Healing Out Loud: Poetry, Trauma, And Growth joshes story

Two big guys on a couch talk about the soft parts most of us hide. Josh—nine years in the military and now a downtown bouncer—opens up about how childhood abuse stayed quiet until his twenties, then cracked open during COVID alongside a bad role fit, a fading relationship, and numbing habits. He describes the moment a workplace blow-up could have ended his career, and how a good leader chose mercy with a mandate: make the call and we’ll start fresh. That call led to regular counselling, steady homework, and a creative outlet that surprised him—poetry.

We travel through survival mode and what comes after, when you finally have safety and all the feelings arrive at once. Josh explains rebuilding without pretending: full transparency in new relationships, amends where possible, and letting the page hold what he couldn’t yet say out loud. We get honest about porn’s design and pull, the hours it steals, and why awareness plus a replacement habit matters. The talk moves to housing costs and homelessness in Halifax, the pressure on young adults, and why small, local support—open mics, reading someone’s first draft, buying a friend’s art—can change a week.

You’ll hear original poems, the story behind two published collections (from cry-for-help to Exit Wound), and plans for a collaborative anthology that spotlights diverse Canadian voices. More than anything, this conversation reframes masculinity: not as silence, but as truth-telling, asking for help, and protecting others without losing yourself. If you’ve ever felt like “just a bouncer,” “just a job title,” or “just your past,” this one invites you to claim a fuller name.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a nudge toward help, and leave a quick review—your words help others find ours.

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Transcript

Welcome & Land Acknowledgement

Keith "Polar Bear" Gelhorn 0:01

Welcome to the Big Bears Podcast, co-hosted by Chad Grizzly Bear Bunker, and Keith Polar Bear Gellhorn. We would like to acknowledge that we are in Mi'kmaq, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq people. The people of the Mi'kmaq Nation have lived on this territory for millennia, and we acknowledge them as past, present, and future caretakers of this land. Our mission is to explore the intersection of neurodiversity through a two-wide seeing lens, where we share stories of struggle, resilience, grit, and growth. We would appreciate it if you could listen, subscribe, engage, and share this podcast. Now on to today's episode.

Meet Josh: Bouncers With Purpose

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Hi, welcome to the Big Bears Podcast. My name is Chad Grizzly Bear Bunker, and on our episode today, we are talking to Josh. How are you doing, Josh?

SPEAKER_02 1:05

I am fantastic, man. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Good man, good. It's nice to have had a nice pre-talk with you before this. Me and Josh have known each other for a little while. We we both are security officers downtown as bouncers. We both take care of Yeah, almost a year.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

It was last St. Patrick's Day, I think I mentioned for the first year.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Yeah, last yeah. We both take pride in helping the community and talk and help each other and help people feel safe. Yeah. So tell me, when was a really hard struggle for you in your life when you didn't feel like you're gonna be able to get through it?

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Deep one off the top. Well, fast forward through a bunch of stuff, childhood stuff, everyone has it, everyone struggles to deal

Trauma Resurfaces During Military Years

SPEAKER_02 1:57

with it. Yeah. I oh whoa, that sounds so much better. Oh yeah. I I had a lot of controversy and and issues growing up, and there was, you know, I was a victim of sexual abuse, which you know, I'm not the only one, and everyone handles that very differently. And it really did not phase me at the time, and but when I got older, when I was in my early 20s, I had moved away and built a life, and I was, you know, a couple years in the military at the time.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

And all that stuff kind of started to come back and get me. And I started to spiral a lot for various reasons. One of them being that, and there was, you know, I had recently gone through a career change within the military that was not the correct fit, and it was the wrong call to make, and I was struggling, and I was in a relationship at the time that was no longer flourishing. And you know, we were in the middle of now the the COVID pandemic, which was the the end of a lot of people's lives as they knew it in various ways, be that relationships or work or whatnot. And I spiraled a lot and I developed a lot of unhealthy coping mechanisms, drinking drugs, and very unhealthy relationship with sex and with porn. And I I knew all bullshit. Yeah, I was in this spot in my life when I had no respect for myself whatsoever, and that kind of evolved, you know, into not having respect for others either. And I made a lot of mistakes, and I was struggling greatly, and somewhere, you know, we're looking early 2022, mid-2022, I was contemplating ending my life, and I was not in a good place. And I was lucky enough one day I had we'll say a borderline mental breakdown at work when my boss asked me to do something that it was a tedious, stupid job that was definitely his to do and was not even a little bit stressful, but it was kind of you know the one of the straw that broke the camel's back. And I kind of I blew up at him. Lazy, I called him an idiot, he was useless, he was garbage, it was a whole thing. And you know, this is a military structure, and so you know, that technically chargeable, technically, this whole thing could have come of it, and he didn't vase him at all. And he he let me kind of storm off, and he came came to me 10 minutes later and was like, Hey man, you're

Spiral, Ultimatum, And Seeking Help

SPEAKER_02 4:34

you okay? I know you've having a rough go, like every we can see it, and he kind of gave me this ultimatum to seek help. And it was it was like if you make the phone call now and we'll figure something out, and that what just happened never happened, that's not who you are. So I called I called the Military Family Resource Center in the the city I was living in at the time, and I arranged meetings with a counselor. First, it was twice a week for a month, and then it was weekly for a few months, and then bi-weekly, eventually monthly, and she gave me activities and things to do, and you know, I wish it was a a quick fix. But you know, it's uh it's a battle every day.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Yes, it's definitely we always think that it could be a quick fix, but there's always consequences that come with quick fixes, so yeah. It's it's nice, not nice, but it's also nice to hear from somebody else that's been through some similar gr upbringing as me, especially when it comes to sexual abuse. That's why I f has pumped you, because you're you're getting it out, you're talking about it.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

I didn't think it was a hell yeah. No, not a hell yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

But it it it is nice to hear it from other people. I mean, not just from myself. No, I get that. You know, so I I I understand what it's like mentally to be degraded by other people.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

Yeah, well, for myself, it you know, it everyone short term and long term, it's very different. But I had a lot of a lot of struggles and a lot of issues with various things, and then it never really phased me as a kid, as a teen, going into my my adult life. It was never I was never stressed, I was never anxious about anything like that. And then you get to this, I got to this point where I was financially okay, I had a good job, I had a good place to live, uh, you know, I had a brand new car bought off the lot, and then you know, the the the water started to break through, and you know, it's the counselor I was talking to talked about she's like when you're in survival mode for so long and it's just get to tomorrow, get to tomorrow, you don't really feel it at the time, and then when oh you you you made it past tomorrow and all of that is over, you now get to deal with the consequences in the aftermath of that. And unfortunately, I I took it all on at once and I did not handle it very well, and I I made a lot of mistakes, I burned a lot of bridges, and um unfortunately that it's something I've come to live with and learned to live with, and I've moved on and I've I've built new relationships and been very, very open about my past and things I have done and actions that I have had made and have had made against me. And I find going into any new friendship or relationship with full transparency, and then if you don't like what you hear, then thanks. Have a great day. Yeah, and that's uh that's kind of my uh my two cents.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Your two cents, that's good.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

How long were you in the military? Just about nine years.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Nine years? Holy frick, man.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

When'd you go in there? 18? I was seventeen when I filled out the paperwork. 18 by the time the uh the semantics and the paperwork were done.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

So you get a little bit of Oh, I know what I wanted to say. Porn. You said you were addicted to porn. That was my That was the only thing I could never let go of. Yeah. Every time I every time uh this is my fifth time starting over in life. And I've had four previous previous times where I couldn't let go of it.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Yeah, it's it can be this thing.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

It's it's it's crazy, but I understand that it is designed to be that way, you know.

SPEAKER_02 8:40

People talk about it being addicting addicting in this problem for for young men. And I like I'm happy to to say, you know, that I I lived a life before the internet. I'm you know, I'm not too I'm 29 years old, so I'm kind of that that perfect age, you know, pre and post going into this the modern world. But people younger than me, I think I remember the first time I watched porn on the internet, I was probably 12 or 13, and I was like maybe 14, somewhere around there, and I was like, this is this new thing, and there are you know, there are dangers on the internet absolutely. Definitely on the internet. But the kids nowadays, you know, at six, seven, eight years old with their own phones,

Survival Mode And Aftermath

SPEAKER_02 9:23

own tablets. That's glad I don't have any kids at the moment because that is a stressor I think would break me again.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Yeah, yeah. When I was a kid, it was eight years old. I discovered a couple of pornomegs, took it on the bus to school, elementary school, and this grade sixer caught me and I was expelled. So that was the first time I discovered pornography. It was long before digital stuff. So you know, and I know what it's like when it comes to digital stuff. It's like, oh my god, you can just get everything.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

Kids nowadays didn't have to pause the first Tomb Raider movie at that moment when they delete a joke.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

I used to stay up late on showcase. It would be Seymour Butts would come on, and he was like a porn star filmer guy, and he would literally, yeah, his name was Seymour Butts. It was fucking hilarious. But he would always have like little side things on there where girls would be naked, and I'd be like, hello. I'm like 14, 15 years old, right? So you're like, man, I'm staying up all night.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

Yeah, and it's you know, at the time you're like, this is the best. And now, you know, those are those moments growing up, you know, waiting for hoping that the Girls Gone Wild trailer comes on TV at 3 a.m. when you wake up to go take a piss.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

Yeah, or uh call me.

SPEAKER_02 10:40

But it's just like, yeah, and then you know, 10, 15, 20 years go by and you think back and you're like fucking conditioned, get fucked. Yeah, big porn's coming for us.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

That's right. We gotta fuck like we're porn stars. We're on the couch. That's right. We're on the couch, it's not black, but we're good.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

There we go. But yeah, no, that is that was something I definitely struggled with for a long time. You know, you have a free day or your hour, you know what I mean? It's like, what should I do? I could do my dishes, I could do my laundry, or I could sit in bed for six hours and go on the internet.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Yeah. Oh man, I was bad for that too.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

Yeah, for better or worse, you waste a lot of time and you you you know, it's not obviously it's not a very respectful business. Uh. But it's just it's a dangerous game.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

When people knew when I was taking 30-minute showers, there you go, you know, like it was just craziness, man. Like I was even as a young teen, I'd be in the bathroom, and I hated it when there was no lock on the door. You gotta risk it for the biscuit. You gotta risk it for the biscuit, man. Man, someone's gonna walk in here at any moment.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

It's okay when you're that young, you only need a moment or two.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

But that is that is kind of one of the subject matters I'm gonna touch on in my in my next book that I'm writing.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

It is a a collection of poetry about a lot of modern struggles, both, you know, financial and social, but also, you know, things like growing up in the modern world now versus then, you know, but also like we have uh for us in the area that we are in, rent's never been more expensive, houses have never been more expensive. The homelessness here is on the up and up, and it's just there's a lot of which I mean, and that's not new. However, I feel like in the world we live in, it should be old.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

It should be old. You'd only normally see that stuff in large cities, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:36

Because I remember like growing up, I grew up in Tro, and homelessness there was very different than homelessness here. It was, you know, there was a very small amount of people, and it was often cycling through. People would get out of like burnside or somewhere and end up in a in a a house in Truro, and then that maybe you'd see this new guy, and he'd be homeless for a few weeks or month or two here and there, but he had a place to go most of the time. Like he was and like he was in uh in a group house or whatnot, and it was not this this thing that I'm used

Porn, Conditioning, And Modern Access

SPEAKER_02 13:10

to. Like when I first moved to Halifax a few years ago, it was not this new foreign concept, but it was something to get used to.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

And a lot of issues like that. I'm trying to specify, you know, within the the age demographic, roughly maybe five to ten years on either side of myself, but that is a lot of the the subject matter in my next book.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Yeah, nice. So nice to interview somebody that's writing a book. You're the first one to come on that's writing a book.

SPEAKER_02 13:37

Well, it's it's number it's technically it's technically number four. I've published two. My third one is is technically done. It's handwritten from start to finish.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

Because it was a it was a birthday gift for my girlfriend, uh and then I kind of cheated, and I also made it a Valentine's Day gift by adding more to it. Because I do at this moment have two collections of poetry published. The first I published in December of 2023, titled My Deep Dark, Evil, Twisted, and Fucked Up Mind. Nice, I like that title. I I switched it a few times. That was the first one I picked, and then I cycled through a couple, and then I think they were also good, but I was just like, I felt fake as fuck. Because I was like, that's the title I wanted. I don't care that it's long, I went back to it. I was like, that's that's the fucking title of this book, whether people like it or not. And it's it's a hard read and it was a hard write. But one of the strategies that because I've never been growing up as never a poetry guy, but uh when I started first started seeing a counselor, she had me start journaling, and then eventually I was journaling and it was writing poems in a journal, which the stage of my life that I was in ended up being a whole bunch of poems about wanting to blow my fucking brains out, wanting to, you know, just feeling the worst ever, feeling like I had no one, even if I had people, feeling alone, feeling like no one gave a shit, no one was there for me, and feeling like I couldn't be there for myself or for others. And I ended up with this large file of stuff in my phone that was just a bunch of me. Yeah, it's just a bunch of poems about literally feeling the fucking worst ever.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

I I have a shit ton of poems too. As you should, man. I'd love to read some of them sometime. Uh start it with a teacher. A teacher said I was really good at writing poetry, so I just kept with it.

SPEAKER_02 15:21

Hell yeah. I there's been a project I've been trying to work on very, very slowly, which kind of evolved into this next book that I'm trying to write. But originally the the idea was to make it, I would like to write half the poems in this book, and then I would like as many people as I can get to write two or three poems each about their outlook on modern problems. And then it would kind of just be instead of being a a collection of my own poems, it would be an anthology of Canadian poems. And that is something that I always I always toyed with the idea, but I've not yet taken the big step and branched out and kind of I've kind of been waiting for my myself as a presence within the the writing community, both so on social media and locally, to kind of be a bit bigger, to then have more reach. But if that is ever something you'd be interested in partaking in, I would love to love to have you.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

As we're sitting here, I'm brainstorming a new poem in my head.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Yeah, I used to it's just like well, I love like freestyle rap that way. Yeah, when I just like I love doing that stuff all the time. Sometimes when I'm on the bus or whatever, like I love to watch freestyle rap videos like Harry Mack and Mac Lethal and watching them just I wish I could be a gear spinning in the head of these guys as they as they think of their words.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

Because I'm jealous as fuck.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Oh man. I'm poetry for me was I was very quiet as a teenager, and I was very quiet when I got a little older. I haven't been like you see me now. This is the best version of me.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

I like this version of you.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Thank you. So the versions from before I was very quiet, and I would write down poetry out through my teenage life to get me through because I didn't want anybody really to know what was going on with me. I just wanted to write about it. So I wrote it into an artistic form through poetry, and it really got me through because then I started to feel really good about the feedback I was getting from the poetry. It was something positive, right? Oh yeah, I was always negative.

SPEAKER_02 17:25

Writing poetry literally saved my life. And it's not it's not even something I was passionate about for a long time. And ironically enough, I talk to people about it sometimes. It's not even something I'm passionate about right now, which I find is insanely ironic because it's my main artistic outlet. But it's like I every once in a blue moon, I buy, I'll be in a store, I'll buy a poetry collection, a little book or whatnot, just to read some because I'm not outside of writing poetry, I do not have a lot of experience reading poetry. And when I was writing my first book and picking what would go in it and what shouldn't go in it, I had a lot of am I doing this right?

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

And then so I started, I you know, kind of look things up and try and figure shit out. Yeah. And then one day I I was like, wait, who gives a shit? I don't. This is whether or not it's poetry done correctly, does not matter to me even a little bit. My first book, I reread it a little while ago, and it was it wasn't as good as I remember it. Um it's it's just it's a cry for help. I tried very much with my second book that I have here, Exit Wound. Um, I tried very much to make it a little more a little more linear and a little less I don't know, like the first book, it's a scream, it's a cry for help. I was not even a little bit okay when most of that stuff was written. Zero part of me at the time of writing was like, oh, I can't wait for someone to read this. It was like, I'm struggling so bad, these words are all that's helping. And then one day, probably a year like I was on the up and up, you know, but mental health is a journey, but I was definitely in a better place than I was. And I had a friend I think I let slip

Writing As Therapy: First Books

SPEAKER_02 19:06

after a few beers that I wrote poetry, and he was like, Oh man, can can I read them? And he has since become one of my best friends on this planet, one of my favorite people that's ever existed. And he read a few, and he was like, Man, you should write a book. And I was like, Oh, maybe, maybe, yeah, yeah. And he was only the second person I had ever even told about really my writing poetry. There was a another person that I worked with who was, I would say, a work acquaintance, a work friend, who I would like, other than I knew that through the administrative role at my position that they had also struggled with mental health. We kind of bonded over that here and there a little bit, but we weren't even very close. And she she was dedicated in the in my first book. She's the first person I ever told really about my poems, and she's the first person who ever told me, if you're thinking about writing a book, do it. And so shout out Danielle, I haven't talked to in quite a while, and I hope we're doing okay. But she was the first person to ever tell me to write my book, and I'm glad she did, because I probably wouldn't have if she did not. And now we are here on book two published about a month ago. Book three is kind of written, and you know, here we are talking about this Canadian amalgamation project that hopefully could be book four for for all of us.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Nice. I got this poem I wrote.

SPEAKER_02 20:25

Oh, hell yeah, hit me with it.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

January 10th, 2025. Lover. So it's probably about my wife. So we'll read it. It was love that brought us together. A connection through same interests, freedom to be happy, escape into the future, a king with his queen, freedom to take life on and create love stories that grandchildren tell their grandchildren a love story to cherish. I wasn't always the best, but I was chasing a dream that was not my reality. You helped me see between the lines. Your spirit brightened my soul, inspired me to grow in the right way. My lover, I appreciate your existence night and day, and each thought of you I melt. Your beauty grows every second of the day. Tired or waking, you are the most beautiful person I get to see when I wake up. Two souls, Scorpio and Aries. An endless love that can't be undone, perfectly mashed for eternity. That was the poem.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

I like that.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Thank you, brother.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

I like that very much. Thank you for sharing that with me.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

No problem, bro. That's the first poem I've shared online.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

There we go. It took me I felt real weird. When I first started sharing them. But it makes me happy when people like them, and I like that very much.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Yeah, we could probably use it in one of your books. There we go. We probably could. Fuck yeah, man.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

We probably could. I I've got my next one coming out, is I'm trying to make it happier, so it's it's hopefully all love poems. That's the idea. Yes, sir. So right now I have about maybe 60, 70 very, very specific about my love, love poems. Yeah. Um, but I would like to write and feel inspired about love in general and kind of double the size of this book with poems that apply more to everyone, and less me specifically. But I do I really want to do some combined amalgamation projects.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

Oh man, that'd be so sick.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

I just think it would be cool because I really want to call my final collection an anthology, but if it's only published by one person, it's technically a collection. I think I I think I Googled that and got it right. And it was like, because I wanted to call my my final collection a poetry anthology, period. Yeah, yeah. And then I looked it up and I was like, fuck, it's technically a poetry collection because it's just mine. So I need, I need, I just need to I need to plagiarize one of yours. I mean, borrow one of yours and get it in there so that it can be an anthology because that is just a cool word.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

That is a cool word, man. It would look really cool in a book. It'd be really cool to open up a book and see one of my poems.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

I think that would be I would love to open up a book and see one of your poems.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

Man, that'd be dope.

SPEAKER_02 23:21

I'm getting tired of opening up my massive fucking pile of unpurchased books and seeing my own poems.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Yeah. I I would have had 500 poems, but I lost a lot of them during a move when I was younger. It was all my originals from growing up through my teenage life.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

I every chance I get, sometimes I I write on like notes on my phone or I have a few leather-bound journals and stuff like that, depending on where I am or how I am. But every every time I come to think of it, I make sure to grab everything and go to my computer and type it all out on Word Docs to upload to the cloud just in case, because I have, you know, you have you lose a phone or you lose a memory card or you lose a memory stick or a journal or whatever, and then fucking it's gone.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

I used to write the poet, like I was really depressed when I used to write poetry. So fuck me too. Depression to me was described through winter. So or blue. Just certain things that I would use in my poetry. So like I would be like frosty, snowy winds were deep within my mind. And like

Reading Poems And Finding Voice

SPEAKER_01 24:28

just like just making it very creative, but at the same time trying to explain what I was going through. Like I I used to draw to it as well, so like I would talk about like Satan. This was when I was really dark.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

Yeah, but you're a depressed metalhead, man.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

I bet it was fucking good, though. It was good. This sounded like a bunch of rituals of me asking Satan to take me away. He's my Lord and Savior.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

Yeah, but the the the catharsis, though. The point is, you know, you get that all out so that you don't end up in a robe sacrificing a teenager under your local church.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

This is true. This is true, yeah. But my mom did catch on and she was like, You need to burn all those poems. They're there, you can't be doing this. And so I did. Uh you know, I get rid of a couple of them.

SPEAKER_02 25:25

No, you know, there's probably a couple in my my first book that I probably could have done with getting rid of instead of letting my fucking parents read it.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

Yeah, so after that I decided, you know, maybe I shouldn't be writing poetry about Satan. So I just start writing poetry about hate. About hate and anger.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

There's a crowd out there. Satan's poetry by Chad, it would sell.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Yeah, maybe from a long time ago, but not nowadays. How I'd kick Satan off the cliff. There you go. That would be the next book. There you go. How I get rid of Satan. Woo! Instead of, you know, like, ooh, Satan. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

Sometimes I just sit around and I try and think of cool names for books. Whether or not I'm I'm like, if I if I wrote either a book or a uh a collection of poems about this subject, what would I call that? About about this subject, what would I call that? So I the other day I was sitting down and workshopping, just a bunch of random names for what I would consider to be the final collection of all of my works into one. Yeah. And plus some editions, and I was trying to think. I'm like, what would you know? My first book, especially, very much my second one, my very much a deep look into my mind. What what is that? What would that title be? And I was sitting there, I was brainstorming a bunch of things, and then I ended up coming up with The Skin on My Bones. Nice. I think is the title I will go with. So if anyone else uses it, I'm gonna fucking lose my mind. But the skin on my bones. That's that's a good I thought that was like I was like, that kind of that kind of works. I like that. But I just have like a laundry list every time I think of something cool.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Nice. I'm the same way. I write down these little like one-liners and be like, I'm gonna start a poem with that line. Yeah, I do that all the time.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

It's like Eminem says he's got like shit in a hat. He's like, whenever I think of a cool limerick or a rhyme, I just throw the shit in a hat and I pull it out.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

That's what I do. I got I got this other poem here that would fit great in your like your depression.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

Hit me with it and I'll read a couple. I'd I'd love I'd love to.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Oh yeah. This one's called Living Corpse. Living Corpse. So I wrote this November twenty first, twenty seventeen. Okay, that's so it's a while ago. So during that time I was going through a breakup with someone that I was with for five years, and I wasn't familiar with cocaine at the time. So this was my leading up to trying new things. So yeah. Millions of faces looking down upon me, open heart surgery. My heart has been detached from humanity. Happiness was a short dream. Two sides of the coin, I'm stuck between two minds. Alone I feel watching my world crumble to the ground, trapped in fear, misery, and grief. I sometimes feel that life could be better off without me. I'm a living corpse, and my mind is my funeral ceremony. Please wake me up from my nightmare. That was my mindset when I was in 2017.

SPEAKER_02 28:28

Well, I'm glad I'm glad it's not your mindset in 2026. However, that was a nice poem, and thank you.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

This is what I mean. Like poetry for me is what I was explaining to Chad earlier that was here or yeah, Chad that was here earlier. I told him like poetry for me is something to look back on to see where I was at. Fair, yeah. Where I'm at now. You know, and it's the same thing with this podcast. It's there's gonna be a few seasons that I'm gonna look back on when I'm when I'm further in and I'm gonna learn from it from where I started.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

Well, it that's you know, that's the point.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

Yeah, and it's also therapy for me.

SPEAKER_02 29:11

It's yeah. Well, it's just this right here, couch therapy. It's been a long time. I have cried zero times so far, and I was expect as soon as we started talking, you asked a question, and I was like, I'm about to fucking break down again.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

Oh, it's all good, man.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

But it's just shooting the shit. And it's very, I don't know, for myself, I it's very peculiar sometimes, and it's it kind of sounds I don't want to say fucked up, but like, but odd or or I don't even know, but it's just like I used to get when I first started talking after I decided to publish my book, I started openly talking about my mental health and and poetry more, yeah, and I used to get I don't want to say like negatively, but I am a late 20s white cisgendered straight man who is also a veteran. And then people go, Oh, and you write poems? That's okay, cool. And I got a few of those, and that's I was afraid to get a lot of those, and people be

From Cry For Help To Exit Wound

SPEAKER_02 30:10

like, oh, fucking gay. You know what I mean? Writing poems, man, gets I cool, I awesome. Yeah, but I didn't get a lot of that. I got so many, so many people like, you write poetry, that's so cool. Can I read it? Can I read some? Do you have one? Can you send me one? Can you show me one? And a lot of the time I, you know, a lot of them were very sad. And unfortunately, I don't write good, happy poems. Right. So they're sad, but they're fucking bars sometimes. Um people be like, Oh, that's so fucking cool. Do you have you're writing a book, you're gonna publish a book, shit like that. And I found I had a lot of small artists speak to me afterwards, so like Crystal, for example, who whose episodes have not come out yet. Before C style, show Crystal. Before she started sharing her music with the world, which I'm glad she's doing. I remember I we we worked the same day job or night night job, and she came to me and she was like, Oh, you like you wrote a book, like that's sick, dude. Like, what is it? Like poetry, it's oh like I really like music, and I was like, Oh, cool. She's like, Yeah, yeah, and then that was kind of the end of it, and then like another time, another time she's like, Oh, yeah, how's the book stuff going? How's your how's that? And I'm like, Oh, it's actually going really good, and people are being really supportive, which I wasn't really expecting. And she'd be like, Oh, okay, yeah, cool. Like, I like to write music too. Like, I really like to write music, and I'm like, Oh, cool. Like, do you do you have any? Oh, like I have a couple, but it's like nothing crazy, you know. It's you know how she is. She's super chill, super, super modest. She's like, Oh no, it's nothing. And then you know, some time went by, and then one day she was like, Hey, yo, do you want to do you want to hear a song I made? And I'm sad, I'm still sad about it because out of every song she's released, this one that she showed me is the first song I ever heard by her, was the most fucking fire hardcore song that I've ever heard her make. And I remember after she put out a few songs, I was like, When are you putting out that one that you showed me? Because you went fucking hard in that. That was the best thing I've ever heard you do. Yeah, and she was like, Oh, I can't, the the beat is like a like a sound cloud, what like she doesn't own the rights to the beat. She was like, It's just something I made for fun when I was like experimenting with music. She's like, I can't release it. Oh, okay. And I was still fucking pissed because it's fucking bars.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

Would have been good she put it on podcasts or something.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

Yeah, I don't know how the legality of that stuff works. I do my best to not get sued into the ground.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

This is true. You don't want to get sued these days. That's why I have to pick my own proposal.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

Yeah, but but she came and she's like, Okay, and she's like, and when you put out your book, would anyone like tell you that it sucked? And I was like, I mean, sure people think it sucks. Sometimes I think it sucks. And she's like, okay, but like, did anyone buy it? Do your friends talk to you about it? Or like, what do you what do you what did this think? Like, what do people think? What are they doing? Like, does anyone judge you or whatever? And I was like, you know, no, like I there are sure judgments out there or whatever. And I'm sure some people have read some of this stuff and been like, that's fucking that's garbage. I don't like that. She was like, I just asked because I would like to start putting out my music. And like, would you listen to it? And I was like, hell yeah, I'll listen to it. I said, I a bunch of people listen to it. If you I said, start telling people you're doing music, like more. I'm sure you are, I'm sure you have friends who know you do music. Start being, you know, not crystal, the, you know, hey man, I do music sometimes. That's pretty cool. I like it. B C style, B, you know, tell people you're doing music. And she was like, Oh, hell yeah, bro, we dapped up and we had a good time. And then she fucking she went into it. And I had a few people at like open mics where I would read poetry and stuff, come talk to me and be like, oh, you know, like do people ever fucking think it's weird? Do they wanna do they want to ever judge you or whatever? I'm like, I'm sure they do, but like, what do you why why what are you why are you asking? Do you do you have a music? Do you have do you write music? Do you do you make music? Do you write in poetry? You write in shorts, whatever. I want to know. I want to follow your page. Let's go, shoot me a message, we'll do something. And I just that's very it's become something that never used to be important to me is supporting local artists ever since I was surprised by the support that I

Community, Small Artists, And Support

SPEAKER_02 34:05

got. And I want to make sure other people feel that way too.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

Exactly. We gotta make everybody feel comfortable doing what they love to do.

SPEAKER_02 34:13

Yeah, I agree. And every time I meet someone, it's one of the first questions usually I I ask people when I meet them. I'm like, we're shooting the shit. And I'm like, oh, hey, so what do you do? Like, I do it to co-workers, you know, working in the bar scene. There's sometimes you there's a a person you see once every three months because they usually work days, or there's a new person or whatever, and usually, you know what, go into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee before I go stand out in the cold, like the peasant that I am. Um and they're like, Hey, how are you? And I'm like, Oh, good. And we get this weird 90-second lol in between food runs or me having to be outside or whatever, where we get to have a conversation, and I'm like, I've known this person for two weeks or two years, and I've never had the chance to really have a conversation with them. And so I usually I'm like, hey, what do you what do you do when you're not at work? And they're like, Oh, you know, like watch TV. I'm like, no, no, like when you're not home, what's the thing you wanted if you had a few days off or if you were chilling, maybe you smoked a little or you're doing whatever, you're at home. Are you you, you know, are you writing short stories? Are you are do you paint? Do you draw? Do you whatever? Whatever it is, I'd like to know. And then, you know, do you have a social media outlet for that? Because I would like to follow it if you do. And I have quite a few acquaintances or co-workers where boom, later all of a sudden it's like, oh, it turns out this person loves to do some sort of arts and crafts, or loves to they knit all the time and they love to knit, and they sell scarves or blankets or whatever, they sell paintings, and I just want to make sure that I'm contributing to them knowing that that's pretty fucking cool.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

Yes. So you're podcasting. And you are right now. Yeah, by talking about it. Yeah. You're promoting C style. C style. We're all about C style. You gotta go see her show March 8th. Gus is pub.

SPEAKER_02 35:53

And I thought I knew her.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Yep. March 8th.

SPEAKER_02 35:55

Gussi, is that where she was last time?

SPEAKER_01 35:58

Yeah, hell yeah. So is there anything about your future? You got any future goals?

SPEAKER_02 36:07

I mean, yes and no. I I reached this point after struggling for so long and being anxious and worried. Almost this Zen state for a while, where I just in the correct ways, don't I just don't care. I want I want to have enough money to pay my rent and eat groceries, and I want to have enough money so me and my girl can go get dinner once every week or two, go see a movie. And other than that, I just I don't want to hate going to work every day. I don't want to hate getting up, and right now I don't. That's good. I work five or six nights a week, uh peculiar hours sometimes at the bars, and I I write when I can and when I feel inspired to. I would like to put out another few books, maybe someday move into more short stories or some some story work, but that's uh I was thinking about starting something on the podcast eventually.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Yeah. About storytelling.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

I think that would be sick because I I feel like I a lot of the time I'm a man of ideas that end up whenever I try and translate them to words on paper, become short ideas. I spent years trying to write short stories that ended up being like one or two page micro fictions, and they hit all the beats that I wanted to, but it's like two pages instead of however long a fucking short story is supposed to be.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

I was thinking about making like episodes every here and there about artists, uh poets, writers, get two people two people in the interview with me, and it'll be three of us discussing poems and reading, you know, poems of our own and then discussing with each other, and then the next person will read theirs and then we'll discuss. And I think it would just be great because people around the world that have that kind of outlet can listen to us talking about that outlet that worked for us too. So, like I'm there's a lot of listeners out there that people that won't want to get into listening to. And if it's always something positive, that's all that matters on my podcast, is that it it's positive. Absolutely right.

SPEAKER_02 38:06

Well, and it's just I love you know, going against the status quo a little bit. It's even right now with just the two of us, it's too like you know, for myself, like I mentioned earlier, like as white bred as it comes, straight white dude, you know what I mean? And and you're for yourself, you know, like when I if I were to bump into you on the street, I would not look at you and go,

Future Goals, Storytelling, And Collaboration

SPEAKER_02 38:28

that's that's a fucking poet. Yeah, exactly. You know, that's a big soft teddy bear man who uh who wants to get creative. I wouldn't I would not you know I would not think that off the top of my head. And so I would love to be able to continue continue having that contribution against toxic masculinity.

SPEAKER_01 38:47

Oh yeah, man. Like I was I grew up to mask my emotions and and tell me that I, you know, cry baby and all this stuff. You know, at the end of the day, it's it's you're being a real man when you can express your emotions and be verbal about it. And it it can be hard, but it you you are right. Yeah. So like when people see me, I get crazy blue freaking hair, and it's all over the place because I'm a clown. I'm a clown, I'm funny, I like I've got lots of energy, and I'm also a parrot, you know, like just all these things, man. I'm a I got a lot of energy in me, and I just want the world to see my inner my energy, and that's how I I show myself. But if I got my hat on and my jacket on and everything, and I'm standing at work and like all black, yeah, people are like, ooh, wow, this guy is huge. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_02 39:48

But I used to, I'm glad I'm finally back to a place I kind of feel the same way. I like to, I like to be the laugh, I like to get the people going. But there's there's a poem I wrote in my first book called Harlequin that is about wanting to be more than that, because I was struggling at this point in my depression. All I had left was being the funny guy. I was so in every circumstance, whatever it was, I need to okay, I need someone to look at me, I need someone to laugh, or I need to say something that people want to laugh at, but it's so out of pocket that people are scared to laugh, and instead they look at me and try not to, um, you know, find that line and step over it and have people go, Oh my god, did he just say that? That's crazy. I cannot believe he said that. That was at all times. And I got to this point where I was exhausted trying to be that guy. Um, and I wrote it's one of my favorite poems in my first book, Harlequin. And so if you're ever on Amazon, my deep dark evil twisted, fucked up mind. Yes, check it out. Check it out. Or uh my second book, Exit Wound. Got a few of them here. Similar concept, yeah, similar but not the same execution. That's right. You know, more it's more about having wanted to kill myself and having moved on and trying to be better, and and less about wanting to kill myself and being in the worst place possible, which is very much what the first book was, and it's it's a little bit edgy on a preread, but upward and onward.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

Well, literally, like you're doing all the things that I could have done. I could have wrote books and stuff, but I you still can.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

It was if you want to chat sometime, it's true.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

It's true. I couldn't.

SPEAKER_02 41:29

I watched you I watched you work your computer magic over here, self-taught. I I can we can chat sometime and I'll show you I'll show you how to get started, and I'm sure you will blow me out of the water.

SPEAKER_01 41:38

Yeah, I just gotta write a poetry book. That's what I want.

SPEAKER_02 41:41

You're trying to steal my thunder. I'm the guy who works downtown writing poems, okay? Well, we can be a duo now. Yeah, it was kind of cool actually. I had um the Italian restaurant down the road. I had dinner, I had dinner there maybe a month ago. It was technically, I think, for my birthday, but I walked in, and me and my girl walked in, and they were like, Oh, hey guys, you know, and and then the manager was like, You just published another book, right? And I was like, Yeah, and then someone was like, someone at the bar was like, Oh, you're the you're the guy who works down the road who does the books. And I was like, Yeah, that's me. Like, it's good to meet you. And then I I was sitting down having my dinner, and the server comes over and she, you know, she's like, two glasses of champagne we didn't order. And I was like, Oh, and she's like, No, no, congrats on the book. Yeah, and I was like, This feels a good feeling, and it's not even like the whole, like, yeah, free champagne, I'm the guy. It was just like the acknowledgement of being being the guy who does that. They're like, You're the you're you're that guy. I know you, I know you because you work downtown, but you're more than that. You're the guy who writes books, and that felt fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

It does feel fantastic. I hear it all the time about me in podcasting or me being the nice bouncer or me being this or that. It's a good feeling, man. When people acknowledge you for what you're trying to do.

SPEAKER_02 42:53

Yeah, when it's just like working for myself, I work five or six nights a week, bar security. That has kind of it was not intentional, but it's kind of become my bread and butter, and it's a job I like very much that for the company I work with I'm rewarded appropriately. Yep. Sometimes though, you get people who are drunk or they're just mean or they're obnoxious, and you know, I unfortunately you've had enough and it's time to head out or whatever. Oh, and then they

Redefining Masculinity And Identity

SPEAKER_02 43:20

hit, you know, you just fucking you stand here for a living, you're nothing. You're I you're gonna talk down to me, you're a bouncer. And I'm like, well, actually, it's patron safety worker, sir. This isn't 1990. But it just, you know, and it usually doesn't get to my skin. I have four brothers and a sister, yeah. And it takes a you know, and you know, but nine years in the military takes a lot to get under my skin unless I'm unless I'm hungry and you're my girlfriend, in which case you get under my skin very easily. But no, it's it just it feels nice to be acknowledged as as something else, you know?

SPEAKER_01 43:55

Yeah, exactly. I always see myself as just very small things. So It's like when when someone does tell me, you know, like, oh, you're just a bouncer. Well, actually I'm a CEO of my own business and run a podcast and and blah, blah, blah. And I go on about that. I'm a hit I'm a head bouncer, sure. And I I'm an AI master and I go on all the topics. I'm a cat dad and I have a son and I have a wife. What else do you want me to say? You know, like I'm here just trying to make sure that you get home safely tonight and you're just being a dumb little shit with me.

SPEAKER_02 44:26

The only thing the only thing we don't have are receipts for the CRA.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 44:30

Okay, this is an artistic outlet. And you guys said in your own words that we can make as much money as we want.

SPEAKER_01 44:36

Yeah, exactly. Man, it's so cool, though, to have you on and talking about different things. I mean, it's it's always been my dream to write a book on poetry. We'll we'll chat.

SPEAKER_02 44:49

We can get it done. We can we can do a collab. I'd love to do a collab, and I I can show you the steps that I took. There's a few options, but there's a few ways to do it. I went one route, some people go other routes, but I we can have that conversation someday.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

We sure can. We'll get all this man, get the podcast. We can promote the the episode, we can do an episode.

SPEAKER_02 45:11

We'll get practicing, we'll get writing, put another book or two, get up at a collab, and we'll come back and we'll chill. We'll have a good time.

SPEAKER_01 45:19

Thanks for coming on the Big Bears podcast, Josh.

SPEAKER_02 45:22

Thanks for having me. I this has been phenomenal. This is just another conversation between me and you. This is usually what it's like anyway, except let's talk about porn.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

Yeah. No, it's it's it's a good it was a really good episode today. Really good, good conversation. Not too many people can get the poetry out of me. So it was really nice to read some of my poetry out loud.

SPEAKER_02 45:44

Well, I can't wait to hear more of it, and I can't wait to just work with you more because this has been a wonderful experience.

SPEAKER_01 45:53

Thank you for helping me heal in a good way today.

SPEAKER_02 45:56

Yeah, and the same to you.

SPEAKER_01 45:58

Thank you. Thanks for watching the Big Bears Podcast. Have a great day. Thank you.

Keith "Polar Bear" Gelhorn 46:07

Thank you for listening to the Big Bears Podcast, a two eyed seeing approach to neurodiversity. We would appreciate it if you could listen, subscribe, engage, and share this podcast. Tune in every second Tuesday at 7 a.m. Atlantic time for a new episode.