Hello, Yeah, yeah, who is this? Oh?
This is the Gecko guy.
Oh dude, what the fuck? No way, what's up?
What's up?
Man?
What's your name?
I go by cousin online.
Cousin cool. You go by cousin online. What do you mean by that? You like wear online?
I have like a I have like a small Instagram following like a I'm like, I'm a weird golf artist online, but I don't like, uh, I don't like use or like exploit my page for that. It's just that I've never really felt like that my name fit me. So I've always kind of like gone by a moniker of sort.
And so yeah, you've you have been that one sentence given me so many questions to ask you, yeah, to keep sure track of all of them. Well, like when you say you don't want to exploit your page for that, what do you mean?
I mean? Like it's unrelated, Like the text that I sent you is like completely non related to like my Instagram presence. Like how for being like as small as it is, It's like it's probably like large to like the average Instagram user, but like on the scale of like how big Instagram pages can be, it's like tiny you know, there are cats with like four million followers, So it's not like a I try and keep like people,
you know how, I'm sure you've seen it. People will you know, get to like that eight to ten k thing on Instagram and then you can like smell the merge coming, you know, for for me, like anything under I don't know five hundred k. People don't know who you are when you step outside of your house, you know, like a very niche group might, but like when you're at the store, people aren't recognizing you. You know, you're just a regular person who happens to use Instagram professionally or whatever.
Okay, what so you have a you do weird golf art? What is that?
Yeah? I make divot tools, like for a living. I was a machinist. I worked in the sewers for years, machining pumps and turbines, and when COVID came around, I got laid off. I've been a lifelong golfer, and it's like a white Bit's like a like white people problems. The tivot tools that are on the market, they don't really work very well. They're kind of like antiquated technology, and they just don't like repair the putting surface the
way that they should. And so I went home and I made one, and then people started to like want to buy them, and so that ramped up into like basically a full fledged self sustaining business. Kind of randomly.
What is a divot tool?
It is so when you hit so like let's say you're playing like a standard par four on a golf course, you hit your t shot into the middle of the fairway and then your approach shot onto the green, it leaves a mark on the putting surface. And generally that mark is directly in the way of you putting to the cup. So you have to repair that ball mark. And if you just try and put over it, if your ball is going to bounce and do weird stuff, it's also just proper etiquette to fix the ball mark.
H And so my givot tools fix those ballmarks. That's like what they're engineered for. They're also fidget spinners so that you can sit there and fuck with it while you play.
Now you have my attention, cousin, Now you have my attention.
Yeah, they're they're a little spinners with what.
Year was it that the pidget spinner was was hip and popular?
That's oh shit. I was like I would like a couple. I was like a couple of years. This was like a couple of years out of high school. So maybe like twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen is like when I really started to notice them like coming about.
And why did you choose? Well, okay, multiple questions. I'm going back to the thing. I'm going back to the thing you said initially that sparked all the questions. Okay, you make weird golf art, you hate, you hate selling, you hate the idea of selling T shirts. Yeah, and then you like to go buy a moniker and you you mentioned something about you like to go by a moniker in multiple why do you like going by a moniker?
So I have a namesake, So like, my first name is Chris, but I was named after my uncle Chris, and he's like successful and you know, wealthy and well spoken and just like has this Chris thing or he has all the attributes of a Chris, and I just have always felt like something different. I appreciate being named after him. It's, you know, a huge compliment to share a name with him, But I've just never really identified
with my name. I guess you don't feel like I feel like names are weird in the first place, Like like, you know, what sound do I make to get your attention? You know? It's just like a it's just a strange I mean, like if the world was different, we'd all just be making like random gurgling noises to get each other's attention.
I don't know, I get you, I get you. I had a bit of a uh, I don't want to say an ego. This is a whole I can talk about this more on the podcast itself, but I'm trying. I'm in the process of doing ketamine therapy treatments and I did my first infusion yesterday and that was, uh. I had I had this little moment where I did kind of feel like, oh, what, Like I'm piloting the who is Lyle? Like what is that? That's like a
weird thing? Like I'm and I'm like, oh, I'm just like I'm I've just fucking just talked about this to death on the podcast or whatever. But like I'm just you know, I'm biological material that's gained sentience and like I've got now I have this identity that's tied to this name. You know, it's where I'm with you on the name's thing. I think the names thing is is, uh, it's a little weird. And also, you know, I'm also I'm also a big I'm a name. I'm gonna go
ahead and coin the turn name Libertarian. You can go ahead and call yourself whatever the fuck you want. What cousin is fine, Like you know, like I don't know, I can't. You should be able to name yourself whatever you want. Like there's no name, there's no name to me that you can start calling yourself. That's stupider than any real name, right, Like if you walk around and you're like if you walk around and you're like, hey, I want everyone to start calling me sock, you know.
But you're you know, but like your real name is David, but your.
It's like sock and David are equally stupid words. That don't that equally mean? All meaning is subjective. I'm with you on the names thing. I get you on that.
Yeah. Yeah, So I've always had a non self appointed moniker that people have just sort of like lashed onto the cousin thing. The cousin thing particularly came about because my business was originally building golf clubs, but I stopped building golf clubs in pursuit of doing these tools full time, and so people were confused because my original Instagram tag was custom Clubs, but I no longer, you know, built golf clubs. So I got tired of people like, hey,
you know, do you still build golf clubs? So I decided to just rebrand as cousin and so. And the reason for that was there was this longtime customer that I had that said, hey, man, I don't know like why, I've never met you in person, but you kind of feel like everyone's cousin and so I just and so I just took that and just implemented it and just you know, put it there and then yeah, it just it just stuck. So yeah, I've been cousin for years now, and.
So uh, okay, more questions, more questions for you. Okay, so you didn't feel like a Chris. Do you feel like a cousin?
I do? Yeah, Like, uh I noticed that. Like when people say Chris sometimes I don't. I don't know if I don't hear it or whatever, but I don't. I don't like or like when my wife calls me Chris, I'm like, whoa that's weird, you know, like I don't know, there's just something, there's a weird detachment that I have
to my name, Like it could disappear tomorrow. Who we could be, you know, thrown into like a weird post apocalyptic thing where we all rename ourselves and I would still be cousin over Chris.
So when your wife, does your wife call you like to people in your real life, Like, do people in your real life call you cousin?
No, like my I mean, yes, like my friends do, but like my my wife babe or whatever. Both of my parents call me Christopher, like in reference to me, like like to my friend. Which is fine that they named me, they can call me whatever. But yeah, like most of my friends call me cousin or whatever. Most of them don't call me Chris. And I mean this goes back all the way to like elementary school. I had my fifth grade teacher who named me Vans because I always had like a different color pair of vans.
So and then into middle school, people called me fish because of my last name. I don't know, I've never really had like a never really had like a direct attachment to my name, So being called a moniker it just kind of seemed normal when it started to happen.
Fish is good. I like fish. Okay, when your when your wife calls you Okay, so when your wife calls you christ so like okay, when your wife calls you, babe, right, like you feel you feel like all right? But how do you do? You do you identify with anything? You have to have some some attachment to some ego to exist in the world, don't you.
I think I think I've done a pretty I used to do a lot of psychedelics, So I think I think I've had enough ego deaths to kind of zoom out from that and realize like how unimportant everything is.
Yeah, I well, I don't know. I'm I'm, I don't know. Ego deaths are fine. I have a bit of I'm still all of my opinions are works in progress. But like I feel the best when I'm like very attached to reality and like the like the ego death thing, it's like it starts it gets me down this whole thing of like, oh, nothing's important, and you know who
am I? And you know, like ego death tends to lead me to like nihilistic places that actually I don't think are helpful for my development personally, So it sounds like for you, it sounds like for you, ego death has been good for your development.
Yeah. I had a pretty unconventional childhood, and then I was raised by women. My dad wasn't really around, and the women that I was raised around were like super like strong, domineering, for lack of a better term, kind of ditchy, and so it was it was kind of it was kind of good for me because then when I got out into the world, I was like, man, no one is just mean as my mom, like, this.
Is so the You're making it sound like your dad just like dropped you off at a house of women, like being like like kids, like being raised by wolves in the forest or something like what.
My mom has nine siblings and six of them are women, and they're all very close in proximity, a very small radius. And my mom was in school a lot, because my mom has like four college degrees, So my mom was in school a lot and divorcing my dad and life was weird, and so I spent most of my time kind of bouncing around from most of my aunt's houses.
And they all have different, very educated perspectives, and so It gave me this broad spectrum of like understanding without you know, really judging, because I kind of made me realize as I was older, I kind of realized, like everyone has their fucking reasons for why they are the way they are, and so I just kind of assume that everyone's like a little bit weird as normal as they may seem. Like everyone's got their weird hot takes, and I just try to give people a little bit
of grace. So, but they're they're unique, you know, they're they're my mom's sisters. They're all unique in their own way, and having them gave me this weird spectrum of understanding.
How old were you when you're so your dad kind of like your dad just kind of like left and was he so your dad hasn't been like a part of your life at all.
It probably would have been easier if he wasn't a part of my life at all. Like during those years, he was a really violent alcoholic and my mom was kind of stuck between like do I keep him around in the kid's life, you know, like in any facet at all, or should I just you know, remove him. And he didn't fight for custody or anything. Just when my parents divorced, it was just pretty simple for him.
He has always been pretty self aware, and I think he was aware enough to realize like that he was not necessarily fit to be even you know, the smallest percentage of custody parent, and so he had he had like non court appointed visitation rights, like you know, he could just come and visit like as he wanted to. But mostly that was just my mom like footing the bill and like doing most of that work. And generally, like when he was around, it was pretty weird and
like generally embarrassing if we were in public. There was like a line that he had. It was like he would drink up to a point and everything was kind of fine, and then it was like a two beer line and everything was just suddenly really downhill really quickly. Yeah. Just kind of like weird and white trashy during that part of my childhood. And then now he's great, he's been cleaned for like ten years.
Oh, but do you have a relationship with him now?
Yeah? Yeah, Yeah, it's kind of weird, Like to get to know it's kind of weird, like to get to know your dad like as an adult, you know, like to you have to like figure out what your relationship is like, are your friends? Is he still your dad? Like what? Obviously biologically that doesn't change, but you know, like do you you know, call him when you have, you know, questions about life? Not not not not really, it's more like a we're too alike for me not
to be friends with them. Other than the fact that I just I don't drink, so I just stayed away from him completely. I didn't understand alcohol. Uh, pretty much like entirely. I just I knew that for me it wouldn't be different, it would be the same thing. I have a super addictive personality, and if something gives me dopamine and serotonin, even in small doses, I pretty much just stick to it.
Mm hmmm. So you were raised mostly by your mom's like the six of her siblings that were around, and they were all and they were all you remember had nine siblings, all sisters.
I no, she had three brothers, okay, but.
But the brothers weren't as around as the sisters.
Uh. The brothers all have kids of their own. Oh, ok six sisters do not, So all.
All six of them didn't have their own kids.
Yeah, and you.
Were you were almost like the adopted child of all six of the sisters. You got it interesting? And did you did you kind of like so question like did you kind of spend an equal amount of time with all six of them? Like would you would you refer to all six of them? You're not a titles guy, but would you refer all six of them as like your mom in a way?
So like in third person? Yeah, pretty much like, yes, they all had their own little facet in my development. They all had their own little percentage of it. Yeah, you know, like zoom out. Yes, definitely, they're all kind of my mom in a weird way. But my mom had one older sister that was her and her husband were they couldn't have to She had ovarian cancer young and had to have a full hysterectomy. And so when I went home from the hospital, I actually didn't go
home with my mom. I went home with my aunt. And so kind of like from birth, basically I've I've had basically just two moms, just super weird and unconventional and just not not a normal upbringing. But it's probably more common than I think if you're from like a large family.
M hm, And are you still close with all of your your aunts. Oh yeah, yeah, do you have a relationship with your uncle's.
Yeah, I mean at family events. Yeah, my uncle Chris is probably the closest to me. My I have, I have, you know, to tow others, but they are they're both like they're in that part of their life where they're both retired and traveling and they're living life. My uncle Chris is still you know, young and working, and so he's probably the closest to me.
A lot of Chris is running around.
It's just my just my uncle Chris and myself. Yeah, but yeah, that's I mean, I'm sure there's like millions of Christmas in the world.
Probably, I'm sure.
Whether it's christal Ball or Christopher or Christian or you know, any of the other variations.
So let's see you. Uh, you're texted me something you said, Uh, you know, actually I don't like I don't sometimes I like reading the text. Sometimes I like, let's just do this. What did you want to talk to me about today, Chris?
Well, I mean, like you can you can read like the like the text that I sent. That's that's that's perfectly okay. It's like I do think it'll help people and there they're probably is there probably are people who are going through that that are not that particular you know form, but there are people who are probably going through it.
Well, I guess. I mean, like sometimes I don't if sometimes when someone texts me like a whole pair, if someone texts me like a short thing, I'll be I'll like, I'll read the text. But if sometimes be a long thing, I'm like, I'd just rather I would just rather ask you what you want to talk about and you can, you know, explain to your own words.
Yeah, hello, do we lose you? Yeah? No, I'm still here.
So what were you saying?
Sorry, I'm sorry. I'm telling my wife to skidaddle because I want to be myself and talk without without her judging me and like looking at me.
Funny, Oh she's in the room.
Yeah okay, yeah, So like, yeah, I had stage three testicular cancer and I was diagnosed at thirty.
I was thirty one when I was diagnosed, and I actually kind of figured I found out something was wrong when I was playing golf. I stepped into a sprinkler hole and my left nut like hit the inside of
my thigh. And you know how like sometimes if you do something weird, like you know, you can like sit on your ball funny or whatever, it's like, oh weird, that's uncomfortable, but like, uh, this it just barely clapped the inside of my left thigh and it was like a weird like deep internal like stomach like gross feeling like in my guts, Like it felt like I got kicked really hard in the nuts like fifteen minutes ago, and like I didn't know how to like describe that.
It was super like disgustingly dull, weird ache like deep in my gut. And then I went home and I tried to sleep that night, and I went from like Florida couch to bed to Florida couch, and I like
nothing was comfortable. Everything was just weird. So my wife's in medical, like she's really high up in her hospital, and so she told me, like I need to go to her works advanced urgent Care, and so I did, and I was probably seen by like no less than like thirty medical professionals and probably like yeah, it probably like six hours probably of just being in like the weird Like I had to go from like cat scan to like MRI to like ultrasound to like physicians to
all these like different professionals that were there, and it was just like they all have like this like this really I don't know as like the really like unfortunate look on their face, you know, and like I kind of realized that it wasn't just going to be like something simple. No one said anything because they can't. I don't think they can say anything until they know like for certain that like what they're saying is true. You know, they can't tell someone that they have cancer if they
don't have cancer. So no one said anything. And then the physician who examined me first like put that cat scan thing like on the board and like showed me all of like the nodes along my app like my abdomen and my torso and in my lungs. Then you know, I was like a Christmas tree like totally lit up
with cancer. And I up until that point I felt pretty normal, Like I really didn't looking back thirst subtle things, but like pretty much all of the symptoms that I had you would chalk up to being something else, like night sweats, like rapid weight loss, but like I was on testosterone and like dieting really well, so didn't really
think that much about it, and the night sweats. I kind of just attributed that to like your metabolism working overdrive from being on testosterone and you know, like working out and eating well. I pretty much all of the things that I experienced in terms of like being symptomatic
were easily overlooked, like you wouldn't have thought twice about them. Yeah, And then they he put that piece of paper up on the board and told me that I had stage three testicular cancer and that basically I was going to have to do it's like targeted chemo therapy treatment and have my left not removed, which was fine, Like I already had kids, so and apparently that doesn't actually like affect you being able to have kids losing your left nut.
I guess, yeah, I was gonna have I was gonna can you can you still come?
Oh yeah yeah yeah.
Like just as much like is it's not like I mean, what was a full load is like now half a load? Is it still a full load?
I call it like a symbol. I don't see like a unit of measurement. Yeah, I'd like if I was going to compare it to like a metric, you know, like I used to be. Yeah, it's definitely like less than it was, for sure. But I'm also like I'm also not you know, spry Chicken anymore. I'm in my thirties now, so I don't exactly like know what's like to be ex Like, I don't know how much you're supposed to come.
I don't. I feel like thirties it's a bit too young to call yourself like done coming.
No no, no, no, no, I'm still coming. It's just like I don't know like what the like if there's a general amount, like what's the metric we should be comparing it to, because like none of us come side by side, right, so like you know, you don't like you're not like look at each other's stomachs after you're done, like, hey, like how much would you blow? It's like more than me? That's right?
Well now, but I guess I guess I'm I mean, like, do you but you know how much you came before you when you had both nuts?
Right? Yeah? Yeah, I mean it's really not that different. I mean I would say, like maybe the one thing that is different is probably like the pressure behind it. There's not as much like there's not as much like behind it, which.
Is it's more of a dribble than a than a than a sprit.
Yeah. Yeah, it's like it's not there's like there's less like lift off. I guess you know, it's not like a you gotta like aim at somewhere you can. You know, it's there's less clean up. There's that.
So, uh, okay, you said a bunch of things in your text. So let's see. You said, well, I want to talk you. You're a father of three children. I'd like to talk about that. But you said, uh, I'm dealing with weird survivorship issues.
What is that? Man, there's some there's some weird like well people, uh, especially obviously only men get testicular cancer. But testicular cancer is a young men's cancer, Like you really don't get testicular cancer passed like your mid thirties. You just it's a very low percentage of men that do get it in past their like their mid thirties, and so it's a young men's cancer. The most prominent
ages are between like sixteen and like twenty seven. That's like the range nor and it's kind of unknown like what causes testicular cancer. There's kind of a divide in the medical community between like the plastics in the water, like the PFA's or whatever they call them, and genetics, like just genetics. So for me, like, not a lot of men do as well as I did through chemotherapy, and it beat the shit out of me. And I'm
a pretty large, resilient male. But people who are smaller tend not to fare as well through chemo therapy because they don't have a lot of the body mass to devote to it in the first place. And then they beat the living shit out of you with targeted chemo
therapy to cure through testicular cancer. That's the difference between like having like a like for women who have like a like breast cancer, a non curable one, right, they mostly just like treat it and give you like a miigatory regimen for the rest of your life where you go in and get a shot once a month or whatever, and that's like your chemotherapy. But for something like testicular cancer that they have a chance of curing, they're going to fuck you up to get you, you know, cured.
Obviously they're not doing it on purpose, but they can't target cancer that's already all the ways spread through your body. So They pretty much just have to beat the living shit out of you and kill all of yourselves and bring your ancs, which is like your immunity. They have to bring your ANCS down so low that no cancer cells can survive period. So I was severely like neutrals. I couldn't go anywhere, talk to anyone, do anything. And
my chemo regimen was hell I had to do. My rounds were uh, three weeks of five day chemo therapy that was like six to seven hours a day. It was basically like a full time job for four months, and I sat in this stupid chemo chair drawing on my pattern shit for like like three and a half months. Basically I couldn't open my mouth very wide because I had some weird dental implications from it. I couldn't really eat. I lived on like a liquid diet of like bone
broth and like those chocolate breakfast shakes. Those things are fucking disgusting now. I can't even look at those things. Yeah, it was weird. Man, And the survivorship, it's just like a like a guilt kind of thing. But you know, you didn't really do anything to earn the guilt other than you're not dead and other people are.
So it's a so so it's just a thing of like I'm there's to think of like your you feel guilty that you didn't that you feel guilty that you survived, and like you're thinking about all the other people that didn't.
Yeah, I made the mistake of Uh, I had to like leave all the Facebook groups because you don't like the weird like support Facebook groups because you don't. No one no one posts there that just like is normal and gets through the treatment.
Yeah yeah, no one, no one posts the who's doing well? Yeah.
No, It's always just like the worst of the worst, like, yeah, my husband passed away yesterday, my brother died this morning. Like it's it's always just like the worst of the worst, and there's just you know, ages of that of just dudes that just didn't make it through their treatment. And it's not the cancer that kills you, it's the treatment
that kills you. So it's like, I mean there are instances where like it gets to the brain before like you catch it, but there's if it gets to the brain, you ignored like a lot of shit leading up to that, Like you ignored most of like your health, So leading.
Up Okay, so so let me stop you for a second, because you you kicked your wife out of You kicked your wife out of the room, Okay, multiple things. Yeah, you kicked your wife out of the room because you didn't want her to judge you. And then you also said there's no one I can talk to about it.
That isn't close to the situation. So what Here's what I'm curious about from all this is that you seem to feel like, what do you what is the thing that you kicked your wife out about or that you feel like you have no one to talk to you about that you're like ashamed of? Is it you're you're like ashamed to feel a survivorship thing? Like, what is it that you're feeling ashamed of?
Now? My wife is just really medically educated. She is a master's in like nursing science, and she's a nurse practitioner, and she's super like medically educated, and she was really protective over me through all through all of that, and yeah, thank god, you know, thank thank God for her through that, because I, for one, I probably wouldn't have gone to
the hospital as quickly as I did. I probably would have done like the stereotypical man thing and just like I was an inside pain, it's fine now, and like without her that I definitely wouldn't have fared as well. And having her there to like go over like my blood work every time it came out. I just have a high school education in like ten years of machining, I'm just articulate. I don't know anything about biology.
But but I want to bring I want to bring it back to this question that I have. I was like, what is it? What is it you're ashamed of that you don't want?
It's not like its not really like it's it's when people are so close to like the cancer, it brings them back to it and like they they get emotional about it, and then you kind of end up like counseling them through your cancer.
Yeah that is actually something I've heard. Yeah, yeah, it's like you kind of like, yeah, that makes sense.
You kind of like end up being like the martyr for their feelings about your cancer that you had to deal with.
So let's go back to the guilts for a second. Was what so why I So I get logically the guilt of like, oh why did I, like I got to survive all the people in this Facebook group died like why me kind of thing? And uh, you're a guy from what I understand about you that is pretty unattached to his ego. But I'm gonna run something by you that I've been thinking about. I thought about it a lot yesterday, but thinking about this a lot, and I feel like we've talked about this on the podcast
a little bit. Is this thing of like you know, oh yeah, I was thinking about this a little bit and like my fucking kind of meane therapy bullshit is like you know, listen your I know that you do. I know that you don't identify with your name Chris, but whatever you are, and we'll put a name to it because that's why we have names, so we can identify shit. So like Chris cousin, we'll call you cousin, cousin,
your your like this. This is my argument to the guilt thing is like your biological material that has evolved to gain sentience of itself, and you don't know why you were your you have there's the like we kind of know how we got to be people, but we don't. I don't. The question that I have is like, oh, why why is my consciousness of my body or whatever. But like we don't know why. We can't really explain why.
Like you're the conscious captain of like this ship, but I do I do believe that, like you, Chris, as the conscious captain of your ship, it is your like duty in some way, shape or form as the captain of your conscious ship to like protect yourself. And like you're like it's like your instinctual biological duty to survive. And you're like instinctual biological duty to protect the people
in the things that are close to you. So like that's your kind of like divine duty as as the guy, as the spiritual whatever the fuck consciousness tasked with being cousin you know. So by nature of that the perform that's really it's like kind of what you're tasked with is this guard in the ship, kind of this idea that you you take you kind of treat yourself like someone you're like tasks being taken care of. And so by that logic, you know you're doing your job is
of which is to survive, you know. So so I don't think you should feel don't think should feel guilty about doing that job.
It's it's it's not it's funny, Like I think the closest feeling that I can relate it to is guilt, but it's more like a like ah, I would say, it's yeah, it's more like a like a that's fucking weird, you know, like.
Yeah, yeah, and that sounds that doesn't sound like guilt, that sounds like a how why?
Yeah, Like you have you have fucking questions man like and I I know you kind of struggle with like the premise of God and like me too, and there was just some weird like divine ain't intervention type ship that went on through this whole experience for me. And it's like I'm really struggling to ignore like the feeling of a higher power. And I've done a pretty good job of ignoring a higher power do most of my life?
Well, okay, multiple things to this is yeah, what do you what do you mean by ignoring a higher Like what are you trying to ignore?
Well, it's not that I'm not anymore, but I think I went to Catholic school for years and that kind of, you know, shunned the whole religious aspect out of me. I just didn't just didn't get it. And then going after I left in a Catholic school and went to public school. It was kind of just like not there anymore, just to foo gazy, just something that was part of my life. And now it's not like I quit smoking or something, you know, it was just something I did
every day and now I don't. And then throughout this cancer treatment thing, there was a lot of really interesting like the timeline kind of things that just are unusual phenomena that just shouldn't have occurred, but did, like the the rate that I So when I walked into that urgent care on a Friday evening, I left the next day Saturday, less than twenty hours from being diagnosed to having my left testicle removed, which is unheard of. Most people who are diagnosed they wait, you know, like weeks
to months for their surgery. But the my surgical oncologist just happened to be on call that evening and he decided to fore go sleep and just come to my operation at six in the morning. He just decided, this just came across my phone. I'm not gonna let this guy die, and just came and did it immediately, like snap of the fingers. There was just some really other, some other really interesting timeline things that like made me feel like there is something higher that I should probably
like look into. I don't. I don't know about like the conventional religion thing, but sure, but well like the.
Uh well, I you know, I mean I when I think of like a higher power, I never, I never. I don't think about like any sort of like interpretation of like God. I just think about like I mean, I got my My idea of a higher power is very like logical in the sense of like anything you know, the I mean, there's the idea of like there's what you can control and then what you can't.
Yeah, yeah, and.
And everything outside of your control is like a higher power than you. You know, I mean like if you're fucking like if my friend decides to, like, uh, go out and get ice cream, you know, whatever he whatever ice cream flavor he fucking chooses to get. I mean, that's a higher power than me, you know what I mean, Like everything, everything is a fucking higher Like everything outside of your control is just like what I look at
as a higher power. And I and then you know, and I so like so so the question, so the higher the higher power of like you survived in a situation where other people didn't. Is like a sort of a thing that at least if like, if I'm in your situation, that's like a thing I fucking just surrender to, Like I don't know why, uh something happens, and so why something doesn't happen. That's like a you know, that's
higher power. I don't know if I equate that to like a lot of people take that and they roll it into like there's a god or a fucking you know, horse watching over me or I'm yeah and an omnip thing and like that's I mean, if that's what you want to get into, that's great. But to me, I'm just like, I'm going to try to focus on, you know, what the hell is in my control, which actually which to me for for you, that brings me to how are your kids doing? I want to know about the
about the family. You got a whole ass family, dude.
Yeah, they're they're great, man. I mean I have a two, a four, and a six year old, and throughout my treatment they had to go and stay with my mom for the three months. Because kids just they'll ship in your fucking eye and they'll you know, sneeze directly in your food and then you know, I would have died, so they had to go and stay with my mom during my treatment. So they were they call it, you know, daddy's special medicine that I got that made me lose
all my hair in turn a weird color. And then now it's life is a word for me, Like I have a few weird like lingering things, but nothing that's
you know, like debilitating. Cool. There's good the they Basically I'm glad that they were the age that they were when this happened, because you know, luckily they were kind of uh my youngest was like eight months or six six months, and my oldest was like four and a half, so they were all kind of like a young enough age to where their brain that didn't really process any of this. They just you know, sawt Dad look a
little different for a while. And I'm grateful for that because if they were like older, and kids are so caring and understanding and empathetic naturally, and so I'm glad that they didn't have to worry, you know, being older, I'm glad that they didn't really comprehend any of that.
And hmm, how old is your oldest right now?
Six six?
Wow? Okay, I see you've been a dad for a nice little while.
Yeah. Yeah. She was born actually the day that the world shut down, March fourteenth.
That's a crazy time to have a kid.
Yeah. Yeah, Like they almost didn't let my mother in law in the room, that's time.
Yeah.
It was literally the day that the world shut down for the pandemic.
Crazy shit.
Yeah.
Actually, honestly, not a bad not a bad time to like be a baby. It's actually kind of a perfect time to be a bay because what are you gonna do with your What are you gonna do?
Yeah, I mean like it was kind of ideal. And then I was laid off kind of questionably legally coming off of paternity leave. When I came back to UH to show up for work, I was in uniform, ready to go, and the owner of the company walked over to me with a stack of papers and an envelope and I knew what that meant, and I was like, this is pretty questionable, and he was like, well, I'm here to hand you a fat check so that you can find this and don't take me to court because
I just can't afford to pay. The way that the when cities and counties just stopped contracting work basically like the day of the world shut down, So you know, he was looking at me as a you know, a seventy five thousand dollars expense that you know he can legally just pay ten grand not to show up tomorrow.
That was, you know, basically like the agreement was, I'm going to give you it was like nine thousand something dollars for me to just not show up tomorrow, which you know, it's not like a hell of a lot of money, but you know, it wasn't money wasn't to concern My wife does well, so it was you know, more like a what do I do now with my time? And that's like where the business ideas kind of started to I've never been like a sit idle and do
nothing kind of guy. I've always worked, So I had to figure out.
Something what kind of.
Oh yes, the divots, Yeah yeah, yeah, and I had I had multiple ideas too. I wasn't just going to do the golf thing. The golf thing I just kind of stumbled on too. Like most people's this is that you just kind of fall into it.
By the way, just I'm not to take us back to the beginning of the podcast, but why are you so, what's why are you against T shirts? But your pro divots and i'm by the way, I'm by by the way, I'm i'm by I'm biased because if you go to therapy Gecko dot com you may or may not see that, uh.
You should buy. It's not that I'm it's it's not that I'm against T shirts. It's that it's just it's funny that like the self importance and like the main character syndrome or whatever really becomes prominent in people's personality when they hit you know, like the very small eight to ten k to like twelve k. You can like smell the merge coming. It's not like that you shouldn't sell T shirts or anything. If you make funny fucking T shirts or whatever, or like really cool graphic designs
or whatever, you should sell them. It's just that I think it's funny that when you know, you hit that that very tiny mark on social media, to hit eight to ten k on social media, all you have to have is like one video that really pops off. It's really not that difficult to attain. What is difficult to attain is to keep it. You know, like you can have one video pop off and go insanely viral just by happenstance, But can you keep the following and you know,
roll it into a business. That's That's like what I think is impressive for me. I had a bunch of videos go crazy viral of just me hitting golf balls at a night range so you could like see the ballflight of it. That was like in twenty twenty one, like when everyone was just glued to their phones. Instagram wasn't even like monetized yet. That's like how far back
we're going. And so like those videos popped up and I was building clubs and my following grew, and like I had to learn how to be a professional social media user. And one of the best ways that I found to be a professional social media user is to stick to your original mission statement and not you know, fall into the influencer niche. I don't. I don't believe
in that the influencer niche is retarded. There's no one should be like unless you have some kind of like insane information that you can be putting out there, you should just be a person who exists social media.
What is an what is the influencer niche?
Oh Man, Like you know, like when I don't know something, you know, something happens, right, and they think that they're you mean, no, I don't you mean.
Yeah yeah, yeah no, I I totally know what you mean about like, uh's feeling like your opinion on Well, that's why I try to I mean like, I mean, I guess I give my opinion on like like sort of ever evergreen life stuff. You know, but you don't want to be out there, Well, you don't want to be out there. You don't want to be out there, like giving your opinion on every single thing that happens in the universe because well for other reasons, it's like, well if you do it once, people expect you to
do it every single time anything happens. And you know, you don't want to be a guy who has an opinion. You know what's funny, One of my strong opinions is that you don't have to have a strong opinion about everything due because like I don't know, because you don't want to be you don't want to be held liable for an opinion about every single fucking thing that happens.
And also I get I feel wary about people, Like I feel wary when someone has an opinion about every single thing that happens all the time, you.
Know, dude, and I'm so probably my strongest opinion is being unopinionated, Like if it doesn't affect you directly, I don't really feel like you should have like this insanely strong opinion of something, like just because it resonates with like the empathetic note inside you doesn't mean that you should go broadcasting how you feel about it if someone asks you, sure, but you know, like you don't have to post it on social media. You can just DM them back how you feel about it.
Dude, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm gonna go ahead and ask you to give me this. I mean, if you want to, you don't have to. But yeah, what's the what is the golf guy Instagram?
Oh yeah, if people are interested or whatever, they can go check out.
I'm interested. I'm people.
It's at Club's Handmaids. The club is with a k and all.
But the second you said it, I was like, he's going to tell me the club is with a k Okay club?
It is club what? Yeah? Club clubs so k l U b s, handmaids.
Clubs and Maids cousin clubs. Cousin Wait, cousin clubs is pretty sweet. That's getting to follow Yeah, that's you. I know. It's I feel weird every time I like talk to somebody on the phone. I feel weird when I go to their Instagram and I can like see to face the name, it feels, oh, there you are. Even when I go on tour, I I feel like.
It's weird to like meet people that like you do on the phone. I'm sure that's dude, it's weird to me too. It's it's weird to me too, because like the only places that I'm ever recognized or known is when I'm at a golf course and people will come up to me and they're like, hey, man, like I know you're not that kind of guy, but like are
you cousin clubs? And I'm like yeah, They're like that's so crazy, bro, Like I've been following you since since like twenty twenty, and I'm like, man, that's fucking wacky, Like why do you follow me? That's so weird. But yeah, that's awesome. That's that's my moniker. That's how I'm known. And it, like I said, dude, all of this was
like totally happenstance. So if people are out there and you're wondering what the fuck to do with your life, just keep trying different shit, Like, just keep keep trying, keep thinking, and eventually some if you stick to your mission statement and you remain yourself and you put yourself out there, you'll definitely encounter some people that aren't fond of you. And that's fine. Like, you don't have to be friends with everyone. If you're for everyone, you're for
no one. But there is going to be like a niche group of people that are into your shit if you if you put out good stuff, there will be people who will buy it. Totally.
You know, it's fine. I met I did a show in Portland, uh last week, and I fucking I met uh the train I don't know if you listen to the podcast, but I met the train hopper.
Oh I do. Guy. Oh that's so d that's so cool, dude.
Well it was fine. He was uh, he was great. He came on stage and like you know, gave us an update on everything.
It was.
It was really cool, but it felt weird to meet him because like I don't know, like I like I imagine because like he had so much depth to his story. I imagined him as like a sixty seven year old, like grizzled dude, but he's like he was my age, was like a young guy.
And I knew that it was just like a regular probably you know.
Yeah, yeah, well it's well if I knew he was like my age, but like just because of like the way the stories he telled. Yeah, yes, I imagined him as like, yeah, oh the guy, but that was cool too, is Yeah, There's been a lot of stuff like that, of like meeting callers in personal Okay, I'm looking at your Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.
Do you identify with the age that you're chronologically presented with?
Do identify with the age? It depends on the day. Sometimes I feel young, sometimes I feel fucking old. I mean I kind of speed ran. I speed ran a lot of life except for I feel like I speed around a lot of But I also like started much younger than I think most people like. I started making stuff on the internet when I was like freaking fifth
grade or something like that. The part of my life, I I feel like I'm but I'm also but I'm also like, you know, I'm single, and I you know, I eat M and M's for dinner sometimes, so I feel I feel sometimes I feel like I act like I'm sixteen and I'm twenty eight, and then other times I feel physically like I'm like fifty seven or whatever.
Also because I think if I were like like like, I think, if I can get to like mid thirties and have like a wife and a kid or or something like that, I'll feel That's when I feel like I'll feel like I'm the right age. But now I feel like I like it. Really, I either feel like I'm sixteen or like seventy four.
Do you feel like you're ready for a wife and kids?
Not?
Yeah, I think I'm right. I think I'm ready for like a wife, but I don't think i'm ready for kids. Yeah, I'm ready for like a wife, then a dog. A wife and a dog would be great.
You're never really prepared. It's it's funny how normal and like natural. It actually kind of feels. I if you told me ten years ago that I'd have a wife and three kids, I would have laughed and said, like, nah, there's no way, man. Like, I don't care what kind of crystal ball you have, you need to take that thing back, and it's funny when when that kid, when that gray weird intercover baby is slapped on your life's chef and it starts screaming, it's so weird, how small
and insignificant. Everything else kind of feels yeah, And I don't mean, I don't mean to you know, like pander to like the people who have baby fever or whatever. Like none of my none of this was like baby fever driven. It was just that I realized, like, oh, you know, fuck, I'm actually pretty good at this, Like I'm actually good at raising kids, and no one's like great at it, you know, like you become great at it, but no one just starts being good at it. Like
anything else. It takes like time and patience and understanding. But like that happens after like your second kid, because you after your second kids, you realize like your kids are only little for like four years, and it's really not that much time. It doesn't go by that quickly, like in my opinion, because I've been like the caregiver parent and you know, working at night running a business, so I've been like the caregiver parent who's been here for it. I think if you work a nine to
five and you're gone a lot. I think it would feel like pretty short and like like it's gone by and it just a snap of the fingers. But me being here every single day doing dad stuff has definitely made me feel like I've gotten to experience the full amount of like kid like the growing thing. It's made me feel like I'm there for it.
You know what. Okay, here's what this came up for me while I was on the road this past week is here's something scares me about fatherhood. I was on the road last week and I sat next to, uh, this kid. He was like, I'm hard at judging ages. I want to say he was like eight. I want to say he was eight, and he was He's to
my left, and he had a lot of energy. He was like he like he was like he like tried to talk to me a little bit, and he like, uh uh, I put my tray table up and I didn't have I didn't put the little tab you know, the tab you put on the trade table to stop it from going down. Yeah, he like he like did it for me, you know, and like he was like, oh, you forgot this, And then like I pulled out my
Nintendo and he was like, oh, what nintended do? And he like, uh, he had he was playing like a Grand Theft Auto or some Grand Theft Auto clone on his like iPod touch or whatever. And then he and he was like talking to his dad and he was like he's he had a lot of energy. And I was like, oh, this is like a this is like a lot of shit. And I was like, oh, this is like a And I'm I'm a tourist of this kid, which sounds weird, but whatever, I'm a tourist of this kid.
And this kid, like you know, from my taurist perspective, I'm like, oh, this is like a fun funny kid, you know, like he he bumped his head on the his tray table, like he banged his head really fucking hard. And he turns to his dad and he's like, Dad, I didn't take any damage.
Which that was funny.
And he's like this is a funny kid. But I look at his dad. His dad looks really tired, and I and I and I was like, this kid is eight and and I had this thought and I was like, oh, this is the thing that scares the most about adulthood, not but about parenthood is I'm like, oh, being with raising this kid feels like it's gotta be relentless. That's the word. That's what freaks me out, the relentlessness because like, dude, like I like, I tried to record this podcast two
nights ago and I just was so tired. I wasn't feeling it so and I just turned. I turned, And I do like with my work, right like, my work is the main responsibility that I have, right like like or like I'll be able, I'll be doing one of my shows or whatever, and like, you know, but like sometimes like if if work gets to be too much, I'll just shut the laptop off and be like, Okay, I'll quit today and I'll try again tomorrow when I feel better. And they usually works, and I, you know,
I quit today, I don't dip into reserves. I try again. And that's like that's kind of the approach I've had with my work. It's like when things get too much, I just I'm like, I'm like, I'm okay to quit for the day and turn it off and try again tomorrow. But I was like, oh, fuck kid when this but there's not with kids, it's like, no, you have to dip into your reserves and you have to you know.
I mean, work is a different thing because I'm because it's a thing where it's like, well, there's no point in working when I'm feeling shitty because I'm going to produce bad work. It's better to just quit. But with a kid, it's like you got it. Just it's relentless, and that's what scares me. It's just again the relentlessness.
I think. I think you're like most people who are like in a position in their lives pretty much like in at at that at our age for the most part, because like there are people that are, you know, thirty three my age that don't have kids yet, that are you know, kind of up to that point in our life like where they're like, man, I'm not ready to have kids or whatever. I don't really think anyone ever quite is like you're not. It's one of those things.
It's like the first time you go skydiving, Like you're not ready to go skydiving, but you know, you just pull the cord and parishue comes out and then you float down to the ground. You know, it's just kind of something that you just step into and it just it works. You if you are willing to put yourself, you know, second for a little while in your life, until the kids are self deficient and they can, you know, go downstairs and you get their own fucking juice box.
You know. It's it's pretty, it's it's not easy, but it is. I developed an aptitude for it pretty quickly, and I didn't think that I would. So, you know, I don't think that I'm different. I think that's pretty standard across the board. Like you, you're not. You're never really sure. You don't know what you know until you know. So, you know, I wouldn't think too hard about that. If you can, you know, operate on a couple of hours sleep for four months when the kid's born, you'll be all right.
Yeah, how long have you been with your your How long have you been with your wife?
Uh? Kind of funnily enough, we actually found out that we were having a child like two months into knowing
each other. Really yeah, but it just kind of it just worked like we our personalities were super compatible, and we just like three months into knowing each other, we were I had moved out of the house that I was living in and moved with her and went through the whole pregnancy, then together, and then when the kid was born, some my job thing happened, and a lot of life has happened between us meeting and dating for a very short amount of time to figuring out that
we were having a kid, and everything just kind of felt really like normal and natural and really compatible. And we're i would say, like healthily codependent on each other. We don't, you know, need to be around each other all the time, but we kind of want to be around each other. Being being the father of her kids has been like really bonding for me. I can't really
like imagine my life without her. She's, you know, pretty much, she's really really intelligent and really driven in her career, and she's she's a lot of things that I'm not, and I'm most of the things that she's not. And so we've balanced each other out really well. So I would say in total, like so almost seven years now, we've been together. Seven years with a six year old. You can do that math. Cousin, Yeah, yeah, yeah, man.
Cousin, cousin, cousin, cousin. I'm glad you called. I really enjoyed talking to you, talking to Please go, please follow Club's Handmaids with a k that so that we can so that we can force cousin into having no choice but to start selling T shirts, because once you get to a certain level of followers, it's like, you know, he has no te you know, he's got three kids to put through college. We need this guy to start telling some T shirts.
The tools do it, man. The tools. The tools are my main source of income. They're they're they're pretty make them.
Or buy his way his Power Built Golf. Is that your company?
No, it's the company that I'm affiliated with there, I'm the It's just I'm called like a staff member. Like basically I h I do like development testing, uh, product advisement or advising. I don't know.
So if we want to buy, if we want to buy, But if we want to buy, do divots from you?
Is that d D? Yeah? Yeah you d M me. I I don't have a website. I've completely like rejected the idea of having a website. It's funny it's people say that, like you have to have a website. You don't. You can You can li really sell and make a living by talking to people. Because everyone that owns one of my tools, they've had to come and talk to me.
It's like our boy, our boy. Uh fuck. His name was also Chris, this guy who lived on a Native American reservation. I forget his Instagram, but and I forget if anything. I don't know if anything ever kind of I don't know what the follow up is with that guy, but he like we plugged his Instagram and I was like, because he sells he like lives on a farm and like sells seeds and stuff. And we plugged his Instagram and I was like, do you have a website you
sell these seeds on? He was like, nah, man, just DM me and we'll fucking figure it out. I'm like, that's that's pretty cool.
It's so cool, dude, like to And also it makes I'm not really like a like an extrovert kind of person. I don't like go out of my way to talk
to people. And it's really cool that having this Instagram thing has made me talk to people, and it's forced me to be more understanding and like to work with people and understand that not everyone you know operates the same way like I'm just because I've sold, you know, thousands of tools over the years, it's still their first time buying one, so I can't treat it as if they know everything already. Their brand new to this. I'm a seasoned vet in this, but they're brand new to it.
It could be their first. So it could be their first, you know, like social media purchase as a whole, and so you know, you have to make sure that like you're being a good garner of basically a virtual brick and mortar establishment. That's what I am. A virtual brick and mortar where you have to come in and physically talk to.
Me, virtual brick and mortar. That's a very Yeah, cousin, is there anything else you want to say to the people of the computer before we go?
Get your nuts checked and make sure you get a yearly physical. And also when people tell you that you can't try some other shit, because chances are you probably can. It's just not the way that you think you can.
Beautiful, Thank you, cousin. This is a great conversation.
Man.
I appreciate your ten.
Well, you're alleged appreciate you, bud. Take care man, you too, buddy.
That was cousin. Yeah, go to fucking I'm on the website right now. What is it I just missed? Oh yeah, clubs handmaids with a K, send them a DM. Go to therapy gecko dot com to get a T shirt with my face on it. I tried to make that joke earlier when he was like, people they get too full of themselves. They start telling selling T shirts with
their faces on it. I think because I feel better about selling merch because I'm like, because like the Gecko, it's like a character thing, so like it looks kind of funny and cool and weird, where it's like if I was just like guy selling T shirts with my face on it feel a little bit more weird. Whatever. Anyway, that was fun. That was fun. Thank you again, cousin for your time. That was the That was the podcast, folks.
That was it. I like, I like doing a one call podcast now and then sometimes sometimes like I'm like five minutes into talking to someone and I'm like we're gonna I feel I just have a feeling. I'm like, this one's gonna be the whole thing, you know. He started talking about his childhood, and shit, I was like, we got a lots to talk about. We got all like ground tocover. So that was cousin. Uh, anyway, I'm on the road, I'm doing shows that we were just
I just did the Pacific Northwest. Thank you to everyone who was at those shows. Those shows were really fun. The shows in Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, SF, and Minneapolis, those are really great. Uh. Next week or this week, I think I'll be Yeah, this week, I'll be in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Charlotte. Uh. Tickets to those shows are available at therapy geckotour dot com. I'm excited about those shows. Uh, Patreon dot com, slash lyle forever. If you want to
see bonus episodes or whatever, who gives a fuck? Who cares? That was a nice episode. That was good. Uh. Also, if you want to call I, I realized that I just I had a little problem with like the about section of the podcast where it was telling people still
just to go on twitch. To call in, you can text the phone number four oh one four seven two four three two five, and occasionally occasionally I'll ran only call back people who text the phone number on like a random like randomly five days in the middle of the afternoon after they sent the text. Sometimes I do that. The more official way of doing it is, UH, if you go to my Instagram Instagram dot com, slash lyle
the number four. Ever, I'll post the phone number on there and people call or text at the time that I put the story up.
Uh.
But whatever, whatever, If it's destined that we talk, then then we talk. All right, that's it. Deck bless Thank you guys, see you next time.
Again goes on the line, taking your phone calls every nine.
Goes to just teaching you aloud in the line.
Expert