Chuck Yates Needs A Job

0:21 Everybody, welcome to Chuck Yates needs a job, the podcast. I've always said that when I do a podcast, the thing I've figured out is there's somebody sitting across from me that can tell a story

0:35 that no one else on the planet can tell. And your job as the podcast host is to get that story out and call it 80 of the time for our five of these, I sort of know what the story is going in and I

0:47 guide the conversation. Welcome in, Alma Cook. I have no idea what that story is.

0:56 Well, lucky for you, I have some ideas that go and check. I actually need a job.

1:01 You know, this is sad. I cut a check to the government today for taxes. I might actually have to get a job. Oh, it's good I always say if I had a magic wand and could do one thing legislatively,

1:14 it would be to get rid of automatic withholding so that everyone would have to feel that pain every April. that business owners feel and contractors feel - Oh, totally. Yeah, quarterly withholding

1:24 tax to pay - On the other hand, the write-offs, you know, can't complain at some of the things that you get to write off when you're running - If you have no income, there's nothing to write off,

1:34 though that's kind of the problem - No, it doesn't sound great, but yes, we do have no income, but anyway, how I wound up still having to kind of check is beyond me. So as I recall, dear sweet

1:46 friend, Michael Patrick Smith, the good hand, the musician turned Bockin' oil field worker introduced us somehow, is that right - Yeah, that is right. And even the way you put that kind of just

1:60 made me bristle a little bit, because that's always been my claim to fame, being the musician turned Bockin' oil field chick. Michael stole my story from out from under me. But he's such a good

2:09 guy - He wrote a book - Yeah, he wrote a book - He tried to draw on it. There you go - Yeah, yeah, no, but it's good It's good to have him. in my same category. And I was in LA for the last

2:25 eight years, essentially, and he's been in New York, so we're holding it down on different sides of the country with the same story - So give me this story. How do you put together musician and

2:35 Bachan in the same sentence - Well, I mean, it wouldn't have happened. I wouldn't have ended up

2:43 in the Bachan without music at the end of the day. So I was a city kid, born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin, went to school in Chicago for music, music major, in fact. So not exactly on the

2:53 path to become like a petroleum engineer or something - Madison - But it does come - Oh, you love Madison - Oh, garbage - No, the band garbage - Oh, the garbage - The band garbage - Garbage - Not

3:04 the band garbage - It's healthy - Butch Big actually produced Never Mind by Nirvana in Madison, Wisconsin, that the smart studio - It's smart studios, no kidding. I didn't know that you're

3:16 teaching me hometown trivia.

3:19 So I majored in music. I got something really rare at that time when I graduated, which was what? 2013 college, which was an online job. Those were not, you know, a dime a dozen at that time.

3:33 And I thought I was going to hold this online job forever. I was a copy editor, professional grammar Nazi. It was a lot of fun. I wasn't making very good money, but I was getting paid to read

3:43 about politics no less and it was just, it was a lot of fun. So I was working part time doing that I gave her home allowed me to move remotely to, excuse me, move to LA and continue working

3:53 remotely. And I thought that was just going to be my rhythm, you know, working from home, able to still flexibly play festivals or travel to tour whenever I would need to. But then I got sassy

4:04 and I got fired and I ended up just kind of caught flat-footed. And this family friend of mine, whom my brother had studied abroad with in Thailand of all places was from. Williston and had started

4:20 a safety company during the boom. And so he extends me the one online job that they had at that company, which happened to open up that very week, which was a compliance position. Uh, I took it.

4:31 I had no idea what I was doing. I always tell people I didn't know the difference between a drilling rig and a cell phone tower when I started. And that's the truth. Um, but I fell in love with it.

4:39 You know, there's, there are some growing pains at first, but I caught the bug. And so when is a circa, what year? Uh, well, you know, it's interesting is I was, I was, editing us, copy

4:49 editing safety manuals throughout that time for him on and off. So I kind of had, you know, like a foot in the door. I remember looking at like Oasis's SOPs. For I knew who Oasis was. So that,

5:02 that probably started, um, maybe 2014, 2015. I even visited the Bakken around then, but it was 2017 when I was all in. Okay. And you know, started making oil field money rather than editorial

5:14 money, if you Nice. Yeah. Okay, so safety compliance, everyone across Kraken? All the time. Yeah, I mean, they're bocking dominant up there. Yeah, no, Bruce and Brad. So that was

5:26 Portfolio Company when I was with K-N-A-N-S. No kidding. Well, they've come a long way. They just doubled in size. Practically buying those bowline assets. Guys, y'all can actually go sell.

5:40 We've had that company for so long. And they're such good guys that it does well, but it's like every time oil prices creep up, I'm like, please just get sell. But anyway, they don't watch the

5:50 podcast. So they won't hear. I don't know. I wouldn't put it fast. So, so, do you actually move to the Willa Stem Basin or are you still living in LA when you're? Well, you know, I kept a

6:03 foot in LA for a long time. And what ended up happening was I would go up to the Bakken for business trips to visit with clients. I mean, most of what I can do, I can definitely do from home. but

6:13 it's always nice to have that FaceTime and nice to be there for an inspection or be there for an audit or whatever someone may be going through from the compliance side.

6:22 But it just got harder and harder to get back off the plane at LAX when I would land. I would see the palm trees and it wasn't a happy site. I just kind of wanted to be back in the book and all the

6:32 time. So I started spending more and more time up there - First time that it's ever been said, I think I'll look like in it - Oh, you're kidding, no - I'm sure there are kids from Montana and

6:41 North Dakota, the same - It's amazing - Maybe - No, there's something special about that place, man. I mean, the speed of the town, the fact that you can walk into a bar and know a number of

6:51 people there and some of them are probably CEOs that you've been meaning to meet. So really special place, an industry town, you know - So you moved up there - I did. I cut ties with LA actually

7:01 last year. I kept a place in LA but eventually it just got too much. I should have cut ties earlier like during the pandemic, for example. But yeah, I bought a house last summer And now I married

7:14 a Houstonian. So now my split is Williston Houston rather than Williston - Oh, God, no, what is the husband do - He actually, you'd be interested in this. He works in emissions management and

7:26 measurement for a company called Valadier. And they, I mean, he's new to the companies so we're still figuring out a good rhythm there, but they seem to be fantastic and just solving really

7:37 interesting problems - Yeah, no, that's gonna be very interesting because the SEC is making everyone disclose emissions and the like, and I've said this numerous times so people are sick of me

7:52 saying this, but I think it's actually gonna be really good for the oil and gas business 'cause it's burning our product. That's the problem. It's the Amazon vans. It's actually not us. I mean,

8:03 in terms of producing oil and gas type stuff, we're not at zero emissions but we've done a really good job of cleaning that up. So I think we're gonna look good by comparison - Yeah, I mean,

8:15 you're talking the difference between Scope 1 and Scope 3, it sounds like - Right, yeah - Yeah, and I don't know how you even begin to measure that stuff on the Scope 3 side, but I love to - And I

8:25 think it's gonna be eye rolls at Scope 3. I mean, everybody at Scope 3 is gonna be whatever, and people are gonna look at Scope 1, and we're gonna look good by comparison - My heart breaks for the

8:36 Scope 2 side. I don't know if you want a bunny trail here this soon in the interview, but I mean, 'cause I - The bunny trail away - Oh man, so my clients are the contractors, my clients are the

8:45 vendors who work for these oil and gas operators. I'm here to help small businesses navigate the world of compliance, which includes some environmental stuff, it also includes insurance and

8:54 training, anything under the sun that you can imagine, it just kind of gets grouped in that compliance umbrella. And what we're seeing more and more of is that my guys are being asked to, more

9:06 often than not, just simply fill out 200 page questionnaires about their emissions, which they're not measuring. 'cause they're like a two-person company or three-person company. And these are

9:16 getting reported back up to the operators for what, for just bad data collection? I don't really understand. So I'm starting to see it get in my guy's way. I won't say it's been a problem, but

9:28 it's been an annoyance and I'm a little worried that pretty soon, it's gonna be something that they have to really, really, work hard and spend money to measure - So give me an example of maybe a

9:41 client Are you talking owner operator has three drilling rigs? That type person, give me an example of a client that would be falling under this potentially burdensome regulation - Yeah, so an

9:56 example I use a lot are welders. Welders are doing pipeline or someone who does insulation for tanks on site. There may be a five-person company, maybe it's just one person and every bit of

10:09 paperwork that you add.

10:12 to a one person company is a burden because this guy grew up on a farm or he grew up on the rigs. He didn't get an in this business for paperwork. And so he literally doesn't, I mean, he said that

10:21 he's dumb. He just hasn't spent his time getting interested in this stuff. And so he doesn't even know what he's looking at when he's asked questions about his emissions and how are you, sir,

10:31 whatever, and how much does a welder actually even admit? I wouldn't know where to begin even looking at that. Actually, I have kind of a dream that my husband could could start a company up in

10:43 the block and that would help folks in that demographic get to the measuring when it's time. We know when someone's holding a gun to their head and saying, Where else? But in the interim, I don't

10:53 know. There's just so many question marks. Yeah. That's interesting. I hadn't thought about it because when you said welder, I'm sitting there going, Okay, so they've got the gun going and I'm

11:03 sure it emits something driving to a driving job. That is kind of. I think so, yeah. I mean, you're supposed to track miles driven. I mean, we track miles driven often for incident rates, but

11:17 it starts to matter more when you're actually trying to measure emissions rather than simply average it against how many crashes you got on the road.

11:27 Yeah, I don't know, it's tough. And what people don't realize is that oil and gas is built on the backs of these very small companies. I mean, tens of thousands of these small service providers

11:39 are making the industry run. It's not Exxon, it's not BP, it's not Shell, it's not even Kraken. It's Bob's welding, it's Kenny's insulation, it's almost compliance company, you know what I

11:51 mean? Yeah,

11:54 and does that wind up ultimately being outsourced somehow or at this point, I guess they're just having to figure it out? Yeah, they're having to figure it out. They outsourced it to me at the

12:04 moment, but in terms of actual measurement, there's nobody in the box I think that's helping those. companies of that skill measure their emissions. Interesting. Yeah, no, there's always, it's

12:17 always funny whenever somebody talks about, oh, you know, big business hates government, big business. A lot of jobs and government. Right, 'cause they put these rules in place and big business

12:28 can absorb these costs and handle it. And all it does is put the small competitors out of business. Yeah, and in this case, small vendors who ultimately will have to raise their prices and it'll

12:40 make the operators raise their prices too. So I don't exactly know where this is going. We're just kind of kicking the can down to the next guy. And, you know, we sit there and we build up this

12:50 cost structure and make our oil uncompetitive versus foreign sources. They don't take as good a care as we do in terms of watching out for the environment, et cetera. And I always say, and pardon

13:03 my French, it's there's not a peeing and non-pying part of the pool, right? How may you either pollute? environment by burning a barrel or you don't. And

13:15 so, yeah, that's unfortunate. So give me, how does music play into this? Well, continuing to work from home, as was always the plan, I had still ample free time and now a little more financing

13:33 to continue to put out the same kinds of projects that I was doing back in college and shortly thereafter. But as I fell more and more in love with the Bakken, my focus, and

13:44 I was already writing a lot of songs about place. I've always been fascinated by the idea of place. My favorite place was the Bakken. So what am I going to write about but the Bakken? And not in a

13:53 corny, cheesy, like, oh, down-home, oil patchman song kind of way, but something that's poetic and moving and sincere. And so I wrote this This one song in particular called 5, 000 Candles And

14:08 really some music video for that last year that featured a lot of those small vendors that we were just talking about. And people responded super well to it. I thought this song was kind of a, I

14:19 don't know, not that I thought that it was corny, but it was more of an experiment in rhyme than anything. I didn't think people would latch onto it, much less people outside of the Bakken. But

14:28 it's consistently tagged as people's favorite songs of mine when I met shows they requested, whether it's in Willis, North Dakota, or Madison, Wisconsin So I remember, because I think Michael

14:40 Patrick Smith sent me that song. Maybe that's how we met or maybe you sent it to me. I couldn't remember. But so who do you sound like if we've got comparables? It is the only cook music style

14:52 experience similar to. I've I've propped myself for a lot of interview questions over the years. And for some reason, I always slack on this one. Five thousand gingles in particular. It's hard to

15:03 match. So I would put it as like a folk Americana. I'm struggling with my heart - Singer's songwriter. My happy place is more RB and Neo-Soul, pop soul. And some of my stuff is much more in that

15:17 vein, but 5, 000 candles is kind of just like this middle of the road pop, like adult contemporary. I'm really grasping at straws, trying to find a name to match, but - I got just a jewel and

15:29 berry white, had a baby. And that's 5, 000 candles - Yeah, maybe with that, with a little bit of, oh, it's not, it's not folk, it's not blue grat. Like I

15:39 don't, I don't quite know, but people will have to listen to it for themselves. It's not that it's so profound that I can't label it. I'm just bad at like putting my heads - See, the record deal,

15:51 you gotta have the pitch, right? You're always combining somebody popular with somebody from the past, and you're saying they had a baby. That's the key to your pitches - Sure, yeah, if I cared

16:01 about pitches, but I mean, this is the era of the independent musician And I have - the ability to fund a career that most independent musicians can because of of oil and gas. Not that I'm rolling

16:12 in cash or anything, but compared to copy editor salary or a barista salary, like I've been really lessened that one. I'm super grateful. So no record label for me. I'm going to keep doing the

16:22 independent thing. I love it. Work slow at my own pace. Nice. Now my oldest kid out of my daughter, Charlie, is big-time musician and has always been. I mean,

16:36 when she was 10 years old, I started taking her to a music producer. And so I'll just sing because you've done Americana singersongwriter, so you probably play the acoustic guitar. I play an

16:48 acoustic tenor guitar because I've met Cheater. Oh nice. Only four strings on six. She couldn't play an instrument to save her life. She programs it all into the computer, right? So left her own

16:59 devices. She's probably EDM sounding out there. She's put together a group that kind of has a more what I'll call pop type vibe to it, but at the end of the day, I've got a musician - Oh, that's

17:15 a great time. How old is she - So she's 20 - Okay - And this is a great story. So she after sophomore year in high school says, Screw it, I'm done with high school. Drops out and goes to college.

17:29 So drops out two years early Goes to college, gets a music and a political science degree from Bard College and decides, Dad, I'm going to New York and I'm gonna be a DJ. I'm like, Dad wants to

17:44 go to New York and be a DJ. That sounds out damn it. So anyway, she goes, she throws a couple of shows and one night she is in line for somebody, the national 1975, one of those bands, they

17:60 were having an after party, management comes out says, hey, you're not getting in tonight.

18:06 It's only VIPs were packed, y'all go home. Charlie finds this vest that has the fluorescence on it, you know, kind of like a security guard would wear. And she puts it on and just walks into the

18:17 party and just kind of acts like she, acts like she, she belongs there, right? At one point works the door for two hours - Oh my gosh, you're so weird - It's just sitting there - Yeah - Can I see

18:27 your ID? You're not on the list, I'm sorry - You're kidding me, the power of the uniform, right - She does this, so it's four o'clock in the morning and it's like the base player, the band, the

18:36 manager. There's somebody that writes a sub stack on Manhattan Nightlife and, you know, five or six other and they're all sitting around and Charlie just fasts us up. Yeah, I shouldn't have been

18:45 in here. I just stole this jacket, I put it on. And the person that wrote the sub stack column was like, oh my God, that's great. And wrote an article about DJ Doorgirl - Oh my goodness - And

18:58 she's become a bit of a minor celebrity now - I love it She has not asked for money in 8 months. No, not from you. Not from me. Maybe the ex wife is sending her money, but I don't think so. I'm

19:10 usually the go to. No, don't tell me she has a better name than DJ Dorman or Doregirl. Doregirl. DJ. Doregirl. She said, hey, that's what come out in the substacks. Oh my gosh. She just -

19:20 She goes by DJ Doregirl. DJ Doregirl. I mean, hey. Yeah, I love it. I love it. So is she doing that full time? She is. Wow. What a gift. What a time to be alive, huh? I know And what's so

19:34 funny is I have the total old man sleep pattern now where I'll get a bed at pick a time, 10 o'clock. I know I wake up in three in the morning at F to P, right? Two or three in the morning. I have

19:45 to - I'm seven months pregnant. I feel you on that one. There we go. She has the 54-year-old male, the pregnant woman. We have the same P schedule. So anyway, I get up and I always pick up

19:56 Instagram. And she's always live on Instagram. I'm going, man, that looks like a lot of fun. I would want to go do it Love Eddie Bendo one of her parties. I've seen a couple of her shows, but I

20:07 have not been to New York yet to see one. We've just kind of we they've just never lined up correctly. So anyway, but I want to do that this summer. Oh, yeah, you've got to. What a blast. So

20:20 tell me shows you go out and play shows.

20:25 What's that look like? Play a small to medium amount of shows. What's really funny, Chuck, is that the live music economy is much friendlier in North Dakota than it is in LA. And that's I don't

20:36 know exactly what to talk that up to. I mean, LA has a lot of musicians, singers, suppliers, a man, exactly. And I think there's just not a lot of people that are interested in attending stuff

20:46 and not to mention all their friends are throwing shows all the time. And so they're going out for other purposes. But yeah, in Willis, then it's easy to be we call it packing a small box in the

20:59 music industry. It's easy to be a big fish in a small pond And That has worked to my just delight, I think. I play a handful of festivals up there. There's this big Norwegian cultural festival and

21:13 I'm very Norwegian no matter the brunette. I rouse would say. And that was a four day festival I was able to play last fall. I play a lot of restaurants, just different things around town. It's

21:26 not like playing a huge set at one of the legendary LA venues But my friends are there, people I love are there and the money's decent. I'm not to keep coming back to money, but again, supply and

21:38 demand is gonna skew you away from the pay to play model and more toward guarantees. So I love playing shows in North Dakota. I play show is another places too, but it just, you know, I do things

21:48 on my own pace, man. So whatever comes up - That's so cool. It was how I wish I could remember her name because I'm sure you potentially know her she's from Montana and. Oh gosh, anyway, well,

22:05 this was crazy. Small town in Montana, literally up on

22:12 the Canadian border, Guy builds an amphitheater there. And for whatever reason, he's in love with the singer, Jule. And he's decided Jule needs to play the opening of this amphitheater. And so I

22:24 get the phone call from my dear friend, Jule, who's like, we're going to Montana. And I was like, really? So fly into buildings, I think And then we helicopter up - Yeah - And so a couple of

22:38 crazy things on that trip, one is we're helicoptering up, helicopter pilots are like, hey, do y'all have 10 minutes? You want to see this? And we're like, sure. So it kind of banks right. And

22:49 this guy's built an 18-hole golf course where in the middle of the 15th fairway, he has an exact replica of Stonehenge - Oh my goodness, it's your kid. or any guess, I don't know what this is.

23:04 It's Stonehenge and it looks exactly like it. So anyway, we do that. But we wind up, we wind up flying and Jewel opens the amphitheater that night. The opening act was so cool and I'm blanking on

23:18 her name. It would have been much better story had I had her name 'cause you probably know the performer. I think her dad was a famous performer - She's from North Dakota, sure - She's in Montana -

23:29 She's in Montana - Yeah - The

23:32 rest of them, North, they all run together for me and I get that that's hundreds of miles of art - I'm gonna have to check out that amphitheater. Do you know the name of the - Gosh, I am totally

23:40 blanking, but I will think - I'm ashamed that I don't know it - Well, and I was on the Canadian cell phone network when I was up there. That's how close you are to the border. But, catch what was

23:53 her name. Anyway, next time you talk, I'll spend two seconds on my cell phone and see if I can find her name. I guess where I was going with this is there is a culture of outdoor music there. I

24:05 love that you said outdoor music too. Yeah. I really, what I want to do next is really foster the caliber of the talent locally because while there's a lot of interest in music per the demand that

24:18 is higher than the supply. There isn't a lot of, there aren't a lot of resources available for someone who wants to become like a world-class drummer or world-class bassist In fact, I just started

24:28 learning bass myself because there just aren't any bassists in town. And so I've been, I put together a music workshop last fall and I hope to make it annual where I flew up my team from LA and just

24:41 had them sit with like the bar musicians of Williston and the church musicians in Williston and the high schoolers who are up and coming just to see what would happen because

24:51 you can have all the talent in the world but if there's There's no one to foster it or guide you in it. going to be worth. So that's been my latest focus is just trying to hone. We've got up there,

25:01 even if just to build my own band, you know? Well, and I will say this about a LA. as much as I despise the city of the city of LA.

25:12 When you're down there, bands try so much harder than they do anywhere else. There's no tuning your instrument between songs. There's no downtime. I mean, bands get after it. And I think it's

25:27 because they have to, right? Because they know any given audience. There's a record company executive there. There's a tour promoter, whatever. So they always have their A game. So I will give

25:38 Los Angeles props for doing that. Well, talent begets talent, you know? So the more talent I can get up in Williston, the more talent I expect to find there. And maybe even build a little

25:49 facility sometime for like production work or something. We just don't have anything. currently. And so there's nowhere to go but up. Yeah. Now does Wilson still kind of have boom and bust cycle

26:02 vibes to it or because of the prominence of the Bakken over the last 10 years, maybe there's or 15, 20 years, there's been more stability there. But you're probably too young to even get this.

26:17 But I mean, all of the oil towns, all the extraction towns usually have these big build up phases and then oil crashes. Then they go away and I don't know if I don't know what it's like up in the

26:31 Bakken because when Michael Patrick Smith went up there, I want to say it was 2012. Definitely boom time. Yeah. I mean, he was living in a minute. Somebody's bottom shelf right on something like

26:44 that. Yeah, he's done living in his truck. There's a bit of it You know, I mean that. Williams County, where Williston is based, was the second fastest-growing county in America from 2010 to

26:56 2020. The first fastest-growing was Mackenzie County, which is just to our south. So there's been a huge influx of people, and it's no longer just men. I mean, when Michael was there, the ratio

27:05 of men to women was like nine to one kind of thing. Very hungry, very hungry town.

27:12 And, but, you know, people bring their wives, they bring their girlfriends up, and then they start having babies, and that alone, I mean, as much of a strain as it is on the school system, is

27:22 like an anger for community stability, 'cause you don't wanna uproot the place where your kids grew up. And so as soon as you start having babies somewhere, I mean, you're probably there to stay.

27:33 So I, when there is a downturn, like 2020, for example, when we were negative 40,

27:40 dollars,

27:43 you could just sense the, like, despondents around town. But people weren't moving away so much as they were just kind of loafing around, wishing they'd saved more of their salary from the last

27:57 three years. It was great. I was in Midland when I was young in my career. So I was maybe 25 years old. Oh, Midland. What year was that? That's a few. Yeah, that's fine. I'm old. That was

28:10 probably 30 years ago. So call it mid-90s I'm sitting there at the Midland Petroleum Club. All these old guys are on the table. And each one of them is talking about their various companies. And

28:27 it was like water off a duck's back. They were like, Oh, that was about the time I lost my third company. I lost my fourth company. That's the ex-wife, got the fifth company. I mean, they just

28:36 didn't care. And in a little naive, he said, Why don't you save some money in the good times? so that then in the bad times you can make it through. One guy put his arm around me and he said, oh

28:50 hell son, it's a lot more fun to spend it -

28:54 And 100 oh, I'm so frustrated by that mentality up there. It just drives me nuts. I mean, I understand it when you put 150, 000 a year in the hands of like a 21 year old. You're like what do you

29:06 expect? But when you're 30, when you're 40, when you start to have these people depending on you and you're still buying a new Jeep 'cause we're in a boom cycle, like I don't know, it's just very

29:17 not shrewd. And it reminded me a little bit even of your episode the other day about the alcoholism 'cause I mean that indulgence, that like the party culture, that let's get drunk, let's get high.

29:29 I feel like it goes hand in hand with that money, that the boom bust cycle - I had JJ and I'm gonna miss but pronounce his last name, Arseome, Sungmi, who talked about

29:44 the boom and bust the town of Rock Springs, Wyoming, and he'd written a book on it. It was kind of an oral history, and he came on the podcast and talked about it, and that's the thing he kind of

29:56 came back to over and over again, the booze, the drugs, and all that. It's like, well, yeah, you got a lot of money. You got the first time in your life, a lot of money in your hands. What

30:04 are you gonna do with it? So, okay, I found the name of the artist, Halliday Quist - Oh, I do know that, what a good name - Halliday Quist, yeah. No, but she's a Montana singer - Halliday

30:16 Quist. I'm gonna look her up - I have to look her up - Yeah, I could stand to make a few more friends across the border - There we go. There we go. I'll introduce you if you'd like - No degrees -

30:25 I had to talk during a while, but no, she was really cool, and she was good. I mean, kind of traditional Americana singer, songwriter type stuff, and so - Yeah, I love to see it. It's pretty

30:38 neat All right, so you brought up, you sent me an email, which of course I didn't read. I hate reading notes. Sorry about that. You were very kind to put that together. But you were talking

30:48 about the episode I did with Kelly Mitchell, and you said, this is an example of something. What was that - Yeah, so I, first of all, I was delighted by that episode - Kelly's cool - Yeah,

31:00 she's super cool. And as someone who's in the missions and works unquote, but like someone who quote a climate guy per se, quite married to, not

31:10 is kind of more on the other side of the equation to render a relationship carbon neutral. I appreciated your willingness to chat with her and just the friendliness and the vibe is super super cool

31:21 'cause I love that cross the aisle, cross partisan

31:26 community. So yeah, toward the end of that episode, excuse me, you had mentioned like, hey, Kelly, let's, we should get like your people and my people together in a room sometime. And let's

31:39 pick an issue, like an easy issue, small issue and find all the points of common ground and see where we can agree and like come up with a policy. Let's go find a river. Let's go find a river to

31:50 fix. So it's something. Exactly. Because we're all conservationists. I mean, the oil and gas guys are hunting on the leaves every other weekend. So you know what I mean? They care about the

31:55 earth. And I said to myself, oh my gosh, Chuck just described the Braver Angels Common Ground Workshop format. And now Braver Angels is the nation's largest cross-partisan organization that's

32:08 working to build bridges across the divide When they do this, they're all sorts of workshops, some of which are one-on-one. If you are super progressive and I'm over here as super libertarian, we

32:20 get to know each other first as people, establish that bedrock, and then discuss some of our differences in belief from there and try to better understand one another. Some of the workshops are

32:29 more like that common ground thing that you yourself described, where you get different people in a room to actually like, you know, write something underline the points of agreement and then

32:40 distill it at the end so you can see just how much you actually do agree. And for individuals also as a music team, which is where I come in, I lead our music programming, you know, we try to

32:51 integrate music into all of these existing workshops and debates and so forth that the organization has. We also do outreach just culturally because who's more powerful in culture than the

33:00 entertainers. So if you can get the entertainers on board for this bridge building cause, you're in a much better position to speak to young people in particular. So my solution to solve everything.

33:13 Oh, it's of course it wouldn't. Who needs a job when he can solve everything? Yeah, when

33:23 I can solve everything, at least in my own mind. But no, I've always thought that, and I'm a libertarian, so I don't believe in having a lot of laws, but I would be right there with everybody.

33:29 Be willing to have this as a law People running against each other in politics should have to get their families and go eat. dinner together once every two weeks, let's say, no cameras, no press.

33:43 Oh my gosh. You know, grab your husband, I grab my wife if we're running against each other, we have to go eat dinner, an hour. And like, nobody's around, no cameras, no nothing, you should

33:56 have to do that. I'm gonna pitch that to braver angels, not as a law per se, but as some kind of initiative, 'cause we can sometimes, I mean, we've been working on what's called the Braver

34:08 Politics Initiative, actually getting some of these methods and really almost like marriage counseling tactics to be used on the hill. And I feel like that would be so up their alley. They might

34:20 want to problemise it with a little bit of press, but I like the appeal of no press. I really like reminds me of that - And a Chatham House rules, whatever is said at dinner, stays at dinner, but

34:31 you at least have to interact - 'Cause I mean - It's a little fits - Yeah, put a face to the name, I mean, it's really easy on social media and through the press to talk bad about someone. If

34:42 you're gonna have to go see their children in nine days, maybe you bite your tongue - Only 100. I love that idea, Chuck, that's great - There we go, okay, I'm done - You're done - I know, if

34:53 our work is done. No, but so

35:02 is there a website or something for the organization - Yeah, so braveryindlesorg, well, the menu is very robust on that website, but you can find write-ups on all the different workshops I just

35:08 described and more. There's also, for any musicians out there, we have a songwriting contest that's taking submissions right now, I think between now and the end of May, I should know this as

35:18 like, captain of the music team. But yeah, that song contest is seeking musicians who are

35:26 doing the other songs that are either an example of bridge building, like a

35:32 song that maybe holds an opinion really strongly but. still is humanizing the other point of view and not just do writing them and kind of straw-manning them or, um, or, uh, oh my gosh, I'm

35:46 totally losing my footing here. An example of Rich Building or a song about unity, shall we say. So I did, we tracked often songs that are kind of kumbaya, but that's not, that's not totally

35:57 what Bravar Angels is. There's nothing mushy about Rich Building Unity is strong, it's complex, it's, it's multi-cultural and, and there's room for everyone to be very much themselves, even if

36:11 they hold really, really strong opinions. So we, we don't want to shy away from just, um, you know, people holding very, very partisan beliefs in their songs or other art that they're making.

36:21 So does that make sense? Yeah, no. You know what the fascinating thing is, is the Beatles wrote the song, Revolution, right? And you've heard Revolution. And it was actually the theme song.

36:36 with the Young Republicans College Club, as well as the theme song for the Young Democrats College Club - You are cute, I didn't know that - Back in the

36:44 60s, yeah, they had both groups adopted it as

36:49 the Beatles are the best, right - I love that, oh my goodness - Yeah, it was something in the song - Absolutely, I mean, I've had, there's this one song that I have called, I think it take 21,

37:01 I think it was, that was optioned for like a showtime mini series about the Trump administration, and obviously it's not like friendly to Trump. And I was so amused by that because like, that song

37:13 is not about hating on Republicans. Like I'm very libertarian through and through, but that song in particular is really just about like humanizing the other side. And here they think it's about

37:24 their team. And I was so delighted by that. I'm like, yeah, I use my song on your liberal show. Like that's great, I think that's kick ass - Oh, that's funny while that's where the dual gets.

37:33 paid a fortune to saying you were meant for me at weddings. It's a breakup song. Right, I mean, the lady is saying, one day you will see you were meant for me and I was meant for you. No, she

37:45 didn't. Got a

37:49 lamentingblasting post-breakup about this. That's like, not Jeff, Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. Two, people bring that up as this kind of romantic or sweet song, and I'm like, that's a dark one

38:02 That's a real dark one. What you will. So my pre-spatric, the five o'clock service I go to, we in effect have what I'll call a jasmine. So we have singer, piano player, standup bass, guitar,

38:18 sit down percussion, sometimes keyboard player, sometimes a violin player. So

38:27 we'll actually do non-traditional hymns during church So they closed church. last Sunday with Let It Be by the Beatles, but no periodically do, hallelujah - No, no, no - And I'll sit there and I

38:40 go, I know that's the word - That's

38:44 the word - I'm gonna strike us down with lightning here - That's so funny. In an Episcopal church, huh - And the Episcopalians are crazy - Yeah, I thought it's like Catholic light - I know. You

38:55 know what the major flux is by the Episcopalians, which I find just remarkable is, right, they're the Anglican church. Henry VIII started, was it Henry VIII? This started the church 'cause he

39:07 kept aheading wives and the Pope wouldn't give him a divorce. So he starts the church of England.

39:14 The Episcopalians, Anglicans,

39:19 church of England, they claim lineage all the way back to Peter and being the first pope. I mean, not, hey, we started this new church our guys beheading people. They literally just claim it all

39:32 the way back and they say the Catholics for the fall. I'm not a defender of the Catholics and all, but that is a pretty strong. That's super great. There's actually, I mean, not to get too much

39:41 on the religion front, but there are some mag Anglican parishes that I think are getting reinstated as formal Catholic parishes because they maintained what you just described, which is called

39:52 apostolic succession, where, you know, everyone laid hands on the next priest and the next priest laid hands on the next priest going all the way back to Peter. It's something they value a lot,

40:01 so, yeah, God be with them. I

40:05 also think it's the great flux by Jesus that he would just rename people.

40:11 Yeah, no kidding. My name's Simon. You're Peter. I'm not really a viewer. You're Peter. It's like, wow, Keto's you, Jesus. There you go. Some of God, I guess she can do that. I mean,

40:22 yeah, let there be light. His words matter. His words make moves, I guess All right, so people, okay, give us the punch line. on how you help on compliance. So if you wanted somebody out in

40:37 the audience to call you, what does that someone look like - Okay, well, first of all, don't call me 'cause I'm about to have a baby. I'm not really accepting new clients right now actually

40:48 'cause I really value my current clientele and I wanna make sure that they're well taken care of. And if I add a bunch of new clients before I leave for a few weeks or a few months, then just not

40:58 very smart But bookmarkedmealiteradecookcomplianceco. I

41:04 basically just eliminate, I'm

41:08 a bullshit eliminator in the compliance world. So I handle some of the administrative tasks that you're asked to manage, whether it's a drug testing audit or

41:21 keeping track of the certificates of insurance or building a safety training calendar for what you should be covering every month, kind of thing.

41:30 someone I do is educational. It's me explaining to you why you're being asked to do a certain thing and how you can strategize, given who you want to work for in the next five years, to better get

41:41 ahead of what I know those particular operators you're going to ask of you. And then finally, there's a negotiated kind of lawyerly component where, you know, operator X might say, I want you to

41:54 have a 10 million umbrella policy in your insurance

42:01 book. And I say, oh, I'm, you know, I'm a, I'm a, again, that two person company, that three person company, that doesn't really make sense for us. Can we talk about lowering that? And so

42:12 I'll stand in the gap there and mediate and say, okay, this is why this stuff shouldn't apply to us. Let's work toward an exemption. So I wear a lot of different hats. And my team helps me handle

42:22 all of that stuff that I just described. I'm really, really grateful for them. But yeah, I mean, it's a vague industry. So it's hard to if you're in it, like if you're a small contractor, you

42:31 know the stuff I'm talking about, you know, the ISNet world, the PEC, the like the Veriforce, the NCMass, the TP, like it's alphabet soup. It doesn't make much sense to people outside of it.

42:41 But if you're in it, you know how annoying it is. And so everything I just said would make a little more sense. It seemed to be one of those things that when my career, when this stuff got brought

42:49 up to me, it was bad, right? Something mad had happened on a day to day basis. I didn't know any of that existed It was only when something bad happened. So how do people find music? Yeah, I

43:02 recommend this. I got to get a lot better at this. I think that you just search me on whatever platform you listen to music on, whether that's YouTube, whether that's Spotify, Apple Music, Alma

43:12 Cook is the name that's A-L-M-A-C-O-O-K. I've got a website that's here, almacom-H-E-A-R, like here with your ears. Almacom. I'm also on Twitter at here, Alma. Let's be honest, I, again, I

43:28 do things at my own pace, which often means I'm not really present on the internet too much. I'm doing my thing, but certainly on those streaming services, wherever you enjoy listening, you could

43:37 find me by looking at my name. Okay. So to close this podcast, we're going to put the video and the song to kind of close it. Which one you want? Oh, 5, 000 candles. I'm using candles. Okay

43:53 Yeah, featuring Williston, North Dakota and the faces of the hard work in America and still live there. There. So you want to do it? You want me to do it because we're going to slap it right on

44:02 the end here. You want to intro it? You want me to intro it? Yeah, you I want to hear you do it. Oh, I'm done. I'm reaching for my best Wolfman Jack impersonation or I guess maybe Howard Stern

44:15 impersonation. Oh, be my guest. No. So here we go. 5, 000 candles on the cook. Please enjoy.

45:36 Said to be a hoe Nothing you could do would make me

45:41 Give me a heart then

46:37 It's sad to know.

46:47 Given their higher than that.