 we're good Hello, and welcome we're doing this it's happening starting the 12-hour web-a-thon I'm gonna be here stuff before We're already Last time I Which is great We're already ahead of the game before we started which is awesome And I want to thank all those More shout-outs and whatnot Later on but we're gonna get right into it today. I've got a lot of special guests Today with me throughout the day. It's gonna be pretty phenomenal. This is Linda Mac and Ernie Linda just directed my latest show firecracker bye-bye. So if any of you have seen that show She's the one who helped shape it Somebody else called it fun Cool So Really So the first thing that we're gonna talk about today that we're gonna start out with is Oh Yeah Okay, so basically There we go the weird background that I should be in front of but we're getting there folks We're having some what? So Matt, okay, we're having some technical stuff, you know, that's the way it rolls. Oh, I also Great, I did I also want to thank howl around for helping us make this happen at any point if you are on social media and want to tweet about this you have to tag you play You're on Facebook So Linda and I are gonna talk a little bit about icons and what icons are in our culture For me it's interesting. We were just talking before we started about Club But yeah, like all of these people who died at the age of 27 I guess I just wonder what your perspective is on people Hey guys, I can hear everything you're saying if you could be a little choir, that's great Success in terms of them becoming really successful at a young age Challenge Now are we talking Nelson Mandela or are we talking well? That's interesting I guess when I think of icon In Right In a sentence like one of the things that I that I have to work with is branding yourself. Which is something you have to do is so strange. And so, like Oprah, Oprah's totally branded. Oh, magazine, oh television, and all this stuff, but like what is that, what is that duty of a person? How does a person on an ego level handle that type of success, supposedly, supposedly success and fame, and stay like a grounded, regular normal? I have sort of a strange little track on this because my brother-in-law achieves enormous fame and he does right it. So, it's a song that tends to do a film, sort of a hard-finding way to do that song, but the book is brilliant. And if you're using the word icon and iconography and that notion, you know, that book was the iconograph iconography of the time. And so it was really fascinating to a young person to be in my company and observing sort of iconography being built or recognized because the 80s were the 80s and no one, and we were in the 80s, so no one really knew how to name the 80s. And Jay did, you know, Jay built a story that really nailed the iconographic quality of the 80s and then he reaped the multitude of rewards and the very serious of the 80s. And that's, I think, where you're going, is what does that level of fame duty we're supposed to be doing? Yeah, that level of success. Like, what is that? It's really tough. Because we talk a lot about, and I think this is where the whole kind of self-help thing that comes in with the show and whatnot, and is this, you want to be successful, so you've got to like really kind of coordinate with it. But what does that even mean, though? Well, like what is successful? Right. You know, is it money, is it fame, is it? A lot of times it comes to mind. Like, in terms of when... But you can be really, really rich and nobody knows you the hell you are. But I think on kind of a level of being an artist. Okay, now we're talking about being an artist. Yeah. Being a successful artist, now actually that's kind of wacky too. So success, does that mean critical success? Does that mean financial success? Like, would you say that, who can I come up with? Would you say that the real housewives of Miami are successful? Maybe that was their goal, but probably their goals are much bigger and their aspirations are much bigger than that. Like that happens. And actually that's not a good one because they're not artists. They don't self-identify as artists. Would you say that? Well, like for example, I was just interviewing a friend of mine, Mary Beth, at the Writers Mill where I do writing and share a space. Writers Mill, great place. Florence, you should think about joining. Plug, plug, okay, good. I have a commercial for them too. But I was talking to her about, she got published when she was really young. It went really well. And then since then, trying to get published has been incredibly hard. That was, that was J-Stick too. We got the big book and then what happens after. Yeah, so books upon books. And so we were talking about personal success, internal success versus external success and all that. And she said, well, here's the thing. She's like, I've got a great family life, a great marriage and all that stuff. I feel fulfilled by that, but I don't feel successful. What feels successful to me is to get published. She's like, I want to get published again through a publishing house. I'm like, what about self-publishing? She's like, well, I thought about that. And it really made me think about fulfillment versus success in terms of getting- And you have to craft that for yourself what that success is. Exactly, exactly. But again, like with the rhetoric, what is that, where do we go with that? That's what I'm wondering with you. So you said it's different for me, so what do you mean by that? Oh, it's different for me personally because I don't really use words like success. That's not really a word that I embrace or connect to that much, but I definitely connect to fulfillment and happiness and am I serving at the level at which I can serve or I'm able to serve? Like am I doing what I was brought here to do? Or what allows me to fire on all my cylinders? Then I feel good and I feel like that's success. Like I feel, I don't know, I feel like I have a- You have a commercial over your face. I have a commercial over my face. You have a commercial over your face. Now it's gone. It's gone. That was interesting. That was fun. I don't know what's going on. None of us ever does. Okay, so success doesn't, that doesn't sit, what does it mean to you that you don't care about it? Or what? It just doesn't really, it's just not really, it's not really in my vocabulary that much. You know what I mean? Like to me, I feel really good. Is it a good feeling? Is it a bad feeling? I feel really good about the work we did on Firecracker Bye Bye. I didn't get famous doing that. I didn't, you know, oh, what did I get? I got the satisfaction of doing that work, which I felt we did on a very high level. And I felt like what came from that, the product that came from that is a beautiful product. So that's really all I'm looking for. And I guess success for me would be to expand the ways in which I can do that kind of work so that I can, again, serve, you know, more and more and more and more so that I'm serving to my fullest capacity. That's to me, that will make me feel the best. So that seems like it goes more into the realm of fulfillment. I think it does, I think it does. But I wouldn't be unhappy to have that recognized. There we go, there's a word, recognition. Recognition as opposed to success. Oh, recognition, okay. That is a word I like. Okay. I would like to be recognized for the hard and good work that I have attempted to do. Okay. And what does that look like? What does that look like? Yeah. Yeah, that, I don't know if I'm smart enough to know. However that wants to be, you know, but I definitely don't have yearning to be Madonna. I don't really want to be Madonna. Yeah, I don't want to be Madonna either. Do you want to be Madonna? No, although I admire her for her intelligence and her ability to reinvent herself and her ability, and here's the best thing about Madonna. You could go to a Halloween party every year for the next five years and come as a different Madonna and everybody would know which Madonna you were. That's true. Well, remember when she came out with the book Sex? I love that book, yeah. Okay, so she came out with that book. Wait, was that at the same time as the pointy booby ice cream cone outfit? I think it was pre- Pre-booby ice cream cone outfit. Yeah, okay. She was going in that, you know, direction of now I'm gonna do an art book. Yeah, there we go. Now we're back to the word art. Art? It's an art book. It's an art book. It's an art book. It's kind of a dirty book, but it's kind of a, I don't know, I actually feel like it's a Madonna mind book, which is its own thing. Right. But it's different from art because it's crafted to brand her. It's crafted to. It's crafted to brand her. But it's also trying to be arty. Yeah, but only because that would be the thing that would get Madonna to the brand that she wanted at that moment in time. True, true. You know what I mean? True. I don't think, I'd be a little surprised if you point blank asked Madonna if she thought she was an artist. I think she might do a little hesitation on that. Yeah. Because I think she's more of a genius marketing machine. Oh God. That. And utilizes whatever. Yeah, she is a marketing machine. Genius. Yeah, that's what she does. Yeah. That's what she's really, really phenomenal. And then if we flip back to Oprah, Oprah I think has done a great job discerning who can market her well and what pieces can come upon one another. Because Oprah seems like she's a machine too and a marketing machine too. Yeah. But she seems like she's more about purpose. Mm-hmm. I don't know if I have this one down. She's got a different take. She's got a different take on it. Yeah. And it may be, I mean, maybe in the cynical head, she just, instead of making an arty book, she made a self-help book. Or just a self-helpy magazine. Yeah, a self-helpy conglomerate. I think, yeah, I think that it is. It is like she's monopolized self-help. Because if anything comes through her and becomes an Oprah book of the mind. Oh yeah, there's that. Or any kind of, anything where she, you know, I mean, she took that. There's where you use your powers for good instead of evil. Well, Dr. Phil, she made Dr. Phil. She made Rachel Ray. She made Dr. Oz. Yeah. And that was mindful. That's not, and I don't, that's the other thing I really like about some of these amazing human beings who have had all of these incredible accomplishments is they've set their mind to something and created it. That's sort of back to the conversation we were having before is like, what can you make happen? Or what can you allow to happen? Or how do you get that going? And there's a real mindful quality to the way that they've crafted their branding. Yeah. Yeah. But it bugs me too. Hold on one second. It gets to bug you. We're gonna just take a moment and say, you know, I am doing this crazy webathon thing, which we'll get nutty and nuttier as time goes on. Yeah, give Seth some money. Yeah, give me some money. Donate at Sethems.com. Every donation that goes through the website is gonna go to Indiegogo. They are working with my fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas, so that you can get a tax deduction for any money that you give me so it's completely tax deductible. There are perks involved at different levels of giving. So check out those perks on the right side of Indiegogo when you click. And you can just go to Sethems.com. All the information is there for watching the web stream, which you're already doing, right? Clicking through to Indiegogo to donate and whatnot and we're gonna continue. I think the thing, I've done this thing where I call things being like, operatized or the operatization of America, where some of the things I feel like she is pushing like the secret. It's like, can you do a little bit more research? Can you have this be a little bit more grounded? Because really her target audience are middle-aged women who feel alone. That's probably true. That's probably true. Or don't feel fulfilled. Yeah, we're in the home. We're searching. For whatever reason and they feel unfulfilled, yeah. And not everybody, because I'm sure there's plenty of people who watch her for, but everybody, like Dr. Phil, all the relationship advice, I mean the target audience, you know what I mean? Yeah, I think you're right. And as a matter of fact, I'm sure that demographic would show up on all their data. Yeah, and I haven't looked into that in terms of what's the viewership of Oprah like, and I haven't even looked at her channel since she opened her channel, but it's kind of like, well, how are people being, because I see a lot of schlock that she's pushing. Like I mean, I consider Dr. Phil like, probably five to 10% of the time seeing something very useful, very. And the rest of it is just being a dick. Well, and then there's the whole machine of what do you have to do to get the ratings? What do you have to do to get the advertisers? I mean, how much, you know, Mori do you have to put on? How many paternity tests do you have to have flashed up on the screen? Mori. Mori, Mori. Mori, are you ready? You know, I mean, that's the thing about our society that is so strange that I think they said. Oh, there we go, now we got a background. Oh, who's that? That's a guy, he's just embracing the sun. He's embracing the sun. If we both go like this. You know. See, look at that guy, he's having a great time. He's embracing the sun. He's embracing the sun. Wow. Good, love sun. I mean, it would be a really bad day if we didn't have the sun. You know, I know for myself that I could not live in Alaska in any which way. Like, whether the sun was out all the time like it is in the summer, I would go crazy. And if it was dark as much as it is in the winter, I would go more crazy. I mean, I probably would get really good at coming up with really depressing music, but from both. Yeah. Because I don't think I can deal with that much sun either. But. I like the changes. Because you have to shift your whole deal. Right. Every time a new season comes along. And now that we've destroyed, now that we've carried out ecocide and we're in the middle of climate change in the way that is so shocking, we don't even get to even think about seasons anymore. Now that's. We get to think about events. That's a whole, but that's a whole thing too. Like I'm just thinking in terms of, okay, like ecocide, right? Yeah. Like in the context, I'm gonna throw it into this again. Like in the context of political figures who become iconic in who they are, who's like the people, like the big. The Al Gore's of the universe. Well, you've got the Al Gore, but then you have the Santorum. I know. And you have these, but in having these disparate figureheads saying like, well, climate change has been disproven. And. I think even those guys can't even say that anymore. I don't think even Rick Santorum today would tell you that it's a lot of who he is. I don't know if he's one of the main guys on the who we, but there's plenty of other who we. I don't think there's much chance of holding on to the who we any longer. Yeah, but like why do we give those people so much clout? That's a really interesting question. I mean, they're just another human being. Is it so that we don't have to think? I mean, is it so that we think that way? Yeah, I mean, that's a whole, which actually when we're going back to the ideas of icons, I think there's something in our human entity that needs to pattern something. And so at one time this really hit me when I was living in New York in the 80s, there was a movie that was being filmed in my neighborhood called Rhinestone with Dolly Parton and Sylvester Stallone. And I was walking down, I know, right? I was walking down the street and I saw all these lights like we have. It's genius and it's a horror at the same time. So I'm walking down the street and I see Dolly Parton dressed in this incredible outfit covered with sparkles. And I see Sylvester Stallone. And you know what, they're both little mini people because if either of them is more than five foot four, are you shocked? They're little, little people. And I thought we need icons. We have made into a brand or a logo or a something these people. And I think we do that in order to just do a recognition thing to just be like, okay, oh yeah, big sparkling boobs and big sparkling pecs and rocky and Dolly to not think because we fall into a pattern. And I think that politics can be the same thing. Sadly, I don't think they used to be now that we don't really have a democracy anymore. I think we're really right there. But it's to not think, it's just to recognize a pattern. But I guess I've also met people who have said to me, I want to be an icon. I want, yeah, yes. Okay. And I've taken that in and so, but I wonder from, and again, this is my own perspective but I wonder what you think about this. If that is just a really good indication of megalomania. I think it is, and I think it's doable. If you can come up with, like if you were going to brand Seth and iconify, create an iconography around Seth, you know, what would be the pattern that you feel like you would represent to the planet that would be recognizable that people would connect to? That I would come up with? Yeah, you're already doing it, I think. I feel like, yeah, well, and I want to be careful because I want, what's really important to me in my life is to have friends and, yeah, because one of the things with icons is they will fucking, they will just tear people's throats out if they need to to get to the top. Not everybody. Yeah, and I think that that's not a priority. It's obviously not a priority. Well, I want to be very, and this is one of my favorite backgrounds. We've got the nice spark. Isn't that nice? Holiday. It's just like, oh, love. So is that we... Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, is to basically have people put me in my place. Have people put me? So, oh, oh, you know who comes to me first? Woody Allen. He comes, oh, he does that with me? No, he does that. I should have loved for him to do that with you, but that is a thing that he puts out into the world of like, whoa, you're really, you know, I don't even know the language for this, but so neurosis? No, that's not quite it either. Well, he does sell his, he did, for a long time sell his neurosis, but now his movies have gotten a lot more serious and I really enjoy his more serious stuff. Absolutely, but I'm sort of thinking the Woody Allen brand, like what you think of when you think of him as opposed to, and well, there's another one. Are you different from your product? Is your brand different from your product? It's interesting, this whole thing of like, people are like, do you have a Facebook page in the night? I do, but I stop posting it because it doesn't make any sense because I'm the person. The human, yeah. Yeah, so people can just follow me on Facebook instead, for example, you know, they don't have to request to be my friend, they can just follow me in it, but I don't want to get to a certain level of popularity. I've had so many people say to me, you should be on TV, well, we are right now, you should be on TV and da, da, da, da, da, and I'm like, well, I mean, there was this Louis C.K. episode, this thing that we just saw last night where he finds out that David Letterman is losing his job. Oh, I've seen the whole story, yeah. Okay, so there's like three. Yeah, there are three of them lined up, and he gets the job, but it's only a manipulation. It's a manipulation so that they can get David Letterman's salary down, but what's really brilliant about it as well is the fact that this guy at CBS is saying, I'm gonna tell you what's going on with your life. David Lynch or somebody crazy like that? Well, that's the guy who helped him. Oh, that was the helper guy, that's right, that's right. That's right, sorry, I saw it last season. He's like, you make $80,000 a year and you da, da, da, and he probably hit your peak five years ago, it's like all of those things. Like I'm coming, and it's one of the things I was wanting to deal with today is we can wait because we're gonna be done soon. Thanks, Tim. What was that? That's a lavalier, Mike, but I'm not having another guest in person for hours. Yeah, this is working, so. Oh yeah, we got to Ed soon, but what was I saying? Talking about Louis C.K. and talking about, you've hit $80,000. Yeah, so you hit $80,000 a year and probably you peaked five years ago, so you're heading towards teaching comedy at a community college, and you're seeing like, I mean, Louis C.K. wrote this because he knows the to be fact. I'm sure he lived some element of this. He knows the to be fact. And I think that is a thing where people have to decide when they get to that level what they're willing to do to continue because they're either really gonna sink or swim. Absolutely. And in this stage of what I'm doing, I'm just kind of getting over the hump into sort of kind of mid-career. I'm calling myself it, so other people are going, oh, he is. What does that mean? But I don't know if I am. I have no fucking idea if I'm mid-career. I don't even know what a career is, frankly. Yeah, I know. I don't even know what that is. But it's that I'm, what is that? I've got it in my blue period. What the fuck does that mean? I don't know what it means. Tell me when you get to the paper cut period because that means you're gonna die soon. Well, obviously I'm not at mid-career because I'm asking you people to give me money. So let's go back to that. But it was. Just give Seth some money so he'll be quiet about this. That's true. $10,000 we're trying to raise today. And one of the reasons we're trying to raise $10,000 in a 12 hour period is because it's ridiculous. Can I do it? Am I gonna fail if I don't make that money? Am I a success if I make $10,000? I don't know. Is it true? Is it false? Is it whatever? I have no idea. But it would be incredible if you can donate. A dollar helps. You can go and you can hit the contribute now button and donate whatever you want. It can be $1. It can be $1,000. I, you know, you know what your money situation is. It could be a billion dollars. It could be a billion dollars. That would be fine. Yeah. More about that donated.sethems.com. You can go there. Everything happens. We're gonna be wrapping it up with Linda. Linda, again, is my director of Firecracker Bye Bye. She runs Old Deerfield. I have the hardest time. I can barely say it myself. Old Deerfield productions at a Greenfield, Massachusetts. But they tour on an international level. Linda just came back from some country I can't pronounce. I came back from three countries in Eastern Europe. I came back from Kosovo. I came back from Albania and I came back from Macedonia. It was amazing. And there were some people who ran out of the theater because they were scared. It was great. They were scared of the production. They were wonderful. We're not gonna take a break, but I'm gonna let you go and get ready for our next guest and talk about that. And thank you so much for being with us. It's a pleasure. Thank you. Good to hear. Thank you. A billion. A billion. A billion bucks. That's what we're shooting for now. All right. Thank you. Oh, and have fun in Vermont, right? Well, yeah. Let's run ahead of right now. Have fun. Thanks, sweetie. Linda's going to Vermont. Oh, and now we got the little circles behind us. Whoa, circles. All right. So you can... Okay, great. Do I walk away now? Yeah, you walk away now. Okay. And is your copy back there? Yeah. Okay, great. And I'm just gonna continue. Thank you. Thanks. Oh yeah, I'm going to. All right, folks. So basically, we're gonna start getting into the Skype. And I'm saying this for the guys in the back. We're gonna be getting into the Skype session in a moment. We're gonna have our first Skype guest. So I'm gonna be Skyping in all of these people from around the country. Is anyone international? I'm sure somebody's from Canada. Anyhow, we're gonna be Skyping a bunch of people in from different areas to talk about various things. We're continuing with the theme of icons. I'm gonna be talking with my friend, Talcat, otherwise known as Catherine Kabine next. She is teaching up in Vermont right now at Middlebury College. And she has done something like 23 dance projects in the last three years or something like that. Come up with 23 pieces, something crazy like that. So we're gonna be talking about various things of her being a professional dancer and what iconography, iconography means to her and her personal definition, et cetera, blah, blah, blah. So one of the reasons I'm doing this as well is I'm trying to get information from people because I am turning all of this into a show, my next show, a part of my trilogy on the underbelly of the self-help movement. I'm really trying to focus it in though underneath about what success and failure means as a theater artist currently in the 21st century, especially now in 2013. Where are we at with all of that? What does that mean for me and other people? People who are doing smaller scale theater, like places that seat up to three or 400 people rather than the people who are playing 2,000 to 10,000 seat houses. Like, are we falling through the cracks? Is it ending? The theater audience has grown negative 12% since 2008 and has dropped 60% in the last 10 years. That's for non-musical theater across the board. So we're talking anything that's not on, well, some of the things are on Broadway and some of the things that are more just regular theater, whatever the fuck that means. Are you guys ready to Skype in Catherine? We're about to Skype in Catherine and see what happens. Hello. Hey. Skype in. You're here. Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Working on it, working on it. Oh. Have you been watching so far? All right, iconographic. Yes. It's going good. It's pretty chilly up here in Vermont, which is rough for an aging dancer because being cold is hard on anyone, but especially those of us with already calcifying joints, it gets tough. It's tough. I want to just... It's like it can be one of the Cloven mammals in Vermont. That's great. Yes. Mm-hmm. One of the first things we started talking about, I was kind of asking you about what you're working on, what you're doing, and you were talking about working on projects about what it's like to be an aging dancer. And then I think I laughed and asked how old you were. Mm-hmm. In your mid-30s, maybe, right? Yeah. 35. Yeah, 35. And that's like aging. It's a special field. I mean, it's definitely a special field. And it's funny because right now, I'm also an associate professor at Middlebury College. And certainly to be a professor, I'm incredibly young. And so I confuse students all the time. I confuse faculty all the time because I can't really understand the power structure with someone who looks like I could be their age. Also because I refuse to wear anything other than jeans and hoodies. So that confuses people as well in terms of my age and power. Don't worry. But the dance world is nutty. And at least I'm a modern dancer, not a ballet dancer. They have it even tougher. For those guys, 23 is like over the hill. It's insane. Most modern dancers, we get till our 30s. But then people always sort of will assume that we're gonna move on for a number of reasons that have to do with how success is defined in this country. Number one is it's not like it's a money-making profession. I sure didn't become a modern dancer because I wanted to become rich and famous. And most people follow their dreams when they're young and then they realize that actually, this is America. I need some. Huh? In line. Oh, okay. Some of the, you know, the first thing I think, it's kind of funny, because I just performed at AS220 down in Providence and in their theater, which is called 95 Empire. And I did my show about my grandmother and AS220 was not at the same location it is now in Providence, it was at another location. And it's the first place I ever performed in a band we were called Quark, the smallest particle known to man. And I was like 15, 16, something like that. And we sucked and it was amazing. You know, we were terrible and we were great, but we were awful and nothing went wrong with our set or anything like that. We just, you know, we were doing our thing. And I felt great afterwards because we had this audience and people were supportive and into it and awesome. And it didn't matter. Like we got, we did it, we practiced like crazy. And it did, it felt really successful, felt really, it just felt liberating and good. And I felt seen in a way that I wanted to be seen, which was really nice. So that's one. Let me tell you the way that I feel successful the most now in my life. Um, Leah said something earlier about how she kind of refers to me as the connector. One thing that I try and make myself available to is I try and make myself available to as many people I know who are doing theater or performing arts, really any kind of art that I'd love and helping them strategize how to get into the world more and get their art out there more. And whether that's to get more visibility or financial gain or whatever, because and yeah, like sometimes I teach classes on how to do that and stuff like that. But really, I love setting up like a Skype session with somebody. And I've done this with a lot of people who I've talked to today, for example. And just talk to it, like kind of like working through all like, well, what are you doing here? And asking lots of questions and getting into the nitty-gritty because I want people to feel like what they're doing is worthwhile. I want people to feel as though and think that what they're doing is, is like of the essence and they need to be persevering in what they're doing. And I just, and I wanna be, I wanna be their cheerleader for them. Like I really, really care about my peers and what they're doing and them making a mark in the world the way that they wanna make a mark in the world. I don't want them making a mark in the world that doesn't feel right. I don't want them being like, you know, like, you know, I wanna work with Stevie Wonder. It's like, okay, well, let's, let's see what the steps are to that. But, but, you know, if somebody's like, if somebody's goal, and again, it comes back to this goal thing, but if somebody just like, if they just say, I want this, it's like, all right, that's great. Like, I know this person in this, and I said this earlier today, like somebody's like, I wanna, Antonia was like, I wanna go to Iowa. It's like, I know somebody in Iowa and I know that they would love your work. It's like, great, I wanna give those people those contacts. I don't want, I don't see the point in any way, shape, or form about being competitive, whether you're a writer, visual artist, musician, et cetera. I don't see the point in being competitive with other people because what you do is different than those, than another person. Even if it's similar, even if you both play melodic death metal, you're probably playing different melodic death metal. And therefore you can support each other in that. In fact, I will probably enjoy both of your bands. How do I personally measure it? On a personal level or a professional level? Because I, okay, so the question was, how do I measure success for myself, whether personally or professionally, in case you can't hear it on the mic? I just wanna make sure that, this looks, is this still on? Yeah, it's on. Okay, I just wanna make sure, because we've been at it all day. I'm really, I mean, one of the reasons I'm doing this show and conceptualizing this show and the whole process of today is I'm figuring it out. I don't really know. I mean, again, when I connect with people and when I connect with people in a way, and I mean this is a wide range in what this means, but in an intimate context, where I feel like I get to know the other person on a deeper level, where I get to understand more about who they are. That can be through the context of performing for them. That can be the context of becoming friends with them or working with them or what not. I've realized, and I said this to somebody recently, how important other people are to me. I think a lot of people think about, they put other things in front of people as important to them, which is fine, whether that's politics or a specific kind of art or whatever it is, but the fact of the matter is, those things can't really exist without other people. I think one of the things that gets me is that people will put their beliefs in religion, for example, ahead of other people and their ideologies ahead of their relationships with people and it kind of co-ops and fucks up their entire way of communicating with other people because they're seeing it through this lens when they could have a much richer and deeper experience of being a human being by being open to having conversations with people across the boards in all different sorts of ways in understanding who they are from their culture, from their family, from how they look at life, instead of through the lens of some kind of weird screwed up belief system. I might think one way, but somebody might change the way that I think about that particular thought because they make me see it in a different context and that's one of the reasons why I like to play so many different kinds of characters because I love playing people whose viewpoints are very solid because it helps me slowly, and I do mean slowly, empathize with those viewpoints so that I don't have to have such aggravation and irritation towards those viewpoints because when I'm playing those people I have to be compassionate towards them. I have to understand them on a deeper level. Or I can't play them well because I'm playing a version of them rather than really playing them. So to me people are more important than anything else and so my measure of success is my relationship to people and deepening those relationships however they deepen. I mean it's really interesting because Sharon and I were talking about this recently where we lived in California for a long time where in Oakland, the Bay Area, where you meet somebody at a party and you're like, oh my God, you're my new best friend and blah, blah, blah. And like here it's like from New England, how's it going? Yep, mm-hmm. Nice to meet you. Yep, that's good. Yep, I like coffee too. That's interesting, yep. I've been reading a lot about that myself and I mean I agree with you to a certain point. And then like five years down the line maybe you hug. And so it's like, it's been nice coming back to that sort of, not that it's reserved but it's like, I mean where I'm from it's kind of like if you didn't grow up with the people you're not friends with them. They're like, they've already got their friends. They've already got their community. So it's interesting to have been all over the place. But also it's been amazing to tour and have the opportunity to tour to like Minneapolis and various places across the country and really create these instant bonds with people because we're doing similar things through theater and performing arts and we're on the same page with what we want. And I just want to give a toast right now to everybody. I'm gonna give a heart champagne toast to everybody out there who's donated today. Has anybody else donated Sharon that I haven't given a shout out to or a high five or? Kristen and Jeremy have been great. They came by today and helped out and they also donated and they're great. Morgan you donated, right? Thank you. In person. Damn. I look like I'm in love connection. Oh, that's great. Is that the one where you're like, the woman's on another side of the wall and she's asking the guy questions? No, no, that's newlywed. No, no, no, that's not newlywed. That's love connection. What's the dating game? Well, and she's talking to three guys. It's like, if you, if you, yeah. If you were to take me on a date to an amusement park, what ride would we go on? I don't know what I had to take you out on. I'd take you on the flume and we'd get all wet. It's like, if I was a croissant, what country would I be from? Oh, if you were a croissant, you'd be from my country, Alabama. Like what, like where are people from? All right, how much longer do we have until it's 9.48? I'm getting a little, 9.47. All right, folks. If anybody wants to Facebook or tweet, you can use New Play TV. No, no, no, New Play, hashtag New Play, if you want me to talk about something specific, or on Twitter, or on Facebook, you can tag my name at Seth LaPour. Sharon will read that Facebook update and I will talk about what you want me to talk about, because at this point I could give a flying fuck what I talk about, because I'm just ready to be done. I mean, actually I could go probably for another seven goddamn hours, but I'm not going to. We're at 9.48, we've got 12 minutes left. Can I just, you know, I would love to be a failure mentor, because I would be brilliant, I would be brilliant. In fact, in fact, I think I need, I think that needs to be my new business, is failing fast and quick. How to go down, I think the name of my book could be like, how to go down in flames with love and persistence. Oh, look at that. You can't really see it. There we go. That is so weird looking. That is so, that's a pretzel, but it's really, all right, okay everybody, I just, I gotta talk about this guy before we end. I gotta talk about this guy before we end. Oh, I don't want it. I don't like white chocolate, I'm sorry. I'm really grossed out by white chocolate. I don't know what it is. It's just, oh, I can't, I can't do it. Thank you though. So, you know, in my, oh, I like that. In my research, I came across a very nice book at Forbes Library, I love Forbes Library, shout out. Forbes is trying to get an elevator for people who can't use parts of their body. So, if you can help out Forbes, help people get the elevator to go up and down. Isn't it an elevator? That's great. Oh, thank you Jeremy, that's so sweet. High five. This is a book called Permission to Succeed by Noah St. John. At the time of this book, he was living in a town close to us called Hadley, Massachusetts. He's got a quote on the book on the front from Jack Canfield, who is one of the co-authors of Chicken Soup for the Soul. So, we know this is good. Now, when I started to look into this book, I just started looking through the chapters and then I read some of this stuff, and then I went on to, you know, really research this guy to see if he's still out there and whatnot. So, I'm gonna tell you a little bit about him because it's pretty amazing. One of the things that I thought was phenomenal in here, have I already read through this before? Or was I just, I can't even remember. So, there's things like why do we stop ourselves from success and why you need permission to succeed and, you know, be willing to get what you want and goal free zones, goal replacement surgery, which are all great, but this particular part where he discovers what condition he has is probably the most heart rendering, yeah, champagne toasting aspect that I can think of. Part two, the condition how I discovered success anorexia. Are you fucking kidding me? This guy went to a talk on anorexia, which is fine, you know, and he even says I was bored, I had nothing to do, and I decided to go to this talk and he realized that after the person talked about anorexia that it fit him and his difficulty with success and therefore he had success anorexia. I mean, but I guess the thing for me and because this goes across, and again, I mean, I think you can parallel any kind of disorder with something else and put them together, but it's almost like he trademarked it and then he went on, but it gets better, he went on to create something called affirmations. Now affirmations are different than affirmations. Oh, he's got two more. Affirmations don't work and let me tell you why they don't work, folks, it's pretty obvious. Affirmations you're saying to yourself, I am rich, I am loving, but you don't believe it. Why don't you believe it? You don't believe it because it's not a question and that's where affirmations comes in. Now, all sorts of people come up with new technology all the time, I came up with a new word. You know, a lot of people said, well, what's a DVD? And then it came out, everybody knew what it was. Affirmations, it's just a word that I came up with. Check it out, affirmations is not I am rich, it's why am I so rich? And then you think, why am I so rich? Because you know what humans like to do? They like to ask questions. And when we ask questions, we come up with answers. So you don't say, I'm having lots of sexy time. You say, why am I having so much sexy time? How did I get to a place with so much sexy time? Then the answers started to come in. They just started to come in. You don't say, my penis is as long as an elephant. You say, why is my penis so long like an elephant? Or how did my penis get to be so goddamn long that Ted Nugent is calling me, asking me what my secret is? Basically, and I'm glad you can relate to this and feel free. Yeah, well, you can totally rent this from the library. It's not rentable, it's just takeoutable. You can takeoutable this. But the hands are up, folks. We're gonna put, Sharon, where are we at? All right, thank you. It's nice that my wife, who is 20 feet away from me, is texting me updates. Because otherwise, I wouldn't be able to get these things. Well, we're not countdown yet. Dude, we're at one, two, four, seven, just moments away from five, six, four, eight. And I think that that's beautiful. Let's see, we're at 9.56, we are in the final countdown. Does anybody want me to talk about anything in particular right now, because I will do it. I will do it. I'm not afraid, I'm not scared. Sir, tell me what to talk about. It doesn't matter. All right, keep it, all right. And that's New England for ya. Everyone has their own voice. Yeah, I wanna talk about that a little bit more. Because in the metal arena, let's talk about this. A lot of people say it all sounds the same. But it doesn't, does it? When we really, really tune in, when we really, really listen to what is happening with extreme metal, when we really, really allow ourselves to get into the chug-a-chug-chug, we find ourselves hearing little bits of slow dissonance between things. For example, operatic death metal is a little different, isn't it? There's a little bit of going on. Where if we've got a little bit of cookie monster going on, it's very different. So that's different. Also, you might have some keyboards in there. Drop detuning. Drop detuning. Helmet is famous for this. In fact, helmet detuned their guitars so that they could just play their chords with one finger. So they all had one finger. So basically, if we go back to the phalanges and digits that we were talking about earlier, Helmet decided, let's just get rid of these three and just use this one. Okay? So they just chopped them off and were like, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm. Well, Helmet was more, Helmet was more, what were they? They were kind of like, they were in the hardcore zone. They were in the hardcore zone. Oh, well, that just changes everything. Helmet, Helmet weren't like metal, dude. They were good. Helmet were, have you ever heard Sinatra by Helmet? Because it's awesome. Paige, what's his name? The guy who wrote it? It's great. Did you ever hear, did you ever, dude, you should really come and listen to my amps, dude. I got a mess of boogie I just got. It's awesome. It's right. That's when people talk about their amps and the tone that comes from their amps. Dude, you gotta come over to my house, man. Check this out. I got this new pedal and it's like so fucking like, it's deep, man. It's like heavy. We're getting there, folks. We're almost there. It's 9.59. And so I should leave you with something in particular and I'll leave you it with balloons and seagulls. Um, I have no idea if success is up to you. I have no idea if you are in charge of your failure or your success. I think there's a lot of things at hand, okay? Because we've got our personal lives. We've got our professional lives. We've got the society at hand. We've got our familial structures that we come from, the families that we create. We have the extensions of the world at large that influence us. We have our mental capacities, our psychology, our physiology, all of these things combined come into how we view ourselves and how we view ourselves in the world and how we view other people and how we either compete with those people or put ourselves against those people or connect with those people or not. That includes group structures, et cetera. So after talking with everybody today, I don't know if success is, I don't know if success, I don't know, I don't know if success is completely in our, yeah, it's 10. I don't know if success is completely in our control or not. I don't know if we're in charge of our own destiny. I don't fucking know shit, but I do know this. I don't know shit. Thank you everybody for donating. I'm gonna be taking all of this that we talked about today. I'm going to be translating it into something that I'm gonna start touring next year. I don't know what that's gonna be yet, but I wanna thank everybody for watching today, for contributing, all of the special guests that I had on, all of the donors, all of the people who have worked to help make this happen. I wanna again thank Kim and East Works for helping me. I wanna thank the WA agency, LLC, and Natwa. I wanna thank E-Cat TV. Yeah, like all the volunteers who helped today, everybody who made this happen. I couldn't have done it without you. I am forever grateful. Let's just continue to keep making art and work in weird shit. And I really think it's a good idea to eat ice cream every once in a while. So remember to give a kiss to a chicken, love your elders, and don't forget, sometimes anal is a good way to go. Thank you so much. Oh my God. Thank you.