1045 – Moth Breath Based Belief | Spice Friends Ep 2

Episode 1045 – Moth Breath Based Belief | Spice Friends Ep 2

 

[START OF RECORDING]

 

SCOOTER:    Friends beyond the binary, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and my patron peeps, bed, it’s time to get into a…right?  I know you’re hearing this way after when I record these, but bed; get into it, huh?  Lulls.  Scooter’s gonna be here to comfort you while you get into it, huh?  Thanks, patrons.  It’s time for Sleep With Me, the podcast that puts you to sleep.

 

INTRO:    [INTRO MUSIC] Hey, are you up all night tossing, turning, mind racing?  Trouble getting to sleep?  Trouble staying asleep?  Well, welcome.  This is Sleep With Me, the podcast that puts you to sleep.  We do it with a bedtime story.  Alls you need to do is get in bed, turn out the lights, and press play.  I’m gonna do the rest.  What I’m going to attempt to do is create a safe place where you could set aside whatever’s keeping you awake.  It could be thoughts, things on your mind that you’re thinking about, past, present, future.  It could be physical sensations that you’re feeling or something coming up emotionally.  It could be changes in your time, your temperature, your routine.  Things, you know.  Things; they happen.  Everybody says it should be easy, and it’s not.  It’s not always easy.

 

Even if it’s easy, you could say that you’re having trouble getting to sleep, let’s just…or you’re saying hey, I’m looking for some comfort.  I mean, it’s not even easy for me to talk, as you could see sometimes.  So, whatever it is that’s keeping you awake, I’m here to keep you company and take your mind off of it as you drift off.  The way I propose to do that, to help you fall asleep, to send you to sleep, to keep you company, is I have a safe place here or there set aside.  I’m smoothing it, I’m patting it, I’m rubbing it down, I’m stepping away, I’m using relaxing body language.  Really, even now; opening my hands and saying, there’s a safe place for you go to check out.  Then I’m giving you the space to check it out at your leisure, or to send it over.

 

This is one of those safe places…I want you to imagine that you have…this is a little bit dreamy, but whether you’re ready to participate physically or mentally or just passively, this new version of the safe place that I just invented right now, it’s a slideable, transferable safe place.  I’m picturing in my head one of those hooks that people use, usually when someone’s performing on stage and they say hey, come offstage; it’s not working out.  But this one, it’s made from a little bit more…a gelatinous…sticky but not sticky, like one of those things that you used to get.  It was like a frog’s tongue.  It was, I don’t know, stretchy, and you could use it to pick up paper.  But this one’s not…it’s virtual, though it could be real.

 

You could use it to bring the safe place to you, so you could flick or you could pull or you could just mentally watch the safe place come to you, wherever you want it.  It could be moved later.  Those furniture slidey things; you say don’t worry, we could slide it right over here if you want.  It could go upstairs; it virtually moves through the walls and stuff.  Then what I’ll do…or part of that process is I send my voice across the deep, dark night.  I use lulling, soothing, creaky, dulcet tones, pointless meanders, superfluous tangents.  So, I go off-topic, I get mixed up, then I kinda use extra words unintentionally, sometimes intentionally, double back, all that stuff to take your mind off of stuff and keep you company.

 

Now, if you’re new or you’re somewhat newish to the podcast or you’re looking at it through new eyes or new ears, or even if you’ve listened to a thousand episodes, hey, I got a couple things I want to remind you about.  The most important thing is you.  You’re important and your sleep is important.  The fact of the matter is, you deserve a good night’s sleep.  You deserve a place you can rest and get comfortable and drift off.  That is the truth, and you deserve a bedtime routine and a bedtime you could at least feel neutral about, if not look forward to, because sometimes…a lot of times I have the other side of that, for me.  If I can counter that or lead you to something else that’ll help, that’s really important to me because one, the truth is, it’s important that you get that.

 

You deserve it, and if you get the rest you need, you have something to wind down with and take your mind off of stuff and keep you company, your life’s gonna be more manageable tomorrow, and that makes our world and your world a better place to live in, and if it improves even more and you can flourish, that benefits the entire planet.  It really does.  So, that’s one thing.  Oh, the other side is I know how it feels in the deep, dark night, so that’s another reason why it’s important to me.  Now, this podcast does not work for everybody.  It’s very different.  Alls I can ask is what thousands and thousands and thousands of people have told me; give this show a few tries.  It takes a couple tries to get used to because it is so different, and if you feel skeptical or frustrated or doubtful, see if you could still give it a few tries and say well, let me just see how this goes.

 

I’ll explain a little bit more about that, but that’s really…hundreds of thousands of listeners have said at first I disliked the podcast.  At first I was like, what is this?  Then after two or three tries I realized oh, I could lower my guard a little bit because this doesn’t even make any sense.  The show never gets started, never goes anywhere, and it’s always going somewhere; it’s always running.  It’s kind of a contradiction.  So, if you’re skeptical or doubtful or feeling strongly, yeah, that’s understandable.  Give the show a few tries, or if you’re already like yo, this ain’t for me, check out sleepwithmepodcast.com/nothankyou.  It has a list of other sleep podcasts and sleepy audio you could check out for free.  All that stuff’s for free, too.  So, there’s that.  So, you’re important, your sleep’s important.

 

Oh, this podcast doesn’t work for everybody.  A couple things you probably want to know if you’re new or be reminded of if you’re a regular listener is the stuff that throws people off.  So, one, this is a podcast you don’t really listen to, but you can listen to it, which is a little bit strange to hear.  But yeah, you could bare…it’s…that’s funny; that’s a double…this podcast is a little bit strange to hear anyway.  So, it’s a podcast…as you develop a relationship with it, and even as we go walk through this deep, dark night together if you’re a regular listener, yeah, sometimes you might want me walking at your side talking to you.  Sometimes you might want to lie down on the path and take a nap while I walk around.  Sometimes we might even be walking in closer company.

 

Then sometimes you say Scoots, I’m just gonna listen to you.  You walk…I don’t need you that…I just need to hear your voice.  Sometimes you might even…you…so, see how it goes.  Oh, but this is a podcast you don’t really listen to…need to listen to, but you could, and that kinda goes with like, I’ll be here to the very end whether you’re awake or asleep, because this podcast also does not put you to sleep.  It’s here to keep you company while you fall asleep.  I’m here more to be your companion in the deep, dark night, or as this walking together metaphor goes, to be…keep you company while you drift off, to be your bore-friend, your bore-bae, your bore-bud, your bore-sib, your bore-bestie, your bore-bruh, your bore-bor, your neigh-bore, to be your bore-friend.

 

So, that kinda means one, you don’t need to listen to me, and kinda…you just kinda eventually fall asleep or drift off.  You never know…you wake up the next day; you say, was I…did I fall asleep during that podcast?  Was it running all night?  Did I set a sleep timer?  Oh, let me try this tomorrow night.  So, those are two things that can be hard.  But if you can’t sleep or you need this show during the day, don’t worry; even though you don’t have to listen to me, you can, and I’ll be here.  I’m here; I’m working hard on this episode from the beginning to the end so that it feels free and easy and that so you don’t need to listen, but you could listen.  So, those are a couple things.

 

The other thing that can really throw new listeners off, even some long-term listeners, is the structure of the show, which kind of aligns with the goals of the podcast.  So, the show starts off with a greeting; friends beyond the binary, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, then I try to say something funny or witty.  Not always…well, not always successful.  Sometimes…occasionally successfully, and that’s so you feel seen, you feel greeted and welcomed in, and you say okay, this show is also a little bit silly and goofy, and maybe even at the first…you say okay, this sense…person’s sense of humor is…it’s humor-like.  They have a sense of…they have a sense of what humor is.  I don’t know if they have a sense of humor.

 

A sense of humor…or how about this one; sense of…my…have I come out with that as a fall collection yet?  Sense of Humor; my fall collection.  Not appearing at any department store we know of, but in my imagination.  So, there’s a greeting, then there’s support for the show and for listeners and the communities around the show.  The support for the show meets our goals…my goals, I guess; the podcast comes out twice a week for free, episodes are over an hour, and now, because of people that support the sponsors and stuff, we have over 350 free episodes in the feed versus 200 last year.  So, those are the goals around the show.  Support makes that possible.  Then there’s a intro, and sometimes people get the intro and the support mixed up, I guess understandably if you’re new.

 

So, the intro goes from, I don’t know, minute six or minute eight to minute twenty or so.  It’s like, ten to twenty minutes long.  It’s me explaining what the podcast is for new listeners, but taking twelve to twenty minutes to do so might seem at first glance or first listen or your fifth listen, kinda pointless or…I don’t know.  People that don’t like it really don’t like it.  But alls I can tell you is the intro serves one purpose, to tell new people about the show.  It serves another purpose as a friendly reminder to the regular listener; oh, this is how the structure of the show is, this is Scoots every single time he makes a new intro, because he knows even though he’s giving out the same basic information, he knows he’ll never successfully do it in the same way again.

 

But also that that variety is what’s important, because Scoots is here to keep me company every episode, not just one episode.  He’s not here to put me to sleep one time with a one-time fix.  This is about being your companion and friend in the deep, dark night.  I guess it’s like an LTR or something, a long-term sleepy relationship.  So, that’s one part of the intro.  But the more important part of the intro…and again, you could listen to the show in another way.  There’s listeners that…2% of listeners skip the intro.  Two or three thousand people listen to story-only episodes on Patreon.  I’m sure there’s a small percentage of listeners that fall asleep as soon as the podcast starts or during the intro.

 

But for most listeners…and this aligns with all the information I’ve got over the years about sleep, is that the intro is part of a wind-down routine, a wind-down process.  But let’s not view it like that.  It’s a special time.  Really, the wind-down routine for me, when it’s working well, is a magical time.  If you take fifteen to twenty minutes to wind down, or a half hour, listening to this podcast as you’re getting ready for bed and as you’re doing something else relaxing or just chilling out…recently I’ve been just lying on my floor next to Koa’s bed, my dog’s bed, and maybe listening to a meditation or writing or just lying there looking at the ceiling.  That’s a important part about getting a good night’s sleep, is having that special routine.

 

So, the goal is that the podcast is one part of that wind-down routine, because it gives you some separation.  It eases you into bedtime between the day and all of that stuff, and the time you want to be asleep.  So, the intro is part of that progression.  So, that’s the intro.  It ends, I don’t know, twenty, twenty-five minutes into the show.  Then there’s more support for the show, and that support, again, is what makes it possible for the show to come out twice a week for free on any podcast app you want, and the shows are over an hour.  So, that’s what makes that possible.  Then there will be a story.  Tonight it’ll be our newest story, which I don’t even quite have a working title I’m happy about, but it’ll be the first episode of an ongoing episodically modular series with a touch of seriality.

 

I don’t know, some of the titles have been The Big Ones, Big Emojis, The Big Emojis, The Emojis.  Still trying to figure out if emojis is something I can use in a title.  So, but yeah, it won’t be…it’ll be…it’s not really about emojis, just as a heads up.  That’s more of a reusage of the word.  Anyway, Big Emojis?  Maybe that’s it.  I don’t know.  I mean, that kinda fits.  Big Emojis.  I think we just stumbled on the working title, at least.  So, Big Emojis.  Big Emojis is…I think that’s it.  So, that’s great.  Thank you so much for your help by listening to me.  So, that’s the…oh, the…so, that’s the structure of the show.  The show ends with thank-yous and goodnights.  That’s just been something we’ve done all along, because without listener support and action, that’s really what…I mean, that’s how I’m able to do this.

 

So lucky to be able to do this, tell a story about the Big Emojis and keep you company, because that’s what’s important, right?  I’ve been there, tossing…you know.  Yeah.  So, alls I can say is I’m glad you’re here.  If you’re new, just give the show a few tries.  There’s nothing to lose.  Now, I understand some of you might have stronger frustration than others.  Yeah, check out the stuff at sleepwithmepodcast.com/nothankyou.  But I’m really glad you’re here.  I really appreciate your time, and here’s a couple ways I’m able to do it for you for free twice a week.

 

Alright, hey everybody, it’s Scoots here.  This is our episodically modular series.  It’s pretty new, so new in fact…this is for the second episode, but I forgot to record it, so now I’m recording the first and second episode; one’s backed…or the second and third episodes back-to-back ‘cause I’m recording the third episode tomorrow.  But this, so far on Episode 2…in Episode 1…oh, what’s a episodically modular series?  It’s a bedtime story you could fall asleep to, but the nice thing is, it’s a story; you could listen to them in any order.  They’re related…similar characters you could get familiar with, and comforting and stuff like that.  But if you say oh, I like some interconnection…but this way, if this is your fifth episode, you say oh boy, these are prequels or related…you say, this is like one where you saw a movie and then you saw a limited edition series.

 

This…episodically modular with a touch of seriality does just fine by me.  Despite some confusion on my part about what this was gonna be titled, it is about Big Emojis and Big Ones, but it’s really about our…the Spice Friends.  Now, not the kind of spice they have on Arrakis.  You say Arrakis, I say Arrakis.  Let’s not make a ruckus about it.  But so, okay, so what’s the series about?  It features two characters right now, two main players.  They’re working together, so don’t worry, they’re not in opposition.  President…well, what you would call President Willow Smith.  She’s kind of President of the World, more or less, or the head of the Cooperative Nations.  She’s been doing just fine trying to manage the Cooperative Nations of the world.  Cooperations?  Coopernations or something.

 

President Smith, she had been vice president of the United States with her father, and then life changed, and…but now she’s once again president this time, or head of the Cooperative Nations.  She’s a great leader.  Also, we have an astronaut, an astronaut that had just returned to Earth.  Thus far, only known as the astronaut, I believe, and the astronaut had left Earth many, many years ago, not that different of a timeline than we’re…when we’re talking now, I think.  Maybe a little bit after.  Oh, this is a…this is not a fact-based report.  But the astronaut went to another place called Planet Zipper in search of answers, because our world had been dealing with these Big Ones.  When I say Big Ones, you’ve probably seen them in movies before; big beings walking around, stomping on stuff, putting their hot breath on things.

 

Some are lizards, some are dragons, some…other beings; mammals, even.  They caused a big ruckus here on Earth.  Pretty unpleasant, but then the people of Planet Zipper…well, one, they got them all on a island; Big Ones Atoll, they called it.  Then the beings from Planet Zipper, somehow from outer space, they put all of the Big Ones into hibernation.  Now meanwhile, this astronaut was headed to Planet Zipper to figure out how does Planet Zipper deal with Big Ones?  Ends up, it’s a intergalactic-type problem.  So, the Big Ones have been hibernating for some time, but they’re getting close to waking up.  So, obviously, as the head of planet…as the head of the…as our planetary leader, Willow wants to say what are we gonna do when these Big Ones wake up?

 

We’re waiting for this expert from outer space to come, from outer space, from Earth, that went to outer space…come back after consulting with Planet Zipper and give us the info.  But so far, the info they returned with was hey, we gotta make a children’s show, and just trust me; we’re gonna manifest a solution, which to a president who’s accountable to I would assume voters or something, or some sort of election or process to become the leader, she said well, I’m looking for more of a clear-cut solution here.  We’ve got these giant beings that are gonna start walking around on stuff again, and we’ve never found a way to deal with them other than with extreme measures.  Even then, it didn’t work so hot until the Planet Zipper put them all to sleep.

 

But this…the astronaut said don’t worry, you just have to have…trust me.  Just have some faith.  We’re gonna get this worked out.  Talk about bedtime material.  You say well, you got a giant problem?  Don’t worry.  It’s all gonna work out just fine.  So, I guess on this episode next, we’re gonna find out how fine it’ll work out with another episode of Spice Friends, and here is our Hollywood announcer, Mr. Antonio Banderas.  Thank you, Scooter.  The ladies, the gentlemen, the boys, the girls, the friends beyond the binary, it’s time for adventure, another adventure with our Spice Friends.  Yeah, spicy.

 

Oof, Antonio, I mean, that could be…call a chip company or a…some sort of company.  You’re hired.  Oh, I mean, ‘cause you could get…you probably…I wonder if they would pay me, and then I could pay you, ‘cause since it’s my audio, technically, even though you’re volunteering for the love of…love of your…Scooter, I do this for the love of people who are falling asleep.  I know you do.  Also for the love of practicing stillness, which I have you do most of the time while you’re in my presence.  You being still is a present to me, Antonio.  Thanks.  That’s Mr. Antonio Banderas, and this is Spice Friends, everybody.

 

Alright, I guess I’ve decided to record a journal for you.  You told me you were recording one for me, and I don’t know, I’ve just been really impressed, and I know…and…well, no, I don’t know; I understand your hesitancy and your dismay.  Can I just say how starstruck I was just meeting you?  I remember listening to some of your music on the flight, but…and your family, but that is aside…not what I was starstruck.  It was something in the way you carried yourself and your eyes and the…your face, your determination, your focus.  That’s where your dismay came and your disbelief, because of your driven caring.  I don’t know, I just…I was taken aback by it and I do find myself in a position where I was looking at it and saying well, maybe I came in a little too…came in on a rocket that looked like a comet; I came in a little too hot.

 

But I wouldn’t say hot; I’d say my confidence blinded me to the need to stay soft and open, and I guess I needed to have my own course correction forced on me, which is somewhat of a space travel metaphor.  So, let me see…of course I should have been softer and realized that the idea that the joy of dance and song and the whole manifestation theory is, again, that’s only the way I can explain it, because I don’t understand it, either.  I’m asking you to take on something that I don’t understand right.  How could the Big Ones have been formed and manifested? Manifestation’s always been something that people would say is ga-ga-goo-goo.  It’s just a word because I don’t know other…word to say; created, came, but where did they come from?  They appeared on Earth or in the sea, so did they come…?

 

There are no scientific theories that can explain…oh no, there’s some place in the center of the Earth they all live, and they come out from time to time.  We don’t have any scientific theories that said oh, for sure they came from other worlds.  I would say the fact that the Big Ones were on Planet Zipper…different Big Ones and some the same, makes this manifestation theory hold up, because we don’t have any proof of them traveling interstellar…in an interstellar manner.  Also, I guess I’m just not an expert on it.  I don’t know about it, and talking about…I have trouble believing, because I’m trying to manifest a solution or start the train moving.  I guess I just don’t have…I wish Planet Zipper…they didn’t…don’t really think in metaphors and similes, and they’re…it’s tough to explain, and a lot of that I’ve lost or tried to forget about.  So, where are we?

 

I asked you to trust me, and I don’t think you’re sure about that.  I don’t think you do.  I was confident that you would come around and that you would see very quickly…I would quickly deliver results, and I also thought we’d have a little bit more time together.  Again, I also had to catch up with everything that was happening with the companies we established through the Planet Zipper plan.  Yeah, so, where should I start with this journal, just in case you’re listening or anybody else is listening?  Maybe they need to hear my side of it right now.  I guess I’m unfocused and I guess that’s okay.  Of course, who wouldn’t be?  This whole thing’s about saying yes, right?  Saying yes to your doubt, saying yes to my doubt and my mistakes, and now saying yes to the fact that I just feel a little bit fogged out.

 

So, what I can counter is…we met; I tried to convince you to set aside the how.  We know the why; save the world.  But the how and the why of that how, or the…those hows and whys to set aside…and there’s…probably asking a bit too much.  So, the next thing was to start a test.  I met with the writers, I met with the team who also had no idea, really, what was at stake, other than this launch of the first show and that…so, they were a bit confused.  Now, I did…but they said okay, who…why wouldn’t we have the astronaut be a part of it?  Then there was a lot of debate in the room.  Again, these were some of the top writers and show…it was an amazing team that was put together.  You know, I’ve…being a astronaut is collaborative.

 

It’s a different type of collaboration, but on Zipper and on the way back, I was preparing for this.  So, there was debate of whether I would appear as myself or as the astronaut.  Again, I thought that was a bit of a distraction.  I said, it’s okay.  We’ll figure that out.  But the primary objective with this new launch of this new show…again, the…Planet Zipper and the ability for you and everyone else who have funded this, it was going to be a very popular program.  We would have to deliver it to sustain the audience, but the marketing had already been done through the serials, through other…we were set up.  We had a built-in audience ready to go, an audience of children and parents, but that’s the audience we were aiming for.

 

I’ll be honest in recording this, there was some setbacks, and they were setbacks that I caused as the leader.  We had our goals.  Again, and the show was supposed to be evocative of a spirit of play, where children feel safe to play freely, right?  Where they have fun, where children have a shorter memory.  They scrape their knee; ideally they feel those feelings or they metaphorically scrape their knee and they move on.  They let things go.  A lot of the work, again, with the great collaborative effort to kinda help the children understand what it means to fully feel and all those things.  Again, the timing was right with this project and the mission was right, because it was an intense time to be a child or a human being, and again, while the executive team was tracking things, they said yeah, there’s a lot of adults that get a lot out of what we’re building towards.

 

This also added to my confidence.  Initially, after our first conversation, my confidence went down a tiny bit, but then seeing all the amazing people we’d be working with and hearing the excitement, hearing their excitement to be working on this at such a time, all that…and again, we also had…we were also aligned with some of the backup plans.  Now, I didn’t think we’d need to do them, and the backup plans of…that you had been working on, which we’ll talk about, but I guess any backup plan can’t prepare you.  Even I, I’ve traveled to another world that we didn’t even think was possible and returned to Earth and seen things that I couldn’t even explain.  But nothing can prepare you for when the things start to come in from the reported…start to come in of stirring on Big Ones Atoll.

 

That was kept very close to the vest, but it quickly spread.  Of course, those were constantly false reports and true reports, but this one was finally true.  Then it was determined that Moth Breath was the Big One that was stirring, which was not on anyone’s radar.  Moth Breath was always kinda one of the Big Ones that people…I don’t know.  They say well, it’s just Moth Breath.  Of course, people that experienced the Moth Breath’s mothing or breathing have a different story.  The fact that that was who was awakening…again, you came back to me, and obviously it was a time when everything was on edge, the whole world.  We were working on our first test rehearsal with a real audience and a virtual audience of members of what you would call a street promotion team and our membership clubs, and we were doing a live rehearsal.

 

We had already had a few rehearsals, and everyone was, again, excited.  We were gonna lay out this first episode with the joy of dance and song.  We were gonna lay out this first dance with this first…well, I guess I’m getting ahead of myself ‘cause I had already got ahead of myself; I told all the tracking teams on your team that you had given me access to, to all of the staff that reported to you but you said to report to me as well.  I said, watch that equipment seismic…whatever, UHV or whatever other signals you were watching.  I know you’re focused on Big Ones Atoll, but focus on the whole world, too.  They explained to me okay, well, we have these baseline readings, so anything outside of the baseline, we’ll be ready for.  What are you expecting?  I said, probably a blip.  They said, even a blip we’ll notice.

 

I said well, what about if someone drops a heavy weight?  They said, that’s in the baseline.  I said, so something outside of the ordinary would…and they said, yeah.  Something non…they said, what are you thinking?  I said well, what if there was a Big One somewhere we didn’t…?  Then that distracted them, but I said…that we didn’t know about or something?  They said yeah, yeah, we’re…don’t worry, we’ll be watching the equipment.  We’ll be watching the tests…live feeds from the entire planet.  Any readings, we’ll have results.  If a person sneezes in Siberia…it’s in the baseline, but if it was a world-record sneeze, we’d know about it and…but we’d know about it and then we’d be able to compare it to previous data and we’d know oh, okay, that’s just a…I said, really?  They said yeah, we overlay all the testing.

 

I said okay, I’ll trust you, I’ll trust you.  They said, you can trust the data, in this case.  I said, but isn’t it abnormal times?  They said well, we’ve been tracking…they said yeah, we’ve…have this…this isn’t very new…we have some new technology; most of this is technology that’s been around for a long, long time.  Then you…one of them patted me on the shoulder and I said okay, okay.  So, I went to the first rehearsal.  Again, this was a smaller audience.  We had another rehearsal set up, and we kinda ran through everything that the team had worked on based on the instructions from Planet Zipper and my instructions.  We were just kinda doing a teaser; we weren’t doing a full run-through of this portion of the episode or the show, but just the beginning of the dance, which was this welcoming motion that again, everybody could participate in.

 

A few simple steps, just like you were welcoming someone into the room, and what you would do with your eyes, how you would make your face look to make them feel welcome, how you would open your arms and then back…go forward, then back up to welcome them in, to let them know you see them and you’re happy to see them, to say not just with your eyes and your body, but with your heart and your song, welcome, come…that was all you were saying, and that’s all we were singing, but that there was more layers to it, of course, and that you could use other words.  Again, they were translating those internationally, you know, to use…say hey, how can I say welcome, you’re special?  Welcome, I see you?  Welcome, you have value.  Oh, boy.  We did that.

 

Now, at the same time, understandably, everyone watching and everyone working was distracted by the events, but we did get caught up, I felt like, because we were just doing this one sequence.  They call it the Oh, Welcome sequence, ‘cause I guess that’s one of the ways I talk.  We rapped, and everybody felt some relief and there was a lot of body language and connectedness, and the audience…the adults and the children, physical closeness, because I think it had a bit of an escape, and a catharsis.  Now, unfortunately, it was a catharsis we had to return to the real world after.  But again, we talked about that and I ran down to get the test results, and there was none.  There was no blips.  I said, no blips, no blurps.  They said no blips, no blurps, no bloops, nothing, nothing.

 

I said, can you run back through the last twelve minutes?  They said, we’re…yeah, we can do that.  We don’t have to run…yeah, there’s nothing.  I said, nothing now.  They said, you want to watch for a while?  But that was when…and they…again, they explained to me after this happened that even if…that the data is…that this wouldn’t mask the other data, because even afterwards I was saying, but is there any other results?  I was distracted by what I wanted to see.  But that was when Moth Breath also started to fully move, and Moth Breath started spreading its wings and moving.  So, of course that was coming through on the tests, as well.  Now, I had my own dedicated people, but even they were distracted by this fact, and there was a big hullabaloo.

 

But they also told me there was nothing else happening in the world that was outside of the mean or median or mode.  I don’t know.  So, that was a bit of a blow for me because I was confident that I would have something to bring to you, and I had a meeting with you, of course.  You had already known there was no results from the test.  You already knew that information.  I could see on your face you had bigger concerns, because…almost like you had already moved on from my project.  You weren’t shutting the project down, but you were saying you had moved on to other solutions.  The current plan and the debate worldwide was…there were concerns.  You had concerns, not just about Moth Breath, but how other parts of the world, the Indies and the non-CN collectives were going to act, ‘cause there was constant battle over well, how do we approach this?

 

Offensively or defensively?  Or do we send Moth…when the first Big One comes, will someone try to use that to send Moth Breath somewhere by planting something?  Should we look at these Big Ones like weather patterns?  People had already left a lot of the big cities, but not entirely.  People say okay, well, we could just temporarily hide underground.  Well, what if it’s…?  So, I don’t know.  That was the current plan, I guess, but was…but all coming real, but also distant.  Again, Big Ones Atoll, we all knew how fast Moth Breath could fly.  While we were in our meeting, Moth Breath started to fly.  You had given me clearance, so then when they came in and said yeah, the…how did this start?  Why Moth Breath?  That was another concern; what would be next?

 

There was other activity at the island; not Big Ones activity, but people that praised Moth Breath in particular, a group of…a large group, actually, that had moved onto the island secretly and had taken control of a remote part of the atoll that…and they had established a Moth Breath-based belief system, and it was believed already at the time, and I guess the strange thing was that they were doing some sort of welcoming-type song and dance for Moth Breath.  It was very religious, in a sense.  They were praising and welcoming Moth Breath, and chanting and singing.  Some of this leaked out to the news, and so then it created another level of public interest and concern.  Moth Breath started to circle Big Ones Atoll and everyone was watching and saying well, where…which way is Moth Breath gonna turn?

 

Why is Moth Breath just circling?  Meanwhile, you sat me down and you asked me a very straightforward question, like don’t…is there…so, there’s no secret device; you don’t have a serum, you don’t have a device.  You just have this belief that this is going to work.  Please tell me there’s a secret serum or secret device.  I said, there’s nothing, not even a talisman.  I said, is it talisman or talisman?  You sternly said, there’s a big difference between an actual serum or device and a talisman.  I said, I understand that, but I don’t have any of those.  Alls I have is my belief that this is going to work.  You said, but it didn’t work.  I said well, it was just an initial test.  There’s something missing and I think it’s just the audience.  You said no, you don’t…you don’t believe that.

 

I said you’re right, there’s something else missing other than the audience, but it’s there.  It’s not a…it’s a piece that’s there that we can’t…I said, the…this is part of the process, you know.  You wrote music.  You’re a creative person.  I said, it’s just a matter of finding it.  We have an amazing team, incredibly creative people and incredibly focused.  Everyone’s distracted, too.  But that’s all a part of it.  I said, we’re gonna figure it out.  We’re gonna get to the bottom of it.  We’ll have another rehearsal with a slightly larger audience set up.  You said, it’s pointless though, because no one’s gonna pay…and I said, people will; they love…I said, the marketing, the characters, the connection, and the desire for joy and dance, it doesn’t stop.  Come on.

 

I said, I’m sorry, because I know you have a lot more on your plate than I do.  So, just don’t worry about it.  It’s almost like I wanted you to believe so that I could believe or something, but I guess I had to protect you, too.  I said well, why don’t you just let me take care of this and I’ll trust that it works out?  You again kinda sternly said yeah, well…but the whole world was waiting for you to return from Planet Zipper.  We were promised a solution.  I don’t know…and I said, none of us know.  I said, it’s okay.  None of us know.  It’s not easy.   I don’t even…no, I just trust that this is gonna work out and I don’t even know how it’s gonna work out.  I said, I…but I…yeah.  I’ve gotta go, and you said okay.  I mean, I don’t want to think we left it that way.  It was a little bit more…you had to take calls from the world, you know.

 

So, we had our second rehearsal and we were getting ready, and we were gonna lay out a little bit more of the dance; welcome, and then the next part of the dance and then something that says hey, you’re important to me.  I see you; I’m glad to see you.  Oh, I see something else is going on with you.  I see you fully, that that part of the dance was important and again, could only be expressed indirectly through dance and song, right?  We couldn’t…I guess I’m sharing this on here, the on-the-nose things that the dance and the song could accomplish without saying.  But that was the goal of the steps, and even…was supposed to be in the minds of the performers, and that would again be reflected and translated, I guess, I hope to the hearts of the children and their parents and their families.  Hey, welcome.

 

Even some of us, we’re joking.  You know, the last minute changes, saying hey, can we do this for Moth Breath?  That kinda tore apart the room a little bit, but it showed our looseness, that it didn’t…it just tore apart in the moment of debating about it, because…I don’t know.  I decided to watch…up in the production room, I guess because I wanted…I had had them set up a station for the person running the tests and I wanted to see the tests at the same time that were tracking anything in the world.  Then as we got closer to getting ready to roll, that’s when Moth Breath’s behavior changed.  Moth Breath started using Moth Breath’s moth breath, which was a silk breath to seal up all the other Big Ones.  One by one, sealing them in silk.  Everybody being dismayed, you calling and saying, is this you?

 

I said no, no, no, we…there’s no theories that say that we can control the behavior of the Big Ones from Planet Zipper or that our…this project…you kept calling them Big Emojis, and again, that was…anyway.  But Big Emojis was just one of the terms on the show.  So, everybody was a bit elated and confused, and a little bit concerned.  Again, then scientists were being…well, okay, what does this mean?  Will this wake…what is…we don’t know what Moth Breath’s trying to accomplish.  Maybe it’s a quest for dominance.  This could mean Moth Breath’s gonna stay there.  This could extend their hibernation because again, they’ll be wrapped.  It’ll be a bit like swaddling a baby.  Then there’s point-counterpoint-type stuff.

 

But I think a lot of the feeling everyone was feeling was that it was a combination of surprise, elation, relief, and hope.  Maybe Moth Breath’s a hero, even people started to posit.  Who were…maybe these people were right that were praising Moth Breath.  Now meanwhile, not every human being or leader was acting in the same way you were, so there were people trying to use this to their advantage, and one particular group had sent out a ship full of material that would attract a Big One, and they were planning on sending it to a port of another nation they weren’t allied with.  This was just something we know in retrospect, or I know in retrospect, but we went through with rehearsal.  Now, the rehearsal went a lot like…the goals we ran a little bit longer.  I mean, didn’t yield any results, and I was watching the whole time.

 

The production thing is over the studio, right?  I don’t know if…well, you’re familiar with it; it’s like a dark room with kind of a two-way window.  You can’t see in from the outside.  But when you’re standing there, there’s the reflections of the screens behind you, particularly a screen for the tests and the tracking.  The seismic and all that was right next to me.  So, it created a reflection and I remember as I saw and heard that there was no results but that the performance seemed to be going really good, the children and their families seemed to be enjoying it, I caught my own reflection in…staring…instead of looking into the studio, I was looking in my own eyes and I was seeing doubt.  I was seeing tiredness, I was seeing a weariness, because I knew that…I don’t know.

 

While everybody else was hoping this was for the best, I wasn’t so sure when Big Ones are involved.  For my time on Planet Zipper, I just said there’s gotta be something more to this.  Also, I was just disappointed.  There was no clear results and nothing; no blips, no blurps, no bloops.  My shoulders sagged and…now, again, no one else on the team really knew that…they might have been confused or they thought that because I was the astronaut, I was concerned with Moth Breath and Big Ones Island.  They never made the connection that…they thought they were just doing their job, creating something fun for everyone to enjoy.  That is the goal of people creating stuff sometimes, or one of their goals.  They were succeeding but again, it wasn’t quite there, and not only did I know it, the team knew it.

 

Now, they didn’t have the same…so, we met again and we went over how did the rehearsal go?  People could see I was down and they said don’t worry, we’ll get to the bottom of this, and they were brainstorming, and you called me.  I said, I have to step out and talk to the President of the World, and everyone had a laugh.  But they knew.  Again, sometimes people say, why are you involved in this project?  That’s really…and I…yeah, I said well, this is…children of the world are the most important resource we have, of course.  I said, what am I gonna do?  I’m just an astronaut.  They said, but didn’t you bring…and I said, that stuff’s confidential; I can’t talk about it.  But anyway, I went and I met with you again, and we talked.  You said, you seem…you’ve been following what’s happening.

 

I know there’s no results from your test there.  I said, yeah.  I said, I’m following what’s happening.  You said, what do you think?  I said well, I don’t know what to think.  I know I don’t feel…I feel…I don’t feel worse about it but I don’t feel good about it.  You said, did you notice anything else?  I said yeah, there seems to be a large group of…and she said yeah, there’s actually…they’re not just on the atoll; they have…they’re operating and controlling an Indie nation, or they moved into a city that a lot of people left.  She said yeah, they’re…they believe in Moth Breath.  She said, what else?  I said well, yeah, they’re singing and dancing.  I said, that’s always kinda been a theory that…we’ve seen it in the past with the Big Ones.  It’s just like a human being that people get caught up in, a giant figure.

 

We’ve never had any conclusive thing about the singing and the dancing.  She said well, they said that they’re the ones controlling Moth Breath.  Do you think that’s possible?  I said, I don’t know if it’s possible.  I don’t think so.  Nothing on Planet Zipper…I said, you could…I could see that they could have woken Moth Breath up first with their singing and their dancing.  She said, but there’s something hypnotic to it, right?  I said, yeah.  I said, but why are you saying that?  She said well, they said that; they’re making demands and they’re saying without the demands, that Moth Breath will…Moth Breath’s gonna be the only Big One and they control Moth Breath.  I said, interesting.  I said, do they have any proof of that?  You said yeah, Moth Breath…I don’t know if you heard, but Moth Breath left Big Ones Atoll and is headed out to the sea.

 

I said oh, well, that’s interesting.  Where…which direction?  You said, it’s pretty clear from our intelligence that there’s a ship full of spent material, and it’s in the middle of the sea.  It’s heading to a port.  You said it came from this other cooperative group and they’re gonna plant it in the port, and Moth Breath’s headed to the ship.  We expect that’s where Moth Breath is headed, and we’ll get there while the ship is still in the middle of the ocean.  But also, the group that…the Moth Breathians, they said that was what would happen and that if we don’t follow what they want, which is pretty…they said, we gotta supply stuff for Moth Breath to consume, and a lot of other resources, resources we need, they want sent to the nation that they’re controlling, in the city they’re controlling.  Do you think that’s possible?

 

I said well, it sounds like it could be…I don’t think it’s probable, but it could be possible.  But I don’t understand how they would communicate.  You said well, what do you mean?  I said well, I realize you’re gonna kinda throw this back at me, but what if they’re behaving a way and they want Moth Breath to behave a way or they want you to think they’re in control, but…yes, they could have woken Moth Breath up first, but if you were Moth Breath and you woke up, wouldn’t you behave…wouldn’t these be the same steps you would take?  You said, what do you mean?  I said well, okay, so you’re Moth Breath; you wake up, you see the other Big Ones, you fly to get your wings back in order, then you see the other Big Ones slumbering, rivals of yours, so you seal them up.

 

You would do that even if someone was…maybe they were helping…you know.  Then the next thing you would do is get your bearings and if you detected somewhere motion and spent material that attracts you, however that works with the Big Ones, some sort of part of their limbic system, you would be guided towards there by your nature.  So, it doesn’t seem to me that they’re necessarily in control of Moth Breath, but they could be, they could be.  Then you said well, what would Moth Breath do next?  I said well, Moth Breath would go to the ship.  I don’t know what Moth Breath would do, but consume the ship, take the ship, seal the ship.  Then what, you said.  Then I said well, either return to Big Ones Island or follow the trail.  The ship will leave a clear trail for a Big One to follow.

 

I don’t know if that…whoever sent it out thought of that, but if they didn’t think about it, they’re gonna…Moth Breath will…that’s where Moth Breath will go next.  You said okay, well, why don’t you get back to your rehearsal, then?  I know your show goes live very soon.  You were right, and we went back in the meeting and I said okay, how’s everybody feeling?  You were asking for…everybody was concerned about Moth Breath and wanted me to answer questions.  I said okay, I think it’s gonna work out.  Do you think the…they’re in control of Moth Breath?  Everything had been on the news.  I said, let’s focus on what’s missing from the show.  We have all this…these steps, but something’s clearly missing in our welcome…welcome, so glad to see you thing.  I said, what are the problems that…what is missing?

 

A couple ideas came up, contrary ideas from different staff members, which was amazing.  This was an all-staff meeting; it wasn’t just the writers.  Someone said, I think that one thing that’s missing is who’s dancing and who’s singing.  Right now, we have the human performers, but the children were introduced to the show through the serial characters, and one of their…and the toys and all these other things.  I feel like we’ve tried to humanize the show too much, and then we’re just gonna run these cartoons or animated shows between the variety segments with humans.  I feel like that’s missing.  I said, so you’re saying we’re missing a Spice Friend because yeah, again, we had gone to this Big Emojis idea with the Spice Friends being just a side thing.  It made sense; Big Ones, Big Emojis.

 

It was the whole goal of the show.  Then I thought about looking at myself, and I said wait one second.  Give me a second here to process what you’re saying.  Everyone process what she’s saying for a second, before I step on it.  Then we can ask more questions.  I know there’s someone else with a pending idea.  But yeah, I was thinking about looking in my own eyes and looking through to the audience at the same time.  I was seeing my tiredness and I was kinda seeing beyond it, too.  I said okay, okay, I hear what you’re saying.  So, we’re missing one of the Spice Friends.  You said yes, we’re missing one of the Spice Friends.  I said yeah, now we just gotta figure out if the Spice Friend is the one seeing or being seen.  You said yes, this writer did.

 

This one from another department said whoa, wait; I hear what they’re saying, but what about what everybody’s seeing right now?  I said, what’s that?  You said, Moth Breath.  You said oh, okay.  What you’re saying is…okay, so, everybody is seeing Moth Breath; in their thoughts, in their minds, their feelings, their Big Emojis about Moth Breath.  But we’re just talking about the feelings, so we’re both being not metaphorical enough and too metaphorical, is kind of what you’re saying, if I’m correct.  We’re being…we’re not talking about the Moth Breath in the room, and we started to brainstorm.  Okay, who…what Spice Friend should be here?  What are the characteristics of the different Spice Friends?  What is the best Spice Friend to be there?  That was the writers’ area of expertise.

 

Then, who has…seeing who’s…and I said well, the audience has to be the ones seeing.  They’re dancing and seeing.  You said oh, okay, you’re right.  ‘Cause I…we went back and forth; should the Spice Friend be the one leading the dance and being the one?  We’re seeing things through the Spice Friend’s eyes.  Then it just flowed from there, you know, because I said of course, well, this is our new show.  Again, we’ve called Costume and, again, a team and the set dressers.  Everyone started working together because we didn’t have a non-animated version of a Spice Friend, and this particular Spice Friend.  We said oh, okay.  Well, okay, so we’re…we’re working on that.  So, we’re dancing and we’re welcoming the Spice Friend, just like a natural process of…we’re rewriting the episode.

 

Of course, okay, we’re welcoming the Spice Friend.  Then we said okay, well, what about the next thing?  So, the Spice Friend is…we can’t ignore the fact that everybody’s thinking about Moth Breath.  Even the Spice Friend probably is.  This is when we went to the great influencers of us; Henson, the Muppets, Sesame Street, CTW, all these great puppeteers throughout human history beyond those names, but just…those were some of the names that came up.  Well, we could have a puppet behind the Spice Friend, a small, in-the-distance version of Moth Breath flying around just behind the Spice Friend.  So, when the child…then the child can…then…that is the right metaphor.

 

Oh, I’m also…I’m not just welcoming the Spice Friend; I’m seeing beyond it to what we’re both thinking about, which is Moth Breath and welcoming those feelings, too.  I guess I find myself getting tired talking about this.  But so, we went through with it and we did the dance.  We had the show, we had someone dressed as the Spice Friend.  I mean, we just finished.  I’m waiting here; that’s why I’m recording this, is to try to distract myself.  I feel so tired because I’m waiting.  I sent the tester out; I said I’ll contact you afterwards.  Now meanwhile, as we were getting ready to air, Moth Breath was getting closer and closer to the ship.  So, we decided to delay, and then Moth Breath picked up the ship and headed, as I had predicted, towards this cooperative group that had sent the ship out.

 

But that would take a while, so then we went to air and we did the dance, and we welcomed the Spice Friend in.  We welcomed in the feelings and we saw that the Spice Friend, with joy and dance, was thinking about Moth Breath and so much more.  We completed the rest of what we had set out, which I kinda didn’t…which is like hey, I’m here to help you with that.  Then we moved into a more active part of the show, which again, was not my…that was handled by experts and said hey, well…you know, a different part of the program.  But the song and the dance to me…and as that…and the animated portion afterwards, which was unrelated, which was pre-produced, but it featured the Spice Friend in an adventure, the one we had welcomed in.

 

It was an adventure with similar feelings and those kind of things to explore and explore being…but anyway, I…it went great.  Everybody loved it.  Everybody loved the dance.  Quickly, we were seeing people posting versions of them singing and dancing.  Maybe some people were getting confused with the heroism, that Moth Breath was a hero, ‘cause not everybody had the whole story.  Now meanwhile, even people in this other affiliated group, there’s people there and they…it wasn’t their fault that their leaders had sent the ship out.  Now Moth Breath was approaching with this ship.  Quickly, everybody figured it out.  They had the same feelings that the other children of the world and the parents and the adults of the world had, and that’s when you…I think…wait a second, let me pause this recording.

 

Okay, I’m back.  I guess I’ll stop recording, but theres reports that rising from the sea is…there was a blip, there was a bloop, and there was a blurp.  That was the first report I got.  Then as Moth Breath still has a few hours ‘til it reach…makes landfall, rising from the shores of this other affiliated…this other country full of people, is a giant smiling cinnamon stick being, a Big One.  But it has big eyes and a big smile, and it’s doing the welcoming dance.  No one can believe it.  You couldn’t believe it; you called me.  We don’t know what’s gonna happen next, but we know that it worked, that we manifested our own Spice Friend, and I can…of course you’re like well, what if the Spice Friend turns around and starts stepping on the city?

 

I say well, then we’ll kinda be…we won’t do it again.  We won’t be in that…I said oh, that’s…that’d be unfortunate, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen.  I think the Spice Friend is gonna wait and deter Moth Breath and help everybody.  But everybody already feels a bit better because they’re doing that dance, and they’re saying welcome, I see you.  Got those feelings about Moth Breath.  I can see that.  I’m dancing here to welcome you in and singing to you because I know how it feels and I’d like to help you.  So, I’m going to try to rest while we wait for landfall.  I’m sure I’ll be recording an update soon.  Thanks for listening.

 

[END OF RECORDING]

(www.leahtranscribes.com)

Notable Language:

• You say Arrakis, I say Arr-aw-kis, let’s not cause a ruckus
• Cooper-Nations
• The Oh Ho Ho Welcome Sequence

Notable Culture:

• The Secret
• Jim Henson
• Sticky Hand Toy

Notable Talking Points:

• Scents of Humor, Scooter’s department store fall collection
• Planet Zipper don’t really think in metaphors and similes
• It worked – we manifested our own Spice Friend