⏮ REWIND // Marcel Fable Price: The Poet and The Price

Part of our REWIND summer series, we’re revisiting eight conversations that crawled into our brains and hearts, nested, and just live there now. This time, it’s "Marcel Fable Price: The Poet and The Price" from Season 5.

Poet, storyteller, and former Grand Rapids Poet Laureate Marcel Fable Price joins Aaron McCall for a raw and deeply honest conversation about creativity, mental health, and the weight of grief. He opens up about loss, the complexity of love and regret, and how storytelling became both a survival tool and a calling. From founding a multimillion-dollar nonprofit to stepping into the deeply personal role of a death doula, Fable shares what it means to hold space for loss, transformation, and truth.

Keep up with Marcel Fable Price:
marcelfableprice.com
IG: @marcelfableprice
Blog: marcelfableprice.com/thisjustin 

And get his book New American Monarch here.

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This episode is supported by:
Creative Mornings Grand Rapids
Merchants & Makers
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Writer/Producer/Editor/Host:
Aaron McCall
aaronmccall.net
IG: @aaron_mccall
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Co-Host/Sidekick/Photographer:
Joe Matteson
themattesons.co
IG: @joe_dustin
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Music:
"Noises" by Mike Mains & The Branches
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Support the Podcast:
Buy Merch
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Follow Bad Idea Social Club:
badideasocialclub.com
IG: @badideasocialclub

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:53

Uh, I've had a lot of very intimate experiences with death. Uh, it's why I started learning more about death and dying and wanting to walk alongside people as they go on their journeys of death and dying. And that's really what a lot of the Moss story was about. It's about like holding the shame, holding the guilt that comes with death and dying.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

I can't seem to make them go away.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Hey everybody, welcome to Bad Idea Social Club Rewind. For the next eight weeks, we're revisiting eight conversations that stuck with us for some reason or another. Now, these these aren't necessarily our top eight, but these are the ones that crawled into our brains and hearts, nested, and they just live there now. Yeah. Joey, could you imagine actually picking out our top eight? Maybe. I don't know. I'm gonna I'm going with no. No, I could not. The reason MySpace shit. I used to have so I used to have a much easier time ranking.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Bro, top eight was a nightmare for me. It was a fucking nightmare. And then as soon as you saw that shit switch, you were like, what the fuck happened? Dude, that's how you knew somebody was mad at you. That's right. That's right. That that's that was like that was uh showing our emotion back in the day.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

But we're calling this, uh we're calling this off-season series rewind, and uh it's gonna take us right up to season eight and drop us off at the front door on September 15th. I'm Aaron McCall. And I'm Joe Madison. The first one that I want to get into is from season five, episode one, uh Marcel Fable Price, The Poet and the Price. Marcel is a poet and Death Doula based here in Grand Rapids, um, and we'll get into what exactly that means. Uh but we we talked about grief, the weight of our words, uh, and finding uh joy. No, not joy, finding light, I think is better in in remembrance. I think that what stuck out to me so much about this one was his vulnerability and the trust he just handed me moments after meeting me for the first time, uh to just uh handle a story.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Yeah, his the way he speaks to death in general was like a mind shift for me. It doesn't take away like how sad death and someone leaving is, but it just changes it just changes the quality of that feeling, how it can be beautiful, it can be respectful, and it can be thoughtful and loving. And that really hit me pretty hard.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Well, and it's the way it's the way too that like he filters his experiences through poetry. Yeah. Like every every word means something. Like every line has weight. Right. Uh and like every piece is um unapologetic about the space it's taking up. Yeah. Um this dude's been through it, man, and he still moves forward with more love and compassion than most people probably carry in a lifetime.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

That's a outstanding point. It just kicks me in the gut. All right, before we dive in, don't forget to follow wherever you're listening, leave a five-star review, and don't forget to tell your friends.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

Also, this thing runs off of merch sales, reviews, and listener support. So if you could help us out in any way, a little bit is a lot. Excuse me. Oh God, I shouldn't, I should I should not be drinking bubbles while I'm doing this. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Uh anyway, September 15th, season eight. Um here's uh Marcel Fable Price, the poet and the price. Fable. Yeah. Is that a given name? Is that a moniker you've kind of adapted?

SPEAKER_03 4:56

That's a good question.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

What's the what's the story there?

SPEAKER_03 4:58

Fable is my middle name. Uh it's not my birth middle name. I I changed it in the last probably say year and a half. My government middle name was Bryant.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 5:09

Which comes from a series of B names. My biological father, every single one of his children had have B names. Uh Brittany, Brennan, Brian, uh, Brandon, all B names. And my mom didn't want to abide by those rules because she didn't know if he would be in my life. So, you know, she gave me an M name and my middle name was a B name. And I've never met my biological father. So I I don't have some deep, rich connection to my middle name. And most people throughout my life called me Fable. That was a pen name that was given to me when I went to a high school creative writing camp by the Ann Arbor Poetry Slam team.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

I was gonna say, like, that it's either just the greatest coincidence in the entire world. Or or you just got lucky.

SPEAKER_03 5:59

Yeah, no, for sure, for sure. Um, I I do feel lucky being given that name, though, but it's it's a badass middle name, which is why I changed it. Yeah. For sure.

unknown 6:10

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Well, hey man, I want to I want to get to know you a little bit. I want to know who you are, I want to know where you've been. Um give me the origin story.

SPEAKER_03 6:18

I am a lifelong Michigander, a proud Michigander. I was born in Lansing. I was raised in Kalamazoo and Ipsy. I spent about 15 years in Grand Rapids and about a little over a decade in Kalamazoo, kind of bouncing back and forth. I've gone between Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo a handful of times in my life. When I was in Grand Rapids, I became Poet Laureate. I was the youngest person in city history to hold the title of poet laureate, the first person of color, period, not just black person to hold the title of poet laureate.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Um, forgive my ignorance. Yeah. Can you define that?

SPEAKER_03 6:56

Yeah, it's like being knighted. Um it's like being knighted with your art form. Um, it's not like you uh are the mayor where you have like set voting duties or something like that. Uh, but they give you uh a modest stipend and then you get to quote do cool projects. I leveraged the title into a a nonprofit organization, which grew significantly.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_03 7:20

Yeah, so the nonprofit organization, the Diatribe, uh, is where a good amount of people know me from. Uh the Diatribe started as a collective of artists, hooligans, ruffians, uh, poets, singers, songwriters, musicians, hip-hop artists. And uh I made the decision after we did the first Blind Deaf friendly art prize exhibit, which I kind of don't like that that's our origin story, but it's true. A bunch of teachers really started reaching out and saying that we should do work with young people. I didn't feel like we should do work with young people at the time. Uh we were all ruffians, we were really rough around the edges, closing mulligans and billies down every night.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Yeah, we we don't want any kids around right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:02

We're like, I'm I'm not I'm not suited to speak to young people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But some teachers were really relentless in their pursuit, one of which being Rick Jackson, who is a teacher at uh Rocket Alternative, which is Kelloggville's uh alternative school, and we fell backwards into teaching, working with young people. We came in for a career day, which again we shouldn't have done. We weren't making money doing art. Um, and while we were really used to crowd applause, you know, snaps, claps, all those things, those students, as a thank you, all wrote us letters asking us to come back, and I'd never received anything like that. Um, so we came back every single week for a year, and before we knew it, you know, teachers talk, and one teacher talked to another teacher, talked to another teacher, and we were in, you know, like five schools a year. I was broke at the time, probably selling weed to subsidize income. Um before I knew it, I'd had to make the choice to stop selling weed because you can't be in schools teaching and be caught selling weed because then your life's really gonna be. Um, but then uh a mentor of mine at the time was like, hey, you should turn this into a nonprofit. Uh, there's a lot of money out there to do the work that you're doing. And I listened. Uh, I don't know if I had a time machine if I would do that again. Um, but you know, now it's a multi-million dollar organization, and there's not many people, especially young people like me who aren't college educated, that are intuitive artists, that start a nonprofit and make it a multi-million dollar organization and raise $6.5 million during a hard time of their life. Um, so that's something that I get to be proud of. Well, I might not necessarily be, you know, excited about the future. It's gonna be something that outlives all of us, and that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

God, that's that's you can just hang your head on that and you've done it. Maybe. Maybe. No? No, no. Well, what's enough?

SPEAKER_03 10:01

That's a fantastic question. I used to have the answer that nothing was enough. Like I had this insatiable desire to do bigger, shoot bigger, dream bigger. Um I'm a non-monogamous human being, so not having enough when you're a non-monogamous human being creates a different uh hurdle. But I I used to think nothing was enough. Now I feel like enough is the people who love you is enough. Yeah. Um, I have a lot less importance or self-importance when it comes to work and the things that I do professionally. But as somebody who came from nothing, I'm really, really proud of the things that I've done because we're not supposed to, you know, do half the things that I've done. Right. So I I am proud of that.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

But there's still a lot more to be done. I love that. So, so at what point in your story did you really lean into your creativity and kind of let it take over?

SPEAKER_03 10:59

Yeah, so I think I was in high school actually. So I was failing out of high school. I was a kid that was not good in school. I got suspended a lot, spent a lot of time in ISS, spent a good amount of time in OSS, uh, and a teacher didn't want me to fail. And she sent me to this college readiness camp, which I thought was ridiculous because I wasn't going to college. I couldn't afford college. Yeah, yeah. But there was this the Ann Arbor Poetry Slam team. They were doing workshops with poetry and writing. And a guy named Slayman was the guy who ran the team at the time. And during this college readiness camp, I got to do this creative writing exercise, and it showed me poetry could be whatever I wanted it to be. It could sound however I wanted it to sound. And afterwards, you know, I did the school talent show with poetry, and people were yelling and screaming and snapping and clapping. And uh, I'm somebody who grew up pretty, you know, rough around the edges. Um, in the home life was pretty uncomfortable. And to see so many people appreciate me to to feel valuable, like that was like the the catalyst, which then spiraled into me doing open mics, you know, for years. Um here we are today.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Man, so what's that like getting up in front of a crowd, yeah, in front of a room full of people that are hanging on to your every word, um, and you're just reciting words that you've written and to like see the reaction, what is that like? What is that feeling?

SPEAKER_03 12:26

That's a good question. I I don't know if even a majority of my life I even took the time to process that. I would say for like a decade, you know, we were hosting this show in Grand Rapids called the Drunken Retort, which like became this like nightlife staple. Grand Rapids magazine was like top ten things you must experience in Grand Rapids. And during that decade in my life, I was so drunk hosting a show that I don't even know if I appreciated that so many people beloved this space. Uh that people like treated it like church, like people went every single Monday religiously. Now I feel like for the first time I'm creating, I'm creating sober, I'm gigging again for the first time since the pandemic. I'm truly leaning into gigging for the first time since I started the nonprofit. And I I just feel fortunate to be able to have the opportunity more than anything. I feel fortunate that people care. Um, I'm somebody who is either beloved by some people or absolutely hated by other people, and for opportunities to share my truth and to be honest and people not throw me away, and people be able to, you know, deconstruct it and find themselves in it feels invaluable.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Man, do you get a lot of self-worth from your from your work? Uh because that's kind of the vibe I'm getting.

SPEAKER_03 13:52

I would say that I get too much of my individual worth from the things that I do, whether that's being the executive director, being the founder, being the the artist, being the the doer, I I do unfortunately get a lot of worth from what I do.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

So, what space were you in when you did the moth?

SPEAKER_03 14:15

Oh man, that's a that's a wild question. So for those that don't know, um I've done the moth twice. Uh one of the times that I did the moth, my wife was still alive, and I went to um Ann Arbor. They were doing a story slam. She loved the moth. And she was like, she always wanted to tell a moth story. And me being a storyteller, I was like, well, let's go to Ann Arbor and I'll win you the moth. Um, so the first time we went, it was like maybe 2016 or something like that. And I won a moth story slam for her birthday. And that's how you know the the folks at the moth like knew who I was. In the last like year, they were cultivating a moth mainstage event. And that event was at the Detroit music hall, which is a huge space. It's like 1,600, 1,700 people, and this show sold out. I was one of five storytellers, one of five speakers.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

So many people.

SPEAKER_03 15:19

It was wild. It's like you could feel the the the exhales of 1600 people turning into like wind that like cradled you throughout the event. Um, but it was also powerful because I could literally feel hundreds of the people crying, I could hear them sniffling, I could, I could I could feel the sobbing, and I got to be raw and vulnerable and honest and tell a story. And that was unlike any other experience I've ever had. And it also made me really realize that I want to continue to lean into storytelling. Yeah. Um, like that is what I want to be a huge part of what I do.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

I feel like listening to a lot of your stuff too. Um I mean, it's just it's just baked in. I appreciate that. Um, I'm curious, I if if you don't mind me asking, what was your wife like?

SPEAKER_03 16:08

What was my wife like? Yeah. Man. Um she she was, you know, she's like all that was good in the world. Um she had this laugh, this iconic distinct laugh. Um she was so caring, she was so good, you know. There's there's people who say things like, you know, when I lost my kid, when I lost my wife, it made it hard for me to be a spiritual person because it's like, how can, you know, somebody so good or somebody so innocent uh be taken so untimely? And and that is how I felt with her for a long time. You know, between the two of us, she was absolutely the good one. Uh she she was somebody who did right by all of the people in her life. She's somebody that really held my hand in becoming a man. Like, one thing I tell a lot of women that I come across is like men really aren't shit until they turn 30. Uh like like there's we're just not. We're not shit. Um, and she started walking alongside this journey with me when I was like 26. I was definitely like not shit. And she held my hand into becoming a man, like she guided me along the way. She taught me so much. Uh, in the first time people started calling me out from my past, like she was like, hey, you know, you have to you have to do whatever makes it right, you know, you have to you have to own up to it, you have to talk about it, like it has to be uh a part of you. Um and she didn't throw me away, you know. Um but she was somebody who was resilient and fearless and and I won't say fearless because she was scared to death at the end, but she just handled the diagnosis with so much grace, uh so much poise. She was a beautiful, queer black woman. Uh yeah, she's just she's iconic, as is is how I would describe my late wife. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

I love that. Did she get a chance to see uh the big one?

SPEAKER_03 18:18

The no, no, no, no, she didn't. So she she passed away in 2023. Um so she didn't get to see the the huge storytelling event at the moth. And part of the event that I did at the Moth was talking about her as well. Uh talking about the passing of my grandfather. Death has been something that's been really prelevant in my life. Uh, I've had a lot of very intimate experiences with death. Uh, my grandfather, I got to be there while he transitioned. Um, Nate Libra, a longtime friend of mine and one of the longest roommates I ever had. He went through a very violent bout with cancer. Uh, and my wife, you know, I got to walk alongside her being her primary caregiver for four years. And that journey, all of those things, you know, is why I became a death doula. Uh, it's why I started learning more about death and dying and wanting to walk alongside people as they go on their journeys of death and dying. And that's really what a lot of the Moss story was about. It's about like holding the shame, holding the guilt that comes with death and dying. Because we all have, you know, these wishes, these things that we would do differently. And um, yeah, that's really what the story is about. But what but she was unfortunately not able to be there for for that show.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

What is your role as a death doula?

SPEAKER_03 19:39

Yeah, so different, you know, you can do different things as a death doula. It really depends on who you're supporting. If you're walking alongside the person who's on the journey to to transition, that might look like asking them, what fragrances do you want around when you're dying? You know, what music do you want to be played? Uh do you want people to touch you when you can't be responsive? Like, do you want people to wash their hands? You know, the things that you don't think about when somebody is is going, where do you want to die? Like, is this is this where you want to go? Is is there somewhere else where you want to be when you're transitioning? What what are things? Is there people that you don't want around? Are there people that you do want around? Um, and things that, you know, oftentimes fall on the family to know, which we don't know because we're so we have such an unhealthy relationship with death in America. But also the things that shouldn't fall on family members, you know, if if your you know parent passes away, god forbid if they're alive, you know, you don't want it to all fall on your mom telling your aunt Cindy that she's not wanted around, so then they have some huge fallout. Like that that's not fair to her, you know, and and that's the role that a doula can play. But also you can walk a song, you can walk alongside the loved ones, and and that's the role of a doula, you know, to to guide people.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

It's comfort, it's it's it's dignity. Yeah, a hundred percent. Man, so okay, I want to take a little bit of a turn here, right? You've described yourself as a let me get this right, walking kaleidoscope of human experience. Um I know this is gonna be a kind of a broad question, but what does that mean when you say that?

SPEAKER_03 21:19

Yeah, that's a it sounds good. What does that encompass? Yeah, I think the idea is that when you know somebody's on stage and they're describing you and they're like, oh, this person's a kaleidoscope, people are like, you know, it gets the brain going, it's provocative. Um, but I guess what it means more than anything, if I'm being honest, is I'm made of so many little pieces. And one thing that I've realized at this point in my life as somebody that's worn so many different hats and has played so many different roles in the lives of so many unique people, is regardless of what our beliefs are as humans, when it comes to politics, when it comes to you know societal views, there's little bits of pieces that we can find ourselves in people, even if we have or we think that we don't have anything in common with them. And I like to to really highlight all of those tiny little fragments within myself and the fact that something beautiful can come out of all of these little pieces. And I guess that's what I think of when I think of a kaleidoscope.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Stepping back and kind of taking stock of all of these little pieces, all of these experiences that make you uh what experiences kind of influence your work the most? And what kind of uh what kind of experiences do you just keep for yourself?

SPEAKER_03 22:34

I I need to get better at the keeping for yourself stuff. And that's also stuff that that's also something that my wife and I reflected a lot on before she passed away because we were so public with so much of our life that people almost felt like a sense of like ownership or entitlement to our lives. And I think that I do that. Probably too much as somebody who lives or spent so much of their life in Grand Rapids giving people too much, giving uh putting too much out there. I would say now there's a lot that I keep to myself. I have an incredible girlfriend, and you know, she's somebody that doesn't even have social media. Like she's so I she that's so cool to me. Uh like not having social media. And like that relationship is ours, you know, it's it's for us. Um, like that's something that I keep for me. Uh I know me too. And it's like something I'm not used to, you know. Um, but also her family, I'm not somebody that has, you know, much family. And her family treats me like family, and I've never received that before. You know, people always have the saying that like, you know, when you marry somebody, you marry their family. I don't know if we consider that enough, which is why so many people like hate their in-laws. They're like, damn, I don't really even think about that. That person was just worth, you know. Um, but like the way that her family loves on me, like I keep that for me. Like that's that's not something that gets, you know, put out and in some newsletter on social media, you know. Um, those things are the things I've I've started to keep from myself.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

What are you putting in the work?

SPEAKER_03 24:10

So I just released this book, New American Monarch, and it came out on my birthday, October 8th. And it's a really unique collection in the sense that the work is made to look like a rough draft because we're all rough drafts. So as you flip through the booklet, the pages are made to look distressed. It has notes written on the book, you know, the way that people write notes on their book. Um, it has QR codes at the corner of the start of every page, which brings people to the audio version of the piece. So if you're somebody that like likes to read and dive in, you can. But if you're somebody that who likes to be read too, then you can, you know, be able to scan it and do that, you know. Um, so it's really like a multimedium experience for people. And I got to work with a ton of really dynamic creatives, some of my favorite creatives in bringing that work to life. And shout out to uh New Michigan Press Diagram, Andre Monson, who runs that, who decided to pick the book up because it is a really vulnerable, honest body of work. And, you know, I had to reach out to a whole lot of publishers before I found somebody who truly believed in it and would let it be everything that it is. So to answer the question of what am I putting in the work, I'm trying to put all of myself, you know, but also as a writer, it's a lot different than you know, with hip hop, you know, you're constantly releasing music, you know, that if it hits, if it picks up, that might be a single, you know, and then you're like you can turn that into a larger body of work with all of the other things that you've been working on with writing. You know, you are working and creating on this this body of work for a long time. And then shopping it around is also a very timely process. Like I just finished a collection of nonfiction work, um, and I'm like 50,000 pages or 50,000 words into it.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

And I was like, holy shit, 50,000 pages.

SPEAKER_03 26:03

Yeah, no, I was getting crazy.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Well, I think about editing that bad boy. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 26:07

Yeah, it's like 50,000 words. Um, and it's amazing, but like I don't know how long it'll take to get picked up. Like, I might start working on the next thing, you know, before that ever gets picked up, if it gets picked up, hopefully. But I'm just trying to be really vulnerable and honest in my work. And I think a lot of it is revolving around masculinity and shame and harm and regret, and how do we grow past these things that we've done and how do we become more than the worst things that we've ever done? And that's what a lot of the work is about. Because also, when I was working with young people, those are the stories that got a lot of young people challenging themselves.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Yeah. Can I uh put you on the spot? Sure. Can I get you to read or recite something from the book?

SPEAKER_03 26:54

Oh dear, yeah, hand me that bad boy. Let me find a short ditty. I'm trying to think of okay, what is this okay? Um it's called terrifying truths. Today, I'm meditating on a terrifying truth. There are more suicides at the Golden Gate Bridge than any other single place in our country. More people travel there to end their story, flesh-coated iron in someone's favorite heartbeat, adventure to this location from all across this trauma-ridden sphere, to crash into one of the world's largest mirrors. The bay. This structure, an undeniable magnet. It pulls matter from all corners of the globe, drags blood out of its home, attracts with the promise of wind rushing around you, cradling you vigorously, as every frantic last breath pushes back in nature like a nonviolent protest, like a coin toss, enticing you with one final look at yourself in the reflective face of the ocean. In fact, I've contemplated taking my own life a thousand times. But there are two reasons why I've never considered this route. One, because I am terrified to death at heights. Even the thought of crossing bridges makes my palms secrete fear. If I was to stand at the edge of life and had a heart attack before I closed that last chapter, that'd be one more thing I couldn't do right. And two, because I am sure during that final gaze into the water's truth, I would see all of my abusers reflecting off the surface. I'd be reminded of not only how I got there, but of my own terrifying truth. That my face too may appear in someone else's final moments. And that's something I deserve to live with.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

What are you feeling?

SPEAKER_03 29:07

I think a different I think of different things whenever I, you know, dive into this piece. Um in like 2018, I was working with a a huge mental health organization. Uh I think it was like mental health America, Sacramento, and I was doing this mental health festival at their state capitol. And there was a gentleman there, uh, a black man who was probably in his early 40s, and he was telling the story of when he was gonna jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. And there's this gentleman, this white man, and he described it, you know, this is again, this is like 2018. He was like, There's this white man, you know, and and he he didn't look anything like me, you know. He looks like somebody I would have thought might have pushed me off the bridge, you know. Like, and he jumped out of his pickup truck, you know, and he ran up to me, you know, and he grabbed me and he's like, Man, today isn't the day you should jump, man. And he started talking to me about my daughter and his daughter, you know, and and it made me, you know, decide to to not take that leap. And I think that sometimes I just forget, you know, how much we have in common with people and how many of us feel like we get to the point of wanting to leave, and how so many people want to be here and get that time taken away from them, and how fragile so much of it is, but how we live like we got so much of it. And I think that's the thing that I'm I'm thinking about in this moment.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

It's it's it's one thing to to read your work, but you know, the QR codes on the page make perfect sense to me because it is a whole other experience to hear you speak the words.

SPEAKER_03 30:50

Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And and that is something that I feel like is also uh an interesting hurdle. You know, a lot of poetry, a lot of creative writing, a lot of you know, creative nonfiction is rooted in academia. You know, it's it's rooted in specific voices and specific styles. And as somebody that is not college educated, is somebody who does very much care about not only how the words are placed and in what order they're placed, but how they're set and in and how they feel. Like that is something I take a lot of pride and intentionality in that goes, you know, is is very important to my editing process before something comes to fruition. I'm just trying I'm just trying to, you know, share the things that I have to share with the time that I have to share it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

God, I love that. Yeah. Anything we should talk about before we go topic hopping?

SPEAKER_03 31:40

Shoo, I did we can topic hop.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

When you're gone, what do you hope people say about you?

SPEAKER_03 31:48

Hopefully they just they're trying to not to say as much of the bad stuff, you know. Like I like maybe like keep it like 30% bad, you know, 30%, 30%, 70%, you know. I think more importantly, I hope people talk to like the kids that I worked with. I hope people talk to the the people that I poured into. I hope people remember what I gave so much of my life to in the things that feel valuable or made somebody grateful to be here. But also I hope people are honest, you know. I hope people are honest with how they feel, I hope people are honest with the stories that they have, whether that's good, bad, or indifferent. I hope people, you know, write about it. Uh I hope they create something about it. I hope that they are inspired to be raw and honest and unfiltered and brave when it's uncomfortable. Um Yeah. I hope they do that.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

I don't I don't know that people are born brave and vulnerable, but like I feel like you've got a really good grasp on it.

SPEAKER_03 32:54

Yeah, I would definitely say we're not born brave and vulnerable. I mean, like again, when I was growing up, mm one of my parental figures, you know, struggled with alcoholism and drugging, and when they would partake would get really violent with me. And I wasn't I wasn't brave. Like when I was getting suspended from school, I wasn't doing so because I was brave. I was doing so because I wanted to feel stronger than I felt at home, you know. Um when I was getting in fights at bars, you know, I wasn't I wasn't doing so because I was brave. Um I was doing so because I wanted to prove something, because I wanted to take up space, because I wanted to to not feel small. Um And you know, I think as you you know grow and mature as a human being, you kind of like refine what is ego, you know, and and what is needed and what goes into you know this gumbo, which is your experience. And and I would say that I I don't even know if I consider myself brave now, you know, as much as I'm just willing to, you know, make mistakes along the way and learn from them the best that I can is not to repeat them.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

Finish the thought. Creativity requires courage, a willingness to mess up.

SPEAKER_03 34:12

Like some people get so stuck in the mud that they never start. Like people are like, oh man, I wanted to write this poem, but you know, it just it just kept sucking. Or like I'll talk to some of my students who reach out even now and they're like, you know, I tried to write, you know, but it's just not good. And it's like I try to compare writing and creativity to going to the gym. Like if you haven't gone to the gym in years and you go to the gym, it's gonna suck. Like you're probably also gonna hurt for like a week. Like it's it's not a good experience. But like the more you go, the more regularly you go, the easier the process becomes, the the more likely you are to see results. And that's the same thing with creativity. It's like you have to get in the reps, like you have to push through the clunkiness, you have to build a routine out of it. Like you have to if you really want like the muse to pour into you. Like that's that's what you need to do.

SPEAKER_00 35:00

Uh, what would your last meal be?

SPEAKER_03 35:01

I'm not somebody that has favorites, so if you ask me this a different time, like every month, I'll give you different answers. But today, I'll say that my last meal would be the curry tofu from Shea Olga with a side of spicy slaw.

SPEAKER_00 35:18

What's the best or worst advice that you've ever received?

SPEAKER_03 35:22

I think it was something along the lines of being careful about helping people because people won't always return it. I would say is probably some of the worst advice.

SPEAKER_00 35:34

What's a small everyday thing that brings you joy? My dogs. Alright, I'm a dog guy. Give me it. Give me.

SPEAKER_03 35:41

I have I have two dogs. Uh one's named Baldwin. He's like a three-year-old Doberman. Uh, he's a goofy, he's a goofy boy. Um, and Zora uh is a five-year-old uh Shepherd mix that we got from the Humane Society. She's a tiny little girl, she's like 35 pounds, but she's mouthy and snippy and always got something to say. Um, and the thing that I love too is like there's some people that like train dogs to the point of where they don't have personalities, like they're almost like so obedient and like cookie cutter, and like if you're a service animal, I understand that, you know. But I love when pets have personalities. Yeah, you know, when they have just like so much of their identity that pours through them and like you can see who they are. Uh, and that's one thing that brings me joy is like my pets' personalities.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

Uh, what are you listening to right now?

SPEAKER_03 36:34

What am I listening to right now? Uh I'm I I constantly am hopping around uh different things. I think that the things that get the most play in all of my libraries. I listen to a lot of Mac Miller, I listen to a lot of Black Pumas, uh, I listen to a lot of Absol, Kendrick, um, I listen to a lot of J. Cole. I would say a majority of what I consume is probably rap and hip hop.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

Love that. We're gonna make a playlist. Give me a song.

SPEAKER_03 37:06

Black Moon Rising by the Black Pumas.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

Awesome. Do you have any regrets? So many. Anything you want to talk about?

SPEAKER_03 37:14

The the end of my wife's life, you know, is probably the thing that I hold the most regret around. We were a non-monogamous couple. Um and I and I and it was joyful in the sense that, you know, she got to experience parts of herself that she might not have been able to if we weren't non-monogamous. Um but at the end of her life, you know, when you're navigating, you're already playing the dip you're the game on difficulty ten with death and dying. You're watching somebody transition. Navigating non monogamy on top of that shouldn't have been something that we were doing. There was one moment, um, one argument that we got in where I got jealous and I wanted to go after one of her partners. Um somebody I had partner over exaggerates, somebody that she romantically was very invested in. And I feel like if I had a time machine, I just would have ignored it. You know? The whole point in her being able to experience parts of herself was because the time wasn't promised. But at the time I was still jealous, I was still angry, I still felt like I'm losing my significant other and still holding the the common thoughts of what if this person leaves me? What if this person falls for somebody else? Like, no, this person's dying, like shut up. That is why I ended up you know, walking away from the diatribe. That's something that a bunch of local activists and change makers latched on to because they were like, you know, he's not somebody who's worth supporting. Like, look at he's not a good person. And for a long time I just kind of like was really, really quiet about it and took it because I felt like I deserved it. Um there's probably part of me that also still does. But more than anything, I don't even regret it because of the things that people say. I just regret it because whenever people think of our relationship, they just think of the beauty, you know. They think of like the things that they saw on Facebook, they think of like this couple that was so resilient and walked with each other to the end. And I hate that I made that mistake because like it it tarnished this legacy of love that we built. And I felt like she deserves, you know, more stories than that, more stories than the time that I failed.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

Last question. Are you okay?

SPEAKER_03 39:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would I would say that I'm I'm way better than I've been. You know, if you if you asked me that question two years ago, right after my wife died, man, I was really not okay. Yeah. If you asked me that right after everything happened with the diatribe and I got like pushed out of this organization that I loved and founded and gave my life to and gave way too much of my time to while my wife was dying, I was not okay. Um, if you would have asked me this, you know, six, seven months ago when I lost my job because people were gossiping about my life at my job, I was I was not okay. But today I I feel okay. You know, today I I have time, I have breath in my lungs, you know, I I'm creating, I'm doing shows, you know, I'm I'm I'm trying to get better, I'm trying to do the things that I can do. Um I have a house, you know, I have really nice shoes on, you know. You do have nice shoes on. But it's just like I like I like I'm I'm grateful, you know. I have so much more than I've had at certain times in my life, you know. I I have so much more, I am so much more. Um so yeah, I I am okay. Uh I feel really, really, really grateful.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

Man, I can't thank you enough for coming out here today and helping us kick off the new season of this thing. And uh thank you for your vulnerability. Thank you for coming in just open. Um before we go, where can people find you?

SPEAKER_03 41:06

Yeah, Marcel FablePrice.com. Uh M-A-R-C-E-L Fable F-A-B-L-E pricepr I C E dot com. You can go there and my link tree is there. Uh all of my everything is there, or you can just, you know, search Marcel Fable Price in Google or Instagram or Facebook. Um, just yeah, anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 41:28

I love it. All right, you want to get out of here? Let's do it.

SPEAKER_02 41:31

Getting tired of healing all these noises in my head. I can't make them go away.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

Bad Idea Social Club is an independent podcast made possible by merch sales, reviews, and listener support. And it's created and hosted by me, graphic designer and McCall, and co-hosted by photographer Joe Madison. Music is noises by Mike Mates and the branches, get Bad Idea Social Club wherever you did your podcast.