SPEAKER_02 0:00

I did a weird thing once where I gave a friend a trip uh for his uh his and his wife's wedding present. I also gave them the gift of me going with them.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

And how did that work out?

SPEAKER_02 0:22

It was fine for me. Welcome to another episode of Smells Like Humans. This is the podcast where we explore the curious things that people do, the very human things that grab our attention and cause us to wonder what and why. I'm Ross, your host, and today my guest is one of those people who I could only describe as magical actress, musician, improviser, storyteller, mom, and most importantly, my dear friend Bryn. Hello, Brynn.

SPEAKER_04 0:59

Hi, Ross, how are you?

SPEAKER_02 1:01

I'm good. I'm so glad you're here.

SPEAKER_04 1:03

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Today's episode is how, for many of us humans, our life's path is nothing close to a straight line. And even for those who seem to have followed a fairly straight path, there are often all kinds of choice points along the way, as well as hidden influences and factors that we never even knew about, but directly shape how our path is traveled. So I'm going to start with a metaphor. I don't know if it's going to work, but I'm excited to try it on you.

SPEAKER_04 1:35

Okay, I'm excited too now.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Imagine a coastline, and I'm going to say the California coastline because I know you spent some time in California. And so if you imagine the California coastline from way up in the air, at least 35,000 feet, or higher, maybe in a satellite, it looks pretty straight. Maybe one bend and then a pretty straight line, right? But the closer you get, the more irregular the coastline becomes. And if you imagine taking the perspective of someone walking along the coastline, it becomes very irregular and uh unpredictable. And then imagine the perspective of a bug navigating the California coastline.

SPEAKER_03 2:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

And as that bug climbs over grains of sands and depressions and all of that, the experience of the California coastline is infinitely complex and has many twists and turns. So my point is with this metaphor, it's a good one. I'm testing, is that as we look at our own life, we tend to often when we look back at the choices we've made or things that have happened in our life or the direction our life has taken, we tend to have this really high overhead view and we tend to forget about all of the nuances and all of the ins and outs of that journey. And so, and we're going to come back to this in a little bit, but as you think about your own journey, especially when you were younger, are there things that you consider to be like significant events that shaped, that had a lot to do with what happened. Something with your family or something with choices you made, or anything that stands out to you?

SPEAKER_04 3:35

Well, that's always the case, isn't it? You know, you get left to cry alone in your crib for four hours. You know, that's gonna that's gonna put a dent on your on your happiness.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

Wait, how did Were you how did you were you that smart that you were timing how long you were in the crib?

SPEAKER_04 3:54

Did you have a watch or no, I wouldn't have been able to see the watch because I had mittens on my hands because I had fallen and fallen on my face and my face was scabbed over. Oh and I think we were in transit from Georgia or California to Maine the first time. And and so uh yeah, yeah. You you fall asleep in the dark. You'd never want to fall asleep again at that age.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

So wait. So wait a minute, you you've got mittens on your hands because you fell on your face.

SPEAKER_04 4:32

Oh, yeah. And it was starting to scab over, and my mom was terrified that I would scratch and get all kinds of scars on my face. And so she was looking out for me, but I didn't understand. And my face itched, and I'm screaming for four hours. And the only reason I really remember this is I just had a mushroom trip about two years ago where I relived all four hours of it.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 4:57

It was awesome.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

All right, let's unpack some of this because it's fascinating. Um so you were left alone for four hours with mittens on your hands in the dark, and you were crying. And the reason and what age do you guess you were at this point?

SPEAKER_04 5:15

I'm gonna say about two.

SPEAKER_02 5:18

Okay. And then you know this happened because you took a mushroom trip. Yes. And you got to relive all four hours.

SPEAKER_03 5:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

So is that like a PSA to the kids to not do mushrooms? Because that sounds horrifying. What what was the experience like?

SPEAKER_04 5:36

Well, first, when you take too many mushrooms or too much of anything, it's not a good idea. Yeah. You know, if you just do microdoses of mushrooms, you'll always be a happy camper, I'm thinking. But the reason I remember it is because uh it gave me the opportunity to come around or maybe zoom out from the California coast a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:00

And I was in the hallway listening to my parents.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Right.

SPEAKER_04 6:04

And uh I do remember this conversation now. My mom was pleading to go in, my stepdad was like, no, let her cry herself to sleep. She's gotta learn. And so, you know, when you start from there, you're going to be a little bit of an anxious person, and the lifelong goal starts to be how do you not let that person determine who you are today?

SPEAKER_02 6:30

Yeah. She's gotta learn.

SPEAKER_04 6:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:33

That's what your dad was saying. Okay. And what was home life like? Was it tranquil, calm, like one of those old television shows, or was it chaotic and interesting?

SPEAKER_04 6:46

Aaron Ross Powell It was I what's the Tolstoy? You know, every family is happy in the same way, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

Aaron Powell Everybody is looking up their Tolstoy right now to determine It's a very loose translation. Which is perfect for this podcast.

SPEAKER_03 7:07

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 7:07

And loose translations are welcome here.

unknown 7:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

Okay, so tell us more about that. Uh what was what what was happy about it, what was unhappy about it.

SPEAKER_04 7:20

Oh wow, the happy thing was um this is trips on the boat we all complained about every weekend, you know. What? We have to go on the boat again. And at the time it felt like we were just cleaning it all the time. But one of my happiest memories is sitting on in the sun on the back deck of it. And we it was off the coast of Maine, and I just remember being able to eat as many freshly steamed clams as I could. And my mom had made some garlic butter, and I just remember lifting this hand, this, this uh clam about the size of my, you know, seven-year-old palm and dipping it in butter, and I just remember that melted butter running down my wrist and pooling into the crook of my elbow and just being able to lick the entire stream of butter and then finishing off with that juicy juicy clam for me.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I remember once my dad took me with him down to the shore. I also lived on the east coast, and we went down to the shore so he could buy some live crabs. And I was a little kid. I met let's say four, could have been younger, able to walk and and um so he was negotiating as he tended to negotiate everything. He was negotiating with the crab guy, uh, and he left me on the dock. And there were a lot of loose crabs, and they were coming for me. And I just remember sitting there looking at the crabs, realizing I was left alone. I had no mittens on my hands at that time. So I had no protective mittens. And I'm thinking, like, I think those crabs are going to eat me. But they didn't, fortunately. They my father came out in time to save me from the crabs. But there was a moment there. When you're a little kid, those moments are like, okay, this could be how it goes. This could be the end of my life, right here.

SPEAKER_04 9:34

Aaron Powell The thing is, is when you're little, you don't know how big you are. You don't have any sense of I could step on this guy if I need to.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:45

You know, you just have no, you don't know. We're just all born here. Nobody knows the rules. And when you're little, you especially don't know any of the rules.

SPEAKER_02 9:55

That's true. But I also I felt those crabs knew the rules. They knew the rules. They had evolution on their side and they knew what they were doing. But uh, you're right, you're right. Where we don't, we are born not knowing anything about the rules, and we learn how the world works mainly initially from our family, and they teach us whatever they're gonna teach us about that.

SPEAKER_04 10:22

Can you imagine like uh someone says, okay, you're going to go on this cruise, it's going to last about 80 years. And first of all, you're just gonna be dumped into a world where you don't know any of the rules at all. And the older you get, you realize that the less you know, and that nobody else everybody else is making up the rules as they go along.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:49

And you go, yeah, sign me up for that. I want to try that one.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

I'm gonna go on that cruise. An 80-year cruise sounds like hell to me. An 80-minute cruise sounds like hell. Have you ever been on a cruise?

SPEAKER_00 11:07

I have.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

I have to how did that go for you?

SPEAKER_04 11:12

Oh my god, the the buffet, first of all, was just splendid. It was it was a short, it was just a three-day cruise, and it was out of Los Angeles uh going over to uh Catalina Island. And I went with uh five good friends, and they all I was um I was engaged at the time to my soon-to-be ex-husband. Not soon-to-be, that lasted 30 years, but uh at the time I was I was engaged, and so they told the captain that uh we had just gotten married, and so the whole entire cruise people were coming up to us, congratulating us, and they made us dance and they applauded, and it was like, okay, well, now we gotta go along with it. Except people kept asking us, why are you on your honeymoon with five friends?

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:10

But now that I think about it, why not go on a honeymoon with five of your best friends?

SPEAKER_02 12:15

I did a weird thing once where I gave a friend a trip for his uh his and his wife's wedding present. I also gave them the gift of me going with them.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

And how did that work out?

SPEAKER_02 12:37

It was fine for me. I'm not sure. I remember just their quizzical expressions when I said, here's your wedding present, like, oh, and and and I'm going with you. And they went from going, oh, to that thing where they kind of shrink it back and like, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:58

Did they ever ask you for time alone?

SPEAKER_02 13:02

Oh, should I have allowed for that?

SPEAKER_04 13:04

Maybe.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Well, that's why we're not friends.

SPEAKER_04 13:07

It's diabolical. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

I wasn't trying to be diabolical. I don't really know what I was trying to do. It's just one of the many choices I've made that have made my life kind of uh interesting. So going back to this 80-year cruise, if you think of life as that, which I think is what your point was, um, did you have any uh Titanic icebergs that came along that were powerful for you in your life, any point in time?

SPEAKER_04 13:33

Wow. I had a I had a lot of near misses.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Oh yeah?

SPEAKER_04 13:38

Yeah, there was one thing that when I look back on it, it could have been a real fork in the road. I had escaped Texas and the heartbreak uh attendant with all of that. I was going to school in Austin, and then I uh met a fellow there who was working for Sissy SpaceX, and he said, You you don't belong here. You're an actress, you belong in LA. Why don't you come with me to LA and we'll get you started? And so he got me started uh as an actor, helped me get my SAG card, put me through UCLA, wonderful man. Yeah. Um but I'm there, you know, I remember that moment of landing in the plane landing in LA. It's awesome, you know, all the lights are just go for miles. And I remember thinking, oh yeah, I'm 19, I'm gonna take this town by storm. Right. And so I'm living with my new boyfriend in West Hollywood, and so he goes to work and he's like, just stay here, don't go outside. And I'm like, hell, if I'm gonna do that, I'm I'm going outside. I'm gonna go for a walk down Sunset Boulevard and I'm gonna find Schwabs where Lana Turner was.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

That's where you need to go immediately.

SPEAKER_04 15:04

Yeah, she was discovered, so I'm going to Schwabs and I'm going to get discovered.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Damn straight.

SPEAKER_04 15:10

And so I'm walking down Hollywood, I mean Sunset Boulevard by myself.

SPEAKER_03 15:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:16

And this 1934 MG roars by. And I at the time, you know, I'm 19. Oh, I want a 1934 MG sports car. And it just caught my attention. I rubber-necked it. And the guy stopped and he yelled out the window. He goes, Do you know the way to Mount Olympus? And which was like a very rich uh modern suburb up in the hills of Hollywood. Yeah. And I had no idea. I said, I don't know. I just moved here. Well, that must have been some s sort of siren call for this guy. Yeah. He ran around the block again in his car, and then he said, You know what? I'm a producer, and you are gorgeous. And I want to give you a screen test. And I was like, Oh my God, it's happening already.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

It wasn't Charles Manson, right?

SPEAKER_04 16:09

Well, he said his name was Richard Schwartz, and my apologies to everybody named Richard Schwartz. He goes, I'm the producer of you've heard of Oliver, haven't you? And I go, Yeah, I I can't believe this. I can't believe I've I have this opportunity here. And he's like, Yeah, but you know, you need some guidance. And and uh, you know, I uh if you're if you pass this screen test, like it's some quiz. If you pass this screen test, then you're going to have to do everything that I, as your manager, tell you. And tonight I'd like to get you into Gregory Pegg's birthday party. And say But you'll have to you'll have to do everything I say. And so that's how the conversation that lasted for 30 minutes by his car started.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

And how were you feeling during this moment of possible discovery slash Weinstein moment?

SPEAKER_04 17:03

I felt incredulous. I couldn't believe my life.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

I I mean It was happening.

SPEAKER_04 17:08

It was happening.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Just like you imagined.

SPEAKER_04 17:10

Just like I imagined, you know. I I had a lot of magical thinking and and it anything was possible. Right. And so I ended up getting into his car. Oh, yeah, I'm Liza Minelli's manager too, and we're and so we're driving, driving, driving. We get there, and he goes, Let me just show you. I see you're having doubts. I just want to show you that I'm who I say I am. I am the producer of Oliver. And he runs into this office and digs out this high school silk screened poster. That's it looks like a high school production of Oliver. And the only name on it says produced by Richard Schwartz. And I thought, holy shit, I'm in trouble here.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:00

And he ushers me up to the the next level.

SPEAKER_02 18:04

Okay. The next level.

SPEAKER_04 18:06

And and so we go through this dank smelling mildewy basement and it opens up.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

That's great. That's always great. When you I didn't realize you when you said the next level, you meant down.

SPEAKER_04 18:18

Literally the next level up. We went up to the stairs where the sunlight was flooding in. It was this beautiful, you know, modern mansion.

SPEAKER_02 18:27

Oh, wait, so you were in the basement.

SPEAKER_04 18:29

I was in the basement.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

But then you went up to something else.

SPEAKER_04 18:32

Yeah, you know how people park their car, they walk through the basement. You see a filthy poster and you smell mildew, and he goes, then we walk up the stairs.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

I lived in California a long time and I never met anyone with the basement. So I'm not really sure where you were. But anyway.

SPEAKER_04 18:51

I wasn't sure where I was either.

SPEAKER_02 18:54

Could it have been Maine still?

SPEAKER_04 18:56

No. Okay. No, this would never happen again.

SPEAKER_02 18:59

Okay, so you went through a basement, it was mildewy and dank and had uh obscene posters, but you went upstairs and it was a mansion.

SPEAKER_04 19:08

Yes, you know, two-story windows.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

Sounds good.

SPEAKER_04 19:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:12

It's getting better. It's getting better.

SPEAKER_04 19:13

Yeah, and it architecturally it was beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

Oh, I like it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:17

And I look across and the sunlight is the California sunlight's flooding in, and he goes, Oh, yeah, that is the tanning deck. That's where all the girls go to tan. I go, Oh, okay. This is some nice digs. And he said, No bathing suits allowed. And I said, What? And he goes, Well, there'd be tan lines in the movies. And I said, uh, oh. And then I looked to my right, and there's these double doors that just open up right into the living room, kind of, but it's a different large, large chamber, and it's a large bed covered with a pink shag carpeting.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

Oh, now that's nice.

SPEAKER_04 20:06

Round and over the bed was a massive. Oh my god, it was just it filled up the entire wall of a black velvet painting of a puppy with big eyes.

SPEAKER_02 20:21

Oh, I was not expecting that. I wasn't either. I was not expecting you to say that.

SPEAKER_04 20:26

And that's when I said, What kind of movies do you make?

unknown 20:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:33

He goes, Now, here's what I want you to do. You need to go into that other room. I want you to take off all your clothes so I can. And he looked me up and down so I can tell that you're as beautiful as I think you are. And I said, Oh, this isn't how I plan to start my movie career.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Right.

SPEAKER_04 20:57

And he started getting agitated and angry. He goes, What do you think this is? You think I do this for my health? And and he started yelling. And I realized, first of all, I shouldn't eat or drink anything that he offered me. And I just stayed calm. And uh, but inside my my stomach is twisting all over the place. My heart is just starting to pound. But I'm keeping this demeanor outside, and he's getting very upset. He says, you know, you're never gonna work in Hollywood if you don't listen to your manager, and you have to, if I tell you to sleep with somebody, you gotta sleep with them. That's how you get parts.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

That's also how a pimp works.

SPEAKER_04 21:47

And I didn't say that, but that's what I thought. Yeah. And so I looked deep into his eyes and I said, This is so nice of you. This is unbelievably nice. Nice of you. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. But I don't, I don't think I'm gonna sleep with anybody to get a commercial. I just don't. He goes, You'll never work in Hollywood. And I said, Maybe not. I want to know about you. And something just started making my mouth talk.

SPEAKER_03 22:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:20

And I was just locking eyes with him and looking at him like deep into his soul. And I said, Wow, you must get really lonely. Do you have a girlfriend? And I was just trying to give this message that if he played his cards right, maybe I could be his girlfriend instead of his whore. And and he he just got more and more agitated. He didn't he didn't expect that, but he was thinking, you could see the wheels start turning. I said, you know, instead of having a screen test, maybe I could meet you tonight. And and maybe I could, you know, maybe we could just go out and have dinner and talk. Yeah. I could get to know you a little better. And I'm just radiating as much love as I can. And he he just starts screaming at me.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

Oh no.

SPEAKER_04 23:15

And he says, you know what? This is your only chance. Or or I'm gonna take you back down the hill and you'll never work in Hollywood again. And I was like, Oh, that's too bad because I really like you. He goes, God damn it, get in the fucking car. And wow. He took me down the hill. I got out of the car and he sped away. And then my knees started buckling and shaking. And and then I just dropped to all fours right there on the sidewalk on Sunset Boulevard. And I shook for about five or ten minutes, and then I made my way home.

SPEAKER_02 23:59

Oh, good. I've I was so glad that it ended that way because I thought another car pulls up while you're on your hands and knees and saying, Hey, are you an actress? So wow. I am so that is really cool. In a way, you proved how great an actress you are in that moment.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Oh, yeah. To be able to look at it that way.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

Pull that off. So when you were a little kid, did you imagine yourself being an actor or did you want to be anything else?

SPEAKER_04 24:27

Uh you know, what I really, really wanted to be though was a jockey.

SPEAKER_02 24:32

Okay. So let's look at the jockey thing because um you're not a diminutive human.

SPEAKER_04 24:42

No.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

You're rather tall.

SPEAKER_04 24:44

I'm Sigurney Weaver tall. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:47

So um I'm curious to know how that that kind of came into your life, this notion that you could be a jockey.

SPEAKER_04 24:56

I was this height. I'm I'm five nine, and that's that's considered tall in sixth grade.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

It is.

SPEAKER_04 25:05

Um no, I I wanted to be a jockey. Uh and I got this notion from all the black stallion books.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Yeah, they were great.

SPEAKER_04 25:14

Yeah. Did you read any?

SPEAKER_02 25:16

I I um well I recently read, I can't remember the name. I th uh there was a book, famous book uh written in the last 20 years about the the real um Is that Sea Biscuit? Yes.

SPEAKER_04 25:29

Oh yeah. Oh, that's a great story.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

But um but I also remember the the Francis Ford Coppola movie, which I think was called The Black Stallion. Beautiful adaptation. And that was with Mickey Rooney, right? And uh The Little Kid and Terry Garr, who I've always loved.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

So that's the right movie, right? The Black Stallion. And I have that's kind of a guilty pleasure of mine. I love that movie. It's so beautifully filmed.

SPEAKER_04 25:56

Oh, and what a great story, too.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

It's a great story. Um and then Black Beauty, is that the Elizabeth Taylor joint? Is that the one she was? Oh, she was in National Velvet.

SPEAKER_04 26:06

That would be National Velvet, yeah. So Black Velvet. Which I also read.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

Black Beauty was a book. Did they ever make a movie of it? They must have.

SPEAKER_04 26:14

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

But anyway, yeah. You read all those books.

SPEAKER_04 26:18

I did, I did. It was just uh Black Beauty, I like to think of it as a gateway drug to little girls falling in love with horses if I'm wrong. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

Girls like horses.

SPEAKER_04 26:30

Well, when you think about it, especially you know, when you're eleven or twelve and you're just blossoming as a sexual being, and and maybe you get to go ride horses for an afternoon, you know, and you've got all that power between your legs, and it's just so intoxicating. I like the way you say levels. I get it now.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

Uh you don't have to go any further, and I'm gonna need a spritzer. Um When I was 11 and 12, I wasn't blossoming into anything. All I cared about was sports and Hot Wheels. Um but I appreciate I was a little behind the curve on all of the blossoming stuff, and maybe still am. So anyway, you were enthralled with uh uh the beauty and majesty and excitement of horses.

SPEAKER_04 27:20

Like when I was eight, and I talked to my girlfriend who kept a horse in her garage in Maine, uh, talked to her in the middle of winter of getting giving that filthy horse a bath, and it ended up catching cold and dying. That's horrible. It is horrible.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

That's a horrible story. Yeah, but garage horses, first of all, what?

SPEAKER_04 27:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

And then second of all, yikes. That's too bad. But let's let's focus on back. Okay, so before you were murdering horses indirectly.

SPEAKER_04 27:50

Well, this was after, you know. I had a lot to make up for. I still wanted to be a jockey. I was still obsessed. Still obsessed with being a jockey. That was that was it. That's what I was gonna do. Right. So every single Christmas, you know, my parents would ask me, What do you want for Christmas? I say, I want a horse. And they go, We can't have a horse. That's not gonna happen. And I was like, Yeah, I could, because Laura, Laura had a horse in her garage, blah, blah, blah. You know, I never did tell them that the horse. Yeah. Um, you know, sh Laura swore.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

She used swear words, and we weren't allowed to be around children who, you know, oh, so you couldn't tell about the horse accident. No. Because then you would have to admit you were with an unsavory personality.

SPEAKER_04 28:44

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

I got you.

SPEAKER_04 28:45

So um, yeah, it was just a struggle every Christmas, and every Christmas was heartbreaking. And um so I'm but I'm s and then one day, you know, my dad is like, have you thought about what you want to do? And I'm 12 now, and I say, Dad, I I really want to be a jockey. And he said, You're too damn big.

SPEAKER_02 29:11

Well, that was probably accurate. It was a blunt way to put it.

SPEAKER_04 29:16

Yeah, but you know, I was gonna be a 13-year-old jockey, and I wasn't gonna eat anything, and I could do it. I I could do anything. Yeah. And he was like, You better learn how to type. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

That's also harsh.

SPEAKER_04 29:31

It was harsh. And so I'm just wandering up behind the school uh in the football field of the junior high, which bordered the woods one day, and it was a beautiful fall day, and just looking at the airplanes going overhead and just feeling stuck in Augusta Maine, just stuck. Am I gonna live here for the rest of my life?

SPEAKER_01 29:57

Right.

SPEAKER_04 29:58

Am I going to be able to be what I want to be? And and uh I was feeling very, very discouraged at that moment. And uh but just really, really wanting. You know that feeling?

SPEAKER_02 30:15

Yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_04 30:17

And all of a sudden, out of the woods came this girl on this giant horse.

SPEAKER_02 30:27

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 30:28

This giant beautiful horse.

SPEAKER_02 30:29

Just out of just emerging out of the woods.

SPEAKER_04 30:32

Yeah, there I didn't know people had horses around there. I would have probably been ghosting their stables and asking them if I could muck out the stalls or something.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

And please tell me there was a mist. Did they come out of the mist?

SPEAKER_04 30:47

It was just the opposite. It was it was fall in Maine. So brilliant orange, crisp yellows, crisp reds, uh brilliant blue sky. And there she is up on her horse. And uh I'm just uh standing maybe up to the horse's shoulders, you know, as she comes out, and I'm just like uh thunderstruck. And she looks at me and she she it's like she used to be 12 too, probably. And she saw something in my face and she said, Do you want to take the horse around the field? And I was like, What? And she goes, Do you know how to write? And I said yes, because I had read about writing in so many books. I really felt confident about this.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

You you you knew everything you needed to know to get on that steed.

SPEAKER_04 31:46

Yes, yes. I I I knew, I knew. I mean, Walter Farley writes about it so beautifully in Black Stallion. You know how when when um Alex is on the back of the horse and the hor and the black just starts into this long, floaty kind of gallop that's sounds so magical. And then he just he he talks about the sweat forming on the withers of the horse and it foams up and everything. And I knew all about those details. I knew that they were called withers.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

What is a withers?

SPEAKER_04 32:20

The withers are um, you know, you're sitting on top of the horse and right in front of you where the neck meets the shoulders of the front, front uh not paws, uh the paws of the horse, yes, where the paws are.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

Now we're now we're getting into stuff I know. Horse paws. Okay, go on.

SPEAKER_04 32:41

And those are the withers. That's very sweaty.

SPEAKER_02 32:44

They get sweaty on their neck and then witheries, they get sweat withers, and their paws are also sweaty. They have sweaty paws, which is horrible at night. Let me just tell you that. I can't uh tolerate sweaty paws at night. But what was I was gonna ask you is is there a brisket?

SPEAKER_04 33:02

A brisket.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

Is there is there a brisket part of the horse?

SPEAKER_04 33:05

A brisket?

SPEAKER_02 33:07

Sure. Or is that a dog thing? Is that a dog thing where they talk about what a lovely Withers and brisket?

SPEAKER_04 33:14

Well, being also a dog expert, I'm gonna say yes. If you're planning on butchering it, maybe Whoa, wait.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 33:22

Sorry, oh okay, I'm going dark. I don't want to. No, no.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

I just now we're okay. So uh make a note about not coming over for dinner. What are we having? Brisket? Brisket of what? You'll see. Oh okay. Uh sorry. I got into the way of this beautiful story. The woman comes out. She looks in your eyes, she recognizes a kindred spirit, a horsewoman in at least book sense. And you, of course, have read all these books and you know what to do, and you do what?

SPEAKER_04 33:56

I know exactly what to do.

SPEAKER_02 33:57

Right.

SPEAKER_04 33:58

And uh I'm I've uh I'm I'm ready to go. She she she jumps down from the horse, and it's like I might as well be climbing a two-story up to a two-story window to get up there. And so she she cups her hands and she says, just put your foot here. And then she boosted me to the back and she adjusted the stirrups, she shortened the stirrups, and and I stood there, and she goes, Well, make him go. He's gonna need a good run.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

Wow. She just turned you.

SPEAKER_04 34:34

Just turned me loose. And what a that must have felt just incredibly just Well, just sitting there, just sitting there, you're automatically now you're I I mean I I had just never really been on a horse anything bigger than the ponies that go around in a circle at the fair.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

Right.

SPEAKER_04 34:59

And now to see that perspective after imagining it.

SPEAKER_02 35:03

Those ponies, by the way, are almost always disgruntled.

SPEAKER_04 35:07

They are. They're not gruntled at all.

SPEAKER_02 35:10

Yeah. They they are ungruntled. And they are uh, you know, they're moody. They're moody little bastards.

SPEAKER_04 35:20

Oh, they'll they'll they'll um you know look back at you and nip you on your foot. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:27

But anyway.

SPEAKER_04 35:28

I would too.

SPEAKER_02 35:29

I would because that's a horrible talk about a bad gig and an 80-year bad cruise.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:35

That's a bad pony cruise being a circus or a carnival pony. God, let those carnival ponies go. Anyway, so you were on this horse.

SPEAKER_04 35:45

Oh, this horse was magnificent. Right. I'm I mean, it might as well have been a thoroughbred. I'm pretty sure it was.

SPEAKER_02 35:52

And let's say it was.

SPEAKER_04 35:54

Let's it was. It was a it was a beautiful horse.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

And and so a majestic steed.

SPEAKER_04 36:01

Yeah, and I haven't even started moving because I can't get it to go.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

Hadn't read that chapter.

SPEAKER_04 36:10

And she and she's like, just kick him. And I go, okay. And I sort of give him a little nudge with my heels. He goes, No, kick him hard. He won't even feel it. So at this point, surely she knows I don't know how to ride the horse, but she's going for it, right? And I am too. And I go, so I kick him really hard. And he starts trotting.

SPEAKER_03 36:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:33

And you know, when you're trotting on a horse, you feel like every bone in your body, every tooth in your head is going to fall out.

SPEAKER_02 36:41

And your balls hurt. Or is that just me?

SPEAKER_04 36:43

That's just you. Okay. Uh keep going. Yeah. And so I was like, okay, what do I okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna post because I knew I had to post.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 36:55

And that's a that's you have to time your standing up in the stirrups and sitting down with the gait of the horse.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

Right.

SPEAKER_04 37:04

And I think that reassured the girl. She goes, Oh. Kick him harder, make him go faster. He's too jarring that way. Right. And so I kicked him really hard.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

And he died. No. Oh, good.

SPEAKER_04 37:18

No, just the opposite. Everything came to life at that moment. Oh, okay. And he was it was like being on this giant glider of a rocking chair.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_04 37:28

Just this beautiful, beautiful gate, the the canter. And it he he just a a lope. He was loping along now.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

And and this feels to you like what? What does it feel like to be in that moment?

SPEAKER_04 37:46

It was there were so many senses involved. There was the vividness of the trees going by. There was the feel of the air, the the fall air on my skin. There was there was the smell of the horse. There was the motion. And all of it uh just and and I could hear I could hear I remember the sound of the hooves. Uh it was so not like reading. It was it was just um exhilarating. I don't I don't know how else to put it.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

No, that's perfect.

SPEAKER_04 38:22

I felt like I was Alex on the black stallion.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:28

And and something about that moment, I realized okay, if I don't get to be a jockey, at least I get to do this right now.

unknown 38:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:40

And is it enough? Is it enough? And in that moment, that's when I discovered how eternity stretches. Eternity just has so much elbow room in the present moment. And I finally, you know, ran him around again. It just was like the most wonderful five-minute ride. And then I and then she waved me on over. And um I pulled up next to her, pulled him up, not too hard because I didn't want to hurt his mouth like like I did in Black Beauty. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:29

Or do anything to the brisket. Whatever part that might happen.

SPEAKER_04 39:33

Oh, and the withers. It was like he he it was the withers was foamy, just like in the book.

SPEAKER_02 39:43

Foamy withers.

SPEAKER_04 39:44

It was foamy with sweat. And I remember just reaching down and and taking taking some of the foam in my fingers, and I would just ground it into my hand and my palm, and so I would have it.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:00

And and I got off the horse and I said, Thank you. Wow. Thank you so much. What a moment. Sure. And then she just disappeared into the woods again and life went back to normal. And I just burst into tears. Oh my goodness. I was so happy. And I ran home.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:27

And I was gonna tell my mom what had happened. And she said, I was like, Mom, mom, you won't believe what happened. And she goes, You need to set the table. Where have you been? And help me get dinner ready. And um I never told anybody about it until much, much later.

SPEAKER_02 40:51

Wow. Powerful. I've got a couple things.

SPEAKER_03 40:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 40:57

First of all, does foamy withers sound to you like a character actor in an old western? Starring, co-starring foamy withers as Doc Cribbins.

SPEAKER_04 41:10

Dale Stubbs and Foamy Withers.

SPEAKER_02 41:15

And uh secondly, uh first of all, beautiful. I should have said first of all, beautiful story. Transformative. I also should have asked you immediately, was this after again after the mushrooms, or was this something that you think actually happened in real time?

SPEAKER_04 41:32

Good question. It happened, it definitely happened in real time.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

Okay. And then finally, my experiences with horses have been limited to uh the uh horses you rent to go on a trail ride. It's never gone well for me. Yeah, those poor slaves. Yeah. And well, one horse uh took me up to the side of a hill. It wasn't on the trail. So I'm trying to stay on the horse. We were at almost like a 45-degree angle. The horse is comfortable standing, but I'm like barely hanging on and he won't move. And the instructor, the trail boss, I don't know what you call these people. Kick him, kick him, you have to show them that, you know, whatever. And of course, every time I kick him, it doesn't matter how hard I kick him. This horse is like, I'm not moving junior, so do your worst. This is not gonna happen. Until, until the time is up. So I sat on this, we had like an hour, whatever it was, hour rental. Everybody else went somewhere. I'm stuck on the side of the hill. But then it's the horse knew when the time was up or decided. And what happens at the end of that ride was they get to eat. So the horse all of a sudden started running. Oh now I'm holding on to withers, brisket, tonsils, whatever I can get my hands on. And it's a rough ride. Let me just say that.

SPEAKER_03 42:57

Oh, I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_02 42:59

Oh, and this got repeated again and again because I always seem to be with someone who said, Oh, you know what? I would like to do more than anything else in the world. I would love to have the power of a horse in between my legs. And I would love to feel the foamy withers. Would you please go? Can we go on a horse ride? And I'm like, okay. And then, like one time, just the only one other one I'm going to tell you, but I could tell you 20 stories like this because I kept this happening. I don't know where I am, but I'm somewhere where there are trees, and the horse I'm riding starts trying to scrape me off on the trees, which they can do.

SPEAKER_04 43:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 43:33

Because they're big.

SPEAKER_04 43:35

Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

So I am impressed that the fact that you could get on this majestic steed and manage it and to have this experience is beautiful. And I love this concept of the eternity of those moments. Because you always are in that moment. It never stops going, right? Exactly. You can always visit it at any time.

SPEAKER_04 44:04

Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 44:05

Factory.

SPEAKER_04 44:06

It was a good skill to discover what we are.

SPEAKER_02 44:09

That you had, that you didn't know you had. Oh, you mean the the the the skill of recognizing the eternity of the moment?

SPEAKER_04 44:17

Yeah, just being here right now, but it's so easy to forget as life gets more complicated.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

Right. So I want to s uh abruptly transition to my life sketching idea, and I recommend this to anyone. It's really fun.

SPEAKER_01 44:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

You draw, you sketch out your major life events. You can do this on as big a piece of paper as you want. I like doing it just on notebook paper, and I'm terrible at drawing things. But the way I do it is I first I start thinking about chronologically like big events in my life, and then I draw arrows connecting them. And the longer the arrow is uh is an indication to me of how significant that was in terms of everything that happened in the direction that my life took. And then so what you do is when you sketch it out, you'll have what you believe to be your major life events, and that sketch is the 35,000-foot view of your life, and then you can zoom in on any path and then really unpack that. And what you tend to notice is that a lot of the things that shape how you are and the person you became weren't always active choices you made. There was a randomness to it. Just like there was a randomness to being in that spot in that moment, and that person emerging from well, what I'm describing as the mist.

SPEAKER_04 45:39

I know it wasn't mist, but I'm they arrived portal of some sort, though.

SPEAKER_02 45:44

They came out of a portal in that moment, and the horse with the sweaty paws and everything happened in that moment. And you could have been, whatever you were doing that day, you could have been 10 minutes later or earlier, and you could have missed it.

SPEAKER_03 46:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 46:02

So there's a certain degree of chance in that, and it resulted in this beautiful story that you have eternal connection with. So so you so once you have your map and you've drawn, you've connected all of your major life events, and then you can zoom in and unpack some of these things. And it I think what's interesting about it is first of all, it's interesting to look at your life as this rather usually it looks pretty chaotic. So, you know, my map has arrows going in all directions. Um, but you can also see that some of the biggest things that shaped your life really you didn't control. They were things that circumstances that were out of your control, possibly because you were younger or because things happened the way they did.

SPEAKER_01 46:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:48

They weren't active choices, but some things were the choices you made after those major life events happened. So, for example, I was born on the East Coast, and when I was a kid, my dad decided to take a job in Los Angeles, and we moved out there. And if he doesn't do that, my whole life is different. Because I never would have gone to California. I never would have met my wife, my first wife, and so I wouldn't have my kids.

SPEAKER_03 47:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 47:13

Um, I never would have gotten a psychology degree.

SPEAKER_04 47:17

I didn't know you had a psychology degree.

SPEAKER_02 47:20

Yeah. So here's the thing. Goodness. I'm not just making maps on notebook paper here like some kind of a dope. I'm I've got this is the real thing. This is kind of like you, where I read some books and now I'm riding my horse. I so here's uh yeah, so I was gonna go to school, first of all, just like I could unpack any of this. Like I barely made it into college, and there's a whole story behind that. But I get to college, I'm gonna be a theater major. All my friends said, we're gonna be seeing you on television very soon. They were convinced. Uh I barely get into college, but I go there as a theater major. And so this just shows you the randomness of life and how it affects your journey. So I barely get in, I get in, I don't really care about college, but I'm gonna be a theater major. And I meet a guy at the orientation, and his name is Jose. And he's a nice enough guy, but he's boring as F. He's just such, I'd like, oh, this guy's putting me to sleep. It's like he's the personification of Xanax. It's like, come on. So fine, but it was fine.

SPEAKER_04 48:31

And he just wants to hear himself talk.

SPEAKER_02 48:33

No, no, no, he wasn't like that. He was just so type B, he was so mellow, he was beneath mellow. He was just like, yeah, everything's cool, man. You know, it's like that Southern California, super laid back. And I'm just like, come on, is there a synapse in there? Do we have a few neurons we can rub together? Let's make this happen. And that's how I've always been is a little bit too extra. But anyway, so that's it. That's Jose. I meet him with orientation. Okay, fine, you're a nice guy, but I so I show up at the dorms and I'm there early for whatever reason, and I see you know, you have a roommate and their names are on the door, and it's Ross, that's me, and Jose. And I'm like, are you is it the same guy? There's no way I'm gonna be that's not gonna be, he's not gonna be fun. I want a guy who's upbeat and we can go crazy together. So he hasn't arrived. I don't know why he hasn't arrived, he doesn't arrive for like a whole nother day. So I've got a whole nother day to try to swap him out. So I'm like scanning everybody in me, like, who's gonna be more fun than this guy? And I find this guy, Derek. And Derek seems like kind of a cool guy, and we hit it off, and I'm like, and he doesn't like his roommate, so we're gonna like apply. You could apply, like to say, hey, we want to be together, and they would let you do that. So we're working up this whole scheme. Jose, in the meantime, shows up, and I haven't, this hasn't been done yet. He shows up and I start spending time with him, and it's like, I kind of like this guy. Turns out Derek was a complete jerk, so that wouldn't have worked. He was just a big goon, and it didn't take long to find that out. And it didn't take long for me to find out that Jose was kind of all right. Like he was kind of he was quietly funny.

SPEAKER_00 50:33

Uh huh.

SPEAKER_02 50:34

He's the kind of guy, he was so mellow that he would he would like have have a bad test, and he would come back to the room after like flunking out some tests, and he would say, I am so angry. And then he would lie on his bed and fall asleep. And was like, what? That is not angry.

SPEAKER_04 50:53

Um, I came from That's the sort of guy you need as a roommate. That wait, did you end up being a roommate? Did you call off the Derek thing?

SPEAKER_02 51:01

Yeah, I got off the Derek thing, I got on the Jose train, and not only that, this is coming to a point of how I got a psychology degree. So I'm a theater major, and so Jose is one of these people who all since he was in high school, knew he wanted to be a clinical psychologist. So he's that's what he's there to do. He's gonna get a degree in psychology, then he's gonna get a PhD in psychology, and he's gonna be a clinical psychologist, and he's gonna provide therapy to people. He already knows all this. I don't know anything. I come to college, I have no ideas. That's why we become theater majors. Right. Exactly. All I knew is that I like entertaining people, the end.

SPEAKER_03 51:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:44

That's the extent of my plan. Um, and so uh I'm listening to this guy, and he's like so just so solid with his commitment to this profession. And me being an impressionable 17-year-old says, I think I could do that. And that's how I became a psychology major because of Jose. And Jose to this day is still one of my very best friends. We're still friends, and I was the best man at his wedding, so on and so forth. So, like we have this lifelong relationship that I almost blew by wanting to be with Derek, who I would have had to have killed.

SPEAKER_04 52:28

Yes. And then you'd be in jail still.

SPEAKER_02 52:31

Yeah. Because he was definitely he was definitely like one of those garage horses where you got you just gotta knock them out.

SPEAKER_04 52:38

But I got I just gotta say, you were so lucky to meet Jose. You were so lucky because you found somebody to that took you away from being a theater major. You ended up with a degree you could actually use. And that's gotta be one of my life regrets. Why didn't I major in anything but theater?

SPEAKER_02 53:02

Well, you know, it's one of these, it's it's to me, it's all fascinating because the it there's such an existential sort of quality to it where the things we often fight against are exactly the things that we need to do. Like we're resisting, like I'm resisting this guy because I've made this snap judgment that he's no fun. But he was the perfect foil for me because I was uh uh a little wild and a little extra, and he was mellow and calm. And that in my life has always worked. I've always gotten along best with people who aren't like me. People who, at least when I was younger, who were like amped up all the time like I was. We just got into trouble all the time.

SPEAKER_04 53:49

Well, when when people do have that positive, negative uh opposites attract polarity between them, I think that's where it's the biggest opportunity for good chemistry.

SPEAKER_01 54:05

Oh, yeah, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:06

You know, uh especially, you know, dating uh uh, you know, after you've had kids and stuff. You wanna find you we think we want to find someone who has the same interests who's just like us, but what you just beautifully pointed out is that uh we're probably better off with someone who is I uh maybe quieter as opposed to an extrovert.

SPEAKER_02 54:33

Right. I've come to believe that um and I've lived through making those choices to the point where I think I've actually learned that. The the so what I just uh what I want to um end with in terms of this little life sketch, uh which I which I highly recommend to anyone listening, because it'll ru it'll reveal things about the choices you've made and about things that have happened in your life. And I think if you really look at it closely, if you take the perspective of the bug navigating the California coastline, you will see that throughout your life you've constantly been presented with opportunities. Yes. That you didn't know were opportunities, or there were things that you didn't pay attention to, or choices you didn't make. And that's still happening. Even if you're on the last month of your 80-year cruise, you're still being presented with these opportunities, but you have to really kind of be open to it. You have to be open to the forces that you see and that you don't see. Because so many things in our life have to do with all these decisions and choices and random things that happen that we're not even aware of.

SPEAKER_03 55:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 55:49

And again, using your example of the horse, like think of all the variables involved in you being in that moment and this horse being in that moment at the same time. There's probably 200 fa variables. And so it all just happened in that moment. And sometimes we're just a little late for the moment, sometimes we're just a little early for the moment, but the moments are there, they're happening all the time. And to me, that is that gives me optimism.

SPEAKER_04 56:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 56:26

Because it means we're not that whatever the now is for you, even if it's not a good now, if you're now your current moment, your current internal moment is doesn't feel right, uh, it's not it doesn't have to stay like that. I guess that's what I'm trying to say.

SPEAKER_04 56:43

I think the biggest thing I've been doing lately is uh when I wake up in the morning, I just try to imagine the best possible outcome for the day. And if I can imagine it, it it does set me to looking for those opportunities. Yeah. And um that's been really, really helpful. Another another thing that's really helpful is something you told me, and that's always choose the fun thing.

SPEAKER_01 57:13

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:14

That's such a great I've I have to tell you, as soon as you told me that, I applied it immediately. And life, gee, life just started getting more fun.

SPEAKER_02 57:26

It's amazing how it works. And I admit that it's the most self-serving thing I've ever said because that's been my operating philosophy since I was a little kid. I've always, almost always chosen the more fun choice. And it has consequences when you do that.

SPEAKER_03 57:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 57:42

But it it one of the good consequences is that you have a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_04 57:47

Yes. Yes. I just did that last year, and it got me out of a it was two years ago, and it got me out of a really bad relationship. It's like, huh, you're not gonna be fun today, so I'm gonna go do the fun thing. And it ended up meaning the end of that relationship, and I'm so grateful. So thank you, Ross.

SPEAKER_02 58:07

I am so happy that uh that that somehow helped you uh have more fun because in the end, I am convinced of this, the winners are those that are having fun. Absolutely. There's no other way to win at this life except to have as much fun as you can have. And even I even believe when your circumstances are dire and there's not a lot of places to find joy, you can still find a little pocket somewhere. Maybe if it's only in your mind. Maybe if it's only revisiting one of those eternal horse moments with sweaty paws and withers of foam. I'm gonna stop it here. I could talk to you for five hours and still not have heard enough. So maybe I can encourage you to come back for another time.

SPEAKER_04 59:01

Oh, this has been so lovely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 59:04

I'm gonna thank everyone for joining us for this episode. I love that you're listening to the show and sharing the show. And if you could um share it with your friends, people you think might like it. Um, but please help us grow our little tiny show into a bigger tiny show. And we hope you'll tune in to another episode because whether you are the tallest jockey in the world or just someone macrodosing on mushrooms, it's important to remember that we all smell like humans. Goodbye, everybody, and thank you, foamy withers.