K:
So, lately I’ve been thinking a lot about collaboration and what it was like to collaborate in the United States versus what it’s like to collaborate in Japan. I feel like my entire life has been one huge collaboration. What do you think?
C:
I think everybody starts off that way at the moment. You got to collaborate with your biological mother at some point, as far as getting born.
K:
How is that a collaboration?
C:
I’m not sure. I guess that’s more like, yeah, that collaboration leaves you out of the equation.
K:
Yeah. You don’t really like, if you’re a baby being born, this might be controversial for some people, but I don’t believe babies have a choice about whether or not they’re born.
C:
Mostly not.
K:
Yeah. And I don’t feel like it was a collaboration. I feel having a baby is a collaboration. Having had a baby, for me, that was the one thing that did not feel like a collaboration. That felt like all mine. I will acknowledge that getting pregnant was a collaboration, but the pregnancy was not, it was a solo game.
C:
Okay.
K:
Yeah. That was all me.
C:
Well, I have not done that solo gig.
K:
Yeah. So, I don’t care how supportive your partner is, and I know right now in a PC world it’s “we’re pregnant.” No, we’re not. I didn’t do that we’re pregnant thing. No, we are not, I am pregnant. Okay? We are not having a baby. I’m having a baby. But then I’m super possessive.
C:
I don’t think that I ever really felt like I was collaborating with people when I was young. It always felt like either I was doing my own thing, or I was doing somebody else’s thing because I had been told to do so.
K:
When did you first collaborate?
C:
I think probably after high school.
K:
Our wedding?
C:
Our wedding, definitely. But our wedding was well after my high school ended. Well after. Many, many years later.
K:
(laughter) Yes, it was. It was. Because you graduated at 16. I wasn’t doing that.
C:
Yeah. So yes, our wedding was collaborative, but I turned 25 the year that we had our wedding. A week after our wedding, I turned 25.
K:
Massive eye roll on that. I don’t know if they could hear my eyes clicking, I rolled so hard.
C:
Okay. Yeah. We’ll collaborate, not laughing at that.
K:
Oh wow. Really? Okay.
C:
(laughs) Hey, I came late to the game, but I learned how to collaborate.
K:
Okay. When was your first collaboration in the US? Because it wasn’t our wedding, what was it?
C:
I think it was probably high school. I attended University of Alaska for a bit before I realized that wasn’t for me at that time, and I went back later for university. The drama program had different things, and there was collaborative elements in that.
K:
Okay. Such as?
C:
Such as-
K:
Are you saying forced collaboration where they’ve had to do group projects and such?
C:
No, voluntary collaboration. Group projects I did in high school, but those didn’t always feel like collaboration because it was often, okay, the creative one is going to do this project entirely because it’s a creative project and everybody else will just sit around or Chad you’re going to do it, because you’re the smart one and everybody else will just sit around. Those don’t feel like to me voluntary collaboration.
K:
I dropped out of high school, so I didn’t do any of that.
C:
Yeah. It was a university theater where everybody was choosing to be there and collaborating on producing a show. I think that was my first collaboration, on making something happen.
K:
Okay. Interesting. So what… do you have a history of collaboration?
C:
Not a long one. I think-
K:
So when I told you we’re going to talk about collaboration, do you have stuff to stay? You were like, yup I do.
C:
I have a lot of collaborations since we moved to Japan.
K:
Okay. But you didn’t have any collaboration in America besides the things that we collaborated on?
C:
Correct.
K:
So your collaboration history in the United States is collaborating with me?
C:
Correct.
K:
Okay. So for me, my collaboration history started really young, because I went to the children’s shelter and there’s a lot of collaboration there. Most of it is not healthy collaboration and also I’m a runaway. I like to run away a lot. I think running away is fun.
C:
As much conspiracy or aiding and abetting as collaboration.
K:
Which they are.
C:
Yes, they are. Absolutely.
K:
Yeah. Because it took us a week to dig out the fence over in the play yard. And it took a gang of us to make sure that other people weren’t, like – that none of the counselors caught on to the fact that one person was sneaking out every day and go buy candy and come back.
C:
Okay.
K:
That’s collaboration.
C:
That is collaboration.
K:
I ruined it for everyone because… I didn’t come back. I was like, I’m having fun out here. What you gonna dowhen you get out of jail? I’m going to have some fun. That song was out at the time. Me and my best girlfriend at the time, I can’t remember her name, we were like eight years old and having a blast.
C:
How rude, you just throw her away, throw her memory away.
K:
Yeah. And then when they found us, they found us because she stole and got busted. They didn’t find me. I went back at night when it got cold. And that was usually my modus operandi is I would run away for a day and just go do what I wanted. I like my me time.
C:
I know you like your me time.
K:
Yeah. We collaborated, we were in cahoots when I was a kid. And then in my teenage years there was a lot of collaborations because I was professionally dancing, not stripping, professionally dancing and doing opening acts and stuff. I worked with CNC music factory and a bunch of 80s bands, because when you’re a middle band and you just have one hit out, you can’t afford dancers to travel with you to every city. And so they do open calls. So a lot of 80s bands, one hit wonders, I performed with a lot of them. My favorite band that I performed with was Dead or Alive. That was fun. That was fun. Although it was one of the wildest, most violent shows I’ve ever participated in. Those kinds of collaborations were a lot of fun. And then when I was modeling, that was a lot of collaborating as well, to get jobs and all of that.
K:
And then after, towards the end of my modeling career, it was very – it became very transactional. Whenever I would ask someone for a lead or share a lead with somebody, they would say, “what’s in it for you, because you’ve got to be getting something out of this. Right?” And I was like, well, I thought I was getting to hang out with my friend while we did the shoot. If I asked a friend to style it, they’re like, “what do I get?” And then you get your name on the cover of a magazine, because I was pulling covers and billboards at the time. And so I was like, you get their name. I was also walking fashion shows, you get your name listed on this fashion show. They were like, yeah, but what does that do for me? And I’m like, it does a lot for you because these people they’re on their way up.
K:
And if you work with enough people that are on their way up, when they become famous, you’re going to become famous too. Because me working with all of these small bands, is how it ends up having an audition with Madonna and getting invited to go on her Truth or Dare tour, which I did not do. But that was through collaboration.
C:
And you’re getting paid by those bands. You aren’t getting paid in exposure and you aren’t offering people-
K:
Yeah, no, no. (laughs)
C:
Exposure. It was actual money.
K:
No, no, no. I have never worked for exposure. I can expose myself.
C:
(laughs)
K:
No, it’s always money.
C:
I knew that. I just want to clarify, because when you’re talking about, if you work with famous people, it sounded very much like the work for exposure that is often sold now as like, “yes, we’re a billion dollar company, but how about you work for free for us and you’ll get famous. And then you could be famous enough to work for free for a better quality of company and eventually get paid.”
K:
I find that that was really prevalent then even though there was no internet. It was really prevalent. Levi’s tried that. When I was doing the… Because I had a national ad campaign that I was involved in with Levi’s. A lot of the models weren’t being paid, and they were told it was a test shoot. I was like, but you can use some of these. Right? I don’t do test shoots. I’m not doing that. And they were like, “okay.” I went for a Coca-Cola commercial and I didn’t get it, because I refuse to do the Coca-Cola commercial for free. I was surprised that Coke was having people do free commercials. Coke and Pepsi. They were like, “we’re doing these campaigns and then if you become the uncola guy for 7UP, then we’ll pay you. Or if you become their – if you get a campaign that clicks and takes off, then we’ll pay you.”
K:
I was like, no, thank you. I still have to get up at the crack of dawn, pay my own transportation, do my own wardrobe, do my own makeup. All of those things I’m cool with, but you’re going to pay me.
C:
Yes.
K:
Foundation doesn’t buy itself.
C:
That was the professional sports cheerleaders that we knew some of, who we were like, no, I don’t get paid. Like, what?
K:
And then I found that working with a friend of mine, collaborating and opening a business, it was a complete disaster because they didn’t want to work. And so-
C:
So they weren’t interested in collaboration, they were interested in you do the work?
K:
Yeah. For me there was just this hustle and grind to the collaborations that went on in the United States that don’t exist here in Japan. I think that you got taken advantage of in a lot of collaborations here in Japan, because of things that you like to do.
C:
I think so. I think I feel differently about it. I don’t feel like people here are any less likely to try and take unilateral advantage of collaboration, to call it collaboration when really it’s just one way exploitation. But I think here in Japan, people become really obvious about what it is they’re doing. There’s not a lot of socialization and like, let’s be friends, it’s pretty immediately to the, “will you do this work for me for free or for way less than it’s worth.” And if not, then they move on.
K:
Yeah. I find that in Japan I’ve had a lot of people we’ve talked about it before that want to learn how to do what I do so that they can do it too.
C:
Yes.
K:
I’ve had a lot of people want to make money off of me, but I don’t consider those collaborations. I’ve had a lot of positive collaborations. For me, Sunking Designs, awesome collaboration, we paid for the artwork every week that is put up on our websites and it’s done by Sunking Designs and they do a beautiful job. I look at that as an artistic collaboration, because we gave him a brief and he fulfills the brief. We said, we want the music’s in Japan. We want these essential things. And then aside from that, you can create whatever you want, whatever image you want, every now and then we’ll request a specific image like we did for the Olympics episode, we said, hey, can we have an Olympic themed-
C:
Right. It’s going to be running, join the Olympics, we’re going to be talking about the Olympics. Can you make it something Olympics?
K:
Right. And then we had – I had a wonderful collaboration with my info video that I did for Adjustment Guidance, where I was able to get this voice actress who had a yoga channel on YouTube that’s defunct, she doesn’t do it anymore, but I really liked her voice, and the person reached out and got her for me. And so I thought that was a really good collaboration. I don’t think collaboration means no money exchanges hands.
C:
I think money exchanging hands on a collaboration or sharing joint credit for something that neither person is getting paid for yet, is a more honest collaboration. Because I think those kinds of collaborations where money is changing hands, but we’re giving each other some latitude in creative elements, like, express yourself within these parameters, feels like it’s artistic collaboration. And then it feels like there are projects that you do with somebody else where neither of you is getting paid and you both sharing the money if it comes and those feel like collaboration.
K:
Yeah. I feel like Black Creatives in Japan is a really great collaborative space, because everyone can post what they’re doing and everyone can post what they need and you have to be black and you have to be a creative and you have to live in Japan to be a member of the group. But for me, this is where we found Toure from Sunking Designs. We found them and Black Creatives in Japan on Facebook. It is really nice for me to have this group where anytime I need something creative, I can go into the group and I can be like, hey y’all, I need this, and hey y’all, I have this or that going on. They’re always happy to promote it. I’ve had some unpaid collaborations, but all of the stuff that I did unpaid collaborations on, kind of went defunct.
K:
I was a guest on a YouTube channel twice. I was a guest on a podcast twice. I’ve been a speaker at several conventions, and those things I didn’t get paid, and they were non-profits or startups. I did it to support the community to be – just a resource for the community. I like that energy, I like that vibe. I don’t really feel like I had that in the US. I don’t feel I had a community that – I guess I didn’t have an artistic community that we were around at the time.
C:
No, you really didn’t. I think that a lot of times in the kind of collaboration that happens here, it will be between somebody who’s more established and somebody who’s less established. That’s less obviously some power game, because the person who is more established here is the one who tends to get less out of the collaboration, while in the US I found that to be the opposite. People will be like, well, this is capitalism, so I have more power, and I’m going to get more value from this.
K:
I feel like, in the US, it was very much that. It was very focused on individualism. I see in Japan, because it’s such a mix of cultures, at least in the black community here, there is – everyone goes by black because they’re not African American, they’re not American. We talked about this before the makeup of the black community here, and I identify as black. So… we have this interesting conversations and these interesting collaborations. I think it’s really cool that I’ve seen so many black women start businesses here and really have them take off and do well. The whole community supports them, and through Black Women in Japan, we really do share ideas freely and transparently and help each other out, like if we’re trying to get something up and going, the entire community will collaborate with you and help you get started. I really love that here in Japan.
K:
I feel like I have a close sense of community. And I also have Japanese nationals who are rooting for me, who are willing to do things for me in just a free exchange of, I’m just helping you to help you. They don’t get anything out of it. I’m just helping them to help them, I don’t get anything out of it. There’s the collaboration where I pay, because I want a long-term relationship and it’s a long-term plan. And it’s business related. And then I have collaborations where they’re friendlier, and we’re both just trying to do something together.
C:
I find even the ones where we pay, it tends to be more of a patronage feel, like we’re going to make sure that you’re making at least this certain amount of money per month as patrons of you. And you’ll provide us art, as in the original patronage arrangements that you’re providing art. It’s less about haggling on price and nailing down like, you are an interchangeable cog in the machine that I have. Because Japan is still very, very much capitalistic, but I feel most of the people that we deal with… do want the community to be better.
K:
Yes.
C:
Want it to be stronger. A lot of the collaboration that is not one person doing the art and another person providing money to allow that person to do art, tends to be an overcoming limitations of not being Japanese.
K:
Something too that I find really interesting, is I find that I’m collaborating with people outside of Japan more. Within the US, I only collaborated with people who lived in our neighborhood basically, or lived with them 30 minutes of us. I guess the farthest away was an hour away from us.
C:
That sounds about right.
K:
It was very geographically landlocked. I don’t know why it was so geographically specific.
C:
I think because although we have the internet, when you and I started – when you came to Japan, voiceover IP was still very much a new thing.
K:
What do you mean?
C:
We would do calls over the internet when you came to Japan, to prepare the way for us. But it was still a huge thing. If we wanted a message of any length would have to record it and then send it by some file service to listen to. So, the kind of collaboration where an artist can send us a sketch and we can send it back and say, no, not that. And then they can send another one, can happen in minutes rather than 30 minutes to download the picture. I just feel the internet has facilitated a broader geographical thing. I don’t know that that so much because we moved, as because of the time that we moved.
K:
I think it’s so much because he moved. When I lived in California, I was very California focused. And everyone else around us, they were not California natives. And so I was completely the California expert and I have this knack for going into any system and becoming the expert in that system. And so being a systems expert, people looked to me as a resource and that was the collaboration we were doing right before we moved, is I was explaining systems to people and that kind of thing. Here in Japan, I find I do a little bit of that, I do do some mentoring. I’m not doing mentoring right now because I can’t meet with anybody or hang out with anybody. But doing mentoring and helping people chase their goals and telling them, you can do it, believe. Believe in yourself.
K:
I find too something interesting, is like, we’re really active on Twitter. But because I tweet in English, we have a handful of people that are in Japan that we socialize with on Twitter. Most of them are outside of Japan. Hi, Puddin’. Puddin’ checks the transcript to see if I mentioned pudding. And so that’s probably going to be like, if they need to every podcast, is going to be like a shout out, hey, Puddin’.
C:
Be like Stanley always appearing in his own movies.
K:
And they’ve confirmed that, they like being called Puddin’.
C:
Yes.
K:
One creamy, fresh, hot chocolate pudding.
C:
I feel like you always go wrong when you start introducing adjectives.
K:
I don’t think they mind being warm, hot, creamy, fresh pudding.
C:
I’m not saying they do. I’m just saying you always go a little bit too far with the adjectives.
K:
Warm, hot creamy pudding. How is that, fresh, warm, hot, fresh pudding?
C:
I guess I like chilled pudding.
K:
But it gets that skin. Pudding is so nasty.
C:
Chilled banana pudding.
K:
Ugh. I do not like that. With the vanilla wafers. The soggy vanilla wafers.
C:
No, no, not with the vanilla wafers. Why would you ruin a perfectly good chilled banana pudding by putting vanilla wafers with it?
K:
My mother would make the whole-
C:
I know the one you’re talking about.
K:
Vanilla wafer bowl.
C:
I think most Americans of a certain age know what we’re talking about.
K:
Yeah and then put the decoration of the vanilla wafers on top. I always thought that was so nasty. I love vanilla wafers. And if my mom was in a good mood, she put some vanilla wafers off the side for me. If my mom was a bad mood-
C:
Well, I must be clear, you’re a snob. You like to Nilla wafers. I brought you home vanilla wafers from the grocery store one time, you’re like, what are these? These are not Nilla wafers.
K:
Yeah. I do like Nilla wafers.
C:
These look very fancy, but they’re not Nilla wafers, get the right thing.
K:
Yeah. I don’t eat them anymore because they’re not here in Japan, but I turn people on Twitter, get a Nilla wafer and put a slice of cheddar cheese on it. It is so good. It is so, so good. You can eat a box and a block of cheese.
C:
That sounds like it’s good and good for you.
K:
A good what?
C:
Good and good for you. Like vanilla wafer and the cheddar cheese are just collaborating on improvement of your health.
K:
(laughs) Well, yeah, no, it’s still summer. I’m still doing tons and tons of fruit, but I’m starting to crave vegetables. I have this weird thing that I don’t eat any vegetables during summer, but then I think it’s because I like my vegetables steamed, baked or boiled, and I really loved them baked. To turn on the oven right now is cool, unusual punishment. It is so hard. It’s so hard to do the podcast, because we turn off the air conditioning and I’m like, this is not even right.
C:
Well, I’ll just point out that fruits are vegetables. So you are having vegetables.
K:
You know what I mean.
C:
I do know what you mean.
K:
I’m not having fibrous vegetables. The food I eat is very fibrous.
C:
You’re not having your leafy greens and such.
K:
Yeah. The cherries are robust. They are me.
C:
Yes.
K:
And they’re so red. The other day I was tricking on my leg and I’m like, I’m not bleeding.
C:
You told me that.
K:
Yeah. And you’re like, why are you telling me that?
C:
Yeah, I looked over, you said, I’m not bleeding.
K:
It looks like blood.
C:
That’s very much like I looked over and you said, I’m not high. The way you said, I was like, are you bleeding?
K:
Then that’s an old joke. We had a family member that was married to someone who did drugs, but our family member did not do drugs. Their partner would randomly come home and be like, I’m not high. He’s randomly say that. And that was our family members proof that their partner did not do drugs. And I was like, really? You think they’re not high? I think they are high. I’m the queen of telling when someone’s on drugs-
C:
When was the last time you declared that you weren’t high? And they’re like, well, but it’s different.
K:
Because everybody’s always accusing them. Had a major meltdown. Everybody’s is always accusing them because we went to hang out with you and them and your partner, your partner wanted to pretend that he was our pimp and that Chad was a client that he was pimping me out to. That was his fantasy role-play. And I was like no, thank you.
C:
Okay.
K:
Uh-uh. No. I find now that we’re doing the press, that we’re collaborating with people from all over the world and that’s really exciting.
C:
Yes.
K:
And we have an international team, because we have people that don’t live in Japan, don’t live in the United States that still work for us. And that’s really exciting, to be able to employ someone in a foreign country and give them a decent living and work to do. And thank you patrons, we have a new transcriptionist. Round of applause, round of applause. That sound is me clapping, but I don’t want to do it too loud.
C:
Thank you for not doing it too loud. And you were actually doing it in a circle because it’s the round of applause.
K:
Yes. It’s a round of applause. I feel like I’m sensorly annoying to people.
C:
I think if you are, they don’t listen anymore. Well over a hundred episodes on the side.
K:
(laughs) They are not hanging tough.
C:
If they are still listening at this point, they’re hooked.
K:
How does it feel to be international collaboratours?
C:
To rhyme with saboteurs?
K:
No, because we are collaboratours. How would you say it?
C:
Collaborator.
K:
I don’t like that word. I thought he was going to say collaborator. I don’t like that word.
C:
Oh, okay.
K:
We’re collaboratours.
C:
As a collaboratour, I find it pretty enjoyable.
K:
International collaboratour. Thank you very much.
C:
International collaboratour.
K:
Dr. Musick.
C:
Yes. I do a lot of international collabouration for my own job.
K:
Yes you do. Because how many countries are the people you work with in? Four or five now? Because you have one in Asia, one in Canada, one in Australia, one in the US.
C:
Well, most of the people – the bulk of the people I work with are in Australia.
K:
It’s so hot I want to turn the fan back on.
C:
Yeah.
K:
It’s so hot. What if I turn on a little bit?
C:
If you turn it on a little bit, we could hope that our sound guy can collaborate out the extra noise.
K:
That is going to create extra noise?
C:
I think that will be fine.
K:
Oh my God. I’m suffering for you all.
C:
Suffer for your art.
K:
I am suffering for my art. My back is so hot. It’s so hot. August in Japan is brutal. Brutal. And so is September. And so it’s October. I’m going to tell on them. I feel like I’m telling on October. October is still hot.
C:
Yeah, you really are.
K:
And that makes me angry. Every October, I’m so pissed and over it. Why is October hot? What is the point of that? You’re like, you’re from California. And I’m like, what’s that supposed to mean? That feels like an accusation,
C:
Right? Physics is just so awful, making it hot and all.
K:
I’m so aggressive about the heat. I’m like, do not tell me anything that says this should be normal or okay. This is not okay.
C:
The company I worked for, I think about 20% of the workforce, maybe 30% is not based in Australia.
K:
And you work with almost everybody in the company.
C:
Yeah, I do. Yeah. We have customer service people all over the world. In my own team, everybody is in Australia, except for me. But there are six people in my team, and we represent five different countries. A lot of people have immigrated to Australia to work there.
K:
They offered for you to immigrate.
C:
Yeah. But…
K:
Go listen to Visa Hustle. We have several episodes on the Visa Hustle. I feel like the road to permanent residency, we’re never doing that again.
C:
No.
K:
I told you I’m here. This is it. I’m here. I’m staying here. We collaborated on the move.
C:
We did.
K:
We’re here, and now we’re staying. We’re collaborating on staying here.
C:
Yes. But another team that I work with a lot has people in Germany and Russia and Brazil and things. I work with people from a lot of different countries – working in those countries.
K:
Do you consider your coaching to be collaboration?
C:
Not really.
K:
Why not? You haven’t had your new coach.
C:
Not yet.
K:
We’re not going to say the company’s name, but you had a coach that was really bad and that was not collaborative.
C:
I think it was a bad fit. I think it was a bad fit. Part of the reason that it was a bad-
K:
I think any coach that is reading from script, is a bad coach.
C:
But they weren’t reading from a script, mentally they were, they were present and engaged. They had obviously memorized the script, but being married to you for so many years-
K:
If you like the person who’s coaching you, is reading from a memorized script.
C:
Yeah. But I think I’m more sensitive to that. I don’t think they’re a bad coach. Just they’re a bad fit for me.
K:
They’re a bad coach. I’m saying it; I think they’re a bad coach.
C:
I know.
K:
I think they need more training. I don’t understand why companies don’t have people that if you’re going to do coaching or something, coach someone in the company that you work for and have it recorded, and then get feedback from it. That would be the way to go.
C:
I think this is a case of-
K:
That’s supervision for therapy. I think it should be supervision for coaching as well, because you can really jack somebody up with that coaching.
C:
Yes.
K:
If you had listened to your coaches advice, it would have been disastrous for your career.
C:
But I think-
K:
That’s a bad coach.
C:
I think for you, when you first started doing therapy, you were good at it.
K:
Yes.
C:
By the time that you started your current hiatus, because I’m not going to say you’re never doing therapy, but at the moment you’re not doing therapy.
K:
Yeah, because I’m too sick.
C:
You’re a master at it. I don’t think that everybody needs a master at it. But I do think that you were able to take on more difficult situations – people in more difficult situations with more difficult problems as you matured.
K:
I’m not saying I was perfect. And I’m not saying not to be a good coach you have to be perfect. But I’m saying when someone that you’re coaching or mentoring is telling you, this is not the issue, this is not what I want to focus on, and you stay focused on that, and you keep coming back to it, that’s bad coaching. If you have somebody with lower self esteem, you can convince them that you’re right. That this is what you need to work on. And I’ve worked with clients that their previous therapist was like, but you have to work on this thing I’m saying. I was like, I don’t think you need to work on that. But if you want to, this is your time. And they were like, thank you. That’s what I was thinking. And I’m like, okay.
C:
I guess I’ve always thought that whenever I’m getting advice, if they’re not in the collaborative mindset, if they’re in the, I’m giving you advice mindset, that a lot of it is going to be bad or self-interest, in that they have an ax to grind.
K:
Do you think good coaching is collaboration?
C:
I think good coaching is collaboration. I think good-
K:
So then was your last coach collaborating with you?
C:
No, my last coach wasn’t collaborating with me.
K:
And your last coach was not doing good coaching.
C:
It was not good coaching between the two of us. I think I can distinguish between, they were not doing good coaching for me.
K:
Who would they be a good coach for? Is there anyone on your team that you think they would be a good coach for them?
C:
I’m not sure. I can’t think of anybody, but I think-
K:
Do you think anyone from your company listens to our podcast? They don’t
C:
No.
K:
They don’t even know about it.
C:
No, no.
K:
We’re not saying, even if they did, they would just know that I think the coach that they paired you with sucked. And I’d stand by that.
C:
But you are very quick to declare people of sucking so that I don’t get attached. Like when I was seeing doctors in the US, you’d be like, they sucked, they sucked, they sucked.
K:
They did suck. A doctor who tells you, you’re having seizures, but you’re not epileptic and you can’t drive. Because if I say you’re epileptic, I’m going to take your driver’s license. Why are they letting you drive?
C:
They didn’t. They reported me to the DMV anyway. Because I was applying for social security. We’ve talked about this. I was applying for disability. They told social security disability, no, it’s not seizures. And they tell the DMV-
K:
But they didn’t take your license.
C:
They told the DMV, it’s definitely seizures. The DMV decided not to take my license, but I had to go down there to the DMV. And they said, because the doctor won’t say for sure that you’re going to keep having seizures, we have to evaluate.
K:
Because you went to the DMV, then you went back to them, and like, oh, so you don’t want me to say you’re epileptic? You already said I’m not. That is a bad doctor.
C:
I agree that’s a bad doctor. But I was thinking more of the doctors who are like, what are you here to see me about? I’m like, here to see about the fact I get splitting headaches every day. Oh, because did you know you’re fat?
K:
Again, bad doctor.
C:
Yes. Because it’s not a collaboration. You’re ignoring the thing I’m here for, because you want to talk about the thing you want to talk about.
K:
And so when we go into situations that should be collaborative and the person’s not collaborating with you, and I say they suck for not collaborating with you. You’re saying I’m too quick to do that. How many negative experiences should you have before I say this party sucks?
C:
I don’t know, like 10, 20.
K:
And that’s what you would tell me all the time. You didn’t want to say anything about this coach that sucks, but how are they going to grow as a coach if nobody ever tells them they suck?
C:
But you know that this is a personal issue of mine, but not in a sensitive way, just you know this is why you’re my second spouse.
New Speaker:
(laughter).
C:
Because I wasn’t able to say, hey, this is a bad fit. This collaboration is not working.
K:
Oh my gosh. I’m not sensitive that I’m Chad’s second wife, in the least. In the least.
C:
No, I don’t make jokes about things that I’m sensitive about.
K:
You were 23 and divorced.
C:
Yes.
K:
How you living? (laughs) That was another. You just have a string of bad collaborations except for me.
C:
Yes. And you taught me how I collaborate. After you and I became partners, I started staying at jobs for longer because I was able to collaborate better at jobs. My friendships started lasting longer.
K:
(laughs) This is true. This is true. You met your second longest friend, because I met you before them.
C:
Yeah. That’s right.
K:
Because I’m your longest friend.
C:
Yes you are.
K:
I wish I was your tallest friend. No, thinking about some of the height, no, that would be weird. I don’t want to be your tallest friend. I would just like to be four inches taller.
C:
Okay.
K:
I would want it to be distributed. I don’t want three inches in my legs and one inch in my torso.
C:
Okay.
K:
Or no, I would like a quarter of an inch in my neck or a half an inch in my neck.
C:
We should write this down so that when you’re going to the make me taller doctor-
K:
Yeah. An inch and a half in the torso.
C:
Okay.
K:
And then I’d like two inches in the leg. How many inches is that?
C:
You’re missing a quarter inch there.
K:
I can just put it in the torso there.
C:
Okay.
K:
Yeah. If y’all took notes, just send it to us. So I can know how many inches. It’s like I tell my doctor when they’re stretching me.
C:
Yes, exactly.
K:
I find that in Japan, I’m still the OG, the old goat, greatest of all time.
C:
Okay. But doesn’t being the old one implied there’s a new one?
K:
Yeah. I find that I’ve been in Japan longer than most people that I talk to you. I find that in my career, I’m more established the most people that I talked to. And I find even in policing instead of vermouth, I am more established, even though it hasn’t even been a year yet.
C:
Yes.
K:
Than most people, because we collaborate with other presses. Hey Outcast. I can say their name, because if you go on Twitter, on the Cinnabar Moth Twitter, we talk to each other all day on Twitter. I’m not telling tell-
C:
It’s not a secret.
K:
Yeah, everybody knows we collaborate. It’s really nice to not be competitive and to have this collaboration and they’re American in the United States. I just really, really get along great with the entire team. I’ve met with the entire team and we’ve talked and we’re hashing out all of these different projects that we’re doing together. We have a lot of great things coming up that we’re not talking about yet. It’s really quite fulfilling. I don’t know if that counts as a Japanese collaboration or an American collaboration.
C:
I’m not sure.
K:
Because I’m in Japan.
C:
Yeah, you are.
K:
But they’re in the United States.
C:
I think that counts as an American collaboration. Are they American?
K:
Ooh. Now, I don’t know. I think two of them are. But I’m not sure about the entire team. Because I haven’t come at them like that. It doesn’t matter to me.
C:
It’s an international collaboration because it’s happening between countries.
K:
Yeah. This goes under the international umbrella.
C:
Yes.
K:
I don’t think in the United States that I would have met them, and I don’t think that there would have been the trust, because I think a lot of trust comes from me not being in the United States. I find with the people I’m cooperating with, they feel like, okay, you’ve got your side of the street, I’ve got my side of the street. Because I’m not breathing down their neck. I think also there’s no pressure to meet and there’s no lifestyle pressures.
C:
I think too that you’re discounting on your own side how often people in the US, when we were in the US, would say, that thing you’re doing looks cool. Can I tag along? And then you’d say, okay. Yeah. And they’d start doing it. And they’d say, okay, now what are you going to do next? So I can do that next.
K:
Yeah, no, they’ve got their own thing and that’s really nice. They’re doing something similar, but different. They’re putting their own flavor and spice on it, just like I’m putting my own flavor and spice on it. What they have going on is much more transgressive than what I have going on. They have more grit, I want to say. We have spice and horror and trauma, but I don’t know. We’re getting some grit. But right now we’re doing a wild fantasy, and our next book is middle grade. The book after that is adult fantasy, which it starts to get gritty because that book has along with the content warnings and then the winter anthology, which is really… a lot. And they were doing the e-zine and say, we have a lot of really dynamic and fun stuff going on.
K:
And they’re helping and collaborating with all of this stuff, and that’s really nice. It can be professionally lonely to start a business. This was the first time I started a business where I don’t feel professionally lonely, and I’m really, really happy about the collaboration.
C:
That’s good. I’ve seen a lot of collaborations like that come up in different Slack things, where there’ll be people-
K:
In different flat things?
C:
Slack.
K:
What are you saying? Spell it.
C:
S-L-A-C-K.
K:
Slack things?
C:
Yeah.
K:
What are you talking about?
C:
I’m talking about people from different businesses gathering together in dedicated Slack things to talk about business generally, rather than their business specifically.
K:
Okay.
C:
Like industry groups and things. When I was going to the American Chambers of Commerce-
K:
American Chambers of Commerce in Japan.
C:
Yeah. That was that kind of thing where we would collaborate on different events and things. And mostly people weren’t getting anything personally out of whatever was going on. In terms of money, it was more networking and being known and such.
K:
How is that over Slack?
C:
That’s not over Slack. There are similar things happening over Slack, around industry groups and around professions. There are Slack channels, Slack systems for data people where you can go and talk about data issues generally-
K:
That’s cool.
C:
… that are not specific to your company.
K:
Yeah. I’m not on Slack. I don’t do it. I have Slack.
C:
You have Slack, but you don’t have a log on.
K:
No, I don’t. We were going to do shadow work where we check in a couple of years back, and it just never came to anything, like work buddies for days that I was doing paperwork to just have some chatter going on in the background kind of thing. But then everyone was like, this idea’s not working.
C:
Yeah. We ended up using Line for a lot of that stuff, rather than Slack.
K:
No, I don’t use Line for that at all.
C:
Not anymore.
K:
I don’t. I’ve never used Line for that.
C:
With me you used to. You used to send messages to me and Rasta.
K:
I still send Rasta messages, but that’s not pleasant background chatter.
C:
It used to be years ago, in my mind it was.
K:
Okay. Live how you live in.
C:
Thank you. I’m collaborating with my happy memories.
K:
Yes, your truth is yours to tell.
C:
Thank you.
K:
Thank you all for tuning in this week. I’m going to put my spectacles on, because I want to read what the take two is about. The take two is going to be a six month check-in for how Not My Ruckus is doing.
C:
Excellent. That’s not the summary, that’s me saying excellent, let’s check in.
K:
(laughs) It’s been almost six months since the book launched. And if y’all want to hear how that’s doing follow us on over to Patreon. And for three bucks, you can get over a hundred take twos at this point and just spend a whole month just bathing and basking in us.
C:
Exactly.
K:
Thank you so much for tuning in. We think your time and attention is a precious resource, and we appreciate that you spend it with us.
C:
Thank you.
K:
Bye.
C:
Bye.
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