ep 001 Love & Family as a Full-time Performing Artist

We are a team. As storytellers and dreamers there is always magic to discover once upon a time the Las Vegas showgirl comedian magician figured out that even with different perspectives our adventures and experiences together are really just one big caper. Hi! It’s my great pleasure to welcome to one big capers podcast produced by my partner and myself. My partner’s name is Athena and she is a Las Vegas show girl. She was the principal dancer in Don Arden’s Jubilee in Las Vegas, and I myself am also an entertainer. I perform as a comedic mentalist magician, which essentially means that I don’t take myself too seriously and I deliver the illusion of mind reading on stages all over the United States and other English speaking markets. This being a new podcast also represents the idea that we are getting used some technologies that we haven’t explored yet. It was my insistence that we tried to record this in stereo just to make this a different experience for you. It will still work with one side of a pair of ear pods is that’s how I listen to podcasts. It still functions just fine. But if you listen to this in your car, for example, it adds just a bit of a extra dynamic. The exploration of trying to play with technology did introduce a little technical difficulties with the recording of the first episode, and I am a person who absolutely believes in authenticity. So what I’ve done is given you more or less a raw version of that first recording with this first episode just for the sake of authenticity, thank you for coming to visit us here at one vacatur We hope to earn your listenership and we hope that you enjoy stories between a couple of folks who are just negotiating life in suburban America. Yes, so you’re not used to being on camera, no I’m not, you host a podcast and I just wear my jammies or whatever I feel like so this is this is interesting. Although it was four days shy of being one year from one of the live broadcasts that we did together, right in this area. It was on the 25th of last September, I believe that we did the red carpet. And that was life. That was life. And we had a camera and I have a general Highland so that’s different to well yeah I can hide behind a showgirl other like a disguise kinda wears it is a license or disguise. I’d say it’s a license. It’s my question. I don’t think it’s a crutch but I totally get it. So they say alter egos or we should do a podcast. Okay, ready? Okay. Alter Ego. Psychological French. Yeah, I still disagree. I don’t think it’s a crutch. I know I don’t but that’s how we work. And that is what this episode is intended to be about. We’ll see if we can stay on on track. But we intend to discuss love and family as a full time performer. Yes. Which is a complicated bit of business. But it seems to be something that a lot of you want to know from us, especially on performance, of course, but very common for performance. performers. Yes. But there’s a reason for that. There’s there’s many reasons which we’re gonna talk about. Yeah, we both been with non performers. I tried. Yeah, I have tried. It’s a it’s interesting because a lot of it comes from one of my personal policies, which is that I never dated at work, as it were. And I worked in for less for 13 years. So I, I met a lot of eligible people. But they were in my mind is kind of off limits, I suppose. Because of my personal policies, and I just met them. Well, that changed when you and I get that changed. But you know, a lot of that the reason that that changed is that I was becoming very familiar with how difficult my unique life is as a performer. For someone who is not a performer. Whether they are a nine to five type worker or even somebody who might be a little closer to show business working in the service industry. At nighttime. I think that’s a lot closer to shoulders. But it’s still difficult. I just had a thought and I am like thinking about your relationship, my past relationships. Both of them were interest industry. So they had similar hours. However, they were still both employees. So you have as a performer full time performer like you, you are, you’re, you’re constantly pitching. So that’s like a whole different mindset. Whereas when I was when I I also say performer for less once a week is not a full time performer. That’s my perspective because I worked in a show where I was performing six days a week I can think of in burlesque as long as that’s being talked about. I can’t think of many full time performers in burlesque and most of the people I think, the variety because they didn’t know what a feeler was. Okay, so I did have a real relationship with someone when I was a full time performer. And again, I say full time is when you are at your major hustle. It’s not as a primary source because when I was a full time performer in a show, I was a fleet. I did not have to be doing what you have to do a pitch, you know, so it’s like it’s a little bit different. It is just it’s like I said about that. We we’ve been a team for a lot of years. And interestingly, our relationship I think is unique even compared to other professional relationships. There are some unique things about us as individuals, but part of what I think makes us compatible so my question is, when we are discussing the prompt here is his love and family as a full time performer. are we discussing that on a broad scale or our unique experience? I thought we could talk about the challenges some people might have, and we already discussed the first one which is if your significant other is not a performer, then your schedules are completely opposite. Right. So this is a public service announcement to warn people about either dating non performers or dating performers. Either way, it’s a puzzle. Yeah, dating sucks anyway, I’m glad I don’t have to do that. I wrote a blog about it. It’s exhausting. Especially now. My age, especially if it’s been likened and I totally understand this and it was made here I go on a tangent again, but it’s been likened to to shopping at a thrift store. Oh, that should be fine. It’s like it’s not actually that off. Like yeah, anyway, yeah, I love everything we actually do family for Italian. Let’s talk about challenges. Okay, first like Skittles, because when it’s rough, I like you and I still maintain different pedals and each other. That’s one of the ways that we make it work but I’ve found my channel for but my whole life since I was little, I’ve been nocturnal. Yeah. You know, doing business with people in Las Vegas, for example. It’s not uncommon for them to call it when I am Denver. Time to talk business. Well, the thing about that is Las Vegas. It’s a miserable place to live in the summertime, because it’s 120 degrees outside who wants to even live in that so you’re either in an icebox in a casino working for your office, if you work a regular nine to five in Vegas, or your show person and you depending on the kind of person you are. You perform your shows and then after dark you know after midnight when all the shows are closed, you can either go party at night or you can go home and have your nice quiet the night gardening love used to garden in the garden after the shows. Yeah, so that was my old boss. She was the company manager of Jubilee and she just go in the home and garden after show. Show. So I heard that from my friend who’s friends with their old neighbor. That’s one thing that’s so yeah, schedules. But then there’s other things you know, like not even just like, okay, when are you awake? My my sleeping? How do we cultivate a relationship? Well, again, you know, like, just being on a Bravo. I don’t know. I mean, I’m not sure that I can give specific advice to say a couple of performers without understanding their individual dynamic. I could probably help. Yeah, I know you could. But But I think it’s it’s unique to the individuals you know, the things that apply to all of us is the schedules weird. Now in theater, you have this ebb and flow of income, which is difficult to stomach, even on my list. That’s really hard on a relationship. You know? If it comes to date, Mike, what you can’t possibly schedule you might be going for burgers, or steaks or ramen, because there’s no way expensive ramen, we’re talking about going to the grocery store picking up two packs of Top Ramen. So that’s the golden relationship. That’s, that’s really kind of hard. So I think that’s one of the ways that that being with another performer, makes it a little easier because that person also understands this, this roller coaster of finance. Okay, so how about the people of the world that are not getting people to deal with that stuff? True? Yeah. But like, it’s one of them also. I think that I think what he’s trying to say was performance. There’s more 30s to that ebb and flow of income. But if and I’ve been doing good work for three half years now. If you’re a gig economy worker, so you drive for Lyft Uber you deliver food UberEATS that what else is there? GrubHub DoorDash any of those? I’ve been on sponsors. Now they’re not. Some of them some of them have been idols in the past year through. I’m just saying. Anyway, if you don’t know the gig economy is those are Giga gig economy. hustles side hustles and they are great for either saving for like a document house, or voltmeter, whatever you want. But it’s the same kind of thing that edenflo of income. So those are the kind of people that also can make your own schedule, similarly to a performer. If you’ve done gigs at nine in the morning, you’ve done gets it to morning. checks, it’s gonna catch I go, Yeah. And it’s really hard for him to get up before 11 years. I’m not a morning person. So I’ve done early shows, and most recently that has been a different kind of challenge because I also do shows from here and because the virtual shows fine performing in another country, the scheduling is really strange. So I was I was on the east coast of Canada recently and I had to get up super early because of the time difference and that was challenging but not not a big strain on our relationship. I don’t think but yeah, my kids, because every I had to demonstrate my income for line of credit and it was typical to the person who was looking over my my finances, that my paychecks come from a dozen different places within the span of three months. That was they wanted 90 days worth and I had all different employers so for our non performers, can you talk about how that affected your relation your previous relationship with someone who’s getting a paycheck every week dependent they were trading time for money is it was one of a dozen different strains on the relationship. There was a psychological strain it was uncertainty that I think people in general just instinctively were driven towards some kind of security sometimes some kind of certainty. Knowing what to expect not not having on so much uncertainty in life. And the answer date, like we’re talking about, it’s not just finance, but it’s getting it’s going to be working. Well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we’ve got to make adjustments even though that’s part of our compatibility is that we’re both performers and we know the lifestyle and that way we can only understand the language of the other person. And that works. Another challenge that people face when they’re in a relationship with a performer is going to shows. So I mean, there’s various kinds of performers, there’s performers that do one show every few weeks or whatever, or there’s you know, corporate events. I can’t go to your corporate events unless I was your manager. Maybe that would make sense. I guess. We don’t go with our spouses to like, if they had a job, we wouldn’t go like I support you. I’m gonna sit here and micromanage you and watch you work. No, no. So maybe that’s not necessary. That’s kind of support on your shows. I feel guilty when I don’t want my shows. I really do. It’s interesting. Yeah, I guess, you know, I attended, I don’t know how many I missed over the years of any of your performances, but I was amongst your very much and you did come to me. Yeah. I mean, if you weren’t booked for this show, I Well, I was I would try to help too. So I mean, that was a big part. of it. Yes. I was just I wrote a costume department or assembly department or whatever. And when that works, it’s great. It’s not always possible. Sometimes we are both at the same time we’re having an event. So we can’t attend each other’s shows but that’s interesting too, because it’s typical to maintain friendships. With most of my friends are also performers. I can’t go to their shows and hopefully they understand but they can’t come to mind either. Yeah, we’re not even talking about those kinds of relationships. We’re just talking about love life and children. And we’ll still interact with that but clearly, you can tell priorities are also going to be back date nights. You know, we don’t we don’t schedule anything but it’d be difficult anyway because it’s there is a high chance crossing fingers that I get booked, and I’m just not able to. Yeah, we used to use my show bookings as date nights, we would we would have dinner before your shows. Yeah. So that’s kind of how we made it work. So we could, you know, cultivate a relationship. A lot of our travel revolves around performing so the times that we found a Las Vegas together. We’ve had several now, but there’s always a show involved somehow. So I was performing or We’ve never taken together. Actually, no, it’s true. We did take one vacation. It involved a handle of makers and a staycation. Yeah. Which was lovely. And we’ll be doing that again. This year. Minus the handle for No, no, no tricky. So, you mentioned before we started recording that you wanted to talk about how we make it’s more of a personal us like, Okay, I think people can take ideas from it. You take what you meant. Leaders that’s that’s how I look like really think that’s currently there’s like that’s anybody’s anybody’s teachings. So I’ll read a book and if I don’t like that’s one of the things about me is that I project my own way of thinking on other people. That’s just human nature to think so too. get called out. And so I was introduced to a method and I was introduced by my coach, and she was introduced to it by somebody else, of course, because we’re all just as gorgeous, regurgitating information, at least as someone else’s. But what they teach is if your life is amazing, and all of the things all the balls, you’re juggling or plates, you’re spinning, whatever your analogy we use, go into that mason jar. They suggest for a better, more fulfilling life to identify your folders, so put your folders in first. So the idea is if you feel your mason jar with sand, which is all the little things, where you put your boulders in which are your most important priorities, then you won’t have room for your priorities, your boulders and your life is going to be not very happy and fun. Right? So what I done, at least for me, as I’ve identified my boulders and that’s our relationship and the relationship with my children, and then my business, different parts of the business, and then of course making money paying the bills. So those are my folders. Oh, my health too. Generally My hope is not a problem. I generally take pretty okay care of myself. self care is one of my folders to forget about self care. I don’t eat the best but you know, generally at my age, I’m okay. For you know, eating cheeseburgers couple times a week just anyway, so identify your shoulders and then then you can fill your you put your shoulders and your mason jar and then you can fill it with whatever sand you want because the sand will circle around and fill up the space in between the voters. So I kind of have done that with my life I’ve identified the things that are like super fiery for me. And then whatever, isn’t there, does it fit in a jar on my to do list that’s only, you know, half a page long. It just doesn’t get done. And you know, I probably could prioritize more date nights. But since the reckoning when people really appreciate this, that’s that’s one of the traits that you have that I do not so which is kind of an organized, even a way of thinking about how you cope and how you deal with and you’re a very regimented, you know scheduler and I have an appreciation for that. It is not how I function, but I can’t necessarily identify or even give it a title wisdom, you know how I function or get anything done? Because I work on when I it’s called a pantser okay, I fly by the seat of your pants. I suppose. I do work that way. I have tasks and priorities for sure. But everything is a little loose. It’s not crazy. Whatever, need a bigger messenger, I guess. And then you dump it all out and then scoop in whatever you feel like skipping back in. Okay. It’s really appalling how, how much of a pantser you are because of your rising saying you’re appalled. I’m appalled. You’re a Virgo rising, sir. Okay. So as OCD is there, but only on the things that matter to him. We may have to do an entire episode about what is different about us. And I think that that is part of the way it works for us, you know, that’s how we work. But then there’s a whole episode about how different we are and and how we both celebrate, but cope because some of the differences are even in opinion about life. And it’s okay, we’re totally fine. I learned why that is. But we don’t have to get into this. Yeah, that’s another that’s a whole other episode. So yeah, that’s pretty much how I do it. And I try to keep him wrangled wrangled by adding him to my Google calendar. So he knows like okay, Athena has a nachos anymore. I think that’s called it has this. Yeah, the boulders was my boulders in like method fellow love Trello of Google calendars. If it’s something I really need him to be at. I’ll send him the calendar invite and I’ll make sure he knows what the heck, you need to be here. Less, it’s less regimented than it used to be because we’re not juggling my performance schedule anymore. So we’re working around it with your podcast and the kind of thing you do have interviews and so you’d have scheduled meetings and whatnot, that we weren’t around. Yeah. I probably don’t have to say this. Anybody but the the reckoning as you put it, but recent global events have tested a lot of relationships. And, you know, I was always given the advice. If you want to get to know someone, take a road trip. And that advice is something I modified a little bit I used to officiate weddings. And one of the pre wedding I wrote the the scripts or the ceremony for every couple of days. That I went, and one of the interview questions because I gotta get to know them before I would agree to do it. But one of the interview questions that I would ask them as if they had ever been on a road trip together, because that’s an ultimate test. So the reason I bring that up is because quarantines are locked in a small home is a very good test of the strength of relationship. I think we just like we’re doing we’re doing vertically but we drove across Texas and snake and happy Texas. Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay. It wasn’t so the reason I didn’t count as a road trip is because I didn’t do the first half with you. You flew down, down. You met me you drove to meet me? Yes. And then we drove back. That was like hilarious. That’s why I didn’t record in my head. But yeah, I guess we have okay. That was a long drive. I think it counts. Texas is a big place. Oh, Texas. Yeah, we’ll say off the top stuff. I guess we get to a point that we we have to summarize these things. And, you know, I’m excited to share with people how this project evolves. How you know, even on a technical level, you’ll hear improvements, you’ll see improvements, you’ll see our ability to watch these programs and improve. I think it has her podcast and I have been editing that too, or doing final edits or whatnot for over a year now. And I’ve certainly seen an improvement just in your technique with the microphone or your technique with the guest or whatever. It’s yeah, it’s naturally developing. But yes, that’s that’s exciting part of this project. But format wise. As an eventuality, I suspect that we will be able to say okay, here’s, here’s how we summarize things or here’s the moral of the story or whatever. And with regard to love and family, as a full time performer, I don’t want to conclude because I want that to be a discussion that keeps going. Yeah, that’s just pretty much our discussion that we haven’t. I don’t think we’ve ever finished one up. We just had to. We talk we have pretty deep talks all the time, which is why we have the backups now. It’s become kind of a family dynamic where you know, the girls are also involved in these ongoing discussions. However much eye rolling because but it’s not that much. Well, there’s a few topics if only if I read dig out the one that they thought it was done. Yeah. Isn’t. That was the inspiration for this project. And luckily, I’d like to at least offer advice. Some kind of models I’m going to pick away, I suppose. But for this particular episode, I just don’t see the Conover. How might we leave it up to you? Just comment below or ask questions. I think it’s gonna really help us delivered. Yeah, for you. Let us know what you want to know. Yeah. Comment below what you’ve done in your relationships, whether you’re performers or not. If any of this is parallel to some of the things that you’ve experienced as a relationship. Honestly, this is my longest relationship of non turmoil. That’s the best way I can describe it without turmoil. You know, I have a longer relationship with there’s a lot of traumatic events within their birthing children and yeah, that stuff, but there’s also good stuff. Yeah, having a baby’s two babies. It’s not that dramatic. I mean, it is but okay, that’s a whole other. Anyway, please, please comment below if you have any questions or you know what takeaways you have from this semester. And we definitely wanna keep you in this year and help people live more fulfilled lives. involves, you know, this is for the boys too. So you can just watch this sideshow, but I obsessed with this idea. Oh, that’s my life thing. I’m looking forward to interacting with anybody who’s interested in this. So by all means, just to reach us or comment below, get a hold of us. This is also a project I suppose we can cut this in throw in some of the explanations whether we use them or not. But this is a project that’s being recorded twice over this particular episode suffered a malfunction. But what we are doing is producing this to be both a vlog, video podcast and an audio podcast. So the audio is being recorded separately. They will be produced and edited as completely separate projects or products rather, and the thereby they won’t be a perfect match with each other so that we can play to the understanding of either medium, I suppose, if you will. So one of the dynamic things that I’m experimenting with is to record the audio podcast in stereo. And that’s an interesting experiments because personally, while I do listen to podcasts, they generally do that with only one your bud so that wouldn’t really work for for me but we’re gonna experiment with Atlantic salmon. Everything is an adventure in our relationship. That’s kind of a theme of our togetherness. And this marks just one more adventure that we’re having fun with. Hey, I Peter here. I’m a former Las Vegas show girl who teaches women to feel more comfortable in their bodies so they can do their security over a show cause like I’ve launched an exclusive offering for the new year. Sexy self care is a four week group coaching intensive designed to support women in developing the sexual self care ritual that turns them on and links them up into the 22. Featuring for my coaching goals, plus 20 exercises to nourish body, heart, mind and spirit. Participants will create a personalized self care ritual honors their individuality time and don’t let 2040 to the end of the year, where you keep yourself on the back burner and keep adding to your someday I’ll list with my support and intuitive guidance. You will be prioritizing you your worth and ultimately your impact in this world. Learn more and reserve your spot today@www.showgirls.com is a recording of my juicy bit four episodes love and family. So that’s what he makes absolutely. If I had done it I should have maybe gotten closer was does usually have done it. Of course it is bagels was countries because that’s really creative. It’s cheap. I think it’s easy for the person putting the craft service table together. Yeah, I don’t know they don’t do anything with production. But as an alumni, they’ve been dumped so they may have changed because people have more dietary restrictions. Gluten free. Okay, if anyone knows if anyone’s been on a film set in the last two to three years, what’s it’s like now? Yeah, what’s crazy there was like, please, please comment. Like, I bet they cater to Yeah, I bet they do it. Well, if you’re talking about a big budget film, I’m sure they have catering Well, if it’s union than the Yeah. Let us know if you know. Okay, so I’m talking about a juicy bit and we may be doing a cut because I need to be reminded. Let me tell you, let me set you up. It was the first time I was gonna cook a turkey dinner for the family and the family being you we like Grace. We invited their dad, but he declined because he just had to go snowboarding or something. It was probably snowboarding anyway. The girls really wanted me to cook turkey dinner that year. I’m so used to going to my parents and just not having to deal with it. Okay, we will do turkey dinner. And so we did and I think it was a week or two before you got a call or request to perform. Yep. So. So take it away, take it away. This was kind of a first small intimate family Thanksgiving. So this was going to be Thanksgiving dinners that Athena made and it was just going to be four of us, possibly five. But one thing I suppose that is important to note is that Athena is ex husband and the father of her daughters is my friend, which may be a rather unusual dynamic of our relationship and but I think it’s worth noting, nevertheless, he elected to not come to that Thanksgiving. Prior to this by I would say six or eight weeks. before Thanksgiving. I was flippantly asked by someone in my audience. What are you doing on Thanksgiving? And I thought it was a strange question, but they were entertaining the idea of having me show up to their family. Thanksgiving, fairly small there were about a dozen people there but they they wanted to know if I were to perform on Thanksgiving Day. And that’s, I think the first Thanksgiving that I had a show. Oh, my life. Really? Yeah. And prior to that I don’t think I ever performed on Thanksgiving. I know that’s different. For sure. Try doing a kick line with a whole Las Vegas doesn’t go dark on holidays. But in Colorado, pretty much everything is dark. In fact, I just got a message today that two of my shows are not happening because of thanksgiving and the Christmas holiday so Oh, anyway, that was an unusual circumstance. But one of the things that added to all that was is that the person who asked me if I was available on Thanksgiving or what are you doing on Thanksgiving is a person that Athena was aware of, to another job, a completely different job, but I didn’t realize to whom I was speaking at the time. I didn’t really know who this person was. And that’s just that’s an awareness thing. But it’s also an industry thing because this person is well known in a completely different universe than I’m used to. And that is the legal world here in Colorado, a big name in the legal world. And I think through one of her design, Jobs was aware of this person in a bit starstruck the idea that I would be going to perform for this person and their family, which which I did and it was it was interesting, but it required that Thanksgiving dinner was scheduled. Oddly, in order to accommodate that schedule, it might need to take off in Drive. I can’t remember how long the drive is a couple hours. Okay, he’s failing to to recall this part of the story that it wasn’t just here in Denver, Colorado that he was performing. They wanted him to perform at their mountain Mountain Home in Beaver Creek. So he had to drive from VFE Aurora, which is where we live VFE literally, the next town over is a very civilized civilization, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah, it was I had planned in that schedule. The commute, which was a couple hours. Yep. So dinner had to be ready. Like I think it was it was a big interruption to the schedule, and I’m ever grateful that my tiny family forgives me for such things, but it was certainly an opportunity in my career. That was an offer I couldn’t refuse, I suppose so. Everybody accommodated me and grateful. Yes, so juicy bits are. I’m gonna just explain this a little bit because you’re gonna hear this I believe in just about every episode for one of us or from both of us. But it comes from the idea that when a story is juicy, you’ve certainly heard that expression but in in the UK, if you buy orange juice, and it says with juicy bits, the language is a little different than in the states here where we would say pulp, but it means the same thing. And pulp is certainly has a double atomic truth but also so that is why they call those little segments juicy bits are sticking with the working title is music. I don’t know I don’t mind that at all. Okay, but anyway, not ever said that this will be functioning. Alright, that’s good. I think we think okay. We can keep doing this without you. Give us just a little bit of your time by subscribing, sharing reading or talking about one big caper for someone else. We truly appreciate your support. We want to hear your stories, visit one big caper.com to get to know us even more. This episode of one big paper was published in 2022. All rights to broadcast in whole or in part are the property of because I was productions LLC