Unpacked In Santa Cruz
Mike Howard talking ....
Unpacked In Santa Cruz
Episode 48: Moana: The Coffee House Connection: How Small Communities Shape Our Lives
What happens when you leave behind the only life you've known to rediscover yourself? Moana's journey from Los Angeles to the shores of Santa Cruz reveals how changing your environment can transform your understanding of who you are.
Growing up across various Los Angeles neighborhoods, Moana developed a chameleon-like ability to adapt while secretly yearning for genuine connection. Despite her natural empathy and talent for drawing people out, something was missing. After ending a long-term relationship, she made the bold decision to move to Santa Cruz where her father had lived for over twenty years.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn as Moana explores her Polynesian heritage and the surprising personality traits she inherited from a father she barely knew growing up. Through reading the writings of her ancestor—the first Tongan missionary—she discovered emotional patterns that resonated deeply across generations, challenging our understanding of how identity forms beyond immediate environment.
Her candid reflections on pursuing acting in Los Angeles expose the disconnection prevalent in an industry supposedly built on human storytelling. The contrast with Santa Cruz's natural rhythms—where stepping outside means immediate access to beaches, mountains, and forests—illustrates how our surroundings shape our mental health and ability to hear our authentic voice.
Now studying to become a nurse at 33, Moana embodies the courage it takes to redefine success on your own terms. Her story reminds us that sometimes the path to self-discovery requires leaving behind the familiar to find spaces where your true self can emerge—whether that's in a small coastal town, a local coffee shop community, or simply in moments of connection with the natural world around us.
Okay, welcome to the Unpacked and Naked podcast. I'm your host, michael Howard. This podcast comes to you from Santa Cruz Vibes and Pointside Beach Shack. Thanks so much for listening. I just want to acknowledge that you know it's been a minute. I got the norovirus and that was not fun, and what you're hearing in my vocal cords? There is damage from vomiting. So there, you know people, you do not want the norovirus, but anyway.
Speaker 1:So sorry for the break that we've had the last three weeks, but I'm really excited to get back here because I get to sit with someone that I have been observing now for a year and I'm going to sound a little creepy here, but this is really her first time spending more than a minute talking with me.
Speaker 1:But when I first met this person, there's a couple of local coffee houses that I go to and though I will leave where she's at unnamed, there was a group of us that just started coming to this place. That, um, it really, for some reason, this crew of workers is just represents a particular kind of kindness and culture that lives in Santa Cruz. It's not that everybody's uber friendly or whatever, but but this is a place I go to every morning that I can, and they know me by name and, and they treat me with respect, and they treat everybody with respect. Everybody's the same in there and they know everybody by name, and it was just intriguing to be known in a spot where I wouldn't naturally have thought that that's what would happen. But here we are and, moana, welcome to the program. It's nice to have you here.
Speaker 2:How nice, what a nice introduction. I never would have realized. You usually come in and not I wouldn't say disengaged, but you always see it, but maybe that's you just observing as well.
Speaker 1:Oh, me disengaged.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not disengaged, but you're just low key.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I think with the local coffee shop thing it's kind of what was necessary, especially over COVID. You know, because you know the well-highlighted places. Again, you know I love them, I love the owners, I know the owners of the places I'm alluding to. They're really good people. It just became a thing.
Speaker 1:And then Santa Cruz became a thing, so everybody was coming to a thing and thinking that the thing was the vibe and I just, you know, like Santa Cruz is not a thing, you know it's. Santa Cruz is a place and there's people here and sure you can come and visit but, like you know, in in the theme of the people who choose to live here, it's an experience that it's not the easiest thing to get through. You know, there's a lot to being from here and it was just funny because, like with my group, like we all just started showing up and you're seeing us all starting to meet there yeah, now it's thinking of a few people now, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, you, you know, you know a couple of them will be on the podcast, so you'll recognize the names.
Speaker 1:All right, all right when they came in. But, moana, you know, for the audience, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, or?
Speaker 2:oh, um, I don't know. I I don't know, I'm pretty, pretty simple. Um, I'm actually, I'm 33. Uh, I just moved here um maybe two years ago, but I've been coming here ever since I was a kid, cause my dad's lived here for over 20 years. My brother and sister have lived here, grew up here, um so little brother, little sister.
Speaker 2:Yep and uh, yeah, I, I actually Yep, and yeah, I actually loved coming here, because I grew up in LA and we grew up it's definitely a different town and I'd always hear stories from my brother and sister of things that they do, you know, like, oh, surfing's not working out, let's go cliff jumping. Like what the hell? Cliff jumping, what is this place? And every time I'd come here, everyone was always so nice and I always had an idea that one day I would move here, but it was never actualized. I never had a plan. And then, two years ago, I was actually leaving a long relationship. Um, I was actually leaving, uh, a long relationship. And uh, I called my dad and I was, like, what do you think about me coming down? And he said, sure, yeah, I've been, I've been waiting. So, uh, I stayed with him for a few months and then I ended up moving out and now I'm here.
Speaker 1:You're here. I love it. Odd enough, 33 live with your dad. I know that. Odd enough, 33, living with your dad. I know, yeah, that's got to be weird. Oh, I don't live with my dad now. No, I lived with him for a few months.
Speaker 2:For a few months I was like I just need to get out quickly, and I did. And here you are. Here I am. Yeah, no, no. I haven't lived with him for like a little over a year.
Speaker 1:It was weird.
Speaker 2:I've never lived with my dad before. I don't think I'd lived with my dad in 30 years at that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because we left my mom and I left when I was three. Okay, yeah, it was strange. It was very strange because I was getting to know him, basically.
Speaker 1:And yeah Well, you know, the thing thing is, is that's part of a natural cycle? Anyway, it's like you know, you have your childhood experience with your parents, however that happens, yeah but as adults, like it's an ongoing experience, you know, because there's somebody you didn't know and that was your dad. When he was your dad, you're getting to know the adult version, minus all the tension yeah of having to raise kids or whatever else you know, because, cause I'm going through the same thing. I'm just now getting to know my adult children.
Speaker 2:You know that they left the house and they kind of individuate and become their own.
Speaker 1:They go be their own people. They come back. You have to get to know each other and you know it's like the whole flow of that is like. You know it's weird on the parental end too is cause like it's not just that we change, it's, it's that it's uh like that transition from become from parent to peer, which which is a hard transition, yeah, you know, because do you trust your peers, like let's start right there am I sure I trust my peers?
Speaker 2:Do I have?
Speaker 1:peers, like we all kind of go through that same cycle. And when it's your parents that's even more awkward, especially when you're in a room together all of a sudden and I both know, both my older boys are going through that and like I feel horrible for them. You know just as particular dispositions with the economy and you know whatever happens.
Speaker 1:And you know my middle son's finally going back to college, you know, after being out of the military, you know, but he's lived this whole other life yeah, you know like he's he's a pretty well-formed adult could be anywhere but stuck with the parents you know, in the moment and you know, oldest son just got out of a relationship and he's six months into being home and you know he's almost 30 and it's like the data. I'm sure it sucks yeah, you don't have to have to live with the trauma of like, wait a minute, I left this place yeah, and now I'm back.
Speaker 2:And yeah, it was strange. I had, you know, I hadn't lived with a parent in you know over a decade, and I hadn't lived with my dad, let alone your dad in three decades so yeah, it was interesting. Yeah, it was interesting. One of the most interesting observations was thinking I'm nothing like him because I didn't grow up with him. But then I realized there are so many things that I've inherited from him personality-wise, that I inherited from him even in, you know, his absence yeah and it's just, it was strange well.
Speaker 1:so what do you think that is? You know, because, because it like you know I don't know how much psychology you listen to, but you know there's a fellow named Gabor Mate who talks, you know, about things we call genetics, but he's more trauma-associated as it pertains to this content. But there's a spiritual quality to who you are that comes from your parents, whether you're with them or not. That's my view of it. I don't want to impose that, but it's like there's this spirit and this nature that lives with us, that's from our parents, even when we're not around them, and that's so. I don't know what you.
Speaker 2:It is interesting. Well, his side of the family, they're all Polynesian, okay, and so a lot of that, is very A lot of that culture does go back to your roots your blood. And, um, sometimes when I talk to him, uh, I do feel like there is, there is something that that that is hearkening back from you know yeah, millennia.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and um, yeah. I don't know if it can be explained in science. I'm sure it can be explained in scientific terms, but yeah, it's interesting. I he gave me a book written by this great, great, great, great, great great grandparent, um, named cio eli bulu, who was the first tongan missionary. Um, and he was the first tongan missionary because they didn't allow Tongans to be missionaries, but they ended up sending him because the Fijians this is going to be a fun story after this.
Speaker 1:I'm struggling with my words because I'm realizing I'm talking to a microphone, but the Fijians who they were trying to christianize were cannibals.
Speaker 2:I know my entrance is there so as soon as you'd get ghost face up in those islands, they were immediately, immediately, eviscerated, yeah, taken apart, eaten up up, and so they decided, okay, we're going to have to send in some people that can mix in a little bit. So he was actually one of the first missionaries that was allowed to, I guess, hold that priesthood and got sent over.
Speaker 1:So was he Christian or Catholic, or do you know?
Speaker 2:I don't know what kind of Christians, but they were Christian. Okay okay and yeah, and so I'm reading. He ended up, you know, becoming incredibly educated. Wrote books.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wrote books.
Speaker 2:And he told the story of his childhood about how his father, who was this chief, still wanted to retain the old ways and retain the belief in the gods. And he didn't. There was something within him that just felt different than the rest of his peers, the rest of his family, and I guess his father kicked him out to go live with another chief who had accepted the Christian ways.
Speaker 1:Oh gotcha.
Speaker 2:And it's a little bit dramatic even it's interesting because when I was reading his words, the way he felt emotion, the way he described looking at the world and, of course, his perspective led him to be um close with the, with the christian religion and the and the and jesus, um, but the way he described his outlook on the world, the way he described himself and just the raw emotion over it because polynesians are very emotional people I I just I felt like I was reading something that I could relate to, I could um, um, it was weird, like the, just the types of perception that he had.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'm not a religious person, but it's that emotionality, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And my dad has that too. We have our issues, but like there's just this strong desire at least to be connected you know, and it's the strong desire of this, the strong emotionality you know yeah and um desire to be connected. It's, it's. I don't. I feel like I. I feel like I'm kind of talking in mumbo jumbo right now.
Speaker 1:No, no you're, you're making sense to me. Well, look at, want me to pull it in a little bit? You know, and, and and you know, just for anybody who's listening, is education, you all, throughout the Polynesian islands, which is, and each is its own unique thing. I was in Fiji in 2016 and I, you know, I had a strange experience myself, you know, because the, the, the main, uh, the guys who were taking care of the surf guys were both black, you know, but you could tell they were not Polynesian, and both of them were like look, I'm not one of them. You know, it's like well, how long has your family been here? Oh, like 200 years. And you're like you know what's, what's happening here.
Speaker 1:And then, you know, I got a little little gauge on the history, you know, you know all the slave trade stuff that there were particular slaves that were able to escape, you know, bought by the French, by the English, you know to, to Fiji, and you know it's such a unique culture in and of itself because every world religion is represented there, like it's crazy. It is so crazy to be there, you know. But what he was saying is, look, look, I, my people, didn't eat people. That's what he was, you know. Then we got the history of the resort, you know, from the guy from Australia who owns it.
Speaker 1:He's like, oh yeah, man, the tribe just stopped eating each other, like these two tribes. So for me to even get the resort, you know, the Fijian government required me to make the tribes get along, you know. So like he has an equal balance of all the different things, you know. So you have the Thai people that are there and that like that's, that's its own thing. And then you have the local Fijians, and that's its own thing. But like these guys were eating each other when I was like 12, you know, like it wasn't that long ago, you know, like it's crazy. You know like it was, it was like a mountain away. No, it's not this one that's employed by us, but the one like right over there Like they're still like not cool with what happened.
Speaker 1:You know, so it's. You know, for us from a Western worldview. You know we're only 100 years into the concept of nation states. You know, like it was not, like this idea of having countries is really new you know, democracy, all this kind of stuff, those are just ideas.
Speaker 1:And you know, in a brief history lesson it's like we're in a hundred year experiment right now you know that has boundaries and all this kind of stuff and laws, and it's not that other cultures didn't have laws, but you know we're outside of, you know kingdoms and kings and you know now we're to fascists and whatever else. Anyways, you know it's so fun, such a fun moment. So why don't you tell me a little bit about LA? So what was it like?
Speaker 2:Something that you had said. It did remind me of my original point that I was going to, but then I I don't know, man, I see this. I see this micro phase from the microphone from my peripheral and I panic a little bit. But one thing I was reading in his diary was about how he felt, so, um, disconnected from his, his father, because, a, because he had different beliefs, but also because his father had an idea of who he was going to be when he grew up.
Speaker 2:And he, as his own person, had his own idea about who he is and who he was becoming and, of course, he used the religion to help him connect. Yeah, exactly the religion to help, um, help them connect?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, but I can see that with my father, with how he felt with his father, and then I see that in the way that I'm kind of trying to connect with my father because, we didn't spend much time together at all, Um, through my childhood at all, through my childhood, through my teenage years, early 20s, mid-20s, and so I'm really getting to know my dad now and he's really getting to know me. And there's this I can tell he has ideas about who I should be or who I am, and I find myself just trying to almost shake him and like this is who I am. This is who I've been becoming.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, that's kind of what I was saying. Well, listen, if it's any help to you, I'm 55 years old, my dad's 91. We're still having that conversation. Yeah, I don't think it is, it's kind of the nature of the parent-child relationship.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, I think as a parent I mean I can speak for myself here you garner wisdom when it comes to you and when you accept it. And there's so much, there's so many pains that as a parent you don't want your child to experience, because the wisdom's available without the experience. Sometimes. You know, and, and yet you know, we're all little human beings and we're trying to figure it out ourselves.
Speaker 1:And you know, you, you happen to be in an age group where it was kind of offered oh, figure this out on your own, but then it was so controlled, you know, it was like no, then you're going to be here at this time and that time is like well, I'm not really figuring myself out here. I figured out that you figured out what I'm going to do next, and I'm not sure if I I necessarily want that, but I guess that's what we're doing right now with your idea of who I am. You know, so it's. I mean, the process is strange and this is the space I live in and talk about a lot of like. You know, how do we undo these manufactured ideas of who we think we're meant to become, as opposed to just being who we're meant to be?
Speaker 1:yeah and what time is allowing you know what the people that are around us yeah that that level of I'm not saying I'm more conscious, but operating in that type of consciousness is a very hard space to be in of just accepting like, well, okay, I'm going to actually accept who I am flaws and all you know, I'll try to fix these things. But gosh, I don't know if this ever gets fixed in my lifetime.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, but it's interesting, I find, like I find that I have a lot of similarities to that side of my family. I'm, I'm, um'm working on my prerequisites to become a nurse now. Okay, and then I realize a lot of the women in that family are nurses or caretakers. So it's interesting how it all kind of comes full circle. When you were talking about whether there's something you know, there's some spiritual connection or something, and I definitely do think that there are traits that get passed down, yeah, or I don't know.
Speaker 1:Well, you know. So my dad was a fireman, as you asked me, what was it two months ago?
Speaker 2:Did you train to become a cop?
Speaker 1:I trained to become a cop, right, because I didn't want to be a fireman because dead babies, you know all that kind of stuff, whatever, Anyway, so you know, that was a laugh between us. Like, of course I'm, you know, trained to be a cop. I look just like one, that. Or a contractor, right, you seem to have ex-cop vibes. I don't ooze hairdresser or pastor for that matter. But, um, you know, the funny thing is is like all my kids are in EMS, you know, they're all, they're all there, you know. And my middle son's, you know, studying to be a nurse right now too, and you know he was a corpsman in the Navy. And my other two sons are lifeguards. Middle son was lifeguard too at some point, just to work for his brother.
Speaker 1:But but what I didn't know is that the last name, howard, means protector. Wow, you know, and like, like it's, trust me, like every family member that shares my last name, like they just are, and it's weird to go like, well, it's the legacy of the name, like who knew? Yeah, you know, and I just found that out two weeks ago. I'm like, oh, that makes everything make a lot of sense, like there's just something, I guess in our genetics in some way that you know our heads on a swivel. We see things. We're willing to run into the fire when everybody's ready. You know running out, and that's just part of what it means to have the last name howard. Yeah, and it has nothing to do with my dad, doesn't have to do with his dad, it's like just the history of the name. It doesn't matter whether it's German, english, for, like you go down the list, like it just means the protector of the King you know which is like well, that's so weird.
Speaker 1:It makes a lot of sense to me. But LA, so you lived in LA. La so you lived in LA. So where, where, where? Where's your first memories of LA from what? What was LA like for you when you were a kid?
Speaker 2:My first memories of LA, so I can remember. I can remember my first birthday, so I remember Northern California first, because I'm from here, um, but we moved down when I was three and uh, mostly the Valley, so uh, sun Valley, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't think you're no go for it. Listen, I have international listeners. Hey, for those of you in France and England, right now and Sweden who are listening to this. I see you. I see you on my little board. So I got them in LA too, so go.
Speaker 2:Sun Valley, pacoima, um Van Nuys, we lived in Panoramas. We moved a lot. When I was, a kid.
Speaker 1:When did you live in Van Nuys? I'm curious, was it the early 90s?
Speaker 2:Yeah, early 90s Okay yeah, Were you there.
Speaker 1:I went to church there. Actually Did you really? Which church I went to church on the way? It's a big one. Okay to church on the way. It's a big one Jack Hayford's church.
Speaker 2:Van Nuys Boulevard. I think it was Van Nuys.
Speaker 1:Boulevard. Yeah, he had two. They had two campuses, like it was massive. Yeah, the guy, it's another story, but you know, I know him personally also, that was the denomination that I was a pastor in. So so Pastor Jack's, pastor Jack, you know he's, he's, he's a, he's a cool guy, but anyway. So I spent some time with Van Nuys getting coffee with other Christians.
Speaker 2:Getting Tommy. Okay, so Van Nuys, uh, and they're mostly in the early nineties. We moved around quite a lot Um and uh. I've lived, lived in Burbank, glendale, highland Park, alhambra.
Speaker 1:Oh, you did the whole deal on the Inland Empire?
Speaker 2:We did, and then I remember a brief moment my mom started making pretty good money, and so she moved us from Pacoima to Agoura Hills.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because she didn't want us around gangs. She didn't want, she didn't want to surround gang. She didn't want to surround violence and it was ironic because I didn't know about any. You know, I knew drugs existed. I knew people who used drugs around me and my family, but I didn't know children who used drugs I didn't know children who had sex, anything, anything like that. But we moved to Agoura Hills and these kids were crazy.
Speaker 1:Just the money added to it?
Speaker 2:I think so it was a completely different mentality. It was a completely different culture, everything, ethos, everything. I had never met kids who had sex.
Speaker 1:That was mind-blowing to me. Not until you went. Who had sex?
Speaker 2:yeah, that was not until you went to agorahill, not so you went to the good neighborhood yes, it was until we went to the good neighborhood and I started being raised around uh, rich kids wow, these kids are crazy they knew things I had no idea about.
Speaker 1:Um yeah, yeah, because you know they're like.
Speaker 2:They're the sons and daughters of bankers executives I went I went to school I executives. I went to school with children of Hollywood producers, so yeah, it was quite interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, what we're calling Los Angeles is really the greater Los Angeles County. It's its own juggernaut. It's, you know, the miracle of COVID that I you know. Here's a funny story. I'm on, I'm on the 405. I actually stopped in the middle of the road and peed and only three cars passed me in the middle of COVID, like I was. Just I was, like I.
Speaker 1:It only takes like 25 minutes to get through la when nobody's there yeah, it's crazy, it's awesome it's crazy how small it is was way smaller than santa cruz is as far as getting on the freeway, but, like if you live there, it takes you an hour to go five miles.
Speaker 2:You know it's yeah, it's very congested now it's very congested and weird and it changes every day. I, we, we used to go to echo park a lot because that's where my step families, my stepfather's father, lived and it was deaf. It's definitely that was. It was a different neighborhood. Yeah, I mean you couldn't use the lake back then, you couldn't be, you couldn't be black in that neighborhood. Yeah, because it would be just too dangerous.
Speaker 1:There's a problem. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's that that. You know, it was strange to me when I was down there, you know, because at the time I was working the garment business and you go to beverly hills I didn't know it was persian. Oh, you know, like, and it's like like you know, all of a sudden you're with sheiks and like, yeah, okay, like I didn't, I didn't know, yeah, you get so much culture there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's crazy, I came up here and I realized like damn, there's no Armenians here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Where am I going to get my lavash? What is this? Yeah, there. Yeah, it's amazing, though I mean I know a lot of Santa Cruz people have. It's almost like they have a disdain for la and I. I completely understand, but you can get anything, yeah I know at any time you can get so many stories. I've met old women who lived in, you know, iran when you could wear mini skirts there and dance around when, babe, you know. It's amazing the stories that you could get because there's just so many different types of people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, I, I, I, you know, my listeners know I love the state. More importantly, I love this town, you know, and, and I wouldn't call this a diverse town, that's, that's the wrong way to put it.
Speaker 1:You know, my running joke is if you tilted America left, everything loose would land in California. If you folded California in half, everything loose would land in Santa Cruz. So it has its own kind of diversity to it Diversity of thinking, I think, is the best way to put it. There's a libertarian value that lives here. It just lands left or right, but mostly it's like I'm cool with you, just don't touch my shit. You know it's kind of santa cruz. You know which is not that different from hawaii, you know which is. You know culture you're from. You know it's like it's got this thing and like it's cool man, you got a vibe with it. Just don't don't mess with the wrong corners, because because you're going to find something you don't want.
Speaker 1:If you stick your head in somewhere you're not supposed to be and having grown up having that being normal to me it is a big contrast to LA, which is so shut down. If somebody's talking to you, you probably shouldn't talk to them. That was what was weird about LA it's like nobody talks to anybody.
Speaker 2:See, that's been a lot of people's experience, but I didn't really ever have that experience. Well, you grew up there, People always thought even people in LA didn't think I was from LA. People would always ask me if I was from Northern California, or they would ask me if I was from the South.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so people actually talk to you there.
Speaker 2:I don't know what it is. I'm actually. In my personal life I'm definitely much more of an introvert, but when I go out into the world, I've never had trouble with people opening up to me.
Speaker 1:You got the thing yeah.
Speaker 2:I remember in high school I had this friend who we were walking through downtown Burbank. She tells me oh my God, I hate walking around with you. I was like why? She's like because at some point, at some point someone's going to talk to us or we're going to sit there and you'll have a conversation for 10 minutes. I don't know what to do. I just I don't know.
Speaker 2:I've never had that problem, but I I only see how it shut down when I've gone to other places like I lived in atlanta for a little bit and people there just oh, they're talking to each other yeah and that's when I realized oh okay, I get what people say, how people in la don't know their neighbors and don't talk to each other, because I would see people talking to each other and I realized I don't see a lot of that yeah, yeah it's, it's funny, you know, because the south in general is a very polite society.
Speaker 1:You know that you, you need to know your neighbor yeah you know, because, depending on where you are in the south, you could be, you know, miles away from any help. You know, so it has a different culture that that that exists, that is, is far more abeamable to other people. You, you know being around them, you know cross them and you're got a bigger problem than you would ever want you know, but so it's.
Speaker 1:It's weird how the country has so many different kind of personality arches and and uh. So you were in LA. You know childhood was moving around a lot. You became an adult, were you, were you pretty static as an adult?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, I was ridiculous, I think I I tried to put on every single hat that I could find just to try it out. You know, I actually always I actually I haven't talked about this and I hate talking about this portion of my life, but I, because it's so, it's so, uh, it's so. You know, LA, but I, I wanted to be an actor for as long as I knew. I just never I didn't realize until I actually started doing it that I did that. There was a business around it. Yeah, I always, I would always be in my room.
Speaker 2:You know, I'd always be in my room reading. I first started with the Greece, the Greece play, so I started reading that one. And then I started reading book, different books, and I would feel so cause I was quite isolated as a child in my home and that's a whole nother story. But so I would always lock myself in my room and I would just read books, listen to music, and that's how I connected with the world. I would watch TV shows, I'd watch movies, and that was my way of connecting to people and I felt like in that space, in that room, I could connect to everyone.
Speaker 2:And I could understand the core of people and humanity and um, and it definitely helped me not shut down as a child. And I it made me a much more empathetic and I didn't realize that that was that was. Acting for me was a way of connecting, was a way of understanding, and so I found out I wanted to do that in my early 20s, and when I went for it I also realized I do not like the business of acting.
Speaker 1:The casting couch is real, like it's all.
Speaker 2:I never had that experience, I think because in my early 20s I think it was pretty obvious to people that I was not experienced and I just didn't get it. I just didn't get the sexual innuendos at the time and no one was ever overtly sexual to me in that way. But I couldn't do the because I was also very depressed in my early 20s and so I couldn't do the. All right, we're going to fluff up your resume and now we're going to take all these headshots and we're going to have to hold down. I just couldn't manage the dynamic schedule, I guess, where you'd you know you'd have your waiting job and then you'd try to put yourself on every single website to try and find auditions and then you'd book those auditions and then you'd drive down to Fairfax and then you'd go over to Santa Monica and you'd go over to and then you got to go back for your you know waiting job. Like I, just I couldn't do it and I had this. Great for me, my favorite thing was just going to acting class.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I didn't have to sit down with people and you know, oh hi, my name's Moana and blah, blah blah. I just couldn't, I just couldn't do it, it and um. I had this great acting teacher who was so frustrated with me all the time because most of my most of my um bookings with casting directors or talent uh scouts were through that yeah, I'm through that acting teacher and he was always so disappointed with me, like, what did you do?
Speaker 2:this week? I went to the thing you told me and they want me to get a SAG thing and I'm. I just didn't know how to say that this is what I want to do. But the business is not what I want to do. I just want to be in class. I just want to be in class and I want to read um, and I didn't even really know to know that for myself either yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I I mean that journey is complex my journey is is different. It's not dissimilar, though, you know cause. When I was down there, you know I had this caveat right.
Speaker 1:I was a good hairdresser so I could show up to whatever thing and play whatever role I needed to. You know, had a very good friend that was a photographer for child's been Simon at the time which was the main agency for L magazine. But but but you know I've told the story before. I won't tell it to you, but you know I got my moment. You know it was like where I was a maid guy and I turned it down. You know, to actually cause I just met my now wife and you know my my friend was stunned that I was turning down the gold card for a girl. You know he's like there's lots of girls dude, like I'm not sure. You know I'm not searching for them. So like you're coming with me, like you're good.
Speaker 1:But you know what people don't know about the business is just how gross it is. It's very gross, how judgmental it is. You never feel good about yourself. You're always too fat, you're always too tall. It doesn't matter what you look like, especially, you know, at my age group. You know I I doubt it was much better. You know it might've been. I think it was hidden more with your age group, it was more out loud with mine. You know where the casting couch is the same. It's all guys casting, it's just their choice of whatever sexuality. You know, choice was was what was on offer, you know.
Speaker 1:And so if you're a good looking young guy, you know, and you look young, that that is a premium for them you know for most of these guys that I'm dealing with in that world and you're like I do not roll that way and you know it's, it's uh, it's gross. You know, looking back the the farm, that that is. You know, and not knowing you know which person is the right contact or what you're being utilized for in whatever web of hell that you happen to be in the middle of that you're trying to rise out of.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know it is a web. If you don't like that lifestyle you don't want to snort cocaine and do weird shit with each other.
Speaker 2:Exactly Randomly yeah.
Speaker 1:And you know, and the people that do rise to the top, you know, like, like the heartbreak I still see it in their eyes because you know what happened. You know on the way up, because they got there, because the road's the same, you know there's only so many stops and everybody has to get gas somewhere and that's just how it is, and it's such a dirty, it's just hard, you know. But but all this is funny in a way. You know, not that portion of it, but but I was going to ask you cause I see you seeing everyone. Somehow I don't know that you do it.
Speaker 2:And I was going to ask you like.
Speaker 1:So you have a theater background or some sort, um you know, but but it's nice to just hear it flow, you know from you that way that that it was. It was evident to me that you were in the field at some point, just by how your coping mechanisms during work at times watching you sink into yourself a little bit and I can tell whether there's tension in the room based on whether you're singing or not.
Speaker 2:It does help. It does help. It does help me get there. Um, yeah, definitely, I mean it's what you're talking about is definitely very real. Um, I've personally never, uh, have been propositioned like that, but I know tons of girls that have been propositioned like that. I've heard of men talking about being propositioned like that, for, but I know tons of girls that have been propositioned like that.
Speaker 2:I've heard of men talking about being propositioned like that For me, I think, because I wanted to act based on connection, based on wanting to work with people. Well, actually, I learned the skill of working with people, or rather, I needed to learn the skill of working with people, communicating ideas, things like that. But I, I I wanted to connect to this bigger story of whatever you know was needing to be told, and and that's based on connection. And I realized that there is. The business is predicated on lack of connection. You'd get to some industry, party or whatever and you'd walk around talking to people.
Speaker 2:And I was so naive back then. It was very odd. I went through a lot of stuff as a child and a teenager, but in my early 20s I was still pretty naive and hopeful, I guess. But I'd be let down when I'd talk to people and then I could see them suss in. It was a pattern. They'd suss out who do you know here? Who are you Like? What agencies are you from, who do you know? And then, as soon as you tell them who you know or if you're like, oh no, sorry, I don't know that person, you would just see their eyes glaze over and then, as you're, you'd have a great conversation and then you'd you just see them glaze over and like kind of scan the room behind you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then, oh, like excuse me, and then you could just see them. You know, kind of working, working through it and kind of working, working through it, and you know it just turned me off, I couldn't be around that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, look, you know I bagged out. You know it was right before I got married when I decided just to be done with it. You know there was another kind of intro when, you know we had a shop up here, I had another one down on Melrose, and you know it got kind of re put on the table. You know, to do what I want to go into high fashion and, you know, be one of those stylists, that that is, you know, traveling around and getting paid. What you get paid to touch models, you know which is all that that that really means.
Speaker 1:You know it's not not as though. You know, know, what we're picking up in images is anything new or can't be learned by someone off the street. It's just that, it's just this weird connective tissue. You know, with the right agent, with the right moments, with the right people, that's who makes it. And you know I, I, this criticism of like nepo babies is like, well, maybe they, maybe they didn't get harmed. You know, like there's, there's the, but they had to be raised by people who were, you know, yeah, they didn't have to go through the ritual that lives in media.
Speaker 2:It happens to even people who grew up in the industry too, you know. Like what's her name? Tatum O'Neill or Drew Barrymore? Yeah, well, again, this is more my age, you know like what's her name? Tatum O'Neill or Drew Barrymore?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, again, this is more my age. I'm talking about like maybe now.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, but you know, I have enough coming across my news feed with the Kardashians, even though I, you know, even you know, to see just how Miss Jenner, you know, is just like she ruined her kids. It's cruel.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The process that they put themselves through to get to where they're at. Totally More power to them, good on them. But whatever, Don't keep that a mile away from me. I don't want anything to do with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So let's segue a little bit here out of sadness, here how gross the media industry is? Yes, we all know it's gross. That's why we live in Santa Cruz. But you decided to come here because you're deciding to be the person that you're going to be. And what's it been like to be here? And decide to be here? Love it, yeah I love it.
Speaker 2:It's definitely a different pace. There's a lot more traffic in here in the city than I remember, um, from like 10 years ago, but I love it. Yeah, I don't care, I'll take this traffic. Oh, oh, I'm sitting in traffic. I've got to be next to the on a bridge on Murphy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, staring at the ocean. What was me?
Speaker 2:Exactly so I will take it. I love it here. Um, and I think one of my issues sometimes when I get the little get, the sads, is sometimes I'll I slip into inertia and I can just walk out and I'm instantly connected with nature, where we're kind of stuck to our phones or there's just extra sound and screens everywhere of just that you're alive. You're alive and you're growing and you let go of old things. Yeah, it's really nice to be able to be around nature and observing patterns in nature, just natural rhythms, and then kind of applying it to myself. So it's been really awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my wife has a theory about this place. She's really funny because she's been here for again most of her life. At this point We've been together for almost 35 years and she's certainly lived here for 34 of them so far most of her life. At this point. We've been together for almost 35 years and you know she's certainly lived here for 34 of them so far. And uh, but you know when, when people ask her, are you from here? She's like oh no, no, I'm not from here. I would never say I was from here, like you have to be from here to say you're from here. So it's always funny for her oh yeah, I'm from, I'm, I'm from here. She's like were you born here?
Speaker 1:No, like you're you're not from here, like I'm glad you chose to live here, but like that's not from here, but whatever. Uh, but you know she shared with me, like we were just having this conversation on the beach and you know we were in this reconnective. You know form, you know just spending slow time together. You know I'm just watching her picking up shells at the beach and that's what she does. And she came to me and said you know, I wonder if this place is just so filled with trauma because people just come here to nature and there's so much nature and they just data dump. You know the nature's just taking it on. You know, like, so every tree is accounted for. You know every shell is accounted for because people are coming here to undo what's been done to them.
Speaker 1:And I thought you know that that, really that makes this town make a lot of sense, you know, cause it is. It has attention to it, but it has a piece. And that's really, at least to me, once I got over my angst about all the change. It's like, oh, this is really a peaceful place when you allow it to be what it is, but really it's. You know, 250,000 people bringing their angst.
Speaker 1:You know it's like, then we moved here because there's so much angst everywhere else and we're coming with that angst to be here and not have it anymore. You know. So when you, you know, step out. You know what is it that you're trying to connect with with this town. You know when you, you know when the singing's not working right.
Speaker 1:Right Cause, as I watch you, you know things get tense, you know, you, you, you check out, you start start singing, like it's a beautiful coping mechanism. I, I, I, honestly, whenever I'm watching that moment, I'm sitting over there smiling and and in my in my heart just like, yeah, man, you know, taking care of people sucks, you know, you know, managers are managers and blah, blah. You know all the stuff that happens and everything's got to be. You know, you know, you know, you know, you know cause I've been a business owner, so I've been that person.
Speaker 1:I'm that asshole also. So it's on the service side. It's rough. You know you got to beat the hell out of your staff and pretend like you're nice to everybody else, you know. So you know it's. It's. It's a strange thing being being a pit boss in a service industry format, but but for you, you know when, when you were expressing and I'd like to hear more words about this when you walk outside, when you feel that intensity, what is it about this town that feels so much different than LA, you know, than other places you've been Atlanta that you get to come, just be somewhere and it gives something to you just by being present in it. You know what is that for you. Like, do you go to the beach? Do you go sit in the trees? I live near the beach.
Speaker 2:It's amazing. It's the access, really it's the access and the rhythm. You know, I'm sure you know bigger cities You're kind of you're at the behest of the city's rhythm and it's really hard to get back into your own, back into your own. So, yeah, for me, I think coming to this town has been about getting to know my family and getting to know myself, and nature has been really helpful. Yeah, the access to it really helpful, yeah, it's so. The access to it is is unreal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, in LA you've got to drive. I mean, it's there. Yeah, it's in the middle of the city. We have the St Gabriel's, we've got the Santa Susana's. On the other end it's, we have a lot, but you have to drive for it and here, you know, you walk out of your door and then driving is kind of stressful, but here you just walk out of your door and it's there. It doesn't matter if you have to go down the block or something, but it's there. When I first got here, I was, uh, living um closer to downtown. Um, cause my dad, you know, he's a West side guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, god, watch out for those guys.
Speaker 2:So we were over, we're over, a closer on that end and um, so you know, you kind of have to go through downtown to get to, uh, the beach and you know, still it's, it's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you're, you're 10 minutes, it's like it seems so far away. Like you know, if you take the Highway 1 loop and you're just out of the coast.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you're in downtown. It's downtown anywhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know downtown anywhere with lots of homeless people now? Yes, you know it's its own demon. Now it's so weird to see all the eight-story buildings, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, that's true. It is so like it is weird.
Speaker 1:You know the homeless population is going to go away, but you know what we get in in replacement is these high rises.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:In some strange way That'll fix. You know one problem but create another, but like.
Speaker 2:Or it'll get shuffled.
Speaker 1:If you get, if you get downtown, you wouldn't know necessarily. You're next to the beach.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:And yet it's just right there.
Speaker 2:Even if you don't go to the beach, you go down the San Lorenzo bike and path.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, I grew up here, so it's so normal to me to have so much access, but there are still so many things I haven't seen.
Speaker 2:I've heard that because when I you know, people always go to LA and they'd be like oh, have you heard of this? Have you been here? I'm like I've never heard of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know what you're talking about. I just live here. What thing I just live here?
Speaker 2:What thing I just live here, and I find that sometimes it's tourists who or people who move to the city that will tell me a little bit about something that's there. I had nothing that I had no idea about.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, yeah, it's got the strange mystery to it, because there's always more to explore. You know whether it's on a mountain bike trail, you know there's that always that one that's like. I wonder where that goes. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But those go to houses.
Speaker 1:You don't want to be there, just so you know.
Speaker 2:But nobody's so unfriendly here, yeah, okay, well, I walked into this lady's backyard. I didn't realize it was her backyard until I was in her backyard, yeah. And um, because there were some, uh, bald Eagles right above her and I was trying to look at the bald Eagles and I was just walking up I mean walking while looking up and I just kind of happened in her backyard. Um, and she, she was so nice about it, she was like what are you looking at? And I'm like oh, these bald eagles.
Speaker 2:And she's like oh, thanks for letting me know I got to take my cat inside those killed kittens and she just let me look. People are pretty friendly here. I don't have a lot of issues with people being unfriendly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there are places you get met by weapons, but you know, you know you're traversing into those. The air changes just a little bit. Yeah, the old camp area when the helicopters used to fly over to find the farms, yeah, you can kind of sometimes yeah, there's always like some random old 1950s appliance in the middle of the field and you're like oh this is where I have to leave. This is the marker. This is the weapons marker.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Gotta go back now.
Speaker 1:So tell me a little bit more uh, not personally about your dad, but did he grow up here also, or did he move here?
Speaker 2:Um, he moved here. Well, we would always come. I do remember coming here, because I think he just migrated his way, because he's from East Palo Alto, okay, but he just got into surfing, yeah, and so he just migrated over here.
Speaker 1:Tough part of Palo Alto back then Back in the 90s. I know. I visited recently. It just got cleaned up.
Speaker 2:I really wish my grandparents had held on to their house. Oh, right, right the house they bought for $20,000.
Speaker 1:Because you did not want to live in East Palo Alto.
Speaker 2:Once you cross that bridge like whoa, exactly, exactly, it's so ironic, like exactly, exactly, um, it's so ironic, though I had that area there's. Almost every street is named after a good university.
Speaker 1:Pali is the weirdest. Yeah, that's a weird town.
Speaker 2:And then, uh yeah, he just kind of migrated over bit by bit when he started surfing um down.
Speaker 1:I guess highway one, guess highway one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, first you know yeah, and then just slowly across the 92 and then worked his way down. Yeah, so he's been living here, at least, and here or somewhere on highway one since. I was like what? Maybe 10, 11, okay, so yeah, yeah so when I'd visit it.
Speaker 1:It'd usually be around here yeah, yeah, no, but it's you know, because your dad migrated. From that angle you got a view of santa cruz that most people don't get, which is north to south okay you know, because most people don't know about that corridor oh, let's not talk about it.
Speaker 2:Well, well, just kidding, I'm just joking well, I mean in half.
Speaker 1:Moon bay has changed so much. You know, pacifica is now a bedroom community to the city and yeah, my mom lived in pacifica, so like it's getting all built out and screwed up and you know, like, like the, the, the coastline has changed so much in my lifetime, like multiple times.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, it just is a very different feel to it, like it's kind of having a Renaissance moment in a way. You know that the farms that were still intact are actually being utilized again.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But they disappeared for 20 years. Yeah, you know cause that farming went somewhere else, cause the trains were moving different and you know there's, so there's. You know there's a character to every space, depending on the commerce, yeah, and what what can be bought and sold in?
Speaker 2:whatever region, I hope the farms stay because I think having those big open fields um where people can come and pick their berries or a pumpkin patch or a corn maze. You know that. You see along, along that, um, that highway. I think you use the land more, um, and it helps those farmers out. You get to know the culture, you get to know the people.
Speaker 1:Yes, pay $20 for your pumpkins, please.
Speaker 2:I'll pay the $20.
Speaker 1:Don't stop getting the $5 pumpkins people.
Speaker 2:I uh, it's interesting when you I've I go down that that way to San Francisco sometimes and it reminds me of Pacific Coast Highway just the way it looks. But it's not built up like Pacific Coast Highway. I mean, I guess some people would argue that it is gatekept, but it's not as gatekept as Malibu or Zuma or something.
Speaker 1:There's these corridors still that I like to allude to. Everything's south of Big Sur to San Luis. San Luis, it starts happening again. And then you have the other corridors, come down to Santa Barbara. If you know your way around, you know, through the various, you know what are, in essence, farming areas, you know, but there's still that little magic corridor from LA, you know, just north of Malibu, to Ventura, which still has that California magic.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:I try to drive that at least once every five years, just to like remind Oxnard runs through there, yeah yeah, yeah. It just goes right to Oxnard and like if you're in LA you wouldn't know you're 20 miles away from magic still.
Speaker 1:You know that does represent what California used to be. You know, of course, everything south of there now is just covered with houses and commerce, and unless you're in Palisades but you know now Palisades isn't there, but anyways, you know poor people. But you know what we represent here is so unique because we do have that. We have what the Pac Northwest has. It's a little smaller moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but real, like it's long and you're not getting anywhere fast and you drive fast, getting pulled over by a cop, you know from a small town who's gonna write you a fat ticket because that's how they make their money. But but that magic of you know going up down the coast which is how I grew up of just seeing california and its beauty, like it's still capturable, like I still love driving the 101. I still love going the long way.
Speaker 2:It's beautiful yeah.
Speaker 1:So, as we begin to wrap things up, you know, like for you, you know you're 33, you're rebooting your life, you've moved from LA. What drives you Like, what gets you up in the morning? Now you know, I'm sure you're not in your favorite job you've ever had in the world.
Speaker 2:Oh, definitely not, no, definitely not. But I do try to get up every day and have some sort of integrity in the work that I'm doing you know, the manual labor. But no, I get up and I think about my goal. I want to be a nurse and I think about the things that I can do with people, the people I can meet, the people I can help, the things I can learn, and I just I focus on that and I think about the life that I can build once I have that security underneath me. I think about the place, all the places I could go.
Speaker 2:I think that's a Dr Seuss book. But no, I yeah, that's what gets me going, is that goal, because I did so many things you know, like got my yoga teaching license, got my EMT, like I've tried to act and I think now I have just the certainty, because I think most of my decisions were powered by what would be, I don't know, the most respectable, I guess, or where I should be, and I never really asked myself what I wanted and what I want my life to look like. And I have an idea now and I just think about that.
Speaker 1:What was that process like for you? Like when you realized that you were trying to be something that maybe someone else thought of or that you had imagined yourself was success to this person you're trying to become, you know, which is someone who I think you really want to be now, you know, was that painful to oh no, I think it was confusing, but definitely wasn't painful.
Speaker 2:It was confusing and I was spinning my wheels for a long time because I thought therapy would have been a good spot for me. But I realized that at this stage in my life it's probably not what I think is best for a patient to experience. For me, you know early, early thirties, where I still have to get my by the time that I would get my master's degree. I still have to build the business and I don't want my patients to ever feel, uh, any of the stress of my personal life, and I think that in that field I would probably have a lot more of it. So, yeah, I didn't want to have any of that. So when I kind of realized exactly where I wanted to go I don't know it was illuminating. I feel much more confident and, yeah, no pain. I think the only pain now is starting to transfer all my credits and doing different physiology, anatomy and the redundancy of the former college experience right Having to bring this thing now.
Speaker 2:It's like really this doesn't count Exactly and now I'm like, wow, I worked on a bachelor degree that I don't think I want to get anymore. I think, that might be the most painful, but yeah, it's it's. It's it like to see the? You know, I had some facsimile of a person that you were, you know.
Speaker 1:But you know it isn't really who you are, you know. But just that you've been willing to come and sit with me and just be open and honest about, about this stuff has been great and and you know it's. You know the character of who you are shines, just so you know, as someone who, again, I get to go about the community right now, I get to hand out a card that says something about a magazine, so somehow that authenticates what I'm doing. It's so weird. Nobody knows what's going to happen to them. Of course I've certainly interviewed friends and things like that. But you know, for the strangers that come and sit across from me that don't know me, you know, I know the fear, you know walking up, you know who's this crazy gray-haired guy Like well, you have a podcast.
Speaker 2:Like who the fuck cares about a podcast? But whatever, I know when you told me.
Speaker 1:You know, hopefully you felt like I gave you enough time to process that I'm not a psychopath, but there is a certain reality that lives in that and I'm kind of getting used to that because you know for the most part you know I am who I am, but a stranger doesn't know who I am and I'm just another one of a thousand people that walk through your institution every day. You know that are coming to pick up coffee, and so I appreciate you know that you were actually willing to sit down, but I just want you to know how much I appreciate you, thank you that every morning you're a smiling face and for someone that we have similarities let's just put it that way that there are darknesses in my heart. You're a bright spot in my day. Every morning when I wake up I know that I'm going to get a friendly hello and be known somewhere in my town. That I know, you know with you know it's just all good.
Speaker 1:You know like you're a good part of my day, so thank you so much.
Speaker 2:I look forward to seeing you too. When you weren't in for a while, I was thinking what the hell happened to me.
Speaker 1:The mochas are five pounds. So, that's the other part that I actually have to get on track a little bit again and kind of meter myself.
Speaker 2:There are other options.
Speaker 1:Well, the sugar ratio, you know in the morning, you know it's. It's unfortunately a thing when you get to my age and you have to be a little bit careful with it. So I'm deciding what next disciplines to involve myself in, but, but it is. But it is a funny thing. You know, for those of you who really know me, that this is a person who brightens my day and that's why I wanted to hear from you. You don't know me, I don't know you, but thank you for being you and doing what you do.
Speaker 2:Thank you for coming in.
Speaker 1:I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:You deserve a smile, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, everybody, thanks so much for listening and we will catch you on the rebound, but I hope you all have a good day. Bye.