Chazz Meets Kevin Smith & Jay Mewes

Podcast show notes and details 

In this NSFW, most serious episode of Self-help for Stoners ever, Meeting Kevin Smith & Jay Mewes:

CLICK IT TO GET IT! THANKS!

telling a bad leukemia joke in front of thousands, meeting my DIY hero, help a kid with leukemia (ironic, no?), weight loss tech, The Fight Club Test and I discuss how truly dangerous Joe Rogan is. This is the most serious of my podcasts ever! Almost lugubrious. However, if you’re at a crossroads, too, it might inspire you to change your life, too.

To see my video about How Kevin Smith Changed My Life, go to http://allthatchazz.com/book-reviews/

Check out the IndieGoGo fundraiser for Joshua at http://www.indiegogo.com/indiesuniteforjoshua.

Joshua is a very sick young man. He and his family need our help as they deal with heavy financial demands while his leukaemia is treated. For the charity drive (#IndiesUnited4Joshua), if you can’t contribute cash, please tweet and share to spread the word. If you can donate, bonus! You will get books or services in return! And may Thor bless your tender heart.

 Please follow me @THECHAZZSAYS.

 Want to stream podcasts easily with zero drain on your device’s storage space? Easy! Download the Stitcher app and use the promo code: SELFHELPSTONERS to enter a draw to win a $100 cash card.

 Get the Self-help for Stoners ebook or paperback here. Cheap!

Grab the short stories at Smashwords here. Couch change, baby!

 It’s time for us all to be Why Not? People. I mean…why not?

Kevin Smith & Jason Mewes now have autographed copies of Self-help for Stoners! YAY!

Kevin Smith
Image via Wikipedia

Last night I shook hands and had a chat with Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith (Jay and Silent Bob for those not in the cult). Each now have a signed copy of my book, Self-help for Stoners. They couldn’t have been more gracious, interested, warm or friendly. It was a big moment for me, especially when Kevin recognized the book and said, “Hey! I know you!”

Each got a personalized recommendation for stories they might particularly like from Self-help and it was a genuine pleasure all around. We laughed a lot. As always, of course, Kevin spoke inspired and inspiring words about writing and the creative process.

I’m a bit emotional today. (Scratch that. I’m very emotional today.) It was a milestone in the evolution, not just of the book, but for me taking the leap to writing full-time. It was just over a year ago that I decided I needed to “stop chasing the puck” and quit my job of twenty years. (I won’t rehash that story here, but you can always watch the video on the Inspiration page.) Things went full circle last night. And now? Onward. Three novels are coming out this year with my name on them. Hoo-ha!

I must make this writing thing work.

Bonus? As I walked up onstage, Jay sang Paperback Writer. Yes!

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Self-help for Stoners: The Mind Bend Edition

 

In this episode of Self-help for Stoners, The Mind Bend Edition, I start right away with a little story from my book Self-help for Stoners. I hit you with my fave tweets, rake the GOP over the cliched coals and hit you with some money-wasting, Canuck-style. You also get a preview of my ad that will soon run on Smodcast Internet Radio. If you like the show, please like us on Stitcher or leave a kind review on iTunes! Thanks!

Follow me @THECHAZZSAYS on Twitter. See all the books or donate at www.allthatchazz.com. See the VIDEO: KEVIN SMITH CHANGED MY LIFE on the book reviews page at allthatchazz.com.
Download the Stitcher app and use the code: SELFHELPSTONERS fro a draw for a $100 cash card.

Until the end of January, grab my free ebook, Corrective Measures by Robert Chazz Chute here. If you love it, pleae review it. There are seven ebooks in all plus the paperback, Self-help for Stoners.

Get the Self-help for Stoners ebook or paperback here. 


What We Can’t Do is Wait

I used to be entranced, like a deer in Time’s headlights, with the idea of “paying dues.”

People in positions of power, older people, and a lot of losers used that phrase a lot. In case you’re wondering, I fell into the category of loser because I believed it. A lot of people denigrate the “kids” in the Occupy Wall Street protests. We’re told twenty-year-olds don’t have fully developed brains and when we’re young we don’t know the ways of the world. Well, fuck that. A bunch of twenty to twenty-five-year-olds were largely responsible for getting Apollo rockets into space. The young may not know the ways of the world, but they have adult responsibilities. Very young people are killing for their nations, going to jail, getting executed and being kept down by the established order. No wonder they’re pissed. (Thankfully, after the young led the charge, many much older people are recognizing they, too, are the 99% and have joined in the cause and lent their experience from the sixties civil rights struggle.)

If you’re young, don’t wait for someone else’s approval to follow your heart’s desire. Take action. If you’re old, please don’t dampen their enthusiasm with caution. (You probably didn’t. A bunch of you went to war.) Being young is risky and it’s the perfect time to risk more, not less. When I was in my twenties, I did a lot of low-level grunt work in newspapers and magazines and books. I once went to a job interview where the publisher told me I wouldn’t get to have an opinion for seven years. He figured it would take that long before I would be worthy to even utter a single opinion. Really. I told him I guessed I’d just go to med school. At least there they let you start saving lives much earlier in the learning process.

I believe in learning. But I believe in learning by doing. For instance, I went to journalism school for four years, but two weeks on the job at a daily newspaper pretty much equalled those four expensive years. University, for me, was not ultimately about getting a marketable skill. It was to enjoy myself for four years while delaying entry into the workforce. And no wonder. Look what awaited me. Grunt jobs where some self-regarding asshole tells you that you don’t get to have an opinion until you’re thirty-three.

Life is short. We don’t have time for delays. We think of Einstein as a much-lauded old man, but he came up with the theory of relativity when he was young and surprisingly sexed up. The brilliant people I know now in their forties were just as bright and ready to contribute in their twenties. Young people change the world while older people often try to keep things the same. (Not all old people, but there’s an easily recognized pattern there.) Instead of being active mentors, many mid-level managers try to dampen youthful energy in the name of systems and organization. Meanwhile, the CEO started the company out of his parents’ garage when he was seventeen and packed full of that same creative enthusiasm for innovation.

Sadly, in my twenties, I wasn’t one of the strong ones. I believed the lies that respected established power and past accomplishment more than new, personal and future accomplishment. I was told to wait and I did. I kept apprenticing while a young Kevin Smith went out and took risks and made movies and a young Neil Gaiman wrote comics.

I’m writing full-time now. I wish I’d started younger. I wish I had a time machine. (I’d also stop myself from buying parachute pants. That was also a terrible mistake.)

The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago.

The next best time? Today.