February 1, 2024 • 48 mins
Episode 2
Alden Olmsted
Christopher Sell
Welcome to The 5 Great Questions podcast, where I ask people interesting questions, and you get to hear their answers.
My guest on episode two is longtime friend and former lost teenage soul Christopher Sell. Chris is a middle school teacher in middle California and is a multi-talented storyteller specializing in thoughtful acoustic songs and the occasional screenplay. Chris is happily married with three kids, one dog, and a trampoline in the backyard.
I introduce the podcast and welcome Chris, and then I unleash him for a ramble of a story that is sometimes excruciating, sometimes profound, and entertaining throughout. The question of what to do when your "Plan A" fails is almost as universal as teenagerism itself. Chris sets the stage of how and why he thought a trip from San Diego to Wilmington, NC would be a good idea after failing out of law school.
Did he make it to Wilmington?
Did he take up smoking?
Did he take his screenplay to Screen Gems and apply for a job?
We answer these questions and more and finally circle back (in multiple attempts!) to help Chris recognize the larger meaning of his journey. And the purpose of such a worthwhile trip.
Lastly Chris shares a fun short involving an ex-gf and caller ID - and why he would have never picked up the phone today.
Like to be on a future episode? Let me know at: alden5@spreaker.com
Links:
aldenolmsted.com
Stories and blogs on Medium:
https://alden-olmsted.medium.com/
Christopher Sell on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/7jLq34_GZac?si=u1sifoDCu9BcFwtR
Alden Olmsted
Christopher Sell
Welcome to The 5 Great Questions podcast, where I ask people interesting questions, and you get to hear their answers.
My guest on episode two is longtime friend and former lost teenage soul Christopher Sell. Chris is a middle school teacher in middle California and is a multi-talented storyteller specializing in thoughtful acoustic songs and the occasional screenplay. Chris is happily married with three kids, one dog, and a trampoline in the backyard.
I introduce the podcast and welcome Chris, and then I unleash him for a ramble of a story that is sometimes excruciating, sometimes profound, and entertaining throughout. The question of what to do when your "Plan A" fails is almost as universal as teenagerism itself. Chris sets the stage of how and why he thought a trip from San Diego to Wilmington, NC would be a good idea after failing out of law school.
Did he make it to Wilmington?
Did he take up smoking?
Did he take his screenplay to Screen Gems and apply for a job?
We answer these questions and more and finally circle back (in multiple attempts!) to help Chris recognize the larger meaning of his journey. And the purpose of such a worthwhile trip.
Lastly Chris shares a fun short involving an ex-gf and caller ID - and why he would have never picked up the phone today.
Like to be on a future episode? Let me know at: alden5@spreaker.com
Links:
aldenolmsted.com
Stories and blogs on Medium:
https://alden-olmsted.medium.com/
Christopher Sell on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/7jLq34_GZac?si=u1sifoDCu9BcFwtR
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
She actually talked, get out ofhere. Oh yeah, you've really gotten
into the bad habit of asking ahuge amount of questions. A little bit,
just a question between friends. Youknow, I can go one of
those cappuccino places they let you justsit there. What are we gonna do
(00:23):
there? Talk? We can talk. I'll go if I don't as to
talk. She actually talked to me. Man, all right, well,
welcome to episode number two of theFive Great Questions podcast. As I said
before, I don't know if therewill be twenty nine more episodes or if
(00:46):
this is the final episode. Wehave no idea. But I'm confident that
my experiences of meeting people and collectingstories will yield fruitful stories from here to
eternity. Really, so I'm notworried about that. With me today is
my longtime friend Chris. Chris sayhello, Hello, And as always,
(01:12):
Chris has been emailed the Five GreatQuestions. Of course there are more than
five, but I just pick mybest five. At the time of the
interview, Chris has received these fivequestions just before coming on air. Is
that correct, that's correct? Yes, okay, so you have had time
to peruse these five questions. Somemight have you know what we would call
(01:34):
shorter small talk answers, but arestill fun and some, depending on the
person. That's why I send five, might have a story involved, and
that's what I'm interested in. SoI'm hoping that. And again, this
is a lot of trust on mypart because I'm picking people that I'm trusting
(01:56):
are going to give me and theaudience good story from one of those questions.
Do you feel, mister Chris,do you feel confident that you're going
to provide a good story from oneof those five questions? You know what
the truth is. You could choosemore than one, but let's start with
one. I think I've got it. Yeah, I think I've got a
story. I mean, I hopeit's a good story. I hope I
can tell it. Well, okay, do you want to do you want
(02:17):
to do a little do you wantto do a little setup or or or
do you want to start by tellingtelling us which question you thought was the
which question sparked you? Well?I think you were asking about things from
a time, an analog time,things that basically before the kind of all
(02:40):
inclusive. You know, your lifeis on your phone, You're constantly connected,
and what is the story from thattime that that might be kind of
fun to to look back and rememberwhat life was like before all of the
connection issues kind of started. Okay, so that's yeah, that's fine with
me. Let's so, is thisgonna involve color I d No, I
(03:06):
don't think I'll involve caller ID.Although that that is that is a good
story. I've got one for youthat is from this time, but it's
a it's a it's a little bitdifferent one than that. Is it a
writer? No? Okay? So, uh so the the time is the
early the early two thousands, andyes, the Internet existed, but no,
(03:29):
it was not on your phone.At least it wasn't on my phone.
I certainly didn't have anything close toa BlackBerry or anything like that.
I was a young man who hadmade a terrible mistake of choosing to go
to law school. Let's admit,let's admit that that choice is subjective in
retrospect. True. I mean,honestly, it could have gone either way.
(03:51):
When I made the choice, itseemed like a good idea, and
so, uh I went to lawschool with the best of intentions, worked
my very hardest, found myself failingout by one and a half points a
point and a half after working thehardest I had ever worked up to that
point academically or anything like that.And what I found out when I was
(04:12):
in law school is like, hardwork is very important, but however,
there are also just some really reallysmart people out there. And I feel
like I have a certain level ofintelligence, but some people are just beyond
the pale geniuses and I'm not oneof them. And I'm sure if the
situations might have been different, orif I had done it at a different
time in my life, I mighthave made the cut and I might be
(04:34):
a lawyer right now. But thatdidn't happen. I didn't make the cut,
and so I found myself in prettyshort order failing out of law school
and then moving from the apartment thatI had been living in, which is
right next to the law school,right downtown San Diego, and then moving
out to some friends of mine.They didn't have an extra room, but
(04:55):
they had like a space in thegarage that I think I was for like
three hundred bucks a month. AndI was scrambling at this point right because
my plan up until a week priorto that, had been to go on
to year two of law school andthen year three of law school and then
try and figure things out from there. But what ended up happening is that
(05:20):
I had no plan B at all, and I had to think really fast
on my feet. So one ofthe things I knew I needed to do
relatively quickly was figure out what Iwas going to do for work. And
the first thing that came to mymind was that I really wanted to try
and get outside and do something withmy hands. And for whatever reason,
I'm not even sure how it happened, I found myself working on these things
(05:44):
called infinite pools, where basically youwould be constructing these huge pools in these
backyards in like the San Diego theGreater San Diego area, just massive,
massive pools and they would have theselike lips on them where the water would
flow over so you couldn't see theedge. They were called infinity pools.
They're probably a lot more common nowand and it was awesome. It didn't
(06:09):
pay very well at all, andI was the brand new kid on the
on the crew, and so Ifound myself inside of these huge water tanks
underground, like digging out because thethe back hoe or whatever would knock dirt
in and you'd find yourself digging out, like cleaning out the the the the
(06:30):
water tank. And if you hadany kind of claustrophobia, which I didn't
know I had until I was underground, you you were having a pretty bad
day. So that's where I foundmyself. And I'm talking like within three
weeks of having been in law school, I am in like, you know,
ankle deep muddy water with a bucket, like bailing out some you know,
(06:53):
five hundred gallon thing and it's hotand I'm sweaty, and like,
this is this is my life?Now, this is what I did.
Do you do you want me tomake a comparison or a joke regarding that
these were called infinity pools? Isthat the future you were looking at in
the situation? And to be quitefriend, I mean, with the kindle
(07:15):
like dead I had come out oflaw school, this was gonna be happening
for a while. There was gonnabe a few years of you know,
just sucking it up and working hard. So that's that's the position I was
in, living in a friend's garage, going to this job where I'm underground
for most of the day in andit's not it's not fun, and I
(07:39):
gotta figure out what to do next. And meanwhile, in the little spare
time that I have, I am, for whatever reason I am, I'm
finding myself drawn to the the thewhat do they call it? The the
afternoon like replays? What do theycall this? The uh? The what
(08:00):
is it called? That's right,I'm finding myself drawn to the reruns of
a specific show. And that showthat show is Dawson's Creek. Now you
might think that it was because ofI think the girl's name was Joey in
the show. It was not.It was not because of Pacy or even
(08:22):
Dawson. It was because I reallyreally liked the landscape of the TV show.
I thought that looked like a beautifulplace to live. And when you're
spending your days under the ground diggingout infinity pool reservoirs, and you're spending
your nights sleeping in someone's spare spacein a garage, you start to kind
(08:48):
of do some research. So Ilooked up online and I guess this is
not the analog part of the storyyet, but I did. I looked
up online where is this thing beingfilmed? Because I had never seen any
kind of like landscape like that before. And you know, turns out it
was being filmed in North Carolina,in a town called Wilmington. Now I
(09:09):
was living in San Diego. Iwas living right outside of San Diego State,
right on Montezuma Boulevard, which isjust right next It's in La Mesa.
It's right next to the San DiegoState campus. So I mean,
you could not be you could notbe more like opposite the side of the
country where this thing was being filmed. But I was drawn to it.
(09:31):
I was just certain that this wasthe place for me. And fortunately for
myself, I had written a screenI had written a screenplay that I thought
would be would be perfect to sharewith the good people at screen Jim's Studios,
which is where Dawson's Creek was beingfilmed. So Frank capra iid who
(09:54):
you probably know his probably his grandfatherfrom the the movie It's a Wonderful Life.
He had, for whatever reason,decided to make a film studio in
North Carolina. I'm sure it wasfor like the tax credits or whatever.
And he built it in Wilmington,and that is where they were filming.
(10:15):
Warner Brothers was filming Dawson's Creek,and so I did a little research and
I said, that looks pretty amazing, and so I came up with a
plan. It was not a goodplan, but it was a plan.
And the plan was to take myscreenplay to fill what little possessions I had
(10:35):
into my car, to take myselfand my belongings in my screenplay to Wilmington,
North Carolina, to meet the peoplewho made Dawson's Creek, and to
get my to get my film made. This was my plan. And so
so you hold on, So justtake a breath. Yes, so,
(10:58):
and let's remind the audience just twoto three years prior you had graduated,
uh from from what from little juniorcollege? Or where did you graduate from
prior to this? Let's just setthe stage. Oh yeah, so I
had graduated from cal Pauly San Lea'sobispo uh with a pretty good GVA and
(11:20):
stuff like like maybe like a yearand a half earlier. No, I
think they're okay, So, andan ass by your name, like,
did you did you actually graduate withhonors? Yeah? Magnicum lud Yes,
okay, so magnicum loud not we'renot just a pretty good GPA. Yeah,
but let's be completely Let's be completelyfair. That was a surprise for
(11:45):
all of us. Let's just beit doesn't matter. Your work. Your
work resulted in you graduated magnicum loud, and then you go to law school
and it doesn't work out. No, it's okay, it's it doesn't work
out. And then now you're insomeone's garage or basement or whatever. Oh
yes, and you're so you're workingunderground and you're living underground, well,
(12:07):
not yes, but outside in theyes, in the the rough and tumble
elements of scandea. Okay. Andmeanwhile, meanwhile, your imagination is playing
with this fictional town where the girlsare cute and the money is flowing and
the convertibles are probably flowing too.Oh yeah, and you can see yourself
(12:28):
in that setting. Is that correct? I just thought, you know,
if they're making movies in a placethat's not Hollywood, because I had lived
I actually lived with you as yourroommate in Culver City for a year,
and I was like, well,this is not the place for me,
but that's kind of where I waslike, Oh, this could be fun,
like making movies could be a blast, but I would never want to
do it living in Hollywood just frommy experience, which was probably too short
(12:52):
of a too short of a time, but just being honest with myself,
being like, well, the ideaof being around something that creative for a
living, that sounds like a blast. But if I could do it somewhere
that didn't like have wall the wallconcrete, that would be what would be
ideal for me. And so Iwas thinking, Okay, so you thought
you found a Hollywood outside of Hollywood. I'm just trying to summarize. Okay,
(13:13):
yes, yes, but now theonly question I'm gonna ask, and
I'm gonna let you go is thelevel of risk that you are trading is
what's interesting to me. So youdid the hard work of college. You
graduated magnetum loud. You gave itan honest and honest college try for law
(13:35):
school, Let's be honest, noteverybody makes it. You gave it an
honest college try. And then youwant to trade that for one of the
highest uncertainty situations known to Western culture, which is trying to get a screenplay
sold or oh yeah or picked up. Okay, I just want to continue
and to be you know, tobe honest. It was probably just based
(13:58):
on the idea that I really didn'thave anything else going on at the time.
This was probably this was probably ofall of the options I had,
this could have been the best ones. Okay, so what happens there?
You're in the garage in San Diego. Yeah, So I'm in the garage
in San Diego and I have toget to and I have to get to
(14:18):
Welmington, North Carolina. And thisis where things stopped being or start you
start to understand how things were analogat the time as opposed to now.
I had to plan that trip fromSan Diego to get to North Carolina,
and I had been around the UnitedStates once before this, but I was
(14:39):
eight and I was not driving,and so it was definitely like one of
these things where I had to figureout, Okay, well, how much
money am I gonna need for gas? Am I gonna be able to make
that happen? What are the roadsI'm gonna take? Where am I gonna
stay? Am I gonna sleep inmy car? All this stuff had to
be figured out before I left,and I put together this folder, like,
(15:01):
you know, a three ring binderfull of directions from where I was
to where I wanted to go,and then at some point I just kind
of had to head out and Ijust kind of started driving east and hold
on what Sorry, I'm not goingto ask a lot of questions. I
know the audience, if anyone's listeningto this, is thinking, just let
them talk. Did I just thoughtI never heard about the binder before,
(15:24):
So that's interesting to me. Okay, Number two, what did you say
goodbye to your friends? Because youdidn't just have strangers in San Diego,
you had friends. I want toknow what you said to your friends.
Well, I think that's a goodthing about having some good friends when this
happened. I did have two orthree really good friends that had had since
I was pretty young, who livedright in the area, and so we
(15:48):
had, you know, talked fordays, actually weeks at that point,
just kind of about like, whatdo you do when the plan for your
life that you kind of set yoursight on and you put your entire effort
into. What do you do thatyou know doesn't work out? What's the
next step? So what so whatdo you do if you're basically at a
point where you got to try somethingdifferent and you're still I mean I was
(16:10):
still under twenty five. I thinkI was twenty twenty two, twenty three.
When this happened, twenty three,I think, and so in my
mind, especially the way that Iwas raising stuff, I felt like I
was super long in the tooth.But honestly, twenty three is nothing,
you know, and we know thatnow at you know, I'm almost I'll
turn forty five this year. Butwhen I was twenty three years old and
(16:30):
I was looking at I think itwas like thirty five thousand dollars of debt.
And that's back when thirty five thousanddollars was thirty five thousand dollars.
Now it's not the same. Yeah, it's a different it's a it's a
different system now, But back thenthat was you know, I was certain
looking at that that even if Igot a good job with the wind at
my back, it was going tobe five to ten years of just solid,
(16:53):
you know, unpleasant, uh hard, you know jobs, And that's
what it turned out to be.To get out of that hole. Well
let's but let's let's keep it.So what did you say to your friends
when you when you were leaving,when you were determined to go. I
don't want to mean the talking before, but what did you just the day
before you left, That's what Iwant to hear. I I honestly,
(17:17):
I don't remember. I probably said, hey, guys, I'm going UH
and I'm not coming back. I'mheading out to I'm heading out to to
UH to check out Wilmington and UH. I don't even know if it got
more specifically, I don't know,you'd have to ask them. I I
think I probably was just said goodbyeand and I don't know that we had
(17:37):
I don't know that I had agood plan at that point. I think
it was just okay, so youhit the road and you go, yeah,
and I had uh, I hadnever been probably passed. I don't
know Scottsdale, Arizona on my ownprior to that. And so I'm driving
out and I do remember, youknow, you're using these maps and you
(17:59):
have a basic outline of where you'regoing, and you just don't know what
to expect. So the first thingthat kind of shocked me was the beauty
of New Mexico, because I knowI've been to New Mexico at some point
in my life before then, butI had never seen like those mountains were
so amazing and like purple, justbecause of the time of year and the
(18:21):
sun, the way it was SETTIit was amazing. And then I remember
driving into West Texas and I don'tmeet any offense to Texas, but I
did not find that part of Texasto be beautiful. And honestly, I
mean it took me a while oncewe finally got once I finally got to
the part of Texas where there's hillsand trees, and that was that was
pretty great. And uh and andthe thing I do remember, though,
(18:45):
is that by the time I meantin Texas and I didn't have any kind
of a digital camera or anything.So I had one of those little disposable
Kodak you know cameras. You'd stopand I'd stop and take pictures. And
I knew I wanted to read rememberthe places that I had been, and
so I got this this panoramic cameraand you would just you know, like
(19:06):
I don't I didn't have enough moneyto stay in like nice hotels or anything,
so i'd you know, sleep ata truck stop or whatever like that.
And then as the sun was rising, I can remember like driving on
top of some of those overpasses inTexas and just taking pictures of just like
vast, endless sunrises and stuff likethat. It was. It was really
cool. It was really fun,but it was definitely a strange kind of
(19:30):
almost like a I don't know,I wasn't like you're definitely alone, but
you're not really that lonely as you'redriving, and uh, and certainly like
it's a task. You know,you've set yourself a goal and so you
feel like you've got a reason tokeep moving forward. And uh. And
it was it was fun. Itwas good. It was a good trip
(19:51):
out. I think you're getting closerto the Atlanta area. That part of
the country is beautiful. And thenI cut up somewhere in there. I
started smoking and I didn't stop forabout fifty fifteen years. Okay, so
side note, okay note, okay, so okay, So for like Joyce,
(20:15):
so hold on, We're not gonnaspend a lot of time on this
one, but I just just giveme the short. So you're at a
truck stop. I'm gonna you're gettinggas. Yeah, okay, you walk
inside. I know how it works. They're all those things are taunting you,
all those colors and soda and sugarand prices and whatever. You can't
have alcohol, because you're driving,and then what happens. Well, I
(20:37):
mean, it's not like it neversmoked anything before. Cigars were something I'd
have every once in a while growingup with friends and stuff or or things
like that. But I do rememberon this specific trip as I'm driving,
thinking to myself, well, ifthere was ever a time to start smoking,
now would be the time. AndI just kind of decided I'm gonna
I'm gonna give this a shot.So, you know, trying different cigarettes
(20:59):
and in which ones I liked,trying to get the hold it right in
your hand, which is a veryinteresting process. There's there's a right way
and the wrong way to hold acigarette, and when you're starting out you
don't know how to hold it right. And then if you're smoking in your
car, which I was like,there's like the whole like do you how
far down do you roll the windowso it doesn't come back on to you?
And there's a whole thing you're learning. It's a skill, is what
(21:22):
I'm saying. You're learning a skill. And that was kind of maybe I
was just looking for a hobby atthe time, and so it seemed as
good as any and uh, andyou tried the different types. You know,
did you like the stuff for thementhol? No, I do not
like this stuff for the menthol?And what did you what did you land
on? Well? Okay, Sofor a time it was it was the
(21:45):
U. It was the cheapest oneI could find for because I am basically
a thrifty person. But after awhile I got to the point where the
uh oh gosh, American spirits,the organ light blue American spirits. It
took me fifteen years to stop smoking, and those were the ones that I
(22:08):
would I would buy a pack ofthose each week, and i'd have one
there's twenty in a pack. I'dhave one or two of them at night,
and at least once a week forthat fifteen year period. I'd like
at some point in the week i'dquit, I'd crumple up the pack,
i'd throw it away, and beforethe next week was out, i'd have
another pack. Because it's you know, they don't They're not kidding you start
(22:30):
smoking those things. It's it's liketrying to quit eating bacon or something,
or stop drinking drinking coffee. It'sit's a very pleasant way to spend a
moment. So yeah, yeah,yeah, So okay, that's a side
note. I didn't know, soI knew that, but I didn't know
how long it lasted. So you'retelling me that lasted after you were married.
Well, this was the thing.I mean, that was definitely the
(22:52):
intention was to quit. I hadevery intention to quit, and I did
eventually quit. It's been a lotokay, y, yes or no?
Who did this one? Yes?After? And I mean it was one
of those things there. I was, you know, in conversation with my
wife, with Chrissy, and Iwas like, hey, this is something
i'd like to stop at some point, and she's like, I'd like it
if you stopped too, And itwas just like, all right, well,
(23:15):
we'll work on that. And itwas never like I never like I
had maybe two cigarettes a day atthe end of the day. But it
was something that's okay, yeah,that's okay. Well, I think most
people listening would would understand. Let'slet's get you to Wilmington and let's hear
what happens in Wilmington. Okay,So I'm driving into Wilmington, and I'll
tell you right now, there havebeen a lot of places where I have
(23:37):
gone where I when I got there, it was a letdown. Okay,
that is not the case in Wilmington, North Carolina. In Wilmington, North
Carolina, when I showed up,the first surprise that anyone who's been there
knows this, but I had noidea, is that when you're you're showing
up in the town, this riverthat runs through the town is amazing.
It's beautiful. It's not like ariver that you think of in Cali.
(24:00):
It's big. There's actually a littlebit up the way from Wilmington there's like
a naval ship that's been like docked, you know, pretty close to Wilmington,
and it's you know, it's afull on ship in this river,
and you come across into the cityand the boardwalk downtown it's fantastic. It's
(24:21):
like the it's it's got just likea walkway right along the river. It's
beautiful. I remember I had myguitar with me and I went to an
open mic night and it was aton of fun. Played a song at
the open mic night. One ofthe guys introduced me to Pat's Blue Ribbon.
That was pretty cool. Okay,So you know, okay, number
(24:45):
one, can you you've got agarage? Can you can you find somewhere
to set your laptop. That's numberone. Well, see has that better?
That's fine, that's fine, that'sfine. Okay, So number one
so far, you're you're sleeping inyour car. I just want to I
just want to give you a summaryso far where two years removed from graduating
Magneicum loud from cal Poly. Oh, you've and you're smoking the cheapest American
(25:08):
spirits, drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon,and sleeping in your car. I just
want to just catch everyone up.Yeah, okay, continue, continue.
So I had planned for a coupleof days in Wilmington where I could stay
in a hotel, and so Idid. When I got to Wilmington,
(25:30):
I actually got myself a hotel room, which was pretty nice because I had
been staying uh, you know,in uh in my car for the most
part on the whole drive over.And then one night, I remember,
I walked on down to the inif you've been most of you probably haven't
been to Wilmington, but I've beento Wilmington. You know, like downtown
Wilmington, there's there's you know,like kind of like a place where there's
several places where you can you canfish, kind of off the pier or
(25:53):
something like that. And so Iremember I had this total uh uh this
this evening where I was walking downthis pier and I sat down with this
local guy who was fishing, andwe just kind of talked about I didn't
even remember what it was, justkind of like life, but I remember
his name was Famous. That washis name. His name was Famous,
(26:15):
and he was just an African Americanman. He was probably in his like
sixties, maybe his seventies, althoughyou know, I didn't ask him his
age or anything, and I don'tFor whatever reason, I don't think either
one of us said this line,but the line that keeps on coming up
whenever I think about that conversation withthe guy named Famous, I always think
(26:40):
about the line, as long asyou're lying to yourself, you might as
well go online to everybody else.I remember that line. I don't know
why, but that's the line.As long as you're lying to yourself,
you might as well keep on lyingto everybody else, or something like that.
And that was a really fun timejust getting to know not even really
getting to know somebody, but justkind of like hanging out with somebody.
And it was just one of thoseI'm sure you've been somewhere where you don't
(27:02):
know anybody and you sit down andstart talking to him. Was just a
good conversation. So anyways, thenext day I went. I had some
places I wanted to see, somelocations from the Dawson's Creek that I always
wanted to check out. So Ichecked in with the local people and said,
okay, well where were these scenesfilmed? And so I found out
where the beach scenes had been filmed, and I went over to see them.
(27:25):
And then I figured out where someof the scenes for like the home
that like Dawson had lived and hadlike a dock that came out of the
back of the home, and soI went and found the neighborhood where those
homes existed, and that was reallyfun. And then I ended up figuring
out where screen Gems was and Iwent over there. And from the experience
that I'd had in southern California,I expected screen Gems to be set up
(27:49):
similarly to Sony or something like that. And if you haven't been to Sony
Studios or around Sony Studios, Imean, you can get to the front
gates, but you can't get inside. I mean it's unless you have an
appointment or anything like that, you'renot getting any closer. Well, screen
gyms, at least at the timeI was there, was not like that.
(28:10):
Screen gyms was like open and youcan just like walk in. So
here's me. I'm twenty three yearsold, I've driven across country. I've
got my screenplay tucked underneath my myyou know, my shoulder, and I'm
walking on the lot of Screen GymStudios and I walk around and it's it's
pretty cool to be there, andthen I at some point it's lunchtime,
(28:33):
so I decided to go over andI sit down to have some lunch,
and I start talking to the guywho's running the I don't know, I
guess it's a canteen or something likethat. And he starts talking about how
I think it's called the Commissary.Yeah, and he's just talking about how
he's, you know, worked onthese different projects and the different people he's
seen, and how it's a reallyfun place to work. And I don't
(28:56):
know, I mean, he knows, I'm sure he knows I'm not a
regular there. I'm not sure thathe had any curiosity at all of who
I was, But at some point, I think it became clear that I
was just kind of there with thescreenplay under my shoulder or whatever, and
I don't know. I just rememberbeing really kind. And I don't think
he gave me the food, buthe let me get the food and sit
(29:18):
down in the thing. And sureenough, I'm sitting there and I'm eating,
and I've got my screenplay in frontof me, and I look over
like two or three booths and thereis Frank Capra the third and I know
what he looked like. I don'tremember how I found out what he looked
like, but that was him.He's three booths over and he's sitting there
and he's having his food, andI've got my screenplay that I have brought
(29:41):
all the way across the country.That I could just, you know,
now, I could go and,you know, talk to this guy.
And I could not bring myself todo that. And I mean it would
not have worked. I would havecertainly failed. But to drive all the
way across the country, be threebooths away from that guy, and to
(30:02):
not just at least go up andsay, hey, I'm so and so
from California and this is my sweetI didn't I couldn't do it, So
I love you. What okay?Well was the screenplay called screenplay? Oh
no, it was Homestead Bicycles.That was the one. So I oh
boy. So I left Homestead BicyclesScreenplay in the commissary at screen Gym's studios,
(30:25):
and I got back in my carand I started driving home. And
I really had no idea how toget home. I mean I knew,
I knew basically what you know.I had a okay, hold hold on,
hold on. So so you didn'tgo back to the hotel or back
to the open mic, or backto the fishing with famous, or walk
around the town or look for morelocations. You got straight in your car
(30:47):
and started driving west. That's myrecollection. Like honestly, like I don't
think I had ever been in atown where I had felt like more just
like, oh, this is reallyfun, this feels like my speed,
These people seem awesome. I mean, it wasn't perfect. I'm not gonna
say that. There was there wasa sense there where like you kind of
(31:08):
felt like it didn't like it didn'ttotally fit. But no place totally fits.
I hadn't. I mean, I'vebeen to several towns since then,
when I've thought to myself, well, if I ever found a place that
felt like home, I'd probably justgo there and you know, try and
get started or whatever. And nowat this stage in my life, I
mean, I am where we are, and we're gonna be here for a
(31:29):
while. We have kids, andwe're set, you know, to be
here until the kids stopped meeting usto you know, till they're on their
way. But at that point inmy life, I don't think i'd ever
been anywhere before where just everything felt, everything felt like, oh yeah,
this could make sense. And thekiller of it was is that at the
same time I was having that thought, and the other side of my mind
(31:51):
was saying, oh yeah, butI've got this huge amount of debt I
gotta take care of and I haveno idea how I could. I mean,
I just couldn't figure out how Iwould do that. My only my
last question is did you have anactive conversation with yourself after not talking to
Frank Kapper the third where you said, uh, where you said one of
(32:12):
two things. Wow, I guessthis was just a little diversion and like
a vacation, and I guess it'sdone or oh shoot, I'm not sure
if I want this path. Well, I mean I've talked to myself several
times about it, and I thinkwhat I've come up with is the idea
that no, sorry, sorry,let's go. I'm talking about as you're
leaving right then, what was ordo you not remember? What were you
(32:36):
thinking right when you left? Likeyou literally just got in your car.
Oh well, I guess I guessI got better go pay off that debt.
Let's go, I mean, honestly, yeah, well, I mean,
you've known me for a long time, and if there's one thing that
I mean is true about myself isthat I don't always have the best ability
to be like self aware in themoment of what's happening. I just kind
(32:58):
of act or react, and thenyou know, it takes years to figure
out why I did that. SometimesI don't ever know why I did what
I did, you know, andit's I think maybe I'm not Maybe that's
not the same for everybody, ButI do remember really wishing after the fact
that I had had the wherewithal muchearlier in life to ask myself like questions
(33:22):
like okay, well, what isit that you want to do? Or
more important than like what type ofa place would you like to where would
you like to live type of athing, and then kind of try to
build some of my decisions off ofthat pattern, as opposed to I think
for much of my late teens andearly twenties, I was really scrambling just
(33:43):
to try and catch up to whereI thought my peers already were, and
then also to try and get somekind of a career, a label of
some kind that was going to belike official sounding and you know, adult
type of thing. If I wereall back and do it again, I
probably wouldn't have spent that that muchtime, uh, pursuing those types of
(34:06):
goals as much as I would havejust tried to figure out, like,
well, what do you want yourwhat do you want your you know,
what do you want to see whenyou look out of your your window?
Like that's the thing that was presentin Wilmington, and it's been present some
other places I've lived too, Butlike you look outside of the window in
Wilmington and there's beauty there. It'slike, you know, natural beauty.
There's things to see and do that. But is that is that your Is
(34:28):
that your highest goal in life oror even one of the list of the
top five things in life for mostpeople what they look out their window.
Oh well, I mean I supposeno. But I'm like, I guess.
I mean, I guess, likewhat I ended up doing for a
living. I'm a teacher, andhonestly, I could be teaching. I
could be teaching in San Luis,Obispo, or I could be teaching in
(34:50):
in Wilmington, although I'll be honestwith you have looked at the teachers compensation
North Carolina and that would probably bea mistake. But I mean, like,
oh, I guess what I'm tryingto say is I if I could
talk to my younger self, I'dsay, hey, shoot for those goals
that you think are a little bitcrazy, because even if you don't reach
those goals, you know it's betterto It's better to have shot for a
(35:14):
goal that you that you you know, are passionate about, that you something
that you you know really want,as opposed to try to do what you
think is the right thing to dofor whatever reason it might be. Whether
it's like did you well, so, did you I only have one more
cart? Did you do you nowwish that you would have spoken to Frank
Capper the third. I wish nowthat I had spoken to Frank Capter the
(35:38):
third and I had asked him foran entry level job at screen Gyms.
I I think I probably did theright thing by not showing him my screenplay.
And yet and yet, if youwould have gotten a job there,
yeah, you may not have metyour wife. Well, this is true,
and that I mean, that's agood point. You know, you
(35:58):
you can't, you can't, youcan't, you know, look in the
rear view mirror too much, Iwould say. Moving forward from that thing,
one of the things that I didtake away from that is just how
much I do love at least goingto places that you know, inspire,
like beautiful places. If you can't, you know, if you can't live
(36:20):
somewhere beautiful, at least getting outto the ocean, you know, as
often as you can, and getinto the mountains when you can, and
and and seeing that kind of stuff. I do think. I do think
when I think about what I'd likefor my children, I think I'd love
for my kids to be able tolive somewhere where they have some beautiful like
you know, scenery and and andhiking options and things like that. Okay,
(36:43):
Okay, Look, I don't wantto downplay the value of living somewhere
beautiful. I've I despite my upsand downs, I've actually lived in very
beautiful places. I grew up inthe Wine Country. I've lived in Nevada
City. I've lived in West LosAngeles. I've lived in nooks of the
Hollywood Hills. I've lived in thethe Poshost neighborhood in Nashville. I've lived
in really great places. I don'twant to downplay that. But you just
(37:07):
told us a story about how youcompletely threw caution to the wind, drove
across the country, slept in yourcar, didn't shower, started smoking,
started drinking paps blue ribbon, gotto the location you wanted, didn't didn't
do what you wanted to do,and your biggest takeaway is about where you
(37:30):
should be living. Yeah, youknow what I'm asking. Okay, Okay,
that's what I'm saying. Are thereany lessons gleamed from this? If
I was the kind of person wholearned those other lessons, I probably would
have never gotten in my car anddriven over to Wilmington. I mean,
that's just who I am. Imean, because you know what Oatman you
(37:54):
just you can never go home again, oatman. Okay, So, because
you did start this by choosing theanalog themed question, what other what other
analog? What other analog stories?Can you? Can you? Can you
grace me now that I've let yougo? Can you grace me with the
caller ID analog story to wrap usup? Okay? So this is this
(38:17):
is a similar situation for not havingall the technology of the modern age.
But I remember I had I hadmet a girl who was not from where
I was from. She was fromuh, she's from another town. And
we dated I don't think very long, maybe like three months, but it
(38:37):
was a stinger when it was over, and uh and we we were not
in touch for I guess maybe aboutsix months. And during that time she
had started school across the country atanother place. She had started college and
so and I was at that pointliving at my in my parents' uh spare
(38:57):
room and uh and and feeling allof the feelings that come along with being
I think it was eighteen. Yeah, I was eighteen years old, but
still feeling like I was far tooold to be living at home. And
I was in my I was atthe community college. It was not my
favorite time of life. So Iget a phone call on one of the
(39:19):
you know the kind of phone youplug into the wall, and there's no
caller ID, and I pick upthe phone and it's this girl that I
had dated from, you know,like six months earlier. And she's on
the phone, and she's at college, and she's at a party, and
there's like I can hear two orthree other people in the background. I
don't know who they are because Ihave never met these people. And she
(39:43):
wants me to tell her and herfriends to retell a story of the time
when we were dating, when Ihad done something kind of similar to the
story I just mentioned, but somekind of an impulsive, you know,
fun thing. And I remember,in that moment having the only panic attack
(40:05):
that I've ever had in my life. And I remember like my chest just
tightening up and my my my mindjust being just wanting to feel like I
could tell the story in a waythat was going to be normal and fun.
And I couldn't do it, andI was, you know, I
started to breathe, like kind ofhyperventilate, and I had to I had
(40:27):
to hang up the phone. Icouldn't do it, and and I hung
up the phone, and I didn'tI didn't talk to her at least by
phone again after that. I Ithink maybe we talked by letter once or
twice or something like that. ButI remember that feeling when the phone rang.
You didn't know who was going tobe on the other end of it,
(40:49):
and you didn't have the option tobe like, I think I'll just
let this one go to voicemail.You had to either take the phone call
or I mean just not know whohad called. I mean that there was
you know, answering machines and stuf. But but anyways, I remember that
being one of the one of thetimes in my life, the only time
I've ever had and I've had somepretty you know, stressful moments. We
talked about one earlier where I failedout law school and stuff, but I
(41:13):
never had that feeling again where itwas just this complete like it was like
your body was wanting to your bodywas panicked, and your mind you were
like, what are you doing?Just calm down, This is not the
way you want to feel. Butyour mind wouldn't sync up with what your
your body was doing. But thatwas that was back in the days when
you had like the Rolodex, phonenumbers and everything else. But yeah,
(41:36):
okay, that's a good okay,thank you. So last question that I
always ask people that tell an analogstory. Have you told any of these
stories to your kids? And whatis their reaction of how you how you
made it somewhere without a map ora phone or GPS or anything, How
how you overcame anything that now wouldbe not even are they evil? Do
(42:00):
you think that they're able to graspit or is it like a just a
different language like they I don't thinkso. I mean I have told them
some of these stories, certainly theone about going to Wilmington, for sure,
and they think it's a great story. They love it, but they're
they're not able to understand like youknow, the Thomas Guide element of it,
or the you know, the wholegetting a map or or you know,
(42:22):
even using the internet to make yourselfa printed copy of because for them,
they I mean, honestly, mykids are pretty savvy kids. My
son, you know, drives himselfrises himself to and from school. But
my younger kids, I don't knowif they were on the other side of
town, if they would know howto get back to home without a cell
(42:45):
phone. I'm not positive about that, and I don't know, you know,
I mean, I'm not sure whenthat like, but it seemed to
be baked in. When we werekids, you knew which way north and
south and east and west were justbecause you were alive, you know.
And we were just having this conversationwith my youngest one this last week,
just going in the car figuring out, Okay, well, which way is
north? It's you know that way? And which way south? Was the
(43:07):
opposite way? And how about east? And like, well, in fairness,
in fairness to your daughter, youlived near the ocean where the ocean
breeze would always come from the west, so you had the sun. Obviously
we all did, but you are, yeah, it's just like if you
lived in Chicago, the lake,the lake is there, everything's north south
based on the lake, like youknow. So in fairness to your daughter,
(43:29):
you're you're living in a different areathan you grew up in, in
an area where everything looks the samein either direction. For so, I
guess the moral, guys, I'vebeen trying and failing here, so I'm
not going to go for any moremorals. The moral of the story is,
don't let your kids start washing Dawson'sCreek. Well, I think,
(43:52):
I mean, the moral of thestory is is like I was trying so
hard to make something happen, youknow, whether it was going to law
school or driving to Wilmington, Iwas trying so hard to make something happen,
and it wasn't until I finally justkind of came home and decided that
I needed to, you know,put my all my efforts into paying off
that law school debt and just kindof got around to the things I really
(44:15):
should have been doing years before,which I mean, I don't think ambition
is bad, but like just rememberlike the you know, wake up at
the right time, you get towork at the right time, you do
your job, you come home,you pay your bills, and you be
an adult, and then other stuffstarts to happen. Like when I met
Chrissy, I was not in theexact perfect place, but I was definitely
(44:37):
four years past where I had beenwhen the story of Wilmington occurred, and
a lot had changed in that time. I had paid off a lot of
that debt. I hadn't paid offall that debt, but I paid off
a lot of that debt. Ihad done some work, you know,
several years of work that was youknow, just not fun, but it
just needed to be done. AndI think for me, anyways, the
(45:00):
ability to stop being I don't knowif you'd relate it to Peter Pan or
if you'd relate it to like DonQuixote or whatever, but like the ability
to stop being someone who's always chasingafter some fantastic dream and to just focus
on, Hey, okay, Igotta do X, Y and Z step
one two three. That was whenI really started to see some of the
(45:21):
things that I deeply wanted for myselfto start to happen, even though it
may certainly didn't happen in any waythat I thought it was going to.
It just you know, I youknow, I was a type of a
person that uh that was I wasjust you know, growing up. I
don't know how to say it otherthan that I think I think, you
(45:42):
know, I had I had alot of decisions that I made when I
was younger. I don't regret them, but I can't imagine making the same
decisions knowing what I know now.It's just a different life, you know.
Yes, So if I can summarizewith relating to something you've already said,
can I is it safe to say, as we wrap up, that
(46:04):
you truly do care less about whatyou see out of your window? Now?
I mean, I'd love to moveto these you see. You see,
I keep failing to come up withjust something that you can agree on
and realize, Wow, you havea you have a family, and your
kids are beyond happy, and they'reproductive, and they're safe and healthy,
(46:25):
and they love where they live.And and but you what's that? Twenty
years later, I'm no longer likeliving for myself. I'm I'm living but
but but even but even what I'msaying is what you see out of your
window doesn't matter as much because whatis inside the window, your family,
(46:46):
your wife, your kids. Yeahthat's good. Wow, Okay, why
has it been so hard to saythat? Yeah? I mean yeah,
yeah, okay, Oh boy,I mean okay, I honestly think I
am. I am blessed more waymore than I deserve. And I mean
(47:09):
I I stumbled, you know,I stumbled just without any there's nothing about
I mean, I don't know how, but yeah, here we are and
it is a good it's a goodlife, you know, And I don't
know how that happened, and I'mthrilled that did. But yeah, I'm
gonna not try to have you connectthe dots anymore because I can. But
(47:31):
that's okay, it's okay, allright, thank you for being part of
episode two. Yes, sir,five Great Questions podcast. Would you recommend
this podcast to other people? Sure? Absolutely, okay if you have.
If you're listening right now, youwill find my email in the show notes.
If you think you have a greatstory or would like to be part
(47:53):
of this podcast in the future,please send me an email. You don't
have to tell me the whole story. I like spontaneit, but if you
just give me a summary, Iwould love to hear it and with without
further ado, is is Dawson's Creekstill in syndication as far as you know?
I don't know. I've got theDVDs. I haven't watched them in
(48:13):
years, but maybe they'll pull themup sometime soon. All right, let's
pull out Dawson's Creek and pull outthat screenplay and dust everything off. That
sounds good. Hey you, Thankyou? All right, Chris, We'll
see you later.
She actually talked, get out ofhere. Oh yeah, you've really gotten
into the bad habit of asking ahuge amount of questions. A little bit,
just a question between friends. Youknow, I can go one of
those cappuccino places they let you justsit there. What are we gonna do
(00:23):
there? Talk? We can talk. I'll go if I don't as to
talk. She actually talked to me. Man, all right, well,
welcome to episode number two of theFive Great Questions podcast. As I said
before, I don't know if therewill be twenty nine more episodes or if
(00:46):
this is the final episode. Wehave no idea. But I'm confident that
my experiences of meeting people and collectingstories will yield fruitful stories from here to
eternity. Really, so I'm notworried about that. With me today is
my longtime friend Chris. Chris sayhello, Hello, And as always,
(01:12):
Chris has been emailed the Five GreatQuestions. Of course there are more than
five, but I just pick mybest five. At the time of the
interview, Chris has received these fivequestions just before coming on air. Is
that correct, that's correct? Yes, okay, so you have had time
to peruse these five questions. Somemight have you know what we would call
(01:34):
shorter small talk answers, but arestill fun and some, depending on the
person. That's why I send five, might have a story involved, and
that's what I'm interested in. SoI'm hoping that. And again, this
is a lot of trust on mypart because I'm picking people that I'm trusting
(01:56):
are going to give me and theaudience good story from one of those questions.
Do you feel, mister Chris,do you feel confident that you're going
to provide a good story from oneof those five questions? You know what
the truth is. You could choosemore than one, but let's start with
one. I think I've got it. Yeah, I think I've got a
story. I mean, I hopeit's a good story. I hope I
can tell it. Well, okay, do you want to do you want
(02:17):
to do a little do you wantto do a little setup or or or
do you want to start by tellingtelling us which question you thought was the
which question sparked you? Well?I think you were asking about things from
a time, an analog time,things that basically before the kind of all
(02:40):
inclusive. You know, your lifeis on your phone, You're constantly connected,
and what is the story from thattime that that might be kind of
fun to to look back and rememberwhat life was like before all of the
connection issues kind of started. Okay, so that's yeah, that's fine with
me. Let's so, is thisgonna involve color I d No, I
(03:06):
don't think I'll involve caller ID.Although that that is that is a good
story. I've got one for youthat is from this time, but it's
a it's a it's a little bitdifferent one than that. Is it a
writer? No? Okay? So, uh so the the time is the
early the early two thousands, andyes, the Internet existed, but no,
(03:29):
it was not on your phone.At least it wasn't on my phone.
I certainly didn't have anything close toa BlackBerry or anything like that.
I was a young man who hadmade a terrible mistake of choosing to go
to law school. Let's admit,let's admit that that choice is subjective in
retrospect. True. I mean,honestly, it could have gone either way.
(03:51):
When I made the choice, itseemed like a good idea, and
so, uh I went to lawschool with the best of intentions, worked
my very hardest, found myself failingout by one and a half points a
point and a half after working thehardest I had ever worked up to that
point academically or anything like that.And what I found out when I was
(04:12):
in law school is like, hardwork is very important, but however,
there are also just some really reallysmart people out there. And I feel
like I have a certain level ofintelligence, but some people are just beyond
the pale geniuses and I'm not oneof them. And I'm sure if the
situations might have been different, orif I had done it at a different
time in my life, I mighthave made the cut and I might be
(04:34):
a lawyer right now. But thatdidn't happen. I didn't make the cut,
and so I found myself in prettyshort order failing out of law school
and then moving from the apartment thatI had been living in, which is
right next to the law school,right downtown San Diego, and then moving
out to some friends of mine.They didn't have an extra room, but
(04:55):
they had like a space in thegarage that I think I was for like
three hundred bucks a month. AndI was scrambling at this point right because
my plan up until a week priorto that, had been to go on
to year two of law school andthen year three of law school and then
try and figure things out from there. But what ended up happening is that
(05:20):
I had no plan B at all, and I had to think really fast
on my feet. So one ofthe things I knew I needed to do
relatively quickly was figure out what Iwas going to do for work. And
the first thing that came to mymind was that I really wanted to try
and get outside and do something withmy hands. And for whatever reason,
I'm not even sure how it happened, I found myself working on these things
(05:44):
called infinite pools, where basically youwould be constructing these huge pools in these
backyards in like the San Diego theGreater San Diego area, just massive,
massive pools and they would have theselike lips on them where the water would
flow over so you couldn't see theedge. They were called infinity pools.
They're probably a lot more common nowand and it was awesome. It didn't
(06:09):
pay very well at all, andI was the brand new kid on the
on the crew, and so Ifound myself inside of these huge water tanks
underground, like digging out because thethe back hoe or whatever would knock dirt
in and you'd find yourself digging out, like cleaning out the the the the
(06:30):
water tank. And if you hadany kind of claustrophobia, which I didn't
know I had until I was underground, you you were having a pretty bad
day. So that's where I foundmyself. And I'm talking like within three
weeks of having been in law school, I am in like, you know,
ankle deep muddy water with a bucket, like bailing out some you know,
(06:53):
five hundred gallon thing and it's hotand I'm sweaty, and like,
this is this is my life?Now, this is what I did.
Do you do you want me tomake a comparison or a joke regarding that
these were called infinity pools? Isthat the future you were looking at in
the situation? And to be quitefriend, I mean, with the kindle
(07:15):
like dead I had come out oflaw school, this was gonna be happening
for a while. There was gonnabe a few years of you know,
just sucking it up and working hard. So that's that's the position I was
in, living in a friend's garage, going to this job where I'm underground
for most of the day in andit's not it's not fun, and I
(07:39):
gotta figure out what to do next. And meanwhile, in the little spare
time that I have, I am, for whatever reason I am, I'm
finding myself drawn to the the thewhat do they call it? The the
afternoon like replays? What do theycall this? The uh? The what
(08:00):
is it called? That's right,I'm finding myself drawn to the reruns of
a specific show. And that showthat show is Dawson's Creek. Now you
might think that it was because ofI think the girl's name was Joey in
the show. It was not.It was not because of Pacy or even
(08:22):
Dawson. It was because I reallyreally liked the landscape of the TV show.
I thought that looked like a beautifulplace to live. And when you're
spending your days under the ground diggingout infinity pool reservoirs, and you're spending
your nights sleeping in someone's spare spacein a garage, you start to kind
(08:48):
of do some research. So Ilooked up online and I guess this is
not the analog part of the storyyet, but I did. I looked
up online where is this thing beingfilmed? Because I had never seen any
kind of like landscape like that before. And you know, turns out it
was being filmed in North Carolina,in a town called Wilmington. Now I
(09:09):
was living in San Diego. Iwas living right outside of San Diego State,
right on Montezuma Boulevard, which isjust right next It's in La Mesa.
It's right next to the San DiegoState campus. So I mean,
you could not be you could notbe more like opposite the side of the
country where this thing was being filmed. But I was drawn to it.
(09:31):
I was just certain that this wasthe place for me. And fortunately for
myself, I had written a screenI had written a screenplay that I thought
would be would be perfect to sharewith the good people at screen Jim's Studios,
which is where Dawson's Creek was beingfilmed. So Frank capra iid who
(09:54):
you probably know his probably his grandfatherfrom the the movie It's a Wonderful Life.
He had, for whatever reason,decided to make a film studio in
North Carolina. I'm sure it wasfor like the tax credits or whatever.
And he built it in Wilmington,and that is where they were filming.
(10:15):
Warner Brothers was filming Dawson's Creek,and so I did a little research and
I said, that looks pretty amazing, and so I came up with a
plan. It was not a goodplan, but it was a plan.
And the plan was to take myscreenplay to fill what little possessions I had
(10:35):
into my car, to take myselfand my belongings in my screenplay to Wilmington,
North Carolina, to meet the peoplewho made Dawson's Creek, and to
get my to get my film made. This was my plan. And so
so you hold on, So justtake a breath. Yes, so,
(10:58):
and let's remind the audience just twoto three years prior you had graduated,
uh from from what from little juniorcollege? Or where did you graduate from
prior to this? Let's just setthe stage. Oh yeah, so I
had graduated from cal Pauly San Lea'sobispo uh with a pretty good GVA and
(11:20):
stuff like like maybe like a yearand a half earlier. No, I
think they're okay, So, andan ass by your name, like,
did you did you actually graduate withhonors? Yeah? Magnicum lud Yes,
okay, so magnicum loud not we'renot just a pretty good GPA. Yeah,
but let's be completely Let's be completelyfair. That was a surprise for
(11:45):
all of us. Let's just beit doesn't matter. Your work. Your
work resulted in you graduated magnicum loud, and then you go to law school
and it doesn't work out. No, it's okay, it's it doesn't work
out. And then now you're insomeone's garage or basement or whatever. Oh
yes, and you're so you're workingunderground and you're living underground, well,
(12:07):
not yes, but outside in theyes, in the the rough and tumble
elements of scandea. Okay. Andmeanwhile, meanwhile, your imagination is playing
with this fictional town where the girlsare cute and the money is flowing and
the convertibles are probably flowing too.Oh yeah, and you can see yourself
(12:28):
in that setting. Is that correct? I just thought, you know,
if they're making movies in a placethat's not Hollywood, because I had lived
I actually lived with you as yourroommate in Culver City for a year,
and I was like, well,this is not the place for me,
but that's kind of where I waslike, Oh, this could be fun,
like making movies could be a blast, but I would never want to
do it living in Hollywood just frommy experience, which was probably too short
(12:52):
of a too short of a time, but just being honest with myself,
being like, well, the ideaof being around something that creative for a
living, that sounds like a blast. But if I could do it somewhere
that didn't like have wall the wallconcrete, that would be what would be
ideal for me. And so Iwas thinking, Okay, so you thought
you found a Hollywood outside of Hollywood. I'm just trying to summarize. Okay,
(13:13):
yes, yes, but now theonly question I'm gonna ask, and
I'm gonna let you go is thelevel of risk that you are trading is
what's interesting to me. So youdid the hard work of college. You
graduated magnetum loud. You gave itan honest and honest college try for law
(13:35):
school, Let's be honest, noteverybody makes it. You gave it an
honest college try. And then youwant to trade that for one of the
highest uncertainty situations known to Western culture, which is trying to get a screenplay
sold or oh yeah or picked up. Okay, I just want to continue
and to be you know, tobe honest. It was probably just based
(13:58):
on the idea that I really didn'thave anything else going on at the time.
This was probably this was probably ofall of the options I had,
this could have been the best ones. Okay, so what happens there?
You're in the garage in San Diego. Yeah, So I'm in the garage
in San Diego and I have toget to and I have to get to
(14:18):
Welmington, North Carolina. And thisis where things stopped being or start you
start to understand how things were analogat the time as opposed to now.
I had to plan that trip fromSan Diego to get to North Carolina,
and I had been around the UnitedStates once before this, but I was
(14:39):
eight and I was not driving,and so it was definitely like one of
these things where I had to figureout, Okay, well, how much
money am I gonna need for gas? Am I gonna be able to make
that happen? What are the roadsI'm gonna take? Where am I gonna
stay? Am I gonna sleep inmy car? All this stuff had to
be figured out before I left,and I put together this folder, like,
(15:01):
you know, a three ring binderfull of directions from where I was
to where I wanted to go,and then at some point I just kind
of had to head out and Ijust kind of started driving east and hold
on what Sorry, I'm not goingto ask a lot of questions. I
know the audience, if anyone's listeningto this, is thinking, just let
them talk. Did I just thoughtI never heard about the binder before,
(15:24):
So that's interesting to me. Okay, Number two, what did you say
goodbye to your friends? Because youdidn't just have strangers in San Diego,
you had friends. I want toknow what you said to your friends.
Well, I think that's a goodthing about having some good friends when this
happened. I did have two orthree really good friends that had had since
I was pretty young, who livedright in the area, and so we
(15:48):
had, you know, talked fordays, actually weeks at that point,
just kind of about like, whatdo you do when the plan for your
life that you kind of set yoursight on and you put your entire effort
into. What do you do thatyou know doesn't work out? What's the
next step? So what so whatdo you do if you're basically at a
point where you got to try somethingdifferent and you're still I mean I was
(16:10):
still under twenty five. I thinkI was twenty twenty two, twenty three.
When this happened, twenty three,I think, and so in my
mind, especially the way that Iwas raising stuff, I felt like I
was super long in the tooth.But honestly, twenty three is nothing,
you know, and we know thatnow at you know, I'm almost I'll
turn forty five this year. Butwhen I was twenty three years old and
(16:30):
I was looking at I think itwas like thirty five thousand dollars of debt.
And that's back when thirty five thousanddollars was thirty five thousand dollars.
Now it's not the same. Yeah, it's a different it's a it's a
different system now, But back thenthat was you know, I was certain
looking at that that even if Igot a good job with the wind at
my back, it was going tobe five to ten years of just solid,
(16:53):
you know, unpleasant, uh hard, you know jobs, And that's
what it turned out to be.To get out of that hole. Well
let's but let's let's keep it.So what did you say to your friends
when you when you were leaving,when you were determined to go. I
don't want to mean the talking before, but what did you just the day
before you left, That's what Iwant to hear. I I honestly,
(17:17):
I don't remember. I probably said, hey, guys, I'm going UH
and I'm not coming back. I'mheading out to I'm heading out to to
UH to check out Wilmington and UH. I don't even know if it got
more specifically, I don't know,you'd have to ask them. I I
think I probably was just said goodbyeand and I don't know that we had
(17:37):
I don't know that I had agood plan at that point. I think
it was just okay, so youhit the road and you go, yeah,
and I had uh, I hadnever been probably passed. I don't
know Scottsdale, Arizona on my ownprior to that. And so I'm driving
out and I do remember, youknow, you're using these maps and you
(17:59):
have a basic outline of where you'regoing, and you just don't know what
to expect. So the first thingthat kind of shocked me was the beauty
of New Mexico, because I knowI've been to New Mexico at some point
in my life before then, butI had never seen like those mountains were
so amazing and like purple, justbecause of the time of year and the
(18:21):
sun, the way it was SETTIit was amazing. And then I remember
driving into West Texas and I don'tmeet any offense to Texas, but I
did not find that part of Texasto be beautiful. And honestly, I
mean it took me a while oncewe finally got once I finally got to
the part of Texas where there's hillsand trees, and that was that was
pretty great. And uh and andthe thing I do remember, though,
(18:45):
is that by the time I meantin Texas and I didn't have any kind
of a digital camera or anything.So I had one of those little disposable
Kodak you know cameras. You'd stopand I'd stop and take pictures. And
I knew I wanted to read rememberthe places that I had been, and
so I got this this panoramic cameraand you would just you know, like
(19:06):
I don't I didn't have enough moneyto stay in like nice hotels or anything,
so i'd you know, sleep ata truck stop or whatever like that.
And then as the sun was rising, I can remember like driving on
top of some of those overpasses inTexas and just taking pictures of just like
vast, endless sunrises and stuff likethat. It was. It was really
cool. It was really fun,but it was definitely a strange kind of
(19:30):
almost like a I don't know,I wasn't like you're definitely alone, but
you're not really that lonely as you'redriving, and uh, and certainly like
it's a task. You know,you've set yourself a goal and so you
feel like you've got a reason tokeep moving forward. And uh. And
it was it was fun. Itwas good. It was a good trip
(19:51):
out. I think you're getting closerto the Atlanta area. That part of
the country is beautiful. And thenI cut up somewhere in there. I
started smoking and I didn't stop forabout fifty fifteen years. Okay, so
side note, okay note, okay, so okay, So for like Joyce,
(20:15):
so hold on, We're not gonnaspend a lot of time on this
one, but I just just giveme the short. So you're at a
truck stop. I'm gonna you're gettinggas. Yeah, okay, you walk
inside. I know how it works. They're all those things are taunting you,
all those colors and soda and sugarand prices and whatever. You can't
have alcohol, because you're driving,and then what happens. Well, I
(20:37):
mean, it's not like it neversmoked anything before. Cigars were something I'd
have every once in a while growingup with friends and stuff or or things
like that. But I do rememberon this specific trip as I'm driving,
thinking to myself, well, ifthere was ever a time to start smoking,
now would be the time. AndI just kind of decided I'm gonna
I'm gonna give this a shot.So, you know, trying different cigarettes
(20:59):
and in which ones I liked,trying to get the hold it right in
your hand, which is a veryinteresting process. There's there's a right way
and the wrong way to hold acigarette, and when you're starting out you
don't know how to hold it right. And then if you're smoking in your
car, which I was like,there's like the whole like do you how
far down do you roll the windowso it doesn't come back on to you?
And there's a whole thing you're learning. It's a skill, is what
(21:22):
I'm saying. You're learning a skill. And that was kind of maybe I
was just looking for a hobby atthe time, and so it seemed as
good as any and uh, andyou tried the different types. You know,
did you like the stuff for thementhol? No, I do not
like this stuff for the menthol?And what did you what did you land
on? Well? Okay, Sofor a time it was it was the
(21:45):
U. It was the cheapest oneI could find for because I am basically
a thrifty person. But after awhile I got to the point where the
uh oh gosh, American spirits,the organ light blue American spirits. It
took me fifteen years to stop smoking, and those were the ones that I
(22:08):
would I would buy a pack ofthose each week, and i'd have one
there's twenty in a pack. I'dhave one or two of them at night,
and at least once a week forthat fifteen year period. I'd like
at some point in the week i'dquit, I'd crumple up the pack,
i'd throw it away, and beforethe next week was out, i'd have
another pack. Because it's you know, they don't They're not kidding you start
(22:30):
smoking those things. It's it's liketrying to quit eating bacon or something,
or stop drinking drinking coffee. It'sit's a very pleasant way to spend a
moment. So yeah, yeah,yeah, So okay, that's a side
note. I didn't know, soI knew that, but I didn't know
how long it lasted. So you'retelling me that lasted after you were married.
Well, this was the thing.I mean, that was definitely the
(22:52):
intention was to quit. I hadevery intention to quit, and I did
eventually quit. It's been a lotokay, y, yes or no?
Who did this one? Yes?After? And I mean it was one
of those things there. I was, you know, in conversation with my
wife, with Chrissy, and Iwas like, hey, this is something
i'd like to stop at some point, and she's like, I'd like it
if you stopped too, And itwas just like, all right, well,
(23:15):
we'll work on that. And itwas never like I never like I
had maybe two cigarettes a day atthe end of the day. But it
was something that's okay, yeah,that's okay. Well, I think most
people listening would would understand. Let'slet's get you to Wilmington and let's hear
what happens in Wilmington. Okay,So I'm driving into Wilmington, and I'll
tell you right now, there havebeen a lot of places where I have
(23:37):
gone where I when I got there, it was a letdown. Okay,
that is not the case in Wilmington, North Carolina. In Wilmington, North
Carolina, when I showed up,the first surprise that anyone who's been there
knows this, but I had noidea, is that when you're you're showing
up in the town, this riverthat runs through the town is amazing.
It's beautiful. It's not like ariver that you think of in Cali.
(24:00):
It's big. There's actually a littlebit up the way from Wilmington there's like
a naval ship that's been like docked, you know, pretty close to Wilmington,
and it's you know, it's afull on ship in this river,
and you come across into the cityand the boardwalk downtown it's fantastic. It's
(24:21):
like the it's it's got just likea walkway right along the river. It's
beautiful. I remember I had myguitar with me and I went to an
open mic night and it was aton of fun. Played a song at
the open mic night. One ofthe guys introduced me to Pat's Blue Ribbon.
That was pretty cool. Okay,So you know, okay, number
(24:45):
one, can you you've got agarage? Can you can you find somewhere
to set your laptop. That's numberone. Well, see has that better?
That's fine, that's fine, that'sfine. Okay, So number one
so far, you're you're sleeping inyour car. I just want to I
just want to give you a summaryso far where two years removed from graduating
Magneicum loud from cal Poly. Oh, you've and you're smoking the cheapest American
(25:08):
spirits, drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon,and sleeping in your car. I just
want to just catch everyone up.Yeah, okay, continue, continue.
So I had planned for a coupleof days in Wilmington where I could stay
in a hotel, and so Idid. When I got to Wilmington,
(25:30):
I actually got myself a hotel room, which was pretty nice because I had
been staying uh, you know,in uh in my car for the most
part on the whole drive over.And then one night, I remember,
I walked on down to the inif you've been most of you probably haven't
been to Wilmington, but I've beento Wilmington. You know, like downtown
Wilmington, there's there's you know,like kind of like a place where there's
several places where you can you canfish, kind of off the pier or
(25:53):
something like that. And so Iremember I had this total uh uh this
this evening where I was walking downthis pier and I sat down with this
local guy who was fishing, andwe just kind of talked about I didn't
even remember what it was, justkind of like life, but I remember
his name was Famous. That washis name. His name was Famous,
(26:15):
and he was just an African Americanman. He was probably in his like
sixties, maybe his seventies, althoughyou know, I didn't ask him his
age or anything, and I don'tFor whatever reason, I don't think either
one of us said this line,but the line that keeps on coming up
whenever I think about that conversation withthe guy named Famous, I always think
(26:40):
about the line, as long asyou're lying to yourself, you might as
well go online to everybody else.I remember that line. I don't know
why, but that's the line.As long as you're lying to yourself,
you might as well keep on lyingto everybody else, or something like that.
And that was a really fun timejust getting to know not even really
getting to know somebody, but justkind of like hanging out with somebody.
And it was just one of thoseI'm sure you've been somewhere where you don't
(27:02):
know anybody and you sit down andstart talking to him. Was just a
good conversation. So anyways, thenext day I went. I had some
places I wanted to see, somelocations from the Dawson's Creek that I always
wanted to check out. So Ichecked in with the local people and said,
okay, well where were these scenesfilmed? And so I found out
where the beach scenes had been filmed, and I went over to see them.
(27:25):
And then I figured out where someof the scenes for like the home
that like Dawson had lived and hadlike a dock that came out of the
back of the home, and soI went and found the neighborhood where those
homes existed, and that was reallyfun. And then I ended up figuring
out where screen Gems was and Iwent over there. And from the experience
that I'd had in southern California,I expected screen Gems to be set up
(27:49):
similarly to Sony or something like that. And if you haven't been to Sony
Studios or around Sony Studios, Imean, you can get to the front
gates, but you can't get inside. I mean it's unless you have an
appointment or anything like that, you'renot getting any closer. Well, screen
gyms, at least at the timeI was there, was not like that.
(28:10):
Screen gyms was like open and youcan just like walk in. So
here's me. I'm twenty three yearsold, I've driven across country. I've
got my screenplay tucked underneath my myyou know, my shoulder, and I'm
walking on the lot of Screen GymStudios and I walk around and it's it's
pretty cool to be there, andthen I at some point it's lunchtime,
(28:33):
so I decided to go over andI sit down to have some lunch,
and I start talking to the guywho's running the I don't know, I
guess it's a canteen or something likethat. And he starts talking about how
I think it's called the Commissary.Yeah, and he's just talking about how
he's, you know, worked onthese different projects and the different people he's
seen, and how it's a reallyfun place to work. And I don't
(28:56):
know, I mean, he knows, I'm sure he knows I'm not a
regular there. I'm not sure thathe had any curiosity at all of who
I was, But at some point, I think it became clear that I
was just kind of there with thescreenplay under my shoulder or whatever, and
I don't know. I just rememberbeing really kind. And I don't think
he gave me the food, buthe let me get the food and sit
(29:18):
down in the thing. And sureenough, I'm sitting there and I'm eating,
and I've got my screenplay in frontof me, and I look over
like two or three booths and thereis Frank Capra the third and I know
what he looked like. I don'tremember how I found out what he looked
like, but that was him.He's three booths over and he's sitting there
and he's having his food, andI've got my screenplay that I have brought
(29:41):
all the way across the country.That I could just, you know,
now, I could go and,you know, talk to this guy.
And I could not bring myself todo that. And I mean it would
not have worked. I would havecertainly failed. But to drive all the
way across the country, be threebooths away from that guy, and to
(30:02):
not just at least go up andsay, hey, I'm so and so
from California and this is my sweetI didn't I couldn't do it, So
I love you. What okay?Well was the screenplay called screenplay? Oh
no, it was Homestead Bicycles.That was the one. So I oh
boy. So I left Homestead BicyclesScreenplay in the commissary at screen Gym's studios,
(30:25):
and I got back in my carand I started driving home. And
I really had no idea how toget home. I mean I knew,
I knew basically what you know.I had a okay, hold hold on,
hold on. So so you didn'tgo back to the hotel or back
to the open mic, or backto the fishing with famous, or walk
around the town or look for morelocations. You got straight in your car
(30:47):
and started driving west. That's myrecollection. Like honestly, like I don't
think I had ever been in atown where I had felt like more just
like, oh, this is reallyfun, this feels like my speed,
These people seem awesome. I mean, it wasn't perfect. I'm not gonna
say that. There was there wasa sense there where like you kind of
(31:08):
felt like it didn't like it didn'ttotally fit. But no place totally fits.
I hadn't. I mean, I'vebeen to several towns since then,
when I've thought to myself, well, if I ever found a place that
felt like home, I'd probably justgo there and you know, try and
get started or whatever. And nowat this stage in my life, I
mean, I am where we are, and we're gonna be here for a
(31:29):
while. We have kids, andwe're set, you know, to be
here until the kids stopped meeting usto you know, till they're on their
way. But at that point inmy life, I don't think i'd ever
been anywhere before where just everything felt, everything felt like, oh yeah,
this could make sense. And thekiller of it was is that at the
same time I was having that thought, and the other side of my mind
(31:51):
was saying, oh yeah, butI've got this huge amount of debt I
gotta take care of and I haveno idea how I could. I mean,
I just couldn't figure out how Iwould do that. My only my
last question is did you have anactive conversation with yourself after not talking to
Frank Kapper the third where you said, uh, where you said one of
(32:12):
two things. Wow, I guessthis was just a little diversion and like
a vacation, and I guess it'sdone or oh shoot, I'm not sure
if I want this path. Well, I mean I've talked to myself several
times about it, and I thinkwhat I've come up with is the idea
that no, sorry, sorry,let's go. I'm talking about as you're
leaving right then, what was ordo you not remember? What were you
(32:36):
thinking right when you left? Likeyou literally just got in your car.
Oh well, I guess I guessI got better go pay off that debt.
Let's go, I mean, honestly, yeah, well, I mean,
you've known me for a long time, and if there's one thing that
I mean is true about myself isthat I don't always have the best ability
to be like self aware in themoment of what's happening. I just kind
(32:58):
of act or react, and thenyou know, it takes years to figure
out why I did that. SometimesI don't ever know why I did what
I did, you know, andit's I think maybe I'm not Maybe that's
not the same for everybody, ButI do remember really wishing after the fact
that I had had the wherewithal muchearlier in life to ask myself like questions
(33:22):
like okay, well, what isit that you want to do? Or
more important than like what type ofa place would you like to where would
you like to live type of athing, and then kind of try to
build some of my decisions off ofthat pattern, as opposed to I think
for much of my late teens andearly twenties, I was really scrambling just
(33:43):
to try and catch up to whereI thought my peers already were, and
then also to try and get somekind of a career, a label of
some kind that was going to belike official sounding and you know, adult
type of thing. If I wereall back and do it again, I
probably wouldn't have spent that that muchtime, uh, pursuing those types of
(34:06):
goals as much as I would havejust tried to figure out, like,
well, what do you want yourwhat do you want your you know,
what do you want to see whenyou look out of your your window?
Like that's the thing that was presentin Wilmington, and it's been present some
other places I've lived too, Butlike you look outside of the window in
Wilmington and there's beauty there. It'slike, you know, natural beauty.
There's things to see and do that. But is that is that your Is
(34:28):
that your highest goal in life oror even one of the list of the
top five things in life for mostpeople what they look out their window.
Oh well, I mean I supposeno. But I'm like, I guess.
I mean, I guess, likewhat I ended up doing for a
living. I'm a teacher, andhonestly, I could be teaching. I
could be teaching in San Luis,Obispo, or I could be teaching in
(34:50):
in Wilmington, although I'll be honestwith you have looked at the teachers compensation
North Carolina and that would probably bea mistake. But I mean, like,
oh, I guess what I'm tryingto say is I if I could
talk to my younger self, I'dsay, hey, shoot for those goals
that you think are a little bitcrazy, because even if you don't reach
those goals, you know it's betterto It's better to have shot for a
(35:14):
goal that you that you you know, are passionate about, that you something
that you you know really want,as opposed to try to do what you
think is the right thing to dofor whatever reason it might be. Whether
it's like did you well, so, did you I only have one more
cart? Did you do you nowwish that you would have spoken to Frank
Capper the third. I wish nowthat I had spoken to Frank Capter the
(35:38):
third and I had asked him foran entry level job at screen Gyms.
I I think I probably did theright thing by not showing him my screenplay.
And yet and yet, if youwould have gotten a job there,
yeah, you may not have metyour wife. Well, this is true,
and that I mean, that's agood point. You know, you
(35:58):
you can't, you can't, youcan't, you know, look in the
rear view mirror too much, Iwould say. Moving forward from that thing,
one of the things that I didtake away from that is just how
much I do love at least goingto places that you know, inspire,
like beautiful places. If you can't, you know, if you can't live
(36:20):
somewhere beautiful, at least getting outto the ocean, you know, as
often as you can, and getinto the mountains when you can, and
and and seeing that kind of stuff. I do think. I do think
when I think about what I'd likefor my children, I think I'd love
for my kids to be able tolive somewhere where they have some beautiful like
you know, scenery and and andhiking options and things like that. Okay,
(36:43):
Okay, Look, I don't wantto downplay the value of living somewhere
beautiful. I've I despite my upsand downs, I've actually lived in very
beautiful places. I grew up inthe Wine Country. I've lived in Nevada
City. I've lived in West LosAngeles. I've lived in nooks of the
Hollywood Hills. I've lived in thethe Poshost neighborhood in Nashville. I've lived
in really great places. I don'twant to downplay that. But you just
(37:07):
told us a story about how youcompletely threw caution to the wind, drove
across the country, slept in yourcar, didn't shower, started smoking,
started drinking paps blue ribbon, gotto the location you wanted, didn't didn't
do what you wanted to do,and your biggest takeaway is about where you
(37:30):
should be living. Yeah, youknow what I'm asking. Okay, Okay,
that's what I'm saying. Are thereany lessons gleamed from this? If
I was the kind of person wholearned those other lessons, I probably would
have never gotten in my car anddriven over to Wilmington. I mean,
that's just who I am. Imean, because you know what Oatman you
(37:54):
just you can never go home again, oatman. Okay, So, because
you did start this by choosing theanalog themed question, what other what other
analog? What other analog stories?Can you? Can you? Can you
grace me now that I've let yougo? Can you grace me with the
caller ID analog story to wrap usup? Okay? So this is this
(38:17):
is a similar situation for not havingall the technology of the modern age.
But I remember I had I hadmet a girl who was not from where
I was from. She was fromuh, she's from another town. And
we dated I don't think very long, maybe like three months, but it
(38:37):
was a stinger when it was over, and uh and we we were not
in touch for I guess maybe aboutsix months. And during that time she
had started school across the country atanother place. She had started college and
so and I was at that pointliving at my in my parents' uh spare
(38:57):
room and uh and and feeling allof the feelings that come along with being
I think it was eighteen. Yeah, I was eighteen years old, but
still feeling like I was far tooold to be living at home. And
I was in my I was atthe community college. It was not my
favorite time of life. So Iget a phone call on one of the
(39:19):
you know the kind of phone youplug into the wall, and there's no
caller ID, and I pick upthe phone and it's this girl that I
had dated from, you know,like six months earlier. And she's on
the phone, and she's at college, and she's at a party, and
there's like I can hear two orthree other people in the background. I
don't know who they are because Ihave never met these people. And she
(39:43):
wants me to tell her and herfriends to retell a story of the time
when we were dating, when Ihad done something kind of similar to the
story I just mentioned, but somekind of an impulsive, you know,
fun thing. And I remember,in that moment having the only panic attack
(40:05):
that I've ever had in my life. And I remember like my chest just
tightening up and my my my mindjust being just wanting to feel like I
could tell the story in a waythat was going to be normal and fun.
And I couldn't do it, andI was, you know, I
started to breathe, like kind ofhyperventilate, and I had to I had
(40:27):
to hang up the phone. Icouldn't do it, and and I hung
up the phone, and I didn'tI didn't talk to her at least by
phone again after that. I Ithink maybe we talked by letter once or
twice or something like that. ButI remember that feeling when the phone rang.
You didn't know who was going tobe on the other end of it,
(40:49):
and you didn't have the option tobe like, I think I'll just
let this one go to voicemail.You had to either take the phone call
or I mean just not know whohad called. I mean that there was
you know, answering machines and stuf. But but anyways, I remember that
being one of the one of thetimes in my life, the only time
I've ever had and I've had somepretty you know, stressful moments. We
talked about one earlier where I failedout law school and stuff, but I
(41:13):
never had that feeling again where itwas just this complete like it was like
your body was wanting to your bodywas panicked, and your mind you were
like, what are you doing?Just calm down, This is not the
way you want to feel. Butyour mind wouldn't sync up with what your
your body was doing. But thatwas that was back in the days when
you had like the Rolodex, phonenumbers and everything else. But yeah,
(41:36):
okay, that's a good okay,thank you. So last question that I
always ask people that tell an analogstory. Have you told any of these
stories to your kids? And whatis their reaction of how you how you
made it somewhere without a map ora phone or GPS or anything, How
how you overcame anything that now wouldbe not even are they evil? Do
(42:00):
you think that they're able to graspit or is it like a just a
different language like they I don't thinkso. I mean I have told them
some of these stories, certainly theone about going to Wilmington, for sure,
and they think it's a great story. They love it, but they're
they're not able to understand like youknow, the Thomas Guide element of it,
or the you know, the wholegetting a map or or you know,
(42:22):
even using the internet to make yourselfa printed copy of because for them,
they I mean, honestly, mykids are pretty savvy kids. My
son, you know, drives himselfrises himself to and from school. But
my younger kids, I don't knowif they were on the other side of
town, if they would know howto get back to home without a cell
(42:45):
phone. I'm not positive about that, and I don't know, you know,
I mean, I'm not sure whenthat like, but it seemed to
be baked in. When we werekids, you knew which way north and
south and east and west were justbecause you were alive, you know.
And we were just having this conversationwith my youngest one this last week,
just going in the car figuring out, Okay, well, which way is
north? It's you know that way? And which way south? Was the
(43:07):
opposite way? And how about east? And like, well, in fairness,
in fairness to your daughter, youlived near the ocean where the ocean
breeze would always come from the west, so you had the sun. Obviously
we all did, but you are, yeah, it's just like if you
lived in Chicago, the lake,the lake is there, everything's north south
based on the lake, like youknow. So in fairness to your daughter,
(43:29):
you're you're living in a different areathan you grew up in, in
an area where everything looks the samein either direction. For so, I
guess the moral, guys, I'vebeen trying and failing here, so I'm
not going to go for any moremorals. The moral of the story is,
don't let your kids start washing Dawson'sCreek. Well, I think,
(43:52):
I mean, the moral of thestory is is like I was trying so
hard to make something happen, youknow, whether it was going to law
school or driving to Wilmington, Iwas trying so hard to make something happen,
and it wasn't until I finally justkind of came home and decided that
I needed to, you know,put my all my efforts into paying off
that law school debt and just kindof got around to the things I really
(44:15):
should have been doing years before,which I mean, I don't think ambition
is bad, but like just rememberlike the you know, wake up at
the right time, you get towork at the right time, you do
your job, you come home,you pay your bills, and you be
an adult, and then other stuffstarts to happen. Like when I met
Chrissy, I was not in theexact perfect place, but I was definitely
(44:37):
four years past where I had beenwhen the story of Wilmington occurred, and
a lot had changed in that time. I had paid off a lot of
that debt. I hadn't paid offall that debt, but I paid off
a lot of that debt. Ihad done some work, you know,
several years of work that was youknow, just not fun, but it
just needed to be done. AndI think for me, anyways, the
(45:00):
ability to stop being I don't knowif you'd relate it to Peter Pan or
if you'd relate it to like DonQuixote or whatever, but like the ability
to stop being someone who's always chasingafter some fantastic dream and to just focus
on, Hey, okay, Igotta do X, Y and Z step
one two three. That was whenI really started to see some of the
(45:21):
things that I deeply wanted for myselfto start to happen, even though it
may certainly didn't happen in any waythat I thought it was going to.
It just you know, I youknow, I was a type of a
person that uh that was I wasjust you know, growing up. I
don't know how to say it otherthan that I think I think, you
(45:42):
know, I had I had alot of decisions that I made when I
was younger. I don't regret them, but I can't imagine making the same
decisions knowing what I know now.It's just a different life, you know.
Yes, So if I can summarizewith relating to something you've already said,
can I is it safe to say, as we wrap up, that
(46:04):
you truly do care less about whatyou see out of your window? Now?
I mean, I'd love to moveto these you see. You see,
I keep failing to come up withjust something that you can agree on
and realize, Wow, you havea you have a family, and your
kids are beyond happy, and they'reproductive, and they're safe and healthy,
(46:25):
and they love where they live.And and but you what's that? Twenty
years later, I'm no longer likeliving for myself. I'm I'm living but
but but even but even what I'msaying is what you see out of your
window doesn't matter as much because whatis inside the window, your family,
(46:46):
your wife, your kids. Yeahthat's good. Wow, Okay, why
has it been so hard to saythat? Yeah? I mean yeah,
yeah, okay, Oh boy,I mean okay, I honestly think I
am. I am blessed more waymore than I deserve. And I mean
(47:09):
I I stumbled, you know,I stumbled just without any there's nothing about
I mean, I don't know how, but yeah, here we are and
it is a good it's a goodlife, you know, And I don't
know how that happened, and I'mthrilled that did. But yeah, I'm
gonna not try to have you connectthe dots anymore because I can. But
(47:31):
that's okay, it's okay, allright, thank you for being part of
episode two. Yes, sir,five Great Questions podcast. Would you recommend
this podcast to other people? Sure? Absolutely, okay if you have.
If you're listening right now, youwill find my email in the show notes.
If you think you have a greatstory or would like to be part
(47:53):
of this podcast in the future,please send me an email. You don't
have to tell me the whole story. I like spontaneit, but if you
just give me a summary, Iwould love to hear it and with without
further ado, is is Dawson's Creekstill in syndication as far as you know?
I don't know. I've got theDVDs. I haven't watched them in
(48:13):
years, but maybe they'll pull themup sometime soon. All right, let's
pull out Dawson's Creek and pull outthat screenplay and dust everything off. That
sounds good. Hey you, Thankyou? All right, Chris, We'll
see you later.
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