Speaker 1: I've got an idea for a movie. Okay, We've got
Speaker 1: something akin to Fast and Furious. We've got a future
Speaker 1: era where there's rabid life sucking entities out on the run.
Speaker 1: There's something akin to Buffy the Slayer. We bring in
Speaker 1: a B grade Vin Diesel Ben Diesel. Perhaps we could
Speaker 1: go on.
Speaker 2: You play, Oh, I know where this is going.
Speaker 1: The villains, love interests, no lines for you, just hisses.
Speaker 1: This is my idea. What this is, this is class,
Speaker 1: this is okay, so you're in awesome. Okay, the Bleeding
Speaker 1: We had fun watching that last night. I was like,
Speaker 1: Amy was like, what are you putting on?
Speaker 2: Why would you do that to me? You want to
Speaker 2: you want to open up this interview by talking about
Speaker 2: the one B movie that I was in years ago.
Speaker 2: Of course I don't even think I was the love
Speaker 2: the love interest of them.
Speaker 1: I was just like, you were conquy by number one.
Speaker 2: It was that my credit, that's my credit, that's my
Speaker 2: credit to you.
Speaker 1: But you were on his left flank and then there
Speaker 1: was another chick on the right flank, and you guys
Speaker 1: were hissing it up.
Speaker 2: It was the worst listen. I love vampire movies. Vampire
Speaker 2: movies are my second favorite movie genre ever. But this
Speaker 2: one just went against everything. If you, if you actually
Speaker 2: watched the whole movie, which I think you could, you
Speaker 2: guys did I got killed with a silver bullet. I
Speaker 2: know that's a werewolf, that's not a vampire.
Speaker 1: Let's not be legalistic. Okay, there's flexibility is but I wrote, so, I.
Speaker 2: Wrote a couple of your line stay through the heart.
Speaker 2: You said, why so sad your death brings me life?
Speaker 1: Well, I think you need to answer for this. A
Speaker 1: lot of people are asking. You said. At one point
Speaker 1: in the film. Towards the end of the film, you said.
Speaker 2: You're promoting something that I was hoping would never see
Speaker 2: in the light of day.
Speaker 1: What do those lines actually mean?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I tried to change them because I
Speaker 2: thought they were so bad. And that's when I learned
Speaker 2: that you can't as an actor do that on set
Speaker 2: without a writer going actually you need to Yeah. I tried.
Speaker 2: I tried my best. I had no control.
Speaker 1: I love B movies.
Speaker 2: I warned you that that was a C minus movie.
Speaker 1: Fair fair grades. But I did say I would bring
Speaker 1: up and you did a whole interview with Stephen Baldwin
Speaker 1: about your movie, so I don't feel bad asking you
Speaker 1: about He has.
Speaker 2: A podcast about the one bad movie You've been in.
Speaker 2: That's the only bad movie I've ever That's the only
Speaker 2: movie I've ever been It was a bad one.
Speaker 1: You can ask my wife. I always wanted to be
Speaker 1: in a B movie, you know. I thought we were
Speaker 1: about to be in one, and the funding fell through.
Speaker 1: So if you want to hire me for a B movie,
Speaker 1: it's not too late. I'm out here exactly. Okay. You
Speaker 1: grew up in what's known as poverty, and you you,
Speaker 1: for a time, didn't have what they call running water.
Speaker 1: What was that like?
Speaker 2: I was born in Mexico, in a little tiny town
Speaker 2: outside of the city of Monterrey. It was called Monte Moreros,
Speaker 2: and it's about six hours south of Texas. I'd lived
Speaker 2: there until I was about five years old, and then
Speaker 2: we moved to America. But my parents were My father
Speaker 2: was a missionary for the church that we attended at
Speaker 2: the time, and so myself and my siblings were born there.
Speaker 2: And you know, I don't have too many memories outside
Speaker 2: of joy. I think, as cliche as it sounds, I
Speaker 2: think the simpler your life is, the the happier it
Speaker 2: can be. And you know, I was a tomboy and
Speaker 2: I remember putting frogs in my pocket and just having
Speaker 2: dirt under my nails all the time. But you know,
Speaker 2: this was a place that didn't have medical help, and
Speaker 2: so my dad built this clinic, like literally built it
Speaker 2: and then worked in it, and then you know, we
Speaker 2: were born there. So interesting. So my family's from Argentina,
Speaker 2: they're from South America. I was born in Mexico. So
Speaker 2: you know, I think it confuses people like to learn
Speaker 2: that that I'm Latina or whatever.
Speaker 1: Latina latinax. Yeah, no, not that in regards to Argentina.
Speaker 1: You your family moved from Argentina to Mexico.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, my dad is a long generations of missionary workers.
Speaker 2: So my grandfather was also a missionary doctor. He actually
Speaker 2: delivered me, which I think would have been in hindsight
Speaker 2: now that I have a son, I would be so
Speaker 2: weird to have your father in law be your obgn.
Speaker 2: But but there's a really cool photo of him holding
Speaker 2: me up. And you know how they used to spank
Speaker 2: babies and stuff when and uh, that's my grandpa. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he's passed away since.
Speaker 1: But the name von Drachenberg, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, is that it's of German descent, so on my
Speaker 2: dad's side he has German ancestry. So there's actually a
Speaker 2: little castle outside of Cologne about twenty minutes ouside of
Speaker 2: Clone called Schloss von Drachenberg, and it's it means dragon
Speaker 2: of the mountain.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so is it nobility like do you? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So usually I think it's v O N versus v
Speaker 2: A N. I think there's like a difference in Dutch
Speaker 2: blood or something like that. I think we're the blue blood.
Speaker 2: I have no idea.
Speaker 1: We have a Scottish castle my clan, you do. It's
Speaker 1: all ruined. It's in ruins and the queen owns it,
Speaker 1: which ours is ours is.
Speaker 2: A museum now and it's cool because I have fans
Speaker 2: that send me photos and videos and so it's really beautiful.
Speaker 2: It was one of the few castles that weren't damaged
Speaker 2: through any of the wars, so that's nice.
Speaker 1: It makes me think of the Baroness from g I Joe,
Speaker 1: you could play the Baroness, do you know what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about?
Speaker 2: No, when you say baroness, I always think of like
Speaker 2: Countess Bathroo or somebody else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not too so Argentina poverty to Mexico, I don't
Speaker 1: even think.
Speaker 2: About being poor. Is that you don't if as a parent,
Speaker 2: if you do it right, you don't even know you are,
Speaker 2: you know. So for us, it was a very joyful time.
Speaker 2: It was all about family and I had no idea
Speaker 2: that we that there was anything different.
Speaker 1: Did that protect you from the later temptations of what
Speaker 1: like celebrity in Hollywood offers? Do you think there was some?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think my parents did a pretty good job
Speaker 2: at not protecting so much, but just teaching us importance
Speaker 2: of certain things. I remember my dad bought us a
Speaker 2: family van at one point. This was it was like
Speaker 2: an astro van and I was in elementary school at
Speaker 2: the time and it had one of those doors that
Speaker 2: slid open, and I was my mind was blown at
Speaker 2: the time because I'd never seen anything. I was like,
Speaker 2: this is the coolest thing ever. And I remember my
Speaker 2: dad having a conversation with me in the first grade saying, hey, like,
Speaker 2: when you go to school, like don't show off. And
Speaker 2: I was confused, It's like, what do you mean I
Speaker 2: can't like tell my friends that we got this cool
Speaker 2: new van. And you know now that as a mom
Speaker 2: I look at my kid, and I'm kind of dealing
Speaker 2: with some of the same things where it's like, how
Speaker 2: do I give the gift of you know that, the
Speaker 2: simplicity and value to my son, and I think we're
Speaker 2: doing it.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, no, I get it. I mean when I
Speaker 1: was coming up in Tennessee, we lived kind of outside
Speaker 1: of town. We also didn't have much. My dad bought
Speaker 1: a trailer and we had to live down by the
Speaker 1: river in a van down by the river. That's not true,
Speaker 1: that's not true.
Speaker 2: Are you really from Tennessee though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm from Tennessee. You said you're the master of
Speaker 1: your own reality many years ago too.
Speaker 2: You never said that, Joe Rogan. So you know what,
Speaker 2: Like I saw your question, I stole your book and
Speaker 2: I looked at your notes and these are all terrible.
Speaker 2: And if you continue, this.
Speaker 1: Is important though, because your worldview has changed. Right. So, yeah, you,
Speaker 1: Doug Synchronicity, you had a very I think you said
Speaker 1: in one of the other interviews too, like later on
Speaker 1: you said, I think a lot of people just end
Speaker 1: up kind of worshiping themselves. I think that's a crucial
Speaker 1: realization that marks everybody's transformation, you know, like they you
Speaker 1: realize that even if you believed in a higher power
Speaker 1: quote unquote, or even if you thought, oh, i'm you know,
Speaker 1: serving a higher ideal, and you might have been a
Speaker 1: time sincere but I think at the end of the
Speaker 1: day we end up realizing that eventually, until we have
Speaker 1: a specific encounter that we'll get to in a moment,
Speaker 1: we're kind of worshiping ourselves. Is that accurate?
Speaker 2: I think so. And I mean, whatever these old quotes
Speaker 2: you pulled up to embarrass me, I think I've always
Speaker 2: had a seeking nature and most most people that I
Speaker 2: meet do too, and we're always like trying to find
Speaker 2: answers and trying to, you know, know, figure out what
Speaker 2: all this means. And oftentimes you get stuck, like with
Speaker 2: whether it's a self help book or whatever it is,
Speaker 2: like meditation what you know, it's I've talked about it before.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it feels like a band aid on a sinking
Speaker 2: ship type thing. And I look back at those days
Speaker 2: where I was in some of the New agey stuff
Speaker 2: is very very temporary. It's like these also grateful for
Speaker 2: those like stepping stones that brought me to where I
Speaker 2: am now. You know, It's like I'm glad I was
Speaker 2: at least thinking of these things, you know, even though
Speaker 2: I definitely didn't have it right back then.
Speaker 1: What's interesting about a lot of what you said, even
Speaker 1: in your previous too Christianity era, you talked about things like, oh,
Speaker 1: I quit watching TV at all, Like back in twenty ten,
Speaker 1: you know, you mentioned that you would sometimes watch films.
Speaker 2: That sounds like something a snob would say.
Speaker 1: Well, no, but that's actually it's actually good though, because
Speaker 1: if you watch TV now, it's like nothing but just
Speaker 1: boomer like mind control program.
Speaker 2: You're talking about actual television.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like television is like just it's a meta level
Speaker 1: of dystopian reality. If you look at it, if you
Speaker 1: haven't watched it in a long time, it's like you
Speaker 1: go to it, you're like, whoa, this is crazy. But
Speaker 1: I'm just saying it's interesting that even before, there seems
Speaker 1: to have been a kind of sensing that you know,
Speaker 1: something is off with this, something is like media is
Speaker 1: doing something weird. And I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: who do media notice that quicker than people perhaps not
Speaker 1: in media, because you see it from the back end.
Speaker 1: You see what's going on in the background, not that
Speaker 1: you necessarily saw like a bunch of corruption, per se.
Speaker 1: But I did want to mention as we move from
Speaker 1: old times up to new times, like when you had
Speaker 1: a TV show and then the TV show gets really popular,
Speaker 1: you experience that reality, it becomes kind of surreal, I'm
Speaker 1: guessing probably, and then you step into totally different worlds.
Speaker 1: So I want to know, like, what was it like
Speaker 1: being from a background of I think you said at
Speaker 1: one point that you you hopped on a greyhound and
Speaker 1: you just kind of went and smoked cigarettes and did
Speaker 1: your own thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you really did some old digging.
Speaker 1: I got to study the ops, right, You kind of
Speaker 1: did it yourself, which is admirable. And then you end
Speaker 1: up in a situation of celebrity, which is very, very rare.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm asking about this, So, well, what's the
Speaker 1: transition from poverty to celebrity like for you? And then
Speaker 1: what's the emptiness of that type of celebrity lifestyle of
Speaker 1: like you know, twenty tens la or whatever.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I never really thought about it that way,
Speaker 2: to be honest, Like, I was just a tattooer at
Speaker 2: the time, and I got on a tattoo TV show
Speaker 2: and it blew up and I still I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just always just kept my regular real friends and
Speaker 2: just didn't really pay attention to the good and the bad.
Speaker 2: As far as like input, I think again this is
Speaker 2: due to probably my parents bring me up a certain way,
Speaker 2: and I think when you keep your circles small, it
Speaker 2: makes that a lot easier. But yeah, is there an
Speaker 2: adjustment to people recognizing you or you know whatever those
Speaker 2: kind of things. Sure, but I don't know. But so
Speaker 2: I don't really think about that kind of stuff, to
Speaker 2: be honest.
Speaker 1: But I mean, back then, did you, like was it
Speaker 1: Surely there had to be temptations of like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: like people recognize me on the street. Now, this is
Speaker 1: not how it used to be. And was there a
Speaker 1: temptation to think, Okay, I've arrived. And then was there
Speaker 1: a lack of fulfillment in an arrival that caused you
Speaker 1: to continue to sort of search because there had to
Speaker 1: be something that prompted the questioning of, well, there's more
Speaker 1: to life than this, right, There's got to be God.
Speaker 1: There's got to be meaning or purpose, like what directed
Speaker 1: you on the path of me?
Speaker 2: I was brought up Christian, so you know, to me,
Speaker 2: it's it's just something that was, you know, it was
Speaker 2: just understood in a certain way. I mean, I think
Speaker 2: when you're a kid, it's you're still trying to figure
Speaker 2: it out. And by the time that I became a teenager,
Speaker 2: I left home at a really early age. I ran
Speaker 2: away from home and which is a really dangerous thing
Speaker 2: to do. And I just didn't think about faith at
Speaker 2: that time. And you know, you can see, like if
Speaker 2: I were to lay out my life, there's just the
Speaker 2: highest amount of destruction that I had. And I do
Speaker 2: believe that I had something watching over me at the time.
Speaker 2: I just never like when I straight away, I just
Speaker 2: didn't think about it and I ended up prioritizing the
Speaker 2: things that you were talking about self worship. I mean,
Speaker 2: I would I built a huge career out of you know, vanity,
Speaker 2: I guess you would say most of it, and I
Speaker 2: just had my priorities just really flipped upside down. And
Speaker 2: it really wasn't until I met my husband where I
Speaker 2: where those things started changing. Raphael. You know, I haven't
Speaker 2: dated that many people in my lifetime, but like prior
Speaker 2: to my husband, most people I dated were terrible for me,
Speaker 2: you know, and you know, the whole water seeks as
Speaker 2: till level. I'm sure you know plays a part in that.
Speaker 1: What about Darius Rucker, How was that when you dated Hoodie?
Speaker 1: Because nobody's ast hey, because I mean people, people have
Speaker 1: theorized for many years that I want to hold your hands.
Speaker 1: The dolphins make me cry.
Speaker 2: You know what, I don't even know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: I'm just not going to I'm sorry. So you had
Speaker 1: a series of bad experiences in that world.
Speaker 2: No, I mean this, and everybody has to go through
Speaker 2: that until they find the right partner. But when I
Speaker 2: met Raphile, I just remember, there was just goodness, you know,
Speaker 2: there was It was like the first time I felt
Speaker 2: like I was dating somebody that loved me without agenda.
Speaker 2: And you know what, I really had no idea that
Speaker 2: he was going to change my life in the way
Speaker 2: that he did. And you know, at that time when
Speaker 2: I met him, I was in full force. You know,
Speaker 2: I had a huge company. I was just doing tons
Speaker 2: of stuff, like my work was my priority. And and
Speaker 2: I remember he was like, I want to have six kids,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, oh, I'm never having kids, Like my
Speaker 2: art is Mike baby or whatever, you know. And then
Speaker 2: the compromise was I'll give you one, you know, and
Speaker 2: I think that was the first step into.
Speaker 1: Really changing most so motherhood and being a wife was
Speaker 1: a big part of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm shift, yeah, but I think it was
Speaker 2: it happened more because of the marriage, you know. I
Speaker 2: think prior to that I was very lost and you know,
Speaker 2: seeking love and just harmful ways.
Speaker 1: I think if somebody had asked you prior to all
Speaker 1: of that, you know, in the twenty tens, in the
Speaker 1: two thousands, like what is your worldview? What do you believe?
Speaker 1: Would you have said atheist, agnostic?
Speaker 2: I wouldn't even know what that meant back then, you know,
Speaker 2: to be honest, I think, and I'm sure we'll get
Speaker 2: into the Orthodoxy stuff, but it's like one of the
Speaker 2: things that was very appealing to me with Orthodoxy was
Speaker 2: just that this a better a deeper understanding of actual
Speaker 2: church history, which you know, I had no clue about.
Speaker 2: Like I didn't know what Protestant was. I didn't know,
Speaker 2: you know. I just was like, it's just like people
Speaker 2: who believe in Jesus or something, you know, and that's
Speaker 2: that's that, you know. I didn't understand even my own upbringing,
Speaker 2: to be honest, so I wouldn't have I wasn't intelligent
Speaker 2: in that sense enough to even call myself an atheist
Speaker 2: or agnostic. I think that when times got tough and
Speaker 2: I was hitting rock bottom, there was an innate desire
Speaker 2: to pray. And it wasn't because my parents brought me
Speaker 2: up Christian. It was a desire to reach out for
Speaker 2: help from where it counted. And I think for those
Speaker 2: that have reached rock bottom, like like a real you know, desperation,
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure there's many cases everybody. There's lots
Speaker 2: of people that have experienced the same thing. So I
Speaker 2: remember feeling like, that's so interesting. It's not like I'm
Speaker 2: not calling to my mommy or my dad, like I'm
Speaker 2: calling to you know. So that was that's always stayed
Speaker 2: with me. So even when I was, you know, strayed
Speaker 2: far away, it never really left. And then and then
Speaker 2: it wasn't until about twenty twenty when my husband came
Speaker 2: to me and was like, you know, I think that
Speaker 2: you know, we got a lot of things wrong. And
Speaker 2: it was like a worldview. It wasn't necessarily a faith
Speaker 2: thing because my husband and I are not necessarily on
Speaker 2: the same page, and so and I just remember going like,
Speaker 2: show me you know, and I've learned so much from
Speaker 2: my husband, you know, and I think he has like
Speaker 2: a lot of wisdom to share with me. So it
Speaker 2: changed my perspective on a lot of things. And then
Speaker 2: from that go what else have I gotten wrong? And
Speaker 2: that's when I started like exploring going back to the church, right.
Speaker 1: And you said we could maybe do a little deep
Speaker 1: booking because a lot of people think that because of
Speaker 1: an aesthetic, there might be something edging into the occult
Speaker 1: or witchcraft or something like that, but You've always maintained
Speaker 1: that you were never really into any of that.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people, especially like in the
Speaker 2: Christian realm, like when when I got baptized, you know,
Speaker 2: I decided to post a video about it, and it
Speaker 2: got a lot of traction, which was not the reason
Speaker 2: for me posting. I just felt on my heart to
Speaker 2: proclaim my faith honestly and openly because I had gone
Speaker 2: so many years doing the opposite, and so I felt
Speaker 2: like that was the most honest and fairest thing I
Speaker 2: could do, especially to people who follow me.
Speaker 1: And I saw an ai of that, and that was
Speaker 1: Was it Spencer baptizing you? Or was that Donald Trump?
Speaker 1: I can't remember there's an Ai. There's a beautiful Ai
Speaker 1: imagery is.
Speaker 2: AI. I mean, I think when it comes to like
Speaker 2: faith or philosophies and stuff, I was, you know, I
Speaker 2: would read a lot of the old philosophers. I was
Speaker 2: a big fan of Nietzsche. Stumbled upon a lot of
Speaker 2: self help books at the time, which I wouldn't call
Speaker 2: them self help. I would consider them wisdom books. But
Speaker 2: in hindsight they were all really missing the most important part.
Speaker 2: But as far as the witchcraft thing goes, you know,
Speaker 2: I've I've been a fan of history. I'm still a
Speaker 2: fan of history, and so yeah, did I have things
Speaker 2: that veered into those realms? Did I learn about some
Speaker 2: of that stuff? Shirt? But would I consider myself a
Speaker 2: practicing which no I was, you know, I'm not. I
Speaker 2: was never in that club. But there was a point
Speaker 2: where I did get rid of I went through my
Speaker 2: library and collection of things and and got rid of,
Speaker 2: you know, things that I just didn't want collecting dust
Speaker 2: around my my sphere, in my child's world either.
Speaker 1: You know, I noticed that because I had a phase
Speaker 1: where I was interested in that stuff in my twenties,
Speaker 1: and I never got serious about it. But one thing
Speaker 1: that I noticed, and we were talking about this earlier,
Speaker 1: is that there's there's never kind of an endpoint. It's
Speaker 1: like there's you get into, oh, this esoteric thing, and oh,
Speaker 1: but then what about this one over here? And it's
Speaker 1: like a never ending sort of it's rabbit trail all
Speaker 1: the way down and you never sort of land on anything.
Speaker 1: And in my life, even though I was raised Protestant
Speaker 1: as well and I've kind of you know, been all
Speaker 1: around and experienced for things, I always kind of land
Speaker 1: back on if I ever sort of stray. It's like
Speaker 1: I always come back to orthodoxy because there's nothing else
Speaker 1: that really gives you a kind of a stability in
Speaker 1: terms of a paradigm or worldview compared to all of
Speaker 1: these other They just never go anywhere. And they're also
Speaker 1: just sort of like they're ideas, and I think we
Speaker 1: need more than just a new set of ideas. There's
Speaker 1: something that has to be actually real, grounded, historical. And
Speaker 1: the reason I keep bringing up past is not to
Speaker 1: shame or not to remind you a bad time. It's
Speaker 1: important because we did a live stream the other night,
Speaker 1: and the whole live stream was about how technocracy technology
Speaker 1: is actually I think erasing the past. It's all sort
Speaker 1: of a mauist thing to get rid of everybody's previous
Speaker 1: memories and existence, to only live in the sort of
Speaker 1: immediate and stantiated infinite present. So it's like a mimicking
Speaker 1: of God's perspective where you think you're your own God,
Speaker 1: but you only live in the immediate, and so you're
Speaker 1: past your family, your nation, your history, none of that matters.
Speaker 1: It has to be erased and you only live in
Speaker 1: the immediate. That way, everybody is like completely controlled. But
Speaker 1: that's getting way way too conspiratorial. But the reason.
Speaker 2: It's not justly that I'm ashamed of it. I mean,
Speaker 2: a good chunk of my life has been documented and
Speaker 2: aired publicly, So it's not that i'm you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: do I cringe at certain things I said at a
Speaker 2: certain time, sure, But I also I'm proud of myself
Speaker 2: that I'm not stuck in that same place when I
Speaker 2: have friends that never moved on from those those you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: those times. So it's no, I'm just I'm just poking
Speaker 2: fun at you just because you've brought up old quotes
Speaker 2: from old interviews that I'm just like.
Speaker 1: What are the three transfer of energy words? Everyone I
Speaker 1: just did a podcast with Eddie Bravo, and you told
Speaker 1: Eddie Bravo, there are three words gave me.
Speaker 2: I agreed to this. You're in my house, all right.
Speaker 1: So one thing I noticed in some of the older
Speaker 1: interviews that was interesting was that you did also kind
Speaker 1: of mention the demonic. You said that, yeah, I want
Speaker 1: and this might be a newer interview, but you said
Speaker 1: something like you did come to believe that demons and
Speaker 1: monic possession was real. I'm curious what was it just
Speaker 1: the Christian paradigm or was there anything else? Perhaps I
Speaker 1: gonna like the temptation to addiction, Like is there something
Speaker 1: that peaked the idea of the demonic in what you're
Speaker 1: talking about?
Speaker 2: I mean, I just think that sometimes you can understand
Speaker 2: things like it's easy to be like that's demonic based
Speaker 2: off of a movie like and I love the Exorcist
Speaker 2: genre as well, that's my number one favorite type of movie.
Speaker 2: But and I think some things are it might be
Speaker 2: that way. I'm not an exorcist, so I can't speak
Speaker 2: to that, but I know that there are people that
Speaker 2: become possessed by worldly things, and like, if you want
Speaker 2: to label that a demon, it makes sense to me,
Speaker 2: you know, like I'm happily sober for actually I'm like
Speaker 2: losing count might be sixteen, seventeen years now, maybe eighteen.
Speaker 2: And I don't want to blame, you know, my past
Speaker 2: addiction on a demon you know, even though I would
Speaker 2: say that when you're on drugs, it is a type
Speaker 2: of possession. You know, you're not in control, You're not
Speaker 2: you know, and so whether you relinquish that power over
Speaker 2: to another entity, you know, is that That's what I
Speaker 2: think I meant by in that quote. It is all
Speaker 2: fascinating to me, you know. I think that I get
Speaker 2: called demonic all the time, probably just because of my
Speaker 2: aesthetic or you know, maybe some of the lyrics in
Speaker 2: my music are misconstrued, but I don't, I don't. I
Speaker 2: would say that that's like a superficial like label. That's
Speaker 2: not you know, when I'm talking about a demonic possession,
Speaker 2: I'm that's not what I'm referring to it.
Speaker 1: No, Well, I had a really bad acidrip one time,
Speaker 1: and I think I did see something actually demonic. So
Speaker 1: I was just curious if there was because you had
Speaker 1: mentioned drugs in the past, like if there was a
Speaker 1: bad experience or if it was just more so like
Speaker 1: this is becoming an addiction.
Speaker 2: I'd have tried acid and shrooms and stuff maybe once
Speaker 2: or twice, but my drug of choice was more uppers.
Speaker 2: So I you know, I think that that maybe it's
Speaker 2: a different type of demon you know, I think, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's definitely a different.
Speaker 1: Flavor I think, and what so you.
Speaker 2: But I don't think I saw a physical monster or something.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about like a demonic possession of the heart
Speaker 2: and you know.
Speaker 1: Right like where we put all of our time and
Speaker 1: energy and yeah, you mentioned as well, like a period
Speaker 1: of AA.
Speaker 2: I was never a fan of A. I mean, I
Speaker 2: love the Big Book. I think the Steps are awesome.
Speaker 2: I would I think the world would be better off
Speaker 2: if everybody did the twelve steps at one point and
Speaker 2: did the inventory. I personally do that now as an
Speaker 2: Orthodox Christian, like through confession, and but I'm just not
Speaker 2: a fan of group therapy in general, Like I've never
Speaker 2: been good at that. And I think too, like the
Speaker 2: anonymous part is very rarely honored within that circle, especially
Speaker 2: in LA. I would go to a meeting and then
Speaker 2: I would have to like hear about it on Twitter
Speaker 2: somehow or whatever.
Speaker 1: You said that a lot of the stand ups practice
Speaker 1: their new material. A.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean in LA it's a different story. And
Speaker 2: I know that there are like pockets of meetings where
Speaker 2: there's more like elders that are more serious.
Speaker 1: You got a good drunk joke?
Speaker 2: Do I have a good drunk joke?
Speaker 1: From the comedians?
Speaker 2: Oh? No, I just feel like when people would go
Speaker 2: up to say their their story, a lot of times
Speaker 2: it's like I would see, you know, some up and
Speaker 2: coming comedians like practicing bits and things like that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: sometimes I don't know. I'm not trying to judge because honestly,
Speaker 2: like everybody's trying their best.
Speaker 1: I guess, but I'm trying to judge. I'll be all
Speaker 1: about that judgement listen.
Speaker 2: But I think my biggest gripe with it was just
Speaker 2: more like I never felt safe to in those circles,
Speaker 2: but also to like I just you know, where's the
Speaker 2: step where you don't have to do any more steps?
Speaker 2: That's that's the part where it's like, where's the step
Speaker 2: where you can stop calling yourself an addict? Like I
Speaker 2: don't consider myself an addict because I don't do drugs
Speaker 2: anymore and I don't drink, you know, it's like but
Speaker 2: for them, it's like this like label of it's a
Speaker 2: forever mark that you have to go to everybody forever
Speaker 2: or else if you don't, you will fall. And it's
Speaker 2: like I see that with my relationship with Christ, like
Speaker 2: I have to keep my you know, my my eye
Speaker 2: on that prize. And but I don't need to go
Speaker 2: to you know, a meeting with with you know, some
Speaker 2: Hollywood people to confirm that. But I do feel like
Speaker 2: I need to do it, like you know, with my
Speaker 2: parish and my priest and saints all around me. But
Speaker 2: you know, at one point when I first became an
Speaker 2: inquirer and like started really seriously I'm going into Orthodoxy,
Speaker 2: you know, I it's all I could think about, and
Speaker 2: it's all I wanted to think about, and and I'm
Speaker 2: still that way now, but it got to the point where,
Speaker 2: you know, it was causing problems in my own marriage,
Speaker 2: you know, because I just wanted to be in church
Speaker 2: all the time, and and you know, my husband is
Speaker 2: very supportive of me, and he's very patient and loving,
Speaker 2: but he's not you know, he's not a Catechuman. He's
Speaker 2: not for you know, and that's something that's you know,
Speaker 2: it's a struggle for us sometimes. But I remember at
Speaker 2: one point he's like, like, I'm competing with Jesus at
Speaker 2: this point, and I really had to look at and
Speaker 2: I you know, I've talked to my priest about it
Speaker 2: and everything, and it's like, there's a point where it's like,
Speaker 2: I need to make time for my marriage and not
Speaker 2: you know, because if it's up to me, if I
Speaker 2: didn't have the responsibility of a marriage or motherhood, I
Speaker 2: might consider the monastic life, you know, and like that
Speaker 2: that to me is very appealing, you know. But but
Speaker 2: I'm also a very extreme personality. So it's like, but
Speaker 2: that's not the that's not the card that I'm dealt,
Speaker 2: you know. And so I have to make sure to
Speaker 2: take care of my marriage and take care of my
Speaker 2: mother and still prioritize that, and you can you can
Speaker 2: balance that together. I don't know why I got on
Speaker 2: this tangent. I know we were okay, oh no, but
Speaker 2: there's a reason why I brought it up. We were
Speaker 2: talking about something prior to this.
Speaker 1: In other words, he's not Orthodox. Would you describe him
Speaker 1: as an eventual local?
Speaker 2: No, Oh, my gosh, I just got it. We just yeah, no, no,
Speaker 2: Raphael was. He was brought up Roman Catholic, so but
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say he's a practicing you know, he comes
Speaker 2: to church with me every you know, on Sundays he
Speaker 2: comes with me, and you know, my our son just
Speaker 2: got baptized and he's very happy about that. And he
Speaker 2: loves Orthodoxy and he loves it for me. That's what
Speaker 2: I was going to say was that, you know, in AA,
Speaker 2: it's like when there's people that's like, I have to
Speaker 2: have this meeting WHI else I'm going to relax, you know.
Speaker 2: And to me, I remember sitting down with my husband
Speaker 2: explaining to him that like this might I might be
Speaker 2: annoying to you in a sense, but like Jesus is
Speaker 2: the best thing to have happened to me and to you,
Speaker 2: because without this peace, I will ruin everything. I've ruined
Speaker 2: all my other relationships prior to you know, I have
Speaker 2: a I have never been faithful until my marriage, you know,
Speaker 2: and it's like and and the biggest part to that
Speaker 2: is is the Jesus part. And so I sometimes I
Speaker 2: you know, I think I think he understands that. It's
Speaker 2: like it's good for me, you know, it's it's good
Speaker 2: for me to go to church, and it's good for
Speaker 2: me to be surrounded by that and have these daily reminders.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm a hard headed person, so I tend
Speaker 2: to need these daily reminders all around me, whether it's
Speaker 2: like the cross around my neck to the things in
Speaker 2: my household, and.
Speaker 1: Oh, we'll do it. We're all that way. Like one
Speaker 1: thing you said though before we got to the Orthodox part,
Speaker 1: and I think we were eating dinner and you said this,
Speaker 1: So AA has this idea that you just appeal to
Speaker 1: any higher power. And I've always seen that as because
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of friends that have gone to AA,
Speaker 1: and so I've always seen that as kind of one
Speaker 1: of the flaws in that system is And I just
Speaker 1: had a debate with two dudes the other day. Those
Speaker 1: guys whole ethos was to defend the idea that it
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter about Jesus, it's more so just generic God.
Speaker 1: But the problem is that generic God is generic. It
Speaker 1: doesn't tell us anything about you know, be like saying
Speaker 1: if you I mean imagine saying that instead of well,
Speaker 1: I'm not in love with my wife, Jamie, I'm in
Speaker 1: love with woman. I'm in love with human. Right, it's
Speaker 1: not specific to tell you anything that's the same. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I just believe in God. And the whole thing with
Speaker 1: AA is that although there might be some pragmatic things
Speaker 1: that help people, if at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's just generic God, it's allowing you to paste into
Speaker 1: it whatever you want. But that's the problem, is that
Speaker 1: what those people are after is what it's not offering, Like,
Speaker 1: it's not offering the specificity of Yeah, that's an awesome.
Speaker 2: Way to put it. Yeah it does. But I will say,
Speaker 2: you know, I think I'm not knocking AA in any
Speaker 2: way because it's helped so many people, including myself. I
Speaker 2: think whatever gets you sober is the best thing because
Speaker 2: without sobriety, like I wouldn't be a good Christian, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't be a good mom, or a good wife, a.
Speaker 1: Good friend, or good anything literally anything.
Speaker 2: If I'm on drugs, I'm going to tear apart my world.
Speaker 2: Is that what you're asking?
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, could there be a trade off that
Speaker 1: you said anything that gets you off of drugs? So no,
Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with creed.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, I'm sorry, You're right. I shouldn't have generalized.
Speaker 2: I'm not a debater. Okay, it feels like it. Oh no, no,
Speaker 2: not at all. But I will say I was like
Speaker 2: intimidated when you asked me to do this, because I
Speaker 2: was like, you know, I'm sure I've obviously seen your debates,
Speaker 2: and I'm like some sometimes I I have to look
Speaker 2: up words that you say, and like, you know, it's
Speaker 2: hard to keep up because you're appear you know, and
Speaker 2: it's it's very cool.
Speaker 1: I love that it's word solid. I don't even know
Speaker 1: what's half the word's name. But if I write down
Speaker 1: a fancy word, I got a booklet it's called fancy Words.
Speaker 1: And then so I'm just in the middle of a debate,
Speaker 1: I'll appeal to the fancy word booklet. Yeah, well I
Speaker 1: just know the words.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Hopefully we're not letting down your audience considering that
Speaker 2: this is this this is a different type of word salad.
Speaker 1: Right, So you're in a a you it helps you.
Speaker 2: I only I've only gone to A a few times.
Speaker 1: We weren't there a lot a lot, and then you
Speaker 1: just decided I got to make these choices, these changes.
Speaker 2: I've just always been lone wolf about things. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I can do this on my own and I think
Speaker 2: a lot of that is where I started going into
Speaker 2: self help stuff. You know, I find you know, not
Speaker 2: necessarily manifest like that kind of stuff, but you know,
Speaker 2: and I don't even want to bring up the types
Speaker 2: of books, but you know, just things that there feel
Speaker 2: good and it feels like you're making progress, you know,
Speaker 2: and I think I was, you know, but it's it
Speaker 2: was like such a tip of an iceberg. But yeah,
Speaker 2: so it's kind of like I just started getting sober
Speaker 2: on my own, right, So I didn't depend on the
Speaker 2: meetings or anything, but I did have to go through
Speaker 2: like the roll decks of friends and drug dealers and
Speaker 2: everything and delete everything and start from scratch. And you
Speaker 2: realize very quickly that you don't have any friends, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean most of the people that I was surrounded
Speaker 2: by at the time were fellow drug addicts, you know.
Speaker 2: And it's I mean, and it makes sense.
Speaker 1: So you ghosted Pablo Escobar and now he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: where's she dude?
Speaker 2: It was more like the bouncer at a strip club
Speaker 2: or something like that.
Speaker 1: So then what tips the scale towards going back to Jesus? Right,
Speaker 1: Because I know there's a phase of if youangelicalism where
Speaker 1: you kind of immediately get back on the sphere of
Speaker 1: Protestant Evangelicalsot.
Speaker 2: How did I make my way back to Jesus. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that was in twenty twenty, and I was like years later,
Speaker 2: I was already sober for many years. Yeah. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: was just I think seeing what happened during twenty twenty
Speaker 2: with the lockdowns and just so much crazy misinformation, and
Speaker 2: just I lived in LA in the middle of all
Speaker 2: that when it was happening, and so I got like
Speaker 2: front row seats to it wasn't even what the news
Speaker 2: was showing you, because it wasn't. It was I think worse.
Speaker 2: But and so I started questioning a lot of things
Speaker 2: that at the time I was like, I used to
Speaker 2: be so gung ho about this, and I realized I
Speaker 2: got things wrong, you know. And so then Rafa has
Speaker 2: always again, even though he's not necessarily a Christian, he's
Speaker 2: always been pointing me in that direction. I do believe
Speaker 2: that's a part of why God's paired us, you know.
Speaker 2: And so I definitely just credit my husband towards all
Speaker 2: these pretty large landmarks, you know. And then once I,
Speaker 2: once I you know, started going to church again, we
Speaker 2: decided to leave California at that time.
Speaker 1: And then was it the dystopian aspect of that period
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty, Like was that what I'm.
Speaker 2: Not a fan of government. I have never been a
Speaker 2: fan of government per se. I mean I like very
Speaker 2: small government, but or I prefer that. But like in
Speaker 2: California specifically, I was. I was not a fan of
Speaker 2: our governor, still not. And you know, I have such
Speaker 2: a love for California and seeing it destroyed the way
Speaker 2: that it's been, it's like, you really have to be
Speaker 2: super hardheaded to not hold certain people accountable. And so
Speaker 2: after twenty twenty and seeing like the government overreach that
Speaker 2: took place, I mean, I had my tattoo shop for
Speaker 2: over twelve years and I lost it due to a
Speaker 2: lockdown that was not handled with small businesses in mind.
Speaker 2: But with that being said, we had a really small
Speaker 2: child at the time, and we had a beautiful house
Speaker 2: in Hancock Park. It was a nice area, and we
Speaker 2: realized that we just never left. We were just always
Speaker 2: I'm like, are we confined to our small front yard
Speaker 2: for the rest of our life because we don't want
Speaker 2: to go out there anymore? This isn't you know how
Speaker 2: are we raising Leaphar, you know, And so I've always
Speaker 2: been a huge fan of restoration for Victorian homes, and
Speaker 2: I had restored that house for eight years. And then
Speaker 2: there was this house in the middle of nowhere in
Speaker 2: Indiana that was operating as a bed and breakfast for
Speaker 2: twenty years and it went on the market and it's
Speaker 2: a very unique home, which is the one that we're
Speaker 2: in right now. And I remember telling Raf. I was like, hey,
Speaker 2: let's just fly out there and just see it. You know,
Speaker 2: like other than driving through Indiana, I've never spent time here.
Speaker 2: I never I don't have friends here or anything.
Speaker 1: So you flee California.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that sounds dramatic, but yeah, it was
Speaker 2: a process. We moved out of California and we found
Speaker 2: this place. And you know, it's a very small town
Speaker 2: of twelve hundred people, and it's so small that it
Speaker 2: doesn't even have a mayor. It's just it was the
Speaker 2: perfect balance of nature. But I'm like a majority of
Speaker 2: people here working class. It's just nice neighbors. You know,
Speaker 2: I lived I lived in my house in LA for
Speaker 2: eight years and I cannot tell you my neighbor's name.
Speaker 2: And here there's just a true sense of community. So
Speaker 2: we love that and people leave us alone, like, you know,
Speaker 2: it's easy for us to have like a normal life,
Speaker 2: and you know, my kid can run around and be
Speaker 2: a kid and we don't have to worry about the craziness.
Speaker 1: This mansion is amazing. It's actually like resident Evil, like
Speaker 1: when you're wandering around and then you come up here
Speaker 1: to the crow's nose. The first time I came here,
Speaker 1: I was like, this is where you snipe the peasants, right,
Speaker 1: the zombie peasant villagers.
Speaker 2: It's just like, well, for context, we are sitting in
Speaker 2: what we call the crows and us. It's the four
Speaker 2: story tower of this building that when we bought it
Speaker 2: was pretty much just abandoned. There was like dead birds
Speaker 2: and flies everywhere, and so then I decided to make
Speaker 2: it like a tea room. So but we love this room.
Speaker 2: It's pretty, it's cool, and this is the first time
Speaker 2: I'm actually hanging out in it, Like this is the
Speaker 2: first time we've filmed done anything in here.
Speaker 1: So you flee here but not in flight, and you
Speaker 1: come to the middle of nowhere, and this is concurrent
Speaker 1: with you transitioning to a new paradigminal worldview, and originally
Speaker 1: I think you said it's like sort of Baptist evangelical ideology.
Speaker 1: So I'm curious.
Speaker 2: We landed here, and I just prayed to for the
Speaker 2: Lord to put us in at the footsteps of the
Speaker 2: right place. And you know, because it is a small town,
Speaker 2: it's not like there's an Orthodox church or and there's
Speaker 2: not really that many churches here. There's like two or
Speaker 2: three in this there are actually three, but now too.
Speaker 2: And there was this Baptist church that we can see
Speaker 2: from the window here, and we just one Sunday walked
Speaker 2: up and the people there were very warm and welcoming,
Speaker 2: and it was a beautiful It was a beautiful time.
Speaker 2: You know. I don't just because I'm Orthodox now does
Speaker 2: not mean I don't love my Protestant brothers and sisters,
Speaker 2: you know. And and without that transitional period, I don't
Speaker 2: think I probably would have found Orthodox the way that
Speaker 2: I found it, which I think was good. So I
Speaker 2: was there for about a year and then got baptized
Speaker 2: and hit a wall pretty quickly after that, Like meaning
Speaker 2: I just had a lot of questions, not a lot
Speaker 2: of discipleship or disciple ling, I guess, or shepherding and
Speaker 2: after that, I would share with my husband just the
Speaker 2: struggles that I'm like, man, I just feel like my
Speaker 2: cup's not fool you know. I know it sounds silly,
Speaker 2: but I'm going and through the motions. But something there's
Speaker 2: there's more, and he goes. He sends me a YouTube
Speaker 2: video of an Orthodox priest talking about something philosophical. But
Speaker 2: it was so beautiful and I was like, Oh, this
Speaker 2: guy's cool. I really like what he's about. But I
Speaker 2: didn't understand. I thought like Orthodox was, you know, I
Speaker 2: didn't know it was like Christian you.
Speaker 1: Know, so like the weird uncle to Christianity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't understand what it was. I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: and so so I didn't think about it at all.
Speaker 2: And then it wasn't There's like two other things that
Speaker 2: happened that that really like, after the third time of
Speaker 2: kind of being called to it, I was like, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm going to actually just go and check out on
Speaker 2: Orthodox church. And so I googled what the nearest English
Speaker 2: speaking Orthodox church was to me, and I stepped foot
Speaker 2: into to the parish that I go to now and
Speaker 2: like a greeter talked to me briefly, was like, oh, hey,
Speaker 2: are you visiting, you know, and I said yeah, and
Speaker 2: he goes, here's like a little it was like a
Speaker 2: little card that.
Speaker 1: Just you know, did the aesthetics draw you in partly? No,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people who are into esthetics, fine,
Speaker 1: Orthodoxy esthetically appealing.
Speaker 2: If we're talking about esthetic, I mean, I would say
Speaker 2: the Roman Catholics have the most beautiful architecture, not talking
Speaker 2: about icons and all that, but like, I was always
Speaker 2: a fan of Carbagio paintings and you know, Rembrandts, like
Speaker 2: all the Master style. So I mean, to me, it
Speaker 2: was funny. I was talking to Father John Parker about
Speaker 2: this the other day. That was like, I never understood
Speaker 2: icons obviously until I was introduced to Orthodoxy and I
Speaker 2: had seen them. I had seen these depictions of Christ
Speaker 2: and I thought, oh, this must be from the fifteen
Speaker 2: hundreds before they learned how to draw, like, because everything
Speaker 2: was so flat. I didn't understand that there's some symbolism
Speaker 2: and meaning behind all that, and just was like, oh, cool,
Speaker 2: that's just more ancient. But when I saw the Caravaggio's
Speaker 2: painting of the Uh Doubting of Thomas, I saw it
Speaker 2: in real life and it hit me. And this was
Speaker 2: before I had come back to the church. I just
Speaker 2: was like, this really happened, the resurrection, And I'm like,
Speaker 2: could you imagine what it would have felt like to
Speaker 2: see Christ and even being a disciple and seeing all
Speaker 2: the other miracles, you still have doubt to the point
Speaker 2: where He's, you know, in his amazingness, is like here,
Speaker 2: let me just prove it to you again. And it
Speaker 2: just I just remember seeing that painting and it just
Speaker 2: was like, Oh, if this is real, like we should
Speaker 2: be we should be scared, you know. And so I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, icons make so much sense to me,
Speaker 2: Like this is you don't need to know how to
Speaker 2: read to learn about Jesus. You know.
Speaker 1: Also your so cool. Your background is to you drew
Speaker 1: from the time you were young. You're always drawing and
Speaker 1: then you just on people. Yeah, and there's something about that,
Speaker 1: and you even described it like it's not just you know,
Speaker 1: a job or whatever. You're also having this sort of
Speaker 1: unique experience with the person, getting to know the person.
Speaker 1: So it's almost like for you from your earliest days,
Speaker 1: like art and imagery and iconography was also personalized, and
Speaker 1: the whole point of the icons is to personalize the saints.
Speaker 1: Thus to also personalize God. So it's not just an abstraction,
Speaker 1: it's not art. It's a window to heaven to meet
Speaker 1: people and to know people. And I'm just.
Speaker 2: Saying, but there's also like historic storytelling that Then that's
Speaker 2: the part where it's like I'm learning about something and
Speaker 2: understanding and experience because I'm seeing an image and I
Speaker 2: don't need to be, you know, a theologian. I don't
Speaker 2: need to have a high IQ. I can just look
Speaker 2: at this and understand. And I thought that was so
Speaker 2: cool and so moving. So when I did, you know,
Speaker 2: see icons after that, it's like, oh, it's it's not
Speaker 2: a hard step for me to understand why we would
Speaker 2: want to kiss an icon, you know, it's it'd be
Speaker 2: weird if you don't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, so well, and so many other things that
Speaker 1: in our lives we honor and revere in the exact
Speaker 1: same way. And then I think, through a lot of
Speaker 1: the sort of Protestant Islamic ideology, we tend to think
Speaker 1: that that would be a violation of divinity or something,
Speaker 1: But why if we do that for the lesser things,
Speaker 1: like obviously, we would do it that much more for
Speaker 1: the higher things. So another thing about this need about icons.
Speaker 1: That goes back to what I was saying about the
Speaker 1: past and about history is a lot of like the
Speaker 1: tech today, what is geared towards is getting you focused
Speaker 1: on only caring about immediacy and fulfillment in the immediate.
Speaker 1: But an icon is like the right version of that,
Speaker 1: because even though they're they're two D, they aren't just
Speaker 1: an eternal now because within the nows that they show,
Speaker 1: there's almost always a background in a history and a
Speaker 1: future to the story of the person in the icon.
Speaker 1: For example, like if you see icons of the life
Speaker 1: of Christ, like where they have like a big one
Speaker 1: that has all the stories in one it's one image,
Speaker 1: but it's telling you this timeless story, but it also
Speaker 1: projects into the future. So there's like an aschotological reality
Speaker 1: to the icons as well. And I can't really I mean,
Speaker 1: I know a lot of art can sort of do
Speaker 1: similar types of things.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking like Lord of the Rings is you know,
Speaker 1: according to Tolkien, like his historical fiction, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: really tell you about I mean, it tells you moral
Speaker 1: things about life and meaning, but it doesn't tell you
Speaker 1: the future. It doesn't tell you all of reality in
Speaker 1: a single image and the cosmic scope of icons I
Speaker 1: think is unique in that way. I just thought it
Speaker 1: was probably you were probably already providentially being prepared for
Speaker 1: worth through what you did and what you were into.
Speaker 1: And I talked to a lot of people from the
Speaker 1: world of the arts and you know, the domain of
Speaker 1: the creative who would become Orthodox, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of similar patterns with those people that they were already
Speaker 1: kind of prepared for that, you know, through So how.
Speaker 2: Would you explain what an icon is to someone who
Speaker 2: doesn't know what that is? I only say that just
Speaker 2: because I'm sure by the time this goes up, like
Speaker 2: a lot of people follow me don't know like what
Speaker 2: we're talking about.
Speaker 1: So probably everybody knows about religious art work. And for
Speaker 1: the Orthodox Church, icons are not just religious art. They're
Speaker 1: much more than that. So for us, there's a very
Speaker 1: specific what we call canonical or sort of limitations on
Speaker 1: how you do the art or the writing of an
Speaker 1: icon or the painting of an icon, and that has
Speaker 1: to do with expressing the theology of this world and
Speaker 1: the next world or heather in a very limited so
Speaker 1: you have to use certain patterns of symbolic color, certain
Speaker 1: ways of presenting people's lives and stories so that you
Speaker 1: accurately capture not something abstract or ahistorical, it has to
Speaker 1: actually capture the history. So, for example, Saint Moses a
Speaker 1: black he'll never be like in the icon like a
Speaker 1: gray dude. He'll always be the black dude that he was,
Speaker 1: because that's who he was and he will be for
Speaker 1: all eternities. So icons have to express the actual historical
Speaker 1: reality as well as also stepping into and presenting what
Speaker 1: we call windows to heaven. So an icon is basically
Speaker 1: a window into the next dimension because when we go
Speaker 1: to the liturgy, we actually believe that it is literally
Speaker 1: heaven on earth. It's not a symbol necessarily, but it's
Speaker 1: symbols as reality. In the Old Testament, it was symbols
Speaker 1: of heaven and what was to come. We think when
Speaker 1: Christ came, he brought all that reality at the first event,
Speaker 1: whereas Protestants, for example, they typically will postpone a lot
Speaker 1: of that to the second event. So an icon is
Speaker 1: a window went to heaven and it's the end times.
Speaker 1: It's the escton the end of the world right now
Speaker 1: in reality at this time, so it kind of steps
Speaker 1: out of time and space, and that's why it has
Speaker 1: those unique features that you mentioned in terms of dimensionality
Speaker 1: and you know, telling the past and the future in
Speaker 1: one single image, and not all art does that, and
Speaker 1: that's why for us it's much more than just art.
Speaker 1: It's also a holy thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Cool, So.
Speaker 2: You're so poetic sometimes I don't think you realize it.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that this was interesting. I do want to
Speaker 1: talk more about other things that you found theologically relevant
Speaker 1: to your life. You talked about the book of Job
Speaker 1: in the past, which is nobody ever talks about the
Speaker 1: pot job. This is very overlooked. I thought that was
Speaker 1: interesting that you brought that up before we do though,
Speaker 1: now that we're talking about imagery iconography and we talked
Speaker 1: about you know, phones and tech and art and all that,
Speaker 1: you did make some interesting comments that you're very much
Speaker 1: pro human creativity and you've got songs. Right, I am
Speaker 1: a machine, You've got songs that I mean, the way
Speaker 1: I was interpreting it was like sort of dystopian warning
Speaker 1: almost about where we're going, and so I wanted to
Speaker 1: touch on that because you know, orthodoxy, we're not gonna
Speaker 1: have we shouldn't have like an AI icon in the church,
Speaker 1: right we would have it has to be painted with
Speaker 1: a human hand. And I wanted to know, do you
Speaker 1: feel that not just because of twenty twenty, but is
Speaker 1: there something seeping through the art that you do that's
Speaker 1: warning of technocracy?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, I'm my strong point. I
Speaker 2: think in advice giving, which I don't like to do
Speaker 2: at all, is just like trying my best to lead
Speaker 2: by example in whatever way I can, you know. And
Speaker 2: I think that if somebody that you know has odds
Speaker 2: against them or you know, it's like you can still try,
Speaker 2: and you can still work hard, and you can still
Speaker 2: figure out how to do something. And I think that,
Speaker 2: like I'm in no position to talk about necessarily like
Speaker 2: AI or the I don't know much about it, to
Speaker 2: be honest, Like, I just know that I appreciate the
Speaker 2: human fingerprint, you know. I mean, that's why I love
Speaker 2: old Victorian homes. You know, there's these things are storytelling
Speaker 2: and they're made by a human, you know, like all
Speaker 2: aspects of them.
Speaker 1: Well, this was in the context I think of you
Speaker 1: discussing your house, and that was everything what you wanted
Speaker 1: to have, that human element in contrast to everything nowadays
Speaker 1: sort of being replaced with I.
Speaker 2: Mean I try to have it in everything, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, like I homeschool my son, and it's like
Speaker 2: I look at you know, it's I'm very passionate about homeschooling,
Speaker 2: by the way. But you know, I have friends that
Speaker 2: Leah Farr had these two little friends that had some
Speaker 2: circumstances and then they had to be put not had
Speaker 2: to but they're now in.
Speaker 1: Public school, in public school.
Speaker 2: No, they're in public school. And you know, and so
Speaker 2: my friend who you know, she's my trainer, and so
Speaker 2: when I when I see I see her on a
Speaker 2: pretty regular basis that IO check in like how are
Speaker 2: the kids and stuff. And there's some there's some complaints,
Speaker 2: you know, of the the public school system, like for example,
Speaker 2: these are things I don't I don't know because my
Speaker 2: kid doesn't go there anymore. And when I went to school,
Speaker 2: it was a long time ago. So things have changed
Speaker 2: a lot, and they've escalated quite quickly, especially with technology.
Speaker 2: And she told me that kids in elementary school now
Speaker 2: are it's mandatory to have these chromebooks. It's like a
Speaker 2: laptop and it comes with AI right in it. And
Speaker 2: so I was, you know, I had. I had read
Speaker 2: some articles and there are some actual studies that they
Speaker 2: you know, they've been tracking our progress since I think
Speaker 2: the sixties and during every introduction of technology, whether it's
Speaker 2: the calculator to like I remember when computers were invented
Speaker 2: or whatever, and they and we had got Oregon Trail
Speaker 2: and it was like all of us gathered around one
Speaker 2: computer and watched like the black screen with the green letters,
Speaker 2: you know, and and I thought, oh, we must be improving,
Speaker 2: and it looked and every landmark proves that are our
Speaker 2: our children's IQ's are dropping. So this last generation, it's
Speaker 2: getting so bad. You know. It's like, so do I
Speaker 2: have opinions of technology? I think that there are so
Speaker 2: many beautiful things that happened with you know, I love
Speaker 2: the fact that we can ride on airplanes and calculators,
Speaker 2: cell phones or you know, all that stuff. But as
Speaker 2: a homeschool mom like I I, there's just none of
Speaker 2: that here. We just I just think there's such an
Speaker 2: importance in you know, leaf are learning things that are
Speaker 2: almost also not even relevant anymore, Like like the other
Speaker 2: day when we were or he just graduated first grade,
Speaker 2: so he's learning like how to tell time and I
Speaker 2: was thinking about how like nobody wears like clocks. There's
Speaker 2: no clocks are irrelevant. We have wind up grandfather clocks here,
Speaker 2: you know. But I was like, it's so important for
Speaker 2: Lefford to learn this because like he's learning how to
Speaker 2: count by fives, he can, you know, like it's not
Speaker 2: just something that's gonna you know, like he's learning what
Speaker 2: a penny is. We're not even printing pennies anymore. But
Speaker 2: it's helping his math. You know, he's learning cursive even
Speaker 2: though they're not teaching that in public school anymore. But
Speaker 2: I remember when I first started learning how to draw
Speaker 2: like filigree, like like Baroque architectural filigree, which is one
Speaker 2: of my favorite things to draw. I mean that that
Speaker 2: directly correlates to penmanship, you know. So anyways, will I
Speaker 2: ever use AI? Probably, I mean I probably should, you know,
Speaker 2: And some business aspects I'm sure, you know, for efficiency
Speaker 2: or whatever. But I think when it comes to art,
Speaker 2: I'm always going to be the analog lady, you know.
Speaker 2: And when it comes to my music, you know, we
Speaker 2: I love synthesizers. That's a technology. I learned how to
Speaker 2: play music classically. I was classically training since I was
Speaker 2: five years old, so I love all the you know,
Speaker 2: the greats and stuff, but I still we play the instruments,
Speaker 2: you know, and in our recordings, we you know, we
Speaker 2: can program certain things, but for the most part, all
Speaker 2: of our sound design is created. So it's it's cool.
Speaker 2: I think. I think nerds can tell the difference. I'm
Speaker 2: a nerd, so you know, it's it's cool. But I
Speaker 2: also don't knock like people who make computer music too,
Speaker 2: like that's cool, you know, like there's probably a place
Speaker 2: for it, you know, it's not. But yeah, I don't
Speaker 2: think I'm ever going to be a fan of like
Speaker 2: an AI artist that sounds Yeah, I don't know, I can't.
Speaker 2: Something feels weird about that.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, and you've been on various you know,
Speaker 1: synth wave type tracks. You did the Gunship song, and
Speaker 1: you do that in your own work, and I've always
Speaker 1: thought there was something kind of implicit in synth wave
Speaker 1: and then in vapor wave as well. That's a critique
Speaker 1: of where we're going, because it's like the art is
Speaker 1: getting more and more corporate but also soulless. And then
Speaker 1: that then, like vapor wave, for example, was a critique
Speaker 1: of that soullessness by kind of giving it some soul
Speaker 1: and giving it a new form of life, but it's
Speaker 1: also critiquing the lack of life that that whole era has.
Speaker 1: And then within like synth wave stuff, there's always been
Speaker 1: a kind of a dystopian vibe to it, and gunship
Speaker 1: stuff is very dystopian. So that's why I was asking about, Like,
Speaker 1: I know that it's not a question of could we
Speaker 1: use a little little bit of AI here there, do
Speaker 1: we do synthesizers or whatever, But there's something creeping, a
Speaker 1: creeping terror that has to do with the phones. I
Speaker 1: think the phone, Like people are going insane from phones.
Speaker 1: Yeah know that's kind of cliche because boomers fuss about phones,
Speaker 1: But I'm just saying, like I'm actually noticing more and
Speaker 1: more lately, I think people are actually like going insane
Speaker 1: from their phones.
Speaker 2: Damage to that.
Speaker 1: Is there an anti dystopian dystopian element to some of
Speaker 1: your tracks, like or is I Am a Machine? For example?
Speaker 1: Is that just autobiographical about like something?
Speaker 2: No, I mean I'm a Machine is about what we're
Speaker 2: talking about now, you know, And I mean I think, like,
Speaker 2: how do we put this the how do we infuse
Speaker 2: soul into the robots somehow, you know, But yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: You have to know this because you're homeschooling, so you
Speaker 1: sense this, like yeah, for sure, and.
Speaker 2: Also too, but there's there's a surrender, and I think
Speaker 2: that has to do with my faith, is that, like
Speaker 2: you know, we can look around and see that the
Speaker 2: world is falling apart and that you know, evil seems
Speaker 2: to be winning in some ways and the pendulum swinging
Speaker 2: maybe in others in in other ways, but like at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, like we knew all this
Speaker 2: was coming, like it says it in the Bible, like
Speaker 2: you know, so I think we can find a comfort
Speaker 2: that like in the sense that like I don't know,
Speaker 2: we don't nobody knows that the end day, but but
Speaker 2: maybe we are in the end times. But like it
Speaker 2: just means we're probably one step closer to seeing his face,
Speaker 2: which I think is pretty cool. So you know, for us,
Speaker 2: it's like what do we do for now? Like I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm I am a little bit of a you know,
Speaker 2: one of those weirdo preppers. I like to have my
Speaker 2: own water source and like you know, have land, Like
Speaker 2: I prioritize land to grow food eventually, you know, but
Speaker 2: it's not whereas before I was, like I had fancy cars.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I could care less about any of that. Now,
Speaker 2: you know, we live like, you know, we got a
Speaker 2: house that's on you know, a small amount of land,
Speaker 2: but enough to do something with in case if and
Speaker 2: when the apocalypse happens, you know, we might we might
Speaker 2: buy a little bit of time, you know, but you
Speaker 2: can also drive yourself crazy doing that too, you know.
Speaker 2: But I don't know. But yeah, as far as like
Speaker 2: AI and something, I just kind of stay away from
Speaker 2: a lot of it, to be honest. I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: not I'm I'm but I'm not terrified yet.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if it's AI. I'm just more
Speaker 1: concerned with, like I don't.
Speaker 2: Know, technology and no, no, no, not.
Speaker 1: Even if it's something to do with like I'm gonna
Speaker 1: sound full skitzo here, but like the signals and the phones,
Speaker 1: is something that is going on that's just making yeah insane.
Speaker 2: Because we have ring the bell about five g up forever.
Speaker 2: Now they're like, I mean it's killing the plants around them.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's you can see, you know, did
Speaker 2: you see the video of the guy with like the
Speaker 2: the neon light bulb. That's I mean, that can'tnot affect you,
Speaker 2: you know. But I also think our bodies are so
Speaker 2: magically and perfectly created. I don't think their adaptive to everything.
Speaker 2: That's why we have answer. But like, but I think
Speaker 2: that there it's constantly fighting for you, you know.
Speaker 1: So, so you would say you're not pro cancer if
Speaker 1: you run for office? Would that be on the platform?
Speaker 1: Could we get that on record? Now? You know, all
Speaker 1: I've been doing is sitting here thinking of dad jokes
Speaker 1: the entire time. That's all I thought about, because that's
Speaker 1: the vibe. That's the vibe that it went into. So
Speaker 1: and you were like you were talking about telling time.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, telling time? What what would
Speaker 1: you tell time? If you could tell?
Speaker 2: Dude? Okay, So I got my son this this this phone.
Speaker 2: It's a landline because I'm trying to give him the
Speaker 2: gift of the nineties or whatever, and so it's it's
Speaker 2: like a landline that he can only call his friends
Speaker 2: and numbers that I've approved or whatever. And so we
Speaker 2: were trying to explain to him, like the is your
Speaker 2: refrigerator running joke? So a prank call you know, and
Speaker 2: he and I couldn't figure out a way to explain that,
Speaker 2: like it's not running, but it's you know, so now
Speaker 2: you like, he'll prank somebody and then explain it.
Speaker 1: He explains that that's nice. You got to introduce them
Speaker 1: to the jerky boys and then you know, Frank, So
Speaker 1: we talked about, you know, periods when you were really
Speaker 1: facing up to the mortality. You've read books about death,
Speaker 1: coping with them.
Speaker 2: I've always been surrounded by the subject. When I used
Speaker 2: to tattoo, I tattooed portraits. So most people don't get
Speaker 2: portraits because they're bored. It's usually people that mean a
Speaker 2: lot to them, whether it's loved when they've lost or
Speaker 2: you know, a musician, whatever it is, you know, a
Speaker 2: hero in their life. So towards the end of my career,
Speaker 2: I mean the last the last decade, I would say
Speaker 2: I dedicated to just tattooing people with the hardest stories.
Speaker 2: So I you know, I stopped tattooing for money during
Speaker 2: that time. In the beginning, I was just tattooing like
Speaker 2: pretty beautiful images and then and then I would listen
Speaker 2: to people's stories and it was like, you know, I've
Speaker 2: tattooed the father who has accidentally killed his only son,
Speaker 2: and you know, and he wanted to get something that
Speaker 2: you might consider silly because it's like who would want that?
Speaker 2: So I started reading about books on bereavement and just
Speaker 2: the death process in general, and it wasn't you know,
Speaker 2: any thing other than just like you know, I'm I'm
Speaker 2: not a therapist, I'm not equipped for this, and I
Speaker 2: was taking a lot of it on. But I think
Speaker 2: the more, especially in like this country, people are scared
Speaker 2: to talk about things like that, whereas like for me,
Speaker 2: I think it's like it's the most human thing you
Speaker 2: could do because it's the one thing that you're gonna die,
Speaker 2: we're gonna we're all gonna experience it in some capacity,
Speaker 2: so it's okay to talk about it. And I think
Speaker 2: there are certain ways that are more sincere and less sincere.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, so that to answer your question, that's
Speaker 2: why death was always kind of in my peripheral and
Speaker 2: I just never have I'm I'm not uncomfortable to talking
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: And nobody talks about the Book of Job. And I
Speaker 1: think when this came up for whatever interview was, you
Speaker 1: mentioned the Book of Job and that I think I
Speaker 1: was reading it at the Yeah, that was something that
Speaker 1: resonated with you. Why.
Speaker 2: I think that, like in the times where the suffering
Speaker 2: is taking place, it's like, if I could strive to
Speaker 2: be more like Job. I mean, it's a it's an
Speaker 2: example of how I want to be, you know. I
Speaker 2: I don't. I'm not there yet. I mean I in
Speaker 2: some some days more than others. But I think that's
Speaker 2: why I had brought it up, or it came up
Speaker 2: in that other conversation. But yeah, well.
Speaker 1: What's interesting why I was going with it was a
Speaker 1: lot of people miss how crystallogical Job is because there's
Speaker 1: so much in it that's and then there's specific like
Speaker 1: references to the Redeemer I will see him on the
Speaker 1: Last Day, which are specific, you know, prophecies of Christ.
Speaker 1: But it's also the sort of mysterious book that we
Speaker 1: don't actually know what time period it is. We know
Speaker 1: it's ancient, we don't know exactly if it was a
Speaker 1: person adjacent to Israel or living in ancient Israel. But
Speaker 1: you have this pattern of a man, you know, tempted,
Speaker 1: a man who goes through the worst types of suffering
Speaker 1: and then in the end triumphs and has given you know,
Speaker 1: manifold blessings, and that is the catabasas death royal resurrection
Speaker 1: motif that you see in the life of Christ.
Speaker 2: So I honestly never thought of that. I didn't know.
Speaker 2: That's so cool.
Speaker 1: So many Old Testament people are that way. And in
Speaker 1: terms of typology, like you see this with Jeremiah, when
Speaker 1: Jeremiah's persecuted by Israel, and there's all these things that
Speaker 1: Jeremiah says in the book, like he preaches at the
Speaker 1: Israelites and rebukes them for giving into the false teachings
Speaker 1: of the lawyers and the scribes, exactly parallel to what
Speaker 1: Jesus says to the Pharisees in Matthew twenty three. There's
Speaker 1: a whole passage in Jeremiah about the good shepherd and
Speaker 1: Christ being or God being the shepherd of Israel. And
Speaker 1: then Jesus matches what Jeremiah preaches. Jeremiah's like led down
Speaker 1: into a pit and then he's imprisoned. There. That's Christ's
Speaker 1: descent into Hades. All of these prophets, and Jesus himself
Speaker 1: makes this point even with Joe when he says just says,
Speaker 1: Joe was in the heart of the whale, So will
Speaker 1: the Son of Man be in the heart of the
Speaker 1: earth for three days and three nights. So you notice
Speaker 1: this pattern of it's not just persecution and we likening
Speaker 1: our stuff, or we sort of join our sufferings for Christ,
Speaker 1: which is what we're supposed to do to get through it.
Speaker 1: But it's also a descent into Hades, which you see
Speaker 1: over and over and over in the Old Testament, which
Speaker 1: and that's important because Protestants in Rome, although they confess
Speaker 1: the descent into Hades, it doesn't really have a lot
Speaker 1: of significance in the theology. But for Orthodoxy, heroing of
Speaker 1: Hades is huge because it means that death is not
Speaker 1: actually fearful or scary anymore because He's triumphed over it.
Speaker 1: So it's actually, as Saint Anthonaius says, death is actually
Speaker 1: good for us. It's the doorway to eternal life. We're
Speaker 1: not worried about it. So I say all that to
Speaker 1: say that suffering in our paradigm actually is transfigured to
Speaker 1: be meaningful. Outside of our paradigm suffering, and I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that other Christian groups don't have a conception of
Speaker 1: suffering or united to Christ's passion but for us, I
Speaker 1: think it's just much more profound than it's a lot.
Speaker 1: We have a better toolkit to deal with it. And
Speaker 1: that's the key to the Book of Job is that
Speaker 1: it's mirrors Christ's life, even though obviously Job is just
Speaker 1: merely a man. Yeah, but Christ is not merely a man.
Speaker 1: He's also the Son of God. So I love that
Speaker 1: there's almost and everybody's turned towards Orthodoxy. I've noticed some
Speaker 1: point where they kind of come to the end of themselves.
Speaker 1: And I don't just mean a conversion, like because everybody
Speaker 1: who even converts to Protestantism or Evangelicalism like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: came to it to myself and I saw my sins.
Speaker 1: And but there's something about going into Orthodoxy, where there's
Speaker 1: a narrow passageway of humility that requires you to be like,
Speaker 1: it's not just that I had this experience, like everything
Speaker 1: has got to be transformed. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Like yeah, in.
Speaker 1: Protestantism you can kind of like make a decision of like, oh, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I did that thing last year where I prayed the
Speaker 1: Sinner's prayer at the Billy Graham thing, and I'm cool.
Speaker 1: But now it's like, no, every day is now transformed,
Speaker 1: so it's it's an eternal thing. Now it's not even
Speaker 1: a like temporal thing anyway. All I'm saying is that
Speaker 1: you what do.
Speaker 2: You mean it's an internal thing? That you mean the
Speaker 2: process or what do you.
Speaker 1: We will always be this like the cave Doocans say,
Speaker 1: we will always be moving up into God. So in
Speaker 1: the asketon we don't have the cessation of movement like
Speaker 1: the plate. The Platonists old philosophers used to think that, like, well,
Speaker 1: when you go on, you want to get real, you
Speaker 1: want to you want to leave the domain of flocks
Speaker 1: and change. So this world is like temporal it's there's movement,
Speaker 1: there's change, And so they reason that whatever the good
Speaker 1: world is, it's got to be the opposite of this one.
Speaker 1: So there can't be change or movement or whatever. And
Speaker 1: this is what led a lot of the Geks and
Speaker 1: Greek philosophers to say, how could there be a body resurrection?
Speaker 1: Because body implies movement, change, and they just assumed that
Speaker 1: you couldn't have that in the eternal state. So what
Speaker 1: I was saying is that for us, movement, body, image, form,
Speaker 1: all of these things that we think of as characterizing
Speaker 1: this world. They're not bad. They're not like Platonists, neo
Speaker 1: Platonists or Gnostics. They would denegrate the body in this
Speaker 1: world and creation, and it's not bad. Those things are
Speaker 1: all good because they continue on into eternity. So that's
Speaker 1: what I meant by not the suffering is eternal, but
Speaker 1: that I mean we don't think about it like a
Speaker 1: new heavens and a new Earth. We think of it.
Speaker 1: Most people think of it like, oh, when I go
Speaker 1: to heaven, it's like my mind goes to this cloud
Speaker 1: world and I'm like a you know, mind ball floating around. No,
Speaker 1: you're actually going to be in this body. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you're going to have the same characteristics to a degree
Speaker 1: that you have. Right, most of the black is still
Speaker 1: a black duty. He doesn't become a grad dude. So
Speaker 1: our history matters. We retain it even into the escata,
Speaker 1: not all the bad parts, but the good parts. So
Speaker 1: that's our perspective, and that makes all of what we
Speaker 1: go through way more meaningful, and you can put it
Speaker 1: into a perspective, and if you don't have that cosmic perspectives,
Speaker 1: what I'm getting at is that the sufferings appear to
Speaker 1: be pointless. Why am I going through this? Why is
Speaker 1: this happening to me? But you can actually through this
Speaker 1: paradigm through the Orthodox paradigm. I think it makes a
Speaker 1: lot more sense. Suffering takes on the meaning of being
Speaker 1: a means of transfiguration at deosis. That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 2: It's cool.
Speaker 1: You talked about influences, and most of them I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I like them. I like the Depeche Mode Cure industrial music. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you come up regularly in our playlist. So what's
Speaker 1: your number one vibe influence right now? I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't really listen to a lot of music like
Speaker 2: that anymore. I listened to a lot of Chance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you gotta do it orthodox chant?
Speaker 2: Am I going to do one right now? Oh? I
Speaker 2: actually am. I wanted to end end this next album
Speaker 2: with a cover of Oh Gladso Light by the Byzantine version.
Speaker 2: I would sing it and instead of having a choir,
Speaker 2: I was gonna just replace with drone sounds. You know,
Speaker 2: always talking because people are like, are you gonna make
Speaker 2: a worship album? I'm never going to make a worship album.
Speaker 2: You know. It's one of those things that especially now
Speaker 2: when I when I you know, here are a choirs.
Speaker 2: I'm like, it's really not broken, Like why would we
Speaker 2: even try? This is and that's why a gladsom light
Speaker 2: to me, it's the it's the most perfect worship song,
Speaker 2: like it's perfection every word. It's one minute long and
Speaker 2: it's we don't even know who wrote it. It's one
Speaker 2: of the oldest I think it's fifteen hundred years old
Speaker 2: that they can trace it.
Speaker 1: So it's just like an acappella.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so typically it's I mean obviously appella. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: there's a Byzantine version that I love. I've like we
Speaker 2: at our parish they sing it during great vespers every
Speaker 2: every great vespers and and one day I asked one
Speaker 2: of the people in our choir like, hey, I'd love
Speaker 2: to hear like a recording of this, you know, And
Speaker 2: I went on YouTube and I can only find one
Speaker 2: one recording, but every it's it's it's a tricky one.
Speaker 2: It's a tricky one to find, like the Byzantine version.
Speaker 2: So so yeah that I am going to incorporate that
Speaker 2: in the next I have the blessing from my priests
Speaker 2: and you know.
Speaker 1: But you're I mean, the rest of the album is
Speaker 1: going to.
Speaker 2: Be electronic yeah. Yeah, I make electronic music, so I
Speaker 2: like the eighties style but a little darker and you know,
Speaker 2: trying to bring that soul into the electronic realm.
Speaker 1: I sent you in my Mormon space wise new wave.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and there was no comments.
Speaker 2: So I guess that tells me that left unread.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Actually I have to give a shout out doctor Evoe.
Speaker 1: He didn't really get on that one.
Speaker 2: But oh a person made that.
Speaker 1: Or yeah, sectual music, Oh, actual music, you should listen
Speaker 1: to it.
Speaker 2: I thought it was a no, it's not.
Speaker 1: No, he's an a legit producer, like an actual But
Speaker 1: you wrote the lyrics, I sing, yeah, yeah, but you
Speaker 1: wrote the lyrics. Well, they're all improvs. So they were
Speaker 1: never written but written in my head. A freestyle written
Speaker 1: in my I'm a freestyle are Yeah, you're influenced by
Speaker 1: teen angst music?
Speaker 2: No, you know, I struggle. I feel like my my
Speaker 2: first album was just all like sad love songs. That
Speaker 2: was my favorite genre at the time, and I still
Speaker 2: love that, but it feels a bit self indulgent now.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's it's I'm mean, there's things
Speaker 2: that I'm frustrated with and I think a lot of
Speaker 2: those things that I talk about about, those frustrations, you know,
Speaker 2: there's I don't like the divide, you know. So this
Speaker 2: next album, we've been writing a lot about that type
Speaker 2: of thing. But we're still in the in the stages
Speaker 2: of writing, so we have like a few more rounds
Speaker 2: to go.
Speaker 1: But is there a new single? Nothing's out yet, nothing
Speaker 1: when is Do you know when there will be a single?
Speaker 2: Mmm? We're hoping for the fall.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to the new album, is this
Speaker 1: going to be like heavy scent, heavy dark themes or
Speaker 1: are we getting a lighter, more positive theme here?
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't think I can do happy, So
Speaker 2: that's not I don't know. I have joy in my life.
Speaker 2: I do. I just it's the you know, find me
Speaker 2: in the minor chords.
Speaker 1: So when Fear You comes on, we actually enjoyed us
Speaker 1: sing it and I'm happy. Oh yeah, my vibing wrong?
Speaker 1: Is so I'm supposed to No, no, no, I.
Speaker 2: Mean that song was that album was about one particular
Speaker 2: like relationship that was very dysfunctional. So but it's you know.
Speaker 1: I had fun with those songs. Yeah, I mean, remind
Speaker 1: me we have to be sad now.
Speaker 2: When we hear that no, don't.
Speaker 1: So we talked about the look of Joe, We talked
Speaker 1: about music wise lost comments on Let's talk about orthodoxy
Speaker 1: one last time because this is kind of as far
Speaker 1: as I'm aware, you might have done a different interview
Speaker 1: that it's never caught, but the.
Speaker 2: Scene I've never really talked about this second. I've done
Speaker 2: one interview with Father John Parker but it hasn't been
Speaker 2: released yet.
Speaker 1: But so we have to hurry and release this before
Speaker 1: he does because I want to be the first to
Speaker 1: get you talking about.
Speaker 2: So, you know, I tend to shy away from talking
Speaker 2: about my faith publicly, and it's not for any other
Speaker 2: reason than I just don't feel worthy or equipped in
Speaker 2: a lot of ways. And it it's not it's just
Speaker 2: me being honest. It's like there's so many people that
Speaker 2: are so well versed and so eloquent and they're speaking
Speaker 2: I you know, I think we talked a little bit
Speaker 2: about this earlier, but I think I shine brightest one.
Speaker 2: It's one on one, and I think if someone wants
Speaker 2: to talk to me about it, like if my friends
Speaker 2: were to text me about it, which is it's happened
Speaker 2: and I've gone to church with taking my friend to
Speaker 2: church at school. But as you know, there's some people
Speaker 2: that have the calling to be the priests and or
Speaker 2: what you do for example, you know. But whereas for me,
Speaker 2: I've like, I love Orthodox Christianity so much that I
Speaker 2: would rather protect it from my my dumbness, you know.
Speaker 2: So I can only speak from the heart from my experience.
Speaker 2: But as far as like theology goes, I leave it
Speaker 2: to the pros for now, at least.
Speaker 1: The reason I ask about that for the sake of
Speaker 1: my audience is more so, although I know you're not
Speaker 1: in the apologetics domain or whatever, but usually people have
Speaker 1: a couple hang ups or things that kind of when
Speaker 1: they first encountered the realm of Orthodoxy, they like, what
Speaker 1: these pictures are weird? Why do they have that? I
Speaker 1: was just curious about what a couple hang ups might
Speaker 1: have been that you kind of eventually worked through. Were
Speaker 1: there any I.
Speaker 2: Mean, I had questions, which I think everyone should have questions,
Speaker 2: because it's important to understand what you do. And we
Speaker 2: don't just blindly do things, you know. Whereas I think
Speaker 2: a lot of times, and not again not to knock
Speaker 2: my Protestant friends, but it's like a lot of times
Speaker 2: I would see people just kind of going through the
Speaker 2: motions versus the understanding why do we do this or
Speaker 2: why does the Bible say that? You know, like you know,
Speaker 2: I wanted to understand like the commandment about the Sabbath.
Speaker 1: Or you know you get an SDA background right seven
Speaker 1: day even and this is that right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But I usually don't like to bring that up
Speaker 2: because again I think everyone's going through there. You know,
Speaker 2: I have my my my own views on that now
Speaker 2: as as an adult and understanding things, and it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, it's a very fringe.
Speaker 1: The reason I say that is, did that perhaps raise
Speaker 1: an issue with well, why Sunday versus Saturday? Or why
Speaker 1: the images in the church? Because a lot of that realm.
Speaker 2: No, because you know, I was brought up that way,
Speaker 2: and then I was. I strayed from from faith altogether
Speaker 2: for many for decades. So it's not like I was
Speaker 2: coming in. I mean there are some things like I
Speaker 2: never you know, I never ate shrimp. Yeah, I still haven't.
Speaker 2: It's not now it's for other reasons, but before it
Speaker 2: was because that's what some day Avnas don't eat fish
Speaker 2: without scales or you know, pork and things like that.
Speaker 2: But as far as theology, No, no one from the
Speaker 2: Protestant realm answered questions to me. So it wasn't it
Speaker 2: wasn't like this is where I talk about my the
Speaker 2: cup wasn't filled, you know. Like so it wasn't until
Speaker 2: I entered the Orthodox Church that I just really started
Speaker 2: having an understanding. So going back to what you're saying
Speaker 2: is like, you know, I think it's important to ask
Speaker 2: the questions and that way you can talk to your
Speaker 2: friends about it when they do have you know. And
Speaker 2: for me, I always look at it from the lens
Speaker 2: of a mom. I want to be able to answer
Speaker 2: Leopard's question so that, you know, as he gets older,
Speaker 2: he's equipped with the ability to have conversations with his
Speaker 2: friends who are not going to be Christian, you know,
Speaker 2: and and not just do it because mommy and Daddy
Speaker 2: brought us up this way, you know. So yeah, and
Speaker 2: I'm still obviously learning all the time. But as far
Speaker 2: as hang ups, I didn't really have any hang ups,
Speaker 2: Like I really understood what venerating the saints meant. It
Speaker 2: wasn't you know. I had a friend that explained it
Speaker 2: to me because I did say that to him. I
Speaker 2: was like, what's what's up with all those saints. That's
Speaker 2: kind of weird, right, And then he helped me understand it,
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh my gosh, like yeah, like
Speaker 2: how is it that I know about out all the
Speaker 2: fun facts of every musician that played in the Cure?
Speaker 2: You know? And it's like, why does everybody know when
Speaker 2: Taylor Swift was getting married? Like, you know, it's like,
Speaker 2: what these are the posters I want on my wall?
Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean? So these are my friends?
Speaker 2: Like these I want to know all those stats And
Speaker 2: it's like those those are my examples versus you know.
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying that you can't admire our human
Speaker 2: friends and stuff, but like, but so that that made
Speaker 2: a lot more sense to me. I think, Like, so
Speaker 2: I didn't have any hang ups with you know, the
Speaker 2: Mother of God. You know, I think a lot of
Speaker 2: protests have a big hang up with it, and I
Speaker 2: think that's a misunderstanding, that's all, you know. But like
Speaker 2: when I talk to my dad about it, for example,
Speaker 2: my dad's not Orthodox and he loves Jesus a lot,
Speaker 2: you know, and but and he'll say things like I
Speaker 2: looked it up, you know, and he's like it's just
Speaker 2: very depressing and like for him, you know, and I go, yeah,
Speaker 2: for you, it is. But you know, I've been to
Speaker 2: like the megachurches or or the regular smaller churches too,
Speaker 2: and and I've seen the bands play. I've listened to
Speaker 2: the hymns from the seventies and it derails me, you know,
Speaker 2: it pulls me out because I'm like, oh, this is
Speaker 2: pop structure, all right. Here comes to drop and then
Speaker 2: here you know, it's like and it's like some the
Speaker 2: lyrics are so it could be a love song about
Speaker 2: a romance and to me, so it takes me out
Speaker 2: and where that brings joy for a lot of other
Speaker 2: people and they're listening to their car and there I
Speaker 2: think there's a lot of people that it really does
Speaker 2: bring them closer to God. So I'm not knocking that either.
Speaker 2: But for me, someone who comes from an extreme darkness,
Speaker 2: like I need the strictness. I like the tradition. I
Speaker 2: like the simplicity of just it's so direct, you know.
Speaker 2: And I remember Father Stephen, my my spiritual father, when
Speaker 2: when I was a catechory and he had written a
Speaker 2: little tiny it's like a pamphlet book on liturgy and
Speaker 2: it explained why do the readers sound like that, you know,
Speaker 2: because like for those that don't know, like there's when
Speaker 2: when they're reading scripture, it almost it could sound like
Speaker 2: you're at an auction to some people if they don't know,
Speaker 2: you know, and it's kind of just this monotone, you know.
Speaker 2: But I remember, like in that little pamphlet says like
Speaker 2: why do they sound like that? And it's like we're
Speaker 2: not putting our own personal inflection to things because we
Speaker 2: want the message to come out and be delivered clearly.
Speaker 2: And I just had such a deep appreciation for that
Speaker 2: because concert it's not just that, but it's like I
Speaker 2: would have a hard time, like like in July, I
Speaker 2: signed up for an iconography class where I'm gonna hopefully,
Speaker 2: you know, learn, and I think my biggest fear is
Speaker 2: that I won't. I just want to be able to
Speaker 2: not put myself into it, you know, because I know
Speaker 2: what an icon means and I've never not done that
Speaker 2: in my art, you know, so I appreciate that, you know,
Speaker 2: whereas someone like my dad, he's it's a might not
Speaker 2: resonate a certain way, and I would hope it would
Speaker 2: one day, like he came for the first time to
Speaker 2: my church when Leofar got baptized, and I was a
Speaker 2: little bit like nervous, not nervous, but just more I guess,
Speaker 2: just conscious of it, you know. And at one point
Speaker 2: I looked over and he was, you know, he was
Speaker 2: like filming all of it on his cell phone, which
Speaker 2: made me very happy, even though I know a lot
Speaker 2: of Orthodox get annoyed when people film stuff, but like
Speaker 2: to me, it was like, oh, my dad's absorbing this
Speaker 2: and he's seeing that this is something so special. And
Speaker 2: I caught him like looking at like the altar on
Speaker 2: his phone. I'm like, why would have he be filming
Speaker 2: that if he didn't, if he wasn't in awe of it?
Speaker 2: And I think that that's you know, I'm a I
Speaker 2: think the all senses really is makes me feel like
Speaker 2: it's true worship, Like I really feel like with all
Speaker 2: my being worshiping the Lord, Whereas like when I would
Speaker 2: go to the Protestant flavor, it feels more like I'm attending.
Speaker 1: A lecture hole or Ted talk or something.
Speaker 2: And you know, again like for someone like my dad,
Speaker 2: that really, you know, who am I to question whether
Speaker 2: it brings them closer to Christ or not? You know?
Speaker 2: But for me, oh, my gosh, it's just so so powerful,
Speaker 2: you know, it's so I look forward to it, you know.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Kat, Yeah, no, thanks.
Speaker 2: For coming over. I always enjoy hanging out. This is
Speaker 2: the second time I've hung out, and I love having
Speaker 2: you in the home and you and Jamie and it's
Speaker 2: just I feel lucky to be your friend.
Speaker 1: So absolutely, thank you guys so much. Be sure it
Speaker 1: hit like, share, leave comments below.
Speaker 2: Smells subscribe, but also.
Speaker 1: Uh listen more dad jokes below that could have been
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Speaker 1: I love you.