Mentally Oddcast Transcript: Hollywood Steve Huey
Audio of this episode can be found here:
00:00:00.89
wednesdayleefriday
Hi friends, you are listening to The Mentally Oddcast, and I am Wednesday Leap Friday. We are brought to you by sometimes hilarious horror. Check us out on Ko-fi. Please. With us this week, we have Hollywood Steve Huey. And if you don't know who that is, he's the yacht rock guy.
00:00:20.08
wednesdayleefriday
He has been a writer for the All Music Guide. He is obviously the, uh, one of the hosts of Yacht Rock. Uh, he's been on VH1's 100 Greatest Countdowns. You know, there's a whole bunch of those. Um, plus he's been on a bunch of other podcasts and he's writing a book. He appeared in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie and he once found himself in a social setting with Sarah Silverman. So I am jelly. Hi, Steve. Thanks for being here.
00:00:47.72
Steve
Hi! Oh hi, you've caught me being on your podcast!
00:00:54.09
wednesdayleefriday
it's It's true. um
00:00:55.79
Steve
That's my catchphrase from the web series. sure For those who are unfamiliar.
00:01:00.18
wednesdayleefriday
I see. Well, as if as if anyone is unfamiliar. um I'm so glad we could do this. I've been wanting to get you on here for a while. um And our first question is, we always ask guests to tell us about the first horror movie they remember seeing.
00:01:21.19
Steve
Oh, boy.
00:01:24.13
Steve
All right, so ah I went to elementary school in a little town in Louisiana called Eunice. And Louisiana is not necessarily noted for its tip-top educational system.
00:01:38.01
Steve
And when I was in, I think this was in fifth grade.
00:01:38.34
wednesdayleefriday
Aha!
00:01:43.32
Steve
um There was this group of teachers like there were three fourth fifth grade teachers Everybody called them the pointer sisters because there were three of them and it was the early 80s and they always hung out and gossiped together in the hallway while they left their classes unattended and Sometimes to make their jobs easier they would they would bring us all into the library and show us a movie on Fridays.
00:02:11.27
Steve
And a lot of times they would they would pick these like, it was kind of like Disney horror for a while. It was um like Watcher in the Woods, um Escape from Witch Mountain.
00:02:17.81
wednesdayleefriday
Okay. Right, Ricky Ticky Tavi.
00:02:23.80
Steve
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it it was always like scary, but still for kids. So one week, they, they get they got a movie called one dark night and it was a zombie movie it's you know like the kids spend the night in the mausoleum and all this you know and there's there's a bad there's a bad man who just died and he was a master of curly and energy and he used curly and energy to raise all the corpses in the mausoleum well you know while the kids are in there doing whatever initiation you know the you know the old zombie movie mausoleum thing and um
00:02:41.74
wednesdayleefriday
Right, right.
00:03:00.75
wednesdayleefriday
Right, right.
00:03:03.49
Steve
The it was a lot of really gory special effects makeup like you know body parts falling off and shit and This was not a kids horror movie and about him maybe halfway through the teachers started to figure this out but they didn't want to stop it because that would be like admitting they made a mistake and
00:03:20.98
wednesdayleefriday
Whoops. Right.
00:03:29.23
Steve
We were all pretty disturbed by this point. I remember, like I think at one point, maybe more towards the climax where all the corpses are starting to pile up. My best friend at the time had to run out of the room and puke.
00:03:40.96
wednesdayleefriday
Oh, no wow.
00:03:42.45
Steve
ah you was It was it was a a really like that like level of disgusting zombie movie. and I went home terrified. I had to sleep at the door open for a few nights.
00:03:53.85
Steve
ah just it was not It was not an ideal first experience with horror movies.
00:03:54.45
wednesdayleefriday
Oh, my gosh.
00:04:00.29
Steve
and it it It played a large role in kind of putting me off like the gore end of horror movies, I think, pretty much for good.
00:04:11.68
wednesdayleefriday
Wow, that that that's quite a story that that it would happen at school.
00:04:18.89
Steve
Yes, it happened it happened in the school library in fifth grade.
00:04:23.78
wednesdayleefriday
Well, but I definitely remember seeing things that are not not so much the school library, but our town library, they would have like the kids movies on Saturday. And if you're like seven or eight, Bocce's Lord of the Rings is, is is that's pretty rough, man.
00:04:40.62
wednesdayleefriday
And The Hobbit, you know, like that spider is scary.
00:04:40.76
Steve
who Yeah.
00:04:43.65
wednesdayleefriday
I don't care how old you are.
00:04:44.03
Steve
Yeah.
00:04:44.93
wednesdayleefriday
A giant spider cocooning a man is terrifying.
00:04:45.26
Steve
Yeah.
00:04:48.31
wednesdayleefriday
Stephen King knew that. um So, so.
00:04:51.67
Steve
i think I think for me it was more like the authority figures messed up and betrayed our trust, which was a recurring theme in the educational system in Louisiana.
00:04:57.87
wednesdayleefriday
Yeah.
00:05:04.72
wednesdayleefriday
Oh, I'll bet.
00:05:04.88
Steve
This was just one of the most bizarre ah ah manifestations thereof.
00:05:11.84
wednesdayleefriday
Wow. Well, I mean, I'm, you know, I'm a sex writer, so I think of Louisiana as one of those like places where they fight against sex education and then like, and they wonder why everybody's pregnant. Um.
00:05:25.80
Steve
i i We moved away before I got to the part where that would have been relevant. So I i have no opinion, ah no no firsthand experience with with sex ed in Louisiana myself.
00:05:38.33
wednesdayleefriday
Well, I don't think anybody does because they don't really have it.
00:05:44.68
wednesdayleefriday
So, dude, you've been in a Disney movie and I saw in the news now that if you have Disney Plus, that basically means Disney can can kill you and they won't go to trial for it. so So what does that mean to you, man?
00:05:55.39
Steve
Right, because you sign that you assign all the waiver agreements and stuff, and they apparently apply across every Disney enterprise there is.
00:05:58.70
wednesdayleefriday
Right?
00:06:02.16
wednesdayleefriday
And the next thing you know, you're a human centipede.
00:06:07.37
wednesdayleefriday
So seriously, how scary is that?
00:06:11.39
Steve
i i you know i'm not so I'm not a lawyer, I never read the agreements I'm signing.
00:06:17.73
wednesdayleefriday
No, no, my
00:06:17.67
Steve
Fun fact about me, so I don't I don't know what I signed when I Agreed to to be an extra in the first Pirates here of the Caribbean movie ah You can see me you can see me you can see me real real tiny in the background in one scene It's where Jeffrey rushes or they're they're going they're going on board Jeffrey rushes pirate ship and I'm in the background there and I'm in such heavy business
00:06:42.81
wednesdayleefriday
You have like a red thing on your head, right?
00:06:44.71
Steve
Yeah, I've got like a reddish purplish pinkish thing on my head and I got a lot of dirt on my face because I'm a filthy pirate. And I looked so much like myself that when when I got the DVD and brought it home for Christmas to show but to show the family, I had to walk up to this, I had to freeze frame the screen and zoom in and point and then walk up to the TV and point at myself so that my mom recognized me.
00:06:52.60
wednesdayleefriday
Duh.
00:07:10.32
wednesdayleefriday
Wow.
00:07:10.53
Steve
And she was like, that's you?
00:07:16.05
wednesdayleefriday
Um, but I have have heard actually that Jeffrey Rush is one of those guys that hangs out with the the crew and the extras and stuff. did Did you get to have any interaction with him?
00:07:24.90
Steve
Yeah, i I didn't personally, but there was, um I remember there was at least one or two times where he like got dinner for everybody or something like that.
00:07:35.14
wednesdayleefriday
yeah
00:07:35.27
Steve
I think i think there were some people who got a chance to just like go get pictures with him. I forget whether it was in pirate makeup or not. and It was like 20 years ago. That's it's all getting lost to the mists of time at this point.
00:07:48.70
Steve
But yeah, I do remember him like being a, he was a cool dude.
00:07:49.33
wednesdayleefriday
Right, right.
00:07:54.77
wednesdayleefriday
Right on, right on. So like, in addition to being an actor, you went through school being one of those gifted and talented kids. Um, that's, but I mean, like, unless you're really rich or your, your parents are like super driven and connected, that's pretty much a recipe for disappointment, right?
00:08:03.21
Steve
Yes.
00:08:12.69
wednesdayleefriday
It's like setting you up for something totally unrealistic.
00:08:16.42
Steve
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, because you like, you know, it's Growing up, you absorb all these messages like like, oh, you can do whatever you want. You can be whatever you want in life. And then you get older, and it turns out that there are certain things you can't be if you want to get paid to make a living, ah whether your interests run that way or not. And then, yeah, like you were saying, it's also there are there are economic factors that play into whether or not you reach your
00:08:47.91
Steve
quote-unquote potential whatever it is your potential actually is and You know if if you're not the yeah if you're not the networking type which I have a hunch a lot of gifted and talented people are not um There's a limit, you know, there's kind of a limit to how far you can rise on your own natural ability because you're gonna run into a lot of people who
00:08:50.40
wednesdayleefriday
Right.
00:09:15.43
Steve
don't want your natural ability to outshine their lack of natural ability and they're not going to let you rise to that level because you make them look bad and then they get fired or demoted or whatever the fuck.
00:09:24.39
wednesdayleefriday
Yeah.
00:09:30.32
Steve
you know it's ah it's it's it there's There's a lot more luck of the draw involved than I think anybody in the gifted and talented and you know educational portion of the the system wants to admit
00:09:46.33
wednesdayleefriday
Yeah, I think it also there seems to be some some crossover with autism. And I'm just saying like colloquially, I've talked to a lot of adults who were never diagnosed with autism, but who seem to pretty clearly have it like I'm pretty sure like all the all the pieces fit.
00:09:56.73
Steve
Mm-hmm.
00:10:03.94
wednesdayleefriday
But we didn't know. And they, you know,
00:10:05.26
Steve
Right, yeah.
00:10:06.83
wednesdayleefriday
And it you know, sort of how um if you're able to sit still and and do your work, no one really notices or cares if anything else is going on with you because there's 30 other kids in your class and they got to deal with the troublemakers so that everybody else can learn.
00:10:17.12
Steve
Right. Right, and you seem to be doing fine for the most part.
00:10:24.78
wednesdayleefriday
Right, right. That's the thing. You you seem to be doing fine, which means you are not disruptive in this environment. Because man, boy, was I not fine.
00:10:31.23
Steve
Right.
00:10:34.25
wednesdayleefriday
You know, just speaking from I was emphatically not fine in a lot of very visible ways. And even now when I talk to people about it, they'll say, Oh, yeah, that that is true.
00:10:46.41
wednesdayleefriday
That was going on. Like, yeah, I fucking know it was. Um, So I know also that you live with anxiety, and I would think that trying to function in an environment where you really need to sell yourself all the time, that that would just compound that.
00:10:55.32
Steve
Yes.
00:11:07.91
wednesdayleefriday
How's that going?
00:11:09.72
Steve
Um, not great. Uh, I, um, so, um, I'll backtrack just a ah bit there and and say like, I, so ah there's, there's some, uh, as the British soccer announcers would say, there's a bit of controversy online about, uh, what exactly gifted and talented means.
00:11:35.78
Steve
And some people place it under the larger umbrella of neurodivergence. And some people don't because they want they, there's like, what, what neurodivergence means can vary among, you know, schools of thought. Um, some people just kind of use it to mean any kind of, uh, my term is brain weirdo. And, uh, and some people want it to mean like the more.
00:12:02.79
Steve
you know the the The stuff that makes it harder to function in everyday life like you know the the the more autistic side of autism or you know the the the level of ADHD where you have trouble holding down jobs, etc. I tend to adopt the ah the larger umbrella interpretation because I, you know, I think that, you know, from what I have read, I have certain traits in common with autism and what used to be called Asperger's, but is now no longer a diagnosis.
00:12:34.50
wednesdayleefriday
Mm hmm. Right.
00:12:35.92
Steve
I have certain traits in common with ADHD, which is now finally confirmed to run in my family, but I'm not sure that I have enough of either of those to qualify for a diagnosis in either of those.
00:12:51.60
Steve
So I just kind of say, gifted and talented with you know bits of this, bits of that. it's kind of its own I just say I'm my own flavor of weirdo stew. you know it's it's It's just like a different mix of ingredients that is... um you know I certainly wouldn't say it's debilitating, but it comes with its own set of problems and issues.
00:13:16.43
Steve
um They're just not as severe as what I think you know, some people are going for with this tag um So in terms of ah in terms of selling myself um So there's a um So, okay, so I've been in therapy for six years and counting now and That was pretty much since I was diagnosed with PTSD.
00:13:48.65
Steve
um And there's so I, when I first got therapy for that, it didn't take because it was very um cognitive oriented and like, you know, traditional talk based therapy.
00:14:01.40
wednesdayleefriday
and Okay.
00:14:01.65
Steve
And that didn't work. um Because as, as we all know, the body keeps the score.
00:14:06.85
wednesdayleefriday
Hmm.
00:14:08.11
Steve
And I was not in touch with my body at all being you know the kind of nerd who lives entirely in his head and is sort of like ah you know i'm ah a walking life support system for what amounts to a brain in a jar.
00:14:16.23
wednesdayleefriday
Mm hmm.
00:14:25.55
Steve
and um So I didn't really, I just lived with this for a while, and I was an anxious person beforehand, but once you once you get the PTSD, it kind of takes every, in in addition to all the problems that causes, it also takes every pre-existing issue you have and cranks it up to 11, spinal tap style.
00:14:46.03
wednesdayleefriday
Yep. Yep.
00:14:48.44
Steve
um So I just, um I just lived with it for a long time and the levels of anxiety I had, um
00:15:04.19
Steve
i what I found is that anxiety a lot of times is rooted in unexpressed emotions, like the bottled up stuff that you don't want to let out.
00:15:11.74
wednesdayleefriday
Oh yeah.
00:15:14.15
Steve
And um i've I've learned since as part of therapy that I, so it's, Real, real, real, real, real quick theory. um i I read a book called Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine. This was before um The Body Keeps the Score was ever published. And it had a more body-based theory of PTSD about how it's rooted in our fight-or-flight mechanisms.
00:15:43.03
wednesdayleefriday
Mm hmm.
00:15:43.62
Steve
And so you get fight, flight, and freeze. Those are the three main responses. They've added fawn since then, but the main ones that the occur in nature for escaping predators are fight, flight, and freeze.
00:15:54.01
wednesdayleefriday
Right.
00:15:55.94
Steve
And all of those have an emotion associated with them. um Fight has obviously anger, ah or if you're a PTSD level, that gets cranked up to rage.
00:16:08.09
wednesdayleefriday
Right.
00:16:08.90
Steve
ah Flight has fear, or under PTSD, gets cranked up to terror. And the third the third one, freeze is a little trickier, um but that tends to be associated with shame and the response being withdrawal, like you kind of go and hide. And that's what I was in, like the biggest state I was in a lot of the time was you know, freeze state wanting to withdraw stuck in a, you know, shame spirals. And I mean, that's kind of what I did professionally is I just sort of withdrew and, you know, didn't pursue things as ardently as, as I probably would have otherwise. Not that I really knew what to do, but, you know, I wasn't really exploring
00:16:59.89
Steve
You know, I wasn't really trying anything. I wasn't really risking mistakes.
00:17:02.84
wednesdayleefriday
It, it sounds like it, it presented as depression, the whole like, well.
00:17:07.08
Steve
Yes, it presented as depression, but it ran deeper than that in hindsight.
00:17:14.11
wednesdayleefriday
Wow.
00:17:14.27
Steve
But yeah, it was, you know, it was a lot of like, yeah, I probably should have been on meds in hindsight.
00:17:22.90
wednesdayleefriday
Well, and that's something that like a lot of people tell themselves, oh, it's not that serious. I can just get through it. It's not you know it's not important enough to get treatment for. And i just i like as much as I understand and empathize with people who have that mindset, I'm here to say, fuck that. It's bullshit. If you are not feeling right, and not you, you, but like the general you,
00:17:47.11
Steve
Yes, the collective you.
00:17:47.33
wednesdayleefriday
If you're having a hard time, if you're not if you're not feeling right, if you see yourself taking out your stuff on other people, get some help. It's never a failure. I am aghast that we still have people running around the world that think that it's weak to get therapy. Like no man, hiding from your bullshit behind a facade of like anger or annoyance or withdrawal or booze or whatever the hell you're doing,
00:18:15.16
wednesdayleefriday
That is cowardly. Getting in there and facing shit, even when you have to think of shit like, wow, I was a really bad person. I treated my first wife bad, or I was not a good parent, or I didn't have good parents, or like, whatever is going on with you.
00:18:30.99
wednesdayleefriday
A lot of that stuff is hard to face, and it does require some bravery and some strength to to do it. But ignoring it doesn't just hurt you, it like hurts everyone who cares about you eventually, you know?
00:18:44.41
Steve
Yeah, eventually, yeah. but you know It takes longer if you're just turning it in inward against yourself.
00:18:50.93
wednesdayleefriday
yes
00:18:51.30
Steve
um But you know with with um with shame being the emotion associated with withdrawal, you know it's it makes that that is the thing that really makes it hard to convince yourself that you even deserve help in the first place.
00:18:52.79
wednesdayleefriday
Yes.
00:19:07.13
wednesdayleefriday
Yep, yep, yep, you're right.
00:19:08.68
Steve
and you know until i until i got into Until I got into the proper kind of therapy for me, I could not even identify the emotion of shame. It's something I realized had gone back a long time.
00:19:25.86
Steve
and um
00:19:30.70
Steve
you know I developed all these um you know wonderfully effective defense mechanisms against ever feeling it and had to learn how to feel it. I had to build bridges that were never built in the first place, I guess. and once i you know It's one of those things where once I learned to identify it in myself, I started seeing it all over the place.
00:19:52.07
Steve
um and
00:19:57.61
Steve
You know, it's how I lost a thread. of Yes, shame.
00:20:06.66
wednesdayleefriday
Shame.
00:20:09.65
Steve
um
00:20:16.82
Steve
Shame, withdrawal.
00:20:22.17
wednesdayleefriday
Well, I think what we're getting at is that it's the kind of condition that works against getting help.
00:20:28.36
Steve
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:20:28.58
wednesdayleefriday
You know, they the condition is is literally telling you that it is not worthwhile. It's not worth your time. It's not going to help. When do things ever get better? and you know And then there's also, right, well, and a lot of people, especially people that have been untreated for a long time have been told, oh, you're just trying to get attention.
00:20:37.83
Steve
Yeah, everything sucks anyway. I suck too.
00:20:49.86
wednesdayleefriday
Oh, you just want everyone to feel sorry for you. You're just making excuses. And once you internalize those voices, you literally, I mean, people will berate themselves for even considering getting therapy.
00:21:04.01
wednesdayleefriday
Which is, is so sad.
00:21:05.06
Steve
Yes, and i've and I've seen that in certain people I know who are like, they really need therapy.
00:21:05.97
wednesdayleefriday
It's so sad.
00:21:11.00
wednesdayleefriday
Yeah. Yeah.
00:21:12.07
Steve
like yeah But they'll they'll completely discount their own feelings because they've been trained for so long to ignore them or that they don't matter or aren't important. I remember what I was gonna say earlier.
00:21:23.41
Steve
um I learned the term alexithymia, I think I'm pronouncing that correctly, which is the inability to identify your own emotions.
00:21:27.89
wednesdayleefriday
Ah, yes. Mm hmm.
00:21:34.00
Steve
And that can tend to run particularly strong in neurodivergent types. And so that was a big part of therapy was me learning not just how to feel my feelings, but how to identify what the hell they were in the first place, because I couldn't do that.
00:21:52.09
Steve
That was not part of my skillset.
00:21:52.27
wednesdayleefriday
Yeah, well, it's hard, and especially for for boys because sometimes boys are outright taught not to show their feelings.
00:22:03.29
wednesdayleefriday
You know, when girls get to get to cry and are not typically berated for crying, ah boys are not.
00:22:03.37
Steve
Yes.
00:22:09.54
wednesdayleefriday
You know, and and if you teach a person that the only thing that they can express is anger, well, what are they gonna focus on? That.
00:22:17.20
Steve
Yes, exactly. And I couldn't even express anger because I was like, you know, in high school, I was literally the hundred pound weakling from the old Charles Atlas bodybuilding ads.
00:22:29.39
Steve
So if I expressed anger at how I was being treated, what am I going to do? But like give, give somebody who's like twice my size, the green light to get physically violent.
00:22:42.43
Steve
So I bottled up.
00:22:42.98
wednesdayleefriday
That's so scary.
00:22:45.39
Steve
i yeah i bottle I also bottled up the only emotion men are allowed to express too. which didn't I'm still untangling all of that. i'm still um I'm still learning how to let little bits of anger out, pressure cooker style, so that I don't blow up the kitchen eventually.
00:23:06.55
wednesdayleefriday
right Well, and I mean, it's a challenge, you know, it's a huge challenge. And I think people who are not especially introspective often dismiss how big that challenge is.
00:23:18.46
wednesdayleefriday
Oh, oh, you're going to go on a retreat and get in touch with your emotion? Yeah, bitch, maybe I am.
00:23:22.21
Steve
Oh, you're gonna let your inner child cry. a
00:23:27.79
wednesdayleefriday
Yeah, you know what, dude, your dad hates you. um That's why you're like this, Don Jr. Oh, damn it. I keep saying I'm going to go through an episode and not bring up Don Jr.
00:23:41.16
wednesdayleefriday
And I, I don't think I've managed it yet. Speaking of douche bags though, what is, what is yacht rock? What? Cause we are laughing, but but seriously though, you're, you're highly devoted to it.
00:23:53.23
Steve
Excellent segue.
00:24:00.40
Steve
a this with
00:24:04.95
wednesdayleefriday
What is it?
00:24:06.22
Steve
What an excellent and complex question that really can only truly be answered in book length in booklength form. But I'll give you the rundown. So in this web series that we did starting back in 2005, in the early days of YouTube, um we defined it pretty broadly. We just kind of said really smooth music from 1976 to 1984, and that leaves the door open to a lot of different interpretations, some of which are closer to what we meant than others. um But in hindsight, because this has been an enduring thing on the internet, and it's a term that people use pretty widely now without necessarily even knowing that it came from our web series,
00:24:53.24
Steve
um We've kind of refined the definition into something that is fairly specific, more specific than most people use the term. Most people use the term as like a vibe or a feeling or you know, it's whatever seems to fit that idea. um What we meant was it's a particular kind of mostly soft rock, like very smooth production.
00:25:18.13
Steve
um But generally speaking, it has some undercurrent of black music, like specifically jazz, R and&B, that kind of an underpinning. And it tends to be the house sound of the LA session musicians seen from around that time period. So like the Toto guys who played on everybody else's records were a big, you know, cross pollinator influence on the sound.
00:25:46.92
Steve
um And a lot of guys who played on Steely Dan records, like Steely Dan used all these these studio cats to flesh out their sound once they stopped touring. They just hired the cream of the crop so they could get the best musicians on all their different songs. And they had a cast of, of you know,
00:26:07.36
Steve
Dozens that they deploy on different song like oh we need this guy for the blues number And we need this other guy for the jazz number and we need this drummer for this We need this drummer for this funkier thing and we need this bassist for you know on and on and on just super nerdy shit ah That's easy to get lost in if you're an obsessive about this sort of thing which most of us are and um So it's kind of like I would sum it up to to sum that up. I would say Yacht Rock is a metaphor. It's not literally generally songs about sailing. It's the metaphor is like, this is like the cream of the crop top of the line. You're spending a lot of money to hire all the top session guys so that you can have an amazing sounding high value production record that you play on your expensive Hi-Fi stereo system.
00:27:02.80
Steve
that you can afford because you're a rich Southern Californian who likes to sail on the ocean and drink the finest champagne, snort the finest cocaine. you know that's That's the idea.
00:27:13.73
Steve
That's the metaphor.
00:27:15.15
wednesdayleefriday
So there is douchebag area foot here.
00:27:16.04
Steve
out Oh, absolutely. the The audience for this music at the time, we imagined as like rich douche bags. um And ironically, all those records, there was so little demand for them that the price went way, way down, which meant that we could buy them in dollar vinyl bins at Amoeba Records in l LA and like get cheap entertainment for ourselves.
00:27:38.78
Steve
And that's where we started reading the album credits and figuring out, oh, all these guys are playing on each other's records. This was like a little this was a whole little scene back in the day.
00:27:50.62
wednesdayleefriday
Right.
00:27:50.72
Steve
what I wonder what else was going on. I wonder what else i want wonder what other records these guys played on. and you know then eventually discogs dot.com came about and you could just click on a name and see all the other records they played on find more yacht rock that way you can sort of do that with my former employer the all music guide as well but I think it's just easier on discogs for some reason um but yeah the so yacht rock the sound is
00:28:09.23
wednesdayleefriday
All right, yep.
00:28:18.76
Steve
It's smooth music that's influenced by jazz or and or R and&B. And it's basically the sound of the steely dan the extended Steely Dan family tree.
00:28:30.47
wednesdayleefriday
Wow. That is wild. So you're writing a book about this, right?
00:28:35.56
Steve
Yes, we we identified like the major figures, like both musicians and like, you know, writer producers, kind of more behind the scenes guys. And we're kind of, we've we've been piecing together What were the major you know milestones in this stylistic evolution? And how can we use these main figures to trace how the sound evolved and define it as a sound and get people to you know recognize, oh, this is the sound. I can hear these common threads. This is what they meant. If they defined it better 20 years ago, maybe we wouldn't have had to have all these debates on various internet forums.
00:29:20.28
wednesdayleefriday
Wow. So are you going to be doing interviews with anybody?
00:29:23.70
Steve
um Yeah, we've done, I think, about 20 interviews or so with anybody we could get a hold of. like we don't hit We didn't have a lot of ah ah journalistic connections to get to some of these folks.
00:29:34.75
wednesdayleefriday
Right.
00:29:35.98
Steve
um we We weren't able to talk to a lot of like the highest level guys, but like below that, like anybody who isn't still playing like, you know, the ah the oldies circuit, I guess you might call it, um people kind of below that line, we're mostly pretty eager to talk to us because, you know, I think they just took it like, oh wow, people remember us.
00:29:58.96
Steve
People want to know about what we did back then. That's fantastic.
00:30:01.42
wednesdayleefriday
Nice.
00:30:01.86
Steve
Sure. I'll talk to the, I don't know who these guys are, but I'll talk to them.
00:30:06.84
wednesdayleefriday
Yeah, well, I find that actually when I reach out to people involved with Night of the Living Dead, even though some of them are still industry people and some aren't, everybody is like, wow, you still care about that?
00:30:17.57
wednesdayleefriday
Of course, let's talk about it.
00:30:18.05
Steve
Yeah. Like, wow, I have a, I have a semi lasting legacy.
00:30:20.02
wednesdayleefriday
And, uh,
00:30:23.62
Steve
I made an impact on the world that might survive after I'm gone. Wow.
00:30:28.11
wednesdayleefriday
Well, and I'll tell you, man, the older I get, and I mean, you know, I didn't have kids or whatever.
00:30:28.28
Steve
What, what more can you ask for?
00:30:34.00
wednesdayleefriday
So I, I live in fear that I will have left nothing of value.
00:30:34.71
Steve
Same, same.
00:30:39.49
wednesdayleefriday
I mean, I have a body of work, but you know, literally dozens of readers are like keeping up with me.
00:30:44.64
Steve
yeah
00:30:46.80
wednesdayleefriday
Um, no, I, I just, you know, I don't want to, I don't, I'm one of those people that like everywhere I go, I'm scribbling my name on stuff because I want, you know like wetness was here like i was here i did stuff i should yeah i just uh you know and and i don't know i mean i'm sure there are lots of fascinating psychological reasons why i'm i'm desperate to be remembered but um i wonder i mean you you must go through some of that yourself
00:31:01.36
Steve
You should have stickers made. Make some stickers. Stick them all over the place.
00:31:22.58
Steve
Oh, yeah.
00:31:22.67
wednesdayleefriday
because, I mean, you're you're a ah creative type and you have anxiety. So that that would have to include that, right?
00:31:28.26
Steve
Yeah, and I... And I have no kids, so... It's, you know, like, what... Okay, what am I gonna do with this time that I have because I didn't have kids?
00:31:39.29
Steve
Um...
00:31:40.33
wednesdayleefriday
See, and that's a shame too, because you are so cute.
00:31:40.38
Steve
I spend...
00:31:43.26
wednesdayleefriday
Your jeans should totally be passed along.
00:31:44.68
Steve
Thank you! I appreciate that.
00:31:46.25
wednesdayleefriday
Listen listen up, ladies. Jeans, you need them.
00:31:48.04
Steve
Yeah, hey! Hey Los Angeles, get with the fucking program here. Oh, my God. I recently I left town for um just to go on a family vacation and the dating app I'm on that I, you know, whatever, I didn't want to do it.
00:32:05.55
Steve
But I my social circles have shrunk too much after the pandemic. But I got almost as many likes on this dating app in the week I was out of town in this other city than I have in the months I've been on it in L.A.
00:32:15.86
wednesdayleefriday
Oh, oh I'm sure.
00:32:19.90
Steve
And I
00:32:21.45
wednesdayleefriday
Competition must be crazy out there.
00:32:24.47
Steve
eight i have I don't even have any sense of it because I'm not looking at all the men's profiles. I do not know who my competition is. i i' am I'm baffled. i it's you know it's you know there There are more people who live in l LA County than in all but 12 states.
00:32:44.70
Steve
Like, that's how many people are here. And the idea that that there's nobody here that would be into me, it just doesn't ring true, but I just don't know how to find those people.
00:32:55.53
wednesdayleefriday
Well, you're a needle in a haystack, dude, clearly.
00:32:57.96
Steve
Yeah, apparently.
00:32:58.13
wednesdayleefriday
I mean, so, you know, you're going to have to stab someone in the foot, it sounds like.
00:33:08.45
wednesdayleefriday
So, um, I am aware if we could get a little more serious for a second. Now you, you live with PTSD as the result of a specific incident and we don't need to go into like the the details of that, but okay.
00:33:18.83
Steve
Yes. Yeah, we'll just we'll just call it the incident.
00:33:25.84
wednesdayleefriday
um Now, first of all, I want to talk about your experience with getting the support that you needed after this traumatic event.
00:33:34.49
Steve
Hmm.
00:33:35.05
wednesdayleefriday
We we did talk a little bit about why you waited, but like when when you decided to actually get treatment, was it readily available to you?
00:33:39.17
Steve
Right.
00:33:44.95
Steve
Um... Well, okay, i was I would say at the time, that since The Body Keeps the Score was published in 2014, there's been, I think, a major broadening of what are some approaches we can try, because PTSD was notoriously therapy resistant, ah you know cognitive talk therapy.
00:34:07.60
wednesdayleefriday
Mm hmm. Yes.
00:34:09.66
Steve
um Only a small percentage of sufferers actually respond to that. Um, so back when I was trying to get help, the stuff that was readily available was, you know, cognitive oriented talk therapy and it didn't take. So it's not that it's not that help wasn't available. I could go online and look around for therapists who said that they specialized in PTSD, but.
00:34:39.38
Steve
they didn't They weren't up on a lot of the up-and-coming therapeutic techniques that have since been proven to be more effective. So I could get help, but it wasn't effective help because you know people didn't quite know what they were doing on a broad collective level yet.
00:34:58.10
wednesdayleefriday
Well, even now, like EMDR is not nearly as widespread as it it should be.
00:34:58.41
Steve
um
00:35:03.19
Steve
Yeah, but you know, I think I think it's more available to like, for example, veterans, they're trying more stuff with veterans because, you know, because it's so prevalent in that population, and and it's so therapy resistant.
00:35:03.34
wednesdayleefriday
um
00:35:15.06
wednesdayleefriday
Yeah, the need is so great.
00:35:16.89
Steve
And, you know, I'm sure a lot of the, you know, macho soldier types are very much the type to have bottled up their emotions their whole lives, which is a big risk factor for developing it in the wake of a traumatic event.
00:35:29.33
wednesdayleefriday
Well, I will say I hear a lot more um that that that culture is changing in the military and because there's been so much outright war and so many people that have
00:35:36.69
Steve
Good. Good.
00:35:42.24
wednesdayleefriday
you know, whether we're calling it shell shock or battle fatigue, or we're just saying PTSD, people are more aware of it, and they're aware of it as an illness, you know, in that you shouldn't, you should, I mean, you know, it happened because of an event, but like, you break your leg because of an event, you don't just call it a thing that happened and not get it treated, you you go and you get it taken care of, so that it can heal properly.
00:35:52.73
Steve
Right. Right.
00:36:07.74
Steve
Right, it's not it didn't happen because you're a big pussy.
00:36:08.33
wednesdayleefriday
And
00:36:11.55
wednesdayleefriday
yeah Exactly. Exactly. You know, that's...
00:36:14.33
Steve
It happened because you're a human and you went through more than a human should go through.
00:36:19.09
wednesdayleefriday
Yep. Yep. And and because humans tend to inherently compare ourselves to each other, even though we don't typically know everything that a person is going through, you make all these assumptions like everybody else seems to be doing, dealing with it fine. And that's why it's so important that people talk about things like this with their friends and their families. That's one of the best things about the internet because you can get together with people that have had similar experiences, even though you'll probably never meet them. And that, and, and that I think coupled with,
00:36:55.08
wednesdayleefriday
the lack of availability for therapy. Because I mean, we know that there are a lot of people that need therapy.
00:37:01.34
Steve
Mm-hmm
00:37:01.61
wednesdayleefriday
It's very difficult to get a therapist in some parts of the country. I imagine where you are, it it can be, certainly.
00:37:08.13
Steve
It's I mean when I was when I first started to look around well, okay, but i'll I'll backtrack a little bit so um I didn't actually get diagnosed with PTSD for like 12 years and I finally got um So I basically I went to I went to a therapist for a different reason and ended up with a PTSD diagnosis.
00:37:36.67
wednesdayleefriday
ah Can I ask how old you were when the incident occurred?
00:37:40.35
Steve
That would have been ah early 30s, like 31, 32, somewhere in there.
00:37:48.11
wednesdayleefriday
ok Okay. Okay.
00:37:51.99
Steve
So yeah, it it really ruined my thirties along with working night shift in the entertainment industry. Like that didn't help anything either. um But yeah, early thirties. So it was like, I was very much old enough to remember what things were like before the incident. um And I could compare and and recognize like, yeah all these things are different than what they used to be and much worse. And I can remember when they were better, but I don't know how to get back there.
00:38:23.93
wednesdayleefriday
Mm-hmm.
00:38:25.17
Steve
um
00:38:25.51
wednesdayleefriday
Okay.
00:38:26.80
Steve
so
00:38:30.30
Steve
So yeah, i um i had I had gone to a therapist because um certain certain people who will remain nameless accused me of being autistic in kind of a mean way.
00:38:49.09
wednesdayleefriday
Aww.
00:38:49.54
Steve
And since I'm somebody who ah you know turns turns ah Turns his shame against himself, I was like, wow, I always felt like something is quote unquote wrong with me. Maybe I should go get this checked out.
00:39:07.35
Steve
and um Instead, the therapist was like, oh, you have I told her, like I have some symptoms of PTSD also, but I don't think I have enough like to qualify for a diagnosis. And then I ran through everything. Angie told me, oh no, see, that thing you have there, that this actually counts for this category that you don't think you have. So yeah, you absolutely have PTSD. So I was kind of the opposite of the WebMD you know hypochondriac, where you know you go on the internet and you think you got all the stuff and you don't i went on the internet didn't think i had this stuff and it turned out i did.
00:39:45.05
Steve
So sometimes you should actually go talk to somebody and see if you do qualify for a diagnosis.
00:39:45.51
wednesdayleefriday
Wow.
00:39:54.12
Steve
So anyway at that point i read i read the peter levine book waking the tiger which is the theoretical foundation. For a type of body center therapy called somatic experiencing.
00:40:07.28
Steve
And I thought, I want to try that because that felt like that book felt like the owner's manual for my brain and body that I'd finally gotten to read. Like, why wasn't this issued to me at birth? And ah so that's the approach I adopted. And I thought, well, if this doesn't work, I'll go try EMDR because there are options now. um But I stuck with this and it's it's been a huge help.
00:40:34.07
Steve
you know i've um I've made a lot of progress. I've gotten back to points that you know I never thought I'd get back to. um you know There's still work to be done, like I said before, or especially with anger, but there are parts of me that feel, I would say, adequately healed.
00:40:57.80
Steve
to where I can move on with my life and I can experience you know human feelings again that are not just numbness, rage and terror and shame. i can the The good stuff is coming back online, which you know if you're kind of repressing all of the bad stuff all the time, you're also repressing the good stuff at the same time.
00:41:13.54
wednesdayleefriday
Nice.
00:41:18.98
wednesdayleefriday
Right.
00:41:21.11
Steve
which is another truth of, another truth I learned in therapy is if you want to feel good, you also have to be able to feel bad.
00:41:21.33
wednesdayleefriday
Right.
00:41:30.02
wednesdayleefriday
Yep. Yep. Yeah, that's I mean.
00:41:33.85
Steve
Very, very unfortunate if you ask me, but.
00:41:36.89
wednesdayleefriday
Oh, it is. It is. And that's the thing about like, I'm bipolar. I have bipolar one. So I'm on mood stabilizers, but I still get plenty of like highs and lows.
00:41:41.25
Steve
you
00:41:46.23
Steve
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:41:46.50
wednesdayleefriday
And that's, you know, people say, Oh, that's, that's so amazing though, because you just, you know, you feel so great and you start all these new projects and like, yeah, but I mean, no.
00:41:58.31
Steve
But then you might not finish them because then the lows hit.
00:42:02.16
wednesdayleefriday
Well, yeah. And I mean, it, it. the extreme I mean extreme anything it's like you know even with politics you have the extreme right but the extreme extreme left which we never see but we think we do um no no no it's like no
00:42:13.11
Steve
in
00:42:16.89
Steve
No, it's not it's not an actual political force in this country, the extreme left. there there are no There's no actual communist movement trying to take over the country. Trust me, I went to some socialist meetings.
00:42:29.24
Steve
it's it's there There's barely even communists in the socialist meetings. And when they are, they're super annoying and nobody's going to follow them to power.
00:42:35.62
wednesdayleefriday
right ah
00:42:39.80
Steve
It's not not a thing.
00:42:42.96
wednesdayleefriday
ah So, let me ask you what what words of wisdom you would have for men who have a traumatic event happen to them and they're they're reticent to get treatment for it. What would you say?
00:42:57.26
Steve
um I think the the biggest thing for me was just, I didn't know how to manage my feelings to begin with. And when you have PTSD and they get cranked up to 11, it feels like you're just constantly struggling to keep the lid on the pressure cooker so that all the bad shit doesn't come exploding out of you at the same time. you know the the um
00:43:23.06
Steve
the the pressure cooker analogy where you've got to let a little bit of steam off at a time so the pressure cooker itself does not blow up the kitchen. um My therapist often uses the metaphor that it's like ah it ah keeping the lid on the pressure cooker takes up all of your energy too. So you have no energy for anything else. And my my therapist will use the analogy that it's like It's like having your car in park and your foot on the gas.
00:43:52.56
Steve
You're spending all this energy to just not go anywhere. Like you're just staying you're just staying right where you are.
00:43:57.57
wednesdayleefriday
and Okay.
00:44:00.95
Steve
So I would say that if that's how if that's how somebody is experiencing life after trauma, then the solution is you have to, you basically, you have to,
00:44:16.33
Steve
learn how to manage your feeling. you There's no way around learning to feel your feelings. And it's not, i you know, I don't think it's so much that the the whole, there's a wussy, like you're gonna go out to the woods and you're gonna get in touch with your feelings, and you're gonna sing kumbaya around the campfire, and you're gonna cry, you fucking cry, baby, you're gonna cry.
00:44:32.29
wednesdayleefriday
Yeah.
00:44:38.98
Steve
It's not, that's not what the therapy is about. The therapy is about, you know, The therapy is about learning to let out a little bit at a time so the pressure cooker doesn't blow up.
00:44:50.09
wednesdayleefriday
Yep.
00:44:53.41
Steve
And like, I think i think anybody who's experiencing that will know what the pressure cooker feels like. So, you know, I think the biggest thing is the somatic experiencing therapy is specifically designed to take you in just a little bit and then take you back out.
00:45:11.17
Steve
in just a little bit until it gets uncomfortable, then it they take you back out so that you're learning you don't do it all at once. You absolutely do not rip the lid off the pressure cooker all at once. You learn to do it a little bit at a time, just so that it's manageable. And then you do it a little bit more. And it's very gradual. It's not jumping in at the deep end of the pool. It's, you know, dipping your toes in the shallow end of the pool, gradually getting used to the water.
00:45:42.23
Steve
getting a little bit farther in, a little bit farther in, just, you know, taking however long it takes. For some people it doesn't take that long because they're able to build those bridges to their feelings because they're already basically in touch with them. They just need to learn these specific feelings. For other people like me, it takes a lot longer because we don't have those bridges built to our feelings to begin with.
00:46:06.46
Steve
ah Right, so like I said six years and counting and I'm still not done But yeah, it's it's it's a process and it takes time for them for a lot of a lot of people Yeah, I don't think there's a point that's done there's a Yeah
00:46:12.52
wednesdayleefriday
Well, I mean, is.
00:46:17.10
wednesdayleefriday
Yeah, I don't know if there's ever a done, I mean, yeah certainly you could have, you know, their goals and you want to like reach goals or whatever, but yeah, I mean.
00:46:28.66
Steve
i'm i' I have not yet reached the point where I'm like, okay, I don't need regular therapy anymore. i've I can basically manage myself. I'm not at that point yet.
00:46:40.58
Steve
um
00:46:41.75
wednesdayleefriday
Well, and I think it's interesting cause like, I don't know if you know, you probably don't, but like Weight Watchers from the seventies, I'm always a fat girl. So I was on Weight Watchers constantly. And one of the things that happens when you lose all the weight is that you never actually leave the program.
00:46:58.63
wednesdayleefriday
but you can go to meetings with much less frequency, you know, and you'll get to a point where you go like every three months.
00:47:02.57
Steve
Okay, yeah.
00:47:05.64
wednesdayleefriday
And that's something that I don't think happens often with therapy, but it would be a really good way to go about it just to go in, even if you go in like for your annual mental health check of like, okay, seriously, what's going on?
00:47:17.87
Steve
Right.
00:47:18.74
wednesdayleefriday
and
00:47:19.38
Steve
Yeah, yeah, like ah like an annual you know medical checkup. That would make sense.
00:47:22.76
wednesdayleefriday
Right.
00:47:23.38
Steve
i think I think part of the problem is that therapists have busy schedules and they don't necessarily have a lot of room in them. I got lucky when I found my... third Oh, yeah.
00:47:33.98
Steve
um So when I was looking for a therapist, Somatic Experiencing has an online directory of certified practitioners that you can go to. I believe i believe the website is traumahealing dot.org off the top of my head. But I was looking around for people in Los Angeles. And the first thing I did was I tried to get referrals, and everyone I got referred to was not taking new clients.
00:47:59.63
wednesdayleefriday
Right, right.
00:48:00.58
Steve
And so eventually um I just went on this website and I just started looking around for LA and i found I found a guy who um not only had he himself experienced similar trauma in in in you know what he called his big incident, but he also lived within walking distance of my job and was willing to see me after work.
00:48:30.18
wednesdayleefriday
Oh, wow.
00:48:30.51
Steve
that was That was such a huge part of the battle was just, you know, people will tell you like, oh, your job has to make allowances and your job has to do this and they've got to let you do mental health.
00:48:34.88
wednesdayleefriday
Yeah.
00:48:42.38
wednesdayleefriday
Yeah, but come on.
00:48:42.66
Steve
ah That's not how it fucking works in practice and you fucking know it.
00:48:46.50
wednesdayleefriday
Yep. Yep.
00:48:48.30
Steve
um So yeah, I just, I was able to find somebody who was willing to see me outside of, you know, regular business hours. And i was then that person is still willing to see me like he makes time on weekends for a handful of clients who can't really get away during the week. um So I mean, that's that's huge. That was a huge part of me being able to access therapy is somebody was willing to not
00:49:22.98
Steve
Act like therapy is only for rich people who are idle all fucking day and can just get away whenever they want.
00:49:32.32
wednesdayleefriday
Yep. Yes. So I want to talk about some of your acting stuff.
00:49:39.94
Steve
Okay.
00:49:40.55
wednesdayleefriday
Because, wait I mean, one of my favorite things is when I'm just watching TV as I normally would and someone I know pops up. It's the best. I love that.
00:49:48.91
Steve
Yeah, it is. Yeah, I live in l LA.
00:49:50.23
wednesdayleefriday
um
00:49:50.75
Steve
It's a great experience that I've had. It's great. You're very happy for that person.
00:49:54.40
wednesdayleefriday
Well, and thanks to you,
00:49:56.03
Steve
Yay! They're getting paid, I hope.
00:49:59.41
wednesdayleefriday
Like, well, I mean, I probably saw that Starburst commercial twice before I was like, wait a minute. I know that dude.
00:50:07.41
Steve
Yeah, see, I was in a wig.
00:50:08.93
wednesdayleefriday
What Well, well, come on now. And but the oh I think honestly, I was also like, oh, I love Kristen Charles. She's so cute because, you know, she's she's she's in there with you and she's probably great in real life.
00:50:20.04
Steve
She is.
00:50:24.11
wednesdayleefriday
Don't tell me if she's not.
00:50:26.11
Steve
Yeah, she's in great. and this And that was like before everybody knew that she was Kristin Shawl. um She was, I think at the time she was kind of um getting big on the New York standup scene.
00:50:38.92
Steve
And she was, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:50:39.21
wednesdayleefriday
Well, yeah, I had actually seen her on Comedy Central. That's who I that's how I knew she was. I want to say they played her on Women Allowed, which I think maybe 15 people watched because it was like Mo Gaffney and Mo Gaffney was like, I guess she probably still is. Mo Gaffney is one of those people that's like 85 percent just for feminists. And and
00:51:05.90
wednesdayleefriday
Which is too bad because the Kathy and Mo show is hilarious, the stage play. I don't know if you've seen it, but I, uh, I ASM'd for it, um, with like other actresses when it like, you know, was making the rounds and it is a hilarious show.
00:51:10.53
Steve
I have not, I have not seen it. Unfortunately, it sounds good.
00:51:19.71
Steve
Okay.
00:51:22.64
wednesdayleefriday
And, uh, yeah. So anyway, Mo Gaffney, that's, but that's why I knew who Kristen Shaw was, like when that commercial came out. It's like, oh, that's so great. But you're also um you were a commentator on those those VH1 lists where you just like gab about like movies and music and stuff.
00:51:38.34
Steve
Yeah,
00:51:41.47
Steve
yeah i um so i got I got involved in that because VH1 did a countdown called the 40 most soft-sational soft rock songs as it you know as a direct outgrowth of our Yacht Rock web series taking off online.
00:51:52.07
wednesdayleefriday
Yep.
00:51:58.30
Steve
And of course they had multiple of us on there. And I had the background of having written for all music. And, you know, I was pretty, I was pretty able to talk intelligently about a pretty wide variety of music. And at the time I was working as an interview transcriber on various reality shows. And so I got You know, having that insight like, I've got to transcribe every goddamn word these people are saying and they can't talk.
00:52:28.98
Steve
And I know exactly what's going to get edited out when they try to take this this interview sound bite and put it in the show.
00:52:29.84
wednesdayleefriday
but
00:52:37.89
Steve
And ah so I got fairly good at giving sound bites. Like I knew when I was rambling enough where I would say, okay, stop, let me date let me take that one again.
00:52:43.59
wednesdayleefriday
Mm-hmm. Yep.
00:52:47.64
Steve
And then I deliver it in the form of an actual sentence. And so they kept asking me back because I could combine those two, you know, ah not all that common skill sets, I guess I would say.
00:52:52.97
wednesdayleefriday
yeah
00:53:04.40
Steve
um And so yeah, I got to be on like, I don't know, five or six of those things back when VH1 was still doing original programming. I have no idea what's on that channel anymore.
00:53:14.91
wednesdayleefriday
Oh, I haven't had, I haven't had cable in some time.
00:53:14.87
Steve
I don't know if it still exists.
00:53:18.51
Steve
Oh, me neither. And that's true of a lot of people. I think you can find you can find a lot of those things on YouTube now.
00:53:21.79
wednesdayleefriday
Yeah.
00:53:25.06
Steve
I don't know if it's like official or not, but...
00:53:26.32
wednesdayleefriday
Yeah. Yeah, I hate to say this.
00:53:28.46
Steve
um
00:53:29.51
wednesdayleefriday
I am actually getting to the point where I'm going to pay for YouTube just to have it without commercials because man, I can't. Well, the thing is I listen to a lot of like YouTube when I'm trying to sleep at night.
00:53:39.97
Steve
who
00:53:40.06
wednesdayleefriday
And so if it goes from, you know, the, the rain thing to the campfire thing that I'm using to sleep and then right in the middle, I'll be like almost asleep in here.
00:53:50.46
wednesdayleefriday
Donald Trump wants to b blah, blah, blah. This election season, like, Oh my fucking God. Shut up. Like, so, and and that's why they do it.
00:54:02.64
wednesdayleefriday
I know that's why they do it.
00:54:03.81
Steve
Yeah.
00:54:04.12
wednesdayleefriday
They try to irritate me into giving them my money and that's why I don't want to. It's like Prime just suddenly saying, you know what? Fuck you. We're going to give you commercials now unless you pay us more.
00:54:14.46
Steve
Now that we yeah that we've got you all hooked, the first few years are free.
00:54:15.36
wednesdayleefriday
Like, yeah, they' they're an evil company. And you know what?
00:54:21.93
Steve
the second The second few years are going to cost you.
00:54:25.60
wednesdayleefriday
All right, yeah Columbia House. but no um The thing is that like Bezos could become a hero like on a Jurassic Park level if he would just put some money back into WAPO, turn them into a real freaking newspaper again, and then just give it to people to read.
00:54:43.97
Steve
Yeah, but he's not going to do that because because it's a point of pride for these assholes that they don't pay taxes because that's punishing them for success in their minds.
00:54:54.88
wednesdayleefriday
But I mean, that wouldn't even be like a tax thing.
00:54:55.47
Steve
It's like yeah we're we're shaming them by making them pay taxes.
00:54:59.79
wednesdayleefriday
He could, I mean, he would just take it as a great big write off and pay less taxes. You know, he'd actually be doing a community service instead of, I mean, you know.
00:55:07.79
Steve
But he's better than us. If he wasn't so much better than us, why would he have so much money? that's you can quantify you can You can quantify how much better rich people are than all the rest of us if you look at how much money they have.
00:55:14.60
wednesdayleefriday
Oh, right. I forgot. I'd forgotten. Yeah.
00:55:25.69
Steve
It's because they worked so hard, you see.
00:55:26.02
wednesdayleefriday
Well, yeah, they would certainly like to think so. Well, and yeah and and it's funny because I'm reminded of of the Grand Turf who has literally said, people must agree with me because I have so much money from them.
00:55:43.01
wednesdayleefriday
And ah I mean, it's like, first of all, but
00:55:45.80
Steve
Yeah, you can you can quantify it.
00:55:49.99
wednesdayleefriday
And and it's it's just sad because the thing is that she, because of where she lives in the world, got to do something that writers I know would kill to do, which is just say, I'm not going to work.
00:56:01.04
Steve
Yup.
00:56:03.65
wednesdayleefriday
I'm going to have the government support me while I write my book. Like, well, um.
00:56:07.76
Steve
Yup. And then it turned out that she kind of came from more money than was originally let on to begin with.
00:56:16.14
wednesdayleefriday
Well, and there are some pretty striking similarities of things that she I don't know if you know there's a book. It's like a 1965 maybe called the dark arts. And it's about the dark arts, and she has clearly read it.
00:56:31.23
wednesdayleefriday
And, well,
00:56:31.42
Steve
Oh, yeah, I there's, there's so many, there's so many things in Harry Potter that are taken from other sources and, you know, kind of put together. But, you know, I mean, on the one hand, that's kind of what Star Wars was, is, you know, George Lucas taking all these different sources and kind of squishing them all together into this, you know, this new combination that resonated with a lot of people.
00:56:50.98
wednesdayleefriday
Yep. I mean, that's, that's fair. That, that is definitely a fair thing to say. When I was in fourth grade, my teacher read us a book called James and the Giant Peach.
00:57:02.76
wednesdayleefriday
And I love that book.
00:57:04.30
Steve
Oh yeah.
00:57:04.55
wednesdayleefriday
And you know, you know what happens in James and the Giant Peach?
00:57:08.13
Steve
What?
00:57:08.37
wednesdayleefriday
A little boy named James Henry Trotter, his parents are suddenly and horribly killed. And then he has to go live with his two mean aunts until one day a magical man tells him he's a very special boy and leads him on a magical adventure where he meets, you know, magic and does magic things.
00:57:29.03
wednesdayleefriday
It goes off from there. But like, James Henry Trotter versus Harry James Potter? are Are you kidding me? Are you joking? And I'm not saying Roald Dahl was a pristine human and no one should steal from him, but come on now.
00:57:45.75
wednesdayleefriday
Do do better, Robert Gailbreath.
00:57:46.10
Steve
there's there's there's There's creative borrowing and then there's just kind of half-assed borrowing. it's it's it's like
00:57:54.67
wednesdayleefriday
I mean, I suppose one could argue that that's an homage because it's so obvious, but I don't know that, I mean, people always seem surprised when I point that out. So it's not as well known as as one would think to be an homage. Maybe in in England it is, I don't know.
00:58:13.81
Steve
and that's i would you know what what i what What it's reminding me of is ah is how hip-hop uses sampling. Some of the some some uses of samples are very creative and and make it into a new thing. And some of it is just borrowing somebody else's hook because it's catchy and you can. And now it's your song and it's a big hit and you make money because you stole the right thing.
00:58:38.03
wednesdayleefriday
Look, man, I don't know if I'm going to be able to have you back if you don't start stop a trash talk in vanilla ice, man.
00:58:43.64
Steve
it
00:58:43.80
wednesdayleefriday
That is not okay. It's not okay.
00:58:46.17
Steve
I was thinking more Puff Daddy, but you you have a point.
00:58:49.95
wednesdayleefriday
Word to your own mother. Okay. How about that?
00:58:56.15
wednesdayleefriday
So, you know, I want to, I do want to talk some more about music with you because I know you're a great fan of King Crimson, which I assumed to mean that you're a fan of art rock in general, which, uh,
00:59:06.78
Steve
you know i i'm I'm there. i ah You know what? i think i'm i do I do like King Crimson a lot. I think they're one of the most in consistently engaging prog rock bands. But I will say that you know we've we've known each other online for some time. And I used the cover of In the Court of a crimson the Crimson King as my online avatar. But it wasn't necessarily because I loved King Crimson as much as that that particular cover of a man you know an elaborate
00:59:41.05
Steve
painting of a man screaming in terror accurately reflected my mental state even even prior to the incident.
00:59:47.08
wednesdayleefriday
Yeah, ah yeah I wasn't gonna say nothing but...
00:59:57.71
Steve
but yeah it's it's ah It's a very, ah that the the album cover is a very visually evocative portrait of paranoia and What the fuck is happening? ah So yeah, that was ah that was my favorite online avatar for for a while.
01:00:16.81
wednesdayleefriday
Well, yeah, it's like a rock and roll version of the scream, really. I mean, yeah, it definitely it evokes the same thing.
01:00:20.44
Steve
Yes, yeah, absolutely, yes. it's that is That is a great analogy. Yes, absolutely. Brilliant insight.
01:00:28.31
wednesdayleefriday
But look. Well, when it comes to insanity, I'm your gal. That's why I host the Mentally Oddcast. It's not called the Mentally Oddcast because we're all like boring and bland.
01:00:44.13
wednesdayleefriday
yeah Bane Allen and Sippid. It's funny because I was I had this list of like musicians I was going to bring up and one of them is ah Zappa because, you know, and.
01:00:53.79
Steve
Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, i did i I finagled a way to get my ah my senior honors English thesis done on the subject of Frank Zappa.
01:01:05.17
wednesdayleefriday
Beautiful.
01:01:06.31
Steve
Yeah.
01:01:08.43
wednesdayleefriday
He's so great. And plus, you know, I was exactly the right age to just be outraged by the PMRC, and so was he.
01:01:15.03
Steve
yes yes
01:01:16.82
wednesdayleefriday
So for younger listeners, the PMRC was a group started by Elgore's wife, Tipper, um and it was about labeling rock music and and other kinds of music that the young people were listening to so that adults would know whether or not it was appropriate for them.
01:01:34.41
wednesdayleefriday
And the thing is that, like, as an adult,
01:01:37.82
Steve
Yes.
01:01:38.34
wednesdayleefriday
ah There's no reason not to label music the way that we label like movies and TV and video games Like it's it's fine to say this has naughty words if you don't want your kids to have naughty words Don't show them this but we treated it like we were leading the French Revolution or some shit like we were so mad and I think it's Yeah, that's that's true
01:01:41.58
Steve
Yes.
01:01:56.83
Steve
Well, I think at the time, it was there was a looming specter of the government stepping in to regulate this. And it worked it worked out to where you know they they kind of just went under the table and said to the labels, OK, can you guys please do this so that we don't you know so that we don't have to have a hand in it?
01:02:16.14
Steve
um Which I think worked out a lot better.
01:02:16.24
wednesdayleefriday
Well, and the implication, I think, being that if there are labels, then that would lead eventually to kids not being able to buy the music that they want.
01:02:18.06
Steve
but
01:02:26.13
Steve
Yeah, and that it would lead to state-run censorship.
01:02:26.22
wednesdayleefriday
and Right. and I'm not saying anyone should buy a two-life crew, but if you want to, that's your business.
01:02:33.54
Steve
Right, it's not particularly good music, but...
01:02:38.61
wednesdayleefriday
i think I hate to quote Dennis Miller because I know he's a prick in real life, but He did happen to say on update at one point, it it really is a bad album.
01:02:49.01
wednesdayleefriday
couldn Couldn't we have gone to the wall over Layla?
01:02:53.42
Steve
yeah i remember Yeah, I do remember an SNL sketch where ah Chris Rock was playing Luther Campbell from 2 Live Crew.
01:02:53.56
wednesdayleefriday
Oh,
01:03:02.61
Steve
and I think it was i think it was ah it was a McLaughlin group parody where it was the Sinatra group and ah Phil Hartman as Frank Sinatra was leading the discussion being you know a prick like John McLaughlin.
01:03:04.48
wednesdayleefriday
oh and everybody's pitching him?
01:03:17.07
Steve
and ah Luther Campbell was on the panel and so was Sinead O'Connor who he was referring to a shine head O'Connor. What do you think and At one point Chris Rock has Luther Campbell Frank's and I just like no you got talent you're you're a talented kid you go in places and like no I don't have any talent.
01:03:24.84
wednesdayleefriday
yeah Oh no!
01:03:36.27
Steve
I really don't have any talent at all and
01:03:42.67
Steve
And once I got older and I recognized what made what how to differentiate good rapping from bad rapping, I was like, oh, yeah, he really doesn't have that much talent.
01:03:51.81
wednesdayleefriday
Well, and it's interesting because like, I was an adult before I realized that like, you can like things as media, even when you know, they're not good.
01:04:02.17
wednesdayleefriday
Like I had a sense of that.
01:04:02.62
Steve
Oh yeah, absolutely. There are certain there are certain two live crew lyrics and hooks that still pop into my brain from time to time.
01:04:04.97
wednesdayleefriday
Like, yeah.
01:04:11.26
Steve
just because I heard it in junior high, like my formative years of adolescence.
01:04:15.48
wednesdayleefriday
yeah Yep. Well, but I mean, you know, B movies. I know B movies are bad, but like H and I will watch any shark movie. Like if there's a shark in it, we're going to give it a try and see if it's good.
01:04:27.38
Steve
Oh yeah, because it,
01:04:28.99
wednesdayleefriday
Whether that shark is like floating around a cornfield or it's made of puppetry or like, I mean, there, there are some audaciously bad shark movies happening these days.
01:04:40.51
wednesdayleefriday
Well, have you seen Velocipaster?
01:04:40.63
Steve
and No, oh yeah, I forgot about that one.
01:04:43.93
wednesdayleefriday
Yeah.
01:04:45.66
Steve
I do remember hearing about that.
01:04:46.11
wednesdayleefriday
Dude. We put on Velociraptor, Velociraptor, totally cold. No idea what was up. Just like the title alone. Like, yep, that's good.
01:04:56.35
wednesdayleefriday
We're in, you know, priest.
01:04:56.63
Steve
Yep, yep.
01:04:58.12
wednesdayleefriday
He's going to turn into a Velociraptor. I'm there. Guess what? Aurelio Voltaire plays an exorcist in it. And man, I love Voltaire.
01:05:08.19
wednesdayleefriday
I can't help it. I think he's just gothian, yummy, and great. So.
01:05:12.29
Steve
I am not familiar with his work.
01:05:14.49
wednesdayleefriday
Oh my God, what you are, you just don't know that he did it because um remember the claymation bumps that MTV used to have in the late 80s, early 90s, he made those.
01:05:17.49
Steve
Oh, okay.
01:05:22.03
Steve
Yes. Yes. Oh, okay.
01:05:25.90
wednesdayleefriday
And he also, um he did that song brains that was on Billy and Mandy that used to be grim and evil. Um, yeah, you, you, you definitely, you, you definitely know his work.
01:05:32.67
Steve
oh i Okay, okay.
01:05:36.71
wednesdayleefriday
Cause the thing is he he's, he's more about the work than he is about like promoting himself, you know?
01:05:42.65
Steve
Right.
01:05:42.89
wednesdayleefriday
Cause he's, I mean, he's a creatives creative.
01:05:46.36
Steve
Yeah.
01:05:46.61
wednesdayleefriday
and But yeah, so he plays ah an exorcist in Velocipaster. Velocipaster is so audacious, I'm going to reveal one thing about it. There is a scene where there's supposed to be a car explosion, but apparently they could not afford a car explosion. So the scene is literally a shot of the street and a caption that says, FX, car explosion.
01:06:11.60
wednesdayleefriday
And then it immediately cuts to a dude on the sidewalk, like jumping back and there's debris flying at him from the car explosion that did not occur.
01:06:23.25
Steve
yeah
01:06:23.88
wednesdayleefriday
I mean, you should watch it just for that, even though I gave that away.
01:06:25.68
Steve
You know what you know what they you know what they could have done is cut to one of those old silent movie cards That says and the car explodes exclamation point
01:06:32.30
wednesdayleefriday
Right, right. Have the little piano music over it.
01:06:42.98
wednesdayleefriday
Why on earth not, right? I mean, there's, but there's a lot to be said about silent films. And that's, you know, one of those mind blowing internet things because when they first started having, you know, people talk in movies and they were called talkies, like talkies, that's absurd. That sounds so silly. Why would anyone do that? Bruh, they're called movies.
01:07:09.82
Steve
They're not called soundies.
01:07:12.17
wednesdayleefriday
Well, but that's the thing, like a movie is to a photograph what a talkie is to a silent film.
01:07:19.57
Steve
Yes.
01:07:19.92
wednesdayleefriday
Cause it's like, God damn it, words. Animology should not piss me off this much, but sometimes it just does.
01:07:26.09
Steve
it yeah
01:07:28.72
wednesdayleefriday
I cannot help it. Um, was, was there anything that we wanted to talk about that we didn't talk about?
01:07:36.86
Steve
ah
01:07:40.36
wednesdayleefriday
Because there is a point like, which is probably about now, where I ask the guests if they have any questions for me. So if you have any questions for me, now is when you should ask it.
01:07:49.94
Steve
Okay. um
01:07:53.97
wednesdayleefriday
Why are you so cool?
01:07:57.97
Steve
um ah yeah this is ah This is relevant to me because I'm in the middle of writing a book as a collaborative project, which I do not recommend.
01:08:08.61
wednesdayleefriday
Oh, I hear that.
01:08:09.30
Steve
as a first time as a first-time book writing experience, ah because it's already hard enough. um Tell me about your writing routine. like you're you've been You've been a fairly consistent producer of creative materials over the years, ah which which is inspiring to me because i have you know sometimes I have problems focusing enough to just you know put my nose to the grindstone. Tell me about your writing routine and how you're able to generate you know, the work. I know what in some ways it just boils down to you just sit down and you do the work, but how do you how do you as a fellow ah brain weirdo manage to do that on a semi-consistent basis enough to actually finish stuff?
01:08:55.21
wednesdayleefriday
Um, see, I'm kind of embarrassed because I don't have a writing routine, like at all. I'm much too moody for it.
01:09:03.99
Steve
Because I don't either. and
01:09:05.39
wednesdayleefriday
I'm way too inconsistent. Well, and I have lots of writers on the show and they will tell me, Oh, I get up every morning and I write for, you know, three hours or every afternoon after work, I sit down for, you know, and, and I just, I i don't do, like, if I could do that, I'd probably have a day job still.
01:09:21.93
wednesdayleefriday
I i don't, uh, And I mean, honestly, and unless I'm on a specific tight deadline, like I do set goals and deadlines for myself and say, I need to be this far by this date, or I will have considered myself falling behind.
01:09:37.89
wednesdayleefriday
And then I start like berating and chastising myself for being behind, which,
01:09:42.16
Steve
Yeah, I'm very good at that part. I'm not as i'm not as good at at at doing the actual work on a consistent basis.
01:09:48.21
wednesdayleefriday
well, And you know, one of the things that I try to do is um like, cut down on the berating and chastising and turn that into like, well, I could sit here being mad at myself for two hours, or I could sit the hell down and and, you know, outline that. Because the thing is that, especially when you're talking about fiction, you know, any kind of like creative prose that's not based on research, I feel like I have to be in the mood for it. Like I need some music, I probably want some caffeine.
01:10:21.75
wednesdayleefriday
You know, I want to, I need to be like in the right head space. I need to be feeling okay, physically. And once all those things come together, it doesn't matter if it's my normal bedtime, I need to sit down and and do it then.
01:10:35.49
wednesdayleefriday
You know, so, and.
01:10:36.27
Steve
Yeah.
01:10:38.47
wednesdayleefriday
I mean, it's it's like there are a lot of little like tricks I play on myself to make sure I'm inspired, to make sure you know i'm I'm sitting down and doing it, but I have never established a regular routine, um and I pretend that a regular routine would not be authentic, man.
01:10:57.69
wednesdayleefriday
I'm real. I'm too real to force it.
01:10:58.52
Steve
You gotta fly by the seat of your pants.
01:11:01.08
wednesdayleefriday
yeah But, uh, whoops, microphone fell. But yeah, I mean, the bottom line is, is no, I really don't, uh, I really don't have a routine.
01:11:12.64
Steve
because i like I find most of the time when I'm distracted, it's because I am more anxious about something else than I am about finishing this particular chunk of work.
01:11:24.74
wednesdayleefriday
Great. Yep. I can understand that for sure.
01:11:29.92
Steve
which you know when you work freelance in the entertainment industry and you have to pay rent in l LA, there's a lot to be anxious about.
01:11:36.17
wednesdayleefriday
how How are you even doing that? I mean, that's one of the most expensive cities in the world, right?
01:11:38.73
Steve
I don't know. i i Well, part of it is that my apartment is rent controlled so I can basically never leave because I'll never get i'll never get this kind of a rate again unless there's some kind of horrible disaster that ah sends all the property values in the city plummeting.
01:11:46.72
wednesdayleefriday
Ah...
01:11:58.46
wednesdayleefriday
Yeah, I was. I mean, you know, you don't necessarily want to ask a person, like, how do you live in that city?
01:12:05.08
Steve
Hold on, hold on, do you hear an ad playing?
01:12:05.60
wednesdayleefriday
Because.
01:12:09.42
wednesdayleefriday
No.
01:12:12.62
Steve
What what in the hell?
01:12:12.85
wednesdayleefriday
No, I don't.
01:12:20.53
Steve
i'm getting i'm getting I'm getting an ad for [inaudible] playing and I do not know what, um okay, there it goes.
01:12:29.02
wednesdayleefriday
Did you have another window open?
01:12:31.42
Steve
I mean, I have a bunch of tabs open in my browser, but none of them have been, uh, none of them have been active the entire time we've been doing this. Uh, weird.
01:12:40.70
wednesdayleefriday
hu man Yeah, I can't hear it.
01:12:41.45
Steve
Okay. Well, it's gone now.
01:12:44.46
wednesdayleefriday
So I don't think it was recording, but if it is, I can, you know, I can just level it down and that's not a big deal.
01:12:46.38
Steve
Okay.
01:12:51.49
wednesdayleefriday
Um, okay. Well, uh, you know what?
01:12:53.40
Steve
Okay.
01:12:53.98
wednesdayleefriday
I think it is time for the mad lib. Are you ready?
01:12:56.90
Steve
I'm ready.
01:12:58.23
wednesdayleefriday
Okay, and you know how these work, right?
01:13:01.19
Steve
Yes.
01:13:01.39
wednesdayleefriday
I give you the parts of speech, you give me the words, I read it. So let's see. One, two, two verbs.
01:13:13.52
Steve
um Flutter. And castigate.
01:13:28.52
wednesdayleefriday
Very nice. ah And another verb, but this one ending in ing.
01:13:37.19
Steve
Bloviating.
01:13:42.55
wednesdayleefriday
Nice. I need a part of the body plural.
01:13:48.58
Steve
Ears.
01:13:51.64
wednesdayleefriday
And one, two, three adjectives.
01:13:56.21
Steve
Um. Shiny.
01:14:08.13
wednesdayleefriday
Okay.
01:14:20.56
wednesdayleefriday
I cut out all these pauses in post so it's cool.
01:14:21.77
Steve
Um... Okay, good. I know, I know a lot of adjectives. Which one is swinging to mind at the moment?
01:14:39.06
Steve
syrupy and wispy for
01:14:42.60
wednesdayleefriday
Okay, one more.
01:14:57.36
wednesdayleefriday
All right, I need one, two, three plural nouns. Nope, four, four plural nouns.
01:15:06.33
Steve
plural nouns. Um, eggs, antelopes, trumpets,
01:15:25.01
Steve
and hobos.
01:15:35.02
wednesdayleefriday
All right. And three singular nouns.
01:15:45.26
Steve
Bottle.
01:16:06.93
Steve
Pillow.
01:16:09.66
Steve
And and battery.
01:16:09.85
wednesdayleefriday
One more.
01:16:18.16
wednesdayleefriday
And one silly word.
01:16:27.61
Steve
Onomatopoeia.
01:16:31.44
Steve
Does that count?
01:16:33.90
wednesdayleefriday
Yes, but fuck you for making me spell it.
01:16:39.21
Steve
yeah
01:16:41.59
wednesdayleefriday
All right, this is called sleepwalking. All right, sleep-bloviating is a shiny phenomenon with a surprise that a surprising number of eggs experience. Usually, sleepwalkers climb out of their antelopes and begin to flutter with their ears tightly shut.
01:17:03.11
wednesdayleefriday
I've never heard that before. Sometimes they castigate outdoors wearing only their syrupy pajamas. Ew! And it's not uncommon for bottle walkers to raid the pillow and eat lots of trumpets.
01:17:22.94
wednesdayleefriday
What's truly amazing is that they don't remember a wispy thing following the battery. They'll open the fridge and say, onomatopoeia, where did all the hobos go?
01:17:35.59
wednesdayleefriday
They may never know. See, irreverent, irreverent.
01:17:40.57
Steve
This sounds like AI. so
01:17:44.74
wednesdayleefriday
Yeah, it can't be. It's funny. um ah Well, see, that's the thing about comedy, though, is that, like, and I always want to say this to actors because, you know, like, you can pretend to be dramatic. You can pretend to be angry. You can act like you're in love. You you can't fake being funny. Either you're funny or you're not funny.
01:18:09.22
Steve
Yup.
01:18:10.25
wednesdayleefriday
I was actually thinking about that because of Will Ferrell, and I was watching, it um you know, ah Stranger Than Fiction, which I think is just a masterpiece.
01:18:20.85
wednesdayleefriday
And that's a whole thing because you say like, oh, well, you know, Will Ferrell's in all these stupid movies, and then he's in a really good one. But like, it's, it's so condescending and dismissive to talk about like, Anchorman as if it's not a well crafted film, you know?
01:18:37.38
Steve
Yes, I laughed a lot at Anchorman. It was funny.
01:18:40.10
wednesdayleefriday
Yeah. Well, I mean, comedy is always difficult because first of all, you're like eliciting an involuntary reaction pretty much in people, as opposed to like, when you go to a horror movie, you're going there to be scared.
01:18:51.30
Steve
even
01:18:55.82
wednesdayleefriday
But yeah, I think I guess well, well, Murray talks about that a lot about just being sort of minimized because he does comedy and not really getting the props he deserves.
01:19:06.89
Steve
Yeah, i was I was very disappointed when he lost the ah the best actor Oscar to Sean Penn, who basically, like I watched the Sean Penn movies, just like, oh, he cries, big fucking deal.
01:19:18.49
wednesdayleefriday
yeah Yeah. Well, yeah, bill Bill Murray. I mean, it was so sad how he went out in zombie land.
01:19:27.82
Steve
Mm-hmm.
01:19:30.12
wednesdayleefriday
Steve, thank you so much for being here. It was wonderful having you.
01:19:34.23
Steve
Thank you for having me. May I plug my podcasts before we, before we, uh, before we take off?
01:19:37.85
wednesdayleefriday
Oh, please. Yeah, we're going to have links in the descriptions, but yeah, plug away.
01:19:43.96
Steve
Great. So, uh, I am currently, I I've been, uh, with, with the fellow, my fellow, uh, yacht rock web series, uh, uh, mainstays. Uh, there's four of us. We started doing a podcast in 2016 called Beyond Yacht Rock, where we would come up with a new, but since we were known for making up a genre, of the internet liked.
01:20:03.88
Steve
We made up a new genre every episode and then counted the top 10 songs in it down like, ah you know, Casey Kasem style.
01:20:11.26
wednesdayleefriday
Nice.
01:20:11.25
Steve
And um we also, um what grew out of that was we would do, so every once in a while we do an episode about a sub-genre of yacht rock, like, like, oh, this is a Southern yacht or a yacht rock from New York, yacht York or whatever.
01:20:26.77
wednesdayleefriday
with
01:20:26.73
Steve
And that that grew into people would ask us on Twitter, Hey, is this song yacht rock? And so we started taking requests and we started doing, and we call them a yacht or a yacht. we has we we We rate songs on the scientifically proven Yatsky scale from one to 100. And we tell you whether or not that song is yacht rock or yacht rock.
01:20:51.20
Steve
ah You can go to the, you can go to our website, yacht or neot.com, n-y-a-c-h-t, dot com, and see the see the results of our ratings and and and flip through this database of songs we've accumulated over the years. We're still doing that show. um We stopped doing Beyond Yacht Rock because it was a lot of work. And we started doing a different show called Billion Dollar Record Club, which instead of making up a whole new genre, we just listened to a record from front to back.
01:21:19.80
Steve
and and we talk about it the entire time. And it turns out that's almost as much work as Beyond Yacht Rock, is now we have to figure out how to talk about a single artist for 45 minutes.
01:21:31.51
wednesdayleefriday
Right?
01:21:31.97
Steve
um But you know the the exposure that we give these albums on our yeah astoundingly popular hit podcast, obviously then makes all of the physical copies worth a billion dollars, which which sends the value of our own music collection soaring through the roof.
01:21:48.85
Steve
And we finally get to see some money out of this whole deal.
01:21:51.99
wednesdayleefriday
Nice!
01:21:54.97
Steve
Anyway, join our Patreon if you enjoy our podcasts.
01:21:55.38
wednesdayleefriday
Wow. yeah
01:21:59.17
Steve
That's the only actual way we get money out of any of this.
01:22:03.21
wednesdayleefriday
Right. Yeah, no, I hear that. We're actually, we left Patreon, um, when they, they did that fuckery with Apple. Cause, you know.
01:22:10.41
Steve
Yeah, we did we debated whether to do that or not, but we we weren't really active at the time and we also didn't have a better idea.
01:22:18.06
wednesdayleefriday
Well, it's rough, man. I mean, we ah we went over to coffee, but we still haven't gotten back to where we were. Actually, we're still lower and in terms of funders and amounts.
01:22:24.49
Steve
Yeah.
01:22:28.54
wednesdayleefriday
So yeah, ah so guys, find us over for at coffee. When you support us there, you support sometimes hilarious horror and all of us here at The Mentally Podcast. So um yeah, you know what?
01:22:39.03
wednesdayleefriday
Thanks so much, Steve. We're going to see everybody next week. I mean, not both of us, but me, I'll be here next week.
01:22:45.40
Steve
Thank you very much for having me. I enjoyed it quite a bit.
01:22:49.05
wednesdayleefriday
Yay. Bye.
01:22:50.37
Steve
Bye!
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