Matt Cassem, Creative, Writer, Podcaster

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So I did a podcast for a while and it was actually, again, it's a combination of ADD and Luck. And I'm going to be back in a minute.

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Welcome to another episode of chewing the fat. I am your host, Big Robb. Welcome to season number three. Thank you so much for making this podcast a possibility and for me to go into season three with you. It means so much to the folks that have bought me a coffee at chewing the fat BR.com. The folks who have written ratings and reviews on Apple podcasts and Spotify and all the other places where you get your podcasts. If you're able to give me a rating.

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It really does do a lot to help more people find this podcast. And I still believe it and I believe in you. And I'm so happy to continue doing this with you and to be here for season three. I'm really excited about my first guest for the season is a guy that I met through working in retail. He is a whiz. He is a sharp wit and a just a quick creative mind. And I've enjoyed so much getting to know him. And I want you to get to know him as well.

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Please welcome Matt Cassum. All right, hello, hello. Hey, Matt, how are you doing? Doing well, Rob, how are you? Sorry, you seemed that you were like in stun silence. You're like, is that, is he talking about me? What's- I was. It was like, oh my gosh. That's a, let's say, a sea thing to live up to, and I love it. It's great, it's great. And I mean every word of it. I've been, I've enjoyed getting to know you and- Thank you. In working and then just outside of work as well.

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It's been just a real pleasure to get to know you. And so I couldn't think of someone better to have on the first episode for my season three. So thank you so much for being here. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah. And you're, uh, so you're calling in via zoom from, uh, you're in Tampa. Yes. That's the chapel, but Tampa. Okay. I mean, I don't mean the home address or anything like that. But just, I had a light launch of you ready to go. So thank you. I'm going to strap it.

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So, Matt, you're, are you a native of that area down in the Tampa area? Are you a Florida boy? You're a Florida man. No, I'm not. You're not Florida man. Not Florida man, not Florida man. No, I grew up in Wisconsin. Was born raised and left when I was about 21. Took off to the wild big city, New York city. Oh, wow. Yeah. So I lived there for a couple of years left just after September 11th. Not because of

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just sort of coincidental too. And moved, was actually moved by a company that I worked for to Denver. And then lived there for about five years and then got moved by that same company down to Tampa. And you know, here we are. That's awesome. That's awesome. So in growing up in Wisconsin, that's a different climate than what you were experiencing now in Florida for sure.

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Did you miss it any? You miss those bone-chilling winters and mild summers? Not at all. You know, I miss Wisconsin in that. My family's all there, so I miss them, of course, but Wisconsin itself, it's beautiful. I don't wanna live there, because the snow, really, is the only reason, no, no thanks. I'm good with snow as long as it doesn't land on cars or on roads, right? So if it wants to snow anywhere else,

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totally fine. If it's on a pasture somewhere and it's, you know, bucolic, it's great. It's just not going to stop you from having to get somewhere. So what were you into in your, you're in Wisconsin for 21 years. What were you into there? What was your growing up and your family and school life like? Yeah, you know, so much like today, it's very ADD riddles, sort of all over the place. I have done so much, so many different things, right? Like I've

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done fast food. I've done roofing. I've done trade show production, radio DJ for a while. So a lot of different things while I was in Wisconsin that just kind of, I just wanted to try it out, you know, sort of everything that sort of happened, happened by accident in a good way. And it was pretty cool. That's awesome. Was there anything like, you said, so did you go to like a college in stuff in the Wisconsin area? Or did you take off?

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or was college not part of the plan? Yeah, you know, it's funny. I graduated high school, went to the University of Wisconsin lacrosse for a while, about a year and a half, and it just was like, no, no, no, no, this is too much, I'm tired of this, this is boring. We just really, really tired of school. And then, especially because it dawned on me too, like at that time I really, really wanted to be a lawyer. Oh, wow. And I was like, man, not only after you're through this, but three more years in addition to this, and no.

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No, no, no, I'm good. Let me see what else they do. So took off and I think that's about the time I started doing radio. Yeah, radio and then the trade show production, the money was phenomenal. Wow. So I didn't need to. I assume that's where the trade show production, not for radio because I've never ever had phenomenal radio money ever. Correct. Because mostly too, I was part time with the radio. So, you know, that was definitely not making it make a lot of money. But, you know, I think for

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After that, it was interesting because I was probably 18 or 19 at the time, roughly. And I thought it was King's stuff. I mean, as trade show producer, you get to travel the country, you get to go to malls and venues around the country and set up these wedding shows or home improvement shows and stuff like that. And as 18 years old, when you get to go to someone's booth and tell them that they don't pay you, they got to get out. Like, you know.

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It was kind of a little tricky thing, right? So a little power trip. But that was fun. I learned a lot and really just enjoyed myself and radio. Radio was complete accident, but it was so much fun. Yeah. Yeah. What, what format were you doing? Radio. It was a top 40 radio station, 100,000 watt station out of my hometown. Yeah. Unrated. So it didn't really matter what we did and we did all kinds of shenanigans. Yeah. I, I got the job

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I dialed in and there was a woman by the name of Cara West who it coincidentally Happens to be married to

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Thank you very much. Thank you.

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This is getting her done. Oh, oh, wow. Larry the cable guy. Yes. Larry the cable. I'm like, why can't I not think of his name? Larry the cable guy. They met when she was a DJ out in Vegas. So anyway, so she was my mentor, but it started out because I called in, was to call her number 10 to burn a pair of Hanson concert tickets. And I just was like, look, do you need an intern? And she was like, yeah, actually the guy that I needed didn't show up tonight. So sure, come on in. And that's awesome.

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And it kind of morphed in from there. So it was totally, totally accidental. That's awesome though. That's a great story. You know, and it's, it just proves again that you can be, that it's about who you know and not what you know in radio a lot of the time. I mean, I've known very few people that have gotten radio jobs because of any degree or any, you know, book learning or anything like that. It's all on a relationship type of thing. Absolutely. Yeah.

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That's awesome. So you, uh, so you were doing the trade shows. Is that what took you to New York city? No, actually New York city, I just decided to up and go. I didn't have a job. I had a chance of a lifetime because a friend, a really good friend of mine, had a bedroom in his apartment that was open for rent for $250 a month Manhattan Island proper. And that was a deal where you're like, you're not going to come across that ever again in your life. So yeah, go.

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Wow. And then just landed a job when I got there as a desktop application trainer. So I was training Excel and PowerPoint and all that jazz. And just, you know, got to experience life in the big city as a pampered young kid from Wisconsin. Wow. That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. What was one of your, what was one of your favorites, like only in New York type moments that you may have had?

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Not that job, but the job I got afterwards, I worked for DoubleClick for a while before they were acquired by Google. And we were out, it was my boss and a couple of us, a couple of other coworkers we were at, we were piled in the back of a taxi cab, this is before we were in before, you know, any of the apps were piled in the back of a taxi cab and of course we were going through the city and we stopped at a stoplight and there's another car next to us. And for some reason, the people in that car decided

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stuff. And as they started yelling and, you know, gesturing at us and, and I'm just sitting on the far side, like up against the door, like, oh boy, here we go. And my whole entourage decides they're going to fight back. So they start just going off, you know, flipping gestures and calling out stuff and cursing them out and everything else. And those people get out of the car and start coming over to, you know, to our cab and luckily the light turned green and we were like to the cabbie, go, go, go, go. Wow. We took off.

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Luckily did not, you know, no casualties that evening. It's just saying, wow, that is crazy. But definitely only in New York story. That's awesome. So, so you moved around some more, you were in Denver and then you're in Florida. What's, what's one of the things that you do, you know, like for fun in Florida? I mean, it's you're not too far from the mouse, but it is still a bit of a drive.

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at the Hockey Pire time as well, right? Sure, sure. Yeah, definitely Disney. I mean, we at one point had tickets to every theme park, so we were constantly going between Disney and Universal and the Bush Gardens and some of those. That was a lot of fun, you know, then the pandemic hit and we kind of let everything collapse and just sort of set that aside for which, which our wallets were quite happy with, by the way. I can imagine. You know, sad time. I don't want to make late of it, but like our wallets were like,

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I think you have a little breathing room. Um, but we were able to do a lot of that prior to that and getting back into it now. Um, otherwise scuba diving love, love to go scuba diving. Um, really, really enjoy, you know, we just started to kind of dabble a little bit in like kayaking. So we'll see where that takes us. We're thinking about getting some inflatable ones to go out to the beach. Okay. Not a beach person. I hate the sand. I like the water, but I hate the sand. So I tend to kind of stay away from that. But you know,

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Hillsboro River, it's chocolate alligators, but it'll be a lot of fun. Oh, wow. Um, is, uh, the, well, I mean, I get the, although I guess with scuba diving, you're not, you're not really walking in off the beach anyway. So you're going to boat, you're going out anyway. So you know, you can avoid the sand for a good bit that way. Um, do you ever do any like, if you, if you tried the, what is it? What is it called? The paddle board thing where you like standing up on a surf board with a paddle thing. No, it's something else I really want to do though.

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I'm gonna try it. Yeah, I think it would be a lot of fun. I think it's very zen. I think that would be I don't think the balance my body is not made for that type of center of gravity and being on water type of thing. It's like I don't know if I am either I'll either I'll either do really well and I'll be really wet. You know At least you like the water so it wouldn't matter if you got that one. Yeah, it's totally fine. That's awesome. Um, you mentioned

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or some of the stuff you've done. I know you've done podcasting as well too. What, are you still, do you still have your podcasts going? I don't. I was, I did a podcast for a while and it was actually, again, like everything. It's a combination of ADD and luck. I decided to just test out podcasting. Like I downloaded the app anchor, which is, for those of you who know, pretty good one. If you're, if you're wanting to dabble, that's a good way to get into it. And just said, let's, you know, let's try this out and kind of randomly pick

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out of a hat in my podcast became three facts. So the whole thing was I would find three facts about something that was the kind of theme of that episode and then just talk about it a little bit. And each episode was probably only about, I'm going to say 10 minutes long, maybe, you know, not super long, which was kind of my point because I'm like, I'm just testing this out. I don't want to commit to a whole lot right now. Right. You know, but we did pretty well.

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And I got some I got some really really cool touching emails from people when I kind of wrapped it up like one guy from Australia was like, oh, we're gonna miss you because my son loves listening to your podcast when you go to bed It's his best way to kind of like wind down and listen. Oh, I'm at the same time. I was like, huh? So that was kind of cool But you know, it was time it was one of those like, okay, this is this is good, but It was just a test. So let's let you know, let's drop it from here, right? But I've got one that I'm working on a project

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it's just in its infancy with a friend of mine named Christina and that one is going to be called Writing Out Loud and it's just all about the writing process and really the whole writing and editing and self editing process and kind of what goes into that creative side of things from a writer's standpoint. Wow that's awesome like for writing for a novel, writing for a script, writing for anything, any type of creative writing. Yep we're gonna focus a lot of on some of

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like aspects of writing like representation, you know in movies and film in terms of story and it's it's really about the story More so I think than the writing even And I'll speak a little say like how do we bring the story story to life? What are some of those elements and how do we see that transmit to you know? TV to movie to some of these other formats as well And then come back to the actual book itself and how is that? Portrait and built, you know from the ground up to be able to become these

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things and to kind of grow a little bit more. So it's going to be interesting to see how that takes shape. Like I said, totally in its infancy. We're just kind of kicking tires and certain things up, but it's going to be a lot of fun. Now, are you a writer yourself? Are you the, just the idea instigator and then you need someone else to put the flesh it out with words? I think the letter is probably the closest to the truth, to be honest. But I always tell people I'm a writer, but I haven't written anything.

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like years. You know, but it's a passion for me because I do my whole thing I think is just creating, right, being able to create something out of nothing. And if that happens to be written, if it happens to be art, if it happens to be a song, you know, whatever form it takes, right, it's fine. Okay, honestly, I just want that thing to have life, and to become something, right. So it's an interesting kind of way for me to say, yeah, I'm a writer.

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Can you show me? No, I cannot. Well, you mentioned and you mentioned a couple of times earlier about just kind of having the the ADD mind. Is that something where you were you diagnosed officially with ADD like at an early age or anything? Or were you that we just, you know, where your parents didn't quite know what to, you know, but they knew what would occupy your time type of thing? Yeah. No, not officially diagnosed. I think for me, every time I've looked at the

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the test and the symptoms, everything's like, you know, check, check, check, yep, yep, yep, there's that too. Um, and I think you can looking back on it, it makes a lot of sense. Like in hindsight, it's 2020, right? And it was interesting. I was a good kid in school, like I, you know, wasn't one to break the rules. Parents would say that my, and this is not a humble brag, by the way, this is, there's a point to this, but parents would say, this is like the most boring thing to go to your parent teacher conferences because they're going to be like, Oh, he's a great kid. But there was one constant that I always

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Fed into that. He's a great kid, but if he would only apply himself and You know my grades were fine my grades were you know decent probably like D plus and higher, right? so nothing to shake a stick at but For me, I think it was that was their point they're like no like he could do really really wealthy We just applied so and I think there was just a lot of that like this is this subject here that we're focusing on now It's fun for now, but I'm bored now. We do this and it's you know

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So it's, it has been kind of a thing for a very long time where it's like, I can't, I don't, you know, the list of projects I've started and not finished is longer than I am tall. So, yeah, so absolutely, I think it's something that I'm working on. Can I say that? I don't know. Maybe. Yeah, even if it's something that you're like, you're just trying to work something to completion, you know, before you start the next thing or whatever.

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in school. I can't just got bored. And this again, not to sound like a humble bryer or anything, but like, everything was simple, I could do the work without a lot of effort for this for what they were giving me. So I so I took the advanced classes, I took the, you know, the AP classes in those things. And even at that, I still just get bored. I remember my, I think I've said it before, but my memory is being in a bio

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biology class and sleeping. I loved sleep. I still love sleep, but sleeping on a desk in a biology class and somebody telling the teacher, Hey, um, Dr. Fur, uh, Rob's asleep. And I remember him saying, let him sleep. He has a higher, he has a higher average than any of you that are awake right now. That's awesome. Which I mean, as the, as the fat kid and already felt kind of ostracized.

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you know what I mean? And trying to find my group and my clan, it was like, maybe not the best. I appreciate it. Maybe not the best thing to say, but I appreciate the thought behind it. But like, but yeah, it was just, because I was just bored and, you know, and I had to do the work, turn it in. And it was just like, I just felt like I needed more of a challenge, you know, to be able to keep going forward.

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Yes, I learned that so much. Do you find now in what you're doing that you still see some of those things coming in where you're like, alright, how can I add a touch of creativity to my day so that I don't get bored and stop? Yes, you know 100% yes Yeah, it's you know, it's interesting Yeah, I think it's it's part of that self discovery like what do you what do you bring to the table when it comes to?

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you do, right? And for me, I look at it as, again, I'm just going to use the word creativity, because it is about like, how do I do something, but I'm going to do it differently, just because I want to give myself a little bit of a challenge in it, right? I want to make it more interesting. Right. So, you know, if I'm going to, if I'm going to do this job and this job has this set of tasks, right? Well, maybe I'm going to set a timer and I'm going to see how many of those I can complete in a certain amount of time, right? Or I'm going to create some sort of tool that

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shows off like what this thing does and how I did that and blah, blah, blah. Like what I mean, there's gotta be some kind of weird aspect to it. And I get accused of, uh, and rightfully so, I get accused of over engineering things sometimes because I'm like, yeah, but it was fun to build. I'm sorry. You know, what it happens. But I mean, but that's the thing is like I said, that's, it's not that you're trying to make it creative for some, for the end user. You're making it creative for yourself. You're making it interesting for

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you, they'll find it interesting just by the nature of what you've done, you know, so it's to keep your own mind occupied and on task and moving forward as opposed to like, oh, I hope they think that it's cool that I made the, you know, font catch on fire at this word. It's not that it that excited you at the moment. So therefore, you know, by the nature of it, they'll be excited by it, hopefully. But yeah, exactly. If it helps somebody else, great, that is a bonus. Right. Like that is fantastic.

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Like you want to put the preface understand I didn't make this for you because it was made specifically for my entertainment and enjoyment by brain I'm glad you benefit, but yeah That's awesome is Is there something? In that realm so I mean you you said you know you do Because you were training people on how to do like spreadsheets and things like that But you're also a writer and you're also I know you have

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TikTok channel and things like that. Is there one of those things that you'd really find the, the, that butter zone for yourself that you're like, I can do this all day and not find myself wandering? Um, that's a good question. I think if, if there is a little bit of, you know, we just joked about like, it's like the helping other people aspect of that being sort of ancillary, right? Like that's just there and yay. But.

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I do think that some of that is also how can I take something and Digest it to make it easier for someone else to digest right so I think that That kind of plays a part in that what I mean is like I'll find like for example I play this game called city skeletons. It is for those of you who may not be familiar It is Sim City on crack like this is You can get down and you can paint the lanes on the road if you want to whatever you want to be and you know I mean

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full, full control. So the OCD in anybody will go like crazy. You know, it's going to be a lot of, it's going to be a lot of fun, but it also could be terrifying. But that game, you know, for me, I think I look at a lot of the videos that are out there and a lot of the explainers, I'm like, okay, those are okay. But like, there's so much complexity here. Like, how do we take something and make it maybe a little bit simpler, right? And say, I'm going to take this thing that could

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know, two, three digestible chunks that we know that people can get something out of, right? Not that I've done that, don't go looking for that. But that would be an example, right? That's an idea to put down. Exactly. I was playing another game called Million Lords, don't recommend it. But again, this one, there was just about no great videos or hardly any guides at all out there. So again, taking some of those things that, you know, there's a lot of

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simple, a little more approachable for somebody who's just getting started. And I think that's kind of a common thread that does run through some of the stuff that I do. So.

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All right, Matt, this is the second segment of the show. This is where we dive a little bit deeper into you. We talk a little bit more about mental health. I am a big proponent of people seeking help when they need help. One of the things that depression will tell you is that you're alone. And I think the more that we have these conversations around mental health, the more you realize that you're actually not alone and you're not the only one that feels these ways. I mean, because I know I have those days where I just don't want to get out of bed or I just want to stay in the shower

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hot water all day long and that's it. But for you, how do you keep the darkness at bay?

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Oh, that's a good question too. I love that. Um, you know, for me, I think it's about being okay, talking to yourself for one, right? I think there's, there's a lot of people are like, so you talk to yourself. Do you like answer back? I'm like, yeah, I do actually. Um, and you know, I think that's okay, right? You have to, you have to be able to love yourself first. And part of that is understanding you and I think some people, you know, some people are going to journal, some people are going to

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Talk to a therapist some people are going to read a book Some people are gonna talk to their parents, you know, whoever's that the special person in their life that they can talk to right? And I think if you can talk to yourself first It's a good starting point and I'll think that's the end of the L right But I think that's a good place to say listen what you know, I think I look at it as this checking in with yourself Yeah, yeah, you know, how's it going today? It's not dicey, you know to your point I want to

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I just would rather lay in bed. I'm just not into it today. I'm not adulting today. Sorry. You know, I think having those conversations and going, you know what? It's okay. It's okay. Sometimes you just need a data reset, right? Yeah. But I think you made an interesting or a good point about people sometimes don't talk to anybody or they don't want to talk to anybody about it, right? Because maybe there's some pride

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whatever the reason is. But I think there's an opportunity there for...

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before you choose say to yourself, it's okay to not have it all together all the time. Oh yeah. Right. Because I think I don't think any of us really do. There's some that mask it better than others. Right. But I think a lot of people are in the same boat. And honestly too, I think there's a lot of people that step back and they maybe have the conversation with themselves and they say, Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

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Should I talk to somebody? I don't know. I don't think I'm to that point yet. Am I? Like there's just a lot of confusion. And I think that's even a better time to talk to somebody because, you know, what do you do when you get lost? Hopefully you stop and ask somebody for directions, right? So I think it's kind of the same concept there. And whether that person, just to use your directions analogy, whether that person is an actual person that you're asking for, I'm sure even if it's an app and you put it into your,

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GPS on your phone or whatever there are apps out there that you can check in with as well and apps that can connect you virtually to Real people that you can have that conversation You don't actually have to feel like you go and you sit on a couch and have some sort of you know MoMA you can do that wherever you are. There's always access to that stuff. Oh 100% Absolutely. Yeah, there's so much out there now. There's no I don't know for a lot of to say app names but

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just some really good ones out there, right? There's better health, there's talk space, there's even some of just the meditation apps like Headspace and Calm and 10% happier. You know, I mean, there's so many out there that can help you to kind of spend that time having that conversation with yourself, like checking it with yourself and then getting some help if you need it. Cause I think it's, you know, we all need help sometimes. The degree is just what's different, right? Like some people just need more help than others.

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I need more help than others, right? It's just, it's okay. Yeah, for sure. Being able to open up and have that conversation, I think, you know, for me, journaling has helped as well. I use an app called Day One for that because I can keep track of all kinds of stuff in there. I actually have, it's funny, I have a little journal in day one, you can keep multiple journals, right? So I've got these different ones. Like here's my normal kind of like, I'm just gonna write about my feelings. And then there's a card journal. Anytime I ever get a card,

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both the inside and outside of it. And just a little note to myself, you know, I've got this card from ZoneZone. This is why, you know, we would sell Wednesday, whatever. But just to keep that digital version of that card forever because they don't last forever, you know? Yeah. They take up space and sometimes it's also about clutter. But I don't want to feel like, I don't know. I always felt weird about that. But anyway, so, you know, day one, fantastic app for journaling. Super robust.

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Definitely, you definitely like using that one for that. So I think that's the other thing you'll learn about me. I have an app for everything. Yeah. I love that though, when you're talking about the cards. Cause I mean, how many times have you, you know, you got in a card from someone that you love or a friend or something like that. And then something happens and they're not here anymore. Yeah. And you're like, I threw their card away.

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everybody's going to throw a card away at some point, but to have like, he said, digital version that you can save to look back to see their handwriting, to see whatever the message was that they wrote or that type of thing. Especially I find myself, uh, leaning into those things, uh, so much more now, my mother's 83 and not to be morose or, you know, I don't look for her to go anytime soon. She's still a freaking firecracker, but you know, the time will come.

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Sure. You know, that'll be the last phone call you had. You didn't know it. Yeah. You know, that'll be the last hug. That'll be the last, you know, Christmas card or whatever. So, I mean, I think it's great to be able to capture those moments that you hold want to take with you past, you know, past the current moment, but also to, to have those, those things that to feel like that you can still reconnect. When you

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needed maybe when you are down. You know, you know, if somebody wrote an encouraging letter in a card or something like that or a letter and you know, for you to be able to have that and see it in their handwriting. I think there's something, there's something magical and special in it, in handwritten stuff like that as opposed to, I mean, we all get emails. We all have no problem hitting that delete button on emails for sure. Cause there's no, there's no physical, there's no human connection to that. I mean, there is.

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Unfortunately, that's why people are so mean on social media and stuff, because they feel like there's no physical human connection to that. Oh, it's just a keyboard and a computer and a screen. Just words. Just words. Yeah. Whereas if you had to actually say that to someone's face or you had to take the time to write it down and put it on paper and mail it off to someone and wait for their, you know what I mean? Yep. I think conversations and kindness would be a lot different than they are now. Wow. 100%. In that case. Absolutely.

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So in that, um, the, the conversations with yourself, I appreciated you said it's okay to answer yourself because I answer myself too. You know, that's, that used to be the, the joke. It's like, oh, like you said, do you answer yourself too? Yes. Because sometimes you have to talk things through that's, you have to give, if you can't give kind of the pros and cons, people write pros and cons lists all the time for things by in a house, by in a car. What sandwich should I have?

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ever. You can do that verbally amongst yourself as well. And I don't think there's anything wrong. Yep. Yeah. I even use it sometimes just to check whether or not I was right about something. And I don't mean that in the sense of like, did I win the argument? I mean, was I right to do or say what I did? Was that really the right action to take in that moment? And it's kind of a good alternative exploration tool, right?

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say, listen, we just have this, you know, altercation, if you will, not physical, but altercation, let's say, at a grocery store checkout line. And, you know, this is what they said, and this is what I said. And was I right? Should I have said what I said? Should I have reacted the way that I reacted? It's really more self-reflective, more so than the other person. Like, it's not about like, oh, I can't believe they said that to me. I can't control them. But I can control what I do, right?

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So if I can learn from that and what I did, and how should I do it differently next time, maybe. And some days it's like, yeah, I was right. Some days it's just like, don't care. Perfectly justified. Exactly, exactly. But I love that. I read something today and I wish I had it in front of me. It was, I'm sure it was a meme because that's where we get all of our inspiration and information nowadays.

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But it was, I can't remember what it was or who they were bringing it to, but basically it was like a group of people going to tell somebody about somebody else. It was about gossip, basically. And the person basically said, before you do this, I just want to, before you say anything, I just want to pass it through these, these three sieves. You know.

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The first thing is like Is this the truth? Did you go to that person and ask them if whatever you're about to tell me actually happened or is true? Well, no, no, we didn't do that. Okay. Okay, right? You know is what you're about to tell me is it kind is You know, is there you know Something kind that you're about to say about this person That I absolutely need to know because they're a person there a person I know they're a friend of mine

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tell me something that could change how I now feel for that person. Well, no, no, it's not, it's not really kind either. And then the last one is like, is it, is it unifying? Is it something that's going to bring about us together in a better way from learning this information, as opposed to me not knowing anything about it? Like, well, no, no, it's not, sorry, well,

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going to tell me something that this person, you don't know if it's true. It's not kind and it's not unifying to anything that we're, you know, doing right now, but I don't need to hear it at all. You know, I mean, it's, it's...

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just one of those things where you just got a, you, you, like you'd said, you can control what you can control and how you react. Yep. And what your actions took. Yeah. You can't control the situation. You can control how you respond to the situation. 100%. Yeah, it's, I love that. I've heard a variation of that too, which is, you know, in those moments when you're about to say something, not even specifically gossiping, but even just, you know, if you're about to tell somebody

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about just maybe it's your opinion about something, right? Is it true? Is it kind? And do I need to be the one to say it? And I do think about that a lot actually. I think more than I had realized because it's funny. That's why I was smiling and nodding when you were starting to talk about it. I was like, oh my God, I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately. For the same things. We all get in our cars and we're in our little space.

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like this is this space we're entitled to and nobody should come near us and get out of my way, right? And that's where, you know, unfortunately we lose a lot of our self restraint and our ability to kind of check ourselves. So it's interesting with these things, you know, like you said, you've got, we just talked about this car is this space, this is this thing that's kind of between me and another person. There's this keyboard and screen that's between me and this other person, right? And it's like,

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technology is bad by any means, I think it's great, but does it dehumanize a little bit, right? And does it allow us to become a little bit more or less self-reflective and more just, I think everybody needs to hear what I have to say. And they need to hear my opinion. It doesn't matter if it matters. But I think that's where, you know, how you use the technology. You know, it is what it is. Technology is technology. Whether you use it for good or for evil.

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level. That same device that can crush someone, you can also lift someone up with it. You can also lift yourself up with it. You've got apps, like you said, you've got an app for everything. So you can find those apps to help you take more control of yourself. 100%. Yeah. We used to do one of the jobs that I had in the past. We tried for a little while.

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that we had kind of noticed this thing about ourselves, that we were getting a little more negative, a little more snappy, a little more like, right, right, right, for whatever reason. It was kind of like this commiserating together thing. And we decided to do, there was a book, and I don't know who wrote it. I can't even tell you the name, I've gone to, but, excuse me, there was a book that you would get a little bracelet, one of those little like, silicon bracelets. And the whole concept was,

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negative, you're supposed to snap yourself with it. And you're supposed to see how long it would go before you weren't snapping yourself, right? We made it a week. And they broke. So it wasn't a great experiment. But again, it's all these tools to help us be better people, too, to your point.

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All right, man. This is the third segment of the show. It's time now for the fast vibe, the fast five. It's time now for the fast five. Sorry. I know it's three, three seasons in and I still do not have a fast five theme song yet, but I'll get with my music guy. We'll see if we can work something out maybe for this, this season. I don't know. We'll work something out. The fast five is powered by pod decks. It's an app created by my friend Travis Brown.

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questions and conversation starters and interview questions for podcasters. They also are physical decks as well. And you can grab those decks and put a couple of cards in your pocket. So if you need to ask questions at your next rotary club meeting or something like that, you've got some cards on you or just ask a person in line at the corn dog hut, hey, you've got some questions. Just check out pod decks are great. I'll be using the app today.

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But if you would like some of your physical cards, if you go to chewing the fat VR com slash pod decks use the promo code chew you can get 10% off your physical decks, but I'm gonna go with the app today and Matt no wrong answers first thing comes to your mind Are you ready? It's dangerous, but let's do it. All right. I should have a one

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When you're feeling sick, what makes you feel better? Trashy TV. Really? Yes, trashy, trashy TV. And by that I can be soap operas, that can be reality television, keeping up with Kardashians. I love good trashy TV. My new favorite genre of like television or series or movie. Now I have coined this phrase,

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but you can please you're welcome to use it. Just give me credit. But I call them dumpster fire documentaries. And you know, there was the documentary about the leg, the, the amputated leg that was found in a grill. There was the one about the, yeah, there's one about a fruit cake factory and embezzlement and stuff like that. There's just so many, there's like, they're dumpster fire documentaries. And they're just so compelling because they're so,

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trashy dislike. How would this even happen? I just watched one the other week called the Pez Outlaw by this guy who's smuggling Pez dispensers into the country. Yeah, pretty much whatever you're like streaming app, you can find some sort of dumpster fire documentary when you're there. They're not going to be labeled that way, but you can kind of tell about reading the synopsis. I have a question is was the leg on the grill found at the corn dog hut? No. No, it was in. Okay. No, it was in.

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Uh, it was in like one of those, um, uh, you know, self-storage things, but the guy quit paying the rent. And so somebody bought the self-storage thing. So then the whole thing was about the ownership of the leg because the grill was in there when he opened up the grill, there was the leg that belonged to the guy that owned the, the actual unit. He had his leg amputated and asked to keep it. And he put it on the grill. Yeah. So there was this whole thing about the leg and who actually owned it.

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who it physically belonged to, or the guy who bought the unit. It's crazy, it's crazy. It is. I feel like you needed an air tag for his leg. Okay. All right, question number two.

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If you were going on a road trip, what are the three must haves you couldn't leave without? I'm not talking gasoline, I'm like in a car, but what are the three must haves on a road trip? Three must haves, okay. Number one's gonna do my phone. Okay. I've got a document experience. Yeah. I've got to, you know, can't exist in this world without some kind of documentation, come on. So my phone's gonna be one. My number two

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to be my music collection, which, you know, kind of part of my phone, yeah, kind of part of my phone, but I'll take that with me as one of those. What else? Swedish fish. There we go. Yeah. Swedish fish. Yeah. Got to have Swedish fish. They taste like red. They taste like red. Delicious. That's all right. My road snack is yoo-hoo and pork rinds. Okay.

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I don't know, but like I'm going on a road trip, especially like a long one or whatever that I'm pulling in getting You who or two and big bag of pork rinds. I love that. Alright question number three

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If you could have anything named after you, what would you want it to be? I'm going to say a bridge. For two reasons, because then I can say I have a bridge to sell you. You would find it really. And, uh, two, I can say, I've got a bridge. Now get over it. Not the direction I thought you were going to go without. That's awesome. Cause see I was going, I was like,

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because he's like connecting to places and he's like this, this unifying force of mad and cross with it. No, no, no, no. Got a bridge to sell you. It's all sarcasm. Yes, mad sarcasm. Awesome. All right, and question number four.

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Would you rather have your jaws wired shut for a month, drinking only out of a straw, or wear an eye patch for a year? Oh, easy peasy. I will wear an eye patch for a year. Yeah. Alex, talk too much? So having my jaw wired shut, not so much. Talk to people like this? Exactly, no. Can't do it. Can't do it. Well, the not being, the having a drink out of a straw and not being able to like eat a piece of fried chicken or something like that's where it would get me.

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I'd go with iPad on that as well. Hey, question number five.

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If you could talk to one species of animal, what would it be?

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I'm gonna say squirrels because I feel like they're probably the most sarcastic of the animals And they got some tea to spill. Let me tell you. Yeah, cuz they're hanging out the tree They're just watching to a few like Yeah, did you see what Linda did last week? Let me tell you Keep an eye on the birds keep an eye on the people That's good. Let's get out of me much. I would be I guess I would be basic I would say probably dogs because I just I want to know what my dogs

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saying, you know, I just, you know, and, and especially I'm assuming if we can talk to them, we can understand them. They can understand us, you know, because, you know, I definitely want to tell my animals that how much I loved it, how much they mean to me. So, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But I do like your, your squirrel answer. Although I feel like it'd be talking to somebody who's like on, you know, 12 cups of espresso or something. Exactly. That might be after fun.

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All right, Matt, that is our Fast Five, and that is the show. Thank you so much for being here, man. Thank you. I really appreciate this. No, I appreciate you being here. If folks want to keep up with you, what's the best way to do that? Best way, Instagram, you can find me at at sarcasem, S-A-R-C-A-S-S-E-M. Also that on TikTok and just about every other possible thing, except for Twitter. No, we don't talk about Twitter. No, no, no.

47:06

Awesome. Well, I will make sure that I put those links in the show notes and also on the website at chewingthefatbr.com again, Matt. Thank you so much for your friendship. Thank you so much for coming on. It's been a few minutes and I really appreciate it. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Robb. Awesome. Awesome. If you enjoyed this and would like to support this podcast, I'd appreciate it. If you bought me a coffee at chewing the fat br dot com. But until next time, I look forward to the moment we have to sit a spell and chew the fat.

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