[00:00:05] Speaker A: Welcome to disability empowerment. Now bridge to season four. I'm your host, Keith Matthew Dinsini. Today I'm talking to my very dear friend, an original collaborator on the podcast, eric Fitz, who runs the voodoo chronicles. Eric, welcome to the show.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Well, the tables have turned, keith.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: Yes. Yet they certainly have. It builds like it was 510 years ago.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Speaker one. Oh, we got it. We can't, we can't. We can't keep doing this. We can't. We gotta keep. Keep in touch because, I mean, I started a job recently with the us federal government, and I'm not really able to discuss too much of what I do, but it's a top secret agency that you've never heard of. We use state of the art, uh, equipment, and we have only the latest in, in vehicles to help us get us around, so. And it's, uh, there are some days where it's like, I only work 4 hours, and there's some days those, like, I work 13 hours.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: So, yeah, you're a hard man to pin down. Schedule.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Oh, like, I don't know when my, my next day off is going to be until I actually get the schedule. And it's usually not until. Oh, that. The very last minute I find out that it's like, oh, it's like I have today off. And then oftentimes I'll be called in being asked, hey, listen, could you come in and can you fill in for this person or that person? And different offices around the region will also ask me. So it's like somebody had asked me if I could come in and work today and says, no, I'm not. No, no, I got an appointment. So that's it. You can get out of anything. Just tell them you have an appointment. Don't tell it with who. Just tell them you got an appointment.
Very important.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: So we met a few years back because your Aunt Carolyn works for my family in Abidjan, and I was starting this new venture, and I knew Jack about hard Tagstein, and she said, well, I've got a family member I've got to introduce you to. And so you came out. Yes, I did, about a week. And a very insecure and inexperienced young lad how to dream up and start a podcast.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: Well, I think that you don't give yourself enough credit. I think you knew more than you absolutely knew more than you thought you did. And I think that really the only thing that I did was just to introduce you to the proper equipment, the kind of equipment that I wish I had when I started out of. And I mean, let's also not forget that you are also an award winning podcaster.
[00:03:44] Speaker A: So thank you. I try to forget that for my ego's sake.
[00:03:53] Speaker B: Well, you know what? Sometimes you need to remind yourself of your accomplishments. And that's one of the things that it's like, and I hope we talk about this later on. Don't ever put yourself down.
You have to be. I know it sounds egocentric, I think. I know it sounds a little narcissist to say this, or narcissistic. You have to be your biggest fan sometimes.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: Yeah, that's very much true.
So tell me, my friend, when and how did you first start getting into podcasting?
[00:04:36] Speaker B: Well, how, how far back do you want to go?
[00:04:39] Speaker A: The very, very beginning.
[00:04:43] Speaker B: Um, I remember when I was a kid driving around southern Vermont and listening to people talk on the radio and the thought to myself was that, well, you could do this and make a living. I mean, you can actually be on the radio. And my father was a ham radio operator and he told me that my great grandfather used to build radio AM radio transmitters back in the twenties and thirties in the Chicago Minneapolis area. So you can say that radio is in my blood. And I write articles on the fedora Chronicles. It's thefedorachronicles.com. you can also find me on Patreon. I'm not trying to drop my Patreon or anything like that, but that's where you can find my writing. And people had said that I don't have the time to listen to your pot or read your articles. How about if you just read them online on this new thing called podcasting? And I thought like, what is a podcast? It's like you're casting a net to catch pod people from Invasion of the body statures. I just, I didn't like what's a podcast? I don't know. So I got some recording equipment. I got some cheap recording equipment and then I got some more expensive audio recording equipment thanks to my beautiful wife Carol. And I still have the box. I still, I still have the box. Sometimes I'm redecorating, as you can tell, but I still have the box for, for, for my audio board. And I highly recommend, if you are a podcaster, I highly recommend you get a Tascam audio recorder and just plug in a microphone. I only use shure microphones and a pv audio board to plug in. And you just, just record your voice and keep practicing. And even if you never publish, just keep, just, if you're just like keeping a journal, an audio journal, just do it.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: Yeah. I remember the Fed's exercise you gave me, which still tickles me pink. I'm a massive Shakespeare fan and I really enjoyed the sonnets of Shakespeare. And in order to vocally train myself, you gave me the assignment of recording a sonnet or two every morning for you and your love. They wiped legend to over your morning cup.
[00:07:39] Speaker B: Oh. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's just one of those things that. It was just like, I don't care what you do, I don't care what you read, I don't care what your topic is for your podcast, just do it. I mean, it's a beautiful art form. I've always been in love with radio. I've always been. I've always been enamored with audiobooks. I think that it's a wonderful medium. Harlan Ellison used to say, it's like, radio is beautiful because your brain does so much of the work. It can be as sophisticated or as beautiful as you could possibly imagine. Like, if you're listening to the audible version of the Great Gatsby, it looks and feels and sounds, well, pretty. I mean, mostly the way you want it to look and smell, and you create the stage you put in, the actors in. It's all. It's all a theater of the mind. And you do that with podcasting. And I can't. I cannot recommend it enough to people who are also in love with radio. And that's the other thing. It's like, you really have to enjoy the medium, the pure audio medium, which is kind of funny, because it's like, I'm also, like, talking to you on the Zoom meeting here, so. But, you know, it is what it is.
[00:09:12] Speaker A: I remember the earlier dates before I'd settled on Zoom and Adobe audition as the backend.
I was fiddling around with Reaper, which is a great program.
I was looking into Hindenburg, which is also a great program.
A hilarious name for broadcasting program, but a great program. None but, lads.
And I got all the equipment you recommended.
I didn't really love the tags camp, no offense to that.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: No, no, that's fine. That's fine.
[00:10:09] Speaker A: Yeah. I often make the very true joke, more true than joke, that a Zoom pro membership cards about 150 a year and impedes for itself, like a few days where ads many episodes, and thereby I do over Zoom. Yeah, it's like the monthly pads of the New York subway. You write it enough, impedes birds.
[00:10:56] Speaker B: And that's the other thing I want, you know, to encourage people.
I have a set of tools that work for me, period. End of story. I want you to experiment. I want you, you know, don't take everything that I say as written as gospel. You know, if you want to try another editing software, I mean, go for it. It might work for you better than what I use. I think. I think that it's like. But it's most important that you start with the basics and then you evolve, and it's like, who knows? You might actually find a better software suite than what I use. But the most important thing is that you experiment and you try and you learn all that you can, and you, I mean, it's just, it's just like learning a musical instrument. I don't play a music. The only thing that I actually, the only musical instrument that I play is a cd player. Um, but the only way that you're going to get good is practice, practice, practice.
[00:11:54] Speaker A: Yes, that's true. And the pv mix is still going strong. In fact, I'm Serge, like, considering getting a second rig of equipment because they're shipping them back and forth.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: Is actually more than the new equipment is. And that's even ensuring all of them, which I did add.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: Right.
If you could afford it.
[00:12:36] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you can afford it.
Because literally, this is my livelihood. If something happens to this equipment, I am literally out of a job.
[00:12:54] Speaker B: Right. Yep. I highly recommend that you of all people should have, like, wherever you're recording, if you record at the same place every week. Like, I, like, I, well, um, yeah, like I do is that you have your setup and you have it set up. Just, there's just, is just right. It's like when you plug things in and then unplug things, that's when your cable connections are going to get worn down. Um, even the, the, uh, the connection, the microphone connections and the power connections for your, your audio recorder, those are going to wear out. Plug it in, leave it in, don't touch it, and just move on with your life. If you record in three different places, I highly recommend having three different setups.
[00:13:44] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And even though that, that game did very constant, it's so worth it because we always, overnight, there's a quit meant, and there's always someone to receive it, but you never know what's going to happen.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: That's right, that's right.
[00:14:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: Leave. Yeah. Believe me when I tell you, things do get lost in the mail, whether it's FedEx, uh, um, ups, whatever. If the things do get lost, it happens. It happens. And like you said, this is, this is your livelihood. So if you can. If you can get a recording studio, um, in one location or a recording studio in another location, by all means, like, get more. Get all the equipment that you need for each location.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: So let's go back to that pod casting boot camp that we did several years ago. What do you remember from that experience?
What were some of the highlights?
[00:15:07] Speaker B: Your incredible enthusiasm. And pepper was ubiquitous. Pepper was everywhere. Everywhere we went. Everywhere you went, Pepper.
[00:15:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Pepper's my very loyal, damaging terrier rescue dog, who is very much a Velcro dog.
If she could be on the pod cats, there would be nothing she would enjoy more.
[00:15:46] Speaker B: I think that it's like, if you could just have. Have a separate camera and a separate zoom account just for pepper, and it was just like. But, I mean, that's the other thing that it's like. I also remember is that seeing your collection of books and videos, and I'm telling you, I don't. I don't. I don't know if you guys know this or not, but Keith is a huge fan of. Of Casablanca, and he is a huge Humphrey Bogart fan.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: Yo, d ed.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: So I think that you and I also talked a lot about classic film as well.
My love for classic film, especially black and white from the thirties and forties. I absolutely adore them. I would show you my collection of them, but it. Because of the ice storm, we had to pick everything apart, and it hasn't been put back together yet, but it's like, I have hundreds of classic movies. I also love period films that take place during the thirties and forties. I love movies about prohibition, World War Two, treasure hunting in South America or North Africa or wherever. But that's. That's where my passion lies. It's like, if I'm not working on my Koi pond or doing whatever chores around the house, I'm usually watching a classic movie or a period film.
[00:17:13] Speaker A: So doing the two episodes of the fedora chronicles with you in my dining room.
[00:17:26] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:17:27] Speaker A: Which are pre episodes of podcast. Those are actually the only in person episodes I have ever done. And Zoom and the PD mixer, PV Mix, it's just, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
But what can you tell me? What do you remember about doing those in person episodes of your podcasts from across the country?
[00:18:15] Speaker B: Uh, jet lag.
[00:18:20] Speaker A: Something other than that.
[00:18:22] Speaker B: Okay.
So the thing is, is that I gave you a list of all the. All the equipment that you would need to do in person interviews, and I am a huge fan of, like I said, I'm a huge fan of Tascam. I love Tascam. They've never let me down. And I'm trying to think how many I have. I have three Tascam audio recorders and. But I suggested that you buy a version of the Tascam that's like. It's like the cadillac of models. It does everything except for get up and get you a cup of coffee if you're starting to fall asleep during the interview. And the. The problem was, is that the interface is just a little. Just a little different than what I was used to. And I was in a little bit of a panic for a moment there thinking, like, this isn't working the way that I thought it was going to work. And then it has a standby mode that I didn't know about and a record mode where it's like you click the record button once to go into standby mode, and then you push it a second time to get it to actually record. And once we played with it for a while, plugged it into the pv and we got them. We got the microphones. You got two microphones. We plugged it into the pv and it's like everything worked exactly the way it should after that. And it was just such a huge relief to get everything up and going. But I think that it was like.
I think it was the second conversation when we were talking about some of the stereotypes about being a disabled person and the cliche things that people say to handicap people. That was your pet peeve. And there was this moment where you went from happy go lucky, Joy filled Keith to, like, the real serious, down to earth. This is a guy who went to college and he got himself a master's degree, and he's no slouch. Um, he knows his stuff, but actually.
Yeah. Oh, yeah, right, exactly. See? That mean? And it's. It.
It's like you sort of like you transformed into this fully actualized person.
And it was like, there was this moment when we were talking, I was like, this guy has something.
This guy has. You have the chops. You have the chops to do incredible work. You just need to keep at it. You need to just keep plugging away at it.
[00:21:23] Speaker A: Yeah. It wasn't until season two. And that's after you moved on.
Well, season two was double the amount of episodes. Season one was. I was able to craft series overarching topics, which made it a lot more enjoyable. I began to create narratives across several episodes, but really, season one was going to be a one and done thing. In my mind, it was like I had no conception of season two until about episode eight or nine of the ten episode first season. I remember you actually had to redesign the podcast logo.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:46] Speaker A: To fit yours.
And only because we could not get the original logo to conform to Facebook's standards of what makes a appropriate, uh, dimensions are bogo.
[00:23:15] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what you do. I mean, um, that's one of the things that I really had to learn uh, over the past 20 years is. And um, when they say it's character building, it's, it is, it's character building. And I remember something that my uncle had told me when I was much, much much younger. Um, you'll notice like, um, quitters never win and quitters never have anything that's, that's notable, that's theirs.
When you, when you, when you run into a problem that you, sometimes you have to step away from it, you just look at the problem and it's like, what is, what do we have to do to fix this? And it was just like, you just keep plugging away at it, you just keep going. And when we found out that the file format for your logo wasn't, wasn't correct and, and what we had from the previous graphic designer wasn't scalable, just fire up Adobe illustrator and just recreate it. Just do it. That's. Just do it.
[00:24:22] Speaker A: And there was nothing wrong with the original logo.
It just wouldn't have conform.
[00:24:33] Speaker B: Right.
[00:24:34] Speaker A: The dimensions imposed by Fates book. And so you had to redesign it and make it into what it is today, which I have that on shirts, I have that on notebooks, I have that on shoes. Shoes I don't wear. I wish I could give them to my dog to chew on, but look at them, snip them and walk away.
But yeah, it's like. And I needed to really fall in love with the logo itself to be able to promote it. I have it on hats, I have it on mugs. And the original hang up I had around it is because I'm a leech now, fully ambulatory. And so I'm not in a wheelchair. And I had to get over my own insecurity and hang up on can I use the logo when no one would have really cared? And it's not a logo for people with disabilities.
It's the logo to attract everyone else in what they think is the stark image of everything. And the only thing people with disabilities are, which is categorically false in every conceivable way. But I had to go through my own journey with getting nudes to that logo. And so what are some of the other memories that you have from not only the week long boot camp, but from being the main producer of the first several episodes of season one?
[00:27:25] Speaker B: Well, this is also right around the time when I started having my serious neurological symptoms.
It was getting harder and harder for me to work because I was having some serious, um, uh, problems just functioning and sometimes just talking. And, uh, I was driving into the day job, and, um, uh, my right arm fell asleep while I was driving, which is a kind of scary thing. And, um, uh, when I told you and Carolyn what was going on, it's like I said, you know, Keith, you're probably going to have to find, um, another. A team that's close by, because I'm just not going to be able to do it. It was. It was a really scary time. But, you know, working on those episodes, and I. It made me really realize, like, deep down inside, on a different level, not on a professional level. Like, Keith's my client, and I got to do this work. It was on. This is.
Keith has a voice and a purpose to allow people with disabilities to tell their stories.
And I had a really rough night where it's like, I broke down, and it's like, I mean, I was blubbering, I was crying a lot because it was just like, oh, how come I couldn't have found something like this sooner? And I was like, you can't live like that. You got to live in the moment.
But it was so I had to tell you and Carolyn that I was going to actually have to step down as your producer. And we, my wife and I, we went to.
I lost count after three. We went to three different neurologists, and we were asking, like, well, what is my. What. What is. What is wrong with me? I have a neurological.
I don't know if it's a dysfunction because we don't have a clear cut diagnosis.
I have symptoms that fit into one neurological disorder, and I have symptoms from another neurological disorder.
I often lose function. Half my function. Here it goes. Absolutely numb. Could be something to do with the ulnar nerve. And I have the sensation. I have, like, burning sensations all over my body. I feel like somebody's putting out cigarettes or cigars.
I have really horrible leg cramps, and there are episodes when I have short term memory loss. And as long as I keep taking my medications, I can keep this in check.
After all the mris, after all the CAT scans, and we, um.
Probably one of the hardest things was they literally put electric electrodes in my arm and gave me painful shocks.
[00:30:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:44] Speaker B: To see how, how quickly I responded to the right arm and the left arm. And it was just like, yeah, you're really going, this isn't, this isn't your imagination.
You are really experiencing this. And this is, on the one hand, it's probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to deal with.
And also, it's the not knowing. It's the not knowing what's going on. I. Every six months, I go in for a checkup. Have anything, has anything changed? Um, either they'll still change my, my dosage or, um, leave it the same. My symptoms often change. Like, I get these, like, incredible sensations of, of spiders crawling all over my body, and I don't. I mean, there's no spiders crawling on my arm, but it's like I feel that. I feel like something is crawling all over my body. And there are other times when my legs don't work the way that they should, but I don't quit. I don't let it get to me because to an extent, it's all in my head.
It's all neurological.
And I remember reading this book by Viktor Frankl. Man, search for meaning. It's like you choose how you're going to react to something.
You choose if somebody makes you angry. You choose if you're going to hit that person or whether you're just going to yell back. You choose if you get bad news from the doctor or your boss. You choose how you're going to react. And I choose not to let this get me down.
There are afternoons that.
It's like, if I have the day off, I have to take an hour nap. If I have to take a nap, I take a nap. But I'm at the point where it's like, I can't let this make me depressed because there are people who have more serious conditions than I do. But the entire experience in listening to the podcast and editing the podcast and forcing my hand to work before I got on the medications was like, that was, that was like a real trial by fire.
And it's like I realized that it's like, if I can't, if I can't help Keith all the time, at least I should be able to be a cheerleader for him when I'm not, when I have the opportunity to do so, because this is like, this is really important. And one of the things I also discovered is that if you live long enough, you will have some kind of disability eventually. You taught me that. You taught me that. And one of the things that I do at the day job that I have now is that occasionally I do go to nursing homes, retirement homes, and you see people with all kinds of disabilities, and it's like something that's waiting for all of us. And you see some people who are taking it in stride. You're some people who are just very angry and bitter about it, but, you know, that's your choice. So that's. That's. I don't mean to overlap, but the two. The two things happen simultaneously. And it's almost like it was divine intervention, the way that everything happened.
[00:34:19] Speaker A: What are some of the epidurals in the veg season that really struck a lord with you?
[00:34:30] Speaker B: Oh, my God. It's like asking me to pick my favorite dog or my favorite child. I think. I think that it's like every episode had this moment where it's like people talk about their breakthrough moments.
I can't pick one in particular.
I just simply can't.
[00:34:48] Speaker A: But Jennifer London's episode really knocked me back when she dropped some very, very excruciating trauma very early on in episode. And that, rightfully so, shook me a gaud catch to an Adzy Mandev.
[00:35:21] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
[00:35:22] Speaker A: And it.
I remember going through a journey of do I release this? Do I not?
[00:35:33] Speaker B: We actually had a conversation about that.
[00:35:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And I actually had a derby appointment where it was.
It was the topic. And I mean, what ended up happening? The advisor was given at the time, which should have been a no. Reina is judge ask her. And I remember texting her afterwards and saying, this is really heavy, intense episode.
Did you mean for it to go there? Because I had done like a month love research on every political position, X, Y and Z. Once she said what she said once she did scrolls, that everything else went out the window. And I asked her, what do you add the guest want me to do here? And she said, I didn't plan on talking about it, but I think it's a very important topic.
And so, yes, breeds relates it and breeds tag me in it and that that's what ended up happening.
But that episode three was the make or break moment. Right?
Should I continue and why?
[00:37:35] Speaker B: I think one of the things that I said to you after editing that episode, I think. I think I was the one who edited that episode. It was. If it was hard for me to edit that episode, it must have been harder for you to be the host of the show. But the person who had the hardest job was our guest.
And I think that it's like if we buried that episode, we would have done a very serious disservice to the people who listened to that episode and gathered strength from it. And there must have been other women who heard that episode and said, if she can go through it, then I can go through it. I went through an episode on the Federal Chronicles radio show right after my abuser, my mother's boyfriend, had died.
He lived on our house between, I think it was 1981 to 19, late 1985, I think.
And I don't dwell on it anymore because it's like, that's in the past. But when I got the text that said that he died and then I talked about it on my own podcast, it was this huge relief. And I felt, like, liberated. It was almost euphoric. It's like, look, this is like one of the, what I went through was something just. It was unimaginable. And when my therapist had said, look, you were tortured, I mean, there were people, there are people in prison who have done things like that to prisoners of war.
There's so many people who came after and told me how important that episode was to them. And you got to put faith in the guest.
When the guest bares their soul and they say, oh, yeah, absolutely, please, by all means. I want people to hear my story. And I named names. I named my abuser. I told everybody my abuser's name. I gave details about what was done to me, and I did not hold back. And it was. It was liberating. And so many people came out and said, thank you for your bravery, because I said what I had to say. Other people did what they had to do. I think it would have been such a betrayal to her and her, and her bravery to not publish that episode.
[00:40:24] Speaker A: Yeah, no, non publishing. It was never the question. It was, did she feel comfortable coming out?
[00:40:38] Speaker B: Right?
[00:40:39] Speaker A: Because I remember being in the moment as the hoax. Everything disappeared. All the breath in my body, drugs, because.
And I couldn't. No, no one could have known. And so I would completely unprepared.
And so I wanted to double back and make sure she felt comfortable enough with me publishing it. And you, you told me that you had to rematched.
Are reproduced that absolutely times.
[00:41:38] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:41:39] Speaker A: Because it was that law of a subject matter.
And it would really the make a break moment of, why do we do this?
[00:41:59] Speaker B: Right?
[00:42:00] Speaker A: Why this is important and why it must continue.
So she very much gave me my trial by fire, my sea legs ads, a interviewer ads, a pod cats.
And I'm. I'm talking to her later on that's mini season, where I won't say judge that it's like, without that episode, it would have judge been a fun hobby. Okay, I did it for a few hours.
Yeah, I can watch it off the proverbial bucket, lads. But it was Jennifer. And then later, Pat Stadford, Stratford. Sorry, Chad. Who's.
Who had been the only gad to have premiered. I've been on every season and most of time with her partner.
That was another watershed episode where it was like, there's something here. There's truth being told.
And this is why you need to develop it into more of a platform that goes beyond a hobby, because it's not a hobby. The only people who think it's a hobby, all the IR ads, because they don't have the non profit paperwork that I'm drawing up with a lawyer and a very dear friend of mine, ads, well, to make it into more of a legitimate enterprise of Vincy, my colleague. Yes, Vince, what I'm going to make or break my legacy on, and it's about not telling other people's stories, because Digibo advocates don't like anyone telling their stories but themselves.
[00:45:08] Speaker B: Right?
[00:45:08] Speaker A: The original concept of that, what eventually became this platform is I'm a writer by trade, and so I would give to record the interviews, no one would ever hear them, and I would write up summaries and create narratives around them. And so it would have become a more professional blog type news site. But then I remembered no one would have given that any credence for very long, right? And so I just switched media, and it wasn't until season three, where I interviewed actor and disability advocate cut Jaeger, where I discovered that, hey, video cats really shine a brand new element into the stories we tell together. And so the non profit, which will basically be the overlay of the podcast, video cats, and whatever offshoot comes after it, will basically be the overlay of the entire eventually, multimedia company, because it's the next logical step to take. Uh, Alex Perry, uh, who, uh, you walked alongside season one, and she continued, uh, into season two. Uh, she had me at the very beginning judge the YouTube handle and the Instagram handle years or months before we did anything with either of them. And at that time, I was like, there's no way I'm going to turn this into video cards. We're wasting time.
But lo and behold, she was right on several different fronts. And she was able to assemble a team of colleagues that she knew before she departed the podcast. And the team had grown exponentially because of that. Original team member who really took it upon itself to foster in a team dynamic. I've always considered this to be a constant collaboration, yet I am the founder, CEO, read podcast hosts. But I'm very aware that if I didn't have a team of young professionals behind me every step of the way, nothing about this enterprise would yet done at all. There are, there are podcasts, there are video cats, students who can do it all themselves and that's great.
I've never set out to be one of those. Oh, when I was a musician in high school, in college, I just wrote lyrics and sung opportune Diddy.
The music always came from other people. It's only include several years later where I created my own like Tronica and I ditched the lyrics then and so this long tangent. But this is how important collaboration is and has been from the very beginning. Judge designing the website with Paul Hozer of Groundwork Productions, who workshopped with Helen and other ins and outs of the the website and then bring you on, bring Alex on vid Chad's always been a collaboration and always will remain one because it's just that important to be able to lean on others and to have new ideas, ideas that I did not think of. No would I think of had I not had someone else telling me, yeah, you should really go this direction. You should really go that direction. You should maybe cut that out. You should give more energy to that.
It's like I'm right now the only pod Tads holds lords. You will. Hopefully that will not always be the case. Hopefully I will get a female princess on this podcast who will also be disabled, who will be able to speak to a different side of the same world that I, as male, can't ever step into. And that's incredibly valuable to me to bring that perspective to the bullfront.
[00:53:09] Speaker B: Preston, before I let you go, because we've gone over, you want to talk about collaboration? I think that it's like it would be totally unfair of me to mention my co host for the Fedora Chronicles, news of the Week with Jason Cousino. My co host Jason cousin, he has a very incredible story to tell and I hope that we can be able to share that in some way, shape or form in the near future.
We've had to sort of put the podcast on hiatus because of like work issues and all like that, but we're really sort of hoping to bring it back in the very near future. But I like, before I let you go, Keith, I gotta let you know I am especially proud of you. And maybe even just a little bit envious of you and your success. I think that you've done an incredible job. You've.
You've surpassed my expectations. That's. That's for sure. And I'm. I'm proud to call you my friend and a colleague and to some, just small extent, a competitor. But if you could just do me just one favor, give yourself a little bit more credit for what you've done. And we're going to have to do this again later. I still want to go out. I want to go back out to Arizona.
I want to do a couple of episodes of paranormal experiences out in the. Out in Arizona with you and hopefully Jason.
That's really my big goal. That is on my bucket list for the rest of this year. And we just. We have to figure out a way to get that to happen. And there are so many other things that I'd like to be able to do to collaborate with you. There are a couple of stories that I have that I'm working on that I'd like to share with your audience, and.
Yeah, no, I. I'm proud of you. End of story. That's it.
[00:55:18] Speaker A: You're always very welcome on Vids podcasts. I'm either above or below a jackhammer, and that is the reason why I have a team, uh, to make me sound and yet even look good. But, Eric, I could not have begun that without your tutelage and without your dear aunt who passed me your name and really got us together for one week.
Not in parents, sadly, uh, but I'm sure we'll always have.
[00:56:15] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:56:16] Speaker A: But, uh, please stay safe, say hi to your family, and let's do another episode again very soon.
[00:56:28] Speaker B: Absolutely. And by the way, do not forget. Do not forget. Give pepper my love. I miss her dearly. Okay.
[00:56:36] Speaker A: I challenge you that. Take care of yourself.
[00:56:40] Speaker B: You too. Take care.
[00:56:50] Speaker A: You have been listening to disability empowerment. Now I want. I would like to thank my guests, you, Olitzina, and the disability empowerment team that made this episode possible.
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