https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=57_9VsiFf74
Now back when you were little, your mom and dad are in a very violent relationship. They’re married. Your dad obviously wants you guys around for some reason. I think it was more to control her. I didn’t think it had anything to do with us because once we were gone, he didn’t care. He never came to contact. I never had any time where dad tried to reach out. I never had any of those loving conversations. I don’t have any loving memories with my father. The very first memory I have of my entire life, where I start my life, is me laying on my bloody mom’s body looking up at my dad screaming at him, you just killed my mom. Oh yeah. That’s where I stuck. That’s not a good… Alfred Adler, a famous psychologist, he believed that those first memories in some ways are determinative, that they sort of set the frame. So that’s a hell of a first memory. Now you had your older brother, did you have a relationship with him? I did. We were pretty close growing up. So you had a male role model in the house who wasn’t completely pathological. Do you see your brother? I haven’t talked to him since I started talking about it. But that side of the family attacks me not because I’m saying something that’s not the truth but just because I’m talking. Because I… And your brother as well doesn’t feel that that’s appropriate? Because I’m making my mom cry. Because… I see. And so he feels that’s inappropriate in relationship to your mother. Does he still see your mother? I believe so. Yeah. I haven’t spoken to any of them. I haven’t spoken to that side of the family in five years. Five years. Okay, so when you’re little, how do you survive between one and five? Like you have your brother, so that’s definitely a plus. Okay, and you said that you were a very early reader, so you escaped into the world of fiction and reading. Yep. So, correct. Did you do well in school? So I tested off the charts in my tests. Did you pride yourself? But I didn’t do any of my assignments. Okay. I never did any work. Well, that’s not surprising. Well, first of all, that’s not all that atypical for smart kids, but you lived in a pretty chaotic environment. So it would have been quite surprising had you managed to buckle down and do your work. Did you pride yourself on your intellect? I did. I did. I would carry around both into the mythology with me all the time, or giant stacks of X-Men comic books, or the complete works of Shakespeare, and just read voraciously. And I loved doing oral reports and book reports. And when I was in high school, at the final high school, North High in Denver, the only two classes I ever actually attended were English class and choir class. I would skip every other day, and I even failed those classes because of attendance rules once you missed four days, you failed the semester. I would only attend class once every three weeks or so. But the classes I would go to were English class and choir. Why choir? Choir, because I think that actually has a superpower when it comes to kids who are depressed. Did you sing? I did. I still do. I still love singing. Oh. And I was in statewide choir, and citywide choir, and 16-person a cappella choirs. I would always go whenever all the schools I would go to, I would go to whatever the advanced choir was and try out for it. Because that’s what I wanted to do. What did they make of you in the choir? Because you said you were like an unkempt kid. You dressed badly, you’re dirty. The teachers always put me in. I went to Oregon one time, and I managed as a freshman in high school to, through a tryout, make it into the senior a cappella choir. It was just a 16-person a cappella choir only for seniors. And I was a freshman. So you had literature and music to save you. Did you listen to a lot of music? I did. Who were your favorites? I’m very eclectic. I like a wide range. Back then I liked a lot of oldies. I really liked the 50s music. So I listened to a lot of Buddy Holly. It’s very positive, eh? Yeah. I listened to a lot of Buddy Holly and that kind of stuff. The La Bamba soundtrack, I did that a lot. I didn’t really like the 80s style music, the poppy kind of stuff. I didn’t really like that. But I got into metal when I was older. So the Nine Inch Nails downward spiral album is pretty much an autobiography. That’s pretty much how my life was going at the time. When I was a teen, it was Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Pantera, Tool, that kind of stuff. Right, right. So the dark end of the metal spectrum. But the more intelligent end of the metal spectrum. I wasn’t really into the death metal screaming anger kind. I was into the stuff that was talking about the emotions. I like singers that have heart. So like Creedence Clearwater Revival. Yeah. When you sing it, it feels like it’s digging in your soul. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they’re great. Their music is aged pretty well too, Creedence Clearwater. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So, one to five, you had no relationship with your father except one that was extremely negative. All you saw from him was violence. You had some relationship with your mother. Do you think your mother loved you? Yeah, yeah. That’s where the only time I have good memories with my mom is during that time. The best memory I have with my mom ever is sitting watching Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and singing every single song. And I knew every word to that movie. So I would sit there and sing the entire movie and we would go back and forth with the songs. And that was the best memory of my childhood. That’s the highlight of those years. And are you, during that time, one to five, are you playing with any kids? Are you playing with your older brother? No. Do you remember any play? No, no. Not really any playing. Just reading. I wasn’t much of a player. Everybody else would go out and play and I’d sit with my couple of my books. So, okay. So you were, now let me ask you some questions about your personality. Totally. Okay. Introverted or extroverted? Then or now? That’s changed, eh? Were you introverted before or were you just afraid of people? That’s a good question. I don’t think I was afraid of people. Think I was, well, back then I was. Because it took a while for me to burn that out of myself. When I’m in my teen years, I think that I lost the ability to get embarrassed or ashamed or afraid of anybody. Because when I was a kid, I made fun of myself more than anybody else did. Oh yeah, that’s a good trick. Very self-deprecating. Yeah, that’s a good trick. So I had a better fat joke than you did, better insult than you did. It would be surprising to me if you were introverted as a kid because you appear to be very extroverted. You smile a lot. You talk quickly. I don’t think introverted would fit, but I wasn’t extroverted. I kept to myself pretty much, but I liked the arts. So maybe what happened was that your interest in literature, let’s say, and the arts was so strong that if you had to choose between being with people and reading, you picked reading. Yes. I always wanted to learn more stuff. Even now, I’ll be walking, listening to… I just finished Lawrence Krauss’s book, Edge of Knowledge, which is like bleeding edge physics and science and philosophy, your podcasts. I listened to a wide range of topics and I tried to get the entire spectrum of opinions. So I’ll listen to the farthest right, the farthest left, someone in the middle, all different sides of the topics and try to see the whole side of it. So these days, I’m all over with it. But I don’t think that back then I was introverted. I think you might have hit the nail on the head. More very old-tentative people. Are you compassionate, polite, or tough and stubborn? Yes. Which one? If you had to pick. So in general, I would think I’m compassionate and polite. However, because of the survival mechanisms and the way I had to live a long time, I can turn on that hard note pretty easily where I can easily cut people out of my life. I can easily decide that it’s done and you’re hurting me more than you’re good. My philosophy these days is I give up too much time of my life to people that hurt me. So I just don’t do it anymore.