, there's there's no falling
off the wagon. I don't fall off the wagon.
I supercharged the V8, get behind the wheel of the wagon
and floor the fucking thing downa hill into a tree.
And you know you can only do that so many times before you're
(44:17):
dead. That's exactly right, man.
Look, moving on. Because there's a reason as well
why I wanted to talk to you and and this is this is focused
around your creativity and your creative works, right?
So you sent me a PDF of your latest book.
Can you tell us a little bit about that, man?
(44:37):
Because when I read it, it really rung true for me.
Sure. Yeah.
So this did not it. It didn't start as a book.
This was, I wrote it on October 30th of last year, and it was
just one of those things where it just started popping into my
(44:59):
head. At first it was a little verse
and and I would write these things down because when my
daughter was born, I bought a journal and I decided that I was
going to, I was going to write to my daughter and I was going
to write to her about all of thethings that we had gone through
(45:23):
to get her here and all of the things that she wouldn't
remember and all of the things that, hell, I might not
remember. So I was going to keep a journal
about my daughter so that someday I could give it to her.
And part of the reason for that was, like I said, you know, my
(45:45):
wife and I spent quite a few years trying to get financially
stable. So we aren't the youngest
parents on the block. And you know, that's, you know,
one of the one of the things is you never, I don't, I don't know
what point in someone's life they actually realize how old
(46:09):
they are. And for me, it wasn't until my
daughter was born and I realized, holy shit, by the time
your daughter is your age, you're going to be dead.
You won't be here, almost assuredly.
I mean, it's possible, but it's not likely.
(46:30):
And so I wanted her to have something from me that that she
could always look back on that would explain to her what what
her dad felt. And as dads, a lot of us aren't
the greatest at expressing our emotions.
And for me, at least, I can express things on paper in a far
(46:54):
better fashion than I can say them out loud.
So for all the things that I can't say to her, I can have in
this journal so she will know. So something just popped into my
head and over the course of fourhours or so, I had written an
entire manuscript for for a for a book for a book based around
(47:19):
Christmas. And that was, you know, just
kind of the the setting for a kind of a deeper meaning of the
story. And when I read it over the next
day, I was like, shit, this is this is this is pretty decent.
(47:40):
Maybe I can do something with this.
And I wasn't convinced. And I sat on it for a while.
And then I started showing it tosome people, including my, my
sisterinlaw, who is a kindergarten teacher in the New
York City public school system. And she was like, okay, I'm
sitting in class. You just made me cry.
(48:01):
You're an asshole. I was like, oh, well, I I guess
it's got to be halfway decent, though.
And so, yeah, so I started shopping it out and ended up,
you know, getting a publisher towork with me on bringing it to
life. And you know, as someone who had
no idea how the publishing industry worked, I had no clue
(48:25):
whatsoever that writing the manuscript is gonna be the easy
part. And then all the hard work was
still to come. Yeah, look, I've I've considered
writing in the past, but again, I don't know.
I've got this thing where I don't like writing my thoughts
down because then it's proof. The people can use it against
me, you know? Sure.
Yeah. Well, make it.
(48:46):
Make make it fiction. Yeah, that's what I need to do.
But what I what I loved about this book that you've done, man.
Like I say, I could relate to itbecause what I took away from it
is, is the whole thing. That's like adults really don't
put that much weight into Christmas until they have kids,
and then Christmas takes on a whole different meaning.
(49:10):
You know, like both. Both my wife and I before our
son were born, we were both grinches, man.
I was, I was scrooged all day, every day.
Bah humbug this, Bah humbug thatfucking hate Christmas.
And then our first Christmas with our son, My wife is like
going all out. There's decorations all over the
(49:31):
place, the trees Immaculate likethis.
And I'm like, what's the deal? Like, we hate Christmas.
She's like, yeah, but I wanna make it as special for the baby
as I care. I'm not the.
He's a baby. He's not gonna remember this
shit. It's his first Christmas.
Like why are we going all that, you know?
And I'm standing there. Bah, Humba.
(49:51):
I think I said the same thing. You know but now we're at a
point we we fucking love Christmas for the pure fact it's
it's sitting there and seeing the joy on our little boy's face
every morning when it comes downand.
And there's those little traditions that you do like.
I hate Elf on a Shelf with a passion.
But every morning coming downstairs and hearing my son hi
(50:13):
dad check out where the elf is and always brought me a present
today or you know it's it's justthat's what that's that's what
Christmas is about for me now. Yeah.
And and you know, it's it's thatkind of feeling that I tried to
instill in the book and it wasn't even necessarily just
about not caring about Christmas, because it's
(50:37):
Christmas. We didn't feel like we had
anything to celebrate. And if you, if you look through
the PDF, there's there's certainthings that when I storyboarded
the entire book that if you're just looking at it to see pretty
pictures and not seeing kind of the subtext behind the meaning
of the pictures that you might miss.
(50:58):
Like on the very first page it shows the the husband and wife
sitting on the couch and they'resitting at opposite ends of the
couch. There's there's a chasm between
them that needs to be filled. And then later on in the book,
when you know the baby is there and the little girl is opening
(51:22):
her presence, they're snuggled up together on the couch because
she has brought them together ina way that nothing else could.
And there's certain other thingsin the book where like one wall
is is colored differently after she's born, bringing more color
and more joy into their lives. And then there's lots of things
(51:44):
that I put in the book that are are from my own childhood where
like the the Christmas lights wrapped around the banister of
the of the stairwell is something that my father would
do every year. And it brought him tons of joy
to light up the house for Christmas because it made his
kids happy. So it was things like that.
(52:07):
But it was also that I wanted. I didn't want this book to be a
book really, for the kids. I wanted the book to be for the
parents. Because there's, you know,
there's way too many books out there that a parent will read to
their child one time and think, oh, OK, that's kind of cute.
(52:29):
And by the time you get to the fifth time you're reading it,
you're like, this book sucks. If I have to read this book one
more time, I'm going to throw itin the fireplace.
You know, it's like the it's like the difference between, you
know, watching baby shark videoson YouTube and watching a movie.
(52:50):
Like if you're familiar with themovie up from Disney, OK, like
my wife and I saw the movie up and if you remember the 1st 15
minutes of that movie, it is a giant downer.
It's this kid getting bullied and growing up and meeting the
girl and her dying of cancer andhim being alone.
And you're like, what the fuck did I just walk into?
(53:12):
You know, it's a kids movie. Kids are going to enjoy it, but
it's not for kids, That's for adults.
And that's what I wanted to do with the book.
I wanted to make a book for adults that they could read to
their children that has a much deeper meaning.
That someday, after their kids are through being enamored with
picture books, they could give back to their child and say this
(53:36):
is what you meant to us, this iswhat you mean to us.
That no matter how many presentsare under the tree, they don't
mean anything. What means everything is what we
feel about you, how we express that to you.
And no present that you could ever give us means anything,
(53:59):
because you are the present. Yeah dude, that's awesome.
And you know what? I'm gonna have to go back and
read through this book again because those what you've
pointed out there are really nowyou've pointed them out.
So, gladly obvious, but. Reading the book, I didn't pick
up on those little nuances like the colored walls and the the
the ceiling positions on the couch and stuff like that.
(54:21):
I didn't even pick up on it. So that's.
Yeah, I'm gonna have to reread it now and I'm sure I'll read a
totally different book this thistime around.
Yeah, I had to. I had to go through like 5 or 6
rounds of editing with with my illustrator to make sure
everything was exactly the way Iwanted.
Like you can see, you know, in in the first opening shots,
(54:44):
there's no pictures on the walls.
And then there's a picture of the baby sonogram.
And then there's two pictures and then there's three pictures
and then the wall is colored. Yeah.
So there's a lot of things I I put in there that are are for
parents who are going to look atit again with a more discerning
(55:06):
eye than just, you know, glossing over it the first time.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, do.
We're just about out of time. So if you can, man, tell us
where parents can find this bookof yours, Give it the plug, man.
OK well, the name of the book iscalled The Unseen Gift, A
(55:26):
Christmas love story, and you can find it in paperback and
ebook formats on Amazon. Or you can go to my website
which is www.vanguardorkane books.
That's VANGUILD er-kane-books.com.
(55:50):
I've got paperback signed copieson my website.
And if anyone is a fan of horrornovels I have, I have a horror
novel also there, written under a pseudonym because I didn't
want there to be any confusion between a children's picture
book and my more hardcore horrorstuff.
(56:11):
So yeah, the first first horror novel is there, and I'm working
on the sequel right now. That's awesome man.
I'm gonna have to check that outfor myself as well, cuz as I was
signed off here earlier, I'm a huge horror buff.
Well, if you have a if you have,if you have Kindle Unlimited on
Amazon, it's it's free on KindleUnlimited.
Check it out. The wife has her Kindle.
(56:32):
I'll get her to download that for me then.
Yeah, the the horror novel is called Wellspring of Malignancy.
Ooh, sounds interesting, man. And like I say, I gotta, I gotta
break out of my Stephen King sort of bubble.
You know, I gotta like I say, I've got this bad habit of
reading one author and one author only and.
(56:52):
Yet my wife, now she's, she's read, I don't know, I've lost
count of how many books she's read this year, but the number
of books she's read and there's all these different authors.
And I just, yeah, I need to expand my horizons a bit.
So I'll definitely check that out, man.
Yeah, you should, you should check it out.
It's, you know, it's kind of a asupernatural horror revenge
(57:13):
story. I'm intrigued.
I'm intrigued. Well look Namaya, thanks so much
for. You know, sitting up late at
night to have this conversation with me, man.
And thank you so much for sharing your story, dude.
Yeah, Nate, my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me on.
Thanks for listening to the show.
If you want to find out more about today's guest, just check
(57:35):
out the links in the show notes.You can follow the podcast as
well on social media at Not So Secret Dad's Business or on our
website Not So Secret Dad's business.com.
If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please rate
and review the show that helps more than in real life.
Until next time, guys, be the best dad you can be.
Coming up in this episode of NotSo Secret Dad's Business.
Yeah, I had to. I had to go through like 5 or 6
rounds of editing with with my illustrator to make sure
everything was exactly the way Iwanted.
Like you can see, you know, in in the first opening shots,
there's no pictures on the wallsand then there's a picture of
(00:23):
the baby sonogram. And then there's two pictures,
and then there's three pictures,and then the wall is colored.
Yeah. So there's a lot of things I I
put in there that are are for parents who are going to look at
it again with a more discerning eye than just, you know,
glossing over it the first time.Are you new to fatherhood?
(00:47):
Not sure if you're doubting to your full potential where you've
come to the right place? Most dads aren't talking to each
other about their lives as dads like it's some kind of secret.
Well, this is the podcast that takes the secret out of
fatherhood. This is not so secret.
Dad's business G'day G'day. And welcome to another episode
(01:16):
of Not So Secret Dad's Business.We're back.
After a few sporadic episodes here and there, I've finally got
a bunch of awesome content recorded.
And we're going to be rolling out weekly episodes again as of
this week. So thank you for your patience
guys. I've had a recently massive
(01:37):
influx of guests booking with meto be on the podcast, so I've
been madly booking and recordingand editing and doing a bunch of
stuff to to get this show back on the road.
Now obviously without my guests,I don't have a podcast to bring
to you guys, so I'm going to putthe call out again.
(01:57):
I've already done it on Facebook.
I'm putting it out here as well.If you're listening to this and
you'd like to be a guest on the podcast, please feel free to
send me an e-mail, hit up my website at the be a guest page
on my website. Or if you know know somebody
else that would be awesome to have on the show and you think I
(02:17):
should be speaking to, please get them to reach out to me, or
even just let me know who they are and I can reach out to them.
Speaking of awesome guests though, this week I have on the
show the illustrious Nemaya Van Galda.
So I caught up with Nemaya this past week to talk about his
(02:38):
latest creative endeavor, which is a children's book called The
Unseen Gift, A Christmas Love Story.
Now I've read the book, I've looked it over myself.
It's a fantastic little book andI think the kids will love it.
But as you'll hear in in this episode, Nemaya actually likens
it to the movie up very much because, you know, it's more
(03:03):
it's a book more for the adults than it is for the kids really.
And I think the adults are goingto notice more in this book than
anybody else. But it was really cool.
I really resonated with it. The interesting thing about this
episode is that talking to Nemaya and not just listening to
his background and where he's come from, we ended up going
(03:25):
down a bit of a rabbit hole of addiction.
Now, I've been meaning to talk to somebody about addiction for
a while now, not so much how to get over it, but more how it
affects those who are afflicted with addiction.
And I'm not talking just, you know, with drugs.
I'm talking addiction right across the spectrum, whether it
(03:46):
be alcohol, drugs, gambling or even creative endeavors that we
get really hyper fixated on. That being said, you know, I
have to admire and admires openness talking about this
because it wasn't a topic that we planned on touching on.
But you know, that's just the way this podcast rolls
(04:07):
sometimes, you know, we don't know where we're going to go and
what we're going to end up with.But it's all about dads having
conversations and and seeing where that goes.
And I just, I hope that this episode has something there that
can help other dads. And that's all this shows about,
is trying to help other dads as well.
(04:27):
Now, if you are a reader, Nemayaalso has a horror novel out at
the moment, and it's called Wellspring of Malignancy.
Now it is under a pseudonym because he didn't want to
confuse it with the children's book.
But both his horror novel Wellspring of Malignancy and his
children's book The Unseen Gift,A Christmas Love Story, are both
(04:53):
available on Amazon. Failing that, you can go to his
website which is www.vangeldercanebooks.com and
you'll be able to get your handson those right there.
I will make sure that link is inthe description.
So if you don't remember it, nota problem.
(05:14):
Just go into the description, hit that link and it'll take you
straight there. Anyway, guys, I'm not gonna
waffle on much further. Housekeeping sorted.
Introduction sorted. Let's get into this week's
episode with Namaya Van Gulder. Hi, good eye, NIA.
(05:46):
Maya. How you doing man?
Hey, Nate, how are you? Thanks for having me on.
I appreciate it. Hey man, it's great to have you
on the show, man. Thanks so much for reaching out
to me. Yeah.
A couple of weeks ago you sent me what you called a short bio
and I think it's about two or three pages long.
So I've been looking through that, man, and you've, you've
lived in an interesting life. So to kick us off, man, like
(06:10):
give us a little bit of a background of yourself and and
who you are. Sure.
My name is Namaya Van Gother. I grew up in a small town in
upstate New York where there wasnothing to do except, you know.
Party and get into trouble really.
And I joined the army in my junior year of high school and
(06:34):
did an 8 year enlistment where Ispent most of it in the 101st
Airborne Division as an infantryman.
After that I I went home and with all of the wonderful bad
habits that the army instilled in me, I.
I drank and drugged all of my savings away, and once I had an
(06:58):
awakening, and by that I mean after a case of beer and a
couple bottles of whiskey and some hash, LSD, Coke, weed, you
know, all in one night, I realized driving home in a Jeep
that I was going to kill myself,that this was eventually going
(07:20):
to end up with me and. A ditch somewhere.
So I cleaned up, lost all my friends and then went to school.
And luckily when I went to school and I met my, I met my
now wife, She was my resident advisor in the dorm and we've
(07:41):
been together ever since. So, you know, going on 30 years
now. Yeah.
Wow, that's awesome. There's there's one thing I want
to touch on with that man. Because you're saying that you
left the army and you just drankand drugged everything away,
right? Oh.
Yeah. Now obviously when when you go
into the army, they break you down and they build you back up
(08:02):
into the the soldier that they need, right?
Like they they completely deleteevery part of you.
Absolutely. What How do you feel about the
fact that they just sort of let you back out into the civilian
world and don't really give you any preparation to to be able to
cope? Because you end up just being a
soldier going into a civilian's world.
(08:23):
You don't go back to the way youwere.
Yeah, that's that's true. But on the other hand it is, it
is only true for a small percentage of enlisted soldiers.
So you have, you know the the 2%or what have you of, of citizens
who enlist in the military and then of that 2% you only have.
(08:47):
10% or 12% who actually enlist in a in a combat arms unit.
So having had the opportunity to, you know, mingle with other
soldiers, there is a completely different mindset between
between different units. Doing doing a combat operation
(09:08):
job and you know working in an office is 2 completely different
things. And I think one of the things
that was hard for me to come to terms with when my enlistment
was coming to a close, and it really only came to a close
because most of my unit came down on orders to be stationed
in Korea. I was not interested in going to
(09:29):
Korea, so I I decided to ETS. And unlike being a mechanic or a
cook or working in an office, there are only so many job
opportunities. When your training consists of
shooting at people and blowing things up.
(09:50):
So I decided fuck it, I will, I'll go, I'll go home and I'll
go get my criminal justice degree and I'll go be a cop.
I figured it was the closest thing that fit unless I wanted
to get into private contracting and I didn't really, really want
to go go back on deployment again.
So so that's what I did. The problem is at least in the
(10:13):
States. When you're deployed so much and
you don't use your leave time, your leave time accrues and then
they pay you out for that leave time at the end.
So you have a young 20 somethingfull of testosterone idiot.
And you give him a lump sum of money and say okay, here's your
plane ticket. Go home and.
(10:36):
And I did and. All of the bad habits that I
would intermittently have when we were not on deployment, you
know, drinking primarily. There was nothing else to do.
So we drank. And unfortunately I had a close
friend of mine from from high school who who left the army at
(10:59):
about the same time I did. And so that's what we did.
Every day, every night from months on end, I would wake up,
my breakfast would be a bottle of Jägermeister and then I would
go, I would go work out and I would drink a six pack of beer
while I was working out, while I'm chain smoking cigarettes.
(11:20):
And then after that, then we would start partying.
And yeah, you know it doesn't. It doesn't take too long to blow
through 10 grand and booze and drugs when you really put your
mind to it. So yeah, they didn't, they
didn't really prepare you to handle all of those negative
(11:41):
coping mechanisms. So what What happened then?
Because you you went to school and got your degree and then the
the Academy shut down or something along those lines,
right. So you didn't end up becoming a
police officer at all? Oh yeah, I I took, I took my my
NYPD exam. Passed it with flying colors.
(12:04):
I got my number for the Academy class and then the New York City
had a big budget issue and they cut 2 consecutive NYPD classes,
of which mine was one. So I was like, well what am I
going to do now? And my wife was working at a
mobile medical diagnostics company and.
(12:28):
Initially, they just needed, they needed a career.
They needed someone who would bewilling to drive around the
entire tri-state area. And I said, shit, I can do that.
It's fun. Isn't it funny how that works,
right? Like you, you start a job with
the thinking of I'll do this fora while until I can really do
what I want to do and you just end up stuck.
(12:49):
You don't move and I think sometimes it's one of the most
soul crushing things for a man, you know, It's like you've got
this dream and it never fucking eventuates because just life
gets in the way. Yeah, and the problem was that I
unknowingly stepped further and further into that myself because
initially I thought, hey, this is this is fun and there were
(13:13):
certain things about the job that I loved.
The way I started working up theladder was because things would
break, you know, this was, you know, a long time ago.
You're talking, you know, 18 years ago.
So the medical industry, especially what we did with
mobile diagnostics, was, you know, 3 generations
(13:35):
technologically passed. So it's it was the kind of stuff
you always see on TV with the doctors where they're taking
Xrays and they're holding the film up in front of a light box.
It was all that crap that doesn't exist anymore.
Anytime you see that in a movie,it's bullshit.
But we would have these big X-ray processors and they would
break down and I was like, it's already broken.
(13:56):
What's the worst thing that can happen?
Fuck it. I'll take a shot at fixing this
and I was able to figure it out and fix it, and that made me
invaluable. And that got you more money, and
that got you a promotion, and that was fun.
But then you're teaching other people how to do it, and that's
less fun. And then you're just working on
paperwork and answering emails, and that's even less fun.
(14:19):
And then you're just spending your time placing orders and
doing meetings and you realize you're never getting out of this
fucking chair and all the thingsyou set out to do for yourself,
you're not doing. And then after having been, you
know, clean for for so many years, because of all of the
(14:42):
pregnancy issues that my wife and I were going through, I
didn't know how else to cope with that.
And so I started drinking heavily again.
And yeah, it was it was a downward spiral.
Yeah, I can only imagine, man. Again, from reading your bio,
it's just man. Like your pregnancy journey just
(15:04):
must have been fucking heartbreaking, you know?
So let tell us a little bit about that, because yeah, it's
one hell of a journey for to become a father, man.
Yeah, so my wife and I, not unlike a lot of parents, I
imagine, in our same position. I grew up in upstate New York in
(15:25):
a small town where. You know, there was, there was
no money. It was all slate quarries and
factories, you know, hardworkingfarmers and, you know, slate
splitters. And my wife grew up in the
housing projects of the South Bronx.
Neither one of us grew up with any money, and we decided that
(15:47):
what we wanted to do was to be completely financially stable
before we decided to have children.
And so that's what we did. And you know, we had a great
time. We we bought 2 houses and cars
and we went on, you know, cruises around the Mediterranean
(16:09):
and trips to Europe and all of these wonderful things that our
parents would have never been able to even imagine doing.
But time waits for no man, as they say.
And when you hear women. Talk about their biological
clock ticking. That's not bullshit.
And and we waited and we waited and then we were like okay, it's
(16:31):
time and you know it it happenedpretty quickly.
The first time my wife got pregnant we were super duper
excited and and then we were at work and my wife and I, you know
we worked the same shift. We worked at the same office so
we would travel together and I got out of a meeting.
(16:51):
I went to the car and my wife was just curled up in the
passenger seat in agony and we rushed to the hospital and she
had an ectopic pregnancy and they had to remove the Fallopian
tube and it was one of those things they couldn't foresee it.
It didn't come up on any of the tests and because.
(17:15):
It was still early enough in thepregnancy where they they hadn't
done the ultrasound yet. We we had no idea, but they took
the fallopian tube. And of course, you know, being
an inquisitive gentleman myself,I made one of the biggest
mistakes when the doctor asked me if I wanted to see my child
and he showed me the picture of the removed fallopian tube,
(17:37):
which I can never ever forget. So it took a while to recover
from that. And then we decided we would try
again. And we did.
And we tried for about four years, all natural and nothing.
Nothing worked. And so we went and saw a
(17:57):
fertility specialist and you know, they did all the normal
stuff. Take, take these supplements, do
this, do that. That didn't work.
So we moved on to the next step.And we finally got to the IVF
point and we went through 11 rounds of IV.
(18:19):
F3 of three of them were successful and we lost three in
the first trimester and each onewas successively more
heartbreaking. And you know when you do I VF.
(18:40):
And they give you the breakdown of like the embryo health and
all of that good stuff. You know they they tell you
right away like what the what the sexes of the embryos are and
and we only had one male embryo out of all of them which was
kind of crazy and my wife reallywanted wanted a boy and.
(19:09):
When we lost that one towards the end of the first trimester,
that was a huge hit. It was a huge hit for her.
And although I had always told my wife and even told myself
whether I was, you know, in denial or not, I said I'm, I'm,
it doesn't matter to me. As long as we have a healthy
(19:31):
child, I'm fine. And then we lost the only boy
and it occurred to me that you're never, you're never going
to have a son. This is it.
I took that really, really hard and then we did two more rounds
of IVF and finally one took and we got to, we got through the
(19:52):
end of the first trimester into the second trimester and you
know it felt like we won the Super Bowl just to get that far.
And man, I tell you the The first time we did an ultrasound
and I saw that baby's heartbeat,I cried right there in the
office. Cried like a baby.
And then everything was everything was going good until
(20:12):
they realized my wife was dilating way too early and so
they had to stitch up her cervixand call it a cerclage.
They said if if that worked, great.
If not, they were going to have to put her on bed rest for the
rest of the pregnancy, which luckily she didn't need to do.
(20:33):
We had an appointment to get outthe cerclage and the night
before that appointment my wife's water broke.
We were having dinner and thingsstarted to happen.
So we had to call the hospital and and rush in.
And then my daughter was born. Born the next day at 5:06 in the
afternoon. Best moment of my life.
(20:56):
And then as they handed me my daughter for the first time,
after they took all of her measurements and put her
adorable little cap on her, theysaid okay, you can go over and
sit in the corner in that chair.And as as I was sitting there
holding my daughter, I heard a noise.
(21:18):
And I can only equate it to the sound of someone just taking a
cup full of water and throwing it on the floor.
And I looked up and it was bloodand there was blood everywhere.
And then they say, I know the room was in chaos and they're
(21:39):
unhooking my wife from from all of the tubes and cables and
everything else that they've gotconnected to her and they're
racing her out to the ER and I'mjust left sitting there.
The floor is covered in blood. I'm holding my daughter and no
one is there to tell me anything.
(22:01):
They didn't say a word. They just raced her out.
It was, it was pretty rough. And then she was, she was back
later that night, you know, dopeto the gills as one would
expect. And she was, she was fine.
And then we discharged with the baby a couple of days later, had
(22:23):
our first doctor's appointment the very next morning where we
had to go back to the NICU because even though they would
just discharge us the the day prior, they were so worried
about her jaundice levels that they thought there was something
possibly wrong with their liver.So we had to go back and be in
(22:44):
the NICU for the better part of the next week.
And then we went home. And now my daughter is, you
know, 17 months old and she's doing absolutely wonderfully.
But of course, you know, before we got to that, it was, I got
home and my wife was clotting. Now when when a woman tells a
(23:09):
man, Oh yeah, I'm, I'm doing some clotting.
We have no idea what that means,you know, generally speaking,
unless they're showing it to you, which is almost never going
to be the case. So when my wife said I'm, you
know, I'm clotting, I was like okay.
(23:30):
And after a week I was like, well, did you call the doctor?
She said, no, no, I have to, youknow, I have to go for a
followup appointment anyway, Okay until she actually saved
clot in the refrigerator. And trust me, that's not what
you want to see when you're looking for your eggs in the
(23:51):
morning. And I saw the size of this
thing, and I was just like, no, you need to go to the doctor
now. So she did.
And they admitted her after a long wait.
And she went into the the surgery room at around 7:00 at
(24:16):
night when she was supposed to go in at 3:00 in the afternoon.
And I had no idea that she didn't go in at 3:00 in the
afternoon. So, you know, I'm just sitting
on my hands and they called me at like 10:30 that night.
And the doctor said she's out ofsurgery, she's doing okay, but
(24:38):
she lost a lot of blood. I kind of lost track of what she
said after that until she said again, she lost a lot of blood.
And after she told me she lost alot of blood the third time, I
was like, you need to be a little more specific for me.
What do you mean by she lost a lot of blood?
And the doctor said, well, she lost 6 units of blood.
(25:01):
And if you're familiar with the human body, the human body holds
approximately 10. So she lost more than half of
her blood on the operating table.
And so she was in the ICU for the next week and and then
finally discharged. And of course, this was, you
(25:22):
know, during the height of COVID, so I couldn't even bring
the baby in to see her, which, you know, was kind of a double
whammy. But yeah, so she's good.
She's an absolute savage and andeverything is, everything is
(25:42):
good. But it was a long, long road to
get my daughter here. Jesus Christ, what a roller
coaster ride, man. Well, I can only imagine now,
because you know. Through doing this podcast, I've
learned that there are a lot of lot of couples out there dealing
with infertility and you know, complications with pregnancy and
(26:05):
childbirth and that sort of thing.
And and what I've learned is like nobody really talks about
it, so you don't know how prevalent it is.
But yeah, like my wife and I, we're doing a similar thing and
I even even personally, I did itwith my exwife as well and it
was one of the one of the things.
I mean, there are several reasons why we're divorced and
(26:26):
again, me being young and dumb and you know, drinking a case of
beer every day and and just using the bong like a snorkel
and all this sort of shit, you know, that all added up.
But the fact that we've been trying for children for five
years and then having a look at fertility treatment as well,
with her having PCOS and me having a low sperm count and
(26:49):
everything, it was, it was just.Something we couldn't come back
from. We we worked strong enough in
our relationship to be able to move forward.
Fast forward to today, You know,I'm now with my wife.
I met her when she was four months pregnant.
And so I've just automatically became like the facto dad, you
(27:09):
know, I was there for the childbirth.
I was there for, you know, sonograms, ultrasounds, all that
sort of jazz. And it was really cool having
that experience, even though I didn't get the fun of making him
still being there and seeing allthat progress and seeing him be
born and then being there for the last seven years, raising
(27:32):
this kid. It's been phenomenal.
But that being said, you know, like it still kind of feels like
our family's incomplete because we don't have a child of our own
together. And so yeah, we're we're at that
point. We haven't haven't moved forward
into the IVF stages yet. We've still.
We're seeing the doctor and they're like, you're gonna lose
another 10 kilos. You need to lose a bit more
weight. You know, we can't start
(27:53):
anything until we're at this bench line.
So we kind of put it on the backburner and if anything, put on
weight. So now we're even further behind
that ball. So you know, again we're we're
doing that and it's it. Emotionally even, especially in
the beginning stages. It sucks.
But then I have to go through everything else that you've
(28:15):
you've been through. Man.
I don't know how you hold. You hold your shit together like
Well, I didn't. I I crawled.
I crawled into a bottle. Yeah, How?
How do things? Not both.
It's up. Just like just like the first
time around, it kind of just wasa a, a dawning to me.
(28:36):
And yeah, like I mentioned to you, I think off the air when
when my wife was going through all of this, she was able to get
get into certain social media groups that were kind of support
groups for women going through IVF.
And there, as much as I look there, there really wasn't that
for for dads or prospective dads.
(28:59):
And so I was left to my own devices.
And my own devices was whiskey. So I would, you know, seclude
myself away down in my little cave and do my creative
endeavors and drink. And I I tried.
(29:21):
I knew. I knew it was getting out of
control when I couldn't remembercoming back upstairs.
And so as most addicts you try to figure out a way around that.
And I I was like, OK, well here's here's what I'll do.
I won't, I won't bring the bottle down with me.
(29:42):
I'll pour myself a couple of fingers and I'll just have that.
And all that accomplished was meneeding to walk back up the
stairs 20 * a night. So, you know, that didn't work.
And I know it, I know it sounds strange, but I I think you'll
find that a lot of guys probablydo the same thing.
You know, we we lose ourselves emotionally in something.
(30:10):
And for me, it was not necessarily my creative
endeavors, but it was the ritualof the creative endeavor.
So I would, you know, I would belistening to certain certain
music and I would have my drink and that would be it.
And you know, sometimes as musictends to a certain song at the
(30:36):
right time will tell you what you need to hear.
And it was, it was after we had lost our only male embryo and
there's a Tool song called Jimmy.
Another one. OK And that was it.
I heard that song and damn near had a mental breakdown.
And I was just like, you're doing this again, you're doing
(30:59):
this all over again. And I talked to my wife about
about my seeing a therapist, andshe was totally on board with
it. And so I went and started seeing
seeing a therapist. And right away he was just like,
you're not an alcoholic, You're an addict.
(31:23):
There's a difference. And I was just like, but but I
don't. I haven't done, I haven't done
drugs in, you know, 20 somethingyears.
It's just booze. I'm an alcoholic.
Like, no, no, no, no, no. Look at everything else in your
life. If you didn't have the booze,
you would find something else tofocus on, good or bad, whatever
(31:46):
you put in front of you. And I was just like, shit,
You're right. You're fucking right.
Until you're clean, you don't hear the voice because you're
open to the voice all the time. That little lizard brain that
talks to you when you're all alone and you're not doing
(32:09):
anything, maybe you're bored. I clearly remember one Saturday
morning and my wife was at work.I was just brushing my teeth and
it was like I heard a voice thatwas not my voice saying, why
don't you go to the liquor store?
And I was like, son of a bitch, look at that.
(32:30):
That was the first time I ever really heard it that way.
And you know, it gets better. I've been sober for a few years
now, but it never goes away. And you know, then certain
things happen, like here in the states with all of the changes
in laws regarding, you know, marijuana and THC and all that
(32:52):
stuff, there are, you know, dispensaries and smoke shops on
every other block. Now.
It's ridiculous. But still, especially as a as a
writer and I'm working on I'm working on a new book right now
and you know sometimes you hit like this creative block and
you're just like oh man, I need something to shake me out of
(33:13):
this. What the hell?
And that little voice is like, dude, there's pot right up the
fucking street. Just just go get some gummies
and knock one out you'll you'll break those gates down and and
you're like you little son of a bitch, you think you can con me
into doing this again, huh? So you just always have to have
your guard up because you know if you're an addict, you're an
(33:33):
addict for life. It's never going away and you
have to be able to face that. So yeah, I went to therapy.
He got me to admit that I quit drinking.
I was lucky enough that my therapist was a recovered
alcoholic. He gave me the giant a A book.
(33:54):
The Big Blue Book. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He gave me the Big Blue book andhe said you don't have to go to
any meetings if you don't want to, but start looking through
this. And I did.
And I've still got, I've still got that copy of the book that
sits on my night stand. If I if I needed, it's there.
(34:14):
But I never went to a meeting and I've never had another drink
since. Congratulations, man.
That's great to hear. Well, thank you.
It's most days you don't even think about it, and some days
it's all you think about. Look, as an addict to myself, I
know exactly where you're comingfrom.
You know? Again, for years I always
thought I was an alcoholic. And I always said I was a
(34:37):
functional alcoholic. You know, I was still going to
work this, that and the other. And but it was it was ruining
job prospects. It was ruining relationships.
And I was like, okay, I'm an alcoholic.
Wasn't until four, maybe five years ago, not long after I met
my wife, that I actually realized that I was an addict.
Because I've I've got this saying right that I I don't like
(35:01):
drugs. Drugs really like me, you know,
and people have offered in the past and I've, I've had to turn
it down. Not because I didn't want to,
because man, especially drugs. I love doing drugs.
I love the way it makes me feel all that shit.
But I know for a fact that if it's just that once I'm going to
lose control, there's there's absolutely no way I'm going to
(35:24):
be able to recover from it. So I have to like, no, I'm not
touching that pipe today. I'm not doing this.
I'm not doing that. That being said, though, man,
like booze is a big issue for mestill.
Because I've been, I tried goingsober and I I'd go three months
sober and then I'd relapse, and then I'd go two months sober.
I'd relapse, got another three months.
(35:45):
And I thought, again, like you said, you find that excuse, You
know, I'm a bit blocked at the moment or I can't.
I can't deal with these emotionsright now.
I need something just to take the edge off.
But then you don't take the edgeoff.
You completely blunt in the whole fucking blade, you know,
and and next thing you know you're waking up with a
hangover. Your mouth tastes like a bird is
(36:07):
just shit in it, you know, it's it's it's a fucking nightmare
and it's a vicious cycle and andnow even I'm convinced myself
that I'll have a couple of drinks on this special occasion.
I'll be good. Next thing I know I've got beer
in the fridge. You know when I didn't before.
So yeah, I understand what you're saying then.
(36:28):
And it's it. It's a bitch.
Ah, fuck yeah. Yeah.
After I. After I.
After I stopped drinking, I secluded myself from any
situation whatsoever where anyone would be drinking,
isolated myself from family gatherings, You know, people
just thought I was being an asshole and they had.
(36:50):
They had no idea that I had stopped because I didn't tell
anyone. And you know, I was the guy who
would walk in the room and go, who's doing shots with me.
And you know, being, you know, Idon't, I don't live in the city
currently. But you know, having lived in
(37:11):
the city, I had a, I had a lot of friends who were in in bands
around the New York City area. So I was always at at clubs and
music venues and you know that'sthat's what you do.
Yeah, how are you going to get, how are you getting the getting
the pit if you're not shit faced?
(37:31):
So I was really, really, really worried and I had bought concert
tickets for for a show. And I don't know if you're
familiar with the guitar player Nita Strauss.
She plays for the band Alice Cooper.
Yeah, man. She not long ago did a song with
(37:51):
with David Dryman. Oh yeah.
Yep. Yep.
Yep. She's she's fucking amazing.
She really is. So she was doing, she was doing
a show and I had VIP tickets to to go because at the same time
she was also doing like this this fitness competition thing
called Body Shred and I had clearly fallen from my former
(38:16):
military glory. So I was trying to get back in
shape and you know, I lost a bunch of weight and it was, it
was good. But I went to the show and to
get into the competition you hadto write like a like an intro
letter. And in my intro letter I
admitted that that I had addiction issues and booze was a
(38:40):
big problem. And I know that, you know, in
her past she she got sober too. So when we met at the VIP and
she saw my name, she remembered the letter that I had sent in.
And she, she took the time to speak with me before the show
for a little while. And I told her, I said this is
(39:03):
my first sober show. You know, I go to a lot of
concerts, but I haven't gone to a show since I got sober.
And she said don't worry about it, it'll be just you and me
having club soda. It's it's all going to be good.
So show was great. They were amazing and after the
show I hung out outside and bothher and her, her now fiance
(39:28):
Josh, who was also her drummer, who's amazing.
They hung out with me for probably close to 45 minutes
after the show, to the point where I felt bad that I was
boguarding all their time. And they talked with me about it
being my first sober show and the struggles that they went
through. And yeah, just absolutely
(39:49):
amazing people as, as well as amazing musicians.
But once I broke that barrier, Iwas good and I felt like I could
go back to, you know, a a normalsemblance of of life and go to
these family gatherings. I was like, man, if I can handle
a fucking Hard Rock show. I could go to fucking Christmas
(40:11):
dinner and and not get shitfaced.
That was kind of the that was kind of the tipping point.
And you know it. It wasn't until after all of
that that my wife kind of came to me.
And she said, you know, it's it's a really good thing that
that you went to get help because you were getting really
bad. And she didn't know how much
(40:32):
longer she was going to be able to put up with it without, you
know, telling me how bad it was getting, you know, which had to
be hard for her because she was,you know, at the same time going
still going through all of the pregnancy things.
She's doped to the gills on medicine and me giving her shots
twice a day, every day, All the psychological and emotional
stuff that goes along with all that.
(40:55):
That's, yeah, Look, I mean, I understand where you're coming
from as well because like, one thing I struggled with with
sobriety and I'm glad you pointed out Christmas, because
this is a big one for me, right,Growing up.
There was a tradition in my family where my father cooked
the Turkey. He would carve the Turkey.
Turkey was Dad's thing. That was his contribution to
(41:16):
Christmas. And I I took that on as my own
thing where because we don't do Thanksgiving here, so Turkey,
Turkey day is Christmas Day for us.
And so I took that on for myself.
But it would be okay. I'm up at 5:00 in the morning
prepping the Turkey. Well, shit, I'm in the kitchen.
I'm cooking. I've got to have a drink while
(41:36):
I'm cooking, right? So it's, it's five in the
morning. I'm cracking that first beer.
It comes to lunchtime. I'm too shit faced to even carve
the Turkey. So I'm like, OK, look, I've
cooked, you guys, do the rest, dish it up.
Let's see. But then because I'm, I'm
already on that roll. I've got, you know, as we say, a
loaf in my belly. So let's say 30 beers.
(42:00):
You know, I'm not hungry, so I'mnot eating.
I'm still necking them back. And so yeah, coming, coming with
Christmas is a big one for me because it's like, what do I do
with myself, man? I'm not drinking.
And and that that was a strugglefor me last year.
And again I ended up caving and drinking on Christmas Day.
But it's it's I'm at. I'm at a similar point where
(42:23):
I've got to go to therapy and I've got to find new coping
mechanisms and work out how I'm going to get through life
without. These negative coping
mechanisms, because this is the beauty of addiction.
It doesn't start because you're an addict.
It starts because you don't havehealthy coping mechanisms and
then you become an addict. Like somebody addicted to heroin
never put needle in their arm because they were addicted to
(42:48):
the stuff that were looking for an escape, you know, And then
that escape became an integral part of their life.
And that's where, like really where I'm at with with.
Alcohol. I love it because it is an
escape. But at the same time, there
comes a point where it's not an escape, it's just a crutch.
It's just something for you to be able to keep going through
(43:09):
the motions every day. Yeah, and it's a bitch.
Yeah. I mean, you know, professionals
can debate the nature versus nurture all day long.
But from my perspective, what I have observed within myself is
that a lot of people are using drugs and alcohol as an escape,
(43:35):
like you said, from something intheir life that they either
don't want to or don't know how to deal with.
And their life gets progressively worse.
But they don't understand that part of the reason that your
life is going downhill is because you're doing exactly
(43:56):
what you're doing to try to escape it.
And like you said earlier, for me, there's there's no falling
off the wagon. I don't fall off the wagon.
I supercharged the V8, get behind the wheel of the wagon
and floor the fucking thing downa hill into a tree.
And you know you can only do that so many times before you're
(44:17):
dead. That's exactly right, man.
Look, moving on. Because there's a reason as well
why I wanted to talk to you and and this is this is focused
around your creativity and your creative works, right?
So you sent me a PDF of your latest book.
Can you tell us a little bit about that, man?
(44:37):
Because when I read it, it really rung true for me.
Sure. Yeah.
So this did not it. It didn't start as a book.
This was, I wrote it on October 30th of last year, and it was
just one of those things where it just started popping into my
(44:59):
head. At first it was a little verse
and and I would write these things down because when my
daughter was born, I bought a journal and I decided that I was
going to, I was going to write to my daughter and I was going
to write to her about all of thethings that we had gone through
(45:23):
to get her here and all of the things that she wouldn't
remember and all of the things that, hell, I might not
remember. So I was going to keep a journal
about my daughter so that someday I could give it to her.
And part of the reason for that was, like I said, you know, my
(45:45):
wife and I spent quite a few years trying to get financially
stable. So we aren't the youngest
parents on the block. And you know, that's, you know,
one of the one of the things is you never, I don't, I don't know
what point in someone's life they actually realize how old
(46:09):
they are. And for me, it wasn't until my
daughter was born and I realized, holy shit, by the time
your daughter is your age, you're going to be dead.
You won't be here, almost assuredly.
I mean, it's possible, but it's not likely.
(46:30):
And so I wanted her to have something from me that that she
could always look back on that would explain to her what what
her dad felt. And as dads, a lot of us aren't
the greatest at expressing our emotions.
And for me, at least, I can express things on paper in a far
(46:54):
better fashion than I can say them out loud.
So for all the things that I can't say to her, I can have in
this journal so she will know. So something just popped into my
head and over the course of fourhours or so, I had written an
entire manuscript for for a for a book for a book based around
(47:19):
Christmas. And that was, you know, just
kind of the the setting for a kind of a deeper meaning of the
story. And when I read it over the next
day, I was like, shit, this is this is this is pretty decent.
(47:40):
Maybe I can do something with this.
And I wasn't convinced. And I sat on it for a while.
And then I started showing it tosome people, including my, my
sisterinlaw, who is a kindergarten teacher in the New
York City public school system. And she was like, okay, I'm
sitting in class. You just made me cry.
(48:01):
You're an asshole. I was like, oh, well, I I guess
it's got to be halfway decent, though.
And so, yeah, so I started shopping it out and ended up,
you know, getting a publisher towork with me on bringing it to
life. And you know, as someone who had
no idea how the publishing industry worked, I had no clue
(48:25):
whatsoever that writing the manuscript is gonna be the easy
part. And then all the hard work was
still to come. Yeah, look, I've I've considered
writing in the past, but again, I don't know.
I've got this thing where I don't like writing my thoughts
down because then it's proof. The people can use it against
me, you know? Sure.
Yeah. Well, make it.
(48:46):
Make make it fiction. Yeah, that's what I need to do.
But what I what I loved about this book that you've done, man.
Like I say, I could relate to itbecause what I took away from it
is, is the whole thing. That's like adults really don't
put that much weight into Christmas until they have kids,
and then Christmas takes on a whole different meaning.
(49:10):
You know, like both. Both my wife and I before our
son were born, we were both grinches, man.
I was, I was scrooged all day, every day.
Bah humbug this, Bah humbug thatfucking hate Christmas.
And then our first Christmas with our son, My wife is like
going all out. There's decorations all over the
(49:31):
place, the trees Immaculate likethis.
And I'm like, what's the deal? Like, we hate Christmas.
She's like, yeah, but I wanna make it as special for the baby
as I care. I'm not the.
He's a baby. He's not gonna remember this
shit. It's his first Christmas.
Like why are we going all that, you know?
And I'm standing there. Bah, Humba.
(49:51):
I think I said the same thing. You know but now we're at a
point we we fucking love Christmas for the pure fact it's
it's sitting there and seeing the joy on our little boy's face
every morning when it comes downand.
And there's those little traditions that you do like.
I hate Elf on a Shelf with a passion.
But every morning coming downstairs and hearing my son hi
(50:13):
dad check out where the elf is and always brought me a present
today or you know it's it's justthat's what that's that's what
Christmas is about for me now. Yeah.
And and you know, it's it's thatkind of feeling that I tried to
instill in the book and it wasn't even necessarily just
about not caring about Christmas, because it's
(50:37):
Christmas. We didn't feel like we had
anything to celebrate. And if you, if you look through
the PDF, there's there's certainthings that when I storyboarded
the entire book that if you're just looking at it to see pretty
pictures and not seeing kind of the subtext behind the meaning
of the pictures that you might miss.
(50:58):
Like on the very first page it shows the the husband and wife
sitting on the couch and they'resitting at opposite ends of the
couch. There's there's a chasm between
them that needs to be filled. And then later on in the book,
when you know the baby is there and the little girl is opening
(51:22):
her presence, they're snuggled up together on the couch because
she has brought them together ina way that nothing else could.
And there's certain other thingsin the book where like one wall
is is colored differently after she's born, bringing more color
and more joy into their lives. And then there's lots of things
(51:44):
that I put in the book that are are from my own childhood where
like the the Christmas lights wrapped around the banister of
the of the stairwell is something that my father would
do every year. And it brought him tons of joy
to light up the house for Christmas because it made his
kids happy. So it was things like that.
(52:07):
But it was also that I wanted. I didn't want this book to be a
book really, for the kids. I wanted the book to be for the
parents. Because there's, you know,
there's way too many books out there that a parent will read to
their child one time and think, oh, OK, that's kind of cute.
(52:29):
And by the time you get to the fifth time you're reading it,
you're like, this book sucks. If I have to read this book one
more time, I'm going to throw itin the fireplace.
You know, it's like the it's like the difference between, you
know, watching baby shark videoson YouTube and watching a movie.
(52:50):
Like if you're familiar with themovie up from Disney, OK, like
my wife and I saw the movie up and if you remember the 1st 15
minutes of that movie, it is a giant downer.
It's this kid getting bullied and growing up and meeting the
girl and her dying of cancer andhim being alone.
And you're like, what the fuck did I just walk into?
(53:12):
You know, it's a kids movie. Kids are going to enjoy it, but
it's not for kids, That's for adults.
And that's what I wanted to do with the book.
I wanted to make a book for adults that they could read to
their children that has a much deeper meaning.
That someday, after their kids are through being enamored with
picture books, they could give back to their child and say this
(53:36):
is what you meant to us, this iswhat you mean to us.
That no matter how many presentsare under the tree, they don't
mean anything. What means everything is what we
feel about you, how we express that to you.
And no present that you could ever give us means anything,
(53:59):
because you are the present. Yeah dude, that's awesome.
And you know what? I'm gonna have to go back and
read through this book again because those what you've
pointed out there are really nowyou've pointed them out.
So, gladly obvious, but. Reading the book, I didn't pick
up on those little nuances like the colored walls and the the
the ceiling positions on the couch and stuff like that.
(54:21):
I didn't even pick up on it. So that's.
Yeah, I'm gonna have to reread it now and I'm sure I'll read a
totally different book this thistime around.
Yeah, I had to. I had to go through like 5 or 6
rounds of editing with with my illustrator to make sure
everything was exactly the way Iwanted.
Like you can see, you know, in in the first opening shots,
(54:44):
there's no pictures on the walls.
And then there's a picture of the baby sonogram.
And then there's two pictures and then there's three pictures
and then the wall is colored. Yeah.
So there's a lot of things I I put in there that are are for
parents who are going to look atit again with a more discerning
(55:06):
eye than just, you know, glossing over it the first time.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, do.
We're just about out of time. So if you can, man, tell us
where parents can find this bookof yours, Give it the plug, man.
OK well, the name of the book iscalled The Unseen Gift, A
(55:26):
Christmas love story, and you can find it in paperback and
ebook formats on Amazon. Or you can go to my website
which is www.vanguardorkane books.
That's VANGUILD er-kane-books.com.
(55:50):
I've got paperback signed copieson my website.
And if anyone is a fan of horrornovels I have, I have a horror
novel also there, written under a pseudonym because I didn't
want there to be any confusion between a children's picture
book and my more hardcore horrorstuff.
(56:11):
So yeah, the first first horror novel is there, and I'm working
on the sequel right now. That's awesome man.
I'm gonna have to check that outfor myself as well, cuz as I was
signed off here earlier, I'm a huge horror buff.
Well, if you have a if you have,if you have Kindle Unlimited on
Amazon, it's it's free on KindleUnlimited.
Check it out. The wife has her Kindle.
(56:32):
I'll get her to download that for me then.
Yeah, the the horror novel is called Wellspring of Malignancy.
Ooh, sounds interesting, man. And like I say, I gotta, I gotta
break out of my Stephen King sort of bubble.
You know, I gotta like I say, I've got this bad habit of
reading one author and one author only and.
(56:52):
Yet my wife, now she's, she's read, I don't know, I've lost
count of how many books she's read this year, but the number
of books she's read and there's all these different authors.
And I just, yeah, I need to expand my horizons a bit.
So I'll definitely check that out, man.
Yeah, you should, you should check it out.
It's, you know, it's kind of a asupernatural horror revenge
(57:13):
story. I'm intrigued.
I'm intrigued. Well look Namaya, thanks so much
for. You know, sitting up late at
night to have this conversation with me, man.
And thank you so much for sharing your story, dude.
Yeah, Nate, my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me on.
Thanks for listening to the show.
If you want to find out more about today's guest, just check
(57:35):
out the links in the show notes.You can follow the podcast as
well on social media at Not So Secret Dad's Business or on our
website Not So Secret Dad's business.com.
If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please rate
and review the show that helps more than in real life.
Until next time, guys, be the best dad you can be.
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