Sad Boyz - Leaving Home w/ Simone Giertz

Episode Date: October 24, 2017

On today's episode of the Sad Boyz, we talk about how leaving home with our first guest, Simone Giertz, the Queen of Shitty Robots. We also talk about our sleeping habits, social responsibility at parties, simone's time on a chinese sitcom, jarvis's time on a japanese travel show and jordan is there too!

Welcome to the sad boys a podcast about feelings and other things. Also, I'm Jarvis and I'm Jordan Cope. Yes Mm-hmm today. We're joined by a special guest. We have royalty in the house Simone Yatch, queen of shitty robot the czar of crappy automatons Quasar Quasar, I'm now trying to pronounce an acronym I'll take all your ideas for titles do you ever go by quasar is that a thing i don't even know what that means it was me trying to pronounce q-o-s-r oh q-o-s-r yeah cosar culture culture yeah actually once there was a guy who came up to me i was like q-o-s-? Is that you? And I was like, am I? Wait, what is that?

Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's me. That was brave. Shout outs to that guy. Fearless. He didn't have the time. He was actually running to a meeting and couldn't possibly say the full phrase.

Couldn't say the queen of shooting robots. Nope. Do you get that a lot? People, well, actually, quick follow-up question. Do a lot of people come up to you and get your second name wrong my second you mean my last name i have a long name uh i mean simone yatch is actually the abbreviation of it my full name is simone loon not always sadlin yatch uh but yeah a lot of people get my last name wrong because it's spelled g-i-e-r-t-z and i can't possibly blame anyone for it because it doesn't make sense.

Now to make sure that we got that, I'm not sure if it was something. You did it perfectly, Jarvis. Okay, I'm glad. You now do the full one. Not even going to attempt that. Coaster. Yeah, I kind of don't have faith in, or I can't fault anybody with names because like my name is fairly simple, but my whole life people thought it was like a different name like i got javaris yeah yeah uh travis i had like a like a seventh grade teacher

call me travis every day for the entire year oh wow and i really have to seventh grade uh like 12 13 yeah you have no authority you can't say anything yeah and so i really have to thank the movie iron man for like popularizing yeah my name now people are like how cool are you tony stark's computer and i'm like this is what it costs for people to get my name right and i'm okay with it is that better or worse than javaris because i kind of like javaris very much javaris is that a thing it is a that is a real name that real people have yeah yeah that sounds way cooler you sound like the lead in a mid-tier fiction fantasy novel uh yeah i'm javaris i am javaris of eastfield um so today the topic is leaving home moving out going from one place to another place

being in a place and then not being in that place anymore and i think that this can mean a lot of things for a lot of people and jordan simone and myself are going to share some of our experiences i don't know we've we're traveled people simone particularly are we i yeah i emotionally emotionally emotionally traveled yeah spend a lot of time on mamondo and look at tickets yeah yeah i've seen a lot of locations on tv but we're all transplants right yeah in in some ways or another like i just moved to the big old city of san francisco a couple years ago for work from the island of java and you moved here from i'm the least transplant yeah i moved here from georgia where i went to school originally from florida um so i'll probably talk about some like u.s

culture shock uh yeah leaving the south and i imagine that there's uh for a lot of people they generally assume that there isn't that much culture shock moving inside of the u.s but that's not the case there's tons it's every state is different every city is different there's a lot of yeah there's like a lot of different uh you know norms and customs and i got a culture shock just coming to this neighborhood in san francisco what do you mean is this does this neighborhood seem a little strange it's chill it's the tenderloin it's the tenderloin which i assume means delicious like a good steak i think it's latin for happy place um i like it okay yeah uh i guess we will get into the topic in in a bit but first how's everybody's week going so my guest of honor guest of dishonor uh uh my week

has been good i was in norway and then in sweden last week so i came back monday night and i've just been filming a project for tested tested has a live show that's on October 28th that I'm doing. I'm building a big thing. That's exciting. Oh, scoop troop. Yeah, October 28th. I'm building a thing. I'm building a thing.

A big thing. Biggest thing that you've built? I think so, yeah. Wow. Is that a low-key goal of yours to continue building bigger and bigger things until you've built

the biggest thing? That's such an American question. What's the biggest thing you ever made? Is it bigger than my truck? But no, it's not. It's not really a goal. I mean, a lot of people assume that you want to build bigger things, but I kind of like, I mean, it's, I'm a, I'm a one woman build team.

Yeah. And I don't know, I kind of, I kind of like things that aren't bigger than my torso. That's like apparently the measurement I go after. Yeah. I mean, I'd be terrified in the same way it'd be terrifying if your cat suddenly was huge because you knew it'd eat you. It'd be terrifying if any of my machines were suddenly huge. Suddenly. I love the idea that you're building it.

Oh, no. What's happened? It's so big. It just keeps getting bigger. I don't know what to do. I think I'm usually terrified when I imagine anything that's normally small as like a large thing,

like a mouse or like a spider or something. How's your sex life? Well, secret topic of the episode. No, I actually, I really like when small things become big. I mean, I did like a... Great, thanks for asking. It's 11 a.m. in the morning.

We're having a lot of coffee, uh but no i like building things like that i did a side table that looks like a thread spool so like in a large thread spool and has a giant needle and yeah i like things like that it's fun yeah but it's also not alive if anybody is a terrible enough person to not know your work maybe we should update them update our eight listeners of what Simone does. Simone makes cool shit that doesn't always work great. That's kind of the thing, right? Yeah. I guess also when the day comes when I get upset about people not knowing what I do,

please come and give me a tiny slap in the face. What? You haven't seen the shitty robots? I run a YouTube channel about projects I build, and mostly they're robots that don't work really well. I think my most well-known project is in a one clock that slaps me in the face with a rubber arm. That's the top one?

That's the top one, yeah. That's because it's got demand. People want that. Yeah, a lot of people are interested. Actually, people have requested me to build it because they want it for real. Really? Wow. Has there ever been a retail request like if somebody just said man i really want that lipstick machine that looks funny i want to own it i think the the wake-up machine is probably the only one that people actually want

people have a hard time getting out of bed there's a market for like really strange alarm clocks too there's like rubik's cubes that like break into a million pieces or not rubik's cubes but like little puzzles that break into a million pieces or like Rubik's cube alarms that you have to solve them in order to like get up. A little peek into my morning routine. I have tried 700 of these items because I, I'm terrible in the morning and, uh, there's a mat you can get where you,

you have to stand up and put your full weight on it for like a minute. Yeah. There's all these, these different things that I've tried. The most challenging and most effective I've ever tried is one where you, you take a photo of something in your house, preferably downstairs or in a different room, and then to turn the alarm off, you have to go

and take a photo of that thing again. Pretty effective. The one that didn't work too well was the maths questions. I had one that would not turn up until I answered four math questions, and I was so bad at it I just hid my phone away. It just kept going off as

i just threw it down this is another similarity between us because i had the same alarm app in college and i i eventually got really good at solving like random like arithmetic but when i couldn't solve a question i would just rip the battery out of my phone this is when you could take the battery out of your cell phone uh dates the uh the time i guess but how is it like i mean i'm i'm very awake in mornings i can't i think i don't know i i just really get up in the morning i can't stay in bed but i never understand what it's like because i feel like it has to be a decision when you're like no i'm gonna fall back asleep or do you do you actually just fall back that's the crazy thing um so recently whenever i come back from the uk which is like a little segue into what we're talking about today whenever i go back to the

uk to do visa things or whatever even if i just travel out of state a few hours uh one way or another right i reset i go straight back to normal jordan and normal jordan wakes up about 8 a.m ish 7 30 maybe feels natural feels powerful feels positive yeah two weeks into being back in san francisco i go straight back to natural 10 a.m. wake up. So it's a very conscious decision for me to get up here. And there is no decision. I don't remember waking up and turning off my alarm. I only remember resetting my alarm to noon and then waking up then.

There's something to be said for your natural circadian rhythms and making sure that you're completing sleep cycles and making sure that you have sunlight because naturally humans wake up with the sun and stuff. My circadian rhythm is in jazz. like sleep cycles and making sure that you have sunlight because like naturally uh you like humans wake up with the sun and stuff uh my circadian rhythm is in like jazz like free-form jazz that randomly hits snares but i mean it sounds like you just live in a different time zone yeah possible i feel like i live in no time zone yeah transcended the time zone i've heard if you like wake up in the i don't know this for real but if you wake up in the middle of like a cycle, like regardless of how long you've slept for, it's like you could be lethargic throughout

the whole day or you could have like a really hard time waking up. And that's why snoozing is so snoozing. It's the gateway drug. I snoozing is like, I in college, uh, I had this thing happen where my freshman roommate moved out and I was alone in my freshman dorm and with my alarm clock, me and my alarm clock against the world. And I wouldoze for for six hours oh wow it was so bad as an adult simone just visibly winced yeah no but i as an adult i don't like i'm just up usually like uh unless i you know have trouble getting to bed the night before simone you're naturally in morning i think i'm naturally anxious i have to get up and accomplish things i'm so concerned about the day that i can't sleep you also don't sleep you just stay up the whole time i mean i

lay in bed that's what sleep is right guys you know how when you go to bed and you cry yeah that's what sleeping is yeah you get into a cocoon but no i think yeah i just i just get up naturally i mean also it's always i mean mostly i have things that i'm excited about doing so it's not always anxiety yeah i mean only about 95 of the time five percent it's like wow look at the sun that's pretty cool that's maybe one of the best feelings is when you're waking up because you're excited to do something yeah like i feel like that started for me like christmas mornings as a kid and now it's like projects like getting up like oh maybe i can get up at 6 a.m like who needs sleep anyway like this will be

great i will say it is on a few times so i uh we'll probably get into this in a separate episode but i have uh insomnia i have like a traditional form of insomnia connected to fatigue and it's pretty good these days but back in the day, especially when I was in college, I would sleep roughly two to three hours a night on a really good night. And as a result, there's like a power to deciding you're not going to sleep. I've come to work a couple of times, sleepless, with so much energy because I've consciously chosen not to do it. Whereas if you lie in bed and you're just, I'm just trying for seven hours. Not worth it.

Everybody listening, I want you to skip sleep tonight. Nope. Yes. Skip sleep. Take prescription drugs. No, stop no stop that Jarvis eat this why do you have a lab coat on i can't stay awake i mean my the opposite of that or flip side of not waking up in the morning is i fall asleep at 10 p.m and it's like that sounds amazing i mean i just can. I mean, my sister always teases me because she can literally see like it's from one moment to the other. Cause I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then suddenly I'm just staring. Cause she's like, Simone, do you want to go to bed? And I'm like,

yeah, it's kind of like how a Jack Russell operates. I really, really want to go for a walk. Wow. We walked eight feet and I'm about done. It's like, it's like having two speeds. It's like, you're either like high energy or like asleep i think that's reflected in your work though because it is like you're a pretty chill person but what you produce is pretty intense right i don't know i don't know it's not chill um yeah i mean i mean it is i i think it is me being very yeah me being very tired in the evening definitely correlates to how like extroverted my work is. Cause it's,

I mean, especially when we're filming a lot, it's like, and then you're like, and I feel like you're 30 years older at the end of it. Yeah. Are you on right now? That's my question.

This is how we always are together, which might be why we're always tired. When I leave, I just collapse. I'm going to find a job to keep the whole way outside my question. This is how we always are together. Which might be why we're always tired. Yeah. When I leave, I just collapse outside of Jordan's door. I'm going to find jobs the whole way outside my apartment. Yeah, I would say if I'm at work, pretty consistent. I'd say no matter who I'm interacting with, I'm just regular old Jordan. But when I get home, that's when I turn double off. Yeah.

Set. I'm done. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Throw me into the ocean. Jordan is like uh king of just like being going to a social event being there for like five minutes and he's like you know what i'm just gonna go to bed and i'm like i respect that so much i feel like i need to stick around and be on and and like be a like a good host or make it make sure everybody's like

feeling good i think we we, it's peculiar. We talked about this in the last episode, but there are a lot of similarities between the two of us. But there are, there's one clear distinction, which is our comfort around extrovertism and introvertism.

And in some cases, I think to myself, man, I wish I was more like Jarvis and I could just actively think, wow, this would be so beneficial if I were to hang out and contribute more to this environment. Right.

And so often I'll just be like, I just can't. I have to be in bed bed i don't know what my real self is though i definitely feel like being on sometimes like i do improv like comedy and so like when i'm in a show i like know i need to be on i need to be quick i need to be fast and there's a little bit of that that comes out in social interactions but when i'm alone with myself sometimes like i have adhd so like a part of the reason i have trouble sleeping is like my brain is just like moving a million miles a second as I'm trying to go to bed. And if I don't like journal everything that's like, like get it out of my system or do something

that's going to like tire me out, then I, uh, then it's just like continues being that like kind of motor. What is peak on for you? Is it on video? I think peak on is, um, maybe that, but then I'm also alone. I think if I'm at a social event and people are laughing at my jokes then i'm like a little dog who just wants to keep my life but it's but it is like i mean it's interesting to hear what you're saying because i'm like i

realized i feel guilty when i'm boring or i feel obligated to be funny yeah yeah and like sometimes i really feel like i just wish i could take a step back and be more introverted but i take a lot of like social responsibility and want to make sure that people are having a good time i think i know something i think all three of us do i definitely do it i'm curious if the two of you do it if i'm in a social situation where things aren't it's going okay but i'm not rolling we're not making jokes i'm not vibing with the people i'm with maybe i'm tired maybe they're tired maybe we just don't get along i have this compulsion to go out on a high does that make sense like i need to drop moment yeah there needs to be like a couple jokes that land there needs to be like a couple deep conversations just quickly and that for me is why i'll sometimes end up

staying at a party longer than i actually want to because i just want to just one good laugh and then we'll we'll head out i just want to end on top i really feel i really feel the same way as simone like the situation if i'm like in a group of people and i'm like telling stories and people are like uh-huh i'm like yeah this is everything it's do you i'm curious i feel the same way but sometimes afterwards i'll feel super drained oh i yeah absolutely yeah yeah because it's not it's not always that i do it because i want to or because i'm feeling it it's because like you almost don't know how else to act and i'm like is it okay to just be quiet i feel like i have to contribute and i mean it's like also in such a self-absorbed way because you're like i have to give of myself and other people

might be just like can't that girl just shut the fuck up yeah yeah yeah i mean me and jervis we work together every single day and there are some days where he's that guy some days where i'm that guy some days where somebody else is that guy or girl. And every single time I'm in that environment as not the participant, just as a viewer. Right. I love it. It's great. It's really fun to have this focal point and to be having fun.

But when I'm that focal point, the only thing I can think about is I bet I'm dominating the conversation. I bet Jarvis wants to say something. I'm sorry. I feel that guilt a lot like even in work situations where i'm like oh people are if they want me on this project they're probably signing up for this jarvis and like i that means i have to like yeah i've got to deliver i have a brand like what if i'm not upbeat one day what if like uh like one one morning um it was rain it had rained the night before and i i was running late and so i called an uber to like get into work and then the uber

started driving off and i ran after them and i slipped and i slid and i was like covered in like mud and it scraped my leg and i was like all right i need to go back home and i need to like start over like get back in bed like wake up again put on new clothes i got i'm just imagining that situation getting worse and worse like a bus of all your school bullies drives by and laughs at you yeah it's like you don't even live here how did you find me uh and then going into work that day i was just like i nope you gotta like be the you gotta deliver uh the arrow yeah i that you know it's probably not the healthiest thing in the world. Like, feel like you are responsible to other people. But it is.

I mean, everybody has different roles. And I feel like this is one of them. Yeah. It feels like a natural mesh. Yeah. But it is. Like, I did, like, a yoga camp last month and was there for, I think it was just five days. But I hardly said a word because I was like i'm just not gonna take

up any space in here and just be quiet and practice being quiet and at the end of it people still thought my name was sabrina and it was actually really like that might have been worth a few words just dabble a little bit but i actually it actually made me happy because it kind of proved to myself that i don't have to be super extroverted and that it's okay to be introverted it's okay to be quiet it's okay to let other people take space and yeah every time somebody said Sabrina you just smiled at them yes I'm Sabrina Gazpacho as far as you know I I have a a habit of like filling up space in like a meeting room or something like that or filling up

no like sound and and what I have to do is I like put my hand over fill it up with sound I just picture you humming suddenly they're like what's that noise um and Travis please it's a funeral I I yeah it's really quiet why is everybody so sad what's going on with the mood I have-ba-ba-ba. Ba-ba-ba-ba-da-ba. I have this tendency of, like, putting my hand over my mouth to remind myself, like, to shut up. Wow, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, your super ego is, like, reaching out to grab your face. Yeah, it's like the worker be me versus, yeah, the super ego that's, like, monitoring my behavior. So I guess we should do a hard left turn into our topic for today. I think there's kind of a segue there, right? Like we're talking about a little bit of emotional vulnerability when it comes to how we represent ourselves. Yeah. Which leads into a question I have for both of you. Oh. When you moved, whatever that means for you in this particular context, when you transitioned to this part of your life, did you feel like you consciously chose to change things about your personality and the way that you represent yourself yeah in the air fist in the air so much i yeah i'm raising a fist in the air yes a lot

it's the thing is like so i've moved abroad i'm originally from sweden and i've moved abroad five times this is my fifth time the first time i moved abroad was when i was 16 and i went as an exchange student to china for a year and it was a, like having moved abroad so much, I kind of feel like you need, or I realized it's like, it's become a way for me to take myself out of the context I am in. And you can kind of just iterate on how you want to be

because you get like a clean slate. Nobody knows of your dark background. I mean, it's not that people don't have expectations on how you're going to be and you can kind of redefine it. And I feel like all the big personal developments I've had has been when I've been thrown into a new context and I can redefine

how I want to be and who I want to be. All my experience from X and I moved to Y and now I'm Simone V6. Or it's like a new level or something. Like, all right, now we're in this level and we're going to get different experiences. I have that so much. Like I grew up in this college town and everything was about the college.

And I had grew up with like the same people throughout like zero to 18, pretty much. And then came time for going to college. And I was really like the University of Florida is where like I grew up in that town, Gainesville. And it's a good school. And I was going to go there because it was like, you know, financial aid, stay in state. It's like, but if I were to if I were to have stayed there, I would have had no option to like change my context and change my sort of level, so to speak, because everybody already had a mental model of like who I was. And sure, there would be new people, but there's still like a little bit of baggage that

was following me around. And instead, I went, you know, just over state lines to. And it was like, I was this totally new person and I wasn't sort of living in the shadow of my best friend. And I was able to like grow and new in different ways. Did you, did you have any character traits that you actively tried to change or that you were like conscious decisions? Like I got a scrap there. I think that because of the social like situations that I was in, like a lot of times I was like sort of in the shadow of my friend who was like a popular kid and like hung out with the popular kids. I was kind of like the nerdy best friend of his. So when I no longer had that label,

I was able to like sort of come more into my own and try being independent. And then that came with its own like growth. You know what I would guess was kind of a contributor to that? Not only where you were, but also what you became. You were there actually. I was there. I was javas at that point i think i played him before the the character switch we actually yeah we split uh in 2014 i played javas when he was british um what i imagined somewhat contributed to that feel free to correct me do you think that your natural energy is a supporter you have like a supportive comedic role in your shows and you have a supportive verbal tone in conversations are you calling him your sidekick um i let's no no more like a

unpaid intern unpaid sidekick implies that you're like almost as good as me right all right no no this is more like uh you just i'm kind of like the dog that you shove scraps off your table yes but not even my favorite dog no like a dog that found my house yeah i'm your favorite dog yeah they just actually fist bump and i'm uh but sorry to take the insult but for real like uh a lot of what you do is and the way that you communicate is i want to help this person do well i want to help this person who's trying to verbalize himself get there i want to help this person be funny do you think that that small part of you with your best friend was like i'm gonna i could be the focus but i want to pull back a little bit because he's doing so well and i can contribute

i was his comedy writer like in high school i would like say something and he'd say it louder and then everybody would be like great joke and i'd be like interesting are you still friends uh yeah no we're great friends. Not after this podcast. It wasn't his fault. It was more like I gave myself that role. I put myself into that role. Yeah, Russell's now had a show on two of the three episodes of Sad Boys. He's very much a part of my emotional development.

He was the person who, when Facebook gave us our friend-iversary, I cried in a cab going to Jordan's hotel in LA. It was great. It was the perfect energy for episode one was great. Yeah, it was good. Perfect energy for episode one. Yeah. Anyway, so Jordan, how about you? Maybe give us a little bit of background on where you hopped.

Sure. Well, I hopped first from... Where did I hop? So I'm originally from England. I'm originally from Stroud, Gloucestershire. Shout out to no one. So yeah, I'm originally from Stroud, Gloucestershire, which is a country-s So yeah, I've written from Stroud, Gloucestershire, which is a country, city, town, right, my lover?

That's what they all sound like. They're all farmers. That was so strange. That's what I should sound like. Can you please for the rest of this podcast? No problem. Happy to live here. By the way, that phrase, what I should sound like,

different podcast topic. What I should sound like. Because I definitely, people wanted me to sound different too. too well should we all do this just for a little bit i mean i can do a swedish accent oh get deep in the mic for that this is uh yes so i mean i kind of people expect that i put on an american accent but it's really i have to like put on a swedish accent the american one is your regular accent is easier but yeah yes the one The one that I use. But if I'm really, really tired, sometimes I start like pronouncing words in a Swedish way. I get that.

I get that. Yeah. So I guess people kind of expect me to sound like this, but you know, like. Who are you? Get out of my apartment. I'm just like a dude, dog. You know, like, yeah.

Wow. This is my Donald Glover impression. Post weed. Remember when Donald Glover impression. Post-weed. Remember when Donald Glover found out what weed was? Yeah, and then he just, everything sounds like Donald Glover at one and a half, or at one half speed. I'm sorry, I interrupted you, Jordan.

No, I love this. You hop. Stick with the Swedish accent, I think. Okay, but you started off in England, in a small town. This is so great. This is a new show just for me. All right, sorry there.

Actually, just to echo what you said, when I get tired, I will lean back a little bit too. I will slur my hours a little bit more and I'll get a little bit sleepy. All right, my lover? There's like one listener who loves getting represented on American Podcasts. I love this. I want to do accents I'm better at. Can I just be australian all right yeah so anyway you're saying anyway so um i hopped as you put it to america two and a

bit years ago i moved to san francisco from england uh for the job that we share um but i also moved because i was always kind of an american file i liked it here i was always kind of obsessed with it the job that we share this is when i play jobs we sit on each other's laps and pair at a laptop i type on the right side you type on the left side never any of the same programming we're like uh it's like pacific yeah we're drift compatible every pacific rim our code yeah um yeah i moved here and it's a question like what's a thing i consciously chose to change or what's something that did change i guess a little bit that but more more justly i so you're from stroud and then uh your your mom currently lives in france right

and she lives in france we both brexited right um that's what it's called when a british person leaves anything yeah if i drop this mic i'm brexiting the yeah um but yeah i i moved over and uh i'd say the thing that i consciously changed well there's a couple different things some that i consciously changed because it's the kind of person i wanted to be and some that i changed because i just didn't fit in here without changing them uh part of that and people will know if you've listened if you're listening to the show now and you knew me when i was younger i sound different right my articulation is a little different the way my patter of my speech is a little different. The way that I use my consonants is a little different.

Yeah, your T to D. My T to D, I'm switching to Ds, which I don't love. I want to stick with my homeboys, my Ts. Yeah. Yeah, my homeboys, however you speak. All right. But yeah, when I came over, that was something that kind of unconsciously changed.

But the thing that consciously changed was the way that I introduced myself. Oh yeah. So when I first moved over, at least when I used to live in the UK, I'd say that I was like a little louder, a little more present, a little more pushing. Like I wanted to be out.

Hey, it's Jordan. He's such a character. He's such a cat. Look at this guy. He's crazy. Now it's much more like, Hey,

I'm Jordan. I'm going to let you figure me out. I felt like, I don't know how to really articulate it i always felt like i was trying to portray a carrot when i lived in the uk it was always like which is a very high school thing to do like i'm gonna put all these traits to the forefront hey call me skeeter and then nobody calls you skeeter you know like all this this conscious character building and then i moved here and let people figure it out and now you you are that character. Now I'm Skeet. New Skeet. Yeah.

Which is funny because it means shit in Swedish. Yeah, that's actually why I went to a Swedish school. They all call me Skeet. I never knew why. Wait, what? I mean, it doesn't mean something great in English slang either. Yeah, it's not good anywhere. Yeah.

I feel like I was always, i always see myself as a character but i only know how to be myself if that makes any sense like when i like i've always sounded like this and i would always i would get shit from people for talking white which was the original name of this podcast yeah we'll touch on that at some point yeah at some point at some point i have i had a podcast when i was 14 like 10 years ago and i still have the recordings of it and it's like i sound exactly the same except for i hadn't gone through puberty yet or i was going through puberty so my voice was like in the process of dropping actually oh actually that's a really good point outside of like my articulation and my accent thing that really changed when i moved here was the puberty yeah i got i got one huge pube it's so thick

um i it's more likeberty thorn and a rose to accompany it. This is what puberty is, right guys? This hernia? What about you? I'm normal, right? We're the same. But I, uh, when I was younger, I think I, for whatever reason, actually, before I moved to college, I was pegged as the guy with the deep voice.

And I think I leaned into it pretty hard to the point where i think i was like down here when i was in school oh hey what's up what's up everybody oh dude it's deep voice guy he's so fun like that was the character that got attributed and then i started playing to that character i was also because i grew up in the whitest town i was the black guy yeah yeah like a light-toned mixed race guy but i was the black guy yeah yeah like a light-toned mixed race guy but i was the black guy and so like things you would typically triply like oh jordan knows rap right jordan tell us all about your favorite rap tracks and i was like well i'm gonna get pretty much into rap then i'm already leaning this way i've got a reputation to uphold yeah i've got a brand yeah

i represent all black people in this town of 10 000 simone how about for you like how did you change yourself uh or level up? I think one of the conscious changes I made, I don't think I've ever talked about this before, but when I was a teenager and I moved to China first time, was that I was like, I'm going to become kind.

Actually, because, yeah. And it's funny because it's one of the changes that I feel like it was actually a conscious change because I was never, I don't think I was ever mean. I wasn't really a bully or anything, but I could have a mean sense of humor where I could make fun of people in the same way I made fun of myself. And I realized to me it was like I was fine with it. I was fine when people made fun of me, but I realized that some people got sad by it.

Right. And it was one thing where I was like, I'm going to be I'm gonna transform myself in this way and it was actually funny my sister was like because when I came back she was like wait who's this new Simone it seems so fake and then she like realized that it actually changed and I feel like now it's it's it's stuck with me but I feel like people don't think of themselves as these malleable things yeah you can't actually change character traits but there are some I've changed. Yeah, definitely wanting to be kinder, wanting to be a better listener is one of the things I've actively worked on.

And it's like, I think it's incredibly easy to get wrong. I plus 1000 of that. I couldn't relate more, especially since if you are a kid and even once you get a good laugh out of a slightly mean joke and it turns out you're good at it. Like you can just come up with a joke pretty quick finally the validation i've been looking for if you know a joke will kill and there's a chance it might hurt somebody's feelings but it's it'll kill

definitely yeah and you're a kid that needs validation constantly of course you're gonna do it um do you find that that has gone up or down since your move to china is that something you've continued pursuing i've continued pursuing it i feel I mean, it's like throughout this and everything that's happened for me in the last two years is also with like Queen of Shitty Robots. Like what I keep falling back on is like, I just want to be a good person. Yeah. That's really throughout this and maintain that in some way or develop that. But I think, yeah, I hope so. And now it's also when i mean i couldn't i'd really struggle to be mean online because it has much bigger consequences and impact than it would have had otherwise when you're like a kid in third grade and you're like well yeah especially now right because if you were

if you even just make like an off-handed slide at somebody on twitter like yeah i feel like the only people that might do the same yeah i really try to be kind and i mean my sense of humor can be pretty raunchy and it's a lot of sex jokes and poop right but i mostly just make fun of myself and i try to stick to that but it's yeah it's it's tricky i just but i'm terrified to make anyone sad same i think let me pat all of us on the back uh jordan and i on the last love this already a big fan well uh just the fact that we i think are all people who who realize that we can change there's so many people that i've met in my life they're like well this is just how i am and i'm like but oh my god but that sentence

is a crime i hate it so much you you nailed it by saying malleability right because i think a lot of people assume that the older you get, the more rigid you have to be. Yeah. Which is absolutely not the case because the older you get, the more educated you are, the more experience you have, the more evidence you have to change yourself. You have more context to say, I'm going to be kinder. Yeah. I'm going to be meaner. I'm going to be funnier.

Like, you have the evidence to back that up, which is why it's always so painful when somebody just drops like, yeah, it was me and my colored friend. You're like, wait, whoa, don't say that. You're like, well, it's just, it's my age, you know? It's just the kind of guy that I am. It's also why middle school kids are the worst because one, they like have barely developed empathy and they also don't have the like context to know how they're making other people feel,

even if they could. But yeah, I think the thing we can all agree on is that we're great. We're great. Yeah, right? Yeah, we're so kind and most of all so humble we are so humble so humble i would say if anything i'm the best at being humble yeah you're the most you're the most humble of us i mean i just got happy by being calling myself your dog earlier on i realized that just the

prospect of being your favorite dog i was like i'm your favorite dog that's always the funniest thing about like when you get deep in a bit like that and it's still kind of validating like haha yeah yes got him finally the recognition i deserve just kidding but got him what move or like what transition in your life has been life has changed you the most? What shift? Or if you moved somewhere to another or transitioned to another job? I would say the move to the States and particularly the move to the company and culture that we're in now, particularly San Francisco.

I don't want to speak to America because I hear that there's a bunch of other states as well. I'm not interested, but I hear they're great uh definitely don't want to go to florida or georgia you know what i mean i've been to florida i thought it was kind of nice never seen a lizard before that was exciting um but no the uh thing that changed the most for me was the same as you shifting to being kinder we may have had different approaches to that but it was a very conscious thing that i want to change and that changed when i moved to the states it actually got a lot worse when i went to college i think i got way more caustic i got way less patient i was not considerate of people's feelings when i would make jokes or off-sided comments because there's something about the

temporary nature of college that moves a little bit of consequence does that make sense i can see that yeah yeah it was like well screw it if they hate me i'm just the guy that i am they're not going to see me in two years right right whereas which is a really shitty way to be yeah but it's easier to be that way when you don't have a community and a friend group built from scratch in an environment where you like for me uh i think i think the move to college was probably the biggest change and then the second would be i studied abroad in spain barcelona and that was the first time I'd ever left the country, left the country when I was like 21. And that was the first time. So understanding that there were like other cultures out there and other people, like, I think I have this out of body experience now when I'm in like another

place. Like I was in Japan a couple of months ago and just like seeing someone like going to work and being like, this is someone's life, like internalize that, like somewhat, this is, it has its, its peaks and its valleys and it's a valuable life. And this is like how someone is living. And that is like, uh, helped open my mind to be like, to not being judgmental. Like, uh, there's like a million ways to be, you know, like you get feedback from your parents. Oh, get a nice job, get, go to a good school, like all that stuff. But it's like, there's so many ways to be a good person, to contribute to society, to be happy that aren't the prescribed ways or like the most commonly thought about ways. And so I think that was another thing. Simone, of the 49 times that you've emigrated, which of those trips would you say had the

biggest impact on you? I think probably the, so, I mean, I moved to China when I was 16 for a year. And then I went to Kenya for six months when I was 17. And then I went to China again for six months when I was 19. And then I moved to the States when I was 23 for a year. And then I moved back to Sweden for a bit. And now I moved back to the States one and a half years ago. But I think probably the first move to China, which is definitely the roughest culturally. I mean, for one, i was young and it's right

the youngest i've been the youngest actually since we're on this jarvis what's the youngest you've ever been i'm gonna have to go with 22 no it was the youngest i was when i moved um and it just it was such it i mean i lived in chinese host families i went to a public chinese high school so it was really like an ice bucket. Yeah. Ice bucket challenge. An emotional ice bucket challenge. Not an ice bucket challenge.

So I think that, but in some way it makes it, because now I still get questions about like, wow, was it a big transition to move to the States? And to me, I'm like, I mean, I speak the language. I feel that I'm fairly familiar with American culture. And of course there are cultural changes or differences, but it's mostly stuff that's just like, uh-huh, I'm so Swedish. Or like, you're so American. But like relative to going to China at seven years old.

It feels very mild. What was the, how did the decision come about to go to China at 16? I was really interested in Chinese architecture and culture when I was a teenager because that was just the type of teenager I was. Wait, how old and culture when I was a teenager because that was just the type of teenager I was. How old were you in this situation? 15. I didn't like anything

at 15. That's amazing. I was really into Pokemon. I was really into sitting down. I was, I was super, I always had very intense interests that I like, and I had them for about a year and I like dove deep into them. For example, once I, when I was 14, I was obsessed with like and I had them for about a year and I like dove deep into them for example once I when I was 14 I was obsessed with plants and I had 93 different plants in my room and were like read like plant lexicons before I went to bed and learned their Latin names yeah I didn't know you were so cool that's pretty cool. I thought it was going to be like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which it really wasn't. Yeah. So it was a cultural shock for one, I mean, being different from Sweden, but also from what I expected of China being. Now, how much of a cultural shock was it to star in a soap opera in China? Oh, right. Yeah. I was in a Chinese sitcom for one episode. That was bad. There's a video on YouTube if you want to watch it.

It's pretty much the only video you really need to watch on youtube i would say because once you've watched that you're pretty much done with entertainment overall that's pretty much all art has been leading up to is that exact video yeah i've so i've been on japanese television uh in an episode of a tv program what are your credentials oh jesus i've been on a bad american podcast called sad boys well you got to start somewhere yeah i'm on my way up um javis what was the japanese show you were in oh it was a it was a show called rediscover japan and i think it was a travel it was like a travel show for japanese people to be like hey we still got good stuff and so it was kind of like this kid it was

like look at all these tourists experiencing japanese culture reminder that japanese culture is awesome like that kind of thing so i went to a um i went to this fast food restaurant called uh most burger and like somebody outside was just like do you want to be on japanese tv and i was like oh i'm just gonna go to most burger and they like pointed at it and there was like a camera crew in there and we sat down and they fed us burgers and we reacted with like little uh this was my favorite like science and stuff and then they interviewed us about american culture they were like so do you guys eat cheeseburgers and coke every day and i'm like depends but yeah kind of have you ever had a burger before yeah and simone of course your star your starring role was girlfriend of guy is that right i was somebody's uh like it was initially canadian but then they changed it to American wife.

Oh, they pitched you as Canadian. Yeah. Yeah. It was a Chinese sitcom. It's yeah, it was rough. Well, the key part is that you did not speak the language, right? I didn't speak the language. I mean, I'd only been in China for three months at the time, so I didn't speak it very well.

And in very few sitcoms at that point. Very few, very limited sitcom experience. Acting experience as well. All kinds of experiences were very limited. But yeah, and they were also, they said that I was just going to have two lines and I ended up having 40, 52 rows of lines. So like, all in Chinese.

You got promoted to series regular. Yeah. So it was very intense and i had a day to practice and it was i mean it was a it was a train wreck that's it's the worst i've ever ever been but i got through it and i'm proud of myself for that yeah you're stronger than both of us yeah i mean if there's anything we can say here it's that i'm the most humble you're the strongest and jarvis is here too I'm not the best dog. Jarvis is a guy I know.

Good sidekick though. Good sidekick. Excellent sidekick. No, I did. I was very, very clear about that. I really don't want us to seriously all drink. So we're going to cut this out of the podcast, but I do want to be ultra clear that Jarvis is not my sidekick.

Okay. He is barely an underdog. Okay. Oh, really? Sorry. All right. Back to having fun. All right.

We're all equals. You talked about being kinder right yeah i'm gonna let it out sometimes you just meant kinder yes like the chocolate brand i wanted to eat more kinder gosh so you know we've talked a lot about our how we've changed how how traveling how going to different places has has allowed us to grow as people yeah what advice would you give to someone uh for both of you what advice would you give to someone who hasn't like had the opportunity to like experience a different place to like i'm thinking you know of jarvis who was like the world is in the united states specifically in atlanta georgia where i reside what would we say to 12-year-old Jarvis Johnson? Yeah.

Javaris Johnson. Javaris Johansson. Javaris Johansson, star of Scream. I think it's really, I struggle with giving advice to people because I realize it's such a privilege to have been able to have a broad line. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's really, it's like, of course you can be like, yeah, get travel, get other experiences.

And then you realize, like, yeah, it's something that a lot of people are not able to get the means to get other experiences and travel um but it is like but at the same time i feel that a lot of people who have the opportunity don't seize it and it's i mean especially if you're just moving people think that like moving abroad for a year is going to be you're going to miss out on on so much at home, but you get home and not a lot of things have happened. Yeah, absolutely. And if I want anybody, I'm in the same boat when it comes to giving advice. The one thing that I would say is a net truth is that if you do choose to travel or you just choose to change something in life, whether it's going to college, switching schools, switching friend groups, getting out of a relationship, starting a new one, anything like that. Don't be afraid to utilize that as change let's eliminate the negative stigma associated with the idea that when you start something new you can be new yeah there's nothing

wrong with going to college and deciding to be kinder there's maybe something going to wrong with going to college and deciding i'm going to be called the terminator everybody called me the terminator you know like let that happen organically because you're cool and look like Arnold but yeah so move to a new city and seize the opportunity to get yourself a new nose yeah do your best yeah I think that Jordan touched on a really good thing which is like embracing the opportunity for change like uh I think that there's momentum moving in some sort of direction or there's like inertia uh to change. Right. And so you could be like, oh, well, but I'm already this way. And it's like, but hey, what if we, you know, what if I'm the Terminator now? Like, I think that that's an okay thing to try. Like, you don't have to be the Terminator forever. It could be like, remember that like month where you

were like, call me the Terminator. That was weird. That was fun. And that gave me the opportunity to realize I hated being called the Terminator. You know, like there's nothing wrong with growth, even if the result is not. Yeah. There there's always there's so much fear around that yeah like oh i tried changing oh i tried to get into water sports and i'm just not very good at it i should have never tried no try it fail it grow as a result yeah only water sports only everybody try water sports this advice is only for water polo players that's where they put the horses in the swimming pool right it's actually where they just wear collared t-shirts in water but i think definitely i mean any change that's happening in your life if it's something

that you've chosen or not that it is like i don't know getting yourself into a different context really helps with any development that you want to spur within yourself yeah even temporarily i think uh i think, I don't know if it was on Mike or not, but you talked a little about the yoga camp. So in the case of the yoga camp, you didn't go to yoga camp to try not speaking and see what people would think of you and to see what your name would end up being. But once you realized that that was kind of valuable, you embraced it and you got that experience, right? It was valuable, but call me Sabrina Gaspacho. If you, I experience, right? Yeah. It was valuable, but... Call me Sabrina Gaspaccio. Call me Sabrina Gaspaccio. If you, I mean, everybody needs to find their Sabrina Gaspaccio experience,

whether it's going to college or you're just going to a party and deciding at this party, I am going to be calmer or at this party, I'm going to be more outgoing. Just experiment with the person you are because you can always go back. Don't be afraid to play with existing Jarvis.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're still talking to young Jarvis. We're still talking to young Jarvis. We're still talking to young Jarvis. I'll take that advice back in my time machine. And when you inevitably meet a very handsome and skilled man called Jordan Cope, do not befriend him. It only leads to darkness and pain. A 14-year-old Simone is happy to educate you on any of the Latin names of plants.

Only the ones around when she was 14, though. None of the fresh new plants. Idea for a podcast we have conversations as our 14 year old selves no one would like that but uh this was good um thanks so much simone for for joining us on the sad boys today uh thank you for being a sad boy with us yeah well it was surprisingly fun to be a sad boy. Yeah. Sad dogs, maybe. Ooh, cool. That's me.

Sad second favorite dog. For those listening to the podcast and not watching our video version that doesn't exist, I am sitting separately from the two people I look at with rose-tinted glasses on the couch over there having a great time. Yeah, we've been sitting here just hanging out, playing some games and stuff. Jarvis has been relegated to lying down on the ground and I'm recording with my own laptop everyone is having a good time without me um to everybody listening first of all thanks for listening because that's kind of the point of the show and it's pretty hard to do the show if nobody

listens to the show yeah I guess if you like the show you could like uh subscribe to it on like a thing that where podcasts are you could do that right and simone you're gonna do that right sure right yeah sure okay so yes other than uh uh the project that drops october 28th tested is there anything you want to plug you mean big machine big machine the big machine um no i i don't want to plug anything heck yeah nothing to plug maybe plug unplug unplug i want to plug anything I have nothing to plug maybe plug unplug unplug I want to plug unplugging we just cut the podcast wow we had a secret agenda

an undertone to this episode it's all about just letting go man unplug unplug baby unplug your headphones right now play the podcast loud alright to the whole bus

this has been the sad boys it's been the sad boys Simone do you want to shout out your Twitter handle? at Simone Yatch that is S-I-M-O-N-E G-I-E-R-T-Z Jarvis Johnson

what the hell do you do on Twitter? I'm at Jarvis oh it's so good yeah do you have at Javaris by any chance? no I'm getting it this second

you can find me at Jordan A-D-I-K-A Jordan Adika on Twitter. And you can also find me on twitch.tv slash Jordan Adika, where I stream once every several months. Okay, now that we're plugging everything. No, fuck this. Sad Boys Pod, leave us a review on iTunes. Enjoy your life.

Like, comment, subscribe, unplug, install, delete, update, all of the stuff. Flip it, turn it, twist it, pop it. Pop, reload it. We close every episode with, we love you and we're sorry. We love you and we're sorry.