The Three-Headed Man

"Headspace" could be misleading. It could be misconstrued. We apologize.

The Three-Headed Man recalls the books that led them to the place that began their friendship. This episode is about books and preparatory experiences. Phreddie directs Jimmy and Jazzy to consider the headspace that allowed the book to drop into their lives.

What do we do everyday? The Three-Headed Man retells his daily practices, which are prompted by the question, "What is one thing important thing we do everyday?"

Jimmy goes first, and straight away he mentions his morning readings from the American Book of the Dead. He follows by explaining his morning routine with his dog and his cat, which moves him to discuss his love of natural things, and his dislike for humans. Truth be told, Jimmy is a little doggie.

Jazzy is less instinctual, and therefore more complicated. He begins by explaining his morning Sikh prayers. Additionally, he speaks to his other practices of drawing, guitar, and Thai chi. Jazzy continues by telling us about his daily Sadhana and Sikh Nitnem practices.

Phreddie writes his memories as his temporary most important thing, and he notices, concretely, the exponential of his daily practice. His focus on "not breaking the string" strengthens his resolve. After explaining this realization with too many words, Phreddie relates his humiliations.

Finally, after talking a lot, Phreddie concludes that he lives within a series of stories, stories he tells himself. He says, these are the stories I tell myself, they are not the truth, just stories that explain his life to himself.

Jimmy asks, "What happened to us when we were young that led us to the place where we met?"

Phreddie begins by explaining that what he is won't be visible until the end of the world, and he concludes by sharing a question that he has had since adolescence: "Why am I me? How come I'm a 'me'?"

Jazzy responds with an "I am." And, he tells that he was dropped on his head and zapped by electricity, which he believes led to developing his awareness of existence. Jazzy explains that high stress is an important aspect of his recognition of "I am."

When Jimmy answers his own question he moves us toward separation -- his recognition of his existence arrived when he glanced into a mirror. His separation from himself led him toward acting, drama, and the appreciation of black sheep.

After the individual memories and recollections Jimmy, Jazzy, and Phreddie discuss family constructs, university, and psychoactive substances. Jimmy calls them "articulators".

This episode reveals a few details about the inner-workings of THE THREE-HEADED MAN.

This episode, "Obstacles," was over an hour long. No worries, Jazzy did a fine job of editing the hour-long recording to a respectable 32 minutes. Like many of our conversations, it starts with a topic, a prompt, and then "it goes."

The episode is difficult to pin down. We begin with dreams. Jimmy tells a near nightmare story; somehow, Jazzy connects us to home repair. Then, we ricochet into the internet, carom into comparisons of humans and plants, and hop over to the Green Party. We bounce around and each time we touch down, we collect ourselves by remembering our topic -- "Obstacles."

Eventually, we come to understand obstacles are approached through problem solving. Or are they? In response, Jimmy suggests we go for "slow." Even in sex, Jimmy suggests we go for "slow." Phreddie connects the sex talk to one his favorite scenes from THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD by Zora Neale Hurston, and Jazzy questions how we move through our perceived obstacles.

As the end of the thirty minutes approaches, Jimmy and Phreddie tell stories of right and wrong, and that right and wrongness is a barrier, and a barrier is a type of obstacle. Right?

Jimmy begins by saying, "Stupid is something that breaks up the tedium of excellence."

With this definition, The Three-Headed Man retells his embarrassing, stupid things. We each confess a few moments of our stupidity: Jimmy's tale of an auto accident, Jazzy's almost tragic late night banking visitor, and Phreddie's frat-boy antics. Following our confessions, we begin to place our stupid things in context, and our conversation begins to investigate the label of "stupid."

Jazzy says, "How do you know something's stupid until you do it?"

He continues by revealing a personal tragedy about insured investments, and through this "stupid thing," the beginnings of the The Three-Headed Man is formed.

So, yeah...in this episode we tell just a little of the "how we met" story. Or, more aptly, how we become friends. We make friends with stupidity and and tell of our friendship with each other.

In Episode 3, The Three-Headed Man ponders his fear. He asks himself where does he put his fear? This question launches the show.

This episode has a different tone than the first two shows. In the first two episodes, "Home" and "Food," we reminisce, we tell stories about our past. "Fear" is more immediate and exploratory. Jimmy, Jazzy, and Phreddie pass fear, like a ball, tossing it back-n-forth, as we combine our experiences and observations and compare our personal fears. Through the combining and comparing of our personal fears, we discover a better understanding of the emotional substance called fear.

In a lively and honest exploration, we travel through many topics and experiences. Jimmy introduces the idea of "fear as entrapment." From there, we experience a lift-off. Next, Jazzy explains why he won't watch horror movies. Associated with horror movies, we reveal that the episode was recorded on 3 November 2020, the USA election day.

As the mood expands, we pass from the election to financial ruin, death, The American Book of the Dead, out-of-body experiences, physical pain, and holiness.

Somehow we manage to return to entrapment as Jimmy describes his experience of aging.

In this episode, the listener doesn't have to guess at the subtext. We are not hiding.

School cafeterias, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, and garden fresh vegetables.

In this episode, The Three-Headed Man traces his food sources. From birth to their current states, each recalls and retells their food journey. For instance, Jazzy recalls encountering an aggressive lunch-lady. Phreddie remembers his nuclear family's "vitamin fortified" foods, and Jimmy, steady as ever, has been fortunate to feed his mouth with fresh vegetables and meats.

Peppered in along with his personal experiences, the second episode offers bits of history and commentary on civilization's ever-changing ideas about food and health. Food allergies, cleansing, nutrition, and food philosophies are served along with the main prompt.

Each episode is a reveal. A slow reveal. A slight reveal. We don't really think about it much, but if we were asked, we might say that the story of the Three-Headed Man is long. Really long. Longer than George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones story, and, like The Winds of Winter, it is unfinished. We would like to, again, ask for the listener's patience as you listen to our tale.

The working title of our first podcast was "Mortgages." We called it "Mortgages" because that was our prompt -- mortgages. After the episode was recorded and edited, we told our colleagues and friends, "Hey, we finished recording our first podcast. It's called "Mortgages." Their faces told us we needed to rename the episode.

Without a smart title for our first episode, I asked the other Heads for suggestions, and they replied with titles that contained the word "home." I was hoping for a clever and targeted title. My mind gave me nothing noteworthy. What arrangement of words could frame our conversation?

Our podcast is a conversation, and our conversations are directed by a prompt. Each week one of the three heads chooses a prompt. Our first prompt, "mortgages" led us to discuss our homes. Actually, we skipped right passed the prompt, and instead, each of us tells a story about how we bought our first home.

Our conversations often involve monologues. We ask for your patience.

Our stories reveal more than the process of home buying; instead, they reveal a sliver of what we are and who we are. Practical details like where we live and how old we are are scattered throughout the recording. These practical details tell one story, but another, more compelling narrative is in the subtext: our process. Our processes describe how we move through life and how we puzzle-out basic social imperatives, like buying a house and the responsibilities of a mortgage.

Other things. We are working to set-up the expected social media sites and promotional aspects of podcasting. Again, we ask for your patience. For us, it is a process, and the process will lead us, and we expect we will get there when we get there.

One more thing. It could be argued that we are recording ourselves for ourselves. A document. And, it could be argued that we are eager to share our work together. And, it could be argued that someone suggested that we create a podcast, and we did. All are true.

Cheers!