The Wise Mind Happy Hour
Two therapists musing about the idea of an inner wise mind and how to connect with this psychic space in different contexts.
The Wise Mind Happy Hour
the wisdom of CREATIVITY (feat. Josh Berkowitz)
Performance artist Josh Berkowitz takes us on a wild ride through his psyche as we unpack the importance of creativity in self exploration. From clown class to the bar mitzvah dance floor, we explore creativity in all of its messiest, most vulnerable forms.
- music by blanket forts -
Welcome everyone to the Wise Mind Happy Hour. I'm Kelly. I'm Kelly Flan Solo just for this intro Because, frankly, john and I forgot to do an intro and then it became too late with our guest and John has a family and, you know, has to be in the office early in the morning. So I decided to pop on here and do an intro myself. And yeah, I was a little bummed because I know selfishly, our favorite part of the pod is often doing the intro with each other and catching up. But yeah, I basically, since I'm not catching up with anyone, I basically just wanted to pop on for a short intro for this ep and we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming for the next ep. But I wanted to jump on because this is kind of a special episode. Our guest is an artist, a performance artist, and our topic today is understanding yourself through the creative process. And you know, because our guest is a very creative person, kind of a nonlinear thinker you know that's a pretty loose topic in this episode we really the conversation really kind of goes all over the place in a great way. So yeah, I would just say, you know, fear not. You know, we, the conversation is interesting. We may not totally, obviously, exhaustively cover the topic, but yeah, it's interesting. It's almost a bit abstract in the way the conversation unfolded. So, yeah, just yeah, be aware of that. And yeah, hopefully you really enjoy it Even more, maybe because of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it's always interesting for us, for john and I, to have people on the pod that aren't in the therapy space, you know, because really it's a nice window into, like, what does Wise Mind look like in just a person's life, with their work, with their relationships with and you know, we hope to have more people on able to share this. But, yeah, that's what we did today. And yeah, josh Berkowitz, our guest, has a show in Denver. He lives in the Denver area and it's an experimental performance art show. So, yeah, he definitely approaches work and life in an interesting way and the wise mind in an interesting way.
Speaker 1:He's also in therapy and, yeah, interesting stuff comes up with that and his mental health journey is really interesting. So you get a little bit of info on that. So, yeah, I hope you enjoy. It was really fun for us to do. We had some major technical difficulties at the beginning of the app, which are not on the record, but yeah, we were like it was getting late, so of course the intro got forgotten, because that would be something I would forget in that kind of environment. But anyway, the the ep is great, so, um, so yeah, hopefully you enjoy and we'll be back next week with a regular old intro. Okay, thanks everyone.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Wise Mind Happy Hour.
Speaker 1:Welcome, yes, welcome, everyone. Today, our topic that we'll be covering with our guest is understanding yourself through the creative process, and we have with us our very special guest and very good friend of Josh Baer from childhood, josh Berkowitz, all the way from Denver, colorado. Welcome, josh.
Speaker 3:It's so great to be invited on this podcast. I'm very honored and, yeah, it's just very exciting. So I don't know, do you want me to go right into?
Speaker 1:that Well, yeah, so tell us. I mean, we're so honored to have you as well. Thank you so much for coming. And yeah, we want to know, kind of how you know, when you hear this topic. This is often like we John and I did group therapy together for a long time and when we'd bring up a topic, we'd say like, okay, when you hear this concept, what comes up for you? What do you notice? So, this idea of understanding yourself through the creative process, how do you relate to that? What comes up for you when we say that?
Speaker 3:I actually feel called to share, when the very first merging of making the creative decision um was came from your husband, um, josh bear. That you know. When I met josh in sixth grade, we had plans to be like really cool kids and and I won't go into the whole story but, but, josh bear, you know, when we fully accepted him and he accepted us, you know, and all of a sudden we are making movies instead of being the cool kids. You know, um, it really starting at that point but it's kind of guiding me into the college archetype but even back then we were the well-respected outsiders. You, you know where it's like. You know they might not invite you to all their parts but like, at the same time, they know you're the purest creative forces. Um, I guess it's probably good for me to jump in and to college, because I was at the theater school of um University of Michigan and I realized it was unfortunate because I did high school theater with Josh Baer and could be dorky and cool at the same time.
Speaker 3:When I got into theater school at University of Michigan, all of a sudden people were smoking cigarettes and wanted to be cool actors for real, and from day one. What was amazing was this movement voice teacher named annette massad. Uh, she on the first day said call yourself artists, not actors. And I took her word for that and I don't think any of the other people did. But I became the well-respected outsider where, yes, once I was not invited to the cool, cool theater parties. But, uh, for me, when everything really changed, I became, I would say, more of a performance artist, experimental theater maker and then eventually an experimental film collaborator of Josh bears. What happened in that early phase when I did this show, jones?
Speaker 3:it was, I was playing a meth addict, uh, who would spit out stream of consciousness ginsburgian poetry while withdrawing from death wow and what was really cool was that at 20 I had a style, um, and I always say so, I I have my own gallery in denver, in the middle of denver, and I always say to the artists, uh, except for the ones who are pretty much at the top of the line, all the artists who are fighting to, you know, get stronger. Or to be in our gallery. I tell them, uh, that a certain level of arrogance is good, playful arrogance, where you know you know this arrogance, you know I'm full of shit, but when you're in the act of creation, you have to think you're the best artist on the planet. And then the creative process, though, ultimately humbles you, where, at some point, you know, the muse like breaks your back.
Speaker 3:And for me, that moment came less than a year after doing this show jonesin, where I was shooting an experimental film on a baseball field in winter. Uh, I was having this insane nostalgia, um, that was starting to be really um problematic, where I was craving a michigan fall in in a really like super intense way and I didn't realize there was trauma involved in this nostalgia. And then I started, um, uh, I started having flashbacks to being in nursery school and they would put a video on when all the kids were crying, like a mommy comes back, kind of music video, and the kids would cry harder Because a pitcher, catcher, batter, my father coaching at the sidelines and my mother cheering me on behind the fence. So I was doing psychodrama before I knew what it was. And, yeah, there's Jewish archetypes in that.
Speaker 4:And.
Speaker 3:I like to take lately, taking Jewish stereotypes, you know, ones that are less harmful, that are sillier, and calling them Jewish archetypes. And so my new show, dr Headshaker how I Learned to Stop Worrying About Rodman in North Korea. A lot of it's about Jewish American boys and the obsession with basketball. What is that? So you know, I'm wearing my Pistons hat and I've become obsessed with early Dennis Rodman pre-Bowls and you know he was in love with his coach, chuck Daly, who was like a father figure to him. But Dennis Rodman was so childlike from all the trauma that he really thought the Pistons were going to win forever. They won two championships and, yeah, coach J Daly was like this father figure to him, and when they fell apart he almost committed suicide in the Palace of Auburn Hills part of the lot. And yeah, he lost his father figure and he was never the same after that. It was the only father figure he ever had.
Speaker 3:So then I kind of flash forward to how did that lead to him being best friends with Kim Jong-un? And you know this weird other you know part, but one of the hottest takes I have and I'll kind of pause um, is that, um, kim jong-un and dennis rodman are really just like two six-year-olds wanting to play in the basement. Um, just like I, as a little jewish boy at six years old, like fisher price basement. You know, um, you know fisher price basketball hoops and stuff. So, um, that's the latest stuff, but you know that early, those two early projects I shared about. Um, yeah, you know my mother's a therapist. You know josh fair's mother's a therapist. You, I know kelly, you're a therapist john are you?
Speaker 3:yes, I am, yes, I am yeah, john's a therapist, yeah, so, so it's all you know. Everything with it, you know, has to do, you know, with doing psychodrama. Um, I wish I did more psychodrama and inner child work when I, when I'm not on stage, uh, that that's something I'm grappling with is, um, you know, it's just diagnosed with histrionic personality disorder, which not a lot of people know about. And um, know, so, histrionic personality disorder, which not a lot of people know about. And um, I I'm realizing after watching nathan fielder in the rehearsal season two, uh, that he's working out his personality disorder, um, on on camera. But you're like, wait a second. This is the tricky thing with creative stuff is, am I really working it out or am I doing it for attention? So my show's a lot about that too.
Speaker 1:Okay, interesting. So what you're saying is a lot of these shows like that you've participated in over the years and now you create them and, like you know, I know this one you have now is kind of like a one man show type thing, right, yeah, okay. So all these these productions you create are like, in a way, this like revealing of these childhood experiences you've had and coming to understand them through creativity, through this like psychodrama, right, which, like we know and as therapists, psychodrama can be used, right, for self understanding. You know, can we dramatize this like inner turmoil, this family situation, this problem, this context, so that you can better understand it. It's almost like an extreme way to use metaphor which, like you use a ton in act, we use a ton in therapy. But, yeah, you're doing it as an artist, you know, understanding, understanding yourself. Would you say that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's really yeah, I'm doing it as an artist, you know it really, for me it really helped me to be a curator as well. So I've been a curator the last you know better part of the last decade three years with my current gallery, the Lab on Santa Fe, and a half years, uh, being uh one of the artistic directors at the electric lodge of venice beach. And it's really interesting as a curator. It really helped. I go through periods where I need to really focus more on my work and then there's areas where being a curator really, um, gets me out of self, um, and I hold space for other people and, um, and I absorb from that.
Speaker 3:So that's like, like I said, you know, there's like elements where you know I went to gallery or met my one-man shows, I I have to put on a certain kind of like extra amount of confidence to be a creative leader or to to be be to do a one man show. You have to. You have to to really kind of be pretty obsessed with yourself. But like, then I catch myself as a curator, watching other brilliant people and absorbing from them really helps me a big time to get out of self. That often is the most rewarding stuff, and this question of what will people really remember? Will they remember me as a curator or my creative work?
Speaker 3:Uh, where my creative work has become really important again is when, uh, I don't want my artists or the performers I used to have in bennett's beach to be like, oh he's the guy with the clipboard, you know he's the gatekeeper, he's the suit. And so then I go. You know he's the gatekeeper, he's the suit. And so then I go through these periods where I need to be really selfish and, part of that, showing oh to all these artists well, I'm the craziest artist of all you know. So they see me as an artist's curator, if that makes any sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally, totally. That's so interesting. Well, I'm curious and we'll talk about this. I know about how that you know, what self understanding has come up for you, or what like different things have you, you know, come to understand about yourself in your creative process? But I also want to know, john, if we pose this question to you, don't be scared.
Speaker 1:Oh God, you know, if you think about because I'm thinking about it for me to like both us, we're clinicians, so we put it into our work too. And then, with our own relationship to self, when you think about, like, how does creativity play into that? What do you think, or does it?
Speaker 2:uh therapy can be really creative yeah, and I think it can be very mundane and and very like yeah, nuts and bolts at times, and so I think that what I like to think of like creativity is how I can maybe like push myself to try different things in the therapy space whether that's different modalities, or like a different metaphor, or, and some of it is, you know, therapy is sometimes like playing, like jazz music because you don't know what the person's going to bring into the session, and so you, you kind of know, you know, you know the notes, but you don't know exactly how you're going to like put them together in the session.
Speaker 2:It doesn't always work but, so I think that part of it makes it exciting to me and it makes me cause. No, two sessions are ever the same. No two groups are ever the same, and so I feel like it's creative in in the sense of it's unpredictable and so um, I think what I've learned I, what I've learned about myself, is to sit in that unpredictability and and not maybe judge myself as harshly, as like that's a bad thing or that's like it doesn't have to go.
Speaker 2:Not every session has to go the way that I think it has to go or I have to plot it it out, and I think that that only for me came with time of doing it, and and confidence, but I think it's also just the process of therapy has made me more creative and thinking of new ways of just how I am in my life, because people, when they bring their narrative and it's like, well, I never as much as maybe I say something that they've never thought of, they'll tell me perspectives that I've never thought of, of yeah, like what I'm going through, or or even things I haven't gone through, but I don't know if that really answers no, it does.
Speaker 1:It's so interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like even thinking about, like I'm sure artists think about this all the time, but like peeling back even that word, like creativity to like what you're saying like to create something, to discover something you know, cause, sometimes, like when you start as a therapist, or like as an artist, if I like, if I were I'm you know I don't make visual art necessarily but like if I sat down to try to draw something I know, something I get caught in is like wanting it to be like finished and right or good, you know, like before I've even started.
Speaker 1:And that comes up as a client when I'm in therapy, as a therapist, as a person, like in a relationship, like wanting to be good or be interesting, even or whatever, be profound. Instead of that like like you're saying, like really sitting back into, like discovery. So I'm curious about that, like if we peel back the definition a little bit, because, like creativity, we can think of like get, get out all your art materials, or like your get on stage whatever, but even thinking about like creation and how that plays into our self understanding or how that plays in Josh to you, even creating a show you know, like starting from nothing, do you feel like you have to kind of discover it? Like live by trying things or whatever, working it out?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yes, yes. Well, I love, john, what you said about unpredictability in session and I'm so excited to hear more about both of you how you deal with those moments, how much dynamicism it takes to be a therapist. I mean, it's unbelievable. Yeah, creativity's, yeah it uh, creativity's, uh, I. I, like I said you know, creativity can go in a lot of different directions. Um, in terms of it's, you know, really the question that I am grappling with with my therapist is I more have trouble? Well, I guess I. This was a realization.
Speaker 3:I had, a while ago, the two archetypes for the artist I find to be the performer and the poet. And the performer is the extroverted artist and the poet being the private, very introverted artist. And you know what I'm going through right now. Now I'm trying to get free therapy at the moment. What I'm going through right now is my, my creative stuff is become so extroverted and you know, um, when I end up running artistic spaces, that just happens. So my bigger personality um comes out, uh, you know, over function, you know as a creative leadership, you know type persona.
Speaker 3:And what I'm grappling with is more, when I'm off stage, what the hell does that look like? I even I even tell the audience in my new show. Um, you know, don't peg me as magnetic, you know, um, you know, you don't. It's like you don't know me when I'm home, you know, watching tv, um, you know so. So that's been a big thing is for me, I know it's almost like I'm saying, I don't know if this seems contrary to what you're talking about, but I will say that you know, turning it off is really tricky.
Speaker 3:I am diagnosed bipolar and I've been med compliant for basically seven years years and hopefully your listeners can hear this very clear that me being medicated has made me way stronger as an artist. My work's more precise, um and, uh, more thought out. I used to throw food at people back 11, 12 years ago on stage at brett clinton and it was all mania and there was no thought to it. It was pure, you know, manic, severe mania, and so I will say that what being mad compliant has done for me as an artist is to be uh, strategic in my anarchy. So, as as much as I say yeah, I'm grappling with how to get off stage, I do find that the most important thing creatively is is strategy. But yeah, this old term prepare like a control freak execute like a Zen master. I'm so curious how you deal with freak execute like a Zen master.
Speaker 3:I'm so curious how you deal with like when you go into a session think it's going to go one way, you know, and then they throw something, totally, you know, a curve ball at you, like what do you? What do you do at that moment? That I mean that has to be such a creative, uh spontaneous, like improvisation, like I can't even imagine.
Speaker 1:Totally. Well, I can say for me and john was speaking to this a little bit I'm more like at times where I'm like fraught a little bit as a therapist. If I'm like noticing like there's a stuckness here in me, it's because I'm, it's because I'm trying to map out a session or trying to know what's going on and like pre-package something helpful. Or sometimes this is gonna sound crazy, but it's sometimes, if I go in even wanting to be helpful, that's an issue because really the practice is to be present and that's pretty much it, because and this is like our whole podcast's premise down this the wisdom needed will come from the presence. You won't have to like dig it out and perfectly present it when you slow down and become like deeply authentic and and like almost just hear and dig and explore, explore, explore what is meant to happen in the session, just will. And I think it's like it's almost like there couldn't be a curveball when you're in that space and so like, and over time I think both of us have learned like how to shed and shed and shed. That like almost like trying to be a therapist.
Speaker 1:In a weird way, it's like too much archetype of therapist and less presence is an issue, and I actually think that's probably an issue in so many pursuits in life. It's like trying too hard to do the thing interrupts the doing of the thing, like creativity, even relaxing whatever it might be, like you're saying, getting off stage, that can be difficult because we're trying to make something of that instead of just luxuriate in it and feel through it. You know so I know for me, if I'm noticing like oh, something feels like a curveball and I feel like I'm struggling to deal with it, it's often because there's like an unsettled part of me that I need to kind of internally work with a little bit. But I'm curious what you think about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I mean, I think the slowing down is really important. I mean, even to what you were saying, josh. Like I'm having a hard time getting off stage, right, it's like okay, let's, I wasn't expecting you to say it. Like let's pause there for a second, right, like, what kind of emotions come up? What does that feel like to? Not Right? So it's like we're we're not doing a hard stop, but we're saying, oh, ok, I wasn't expecting Josh to bring that up as an example in the session. Are your thoughts telling you when you feel like you can't, or what are the emotions that come with that? Or when you're not on stage, what's coming up for you, right? So it's like that, like kelly's saying that's slowing down, even if you didn't expect someone to bring that in so that we can elicit, like what?
Speaker 2:yeah what's underneath or what's coming up. I think it's also just, you know, owning sometimes like, oh okay, well, you, we had planned to maybe talk about this and I noticed you even saying to somebody like, I noticed you going in a different direction, right Like because that in and of itself might be a control mover and they're trying to control the session or escape something that's coming up for them. So I think, even reflecting back to somebody that whoa, that we just took a hard left there and that's fine, I want to explore that left turn and like what, what made you think of that or what you know, like reflecting that back to them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But I was also curious when you were first speaking, josh, about separating, like yourself from your work, um, and also just kind of like exploring yourself through your work. Because I think that when Kelly and I, as therapists, like you write transference and counter-transference, like that can come up. And so you know I'm I'm having these, this counter-transference with a patient or a client or whatever. But in your work I'm curious, like is there a line that you're able to be aware of, where you're like, oh, this creative thing I'm doing right now this is more self-serving than it is actually like something you know, cause you were mentioning the psychodrama. So I know this is kind of a long question, but sometimes when counter-transference will come up in session, it's kind of like, ooh, is this like interrupting the therapy process? Is this more for me? Am I avoiding this because it's my issue? Versus so yeah, I'm, I'm, I don't know. It's kind of it's a large question, but like where? Not that there's a firm line, but like when does this become? Like not creative for whatever the purpose is, others?
Speaker 3:for the audience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like for me to just kind of exercise it and there's nothing. I'm not judging that. Maybe that's really important to do as well.
Speaker 3:Oh, no, no, no, it's such a good question. I think, okay, I think this ties in, because I was already thinking I was going to mention this, but then when you finished what you were saying, I was like, okay, this is so. I was trained as a clown as well by the time, by the end of my time at University of Michigan, and then I did a little more training here and there.
Speaker 1:Can you tell us a little about that? Yeah, what that is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, clown training is really just like hyper-presence.
Speaker 2:You know, and is really just like hyper presence, um, you know, and being totally you walking in a room, where do you, where do you get, where do you go to clowns training?
Speaker 3:I'm sorry, I uh, I'm like, I'm like two minutes behind this wait you went to scariest so this was so scary because you know you find out kind of like end of freshman year at university of michigan you hear this rumor oh, there's this cloud class and every he makes everybody cry in the first day yeah, and this is and, and so this is what's funny is, on the one hand, this is really bad and on the other hand, this is good because it comes cloud, comes from more of the French and British tradition of Does it come from American psychology, meaning that on the first day you know this guy, who's British he was, he was a great early mentor, malcolm tulip but on the first day of clown class he throws you in a circle 360 degrees. You're surrounded and he throws you in the middle and he goes make us laugh. And it's a trap because once you're trying to make people laugh, you can't and he starts making fun of you until you're so vulnerable that I didn't start. I didn't cry on the first day, but it well, let me put it this way, I think, from a more therapy standpoint, let me. Let me bring this memory, uh, to the table.
Speaker 3:I studied with an American clown teacher, stefan Haves, and there was this one session, you know it was a bunch of people where, you know, I was trying to do some of my old creative tricks of singing in a weird creepy voice, whatever, and he's like no, no, no, no, no, no. And he's like all right. And he's like no, no, no, no, no, no. And he's like all right, sing for real. It's like freaking sing, don't freaking make a joke out of it. So, whatever training I had as a singer came up I didn't know how well trained I was and I was singing opera, like operatic, like straight up, just you know singing, try to remember from the fantastics. And I sang and and the everybody's jaw was on the floor, including my own. I cried in front of everybody and then I looked up and I said, was it good? And everybody laughed their fucking asses off because the thing was like so childlike.
Speaker 3:Yeah, tell me, I'm good, you know and you know I'm yeah, and so I guess in that way, having an American clown teacher was good, because he still puts you on the spot, he's still, he's still. You know, you'd be in a situation that was still scary and embarrassing, but there was that american psychology that was still tied into it. Um, you know, so you know a lot of people in l. I'd say la has a ton of clowns. I'd say it's oversaturated, like everybody wants to be a clown.
Speaker 3:So I don't, I use elements a clown in my show and I think it really helps to break up that question of oh, is he just doing therapy on stage? And for me as well, like last year I did a tennis version of a one man show and a lot of that show was me pretending like it was about tennis and I would go into the elements of tennis and being like what a fascinating sport, it's so heady, and so I would pretend the show was about tennis and then the psychodrama would slip in. I'd resist the psychology, I'd resist the therapy. Oh, I crashed my bike, you know, because I wasn't taught how to ride a bike properly. That snuck in later in the show. Or you know stuff where, you know, josh and I went through puberty together. I put myself on the dance floor at a bar about Mitzvah and like the embarrassment of, you know, first time, dealing with teenage hormones on the dance floor, like I won't go any further into it than that, but it was funny. So you know the the audience, as long as I think a certain amount of obnoxiousness is good for the show, um, you know, having elements of dennis rodman's career trying to get the audience to focus on something like the bad boy, detroit Pistons dynasty or, you know, michael Jordan, enough of that sports narrative is going to grab people's attention.
Speaker 3:So it's not just totaling my psychology, totaling my psychology, but I will say this too, that there are a lot of artists, including mark scorsese, that says the private is the, you know, is the universal emerson. I'm misquoting, but yeah, the private is the most universal. So being getting so personal is going to touch at least certain people in the audience. Um, but, but the risk, especially with performance art, is indulgence. Um, but I find that most of the artists that I work with, or even theater people, they could afford to be more indulgent. Um, but I don't know, maybe I I might be too far in the direction. But I just say fucking it. And you know, if somebody walks away being pissed that my shit was indulgent, I don't care.
Speaker 1:I I taunt a little bit in that regard yeah, well, it's interesting, like I like the idea that maybe you don't have to resolve that. You know that could just be like, or we could be uncertain. Right, will someone understand this as? Yeah I'm indulgent and that's who they'll see me to be, or will someone kind of like get it in the way that I do and you know, see that like there's like a tongue in cheek to this or like being obnoxious?
Speaker 1:is like being whole, you know, as a person like has every facet of a human being and, you know, maybe like unleashing, that can be really therapeutic, like to actually be loud and out there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, totally. I have a new prologue for the Denver version premiered in LA, and I'm going to admit to the audience that I got a dopamine hit off of the ticket purchase notifications that I got from them buying the ticket. And you know, starting off that way and and and I'm, we're building this crazy basketball, abstract basketball installation involving pulley systems, exercise balls, and I say to the audience thanks for you know like and so it's fun to play with.
Speaker 3:Where you can't be like that offstage your id or whatever the fuck on stage you know like. And you know Larry David, you know Curb your Enthusiasm. You know he does that where you know he can be totally total asshole. But Nathan Fielder, you know who a lot of people are considering the most creative figure out there right now. He's horribly arrogant and manipulative and all these things. But with what I watch him do his stuff the rehearsal season two is a masterpiece. I do worry about him, you know like he, you know, has a potential autism diagnosis that he won't confront and then he puts a bunch of people on an airplane with it was the pilot and so, yeah, thinking about like the term self-understanding, like obviously isn't something we like of all, pretty much, especially those of us that are like real, think of it, you know the self the soul, the divine, feminine, you can think of it at all of these different things, but something within that knows you, that you're getting closer to.
Speaker 1:So I'm curious, like in your being a creative, an artist, do you feel like a show like the one you have now makes you feel any closer, or in like relationship more to that part of you that knows you and that is more core, that inner wise mind, you might say?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, as great as it was last year to do this tennis show where you know good majority of it was, you know, trying to not be in personal psychology and let it slip in subtly this time, basketball, uh, it just is too personal. Like I said, you know, basketball was um, you know, such a big part of reformed jewish american culture. I know a lot of orthodox jews love basketball too and one of the big things that coming up is, um, this fourth fifth grade hero of mine, uh, mr wad. Hey, it's funny because a lot of times I use intellect to being super heady intellectual to um, really not get to the heart of things. One of my collaborators, she's unbelievable because so much more heart-centered than I am, and so she brings me into my heart more, dealing with these early parts. When she helps me it really gets going. But this fourth fifth grade teacher I had, um, well, he was really our basketball kind of coach. I was really good at basketball in fourth grade and then by fifth grade I kind of like fell apart and best friends, joker, when Scott went to the best friends he hit Matt Goodman and became an incredible basketball.
Speaker 3:But this figure, mr Juan, we worshipped him. He was my fifth grade teacher but he was our basketball referee and league organizer and coach. We worshipped this guy. And then on the last day of fifth grade we found out he was coming with us to abbott middle school and it sounded like the greatest freaking thing ever. Well, all of a sudden we get to sixth grade when I meet may, her husband, um, and all these kids from the other side to the tracks that jewish boys never knew could possibly exist, and they were just these really rambunctious, scary kids. And Mr Wan, we did not know I don't even know if he for sure knew that vice principal meant head disciplinary.
Speaker 3:So you know I can really, with this show, going through things where Ashley is dropping in so much deeper and it's really hard. And so you know, the memory I share with the audience is that there was a vandalism situation in the bathrooms with some graham crackers and peanut butter, and then I went to him to tell him about it, thinking he would think it's funny, and he just dead serious, like a different person, walked away and him and his walkie talkie just turned his back on me and we lost him forever. And you know I'm doing it in a different way for the Denver audience than I did it for the LA audience. It really had not cracked open yet when I hit it, but I'm going to really look in the eyes of the audience and share this.
Speaker 3:Now, they didn't have this experience, but the coming of age moments everybody remembers when a hero fell, you know, fell through, remembers when a hero fell, you know, fell through and you know, and so I'm really tying that too with dennis rodman and his surrogate father figure, uh, chuck daly, you know, the championship winning coach of the pistons and him losing that. So it's all tied in together. But I think it really helps to have um, have the sports as this kind of broad metaphor. I think that helps the audience that's not just them watching me share my personal story.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm noticing and I'm aware that maybe you're keeping some things for the audience, but I'm curious about that moment, like, if you were my client I might say, well, tell me, you know, when he turned his back in the walkie talkie, and if you imagine that moment I, is there a self-understanding that comes up? Or we could talk about a feeling that comes up there. But since we're talking about self-understanding and you've made a show out of this, what does that mean to you now, a moment like that?
Speaker 3:assuming little older lady. That seems really sweet, but she kicks my ass and I need that. Um my last therapist. He tried to pitch me a screenplay uh idea and I I stopped seeing him shortly in la too long when that happens can you believe it?
Speaker 3:it's like out of a movie, yeah. And then this woman, she, you know she don't charge a lot either, and I think part of the reason she does charge a lot is because she probably has so many clients leave because she tells them the truth. And she, two weeks ago, was like what is wrong with you? Like why don't you take care of yourself? She was frustrated.
Speaker 3:And then a week later I brought her this stuff about Mr Wah and it opened up so much stuff, even deeper than that, you know, of a 12 year old self that, um, you know, really, with this show I'm dealing with six, nine and twelve, uh, those parts, and, um, yeah, it it's. I'm sitting this is the co-working space of the building I live in now and I have all these giant sheets of paper with these monologues on it that are the exact monologue of this incident, sharing this part of the story, and I sit in here and I take it in and I really try to feel it and I would say I have never dealt with something this emotional in a show of mine directly. So it's so funny that I'm talking to two therapists about it like a week before it goes up. So yeah, yeah, yeah, but I'm really trying to stay in my body, but I can dissociate pretty quick. So it's like in these short bursts that I have to work on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, and are you more? And I feel like I can dissociate pretty quick, so it's like in these short bursts that I have to work on yeah, okay, and are you more?
Speaker 2:and I feel like I'm taking over.
Speaker 1:You can cut me off but I wonder like, are you and maybe this is kind of your work too, Cause I I haven't seen your any of your shows Um, I've totally would if, if I were in the Denver area, or anytime, if I might be in the future.
Speaker 1:But basically I'm wondering if, by the way you're talking about it, what I'm noticing is that maybe like a lot of the meaning is more kind of felt in the live playing of it out by the audience and less, doesn't need to be, like you said, intellectualized or kind of like, even verbalized more, just like the felt sense of the audience, you know, feels that moment with you without needing to like perfectly feel the moment you're saying, or feeling it like into, like in the body yeah, yeah, and less like.
Speaker 1:you know because I'm thinking of like, and sometimes maybe I'll over intellectualize a piece of art, you know, like, and sometimes I won't. Josh, my Josh and I talk about this a lot that like, sometimes we'll get annoyed if we'll watch a movie or, like, see an art piece with our parents and they're like, well, what does it mean? And we're both like we don't really experience it that way.
Speaker 4:Right, would you say that, josh? Sometimes my mom will be like, oh, I loved the symbolism, let's talk about the symbolism and it's funny because it's almost like I'll want to have all those same conversations about, like the hidden meanings and I don't know, like talking about it beyond the surface level, but like sometimes it just feels so cut and dry to be like let's talk about the symbolism or like it'll end and she'll be like, oh so deep sure and like like maybe I agree, but it's.
Speaker 4:It's something I don't know why. I probably get annoyed because she's my mom and I'm just gonna get annoyed with her, no matter what she does right, and that's a human thing, but maybe that's why, like, I feel like it's this thing of like, like, let's put on our like intellectual hats and be like these, like movie doctors, yeah.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 4:I'm like I kind of just want to like talk about it. And maybe it's because, like I make movies, so I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yeah, totally Well. Yeah, and I'm even I'll explain like something I experienced with a piece and he'll be like interesting, really, you got all that. I guess, like I just that's what it meant to me, you know, or whatever. But I'm wondering if even in your work it could be another layer where it's like there's a felt sense to it, because you are, you know, doing a one-man experimental show Even more, so it kind of hits you at the gut level or the heart level, like you were saying yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, the contemporary, really the next layer, the contemporary dance element really seems to come in last, at least it was last year and this year but it really kind of completes the show is abstract movement and um that you know, there is this thing where the audience they're like some audience members stress out that, um, they don't know enough about sports.
Speaker 3:You know, and I'm sharing this really obscure sports history that was forgotten because mj once he took down the Pistons, you know, he just wiped them off the planet and the way they left, they left the court early, it ruined their legacy and they didn't even shake the bull's hands or anything. But, yeah, the contemporary dance element, which I feel like I did nail in LA dance element, um, which I feel like I didn't nail in la the other day, I start finding, moving through um, where, you know, there's a section where the you know boston celtics that hated lambeer, because lambeer, uh, you know, brought uh larry bird down by his neck, you know could have broke his neck. You know that boston celtics announcer is like I hate those yellow, godless studs.
Speaker 3:And then I mix it with Dennis Rodman getting his first Defensive Player of the Year award. I mean, if you haven't watched either the Bad Boys doc or the doc on Dennis Rodman, Dennis.
Speaker 3:Rodman. For better or worse. It's a therapist's dream to eat up because it really shows how childlike he was. And if you watch the video of him winning his first defensive player of the year war and how he cried, you know it was. He's nothing like who he became. He hid that boy. As soon as he lost that surrogate father figure, that boy was gone and I get so emotional about it.
Speaker 3:So you know, when I was doing the show in la, I thought, oh, I should pin a mine. You know larry bird and you know dennis roberts and I'm like fighting and I just then I watched this video and I'm like this isn't right. And the other day when I started moving through those ridiculous sports clips, the, the sound of it in an abstract way, I go, oh, my god, I think this is the show, is this other layer, so that anybody trying to follow all my coming of age stories, the sports stuff, they can't feel anything that if they see the somatic movement going on, that's the most important thing, if that makes any sense. But that's going to help me move through it in a visceral way, because I'm so intellectual you know that really may be the key to the next performance is that I somatically get it down into my body.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally, and you know, like that is what can be so amazing about creativity In like one's you know self understanding and therapeutic work, because, like, sometimes, like an understanding of something can't really be in like words or concepts. It does have to be more just like felt, or even, like we were talking about this like metaphor, can even be a creative form, right where it's like I can be going back and forth with my own therapist or with a client and it's like, if you ask, like can you explain it in a metaphor? If, if they're struggling to get it across, and it's like there's a thousand pounds of water over me and I'm swimming and I can't get to the top and I'm losing time and I'm what you know, and you you feel it right, like you're almost putting yourself in that and you're feeling that and there's something that's understood on another level. Or, right, if you see dance or hear music, in a certain way there can be something like understood about, almost like I even think like the collective human experience.
Speaker 1:That, of course, is like what self-understanding ultimately is is finding. I think finding that like you know self that's kind of like oceanic and connects to everyone. And, yeah, I think it's so interesting, thinking of it more felt. I'm kind of, you know, gathering that from what you're saying and how you're explaining it, that it is like to be felt and there isn't anything to like walk away with from your show or from any art piece you know, or maybe even like sometimes from any group therapy session you know like. Is there like one nugget you even have to have, or is the experience itself of self in those contexts important? Yeah, I mean, I think yeah, I touch.
Speaker 2:I always say this like process versus outcome, which, as a creative artist, you know you did a show in one way and going through the process was probably more important in certain ways, because then you thought about it differently and it's evolved and changed versus it's got to look like a certain thing. I want the audience to get this certain thing which you can have that in mind. But same thing with therapy it's like we can have something in the distance that we're moving towards, but it's really about the process of therapy.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And moving through that process that will unfold things we didn't expect and organically morph, hopefully, into something deeper and more meaningful to hear this because during a really rough period when I was doing psychoanalysis, I went into that room with that modality and I said I don't want to get better, I just want to get my, want, my art to be more interesting. It was, like you know, freudian stuff I find artistically really interesting, but I think a lot of what freud had going on was more artistically, aesthetically interesting than, like this problem. I think, as I've gotten older, but I still need to always check this, you know, is this question of is it about when you're dealing with your clients? Is the end goal getting better, or is it self-knowledge or a mix of both? Like I'm very curious kind of.
Speaker 3:I mean, I assume every, every client has a different patient, is different angle, but but would you say there's an overarching for all your clients and patients? There's an overarching who I want them to get better? Is that the ultimate intention or how does that work? Because, yeah, creatively, you know, being brilliant creatively is not the same thing as as self-care. I mean, that is what I keep saying, that I'm grappling with one versus the other, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think that I think that from my perspective and I'm I lean more into like acceptance and commitment therapy. So the idea of better usually people think better is not experiencing their symptoms, and when we say symptoms, we're thinking about just human emotions that are very intense. The psychoeducation piece is more about symptom reduction might be a byproduct of this therapy, but really what we're learning is how to relate to these things that we call symptoms. Right, you're telling yourself a narrative, most likely that feeling better will be. I don't have any anxiety. Those are, and and I don't use this term until I have good rapport with people but having no anxiety, that's dead people's goals.
Speaker 2:Like that's a dead person goal because, that's the only person who doesn't have anxiety right or like. I want to be better, so I don't want to feel sad.
Speaker 2:And it's like that's a dead person goal, like you're going to feel sad. So it's more about how do we learn how to relate to these experiences, and in that that you may feel better, in the sense that these experiences might not be as intense and they could be thoughts. It could be anything. So I think that people come to us with a notion of what better looks like, but a lot of times, when we tease it apart, it's like I just don't want to deal with things that I have to ultimately deal with. I mean.
Speaker 2:I don't have to, but ultimately I have to confront these things and we can make meaning in your life and still have these things. So that's just from my perspective on like, the idea of like, betterness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally, totally, yeah, it's like there can that can be a very common intention coming into therapy, like I want to feel better. And you know, I almost think I'm thinking of a couple of things because, like all, when I start with a client, a lot of what we'll talk about will be, you know, like the first question is like what brings you to therapy now, meaning like what is going on that you're noticing, that you are struggling with, in your own words, from your own subjective experience, what's there that you don't want to be there? Where are you stuck, where you want to be unstuck? And I'll even at the end say, like if you could wave a magic wand and something could be different in six months, what would it be? But you know, and I love that, like I, and really it's like, if it's like, oh, like, oh, I wouldn't feel anxious, I will write that down as a goal, obviously, honor that. But then we will talk a lot about if you weren't anxious, what would you do? What would your life be like? Where's the richness that you see as beyond anxiety, when it could involve anxiety, right, you could have a really rich experience and feel sad, sometimes, many times, whatever.
Speaker 1:But there is like, and I bet you I mean I know this is true for you, for anyone in the kind of any endeavor, there's a tension between, right, that philosophy of like, go with, like, let the client guide where the goals are, and also there's a tension between that, and you know the reason I became a therapist. Right, Like what's my intention of sitting in that chair? Do I want to help people? What do I really want to do there? And how does that sometimes clash with what the client wants? Because sometimes, like you, someone comes in and they don't really want to get better, they want something else. And like what? How does one honor that? Honor myself in my ethos as a therapist, you know, as a person you know what led me there, or?
Speaker 1:even you like. Why do I make art? You know what is even driving that? Do I even know you know? And how does that interplay with the product I put out there? The audience experience what I hope they experience. Should I have hopes for their experience? All those questions. There is a tension there and I will sometimes catch myself where it's like I'm trying to make them better and they don't want this. And why am I doing that, like I'm stuck in that a little bit you know, and yeah, it's like an interesting thing that comes up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I have to say I love, I love act. I'm glad you brought up acceptance, commitment, therapy. I mean there's some really funny things in that book where you like sing out your, you, sing out, your like bad thoughts.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, thought like thought diffusion and yeah yeah, yeah yeah, and you know Russ Harris, uh, act practitioner, you know he, one of the like definitions of like what act is going for just very broadly is like how do you create a meaning, a rich and meaningful life, alongside the pain that inevitably comes with it? So I think that you know to Kelly's point about like, how do we create meaning or move towards that? It's like I can't take, like, I can't guarantee taking the pain away from you. That's inevitable, right? Or I can't, you might not feel better.
Speaker 2:And if you don't, could we still have a meaningful life? Yes, we can, and so it's like if we're able to have you feel better, whatever that means to you, and still have meaning in your life, great. But think of how resilient your life would be and how resilient you would be if, even in the moments where you're having extreme pain, you're still feeling like you're value, aligned and still moving towards meaning. Like that is like rarefied air, like if people can really embody that not all the time, but like I feel at my worst or my most anxious and I'm still moving towards the things that are important to me. That's where a lot of resiliency and human resiliency can come from.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's what I aspire to do in my life, and it's not easy, right? It's like when I feel my most anxious or frustrated am I still moving towards the things and still following my values, and that's, that's hard, it's hard to do.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, and like the premise of the pod, and like John and I talked about this before starting it, it has a lot to do with the premise of our therapeutic like philosophy, which is, like you don't solve your problems, you grow larger than them in the way that you want to.
Speaker 1:And the wise mind is this place that inherently, is spacious, has enough space for every emotion, every experience. So when you get in touch with that, there's just space. It's there, and the stuckness is some not accessing that wise mind, that seat of values, and living from that spot. And you know like I'm diagramming that out like it exists in the center of the solar plexus, you know, and it's. It is a concept, but you know that's what we talk about a ton on this pod, whether you call it wise mind or your value system or your soul, or you know, you know your authentic self, your higher self. That's a space that can grow larger than any problem can expand around it. So you have to learn in the client's language, like what are they seeing as problems and what is to be grown to encompass them safely and in a way that feels like meaningful yeah, yeah, I I just love this whole question of yeah, is it about solving thing?
Speaker 3:you know, like and and I. I think it really goes back to the somatic stuff that for some people just talk therapy without feeling stuff, it's just, it's like a rat race, running around in circles and stuff, um, and so, yeah, I constantly grapple with yeah, what, what is the end goal?
Speaker 3:I, I, I, I think act is the most creative modality that I've come across therapy, wise, um, and. And there was something where and I know josh used to do, josh, honestly, you used to create songs out of, like, really painful situations we were growing up, like I'm not telling you you need to go into it, but do you remember?
Speaker 4:Can you give me a cue? There's so many, I feel like I'm not thinking of the one or the other.
Speaker 3:Be like mama's gone. You know dad. You know stuff about you. Know you make us laugh through these songs about you like your dad. They were really.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, we can talk about that. Josh, do you remember it better than I do?
Speaker 3:The exact song, yeah you sing these songs about your dad and they were really sad and we'd all laugh because you, you were working it out. It's so funny how we could do psychodrama and all these therapy things without knowing we're doing it and so I, this whole singing thing that acts for me. I'll use my own example of the music I should remember. But but like when I got her to treatment seven years ago and my parents, it was like, you know, we were reworking out our relationship so much closer. They even came for a week, you know, to see me there. But I remember when I was first starting I was worried about you know what happens if I relapse. And I had to come up with a song where it was like I'm gonna relapse, mama's gonna be sad, dad is gonna be mad, I'm gonna relapse, and that was directly at so I don't know if josh is back, kind of like gives you the sense, because you're used to seeing songs like that about I.
Speaker 4:I remember doing this.
Speaker 3:I'm having trouble remembering like an exact song verbatim yeah, I like I remember them, but I don't want to stand up for you.
Speaker 4:I mean like oh, really I'd love if you would, but if you're you know, oh my, you have a better memory than I do, at least in terms of your dad was pretty fucked up seeing funny songs about how fucked up he was and and we would laugh, and it was like we were so young that we couldn't process it deeper than that.
Speaker 3:But I think it was like you were somatically trying to work it out and we're always trying to work out stuff through humor, I mean. But I know like when I went to treatment, they were so dead serious and they were like, oh well, you're using humor as a weapon and I think in a lot of ways that is true. Or using drama or intellectualization as a weapon, you know. Or to stonewall the therapist, you know. But I do think singing out things that are really fucking hard to deal with, you know, is a somatic kind of thing, but I might not have the deepest words for it. You know a somatic kind of thing, but, but I might not have the the deepest words for it. Um, you know I'm no totally.
Speaker 1:It's like there's a rhythm to it and like finding rhythm and movement with like what you feel. What you struggle with is like the whole thing. So yeah, I feel like and now I'm realizing I we didn't ask josh bayer, as himself artist, about this, but I also realized we've been going for kind of a while. So I'm torn, but do you want to tell us anything about what you've been noticing as we talked about this?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I could give a quick well back to the original question, or should I be jumping off of like more where we're at now in the conversation?
Speaker 4:Whatever you want well, if I were to talk about creativity in my early life, I feel like I always just used to kind of dissociate, like from a young age. Uh, my brother and I would play these things called person video games all the time and he would essentially be like the game master and he would give me like missions to go on, and I feel like we would do a lot of spy stuff, like theft control, and he'd be like find the egg. And I'd have to go into the shower and find some egg and then it would have a key in it and then he'd be like find where that unlocks.
Speaker 1:It was fun.
Speaker 4:It was like a video game that my my brother, zach, was my younger brother Zach was making it. He was always the one making it up. Uh, one time I made one up I think I just enjoyed him making them up so much. Uh. But one time I made one up and he was like Josh, that was really good. I think it was kind of like a horror game yeah, but.
Speaker 4:The team becomes the master. Yeah, but one of the games we would play was called Fajashi man and I was the Fajashi man and I remember I was probably like in fifth grade or something, so that would have meant that he was in second grade and we were at a hotel. I think we might have been like coming out of an elevator Because we'd like to play person video games on vacation because it was like a new setting and kind of exotic Makes sense, like new levels, new levels, yeah yeah, yeah, level up, but I remember, turning to Zach, and I was like Zach, I don't want to play Fajashi man right now, and he looked so crestfallen.
Speaker 4:Okay, so that's the end of that story.
Speaker 2:That was a hard stop right there. Was that the end of the story? Or he just didn't want to play?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I didn't. No, I didn't want to play.
Speaker 1:Oh, you didn't want to play, and that's the end of the story.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I don't think that's the end of my imagination, but no, yeah, I guess that's this line between like I do think want to live in reality.
Speaker 4:But another thing, another thing I remember is that I was obsessed with like goosebumps books and like, yeah, my friend michael yashinsky and I, um, who have been friends with since kindergarten uh, he was less into goosebumps than me, but we were both into like stuff and I. I feel like there was a night we were going around town and like I I was like trying to imagine we were probably in fourth or fifth grade or third or second, I don't know.
Speaker 4:Does it, matter it doesn't elementary school but like I feel like I saw someone like putting sunscreen on I guess this was in the day like at the pool and I was like, oh my god, it's like the haunted mask, like the, the story where she like can't get her mask off and I was like really getting off on like seeing all these things and I'd be like oh, it's like from the book which, like you know, I could have been like a q anon person, but um, yeah I guess that's the end of that story so yeah, I, I just think I
Speaker 3:have to thank you, josh, because I I thanked you at the beginning, but like when we were living in that big I feel like I said it for an instant when we were living in that big house, when you were living in that big house, when you were living in that big house and we stayed over every weekend, it was such a creative wonderland and I think it got thwarted a little bit when we started. Well, we'd get stoned and then sometimes that would make us more creative, sometimes that would make us more creative, but eventually I think it cut off the childlike innocence, creativity that we had prior to that, if that makes any sense. But it was such a creative wonderland.
Speaker 3:Josh and I we had a mafia movie called the Partick Crime and so we made a mobster film in his house and then I was up all night watching it over and over again and remember josh was like, oh yeah, you're a psycho, but like we make movies and and it was so it's so interesting because we are making these movies at this weird period of adolescence let's call it, yeah, 12, 13, 14, adolescence let's call it, yeah, 12, 13, 14, where most kids kind of lose that childlike innocence. But I don't think we lost it yet at that point. I don't know if you have a different memory of it.
Speaker 4:No, I think I retain it to this day. It's interesting talking about weed which I'm not doing now is like the thing that I lost it, and maybe that's true, and I don't want to admit that to myself. I sometimes felt like I was almost doing it as an excuse to like keep that child, like elements alive, like, oh, I'm going to go into this other world, like I'm going to, I'm going to smoke some pot and like become for Joshy man and like play, play some, play some levels or like, oh, the world's gonna become like 3d and I'm gonna like listen to music in my bed and just kind of like trip out in this like warp zone and like
Speaker 4:but yeah, it's like, I think I've always whether it's like humor, kind of my imagination or like kind of almost imagining my life as a movie. I think, that's all. I don't even know. If it's like, I guess you could argue that it's coping with my reality, but sometimes it almost just seems like it gives me this deeper appreciation, or to kind of imagine things as surreal.
Speaker 3:Josh, the one thing I can validate that was that memory of trying to get when your mom caught us smoking weed and you had to talk to her and you thought she was like this cartoon child, like she was like. Do you remember thinking she was like?
Speaker 4:yeah, I pictured her as the mercer mayor's little critter character oh yeah which you can look up if you um have the internet no, we, I had those books as a kid for yeah. So my mom was kind of confronting me pretty seriously and I just was like laughing in her face. Oh my god.
Speaker 1:Okay, that may be for another pod to get into that. And yeah, we're going to talk at some point too about fantasy and how that relates to creativity in a later pod. So some interesting threads here. But yeah, yeah, I mean, this has been so interesting to hear about this. You know, creative process and self-understanding, getting to the wise mind through creativity are we going to transition into our?
Speaker 2:how wise is it?
Speaker 1:yeah, let's transition to our. How wise is it, as we say, for some good clean fun, good clean fun, and we can still do our topic of how wise is it? As we say, for some good clean fun. Good clean fun, and we can still do our topic of how wise is it to follow politics. Oh so, not fun, I know not.
Speaker 2:Not not such a fun topic how wise is it to follow politics which? This question comes directly from my wife, sarah who shout out uh, yes, who is very active in going to protests and canvassing and very much in politics, and uh also had to take a step back from following politics to a certain extent, given recent yeah events. So, um, yeah. So I think her mind is very much in a place of following it pretty intensely, still follows it and has had to take a step back to it.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I don't know, Josh, I'm curious, uh, since you're our guests. Uh, following politics, how? How wise is it to follow?
Speaker 3:Um, um. So if you end up looking at my uh instagram feed, it's mostly wiener dog videos um luckily I got that.
Speaker 3:I had. I had that algorithm spitting for, like, I had gotten that algorithm stirred up for a long, a long period prior to the election and most of my feed is wiener dogs and I should have more. I should have artists on there too for the gallery. Um, it's really tricky because, yeah, I have my own artistic space and I um, I have a show up right now that's about to close, called civilization, but we really we wanted to, um, be careful not to have a bunch of virtue signaling, so, but that was a pretty unpopular thing that we did, although people ended up seeing the subtlety of the show.
Speaker 3:And and, yeah, I don't follow it on a daily basis because I'm that's one of the ways I protect myself with having bipolar disorder. That's one of the ways I protect myself with having bipolar disorder. And, yeah, I, just I, yeah, I would lose my mind, but I would say that I also have more of a responsibility to follow more of it and but I really believe as a, as a feeder guy, I believe in the human condition and that we're all really screwed up. So, as horrible as all this external stuff is, I think looking inside, looking at the mini kim jong-un inside of me during my show. You know the six time six-year-old kim jong-un was in with me, yeah, but never do the things that kim jong-un does. But we all have like an archetype of the a little inner dictator. So I just think people need to also look at the meter, um, and I think sometimes politics, uh, it's all can be this external point outward, you know. So, yes, I don't think it enough.
Speaker 1:I feel like I have weighed to cope and I like numb a little bit and I'll watch like the dog video or like talk about Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, instead of like Donald Trump, which we have a whole podcast about that.
Speaker 1:So don't.
Speaker 1:But yeah, it's like I'll, I will.
Speaker 1:I and I definitely will feel either guilt or shame in like group where they're super up on politics and following it every day.
Speaker 1:And I know it's not like I feel stupid, I just feel like they're going to catch me as selfish, because I think there is a selfishness in what I'm doing a bit and I'm still in this place where it's like I could even acknowledge that and know that for me, reading the news every day or like get digging into it because I'm getting the emails from the new york times and all that reading headlines is like as far as I'm going and, by the way, it gets to me by osmosis. I don't know about you guys, but like everything pretty much gets to me, even if I try to avoid it. So there, there's almost like solace in that as well as anxiety in that. But I feel like I know, no matter how many people would like shame me about not, you know, following politics, I'm just not gonna follow it, because I know I feel so much anxiety and I can't sleep and I can't even be when I think about like all the issues and really try to take those on mentally.
Speaker 1:It is too much in my lived experience it's been too much and you know, I think I do put up a bit of that barrier and so I just think for me it is not the wisest thing, but I'm I'm still open to the question of like. Is a little more engagement something I need or that would be meaningful and I, I, you know I'm considering that. I'm always kind of considering that like one trusted, not a sensational new source. I don't know if this exists really, that you read like once a week or once a day in the middle of the day.
Speaker 1:My therapist, melissa, used to always say like don't read it in the morning, don't read it at night, middle of the day. One new source that you trust you're done, You're in, you're out kind of.
Speaker 2:Thing.
Speaker 1:And you know I appreciated that like hard line with it. But yeah, like it's an open question for for me if I should be a little more engaged, but I don't think it's wise to really follow it intensely. But, Josh Baer, what do you think?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, I think everyone is selfish and there's probably a selfishness even in wanting to be the most well-educated person in the room. You can play it off as, oh, I'm the least selfish because I know the most about politics, and maybe I'm just talking out of my ass and I'm insanely selfish because I just spent all my time listening to music and perhaps that's unwise, but I think it's wise because I enjoy it and I'll only be on this earth once and I feel like an asshole, uh, saying this right now, but it's honest yeah, yeah, totally for sure, yeah I mean, I think, following it in a way, that's like you're saying kelly cultivated yeah like a time having boundaries with it and I think to um our guest josh, not josh bayer's point of.
Speaker 2:I have heard more in the group space about people limiting because it is affecting their mental health more in the past two years than I have in the past. I've been whatever I've been doing group therapy for over 10 years. So like there's more people putting firm and hard boundaries on it because it is so activating.
Speaker 1:Right and it is.
Speaker 2:I mean it creates such a sense of hopelessness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in people.
Speaker 3:Totally.
Speaker 2:And also, yeah, I think saying like as being a white man, like I have the privilege of being able to not follow it um on a regular basis, if not, you know, and and some people don't have that privilege to be able to, because they need to know in real time what's happening or funding is being cut or things you know. So I think you know, you know. Also, with that, I think, as you brought up like the guilt that's where my guilt or or you know kind of comes from is like, if I'm not following this, well, that's just such a privileged place to be in Um, but I do have like two apps that I go to and I'm like this is who I'm going to trust this is what I'm going to do, and then anything else I need to know.
Speaker 2:I feel like my wife is good about giving me the heads up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everyone kind of has a guy oh she is.
Speaker 2:Yeah she's a guy she filters through it all and gives me exactly what I need to know, and it is such a blessing to have somebody like that.
Speaker 1:Yes, totally.
Speaker 2:And especially when elections come and we have to vote for all these judges in. Chicago and she's like here's who you're voting for. And she's like here's who you're voting for. And she's like please, here. And she gives me the sources to like do the research. I trust her, but I'm like this is great. This is the person I need.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally, anyway, totally, and you know it almost like begs the question of the opposite, right, like what is the real point to closely following it every day? Like what is it serving someone I mean, aside from someone who's naturally kind of into that? Yeah, there are those people and they don't get super activated and they're just like, oh, I'm just interested in like people who are interested in, like world war ii but yeah, I was thinking of my grandparents just have msnbc on all the time at like 100 volume in the house somehow that serves them.
Speaker 1:I don't know why, but that's yeah, because it's like are you donating, are you volunteering, are you getting active in there by following? No or is it just activating?
Speaker 2:It's almost like a relative they just have the news on. And it's just another person visiting their house.
Speaker 1:It's like staving off loan rates. Yeah, totally yeah, it's like staving off loan rates. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Totally, totally. It's crazy yeah.
Speaker 3:There's something I, you know, I, I I'll say one last thing I I got upset when Trump got COVID right before the, you know, 2020 electric. I turned on the news that day and I couldn't turn it off for six months, every day, and I got addicted, like the, the, the, the anchors, you know, like I, you know I don't close, not on anymore, but I'm like he's so dynamic, yeah, he's a lawyer and he's tough, you know, and so it's like, oh, even if I'm on, you know, the left, you know, are you obsessed with, like their faces, yeah, you know what I?
Speaker 3:mean the magnetism, the way they. That's its own drama. Yeah, it was way more fun to follow the news when Trump was going down. But yeah, when it's bad, for some reason I won't do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, right, totally. So we're saying following it closely and not wise, not wise.
Speaker 2:You know, I had a crazy thought one time where I was like I'm just going to get the newspaper, yeah, and that'll be, I'll get the newspaper every day and that'll be my news source and I won't Wow. Newspaper every day and that'll be my news source and I won't wow because it just harkens back to like when I was a kid and like my parents would be like where's the paper?
Speaker 3:right and then it was.
Speaker 2:So it was like that was their news, but then it was also like the 10 o'clock news, so it was like so limited in the volume yeah, yeah maybe that was more wise, yeah that's it.
Speaker 1:I'm getting a paper.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, like print media yeah, wow, because you can't scroll it.
Speaker 2:It's like that's the information you're given, you can't click another link or another related stories.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally I, I'm all for that, let's do it yeah, yeah, I love that. Okay, well, it's been so wonderful having you, josh, yes, thanks for being on. So obviously people who come to your show are going to learn so much about this and your kind of relationship to this. So tell everybody about your show and where they can see it and all that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so title again is a long title that's inspired by Dr Strangelove's Dr Headedfaker, how I Learned to Stop Worrying About Rodman, north Korea. It will be at the Lab on Santa Fe on August 28th through the 30th, and you can go to our Instagram, the Lab on Santa Fe, and the ticket link is in there. And, yeah, yeah, give you a lot of details about the show, but it's a lot of, uh, I say, a mix of, uh, elements of clown, contemporary dance and stream conscious poetry and, uh, psycho drama, the four elements that I speak of. Um, and, yeah, it's, it's, it's a short show, it's really only 35 minutes, but it feels like about 50 weeks, so dense, um, so, and then, yeah, there's a giant installation. So the visual art elements really important as well.
Speaker 3:And, um, we like for people to remember that they're in a gallery, because there's certain things about visual art where we allow for abstraction, for repressionism, in ways that we don't allow as much in theater. So that's what's fun about it being in a gallery, um, so, yeah, yeah, if you really want to check out what we're doing at the lab on santa fe, uh, on instagram, is is really the best place to uh, to find us nice, okay, it sounds so awesome and do you record it, or is more, you're just like the live is what we want.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we had less good capturing in LA this year. We had really good capturing of the LA show last year. It was kind of done in opposite order first at my gallery and then an electric launch. Um, so, um yeah, one of the one of the things you can see in the next week or so, or will be on Instagram fully, is, um, some really intense clips from last year's show as well. That's one of our most uh, recent reels. So, um, uh, yeah, but but anybody who is in Denver or Boulder, um, or anywhere in Colorado, um uh, should come see it, but tickets are running out. So if you can just go to our Instagram, grab a ticket pretty fast.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, and thank you so much for joining us. This was so interesting and so fun. I hope it was a good one. Yeah, because I mean.
Speaker 3:I. So you know, therapy is so tight, my mother being this epic therapist that actually shared a therapy office with with Josh, josh's mom. We'll say one last thing on that note with Josh and I's relationship. There was a friend of ours. We, you know, lived together in college and there was a friend of ours who you know clearly was in touch with his feelings. He watched Josh and I have a conversation together, listened to us for an hour and he goes. I've never heard two men talk to each other that way and you know what it was was being the sons of therapist mothers, you know, and so I like being able to tie it all in. But you guys really brought out ways of processing the show that I think are going to make the show a lot better that we were able to talk about it together.
Speaker 1:Nice, okay, well, cool. Well, good luck with all of it.
Speaker 3:And yeah, just as the last thing how to get it to Chicago is the next question.
Speaker 4:Oh, we would love to see it. I think I'll be seeking that out.
Speaker 3:I mean, detroit is definitely a huge one, you know, that's like the final destination I. I think it should go to chicago on that same run.
Speaker 1:So so now that I've pitched it to you, hopefully there's, if a lot of your listeners are chicago maybe that's that's part of this, yeah yeah, totally reach out to us if you're a listener and you have connections to a theater, you're in this space, let us know and we'll pass it along to josh totally yeah any um any plugs for you, john yeah, you can always reach me at butts butzjonathan at gmailcom joshbearfilmscom, you can reach out to me, we'll talk about politics.
Speaker 1:uh, I know more than I let on, and if you uh want to reach me, you want to work with me or have questions about the pod or topics or anything, you can reach me at my website, kkpsychotherapycom. Okay, thanks everyone. Thanks everyone and thank you to blanket forts.
Speaker 4:Yes, for the music.
Speaker 1:Thank you, blanket forts, for the music blanket forts, who josh berkowitz knows as well, shout out.
Speaker 4:Shout out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, and thanks everyone. We'll see you next time. Bye, bye, bye. The Wise Mind Happy Hour podcast is for entertainment purposes only, not to be treated as medical advice. If you are struggling with your mental health, please seek medical attention or counseling.