So, hi, welcome everyone to Lessons from Behind the Mic with author and podcaster Matthew Felix. This event was produced in partnership with the San Francisco Writers Conference. My name is Taryn Edwards and I am one of the librarians here at the Mechanics Institute of San Francisco. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Mechanics Institute, we are an independent membership organization that houses a wonderful library, the oldest designed to serve the general public in California, we're also a cultural event center and a world renowned chess club that is the oldest in the United States. Right now, due to the shelter in place, or whatever you want to call this, the pandemic, all of our activities are virtual, but I encourage you to consider becoming a member with us. It's only $120 a year and with that you help support our contribution to the literary and cultural world of the San Francisco Bay Area. So our speaker tonight is Matthew Felix, who is an author, podcaster and speaker. He also publishes and markets books for other authors. He has a number of awards under his belt for his fiction, perhaps however the most intriguing of which is for a book of nonfiction called Porcelain Travels, Humor, Horror and Revelation in, on and around toilets, tubs and showers. This work has won a number of accolades and is a number one bestseller in travel humor and the winner of four solace awards and it's super funny, you should read it, in, on or around a toilet tub and shower. So the way it's going to work tonight is Matthew is going to share his knowledge about podcasting and interviewing and then we'll take his questions. So please post that you want to ask a question in the chat space and we'll make every effort to answer them later on tonight. So thank you very much and thank you Matthew for coming out tonight and talking with us. Well, I didn't have to go far, but yes, I'm happy to come out tonight to speak to you from my living room. But thank you very much, Teran. Thanks for the opportunity. Thanks all of you who are joining tonight. Really excited to see some familiar faces and some not familiar faces. So thank you for being here. And I'm just excited to talk about something that I love, which is interviewing, which is podcasting. I'm really going to focus mostly on the art of the interview itself. But as Teran said, I'm happy to take any and all questions at the end. I am the author of three books. I'll also just mention I don't need to revisit porcelain travels. Teran did a good job of explaining that one, but I'll just mention my novel is a voice beyond reason, which is about a young Spaniard's awakening to his intuition. And my other nonfiction book is with open arms, short stories of misadventures in Morocco, which is pretty self-explanatory there from the title. In addition to being an author, I am the program director and host of the San Francisco Writers Conference podcast, which is relaunching very shortly. And I just want to mention before I get too far this Saturday at 12 o'clock, so February 20th at 12 o'clock, we'll be having a special event where I interview conference director, Laurie McClain. We're going to talk about how the conference has sort of had to pivot, obviously because of the pandemic and what that means for 2021 and then 2022. So I assume that some of you are probably writers. I met a couple of you at the conference. So that's another event. If you're around at noon on Saturday, you might want to check out. We're also going to talk about the Writers Conference writing contest, which is taking place and they're adding quite a bit to that this year, even though the conference didn't take place. So that's on Saturday, but I have produced and hosted a few podcasts. The most sort of the biggest one, my main effort, I guess, was Matthew Felix On Air, which was a live video podcast. And on that, I interviewed people about health, spirituality, writing, travel on and on. And some of the people that were on that, just to give you a sense, Cara Black, a mystery writer, outside magazines, founding editor, Tim Cahill, dandelion chocolates, Greg D'Alesandra, Zoe Elton from the Mill Valley Film Festival, Jameson Watts from the Marin Agricultural Land Trust, NPR's Doug Gordell and lots of others. So for those of you who didn't see that show, which might be most of you, I want to show you just to kind of make it a little tangible. Some of the, just a quick clip of some of the interviews that I did when I was doing that show. So let me share the screen here. Optimize for sound. And here we go. What got you to give up that security question? Don is bad-mouthing hidden confidence. So what can she know? You can go into remission and remission can come and go. They make wine out of hash. So we go deeper.  A lot of rage. Oh, a rage is a reorganization of the illustrated novel. We're not ready for that. No, GBTQQ. There's a metro. I write. Oh, does someone pull that off? And it was actually my father who's this voracious reader who I don't know later in life when he retired started reading mysteries. Dad, no, no, you know, mysteries. You know, interesting. So you weren't even into them. How did it pop up coffee turn your world upside down?  Humans are sort of inherently self-centered creatures. Being a penetration. Antarctica was the same way 50 years ago. A place that could not have experienced without something cracking open. For 20 minutes, you have something that can entertain people. She just spilled her hidden bottle of wine. Wow, you're jet... I'm still jet lagged. Yes, that's right. That's different. My mother was a refugee. Her mother was a refugee. I was a refugee. You sabotaged me. I sabotaged you. That's what it's there for. I can't make this sound. Millions of bees were dying. Guide dog has to evaluate. You travel the world eating chocolate. Is there a better job?  I thought that was a great... It's powerful. Powerful television. Exactly. A nude portrait of you. And you hung this up on a billboard. Or not a billboard. Oh, heavens. Let's talk about that. No, we didn't forget. You mentioned the film. What? Are you saying... What would you like to say? I forgot. Sorry. I know it's rude, dude. It's rude to interrupt the close. They're on live. If they go to my website. All right, so hopefully that just gives you an idea of some of the feel of what I've done in the past. And I'm going to talk about some of what I just showed you. But like I said, I just wanted to make it a little more tangible. Some of my past experiences. I love interviewing. I just generally love doing it. But before I tell you why, I do want to tell you how I got into it. And I'm also going to tell you what goes into my interviews and what I think makes for a successful one. At the end of my talk, then I'm going to talk again about the San Francisco Writers Conference podcast and the changes that we're making as we relaunch in March, including who we have lined up because I'm really excited about some of the people I've been able to get to come on to that show. But I got into interviewing as a result of my first book when I was being interviewed. I was the interviewee and I went into an internet radio station studio to be interviewed on one of their live podcasts. And before we went on, on the air, the woman who was about to interview me just happened to mention in passing that they were always looking for hosts for shows at their internet radio station. So right away, I knew that was exactly what I'd been looking for for my author platform. Now, for those of you who aren't authors and don't necessarily know what that term means, because I didn't know when I first got started. Basically, the platform is just the way that we as authors get our names out into the world and get our books out into the world. So maybe that's a blog, maybe you're the head of an organization. Maybe it's a podcast. But I was just getting started and I didn't know. I knew I needed a platform, but I didn't know a bunch of people. I wasn't the head of an organization. So I wasn't sure what my platform was going to be. But as soon as this woman said, hey, we're always looking for hosts, like I said, I knew this is what I'm going to do. This is going to be my platform or at least a big part of it. Well, that might not sound particularly unusual that I was going to start doing podcasts, but at the time for me, it really was unusual in the sense that I don't think this was three or four years ago. I don't think I'd ever listened to a podcast at that point. And I know that I had never interviewed anyone, never mind interviewed anyone live, and it became all the more sort of complicated when I agreed when the station manager convinced me to start the podcast, which was going to be live and two hours every week, two weeks later. So I had a lot to figure out in a very short amount of time, including how to do an interview. Now, when most people think about doing an interview, of course, the first thing that comes to mind usually is going to be coming up with a list of questions, and that is a big part of it. But I think there's actually more to it and a lot goes into the questions themselves. So I'm going to talk about that a little bit. First off, you can you can approach coming up the questions for your for your interviewee as sort of an intellectual exercise and just sort of go through it in that way. But I think it's more interesting and I think the interviewers that do better jobs are the ones that really approach it with a really natural curiosity and passion for the subject or the book or even just that, you know, the person that they're about to interview. And so that's how I try to approach my interviews when I'm coming up with questions and thinking about how I'm going to approach them. The next thing that plays into the questions is going to sound really obvious, but over and over, I've had my guests that I've been interviewing tell me that people who interview them often don't do this. And that's research over and over. I've been surprised when my guests will tell me, wow, you really did your homework. A lot of people who interview me don't don't take that time and or make that effort. And to me, it's absolutely essential. And it's not essential only because of the obvious. Again, it helps you to come up with the questions because you're you're learning and you're getting more information and you can draw the questions from that. But it's also just because you're you're giving yourself a general foundation for the conversation you're about to have with someone, because inevitably the conversations are going to go off on tangents. Well, if I'm interviewing someone about craft coffee like I did on my last show, and I don't really know that much about it, other than that I like a macchiato. Um, if he goes off on a tangent in this case, and I don't really have that much of foundation, he's going to kind of run with the conversation. Whereas if I've done my research, it allows me to be much more conversant and engage in a way that I'm probably not going to be able to if I haven't had taken the time to do that. Another reason that I do the research and feel that it's really, really essential is because so many of the people that I interview, particularly if they're authors, if they're CEOs, they've already had similar interviews over and over and over again. And they've already been asked perhaps the same question over and over again. So if I can do some research, well, let me, let me say this. So I do two, two forms of research. One is I do the general research that I just got done talking about. And I come up with my own questions, but then I do additional research, which is where I'll go and I'll read someone's interviews. I'll listen to the podcast they've already been on so that I can make sure I'm not just replicating what they've already done because I don't want them just to be producing rote responses to my question. And so that's another reason that for me, research is really important as I'm coming up with my outline for, for an interview. The other thing I do once I've come up with the questions is I create an arc because to me doing an interview is much like writing a story. I want there to be a beginning, a middle and an end.  And, and so, so once I've done that, once I have my arc, then I also get really detailed about how much timing I'm spending on each step of that arc because I want to make sure I get to everything and I want to make sure that I get to where I want to end up so that I'm presenting that entire product that I had intended before the interview got started. So once I have my questions, once I have my arc, once I have my timing, then I'm going to rehearse. So again, I don't know how many of you are writers, probably a fair number, but those of you who are, and even if you're not, we've all done writing at some point and one of the big techniques that we use often times is reading out loud, right? When we write something and we read it out loud, issues come up, transitions, things that are maybe in the wrong order. They're brought to light when we give voice to them. So I do that with all of my outlines for all of my interviews. I'll rehearse one time, ten times, twenty times, however many times it takes, because inevitably when I give voice to these words that I've already got down on paper, I realize I don't have a transition. I realize that this section actually needs to go before that section and that sort of thing. So for me, rehearsing, I could just do it cold and it would be fine, but it wouldn't flow necessarily as well. It wouldn't be as polished as I like for my interviews, ideally, when they go well to be. The other reason that I rehearse my interviews or my outlines is it helps to deal. It helps to stop the ums and the odds, because doesn't that drive you crazy when whether it's a guest or whether it's the interviewer, you know, there's that that because we don't like the silence, especially I'm talking right now. So I'm so conscious that you're expecting me to say something. But when I get tripped up, I subconsciously sort of reflexively feel the need to fill in that silence. Right. If I'm getting stuck, I'm not sure exactly where I'm going to go next. If I've rehearsed, chances are I have a much better sense of what I'm going to say. So I'm still going to say um, I'm still going to say I'll once in a while, but hopefully it's going to be a lot less. And of course, now that I've talked about it in this interview, I'm going to say way more ums and odds than I would have otherwise. But I did rehearse this as well. Okay. So there it is. There it is. So before an actual interview, that's kind of that's the preparation. But now as I'm getting ready to sit down for an interview, there are a few physiological considerations. So for example, today I didn't do dairy. I don't do that much dairy anyway, but I don't do dairy the day of an interview or at least several hours beforehand because it gets the mucus going. And that might sound silly to those of you who aren't singers or haven't done theater or haven't done a lot of podcasting. But it's really important that my voice be in good shape because especially for a podcast where it's mostly audio, right? By the same token, I'm not going to drink carbonated beverages. The last thing I want to do for you now as I'm talking is is burp, right? And I did have a guest burp and it was actually hilarious. But ideally we want to avoid that, right? So no dairy, no carbonated beverages. The other thing I'm going to do is I'm going to drink lots of water all day because again, these are all muscles. And so I want them to be life. I want them to be responsive. I want to be, I just want them to be in good shape. The last thing I might do, particularly now during COVID, sometimes I'll spend all morning and I don't actually have reason to talk to anyone. I'm working from home. Well, if I'm getting ready to do an interview, then I might need to warm up my cords. And so I will actually take the time, if I haven't spoken all day to, I'll take a hot shower and I might do some vocal exercises just to get the voice warmed up. Again, if you haven't done theater, if you don't do this kind of thing, that might seem like overkill, but these are muscles. So just like when I go to the gym or when I used to go to the gym, when gyms were open and I can't wait for them to be open again, you know, you do a little bit of warm up because you don't want to strain your muscles. And so that's just, these are just some physiological considerations that I take the time to make sure that I kind of check those things off the list before I actually do an interview. On a related note, not only am I going to take, so Taryn and I before we, Taryn and I before we started today, we just, we both, you know, we took a few deep breaths. Inevitably, before I do an interview, I'm running around doing last minute things. I'm revisiting my notes. I'm, you know, getting the lights set up. I'm doing all those things. So I'm inevitably a little flustered. And even if I weren't, before we start something that requires concentration, we want to get centered, we want to get focused and grounded. So I'm going to take a few breaths. But then the breath is obviously just as if not more important during the course of the interview. And so, so many of us in our day to day, we breathe from here, from sort of the top part of our lungs. We don't stop to actually breathe from our diaphragm. Well, if I'm going to be talking nonstop for an hour, and I might be doing it, I'm going to be doing it three times this week, then I want to make sure that just like with a bagpipe, I'm getting enough air to make the sound. If I just have a little bit of air in that bagpipe, I can probably still make the sound, but it's not going to sound like I want it to. It's going to get strained over time. And so it's really important as I'm talking, I'm paying a lot of attention, a lot of attention to how I'm breathing. The other thing I'm doing related to breathing is I'm making sure that even when I'm speaking quickly, that I'm taking pauses as I'm speaking to insert those breaths. It's just, it's just really important to keep that support going the whole time. The last thing that I'll say with regards to how I actually talk when I'm doing an interview is I pay attention to how I sound. I try to be aware, for example, am I speaking too quickly? Well, I'm never speaking too slowly, but I pay attention to my diction. I pay attention to the cadence. I try to vary my tone. I try to vary the speed a little bit. It's just like when radio announcers are exaggerating their voices, well, why are they doing that? They're doing it because it keeps our attention. It forces us to stay engaged because it's kind of doing this. Well, in podcasting or in-person interviews, if I'm on stage interviewing someone, we're not going to be that exaggerated. I mean, the style is much more casual, but still, it's important to pay attention to how you sound so that the sound is hopefully still engaging and people still want to follow along and you keep their interest.  Well, now let's say I'm sitting down and now I'm facing the guest and you're my guest. First thing I want to do is make you comfortable, right? Because most of the people that I'm interviewing I've never met before. And particularly now, I don't even get to meet them in-person, which I really like that in-person. I made a point when I had my other video podcast, even though it would have enabled me to interview a lot more people from further afield, I made a point of I wanted to do it in-person. Well, that's not possible now. Either way, the first thing I want to do is make them comfortable. Second thing I want to do, so I'm going to make some small talk and establish some rapport. The next thing I'm going to do is I'm just going to give them a quick overview of how the interview is going to transpire. I'm going to ask if they have any questions. Now, I do not give my guest questions ahead of time ever. It's really important to me that an interview not sound rehearsed. We've all heard interviews where it's kind of obvious the responses sound rehearsed, the questions, the host is a little, maybe a little rigid. And to me, again, that's just not interesting. I want it to be interesting not only for me, like I said, but for the interviewee and also for the listeners. And I think listeners can tell. And so I do have a lot of guests who ask for the questions ahead of time, and I always politely decline. Now, what I do do is I do tell them the general subjects we're going to talk about. I'm not trying to catch anyone off guard. I'm not going to spring any surprises on anyone. But I'm not going to tell them exactly what we're going to talk about, the exact questions, because I do not want it to sound rehearsed. As we get into the actual interview itself, I'm going to start with the bio, obviously.  And what that is, is I'm going to try to get my guest to laugh. Now, I'm not going to do this in a contrived way. The goal is not to get them into hysterics. I don't prepare a joke ahead of time to do that. I'm just going to try to let it naturally happen. I'm going to try to be aware of any opportunities for something witty, something just to kind of a lighthearted humor, to see if I can get them to laugh. Now, the reason I'm doing this isn't for my ego. It's not to prove to myself how funny I am. It's really to assess how comfortable are they, right? Because if I don't know the person, and like I said, most of the time, I don't already know the person, maybe it's their first interview and maybe they're mortified. Well, if they're mortified, I don't want to joke around too much with them. I want to be respectful of where they are. Like I said, I'm already trying to make them comfortable, but if they're really uptight, I'm not going to joke around too much. On the other hand, if someone just cracks up and I see that we have a similar sense of humor, I'm going to really make that a big part, hopefully, of the interview. Because to me, ideally, in an interview, it's going to be funny. We're going to have fun with it. And then we're also going to go deep. Ideally, I want to do both of those things, right? Just like we want in life. We want to experience the whole range of emotions. So if I can get the whole range of emotions into an hour of interview, then, you know, that's a massive success. And of course, it depends on the topic. It depends on the book. It depends on, again, the personality of the person that I'm interviewing. But that's the goal. And so trying to get them to laugh a little bit in the beginning is sort of a nice barometer for me of how far I'll be able to go and what the tone is going to be of the interview. Once we're in the interview itself, there are two main things happening. And neither of these are going to surprise you. First of all, the questions, obviously. But then secondly, the tangents. The questions are relatively straightforward, right? I've got my list. We already talked about that. I know my arc. I know where I want to end up. But then I'm following up on my list, right? I'm following up on the questions, on their answers. And this is where interviewing becomes a skill or an art. Because, again, I'm not just reading the questions. I start with those, but then I'm listening. And it becomes a real exchange. I'm digging deeper. I'm getting clarification. And that's where we take it one step further and we break off into the tangents. Now, the tangents are when, again, for me, it really becomes a skill and really becomes even more of a skill and an art. Because this is where the interesting stuff happens, right? This is where the stuff that you haven't planned for happens. Now, it's also the most challenging part of the interview. Because as the interviewer, I have to be able to decide in a split second, is this a quote, unquote, good tangent? Is this a bad tangent? And a good tangent, of course, being one that is more or less in line with the topics that I've hoped that we're going to discuss that I've planned for us to discuss. And so if that's a good tangent, then I want to follow up on that. If it's a, quote, unquote, bad tangent, then I need to be able to gently heard the interviewer or the interviewee back to kind of the main line, the main thread of the conversation. Now, tangents, the good tangents, to me, my approach to them and why it's so tricky, it's sort of like my approach to travel. When I'm traveling generally, I don't rely on a map and I don't rely on GPS. Because when I'm walking through Paris, for example, I just want to discover stuff, right? That's where the excitement is, these unexpected discoveries that we make when we're traveling. And it's the same with the conversations, it's the same with the interviews. It's when we're going off on these tangents and wandering to places we hadn't necessarily deliberately intended to go, that some of the most beautiful, exciting, interesting moments arise. So I want to do that. I want to wander. I want the unexpected. I want to allow space for that to happen. But just like when I'm traveling, as I'm wandering through Paris, I still need to get back to my hotel. I still need to know how to get back to my main, you know, the main walk that I was taking. I still need to get back to where I started. And so it's the same with the tangents. I want to let my guest go off on this exciting, interesting tangent. But I, as the interviewer, it's my job to make sure, one, we don't go too far. And two, I know how to get us back to the main conversation. Now, there are several skills involved, and this is where it really is, again, sort of tricky and exciting. There are several skills involved in making sure that that happens, that we can explore the tangent, but also get back. Key skill is listening, first of all. And not just listening, but actually hearing what the person is saying, right, and responding accordingly. That requires a tremendous amount of concentration. I don't know if there's anything that I do that requires more concentration than what I'm interviewing. And so like I already said, I'm looking at the questions. I'm listening to the responses. I'm evaluating whether or not to follow tangents. I'm looking at my time sheet so that I know where I should be timing-wise in the conversation. I'm looking at the clock to match that up. If I'm doing a live event, I might be looking on Zoom. I'm looking at chat to see if the questions are coming in. When I was doing my live video podcast, I was operating three cameras myself while I was doing the interviews, which I looked back on that. And I mean, it was a lot. And then of course, if I was doing Facebook Live, which I was also doing, then comments and things would be coming in that way. So I'm spinning so many plates when I'm doing an interview that it's really challenging, but it's also really exhilarating. So I like the challenge, but I'm always exhausted at the end because it takes so much concentration. The other thing that I have to pay really close attention to in addition to all those things that I just cited is the interviewee's body language, right? Because what is it, 85% or 90%, I don't know what the statistic is, but it's something at that level of communication is nonverbal. So if I'm interviewing you and I've just asked you a question that you are uncomfortable with or maybe you don't even know the answer, and again, I'm never going to surprise you, but sometimes people just blank, right? And that hasn't happened too often, but there were a couple of times, you know, when I've asked a question that I know the interviewer knows the answer, the interviewee knows the answer, it's just a glaringly obvious thing that they live and breathe and yet they get this blank look on their face because we get self-conscious or whatever the reason is. Well, it's my job as the interviewer to sort of sweep in and prevent that moment from being more than a blip on the radar. And a lot of that I'm doing by discerning their body language, right? So I have to pay attention, not just, and as I'm looking at the clock as I'm looking at these other things, I really, my main focus nonetheless has to be on them and their language and making body language and making sure that they're comfortable and this is going well for them. The last skill that is just key and something that I think is a challenge for a lot of people is the ability to interrupt in a way that is not offensive, that's gentle yet firm.  We're taught that it's rude to interrupt, right? Well, if I don't interrupt you when you're going off on this tangent and you're going, you know, now you're in Lyon instead of Paris, you're just, you're so far afield, I'm going to lose control of the interview and you're going to take over. We're not going to get to the topics that I wanted to get to. We're not going to end up where I wanted to end up. And so I have to, the interviewer has to be able to interrupt. And that's a learned skill. That's not something I was comfortable with initially, but I'm much better now because you have to be, like I said. So those are just some of the, in the moment skills and learnings that I've developed and learned over the course of doing interviews. Now I want to share with you just some of the things that I love about it. When I first started, as I said at the beginning, I started interviewing and podcasting because I, as an author, as a new author, I needed a platform. I didn't have one. This opportunity arose and I took it. So it was about me initially. But what I quickly learned and one of the things that I loved and still love is that it wasn't just about me because ironically, or not so ironically, with each interview, I'm doing the same thing for the other person or the organization or the cause that I'm doing for myself. And that is, I'm giving them a platform. So once I realized that whether it's guide dogs for the blind or an author that's got a new website out or my friend who had Crohn's disease, I'll talk about in a second, that I was helping all of them to the extent that I had, you know, that audience, that felt really good. And it felt really good also because I hadn't anticipated it. Like I said, I thought it was just going to be all about me. So to find out that I was and helping myself, I was helping others felt really good. A lot of people that I get to the chance to interview and get to sit down for an hour with and have these in-depth conversations, they're not people I would get to do that with otherwise. And so that's another thing that I love about the interviewing and about the podcasting is it gives me these opportunities I just wouldn't have otherwise. And I just mentioned my friend who had Crohn's disease and she's a perfect example. I've known her for 25 years and, you know, since very early on in our friendship, I knew that she had Crohn's disease. Well, it wasn't until she came on my show though that we really spent, you know, 45 minutes going in-depth and I learned so much more about my friend than I had known until then about this key part of her life. And I've had a few other friends also on my podcasts. And so that's just another dimension that I never would have anticipated that has been really rewarding about doing these interviews. In more simple terms, you know, I've just made so many new contacts many of whom have become ongoing friendships so that's been really gratifying and I've just learned a lot. You know, I mentioned how much research I do if an author is going to be on the show I read their book if it's a cause I learned about the cause of the organization and then obviously during the interview itself we go that much deeper and I learned that much more and since they're my shows I'm always choosing something that's of interest to me but things that are of interest to me I might not have ever had the time to learn anything about so I just, I love that aspect of doing the interviews. If we go a little deeper a little more personal you know, so much of or like so many things that we do that push us outside of our comfort zones I've grown a lot as a result of doing the interviews as a result of throwing myself into podcasting as a result of agreeing to do a two hour live show two weeks after agreeing to do it and then everything that has come since then so I think just in sort of personal growth terms throwing myself into interviewing has been great from that, from that angle as well and I think that sometimes we need to do that right especially if we haven't challenged ourselves for a while and so that's that's what interviewing and podcasting that's another thing that they've done for me the last thing I'll say along these lines is just that another consequence of throwing myself into this has been just that when we do something like this doors unexpectedly open and there have been lots of interview opportunities that have come up along the way and of course the last one being the most recent one being taking over being asked to be program manager and host of the San Francisco writers conference podcast which you know, if you'd asked me a year or two years ago if that was in the cards I never I mean that just would have seemed so so out there so unlikely so that's another great thing about when we when we launch into these unexpected endeavors unexpected doors open so I just mentioned the San Francisco writers conference podcast so I'm just going to tell you a little bit of how I got into that a little more specifically and then I want to share some of the changes we've made and some of the guests that I have lined up and then we'll open it up to question to Q&A but I attended the San Francisco writers conference for the first time last year 2020 and after that and I don't even really know how this happened but I guess just you know, I met a lot of people there had a wonderful experience was really looking forward to to this year's conference which obviously didn't happen and they asked me afterwards if I would edit I guess it came up at some point that I was a podcaster and they asked me if I would edit their podcast episodes from 2020 because the way that they did the podcast until now they would conduct all of their interviews at the conference and then they would split split up the interviews with five or six people who would go out and interview the speakers and then over the course of the year until the next conference every two weeks they would release a new episode well so I was editing those episodes well as 2021 approached and the conference could no longer take place they were going to run out of episodes and they were going to run out and not be able to produce anymore because the conference wasn't happening well even worse that since the conference wasn't happening they needed that visibility perhaps even more than under ordinary circumstances so they reached out to me and said would you take this on and I said yeah you know I'd be I'd be humbled and excited to take it on but there are a few things that I would like to change if it works for you so the first thing is the episodes before were 10 to 20 minutes and because they were splitting the interviews up between five or six people they had a three-question format to allow for some consistency and that worked really well but I asked and sort of suggested if I could kind of take my approach to an hour episodes that would be closer to an hour so we're going to do that you know these people that I'm having on the show they're I just have too much that I want to talk about with them and so 10 or 20 minutes selfishly that's not enough for me so we've expanded the format the episodes will be more more like an hour going forward the other thing is the podcast currently is not available on the major podcast platforms and so in 2021 if you're doing a podcast you've got to have it on Stitcher and iTunes and Spotify so we'll be getting the podcast on those major platforms shortly another thing that I suggested that the conference was all in favor of is since I'm conducting all of these interviews via Zoom I said let's just use the video and upload the video to Zoom so for those people who prefer to actually watch the interviews that'll also be an option that we'll be doing going forward that we haven't thus far a few things that we're not changing I love the slogan of the conference because I think it really hits the nail on the head or the three nails on each of the heads for what the things that are really most important to writers and that's craft commerce and community and so I'm trying to keep those things in mind as I choose guests and then as I actually formulate my outlines for each of the episodes with the guests and the same applies again like I said to actually choosing the guests just to wrap up I'm going to go through quickly just a few of the guests that I do have lined up for the initial episodes I don't have time to go through everybody but just to give you a sense for some of the episodes like I said this Saturday sort of a pre-episode I'll be having Laura McClain the conference director on and we're going to talk about again how the conference is adjusted to COVID and what's in store for this year because there's a lot going on even though the conference didn't take place and then talk about 2022 my first show with an author I've already recorded and it was a great conversation that was with Alia Voltz who wrote recently I guess last year her paperback's about to come out next month or April home baked and this is a fantastic book she grew up with her mom selling pot brownies or cannabis brownies throughout San Francisco both in the 70s when it was kind of you know fun hedonistic and then in the 80s when the AIDS crisis hit and so it's an autobiography it's a memoir about her experiences growing up in that environment but it's really so much more than that I mean that would be enough in and of itself but it's a history of San Francisco it's a history of the AIDS crisis it's a history of cannabis and legalization but the reason in addition to the fact that the book sounded interesting the reason I'm having Alia on first is because she launched during the pandemic and I launched three books for clients during the pandemic and it's it's such a challenge it's been such a challenge and she not only launched successfully but she taught a workshop on on launching during the pandemic so I thought that's a perfect subject to start with she's the perfect person to talk about that with so really excited to get that episode out I'm also gonna do I'm gonna skip here in the interest of time there are lots of episodes I wanted to talk about in you know I talked about the three tenets craft community and commerce I'm gonna have Laurie Doyle who's a conference alumnus and Ryan Sloan on now they're both associated with Berkeley they Laurie's part of the writers Grotto and they both also are co-founders along with Mori Zeff of Babylon Salon and for any of you who are interested in literature reading series this has been one of my favorite reading series for for a couple of years I think I've been following them and so we're gonna talk about community as writers because when I was getting started it was really hard to find community and so between the two of them and the three of us we've got academia writers organizations and literary series and so I'm really excited about that and I'm hoping that it will help new writers to kind of navigate find their way and establish writers to find new ways perhaps a finding community another episode I'm really excited about and this is for any of you who might be interested in self-publishing or indie publishing is Joanna Penn and this is someone she's based in the UK I'm so excited that she agreed to be on the show because so many of us are indie publishers and self-publishers or self-publishing and she was one of the main resources when I self-published my first book she was one of the main resources I went to her website her podcast she's fantastic she's a best-selling author many times over in her own right so I think for for indie writers that's going to be a really exciting episode as well and then the last person I'm just going to throw out is Natalie Baziel she wrote Queen Sugar which some of you might know Oprah turned into a TV show while she has a new anthology coming out we are each other's harvest celebrating African-American farmer's land and legacy and so we're going to talk about writing the new book and then what goes into creating an anthology and then also what it's like to have your book picked up by Oprah and turned into a TV show which that's one that's an interview in which you know she's already been asked that 50 50 times or 100 times or 500 times and I even said to her if you don't want to talk about it again you don't have to but sounds as if she's up for it so I think that'll be that'll be a great conversation as well there's lots more I could say about all about all about all of that but that just hopefully gives you an idea of kind of the the things we're going to talk about on the new podcast before I turn it over back over to Taryn and to questions I'm going to see if I can navigate one more video this is my most difficult interview that I did and it's and it's just a clip it's just one minute of like seven minutes just to give you an idea but it's my most difficult interview and it's also my most popular interview by far so let me see if I can navigate this because the other video is still up and it's a little tricky in in windows so let me let me see if I can navigate this all right here we go I'm Matthew Felix here to speak once again with Matthew Felix welcome Matthew Matthew is there a problem? Oh I'm sorry just I got I got a text sorry yeah okay I'm sorry what was the question I hadn't asked you a question yet I was going to ask you a question apologies first off have you put on weight put on weight? you look a little fuller in the face maybe why don't you tell people what the book's about With Open Arms is a collection of travel stories about some of the humorous and harrowing experiences that I had on two different trips to Morocco such as well there was my nightmare survival in Tangier there was the amazing experience I had in the Saharan sand dunes I see are you okay? of course no worries okay so that was obviously just an interview I did with myself when I was promoting my second book or I guess it was my first book second book I wrote first book I published my Morocco stories so thank you very much I'll turn it back over to Taryn I will unmute myself thank you that was that was kind of fascinating I learned a lot myself and so I'm thinking how can I apply this to my the tour I'm leading tomorrow aha perfect timing I think I'm going to take a hot shower and do some vocal exercises before highly recommend it highly recommend it well I have a question Carrie and I were chit chatting back and forth in the chat space about how do you politely interrupt or cut someone off when they start to go on and on a little too long about their cats or something off topic I hate it when they go on and on about their cats even though I love cats I think it's so situational right it's so specific and so you just kind of sit there like a mongoose and you wait until I was just on Hawaii I was just on Maori for 12 for 12 days and we saw nine mongoose which is for me was really exciting so that's I think that's where that metaphor came in or that analogy came in but you just kind of wait and when they take a breath or when they say something that you maybe you kind of agree with what they just said before they start to say something else but I think I think a lot of it is sort of intuitive I mean a lot of it is just just waiting you're just kind of it goes back I guess to the listening right you're just listening so carefully for that opportunity and you're reminding yourself that if you don't cut them you don't stop them from talking about their cats they're going to mess up the whole interview and you just kind of insert yourself you apologize right oh I'm so sorry but you know what let me so you just try to be polite you try to be very tactical with your timing and the other thing that I guess I'll say about that is people as soon as you do that you're also kind of bringing people out of their out of that headspace and then you're reminding them and usually they'll be like oh yeah yeah they realize oh I'm in an interview and I should probably kind of reign it in a little bit so usually once you kind of remind them they're they're receptive but I think a lot of it is just kind of instinctive and you just kind of learn it over time you just listen for the right the right moment you listen for the right moment you apologize politely maybe make a joke but like I said usually they're going to be they're reminded that they're in an interview and they they trust that you're the one who's driving and so usually they're okay to turn to turn the reins back over to you usually good it looks like Kerry has another question Kerry do you want to turn your mic on and just ask directly and I also saw Denise maybe Denise we can go after Kerry oh I'm sorry I didn't I I mean that's okay you settings here so I can see I just saw the hand I made a comment about not asking open-ended questions because I've started a lot of interviews for my podcast by saying something like so what led you in your life to do the thing you're doing and you end up they download their whole life story on you and you haven't gotten to the meat of what you actually want to be talking about in your interview and nobody really wants to hear what they did when they were in the fourth grade and so on and you'll get that if you don't kind of hone in your question and I don't think I'm very good yet at asking a question that will get exactly the information that I want without getting 10 minutes of extraneous stuff I think that's a really good point thank you for that I think that that underscores the importance of the questions themselves and why I take so much time with my questions and so and again I think that's something that just comes with practice right you only need so many guests to tell you about their fourth grade antics before you realize maybe I need to get a little more specific or maybe I need the other thing is when I have maybe verbose guests which I actually want right I'd rather have a guest who wants to say too much versus not enough and usually usually I don't have that problem of them not saying not enough but sometimes people are shy whatever but I'll say just very briefly could you tell me about that fourth grade incident because we're a little short on time or I want to make sure I get to everything if you get the sense that they're going to be verbose or they've already proven that they're verbose I'll start prefacing my questions with little polite reminders hey we don't have a lot of time but I'm really I would like to know just a little bit about that fourth great incident but then I have a question I want to ask right so kind of set that expectation and give them that reminder and sometimes that helps as well Denise I was just going to can you hear me you're such a good conversationalist you're such a natural at it that I'm happy to know about all your preparation because that even makes it better but have you ever interviewed someone that you didn't like someone during the interview I wondered if this question was going to come up um and you know what the answer is I think the answer is no now one person comes to mind who was so there are two people who come to my who were challenging but it wasn't that I didn't like them but there was one who was just pretty pretty shut down and they they would talk they would answer my questions but you know I talked about at the beginning about kind of making a joke and trying to suss out kind of where they are comfort level wise and this person in particular was just sort of a hard nut to crack it's not that I just like this person but from an interview standpoint it was more challenging that I would have preferred the other person who comes to mind was someone I really liked but this was someone who was so used to being interviewed that this person just wanted to run with the conversation this was one of those people who had a lot of wrote answers and they were heartfelt answers but the person had already had some of these conversations so many times and they were used to being in charge and so they wanted to be in charge so again it's not that I disliked interviewing them and I really liked them personally but it was challenging from the interview perspective and I they finally kind of got into my rhythm and I'm really happy with how it turned out but it was really challenging in the beginning but I'm actually surprised though going back to your specific question that I haven't really come across anyone and I don't know you know who I didn't like and maybe part of that is again people are so happy and grateful I've everyone's so grateful to be given the opportunity to talk about their work right even if maybe maybe they're not the nicest person otherwise but everyone that I've dealt with and I don't know how many interviews I've done at this point but people generally have been gracious and grateful and hopefully I didn't just jinx myself but like I said it's a great question and I was thinking about that beforehand because I wondered if if anyone was going to ask so thank you for that and then there's a question from Diane Diane would you like to ask that directly or would you like me to read it how did you handle all your notes without being obvious looking at them continually there you go so yeah so I interview Diane Diane I mean I forgot about Diane when I was thinking about difficult interviews wow I mean you want to someone who is difficult to interview Diane LeBeau my god no I'm kidding how do I well again it goes back to the rehearsal right I mean you guys saw that I was looking at my notes while I was doing this but hopefully I wasn't just staring at them the whole time right and that's because because I did rehearse and so when I'm when I'm doing my interview with with a podcast when I'm interviewing someone else then one I've rehearsed which makes me less reliant on the notes I'm still going to use the notes because again they're really specific things I want to make sure that I get to and then the other thing is half of it though are the tangents and when we're on a tangent I'm not looking at my notes so hopefully most of the interview I'm not glued to that paper because one I'm familiar with what I want to discuss two the rest of the interview is is about tangents and spontaneous conversation anyway and hopefully the notes are just things that I refer to to keep me on track assuming again that I've rehearsed then I've done my homework so I think that's how that hopefully transpires thank you any other questions Diane's voice Diane keeps moving our lips like she's talking did you have anything to say Diane can you hear me yeah yeah yeah no I just Matthew did an interview with me when he was starting the podcast and he was so terrific and a lot of fun and I was in the process of finishing my travel memoir and his interview and podcasts really helped me figure out more of what my book was going to be about so he's a wonderful person and he's helping me promote my upcoming travel memoir thank you Diane yeah it's great when you are able to tease out some important bits from your your interviewee in order to change their change their worldview in a way well I think that's also you know I talked about just now helping myself entails helping others even though that's I didn't know that was going to be the case but that's been a nice a nice unexpected benefit and so and so yeah so that's just another example of if you're coming onto my show and you've gotten in Diane's case a new book that you're formulating that you've worked on for a long time but there's still some some critical issues that maybe you haven't resolved or directions you're not sure you want to go if I'm putting you under the microscope for 45 minutes and again I've done my homework and I hadn't read Diane's book yet but just inadvertently it's going to hopefully be helpful for her because I've just put her like I said put her under the microscope for 45 minutes or an hour so that's just another nice example of how other people can kind of benefit from from the exchange that that the interviews are so thanks again Diane thank you I mean to me like I said I want to I want to go deep and I hopefully want to have fun and have a laugh to the extent that I can based on the chemistry with the with my guest and I mean that's just it's just a metaphor for life right we want to experience deep emotions intense emotions and we also want to have fun so again if I can and if I can do that in an hour then that's that's kind of the goal and that's when I feel really good about an interview when we've kind of hit all those different spots on the on that on that spectrum humor's key anyone else have a question then we might have just hit an hour exactly which goes also to my thing about keeping time being exactly on time when possible although we'll take more questions if anybody has any last minute ones but otherwise yeah maybe we've just wrapped up at an hour exactly oh thank you Kerry thanks for the question well thank you Matthew I am thank you I need to unpack my thoughts about this because you have opened up a couple of doors in my brain you know where to find me yes I do but but in all seriousness I mean again that's also why we do these talks so it makes me feel really good so thanks for sharing that that my my little talk just now has has got the wheel spinning for you that that makes me feel good it makes it it makes it so worthwhile for me so thanks thanks for that and yeah of course if you have follow-up questions or want to chat you know like I said you know where to find me so we can talk I do all right well thank you everyone for turning out tonight and sharing your thoughts with Matthew I will post this on the Mechanics Institute's YouTube channel if you want to revisit some of the things that Matthew talked about should be up in a day or two thank you very much thank you thank you thanks everybody for coming out thanks Teran and uh thanks Mechanics Institute and uh talk soon yeah I look forward to the podcast okay thanks all right good night good night


The senior pastor of the Citadel Global Church, Pastor Tunde Bakare, has urged President Mohamed Ibohar to tear down the 1999 constitution, which he describes as a glorified debt certificate. Bakare stated this during his State of the Nation address at his church headquarters in Lagos. The pastor submitted that ethnic religious and secessionist agitations in the East, West and North were indications that Nigeria was in dire need of restructuring. He warned that restructuring has to happen before the 2023 general election.


Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel. It is Drew here from Lone Fox. I hope everybody is staying safe at home I'm preaching that in every single video for now because it is just what we need to be doing right now So I hope everyone's having an amazing day and today. I'm actually doing another DIY video But I am not DIYing it with your ordinary supplies We are going to be DIYing with toilet paper rolls And this is something that I've been wanting to do for a while now And I'm really really excited about this because I came up with some really cute ideas I think you guys are going to be loving and these are definitely a resource that everyone can kind of get their Hands on especially right now. I feel like a lot of us kind of stocked up a little bit on toilet paper Hopefully we didn't hoard up on toilet paper and get 9,000 rolls But I'm sure a lot of us have toilet paper in our house right now Just because we are staying home and we need a little bit of toilet paper of course supplied in our homes that we were able to You know what we got to do with it But because I'm sharing with you guys four different projects I did not have enough toilet paper rolls to use an all four project So I purchased this pack of toilet paper tubes and you can get these on Amazon I will link it below for you guys if you are curious you get 30 tubes in a pack And I just wanted to share that with you because I know that you're gonna see a lot of very perfect looking toilet paper Rolls in this video and that is because I did purchase that pack just to be able to share with you guys a lot of different Ideas that way you could start saving up your toilet paper rolls at home to use in your projects And the second thing that I wanted to mention is that all of the money it generated on today's videos through the ads that you Guys watch so whenever there's like a little ad break in the video I get a very very very tiny amount per person It's literally like less than a penny per person But it ends up adding up in the end of course and I'm going to be donating all of the money made on today's video to the CDC Foundation to combat coronavirus so keep in mind that if you guys see an ad in this video and you watch the ad fully through I make a tiny percent more and this is not me saying you need to watch ads in all of my videos at all You can skip whatever you want do whatever you feel like you want to do But if you do end up watching the ads a little bit longer than you normally do today on this video You are actually helping donate a little bit more to the CDC foundation And I want to just quickly tell you guys what the CDC foundation donation is going towards and it is going towards the funding and medical Supplies increasing lab capacity deploying emergency staffing to US public health agencies Providing support to vulnerable communities addressing health communication needs boosting clinical research to improve health outcomes building capacity and infrastructures for global response efforts and much more so it's donating to a lot of different sectors that are kind of Affected by coronavirus and need the funding of course such as medical fields of vulnerable communities and also lab research So I felt like this was just a great foundation to donate towards because they're kind of donating to a lot of different sectors Which I liked and I'm also going to link their website below in case you are curious and just want to check out a little bit More so everything generated from today's video is going to be donated directly to the CDC foundation Which I am extremely extremely excited about okay I know that intro was a little bit longer than usual, but I think it was definitely worth it right everybody anyways Let's jump into today's DIY projects using toilet paper rolls because I think you guys are going to love them So let's get started For our first project We're going to be using some cement powder toilet paper rolls candle sticks and a hot glue gun And this is my favorite brand of cement It is pre sifted and super smooth And I just wanted to share with you guys how the larger role is actually from a toilet paper roll And then the other one is the store-bought Amazon rolls So I just wanted to show you the size comparison for those So what I'm starting off by doing is taking my toilet paper rolls and pressing them against a little piece of cardboard And I am going to be gluing around the outside edge just to create a very secure tight Bond and I don't want any glue on the inside because we are essentially creating a mold for our cement So you're gonna want to pipe the hot glue around the outside edge And just let that dry for about 10 or so minutes until it is fully dry And then we're gonna be mixing up our concrete powder with some water And you guys can kind of see the consistency that I go for I just go for like a very smooth Silky consistency as seen here and when it reaches that consistency it is very satisfactory So I'm going to be scooping this in and don't worry if you get it on the outside edge That will all break off once it is fully dry And I used a popsicle stick actually just to kind of make sure that the cement was just everywhere inside of the mold And I also suggest to repeatedly tap the actual cement mold up and down on top of a tabletop And as you can see here I actually use Vaseline because a lot of you guys mentioned in one of my cement fails in the past that I Should use Vaseline on whatever I'm putting in the cement and it will come out easily However, when these were dry, I'm gonna let you guys know right now It did not come out But that is no worry because candlesticks are super inexpensive and I would gladly remake these again So for my next one, I'm actually varying the heights of the cement So this one's going to be a full one that is completely filled up with cement So I pushed my candlestick about two inches down in and I'm using a popsicle stick to scrape off any excess on the top And then I'm moving on to the smallest one And I only added about maybe two inches of cement in that one pressed it down in let it dry overnight completely And this was very satisfying as well You can just cut away the mold and this cardboard is really nice It just peels away super super easily and once you get that big chunk It is so nice like look at how this unwraps and I am just absolutely obsessed with these I tried to pull out the candlestick to see if I would be able to just reuse these and put the candlestick back inside But they didn't come out So if you guys have any suggestions on what I can use to kind of create a non-stick bond with whatever I'm placing in to the cement Please let me know and if there is any leftover cardboard or you just want to smooth the surface of your cement You can give a light sanding with some sandpaper and that will finish these off These turned out super super cute and I am obsessed with the vibe I think you guys are going to love this project I'm using some wooden dowels a little square box I got at Joanne fabric and then some toilet paper rolls and popsicle sticks So I'm adding glue to half a popsicle stick and securing it onto the inside of one of our toilet paper rolls And I'm doing the same thing directly across from our first popsicle sticks You're going to have two sticks sticking out of the tube and you're going to do the same thing to your second one You're actually going to repeat this for however many bars you want in your jewelry stand So I'm doing this for the second one as well And then what you're going to do after these are dry Is you're going to add hot glue to both of the exterior sticks And you're going to press another tube on top and this is how we're going to get a nice strong bond between two of these But if you had paper towel rolls, this would work just as well However, I'm using toilet paper rolls So I pressed these two together and I'm going to scrape off any of that excess glue and once it is dry You can actually just roll it off of the surface.  I have just been absolutely obsessed with copper lately I don't know what it is. I swear I left the copper phase like for a while But I'm kind of back into it. This copper was a little bit rosy So I wish it had a little bit more of an orange tint to it And I am next using my early american wood stain from verithane This is my favorite one and I am just going to quickly stain my little wooden block I thought this was a nice one because this one has these like angled edges to it And it almost makes it look like a pedestal situation when you flip it upside down But I believe it's like a little catch all wooden tray So I stained that and then I just screwed through Uh the actual surface of this on the diagonal corners And I just made sure that the the dowels would actually fit inside of there I let them dry for about an hour and then I'm going to be pressing them down through the holes that we drilled through And they're pretty snug But what I did was actually flipped it over and just applied a generous amount of hot glue to the bottom of these Just to make sure that they're going to stay holding upright and that finishes off our jewelry stand The supplies for our next project are super minimal just toilet paper rolls pencil exacter knife and ruler So what I'm going to be doing is taking a ruler and just drawing a line every half inch down my toilet paper rolls So this clear ruler really comes in handy because I'm able to kind of see the line that I drew prior And make sure that the new line is going to be a half inch apart from it So you're going to have all of these lines on your toilet paper roll Now this next part looks kind of hard and honestly it was for me because my exacter knife was extremely dull But if you have a fresh one or if you just go very slowly This is pretty simple and easy not to mention the amazon toilet paper rolls are just a little bit thicker than your traditional one And you're going to be repeating the process for all of your toilet paper rolls So you're going to be using an exacter knife to cut down leaving about a half inch from the start into the end of each cut That you do that way it is not actually separating the roll. You're just creating slips down at the center So next what you're going to do is you're going to kind of put your fingers inside and we're going to be shaping our lantern So what we're going to be doing to shape it is you're going to press out the center and give it a fold So you're going to do this all the way around and I wanted to do one full lantern with you guys without doing any form of cut So I am going to be kind of pressing around the whole exterior of this But from the inside and creating a fold Then what you're going to do is kind of just use your hands to push this and as you could see it's already taking the form Of a lantern So I'm going to be kind of pressing and maneuvering this out and just really I don't know just kind of shaping it, you know Like you're just going to use your hands to shape it and you're going to do the same exact thing to all of your lanterns So I'm using that same copper spray paint just to paint these lanterns I thought I would add a nice warmth to them, especially with the light on the inside So I'm going to give these a nice coating of that copper paint Then I am using these string lights that I've had in my stash probably for like two years now They're from Target So I'll try to link them below for you guys and what I'm doing is I'm just cutting a tiny little slit on each Side of our lantern and you're just going to be pushing the wire down into the slit So this is not even something that is going to be permanent Of course, you could add glue to this to make it permanent However, I wanted the option to take these off afterwards if I didn't want them anymore So creating that slit allows you to push your light inside and then pull the wire Into the little cut that you created and it has enough force Between the cut that is going to hold your lantern in place. It's pretty secure as well So I repeated the process all the way down skipping every two lights And then I added a little lantern and that finishes off your little garland And for our last project, I am using 14 toilet paper rolls a brass ring a mirror and some black paint So what we're going to start off by doing is actually cutting our rolls directly in half So you're going to cut down one side then flip it and cut directly Above the cut that you just created because we're basically going to want these half sphere shaped Like pieces of toilet paper roll and I really wanted to create something large scale out of toilet paper rolls I knew I didn't want everything to be very small. I wanted a larger scale item So we are going to be creating a really cool wall mirror that kind of has like a kind of funky retro vibe to it Which I think is really fun So we're going to be cutting all 14 of our rolls in half and we're going to basically be putting them on the exterior of this ring So I am starting off by displacing them just so I can get like a visual look at what I am working with This kind of sunburst shape is really really nice And I am going to be using my gorilla hot glue, which is my favorite one linking it below because It works on literally every single surface and holds everything incredibly I am going to be gluing this down to the actual brass ring And I know there isn't much to glue down, but it definitely will hold keep in mind that toilet paper rolls Are extremely light. So we're not really gluing a heavy object onto a small surface It's pretty lightweight. So it definitely holds and bonds down And I have reached the end So I'm going to be gluing in my last half of a toilet paper roll And I'm going to be flipping this over because I want to add the mirror and I have this mirror from an older project I'm repurposing it from a project that just didn't work out And I'm adding a ton of hot glue down the center and I'm using this small piece of wood That I've had in my sash for a while I actually did cut it down to fit kind of like the length And I'm adding quite a bit of hot glue at the top And I'm also adding quite a bit of hot glue at the bottom because the only way this mirror is secure is from that piece of wood Now I really really wish I had spray paint But I was completely out of black spray paint and I was not about to leave my apartment to go get some black spray paint So I decided I'm resorting to hand painting this which is actually pretty therapeutic Not going to lie and it took up a little bit more time Which it seems like lately we have quite a bit of time So I went through and I painted this completely with one full coat of the black acrylic paint And then once we finished this and let it dry I flipped it over and I painted about an inch and a half to two inches Of the inside because you were actually able to kind of see the inside once it was hung on the wall I painted this as well and you could hang it up and that finishes your wall mirror Now guys imagine this in like a pastel pink or like a peach color or a cream tone or something I think this mirror would be stunning in really any color way And those were all of my projects for you today I hope that you enjoyed this video and I know some of these projects were a little bit random Like that mirror is definitely for a particular type of person for sure But I do think that the really cute jewelry holder and also little candlestick holders are just great for any space Keep in mind you can customize a lot of these to match your own color palette or whatever it might be And I hope this inspired you to kind of save some of your toilet paper rolls or paper towel rolls And use them in future projects and lastly before jumping off I just wanted to thank you guys so so so so much for watching today's video This one is much more important than a lot of my other videos to watch because all the money Of course is going to be donated towards the cdc foundation, which I think is incredible And I just want to thank you so much for doing a little tiny part in creating a larger donation for the foundation I will catch you all in my next video Do not forget to subscribe to my channel for brand new home decor and diy content every single week And also follow along over on instagram for more behind the scenes type stuff Which is a lone fox home I'll put another screen for you guys and I will catch you all in my next video Have an amazing day stay safe everybody and also make sure to stay home I will catch you all in my next video. Bye guys


Okay, we've just under a month to go before the January 14th Jamaica Football Federation elections. Raymond Anderson and his real solid action team launched their manifesto yesterday. And Lenny Aldred has that report. Shoss is essential for the efficient running of any venture. The JVV is no exception of this world. Trust loss is often hard to restore. A promise of trust, transparency and rebranding. The foundations that Jamaica Football Federation presidential candidate Raymond Anderson presented in his 26-page manifesto. The manifesto launch was held Thursday evening at the Cortley Hotel Suite in New Kingston. Outlined are eight key areas that his team will focus on if elected, rebranding, youth development, local elite squad, restoring financial stability, women's football, regaining stakeholders trust, infrastructure and qualifications. But what will be his starting point if given the nod at the polls? We want more football to play, wider cross-section of Jamaica. So we'll identify the areas that need a small amount of finance and start to build the field. And that is the beginning of us. We will start to build the field. And if you remember they said Raymond the biller, we will start to build the field. Anderson stated that there are still concerns surrounding pillar three ahead of the January 14 election date. They said no, it's not cleared up because legally we have to, we have been dealing with a lot of things because we believe that some of them people are not being honest and clearing our mind that people signing people name, that those things are not honest. So we know what we are going up against, but we are equal to the task and the honest side. So what we're doing now from the real solid action team are the new game plan. We want to ensure that we get to the voters. We want to tell them more about our manifesto. We want to try to ask them to give us a chance. The real solid action slate was also introduced. Anderson, presidential candidate is a vice president of the current administration. Vying for the four vice president posts are Keith Wellington, president of the inter-secondary school sports association ISSA and principal of St. Elizabeth Technical High School. When I was approached and I've been approached by multiple persons from different camps, my mindset is that I'm willing to assist in whatever way. This is not something personal for me. So it's more of my commitment to help with the development of our youngsters. Having been asked, I only had some parameters as to how I would get involved. One of the things that I said was that I want to get involved, but I'm not going to be involved in any sort of big campaign and mud slinging or anything like that to prove that I am a better candidate than another one. So it wasn't that difficult decision, but I believe that it is the right decision. I think that where we are as a country and where football is concerned, we need a change of route and I think that if there is an option available, then I should support it. Orville Powell, businessman and former owner of JPL Outfit Montego Bay United. It's change. Seeing how you sit and you listen to what that change is all about. I think I've never heard such arguments from the now administration. We need change and we complain that we need change for the past couple of years and when the opportunity came up, now to do change, we have people all over the place. And also, to me, it's just for change. Jacqueline Cummings-Martin, attorney at law and former member of the JFF Disciplinary Committee and Donald Beckford, president of the St. Anne FA and general secretary of Mount Pleasant Academy. The ordinary directors are Carol Beckford, media specialist in marketing and public relations and Wycliffe Dave Cameron, business consultant and former president of Cricket West Indies. 56 votes, please. Help us to help you. History will be very unkind to you if you don't really get this RSA team in office. Thank you. This is a gripping and riveting buildup to the January 14 elections, Ricardo, because Ricket seems confident, even though based on the jostling that we are seeing, he's trying to ensure that he has his support in place because he recognizes that there is a serious challenge coming from real solid action. Yeah, and the real solid action team in recent weeks, Lance, has accused the Jamaica Football Federation of trying to pervert the outcome of the upcoming elections. And you heard Raymond Anderson speak to the issues relating to pillar three with new associations being formed and given the nod to vote over existing associations. As far as I understand it, the real solid action team has written to the elections committee, and I suspect are awaiting responses now. The nominations are in, and I guess we'll just have to see what happens in the buildup to January 14. It is being inferred from the real solid action team that they could go legal on challenging some of the moves that the current Jamaica Football Federation has made here, even though you'd have to step carefully on that because based on the FIFA statutes, going the legal route and trying to overturn decisions that are made from a football administration standpoint could sometimes run afoul of FIFA statutes. So I think Raymond Anderson and his team are moving carefully because they recognize that not always, even if you feel you have a strong case, it is a good idea to go legal. Well, I think it starts with the electoral committee and then from what they said at a recent press conference, they're also working closely or trying as much as possible to keep CFU, CONCACAF in the loop. And if they have to go all the way to FIFA, I think they are willing to do that. But it does start with the electoral committee and depending on the ruling from the electoral committee, then I think they'll have a better understanding of where they go from there. But they feel that they have won a solid case and they have the evidence, the backup, the accusations that they have put forward. And we know the story quite well, Lance, because we've been covering this for a couple of months now in terms of what's been happening with the different pillars and specifically pillar three with a number of the organizations like Beach Soccer vs. Beach Football and organizations... Coach's Association is another one of the key ones, yeah. ...as well is another one of them. And those associations in some instances formed after what was to be the deadline for existing bodies and so on. So a lot to be worked out and you are right, you use the correct words, Lance, in terms of riveting... Yes. ...build up to the election, because it really is. Yeah, one of the things that I find striking about sports administration and I think this goes for elections generally, not only in sport but even national elections where there are so many diverse views as to the performance of the standing body, in the case of the national elections, the government and in this case the performance of the Jamaica Football Federation because about six or seven weeks ago on a local TV interview with, I think it was TVJ, Michael Ricketts, his narrative was one of confidence that he didn't feel threatened by Raymond Anderson because his performance as the JFF president over the years speaks for itself. So his point was that based on his performance I think we just had a bit of a stutter there but he seems confident that based on his track record as a president there shouldn't be any threat, which I find striking because most people don't think that his track record is good but he is suggesting that based on his track record he doesn't feel threatened for the presidency. Yeah, and he said that as well when we spoke to him here on the Sports Mag Zone, Michael Ricketts and I think we had the conversation as well that it depends on the lens that you're looking through that may determine where you stand on a matter like that. He is for example extremely confident that he has most of the parish associations, I think he quoted 18 of the votes coming from the parish associations that would give him a massive edge and if Raymond Anderson is unable to capitalise on those pillar three votes that many expected him to dominate then Ricketts may well be the favourite. I guess you could call this one race to 29. 29 plus 27 is 56, right? So yes, you need 29 votes to be the Jamaica Football Federation president and we'll see how it goes but I think so much more to happen in the build-up to this election. Another angle that I'm looking at closely to Ricardo is the fact that the Kingston and St Andrew Football Association who has a caustic relationship with the Jamaica Football Federation is actually backing Raymond Anderson and I think from a parish perspective there is, I would suspect, a fear coming from parishes outside of Kingston and St Andrew that there had been so many decades of Kingston and St Andrew dominance of football, administration and everything football in Jamaica that I see Ricketts using that as a tool that he could use to strengthen his parish support because he's going to tell the parish delegates that you know what, Raymond Anderson wants to make Casafa powerful again, the Kingston and St Andrew Football Association and I can tell you outside of Kingston and St Andrew that nobody wants Casafa to become dominant because they're only a part of Jamaica and we know the historical record of countries of parishes. Well, the rural area feeling that the city area is always pushed and always gets preferences and I think Anderson will have to work hard to convince the parish affiliates that although he's embracing the Kingston and St Andrew Football Association he is in no way trying to suggest that the other parishes will fall into the background because Casafa is so powerful. Yeah, and I hear you, Lance, but I believe that the current president really does have most of the parish associations already and I don't suspect that is going to change so I think who wins the selection really does come down to pillars two and three, pillar two being the clubs at the top level on both the men's and women's side and then the affiliates like the Intersecondary Schools Sports Association and so on in pillar three and so what it also means is that it comes down to the final decisions that are made in terms of who gets the vote in pillar three and at this stage I am not sure if anyone really knows where the pillar two votes are going to be going so I think that's where the outcome of this election lies in really pillars two and three because I think for the most part Michael Ricketts will have majority of the pillar one support which is the parish association. Outside of St Anne. Yeah, which is why I say most because clearly there are a few maybe you'll see like St Thomas you pointed out St Anne maybe Portland who knows who may go the way of Raymond Anderson but I think majority of them will go the way of Michael Ricketts and that pillars two and three then become extremely important and to be honest is probably where Raymond Anderson can turn this election in his favor but there is clearly still a lot of work to be done on both ends on the end of Michael Ricketts and also on the end of Raymond Anderson. Yeah, I think you're right that it's very hard to predict this election I'm not sure where it will go I'm on record on this show suggesting that if I were to rate the performance of Mike Ricketts administration as the Jamaica Football Federation boss I'd score them one out of ten and I'm serious about it. I know you're serious is what makes it funny. My problem is that I'm not sure if Anderson's group will be any better than one out of ten because I think there is a crisis of leadership in Caribbean sport generally speaking and I think the Jamaica Football Federation needs an upgrade and most of the narrative that we got in that Lenny Aldred report use the word change and I'm encouraged by that because what we are seeing as football administration in the past cycles to me represents failure and represents a lack of vision in taking the sport forward and as I said there's no guarantee that if Ricketts loses the performance of the administration of football in the country will be any better than Ricketts is I just know that Ricketts hasn't done a good job and it is unfortunate that we don't have a situation where you can have confidence that you vote Ricketts out and be sure that the new team will perform significantly better than Ricketts has. Yeah I think there is just so much more to say in the build up to this election but I also think we have a lot of time to say a lot of those things maybe not today but for sure another day.