A kid from Lexington went to Huntsville looking for opportunity. Ten years later, he left looking for peace.

In this solo episode, I trace the jobs, relationships, mistakes, ambition and insecurity that kept pulling me back to Huntsville. I also wrestle with the city itself: its growth, its manufactured sense of community, its relationship with status and security, and the complicated history beneath the Rocket City story.

This is not a definitive account of Huntsville. It is my account of what the city gave me, what it rewarded in me and why I finally realized the life I had spent years building was no longer the life I wanted.

There is a sun. There is a moon. Two things can be true at once.

Welcome back to the show within the show.

This episode began with a pastor talking about Shia LaBeouf and somehow led me through Rick & Morty, James Sexton, Dan Harmon, Theo Von, and one of the most beautiful reflections on grief I've ever heard.

On the surface, they're completely different conversations.

Underneath, they're all asking the same question:

Is caring still worth the risk, even though grief is inevitable?

We explore grace, redemption, vulnerability, meaning, and what it really means to let another person matter.

If something in this episode resonates with you, I encourage you to spend time with the original creators. Their work is linked below.

Thanks for letting me come through your speakers again.

**Sources Mentioned**

Pastor on Shia LaBeouf https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXsYuS7AMi1/

Shia LaBeouf https://youtube.com/shorts/UXfnlsbwB90

Rick & Morty – Fear Hole https://youtu.be/F9kSF6BrOCs

James Sexton https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZ-GeTCTlWT/

Dan Harmon on Meaning https://youtu.be/de2grEPn7rg

Theo Von reading the grief passage https://www.instagram.com/reel/DY2XogkMtYq/

Note: Theo attributes the final passage to Jim Carrey. From everything I could find, the original authorship is unverified and likely not Jim Carrey. If you know the original author, I'd love to update the credits.

Listen in to Episode 7 as we catch up with my old friend CJ Newton (Newton Creative). CJ is based out of Knoxville and is well-known in the content game as one of the top producers in the region. Check out his work at his IG @newtoncrtv

Podscraps is the show inside the show. Pieces of things I’ve heard and pieces of my own life, put together to see what they have to say to each other.

This was supposed to be an episode about Dauphin Island, recorded on Dauphin Island. The wind and an approaching storm wouldn’t allow it. Then I planned to record that night at the Kate Shepard House, but turning that beautiful old place into a makeshift studio didn’t feel right either.

So the first Podscraps became something I never planned.

Pieces of Mobile and Dauphin Island. Ram Dass and Be Here Now. The Odyssey. Peter Kreeft looking back on 63 years of marriage. Duncan Trussell on the stories that crack open through heartbreak. Theo Von and Andrew Huberman allowing themselves to wonder about prayer and the limits of human perception.

Maybe making this microphone mine also means knowing when not to turn it on.

Maybe life isn’t interrupting the thing I’m trying to make.

Maybe life is the thing.

Be here now.

Clips featured:

Peter Kreeft on marriage

Duncan Trussell on heartbreak

Theo Von and Andrew Huberman on prayer and perception

Listen to and support the full conversations.

Episode 5 took two attempts and two states before I finally got it out.

This is my first real solo riff. No guest. No full script. Just something that happened this week that sent me into a much bigger conversation about love, dating, marriage, social media, sex, family, and the things we expect another person to fix in us.

I come from a family where divorce has been much closer to the rule than the exception. Somehow, I still grew up wanting forever.

I talk through the three serious relationships that helped build my philosophy, including a broken engagement, while trying very hard not to tell anyone’s story but my own. I question the institution of marriage and the timelines we inherit in rural Alabama, but I also question myself, my selfishness, my need to be chosen, and whether I have always understood the difference between loving somebody and needing what they gave me.

I still believe in love.

I am just trying to figure out how often I have actually practiced it.

Taylor McLendon joins the show from his studio at Lowe Mill for a conversation about art, identity, pain, process, and the things we carry until we are ready to let them go.

Taylor’s work is visual, which made this episode immediately interesting for an audio-only podcast. How do you talk about art people normally experience with their eyes? How do you honor the scale, texture, and feeling of someone’s work without turning the episode into a gallery tour?

That tension became part of the conversation.

We talk about Lowe Mill, creative identity, the weight inside Taylor’s work, what gets expressed, what stays hidden, and how making something can become a way of releasing something. This one also became personal for me. For a long time, I dreamed about having a studio inside Lowe Mill. I still feel that when I walk through the building. Recording there made me wrestle with what this show is, what it could become, and what I need to stay true to.

What we carry. What we release.

Question. Feel. Reach.

Episode 3 is the first guest episode of People Keep Telling Me I Look Like Jesus, and Steph Cashin was the right person to set the tone.

Steph is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker, EMDR-certified therapist, founder of Huntsville Integrative Therapy, and the brains/face/voice behind @thehuntsvilletherapist. I walked into her office with microphones & therapy cynicism, and she let me push.

We talk about therapy, self-abandonment, burnout, kids, parents, EMDR, and what happens when the life that looks right on paper stops feeling like yours.

A real therapist. A real therapist’s office. A little accidental therapy for Dylan, but hopefully a useful conversation for everyone else.

Find Steph at therapyhuntsville.com or @thehuntsvilletherapist on Instagram.

Question. Feel. Reach.

Episode 2 is a love letter to Kipnuk, Alaska. (Qipneq)

Not a travel story. Not an outsider explaining a village. Not a tragedy episode. A love letter.

I went to Kipnuk for work, but I came home with something I’m still trying to carry correctly: gratitude, perspective, humility, and a different understanding of home. This episode is about the places that follow you home, the responsibility that comes with gratitude, and why Kipnuk became one of the few places on earth where my soul has felt at rest.

After the remnants of Typhoon Halong hit Western Alaska, Kipnuk became one of the communities facing a long road of recovery. If this episode moves you, please consider supporting verified relief through the Western Alaska Disaster Relief Fund via the Alaska Community Foundation.

Relief fund: https://alaskacf.org/western-alaska-relief/

Quyana.

This first episode is a baseline.

After years of hosting 94x50 Podcast and Sentinel Soundbytes Podcast, I’ve spent a lot of time being the mouthpiece for something bigger than myself. This show is different. This one starts and ends with me.

Episode 1, appropriately titled, "The First One", is a re-introduction, a catch-up, and a first attempt at explaining why I’m moving home. It’s about leaving one chapter, returning to Lexington, wanting to be closer to my family, and trying to build something honest from the life I’ve actually lived while being in the middle of the decision.

I talk through the purpose of the show, the meaning behind the cover, the backwards “I love you” sign on my chest, and the strange honesty of realizing that maybe part of this whole thing is learning how to tell myself I love myself.

This episode is not the full story. It’s the front door.