Rob Hess

CONTENT WARNING: Trauma, Suicide.
Intro: Do you know who your allies are? Boz is torqued. How big is the pie anyway?
Let Me Run This By You: Vulnerability on Clubhouse
Interview:  We talk to Rob Hess about making ice cream in Michigan, suffering a huge trauma in high school, getting cut in his second year, feeling safe with Phyllis Griffin, when Carey Peters saved Rob's life, living alone in a rural Michigan cabin, writing screenplays, making films, finding human connectivity through ice cream, finding healing through the podcast, being told he was the next John Malkovich, Don Ilko, Wallace Shawn, thought experiments.

FULL TRANSCRIPT
Speaker 1: (00:08)
sworth from me this and I'm Gina Polizzi. We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it. 20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all. We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet? So I just

Speaker 2: (00:34)
Obsessed with this idea of like, who you think are going to be allies aren't allies and who you've made our allies, our allies. I am. So it is my own making in my head that certain people should be loyal and other people shouldn't be loyal. Right. So, but that's not how the world works. I'm realizing because I think someone should be my ally. Does it mean they give two about me or, or just because I think someone is snarky and maybe they hate me. Doesn't mean they're not going to be an ally. So, okay. So at this point in the conversation, boss tells a story that we really can't air on the podcast, unfortunately, but we had a conversation afterward that we thought was worthwhile to share. So you're just going to have to know that things are going to be a bit out of context. And I'm sorry for that, but I hope you enjoy the conversation that follows in any case.

Speaker 2: (01:36)
Okay. Okay. So what, one of the pervasive myths and I also suffer from the delusion of this myth. It's so it must just be hardwired. Okay. Is the pie is very small. There's very few pieces. Keep everybody out of your pie. Okay. Which yeah, if you just think about it, like completely in a base way. Yeah. There's only so many berries. There's only so much elk. I get it, but we're not foraging for berries and we're not hunting elk. We're talking about a multi-billion dollar business that has tons and tons and tons of opportunities in which is always looking for the next best thing. And a rising tide lifts all boats. And if you extend yourself to people who are lower than you on the food chain, it only helps you. It never hurts you. I agree. A hundred percent. And then on the base level, especially as former therapists, the is so transparent and we will keep all of this in the is so transparent that it's like, I, you are not, I want to always say to people and except it sounds like I'm being a huge narcissist, but it's like, I want to say to people, you are talking to someone who studied human brain and emotions for years and worked with some of the biggest sort of sociopath and gang members like weird.

Speaker 3: (03:00)
I know what's happening here. Let's cut the. Just say to me, I don't feel ready to share my resources. Now look, will that hurt my feelings? Absolutely. But will it make me insane? No. Right, right. Yeah. Just don't share resources. Just say, I'm not going to share my research. Don't say let's zoom.

Speaker 2: (03:21)
Hmm. Yeah. Well, okay. So then the next thing that occurs to me is like this whole thing about California versus, okay. So we left California for a variety of reasons, but one of the reasons that it's really sticks with me is we were so tired of this fakery around kumbaya, this fake kumbaya stuff. It was always like the, it was always the people who told you that they were pacifists that were like gonna definitely Shiv you.

Speaker 2: (03:57)
And it was always the people who preach, you know, inclusivity and whatever who were so judgmental. And it was just so disavowed where in other places, and it's not like, I believe in the whole thing of people tell you, like it is in New York and people don't tell you, it's not really binary like that. It's just that you do encounter people who are more willing to say, like giving the example of Bella. It can telling Eric later, I just didn't want you in my play. Like I could tell you something else I could tell you. Oh, it was really tough to make the decision. I could tell you, you know, you were really great, but somebody else, but that's the truth of it is, and you came to me for the truth. So I'm going to tell you the truth. I did not want you in my play. And I think it would be hard to say I'm not ready to share my resources, but it wouldn't be hard to say. I wish I had time to talk to you, but I don't.

Speaker 3: (04:51)
Oh,

Speaker 2: (04:53)
I, and I guess it's not entirely true that the pie is infinite. I guess that's not a good way to say it, but, uh, what is true is that if you, okay, so maybe there's only five spots for writers that are in her demographic, whatever that is. And so maybe she doesn't, she doesn't want you to get her spot. Okay. Right. But there's more than five spots for something else about you. There's, you know what I'm saying? Like what if she even said she, yeah. What if she had even said to you, well, I don't know if you're willing to do this, but there's a lot of, you know, writing assistant positions open right now in, uh, you know, San Diego someplace that you don't want to, you know, but like, Hey, if I heard about this one opportunity, it just would take so little. Right. It would just take so little.

Speaker 3: (05:49)
And I think the thing that, that hurt that is frustrating the most is it's transparent. But I think that I don't, I think that that comes from having a very unique set of circumstances, like being an emotionally neglected child and then being, um, someone who's co-dependent and then being a therapist, I'm like, dud...