Daddy Unscripted Podcast

The Introductory episode to the Daddy Unscripted side subset of episodes called We're Here Alone Together aka W.H.A.T.As I was recording a Live Youtube video on April 11, a vague notion I had became a solid plan. I was talking about "how are we coping with this new world right now" with Aaron and Apple from the No Simple Road podcast and Mike Finoia from the Amigos podcast. You can watch that video on the Osiris Media youtube channel, by the way.I had already completed my 2-part episodes called "Love In The Time Of Covid". As an "essential worker", and one who manages a staff of 40+ other essential workers, this time has been very impactful for me. I have really had to take on the task of being very mindful of my own emotions and mindset. Not only am I also responsible for my wife and two kids, but I feel the weight of that responsibility for all of the people at my work, as well. I've talked with a lot of people during this time and I've heard a myriad of stories of how people's lives have changed and a

Episode 80 is another solo episode, sans guest, and the final half of my thoughts on the place we all find ourselves in currently: in the middle of this global pandemic of Covid-19 or the Corona Virus. I recorded this episode on Friday, April 3, 2020. I'm typing this on Sunday, April 5, and the current statistics are 1,266,614 cases, 69,169 deaths and 260,967 recoveries worldwide this afternoon. That means there were more than 200,000 new cases, 11,000 new deaths and 33,000 new recoveries over this weekend.In the first half of this, from last week, I spent a lot of time talking about my feelings regarding our responsibilities, not only for a lot of us as parents but for all of us as humans and mostly... as adults.With this episode, I still have an undercurrent of that just beneath the surface, but a lot of this episode is spent giving you more tangible and practical takeaways to your new everyday lives right now. Whatever that may be: I think nearly all of us are living in some form of a "new normal". On

Episode 79 is another solo episode, sans guest. As we find ourselves in the middle of this global pandemic, I felt compelled to speak a little in regards to how this affects all of us, whether it is us as parents, our children, our own parents. All humans are in some way having their lives changed by the existence of Covid-19 or the Corona Virus.If you've been following along with your Daddy Unscripted handbook for a while, you know that I manage an animal hospital as my 9-5 job. Managing the staff there during this time of crisis has really raised the bar for me. I have had to work harder than ever to dig deep within myself, to basically tap into every single one of the tools in my emotional utility belt to assist the 40+ people at our hospital to help them work through having to continue to work during this time. Not only that, but to also help a great many of them deal with what all of this does to exacerbate what may already be their daily anxiety level with "normal life". This also speaks to somethi

Episode 78 is an incredibly open, honest, deep and real conversation with associate professor and author Matt Sienkiewicz. This episode was recorded a year ago, I hate to say. Due to some significant technical issues, it's just now finally seeing the light of day.I am not going to publicly flog myself too much for that. It is what it is at this point and I couldn't feel more guilty and apologetic about it to Matt. But, with that said: I didn't give up and it's here! Aged like a fine wine that just needed a little more time to go from "great" to "life-changing".The episode actually started the way I thought it might: with us talking about Matt's work surrounding comedy. I was struck originally by everything he does surrounding the study of comedy. It truly fascinates me and I wish I had that experience with the little bit of college I did way back when.We eventually did the norm and had Matt work his way back into his paternal history. And... goodness me. The game changed there. Whether he was talking about hi

Episode 77 is the second half of my conversation with fellow music fan, recovered alcoholic, remarkable stay-at-home Dad and future podcaster: Jason Ronk. We pick up the conversation right where Part 1 left off (if you didn't hear that yet, take the time to go back... great stuff in there and, you know, it's part 1 of 2. Would you watch The Godfather II without devouring the original first?)Jason takes us back into his mid-'90s history and what music really started to do for him at that time of his life. He traces directly back to a friend of his putting on Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" album and remembers that really driving him further in his desire to be a musician. In 1994 and 1995, Jason was not only getting introduced to the Grateful Dead and Phish but his one and only time seeing Jerry Garcia on stage was the Grateful Dead's final official concert before Jerry's untimely and unfortunate death: the July 1995 show at Soldier Field in Chicago. "...I found my people... I had no clue w

Episode 76 is the first half of my conversation with fellow music fan, recovered alcoholic, remarkable stay-at-home Dad and future podcaster: Jason Ronk.We started out the episode with some singing out the praises of the Moms out there. I did a little bit of the stay-at-home / work-from-home Dad situation with my first-born. Jason definitely is having a longer go at it than I did. Pretty much every SAHD I have talked about that job with has just gotten on their knees to bow in reverence to the work that Moms do.Jason talked a little about some of the surprising things he has noticed during trips to the park for his kids to play. Both the other kids and the other parents can really be interesting to observe; I've notice this a lot, myself. How do parents at the park interact, if at all, with their children while there? It's almost like a personality test on a live, visual scale. Do they plop down and get right on their phones and ignore their kids? Do they sit and talk with other parents there? Do they play wi

Episode 75 is the second half of my conversation with musician, podcaster, Youtuber, Dad and all-around awesome guy: Amar Sastry. You may know Amar from his Anatomy of a Jam series on Youtube or his tweets breaking down and playing portions of Phish songs on his acoustic guitar or his work on the Osiris Media podcast network's video version of The Drop (which is also done as a podcast). Amar is all over the map... in a very good way.If you didn't somehow catch the first part of our conversation, you really must. This episode picks up immediately where the previous episode ended: with Amar walking us through what he remembers of his family's move from rural India to New York when he was just 5 or 6 years old.His story is so refreshing. I know I don't speak for everyone, and I would never claim anything of the sort... but, hearing about what it's like for people to come from much humbler means to a new home with a far different situation and lifestyle. It's hard not to, but we really can so easily take so much

Episode 74 is the first half of my conversation with musician, podcaster, Youtuber, Dad and all-around awesome guy: Amar Sastry. You may know Amar from his Anatomy of a Jam series on Youtube or his tweets breaking down and playing portions of Phish songs on his acoustic guitar or his work on the Osiris Media podcast network's video version of The Drop (which is also done as a podcast). Amar is all over the map... in a very good way. We kicked off the episode talking about a lot of the "new parent stuff" that Amar and his wife are going through, being around a year and a half into the parental game with their little girl. For anyone near my age, I mentioned a blast from the past phrase: "kids having kids". Or was it "babies having babies"? Either way, that section of our discussion ended with a rousing cheer by me of: "You go, Geriatrics!" Eventually, we worked our way into the history of Amar through his father and his grandparents. It was very interesting to hear about some of their mindset an

Episode 73 features half of the tandem that puts together the "Beyond The Pond" podcast, Dave Goldstein. This is the 2nd and final part of my conversation with Dave, whose podcast is another from our glorious Osiris Media podcast network.This episode picks up right where the 1st ended, with Dave starting to talk about him and his wife's decision to have a second child. His story starts off with the re-telling of the pregnancy that followed their oldest daughter. The very unfortunate and tragic direction that pregnancy took put Dave and his wife through something no parent should have to experience.Following that difficult spring of 2018, by the fall of that year, Dave's wife was pregnant again, restoring their hope of having a little brother or sister for their firstborn daughter.To their disbelief, during a routine ultrasound, yet again they were facing the news of another medical condition with the growing fetus. Doctors confirmed that their future child had ventricular septal defects, or a hole in the hear

Episode 72 is another of my solo Thanksgiving episodes. This one is very unique and heavily inspired by my having just seen the new movie focusing on the life of Mr. Rogers starring Tom Hanks titled "A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood". It was my birthday the night that I recorded this episode actually: Monday, November 25th. When my wife asked me the week before my birthday how I wanted to celebrate, I told her that beyond anything else, I wanted to go and see this new Mr. Rogers movie with her. Mr. Rogers was an enormous part of my childhood and immensely meaningful and inspirational to me. I have always maintained a very special place in my heart for Mr. Rogers, and I am all for and all about the continued spotlight on the man and his legacy. In this episode, I focused on two of the things that really seemed to be two of the biggest themes for my year: 1) opening up about my suicide attempt 25 years ago, and 2) re-acquainting myself with the life and the work of Mr. Rogers and the epiphany

Episode 71 features half of the tandem that puts together the "Beyond The Pond" podcast, Dave Goldstein. Dave adds to my list of guests that come from our glorious Osiris Media podcast network.I was thrilled when Dave reached out to me about being on the podcast. I had his partner from the BtP podcast, Brian Brinkman, on the podcast a little over a year ago for Episodes 50 & 51. They do such a great job with their podcast and, honestly, I have always dug Dave's voice from their episodes that I was happy to have a long conversation with him for Daddy Unscripted.And, a long conversation is exactly what we had. We talked and recorded for over 3 hours. I really toiled with the editing of this episode. For way too long. And then it dawned on me: two-parter!So, this is the first half of our conversation. We talk about his family history, stories about his Dad and how he and his Mom met. Did someone say "met"? We also go into how the New York Mets became a major part of his family history.We went through a bit o

Episode 70 features singer-songwriter Griffin House. Griffin has been making music for over 15 years now and he is still working hard and remaining incredibly true to himself and who he wants to be as an artist.When Griffin's management contacted me about having him on the podcast, quite frankly, I had to rush to the internet to see who this guy was. I spent the next ten minutes or so reading various bios and snippets of interviews and album reviews and my interest was open to the idea. Then, I clicked play on a preview of his coming documentary "Rising Star" and I couldn't reply to the original email quickly and enthusiastically enough.We worked out some specifics and I went home that night and started picking my way through some of Griffin's older albums. Wow. Man, oh, man... I sure did want to talk with this guy! I truly did become an instant fan that first day.In our conversation, Griffin spins some great histories about his family, his youth and his intense connections with his paternal line, as well as

The "guest" in Episode 69 is actually me. It's me talking about suicide, including the story about the night I tried to kill myself a little over 25 years ago.I've touched on this topic with a few of my guests, at all different levels. Most significantly, perhaps, back in Episode 62 with Bill Protzmann, where he shares the story of the night music saved him from trying to take his own life some years ago. It's been something other guests have discussed: having suicidal thoughts at times of their lives.This is not a new problem for mankind. However, the numbers are increasing. The age range seems to also be expanding. It's astonishing. It's deeply troubling. It's nearly paralyzing.But, we cannot be paralyzed. We absolutely cannot allow ourselves to sit and do nothing. To back away and not deal with it. To be afraid of reaching out to help. That goes on both sides of this, I think. If you need help, you need to reach out... even if (or especially) you do so before your toes inch closer to that proverbial edge.

Episode 68 features Chris Illuminati. Chris is an author, blogger, superstar on Instagram (that’s totally a thing), former stand-up comedian and a father of two. I was following Chris on his Instagram account (@messagewithabottle) for a while when one of our mutual friends reached out to me, dumbstruck that they had never suggested a collaboration between us for Daddy Unscripted. So, big shout-out to Jessica and Jose for paving the road for this to happen.Let’s start this post with where we started our conversation: his name. Yes. His last name really is Illuminati. We spent some time talking about peoples’ names and how that has changed over the years.We then jumped back into Chris’ family history. He has some really interesting stories about the age difference between his Dad and his brothers and the trickle-down effect of that from his Dad’s siblings and Chris as a child. Chris’ family came to the east coast originally, and he has spent nearly the entirety of his lifetime in New Jersey. He discussed the un

Episode 67 features Aaron of one of the fellow Osiris Media network podcasts: No Simple Road. I'm so incredibly proud and honored and humbled to be a part of the Osiris Podcast family. I really am. I've met some great people through our other podcasts and I've had some great guests on from the podcasts, as well. Aaron is another in that continually growing list.Yes. I admit that the title of this episode is sort of hokey. Because, yeah... his podcast is called No Simple Road and all. But, come on. It just works so well. And, you'll hear in this episode, his life really hasn't been a simple road. And that doesn't mean it all hasn't been worth it. Or that where he is now isn't fantastic. But, he has lived a life (and then some). So, the path to where he is in his life now just was not a simple, smooth ride. And that's okay!Our conversation started with Aaron talking about the origin story of No Simple Road. Since I first started listening to No Simple Road, I've always loved the purity of their conversations an

Episode 66 starts off with quite the game show loser sound from old Price is Right episodes. I really got my hat handed to me in like the first 30 seconds of my conversation with my friend Jeff. Very significant emphasis on the word "friend" there. For a very good reason. You'll have to listen to the episode to get the reasoning behind all of this because typed words really don't do justice to my falling on my face.I have known Jeff and his wife since some time in 2006. We met via Flickr. We reminisced a little and talked about how Flickr really was it back in the day. There was no Facebook yet... no Instagram... no real social media just yet. Flickr really was a place that photographers and hobbyists could scratch an itch that none of us yet really knew existed.I had never really taken a big interest in photography until the day I saw some of the experimental and unique work of Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir. You can hear me butcher her last name in the episode... that's just clean fun right there! I saw what Rebekk

Episode 65 features Jon Bailey, half of the "2 Dads With Baggage" you may know from Instagram, Twitter or their website.As is par for the course of the podcast: Jon and I talked about the history of his family for a bit to start. We didn't dig into these things explicitly, but it was very interesting that he had family members that came to America on the Mayflower in the 1600's.Jon talked about the very loving family that he was raised in. It was his big brother and himself, with their Mom and Dad. We breezed through some of his education years, which included both Jon and his brother attending UC Berkeley in Northern California... in very distinct and different eras; Jon's brother, attending in the '70s as a "full-on hippie". And, Jon followed suit, but during the '80s.Jon took Journalism in college, which led to an eventual internship that, for the best, drove him away from journalism. Jon then went into Public Relations, which stuck for him. An internship in a PR firm evolved into a long-term career for th

Episode 64 is time for my annual Father's Day episode. Though I do this every year, it's not the same every year. Because of a few things going on with people around me and people I'm talking to, this episode kind of caught me by surprise with the direction it took.Unscripted. You got that part of the title of the podcast, right?I almost wrote out a script for this episode, believe it or not. I think if I had, and maybe even did that every day for a week, it would be quite different each time. So, this episode is almost like one of those really cool "long, single takes" that they talk about when you watch a Criterion Collection version of some film.So, unscripted, I went into this episode... and, sure, it shows. But, maybe the pure honesty of it is beneficial because of that? That's what I will tell myself anyway.I recorded this episode (just to document this here) the week that Big Papi (former major leaguer / future hall of famer David Ortiz) was shot in what was an alleged murder attempt. As I talked brief

Episode 63 features Adam Scheinberg, who wears and has worn many hats in his life. Adam is the architect of Phish.net (as you know it today). He also did a lot of the masterminding of AllThings.Umphreys.com and does a major portion of the web work for them. If that somehow isn't enough for you (because it wasn't for Adam!), he is also the president of the Mockingbird Foundation.Adam was directed to me by Brando Rich of Cash or Trade (you may remember him from episode 54). Adam had helped with some of the initial frameworks for the CashorTrade site and their coding, so it was cool that Brando thought to recommend him for the podcast.Born and raised in Connecticut, Adam's family actually originated from the state of New York. Some of his family still resides in Connecticut, while he has actually moved down that coast a bit to reside in Florida. He starts off with some pretty astounding quick hits about his Grandfather and his life.Adam was set to follow in his own Father's footsteps: becoming a lawyer. He tells

Episode 62 features a semi-lengthy and fully beautiful conversation with Bill Protzmann, a man with a unique and fascinating life story. The common thread weaving through Bill's entire life is music. And it's music that literally saved his life, some nearly 12 years ago now.Bill and I started talking and I could quickly tell this was going to be another great discussion. I won't deny it, there have been times when I've second-guessed the idea of doing all of these "interviews" unscripted. So many of my guests, unknowingly, remind me why I don't plan any of these conversations out, though.Bill has been playing piano since he was 3 years old. His Mom was a teacher and he was actually her first student. As a self-proclaimed difficult child, Bill sees how much playing the piano helped give him some direction and force some of the engagement that assisted with his development.Though he didn't realize it at the time, Bill knows now that he was very depressed as a kid. This was something he worked through in differe