July 8, 2024 • 54 mins
The Great Nominator himself, Gerald Sturgill, was The Hidden Egg's first interview of the season. A friend of the podcast, TheSturg (as many know him) has been a force to be reckoned with on Medium for years now. We were honored to be able to ask him about his journey to get here. We get to hear his difficulties, his successes, and his favorite articles. Let's all give some reads to this criminally under-boosted mainstay of Medium and check out some of his work! There's enough there to keep you entertained for hours or days or weeks!
To watch the video version of this podcast, go to our Substack. For more about writing with vulnerability and information on articles discussed in the episodes, visit themonsteralley.com.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, I'm Tam.
(00:02):
And I'm Eternally Mortal.
And this is the Hidden Egg Podcast where we talk about vulnerability.
And stuff. And things.
And Gerald Sturgell.
And we're going to talk with...
Hi everyone.
Gerald Sturgell of Sturge today.
It's good to have you on the show, Gerald.
Sorry.
Sorry. This is going to be awesome. I love this.
(00:24):
One of these days we'll figure out the three person intro.
Yeah. Go ahead and say some stuff.
I just want to say I'm really thrilled to be here, guys.
You guys are so great. I mean, I really love and adore both of you.
And, like, I'm just honored to be here today.
And I hope I bring something to you two and then also to your listeners.
(00:46):
So, I'm just happy to be here.
Aw, that's really, really sweet.
I'm not going to just tell you to say just anything ever again if you're going to be nice like that.
That was a joke. That was a joke. Thank you. It was very sweet. I really appreciate it.
I have a weird tick. Don't worry about it.
But yeah, we're doing an interview with Sturge.
Tam, did you want to do our shout outs real quick, too?
(01:09):
Yeah. Before we really get into the Sturge weeds, I haven't read all of these, but there are some that I read some of.
So Murphy's Law did an article called Encountering an Abused Student.
We read, I think, the first half of this in our writing group.
I haven't read the rest of it, but I've read his stuff.
(01:34):
Like, it's going to be amazing.
And I'm really excited to find out what else he says after the podcast is over.
I'm probably going to go read it.
So I wanted to shout it out here since I didn't have the opportunity to read it first.
I know that it's good. Right. Absolutely.
Shout out to Murphy's Law, part of our writing group.
(01:56):
And then there's Ute Leppert's did My Real Name is Kali, which I don't know if that is actually her real name.
Again, did not have the chance to read these, but they I know all of these writers and they write good stuff.
And I'm planning on reading it after the podcast.
(02:18):
So I it's a really scuffed episode, guys.
Yeah, we're just we're doing a little bit of a struggle this last week or whatever.
But we these are writers that we've definitely shouted out and read many times before.
And we're just looking forward to reading them like at this point.
You know what I mean?
Yeah. And this one she published in Catharsis Chronicles.
So like it's going to be good. I can tell from that like it's going to be good.
(02:42):
And then the other shout out is A Familiar Face in a Strange Place by Ben Newlancy.
Currently in our chat right now.
I'm not entirely sure what this is going to be about, but I have a feeling that it's going to be about one of his travels.
And he has read it like I've I feel like I'm experiencing the rest of the world vicariously through Ben.
(03:05):
So I'm really excited to get to read that one as well.
Would you like to say a couple of words about how you felt about it, Sturge?
You don't have to just ask him if you want to.
I'm not without getting too much into it.
It's while he's in Belize, I want to say it's it's spectacularly narrated, well written.
(03:27):
I mean, without getting too deep into it, I want people to actually read it.
I think it's worth reading for sure. It's fantastic.
So I should have known that you had read it because it was published in Digital Global Traveler.
I mean, yeah, I mean, that's my public. Yeah, we'll get to that later.
Yeah. So those are those are my shout outs.
(03:49):
Super brief because I did not read them, but I am going to read them.
And I hope that whoever is listening will also read them because they're all great authors and or writers.
And yeah, they're going to be great stories.
I don't know whether to call people authors or writers.
That's confusing to me. They're interchangeable. Are they?
(04:12):
I feel like they are like some people argue with me, well, author, you have to be published.
Yeah. Whatever. I don't think. Yeah, I think it's a little subjective,
but I think a lot of people probably use them interchangeably.
But there's probably going to be some people that are pretty staunch about what they want.
But I don't think we need to worry too much about it.
Word. My God. Robin's got the best answer ever.
(04:37):
I think I'm going to start calling myself a word whore also.
I have definitely been a word whore my whole life. I love words.
I will give it to any word that's interested. I'm sorry. I shouldn't go that far.
Anyway, even that long ass name of that city in Wales.
The Northwelland. Yeah, that place. Yeah.
(05:01):
Catholic. Is that how you say that one? Is it? Is that Catholic?
That's the opposite of cathartic, isn't it?
He wrote he wrote about it somewhere, and I vaguely remember the word,
but it's not like nobody ever uses it. So it's one of those words that.
Yeah, is it not? I'm hoping it's Cthulhu related.
(05:24):
Underworld related. Oh, I really thought that it was the opposite of catharsis.
Well, yeah, it does. It does have a reminiscent Cthulhu thing to it.
It was pretty close. You were you had to type that out.
I just had to say it. You were probably there before me, honestly.
Yeah, which means she thought of it before you did. Exactly.
(05:48):
Oh, we're thinking it. Yeah.
So anyway. Yeah. So let's get to our guest, Gerald Sturgell, the Sturge.
Thank you so much. Are we saying your last name right?
I can't tell if it's Sturgell or Sturgill.
No, no, no. You've been saying it right. Sturgill. OK, cool. OK.
(06:11):
Yeah, you're you're kind of a legend in the medium sphere.
As far as I know, you're kind of everywhere.
Tam, do you want to go over some stats or do you want to let Sturge
just do like an intro of what we want to go next?
I have the notes, but I haven't looked at them.
You should look at the notes when I give you notes. Yeah, I know.
It would be a lot easier like that. That's the whole point of notes.
(06:35):
Especially when you just jump in and start saying stuff. I know.
Anyway, so yes, so Sturge, anybody who hasn't heard of him,
which I can't believe anybody hasn't heard of him.
But let's assume that somebody out there that's listening to this
just so happens to be like the one person that hasn't heard of Sturge.
At this point in time, he has over eight thousand followers.
(06:59):
He's written at least fifteen hundred stories, probably way more by now.
He owns six publications on medium.
He is an editor for God knows how many others.
I don't know how many others, but I know that there are fifteen other.
That's that's not even the six that you own.
Fifteen other publications that you're an editor for and a boost nominator.
(07:25):
So obviously he's an overachiever. Just a little bit.
And he's widely known and extremely accomplished.
Most people, like I said, if you've never heard of him, like go find him,
because trust me, everybody else has already heard of him.
So why haven't you? You must be new.
(07:46):
Not to mention that Sturge has been a big contributor to our chat for the entire time.
We've had a chat available to us for the podcast.
Keeps us entertained and going sometimes.
And just a delight in every single just about every single article we bring up to talk about on this program.
Sturge is like, oh, yeah, I've read that one. Or at least I know that author.
(08:09):
A lot of the writers that we shout out to or directly talk about their articles, they came from Sturge in some way.
Not all of them, but a good portion of them.
Despite all of that stuff, you I know Sturge has told me in the past, he even has had writing lulls like everybody does.
(08:32):
But like with all of this, all these accolades, it's it's an interesting perspective that you can still end up having kind of like writer's block
or just moments of frustration and not wanting to to come back to writing.
I'm wondering, how do you stay so inspired to continue building this Sturge empire?
(08:59):
That's a good question, Tim.
We know, like for me, like the lulls come and go, you know, I'll have my moments where I just don't feel like writing or I get afraid of writing
or like I start comparing myself to others and it just feels a little it just feels a little daunting, especially with my role as a boost nominator.
(09:23):
I get to see so many wonderful stories almost all the time because I have to go through a ton of stories to find ones that are worth presenting to the curators at medium so that, you know, they can they can boost them.
And sometimes when I compare myself to certain writers and like get my put myself in a position like that, I I start to feel like maybe I maybe this isn't right for me.
(09:49):
But then that sometimes I'm like thinking, what am I even thinking?
You know, like I feel like my words can make a difference, like whether like whatever emotion that is, if I'm making somebody laugh, I'll cry or think it's just if anybody could just even relate to like what I'm going through
or my struggles, my vulnerabilities, if it's even just one person, like if even if I just get validation from one person, like I feel like that's enough.
(10:15):
That that makes me feel good about what I'm doing.
Like despite these lulls, when I realize why I'm doing this, it keeps me going.
I think I think that's important to understand why you're doing it.
Oh, absolutely.
Sounds like it goes into my next question of like, because a lot of people are motivated by money on on medium, your stories aren't even paywalled.
(10:42):
So like you obviously have a different motivator than the majority of writers.
And it sounds like that. Is that what you would say is like your motivation is just trying to reach out to other people?
Yeah, well, what it started out as, because when I started back in August of twenty twenty one, I had just been denied for social security disability.
(11:05):
And I didn't know what I was going to do with my life.
I was just like, what am I even doing at this point?
I'm just doing a routine where I can't work and then I'm like.
Playing video games all day and laying down because I can't really do much else.
And I got to like look around and I was trying to figure out what and what another hobby for me would be.
(11:31):
And I think at this at that point, I was I saw medium like it was in the periphery.
You know, I started watching videos, I saw Zulie Rain and she inspired me and brought me to medium.
And then from there, it kind of became something that I started to like a lot and then got to love.
And I think what happened. I wasn't able to pay well.
(11:55):
So at first, like I I was I was I was restricting myself in that respect out of necessity because of the restrictive rules of disability.
I'm not doing this to try to earn an income like as a job.
I'm doing this as a hobby because I love writing.
And really, that's what it comes down to. What motivates me is I love writing and I love inspiring people and I love imparting my wisdom on people.
(12:18):
And the thing is, I actually went to school originally to become a teacher.
And the thing is, is like I feel like I can still kind of carry out those teacher like duties with with medium with like all the things that I do for medium, like editing, publishing, writing.
Yeah, absolutely.
(12:40):
All those things like all that ties into what I was really meant to do.
And that gives me a lot of satisfaction, a lot of validation, a lot of way.
Yeah, I yeah, I find smiles in it.
I mean, exactly.
And being able to teach through medium in a way makes it to where not only are you getting to kind of target what it is that you're teaching in a way that you couldn't as a regular teacher, but also your students are coming to you.
(13:10):
They're choosing to do instead of being forced to like a lot of I don't know what kind of teacher you were thinking about before and before, but I wanted to be a teacher, too.
So like I see what you're talking about.
And I think that's amazing.
Nice.
I was I was super into math and I was I was I was gearing up to become a math teacher and I loved I love numbers.
(13:32):
I still love numbers.
How ironic.
I'm weird why me too. It's weird. I ended up I ended up in a in a in a what they usually say is like the opposite field of like you go.
You're either a writer or you're good with numbers, but some people are just good with both, I guess.
Yes. Some people just fall in love with both of them.
(13:53):
You know, exactly.
And I kind of did the same thing because I've always been a reader and I've always wanted to be a writer and so I've always loved words and I've always loved numbers, too.
I would wager that the commonality between the two is calculating because you can calculate your words just as much as you can calculate numbers.
And they have they have similar effects like if you say this chain of words to a person, it tends to have this as on the other side of the equal sign.
(14:24):
And so like it has that similarity in my mind, at least.
And then there's a formula to writing to.
Yeah.
You start with an introduction.
You obviously you end with a strong conclusion, but in the middle, that's where you really have to build your argument.
You're basically saying this is why this plus this plus this plus this equals this.
(14:48):
You know, of course, that's like a complex math equation.
You could still break the rules like they do in quantum quantum physics all the time and and then come up with new stuff.
Exactly. I love Robin's answer for why I do it.
And it's not wrong to a degree, even though I'm with I've been with my partner over a decade.
(15:12):
I mean, I do kind of do it for the bitches.
And she's not lying.
I'm kind of a whore.
Well, I mean, what are you going to do when you become a rock star?
You know, that's just kind of what happens.
Nothing you can do.
Yeah, exactly.
I love it. Robin's cracking me up.
(15:33):
And thank you, Robin, for being here in chat.
That's awesome. Yeah.
Robin and Ben are there.
They're really, really I hold them in high regard, high esteem.
Those are some of the writers that I compare myself to at times.
But I mean, not everybody can be a Robin Wilding or a Ben Ulansey.
There was something. And I think they know that I know that and that I appreciate them.
(15:55):
And they helped me out a lot with running my empire and helping me with things.
And, you know, I yeah, I'm going to get all sappy if I keep talking.
So I'm going to close that.
You want to move on to the next line of questioning?
Yeah, yeah, let's let's let's let's move the interview forward.
(16:16):
OK, but but but well done on being vulnerable on the vulnerability podcast.
We appreciate that.
Yeah, no, I might start crying at some point, so let's let's let's keep going.
Maybe that could be a sound bite. Yeah.
Well, you know, you start you come up with a lot of things that are like almost I would consider them to be hyper vulnerable.
(16:40):
Like you have the a real look at my personal hygiene routine, which goes
really in depth about that exactly as you would expect.
Or there's the the camp fappening a saga with my stall neighbor, which gets uncomfortably vulnerable,
(17:04):
which I mean, that was the situation you were in, not that you did something that made us feel uncomfortable,
but that you were conveying a discomfort, an uncomfortable situation that you were experiencing.
How do you deal with people that come to those vulnerable articles with either judgment or hatred in the comments?
(17:27):
OK, I'm I feel like your question is a two problem question, so I'm going to start with the first part of that.
OK, and the first part of that question, Tim, is, you know, I do write those hyper vulnerable stories.
And a lot of times my intention is to make people uncomfortable or to fight back against it.
(17:48):
And I feel like that's something that I like doing because I guess I can be a bit mischievous at times.
A bit. But I also like to have fun with my writing.
So even though I'm being hyper vulnerable, I'll add elements of humor to it to make it more palatable.
So I just think like and there's also when you're in those situations, like.
(18:12):
I wish like there were more articles about people just being fully honest about stuff,
because, you know, like there are things that people don't want to ask or admit to that they've been in situations in certain situations
where they won't figure out how to handle that.
So I kind of want to bring these stories to the forefront so that people can see that being represented
(18:34):
and be like, oh, well, OK, this this probably isn't that bad then or whatever.
Or they can relate to it. Yeah. Oh, my God.
I don't know if you guys are reading the chat right now, but it's oh, geez.
Yeah. You mean Ben's comment?
Yeah, I'm not I'm not slipping and saying any of those words today.
(19:00):
So if I did like jokes that if I did get into Dutch, I would accidentally say a Jewish slur,
because there's a word in Dutch that sounds like a word that's been used against Jews for a long time.
And I'm not saying I support that, but I do a lot of my Dutch lessons on Duolingo and a lot of them are speaking.
I actually have to say the word and it sounds like word that is a sense of.
(19:27):
That's unfortunate. There's one in Chinese, I think, or maybe it's Korean, maybe both.
It's Chinese. I know. I know. Yeah, it's a it's a filler.
It's like when you say English like you're saying, but it's I'm not saying it.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Then to the second part of your question, because I do want to get to the second part of that.
(19:49):
I feel like putting myself out there does bring me more criticism and judgment
that I should probably like or even want to bring to myself,
especially in my vulnerable situation at times, because I'm in an RV and with our roof situation and all that stuff.
Like, we're very noticeable when we're out. Yeah.
I feel like I handle these situations pretty well, though, like I've learned to roll with the punches,
(20:11):
because like when you're on medium as long as I have been and I've almost been on for three years now,
you get those detractors, you get those people who are either trolling you or genuinely upset about what you have to say.
You just have to. You don't have to like internalize it.
You don't have to like, you know, toughen up against it.
(20:32):
But I feel like that's what I do. I just I take it.
I'm like I either engage with them and if I feel like a conversation with them about it,
even though we disagree with enlighten the situation or give them some perspective on why I feel the way I do.
Like, that's fine. I can do that. And I'm OK with that.
And I've gotten into situations where I've actually had full on arguments in my comments sometimes.
(20:53):
And I know that's not healthy, but, you know, whatever.
Like, I have fun with it. It really depends on how you respond to it. Yeah.
Yeah. And then the thing is, I don't have to put my energy into something every time,
like especially since commenting and responding is optional.
That's not something you're you're you're required to do on medium.
I do try to respond to everybody when they when they engage with me.
(21:18):
But I really, really don't like.
I can't get to all my comments. I have a lot of followers.
I have a lot of people who say things to me and sometimes I'll miss like certain things.
Like if somebody is mad at me, they'll say something.
And if I ignore it, I ignore it. It's fine.
Like I've just gotten used to having detractors. It's just a part of life.
You know, like we have to deal with the people who don't agree with us or that like what we're saying isn't valuable
(21:45):
or as valuable as what they have to say. And, you know, that's just their perspective.
Yeah. You know, like I can just be a number of.
That's a great answer. I just just have to say that's a great answer.
And I want to commend you also because like there's plenty of content creators out there,
even on this platform medium that stopped reading comments long ago.
(22:08):
They they just decided that like, you know what, I don't have to.
I don't need to read the comments. I'm just writing for the reasons that I want to write.
And it gets out there and it gets out there.
But you're still engaging and sure, some of it's some of it's shit.
I get that. But you're still you're still engaging.
It takes a lot of courage. I just wanted to point that out and commend you for it because I appreciate you.
(22:31):
Hell, yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So in early June, when we were kind of conceptualizing this interview,
you wrote this article that is out of place on my thing called Be Afraid and Feel Challenged in Your Writing and Creativity,
(22:52):
which took me a while to read because I wasn't ready to feel afraid.
I wasn't ready to like confront that that that portion of writing at the time.
But after reading it, like it's really good. And you're right.
I completely agree. You should feel afraid and feel challenged when you're writing.
(23:13):
So I'm wondering, what are your biggest writing fears that you are tackling right now?
I've I've kind of like tackled this question in a matter of different angles with some of my previous questions or answers in the interview today.
I kind of want to delve a little bit more into it because my greatest fears are kind of complicated.
(23:35):
I suffer from being like chronic overthinkers. So like I'm always overthinking stuff, like whether it's am I good enough to do this?
Am I as good as this writer? Am I saying something that would possibly offend this person like this group?
Things like that, like I'm always thinking about every single possible thing that I could go wrong if I publish something.
(24:00):
And I sometimes fall into the trap of just not doing it because of that.
Like I'll think of a brilliant idea, something I actually came up with the other day.
I saw it in published, but I think I might after this interview.
It's actually pretty funny. I think it's funny, but I don't know.
It might not be well received, but that's OK. As long as I can get it out there.
I think it'll be good. But the idea and concept would be pretty offensive and kind of terrible, but it's funny.
(24:29):
Like I think it's just hilarious. And I'm just saying like I shouldn't overthink that.
Like I should just do it. Just write the story, put it out there and see how it's received and then go from there.
Like, I mean, right. What is it? What is that saying that they say?
(24:51):
Like, do it first and then apologize or no, it's it's it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
Or you know, it's more successful to ask for permission or forgiveness than permission.
And yeah, I think unless you're doxing people or being like or dehumanizing entire sections of the human race,
(25:18):
I think you can probably just put whatever you want online and then deal with the aftermath.
You know what I mean? Oh, for sure. And that's amazing.
Ben really stuck on this specific thing. Yeah.
What I've come to realize through my fears, too, is that we're all different.
We all bring a set of skills to the table that are that are valuable in one way or another.
(25:40):
And we just have to figure out what those are.
Or even like if you like, I think it's just more about writing about what you know, because.
Like, so you won't see me like writing technical articles. I'd be afraid to do that.
Like, I'm not a technical writer. I'm definitely somebody who writes personal stories, as you can see.
(26:04):
And somebody who draws from their own personal experience.
I just I just feel like I overcome those doubts. I overcome those little.
And I basically if I have a story to tell, I'm just going to tell it.
That's how I overcome my fear, too. And I try to just push the overthinking away.
I know that you read a lot. And I'm wondering, because you mentioned that, you know,
(26:30):
sometimes these fears have held you back in the past. Do you see other writers that are held back in similar ways?
Oh, yeah. I mean, you see, I mean, a lot of writers on medium, I feel like.
There are some writers who won't write about certain topics, even if they relate to those topics,
(26:51):
because I guess they feel like, how am I going to be perceived if I write this?
I'm not going to dox anyone. But there are some personal friends who I have who could write things in certain topics
who won't write those things because they just don't want to either associate with them or or or delve into it.
(27:13):
You know what I mean? Like, I feel like you're calling me out, but I have a feeling it's not just me.
No, no, no, it's not just you. But it wasn't you. I mean, now that you say it, I guess I guess I could.
I guess a lot of us could relate to that. Yeah.
But so there's another thing, too. So I wrote a whole.
So I was trying to go a whole year writing daily prompts, right?
(27:36):
I was part of this group that was headed up by a popular writer back in the day.
This is like twenty twenty two. We were all in a group and we were all writing the same daily prompts.
And I was comfortable with that. You know, sure, that's not original. Whatever.
I got to a point where somebody criticized me for doing that because I overused them and I was doing it,
(28:00):
even though my goal was to write one for one prompt per day for the whole year.
I stopped right around my birthday because I was just like, you know what?
Like, I let it get to me. I let that get to me. I let that criticism get to me.
I was just like, you know what? I guess I'm at a crossroads at this point.
I'm just going to quit on my goal and refocus what I'm going to write about.
(28:23):
And that's what I did at that point. So, I mean, I do like like we were talking about before,
I do let certain things get to me sometimes because I do overthink.
But at the same time, and also going back to your question involved people criticizing me and stuff like that,
that actually did get to me.
(28:44):
So it has and has happened that you've been affected by some of that stuff, but you've bounced back.
Right. Because like you've got articles, 1500 articles.
And so you've clearly gone through that that thing sort of thing a couple of times.
And that's pretty powerful, pretty powerful.
(29:05):
And it could be inspiring for people that are afraid to get into the ring with some of the people
that are willing to say some weird shit in comments.
I don't know that 100 percent that it will, but it can.
Yeah. The thing is medium will, to an extent, will kind of moderate what they can say to you.
(29:26):
And it won't completely shut it out.
Like somebody could still come at you negatively, you know, in a certain way.
And medium like, well, this isn't against the rules.
I've had that happen where they were like kind of bullying me.
And I reported them like this is bullying.
And they're like, yeah, it's not it's not against our terms.
I'm like, good to know. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
(29:50):
I know that it happens. I've I've run into that myself.
I wouldn't say recently like I've I've been more sporadic recently.
And that's not just because of the fear I had before. It was also due to life.
You know, I'm going to travel around and everything and, you know, prioritize other things that I needed to do,
especially building my, you know, building my publication empire.
(30:13):
Again, we'll get to that, I think, in a little bit, because I think that's something that I want to shout out probably at the end or something.
Good for foresight there, like foreshadowing.
We're definitely going to get an opportunity to plug anything that you want to plug.
Where are we at? Wait, wait, I can plug anything at the end. Oh, my goodness.
(30:36):
So moving on. So I mean, I mean, you're giving permission, right?
This is moving on. Moving on.
So I was wondering, with all of this, like, fear focus, right?
Do you find because you're a nominator, do you find that that that sort of fearless writing gets boosted more?
(30:59):
Like, is it more quote unquote boostable, as they say?
That you know, if you're writing fearlessly, but also doing to a shock value degree like I do sometimes, I might be a little too far for a boost.
But if you're vulnerable enough and you let people into your experience and into your story,
there are stories that are so much more boostable than ones where you hold back a little bit more.
(31:23):
But you're not just putting anything out there.
I feel like you have to craft it in a way where it's still valuable to the reader.
At the same time, drawing from your personal experience and giving people that insight into your in your life is a huge part of why people become successful with their stories.
They find a way to write from their heart and really connect with their audience.
(31:45):
And I think those are those are the stories that you really see that are that are featured by the platform.
So you would probably say that to sum it up, writing should the writing should be like unique, but also relatable.
Correct. And vulnerable, it sounds like. And vulnerable.
Well, I mean, depends like if it's I feel like this vulnerability is in either the uniqueness or the relatability or sometimes both.
(32:15):
Oh, that's that's valid.
So I don't I don't know how many people go into your lists because you have like a million lists like you went list crazy.
But one of your list has two hundred and fifty five stories where you were curated when medium was still doing curation.
(32:38):
I had I didn't find anything about boosted. I know you've been boosted, but you don't you don't seem to have a list for that yet.
So I gave I gave up on listing my boosts, although I might go back in some day right now.
So if you want to know how many boosts I actually have, I have two and I'll send you the links to both of them.
Only two. Yeah, it's surprising to you.
(33:02):
I feel like I'm not going to say I don't know if I can say this about myself.
I'm qualified to say this about myself, but I feel like I'm criminally underrated when it comes to the boost.
Yeah, I so I don't try to promote myself.
So well, not not all the time. Like there are times when I have to.
But what is Robin saying? You only post your own pubs and you're the number from that.
(33:27):
Yeah, true. So you're kind of putting yourself in the foot in some ways.
I guess if I branched out a little bit, I'd probably get my boost.
I don't know. Maybe I just want I wonder if I wonder if medium takes into account whether or not the articles are what's the word?
Paywall, whatever, whatever the thing is. No, no, no, they don't.
(33:51):
People who get people who aren't paywall, they get boosted all the time.
Um, no, the two stories that I have that are boosted are pinned on my account.
They're thinking back on an unsustainable diet and a 12 step program and a dramatic weight loss.
It was published in Illumination Curated.
It's a I want to say nine, 10 minute story about going through like an addiction recovery program to lose weight.
(34:17):
It's like one of those food, food addict groups.
And basically, I chronicle how much weight I've lost in that year, what I had to do to get to that weight,
how the group helped me and supported me through that and how, you know,
like just trying to inspire people that it's possible to lose weight and all that.
(34:38):
I mean, I've since gained it back. But like in that moment when I was in that program and committed to it,
I was able to lose the weight. But it was unsustainable.
Like I said in the title, that's really an unsustainable else lifestyle.
Unless you're really just hyper focused on it.
Like, I don't think most people can can can complete that without without slipping at least once.
(35:01):
Understood. Yeah.
The other story that I had that was.
Who stood is actually from my own publication, Digital Global Traveler.
So Robin is half right on that.
I actually did get listed in my own pub and it wasn't even me who did the boost.
It's called What Not to Do When Driving by Someone's Home.
(35:22):
And this was a story about people gawking at how unique our RV looks.
And oh, we were in the cabin. There was this guy taking pictures of our RV while we were in the cab.
And I was looking at him and he kind of looked like a creep.
So I basically wrote that it's it's rude to do that,
especially when you can see the people right in the cab taking pictures.
(35:44):
I'm like, what's he going to do? Is he going to post those pictures online and tell people to like target us or something?
Like, I don't know what's going on there.
Maybe he just said admiring it, but he didn't ask for consent.
I'm in the I'm in the lurch and that like I have no idea what he's wanting to do with those pictures.
Yeah, that sucks. Sucks a lot. Yeah.
(36:07):
Oh, yeah, for sure. Out of all of your, you know, fifteen hundred plus articles, do you have a favorite or favorites?
I have some favorites. I am well, my favorite types of stories that I write are usually the ones that I just get really silly with and go like humor.
The humor is really like one of my favorite genres. And I really do like writing humor.
(36:30):
I didn't do it as much for a while.
But I had a feeling you might ask me this question.
So I actually brought a list of four stories that I want to share with everyone that I love.
I have five stories, and I love them.
I have five stories.
Nice links.
(36:51):
I will. One of them is called What Do Women Really Want In Bed?
And it's hilarious and not what you're expecting.
No, because you're gay.
Yeah. The other one is Your Husband Is Dead and Your Baby and Cat Can Talk.
It's to the point where like it's wacky. It's a wacky story and I love it.
(37:17):
One that I wrote recently, actually, for Muddy M is called What To Do When You Have a Little Money to Work With.
And I'm proud of this one. I wrote this one in a half hour in a workshop for Muddy M.
So they have this weekly writing group.
And it's on Sundays at 3 Eastern. So I go in there, right?
I bust this out because the prompt for that day was understatement.
(37:43):
So I'm thinking in my head, I'm like, how can I do humor with understatement?
I came up with this guy who wins the lottery and wins 270 million dollars and he's trying to budget.
So it's hilarious. It's hilarious.
Right on. It's fantastic.
(38:04):
And then the other one that got a lot of engagement, a lot of attention, even without being boosted, this was before the boost.
I never thought I'd see these two stores next to each other in a mall.
It was just a picture I saw. I took a picture of it.
And it was a BJ's next to a Dick's Sporting Goods.
(38:27):
So it was BJ's and Dick's. The way that I observed this and write this article, it's obviously, it's inspired.
Like, I just see this place randomly because I'm in Buffalo taking a picture.
I'm like, oh my God, this is not real.
Yeah. I wrote a story about it and it was amazing.
(38:50):
That's awesome. I love that. And I'm glad it got engagement, too. That's hilarious.
I think Ben has a question for you in chat, by the way.
Oh, OK. Let's see what the question Ben has.
Would you recommend joining in on those? I think he means the Muddyum session.
Oh, yeah. Are they open to anybody?
(39:12):
You go to Muddyum.org. So I'm plugging them in first.
Muddyum.org and you go in and it says Writers Workshop. Click on the link or click on the thing and put your name in there and your email.
You sign up for the course every week and you just let them know you want to be at the next workshop, which is every Sunday at 3 p.m. Eastern, which is 2 p.m. Central, which is actually the same time as our writing group every week, which is well.
(39:43):
We'll address that. Well, we've we've we've moved our writing group an hour earlier, so I've been thinking about maybe joining you in the Muddyum group because I'm trying to do comedy, too.
It's a new endeavor for me.
Much fun.
The meetup in person. So Ben's asking a question here. Are they doing in person meetups soon, too?
(40:07):
That is in October and that's in.
I want to say, I remember the exact name of the place, but it's on the Hudson River somewhere.
So it's close to Ben a little bit, like a few hours drive up.
Ryan Beck, I want to say that sounds right, but I don't think that's the exact name.
And Tony Stubblebine, the CEO of mediums, going to be at the in person meetup.
(40:33):
Oh, interesting. Yeah, it's going to be well organized.
That's a big hole to do then, huh?
Especially since Tony's going to be there. I mean, that's just the boss.
That's the boss man going to Muddyum.
I don't retreat. Where is that going to be the in person thing like New York?
It's in the East. Yeah. Yeah, that's not what happened for me.
(40:55):
No, no, no.
Yeah.
No, no, no.
A couple hours north of New York City.
Right on.
Well, good, good plug. Good plug.
Based on that, is there anything else you'd like to promote?
Sure, sure.
Well, I'll send you this too, but I have the links to all my publications and I'm just going to plug them all here now.
(41:20):
I'm going to start off with my newest one.
It's called Rainbow Road, which is my LGBTQ pub. It's open to all LGBTQIAB2S plus members of the community and the allies, of course.
Tam actually is my co-editor there, which is pretty awesome.
(41:43):
You're doing great so far.
Oh, thank you.
And then we have the Medium. Another one on Medium is the Digital Global Traveler publication.
That's my boost nominator pub.
And that one is mainly travel and culture.
Sometimes I'll like languages and stuff and like just anything related to the world, but travel and culture are the focus.
(42:07):
And we have the Creative Collective, which was really built out at this point. I rebranded it from the Random Nerdiness Collective. It's just a general interest pub. You can send anything in.
And under the old name, I felt like it was more exclusive than inclusive.
I did get a lot of nerds that wanted to publish there, which is awesome. Like you write about games, if you write about your favorite TV shows, whatever.
(42:32):
I still want those stories. By the way, Mortal, I added you to that publication as a writer since she did consent to me adding you to a couple of my publications. So I did that.
Okay. Good to know.
Then Funny Inc., which is my humor pub and a rumor has it that somebody in the audience loves this pub. So I just wanted to give her a shout out really quick.
(43:04):
And then, yeah, Robin.
All right. Pressbox. So I actually have another boost nominator in that pub. It's a sports publication and he boosts the sports stories in there. Sports and sports memo.
Hey, wait, wait, wait, I want to interrupt. How do you feel about eSports?
(43:26):
eSports will go in there. That's fine.
Okay.
That is a great way to get Mortal to write more. Good job.
Yeah, I'm going to get, I'm going to add you to the press box.
It is a possibility that I might decide to write some stuff about Rocket League.
That's awesome.
I'll do it.
(44:08):
I'm going to put that one on hold for now. But if you want to write for it, we still have active editors there. And speaking of that, that's a perfect segue to my next part because I want to give a special thanks to all of my editors.
Even in name, you know, Ben and Robin in the audience say they in name their their editors for my pubs.
(44:29):
They don't have to do anything much, although Ben actually, I'll talk to you about it after. But yeah, well, I mean, you know, it's I love I love all matters.
We got Peter Murphy, Harry Capelli, Brian Gilmore, accidental monster, Tam, obviously, L. Becker, I already mentioned Ben, Nonny Hurley, Kathy Minicazi, Robin Wilding, and in name also, and then Claire Kelly.
(45:01):
And I work with a lot of other great editors and all of the publications. I mean, I could name everybody, but that would be an entire episode by itself.
I, I absolutely.
Love the people they work with and I'm surrounded by a bunch of talented and passionate individuals. It's just amazing. This is this. This isn't even a job for me. This is a hobby and I feel like it's become a family.
(45:31):
And I think that's the takeaway here. Without all this help and without all the support, I would be nowhere.
That's amazing. And you've kind of done it, you know, like medium medium as a writing platform. It's also a social media platform and a lot of people go to social media to try and find community.
You found community like I don't know many people on medium. I'm still pretty distant from the platform, but half the names you mentioned that just now. I know those names.
(46:03):
So, you know, you've you really built a community. Tammy built a community too. That's cute. I think it's awesome. Good job. My friends.
Do you feel left out mortal? No, not really. I haven't really tried to build a community just like I haven't tried to date in eight years, you know, like once I try something, if it doesn't work out, then I can go feel sad about it.
(46:27):
But until I try, it's just something I haven't gotten to yet. That's paintings overrated. We'll see.
So I'm out of questions now. So I guess that's the episode. Kind of. It was a good episode. We really enjoyed getting to talk to Sturge.
Like I said, it just such a such a huge part of medium, at least from my perspective and from what I believe, Tam's perspective as well.
(46:58):
I could be wrong about that. Tam has been on medium a heck of a lot longer than I have. Oh, Ben has more questions.
All right, that's fine. You know, well, that was that was pro offered by someone not Ben. So I don't know.
A hundred percent if that's accurate. There was a question that I wanted to get to possibly in the after party because novela.
(47:21):
That's my favorite N word. Novela. Hold on. Hold on. I can't.
Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Hold on. I solved the puzzle. What? What puzzle?
Can I solve the puzzle? Is there a puzzle? Sure. I don't know what the puzzle is. Wheel of Fortune. Are we playing Wheel of Fortune?
(47:42):
Go ahead. Solve the puzzle, please. Oh, I can't see anything right now.
I can't see any of the gifts. I don't know what's happening, Tam. You're on your own.
I can't describe it without being wrong. You don't have to. You don't have to describe it.
It's a jeopardy. It's a jeopardy. Just delete it if it's dicks. That's all I'm saying.
(48:08):
It's not. It's not dicks. In some ways, it's a little worse, but it's missing.
It's missing an A, guys. It's an A that is supposed to go in there.
It is an A. That's all I got to say. It's A. I wish my discourse would load the gifts, but unfortunately, unfortunately, I'm I'm left in the dark.
(48:29):
I like the word necromancy. Necromancy is fun. I like the necronomicon.
I think that's a fun name for an evil book. It's the necronomicon. Yeah, absolutely.
I like it's not an N word, but the title, The Satanic Bible by Anton Lavey. Is that Anton Lavey?
(48:54):
I thought it was Anton Lavey. I think I have it somewhere.
Nathan? Yeah, it is Anton Lavey. I was about to say that. I just I don't know.
I don't even know why. Yeah, you're right. That happens.
But as another another word, I like Nathan. Nathan was was the name I potentially might give to a son someday.
(49:20):
Oh, that's nice. I like the name Nicholas. I actually dated Nicholas, but he was a sociopath.
One of my favorite content creators is dating a Nicholas and he's hot.
Oh, my God. I think I just thought. But I didn't say their last name.
Yeah, there's a billion Knicks out there. Yeah. So there was Nick Nick.
(49:43):
We can just all say we're talking about Nick Cage. Everything one of us is talking about Nick Cage specifically.
I thought there was there was there was a thing that you were going to say, Gerald, like I assumed maybe the beginning, but your your thing didn't didn't happen.
We didn't set you up properly, I guess. What? What thing?
The I don't know how to say it without giving anything away.
(50:09):
The thing that we talked about in the pre show.
That Ben sort of a part of, but he's here. Yeah, no, we didn't get to that.
I mean, it's pretty awesome. So, you know, my agent, you know, and I were talking about this before the interview started, right?
Like we were we were we were discussing the terms of this interview and I was told this was a clothing option.
(50:38):
So since it's like 90 degrees outside, I decided to go optional. You did.
Yes. Wait, who is this agent again?
So this agent was actually Ben Ulansey and I think he set me up. Oh, Ben, how could you do this to us?
And he booked me on the show and then just out here with my butt, you know, all sweaty and hanging hanging with my with my bits out.
(51:05):
So did you get the creative creative fee we gave to Ben as the agent?
This is all a bit I have to be I had to give him 25. I had to give him 25 percent of all of it.
Should we consider the shots fired for the olive wars?
Have the olive treaties come to an end?
The olive treaties have come to an end. It's full on all of all of a ham again.
(51:31):
I just want to announce I'm not good at bits and Ben is delightful and wonderful.
I want to make sure that we all know that.
I love more conscientiousness.
I know.
I know. To be fair, when when the olive wars like really got kind of into it, I pulled Ben aside on on Discord privately.
(51:57):
And I was like, I just want to make sure that, like, you know, like none of this is serious.
And if you are at all upset with anything like this isn't serious, we can stop it at any time.
And he's like, no, this is hilarious.
Mortal got to me. Oh, no, I my chat stopped. Oh, no.
Again, I don't have a new chat.
(52:19):
And the last time I tried to fix this, it kicked Sturge.
And so I'm afraid I'm not going to I'm not I'm just going to leave it. I don't get to see chat anymore.
That's totally fine. Robin's never heard of the olive wars.
Well, I mean, this is a good place to end the actual episode.
And then we can discuss the olive wars in the in the post show as a.
Yeah. Perfect. As a kicker.
(52:42):
So final words before we end the episode, Sturge.
Um, uh, love yourself always.
Heck, yeah.
Take that. We do. We do a whole thing.
Yeah, we do a whole thing at the end. Oh, my God.
So glad it was Sturge. You saved my ass.
(53:03):
So I want to thank all of the people that came to the pre show or the live action show.
Ben Ulanci and Robin in our live audience.
Thank you so, so much.
And you, dear listener, can be a part of the live action by joining our discord through the Monster Alley dot com,
which also has links to our articles, Spotify and Substack.
(53:25):
And special bonus, the Substack is the only place to get the un-censored version.
You didn't do your smile thing.
Yeah, I was smiling at the smiling at the I was smiling.
I said uncensored instead of I know which is great.
We're doing good.
(53:47):
But thank you listeners for coming along. We've really enjoyed having you.
We're really happy to let you hear Sturge in case you don't know him already.
He's fantastic and great. Go check him out if you're on Medium.
Thank you very much. I'm eternally mortal.
And I hope you find smiles this day.
And I'm and I'm the accidental monster.
You can find us both on Medium dot com or through the Monster Alley dot com.
(54:08):
That's T H E M O N S T E R A L L E Y dot com.
And remember to follow yourself always.
Hi, I'm Tam.
(00:02):
And I'm Eternally Mortal.
And this is the Hidden Egg Podcast where we talk about vulnerability.
And stuff. And things.
And Gerald Sturgell.
And we're going to talk with...
Hi everyone.
Gerald Sturgell of Sturge today.
It's good to have you on the show, Gerald.
Sorry.
Sorry. This is going to be awesome. I love this.
(00:24):
One of these days we'll figure out the three person intro.
Yeah. Go ahead and say some stuff.
I just want to say I'm really thrilled to be here, guys.
You guys are so great. I mean, I really love and adore both of you.
And, like, I'm just honored to be here today.
And I hope I bring something to you two and then also to your listeners.
(00:46):
So, I'm just happy to be here.
Aw, that's really, really sweet.
I'm not going to just tell you to say just anything ever again if you're going to be nice like that.
That was a joke. That was a joke. Thank you. It was very sweet. I really appreciate it.
I have a weird tick. Don't worry about it.
But yeah, we're doing an interview with Sturge.
Tam, did you want to do our shout outs real quick, too?
(01:09):
Yeah. Before we really get into the Sturge weeds, I haven't read all of these, but there are some that I read some of.
So Murphy's Law did an article called Encountering an Abused Student.
We read, I think, the first half of this in our writing group.
I haven't read the rest of it, but I've read his stuff.
(01:34):
Like, it's going to be amazing.
And I'm really excited to find out what else he says after the podcast is over.
I'm probably going to go read it.
So I wanted to shout it out here since I didn't have the opportunity to read it first.
I know that it's good. Right. Absolutely.
Shout out to Murphy's Law, part of our writing group.
(01:56):
And then there's Ute Leppert's did My Real Name is Kali, which I don't know if that is actually her real name.
Again, did not have the chance to read these, but they I know all of these writers and they write good stuff.
And I'm planning on reading it after the podcast.
(02:18):
So I it's a really scuffed episode, guys.
Yeah, we're just we're doing a little bit of a struggle this last week or whatever.
But we these are writers that we've definitely shouted out and read many times before.
And we're just looking forward to reading them like at this point.
You know what I mean?
Yeah. And this one she published in Catharsis Chronicles.
So like it's going to be good. I can tell from that like it's going to be good.
(02:42):
And then the other shout out is A Familiar Face in a Strange Place by Ben Newlancy.
Currently in our chat right now.
I'm not entirely sure what this is going to be about, but I have a feeling that it's going to be about one of his travels.
And he has read it like I've I feel like I'm experiencing the rest of the world vicariously through Ben.
(03:05):
So I'm really excited to get to read that one as well.
Would you like to say a couple of words about how you felt about it, Sturge?
You don't have to just ask him if you want to.
I'm not without getting too much into it.
It's while he's in Belize, I want to say it's it's spectacularly narrated, well written.
(03:27):
I mean, without getting too deep into it, I want people to actually read it.
I think it's worth reading for sure. It's fantastic.
So I should have known that you had read it because it was published in Digital Global Traveler.
I mean, yeah, I mean, that's my public. Yeah, we'll get to that later.
Yeah. So those are those are my shout outs.
(03:49):
Super brief because I did not read them, but I am going to read them.
And I hope that whoever is listening will also read them because they're all great authors and or writers.
And yeah, they're going to be great stories.
I don't know whether to call people authors or writers.
That's confusing to me. They're interchangeable. Are they?
(04:12):
I feel like they are like some people argue with me, well, author, you have to be published.
Yeah. Whatever. I don't think. Yeah, I think it's a little subjective,
but I think a lot of people probably use them interchangeably.
But there's probably going to be some people that are pretty staunch about what they want.
But I don't think we need to worry too much about it.
Word. My God. Robin's got the best answer ever.
(04:37):
I think I'm going to start calling myself a word whore also.
I have definitely been a word whore my whole life. I love words.
I will give it to any word that's interested. I'm sorry. I shouldn't go that far.
Anyway, even that long ass name of that city in Wales.
The Northwelland. Yeah, that place. Yeah.
(05:01):
Catholic. Is that how you say that one? Is it? Is that Catholic?
That's the opposite of cathartic, isn't it?
He wrote he wrote about it somewhere, and I vaguely remember the word,
but it's not like nobody ever uses it. So it's one of those words that.
Yeah, is it not? I'm hoping it's Cthulhu related.
(05:24):
Underworld related. Oh, I really thought that it was the opposite of catharsis.
Well, yeah, it does. It does have a reminiscent Cthulhu thing to it.
It was pretty close. You were you had to type that out.
I just had to say it. You were probably there before me, honestly.
Yeah, which means she thought of it before you did. Exactly.
(05:48):
Oh, we're thinking it. Yeah.
So anyway. Yeah. So let's get to our guest, Gerald Sturgell, the Sturge.
Thank you so much. Are we saying your last name right?
I can't tell if it's Sturgell or Sturgill.
No, no, no. You've been saying it right. Sturgill. OK, cool. OK.
(06:11):
Yeah, you're you're kind of a legend in the medium sphere.
As far as I know, you're kind of everywhere.
Tam, do you want to go over some stats or do you want to let Sturge
just do like an intro of what we want to go next?
I have the notes, but I haven't looked at them.
You should look at the notes when I give you notes. Yeah, I know.
It would be a lot easier like that. That's the whole point of notes.
(06:35):
Especially when you just jump in and start saying stuff. I know.
Anyway, so yes, so Sturge, anybody who hasn't heard of him,
which I can't believe anybody hasn't heard of him.
But let's assume that somebody out there that's listening to this
just so happens to be like the one person that hasn't heard of Sturge.
At this point in time, he has over eight thousand followers.
(06:59):
He's written at least fifteen hundred stories, probably way more by now.
He owns six publications on medium.
He is an editor for God knows how many others.
I don't know how many others, but I know that there are fifteen other.
That's that's not even the six that you own.
Fifteen other publications that you're an editor for and a boost nominator.
(07:25):
So obviously he's an overachiever. Just a little bit.
And he's widely known and extremely accomplished.
Most people, like I said, if you've never heard of him, like go find him,
because trust me, everybody else has already heard of him.
So why haven't you? You must be new.
(07:46):
Not to mention that Sturge has been a big contributor to our chat for the entire time.
We've had a chat available to us for the podcast.
Keeps us entertained and going sometimes.
And just a delight in every single just about every single article we bring up to talk about on this program.
Sturge is like, oh, yeah, I've read that one. Or at least I know that author.
(08:09):
A lot of the writers that we shout out to or directly talk about their articles, they came from Sturge in some way.
Not all of them, but a good portion of them.
Despite all of that stuff, you I know Sturge has told me in the past, he even has had writing lulls like everybody does.
(08:32):
But like with all of this, all these accolades, it's it's an interesting perspective that you can still end up having kind of like writer's block
or just moments of frustration and not wanting to to come back to writing.
I'm wondering, how do you stay so inspired to continue building this Sturge empire?
(08:59):
That's a good question, Tim.
We know, like for me, like the lulls come and go, you know, I'll have my moments where I just don't feel like writing or I get afraid of writing
or like I start comparing myself to others and it just feels a little it just feels a little daunting, especially with my role as a boost nominator.
(09:23):
I get to see so many wonderful stories almost all the time because I have to go through a ton of stories to find ones that are worth presenting to the curators at medium so that, you know, they can they can boost them.
And sometimes when I compare myself to certain writers and like get my put myself in a position like that, I I start to feel like maybe I maybe this isn't right for me.
(09:49):
But then that sometimes I'm like thinking, what am I even thinking?
You know, like I feel like my words can make a difference, like whether like whatever emotion that is, if I'm making somebody laugh, I'll cry or think it's just if anybody could just even relate to like what I'm going through
or my struggles, my vulnerabilities, if it's even just one person, like if even if I just get validation from one person, like I feel like that's enough.
(10:15):
That that makes me feel good about what I'm doing.
Like despite these lulls, when I realize why I'm doing this, it keeps me going.
I think I think that's important to understand why you're doing it.
Oh, absolutely.
Sounds like it goes into my next question of like, because a lot of people are motivated by money on on medium, your stories aren't even paywalled.
(10:42):
So like you obviously have a different motivator than the majority of writers.
And it sounds like that. Is that what you would say is like your motivation is just trying to reach out to other people?
Yeah, well, what it started out as, because when I started back in August of twenty twenty one, I had just been denied for social security disability.
(11:05):
And I didn't know what I was going to do with my life.
I was just like, what am I even doing at this point?
I'm just doing a routine where I can't work and then I'm like.
Playing video games all day and laying down because I can't really do much else.
And I got to like look around and I was trying to figure out what and what another hobby for me would be.
(11:31):
And I think at this at that point, I was I saw medium like it was in the periphery.
You know, I started watching videos, I saw Zulie Rain and she inspired me and brought me to medium.
And then from there, it kind of became something that I started to like a lot and then got to love.
And I think what happened. I wasn't able to pay well.
(11:55):
So at first, like I I was I was I was restricting myself in that respect out of necessity because of the restrictive rules of disability.
I'm not doing this to try to earn an income like as a job.
I'm doing this as a hobby because I love writing.
And really, that's what it comes down to. What motivates me is I love writing and I love inspiring people and I love imparting my wisdom on people.
(12:18):
And the thing is, I actually went to school originally to become a teacher.
And the thing is, is like I feel like I can still kind of carry out those teacher like duties with with medium with like all the things that I do for medium, like editing, publishing, writing.
Yeah, absolutely.
(12:40):
All those things like all that ties into what I was really meant to do.
And that gives me a lot of satisfaction, a lot of validation, a lot of way.
Yeah, I yeah, I find smiles in it.
I mean, exactly.
And being able to teach through medium in a way makes it to where not only are you getting to kind of target what it is that you're teaching in a way that you couldn't as a regular teacher, but also your students are coming to you.
(13:10):
They're choosing to do instead of being forced to like a lot of I don't know what kind of teacher you were thinking about before and before, but I wanted to be a teacher, too.
So like I see what you're talking about.
And I think that's amazing.
Nice.
I was I was super into math and I was I was I was gearing up to become a math teacher and I loved I love numbers.
(13:32):
I still love numbers.
How ironic.
I'm weird why me too. It's weird. I ended up I ended up in a in a in a what they usually say is like the opposite field of like you go.
You're either a writer or you're good with numbers, but some people are just good with both, I guess.
Yes. Some people just fall in love with both of them.
(13:53):
You know, exactly.
And I kind of did the same thing because I've always been a reader and I've always wanted to be a writer and so I've always loved words and I've always loved numbers, too.
I would wager that the commonality between the two is calculating because you can calculate your words just as much as you can calculate numbers.
And they have they have similar effects like if you say this chain of words to a person, it tends to have this as on the other side of the equal sign.
(14:24):
And so like it has that similarity in my mind, at least.
And then there's a formula to writing to.
Yeah.
You start with an introduction.
You obviously you end with a strong conclusion, but in the middle, that's where you really have to build your argument.
You're basically saying this is why this plus this plus this plus this equals this.
(14:48):
You know, of course, that's like a complex math equation.
You could still break the rules like they do in quantum quantum physics all the time and and then come up with new stuff.
Exactly. I love Robin's answer for why I do it.
And it's not wrong to a degree, even though I'm with I've been with my partner over a decade.
(15:12):
I mean, I do kind of do it for the bitches.
And she's not lying.
I'm kind of a whore.
Well, I mean, what are you going to do when you become a rock star?
You know, that's just kind of what happens.
Nothing you can do.
Yeah, exactly.
I love it. Robin's cracking me up.
(15:33):
And thank you, Robin, for being here in chat.
That's awesome. Yeah.
Robin and Ben are there.
They're really, really I hold them in high regard, high esteem.
Those are some of the writers that I compare myself to at times.
But I mean, not everybody can be a Robin Wilding or a Ben Ulansey.
There was something. And I think they know that I know that and that I appreciate them.
(15:55):
And they helped me out a lot with running my empire and helping me with things.
And, you know, I yeah, I'm going to get all sappy if I keep talking.
So I'm going to close that.
You want to move on to the next line of questioning?
Yeah, yeah, let's let's let's let's move the interview forward.
(16:16):
OK, but but but well done on being vulnerable on the vulnerability podcast.
We appreciate that.
Yeah, no, I might start crying at some point, so let's let's let's keep going.
Maybe that could be a sound bite. Yeah.
Well, you know, you start you come up with a lot of things that are like almost I would consider them to be hyper vulnerable.
(16:40):
Like you have the a real look at my personal hygiene routine, which goes
really in depth about that exactly as you would expect.
Or there's the the camp fappening a saga with my stall neighbor, which gets uncomfortably vulnerable,
(17:04):
which I mean, that was the situation you were in, not that you did something that made us feel uncomfortable,
but that you were conveying a discomfort, an uncomfortable situation that you were experiencing.
How do you deal with people that come to those vulnerable articles with either judgment or hatred in the comments?
(17:27):
OK, I'm I feel like your question is a two problem question, so I'm going to start with the first part of that.
OK, and the first part of that question, Tim, is, you know, I do write those hyper vulnerable stories.
And a lot of times my intention is to make people uncomfortable or to fight back against it.
(17:48):
And I feel like that's something that I like doing because I guess I can be a bit mischievous at times.
A bit. But I also like to have fun with my writing.
So even though I'm being hyper vulnerable, I'll add elements of humor to it to make it more palatable.
So I just think like and there's also when you're in those situations, like.
(18:12):
I wish like there were more articles about people just being fully honest about stuff,
because, you know, like there are things that people don't want to ask or admit to that they've been in situations in certain situations
where they won't figure out how to handle that.
So I kind of want to bring these stories to the forefront so that people can see that being represented
(18:34):
and be like, oh, well, OK, this this probably isn't that bad then or whatever.
Or they can relate to it. Yeah. Oh, my God.
I don't know if you guys are reading the chat right now, but it's oh, geez.
Yeah. You mean Ben's comment?
Yeah, I'm not I'm not slipping and saying any of those words today.
(19:00):
So if I did like jokes that if I did get into Dutch, I would accidentally say a Jewish slur,
because there's a word in Dutch that sounds like a word that's been used against Jews for a long time.
And I'm not saying I support that, but I do a lot of my Dutch lessons on Duolingo and a lot of them are speaking.
I actually have to say the word and it sounds like word that is a sense of.
(19:27):
That's unfortunate. There's one in Chinese, I think, or maybe it's Korean, maybe both.
It's Chinese. I know. I know. Yeah, it's a it's a filler.
It's like when you say English like you're saying, but it's I'm not saying it.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Then to the second part of your question, because I do want to get to the second part of that.
(19:49):
I feel like putting myself out there does bring me more criticism and judgment
that I should probably like or even want to bring to myself,
especially in my vulnerable situation at times, because I'm in an RV and with our roof situation and all that stuff.
Like, we're very noticeable when we're out. Yeah.
I feel like I handle these situations pretty well, though, like I've learned to roll with the punches,
(20:11):
because like when you're on medium as long as I have been and I've almost been on for three years now,
you get those detractors, you get those people who are either trolling you or genuinely upset about what you have to say.
You just have to. You don't have to like internalize it.
You don't have to like, you know, toughen up against it.
(20:32):
But I feel like that's what I do. I just I take it.
I'm like I either engage with them and if I feel like a conversation with them about it,
even though we disagree with enlighten the situation or give them some perspective on why I feel the way I do.
Like, that's fine. I can do that. And I'm OK with that.
And I've gotten into situations where I've actually had full on arguments in my comments sometimes.
(20:53):
And I know that's not healthy, but, you know, whatever.
Like, I have fun with it. It really depends on how you respond to it. Yeah.
Yeah. And then the thing is, I don't have to put my energy into something every time,
like especially since commenting and responding is optional.
That's not something you're you're you're required to do on medium.
I do try to respond to everybody when they when they engage with me.
(21:18):
But I really, really don't like.
I can't get to all my comments. I have a lot of followers.
I have a lot of people who say things to me and sometimes I'll miss like certain things.
Like if somebody is mad at me, they'll say something.
And if I ignore it, I ignore it. It's fine.
Like I've just gotten used to having detractors. It's just a part of life.
You know, like we have to deal with the people who don't agree with us or that like what we're saying isn't valuable
(21:45):
or as valuable as what they have to say. And, you know, that's just their perspective.
Yeah. You know, like I can just be a number of.
That's a great answer. I just just have to say that's a great answer.
And I want to commend you also because like there's plenty of content creators out there,
even on this platform medium that stopped reading comments long ago.
(22:08):
They they just decided that like, you know what, I don't have to.
I don't need to read the comments. I'm just writing for the reasons that I want to write.
And it gets out there and it gets out there.
But you're still engaging and sure, some of it's some of it's shit.
I get that. But you're still you're still engaging.
It takes a lot of courage. I just wanted to point that out and commend you for it because I appreciate you.
(22:31):
Hell, yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So in early June, when we were kind of conceptualizing this interview,
you wrote this article that is out of place on my thing called Be Afraid and Feel Challenged in Your Writing and Creativity,
(22:52):
which took me a while to read because I wasn't ready to feel afraid.
I wasn't ready to like confront that that that portion of writing at the time.
But after reading it, like it's really good. And you're right.
I completely agree. You should feel afraid and feel challenged when you're writing.
(23:13):
So I'm wondering, what are your biggest writing fears that you are tackling right now?
I've I've kind of like tackled this question in a matter of different angles with some of my previous questions or answers in the interview today.
I kind of want to delve a little bit more into it because my greatest fears are kind of complicated.
(23:35):
I suffer from being like chronic overthinkers. So like I'm always overthinking stuff, like whether it's am I good enough to do this?
Am I as good as this writer? Am I saying something that would possibly offend this person like this group?
Things like that, like I'm always thinking about every single possible thing that I could go wrong if I publish something.
(24:00):
And I sometimes fall into the trap of just not doing it because of that.
Like I'll think of a brilliant idea, something I actually came up with the other day.
I saw it in published, but I think I might after this interview.
It's actually pretty funny. I think it's funny, but I don't know.
It might not be well received, but that's OK. As long as I can get it out there.
I think it'll be good. But the idea and concept would be pretty offensive and kind of terrible, but it's funny.
(24:29):
Like I think it's just hilarious. And I'm just saying like I shouldn't overthink that.
Like I should just do it. Just write the story, put it out there and see how it's received and then go from there.
Like, I mean, right. What is it? What is that saying that they say?
(24:51):
Like, do it first and then apologize or no, it's it's it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
Or you know, it's more successful to ask for permission or forgiveness than permission.
And yeah, I think unless you're doxing people or being like or dehumanizing entire sections of the human race,
(25:18):
I think you can probably just put whatever you want online and then deal with the aftermath.
You know what I mean? Oh, for sure. And that's amazing.
Ben really stuck on this specific thing. Yeah.
What I've come to realize through my fears, too, is that we're all different.
We all bring a set of skills to the table that are that are valuable in one way or another.
(25:40):
And we just have to figure out what those are.
Or even like if you like, I think it's just more about writing about what you know, because.
Like, so you won't see me like writing technical articles. I'd be afraid to do that.
Like, I'm not a technical writer. I'm definitely somebody who writes personal stories, as you can see.
(26:04):
And somebody who draws from their own personal experience.
I just I just feel like I overcome those doubts. I overcome those little.
And I basically if I have a story to tell, I'm just going to tell it.
That's how I overcome my fear, too. And I try to just push the overthinking away.
I know that you read a lot. And I'm wondering, because you mentioned that, you know,
(26:30):
sometimes these fears have held you back in the past. Do you see other writers that are held back in similar ways?
Oh, yeah. I mean, you see, I mean, a lot of writers on medium, I feel like.
There are some writers who won't write about certain topics, even if they relate to those topics,
(26:51):
because I guess they feel like, how am I going to be perceived if I write this?
I'm not going to dox anyone. But there are some personal friends who I have who could write things in certain topics
who won't write those things because they just don't want to either associate with them or or or delve into it.
(27:13):
You know what I mean? Like, I feel like you're calling me out, but I have a feeling it's not just me.
No, no, no, it's not just you. But it wasn't you. I mean, now that you say it, I guess I guess I could.
I guess a lot of us could relate to that. Yeah.
But so there's another thing, too. So I wrote a whole.
So I was trying to go a whole year writing daily prompts, right?
(27:36):
I was part of this group that was headed up by a popular writer back in the day.
This is like twenty twenty two. We were all in a group and we were all writing the same daily prompts.
And I was comfortable with that. You know, sure, that's not original. Whatever.
I got to a point where somebody criticized me for doing that because I overused them and I was doing it,
(28:00):
even though my goal was to write one for one prompt per day for the whole year.
I stopped right around my birthday because I was just like, you know what?
Like, I let it get to me. I let that get to me. I let that criticism get to me.
I was just like, you know what? I guess I'm at a crossroads at this point.
I'm just going to quit on my goal and refocus what I'm going to write about.
(28:23):
And that's what I did at that point. So, I mean, I do like like we were talking about before,
I do let certain things get to me sometimes because I do overthink.
But at the same time, and also going back to your question involved people criticizing me and stuff like that,
that actually did get to me.
(28:44):
So it has and has happened that you've been affected by some of that stuff, but you've bounced back.
Right. Because like you've got articles, 1500 articles.
And so you've clearly gone through that that thing sort of thing a couple of times.
And that's pretty powerful, pretty powerful.
(29:05):
And it could be inspiring for people that are afraid to get into the ring with some of the people
that are willing to say some weird shit in comments.
I don't know that 100 percent that it will, but it can.
Yeah. The thing is medium will, to an extent, will kind of moderate what they can say to you.
(29:26):
And it won't completely shut it out.
Like somebody could still come at you negatively, you know, in a certain way.
And medium like, well, this isn't against the rules.
I've had that happen where they were like kind of bullying me.
And I reported them like this is bullying.
And they're like, yeah, it's not it's not against our terms.
I'm like, good to know. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
(29:50):
I know that it happens. I've I've run into that myself.
I wouldn't say recently like I've I've been more sporadic recently.
And that's not just because of the fear I had before. It was also due to life.
You know, I'm going to travel around and everything and, you know, prioritize other things that I needed to do,
especially building my, you know, building my publication empire.
(30:13):
Again, we'll get to that, I think, in a little bit, because I think that's something that I want to shout out probably at the end or something.
Good for foresight there, like foreshadowing.
We're definitely going to get an opportunity to plug anything that you want to plug.
Where are we at? Wait, wait, I can plug anything at the end. Oh, my goodness.
(30:36):
So moving on. So I mean, I mean, you're giving permission, right?
This is moving on. Moving on.
So I was wondering, with all of this, like, fear focus, right?
Do you find because you're a nominator, do you find that that that sort of fearless writing gets boosted more?
(30:59):
Like, is it more quote unquote boostable, as they say?
That you know, if you're writing fearlessly, but also doing to a shock value degree like I do sometimes, I might be a little too far for a boost.
But if you're vulnerable enough and you let people into your experience and into your story,
there are stories that are so much more boostable than ones where you hold back a little bit more.
(31:23):
But you're not just putting anything out there.
I feel like you have to craft it in a way where it's still valuable to the reader.
At the same time, drawing from your personal experience and giving people that insight into your in your life is a huge part of why people become successful with their stories.
They find a way to write from their heart and really connect with their audience.
(31:45):
And I think those are those are the stories that you really see that are that are featured by the platform.
So you would probably say that to sum it up, writing should the writing should be like unique, but also relatable.
Correct. And vulnerable, it sounds like. And vulnerable.
Well, I mean, depends like if it's I feel like this vulnerability is in either the uniqueness or the relatability or sometimes both.
(32:15):
Oh, that's that's valid.
So I don't I don't know how many people go into your lists because you have like a million lists like you went list crazy.
But one of your list has two hundred and fifty five stories where you were curated when medium was still doing curation.
(32:38):
I had I didn't find anything about boosted. I know you've been boosted, but you don't you don't seem to have a list for that yet.
So I gave I gave up on listing my boosts, although I might go back in some day right now.
So if you want to know how many boosts I actually have, I have two and I'll send you the links to both of them.
Only two. Yeah, it's surprising to you.
(33:02):
I feel like I'm not going to say I don't know if I can say this about myself.
I'm qualified to say this about myself, but I feel like I'm criminally underrated when it comes to the boost.
Yeah, I so I don't try to promote myself.
So well, not not all the time. Like there are times when I have to.
But what is Robin saying? You only post your own pubs and you're the number from that.
(33:27):
Yeah, true. So you're kind of putting yourself in the foot in some ways.
I guess if I branched out a little bit, I'd probably get my boost.
I don't know. Maybe I just want I wonder if I wonder if medium takes into account whether or not the articles are what's the word?
Paywall, whatever, whatever the thing is. No, no, no, they don't.
(33:51):
People who get people who aren't paywall, they get boosted all the time.
Um, no, the two stories that I have that are boosted are pinned on my account.
They're thinking back on an unsustainable diet and a 12 step program and a dramatic weight loss.
It was published in Illumination Curated.
It's a I want to say nine, 10 minute story about going through like an addiction recovery program to lose weight.
(34:17):
It's like one of those food, food addict groups.
And basically, I chronicle how much weight I've lost in that year, what I had to do to get to that weight,
how the group helped me and supported me through that and how, you know,
like just trying to inspire people that it's possible to lose weight and all that.
(34:38):
I mean, I've since gained it back. But like in that moment when I was in that program and committed to it,
I was able to lose the weight. But it was unsustainable.
Like I said in the title, that's really an unsustainable else lifestyle.
Unless you're really just hyper focused on it.
Like, I don't think most people can can can complete that without without slipping at least once.
(35:01):
Understood. Yeah.
The other story that I had that was.
Who stood is actually from my own publication, Digital Global Traveler.
So Robin is half right on that.
I actually did get listed in my own pub and it wasn't even me who did the boost.
It's called What Not to Do When Driving by Someone's Home.
(35:22):
And this was a story about people gawking at how unique our RV looks.
And oh, we were in the cabin. There was this guy taking pictures of our RV while we were in the cab.
And I was looking at him and he kind of looked like a creep.
So I basically wrote that it's it's rude to do that,
especially when you can see the people right in the cab taking pictures.
(35:44):
I'm like, what's he going to do? Is he going to post those pictures online and tell people to like target us or something?
Like, I don't know what's going on there.
Maybe he just said admiring it, but he didn't ask for consent.
I'm in the I'm in the lurch and that like I have no idea what he's wanting to do with those pictures.
Yeah, that sucks. Sucks a lot. Yeah.
(36:07):
Oh, yeah, for sure. Out of all of your, you know, fifteen hundred plus articles, do you have a favorite or favorites?
I have some favorites. I am well, my favorite types of stories that I write are usually the ones that I just get really silly with and go like humor.
The humor is really like one of my favorite genres. And I really do like writing humor.
(36:30):
I didn't do it as much for a while.
But I had a feeling you might ask me this question.
So I actually brought a list of four stories that I want to share with everyone that I love.
I have five stories, and I love them.
I have five stories.
Nice links.
(36:51):
I will. One of them is called What Do Women Really Want In Bed?
And it's hilarious and not what you're expecting.
No, because you're gay.
Yeah. The other one is Your Husband Is Dead and Your Baby and Cat Can Talk.
It's to the point where like it's wacky. It's a wacky story and I love it.
(37:17):
One that I wrote recently, actually, for Muddy M is called What To Do When You Have a Little Money to Work With.
And I'm proud of this one. I wrote this one in a half hour in a workshop for Muddy M.
So they have this weekly writing group.
And it's on Sundays at 3 Eastern. So I go in there, right?
I bust this out because the prompt for that day was understatement.
(37:43):
So I'm thinking in my head, I'm like, how can I do humor with understatement?
I came up with this guy who wins the lottery and wins 270 million dollars and he's trying to budget.
So it's hilarious. It's hilarious.
Right on. It's fantastic.
(38:04):
And then the other one that got a lot of engagement, a lot of attention, even without being boosted, this was before the boost.
I never thought I'd see these two stores next to each other in a mall.
It was just a picture I saw. I took a picture of it.
And it was a BJ's next to a Dick's Sporting Goods.
(38:27):
So it was BJ's and Dick's. The way that I observed this and write this article, it's obviously, it's inspired.
Like, I just see this place randomly because I'm in Buffalo taking a picture.
I'm like, oh my God, this is not real.
Yeah. I wrote a story about it and it was amazing.
(38:50):
That's awesome. I love that. And I'm glad it got engagement, too. That's hilarious.
I think Ben has a question for you in chat, by the way.
Oh, OK. Let's see what the question Ben has.
Would you recommend joining in on those? I think he means the Muddyum session.
Oh, yeah. Are they open to anybody?
(39:12):
You go to Muddyum.org. So I'm plugging them in first.
Muddyum.org and you go in and it says Writers Workshop. Click on the link or click on the thing and put your name in there and your email.
You sign up for the course every week and you just let them know you want to be at the next workshop, which is every Sunday at 3 p.m. Eastern, which is 2 p.m. Central, which is actually the same time as our writing group every week, which is well.
(39:43):
We'll address that. Well, we've we've we've moved our writing group an hour earlier, so I've been thinking about maybe joining you in the Muddyum group because I'm trying to do comedy, too.
It's a new endeavor for me.
Much fun.
The meetup in person. So Ben's asking a question here. Are they doing in person meetups soon, too?
(40:07):
That is in October and that's in.
I want to say, I remember the exact name of the place, but it's on the Hudson River somewhere.
So it's close to Ben a little bit, like a few hours drive up.
Ryan Beck, I want to say that sounds right, but I don't think that's the exact name.
And Tony Stubblebine, the CEO of mediums, going to be at the in person meetup.
(40:33):
Oh, interesting. Yeah, it's going to be well organized.
That's a big hole to do then, huh?
Especially since Tony's going to be there. I mean, that's just the boss.
That's the boss man going to Muddyum.
I don't retreat. Where is that going to be the in person thing like New York?
It's in the East. Yeah. Yeah, that's not what happened for me.
(40:55):
No, no, no.
Yeah.
No, no, no.
A couple hours north of New York City.
Right on.
Well, good, good plug. Good plug.
Based on that, is there anything else you'd like to promote?
Sure, sure.
Well, I'll send you this too, but I have the links to all my publications and I'm just going to plug them all here now.
(41:20):
I'm going to start off with my newest one.
It's called Rainbow Road, which is my LGBTQ pub. It's open to all LGBTQIAB2S plus members of the community and the allies, of course.
Tam actually is my co-editor there, which is pretty awesome.
(41:43):
You're doing great so far.
Oh, thank you.
And then we have the Medium. Another one on Medium is the Digital Global Traveler publication.
That's my boost nominator pub.
And that one is mainly travel and culture.
Sometimes I'll like languages and stuff and like just anything related to the world, but travel and culture are the focus.
(42:07):
And we have the Creative Collective, which was really built out at this point. I rebranded it from the Random Nerdiness Collective. It's just a general interest pub. You can send anything in.
And under the old name, I felt like it was more exclusive than inclusive.
I did get a lot of nerds that wanted to publish there, which is awesome. Like you write about games, if you write about your favorite TV shows, whatever.
(42:32):
I still want those stories. By the way, Mortal, I added you to that publication as a writer since she did consent to me adding you to a couple of my publications. So I did that.
Okay. Good to know.
Then Funny Inc., which is my humor pub and a rumor has it that somebody in the audience loves this pub. So I just wanted to give her a shout out really quick.
(43:04):
And then, yeah, Robin.
All right. Pressbox. So I actually have another boost nominator in that pub. It's a sports publication and he boosts the sports stories in there. Sports and sports memo.
Hey, wait, wait, wait, I want to interrupt. How do you feel about eSports?
(43:26):
eSports will go in there. That's fine.
Okay.
That is a great way to get Mortal to write more. Good job.
Yeah, I'm going to get, I'm going to add you to the press box.
It is a possibility that I might decide to write some stuff about Rocket League.
That's awesome.
I'll do it.
(44:08):
I'm going to put that one on hold for now. But if you want to write for it, we still have active editors there. And speaking of that, that's a perfect segue to my next part because I want to give a special thanks to all of my editors.
Even in name, you know, Ben and Robin in the audience say they in name their their editors for my pubs.
(44:29):
They don't have to do anything much, although Ben actually, I'll talk to you about it after. But yeah, well, I mean, you know, it's I love I love all matters.
We got Peter Murphy, Harry Capelli, Brian Gilmore, accidental monster, Tam, obviously, L. Becker, I already mentioned Ben, Nonny Hurley, Kathy Minicazi, Robin Wilding, and in name also, and then Claire Kelly.
(45:01):
And I work with a lot of other great editors and all of the publications. I mean, I could name everybody, but that would be an entire episode by itself.
I, I absolutely.
Love the people they work with and I'm surrounded by a bunch of talented and passionate individuals. It's just amazing. This is this. This isn't even a job for me. This is a hobby and I feel like it's become a family.
(45:31):
And I think that's the takeaway here. Without all this help and without all the support, I would be nowhere.
That's amazing. And you've kind of done it, you know, like medium medium as a writing platform. It's also a social media platform and a lot of people go to social media to try and find community.
You found community like I don't know many people on medium. I'm still pretty distant from the platform, but half the names you mentioned that just now. I know those names.
(46:03):
So, you know, you've you really built a community. Tammy built a community too. That's cute. I think it's awesome. Good job. My friends.
Do you feel left out mortal? No, not really. I haven't really tried to build a community just like I haven't tried to date in eight years, you know, like once I try something, if it doesn't work out, then I can go feel sad about it.
(46:27):
But until I try, it's just something I haven't gotten to yet. That's paintings overrated. We'll see.
So I'm out of questions now. So I guess that's the episode. Kind of. It was a good episode. We really enjoyed getting to talk to Sturge.
Like I said, it just such a such a huge part of medium, at least from my perspective and from what I believe, Tam's perspective as well.
(46:58):
I could be wrong about that. Tam has been on medium a heck of a lot longer than I have. Oh, Ben has more questions.
All right, that's fine. You know, well, that was that was pro offered by someone not Ben. So I don't know.
A hundred percent if that's accurate. There was a question that I wanted to get to possibly in the after party because novela.
(47:21):
That's my favorite N word. Novela. Hold on. Hold on. I can't.
Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Hold on. I solved the puzzle. What? What puzzle?
Can I solve the puzzle? Is there a puzzle? Sure. I don't know what the puzzle is. Wheel of Fortune. Are we playing Wheel of Fortune?
(47:42):
Go ahead. Solve the puzzle, please. Oh, I can't see anything right now.
I can't see any of the gifts. I don't know what's happening, Tam. You're on your own.
I can't describe it without being wrong. You don't have to. You don't have to describe it.
It's a jeopardy. It's a jeopardy. Just delete it if it's dicks. That's all I'm saying.
(48:08):
It's not. It's not dicks. In some ways, it's a little worse, but it's missing.
It's missing an A, guys. It's an A that is supposed to go in there.
It is an A. That's all I got to say. It's A. I wish my discourse would load the gifts, but unfortunately, unfortunately, I'm I'm left in the dark.
(48:29):
I like the word necromancy. Necromancy is fun. I like the necronomicon.
I think that's a fun name for an evil book. It's the necronomicon. Yeah, absolutely.
I like it's not an N word, but the title, The Satanic Bible by Anton Lavey. Is that Anton Lavey?
(48:54):
I thought it was Anton Lavey. I think I have it somewhere.
Nathan? Yeah, it is Anton Lavey. I was about to say that. I just I don't know.
I don't even know why. Yeah, you're right. That happens.
But as another another word, I like Nathan. Nathan was was the name I potentially might give to a son someday.
(49:20):
Oh, that's nice. I like the name Nicholas. I actually dated Nicholas, but he was a sociopath.
One of my favorite content creators is dating a Nicholas and he's hot.
Oh, my God. I think I just thought. But I didn't say their last name.
Yeah, there's a billion Knicks out there. Yeah. So there was Nick Nick.
(49:43):
We can just all say we're talking about Nick Cage. Everything one of us is talking about Nick Cage specifically.
I thought there was there was there was a thing that you were going to say, Gerald, like I assumed maybe the beginning, but your your thing didn't didn't happen.
We didn't set you up properly, I guess. What? What thing?
The I don't know how to say it without giving anything away.
(50:09):
The thing that we talked about in the pre show.
That Ben sort of a part of, but he's here. Yeah, no, we didn't get to that.
I mean, it's pretty awesome. So, you know, my agent, you know, and I were talking about this before the interview started, right?
Like we were we were we were discussing the terms of this interview and I was told this was a clothing option.
(50:38):
So since it's like 90 degrees outside, I decided to go optional. You did.
Yes. Wait, who is this agent again?
So this agent was actually Ben Ulansey and I think he set me up. Oh, Ben, how could you do this to us?
And he booked me on the show and then just out here with my butt, you know, all sweaty and hanging hanging with my with my bits out.
(51:05):
So did you get the creative creative fee we gave to Ben as the agent?
This is all a bit I have to be I had to give him 25. I had to give him 25 percent of all of it.
Should we consider the shots fired for the olive wars?
Have the olive treaties come to an end?
The olive treaties have come to an end. It's full on all of all of a ham again.
(51:31):
I just want to announce I'm not good at bits and Ben is delightful and wonderful.
I want to make sure that we all know that.
I love more conscientiousness.
I know.
I know. To be fair, when when the olive wars like really got kind of into it, I pulled Ben aside on on Discord privately.
(51:57):
And I was like, I just want to make sure that, like, you know, like none of this is serious.
And if you are at all upset with anything like this isn't serious, we can stop it at any time.
And he's like, no, this is hilarious.
Mortal got to me. Oh, no, I my chat stopped. Oh, no.
Again, I don't have a new chat.
(52:19):
And the last time I tried to fix this, it kicked Sturge.
And so I'm afraid I'm not going to I'm not I'm just going to leave it. I don't get to see chat anymore.
That's totally fine. Robin's never heard of the olive wars.
Well, I mean, this is a good place to end the actual episode.
And then we can discuss the olive wars in the in the post show as a.
Yeah. Perfect. As a kicker.
(52:42):
So final words before we end the episode, Sturge.
Um, uh, love yourself always.
Heck, yeah.
Take that. We do. We do a whole thing.
Yeah, we do a whole thing at the end. Oh, my God.
So glad it was Sturge. You saved my ass.
(53:03):
So I want to thank all of the people that came to the pre show or the live action show.
Ben Ulanci and Robin in our live audience.
Thank you so, so much.
And you, dear listener, can be a part of the live action by joining our discord through the Monster Alley dot com,
which also has links to our articles, Spotify and Substack.
(53:25):
And special bonus, the Substack is the only place to get the un-censored version.
You didn't do your smile thing.
Yeah, I was smiling at the smiling at the I was smiling.
I said uncensored instead of I know which is great.
We're doing good.
(53:47):
But thank you listeners for coming along. We've really enjoyed having you.
We're really happy to let you hear Sturge in case you don't know him already.
He's fantastic and great. Go check him out if you're on Medium.
Thank you very much. I'm eternally mortal.
And I hope you find smiles this day.
And I'm and I'm the accidental monster.
You can find us both on Medium dot com or through the Monster Alley dot com.
(54:08):
That's T H E M O N S T E R A L L E Y dot com.
And remember to follow yourself always.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.