January 27, 2025 • 47 mins
First Ep! Kevin & Nate lay out the motivations and direction of the pod and start the conversation.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Boom Baby back like we never were here before. Uh
Dad Pod Friday, Harbor Dad Pod, Nate Finn, Kevin Stalker.
We're in Waterworks Gallery. First time at it. Man. We
we wanted to do this pod centered around a couple
of things that we have in common, fatherhood, fitness, optimization
(00:25):
and lots of different realms and art, being a creative. Yeah,
and we have a It's funny we have a lot
of common through lines that that never overlapped. We're both
from Seattle. Probably if I told someone this the other day,
if we had a blurb and a picture of us
(00:46):
and the bios were like one of them went to
a private school in Seattle, and like one of them did,
people would probably assume it was the other picture.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Ye Man, Yeah, it's a it's been cool man. I mean,
we and we've talked about it a bunch. We were
just talking about before we press our chord. Man, it
just kind of seems that things have kind of naturally
moved into this podcast slash conversation slash space where we
(01:19):
can dedicate an hour to just talk about being a dad,
being involved in being a creative right, Like you make music,
you do art, you do videographies, you write, I scratch
on canvases and write and kind of just my son's
(01:40):
you know, shadows, house and run and seventeen still live
in the town.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Man. And they and they get it on with graffiti.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
You know, they grew up with me bringing them to
a train yard, you know what I'm saying, Like they
grew up looking at graffiti, and so when they started
doing it was like, Yo, man, this is kind of wild.
How do I how do I navigate this? How do
I have them not fall into the pitfalls that are
that world?
Speaker 3 (02:05):
You know?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
And it's just been cool man to then come up
here and kind of be surrounded by an environment that
encourages urt, you know, and then to meet you at
the gym and then it's like, Yo, well what's up man?
Like you're into kind of some cool shit, you know,
like we're kind of on that same same kind of path.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Man, how do we do this to like really for us?
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Right? Like I don't I mean, my mom will probably
listen to this, maybe.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
You know what I mean, Like my wife.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
I talked to my wife yesterday about like, man, you
can listen to She's like no, yeah, She's like, why
would I listen to it.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
It's not it's not for me.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I talk to you all the time.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, She's like, it's for dads, and I was like, man,
it's not just for dads, but it's like.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
It kind of is.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
But then it's also for like people that are just
like man, trying to sort it out, trying to sort
out like how do you balance being creative and in
a world that doesn't really encourage creative endeavors, right especially
now like with with the way AI is going, you
know what I mean, Like it just kind of like, yeah, man,
(03:12):
it makes it so it's like really less about the
individual than it is like the actual creation of the art,
Like it's got to be a certain way or it's
like oh we can just have this do that and
it's done, and it's like.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Yeah, that's cool and all.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
But like I like to see people like create weird things,
you know what I mean, And just like talk to
people that that create things. They're usually pretty interesting people.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
And fatherhood. Fatherhood is such a good seed for all
of that, because I mean, you know, I think we're
we're calling a dad pod because we're dad's but the
the constellation of what being a dad means encompasses so much.
I mean, can't be a dad without a mom, can't
be dad without kids, can't be you know. There's all
(04:02):
these pieces that make up what we're doing. But like,
I know, for me, becoming a dad was kind of stereotypically,
like that timed bomb of like it didn't happen immediately
for me, Like I wasn't like, shit, I gotta get
my life together, yeah, you know, but like over over
the first couple of years of my first kid's life,
I was like, oh shit, like I have to start
(04:24):
thinking of my life in as a future.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Before I was like maybe I'll live to see twenty five,
you know, like who cares?
Speaker 3 (04:30):
You know, I'm gonna do me.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Yeah, And now it's like, okay, I have to think
of things like legacy and generational wealth and and not
even that, just how do I get to be the
best version of me for.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
These kids to how do I create an environment for
my children to be themselves?
Speaker 1 (04:49):
You know?
Speaker 2 (04:50):
And yeah, I mean I'm a father. Ye'll put the
numbers out there. You know, I got a bunch of kids.
I got identical seventeen year old boys. They still live
in the town you were, He old when you had those.
I was twenty five. I was a man wild that's great.
It was crazy. Me and my me and my practice wife.
(05:11):
We didn't know what we were doing, you know. I
mean we're twenty five, right, like we don't you know
twins boom, here you go, right. I just started working
for the Department of Corrections in prison. It was like,
what's happening, you know? And then I got a five
year old son, a three year old son. My wife
is pregnant doing march. I've got an adopted twenty three year
(05:34):
old daughter who's gotten accepted med school, chose to med school.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Shadow, Ryan, I love you.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
A man, and just trying to learn from the things
that I took miss steps, right, I mean, twenty five
being a young dad, like you don't know shit, right,
like your is your life is right in front of
you right the way that.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
You think, And maybe it's just me.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Maybe that's just how I thought, but it was just
like things were. It was me and what I had
to do when I had to get done to to
kind of move things along where I don't know if
it's just maturation or learning from the mistakes, where now
it's like Okay, let's take a step back. What are
(06:23):
the things that I can do as their father and
as a partner and a husband to give them the
ability to just.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Be free and free in the sense of like not trying.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
To fit into a certain norm, right, not hammering them
down with oh, you gotta go, you gotta graduate from
high school, you got to go to college, you have
to do this, you have to do that. When it's like, yo,
those are good things, right, Like I'm not saying not
to do them, Like I think if you want to
(06:57):
pursue art, you know, I tell my sons now that
are that are seventeen, that are about to go into
the world, that like, if you want to be an artist, man,
don't pack a parachute. Do not pack a parachute.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Go on the boats.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Yeah, go all the way in.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
And if I ever tell you to get a real job,
you can tell me to go fuck myself, right, Like,
do it, pursue it, if you love it, do it right.
And especially now with it seems like they might be
the last generation of creatives. I mean that that work
in this physical world of mediums, you know, whether it's
(07:32):
photography or painting or drawing, like sculpting, I mean, it's
just I think they'll always be that. I think there's
always going to be like a subgroup of that.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
But like the more that we.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Detach from this physical world and get digital, like it
just yeah, I want to try to really encourage that
with them, you know, and let them know they're like, man,
you can, you can do it and it's fun, you know,
like it really is a fun way to spend your time.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
You know, Like yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
And where did you get like what was your childhood
and upbringing, Like where did you get that sense of
like you have to be true to your ideals, you
have to you have to believe in what you're about.
Did you have that support like given to you or
spoken into existence?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Stow? I was, man, I grew up pretty typical man
of the of the early eighties where it was because
you're held right now, I'm forty two, yeah, forty two,
and so it's like it was we just played sports, right,
and I always just kind of like did my thing.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
I always enjoyed trying.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I lived in it, lived and grew up in a
neighborhood that was there was lots of graffiti around, right,
There was lots of Mexican gang graffiti right, all those
you know, I think I think the kids call it
now like you know, la letters, right, and it's just
like Chicano art like everywhere, right. And I was fascinated
by it, could not could not not look at it,
(09:08):
you know, and I was I remember thinking like, man,
when did they do this?
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Why did they do this?
Speaker 1 (09:13):
What's the meaning? Yeah, it's like decoding ancient hieroglyphs or
like I gotta know what it.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
And that was where it all came from, was like
connecting it to that of just like not even just man,
but humans want to leave a mark of like, this
is my story. I did this and then let other
people try to figure it out, right, and then it
(09:37):
just and then just turned into it to graffiti, man
skateboarding and just following that trajectory, and then it kind
of learned it kind of morphed into more of acrylics
and painting and campuses and collage and just kind of
that whole that whole trajectory.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
And then about what age was that?
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Oh man, I was.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I was walking around alleys in downtown Seattle with my
friends and I was probably twelve or thirteen. You know,
we take the bus, you know shit, coming out of
White Center, West Seattle. We take the twenty one or
the twenty two and get off right right there in
Soda or we'd get off in front of the Lusty Lady,
you know, yeah, Shadow Lusty Lady, Rip P. And then
(10:25):
we just walk around, you know, we would just walk
into areas at that were I don't know, the outlawriers
right like we and we all came from We were
all up from broken homes, you know what I mean,
Like most of I think, I think one of us
as parents like stayed together. So we're all kind of now,
(10:46):
I know, looking for some sort of community, some sort
of family. And then it was fun to just walk
around and talk, you know what I mean. These are
dudes that are like about it, and it just kind
of helped me just like, man, this this is what
I like doing, you know. And I've always been kind
of drawn to like maybe maybe a different life, different
(11:11):
I don't know, subculture. Yeah, Like it's just always like
I never really was drawn to like, oh I've.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Got to do this, I've got to do that. Yeah,
until I had kids, and then it was instant like.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Oh you better, you better learn how to live in
this world yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
You better better better get a job son, you know.
And I went from you know, I was like I
was doing nothing. I was like, I was twenty five,
I was working for the Seattle Times. I wanted to
be a writer, you know what I mean, Like I
wasn't really doing much. And then I was like, yeah,
I got to get a real job here, you know.
And that's where then I rolled up started working at
the Department of Corrections, right, And it was such a
(11:48):
wild experience there.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
But and where did that decision come from? Like is
that was that something that you were like, this is
just something that's offered or something like it is a job.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah, I mean I didn't graduate high school, you know
what I'm saying, Like I stopped going to high school
in ninth grade. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, Like,
I mean I went but like kind of you know.
And now my older brother worked there and it was like, oh, dude,
you can get a job here, and it was like, oh,
you gotta get a ged And I was like, I
don't even got a g let me do. Let me
just lie on that application, you know what I mean.
(12:23):
I didn't get a check, right, And and yeah, it
was one of those things where it was just like sure,
I can get it, you know, I can do it.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
You know, And then you get in there and it's
just like.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yah, I know all these guys, you know what I mean,
Like I related more to the guys on the other
side of the door than the guys that I worked with,
you know.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
But then you just kind of.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Just become what you're around, right, like you influenced by
your environment. And then so then just like stopped being
creative in in an artistic meetia of drying and painting
and that kind of thing. And then they just went
like went into you know, the dad woodworking and I'm
(13:09):
going to build a table when I'm you know what
I mean, just like that whole my my yard became
my canvas, you know, just like I've got to make
sure it's like this and like this and like this,
and it has to be like this. And it's just
kind of like it did nothing, you know what I mean,
Like you kind of wake up divorced and it's like,
(13:32):
well that was fucking wild big chunk, Yeah, the big
chunk of my life where that like I wasn't you know,
trying to be something else, you know. And then As
my older sons got older, they started really getting into
art and really started getting into graffiti. It really started
(13:53):
getting into like who they want were going to be
and to be honest, And it was really them that
kind of like reinspired me to like do art, because
if I want to tell my sons to be something,
to do something that they enjoy, like, it's nothing if
(14:14):
I don't do it, you know what I mean. It
goes back to the whole like being a dad of
like the hypocrisy of it, you know what I mean.
Like they they know when you're full of shit, you know,
they know when you're just like saying things that that
you were told.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
You know where it's like. And so trying to shake
all that like.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Has been has been a fun a fun little onion
to start unraveling, you know, and it's been great.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Man.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Like when my sons come up here, like we sit
in a little study that we have at our house
and we do like we do art, you know, or
like I'll walk in there and one of them's at
the desk and he's writing, you know, like it's one
of those moments where.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
It's like, no, this is.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
This is this is it? You know, Like this is
this is what all the what it's about, you know,
watching your sons create things and watching them become who
they're supposed to be instead of like who I want
them to be, you know. And and that was where
with my growing up do you bring it back and
just I can shut up for a minute. It's like
(15:18):
it's always like, oh, you have to do this, you
have to do this, you have to do this.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
And I was coming from your dad, or that was
coming from my mom.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yeah, so my dad was like he just worked, you know,
like he was he worked. And then it was like
right up in the AOL chat rooms, you know what
I mean. So like like most got up in the chatroom,
met a woman on there, and then like he would
just be like hunkered down on the computer, you know
what I mean, just like you know, boom boom boom
(15:46):
business trips.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
And then it was just like oh shit.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Dad's got another family and he's gone.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
And so it was like, yeah, just all of those
things were like you learn from you know, you hold
hold things like that. And then again I don't know
if it's healing or whatever, the you know, we're just
being mature enough to know that, Like, yeah, that's as
part of the deal. It's part of the journey, man,
Like it's not the end, you know. And for a
(16:14):
long time, like held the anger for these things of like, oh,
it didn't work out the way that I thought it
was going to be. And then yeah, I just try
to be a little bit different, and I just learned
from the things that didn't work, you know, or the
things that held you back or held me back.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
And yeah, it's been it's been great, man.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
But and how much of that anger did you use
as like the fuel to find the discipline or the
ambition to keep pressing, you know what I mean? Like
a lot of times if kids are born with or
or internalize whatever the bigger shame, guilt, fear that are
much easier expressed as anger. A lot of that can
be Oh man, I had superpower, you.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Know, I for a long time time didn't do it well,
didn't use it well. Right, I mean it was it
was running from it, right, whether it's with drugs, alcohol, women,
you know what I mean, Like it was just like
finding these distractions and then it got to the point
(17:18):
where I was able to see in my older son's
the errors quote unquote of my ways of raising them
of like yo, like it's manifesting. I could see it
manifesting in them. I got to figure some things out.
I got to make some total changes, and like the
(17:38):
biggest one has been just like to just be yourself, man,
you know, like just just be yourself. You know, like
I put myself in an environment working in prison where
it's like.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
I should have been on the other side of the door.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Everybody that I know growing up, when they found out
that I was a COO, they were like what who,
There's no way And so then it's just yeah, finding
that and now so it's like kind of playing catch
up in a sense where it's like you just kind
of let it rip, man. And we've talked about a
(18:15):
bunch man. Really the big one was COVID. Yeah, you
know what I mean, Like I shut out COVID man.
A lot of people did not like COVID. A lot
of the people that I that I like and then
I hang out with have they took that time in
that period to switch it up right, like totally pivot
what they were doing, because it kind of felt like
(18:36):
that like that energy was like real, yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Like things might end.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
And yeah, like what's going to happen, Who's gonna do what?
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Then it just gets all crazy and political, and it
was just like, yeah, it's time to go. It's time
to like figure some things out, you know. But yeah,
what about you? Yeah it because like from the town man,
you know.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Like town Seattle kid born and raised from the north
end Wedgewood Ravenna area, so quiet streets, a lot of
old people. I went to Wedgwood Elementary and then from
there my friends branched out to go to Eckstein Middle
(19:21):
School and then to Roosevelt and Hale, and I went
to My parents gave me the option of private schools.
They're like, they're like, we can, we can look at
you know, because for me, I've I've kind of always
been the problem kid, you know, whether that's ADHD or
trauma or whatever it might be. I'm adopted. Being an
(19:43):
adult comes with a lot of trauma from the immediate
first breath of life, you know.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
And just a quick disclaimer for our few friends out
there listening, this is like the second or third time
that Nada and I have sat down had a conversation.
We trained together at a shadow CrossFit try at Harbor. Yeah,
and so, yeah, this is a learning experience. I didn't
know you were adopted man. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Yeah. My folks came from the Midwest. They my dad's
a doctor, my mom's a nurse. My dad came here
to Seattle do is residency or whatever you call it.
And they tried to have a kid for a while,
didn't work, adopted me, and then adopted my sister a
couple of years later, and then once that pressure was off,
(20:37):
they had my brother. Yeah, so I have two siblings.
And yeah, so for me as an adoptee, a lot
of that, you know. I mean, if you imagine where
you the inception of your existence, if you're a fetus
in a teenager, who's you know, you're a a shameful secret.
(21:01):
You know, you're a regret. Your everything is fear based.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
You know.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
She didn't tell anyone that she was pregnant. She barely
was even showing by the time she was nine months.
People didn't even know she was pregnant. And she had
me in the hospital and in Seattle, in Seattle and
her we've since I found her a couple of years back,
like probably eight eight years back, nine years back, and
(21:27):
we're extremely close. We're like still building through our relationship,
but like got extremely lucky as far as who she
is as a person. But her her side of the
story is that she went in to have me. She
remembers there being like a representative from an agency, adoption
(21:48):
agency in the room who was pressuring her to like
sign something, and her mom signed something on her behalf,
I think is the story. But anyway, she remembers hearing
the adoption agency woman saying something like this could be
a baby for doctor so and so, and that stuck
(22:09):
in her. Whether that I don't know, maybe maybe that
didn't happen, but she, for her, that's the story that
she experienced. And so the first thing she asked me
when I called her on the phone at age thirty
two or whatever, was like, is your dad a doctor?
I was like, yeah, you know, And so for her
that was yeah, there's there's some there's some entangled different things,
(22:33):
you know, because who knows what the system was like
in the eighties. Yeah, you know what I mean, Like, yeah,
I'm sure, I'm sure there's loopholes. There's not a lot
of tracking, you know, things weren't digital.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Yeah, everything was still in paper.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Yeah, who knows what could have been where, But anyway,
for an adoptee that's growing up with that feeling of
I have no beginning, I dropped out of the sky.
I have no relation to the world than these people
who are my parents. But they've told me since I
was conscious that like, I'm adopted, so like, I don't
(23:06):
really know what that means, but I know what it
feels like, and it feels like I'm supposed to feel gratitude.
It feels like I'm supposed to be I'm lucky to
be where I'm at because my parents are teenagers or whatever.
And so when you hold on to that feeling of
like it should be gratitude that the flip side of
that is like don't it's an interesting It's like, don't
(23:29):
rock the boat or take up too much space, but
also simultaneously like press the boundaries as hard as you
can to see if they actually love you for real?
You know. Yeah, So a lot of my childhood and
then adolescence was very much like who am I? Who
do I want to be? If I can, if I
can choose, if blood doesn't mean anything, Who do I
(23:51):
model myself after? Who do I want to be what
values do I want to embody? And as a scare
lost kid, a lot of those values have to do
with power and confidence and fear and you know, and
like about the time, I don't know, it's probably I
(24:13):
don't know. The first the first album I bought myself
was DMX. It's dark as Hell is Hot.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Yeah, like class.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Listen listen to hip hop when I found it on
the radio or whatever. Listen to two Kids Starr and
QB ninety three and you know, shout out the team
in the morning, in the morning, uh Eric powers.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Yeah, but yeah, so so always hip hop, always into
hip hop, Like as soon as you heard it.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
You're like, as soon as I heard it, for sure,
And I think it was that that the power that
exuded from it. Not to mention the the as a
lyricist myself, as an MC, I I love the the
ability to play with words and language.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
So like I didn't listen to the backpack rap as
a kid, I didn't listen to Atmosphere and slug and
you know, like I listened to gangster shit because that's
what I wanted to feel, you know, But the intricacy
of the language, you know, my pops and we were
just talking about this. My pops read to us as kids,
which is something I try to do for my kids,
(25:21):
and he would fall asleep.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
So I'm like, well, I got to learn how to
read if I want to finish the story. And then
reading became much like later on drugs and alcohol and
women would be that was a form of disassociation too,
like I can get lost in a book and turn
my brain off whenever I need to. And since it
was like a good thing to do was read, nobody
was ever like, hey, read less, you know, so that
(25:44):
that was an easy way of escape escapism. That also
benefited me because you do, you know, you you get
a vocabulary, you get context, you get you get to
learn about different stories in different worlds.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
You use your brain.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah you just yeah, I think I can't remember where
where I heard it, but it resonated with me. Is
like you're only as smart as how much you read
and write, right like you can when you watch ten
million TikTok videos, right like, you don't take any of
(26:21):
that in. But if you're sitting and reading something or
then writing about something, writing about like you you know, like,
then you can actually start rolling back things of like
I kind of have like a base understanding of this,
right and like yeah, it's just what is it? Reading?
Speaker 3 (26:43):
It's fundamental? Is that reading? Was that reading rainbow?
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yeah? Reading? Yeah, shout out LeVar Burton. Yeah yeah yeah.
So as a kid did a lot of that, but like,
you know, was always my parents were like, all right,
let's go to private school. If public school is going
to be I think they could probably see the right
on the wall. Like if I went to public school,
I would have gone in different directions maybe, but public school.
(27:06):
I went to SASS Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences,
which was a small liberal arts school with a strong
focus on art, dance, music, and yeah, man, just you
know I was I think I was always drawn. I've
always been drawn to art as a way to understand
(27:27):
the world or myself or emotions. Pops grew up listening
to a ton of like Beatles and clapped in and
classic rock and classical and like so he's got he
always had this huge I remember it being records when
I was really young, but then just giant CD, you
know what I mean. Cases and actually, for for a
(27:51):
gift a few years back, he uploaded all of his
CDs onto a thumb drive for me, and so I've
got I've got all that. But yeah, so I grew up.
I think that the storytelling of classic rock or artists
like Sting is a big one for me, learning how
to tell story with lyrics and then hearing how hip
hop did it in a way that was just cool,
(28:13):
you know, much more relatable to my senses of like,
you know, I'm not going to grow my hair out
and be Eric Clapton, you know, but I can put
on some baggy jeans and I can you know, I
can relate much more to those feelings. But going to
middle school at SAS was like you could either be Abercrombie,
(28:36):
Puka Shells, collar pop hair gel, which I tried, you know,
like I tried that. I put so much gel in
my hair to get the middle part and comb it
down to look like the white kids clearly like hey man,
your hair doesn't do that, and yeah, I just felt
like this is not right, you know. So you know,
and then there's maybe three or four black kids in
(28:59):
my class, you know, and like, yeah, it was it
was either it was either.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Or were they?
Speaker 2 (29:06):
So I went to a private Catholic school K through
eight in West Seattle called Holy Rosary were not very diverse,
not a very diverse school, probably similar to to sass
in that regard.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
Were and if you remember, were the other I don't know,
black kids, were they Asian kids? Were they? Were they adopted?
Or were you the only one?
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Because that Holy Rosary it seemed like we I don't
think there was one when I was there. I don't
think we had one. One black, like African American, like
none and a few Asian students there were they were
I remember them?
Speaker 3 (29:47):
They were? They were adopted?
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Yeah, And I just I'd never thought about that until
you I don't.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
I don't remember anyone else being adopted that I connected
with in any real way on that subject. The black
kids that were in my class were all from Rainer
Beach in the South End, and like, you know, yeah,
I think and I'm you know, ethnically ambiguous, like depending
(30:15):
on what dressing like and what my hair is like. Yeah,
suffice to say, I've been called every racial slur that
there is, just guessing, you know, But I'm my so.
My birth mom's Hawaiian Chinese, Native American White, my dad's
Mexican Irish German. Yeah, so I get real tan. Yeah,
(30:37):
and if I shave my head like it is, you know,
it's you're guessing. Yeah, I always growing up got that
Like what are you questioned? Yea, but yeah no. At SAS,
SAS was super non diverse, and I remember they would
put me in another couple ethnically ambiguous kids like on
the posters, you know, like as like we are diverse.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah, yeah, we're all here in this one picture.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, there's the three of us.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
But yeah, I had had a bunch of trouble with
the adolescents and school, got expelled, got in trouble for
a lot of stuff was pretty like, you know, my
parents stayed together, I want to say, mostly because of Catholicism,
Like yeah, they grew up in Catholic school, and I
think that they felt like divorce was and maybe maybe
I'm putting words in their mouth, but maybe they stayed
(31:29):
together for the kids, you know.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
I don't think it's a great no strategy. No, because
a lot of my childhood was feeling like, hey, man,
you guys should split up, and like can I go
live with dad? And I asked my mom before I
proposed to Quinn. I was like, why'd you stay with dad?
You know, you guys, there's so much fighting intention and
all this stuff. And she thought about it for a minute.
(31:54):
She's like, he's a good provider. And I was like, okay, word,
like you know, yeah, so like for the kids or
for some sort of security.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Security that's it Man's.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Which I think for me was good because I you know,
I didn't get in a lot of the trouble that
I could have, you know, and I was surrounded with
kids and families that were like less inclined to you know,
I mean, I did my fear of dumb ship, but like,
you know, it could have been if I had went
(32:27):
to Roosevelt. Yeah different, yeah, you know, and like and
and that that private school that focus on the arts
really did for me resonate. Like even if I was
in a point where I was like, I'm too cool
for any of this. Ship, like art class was always
the ship. You know, music less so because I was
(32:48):
very insecure and definitely was not trying to sing in
front of anyone, but liked teacher.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
When when did when did the music change? Because like
that's your that's your medium of choice, is music.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Right. Yeah, yeah, I drew until I started writing, and
I started writing poetry probably in middle school high school.
Here and there, I was listening to a bunch of
hip hop, so it was probably percolating. As far as
writing stuff, I didn't start. So at the end of
(33:26):
high school. There were a couple kids in my school
who who were like, we're gonna make rap, Like we're
gonna make music. Shout out to Tyler Cordy, shout out
to Parker Joe, who was my bandmate back in the day.
And then you know, the clockwork Orange was Lace Cadence
and like all these upperclassmen that I was like, man,
these guys are cool in there. They've decided to be rappers.
(33:47):
And I was I don't even know you could decide
to do that. Yeah, So seeing them and then going
to college because like we said earlier, like that was
the prescribed track.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Like you go to college.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
And I went to college because all my friends did,
you know, and like the I went to University of
Redlands with seven kids from my graduating class, including my girlfriend.
So it was no, it was not like a stretch.
It was just far away and I was like, fuck, yeah,
we're in California did not didn't end well. You know,
(34:20):
I dropped out.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
I made it.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
I made it. I served three years, yeah, out early
for good behavior or bad behavior. But I do remember
sitting in class. I chose to be a race and
Ethnic studies major, and so I sat in class and
I learned about how intricately fucked the systems were, how biased,
how all this shit is a business profiting off suffering
(34:44):
that's manufactured. And I was like, why am I sitting
in this private college learning about this bullshit? So I was.
I was writing rhymes in my in my note taking
notes notebook, and I was like, if what I'm doing
right now is writing rhymes, and I'm feeling like I'd
rather do this than what I'm doing, Like maybe I
should think about that. Also, was getting hammered drunk and
(35:09):
punching myself in the face and crying, you know, and
I'm like, wait a minute, I shoud probably figure.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Out why I'm doing am I doing?
Speaker 3 (35:15):
You know?
Speaker 1 (35:16):
So I went to the school counselor for a little bit,
and that's when I really kind of discovered, like, oh,
the trauma of being an adoptee is something that's real
and something I have to deal with. So that's when
I really started taking mushrooms and looking at that stuff
internally and trying to figure out untangled whatever that was.
And got a girl pregnant, thought I was going to
(35:39):
have to do that. She didn't have the baby, so
I figured that was like my new life. So I
dropped out of school. I was like, I want to
be in the band. At this time, me and my
buddies had made a mixtape on summer break. It was popping,
It felt good, it was cool. I listened to it
over and over again. I was like, this is what
I want to do. Yeah, so we you know, I
dropped out, Parker graduated NYU. Dad was still back in
(36:02):
the town, and then we just as soon as we
were all back in Seattle, we just went yeah, stated
his mom's house on the couch, recorded, recorded, recorded, wrote songs,
tried to figure out how to get into the scene.
You know. It was like Blue Scholars and uh raw
(36:24):
Scion and like all the dudes that were active. And
then we had a nice we had a nice little run,
strong run. But like I had never performed on a
microphone in front of people. Maybe I did, Like that's
not true. In college I started. I started freestyling with
my buddy Nick, who's like a fucking he could be
(36:46):
jay Z if he put his energy into wrapping he
is just his brain. He would We would sit in
the car together. I joined a frat, a non Greek
fraternity based on social justice and activism. These two black
football players started it in the wake of Rodney King riots.
Their football coaches like, figure out something productive to do
with this energy, So they decided to come up with
(37:09):
this non greek frat.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
We're gonna make a frat.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Yeah, they were like, They're like, we're gonna be YEA
the voice on campus of like, oh, if there's riots
down in LA, Like, how can we hold the university
responsible for the pieces that they play? Chain themselves to admin?
Like all the cool shit that active had had been Yeah,
by the time I was in there, it was that
watered down, Like, oh, our first priority is maintaining the organization,
(37:36):
so we don't ruffle any feathers. Yeah, we post revolutionary
quotes up around, but we get it signed off on
by the admin.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Like yeah activism, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
But I had sat in the car during this this
this initiation period with my my homie Nick, and we'd
sit in the car from midnight to three am and
he just freestyle overbeats and I would like inject some
writtens or you know, you start with that couple of
bars and then you're like okay, like I'm in the car,
I'm a star. Yeah we'll go far and you can
(38:09):
do that a few lines and then you're like, oh, okay,
I can build on this, and then eventually freestyle is
a muscle just like anything else. So we worked that muscle.
We would freestyle on stage at different parties. We would
do a couple open mics, and then I started making
music with my my good friend Freddy. And then when
I left Redlands, I was like, okay, I'm I'm ready
(38:31):
to be on the microphone. I'm ready to be in
front of people. This is what I want to do.
So we got I say we I say we were
locally famous, or like levels of success that I levels
of success that let me feel like, okay, this could
be actually, like I could dare to dream that, like
this could be the career. And then you know, things change.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Yeah, life, things change, life happened, Life happens.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Then you move to a small island.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Yeah that's a whole.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
That's a whole and not a conversation there is like
how the fuck did we end up here? You know,
Like it's one of those Yeah, it's an interesting question
that like seems to be pretty common amongst the people
that live here. It's like how did you get here? Yeah?
Why did you get you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (39:17):
How did you get here? And what made you stay
or decide it was the place?
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Yeah, and it's I don't know, man back to bringing
it back full circle of being dads, right, dad pod
creativity of being dads, like you kind of said it
before at the beginning, was like it's not just dads, right, Like,
this is being a parent in general, right, Like you
(39:43):
can be you can be a step dad, right and
still have like a really active role within your family,
right Like, And that's where I think it's. I think
it's a good approach to have for everyone to be
open minded and in that right, it's like how do
(40:07):
I how do I create something.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
That's meaningful.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Within my family without entirely projecting what I want my
children to be?
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Right? Like?
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Yeah, well that's that difference. Like like like we were
talking about before the pod, like the ability to be
authentically you, which for us has to do with manhood
and being a dad and a man in a society
and a community. And like, especially in the last few
(40:46):
years where the winds of favor have shifted from what
people would call toxic masculinity or values of being a
man that I think are important, you know what I mean,
Like the ability to be physically capable, to be familiar
with violence to a point where you're able to protect
your loved ones.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, because if if
someone comes you know, we we don't live in that
place here, but you know, someone comes up in your
house in the middle of the night, there's no question
on who is to intervene, right, was said individual there
zero it is Yo, that's your that's your role, that's
(41:28):
your job.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
That's a blue job. My wife would say, yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
That's a blue job.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Who that's a good one, and it's and it's true. Right,
Like then bring up sort of unravel on that toxic
masculinity one man.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
I Yeah, We'll get into that plenty, I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
I break it down into there's a difference between a
man and a guy, right. A guy is someone who
not only of voids, but won't even humor the fact
that they have emotions that they could be wrong. Right,
(42:06):
As a man, you know your emotions, and if you don't,
you try to learn them, right because if you can't
understand that, you, as a as a man, have emotions
and it is your responsibility to figure out what the
hell is going on in between the ears, you.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
Stay at a level.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Of I don't want to say maturity because word doesn't
really fit, but you just stay kind of at this
unevolved version of yourself, right because as a man, we're
told from a young age a strong, silent type. Right,
Like we men don't cry. Man, there's all the fuck.
(42:52):
I cry probably eight to ten times.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
A week, cry way more than my wife does.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Yea, you know what I'm saying, Like same, yeah, shout
out Sarah, I love you.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
You know. It's just.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
And where the toxic masculinity I think comes from guys
that are not secure in themselves, right, Like they they
think that they have to dominate, They think that they
have to impose their beliefs or even presence on others,
other men, you know, their their spouse, their children. When
it's like man or you could just be like that
(43:29):
calm for them, right, that force that they know is unmovable,
you know, like that's dad, Yeah, dependable.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
Yeah, he tells me something it's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
And I say this as a I say this as
a forty two year old dad, right, who was not
like this for a significant amount of my life and
a significant amount of time raising children, right.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
Which I think is part of the.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Part of the blessing of being a man is you
know that you're not perfect. You know that there's always
things to work on. Where a guy is they got
it all figured out, right, they just got it all
figured out. You talked to a twenty five year old guy.
You know, they gotta figure they don't need no help.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
Yeah, man, this is I know. It's like, yeah, man,
for sure you do.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
Yeah, get it?
Speaker 3 (44:24):
Yeah exactly, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
The willful will of youth is always ever present, where
as men. And that's where it was kind of cool
about this man, is like, if we can get other
men involved in conversations like this, it only benefit it
only benefits everyone.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
Right.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
It starts with us, and then it starts with oh, Ben,
there's our timer. We set ourselves a timer here. Yeah,
So well, I guess when we will start wrapping it up.
Final thoughts. Yeah, and it's a kind of an intro
to the pod. It's just gonna be a couple two,
(45:05):
a couple of dudes hanging out, man, talking shit. I'm
gonna get some people on here, some other artists, some
creatives from the island. Maybe get some people not from
the island, Maybe get some people on a phone call,
which would be kind of weird and not as cool,
but like just just creating an environment where like, man,
we can talk about the things we got going on,
you know what I mean? Like then't got a bunch
(45:26):
of stuff going on. I got some things going on
that are that are cool, you know, like we're doing
cool things and not to like pump us up a
whole bunch, but like just a fact.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
It's a fact. Right, do you come to.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
San Juan Island, Like the one of the first businesses
you see when you get off the off the ferry
is where we're sitting right now in Waterworks Gallery, right,
Like you can come in here and just it's a
chill spot, it's a chill vibe.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
They got a bunch of stuff going on their schedule, and.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
You know then I'm right down the street man at
the wreck with CrossFit Friday harbor Man running running a
little gin there that it's how we met. Yeah, right, And.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
It's made a huge splash in the community, like like
the the need for it is clear, and the excitement
that you bring and the passion that you bring is
easily translated to people. I did CrossFit back in the
day in Seattle a long time ago. Loved it. There
was never an option up here.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
I was out walking with the kids picking blackberries in
the summer and I saw Big Mike Michael.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Long yeah and shout up Mike Long in the Washington
State Ferry system.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
I'm pretty sure he had a weight vest or he
was doing something, yeah something, And I was like, what's
good man. He was like, I'm you know, I'm doing
CrossFit now. There's a new program it just started. And
I was like, oh really. He was like, yeah, I
go at five thirty. You should come, And I was like,
five thirty is tough, bro. So the first one I
went to was the five thirty class and it was
just too early for your boy, But yeah, I hit
(46:52):
the six thirty. Now I try to be try to
be as consistent as possible.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
Yeah, it's just tough.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
It's been I mean, it's been fun man, it's been Yeah,
it's I mean, I'll talk fitness and training until people
want me to just shut up.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
Well we'll get into that.
Speaker 3 (47:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
But but to wrap it up, all of that is
the discipline, the fitness, the creativity, all of that is
to build the life that we can authentically be joyful with,
to teach our kids that that's an option. You don't
have to be a wage slave. You don't have to
you know, you don't have to fake it to make it.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
Yeah, you can be you can be yourself and like
and understand that it's okay, because if you make everybody happy,
then probably doing something wrong, you know. Yeah, cool man.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
Well episode one, let's go
Boom Baby back like we never were here before. Uh
Dad Pod Friday, Harbor Dad Pod, Nate Finn, Kevin Stalker.
We're in Waterworks Gallery. First time at it. Man. We
we wanted to do this pod centered around a couple
of things that we have in common, fatherhood, fitness, optimization
(00:25):
and lots of different realms and art, being a creative. Yeah,
and we have a It's funny we have a lot
of common through lines that that never overlapped. We're both
from Seattle. Probably if I told someone this the other day,
if we had a blurb and a picture of us
(00:46):
and the bios were like one of them went to
a private school in Seattle, and like one of them did,
people would probably assume it was the other picture.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Ye Man, Yeah, it's a it's been cool man. I mean,
we and we've talked about it a bunch. We were
just talking about before we press our chord. Man, it
just kind of seems that things have kind of naturally
moved into this podcast slash conversation slash space where we
(01:19):
can dedicate an hour to just talk about being a dad,
being involved in being a creative right, Like you make music,
you do art, you do videographies, you write, I scratch
on canvases and write and kind of just my son's
(01:40):
you know, shadows, house and run and seventeen still live
in the town.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Man. And they and they get it on with graffiti.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
You know, they grew up with me bringing them to
a train yard, you know what I'm saying, Like they
grew up looking at graffiti, and so when they started
doing it was like, Yo, man, this is kind of wild.
How do I how do I navigate this? How do
I have them not fall into the pitfalls that are
that world?
Speaker 3 (02:05):
You know?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
And it's just been cool man to then come up
here and kind of be surrounded by an environment that
encourages urt, you know, and then to meet you at
the gym and then it's like, Yo, well what's up man?
Like you're into kind of some cool shit, you know,
like we're kind of on that same same kind of path.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Man, how do we do this to like really for us?
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Right? Like I don't I mean, my mom will probably
listen to this, maybe.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
You know what I mean, Like my wife.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
I talked to my wife yesterday about like, man, you
can listen to She's like no, yeah, She's like, why
would I listen to it.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
It's not it's not for me.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I talk to you all the time.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, She's like, it's for dads, and I was like, man,
it's not just for dads, but it's like.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
It kind of is.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
But then it's also for like people that are just
like man, trying to sort it out, trying to sort
out like how do you balance being creative and in
a world that doesn't really encourage creative endeavors, right especially
now like with with the way AI is going, you
know what I mean, Like it just kind of like, yeah, man,
(03:12):
it makes it so it's like really less about the
individual than it is like the actual creation of the art,
Like it's got to be a certain way or it's
like oh we can just have this do that and
it's done, and it's like.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Yeah, that's cool and all.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
But like I like to see people like create weird things,
you know what I mean, And just like talk to
people that that create things. They're usually pretty interesting people.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
And fatherhood. Fatherhood is such a good seed for all
of that, because I mean, you know, I think we're
we're calling a dad pod because we're dad's but the
the constellation of what being a dad means encompasses so much.
I mean, can't be a dad without a mom, can't
be dad without kids, can't be you know. There's all
(04:02):
these pieces that make up what we're doing. But like,
I know, for me, becoming a dad was kind of stereotypically,
like that timed bomb of like it didn't happen immediately
for me, Like I wasn't like, shit, I gotta get
my life together, yeah, you know, but like over over
the first couple of years of my first kid's life,
I was like, oh shit, like I have to start
(04:24):
thinking of my life in as a future.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Before I was like maybe I'll live to see twenty five,
you know, like who cares?
Speaker 3 (04:30):
You know, I'm gonna do me.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Yeah, And now it's like, okay, I have to think
of things like legacy and generational wealth and and not
even that, just how do I get to be the
best version of me for.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
These kids to how do I create an environment for
my children to be themselves?
Speaker 1 (04:49):
You know?
Speaker 2 (04:50):
And yeah, I mean I'm a father. Ye'll put the
numbers out there. You know, I got a bunch of kids.
I got identical seventeen year old boys. They still live
in the town you were, He old when you had those.
I was twenty five. I was a man wild that's great.
It was crazy. Me and my me and my practice wife.
(05:11):
We didn't know what we were doing, you know. I
mean we're twenty five, right, like we don't you know
twins boom, here you go, right. I just started working
for the Department of Corrections in prison. It was like,
what's happening, you know? And then I got a five
year old son, a three year old son. My wife
is pregnant doing march. I've got an adopted twenty three year
(05:34):
old daughter who's gotten accepted med school, chose to med school.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Shadow, Ryan, I love you.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
A man, and just trying to learn from the things
that I took miss steps, right, I mean, twenty five
being a young dad, like you don't know shit, right,
like your is your life is right in front of
you right the way that.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
You think, And maybe it's just me.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Maybe that's just how I thought, but it was just
like things were. It was me and what I had
to do when I had to get done to to
kind of move things along where I don't know if
it's just maturation or learning from the mistakes, where now
it's like Okay, let's take a step back. What are
(06:23):
the things that I can do as their father and
as a partner and a husband to give them the
ability to just.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Be free and free in the sense of like not trying.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
To fit into a certain norm, right, not hammering them
down with oh, you gotta go, you gotta graduate from
high school, you got to go to college, you have
to do this, you have to do that. When it's like, yo,
those are good things, right, Like I'm not saying not
to do them, Like I think if you want to
(06:57):
pursue art, you know, I tell my sons now that
are that are seventeen, that are about to go into
the world, that like, if you want to be an artist, man,
don't pack a parachute. Do not pack a parachute.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Go on the boats.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Yeah, go all the way in.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
And if I ever tell you to get a real job,
you can tell me to go fuck myself, right, Like,
do it, pursue it, if you love it, do it right.
And especially now with it seems like they might be
the last generation of creatives. I mean that that work
in this physical world of mediums, you know, whether it's
(07:32):
photography or painting or drawing, like sculpting, I mean, it's
just I think they'll always be that. I think there's
always going to be like a subgroup of that.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
But like the more that we.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Detach from this physical world and get digital, like it
just yeah, I want to try to really encourage that
with them, you know, and let them know they're like, man,
you can, you can do it and it's fun, you know,
like it really is a fun way to spend your time.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
You know, Like yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
And where did you get like what was your childhood
and upbringing, Like where did you get that sense of
like you have to be true to your ideals, you
have to you have to believe in what you're about.
Did you have that support like given to you or
spoken into existence?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Stow? I was, man, I grew up pretty typical man
of the of the early eighties where it was because
you're held right now, I'm forty two, yeah, forty two,
and so it's like it was we just played sports, right,
and I always just kind of like did my thing.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
I always enjoyed trying.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I lived in it, lived and grew up in a
neighborhood that was there was lots of graffiti around, right,
There was lots of Mexican gang graffiti right, all those
you know, I think I think the kids call it
now like you know, la letters, right, and it's just
like Chicano art like everywhere, right. And I was fascinated
by it, could not could not not look at it,
(09:08):
you know, and I was I remember thinking like, man,
when did they do this?
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Why did they do this?
Speaker 1 (09:13):
What's the meaning? Yeah, it's like decoding ancient hieroglyphs or
like I gotta know what it.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
And that was where it all came from, was like
connecting it to that of just like not even just man,
but humans want to leave a mark of like, this
is my story. I did this and then let other
people try to figure it out, right, and then it
(09:37):
just and then just turned into it to graffiti, man
skateboarding and just following that trajectory, and then it kind
of learned it kind of morphed into more of acrylics
and painting and campuses and collage and just kind of
that whole that whole trajectory.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
And then about what age was that?
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Oh man, I was.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I was walking around alleys in downtown Seattle with my
friends and I was probably twelve or thirteen. You know,
we take the bus, you know shit, coming out of
White Center, West Seattle. We take the twenty one or
the twenty two and get off right right there in
Soda or we'd get off in front of the Lusty Lady,
you know, yeah, Shadow Lusty Lady, Rip P. And then
(10:25):
we just walk around, you know, we would just walk
into areas at that were I don't know, the outlawriers
right like we and we all came from We were
all up from broken homes, you know what I mean,
Like most of I think, I think one of us
as parents like stayed together. So we're all kind of now,
(10:46):
I know, looking for some sort of community, some sort
of family. And then it was fun to just walk
around and talk, you know what I mean. These are
dudes that are like about it, and it just kind
of helped me just like, man, this this is what
I like doing, you know. And I've always been kind
of drawn to like maybe maybe a different life, different
(11:11):
I don't know, subculture. Yeah, Like it's just always like
I never really was drawn to like, oh I've.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Got to do this, I've got to do that. Yeah,
until I had kids, and then it was instant like.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Oh you better, you better learn how to live in
this world yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
You better better better get a job son, you know.
And I went from you know, I was like I
was doing nothing. I was like, I was twenty five,
I was working for the Seattle Times. I wanted to
be a writer, you know what I mean, Like I
wasn't really doing much. And then I was like, yeah,
I got to get a real job here, you know.
And that's where then I rolled up started working at
the Department of Corrections, right, And it was such a
(11:48):
wild experience there.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
But and where did that decision come from? Like is
that was that something that you were like, this is
just something that's offered or something like it is a job.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah, I mean I didn't graduate high school, you know
what I'm saying, Like I stopped going to high school
in ninth grade. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, Like,
I mean I went but like kind of you know.
And now my older brother worked there and it was like, oh, dude,
you can get a job here, and it was like, oh,
you gotta get a ged And I was like, I
don't even got a g let me do. Let me
just lie on that application, you know what I mean.
(12:23):
I didn't get a check, right, And and yeah, it
was one of those things where it was just like sure,
I can get it, you know, I can do it.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
You know, And then you get in there and it's
just like.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yah, I know all these guys, you know what I mean,
Like I related more to the guys on the other
side of the door than the guys that I worked with,
you know.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
But then you just kind of.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Just become what you're around, right, like you influenced by
your environment. And then so then just like stopped being
creative in in an artistic meetia of drying and painting
and that kind of thing. And then they just went
like went into you know, the dad woodworking and I'm
(13:09):
going to build a table when I'm you know what
I mean, just like that whole my my yard became
my canvas, you know, just like I've got to make
sure it's like this and like this and like this,
and it has to be like this. And it's just
kind of like it did nothing, you know what I mean,
Like you kind of wake up divorced and it's like,
(13:32):
well that was fucking wild big chunk, Yeah, the big
chunk of my life where that like I wasn't you know,
trying to be something else, you know. And then As
my older sons got older, they started really getting into
art and really started getting into graffiti. It really started
(13:53):
getting into like who they want were going to be
and to be honest, And it was really them that
kind of like reinspired me to like do art, because
if I want to tell my sons to be something,
to do something that they enjoy, like, it's nothing if
(14:14):
I don't do it, you know what I mean. It
goes back to the whole like being a dad of
like the hypocrisy of it, you know what I mean.
Like they they know when you're full of shit, you know,
they know when you're just like saying things that that
you were told.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
You know where it's like. And so trying to shake
all that like.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Has been has been a fun a fun little onion
to start unraveling, you know, and it's been great.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Man.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Like when my sons come up here, like we sit
in a little study that we have at our house
and we do like we do art, you know, or
like I'll walk in there and one of them's at
the desk and he's writing, you know, like it's one
of those moments where.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
It's like, no, this is.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
This is this is it? You know, Like this is
this is what all the what it's about, you know,
watching your sons create things and watching them become who
they're supposed to be instead of like who I want
them to be, you know. And and that was where
with my growing up do you bring it back and
just I can shut up for a minute. It's like
(15:18):
it's always like, oh, you have to do this, you
have to do this, you have to do this.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
And I was coming from your dad, or that was
coming from my mom.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yeah, so my dad was like he just worked, you know,
like he was he worked. And then it was like
right up in the AOL chat rooms, you know what
I mean. So like like most got up in the chatroom,
met a woman on there, and then like he would
just be like hunkered down on the computer, you know
what I mean, just like you know, boom boom boom
(15:46):
business trips.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
And then it was just like oh shit.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Dad's got another family and he's gone.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
And so it was like, yeah, just all of those
things were like you learn from you know, you hold
hold things like that. And then again I don't know
if it's healing or whatever, the you know, we're just
being mature enough to know that, Like, yeah, that's as
part of the deal. It's part of the journey, man,
Like it's not the end, you know. And for a
(16:14):
long time, like held the anger for these things of like, oh,
it didn't work out the way that I thought it
was going to be. And then yeah, I just try
to be a little bit different, and I just learned
from the things that didn't work, you know, or the
things that held you back or held me back.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
And yeah, it's been it's been great, man.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
But and how much of that anger did you use
as like the fuel to find the discipline or the
ambition to keep pressing, you know what I mean? Like
a lot of times if kids are born with or
or internalize whatever the bigger shame, guilt, fear that are
much easier expressed as anger. A lot of that can
be Oh man, I had superpower, you.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Know, I for a long time time didn't do it well,
didn't use it well. Right, I mean it was it
was running from it, right, whether it's with drugs, alcohol, women,
you know what I mean, Like it was just like
finding these distractions and then it got to the point
(17:18):
where I was able to see in my older son's
the errors quote unquote of my ways of raising them
of like yo, like it's manifesting. I could see it
manifesting in them. I got to figure some things out.
I got to make some total changes, and like the
(17:38):
biggest one has been just like to just be yourself, man,
you know, like just just be yourself. You know, like
I put myself in an environment working in prison where
it's like.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
I should have been on the other side of the door.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Everybody that I know growing up, when they found out
that I was a COO, they were like what who,
There's no way And so then it's just yeah, finding
that and now so it's like kind of playing catch
up in a sense where it's like you just kind
of let it rip, man. And we've talked about a
(18:15):
bunch man. Really the big one was COVID. Yeah, you
know what I mean, Like I shut out COVID man.
A lot of people did not like COVID. A lot
of the people that I that I like and then
I hang out with have they took that time in
that period to switch it up right, like totally pivot
what they were doing, because it kind of felt like
(18:36):
that like that energy was like real, yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Like things might end.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
And yeah, like what's going to happen, Who's gonna do what?
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Then it just gets all crazy and political, and it
was just like, yeah, it's time to go. It's time
to like figure some things out, you know. But yeah,
what about you? Yeah it because like from the town man,
you know.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Like town Seattle kid born and raised from the north
end Wedgewood Ravenna area, so quiet streets, a lot of
old people. I went to Wedgwood Elementary and then from
there my friends branched out to go to Eckstein Middle
(19:21):
School and then to Roosevelt and Hale, and I went
to My parents gave me the option of private schools.
They're like, they're like, we can, we can look at
you know, because for me, I've I've kind of always
been the problem kid, you know, whether that's ADHD or
trauma or whatever it might be. I'm adopted. Being an
(19:43):
adult comes with a lot of trauma from the immediate
first breath of life, you know.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
And just a quick disclaimer for our few friends out
there listening, this is like the second or third time
that Nada and I have sat down had a conversation.
We trained together at a shadow CrossFit try at Harbor. Yeah,
and so, yeah, this is a learning experience. I didn't
know you were adopted man. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Yeah. My folks came from the Midwest. They my dad's
a doctor, my mom's a nurse. My dad came here
to Seattle do is residency or whatever you call it.
And they tried to have a kid for a while,
didn't work, adopted me, and then adopted my sister a
couple of years later, and then once that pressure was off,
(20:37):
they had my brother. Yeah, so I have two siblings.
And yeah, so for me as an adoptee, a lot
of that, you know. I mean, if you imagine where
you the inception of your existence, if you're a fetus
in a teenager, who's you know, you're a a shameful secret.
(21:01):
You know, you're a regret. Your everything is fear based.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
You know.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
She didn't tell anyone that she was pregnant. She barely
was even showing by the time she was nine months.
People didn't even know she was pregnant. And she had
me in the hospital and in Seattle, in Seattle and
her we've since I found her a couple of years back,
like probably eight eight years back, nine years back, and
(21:27):
we're extremely close. We're like still building through our relationship,
but like got extremely lucky as far as who she
is as a person. But her her side of the
story is that she went in to have me. She
remembers there being like a representative from an agency, adoption
(21:48):
agency in the room who was pressuring her to like
sign something, and her mom signed something on her behalf,
I think is the story. But anyway, she remembers hearing
the adoption agency woman saying something like this could be
a baby for doctor so and so, and that stuck
(22:09):
in her. Whether that I don't know, maybe maybe that
didn't happen, but she, for her, that's the story that
she experienced. And so the first thing she asked me
when I called her on the phone at age thirty
two or whatever, was like, is your dad a doctor?
I was like, yeah, you know, And so for her
that was yeah, there's there's some there's some entangled different things,
(22:33):
you know, because who knows what the system was like
in the eighties. Yeah, you know what I mean, Like, yeah,
I'm sure, I'm sure there's loopholes. There's not a lot
of tracking, you know, things weren't digital.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Yeah, everything was still in paper.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Yeah, who knows what could have been where, But anyway,
for an adoptee that's growing up with that feeling of
I have no beginning, I dropped out of the sky.
I have no relation to the world than these people
who are my parents. But they've told me since I
was conscious that like, I'm adopted, so like, I don't
(23:06):
really know what that means, but I know what it
feels like, and it feels like I'm supposed to feel gratitude.
It feels like I'm supposed to be I'm lucky to
be where I'm at because my parents are teenagers or whatever.
And so when you hold on to that feeling of
like it should be gratitude that the flip side of
that is like don't it's an interesting It's like, don't
(23:29):
rock the boat or take up too much space, but
also simultaneously like press the boundaries as hard as you
can to see if they actually love you for real?
You know. Yeah, So a lot of my childhood and
then adolescence was very much like who am I? Who
do I want to be? If I can, if I
can choose, if blood doesn't mean anything, Who do I
(23:51):
model myself after? Who do I want to be what
values do I want to embody? And as a scare
lost kid, a lot of those values have to do
with power and confidence and fear and you know, and
like about the time, I don't know, it's probably I
(24:13):
don't know. The first the first album I bought myself
was DMX. It's dark as Hell is Hot.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Yeah, like class.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Listen listen to hip hop when I found it on
the radio or whatever. Listen to two Kids Starr and
QB ninety three and you know, shout out the team
in the morning, in the morning, uh Eric powers.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Yeah, but yeah, so so always hip hop, always into
hip hop, Like as soon as you heard it.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
You're like, as soon as I heard it, for sure,
And I think it was that that the power that
exuded from it. Not to mention the the as a
lyricist myself, as an MC, I I love the the
ability to play with words and language.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
So like I didn't listen to the backpack rap as
a kid, I didn't listen to Atmosphere and slug and
you know, like I listened to gangster shit because that's
what I wanted to feel, you know, But the intricacy
of the language, you know, my pops and we were
just talking about this. My pops read to us as kids,
which is something I try to do for my kids,
(25:21):
and he would fall asleep.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
So I'm like, well, I got to learn how to
read if I want to finish the story. And then
reading became much like later on drugs and alcohol and
women would be that was a form of disassociation too,
like I can get lost in a book and turn
my brain off whenever I need to. And since it
was like a good thing to do was read, nobody
was ever like, hey, read less, you know, so that
(25:44):
that was an easy way of escape escapism. That also
benefited me because you do, you know, you you get
a vocabulary, you get context, you get you get to
learn about different stories in different worlds.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
You use your brain.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah you just yeah, I think I can't remember where
where I heard it, but it resonated with me. Is
like you're only as smart as how much you read
and write, right like you can when you watch ten
million TikTok videos, right like, you don't take any of
(26:21):
that in. But if you're sitting and reading something or
then writing about something, writing about like you you know, like,
then you can actually start rolling back things of like
I kind of have like a base understanding of this,
right and like yeah, it's just what is it? Reading?
Speaker 3 (26:43):
It's fundamental? Is that reading? Was that reading rainbow?
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yeah? Reading? Yeah, shout out LeVar Burton. Yeah yeah yeah.
So as a kid did a lot of that, but like,
you know, was always my parents were like, all right,
let's go to private school. If public school is going
to be I think they could probably see the right
on the wall. Like if I went to public school,
I would have gone in different directions maybe, but public school.
(27:06):
I went to SASS Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences,
which was a small liberal arts school with a strong
focus on art, dance, music, and yeah, man, just you
know I was I think I was always drawn. I've
always been drawn to art as a way to understand
(27:27):
the world or myself or emotions. Pops grew up listening
to a ton of like Beatles and clapped in and
classic rock and classical and like so he's got he
always had this huge I remember it being records when
I was really young, but then just giant CD, you
know what I mean. Cases and actually, for for a
(27:51):
gift a few years back, he uploaded all of his
CDs onto a thumb drive for me, and so I've
got I've got all that. But yeah, so I grew up.
I think that the storytelling of classic rock or artists
like Sting is a big one for me, learning how
to tell story with lyrics and then hearing how hip
hop did it in a way that was just cool,
(28:13):
you know, much more relatable to my senses of like,
you know, I'm not going to grow my hair out
and be Eric Clapton, you know, but I can put
on some baggy jeans and I can you know, I
can relate much more to those feelings. But going to
middle school at SAS was like you could either be Abercrombie,
(28:36):
Puka Shells, collar pop hair gel, which I tried, you know,
like I tried that. I put so much gel in
my hair to get the middle part and comb it
down to look like the white kids clearly like hey man,
your hair doesn't do that, and yeah, I just felt
like this is not right, you know. So you know,
and then there's maybe three or four black kids in
(28:59):
my class, you know, and like, yeah, it was it
was either it was either.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Or were they?
Speaker 2 (29:06):
So I went to a private Catholic school K through
eight in West Seattle called Holy Rosary were not very diverse,
not a very diverse school, probably similar to to sass
in that regard.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
Were and if you remember, were the other I don't know,
black kids, were they Asian kids? Were they? Were they adopted?
Or were you the only one?
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Because that Holy Rosary it seemed like we I don't
think there was one when I was there. I don't
think we had one. One black, like African American, like
none and a few Asian students there were they were
I remember them?
Speaker 3 (29:47):
They were? They were adopted?
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Yeah, And I just I'd never thought about that until
you I don't.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
I don't remember anyone else being adopted that I connected
with in any real way on that subject. The black
kids that were in my class were all from Rainer
Beach in the South End, and like, you know, yeah,
I think and I'm you know, ethnically ambiguous, like depending
(30:15):
on what dressing like and what my hair is like. Yeah,
suffice to say, I've been called every racial slur that
there is, just guessing, you know, But I'm my so.
My birth mom's Hawaiian Chinese, Native American White, my dad's
Mexican Irish German. Yeah, so I get real tan. Yeah,
(30:37):
and if I shave my head like it is, you know,
it's you're guessing. Yeah, I always growing up got that
Like what are you questioned? Yea, but yeah no. At SAS,
SAS was super non diverse, and I remember they would
put me in another couple ethnically ambiguous kids like on
the posters, you know, like as like we are diverse.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah, yeah, we're all here in this one picture.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, there's the three of us.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
But yeah, I had had a bunch of trouble with
the adolescents and school, got expelled, got in trouble for
a lot of stuff was pretty like, you know, my
parents stayed together, I want to say, mostly because of Catholicism,
Like yeah, they grew up in Catholic school, and I
think that they felt like divorce was and maybe maybe
I'm putting words in their mouth, but maybe they stayed
(31:29):
together for the kids, you know.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
I don't think it's a great no strategy. No, because
a lot of my childhood was feeling like, hey, man,
you guys should split up, and like can I go
live with dad? And I asked my mom before I
proposed to Quinn. I was like, why'd you stay with dad?
You know, you guys, there's so much fighting intention and
all this stuff. And she thought about it for a minute.
(31:54):
She's like, he's a good provider. And I was like, okay, word,
like you know, yeah, so like for the kids or
for some sort of security.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Security that's it Man's.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Which I think for me was good because I you know,
I didn't get in a lot of the trouble that
I could have, you know, and I was surrounded with
kids and families that were like less inclined to you know,
I mean, I did my fear of dumb ship, but like,
you know, it could have been if I had went
(32:27):
to Roosevelt. Yeah different, yeah, you know, and like and
and that that private school that focus on the arts
really did for me resonate. Like even if I was
in a point where I was like, I'm too cool
for any of this. Ship, like art class was always
the ship. You know, music less so because I was
(32:48):
very insecure and definitely was not trying to sing in
front of anyone, but liked teacher.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
When when did when did the music change? Because like
that's your that's your medium of choice, is music.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Right. Yeah, yeah, I drew until I started writing, and
I started writing poetry probably in middle school high school.
Here and there, I was listening to a bunch of
hip hop, so it was probably percolating. As far as
writing stuff, I didn't start. So at the end of
(33:26):
high school. There were a couple kids in my school
who who were like, we're gonna make rap, Like we're
gonna make music. Shout out to Tyler Cordy, shout out
to Parker Joe, who was my bandmate back in the day.
And then you know, the clockwork Orange was Lace Cadence
and like all these upperclassmen that I was like, man,
these guys are cool in there. They've decided to be rappers.
(33:47):
And I was I don't even know you could decide
to do that. Yeah, So seeing them and then going
to college because like we said earlier, like that was
the prescribed track.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Like you go to college.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
And I went to college because all my friends did,
you know, and like the I went to University of
Redlands with seven kids from my graduating class, including my girlfriend.
So it was no, it was not like a stretch.
It was just far away and I was like, fuck, yeah,
we're in California did not didn't end well. You know,
(34:20):
I dropped out.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
I made it.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
I made it. I served three years, yeah, out early
for good behavior or bad behavior. But I do remember
sitting in class. I chose to be a race and
Ethnic studies major, and so I sat in class and
I learned about how intricately fucked the systems were, how biased,
how all this shit is a business profiting off suffering
(34:44):
that's manufactured. And I was like, why am I sitting
in this private college learning about this bullshit? So I was.
I was writing rhymes in my in my note taking
notes notebook, and I was like, if what I'm doing
right now is writing rhymes, and I'm feeling like I'd
rather do this than what I'm doing, Like maybe I
should think about that. Also, was getting hammered drunk and
(35:09):
punching myself in the face and crying, you know, and
I'm like, wait a minute, I shoud probably figure.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Out why I'm doing am I doing?
Speaker 3 (35:15):
You know?
Speaker 1 (35:16):
So I went to the school counselor for a little bit,
and that's when I really kind of discovered, like, oh,
the trauma of being an adoptee is something that's real
and something I have to deal with. So that's when
I really started taking mushrooms and looking at that stuff
internally and trying to figure out untangled whatever that was.
And got a girl pregnant, thought I was going to
(35:39):
have to do that. She didn't have the baby, so
I figured that was like my new life. So I
dropped out of school. I was like, I want to
be in the band. At this time, me and my
buddies had made a mixtape on summer break. It was popping,
It felt good, it was cool. I listened to it
over and over again. I was like, this is what
I want to do. Yeah, so we you know, I
dropped out, Parker graduated NYU. Dad was still back in
(36:02):
the town, and then we just as soon as we
were all back in Seattle, we just went yeah, stated
his mom's house on the couch, recorded, recorded, recorded, wrote songs,
tried to figure out how to get into the scene.
You know. It was like Blue Scholars and uh raw
(36:24):
Scion and like all the dudes that were active. And
then we had a nice we had a nice little run,
strong run. But like I had never performed on a
microphone in front of people. Maybe I did, Like that's
not true. In college I started. I started freestyling with
my buddy Nick, who's like a fucking he could be
(36:46):
jay Z if he put his energy into wrapping he
is just his brain. He would We would sit in
the car together. I joined a frat, a non Greek
fraternity based on social justice and activism. These two black
football players started it in the wake of Rodney King riots.
Their football coaches like, figure out something productive to do
with this energy, So they decided to come up with
(37:09):
this non greek frat.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
We're gonna make a frat.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Yeah, they were like, They're like, we're gonna be YEA
the voice on campus of like, oh, if there's riots
down in LA, Like, how can we hold the university
responsible for the pieces that they play? Chain themselves to admin?
Like all the cool shit that active had had been Yeah,
by the time I was in there, it was that
watered down, Like, oh, our first priority is maintaining the organization,
(37:36):
so we don't ruffle any feathers. Yeah, we post revolutionary
quotes up around, but we get it signed off on
by the admin.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Like yeah activism, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
But I had sat in the car during this this
this initiation period with my my homie Nick, and we'd
sit in the car from midnight to three am and
he just freestyle overbeats and I would like inject some
writtens or you know, you start with that couple of
bars and then you're like okay, like I'm in the car,
I'm a star. Yeah we'll go far and you can
(38:09):
do that a few lines and then you're like, oh, okay,
I can build on this, and then eventually freestyle is
a muscle just like anything else. So we worked that muscle.
We would freestyle on stage at different parties. We would
do a couple open mics, and then I started making
music with my my good friend Freddy. And then when
I left Redlands, I was like, okay, I'm I'm ready
(38:31):
to be on the microphone. I'm ready to be in
front of people. This is what I want to do.
So we got I say we I say we were
locally famous, or like levels of success that I levels
of success that let me feel like, okay, this could
be actually, like I could dare to dream that, like
this could be the career. And then you know, things change.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Yeah, life, things change, life happened, Life happens.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Then you move to a small island.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Yeah that's a whole.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
That's a whole and not a conversation there is like
how the fuck did we end up here? You know,
Like it's one of those Yeah, it's an interesting question
that like seems to be pretty common amongst the people
that live here. It's like how did you get here? Yeah?
Why did you get you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (39:17):
How did you get here? And what made you stay
or decide it was the place?
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Yeah, and it's I don't know, man back to bringing
it back full circle of being dads, right, dad pod
creativity of being dads, like you kind of said it
before at the beginning, was like it's not just dads, right, Like,
this is being a parent in general, right, Like you
(39:43):
can be you can be a step dad, right and
still have like a really active role within your family,
right Like, And that's where I think it's. I think
it's a good approach to have for everyone to be
open minded and in that right, it's like how do
(40:07):
I how do I create something.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
That's meaningful.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Within my family without entirely projecting what I want my
children to be?
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Right? Like?
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Yeah, well that's that difference. Like like like we were
talking about before the pod, like the ability to be
authentically you, which for us has to do with manhood
and being a dad and a man in a society
and a community. And like, especially in the last few
(40:46):
years where the winds of favor have shifted from what
people would call toxic masculinity or values of being a
man that I think are important, you know what I mean,
Like the ability to be physically capable, to be familiar
with violence to a point where you're able to protect
your loved ones.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, because if if
someone comes you know, we we don't live in that
place here, but you know, someone comes up in your
house in the middle of the night, there's no question
on who is to intervene, right, was said individual there
zero it is Yo, that's your that's your role, that's
(41:28):
your job.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
That's a blue job. My wife would say, yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
That's a blue job.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Who that's a good one, and it's and it's true. Right,
Like then bring up sort of unravel on that toxic
masculinity one man.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
I Yeah, We'll get into that plenty, I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
I break it down into there's a difference between a
man and a guy, right. A guy is someone who
not only of voids, but won't even humor the fact
that they have emotions that they could be wrong. Right,
(42:06):
As a man, you know your emotions, and if you don't,
you try to learn them, right because if you can't
understand that, you, as a as a man, have emotions
and it is your responsibility to figure out what the
hell is going on in between the ears, you.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
Stay at a level.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Of I don't want to say maturity because word doesn't
really fit, but you just stay kind of at this
unevolved version of yourself, right because as a man, we're
told from a young age a strong, silent type. Right,
Like we men don't cry. Man, there's all the fuck.
(42:52):
I cry probably eight to ten times.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
A week, cry way more than my wife does.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Yea, you know what I'm saying, Like same, yeah, shout
out Sarah, I love you.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
You know. It's just.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
And where the toxic masculinity I think comes from guys
that are not secure in themselves, right, Like they they
think that they have to dominate, They think that they
have to impose their beliefs or even presence on others,
other men, you know, their their spouse, their children. When
it's like man or you could just be like that
(43:29):
calm for them, right, that force that they know is unmovable,
you know, like that's dad, Yeah, dependable.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
Yeah, he tells me something it's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
And I say this as a I say this as
a forty two year old dad, right, who was not
like this for a significant amount of my life and
a significant amount of time raising children, right.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
Which I think is part of the.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Part of the blessing of being a man is you
know that you're not perfect. You know that there's always
things to work on. Where a guy is they got
it all figured out, right, they just got it all
figured out. You talked to a twenty five year old guy.
You know, they gotta figure they don't need no help.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
Yeah, man, this is I know. It's like, yeah, man,
for sure you do.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
Yeah, get it?
Speaker 3 (44:24):
Yeah exactly, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
The willful will of youth is always ever present, where
as men. And that's where it was kind of cool
about this man, is like, if we can get other
men involved in conversations like this, it only benefit it
only benefits everyone.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
Right.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
It starts with us, and then it starts with oh, Ben,
there's our timer. We set ourselves a timer here. Yeah,
So well, I guess when we will start wrapping it up.
Final thoughts. Yeah, and it's a kind of an intro
to the pod. It's just gonna be a couple two,
(45:05):
a couple of dudes hanging out, man, talking shit. I'm
gonna get some people on here, some other artists, some
creatives from the island. Maybe get some people not from
the island, Maybe get some people on a phone call,
which would be kind of weird and not as cool,
but like just just creating an environment where like, man,
we can talk about the things we got going on,
you know what I mean? Like then't got a bunch
(45:26):
of stuff going on. I got some things going on
that are that are cool, you know, like we're doing
cool things and not to like pump us up a
whole bunch, but like just a fact.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
It's a fact. Right, do you come to.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
San Juan Island, Like the one of the first businesses
you see when you get off the off the ferry
is where we're sitting right now in Waterworks Gallery, right,
Like you can come in here and just it's a
chill spot, it's a chill vibe.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
They got a bunch of stuff going on their schedule, and.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
You know then I'm right down the street man at
the wreck with CrossFit Friday harbor Man running running a
little gin there that it's how we met. Yeah, right, And.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
It's made a huge splash in the community, like like
the the need for it is clear, and the excitement
that you bring and the passion that you bring is
easily translated to people. I did CrossFit back in the
day in Seattle a long time ago. Loved it. There
was never an option up here.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
I was out walking with the kids picking blackberries in
the summer and I saw Big Mike Michael.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Long yeah and shout up Mike Long in the Washington
State Ferry system.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
I'm pretty sure he had a weight vest or he
was doing something, yeah something, And I was like, what's
good man. He was like, I'm you know, I'm doing
CrossFit now. There's a new program it just started. And
I was like, oh really. He was like, yeah, I
go at five thirty. You should come, And I was like,
five thirty is tough, bro. So the first one I
went to was the five thirty class and it was
just too early for your boy, But yeah, I hit
(46:52):
the six thirty. Now I try to be try to
be as consistent as possible.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
Yeah, it's just tough.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
It's been I mean, it's been fun man, it's been Yeah,
it's I mean, I'll talk fitness and training until people
want me to just shut up.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
Well we'll get into that.
Speaker 3 (47:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
But but to wrap it up, all of that is
the discipline, the fitness, the creativity, all of that is
to build the life that we can authentically be joyful with,
to teach our kids that that's an option. You don't
have to be a wage slave. You don't have to
you know, you don't have to fake it to make it.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
Yeah, you can be you can be yourself and like
and understand that it's okay, because if you make everybody happy,
then probably doing something wrong, you know. Yeah, cool man.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
Well episode one, let's go
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