Good Life Project - Brian Broome | Punch Me Up to the Gods

Episode Date: May 24, 2021

From the earliest age, Brian Broome was taught that a man was, basically, everything he wasn’t. The model of masculinity handed down to him, from his father to local kids, community, and even the local barbershop made him feel like his very existence was an affront. So, he started hiding, then began to play different roles in the name of belonging. Eventually, the weight of it all led to years doing nearly everything he could to destroy himself, sinking into addiction, until his body, heart and mind just couldn’t take it anymore. Returning to writing, which he’d loved as a kid, Brian began to pour out stories. At first, for no one but him. It was his form of exorcism, of coping, and sense-making. But when he began sharing those stories and poems in the form of spoken word, everything began to change. Now, an award-winning writer, poet, and screenwriter, and K. Leroy Irvis Fellow and instructor in the Writing Program at the University of Pittsburgh, and Moth storyteller, he shares his journey in the powerful new memoir, Punch Me Up to the Gods (https://amzn.to/3fFbMwG). We dive deep into it all, including a hard, yet revealing and important look at how cultural norms about masculinity, sexuality and race shape our lives.You can find Brian at:Website : https://www.brianbroome.com/Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/bbromb/If you LOVED this episode:You’ll also love the conversations we had with Casey Gerald about his upbringing and how he navigated the world around similar topics : https://tinyurl.com/GLPCasey-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So from the earliest age, my guest today, Brian Broome, was taught that a man was basically everything that he wasn't. The model of masculinity that was handed down to him from his father to local kids, community, even the local barbershop, it made him feel like his very existence was in some way an affront. So he started hiding and then began to play different roles in the name of belonging. And eventually the weight of it all led to years of doing nearly everything he could to effectively destroy himself, sinking into addiction. His body, his heart, and his mind just couldn't take it anymore. In returning to writing, which he loved as a kid, Ryan began to pour out stories. At first, for no one but him, but it was his form of exorcism,

of coping, of sense-making. And when he began to share those stories and poems in the form of spoken word, everything began to change. Now an award-winning writer, poet, and screenwriter, and K. Leroy Irvis Fellow and Instructor in the Writing Program at the University of Pittsburgh, Moth Storyteller, he shares his journey in a really powerful new memoir called Punch Me Up to the Gods. We dive into it all, including a hard yet revealing and important look at how cultural norms about masculinity, sexuality, and race shape our lives. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever.

It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations,

iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him them y'all need a pilot flight risk i'm excited to dive into sort of like a whole different um bunch of different areas with you um yeah the book is just fantastic so um so powerful so moving um i mean the stories the events like the moments in your life and also the writing, which is part of what I want to talk to you about also, you know, that's the part that's not covered

in the book really, but I'm just really fascinated about you as an artist, you as a, you know, a devotion to craft, which I think is, is something that as a maker myself, I am, I'm always fascinated by that, like how that arises in people in the process. Sure. But, but let's do, let's, let's take a step back in time a little bit. Pittsburgh now, but grew up in, I guess, Warren, Ohio, the booming metropolis of Warren, Ohio. Yes, the booming metropolis of Warren, Ohio. I mean, even saying those words makes my skin crawl a little bit. People have asked me, why do you hate that place so much? And, you know, I think it's not I don't think it's unusual, you know, for people to move away from the place that they were raised and just to look back on it and go, that was the most awful experience I've ever been through.

And then just sort of just dislike the place, you know, as a result. But, you know, I still have family in Warren. I still go back every once in a while you know there's still little uh spots there you know around the around the town that i'm like oh i remember that spot you know but now you know everything's kind of gone like the high school's gone and the middle school's gone and the elementary school's gone just like because because the town of like hard times in the town or. Well, my yeah, partly. And schools were just closing and consolidating.

And, you know, I think that's happening all over. But yeah, I go back and it's it's it's changed a lot. But in a lot of ways, it's still very much the same. Yeah. It's like the hometown where you like there are certain people who will always be there. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. say yeah it's like the hometown where you like there are certain people who will always be there oh yeah oh yeah there are people who do uh i you know my mom will be at the at the sparkle market and she'll be like i saw your friend from high school i'm like mom that wasn't my friend that was that was one of my tormentors but you know uh it's that was yonks ago and so you know they all yeah they're all still there.

And I guess originally, like when you step back in time, right, I guess if you go back to when you were a kid also, like your dad worked in a way that I guess a lot of people really who sustained the town worked. It was more of sort of like a hard manufacturing town. Yeah. It was a steel town, you know, much like Youngstown right next to it. And much like Pittsburgh at the time, you know, a lot of people supported their families through the steel industry. And when the bottom fell out of that, there were a lot of people just really not knowing

what to do. My father, you know, that's all he'd ever done. Um, well he worked on the railroad and also he worked at Republic steel. And all I knew was that, you know, my father used to go to work all the time. And then all of a sudden it was like, he was just around all the time. Like nobody ever made an announcement, you know, that your father has been laid off or your father lost his job. It, it, we didn't, we didn't talk like that. So it was just, I went from, you know, seeing my father sporadically because he worked a lot of shifts and he worked overnights and things like that to just, he was there all the time. And I didn't, I didn't really know what had happened, but I knew things in the house had gotten more tense. Yeah. And I mean, especially because, you know, you describe your dad to no small extent sort

of, you know, like created the tone or the definition within the household of what, quote, being a man was, what masculinity was in the context of your family. And we'll deconstruct that a bit also. But I wonder if sort of, you know, like with the benefit of, of time now, sort of like looking back at that moment and sort of like being able to almost float above and understand probably in a very different way, what was really going on, whether your reflection on sort of like that moment and who he was and how he was has changed in a meaningful way. Well, I'll start off by saying like, you know, the, the idea of masculinity in my working class,

you know, town, you know, is, is no different than it was, you know, across the nation. It was, you know, the man goes out and he works really hard and he gets sweaty and tired and dirty and, and, you know, achy. And then he comes home at a certain time and dinner, you know, is on the table and, you know, everybody has to be quiet. You know, turn the TV off, you know, your father's coming home. It was that kind of environment. You know, it was pretty, pretty American in that sense. Like, you know, it wasn't just a black families. It was white families, every family, you know,

there was a certain gender arrangement in terms of what should happen in your household. And what was the second part of what you asked? I'm sorry. No, I guess what I was, what I was curious about also was when you saw this shift, when your dad all of a sudden just home every day and the, you said, you know, like the, the energy in the household changed, dynamic change, things got real tense all the time. And I'm curious whether, you know, cause oftentimes when we're in that as a kid, we see it a particular way. We experience it a particular way because it's just sort of,

this is, you know, this is our world. And then years later, when we reflect back on those same moments, those same experiences, whether we sort of understand them or see them differently or see more of what was actually happening. Oh, I definitely see it differently. You know, when I, when it went from my father, you know, being away all the time, suddenly to my father being home all the time, he wasn't really home. You know, he just kind of sank into the house and he became, you know, this like a negative force in the house. But at the same

time, he really wasn't engaged in anything in the house. And when I look back on it now, I know that he was depressed, you know, at the time I just thought, I don't know what I thought at the time, at the time he was, no, I didn't understand it. I didn't process it. I didn't know what depression was, but now, you know, as a man, I look back on it and I know that he was probably full of anxiety, um, about not being able to take care of his family. Um, this was a man with no further than a sixth grade education. You know, he wasn't going to go back to school and, you know, uh, and do that whole thing. So I think he really felt trapped. I think he didn't know what recourse to take and he

just was depressed. And so the only way that he could process that was to just become mean, you know, and unfortunately the person he was meanest toward, uh, was my mother because she had to then, you know, take up the mantle and, and, you know, start bringing money into the house. And, um, I think he resented that, um, like she had taken something from him. And that was the dynamic, you know, from the time that they separated, like he was just this negative, should be, you know, quote, whether it's just been passed down to you or like, that's the way it is. And then all of a sudden you find yourself in a place where you feel like you can't actually play that role anymore. That that's gotta be brutally hard for him, but also it seems like that led to expectations about you and who you needed to be in the world that led him toward, you know, to anger, to violence towards

you, but also to sort of like trying to have you define yourself in the world in a way that really wasn't the way that you wanted to be or, or, or were. Yeah. I think that he, you know, definitely looked at me as an oddity, you know, and I want to be clear. I think that, you know, while I feel to be clear. I think that, you know, while I feel sorry for my father, what he was most upset about, I think was the loss of power, you know, the loss of just this, it wasn't just about, you know, this is my identity and this is

who I am. And, you know, and now I don't know what to be. I think also coupled with that was he was no longer in control and he was big on control. Um, when it came to me, you know, I think as a lot of parents do, he saw me as an extension of him and I was not, you know, uh, representing him the way that he thought that I should be. You know, I was certainly not masculine in any traditional sense. I wasn't athletic. I wasn't tough. I wasn't, you know, stoic. I was, you know, pretty, um, sensitive and, and, and overly emotional, um, bookish, you know, and he just really found that to be odd. No, I, I say in the book, I think a couple of times, my father often looked at me as if he was just confused as to how something like me could have come from him. Yeah. I mean, I guess the name of the book itself, Punch Me Up to the Gods, is kind of derived from

a moment where he sort of perceives you as being, okay, so, um, you're not the way I want you to be in the world. Um, and that's gonna cause a whole lot of potential risk to you. And I would rather take you out before someone else does it. Did I get that right? Or my father's, one of his, uh, mantras was like, you know, I will kill you before I let a white person do it. And he perceived white people to be a threat, which, you know, that's not unreasonable. You know, the title of the book comes from a sort of rewording of something that he used to say. You know, there I think there's an old joke. You know, I brought you into this world. I'll take you out.

You know, the the title comes from something that he used to say that was sort of like that. But again, I look back and I try to give him a little bit of grace because it was a less enlightened time and he didn't feel like he had any options. But the more angry he got, the more problematic things became, you know, in the house. Yeah. You mentioned at one point, your mom basically says it's time to go. And it's, you know, like, so he's no longer in the household. But your mom also, and you write about this a little bit later too, you know, like she had a tough, tough upbringing also. Like she had a life that she pictured for herself and it turned out really different. And that was something that sounds like she really grappled with on a regular basis too. Yeah. I talked to my mom for this book and the way that it lands in the book, literally, that's the first time I had heard any of the things that she told me. And it was this weird moment where as a middle

aged man, I was realizing, holy crap, you know, my mother had a whole ass life before I was born. You know, she was a young woman. She was a girl. She had hopes. She had aspirations. She didn't just get born to become my mother, you know, and that was a really eye opening thing for me. And I was surprised at how much she she opened up because I asked her, you know, and that was a really eyeopening thing for me. And I was surprised at how much she, she opened up because I asked her, you know, Hey mom, you know, I'm writing a book, you know, can I interview you? And shockingly she said, sure. You know, and I remember a great phrase that she used then. Cause I said, no mom, are you, are you willing to have me write all this? And she said, it's all melted snow now.

I love that. I love that. I'm going to write it in my next book, and I'm not going to give her credit for it. We've got it on tape on this show. Oh, damn. I've just shot myself in the foot. But she said, it's all melted snow.

It happened, and we are who we are now. Yeah, it's kind of amazing because i think so many of us really we don't see our parents as people as individuals who've lived their own lives outside of you know like our perception of them in our lives and i think a lot of times for us it's like you know if we ever get to that point where we see that it's when we sit down later in life and you know know, often have some mechanism or a reason we can point to for a reason to say, can we talk? Like, is it, is this okay? But it's, it's, I think it's so powerful when that happens. Yeah, it really was for me. And now I have this, you know,

this great recorded session of me and my mom, you know, talking that will just be, I'll just have forever, hopefully, you know, um, it was a, I'll just have forever, hopefully, you know. It was a breakthrough moment. And it really, it changed our relationship. And she just, you know, she swore to me that she wasn't going to read this book. No, when it came out, she was like, I'm not going to read it. I don't want to know. I'm not going to read it. I sent her one, and she read it. And, you know, a couple days later, she texted me that she loved it. So that was also another really lovely moment around the book. Yeah. I mean, that's beautiful. I wonder also, because there are parts where you write about her when you were a kid also, where there was a moment

where, um, I think it was in the, in the eighties where I guess she was watching SNL with some friends and Luther Vandross comes in and she starts like talking trash about his perceiving him as being effeminate. And, and, you know, for you because you're actually relating to a lot of those same characters is like, well, that's kind of me. I wonder if you, have you reflected on that moment with her sort of like in the more recent years? Not specifically, but, you know, when we were talking about the book and, you know, we've talked about it and we've hovered around it. We haven't talked about specific moments in the book, except for one thing.

She told me I got wrong, which, you know, it was a minor thing. But, you know, she said she said that she was sorry. Now, she didn't say what she was sorry for. But she's, I guess she sort of left that up to me. And, you know, in my mind, that's, that's one of the things that she was sorry for. You know, my mother was not a very demonstrative person in terms of like, love. And, you know, I that uh affection and those kinds of things and i you know when i was growing up i think i misperceived her behavior you know um i was looking for you know tv sitcom love you know and that just was not available in my house it was you know do your chores you know eat your dinner do good in school go go to church. It was an array of directions.

There wasn't any hugging and kissing and that sort of thing. And so I think that I misread my mom for pretty much way too many years, the first half of my life, I think. Yeah. And meanwhile, as you're sort of getting all these signals about masculinity at the same time and realizing, okay, so this is what I'm being told it looks like to be a man, especially to be a black man. But this isn't the way that I am in the world. And at the same time, you're starting to realize, oh, and I think in terms of sexual

preference, you know, like it looks like I'm actually leaning towards other men too. You write, there's a short line in the book where you write, my gayness detracted from my blackness, which is powerful and devastating. Like that one line. And I have to imagine that realization at that time wasn't just a moment in time, but it was something that was repeated almost like every time you woke up and moved through the day. Yeah. I mean, I was under that impression, you know, for a long time because the idea around being a black man, you know, all men deal with issues around masculinity. You know, I think we all get shamed at some point for doing something that isn't perceived as masculine.

But for me, you know, and I think for black men in general, the pressure is, I think, even more to be perceived as this, you know, cool, stoic, tough, in charge of the women, in charge of the ladies, you know, almost hypersexual at times uh character and i was none of that and so i felt and i've come to realize it's not you know i don't think it was just because you know i'm a gay man i think there are a lot of black men who you know straight and gay who feel this way around black masculinity it is so enormous you know um and i think that that the pressure comes from racism, you know? Um, I think when you have the boot of society on your neck or the culture on your neck, there is this pressure cooker that develops where you have to be more masculine than the next guy.

You have to be tougher. You have to be, you know, and, and, and also the biggest thing for me is like, you can't show any feelings. Like you can't have any, you know, and also the biggest thing for me is you can't show any feelings like you can't have any you know tender or soft feelings it has to be this this armor all the time and i didn't have that and i just thought that i was failing you know as a black man because i didn't have it yeah i mean it's really interesting to hear you share that now and to read how you felt as a kid, sort of like emerging into adulthood. And then you actually produced an audio piece. I want to say it was a year ago or so, Barbershop.

Oh, wow. You listened to Barbershop? I did. I did. It was fantastic. I thought it was like so cool. Where you're, you know, you're nine year older and you're sort of like going back and you're visiting this, this barbershop and you're kind of sitting there and you get into a conversation with a guy who comes in and you're asking

him about all of these things. It was just really powerful to hear you relay the conversation and hear you sort of like tell the story of you in your like much later years in your adult life talking to somebody else about this but how how much you've shifted but the conversation around masculinity seems to be still largely what it was when you were a kid yeah it's still you know it's still there i wouldn't say that it's not changing at all i think it is changing but the conversation around i mean men cling to this idea, like, you know, a baby clings to a teddy bear, you know, and again, I think the issue is shame. You know,

we get shamed at a very young age for not being masculine or for acting like a sissy or a girl. It's like the worst possible insult, you know, and oftentimes we get shamed by authority figures in our lives fathers uncles you know grandfathers and so we learn real quick that it's it's not a it's not a desirable behavior to be acting in any way that is perceived as female so the conversation you know uh is happening more i think but i wish, I wish it were having more of an effect because to go to that barbershop and hear that, you know, it's still going on, you know, there's still, you know, black boys out there who have to deal with this was pretty disheartening. Yeah. And I mean, at the same time, when, when you were a kid, you also, um, it sounds like

one of your, when you started to realize, okay, so I'm not fitting in. I'm not fitting in my family, in my community. You're in your teens and something in your mind says, well, maybe it would work better if I was hanging around white kids and trying to sort of like become a part of that community to the extent where it sounds like you really start to morph a lot of who you are. To effectively just be somebody entirely different. Because maybe that's a place I can belong and feel like this is my place to be. Yeah, I really wanted to feel like somebody liked me. And the black kids in my neighborhood were not nice to me.

The white kids were nice, but they were only nice if I was entertaining them. And they oftentimes said really mean things that I just ignored. And yeah, I have been doing that a lot in my life, just morphing myself into whoever I thought the person around me wanted me to be or needed me to be or, you know, or I was trying to make myself their equal in some way. You know, I lied about where I was from. I lied about, you know, my parents. I lied about, you know, just everything. I just made up entire, you know, characters, you know, to fit in with these people. And that's exhausting, you know, and you have to keep track of all your lives. And that's, I think it's part of the reason that I ended up just drinking so much, you know, apart from just regular anxiety and depression,

I was, you know, I was, I, nobody knew me because I was just misrepresenting myself, you know, all over town. Yeah. I mean, it Yeah, I mean, it's sort of like the blend of you're carrying the weight of another persona while at the same time you're carrying the burden of knowing that who you really are is being stifled 24-7. Yeah, I was deeply, deeply, deeply ashamed of who I thought I was, this perception of who i was which was just poor and black and gay and uh you know i thought i was really stupid and you know just any number

of insults that you could layer on yourself like i thought i was all those things so i spent a lot of time trying to cover those things up yeah and just be somebody else and you know it's really weird being sober because i run into people who knew me when I was drinking for whom I was performing. I run into people in the city. I thought I was so awesome and great and they loved me. They're now honest with me like, we couldn't stand you. You were just too much.

We knew you were lying, but we liked you anyway, but you were just too much you were you know we knew you were lying but like we just we liked you anyway but you were you were just way too much because i considered myself to be the life of the party um when i was just really probably more honestly just making a fool of myself all over the city and getting thrown out of bars really knowing. Hmm. Yeah. The Apple watch series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple watch ever making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running,

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We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die.

Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. You write about a moment also where you find your way out of Warren and you end up in college in Akron for a moment in a house with other people, kind of feeling like, Oh, I'm like, I'm finally, I'm, I'm in a different world with different people. And like, I can certainly be who I need to be, but still hiding and your roommates,

you know, discover an LGBTQ flyer on your desk. And basically that leads you to feel so uncomfortable that, that, like that night you sort of pack up your bags and head out and end up at the local place where you worked where um you know the woman became the kind of kind of took care of you and and then you made the phone call that you've made a number of times throughout your life yeah you know that's weird about that when i think back on that you know is that my roommates didn't ask me to leave you know that's the thing that stands out for me in that story they didn't throw me out like i threw myself out you know and um i often think about that like you know

the shame was so deep again you know i think one of the major issues in this or themes in this book is, is shame, you know, it's ruled me a lot throughout my life. And yeah. And again, you know, black women, uh, you know, have been, you know, just coming in with the, you know, the fireman's hat and saving me, you know, over and over again. Yeah. I mean, there's this line that you wrote, you wrote, um, what I didn't know at the time is that what black men lean on the most, whether we want to admit it or not as black women. Yeah. And when that line landed so powerfully with me, but when you shared it in that context,

it seems so much bigger than that one example of that one story. Yeah, I think it is, you know, without knowing it with with the expectation that, you know, black women or women in general are there to be leaned upon by men. You know, the old help me thing from the Bible that my father used to say, you know, and also in terms of this, this masculinity thing, this idea of being masculine oftentimes involves the idea of, you know, being dominant over a woman. And that is depending on her to, to reassert to yourself that you are this thing, you know? And yeah, I think it's true. You know, black men lean on black women. I think men in general, you know, women in ways that aren't, you know, mutual, you know, that are all about the woman being in service of our masculinity or the idea of

our masculinity. Yeah. I mean, for, for you was, you brought up the idea of shame and the notion of shame as sort of like this through line, a theme that has woven through so many moments. Was part of what was going on in your mind in that moment and moments like that, was there shame around the fact that you hit this moment where it seemed like the walls were coming down again and there's this one telephone number that you feel like you know you have to keep quote have to keep calling to bail you out i didn't feel any shame at the time okay i was only thinking about myself yeah and that happens a lot you know i think in my story you know me thinking about me and me only you know and it's a through line I think um you

know even when I was drinking when I was drinking and doing drugs you know I thought about myself the only you know the thing about it is like you know I was deeply ashamed of myself and then that kind of like made me become shameful it made me engage in shameful acts, you know? And so it was just circular thing. So I didn't feel shame at the time about calling my mother. I kind of felt like, you know, she's going to come get me. I just knew that there was that baseline from the mom, like, she's going to come get me and then I'll be saved. So I was thinking about myself. I, you know, when I think about it now, I now feel ashamed. But at the time, no, absolutely not.

Yeah, that's so interesting to me that if you think about it now, that there's a sense of shame around that. Because the assumption would be, right, like, okay, so you're at a point in your life where this is years removed. You're living very differently. You're in the world very differently. You've just written this book that goes deep into and processes all these things. It's interesting to me that even sort of like a modicum of, of any sense of

shame would come up around that sort of thinking about it now. Well, I realize, and as an adult, how much I just wore that woman out, like just how how often she came to my rescue. you know, you know, particularly when I was in active addiction, you know, where I have worn her nerves thin, you know, with my behavior. So yeah, there's a little bit of shame now, you know, now when she sends me, uh, you know, an ad for earrings that she wants, you know, I can't reach for my wallet fast enough, you know? So yeah, I, you know, there are definitely things in my past in general that I still feel shame around. And, you know, I've done the AA thing of reaching out to people that you harmed and apologizing. And, you know, it was also a wake up call to find out that some people accept your apology and some people absolutely do not. And I had to learn that they don't have to, you know, because if you've hurt somebody,

you can't tell them how to feel about it. So, you know, I've learned that as well. I've apologized to my mom and she told, first of all, told me I didn't have anything to apologize for, which made me feel deeper shame. But then she, then she accepted it. Yeah. It's the mom thing. Yeah. It's the mom thing. You know, it's, it's just like, you are my child. And, and, and maybe that's not true. Maybe, you know, maybe we're fortunate in that. Like, you know, like we have that parent that feels that way

and, and treats us that way and will get us, you know, like at all hours of the night from all places. And that's not necessarily true for everybody, especially everyone listening to this conversation. Yeah, that's absolutely true. You know, I know people whose parents have washed their hands of them entirely. And so I do consider myself lucky, which is why I keep myself stocked with earring money. It's like every paycheck and 5% of the earring earring fun because I don't know what she's gonna ask for next Christmas that's Michael nuts yeah you mentioned that for you substance became something that you

turn to to kind of like make it through the day make it through the week through the year and eventually in rehab. I'm curious where writing actually comes in for you. A lot of folks that I've talked to over the years who are writers, especially of memoir, where they tell deep and moving and often painful stories, writing serves multiple purposes. And even if it touched down really early in someone's life, like journaling as a kid or something like that, it turns into something else. I'm curious what your sort of evolving relationship with the written word has been. Um, I used to write when I was a kid. Um, my sister gave me a diary that she didn't want. It was like a little pink diary and it had like a

little plastic flower on it. Um, and she was like, I don't want this, I want it. So I started writing in it. And I pretty much filled it up when my cousin Vincent said, what are you doing? And I was writing in my thing and he said, that's faggy. I remember the word very, very clearly. And I thought he meant because it was a pink diary with a flower on it. But what he really meant was writing in

general. He thought it was faggy to be doing that. And the kids in my neighborhood didn't help. They thought it was weird. They thought it was effeminate. And so I stopped. I did keep it up for a little while, like in secret. I had notebooks and things, but it eventually just petered out. I stopped for many years and then I found drugs and alcohol and then I went to rehab. And when I went to rehab, I had a roommate who just was the biggest snoring guy. Like he snored so loudly and I couldn't sleep nights. And in rehab, they give you this, you know, this pad and pen, like you're supposed to write down your various epiphanies, you know, and I just started writing, you know, as my head cleared, as I sobered up, as you know, I detoxed, I started writing more and more.

It's really where a couple of the stories from this book were written was in rehab because I was asking myself, you know, why am I here? And I couldn't really explain why I was there. So I just started writing stories about, you know, what I thought were, were, um, you know, significant moments in my life. So I feel like once I sobered up, you know, I kind of picked up where I left off. I kind of picked up, you know, after my cousin shamed me, you know, I just picked up the pen and paper again and writing the stories I don't I don't know if I can say that it was cathartic at all but I would write it and then I would go away from it and I'd come back and read it and think that's I can't

believe this happened to you it's ridiculous you know but there's a reason why the stories that are in the book are in the book. They all come from that reawakening of my desire to write. When I look at the book as a whole, I feel a bit relieved because I think all the secrets are in there. And that was a great help to me, I think, emotionally. Yeah. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not, just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton.

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results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. Where does the impulse to go from, okay, so I'm in rehab and I have this tool and I can start writing basically to get these things out of my head to process to a certain extent, you know, and to almost make them real again by putting them into words.

Where does the impulse go from that almost as a coping mechanism or, or a synthesis of processing mechanism to, Oh, this is actually something bigger. Like this is, this is a form of creativity. This is a form of expression. This is maybe something that I want to quote do. Oh,

I still don't know that I want to do this. I, you know, the, the thing about writing these stories for me was I would write them and then I would come back and read them and and think about myself not as me but as a character in a story that I was reading and then I would think wow that's you know that's kind of messed up that this happened to this kid you know and then later I would give myself a little bit of grace because

you know of all of my insanity you know just viewing myself as a character you know, and then later I would give myself a little bit of grace because of all of my insanity, you know, just viewing myself as a character, you know, in this book, I'd be like, wow, well, okay. That probably explains a few things that you've done in your life. But as far as knowing that this is what I want to do, and this is a form of expression, you know, it all just keeps happening kind of like accidentally. Like I, when I got out of expression, you know, it all just keeps happening kind of like accidentally. Like I, when I got out of rehab, I came back home and I was afraid to go anywhere. And so I just started writing these like tomes on Facebook about recovery and things like that. And a friend of mine, Mike said, you should, you know, you should submit your writing somewhere. I didn't know what

that meant. And so he sent me a link and i submitted it and the first thing that i had ever submitted got published and i thought oh that's neat you know but i had isolated myself so much that i was starting to miss people so then i started to perform at different like spoken word events and readings and the moth in Pittsburgh and one night I got off the stage and a woman came up to me and she said my name is Danielle and I'm an agent and I want to be your agent and I said okay lady like I didn't know what that meant either but as I was giving her my stories you know she was telling me that okay these are these, these are, these aren't bad. Like, these are good. I think we could do something with this. And that's when I started realizing, oh, okay, well, maybe, you know, like, these are good. Like you should do something with these. So it was always coming from outside. You know, I don't know that I ever had a moment where I was like, I'm a writer now. And I don't know that I, I, at this point, you know, I have a book coming out and I still don't know if I'm a writer now, but it feels good. I can't not do it. You know,

if I try to not do it, then i start to go a little bit stir crazy yeah i think that's one of the things that lets you say i'm a writer whether you're published or not it's it's the it's the awareness of the fact that the impulse is always there yeah like there's no rational basis for it because right you know but but it's there and it's like the thing you can't not do to a certain extent yeah when it starts rattling around in my head and I can't get rid of it, like I'm like, geez, I just got to sit down and just get this out of my head. And like, that's when I realized, okay, well maybe, maybe I got a problem. I was years ago sitting down, I was having a conversation with Robert McKee,

who sort of like is a story doctor. He runs his story webinars and wrote a big book called story. And, and I remember him saying to you, so he works with a lot of writers. He's worked with a lot of famous writers and screenwriters over the years. And he said, I'll butcher exactly what he said, but he said something like the thing about writing is,

you know, like it, it, it's a horrendous act. Um, it's monstrous, but the only thing worse than writing is not writing. It's like a monster in your head that has to get out. And the only thing worse than that is not, not doing it. Yeah. When I don't do it for a while. I mean, even if it's just something, just something, I feel like, you know, my insides are just cockroaches and I don't ever want to do it. Right. I never, ever want to sit down and write. And once I get over that hurdle and I sit down and I start, like, let's say I started at 1 p.m., I look up and it's 10 p.m., you know, that's how I know once again, that I might have a problem, you know, because once I get into it, it's really difficult to, to get me out of it. Like I become, and I'm not a really focused or organized person at all. But when I'm writing, like there's a laser focus, I almost go into like a weird trance, you know, but the problem is getting

me started, like getting me into the chair and sitting me down. Like that's really, really difficult. I'll find a million things to do before I do that. I'm nodding along. Cause I'm the same way. Like I'm a writer also. And when I sitting down is not the easiest thing, but once like once I'm 50 minutes, once I find that groove, once you're in the pocket, it's like you could blink and lose hours or even days. It's just like, wow, what just happened? It's not even like it's good or fun or bad. It's almost like not in an emotional state. You just become utterly absorbed in something.

Yeah, yep. It's the only thing that does that for me. Like there's nothing else that I couldn't be, I can become as absorbed in is when I actually get over the hurdle of sitting down. You know, I wish I, you know,

I've often wished that I could be one of those writers and maybe you can weigh in. You know, I know people who, who can say, I'm going to write every day from 10 to 3, and they do it. They actually keep to a schedule. That, to me, is magical because I will clean behind my toilet.

I will binge watch a TV show. I will find any little thing that I can do. And I'm doing this all subconsciously. It's not like I'm saying, I'm going to clean behind my toilet to not have to write. It was an old interview with George Plimpton, I think it was, and Ernest Hemingway in the Paris Review a long time ago. And he was asking him how he sort of creates momentum in his writing. And he said something like, I always finish my day knowing what the next sentence is. And he intentionally holds himself back from writing it so that he would then wake up in the morning, like not having finished, like not having completed a thought

or a story the day before and been like, okay, I'm done. But being in the middle of it and kind of knowing what's about to come next so that he would just immediately wake up and we wouldn't have to try and figure out like, how do I get this going again? And because he had figured that out, there was no resistance to get back to the page, which I thought was fascinating. Yeah. I'm going to try that tomorrow. No, I won't. No, I won't. But it's a good, I mean, it sounds great. Cause so you, it's like, you're actually looking forward to it. You know what I do is I just sort of have to trick myself I have a particular spot in my house where I write and I sound weird I kind of do

laps around it you know I look at it like an enemy and then I'll just you know like you ever play duck duck goose when you're a kid and somebody says goose and then you have to jump up and start running. I literally like yell kind of like a metaphorical goose in my head and sit down and just start. Give it a couple minutes, keep going, you know, run and then and then I'm in there. But, you know, I can't think about it too much or else, you know, it won't happen. OK, so you try the Hemingway thing. I'm going to try the Duck, Duck, Goose thing. We'll compare notes.

We'll compare notes. It'll work. I'm telling you. Just trick yourself completely. Just Goose and off and run it. All right. I'm going to give it a shot. So there's an interesting parallel also. I mean, yeah, so Hemingway, who I mentioned, was writing, and many would argue, was at

his peak sort of in the mid-50s, which was, and that's when he won prizes for The Old Man and the Sea. I think that came out in 51, won the Pulitzer in 53. Right around that same time, Gwendolyn Brooks was writing stunning stuff. And I think it was around that same window. She won Pulitzer also. And you structured this book around a poem of hers that I actually first, just by complete coincidence, got turned on to a couple of months ago. And I have been revisiting it over and over because I'm also a longtime Hemingway fan.

And I mean, you can go so deep into that poem and deconstruct it on so many levels. But also that it was the, it's like she told an entire story, an entire novel, an entire, you know, like just, you know, she cast a play from beginning to middle to end with only a handful of words and the efficiency of language was stunning, which again, was kind of reminded me of what a lot of people say about Hemingway and their writing around similar times. So I actually started, I was trying to do a little bit of research to see if they knew each other at all and whether they, and I haven't found anything that shares that they did, but I thought your integration of her poem, We Real Cool, as sort of this meta frame for the book was really fascinating.

Yeah, I, like you, didn't discover the poem until maybe a few years ago. And I was already writing the book and I discovered the poem and I forget how it came to my attention, but you mentioned the efficiency of words, which is like just one of my failings as a writer. I am prolix. Like I just king of the run on sentence. Like I'm trying to get every single word I've ever learned into, you know, one sentence.

And I was, I was struck by how efficient the wording was. And like you say, how it does tell a story. And then I started just looking up Gwendolyn Brooks. I'm not really well-versed on poetry, but I started looking at a few of her other poems. And then I started Googling interviews with her and I found some on YouTube. And the reason the poem struck me is because, you know, the story behind it was, you know, I found out later was that she was walking down the street in Chicago and she looked into a pool hall and there were seven boys inside the pool hall engaging in, you know,

very manly pursuits. And she wondered, you know, what they thought about themselves and that sort of connected to what I was writing about, you know, um, these stories that I was writing. And I realized like, you know, I could write a story about every single line, you know, in this book, you know, she doesn't ever say masculinity in any of the interviews that I've, uh, read or watched, but it struck me as like she's writing about this idea of black masculinity, about, you know, being stoic and good with the ladies and not interested in education or, you know, these these masculine tropes that I was constantly railing against, you know, in my youth. And so that's why I chose that poem. And the people at the Gwendolyn Brooks Foundation were very kind and allowed me to use it. But then I found that I wasn't the first person to make that connection. Bell Hooks has a whole book called We Real Cool, Black Men and Masculinity, which i tried to read but bell hooks is

whoo i mean she's super intelligent and real deep and i was like okay i'm just gonna stick to my little stories because i did get a lot of uh information from her book but i was like i'll just stick to my little stories yeah and there there's a place for everybody sort of like coming at the topic and the issue in their own way. Yeah. You know, there's another mechanism that you use in the book that I thought was really interesting. I mean, I thought that the frame of that poem was really powerful. And it kind of gave context to the stories that I thought were, made me think about them and see them a little bit differently also. And then there was also this other sort of like running mechanism that you relied on, which is this story of a young boy in the Bas Tuon that you would kind of revisit in little vignettes over the context of the entire book, which eventually set up the last part, Tabula Rasa, where there's some really personal reflections that evolve tied to

that i was really curious where the idea of weaving in um that story and that mechanism really touched down well i think that that came like actually after i had integrated the poem i i you know one of the places that i can write freely for some reason is on the bus. Like I write on the bus a lot. It's like how a photographer would take pictures. I just sort of sit there, you know, with my pad and pen and like little take little notes about what's happening around me. And, you know, I saw this man and his son like interacting in what I thought was a very familiar way to me. And, you know, I sat near them like, like a creep and it was just sort of like taking notes about

their interactions. And when I got home, you know, one of the few times I was anxious to write, I started just writing, you know, what I saw, you know, between the two of them. And I wasn't going to, I wasn't going to do anything with it, you know, but gradually I thought, this would work really well in the book. And then I thought, okay, using too many things, like it's going to, you know, you're going to overload the reader. But in the end I thought, this is right. Like, I really want to put this, I want to put this in there and hopefully it'll help tie in, you know, some of the messages that I'm trying to send. So it just, again, you know, I went from me writing

these stories and then I found it was, you know, the Gwendolyn Brooks poem, which I thought went really well with the stories. And then I saw this little kid and his dad and I thought went really well with the stories. And so that's how it all came together. Yeah. I mean, I thought it was really interesting also that it feels like you started out writing about them. And then when you bring it home, at the end of it, you're no longer writing about them. You're writing to him, to the child. There's this line where you write, it's the expectation of strength and the constant requirement to summon it, fake it, or die that is erosive and leads to our emotional undoing. It's like you're trying to tell him, like, know this. Yeah. And it's really kind of, a letter to myself. And I do think that black Americans have taken on

this idea that, you know, we have to be strong at all times. And I don't think being strong at all times is, you know, anything that anybody can do. We are only human. And that leads to, like I say, you know, emotional undoing, it leads to anxiety. It leads to depression. It leads just take punishment all the time and rise up and rise up and rise up. You know, there has to be a breaking point where, you know, we can be easier on ourselves and with each other. In that same reflection, you wrote two other things that I think speak to exactly what you're talking about also and really kind of bring it home. You didn't write them in order, but you're talking about also and really kind of bring it home. You didn't write them in order, but I'm going to share them in order.

You had decided to take a trip and you wrote, one of the reasons I took this trip is to prove to myself that I am allowed to take up space in this world. And then a little bit later, you kind of bring it all home and to a certain extent, bring the entire reflection home by writing, my heart in these past few days has been full of love. The only difference now is that I'm including myself in the process. Yeah. You know, I mean, um, I have spent regretfully, I spent like the majority of my life, you know, hating myself. I allowed what other people said or what I thought they thought and to really allow me to just despise myself in various ways, which led to me harming myself in a lot of ways and me harming others.

But when I say I am allowed to take up space in the world, the emphasis is on the I. The me that I'm trying to become now is allowed without question, without caveat, without excuse to take up space in the world. I had tried to make the real me, I, as small as he could possibly be without inconveniencing anybody else or risking their judgment, you know. So the I is definitely emphasized in that sentence. But, you know, and then after I came to that realization, I started to realize that there have been a lot of people like throughout my life who have genuinely loved me, you know, despite all of the, uh, you know, the strange behavior and the, and the things that I did. And, you know, there were people that were able to see through all that and still, you know, want to be my friend, want to be my mother, want to be my brother,

want to be my sister, you know, and I was full of thoughts of them, you know, when I wrote that. And also thoughts of, of giving some grace to the people who have harmed me, you know, when I wrote that and also thoughts of, of giving some grace to the people who have harmed me, you know, cause if I'm going to allow that, if I'm going to forgive myself, you know, for the things that I had done, I know why I did them, you know, it stands to reason that I can maybe offer a little forgiveness for the people who I think didn't treat me right in that they all had their reasons. Some of them not great, but like all had their reasons for, for doing what they did, you know? And it's just, you know, the human condition is one where we just, we bump into each other sometimes in the wrong way, you know? So I'm trying to be more forgiving and more loving and more open.

Yeah. I mean, it's a powerful place to be, to move into. I think that so often the invitation, the challenge for all of us is like, you can touch into that place, but sort of like, how can we actually, how can we inhabit it for longer windows of time? Yeah. And how do we balance that sometimes with like very real harm that not just happened in our past but is continuing to unfold around us yeah i don't want to give anybody the impression that i've sprouted wings and now a halo it's just now that

i'm aware of it you know and it helps me deal with difficult situations better and it helps me deal with difficult situations better. And it helps me maybe to understand when I'm being, can I say asshole? I don't know. I just try, you know, my goal now, you know, with these final years that I have is to just try to be better than I was in the first half. You know, in the first half, I let a lot of things affect me that, you know, that just affected me. And I let those things affect me and turn me into something that I really am not. So, you know, much like when I, you know, I dropped my pen and pad when my cousin called me faggy, you know, and then I picked it up again in rehab. Now I want to pick up again, you know, who that person was with the pen and pad, because

that boy was a nice boy. You know, he was a curious boy. He was a boy who wanted to be people's friends. He wanted to experience things and be curious and dance and play jump rope and all those things. And those were the things that were shamed out of him. And so now, many, many, many years later, I kind of want to pick up where he left off as well in terms of the way that he was living his life. It feels like a really good place for us to come full circle as well. So hanging out in this container, good life project. If I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? Oh boy.

That's a big question. To live a good life, you know, just try to be better than you were yesterday. Kinder than you were yesterday. There's a real, and I know this sounds super cliche, but, you know, there really is a lack of kindness going on in the world right now. You can't you can't pick up your phone without seeing it and hearing about it. You know, the the ugliness that surrounds us. Just try to, you know,

one of the things I learned in AA is to make a gratitude list. You know, when you're feeling down, just make a mental gratitude list, the things that you're grateful for and try to focus on them and let that energy carry you through the day and try to bestow that feeling that you have of gratitude onto someone else. That's the only thing I got. Thank you. about his upbringing and how he really navigated the world around similar topics.

You'll find a link to Casey's episode in the show notes. And even if you don't listen now, be sure to click it and download so it's ready to play when you're on the go. And of course, if you haven't already done so, be sure to follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app so you'll never miss an episode. And then share the Good life project love with friends because when ideas become conversations that lead to action that's when real change takes hold see you next time The Apple Watch Series 10 is here.

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Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk.