Episode 43
Licking Flames and Liking the Burn with Diana Kirk
Diana Kirk is an impressive woman. She owns the number one bar in Astoria, Oregon, she is a wife and mother of three, and she is working on her second book, all the while, still doing her best to be there for family dinner each night. She took a break from her back-breaking workload to hang out in the crab-shed with me for two hours and it was awesome.
Diana has alternative and controversial views about many things, including business management, homelessness, parenting and education. But somehow even when her views stand in stark contrast to public opinion, her good intentions shine through and it is obvious that she genuinely cares about the people around her. We talked about her involvement in the local community, her role at Workers Tavern, her parenting style, homeschooling her three boys, and the long road that led her to become a published author. We get a clear picture of the struggles, both internal and external, that come along with creative pursuits, and she provides valuable insight on how to handle critics and hate. I learned a lot from just listening.
This podcast is full of laughter, insight, and genuine connection. It really shines a light on what it takes to create something out of thin air and then to sell it to mass audience. Hearing her story helped me come to terms with my own creative process. We also talked about business ownership, responsibilities as a boss, and how to handle drug addicts when they are out of control. She provides some critical perspective on the new drug laws in Oregon which have removed criminal penalties for drug possession, leaving business owners and private citizens without anyone to call when addicts are too much to handle. It was a perspective that I, admittedly had not considered before and it really got me thinking.
I love this episode. It is one of my new favorites. It felt so genuine and real and it just really stuck with me after it was all over. I hope you all enjoy it too.
Thanks for listening,
Jeff
Topics/Keywords:
writing; writers; owning a bar; Homelessness; drugs; new drug laws; drug legalization; decriminalization; drug possession; mental health; mental health crisis; heatwave; Climate Change; drought; youth sports; swimming; baseball; Covid-19; raising boys; masculinity; antique trains; Oregon Institute of Technology; Astoria Film Museum; Flavel House; homeschooling; home education; hearing-impairment; high school; online education; extroverts; religious organizations; taxes; IRS; community service; charity; morality; Detroit; five-paragraph essay; anti conformity; Licking Flames; publishing; flipping houses; real-estate; Thailand; Creativity; cross-country travel; Jane Kirkpatrick; Anxiety; Stress; coping strategies; work/life balance; family; family dinner; raising teens; Social Psychology; body language; leadership; management; 7 Habits of Highly Effective People; motivation; Vice.com; Worker's Tavern; social media; parenting; cultural relativism; racism; virtue signaling.
Diana Kirk Links:
Website: https://dianakirk.wordpress.com
email: workerstavern@gmail.com
Instagram: Worker's Tavern | Diana Kirk
Facebook: Worker's Tavern | Diana Kirk
Ramble by the River Links:
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Website:
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Music Credit(s):
Still Fly, Revel Day.
Channel 9, John Runefelt.
Transcript
Diana Kirk Interview
intro
[:[00:00:27] And if you need to get in contact with us, for guest suggestions or anything like that, our email can be found in the show notes for this episode, along with any kind of links that you might hear us reference in the show, it has been a really good week for me. I'm excited to be rambling today. It's a good.
[:[00:01:07] I'm not sure why, but anyway, that's where the race starts. That's not where I started. My first leg was. A ways down the hill there, but at a certain point I jumped into the race, took the Baton, which is a slap bracelet and carried it for like six miles, handed it off to someone else, got in a van. And then I drove to the next place.
[:[00:01:55] Not a lot of good food, not a lot of relaxation or anything it's it's [00:02:00] grueling, but it was fun. It was really a good experience. I had a weird pain in my abdomen for the entire time, and I wasn't sure what that was and it was kind of concerning, so that sucked, but, um, I just ignored it and you know, it wasn't so bad.
[:[00:02:34] I had a good, I performed well compared to what I was expecting. I ran way faster than I thought I would just didn't really know what to expect, because it's been a while since I've done this event, it's been a while since I've done any kind of extreme running like that at all. So I didn't know what to expect.
[:[00:02:56] Uh, let's see, what else, what else is going on school? Starting up [00:03:00] this week? If you've got kids or if you are a kid or, you know, you see kids around, you're seeing them going back to school. So that's cool. They're all wearing masks. They're all packed in tight with masks on it doesn't sound ideal, but we got to teach them.
[:[00:03:36] So yeah, that's going on. Let's see, crypto's killing it. My, my investments are actually performing pretty well. This week. It's been a, been an up week. That's always a bonus, always a boost. My, uh, disposition. Speaking of disposition, last week's episode, I talked a little bit about depression, so I figured I'd give you guys an update.
[:[00:04:20] I was excited about my day. I was looking forward to accomplishing the tasks at hand. And that was it's almost like I forgot that that was part of life. It's it's like depression gives you some kind of temporary. When you're in it, you forgot what good life feels like. And when you're out of it, sometimes you forget what it feels like to be in it.
[:[00:05:06] At some point, there will be relief and you never know what it's going to be. Sometimes it's nothing that you would expect, but I don't know. I hate talking about depression, but it always seems to come up and it's such a huge issue in our world. That is probably something we should be talking about, but not today.
[:[00:05:51] But yeah. So if you're one of those few people who have requested that I do a donation link because not everybody is ready to [00:06:00] subscribe and you still want to support the show. Yeah. Go to ramble by the river.com click on the button that says donate now. And that will take you to a landing page where PayPal will guide you through the rest of the donation process.
[:[00:06:36] Melissa Nesbitt sounds familiar and Tara me. Another friend of mine from back in the day, actually. Thank you guys so much for being part of the Ram fam all these people have subscribed to the Patrion. So they are now able to access the exclusive content only for the exclusive members of the team. Thank you guys again, it [00:07:00] really, really means a lot.
[:[00:07:21] Money for what I'm offering. All, everything changes. It becomes less of a gift and more of like a service. I have more of a responsibility to provide quality content. I mean, more than zero. My responsibility when it's free is zero. So I can do what I want, make what I want. And I don't know anybody's shit, but I do owe these people shit.
[:[00:08:05] And they're fun. They're real fun because they're simple. I'm taking stuff that I already had and repackaging it and making it into something new. So it's pretty cool. It's a good process. And I really enjoy. Beyond that the Patrion is cool because it's liberating. I know ahead of time that everybody who's going to listen to whatever it is I put on there chose to be there.
[:[00:08:48] I already feel like this sense of connectedness with them that I didn't have with the public audience, the free audience. I love that audience too. It's also a lot of fun and I get a lot out of [00:09:00] it, but it's not the same thing. And I, I regret not starting a Patrion sooner. This is it's really cool. What I'm realizing is that it's a communal.
[:[00:09:32] Go to patrion.com/ramble, by the way. And subscribe. I get actually emotional talking about it because it has been such a fucking hard process getting here, just to get to this point, just to produce 40 something episodes. I have gone through a lot of emotional turmoil. It's very, very stressful. And some days I'm just like, why are you doing this yourself, man?
[:[00:10:28] I'm doing things indirectly that I wanted from the big. The whole reason I started this show was to build community. I missed people. I just wanted to get somebody in here to talk, dig into their brains. See what it's like in there. Walk around a bit. I always take off my shoes. I like people, but people are complicated and they're not always accessible.
[:[00:11:13] She's that type of person who you automatically just kinda want approval from not necessarily because of who she is or what she. Able to do for you or anything like that, but just because I can recognize in her right away that this is a person who has standards and morals and is not constantly trying to bend to fit the will of whoever's watching.
[:[00:12:01] Everybody's so worried about offending people or being politically correct. My guest today doesn't force every single thought she has through the political correction machine, because she already has a moral standards in place. She doesn't need to do that because she's already confident that the things she does and says are going to come from a place of benevolence.
[:[00:12:41] She was just really great. And she couldn't have come in here at a better time. I needed this conversation and you can kind of hear it in my voice. I'm like gleaming little bits of knowledge from this person that I don't know if she was even prepared to share with me, but I just, like, I've recognized that she's an expert in [00:13:00] living the life that I want and that not in the specifics of it, but just in the way that she does it, she's figured something out.
[:[00:13:27] It's called worker's Tavern. She's a wife and a mother of three healthy young men. She's an author with over 50 published articles in magazines and books. And she has written her own book called licking flames. She's currently working on her next book, which is a collection of personal stories from her travels around the world.
[:INTERVIEW
[:[00:00:10] Diana Kirk: it looks great. I can wake babies with my cry so,
[:[00:00:20] Diana Kirk: Do you have set questions?
[:[00:00:31] Diana Kirk: Did you paint this when you were? I
[:[00:00:38] Diana Kirk: It was just something to do.
[:[00:00:48] Diana Kirk: a lot of podcasts, people don't do a good background.
[:[00:00:52] Jeff Nesbitt: or bad lighting
[:[00:01:14] I haven't gotten to see the final bait you ever pull in there. And look, it looks a lot like your mountains, I will have to check. Yeah.
[:[00:01:23] So I'm
[:[00:01:26] Jeff Nesbitt: Okay, cool. That they end up usually being the best content. Cause there's like, yeah, you get unexpected stuff, but yeah. And do you have any questions for me before we get going?
[:[00:01:43] Jeff Nesbitt: there? Few weeks?
[:[00:02:05] Diana Kirk: No, it's so true.
[:[00:02:13] Jeff Nesbitt: Okay. Let's see. I'm going to figure out how to turn this monitor off.
[:[00:02:22] Jeff Nesbitt: Think we're good.
[:[00:02:30] Jeff Nesbitt: It's such a good word. It's a perfect name for an audio software. And it's, it's really simple. I've just been using garage band, which is even more simple. Right. So I'm just getting used to it. And I've had a couple where I tried this and I thought it worked.
[:[00:02:55] Diana Kirk: right. Then you edit yourself in and it just sounds like it. Yeah.
[:[00:03:02] Diana Kirk: going. Right. I did an interview on NPR and we did the whole interview and the guy and I had a great rapport.
[:[00:03:30] And it's like one of the worst moments when you finally make it on NPR and that's what happens. That's terrible.
[:[00:03:39] Diana Kirk: Yeah, cause we were supposed to be on like that weekend. And so I think it was the next day. And I was at my friend's house down in Texas and I was using her son's like gaming, headphone and microwave my microphone and staring at a wall at a desk.
[:[00:04:09] Jeff Nesbitt: and you're like trying to go back through the
[:[00:04:11] Diana Kirk: Yeah. He touched on the same things and it didn't feel the same at all. Cause he already knew what my answer was going to be, but it was lesson learned. I mean, it wasn't my fault. I did my best, but that stuff happens when you record for
[:[00:04:25] Diana Kirk: was a really big deal.
[:[00:04:44] I've been on like 30 what's all. Cause you talk about beer and there's a lot of beer podcasts, but no. And, um, so I finally put it on social media. I was like, I have been trying so hard and I can't do this. I didn't even care what the podcast was [00:05:00] at all. And then one random friend, Facebook friend that I've never met in Australia said, I used to do drugs with this guy.
[:[00:05:33] So we, we actually did a test for that. And then in another weird twist, he had a massive heart attack. He didn't, he was fine. But after that, he was like, I need to get out of radio. It's too stressful. It's this close. I don't know if I want it. Yeah. I didn't know if I wanted to co-host it, but, uh, it was fun.
[:[00:05:55] Jeff Nesbitt: I listened to you do a talk on YouTube this morning and I was like, oh, this is [00:06:00] gonna be. Slam dunk. You have a very good voice for it. Then your flow is good. You kind of hosted it. I'm not even sure what the event was, but you read a few excerpts from your book and it sounded great.
[:[00:06:14] Diana Kirk: uh, it was at the Calla theater, I think in a story. Yeah. I did a show there when my book came out. Um, I had a couple of openers for it. That was really, really fun. And I met some really great people, including the editor for coast weekend, uh, there.
[:[00:06:45] It's a little different, I get a little nervous there, but mainly because I'm afraid I'm going to. Cause I really have a foul mouth, but, uh, no, it was, it was a fun night and everybody there was excited and the pole, I, there were so many more people showed up than I [00:07:00] had expected and it was really cool to have 50 people to show up just for me.
[:[00:07:18] Jeff Nesbitt: Oh my God. When you make a risky joke and it just doesn't land, right.
[:[00:07:25] Diana Kirk: today. It happens a lot. I mean, it happens in the, in my bar too, but, uh, the worst I ever had and it's now become a story that I have told on repeat, which is great. I did a show at pals bookstore. And when you are a writer and you get to do a show at pals, that's the ultimate fourth floor.
[:[00:08:00] Yeah, I was a closer, I was the closer. And, uh, there, the, I don't know, maybe there was about a hundred people there. And I got up and I, I could tell that the crowd was really young and up to that point, every reader before me was telling the most depressing stories, because they were all like mid twenties writers.
[:[00:08:40] I'm 45 years old. I met these people in a warehouse in Detroit. And, uh, they said come to this party. And I was like, I don't, what do you mean? I don't know anything about this warehouse party. And they dragged me along. I ended up at a party where everybody is so high. They're like dragging their legs behind them and I'd become this weird mom.
[:[00:09:12] That's what the story is about. And the last line of the story is, cause I'm all gangster. With mom boobs. That's the name of the story? Well, as I'm reading this story to this group of young people, nobody is laughing. Nobody is getting it. Everybody's either tired or bored, but there's one guy in the front audience who's smiling and laughing the whole time.
[:[00:09:57] And nobody got that. The story was even [00:10:00] though, oh yeah, that's painful. And I'm like, I now understand every comedian I've ever heard. Talk about flopping in front of a crowd. Yeah. Nothing
[:[00:10:13] Diana Kirk: did. In fact, he came up afterwards.
[:[00:10:42] I don't mind going to things that's not well attended as groups or whatever, but that was not my genre in the slightest bit. They weren't yeah. Interested.
[:[00:11:05] Diana Kirk: I should just twist it into some Detroit dude. That's like now a mogul and it was all because of me.
[:[00:11:12] Diana Kirk: They have a radio station called M and M in Detroit. Oh, it's called eminent. Yeah. Isn't that rad. Yeah, that is, but the kid was questionable and he was teaching me what the drugs work.
[:[00:11:38] Cause it's probably like that block in Detroit calls something that back in the eighties I did. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Totally. When I
[:[00:11:51] Diana Kirk: yeah, they did. Yeah. When I was, yeah, younger, they called um, uh, meth crystal. But even before that they called it [00:12:00] ice.
[:[00:12:16] That was it. They called it crank prank.
[:[00:12:24] Diana Kirk: My Franks is a mixture.
[:[00:12:36] I don't know.
[:[00:12:45] Jeff Nesbitt: So I have a story for you. Okay. My 12 year old son to make some extra pocket cash. He runs my in-laws firewood stack business on the highway there.
[:[00:13:15] He's opened it up and found that there's a white baggy full of powder compressed in there with all the cash and he's not missing any wood stacks. So somebody was just using
[:[00:13:29] Jeff Nesbitt: spot. I think most likely it was locked. I think most likely with it happened is somebody on their way out to vacation stopped, get firewood forgot.
[:[00:13:45] Diana Kirk: So you don't think somebody was leaving it there and being like, go pick it up at the cash spot?
[:[00:13:52] Diana Kirk: well, I didn't know it was locked up because
[:[00:13:57] Diana Kirk: Well, I know that there [00:14:00] was some dealing going on using the ramp that goes into workers underneath it. There was people putting money in there and putting drugs. It was like a trade station. Yeah. That makes sense. I saw it in the cameras one day because we came in and the ramp was actually up and we're like, what the hell?
[:[00:14:27] Jeff Nesbitt: don't want to be somewhere where they know they're being watched.
[:[00:14:34] Diana Kirk: probably because then they have to chat with him. And if they're depending on the drug, they have to over chat with them and they don't shut up. Yeah,
[:[00:14:42] Anyway, so we took that baggy not knowing exactly what it was and took it home and set up our chemistry set and tested it and identified the chemical compounds in the baggy. And it was cocaine. The reagent turned [00:15:00] so dark, bright blue.
[:[00:15:10] Diana Kirk: is dealing with drugs. When you're not doing drugs is a bizarre world because now the cops aren't interested in it at all, or can't do anything about any of it. And so you're kind of left in this position of being like, well, what do I do?
[:[00:15:45] And I asked everybody what they would do. And everybody was like, You know, there's dumb people that are like, I'd sell it to the drug dealers. No, I'm not interested. I makes you a drug dealer. You could give it to me. And I was like, no. And then I wouldn't flush it. And then, and I didn't want to put it in our garbage cause people [00:16:00] go through our garbages and sometimes we have find really big amounts of drugs, not very often, but this one guy was like, we have a campfire pit at workers.
[:[00:16:16] Jeff Nesbitt: the way to do it. You just burn it? Yeah. Just burn it just, yeah, I. W I honestly, I had the same problem.
[:[00:16:38] Um, Coke was never my thing, but I didn't want to think about it. I was finding myself thinking about it way more than I would like. Yeah. Like Googling, um, what, how to tell if it's good or versus how, you know, just like feeling those little addict roots, starting to branch out too much about this. So I was just told my wife has like, [00:17:00] please take this and dispose of it somewhere.
[:[00:17:05] Diana Kirk: Well, we found a pretty big bag of MDMA at the bar, which of course my staff had to tell me what it is. Cause I didn't know what the hell it was. That would have been a little bit more tempting. Yeah. It was a lot . It was pretty big. And I, um, I was like, we were really busy when we found it and I was like, just throw it in my purse until further notice.
[:[00:17:36] Cause it wasn't a little amount. It was quite a bit. Yeah. You go to prison. So I was like, I don't know what the hell to do that. And I'm so I was just like, well, if I got in a car accident, the cops would all know it actually wasn't mine. I mean, I'm sitting there assuming that because they know me. Cause I have to talk to them quite a bit.
[:[00:18:05] So finally they did send someone to come and take it. And I was like, I just want to go home. I just don't want, I don't want this in my, I have enough people to take care of. I don't need to take care of a weird bag of substance. I don't know what the hell it is, but yeah. And I also didn't want to have it anywhere around in case whoever had.
[:[00:18:27] Jeff Nesbitt: conflict that you don't want any part
[:[00:18:39] Um,
[:[00:18:40] Diana Kirk: somebody's pocket or something. It was really busy. We don't know, but it just showed up. Yeah. I almost
[:[00:18:56] Diana Kirk: Yeah. Yeah. They're not all horrible people, but managing drug [00:19:00] addicts who drink liquor is a really difficult issue. And I don't, I'd rather not deal with it because they come in and they order one drink and they drink a half a drink. They're trashed. And now that becomes your responsibility because you oversee, it looks like you overserved, but you didn't.
[:[00:19:29] And especially this summer, this is the hardest summer we've ever had for sure. It's everywhere. And it's the drug addicts are very, um, entitled this summer. They feel very empowered with the new law.
[:[00:19:46] Diana Kirk: It becomes a violation instead of an arrestable offense.
[:[00:20:15] And really, yeah. It makes me nervous too. So it's hard to wrap your head around a lot of like the new drug laws. Yeah.
[:[00:20:28] Diana Kirk: Well, I don't really know that part. Probably not. I mean, you're not supposed to smoke weed publicly either, but people do it.
[:[00:20:50] I have no idea.
[:[00:21:13] Now that seems like counterproductive.
[:[00:21:33] It's just like good luck, Chuck. And that I do have an opinion on because. Is actually frightening. It's real. It can be really scary. We've got this one kid in the neighborhood, um, near workers who is extremely aggressive. He's a messy, he's aggressive, he's thrown things at me. He spit at me. I don't think he's very far from coming after me.
[:[00:22:13] I can't even call the police really. I mean, we can just to get them out of the business, but he could stand in front of the business and do all kinds of things. So that's a bit of a struggle. And I, I do think that that's wrong. If you're going to change the law, then you should have some sort of somebody, somebody that's in charge of.
[:[00:22:30] Jeff Nesbitt: difficult. I think that that idea gets left behind a lot because we're so liberal, politically liberal these days, and everyone wants to, which is awesome. Awesome. That we're trying to include and have empathy for people and all that's wonderful. But yeah, I think a lot of the time people don't really consider what can happen when people who are violent or dangerous, eh, are going to take advantage of the kindness.
[:[00:22:57] Diana Kirk: Sure. And I mean, you, it comes down to homeless too. I [00:23:00] mean, we get a lot of homeless people, especially in the winter, come in the bar. Cause we have a fireplace in the bar and they'll order a cup of coffee and they'll sit down and they just start to fall asleep. And so we've had to make rules where if you're not actually drinking the coffee, you can't sit there.
[:[00:23:30] Um, I try to keep coffee a dollar on purpose. I keep it as cheap as I can. I don't need to make a profit on that, but I also, you know, some of them are schizophrenic. And if you tell them to leave, they'll turn on two seconds on you. And now you're like in a, again, another dangerous situation. And so when I hear people talking about homeless, sometimes I'm like, do you talk to homeless?
[:[00:24:16] And so. I don't know how to fix it. Clearly. Nobody does look at the whole country. Yeah. Nobody knows how to fix this as getting worse every day. Nobody has a good day.
[:[00:24:27] Diana Kirk: you were here, right? I did in 2014, but I grew up in, I was born in San Francisco and I grew up in Sacramento.
[:[00:24:51] I went to show my son, my youngest son, hadn't seen San Francisco and I was like this, you know, there were always homeless when I was growing up. That was always a part of the lifestyle. [00:25:00] But it just, I don't know what, I don't know what the hell San Francisco's doing, but I think it's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen.
[:[00:25:10] Diana Kirk: I don't know. Don't they say that about a story though. I mean, people in a story, I say that all the time that like the drug rehab centers give people one way ticket to a story. I hear that all the time. I'm not sure I believe it, but I hear it.
[:[00:25:22] Jeff Nesbitt: But yeah, it's a
[:[00:25:44] It's just filled. And I won't let my kids out of the room. Cause I'm like, this is like scary how this hotel is caring for that. The city's giving the homeless vouchers to live in hotels. Oh. So then I just go just randomly. And I'm like, I don't, what the hell. There's like people hanging laundry up and [00:26:00] it's a national chain filled with these filled with homeless people and you're can't Ugh.
[:[00:26:11] Jeff Nesbitt: That puts you in a really bad position because if you complain, you look like a Karen you're entitled and all like, um, That's a really tight spot. How do you even begin to address something like that?
[:[00:26:34] You can't lay here or whatever. And he got up and he goes, I'm going to tell everybody, workers, Tavern hates homeless. And I was like, all right, tell him, tell him good luck. Bye bye. I was like, I don't even care. I'm not here to like, make your day,
[:[00:26:51] Diana Kirk: sure.
[:[00:26:54] Jeff Nesbitt: walk into a restaurant or coffee shop or a bar and I see big piles of dirty [00:27:00] bags. Yeah.
[:[00:27:10] You know, I've heard all kinds of discussions of, of what's starting it. I mean, are we at some sort of drug peak with the opiates and maybe we'll get past that peak? Who knows? I have no, you don't know? No, I don't
[:[00:27:26] Diana Kirk: all the time.
[:[00:27:44] I mean, I've heard people like California's in this massive drought now Oregon is, and I hear people, you know, saying, oh, this is so horrible. And I was like, I remember. The drought when I was like six, I remember it was huge. It was a huge deal. My dad was mad. He couldn't wash his car. All our grass died and I would [00:28:00] play, I was six, so I could like play on the grass, but it was like really scratchy.
[:[00:28:22] Jeff Nesbitt: All that material just built up for three decades and the woods too.
[:[00:28:26] Jeff Nesbitt: why the fires are so bad. There used to be a lot more forest fires, small ones, small ones. And then we got really good at preventing those and all that stuff. Year after year, just built up and then poof just goes off.
[:[00:28:40] So then we talk about the loss of 500 houses were burned down and I was like, well, you put them in the middle of a forest. It seems like somewhere, you know, there's flood Plains and these are the side effects that are going to happen. Instances. Yeah. I guess, I don't know. At some point insurance companies are going to push back and be like, Nope, I do probably
[:[00:29:00] Yeah. That's something they're really good at is denying claims.
[:[00:29:16] but, and the flood insurance was pretty high, like Jeffers garden. And this story is very similar to that. You have to pay high insurance to live there, but there are ways to mitigate around that, you know, any new properties can solve those problems and the way they're built and stuff. So maybe over time it kind of like works itself out or whatever.
[:[00:29:43] Jeff Nesbitt: That was crazy. I don't really know what to make of that. And it's, it seems a lot like it's climate change.
[:[00:29:53] Jeff Nesbitt: my baseline is based off of the last 30 years. So I've been around that
[:[00:30:04] We've stayed open every day when other places are closing on Monday and Tuesday, I had my staff for quite a long time and they're super loyal. And, when we had that heat wave and we stayed open and the reason why as we have this outdoor area and I kept sprinklers on the whole time and I felt a huge obligation to have a place that was slightly cooler than other places, but in the process.
[:[00:30:51] And so we were able to keep things kind of cool, but moving was hard. Cause when it's that hot, just moving around is really hard. And we stayed open [00:31:00] until 2:00 AM. We kept that place open and there were people just sitting in the backyard on their phones. I've never seen our bar so quiet. Really. People didn't have enough energy to talk.
[:[00:31:14] Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. It wasn't a pleasant. He wave. No, no. No, it wasn't that great.
[:[00:31:32] They, there was no air conditioning and they were swimming in that heat, which you would like to think was cool, but the water was warm. Yeah. It was awful state championships for the whole state of Oregon were during that heat wave. Damn how'd he do. Um, he has goggles fell off in the event. He cared about the most, unfortunately, but he's a junior.
[:[00:32:06] And I asked him at one point, Howard was at one of the meets and I said, so who does this mean more to the kids or the parents of the kids? And he goes, the parents cause we were so happy to have our kids do something, anything messed up
[:[00:32:31] So it was a big shift to have it just, and even we kind of limped our way through, like my son was still in baseball for sure. Mixed seasons throughout that time. And my daughter was in dance, but not the usual, like three seasons, like distinct seasons. And I don't know that stuff is so like grounding for a kid through childhood to have to know that.
[:[00:33:00] Diana Kirk: was a shame. I found it interesting that, uh, so we've been in swim, we do clubs swim and we do high swim. It was interesting that the whole season, which was only five weeks long for swim instead of three months, um, the parents that put it together and we're always there with the same parents that had their kids in swim at eight years old, it was always the same parents.
[:[00:33:30] Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah, that is cool. Um, uh, so you have three boys, right?
[:[00:33:39] Jeff Nesbitt: Okay. 2017 and 14. So the recent amount of time in between enough to catch your
[:[00:33:46] Yeah. I mean, they are definitely spread apart when my 20 year old is a man now and out in the world, he's actually in Wales right now working, um, On an antique train in the Snowdonia national park. Wow. [00:34:00] Yeah, he's an anti train expert. Well, he worked on the steam locomotive restoration societies, big train.
[:[00:34:26] So he went and he's learning a lave and learning about coal and just, it's so incredible. He's already booked it for next summer. He can't wait to go back. Yeah. I'm just happy. He's doing anything quite frankly. And he sent me a video, which I absolutely loved and he's sitting in a pub and he's talking to an Irish guy, his age, an English guy, his age, and a Welsh woman, his age, and he's drinking a cider playing cards.
[:[00:35:12] So that's his little passion. He's starting the college world and my fresh. And then I have a freshmen he's starting school, this freshman as a freshman. And he works at the film museum and a story, a he's a docent, a guide. Oh, wow. He's a future politician or. He's probably a future politics. I don't know where he is, but he gets people and he can speak in front of crowds and loves.
[:[00:35:41] Jeff Nesbitt: it seems like they also, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you would seem to have a unique, specialized skills that you can identify in each one of these kids.
[:[00:36:13] And how you can too, by Karen carbo. Yeah. And it mentioned how you had done some nontraditional parenting techniques, like homeschool and that you had really liked the results and it sounds like your kids are doing great. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
[:[00:36:44] 100% honest. The reason why I homeschooled my kids is one. I sh I skipped grades. I went to special schools for reading comprehension cause I can comprehend information really fast. So I went to a special school. Skipped [00:37:00] grades, ended up graduating super young and it was difficult. The school system didn't work for me.
[:[00:37:22] So the first thing I said was I'm not doing preschool. And a lot of my friends were like would cause they were all rushing around trying to get them signed up for preschool. And then when it came to kindergarten, I kept watching my oldest son and he was so busy doing really cool stuff. He was building things, he was cutting things up.
[:[00:37:55] And that doesn't mean schools are bad, but I, I, I absolutely 100% [00:38:00] have used schools and have used the resources they have, but I also thought what if I can help him with whatever he's got going on, really figure out what that is while he learns reading, writing, and arithmetic. And so I built homeschool communities and homeschool parks and homeschool, camping trips with other homeschool parents.
[:[00:38:27] Jeff Nesbitt: but I think that's where, I mean the homeschool weirdos come from.
[:[00:38:41] Isn't good in schools. Yeah. When you take a whole group of kids that are the same exact age and you put them in a group, they will separate themselves into hierarchy all by themselves. And they're mean, and they can be really, really mean not always, but they can be really, really mean. And so when people are like, but what about socialization?
[:[00:39:17] And my oldest son is not as social as my middle son. And he is always busy doing stuff. So he naturally gravitated towards any sort of tinkering of things. He that's just how he thinks. And so he could do it as much as he wanted, and he could find friends, his best friend throughout his whole homeschool life was two years older than him.
[:[00:39:55] My other son would play for a while and then go read a book by himself. So what I wanted them [00:40:00] to do is I felt like there was some nature in there. They knew kind of what they needed or wanted. And so I would try to just fill that. So if my middle son was really into animals, then that's what we would do.
[:[00:40:30] And so as a homeschool parent and teacher, you start to gravitate in those ways. But when I moved from Portland to a Storia, there was no homeschool community. And I felt like. I felt like I wanted and I might've done. I probably would've done this in Portland too. I w I sent them to high school to learn high school, high school girls significance 100% high school is about to me, socializing, dating, getting a [00:41:00] job, learning how to follow directions, even when you don't like it.
[:[00:41:26] I want you to think about why you're moving the bowl, but you're going to go to a high school and move the damsel. And when you go to college, you're going to move the damsel. And when you're all done with that, you can do whatever the hell you want with that bowl.
[:[00:41:48] Jeff Nesbitt: so, so brilliant. Yeah. That's
[:[00:41:52] The quote by will Smith that I love and he, his kids are homeschooled and he said, I don't care if my kids know what the Boston tea [00:42:00] party is. I care if my kids know what the Boston tea party stood for. And I always think that's my entire basis for homeschooling is understand why you have to move that bowl, learn to move it for a short period of time.
[:[00:42:26] Jeff Nesbitt: If you master a system, then you can control it and
[:[00:42:32] And I, I want all of them to go to high school and to learn to date and to learn those social skills and what they do with it from there is up to them. And so, and I think high school is a wonderful community in a small town. I mean, I really. The parents really make that. And I I'm so impressed with what a small town can do rallying around a high school.
[:[00:43:02] Jeff Nesbitt: pretty hard. Yeah. My wife's a teacher. She taught middle school for several years and now she's in kindergarten. They get those kids are a lot nicer.
[:[00:43:32] It sounds like your kids are socialized and well-rounded and you identified the holes that would be in a homeschool education and you filled them. And that sounds honestly like a much more individualized and productive system for any parent that can handle a responsibility like that. Props to
[:[00:43:51] Well, I know that during the pandemic homeschooling was a nightmare and I understand that, but that's because everybody was trying to follow a curriculum, homeschool parents don't [00:44:00] always do that. I would say the majority of them don't. I mean, I didn't follow a curriculum. I was like super parent. Teacher in the fall.
[:[00:44:22] My kids have been catching pollywogs in a pond. And I was like, I, it was hard not to chuckle because it was kind of a funny moment that day. But I, um, I feel so bad for parents that had to go through what they did in the last year, because that's not homeschooling that. Isn't what we did. Literally. I would go out for lunch for like Indian buffet and tell the kids about when I was in it.
[:[00:45:01] And that's not what any of us have ever done. Yeah.
[:[00:45:08] Diana Kirk: and teach it, how the hell do you homeschool a first grader? I mean, that seemed like a nightmare for everybody involved in kudos to everybody who actually got through that, because that's not what I did for me.
[:[00:45:38] And I mean, your kids are crying because they can't figure out math. That seems stupid. I was like, they're not going to learn like this. No,
[:[00:45:45] Diana Kirk: to try and learn. My friend said to me, when I was struggling, trying to teach my kids to read at one point, she was like, do you really think you're going to have an 18 year old kid?
[:[00:45:58] Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. Those milestones don't [00:46:00] always have to happen at the same time for everybody. They just don't. And that's how this education system is kind of dependent.
[:[00:46:10] And I've never met one single teacher. That's like, yeah, that's a great system. I mean, every teacher is like, we're all doing our best. That's all you can do. And that's why I don't want to offend people when I say homeschooling was so good for us because I don't think schools are bad. I think schools are fantastic.
[:[00:46:48] So I'm always like, kids are weird. These days, kids are weird and, and quite frankly, they're, they're awesome. They are, I can't believe this stuff they care about. I didn't care about any of that shit. When I was that [00:47:00] age, I didn't even know
[:[00:47:00] Diana Kirk: most of the shit they care about. Now. I was like snort Coke at their age.
[:[00:47:09] Jeff Nesbitt: cool to watch. I didn't start getting into any kind of financial education itself, my very late twenties. Yeah. And yeah. Now you can just get on the internet and watch YouTube videos.
[:[00:47:21] Diana Kirk: If that's your saying, you can totally do it. My kid is definitely playing in stocks and he definitely teaches me. I mean, God, he's taught me so much about the world. Just having great conversations with him. So much more interesting than I was at 20. Um, so no, it's, it's really cool.
[:[00:48:00] I said, do you need more cruises? Do you need to go golfing more? Cause they've never had that. And they, my parents were like, We don't but they do. And I was like, that's right. And now we're like,
[:[00:48:17] Diana Kirk: man.
[:[00:48:22] Jeff Nesbitt: Our life has gotten so cushy as humans. All of a sudden when this actual existential foursome threat comes onto the scene, all of a sudden we for kind of forget our priorities, correct. I'm on your side on this one. I think that the kids have lost out more than anybody.
[:[00:48:46] Cause I was like, you were robbed of this for the last year and a half. You were, you lost your sophomore year of college and this is all I want for you as normalcy. I mean, I can't believe that I actually was, you know, at one point I was like, I don't give a shit about college. I just want you [00:49:00] to get stimulated.
[:[00:49:15] And I'm literally the driving force of the economy. I'm 51 years old. I own a ton of rentals. I own a bar. I pay a ton in taxes. I am the highest of the workforce right now, the highest tax-paying base. And I want it for them. Yeah. And I that's what hurts me is to know that they're losing their time. All those memories prompts those two years of those kids that lost out on all that shit.
[:[00:49:45] Jeff Nesbitt: that's horrible. I had a couple of those kids on my show and it, yeah, they're pretty cool.
[:[00:49:53] Jeff Nesbitt: Exactly. But they must a little bit because they saw it, they grew up, everyone grows up thinking about their prom and [00:50:00] graduation and that stuff.
[:[00:50:04] Diana Kirk: robbed. They did. And, and hopefully it'll be fun in the next five years to kind of like unpack things and figure out what those stories are and what they came out of it instead. You know what I mean? Like my middle son was telling me that. He has friends who had like only online boyfriends and girlfriends.
[:[00:50:41] And I was like, well, I think it helped their heads to realize how important those things were in a, in a way, you know?
[:[00:50:49] Diana Kirk: oh no. Yeah. Murders. I know. Yeah. I
[:[00:50:55] Diana Kirk: Yeah, I got all that nastiness. Cause I was like, we can not do this to our economy.
[:[00:51:16] And I was like, cause we can't, we had to see each other. There was no way an extrovert could survive this world. And I had no idea how important it was until this summer when nobody had employees. But I did. Yeah. I had no idea keeping every found, keeping everybody together. I know keeping everybody together was super important during the pandemic.
[:[00:51:42] Jeff Nesbitt: I like your philosophies. I think that makes a lot of sense. I didn't hear a lot of that and that viewpoint is very much blocked from the media. You don't hear it at all.
[:[00:52:04] And suddenly workers is some sort of one side or the other bar. And I remember the whole time just being like, I, I write very left. My writing is in progressive magazine and, and I think that way, but there. I have very strong opinions about other sides, because I can see both sides. And I think both sides have very relevant things to say, and I'm not going to put a label on that.
[:[00:52:40] Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah.
[:[00:52:58] Diana Kirk: really do that well, and I think [00:53:00] people are disregarding what true rebellion is. The country is based on re rebels who left England, right. To come here.
[:[00:53:22] And so I try to always think every person's kind of like that. I definitely am. And so that's where it happens and the people that I agree with their stances, I don't agree with their performance on that stance because they're not taking true humans nature. Into their minds and understanding that you're pushing them into being more of what you don't like by merely telling him, or calling them stupid, calling them stupid, annoys the shit out of me because they're not stupid.
[:[00:54:13] Are you going to feed the homeless? Are you going to do it? Probably not.
[:[00:54:31] But I questioned that. I
[:[00:54:50] It seems like something you think about without church. I don't really think or need that. But, uh, I think there's some systems in place that people are just not educated enough to know that [00:55:00] most of the homeless in the United States are fed by church. God fearing places, whether we like it or not. Yeah.
[:[00:55:19] Jeff Nesbitt: gray area.
[:[00:55:21] Diana Kirk: can you imagine how important people who really believe like turn to churches during this time? Just because they're counselors and a lot of ways, you know,
[:[00:55:32] Yes. 100%. And there are some people who are more tuned in and their disposition makes it more. Able to click in and actually absorb some of that value. But a lot of people are just so closed off to it that's, there's no chance they're gonna be able to see the value
[:[00:55:49] That's what I always say. I appreciate, like, I love it when somebody comes in and tells me that they thrived at something at the bar, like somebody, I don't know, they come in and they tell me, and I'm so excited for them, [00:56:00] for their world. Like my son, you know, that he's working on antique trains. I would never want to go do that.
[:[00:56:24] Different than that than a guidebook or a TV show or whatever the hell it is. I mean, there's no wrong way to eat a Reese's no, I learned so much from talking to people and hearing their ideas. It just triggers something. Sometimes when I'm writing a story, by the time I actually write it, I can see five conversations I had about it before I wrote it and I was working through it.
[:[00:56:52] Jeff Nesbitt: I'd like to get into that writing process. Yeah. No, but hold on, I'm going to double check the audio real quick. Make sure we're good. Um, but yeah, [00:57:00] hold on. Just.
[:[00:57:22] Diana Kirk: I've written one and I'm in an anthology. Oh, we written written warning. Yeah. And I have about 50 published articles as well. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. So have you always been a writer? No, absolutely. 100% now. Well, there's a writer named Brian Benson who would probably argue with me because he told his story at his book, a reading where he, he announced all of his friends, he got a book deal and he was like, I can't believe I'm going to be a writer.
[:[00:57:57] Jeff Nesbitt: through the written word has always excited you.[00:58:00]
[:[00:58:21] Yeah. That's why
[:[00:58:28] Diana Kirk: Yeah. That's been always tricky and it helps to start at the ending and work backwards. In fact, tell the story as an ending, kind of like a movie when you see the ending first and then they tell the story, it helps you learn how to write endings.
[:[00:58:54] So it's like, how do they do that? And I was driving and I'm like, well, I guess if I, when I laugh [00:59:00] really hard at something, whatever it is, like you could trace that back far enough. You're going to be able to find something to make a joke out of. So like you look at whatever it was that made you laugh.
[:[00:59:25] Yeah.
[:[00:59:31] Jeff Nesbitt: Misdirection joke. Where, where it seems like it's predictable and then they just slam something in there that you weren't expecting. I love that. So I try to find those too, but, um, the whole writing process jokes are, are just short little tidbits of it, but it's all the same.
[:[00:59:49] Diana Kirk: That's all you're trying to do. Yeah. Yeah. Writings. Very it's it's I think it's a backwards process you have where you want to go. And for me, that's how it is because I [01:00:00] want the punchline. I want the thought process. I want the, oh, trigger the, um, you know, cause I'm all gangster with mom boobs.
[:[01:00:22] And I don't know how to, it was when I didn't know what Uber was and I wanted to go home, but I didn't know how to call an Uber. I didn't know what Uber was, you know, like there's all these other things that I thought of after I knew the point was that I was literally 45 years old teaching a kid how to open up an LLC in Detroit.
[:[01:00:39] Jeff Nesbitt: each one of those details adds to that picture. Yeah. And so that once you finally hit it, yeah.
[:[01:00:53] Yeah. I use it for
[:[01:00:57] Diana Kirk: Well, we can process it too, because we were [01:01:00] taught that. So we are expecting it. I hope they're still teaching that. Oh yeah, they are. For sure. I'm sure they
[:[01:01:07] Diana Kirk: your book about, um, well, What my book is about me.
[:[01:01:37] And I realize that everybody that's couple skating is kind of starting to act out like the zombies and thriller and he's too cool for it. And I slowly realized that Jonathan Martin isn't everything I thought he was because I'm actually more of the person that would act out the thriller and he was afraid and he was afraid.
[:[01:02:20] I, for some reason, haven't even when I was little, like, I didn't really care. I actively avoid those things. Well, I actively avoid all clicks. Did you have to conform to belong to them? And I'm not very good at conforming to anything. Hence why I homeschool. Hence why I home birth tents? Why I own a bar? I just.
[:[01:02:37] Diana Kirk: trust. Yeah, me too, because they're the only ones thinking for them. So they're only thinking for themselves 100% true. Yeah. Yeah. So the book is just about stories, but the interesting part of my book is how it came about, in my opinion, it's the most interesting story, especially if anybody's a writer.
[:[01:03:14] How'd you pick Thailand? Uh, cause I knew I, we knew our way around there and it was comfortable to bring our kids. Um, yeah, we'd been there before, so we took our kids and we were there and just did whatever we wanted to. And when we came back for no apparent reason, it was like out of the blue, I wrote a 55,000 word story.
[:[01:03:53] I don't know what the hell happened. I read a lot when I was in Thailand or something. And so I remember talking to my husband about it and he said, [01:04:00] maybe you should take a class, a writing
[:[01:04:07] So how, how did that
[:[01:04:30] And I think because I was in Thailand, I was traveling I've, I've gone back and forth across the country a few times already. Um, I've done it with my husband a few times, so there was like a comfortableness to it. And so I just sat down and I just started writing it and I didn't care why we had landed.
[:[01:05:02] And all of us were like, we just want to write, we don't care. So we had kind of fun and I realized. I wasn't the worst writer in the class and I wasn't quite the best, but I was pretty high up there and I was surprised. So I just started writing short stories and taking classes here and there. And I would just work on short stories and they were fun.
[:[01:05:38] And I'd throw garbage in there. I'd throw should I'd written on there. I'd get crickets sometimes, which isn't always a bad thing. There's still stings though. No, it's, uh, it's sometimes people on social media won't respond because it hit too much of a chord. And that's usually when you want to pay attention, I'll
[:[01:05:53] Jeff Nesbitt: that.
[:[01:05:57] Diana Kirk: it feels horrible, but it's not a bad thing. [01:06:00] Sometimes when you're like me, you're a controversial person to begin with. You hit a button and maybe you might want to mind that a little bit more. So I would do that. And then, um, I think I'd been writing like a year and a half.
[:[01:06:31] In my class, I had turned in a paper to a different teacher, not my first teacher, a different teacher. And she, her only response to it was publish. And I had to write her and ask her what that meant. I didn't even know. And she goes, you need to submit this to magazines. And I submitted it to a magazine and the first one I submitted got published and I was like, cocky as shit about it now.
[:[01:07:13] Or write a manuscript? No, I didn't. Wow. I didn't do that. I just kept writing shit because I didn't really care. Then third person to contact me was a publishing house. And I said, I don't have a manuscript. And she said, send me all your shit. All of it, all the garbage, the Facebook posts, everything, send it to me.
[:[01:07:39] Jeff Nesbitt: out of your, whether you
[:[01:07:50] I added some things where I thought there were gaps. Um, I changed some things around. I took a piece out that would hurt my mom way too much. That's an issue. It is an issue. [01:08:00] And then I had a manuscript and she took it and it went through three editors and it got published. And then I found out I needed to sell a thousand books and what I am best at more than anything is selling the shit out of them.
[:[01:08:27] Jeff Nesbitt: those things are just as
[:[01:08:30] Well, of course then I got a good story out of it. Right? So there's like a point to that whole thing, which is like, don't read in front of 25 year olds. They will not under also if you just
[:[01:08:43] No, it won't even
[:[01:09:07] Come up to you and you had 90 seconds to sell that bookstore on your book. I would hate that. And the most, the most exciting thing for me was Willie. Gluten was on my right. And Jane Kirkpatrick was on my left and I've read both of them a lot heavy hitters. They were both. I mean, when I saw, when I was next to Jane Kirkpatrick, I was like, oh God, I read every one of your books.
[:[01:09:47] Wow. Because I had 90 seconds and I, when somebody gives me a boundaries, I can thrive in it. So that's all I did. I can't
[:[01:10:02] Shout out Andrew Lapidus.
[:[01:10:10] Good for creativity. She's if you just say, like, I gave you a piece of paper and it says, draw a self portrait. Just like, ah, where do I begin? But if I say, draw a self portrait using only 10 lines, like immediately, your brain is like, how do I do that? And you're solving problems.
[:[01:10:28] Right? It's in
[:[01:10:42] Yeah. So maybe work on the selling part first, get yourself a pitch. Yep.
[:[01:10:51] Diana Kirk: And I, it, you're not as bad as you think about it. You've got a great social media thing going on.
[:[01:11:06] It's just
[:[01:11:28] I unfollow them. I do it immediately because it's not healthy from my head. Yeah. It's an energy trap. And it also, it also works in the opposite way in that. Then I just assume they're doing better than me. And so then I work on. Because I don't know what they're doing, but they must be doing better. Maybe there's a bar in a story.
[:[01:12:13] And I found out workers is the name number one bar in Historia. Nice. And I was pissed because there was evidence that my competition, wasn't my competition. You think it's going to make you. I don't know. Probably not, but, but I purposely don't because I want to be slightly edged. Yeah. I want, that's my drive.
[:[01:12:33] Jeff Nesbitt: a balancing act. You want to stay at just stressed enough to keep you moving, but not so stressed that it should do it
[:[01:12:48] Yeah. I think that would be really.
[:[01:12:53] Diana Kirk: on a regular? I don't have anxiety. I probably could use some. Sometimes I know that when my kids were little, I used to look at other [01:13:00] parents to figure out what I was supposed to be doing.
[:[01:13:23] I work really hard in short bursts and then I move on. So right now it's buoy 10 it's fishing go. There's tons of commercial fishermen in the bar. I work every night, seven nights a week for about two months. And this winter I will not even be in the United States, guaranteed. That's just how I work.
[:[01:13:45] Jeff Nesbitt: not either. That's the shit out of me. It's a hard
[:[01:14:12] Yeah. And we don't give them enough positions to be respectful,
[:[01:14:19] Diana Kirk: shit, doing shit. And I hate the grades or that final thing. Cause I don't think it's the very
[:[01:14:30] Making people laugh was my currency in high school and making sure everybody thought I was tough, I think was
[:[01:14:46] Yeah.
[:[01:15:01] Diana Kirk: You were just mimicking. Exactly. Mimicking is, uh, you know, it's a coping strategy and you didn't know any other way to be, you hadn't figured out yourself yet.
[:[01:15:32] He's not trying to mimic what cooler is. You want to impress him? Maybe I guarantee it, but in the end and he's just never really cared as much as they care that they look like the big, bad boys. Yeah. He's like, it's not, it's not about pushing my limit and breaking my clavicle. I've got a family and they do too, but it's a different thought process.
[:[01:16:05] Diana Kirk: in society. Yeah. But again, when you're put with a group of people your same age, they will separate themselves out, there's no way you put me in a room with a bunch of 50 year old women and all start doing it. Yeah. I will hurt out the week. I just to it. I know I do it. I can actually feel it. I can tell when somebody walks in my bar and I have my eye on them, it's, it's such a natural instinct.
[:[01:16:27] Jeff Nesbitt: We're social creatures. We're programmed to do it, and everybody does it differently. So like you get a read on people and some other people who might not be able to sense anything about them, but you know, Personality stuff about them just by a look or a vibe they're getting in you or just,
[:[01:16:43] Yeah. One of my bartenders said that, um, I reminded them of a natural national geographic show because when you look at a herd of zebras and there's a lion stalking them, the lion knows which one's the weak one, but nobody watching the show knows what it is. But the lion knows [01:17:00] that's me in the bar. I'm looking to who the problem is.
[:[01:17:12] Jeff Nesbitt: And you you've developed that skill because you needed
[:[01:17:15] Yeah.
[:[01:17:17] Diana Kirk: I think about this in politics, a lot in, in leadership. Cause I kinda consider myself a little bit of a leader and I, you know, when I tell people, when they always think I've I've, I thought of owning a bar or whatever.
[:[01:17:51] So if you think you want to on a bar to be cool, just go to a bar. Yeah. Or maybe
[:[01:17:58] Diana Kirk: That's probably a [01:18:00] better fit for you. Cause bartenders are, they're
[:[01:18:03] Diana Kirk: sometimes. Yeah. Yeah, the good ones that are career and look at it as a career, you know what I mean?
[:[01:18:11] Jeff Nesbitt: we're really good at that job are very impressive. They make you feel like they actually are your buddy. And yeah, it's weird almost because I think about psychology a lot and I I'm always on the lookout for people trying to manipulate me for sure.
[:[01:18:33] Diana Kirk: interesting, all order, anything that people try to upsell me because I'm impressed with the hustle. If it's good. Yeah. I'm like, oh, that sounds great.
[:[01:18:57] And she said, well, we just saw a lot of [01:19:00] PBR. And I remember thinking you're such a dumb ass. I was like, look at me, I'm a mark. I just put a $300 purse on your counter. I look like I'm okay. Lead down. And my teeth are all good. I'm your mark. You are, should be upselling me right now, like crazy, but she didn't.
[:[01:19:32] That's how much drinks are, you know, like I would have walked away and been like, yeah, yeah, I totally would have fallen for any of that stuff. So it, it amazes me with lost opportunities. Yeah. It's
[:[01:19:44] Diana Kirk: probably did, but she literally was trying to sell me up PBR, come on.
[:[01:19:50] Jeff Nesbitt: It's like water. Yeah. Um, it's going by really quickly. It's already 6 35. I know I'm a talker. Uh, it's been great actually. Um, let's see. [01:20:00] I pretty much wanted to talk about right. business and parenting.
[:[01:20:30] Diana Kirk: Because that's what he was taught and that's the best he knew. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. It's
[:[01:20:44] Like, it's really hard to talk about emotional stuff and yeah. . It's painful for me. Sure. Cause I don't want to see him having to live through any kind of pain like that again, to talk about it. So my whole view of masculinity went from growing up with [01:21:00] him where I'm just like trying so hard to be basically him , and then throughout my twenties, it was a long transition of realizing, like I'm not him.
[:[01:21:16] Diana Kirk: Acting when you were younger, because you didn't know any better and you were just mimicking what was around you.
[:[01:21:25] I'm really non-confrontational right. I'm kind of harsh. Um, and I don't know, I can be
[:[01:21:37] Jeff Nesbitt: use and be that person I used to talk about people like that.
[:[01:21:41] I have a theory that the reason why they say that is because they don't have a lot of tolerance for bullshit. Yeah. They're just straight shooters and people have not liked that from them. And so they've gotten kind of comments that have made them kind of not like people. And I was like, no, you're probably just brash because you're really truthful and I'm really [01:22:00] brash and truthful.
[:[01:22:20] And I don't, and, and that's a hard thing to teach your children because they care so much. But I talk, I write a lot about masculinity and I write a lot about being a woman because I am, I don't have a lot of fear. I mean, they call me bossy tits in the bar. I can, I can manage a group of all different men that are hard as nails.
[:[01:23:06] Like it's a mutual kind of hustle or whatever. You're trying to get the stripper to up sell you a drink. Exactly. Yeah. It's a hustle and, and it's a game and, we're both players, but I am raising three boys. And I do think about masculinity and I think a lot about this because I am a tough as nails mother.
[:[01:23:46] Perfect metaphor is I'm a shark swimming through a school of fish where the fish just move out of the way as I go. And that's a really good metaphor for me, cause I am not. He says I bend people to what I want them to do. And that's probably really true. [01:24:00] But when it comes to masculinity and dealing with really sensitive men, because they are, I think men are more sensitive than women, quite frankly.
[:[01:24:10] Jeff Nesbitt: certainly are taught not to be them. We, uh, give
[:[01:24:32] They definitely feel empowered to speak up for things that they think are wrong and that's all I can wish for. And they have gone up river. On things that other people didn't agree on. And, um, you're proud of that too. Like what kind of things? Um, there was a kid at school that was bullying my son's girlfriend in a way online, and nobody was really doing anything about it.
[:[01:25:17] They're struggling with it right now.
[:[01:25:33] They loving it. I remember being that little boy, nothing feels better. Right. but eventually we'll get out of hand and all that, you know? So as a parent, yeah. Guys, knock it off.
[:[01:25:47] Jeff Nesbitt: I think I should not stop that, I should let them do this because this is what their genetic code is telling them to do.
[:[01:25:58] Diana Kirk: I feel like I just redirected [01:26:00] them constantly into something physical. I mean, I feel like for years we were biking with them and walking them and running them and doing sports for years.
[:[01:26:26] I want you to come back sweaty. I don't want to see your face until you do, because they just had like this kind of aggression in them, some pent up, which seems natural. Right? They should probably go like kill a DOE,
[:[01:26:39] Diana Kirk: a beer. How that environment. And I also don't have like a woodpile for them to chop up or some rocks to move.
[:[01:27:02] Cause I don't think his brother is like
[:[01:27:21] I feel like I'm going to try to set an example because when I just explain something to these kids, they're bored by my talking at them. And none of it seems like it's sinking in, but I'm my hope is that someday down the line, , all of this work will just come to fruition. It'll bear fruit. Like the seeds that I'm planting now are going to eventually
[:[01:27:41] There was this woman who lived next door to us in Portland who had two sons that would babysit my kids. They were, I don't know, maybe 10 years older. And uh, I once asked her, cause I really liked her boys. I said, If you had to pick something, what would you say is like the number one thing that's made you a good parent.
[:[01:27:57] Jeff Nesbitt: I read that you wrote that in it today. [01:28:00] It upset me. I was like, oh my God, I'm a
[:[01:28:16] Somehow, even if it's like, where are you? Wait, who are you with? What have you eaten? Good done. But my husband has instilled the every night dinner. He's still like last night. He pissed me off because I did not want to see you. I was really mad at one of my kids. I didn't want to go to dinner and I don't like sausage and he had cooked sausage and I was kind of annoyed and I wanted to eat in my room, but I was like, no, this is my husband's thing.
[:[01:28:39] Jeff Nesbitt: it. You're making me feel even worse because that's exactly what I thought. Well, well now Melissa is not always going to want to do that. And w sorry, has baseball in that time. It was like, make it all these excuses. Cause I know you're right. I am, I can intrinsically tell
[:[01:28:52] It's the one thing. And that goes on past high school. They come home for dinner. Um, I read, I read a book once that was [01:29:00] about like the successes of like nine things, super successful people do. And one of them that I remember so clearly, cause I was already doing it is they always have one night, a week.
[:[01:29:30] And the reason why is it super successful? People said they need a break or they, or time goes by. And they haven't noticed. So that break is that one night a week, they do this one thing. And so I feel like if you have maybe five or six of these. And if you can't do anything else, you can at least say you had dinner with them, which means you had to look them in the eye.
[:[01:30:00] Jeff Nesbitt: I, oh my God, I'm going to start doing this because, so we started renovating our kitchen last January. I actually
[:[01:30:08] Jeff Nesbitt: It's the worst. I, we broke down the walls. Uh, the day I launched this podcast. I miss the hell out of my kids the last six months, because we don't have a place to gather and eat. Right. So like we, when we do family dinners, there were like upstate.
[:[01:30:35] Diana Kirk: It's so oddly important in, in, I think a family dynamic when you've got, I mean, I feel bad for people who can't do it.
[:[01:31:00] And, um, And it's a little hard now with the bar. Cause I'm at the bar a lot in the evenings, especially in August. And I don't see my family as much and it pisses me off because my kids get up at noon. So I can't even have breakfast with them. Yeah. So that pisses me off too, but I'll at least check in with them.
[:[01:31:19] Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah, I will. I'm I'm, I'm recording it right now so that I'll hold myself accountable,
[:[01:31:34] I love my taxes. This sounds so weird. I love doing taxes every year. My taxes are super complicated. My taxes too. The reason why I love them is because it's proof I did something I can see that I've actually succeeded because I have no boss. So my taxes are my only like, oh, well, hell look at all that work.
[:[01:32:02] Jeff Nesbitt: Oh, there's only the only sadness back there. Like either compare it to what you didn't do. Or like that's when I find myself getting down is when I'm ruminating thinking about things I did wrong or things I would've changed waste
[:[01:32:16] It was a waste of a time. It is. I look forward. It is. Although, yeah, I'm writing this, I'm writing a new book and it's all stories from traveling around the world and people that I've met and. It brings up a lot of stuff and I've had to like read old journals and watch movies, um, you know, home videos and stuff.
[:[01:32:45] Jeff Nesbitt: Writing about yourself or stories about yourself from your own perspective, that involve people who are still in your life.
[:[01:32:54] Diana Kirk: 100%. My mom, when my book licking flames came out, my mom lives in a [01:33:00] retirement community. I'd like Del Webb kind of golf course he plays. And I said, Hey, you know, why don't we have like an event there and I can read from the book and they're really funny and have like a lunch or whatever.
[:[01:33:31] It was about me. Um, and there's no way to write and not hurt people. There's literally no way to do it. You can't. And they often say that women write their memoirs after their moms die. There's a reason why
[:[01:33:50] Right. When I talked about some traumatic stuff for my past 100% God. And it's the reason is because I love my parents. And I don't [01:34:00] want them to feel pain. It's just like I was talking about how I don't want to make them talk about their trauma because it's painful for me. Right. , but that stuff shaked me.
[:[01:34:11] Diana Kirk: Yeah. If you're truly telling your story, you have to talk about it. And I don't, I mean, they say, you know, kill your darlings. That's such a like thing and writing, and they're talking about fictional characters, the characters you love, you kill them, but you have to kind of do that in memoir as well.
[:[01:34:33] Jeff Nesbitt: I'm the most afraid of is people trying to make you look like a fool, or,
[:[01:34:44] I'm like, no, I don't know what that is anymore. There's yours. And there's mine. I mean, there's a reason why in high school, when there was a fight that kicked both kids out of school, They don't kick one. They kick both out because they can't find the truth. There's no way to do it. Jordan
[:[01:35:02] And that's a pretty powerful distinction because the truth is only as good as your memory.
[:[01:35:16] But they, they think they can somehow explain it out to me. And I was like, no, I got all my evidence and I, at the end of the day, I don't care. Yeah. So just get out. But I don't know how to not hurt people in the process. I haven't quite done it immensely yet, but I have definitely heard people say what I've written is not true.
[:[01:35:35] Jeff Nesbitt: It is. Yeah. It almost feels like there's a direct correlation between like the number of people who are going to be upset by the writing and the amount of success you may gain from it, because sure. The best stuff. Provocative,
[:[01:35:54] I have an aunt who, um, or she's my husband's aunt who [01:36:00] literally has just turned villainized me every time I'm successful at anything I've done. It's always, like I got sent to, um, the women's March after Trump was inaugurated, um, to write for a magazine. And so her and my cousin were talking about the women's March and.
[:[01:36:41] They don't care what the truth in your book is. You could write anything you wanted, you could make them out to be a Saint, and they still hate you only because you're successful. I find that the big, I can't fight it. And then it's like, slays me. Do you think it's rooted in envy? Yeah. 100%. It right. Roots and envy, but yeah.
[:[01:37:08] Jeff Nesbitt: to watch somebody younger than you, especially if you're related, watch them grow up and then surpass you in life.
[:[01:37:16] Diana Kirk: Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine. I don't, I'm an only child, but I can imagine with siblings, it would be that way. I'm an only child. So I haven't felt that, but yeah, I love
[:[01:37:33] Diana Kirk: Well, that's a good relationship, but my, my youngest, his IQ is off the charts. He's super smart. And his, and he's completely ridiculous because he's 14 and his brothers make fun of him all the time. And I was like, be cool. That one's the smart one.
[:[01:38:04] They've come after me so many times. I don't, I don't wish that I should, and I know I should be more supportive because they're women writers and I should be like, that's wonderful. But behind the scenes, they were just absolutely brats.
[:[01:38:25] Diana Kirk: supposed to be, we all are at that age.
[:[01:38:29] Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. Yeah. And I felt like that was like my generation's job to bring that into the mainstream and we've done it. And it went a little far.
[:[01:38:42] Jeff Nesbitt: less, it's lost.
[:[01:38:57] Diana Kirk: just bullshit. I'm getting really into not [01:39:00] apologizing. That's a new thing for me where I'm like, I don't want to see some people that I respect in politics or that have a name from Donovan.
[:[01:39:19] Jeff Nesbitt: You, I think there's an important line to draw a win. Maybe don't apologize. Stand by what you said and what you did, and you can even apologize that you were misinterpreted or whatever, but you don't have to take back what you said.
[:[01:39:32] Diana Kirk: Vice magazine fly up from, um, LA, they flew up a writer and a photographer to, um, Portland that came to a story to cover, meet bingo at workers. Wow. And it was a really big deal. And I worked at is a big deal. It was huge. Yeah. I pitched them and it came through and it worked. And I worked at that and they came and, um, my bartenders took them out and they had, they stayed in a room and they took photos and it was really fun.
[:[01:40:16] I'm not that I'm the current caretaker of this bar. That's it? It. And you wrote about that and they're like, it was salacious. It was, it was hot. Why
[:[01:40:30] Diana Kirk: but that, but I learned a lot. It was a good
[:[01:40:36] Diana Kirk: shit.
[:[01:41:01] Immensely your book. You're going to call you out. They're going to call you a liar, or they're gonna call you a thief. They're gonna call you every single thing. And don't. That is a lot to handle. I know, but I think you're doing better than you think. When you talk about this social media presence and parenting the fact that you're thinking about it, you're already a step ahead.
[:[01:41:22] Jeff Nesbitt: Public perception is. Always something that has been big for me. I got in big trouble when I was a junior in high school. And, um, for my space made a MySpace profile for one of my teachers and it like blew up and it was completely uncalled for because I was 17.
[:[01:41:45] Diana Kirk: filled with racist. Comedy is central is
[:[01:41:55] Diana Kirk: right.
[:[01:42:12] She's actually trying to be funny. But it was 2004. Ignorance
[:[01:42:24] Diana Kirk: you grew up here. Right? So when my friend has a great process thought process about racism, she came to San Francisco, she was from Georgia and she lived in San Francisco and she'd be like, people here talk about racism.
[:[01:42:57] No, I have a gay bartender that [01:43:00] people can't tell that he's gay and the slightest bit. And guys come in all the time and make little. Like homophobic jokes about him. And then he'll be like, this is how he handles all that. He goes, come get my phone number at the bar before you leave. And they get all like thrown off.
[:[01:43:28] So you don't really know how you feel about racism until you're actually get out into the world. And out of this small little, tiny cave we all live in, you know, that's pretty white, very white. We're really white.
[:[01:43:44] Diana Kirk: black, probably not your next door.
[:[01:43:48] Jeff Nesbitt: no. It's,
[:[01:43:56] Jeff Nesbitt: virtue signaling. I think there's some of that going on for [01:44:00] sure. I try hard not to do that too.
[:[01:44:14] Diana Kirk: identity in this book that I'm writing. I'm trying really hard not to romanticize other cultures. And it's very hard because people are gonna think it's racist.
[:[01:44:36] Jeff Nesbitt: Yes. Yeah. And I think white people, there's so much white guilt as there should have been because.
[:[01:44:44] Diana Kirk: probably gone through stages of white guilt over time and not knowing it, but it's caused
[:[01:44:57] Uh, really anything that makes a distinction between one person or another, [01:45:00] you're not allowed to talk and you are because of how you look or anything like that is bullshit. And including racism against white people. Right. It's all racism. We all could just be better about just being nice to each other.
[:[01:45:28] Yeah. So there was a contractor who was working on my building and he always treated me like shit, whenever I was around him. And he was doing a really big job. And I couldn't understand part of the contract because I don't see things three-dimensionally like on, uh, on architectural plans. I just, my brain doesn't quite do it.
[:[01:46:06] I jumped on my husband and said, what the fuck? Why did you not call him out on that? And he goes, cause I was trying to get through the meeting and just get it over with. And I said, he's going to keep doing that until a man gets him to. He's not, I can, anytime I say anything, I'm crazy, but it needs a man to step in and to call him out on talking to me like that.
[:[01:46:42] Jeff Nesbitt: teach that guy lesson.
[:[01:46:44] Diana Kirk: He has, but I'm pretty sure it's not your job. He would have, he would have stopped talking to me and maybe thought about it the next time he had a meeting. And so when you talk about masculinity, that is something I've taught my children. If you see somebody doing something to a girl or a woman and you don't step in.[01:47:00]
[:[01:47:02] Jeff Nesbitt: Perfect. That's actually exactly where I was trying to take that conversation is there are parts of masculinity that are so crucial to society. Things like being honorable and, and being chivalrous and standing up for people who are weaker. Right. Which sometimes is women.
[:[01:47:35] And it's, and it's, I think that as we're raising sons, we should still be able to talk about that and think about that and, and realize the benefits of raising strong men.
[:[01:47:55] Cause I tell them all the time you are entitled because you are merely born with blonde hair and blue [01:48:00] eyes. And I am your mother. You will have more than a huge, all of your friends on a story that you already have more than if, if you don't get that, when you grow up, your job is to pass that on. I don't know.
[:[01:48:16] Jeff Nesbitt: it has been two hours. Yes,
[:[01:48:18] Jeff Nesbitt: long time. I'm sure that was really, really enjoyable. Thank you so much for coming. Um, anything else you want to get out there before we, uh, take off? No, you should give, uh, any kind of Instagram, Facebook, social media things.
[:[01:48:32] Diana Kirk: stuff. Yes. Yo right now. Oh, uh, worker's Tavern at Gmail is my email. If anybody wants to send me anything, but worker sovereign is on Instagram and Facebook. And so am I Diana? Kirk. All right.
[:[01:48:48] It's been a pleasure.
[:[01:48:51] Jeff Nesbitt: Absolutely ciao. Come back anytime. Yep. Bye everybody.
