[SPEAKER_03]: anyone who is creative, it's the decision to write for yourself or write for the audience.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so that's sort of the artist versus entertainer of any of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you doing it for yourself?
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you doing it for views?
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you doing it for sales?
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you doing it for corporate and knowing that one makes it a little easier to buy the sandwich at Martins?
[SPEAKER_03]: Then one means maybe you're playing for the sandwich at Martins.
[SPEAKER_04]: We often define artists by their output, their records, books, movies, and the times they're on stage.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the art is made in the quiet, the struggle, and the mundane, the hours that no one sees.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm McKayla Ann.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm Erin Kramer-Hase.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is the other 22 hours.
[SPEAKER_04]: An exploration of the creative life lived in between.
[SPEAKER_04]: Today we continue our series of conversations with non-musical artists by welcoming a pair of writers and editors in Allison Abby Houdak and her husband Jo Houdak.
[SPEAKER_04]: Allison has an extensive history in lifestyle magazines, who didn't be in the senior editor for Nashville lifestyle magazine as well as modern luxury.
[SPEAKER_04]: and Joe is the long running senior music editor at Rolling Stone in charge of the likes of Rolling Stone Country here in Nashville, and also the founder and host of Nashville now, the new podcast from Rolling Stone Country.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and we got to dig into one of their married couple, so partnership when both are leading creative careers, how to endure transitional times,
[SPEAKER_02]: and the long span of a life-long career and changes, as well as the constraints of creativity, whether those constraints are capitalism or writing within certain briefs or topics or to assignments.
[SPEAKER_04]: Please enjoy our conversation with Joe and Allison Abby Huda.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you guys so much for coming on once a month we feature guest or guests that are not musicians but are creatives in other way and you guys are so interesting because you work overlapping in the music world but are creatives in your own realm.
[SPEAKER_02]: So lots to talk about but we always like to start the conversation with just a how are you today and how are you really and where are you physically and creatively in your life.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm okay.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm overwhelmed.
[SPEAKER_06]: I feel like I'd bite off more than I could chew on the daily between various work things that maybe we'll get into later.
[SPEAKER_06]: And the state of the world, various things like that, the state of our bank account, you know, various things are always nagging in the background.
[SPEAKER_06]: But otherwise, I went to the coffee shop and someone asked me, hi, I'm just, yeah, I'm doing good.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, all things considered I'm doing good.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, I got out the next to me, the dog behind me, the Charlie Daniels throw between us.
[SPEAKER_06]: What else did you get?
[SPEAKER_06]: I need, you know, physically we are an East Nashville in what is the original garage of our home that the woman who lived here forever turned into a kiln room.
[SPEAKER_06]: Potter is still the outer.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, she did some pottery and had a big kiln in the corner here.
[SPEAKER_06]: But like a 220 volt setup and yeah, so now it's become my makeshift office for the time being.
[SPEAKER_04]: So when you guys moved in, the killing was there.
[SPEAKER_04]: No, it was just a little bit of the killing.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I did, I was like, oh, man, we could have used that personally.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just like, for what?
[SPEAKER_03]: But you will hobby is who has time for hobby?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's like, oh, let me watch.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'd be selling pottery on the side of the road.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just like a lot sighted bull for my other crowd over no one else.
[SPEAKER_04]: You could have like a little honor stand.
[SPEAKER_04]: We were at, we were up in Maine last summer because we have to avoid the heat and the humidity here in July and August.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we were coming back from the beach and those this little stand on the side of the road that was a pottery stand that was like honor system like you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was pricey pottery.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is a coast to Maine and the summer.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like
[SPEAKER_06]: On the honor system, yeah, I thought that's only for like vegetable stands.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's what I thought too.
[SPEAKER_06]: For a dollar in and take a zucchini, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: People in Maine are trustworthy.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: How are you?
[SPEAKER_02]: We know that we, you love you for the last question of where you creatively in your life.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh gosh.
[SPEAKER_06]: Look at how I'm trying to hijack this conversation already.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh no.
[SPEAKER_03]: I gave you the mic.
[SPEAKER_06]: creatively, I'm in the process of writing a story that I originally just kept putting off and then with the help of a colleague, my editor and friend John Bernstein, he has got me excited to work on this story and it's about, I don't know if y'all are aware, but like the whiskey market, there's a lot of distilleries out of post production, there's more supply than there is demand and perhaps as you know, the Gen Z contingent of our
[SPEAKER_06]: And so what does that mean for country music?
[SPEAKER_06]: One, the bedrock of country music are songs about whiskey and beer and Zikila in the writing room.
[SPEAKER_06]: Let's say, McKaylan, you went into right modern day.
[SPEAKER_06]: Country pop song, would you then be like, Harry, kids aren't drink a whiskey anymore.
[SPEAKER_06]: Let's write about gummies or mocktails.
[SPEAKER_06]: So sort of playing with that idea and it's end up working out.
[SPEAKER_06]: I just need to find the time to finish.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's what an interesting take.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm sitting here trying to be like,
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there you go.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, right.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's on the heartbreak and the great gut help.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is such an interesting thing of the sociology of how music styles and writing changes intertwining with culture and also thinking about the country music tradition of how much is just replicated and not actually lived.
[SPEAKER_02]: But oh, this is what cool country songs are about outlaws or beers and back roads and girls with short skirts.
[SPEAKER_02]: but like how much of the writing is actually coming from lived experience so then that interesting play of weight even if we haven't lived it if we're trying to write in this commercial way songs that they've lived it's not relatable.
[SPEAKER_03]: I saw a TikTok because I love TikTok and it was
[SPEAKER_03]: a guy spliced together like a hundred country songs singing cold beer and then he harmonized all of them over each other.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was one of the most like amazing things I've ever seen.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I've maybe I've seen that too.
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it there?
[SPEAKER_04]: I ruined it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you know how that's him?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_04]: So good.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was so good.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, I like this better than any of these singular countries.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Amazing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, Allison.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I too am an East Nashville physically.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm actually in Madison.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a weird thing in our house.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is actually a dividing wall.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I am, I am in sort of a weird place, career and creative-wise.
[SPEAKER_03]: So those sort of answers, both a little bit, where I have left the jobs that were my career for 20 years and I'm figuring out,
[SPEAKER_03]: who I am without that identity and what the next step is that is the career that uses the skills from being a magazine editor, a magazine writer, but without the burnout that I've sort of lived through two decades of doing it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I'm just in a sort of experimental space, I'm in an
[SPEAKER_03]: And creatively, I'm in a really strange space.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was tapped out and Joe can attest to this, too.
[SPEAKER_03]: Once you kind of reach editor status in media, the writing, which is the reason you got into this, the thing that you love,
[SPEAKER_03]: becomes the thing you put off because you're doing all these other things and then you don't love the writing anymore now It's like, oh, I've still to write 1500 words on this and so I think that was a big part of me stepping back as an editor Was wanting to love writing again.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll read things the Joe wrote and I'm like, oh God That's so good.
[SPEAKER_03]: I used to be that good, but I'm not anymore because I'm just my brain has shut down
[SPEAKER_03]: No, creatively I'm stifled, but again, 20% of me is excited for what could be.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm so glad that you brought that up about transitioning into a writer and a leadership role as a creative.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's something that really intrigues me in such a weird paradox, because like, Oh, I want to do more.
[SPEAKER_04]: I care about this.
[SPEAKER_04]: This gives me like broader creative reach.
[SPEAKER_04]: But there's almost like a ceiling where all of a sudden you're being less creative.
[SPEAKER_04]: I was just talking to a friend about this, who's a great songwriter, a great guitar player.
[SPEAKER_04]: And he basically stumbled into this gig with homest.com, writing the music, mixing the music and all that.
[SPEAKER_04]: They make videos, I guess, for like every neighborhood in America.
[SPEAKER_04]: tens of thousands of videos and so he's like composing the music licensing the music mixing it it's all a creative thing and he's like I'm kind of stuck because like it's a great salary with all the benefits that come with working for a large organization and so like my lifestyle is met there but like I can't get a promotion because then I'm not going to be making music
[SPEAKER_04]: But I'm going to be doing admin and managing personalities and I want to make music and I can't leave because now my life style is built around this having this job and it seems like that's kind of what you were we're touching on there.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's a weird thing I remember naive little me in my 20s and I was like, I don't want to be an editor.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to be in charge of people.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just want to write forever.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then you do learn.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, the only way you're ever going to get a raise or move up in the same way any corporate job as creative as we are, jobs are corporate.
[SPEAKER_03]: You have to become a manager and you have to become at some point more administrative than you are creative, and it gets frustrating, but it is also, it's how you keep the job, too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just like we talk about a music, when you get to a certain stage or age or a level of experience, I feel like you start to see this mental split of like, oh, career and creative fulfillment are two different things.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we can just blindly go on the road of, I want to be a writer.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is the track that is laid out.
[SPEAKER_02]: That I'm supposed to do because I see that's what everybody does.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's how you achieve.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to be a musician.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, this is the track I need to do to be proven successful as a musician.
[SPEAKER_02]: And at a certain point, I think a lot of people may be not everybody, but start to see, oh, they aren't always in the same lane.
[SPEAKER_02]: And maybe I actually don't want this thing that has bigger status.
[SPEAKER_02]: and money and in the music world fame and whatever because it doesn't allow me to do these other things that I really value and love and like the reason I got into this in the first place.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hey, just a quick pause from this conversation.
[SPEAKER_04]: The other 22 hours is an independent production built entirely on the idea that he's quiet honest conversations matter.
[SPEAKER_04]: The best way to support our work is simply to share it, so if you can think of one person who would appreciate this show, please pass it along.
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you haven't yet, please follow our show in your listening platform of choice, or subscribe to our channel on YouTube.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a small action that makes a massive difference for us.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks for being here.
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's get back to our conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that we're talking to you guys and there's so much to talk about because also like when you're in relationship with another creative who's navigating the same stuff and you're constantly grappling with okay we have to pay our bills and my journey impacts your journey
[SPEAKER_02]: and your day-to-day life, but then we also want to create space to grow in the ways that we want to grow.
[SPEAKER_02]: That doesn't necessarily mean growing up the corporate ladder or the ambition ladder.
[SPEAKER_02]: So how do we grapple with that?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, how do we last as the romantic couple, you know, and obviously any couple no matter their industries, whether they're doing the same things or their creatives, has that struggle.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sure everyone is at home having their, well, you know, you should think about switching jobs because we're not paying the water bill or whatever it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it is definitely when both of you are creative and both of you, you're in the same industry.
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't do the same thing, but you're in the same industry.
[SPEAKER_03]: And especially in times where one is doing better than the other, one is succeeding in different ways.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I'll just speak from my current experience, the guilt that I feel that I'm not bringing in the salary.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I walked away from that salary.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, that was me saying I can't do this anymore.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm exhausted.
[SPEAKER_03]: and very kindly allowed that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think he thought it would take me were almost a year in to find something else.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, I'm fine.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have freelance work, I'll be fine.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the guilt of not bringing enough to the table.
[SPEAKER_03]: And again, as creatives often in very rare circumstances, maybe, but often we don't have the luxury of one of us not working.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're not in that lavish lifestyle, and so I think that for me has been really hard.
[SPEAKER_03]: In fact, I just applied to a retail job.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, okay, well, I should be making some money at your end.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's a weird feeling, especially when you've sort of felt like peers for a while, where at least relative equals, I mean, there's always a gender gap in pay.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think it's definitely a shift.
[SPEAKER_03]: Would you say that?
[SPEAKER_06]: I think the thing is, no matter what we want to say about the creative pursuit and art and being satisfied and stuff, maybe I'm just cynical or I've become cynical, but money satisfied.
[SPEAKER_06]: And it's just the way it is.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, I don't.
[SPEAKER_06]: We certainly don't chase things in terms of like, well, I'm going to go do this because the money is better.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, if we really hated it, we wouldn't do it.
[SPEAKER_06]: But ultimately, here's the big thing.
[SPEAKER_06]: Here's the big thing.
[SPEAKER_06]: We have nothing to complain about compared to other couples.
[SPEAKER_06]: Let's use yourself included.
[SPEAKER_06]: You have two children.
[SPEAKER_06]: We do not.
[SPEAKER_06]: I talk about this a lot and I've been kind of hung up on these two country songs lately that have talked about this.
[SPEAKER_06]: Both written and recorded by women, Kelsey Balorini, I sit in parks and Carly Pierce, Dream come true.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's about all they've sacrificed to have this magical, wonderful life and primarily in those dead case, it is children.
[SPEAKER_06]: And so then, you know, it's kind of like,
[SPEAKER_06]: And so they've really moved me in a way, and I think that both of those artists should be commended for the fact that they were able to write something that probably at the time they weren't thinking about would cross gender, but it does.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think a lot about the various things that I've put off or didn't do or sacrifice per se to have this career.
[SPEAKER_06]: And, you know, we got married late in life.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay, so we don't have kids.
[SPEAKER_06]: We have our dog behind us who is pride and joy, but that afforded us a certain lifestyle that we really didn't have to think.
[SPEAKER_06]: And this is where I was getting to the point about money, whereas when you're out on a Wednesday afternoon and you're like, ah, you know, I had to go run do this interview or something for work.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think I'm going to stop at Martin's and get myself lunch.
[SPEAKER_06]: And when you have the disposable income where you have that cushion, it'd be like, I can afford this $13 plus tip by Ricky Sandwich and iced tea.
[SPEAKER_06]: And you're like, oh, it's good.
[SPEAKER_06]: You don't even give it a second thought.
[SPEAKER_06]: You're grateful for the sandwich.
[SPEAKER_06]: You enjoy every sandwich, as Warren Zeevon said.
[SPEAKER_06]: But you don't think about it in terms of affecting your bottom line.
[SPEAKER_06]: However, when you're in a situation where we recently moved into this home, we did a lot of renovation in this home.
[SPEAKER_06]: It was definitely a level up for us because we were in our neighborhood.
[SPEAKER_06]: We always wanted to be in.
[SPEAKER_06]: Wouldn't change it for the world.
[SPEAKER_06]: But now when you're faced with these financial headwinds, and you have to stop and think about paying for that sandwich.
[SPEAKER_06]: It really kind of mentally affects you.
[SPEAKER_06]: It does me.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now I'm gonna sound like privilege white man, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: But it makes me realize what it must be like in a way to have be faced with actual needs, living a life that is daily of actual needs.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm not talking about just a fucking barbecue sandwich.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm talking about how you make for the electricity.
[SPEAKER_06]: How are you gonna do this?
[SPEAKER_06]: And think about the desperation that comes from being put in that situation.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, I have just gone from, like, a mountain to a, you know, moldal to a mountain here, but I think it gave me some level of empathy that I haven't had before.
[SPEAKER_06]: It is what it is.
[SPEAKER_06]: And what, you know, it very lucky to not have to think about that sandwich.
[SPEAKER_06]: And lately, I'm not thinking about the sandwich.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, and saying is, could be worse.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, of course.
[SPEAKER_02]: You were having a new experience that is uncomfortable.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you were a had a choice, you wouldn't choose it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: But to me, what I'm hearing, the gold in it is that it's expanding your awareness of how other people live as well and stretching your empathy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Also, I think what you were saying about money satisfies, this is the tightrope all the time of like also as two freelancing musicians.
[SPEAKER_02]: I worked for a record label two years out of college.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had a salary, but otherwise we've never had salaries.
[SPEAKER_02]: Aaron's never had a salary.
[SPEAKER_02]: And my salary was like, I made more when I quit and started babysitting.
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, we have lived with this, like, we're always counting the sandwiches our entire life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now we have two kids and it's like, what the fuck, but when you're grappling with that, it has an effect on your ability to be creative.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's a really great point.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: How much discomfort or where you live, what you can afford, the lifestyle that you want, or feel like you need, all of that is like perspective, obviously at a certain point, once basic needs are met of safety and food and all that, but it does influence your ability to feel safe, to feel like you can play in your mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: and also it's endless choices.
[SPEAKER_02]: We chose to have two children.
[SPEAKER_02]: We know like we spend out the Wazoo for child care so like we don't get to go to nice restaurants as much as we used to and we like to do that and like these are obviously first world problems like you said like this is all perspective or like we don't get to even make career risks that we would have.
[SPEAKER_02]: before I don't go out on tour and lose money like I used to which has an impact on my career because I'm not out there as much.
[SPEAKER_02]: But just like those women, Carly Pearson Kelsey Ballerini live with their decision of the life they're not living because of the life that they're getting to live, we all have that, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: We chose this life over, I would have made very different decisions in my life if I had wanted to be a pop country singer.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's interesting how struggle often leads to the best art, but when you are creating a career that is, that is the thing that keeps you from struggling too hard, you can't always be as creative as you want to be.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you can't create the art that struggle can sometimes
[SPEAKER_03]: Which ironically those whiskey makers are struggling, um, like, when I think some of the greatest art, some of the greatest music, some of the greatest books have come out of struggle of trying times and whether or not it's overcoming them or whether or not it's sitting with that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it's kind of ironic that as two creative people, we don't get to tap into that.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's almost like you have to put that in the back of your head.
[SPEAKER_03]: And especially me coming from a more luxury editorial lifestyle, I would be going to events, even while I still was making my paycheck.
[SPEAKER_03]: going to events with these people who are way above my tax bracket and trying to write about that and then coming home to our old neighborhood where there were people dying from gun violence and where families had been for generations all in one house because that's
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, they could do, and so it was a weird dichotomy.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, right.
[SPEAKER_03]: And not being able to put that into a story, or not being able to put that into perspective for people reading and feeling like, am I really doing anything good for society?
[SPEAKER_06]: And then you're in that world, and you're, yeah, you know, subconsciously comparing yourself to it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: Even if not aspiring to it, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: Even if that's not what you want, but you're technically thinking in your head like, oh, well, why can I have the new cart, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: That's the capitalism consumerism of living in America, and we're all fed it every day, every time we open Instagram, and the dopamine hit of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, they're also fed the value system of it, of like that somehow having access to wealth, also no matter how you got it, because it might be inherited, it might not have lifted a finger to get it, whatever, but that that somehow equals a higher level of living.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, of human, which I think we're at a tipping point where we're starting to see that this immense wealth is actually like back very attached to mental illness and you will chase an upper limit to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but like even, you know, Allison, you said when you're talking about being in the position you are and your career that like you and Joe went from like,
[SPEAKER_02]: You said the word like equal and so that the fact that even it's so ingrained that like you being in a transitional timing your career where you're not in a high position makes you then less equal than Joe is evidence of how ingrained our career and income status is that it informs who we are.
[SPEAKER_06]: go totally yeah and what else is said is so true you lose your identity sometimes if you lose your career or walk away from your career or change careers or whatever and I like to say like I could leave really stone tomorrow and it'll be whatever but I know that's not true I know there's certain things that that logo behind my name open up and afford me that I would miss you know and that
[SPEAKER_02]: Or even how people treat you, you can't control that.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's the biggest thing, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: You know right away when someone is going to talk to you for what you could do for them and vice versa.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, I think we're all pretty astute with that.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm sure it's on your end, too.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, that's the right out of college when you're working the label.
[SPEAKER_04]: All of these people that we, you know, who went to a music school.
[SPEAKER_04]: So all of these people that we went to school, what the, like, all in just, yeah, but not just students, like teachers, teachers.
[SPEAKER_04]: you know, because it's a music so they're all working musicians too and in my judgment all jaded for instance, like the administration of the school didn't really pay attention to you and you got hired before we graduated and you spoke at graduate.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so it's pretty much amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, I was not like I wasn't on scholarship.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't regarded as like one of the best jazz singers at all because I could not scatter for my ass and that's of course not a big thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: They did not.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they didn't pay attention to me and then all of a sudden I got this job at Nonset Records, and they were like, oh, McKay like, which would like to be the commencement speaker.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yes, I will.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah
[SPEAKER_03]: I am.
[SPEAKER_03]: We were in my hometown recently, and as we were sitting on the tarmac to leave, I got a text from a high school friend, and he said, like, oh, so and so from our class is working in the alumni office now, and they want to interview you about your career for our alumni magazine.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was like of all the times.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm like announced that I'm on a void.
[SPEAKER_03]: She was like, you know, we're just, we're so impressed with everything you've done and it would be so great for the students to hear.
[SPEAKER_03]: I couldn't even get into AP English when I was in high school.
[SPEAKER_03]: The teacher who decided I passed the test and she just decided she didn't want me in the class.
[SPEAKER_03]: And all of my friends were, and as she did later tell me she was sorry about that, but she's like a hundred years old.
[SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, for this school that never really gave me the time of day, then in thinking that I am at this point in my career, and then want me to talk about it, I was like, okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, I heard something last year in relation to the music industry that just like hit the nail on the head, and it's you're always one song away from everybody pretending that they believed in you all along.
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's just so good.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm so true, you know, there's nothing more that I like though about this job than like elevating artists.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think we're going to say then getting attention.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't think you're thinking about how jaded I sounded.
[SPEAKER_06]: But the reality is, like, there's nothing more rewarding and creatively satisfying.
[SPEAKER_06]: Not necessarily about what turn of phrase I wrote or something, but being able to, I'll give you an example, just a goofy one, our head of e-com at Rolling Stone at Allison Works with two.
[SPEAKER_06]: He was in Montana for something, probably a travel trip.
[SPEAKER_06]: He texted me a photo of this guy, this cowboy, leaving against like a jukebox or something holding a guitar.
[SPEAKER_06]: And he's like, hey, this guy's name is Sterling Drake.
[SPEAKER_06]: He said, you mentioned him in a story just a little shout out.
[SPEAKER_06]: And he said it changed his life.
[SPEAKER_06]: And that after that, he booked every gig ever that he wanted in Montana.
[SPEAKER_06]: And he was very grateful.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I was like, uh-huh.
[SPEAKER_06]: man that's really nice you know and this was like i think i remember the story and i think it was about like the resurgence of like cowboy songs and such and i think i said something about sterling drink and want to and he got her gig and it's like man that makes me happy that's like the best situation that you could ask for in this job for me right like really for me
[SPEAKER_06]: It's the reason I got into it in a way, which is to be around music, embrace music, and the creative arts, and elevate people that need that boost, and deserve that boost, and might deserve, I mean, their talent deserves it, and set ourselves up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that was one of the things I wanted to ask.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, even for both of you, because I know Allison and when you were at Nashville Lifestyles, you would feature artists and other people.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Joe, especially with being at Rolling Stone and before that was country weekly and it feels very foreign to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's why I'm so curious about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like when your creativity is tied into other people's creativity, how that kind of plays out and also the power dynamic, like sometimes I forget for instance.
[SPEAKER_02]: John Bernstein and Marissa, like, there are these music critics that are also wonderful people and they have, and you hold, like, a position in the music world for musicians of, like, oh, it is really helpful to us when you choose to feature our music.
[SPEAKER_02]: But also, you guys are artists in your own way.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, like, Marisa has published a book, and that feels like what it feels like for me to put a record out, like coming to support John at Grimeys, where like his book is about Justin Town's Earl, and it was such a moment for Justin Town's Earl and his family and fans, but it also was a moment for John, because it was such an artistic act.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm so proud of you.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm so proud of you.
[SPEAKER_06]: Not recognized like, hey, Pat, on the back, we love you.
[SPEAKER_06]: You're great.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't mean that.
[SPEAKER_06]: But I mean, since politics is at the fore of everything, and particularly a Nashville, and we're watching the destruction of various norms that have been around for Eons, what really bothers me, having my creativity tied to another artist's creativity is there are artists out there.
[SPEAKER_06]: who I may have written about way back when I was at like TV guy and then wrote about them at country weekly and then wrote about them at Rolling Stone.
[SPEAKER_06]: And those artists have now become very famous, very successful, very powerful.
[SPEAKER_06]: And now they are using that power and influence to support something that is so gassly to
[SPEAKER_06]: me and to the preservation of our democracy and way of life and respect and grace and whatnot.
[SPEAKER_06]: I get very angry about that.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think like I help I, in some very small part, we help elevate you to this status in your life where you're not just driving your F-150, 11 in your badass house out in friendly.
[SPEAKER_06]: Franklin.
[SPEAKER_06]: Right.
[SPEAKER_06]: But now you're using that platform to talk about stuff and affect change and spread conspiracy theories and all the stuff that they just support it.
[SPEAKER_06]: And so that's where now I really think about what I'm going to commit my time and creativity to with another artist.
[SPEAKER_06]: If that's the case, then yeah, I'm not going to write about something that's going to actively do harm.
[SPEAKER_06]: When the pandemic happened and how we all forgot, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: Is everything's in the rear view?
[SPEAKER_06]: Shit, I grabbed out Gallatin and like the Walgreens says, Weeping cough, pneumonia vaccines here, flu.
[SPEAKER_06]: But it doesn't say shit about COVID because everybody just, you know, moved on.
[SPEAKER_06]: But during those early days of the pandemic, when there were still country artists playing shows, I was like, are you kidding me?
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, we're dying and you're out playing a show, so that's when I was like, yeah, I'm not doing this.
[SPEAKER_06]: Not wasting my time in energy to elevate you who are actively out going to get people either sick or whatever, you know?
[SPEAKER_06]: So anyway, that's...
[SPEAKER_02]: Kind of what you asked?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, that's really interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: What how does Rolling Stone as a company, especially Rolling Stone Country at being kind of like the leading country music journal?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, also we haven't even gotten to like all the changing of music journalism and all of the industry, but how are your bosses?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I will say also you with your writing as well as on your podcast, you are very outspoken.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say very.
[SPEAKER_02]: You shrugged not as much as I yell at the screen, but you make you make some opinions known or at least ask probing questions and curious how that is received and supported or not supported within the constructs of the corporation, as well as the standing and Nashville in the pop country music scene.
[SPEAKER_06]: Sure, sure.
[SPEAKER_06]: Rolling Stone has always, obviously, had a long history of liberal politics and trying to fight the good fight and affect change in a positive way.
[SPEAKER_06]: And so I just view it as part of that.
[SPEAKER_06]: I have never received any pushback from anyone in any position of power, any editor that I had in the past or present.
[SPEAKER_06]: No one has ever asked me to don't do this or don't do that.
[SPEAKER_06]: In fact, my, I think my own experience is growing up, you know, in a rural part of Pennsylvania,
[SPEAKER_06]: and also being a liberal Democrat, you know, I think that gives me a different perspective, right, on certain things that the coast of the elites may feel otherwise about or whatever, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: So I just have a little more um relationship and experience on that.
[SPEAKER_06]: But I've never had that.
[SPEAKER_06]: I've never had anyone push back.
[SPEAKER_06]: and as far as in the pop country world, you know, we've all been through so much in our lives like you, Michaela and your mom, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: And what you've walked through over the past few years with your mom's stroke, my mom dying from ALS.
[SPEAKER_06]: Lastly, I'm worried about is what the pop country industry is going to get upset about me or give me access to, or whatever that is.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, I think once you go through not to totally change the scope of this conversation, but once you go through something as difficult as something with a parent or a child or a partner,
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't know, you know, like, what I, you know, like, whatever, don't invite me to your show, whatever, I don't deal with it down the road.
[SPEAKER_06]: So that's kind of where I'm at.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think at this stage of my life and my career, you know, certainly not like I don't need you, I mean that the case at all, just more so what do you get there?
[SPEAKER_06]: As long as the argument that I make or we make it, Roy Stone is airtight and factual, factual, not alternative facts, but factual, then yeah,
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, and I will say it to that, and not to take away from the importance of the family stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: But just there have been times where Joe has written stories, and it hasn't happened recently that I can think of.
[SPEAKER_03]: But there have been times where Joe has written stories that were...
[SPEAKER_03]: political in nature or how it had a political slant to them as part of the greater culture of country music, where he's writing about a country singer or someone in these country adjacent world and because I have always worked on the lifestyle side often I have known the couples or in some cases wives of male country singers
[SPEAKER_03]: as if I have any control over rolling stone or what Joe does.
[SPEAKER_03]: And one wife who does have me blocked, but still talking about me from a story from Jan 6.
[SPEAKER_03]: He did.
[SPEAKER_03]: Jan 6 story and she still will post on her stories calling me out and saying that I'm a bad woman.
[SPEAKER_03]: and saying like, she's an editor of a magazine.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is like specifically like calling me out as way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Never anything about Joe or the story he wrote.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's always about how like I didn't step in.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, to her, you know, and beat her out of the bush.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, I wrote a story about the celebrity wives of country singers in the days after January 6th, breading his fears.
[SPEAKER_06]: It was like it was at teeth and all this shit.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's what I was getting out earlier.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like this is absurd.
[SPEAKER_06]: We're going to take time out of our day to write something about your husband's music or your own interior design clothing line or some bullshit and you're going to go and do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, and interestingly, I do believe this is because rolling stone is a bigger animal than when I was at a local magazine.
[SPEAKER_03]: When I was at National Lifestyles, but one of those wives had her plastic surgeon pull his advertising money from my magazine.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, let us show.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_06]: my god.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, it was over that story.
[SPEAKER_06]: It was crazy.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I then had to deal with my bosses coming to me and saying, this guy called and said, is your editor, Mary, to show who'd act, blah, blah, blah.
[SPEAKER_06]: That was the weird week.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was a really crazy week.
[SPEAKER_04]: We had a couple weird weekends, that was up there.
[SPEAKER_04]: How did that resolve?
[SPEAKER_04]: Because this is something that I've been meaning to ask you as about as everybody's talk about data and analytics and numbers and all of that on the music side.
[SPEAKER_04]: In my perception, that's existed on your end for way longer when you're talking about advertising dollars and readership and subscriptions and all of that.
[SPEAKER_04]: That did happen there.
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you ever come back?
[SPEAKER_03]: He came back within weeks.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then started hosting events for us.
[SPEAKER_03]: However, he blocked me on social media.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'll show you the contradictions are just insane, because it's like wait, I want about freedom of speech.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're allowed to say this, then we're allowed to say this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Also, what are you women doing?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I thought you're supposed to be submitting to your husband.
[SPEAKER_02]: So why would Allison
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, anything to say to her husband.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't like your husband's music.
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't call you and say, get it off the radio.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like that's a terrible, bro country that I don't want to hear.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like so, you know, it's a little bit of a double-edged sword.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, it's wild and it's very different topic.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think that there is...
[SPEAKER_03]: something to celebrity and celebrity proximity that makes you feel very important with certain people who aren't ready for that or who haven't properly been mentored into that world.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's
[SPEAKER_03]: such a difference between artists and celebrity or people who get into it for the wrong reasons and then Mary someone who is in a similar mindset and I think none of the great musicians that Joe has written about even if he has criticized would ever have that reaction.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I mean like true artists, I'm not saying that these people haven't had huge success because they have, but like I don't think an artist looks at it that way.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think someone who is more in it for the celebrity.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, we could probably dissect the artist versus the entertainer thing, you know?
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's me, even.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, artist entertainer.
[SPEAKER_06]: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,
[SPEAKER_06]: That's me.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's my own crazy view.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's, that's what I feel.
[SPEAKER_04]: That resonates with me, you know, because I view you both as artists, as writers, as creators, but like there are assignments.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so it's not like you have just complete creative, you know, a lot of the guests we have on here are songwriters and front people that because
[SPEAKER_04]: Carol King and James Taylor existed, they write personal songs and they record them and sing them and it can be a sonic journal of sorts or whatever, but there's this complete creative freedom which I understand doesn't really exist, you know, I write songs for TV and all of that and I get a very specific brief and I have to find my creativity and my agency within this confines of this.
[SPEAKER_04]: How do you guys find yourselves in having to write these things
[SPEAKER_06]: For me, I'm kind of at a spot in my crew where I could write what I want.
[SPEAKER_06]: If I ever get like horn swagled into doing something that I really don't want to do, it's okay.
[SPEAKER_06]: But I haven't really done anything that I felt like I compromised anything.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's what you mean.
[SPEAKER_04]: How do you not compromise?
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, how do you find yourself?
[SPEAKER_04]: How do you find your voice and your angle or position?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, you just find it and just do the thing, but this is the thing, you're like, there's a part of journalism and a part of this media landscape, anymore, that Allison, I both work in, which is working with brand partners.
[SPEAKER_06]: And hosting things under the auspices of a hotel chain or writing about a whiskey brand as it relates to their authenticity and whiskey making and authenticity in country music.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's show business.
[SPEAKER_06]: And if I'm going to keep the lights on, both at my company and in this basement office room, you got to do it.
[SPEAKER_06]: And you have to make yourself realize, like, I could do this.
[SPEAKER_06]: So if we do something with a brand, whiskey brand, let's just say, and they're coming to me in part of our deal, really so and say, hey, we want to highlight artists that are cool country, cool Americana, like you guys, you know, as opposed to some by the numbers pop country thing that that brand doesn't want to be associated with, that's really fun for me.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's really fun to be able to call, you know, let's say Maggie Rose and be like, hey, Maggie, we have this great opportunity.
[SPEAKER_06]: They're looking for this.
[SPEAKER_06]: You want to come sing these songs.
[SPEAKER_06]: And like, yeah, and that works out.
[SPEAKER_06]: Then she gets paid, really stone gets the deal.
[SPEAKER_06]: I get to go do a little fun night out and invite my friends and we all get to drink whiskey.
[SPEAKER_06]: To me,
[SPEAKER_06]: That sounds pretty fun.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's the best show business of it.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I don't feel like I'm compromising it anyway.
[SPEAKER_06]: Instead, what I'm doing is going back to my North Star, which is elevating an artist that I really feel strongly about in this case, Maggie Rose, and saying, hey, this is a great opportunity for you.
[SPEAKER_06]: Let's do it.
[SPEAKER_06]: So that's kind of how I guide it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's right in that story.
[SPEAKER_06]: And you wrote that story.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, not me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I did write that story.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but like, yes, it was you writing that story.
[SPEAKER_03]: or if you were writing a story along those lines that was like a partner story or whatever, would you feel satisfied in the writing of it or is that then that's a seri piece that comes with being able to elevate.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'd probably just paint by numbers it.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, maybe add a little bit of flair for whatever it may be, but most news writing that you do like what we're doing new stuff is the same thing.
[SPEAKER_06]: If someone posts something, I mean, just think of an example, Charlie Crocket a week ago he says some stuff about like the president, that's some stuff about the Grammys and all that's like, oh, we got to hit this, people are going to want to, you know, read this.
[SPEAKER_06]: And so in doing that, I don't just cut and paste what he said on Instagram, I always find some level of
[SPEAKER_06]: little nugget of information that kind of adds context so that's where I find the creative aspect.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like how do I make this thing not just regurgitating something that someone already posted on social media?
[SPEAKER_06]: How do I offer more context and that maybe by marketing back to an interview we did with that artists and say in 2023 Charlie Crocker said this blah blah blah us and you know kind of adds a little layer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well, and I think it goes back to kind of our conversation of continually figuring out like what works for you and like the entertainer versus artists conversation and like where they overlap, how far apart they are, I think that's something we all have.
[SPEAKER_02]: to grapple with, because some writers might be like, yeah, I can't operate in that world, because it's not like I'm compromising my morals, it's just not satisfying for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I've shared on this podcast that it was a returning point for me when I realized, I don't consider myself an entertainer, even though I am entertaining people on stage, but that's not my North Star.
[SPEAKER_02]: and it's kind of transition from back when I used to play a bunch of hockey talks and bars and right songs about whiskey and then life happened to me and the work that inspires me is, oh I'm like doing soulful work and not that entertainment isn't soulful but like it just shift to something in my brain or we had Margot Price and Jeremy Ivy on and
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say Margo is someone who's like very overlap.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's an artist and to the full tilt and entertainer and knows the role of how to work show business.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Jeremy was sharing, I can't do that stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: We can't do the TikToks and the, and we're like, we all have to know, like, what is fulfilling?
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe that's not fulfilling for Margo, but she's more willing to play that game because it gets her the opportunity to do more of what she wants.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like, someone like Jeremy or even myself might be like,
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm cool with doing what I get to do to the level that it allows me while not doing this other things so much.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to thank all of us on this call, anyone who is creative, it's the decision to, in our case, write for yourself or write for the audience.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's the same with you, right, a song for you that heals you that speaks to the things you're thinking or right a song that for lack of a better word panders to the masses and so that's sort of the artist versus entertainer of any of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you doing it for yourself or are you doing it for views or are you doing it for sales or are you doing it for corporate and knowing that one makes it a little easier to buy the sandwich at Martens.
[SPEAKER_03]: And one means maybe you're playing for the sandwich at Martens.
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess all of them martens is the example because I know there's so many more expensive sandwiches on this tail it says telling when you're like, yeah, $13 a sandwich and I see I'm like, yeah, yeah, I think it wasn't the Robert's recessions, but yeah, that's right
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm getting away.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know why I got it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was $1.00.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's recently.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: I know.
[SPEAKER_06]: But the point.
[SPEAKER_06]: My point being is just like it's these little things that we just take for granted or.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: Those things start.
[SPEAKER_06]: You start having to add those things up.
[SPEAKER_06]: It changes your perspective.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I know we're at the, and I want to Aaron always ask the last question, but I want to just read you guys something really fast.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm studying depth psychology of creativity and studying Carl Jung, and so much is about the middle of our lives.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the shift that happens for so many of us when we've been on an ego driven path.
[SPEAKER_02]: and then we shift into more self or soul-driven path and all of the disruption and destruction and the struggle that happens being such a source of wisdom and gold and transformation, but it's so uncomfortable.
[SPEAKER_02]: I texted this to Caroline Spence yesterday.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I can't remember who wrote it because I didn't put it in here, but it's one of the books I'm reading for school.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Carl Young would sometimes speak of the return to the mothers, which is a metaphorical way of saying that when ego development climaxes at midlife, there is no further meaning and continuing to pursue the same old goals.
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, some of the goals already achieved are now called into question as ultimate values.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this leads to reassessment of what has been achieved and reassessment on where future further meaning lies.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is more to life than making one way in the world with a solid and well-structured ego and persona.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ben there done that, sums up the mood of the mid-lifeer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now what, meaning lies elsewhere, and psychic energy changes its course.
[SPEAKER_02]: The task now becomes to unify the ego with the unconscious.
[SPEAKER_02]: which contains the person's unlived life and unrealized potential.
[SPEAKER_02]: This development in the second half of life is the classic Jungian meaning of individuation, becoming what you already are potentially, but now more deeply and more consciously.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the better put thing I keep saying at the dinner table.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's there.
[SPEAKER_03]: God, that, I mean, for me, especially that hit so hard.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, that's really, you reach a period which where your career has done the thing and couldn't keep doing the thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: You could keep doing the thing forever.
[SPEAKER_03]: But your heart, your soul, your persona is yearning for something that actually means more or that satisfies things that in your 20s or 30s, you didn't need.
[SPEAKER_03]: All you needed was that career to satisfy.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's really.
[SPEAKER_03]: as much as I hate to say I am mid-life, that is.
[SPEAKER_02]: But all to say that Alice in as frustrating and hardness this is and also for Joe, you're not flailing.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're going through what the hard stuff of what is a natural progression that hits a fall differently.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's also a great transition to our final question that we like to ask everybody and it's for each of you individually and you can choose we have a multiple choice and it's either something that someone has told you along your journey or that you've read that continues to resonate with you and fill your cup and keep you inspired and keep you going or conversely something that you wish you knew when you're first getting started in making a career
[SPEAKER_03]: I am one that stands out for sort of a weird reason.
[SPEAKER_03]: I, as you may not know, or surmise from this interview was a very quirky young person.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, stalking, and when I was home from college, I ran into a very popular girl from my school.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I wasn't, I must have been my early twenties because I had my career already.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I, at the time, was doing stand-up comedy and it was in a program with NBC trying to be a comedy writer because that had been my sort of initial plan.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I ran into a girl and she had always been so much cooler, like homecoming clean-type person.
[SPEAKER_03]: We'd been friends in middle school and then we got to high school and she was too cool for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I ran into her and she was like, oh my god, are you still telling all those corny jokes with everybody?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, wherever we used to just make fun of that so much.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, yeah, it's gonna be my career and she was like, oh, and I was like, yeah, I do stand up and I've been doing some writing and I just finished my first spec script and yeah, so that's kind of what I'm doing all the time now and she was like, silent.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's always, even though that's not the career path I took.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's always stayed with me that like, I say this to Joe a lot that like, I'm really hard on myself.
[SPEAKER_03]: but the one thing I'm proud of is that I am quirky and I am creative and I am always going to be that person and no matter what direction career goes or any of that, always think about that.
[SPEAKER_03]: How in my younger years, I and the people around me thought was detrimental or silly, is actually the thing that has made me successful.
[SPEAKER_06]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's good.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's gentle.
[SPEAKER_06]: Really good.
[SPEAKER_06]: The multiple choice, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: What?
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: I do.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're going to go something Buddhist.
[SPEAKER_06]: I was, actually.
[SPEAKER_06]: So the Buddha and some monks were hanging out.
[SPEAKER_06]: Get this crossroads.
[SPEAKER_06]: And this phara came running up.
[SPEAKER_06]: And he was all distressed and just made and very anxious.
[SPEAKER_06]: And he's like monks, monks.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, my cows ran off.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't know where I'm going to do.
[SPEAKER_06]: Did you see which way my cows went?
[SPEAKER_06]: And the booze said, we didn't, but maybe they went that way.
[SPEAKER_06]: And the farmer went running off, exasperated, hoping to find his cows.
[SPEAKER_06]: And the booze said to the monks, monks, you are the luckiest people on earth because you have no cows to lose.
[SPEAKER_06]: Release your cows.
[SPEAKER_06]: That weird little parable kind of changed my life when I just happened to be reading about booze and when my mom got sick.
[SPEAKER_06]: And that's really been my,
[SPEAKER_06]: mantra since then, which is release your cows because you realize how little you really have to worry about when you do that.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's a little too heavy and whatnot for right now, but that's really my thing.
[SPEAKER_06]: And when it all comes back to what we were saying, like I was joking about pop country and show business and all that, it really is.
[SPEAKER_06]: to release your cows, man.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's nothing else to really.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, no, to you got.
[SPEAKER_06]: Non-attachment.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like being mindful, it's not to go down the whole boot of thing, but mindfulness and being in the moment and this present moment is everyone uses this as a crutch lately.
[SPEAKER_06]: It seems like it's very much becoming a talking point.
[SPEAKER_06]: I hear it in artist interviews and stuff, but I just wonder how much they really grasp it and believe it and mean it and realize how
[SPEAKER_06]: There was a point when I first read that book.
[SPEAKER_06]: It was the heart of the Buddhist teaching by Tiknijan Han, where I was like, oh my God, it's just so easy.
[SPEAKER_06]: And now I still read it.
[SPEAKER_06]: I go back and I reread it.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I chastened that dragon, trying to find mad old feeling, because sometimes life has got so complicated that the ease of accepting those things that the Buddha said and that this monk said have been very hard to find again.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, but at that particular time, the very first time I read it, I just, it was like that one soprano's episode where Tony's in the desert and he goes, I get it, how is it?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: So release your cows, I get it, watch the soprano's, it's all show business, enjoy every sandwich.
[SPEAKER_02]: or release the sandwiches.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I think you did that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh my god, that's all we got, thank you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's all we got, thank you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, yeah, thank you both for making time this morning to sit and share with us.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for knowing what the wardrobe plan was.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was perfect.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's go ahead.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is awesome.
[SPEAKER_04]: Bye guys.
[SPEAKER_05]: All right, thank you.
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