George "The Tech" Whittam, Audio Tech Wizard, Engineer, Dad

00:00
Someone's gonna listen to this and goes, nope, nope, nope, he's wrong.

00:10
Welcome to another episode of Chewing the Fat. I'm your host, Big Robb. Thank you so much for tuning in, downloading the podcast. I certainly do appreciate that.  And to the folks that have bought me a coffee at ChewingtheFatBR.com, thank you again for supporting the podcast.  Helps us to tell those beautiful, messy human stories. And  one of my favorite beautiful, messy humans is on the line with me right now, all the way from Los Angeles. Please welcome George "The Tech" Whittam.

00:37
Hello, how you doing? Thanks for bringing me in. uh it's fun. It's great to line this up because we've been talking about it for a while. So thanks for having me on.  I  met George in my journey  into VoiceOver at VoiceOver Atlanta last year. I think we just kind of in passing said, hey, he had his booth set up. George is an amazing tech. It's George the tech. uh

01:05
is such a  wealth of knowledge as far as  somebody wanting to get into the voiceover, but also just any audio engineering type stuff as well.  And so  we said, hey, this last year at VO Atlanta, not only did we hang out, we shared a Airbnb, which was really cool. You make an amazing egg breakfast muffin sandwich. Let me just say.  And  I had a chance to sit in on a

01:35
George's podcast and some stuff he was checking out and testing out in his little remote set up there in the Airbnb and so now I came out good Yeah, yeah paying back the favor here and but not not even paying back Just I just I just love you and wanted to get to know more about you and let other folks know more about you. So You're in Los Angeles right now is Los Angeles homes that where you are. Yep 21 years and counting live in Los Angeles never

02:04
Man, I never know where I'm gonna be in a year. You know what I mean? Like it's just,  I rent here, I've never owned a home myself. So I've never really like had this permanence, feeling of permanence, you know?  So I just don't know.  And in the current climate, I don't know. Honestly, six months in advance, I don't know.  I don't know. But this is home. I've been here 21 years. I've lived on the west side of Los Angeles my entire.

02:32
LA life, so that means I've just always been on the ocean  adjacent side of LA, um which is arguably one of the more expensive places to live, and so you really have to hustle.  You gotta hustle.  It's really taught me to be really resourceful and creative and  market and  show up, hustle, be creative, um because yeah, it's a hard place to remain living for a long period of time without that.

03:00
Creativity or just getting a really good job that we land, know, just you know, I know people like that too  But yeah, that's I've always been on this area and it's it's it's  I'm used to it. It's hard to leave. Yeah Yeah, I mean, but you like you said you do travel a good bit I know you were just up in in the Atlanta area last week  So  it's  it  I guess it's it's a good  a good home base for you and  in

03:29
a way to reach out and reach the people who really can benefit most from your talents. Probably a better home base would be Minneapolis. You know what saying? It's closer to everything, it's a lot cheaper. There's a lot of reasons that would be a better place to live. You can't beat the networking though. You can't beat the networking in Los Angeles. No, I have a fair amount of clients that I do physically.

03:57
still a see face to face here in  LA. Enough to keep it very much like you know this is the place to be for me it still is. um If that changes it changes I'll  I'm very flexible but I have clients I visit on a regular regimented scheduled basis doing updates system repair blah blah blah.  I call them members and so I keep them up to speed. Yeah we had the

04:24
Joe Cipriano on, he was our 100th episode guest. Joe was mentioning at the time that you were coming to rip out his entire booth to replace it like the following Sunday from when we recorded or whatever. So he's such a gem of a human. And I can't imagine the work that you had to do to make sure that Mr. Cipriano's space was perfect. It's a lot, yeah, he's...

04:52
I mean,  everybody has a different degree of what you call perfectionism, you know? But he's definitely a perfectionist. really, quality is extremely important. So,  you know, we put a lot of extra effort into making that happen. And then just making it a nice place to be and comfortable and, you know, all that stuff that checks the boxes that voice actors need so they can perform really well. Yeah, I think, you know, I think that's one of the things that um people, especially starting out, forget when you're going into a booth and you're...

05:21
you're going to do this, you're planning on being in this space for  eight hours minimum maybe. you're going into your job. And if you make it this tight, confining little space just because it sounds good, you're gonna hate going in there. If it's hot, you're gonna hate going in there to do your work. I have a booth behind me. might not seeing this on the show, of course, but there's a booth back there. I will not go in there unless I absolutely have to.  I mean, there's just no reason to torture myself.

05:49
to be in that space. mean,  it has a fan, but it's a joke. It doesn't  keep me cool.  It's ridiculous.  And so, in a way, having that really, not that I needed to be more empathetic to the voice actor, because that's really my thing. That's always been my brand, right?  But it really is like going in there and doing an episode of a show or doing a webcast,  doing something inside that booth that makes me really understand.

06:15
This is the plight of the voice actor  in many cases of being in a very confined cramped not very well ventilated Space and have to do that on a live call with a studio and directors and clients for two hours. It's  That's a slog. Yeah. Yeah  It's speaking of that and and  and  your empathy and your technical knowledge was that something that you always had even from a kid Did you just always?

06:43
were fascinated by the intricacies of  technology and electronics and stuff like that? Yeah, never to the depth that some people might go. You know, always hear stories of folks like me, and they're like, well, then I discovered this, and I couldn't put it down.  I think because of the sort of ADHD tendency that I have, I really like jump around from different activities and things very rapidly.

07:08
But I always definitely had a,  always been into science, I've always been into technology uh and sound and music.  I studied and played music through school and to college.  And so  those things all overlapped for me. And my father  was a naval electronics technician in the Navy in the 60s.  So he came into my life, or I came into his life, you know, with electronics being around and he was a ham radio operator. So he had a ham shack.

07:38
to the hilt with stuff.  And so that's just always been around me. So that definitely left an impression on me, no doubt. That's really cool. That's really cool. What did you play? ah I played trumpet. That was always what I played. My dad played when he was in school. When I was at school age, he handed me his old beat up on trumpet. uh And then after a year maybe of elementary school, and then he got me a nicer horn.

08:07
And then I still have the horn that he got me when I was in high school.  you know, I'm not actively playing, but you know, I keep it as a reminder of  my music and the thought that someday it will inspire me to pick it up again. And uh crazy enough, a client of mine just, I was at his house and he said, I'm going to give you this. And he hands me a cornet,  which is a sort of a trumpet, but a little bit of a, it's an old fashioned instrument.  Unfortunately, it's not in demand.

08:36
But it's still a nice horn. He hands me a essentially a brand new Bach Stradivarius silver plated cornet. And he says, I don't play this. thought I would. I'd like to give this to you. I was like,  what? So now I have that.  So I have this beautiful horn. It's like brand new in the box. So they were just begging me to someday  get my lips back. know, if you've played guitar, you have to get your calluses to get past that  painful stage.

09:04
Trumpet is the same thing. gotta build up the embouchure and muscles. Without that, you just can't enjoy playing. So it someday will be there for me. No, that's awesome. And that is so funny because trumpet's the instrument that I played in high school as well. And my aunt played trumpet, and so my first trumpet was her trumpet. No kidding. Yeah, and then I got another one. You know how rare it is for women to be into playing trumpet, especially back in the day. So you hear that.

09:34
I knew a few some of the best trumpet players I actually knew in school were women to like really good players Yeah, yeah, so that's that's interesting you had that and uh I Didn't keep my my other trumpet from from  when I played I ended up selling it to a kid who was starting or whatever and so I was like Yes, let's pass it on to somebody else. Sure, but just a few years ago. I picked up a flugelhorn

09:59
Because I had that same thing I was like man I played for all right you chuck man, June  oh, yeah, yeah,  okay, I Posted online somewhere when somebody posted a Thing about Chuck passing  and I said this sounds crazy, but every time I get my hand on a flugelhorn that was Automatically I would play feels so good  I would just immediately cuz it just like that song and that instrument and everything was just like  It just was like the sound you know yeah

10:28
That was what, know, I don't play that. But yeah, that's fun. That's a really beautiful sounding instrument. Oh yeah, yeah. And I think being introduced to Chuck Mangione as far as  like his music, I think I probably heard it first like in the soundtrack of, was it Cannonball Run? Where It Feels So Good was uh one of the songs there.  you know, I would- That was his, I guess that you would be called his one hit wonder, I guess you would say.

10:52
or what he is known His signature tune is... signature sound. Yeah. And it's got... You know, if you isolate the horn, it could be any era, but as soon as you hear the backing tracks with the... You know, the wah-wah, chicka-chicka guitar. You're like, oh, it's 1977. Boom. You know? It's dated, right? It sounds dated. But the horn, yeah, it's beautiful. It's beautiful. That's awesome. And that's awesome that you have that. And hopefully you'll pick up that Stradivari and, you know...

11:20
Yeah, I've got I mean I've got the French Besson. That's the horn I grew up with which is sort of the affordable Strad  and now I have the Stradivarius  Yeah, cornet and a cornet is like halfway is like the halfway point between a flugelhorn and a trumpet.  Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm  Is it like this this is so dumb and people are gonna be like why are y'all talking about why  is it the Shepherd's crook style?  Cornette  where it's where it has a little extra bit extra on the body side

11:50
That's a, oh my gosh. You're gonna have to get it out look at  it. I don't remember right now. I don't feel like it is. I feel like it's not. I always thought those were  cool looking  cornets. Last nerd fact. Did you know the cornet is more closely related to a tuba than a trumpet? Really? And do know why that is? Is it, well, I mean,  is it a four valve cornet? Nope.

12:16
No,  it is simply the bore of the of the pipe  in a trumpet remains the same all the way until you get to the valves Mm-hmm, and then the pipe increases to the bell right on a flugel on a cornet and tuba and euphoniums everything the bore actually increases  From the through them out from the lead pipe all the way down the  that's that's the difference. Oh, wow  Aren't you glad aren't you glad you brought that up?

12:43
This will be trivia. I'll win trivia because of this at some point. Someone's gonna listen to this and goes, nope, nope, nope, he's wrong. And that might be true and I apologize. that's I believe I remembered to be true. That's awesome. So from playing trumpet and hanging out in the ham radio station, how did you get to where you are now in what you're doing as far as light technology? What's the...

13:11
What was that path? Was that in college? Did you go for sound design, electrical engineering, or that type of stuff? Yeah, did get accepted at Virginia Tech in the engineering school for electrical engineering by some miracle. I had just enough good enough grades, I guess, in high school. to get into an engineering school at Virginia Tech, you have to have a pretty good GPA. So I got in the engineering school, and I studied engineering. Well, let's put it this way.

13:40
As a freshman in engineering at school at Virginia Tech, you're really not taking engineering classes. You're taking all the prerequisite classes. And I was not a super motivated high school student taking AP classes, so I had to take English, and I had to take all the lame classes, right? So for me, freshman year of college was really a drag, because it was like English, calculus. I think I had a Fortran.

14:08
because they made us learn Fortran, which is an  ancient programming language.  So it was a drag, let's just put it that way. It was a freaking drag.  And then I had to study my butt off and I had no study discipline. I had no way of controlling my food intake.  I had no way of controlling my access to alcohol. Like I freaking went  off the deep end, man. I was up all night. An overload of freedom.

14:36
Eating, yeah, it was like an absolute culture shock for me.  And  so needless to say, it was very difficult. And actually after my second semester, I was failing out of school. I was in bad place. So I had two choices, was to either drop out or buck up and like stay. I was in, I was what they call academic probation. So  I wasn't gone, but I was fixing to be gone.  You know what I mean?  And so my next semester,  I...

15:05
fortunately took a music history class,  a 3000 level class in jazz history  and um as an elective and uh it was in this beautiful facility that had Neumann mics hanging from the ceiling to record choirs and  like this beautiful salon. was like, holy smokes, I had no idea this was here. um So flash forward, I ended up changing degrees to music. m I needed a full extra year and a summer to get my  degree.

15:35
because I had a lot of catching up to do. So I spent an extra year and a summer and got my degree in music, audio engineering, audio technology. Music, audio technology was the major and a minor in communication and technology. I took a class in film, I took a class in television production, I took a class in communications law, all these different things and graduated with the idea that I'm going to go get a job.

16:04
at a studio.  And so right out of tech, right out of Virginia Tech, I landed a internship at a extremely well-known Philadelphia studio called Sigma Sound, which is another gone, now closed studio.  But Sigma was the home of  OJs and all the 70s  and 60s, 70s, 80s,  Philly sound hits.  Even Michael Jackson recorded, or the Jacksons recorded there.  Even David

16:33
Bowie recorded there. He recorded the Young Americans. Young American. You can hear those backup singers. All night. That was Philly. And that was recorded at that studio. So I thought this is what I was going to be doing. Well, I spent three months there as an intern. I was like, I am not going to be doing this. The hours were insane. It's a very old school, you're going to do all the crap work, kid, and not get paid for it. And you're going to like it.

17:01
You know, was, and I was like,  I don't know, you know, and then the people that were actually engineer assistants were getting paid  penance to be there at the beck and call of the production schedule.  I was like, I don't know.  And so it sort  of evaporated out of my life after not too long,  but my dad and I came up with the idea of building a recording studio and an RV. oh that's what materialized out of all of that. uh

17:31
We had a funky little camper, like a 1920 foot long camper.  The classic 70s, bed over the cab,  Chevy van,  tan aluminum siding. You can see it.  You can smell it. uh We had one of those, and so we converted that into a remote recording truck. And uh that was my business, or at least my intent at a business for several years  in the Philly, Westchester, Pennsylvania,  greater Philadelphia area.

18:00
And made that work for a while  You know, it was  really challenging Starting a business that way I had no bat I had no business background and I really kind of found out my dear father also did not right so we were  Blind leading the blind a little bit. I mean he was running a business at that time but it was  I'm trying to find gigs recording bands, you know and I Not that I didn't work.  I did some I recorded

18:29
bands in all sorts of scenarios. That's what was fun about it.  I was at live festivals or concert festivals.  I was at churches.  I was at a wedding one time recording a Klezmer band. Dude, that was crazy. I recorded uh all manner of styles of music.  It was just a huge crash course in  being resilient and flexible, thinking on your feet, solving problems, everything. And it was a huge learning  experience.

18:59
So that's how I spent a majority of my time. But then I was doing other things to actually make money, like installing aerobics studio sound systems, uh doing live sound for rentals, and just  anything I could get my hands on.  But the thing that really changed my career entirely was taking over for the radio broadcast engineering for Eagles football at 94WYSP.

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in Philly, which is now  94WIP Sports Radio.  At that time, it was the Howard Stern station.  So we were the king of the freaking hill  in the late  90s in Philly.  So  that's really where things changed for me, was getting that  gig.  So from there,  had you already  garnered yourself the name George the Tech?

19:55
At that point, that, when did you get that  mantle bestowed upon you? That mantle came out of  a situation where I was dating somebody who thought that I really needed to be separating my personal life from my business life on social media. uh So I was doing what many people did on social media, like add a persona  on  their social media and I was posting.

20:22
all manner of things on social media and personal things and family and everything was all commingled. And I was encouraged to not do that anymore. And I was like, oh God, this is gonna be a pain. And what am I gonna do? So then I changed my Facebook profile to George the Tech, first name, Widom. And so was like, all my business people are here.

20:50
So what I'm gonna have to do is actually make a new profile for my personal. And what I'm gonna be doing now is painstakingly going through this account, deleting everybody who I don't want to be in my personal life. It was a process, let's put it that way. But that's where the George the Tech name appeared at first. At the time I was working at Edge Studio, I had a side stint for four years under the employment of Edge Studio.

21:18
because I had already been an entrepreneur for 10 years by that point, and I was burned out. So I had already put in the years doing my original company, which was called Eldorado Recording Services. Studios is another company, by the way. Another lesson is when you're thinking of a company name, make sure it's not the same as the name of a studio in LA, where the red hot chili peppers record and stuff. So when I moved to LA, my brand, Eldorado Recording Services, was like,

21:48
You mean El Ra Recording Studio? No, no, no, no. And then after a stint in production mixing and other stuff, I was like, it's time to brand myself specifically to voiceover. We're missing a whole chunk of story in the middle there, but. Well, what's the chunk? What's the The chunk is how I got into voiceover. Well, how did you do that then? Let's figure that Oh my God. So when I was in Philly, was, I got to know a producer who

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at that time was actually on his way out and starting his own voiceover career. uh A lot of people do start in voiceover, doing voiceovers for  radio, you know, as a producer recording spots.  And he was getting so successful booking work that he was like, it's time to go. Go to New York, get an apartment. And that's what he did. I went there with my friend Lane, who was my mentor at the time, and he and I set up his studio.

22:46
So now I had this connection to a voiceover guy. Paul Turner was the other one. I got to intern and do some work at Paul Turner's studio.  Paul at the time was the voiceover for Howard Stern.  So his voice was very well known. ah so I had these two connections to voiceover. Well, the Paul Turner one didn't really go anywhere at the time. But when Howard moved to LA before me,  and then I  ended up moving to LA too, I reached out to Howard and said, hey, I'm in LA now. If you ever need anything, let me know.

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A year later, he said, I want to do some updates to my studio. I want to do some renovation. And instead of flying Lane out, would you come over? And I said, sure.  So there's my client, Zero. That was my very first client. And then he told his management about me. His management told  Rick Wasserman, Rick Robles, and Melissa Disney about me. And they were my first three referral clients.  And they're still my clients to this day.

23:45
Blossom from there and then I got a connection through it with an engineer and that engineer Recorded Donald LaFontaine all the time and then one day he's recording Don and he's hearing this buzz on the signal And he's like we got to get this fixed So he Steve says can you go over to Don's house and figure out why his mic is buzzing? I'm like, who's that? He's like, oh, you'll know I was like, okay, I wasn't like obsessively good googling people at the time. I was just like, alright, it's a client referral Let's go see this guy

24:15
go to his house and I'm like, holy smoke, this dude is a freaking gazillionaire, you know, he's a fortress. And then went down to his studio and he told me what he wanted to do and he's like, all of a sudden you heard the ice dame box, beep beep. And I'm like, he's like, oh, I gotta go into the booth. Pops into the booth, does The Simpsons, you know, and he does The Simpsons trailer and I was just like, boom, my head explodes and I'm like, holy crap, this is the absolute king of all movie trailers that are in his house.

24:46
And that was like, all right, this is what I'm going to do.  He said, listen, man, they installed all this gear for me 10 years ago. They disappeared. Nobody's around to help. I don't have anybody to call when things go wrong. I was like, holy crap. What an opportunity. It just fell in my lap.  And that's where it started. And then I became VO Studio Tech until Edge Studio. So that was sort of the middle part of the story,  is I created VO Studio Tech. And then Edge Studio essentially acquired the name.

25:15
and they hired me. Four years later,  out the door I went  and I started GeorgeTheTech.com too for everybody that goes, what?  When you say GeorgeThe.Tech.  But  yeah, and then I started that company because I still had that name and I had that Facebook presence as GeorgeTheTech and I was like, what am I gonna call it?  I guess GeorgeTheTech and that's how the name stuck.

25:45
You know you say that's where it started, but I mean it all started back in that ham  ham radio Shack you know with my dad yeah  pushing buttons and watching them solder stuff and just absorbing and just absorbing you know and being there and being in it That's that's  that's so cool man. That is so cool and like I said you're one of the you're one of the nicest people in the industry that I've

26:10
met and that's in an industry where there is a shit ton  of nice people too. There really is. There really is.  I mean  there are other industries and there are side industries to voice acting  on camera side  that there's a lot of more competition and  more...  Acute competition, let's put it that way. Well right. Acute. It's like you're literally in a room with 20 people and  one of you is getting the job.

26:39
It's a very  physical, in their space,  literally physical, like you have to maintain your health and your skin. It's just a, it's super stressful, that one camera stuff. Yeah, whereas like this, seems like, you know,  the majority of folks you find, yeah, I mean, every industry is gonna have those folks that don't do that same way, but you know, the majority of folks I've met here remind me of folks I met when I was in radio.

27:06
that  we're all doing the same job. We want to all see all of us succeed and we all want to do a great job. And it's fun to work with people you have a good time with. Yeah,  totally.  So for  you now,  what is bringing you joy?  What's bringing me joy right now  is I'm actually working on a whole other company.  So that's one thing that's bringing me joy.

27:34
And  the eternal entrepreneur.  Yeah, I guess I am a serial entrepreneur after all. uh But yeah, I'm starting another brand company and everything and called push button studios dot com.  And uh it's  I have a I build a website ah as a placeholder until I have the real one built.  Guy named Will is going to make it. He's a voice actor himself, and he's going to build our  real site.  But I made one on.

28:02
Google sites or something.  I built it flying to Atlanta.  Delta was like free Wi-Fi. I'm like, flip out the webs. I'm like, what should I do with my time?  Oh, I'll build the website.  I did. I already had the domain registered and everything, so I just had to get that working. But by the time we landed, pushbuttonstudios.com was alive. So now I have a new business  concept, which is really around building video studios for business people.

28:31
That's really the niche is small SMBs, they say, small to medium business. People who need better branding, better video, audio quality, just need to step up the game. And that's who I'm going to be working with in that other business. So that's keeping me excited on the business level and keeping me inspired and joyful. Because it's a high energy thing. Very fast paced process.

29:00
AI  is definitely a big part of this process because I'm accelerating things that would have taken me two, three, four months or taking two, three, four days or two or a week.  It's a crazy thing.  on a more personal level,  for me, cycling is a very important thing for me. Biking, mountain biking, I'm very much involved with lot of cycling communities here in Los Angeles.  I can go to like almost any ride or group ride and I'll know somebody.

29:30
You know, or I'll know a lot of people depending on the group. And I'm very social, so for me cycling is a social thing. I almost never go ride solo by myself. It's always motivated through a social thing. And so  that for me is my exercise. It's social, it's an outlet, it's an escape, it's a moving meditation. Whatever level you're at, I mean, it checks all the boxes.  You know, and so for me, it's definitely gonna be

30:01
The thing for for me personally is cycling.  And then I'm in a relationship of almost seven years.  That brings me joy about 57 % of the time.  then  I have my 16 year old living in Georgia and she brings me joy constantly. there's  a few really nice sources there of joy. That's awesome. Is your daughter a

30:29
following in your technology footsteps or?  Kind of, she's a very creative person. uh Her mom's a photographer and so she's got that art gene thing going on and so she's highly, highly, highly uh active in drawing character, creating  graphic characters on design. um 2D design,  maybe even 2D animation. We'll see what she decides but she's very talented in creating uh art and character design.

30:59
She's hopefully, you know, hopefully we'll get her into SCAD. You know, it's an obvious choice  for her.  If she gets the grade she got last year, she'll get a full ride.  So let's see if she,  she's motivated.  She's motivated. So um yeah, she's, she, she's not afraid of tech, but she's not into tech.  If she has tech, it's cause her dad put it on her lap and say, here's something else.

31:24
Every time I go to her house, it's something I'll throw at her. Like, here's some lights I got you, kid. How about these Phillips Hue lights that I found? Do you want to try these? She's like, what do I do with these? I'm like, here's a ring light. I gave her a ring light. And for graduation, I sent her a little tiny boom box that plays CDs and cassettes. So now she has CDs and cassettes in her possession. yeah, I'm forcing her to.

31:54
But  kids her age want tangible shit. They're tired of just everything being digital.  They're actually craving for stuff and physical. Like her room is wallpapered in movie poster, or character posters, and artists wallpapered in posters. So  there's no room to put anything anymore.  So now it's like, what does she do with her space and her time? And it's create, create, create, listen to music 24-7.

32:22
And I literally listen to her playlist on Spotify because she has pretty good taste in music.  I don't like all of it. I think some of it's not my style at all.  But some of it's like, damn, this is freaking good.

32:38
Alright George, this is the second segment of the show. This is a segment we dive little bit deeper into your mental health journey.  I definitely believe that like depression wants to tell you you are alone in these thoughts and that's how it kind of helps to keep you down. But  the more we talk about it, the more we realize we are not alone because everybody kind of goes through these days to some extent. So for you, how do you keep the darkness at bay?

33:05
absolutely has, it's absolutely cycling for me.  mean, bicycling is  super important for me to have an escape. Like when I get on my bike,  you know, we talk about presence and people talk about meditation and the benefits of meditation. This is my form of meditation now. Like I've actually studied meditation. I've practiced meditation.  Um, I was even in an organization where we would sit on the street in downtown Los Angeles and meditate.

33:33
It was called Public Displays of Meditation. So I've been there and done that, right? And so I don't have a practice in traditional meditation. I cycle and bike. When I go out and ride a trail in the hills of Santa Monica or the mountains, I am not thinking about any BS, any stress, nothing. I am 100 % present. And so that reset, that is...

34:02
crucial for me is those little escapes. ah Two, three,  four hours at a time oh where I get to do that. That's really one of the main ways that I keep the darkness at bay for sure. Do  you find that it's just um when you're riding, when you're cycling, it's... uh

34:30
You're saying you're being present at the moment. it, is it their appreciation for the,  you know, the trail that you're on, the nature that you're in, or is it, is it, is it clearly just a zoned out? There are times where it is part of the, but I am part of the bike and we are just traveling. There's the whole, you know, being in the zone thing people talk about. I get into the zone all the time, you know,  that's what's so great about it. And occasionally you get, you get, you get knocked down. I mean, I'll be,

35:00
having good time and I will fall. uh And that's shocking, you know? I've got a million little things and scars and nicks and crap on my arms and legs and um that comes with it too. ah But it  doesn't happen that often anymore when I get hurt. It's rare. I got hurt a couple times in one weekend a couple weeks ago and it was kind of an eye opener for me. uh One of them was just very making, just one of them was just.

35:28
Carelessness like I literally had a sweatshirt go into my front wheel and throw me over the handlebars. Oh, wow. That was really brutal Yeah, that was a that's never happened to me. So I'm 51 I've never been thrown like that. That was  That was tough. I didn't break anything,  but I could have I'm still out of sprained left wrist as a result of that oh But uh Those things are gonna happen uh But I would much rather fall on the ground

35:58
hit a rock or hit a tree, then get killed by a car. So I'm much happier off the streets, up in the hills,  on the trails. If I ride on the streets, again, with people, it's with friends. It's always in a group.  I  feel  much safer in group of people riding, especially in Los Angeles. um so that's, yeah, I'm able to just be there and be in the moment and just zone out, zen out, whatever.

36:27
You know, there's occasions where you get riding with somebody, get in a little bit of a conversation. And so you're kind of like, oh, I don't, and then I'll check myself and I'll go, no, this is sacred time right now. I don't really need to talk about current events right now. Let's shut that part off. And thankfully, there's not a lot of that because if you're going up a damn hill, you cannot have a conversation. The worst thing about biking with other people is somebody is more fit than you and you're going up a damn hill and they're still talking.

36:57
Mmm, and you're like you just want me to shut up shut up. I can't breathe stop  And they're like blah blah blah. You're just like shut up.  You're I know your Conversational pace is me at maximum output right now Yeah, you know that's all you know that's the only downside of group rides is that happens sometimes right?  But on the whole it's always great. You just it's just  it's so healing. It's so healing for me and I

37:26
I would rather get a broken bone than have hypertension. I don't know. It's just, I just, that's.  Or a broken spirit. mean. Or broken spirit. Yeah.  Yeah. And you find that when you, when you, when you get that point, say you're,  you know, say you're stressed about a project or something like that you're like, no, I'm getting on the bike. This is, and is it like instant or is it like you, you gotta get, you gotta get pedaling a little bit to get through it. And then you're like, all right, this is.

37:55
I admittedly admittedly I need to be better at that  Hmm, and that's the problem with me having the desire of always riding with people is it's it's always a schedule You know, you're like I'm riding Thursday night. I know I'm Thursday night uh I don't  often enough  Remove myself from a bad situation and reset myself. That's something I could be a lot better at doing  My girlfriend reminds me all the time get up. Take a break go outside for a walk

38:25
get out of that. That's hard for me.  I could be better at that and solving that. What I think I probably do  is just  shift into another distraction,  you know, and just derail my thought by just dopamine searching on social or  doing something else or watching something or, you know, but  I could do more of that. That would be good. That would be a great thing to do, a healthy thing to do.

38:54
So that's something I can work on, I think. yeah, that is a great way to do it, Do you find that having a partner that recognizes those times in you is also really helpful? Because sometimes we do. You get to that point where you're like, no, I just need to go, go, go. I need to work it down. And sometimes it takes that physical kind of like, hey, either somebody texting you, checking in on you, hey, how's things going?

39:24
Or just like, you need to take a break. Let's go  grab a coffee and come back or something, you know? Yeah, yeah.  Yes.  No, it's great having somebody who  my partner is very, very  empathetic and really, you know, she knows me. Like she sees me when I'm stressed. She knows I can't hide anything from her. So it's great to have somebody to remind you. I'm a little bit,  I'm definitely very.

39:51
Stubborn so can be very hard for her me for her to get me to stop doing what I'm doing. Mm-hmm You know, but it just to have some having somebody around to check in on what's going on is really Really really helpful. I mean folks that folks folks that live alone. They have a degree of independence that can be really  Pleasent  but not having anybody else around ever to just  check

40:21
on you. mean, this is a weird thing to say, but people that live alone are going to get more skin cancer and die because nobody's looking at their skin. Yeah. I mean, nobody's checking the moles, right? Right. Right. I mean, just having somebody around to do that. Yeah. Yeah. So it is nice having somebody to look at to check on you. And this is probably why my entire adult life since I've started relation. I started dating very late. It was in my mid 20s. But ever since then, I haven't spent.

40:52
more than  a month, a couple of months out, not in a relationship. Because I found that once I had somebody,  even though it's really challenging and there's a lot of stress that comes  as a result of it, are just still the benefits that are enough for me that it's really worth to have somebody to check on me and  keep me honest and just look out. Like, what are you doing right now?  Like,  stop it.

41:20
I need somebody. hate to say it. I'm not that incredibly  self-always self-aware, self-independent, where I can just  regulate myself.

41:36
Alright George, this is the third segment of show. It's time now for the  Fast Five! The Fast Five! It's time now for the Fast Five! Fast Five! Sorry, I'm still working on a theme song.  I know, you're channeling your inner uh Flight of the Conchords there.  We've had the whole chat about Flight of the Conchords. Exactly. That song I keep meaning when I put it on my roadcaster.  Business time.  Business time. It's time.

42:04
It's Fast Five time right now.  Fast Five is powered by Poddex. It's an app created by my friend Travis Brown. If you go to chewingthefatbr.com slash poddex,  it'll take you to the link. can download it on your favorite mobile device. It's made up of podcasters, but it's great just  random icebreaker questions on some great categories and stuff like that.  I'm going to just pull up  the randomizer here.  It's just five random questions, no wrong answers. First thing, come to the top of your head.  You ready?  No.

42:34
First answer is no. No. That wasn't the first question.  It's a  slick six all of a sudden.  Question number one.

42:47
Would you rather chug orange or grape soda?

42:52
Orange soda. Orange soda?  Yeah, that's again random questions. I can't say you're wrong or right.  It's personal preference. That's a weird question. Right, right.  I  think that's first time that one's come up.  Question number two.

43:11
What is your best childhood memory?

43:17
If you say chugging orange soda. This one time I was chugging. No, I OK. The word that keeps popping in my head right now is farm. So my mom grew up, my mom's family grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania. so times being on the farm sometimes were crazy.

43:43
Risky, dangerous, and other times just so  amazing to have that  space.  We had a creek running through  the back front nine.  It was just an incredible place to be. I just  had a lot of amazing, amazing experiences as a child being on that farm.  I don't have a specific thing.  That one just really stands out, like how lucky I was to have that  as a place to go.

44:13
as a child with my mom and brother and my dad. That's really cool. That's really cool. love that.  Question number three.

44:22
Do like to plan things out in detail or be spontaneous?

44:28
That's an awesome question because I think it depends.  I definitely can be spontaneous and a little bit impulsive,  but I also like to plan out a trip and have a fair amount of planning involved to make sure that we can do,  you know, as much as we can.  So it's a good one. It depends. Yeah.  I feel the same way. It's like, you know,  maybe you plan the big

44:54
big swashes of the trip but you allow time for some you know stuff to pop up you know the taxi driver tells you of a great you know Mexican restaurant or something like that. You're like oh let's try check that out. We did a two-week road trip with my girlfriend we had we drove 3,000 miles with a little tiny camper and I had to plan a lot for that to actually work but you still had to be very open to things going wrong not getting where you wanted to go on time and you just had you had to have this combination of

45:22
planning and flexibility to have a really good time. You had to be able to let go of things not happening when you want them to happen or in the way that you want to.  And that was a big part of it. So yeah, it's a combination. Awesome. Question number four.

45:39
What's the disadvantage of playing things  safe?

45:45
um I think you don't get to learn a lot of things that way  You know yeah, and I think it's for me personally. It's just less fun  You know uh So there are some yeah, I mean you're asking a guy's a mountain biker most people look at that sport and go are you insane? I think is what they see is Red Bull rampage or whatever the craziest thing possible on Instagram is right, right, but

46:13
You know, yeah, think that playing it safe means you don't get to advance your life, career, try new things,  and you don't get to make mistakes and learn from them.  I think when I was younger, I played things too safely because my parents were very loving, caring,  careful parents. And I think more risks  would have been a good way thing in some ways. So,  you know, I think it's really important for growth is to...

46:42
Not always play it safe. Yeah, no, I love that. Unless you're investing somebody else's money. you should. Please play it safe. Yeah, please. Question number five.

46:55
What's the last thing you've done  that you were really proud of?

47:04
Well, I think very, very recently, did a couple of podcast studio setups. And one of them is for a nonprofit organization here in Los Angeles called Children of the Night. And Children of the Night organization has been fighting child sex trafficking since the 70s. Oh, wow. And the woman that runs the organization's name is Dr. Lois Lee. She's an incredibly accomplished person who is brave and is

47:32
When she started doing this, she was literally on the street dealing with police, pimps,  and the kids.  I mean, hands on.  And now she's got people doing this with her and  getting to set up a podcast studio and then actually start a show called the Dr. Lois Lee Show, which I think she's going to release in October. Building the studio, figuring out how to light it, getting the sound together, teaching them how to operate it. Because I do it just like I do all my voiceover studios. They run it.

48:02
I designed everything so the owner can operate it themselves. so that  was a really awesome accomplishment.  it happen, having it pull off, getting it done, their gratitude, hearing the story of the person Dr. Lois was interviewing,  which was a harrowing story, um and getting to bring that to light and knowing that this could somehow grow into something bigger.

48:31
and being a part of it,  in recent memory I would say that's one of the things I'm definitely really proud of. I love that. Yeah, and I mean, you're someone who's done a lot of stuff. I mean, you helped  build the Don LaFontaine Center uh at  SAG uh here recently that they opened up. ah But that just shows your heart. And that's another reason why I love you so much is  for that to be something that is a highlight of what you've done.

49:00
Because it's it's about helping other people tell their stories and to really  make a difference  With the stories that they're telling I love that I love that I love voice actors. I love actors. Yeah, I love it Well, that's our fast five and that is the show. Thank you so much George for being here I really appreciate you and appreciate your time brother.  Oh, it's great, man I hope you do it. I hope you don't spend too much time stressing out of  editing down the first segment

49:30
No, no, no, not at all.  If folks want to keep up with you, what is the best  avenue they could do that?  Well, everybody in the voiceover world, definitely George the dot tech  is  where we operate and provide services to the voice acting community  from just very basic sound checks to hear your audio and see how you're sounding to  studio design to setting up processing presets and stacks and racks, which are popular, most popular services.

50:00
uh And if you're more on the I need a studio for television quality video at home or in my business That's what  our brand new push button studios calm  Nice first time I'm really mentioning in public is right here. So I love it  Yeah, so there's two ways depending on what your interest interests are  awesome Well, I'll make sure I'll put the links to those in the show notes  and on the web page again George Thank you so much for what you do and who you are and for being you to really do appreciate it

50:28
You too man. I wish you nothing but success in everything that you got going on man. Thank you.

50:36
Thanks man. And thanks for not making me cry today. Appreciate it very much. We'll do that once we finish here. If you would like to support this podcast, I'd appreciate it if you bought me a coffee at chewingthefatbr.com. But until next time, I look forward to the chance we have to set a spell and chew the fat.