Latest / Johnjay & Rich On Demand / COUPLES THERAPY w/ Noah & Lenora: Finding Art in Communication feat. Authors C.S.E. Cooney and Carlos Hernandez

Transcript

COUPLES THERAPY w/ Noah & Lenora: Finding Art in Communication feat. Authors C.S.E. Cooney and Carlos Hernandez · Johnjay & Rich On Demand

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hi, everybody, Welcome to Couples Therapy, the first one of
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: the new year. In this episode, Lenora and I were
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: in New York City visiting her aunt and uncle, who
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: are famous novel writers, fantasy writers, video game designers, board
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: game designers, marvel writers. They do quite a bit, and
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: we're going to get into all of that, But the
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: first ten minutes of the podcast are just me kind
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: of setting up the mic and some really good conversation
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: that happened before we officially started that I felt like,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: like always, it should be part of the podcast, save
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: your stuff till we're actually on, so I included that.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: So what you're going to hear for about the first
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: eight or nine minutes is us just getting ready to
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: start and some background information that will come up in
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: the actual podcast. So as soon as you hear the
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: jingle in about nine minutes, you'll know that that's the official,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: official start. But this is one of the more proud
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: podcasts I've put together, So I really hope you guys
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: listen all the way through and share your feedback, and
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I really hope you enjoy Thanks Happy Sunday. So far,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: the levels are great, fantastic, fantastic, go So were you
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: did you grow up in Phoenix? What year did you move?
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: I moved to Chicago in two thousand and one.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, that's right when John Ja and Rich went
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: on the air. So that's that expense. You wouldn't have
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: heard of them.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: Also, I never drove when I was in Phoenix. I
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: learned to drive till I was after twenty one.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Really, yeah, I never wanted to.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: My brothers kept getting an accidents and my mom would
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: cry every time the insurance went up, and so it
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: was very demotivated.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Was Joel one of those accidents?
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Joel and Hayden they both drove before I did. Think
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: I didn't really get in a lot of accidents until
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: he got his Saturn. That wasn't his fault. I know
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: that a teenager, he got a couple things that sky
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: rocketed insurance up a little bit. Didn't tell you that.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: I could ask my mom. She'd probably remembers since she
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: was paying for the insurance. So when you have guests on,
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: do you have more than one microphone?
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Usually we haven't had any guests on. The only time,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: like the first episode on, I did it at the
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: studio and then we've just been doing it at our apartment,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: which just one mic and sharing m isn't it raw?
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: Raw dog?
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: In it?
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: Not the secret to a successful marriage, lots and lots
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: of raw dogs.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Maybe maybe not marriage, but that's a secret to a
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: successful podcast. That microphone, Oh god.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: It is quite the dildonic appliance. I thought the same
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: thing too when I when I bought the first one
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: of these one I was I was like fifteen or sixteen,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: just starting out in radio, and I couldn't understand why
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: this part wasn't at least soft. It's like they did
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: it on purpose.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Claire, And you know, if you want to drink um
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: sometimes is you have to.
• 2:58
  Speaker 5: Like, are you thinking like a drink drain?
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, sure, it's your podcast?
• 3:01
  Speaker 6: Maybe that would be good.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: I'll get her talking, okay, get her drunk, yes, loco,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: I feel it. You see, two years after that song
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: came out, it's no number one on the iTunes starts.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know if the iTunes starts as any relevance,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: but djo end up beginning the one that's like and
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: when I'm backing Chic, it's still popping. I was just
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: thinking about Claire's moved to Chicago in two thousand and one,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: and so when you think of that song, it was the.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: First for my family to fly after the Twin Towers fell.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Oh oh, that must have been nerve wracking.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: No good, Like it was philosophically interesting, definitely something I marked.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: You know, what, what month did you move?
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: Because I remember.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: September September while it was the end of September.
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because I remember.
• 3:56
  Speaker 7: My mom saying like she was like the first one
• 3:58
  Speaker 7: to tell you when she said she a girl and
• 4:00
  Speaker 7: she uggy.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: I mean I went to the hospital.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: I think I was. My mom and I were together.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: We were I was still in I was either visiting
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: or in Phoenix because.
• 4:12
  Speaker 7: Well, my birthday is the twenty fifth August.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah that year, so I was still living there, and
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: there was like a full moon and we had gone
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: to the hospital.
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: Of course I was born on a full moon.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Makes so much sense. There was a big moon I met.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: It could have been Gibbus, but so I remember my
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: mom was just like so ecstatic and on the way home,
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: you know, the moon sets in the west over the
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: White Tank Mountains, and we were just so like happy
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: that we just instead of turning left on thirty ninth Avenue,
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: or dune lap or whatever. Yeah, thirty ninth Avenue. We
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: kept going down, down toward all of just we wanted
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: to we until the moon set.
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: We chased it.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, did you go all the way out to
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: like the three or three and that wasn't even there yet.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: It wasn't even there yet.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: It was like it turned to all of them and
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: it just keeps going until the white tanks. Yes, and
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: so we just basically chased the moon on the night
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: you were born.
• 4:58
  Speaker 8: Yeah, that's amazing.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: That's where my parents live now.
• 5:02
  Speaker 6: Curly, my darling, my car.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: Carl Simon like, not I Curly, but Curly.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: What a great reference.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: In the It's it's in Lenora's room. It's fine. It's
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: easy to see. It's just tucked into the bookshelf or
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: on top of the bookshelf. Okay, can I go into
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: the room.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Carlos, Carlos, please tell me how you know I Carly.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Because I'm a.
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: Human being who like interacts with the American culture.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: It is a very good show and it holds up
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: even for adults, so you should it is there would
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: be a good watch. It's one of my favorite kids
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: shows of all times.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Freshman every year in college.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: So he's getting all the people our age and that
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: watch that stuff growing up.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, not only that, but he writes middle school and
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: all of his kids in middle school who had read
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: his books are now entering college right right now. But
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: when he was writing for middle school, he loves Twitch,
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: so he would watch all these gamers play on Twitch.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: But what he was really watching for is the chat,
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: which is where all of the most like contemporary lingo
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: is and all of the modern references because they're all kicked.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: In the chat basically.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: So he got all these like ways of talking and
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: from like direct from the source, from his students, and
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: from and from the Twitch casts. Anyway, he always knows
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: a fuck ton more about what's going on in the
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: real world than I do.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: I just make up necromancers.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Oh I, Carly is so good. Okay, So what's in
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: the cocktail?
• 6:33
  Speaker 6: Carlos?
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: So this is an original concoction call. I'm calling it
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: the Leonora Claire and it is jim a paratol, but
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: a zero proof version of a paratol and.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: So funny.
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: Sorry, it's it's that's the bidder that I was asking about.
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: Uh simple syrup, which is two parts sugar, one part
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: water and a specific shrub that we got that had cucumber,
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: lime and something else in it, maybe mint, yes, mint,
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: cucumber tea if.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: It was alcoholic. That's kind of that's the vibe.
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: I'm getting and I'm serving it on the rocks because
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: I couldn't find the mixology stuff, so I couldn't shake it.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: It needs just a hint of sugar before its salts
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: like sugar.
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: I almost did a sugar rim, but I already already
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: started pouring it to the glass. Unfortunately, but we can.
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: Maybe for number two.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Power through number one.
• 7:33
  Speaker 6: Yeah, exactly.
• 7:34
  Speaker 5: I'm already feeling something.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Here.
• 7:45
  Speaker 8: We would say couples take Colomba. It's a little little
• 8:15
  Speaker 8: podcast day.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: No, you cannot deny new content, new John, Jay and
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Rich all year long. We are back Baby. It is Sunday,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: January eleventh, twenty twenty six. New year, New me, new goals,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: and this is Couple's Therapy. This is our eighth episode
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Lenora and I I believe. And today we are live
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: from New York. It's Saturday night. Now it's Sunday, and
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: we have we are in New York City. This is
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: actually January third. Before we come back on the air
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: because we have very special guests today. We have Claire
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: and Carlos Hernanez. And this is Leonora's aunt and uncle.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: And let me get your job titles and what you
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: guys do for living exact, so that I don't screw
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: this up. Go ahead and share with us.
• 9:10
  Speaker 6: Sure.
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: So the first thing is it's Claire Cooney and Carlos Hernandez.
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: We're doing couples therapy. He did not take my name.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: I did not want her to take my name, like
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: we never wanted to change my name exactly.
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: But Claire writes under the name cs Cooney. She is
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: a World Fantasy Award winning author twice. So you know,
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: was it a fluke? She is just that incredibly great
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: of an author. She's also an audiobook narrator and an actor.
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: Was it twenty twenty three or twenty four that we
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: mounted Ballads from a Distant Stone.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: March of twenty twenty three at Arts on Site, New York.
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so you know she's written lots of different theater
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: as a performer and is smoking hot.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: This This is Carlos Hernandez. He is the winner of
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: the Porta Bell Pray Award for Excellence and Latino children's Literature,
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: where his Rick Ryerd and presents Book Sale and Gabby
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: Break the Universe. He is also known for the sequel
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: Salem Gabby Fixed the Universe, and for his esteemed short
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: story collection of very weird adult sci fi called The
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santa Ria Wow. But he's
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: also a professor at CUNEY. He has appointments at BMCC
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: the Borough of Manhattan Community College, where he teaches a
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: lot of English comp and sometimes other things. But he
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: also has an appointment at the Graduate Center for Interactive
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: Technology and Pedagogy. He's also a game designer. He's got
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: lots of vocations. This one. You leave him alone for
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: a day, thinking he'll rest, and he'll have written three
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: novels and invented two new board games.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: That is so much of a better intro than I
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: could have done for you too. See that's people always say, well,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: you know, how can you afford to live in New York? Well,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: you do eighteen million things like you do, and it
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: just kind of works, and you find your own little
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: piece of square that they call an apartment and there
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: you go. But I'm actually surprised I thought you guys
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: did her last name because I saw the you when
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: I was in the kitchen. I saw it was like
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: a piece of medical paperwork or whatever, and it had
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: your next appointment on it and it just said Hernandez.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, she did take his last name,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: but I.
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: Think that that was just Carlos.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: That was for you.
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
• 11:17
  Speaker 6: Sometime they used Claire's first name.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense because I was actually picturing her
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: like sitting in the waiting room or whatever, and they're like, oh,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: we have a Claire Hernandez coming in today, and then
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: they see you and they're like Heranda's wonder where that's from.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: And then you'd have to explain how you're.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: Just married letters to missus Hernandez, which is you know,
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: it just takes up.
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: That's cute.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Well, I definitely understand that, especially with your author name,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: you wouldn't want to give that up.
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: No, exactly.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: So, Lenora and I are in New York basically because
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: I have been yearning for the streets of Manhattan. Probably
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: let's see, I went maybe it was seven or eight
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: years ago. I probably around twenty twenty when I got
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: the itch to come back. But then the world changed
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: forever and that did not happen, and then the years
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: have just kept on coming. So Lenora said, hey, I
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: have an aunt and uncle who live in New York.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: We should go for New Years. And I said, come again,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: they have an apartment. Because really the only thing that
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: stopped me from coming back to New York is the
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: prices of the hotels. I can figure out everything else
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: if I have enough time to plan for it, but
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: hotels were not in the cards, and you guys solved
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: that problem. So thank you for that our pleasure. We're
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: on the last day of the trip and we've had
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: quite an eventful last eight weeks. Lenora and I have
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: both been participants in a wedding and she was a bridesmaid,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: and we have traveled. We finished out twenty twenty five
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: on Jehn Jay and Rich. Leonora is deep into some
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: new creative art ventures which we still will not break
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: the seal on yet, but know that that is coming.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Speaking of breaking the seal, that's what Leonora calls it
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: when she peas after her first drink, which she is
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: currently sipping right now. So things are looking up, Leonora,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about the wedding that
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: we were in and what's been happening since, if you
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: want to give us some of the tea.
• 13:03
  Speaker 7: So the wedding was my one of my best friend's wedding,
• 13:08
  Speaker 7: sorry to drink. We've been friends since kindergarten and we
• 13:13
  Speaker 7: spent almost every day together, every day of the weekend
• 13:17
  Speaker 7: and of summer together. And then I moved out of
• 13:21
  Speaker 7: that neighborhood. And it wasn't until we were both like
• 13:25
  Speaker 7: sixteen and we could like drive each other places.
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: We really connected.
• 13:29
  Speaker 7: And I remember when she first got, you know, with
• 13:33
  Speaker 7: her now husband, she was always like, oh, you got
• 13:36
  Speaker 7: to meet him, you got to meet him. When I did,
• 13:38
  Speaker 7: I was like, oh, my gosh, they're so in love.
• 13:40
  Speaker 7: Then a couple years later, when I moved into my
• 13:43
  Speaker 7: current apartment, she came over and asked me to be
• 13:46
  Speaker 7: her bride'smaid and said, I can't tie the knot without you.
• 13:50
  Speaker 7: And the day finally came, and we've been waiting. It
• 13:54
  Speaker 7: felt like a century, you know, but it was probably
• 13:57
  Speaker 7: only like two years.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: She asked you to be a rides made like almost
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: two years ago, now, right, It was a long time ago,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: and at the time, all of our so called high
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: school sweethearts or whatever that was all that was all
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: short lived. We were still in an era where we
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: were still kind of new out of high school and
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: everyone's everyone claimed to have their sweethearts in high school,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: and they've all since broke up for the most part.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Shout out to oh gosh, what's his name? Grace from
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: my yearbook class. Well, Grace and Andy, they're still together,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: still thriving, and I love that for them. But Katie
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: and Austin are the only other two people I know
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: that really stuck through it. And from day one it
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: was like, Oh, these two are so meant to be together,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: and it was a beautiful It was a beautiful wedding.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: I was not around Katie and Austin as much when
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: she asked to be a bridesmaid, but since then we've
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: all become really close friends. And even though I didn't
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: have an official groomsman title in this wedding, they basically
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: made me an honorary one since by the time the
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: wedding came around, we were really close and so I was.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: I got to be there in spirit for everything. I
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: got to be part of the rehearsal in Marlow Spirit,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: I was in the pictures, even though I didn't have
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: the matching tie and like all that kind of stuff.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: So I got to do a speech at the wedding,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: and I got to sit at a nice table and
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: I felt very included and it was just a magical,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: magical evening. And we worked on a special eye piece
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: for them, right.
• 15:25
  Speaker 7: I did, So me and Katie we kind of got
• 15:28
  Speaker 7: into all our creepy stuff together, like we both thought
• 15:31
  Speaker 7: our old houses more haunted, which they totally were. And
• 15:37
  Speaker 7: I know she's not super into tarot like I am,
• 15:40
  Speaker 7: but she likes like the aesthetic of it. She has
• 15:44
  Speaker 7: like a whole bunch of witchy kind of tattoos. So
• 15:47
  Speaker 7: I made her a giant painting for their wedding gift,
• 15:51
  Speaker 7: and at the top it's their wedding date in Roman numerals,
• 15:55
  Speaker 7: and then two skeletons holding each other with anatomical hearts
• 16:00
  Speaker 7: glowing gold in them because their colors were red and gold,
• 16:02
  Speaker 7: so I put red roses with gold leaf, and then
• 16:06
  Speaker 7: the bottom said the lovers obviously. But yeah, I worked
• 16:10
  Speaker 7: on it for weeks and when they opened it, they
• 16:13
  Speaker 7: absolutely loved it, and I couldn't be more proud. But
• 16:17
  Speaker 7: I couldn't be more proud of them, like because I
• 16:19
  Speaker 7: know how much shit they've gone through because of this wedding,
• 16:25
  Speaker 7: like legal shit and uh, just how expensive it was,
• 16:29
  Speaker 7: like them county Pennings.
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: Yes, like my goodness.
• 16:33
  Speaker 7: But now it's like all over and they're just the
• 16:37
  Speaker 7: happiest couple. And they already have a child named Arlowe.
• 16:41
  Speaker 7: No he's not an actual child, it's a dog, but
• 16:45
  Speaker 7: he is, like he's he's my godson.
• 16:48
  Speaker 6: He's such a cute dog.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: Yes, what kind of dog?
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: A Winman Eimer.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Photogenic?
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: Yes, yes, he's so photogenic.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: It's like almost the size of a Great Dane, but
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: with the softness and the cuteness of a of a
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: smaller dog. So it's kind of like nice, you know,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: less drool, but still the same size of a dog
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: of wood jewel, and so it's kind of like best
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: of both worlds. And he's very sweet. He doesn't bark
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: so all the all the typical dog behaviors. He's just
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: he's just happy. He's just there.
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: Hey. Before we move away from the painting, I just
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: want to say something very uncle. I got to see
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: this painting you showed me as the painting, and it
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: is just extraordinary it is just so great. It's just
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: you know, like this one of a kind piece of
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: original art but full of that emblematic symbolic feeling that
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: you get from a tyro. I just super love it,
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: and so like as an uncle, I want to give
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: you bad uncle advice and be like, quit everything, just
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: go out and be an artist. Celebrate your talent, you know,
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: let your dad deal with the fallout.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: Of the I think you, sorry, Jewel. Her dad is
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: my brother, so TiO Carlos can be the the in
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: law uncle.
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he's my younger brother in.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: Law, so I get to tell him what oh and
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: remind me Lura. Later I'll show you my deviant moonterot,
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: which is my creepiest tarot card.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: De I have.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: I say, let's do a creepy reading. Okay, sure, yes,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: so this painting I will say. Leonora has spent the
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: later half of the last year kind of in doubt
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: of what some of her paintings mean to her. And
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't call it a dry spell because she painted
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: through the dry spell, especially when we had paint and
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Sip night that our apartment complex put on. We painted
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: through the pain but paint.
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: Cry yourself to sleep.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: It, which we did that night as she was working
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: on Katie's painting. She was kind of looking to me
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: for some inspoll and we were kind of going over
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: the canvas a little bit and that's when we came
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: up with the glowing heart. So even though they're skeletons, like,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: how co would it be if their heart still glowed?
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: And you know, it was the centerpiece of the painting,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: and I just yeah, it was like a really.
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: Beautiful And another thing is the painting. The canvas was
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: huge and I actually started.
• 19:04
  Speaker 7: On it when I was with Jacob and we were
• 19:07
  Speaker 7: gonna put all these things we loved on it, but
• 19:09
  Speaker 7: then I moved out and it was just like sitting there.
• 19:11
  Speaker 7: So I primed it and I'm like, you know, that
• 19:13
  Speaker 7: relationship didn't last, but this one will.
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: And yeah, there's a whole bunch of layers.
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: And just for art, lanko prime means you covered over
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: with a layer of prime and started over.
• 19:23
  Speaker 7: Yeah okay, yeah, and then I sealed it in, so
• 19:26
  Speaker 7: not going anywhere, not going anywhere.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: So like years later, when they're doing their what's it
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: called when they scrape, Yeah, not.
• 19:35
  Speaker 6: So.
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: Pentimento is when you see an earlier painting beneath a
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: painting that has been painted over.
• 19:41
  Speaker 7: So I thought of the olive pimento.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you finally found a use for that canvas,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: because that clearly we're never going to get your Jacob painting,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: and that canvas stable lot of space in the apartment,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: which he wouldn't know about, although he listens to our
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: podcast apparently.
• 20:01
  Speaker 7: And the only reason I reached back out to him
• 20:04
  Speaker 7: was because of the bachelorette party who was on a
• 20:07
  Speaker 7: dare and it was like, call your fifteenth most recent
• 20:09
  Speaker 7: I don't call anyone, I just text an email. So
• 20:12
  Speaker 7: of course it was him immediately picks up and then
• 20:15
  Speaker 7: could not stop texting me afterwards, and I'm like, dude,
• 20:17
  Speaker 7: you're a pathetic. This is the last text I'm sending you.
• 20:20
  Speaker 7: Please never again. So Jacob, if you're listening, this's.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: For you, As she takes a sip of her of
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: her Long Island iced tea, that this has become Ladora Claire.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: But yeah, So she had to call him on a
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: dare and he picked up, and then he texted her
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: for a couple of days, and she had to she
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: had to be bold and say this is enough. But
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: before she could do that. He sent a screenshot of
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: the transcript of Our Couple's Therapy podcasts, which he listens
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: to and has been keeping up with Leonora, and I
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: is if that's not creepy enough.
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you didn't tell me.
• 20:54
  Speaker 7: I'm famous and like but not in the good way.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Talked a lot about our lives and our relationships on
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: the on the John j rig Show on twenty different
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: in twenty different markets as well as on the Couples Therapy,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: and the fans are not on your side, Jacobs, So
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: I would find a new podcast listen to unless you
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: want to just keep listening to us reach you know,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: our career goals in life and our financial goals, because
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: we're slowly working there, working toward there. Even though some
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: of the episodes we may sound depressed and hopeless, we're
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: trying our best and ties you can. You can pretend
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: that you still live with us if you want. But
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: you were a part of yesterday's chapter and I just
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know what else to tell you. And I
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: was going to text you the same thing, but I
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: don't want to be messaged by you either, So I'm
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: this is me just putting that out there. If you're listening,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: just move on with your life, because we've moved on, respectfully.
• 21:51
  Speaker 7: I moved on through a karaoke song that I did
• 21:53
  Speaker 7: in New York before he Cheats by Carrie Underwood, just
• 21:56
  Speaker 7: to let you know.
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: Instead of car I put to us, I was gonna
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: say he cheat.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: I know, but it felt like he did with Tesa.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: But well, yes, but he did. He didn't cheat, but
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Tessica was like cheating. But he also you also did
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: break up before he could have cheat because of the
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: whole the nurse thing. When he wanted to move in
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: with our nurse friend Sarah, and he had asked, do
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: you have any hot nurse friends that I could live with?
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: It's like we're like, we're covered in blood puke, Like
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: this is not a hot career, and stop fetishizing this
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: career career.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: So yeah, the Jacob chapter is over.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: The Jacob chapter is over, The wedding chapter is over,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: and that with the bachelorette party. My god, what a
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: time that was. Thanksgiving. It was all just this last
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: half of the year just really just a lot happened,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: and uh now we're now we're here in New York
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: and since we're doing couple's therapy. You know, every couple
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: on the show gets a chance to showcase their own relationship,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: the good, the bad, the evil, and kind of talk
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: about what it's like living together, and you get like
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: an at home perspective of every member on the show.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: And then you have Lenora and I who are just
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: roommates and our roommate dynamic, which is fun. We've explored
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: that a lot, but there really is no other couple
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: like Claire and Carlos. I always tell Leonora, I said,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: when you find you're somebody, it's like going to be
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: like finding your Carlos. So I've gotten to see some
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: examples of how you guys talk through things and how
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: you guys work together as a couple to make living
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: in a small apartment feel like you're living in a mansion.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: So I kind of want to I want to get
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: some opinions on that and get some get some perspectives
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: from your eyes, and some advice that you might have
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: for people out there who are looking for their Carlos
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: or have found their Carlos and don't want to screw
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: it up. So I'm going to pass this mic over
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: to you, and I just I'm curious and if you
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: have any questions, if you want more explanation, I'm happy
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: to explain with.
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: That you were very happy being single for a long time,
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: well into your thirties, and on purpose. Yeah, yeah, on purpose,
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: like choosing, That's what I mean, and sort of like
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: deciding that you're going to be an artist first and
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: commit yourself, you know, to a level of achievement that
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: you know basically has led to the career that you
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: have now, and only later sort of like decided that okay,
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: maybe this could work and whatever. So like the things
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: that I remember you saying that really I think apply
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: here is just sort of like you have to have
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: a relationship that's better than being alone. And maybe you
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: want to talk a little bit about that and what
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: that kind of meant for you.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I grew up in a large family. Leonora's
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: father is one of my five brothers, and so I
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: was so excited when I moved out to live alone.
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: I did that in a studio apartment for several years
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: and then financially needed a roommate, but very much two
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: adults doing their own thing, and I had a wonderful roommate, Jillian,
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: for several years. An actor often on tour Julian, Jillian, Jillian.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: And then I lived alone again for another few years,
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: which was very cool, like in that cool attic apartment
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: in Chicago. And then I really wanted to move to
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: Rhode Island. I had visited when I was twelve, and
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: I just always wanted to go back and live there.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: It was like a weird brain blip. And so I
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: lived with people for a year on their couches while
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: my stuff was in storage to be able to save
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: enough money, because part of being an artist in the
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: world for me, there's probably other ways to do this,
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: but I was working a lot of very low wage
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: jobs that had nothing to do with my degree because
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: my degree was in fiction and acting and I wanted
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: to use my creative powers for my own projects. I
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: could have gotten any number of jobs with a college
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: degree that had to do with writing, especially at that
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: time pre AI, but I didn't want to blow my
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: wad as it were during my day job. I wanted
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: to save it. So I worked at a bookstore. I
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: used bookstore for ten years, or as secretaries as often
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: was a second job perceptionist, office manager sort of thing.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: And so I and I, you know what, I what.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: It gave me a lot of time and energy to write,
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: but it didn't give me any money to save. So
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: in that year where I was living with people, friends
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: on their couches or with my dad and stepmom and
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: saving money, it reminded me what it was like to
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: live with people, which was like, there's something that I
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: didn't notice when I was living alone, which is kind
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: of like an invisible weight that when I did notice
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: it finally I thought, oh, I see now, it's this
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: is what being alone feels like, and there is a
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: weight to it, but it's bearable. It's bearable. But I
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: had had a long honeymoon before I felt that weight
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: with myself, a beautiful honeymoon. But when I lived with
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: other people, that weight of somebody else doing dishes in
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: the next room was like a dissolving of that weight.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: Hearing somebody laugh or watch TV, or knowing that if
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: anything happened there's another person nearby was like, oh, oh,
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: that's why people lived together, which is not something I'd
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: even thought about before that time. And so when I
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: moved to Rhode Island, I talked my mother into moving
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: with me, because I knew she always wanted to live
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: in other places. She's very much loose in fancy, free,
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: but also a single mother of five, so she was
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: always kind of stuck in Phoenix, although she made sure
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: she could travel whenever she could and took us on
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: lots of road trips. So for a wondrous three years
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: we were roommates. But I'll say when I met Carlos,
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: we were friends first, and then when we became I
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: would say like lovers. I was definitely I'm of like
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: a spiritual polyamory where I was definitely like, okay you,
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: but also whoever else I want, is that okay with you?
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: And He's like, just as long as I don't have
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: to be with anybody.
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: I am not polyamorous, spiritual or otherwise.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: But I, you know, like, I am the sort of
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: person who I respond to response. So the more energy
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: you focus on me, the more I will focus on
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: that person. And so until it was just like, oh,
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: all my energy is here because this is where I'm
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: getting all of the attention, so I will put my
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: attention here. And then eventually my mom had to move back.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: I had more wonderful roommates, but we were commuting like
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: New York to Rhode Island, which isn't terribly far, but
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: it's still three and a half hours. And I think
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: Carlos felt it before I did, Like I was good
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: for the first two years of that long distance relationship,
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: but after a while there's a new weight, and it's
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: not the weight of solitude, but it's like leaving was
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: getting harder and harder every time until my quality of
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: life was affected, and I just don't live with a
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: bad quality of life. I refused to you, our lives.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Are too short.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: So I was like, hey, I'm moving with you. You
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: offered me insurance we could get married at City Hall,
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: and he'd been teasing, like he was always teasing about
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: getting married, but he's like kidding. But so basically, when
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: all the choices eventually became hit, choosing him was smarter, better,
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: more comfortable and fun more fun than choosing anything else.
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: When he became the best choice after a long time
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: of consideration, that's when I moved in, And that's I
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: think it was still the best choice I have made
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: and the best choice I still could make. And it's
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: a constantly choosing. There's like, so far no other thing
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: to compare with that choice, and I don't think there
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: will be well, betide him if there is, but there
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: I really don't think there can be.
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: So the what I'm hearing from you is make sure
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: that the relationship is better choice than other easier options
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: like being alone. And to paraphrase, you save your wad.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: Save my creative wand for creative all wads, all wads.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: Well to save your words, to blow it on something
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: you really want to blow.
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: It up exactly.
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: I would also say that I was an expert, having
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: lived in Phoenix, in Chicago than Rhode Island. In long
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: distance relationships. I may not always be good at them,
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: but I've had many of them over my life, all friendships,
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: deep friendships, and so I think that really helped. I
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: already knew how to write letters, talk on the phone, text,
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: and keep in contact with people, and I already had
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: very close friends that Carlos was very instantly in an
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: inner circle that usually takes people longer to get into
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: truth be told. So it was from this place of
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: where I was comfortable of long distance relationships, deep friendship
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: like all of that was easy, and I had to
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: kind of shift it into what does the romantic version
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: of that look like? But that was that's still a
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: long learning process, whereas you knew all about long term relationships.
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, what do you want ask me something else?
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so how was the was the choice of me
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: a good choice? And how did you How did you
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: live before and how did it compare? And like, yeah,
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: like what is your New York life like? And how
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: is it different now?
• 30:40
  Speaker 6: Yeah?
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: So before Claire, about a year and change before I'd
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: met Claire, I had had a relationship for eighteen years
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: and change. Actually probably closer to eighteen and a half
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: years if I do the math, and that relationship ended
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: thorough and complete heartbreak on my end, you know, the
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: sort of thing where I watched the movie Her and
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: I was screaming back at.
• 31:07
  Speaker 6: It, going, no, don't apologize that fucking computer. Fuck that computer.
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: Can we say? Fuck? I don't okay, fuck that because
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: I'm you know, like screaming back and helping Joakimi, Felix
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: will hear Phoenix will hear me. But like, you know,
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: like thoroughly broken, so broken in fact, that like the
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: one thing that had always healed and helped me recover,
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: art wasn't working, Like art wasn't working. For the first
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: time in my life, I wasn't enjoying movies or music
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: or reading. It's just everything felt like there was a
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: there was a deadness instead of the feeling of artistic enjoyment.
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: And then the mutual friends that we had that you know,
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: this is before I knew Claire, but the mutual friends
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: that we had. I said, hey, Carlos, you should go
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: to this science fiction fantasy convention called Reader KHN and Boston,
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: and you know you'll love it there. And you know,
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: inside I'm like, well, I'm not loving a lot of
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: things right now, but you know, these are good people
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: and I need to do things, so so let me
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: do the thing. And I went there and one of
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: the first things is I saw Claire read from her work,
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: and you know, she read a story that was pretty
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: saucy and pretty spicy.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: Can still read it online, that's right.
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: It's called Which Beast Saint and it's available in Strange
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: Horizons if you're if you're into the outree and the risque.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: Of polyamorate with a hint of beastiality, Beast Saint.
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: So, uh, yeah, I call it sort of like a
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: kind of like a furry story in a lot of ways.
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: But but yeah, so I heard this story Claire was
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: immensely talented. Immediately I saw her in an audience and
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: another one, and she was the person who was vocally
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: asking questions in one hundred percent engaged. Was like, Okay,
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: this is the type of person that I like. I
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: saw her perform the following day for charity and she
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: gets hell of a smoke and performance of one of
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: her poems that she had memorized and then performed for
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: the audience. It was just like terrific. So like, this
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: is a person who I saw, you know, just like
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: putting good stuff out there in the world and things
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: that under normal circumstances I would like.
• 33:18
  Speaker 6: But oh yeah, so here's.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: So when you first saw Claire, it was was your
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: brain going towards oh, this is somebody I like and
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: I want to, you know, turn on the charm and
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: potentially have a relationship with or was this more of like,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: this is the person who's gonna help me get take
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: the deadness out of my art and inspire me to
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: do something again and like just as a platonic thing.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: And then the other stuff came later.
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, great question, I would say somewhat of the latter,
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: though not even that extremely like it wasn't even that
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: self aware. That was just like, oh, this is a
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: cool person, you know. And so like that Saturday night,
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: after the charity performance, a whole bunch of writers gather
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: around to sing depressing sea chanties, you know, like the
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: ones that are like, oh my husband's gone off to
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: sea and now he's come back as a ghost, like
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: that sort of thing, and so like everyone's like sitting
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: around and singing that. But I was sitting between two
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: very fine singers. It was April Grant and Caitlin Paxton,
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: who has a book coming out next year, and they
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: were just beside me and they sang a minor chord
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: in harmony on each side of me, so like in stereo,
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: I'm hearing this, and I just started weeping. I broke
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: open like at that moment, just like oh.
• 34:35
  Speaker 6: That's so beautiful.
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: And I could like literally, I could tell you the
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: moment when I started feeling art again and things could
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: start affecting me. And Claire was in that circle, and Sita,
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: your mom, your grandma was in there, and Jeremy, your brother,
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: your uncle were there as well, and a bunch of people,
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: so like Claire is sort of like sitting among all
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: of these people who opened me back up to the world.
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: So then we became Facebook friends, and like nothing happens,
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: like we're just Facebook friends, you know, occasionally liking things
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: or whatever. But at one point Claire on Facebook says,
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: you know what I want to do. I want to
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: have a gentry ball. I want all like fairy dumb
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: to come to my virtual gentry ball. And so like
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: people started taking pictures of each other in elaborate makeup
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: and wild hairdoos. And I was like, this is not
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: something Carlos does. Carlos does not paint himself or dress himself.
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: But this that was old Carlos, and old Carlos was stupid.
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: So now new Carlos is going to go to the
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: gentry ball. So I went to a Spirit Halloween and
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: bought a full red bodysuit and a little red fedora.
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: And I put on the full red bodysuit and the
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: red fedora, and I was like, I'm going to take
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: a picture of myself for this gentry ball. So you know,
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: if you put on a full red bodysuit, your finger
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: won't register on your phone, so I couldn't take the picture.
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: And here's a safety tip for you, I'm a guyverrdet.
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: A gummy vitamin will work. So I took a gummy vitamin.
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: I was able to use that to do that butt.
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: But the important, the important thing that I learned from
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: this is as soon as I went to take the picture,
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: you know, I was thinking, like, I'm going to.
• 36:10
  Speaker 6: Be part of Claire's gentry ball.
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: My crotchrop's open, you know, and so like I am
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: very carefully angling the cara, you know.
• 36:19
  Speaker 6: So basically you.
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: Don't get a whole lot of you know, rated X
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: scrot them.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: But guess what second drink idea, this crotch shot. I
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: have to be a little more second drink tonight. And
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: I'm very excited.
• 36:35
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: So, I mean there's a recurring theme in our relationship
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: with things either my pants break open or things fall
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: into my pants when I'm around the class.
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: It's a metaphor.
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, But so, like what happened was that we just
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: kept being friends and then through just this conversation we
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: were like, hey, we should write something together, and then
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: we did so long distance we started writing was called
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: an epistolary story, basically a story that's written between letters.
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: It's like you a box of letters between two people
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: and then you read.
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: All the letters, only this case with emails.
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: In this case it was email though, and so you
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: know it was a science fiction fantasy. It was fantasy
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: story about a woman who's dying but discovers a way
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: to be reborn as a dragon. And so you know,
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: it involves this very special kind of tree that you
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: care for and feed and eventually meet the Yeah, you
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: feed the tree meat and eventually it becomes the egg
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: for a dragon. So we write the story together and then,
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: you know, like both of us, I think we're really
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: engaged with each other's writing, just sort of like, oh
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: my god, this is I remember when I read the
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: first She wrote the first letter, sent it to me,
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: and when I read it was like, Jesus, this is
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: like I'm communicating with Virginia Wolf or something. This is
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: such an incredible piece of language. And I was so
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: excited bout It's like, okay, crack knuckles, all right, here
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: we go. Time to go full Carlos. And you know,
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: we did that exchange. It eventually ended up getting published,
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: but when we were done, we're like, that was so
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: much fun. And I think Clari, you're the one who
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: said you know, I want to keep writing to you,
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: but maybe just like as me. And then we continued
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: our correspondence.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: So I'm a big letter writer. Yeah it's very old fashioned,
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: but I do like it.
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: And so we had a month's long courtship, where again
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: it was like very like subtle, very slow, and very.
• 38:17
  Speaker 6: Much like I don't know what this is. It's just great.
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: She's great. She's so smart, she's so talented, and so
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: like what I think of when I think of like
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: reasons I fell for you. It's just like, you're so
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: talented and you're so generous and you're so much fun.
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: And all of those things were communicated the moment I
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: knew you, and only intensified the more I knew you.
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: It's very sweet.
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: That was a kiss for those of you who couldn't
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: hear I got kissed.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: That's so beautiful.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: So like listening to that visually in my head, my
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: brain is doing its own thing and showing me this story.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: And have you ever seen one of those like toy
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: they're like toy balls and they're full of water, and
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: so you squeeze them and then they go equal side
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: like when they break in the two sides. The water
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: goes to one side, and if you start squeezing one
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: end back, the other side has to fill as equally.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: You can't really have one side smaller than the other.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: They both have to be even. I feel like that's
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: kind of the story of you two. The more that
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: you guys glided into each other's spaces, the more the
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: more you filled each other's gap. Basically, the more the
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: two sides became even without anybody really trying it, just
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: when you were leaving, When Claire was leaving Rhode Island
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: and she realized that long distance wasn't working, and eventually
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: the scales tipped where and feeling alone took over more
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: and the solitude wasn't as enriching as the moments that
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: you were here. When that tails, when the scale tipped,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: that's when your ball broke in the two pieces, basically
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: is how my brain showed that. And I think that
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: just happens naturally, and I think that that's that's really unique,
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: because it's almost like you both have your own stories
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: that have their own complete, different definition, and it's amazing
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: how it works so well. I see Carlos as more
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: of like like Lnura and I watching How I Met
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: your mother. I've seen it thirteen times, but the first
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: episode where Ted sees Robin across the crowded room at
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: the bar in New York City, it's like he knows
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: from that moment that something's going to happen. And you
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: don't know from that moment that something's going to happen,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: but you know that you're meant to be. You were
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: meant to be at that reader's con and you were
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: meant to participate in that gentry ball, and like you
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: have a very rose colored glasses approach to trying to
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: find the new Carlos, and in the process of finding
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: the new Carlos, you found Claire. And then for Claire,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: she's just she's just living life and you come in
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: like a bowling ball. And so that's that's really unique
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: and special. So then where you guys are, now, what
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: what are some challenges you guys face and how do
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: you talk through them? And what is what is your
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: like what makes you guys work so well? Because I
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: overheard a snippet this morning of the family meeting tomorrow
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: with the closets, and I thought, you guys handled that
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: so well, and I just I want I want that
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: exact same communication style with my partner someday, So I
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: would love to know more about that.
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So like learning how another person communicates is is
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: very difficult, Like it's a long process. It's not instant
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: because nobody's brains map the same and kind of like understanding.
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: We had our friend living with us for COVID, and
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: there were three people who had to suddenly live together
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: in a small space and understand everybody needed something different
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: and like, so we started we'd been watching what we're doing,
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: what we do in the shadows, and we were so
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: we tried to define each other by what kind of
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: vampires we were, and so like, I'm a calendar vampire.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: So I if you we start calendaring and organizing dates
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: and times and scheduling, I derive a great deal of
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: energy from that. As everybody arounds me starts wilting and
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: turning gray, aging and like crying and then fainting. And
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: so I learned that my brain is very active at
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: night and be like, you know what, three years from
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: now we should go to Spain, and Carlos is like,
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: please please know whereas Carlos derives a great deal of
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: energy from atomic elbowing people, So he'll see somebody across
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: a crowded room and he'll say, can I please atomic
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: elbow you?
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: Usually you say yes, and then.
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: And he'll just run barrel across room and then like
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: land on you elbow first, usually gently, like in a
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: in a fake wrestler sort of way, but like he's
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: very physical and rambunctious and likes to like rattle and
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: play around. And our friend, yea, and our other friend
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: was so social, so social, so she tea all day
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: on Zoom and Carlos would be teaching at the same time,
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: two different rooms with no wall between them. By the way,
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: they'd both be teaching all day on Zoom. Then she'd
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: run Zoom rehearsals and then and I'd have been like
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: locked in my bedroom behind like a wall of bookshelves,
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: typing all day. So I'm very much in like a
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: very solitude focused, novel oriented way. And every time I'd
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: come out for tea, She's like hi, and I'd be like,
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: I am not in a headspace to talk to anybody,
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: and it takes me a long time to transition. So
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: we she was the social vampire. So the more people
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: that she was around, the more she wanted to be
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: around people, and I was that person, and I would
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: just fade very rapidly, like be like, I'm just gonna
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: compt my room now. So one of the things we
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: were all learning in that time, and what Carlos and
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: I have been learning ever since we were together, is
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: how what happens when our energy is low, Like we
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: both get super sensitive and then we both start like
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: picking at tones of voice and kind of super dissecting
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: each other's language, and so some of the things. And
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: when I feel start getting tense and anxious, my voice
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: gets very tense and very almost like a little loud
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: and hard, and it sounds angry. But it mostly what
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: I've learned is that it sounds angry, it means I'm
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: very nervous, and it means I'm very tense and anxious,
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: and I need to actually take a break and like
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: do deep breaths. My brain catches up pretty quickly before
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: my body does. Was like, you're fine, you don't actually
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: there's nothing right now that you're worried about. You just
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: need to breathe. I'm like, okay. But Carlos likes to
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: communicate instantly, and when somebody leaves the room, it's very
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: frustrating for him. So we both had to learn like
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: what that moment was, and almost if we could figure
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: out what happened right before that moment, but we so rarely,
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: we so rarely run into that because it's a moment
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: of I think, true weariness for us, and then things
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: can really explode and get out of hand. We call
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: them blips, but it's every couple times a year maybe
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: when the circumstances are just we're super communicators, and sometimes
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: we communicate too fast and too much, and we say
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: things because we're saying things so much, so much volume
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: of stuff, that we don't always say what we mean.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: Like sometimes we're talking through to get to what we think,
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: like we're we're talking before thinking, we're talking to think,
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: and like the third thing we say is the true thing,
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: but not the first two. And then we're like, Okay,
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: I didn't mean those two things, but this is what
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: I think I mean. But we also have to like
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: not react to the first two things emotionally too much,
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: and we do sometimes and that's human. And so now
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: we've learned how we both react to those moments, and like,
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: I get very upset in this huge explosive way and
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: in five minutes later, I'm fine, and he's much calmer
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: in the moment, and then he'll have like a headache
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: for two days. And so when I'm very emotional and
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: explosive I start crying, I'm like, I'm gonna be over
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: this in five minutes. You'll be so in pain tomorrow.
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: And it's all my father. Like, recognizing patterns is very interesting.
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: It doesn't always mean even stop them, but at least
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: you kind of know, oh, hey, this is a pattern,
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: this is a dynamic, and we can get through it
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: because we've got through it before, and that's a matter
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: of time. And also trying to manage those moments of
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: I know I sound angry, but I'm anxious, and what
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: does that mean? I need to breathe? You know, like
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: those things are interesting. That's my take. I'm sorry, Carlos
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: Is just talked a lot.
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: No, that all makes sense. You reminded me of another
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: thing that I think we do. We both are, you know,
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: lovers of words, we're both writers. We both study reality
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: so that then we can capture it in our pros.
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: But that sometimes leads us to being like, that's not
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: what that word means, or I think you miss pronounce that.
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: And I think one of the things that I really
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: love to do is just sort of to be like, oh,
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: let's look it up, and whoever's right is right, and
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: whoever's wrong, it's like, oh, yeah, I was wrong, thank
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: you for that. Like I think if there's a gift
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: I could give to people, just be like that when
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: you're wrong, who cares you were wrong?
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: So what you know, you learn something, and that's very
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: gamic where every time you lose in a game, it
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: just means you've all. Losing in a game means as
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: you've learned exactly.
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, when you know we designed a game together. I've
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: been doing some game design for like a GA game
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: based learning and education, and like if you win a
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: game and you've only played it once.
• 47:08
  Speaker 6: That game sucks.
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: There was nothing to learn or whatever. Just be it's
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: a boring, unchallenging game, you know. So part of every
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: game is learning how to play it and stuff, and
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: so like, you know, I also I'm one of my
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: longtime loves is street Fighter. And you know, when you're
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: watching great street Fighter players online, they don't win every game,
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: like they lose plenty, but they know how to lose.
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: They will go back and rewatch what they do, and
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: you know, basically go to the lab and study it
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: so that they won't make that mistake and learn new
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: patterns to avoid old non working patterns. Those are all
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: great metaphors for ways a relationship should work. Also where yeah,
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: I was wrong, Thank you for that. Now I know
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: how to pronounce it better. You know.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: We also love when we look something up and there's
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: more than one definition in Merritt Webster's like dictionary, and
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: so like, oh I just did the British pronunciation and
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: you did the US pronunciation, so we're both right. Thinking
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: each other we're wrong, and then learning we both were
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: right is also ultimately very fun. But I think one
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: thing Carlos has taught me in game design is that
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: losing should be as fun, if not more fun, than winning.
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: And it's a really good idea to keep that in
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: mind in regular life, because we both we do. We're
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: so human and we fail often, but we are able
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: to do brief about it afterwards, which is such a relief.
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: It's a relief that that even really like bitter or
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: weird moments like like that is so weird, Why is
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: this even happening? Those moments happen can be like like
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: kind of dissected and analyzed later and be like huh, well,
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: let's try not to do that again.
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 48:47
  Speaker 6: I love that.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: I feel like we all live like kind of like
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: on a you say game. And it was interesting because
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: my second time that my brain was visualizing that, I
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: saw checkerboard and it's almost like we all we were
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: all playing the game of life. And then when I
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: think of like, you guys, is how you met? Similar
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: to like on the show a lot, we talk about
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: celebrities and athletes and people of a certain fame, and
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: when they get to that level, their game of life
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: board might look a little different because they have to
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: overcome so many other obstacles and hurdles before they can
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: just pick back up on the normal checkerboard. Like Taylor Swift,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: for instance, like before she found Travis Kelsey, she didn't
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: get to play the game of life, and now she's
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: on a track where she might get to do so.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: And she's very excited about the idea of a house
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: with the kids in a basketball hoop, as she said
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: in her newest album wish List, And I think for
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: you too, I think you guys, you guys make that
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: checkerboard kind of you make that your own, like D
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: and D like it is your strategy board. And I
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: think you guys. Another communication thing you guys have that
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: you might may know or may not know, is I
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: love when you backtrack. Like you'll be in the middle
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: of talking through something and you'll be like, you'll Carlos
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: will ask about something and you'll say you'll you'll basically
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: confirm his like what he's looking for by backtracking. So like,
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of a good example. But the
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: other day he said something and then you were like, oh, no,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: I did that because five minutes ago and I picked
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: up the sugar tub, I said this in this way
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: and then and then that might lead him looking something up.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: And then it's like, oh my gosh, you're so right.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: And then you guys can go back throughout the day
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: by minutes and one of you has already done the
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: thing that the other person has asked without even realizing it.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: And then it's like, then that's like a super win.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: So you've taken two losses and turned them into a
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: super win, and now everybody's happy. Now it's time for
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: a celebration. So I think that's just fascinating. I did
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: not have that with my relationship last year, and I
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: like that that kind of thing is something I look
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: forward to. I want someone to get on my level
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: and challenge me.
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: You know, I think loving being challenged by your partner,
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: and I mean that sincerely. Like loving the challenge of
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: an equal is absolutely like the thund Like that's where
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: it starts, you know, because you know, Claire didn't need
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: me for a thing, you know, and we came together
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: just because it was better to be together. And so
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: now we're together, I want all those same things that
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: she had, you know, and was doing beforehand, where you
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: were still a wordsmith and you were still a great actor.
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: I've learned so much about performing my work, so like
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: this is one of the things that happened, Like once
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: I got published by Disney, I ended up going to
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: a lot of like middle schools and elementary schools to
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: present in front of like eighty kids and you know,
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: just be like, okay, here we're going to talk about
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: reading and loving reading and stuff. So so I've had
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: to do a lot more performance than I've ever been
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: trained for. But luckily I have somebody who's extremely knowledgeable
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: and I've learned a heck of a lot from Claire
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: about acting, which is not something that I ever thought
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: was going to be part of my life, but it's
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: been something hugely important to where my career ended up being.
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: So suddenly you're on stage with Rick Ryord New York City,
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: I know, wearing a Sphinx costume.
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: So yeah, when my book came out, I ended up
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: on Symphony Space, like it was a pretty big New
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: York stage, dressed up like a Sphinx game show host
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: and you know, interviewing Rick Wired and all these other
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: authors and stuff like the sort of thing that I'm
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: not trained to do, you know, And so I needed
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: to learn pretty fast. And luckily I had somebody I
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: had my ringer and house who could help me.
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: With us so amazing because he is a game designer,
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: and they had designed this game show without game designers.
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: So Carlos came in and sort of helped them redesign
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: the shape of the show as a game designer that
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: was right in his wheelhouse. It was really cool. Whereas
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: I knew nothing about games or game design coming in,
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: Like I played Sorry and Trouble and Clue as a kid,
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: and hadn't played a board game in my high school
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: or twenties or most of my thirties, and then suddenly
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: he's like, you know, you should play role playing games
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: with me, Like he loved D and D, grew up
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: with D and D, and I had won D and
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: D experience and it was only okay, you know, And
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: I was just like, I don't, you know, I'm an
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: actor and a writer for a living. I don't need
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: to do for fun. And he was like, I really
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: want to design a game that you would love to play,
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: So help me design something that you're interested in. So
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: we that's how we came up with the idea of
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: our RPG that just came out this year called Nagotios
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: and Finales, and the tagline is the Spanish Inquisition interrupted
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: by Aliens. But it's an RPG designed for not only
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: newcomers like me who don't have a lot of like
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: patients with a lot of rules, or like having to
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: sit and learn something and read a three hundred page
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: rule book before I even can sit down, but it's
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: also designed for people who have been role playing like
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: Carlos for decades and really want to get into like
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: the nitty gritty of the wild improv So anyway, it's
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: it's been so fun and I've learned so much. Like
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: one of the most useful phrases is like the flow
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: state for creativity, where when I first heard about it
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: is that like the level at which in a game
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: it's challenging enough to be so to be fun so
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: you keep playing, but not hard enough that you stop playing.
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: And it's but it's also used in creative work, like
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: when that place in writing, when you're typing and you're
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: like everything else goes away, You're you're in the zone
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: of what they would say, like athletes would say that
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: when they're just in the zone. And how I understand
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: is there's a line in Jane Eyre, the movie adaptation
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: with Ruth Wilson and and mister Rochester asks Jane Eyre
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: about her paintings. This is good for you, Leonori. He says,
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: were you happy when you painted these? And she's very
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: thoughtfully says, I was not unhappy. I was wholly absorbed.
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: And I love that, And so I love thinking about
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: the flow state and what is fun, what makes something fun,
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: and why fun and hard, fun and difficult are often
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: the same thing because the human brain loves to be challenged.
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, a dark souls.
• 54:55
  Speaker 7: Yeah, going back to two, I need to turn to talk,
• 55:00
  Speaker 7: squeeze take it. So. I know you wanted to mention
• 55:03
  Speaker 7: like the creative process and being like a couple during that,
• 55:06
  Speaker 7: But I honestly think Noah really helps me in my
• 55:09
  Speaker 7: creative process because when I was living alone, I was painting,
• 55:12
  Speaker 7: but I was painting naked men.
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: Who came to my party.
• 55:17
  Speaker 9: I'm too afraid to paint their penises, so I just
• 55:19
  Speaker 9: made them as hot tags.
• 55:27
  Speaker 7: And it wasn't until after no Onah moved in and
• 55:31
  Speaker 7: we went on our first trip together as best friends,
• 55:35
  Speaker 7: when we went to the Young Blood concert and we
• 55:37
  Speaker 7: came back, I had a week off from work, and
• 55:39
  Speaker 7: I'm like, I'm gonna take this week to try to
• 55:42
  Speaker 7: get back into my painting stage, because you know, being
• 55:45
  Speaker 7: an art teacher, a lot of my creative energy does
• 55:48
  Speaker 7: go out to the kids exactly and rolling my wad.
• 55:52
  Speaker 7: But the wad is finger painting and and gluing shit
• 55:58
  Speaker 7: to more shit, and it's like it's tiring after a while,
• 56:01
  Speaker 7: especially when you finish a year off and then you
• 56:05
  Speaker 7: have to start the year over with the same curriculum.
• 56:08
  Speaker 7: And so it's just a lot of like repetition you do, yeah, exactly.
• 56:14
  Speaker 7: So it wasn't until that week and I painted the
• 56:18
  Speaker 7: Idol's album cover, you know, young Bloods album. And after
• 56:23
  Speaker 7: I painted that, I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm back. I'm
• 56:25
  Speaker 7: back in my flow state. And then once the holidays came,
• 56:29
  Speaker 7: you know, I'm like so broke that I can't like
• 56:31
  Speaker 7: really afford gifts. So I'm like, you know what, I'll
• 56:33
  Speaker 7: do paintings. And then I was in a wheelhouse. I
• 56:37
  Speaker 7: was just like constantly painting five different things a night,
• 56:40
  Speaker 7: and Noah, really I feel like helped me through that.
• 56:44
  Speaker 7: Like an example being with the glowing hearts in the
• 56:47
  Speaker 7: in my friend's painting and because I like, it was
• 56:50
  Speaker 7: almost done and then he was like, I think you
• 56:52
  Speaker 7: should add some hearts to it, and I'm like, you
• 56:54
  Speaker 7: know how much I have to like masking tape the
• 56:57
  Speaker 7: rips out. Yeah, And there are other times where I'm
• 57:01
  Speaker 7: like such in flow state, and no I'll be like,
• 57:03
  Speaker 7: I mean dinner for you, I love, give me ten
• 57:07
  Speaker 7: more minutes, I mean ten more minutes until this paint,
• 57:09
  Speaker 7: this paint palette drives and then I'll be good to go.
• 57:12
  Speaker 7: But yeah, like, even though me and Noah aren't a couple,
• 57:16
  Speaker 7: we definitely encourage ourselves creatively. And it all started because
• 57:21
  Speaker 7: we were in the same media class together and we
• 57:24
  Speaker 7: made a short film together. And we reference that short
• 57:27
  Speaker 7: film still to this day almost every day your creative partners.
• 57:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly.
• 57:32
  Speaker 6: And there are all.
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: Sorts of kinds of love, you know, not every love
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: has to be romantically engaged. So this is like, it's
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: a beautiful relationship. But my big question is, so you'd
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: invite a guy to your apartment, he'd get naked, you
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: would paint him, and then you'd be.
• 57:47
  Speaker 7: Like him that.
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: The hot dog penis.
• 57:52
  Speaker 6: That's not gonna do.
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna put a hot dog there.
• 57:55
  Speaker 6: That's that's amazing. That feels like that. Maybe should restart
• 58:01
  Speaker 6: that series. I think we would sell in.
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: New York And yes, sponsor you.
• 58:12
  Speaker 6: That's incredible. Fourth of July contest you.
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he should all be the Coney Island side show
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: actors with Nathan hot dogs who and sword swallowings.
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: That's seriously cool.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: Nathan won't have you. We'll drive around in the oscar myermobile.
• 58:38
  Speaker 7: Yeah, because I really felt like what Carlos was saying
• 58:40
  Speaker 7: earlier after like his heartbreak and he couldn't get into art.
• 58:44
  Speaker 7: That was I thought that was like the only way
• 58:46
  Speaker 7: I could get back into art and ins eddating, but
• 58:49
  Speaker 7: again there was an emptiness there. And before Noah moved
• 58:56
  Speaker 7: in his his room was my art studio, but my
• 58:59
  Speaker 7: art studio became a pile of art supplies instead.
• 59:03
  Speaker 5: And where was I going with this?
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: The difference after he moved in what happened?
• 59:09
  Speaker 7: Yeah, the difference after so that room got completely cleared out.
• 59:13
  Speaker 7: I got rid of my dining room table because he
• 59:15
  Speaker 7: needed room for his desk, and we both now are
• 59:17
  Speaker 7: living room space is also our workspace.
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: Oh and that works very well. Yeah, that's fun.
• 59:23
  Speaker 7: Yeah, because we get to watch TV together while we're
• 59:26
  Speaker 7: like working on our things or I'm playing video games
• 59:28
  Speaker 7: while you're doing your like you're editing stuff. Because honestly,
• 59:34
  Speaker 7: when you're editing things for like John Jay and Rich
• 59:36
  Speaker 7: and you're like constantly we're going back, it drives me
• 59:39
  Speaker 7: a little crazy. But I kind of get it because
• 59:42
  Speaker 7: when I'm replaying levels and stuff, like it's just constant
• 59:47
  Speaker 7: like repeat, like like with Honey Pop it's June and
• 59:52
  Speaker 7: you you like reference it at your work. It's like
• 59:55
  Speaker 7: should I be greatful.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: They say the same things because you've been on the
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: same level since March. Yeah, so it drives you crazy,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: Like when I'm editing and I have to listen to
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: the same.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 7: Ye, just do it the first time, you know, it's.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: How it works. I wish because it drives me crazy too.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 4: But that's why.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: That's why I'm so good at my job, because I
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: have the I have the ear to just keep going
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: into it.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: Awesome.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I would say our our living room because
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: it's paint studio, Slash, video Game Central, Slash TV and
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: one Night Slash work from home space, Yeah, Slash nap
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: time room, like it is everything we need it to
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: be and more. And uh, I don't get anything done
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: in my room, so that is yeah. And I never
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: thought it would be that way. Always thought we would,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: you know, it didn't matter where you were in the apartment,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: but we collaborate best there. And so when I was
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: going to say when you were working on the painting
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: for Katie, there were two paintings at the end of
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: this year that really stood out to me. There was
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: there was the painting for Katie, and then there was
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: the painting you did for your sister Chrissy. She said,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do a landscape, and.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: I haven't done landscapes.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: I was worried for her because Leonora's not she doesn't
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: do good with people and animals necessarily. Maybe if she
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: sketches them out fifteen times be where she could transfer
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: it on bogand this and it'll be somewhat fine.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 6: But she goes, I'm gonna do this.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: Landscape, and I was like, okay, you know, this is
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: like your eighth painting this month, so you know, just
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: don't burn yourself out. But then I'm sitting there, I
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: forgot do you know what?
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 5: We're watching it.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: We're watching it.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: And you know, Penny Wise is slaughtering children. And I
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: look over and she's she's painting the sunlight coming through
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: this mountain and it looks like a photograph. It's one
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: of the most it's like one of the most beautiful
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: paintings I've ever just like I've looked at like and
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: you know, she had a light shining on it too,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: so that you know, maybe some some grace points for that.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: But I was just I looked over and I was like, whoa,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: she didn't have anything she was referencing she wasn't sketchy
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: anything beforehand. She literally, yeah, I mean you just almost
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: said painting to paper brush to paper brush to canvas.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: There it was, and I was just like, wow. But
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: my favorite work of art that you did last year
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: was your political series.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 5: Oh my god.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because we'ren't really political at all. It's just a
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: fun title.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 5: Yeah. So I was working on this painting when I
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 5: was at.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 7: My old school, and it was of I was also
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 7: in art history, and there was a series of paintings
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 7: of like these really young wives just looking so sad
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 7: on their wedding day because they have to marry these
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 7: like you know, old misters and you know, just for
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 7: you know, matriarch reasons and.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: Stuff, money and lineage.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 7: Yeah, And I my Grandma Joys, like loved the story
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 7: of Princess Diana, and I remember when she died and
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 7: passed away. So I wanted to do a whole painting
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 7: kind of based off that. And this was also around
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 7: the time when Smile came out, the first Smile movie,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 7: So it was going to be her looking all sadder
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 7: than everyone else in the family, thinking about something else,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 7: but the husband being Prince Philip or whatever, looking so
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 7: creepily eerie. But it had so many portraits in it,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 7: and it had so much, just so much in it
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 7: that I got overwhelmed. And every time I try to
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 7: work back on it, I was like, I'm never gonna
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 7: finish this, you know, and like there's just so much.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 7: And then Noah was like, hold up, hold up. So
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 7: he took a picture of it on my on my
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 7: iPad because I also do digital art, and he drew
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 7: out what he wanted and it kind of went along
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 7: with this kind of political series. I haven't posted it
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 7: yet because of the po little cold climate, but it's really.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 5: It kind of is.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 7: It says Uncle Sam needs you tomorrow, and it's the
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 7: day before nine eleven.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but again it's not about like, it's not about it.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: It's just it's I was going for like the Uncle
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: Sam poster, you know, and like like Rosie the Riveter,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: I kind of wanted something that was just like Leonora's
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: own take on one of those, and so she basically
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: drew she turned the man with the teeth into a
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: man standing on on on the steps of a church,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: and we used we used Joel as a reference, so
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: because you know, Joel was deployed so we we take
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: this man, we kind of jolify him up a little bit,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: we make we have we give him a normal face,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: and then.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: You have a normal faith most of the time.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: Who now, who's the guy? Who's when we when we
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: painted Eugene, which I'll get to in a minute, but
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: who was who was that originally? And when your first
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: draft of the painting it.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 7: Was supposed to be it was okay, But like you
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 7: mentioned the church, it's supposed to be Buckingham Palace.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, then we changed it to random a church USA. Yeah.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 7: I'm like, he could he could have been the pope,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 7: he could have been like the announcer for the wedding.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 5: But Eugene is the guy.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: I think we turned him into a jan her.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 5: But no, I give him a king. He's still He's
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 5: still Eugene.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: Is ever?
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 4: Okay?
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: Well, so Eugene. Eugene is the ninety two year old
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: man who t boned my car and made me lose
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: hearing in my left ear for a year, immortalized in art. Yes,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: And so we took Eugene and we put him on
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: the staircase. He's a part of the wedding somehow, whether
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: he's a janitor or he's there as a guest or
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: he's some sort of efficient, but he's in the background
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: just to add, you know, some color. And so we
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: have Joel with his wife and we paint. We paint
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: Uncle Sam needs you in red paint it's red right
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: or is it yellow white? Okay? And we have the
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: twin towers. The twin towers are in red right.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 5: In blood, in blood, and it says tomorrow.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: Uncle Sam needs you tomorrow. And then we put a
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: piece of tape at the bottom of the painting so
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: that this woman, she does her husband die, she lose
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: him in the war.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 8: I don't know.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: I don't really remember whether she dies or she's just
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: missing him. But she goes up into The idea is
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: that she goes up into the attic to take painting
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: out of a box and she's like, oh, this is
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: our wedding day. And the piece of tape on the
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: bottom is just like so that when she moved in
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: she could label what each of her art or wall
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: decorps was and so the pain the tape is like
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: and she.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 7: Didn't even know and she didn't even know yet Uncle
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 7: always remember and strong.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: And yeah, and then it's got like the hashtags on it,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: because it's you know, New York, and it's just it's
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: supposed to be like something that you pull out of
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: a box years later and it's got a label on it,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: so you can kind of get more idea because I
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: love I love when art has words on it, and
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: Lenora is more of like an abstract so I like
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: to sneak my sneak sentences into into work. So we
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: did that painting and then I thought that wound up
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: being a great use of that canvas that had sat
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: so empty for so long. And then the other one we.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 5: Took magazine clippings.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: We took the clippings out of the newspaper for the
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: grocery store ads, and we paper machee them.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 6: Is that what we did?
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 5: Kind of Yeah, I just glued them on a canvas.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, you know, clauged it and then we dug
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: a bear claw through the canvas. It was a nice
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: but it was really fun, and it was supposed to
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: be about like food stamps. In the end, it's like
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: you're hungry. Well that's too bad, I think, is what
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: it says. But it's again painting like a red blood
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: like this is like hunger. They're political, but they're not specific.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: They're not controversial.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they're not topical. It's not like scrip from the
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 4: headlines or something. Yeah, they're more about the sort of
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 4: like life in America right now.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just supposed to be some you know, something
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: that someone can feel and relate to, whether no matter
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: what side or on or what what do you believe.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: It's just it's just something to feel like, just to
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: be like, oh, you know this, this this is something
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: that happens, right, And so that's that was that's our
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: That was our first, and then the Jole one was
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: the second, and now we're we're looking for a third
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: of something.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 7: First one I felt like was in my political series.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 5: Was one of the first paintings I did when I
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 5: moved back.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 7: In because I had these three other paintings because I
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 7: love anime. I've been a lover of anime since like
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 7: seventh grade, you know, back when I was uncool and
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 7: now it's cool.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 5: That's so irritated that I am your data.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: I don't find it that cool. So she just live
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: through me being like one of her middle school boys.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 7: Support you, Yeah, and I'm finally getting you into Nana,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 7: but it's like a two thousand and one super old animal.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 6: I love it.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: I do.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 7: And so the first three paintings I did in twenty twenty,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 7: when I was in my prime, I'd like to say,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 7: when I was literally doing a painting a night, and
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 7: they're different art pieces that I learned about in art history,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 7: but anime five and so when I wanted to hang
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 7: them up there was it felt like one was missing.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 7: So when I moved back into my apartment, I mean
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 7: moved into my apartment, I'm like, this is the first
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 7: painting I'm going to do so in my and I
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 7: also included photos because photos, No, the last set was
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 7: of photography because that's kind of what my degree is in,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 7: and photos that we had to study profusely. So the
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 7: first one was Immigrant Mother, which we've looked at every
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 7: single photo class I ever took. The second one was
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 7: the Marilyn Monroe and instead of her doing ah like
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 7: it's like a kwai, the third one, I'm blinking out,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 7: I'm blinking out, oh, is of the Kiss after the War,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 7: but she's all like, you know, like I'll like douby
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 7: lovey guyes. And then the third one is the situation
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 7: room from the Night of Osama Bin lad is in assassination.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: O's on there.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, so literally, and like.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: Is it Bobby Hill in that one?
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: Yes, that's the little Bobby Hill.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 7: And Joe Biden's in it too, But because of the
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 7: sleepy Joe means he's like he's got.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 5: The big like drool bubble, and.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 7: Hillary's like, oh no, It's just like I felt like, Okay,
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 7: this is like the first of my political paintings, because
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 7: that's fucking hilarious, beautiful.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: If someone says our nine to eleven is too socialists,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: then they can they can look at that one and
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: be like, see, we still have sleepy Joe too. We
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: can have both sides in this apartment exactly.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 5: And now I want to make more political art.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, especially because it's so random that it doesn't mean
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: anything specific because no one's walking into apartment being like that.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 6: Such a great idea, though.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 4: I love the idea of anime ifying like classics from
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 4: art or classic photographs too. Yeah, I'm really really funny.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 4: If you ever wanted to do Saturn devouring his young
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 4: Viagoya and acause he's already got half animated, I would
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 4: I would pay you, I will commission you.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 7: I see a perfect spot for that painting, right right, okay, Okay,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 7: my friend in high school we had to do a
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 7: painting like that where we had to kind of personify
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 7: a famous painting, and I did the Birth of Venus,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 7: but I was profusely watching Titanic, so it's all Titanic themed, yes, yes,
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 7: And then like instead of the angels, it's it's Jack
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 7: and her and that, you know, the one young king
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 7: of the world, and then the last and then the
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 7: figure on the right is her at the end of
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 7: the movie when she's wearing the trench coat and she
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 7: finds the the heart of the Ocean in her pocket.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 7: But yeah, my what my friend did is he instead
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 7: of he did like the whole Chronos thing, but he
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 7: made Chronos eating a robot. And I feel like it
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 7: kind of really ties back to this time because of AI.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 5: Art and all of that shit that's going on, Like
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 5: a AI art is not real art, but I digress.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 4: Anyway, Hey, I stole from both of us actually, so
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 4: we're part of that anthropic lawsuit that's going to be
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 4: paid like three thousand dollars a work, so like hopefully
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 4: we will be making some recommend even though we won't
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 4: be really it's really they just suck and bite me.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, all all our books.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah, fuck robots, bankers, clankers. We call our our Alexa
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 5: a clanker all.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 6: The time, and she acts uptur.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 4: That's a famous reference, calling them clankers, like from some.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 7: Really it's supposed to be like the derogatory term for Yeah,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 7: I've definitely heard that.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 6: I just to remember if it was like from a
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 6: specific show or something.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we call we call it an alexir with a heart.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah shut up.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 7: Yeah, no, every and every time I have an Alexa
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 7: in my bathroom too, just for like speaker purposes. But
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 7: it never fucking connects to my my My Wars series.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: From the Clone Wars.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 3: Yes, and it went viral as a widespread slur for
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 3: robots in twenty twenty five, so just that recently.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 7: Yeah, so every almost every day when I come home
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 7: and take a shower after cleaning off the puke and
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 7: baby ship and like everything, I just have to come
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 7: home to the Alexa not connecting to my Spotify and
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 7: every day noah hears, I'm like, Alexa, wake up and
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 7: shut up, because if I just say wake up, it's
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 7: like good morning, the weather forecast.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: Is no shut out the song I got too a shower.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: I have a feeling you just shut off everybody's Alex.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: You know, speaking of painting, another thing that I would
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: invite you, Carlos, to commission Lenora on is if you
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: have any specific characters that you would like to memify
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: that other people aren't doing online, Like you know, we
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: had started with I had Lenora in high school. We
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: took our teachers that we had already made a million
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: jokes about, and we had put them into the pixies
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: from fairly odd parents, and we had some hilarious photoshop
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: art back then. So then when I started working at
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: the radio station, I had commissioned her to do John
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: Jay on our show morphed into the Baby, like remove
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: the Baby out of the Sun from the Teletubbies and
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: put John Jay in there. And it's it's something that
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: you can't google, and I don't want AI to do it,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: and so I have Lenora do it. And uh, you know,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: especially with some like more rare TV shows or movies
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: or or you know, music or books, you're not going
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: to find other artists interpretations out there, so you need
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: you need someone to do it for you, and that's
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: really good at that photoshop.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 2: It's the perfect picture too.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 5: And then one other thing I wanted to bring up.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 5: I remember years and years ago.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 7: It was a whole Facebook thing when I was really
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 7: into doing my makeup, and because I was, I felt
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 7: like that was my first art form, was makeup, and.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 5: Amazing I think them you asked.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 7: Everyone on Facebook, like anyone who's an artist to make
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 7: something for Carlos, including panda and a crampis And I
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 7: painted my face like crampus, but like part of it
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 7: being torn off as a panda bear.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 5: So we have a photo of it somewhere.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 7: It's on my I think it's on my dad's Facebook somewhere.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 7: It's definitely somewhere.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: I don't remember that, but we have all of all those.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 7: Okay, I will find it for you. I will find it.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 7: But yeah, that's just that's just one thing I love
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 7: about Carlos. He has his like little niches and his
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 7: little quirks that make him him, and I like hope
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 7: to be that.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 4: You know you have hot talks.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: Can you tell me half of Christmas?
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 4: Every Christmas you're getting a new hot talk.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 7: Oh my gosh, the first drink is done.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: You know what your grandmother, your marma. My mother has
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 3: famously told me when I was young, younger than you
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: are now, like teenager, she said, develop your eccentricities. And like,
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 3: you know, as I'm getting older, I'm getting weirder. And
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 3: I was already very weird. But I have that like
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 3: shining moment of my mother telling me develop your eccentricity
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 3: these which I'm like, well, I can't help it, so
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: I might as well lean into it. And I like that.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 3: I like it for you and you like we're all
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 3: eccentric people, you know, And I think really all of
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 3: us are, Like there's not a normal. That's the lie
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: everybody tells each other. There's no normal.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 7: Yeah, And I feel like kids these days just like
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 7: are all into the same thing.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 5: Like there's just a lot of.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 7: Yeah, and it's like there's there's just so many mister
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 7: Beasts videos you can watch, like come on, like like
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 7: it's just I feel like I'm looking and I just
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 7: like miss when everyone was different. And I think now
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 7: with like the you know, invention of social media and
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 7: things mainstreaming, it's not.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 5: Becoming that anymore. And like the whole minimalism thing.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 7: I feel like and ruined restaurants, you know, like every
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 7: restaurant is like square gray when it used to be.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: Like no more McDonald blum exactly, McDonald l it's so sad.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 3: Don't worry. The pendulum will swing back towards maximalism and
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: will all be oh, all be in fashion.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: Yes, but you know that is I think that was
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: my favorite part about this trip to New York was
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: the eccentric parts of all of us. There's nothing more
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: fun than fo eccentric people walking down those subway stairs
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: and talking about Romeo and Juliet just in the middle
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: of the subway platform, and everybody else is like, what
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: the watch it.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 6: Don't sit next to those people.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: Those are the people we got to avoid on the out,
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: and we're just like, I think it's great. You know,
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: screw it, let us have a train card to ourselves
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: if we're if we threaten you that much, little do
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: they know we're the best people to talk to. We
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: put them on a podcast if they would have engaged back.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: And then with the clinker thing, I there was a
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: TikTok I saw, and I wish I hadn't just like
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: something I could easily pull up because it was like
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: a year or so ago now, but it was a
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: prospective video from a mom, so someone from our age,
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: but in the future, like in the twenty sixties, trying
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: to cope with the fact that our son or daughter
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: dating an AI robot are so great and but dude,
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: I love him. And they'll take like the concepts of
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: like you know, like a like someone coming out of
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: the closet, but they'll do it with a robot. And
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: there was this one where the moms she's trying really
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: hard to like not be offensive and support her daughter's decisions.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: She's dating an AI robot, and so you know, they're
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: sitting at the at the at the table in the
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: morning and she's got her cup of hot tea wrapped
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: around her hand and she's like, so, you know, what
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: kind of operating system do you run on? And he
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: like gets offended and she's like, mom, you can't say that.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: She's like, I'm sorry, I'm trying, and then like she like,
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: I went to the store and got you some double A.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: And then they get in this fight in the hallway
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: and the mom's the daughters in her room about to
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: slam the door and they're arguing about something and you
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: can't see that, and the gir goes, mom, you're a bigot,
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: and the mom finally loses it and she goes, well,
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: you're fucking a robot in the door slams and that's
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: just oh, it's so funny.
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 4: Unfortunately, there's like a really sad part to that story,
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 4: with like people who get so addicted to character AI
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 4: that they are now like losing the boundaries of reality
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 4: and stuff like that. So, you know, I love that
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 4: there's comedy about that that can maybe put a hole
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 4: in that sort of thing, But I'm also a little
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 4: scared for people who, you know, maybe get so addicted
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 4: to having a robot that will just yes and you
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 4: you know, limitlessly, that all of a sudden, they start
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 4: forming feelings and attachments that don't have any foundations.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 6: So be safe out there, everybody.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 4: Oh I know, yeah.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: I actually I read a like a it's like a
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: retrospective on what on different paths that the future could
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: have with AI, And one of the ones that really
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: freaked me out was if the if the models get
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: to the point where they're they're trying to develop ones
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: that make their own thoughts and feelings and so that
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: if they're not they're not fed through by code. If
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: that were to happen, if we if they had their
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: own consciousness and we had actual people, despite you know,
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: the fears of an uprising and all that stuff from
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: the movies, if we had uh, these virtual robots that
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: have their own frame of thought, then it becomes really
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: interesting because you can't. It's almost like with like with
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: like with like homosexuality and like being able to marry
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: who you love. It's like what happens when we get
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: to the point where they're able to speak for themselves
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: and they they say I love this person, and this
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: person's I love them back, and then you like, you
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: can't be at that point, you can't be robophobic because
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: because if two people love each other, and in this
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: if we're at the point where they're people now like
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: you have, you can't be you can't turn your brain
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: off to that because any more no better than our
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: ancestors were with us. And so it really pokes a
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: hole in what the future could look like if we
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: end up in that kind of realm.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a really interesting long science fiction question. Yes,
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 4: because the question is you're saying like, well, what if
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 4: they gain consciousness? To do that, we have to be
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 4: able to define consciousness and agree on it.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: We don't have a.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 4: Good definition like anywhere non science, non philosophy, like philosophers
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 4: talk about qualitiya as the thing that is your this neess,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 4: the thing that makes you you. Yeah, and hexaiety is
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 4: another way to do it in a more religious jesuitical context.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 4: But like, we don't have a definition of consciousness because
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 4: right now, I promise you tried toptique and say I
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 4: love you like.
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 6: I can say I love you? But why don't you
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 6: believe it?
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 4: Because it has an achieved consciousness? Well what does that mean?
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 4: And then it gets really sticky, really fast. So I
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 4: think one of the reasons there's someone anxiety about AI
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 4: is now we've been reading about this stuff for one
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 4: hundred years, about like robots that have a chief consciousness,
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 4: but we never had to deal with it. We were
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 4: able to safely sort of like hold it in the
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 4: realm of fiction, and now it's like.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 5: Becoming reality exactly. That really reminds me.
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: Oh ope.
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 7: So I felt like we were fed with movies in
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 7: twenty twenty five, and one of my favorite movies that
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 7: came out was called Companions during Jack Quaid and Sophie
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 7: Thatcher and she is like a sex robot and he
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 7: what's the word like when you like go into the code, Like.
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 5: That's the word back? Like they kind of hack he
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 5: kind of hacks.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 7: Her into like killing somebody and feeling more feelings than
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 7: a robot should feel and oh yes, yes, yeah, And
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 7: I found that horrifying and but also horrifying to the
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 7: point where it's like what can people really do with
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 7: these robots if they can make them into assassinators or
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 7: so like like almost like with Megan, where she's programmed
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 7: just to protect Katie, and like how far can it go?
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 5: Like can we use these for war?
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 5: Can they go as far as to protect countries?
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 6: And I mean they're being used.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: For war right now.
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: Companion was really interesting because it you're programming it to
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: to kill somebody and then it wakes you know, she
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: wakes up and she doesn't want to, and they're they're
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: advancing the codes that she can't fight the humanity, but
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: in this case, she needs the humanity. So now they're
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: using her as a slave and she has the consciousness
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: to not want to be a part of it. So
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: now it's it's so far in the other direction that
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: you want her to have humanity so that she can
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: get the hell out of there. It is really scary somewhere,
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: it is really crazy, like weird another shoe, Wait, another
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: We're all doomed and you're having.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 5: A crunch under the dome.
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 3: We're well doom show we or another.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but so like that movie sounds to me like
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 4: it's doing but science fiction often does where it goes
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 4: like three steps into the future.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 5: But it's so modern that it's like that's what's scary
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 5: about Yeah.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because, like like you said, there were we're in
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 4: the age of drone warfare right now, and all of
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 4: a sudden, like if if you're able to have you know,
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 4: a large language model or a generative AI or AI
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 4: of some kind driving a drone shooting someone dead, who's
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 4: responsible for the humanity? Yeah, Like now it's just sort
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 4: of like who gets pinned with that responsibility for that death?
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 4: Who you know, can go in front of the Hague
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 4: and say this was not a war crime because you
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 4: know this person was acting with under these orders and
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 4: you know, following these laws. That sort of thing so
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 4: scary yeah.
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: So I wanted to ask you, Claire, what has stopped you? Like, so,
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: how come your mom had to move back to Phoenix
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: when you were in Rhode Island, And how come she's
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: not here with you in New York Because you guys
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: are like two peas in a pot. I like, I
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: feel like you're you're missing part of who you are
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: without her here? Yes, nice, you ever asked her live here?
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 3: We have these fantasies. I have a fantasy called the
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 3: Street of Many Porches, and that is right now. The
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 3: Street of Many Porches is the Internet, where all the
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 3: people I love live on the same street and we
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 3: all have porches, so that like at twilight, everybody comes
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 3: out on their porch and they're like waves across the
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 3: street or down the street, and you know, everybody takes
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 3: to turn making dinner, and like there's block parties. But
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 3: it's not just it's like my friends from college. It's
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 3: my friends who live in Canada and the UK. It's
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 3: my mom and all my brothers and all my neeflings
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 3: and so on. The Street of Many Porches is where
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 3: where the like true happiness lies. Anyway, but in the
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 3: more practical daydream of the street of many porches. It's
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 3: wherever we end up after Carlos retires, maybe in ten
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 3: fifteen years where and it would be so awesome him
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 3: if we had like an in law suite or a
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 3: like some kind of a duplex where Sita could live
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 3: on one side or within the structure. And so Sita
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 3: is not to be trammeled, She's not to be shackled
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 3: down to anyone place. Cita's true happiness would lie in
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 3: traveling and seeing all her beloved people. Like for Sita,
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 3: the street of many porches is travel, the ability to
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 3: pick up and go and live with all her beloved people.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 3: I am one of them, and I'm a major one
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 3: because I'm Carlos and I are really good at We're
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 3: good roommates with Cita, and we love spoiling her rotten
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 3: and we love doing things with her.
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 4: Because she's so giving. She gives and gives, she gives everything.
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 3: So we like to be like, hey, have you to
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 3: lie down and need some chocolate? And when we lived together,
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 3: both of us were making below the poverty wage. But
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 3: what was amazing was we called it our semi retirement.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 3: That what we were definitely stressed financially all the time,
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 3: and yet we had so much time and so and
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 3: we had the library right across the street, and we
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 3: would go rent DVDs and books from the library, and
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 3: we would we'd go to the food pantry, but we
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 3: could cook splendid things from the food pantry, which often
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 3: had like fresh vegetables as well. But whatever we couldn't
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 3: get we would just make do with, you know, their
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 3: whatever frozen meat they could give us, and whatever canned goods.
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 3: So like we had the most amazing time because we
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 3: had time and we could drive locally. There was a
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 3: forest within easy driving distance. There was an ocean within
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 3: four miles. Forest was two miles away, ocean was four
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 3: miles away. We were in this most beautiful place. The
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 3: Amtrak was right there. We were Rhode Island, where we
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 3: lived in Westerly, was midway between New York and Boston,
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 3: right on the Amtrak line. So it was like ideal.
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 3: But she owns a house in Phoenix where my brothers
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 3: and their partners and all of their pets were living.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 3: And there was something, some insurance thing happened that we
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 3: got robbed and my brothers because they weren't the primary
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 3: owner of the house couldn't solve the insurance problem. My
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 3: mother needed not only to be home to do it,
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 3: but to be in residence, and so it was too
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 3: complicated to just go temporarily and do And she was
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 3: starting to have the call of duty of not only
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 3: her sons who were grown ups and could totally take
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 3: care of themselves, but she has a lot of community there,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 3: a lot of family, and she's very much a service
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 3: oriented person and many people were in need of her
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 3: loving services so more than me, you know, Like when
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 3: I needed her, she moved all the way across the
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 3: country to be with me, and there was a way
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 3: that I could go on without her, and she needed
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 3: to go where she was more needed. Yeah, she like,
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 3: she packed up her carbon bag and flew. So I
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 3: just like, she's always welcome wherever we are. I would
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 3: love to live with her. I hate when she has
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 3: to leave. And yet and yet she's now living in
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 3: the same house. But my youngest brother by my mother
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 3: lives with his wife and their one year old son,
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 3: as well as my other brother to Decline and Jeremy
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 3: both live there, and Jeremy and his wife, so it's
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 3: this huge it's a huge communal house. The house we
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 3: all grew up in, which when I was young, it
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 3: just seems so crowded all the time, and in fact
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 3: still seems crowded. And yet now that I've lived in
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 3: apartments most of my adult life, house of that size,
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 3: you know, like four bedrooms with like a front yard,
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 3: a backyard in a side yard, which was like not
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 3: big enough to fit all of us, is like vast.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 3: It's big enough to fit three families, you know. And
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 3: her greatest joy she takes care of my grandmother, Lenora's
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 3: great grandmother, Mima. By day, Mima, she and her sister
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 3: Rosie shared the care of Mima, who just turned ninety five.
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 3: And then when she's not doing that, she's babysitting the
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 3: one year old. And so she is standing like as
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 3: a bridge between new life and life that has lived
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 3: a very long time, and she still has the energy
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 3: to care for both. And it's amazing. So you can
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 3: see why when she comes here, we don't want her
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 3: to care for anything, don't want to do any chores,
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 3: we don't want her to cook. And again she's like Carlos,
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 3: where if you let her relax for two days, by
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 3: the third day she has scrubbed all of your appliances. Literally, Yeah,
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 3: but I just I love her so much, and I
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 3: you know, but but I love her thriving. And she
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 3: thrives where there's babies, where there's a garden, and where
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 3: there's a really good audiobook.
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: Wow. I don't even know what to say.
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 3: She's wonderful. She's like speechless.
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 2: She makes me speechless.
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 6: But she comes every holiday. She was here right before
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 6: you were, yes, and she's coming.
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 2: Again in June.
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 3: She wants to see the Scottish Ballet perform something called
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 3: Our Late Mary, Queen of Scots the Scottish Valleys traveling
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 3: from Scotland, and she's like, can I come in June
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 3: to watch this? They're gonna be in New York and
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 3: we're like yeah. And then she wants to do a
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 3: tour of the Hudson River Valley, all the castles that
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 3: are there, the castles of the Hudson River Valley. So
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 3: we're gonna rent a car and do that.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, she has like a sparkle to her
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: that I haven't seen a lot of people. And she
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: took us to the movies. Was it was in the
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: summer or was it in the fall?
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 5: I think it was. I think it was in the
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 5: spring March.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: It wasn't that long ago. But she took us to
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: this movie and it was at a theater that we
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: took a chance on and regretted. The popcord was burnt
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: and the experience was not great, But the movie was great.
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: The movie was one of the best movies I've ever seen.
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: But because we were all together, and like, it's just
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: she just the things that were would have bothered me
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: and would have made if we were in the movie
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: for me didn't bother me at all because we were
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: all together. So I can see how you feel that
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: way about her. She treated us, she spoiled us, she
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: she took care of the bill and like it just
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: it was a great afternoon and it wound up braining
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: that night. It was a beautiful day, and I think
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: it was all because she was there.
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 6: So yeah, yeah, definitely.
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 4: Has that effect, you know, the sta effect.
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: Find your art and then you'll find your person, I
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: guess is the lesson out of today's podcast.
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 4: Harry Poppins sayings, Cita color fradulistic.
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 3: Tita always said her art was her children, but I
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 3: think her art is more social than that. She's a
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 3: social artist. Where she can. She builds community and she
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 3: makes every place she goes better. So like she is Carlos,
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 3: it kind of talks about he'd give her a PhD
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 3: in emotional intelligence.
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, you're here. Well, I think I think you've
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: given us quite the quite the taste in your lives.
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: And I look forward to more backtracking and that's my
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: favorite aspect of this. And then and driving people crazy
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: in the subway. I can't wait to come back to
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: New York. And we'll come back when it's a little
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: bit warmer.
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 5: Maybe October. October, didn't we say, because the Comic.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 2: CON's coming here.
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's newer Comic Con and it's also changing of
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 4: leaves and.
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 3: There's Jack o' lantern Spectacular at the Bronx Zoo, where
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 3: there's thousands of weirdly carved jack Oe lanarn.
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: We did Central Park Zoo, and we know we gotta
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: do Bronx Zoom, which was beautiful, by the way, probably
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: wasn't one of the better zoos, you know, a huge,
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: huge size better exhibits, you know, because the ecosystem can
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: support it, versus in Arizona, you kind of just have
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: to have the same zoos over and over again. God blessed.
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: We love our zoos, but that was.
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 6: Definitely an eye opening.
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 2: Animals survive, yeah.
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: And then and then you know they all and then
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: like the the lizard and scorpions, it's like we can
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: see those outside in the parking lot.
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 6: I want to see a penguin. That's the extended zoo.
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: The whole valley is the extended zoo, right, especially sixty
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: seventh Avenue. So yeah, I can't wait to come back.
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: I had a great time.
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 6: In twenty twenty six.
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: We all have lots of new goals and you'll see
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: them unfold in real time. But for now, it's January
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: and January we are back on your radio every morning
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: Monday through Friday, five to ten one O four seven
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: Kiss FM, and you can listen to us the next
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: day on any of our other stations or on you
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: can listen to us that same day on our full
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: show podcast. You can listen to Couple's Therapy every week.
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: We will be back in eight weeks, so it'll probably
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: be after my birthday. I'll be the big two to four,
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna joy my last couple of weeks as
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: a twenty three year old, just making my way through
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: life in the Valley of the Sun until anything else changes.
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: So until then, until we see you again, Life from
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: New York a week before because this will be this
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: will air next week, which will be the current week.
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: We'll all be back together in the studio and I
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: can't wait to have some more pepper Grinder Winnifred's stories
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: for you. And we'll see where this year leads. Leonora,
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: and thank you for joining us for another take on art.
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: And thank you Clarien Carlos for just opening opening my
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: eyes to the possibility of like just companionship minus the robot,
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: not companion champanionship.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 6: Thanks for having us tons of fun couples therapy. Here
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 6: we go,