EXPERIENCE 266 | He was podcasting before Joe Rogan and Adam Curry! - Steve Phillips

Steve Phillips is a super geek and started podcasting a Transformers-themed show over 20 years ago before Joel Rogan and Adam Curry. He co-founded Geekcast Radio Network is an accomplished voice actor and has been hosting the Altered Geek podcast series since 2012. And he's got a day job communications and content developer at Breeze Through Car Wash. At Breeze Through he's a creator and communicator and even gets to do things like teach kids about podcasting. I met Steve through my friend Wade Keith also from Breeze Through and after Wade came on my show last year he was eager that I should follow up and get the local pod father on the show and Steve didn't disappoint. You'll meet Gollum from Lord of the Rings in this one and the Joker, the Mark Hamill version and many other characters we love by Geeks everywhere. Steve and our producer Ben had some great conversations between segments but if I'm honest I was in a little over my head on this one. It was a ton of fun though with laughs and podcasts or insider secrets so please enjoy my conversation with the no co-pod father Steve Phillips. Welcome to the local experience podcast. On this show you'll get to know business and community leaders from all around Northern Colorado and beyond. Our guests share their stories and through it all you'll be inspired and entertained. These conversations are real and raw and no topics are off limits so pop in a breath mint and get ready to meet our latest guest. Welcome back to the local experience podcast. My guest today is Steve Phillips and Steve is the co-founder and Jack of all trades tech fixer at the Geek Cast Radio Network. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Also communications and content developer at Breeze Through Car Wash and recommended to the show by previous guest to the show Wade Keith. So he says you're the pod father of Northern Colorado. I don't know if I would be but I mean I'm a transplant here in Colorado but you've been doing it longer than just about anybody in this region. Yeah about 20 years. 20 years. So that's circa 2006 so that is gosh that's like almost when they started. Oh yeah. It's pretty Joe Rogan. Oh yeah. That's pretty Adam Corolla. Yeah. Is it even really? Well yeah I'm pretty sure it's before a lot of those guys got involved. I think they were closer to like the 2010 era. Really? Yeah. So what were people doing back in those days? So back in the like the early days of podcasting. There were some that actually predate that and I found out recently that there were some pre-recorded audio that were transferred over the internet like early 90s, late 90s. Okay. But they weren't really a podcast. There was no. Yeah. And so I actually got started by doing podcasting through another organization. Huge Transformers fan. So I auditioned for a hosting gig on one of the networks that I saw. The cars that turn into robots. Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So they had me doing an audio drama podcast where I would do the voices and read some fan fiction type stuff. So I got started doing that and then I was like oh this is fun. And I was doing voice acting for a fan dubbing organization too. Okay. And so yeah like back in those days of podcasting like you had to write your own RSS feeds. You had to manually what that means. So it's all automated now. Which is wonderful. I just have a subscription to a Buzzsprout or yeah. But I mean it literally like it's super easy to publish things now. Back then you didn't have that whole interface. Like you had you know you could host it on your own website. Okay. In the back end in a folder structure and then you had to write the code that these places these places would get picked up. Okay. And then you would submit it to like iTunes or submit it to tune in or speaker you know all these different places. Okay. And so yeah it was it was very tedious to have to do that. Interesting. And so what was the what were you trying to share? What did you first started sharing? So my my first solo podcast was a Transformers related podcast because that was what I was into. Started that in 2008. Okay. And then from there I met a bunch of people on Twitter at the time over the same mutual interest. Oh, which was brand brand new too. Yeah. But you could do a hashtag podcast or something. No, they're watching feeds and stuff. Yeah. I mean there were a lot of people. No, not really. And there weren't a lot of people on there. And so I just kind of started searching Transformers like and then people you know I would come up with a slew of people that were interested and I just started passionate out talking to them. And so then one of them was like I want to do a podcast on this. And I'm like I think I can help you with that. And so we I had to teach him remotely because like a lot of the guys I record with are not even in the same area. Right. And zoomed in really exist. No, so we use Skype. Okay. Skype did. Yeah, but there was no way to record it. So we had to both synchronize our like audacity on both ends. Okay. And then he'd have to send me the file and I'd have to put it together. Wow. So it's just like the whole thing was tedious. Like there was no automation and WordPress and some of that stuff. There was had to be a passion project. Oh, 100%. Like I don't even know how I had time to do all that. Right. Like I'm so fortunate for all the automation. No, right. So we'll get into the kind of the journey of that. I think. But I think probably for you, I'm going to want to explore like a lot of the journey. Like one got you transformers curious and everything. And so earlier the normal will probably jump in the time machine and kind of roll through the story. How did you and when did you to shift to the less fascinating part the day job? How did you connect it with breeze through and how long have you been? So I've been I'm coming up on my three-year market breeze there. Okay. And honestly, when I was I actually moved here because it's kind of a long story. I moved here in June of 2019. And I used to live in Michigan like in the Flint area like Flushing Michigan. Okay. And I had recently come off of a job loss. Like and there's not a whole lot of jobs around where I was at. I was applying across the country and applied to one and it was producing podcast audio dramas here in Lovelin, Colorado. Okay. And so I got that job work there for about three and a half years. They had another layoff. Okay. I got let go. So I was I took that opportunity to spend more time with my kids and their school stuff and kind of brush up do you know certifications and things like that. And then applied to a bunch of places and kind of hoping that I would get an interview somewhere. And using my credentials of different marketing and podcasting and graphic design. A lot of content really fix anything and figure out any software. Oh yeah. It's like your personality. Oh yeah. Like I don't I don't take no for an answer like I will look for how I can you know get it fixed you know figure it out. So anyways I applied to a bunch of different places and breeze through called it was between breeze through and a radio station like the Thornton area. And I was really wanting to get into radio but they were unable to budge on a couple of things and actually my interview was with Wade at breeze through and it honestly sold it for me because like he was super genuine and he cared like the whole process like through through both of my wife's like I know it's a car wash but I just feel like they're genuine there like and I said I feel it too I'm gonna turn down the other one. And so I took it and Wade was like the best at teaching me everything like the ropes of breeze through like all of the car washes. No I knew nothing and like I didn't realize there was car wash conventions and they took me to one and I was like this is this is crazy but it's it's you know it's like Wade says you know you don't go looking for the car wash industry it finds you yeah yeah um but yeah so I get to do that I get to do a lot of the graphic work I get to do a lot of the internal communications with the team and things of how we're trying to you know nurture the you know the team building and our values and our mission with everything and and I actually do a lot of the stuff with Wade still even despite the internal communications part so like a lot of the events over the summer where you see Bubsy the bubble man yeah yeah uh if you see Wade and it's like at the lagoon series or you see him at the the the loveland music fast yeah I'm in the suit and you also see Bubsy I'm in the suit yeah fair so so you're you're his lackey in yeah in a manner of speaking uh he needs something you make it happen in that content and graphics space oh for sure. So cool well that sounds like a pretty fun job um what uh tell me about like you uh Mary that you were the ring uh children yes so I I actually met my wife in high school okay so we're we're high school sweetheart we met in gym class I was like the nerdy twelfth grader that took forever to wait um to take gym class like it takes I was I was holding out like hockey would possibly be there for sports and they never brought the program back in our high school so I ended up with a year of gym okay and she was taking it to get out of the way and she was a sophomore and we started dating and then uh yeah we ended up getting married years later and uh you went off to college but you stayed yeah so I actually went um to community college right up uh but I I waited because we couldn't afford it and I was working full-time and just all kinds of you know life things to figure out sure um so I went back to school when my first son was born and then took me four years to do a two-year associate's degree but I was working full-time and had to fit it in there and thankfully my job was very flexible with it yeah yeah and uh so yeah I have two two boys uh once thirteen once ten oh fun ages yep they uh they like coming to Colorado oh yeah were they good with the move when you came so they were uh we moved about eight years ago okay so they were two and five at the time they didn't have much voice in the conversation at the time but they've they've learned over the years of like oh this is really nice like being outside having sunshine like because in Michigan you didn't get a whole lot it was very overcast very short summer yeah and so you're you're just kind of it's kind of depressing almost with the weather and then you come here and you're like oh I have the beauty of the mountains I have you know all you can go outside every day and look at the mountains or the scenery and it's a different look every day like I mean it's great so I was noting just yesterday it was kind of a hazy day in the in the faraway peaks were so just kind of mysterious and the close-in peaks were just really easy to to spot and it was I don't know one of those like I haven't seen that picture before you know I've seen this picture a whole bunch of times what you're right it does change just whatever day and then you know the the the sunsets here are green no matter where you're at dig it so so yeah let's actually go back to Michigan okay and like jump in the time machine right from the start and hit the is it was it born and raised in that flint area yes okay yeah so tell me about that that circumstance maybe earliest memories was a question I was surprised by the other day earliest memory yeah how old were you during those earliest memories uh probably I think as far back as I remember it's like my fifth birthday just getting yeah toys and you know stuff like that okay so what was the circumstance in your family you do you have siblings also yeah and uh oldest youngest middle I'm the oldest child okay my I have two younger brothers okay ones three years different your boy heavy family yeah sure oh yeah for sure yeah my brother has three boys too so yeah yeah and uh what was your your parents place in life so my dad worked and then around the time I was turning 10 11 years old my parents got divorced okay so that through things into a kind of a tailspin so I kind of had to wrap fast mom or dad or switch um so I live with my mom and then we went to my dad's on the weekend and then years later both got remarried and but uh yeah it was it was a difficult time growing up I kind of because the internet was new I kind of leaned into that like creating like alternate personas to kind of live online like like curiously yeah yeah um you were early adopter of that kind of yeah more common behavior so so my dad actually got a computer when I was five okay and which was what sort of early 90s like I so like 92 93 okay yeah yeah yeah yeah and so we we had an old computer then and then we've I mean I pretty much had computers since yeah it was at the point in my elementary school I was the IT guy when my dad went to work like really yeah because he worked for General Motors and then I I knew enough about computers so they were like hey Steve we need you to do this and it was all DAW space systems and so like I learned how to code it and um and build them and so like I oh wow so I just built a brand new computer in January too for myself at home yeah so I do that as a side hustle I do some people that would you know build computers for folks and those are really you know mid 90s kind of timelines and stuff you can make a buck just ordering parts put them together I mean I didn't do that as a side hustle I mean I sold my old computers yeah I just built a lot of computers for me and then I sold them when I was done with them and wanted something faster yeah I still have an old one from like 2011 uh sitting in my office at home and my kids use it really and I was able to I had like bottom level parts something in 2011 is that like floppy disk still then they still had that but it was still like DVD player okay so they had a lot of that stuff it was kind of early SSDs and stuff like that um but I was able to go on eBay in January and spend 60 bucks and put the top level processor in the top level graphics card in it and my kids have a you know a brand new machine you know that they can play with yeah use interesting so that was kind of your your place in all the way from 10 12 years old was kind of uh on the leading edge of tech and investing in this thing that was called the computer that was revolutionizing work especially in home and games oh yeah and uh was the transformers also part of that yeah going the way back to I I started building websites because of the show yeah so the television yeah the movies so the TV show first yeah so there was a cartoon called Beast Wars Transformers and it was with animals like in the 90s okay it actually caused the rebirth of the franchise in the mid 90s and it was a CGI program oh really yeah um so it came out in 1996 I had no idea and that was what got me into Transformers and I watched the older stuff and then and then I got into everything after it but it kind of gave a rebirth to the franchise and then it didn't it kind of fizzled out again until the the live action movies in 2007 gotcha which became very popular oh yeah huge really probably um so you were like carrying the candle through that oh yeah those seasons kind of to a certain extent um and like was it like strictly a hobby and did like you built a website to do what like I built it I think just to kind of have a voice okay like have an opinion have a voice right about it okay and blog probably too that was pretty common in those days right yeah or is it already fading like forget when blogs were popular they were popular in the in the kind it was it was message boards that were popular until like the mid like about 2007-ish okay they started I mean there's still some around that are kind of established but for the most part blogs have been I mean there's still around two but a lot of its social media posting and things like that now they've kind of taken its place how people express themselves because ultimately that's what most of this stuff is whether it's TikTok videos to podcast blogs it's all opinion right right so like there's eight billion people in the world but notice me yeah a little bit and and notice the Transformers they're cool you guys should like them too and build community around those kind of shared interests and whatever 100 percent so did people like contact you and stuff and like or yeah yeah so we used to like I said I used to be a part of fan dubs I used to which is essentially they would take like the Japanese animation of series okay somebody would translate them they would give us our roles and you know we would oh that's how you got into the voice acting that's how I got into it was and actually a lot of the guys that did it at the same time I did move to Hollywood and actually got professional with okay I was kind of too scared to do that I was like I'm from flant like I don't know if I can afford you know go without work yeah so they and you were with your high school girlfriends yeah it's all right by now yeah and so we were just I was kind of like I don't know if I want to jump into that you know so I did the podcast because it was kind of safe and I could do both and what were you working in like in the early career so I worked because you didn't make any money on the podcasting stuff really so from like 2002 to 2010 I worked at little Caesars oh really yeah I I was a closer there and I worked there and then in 2006 to 2016 I worked for a car dealership okay and flant michigan like in the text base like he was a computer guy or were you some cars or no so funny enough I got hired at the car dealership as a car porter so I was washing the used cars okay and then they found out that I knew a lot about computers and about a month and a half into working there the guy that used to print their windows stickers and did their IT stuff left to go get a different job okay so that got added to my role right and so like I got additional pay on top of it to be the IT guy and to do the window decals and then eventually I was doing like car rentals for like their their new car demos and I had to create that whole process because it didn't exist yeah they were just like GM's like we want to rent cars make happen and there was like no guidance and so I was like all right I got to do research and figure out how to make this work interesting yeah that seems unlikely that GM wouldn't have like here's the program yeah at least not that I was aware of these guys anyway yeah so but and as far as I know they're still using all the same stuff I gave them yeah yeah interesting yeah so and I imagine that was did you do like the online car listings and stuff too or that's more of a feed kind of I element it got auto fed in from a system yeah there's a came in however all of there was no customized details for any of the vehicles and there was no pictures oh so I had to do all that right that's what I was wondering all all the well content and communications and content development yeah like was the early phases of building that career path really and that overcoming of no yeah always and so let's see this is circle when you said 2010 like I worked there from like 2006 to 2016 okay so for a good long while there as well and so in the kids didn't come along right away then sounds like so the first one was born in November of 2012 okay so you had a few yeah you had several years together as a couple yeah married before the kids came along and was your wife working as well yeah she done she was working for Chase Bank okay so so she had the better employment benefits and stuff like that yes like I I didn't have any good benefits at that time like it was hers were hers were actually they're really good for being part time like she got really good benefits and then what was the motivating factor to the next chapter for you and what was going on on the side like with the geek cast going on so I started yeah so I started that in in kind of April it was more like we kind of dedicated June 1st as our launch date okay um in 2009 okay yeah so and it was just you creating content then or you had bonded other people together or what was this what was the network so we we actually bonded with other people over Twitter okay yeah you started sharing that so like there was one guy that was into transformers like me so we did content and then we found another guy that was into it so we did that with them we we networked with a Canadian podcast okay and we would listen to them because they were live on the radio at the time they were in college so we would listen to them and we would collaborate also about transformers no they were just general geek culture but we wanted to do that too we wanted to do geek culture we wanted to do movies we wanted to do tv and there was another guy that uh he was kind of a animation historian so we started a cartoon podcast we started and we just did reviews on all different stuff and would get like promo materials get products and get you know all kinds of cool features that were perks to right doing this yeah yeah and interviewing people that was that was awesome too because we're sending her talking to you like people we heard and animation right as kids and we're like you recognize the voice that's like the dude from this show yeah and so like I always love doing that like I mean a couple years ago we talked to like Tom Bergeron or we talked to you know different actors yeah yeah so how fascinating I've never had those kind of interactions I guess oh they're so fun I've been so local like I touched people around me and I've almost rarely built like connections with people outside of my real sphere you're in many ways not opposite land I'm sure you had close friends and flint and whatever else but you have a very expansive almost worldwide network yeah and there's more based on interests and connection there and so what does that mean to become like the launch like so there was one website where all these different channels could be on yeah because there wasn't really like a buzz sprout or apple podcast or anything like that I think buzz sprout and some of those were coming along around that time around the 20 the 2009 2010 but I wasn't like one I was I was doing this on a budget right like I'm already paying for website yeah I can figure all this out you know I used to build like bulletin boards I used to build website so I was like I think I figured this out so I transitioned to using WordPress okay they had plugins that I was like all right what can I cobble together and in a lot of ways like I mean you had embed like even YouTube with a plugin like nowadays it's just built into WordPress you don't have to have a plug but back then you had to have everything as a plugin okay and so like it was it was different and couldn't synchronize like RSS feeds and have them automatically pulled in because it required so many to cover it so when there was a new episode you had to like go I had to go manually yeah do that thing and were you carrying content like the the Canadian radio show and stuff like that too so I wasn't synchronizing them but we did have like a kind of a content submission channel so we had like a a GI Joe podcast that want to be part of it we had a you know Ninja Turtles podcast I want to be part of it yeah yeah and you know some of them have come and gone over the years like there's a doctor who won that still partners with us and we synchronize their stuff and vice versa you know and so yeah but yeah I mean it's it's it's kind of a fluctuating channel like I've got some youtubers that are on our channel or on our website and it's ultimately the core of it is really celebrating geek culture yes yep and kind of giving them a home I mean there's no fee to join it it's just it's just you know collaborative fun with other people and sharing the opinions and you know I mean join this like I don't is revenge of the nerds that old movie is that kind of like a rallying call of sorts for maybe for this group are you familiar yes I'm okay good yeah I thought I was maybe too old no I I've seen a lot of movies that I probably more than I remember at this point like because we we've reviewed so many different films I mean I'm going through I've never watched like the mission impossible films oh really until recently oh wow so that'd be quite a adventure right like quite a series to just dip into and then stick with and I tell my friend and of course he's like guess what we're doing next and I was like yeah I know which uh which one do you recommend the best out of the series yeah I've only gotten in I've only seen okay is there seven eight eight now yeah okay I'm three down still but that's all netflix has right I think I might be three down myself actually um by the way we have a a gift I want to be stolen thank you this is at which you told me you're not really a hot sauce fan so that maybe re-gifted but some some local think tank cut awesome local experience shades to keep you cool and uh some good stuff there so um who do you think you'll give the hot sauce to I don't know I'm I'm sure there's somebody that's going to enjoy it though at the office maybe just leave it at the office yeah well if I leave it in the kitchen I'm sure it'll come up missing you could label it like yeah this is for the break room only that's true too they know that everybody can have a little bit um so so was there like a desire to you said co-founder yes so tell me about that and who is your co-founder all right so the the other guy that I record with is uh he goes by an acronym it's like TFD and Mike so it's my friend Mike Blanchard on on Twitter that I actually he's the reason why we started the network to begin with is because we were both wanting to do different things we were wanting to you know discuss a lot of the same stuff yeah and I'm kind of the technical guy and he's the one that like has a lot more free time than I do gotcha so like he does some of the social he does some of that stuff like I still help with the the images I I do the whole website the techie stuff he's still all the techie stuff but if he's smart enough to do what he does it yeah more time yes and uh so then what's your you have a show that the two of you do regularly together then is that yeah so I I have a um we do the transformers podcast still still do yeah I still do okay I've tried to actually get rid of that show like three times and then people would email us and say hey can you bring it back and I was like all right well I got to bring it back but I don't necessarily have to go hog wild like some of them are very religious unweekly right and I'm like if there's not enough to go on I'm not gonna record because I need to be involved and I need to be you know all in there's been more fresh content yeah and stuff like that yeah so I mean I I have to be very interested in what I'm talking about because like over the years I've had so much that I have talked about him like I don't know I talk about that again yeah it's it's kind of that yeah and so like um so we still do that show I do a show called altered geek which is kind of just whatever's going on you know tech pop culture you know any of those things kind of gets covered um it's kind of my soap box that's you just by yourself it can be he joins me sometimes but yeah but and how do you like and then are you also on like Apple podcasts or Spotify oh yeah we're on everything so the the the website that hosts that's like the home base yes in some respects but the ultimately the the content is all people pick it up oh yeah Spotify or something like that yeah yeah yeah so they can get it from any other location I mean we've we've got it on all those we've got it on uh tune in just came out today and or recently are you guys together in person like we are here today or you know zooming he's somewhere far away or so since Skype shut down we use uh we use discord okay uh so we we we're on there and there's like a bot that you can run in it it'll record the whole audio track um okay I know how to do the video side of things but we haven't really dabbled into that all right I'm planning on doing some video content for the site again soon uh but it's it's that'll be more of a solo endeavor just because it's harder to coordinate um things like that tell me about discord so discord is it's where I go get hookers or drugs or so uh it's it's a gamer uh oh it's gamer stuff it's it's a gamer like instant messaging app oh okay um and it's it has different channels like you can have like with one app you can have a bunch of different uh like I can have one for geek test radio network you have one for you know other websites that have their own okay their own kind of forum yep yep um and so you're it's but it moves at the speed of instant messaging and so we we do that because it's a lot easier to have all of this connect on there and then it also records yeah so it's just it's just a lot simpler so you can have six people like just on your phones I guess or on your on your PCs probably you can do the PC I there've been instances where I've been at work or something and I you know and and I leave and it's it's later and they'll be recording and I've actually crashed some podcasts that were live uh just by being on discord and getting on and I'll just pop on my phone and I'll just put it on speaker and I'll just start talking and and they're recording it on there and like I can't record it from my phone but right but I could join them in there and they do they record your voice and stuff you're still part of it yep interesting yeah that's a pretty handy tool actually um and so like from uh it seems like you've got a decent amount of reach like people are tuning into your programs it probably isn't like reach because it's kind of niche it's kind of hard to monetize in the traditional way you know add popups and stuff or do you do that a bit so I've tried doing the the ads on the website but I've always had this kind of a version to it it's like do I enjoy when I go to other people's website right and it's like I don't like I I personally use an ad blocker so like I use brave the brave browser right right like so if I'm doing that do I want to do that to other people and so I'm like it kind of becomes this like consciousness of you know like I don't it'll really feel good about doing it yeah um and then the podcast we used to have uh when we switched from going uh fully hosted on the website mm-hmm we were approached by blog talk radio around 2013 2014 okay and they eventually merged with speaker who then was bought by iHeartRadio and like drink COVID okay and uh so we we had blog talk radio which was decent but it wasn't fun to operate because you had to have a different login for each show and at that time we had like 30 okay like like not going concurrently but we had a 30 different programs some that had ended naturally and some that were still ongoing so it's just it was a train rected my password as I forgot my password yeah it was like how do I which one did I log into like I don't yeah uh so then they moved us to speaker because they have it a network thing and we were part of their prime program because you have to have so many downloads to be a part of the prime program okay and so it but the prime program is free oh god and so I was like oh okay I don't have to pay anything I get free hosting but then I just have to deal with ads but I get some of the kickback yeah and then it got when I got bought by iHeart like i love iHeart but the when i got bought by it the amount of ads like tripled or they were like almost 10x on some of it and I was like this is ridiculous put my listeners through this and I felt I'm not going to have any listeners pretty soon and that was the problem of the garage of commercials yeah we were having that problem too and it was getting too hard to manage it because you had to have the the multiple ads like constantly and it would interrupt the flow of the program and I was just like all right I need a different platform so I did a bunch of research I switched us to like rss.com okay and I have monetization turned on on some of the programs I have it on all of the outros of all the shows but I have it on like our retired shows more so oh so I'm not agitating people with the new stuff it's more so like the backlog oh like if you want to go listen to that old shit you can listen to commercials yeah and and it does are your shows a lot of topical stuff too so if somebody is searching for a specific thing then I just find it that way most of it's evergreen unless it's like something that's covering like the news and whatever that industry whether it be transformers or pop culture right right so like a lot of it like I mean we might have a breakdown on like an episodic breakdown of like a certain like Batman show or you know certain movies you know a series of movies and so they're very evergreen so it's not like it ages yeah what is the philosophical underpinnings to Optimus Prime's approach to the world yeah right isn't that the guy that was like the truck guy oh yeah I am Optimus Prime oh you can do voices yes yeah how many have you have you heard Mark Campbell's Joker oh from Batman the animated series or the Arkham games I don't know maybe I'll tell you if you give you sure so I don't know if these microphones got the range you need well they it might I I did it for a monologue because I had acting classes was a part of my degree okay and they were like it had to be a long enough monologue and I was like what can I use that I have the range for because I'm like I don't like I have to be passionate about to remember it but I was also like I'll memorize it because it's voice so like it was like today is the day the clown cried oh yeah in the cry not for the passing of one man but for the death of a dream you know and that is interesting to hear those sounds coming out of your yeah voice hole uh so like I I used to get in trouble too from doing like golem from Lord of the Rings like in in group settings get you my pretty yeah who'd be like those stairs it from us those stairs my precious my precious stupid habits us you know and so like I but I I used to watch so many cartoons and so many movies as a kid like I just started because I would just play in yeah yeah uh that's actually how I when I worked card dealership I would be listening to actors talking and uh like on some podcasts that they were on and one of them was like he talked so fast because he played six different characters and transformers generation one in the eighties okay the voice director thought he was clipping over another actor and so they were like how fast can you switch the voice and he would literally talk to himself hmm sequentially between characters immediately like and so I would practice it it I walked by a car one day that had the window rolled down and I'm not paying any attention like I'm just blocking from one building to the other on the lot and the uh and I'm talking in four or five different voices right right myself right arguing and so like then the person just like I noticed out of the corner of my eye in this person's like and I just like and walked away it wasn't a talent recruiter for no I was like I just scared that customer like that's really interesting I uh I would say I'm more talented than most at imitating musicians like I don't have the Michael Jackson range that used to have or even the Chris Isaac really but I I'm decent at like imitating the sounds that the popular music has but not even close to like what that sounded like to me like that was uh pretty impressive thank you you probably got a thousand of them uh I've got quite a few like I I there times we'll be talking to people online and I'll go on mute and then I'll come off and I'll have some voice that I've been toying around with just because I'm like in the middle of just thought is it somebody is it always imitation or you create new stuff you just for kicks like create characters that go with the voice it feels like yeah so I've done both like I I like doing the imitations like there's there's like crying from like Ninja Turtles the the brain guy that he was like and he was like sacked oh no this is crumb like you know and stuff like that so like I've listened to enough of these guys that I can pick it up yeah yeah pretty easily uh but I I when I produced that audio drama in Loveland yeah uh uh we would often end up without characters and especially during COVID we didn't have a lot of actors right so I actually over the quarters of the three and a half years I played 26 characters oh wow uh so like I at one point they're like they wrote a talking parakeet okay and the director is like I don't I don't know what to do with this right like no idea what the book is like I was like I got you like and he's like you're serious and I was like yeah my aunt used to have a bird that would talk okay and we would talk to it in the same tone so it'd be like you know hello hello you know and so I started doing that and then there was an episode where we had to have it get vacuumed up and screeching and he's like I don't know how to do that either and I just like did this air thing where it's like like and just but then he's like yeah great longer I was like I was like I gave him one and I'm like all right my throat hurts can't do it right but I I wrote an episode two where I had to talk to myself in multiple characters so I had one that was this and then I had one that was this and he would talk to this you know and then the other the other guy would kind of talk like this and then they would argue with each other you know and so like they're all me like I didn't imitate but they're like do you write stuff to yeah write stories yeah so like my kids used to go to a private school and I wrote like they would have spirit days okay of like certain things they would be you know concentrating on for those days and I wrote an episode for every day and I would do all the voices it feels like like with especially with AI imagery stuff with you creating all those voices like you could do a 20 episode of an hour each fairy tale story or something like that with all these different characters and the AI machines could create all the bodies and the figures and the action based on the stuff that's happening even almost just from the the narrative story well and now AI can even like you can feed it five to ten minutes of any of the audio and have it replicate somebody's voice and they can and they can do it live like you can have it overlay somebody else right which there's a lot of loss it's going on with that now because people are doing that with actors voices right right copy right like I don't see the big issue if you're like imitating it and you're like right because you're not yeah if you imitate Tom Cruise nobody should be able to sue you for selling too much like Tom Cruise or like Casey Keisham you know you know you know whatever you know you know if you do stuff like that like it's can you do Donald Trump no I haven't really tried but I'm like I'm like in acting class I did like a Casey Keisham because I was like super nervous about being in front of like 30 people doing it yeah they're like are we gonna do this other monologue and I was like I had a piece paper in a microphone and that's not actually plugged in and I'm just staring at the paper that's blank and just reciting it you know child I you know doing the top 40 countdown you know or you know Arnold Schwarzenegger you know get down get to the chopper you know pretty solid pretty solid that's really you've got a talent for audio sound obviously you can hear it accurately so you can recreate it yeah and it's funny like I I love audio so like that's that's why I stick with podcasting as an audio format yeah so like I do you know driven to try to do the video portion necessarily because the sound is your special sauce yeah well and it's I feel like it's quicker like I can edit it a lot faster than my friend can like he'll he'll take three four hours to do an hour episode edit I'll take a half hour because I know what I'm listening for I know where to cut and then I'll just you know go from there what like where do you see opportunity in in for your business I mean I can't really call it business you get a little monetization from ads and different things and you still do voice acting and different things like so I do it more so volunteer now I didn't like I do the commercial work for like breeze through and I do their you know the pay stations and so that's part of my regular job but I I also enjoy the fact that it's out there and then so I do I do that but I also do all the different voice work for the network you know my podcast and then other people are like you know I've had other podcasters come to me and hey I need an impersonation of cover commander I need you know an impersonation of like Kermit the frog and all right thanks uh 30 bucks please yeah and they're just like it's I do it because it's fun like I don't like it's so tell me about this um podcast in loved one is this uh is this something we can talk about the yeah so I used to produce discovery mountain discovery mountain yeah it's a uh faith-based podcast okay so tell me more uh so it takes place in a fictional town of uh of discovery mountain okay you know there's a bunch of different characters come and go I played uh I actually played the character that was the pastor which was just my regular voice and then I played the judge okay which was this voice you know and he was coccostern and means everyone and yeah and then I played the the bumbling ranger you know too uh while I was there and it kind of sadder like this kind of this was a standalone production from somebody it's uh from the voice of prophecy there oh sure they're on the other side of the chase bank building yep I've seen that they're signed there and stuff I have no idea like what it's all about or whatever but um that was that that was for you that was just a job or is that a significant and the faith-based perspective it was it was kind of both I um I got it because of uh because of my faith and then uh I work work there for three and a half years and then um they also were the reason we were able to move out here oh so that's that's what rescued me from the the living in poverty and like having no job and they they were like how do you like the mountains and it's like great you know and so we they helped move us out here to you involved with that organization yeah back in Flint some extent yeah doing content production and communication stuff too no that was just a uh friend of ours it's like hey um they're hiring yeah you would be perfect for this they need somebody like this and you know about stuff like this well and previously did that I worked for Glenn back oh you did yeah oh if so between like 2016 and 2019 or 2018 uh you're about a year and a half I worked remotely from Michigan interesting for his organization for podcasty stuff podcasty stuff yeah so I started out as a content coordinator writing content like basically transcribing the audio clips in the video clips that were like five minutes to you know like this is the summary of this whereas like now those jobs are all gone because I can do it for you like right right right I use AI now to write like the titles and descriptions for my episodes without ever having to do it and then the podcast platforms the RSS ones they write the transcripts so it's like I don't have to do any of it right it doesn't always get the words exactly right but it's pretty good so I can focus on what I enjoy doing is the creative part with the graphics and with the audio and you know so I don't have to worry about the technical like yeah just let it do it but yeah so I worked for him for a year and a half and uh partly through it um I ended up becoming their radio operations manager which was essentially I was in charge of the metrics the the ad spend um not the ad spend but like where they got placed how you know they needed the metrics for the ad guys to sell and yeah to know how much they should charge new ads and whatnot and people are listening yeah and so because I'd done it before like the guy that I took over from he didn't he didn't really know like how to look into the metrics more so and I did because I'd been doing it for years right right and so um so I built my own dashboard and like Microsoft you know like in excel and had all the data in there and so have these graphs and like all this extravagant stuff um and uh yeah so I mean I I did that for a while yeah yeah interesting I actually just uh I've got uh broke Glenbex pretty old book now like twenty ten probably or something like that and it's like hey we've got you know eight trillion in national debt we're damn near broke we're screwed uh so you don't yeah he was right we were screwed more now with 39 trillion yeah I don't think we're gonna get out of that one take your ten trillion yeah I know not not with the the dollar still being reserved currency um are you a student of that kind of stuff like global macro politics not really I mean I kind of pay attention somewhat but I don't really yeah I kind of stick to my wheelhouse like I I'm trying to more focus like locally yeah because it's like yeah I can I can be aware of what's going on outside but at the same time like your biggest change is actually change is like here it's here like yeah so like even now like I I enjoy teaching kids about podcasting oh yeah I want to actually learn about that because that was a big um endeavor from Breeze through just recently this episode is sponsored by Loco Think Tank Loco Think Tank provides peer collaboration for business owners you build smart safe places to help business leaders navigate every stage with a business journey and we love what we do and who we do it with our model features gift back minded business veterans and the role of Loco facilitators and we're always looking for abundance minded individuals to add to our membership facilitator team local community or to feature on this podcast listeners of this podcast who go on to become members of Loco Think Tank get their sixth month of membership for free just mention the Loco Experience Podcast on your application to learn more visit our website at locothinktank.com that's l-o-c-o thinktank.com i want to come back in from the break and give akudos to season spirit distilling i'm enjoying their bourbon whiskey and from the forage and fire line and you are enjoying elder otos finest tap water and the water yes i've actually been enjoying the water a little bit more because i'm like i'm trying to make sure i don't have to get up see i just take breaks when i want to um is tell me about like Coca-Cola i was surprised you you brought your own Coca-Cola to the office here is that your drink or is it coke or yeah that's just by my drink of choice yeah yeah i i pretty much do that like sometimes water too but i actually drank a lot of water i i didn't use to uh but my wife is a huge health nut and uh rightfully so because she's she used to weigh like a lot okay um she used to weigh like three hundred thirty pounds oh dang yeah and she lost like a hundred eighty oh dang you were saying when we were coming back from the break that she hikes fourteeners and stuff like that which is like i'm guessing you don't go out i want them with most or sometimes you do yeah sometimes we do um so when we first moved here within two months uh want to some of our friends that we're here that help us move in uh they they took her up on one uh mount meeker okay yep which is harder than for then longs i've heard it seems pretty intense i'm not having any inclination to do longs uh i've done some of the easier class one mountains with her yeah uh and so of my boys they've done the same ones i've done yeah uh but she's done nineteen wow have the fourteeners so i'm sorry for a sidebar here but um it seems like a bit of a story or an interesting because your wife is your high school girlfriend oh yeah and she so she wasn't three hundred and thirty pounds then no and so like being living in Michigan she just kind of got big over time and then Colorado's getting her up or like how's the story go so being her high school sweethearts i have them a tabalism like no other right i don't gain weight right i weigh the same thing i'm wearing the same basic clothes i mean these these are new obviously but like i'm wearing the same size as i were in high school really so like i don't i don't change size right and she did right like her family like they don't have a high metabolism she gains weight you know practically looks at the food and it gains weight you know yeah and and you're like mister i eat everything yeah she's married and having kids and stuff like that so like when we got married she weighed way more than i did and then she she had all these excuses and everything and i was like you know when we got back she wanted to lose some weight and i said she was trying to chicken out on it and i said well if you don't do it now when you're gonna you know when are you ever gonna do it yeah and so she went back and then she put in the hard work no surgeries nothing she put in the hard work and she still has to work hard at it yeah i have to work out now too because like i'm ending up with joint issues i mean i'm almost 40 yeah and so like the sedentary life of just sitting in front of a computer all day like it's starting to hit me uh i have occasional gut health because of the food i ate when i was younger so like i didn't have the weight i just dealt with it differently right um yeah you could drink a freaking two liter bottle of coke every day and i drink like two of them i used to stay up i used to stay up and get like two hours of sleep every day now now i stay up till like if i record with my friend the podcast like i'll stay up until like ten thirty maybe eleven uh on a normal night i kind of go to bed about nine nine thirty i'm like wow and i get a normal amount of sleep uh but she's like you're killing your heart by staying up so late like and i used to be such a gamer like i'd play like constantly like my my uh sister's husband rich um he used to drink like sixteen mountain dues a day oh wow you know just six 12-ounce cans or whatever you know but all that caffeine all that and but he was skinny like as a rail and you two and other people if they would drink five sodas a day oh yeah in a year they'd be super heavy um including me frankly like i know when i consume a lot of sugar it just goes straight to my tum tum yeah um but it which is just such an indicator of how humans are created to metabolize differently oh yeah like your body apparently looks at all that sugar and just goes meh i mean still doesn't nutrition fight you know just why you're you know needing to work on your joints and stuff like that now but it also doesn't stick on you like it does for some no so no i i try to drink a lot more water now and i drink like in the morning when i get up i'll drink tea or you know so i mean i try to not i try to balance it out by the way for listeners wondering this is bourbon and a significant amount of water it is not just straight bourbon of that scale and there's ice and there's ice too yeah um we started talking about before the break that you've been teaching kids to do podcasting stuff um let's dip into that so about so about two years ago and it's it you know and this is again this is where breeze through reaches into the community and that's that's always been something i've i've loved about the company since being there is like i didn't realize how involved they are and how much they really do you care and so i so i um i got to speak to the boys and girls club in lovelin two years ago and wait with me and we we talked to them and they they were having a whole thing on podcasting and wades like hey do you want to i want to go talk to these kids and i'm like i'm like yeah let's go talk to them you know and so they they got to interview and ask questions and i had a slide deck and i was like because i'd never done that before and i i was kind of panicking i'm like oh what do i do i mean they're like they're like 10-year-olds like what what's the right level of sophistication share here and so i was kind of doing some stuff and i glossed over some and then they were like have you talked to someone so have you talked to you know and some of them they recognize some of them they're like i don't i don't know who that is and i'm like well you know that's 20 years older than you like so right um but i was able to kind of give them some of the building blocks of you know like where to host what kind of software free and paid you know all of these different distribution platforms the difference between all of those sure different recording you know podcast styles which probably had to research a fair bit right just because you're like i use what i use yeah you know and i researched it when i bought it but i've been on it for a while well funny enough i've had all of this stuff written down for years like i'm i'm one of those weird people i just write stuff down constantly uh when i used to build websites i used to have a uh like a notepad that was like just a rolling scroll it was a rolling scroll but it was like version 1.0 version 2.0 like and i literally would and i would go through like and if they had a name change like that was all listed like and i was so OCD about it and i didn't realize that like this type of information i had in notebooks all over the place and i was writing articles too and uh posting on LinkedIn and and and so i'm like i have all of the information i just have to compile it yeah and so i started compiling it and then the more i started doing it uh i got to speak to the koanis club in winzer last year i got to speak to the boys and girls club in greedly okay we're talking to them again and greedly for uh they're building out a studio yeah um that was what Wade mentioned to me yeah two weeks ago and and like i'm constantly tweaking and redoing mine at home like and so uh when i joined rss.com to have our podcast hosted there in 2024 uh people were in their slack channel asking a bunch of questions and all of these different things about podcasting and they still do it and i was answering all these questions and i'm going this is content gold right here what am i you know what can i repurpose this information that i'm writing and the question you know and so i so i took it and i was rewriting them on you know keekcastradio.com and putting them on linkedin and uh and then after a while i'm like i kind of enough here i can write a book so i did okay and so so i did that and then i i continually publish articles and i'm kind of in the back of my mind like a volume two coming yeah i'm so what's the book uh it's called altered audio altered audio yeah podcasting demystified oh i did it so it's like it it's mostly because like i'm an indie podcaster i'm not like totally behold like a lot of the corporations like these big companies right i heart owns a bunch of podcasts now yeah or like a lot of radio has bought up podcasting or like even movie or tv studios and to the point that like Netflix and like all these other shows that have turned video podcasts yeah into like this they're basically a tv show talk show right right but they're dubbing it a podcast because the payscales differently for the unions so they had to have a modification to that this year that if you're like if you're like a small network and you're your own indie thing like you're not beholden to the rules if you're in Netflix or you're like a water brothers or you know and you're trying to call it a podcast you're trying to call it a podcast it's a no go like it doesn't work that way yeah and so so like i've been watching it very carefully on all these different changes that happen in the industry and trying to stay caught up because everything changes every day yeah um and so like i'm i'm kind of putting away information for a volume two eventually this is getting a little bigger picture but just reflect like Hollywood had his first big hit and like a long time and it's but things are tough right now like writers screenwriters oh yeah film people like everybody is working at restaurants or whatever else they can do to stay alive and not all of them but many as is always the case in Hollywood right um but the trends are definitely way down and with AI pressure obviously and cost pressure from others to like what what do you think the is big media you know Netflix has has made a big splash they've got this what's that acquisition they're trying to make or did make um uh they made an acquisition uh they tried to with paramount yeah uh and they're still in limbo maybe well they were trying to buy water brothers water brothers paramount ended up getting them because they offered more per share oh they did so paramount ended up buying that yeah so now they're having actually pony up the money but because of the the breakup uh of the acquisition that was already underway with netflix and water brothers paramount had to give uh I think it's like four or five billion dollars to netflix as a breakup fee really so netflix made out like a bandit there right and then a bunch of money for not doing nothing exactly you know they're like oh okay we'll step back and then like you spend the money and we just sit here and we collect money for you know a process it you know didn't it didn't matter you know and so uh but also I kind of half heartedly joke online a lot in our podcast like I'll just throw out a nonchalant comment being sarcastic and then sometimes it happens like uh years ago I made a joke about uh Disney buying weren't uh Lucasfilm yeah six months later somebody told me that I made the joke because I totally forgotten at that point yeah it doesn't matter uh and then they they sent me my original message they're like you said this in this episode oh it's interesting at this time stamp and I'm like because I was like I don't I didn't say that they're like yeah you did and like they're like you said that they're gonna buy them and it was like six months later that it was like oh we're gonna buy Lucasfilm right right you know and I've made little jokes like that oh this show's gonna get canceled and then it gets canceled like so you got some foresight yeah so yeah so based on that what what's what's the next chapters of Hollywood look like I've kind of half heartedly joke that Netflix is kind of by Disney at some point yeah and I mean it seems very possible to me I don't know how Disney makes a buck in the old ways anymore anyway but Netflix could because they could recycle all that stuff well and they're constantly raising the rates every couple of months anyway like they're doing it again now with the overhead yeah those fuckers yeah that's dude isn't it the worst like and now we have commercials and a lot of stuff yep and it's like do we actually have a better thing than we had when we had cable TV so we're broadcast TV over the inter over the airwaves with commercials so we made a joke about that in 2010 we were like or 2010 or 2012 we were like just let us buy Alacart what we want like totally so we got to that point through streaming yep now it's cable right because they're doing the ads and everything else again and you're paying as much as you work through cable it's totally it's like that joke of like the captain planet thing of like by your powers combined we're paying as much as cable you know and and so like they they essentially have and like to be I don't know if you're familiar with to be yep yep they they're they're they're having fun because Netflix announced you know on on X that oh we're raising our rates you know two dollars per plan TV goes we're raising our prices from free to free like just you know and so they're just trolling them now and it's but it's funny because like they got to be then relies on like more commercial type stuff they do commercials but it's like you know you're you listen to like four or five and then they have a longer span between them yeah and so like but they have all of the old stuff from the 90s and the 80s that they grew up on and so it's like oh this is enticing like I'll watch the ads just yeah maybe I should drop Netflix and sign up for 2b yeah and that's and I have both but I only have Netflix because I have a press account so I review content periodically gotcha but I get it free that way yeah yeah so password yeah so can we chip before we drift too far into fixing Hollywood because I don't think we're gonna fix it but I don't think so either it's it's gonna be a thing I think it's gonna change I think it's gonna change definitely I think that theater thing is in Ryan Gosling made a comment about it with his project Carol Hail Mary and movie this came out that it's not it's not the the viewers job to go to the theaters it's the it's the movie industry to make movies that people want to actually go to the theater to see yeah and when they're all reboot sequels and subpar quality yeah like it's kind of difficult like I that's why I'm going back and watching old movies because I'm not finding anything I really want to go see the theater and I have it in years right right so like it's and with AI like my brother wrote his own book like his own novel right and he's using AI to animate it wow like turning it into a live action thing right and he's like he's got the assets and everything and he's building it putting it together and it's like but it and it's it's a little clunky to start out with but he's like he's learning it and the process is you're getting better and better every day he's like at some point I'm going to have a full movie here right so with a hundred hours or 200 hours of time spent yeah and so he'll spend like a fraction of the cost of Hollywood to do the same thing and then people get mad they're like oh it's AI slop but it's not AI slop it's like he's been crafting this thing every step of the way it's still a tool yeah yeah so I mean I feel like we're at this like precipice that like Hollywood either needs to put out you know up their standards a little bit because I feel like they got complacent around COVID yeah and then and and give us you know more original stuff and stop trying to recycle what's already been out yeah yeah um because nostalgia only takes you so far they've tried to de-risk a lot yeah like it used to be they tried to make a splash kind of but now it's more about well we had two previous versions of this movie did okay so we can or going back to a franchise or a television show that's ancient like it's because it's got oh they had numbers back then but it's not necessarily a great idea to come back to something 20 30 years later and try and you know go back to the well it's like it doesn't always translate no for some reason I flashed to have you seen the uh this is maybe getting slightly political but uh the Brady Bunch episode where they're talking about the measles however he just needs to get the measles from each other and get over it kind of yeah it's you know whatever and it's like in such contrast to the you know we've got measles outbreaks a million thousands are gonna die now and I don't know it's uh it's funny to see those old philosophical conversations um well that's how old Star Trek was totally full of it but the new stuff's kind of it's very surface level it's not it's not well written it doesn't the new stuff tells you how to think not what not there it tells you yeah it tells you things it tells you what to think the old stuff caused you to actually have to think because they would give you both sides and they're like all right you have to figure it out for yourself we're not making like a determination in the episode yeah if we if we exterminate the species just so that we can survive this planet like are we doing a good thing yeah so I mean that like I want to survive but like there's a bunch more humans that would still continue to live on whereas this species might be that well and that's why a lot of the old stuff was just better in general is because it gave you that philosophical you know both sides of the coin there it's like you can see the struggle of like they actually don't know like whether they made the right choice or not yes that doesn't happen everything's ever in no no there is the ultra confident that their way is the right there yeah yeah there's there's no struggle and so it's just kind of like you know I that's why again I go back to the old well of you know I'll watch the old stuff because yeah yeah there was something to cause me to think yeah to pause yeah and ponder yeah sometimes change your mind about something thank you to purpose driven wealth of thriving for sponsoring our purpose driven question segment at purpose driven wealth they believe financial clarity leads to a life of contentment and purpose their mission is to help guide clients using a values driven stewardship based approach focused on provision contentment and enjoyment with more than a century of experience thrive and helps individuals and families navigate life and business transitions and prepare for the future while creating space to live generously and give back meaningful ways to learn more about purpose driven wealth please call 970 330 741 for a complimentary initial consultation and now onto the purpose driven questions I want to try that last sentence better to learn more about purpose driven wealth please call 970 330 741 for a complimentary initial consultation and now onto the purpose driven questions we have a special segment under sponsor promotion here I got to mention is purpose driven wealth okay and so we have some purpose driven questions from purpose driven wealth in here in Northern Colorado Clint Jasperson and his team so the purpose driven questions I've got a bunch of here I'm not going to ask them all but based on kind of where we've been here so let's do this when you've gone through a major life event what is your kind of source of grounding is it kind of relational spiritual financial like what is your reliance I would definitely say my faith yeah yeah and I go back to my wife children age were you raised in them so I full household yeah yeah I was not we we ended up going to church when I was a teenager my stepdad wanted us to go and so I would go and I mean that was the first introduction it was my first introduction yeah I mean I went during holidays with my my grandma but otherwise like I didn't really go and then I was very involved with their media stuff with the the stuff on screen and the okay so I did a lot of the you volunteered for the I volunteer a geek team on the yeah yeah so I did that for a number of years and then when I met my wife like I went to her church for a while and then we found another church and then I got burned because I got to involved with stuff and I just didn't like the right you up sometimes yeah just take advantage of every and and it wasn't like a great fit like either like I always like that particular instance and then years later like I just I swore off like I'm like I'm not going back I'm not doing this like during your move out to hear yeah well before that actually okay and then we met some friends when we moved and it was about 2015ish yeah and my wife was having us go to the park take our sign of the park and our other one was you know you know you know you know yeah and so he was he was like a couple months old and I was playing with my oldest in the jungle gym and everything and my wife ended up meeting a pastor's wife oh unbeknownst to her and the kids drooling and everything and so so they struck up a conversation struck up a friendship and then we got to know them and so it kind of it took us under this journey and but it's the most genuine group of people so I yeah and have you engaged here yeah so the voice of truth the voice of prophecy yeah I'm sorry it's the same denomination is what we were when we left Michigan and what how do they are they like how do they fit into the spectrum of churches out there are they evangelical kind of style it's a Protestant church yeah it's it's very much that and we're seventh-day Adventist so we like on a Sabbath on Saturday so I don't we go to church on Saturdays it's on there so yeah we know to go to where I'm raised we had a fairly significant seventh-day Adventist population some of the best farmers in the county actually were seventh-day Adventist but they're all good people on the you know in meanwell and so like we just did our Easter program in our church over the weekend yeah and they we put on this huge production yeah of like there's like 200 volunteers so do you still go to church on Sundays you would say Saturday Saturday so the Saturday is a like no work except for going to church kind of thing yeah pretty much so yeah so yeah we did our Easter program and like I usually do some acting with it or behind the scenes stuff for the that yeah sure if they find out about your talents I'm sure they're oh yeah eager to grab on to the other question I wanted to pull from this list was like what are your thoughts on legacy like you've got these these two boys obviously and and a podcast network thing but what like how do you reflect on that as it pertains especially to your craft in the podcast space yeah so like as far as legacy with my kids like I obviously want to put forth the best you know foot like I've like I said before I've been laid off multiple times and my my oldest tends to get a little fiery about it okay because you've seen what it does to me like in my wife and and it's and it is you know it is a struggle for everyone in the house not just not just the one it happened to and so like I tried to be you know my son would be very vindictive about it and that's kind of the attitude that people back home would have on certain things and so I've really thankfully you know between my faith and my wife like my wife bless her heart is the most optimistic person I know awesome and so it's rubbed off on me over the years and I've learned that you know it's better to you know just it happened it sucks move on like and so like I tried to teach that to my kids like it's it's okay to be upset don't don't simmer in it like you know what can you learn from it how can you move on and then go from there and so like even with podcasting I I've hit this point where I've talked about a lot of different things over the years right and I'm like what can I what can I reasonably pass on to people up and coming in it because a lot of the a lot's part of the book obviously yeah and that's part of it it's like it's like no gatekeeping it's it's like staying indie it's it's also giving people tools of stuff like yeah for you know 15 bucks you can get a book and it gives you all the answers for everything yeah yeah and you know it tells you all the different distribution platforms different podcasts to listen to different newsletters different yeah yeah you know places to get the hosting and um in my goal whether it was to be like you know if you want to spend money these are options if you don't want to spend money these are options and it's like right right so a lot of people coming into podcasting things you need like like an XLR microphone like this or you think you need a the whole set was like six hundred dollars or like a soundboard or or things like that like they think that you need all of this stuff you know to get started and it's like well you can start with your phone yeah you can start with you can buy a $50 USB microphone to bluetooth lapel microphones you could do exactly two person podcasts yeah so I mean there's there's all different options for all you know what you're needing and there's nothing it says you can't evolve or you know get something more and so like I try to give people the tools of you know you don't ignore everything about it what everybody's telling you of all this special gear like if you have you know you have a name in mind you have like your focus you know what you want to talk about you know what are you trying to teach people about and then you go from there like the the gear is you know you can and as long as you have a quiet room too like you can sit in your closet and record totally with coats and you know the more cluttered the room actually the better because you've got all of these things to diffuse the noise we were I was talking with my my landlord actually Moses earlier today about just to choose your adventureness of life kind of you know there's so many like you can't even imagine the number of different ways my life would have turned out differently if I made this decision instead of that one or whatever and like what I'm hearing from you a little bit is like even in that podcast space like choose your adventure and know that you don't have to stay on that same path because exactly a whole bunch of different places to turn and that's the thing with life all the way around like I mean you can everything is choose your own adventure right you choose one branch doesn't mean you'll never hit this branch mean yeah you may hit it later you may never hit that one you may hit a better option I mean it's some stuff is better for you some stuff is less good right yeah uh whiskey is arguably one of those it's less good for you but I like it you know um I wanted to ask about um oh I wanted to thank breeze through actually for being one of the sponsors of the local pulse podcasts have you listened to that yet I have not I've been meaning to you though so that's our it comes out every Monday okay every Monday morning and that's me and Ben's wife Kelsey covering the the local news and nonprofits and things like that and breeze through sponsors our community supporting community segment mm-hmm which uh is uh great like I love breeze through for that reason frankly not not because they give us money yeah but because they they have that tone of like you're gonna just support community out there and we're happy to do it even though we wash cars you know and but being something and that was the other thing I wanted to give kudos on is really the culture of your organization seems to be a lot like a it's a it's a leadership development organization then washes cars yeah and that's that's what I love about it is they're always there's always something that they're trying to teach you like you can make a mistake and they're like okay you did you did make a mistake yeah what can you learn from it how can we go from here you know it's like it's not like uh you know like oh you're yeah you're on the edge you're not nice there but they also do things where they help they help you with like continuing education they have like a management apprenticeship program for people you know in the company we we even have employee housing I learned about that when I was down there last week yeah something cool there's so many perks like they they really do care like there's an entire like like a breeze through foundation fund for employees that it's like it's there is like a thick and one hard time yeah it's like you know they can apply for it and and say hey like this is what's cool and so like there's there's all these different ways of of like building up you know and empowering the employees to grow in life like there's even things even if it's not a monetary value there's things where they'll teach them you know budgeting or help them with with all these different things and so I mean it's it's I just love being a part of an organization that does that yeah I think that um the namesake of this podcast or what else do you want to talk about before we get to the closing segment is there anything we missed I don't know if there's anything we missed do you have any other questions for me well the last segment is the local experience okay and that's the craziest experience of your lifetime that you're willing to share okay um but I don't want to leave anything out that you wanted to make sure we talked about either um I guess tips for you you kind of gave some tips already to those aspiring podcasters oh let's talk about legacy as it relates to your family a little bit more I guess the you talked a little bit about the example to the boys of not yeah of resiliency really I suppose is kind of part of the message yeah it's just not being bitter yeah yeah cuz like I grew up with a lot of that like I mean I my parents got divorced when I was young and like I had a lot of reasons to be bitter and how do you get over it uh honestly I just buried myself into my my hobbies and my personas and stuff like and it gave me joy and I mean the the voices like that was always something I did I used to write um yeah I've always enjoyed doing that has this creative bursting coming from your mind in a lot of ways yeah so I mean like I used to record myself in front of a video camera and in a tape recorder yeah younger kids won't know what those are but you know uh yeah so I mean I used to do all that right my own stories and and like now I I 3d print stuff and you know so you you're constantly bursting with creativity yeah as long as you're feeding the right kind of stuff into the yeah high holes in the ear holes oh yeah like that the new stuff comes out of the mouth hole oh I love I love learning your stuff yeah yeah yeah I love learning new stuff and I love you know just building on the creativity and what's your wife's name Mary Mary you'll probably listen to this Mary and what it was it that that connected you guys because I it doesn't sound like she was like a super big nerd no uh still not uh sometimes the drives are nuts because she's like she'll go into my office and she's like you have way too much stuff right because I have a whole cabinet of like all of my different little collectible yeah Star Wars and Pokemon's Transformers especially there's a ton of Transformers there's Power Rangers or Star Trek there's like Batman there's like I have Hot Wheels like Dragon Ball Z like you know all that stuff yeah um so yeah drives just drives a nuts a little bit uh no so in in Jim class like actually she came up to me because uh she's got this motto it's like a friend era a stranger is a friend you haven't met yet yeah I was the friend era the stranger at that point like because I was just I was a senior I set by myself in Jim class yeah kind of I was the only senior in there and she felt bad for me because I was sitting by myself so she came up talked to me and she's like hi my name is Mary what's your name in that right Steve and then she's like hey like and then we just started hanging out more and more in class and it grew into a really good friendship and then we'd call each other and then you know it eventually you know we got together and sure got married and yeah like even the hat like she uh the Steve yeah the Steve there was a radio commercial when I was um in high school and it was I don't even remember what it was about my friends heard it and it was like he referred to himself in the third person he was like the Steve doesn't do this the Steve I remember that commercial and I'm like and I'm trying to find it I just don't even know where it's at anymore like I wish I could find it somewhere uh but it was hilarious because my friends are calling me the Steve and so she made me a hat and this is the third one like the first one minutes and years ago yeah yeah the second one didn't last as long but it's sitting on my shelf at home like it's frayed and like just because I wear it all the time yeah yeah after some years of the AI stuff you're gonna have to get like the original Steve yeah yeah well it's funny because I can go anywhere now and I wear this hat and nobody has a hat with their name on it nobody has the except for my family like we made my boys we made a hat a couple of years ago with their name on it it's a tan hat and it says the you know and then their names and then my wife has advisor that's tan and it has her name on it too and so like it's a joke now like when we go hiking yeah so when we go hiking we all wear the hats and so like but when I go out to like sometimes I'll go out to eat or something and uh or or go somewhere and they'll be like what's the name and I just oh well and there's a burger Steve uh the Steve is a burger at the trailhead tavern I believe oh that's interesting yeah it's the burger Steve or the chicken Steve it might be that no it's it's a stakeout saloon oh that's interesting we're on mountain Avenue and the Steve is basically a burger or a grilled chicken sandwich with bacon cheddar avocado I believe oh that's funny it was just a nice burger or a nice chicken sandwich it's just you know nice cross over there so anyway that's the Steve the Steve you might you might check it with them sometime and see if I would just wear your hat in there just go in there and be like can I can I get can I get this maybe like chicken or beef um anyway that's fun yes the local experience the craziest experience that you've had in your lifetime that you're willing to share and you've already said you don't really want to hot so you don't drink out all periods like no I don't know is it faith forbidden for some of the it it is uh but do you drink wine for communion that's like not even that no it's like a grape juice okay yeah yeah yeah I mean I once upon a time before you know a couple more serious about it yeah we we did drink a little bit but yeah I just I'm like I don't necessarily miss it it's I don't have anything against people that do it I just yeah well that's one of the the local experience options is that bottle there on the right is like a mix of gin and whiskey and tequila and whiskey and so it's that's a crazy experience or hot sauce crazy experience but you're also not really interested in that so we'll just jump into the story the craziest story that you are willing to tell our listeners that your wife will be too mad about um do you have any crazy stories any near death experiences I've had lots of those really yeah well that sounds pretty crazy yeah I uh well because I used to stay up till hot hours in the night there was a point I used to work McDonald's in the morning I would be there at 5 a.m. at open okay and I worked with my wife too for a while through part of high school and then after uh and I would work uh this is before I worked the card dealership and then I worked little seizures and so I'd work tail ends of and I was supposed to sleep during the day right uh and at night if I had the option but at most of the time I stayed up too late uh I hit black ice one night driving across town and it was like a 30 minute drive and I was exhausted had no business being on the road and I was 18 and uh my vehicle was actually in the shop because when I went went visit my mom because I didn't live at home anymore um somebody their car slid out of the driveway and dented the side of my truck okay so it was in the shop so I was burying my stepmom's car okay which was like uh 90 like a 1990 Cavalier okay and I wrapped it around a telephone pole oh and like spun and then it spun out no well it actually just kind of creamed into a telephone pole that's on the side of the road because the road was like not it was like this wide yeah and the pole was like right here and it just went and it just like accordion like one side of the vehicle and uh yeah so that was that was one near death uh the other one was my friends and I used to do all kinds of stupid stuff in high school and driving uh you know whether it be using squirt guns out the back of a hatch of a car throwing throwing flower balls at the car just dangerous silly yeah stupid stuff we're like driving around in the parking lot at at the school like flower balls like a bag full of flower oh yeah you lend that someone's windshield it's kind of annoying probably yeah well it doesn't come off when it's wet right so um and we had like a the one of those old keyboards with the coiled uh kind of like the you know the this okay um on the keyboards and we used it to keep the hatch so that it would not latch and it would just spring up and down oh sure we would hold the keyboard um we got yeah that that was something stupid and then I was holding on to the back of my friends uh dodging the on in the back of a parking lot and he was seeing how fast he could get it without me flying off oh and I again it was stupid stuff my wife I flew off I flew off but didn't I got skinned up a little bit he's balanced I mean I had a rusty jacket on had some like the zip off blue jeans which they don't make those anymore but yeah I tore that up and um had my backpack on somehow it didn't get hurt like more than that just skin my knees it was fine yeah yeah yeah but yeah I bounced and they were like man I thought you died I was like yeah I should have but yeah I used to do a lot of stupid stuff in high school and then I kind of grew out of it and my wife's like now you know and then I had six speeding tickets and Michigan and thankfully nothing here so you're a bit of a heckian maybe not a hellian but a heckia for a while yeah I figured out to get an 89 s 15 pickup to go a hundred miles an hour on the express way and I used to yeah I got a G6 convertible to 126 when I worked card dealership before it the limiter hit it but yeah like after I worked there I didn't like once I had kids I accidentally spun out on the expressway when I was my son was like six months old my oldest and it was an accident like I wasn't speeding it just I hit black eyes and it spun out terrified me like it did a 360 and it went right back and I was able to keep going right but I was so terrified after that like really to change your home mentality about risk yeah yeah well because I'm like I have a kid like I have another wife in the car besides myself like it it caused me to grow up a lot faster so now I'm like depending on you but also in the car in that case yeah so now I now I'm like very like cautious because I'm like I got to protect yeah my family like you know in myself too but like you just you know yeah so I mean there's a lot of learning stuff along the way you know everybody does stupid stuff in high school and learns from it it's true yeah hopefully that's the goal right any questions for me before we wrap this up if people want to find what's where do they find the Geekcast Geekcast Radio Network yeah so that's GeekcastRadio.com okay or and then a lot of the social platforms it's Geekcast Radio Network and then your main transformers podcast is at least in it's on there it's yes yes but it's there but it's also on like Spotify or things like everything yes and what's that called all things transformers all things transformers yeah and do you have other other content out there where you like share more of the voices and stuff like that is there a channel out there or it's just on the website it's just kind of on the website like I find it here and there yeah occasionally I'll do just a random voice on this stuff like we did a top 100 transformers countdown years ago and I did a lot of the voices of like because in between we'll do like you know 199 you know and and I do all those those voices but then I would do like a transformer voice I'm gonna be thinking about how we're in the community else you need to plug it it's not quite like as a MC for a nonprofit or whatever yeah but like some I don't know it's a very interesting and unusual skill to be able to project that kind of voice memory to people yeah and it feels like the bit a thing best done in person in some ways oh 100 percent I love doing it like I've run into kids that have heard me do any other voices for the audio drama and yeah I'll just start rolling through them and they're like right exactly my kids after a while like they were like dad stop it's not fun anymore well if you would send me any links that you would like me to include on this podcast description so if people want to hear some of that content creation out there that that you especially dig will make a post and thanks for taking the time to share with me today yeah thanks for having me it's been a lot of fun all right Godspeed Steve see you next time