Jason Everman, Nirvana’s early second guitarist and Soundgarden’s fired bassist, pivoted from music to military service in 1994, deploying to Iraq (2003) and Afghanistan as a Special Forces leader. He contrasts Western cultural norms with Central Asia’s tribal realities, citing Alexander the Great’s 300 BC ruins and Afghanistan’s resistance to foreign influence like Islam’s late arrival in Nuristan. Post-service, he earned a philosophy degree at Columbia, now refitting his sailboat for the Race to Alaska (R2AK) project—funded by veterans and musicians, including Barrett Martin of Deep Amazon—while critiquing modern society’s obsession with material validation over ancient Greek ideals of self-growth. His minimalist website, supernautiloid.com, blends Black Sabbath’s Supernaut and nautical themes, reflecting his defiance of conventional expectations. [Automatically generated summary]
Yeah, so like on the rare time Where we actually rehearsed as a band, which was not a lot, Kurt would kind of half-heartedly, like, hey, who has ideas?
And, like, I'd throw a couple ideas out.
And then Chad, like a very accomplished musician in his own right, would throw some ideas out.
And then it'd just kind of be glossed over and, like, okay, here's the new song I wrote, you know, and start learning that.
It's like, okay, this was a nice diversion, but I'm going to kind of fulfill this dream I've had since I was a kid of trekking in the Himalayas.
So I went to Metzger's Maps in Seattle and was buying maps of the Himalaya of Nepal and Tibet and all this stuff.
Yeah.
Getting gear sorted and that's what I was going to do.
And then at some point that summer or fall, I can't remember what time of year it was, end of summer, Kim from Soundgarden called me and was like, hey, Hero, their bass player then, quit.
I was like you know at that point like Soundgarden was my favorite Seattle band like hands down and it was like okay you know fully not believing I'd ever get chosen and then you did yeah and how did that end I got fired What happened?
It's complicated, but I think at the end of the day, I wasn't getting along with Chris Atwell, the singer.
And, you know, obviously, you know, who's going to go?
There's more to the story than that, because there was still, like, I basically, like, getting fired from Soundgarden, like, put me in a pretty bad tailspin.
I mean, it was a rough patch in my life, for sure.
And so, in order to kind of...
Cut this tailspin off.
Like, I had to do something radical.
And what I did was ended up moving to New York.
And so, I mean, there's more to the story than that.
But moved to New York, like, basically, you know, I grew up in rural Western Washington, like...
So it was kind of polar opposite to what my experience was.
Like, got a job in a warehouse, got an apartment, and kind of started my New York life and did that for a couple of years.
Oh, I'm a firm believer that growth is the result of trauma.
Like, you need that thesis, antithesis, synthesis, you know?
Like, Stephen Jay Gould called it...
Pertaining to evolution, punctuated equilibrium, where, like, evolution tends to stay stable if there's no pressures.
But as soon as there's this introduction of new pressures, usually the result of some cataclysmic event.
It's not a gradual thing.
It's usually sudden and extreme.
And that's where these new evolutionary pressures are introduced.
And it's like...
On this level of species, you adapt and survive or you die off.
So I kind of like putting that template on the individual.
Like you kind of cruise through life and then something fucked up happens and then, you know, hopefully you step up and grow from it, you know, learn from it, all that stuff.
And so that was kind of my foothold for moving there.
Didn't play music.
I brought some equipment over.
Initially, I went over with a backpack, and that was it.
And I had a friend of mine's band who were on tour pick me up at JFK and drive me into the city.
I still remember this.
The day before, I was doing different kind of work to save money for the move.
So the day before I flew to New York, I was like, Bucking bales of hay in a hayfield, like farm stuff, right?
And my buddy Spike, who I'm still good friends with, played in this band called Mind Over Four.
They picked me up at JFK, and I remember sitting in the van and looking at my Converse, and I still had straw stuck in the Converse from baling hay the day before.
So, I went back to Seattle at some point during the first year in New York to ship more of my personal belongings over.
And actually, I went to Sub Pop because they had UPS shipping there.
And I'm, like, boxing up my stuff in the Sub Pop offices and, like, getting ready to ship it to New York, like, including, like, a Marshall cabinet, like, some music gear, but...
I had this vague notion of, yeah, maybe I'll play there, but honestly, I probably didn't touch a bass or a guitar for the first year after getting fired from Soundgarden.
It still kind of had a bad taste in my mouth.
But what changed that was summer of Ninety-one, maybe?
I was friends with this band called Skunk.
They're this indie rock band on Twin Tone Records.
There are three Matt's.
Matt Sweeney, Matt Quigley, and Matt Coleman.
So Matt Quigley, the bass player, quit right before a European tour that they had booked, supporting Babes in Toyland, another amazing band.
And so I get a call from Matt Sweeney, and he's like, hey dude, Quigley quit, we got this tour coming up, do you want to fill in on bass for this tour?
So I'm like, I could work in this warehouse in New York, like in the sweltering New York summer heat, or I could go to Europe for eight weeks or whatever and tour.
So I'm like, yeah, okay, I'll do it.
So I learned the songs and did that tour.
To this day, it was the funnest tour I'd ever done, and I think that was because I really had nothing emotionally invested in the band.
Like, I like the music, I like the dudes, but it was just...
All I had to do was go out and play to the best of my ability, and yeah, it was just fun.
There was no burden, no heaviness to it, you know?
I think that was a component for sure, but also the songs were a bit more complicated, and stylistically it wasn't necessarily my jam.
I was into heavier stuff, and this was kind of more like Soul Asylum, like indie rock, which is great.
And the bass parts were really complicated, so I kind of had to push myself to learn them.
And again, like, you know, grew from it as a musician.
So I did the tour, came back.
I started playing with this kind of industrial band on Earache Records called Old Lady Drivers, which is another kind of interesting foray into a genre.
like I was a fan of like the grindcore bands for sure but like even this was like it's kind of beyond that because it's very it's a lot of synthesizers and drum machines and stuff that I really wasn't exposed to before but they had a record deal with earache and you know who John Zorn is no so he's an American treasure he's this avant-garde jazz musician based out of New York Google him if you get a chance but like
Brilliant.
He does a lot of stuff.
He's really prolific.
Definitely a genius.
Zorn was on board.
He produced the record.
John actually lived in my neighborhood.
I'd go to his apartment.
He lived two blocks away in Alphabet City.
He had this insane record collection.
The whole flat was like...
Shelves of vinyl and it was all organized very meticulously Plastic sleeves for for each Jacket it was and he was he was like a student of American music or music in general and he got his knowledge and it's just cool like oh So here's this guy At least on an underground level,
very well-known, very well-respected, huge in Japan, of course.
Mm-hmm.
And he's just like this nice, kind of normal dude, like, giving me a tour of his record collection, you know?
And we're both living in this shitty neighborhood in Manhattan.
This is cool.
So that was a good experience.
Like, played shows with them.
Like, played CB's again.
CBGB's, which, you know, the legendary punk club in New York.
Which even having played there before, but it's just kind of like...
I would still get excited about it.
It's like, dude, I'm playing CBGB's.
It's like this mythical place when I was a teenager, you know?
And it's like, oh, here I am.
So I did that, but that was kind of like just a side thing for sure.
And then I got contacted...
So going back, between the Skunk Tour and the Old Lady Drivers experience, I kind of got into playing music again.
Like, it became fun again, which is why I did it in the first place.
Like, it brought me joy.
But, you know, there was a couple times where it got to the point where the joy was, like, fully extracted from the process, and it just, it wasn't fulfilling anymore, you know?
So anyway, I'm back in New York, working in the warehouse, doing my thing, and I get contacted by...
I get contacted by Pat Dubar, who was, in the 80s, a singer for Uniform Choice, and that was a band I was familiar with from the punk days and everything.
So he was in this band called Mind Funk, which, first off, like, horrible name.
Like, get it.
We can go into that later.
Pat contacts me and he's like, hey, and they were signed to Epic Records, had one record out already.
And he's like, hey, we're going to replace one of our guitar players and our drummers.
Are you interested in trying out?
And honestly, I hadn't heard their record.
And I gave the first one a listen and honestly wasn't that excited about it.
But it was...
At this point in my life, I kind of knew if I'm going to give the music thing another go, this is going to be it.
It's like, do this, and it'll either catch fire or it won't, and if it doesn't, I'll go on to the next chapter, whatever that is.
I don't even think I auditioned for the band.
I think they just, okay, you're in.
So now we're looking for a drummer So I went and poached my friend Sean back home in Washington.
He played in a band that I was a big fan of.
And I was a big fan of Sean.
And convinced him to come out to New York and join this band that he'd never heard of.
And it took a lot of convincing to get him to do it, but he did it.
And so this kind of MindFunk 2.0 with Sean and I... One plus side was like, okay, major label, get put on salary, like don't need a day job anymore, right?
So once again, I'm a professional rock musician, which not that I care about the title, but it was nice not to have the day job.
So we get a house in Monmouth County, New Jersey, in order to write the next record.
So band house, five of us living in this house.
And it was just routine.
We'd get together every day, rehearse, write songs.
I was given more or less full creative reign for my ideas and stuff, which was fulfilling on that level.
The band was managed by John Zuzula.
Do you know Johnny Z? No.
So he was like the dude who discovered Metallica.
That's kind of his claim to fame.
And he had a label called Megaforce Records, which is a great 80s movie, by the way, if you've never seen it.
But, you know, there's a lot of dumb band names out there.
And if the band catches fire, it doesn't matter if it's a dumb name.
It just gets accepted.
So it's not that big a deal.
Yeah.
So, recording, blah, blah, blah.
Johnny Z. We get to...
So we get Terry Date, the producer, on board to produce the second record.
And I knew him.
He's from Seattle, so I knew him from Soundgarden and from other local bands that he produced.
Like a known quantity in that world.
We book out Bearsville Studio up in Woodstock, New York.
The studio's literally on this old Dutch farm.
It's like idyllic.
So we get Bearsville booked out for three months, got Terry Dade on board.
It's like September of 90...
Must be September 92. We pack up the U-Haul, all the gear, drive up to Beresville to start the next record.
So Sean and I are in the barn setting up equipment on this farm to start the pre-production work.
Like, I don't know, it's probably a Saturday.
No, it was a Friday.
It was definitely a Friday.
So we're setting up the equipment to start pre-production work when Terry gets in.
And I think Pat came down to the barn as we're setting up.
And it's this late September.
The heat has kind of left New York State, so it's pleasant outside.
It's beautiful, sunny.
Farm.
This old barn we're setting up equipment in.
Pat says, hey, we've got to get everyone together.
We've got some bad news.
So Epic, the label, had dropped the band that day.
Like, catastrophic, right?
Or could have been catastrophic.
And just the fact that it was a Friday afternoon, I'm sure it was a post-it note on some dude at Epic's computer monitor.
Drop MindFunk.
It's like, oh shit, I gotta do that.
So, it's like, fuck, you know?
It's like a $300,000 recording budget, Terry Data's producer, like, the band's literally homeless, like, we're gonna live at the studio, but it's like, okay, what now?
So the dude who managed Berardsville, and I can't remember his name, he's this British guy, super sweet, and he's like, he saw we were in a tight spot, and he's like, You know, he's out like a huge lump of money, right?
Because that studio was booked out for three months.
That's like a huge, you know, quarter million dollars probably.
He's like, you guys can stay here and...
Sort out what you've got to sort out, kind of thing.
I remember Pat and I were living in one of the cottages on the property.
It's this very quaint little farmhouse.
At least, I won't speak for everyone, but I was in a daze.
I was like...
Fuck.
I was already lining up, getting my warehouse job back, all this stuff.
And so I remember just staying in this house, sleeping on this antique leather sofa, and I had my cat with me.
So it's me and my cat, watching bad daytime TV. I think I lived on Cheerios and soda.
Just nasty, right?
Just because I was too lazy to go to a restaurant or buy food to cook.
It's easy.
A bowl of cereal and some soda.
It just sounds so gross now.
Even then, that's not how I normally ate.
During that period, that's what I was eating.
I was watching bad daytime television.
I remember there was this wall hanging in the living room.
It was this macrame koala bear.
You know?
Kind of tacky.
And I kind of started obsessing on this macrame koala bear to the point where it's like, if I ever have a daughter, I'm going to name her Koala Macrame.
You know, again, speaking of dumb names.
But luckily that passed and I came up with a replacement for a daughter's name that was much better.
But...
So during that week, Johnny Z, our manager, who personally I didn't really like him that much, you know, there was something kind of dodgy about him, like in that music business way, that also put a bad taste in my mouth on a lot of levels, just being in that industry.
But Johnny, you know, as much as I didn't like him, he came through.
And maybe he was motivated by economic reasons rather than, you know, he's being a stand-up guy or whatever.
But he signed the band to Megaforce, to his label.
Put up the money for the recording, to record the record.
Put us all back on salary so it didn't miss a beat.
Like, no one had to get a day job.
And then Terry, Terry Date, much to his credit, like, he had every right to bail, right?
It was like, okay, what's the next gig?
Okay, I'm there.
He got us studio time at Bad Animals Studio in Seattle, which is Hart's old recording studio.
It's gone now.
Like all this happened in like a week, 10 days.
Like everything was back on track, just like new label, new studio in Seattle.
And so loaded up the gear, flew to Seattle and like probably 10 days later we're doing pre-production demos at Bad Animals and recorded the record and It was done I think by December the mix was done.
I actually went back to New York and worked in the warehouse for a month to make some extra money.
And then the band, well not the whole band, but Sean, Pat and I decided to move to San Francisco just for like a change of venue.
So I think New Year's Day or the day after, I loaded up U-Haul with all our stuff and drove cross-country by myself, which was like a super fun road trip.
And then we got an apartment in the Mission District in San Francisco, and that's where 1993 was a very transitional year, and that's where things got to the point where it's like, okay, I've got to do something different for me personally.
I guess the analogy I can make is just that kind of post-orgasmic bliss where you're weightless and everything feels wonderful.
It's like that.
But induced artificially, I guess.
Yeah.
Living in San Francisco.
So we toured a lot that year.
Probably half the year was touring like Europe and the States.
And then when we're back in San Francisco, it was like, you know, still on salary.
You didn't have to work.
So just hang out and like, you know, drop acid or drink mushroom tea or whatever.
And as fun as that is, it was like, like long term, I don't know.
You know, if this is going to be right.
You know, the record never caught fire.
I think it's a solid record.
Like, when I hear tracks off of it now, you know, I'm kind of like, no, it's not bad.
No, it's okay.
There's a couple of the songs on that record were basically nascent Soundgarden songs, you know?
There were, like, riffs or song ideas I had that, while playing with Soundgarden, like, Chris would hear me playing it, noodling around, and he'd be like, oh, remember that.
So I had a couple ideas that in a different life would have been on the next Soundgarden record, conceivably.
So there's a couple of those songs on there.
Not a bad record.
We played a bunch of the big festivals in Europe.
We did pretty much everything but make a bunch of money.
And then my father's father was in the Coast Guard and he did a lot of coastal patrolling, Oregon Coast, Washington Coast, Columbia River during the war, just looking for Japanese subs or whatever.
And so you, because you had this sort of wanderlust that made you want to go trek in the Himalayas, and you had this family that had this background in the military, you were thinking that this would be something that would be adventurous or intriguing to you?
I've always had a taste for high adventure as a child.
Probably even before I was in school.
So Saturday morning cartoons.
How old are you?
55. Yeah, we're the same age.
So I imagine I probably grew up with similar cultural influences.
So I remember in the mornings watching TV shows, cartoons, Johnny Quest was the big one, right?
Speed Racer, Marine Boy.
Speed Racer and Marine Boy were anime, but they were great.
Marine Boy was basically Speed Racer, but underwater.
Super cool, fantastical stuff.
Great to feed the imagination.
The writing for Johnny Quest was so good.
The show, in retrospect, was kind of progressive.
Johnny had two dads, and they had this A multiracial composite family.
But the writing was so solid.
Super creative.
I think it was only 26 episodes, but each episode is distinct and well-written and just cool.
I would watch this as a kid and be like, I'm not sure what that is, but I want to do that.
You know?
So that was kind of the initial impetus for, like...
And then growing up in the woods in western Washington, like, I was expected, you know, I was kicked outside after breakfast and not expected to be seen again until dinnertime.
And what I did between then was, like, on me.
And so I'd go out and do stupid stuff, like climb high-tension power lines, you know, to the top.
And my mother, she definitely facilitated this stuff, like, much to her credit.
Like, we'd go camping in the Olympic rainforest on the peninsula, and there's like a couple rivers there, but one of the main ones is the Ho River.
And I had this, as a child, I had like this $20, you know, Kmart inflatable raft with the oars.
And my mom would drive me upriver like 10 miles or 15 miles or whatever in our Volkswagen bus and like drop me off, me and my $20 Kmart boat in a life vest.
And she'd be like, alright, see you at the campground.
And so I would be doing this like...
You know, whitewater rafting by myself in my cheesy little boat for several, several miles and, you know, didn't drown, obviously.
But it kind of instilled, again, or reinforced this sense of adventure, you know.
And I'm sure my mom would go to jail for that today, you know.
I guess as soon as I figured out what life authorship was or the concept, even though I may not have known the term, yeah, I kind of endeavored to actively author my own life.
You know, pursuing the ends of making a life that kept me engaged, kept me interested, and was meaningful to me, you know?
So the military seemed like more and more like a viable option for that next page, that next step.
So at the time, like 1993, there wasn't a lot of books out about special operations.
And pretty much the only ones that were out there were like Vietnam dudes.
So I devoured every, you know, Vietnam War special operations book, whether it was like Lerps, Rangers, SEALs, SF, whatever.
And the Navy doesn't even call it MOS. I think they call it RATE or something like that.
And...
So I'm like, no, I don't want to do that.
So basically it came down to they couldn't even promise me a shot at trying out for BUDS, you know, taking the PT test basically.
And so I didn't know really anything about the military, but I knew enough or I suspected enough that like, okay, I'm not going to sign anything unless I'm like guaranteed a shot.
And so that's when I started talking to the Armory recruiter, and they could guarantee me.
So basically they gave me a Ranger contract.
So Ranger Regiment's interesting in that it's pretty much the only special operations unit in the U.S. military that has privates, like has brand new soldiers.
Pretty much every other unit, it's all NCOs.
So that's kind of your entry-level soft unit in the U.S. military is Ranger Regiment.
It was like every movie cliche you've seen, like, happens.
It's like, oh, and this is, you know, this part.
It was...
It was a necessary step, right, for the progression.
It wasn't really challenging.
The most challenging part about it was, like, not being able to do what I wanted to do whenever I wanted to do it.
That was, like, the biggest challenge for me.
Your entire life, every minute of your day is controlled.
So that was kind of like, yeah, I don't know if I dig this, you know?
Right.
But, you know, sucked it up, went through it.
After what they call AIT, like advanced individual training, which for me was infantry, you go through the infantry MOS training, go to airborne school, and then go to selection for regiment.
And then I got out because it was like, In a way, I kind of thought I achieved what I aimed to achieve by going in the military, and there definitely wasn't a war on the horizon, at least one that anyone could see.
So I had a break in service for a couple years, and I kind of fucked off.
Ended up going...
To community college, which is like another kind of funny story.
But a lot had happened personally in those two years.
So I'm back in the Army, doing the Special Forces qualification course, which for my MOS, like the 18 Bravo Special Forces Weapons Sergeant, was like about a year and a half.
So it was the first day of language school, which was six months long, was 9-11.
It was, like, I think everyone there, so we're, there's a group of us in this building at Fort Bragg called the SOAV, the Special Operations Academic Facility, and we're, you know, standing around the beginning of the day, like, drinking coffee, getting ready to go to class.
First day of class.
And there's television monitors on with CNN or whatever.
And we're watching the planes go into the tower.
And, like, I think 201, everyone knew that everything's changing right now.
It's just like my unit's area of responsibility was Asia, so I had to do an Asian language.
And I like Thai food.
So...
Graduate the Q course, like do a couple of JSETs in Asia.
So JSETs, joint combined exchange training.
So you basically go, your team goes and trains with a foreign special operations unit and you teach them stuff or you, you know.
And it's more just to, like, establish rapport and maybe get some access or whatever.
So do a couple JSETs in Asia and then get ready to go to Iraq to prep for the invasion, like in 2002. And, like, spend a lot of time in Kuwait just, like, training and preparing.
It was unique in that my team and a couple other teams are basically attached to 4th ID to provide route reconnaissance and screening and stuff for this main conventional military invasion.
And so watching Big Army work, you know, do what they do best was pretty amazing.
Like tank engagements, like I never thought I'd witness that.
It was just almost like a, and it's probably a trite cliche, but like a movie, you know?
Watching this massive mechanized force just like crush everything in its path.
So many guys who come back from that, not only do they say it's the most profound experience of their life, but many of them say it was the best experience of their life.
Well, we're an adversarial species, but every species in nature is adversarial.
And it's not an evaluative statement.
It's just kind of an observation.
So I think on this...
Just the way our brains are, like, evolutionarily.
Like, okay, we're the monkeys with the big brains, right?
And we've created this very technologically advanced, if not challenging, environment now that we live in.
But the way our firmware up here, we're still hominids on the savannah, you know?
Like, 100%.
And so I think...
Through war, through combat, we kind of tap into that primal, okay, this is what we're supposed to do, you know?
Was that surprising to have that part of your mind sort of ignited in a sense where you realize that this is like something that's deeply embedded in your DNA? Yeah, I mean, I know I'm making that claim, but it's not based on, like, scientific research I've done.
And his thesis, that's the first kind of PTSD thesis I read that kind of rang true with me.
Because before that, the popular conception was these young men and women go off to war and see horrible things and come back fucked up.
But his thesis, where they lose that...
Lose that tribe, right?
That task and purpose, unity of effort.
Literally, we're tribal creatures.
That's how we operate.
I did a paper when I was doing my undergrad.
I think I was trying to investigate genetic impetus for human conflict or whatever.
During my research, one of the things I found that was super interesting to me was the way psychologically we're equipped to deal with about 100 to 120 individuals.
That would be our extended tribe, our social group.
An interesting correlation I made researching this paper was that that number is the same number in army task organization as an infantry company is 120. And that's kind of like your main operational unit in the infantry, at least.
Like SOF, you're dealing with smaller teams, smaller numbers.
But I thought, wow, 120. That's it.
And is that by design, or is that just the way it worked out?
It probably goes back to our tribal roots, most likely, that we evolved being accustomed to that group of people, that number of people, or a similar number.
Our mission statement is biological organisms, even the big brain monkeys that we are, survive and replicate the gene.
Everything else is kind of window dressing.
You can window dress it however you want to make it seem more important than that.
I'm a huge fan of the window dressing.
That's definitely the salt in the soup, for sure.
But if you boil it down to what is the quiddity of being a human being, or any biological organism, survive and replicate the gene.
And so the whole capacity for combat, for human warfare, is like, even as an individual, if you're killed in combat, if you go back to, like, this group of hominids on the savannah, you're probably related to everyone in your group.
So it's like, okay, maybe I won't pass my genes on, but my cousin over here will.
So I'm going to support that effort.
So I think that kind of organized.
Conflict, one group against another, it's in support of that.
Like, I think anthropologists have a term for it, pseudokinship, where, say, in a combat situation.
So you got, like, the classic scenario of, like, a dude jumping on a hand grenade to save his buddies, you know?
And that's, like...
That's hardwired.
That's not a conscious decision, you know?
Because I think if you had time to actually think about it, maybe you wouldn't do it, you know?
But it's that pseudo-kinship, like...
And to me, that's always what's been, I think, the most interesting paradox about war and combat.
It's this event, this human event, that simultaneously brings about acts of pure, selfless love and brutality without quarter in the same instant.
Well, it's always fascinating for me to talk to people that are intelligent, like yourself, that have experienced that.
Because that thread that you're expressing, it seems to ring true with almost all of them.
That there's something about it that, although brutal and Maybe in some ways unexpected, it also rings true with like a purpose and that your life is intimately connected to these people and in some way that becomes more satisfying than any other way to live.
Yeah, and to hear a person like yourself, who's obviously very smart, express that, it's really interesting to someone like myself who hasn't experienced that, but kind of understands what you're saying.
Because I remember one of the most interesting aspects of the war was that we were protecting poppy fields.
And there was this weird video, I don't know if you've ever seen it, of Geraldo Rivera Who was on Fox News, spinning this in some sort of a way, but realizing how ridiculous it sounded while he was interviewing a general who was on the field, or I don't remember if it was a general soldier who was on the field who was explaining why they were doing this.
And you know, you're looking at this, and especially someone who has a knowledge of Vietnam, that it was intimately connected with drug running, and that there was a lot of that going on that was part of the purpose of it, and that somewhere someone was profiting off of this to the tune of billions of dollars.
And you're not exactly sure how or how it was being done or what involvement the United States military had in it.
But in this particular instance, you're living in the era of social media and the Internet.
Not necessarily social media, but at least the internet, where people are very aware of things like that that are at the very least inconsistent with the narrative that we have here in America, that drugs are bad, bad people sell drugs, bad people make drugs, we have to stop the drugs from getting into the country.
Now here you are, you know, we're watching Geraldo Rivera, a Fox reporter, putting this like really clunky spin Why we have to do this and I can only imagine it's because it had already been exposed that the United States was doing that and they had to say well We have to come up with some sort of an excuse for why we're guarding heroin production So I guess my understanding of if the U.S.
That's what's so strange is that it seems like, you know, especially when you have this disconnection from the mainstream media and from, you know, channels of information getting to other people.
That this is a part of what's happening over there.
I believe at one point in time it was 90 plus percent of the world's heroin was coming from Afghanistan.
I mean like in my experience, like if we did hit a target that was like in a remote place like that, like they weren't seeing coalition forces.
Often, if at all, you know, it's kind of like they probably thought they're on a safe haven.
So, I mean, I think when you get closer to the built up areas and at least at the time, I mean, like the whole Afghan government was so corrupt anyway.
So I think probably the main people making money were, you know, Afghan generals, you know, which I think at one time the Afghan army had like 3000 general officers or something.
Like, this inverted pyramid of leadership.
Like, oh, I'm a general.
And they all have mansions, and it's all corruption money.
So even though you knew that there was rampant corruption and that there was a lot of things that were kind of fucked, it was still your tribe, your task?
How bizarre was that, though, to go over there and experience this completely different way of life with other human beings living on another part of the world, a completely different set of values, different goals and expectations, different religion.
There was a whole, I never got to this town, but up on the Oxus River, there's been several attempts over the decades to do an archaeological excavation of the entire city.
But it's like, it's a no-shit Greek city in Central Asia.
Yeah, I would try to do my share of, for lack of a better term, tourism.
I went to the old Citadel outside of Kandahar, where right now, when you're on the ground, it doesn't look like anything.
But if you go to Google Earth, you can see the old outline of the city walls, and you can see the Citadel in the middle.
And it's like, it's still there, the remains of it.
Like, up in Nuristan, which is a super interesting part of Afghanistan, it's like the northeast part of the country, and it's a region that wasn't even converted to Islam until the end of the 19th century.
Like, it's, you can make the analogy of, they're like the Basque in Spain, right?
It was like this mountainous region that kind of was able to retain, like, its cultural and linguistic identity because of the terrain.
Like, it was more defendable.
So Nuristan was like that as well.
And so they were finally forcibly converted to Islam into the 19th century.
And before that, they were called Kafiristan, which is like Land of the Infidel.
And then once they underwent the conversion process, they became Neurostand, which is land of the enlightened.
I liked it a lot because it reminded me of home where I grew up because you have like alpine forest.
It looks like Yosemite.
Like, if they could ever have peace there, they could have, like, a trekking industry, you know, ecotourism, whatever, like, White River rafting down the Kunar River.
Like, it's gorgeous.
And there was places where, in Afghanistan, where I was like, I could be home on the Olympic Peninsula right now.
Like, if you would have told me September 10th, 2001, like, oh yeah, we're getting ready to be in a 20-year war in the Middle East and Central Asia, I would have been like, no fucking way.
You know, there was some really bizarre moments after we pulled out of Afghanistan where they were interviewing the Taliban and talking to them about women being in control or women, you know, being in government and whether or not they were going to accept sort of this Western idea of diversity and inclusion and they were just fucking laughing.
But again, you're there to do a job, so you can't dwell on the negative, you know?
And it's like, you need to believe in the mission, you know?
And I believed in the mission as far as like, Myself and my teammates, like, we're gonna do what we have to do and do it to the best of our ability and everyone come home alive, you know?
What was it like to make that transition from being over there in one of the most bizarre wars we've ever been a part of and then going back to school, going back to civilized society, going back to Western culture?
I've had conversations with Special Forces guys where they explain to me the reason why less of them experience the kind of PTSD that some of the other guys had.
And they said because we were proactive.
We weren't reactive.
We were going and doing things.
It wasn't like we're sitting around waiting to be attacked.
And some of the guys that are sitting around waiting to be attacked, the anxiety of that was kind of overwhelming.
So it's an interesting account, his solo circumnavigation.
Took him five years.
Along the way, he met this woman, Patty, this young, pretty, hippie chick somewhere in the South Pacific.
And they fell in love and got married.
And she would kind of meet him in different spots as he finished the circumnavigation.
And then the book ends.
He returns to Los Angeles, circumnavigation complete.
And I'm, like, super cynical, like, going, okay, what happened now, you know?
And I'm like, I bet that marriage didn't last, you know?
Because after something, I guess I equated it to, like, a war zone romance or something, you know, where you're kind of in this super heightened environment.
So if you bring it back to just normal life, like, does it survive?
Like, what made it interesting or exciting or whatever, you know?
Do you kind of get back to reality and it's like, Eh, you know, you're not that interesting or whatever.
Right.
So, yeah, I'm super cynical.
Like, pfft, that marriage isn't at last, whatever.
But then I started doing some internet research on Robin Graham, and it turns out he wrote, like, a second book called The Sailor Returns from the Sea or something like that.
So what had happened...
And he did go through kind of a dark period after the circumnavigation that I won't get into, but he told me about it personally.
So he and Patty, in like the early 1970s, so they get back from like five years, you know, sailing the world basically.
It's pre-internet, pre the communication that we have now.
So obviously 1965 to 1970 was a pretty turbulent period in like American history.
And so Robin essentially missed all that.
And he gets back to the States.
And was it Stanford?
I think Stanford offered him like a full ride scholarship.
So he went for a semester and basically couldn't deal with all these lefty professors.
And like, I'm out of here.
And so he and Patty loaded up, like bought like a mail truck I think, loaded up all their stuff and went to Montana and homesteaded in Montana.
Like super old school, like 19th century homestead.
Wow.
And so I'm doing this research, and it's like, oh, Kalispell, Montana.
My buddy Mike from Ranger Battalion lives in Kalispell, Montana.
So I'm in my flat in Buenos Aires, and I email Mike.
I'm like, hey dude, you know a guy in Kalispell named Robin Graham?
Like 30 minutes later, I get an email.
He's like, yeah, I saw him in Costco yesterday.
It's like, no fucking way.
And so, hey, can you do like an email introduction for me?
And he's like, yeah.
And so, you know, fast forward to today, I'm very happy and proud to call Robin and Patty friends, you know?
Like amazing human beings, like so cool.
And so the sailing thing, to bring it back, Reading Dove and getting to know Robin and stuff, I started getting interested in sailing.
And, like, I, you know, I live in western Washington on Puget Sound.
Like, it's a very nautical culture.
And I've worked on boats in Alaska and actually come from kind of a nautical family on my father's side.
Like, they all worked on tugboats on the Columbia River.
Like, my grandfather, my dad, my uncles.
My dad was a commercial fisherman in Alaska, like ran his own boat for decades.
And so it seemed like kind of a natural thing, like I've always been attracted to boats in the water.
So I started looking, you know, did the practical thing, started looking for a sailboat.
And I found one for sale that was about 10 miles from my house, but I knew nothing about sailboats.
So I'm like pinging people I know who do know stuff about sailboats.
I'm like, hey, is this boat any good?
You know, look at the pictures, look at the year and the design and everything.
So it was a 1986 Jeanneau Sunrise 34 sloop.
And like all these people like, yeah, it's a good boat.
It's a good boat.
Like, yeah, the price is right.
So I'm watching it and the price kept dropping.
And kept dropping.
And then it got low enough where it's like, it was kind of in my realm.
So I contacted the broker and like actually went down and looked at the boat, like did a walkthrough.
And I was like, so is the seller taking offers on this?
And he's just like, yeah, make one.
And so I went, I had some deployment money saved up.
And I had, I could pile up about 17 grand at the time.
So I offered 17,000.
And like half hour later, it's like you got a boat.
And even at the Navy Academy at Annapolis, The ensigns, they put them on sailboats to teach them to be sailors, you know?
Like on that very fundamental level.
And it's like anything else.
It's like being a soldier or a musician or...
I think you have to master the fundamentals, because if you suck at the fundamentals, you're going to suck at everything else.
I've always focused on fundamentals, mainly because I'm not naturally good at anything, really.
I've always had to try.
In the support of, in the service of trying to be good at something, I've always focused on the fundamentals and trying to master them and hopefully just have a good foundation.
I mean, that's one thing that was, like, unique about growing up as, like, a soldier in Ranger Battalion.
Because Ranger Battalion is, like, super, like, regiment's a unique animal.
Like, even within the military, even within the SOF community, it's its own thing, culturally.
And they always stress the fundamentals.
And, you know, it's like being a private in Ranger Regiment is, it's not easy.
But the fact that it's hard, I would think makes you a better soldier.
Because there's no, there's like NCOs in Ranger Regiment don't, They don't tolerate anything less than 100%.
If you bring anything less than 100%, you're going to find out really quick.
Usually in a way that's not pleasant.
I think having that foundation as a Ranger private, I mean, I'm not going to say I'm any kind of amazing soldier, but I think it made me the best soldier that I could be, for sure.
And I'll always look back at regiment as being a very key event in my life, like my time there.
It's a reference to my favorite Black Sabbath record.
And it did a logo and everything.
So right now I'm in the process of refitting the boat.
So it's a pretty big project.
So right now everything's going okay, like trying to raise money, like set up a GoFundMe page through the Super Nautiloid site in order to fill the gaps, you know, financially, because it is a pretty big project.
I've been doing most of the work myself so far.
But yeah, the team of four, it's me, two other veterans, one friend from Ranger Battalion, one friend from SF, and then I got a buddy from the Seattle Rock Days, Barrett Martin, who was the drummer for the Screaming Trees, and he's played in a few other bands, and he's actually a Grammy award-winning producer.
Like, super interesting guy.
Actually, you dig him.
You should have him on the show.
He's also an ethnomusicologist.
So he's gone down to Peru and recorded the Shipibo Shaman Icaros, the Ayahuasca songs.
And he's doing a record now called Deep Amazon, where the concept is he has all these Icaros that he recorded down in Peru.
And then he's bringing in various musicians to accompany these Icaros on guitar or whatever instrument.
So I play on it.
Kim and Matt from Soundgarden play on it.
Peter Buck from REM plays on it.
So it's kind of this interesting cast of characters supporting the Shipibo Icarus.
So the record comes out October, I guess, and any profits that are made are going to go back to the tribe.
Seeing a little person and engaging with them and having them grow with you and learning about life, in a lot of ways it gives you a chance to do it the right way.
You think about what's happened to you and you learn from that.
You learn from your mistakes in raising them and you learn how to communicate with little people who are just growing and learning.
In that way, like, it really does speak to your DNA. There's something about it.
But it's also, it's like, Dave Chappelle said this to me once, it's a great quote.
He said, Becoming a father didn't just change the amount of love that I have.
It changed my capacity for love.
And I think that's very accurate.
But, you know, some people, their demons don't line up with that endeavor.
You know, they're whatever it is in their life.
It doesn't line up with it.
And they don't make those adjustments because you're going to have to adjust.
You're going to have to change your priorities.
You change who you are.
You change how you think about people.
What's fascinating with me is I always felt about people that there were these static things.
Like, you know, I met Mike.
He's 70. That's Mike.
He's always been 70. And then you have children and raise children and see them grow from the time they're a little baby to a person who's having a conversation with you that you go to dinner with, you go to the movies with.
And you know all their life experiences and the good ones and the bad ones and it's just...
I look at people now like babies.
I look at everybody like they're a baby.
It's very weird.
I go, I wonder what you were like as a baby because you obviously got to this point from being...
I see in my mind or at least I envision this journey now to get to who you are now.
I give people a lot more slack because of it.
A lot more.
I'm so much more charitable.
I have friends with horrible parents Battle to deal with these motherfuckers that raised you.
It's like a constant thing in their life that they never quite get past.
And I was very fortunate that my mom, when she married my stepdad, they're very close.
And they've been close most of my life.
So I've experienced bad and then I've also experienced like what it's like when a relationship works and when people are kind to each other and get along together and it's like so you realize like there's adjustments that everyone can make in this life to make the path smoother to make it more just you know more harmonious but It
really changed how I think about humans.
Not just like my humans, but all humans.
Like everyone that I meet.
I really think of them as babies.
It's very strange.
But I think it's kind of, I sort of decided to think that way.
Because I was recognizing, like, the way kids, like, sort of adopt your thoughts on things.
And my kids talk a lot of shit.
They're very funny.
Because in my house, we talk a lot of shit.
We're always making fun of things, making fun of each other, and there's a lot of laughs.
Because, you know, that's what I do.
I'm a comedian.
And to see my kids talk shit and say funny things, it's like, oh my god, I know where you got that from.
It's very obvious, but it's also they're very kind, too, which is very—that makes me very proud.
And it's very nice to be able to raise children in an environment where when they get older, you see them expressing the values that you appreciate and you think are important.
Yeah, it is a big advantage, you know, for women, you know, I know women that forgot to have kids.
I mean, I say it that way.
They didn't forget to have kids.
But, you know, in our modern Western world, when people prepare for their life, they prepare for what society has established as the path that is the most celebrated, Something not just that you would be proud of, but that someone would respect.
You know, like this is Debbie.
She's a lawyer, you know, and she's a partner at her firm.
Like, oh, Debbie's happy.
And then you meet Debbie and you're like, oh, Debbie's miserable.
You know, she's very successful, but it's not harmonious.
She's not happy.
And that's It's so hard when you're in the middle of it and you're thinking so much about how other people view you.
And for a lot of people, for whatever reason, they grew up in a way that they didn't get the respect that they deserved or they were taught that the only way to get respect or the only way to be appreciated or not feel like a failure Is to be financially successful.
But some of the biggest failures that I know are financially successful.
Some of the biggest messes of a life that I know are people that on paper are winners.
And they're not.
They're just a disaster.
And they're filled with nonsense.
And they don't value human experiences and love and camaraderie and creativity and education and just...
Just extracting the most fun and the most satisfying life out of this experience.
Instead, they're concentrating on money.
They want to talk to you about numbers and expansion and, you know, are you investing?
And I have a business I'd like you to be a part of.
And there's this and then that.
And I was like, ugh.
And you don't realize that it's gonna fucking end man, and you don't realize that I think sometimes until someone close to you does die and then you go, oh This is so temporary and I'm not enjoying this process at all and One of the things that I'm getting out of talking to you is that you have sought out these These difficult but educational experiences.
And that's what makes someone fascinating.
That's what makes someone cool to talk to.
You know, the path of the most boring people to talk to are the people that are just thinking about making money.
They're so fucking boring.
It's so brutal talking to them.
They have this very narrow thing that they're obsessed with.
And that thing gives them social status.
When someone sees them, it's like, oh, there's Bill the Millionaire.
He owns his company.
Bill's right about to have a fucking heart attack.
He's got very little time left and doesn't even realize it.
And he's taking Adderall all day to try to keep up.
You know, doing cocaine and cheating on his wife and fucking flying on jets everywhere and it looks on paper like he's the man.
I was fortunate enough to start figuring out that stuff at a relatively young age where I made the shift.
And I think it's a very human thing to want external validation.
Yes, for sure.
We're social creatures.
We're these tribal creatures.
We want the other people in the tribe to...
Go, yeah.
But I think the internal validation, at least for me, were, like, basically, and I don't mean this, like, in a malignant way, but, like, when you kind of stop caring what other people think about you and focus more on what you think about yourself, like, for me, that was, like, a huge shift.
Like, a huge, like...
Like, giving up, like, doing things that, like, I thought that other people would think was cool, you know?
I mean, there's actually a couple things I'd like to go back to, like, what you were talking about.
And one was, like, in reference to parents, like, I don't—maybe I'll view them as babies now.
But, like, as soon as I—you know, it was probably my late 20s where I started, like, viewing them as human beings and, like, imperfect creatures like we all are.
And, like, all of a sudden I had all this empathy for them.
There's a quote.
I think it's attributed to Plato, but I don't think it's him.
I think it's more of a 19th century thing.
It goes something like, be kind for everyone who's fighting their own battle.
But the process is interesting, and obviously breakthroughs are interesting.
What was the other point?
Just the empathy for others, working on yourself.
There's an Evel Knievel quote, and I'm going to have to paraphrase because I can't remember it exactly, but he's like, You know, when I was young, I cared about what other people thought, but now that I'm old, I just care about what I think.
And it's kind of the same thing.
And yeah, obviously I care what other people, at least the people I care about, I want them to think that I'm a decent person, right?
And again, going back to another thing you were talking about, it's like the most important thing in my life these days is You know, our personal relationships.
Yeah, you have to be very careful about that because I know so many people that have been involved in friendships and relationships with people that...
Are just disastrous and it's like a drowning person.
You try to help them and you drown too.
Some people just will fucking drag you in and other people, they'll elevate you.
And, you know, it's obviously...
They're not perfect experiences.
We're all human.
But through even mistakes and then the reconciling of those mistakes and the communication through that, it's an educational experience for everybody involved.
And everyone's sort of on the same sort of path in the sense where you're trying to be a better version of who you are.
You're trying to be a better person.
And, you know, that might be being a better parent or being a better friend or being a better artist or whatever it is you're trying to do.
But it really benefits you to be around other people that are also trying to do that thing, too.
Because, you know, one of the beautiful things for me about having this podcast is being able to communicate with so many interesting people and being able to have these conversations like we're having right now where I get to, you know, I just met you today, you know, but get a sense of your journey and your life.
And I think about it through your eyes and through your perspective.
And it educates me.
And I think it educates a lot of the people that are listening.
And it'll resonate with them.
Like, oh, I kind of see where this guy's coming from.
And it just expands our landscape of understanding.
Yeah, I mean, that's ultimately, like the word harmonious, I've used it too many times probably, but that's really what it is.
It's not going to be great all the time, but you want it to be as harmonious as possible, and you want to enjoy as much of it as possible.
I think that's the problem with a lot of people today and why they're medicated.
They're not experiencing life in a way that seems to resonate with them in a positive manner.
It doesn't seem right.
It seems shitty and depressing.
I had this conversation with a buddy of mine the other day where he was talking about stages of his life Where he was very depressed.
And we came to this conclusion, but during that time, your life sucked.
And now your life is pretty cool.
And of course you're happier.
And that seems so simplistic to some people.
But a lot of the, I mean, there's, without a doubt, there's clinical depression.
There's people that have something wrong.
There's an imbalance.
Whether it's a physical imbalance or a life imbalance or a trauma that they can't get over.
But my friends that I know that have had those dark moments in their life, when their life turned around, now they're in a great relationship.
Now they have good friends.
Now they live in a good community.
Those people are fucking happier.
They're doing a thing that they want to do with their life.
Those people are happier.
And that's a thing that we have this...
This sort of binary view of what happiness is.
And for some people, it's like, oh, I need to get on an SSRI. I need to get on this or that, or I need to do something.
I need to, you know, some sort of chemical intervention to straighten out my head.
That's not always the case.
Like sometimes it's just you got to get through that and come out on the other side and figure out what is the process of becoming a more fulfilled person?
What's the process of living a harmonious life?
Like how do I do that?
Like what is the thing?
And I think we get A lot of the answers to that from talking to people and from listening to people talk about it and then from trying things and learning and growing and That's something we're not that's not the sound of pop up like a public narrative.
It's not something that's being discussed It's not something that's drilled in the kids heads like you you're gonna go through some shit, but you got a trust in this process and you got to have a You have to have guidelines in your mind of what you want to do.
You have to have ethics and morals.
You have to have compassion for other people.
Because if you think it's all about you, you're never going to be happy.
You're never, ever going to be happy.
The narcissists and the people that are deeply connected to their own wants and needs, We're good to go.
Yeah, I've always been intrigued by the ancient Greek notion of human flourishing.
the Greeks called it eudaimonia and it's this is being you know endeavoring to be the best that you can be whatever that is and it's not talking about vocation or external stuff but you use a person like figuring out I mean everything we've been talking about like figuring out what brings you joy applying yourself and it's hard, you know?
It's like, if it were easy, and I've had this discussion with other friends who are, you know, about human flourishing and stuff, and like, And this is going to sound a little bit negative, but I think there's a lot of people who can't be bothered, you know, who are fully capable of flourishing if they applied themselves.
You've got to think about your life at a young age.
You sort of sought out those journeys when you can.
And some people, they don't develop those tools.
They fall into a system.
That's very unserving for them, whether it's a system of getting an education, then you have student debt, student loan debt, and then so you have to get a job, and then you get a job that pays well because you have to pay off that debt, and then you buy a house, so now you have a mortgage and you have a family, so now you have responsibilities and you have all these things.
But most of your day is spent doing something you absolutely don't want to do, but is also not rewarding.
There's a lot of things you don't want to do, but when you do them, you're like, God damn, I'm glad.
I thought I did that.
Very few people who are doing a 9 to 5 or longer job that they don't want to do have that feeling.
There's just a lot of, you know, it's like that Thoreau quote, most men live lives of quiet desperation.
And that is so fucking true.
And unless you find something...
That is satisfying and something that elevates you.
Something that with these experiences you gain insight as to why you think and what you think and what is good about these experiences with other human beings.
And if you don't, you just become this Fever-minded capitalist where you just are constantly chasing numbers because it's rewarded by society.
That external validation that you get from driving a Mercedes.
That thing that you get from having a nice house where people drive by and go, look at that guy's house.
Yeah, but there's so many people that are just chasing it.
I saw this image of Rupert Murdoch with his wife and he was on the beach and he...
He literally looks like an alien.
He's just like these bones and tissue and fat and he's with this woman and they were supposed to get married and it didn't work out.
But one of the things he was saying, he's in his 90s.
I don't know which wife he's on, right?
But he was saying that I'm looking forward to spending the second half of my life with her.
Like, hey, bro, what do you know that I don't know?
You got about a month left, you know?
I mean, if everything goes great, you might have eight years.
If everything goes great, but no one thinks about that while you're in the middle of it.
All you're thinking about is...
You know keeping that fucking game going that thing that's gotten you all that those accolades a thing that's gotten you all those that respect and it's just numbers dopamine hits like It's like checking your social media forever to the end of time checking the likes on your fucking Instagram post to the end of time.
It's like it's empty and That's the path that so many people are on.
You know, I just don't understand it I'll never understand it, but I get it You know, I get how you get sucked into that path.
And it's just like it's like it hijacks the human reward systems of you being like the leader of the tribe.
But the leader of the tribe used to be the wise old warrior who had made the mistakes and proven his character and his metal and combat and life and And had wisdom to impart on the others and could lead the tribe in a way that it could help these people and protect them.
That just doesn't exist anymore.
It's been hijacked by this system of monetary gain.
It's fucking weird.
And obviously it's very easy for me to say.
As someone who gets external validation and someone who makes money, it's easy for me to say.
Because I've sort of removed myself from the hunger of that in a way.
So I can go, oh, okay, I see what this is.
Even though I've never been very motivated by money, I've certainly pursued it, but it's also not been anything that meant the most to me.
But you have to know what it is and it's not being taught.
Think about the things that are being taught.
Perhaps they teach it a little bit in philosophy, but most of the time, if you're trying to get an education, you try to get an education to get a job.
It's like, you know, it's like, I mean, I guess it kind of sucks that like whoever, like the bean counters at the label are like, fuck that guy, you know, but okay.
That was when I was young and obviously not on that huge level, but that was kind of When I got fired from Soundgarden, that was kind of part of the crisis where I was like...
It was easy to put on the identity of, like, being the bass player for Soundgarden.
Especially being, like, a painfully shy young man.
That was awesome.
You know, but then it was like...
When I did have that taken away, and it did knock me for a loop for a bit, but it also helped me recognize, like, oh, I should just focus on Jason the dude, you know, not Jason the bass player for Soundgarden.
And that was kind of the slap in the face that kind of brought me around.
Which is hilarious because he's a giant Metallica fan and he doesn't need to do that.
And I think they just offered it to him because they're friends with him.
And, like, he decided that would be a fun thing to do.
And since he's such a Metallica fan, he speaks to those people.
It's not like just a regular comedian opening for a band they're not interested in and the crowd doesn't engage.
He talks about Metallica and he has material.
And Jim is one of the most prolific and interesting guys that I know in terms of, like, his stand-up.
Like, he can just...
Jim can, like something can happen in the news today and Jim can go on stage and do like 10 minutes on it and just rant and rave and he's such a fucking cartoonish character.
He's so funny.
So watching him open for Metallica is a fucking hoot.
It's so hilarious because he's in his element and he's also a brilliant comedian and just such a character.
So I actually was at this juncture, another juncture, basically before I went to grad school.
And I was like, maybe I should write a book, you know?
Maybe it's time or whatever.
And actually, I got an agent and...
I wrote a book proposal, actually wrote the proposal when I was in Buenos Aires.
And I remember I was sitting in this cafe in Buenos Aires, so it's like wintertime down there.
And it's pouring down rain, and there's like water leaking from the roof, and there's pots and pans around the cafe, like catching the rainwater.
And on my laptop, and I remember finishing the proposal, and it's like, cool, when I get back to the States, I'll meet with the agent, and, you know, and, like, there were so many parallels.
I'm sure you've been in that world, too, with the literary world, like the business side of it.
Mm-hmm.
And with that in the music world.
So he, this agent's promising me the world, you know, like the classic like music biz thing, like, you know, you boys are going to be bigger than Led Zepp, you know, kind of thing.
And it's like, you know, I'm not Hemingway, but I think I can put some sentences together, um, according to other people who told me that, who know these things.
And, uh, So basically, I got accepted to grad school, and I got a Tillman scholarship that paid for grad school.
And it's like, okay, I'm going to grad school, and put the book on the back burner.