Are You Mad at Me? is a sweet and hilarious comedy relationship podcast featuring Vickie Morgan and Josh Morgan. They talk about the ups and downs of owning a small business, marketing, self publishing, producing radio, tv and film, and homeschooling their boys in Canada.
Vickie tries out setting up a Shopify account with e-commerce
because there’s a Try It For 3 Months for a $1 promotion going on. Spoiler
alert. It doesn’t end well but the website survives and you can buy How to Failat Documentary Filmmaking on Google Play, Amazon and Etsy.
Vickie and Josh talk about their weirdest
experiences in video and film.
For Josh it was a request to edit an audition tape
for a child and the mother balked at the price and said there was no way she
could pay because she was headed out on a month long cruise that weekend.
For Vickie it was from a guy who had seen her
public access mental health talk show and wanted her to produce a full length
documentary then completely ghosted her halfway through production. Then five
years later one of the people in the film came back asking if it had been
finished and offered to pay for post production and halfway through HE ghosted
her. Read more about that and how the film finally got made and where you can
see it in How to Fail at Documentary Filmmaking.
Vickie received the COOLEST Nateland Podcast
shirt and mug custom made by Josh. It helps to have a Cricut machine and stacks
of blank mugs and tshirts laying around the house.
Nateland segment. The new special was
fantastic. Vickie and Josh have caught up on the first year of Nateland and are
loving it. Josh gave Vickie a homemade Nateland mug with a hammock between two
trees, the phrase I don't care for that. Down on the bottom it says 70% name
plus 100% face equals 170%. There's a picture of milk with ice. There’s the
word And dot dot dot dot dot. And the word So dot dot dot. And then there's the
phrase “That horse looks like it's dead.”
None of which will make any sense if you
haven’t seen Nate Bargatze’s standup but really what are you waiting for?
Your life will drastically improve with
more Nate comedy in your life.
Vickie promised on the last podcast that
she would post 12 days of jokes and 12 days of music and the ONLY reason she
followed through was because it was on the podcast. You can find them HERE and
HERE
New Years Resolutions: Vickie is going to
stop looking for work and validation through Facebook. Her New Years Resolution
is “I’m going to try my luck with strangers” and use other social media
platforms to share her creativity with new audiences.
There’s also a whiff of writing a new book
but Vickie is committed to starting it in February when all the resolution
crowd stops coming to the gym.
There’s a long discussion about writing and self publishing as a business card
to let folks know your expansive knowledge base in your chosen field. It can be
a way to connect with potential clients and expand opportunities in the arenas
you want to be in more often. A lot of information provided around selling
books on platforms other that KDP.
Vickie and Josh discuss living artistic
lives that don’t include the day to day hassles of car payments and going to
jobs they hate to pay for things they don’t even have time to use.
Josh talks about follow up appointments
with an oncologist after surviving cancer and recommends everyone check their
testicles for suspicious or unusual lumps on a regular basis.
The couple discuss their future travel
plans which include an RV, a trip to Zanies in Nashville and a bunch of other
places probably.
Shout out to Carmel and Patricia in Ontario
who are catching up on episodes of Are You Mad At Me? while doing their
Christmas baking.
Josh talks about his love for David Sedaris
who makes a point of asking people questions with a little more depth like
when’s the last time you saw a lion?
Vickie is reminded of her days teaching
self defense to women and how the words they say has such a big impact on their
body language and demeanor and the impact of asking a person what brings you
joy instead of what do you do for a living. There’s a distinct glow around
people who talk about what they love and feel free to be themselves in a safe
space.
There are no sorry’s in RAD class.
But there ARE sorry’s in Vickie’s Are You
Mad At Me segment where she recalls a job that ended in a cease and desist
letter from an organization’s corporate lawyer.
The Morgans discuss the importance of
taking on any big task in small manageable pieces. Like starting a podcast or
writing a book. It does not need to be perfect and polished at first and it’s
okay to learn as you go.
Vickie recalls an Abnormal Psychology class
she took at Southern Maine Community College where the key takeaway was that the
most mentally healthy people often know how to PLAY. People who do very very
well in life are able to switch between play and the work that needs to be done
efficiently and effectively.
Josh remembers a guy in the Air Force who watched the same Christmas movie over and over on a deployment in July because it made him feel good despite the 120 degree heat.
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Vickie has ruined a LOT of weddings. If you
weren’t already mad at her, hearing these stories might spark something.
Happy birthday to Josh and happy Boxing Day to
Canadians everywhere and possibly some parts of Australia. Josh wants to know
if Christmas crackers are British. Vickie thinks he means Snowflake Ritz.
(03:36) Paid Comedy Gigs
Vickie headlined at Last Minute Comedy this week.
Josh says she murdered. And then the next night she went and did ten minutes at
Landwash Brewery in front of a packed house. Thanks to the producers of that
show.
(06:51) Radio Shows that Play Mulberry Creek
songs
Thanks to the local radio shows that play Mulberry
Creek songs all year. Home Brew with Sam Whiffen on Krock, Jigs and Reels with
Danielle Butt on OZFM, the Irish Newfoundland Show on VOCM with Greg Smith, Coast
All Access with Rick Bailey and the regular rotation on CHMR.
(07:22) Tibbs Eve
Tibbs Eve was an unofficial holiday celebrated in
Newfoundland and Labrador on December 23rd when you drink with friends
before the obligatory holiday gatherings commence.
The character Tibb was said to be a loose moraled woman. If
something was said to happen on Tibbs Eve, it was unlikely it would ever
happen. Like saying when pigs fly.
(08:35) Working on Christmas
So we're hanging out this Christmas in our living
room. We're going to, open some presents from Santa Claus and then have some
delicious food. We were planning on making turkey chili. We're not doing a
turkey dinner. We're doing turkey chili and homemade biscuits.
Winning Chili Recipe
Many years ago in Maine Vickie and Josh went to a
chili cookoff and got a recipe from Vickie’s friend Christina and it won! Would
you like to try the recipe? Send us a message or leave a comment and ask for
the chili recipe! It’s delicious.
(13:10) Salvation Army welcome at the Avalon Mall
for eternity
There was a big news article that the people who
own the mall decided that they were not going to support having the Salvation
Army kettle campaign next year. They were fine for this year, but starting next
year, they were going to not be allowed in there. And there was an uproar of
about 40 people on Facebook
The owners of the local malls made an announcement
that the Salvation Army is welcome at the mall for eternity.
(14:13) Nate Bargatze Christmas Special
Go watch it. It’s amazing.
(16:11) Inspiration from the Nateland podcast
Vickie is taking inspiration from hearing and seeing
Aaron Weber and Brian Bates on the podcast because they're not just sidekicks
on the podcast, they're really funny comedians, and they tell real stories
about gigs that don't sell any tickets or someone gets into almost a fistfight.
We're three years behind in that podcast but there
are parallels in our lives right now.A
fight almost broke out at Vickie’s gig last week and someone collapsed on
stage.
And people were like, well, what should we do?
Should we call an ambulance? Vickie pointed out none of the comedians or comedy
fans in attendance were qualified to determine if this person who hit their
head on the speaker on the way down was okay or not.
(19:27) Advice for comedy show hosts
Please learn a little bit about the guests and
hype up the crowd for the openers and headliner. And for producers, please find
a host who is going to learn the names of the people who are performing, maybe
someone who will encourage the comedians, tell them how funny they are.
Preferably don't criticize the people's material after they get down off the
stage. Those are just little tips that make things run smoother and make
everybody feel, you know, comfortable and maybe want to go back to perform
again in the future.
(21:30) Mount Pearl tour / Johnnie and Mae’s
Big words of appreciation for the crew at Landwash
Brewery, the show host and producers and the folks at Johnnie and Mae’s who
make the best salt beef poutine.
(23:02) The Complete ACOA Sourcebook – one of
Vickie’s favourite books
To summarize, when children grow up in turmoil
and craziness especially around alcohol, addictions, religious fanaticism, gambling,
drugs, etc. when parents are dealing with these addictions, there's a lot of
stuff that naturally trickles down to the children. And one of the things is
that children never know what who they're going to get, whether it's going to a
relative's house and this uncle is particularly nice when he's drinking or this
aunt is particularly whatever when she's hung over, you never really know who
you're getting. And it's kind of messes up your perception of how the world is
and how people are going to respond to you and how lovable you are, and whether
you're worthy of affection.
The perfectionist message kids learn is maybe if I say exactly the right thing,
at exactly the right time to exactly the right person, they'll love me. And
that reality just doesn’t exist. You can spend your whole life trying to get
things perfect and it robs you of so much joy.
Many years ago Vickie had a mental health podcast
and had Denielle Hann on as a guest and Denielle gave this analogy about the
law of attraction and manifesting the life you want. If you’re at the Village Mall
and you want to go to Quidi Vidi which is in the east end of the city and you
realize you’ve gotten on the wrong bus and you’re headed to Mount Pear what do you
do? To which Vickie replied “I wait until the bus returns to the Village and
get a transfer” and Denielle said “No you pull the string, get off the bus and
you start WALKING toward Quidi Vidi.
In other words when you know what you want, point
in that direction and start moving towards it no matter how long it takes you
to get there. A step towards your dream no matter how small is better than
taking steps away from it or worse standing still.
(38:59) Jimmy Glen
Vickie recounts the year she wrote Jimmy Glen just
before Christmas and sent it to Cory Tetford who produced it in less than two
weeks and Chris Ledrew played some pedal steel on the song. It’s the most
requested song at Mulberry Creek shows and you can request it at your local
radio station to help bring Jimmy Glen home.
(42:28) Weddings Vickie Ruined
Vickie talks about weddings she’s ruined in this
week’s segment of Are You Mad At Me? including her first one that happened in
front of 6247 people and the weddings of her (at the time) two best friends.
(59:37) 12 Days of Comedy and 12 Days of Music
Vickie promised to post a comedy set every day
for the 12 days of Christmas. Then also promises to post some music on the
Mulberry Creek page every day for the the 12 days of Christmas and they can be
found here:
(1:11:13) Pin Cut Sew - a perfect business model for self publishing
Vickie talks about a channel on YouTube she loves
that she came across late one night and was inspired by the lady’s business model
and how she promotes her self published book.
Here’s the exact transcript of this segment.
Vickie: So I'm watching this lady's video and
she's talking about how she has done all these different things to make money
as, like hemming people's pains, fixing people's prom dresses. And then she had
a corporate or an industrial job where she was hemming curtains, and she hated
all of it. And so in her video, she says, I talk about this in my book.
And then she describes how she made money
teaching children's classes and sewing, and how she made money at that, and how
she shares in her book, like, how much to charge, how many kids you can handle,
what kind of equipment you need. She really broke down her business plan, which
most people would say, oh, isn't that sacred?
Isn't that like, you know, shouldn't you keep
that close to the chest? But, like, now she's in Hawaii. She doesn't care if
someone in Newfoundland makes it the sewing class. Yeah. So I went and bought
her book at 6:00 in the morning. I actually got out of bed, went downstairs,
got my phone, looked her up, bought the book at 6 a.m. while she was sleeping.
And I love it. It's a very short book. It's very
succinct. It tells exactly what it promised it would tell. She self-published
it and she sold it from her own website. So I spent $22 American on her 65 page
book. The font was huge. It had a bunch of pictures, and I think it was one of
the best purchases I have ever made.
Because that lady is an entrepreneur. She makes
money teaching classes to kids. She also makes money from her book while she
sleeps. She's an expert at the things she's doing. She probably has lots of
other hobbies. She's got a Facebook page and she's got a website, but she also
sells her book through this YouTube video that other people are watching while
she sleeps.
That's just a good business model, right? When people
get a chance to get to know you, they're much more inclined to go buy your
book. If they've seen a 15 minute video of you sharing your story, instead of
an ad popping up on Facebook.
So my entrepreneurship advice from one business
owner to another, from one creative to another. First of all, we need to accept
that it's okay to make money, period. No matter what how you do it, it's okay
to make money.
It's okay to enjoy money. It's okay to want
money. It's not a dirty thing to actually be paid for what you provide. And if
you make somebody’s day brighter because you, performed a joke or because you
played a song or because you passed them their McDonald's fries, you made their
life better. You deserve to get paid for it, right?
That's my advice to artists. And I'm going to
listen back to this because I need to hear this too. So like setting up my
website, it was hard and I didn't know how to do it, but now I do know how to
do it. And if you want me to set up yours, I can do that for you.
There's a thing that we can exchange and maybe
you can do something for me. I don't know. Anyway, that's my rant about
entrepreneurship.
I'm
telling you that as an adult, in case you needed an adult to give you
permission or tell you that that's okay, I'll be that for you.
Send it back to me one of these days and say, you
know what, Vickie? If you want to do those things, you can give me permission
too.
(1:16:42) New Year’s Resolution
Vickie: One of these days I'm going to hang out
at Zanies until Brian Bates is there, and Aaron Weber and Nate Bargatze and Dusty
Slay. I'm not even at the episodes yet with Dusty Slay, but man, I can't wait
to see those guys in person. It’s been the highlight of my year to find them.
Merry Christmas to all our listeners. Keep being creative!
You can listen to Are You Mad At Me? at any of the links below. Please remember to subscribe, like, leave a comment, tell a friend about us!
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