Episode 67: An Interview With James Victore

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What happens when you refuse to sand down your edges? 

 The conversation moves from Eddie Murphy’s Raw to grocery-store temptations, from the pull of the wine aisle to the quiet dignity of choosing Topo Chico and showing up clear. The throughline is honesty: say the thing you mean and build a life that can hold it.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Opening And Setup
• 1:00 Why Swearing Matters
• 4:30 Sobriety And Suffering
• 10:45 Routines, Triggers, And Temptation
• 15:40 Writing Without Liquid Courage
• 18:40 Off-The-Cuff Creative Process
• 24:30 Coaching Invitation
• 26:30 Pet Peeve: Conformity

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

All right, let's do this thing. Howdy. I'm James Victory, and this is The Right Questions. And I know you, and you know me. And one thing I can tell you is you got to be free. Today we have a very special treat. We have an interview with the one and only James Victory. Welcome to the show, James. Hey, it's great to be here, James. Thanks for inviting me. Um, so hey, I got a couple of questions for you, and we're gonna go through them. Uh uh are you comfortable? You're good? Yeah, yeah, man, I'm good. Let's just let's just do this. Okay. Here's your first question. James. Why do you swear? What do you mean? Why do I swear? Well, you swear a lot. Why do you swear? Um, you know, I learned to swear. I did. I picked it up in the streets. I learned I learned to swear just like I I learned to design just like I swear, you know? I I'll just pick it up in the streets. I learned everything from the street. Um and when I was a kid, I love that line. When I was a kid, I was raised in the military and I was raised pretty pretty severe and disciplined, and I needed outlets. I needed to fucking, you know, bust out occasionally. And um I found um um I learned that swearing worked for me. It was that place for me. Um, I actually learned to swear from uh Eddie Murphy. Eddie Murphy taught me. I mean, it's not like he sat down with me and said, you know, James, hey. Um, but it was his album Raw. And then his whole persona after that, and when he came out, he was on the in the cover, he was on the cover of Rolling Stone. I had there was a um a spread from Rolling Stone. It was a photograph of him with um uh this blue leather jacket on and no shirt and his big pink tongue sticking out of his face. And it was so bold, and I thought, fuck, that's what I want. I want that, I want that, I want that visceralness, I want that reality, I want that level of danger in my life, in my persona, in my potential work. I was didn't even know what I was doing at the time. And I I often get called out for swearing. You know, people people are offended by it. And I'm like, yeah, okay, bye. Um, I can't, I can't really deal with that. Um, or I get the thing, you know, I haven't heard it in a while, but I used to get this thing like, well, you know, my grandmother says, you know, you know that thing, like my grandmother says, um, people who swear don't have any other any words to use. I'm like, fuck off and fuck your grandmother. Like, like, there's a level of conformity there that I'm just not gonna stand for, right? I should not swear because your grandmother's not cool. Like, what the fuck? I also learned from Eddie Murphy that swearing is like, for me, it's like punctuation. Right? It's like punctuation. It's uh, it's they're um exclamation points to me, you know, and on the and on the other point of like uh if you had better words to use, then you may use them. Um here's the thing. If I had stronger, more aggressive, stronger, more, more meaningful words to make a point, I would fucking use them. But you know, the F-word and damn and shit seem to work pretty well. So that's kind of why I swear. Good answer, James. Thank you. I appreciate that. Appreciate your uh your as a can I say fucking awesomeness? Yeah, yeah, you can say it, just don't say it like that. You sound like a jerk. Okay, your next question. Uh, this past Monday, you passed 84 weeks of sobriety. How's that working out for you? How's that working out for me? What the fuck kind of question is that? How's that fucking working out for you? Uh yes, Jabes, two years ago you lost a leg. How's that working out for you? Yeah, it's a good question, though. I uh, you know, I'll I'll feel that. I'll let that one go. Listen, the only answer to sobriety, the only path to sobriety is through suffering. It really is. It sucks. It's hard. I started drinking, um I think, I think uh it was probably around my like 16th birthday or 17th birthday. And I basically never stopped. Like, even if I was on medication, I didn't stop drinking. I would like take it with beer, right? I mean, I drank. I was never, I mean, I got drunk when I was a kid. I used to get drunk and blackout and do stupid things. Um, but as an adult, you know, I was basically what they called a functioning alcoholic. I think probably three-quarters of the population. I don't know. You know what? We should do, we should look, look that up. What percentage of the population are functioning alcoholics? That's how accepted it is to be drunk, right? It's crazy, really crazy. Um, and I realized that, and I realized how it was messing up my life and becoming a it was a problem. And not even becoming a problem because I was functioning and I got shit done, and I went to the gym, I took care of myself, and I took care of my family and I made a living. But when I look back now, I see how much of my day was scheduled around drinking. Like I'd wake up and try to figure out if I go to the gym early, I can drink after right after it. If I go to the drink at go to like the gym at like seven in the evening, I can't drink until like nine. You know? And that's weird. It's really weird, but how's it working for me? Uh, I guess it is. I don't know. Have I lost weight? No. You know? Well, partially because I switched over to non-alcoholic beers, and those are like drinking bread. That shit is fattening. So now I've done another level of sobriety. This is what you should really congratulate me on. Another level of sobriety where I'm drinking, I don't even buy the non-alcoholic beers anymore. I buy Topo Chico. God, how boring is that. But um, I think that I am going through a the last month and a half or two months have been have been kind of stressful. From well, fucking the last fucking four years of my life, five years of my life have been super stressful, to be honest. But the last couple of months have been really stressful on me, and I can tell. I can tell. And it's not because of the drinking, but the drinking is one of the things that pops up. Because I'll look I will walk into the grocery store. You know, I'll go into Texas. We have the big H E B here and it has everything in it. I walk into the grocery store and I will be hellbent on I like I am fucking going to go home with red wine today. I am gonna go home and look at the wine section, and then I'll get halfway there and I'm like, okay, I'll a beer. I will come home with one fucking beer. I will go home, you know, I'm gonna get one beer, and I, you know, I haven't done it. I haven't gone home with anything yet. And I have to say yet. Um, so the the the the path is through suffering. And I am a very habitual character. And to have, you know, what, 40 years, I don't know, 50 years of drinking, you know, day after day, that's a hard one to quit. I mean, I think any addiction is is difficult to quit. Once it's once it's categorized as an addiction, or once your body loves that shit, right, it's hard to quit. Uh, and I was talking to a friend of mine recently about um he's going through sobriety as well. And we were talking about writing, and he was asking me about writing. And he said, he said, James, how do you get um such to the point one-on-one, you know, really feels like you're talking to me when you're writing? How do you, you know, and it's honest and real. How do you, how do you do that? And I said, I said, Oh, Mike, um, that's where the alcohol helped. And I was kind of kidding and kind of not kidding. I kind of realized that's what I used it for. Alcohol helped me just kind of, you know, they say it uh um gets rid of your inhibitions, right? That's why you try to like, you know, drink on a date, right? So you can kind of relax, right? Um and I realized that's what I used it for, but I realize it wasn't what I used it for. I used it to get drunk. I used it for the booze, right? There was a there's a small window of playfulness that happens, you know, after after a certain a little amount of drinking. But I can get to that playfulness all the time. It is just who I am. It is not difficult, and I do not need booze or anybody or anything else to get to that point. So um sobriety, yeah, it's uh it is what it is. Uh can I say it's fun? No. Do I still like to hang out? Yes. Do I miss a lot of aspects of it? Sure. I can't even say socialization, you know, the social part because I wouldn't go out to be social. I'd go to a bar to drink, and I'd bring a sketchbook, and I was just like, it was obvious, like, don't fuck with that guy. He's buried in his work. So, anyhow. But thank you. Yeah, 84 weeks. Um, it's crazy. Um I I guess I'm done. I don't know. We'll see. Ask me again in a year. Cool, James. Uh next question. I'm gonna ask you this. Um, you are doing this interview off the cuff. Meaning, meaning I've prepared a couple of a couple of questions for you, but you're just like winging it. Is that okay? I mean, you know, is that how you do shit? Um, it seems like you do a lot of stuff, just kind of off the cuff. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. What kind of question is that? Um, actually, everything I do is off the cuff. I want it to feel off the cuff. I want it to feel real. I want it to feel like I want my work visually to feel like it just fucking grew there. Right? Like someone just went book bunk dink and is done. I want it to feel like that. Does it happen like that? No. Does it happen like that? No. But I want it to feel like that. Uh podcast or speaking gigs, do I want them to feel raw? Yes. I want it raw and I want it clumsy, and that's okay, because I want human beings to understand this is how we do shit. This is how it really happens. You know, uh we we're so we're so we're so so weaned on these uh or fed on these fucking TED talks that everybody's like everybody talks like fucking Steve Jobs and you put your fingers together and you do these hand gestures. And then you walk over here and you look at that part of the audience, and then you walk over there. And I'm not fucking Brene Brown, man. This is real shit. You know, I hate that. I don't really I don't want to even prepare. I would think I would turn Ted down if Ted asked me to talk. Because they like edit you. They like, hey, we want to see your script and we're gonna edit it down. Like, fuck off. No, you're not. No, you're not. I don't prepare. And I don't respect people who do prepare or have a lot of edits. You know, I don't like that culture. I want to be brave. I am not a coward. I am not afraid of making mistakes. I'm not afraid of looking like a mess or or or or or that fact that I stutter or sometimes take moments to think when I'm on stage. So yeah, I do things off the cuff. I like that. I like that. It's part of my it's part of me playing. It's part of me being me. Right now, you're thinking, oh man, I wish James Victory could be my mentor, my guru. Hell, I wish he was my coach. Well, you can make that happen. Go to your workisagift.com. There's a questionnaire that will probably help you out, but it'll also give you access to a free call. So let's talk. Let's free you from overwhelm and creative frustration. Let's build your business and help you get paid to do what you love. Again, go to your workoft.com. Let's talk. So there. And yeah, and again, TED Talks, they drive me nuts. I can't watch them. They're so controlled. Even the audience, even the audience is controlled. It's nuts. Um, what else you got? Oh, yeah. Um, next question. Um yes, my next question, and actually you mentioned it before, so I'm going to use it as a question. Um, do you have any pet peeves? What upsets you? What do you what do you not care about? What do you not care for? Hmm. Good question, and yes, I think I did mention it before. Um, and it's this word uh conformity. I don't like conformity. You know, we live in the United States of fucking America. We live in a world where they were supposed to have choices. We live in a world where we're supposed to have choices and we don't. And computers and uh algorithms and AI ain't helping. It is not helping choices, motherfucker. It is not. It's narrowing shit down. Like I I I'm not an adventurous guy and I don't look around too much on the, you know, I'm not a I'm not an early adapter of of technology and whatnot. But let's take Spotify, for example. You know how hard it is for me to find fucking new stuff on Spotify? Every time I hit something, it tells me what I it it it caters for me. I don't want it to fucking cater for me. I want it to be like radio, right? Radio, just like, hey, here's something new you might never heard of. Here's something old you might never heard of, right? Don't give me what you think you want. Instagram has done the same thing. I don't even know why. I I can't stand looking at the damn thing anymore because it's giving me shit that I've that it thinks I want. No, I'm adventurous. Come on, give me something else. So conformity. Here's another level of conformity, and I know it sounds stupid, but it's important. When you go into the grocery store and you go to the cleaning products, oh my god, that horrible smell, that horrible fucking smell. I've been watching um a program recently on like one of these one of these free Netflix-like channels, but it's free, so it has commercials. And for some reason, it has decided that I smell that I need to to to alleviate odors from my house and my car. And it shows me and sells me ads with these pods that you plug into the fucking wall or you plug into your car and it makes it smell good. Can you imagine something more disgusting to have in your fucking life than some electrically charged osm uh osmosified stink? Some electrically burnt chemical to make a smell in your house. Can you imagine how bad that is for you to be steeping in that all the time? Or or the scented stuff they use in the in what you wash your clothes from. No, I'm trying to get scents out of my clothes. I don't need to put them in. There's a there's a there's a there's a beautiful little family that lives across the way from us. They have they have delightful kids. But man, when their kids are coming over to my house, I can't let them in. I can't let them in. I can smell them from a ha from half of half the block away. Their clothes smell so strongly of this fake chemicals. And that's a level of conformity that's just sold to us. And people go, oh, yeah, I guess I should be doing that. Right? It's this, it's this, oh, I guess I should be doing that. I was at my son's um learning exhibition not too long ago, and it was they had to make uh projects, science projects, right? Good old-fashioned science projects, like dioramas and that kind of stuff. And it ends up they made them on iPads this time. And I'm looking at Wyatt's exhibition, and I'm flipping through pages, and he's showing me them, and he's proud, and I'm trying to be proud for him. But he's collected memes. And he's collected images that already existed. I mean, where's the big fucking two by four two by three piece of cardboard where you make shit, where you use your hands, where you use your fucking mind. And they're teaching everything they teach now is on iPads in school. Not everything, but iPads and screens, and there's a mom next to me, quite frankly, happens to be Wyatt's mother. That's a whole nother issue, but and I said, Oh my god, that everything is on a screen these days. Everything is like this is why why why is he working on an iPad? And she says, Oh, well, you know, that's the way it's done now. And I'm like, oh my fucking Christ, that's your reason. That's the that's the way, oh, everybody's moving this direction, let's go that direction. Oh, everybody's doing this now, let's go there. Like, fucking conformity drives me nuts. Nuts. I guess that's the reason why Ralph Waldo Emerson's self-reliance is so important to me. It's so important to me because it brings us back, it brings me back to me. Away from the conformity, away from following the crowd. The crowd is awesome. The crowd is awesome. But the leaders suck. So yeah, if I have a pet peeve, it would be conformity. Sorry if I went off on a tangent there for you, but you know. Oh no, no, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay, cool. Pet okay, pet peeve dash conformity, got it. Uh okay, another question. James, you talk a lot about being weird. Are you weird? What is weird? Can you tell us? Tell me about weird. Uh, okay. I actually don't think I'm weird. I don't think I'm weird. I probably I am. I am. I don't like to think of myself as weird. You know, when you write a book, you get known for that thing. And I was writing a book about weirdness. It was called uh Hey Weirdo. And I was imagining myself on stage for the next year and a half, two years, as the weird guy. And I was like, fuck, I don't want that. You know, it's probably just the stigma attached to it. But you asked, what is Is weird. Okay. When I wrote Feck Perfection, there was a there was a there was a it was it was a spread, it was just a visual spread, it wasn't even an article. I the whole book should have done actually the follow-up book is on this. But the idea that the things that made you weird as a kid make you great today, that's important. And that's how we are all weird. Because we were all weird as kids. And we were weird in such a way that all we wanted was to be seen and heard and loved. And we didn't give a shit about what other people thought or or when we were making there was no sketches. You know, you as a kid, you didn't do sketches, you just like boof, make and go ta-da. And then you go, hey, daddy, look at me. Look at look what I made. Right? Well, until you get shot down, until people get tired of you saying that. So your weirdness is your is your expression of of you just want to show who you are. You just, hey, look at me, I can dance. Hey, did you hear my singing? Hey, did you did you catch my jokes? You know, and when I was a cured kid, I wanted that so badly. I was the third of three kids. My parents were tired by the time I came around. My parents were tired. They didn't want to hear me. They didn't want that shit. So I realized, I realized I was weird and I needed to um I needed to be seen and heard and appreciated for my weirdness. So what happened, what how that how my weirdness changed is that later I became what you call a um a show off. Like in grade school and high school, I was totally the show off. Right? Because I kept wanting to say, hey, look at me. Look what I can do. And that's still what I do. That's still what I do. I show off. I love to be in love because I get to show off for one person. I have an audience of one and I get to make things for them. Like my best work is when I make lunch notes for my kids, right? Because it's an audience of one, and I'm like, hey, look at this. You're awesome. I love you. But what's really weird, and this is this is the important part. So being weird is is allowing that joy and play and love you had as a kid to come out. That's hard because it starts bordering on um vulnerability, right? But if you can get past the vulnerability, here's the important thing. When you get past the fear of vulnerability, and you allow yourself to be seen and heard and love because you care, because the work that you do you feel is important and that people want it, that you want it, that it was important for you to make. It has worth just because you made it. And you want to show it with the world, you know what that is? That's self-love. So being weird is loving yourself so goddamn much that you have to show your work. You have to get it out into the world. So being weird is self-love. So that's what I talk about when I talk about weird. Awesome, James. I think I'm gonna cry. That was cool. Uh good job. Good job. Okay, next question. Hit me up, let's do it, let's do it, let's get through this. I got shit to do. Uh, okay. James, are you living your best life? Is this everything you dreamed? Hey, I'm a dreamer. I'm a dreamer. I got lots of dreams, so you know, I don't know. Um, I can tell you this. I am satisfied. I'm satisfied. I've done great work. I continue to do great work. I um love what I do for a living. I have fantastic fucking kids. But is this everything I've dreamed? Is this all there is, as they say? You know, my life is not without struggle. There's I carry I carry a good amount of pain, I will admit, I carry a good amount of pain in my life. Possibly because I allow myself, I don't know. Um my life was not without struggle. You know, my pickup truck needs work. I'm gonna need a dentist pretty soon, you know, shit like that. But that's everybody's life has got that. Everybody, everybody, everybody. So I will say that that is my life perfect? Is am I living my best life? I'm doing the best I fucking can. I really am. I work hard, I wake up early, I stay sober, I try to be true to everybody. So I would say that I'm satisfied and I'm I'm I'm I'm constantly working to live my best life, yes. Okay, good answer. Okay, final question, James. You ready? Yeah, get me. I'm ready, I'm ready. Wait, let me warm up. Yeah. Okay, okay, I'm ready. Good warm-up. Uh James, where do you get your ideas? Where do I get my ideas? What ideas? I mean what ideas? You know, you gotta be, I mean if you're talking about particularly, where'd you get the idea for this? Or where'd you get the idea for that? That makes sense. But where do I get my ideas? What you mean, I think, is where do you get my where do I get my brazenness? Where do I get my boldness or my my my audacity? And I think it's I think it goes back to me being weird, right? If I do a good job of being me, being bold, being weird, and putting that in my work, that's where I get my ideas from. You know, um, there's this there's this process that you can go through. And you generally do it when you're hanging out with a friend and or and drinking at a bar, all it helps too. But let's say you let's say you hang out with a friend and you go to uh a bar after work and you're working on different projects and you're like, hey, what you working on? Like, oh, I got this thing, and you start sharing ideas back and forth. And about, you know, after the second beer, you're talking about your ideas, and it's and one of you goes, you know what would be really funny, and the very next thing you say, you have to do that. Because that's brazen, that's bold, that's probably very funny, it's probably really true, and you have to do it. So that's where my ideas come from. I want to come up with the ideas that nobody, that either nobody would come up with, or nobody has the balls to come up with, or nobody would fucking follow through with if they came up with that. Because I have to do a good job of being me, a good job of being bold and weird. And if I can do that, then I get paid to be James Victory. I get paid to play. Much like much like a a musician writing songs, or a or a good poet. You know, anybody that you look up to, any writer or author or poet that you or filmmaker you look up to. If they do a good job of being themselves, then they're making something. Then they're doing something that has value to themselves and to other people. So there. Ah, another good answer. Thanks, James. Um, hey, uh James, that's all I have. That's those are the only questions I have. Wait, wait a minute. Those are the only questions you have? Wait, what about the what about the hey, we're gonna do the barrage now? You're gonna get like one-word answers for these five questions. Let's do, you know, wait, you know, like what about that? Everybody does that. Um no, I don't have I don't I don't I don't have that. Wait a minute, you don't have that? Everybody ends like that. What kind of fucking podcast is this? Uh, okay, well, whatever. Whatever. Uh James, uh so sorry, man. Thank you so much for being here, and I really appreciate your uh what I have to assume is your honesty and your integrity in doing this. Um everybody else out there, thank you for being on this podcast. Um, thank you for supporting this project. Um, and thank you for showing up all the time and for your weirdness and your own audacity. I'm James Victory, and I'm James Victory. Thank you, and I'll talk to you again. Adios.