Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:07 Thanks everybody. And welcome to the Tracy Crohn's episode of why it matters.
Speaker 2 00:00:14 Totally preempted me on that. I was
Speaker 0 00:00:18 Out there before you can call me stall one. Look at me on. Thanks. Thanks for tuning in. We are really excited that we are now seeing what matters on multiple channels and multiple frequencies. So, uh, we would, we would love to know who is listening in and we can see that people are so that's very exciting, but we'd love to know who you are. So, uh, drops the line, let us know. Um, this episode we are joined by our guest, Tracy FAC, uh, and, and what we realized is that we never, like, we just kind of checked this off. It started literally, we just hit record one day
Speaker 2 00:01:01 A year ago, by the way, this is what's happening at an important time for us, because why it matters as of September 20, 21 is a year old.
Speaker 0 00:01:12 Wow. Yeah. When you say your birthday?
Speaker 2 00:01:16 No, my birthday's in August.
Speaker 0 00:01:19 Oh, September. Yeah. I totally totally heard August when he said that I do not look great right now. And I'm aware of that. Connor, you can feel free to just cut that out
Speaker 2 00:01:30 Or even all of that.
Speaker 0 00:01:32 Great. Perfect. All right. Uh, okay. So we have been recording now for a year. It has been so easy and so delightful to have amazing conversations with each other and with a stream of incredible guests. And what we realized is we have never taken the time to actually say who we are. Uh, and so we're going to do two episodes. We may join them, but we're doing two episodes where we are interviewing each other. So this is my turn to interview Tracy. Um, and so welcome to the Tracy Crohn's Zack, why it matters episode. I
Speaker 2 00:02:14 I'm going to set aside all of my profound discomfort, uh, because I am used to being in control of this process from booking guests to introductions, to formulating future topics. Uh, and now none of that is in my control. So I am just going to set aside my profound discomfort with this and the answer's. No, it's real controls. Russia controls real China controls real.
Speaker 0 00:02:48 Alright. Um,
Speaker 2 00:02:52 Wow. That's already getting into some fun stuff. So the full name that I legally have is Tracy. Michelle Crohn's Zach, uh, Michelle's a family name and the full name that I use is Tracy ease, adore Michelle Crohn's Zack. Uh, because when I was ordained in the temple of ISIS, I took on the name, Tracy, ease a door and ease the door means, uh, in adoration of the goddess, ISIS,
Speaker 0 00:03:25 In which language
Speaker 2 00:03:27 It comes from the Greco-Roman tradition actually believe it or not, uh, it's not actually kinetic Egypt, which is where most of my practice lies.
Speaker 0 00:03:37 Yeah. All right. Yeah. Uh, so we, we, we just had your birthday, but what year I'm just gonna, we're just going to do age, like, no,
Speaker 2 00:03:53 Uh, all right. I never own this because my personal philosophy on being in it and most explicitly being an it and not being a 20 something is like, at some point, your motivation for working in it is somebody puts a framed picture of the glue factory on your desk and says, don't go here. Uh, but yeah, I was born in 73, so I have incredibly fond memories of the 1970s, like deeply ingrained, influenced by my family, which everybody in my family, the youngest people were five years older than me. So, you know, I could've fallen into like the early eighties stuff and music, but instead it was like here, kid, let me play you some Eagles. Let me play a simple Simon, let me play a SIM led Zepplin, let me play as some like Steve Miller band, uh,
Speaker 0 00:04:54 Steve Miller band was going to fly like a musical
Speaker 2 00:04:57 Babe angle. So, you know, it's, uh, that's you know, so I have musical tastes that are about five years to 10 years older than me. Uh, and it took me more time to get into punk, new wave and early hip hop in the eighties. And a lot of my peers, because I was like, what is this crap? I'm, I'm, I'm listening to Steve Miller. What is this? So, you know,
Speaker 0 00:05:23 Awesome. Uh, where, where was that childhood
Speaker 2 00:05:27 Childhood was centered into places? So true story. My father worked for his entire life, really for a government subsidiary company that built altimeters and built guidance systems for the Navy, uh, and Navy missile systems. So, uh, that Oregon is that that company was centered in New York all the way up until the mid seventies and then the state of New Hampshire in a move that I did still has ramifications today, in terms of why New Hampshire is a purple blue state instead of a red state, they incentivized white collar investments in the burgeoning areas of Southern New Hampshire by providing tax breaks. So all these companies to leave New York and, and come up and like recenter on Southern New Hampshire. So we moved from middle village Queens. For those of you who know New York city, uh, all the way up to Southern New Hampshire, which was pretty darn rural in that day.
Speaker 2 00:06:34 My town had maybe 4,000 people in it total. So it was like 4,000. Yeah. Uh, I mean, on the other side, we had four acres of land. Um, so it, it kind of made for this idyllic childhood in a lot of ways where, you know, I just could go outside, play on the land, uh, you know, ride my bike, do whatever. And we would visit my mother's family on long island, almost like clockwork for the entirety of the summer. So I would go to long island, uh, for the summertime, I would return to Southern New Hampshire with a New York accent. And then over the course of a year, it would disappear and turn into sort of a north Boston new England accent. And then I would go back down to New York with that. And it would sort of winnow its way out again over the summertime.
Speaker 2 00:07:34 Um, and you know, all the sports family stuff was real, like, you know, new England and New York pretty much hate each other in all arenas. So like that was fun witnessing that, you know, at ballgames and whatever else do you follow sports? Like, did you, I did your family, but you don't, but you don't know. Or I like them, I skate, but like I don't follow it anymore. Like it used to be like, I got like the big thing in my family. The family event was the NFL, um, giants, jets, Patriots. And I kind of got really disheartened with the NFL about five or 10 years ago, because lo and behold, there is a lot of sexual abuse and cover ups, uh, that were happening. And, and also a lot of misogyny baked into its approach. And I was like, okay, great, yay. Like saw the giants win a few Superbowls, saw the pats win a few Superbowls. I'm just letting this go. Uh, because it hurt too much to watch it, knowing that that was the backdrop of the sport. Now beyond that, like, I'll go to a San Francisco giants ball game once every year. You know, it's about when, when we had such things
Speaker 0 00:09:00 In the before times. Like, no, God, no,
Speaker 2 00:09:03 No, no, no, no, no, no. I, I watching golf and you know, if it's like watch golf or, or slowly pull your eye out, I'll take slowly, pull your eyes out, you know, nine times. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:09:19 But I think, I think that was from Dodge ball. Is that, is that what made me? That was from
Speaker 2 00:09:24 It might've been, I saw when it came out, never revisited it, it might've been
Speaker 0 00:09:29 <inaudible>. All right. Great. Um, silo. So we know where you were childhood was pretty idyllic. Um,
Speaker 2 00:09:42 There were some abuse things that were happening to me as a child that I'm not going to get into, but suffice to say in my adult life, it's given me incredible insight into what PTSD looks like and how it shapes a person's perspectives and reactions to the world. And because of that, it's also connected me in some really weird places. Like I make no secret of the fact that I'm sober. Um, you know, you labs, you overlap with a lot of vets and a lot of folks who've had traumatic childhoods and lives in that arena. And yeah, it's, it's funny. I, you know, I, I think it's, it's one of those things where I'm grateful for that insight into the world, because it has shaped my own sort of path for myself when it comes to what I think of as peace and serenity versus what I think the world tells us that should look like.
Speaker 0 00:10:51 Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, that, that's that tracks with who I know you to be a fundamentally authentic person, um, much
Speaker 2 00:11:02 To my own.
Speaker 0 00:11:04 Uh, well, that's, that's the price of authenticity. Right. So, um, okay. Um, what are three key events that shaped you?
Speaker 2 00:11:16 Oh man. Okay. This was, this was the one that you were like, I'm going to ask you this. Um, God, what did I say? I said there were three key events in my world. I think a key event, number one was coming out to my family. Uh, I had been brought up to believe now to, to contextualize this. My family is on my mother's side, a hundred percent Irish, Irish, Irish, Catholic, Irish, cultural, Irish, everything. Like I do remember my grandma who was second generation. So her parents came in from Ireland and she was either born there and brought here, or she was just born here. I can't remember exactly, but definitely second generation. Cause she was in the United States, but grandma was super Catholic, but she would also do things to make sure that, you know, the fairies were appeased and that's a very culturally Irish thing.
Speaker 2 00:12:17 Right. You know, like I don't believe in fairies, but just in case we're just going to do put a little salt on the window sill. We're going to put a little oil here. We're going to do this there. Um, and, uh, so that was part of the influence. My father's side was Russian German. Uh, and you know, in all cases like your family's everything or it's nothing, right? That's just the way that you look at that. Uh, and because most of my father's family had passed before I was born or right around the time I was born, you know, it really was my, my mother's family that shaped that perspective. So, you know, I don't think this is a story I've ever told, but you know, it has shaped my perspective on justice in this world for a long time. Uh, and that is when I came out, you know, that sort of idyllic visit your family, turned into a, we're going to do an intervention on you and we're going to kind of trick you to come down and visit, uh, and we're all going to behave awkwardly.
Speaker 2 00:13:32 And all of the things that you thought were okay in normal are not, and no, you can't share anybody's bedroom, you know, for your sleeping bag. So you can sleep in a hallway now, uh, because we're all afraid of you. And, you know, I left that sort of weekend intervention fall of my freshman year, uh, with my family and I never looked back and it was one of my cousins who gave me the heads up and they were like, Hey man, not for nothing, but like you think you're going to be dragged to church tomorrow with the family, but you're going to be dragged to a medical intervention site for shock therapy, conversion therapy that you're going to be expected to check yourself into. And I was like, well, okay. So I kind of evaluated option a, this would have been freshman year of college.
Speaker 2 00:14:26 Okay. You know, so I evaluated my options and after everybody went to bed, I like just rolled up my sleeping bag and threw everything in my car and left. And then I called them at seven or 8:00 AM in the morning when I had arrived back in my dorm room. And I said, I will never speak to you again. And I pretty much have it. And the only person who came out of that as a bridge builder was my mother. And I have an amazing relationship with her now. Uh, but you know, that's what it was. I mean, this was the early nineties. This might as well have been, you know, the Dawn of time when it came to the modern perceptions of LGBT youth and families and all that stuff. So like, it is what it was. So that was one. Um,
Speaker 0 00:15:14 Did you have any idea that's how they would respond? Like w where you, like,
Speaker 2 00:15:22 I had no choice, but to tell them, or, but to own up to it because one of my cousins had already told them for me, uh, because I was getting involved with activists work and they spotted my name in one of the local papers up in Ethica where I went to school. So there were like, well, we told the family man, I was like, great, thanks for that really. You know? And did you hide that? Although
Speaker 0 00:15:46 All the way through
Speaker 2 00:15:47 High school? Oh yeah. Oh, I went to a Catholic high school. There's no way, but there were like, oddly enough, like there were six of us, like who I think were friends and slowly one by one, everybody came out between freshman year and senior year of college. So we found the right people I hang out with in high school. Right. Like we found that. Uh, so, so yeah, that was event number one, uh, event number two was I started at my college as a material science major, uh, which was a fundamental mistake as we all now know because Tracy and math is just not like material science, material, friends, material science is the study of how things like metals and ceramics and other key elements, interface together to create new, new, uh, new sort of compositions of things to accelerate different desired end games. So at the time people were searching for superconductors at anything, you know, more murder than absolute zero.
Speaker 2 00:16:55 Uh, people were looking for new ways of creating transistors. Uh, so that was material science, uh, like a lot of engineering. Oh, it was ton of engineering a ton. Yeah. Yeah. That's an interesting path. But I mean, remember that the sort of fundamental directive of my life was doctor, lawyer or engineer. That was what you meet Mike. And I was honestly the first person in my family to go to a college that wasn't a military institution. So like huge amount of pressure. Um, so I started feeling out of that around the same time if this whole crisis are updated, uh, with my family. Uh, so I was navigating two things at once, fall freshman year, the family, and the fact that Tracy, as you know, I was, was not cut out to be an engineer at all. Uh, so I, I agree with that assessment by the way.
Speaker 2 00:17:57 Yeah, most people do. So, uh, I switched majors to Russian and east European studies, which at the time was a very, NACY it major at my school. And I studied that for four years and I got a scholarship to travel to Moscow, uh, and Russia in that sort of corridor. And year one was summer of 93, which to contextualize this was the same summer as the hardline coup against Boris Yeltsin in a year two was summer 94, which was the output of that. Uh, and what I was doing was at the time interviewing folks who were then super optimistic, LGBT activists, because they were like, oh, Russia is going to become a democracy. Russia is gonna like, you know, modernize. And we have an opportunity here. And you know, what we now know in 2021 is none of that came true. And in fact, approval of same-sex relationships in Russia over the past 30 years has gone down and not up.
Speaker 2 00:19:06 Uh, and the church has reasserted itself as the dominant cultural force, but at the time that was not the thinking. Uh, but also at the time like Russia was falling apart. So, you know, I just traded machine guns for bubble gum. Right. Well, pretty much. I mean like, yeah, I have so many stories from that era, but you know, the thing that is true is it gave me a front row seat to what it looks like to be a society that is substantially wrestling with democracy and not doing well with it. Um, and the inefficiencies of nation state building, as we perceive it in the United States and the outcomes of broken promises as we have outlined them as a country to other countries. And if that all sounds familiar, it's because we're just living through it again right now with Afghanistan. But we made many promises to Russia that we didn't keep society was falling apart.
Speaker 2 00:20:13 If you know anything about how the Soviet economy worked, it was all centralized. So that meant that independent parts of the economy couldn't function without other parts of it on board. And when that collapsed, that meant that there was no production, uh, hyperinflation kicked in, like you could trade a dollar for 10 rubles at the start of the week and a dollar for a hundred rubles at the end of the week, people savings are disappearing. There were riots in the streets like gunfire, like mob taking control. It was, it was the early indicators of the rise of the authoritarian Russia that we now know were fomenting right then and there. Uh, and you know why that was such a key moment in my time is because it's, it's the moment in time that I referenced now, when I say there's red alarms going off all over the place in the United States.
Speaker 2 00:21:10 Uh, the other thing that I don't really talk about much from that era, but is also true is, um, when I was in Russia in 94, I have a great story about how I kind of got in on a, not so legal visa and how I had to get out on a, not so legal visa, uh, by essentially pretending to cry at the border control and like betting on the fact that this clearly 55 or 60 year old career Soviet, like, you know, military woman didn't want to be bothered with like a blubbering American, which worked. Uh, but, um, no summer 94 was also the summer that I witnessed a murder and couldn't do anything about it. Uh, so, you know, the mob had asserted itself all over Russia, and that was sort of the foundation of the oligarchs that we now see a big difference between 93 94.
Speaker 2 00:22:10 Like when you went back to the second year, you know, it was sort of like the wave crashing and then the crashed wave. That's the difference? Metaphorically speaking, like people already were like, wait a minute, like George H w Bush didn't deliver, you know, under a night and white shining armor to us and Boris Yeltsin's kind of, uh, uneducated alcoholic and corrupt as hell. Um, and we have no control over our lives and our economy anymore, and everybody's poor and this sucks. Um, you know, so yeah, that was a day that I never talk about really anymore, but, you know, I was walking with a friend outside of a Metro stop and there was a guy old guy in like basically rags on his knees in front of like three guys with his suit, uh, with suits. And I looked over and they were maybe about a hundred meters away from us.
Speaker 2 00:23:07 So not far, not so far away that I couldn't see what was going on, but far enough away that I couldn't do a damn thing about it. Um, and I looked over right in time to see one of the guys reached down beneath his like belt, pull out a knife that I swear to you is like 12 inches long and just shove it right up through the other guy's neck and into his head. And my friend who was with me saw that too. And I just looked at him and I said, what, what, what do we do? And he's like, we walk away very quickly is what we do. Um, and that was a really difficult and like, like that was the moment where I was like, I'm never coming to Russia again. And, you know, just to put a Coda on this story, a lot of friends of mine from that era either left the country or disappeared, like literally disappeared.
Speaker 2 00:24:00 Um, so I don't know what's going on over there anymore. Um, and the irony of it all is my mother really wanted to go to Russia for years and years and years and years. So, uh, 2011 rolled around and it was looking okay. And we booked one of those like super safe, slow moving American tour things. And I went back to that same place where I saw that guy get murdered, you know, 2018 years or however long that was prior. And the whole place had been converted into a brand new children's park. It was kind of weird. I was like, okay, interesting. So I think that was moment number two. Uh, and I think moment number three,
Speaker 0 00:24:43 W what's the moment there, that's not the Mo I don't think it was the murder, right? It was,
Speaker 2 00:24:49 It wasn't, it was just the experience of it all. It was just the experience. Nah, <inaudible> not so well. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:25:00 I think some people are going to want to know if you prefer Russian or clean on,
Speaker 2 00:25:06 Uh,
Speaker 0 00:25:11 I'm just saying, I'm curious.
Speaker 2 00:25:16 Um, you know, the thing is, is, uh, I prefer Klingon cause it's totally fake. Uh, and I have a lot of fun with it and I know the origin of it, which was Jimmy. Doohan trying to like fake a language, being recorded as a cling on and star Trek, the motion picture, uh, and somehow star Trek world ran with that. Yeah. And like, but Russian has my heart and it's really funny because now I'm a real lover of Southern Europe. I love, you know, I love Barcelona. I love Italy. I love Greece. Um, and I try to learn these languages and they come out in a Russian accent or like, I will try to learn phrases in like Italian and I'll walk into the store and I'll be like, don't worry at the end. And the lady will just look at me and I'll be like, sorry. I mean poncho or no, you know, like it's just, it activates the same area of the brain. So, you know, but that whole moment of understanding what it looks like when a society is desperate. That was, that was a moment
Speaker 0 00:26:22 When I, I know that we're, we're parked on this for awhile, but it's so interesting when you were studying. So you studied this for three years before you went over. Right? Exactly. Did you, when you were studying, did you see this coming? Like when
Speaker 2 00:26:41 You were no. Um, because the philosophy at the time was like, everybody kind of saw the Balkans coming a mile away. Right? Like the Balkan war people were like, oh yeah, that's going to be bad. And it's going to be ugly. Now what nobody foresaw was that some of those countries like Croatia, Slovenia, they're like EU members in great standing now. Right. People are like, oh my God, how'd you do that? Right. Um, but it's through picking priorities. Right. And that's really what the major was about. And so we spent a lot of time saying like, what's the priority here? Are you reforming your economic system? Are you reforming your political system? Are you reforming your culture? You can't do more than one of these things at a time. They kind of have to be linearly sequenced, and they have to all be interdependent. And then we would all kind of scratch our heads and be like, man, Russia is really a problem because they're trying to do everything at once. And the Americans are saying like, we got your back the whole way. And I think, you know, Russia trying to do everything at once in America saying we got your back the whole way, which is a very simplified way of describing this, um, was kind of why Russia is an authoritarian state now
Speaker 0 00:28:01 For a strong man at the end of that.
Speaker 2 00:28:02 Yep. And, you know, Putin man, he knew how to play that game from start to finish, you know? So like, you know, that's the famous CIA
Speaker 0 00:28:13 Interesting to think about that because Zagreb is like one of like, one of my favorite memories was staying in Zagreb for a couple of days and I'm alive. I just cannot, cannot imagine it as, you know, the Balkan war, but yeah. Yeah. Um, so the CIA, as you were about to say the CIA
Speaker 2 00:28:34 The story, well, I mean, I joke occasionally, but I don't think folks actually know the story that I was recruited for the CIA at the end of my college tenure. And you know, at the time the whole gays in the military thing was happening. Right. And, uh, hashtag thanks bill Clinton. Um, so, uh, except hashtags didn't exist back then. So we were just like, you know, angry. Uh, we didn't have hashtags to take away our anger. We just had anger. Uh, and, um, so this guy tried to recruit everybody in our major program as it turned out. And there were only like 17 of us. So it was kind of evident to all of us what was going on. And he was to this day, he was like the most nondescript human being I've ever interacted with in my life. Just a very gentle guy in a suit with glasses, white guy, of course, you know, like that's all I remember. And
Speaker 0 00:29:31 There's one say when they're like proposing that you'd be assault.
Speaker 2 00:29:35 Well, you know, he was kind of like a round the circle on it. He was like, so the program, no, like where like, was he parked? I have no idea. I really have no idea, but I know that like, he was connected to us through somebody, you know, and he was like, oh, I really want to talk to you. And like, what do you want to do next? And I was like, well, hell if I know, um, and, uh, yeah. He's like, do you like to travel? I'm like, I do. He's like, would you like to listen in, on other people's conversation?
Speaker 2 00:30:14 The questions he was asking were so like broad, you know, he was like, D do you like to, uh, would you like to continue studying Russian? And I was like, yeah, maybe like, and that was his hook. And he was like, well, you know, what, if you came and worked for us and we, we put you through the government intensive Russian program. And I was like government intensive, Russian, which by the way, the American government has all of these language intensives. So like, you know, uh, and I was like, interesting. And he's like, you'll travel. And you know, we're gonna, you'll learn how to sort of fire a gun. And, and I was like, I just high-speed, you know, part of me at the time was like, does it come with an Aston Martin? Um, and, and part of me was like, I kept looking at the guy and after about 10 minutes of him describing this, I was like, are you a three-letter agency?
Speaker 2 00:31:14 Are you FBI or CIA? And he was like, well, you know, we are definitely part of the government. Yes. And I was like, your people don't take people like me because I was very, very openly queer at that point. And he was like, oh, you know, we, we do make certain exceptions for high profile and talented candidates who have the ability to exercise discretion over their lifestyle or, or some such answer like that. And I was like, I think of you as a really discreet, I am, I'm totally discreet, man. You have no idea of the Unabomber factory that's in my house. Right. Like, so I, I kind of looked at him and I said, this is over. I was like, this is done. I am not being an agent of the United States government in enforcing its little sort of democracy games. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 00:32:12 I'm leaving. And I picked up and left. Um, but it turns out two people from our program did take him up on that offer. I presume they went out to the farm and like, we never heard from them again, like none of us ever heard from them again. And we're like, oh, okay, well, there you go. That's, that's what you do. And you join the CIA, I guess. So, yeah, that is so, so interesting. So the last key event in my life, I think I'm going to change from what we were talking about right before we hit the record button, because I realized that the answer that I gave you really wasn't a key event. It was just something stupid and obvious I should have realized all along. Um, but, uh, you know, what I will say is I, I want to know that he should have realized all along, just, you know, busy, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna crib Marc Benioff here and say, the business of doing business in this world is to grow business.
Speaker 2 00:33:12 Uh, and, and I'll just leave it there, you know? Uh, but anyhow, uh, and I am really intentional when I say is to grow business. Uh, but nevertheless, uh, uh, the, the third thing that I had real opportunity to just revisit recently, uh, was actually being poor, like being, being broke ass mother F and poor. See, I'm trying not to cuss the kids tell me I cuss too much. So there you go. Uh, uh, and that happened twice in my life. So, you know, it happened early in my childhood. My father died when I was 12. And the sequence of events that set off was interesting because we were very comfortably middle class. And then we weren't, uh, and within six months it was like pensions, social security, uh, you know, food bank stuff, you name it, like it was all their handouts from the family.
Speaker 2 00:34:16 And, you know, I think I don't really have a context for, you know, anything other than that in my life. And, you know, it leaves a person and it leaves me with like, that sense of like, when are the resources going to disappear, uh, all the time. Um, so, you know, that happened early on in my life. Uh, and I've again, never told this whole story. I only alluded to it, my first job because of that was picking strawberries in the field with the migrant laborers in New Hampshire, in the blazing heat of summer. And because I needed to make money, you know, I parlayed that into doing yard work for the rich people in town for several years, from like 12 to 15. Uh, it's probably safe to say this in 90, not in 90, uh, in, in 2021, but, you know, I got a real job at a bank when I was 15 by telling the bank I was 16. Uh, and I did tell her work and there's a lot connected to that. Like, my mom got her associates degree, she got a job at a bank and, you know, I was so, so damn grateful to have that job. And everybody was like, this job, all you do is work this job. I'm like, well, this job is paying for stuff. Uh,
Speaker 0 00:35:47 Was, it was so you're a 15 on the high school. Was this like, where's your family in a situation where this wasn't your own spending money in lieu of allowance, but this was like, you know, groceries and, you know,
Speaker 2 00:36:00 Yeah. I will say it wasn't that bad. I had friends who were hard up worse. Joe's parents were like subsistence hunters, for example. Right. And it was like, well, geez, if dad didn't bag a deer, we didn't need, right. So like, we weren't there. So this was in lieu of anything else. This was like, either I have spending money or I don't. Yeah. Um, and I would occasionally buy stuff for the house, but that was just what it wants. Right. So
Speaker 0 00:36:31 Cool clothes and Lunchables there's number of us. Then it was the bank money, right?
Speaker 2 00:36:37 Yeah. And those were horrible. And they came out and they remained horrible, uh, super popular. I don't know why we like horrible things as a country that are super popular. I'm like milk, crate challenge comes to mind. Uh, nevertheless, like I worked most of my friends in town now. I remember my town was undergoing this amazing transformation from like rural per kids to like young people who were like the children of these like white collar workers that the state of New Hampshire imported. Right. And you could argue strong
Speaker 0 00:37:15 Versus them strong
Speaker 2 00:37:17 Us versus them strong, like values clash. But you could arguably say, like, that was the beginning of purple state, New Hampshire right there. Interesting. Um, and you know, so yeah. I have other stories from working as a child for the rich folks. Like the alcoholic grandfather who's is like entertained himself by drinking and watching me work, which I always thought was super creepy, but he paid me my best wages too. Like he paid me 25 bucks a day and that was like a deal for six hours of work. Um, but I remember when I got that job, because my mom was like, after a few months, she was like, what do you think of the job? And I was like, it's indoors and it's air conditioned. Like that was the extent to which I had thought about it. And, and all of my coworkers were like, Hey, do you want to go outside for lunch? And I was like, no, thank you.
Speaker 0 00:38:12 I'll eat outside. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:38:15 I'll eat lunch in here. Right. In the kitchen where it's air conditioned. Uh, and a very occasionally I had access to the giant safe below and I would eat lunch down there cause it was even cooler. Uh, and that was like,
Speaker 0 00:38:29 Do you think your family, if you, if your father hadn't died, uh, would you have worked
Speaker 2 00:38:36 For, I don't know. Cause he was making good money for what he was doing back in the era. Well, did your siblings, you had siblings only child. Those are my cousins who were five years old. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, I don't know. I might've just turned out to Ben like an entitled asshole kid, you know, I might've, but these experiences are what gave me my perspective of what it means for justice and equity and long-term investment in communities and in the world. And what I didn't have in rural New Hampshire that I got later was the language of it around race, around gender, around ethnicity, around class and around all the things that now sort of people kind of take for granted as existing language. That was all being created in the time that I was growing up in the nineties in college and thereafter. But, you know, and it was obviously built on a lot of work.
Speaker 2 00:39:40 So I'm not saying that it came out of nowhere, it built on a lot of work, but I just didn't have the language for that experience. And I learned the language through that experience through the people I met and the encounters I had, because that was time one when I was poor time to when I was poor, it was when I moved from New York to San Francisco. Um, largely just to get away from the east coast entirely. Like I was like, I, I I'm done. Like I, I broke with my family substantially at that time in my life. My relationship with my mother was still very Rocky. Uh, and I was like, I'm done, I'm leaving. Uh, but because of who I am and how I present myself, I was having trouble landing jobs. So like the best I could get was like assistant manager at a salon, you know, or like the job that I really like, you know, Wu assistant manager at, you know, a food company.
Speaker 2 00:40:41 Uh, so, you know, San Francisco was the landing zone for all of us who have ever felt excluded from the world where we tried to create a different inclusive community. And, you know, the only problem was for me in that era, which would have been like 99 to 2001, like my career kind of just stalled out. There was no concept of career, you know, for me, um, well you study that and then don't go there, right? Like I studied Russian, didn't go there. I worked for a private foundation that was eventually going to close its stores in New York. Um, you know, so like I had started working in nonprofit stuff, but I underestimated the amount of systemic barriers that were present to my own fiscal success in that era. Um, and you know, so consequently, it was like paying rent or eating where the choices sometimes not doing both at the same time.
Speaker 2 00:41:48 And that gives a person a perspective on some of the excesses of what would become the first and second.com booms in San Francisco, you know, later on where it's like, you see friends that, you know, doing whatever, and you're looking at like a trash bin saying that pizza doesn't look touch, you know, like that's, that's the dichotomy of the life I lived back then. Uh, and it really wasn't until I re kind of joined a foundation again in 2001, one week before September 11th, like holy cow, uh, that was a trip in itself, uh, being a new staff member right around that time. But it wasn't until that happened, that my nonprofit career kind of re elevated again. Um, and I think in retrospect it was kind of pure dumb luck, you know, like people don't always get lucky. That's, that's the perspective I've had in my life.
Speaker 2 00:42:49 And I think, you know, what I say a lot to people is my perspective on things is, is frequently different from other people's perspective. I think largely because of the fact that I've had to learn to play the long game in my world in a way where like true story, my ex and I, uh, had a house in Oakland for a few years, about 10 or 15 years ago. And there was this giant brick, barbecue that I, it was built clearly in the twenties when the house was built and it was falling apart and it was horrible. And I just wanted to get rid of it. And everybody was like, you know, well then pay somebody to haul it off. And I was like, fuck that, I'm going to get this thing with a sledgehammer. I am going to take tiny pieces of it. And I'm going to find it in my trash as I'm emptying my trash once a week with the city of Oakland.
Speaker 2 00:43:48 And through the course of like six months, it will go away. And it did, it took eight months, but I nailed that thing with the sledgehammer, broke it into tiny bits, hid those bits in the trash that the city of Oakland had to pick up and it went away. But I think in ways that are like, what if we started doing these small things now and made big, huge things later, rather than like, what's the instant reward and gratification, because I'm not used to instant reward and gratification. Right. You know, I'm just not, and that's okay. So there you go. I wonder if that's one of the reasons you and I connect is because I haven't, I also, while I don't know if it's
Speaker 0 00:44:31 Also, I have a distrust of things, I'm a distrust that things can be fixed quickly. Yeah. It's, it's not my lived experience and, um, you know, two chapters later, that's the problem with, you know, the quick fix is the problem. Um, so I think that that's interesting. Okay.
Speaker 2 00:44:53 It is. I mean, it also informs how I play like settlers of Catan. So, you know,
Speaker 0 00:45:00 Um, what, what is your going strategy for sellers,
Speaker 2 00:45:04 Uh, for settlers? Uh, first of all, we're no longer helping the kids because wow. We just got trounced by the, by the youngest very recently. Uh, and secondly, the, the going strategy now is, is, um, I try for disconnected ecosystems of highly, uh, highly useful materials. So when I set up my pieces, I don't care so much if I'm going for like longest road anymore, because what I'm trying to do is play a long-term resourcing game. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:45:40 Trying to get a portfolio.
Speaker 2 00:45:41 Exactly. And it doesn't matter if those two things never connect and they're on either side of the board. Uh, but the other thing that I try to do when I go for longest road is I see if I can take a coastal route because most people start by trying to build inside. And I'm like, oh, screw that. I'm going to build on the coast. You know, I made it once. It was amazing. But yes, it's hard to do if you're going to do that. If you go
Speaker 0 00:46:04 Interior,
Speaker 2 00:46:06 If you go interior, it's like going into the hunger.
Speaker 0 00:46:10 Oh no,
Speaker 2 00:46:11 No. Don't even try. But yeah. So it's like longest road goes coastal and you hope nobody notices by the time it's built. You know? So, yeah. Um, yeah, so you know that that's, that's the formative moments in my life that I've always brought to what I want to do in this world. You know, I used to say to many people, I, I'm not here to make money for you. I'm here to serve nonprofits so that they can help people like me get out of the lives that they're living. Right. And it's hard when we work in a world of it that demands a six month horizon on return on investment. When I go into jobs that are only about sells or co-selling, and it's like, it sets up this cognitive dissonance that I can't live with because I find the means by which much of that is executed to be grossly in applied to what is actually necessary, you know, call me a dreamer. Maybe I've stopped dreaming. Maybe that's the problem. I don't know.
Speaker 0 00:47:23 No, I don't think you have, um, I mean, it's not, I'm not being on that on, I'm saying like you and I work in talk with each other, like I know, I know that. I think you're, I think you're better at predicting which changes are possible or not. Um, and I think you're better about not in the time I've known you. I feel like you've honed your sense of, um, what does the matter in which, which things do you pay more attention to world events and large metal pieces, you pay way more attention to those than anybody I've ever met. Um, uh, I think that that's interesting. Okay. If you were not, if you're not where you are today, where would you be?
Speaker 2 00:48:11 Uh, that that's a good question. One of three places
Speaker 0 00:48:15 Would you prefer to be there?
Speaker 2 00:48:17 Okay. I mean, the honest answer is if I were not where I were right now, uh, I would be homeless. I would not prefer to be homeless, but that is generally one outcome for folks that have lived the kind of life that I've lived. Uh, and you know, that's okay. Uh, I think if I weren't doing everything I was doing right now, I, I was, I say this a lot and that is, I was a classically trained researcher and writer, and I love to write, I think words are less, they're less science and you know, much more art and every word has its own flavor and nuance to communications. And it dismays me that as a society, we've become less attenuated to those nuances over time. Uh, but at the same time, like I love writing. I love writing. I love it so much like that.
Speaker 2 00:49:21 I can barely get ideas out sometimes and other times I'll stay up all night writing something. So I think that would be a writer. Um, that would be another possibility. And if I weren't doing what I was doing at all right now, there's a, also an equal likelihood that I might go into politics or might have gone into politics. Um, because up until this year, I sincerely believed that the democratic process was the way to change America. I don't believe that anymore. And that's an outcome of the Trump administration and the events in January six. I think now as a country, we're on a dangerously anti-democratic path and no amount of rabble-rousing is going to change that. So I've shifted my focus to things that are nice and meaningful. Like, you know, Livermore pride is nice. Uh, if I can get involved in our city's planning commission, it's meaningful because it'd be nice to have bike lanes and think about what it could mean to have like mixed income communities and that sort of stuff. But, you know, I, those are three possible destinations of where I might be interesting.
Speaker 0 00:50:35 Uh, we've known each other since I think we've known each other for seven years.
Speaker 2 00:50:40 Yeah. Seven or eight years. Yep.
Speaker 0 00:50:42 You are. There's absolutely no question. You're happier than I've ever known you to be, um, in, in the last, uh, two years. So, yeah. Um, so I'm I'm yeah, I think that that's, it's interesting to listen to what else, like, where else would it be, especially, um, especially homeless, because I think, um, you know, when you came out that was a really vulnerable state, like you like, like became an orphan essentially at that point. And, uh, I mean, a lot of the nomadic youth, you know, that hang out on Haight and Ashbury and, you know, travel, travel the coasts, um, all, you know, all a lot, a high percentage of those are out and, um, abandoned by their family. So I'm really glad that you are,
Speaker 2 00:51:40 Yeah. Even with some very good education credentials, that is absolutely true. That that could have been my trajectory. You know,
Speaker 0 00:51:48 I mean, if you couldn't have handled the emotional stress of that and what was going on in university and dropped out, you know,
Speaker 2 00:51:57 Which I almost did by the way, uh, I almost did. I was like, I can't take this. I'm going to quit college. Uh, funny story, uh, my neighbor growing up related to college, even, you know, he said to me, once he was like, you will go to school. Cause he was a Marine. Uh, he was like, you will go to school. And he landed at IWA Jima legit for real in world war II. Yeah. And he like, because the bank that I was working at offered me a path to becoming a loan officer out of high school and that looked really attractive. Uh, and he sat me down and like, he was scary. Uh, but he was like, you will go to school. I did not land at IWA Jima and watch my friends die so that you could become a fucking loan officer is literally what he said to me. And I was like, okay, Mr. Stillman, whatever you say, Mr. Stillman, thank you so much. But it's true. Uh, and I mean,
Speaker 0 00:52:55 It's interesting that a neighbor would have that much interest in a youth living on their street
Speaker 2 00:53:02 Kind of stepped in when my dad died. Right. Because dad died when I was 12. So he kinda showed up there, you know, that's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Just a little bit about me where I think we're at time, but I don't know if that motivates anybody to understand why I'm doing it.
Speaker 0 00:53:18 Yeah. We didn't even get to the lightening round and we didn't get to hear about you becoming a priest as like nobody's priestess anymore.
Speaker 2 00:53:27 Well, that's, I've talked about that a lot when though, like I, you know, I I've talked about that a lot and I think there we go.
Speaker 0 00:53:37 All right. Uh, if you had one do over, would you take it or no? And what is it? No,
Speaker 2 00:53:44 I wouldn't.
Speaker 0 00:53:45 Okay. What makes you happy?
Speaker 2 00:53:48 Serenity?
Speaker 0 00:53:50 What makes you sad?
Speaker 2 00:53:54 Anguish?
Speaker 0 00:53:56 That is what fad is. You can't just pick that. You have to like, okay. Like what?
Speaker 2 00:54:02 Well, okay. So what I said to somebody recently was there is a lot of anguish when systems fall apart, right? And America is a system that by virtue of what I see is not holding itself together well, Afghanistan is falling apart. Like it is, there is so much anguish in knowing who you are in those places of absolute torment in the world. And knowing there's not a damn thing you can do to get out of it, no matter how hard you try, because it's either bureaucratic or systemic or discriminatory or based on your past or based on your future or somebody else's evaluation of you. Like the hurdles are very high and the cracks are very wide, but you have to have lived through it to understand what a person literally feels in those moments. And for a lot of people, in my opinion, it's anguish because there's nothing else to do. It's, it's, it's purgatorial right. Like the, the definition of purgatory is being close enough to God to know what you're missing.
Speaker 0 00:55:09 Right. Interesting. I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 00:55:12 I mean, I think that's kind of like the concept there, right? You either go to heaven and you get your eternal reward or whatever everybody conceptualize of, or you go to hell and you're eternally damned, but there's, there's this purgatory structure in some fates and it's like close enough to know what you're missing and far enough to miss it. Yeah. You know, and I think a lot of people in our society get trapped there and it does a number on self-esteem and sense of accomplishment and sense of future and sense of hope and possibility.
Speaker 0 00:55:47 I, I will allow anguish. You have,
Speaker 2 00:55:52 I try it. The kids love it when I lecture them.
Speaker 0 00:55:56 Favorite food,
Speaker 2 00:55:57 Favorite food is lobster really, really followed by like a good Philemon Yon. Okay.
Speaker 0 00:56:05 All right. That's certain third. Amen. Favorite color
Speaker 2 00:56:09 Green
Speaker 0 00:56:11 Favorite movie.
Speaker 2 00:56:12 Oh, that's tough. Uh, I have like a huge genres, like everything from like boogie to Lord of the rings. So I don't think I can claim a favorite. I have favorite genres, you know.
Speaker 0 00:56:30 All right. I'll allow that too, even though that's a real answer. Uh, thank you so much as always for, um, being my friend, which did have been, uh, you know, your, your life experience shaped who you are and, and is therefore shaped parts of who I am. And there are a lot of parts for you that I'm not grateful for it because they're really, um, really horrible. Uh, but who you are because of them, uh, is a delight and a joy for many of us. And, uh, it's, it's really, it's, it's really great to actually give space to that history and space to those stories. So thanks for being your authentic self.
Speaker 2 00:57:14 Yeah. Thanks for being a friend and a mentor and a colleague, a coworker, a boss, family, like you and I have had a lot of fun. Thank you. I am so interviewing you by the way. Now this was profoundly disturbing, so thing.
Speaker 0 00:57:32 Hi, my life is so boring. It'll be fun. There'll be 10 lucky.
Speaker 2 00:57:42 I'm Tracy, Crohn's Zack, and you've been listening to why it matters.
Speaker 0 00:57:47 Why it matters is a thought leadership project of now it matters a strategic services from offering, advising and guiding to nonprofit and social impact organizations.
Speaker 2 00:57:55 If you liked what you've heard, please subscribe, check out our playlist and visit us at now. It matters.com to learn more about us.
