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This episode is sponsored by Transcend, a veteran owned and operated performance optimization company that I introduced recently as a sponsor on this show.

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Well, since then, I have actually been using my products and I've had incredible success.

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There was initial blood work that was extremely detailed, and based on that, they offered supplementation.

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So I began taking DHEA, BPC157 for inflammation, based on the fact that I've been a stump man and martial artist and a firefighter my whole life, lots of aches and pains,

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dihexer to help cognition after multiple punches to the head and shift work and peptides.

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Four months later, they did a detailed blood work again, and I was actually able to taper off two of the peptides because my body had responded so well to just one of them that it was optimized at that point.

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So I cannot speak highly enough of the immense range of supplementation that they offer, whether it's male health, female health, peptides to boost your own testosterone, which I would argue is needed by a lot of the fire service,

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or whether it's exogenous testosterone needed, especially after TBIs or advanced age.

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Now, as I mentioned before, the other side of this company is an altruistic arm called the Transcend Foundation,

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which is putting veterans and first responders through some of their protocols free of charge.

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Now, Transcend are also offering you the audience 10% off their protocols, and you can find that on JamesGearing.com under the Products tab.

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And if you want to hear more about Transcend and their story, listen to episode 808 with the founder Ernie Colling, or go to TranscendCompany.com.

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This episode is sponsored by a company I've literally been using for over 15 years now, and that is 511.

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Now, my introduction to their products began when I started wearing 511 uniforms years ago for Anaheim Fire Department.

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And since then, I have acquired a host of their backpacks and luggage, which have literally been around the world with me.

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The backpack where I keep all my recording equipment is a 511 backpack, and then most of my civilian gear, the clothes that I wear are also 511.

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Now, more recently, they've actually branched out into the brick and mortar stores.

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So, for example, Gainesville, where I do jiu-jitsu, has a beautiful 511 store.

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So if you are a fire department, a law enforcement agency, you now have access to an entire inventory of clothing and equipment in these 511 stores.

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Now, I've talked about the range of shoes they have and how important minimizing weight in our footwear is when it comes to our back health, knee health, etc.

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I've talked about their unique uniforms that are fitted for either male or female first responders.

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And then I want to highlight one new area, their CloudStrike packs.

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For those of you who enjoy hiking, this would even be an application, I believe, for the wildland community.

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They've created an ultralight pack now with a hydration system built in for rucking, running, or other long distance events.

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Now, as always, 511 is offering you the audience of the Behind the Shield podcast.

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15% off every purchase that you make.

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So if you use the code SHIELD15, that's S-H-I-E-L-D-1-5 at 511tactical.com, you will get that 15% off every single time.

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So if you want to hear more about 511 and their origin story, go to episode 338 of Behind the Shield podcast with their CEO, Francisco Morales.

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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.

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As always, my name is James Gearing, and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show, former ER nurse and the man behind any means necessary, Sean Koss.

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In this conversation, we discuss a host of topics from Sean's early life, his journey into nursing, his parallel love of art, working with Cyanide and Happiness,

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working with Stephen King, the WWE, creating his own brand, Any Means Necessary, the impact of his mental health artwork on the community, and so much more.

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Now, before we get to this incredibly powerful and important conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment.

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Go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating.

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Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for others to find.

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And this is a free library of almost 950 episodes now.

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So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so I can get them to every single person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.

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So with that being said, I introduce to you Sean Koss.

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Enjoy.

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Well, Sean, I want to start by saying firstly, thank you for saying yes.

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I came across your art on Instagram quite a while ago now and it mirrors the kind of an artistic version of what I'm trying to do as far as bringing storytelling to the world of mental health and hope.

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But I reached out to you and you said yes, and here we are.

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So I want to welcome you to the Behind the Shield podcast today.

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I'm happy to be on.

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Yeah, it's taken a while.

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I think we talked, what, months ago, like three, four months ago, maybe.

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Yeah, I think so.

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But there was, I always tell people it's not if it's when, you know, when the time is right, it'll all come together and here we are.

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And here we are.

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So where on planet Earth are we finding you this afternoon?

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I am currently in my studio in Akron, Ohio.

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My wife is from North Canton, so not too far from me.

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Really? You guys don't live in Ohio anymore though, right?

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No, no, we're in Ocala, Florida.

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Actually, she's ironically, she's in med school at the moment, so she's 300 miles away from me in the Lauderdale area.

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But, oh, wow. All right.

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Well, I would love to start at the very beginning of your timeline then.

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So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings?

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OK, so I was born over in the United Kingdom.

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My dad was a military.

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We were stationed over there.

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They were stationed over there for a couple of years when they had me.

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And I was only there for about two or three years.

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Funny enough, I can actually remember the flight over because I threw up on my mom the whole way.

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And I just remember landing in the United States and just vomiting everywhere.

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Ended up moving to Maine, Ohio, where we were stationed for a couple of years and then West Virginia.

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And then finally settled in Ohio and I've been here for most of my life.

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I have one younger sibling, a sister.

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She's about two years younger than me.

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And so both my parents, they had me very young, which I'm very grateful for because they're only in their early 60s.

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And as a mama's boy, like that's huge for me, I get a lot more time with my mom.

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Family dynamic.

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Standard military style.

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You know, my dad was very he was young, you know, when he had us.

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So like he was 18 when he had me.

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So he was still a child. He was in the military trying to figure out his own life,

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dealing with, you know, diapers and wiping ass and shit like that.

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And he wasn't very good at emotions.

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So I wasn't allowed to show emotion.

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You know, he didn't really have a dad to raise him, didn't really have father figures because his dad, my grandfather was a piece of shit on that side.

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And so my dad had to raise himself.

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But unfortunately, that kind of passed on to him to where he was very stoic and just, you know, like you're not allowed to cry.

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You're not allowed to show emotion to their anger or, you know, so you know, you can't really show anything else.

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And so that was always tough.

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My mom, on the other hand, has always been a champion for me on anything that I would do.

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So I told her I was going to, you know, I want to go to space.

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You'd be the best fucking astronaut ever.

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I'm like, Mom, I'm going to be a musician. You're going to be the best rock star.

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You'll be touring with Alice Cooper.

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I'm like, slow your roll, Mom.

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Like, let's just take it one step at a time.

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But she was very much always about me chasing my dream.

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And they struggled a lot.

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We struggled a lot growing up and very poor.

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You know, once my dad left the military and we moved to West Virginia, he was very, very tired.

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He was in Virginia. He was struggling to just make ends meet.

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My mom was working three or four jobs, cleaning hotels, never really had much money for food or toys.

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I always tell people during Christmas, we would have so little money that we would have to wrap toys that we had previously,

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just we had stuff to unwrap for Christmas.

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Max the price.

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Yeah, yeah. So it's like we wanted to have something.

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The odd part was we never me and my sister never really knew how bad we were.

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We were just because they work so hard.

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You know, we just thought all parents worked all hours of the day and we never saw them.

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And, you know, they tried their best to kind of give us whatever we needed.

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Sometimes something that we didn't need, but they knew it would make us happy.

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But yeah, the the dynamic much better than a lot of people I know.

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You know, there's some people who've grown up in very broken homes, very abusive homes.

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You know, my dad was big into physical discipline.

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I think a lot of men were, you know, growing up in the, you know, that era.

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So like, hey, if you spank him, sorry, I, uh, voices not working today.

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If you spank him, you know, set him right and all that stuff.

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And so he was very much into physical discipline, but it was never like excessive, you know.

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But yeah, like, you know, we had our fights in my teenage life, you know, when I was developing

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into a man, you know, and trying to like fight for the household, you know, being the, the

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hierarchy never won, you know, because he was always stronger than me.

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But yeah, so it was a nothing out of the ordinary.

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It was a pretty, I guess, typical family.

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I don't have like a crazy, uh, like, you know, dad was an alcoholic.

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You know, mom was a drug act or anything like that.

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It's interesting that when you said grandpa was a piece of shit, cause this is a re is

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reoccurring theme now.

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And I'm actually just finishing up a book where the theme is multi-generational trauma.

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And then there's the hope element that you can stop that last domino from falling and

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not pass it on to your children.

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But understanding that there's a ripple effect.

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And I think especially in your part of the country, we know with the West Virginia and

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Ohio being a real hub for, you know, the, the opiate addiction, you know, and you reverse

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engineer to whether it's wars or mines closing, whatever it is, if we're not accepting or

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acknowledging the impact of generations prior, we're kind of missing some of the why and

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why we're struggling.

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No, I agree.

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Uh, the thing with my grandfather not really being around, unless he needed something was

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very apparent.

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Uh, but he was always wanting to go out and do things.

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He was always busy chasing women.

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He always thought he always wanted to be a cowboy for whatever reason.

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And my dad has that same trait almost like he has to be doing something all the time.

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So like for father's day on Sunday, he's going fishing, you know, he's not going to be hanging

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out with me.

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He's not going to be hanging out with my sister and I'm not offended by it, but cause because

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I know my dad, like he has his own life that he wants to go do.

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And I find myself doing the same thing when I'm at home and my two daughters are sitting

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hanging out, I can sit with them.

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But I was like, I really just want to go up in my studio and just draw, you know, and

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I'm trying to like fight that because I feel like it's the same trait that's being passed

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on and like, I don't want my kids to grow up and be like, man, dad was never really

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around.

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He was so focused on his career as opposed to being focused on us.

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And so I'm trying to stop that domino from falling into their generation.

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Yeah.

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I mean, there's that phrase work life balance, which is obviously a little cliche, but I

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think realizing that sometimes busyness is an unhealthy coping mechanism for the craziness

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in your head.

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And I know, you know, a lot of firefighters that will take extra shifts and you take a

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step back, like, why would you not want to go home with your family?

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You know, you can find money in a side job, do a, do a job that you come home that night.

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But there are some people that if they just immerse themselves in the busyness, especially

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in a, an exciting profession like the fire service, the one thing that you're not really

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realizing is it's then not giving you the space to deal with the things that you need

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to be dealing with and you're pushing them down.

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Right.

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I agree.

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So I saw an interview that you did a while ago and you mentioned about eating MREs when

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you were a young boy.

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And it's interesting because I'm just about to interview a Navy SEAL spouse and that's

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exactly what she's going to be talking about.

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But a lot of us don't realize some of the poverty of our active duty families.

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So talk to me about that element.

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Well, while we were growing up very poor, even in West Virginia, when we moved there,

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someone gifted us a trailer.

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I didn't realize like, and that's right.

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We had a wild raccoon come in and end up being my pet for like three years.

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I just found out last year that it was a wild animal and it wasn't domesticated.

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So my dad's like, Oh, it just came in one day and just got in your bed with you.

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I'm like, what?

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And he goes, yeah.

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And then we just kept it.

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I'm like, what the fuck?

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But yeah, during those times of struggle, my dad was in, I think, was it inactive reserves?

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Maybe I can't remember what it is, but he also worked for the public debt, which was

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like the government building, but he used to go and bring MREs back for us to eat.

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And I, so I just had lunch today and I got food in my mouth.

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So to supplement like just the lack of money we had, he would just bring in more than what

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he probably should have of MREs.

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And we would have like 30 or 40 of them in our cupboards and we would just eat those

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for the week.

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It's funny.

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It's like so many people are like, I MREs are so bad.

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I'm like, the fuck you talking about?

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That's just good as shit.

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Like it's calorie dense.

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The what was the chicken and rice I think was super good.

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The cheese spread, the crackers, it was all good to me.

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You know, and I ate the shit right off the back.

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I didn't like years later, my dad showed me how to like, how they would cook it like out

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in the field and stuff like that.

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I was like, I'll just eat it straight out of the bag.

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Fuck it.

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But yeah, we would eat those all the time.

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And anytime I see an MRE, I'll buy it up.

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I'll eat some.

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So what about from the art point of view, when did you find yourself kind of falling

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in love with that site?

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So I don't remember the exact age.

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I think between five and seven, I remember going through one of our rooms in the trailer,

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like a closet for whatever.

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I don't even know what the fuck I was going through it for, but there's a suitcase or

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briefcase and I opened it up and it's a bunch of my dad's old military stuff.

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And within it is a bunch of these like, like pieces of paper.

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And I pulled it out and it's just all this artwork.

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00:15:51,080 --> 00:15:58,600
You know, it's a beetle Bailey, which is very old comic for people who may not remember

213
00:15:58,600 --> 00:16:04,360
pictures of portraits of my mom, portraits of animals, the Eagles deer and all that stuff.

214
00:16:04,360 --> 00:16:05,960
And like, it was like super realistic.

215
00:16:05,960 --> 00:16:09,240
I'm like, oh shit, like who's who did this?

216
00:16:09,240 --> 00:16:10,240
I saw my dad's name.

217
00:16:10,240 --> 00:16:11,400
I was like, oh, my dad's an artist.

218
00:16:11,400 --> 00:16:12,400
That's wild.

219
00:16:12,400 --> 00:16:14,400
I don't ever see this guy draw.

220
00:16:14,400 --> 00:16:17,840
I was like, huh, he can draw.

221
00:16:17,840 --> 00:16:19,240
I wonder if I can draw.

222
00:16:19,240 --> 00:16:28,140
And so I start trying to draw and it looks like absolute dog shit, but something about

223
00:16:28,140 --> 00:16:35,240
taking a blank piece of paper and creating something from it was like magic in a way.

224
00:16:35,240 --> 00:16:39,400
You know, like I'm turning nothing into something.

225
00:16:39,400 --> 00:16:44,080
And that whole thing kind of was intriguing to me.

226
00:16:44,080 --> 00:16:45,880
And my mind was always super overactive.

227
00:16:45,880 --> 00:16:53,680
You know, I pretended a lot of being in like these long forgotten planets and mystical

228
00:16:53,680 --> 00:16:56,120
places and like just a wild imagination.

229
00:16:56,120 --> 00:16:59,120
I grew up watching a lot of Stephen King as a child.

230
00:16:59,120 --> 00:17:01,800
My mom was a huge Stephen King fan.

231
00:17:01,800 --> 00:17:06,760
So when I was five, six, seven, eight years old, I was watching Pet Sematary, Salem's

232
00:17:06,760 --> 00:17:07,920
Lot, you know, shit like that.

233
00:17:07,920 --> 00:17:13,360
You know, my mom didn't realize, oh, I'm traumatizing this kid to a career of dark artwork, which

234
00:17:13,360 --> 00:17:14,360
thanks mom, appreciate it.

235
00:17:14,360 --> 00:17:16,480
Because it's done well for me.

236
00:17:16,480 --> 00:17:19,960
It's done well for me.

237
00:17:19,960 --> 00:17:24,800
But at that moment, I've just always been drawn to creating.

238
00:17:24,800 --> 00:17:32,280
You know, I would go to school, I'd go to aunt's house, my uncle's house, you know,

239
00:17:32,280 --> 00:17:35,600
my grandparents, not the shitty one.

240
00:17:35,600 --> 00:17:38,160
And I just wanted paper because I just want paper.

241
00:17:38,160 --> 00:17:39,680
I just want to draw something.

242
00:17:39,680 --> 00:17:47,880
And it was like this, like I don't have an addictive personality, but I liken it to needing

243
00:17:47,880 --> 00:17:49,440
my next fix.

244
00:17:49,440 --> 00:17:56,660
Like if I don't create something within at the time, like every day, I felt withdrawal

245
00:17:56,660 --> 00:17:57,660
from it.

246
00:17:57,660 --> 00:17:58,660
I felt just drained.

247
00:17:58,660 --> 00:18:02,520
Like, gosh, like I felt worthless if I wasn't creating something.

248
00:18:02,520 --> 00:18:05,200
I wasn't putting something new into the world.

249
00:18:05,200 --> 00:18:10,840
And it was just this gnawing hunger that was just like, I'd wake up and I'd even before

250
00:18:10,840 --> 00:18:13,440
breakfast, I'd just grab my sketchbook and start drawing.

251
00:18:13,440 --> 00:18:15,920
And I would like satiate that need.

252
00:18:15,920 --> 00:18:20,320
And then, you know, later in the evening, I'd be like, oh, fuck, I need to draw something.

253
00:18:20,320 --> 00:18:21,320
I need to draw something.

254
00:18:21,320 --> 00:18:25,920
It was like a, like I was yearning for, I was jonesing for, I was like, I need that

255
00:18:25,920 --> 00:18:27,400
fix.

256
00:18:27,400 --> 00:18:29,040
And it just kept going.

257
00:18:29,040 --> 00:18:35,760
You know, it's hard to explain because it's not like I didn't want to be an artist.

258
00:18:35,760 --> 00:18:37,960
I just, I'm just creative.

259
00:18:37,960 --> 00:18:39,280
I just create it.

260
00:18:39,280 --> 00:18:40,280
I didn't choose it.

261
00:18:40,280 --> 00:18:43,160
It was just always a part of my nature.

262
00:18:43,160 --> 00:18:47,680
And as a hard thing to explain to people when they're like, when did you decide you want

263
00:18:47,680 --> 00:18:48,680
to become an artist?

264
00:18:48,680 --> 00:18:49,680
I didn't decide.

265
00:18:49,680 --> 00:18:50,680
It just happened.

266
00:18:50,680 --> 00:18:55,280
You know, just I found this artwork and it triggered something in my brain.

267
00:18:55,280 --> 00:19:01,000
So I was like turning on another aspect and say, oh, hey, you do art now.

268
00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:05,720
You know, I wasn't like, I want to do art.

269
00:19:05,720 --> 00:19:08,280
It kind of reminds me of the real artists.

270
00:19:08,280 --> 00:19:13,320
When you look at the music side, you know, you have people who arguably probably want

271
00:19:13,320 --> 00:19:16,500
to be stars rather than actually be a true artist.

272
00:19:16,500 --> 00:19:21,440
And then you have the phenomenal artists that some remain undiscovered and some happen to

273
00:19:21,440 --> 00:19:22,520
get a lucky break.

274
00:19:22,520 --> 00:19:26,920
But there's there's such a difference between, you know, someone who's who's lip syncing

275
00:19:26,920 --> 00:19:29,760
someone else's song to someone else's choreography.

276
00:19:29,760 --> 00:19:35,600
And then you've got, you know, Adele, for example, who pours their soul into their songs.

277
00:19:35,600 --> 00:19:36,600
Yeah.

278
00:19:36,600 --> 00:19:38,920
So what about from the sports point of view?

279
00:19:38,920 --> 00:19:43,880
Were you a sportsman or exercise much when you were in the school age?

280
00:19:43,880 --> 00:19:45,320
Against my will, yes.

281
00:19:45,320 --> 00:19:48,480
My, my dad didn't want me to be a pansy.

282
00:19:48,480 --> 00:19:52,160
And you know, he was, I know, right.

283
00:19:52,160 --> 00:20:00,320
So I don't want to say pussy, but you know, you know, I'm saying he was the quarterback

284
00:20:00,320 --> 00:20:02,920
first football team wrestler.

285
00:20:02,920 --> 00:20:06,120
What else did he do?

286
00:20:06,120 --> 00:20:07,180
Track and all that stuff.

287
00:20:07,180 --> 00:20:09,960
So like he was the jock, you know.

288
00:20:09,960 --> 00:20:14,920
And when I was growing up, you know, I was the sensitive kid.

289
00:20:14,920 --> 00:20:15,920
You know, I wore all black.

290
00:20:15,920 --> 00:20:16,920
I had fishnets on.

291
00:20:16,920 --> 00:20:17,920
I had makeup on.

292
00:20:17,920 --> 00:20:20,520
You know, I was a big fan of Marilyn Manson.

293
00:20:20,520 --> 00:20:26,680
I was a big fan of pushing the envelope, but I didn't really want to be a part of the mainstream

294
00:20:26,680 --> 00:20:31,920
because I was super goth, which is fucking stupid.

295
00:20:31,920 --> 00:20:35,920
But I always had a competitive nature to me.

296
00:20:35,920 --> 00:20:43,160
And so my dad forced me to do wrestling and I wish he would have kept at it because I

297
00:20:43,160 --> 00:20:44,160
miss it.

298
00:20:44,160 --> 00:20:48,360
Especially now as I've gotten older in my younger thirties, I was doing Muay Thai and

299
00:20:48,360 --> 00:20:49,360
I was on Brazilian jujitsu.

300
00:20:49,360 --> 00:20:54,040
I was like, damn, if I just would have stuck with wrestling, I would have had such a better

301
00:20:54,040 --> 00:20:57,840
base understanding of like fighting.

302
00:20:57,840 --> 00:21:03,360
But I did wrestling for a year, went to state, which they said was not going to happen, but

303
00:21:03,360 --> 00:21:09,640
got all the way up to, you know, state championship got destroyed.

304
00:21:09,640 --> 00:21:13,160
But you know, I got some trophies for it.

305
00:21:13,160 --> 00:21:16,360
I did track, which I was really good at track.

306
00:21:16,360 --> 00:21:24,760
I was a foot and a half from breaking the high school history's record of the long jump.

307
00:21:24,760 --> 00:21:29,400
And once they told me how to do it properly, I lost three feet.

308
00:21:29,400 --> 00:21:34,300
So like, yeah, because when I ran, I just full fucking sprinted.

309
00:21:34,300 --> 00:21:38,360
And then they're like, you just got to jump before you can't pass the white piece on the

310
00:21:38,360 --> 00:21:39,360
ground.

311
00:21:39,360 --> 00:21:40,360
I'm like, all right, cool.

312
00:21:40,360 --> 00:21:42,080
So fucking full sprint.

313
00:21:42,080 --> 00:21:43,920
And I would just leap.

314
00:21:43,920 --> 00:21:46,360
And they're like, oh, my God, like you're like a foot and a half away from breaking

315
00:21:46,360 --> 00:21:47,360
the record of all time.

316
00:21:47,360 --> 00:21:49,000
I'm like, oh shit.

317
00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:50,680
And they're like, we're gonna show you how to do it properly.

318
00:21:50,680 --> 00:21:52,800
And you got to count your steps.

319
00:21:52,800 --> 00:21:55,600
And ever since then, I'd always stutter step right at the end.

320
00:21:55,600 --> 00:21:57,660
And I was like, you motherfuckers.

321
00:21:57,660 --> 00:22:01,880
But I did that the four by 100 was I was really good at the last leg.

322
00:22:01,880 --> 00:22:05,440
I was like the fastest one in our four man team.

323
00:22:05,440 --> 00:22:09,080
I did soccer, sucked at soccer.

324
00:22:09,080 --> 00:22:11,280
We were 0 and 12.

325
00:22:11,280 --> 00:22:18,240
Our coach sucked and made us run laps more than taught us and did baseball briefly.

326
00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:19,480
Wasn't a big fan of it.

327
00:22:19,480 --> 00:22:22,680
Couldn't throw to save my life.

328
00:22:22,680 --> 00:22:26,400
And then I did marching band for the rest of my career because I just had taken out

329
00:22:26,400 --> 00:22:27,560
with my friends.

330
00:22:27,560 --> 00:22:34,840
But yeah, like now, like once I got into my mid 20s, I started going to the gym.

331
00:22:34,840 --> 00:22:36,440
I started exercising a lot more.

332
00:22:36,440 --> 00:22:39,120
I got picked on a lot as a kid.

333
00:22:39,120 --> 00:22:44,480
No surprise, you weren't fishing out to make up all that stuff in Ohio.

334
00:22:44,480 --> 00:22:49,800
And then started practicing jujitsu and then kickboxing for a couple years and had a lot

335
00:22:49,800 --> 00:22:50,800
of fun.

336
00:22:50,800 --> 00:22:57,120
But then I had two daughters and I was gonna hit a lot in the head just in sparring.

337
00:22:57,120 --> 00:22:58,120
And I was having headaches.

338
00:22:58,120 --> 00:22:59,680
I was like, you know what?

339
00:22:59,680 --> 00:23:01,920
I'm 34, 35.

340
00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:03,800
I'm not gonna be a pro fighter anytime soon.

341
00:23:03,800 --> 00:23:05,560
So I'm just gonna end this shit.

342
00:23:05,560 --> 00:23:06,560
Yeah.

343
00:23:06,560 --> 00:23:07,560
Well, firstly, I can relate to that.

344
00:23:07,560 --> 00:23:12,560
I was a weekend warrior, I get my bloody jaw dislocated and my nose broken.

345
00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:13,560
That's this.

346
00:23:13,560 --> 00:23:14,560
There's no bell.

347
00:23:14,560 --> 00:23:15,560
Yes, right here.

348
00:23:15,560 --> 00:23:18,080
Yeah, I'd be I'd win the stupidest, you know, ugliest face belt.

349
00:23:18,080 --> 00:23:19,080
That'd be it.

350
00:23:19,080 --> 00:23:20,080
It's the only thing I'm winning.

351
00:23:20,080 --> 00:23:21,080
Yeah.

352
00:23:21,080 --> 00:23:25,400
The last thing I did with Muay Thai was I was sparring my one buddy who was a fighter.

353
00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:26,960
And I thought he was going for a leg kick.

354
00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:32,560
And he actually going for a roundhouse and just kicked my nose actually this way, kicked

355
00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:34,680
it all the way that way.

356
00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:38,840
And just a faucet of blood poured out and like the whole ring was just filled with blood.

357
00:23:38,840 --> 00:23:40,480
I was like, I think I'm good, guys.

358
00:23:40,480 --> 00:23:43,000
I think I'm good.

359
00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:47,720
I've told this story before, but I trained in L.A. in shoot box, which is the one that,

360
00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:51,040
you know, Vandeley and all those ones used to train, but they opened.

361
00:23:51,040 --> 00:23:52,040
Those are monsters.

362
00:23:52,040 --> 00:23:53,040
Yeah.

363
00:23:53,040 --> 00:23:54,200
Well, it's Fight Club.

364
00:23:54,200 --> 00:23:56,440
It's it's it wasn't really learning very much.

365
00:23:56,440 --> 00:24:00,120
It was again using the word pussy like you discover if you're a pussy or not.

366
00:24:00,120 --> 00:24:03,960
And I figured that I wasn't a giant, you know, pansy to use the word.

367
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:06,280
But certainly not going to win any any championships.

368
00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:07,640
But yeah, it was the same thing.

369
00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:13,360
The headaches and all that stuff, you know, fighting 250 pound guys just because it was

370
00:24:13,360 --> 00:24:14,920
just everyone on everyone.

371
00:24:14,920 --> 00:24:15,920
Yeah.

372
00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:20,000
There's a certain line where you're like, OK, my longevity is more important than.

373
00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:21,000
Right.

374
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:22,800
I'm no I'm no axe murderer.

375
00:24:22,800 --> 00:24:23,800
Yeah.

376
00:24:23,800 --> 00:24:31,000
I met Vandeley Silva in Cincinnati when Anderson Silva fought Rich Franklin.

377
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:36,480
And nicest gentleman, but when you do the face off with him, you feel your soul leaving

378
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:37,480
your body.

379
00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:40,800
I can imagine he's a scary looking man.

380
00:24:40,800 --> 00:24:41,800
Scary.

381
00:24:41,800 --> 00:24:42,800
Yeah.

382
00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:45,480
Well, going back to the long jump for a second, it's an interesting kind of, you know, lens

383
00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:47,040
on this.

384
00:24:47,040 --> 00:24:52,720
When I started the podcast, for example, rather than dive into how do you start a podcast,

385
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:54,420
I was like, well, what if I just didn't?

386
00:24:54,420 --> 00:24:56,000
What if I just figured it out?

387
00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:58,440
And then maybe that would create something a little bit differently.

388
00:24:58,440 --> 00:24:59,440
And it did.

389
00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:03,640
I mean, it's not like completely unique, but it's it's a different format than you normally

390
00:25:03,640 --> 00:25:05,420
hear.

391
00:25:05,420 --> 00:25:10,960
And I think that that creates like an entirely different kind of alleyway for you.

392
00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:17,640
Taking the long jump analogy with your art, did you kind of go down the how to be a trained

393
00:25:17,640 --> 00:25:22,080
artist or did you find yourself kind of improvising the same way you did tearing towards the sand

394
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:24,080
pit?

395
00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:26,600
I'll improvise.

396
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:35,160
I struggle with just paying attention to things and trying to read anatomy books from like

397
00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:37,800
an artist standpoint just made no fucking sense to me.

398
00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:39,360
I'm like, I'm just learning medical shit.

399
00:25:39,360 --> 00:25:41,320
What the fuck am I doing?

400
00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:48,280
And it I would like I had like 60, 70 books on how to draw this, how to do this, how to

401
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:49,800
do this.

402
00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:56,040
But I was like, I'm spending more time studying this and not actually getting to draw.

403
00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:59,680
And I've always had this thing with mortality where I have a very finite amount of time

404
00:25:59,680 --> 00:26:00,680
on this planet.

405
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:06,040
I don't I don't want to be wasting it trying to learn something when I could just be drawing

406
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:07,960
and then learning it as I go.

407
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:13,680
So if I need a reference or like need to draw like like a peck muscle or like a forearm

408
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:18,560
or something like that, I need to I'll just pull it up on Pinterest or something like

409
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:23,600
that and just find it as opposed to like spend weeks trying to understand it and then, you

410
00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:25,240
know, go.

411
00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:34,240
But I do wish I would have went to design school a little bit because there's technical

412
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:39,640
things that I struggle with that I could have benefited from everything I've learned and

413
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:46,280
done is through years of trial and error and figuring it out on my own.

414
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:47,800
And it's not always the right way.

415
00:26:47,800 --> 00:26:51,160
The way I create artwork, the way I approach things.

416
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:56,040
And I think having some type of base of fundamentals to understand, you know, they always say,

417
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:58,100
like, learn the rules to break them.

418
00:26:58,100 --> 00:27:01,360
So I think a little bit of design school would have helped.

419
00:27:01,360 --> 00:27:10,080
But yeah, everything's just been I call it the oh, it's the Plato theory, not like the

420
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:11,400
actual philosopher Plato.

421
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:16,780
But I tell people like how I've learned my abilities is we have, let's say, like four

422
00:27:16,780 --> 00:27:21,480
pieces of play dough, different colors, and each one represents a seller technique that

423
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:24,560
you are inspired by.

424
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:29,200
And when you first take all four of those and you smash them together, you can kind

425
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:34,480
of see very prominently all the different inspirations, different techniques, very prominent.

426
00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:39,760
But then as you keep molding it and smashing it together and putting time into it, it turns

427
00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:45,040
so big brown ball of shit, which turns into your silent technique.

428
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:46,040
I like that.

429
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:47,920
I wish it came to a better color.

430
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:50,600
But whenever you mix all that play dough, it just looks like brown shit.

431
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:52,000
I was like, that's my style.

432
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:53,000
Brown shit.

433
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:56,000
Well, you mentioned anatomy.

434
00:27:56,000 --> 00:28:01,040
Obviously, you know, as we're talking now, art was one of the areas that you found yourself

435
00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:02,360
really thriving in.

436
00:28:02,360 --> 00:28:05,960
Talk to me about the journey into nursing, though.

437
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:10,260
So the nursing comes back with my dad.

438
00:28:10,260 --> 00:28:23,680
I was in nursing school just because in Ohio, you either go to college, get a business degree,

439
00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:26,240
be a nurse or work in a factory.

440
00:28:26,240 --> 00:28:28,480
It's pretty much what Ohio is for the most part.

441
00:28:28,480 --> 00:28:29,480
I'm generalizing.

442
00:28:29,480 --> 00:28:31,040
There's way more many jobs.

443
00:28:31,040 --> 00:28:35,120
I can be a barista or whatever, subway sandwich artist.

444
00:28:35,120 --> 00:28:42,160
But the careers are limited and nursing fools you with the, oh, you only got to work three

445
00:28:42,160 --> 00:28:44,560
twelve and you make like thirty bucks an hour.

446
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:45,560
That's amazing.

447
00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:47,680
Yeah, it sounds awesome.

448
00:28:47,680 --> 00:28:54,320
And my dad was pushing me to go to college because none of them had gone to college at

449
00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:55,320
the time.

450
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:58,240
He's like, I don't want you to have to struggle like we did.

451
00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:04,160
I don't want you to have to really hurt for money and wants and needs.

452
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:07,320
He's like, I want you to have a better life than what we had.

453
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:10,540
And so that's kind of pushed me towards nursing.

454
00:29:10,540 --> 00:29:12,440
It made the most sense.

455
00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:17,320
I did one year at Kent State for graphic design, but I didn't want to make a magazine.

456
00:29:17,320 --> 00:29:18,320
I was very naive.

457
00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:20,800
I was like, I don't want to make magazine layouts.

458
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:22,800
That sounds fucking stupid.

459
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:27,160
Looking back, you know, owning a clothing brand and doing more design stuff, I was like,

460
00:29:27,160 --> 00:29:31,280
oh, shit, I could have did way more with it other than just magazine stuff.

461
00:29:31,280 --> 00:29:40,600
But I've also always been fascinated by like medical weird shit, organs, you know, growing

462
00:29:40,600 --> 00:29:47,720
up a horror fan, like seeing trauma in person is vastly different than seeing it in the

463
00:29:47,720 --> 00:29:51,320
movies, not in like a weird serial killer way.

464
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:56,580
But like, you know, if you have a patient coming in and they were just attacked by like

465
00:29:56,580 --> 00:30:01,800
Rottweiler and you can see all the like the skin ripped away and you can see all the tendons

466
00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:11,640
moving like from a a I guess scientific medical position, like that's very fascinating, you

467
00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:21,440
know, and then I've always I've been I've always been very one to like help people in

468
00:30:21,440 --> 00:30:26,560
a way or try to listen like no feel like, you know, if I see someone collapse, I'm going

469
00:30:26,560 --> 00:30:28,120
to try and approach and try and help them.

470
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:30,400
I've always run towards danger.

471
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:35,080
I'm like when the fight or flight response happens, I've always gone fight mode.

472
00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:36,360
I never run from it.

473
00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:38,680
It's always just towards it.

474
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:44,480
So I think nursing social and ER like that kind of suited that type of response.

475
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:49,320
And I just felt like there's no other options I had at that time.

476
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:53,240
When I was young, I used to read wasn't Stephen King, but it's James Herbert books, who was

477
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:54,880
a kind of English Stephen King.

478
00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:58,960
He wrote The Rats and The Fog and a couple other ones.

479
00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:03,440
But then I was into the horror movies to the kind of slasher movies.

480
00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:08,920
And then I got to it was late teens and just had this kind of realization one day like

481
00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:12,520
I'm watching people being tortured for entertainment.

482
00:31:12,520 --> 00:31:13,800
This doesn't seem quite right.

483
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:19,680
But then I got into the fire service and obviously all the things that we see as a paramedic.

484
00:31:19,680 --> 00:31:25,360
And it really kind of turned me where I still love kind of macabre things and ghosts and

485
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:26,560
ghoulies and all that.

486
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:32,440
But the kind of torture, capture, torture, slasher type stuff turns my stomach now.

487
00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:36,600
And for me, when I reflect, it's like, well, because when you've seen it in real, you know,

488
00:31:36,600 --> 00:31:40,720
you've seen the real thing and you've seen the suffering that actually causes, there's

489
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:42,040
no entertainment about it.

490
00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:43,280
It's not that I'm triggered by it.

491
00:31:43,280 --> 00:31:45,740
I'm just kind of disgusted by it now.

492
00:31:45,740 --> 00:31:54,840
Did you have any sort of journey like that as you progressed into the nursing side?

493
00:31:54,840 --> 00:32:04,240
I became colder as a person with becoming a nurse because as you know, most medical

494
00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:08,800
people, we have to compartmentalize our emotions during a situation.

495
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:18,760
You know, so like we had like that really bad opiate crisis in November of 2018, 2019.

496
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:19,760
I can't remember.

497
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:25,380
But Ohio had the record amount of heroin overdoses in the country in one month.

498
00:32:25,380 --> 00:32:26,380
It was insane.

499
00:32:26,380 --> 00:32:27,840
And I was in the ER during that time.

500
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:35,400
So we had, you know, people coming in left and right overdosing on carfentanol because,

501
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:38,920
you know, that's when like that whole thing started happening.

502
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:46,400
But on Christmas Eve, we had a 13 year old male come in who tried it for the first time.

503
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:51,280
And we're in there doing whatever we can, you know, save this kid.

504
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:55,360
And we couldn't, we just couldn't.

505
00:32:55,360 --> 00:33:00,520
And we had to tell the parents Christmas Eve, hey, your son's not coming home tomorrow,

506
00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:03,760
you know.

507
00:33:03,760 --> 00:33:11,440
And during it, I was just cold, even, you know, cold calculated, just doing my job,

508
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:14,920
didn't think about it.

509
00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:23,520
Didn't think it really affected me until years later, like after I started like going part

510
00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:27,840
time nursing and I finally left nursing, like my wife said, like, you're always so angry

511
00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:28,840
when you came home.

512
00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:34,800
Like you're agitated all the time, you're drinking a lot.

513
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:37,600
And I was just like, I'm just trying to relax, you know.

514
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:45,240
And I'd realized that I was compartmentalizing so much of that trauma that I was seeing and

515
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:47,600
just putting it in the back of my mind, not trying to think about it.

516
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:54,600
But during all of that, and then also having, you know, what we would call pain seek or

517
00:33:54,600 --> 00:33:59,280
pain seekers, you know, or like the come for the pain meds, you know, and we'd pull up

518
00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:03,800
their, was it the ORDs report, I think, we see they've been to like six different hospitals

519
00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:06,240
in a week looking for pills.

520
00:34:06,240 --> 00:34:12,960
And I just lost my faith in humanity, you know, because I'm seeing them at their worst

521
00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:16,920
and in there when they're, you know, needing their next, you know, pill because they took

522
00:34:16,920 --> 00:34:22,200
all of their neratin, or no, sorry, their gabapentin for like a month's dose they took

523
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:26,400
in a week, you know, and then they try to tell you how like, it wasn't enough, I need

524
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:27,400
more, I need more.

525
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:29,040
I was like, dude, what the fuck are we doing?

526
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:33,080
Like we're just, we're just drug dealing to these people.

527
00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:36,400
And everyone's okay with it.

528
00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:39,460
So I just became more and more cold towards like humanity.

529
00:34:39,460 --> 00:34:46,000
And like a lot of my friends, my business partner will say like, I just, it doesn't affect me.

530
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:48,520
Like they'd be like, oh, so much, this happened.

531
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:50,320
I'm like, whatever, don't care.

532
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:51,320
You know, someone died.

533
00:34:51,320 --> 00:34:52,320
Cool.

534
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:53,320
School shooting.

535
00:34:53,320 --> 00:34:54,320
Yeah.

536
00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:55,320
All right.

537
00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:56,320
Cool.

538
00:34:56,320 --> 00:34:57,320
Don't care.

539
00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:00,400
But then as I had kids, I got further away from nursing, like I've been on nursing now

540
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:04,640
for three and a half years, I think.

541
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:08,800
And that compassion started to come back a little bit more, you know, I'm affected more

542
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:15,960
by things, you know, we saw Inside Out 2 last night and I was a mess, you know.

543
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:20,160
You know, and then, you know, school shootings like that hits harder now with having two

544
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:25,920
daughters, you know, we had a school lockdown like two months ago because there was an active

545
00:35:25,920 --> 00:35:28,800
shooter like a mile away from their school.

546
00:35:28,800 --> 00:35:34,360
And I drove, it's about 35, 40 minutes from my studio.

547
00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:35,920
I got there in like 20 minutes.

548
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:38,520
Like I was flying.

549
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:42,600
And the only thought in my head was if I see him, I'm going to kill him.

550
00:35:42,600 --> 00:35:44,360
I'm just going to run him over.

551
00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:48,640
And I had already just accepted that he could kill me.

552
00:35:48,640 --> 00:35:51,560
And like I was like, you know, I've had a good life.

553
00:35:51,560 --> 00:35:56,000
If I can do this to protect my daughters, it'll be worth it.

554
00:35:56,000 --> 00:36:01,520
And so like this compassion thing is starting to come back and like this range of emotions

555
00:36:01,520 --> 00:36:06,880
I wasn't having as a nurse, as a nurse, it was just very cold and just angry.

556
00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:11,560
I think I don't know if you had the same thing, but certainly with the addiction side, I think

557
00:36:11,560 --> 00:36:13,740
what's so maddening is preventable.

558
00:36:13,740 --> 00:36:19,000
You know, these are people, if we viewed it, addiction as it should be as a mental health

559
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:24,600
problem that needs compassion and empathy and the right medical community around it,

560
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:26,000
then we can fix it.

561
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:30,360
But you put prohibition in and you send addicts into the shadows.

562
00:36:30,360 --> 00:36:38,720
Because I know in Ohio, for example, you were one of the biggest victims of the Oxycontin

563
00:36:38,720 --> 00:36:39,720
crisis that we had.

564
00:36:39,720 --> 00:36:43,040
They were, the pill mills were here in Florida where I'm sitting.

565
00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:44,680
And then that was shut down.

566
00:36:44,680 --> 00:36:49,040
And then you had all the black tie heroin come in from Mexico.

567
00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:54,000
So you've got this community that was devastated by the lack of industry, this massive void,

568
00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:55,000
this mental health crisis.

569
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:57,280
And now they're flooded with opiates.

570
00:36:57,280 --> 00:37:01,400
And now here we sit and then people are looking over their nose, judge, you know, judgmentally

571
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:05,640
an addict was like, well, it's not the consumption of the drug.

572
00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:08,360
It's the thing beneath the thing that we've got to be discussing.

573
00:37:08,360 --> 00:37:11,640
But if we don't have any empathy for people that are struggling, we're never going to

574
00:37:11,640 --> 00:37:13,200
fix this.

575
00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:14,960
It's funny.

576
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:20,740
They finally admitted that the hospitals are what caused the opiate crisis.

577
00:37:20,740 --> 00:37:24,600
It took them very long to admit that like, oh, we're just giving percusses to everyone.

578
00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:28,680
You know, we had a doctor that we call the candy man in our ER because they can come

579
00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:29,960
in with like an army.

580
00:37:29,960 --> 00:37:31,720
I give them like 10 perks.

581
00:37:31,720 --> 00:37:32,720
I'm like, what?

582
00:37:32,720 --> 00:37:34,920
And he says, yeah, there's some 10 perks.

583
00:37:34,920 --> 00:37:35,920
That's fine.

584
00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:38,000
I'm like, he's got arm pain.

585
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:41,840
Like he can take like a muscle relaxer or something.

586
00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:45,160
So we had all these people that we were getting hooked on, Oxycontin, Percocets, all that

587
00:37:45,160 --> 00:37:46,160
stuff.

588
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:48,880
And then they finally go, hey, we're going to do a nationwide sweep of that.

589
00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:52,920
So now it's here's an approximate, here's ibuprofen for your pain.

590
00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:55,760
And like, we've already got all these people hooked.

591
00:37:55,760 --> 00:38:01,160
And now, you know, they go to pain management and pain management will boot them if they

592
00:38:01,160 --> 00:38:07,840
take certain medications without regulate, like without, I think it's like an ER, they

593
00:38:07,840 --> 00:38:11,400
can't take certain medications or kick them out of pain management.

594
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:17,280
I forget what the, the, the legal part of that is, but I've had a lot of them say like,

595
00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:21,840
I just go out and get heroin for five bucks and it takes all the pain away.

596
00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:24,200
I'm like, I can't argue with you.

597
00:38:24,200 --> 00:38:25,200
Like I get it.

598
00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:29,680
Like if you're in true pain and the one thing that people were giving you, even though it's

599
00:38:29,680 --> 00:38:32,320
making you an addict was taking your pain away and all of a sudden they're like, oh,

600
00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:34,600
we're going to take that back from you.

601
00:38:34,600 --> 00:38:36,560
You know, and we're just letting you live in that.

602
00:38:36,560 --> 00:38:37,920
So yeah, I agree.

603
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:44,320
Like the, and it's taken me a long time to understand addiction as a, an illness and

604
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:51,800
a mental, you know, a mental health issue until I had like one of my close friends.

605
00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:55,440
Years ago, we found like he was a severe alcoholic and we had no idea for years.

606
00:38:55,440 --> 00:39:00,200
And he got to the point of our, you know, he was on his verge of death and like he lost

607
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:01,200
everything.

608
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:06,720
He was sleeping in a hotel, uh, doing sexual favors to a six year old housekeeper.

609
00:39:06,720 --> 00:39:12,680
I wish I was making this up, uh, just so that he could stay in the room for free.

610
00:39:12,680 --> 00:39:13,980
And he thought everything was fine.

611
00:39:13,980 --> 00:39:14,980
He thought we were all overreacting.

612
00:39:14,980 --> 00:39:19,000
And I was like, dude, I was like, there's something going on.

613
00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:22,600
Like you have, you know, his mom was an addict, you know, they had a long list of addicts.

614
00:39:22,600 --> 00:39:25,920
I was like, dude, that's a, that's the thing you need therapy for.

615
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:30,200
And like, you know, he's been, I think four years sober now, five years, you know, he

616
00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:31,200
had one relapse.

617
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:36,800
Uh, but you know, he goes to AA, he works for a guy who only hires AA members, which

618
00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:37,800
is super dope.

619
00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:45,080
Um, but it made me realize that, um, addiction isn't like, they didn't choose to be an addict,

620
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:46,920
you know, they didn't choose it.

621
00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:52,200
Uh, but from the non addict side, it wears you down too.

622
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:54,080
Like if you're constantly trying to help that person.

623
00:39:54,080 --> 00:40:01,680
So it's a lot of patients and understanding that's needed, but not all of us have that

624
00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:02,680
order.

625
00:40:02,680 --> 00:40:04,360
Like people feel like they have the time for it.

626
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:05,360
Yeah.

627
00:40:05,360 --> 00:40:08,600
Well, that means there's definitely compassion fatigue, whether you're an EMS or within the

628
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:09,600
hospital setting.

629
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:13,640
Like you said, the frequent flyers become maddening and anyone would be, you know, we'd

630
00:40:13,640 --> 00:40:17,720
all admit that there's times where we just lost our temper or at least we're a lot less

631
00:40:17,720 --> 00:40:21,800
friendly than we normally are when it's the over and over again.

632
00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:26,480
But this is the problem is we're in an environment where we're doing the same thing, expecting

633
00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:28,480
different results, you know, insanity.

634
00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:33,360
So all it does is just wear down everyone, all the cogs in that machine rather than taking

635
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:36,160
a step back and going, we need a new machine.

636
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:38,220
A hundred percent.

637
00:40:38,220 --> 00:40:41,400
So I wanted just to go back to your childhood, just for a moment, you mentioned about, you

638
00:40:41,400 --> 00:40:45,200
know, growing up as a goth, which is, there's nothing wrong with that at all.

639
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:49,540
But one of the important parts of the mental health conversation as adults is obviously

640
00:40:49,540 --> 00:40:51,600
our formative years.

641
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:57,920
When you reflect now today in 2024 at your upbringing, were there any elements you identified

642
00:40:57,920 --> 00:41:02,940
that would have contributed to some of the struggles later in life?

643
00:41:02,940 --> 00:41:09,520
In high school, even though I dressed like, I never cared about people's opinions.

644
00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:16,540
So like wearing a dress, wearing combat boots, wearing fishnets, like I had joy from like

645
00:41:16,540 --> 00:41:18,160
just seeing how upset it made people.

646
00:41:18,160 --> 00:41:20,800
I was like, why does this upset you so much?

647
00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:23,240
Like, this is hilarious to me.

648
00:41:23,240 --> 00:41:27,080
But like the opinions, just they never bothered me.

649
00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:31,480
And so I just kind of kept at, and obviously being in a very, it's weird to say Ohio is

650
00:41:31,480 --> 00:41:37,140
conservative, but it is a pretty conservative area, you know.

651
00:41:37,140 --> 00:41:44,480
So I was definitely the, you know, black sheep in this whole crowd, but I like, I enjoyed

652
00:41:44,480 --> 00:41:50,600
the confrontation, you know, I've always been very aggressive.

653
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:57,600
And I think that's affected me as an adult because I'm still super confrontational about

654
00:41:57,600 --> 00:41:58,600
things.

655
00:41:58,600 --> 00:42:01,760
Like a lot, I realize a lot of people don't like confrontation, especially face to face.

656
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:03,480
They do not like it.

657
00:42:03,480 --> 00:42:07,000
And I thrive on it sometimes.

658
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:10,440
Like I want to, like if there's an issue, I'm going to be right in your face about it.

659
00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:14,520
Not like let's fight, but like let's deal with this, you know.

660
00:42:14,520 --> 00:42:16,800
And most people I realize aren't like that.

661
00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:24,360
They don't like being uncomfortable.

662
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:27,520
I don't have times where I get super uncomfortable about things.

663
00:42:27,520 --> 00:42:30,640
There are like very few times here and there, but like I rarely get embarrassed because

664
00:42:30,640 --> 00:42:31,840
I'm just like, dude, who cares?

665
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:33,760
I'm never going to see this person again.

666
00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:37,020
Or you know, I don't give a shit what their opinion is, but I don't know if that's always

667
00:42:37,020 --> 00:42:43,680
a healthy thing to have because it almost puts me on like an island at times because

668
00:42:43,680 --> 00:42:50,280
I'm so confrontational about things when maybe there's a different approach, which is something

669
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:55,040
that I've been working on the last couple of years, just within the business I have.

670
00:42:55,040 --> 00:43:01,480
You know, there's two owners, so there's a lot of give and take and compromise with

671
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:05,200
a vision that we have because we come from vastly different backgrounds.

672
00:43:05,200 --> 00:43:13,520
And in the past, it was a lot of arguing, a lot of me just like shitting on other view

673
00:43:13,520 --> 00:43:15,160
points.

674
00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:19,120
And now like I'm trying to get better at like seeing from the other side or like trying

675
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:24,760
to understand a person's viewpoint or understand that we both have the same intentions towards

676
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:25,760
something.

677
00:43:25,760 --> 00:43:38,720
So I think, oh, I will actually, I will go back to this because I wasn't in the, the

678
00:43:38,720 --> 00:43:42,800
popular crowd in high school.

679
00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:46,080
I've always been drawn towards the spotlight.

680
00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:51,280
So acting, being the lead singer for a band, being a content creator, putting my face on

681
00:43:51,280 --> 00:43:52,440
camera all the time.

682
00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:57,700
I think a lot of that has to do with not having that chance younger.

683
00:43:57,700 --> 00:44:00,680
You know, I wasn't the attractive kid.

684
00:44:00,680 --> 00:44:03,400
I wasn't the wealthiest kid.

685
00:44:03,400 --> 00:44:05,520
So like no one really gave a shit.

686
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:10,920
And so I think a little bit of that has caused what I, the monster I've become now from like,

687
00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:12,960
I need to be on camera all the time.

688
00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:15,760
You know, I need to make all these fucking videos.

689
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:18,840
Always need to be in the limelight.

690
00:44:18,840 --> 00:44:24,480
Well speaking of, I guess the performance world, talk to me about your, the kind of

691
00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:30,640
metamorphosis of your art early into some of this more powerful side and how that brought

692
00:44:30,640 --> 00:44:38,360
you full circle of actually working on a Stephen King project.

693
00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:41,920
So stuff I used to do before was just creepy stuff, you know, grew up in horror movies

694
00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:46,160
and I just like drawing demons and monsters and shit like that.

695
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:57,560
But it was just artwork, you know, and when in 2016, 2015, I was trying to do the annual

696
00:44:57,560 --> 00:45:01,800
drawing month called Inktober in October, you draw a piece of artwork every day for

697
00:45:01,800 --> 00:45:08,080
the month of October to kind of help create or try to get those creative juices moving.

698
00:45:08,080 --> 00:45:10,240
And so they give you a prompt every day.

699
00:45:10,240 --> 00:45:13,680
But since I don't like following directions because I'm fucking just difficult, I wanted

700
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:15,520
to make up my own.

701
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:23,600
And a fan of mine suggested drawing mental illness through the eyes of a schizophrenic,

702
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:26,480
which made zero sense to me at the time.

703
00:45:26,480 --> 00:45:30,000
I was like, why does it have to be from a schizophrenic?

704
00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:33,560
Why can't it just be just mental illness?

705
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:38,680
And mental health has always been intriguing to me, trying to understand why people act

706
00:45:38,680 --> 00:45:39,680
the way they do.

707
00:45:39,680 --> 00:45:43,080
When I was in college, there was a point where I was like, I should go into psychology because

708
00:45:43,080 --> 00:45:47,800
I loved understanding why people think the way they do and why they behave.

709
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:54,000
And so I did a few pieces of artwork based on borderline personality disorder, bipolar

710
00:45:54,000 --> 00:46:00,600
and generalized depression and posted them on all my socials.

711
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:05,880
And then within like two or three days, I had like 30, 40,000 likes, comments, all this

712
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:08,840
stuff and just kind of blew up in this thing.

713
00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:10,720
I'm like, I don't know what the fuck's happening.

714
00:46:10,720 --> 00:46:14,840
And I started getting all these emails telling me to go fuck myself and I'm not a monster.

715
00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:20,680
And like all these people attacking me for drawing mental health in this darker aspect.

716
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:24,240
And I'm like, I've never been used to having people just attack me over my artwork.

717
00:46:24,240 --> 00:46:25,680
It's always been, no, I love your art.

718
00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:26,680
I love your art.

719
00:46:26,680 --> 00:46:28,760
This is the first time I had people go on like, you suck.

720
00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:29,760
I hope you die.

721
00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:32,400
And I'm like, oh damn, this sucks.

722
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:34,760
And a bunch of my friends are like, hey dude, you made it.

723
00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:37,760
You know, your art's now reaching everyone.

724
00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:40,160
So now you're getting all the haters too.

725
00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:48,040
But the connection I was finding with drawing mental health and with like people reaching

726
00:46:48,040 --> 00:46:50,120
out to me was like so profound to me.

727
00:46:50,120 --> 00:46:56,200
So I was like, oh, I'm doing something that I can like potentially really help people.

728
00:46:56,200 --> 00:46:58,640
Because there's a lot of people who reach out to me saying like, you know, I haven't

729
00:46:58,640 --> 00:47:03,040
seen therapy for, you know, 10, 20 years and I could never put into words how I felt.

730
00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:04,240
And like this artwork did it.

731
00:47:04,240 --> 00:47:07,120
And I took it to my therapist and said, this is the art.

732
00:47:07,120 --> 00:47:08,800
Like this is how I feel.

733
00:47:08,800 --> 00:47:12,520
And it opened up a whole new like discussion with their therapy.

734
00:47:12,520 --> 00:47:16,680
And I had people just reach out saying like, you know, I've been feeling so alone.

735
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:24,280
I've had a lot of people, it's heavy, tell me like, you know, they were, you know, at

736
00:47:24,280 --> 00:47:25,280
the end of the line.

737
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:30,280
They were ready, like they were getting ready to leave this planet.

738
00:47:30,280 --> 00:47:32,600
And they just happened to stumble upon my artwork.

739
00:47:32,600 --> 00:47:36,880
Now whether that's true or not, or they're just making up the story because I'm paranoid

740
00:47:36,880 --> 00:47:40,320
of all people and I don't believe anyone.

741
00:47:40,320 --> 00:47:48,080
But if that is true, like that's super moving, you know, knowing that my artwork had the

742
00:47:48,080 --> 00:47:53,880
ability to change someone's decision from leaving this earth and staying a couple of

743
00:47:53,880 --> 00:47:58,480
days longer, you know, and that's been very profound for me.

744
00:47:58,480 --> 00:48:04,720
And it's come with a lot of weight because people open up a lot to me.

745
00:48:04,720 --> 00:48:05,720
People reach out to me for help.

746
00:48:05,720 --> 00:48:09,780
And I, you know, I try to tell them like, I'm not crisis trained.

747
00:48:09,780 --> 00:48:15,400
I cannot deescalate you, you know, there are resources for that.

748
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:17,240
And I can try and help you get those resources.

749
00:48:17,240 --> 00:48:22,960
But like I've had people in full manic, you know, mode reach out to me say, you have to

750
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:24,160
help me, you have to talk me down.

751
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:27,520
I'm like, why are you putting that on me?

752
00:48:27,520 --> 00:48:29,840
You know, like I can't help that.

753
00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:34,080
And then, but then you have to be careful on how you approach that.

754
00:48:34,080 --> 00:48:38,260
Because if I tell them like, here's the resources, they might be like, you don't fucking care.

755
00:48:38,260 --> 00:48:41,640
You know, I'm like, I'm trying to bring awareness.

756
00:48:41,640 --> 00:48:45,760
Like I'm not here to treat you like that's not, I don't have that expertise.

757
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:50,280
And what if I treat gave you the wrong advice and just completely sent you over the edge?

758
00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:56,720
And so I don't want to have that on my conscious knowing that I seared someone wrong.

759
00:48:56,720 --> 00:49:01,400
And you know, people send me a lot of DMs of just the darkest stuff that they've been

760
00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:05,040
through, you know, sexual assault and like they open up a lot.

761
00:49:05,040 --> 00:49:14,480
And I, I'm humbled by the fact that they're willing to open up and tell me just some of

762
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:16,800
the darkest stuff that's ever happened to them.

763
00:49:16,800 --> 00:49:22,720
At the same time, I feel like every time they tell me that I'm just throwing it on my back.

764
00:49:22,720 --> 00:49:24,280
I'm putting another one on my shoulder.

765
00:49:24,280 --> 00:49:27,120
I'm just carrying this load with me.

766
00:49:27,120 --> 00:49:33,240
And it's got to a point now where I don't get to check my DMs as much because I'm afraid

767
00:49:33,240 --> 00:49:36,800
to open one up.

768
00:49:36,800 --> 00:49:41,040
And that that's going to be the story that breaks me and just makes me spiral out of

769
00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:42,140
control.

770
00:49:42,140 --> 00:49:47,600
And so a lot of people think like, oh, he's just too big and he doesn't have time for

771
00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:48,600
his fans.

772
00:49:48,600 --> 00:49:50,480
I was like, I try to check all my messages.

773
00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:51,720
I do run a business.

774
00:49:51,720 --> 00:49:53,680
I you know, I have a family.

775
00:49:53,680 --> 00:49:58,320
I do have a life, but I also have to protect my own mental health.

776
00:49:58,320 --> 00:50:03,120
And if you keep, you know, I did that as a nurse, I went to people's worst times with

777
00:50:03,120 --> 00:50:04,120
them.

778
00:50:04,120 --> 00:50:05,120
I've seen people die.

779
00:50:05,120 --> 00:50:12,120
I've seen people die unexpectedly or shouldn't have people, you know, at their worst.

780
00:50:12,120 --> 00:50:14,400
And what that did to me back then.

781
00:50:14,400 --> 00:50:17,740
And so this is even heavier because it's mentally.

782
00:50:17,740 --> 00:50:24,360
And so I'm packing this all the way into my own, you know, my own back of my head, hoping

783
00:50:24,360 --> 00:50:26,960
that just stays back there that I'm holding it for them.

784
00:50:26,960 --> 00:50:31,600
You know, maybe that they told me, you know, their darkest feelings that it helped them.

785
00:50:31,600 --> 00:50:37,000
But now I have to like bear it almost like a like you ever see the movie Sin Eater?

786
00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:38,880
I haven't seen that one, though.

787
00:50:38,880 --> 00:50:44,360
Had Heath Ledger in it, but a brief thing is he would pretty much do the last rites

788
00:50:44,360 --> 00:50:46,720
to all these people who are dying.

789
00:50:46,720 --> 00:50:49,560
But in a supernatural way, he would actually eat their sins.

790
00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:55,200
So he would take their sins from them, but he would have to bear all of that sin in him,

791
00:50:55,200 --> 00:50:59,400
you know, all that darkness so that they could go to heaven.

792
00:50:59,400 --> 00:51:02,880
So something like that, like take it, you know, if I can help them in that way.

793
00:51:02,880 --> 00:51:12,000
But surprisingly, that had zero relation with the Stephen King thing, which is the Stephen

794
00:51:12,000 --> 00:51:13,720
King movie.

795
00:51:13,720 --> 00:51:18,040
Someone reached out to me through Deviantart, which is a platform.

796
00:51:18,040 --> 00:51:20,120
A lot of artists can post their work and stuff like that.

797
00:51:20,120 --> 00:51:23,980
And I hadn't posted on there for years.

798
00:51:23,980 --> 00:51:29,520
And I get this email from this guy from a production company.

799
00:51:29,520 --> 00:51:33,320
He goes, hey, we want to use your artwork for a Stephen King film.

800
00:51:33,320 --> 00:51:39,880
I'm like, OK, assuming it's just a fan film that the real Stephen King movies aren't going

801
00:51:39,880 --> 00:51:40,880
to reach out to me.

802
00:51:40,880 --> 00:51:44,240
It ended up being a real Stephen King film.

803
00:51:44,240 --> 00:51:48,120
And they want to use my artwork for the all that the demon work and all the creepy stuff

804
00:51:48,120 --> 00:51:50,120
for John Cusack's character.

805
00:51:50,120 --> 00:51:53,920
And so I got to draw a lot of artwork for it.

806
00:51:53,920 --> 00:51:57,020
It's in I always tell people, watch the first hour of the movie.

807
00:51:57,020 --> 00:51:59,720
After that, they lose funding for the film and the movie turns to shit.

808
00:51:59,720 --> 00:52:00,720
So don't finish it.

809
00:52:00,720 --> 00:52:03,720
It just gets worse and worse.

810
00:52:03,720 --> 00:52:06,120
But that first hour is pretty solid.

811
00:52:06,120 --> 00:52:10,560
And my artwork artworks in it and get to see John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson in a room

812
00:52:10,560 --> 00:52:14,160
with my artworks like super cool.

813
00:52:14,160 --> 00:52:20,040
Also the the coincidental part is like my wife is a diehard John Cusack fan and my mom's

814
00:52:20,040 --> 00:52:21,880
a diehard Stephen King fan.

815
00:52:21,880 --> 00:52:25,480
So I felt like it was fate to be a part of this movie.

816
00:52:25,480 --> 00:52:26,480
That's amazing.

817
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:30,640
Speaking of Stephen King, the analogy you use at the Cine, I use the same thing with

818
00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:32,880
Michael Clarke Duncan's character in The Green Mile.

819
00:52:32,880 --> 00:52:33,880
Yes, yes.

820
00:52:33,880 --> 00:52:37,240
I think that's what we do as first responders and doctors and nurses.

821
00:52:37,240 --> 00:52:40,400
We're research empaths that we take it and take it.

822
00:52:40,400 --> 00:52:44,080
But you know, obviously, you got to be careful because if you just take it and don't have

823
00:52:44,080 --> 00:52:46,880
some sort of release, eventually it will take you.

824
00:52:46,880 --> 00:52:50,000
100% I forgot I forgot about that Green Mile.

825
00:52:50,000 --> 00:52:51,000
That was a good movie.

826
00:52:51,000 --> 00:52:52,000
Amazing movie.

827
00:52:52,000 --> 00:52:53,680
They had funding the whole way through for that one.

828
00:52:53,680 --> 00:52:54,680
Yes, they did.

829
00:52:54,680 --> 00:52:56,840
You can tell it was good all the way through.

830
00:52:56,840 --> 00:52:57,840
Absolutely.

831
00:52:57,840 --> 00:52:58,960
And yet Tom Hanks in it.

832
00:52:58,960 --> 00:53:01,880
So I mean, yeah, he's was he in it?

833
00:53:01,880 --> 00:53:02,880
Tom Hanks.

834
00:53:02,880 --> 00:53:03,880
He was.

835
00:53:03,880 --> 00:53:04,880
Yeah, he was.

836
00:53:04,880 --> 00:53:05,880
OK, because my wife was getting confused about it the other day.

837
00:53:05,880 --> 00:53:08,880
But yeah, he was in he was in that as well as Shawshank.

838
00:53:08,880 --> 00:53:11,200
Was he in Shawshank as well?

839
00:53:11,200 --> 00:53:12,640
Am I getting confused now?

840
00:53:12,640 --> 00:53:14,120
No, not Shawshank.

841
00:53:14,120 --> 00:53:16,320
That's what we had back when we were talking.

842
00:53:16,320 --> 00:53:18,680
So Green Mile, it kills me.

843
00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:23,800
My wife so has not seen Shawshank Redemption because it's a Stephen King film, too.

844
00:53:23,800 --> 00:53:26,280
But she just assumes that it's going to be a dumb movie.

845
00:53:26,280 --> 00:53:29,120
I'm like, it's one of the best movies of all time.

846
00:53:29,120 --> 00:53:30,120
Watch the movie.

847
00:53:30,120 --> 00:53:31,120
Yeah.

848
00:53:31,120 --> 00:53:33,840
Have you been to the prison where they shot it?

849
00:53:33,840 --> 00:53:34,840
It's near you.

850
00:53:34,840 --> 00:53:35,840
I have to leave it now.

851
00:53:35,840 --> 00:53:36,840
Yeah.

852
00:53:36,840 --> 00:53:38,200
I think it's Mansfield, isn't Mansfield correction?

853
00:53:38,200 --> 00:53:39,200
That's right.

854
00:53:39,200 --> 00:53:40,200
Yeah.

855
00:53:40,200 --> 00:53:41,200
Yeah.

856
00:53:41,200 --> 00:53:42,200
So you can go in there and you've actually got some of the sets.

857
00:53:42,200 --> 00:53:45,680
And obviously, there's not really a set as rooms from the actual prison that they have

858
00:53:45,680 --> 00:53:46,680
some of those scenes.

859
00:53:46,680 --> 00:53:52,560
They have a a three day rock festival there called Incarceration, which is super cool.

860
00:53:52,560 --> 00:53:53,560
Yeah.

861
00:53:53,560 --> 00:53:54,560
So they had one.

862
00:53:54,560 --> 00:53:56,960
Well, they have one here called Welcome in Rockville.

863
00:53:56,960 --> 00:53:57,960
And it was phenomenal.

864
00:53:57,960 --> 00:54:01,040
It was in this place called Met Park in Jacksonville.

865
00:54:01,040 --> 00:54:04,880
So you had the river, you had all these different parks and then they'd have different stages

866
00:54:04,880 --> 00:54:06,360
and it was incredible.

867
00:54:06,360 --> 00:54:08,400
And then something happened with the city.

868
00:54:08,400 --> 00:54:11,560
And so they ended up moving to Daytona Speedway.

869
00:54:11,560 --> 00:54:16,080
And now it's absolute dog shit because it's just in this big fucking racetrack.

870
00:54:16,080 --> 00:54:18,760
There's no no nothing to it.

871
00:54:18,760 --> 00:54:19,760
You're just in a big circle.

872
00:54:19,760 --> 00:54:23,120
All the bands are bouncing off the stands and I can't stand it now.

873
00:54:23,120 --> 00:54:26,400
So so we're thinking of going to maybe Ohio or somewhere to watch.

874
00:54:26,400 --> 00:54:29,400
You should do a Sonic Temples really good.

875
00:54:29,400 --> 00:54:30,400
I was there.

876
00:54:30,400 --> 00:54:33,960
I have a lot of friends in the music industry.

877
00:54:33,960 --> 00:54:35,080
And so I was at Sonic Temples.

878
00:54:35,080 --> 00:54:37,440
I did Audemars work for us either.

879
00:54:37,440 --> 00:54:38,440
And so they were performing.

880
00:54:38,440 --> 00:54:41,440
That one's a good show.

881
00:54:41,440 --> 00:54:47,080
It's in a stadium and they have four stages.

882
00:54:47,080 --> 00:54:48,080
It's super legit.

883
00:54:48,080 --> 00:54:49,080
You'll enjoy it.

884
00:54:49,080 --> 00:54:50,080
Yeah.

885
00:54:50,080 --> 00:54:53,560
And with Mansfield, the new prison is next to the old one, isn't it?

886
00:54:53,560 --> 00:54:56,880
So I wonder what the prisoners must think for those three days when everyone's having

887
00:54:56,880 --> 00:55:01,800
the time of their life just meters from from the boxes that they're saying.

888
00:55:01,800 --> 00:55:03,360
Maybe they're just happy to get the music at least.

889
00:55:03,360 --> 00:55:04,760
Hey, let's get to hear some music.

890
00:55:04,760 --> 00:55:06,080
I'm going to say hate metal.

891
00:55:06,080 --> 00:55:08,120
And they're like, fuck, I hate this.

892
00:55:08,120 --> 00:55:09,120
Exactly.

893
00:55:09,120 --> 00:55:10,120
Three days of misery.

894
00:55:10,120 --> 00:55:11,120
Right.

895
00:55:11,120 --> 00:55:12,120
But what about the WWE?

896
00:55:12,120 --> 00:55:14,360
I saw you did some stuff with them as well.

897
00:55:14,360 --> 00:55:22,440
Yeah, so a couple, two, three years ago, we worked with a company called Chalkline Jackets.

898
00:55:22,440 --> 00:55:29,920
They do like the old school starter jackets all over print, like supplemented jackets.

899
00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:32,760
And they have a license with the WWE.

900
00:55:32,760 --> 00:55:39,280
And they had reached out because obviously I do creepy artwork and they had the Undertaker's

901
00:55:39,280 --> 00:55:41,760
30th year anniversary was coming up.

902
00:55:41,760 --> 00:55:44,720
So they asked me to design a jacket for it.

903
00:55:44,720 --> 00:55:47,060
Also my mom is a huge Undertaker fan.

904
00:55:47,060 --> 00:55:49,760
That was our favorite wrestler growing up.

905
00:55:49,760 --> 00:55:52,200
And you can see a trend with all the dark artworks.

906
00:55:52,200 --> 00:55:53,200
All my mom's fault.

907
00:55:53,200 --> 00:55:54,200
It's all her fault.

908
00:55:54,200 --> 00:55:55,200
Sounds like it.

909
00:55:55,200 --> 00:55:56,200
Yeah.

910
00:55:56,200 --> 00:55:59,600
But yeah, so we did the Undertaker jacket.

911
00:55:59,600 --> 00:56:01,600
His wife was wearing it.

912
00:56:01,600 --> 00:56:02,960
It was super cool.

913
00:56:02,960 --> 00:56:09,520
And then they hit us up for the Ultimate Warrior in Papachango.

914
00:56:09,520 --> 00:56:11,500
So they were cool.

915
00:56:11,500 --> 00:56:17,200
It wasn't like a huge financial venture, but it was just cool because me and my business

916
00:56:17,200 --> 00:56:21,360
partner grew up huge wrestling fans in the early 90s and the Attitude era.

917
00:56:21,360 --> 00:56:24,400
So he was a huge Ultimate Warrior fan.

918
00:56:24,400 --> 00:56:29,160
So getting to do an Ultimate Warrior jacket the way he likes it was super cool.

919
00:56:29,160 --> 00:56:36,720
And then we both love Papachango, even though it's super stereotypical of a character.

920
00:56:36,720 --> 00:56:41,100
But back then, you really believed this dude was a voodoo doctor.

921
00:56:41,100 --> 00:56:45,240
So I was drawn to him as well, just because of the creepiness.

922
00:56:45,240 --> 00:56:49,320
The Ultimate Warrior, actually, he went on to coaching a lot, physical coaching.

923
00:56:49,320 --> 00:56:52,200
He worked with youth football teams, that kind of thing.

924
00:56:52,200 --> 00:56:53,200
Yeah.

925
00:56:53,200 --> 00:56:55,240
He seemed very profound in a lot of things that he talked about.

926
00:56:55,240 --> 00:56:59,560
So it was a real shame that he died so early, as so many of the wrestlers do, because he

927
00:56:59,560 --> 00:57:01,880
would have been a great person to talk to on here.

928
00:57:01,880 --> 00:57:02,880
Yeah.

929
00:57:02,880 --> 00:57:07,040
You just had to call him Warrior though, because he changed his name, which was super like,

930
00:57:07,040 --> 00:57:11,200
hey, what's up, Warrior?

931
00:57:11,200 --> 00:57:14,560
I gave it to the Frisbee people.

932
00:57:14,560 --> 00:57:22,480
Well, I would love to unpack as well the social media journey.

933
00:57:22,480 --> 00:57:25,680
So you mentioned about putting some of the art out there.

934
00:57:25,680 --> 00:57:31,640
Talk to me about your time with Cyanide and Happiness, and again, the evolution of a somewhat

935
00:57:31,640 --> 00:57:35,760
small platform to putting comics on that medium.

936
00:57:35,760 --> 00:57:44,880
Yeah, so with C and H, back during the MySpace days, I was posting artwork on there, and

937
00:57:44,880 --> 00:57:48,480
one of the original creators, Chris Wilson, had DM'd me.

938
00:57:48,480 --> 00:57:53,520
I don't know if you called it DM back then, whatever he called MySpace messages, just

939
00:57:53,520 --> 00:57:54,520
saying that he loved my artwork.

940
00:57:54,520 --> 00:57:55,520
And I thought it was a scam.

941
00:57:55,520 --> 00:58:00,200
I thought he was going to, like, you know, back then, you know, every other day, you'd

942
00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:04,240
get a spam email saying, hey, grow your dick six inches, you know, take these pills, whatever.

943
00:58:04,240 --> 00:58:08,080
And I won't check their account got hacked, you know, I got to delete it.

944
00:58:08,080 --> 00:58:09,080
But he...

945
00:58:09,080 --> 00:58:10,080
Fake emails?

946
00:58:10,080 --> 00:58:11,080
I've been replying them to...

947
00:58:11,080 --> 00:58:12,080
Right, right.

948
00:58:12,080 --> 00:58:13,080
Just getting all of my...

949
00:58:13,080 --> 00:58:14,080
Give me all these pills.

950
00:58:14,080 --> 00:58:19,320
He reached out and he was a big fan of my dark artwork.

951
00:58:19,320 --> 00:58:21,880
And he goes, hey, man, I do a lot of dark art too.

952
00:58:21,880 --> 00:58:23,520
I'm like, holy shit, you're Chris.

953
00:58:23,520 --> 00:58:25,760
Like, I'm a huge fan.

954
00:58:25,760 --> 00:58:32,200
And we became friends that way, just through like a passion of dark artwork.

955
00:58:32,200 --> 00:58:37,920
And he ended up inviting me out to his house like six months later of meeting him online.

956
00:58:37,920 --> 00:58:43,840
And my dad lost his mind because he says, you know, God love my dad.

957
00:58:43,840 --> 00:58:44,840
He's trying.

958
00:58:44,840 --> 00:58:48,520
He's made it leaps and bounds of what it used to be.

959
00:58:48,520 --> 00:58:51,440
But he was like, you know, it's just a bunch of gays in Colorado.

960
00:58:51,440 --> 00:58:55,160
And he goes, if he invites you out into the woods, be careful because that's where they

961
00:58:55,160 --> 00:58:56,160
do the gay sex.

962
00:58:56,160 --> 00:59:02,120
I'm like, dad, I don't think this dude is going to kidnap me and make me have gay sex.

963
00:59:02,120 --> 00:59:09,040
Like, I can say no, but I don't know why he had this fear.

964
00:59:09,040 --> 00:59:13,360
But then he let my sister go to Cancun by herself for like senior trip.

965
00:59:13,360 --> 00:59:14,360
So there's no gay stuff.

966
00:59:14,360 --> 00:59:16,200
So he's right.

967
00:59:16,200 --> 00:59:17,640
Explain this shit to me.

968
00:59:17,640 --> 00:59:21,840
But I get there and I just have for a week and we're hitting it off.

969
00:59:21,840 --> 00:59:22,840
We're doing artwork.

970
00:59:22,840 --> 00:59:26,760
And as he sent me back to the airport, he was him out.

971
00:59:26,760 --> 00:59:29,600
I want you to I want you to work with us.

972
00:59:29,600 --> 00:59:30,960
I'm like, oh shit.

973
00:59:30,960 --> 00:59:35,360
You know, and I thought like, oh, man, I'm going to be like one of the like the the O.G.

974
00:59:35,360 --> 00:59:38,240
guys to create wasn't like that.

975
00:59:38,240 --> 00:59:42,040
So to speak, he had me doing the merchandise designs because they wanted to really get

976
00:59:42,040 --> 00:59:45,200
into like drawing, like like selling prints, t shirts, stuff like that.

977
00:59:45,200 --> 00:59:50,520
And so I started doing a lot of the poster designs, helping out with a lot of products.

978
00:59:50,520 --> 00:59:55,220
And then I started working on the cartoon show.

979
00:59:55,220 --> 00:59:58,920
So I worked on like the character design,

980
00:59:58,920 --> 01:00:02,840
background artwork, and I started working on like the video game that they started having.

981
01:00:02,840 --> 01:00:07,440
But then I started traveling the United States with them, going to Comic Con events and where

982
01:00:07,440 --> 01:00:11,320
we would do kind of like improv comedy with sketching.

983
01:00:11,320 --> 01:00:13,040
So you would come up, you'd buy something.

984
01:00:13,040 --> 01:00:17,840
And then at the time, three or four of us would all be drawing at the same time, like

985
01:00:17,840 --> 01:00:21,080
these random sick figures just making the most absurd shit on earth, you know, like

986
01:00:21,080 --> 01:00:25,760
Santa having sex with Hitler over a bonfire or something like that.

987
01:00:25,760 --> 01:00:27,880
Dicks everywhere.

988
01:00:27,880 --> 01:00:35,840
And I kind of built my my brands, so to speak, through that, because I always let people

989
01:00:35,840 --> 01:00:36,840
know who I was.

990
01:00:36,840 --> 01:00:40,880
You know, I never tried to tell them, oh, you should look at my other artwork.

991
01:00:40,880 --> 01:00:42,240
But I'd always like, hey, I'm Sean cost.

992
01:00:42,240 --> 01:00:46,520
I mean, I'm one of the newest people, you know, with sign on happiness, you know, and

993
01:00:46,520 --> 01:00:50,720
try to treat them the way I would want to be treated as a fan, because I was a fan first

994
01:00:50,720 --> 01:00:52,320
of sign on happiness.

995
01:00:52,320 --> 01:00:56,080
So whenever a fan would come up, I would treat them the way I would want to be treated if

996
01:00:56,080 --> 01:00:59,960
I met like my favorite cartoon.

997
01:00:59,960 --> 01:01:07,120
And yeah, I was with them for 10 years from actually made a little bit longer 2009 to

998
01:01:07,120 --> 01:01:08,120
2020.

999
01:01:08,120 --> 01:01:09,120
Yeah.

1000
01:01:09,120 --> 01:01:19,160
But like all things, you know, drawing dick and fart jokes for 10 years can sometimes

1001
01:01:19,160 --> 01:01:26,520
wear and they had to start like downsizing and so I end up being one of the people that

1002
01:01:26,520 --> 01:01:30,480
they downspin because they're like they knew I had a career outside of it as well.

1003
01:01:30,480 --> 01:01:38,960
But they showed me really that there was a life as a creator, because before that, I

1004
01:01:38,960 --> 01:01:40,480
didn't know what Comic Con was.

1005
01:01:40,480 --> 01:01:43,520
I honestly had never heard of the fucking word ever.

1006
01:01:43,520 --> 01:01:50,160
I didn't know San Diego was this fucking Mecca of just comics and movies and shit like that.

1007
01:01:50,160 --> 01:01:54,240
And never no one in Ohio would ever go.

1008
01:01:54,240 --> 01:01:55,600
You know, we didn't know anything about that.

1009
01:01:55,600 --> 01:01:57,000
So like we knew comics.

1010
01:01:57,000 --> 01:02:03,520
But you know, I went to my my first Comic Con was at C2E2 in Chicago.

1011
01:02:03,520 --> 01:02:04,520
It was busy.

1012
01:02:04,520 --> 01:02:05,520
I was like, what the fuck is this?

1013
01:02:05,520 --> 01:02:06,720
I'm seeing all these amazing artists.

1014
01:02:06,720 --> 01:02:07,920
I'm like, what is this?

1015
01:02:07,920 --> 01:02:11,160
They're like, oh, these are all artists that do this for a living.

1016
01:02:11,160 --> 01:02:13,520
You know, some have part time jobs like that.

1017
01:02:13,520 --> 01:02:15,760
I'm like, holy shit.

1018
01:02:15,760 --> 01:02:16,760
Like I didn't know this.

1019
01:02:16,760 --> 01:02:19,280
I didn't even know this word existed, you know.

1020
01:02:19,280 --> 01:02:24,880
And then I did San Diego as my second Comic Con ever with 300,000 people, you know, at

1021
01:02:24,880 --> 01:02:25,880
that event.

1022
01:02:25,880 --> 01:02:28,960
And my scalp was peeled back.

1023
01:02:28,960 --> 01:02:29,960
My face was blown away.

1024
01:02:29,960 --> 01:02:34,000
I'm hanging out with fucking porn stars and celebrities.

1025
01:02:34,000 --> 01:02:37,920
Like, I'm like, what is going on?

1026
01:02:37,920 --> 01:02:42,120
And realize this whole world was being opened up to me.

1027
01:02:42,120 --> 01:02:48,720
And those guys, you know, I tell I always tell people I owe Chris everything to my art

1028
01:02:48,720 --> 01:02:56,520
career because he gave me the helping hand to open my eyes to see like you can make it

1029
01:02:56,520 --> 01:03:02,520
as an artist and as a creator, you know, and he'll never take credit for it.

1030
01:03:02,520 --> 01:03:05,480
Anytime I ever talk about it, I'm like, dude, like you had to put the work in.

1031
01:03:05,480 --> 01:03:08,520
I was like, yeah, but I've been putting the work in.

1032
01:03:08,520 --> 01:03:12,560
You said, hey guys, check this out, you know, revealed me to the world.

1033
01:03:12,560 --> 01:03:17,400
You know, I got, I got to be on a platform that had 14 million fans on it.

1034
01:03:17,400 --> 01:03:19,280
You know, a lot of artists would kill for that.

1035
01:03:19,280 --> 01:03:23,480
So I had like, I always tell people I had the cheat code to just kind of throw myself

1036
01:03:23,480 --> 01:03:26,400
into that world so quickly.

1037
01:03:26,400 --> 01:03:33,560
I didn't have to build up, you know, years and years and years of trial and error to

1038
01:03:33,560 --> 01:03:34,560
get there.

1039
01:03:34,560 --> 01:03:39,960
Even though I did, I mean, I did do artwork all of my twenties, you know, I had friends

1040
01:03:39,960 --> 01:03:40,960
who liked it.

1041
01:03:40,960 --> 01:03:46,040
You know, I did album covers here and there for local bands, but it wasn't like career

1042
01:03:46,040 --> 01:03:47,040
money.

1043
01:03:47,040 --> 01:03:54,640
Like I couldn't survive off of it, but they showed me like the importance of social media.

1044
01:03:54,640 --> 01:04:00,300
Also the dangers of it with just how much it like consumes us, you know, in my age now

1045
01:04:00,300 --> 01:04:06,240
at 41, I realized how much social media affects mental health and how much I see it affecting

1046
01:04:06,240 --> 01:04:07,240
my kids.

1047
01:04:07,240 --> 01:04:12,680
And it's just like, it's frustrating because like, it's never going to go away.

1048
01:04:12,680 --> 01:04:14,400
So I can't be like, you guys can't be on social media.

1049
01:04:14,400 --> 01:04:18,680
Cause I was like, well, then I'm just preventing them from, or like keeping them from like

1050
01:04:18,680 --> 01:04:20,640
developing with the times.

1051
01:04:20,640 --> 01:04:23,760
And so there's like this weird balance I'm having to like adjust to.

1052
01:04:23,760 --> 01:04:24,760
Yeah.

1053
01:04:24,760 --> 01:04:28,960
What I've found, you know, with the social media side, I have an account that's, you

1054
01:04:28,960 --> 01:04:32,000
know, it's grown pretty well now and that's not the focus tool.

1055
01:04:32,000 --> 01:04:33,000
The focus is the podcast.

1056
01:04:33,000 --> 01:04:37,280
I just happened to have an Instagram account that helps share positive stuff.

1057
01:04:37,280 --> 01:04:42,280
And then obviously the episodes that I put out, but it's amazing how if you guide your

1058
01:04:42,280 --> 01:04:45,920
account in a positive direction, it stays positive.

1059
01:04:45,920 --> 01:04:48,120
People are like, ah, you know, did you see what Trump or Biden?

1060
01:04:48,120 --> 01:04:51,960
Like, no, I didn't because my Instagram doesn't have any of that bullshit.

1061
01:04:51,960 --> 01:04:54,680
That means nothing coming to my field of view.

1062
01:04:54,680 --> 01:05:00,680
So I feel like, you know, the future and obviously social media is you want to keep it away from

1063
01:05:00,680 --> 01:05:01,880
your kids as long as possible.

1064
01:05:01,880 --> 01:05:05,320
But then it's like learning how to curate it, learning how to guide them.

1065
01:05:05,320 --> 01:05:09,820
My son, he had, uh, I didn't want him to have Instagram and his mother, we were divorced

1066
01:05:09,820 --> 01:05:11,320
and his mother allowed him to have it.

1067
01:05:11,320 --> 01:05:15,840
And I watched like over weeks, this kid's kind of, you know, taking selfies all the

1068
01:05:15,840 --> 01:05:18,080
time and his self esteem just go to the toilet.

1069
01:05:18,080 --> 01:05:19,080
And I was like, fuck this.

1070
01:05:19,080 --> 01:05:21,220
And I just said, no, this isn't happening.

1071
01:05:21,220 --> 01:05:24,960
And I think it was a couple of years, two or three years later, we've slowly fed it

1072
01:05:24,960 --> 01:05:31,720
back in and now his feed is surfing and volleyball and, you know, golden retrievers.

1073
01:05:31,720 --> 01:05:32,720
He loves them.

1074
01:05:32,720 --> 01:05:33,720
You know what I mean?

1075
01:05:33,720 --> 01:05:34,720
It's all positive stuff.

1076
01:05:34,720 --> 01:05:36,760
He's not worried about trying to show the world who he is.

1077
01:05:36,760 --> 01:05:40,640
In fact, he barely ever posts, you know, so I think it is a very powerful tool, but it

1078
01:05:40,640 --> 01:05:46,040
really does require the diligence of a parent to slowly, you know, at the right time, guide

1079
01:05:46,040 --> 01:05:49,460
a child into that world and give them the training wheels.

1080
01:05:49,460 --> 01:05:52,440
Because if you just drop them in the middle of it, it's an absolute shit show.

1081
01:05:52,440 --> 01:05:53,440
100%.

1082
01:05:53,440 --> 01:05:54,440
Yeah.

1083
01:05:54,440 --> 01:05:58,720
And especially with kids like, you know, I have a, uh, soon to be eight year old that

1084
01:05:58,720 --> 01:06:01,960
wants a YouTube channel and she's trying to like, you know, film her videos and stuff

1085
01:06:01,960 --> 01:06:02,960
like that.

1086
01:06:02,960 --> 01:06:03,960
And she wants to have merchandise and everything.

1087
01:06:03,960 --> 01:06:05,160
I was like, Hey, just take it one step at a time.

1088
01:06:05,160 --> 01:06:08,120
You know, like just have fun doing it.

1089
01:06:08,120 --> 01:06:11,840
And you know, I just, I always tell her all the time, like, you know, you don't have to

1090
01:06:11,840 --> 01:06:13,360
spend all your time on your iPad.

1091
01:06:13,360 --> 01:06:15,040
You can get out and do things.

1092
01:06:15,040 --> 01:06:17,320
You know, my older one, she's very active.

1093
01:06:17,320 --> 01:06:18,520
She does three different dances.

1094
01:06:18,520 --> 01:06:20,600
She's going to be doing gymnastics again.

1095
01:06:20,600 --> 01:06:21,600
She's very active.

1096
01:06:21,600 --> 01:06:24,760
So I'm like, I just need to get my youngest one to do it too.

1097
01:06:24,760 --> 01:06:28,640
Well speaking of the cartoon side, did you ever cross paths with the guys from South

1098
01:06:28,640 --> 01:06:32,800
Park?

1099
01:06:32,800 --> 01:06:35,000
We hadn't directly.

1100
01:06:35,000 --> 01:06:44,600
I know, um, when Chris and, uh, Dave and Rob were trying to sell the show to, uh, Comedy

1101
01:06:44,600 --> 01:06:50,880
Central, there was a whole situation where they were brought to LA where they thought

1102
01:06:50,880 --> 01:06:55,200
they were actually going to meet with Trey Parker and Matt Stone and not being that at

1103
01:06:55,200 --> 01:06:56,200
all.

1104
01:06:56,200 --> 01:07:02,440
I ended up being a fucking shit show with their agent at the time that was like telling

1105
01:07:02,440 --> 01:07:04,880
CNH guys one thing, but telling Comedy Central the other thing.

1106
01:07:04,880 --> 01:07:07,720
I ended up turning into this whole nightmare where Comedy Central said, we'll never buy

1107
01:07:07,720 --> 01:07:10,640
you guys, like never buy a show from you guys ever.

1108
01:07:10,640 --> 01:07:14,000
They're so disrespected by whatever this agent did.

1109
01:07:14,000 --> 01:07:16,520
And so that burned like a pretty big bridge for them.

1110
01:07:16,520 --> 01:07:26,080
Um, but yeah, I don't know if the South Park guys are even aware of CNH on their radar.

1111
01:07:26,080 --> 01:07:31,760
I gotta imagine they had to at least have heard of them by that part.

1112
01:07:31,760 --> 01:07:36,080
I I'm not really involved in or wasn't involved in, you know, like I was never like one of

1113
01:07:36,080 --> 01:07:38,440
the cart, like the comic writers.

1114
01:07:38,440 --> 01:07:41,360
I was more of like the artists.

1115
01:07:41,360 --> 01:07:44,480
Like they always said, like I'm the only one who can draw within the with that in that

1116
01:07:44,480 --> 01:07:45,720
company.

1117
01:07:45,720 --> 01:07:48,880
And so they had me drawing all like the more intricate stuff or like coming up with some

1118
01:07:48,880 --> 01:07:50,760
like absurd ideas.

1119
01:07:50,760 --> 01:07:54,680
But the those type of business meetings I was never really a part of because, you know,

1120
01:07:54,680 --> 01:07:58,200
not my, you know, I didn't actually create the cartoon.

1121
01:07:58,200 --> 01:08:00,520
I was just kind of helping that grow.

1122
01:08:00,520 --> 01:08:02,640
Yeah, I think they would be amazing.

1123
01:08:02,640 --> 01:08:04,680
I don't know if it will ever be able to make it happen.

1124
01:08:04,680 --> 01:08:09,080
But I mean, they're very elusive and I think deliberately so because they offend everyone,

1125
01:08:09,080 --> 01:08:10,920
which I think is the way comedy is supposed to be.

1126
01:08:10,920 --> 01:08:15,040
Like if we all make fun of each other, no one really technically gets offended anymore.

1127
01:08:15,040 --> 01:08:21,520
But well, then walk me through that you mentioned about having to ultimately be let go, how

1128
01:08:21,520 --> 01:08:26,600
that spawned any means necessary.

1129
01:08:26,600 --> 01:08:31,480
So any means necessary had actually started around the same time I started CNH.

1130
01:08:31,480 --> 01:08:34,080
But at the time it was just like kind of like a hobby.

1131
01:08:34,080 --> 01:08:41,120
My business partner time was a cable guy while I was still a nurse in school.

1132
01:08:41,120 --> 01:08:49,240
And he had mentioned about trying to sort of clothing brands because we wanted to like

1133
01:08:49,240 --> 01:08:54,200
just put my artwork on the t shirts and just kind of make cool shit.

1134
01:08:54,200 --> 01:08:57,920
And you know, I wasn't a big fan of the idea because every time I tried doing clothing

1135
01:08:57,920 --> 01:09:01,960
or like go into a business venture with other people, like I was always getting taken advantage

1136
01:09:01,960 --> 01:09:04,960
of, they were always using my money and never went anywhere.

1137
01:09:04,960 --> 01:09:07,080
So I kept turning it down.

1138
01:09:07,080 --> 01:09:11,720
And eventually, he just kind of, you know, he kept being persistent with it.

1139
01:09:11,720 --> 01:09:14,240
I said, fuck it, you know, what do you want to call it?

1140
01:09:14,240 --> 01:09:17,800
And you know, he came up with the name with any means necessary, because he's like, I

1141
01:09:17,800 --> 01:09:22,080
just got to get out this fucking cable band, you got to get out, you know, being so poor,

1142
01:09:22,080 --> 01:09:24,480
you know, being a nursing student.

1143
01:09:24,480 --> 01:09:29,240
And so we just started that, you know, we had a shirt, our first shirt was called a

1144
01:09:29,240 --> 01:09:30,680
feeding on the weak and poor.

1145
01:09:30,680 --> 01:09:37,120
It was a flip on the American Eagle seal, but it's a vulture, you know, hoarding skulls

1146
01:09:37,120 --> 01:09:38,520
and arrows.

1147
01:09:38,520 --> 01:09:47,880
And we did a art show at a tattoo shop down the street had, I think, 25 or 50 shirts,

1148
01:09:47,880 --> 01:09:51,180
sold them out within the first like half hour.

1149
01:09:51,180 --> 01:09:55,600
I had 250 bucks I put into getting them produced, getting my 250 bucks back, we made I think

1150
01:09:55,600 --> 01:09:58,120
like $400.

1151
01:09:58,120 --> 01:10:03,200
And we just kept putting that money back into the company to keep restocking, reordering

1152
01:10:03,200 --> 01:10:04,440
new stuff.

1153
01:10:04,440 --> 01:10:11,240
And it wasn't until 2016, I did the whole mental health series, where, you know, people

1154
01:10:11,240 --> 01:10:15,160
kept asking for like, I need a book of this, I need clothing of this, all this stuff.

1155
01:10:15,160 --> 01:10:20,300
So we decided to like release a book of it, like a little pamphlet, and ended up doing

1156
01:10:20,300 --> 01:10:25,780
like 60k in a month, which is more money that either of us had seen in one month from this

1157
01:10:25,780 --> 01:10:27,600
book.

1158
01:10:27,600 --> 01:10:32,880
And so we were trying to get this book shipped out, we had this money come in, where, oh,

1159
01:10:32,880 --> 01:10:38,000
we can actually start doing stuff with like the brand.

1160
01:10:38,000 --> 01:10:41,600
And so, you know, we took we set some money aside so we could donate, like we wanted to

1161
01:10:41,600 --> 01:10:46,760
donate to like, a good mental health cause because we felt kind of dirty, you know, just

1162
01:10:46,760 --> 01:10:50,840
taking money on mental health artwork.

1163
01:10:50,840 --> 01:10:54,960
And so we donated to the treatment advocacy center for mental health, which I think is

1164
01:10:54,960 --> 01:10:56,400
based out of Atlanta, Georgia.

1165
01:10:56,400 --> 01:11:02,240
That's the one that Robin Williams wife highly recommends that they get 100% of the funding

1166
01:11:02,240 --> 01:11:03,240
that's donated.

1167
01:11:03,240 --> 01:11:07,400
And so we've donated to them a couple times.

1168
01:11:07,400 --> 01:11:15,040
But from that point on, you know, we started taking it a little bit more and more serious.

1169
01:11:15,040 --> 01:11:21,920
And around, I think 2017, the beginning of 2017, he ended up getting let go from his

1170
01:11:21,920 --> 01:11:28,240
job, because the cable company merged with another company, and had him filling out new

1171
01:11:28,240 --> 01:11:32,600
documents and just seeing how close they were to like the old documents.

1172
01:11:32,600 --> 01:11:35,320
And then when they switched over, they brought him into the office and said, Hey, we're firing

1173
01:11:35,320 --> 01:11:36,880
you for falsifying documentation.

1174
01:11:36,880 --> 01:11:42,800
He was like, and falsifying documents, you said just to fill us out the best we could.

1175
01:11:42,800 --> 01:11:46,040
Well, that was kind of their way to get rid of certain people.

1176
01:11:46,040 --> 01:11:47,840
And so they let him go.

1177
01:11:47,840 --> 01:11:51,760
And then brought in the rest of the employees and said, you can either take a severance

1178
01:11:51,760 --> 01:11:54,160
package or reapply for a new position.

1179
01:11:54,160 --> 01:11:55,320
So he didn't get any of that.

1180
01:11:55,320 --> 01:11:58,480
They just fired him.

1181
01:11:58,480 --> 01:12:02,680
And so there was a hot minute where he's like, you know, he was lost.

1182
01:12:02,680 --> 01:12:08,120
And he's like, don't the fuck, you know, and he was getting unemployment for a couple

1183
01:12:08,120 --> 01:12:09,440
months.

1184
01:12:09,440 --> 01:12:16,960
And we had the conversation of if a man can pay his unemployment, then he can, he'll continue

1185
01:12:16,960 --> 01:12:20,880
working on the business full time and just like selling shoes and stuff like that to like

1186
01:12:20,880 --> 01:12:25,600
make supplemental income until like we get the shit going.

1187
01:12:25,600 --> 01:12:28,960
And he did that for a couple years.

1188
01:12:28,960 --> 01:12:34,080
And then 2018, in 2018, we ended up moving to our first.

1189
01:12:34,080 --> 01:12:37,720
So all of this we're working out is 100 square foot basement in this house.

1190
01:12:37,720 --> 01:12:43,440
Like he'd work eight, nine hours at the cable place and then go home and then work from

1191
01:12:43,440 --> 01:12:48,840
like 8pm to like two in the morning on AMN orders.

1192
01:12:48,840 --> 01:12:55,800
I was doing CNH nursing school and I try to draw for AMN.

1193
01:12:55,800 --> 01:13:04,240
So we were all just juggling and we had wives and he had just had his first kid or sick.

1194
01:13:04,240 --> 01:13:06,400
I think it was his first kid.

1195
01:13:06,400 --> 01:13:11,480
So there's a lot of lot riding on this succeeding for us.

1196
01:13:11,480 --> 01:13:17,600
And so then we got a 400 square foot studio or office space and we were there for about

1197
01:13:17,600 --> 01:13:24,560
a year or two, maybe three years, but we were growing exponentially to where we had shit

1198
01:13:24,560 --> 01:13:26,280
in the hallways with the fire.

1199
01:13:26,280 --> 01:13:29,760
Marshall's coming and saying like, Hey, you guys gonna move this shit out the way.

1200
01:13:29,760 --> 01:13:33,080
And so like we had to find a place to move quickly.

1201
01:13:33,080 --> 01:13:37,760
And we did a photo shoot at a studio in downtown Akron that had like a really cool aesthetic

1202
01:13:37,760 --> 01:13:40,640
that we really enjoyed.

1203
01:13:40,640 --> 01:13:45,160
And we found out that the guy that we needed to talk to was actually my business partner's

1204
01:13:45,160 --> 01:13:49,200
old record label owner when he used to make music.

1205
01:13:49,200 --> 01:13:53,600
And so we met with him and we got this 3000 square foot studio space that I'm in right

1206
01:13:53,600 --> 01:13:54,600
now.

1207
01:13:54,600 --> 01:14:00,320
It's just been exponentially growing since then.

1208
01:14:00,320 --> 01:14:06,880
In 2020, when we were still in the old studio in January of 2020, it's about the same time

1209
01:14:06,880 --> 01:14:10,080
like when I think COVID like we're starting to shut everything down.

1210
01:14:10,080 --> 01:14:11,080
Was it?

1211
01:14:11,080 --> 01:14:15,040
Yeah, I'm trying to get my dates right.

1212
01:14:15,040 --> 01:14:18,280
I get a call with them.

1213
01:14:18,280 --> 01:14:24,400
They said, Hey, we're meeting with everyone within C and H and you know, we're gonna get

1214
01:14:24,400 --> 01:14:28,280
on a call with you and we'll let you know, you know, if you're saying or we let you go.

1215
01:14:28,280 --> 01:14:30,480
And so I'm thinking, I'm good.

1216
01:14:30,480 --> 01:14:31,480
I don't use their insurance.

1217
01:14:31,480 --> 01:14:33,480
I don't have an office space for them.

1218
01:14:33,480 --> 01:14:36,400
They just got to pay me my hourly rate and that's it.

1219
01:14:36,400 --> 01:14:43,240
So I'm the cheapest one to have and they get on the call and I see them and they just look

1220
01:14:43,240 --> 01:14:44,240
fucked up.

1221
01:14:44,240 --> 01:14:49,520
I'm like, damn, like I know where this is going.

1222
01:14:49,520 --> 01:14:56,760
And I at the time I was very pissed off, but I knew that they really didn't want to let

1223
01:14:56,760 --> 01:15:01,680
me go because they knew how much like I just built a house.

1224
01:15:01,680 --> 01:15:08,800
You know, my cost of living doubled and they had to let me go.

1225
01:15:08,800 --> 01:15:14,000
So after I get off that call, I'm just like, fuck, you know, my business partner was sitting

1226
01:15:14,000 --> 01:15:15,000
next to me.

1227
01:15:15,000 --> 01:15:17,040
He goes, you good?

1228
01:15:17,040 --> 01:15:22,640
I'm like, I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do.

1229
01:15:22,640 --> 01:15:28,760
And I was part time nursing at the time, but it wasn't enough to pay for that mortgage

1230
01:15:28,760 --> 01:15:30,200
car and all that stuff.

1231
01:15:30,200 --> 01:15:34,960
And I was like, I can go full time nursing, but then that just fucking hurts the business.

1232
01:15:34,960 --> 01:15:44,040
And I just tried to figure it out, you know, and we ended up, you know, getting more and

1233
01:15:44,040 --> 01:15:47,520
more sales and starting to grow more and more to where we can actually start paying ourselves,

1234
01:15:47,520 --> 01:15:53,760
you know, a decent wage because we're, we have no business background.

1235
01:15:53,760 --> 01:15:55,800
And so we're learning it.

1236
01:15:55,800 --> 01:16:02,160
We're still learning it on the fly, but no one really told us how to go about running

1237
01:16:02,160 --> 01:16:04,920
a business, how much to pay ourselves.

1238
01:16:04,920 --> 01:16:06,360
What to do with taxes and all that stuff.

1239
01:16:06,360 --> 01:16:08,520
So we're kind of figuring it all out.

1240
01:16:08,520 --> 01:16:19,320
But in what I think the end of 2021, like in October, I think I said, fuck it, I'm leaving

1241
01:16:19,320 --> 01:16:20,320
nursing.

1242
01:16:20,320 --> 01:16:21,680
I'm just going to go for it.

1243
01:16:21,680 --> 01:16:25,360
You know, he left his or he got to go to his job and went full time in the company and

1244
01:16:25,360 --> 01:16:27,360
we grew exponentially.

1245
01:16:27,360 --> 01:16:29,760
I leave and go full time in the company.

1246
01:16:29,760 --> 01:16:31,820
Maybe we'll grow even more exponentially.

1247
01:16:31,820 --> 01:16:40,040
And so I took that leap and so far so good, you know, I still renew my license.

1248
01:16:40,040 --> 01:16:44,920
I still keep it active just in case I lose my hand for whatever reason, you know, to

1249
01:16:44,920 --> 01:16:47,640
cut my left hand off or something.

1250
01:16:47,640 --> 01:16:53,440
But yeah, it's been a, the being let go from CNH is probably the best thing that happened

1251
01:16:53,440 --> 01:16:58,280
to me because I didn't have that safety net anymore.

1252
01:16:58,280 --> 01:17:02,200
And I always like having safety nets and my business partner is the other way.

1253
01:17:02,200 --> 01:17:05,000
He doesn't like having a safety net because he's like, either this works or I've crashed

1254
01:17:05,000 --> 01:17:06,300
and burned.

1255
01:17:06,300 --> 01:17:09,840
And so I was like, all right, let's, let's try that.

1256
01:17:09,840 --> 01:17:11,560
So I said, okay, I'm going to leave nursing too.

1257
01:17:11,560 --> 01:17:13,480
And we're just going to do the brand.

1258
01:17:13,480 --> 01:17:17,940
And so far it's been, you know, it's worked out so far.

1259
01:17:17,940 --> 01:17:21,200
There's a lot of people listening, whether they're in the hospital setting or the first

1260
01:17:21,200 --> 01:17:25,560
response setting that, you know, are kind of shackled to their jobs.

1261
01:17:25,560 --> 01:17:28,840
And now there's a lot of people listening that still love the profession they do.

1262
01:17:28,840 --> 01:17:32,880
And hopefully they're in great departments that they enjoy working for.

1263
01:17:32,880 --> 01:17:37,760
But what I've realized is there is a real paralysis when it comes to understanding that

1264
01:17:37,760 --> 01:17:41,880
we can do other things, that the skillset that you have as a firefighter and a paramedic,

1265
01:17:41,880 --> 01:17:45,480
for example, can be applied in a thousand different ways.

1266
01:17:45,480 --> 01:17:50,340
And you know, as I alluded to earlier, if you're going to work a second job, then make

1267
01:17:50,340 --> 01:17:55,120
it something that you love doing, make it an entrepreneurial project that you can then

1268
01:17:55,120 --> 01:18:00,360
transition to whether God forbid you lose your job or you just, you know, retire.

1269
01:18:00,360 --> 01:18:05,280
So what would you say to in your, in your career, the nurses of the world who aren't

1270
01:18:05,280 --> 01:18:09,160
happy what they're doing and are scared to take that leap of faith?

1271
01:18:09,160 --> 01:18:17,660
It'd be kind of Gary V. Asked, but I'm just like, if you're in your twenties, fuck it.

1272
01:18:17,660 --> 01:18:21,640
Just fucking quit nursing, renew your license every two years and just go chase whatever

1273
01:18:21,640 --> 01:18:23,920
the fuck you want to do until you're 30 or 40.

1274
01:18:23,920 --> 01:18:26,680
And if it doesn't work out, it's going to be a nurse again.

1275
01:18:26,680 --> 01:18:30,680
You know, like the, the good thing about nursing is people get sick all the time.

1276
01:18:30,680 --> 01:18:35,500
And so like, uh, the medical professional profession is not going away.

1277
01:18:35,500 --> 01:18:38,880
We always need people, we need paramedics, we need firefighters, we need doctors, we

1278
01:18:38,880 --> 01:18:39,880
need nurses.

1279
01:18:39,880 --> 01:18:41,240
That's never going away.

1280
01:18:41,240 --> 01:18:47,040
Um, but if you're doing that because you're like, well, this other career, like maybe

1281
01:18:47,040 --> 01:18:50,880
you want to be a fucking tap dancer, like isn't lucrative.

1282
01:18:50,880 --> 01:18:52,560
You don't fucking know, go try it.

1283
01:18:52,560 --> 01:18:53,560
Try it for a couple of years.

1284
01:18:53,560 --> 01:18:58,120
Like if you do it for three years and you still ain't getting anywhere like, all right,

1285
01:18:58,120 --> 01:18:59,120
maybe it's not it.

1286
01:18:59,120 --> 01:19:04,120
You know, maybe you can do it for a hobby, but yeah, I mean, I just, I wish I would have

1287
01:19:04,120 --> 01:19:12,520
went sooner into leaving nursing, but at the same time, everything happens the way it has

1288
01:19:12,520 --> 01:19:14,220
to get me where I'm at now.

1289
01:19:14,220 --> 01:19:18,000
So if I would've changed anything before that might've put this off in a whole different

1290
01:19:18,000 --> 01:19:20,800
direction for better or worse.

1291
01:19:20,800 --> 01:19:26,000
But I feel like, yeah, people should chase their dreams because I seeing people who do

1292
01:19:26,000 --> 01:19:31,640
what they love versus someone doing something that they have to do to make ends meet.

1293
01:19:31,640 --> 01:19:36,040
You can see the level of, uh, happiness in their life.

1294
01:19:36,040 --> 01:19:43,920
You know, like stress out in nursing is miserable stress out on my business is miserable, but

1295
01:19:43,920 --> 01:19:47,400
it's in a much better way of handling it.

1296
01:19:47,400 --> 01:19:53,000
I'm like, we kind of control what's happening here, you know, in a sense, you know, with

1297
01:19:53,000 --> 01:19:57,680
the hospital, we have management supervisors, budgets and all that stuff.

1298
01:19:57,680 --> 01:20:01,140
You know, it's always about the bottom dollar, not really about the patient.

1299
01:20:01,140 --> 01:20:05,120
You know, with this, you know, for like, shit, we need to figure something out.

1300
01:20:05,120 --> 01:20:09,740
We can brainstorm and when it's successful, we're like, damn, we did that.

1301
01:20:09,740 --> 01:20:10,740
That's awesome.

1302
01:20:10,740 --> 01:20:15,520
You know, and it's a much more satisfying feeling.

1303
01:20:15,520 --> 01:20:19,160
Feeling something that's like sustaining.

1304
01:20:19,160 --> 01:20:20,360
And it's like something you're passionate about.

1305
01:20:20,360 --> 01:20:25,880
I think that train translates to other people that are like supporting whatever it may be.

1306
01:20:25,880 --> 01:20:26,880
Yeah.

1307
01:20:26,880 --> 01:20:28,040
I mean, I agree with you completely.

1308
01:20:28,040 --> 01:20:32,560
I was in the fire service for 14 years, didn't have any plans of leaving, but the universe

1309
01:20:32,560 --> 01:20:38,040
put me in my last department, which I spent five years trying to make a difference in.

1310
01:20:38,040 --> 01:20:42,680
And it was just kind of one of those environments where I was at a crossroads, just re just

1311
01:20:42,680 --> 01:20:46,440
healed a meniscus tear, like rehab back to a full duty.

1312
01:20:46,440 --> 01:20:49,240
And I said to my wife, what if I didn't go back?

1313
01:20:49,240 --> 01:20:50,880
What if I just retired?

1314
01:20:50,880 --> 01:20:53,200
And this is, you know, not a good retirement 14 years.

1315
01:20:53,200 --> 01:20:54,640
So I just cashed it out.

1316
01:20:54,640 --> 01:20:58,340
And the podcast is a couple of years old by that end, by that point.

1317
01:20:58,340 --> 01:21:01,020
And I was like, this seems to be doing more.

1318
01:21:01,020 --> 01:21:06,160
This the kind of false multiplier effect of something that's accessible around the world.

1319
01:21:06,160 --> 01:21:09,560
They're going to find another body to sit in the seat that I used to sit.

1320
01:21:09,560 --> 01:21:10,680
But this is something different.

1321
01:21:10,680 --> 01:21:12,600
And so it was, it was a massive leap of faith.

1322
01:21:12,600 --> 01:21:16,880
And zero business plan really, other than I hope I get a sponsor in a year and a half

1323
01:21:16,880 --> 01:21:18,960
before the money runs out.

1324
01:21:18,960 --> 01:21:23,240
And still, I don't think I've even matched what I gave up yet, but it's not about that.

1325
01:21:23,240 --> 01:21:27,200
It's about trying to make a difference, trying to make the world better.

1326
01:21:27,200 --> 01:21:33,120
And I truly believe that if you're forging that path, the money will come when it's supposed

1327
01:21:33,120 --> 01:21:34,240
to the money will come.

1328
01:21:34,240 --> 01:21:39,040
But just kind of like we said, with being a star versus an artist, you know, if your

1329
01:21:39,040 --> 01:21:43,360
mission is to do good, you're not focusing on the money rather than the other way around.

1330
01:21:43,360 --> 01:21:46,680
Because if you focus on money, then stay in the fucking fire service, be miserable and

1331
01:21:46,680 --> 01:21:48,160
collect your pension.

1332
01:21:48,160 --> 01:21:51,640
But if there's something burning in your heart and you've just kind of reached the end of

1333
01:21:51,640 --> 01:21:55,280
your organic journey, then why not?

1334
01:21:55,280 --> 01:21:56,280
Why not?

1335
01:21:56,280 --> 01:21:57,280
Yeah.

1336
01:21:57,280 --> 01:22:01,680
I told people all the time, like I have friends who like want to be like YouTubers because

1337
01:22:01,680 --> 01:22:04,640
they're like, they see the money that can be made.

1338
01:22:04,640 --> 01:22:09,640
I'm like, you realize like, let's take them like five to 10 years to get there.

1339
01:22:09,640 --> 01:22:16,680
Now you have the ones like Sketch, the What's Up Brother guy, who is like super popular.

1340
01:22:16,680 --> 01:22:18,160
He's only been doing it for a year.

1341
01:22:18,160 --> 01:22:20,800
But like, that doesn't always happen.

1342
01:22:20,800 --> 01:22:23,080
Like that overnight success is very rare.

1343
01:22:23,080 --> 01:22:28,440
And so I always tell people like, you know, most YouTube creators have spent five, 10

1344
01:22:28,440 --> 01:22:31,920
years perfecting their craft before they start making actual money.

1345
01:22:31,920 --> 01:22:33,960
It's like you see the success.

1346
01:22:33,960 --> 01:22:40,520
You don't see the, you know, the struggles, the getting behind on bills part to get where

1347
01:22:40,520 --> 01:22:43,120
they needed to be.

1348
01:22:43,120 --> 01:22:48,200
So I try to just let people know like anything that like you should be passionate about it

1349
01:22:48,200 --> 01:22:49,200
first.

1350
01:22:49,200 --> 01:22:53,640
And like you said, the money will come if it's if people can, I think can see the passion

1351
01:22:53,640 --> 01:22:54,640
behind it.

1352
01:22:54,640 --> 01:22:58,000
So you know, podcasts, art, music, stuff like that.

1353
01:22:58,000 --> 01:23:02,200
Like if you're doing it for the sake of just creating it and understanding how to market

1354
01:23:02,200 --> 01:23:10,040
yourself, you know, like learning the social media game, but like not compromising the

1355
01:23:10,040 --> 01:23:11,800
integrity of what you're creating.

1356
01:23:11,800 --> 01:23:12,800
Yeah.

1357
01:23:12,800 --> 01:23:16,960
And that's a hard balance for me because I try and keep my face off social media, even

1358
01:23:16,960 --> 01:23:18,960
the this and I want to do the promo video.

1359
01:23:18,960 --> 01:23:19,960
It's just you.

1360
01:23:19,960 --> 01:23:22,960
I don't think there's no reason for me to be on there as well listening to you talk

1361
01:23:22,960 --> 01:23:28,480
and as I just put it, but then you can be a little bit too meek if you're not careful

1362
01:23:28,480 --> 01:23:30,080
and now you're not out there at all.

1363
01:23:30,080 --> 01:23:34,080
So it's trying to find that balance.

1364
01:23:34,080 --> 01:23:38,680
So I want to hit one more area and then go to some closing questions.

1365
01:23:38,680 --> 01:23:42,760
Your art obviously is incredibly powerful and a picture does speak a thousand words

1366
01:23:42,760 --> 01:23:44,880
and I've had other artists on here.

1367
01:23:44,880 --> 01:23:51,960
Paul Combs, who's a cartoonist, not raw, visceral art like yours, but just a beautiful, you

1368
01:23:51,960 --> 01:23:56,800
know, summarization of a concept in one simple drawing.

1369
01:23:56,800 --> 01:24:01,560
And I had a guy, Brian Hillard, who was actually a horror movie, make special effects makeup

1370
01:24:01,560 --> 01:24:08,000
artist and they've actually been using that in mental health therapy.

1371
01:24:08,000 --> 01:24:12,940
So they create that demon that you see and they actually put it on you and then they

1372
01:24:12,940 --> 01:24:15,840
have this kind of ceremony and then ultimately they burn the mask.

1373
01:24:15,840 --> 01:24:20,860
So it's, you know, it's interesting all this interaction with, with art and mental health.

1374
01:24:20,860 --> 01:24:30,440
How much though of the art that you draw are the demons inside your head?

1375
01:24:30,440 --> 01:24:35,280
When I'm drawing other disorders, obviously I, you know, I have a lot of people ask like,

1376
01:24:35,280 --> 01:24:37,120
oh, do you have all of these mental health disorders?

1377
01:24:37,120 --> 01:24:39,080
I'm like, no, no one does.

1378
01:24:39,080 --> 01:24:44,520
Like I would not be a functioning human being if I had 270 mental health disorders.

1379
01:24:44,520 --> 01:24:49,000
Like I'd be trapped somewhere, probably studied.

1380
01:24:49,000 --> 01:24:57,360
A lot of the pieces I do have like depression, anxiety, loss, flaw, like expressing like

1381
01:24:57,360 --> 01:24:58,840
flawed parts of me.

1382
01:24:58,840 --> 01:25:05,020
So like that, like that's a lot of me that I put out, you know, when I would have my

1383
01:25:05,020 --> 01:25:08,840
worst times with depression, always so it feels like I'm sinking in like a never ending

1384
01:25:08,840 --> 01:25:13,200
like pit of like black, you know, and like there's like tar pulling me down.

1385
01:25:13,200 --> 01:25:15,600
And so a lot of my artwork has that.

1386
01:25:15,600 --> 01:25:26,840
I do a lot of stuff that's more, I guess, human condition, I guess, but I try to put

1387
01:25:26,840 --> 01:25:32,840
a piece of me into it, like how I would feel during experiencing this in a way.

1388
01:25:32,840 --> 01:25:36,920
But I try to do my best with understanding like just in the mental health part of like

1389
01:25:36,920 --> 01:25:40,360
what the behavior is and what those struggles are.

1390
01:25:40,360 --> 01:25:43,720
You know, the one that I've learned a lot more about now is OCD and like the intrusive

1391
01:25:43,720 --> 01:25:47,800
thoughts part of it and just like that voice in the back of your head that's always telling

1392
01:25:47,800 --> 01:25:50,840
you that you're not good enough, that people don't like you and that you're everything's

1393
01:25:50,840 --> 01:25:56,600
going to fail and like trying to relate to that in a way.

1394
01:25:56,600 --> 01:26:00,440
Like when I'm creating the artwork and try to understand like what that what that would

1395
01:26:00,440 --> 01:26:04,560
do to someone, you know, constantly being told that I could tell you like, dude, you're

1396
01:26:04,560 --> 01:26:05,560
amazing, you're awesome.

1397
01:26:05,560 --> 01:26:08,040
But in the back of your head, someone's going, they're lying to you, you're a piece of shit,

1398
01:26:08,040 --> 01:26:11,000
you know, don't listen to them.

1399
01:26:11,000 --> 01:26:16,040
So I do try to put a piece of me into the work in some way, like there is a part of

1400
01:26:16,040 --> 01:26:21,240
me that's felt a certain aspect of the piece that gets put in there.

1401
01:26:21,240 --> 01:26:25,120
Maybe not always with the mental health stuff because some of it's more just like straight

1402
01:26:25,120 --> 01:26:28,720
research and trying to understand it and then trying to personify it.

1403
01:26:28,720 --> 01:26:33,920
But the ones of like the, you know, social anxiety, generalized depression, like that's

1404
01:26:33,920 --> 01:26:39,560
something I do relate to so I can like depict more of like how I feel when that stuff happens.

1405
01:26:39,560 --> 01:26:42,280
That imposter syndrome is so strong.

1406
01:26:42,280 --> 01:26:46,840
And it's funny because as what's his name, Steven Pressfield even talks about it when

1407
01:26:46,840 --> 01:26:51,400
you're writing that the more resistance there is actually the more valuable the thing that

1408
01:26:51,400 --> 01:26:53,480
you're working on actually is.

1409
01:26:53,480 --> 01:26:57,040
So you know, if you're getting close now, it's almost like that.

1410
01:26:57,040 --> 01:27:02,640
What they call it the senioritis, you know, the kids are almost there to graduate and

1411
01:27:02,640 --> 01:27:08,840
then their motivation tanks and I'm kind of reviewing this this final draft of my second

1412
01:27:08,840 --> 01:27:11,680
book and there's that voice, fucking hell, this is terrible.

1413
01:27:11,680 --> 01:27:13,680
No one's going to read this.

1414
01:27:13,680 --> 01:27:14,680
That was too short.

1415
01:27:14,680 --> 01:27:15,680
He didn't describe this enough.

1416
01:27:15,680 --> 01:27:18,760
And then you take a step back and go just shut up and you read it again.

1417
01:27:18,760 --> 01:27:20,560
You're like, that's really not bad at all.

1418
01:27:20,560 --> 01:27:21,560
Right.

1419
01:27:21,560 --> 01:27:25,560
If you let that fucking voice, you know, run its mouth, it can just drive you into the

1420
01:27:25,560 --> 01:27:26,560
ground.

1421
01:27:26,560 --> 01:27:27,560
100%.

1422
01:27:27,560 --> 01:27:28,560
All right.

1423
01:27:28,560 --> 01:27:31,280
Well, I want to go to some quick closing questions.

1424
01:27:31,280 --> 01:27:36,360
The first one I love to ask, is there a book or other books that you love to recommend?

1425
01:27:36,360 --> 01:27:40,480
It can be related to our discussion today or completely unrelated.

1426
01:27:40,480 --> 01:27:45,960
Man, I wish I could say yes, but I don't read books.

1427
01:27:45,960 --> 01:27:50,480
Not that I don't have a appreciation for my just don't have time.

1428
01:27:50,480 --> 01:27:58,320
Typically if I'm if I had downtime, it's usually I'm watching YouTube videos on like art marketing,

1429
01:27:58,320 --> 01:28:01,320
advertising, stuff like that, or I'm like drawing at some point.

1430
01:28:01,320 --> 01:28:04,960
I think the last book I read.

1431
01:28:04,960 --> 01:28:08,200
Fuck, it's probably Hunger Games.

1432
01:28:08,200 --> 01:28:11,480
It was probably the last book I read.

1433
01:28:11,480 --> 01:28:16,760
I hate it because it seems like all people like like all these like super like entrepreneurial

1434
01:28:16,760 --> 01:28:17,760
people, like they all read books.

1435
01:28:17,760 --> 01:28:19,960
I'm like, motherfucker, when do you have time to read books?

1436
01:28:19,960 --> 01:28:22,920
Like I got zero time to read a book.

1437
01:28:22,920 --> 01:28:23,920
I had someone on recently.

1438
01:28:23,920 --> 01:28:24,920
They made a really good point.

1439
01:28:24,920 --> 01:28:29,440
There's all these motivational books and people, you know, will again we see them on Instagram.

1440
01:28:29,440 --> 01:28:31,440
These are the 10 books I read this month.

1441
01:28:31,440 --> 01:28:36,280
How much of the knowledge and the wisdom are you applying to your daily life?

1442
01:28:36,280 --> 01:28:41,200
You guys just pick one fucking book that resonates deeply with you and do those practices.

1443
01:28:41,200 --> 01:28:43,640
I'm like, that's a really, really good point.

1444
01:28:43,640 --> 01:28:46,360
Otherwise, it's just paralysis by analysis.

1445
01:28:46,360 --> 01:28:49,320
You're inspired to the Hill, but you haven't done anything with it.

1446
01:28:49,320 --> 01:28:50,480
Yeah, exactly.

1447
01:28:50,480 --> 01:28:51,520
I've had that happen.

1448
01:28:51,520 --> 01:28:54,720
I do that a lot when I'm looking for ideas for a new concept.

1449
01:28:54,720 --> 01:28:58,520
I'll go through Pinterest and like tell you inspiration, but I just get overwhelmed by

1450
01:28:58,520 --> 01:28:59,520
it.

1451
01:28:59,520 --> 01:29:00,520
I'm like, oh, that's a good idea.

1452
01:29:00,520 --> 01:29:04,800
I just don't create shit because I'm just like blown away by all the creativity.

1453
01:29:04,800 --> 01:29:06,800
I was like, well, they already fucking did it.

1454
01:29:06,800 --> 01:29:10,440
I ain't gonna do shit.

1455
01:29:10,440 --> 01:29:15,320
Have you come across a show on Netflix called Eric?

1456
01:29:15,320 --> 01:29:18,240
I haven't watched it yet, but I want to watch it.

1457
01:29:18,240 --> 01:29:22,160
I read the, yeah, I read the, uh, I think the synopsis of it.

1458
01:29:22,160 --> 01:29:23,720
Uh, it looks super cool.

1459
01:29:23,720 --> 01:29:24,720
I like Cumberbatch.

1460
01:29:24,720 --> 01:29:26,280
He's a super dope actor.

1461
01:29:26,280 --> 01:29:27,280
Yeah.

1462
01:29:27,280 --> 01:29:28,720
Well, I mean, I won't, I haven't even finished yet.

1463
01:29:28,720 --> 01:29:31,880
I've got like one and a half episodes left, but obviously I'm not ruining it because it's

1464
01:29:31,880 --> 01:29:37,160
in the, in the promo, but yeah, that, that puppet is kind of the, the alter ego, the,

1465
01:29:37,160 --> 01:29:39,360
the OCD, the, you know, the imposter syndrome.

1466
01:29:39,360 --> 01:29:41,920
It's all the things kind of rolled into one.

1467
01:29:41,920 --> 01:29:45,960
So I think it would, uh, you'd relate to a lot of having this conversation today.

1468
01:29:45,960 --> 01:29:46,960
So I'll check it out.

1469
01:29:46,960 --> 01:29:48,200
It's, it's on my list of ones to watch.

1470
01:29:48,200 --> 01:29:50,880
I have, I love watching movies.

1471
01:29:50,880 --> 01:29:53,120
I love watching horror movies obviously.

1472
01:29:53,120 --> 01:29:56,880
And I have had about 30 or 40 movies I have not seen yet and I just want to watch them.

1473
01:29:56,880 --> 01:29:59,800
But when I go home, if I'm not working on artworks, spending with the kids and playing

1474
01:29:59,800 --> 01:30:04,200
video games, it's like, I need time to watch my fucking movies.

1475
01:30:04,200 --> 01:30:10,360
So speaking of movies, movies and documentaries, what are some of your favorite?

1476
01:30:10,360 --> 01:30:21,760
So movie wise, what was the one, um, where evil lurks is probably one of my favorite,

1477
01:30:21,760 --> 01:30:25,420
uh, horror movies right now.

1478
01:30:25,420 --> 01:30:32,560
It's such a visceral movie and they build a whole lore on like possession and stuff

1479
01:30:32,560 --> 01:30:33,560
like that.

1480
01:30:33,560 --> 01:30:38,720
And it's just, some of the scenes are just intense.

1481
01:30:38,720 --> 01:30:40,480
Talk to me really good movie.

1482
01:30:40,480 --> 01:30:44,280
I love talk to me even more because it's, it was created by two YouTubers, the rocker

1483
01:30:44,280 --> 01:30:48,800
brothers that are just fucking goofballs and they made one of the best horror movies of

1484
01:30:48,800 --> 01:30:49,800
all time.

1485
01:30:49,800 --> 01:30:52,760
Uh, great movie to watch.

1486
01:30:52,760 --> 01:30:58,160
Um, any Godzilla film fucking sucker for it.

1487
01:30:58,160 --> 01:31:01,280
I just finished up Godzilla minus one.

1488
01:31:01,280 --> 01:31:02,960
I love all the Godzilla films.

1489
01:31:02,960 --> 01:31:05,120
I grew up watching Godzilla.

1490
01:31:05,120 --> 01:31:11,000
There's something about Godzilla is just, I get goosebumps when I watch that those movies,

1491
01:31:11,000 --> 01:31:18,920
like seeing this giant fucking Goliath of a monster and that iconic scream is just sends

1492
01:31:18,920 --> 01:31:20,880
me right back to being an eight year old kid.

1493
01:31:20,880 --> 01:31:22,920
I'm just like, I, I, that's my childhood.

1494
01:31:22,920 --> 01:31:23,920
Right.

1495
01:31:23,920 --> 01:31:24,920
Hear it.

1496
01:31:24,920 --> 01:31:31,560
Uh, documentaries as funny as, so my business partner is obsessed with like true crime documentaries

1497
01:31:31,560 --> 01:31:40,240
and I actually hate documentaries because I'm already miserable about our just life in general

1498
01:31:40,240 --> 01:31:42,840
of like what's going on in the world.

1499
01:31:42,840 --> 01:31:47,800
And like, I used to listen to a bunch of true crime podcasts, uh, like sword and scale,

1500
01:31:47,800 --> 01:31:50,400
true crime garage and some other ones.

1501
01:31:50,400 --> 01:31:55,960
And I realized it was making me more miserable because I'm just realizing like these people

1502
01:31:55,960 --> 01:31:56,960
exist out there.

1503
01:31:56,960 --> 01:32:01,280
And, you know, when you start to get into like the child murders and stuff like that

1504
01:32:01,280 --> 01:32:07,400
or like the, the who done it documentaries is just like, man, I just don't want to deal

1505
01:32:07,400 --> 01:32:09,200
with that stuff, you know?

1506
01:32:09,200 --> 01:32:11,480
Uh, so I don't really watch documentaries.

1507
01:32:11,480 --> 01:32:12,480
Yeah.

1508
01:32:12,480 --> 01:32:16,400
I think that's some of the most popular viewing now in Netflix are those documentaries.

1509
01:32:16,400 --> 01:32:17,400
Yeah.

1510
01:32:17,400 --> 01:32:21,680
And sadly there's a part of, you know, people feeling, well, at least my life's not as shit

1511
01:32:21,680 --> 01:32:22,680
as the person.

1512
01:32:22,680 --> 01:32:23,680
Yeah.

1513
01:32:23,680 --> 01:32:25,320
I think they use it for like, what's like the morbid curiosity?

1514
01:32:25,320 --> 01:32:27,320
It's not something you see every day.

1515
01:32:27,320 --> 01:32:31,640
And like, if you have a, it's kind of like reality TV, I despise reality TV.

1516
01:32:31,640 --> 01:32:35,560
Uh, cause like, I don't need to see their shit show.

1517
01:32:35,560 --> 01:32:42,080
Like I think some people, again, not all do it to make themselves feel better about their

1518
01:32:42,080 --> 01:32:43,080
lives, you know?

1519
01:32:43,080 --> 01:32:46,200
Like, Oh, my life ain't that shitty, you know?

1520
01:32:46,200 --> 01:32:49,680
But like, I don't, I already see real life.

1521
01:32:49,680 --> 01:32:50,680
I go down the street.

1522
01:32:50,680 --> 01:32:51,680
I can see real life.

1523
01:32:51,680 --> 01:32:53,120
I want, give me fantasy, give me shit.

1524
01:32:53,120 --> 01:32:54,520
That's not real.

1525
01:32:54,520 --> 01:32:57,360
Give me stuff that's out of this world.

1526
01:32:57,360 --> 01:32:58,640
That's entertaining to me.

1527
01:32:58,640 --> 01:32:59,640
Yeah, absolutely.

1528
01:32:59,640 --> 01:33:00,640
All right.

1529
01:33:00,640 --> 01:33:05,200
Well, then the next question, is there a person that you recommend to come on this podcast

1530
01:33:05,200 --> 01:33:09,600
as a guest to speak to the first responders, military and associated professions of the

1531
01:33:09,600 --> 01:33:10,600
world?

1532
01:33:10,600 --> 01:33:11,600
Man, honestly.

1533
01:33:11,600 --> 01:33:12,600
So they're okay.

1534
01:33:12,600 --> 01:33:13,600
I should go back.

1535
01:33:13,600 --> 01:33:14,600
There is one person that I recommend to come on this podcast.

1536
01:33:14,600 --> 01:33:16,240
So they're okay, I should go back.

1537
01:33:16,240 --> 01:33:19,280
There is one guy I listened to that does, is that really true crimes?

1538
01:33:19,280 --> 01:33:20,280
It's like weird stories.

1539
01:33:20,280 --> 01:33:22,360
Do you know who Mr. Ballen is?

1540
01:33:22,360 --> 01:33:23,360
No, I don't.

1541
01:33:23,360 --> 01:33:24,360
Okay.

1542
01:33:24,360 --> 01:33:25,720
So it's a John Ballen.

1543
01:33:25,720 --> 01:33:30,960
So he was actually a, uh, was he a Navy seal?

1544
01:33:30,960 --> 01:33:31,960
Mikey?

1545
01:33:31,960 --> 01:33:32,960
Yeah.

1546
01:33:32,960 --> 01:33:39,360
He was a Navy seal, served a couple of tours and came back and he loves storytelling.

1547
01:33:39,360 --> 01:33:44,480
And so he does the Mr. Ballen show, which is on YouTube and TikTok.

1548
01:33:44,480 --> 01:33:47,520
He's got like 6 million followers.

1549
01:33:47,520 --> 01:33:51,080
Like he's built a whole career off of it, but this dude is so genuine.

1550
01:33:51,080 --> 01:33:57,800
Like he doesn't know me, but we're like cordial on like Instagram.

1551
01:33:57,800 --> 01:34:00,680
And so I can message him that dude, love what you're doing.

1552
01:34:00,680 --> 01:34:03,520
And he replies to everyone.

1553
01:34:03,520 --> 01:34:07,600
Maybe he does it, but he replied to me and he goes, I try to reply to everyone I can't

1554
01:34:07,600 --> 01:34:11,320
and like, I do, you don't even have to do this anymore.

1555
01:34:11,320 --> 01:34:15,960
Like you have a Joe Rogan fucking gym now because you're, you're doing so well, but

1556
01:34:15,960 --> 01:34:21,960
he would be an awesome person to have because he is very open about the mental health struggles

1557
01:34:21,960 --> 01:34:28,520
he had after he came back as a civilian and how, and how he had to, uh, go from soldier

1558
01:34:28,520 --> 01:34:31,960
to civilian and what that process was.

1559
01:34:31,960 --> 01:34:36,760
Um, he was on the, the, what the Sean Ryan show, I think.

1560
01:34:36,760 --> 01:34:37,880
Oh, okay.

1561
01:34:37,880 --> 01:34:44,160
Where he talked about, uh, his career as a soldier and like, you it's weird listening

1562
01:34:44,160 --> 01:34:47,320
to him talk because when he talks about the pod, like when he's on his podcast, he tells

1563
01:34:47,320 --> 01:34:48,320
the stories.

1564
01:34:48,320 --> 01:34:50,200
He's very animated and he's got a smile on his face.

1565
01:34:50,200 --> 01:34:56,340
When he's talking about his military, you can see it in his eyes.

1566
01:34:56,340 --> 01:35:01,920
You can see like the depth, the, the, the war you see it in him.

1567
01:35:01,920 --> 01:35:04,280
Like you can see his face just change.

1568
01:35:04,280 --> 01:35:13,040
It's very intriguing, you know, uh, because of like, he has such a good memory of like

1569
01:35:13,040 --> 01:35:14,280
stuff that he's experienced.

1570
01:35:14,280 --> 01:35:20,280
I think he'd be an excellent guest on your show and, uh, not that he needs any more fucking

1571
01:35:20,280 --> 01:35:25,000
accolades, but, uh, he'd be an interesting one to have beautiful way.

1572
01:35:25,000 --> 01:35:26,760
I've got a lot of friends in that community.

1573
01:35:26,760 --> 01:35:30,560
So I'll see if I can find some ones that will be able to make the connection.

1574
01:35:30,560 --> 01:35:31,560
Just fucking DM him.

1575
01:35:31,560 --> 01:35:33,560
He'll probably just respond to you to be honest.

1576
01:35:33,560 --> 01:35:34,560
I'll do that today.

1577
01:35:34,560 --> 01:35:35,560
All right.

1578
01:35:35,560 --> 01:35:38,880
But then the very last question before we make sure everyone knows where to find you

1579
01:35:38,880 --> 01:35:43,720
and the company, what you do to decompress video games.

1580
01:35:43,720 --> 01:35:46,080
I play call of duty a lot.

1581
01:35:46,080 --> 01:35:50,520
I play an odd ungodly amount of call of duty.

1582
01:35:50,520 --> 01:35:56,960
Uh, that's usually I go home, uh, first two hours, you know, help cook dinner, hang out

1583
01:35:56,960 --> 01:35:58,160
with the kids for a little bit.

1584
01:35:58,160 --> 01:36:03,240
And then around eight or nine o'clock I go upstairs and play war zone for three, four

1585
01:36:03,240 --> 01:36:06,680
hours with a couple of my friends, which is a waste of time.

1586
01:36:06,680 --> 01:36:11,840
I could be fucking doing artwork, but sometimes I just, I had to completely disconnect from

1587
01:36:11,840 --> 01:36:15,760
everything and just, uh, uh, do that.

1588
01:36:15,760 --> 01:36:25,680
But I did start yesterday and today was God awful, uh, ice bath plunging and fuck my life.

1589
01:36:25,680 --> 01:36:27,720
Is it God awful?

1590
01:36:27,720 --> 01:36:29,440
It's so God awful.

1591
01:36:29,440 --> 01:36:38,520
Um, but that I did one today at 40 degrees and I lasted 60 seconds.

1592
01:36:38,520 --> 01:36:45,480
And when I got out, I thought I was dying to be honest, like everything just, I thought

1593
01:36:45,480 --> 01:36:47,200
I was breaking apart.

1594
01:36:47,200 --> 01:36:55,960
And then after that initial feeling goes away, I felt just light, like relieved.

1595
01:36:55,960 --> 01:36:59,400
It was really weird, but that's probably a good moment.

1596
01:36:59,400 --> 01:37:04,840
My new thing to help me unwind is just freeze my ass off in a fucking tub.

1597
01:37:04,840 --> 01:37:05,840
You're in a good state to do that.

1598
01:37:05,840 --> 01:37:12,220
I tried doing it with my son last year, but it was during the summer and I put two giant

1599
01:37:12,220 --> 01:37:15,160
bags of ice in and I still couldn't get it below like 60s.

1600
01:37:15,160 --> 01:37:19,600
It was so I actually, I bought the ice chiller machine.

1601
01:37:19,600 --> 01:37:20,600
So it plugs it.

1602
01:37:20,600 --> 01:37:24,400
So I have like the, what is the ice potter, but it has a machine that actually filters

1603
01:37:24,400 --> 01:37:25,720
the water and it makes it colder.

1604
01:37:25,720 --> 01:37:26,720
Okay.

1605
01:37:26,720 --> 01:37:27,720
Yeah.

1606
01:37:27,720 --> 01:37:28,720
I've seen those.

1607
01:37:28,720 --> 01:37:29,720
It's going to be like what?

1608
01:37:29,720 --> 01:37:32,000
80, 90 degrees today.

1609
01:37:32,000 --> 01:37:36,000
And my thing's running at 40 degrees Fahrenheit right now.

1610
01:37:36,000 --> 01:37:37,000
Okay.

1611
01:37:37,000 --> 01:37:38,000
There we go.

1612
01:37:38,000 --> 01:37:39,000
I need to invest.

1613
01:37:39,000 --> 01:37:43,160
So for people listening then, where are the best places to find you online and on social

1614
01:37:43,160 --> 01:37:46,680
media?

1615
01:37:46,680 --> 01:37:52,320
So the best place to find me, if you're looking for like my personal artwork is just Sean

1616
01:37:52,320 --> 01:37:55,200
Koss at Instagram, Facebook.

1617
01:37:55,200 --> 01:37:58,960
If you just type my name in, it pops up, it's Koss, Knot, Kross.

1618
01:37:58,960 --> 01:38:02,480
A lot of people think that there's an R in there.

1619
01:38:02,480 --> 01:38:09,200
If you want to support me and get behind a brand that's very focused on mental health

1620
01:38:09,200 --> 01:38:12,240
awareness, we're very big advocates for mental health.

1621
01:38:12,240 --> 01:38:16,120
It's anymainsnecessary.com.

1622
01:38:16,120 --> 01:38:22,680
Buying from that company directly allows me to keep creating the work that I do because

1623
01:38:22,680 --> 01:38:23,680
it pays me.

1624
01:38:23,680 --> 01:38:29,360
It allows me to be in my business partner, feed our kids, have houses, have employees

1625
01:38:29,360 --> 01:38:30,360
and stuff like that.

1626
01:38:30,360 --> 01:38:32,960
So that's like the best way to help support.

1627
01:38:32,960 --> 01:38:33,960
Brilliant.

1628
01:38:33,960 --> 01:38:35,680
Well, Sean, I want to say thank you so much.

1629
01:38:35,680 --> 01:38:39,600
I mean, firstly for the art because I know that it has touched so many people out there

1630
01:38:39,600 --> 01:38:44,520
and it's just myself just watching it and my wife's response to it as well, but also

1631
01:38:44,520 --> 01:38:47,280
the vulnerability and the depth of this conversation.

1632
01:38:47,280 --> 01:38:50,760
So I want to thank you so, so much for being so generous with your time and coming on the

1633
01:38:50,760 --> 01:38:52,080
Behind the Shield podcast today.

1634
01:38:52,080 --> 01:38:53,080
Thank you, James.

1635
01:38:53,080 --> 01:38:54,080
I appreciate it.

1636
01:38:54,080 --> 01:39:23,080
Thank you.