Empathic Reasoning with Speech Teach Jimmy Urbanovich

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What if story isn't just how we communicate, but fundamentally who we are? Communication Studies professor Jim Urbanovich joins us for a fascinating exploration of narrative as the very foundation of human connection and understanding. 

"Story is not optional. It is essential," Jim explains, setting the tone for a conversation that weaves through decades of shared history, the power of metaphor, and the critical importance of civil discourse in our divided world. As a former pastor turned communication professor, Jim brings a unique perspective on how sharing our stories creates bridges across seemingly unbridgeable divides.

Jim Urbanovich is currently a Communication Studies professor at Crafton Hills College in Redlands; he is a former pastor, a father of four, and a grandfather of two. He’s been married to his high school sweetheart (and regular Language of the Soul guest), René Urbanovich, for over forty years. Jim is the author of "Critical Thinking in the Age of Social Media" and formerly a blog titled, jimmysintension.com. 

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:45

Jim Urbanovich is currently a communication studies professor at Crafton Hills College in Redlands. He is a former pastor, a father of four and a grandfather of two. He's been married to his high school sweetheart and my dear sister and regular guest on Language of the Soul, renee Urbanovich, for over 40 years. Jim is the author of Critical Thinking in the Age of Social Media and formerly a blog titled jimmys's intentioncom, in jim's own words. As a communication studies professor, in either a part-time or full-time capacity since 1989, I've come to realize that story is what makes us human. Life is story. That's our tagline. By the way, story is not optional. It is, is essential. I love that. Story is how we learn, communicate, connect, heal and stay sane. Each breath we take is another step in story creation. You're speaking our language. Welcome, jim Urbanovich.

Speaker 2 1:43

Oh, thank you. Thanks for being here, I guess that kind of answers the big question that comes first, doesn't it?

Speaker 1 1:50

Well, I don't know, I think there's always, like I said, I think there's always more to say about story You're talking about a rote question.

Speaker 2 1:59

Yeah, is that what you call it, a rote or rogue? Oh no, I meant rote.

Speaker 1 2:07

Since in the new season it's our go-to question and we're we might sorry for Virginia, I repeat myself a lot, don't I? We might create a little highlights reel or a little compilation, because it's magic, I would say it all every week. But yeah, people come up with some really fascinating ways of saying it and there's a lot of universality. But it's kind of poetic and beautiful. The different ways people phrase it Don't disappoint us. Well, okay, I'll try. No, I just, I do know that about you. I, I guess for our listeners I will let the cat out of the bag. Jim is, if I didn't say it, my brother-in-law and I just did the math.

Speaker 2 2:41

I've known you since I was 11 and I forgot you know, my memories of you, nick, are just a little boy sitting on a kitchen table looking at Lima, bent over, like drawing. That's you, because that's when I think, when I was probably 16,. You were 11.

Speaker 1 3:01

Yeah, exactly yeah, five years apart. But then I did the math Is that 40,? How many 45 years that I've known you?

Speaker 2 3:09

Well, that was 1981. So again, I'm not very good in math, but there you go.

Speaker 1 3:16

To be honest, my first memory of you Renee brought home there was a button of my parents at Aunt Marnay's wedding. That was literally 70s, but there was a picture, you know, a really beautiful picture of my parents and they made it, for whatever reason, a button out of it. And I remember Renee, she met you at Burbank on Parade right. You guys were aunts together.

Speaker 2 3:37

No, it was the Rose Parade.

Speaker 1 3:40

That's what did I say. That's what I meant. You said Burbank on Parade. I think that's a separate one.

Speaker 2 3:49

Well, you got a great memory.

Speaker 1 3:50

Well, I used to work, you know, I used to, yes, go ahead.

Speaker 2 3:54

Yet Well, yeah, we. It was a big picnic basket and Renee and I auditioned to be ants in the picnic basket. I have no idea why we got chosen. I mean, do we have an ant like body?

Speaker 1 4:08

I was going to say what a waste of your looks, you and Renee both.

Speaker 2 4:11

Well, anyway, we got chosen to be ants and your mom made the costumes.

Speaker 1 4:15

Right the latex butts. Remember those.

Speaker 2 4:20

So it was definitely a whole Domingo family affair.

Speaker 1 4:24

Yeah, and I had a whole relationship with the Burbank Rose Float Association. I used to go get high on the glue and put the flowers on every year, yeah, and then sometimes right down there with it. You know you camp out on Colorado Boulevard and then years at art center actually I did scale drawings of Eric Anderson's float. He won the contest so I did the scale drawings and then I that year Burbank just never had any money. They may now, but I remember that year I went, I down there with the float and you know, tried to sleep on the sidewalk and then you wake up and I'm like, does that be draggled looking thing? Really, our float dragging flowers?

Speaker 2 5:04

Well, you know it's funny. Years later, when we we moved back to Burbank for one year and we're taking our kids up to the burbank library up there on glen oaks and there was a picture of that float on the wall in the burbank library with us you can see, I mean it was kind of grainy and old, but it was a picture of that, so the woman who worked in the library was kind enough to make us a photocopy of it.

Speaker 2 5:26

So we actually have that picture of us on January 1st 1981, dressed as ants, riding on a float.

Speaker 1 5:32

That's amazing.

Speaker 2 5:33

It's a pretty precious memory. That was really more or less our first date. We spent the night together. You know what I mean? We'd sleep together. But we had to go to Pasadena by what midnight the night before and then we had a trailer down there and we just kind of stayed up all night and well, and the rest is history that's funny.

Speaker 1 5:53

Yeah, no, I have never had that many details, but I did know that's how you met. But I do remember that button and renee had been talking about the guy. She really liked you, she had a crush on you, and so I saw the button and I just thought my dad upside down was you. I said, oh, is that the guy you like? But anyway, then we went to Disneyland with Pam. Do you remember that?

Speaker 2 6:14

Oh, I remember Pam.

Speaker 1 6:17

Yeah, well, that's the first time I spent time with you, and Pam, for whatever reason, drove us all down to Disneyland and you actually looked across the table, and maybe it's that I was a little gay boy, I don't know, but you told Renee, can you tell?

Speaker 2 6:33

your brother to stop staring at me. That sounds like something the 16 year old Jimmy would say.

Speaker 1 6:41

It's so out of character for me, though I don't stare at people, but I guess I don't know I was trying to size you up or something.

Speaker 2 6:44

Crushing on the older guy.

Speaker 1 6:51

I guess.

Speaker 2 6:51

So yeah, and here we are 45 years later and, yeah, the crush hasn't faded. Well, you know, it's funny. I wasn't at all expecting to talk about the 1981 Rose Parade float, but hey, that's a great story, right? Well, there you go.

Speaker 1 7:03

There's a lot of history there and, yeah, god, we could like with Ravi there's so much Burbank lore and specifically 70s San Fernando Valley lore. I guess I do have a question, since we already went there. We said we're open to rabbit holes. I feel like your older brothers well, mary Beth and Julie are a little bit older, right?

Speaker 2 7:22

Yeah, but we're all like I think Mary Beth's two years older, essentially Julie one year older than me, so we're about two years apart.

Speaker 1 7:30

Well, somehow I got it in my head and I'm hoping you'll correct me on this. Uh, stark, my buddy, my art center buddy. Stark, I feel like you went to school with stark, is that right?

Speaker 1 7:40

no, but we went to the same church together for a while okay, well, he's a burbank institution as well, right, and he's just enough older I feel like maybe he's your age, but he's just enough older I feel like maybe he's your age, but he's just enough older than me that he hung out with um like Ron Howard and swam in Debbie Reynolds's pool Like we had a little unglamorous Hollywood thing going on in Burbank. I do tell people that your, your older brothers and sisters like swam in Debbie Reynolds's pool. Did I make that up?

Speaker 2 8:08

Um, yeah, well, you know, it's interesting, ron Howard's girlfriend who's now he's been married to forever? Um, she grew up on evergreen street where I grew up on evergreen street, just one block down between Magnolia and Clark, and I was between Magnolia and Chandler, so every day we my dad would pick us up from school, we'd drive home. Ron Howard was out by his white volkswagen bug on evergreen street making out with his girlfriend before happy days or like during this was like before and during.

Speaker 2 8:39

You know kind of right 71 to I don't know 76, something in there, um, and then, if you continued on, cross magnolia to the other side side of uh, evergreen between chandler we. I grew up on the same block as debbie reynolds, right her parent.

Speaker 2 8:56

Now she got the house from her parents, right yeah, I think her mom lived there and her mom was the sweetest woman in the world and she would come down and ask if those kids wanted to go swimming, and just very, very sweet. Um, and then they sold the house and before they sold it they filled it with. They filled the pool with dirt, I'm not sure why I was gonna say how does that help?

Speaker 2 9:20

yeah, maybe, maybe there was I have no idea legality of something I don't know. But then it's funny because the people who moved in to debbie reynolds old house, first thing they did was shoveled out all the dirt and made it a pool again.

Speaker 1 9:32

Yeah, I'm guessing there was some legality there. Yeah, some money they didn't want to spend to make it up to code or something Exactly. So on that note. Oh, what about Tim Burton? Was he your? I mean, he's a little older than you, but he went to Burroughs as well, right?

Speaker 2 9:49

Yeah, I think, like Tim Burton, he went to Burroughs. Um Anson Williams, who was on happy days, I think he went to Burroughs. Ron Howard went to Burroughs, but all of them they're like you know, they got a good decade on me.

Speaker 1 10:00

Oh, really Okay yeah.

Speaker 2 10:01

They're there. I think they're kind of Howard, are close in age as well to each other. Yeah, I think that was kind of a whole generation thing and there was. You know, Burroughs has had some very notable people.

Speaker 1 10:20

I was going to say Debbie Reynolds was our prom queen and she was the tool time gal. No, Debbie.

Speaker 2 10:27

Dunning.

Speaker 1 10:27

That's what I meant.

Speaker 1 10:28

What I say, reynolds, yeah, you said reynolds debbie on the brain, yeah, debbie dunning, and then, um, my girlfriend nikki. Oh god, here we go with names. Nikki faustino her little brother was david faustino, from married with children, oh okay, and he was younger, but I did hear he would show up to her like he didn't. He stayed in public school even when that show took off and he'd show up in a luxury car in the John Burroughs parking lot. So it's kind of weird, isn't it a weird mix. It's not star studded by any means. I would see John Wayne at the supermarket and you know the cast of Happy Days. We would trick or treat at Henry Winkler's house and get the big candy bars, but it was really the blue collar jobs, wasn't it In Burbank?

Speaker 2 11:15

the. You know, the IATSE, the grips and the electric things like that. Yeah, you know, I think that's I. You know, I read strange cures Robbie's book and one thing that I really, really I mean I like many things about it. I just think it was a fantastic book but man him, him giving so much Burbank detail and I think he changed a couple of names around, probably for legal reasons, but just hearing he identified the streets and this corner and this alley.

Speaker 2 11:43

And there's something I don't know if you agree with me on this, nick, but Rene and I talk about it a lot. There's something about the Burbank mentality, and I don't mean the you agree with me on this, nick, but Renee and I talk about it a lot. There's something about the Burbank mentality, and I don't mean the Burbank of 2025. I mean the Burbank of the 70s and 80s and 90s. There's a mindset and I feel like when I meet somebody from that era in Burbank, there's like this instant connection. In fact, this was probably two years ago now. I was taking a hike I live out in Santa Clarita and I was taking a hike and I kind of unknowingly probably went on a trail I shouldn't have went. It might've been somebody's property. Anyway, somebody come out. Somebody came out, a guy around my age, and he kind of was trying to intimidate me and I was hey man, I'm just out for a hike, no harm, no foul, and we just start talking. Turns out he grew up on Niagara Street in Burbank. We sat and talked for two hours.

Speaker 1 12:37

Was this in Santa Clarita Valley?

Speaker 2 12:39

somewhere it was in Santa Clarita, kind of on some trail on the back of a hill somewhere, and there was like this instant connection. But whenever I kind of run across somebody from that era in Burbank it just seems like there's something you know, we share similar stories.

Shared History and Burbank Connections

Speaker 1 12:58

Yeah, absolutely yeah. I don't know about mindset. Here's what I would say Like, I just think you bond, you don't really have those opportunities to bond in adult life. You know, I sweated with my show choir buddies Do you know what I mean? Like so they're lifelong friends. I have friends from tiny tots at Verdugo park that I'm bonded with. But I just my opinion is you don't really have opportunities to bond in the workplace as much as an adult. So for me there's definitely a bond and you just it's like a language, yeah, cause you knew what it was like to hoof it on your skateboard across Burbank to get a dime bag. I mean, it was such a specific, I don't know like suburbs. It was kind of a neglected suburb in a way. So I think there's some peculiar peculiarities of the seventies. Do you remember the dude with the van that was completely covered with ornament? Of course I do.

Speaker 2 13:50

Right, he lived over there on Jeffries by Luther Burbank.

Speaker 1 13:52

Right, and then supposedly the unicorn was. You'd get electrocuted if you touched the unicorn.

Speaker 2 13:59

I don't remember that part of the story but actually that van guy's daughter, Tracy, was in my class, what's? Her last name. Oh God, you know what You're putting me on the spot.

Speaker 2 14:10

It's been many years since I've even thought about that van and for those who don't know, the van was he put like he drilled silver dollars right I don't know I guess he drilled silver dollars and different like weird paraphernalia, just drilled it onto his big old gmc chevy van and just drove around Burbank with just silver dollars so many like you couldn't even see the paint anymore. It was just and Dennis.

Speaker 1 14:35

Do you remember Dennis Woodruff, with his head mounted on top of his car?

Speaker 2 14:39

I don't remember that one. It was more like an.

Speaker 1 14:41

Angeline like a wannabe actor that just put his likeness on top. But how is that legal? Those are not street legal. But my point was like that dude, would he have the twisty handlebar mustache and he'd water his lawn Steingold.

Speaker 2 14:55

Last name Steingold.

Speaker 1 14:56

Oh, OK, yeah.

Speaker 2 14:58

I can't believe. I remember that.

Speaker 1 15:00

And so it's Tammy Steingold.

Speaker 2 15:03

Not Tammy. What did I just say? It was Tracy, tracy, ok.

Speaker 1 15:07

Yeah, someone did tell me they lived on his street. My point is he was quirky as hell, right, and where are those hippies now? Like everyone smokes pot now, but I'm sorry, I want like a real genuine hippie. That's uh eccentric. I miss those characters well, you know what.

Speaker 2 15:25

Let me take get a little of my communication professor side of me out here. When I teach about the communication process and all the various characteristics and noise and modalities and mediums, one of the things I really hit on, the number one thing, if you really want to connect and communicate with somebody, probably the most important feature is shared demographics. You know where you're born, what language you were born, types of jobs. Because, like back when I was in college, the traditional wisdom was that if you wanted to get married and hedge your bets for the, you know, a long and productive, wonderful relationship, you would marry somebody who grew up within four miles of you.

Speaker 2 16:13

Now, keep in mind this is pre-internet and this was, you know, in the 80s. But the idea being look if you grew up within somebody of four miles, if you grew up with somebody of four miles, chances are, you know you probably have similar friends, you have similar, you're in the same, similar socioeconomic bracket. You know you probably speak the same language. You probably have. You know you have very similar experiences and just to be able to communicate and use words that, hey, we're going to understand because we're of the same generation, same time, same. You know demographic, same geographic location, you're just going to be able to communicate more effectively. Now, it doesn't mean you know you can't communicate well with somebody else, but it just means that, hey, the more you know somebody and the more your demographics overlap, the easier the communication is process is going to be for for two individuals.

Speaker 1 17:08

So does that amount to compatibility, because you mentioned in the context of marriage right, so it would in theory make it for a lasting marriage because you are more compatible, because you can communicate well, it's interesting because there's this notion called complementarity and, like you can look at a like virginia. Virginia knows that well, right, well, she's talked a lot about how they complement each other and the yin and the yang and all of that Complete opposites attract that sort of thing.

Speaker 2 17:34

See, I think if you look at a relationship and communication psychologically, you don't have to be the same. An introvert and an extrovert can do just fine together. You know they can manage that. But if somebody is from Southern California and the other person is from Saskatchewan, there's going to be some problems Like so I mean, to me the overlapping demographic, uh, probably plays more of a important role than you know, overlapping psychology I don't think your psychology needs to overlap, right.

Speaker 1 18:04

Right, I get it. I get what you're saying. I'm going to throw a little spin on it and see what you think of it. It seems like a little bit of a tribal instinct to go with the familiar, right, that's alive and well. We have limited gene pools and then we have communities and there can be a counterproductive tendency to demonize the unfamiliar or bond against a common enemy, and it's very tribal. Bond against a common enemy and it's very tribal. So I think the familiar, that's what I hear when I hear that. Because I know you're a subversive individual, jim. I've known you for 45 years, so I think we're both a little subversive maybe, and so, as a gay man, I'll just go back to what you said.

Speaker 1 18:42

I do have a bond with my friends from high school that I did bond with. That's unbreakable, and I don't meet friends and bond with them in the same way as an adult. However, when somebody invites me to a brunch of Burbank chicks, I run the other way. So if I go to the Burbank Federal Credit Union, I don't necessarily want to run into anybody, and so I've had the experience of again I I will talk about this one brunch that I was talked into going to and kind of ambushed, and he literally, like a junior high school girlfriend, was invited without telling me and she didn't tell her. Uh, she, the organizer, didn't tell her either and she was put literally across the table from me and I found out later I was her first kiss, so just awkward across the board. And then you know this Dina, who's passed since, got shit-faced drunk and accused the waitress of stealing her purse, and so I just got this glimpse of a you know how, like everyone, was a stoner and then when high school came around, it was cool to be an ex-stoner and a Christian, was it? Oh, yeah, well, okay, by the time I made it to high school you were supposed to be done with your pot smoking and you went to you know calvary, bible or whatever.

Speaker 1 19:57

But point is it's this weird thing where they all rolled over and took a bong, hit every wake and bakes I call them for three, you know three decades and didn't really find themselves and now they're christian. So every and it's the women, for some reason every chick at that banquet was kind of jaded and leathery and smoked a lot and but christian, don't get me wrong christian right, strangely republican as hell put it, how does that happen? I think everyone of my generation is fairly progressive. We all watch the talk shows where you know what I mean. Like LGBTQ issues were put on display in the 90s. We all grew up in the same world. Why are there so many conservative maybe not MAGA, but Republicans coming out of Burbank? How does that happen?

Speaker 2 20:46

Well, burbank was always kind of a like. You know it's funny when people hear Burbank now it's not the Burbank we know. I mean they're almost two entirely different cities and you know Burbank used to be kind of that quiet bedroom community outside, you know, across the hill from from Hollywood, and it was kind of this little enclave. We didn't really identify with North Hollywood Once you cross Clybourne baby, you're in the jungle.

Speaker 1 21:09

this little enclave we didn't really identify with north hollywood.

Speaker 2 21:10

Right, right, right. Once you cross clybourne, baby, you're in the jungle right the potholes. You know it, you know from the asshole yeah, it's kind of like going from la county to orange county by disneyland. It's like, wait, what happened? I just entered paradise, right. Um.

Speaker 2 21:23

So burbank was this very quiet bedroom community, provincial very yeah, very working class, at least down in the flatlands where we were. If you're up in the hills, that was a little bit different story. Um, and but today I, I don't know. I I think burbank is now the entertainment capital of the world. So many people live there now, notable people in the industry and so on and so forth. But you got to remember, when I was, the Magnolia Theater was for a long time the only theater in Burbank. Yeah, there was one called the Cornell, if I remember correctly, up on the hill, but even that closed down.

Speaker 1 22:03

Yeah, do you remember the last thing to play at the Magnolia?

Speaker 2 22:07

Oh, great trivia question, but design adventure, I don't know.

Speaker 1 22:11

No, well, it's the last thing I saw there. Put it that way, tina and I went to a double feature of skateboard and roller coaster. Do you remember leaf leaf Garrett?

Speaker 2 22:22

Oh, I love leaf Garrett.

Speaker 1 22:23

Yeah, that was, skateboard was the leaf Garrett movie, but yeah, double feature.

Speaker 2 22:27

He had a TV show called three for the road. I remember back in the 70s, but anyway, after the magnolia closed down, burbank didn't even have a movie theater right, we had to go to the ua and north hollywood or the roxy the glendale or the.

Speaker 1 22:41

What was the other one on brandon boulevard, the roxy the glendale or?

Speaker 2 22:46

oh I you got me, but yeah, we have to hustle our cookies to north hollywood or glendale, yeah but even you know burp, I think burbank traditionally has been a very conservative community, kind of a conservative working class community, and I think it probably still has those roots. But even going back to those brunch girls that you find so repulsive now, when it doesn't mean like just because you're both from burbank, hey, we're all going to get along and you know, hold hands and sing kumbaya.

Speaker 2 23:11

I'm not suggesting that. I'm just suggesting when you communicate because of that huge overlapping demographic, you may like what the other person says or not, but there's going to be probably a greater enhanced clarity of communication to a certain degree.

Speaker 1 23:26

Yeah, like a shorthand, almost. Yeah, like you know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 2 23:27

I don't all right if I say almost yeah, like you know what I'm talking about. I don't all right if I say this to you, nick, do you know what I'm talking about? The breathing bush.

Speaker 1 23:35

Well, I think, moses, oh, no, that's the burning bush. Hold on, give me more. Oh, the oleanders, yes, yes On Whitten Hill.

Speaker 2 23:43

Highway, on Whitten Hill Highway, so like way, so like there. You just said a shorthand. If I said anybody else who's not from burbank circa our time, they say the breathing bush. What the hell are you talking about, right, moses? But yeah, yeah, there is very much a shorthand yeah, I'm with you.

Speaker 1 24:00

I just thought I did because you know I often well, you had me on your podcast as the token queer, if you remember that did I say that.

Speaker 1 24:08

Yeah, well, I think we named it Conversation with a Queer and I had never been the poster boy. It was awesome, I loved it, don't get me wrong, but it was a little sensational, right, the token queer. But anyway, I have given this sort of gay perspective from time to time that you found a little bit eye-opening, so I was throwing that in there for somebody like me. A little bit eye-opening, so I was throwing that in there for somebody like me. I am just shocked that, yeah, that conservatism hangs on, because I would have said, yeah, it was very provincial. A lot of construction. The guy graduates high school, goes into construction, his wife starts taking pottery classes at the park. Like my mom, right or macrame, you go to Calvary Bible Church. Like my mom, right or macrame, you go to calvary bible church. Very provincial, considering it's next door to hollywood, like you said so.

Speaker 1 24:55

But just my generation. And there is a difference between yours and mine, believe it or not. You know, you guys were zeppelin and halen rock and roll and we were mod and oi and punk and ska. We, you know, shopped at thrift shops and got our cardigans and our cowl necks and our penny loafers and so we were the new wave right and the punk and the ska generation, which is very different than the rock and roll generation. We all agreed, disco sucks, right, and country sucks, but I just think, you know, every few years you get a kind of influx.

Speaker 1 25:25

So but having grown up, it was still not okay to be gay, don't get me wrong. But we would go to dance clubs and it's like oh that dude, he's supposedly bisexual, look, he's wearing eyeliner. And then there was a trend of wearing skirts at one point too, like almost like kilts, but really skirts for guys. And but it was always somebody from another high school. Oh that bisexual guy, he'd get his ass kicked at our high school, but the chicks find it cool because he's from another high school. Do you know what I mean? Like it wasn't. It was definitely not okay to be gay. But I'm just shocked how many of my peers are right wing.

Speaker 2 26:01

Where do you think that hostility comes from, Nick Mine? No, no, no, no. The hostility that one feels towards the gay community Like why?

Speaker 3 26:10

I'm going to kick his ass.

Speaker 2 26:11

Where does that come from? What part of the human being? Why is that generated? Is it simply xenophobia? That person is different than I am.

Speaker 1 26:21

Well, that's what I was hinting at earlier, that tribal instinct to demonize that which is different. And I think we're evolving I mean, just since you asked, I I just attribute it to that and we're learning and growing and evolving as a species, right, so we have little, like we still have, canine teeth, even though we're headed toward veganism. Uh, your biology is a little slow to catch up. So maybe sometimes we know better, like you know even that trend of like Ooh, that she's an invalid. You would hide members of your family that were not. Do you know what I mean? Like meant to be visible, and so we're getting better about that.

Speaker 1 26:58

You don't say spinster anymore, you don't drown your puppy just because it's a runt. I don't know if I'm making any sense. Like we see the value in neurodivergence and we see the value in our diversity, but things hang on. So maybe, maybe it's just a real tribal instinct to demonize that which is different. And to something you said a minute ago, there is this idea too that, like the gene pool, will you need to be adaptable or die as a gene pool? So there is the odd individual it's not afraid of the stranger that can introduce new genetic stock into the tribe, if that makes sense, and they're the ones that build the bridges and fuck the stranger.

Speaker 2 27:38

I don't know if I've lost anyone, so you know, I mean let's go, let's go right back to story, because I think story and sharing our stories with each other is what's going to defeat that tribalism. And I was sharing with you, in kind of our pre-email back and forth, this eight-part lesson that I put my students through in my critical thinking class called Perspectives, and one of the lessons is all about just storytelling, like if you have two different kinds of ideological foes. It's so critical to share the story as to how we got to this final conclusion. You know how, like I, I, you know I got to this conclusion and you got to the exact opposite conclusion. I disagree with you. Now let me hear your story as to why you were led to that conclusion and hear my story, and then you may not agree with the conclusion, but you've humanized the experience and you've you've taken a step towards kind of diminishing that tribalism and it's really all through story.

Storytelling and the Human Experience

Speaker 1 28:43

Yeah, well, there's literally, um, just cause you gave me the opportunity, there's a study that says, of course, if you spend 200 pages identifying with a protagonist and being invested in their want and their need and their goals, um, that exercises your compassion and your empathy. But, more to the point, um, I guess tolerance for diversity and the other is proven to benefit from the reading of not commercial fiction so much, but literary fiction, because, yeah, you're getting exposed to cultures that you might not otherwise be privy to and you're actually seeing their humanity.

Speaker 2 29:21

You know, a good example of this is, you know, you never know this from a 2025 perspective, but, like this whole notion of transgenderism, for example, it's a. It's a pretty recent phenomena insofar as being, you know, in the mainstream cultural dialogue. You know what I'm saying. It's been around forever, but as far as it kind of being this phenomena that we talk about and discuss and accommodate, that's all relatively since, really, bruce Jenner, caitlyn Jenner, and so if you go back to like, let's say, 2007, 2008, I think if you went to the average, like, say, freshman college student, and say, what do you know about transgenderism, they're kind of like, what do you know about transgenderism? They're kind of looking at you, what's that? And I think people didn't really know about it and you tried to kind of explain it.

Speaker 2 30:16

The reason I'm coming to this point is back in 2008, I met a woman named Georgia, introduced to me by a mutual friend, and Georgia was born George and became Georgia, and I knew nothing about the transgender experience or movement. I didn't understand what it was. It was. It was I probably should have, but it was just a. It was a relatively new concept to me.

Speaker 2 30:43

I knew, like, back in the seventies there was a tennis player by the name of Dr Renee Richards who became Dr Raskin or something in transition. I remember back reading about that in Sports Illustrated in the 70s, but it was still all kind of vague and ambiguous and the way I felt at the time really not necessary for me to have a firm grasp on in my life because I don't really deal with it. Well then, after I met Georgia and I have had Georgia every year since 2008, come to speak at our campus and just befriending her and hearing her story, it, it, just, it just has given me such a connection to the transgender experience that I think most people today, when they're fighting you know, you know, against the trans there's only male and female and they're fighting the transgender. I think you just have never met one and shared stories together.

Speaker 1 31:39

Exposure stories. Yes, Exposure goes a long way. I will say people virtue signal oh, I've had a black person in my home, right. Oh, I have gay friends. Well then, you're not a very good friend to them. I always have that thought. Like Laura Schlesinger, Virginia we've talked about her and her go-to is like, oh, I have plenty of gay friends. It's like, well, you're doing them a disservice, and would they use that word so fast and loose, you know? So I think a lot of people think they have exposure, but maybe they're not listening to the stories, as you're saying.

Speaker 2 32:16

Well, I think there's a huge difference between kind of like hearing oh yeah, there's these group of people that are born one gender and they think they're trapped in the wrong body, and you kind of just hear it from kind of an objective and you go well, that doesn't make any sense. But then you talk to somebody and it makes perfect sense sense.

Speaker 1 32:32

But then you talk to somebody and it makes perfect sense, you know well, especially if you can respect them. And that's all I've ever hoped for is. You know what I mean? And that's kind of what I represented on your podcast was like, oh, a seemingly sane individual, you know, that has the same amount of dysfunction as everybody else and um, but yet he, we hope, is respectable. So maybe that's enlightening to people, but I don't know. I would say real quick too. Back to the Burbank thing.

Speaker 1 32:55

Like there's things I didn't know growing up. I, you may remember Harvey milk was in the news and the orange juice lady can't think of her name right now Like Anita Bryant, anita Bryant, and you know. Even like the idea that you could lose your job for being gay, especially in education, like that was all in the news when I was growing up and I knew San Francisco was the Mecca and that's where all the guys with the bushy beards and the sandals went and the earrings and but it wasn't. I didn't realize it was happening in real time, if that makes sense. I didn't. It seemed very theoretical and you know, san Francisco seemed like a far-off land and I don't know. I just think I was protected. My mom, god knows. She went to cosmetology school. She had plenty of gay friends, but God forbid, you speak the word, so that silence speaks louder than words. And then I remember when, yeah, you started seeing things in the news you knew, when they couldn't even say the word gay without choking on it. It was very uncomfortable. So if somebody goes, oh, I have gay, homosexual friends, you know, that's all you need to know, right there. It's hard for them to say the fucking word. And I remember this might've come up on our podcast, just the idea. I think Renee might've been the one at some point.

Speaker 1 34:11

Somebody said to me just know, because I was kind of in the process of coming out in all areas, including the family, and someone just said you know, just know, we're not gossiping about you, we're not talking about it, and I'm sitting here going, please talk about it. The whole goal is for it not to be a right, a dirty secret. I'm like talk about it, I don't care. So anyway, I think there's.

Speaker 1 34:35

I just think that, um, there's always something you don't know about history. In other words, there was a trans individual in the 50s and I don't think they did the operations back then, but lived as a female male to female that had a talk show, the first reality show, long before MTV started the real world. You, you would remember it, in the seventies there was a PBS talk show with a gay son. So my, I just had this like eye opening, like, oh, my God I was. That was hidden for me too. And my friend Fran will say oh, in Washington DC or Maryland actually college park Maryland oh, we had a high school instructor that was out that never would have happened in burbank. So that provincial mentality actually protected me from the progress that was happening all over.

Speaker 2 35:21

Sorry if I'm off track well, you know it's along those same lines. You know, when you were kind of prepping me to get ready for that question about the role of storytelling, kind of which we'll go back to yeah, right, you know, and how it has evolved and so on and so forth, you know, I feel like storytelling is, is like asking what role does breathing play in your or water play and it's like it's just so embedded in the essential you know, living out of our lives, that it's like it's it's.

Speaker 2 35:51

It is the human experience stories are, and I feel like conventions change, modalities change, the way we tell stories change, but the human experience does not change. And I was reminded of this. Renee and I just got back from Europe. Last Monday we went to visit Rosie in London and went to Portugal and I'm flying home and 11 hour flight I just got to, you know, trick your mind into thinking how can I make this not seem like 11 hours, right? So, anyway, I'm scrolling through the movies and I saw a Hitchcock movie strangers on a train. Have you heard of the movie strangers on a train?

Speaker 3 36:29

I've seen it. Actually it's a long time ago.

Speaker 1 36:32

Yeah, the title rings a bell. I don't know that. I've seen it yeah.

Speaker 2 36:35

I'm not a Hitchcock expert, I just two or three times a year I love to kind of go back to classic film and and watch it, if nothing else to see what kind of conventions worked 75 years ago and why, like the way characters relate to each other. It's almost the meta story. It's the story about the story that I'm more interested in actually in the story. So I'm watching this. Strangers on a train. It was, it was. I think it was made in 1951. And as I'm watching this I'm thinking this is so gay Psycho.

Speaker 1 37:14

Think about psycho. There was a lot of undertones there too. Go on Sorry.

Speaker 2 37:18

Well, yeah, and then there's a movie called ropes. I think it came out a couple of years earlier. That was that was gay themed, but but the word gay is not mentioned. There's no hint of it. There's no anything that would you could pinpoint, say this is definitely a gay themed film. But I'm watching the strangers on a train and I'm like this is so gay, like this is.

Speaker 2 37:40

This is like this is, without ever being anything to do with homosexuality at all like a sensibility it was just an enter, a gay energy right, and I'm watching, okay, and then I'm getting done watching it and Renee goes hey, how was it? And I go interesting how they told stories. And I go, you know, back then the male characters kind of sat closer to each other, or they. You know their personal space. Now, you know, two feet is about what we consider a comfortable conversational distance. Then it was like 18 inches, and so I'm watching this and so I gotta do some research on this and, sure enough, yes, it is written by a lesbian, patricia highsmith, who also wrote the talent mr ripley oh, there you go, yeah I was about to bring that up, actually, yeah that has not overt.

Speaker 2 38:28

Gay themes? Right, definitely gay themes throughout. But here's my point in saying, and even bringing that Strangers on a Train up, okay, back then 1951, anything mainstream. You're not going to have a gay themed film, but that doesn't mean the story isn't gay themed.

Speaker 1 38:45

Art reflects life regardless. Art reflects life. It makes its way in. Yeah.

Speaker 2 38:51

And I almost and I think I might know how you feel about this, but almost the subtlety of the kind of the homosexual erotic undertones, the subtlety of it to me was like more effective than just in your face. You know we're going to be graphic and I actually the subtlety of it kind of made me feel like more involved with the film.

Speaker 2 39:19

I love it, I'm getting more involved with the characters of it. But again, just because you couldn't have a gay themed movie in Hollywood in 1951, doesn't mean there weren't gay themed movies, right. But you had to tell the story differently to accommodate the sensibility of the period yep.

Speaker 1 39:37

Well, jim, have you ever seen the celluloid closet years ago? Well, it's pretty much about exactly this. So you know, pre-haze code, which is, you know, during the lavender scare and mccarthyism and all that that's really when there were specific you can't show A, b, c and D and that's when the FCC started enforcing this thing called the Hays Code, but literally silent film. 1929, just after World War I, pre-world War II. There's a movie called Wings. Have either of you seen that? It's literally a silent film and it's the first male-on-male kiss, and you know Will and Grace wants to take credit for that in 2004. But you know what Art reflects life? The first grainy bit of celluloid captured on film by Edison is two men dancing.

Speaker 1 40:30

So back to what you said, jim. It doesn't mean anything. There's a whole question about know history. That's what I was trying to say earlier. History is not what it seems. It's written by the winners, but you know what? There's a whole nother level to it.

Speaker 1 40:42

So I'm a big fan of this disfarmer collection of photographs of, you know, gay couples. We've been here from day one, but we were silenced and erased. But oh, this picture survived from this traveling, traveling photographer, right when these loving couple were living in their home and they couldn't put it on display publicly, but in the safety of a traveling photographer, on their own lawn. They're going to sit in each other's laps, so, but sometimes you go.

Speaker 1 41:07

Hmm, were those letters between Abraham Lincoln and his male companions? Is he really gay or was it just the Victorian intimacy that men were allowed right to maintain? We'll never know. Some norms change. Sorry, I'm just trying to reinforce some of the things you said, but just as a gay man, I will say that whole era where art reflects life, just don't say it. Single tennessee williams film broke the haze code right in really sublime ways, and maybe that's why creativity is so synonymous with being gay, because we had to survive right and express ourselves despite all these silly regiments. Have you seen many tennessee williams films, jim? Uh, you might want to, because it's exactly that, like this incredible sexual tension and gay sensibility that everyone was on board for as long as you don't talk about it.

Speaker 2 42:04

Well, I, you know, I'm curious. I just want to ask you a question, nick, because, um, I was listening to your last podcast with DC Gomez and you kind of broached the subject there, but I'm curious to get your thoughts on it as a as a professional storyteller. And that is, um, I'm trying to think of the opposite of subtlety, like the role of subtlety versus in your face, Right, right. Well, what's another word for in your face? That's a little bit more academic.

Speaker 1 42:27

I was going to say the opposite of subtlety might be overt, but I think militant in the gay community is the one where you rub it in everyone's face instead of working with the system yeah, but let's even talk, get it outside the gay community specifically.

Metaphorical Thinking vs. Literal Interpretation

Speaker 2 42:40

But like just the role of subtlety versus overt. You know, like I, I look at a lot of movies today. Like now they'll even show characters going to the bathroom, for example. It's just like necessary, um, you know what I mean. Or just like this in your face, we're going to sell it exactly like it is. There'll be no hint of subtlety, it's just going to be, you know, fleshed out for you exactly as is. And I'm thinking, you know, when you watch these old hitchcockcock movies or perhaps even Tennessee Williams, there was a subtlety that I think was very effective. And I'm just curious, as a professional storyteller, what is that role of kind of subtlety versus overtness and how do you see those two things working?

Speaker 1 43:31

I would love to answer that, virginia. I so know you've had things to say throughout. I'm going to invite you in in a second. I know you have something to say on this. But strangely, jim, I just saw a documentary on netflix about the making of psycho with uh, I guess it was a documentary, but they no, I'm sorry, it was narrative, it was a little biopic, but it was concentrated around the making of Psycho and it was a lot about. You know, they wouldn't allow him to show the stabbing in the shower or the breasts, for that matter, of course, but he had to find a way of suggesting it in a more poetic, suggestive way. Blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1 44:09

So when I first was listening to you, I thought, oh well, we all heard our grandparents say that. Right, like, why do they have to show it all? What happened to subtlety? So I started thinking hmm, just sounds like a conservative view. But what I would say is and we've had other guests come on and talk about this too the loss of nuance. So I do blame it on a lot of things, but the addiction to technology devices. Kids simply don't read books, so they don't learn about rhetoric or absurdity or irony, right? They hardly recognize facial cues because of these devices. I'm exaggerating a little bit, jim, but I just think nuance is a thing of the past and so it bleeds over. When you have this formula for episodic, uh, streaming content, like on netflix, you hardly recognize art anymore. I write a screenplay now I'm like well, there's nothing clever about it, there's no cliffhanger, it's not, not in the right format. I would have to self-finance this because it's an art film. I mean, art films still exist, niche films still exist, foreign films still exist, but the mainstream in which distribution companies are throwing money at content, it just lacks everything that defines art, everything that defines art. So sorry if, if that's vague, but I just think we've lost touch of what. What is literary value, what is artistic integrity? Because everything is just vacuous content now that is there to titillate and so, specifically, just nuances lost is my way of putting it.

Speaker 1 45:48

So I don't mind gratuitous anything. I love a good boob on the screen, but why does it? Why is it only okay to show the boob if they're also slitting the neck? So I have my own lines that I draw like why is this violence so okay? And yet our birthday suit right, in which God made us, that's not okay to show. So I just think everything's bass-ackwards. I don't know if that's a non-answer, but maybe our priorities are a little bit backwards. I don't mind nudity and I don't mind sex. I just want it to be done right, I guess, and not gratuitously. If it's germane to the plot, maybe, then it's okay. But I do think maybe a poetic way of suggesting something could make a comeback, just for art's sake.

Speaker 2 46:30

Well, I want to be clear. It's not that I necessarily have a moral objection to right, I'm just. I'm just wondering, as a storytelling device, you know, you know, does it serve the story better to have the audience do a little bit of work?

Speaker 1 46:44

right, exactly, it's interactive and let me feel like I'm figuring out with you yeah, no, that's what spoon feeding me absolutely, absolutely, yeah, that's I mean visual communication is interactive.

Speaker 1 46:57

So, like I was raised at Art Center on this conceptual idea, you you don't show the literal narrative scenario, god forbid. You show a character interacting in an environment, because you're simply reiterating the text. You suggest more by showing the shadows on the floor right, instead of the kings battling it out at the table. Show the shadows on the wall. Show the mice on the floor. Show the moment before or what they left behind after, anything but the literal depiction of what you just read in the text. And so it is more engaging when you use a conceptual approach where there's work for the patron to do that's kind of what you're saying right, it becomes interactive.

Speaker 1 47:41

And I would go so far as to say those things that get mapped on our worldview, right, the threats and opportunities that get mapped are the ones that are not just accompanied with high emotion, but those in which we interact, like you're saying, actively. We take those puzzle pieces and we resolve that cognitive dissonance or whatever it is we're left with. That's my opinion. All content should be art, all content should be interactive, like that you made me preach, jim.

Speaker 2 48:12

You know, know what a really good example of this for me in my life and I just thought about this just now. Do you ever see the movie Eyes Wide Shut? I did. I want to say that came out in 98, 99, 2000, somewhere in that area, so it's about 25 years old or so, and I saw that when it first came out in the theater and I sat there and I watched it, because this is kind of where I was at at that time in my life. I sat and watched it, literally like this tom cruise character goes meandering out one night, stumbles into a big mansion, there's a big orgy. You know the whole story yeah, I remember.

Speaker 1 48:51

I saw it rather recently, by the way well that I.

Speaker 2 48:55

I really enjoyed it even when it first came out in the theater, but I, my I, I really looked at the world much more literally 25 years ago than I do now. As I get older, I'm more of a metaphor figurative guy, but so I read about five years ago. I thought, you know, I want it's time to re-watch that movie. And this is after. Keep in mind, during these 20 years I've been through therapy and midlife crisis and I've been through a lot of kind of my own psychological shit. And, uh, I watched it again and I'm like, oh my god, I completely missed the entire meaning of this movie. And now, granted, that movie is very layered and there's been many written about what was trying to be said, but when I watched it as a metaphor for a journey to the darkest parts of our soul, right right, that movie took on a whole new meaning for me and like watching it.

Speaker 2 49:51

Okay, what is? What is the? The writer, the director, what are they? What are they trying to say here? And when I watched it metaphorically, oh my god, I liked it 100 times more well, there you go.

Speaker 1 50:03

The artist did. Kubrick did his job right, did you? I mean, kubrick did 2001 space odyssey, did you see that?

Speaker 2 50:10

I never did.

Speaker 1 50:11

Oh, that's a trip too, seeing it as an adult. It is so conceptual and kind of so abstract that I'm fascinated he got away with it at the time. And the more fascinating thing about that one is like it was pre-Star Wars but the production values were amazing, like the green screen and the little models he built are as good as Star Wars and it was considerably before that. But anyway, jim, you know that's interesting because as an artist you know you're not going to reach all the people all the time. Right, you're not going to be loved by everybody.

Speaker 1 50:47

You can actually consciously say I'm going to go for an elite readership or audience, I don't care about the masses. You know you can be an elitist about it or a romantic about it, but you just hope like or I just want to believe that despite themselves, even people that aren't trained right on conceptual, editorial illustration or filmmaking or anything remotely conceptual or metaphorical, as you're putting it, it's still going to reach them on a visceral gut level or just intrigue them or move them or somehow enlighten them. But it's fascinating to me that you're saying you didn't even feel that there were undertones or anything else going on other than the superficial plot the first time that's for me. It's like, oh shit, that's my worst nightmare.

Speaker 2 51:30

Right, and like even going back to the you know earlier, when I said you know, talking about just kind of in your face, overt, I said you know people going to the bathroom. Even in that movie there's a scene where, um, nicole kidman is going to the bathroom. You see her pull up her dress and just start going and like when you see that literally, it's like okay, why the hell are they showing her taking the leak, right. But then when you watch it metaphorically, it's like, okay, why the hell are they showing her taking the leak, right. But then when you watch it metaphorically, it's like, oh my God, they're making a statement about their relationship, right, that earthy, the reality of marriage and no illusions, no fantasy. It's just can get dirty and it can get real. And to me, like that worked.

Speaker 1 52:10

Yeah well, kubrick's no dummy man. Everything's there for a reason. That's kind of what maybe non-artists don't get. It's like nothing really happens by accident. And you know, with, I think, a sophisticated writer, director like Kubrick, it's there for a reason. I love that you appreciated it later, jim, but doesn't that have to do with? I will say this, and you're not giving yourself enough credit. I went to a play that you put on at Northridge. Really, you were young man.

Speaker 2 52:37

Oh yeah, that was a long the empty garden.

Speaker 1 52:40

Yeah, and it was. I was in it actually, right, I did a little monologue, I think, but you had a conceptual sensibility or you were mimicking art school theater, I don't know. You know what I mean. It was very conceptual, is the best way you can put it.

Speaker 2 52:55

No, it was. It was very. I didn't think it was very good. In fact I was kind of disappointed after the whole thing was said and done. But yes, it was. And I'm not going to say I wasn't capable of conceptualizing things, it's just kind of my day-to-day fallback. Mo is just kind of a literal, but again I could meander into the metaphorical, but it wasn't kind of where I lived and I think now I kind of live in the metaphorical world, the figurative world, and I don't take things literally like I used to.

Speaker 1 53:31

So yeah of course I'm not a different person now, but I just kind of operate on a different foundational sensibility do you think that most people let's see, I I do think people are linear and logical and um kind of left brain for the most part, or they're the other, more intuitive and maybe more right brain.

Speaker 1 53:52

I know we don't use those terms so much anymore right and left brain but I think you get what I'm saying. Linear and logical and empirical is one word I would use, whereas the rational side, which is not what it sounds like, is more open to the nonlinear, the absurd. You know what I mean. You don't look for a scientific basis for everything that's empirical and you just go with the flow a little more do. Is everybody meeting in the middle, jim, or that, what you described having more capacity for metaphor and maybe the gray area now, and I don't mean to put words in your mouth is that an arc we're all on in some way? Are we all just trying to meet in the middle, or does it correlate with convergent thinking and divergent thinking? What is that about you?

Speaker 2 54:39

that's universal well, you know what? I can't even figure out myself, let alone anybody else. I mean that's a loaded question. I mean I'm trying to figure out my own psyche. And it's funny, the older you get, like I thought, man, the older I get I'm gonna have it all figured out.

Speaker 2 54:53

The older you get, like I thought man, the older I get, I'm going to have it all figured out, man, right, because you get older and, yeah, there's certain things you do have figured out to a certain degree. But, man, I just realized, the older I get, the more unraveling comes along. And again, I'm just trying to figure out. You know, everybody is their own walking narrative, right, everybody is their own story and we're the main characters of our life narrative and life story. And what I thought was okay, well, that narrative stays pretty consistent. But what I found out over the last 20 or 30 years, oh no, no, you're always moving on to a different chapter. You know, your chapter two and three is going to be far different from 13 and 14. So, yeah, I can't speak for anybody else's narrative, anybody else's story, but I just know, you know, I know mine.

Speaker 1 55:43

I'm looking for a correlation because I do think we just relax sometimes when we get older and we don't need all the answers. We're more comfortable with ambiguity. So I just thought maybe it had something to do with that and I actually read once like the gray area were more comfortable with ambiguity. So I just thought maybe it had something to do with that and I actually read once like the gray area becomes more comfortable, I think, not having the answers. And I read a statistic that like it might be specific to france, but more they accept, um, infidelity a little more right, there is expressions in everyday language like oh, uh, they call it being abime. Oh, she fell in the abyss. Like oh, it's that time when you deal with infidelity, like it's just a given.

Speaker 1 56:24

There's a lot of jokes about that point at which you have your husband has a 5 a 7, which is a 5 to 7, meaning a side piece right Between five and seven after they leave the office, and it's just so ingrained and institutionalized. But I also read not only do they have more affairs later in life, they have more same-sex partners. And I just think socialization just wears off and you're like fuck it. You know I've got one foot in the grave. I'm going to live my life and embrace the ambiguity. That's what I was, the connection I was making.

Speaker 2 56:59

Maybe we just relax a little more. Well, yeah, and you know, I look back at some people who still have that kind of linear mindset and I'm like, wow, wow, like that, that I'm, I'm. I'm not saying I'm better or anything, I'm just like, well, I used to, I used to think like that, I used to think in a very linear way.

Teaching Through Experience and Perspective

Speaker 2 57:16

But you know, let me just, before I forget, say something about kind of. You talked about the whole right brain, left brain. Even if those aren't the right addresses anymore, I think we know what we're talking about, those parts of the brain that are kind of nurturing and emotional centric versus kind of reason mathematical logical centric versus kind of reason mathematical logical centric. I think, as I teach in my critical thinking class, I think they have to operate at a certain level together. In fact there is a book called Descartes' Error by I think his name is Antonio Damasio, and in his book he's a brain scientist. He looks at this.

Speaker 2 57:51

He had a patient named Elliot, and Elliot had a stroke and basically lost his emotional parts of his brain, but he didn't lose his reasoning faculties, he didn't lose his logic, and so one would think, oh, now he's just going to be like a computer, right? Just AI, just no emotions, just figuring things out from a very purely scientific, logical perspective. But what they found out with Elliot was he couldn't do anything, he was paralyzed and frozen because he didn't have any emotion to make him feel better about his answers and decisions he makes. In other words, if you make a decision like, let's say, I'm a judge and I have to sentence some 16-year-old kid to life in prison, even no matter what they did, that's got to be emotionally very, very difficult for a judge to do. I would guess I'm not a judge.

Speaker 2 58:43

I'm just saying, when you've got to make a very difficult decision, and so you make this based on the reason, the facts of the case, what similar sentences would be all of that stuff? But at the end of the case, what similar sentences would be all of that stuff? But at the end of the day, as the judge, you have to feel okay, you have to accept yourself for the verdict and the sentence that you gave, and you need your emotions to do that. Oh, okay, well, okay, I know I'm making the world a better place because we're getting this kid off the street and dah, dah, dah, dah and I'm just doing my job. But when you don't have that ability for your emotions to kind of, you know, give you a soft landing for a hard decision, you become paralyzed. And so you know this whole distinction between, well, you can either be reasonable or you can be emotional.

Speaker 1 59:48

I think, yes, there certainly are people that operate further than one sphere or the other, but nobody, even the most rational, I'd be auditioning and saying, love me, love me. But the audition I just did yesterday was literally titled something like empathic reasoning. It was just about you know the place that empathy has in reasoning and how, yes, you can't have one without the other. So, listening to you just now, I thought, thought, well, it's not just that the judge has to sleep at night. It's like maybe that's what true justice is actually, because principle in and of itself always fails. Right, they say that about communism like, well, it's great in principle, but it does it lacks heart. That's why it doesn't embrace our empathy.

Speaker 1 1:00:30

And spock was a big exercise. And what happens when you're pure logic without empathy? And in the seeker, my own book, I, I basically had a principal be his achilles heel uh, amateus is always operating on principle. Well, you're going to alienate a lot of people that operate on the pleasure principle for one right. So it's an a glacier slow to is how I put it. And only by introducing empathy into the reasoning do you hopefully I don't know exist on the planet without pissing people off? I don't know.

Speaker 2 1:01:05

Well, at the risk of getting too political here, I see this at play right now with the immigration issue and the ice raids taking place in california. You know, there was a time in my life when I did think more linear, rational, say, hey, the law is the law, bitch I'm a rule follower, so I'm a rule follower.

Speaker 1 1:01:24

I'm torn too. Yeah, go on you know so.

Speaker 2 1:01:26

So like, hey, you do things legally, but you know, you get older and OK, life is is much more nuanced than that, and we have good laws and we have bad laws, and and then you realize, wait, human beings are human beings regardless of what side of a line they were born on Right, right, and. And so you know, I look at what's happening and right now I'm I'm kind of the lead advisor, for we have an undocumented students club at Crafton and I'm the advisor for that and I'm a very big support for their community and I I would have to say it's because I don't think linear anymore like these are human beings in need of love and support. And you look at these families getting torn apart. It's like who are you like? Well, they didn't obey the law.

Speaker 1 1:02:11

Welcome it's like well, that's exactly what I would say. You know what I was saying about communism it just never works. Well, this is fascism. It's the definition of fascism. It's the definition of a police state. I'm a real follower too, but I just feel like there's a way to do it without literally losing your humanity. You know, there's a way to find that path to citizenship. Enforce it, make sure people go the right route with and anyway. And we shouldn't get political, because I think the whole crime here is that the police state mentality or the fascism we're seeing by literally federalizing the National Guard and all of that. It's like you don't know. The first thing about California A, they were here first. We took it from them. All of our street names are Spanish. We've coexisted, like all the work Cesar Chavez did. What was that for? If the arrangement we came up with right is going to be torn apart in complete ignorance?

Speaker 2 1:03:03

that administration has nothing, no idea what has gone on in California from day one, you know well, it goes back to story again, like you know, hearing the immigrant story and creating a sense of empathy and, you know, and building trust. But you know, if you want to go reasonable, this is the last thing we'll say about all of this. But you know, one thing I say is like you know what, how could you judge somebody who did something that you would do the exact?

Speaker 1 1:03:35

same thing if you were in their shoes.

Speaker 2 1:03:37

You would do the exact same thing. So you want to be judge and jury to somebody who did something that you would do exactly the same way, like I, just don't.

Speaker 1 1:03:47

That's the definition of hypocrisy. Right, that is the definition.

Speaker 2 1:03:53

And I have friends that have left countries for fear of their life. They fled on a boat, they got the hell out because they were going to get murdered and now they're Trump supporters. You know, after Reagan gave them amnesty in the 1980s, all of a sudden, you know. The memory is so short. Anyway, that's enough for politics is so short.

Speaker 2 1:04:14

Anyway, that's enough for politics, right? Well, but it does. It goes back to story. I'm listening to these immigrant stories every week and when you listen to story, it changes you, it changes yeah, and there's a million.

Speaker 1 1:04:24

Maybe later we'll get into the chemical part of it and you know it's. It's very scientific why it reaches people more than persuasion. So I did want to talk about critical thinking and debating and persuasion and rhetoric, because you're the expert. I would love for our listeners to benefit from your expertise, but we'll get to that. I did see a transition in here to move away from politics and I want to take advantage of it. I didn't know you had an undocumented club. That's amazing.

Speaker 2 1:04:53

Yeah, it's called Dreamers Rising Alliance.

Speaker 1 1:04:55

Beautiful.

Speaker 2 1:04:56

And you know we had one several years ago when Trump first got elected and then it kind of died out and we kind of revamped it. I love it and I tell you I just have a lot of empathy for the immigrant community.

Speaker 1 1:05:11

Well, that's the transition I wanted to make is hear me out. And I have known you for 40 something years, but I don't presume to know everything about you, but I've paid attention over the years and I'm just going to lay a couple of things out that I've seen you do over the years. Okay, pretty early on you wrote an article that you may not even remember, I think it ran in the LA Times about why are you Southern Baptists all up in arms and boycotting Disney because of these domestic partner benefits, when actually they're preaching the gospel? And you went classic by classic and demonstrated how the content right, regardless of the particulars, the message, the messaging was in line with the gospel. So you're cutting off your nose to spite your face. These are my words. Do you remember writing that article?

Speaker 2 1:05:57

Nick, you got a better memory than I do.

Speaker 1 1:05:59

Okay, well, it meant something. I'm from the gay community and I was at Disney watching it play out. On the bulletin boards You'd see the Christian community posting a comic strip and then you'd see the gay community and it kind of was playing out kind of subversively under the surface. So that article meant something to me back then, and I was 22 maybe. But anyway, you did write that article, just believe me. Then then later I think you were teaching at master's college. Maybe Do you remember the baker thing you wrote about the bakery.

Speaker 2 1:06:30

The wedding cake yeah.

Speaker 1 1:06:32

Refusing to make the wedding cake for the gay couple and you took a stand on that. I believe you might dress in drag still in your class here and there. You brought your class to San Gabriel pride and thank God because they were my only audience when I did my reading. I'll just add a little anecdote. I brought Bernard Cooper to give him a shout out, who's an established author. He teaches writing at USC. He has a great memoir called Bill from my father. He's right up there with David Sedaris, literally, and I dragged him into that San Gabriel pride thing and he was next to a generator. I didn't remember that. It was really loud. And after your class left for my reading, he read to me and Renee, me and Renee. That's like David, like suffering David Sedaris into doing an event and then a one-on-one. Yeah yeah, it was a nightmare, but anyway, thank God for your class. Anyway, you brought them to San Gabriel pride for good or bad.

Speaker 1 1:07:28

You seem to be invested in tolerance or normalization. Am I wrong? And if, if I'm not, why? I mean it extends to the undocumented. Right now you seem to be out to right or wrong, maybe not, or maybe just to open people's minds. I think you would identify with that, your young students minds. You're trying to get them to rethink their presumptions, maybe, or their socialization. I mean you do an exercise, for God's sake, in your class about stereotypes and preconceived notions when you first sit down with your partner.

Speaker 2 1:08:07

Yeah, a lot of times Explain yourself.

Speaker 2 1:08:10

A lot of times when I write, especially especially back then, because you're referring to articles I wrote quite some time ago, not so much anymore, but back then you know, I was always saying let's look at the other side, because usually whatever I wrote about, my world would disagree with me. You know, deep in an evangelical church or whatever, so I was, I I've been wired since day one to say, okay, but what is the other side saying? And so I, that's just, that's just kind of my go-to, just the other side, the other side, the other side, um, and I know, in my kind of younger days of writing and teaching, I would like even play the devil's advocate.

Speaker 1 1:08:51

Right, I was about to throw that phrase out there.

Speaker 2 1:08:53

Yeah, but I realized somewhere maybe everything's going about 25, 30 years ago that when I play devil's advocate that's just too much, cause I'm naturally kind of a devil's advocate person. So when I intentionally try to play devil's advocate, it just goes way too far. Be myself and that's. That's all the devil, right? That's enough right, right. You are what you are, so I think in a lot of those articles I you know, back then I was a pastor and I was probably writing to my own community.

Speaker 2 1:09:25

Come on hypocritical asshole yes think about this another way yeah, and I remember again.

Speaker 1 1:09:30

I keep thinking that it's masters. Maybe not, but I think you did a non nonverbal communication exercise where you sent them out to a bar, right?

Speaker 2 1:09:39

No, let me clarify that. I talked about doing that and just the fact that I talked about the possibility of doing that as a project. It got word to the dean and I never taught there again.

Speaker 1 1:09:55

Well, I remember you saying they want to be told what to think, they don't want to be inspired to think for themselves, something like that. So, no, but I did notice, yeah, you were being subversive within the institutionalized. Maybe you did see fault. You know what I mean and how short sighted some of these mentalities were, something like that. But I mean, I think we're the same Jim, we're subversive and uh, either you can be an asshole about it or work with the system and, despite people's prejudices, get and maybe inspire them to see all sides of an issue.

Speaker 2 1:10:27

But you know you, you brought up me dressing in drag, so I need to address that.

Speaker 1 1:10:31

You want to talk, you want to lie down, talk about it.

Speaker 2 1:10:33

Yeah, please, please. I feel like I'm. I'm just the wrong sex on the outside, nick no.

Speaker 1 1:10:41

Who knew it would go that direction?

Speaker 2 1:10:43

You know, for about for about three years, you, once a year I would dress as a woman and and and teach for the day as a woman and people think, oh, you must really want to do that. Like you're just kind of this closet cross-dresser and you're kind of living out your fantasy. It's like nothing could be further from the truth. Like you know me, right, right, I'm kind of a macho, yucky guy you're a thug, you're a tool, jim.

Speaker 2 1:11:10

Jim is what you are, whatever I am, it's like I don't know. I just was kind of raised we're men, we're men, that kind of thing. But I remember it was as simple as one day I was in my critical thinking class and I had a student in there this is years ago and the student was a male but dressed like in bonnets and very, very feminine. Before now that's kind of commonplace in my classes. 15 years ago it was not Like you stuck to traditional gender roles and every day he would dress really frilly, really feminine, really feminine.

Speaker 2 1:11:46

And one day I was lecturing and I was talking about hey, you got to step out of your comfort zone and you could step out of your comfort zone in so many different ways driving a different way to school, travel a place or go someplace. You would never normally go, um, dress a different way. And then I looked at this guy. I go wear a football jersey one day to school. I looked at and it goes uh, you know, like I could never do that, I go and just this is this is as much thought as went into it. I look, look, I go, I'll tell you what you wear a football Jersey and Levi's and tennis shoes to school and I will dress as a woman. That's how it started.

Speaker 1 1:12:23

That's how it started.

Speaker 2 1:12:24

That's as much thought as went into it. I thought about it right there on the spot I go, because I don't want to be a hypocrite Like don't be willing to tell somebody or ask somebody to do something you're not willing to do yourself.

Critical Thinking in a TikTok World

Speaker 2 1:12:36

So, so what I did was the very first year I did it. I just went down a goodwill and just found like a grandma dress. But the way I addressed that first year was I'm a man wearing a dress. I didn't try to be anything but a man wearing a dress. Just that's as deep as it went. I wasn't trying to do any kind of statement about anything other than I'm a man. I'm not going to pretend to be anything but a man and I'm going to wear a dress to school. And nick, I am not kidding you. That day changed my my a fundamental way, the way I looked at life. Like wow, just you would think, well, big fucking deal you. I'm sorry to cuss, but I see. So you wear a dress. Priests wear dresses, right, judges wear dresses. The kilts this guy is a dress.

Speaker 1 1:13:25

The pope is the most fabulous of all of them.

Speaker 2 1:13:27

He's got the most fabulous one yeah and you think, well, big deal, it's all just covering up your body, which is kind of the point of clothing keep you safe and modest and all that kind of good thing. But I'm telling you, just changing the structure of the cloth on my body just was a mind-blowing experience. The way people talked to me, the way people reacted to me. I got very sexual looks from men and women.

Speaker 2 1:13:53

One woman grabbed my ass of crafting, like she just couldn't control herself, like it was hot, it was a turn on and it was the weird and like even what I would lecture in class I usually sit up on the table in front. I found myself having to sit differently, like cross my legs and make sure that little part between my legs was down so you couldn't see whatever you want to see. And it was just the most eye-opening experience and I just kind of did it on a whim and I thought to myself, wow, like it really led to a very fundamental shift in my perspective, even about something as simple as clothing and kind of the relationship we have with it. For no good reason.

Speaker 1 1:14:36

I was going to say if I could just take advantage of that concept, right? I've always found it absurd that you stick a blue, you know stick a football on their hand the minute they come out of the womb, or you put a pink bow on their head and it all goes from there. So I'm not even going to begin to tackle you know sort of gender affirming care or hormones or any of that hot topic stuff, but I think it's very complicated. I just thank the Lord I wasn't born with gender dysphoria or anything like that.

Speaker 1 1:15:15

Find it unfortunate that we begin to equate masculine and feminine with, like, typically male or typically feet, like gender roles get tied in with masculinity and femininity. And it's how does a dress make you feel like a woman? It shouldn't be that way. It's, like you said, a piece of cloth, right? I think our psyches are so complex that do you know what I mean? We need to really parse what it means to live as a female or live as a male, and it's really not about the clothing.

Speaker 1 1:15:37

I just think there's a lot of work to do on that front, if that makes sense, because, yeah, people are making some pretty life-changing decisions based on the desire to wear heels and a dress, which actually, across traditional transvestitism, is a sexual thing. You want to identify with the other gender because you are attracted to it and it is sexual for you. So there's a lot to you know that mainstream society doesn't even understand. Yet I don't know where I went with that, but like why? Why are we so convinced that what you wear makes you either feminine or masculine, or a man or a woman? It's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 1:16:11

Well, after that first year I thought, oh, I got to do this again next year. And so I changed it up. I wasn't a man wearing a dress, I dressed like a woman. I put makeup on, I did the whole nine yards and again I just kind of went down to Goodwill and got a dress that was big enough to fit over my broad shoulders. And then the last year that I did it, I just completely slutted it up. I dressed as a woman, got a short little club dress, right Half my ass was hanging out, because I kind of wanted to get the man dressed, the man wearing a dress dressed like a woman, dressed like a provocative woman.

Speaker 2 1:16:48

Like, I just kind of wanted to get each one of those three experiences, but you know, I stopped doing it because we just live in a day and age where somebody could be offended about anything and I thought am I appropriating women? Exactly Am I making fun of transgender culture. It's none of those things, but I can understand how there might be a perception of that. So, I just stopped doing it.

Speaker 1 1:17:08

There is a whole school of thought that even the tradition of drag evolved for its own reasons, right as a celebration of the misapprehensions of the mainstream and a number of other things. Even drag, there's a lot of feminists that find it really derogatory and insulting to women, which is understandable. So, yeah, you had to quit, unfortunately. But what was the big observation? I'm curious because I remember you and I had a conversation about twerking one time, believe it or not working. Yeah, like it was right after the controversy when uh, what's her name? Uh, hannah montana yeah, miley cyrus.

Speaker 1 1:17:45

Yeah, and I brought that's when I brought the gay perspective that I think was kind of refreshing to you about twerking and tops and bottoms and stuff like that. What was the difference when you came in as a provocative female, a slutty one, if I'm allowed to use that word.

Speaker 2 1:17:58

Well, you know what the mind-blowing year was? The first year it was almost like. After that I kind of got. I kept getting the same thing, so whether I was just a man and in no way shape or form trying to be anything but a man less my dress I was wearing, but I still wore, you know, my Nike shoes and the baseball hat, but it was. The results I got that first year were pretty similar to what I found in years two and three as well. So it wasn't even a matter If I dressed like in a big, unsexy muumuu with a beard and just being a dude in a muumuu it wasn't any different than if I came fully makeup, did my hair and wore a nightclub dress. It was the same response. I didn't really notice any marked difference.

Speaker 1 1:18:46

I'm guessing too, you're aware of the cognitive dissonance that it automatically creates for your class. Is that part of the preconceived notion or just getting them to immediately think outside of the box? What point in the term do you do it or did you do it?

Speaker 2 1:19:00

Well, typically I do it in a class I teach called Communication in a Diverse World, and a lot of colleges will call that class Intercultural Communication. We have elected not to call it that because when you think of interculture you think, oh, a British person interfacing with a German person. But we like to think more nuanced. Diversity, subcultures Well, the political term would be co-cultures now.

Speaker 1 1:19:26

So it sounds like it's beneath oh, right, right, not as important.

Speaker 2 1:19:29

So you say co-cultures okay um and yeah, so we wanted to focus more on the co-culture aspect of diversity as opposed to the hey, the us, american versus the you know whatever um, and so that's why we called it that. But I'm sorry, what was your original question, or was there?

Speaker 1 1:19:45

Who remembers? Well, I do have one now. Okay, if you could humor us, cause you know we try to keep it at an hour and a half nowadays, but, um, I'm open to just going over, but I do want to slowly bring it to a close at some point. But I do would love it if you could do a little dog and pony show in all of this, because you didn't really. My original question was why are you so inspired? Again not to put words in your mouth, but to get people to rethink their presumptions, especially when it comes to tolerance and normalization. And specifically, I'll just go ahead and say it you've been. You're the definition of an ally to the lgbtq community. I mean, I'm so lucky I have a brother-in-law that's an ally to my community. So if I've never thanked you, please hear me. I think it's beautiful, uh, but yeah, the question was why? Why are you so driven? And now I know you just cause you want to be a woman. So that question was answered.

Speaker 2 1:20:37

No, you know what I've? I've just my whole life. It's just the way I'm wired. I've, I've always been a contrarian.

Speaker 1 1:20:45

I got it yeah.

Speaker 2 1:20:46

And not only that, but I've always been. I'm always on the side of the underdog. I just always am, even when I'm watching sports events like who's favored? Okay, I don't want them to win, you know what I mean? I just I like to see a good underdog story. And so now it's interesting what's happened in the LGBTQ community, because and I would love your opinion on this as well I think you know, while we were growing up, oh, they were silenced. I don't need to tell you this. Yeah, they couldn't be represented and they were the underdog, if they were visible at all. And then I'm not so sure that they're the underdogs now.

Speaker 1 1:21:32

Now, maybe under the Trump administration they might. I don't know how you feel like, oh yeah, relegated back to that underdog status, swing, swung back. Rights can be taken away right. Progress can be undone literally overnight and that's kind of what's happening. You know it's not like the Taliban exactly, but there are very real threats and you know the violence escalates even within just the trans community when there's all kinds of permission and there's a rhetoric and a climate created, you know, via that permission. But we don't need to get into that. I do think everything's at stake.

Speaker 1 1:22:10

I will say, when marriage equality came along because I was born in 1968, I initially thought that ship has sailed for me. I'm not invested in that. We don't need the piece of paper. You know it took me a while to get on board and realize rights are rights. You can't extend them to one sub, well, sub section of the population and not another. In principle, of course, and I got on board, but I call me defeated. I wasn't that excited about marriage equality initially, but then I did get involved. I went to Raleigh's and then I went to the celebration when it passed, you know, and gay marriage or I guess marriage equality was suddenly legal. So of course I don't want to see any of that undone. I think we're, yeah being marginalized all over again, for sure.

Speaker 2 1:22:58

And you know, I remember actually something your mom said years and years and years ago and of course those were in my linear days and I thought, oh, sharon, thanks Sharon for that, but she years and years and years ago, and of course those were in my linear days and I thought, oh, sharon, thanks sharon for that, but she was right.

Speaker 2 1:23:10

She was right tell me what was it you know, she said something I'm going to paraphrase because I can't remember exactly how she phrased it, but she said you know, life isn't this constant, like uh bar, that you know, humanity just evolves and gets more humane and we change, and like it's not this straight continuum line that just continually, by the year 3000, we're going to have it all figured out, she goes. Life is a series of ebbs and flows. There's progress, there's two steps forward, four steps back, five steps forward, three steps back. That's what life is, and so I think what we're seeing today is a little bit of ebby and flowy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:23:50

A lot of ebbs? I wasn't, yeah, unfortunately, and but that's why it is important to understand what my mom said, because you ride out the back swings, and faith is the only way to ride that out is by saying, yeah, you know what, it's slower than we would all like, but we are evolving and we're making progress. And I was it, martin Luther King that said the arc of justice is long. No, the arc of history is long, but it always bends toward justice. So I guess that is an opportunity for me to ask you one of the questions I do have written down, which is you may not identify as having an agenda in your teaching, but I'm guessing over the years you've noticed the impact you can make on the future through young people.

Speaker 1 1:24:37

Uh, do you see any quality? And I know that they change. You know, I taught college for over 20 years and I would say each incoming class had a new flavor, right, a little new something, something whether it was from technology or the way academia operates and what was being permitted in public school and all of that. I just see differences all the time. But in general, do you feel like there's one downside of youth that you were able to have an impact on. That contributes maybe to our forward march, our evolution. Is that too lofty? Is that too lofty?

Speaker 2 1:25:13

The answer is yes.

Speaker 1 1:25:14

Yes, what is it? Yes, yes, what's wrong with those young people?

Speaker 2 1:25:17

Well, look, I am not one of those, those kids today people get off my front lawn. I'm not one of those people. I feel like our generation just has a really short memory. We were, we were, we were dumb asses too at some point. Right, and you know, when I see this 18 year old kid backwards, hat sitting in the back, just kind of God knows on what, I just have to remember oh shit, that was me, that, that was me at LA Valley college in 1981. And I can't forget. Forget that, I can't forget that, because I can't think well, our generation's got it all together. No, no, they're.

Speaker 1 1:25:52

we didn't they're messier than we were, though. Like I go to gelson's and there's it looks like nuclear war struck. There's they leave all their starbucks cups on the tables, and that I don remember. So the grumpy old man in me is like well, their parents cleaned up after him, more than the helicopter parents that we didn't have. Just cleaned up after him, we were not messy. Can you agree with me just on that one?

Speaker 2 1:26:16

Well, I don't. That's a pretty general, that's a strong generalization. I mean, there's always been messy people and clean people, but it people and clean people, but it looks like nuclear war.

Speaker 2 1:26:23

Come to my gelson's, I'll show you and then you can answer that well, let me give you an example of something like I'm hoping I can make a difference. But again I'm in my new way of metaphorical thinking and non-linear thinking. I try to make a difference in a more metaphorical way. I don't say you should not do that anymore and do this. I just try to say, hey look, this is what I. It works pretty well for me. But, like in my critical thinking class, it was small this semester. It was like 15 students and when one of the first questions I asked the beginning of the semester was OK, what is all of your primary news sources? How do you guys find out what's going on in the world? Nick, every single student said TikTok. Oh my God.

Speaker 1 1:27:06

We're going to hell in a handbasket.

Speaker 2 1:27:07

I had 18-year-olds in there and I had 35-year-old moms in there and kind of everything in between. Wow, every single one said TikTok. Now, okay, if I was going to give my honest, guttural reaction to that, it's like oh, we are in a world of trouble, you guys, you can't do that. It's working off an algorithm. You're not getting any kind of remote, accurate sense of the world around you. You're creating your own bubble and I go on and on and on about how horrible that is, but I don't do that anymore and I said, oh, that's interesting, maybe I need to start using TikTok.

Speaker 2 1:27:51

But you know what? Here's what I do and try to explain, you know, checking your sources and verifying and see if there are multiple outlets, but just trying to be that voice of okay, where do we get our information and how do we deal with information in a critical way, like I'm just hopefully I'm that kind of old man voice of guys can we think about this and think about what we're doing and when you, when you understand, our young generations are getting all their information through an algorithm like this? Of course, Nick, we're going to have division. Of course, nick, we're going to have division. Of course we're going to have tribes.

Speaker 1 1:28:27

Of course we're going to have just the most uncivil, inappropriate dialogue with each other, because that's all tiktok is of course, but I mean there's so many implications of that and I know you don't want to harp on the negative I like the way you hopefully inspire them to do things a little bit differently, because I mean, I'm sorry, I'm going to make the connection right now we're seeing it play out.

Building Civil Discourse Through Shared Stories

Speaker 1 1:28:51

This is happening because people are diverted, with their nose on a device and not paying attention to not just what's been happening in the news but history. Right, everybody, all my Jewish friends, know what it looks like when marginalization is on the horizon and fascism is slowly taking away your rights. So I just feel like just the lack of attention to the world around us. Right, because of technology, but specifically history. It is doomed to repeat itself, right, if we don't know the horrors of history. So that's one big outcome I see is like, yeah, you can't get your news from tiktok. You got to read a book, you got to know your history, or it will repeat itself. And it is right now. Anyway, I I'm not saying you should write any societal ills in your teaching, but I had a hunch for sure that you're open, you're into opening their minds, because that's what college is about, right, it's rethinking your socialization and finding right and you mentioned earlier you.

Speaker 2 1:29:46

You mentioned earlier. You said I'm not going to ask you if you have an agenda or that kind of thing. I mean, I do have an agenda and my agenda is, you know, to to think a different way, to, to challenge yourself, to be open to new thought forms and ideas, and you know what? And I tell I don't. I say I don't care if you're a MAGA Trump supporter, I don't care. I don't care if you're a camel, I don't care. I care about you critically. I care about you critically thinking and looking at issues critically and having civil conversation with your ideological foes. That's all I care about. That's all I care about.

Speaker 2 1:30:20

If I, if I can teach that, if I can teach civil discourse between disagreeing parties, I don't care what the conclusion is. It doesn't matter to me, because to me, what we have lost under the current administration is civility. And you could say well, I agree with this policy and that policy. It's not even about policy. It's about humankind treating each other with decency, and I want to get back to that, especially between disagreeing parties, that is, shout each other down. Or can we do this in a way that doesn't guarantee agreement, but it can guarantee humanity, embracing humanity?

Speaker 1 1:31:00

Beautiful. That is no small thing, jim. That is a mission, sorry to tell you. That is what's needed and that is a mission and strangely, it's the one I'm on.

Speaker 1 1:31:12

My book really is about all these imaginary divides that can be reconciled. If you look at the role of perspective, semantics and I call it being judicious, you're calling it seeing the other side of the coin. How about seeing all the sides of an issue? It being judicious like you're. So you're calling it seeing the other side of the coin. How about seeing all the sides of an issue and being judicious?

Speaker 1 1:31:30

So for me, uh, like on a really good day, I do see the pendulum swings. For a reason. I try to see the value in every regression. I pray to god, yes, that the arc is headed toward justice, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, in the meantime, either we learn to coexist or we'll kill each other off, we'll kill ourselves off. So I'm with you and I guess I didn't put it very well.

Speaker 1 1:31:55

But just taking away the imaginary divides because, as you know, in persuasion you can. Just the very editorial choices, the cherry picking right, the the sort of false correlations people make, the rhetoric, all of that creates divisiveness, whereas if you have the tools that you're teaching them to be a critical thinker, right, and to understand the role of story and, yes, slanting that story and using all those propaganda techniques, right, and all those persuasive modes and all those things you can learn. At least you can recognize the role of it in, for example, political campaigning or advertising or any form of propaganda, and you can just be more conscious of it and make wiser decisions. Sorry if I'm preaching. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 1:32:41

Yeah, it does. You know, the phrase that I've liked in the last couple of years is when you're dealing with somebody who you have a disagreement with good intentions, bad ideas. You might have a bad idea, but I'm not going to attribute that to a bad intention. I'm not going to say you're a bad person. I could think you have really good intentions, but I just think it's a bad idea.

Speaker 1 1:33:04

But I'm not questioning your morality.

Speaker 1 1:33:06

Right, I love that. Yeah, you have to give them the benefit of the doubt that there are good intentions, and I will say that just as a real quick example. Virginia and I talk on this podcast a lot about revisionist history and whitewashing and cancel culture, and they're actually well intended instincts If you look at the law of attraction and the mechanics of manifestation. If we want to create the world we're striving to create, actually there's no value to harping on the past or beating those old, tired drums. You write a new story, you tell a new story. So actually the only merit in whitewashing history, for example, or burning books, for example, is that that concept that you look to the solution, not the grievance, and you stop defining yourself by your grievances. However, bad idea Book burning, bad, right, right, right. I'm just trying to be generous here and say it's well intended, but come on.

Speaker 2 1:34:06

I think 90% of our disagreements in society are really, at its core, not a disagreement, it's a difference of a matter of degree. Just say, for example we're going to cut all these government agencies because we need a government that runs efficiently and is wise with its money. Who the hell is going to disagree with that? Right, right, of course, of course.

Speaker 1 1:34:28

But it doesn't take a chance, but does it take a chainsaw, there you go.

Speaker 2 1:34:34

There's the inhumanity uncivil, just horrible communication. That visual did more to destroy goodwill than anything like we can all agree efficiency, good, now we might disagree to the degree we go to obtain it, and I might have defined efficiency this way, you might define efficiency that way, but we can both rest on the same efficiency mountain that we like efficiency. So now we're going to disagree. To what degree do we go to achieve this efficiency?

Speaker 1 1:35:06

Yeah, renee. Renee said it's about kind of not finding the common ground, but what is the outcome that we all agree to right? What's the outcome? So how do we get there, jim, as a society? How do we get these? Just you teaching it in schools? Right the skills.

Speaker 2 1:35:23

You know it's interesting. I was listening to your podcast yesterday with dc and talked about like your audience, like who is your audience. Every artist wants to reach as many people as they can. He said we had a discussion about this. You know, and and I am really of the opinion that you know, that's a very 2020 25. I want to reach a global community. Well, for most of humanity, there wasn't humanity. You weren't capable of reaching a global community Only in 2025. Can you actually consider that To me? I just want to influence those in what we call Robin Dunbar the anthropologist calls the monkey sphere, and it's just your kind of people within your sphere of influence, like I don't need to reach people in new york or hong kong.

Speaker 2 1:36:12

I, I am. I go into that class of 15 students. Those are my people, those are the ones that I'm going to be changing and I don't have a a need beyond that to reach more.

Speaker 1 1:36:25

You know yeah, it's come up on this podcast a lot. Actually, we talk about just making a grassroots effort that's one way of putting it with your immediate friends and family and just having faith the ripple effect will play its part.

Speaker 2 1:36:36

The micro to the macro right and what else can you do, really?

The Micro and Macro of Human Connection

Speaker 1 1:36:40

yeah, exactly. Well, sorry, virginia, virginia, come on, you're awfully quiet. We're about to wrap up here. You got to jump in here.

Speaker 3 1:36:52

I also say everything you guys have talked about has been pretty much. You know a lot of what I've been just recently. I've delved into a polyvagal theory.

Speaker 1 1:37:02

What is that? Do you mind Sorry? What is that?

Speaker 3 1:37:05

So it's about? It's about the vagus nerve, so it's basically taking your physiological, biological awareness and tying it to, of course, the neurological, so your psychological awareness, um, so the vagus nerve is the um biggest nerve that runs throughout the body. And so, as you guys have been talking, especially when you so to kind of tie back to what you guys said at the beginning, we were talking about being overt and subtle. It's interesting is when we're in a homeostasis mindset, so when we're in that neuroception of safety, we are more open to lean into, to hear the stories that were told, to lean into to hear the stories that were told communication.

Speaker 3 1:37:46

So that connection that Jim brought up happens more often. And going back to what, jim, when you were talking about earlier, when you're I was trying so hard not to just like to start cracking up so loud when you brought up like of course they all said TikTok, why wouldn't they say that they're getting their news off? Tiktok Is when that happens, when we kind of get into our echo chambers but automatically trips us and puts us into that dorsal mindset of you know we need to get secure, we need to sort of get out of that homeostasis and we're not in that more ventral, outwardly trying to connect kind of situation. So that does bring that decisiveness that we see happening because we're not in a homeostasis outlook. And so I think when we expand upon that and we get into story and we make those connections and we put the fricking phone down and you know it allows us to kind of come back to that central, you know, part.

Speaker 1 1:38:47

Tell me if cause this is what I heard we can like. This is a fascinating experiment. Cause, again, you put on a lens and kind of say the same thing through a psychological lens and in a spiritual context and I'll bring it a hundred percent back to story. Right, but if you quiet the chatter of ego, you're safe. Right, so cortisol and adrenaline puts you in fire, flight mode or in the extreme PTSD, right, but when we feel safe, it's the equivalent of literally having those gamma wave modes going and quieting the mental chatter. That's eliminating mind and ego from the equation. So, like you said, you're more susceptible, impressionable.

Speaker 1 1:39:28

And the corollary with story is I'm not going to remember which euphoric brain chemical. I think both oxytocin and the other one, dopamine, dopamine. Those two both create a sense of trust. So when you gather around the campfire and listen, you know partake in story there's a tribal sense of trust. So you're going to transform more because you're suggestible. And you know story is all about fear. We're playing on the audience's hope and fear. When you're in fear mode, how can you be hopeful? I don't know. It's so story, everything is story to me you.

Speaker 2 1:40:05

Can I mention something to along those same lines is the relationship between the micro and the macro. To make a very, very, very long story Very, very short, probably the most unbelievable class session I ever had was in January of 2017, when the Women's March was going on. Trump just got sworn in. I had a class session and it was a public speaking class and I could afford the opportunity to talk about the value of public demonstration and public speaking in the form of a demonstration, and so it was a three-hour class and for the first hour of the class, the class was really emotional and strong and I hate this and and I hate that and just this cortisol through the roof type thing, to use the chemical you just discussed and it was so.

Speaker 2 1:40:53

The first hour of the class was just angry people and having very strong opinions about what public demonstration does, what we need to do, and a lot of emotion, a lot of anger. Then the second hour of the class, I don't need to give you specifics about how it happened, but all of a sudden, everybody just it became a confessional and everything that led into and transitioned into an hour of people talking about their angst, of their own life and I'm talking deeply personal things, deeply personal things. And for the second hour of the class, there wasn't a dry eye in the class. People were coming out of the closet, people were confessing to their relationship with their dad. That's horrible.

Speaker 2 1:41:35

This woman, who's she? Just she's going to join the military because she hates her parents, because she was raped three years earlier and they told her not to tell anybody. So it was like this relationship, oh, you're all frustrated on the macro because you're all frustrated on the micro. And then the third hour of the class, it was just like we all looked at each other. Go, what just happened? What happened is you, your shared humanity was exposed right we shared our stories with each other.

Speaker 1 1:41:59

Yeah, beautiful. And now it wasn't just the kid who hated public demonstrations or wanted to. Your shared humanity was exposed, right, we shared our stories with each other.

Speaker 2 1:42:05

Yeah, beautiful and now, it wasn't just the kid who hated public demonstrations or wanted to do that, it was the kid who found out he's bisexual and his dad's ready to kick him out of the house and he's going through such turmoil. How could that micro not affect his view of the macro? And so there's a relationship between both and I think it speaks to what you were just talking about. Like, if we don't have the sense of calm and inner peace, of course, when we hear contrarian points of view, and we don't have that calm and inner peace, we're not going to be receptive to it.

Speaker 3 1:42:40

Right and working in. You know, a counseling setting me with, you know people, one-on-one or in group, is when people are dysregulated emotionally, they don't realize that the choices they make when they get upset about something, on that macro, you know, on that, on that higher level, the macro level, that it says more about them at the micro level and nobody stops to think about that.

Speaker 3 1:43:08

They just react and they don't think about. They have choice. But they need to be aware of what they're feeling internally, like literally, you know. Is it stiffness in their shoulders? Is it, you know, all of a sudden their bowels are upset, whatever they've got ahead, whatever it is that that physical manifestation is trying to tell them emotionally what's deregulating in their body. So they need to stop be aware, so then they can lean in from you know, after they have that alertness on the micro level, lean into the macro level to really take in fully what they're experiencing.

Speaker 2 1:43:49

Well, the acronym that I use for my class is you know, never have a difficult conversation with somebody. When, when you're hungry, angry, lonely or tired, and then I wanted to add another answer.

Speaker 2 1:44:03

I think horny should be in there. I don't know, maybe you know salt, but yeah, you, you have to recognize those. I mean you talked about, you know, ethos, pathos, logos, there's something called kairos, it's like the timing of a conversation as well, and if your micro and macro aren't aligned, don't you know what I mean? I love the thought, virginia. I think it's a great thought and one that is probably needs to be shared even more with my students, like you can't. There's no disconnect there, it's all connected.

Speaker 1 1:44:34

Well, I don't know if this is related, but I step out the door sometimes and you're like ooh Mercury's in retrograde. You can just see the hostility, whether it's the leaf blower or the honking in the gelson's parking lot. Like everybody's on edge all the time and it's understandable if you turn on the news. Right, but it's I don't know. Maybe we all need to learn to self-regulate internally and then we won't be looking for a dog to kick I want to add to that.

Speaker 3 1:45:00

So, ironically, you think I would know this because of my spiritual practice, but I I was. I was um at my, at my you know place, my counseling site, and and it was just I was off and one of the other counselors could tell, like I was just not my normal self walking in the door and it was where we. We were right in the full moon, like the full moon had happened the night before. And she looked at me. She's like did you know? We just had a full moon? Like the full moon had happened the night before. And she looked at me. She's like did you know we just had a full moon? Like yeah, I know it's like coming up. And she's like well, do you know when it was? Like no, I know, it's like right around, right around now. And she's like virginia, it was last night. What, how? What is our body made up of? The simple answer, of course, was we're primarily water. Right, she goes. What does the moon do? To the ocean. That's it right.

Speaker 1 1:45:49

Right, yeah, there's a spiritual way to look at everything and an energetic level right, and my book is largely about reconciling and kind of. Again, the biggest example earlier, when we were talking about these imaginary divides and these standoffs that can be reconciled right With a little shift in perspective, is like how are faith and science at odds? They both seek to explain the universe and have, from day one, just using different terminology let's not split errors people. Anyway, jim I I. This has gone on quite a while and it's such a pleasure. I definitely want to have you back. You're an ideal guest.

Speaker 2 1:46:26

Oh well, thank you. I'm taking my grandkids to go see the music man at two o'clock. Oh shit yeah Well so that was my favorite musical as a kid, so I'm really excited to take my five and three year old grandkids.

Speaker 1 1:46:39

Where are you going, out of curiosity?

Speaker 2 1:46:40

College of the Canons. It's like Renee's students, it's like kids, oh right on. But I still enjoy the play. Strombone, you can talk, you can bicker, you can bicker, you can talk. Shut poppy, shut boopy, shut boop, never mind.

Speaker 1 1:46:55

Okay, don't ever do that again.

Speaker 2 1:46:58

No, I won't. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 1:47:00

Anyway, thank you so much, Jim. I would love to have you on again. We didn't get to a lot of the technical stuff, but I think we absolutely did justice to the idea of story.

Speaker 2 1:47:11

Well, let's do a technical stuff next time.

Speaker 1 1:47:13

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 1:47:14

All right, thanks, appreciate it.

Speaker 1 1:47:16

Thanks, jim, and to our listeners, remember life is story and we can get our hands in the clay individually and collectively. We can tell a new story. See you next time.