Milo Denison – Balancing Big Tech and Artistic Expression, Writing, Acting, and Beyond - STAG

Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
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(00:22):
a review. Thanks for your support.
Now here's the interview. Milo, Sir, thank you so much for
agreeing to participate in this interview.
I appreciate your time and you being here.
And we're just going to get to it and get started how we always
get started. Can you please take a moment to
kind of Orient us about where you are in the world, who you

(00:45):
are and how you got here And youknow what your dislikes and like
your likes, your preferences. Let's How did you get here?
Yeah, well, that's a long story,but I'll try to summarize it up
a little bit. I initially started off and
wanting to be an actor, went, studied theater, that kind of

(01:05):
stuff. Got a corporate job instead.
Spent many, many years working in the corporate world for
companies like AT&T and Microsoft and that kind of
stuff. Moved to Ireland and with one of
those companies, which was great.
Then kind of got a little burnt out, started doing some
photography, doing a little acting again, and a lot of

(01:26):
writing. And then from there to the UK
where I lived in London for the past six years.
And just about two months ago I moved back to Seattle, WA and
living here now and primarily focusing on writing.
I just finished my book Grace Guy's Concrete Dreams, which is

(01:49):
my first literary type novel, although I've written other
stuff. And yeah, that's the real short
version of how I got to be me, where I am in life.
All right, that was very much the short version.
Yeah. Where did you grow up?
Totally. I grew up in Spokane, WA,

(02:12):
actually. So it's about 300.
I don't know. Where are you located?
I'm I'm in the US, I'm in, I'm in Nevada.
Nevada. OK.
So yeah, Spokane's about 300 miles east of Seattle.
So for listeners who might not know international ones or
whatever. And I moved over to Seattle in

(02:33):
the late 90s and lived here for most of my life before moving
overseas and just kind of had that.
I love to travel and visit new places.
And with work, they team I was on, they were hiring, they were
expanding the team in Dublin. And I reached out to the manager
there and was like, hey, you guys, can I apply for the

(02:56):
position? I mean, I'm doing it already.
And she was like, yeah, let's doit.
And ended up moving over there. Very cool.
Did you did you grow up in a household full of siblings where
you're an only child your parents around?
How did how did the the growing up life?
Oh, that kind of stuff. The emotional trauma of my youth

(03:17):
kind of back story. Sure.
Yeah. So I have a younger sister.
She's I imagine it contributed alot to your writing.
Oh, probably. And I certainly write about it
at times. I might be at some point do like
a series of essays where I talk about a lot of that kind of

(03:38):
stuff. But yeah, I got it.
I've got a younger sister. She's two years younger than I
am. We were mostly raised by my
mother. She was married multiple times.
We we totally have like any timepeople like try to one up us or
be on my like, you know, dramatic childhood stories with
like alcoholic drug doing parents and kind of stuff, I can

(04:01):
almost always one up them. We even lived in a trailer for a
while that was like those reallyold nappy trailers where the
floor in the bathroom was kind of caving in and my mom's
boyfriend at the time had to putlike some plywood over it so
that we could. Actually use the Batman and.
Then we had one summer where they didn't pay the electric

(04:23):
bill and so we literally would run a hose like in the yard.
So that way the sun would heat it with water in the hose kind
of a thing. And then you turn it on, do
really quick, like a little bit of heat and stuff like.
Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, you were in the
thick of it. Oh.
Totally. I, I do have a podcast called

(04:44):
Days and 90s Uncensored. And the guy I hosted with Jamie,
he's also from an economically challenged youth and, and so
occasional swap stories night. The other day I was explaining
to him, we were talking about like, I don't know if you've
ever had this or heard of it. It's called shit on a shingle,
which is basically like chipped beef with like this creamy sauce

(05:07):
on toast. It's like a total white trash
meal. And I'm like, Oh, no, no, that's
classy. What we used in my family was
tuna. Like can of tuna.
You open up a can of tuna and it's, and we called it shit on a
shingle. And yeah.
And it's like, oh, you're the king.
So yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was a economically

(05:30):
challenged Caucasian American growing up.
That's amazing. So when you're, when you're
going through these, living this, this dream of sorts, what,
what was your dream? What did you always did?
You always want to be a writer? What what were your aspirations
kind of going on? Yeah, in my youth, besides the

(05:50):
typical little boy things of wanting to be an astronaut or an
entrepreneur, of course, becauseyou saw the secret of my success
with Michael J Fox. And you're like, I want to do
that. I want an office in a suit, even
though you don't really know what it is, but you can tell he
makes money. And so the first I remember

(06:13):
quite young of borrowing my grandmother's typewriter.
She had an old typewriter and I remember writing out little
stories and stuff on the typewriter and giving them to
her and stuff. My neighbor kids every once in a
while. We moved a lot, but I would take
the neighbor kids and family, whoever was around at a time,

(06:35):
and I would like put on little plays that I would direct and
stuff. So I'd write like kind of a
fractured fairy tale type thing and be like, OK, you're this
person, you're this person. And then we'd put like on a
little theatrical show for people.
So always writing and always kind of performing.
And so initially I really did want to be a writer.
And then in high school, I got involved in theater and kind of

(06:59):
found that to be my tribe, my people.
And I'm like, finally people I can hang out with and associate
with and relate to. And but as life does, sometimes,
you go down one path and you're like, wait a minute, how did I
get here? And it's like years later and
you're like, wow, that was a bigchange from how I saw myself

(07:20):
being. But yeah, that's kind of what I
was wanted to do. So you said you grew up with
mostly mom in the picture. What was up with Dad?
I met, we thought a different guy was my father.
I met my yeah, I met my father just fine.
I only met that guy once. And I met my actual father when

(07:43):
I was 15. And he's a he's a nice guy.
We actually get along pretty well, even though he's like a
hardcore conservative and I'm pretty liberal.
We we can still communicate witheach other, right?
But yeah, yeah, he's a good guy.And it was really quite nice
when I met him because he's actually like, hey, I kind of
want to be involved in this kidslife.

(08:03):
And I would go visit him and he'd come over to our families
for holidays and that kind of stuff.
So yeah, all all good on that end.
It's it's interesting, I had a similar situation, but I'm
curious to understand from like your perspective how how that
might have affected you. How did you find out?

(08:24):
Well, I found out because the guy my mother thought was my
father had died and you tried toget money from his insurance or
work or something like that. I was never, he was never on my
birth certificate or anything like that.
And so they did a blood test andit turns out that I in fact, was

(08:45):
not his child. And my mother was like, oh, if
it wasn't him, it must have beenthis other guy.
And that's kind of how I found out.
Oh, so she didn't even know? No, no, She was a oh, wow.
She was a tramp. She was 16 when she had me.
She was. She was 16.
You know how kids are. They'll do anything.

(09:06):
They don't care. Yeah, my situation is my mother
knew and everyone, everyone in my family knew.
Actually, I didn't know until I was 18.
Oh, wow. And it and it was by complete
accident that I found out. Yeah.
Why didn't I? Tell you, somebody told me
because they didn't want, they didn't want it to affect me as

(09:29):
far as like fitting in and I don't know.
I still don't know anything about the situation really
outside of that. Yeah, it doesn't change anything
for me outside of, you know, family.
That's really. Just kind of, yeah, it's a tribe
that you you kind of commune with and, and anyone can be your
family as far as I'm concerned. And the the blood aspect of it

(09:51):
doesn't really mean much to me as you're trying to like right?
Unless you're Hitler, in which? Case.
That's a right? In that case, you're changing.
Other than that, right? His Family Guy, you might
already know this, but like he had cousins or something like
that, or sibling, other siblingsand they actually agreed never
to have children in order to letthe family line die out.

(10:16):
Oh, that's interesting. I had no idea.
Yeah, that's a I can't say that I would do anything different.
I would probably concur with that sentiment and that
consensus. Thanks, guys.
My goodness. Yeah, That's.
That's fascinating way to figureout that, hey, that wasn't dad.

(10:39):
But I mean, I I I'm always curious when people have a
similar story in that sense, because from a male perspective,
I don't know if if women have a a different kind of bonding
experience. But like, to me, the the male
figure, the dad really plays a more of a mentor guider role

(11:00):
than he does. AI don't know like the the
paternal like bond seems to be more of a a guiding star than
anything else to me. And I mean, the guy that who
kind of stepped in for me as hisdad didn't do very good job in
general. And like any other guy who was
trying to step in, didn't reallydo a good job in general.

(11:20):
But I don't think that it mattered much to me in that
sense of, you know, who dad was.Did it did it shape your kind of
perspective in retrospective? You know, the men that you grew
up calling Dad? Certainly I, my mother also had
a tendency to make very bad decisions in the guys that she

(11:40):
dated or married. And so I had a lot of not the
greatest examples in in general.I mean, some of them were OK.
Her third husband was a relatively decent guy.
He just didn't know anything about like he basically starts

(12:02):
dating my mother and he stuck with these two kids of hers and
he's like, I don't know how anything about raising kids kind
of a stuff, but he wasn't a bad guy.
But it is funny because growing up you do look for that father
figure of how to treat people and what you want to do in life.

(12:24):
And and you sometimes try to be like, I kind of want to impress
this person. And my mother's second husband
was an awful, awful human being and would like abuse her and
everything like that. And growing up in that
household, you don't learn appropriate behavior, right?

(12:46):
And so let's not tell years later you're like, oh, shit, I
can't people this way. I didn't know that because this
is how I thought people were supposed to be treated, you
know? And so a lot of my upbringing
taught me what not to do. And I had, it wasn't until many,
many years later of like just learning and dealing with shit

(13:09):
and interacting with other people.
I finally eventually became likea relatively decent person to be
around. And I'm all honestly, that's
probably been in the past like 10/15/20 years maybe up until
then I was probably, I was a terrible human being.
And not to blame my family or anything like that, but stuff

(13:30):
sometimes takes time to learn. And sometimes you got to be
like, you got to look in the mirror.
And you know, if you choose not to look in the mirror, then
there you go. I don't know.
That's kind of a weird little random set of words that I just
threw together that I don't knowif they actually make any sense.
No, they make perfect sense. And I, because I grew up in
similar circumstances. And, and so I, my environment

(13:54):
and a lot of, I think a lot of people, I, I have conversations
with friends who are still in, in what we, we fundamentally
knew as what some normative environment, right?
And everything is rational in those spaces because that's what
we grew up in. And, and, and if you grew up in
a war zone, war is normal, right?
And no matter which way you cut it.
And, and it's not until you get out of that that you're like,

(14:16):
oh, that's not normal, right? Or, or there's a different
normal, if we're going to even just, you know, play that game,
there's a different normal. And then there's a there's a
different way of being an existing and performing life
and, and being a part of a community that doesn't look the
same as the one that I was at. And, and it's like until you get
out of that, you don't, you don't know that.

(14:38):
And, and there's nothing to really kind of but it up against
and compare it to right. And I think that's where a lot
of the generational like trauma gets passed down to and in
males, that's where a lot of the, the generational nonsense
of what it means to be like, youknow, masculine and, and a man
in society kind of gets performed and handed down.

(14:59):
And it's, it's through that weird normative environment that
is just like not conducive to being a productive member of
society or productive partner, productive, you know, family
member or anything like that. I don't know what your
experience was like specifically, but when you, when
you say that, you know, it took me a while to get out of, you

(15:21):
know, that headspace and, and kind of pivot and, and look back
at me like, Oh, that was a different person.
That was kind of. Similar to my experience in
life. And I don't know, I'm really
grateful that I, I had an opportunity to kind of pivot
from where I was at. And I think there's a lot of
males out there still who, who think that their spaces are

(15:45):
normal and their perspectives are normal and, and they're
rational and they are because they're living in those
experiences, right? But there is also this other
world that can be attained and and chosen, and it ultimately
becomes a choice how we engage in the world.
Yeah. And I think a lot of it has to
do with not to throw out the, you know, emotional intelligence

(16:08):
and that kind of stuff. But I think that's a valid term
because we react to so many things with our emotions, right?
And it's hard to not do that. And if you spend first, however
many years of your life learninghow to react to situations with

(16:31):
a certain emotion, even if you know the right way to do it
later on, it's hard to force yourself to do it the right way,
right? Because you instinctively like,
you know, like anger. And anger's a weird one because
we all get angry, yet we're taught not to be angry.
And it's kind of, it's kind of aweird balance of like, well, you
need to be, you know, in touch with your emotions and, and all

(16:55):
this kind of stuff. And anger's OK as long as it's
not bad anger and you know that finding that balance.
But if you've only been learned and taught and you're
conditioned to react to certain situations in a certain way,
it's really hard to train yourself to not do that,
especially in some of these situations.

(17:17):
Like you said, a war zone, right?
Nobody's being taught in a war zone appropriate way to react to
certain situations, for example,or like, let's say you grew up
in an inner city where you're whatever you know, it's
sometimes you have to physicallyremove yourself from that
environment. And I think that's one of the

(17:39):
things that helped me personallywas that physical removal.
When I left Spokane, moved over to Seattle, I made new friends
and I started to actually see like, hey, wait a minute, The
way I keep reacting to situations is not the right way
to do it. And even in a work environment,
I struggled like I was at AT&T for eight years, and I'm

(18:00):
surprised they never fired me. And because I struggled with
internal communications, becauseI didn't know how to check
myself. And it's not like when you get
to that point, it's not like your manager's job to teach you
how to like check yourself and how to appropriately respond to
people. And instead all their were their

(18:23):
job is to be like, OK, well thenyou're in no trouble because you
responded incorrectly to the situation.
And yeah, so I don't, I don't know if how your experience was
with that as well, like what gotyou out of that different
environment, if it was like a physical thing or you just
mentally forced yourself or what?
I think you highlighted a really, really important point,

(18:45):
right? Is that for you specifically, it
was leaving. And I know that that's not
always the case for everybody and, and, but it was for me
also. And so I, you know, in my
situation, I did have to kind ofremove myself from the
environment so that I can kind of understand maybe, maybe it

(19:05):
wasn't that the way that I was doing things or the people that
I was around were doing things that were not the correct way
of, of approaching circumstancesbecause it wasn't like the case
wholesale, right? But maybe there's a different
way of approaching it that was more beneficial or yielded a
better reward or outcome, right?And so maybe it wasn't the
optimal way of approaching things or the optimal way of

(19:27):
engaging in the world. And, and regardless of that,
it's like removing myself from the situation allowed me to open
the door to like, well, there's something else out here.
And this isn't the only way. And you pointed out something
really interesting that I actually had a conversation
about the other day and it was the, the workplace situation,

(19:51):
right? Because I feel like maybe, and
this could just be me, but like I've, I feel like sometimes I'm
the only one dealing with a situation in the world.
And it's not until I talk to somebody that I open my myself
up to like, oh. Everyone fucking deals with this
and and it doesn't feel so isolated and alone, right.

(20:12):
So having workplace situations where you're, you know, you're
feeling overly stressed or overly burdened or whatever and
like you're, you know, maybe be combative or maybe you feeling
inadequate or any of those things.
And it's like. It's just that workplace stress
is always highlighted as it justthis.

(20:34):
Conglomerate of like stressors and it's never kind of
pinpointed, but when you start breaking those things down, it's
like all of those stressors thatpeople are like pulling their
hair out at work seem to be things that everyone deals with
at some point or another in the workplace almost regularly.
And, and it's like completely normal.
And I didn't know that for a long time.

(20:55):
I don't know about you, but I didn't know that, right.
So like dealing with people at work and having these problems
is like really normal. And like most people actually
don't get fired for them becausethey have people, most people
don't go off the rails, right? And, and they're still within
bounds. So it's still acceptable, even
though there's, you know, maybe anger, unpleasant situations

(21:19):
happening at work or actual, youknow, fumbling of work duties or
etcetera, right? Like there's still this, this
space of well, this is people doing a job and people are going
to people and things are going to happen.
Yeah. And I think and no good go
ahead. I think people tend to over

(21:41):
inflate their value within a company and take their job too
seriously in a lot of ways. And my advice to people now
often is just relax a little bit.
Like, OK, maybe you made a mistake.
It's no biggie. People make mistakes.
And you know, if the people you work for understand that, it's

(22:02):
not that big of a deal. Did the idea that here in the
US, even though a lot of Americans get vacation time,
which still isn't necessarily asmuch as a lot of other
countries, they don't take all their vacation time, right?
And because they think they're so valuable to the job that they
do, even though from a company'sperspective, like here in
Seattle, we just had all the bigtech companies, Microsoft, Meta,

(22:26):
all of them, Amazon layoff thousands of employees.
So clearly the company doesn't care about you.
So as an employee, like, right, take a breath and just remember
that you're sorry to say it, butyou're just a cog and the big
wiggle and right. And once you've remind yourself
of that, like it allows you to interact with your Co workers I

(22:48):
think on a lot more even kill so.
Yeah. And there wasn't something else
that was interesting that the that was highlighted in this
conversation I was having the other day about this perspective
was in this topic was that like,there's like a handful of people
in companies, like incompetent big companies especially that
know what they're doing. And then everyone else is like,

(23:11):
it kind of is just making shit up.
Like everyone's just kind of doing the best they can.
And the world really just operates on a on a handshake and
this blind faith that like everyone is going to do what
they're going to do. And, and like, I don't know, for
me, it was like the minute that I saw that, yeah, there's people
who are competent and incapable and that are doing things.

(23:31):
And then, but like the fabric and, and the connections that
keep it, all of this scaffoldingtogether is kind of like
imaginary and it scares the shitout of me, but it also relieves
a lot of stress, right? Because like, it doesn't like,
we can just go back into like, you know, the Bay of Pigs and
like the, the nuclear crisis andthat whole thing.

(23:54):
And that was just like by pure luck that that was avoided,
right? And that's how the world
operates all day. And and that's a really scary
situation, but in a more like tangible, like work perspective,
it's like, it relieves a lot of stress for me as a person in the
workforce because it's like everyone's just kind of doing
the best they can. And no one is like the most

(24:14):
competent person in the world doing whatever.
And we're just kind of in proximity of each other trying
to like, accomplish a goal. And so I appreciate you kind of
bringing up the workplace situation.
And yeah, thanks. Well, you make a good point
though, if you because if you think about it, really
everything works just because weaccept that it works, right?

(24:36):
And you could put that on a governmental level, on a, you
know, societal level. Like the fact that we don't have
total anarchy is just because asa society, we just go along with
this acceptance that society will continue going forward at a
certain pace and that other people what you drive down the
road, right? And you accept that the other

(24:58):
drivers on the road also know what they're doing, even though
they quite possibly are staring at their infotainment system or
their phone or something like that.
But if you, if you drive on the road, like you would never leave
your home if you kind of really bought into the fact that, no,
half the people out there don't know what they're doing.

(25:19):
And same with employees, right? You go into work and you just
have to assume that the other person you're working with knows
what they're doing, because if you don't, well then you're just
going to stress yourself out andconstantly be paranoid making
their work or whatever. So the ATT situation, I mean
like you're clearly you brought this up and so it was kind of

(25:42):
like the question mark of like, I don't know how I didn't get.
Fired. How did that like?
Are you just kind of like in theworld at this point, just kind
of trying to like find a direction and like where did
that leave you from there? At that time, I, yeah, I, I not
to, I, I was good at my job. I've always been really good at
my jobs, any, any jobs I do. So I think that helps the fact

(26:04):
that I am competent and know what I'm doing.
My problem, and this is partially comes from that
upbringing that we talked about,is I didn't know how to
communicate right. So I was often right when I
would point something out to saymy manager or the uppity UPS in

(26:27):
what I was saying. What I failed in is how I set
it. And so that's usually where the
problems came from is the way that I communicated.
I ended up leaving there just kind of because I got to that
point where I realized I more orless burnt all my bridges here
and I don't think I have any more opportunity and I kind of

(26:47):
needed to reset a little bit. And then that's when I went and
worked for other companies. But it really just kind of came
down to that, that I might have exaggerated, maybe I probably
might, I don't know, who knows if I would have fired.
It also makes a difference who you who you work for.
If you have good management, they will do a good job of

(27:08):
getting the best out of you. And if you have bad management,
it's the complete opposite. And so in the 8 years I was
there, I had both. I had great managers and
terrible managers, and when I had a good one, I excelled and
did well, which kept me employed.
And then when I had a bad one, I, you know, was a mouthy little
Jackass, which usually would often keep me just about ready

(27:30):
to be getting fired. Yeah, that's usually how it
goes. How, how, how far out from the
the theater experience are you on during this time?
I completely out I, I, when I first started working there, I
work, I started in the call center and I before that I was

(27:52):
working at Starbucks and I had an agent in Seattle and was
doing auditions and stuff. And when in that case, it's
pretty easy, your agent, becausehow, how it works most of the
time as earliest back then and kind of a little bit now is your
agent will be like, Hey, I've got an audition for you
tomorrow, right? And when you're in a coffee
shop, you can get one of your coworkers to cover for you.

(28:13):
Or in the case of Starbucks, anybody from any Starbucks can
cover for you. So you just start calling
around. But once you get like a regular
9 to 5 full time job, you can't do that anymore.
And so at that point I pretty much stopped doing any acting
type stuff altogether and stayedaway from it for a really,

(28:33):
really long time. So you mentioned earlier, and I
want to pull on that thread a little bit, was that you'd gone
down that theater path and then kind of realized you kind of
went in the wrong direction or did I hear that wrong?
Yeah. Well, it wasn't that I went down
the theater path in the wrong direction, It's that I went down
the corporate work in the wrong direction.
And I don't want to like knock on it in a lot of ways.

(28:57):
It's just I, like I said, I kindof struggle because I'm
definitely a paint outside the box kind of a person.
And sometimes it's hard to to live in that box.
But you also get drawn in because you start making money,
right? And so you're like, oh, I'm
making good money. I just bought myself a fancy new
car. Oh, look, I just put a deposit

(29:19):
down, you know, bought a house and, you know, you start
spending stuff and you're like, well, now I need to keep making
money to pay for all of this kind of stuff.
And the actors, contrary to whatwe see on TV, just don't make
money. You know, there's like the top
10%. Everybody else has a side job.
And that's really what it came down to is I just got so drawn

(29:41):
in to the stability of the nine to five job, the good money, the
good benefits, all of that otherkind of stuff, the four O 1K
plan. And it was just years later and
primarily it was thanks to my wife.
So I met her when we were livingin Ireland and initially I was

(30:02):
just going to over go over therefor a couple years and probably
move back. Then I met her and was like,
well, OK, I'm going to stay herea bit longer but I can't keep
doing this job. I'm just burned out.
And she was like, well then you know, quit and I'll help cover
for whatever you need to do. And that's when I got into
photography full time and started making a bit of money

(30:23):
doing that as well. That's cool.
So how? You said your wife, how long
have you been married? We've we've only been
technically we've only been married four years now, but
we've been together for. 12 Oh wow, yeah.

(30:44):
So did you meet your wife in theStates?
No in in Ireland, yeah, she's she was over there work.
She's German originally and so she was in Ireland work and they
have a how do tech companies setup offices in Ireland and Dublin
specifically because the countrygives them massive tax breaks.

(31:04):
So basically they don't pay taxes if they set up the
corporate headquarters because it's since it's part of the EU.
So they're in the EU, but they don't pay taxes to set up their
offices there. And so all these big tech
companies do that. So she works for Meta slash
Facebook and and I was with Microsoft at the time.

(31:26):
Oh wow. OK, and what's just really
interesting because it's very clear that you're an artist,
right? Like it's just very apparent
that you're you're asked like your tendencies are towards the
arts, right? We're we're at theater, we're at
ACT just general acting, writingand photography.
And but also you're, you're plugged in the, the corporate

(31:49):
world and it's not, it's not just, you know, like a mom and
pop kind of tech company. We're talking like.
Big Tech. Microsoft, yeah, big tag like
and so how did you find yourselfthere?
So it was it really just the stability?
Yeah, I think and. It's what it's What was it about

(32:11):
the environment that was appealing to you?
It's isn't even that. It's just sometimes you just
kind of go with the flow and youdon't realize till years later
you're like, wait a minute, I'vebeen going with the flow for a
long time. So the checks keep clearing.
Yeah, pretty much exactly. Yeah.

(32:33):
So basically what happened thereis, like I said, I was getting
towards the end of my time at AT&T and I just kind of started
looking for other jobs and I gota contract job with Microsoft.
So it was a, it was just a temp thing for a year and then that
led to another contract and thenthat led to a full time
position. That's just really what it came

(32:54):
down to is 1 led to the other, that led to the other.
Yeah. And so I did five years as a
full time employee and three years as a contracted employee
and. You're still with Microsoft now.
No, no, no. I left years ago, so yeah.
So when I was so. You were doing the photographer

(33:14):
thing, yeah. OK, yeah, man, I've done all
kinds of jobs in my life, dude, I've worked in that's awesome.
I I've worked hanging suspended ceilings for a while.
Like if you go into like in construction and like hospitals
and and stores and stuff, those kind of gridded suspended

(33:36):
ceilings. I did that for a while.
Well, it's interesting because like as I, I, I kind of viewed
people who I kind of envy peoplewho, who stayed a job like for a
really long time, right? And, and I'm like, that's
awesome. I wish I could do that.
I wish I can get up, put the suit on or put the boots on and

(33:58):
go to that job and then do the, do the 9:00 to 5:00 and then
come home and eat dinner and like just do that.
I cannot and and if I am, if I'mever in that position, I can
only do it for so long before I don't know what demon takes over
and it says, hey, do something else.
This is awesome, but do something else.

(34:19):
Literally anything else. This if we're going to die here,
just please do something. The artist soul or heart or
whatever is driving. It's just like please, like I
something. I can understand.
I wish I could. Be that, yeah.
And I just so yeah, it's just interesting to to talk to

(34:39):
somebody who's like very clearlyan artist of sorts and.
And you were in this world, but it's like you're adventuring
also as far as like jobs go. And I am very similar in that
sense where I've had a ton of jobs.
So, so much so that when I tell people.
I used to do this. Just sounds like I'm fucking
lying. Yes, I love it all.

(35:01):
Right. And it's like, no, I'm not.
I just, I did a lot of things. I don't know.
I was out there like it was, youknow, a Sims video game and I
was just kind of collecting skills and.
Do you find it harder to get work now that it's been a few
years and you've been older and people look at your resume and
they're like, wait a minute, like this?
There's not. There's not enough consistency

(35:21):
here. Yes and no.
It honestly, from what I've noticed, it's usually the places
that care about that is where I kind of that have the problem.
And then the places that don't care, I have to make sure that
the person who's hiring me is not less competent because then

(35:44):
it's a threat. And because, and I've seen both.
And then there's, there's placeswho we don't care about any of
it. And they're just like, well,
you're at the bottom or something like that, right?
You're just another, another person coming in.
I think more corporate area cares about it and so it's

(36:08):
usually kind of, well, just kindof massage the resumes towards
that. These days I don't, I don't have
to worry about that too much, but I can see how it could be
problematic if you're trying to specialize into some area.
Yeah. Kind of joke about it because
I'm with you on the envy a little bit because it's like

(36:30):
I've done a bunch of stuff, but I've never been super successful
in anything. And I kind of envy those people
that like picked their thing young and focused on it and
became really successful at it. Though, you know, I don't know,
there's, there's pros and cons to everything.
I in a lot of ways I would rather have my path because at
least I could say I've done thisand I've done that and I've had

(36:52):
all of these experiences. Where is if I picked one path
and went down that throughout mylife, I'd probably be sitting
here like, oh man, I wonder whatif or I wish I had done that or
tried that or something. But then again, I'd probably
have a nice house and a nice carand a jet ski.
Yeah, yeah. But see, it's like I'm one of

(37:13):
those persons that like I just, I care about the adventure more
than I care about the stuff thatI can't take with me.
And like there's in like a lot of dudes who I, I kind of engage
with on a regular basis are, arevery much like old school and
they're just like, like chimpanzees sorts.
They're just like, they're just like like beat on something and

(37:35):
then make it produce money and then that's it.
And then that's it. And you buy stuff like, and I
just did not like that. And I, I understand that
there's, there's this freedom that comes with having money and
all this, but I think that at certain point it's like it, I,
it doesn't satisfy me as a person outside of like, because

(37:55):
I would be happy in a, in a 10 by 10 room with, you know,
eating the same thing every day.And just because if I get bored,
I just go outside, right? And I go on an adventure.
And if, if I get hungry, then I just eat.
And so like all the things that I'm doing, it's like the food is
just a means to an end. The the, but entertainment, just
a means to an end. And like the things that kind of

(38:16):
drive me are this, this curiosity of understanding more
and engaging people. And like the thing that I'm
doing with you is absolutely free outside of my time, right?
And I love it so much. Like, and people ask me all the
time, like about like numbers and like, you know, monetizing
and all this. And I, I could not give a shit
about any of it. Like I just don't care.

(38:37):
It can. It could just be.
You know me and you talking and then I post it and then, you
know, one of my friends listens to it or nobody listens to it.
I would still post it. I don't care.
I just none of those things justlike drive me to do a thing.
And I think most people are kindof oriented the opposite way,
right? And.

(38:58):
Yeah. I It's just fascinating.
I have. There's a quote, I don't
remember who said it originally,but it's basically like he who
dies with the most stuff is still dead.
And yeah, it is so true. Like, I've got good friends of
mine that are like, you know, you got to have property and you
got to have all of this stuff and it.
And it's like, you know, if thatmakes you happy.

(39:18):
But to me, it just looks like a burden.
And, you know, like the more stuff I have, that's just the
more stuff I have to care about and deal with.
And I learned that lesson by having a lot of that.
And then when I got rid of it all, it was so freeing.
Yeah, you just yeah. And I think for myself, it was
like a homeless experience that that really put everything in a

(39:42):
in a perspective just further. And then it and I lived with
just a backpack and like that was everything.
If it in the backpack, I was good and if it didn't, I didn't
need it. And I was absolutely like the
most happy I've ever been and I didn't have anything.
And I slowly crawled out of thatand I'm doing pretty well now.
And that was quite some time ago, right.

(40:03):
And so. It, it really, really made me
realize that the things that I care about as a person, everyone
values things differently, right?
And everyone has their own kind of structures of, of what they
value and, and how their life issupposed to look.
And, and there's always that joke about like, well, if you
don't care about money, then you're poor or whatever, right?
It's like, fair enough, dude. But like there is a thing where

(40:25):
you live within your means and you create wealth based on that,
right? And I was actually just talking
to my girlfriend about this, this gentleman who he makes like
good money, like great money. He, he, we were, we were
actually talking about some concern he had.

(40:45):
And he, we were looking at some numbers on his side and close to
1,000,000 a year, I would say, right, anywhere between half a
mil to a mil a year. And he was having this
conversation with me and I thought he was going, he was
stressed. He was stressed like, and he was
like a hard man like and he was stressed and he's an old

(41:06):
gentleman and he says, man, would you believe me if I told
you that this is not verbatim? He said my name and he said I
live paycheck to paycheck. I was like, what the fuck?
He's like, I live paycheck to paycheck like everybody else.
And I was like, that is crazy. That is crazy, right?

(41:26):
Because everyone like most people think so.
If I just made more money, if I just made more money, if I just
had $1,000,000, if I just had 100,000 a year, if I just had
whatever. And it's like, and it doesn't
matter because if you can't control your spending, you know,
if you make if you make 1,000,000 but you spend 2
million, you're in the whole 1,000,000, you're native, it

(41:47):
doesn't matter. And so the experiences, right,
are important as far as I'm concerned.
And it sounds like you were kindof collecting these experiences
as well. So my question to you on this
long winded rant is. If if.
The life that you had been living up until this point with
these unique collection of experiences in the in the

(42:08):
workforce, were they a byproductof your kind of journey out into
the world as an artist, or were they just kind of like, did you
think about it or did you kind of just find yourself in this?
You know, place to place. I didn't spend a lot of time
thinking about it. I kind of just found myself in
this place to place. I began to realize it when I

(42:28):
just realized how stressed and anxious and depressed I was.
And I'm like, why am I always like this?
But I didn't really dwell on it or think about it and as to why.
And I realized that's the reasonis because I just kind of kept
finding myself in in this life. But yeah, no, I didn't spend a

(42:51):
lot of time thinking about it. So you were doing photography.
Why Photography? I've just always enjoyed it.
Was it a hobby? Yeah, it was always a hobby.
Like even, I mean, years ago I took photography classes and I

(43:13):
would occasionally get jobs. I worked for a place that
photographed high school and college graduations.
So the guy, you go up, you get your little diploma, there's
somebody down there, snaps your picture real quick, moves along,
snaps your picture real quick. I did that.
I did weddings for a while. And so it was just kind of a
very cool something I really enjoyed and was reasonably

(43:33):
decent at. And then when I was getting to
the point where I'm like, OK, it's time to move on to
something else, I found a photography studio in Dublin
that this lady was selling and she was Spanish and wanted to go
back to Spain. And so I took over her
photography studio. And that's really that that
transition there. Oh, so you weren't just doing

(43:56):
like a well, I'm just going to start a new business and you,
you took somebody over somebody else's business over.
Yep, Yep. I bought a business.
It was a nice studio. It was a really large space in
the middle of Dublin. And the nice thing about it too
is because she already had clients and that kind of stuff,
so she had the business established.
So I didn't really have to startit up.

(44:18):
Problem with photography nowadays, why?
And even then is just the question of, well, why should I
pay you this much money when I have a fancy camera or my cousin
can do it for much less? And you got to explain the
difference between, you know, a professional and just somebody
with a camera, that kind of stuff.
Yeah, but. Or AI in a in a in a iPhone.

(44:40):
Yeah, now that's what it is exactly.
So that's why I'm I've, I've switched completely back to
hobby photography. I don't do it as a bit people
will ask me to because because Iwas, I was a pretty decent
wedding photographer, but it's, it's a lot of work and time and
stress And the average amount that a wedding photographer
makes now is roughly the same asan average wedding photographer.

(45:03):
What they made like 1520 years ago.
Like it's not like salary goes that much up her wedding.
And so people ask me and we're like, hey, do a wedding kind of
thing. And I'm like, Nope, it's just
straight up hobby now. And I enjoy it.
Sometimes in life you can take your hobby and turn it into your

(45:23):
job and be successful and happy at it.
And sometimes you take your hobby and turn it into a job and
you realize it should have stayed a hobby.
And in my case, I realized it should have stayed a hobby.
Yeah, But I find that most people don't even give
themselves the room to even explore whether it should or
shouldn't be. Right.
And it sounds like not only did you explore that and got a taste

(45:47):
of both worlds, but you also sound, it sounds like you had a
a very supportive partner who was very probably encouraging,
right? Because most partners aren't
like, yeah, just come, come liveover here and do this thing.
I got you. Yeah, yeah, I, you know, props
to her. She's such a sweetheart and and
we've had total different upbringings.
It's funny how we were talking about that like her parents are

(46:09):
still married and her whole family gets along and she like
calls them every week and and they're all just this loving
family. And I'm like, what is wrong with
your family? And.
That's funny. And yeah, but yeah, she's a.
Someone's lying, Yeah. Yeah, no, you'd think, You'd
think. No, they're really.
They really are. And, and, and, and I think

(46:33):
that's just the way she views the world.
And so, yeah, without her, I, I certainly would not have left
the Microsoft gig and started doing the photography thing.
It was really at her support andencouragement that that
happened. So I, I want to move into

(46:55):
talking about the podcast and your writing and I but I'm
curious because you, you left a pretty sweet gig, it sounds
like, and with a pretty stable company and arguably the
greatest country in the world toever exist.

(47:19):
Yeah, according to some people. Yeah.
And, and you just went on this new adventure.
What, what was that like? What did you have any fear?
I mean, it just generally speaking up to this point when
you're pivoting, you know, from place to place, job to job kind
of situation, Are you, are you exhibiting any fear or any

(47:42):
anxieties or any kind of like, Idon't know if this is going to
work out or, you know, if this doesn't work out, I'm going to,
I'm going to have a hard time. Or were you experiencing any of
that during this or you're just kind of going for it the whole
time? I was just kind of going for it
the whole time. I've I think the advantage to
growing up poor is you're not afraid of being poor.

(48:03):
Or maybe you are, I don't know. I have a friend, he grew up poor
and he's just the opposite. He's like, I don't know, I never
want to go back to that. But I think in my case, I'm
like, I if, if I wasn't in a relationship, I could live in a
van if I had to, right? I So for me it was always, if

(48:23):
this doesn't work out, then I'llend up somewhere else or I'll do
something else or something elsewill come up.
I've never really had a hard time finding work until
recently, actually over the pastfew years, it's gotten hard, but
I think it's the same with everybody.
But I never struggled to find work even if it was low paying

(48:45):
work. So I think that also played a
part of it is the mindset of like I can even if this doesn't
work out, I can always find something that will allow me to
pay the bills again. I I could live in a van if I had
to. Wouldn't bother me at all.
Right. So humility plays a massive role
in that, Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I can eat macaroni

(49:08):
and cheese for dinner. It's fine.
I've done it. Fair enough.
OK, so then the the photography thing, how did that transition?
Like how did you get from there to writing?
How did you get back into writing and doing this podcast?
Well, I've always been into writing, so no matter when or

(49:31):
where I've lived, I've always written stuff I've will
participate in. I've participated in Nanowrimo.
It's called National Write a Novel in a Month.
It's in November, and the idea is you just hash out and write
the crappiest novel you can in in 30 days.
Kind of a thing I've got. Not as easy as it seems by the

(49:54):
way now. Have you done it?
I've tried, yeah, it's not. It's very hard, yeah.
Because it's got to be 50,000 words I think is it?
And it is hard to write enough every day to hit those 50,000
words. I'm totally with you.
I've done it twice and I did notsucceed either time.
Yeah, yeah. Even trying to pump something

(50:16):
crappy out is is no, no small feat.
Yeah. Yeah, totally agree.
So I've always hats off to you. Yeah.
Well, it did turned out to be a good thing, actually.
I'll get to it here in a minute.But yeah, so I've always read,
I've got tons of stuff. Most of it's, some of it's crap.
Some of it I think is actually all right.
And yeah, so I've always been doing the writing thing.

(50:38):
And then in Dublin, when I movedto Dublin, I didn't know
anybody. And I went on meet up on
meetup.com and just started looking for groups I had
interest in. So one of which was like this
filmmaking group called Dublin Film Makers.
And I went to one of their meetings and they're just like,

(51:01):
hey, yeah, we're making films. We'll get together on a Saturday
and shoot something over the weekend, or we'll try to make a
short film. And you just kind of start to
meet people that have that same mindset.
And that's what got me back intothe acting thing actually, was
just the fact that I was there, didn't know anybody needed to
meet people. I couldn't just sit at home all

(51:22):
the time and found that group that I had that shared interest
with that. So that you got back into acting
when you moved, is it? How long had it been since you
kind of were in the acting scene?
Probably a good 15 years or so. What you're writing the whole

(51:43):
time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
OK. Always writing stuff.
And. And you kind of did, You did it.
Did you expand on kind of your, your because you're, you were
directing and stuff too now, right at this point.
Yeah. When I started when you open
that door again, I did, yeah. So when I started, it was really
just acting. And then I kind of started

(52:03):
directing a bit of stuff as well.
So I've, you know, written and directed a few short films and
yeah, so. So I did get into directing a
bit as well. I like, I like to be in.
I like to do like sits, as we'veestablished.
I like to do different things. I'm like, I can't just be an
actor. I got to be a director.
I got to be a writer. I got to, I got to do camera,
right. Yeah.

(52:25):
Yeah. I think it just helps kind of
understand even if you're going to be like a specialist of any
kind, just understanding the mechanics and the, and the
proximal duties of or whatnot, right.
Like, because even if, if your passion is just acting,
understanding the director's perspective helps you be a
better actor. Yeah.
And vice versa, if you know, acting as a director, it helps

(52:46):
you give direction better. And so did you find kind of like
a new like a new spirit, like a like a a new kind of energy for
acting, writing and all of that while you finding this group?
Yes, 100%. I joked a lot when I would go

(53:07):
into the office. I kind of had to check my soul
at the door and whenever I picked it back up, it was a
little sadder or weaker than it was before I got there.
And getting into the the film group really helped revitalize
that and really gave me kind of a new energy on life in general.

(53:28):
So for me, it was incredibly rewarding to help find that like
creative spirit, you know, Right.
So what did you end up doing after the, the photography thing
that in, in balancing all of theacting, writing and and all the
other extracurricular activities?

(53:48):
Well, that that's, I mean, I still made some money doing all
that kind of stuff, but we, my wife had the opportunity with
her work. So we were, I was in Ireland for
six years and or seven years andwe she had the opportunity to
relocate with her work to the UK, to London.

(54:10):
And I was like, yeah, let's do that because I love Ireland is a
beautiful country and the peopleare great.
But it's kind of like, I've seenit all and I'm ready for that
new adventure. And it's like, yeah, let's go to
London and have that adventure and went over there and did a
lot of the same stuff. A lot of got involved in acting
groups and writing and podcasting and all that kind of

(54:30):
stuff. And so it was the podcast
something that you started. Well, I've been a long time
listener to podcasts. And so when I relocated to
London as kind of an actor, I had this idea for one, what 2
actually, but the first one was called Diary of an Unemployed

(54:53):
Actor. And it was basically me talking
to other actors that I had met over time and stuff and be like,
hey, how'd you get into it? How do you find it?
Talk about the audition process?Because most celebrity podcasts
or they're just kind of talking about their thing or you know,
that kind of stuff. You don't really learn how to be

(55:16):
starting out actor or how to live as an actor and do
auditions and that kind of stufffrom a lot of those.
So that's really what it came down to.
And then I'd also talked to filmmakers and that kind of stuff.
And then I also did another one with a couple friends of mine
from Ireland where we would talkabout short films and
everything. But the, the main one, the one

(55:37):
that I do now, which is the 80s and 90s uncensored that I've
been doing for probably four years now, over 4 years.
Very nice is my buddy Jamie, whoI had met at Microsoft actually
years ago and we kind of kept intouch off and on.
He started a website called The 80s and nineties.com, and he's

(55:58):
like, hey, Milo, you're a writer.
Do you want to contribute to my website and write articles about
the 80s and 90s? And I'm like, damn, I've got a
lot going on at the moment. I don't want to write anymore.
How about we do a podcast on thesame subject about the 80s and
90s? And he's like, I don't know,
what's a podcast? And so I kind of explained it to
him and we started doing the podcast.

(56:19):
And so, yeah, it's a weekly showand we usually have like a
subject or a theme like, so we might do fun stuff like who
would win in a cage match between Magnum Pi and MacGyver
or, but you know, that kind of stuff.
And, or we'll do like retrospectives and we'll go into

(56:40):
like Chernobyl or, and sometimeswe'll have guests on and that
kind of thing. So yeah, it's all that one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We had Corey Feldman on last
year, so that was kind of a big one.
And that's pretty rad. Yeah.
So. So yeah, it's just a lot of fun.
Did you guys just reach out to him?
They reached out to us. So.

(57:01):
Yeah. So his PR people must suck.
That's funny. They reached out to us and
they're like, hey, he's got thisfilm coming out.
And it's kind of like, what if social media was a thing in the
80s and he's in it and. Yeah.
Would you would you like to havehim on your podcast?
And we're like, hell yeah, we would.
And that's pretty cool. Corey Feldman on, which was

(57:22):
great. And yeah, you guys have some
pretty cool content. I checked out quite a bit of it
before, before we did this, and thank you.
I saw the Chernobyl one. Yeah.
I think it's a, you guys do thisfun thing that I miss from maybe
the early 2000s blogging scene or like there was a lot of those
like, you know, crack.com and, and those websites and they used

(57:45):
to do kind of those themes and it, it mimicked your titles and
your, your, your, your centralized themes.
And I thought that was, I don't know if that was on purpose or,
or what, but like, but the titlestood out specifically as the
titling of like that era. And it came from like the late

(58:06):
90s and it bled into like the early 2000s.
And it's like that kind of thing.
Yeah. We try to keep it fun content.
Yeah. It's just fun content.
Yeah. And your guys's podcast is
actually fascinating and fun andenergizing.
And I had the Chernobyl one was interesting.
And I didn't see the the film inone.

(58:27):
I didn't listen to that one, butI'm going to have to go back and
check that out. Yeah.
We, we, we kind of say it as like every Monday because we
release some every Monday. And we're like, Mondays suck,
you're back to work. Well, you know, life sucks
terrible, but at least you have one thing to look forward to on
a Monday, and that's the 80s and90s uncensors.
So we try to, we try to keep it pretty light.

(58:49):
And one of the things we like about it too, is we've, we've
never recorded in person, but it's kind of like a, you have a
conversation with a friend or whatever.
And that's I think the reason why the show works.
If I've we've had other guests, hosts on every once in a while,
like if Jamie's busy or whatever, I'll get in.

(59:10):
And it just doesn't. Yeah, there was one I'd listen
to. Yeah.
Yeah, I had another guy in there.
Yeah. And it's it's fine, but it's not
quite the same dynamic. And I think that's why the show
works is the dynamic between myself and Jamie.
Yeah. The back and forth it's it's
very inviting. And it's like you're just kind
of hanging out with friends. It's pretty cool.
Yeah, and you don't, you don't get that from like a lot of

(59:32):
duo's. They you see it all the time too
in like forums and stuff. It's like they struggle, people
struggle to find a good, a good partner in the podcasting scene.
And so it's pretty cool that youguys got something going there
and you you're doing other podcasts as well.
I was at not anymore. Now the only podcast that I do
is this one. So what the the unemployed actor

(59:55):
one? It just got to a point where I'm
like, I can only ask, what got you into acting so many times?
That kind of stuff. So I think that one got as much
useful information out of it as I could get to give to the
audience. That's kind of why that 1 ended.
And then the movie review on it kind of stopped when I moved

(01:00:19):
here to the US because they might Co host where are in
Ireland. So we might try to pick that one
up again, but it's just that one's pretty hard because we're
all quite busy. And so often there's three of us
and we normally record on recordon Wednesday evenings, Ireland,
UK time, which now would be likenoon my time.

(01:00:41):
And so, right, just the challenge of getting three of us
at the same time when we're all busy.
Claire, who goes with him, she'sa writer and actor and Kaho,
he's a filmmaker as well. So we've all got those schedules
and it makes it a bit of a challenge sometimes to record,
so hopefully we can pick that one back up again to the moment

(01:01:03):
it's on pause. So how did you end up back in
the US? It was just time for another
move, honestly. So we've been in London for six
years and love it, but it was, my wife had never been in the US
and my family had started dying off.

(01:01:25):
And so I'm like, I need to spendsome time with the family I've
got left before they all croak. And I just kind of wanted to
show where the country bid, do some Rd. trips, see the sights
and national parks. I don't know if we'll
necessarily stay here. We kind of figure let's give it
a year or two and see how it goes because we're coming at a

(01:01:45):
time where basically everybody Iknow is like, dude, what the
hell Are you coming back now of all times?
Got you. It's not as bad as everybody
says it is or the news says it is.
It's it's really not. It's not.
Yeah. And so that's the big thing that
hopefully people get is like, from listening to me is like,
look, don't believe everything you see on TV. the US is still a

(01:02:09):
very nice country. There's still a lot to see.
The people are still good people.
So, yeah. So I kind of wanted her to have
that experience a little bit. If we're saying this as as as I
read AI read a headline earlier about 19 cities in the US, major
cities getting National Guard roll.

(01:02:29):
Out. We're sending in the National
Guard, but it's fine. It's fine.
Don't worry about it. It's fine.
Yeah. It's not that bad if you're not
inhaling the smoke from the fire.
Exactly. Yeah.
Or. Shit, that's funny.
Yep. Yeah, as long as you stayed away
from the drugs on the street andthe homeless camps and the

(01:02:52):
National Guard, and as long as you don't get don't get busted
by ICE and sent to Alligator Alcatraz, you're fine.
You're fine. It's all good.
What an incredible name. Alligator Alcatraz fucking.
Yeah, I will say that despite all of this tumultuous times in
turmoil that we're all experiencing, that's not

(01:03:13):
actually being experienced as the news says it is.
The memes have been fantastic. OK, so, so you're during all of
this adventuring, how did you manage to write a, a book?

(01:03:34):
Yeah. So it's a novel.
Yeah. Literary fiction, which it turns
out nobody's interested in. Everybody wants romanticy and
romance and thrillers. So I found written by AI.
Yeah. Apparently so mentioning
Nanowrimo. So in like 2007, 2008, I did

(01:03:55):
Nanowrimo and I wrote this book,which was probably about 40,000
words and it was terrible. And I let a couple people read
it and they're like, this sucks.And then never touched it again
because you should never let somebody read a first draft that
you wrote in 30 days, as it turns out.
But then years later living in London, I wasn't working full

(01:04:18):
time or anything like that. So I and I was doing the acting
theater thing. So I had plenty of time.
And then obviously the COVID pandemic, so I had time to
actually pull stuff out and I went back to this novel that I
wrote then. And I'm like, there's something
still here. This is still an interesting
story that I think people can relate to because it's about a

(01:04:40):
guy who does what I've done or does what other people are done
or a lot of people can relate to.
He's got the corporate job, he'ssuccessful, he's got the car, he
goes out every night, he drinks,he does drugs, and he's like,
this is all a bit meaningless. So what now in that is where

(01:05:02):
that came from, and it takes place in 2008 because that's
kind of when I was writing it and I didn't want to update it.
So yeah, that's where it came. That's where it really came down
to is I pulled this novel that Idid during Nanowrimo and went
through and rewrote the whole thing.

(01:05:23):
What what drove you to kind of really like, was there something
there in that, in that first draft that you said, look, I
don't know if this is if everyone's right about how this
book is turning out, but there'ssomething here that I need to
kind of put into the world. And what was driving you?
Yeah, a friend of mine. Is it that.
Yeah, a friend of mine, Jamie, actually, he has said this

(01:05:46):
because he when he was in the Navy, he got out of the Navy, he
went to college, he finished hisbachelor's degree in like 3
years, got married, they had a kid, they bought a huge house,
he had a minivan. And then he's like this, I can't
do this, this isn't me. And they have since been
divorced and he's left the corporate job and stuff like

(01:06:08):
that. And when he was saying the whole
is is it? This is what we're taught to do,
This is what we're supposed to do.
And it made me miserable. And I'm like, that's kind of my
main character in this book. And the character isn't based on
him. They're nothing alike
personality wise, but that's essentially it.

(01:06:30):
And I'm like, OK, well, here's this friend of mine who had this
experience, kind of wrote this character in the book that's
starting to figure this out. I, I, you know, and I know
these, I know people that have had this experience.
And I'm like, I think this is something people can relate to.
And hopefully they can, even though the main character is
kind of a total chauvinist asshole, Hopefully they could
kind of pick through that and see something in it.

(01:06:55):
That's, it's fascinating that you bring that up because that's
a lot of the things in that I, Iwas hoping to highlight in doing
this podcast was the, the traditional, it's not even
traditional. It's just like this emotionally
adolescent version of what we think is a traditional
masculinity in, in the US. It's like it's, it's, it extends

(01:07:18):
from that and other things whereit's just borrowed knowledge
that gets turned into like a costume we wear and we don't
know why we're wearing it. And, and when we finally get a
glimpse of ourselves in the mirror as we're passing by
playing this role, we're like, Hey, why are we doing that?
And some of us kind of realize that, oh, I don't actually have

(01:07:40):
to be wearing this costume. I don't actually have to be
doing these things. I don't actually have to be, you
know, played by all of these rules because there's no,
there's no law saying that I can.
And, and we find ourselves superunhappy.
And I think that the 2008 recession being a centralized
theme around your book is, is a really important element to, I

(01:08:04):
don't, I don't think people understand how, how jarring that
that time period was and how we're still kind of in the
effects and throes of what had transpired during that period
and what people really went through.
And there's a lot of families and, and just, you know, men and
women out there who, who really struggled and, and got fucked up
by that whole situation and are generationally screwed up.

(01:08:27):
And, and on top of that, like I said, they were still feeling
the effects that have not resolved themselves from that.
And it was an important lesson in time in history, especially
coming out of the Katrina era, where we saw how, how the almost
useless government can be as faras helping people and how

(01:08:47):
ineffective our resources might be and how self-sufficient and
people, how not self-sufficient people are and how they should
be. And so any time somebody decides
to kind of explore that, that time period, I'm my ears kind of
perk up and I go, why did you dothat?

(01:09:07):
Right. And it's a it's a theme like
what you're explaining is it's kind of similar.
Not, I'm not comparing your bookto Fight Club, but it it it's
very much like there's this theme that continues through
other other books in history. And the first one that just came
up to mind was Fight Club, right?
Where it's very much some corporate dude who's like

(01:09:28):
already in this world and has seemingly what they're they're
aspiring to have and they're unhappy.
And it's like, dudes experience this all the time.
I experienced it right. And that's why books like that,
like yours and and that other one, Chuck Paliniak, are able to

(01:09:51):
highlight and capture this. Right.
And and the example you gave with your buddy is a real world
one. And a lot of men specifically
find themselves in that realization very late in life.
And it's it's not too late, but it's kind of like if you were
honest with yourself earlier, you might traject differently.

(01:10:13):
Yeah. It's hard.
Why do you think we still contend with that?
Not not to put an easy question on it like, yeah, but if you
think about it like I mean a 40 hour work week was implemented
around like I think what the Great Depression or like after
that or something like that for you know.

(01:10:33):
World War 2 issue, yeah. Around that time, right?
And we still have it, but why? And why is it five days a week,
Why not four days a week at 10 hour shifts or why are we not
working 35? You know, like they've done
different companies and places of experiment with these
changes. And recently with the pandemic,
we've had people work from home and show that they're just

(01:10:54):
productive, just as productive working from home as they are is
going into the office. But companies are making them go
back into the office. And it's just kind of like what
why does society function as a whole?
Kind of like to what we said earlier, it's just we just all
accept this as the reality that we're supposed to have.

(01:11:14):
And I, I'm reading a book calledOh God, I can't think of the
name of it, but it's basically about death, about our
acceptance of death and the factthat as human beings, we kind of
can't accept the fact that we'regoing to die, which is why we do
all of this, because we don't realize that at some point in
our time, we're going to die andbe like, oh, wait, I just lived

(01:11:35):
this entire life that I had no interest in.
I didn't really care about or enjoy or and stuff like that.
And the ones who kind of step outside of that, that, that
don't adhere to the norm, they're, they're the crazy ones
essentially is kind of what thisbook is saying.
Those are the ones that accept the fact that they're going to

(01:11:57):
die. They know they're going to die.
And so they're like, I got to doall of this other stuff before I
die. And and yeah, that's that's
possibly the answer, because even though we know we're going
to die, we don't really accept the fact that we're going to
die. And so the fact that I go to

(01:12:17):
work Monday morning, I do my 8 hours, I go home from work, I
have dinner, I sit in front of the TVI repeat that on Tuesday
until the weekend. Or like maybe I'll hang out with
some friends a little bit or, you know, go watch a movie.
And because you don't that the fact that time is passing,
somehow human beings don't accept that, that, that I don't

(01:12:43):
know, it's just a weird thing. And we just go along with it as
a society. Yeah.
I don't know if that was answered what you were asking.
No, no, you're good. Yeah.
No, I just. I was just thinking as you're
talking. Well, like it's we have these
jarring moments in time and it'susually the with the financial

(01:13:05):
ones. That are like.
That affect us as a like as a country or, or globally that
kind of make us look at like, Hey, what's what's actually
going on here? But it's only for a moment,
right? Like, and COVID was kind of
similar and you know, the Great Depression and it's like, I
always hear these things. And I've repeated this over the
last couple of episodes on this podcast where it's like, oh,

(01:13:26):
people, people were better off back in the day, right?
Like people can just have a job and then, you know, they can
provide for a family and like doall the thing the American
dreams dead and all this nonsense.
And it's like, but like if I look at the Great Depression,
like it, it wasn't rich men standing in lines for bread,
right? And so like if.

(01:13:46):
If we were better off. Then then that wouldn't have
happened. And it's like there's no,
there's no real sense of security that's underlying the
things that we do. And at any point, like the, the
rules of the game can and will change and we have to be
prepared for that and some sense.
And, and ultimately the winners of that are the ones who
prepared for the things that were unknown or unforeseen and

(01:14:09):
kind of contend with the fog of war as it as it as it were in.
And what was interesting about the 2008 recession and was the
emergence of the, the backlash that was that came out of like
2011 in the Arab Spring. And what was the one that came

(01:14:32):
out after that Occupy Wall Street and all of that stuff.
And it's, it's, it's the people who sheepishly kind of go to
work and do the thing and one day realize, oh, this doesn't,
I'm actually losing, right? And, and I don't mean sheepishly
in like as some kind of pejorative here.
I just mean like people who justkind of drone along and are

(01:14:55):
happy with that and deal. And we kind of saw that again in
2020 with the pandemic, but it wasn't, it was for different
reasons. What were you hoping to?
Highlight in the book specifically as far as your
character's journey and what wasthe centralized and maybe

(01:15:17):
emotion that you were trying to pull out in regards to the
centralized emotion and or highlight in general is
essentially kind of what we highlighted.
You know, think of it like a office space.
Office space meets bright lights, big city meets, like you
said, Fight Club. The if we keep pointing this

(01:15:40):
stuff out to people, maybe at some point in time, we'll
actually realize as a society that the American dream, we
don't all need to have that samedream, right?
Your, your dream should be whatever it is.
And I do think this next generation is starting to figure

(01:16:01):
it out, right? I mean, I know as a Gen.
Xer myself, and I hear other, you know, older people be like,
ah, Gen. Z millennial, blah, blah, blah.
They're this, that and that. But in a lot of ways they're not
because they're like, wait a minute, you guys are unhappy
doing what you say we're supposed to be doing, yet now

(01:16:24):
you're telling me I need to do that?
No, why? Why do I need to go get a
corporate job or this big fancy job and do all of this so that I
can then be miserable like you, You know, and they and a lot of
people are like, well, they never be able to afford to buy a
house and that kind of stuff. And it's true at the moment, but
they're also, I think when they put the phones down,

(01:16:46):
experiencing life a little bit more and they're taking time to
do it. They're not going and getting
married and popping out childrenin their 20s like it used to be.
You're supposed to do. In fact, often they're not
getting married at all or not having children at all because
they're like, well, no, I don't necessarily need to do that.
I don't have to do that. And if I don't do that, well now

(01:17:09):
I get to travel around or I get to spend time with my friends
and family and I get to have more money.
I can make spend it how I want. So I do think people are
learning. It's just not for us to learn.
It's for the next generation to learn.
So hopefully they'll listen to this podcast and be like, yeah,
these guys got it. We're listening to them.

(01:17:32):
Yeah. I mean, Office Space was such a
awesome callback. I mean that that was.
That was a real world. Version of of the apathy that
comes with that right and and the the the the silent quitting
as it were that we kind of experience as a as a meme and a
trend and TikTok here in in recent years and in office space

(01:17:54):
kind of. It's.
The same shit like, and it's, it's fascinating to me how we
all kind of are looking towards Gen.
Z and Gen. alpha and the, the, the coming generations as, oh,
they, they figured it out. And they, they've kind of, they

(01:18:16):
found, they, they realize that there's a game being played and
they don't have to play it. And the only thing that scares
me about that is I can't see a world where we don't go into a
Chinese version of democracy, right?
And, and the AI overlords are, are here to stay.
And it's because it, there's, there's an underlying fabric
that I don't think people understand.

(01:18:37):
It already exists and the framework is already there.
And the only reason it has lamented is because the
constitution, the US still exists and we see it in other
countries, the first world countries or, or advanced
democracies or, and it's but in the US, they're like, it's all
there. And the way that all the data

(01:18:58):
grabs are happening or, you know, through backdoor
contractual agreements that literally just needs to be
centralized. And I don't see a world where we
don't kind of go into some kind of like social credit score
system because of it, whether wecall it that or not, right?
It could be in the guise of someother, some other kind of tool

(01:19:19):
or what have you. And and so it that's, that's
kind of my only kind of concern as far as the kind of heading in
that direction, especially with with more tech tools.
And I'm like, not really like I'm not like super scared of
like tech in general. I'm not one of those people

(01:19:40):
who's like, oh, you guys going to take over the world.
Like we still have problems withprinters.
Like I think what we can be fine.
Like we haven't solved the printer problem.
What's that solved? Yeah, yes.
Then I will be shedding my pantsprofusely, like.
And so it's interesting that we are still dealing with with

(01:20:02):
these. These issues generation after
generation and then that we're constantly highlighting these
things and then one generation is trying to hand the baton over
to the other with some, you know, form of wisdom.
And, and do you think that younger generations will take

(01:20:26):
the, the kind of nudge to like make a change and kind of pivot
at all? Like, do you think that
anybody's actually listening outthere and willing to kind of
pivot in another direction that might lead us not into turmoil?
I hope so. But to your point, every

(01:20:48):
generation has that, right? Like, so the baby boomers were
all the like hippies and they'relike, OK, we're going to, we're
going to change the world. And then they grow up and
they're like, OK, now I've got my Social Security to save, you
know, and it all changes their how people go from liberals to

(01:21:09):
conservatives as they age. And yeah, it's so it's, it's
entirely possible. I, if they, the next generation
can do a good job of filtering out the misinformation because
they, they do have access to a lot more information.
And the cat catch is making surethat they're turning out.

(01:21:32):
I, I did key in on something that you said, though, about
your whole back point and how we're all just kind of becoming
data points. And because we've experienced
that recently when moving back to Seattle and just trying to
find a place to live because we're just renting and the hoops
and the technical hoops we had to go through.
Like you would go to look at a department and you don't meet

(01:21:53):
the apartment manager anymore orthe owner the place you have an
app that you download to do a virtual tour, you know, to that
does a tour and you apply through the app or online or you
know, all that kind of stuff. And so yeah, that there is that.
And if you can't make it throughthat techno technological hurdle

(01:22:19):
of having a good credit score orlike you said, a good social
score, right, where people potentially do or say something
online that gets them in trouble.
So that is a potential concern and a valid one.
We could move into an episode ofBlack Mirror here in our
lifetime. Yeah.

(01:22:41):
I mean, that's as you're talking.
I'm like, this is this is Black Mirror, right?
And maybe it's not a social credit score, but we've already
implemented the, the, the priming word for social equity
and especially in the US, right,and the Western countries,
right, where everyone values social equity of some sort and

(01:23:01):
social currency as it will, as it as it would be.
And yeah, I don't know, one, oneof the most fascinating ones is
the not to pick on Gen. X for a second, but Gen.
X is an interesting one because,yeah, Gen.

(01:23:23):
X is really the the the ones whoimplemented the like the full
send on technology. And also as a a subset of people
who have a hard time kind of navigating technology, but then
also as a subset of of its generation who is repulsed by

(01:23:43):
technology. So it's it's kind of a funny one
to me. Yeah.
It's weird. That's just kind of as an aside.
Yeah, I have a love hate relationship with it.
Do you? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jamie, my my Co host, he has a hate, hate relationship with a
lot of technology and he's a he's a smart guy too.

(01:24:04):
Like I mean, he does web design and that kind of stuff, but it
it, it here's the thing, like ifit makes your life is opening
Pandora's box and if it makes your life better or it makes
things easier, great. But when it's like, OK, if to do
this you need an app, well, why we stayed in temporary housing

(01:24:27):
when we moved over and that my work, my wife's work covered for
us and the building was owned bythis big company that owns
multiple apartment building things, right.
And you did an app for everything.
There were no keys, so you had an app on your phone to open the
garage door and it's like, and you scroll and it's not just

(01:24:47):
like press 1 button, launch the app and it opens.
It's like you need to select option West side garage door,
downstairs mail room door, elevator door, E 5 kind of
thing. And so you just would have to
scroll through this app to find the door that you needed to
open. And sometimes it worked.
Sometimes you'd have to try a couple times.

(01:25:10):
And if your phone died, you're screwed.
So it doesn't make, if it doesn't make your life better,
then technology's not a good thing.
Cars nowadays don't make my lifebetter.
The fact that they're constantlybeeping at me and telling me
that the car is in front of me. And it's like, I know a car's in
front of me because I can see. I know a car just swerved into

(01:25:33):
my lane because I saw it swervedinto my lane.
I don't need you to beep at me and slam on the brakes.
So I find when technology doesn't improve my life, that's
when I have a problem with it. But when it improves my life,
great, right? The fact that we're able to do
this over Discord and have this conversation even though we're
in completely different parts ofthe country, or the fact that

(01:25:56):
Jamie and I were able to do our podcast in different countries
entirely like that. In that aspect, the fact that I
can keep in touch with my familywho lives in Montana.
My sister lives in Montana now and I'm not paying long distance
phone call bill to call her likeI would have had to do in the
90s. That aspect of technology now is
fantastic. So it does improve your life in

(01:26:19):
a lot of ways, but it also, you know, hinders it in other ways.
That's my love. Hate with it.
Yeah. And on the on the mobile side,
like automobiles, it's like withlike I know the only one I know
right now is Tesla, who basically is just is a data
capturing device on wheels and right.

(01:26:41):
And it's got cameras everywhere and stuff and there's just no
escape from it. And to your point about like
tech being accessible and easy to use and fun to use, when it
is, it's like, I think the we have to accept that the, the
negative aspects of it kind of just come, come with the whole
thing, right? And we have to just be prudent

(01:27:03):
in our choices and choice makingas and that's hard to do when
you're talking about like, you know, priming and and teaching
societies to kind of be smart about what we're doing with
stuff. And then you can't.
You can't actually. That aspect of.
You know, leveraging technology in in response to crime and war

(01:27:25):
and, and to combat it, right. And I think the, the biggest
door opener for that was 2001 with the, with the, the twin
towers and, and all of that, right?
And War on Terror and it's, it'sa, it's a rough.
I don't know. Yeah, it's.
Hard to balance. So I guess I I want.

(01:27:50):
To kind of wrap this back aroundto the.
The main kind of theme of this podcast is kind of centralizing
this around men and boys and, and how we kind of engage in the
world and in society. And I can't help but still kind
of understand it's been a littlebit quieter from my perspective.
The question on, you know, are men suffering or whatever?

(01:28:13):
Because the whole world seems tobe suffering right now to some
extent. And but there seems to be this
air about men and young men struggling and just men in
general going through like a difficult time in in our
society, in the first worlds, I suppose you would say, and, or
the Western countries. And do you do you see that from
your perspective at all? Do you think that's a thing?

(01:28:34):
Like what are your thoughts on that?
It Yeah, I know where you're going and I know it's a concern
that a lot of guys have. Personally, I haven't seen it.
It's interesting too, because ofthe way how men were raised to

(01:28:55):
to be. I'm going to give you an example
here of Top Gun the the movie Top Gun, which pretty much
everybody's seen with Tom Cruise, the first one, not the
second one. And in the movie, as guys were
like, oh, this is the great, youknow, Maverick's the.
Best he's so. Cool and a friend of mine showed

(01:29:18):
that movie to his son who's 17 years old and his son is like
that guy's an asshole. He he doesn't follow orders, he
doesn't do it, you know, like he's he he he should lose his
job basically was the way his son looked at it and it was it
was such an interesting point ofview because because we're like,

(01:29:39):
wait a minute, what Oh, he's thebest.
So I guess there is that aspect of how men and boys now are
being kind of taught in regards to essentially masculinity,
right. Because to that that's the
ultimate in masculinity, to be abadass fly jet fighters and that

(01:30:02):
kind of stuff. Whereas young these next
generation is like, hey, no, he's not.
He's a Dick. Like he kind of almost, you
know, he embarrasses this woman in the bar singing to her and
then chases her into the bathroom.
Like you can't do that kind of stuff.
Yeah. So so it is, it is funny for me

(01:30:22):
personally, I don't really see it.
I know people do complain about it with the people I've worked
with or. No, I, I.
I don't I. Don't see it as as and I know
that they had the whole you know, me too hashtag and all
that kind of stuff, which seems to have died off.

(01:30:43):
I don't know, maybe, but I haven't seen.
Yeah. Well, we have Epstein and Diddy
now. What do we have now?
Yeah, There's always something going on now.
There's always something. But yeah, like in in a lot of
ways, I think personally, I think it's good.
Like, like like you said, you got Diddy Epstein.
You have who's the filmmaker, producer, Harvey Weinstein.

(01:31:06):
Weinstein. Yeah.
So I'm all for them being calledout, working on films and stuff
and the fact that they might have, like, intimacy
coordinators to help women feel more comfortable during intimate
scenes and stuff. Totally support it.
I've seen and been around filming, you know, directors and
stuff that like treat people a certain way.

(01:31:29):
And it's like, no, you can't do that anymore.
And for the most part, I'm OK with it.
I do think there is a balance because for, especially for me,
because I was, you know, I'll make inappropriate jokes or be
where I'm think I'm being kind of flirty, you know, just for
the fun of it. And then how that gets taken.
So from that aspect of being male, it is frustrating, but I'm

(01:31:56):
also kind of OK with it. I I was.
This was in London, I was on. A waiting for the underground
train and the line I was on has like kind of a weird direction
and there was this woman down there and she's looking at her
phone. She's looking and you can tell
she's kind of lost. But it normally I probably the
old me probably would have been like, Oh, you lost, you know,

(01:32:17):
can I put you where you're at? But now to kind of what you're
saying here, I didn't go up to her at all.
I'm like, you know, maybe I'd goup and offer help and she'd be
pissed at me of like, you know, don't try to help me or don't
you know, are you hitting on me?That kind of stuff.
And it's like, so right, So fuckyou, lady, right, You know, I
mean, if fair enough, man, like I mean to.

(01:32:39):
To the the Weinstein's. The deed is in the Epstein's
right. Go fuck yourself.
Like it if if like I think there.
There is a, there's. 2 worlds kind of happening and at the
same time, right, where there's an undercurrent of injustices
that have not been righted that should be righted.
And I don't think anyone is really playing in that, you
know, like, nay saying any of that, right?

(01:33:00):
Like no one, no one with a good conscience and a straight mind
is saying we should just not look at that.
That's that's I think that's a separate thing here from the
world that is evolving where, you know, people who are are
seemingly playing by the rules and are are experiencing things

(01:33:21):
differently in the world as its emergence, as it it's as it is
emerging and we are examples. Interesting because I I'm just
naturally a helpful person when I can be and sometimes to my own
fucking detriment. And just every experience is not

(01:33:42):
going to be a. Winner, right And so.
You can help somebody and they can still be rude to you and
that doesn't you're still being helpful.
That's a different their response to it is, is completely
different from the thing that has unfolded.
But in that situation, it's like, well, the the quote
gentlemanly thing to do would beto be helpful, right?
And but we've evolved from that to, Hey, I'm not going to be

(01:34:06):
helpful because I might be perceived as an asshole or
something else. And that's a real consequence of
this thing that we're trying to head towards, right?
And but then there's this perspective that I'm looking at
this from the, with the example that you've proposed here or
that you've, you've presented. And it's it's well, if you

(01:34:27):
wanted a safer world person, whoever it may be, then there's
actually no need. For me to do anything.
And therefore you're kind of at the mercy of your own.
And consequence and experience of the.
World as it it you're engaging with it, right?
And has nothing to do with me because that's what you wanted,
right? And, and there seems to be this

(01:34:48):
weird pushback on that end of things where, well, wait a
minute, people aren't being people anymore.
It's like, well, you. Can't be in a sanitized
situation to that extent, right?Because.
The consequence of of dealing with somebody outside of who you
are is is that. Things might not go the way that
you want them to. Even when people are trying to
be helpful and we're robbed of asocial experience because of it.

(01:35:13):
Totally. I remember when I was younger,
you know, you drive down the road and maybe you see
somebody's car that broke down, right?
And so you and maybe a couple other people, you'd hop out real
quick and you'd help push the the person push the car off to
the side. And you don't see that anymore.
Now you leave the person on the road with their flashers on
waiting for help. So there is that, whether it's a

(01:35:38):
guy or a girl. But to the aspect of being a guy
in this world, I'm glad that I'mno longer dating in a sense.
I mean, I, there's a lot of fun that goes along with dating and
stuff like that. But in the world today, I'm
really glad I don't have to dealwith it because it would be it's
it's got to be a lot harder because you don't want to offend

(01:36:01):
the person, but you also are still trying to be friendly.
You know, you don't want to datepeople from work for sure,
because that'll get you in a lotof trouble, too.
So very glad that I'm not in thedating pool anymore.
Yeah, I'm definitely off the market.
But if I ever go back on, it's going to be peaceful times and
brothels for me. Yeah, that's probably a good

(01:36:22):
idea. It's probably it's cheaper on
the emotional toll and and on the wallet.
I can't imagine. I just I can't it.
It seems scary out there. The landscape seems not fair
right now and and it probably isbecause of a fucking ton.

(01:36:42):
Of bad apples, but. The risk reward ratio, I have a
really low tolerance for risk and it to your point man, it
just seems terrible out there. I don't even know which way to
paint it. It's like staying home and
masturbating and looking at porn.

(01:37:03):
Seems like a better deal. A better deal overall.
And it's like that's crazy. And I think the long term
effects with, you know, creatingfamilies and, and leaving a
legacy, all the jokes aside, right?
Like, you know, people not having children and like that,
that is a problem. And who knows how that plays

(01:37:24):
out. Did you ever struggle as like a
male with the questions of masculinity and what it means to
be a man and, and all of that kind of nonsense?
Or did you kind of just not dealwith it?
I know most artists don't reallydeal with it, but I figured I'd
ask. I in general, most of my life, I
don't deal with stuff. So it's probably where I come in

(01:37:50):
to an extent because I did struggle with anger, you know,
and that aspect of being a man where like and trying to, I look
at things from a woman's point of view.
So in that aspect and and I think for me.

(01:38:14):
Too because I didn't have proper.
Male influences growing up. So there's these man things it
would have been nice to know, like working on a vehicle type
stuff, right? Like a lot of that kind of stuff
had to figure out much older YouTube videos and it's like
that aspect of being a man. I feel like I kind of missed out
on that. I would have enjoyed but I never

(01:38:39):
really the bonding experience. Exactly, but I'd probably never.
Weld on it that much? Too much.
I always leave the toilet seat down because I was raised in a
house with a mother and a sister.
And even to this day, we even when I live in my own, I still
put the toilet seat down. It's just ingrained in my
mindset. So it's it's weird.

(01:39:00):
It is weird. Yeah.
I mean my my experience is similar on that front.
And for? Anyone who doesn't know YouTube
is a fantastic father if you're if you're looking for one that's
fascinating and I. Think there are a ton of.
Dudes out there who kind of are on that same boat and don't

(01:39:23):
really question it too much because it's kind of outside of
the the bonding experience and making healthy relationships
with other males and creating healthy relationships with other
males. I don't all the other stuff is
just kind of stuff to do and comes with the territory of it.
And I think goes further back into the well, if it's a

(01:39:46):
culturally ingrained thing, thenit's a culturally ingrained
thing, right? If if dudes were bonding over
making cakes, then that's what would dudes would be saying.
I wish I had, I wish I had a dadso we can make cake together,
right. And it's just, it's so funny to
me that like we, we dwell on these things because I used to,
I dwell on those things too sometimes still, it's like, I
wish I had a dad to go take me hunting.

(01:40:07):
And it's like, well, but. I mean the whole.
Hunting experience isn't that awesome anymore anyways.
It's it's all regulated to shit.Very cool.
So my my father was so hard. To go big time hunter too and.
My one that I met when I was 15 and the first time I went to
visit him, he took me hunting, we went pheasant hunting.

(01:40:30):
We didn't get anything or anything like that.
But to him, that was the male bonding thing, right?
You take your kid out and you gohunting.
So it was it was an interesting thing that he took from his
childhood that he attempted to kind of try to relate to me on
and and and he was AI mean. He's still around, but he

(01:40:51):
doesn't hunt anymore. But yeah, he he he was a hunter.
I'm, I'm really glad you actually just brought that up
because. It made me.
It quickly posed this question like, is it?
Maybe it's not. Maybe it's not like this is what
it means to be a man or this like if you don't do this,

(01:41:13):
you're not a man. Maybe it's like.
This is what it was. Important.
This is what? Was important to me.
To pass down to you, this was the experience of what it meant
to be a. Man or.
And one experience of a proximity of masculinity that I

(01:41:35):
need to hand down to you, and then you find your own kind of
thing. I didn't formulate that entirely
in my head because it just kind of came to.
Me in the sense that like. As you're you're telling the
story, I'm like, oh, well, maybeit's I'm viewing this wrong and
maybe that's what the the mechanic thing is about, right?
Yeah, that's exactly. It's like, this is what I'm

(01:41:57):
supposed to teach you. This was handed to me.
Now it's my turn to hand it to you.
I do think some of that does getlost nowadays because a lot of
fathers. Just realizing like oh I.
Can't teach you this kind of stuff because it's no longer
socially acceptable to do that kind of stuff.
And so they struggle sometimes with like, what can I teach my

(01:42:20):
son versus what I can't teach myson?
But it doesn't matter. Children don't listen to their
parents anyways. So they'll no, they don't.
They'll find their way through their social circle.
Do you have children? Are you your father?
Yeah, I have one kid. Yeah.
He he's an adult now. He doesn't he doesn't give a
shit about me either. He's like, I'm like, that's

(01:42:41):
funny. Give me a lesson, dude.
He's like, yeah, whatever, dude.Yeah, he's actually he he can.
He's better with vehicles than Iam, truthfully.
Oh, well, that's it. There you go.
I'm sure your son teaches. You.
I don't know if I'd go that far.But he probably, I'm sure he if
it came down to it, he could they have been experienced.

(01:43:02):
So I mean, it's just wrapping back to this, this like
masculinity, father son dynamic thing.
Like how was that from your perspective to father with
without the fatherly experience given to you?
Besides the fact that I didn't really get it.

(01:43:25):
I, I thought it was funny the, because I, like I said, I didn't
meet my father until I was 15. And even then, like it's not
like I spent a ton of time with him or anything like that.
And so as time went on, he wouldoccasionally try to do these
fatherly things or give me some fatherly advice.
And I'd be like, dude, don't give me advice.
You have nothing to do with my life.

(01:43:48):
Kind of a thing. Like, so I didn't say that to
him, but I just kind of like roll my eyes and be like, OK.
Which I think in a lot of ways is what children do with their
parents anyways. But even growing up, the father
figures, which I use loosely, that my mother had in my life,
they never tried to be fatherly to me.

(01:44:10):
Like at no point did I ever findthem saying, hey, let me let me
teach Milo this thing that I learned as a guy or that my
father taught me that kind of stuff.
They generally didn't seem too interested at all.
Like once my stepdad, my mother kind of forced him to take me to

(01:44:35):
like a like a nine round golfinglike a, or a three-part golf
course, like a smaller golf course.
And you could tell he just kind of did it because he was forced
to do it. He didn't really care to to do
it or anything like that. So that's kind of was always my
experience. Yeah, it's fascinating.

(01:44:56):
It's interesting that. I don't know, because there's
that. Dynamic there's that kind of guy
out there there's a lot of thosethose my experience with most
fatherly figures were that that type, but then there's like this
other type of guy who's just like really wants to be a dad
and those guys I'm I don't I don't understand either.

(01:45:18):
And then there's like the, there's the in between of the
spectrum and whatnot, right? But it's like there's some dudes
out there who are just like that's their, that's like their
aspiration in life is to be a dad, right?
And more power to him. Friend of mine, he's got a
couple boys and he's so into being a dad.

(01:45:39):
Like he's taking, they're in scouts and he goes out with them
doing scout stuff and like bike rides.
Like he's like his life revolvesaround like being a dad and he
just the same thing. He loves it.
And so I'm like, ow, yeah, I don't know about who wants to be
in the woods with a bunch of kids, but go for it, dude.

(01:46:05):
I'll refrain from making jokes right now.
Totally. I mean the guy, the guy, the guy
is doing. Doing awesome work if he's out
there, you know, inspiring youngchildren and young boys and and
like doing awesome things. And especially with the Scouts,
where's something that's just like maybe on the Pacific
Northwest or something, but or maybe like East Coast somewhere,
but I don't. Southern California, I didn't

(01:46:27):
really see it. Nevada.
I didn't. I don't really see it.
I don't know. It seemed like a cool
experience. Yeah.
It's a kidney. It's one I would have.
I would have loved being a scoutwhen I was a kid.
I think that's something I missed out on.
Summer camps and stuff like that.
Be sweet. Yeah.
So what do you think is the the hardest part about being a

(01:46:49):
father or me? I think feeling like you
weren't. You're not around enough because
me and his. Mother like we were quite.
Young would we had him. So we separated quite quickly
and then in general just, you know, being there but not being

(01:47:11):
there kind of thing and finding that balance.
So I think that's probably mine.In general, I don't.
I purposely don't try to. Give him fatherly advice just
because I always thought it was so annoying when my dad tried to
give it to me and stuff and and he turned it.

(01:47:32):
He's he's fine. He's turned out all right.
But in, in general now. So that's that's probably mine
is finding that balance of beingthere while also not being
there. Fair enough.
All right, so you have you have a.
Ton of ton of artistic talents. You.

(01:47:56):
You. Just wrote a book.
Or do you didn't? Just write it but you.
You have it out there in. The in the ether.
Is it? Is this going to be your?
Last one. Gray skies.
Concrete dreams. No, no, no.
It's it's not going to be a series or anything, but after my
experience. Of rejection after rejection
with agents and publishers and seeing that they want like

(01:48:18):
fantasy, romance and all that kind of stuff.
I can't write that kind of stuff.
I've tried, but I think I can doa vampire comedy.
And so I am in the process of writing a vampire comedy.
It will hopefully be more successful because be fantastic
like vampires, you know, since you're bringing it up.

(01:48:41):
Because. I was just having a conversation
about this. With a musician, I don't want to
say back in the day, but Once Upon a time ago, the only way to
quote make it or. To quote, you know.

(01:49:01):
Be in the big leagues or what have you.
It's it's like you. You had to.
Go through publishers or or agencies or or what not like.
There's there's this. Like this gatekeeper that you
had to go through and now? Now you have.
Like with the book publishing, you can do Amazon or.

(01:49:22):
You know. Digital or there's.
All these other routes to getting your content out there.
And and yes, there's still the, you know, the big, big
publishers who sell or the big authors who sell, you know,
millions of copies and whatnot. But that's no matter which way
you cut that. It's not the reality for
everybody. And do you, do you still kind of

(01:49:42):
hold on to that like publishing dream or?
Is the self-publishing route enough?
For you or do you not carry the way as long as the contents out
there? I do hold on.
I'm I'm kind of a bit old schoolon that and I do hold on to that
publishing dream. I'm bothered by in the sense
that any media nowadays is very limited.

(01:50:05):
You look at Hollywood, right? It's big budget action films and
superhero films and the in filmswith story and indie films
aren't as well seen and books isthat way as well.
You got the big 5 publishers andI don't think people realize
that the majority of books sold don't make money right?
In the publishing industry, depending on your source, 5 to

(01:50:30):
say 20% of books sold actually generate a.
Profit and the. Rest the publisher loses money
on and so for them to try to find those ones that are going
to be successful, it is a bit ofa struggle for them.
But having said that. There are things that.

(01:50:52):
They should look at and be a bitmore like, hey, just cause all
that most stuff that's being sold is romanticy or the fastest
growing genre or the most popular one.
That doesn't mean there's plentyof people who don't read other
stuff out there. Yeah, it's just it's just it's
it is. It's hard to get through those

(01:51:13):
gatekeepers because they're looking at it.
Will this make me money? Based on historical figures, it
won't make me money. Yeah.
So that's that's the catch. Over half books sold only sell
like about a. 1000 copies Which?Is not a huge number, you know,
right. So to generate a profit as a

(01:51:35):
publisher, you got to look at what's people, what are people
reading romantic, see OK or fantasy or whatever.
Is it a series potentially? Because then maybe you can make
money off the series. Is the author well known in some
way? That kind of stuff.
So yeah, it sucks. But I, I do still hold on to
that in the back of my head of having at least one book that I

(01:52:00):
write published via the traditional routes.
I don't you know, if, if it's just the one, that's fine,
right? I am holding on to that, right?
Yeah. I mean, it does come with a
certain level of clout. I mean, we can't pretend it
doesn't. Even even.
Today, exactly, it 100% does, especially today when it's so
much harder to just get one through the into the publishers

(01:52:23):
hands and everyone in in their their dog is creating content
and posting it online. It's like it's the landscape in
an all artistic ventures has like it's just so saturated, but
I don't think that that. That takes away from, you know,
somebody being able to. Like a good, I think good

(01:52:45):
content, whether it's music or or photography or video, movies,
indie films, books, I think it still finds its audience because
I don't know, people can usuallytell good from not so good
unless we're. In the mainstream of things.
And it's getting showed down ourthroats.

(01:53:06):
But that's a different conversation.
Yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah.
And from agents and publishers point of view too, like they're
filtering through. All this crap that gets sent to
them. So it's not even just, you know,
back in the day that you had to mail in a copy of your
manuscript. So the amount of content they
were getting was much less now to where now they're just
getting inundated with emailed content from stuff that's

(01:53:30):
potentially crappily written, AIwritten, you know, where they
pretend it wasn't that kind of stuff.
Who knows? So right, it's a big filter that
they got to deal with as well. Yeah.
As somebody who did the hard work, how do you feel about the
the? AI leverage to content and.

(01:53:50):
Maybe people who are. Pretending that they're not
using AI to write their content.Yeah, that one.
Bothers me often. You can still kind of tell.
I saw. I think it was Business Insider
just pulled a whole bunch of content down when they realized
was being written by people using AI.

(01:54:11):
You know, if, if you're saying, hey, this is AI written, that's
fine. I don't, I don't care because I
know. But if they're trying to put
pass it off as not and even as aresearch tool, like when we do
our podcast, I might jump into ChatGPT and be like, hey, give
me the history of such and such,but I don't trust it.
I'll double check it to make sure that I'm accurate.

(01:54:34):
But so it does in some ways makeresearch easier.
But if you're using it to actually write, then I have a
problem with it. And I'm even OK with like, hey,
I'm struggling with this sentence.
Give me give me a couple varieties of these, the sentence
that I can even kind of live with or, you know, give me some
synonyms for this word. That's fine.

(01:54:57):
But but no, I'm not, I'm not a fan of the AI written content.
So as a reference tool, yeah, ora brainstorming?
Tool. Fair enough?
Fair. Game but once we're into.
The realm of I'm paying you. Or with.
Some compensating you somehow for this content that you claim
you wrote? Not so good.
No, definitely not. And with the improvement of AI

(01:55:21):
tools. It's just getting, it's getting
harder and harder to filter it as well.
And, you know, getting more realistic, Yeah, a lot of people
out there concerned about, you know, the AI.
Kind of taking over, you know, spaces and whatnot.
And how do you actually feel about that being problematic or

(01:55:43):
not? Do you, do you have an opinion
one way or the other about AI, you know, taking over the
publishing industry and writing all the books and then you're
asked out kind of deal. Do you have any thoughts on
that? I, I don't think it's going to
happen. I I think it is going to be a
problem, but the way I look at. It is.
You look at music and people were like, oh, well, we're

(01:56:06):
switching over to everything being downloaded via Spotify or
whatever. Which is true.
I mean, I, I use Spotify and stuff, but there's not, there's
still a market for the actual LP, the record that people buy.
You know, that kind of has made a bit of a comeback as well and,
and bands are releasing albums that way.

(01:56:30):
And so, so there is still, I think some type of market.
Film, same thing as a photographer, you can still buy
film and there's some film and get it developed.
It's not a huge market. I'm if I was getting, if I was
shooting a wedding, I wouldn't do it right.
It'd be all digital for a client, but I still, there's

(01:56:51):
still a market for it and there's still appreciation for
it. Like when I go and I'm looking
at autographic art and if I knowit's been done on film instead
of digital, I appreciate it morethan if it was digital.
So, and I think in the literary world, there's going to be that
as well. I think you'll see.

(01:57:12):
Maybe not as much, but still an appreciation for originally
written content. Fair enough.
Hopefully we'll see. All right, Milo.
Yeah, I'll start to wrap this upfor you.
I'm taking so much. That's fascinating.

(01:57:34):
Discussion. So like get you thinking.
About a lot of stuff. It's good, man.
Yeah, I know. I wish I had.
More time with you, but what I think we didn't establish how.
Old you were and I want to reference that if possible for
the next couple questions, if that's OK.
Usually lie about my age. I I like to say old enough to
lie about my age, but I. Am fair enough in the you could

(01:57:56):
say upper 40s, early 50s. All right, sound young.
Perfect. I look young too.
Actually, a lot of people next think I'm probably good 10 to 15
years younger than I actually am.
Yeah, I would have. I would have guessed.
I would have guessed late 30s forties and somewhere in there.
Yeah, most people do. Yeah, In, in.
Your in the next 5. Years.

(01:58:18):
Where do you hope to be? Besides, traditionally published
because that's number one. Doing more theater.
When I was in London I did a lotof film stuff.
Now that I'm back in Seattle, I hope to get back into stage
theater work, which I really enjoy.
So those are probably the two big ones, and possibly living in

(01:58:42):
another country in five years, you never know.
So if we get a little burnout onthe USI want to go somewhere
warm though, like Spain or Portugal, Costa Rica?
Yeah, something, man. From Seattle to Dublin to
London. I've lived in.
Rainy, rainy places. And I'm like, I want to go
somewhere warm and nice. So that that's that, that's

(01:59:04):
those are the three options for the next five years.
Is there anything that you just feel like I need to?
Accomplish this before my life ends.
If So, what is that? It used to be learn the guitar,
but I've. Given up on that one.
So the the traditionally published 1 would be nice.

(01:59:27):
I've for the most part done a pretty good job of checking that
list off that I actually wrote up at one point and was like,
these are the things I want to accomplish before I die.
And I've done a pretty good job of checking everything off.
It'd be nice to star in like a major motion picture.

(01:59:48):
That'd be a nice bonus as well. Or make a proper living as a
working actor. That I'm OK with accepting that
won't happen. Yeah, fair enough.
That's cool. Do you think that there's
something different from? Having that.
List or not having that list. Like.
Did you like writing those things down on paper?

(02:00:09):
Did that help you kind of like, tackle them in some way?
Absolutely, yeah. I yeah, I mean, there's
certainly stuff. On there that I've accepted
won't ever happen now, especially now that I'm married.
Talking my wife into a three-way, I think is probably.
I can give up on that. I was going to make a joke about
that. Yeah, yeah.

(02:00:29):
So. So I'm not going to check that
one off the list. Unfortunately.
But, you know, so some stuff I kind of accepted, but but for
the most part, like live in another country that was on
there and even like a couple random things, like I got to see
B.B. King in concert before he died.
That was on the list. Very cool.
Yeah, some, some, some even smaller stuff.

(02:00:50):
But having the list. Yeah, it was quite nice to have
that. Very awesome.
All right in your. Opinion.
What is the most important? Contribution.
A man can make. To the world before he dies to,
I mean. Ideally improve it in some.

(02:01:12):
Way what that is you could argueover but in general to follow
the the campsite rule right to leave your campsite better than
it was when you found it or at least not to like trash it in
some way so I think that's a good thing for a guy to do yeah

(02:01:36):
there you go that's my one pieceof.
Advice for our man. Fair enough.
Follow the. Campsite.
I think that one's fair. Yeah, that's solid.
All right, the. The book is already out.
Yes, that's Gray skies. Concrete dreams.
At Where can people find that? Best places go to my website

(02:01:58):
milodennison.com you get a link.To you to, you know, Amazon, to,
you know, the Barnes and Noble Nook, the whatever various
places. And then as it becomes available
in more places, I'll throw linksup over time as well.
So, yeah, and people can find your podcast on the website as

(02:02:19):
well. Yeah, you can link to the
website. As well or just search for the.
80s and 90s uncensored on. Your podcast player of choice.
Fantastic. All right, Milo is there.
Anything during this? Discussion that I did not.
Ask you that you wish. I did ask you about, oh man, we,
we got into a lot of good stuff here.

(02:02:41):
That was great. Awesome.
All right, so I'll drop. The Milo Denison did I say that
right? You got it just one in in
Denison Denison. I'll drop that link in the
description. Below and people can find and
check out. Your book there along.
With the 80s and 90s Uncensored podcast, is there anything else

(02:03:05):
you'd like to share before we wrap up here?
That's it. You can find my social media
there. Pretty much whatever I'm working
on, that's it. So.
Get the book, that's all I want people to do.
And then review it. Unless it's a book, unless it's
a negative review, then don't review it.
But if you like it, in that case, review it.

(02:03:28):
There you go. If you if you love the book, buy
the book. Buy the Buy the.
Book and then if you love it. Leave a review and if you.
Don't, please, please just don'tsay anything about it.
Exactly. Exactly.
Just do that. All right, Milo, Awesome.
I appreciate all your time, Sir.Thank.
You so much for being on the show and for.
I having this discussion with me, it was an awesome experience
too. I chat with you about your

(02:03:49):
artistic ventures and I wish youand your wife and your family
all the best of luck and and your journey ahead.
Yeah, thank you very much man. I really appreciate it.
It was a good talk.

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Milo Denison – Balancing Big Tech and Artistic Expression, Writing, Acting, and Beyond

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Milo Denison – Balancing Big Tech and Artistic Expression, Writing, Acting, and Beyond