You Can Call Him The American J.K. Rowling of Austrian-Folk-Music w/ Andrew Lapidus

intro -: 7:16:21

[00:00:00] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to another exciting episode of ramble by the river. I'm your host, Jeff Nesbitt. And we've got a great show for you today. It is Saturday, July 17th, 2021. Thank you for tuning in. Joining us in the studio is my old friend, Andrew Lou. Don't forget to subscribe on your podcast player. And if you enjoy the show, please share it with a friend. It really helps a little bit of social sharing helps them, helps me helps you. You can find ramble by the river on Instagram and on Facebook at ramble by the river and on Twitter at ramble river pod.

[: 00:00:39

[00:01:02] I really appreciate it to those of you specifically, who have sent me comments on last week's episode. I really appreciate it. Last week's episode, sturgeon fishing with Socrates and the Dalai Lama featuring pat shank has been really well received. And I appreciate those comments very much. That really helps me to know that I'm moving in the right track.

[: 00:01:22

[00:01:38] Okay. I said, yeah. I mean, why. Do you ask? Well, I was listening to your podcast today and I don't know, it just sounded fucked up. I was like, what? And so, well, I had thought I sounded fine. I really kind of thought I was [00:02:00] talking at, at at least an average speed, if not faster than usual, but my dad. Yeah. It's like you were trying this new thing where you're like talking really slow, almost like you were drunk or like you were super stoned or something.

[: 00:02:14

[00:02:33] And so I'm just sitting there scratching my head. Like, what the fuck is he talking about? You know, how parents can be critical. So I don't know. I didn't write off the idea that perhaps he just doesn't like what I did and he's going to express that to me because he's my dad, but I thought it was okay. I really did think it was fine.

[: 00:02:50

[00:03:18] He really thought I was trying a new thing, like as a creative, as a creative exploration and that thing in his mind was me pretending to be drunk. I'm like, what could this possibly be? And I pull up apple podcasts. And I remember that there is a speed adjuster on the corner there.

[: 00:03:37

[00:04:05] Ramble by the river is intended for entertainment purposes only. And so, as you can tell, that was probably infuriating and confusing and he probably thought that his son had. So I, I thought that was really funny. He, needless to say, he did not care for the episode until I pointed out to him that like, yeah, that's adjustable.

[: 00:04:30

[00:04:49] He's listening to my show. Even when he thinks it's terrible and I'm drunk. So it was cool. Thank you, dad. I appreciate it. And I'm glad we got it all figured out. [00:05:00]

[: 00:05:04

[00:05:32] So many of you know them. And so many of you are. Myself included something about that magical world. when you click in you're transported there and suddenly you're you're home. It's just awesome writing. It's an awesome experience to read those books. And so my daughter is just finishing up her Harry Potter extravaganza.

[: 00:05:54

[00:06:15] We had a lot of similar interests. We hung out a lot. When you're rowing you don't really do a lot of stuff outside of your rowing community. So he was one of my best friends and we spent a lot of time together. When I met him, I found out that he was into Harry Potter.

[: 00:06:29

[00:06:48] I love people who can just be themselves unapologetically and just love what they love and not worry about what the world thinks. Whether you're allowed to love it or not. It's great. [00:07:00] On top of that, Harry Potter has always had a special place for me because when it first started getting popular, my mom was not into the idea of me reading books about witches and wizards and pretending to have magical powers.

[: 00:07:13

[00:07:33] I'm not going to play with a Weegee board. You will not ever get me to play with a Weegee board because I don't want to tempt fate. I don't want to attempt the Colt. I don't know what's possible. And what's not possible with that dark magic type shit. I don't know who knows, but what I do know is I don't want any part of it.

[: 00:07:51

[00:08:07] I don't know. I'm getting distracted about Weegee boards because they're of the devil and I, I, but that's not really what this is about. My whole point really was about how Harry Potter is not of the devil. In fact, quite the opposite. Harry Potter brings nothing but joy. It's good stuff. There's nothing wrong with fantasy, nothing wrong with it at all.

[: 00:08:26

[00:08:36] Also one time when I was at a restaurant with Andrew, he had his shoes off and he left his socks on the fountain drink dispenser.

[: 00:08:44

[00:09:08] And that was pretty funny. Andrew did not like it. Um, anyway, I'm all over the place today, guys. I'm sorry. Okay. So Andrew graduated from Western Washington university. Degree in foreign languages. He's always been very musical and he moved to Europe six or seven years ago to pursue his musical and academic career.

[: 00:09:29

[00:09:33] So without further ado, please enjoy this conversation with the charismatic and multifaceted Andrew Lapidus.

Andrew Lapidus

[: 00:00:00

[00:00:04] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:00:04] good. Started getting a little bit heated , my vibe turned off the wifi. So

[: 00:00:09

[00:00:13] I do feel a little bit, , socially inept when it comes to dealing with things like that. Right. Like, so I walked into this JK Rowling conversation. Like I went in to just like, get a load of this. Can you believe crazy? Yeah.

[: 00:00:28

[00:00:31] Andrew Lapidus: [00:00:31] is like you monster.

[: 00:00:34

[00:01:01] Yeah. A girl is going to be able to find somebody who said some shit where you're like, yeah, obviously like that person's being mean, right? Yeah. Like someone's sitting there and being like, you know, fucking men dressed up as women clothes and like, fuck that shit. It's like, yeah, you're being mean that's fun.

[: 00:01:18

[00:01:20]Jeff Nesbitt: [00:01:20] Yeah, you gotta manage tone and everything. Cause there that's a really tricky, , debate in the first place. And if you don't use benevolent language where you're actually trying to come up with a solution, not just trying to prove that you're right.

[: 00:01:35

[00:01:56] She's obsessed. And so, okay.

[: 00:01:58

[00:02:04] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:02:04] so I'm, I'm sitting there listening and I, I didn't want her to spoil the magic. That is the Hogwarts universe, because of something that happened in boring, old reality

[: 00:02:16

[00:02:23] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:02:23] those books are just timeless. And some comments that the author made on social media years after writing the books, don't hold a lot of relevance to me, , in terms of what makes those books special. So that's kind of the position I came from, not knowing what she had said or anything about that.

[: 00:02:41

[00:02:47] And I found that she had supported this person who was against letting trans women compete with biological women and track and field events, I think. Right now. We [00:03:00] don't have a good solution to solve that problem I've coached track and field.

[: 00:03:03

[00:03:23] I don't know.

[: 00:03:24

[00:03:43] And yeah, we need, we need a solution. Like it's, it's, it's hard. Like somebody that's, you know, transitioning like to just bar them from athletic competition, like yeah, fuck. That's that's shitty. It's not fair. The other side of it is also shitty, you know? So the biggest problem is, is that [00:04:00] the con the conversation that we just kind of touched on, you know, to the side obliquely in passing that is not going anywhere.

[: 00:04:08

[00:04:13] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:04:13] Yeah.

[: 00:04:14

[00:04:16] It was pretty good. Minor in my opinion, I just, it wasn't like she made a big statement. All she did was support and this other person who did make statements and the statements are controversial, but they're, they're not cut and dry. It's not an easy solution. Like I think of my daughters and who compete in running events.

[: 00:04:35

[00:04:55] Yeah. Um, anyway, so I looked that up and saw that what the debate was, and I [00:05:00] just turned around. I was just like, Hey, JK, Rowling may have said stuff. She could say whatever she wants, it doesn't change. What Harry Potter is all about. Harry Potter is a good dude. Like he's just out there living his life, trying to kill Voldemort.

[: 00:05:14

[00:05:24] Andrew Lapidus: [00:05:24] he's the one who conquered death. Exactly. He's the one who conquered death and greeted death as an equal. I mean, let let's just go out and say it right.

[: 00:05:33

[00:05:34] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:05:34] Quittage was very co-ed. What was that girl? Who was the catch catching the snitches for that other team? Chuck.

[: 00:05:41

[00:06:08] Or ours and like the real, like bad-ass, you know, fighter. Yeah, totally. Totally. It's like Jedi. It's exactly like Jeddah you're right. Yeah. Yeah. So she's very aware of this, you know, and she's also a person who's yeah. I don't need to go and we don't need to go into like a pie graph biography of JK Rowling, but let it be a big fan.

[: 00:06:29

[00:06:34] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:06:34] the crown queen. I just found out the other day that she wrote, , under a suited him pseudonym, that book, um, cookie was calling and the book sucked. Um, sorry.

[: 00:06:46

[00:06:51] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:06:51] Yeah. A couple of years ago and I didn't love it.

[: 00:06:55

[00:06:57] Andrew Lapidus: [00:06:57] You must be the only person you must [00:07:00] be the only person. Yeah, I've read it. I read her old. She has a crime series going on. I can't you play, you must be the only person you must be. The only person that read that, just be in like, oh, whatever, just a random, uh, I liked the cover.

[: 00:07:14

[00:07:21] You know? I mean,

[: 00:07:22

[00:07:39] You see it in these books too. She's a fucking architect, right? The kind of meticulous planning that goes into this book. I mean, it's like, to me, it's borderline borderline schizophrenia, right? Like how do you, how do you make a world like this, right. Where it feels like you're, she's really like, you know, you know, [00:08:00] she's boxed it as in Johan Sabbat, estrogen.

[: 00:08:03

[00:08:04] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:08:04] time of Vienna.

[: 00:08:05

[00:08:30] I don't get it. I don't, I don't know how that's possible. She's dropping hints for Harry Potter books, you know, before the next things going on, you know, do you think she

[: 00:08:40

[00:08:45]Andrew Lapidus: [00:08:45] She definitely, she definitely outlined I mean, pretty extensively.

[: 00:08:50

[00:08:52]Jeff Nesbitt: [00:08:52] Let's uh, here's

[: 00:08:53

[00:09:05] She's, she's playing in for four, five years, right? And the remarkable thing to me. Okay. The remarkable thing here is she's at this point, you know, she's got a child, she's a single parent, no job, just living straight off welfare. And she's writing the book. We've all heard that story a thousand times. But I just think about being her friend, like imagine you've got a friend that's like, you know, you feel so bad, novel for five years with a baby.

[: 00:09:31

[00:09:39] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:09:39] yeah, exactly. Yeah. You

[: 00:09:41

[00:09:51] That is an unbelievable story, right?

[: 00:09:54

[00:09:58] Andrew Lapidus: [00:09:58] Right. Yeah. A lot of [00:10:00] people suck at writing. They're just like using that as their hope,

[: 00:10:04

[00:10:05] Andrew Lapidus: [00:10:05] pursue that dream. Not a representative example, guys.

[: 00:10:08

[00:10:29] Yeah. But most people can't write that book.

[: 00:10:31

[00:10:50] I mean, I mean, so we've had celebrity authors before, but like J K Rowling, you know, people, at least she's got Papa Roxy, right. Superstar fucking, you [00:11:00] know, what's his face like, yeah. Stephen King. Didn't like the white Stephen King and photos of him in his, in his Speedo. Yeah. Well she's the white Stephen King.

[: 00:11:11

[00:11:24]Jeff Nesbitt: [00:11:24] I fucking love Stephen King stuff.

[: 00:11:26

[00:11:28] I love Stephen King too. And it's yeah. Well there's a lot of it. Exactly. Some of

[: 00:11:35

[00:11:50] It was about like this group of kids.

[: 00:11:52

[00:12:16] I'm

[: 00:12:17

[00:12:32] Explained scientifically through like, uh, what, what did they say? Um, brain derived neurotrophic factor, which is a real thing. And they can't actually measure, but they said that that's, what's causing these kids to be able to like have very, very light telekinesis and, uh, telepathy and um, all that stuff.

[: 00:12:51

[00:13:06]Andrew Lapidus: [00:13:06] Oh God, I don't know about that. I know you're that you were, you were the psycho, not in our friend group for a while there at Western, but I don't know enough about those.

[: 00:13:15

[00:13:18] Andrew Lapidus: [00:13:18] I was going to say one of them, I like, you know, like everybody has to have their first, um, like just edible experience where they just like, you know, look over the edge. Right.

[: 00:13:31

[00:13:46] And my experience of that was with you when I was 20 years old in your apartment you made weed brownies and I had some, and my fucking soul turned [00:14:00] inside out. And I just lay on the couch. Like you guys just had a lovely little time.

[: 00:14:06

[00:14:07] Andrew Lapidus: [00:14:07] little time. And just seeing that blanket and higher member being on the couch.

[: 00:14:14

[00:14:17] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:14:17] Yeah. Oh yeah. I remember it. Well, you were, you were, like resentful. You were resentful that I had made such strong brownies and it's not like I pressured you into eating it. Um, actually I think I might've even warned you, but, you were, like I'm a brownie guy.

[: 00:14:33

[00:14:34] Andrew Lapidus: [00:14:34] Certainly. I remember not being able to believe that. Um, I mean, I think now people are more aware of it, but whatever this was Tuesday, 2010 or whatever, I, I had no idea. Yeah. That like eating edibles could be just so far beyond what you would know from smoking. Right. So I could not believe that there wasn't something else in them.

[: 00:14:55

[00:14:57]Jeff Nesbitt: [00:14:57] I

[: 00:14:57

[00:15:16] Like I had a spirit and I was touching my body and looking at my body and felt zero connection to it. It was a very weird, terrifying thing. And that's what happens on PCP. This is not. This is something new you're

[: 00:15:31

[00:15:33] Andrew Lapidus: [00:15:33] Well, so yeah, so I was having some, some, some fun there. And I remember just telling you, I remember telling you to stop talking.

[: 00:15:42

[00:15:54] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:15:54] And you hadn't talked for a long time. Me and Matt were over across the room talking and, [00:16:00] he, you just out of nowhere, you're like, somebody get me a blanket.

[: 00:16:05

[00:16:08] Andrew Lapidus: [00:16:08] Yeah. Yeah. I, I just refuse to believe that there wasn't something else in it is what I recall. And then also that my, this just wasn't my life from now on.

[: 00:16:20

[00:16:26] Andrew Lapidus: [00:16:26] know, classic things.

[: 00:16:28

[00:16:44] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:16:44] this? You're seeing fractal patterns and good time, ancient geometry popping up in your, in your vision.

[: 00:16:51

[00:17:04] Andrew Lapidus: [00:17:04] like we got it cast about like an ego death you had on, on Shroom.

[: 00:17:09

[00:17:12] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:17:12] being the very end of a podcast, so no one will hear it. Yeah.

[: 00:17:15

[00:17:35] Yeah, yeah. Yeah. There was an anecdote about PN, which was funny, but then there was this it's like hidden in that you're like, yeah, you had to like, yeah. Like reentered Jeff, right? Yeah. In the most wholesome way possible. Right. It was as

[: 00:17:50

[00:17:52] Andrew Lapidus: [00:17:52] absolutely fucking wild

[: 00:17:54

[00:18:02] And, uh, I don't know for sure if this is accurate, but I would guess that that right. Okay. That kind of rebuilding process probably has something to do with the therapeutic effect that they're seeing now with like PTSD and that kind of thing, where like during memory, reconsolidation where you pull a memory out of long-term storage and have it available for your conscious viewing.

[: 00:18:25

[00:18:47] Like, if you have a memory of a traumatic event that is kind of like at the core leading you to pursue things like drugs or alcohol or bad relationships, maybe there's a type of therapy that could be developed where [00:19:00] you, you fix it if you're on the, these types of chemicals . Like you pull the pain out of the memory that you change the way it's encoded and change the memory itself to that.

[: 00:19:10

[00:19:14] Andrew Lapidus: [00:19:15] So the way that you're putting it, it's like when you have that re-entry experience, it's like you have the opportunity, which you wouldn't normally get of like rewriting that like core Jeff file, right? The boot, the boot file for Jeff Nesbitt, you can rewrite it and touch something that in a normal, you know, human personality is just sort of locked,

[: 00:19:38

[00:19:39] Yeah. It's already in place, but stuff becomes more plastic. Think about, well, I mean, I know that they're having,

[: 00:19:47

[00:20:06] In Portland, you know, from sensation, but the way that you put it, it just, well, obviously it's going to be more extreme than like, you know, me sitting on a chair, but, um, the way that you put it was like, Captivate it, but yeah, go ahead. I mean, I don't worry about him, so that was my sound sound absolutely wild.

[: 00:20:25

[00:20:25] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:20:25] ahead. Yeah. Oh, there's a bunch there. They're all over the place that are happening now all over. they're doing them with MTMA, which has had a lot of success with PTSD. But the thing that I find really interesting about the siliciden is that they, a lot of researchers think that it has neurogenic effects, like the ability to create new neurons, which is something that we didn't really even know as possible for years ago, when I was in college, they were still teaching that, , neuroplasticity and the changes occurring in the brain , like new construction of neurons and, creation of new [00:21:00] synopsis.

[: 00:21:00

[00:21:19] So once we figure out the easiest way to do something, we oftentimes don't see a need to change it. Why would you it's that's not an efficient strategy for adaptation.

[: 00:21:29

[00:21:41] You've got acid, which is I've, I've tried them on a very limited way. Right. Where people just can have wild, you know, psychedelic experiences. Right. But, but what you see about the psilocybin experience, right? That's the one where people in these experiments, they'll have a psilocybin trip.

[: 00:21:58

[00:22:19] Half of them psilocybin and the others were just in a control group. And like those 10 people that got psilocybin, like nine of them actually became ministers. You know, they had like an intense religious experience. So it seems like with psilocybin, you're getting these like really meaningful experiences.

[: 00:22:37

[00:22:57] But there was what, what is the experience of [00:23:00] shrooms that's leading to this other side? Like, what is it about the experience that's making people rate? It is like meaningful, you know? So I think

[: 00:23:08

[00:23:20] Just that alone has, has the power to shape your experience pretty profoundly. And, and that's with, or without drugs, like in, I know like it's very obvious, but people don't really think about that going into every experience of their entire lives, but you really shape what's going to happen by your expectations.

[: 00:23:40

[00:24:01]you're limiting the ability for your experience to be something that surprises you. And then you're kind of creating a situation where if that does happen, you're not pleased about it and it's, and it could spiral you. But if you go into it with an openness and a genuine curiosity about just exploring what could be possibly there, then I don't see how you can really fail.

[: 00:24:22

[00:24:39] I wouldn't say, or LSD, same thing. I wouldn't say that those experiences are exclusively, even different. I would say that it's, it's a lot, has a lot to do with the characteristics of the environment and the expectations because they don't, they do a pretty similar thing in the brain. There's I mean, there's a lot more going on in [00:25:00] mushrooms, just with all the other compounds and biologics.

[: 00:25:02

[00:25:14] Andrew Lapidus: [00:25:14] it true that these experiments are diff like people, people rate psilocybin experiences as being much more, you know, quote unquote meaningful?

[: 00:25:24

[00:25:26] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:25:26] true, but it could be with that. It could be true. Uh, but it could also just be the result of demand, characteristics of the experiments and people's, uh, it just like which experiments have been done. My personal belief is that you could probably produce equally profound mystical experiences with acid psilocybin, DMT, salvia, um, Iowasca, which is like another form of DMT and all of those, you know, administered under the right circumstances, by people who you can trust the trust is, is crucial.

[: 00:25:59

[00:26:15] You're also trying to figure out if, if this human who humans we know to be inherently selfish and, , not always that trustworthy. You're also having to try to make sure that they're not going to take advantage of you while you're in this vulnerable. But if you're in the right circumstances where you're, you can trust your environment, you can like fully just let go and just let what's going to happen.

[: 00:26:40

[00:26:46] Andrew Lapidus: [00:26:46] No. Can you see me? Oh, you can't? No, I'm not. I'm literally sitting here, like just thinking I was not even aware I was on the video. I'm just stuck in my teeth or whatever I would've made [00:27:00] to eating buggers. I know this sounds so fucking suspicious, but

[: 00:27:04

[00:27:08]We don't do it anymore. I heard they're a delicacy over

[: 00:27:12

[00:27:17] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:27:17] race theory as a culture. That's a big, big time buzzword right now. Fucking all over the place.

[: 00:27:23

[00:27:28] No more discussion will be had. Right. Because you got to pick your center. We're done now with that same thing happened with the phrase cancel culture, right? Yeah. Like it used to be a thing you could talk about now. It's like, if I talk about like, you know, yeah. I mean, now it's like just co-opted by the far, right.

[: 00:27:48

[00:27:59] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:27:59] All tribalism. [00:28:00] It's all just you versus me, us versus them. And after all we're only ordinary men. Pink Floyd.

[: 00:28:09

[00:28:13] Oh, hell yeah. Dawn about that. We had that in common.

[: 00:28:17

[00:28:35]Pissed and me and you kind of had a similar attitude about those kind of days. I don't remember you really getting pissed and I didn't really ever feel pissed. I just kind of like took things as a com. It was all miserable. So, um, I wasn't, I wasn't like more upset

[: 00:28:53

[00:28:56] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:28:56] go ahead.

[: 00:28:56

[00:29:10] And I put on some Paul McCartney and wings not expecting anybody to recognize it, or, I mean, wait that's band on the run, you know, the, the big ones that people would know, but, um, uncle Albert came on and I was just like, that's my jam. I love, leave a little

[: 00:29:30

[00:29:32] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:29:32] get your feet up off the ground, live a little, get around.

[: 00:29:36

[00:29:57] Yeah. What are you doing in music

[: 00:30:00

[00:30:21] And then it just kind of installed me working my way up to, um, you have to work in these small opera houses, full disclosure. I, in 2015 and 2016, I really wanted to study voice in via in Austria. And I worked my fucking ass off studying, taking lessons and doing theory tests. And I learned an absolute shitload in those two years.

[: 00:30:46

[00:30:54] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:30:54] yourself. When you had the chance, I should

[: 00:30:56

[00:31:01] I'd

[: 00:31:01

[00:31:05] Andrew Lapidus: [00:31:05] Boy, that's something to call back, but anyways, but, uh, but you know, so I learned a shitload there and that kind of, you know, I didn't get into these prestigious schools, but it did kind of open up a little door to, to be doing music.

[: 00:31:20

[00:31:24] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:31:24] what's your vocal range? Are you a tenor?

[: 00:31:27

[00:31:42] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:31:42] Oh, the Tomber it's

[: 00:31:44

[00:32:01] Those, those, those classifications are just for, you know, convenience sake. They don't really describe the multifaceted nature of the human voice as an instrument. I,

[: 00:32:12

[00:32:28] Andrew Lapidus: [00:32:28] whistle a hundred percent.

[: 00:32:30

[00:32:46] Like what is happening in the vocal tract to make P P sound, right? Yeah. And think about what what's, you know, a plus the only difference the, oh yeah. The only different. And then you learn like the relationship between a [00:33:00] co and a bow. The only difference is that the vocal folds are vibrating. Right. You learn like little relationships about those things.

[: 00:33:10

[00:33:31] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:33:31] That's our structures, our whole reality. How the language is basically the framework for how we understand the world around us. Yeah. And because, because we have these words that we can use to represent, meaning we can talk about abstract things that we wouldn't be able to even interact with.

[: 00:33:48

[00:33:57] Andrew Lapidus: [00:33:57] Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it kind of gets you [00:34:00] into this evolutionary chicken and chicken and the egg thing to think about where it comes from. Right.

[: 00:34:05

[00:34:24] Right. Oh yeah. You know, like it's wild, it's wild

[: 00:34:28

[00:34:45] Or maybe the, uh, those concepts that needed to be represented. Maybe they manifested themselves through humans as like the, the thoughts manifested the matter rather than the matter manifesting the thoughts.

[: 00:34:58

[00:35:08] Right. I dunno. I think, I don't know. I mean, it's so nobody does, you know. Yeah. I mean, have you, have you read the language instinct by Steven Pinker? No, I have like, it's in like the nineties. You must be a Pinker fan though. Right? I

[: 00:35:23

[00:35:47] And then Pinker's like, it's okay. Things are okay for us. But it's all just about perspective, I think. , but anyway, the language instinct.

[: 00:35:57

[00:36:08] Right. And the language instincts it's from like 94, like pretty old school, like, you know, before he was a kind of, uh, act, you know, intellectual celebrity as a yeah. But it's yeah. Which kind of makes, unfortunately, it makes it difficult to have real calm, you know, talk about it. People should

[: 00:36:27

[00:36:31] Andrew Lapidus: [00:36:31] Agreed. Yeah. That's now, now we're talking right. Just about the idea that like Wikipedia, Wikipedia, by the way, fucking cake, all this shit we're dealing with with the internet, like, fuck Facebook, fuck. It's like fucking, you know, Russian hackers, fucking fake news, all this shit, you know, vaccines. Yeah.

[: 00:36:54

[00:37:01] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:37:01] That everybody was using it, but

[: 00:37:03

[00:37:19] Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But that is all about talking what you're saying. Like, you know how revolutionary it was, the Chomsky would talk about like, you know, that there's a universal grammar and it's imprint implanted in our heads, right. That we have in the inborn capacity to learn language and then Pinker takes it further and say, this is actually, this is our, I mean, he does use the elephant trunk as the metaphor.

[: 00:37:43

[00:38:09] And, um, you know, also that allows us to have like crazy social networks that no other. You know, no other animal can have, so yeah. Super, super interesting. And vocal production goes all the way down. How has that been with you with the podcast? If you had vocal issues, have you had tired? No. Have you had to focus on?

[: 00:38:31

[00:38:49] Andrew Lapidus: [00:38:49] notice voice is a lot, like it's pretty analogous to sports actually.

[: 00:38:54

[00:39:15] Like they can fuck up and sing or say something incorrectly and it doesn't really make a difference. And there are people who have loud, heavy, fragile voices, right. Where they have to really pay attention to technique, make sure something's placed the right way. I think that's how I set it up for like what a single second it'll be fucked up.

[: 00:39:32

[00:39:54] They've had zero voice lessons and from the beginning of their career, to the end of it, they've been able to just [00:40:00] belt Wagner shit and smoke cigarettes for three, four hours at a time. Right. They don't really care about that. Know their voice for you. Yeah. Yeah, man. I mean, it's like, it just like in a certain level, it's like the Olympic yeah.

[: 00:40:13

[00:40:30] Right.

[: 00:40:31

[00:40:34]Andrew Lapidus: [00:40:34] He's the JK Rowling of, uh,

[: 00:40:38

[00:40:44] Andrew Lapidus: [00:40:44] Right. Exactly. But yeah, no, but so you, but you haven't, you haven't had like real struggles. No, I

[: 00:40:51

[00:41:05] Um, I also notice that it happens more if I've taken kratom. W you ever heard of cradle?

[: 00:41:12

[00:41:14] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:41:14] it's a plant. It's a legal, legal plant that people use. Uh, it's got like a opiate like effect, but, um, I started taking it. It could be K R a T O M crew, Tom cradle, whatever, it's nice. It's got a good, uh, like pain-relieving effect if I'm super sore or something, I'll take it. But I have noticed that when I've taken it, it, my voice will get kind of like hoarse and, and weird.

[: 00:41:43

[00:41:48]Andrew Lapidus: [00:41:48] Of course it has to be something. I mean, if it's affecting your, the, your muscles and the tension in your, um, that's probably what it is.

[: 00:41:56

[00:41:57] Andrew Lapidus: [00:41:57] muscles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, a [00:42:00] hundred percent.

[: 00:42:00

[00:42:21] Everything you do matters. Maybe you drink a shit load of pasta and then it fucks with you the next day. Or maybe you're one of the people that you drink a shitload and pasta, and you're fucking, you know, ready to go in the morning. Right. It's killing your own, your own piece, but what's your favorite kind of, you've got a good voice though.

[: 00:42:37

[00:42:53] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:42:53] it actually could be lower, but, I trained myself not to talk super loud because [00:43:00] I don't know.

[: 00:43:01

[00:43:18] It's like a pet peeve of mine. If I'm having a conversation with somebody in a room that's full of other people. And I can tell that they're talking loud enough for everyone to hear on purpose. , as if they're like some doing some kind of a performance, I'm going to just like, Hey, just talk to me. We're right here.

[: 00:43:33

[00:43:43] Andrew Lapidus: [00:43:43] and a lot of four is what you'd call it. Right. You have a lot of overtones. It's like a lot of high overtones in your voice, right?

[: 00:43:51

[00:43:57] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:43:57] been told me, um, our generations, Adam Levine.

[: 00:43:59

[00:44:01] Andrew Lapidus: [00:44:01] you don't understand what I'm talking about.

[: 00:44:03

[00:44:07] Andrew Lapidus: [00:44:07] Yeah, exactly. No, you're, I mean, you're like, it's like baritonal, but it's also quite high, right? It's you've got a lot of just like forwardness, a lot of formats and a lot of like paying into your voice.

[: 00:44:18

[00:44:25] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:44:25] voice on this end of things.

[: 00:44:28

[00:44:32] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:44:32] is, right? Oh, I don't even know if I could talk like that. It's

[: 00:44:35

[00:44:38] See, I can't really do, but

[: 00:44:44

[00:44:47] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:44:47] welcome to another exciting. Yeah. But

[: 00:44:50

[00:44:59] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:44:59] I always shoot for. [00:45:00] Yeah. And by the way, if you're playing an orchestra in the background, on my podcast, just stop it.

[: 00:45:05

[00:45:11]Andrew Lapidus: [00:45:11] Yeah. Yeah, of course. That sounds awesome. Yeah. It's pretty dope. But, uh, yeah, I mean, it's, um, it's something you learn, like anything, it's just a skill, right? Yeah. I mean, there's a, there's an artistic component, but in the end I feel like all artists in the end, the skill, right.

[: 00:45:27

[00:45:28] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:45:28] oh yeah, that's basically, I think that keeps not really understanding that keeps a lot of potential artists from pursuing any kind of endeavor because they think it's just inherent, like the skills are just bestowed upon good artists and that they're just born with it. But I don't think it's like that.

[: 00:45:44

[00:45:50]Andrew Lapidus: [00:45:50] Absolutely. Everybody has gifts, but I keep going back to the architect metaphor, right? like we all understand that an architect has to have crazy amount of [00:46:00] creativity.

[: 00:46:00

[00:46:17] Through right. It's subordinate to what are you actually trying to build? Right. Are you trying to build a really cool health club, but yeah, obviously you can be super creative there, but in the end it's also like limited to, um, to that. That's

[: 00:46:31

[00:46:37] Andrew Lapidus: [00:46:37] honestly, really great book.

[: 00:46:39

[00:47:00] The origin of creativity is paradoxically in limitation. I can buy it. Think about a chess board, right. If you've just got a fucking chest board with all the pieces there. Yeah. Okay. You've got endless creativity. I can pick up a pawn and fucking curl it at you.

[: 00:47:19

[00:47:42] If I just handed you a fucking pencil and a paper and like draw something, it's like, yeah. Okay. You've got ultimate creativity. Right. But if I said like, you know, I don't know, draw a self portrait. And you can [00:48:00] only make 10 lines. Okay. Weirdly you can feel intuitive. I mean, I feel it like intuitively like weirdly, now we're in a mode where we could see some real creativity.

[: 00:48:11

[00:48:12] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:48:12] to drive the juices, start flowing when you said that.

[: 00:48:15

[00:48:28] Right. But the idea is that is, is very real, right? However, our minds work, right. Maybe even know better than me, but once you set those little parameters for yourself, that's you got to give yourself an arena where creativity can really go. Right? Yeah. Everybody's had the feeling of being like, what do I do with my day?

[: 00:48:48

[00:48:57] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:48:57] You have motivation.

[: 00:48:58

[00:49:10] You know, you've got, you've got the opportunity for expression in a weird way. It makes zero. It makes on that level. It makes zero sense. But then once you think about it, it's like, yeah, that is. Creativity is, is like you have to have a problem to solve. Yeah. Yeah. We have something to

[: 00:49:25

[00:49:28] It's the problem solving instinct. And like that's where humans really shine at solving problems. And that's, I think the basis for not only creativity, but also like the way we structure our world is like, we're set up to try to solve problems and anticipate new problems. And that's what we do. And all the time that's where all the woke stuff's coming from is because we solved a lot of the health problems that were plaguing our society.

[: 00:49:53

[00:50:10] And it would be a lot more productive.

[: 00:50:14

[00:50:39] Is empty. Now, how much do you put stock into that? I mean, I

[: 00:50:43

[00:50:55] And I, I, that's why I struggle a lot with talking about the church as [00:51:00] a, as an entity unto itself, because the church is like, what is that a building? Is that mean? The group of people who occupies that specific building, is it mean every church does, what does that mean?

[: 00:51:13

[00:51:34] And a lot of people can do that. A lot of different ways. I, I. I think that that's what really matters. And when you get bogged down in like, who's right, who's wrong. And all the ways that this group is, is persecuting this other group and all that stuff. Cause that stuff's happening constantly. It won't ever, it won't, there will never be a human institution that is absent of those things.

[: 00:51:55

[00:52:11]Andrew Lapidus: [00:52:11] Sounds like you have a really. Healthy kind of individualist way of thinking about spirituality. Yes. And I just wonder, so I really feel like you've got a really healthy perspective on it, but let me, let me put it this way.

[: 00:52:25

[00:52:44] Right. So I was a young man who really got

[: 00:52:47

[00:52:51] Andrew Lapidus: [00:52:51] bill Maher. I go back and forth on that guy.

[: 00:52:54

[00:52:59] Andrew Lapidus: [00:52:59] him. It's [00:53:00] that? He's so unlikable, but he still doesn't really care. Right? Yeah. Somehow that keeps bringing me back.

[: 00:53:05

[00:53:20] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:53:20] And also he's really smart.

[: 00:53:22

[00:53:32] Andrew Lapidus: [00:53:32] Exactly. So this is like, I kind of grew up in my teen years, like, you know, putting my, , what is it thumb to the nose or some in the asshole of, but probably both.

[: 00:53:41

[00:53:46] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:53:46] bay. Yeah. You were right in there with the main stream, mocking us Jesus freaks.

[: 00:53:52

[00:53:57] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:53:57] Yeah. I, in the pits of hell [00:54:00] fire for all of eternity, but I forgive

[: 00:54:01

[00:54:22] I just wonder how much your perspective that you outline there. I wish that would sink in more. Right? Like I feel like it's done a lot for me to think about, like you're saying be a good person and you know, try to, you know, that sounds so vague when I say it that way, but yeah, you got to define it.

[: 00:54:44

[00:54:56] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:54:56] Right? You didn't have people with smartphones, Googling him, [00:55:00] ask it, like fact checking him as he goes.

[: 00:55:03

[00:55:22] We used to have 10. Right. And I think there's a longing for that on both sides. You've got people going to Jordan Peterson and he got people on the other hand go into, um, you know, Tran trans women are women, right. With the, with the emoji club, with the collapse.

[: 00:55:38

[00:55:40] They're all probably good people on some level. And they could probably get along 2%

[: 00:55:47

[00:55:54] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:55:54] People all want the same things. They just don't know how to make it all work to where we can all have them.

[: 00:56:00

[00:56:20] I don't see a monster, even if they're saying monstrous things, right.

[: 00:56:24

[00:56:42] I just feel bad for the predator. Right? Yeah. Now how dare you? I'm just telling, well, okay. Yeah. I mean, obviously this guy's fucking and doing immeasurable harm to children, obviously. I'm just going to go out on a limb and be anti pedophilia, right? Yeah. We

[: 00:56:57

[00:57:00] Andrew Lapidus: [00:57:00] Yeah. That's I know that's a policy, but no, you gotta think of, yeah.

[: 00:57:05

[00:57:10] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:57:10] No, well, now we got pedophiles in the mix. It's hard. Right. We just suddenly

[: 00:57:14

[00:57:41] Horrified at the inhumanity of the system. Right. It's horrifying. And then on the other hand, you know, you can't listen to a story of, um, you know, a bugging economically disenfranchised Trump voter. Who's had who's addicted to opiates. Is that everything taken from him [00:58:00] and sits there and says outrageous shit about, um, you know, the lib tardes and, you know, uh, I mean, yeah, it's hard to deny and those weren't equivalent examples.

[: 00:58:13

[00:58:17]Jeff Nesbitt: [00:58:17] correct me if I'm wrong, but you're basically, just saying, we all need to. Stop being so hard on Jeffrey Epstein.

[: 00:58:24

[00:58:29] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:58:29] we can't go too far on that one.

[: 00:58:31

[00:58:35] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:58:35] that you've seen that. I know what you mean though. And it, like, everyone's just a person and there are some pretty fucked up people out there. But, , if we all just acknowledge that we're all kind of fucked up and just try to meet in the middle somewhere, it's going to be easier than if we all pick teams and then battle, right?

[: 00:58:50

[00:58:53]Andrew Lapidus: [00:58:53] Right. And making teams out of it makes nobody smarter. And this is a, this is a, a point made, I'm not the first person to [00:59:00] make it, but we live in a society where, you know, we liberals, we, we believe that a murderer can be rehabilitated, right?

[: 00:59:08

[00:59:35] That going

[: 00:59:36

[00:59:41] Andrew Lapidus: [00:59:41] Yeah. I'm not going to go that far. I'm going to grab a third beer. And as we know, the third beer is decisive, right? It is.

[: 00:59:50

[00:59:53] Good. Jeff 4-beer. Jeff is just a nightmare. Five beer. Jeff is getting kind of sleepy six beer. Jeff is in [01:00:00] bed.

[: 01:00:00

[01:00:03] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:00:03] yeah, go ahead. I'm actually going to, I'm going to do the same. So I'm going to pause, pause the recording

[: 01:00:08

[01:00:10] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:00:10] Wait, you're going to, you're going to film me.

[: 01:00:12

[01:00:19] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:00:19] See you soon resume.

[: 01:00:20

[01:00:25] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:00:25] I think so, too. I would like to get a little bit more details about you.

[: 01:00:29

[01:00:36]Andrew Lapidus: [01:00:36] Well, I'm actually not teaching anymore. I work for a software company here in Vienna now in communications. Right. Just working in several languages. , and I actually got started teaching just in the south, just kind of on a whim because I, I studied languages because I just knew I wanted to, I wanted to have some [01:01:00] adventures and when I was a kid, I always thought it was just cool when people could speak a lot of languages and I really didn't have any more thought.

[: 01:01:07

[01:01:14] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:01:14] Yeah. Yeah. And it's probably a lot more common in other countries, huh?

[: 01:01:19

[01:01:24] That's that puts you

[: 01:01:27

[01:01:30] Andrew Lapidus: [01:01:30] Yeah, exactly. Um, bronc or, oh my God. Yeah. If my workout, we were kind of had like a, a work party and there was this Irish girl and I was just like, I was probably four beers in and she just says to me, like, I love your accent. You sound just like Macklemore. You is great.

[: 01:01:50

[01:01:51] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:01:51] for that. Do you remember when he came and played at Western while we were there?

[: 01:01:55

[01:01:59] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:01:59] fair Haven.

[: 01:02:00

[01:02:09] That's the face of it at this point, that song is basically a right wing Anthem. Right. That just feels so long ago. A little

[: 01:02:17

[01:02:21] Andrew Lapidus: [01:02:21] No, I don't mean that it's problematic. It's just like, remember when it was a statement to like come out for, for gay marriage.

[: 01:02:28

[01:02:29] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:02:29] Even though like the whole time, he's like, oh yeah, it's so okay. To be gay, but just so you know, I'm not gay,

[: 01:02:35

[01:02:46] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:02:46] Yeah. How long did you teach in Austria?

[: 01:02:48

[01:02:49] Andrew Lapidus: [01:02:49] So I taught from 2013, right after graduation until 20 15, 16. Right. Until [01:03:00] that period. And I worked briefly for like a foundation, like an Austrian American foundation. And it was really in the countryside man. I was really, I was really on like the foot of the Alps, like one of these towns, it's just basically a train station and then everything up there.

[: 01:03:16

[01:03:40] Um, And so I really thought like, fuck, I don't know if this is it, but just rolled the dice right. One year. Fuck it. You can do anything for

[: 01:03:49

[01:03:56] Andrew Lapidus: [01:03:56] Yeah. I mean, w my other option is I like [01:04:00] become a teacher in a Polk school and do that in 40 years.

[: 01:04:03

[01:04:21] Right.

[: 01:04:22

[01:04:30] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:04:30] oh yeah. Corinthians were from Korea.

[: 01:04:32

[01:04:53] Right. It's sort of this vibe and Corinthia , it's got that independent streak just like checks a spot. The Mexicans. [01:05:00] I hope so. I can't believe I just said that without checking it, but I think so Alamo, right. That's kind of, they used to be their own, right?

[: 01:05:07

[01:05:07] Andrew Lapidus: [01:05:07] the south of Austria also kind of has this border mentality where they're overly proud of being Austrian and just like build the wall type shit. Yeah. Just to give you a point of contact. So like the percentage of people in Austria in Germany that became like access guards is two or three times higher in Corinthia than it is in any other state.

[: 01:05:31

[01:05:56] Is the kind of like open friendliness that you're just [01:06:00] not used to, if you're from a city, right? Yeah. And being who I was. And so that's the three points in the fourth point that really sealed the deal is that I've always loved folk music. That was kinda my thing. And , in Corinthia, there was a tradition where there folk music, meaning the, meaning, the music that just came from the people that was what they were singing when they were working is acapella three or four or five part, is it used to be, , songs, right?

[: 01:06:28

[01:06:46] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:06:46] Using instruments.

[: 01:06:48

[01:07:11] You know, that it's unbelievable. Right. So that was then the fourth thing that just sealed the deal and being interested in that being an American where there's no Americans down there and being also into learning the language and the dialect, it just immediately kind of, it was like a little bit of a sealed the deal.

[: 01:07:30

[01:07:39] I mean, it was like it, yeah. I mean, it is like falling in love. Right.

[: 01:07:44

[01:07:47] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:07:47] all. I feel like a new version of yourself, a hundred percent. Yeah. Being in a whole new

[: 01:07:52

[01:08:05] I don't know how I can even say this because there's no way you can understand. Right. And I think friends are just like fucking whatever, you know, like, just like you might talk, like someone's got a new girlfriend and you're just like, uh, you guys just don't get it, bro. Yeah. So it was a lot of like that, but still to this day, I mean, those were incredible, incredible times.

[: 01:08:25

[01:08:29] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:08:29] same thing. I remember hearing about that. You did do a little bit of rowing up there. Do you ever have the urge to row anymore?

[: 01:08:36

[01:08:41] I remember you talked about that in one of the podcasts and I, I, I wanted to tell you, like, all you have to do, if you get the urge to row is to just row once. Right.

[: 01:08:51

[01:08:58]Andrew Lapidus: [01:08:58] at [01:09:00] Windemere, right?

[: 01:09:01

[01:09:24] Unless it falls in my lap. I might never do it again. Yeah.

[: 01:09:28

[01:09:52] You've touched God. I have. Right. I have both of those practices and memory. [01:10:00] Right. There's the one where like, nothing you do works. It's fucking shithole. The Coxon sucks ass and the boat just won't move.

[: 01:10:09

[01:10:27] Right. You're just hanging. Like, there's nothing it's so easy to do. You can't even believe you ever had a problem with it.

[: 01:10:33

[01:10:48] And we were doing that drill where the eights had the, the JV eights, the JV eight person boats had to race us. And we were in this old slow four person boat was, [01:11:00] should be way slower. And they, uh, we were just kicking ass and we, they could not catch us. And then we were doing this drill where we had to do a really long ratio, so like a, a super long recovery and then one big stroke and then a long wait and then one big stroke.

[: 01:11:17

[01:11:32] I felt like we could just go infinitely faster. And, , that happens so rare that it's like, that is so seared in my memory because I don't know if I ever felt like that during a race, maybe one, I think actually the, the one race, um, in Vancouver, my last year in the, for the varsity four, where I felt like it connected like that.

[: 01:11:51

[01:12:04]Andrew Lapidus: [01:12:04] . I mean, I've had some more experience with growing, also coaching and racing in Austria. Um, yeah, I do think just like on a, on a purse like this, maybe on a more specific to us level, I think we had a problem with racing at Western.

[: 01:12:18

[01:12:23] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:12:23] What do you think it was? Cause I have a theory on that too.

[: 01:12:26

[01:12:40] Like we remember there'll be things it's like, all right. Our race cadence is 30 now, but we just know it's going to be 36 in the race. Right. And then it's just this vibe that like in the race, everything comes on blued. And we got this, we just had this, we had this like general air that the races just had, like the Cox and had to be [01:13:00] fucking losing, losing his or her voice.

[: 01:13:02

[01:13:10] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:13:10] cortisol Ark. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. Exactly

[: 01:13:13

[01:13:21] Right. I want someone to hold me to my plan because there's no chance. And this is also, I hate being yelled at doing workouts because there's no chance I'm not going to exhaust myself. Like why fucking yell at me. You're not going to pull anything out of me that I can't do. I know, I know for a shorten, Matt rider are R rolling colleague would disagree with that.

[: 01:13:40

[01:13:51] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:13:51] I I've had the same thought over the years since leaving Cru. Um, cause I coached a little bit too, right after I was done as an athlete.

[: 01:13:58

[01:14:27] I don't think that we had that issue. And I think it was like you said, it was the other direction where we were so wound up and so tense and then it just like, it's like, if you take a, um, well, it's like, what's something. I don't know if you're, uh, if you're trying to wind a spool of wire, that's really, really stiff wire and it really wants to be straight.

[: 01:14:48

[01:15:11] And that was really hard for me to do. And I would him, or like half pressure, half pressure. I would within five strokes. If we're rowing at half pressure, within five strokes, I'm going full pressure again. And it was just because my brain is just like going, I want it to pull as hard as possible. And I thought that was the goal.

[: 01:15:28

[01:15:47] Not just, you know, I just didn't fully get it, but yeah, I think that we could have been better if we would have had our emotions a little bit more on guard.

[: 01:15:56

[01:16:06] Right. I want to go hard. Like yeah, you, yeah. You just want to fucking go hard. Right. And the truth of it is that is a great thing. I heard like a two Jitsu coach say if you're going as hard as you can every day, then you're not going as hard as you can. Right. Ooh. Cause that's impossible.

[: 01:16:24

[01:16:49] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:16:49] It's like the concept of 110%, uh, people are always saying, oh yeah, you got to give 110%.

[: 01:16:54

[01:17:13] And like half the boat would be able to, it would just, it wasn't, we weren't cohesive. We weren't a cohesive unit in that. And Vista

[: 01:17:21

[01:17:37] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:17:37] Yeah. It made me feel like crying when I felt like that.

[: 01:17:41

[01:17:49] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:17:49] Yeah. I never ever felt that way.

[: 01:17:51

[01:17:52] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:17:52] I never ever felt power at the halfway point. I felt

[: 01:17:56

[01:17:59] I've seen. I

[: 01:17:59

[01:18:09]Andrew Lapidus: [01:18:09] So when I was coaching high schoolers. Right. And, um, I even, coxed a couple of I Cox to, and it was a four, it was a 40 minute.

[: 01:18:18

[01:18:35] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:18:35] That's funny. I thought you were going to go the other way with that.

[: 01:18:37

[01:19:01] And two, we're going to lengthen that. Now get every length out in that voice. Why fucking scream. It would say one, two, a little more length. Yeah. That's it.

[: 01:19:11

[01:19:14]Andrew Lapidus: [01:19:14] at Western? Yeah.

[: 01:19:17

[01:19:20]Andrew Lapidus: [01:19:20] No,

[: 01:19:27

[01:19:45] I don't know. Um, yeah, it's hard to, to talk about this without talking shit on, on Cox ins. Uh, but that's the last thing. Yeah.

[: 01:19:54

[01:19:58]Jeff Nesbitt: [01:19:58] He's just a figment of [01:20:00] our imagination.

[: 01:20:01

[01:20:05] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:20:05] Yeah. Shout out Ken hope. You're doing good, buddy. Wherever you are in the world.

[: 01:20:09

[01:20:18] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:20:18] Do you think it shaped you as a person?

[: 01:20:20

[01:20:30] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:20:30] and all the hours in fear, , knowing you are about to have to go to a, do a practice and just a couple hours. Oh my God. The amount of anxiety I would go through on during spring break, when we were doing daily doubles in the hours between the first practice and the second practice you get enough time to shower, , put on dry clothes, eat some food, sit down, exhausted for like 20 minutes and then you get up and go do it all again.

[: 01:20:53

[01:20:54] Andrew Lapidus: [01:20:54] that kind of exhaustion where you feel like physical symptoms.

[: 01:20:58

[01:21:01] Andrew Lapidus: [01:21:01] dude. I had a spring break. I don't know when it was the junior year. Cause we were in that house. But, um, it was a time period when I didn't drink coffee. Right. I didn't

[: 01:21:13

[01:21:14] You weren't doing caffeine.

[: 01:21:16

[01:21:35] Like I look back on that and just being, um, absolute hell, like physically and mentally hellish, right? Like, , absolutely terrible. In every my mental health suffered my physical health suffered from it. And I didn't feel like I was getting to be a better rower. So I think back on moments like that and that those are the moments where I'm like, yo man, I, why did we do that?

[: 01:21:58

[01:22:04]Jeff Nesbitt: [01:22:04] I mean, a lot of my friends were either rowers or I didn't talk to them anymore. Uh, that during those years that's the, you guys were all, I all, I saw you, you were the only people I would really talk.

[: 01:22:15

[01:22:20] Andrew Lapidus: [01:22:20] yeah. Do you remember? Um, we took the history class together.

[: 01:22:23

[01:22:26] Andrew Lapidus: [01:22:26] 20th 30th, wasn't it?

[: 01:22:28

[01:22:29] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:22:29] American history

[: 01:22:30

[01:22:47] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:22:47] in that. Yeah. Yeah. I, I don't even remember what color her hair was, but I actually, I don't remember even what ethnicity she was, but I remember that, well, she had, like, she had my Randy's and good-looking she had a very, like,

[: 01:22:58

[01:23:04] Oh. And now it was just like, sort of like, um, a rather, glowing red reddish, like she had pale skin, but it was somewhat red from previous inflammation or rosacea possible could, yes, it could have been rosacea, but it had that vibe, you know, it's like, when somebody, maybe this is me, but you know, that vibe when someone you're into has like a little, a little defects that makes it even more right. Wabi-sabi wabi-sabi, what's that

[: 01:23:32

[01:23:41] Andrew Lapidus: [01:23:41] oh my God, I'm going to write that down. Yeah.

[: 01:23:44

[01:23:45] Yeah. Like a, a little, I dunno, I dunno, like think of a hand-carved spoon. This one's going to be a little different. It's going to have a little wabi-sabi to it.

[: 01:23:55

[01:24:04] It's not like, it's this in some airbrush model. This is like 40 year old. She's got her doctorate in history. Yeah. You know, you see a little bit of the imperfection you imagine like, oh, she's in this stage, like, does she have a family cat? Is she concerned about that? You know, I, she thinking about the biological clock or is she going like, you know, uh,

[: 01:24:25

[01:24:26] Andrew Lapidus: [01:24:26] family.

[: 01:24:27

[01:24:41] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:24:41] Yeah. I, I kind of always in that class felt like it like me and you were, uh, honestly it felt like we were on a podcast and everyone else was just like listening to us riff.

[: 01:24:52

[01:24:55] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:24:55] We did. We answered. Like the, it, we were in that class with a [01:25:00] bunch of young, it was younger people in the class. And, um, it seemed like no one else was really that excited to be there. I think that was the, one of the first classes I ever had where I had a friend in there so I was like excited to go every time. And I was, yeah. I feel like I remember being a very on for

[: 01:25:18

[01:25:27] Cause there's that famous. There's that scene in the end where the guy at

[: 01:25:31

[01:25:32] Andrew Lapidus: [01:25:32] sucks, the titty of, well, breastfeeds, slack sucks. The TIHDI it's more of a breastfeed. It's not as hungry. That's why she did it, but it's much more like she, yeah. I mean, she's there waiting. It's not like, it's not like you use, you know, um, also the I too, you know, he's, he's dying.

[: 01:25:48

[01:25:49] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:25:49] either way I was fully erect. Right.

[: 01:25:55

[01:26:10] Andrew Lapidus: [01:26:10] Yeah. Oh, God damn.

[: 01:26:13

[01:26:24] It was like it, when you're older, you gotta read this book. And then, so I read it in high school. Wasn't crazy about it. Then read it again then in college. And I liked it a lot better at that time. It made sense with some historical context.

[: 01:26:38

[01:26:42]

[: 01:26:42

[01:26:50] Andrew Lapidus: [01:26:50] Just do shit that high school, like, come on, man. Do shit that high schoolers want to do. Like yeah. You know what I'm, you know what I mean? Like you had to read night, [01:27:00] literally we had to read 1984 and when I was an eighth grader and you know, you were joking about being fully erect there.

[: 01:27:08

[01:27:24] Right. And I'm being serious. Like the only thing I remember about next 94 was the sex scene and being like an eighth grader reading that I can

[: 01:27:35

[01:27:37] Andrew Lapidus: [01:27:37] a wall. I fucking remember that too. Okay. Yeah. I'm with horrible. My point is, is that if you, you know, if you read the book, that's literally, it's the least around the sex scene.

[: 01:27:48

[01:28:07] But yeah, it just goes to show that like this fucking eighth grade, you have no business reading that. Right?

[: 01:28:13

[01:28:26] Yeah. All the stuff that makes that book relevant.

[: 01:28:28

[01:28:38] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:28:38] people actually do, I'd make that joke because so many people brag about not reading. Um, but I think people actually do audio books,

[: 01:28:47

[01:28:47] Yeah. I don't have any like yeah. Well, audio books are great. Fuck. Yeah. That's a great thing. I love listening I mean, this is the era of era of podcasts, but yeah, fucking why give your kids that shit? I [01:29:00] remember just really loving reading and hating the books that we had.

[: 01:29:03

[01:29:10] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:29:10] the Scarlet letter,

[: 01:29:13

[01:29:23] Okay. Romeo it's like certain things, certain things are cultural touchstones that you just have to know about if you're going to be. I get that. Yeah. But also like why like, like why not give, gimme Lord of the flies instead of 1984. Right. I got Lord of the flats challenging. You've got that in high school.

[: 01:29:43

[01:29:47] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:29:47] I fucking loved it. I was obsessed. I felt I related very strongly to piggy. Which, yeah, neither here nor there. We won't dissect that, but , I loved the

[: 01:29:58

[01:30:03] Yeah. I have a memory with you where I felt really ashamed. Can I give you this anecdote? I had an incident where in high school and I was kind of a fuck up in high school. Like didn't have a lot of friends, but it was just kind of like a little bit of a class clown or, and um, I was always really involved in the sports things.

[: 01:30:25

[01:30:47]. Columbia river's at Skyview. And, um, I was in the front like shit painted and everything. And a kid on the other team started taking free throws and he was a somewhat [01:31:00] Broten dude. Right. Okay. And I started a cheer of jelly donut. Right. And the entire fan section of our school started doing it too.

[: 01:31:17

[01:31:43] Like you said, that is not a story you should be proud of. That's pretty fucked up. And that was it. That was it. And it was silent. All right. I just, sorry, man. No, it's totally okay.

[: 01:31:57

[01:32:02]Andrew Lapidus: [01:32:02] No, well, no, but it's totally, I mean, it's stuck in my head because you know, I immediately knew and everybody else knew that was laughing at the story.

[: 01:32:12

[01:32:18] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:32:18] My brain works like that. I find that stuff very easily. It's like a. I like making fun of people. I like hurting people's feelings and that, and I realized when I was about 16 years old, that I I'm better at this than most people, so I should probably not do it,

[: 01:32:34

[01:32:45] Andrew Lapidus: [01:32:45] it's a real like moment for you. Like this was a conscious decision at 16.

[: 01:32:49

[01:32:52] I wrote a letter to my ex-girlfriend and I, uh, after we had broke up and it was really mean, and I said [01:33:00] stuff that I would never have said in person, I said, shit about her dad leaving her. And, uh, this, I remember a few things in this letter of being just like maliciously mean for no reason, just evil it was a weapon.

[: 01:33:14

[01:33:31] Sent to me, and it would have been crushing and, and I, and I was a super sensitive kid. So people had like one time, this guy, I was walking down the hallway at school and , my sister was walking in the other direction and I was in seventh grade and she was in high school and she's like, oh my gosh, Hey Jeffrey.

[: 01:33:49

[01:34:08] And so this is, this is not a, it wasn't a huge deal. This kind of stuff happens daily. And so something that would just set me off and I, but I'm going out of my way to try to find the most hurtful things and using them against other humans. So I was like, nah, I'm not going to be that guy anymore. So, so now I just.

[: 01:34:26

[01:34:39] Andrew Lapidus: [01:34:39] dude. No, I mean, it was, it was not even, at least in my memory, it's not excessive at all.

[: 01:34:45

[01:34:57] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:34:57] yeah. Oblivious probably like you probably [01:35:00] have no concept of the actual hurt

[: 01:35:02

[01:35:09] Right? Yeah. There's creatively making these insults. Right. So yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, but it also was just sort of it's in my mind today in my head today, because things like that stick in your head when you realize like there's something going down, right? Yeah.

[: 01:35:26

[01:35:27] Andrew Lapidus: [01:35:27] I mean,

[: 01:35:27

[01:35:30] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:35:30] I remember that. Much of an impact it had when, uh, like the whole rowing group was privy to a story and like, or a joke that didn't land or any, anything really like, it was very impactful.

[: 01:35:42

[01:35:57] I didn't know. Everybody is still very [01:36:00] well and like, um, yeah, I was just super nervous and one of the guys who was like a grown man, , who was on the team with us. I, I want to say it was Nick, but it could've very well been Andy, but are those students at

[: 01:36:14

[01:36:16] Yeah.

[: 01:36:17

[01:36:40] Have you still not been able to take a shit and. Like they didn't give all the information. So I got to now explain to the party , what he's talking about of like, why there's no more room left in my body, essentially. I'm going to explode if I have another bite. Cause I, you know, it's just not coming out.

[: 01:36:58

[01:37:03] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:37:03] is what I said. I was like, actually, to be honest, I have not shit. And I'm in a great deal of pain right now. Uh, thanks for bringing it up. We had to wake up so early to go to the races. So everyone was like going to get up at five.

[: 01:37:15

[01:37:38] And that life life-threatening.

[: 01:37:40

[01:37:45] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:37:45] I mean, you could, you could probably put the pieces together. Eventually came out of the Darcy bloat after AF and I hot seated that very first race. I went straight from God.

[: 01:37:57

[01:37:58] Didn't you for your first [01:38:00] regatta? Like race four times is that

[: 01:38:02

[01:38:27] Not good. Like, uh, barely keeping my shit together. I was terrified. My body thought I was gonna get killed or something because my, I was like cold sweating. I kept thinking I was not able to breathe. And it's just like the amount of fear and anxiety that came just from getting ready to do a 2000 meter race was so huge that my body reacted to it.

[: 01:38:48

[01:38:53] Andrew Lapidus: [01:38:53] let's do remember that. I remember you telling us that afterwards that like you were really having a hard time, you wanted to [01:39:00] cry afterwards.

[: 01:39:00

[01:39:05] I'm just like, this hurts so bad. And I don't know how to pace myself. , and then I went, I went home and shit and felt great

[: 01:39:13

[01:39:14] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:39:14] broke? Yeah. After, after the whole event, I went home home to my actual home and you know, I had tried a bunch of stuff like a couple of days before that I had even given myself an enema, no luck, no luck.

[: 01:39:28

[01:39:32] Andrew Lapidus: [01:39:32] terrible. Some projects with demand and returning to home base. It's just no way around it. That's right. But yeah, but you, you, you store a lot of you store a lot of anxiety. You pack that down, don't you?

[: 01:39:45

[01:39:47] Andrew Lapidus: [01:39:47] I have always, I mean, I think I've always known that about you a little bit.

[: 01:39:50

[01:39:56]Jeff Nesbitt: [01:39:56] Yeah. And sometimes it comes out when I'm not expecting it. I [01:40:00] was wrestling with my daughter and. She's three. So it's, it's really fun. I enjoy it. And we were both laughing.

[: 01:40:08

[01:40:29] It has been from the beginning since he started posting pictures, it's just like, oh my God. Unbelievable. Adorable. Okay. Had to interrupt.

[: 01:40:37

[01:40:56] And the words that came out of my mouth were all right, say [01:41:00] mercy. And, when I said that I got just this overwhelming wave of grief of like sadness and fear. And, it like kinda caught me off guard and I wasn't exactly sure why it came up. And then, , I had to like stop playing and just step aside for a second, think about it.

[: 01:41:22

[01:41:34] Every time I started trying to say it, I just started crying . We don't really know what's stored and what's connected to memories and feelings and all that stuff. It's so complicated in there that like, uh, yeah, you just never know, but yeah, I think that you're right.

[: 01:41:48

[01:42:07] It Actually, this was on father's day too, so that could have added to it. Now I feel great. I feel fine.

[: 01:42:12

[01:42:16] Andrew Lapidus: [01:42:16] and just running below everything else that you're thinking about dads. And yeah,

[: 01:42:21

[01:42:30] That's driving this entire system. That's whatever building this is. The, the effects of this boiler room can be felt throughout the entire house. But, you know, it's, it's put in its own little room and then they closed the door and it's, it gets a lot quieter. And then if you build a wall over that door and close it all off, now, you can't even access the boiler room and it's even more quiet, but you can still hear it.

[: 01:42:52

[01:43:09] It's it's weird.

[: 01:43:10

[01:43:30] Yeah. But you also kind of had, yeah, they were, they were much older and much more aware of the world.

[: 01:43:38

[01:43:41]Andrew Lapidus: [01:43:41] Yeah. But I think even for the rest of us, I mean, I think that, well, at least from my perspective, I think you had a latent vibe of having seen something or experienced things that I was aware that I didn't, I didn't know.

[: 01:43:54

[01:44:08] I remember that's in my head as a, as something you're talking about, but I remember. Yeah. I just think that that's part of my Jeff map is that you're carrying, you're carrying something. And I had an awareness that there's a kind of weight that, that I don't, that I don't understand. Right. I'm not even sure that I always do.

[: 01:44:31

[01:44:46] Just the way you say it seems like so accurate, and feel it an ambient noise. Like a boiler room going, like you're saying, you're not aware of it consciously, but if you [01:45:00] still hear it right. And you have this and you have to talk louder when it's going.

[: 01:45:04

[01:45:11] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:45:11] like, you don't hear your refrigerator until you unplug it. And then you're like, oh shit. That's what quiet. Sounds like weird.

[: 01:45:18

[01:45:27] There was a vibe where you were like looking for that kind of stability and just seeing like, you're, you're just saying, you know, what you're posting and what you're doing with the podcast and hearing about you and your family. I mean, it just sounds like, you know, I know I'm sure having, you know, having a family and having children is just another level of stress responsibility.

[: 01:45:48

[01:46:15] I mean, it just, it sounds, it just looks I'm happy for it,

[: 01:46:19

[01:46:34] But I think what I was doing in those years that I have kind of stopped doing is just trying to cover it up. I would, I just try to numb myself to it by like just going full bore into growing or. Just focusing so much on my education or by taking drugs, like there's lots of different ways to distract yourself from that boiler room noise.

[: 01:46:56

[01:47:13] Now. I just want to confirm things as they come up and I want to live an honest, true, genuine existence.

[: 01:47:18

[01:47:21]Jeff Nesbitt: [01:47:21] Well, man, I'm not even sure how long we've recorded, it's been awhile. but, this has been great. We should do another one at that.

[: 01:47:28

[01:47:28] Almost three hours, but We really even barely scratched the surface of it.

[: 01:47:31

[01:47:46] Andrew Lapidus: [01:47:46] he was born here and he, he went into exile, you know, he was a Jew that's right.

[: 01:47:51

[01:48:09] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:48:09] right. But yeah, there's not that many famous VNS, um, Freud and Hitler.

[: 01:48:17

[01:48:22]Jeff Nesbitt: [01:48:22] Arnold Schwartzenegger

[: 01:48:23

[01:48:37] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:48:37] you know, he's a, he's a

[: 01:48:38

[01:48:42] If you're, if you're doing anything, you can't get around Freud. Right. Even in this discussion, we couldn't get away from Freud. Yeah.

[: 01:48:49

[01:49:10] Andrew Lapidus: [01:49:10] Yeah. And I also think the problem with Freud is that it's so internalized, like, like literally we can't talk, we can't have this discussion without touching on Freudian concepts. Right. Like, I guess it's so internalized that we don't even realize that's priority. And like, we're just sitting here talking about like unconscious energy, you know, like we just talk about like, yeah, it was just kind of antsy or whatever we, we can talk about, you know?

[: 01:49:35

[01:49:55] Anyway. You're right. It's a whole nother, it's a whole nother can of worms. Yeah. [01:50:00] It's

[: 01:50:00

[01:50:13] Terrible, but it was worth the money.

[: 01:50:15

[01:50:16]I'll let you get back to your life. Thank you so much for joining me on the ramble. It has been really fun and let's do it again sometime.

[: 01:50:23

[01:50:27] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:50:27] Give your sign off and then we'll get out of here. You prepare to sign off, right?

[: 01:50:33

[01:50:40]Jeff Nesbitt: [01:50:40] Beautiful. All right. Thanks everybody. Talk to you next time. Bye. Andrew chicken. Keep fucking

[: 01:50:49