The Mindful Activist Episode 11 – Commissioner Matt in action
Matt Ready: We’re looking at the director, Scotty McNabb.
Scotty McNabb: I’m picking my ear at the time.
[Laughter]Scotty McNabb: I’m scratching my ear but it looked like I was picking my ear. Yeah, I can do the other side if you want, to balance.
Matt Ready: Excellent, excellent.
Scotty McNabb: And live stream videographer, Kimberly McClurg. And cameraman, who loves to hide. Introduce yourself.
Sam: I’m Sam.
[Laughter]Matt Ready: Anything you want to say about the plan today, director?
Scotty McNabb: I think that we’re going to have fun and it’s going to be interesting for everyone involved. As far as the plan goes, treat yourself like a professional and people will treat you like a professional.
Matt Ready: Nice. Kimberly, anything to say about today’s plan?
Kim McClurg: Give 110%. Yes.
[Laughter]Matt Ready: All right. Sam, anything you want to add.
Sam: I’ve got nothing.
Matt Ready: You’ve got nothing? Okay. Is there any reason to delay any longer? We’re going to go on Facebook live. We’re good? Everyone good? Let’s hear a woo-hoo!
The Crew: Woo-hoo!
Matt Ready: Yeah! All right. I’m not going to put a name on it, we’ll just go live. Hello! This is Matt Ready, host of The Mindful Activist podcasts. This is episode, I don’t know, nine I think? And I am a activist, and I am the founder of The Global Consensus Project, the developer of the hive1.net activist-social media platform, and I’m an elected politician; a Hospital Commissioner in Jefferson County, Washington, U.S.A. It’s a board of five elected Commissioners on over a county or an area of about 30,000 people in rural Washington. Okay! So here we are. Another ordinary show, ordinary day. Why don’t we talk to our director, ‘cos we actually have a director today, it’s not me. If director would like to come and take a seat on stage center.
[Laughter]Matt Ready: Scotty is here. This is Scotty McNabb. He is our director, so… You’re ready camera person?
Scotty McNabb: I have to have a camera for me to be a director.
[Matt arranges the recording equipment]Matt Ready: There you go, okay. Do whatever you need with your… whatever you want to do with that. [Indistinct chatter] …go wherever you want to go with that camera. Ramon joined! Thank you Ramon! So feel free to yell out who joins or anything. Okay! So here we are.
Scotty McNabb: Should I be on the other side?
Matt Ready: Why?
Scotty McNabb: I don’t know. Last time I was —
[Laughter]Scotty McNabb: We’ll just go with the flow.
Matt Ready: You know what we haven’t done, we haven’t turned on the Zoom video conferencing platform, but you know what? I think we have enough going on.
Scotty McNabb: Yeah.
Matt Ready: I think we’ve got enough going on, but next time we’ll make sure we have the Zoom video conferencing platform on so that — do you want to describe what it does?
Scotty McNabb: I remember some parts, but I don’t want to do it wrong, so…
Matt Ready: It’s Zoom [crosstalk] well, it’s how your brother connected last time.
Scotty McNabb: That’s true.
Matt Ready: It’s a — if we have a Zoom live meeting going, then up to 50 people can jump in and be video conferencing with us, right here on this back screen. That’s pretty cool. So far, three people have dropped in and joined us. It’s been —
Kim McClurg: Yaron says the kids say hi.
Matt Ready: Oh, Yaron does? Hey kids of Yaron!
[Laughter]Kim McClurg: And David [unclear] is joining.
Matt Ready: David, nice to see you. Feel free to ask questions out there. This is actually going to be kind of an interesting show I think today. Yeah. I don’t know, do we go over the plan for the show?
Scotty McNabb: Yeah, maybe we could do like a small game plan?
Matt Ready: Small game plan.
Scotty McNabb: What do you think?
Matt Ready: What the heck is the game plan? It’s like lots of different game plans. Have a good day, that was my plan. I woke up today and said, “Try to have a good day,” what about you?
Scotty McNabb: [Laughs] I woke up having a good dream and then I thought, “I hope my day is better than my dream,” and it’s hard to do, you know?
Matt Ready: [Crosstalk] it’s hard to top up your dream.
Scotty McNabb: [Laughs] Yeah, so today’s been nice. I get to drive away from a city that’s ugly to Port Townsend, Washington, which was a really nice thing. Yeah, that’s a good day.
Matt Ready: Yeah. What shall we talk about?
Scotty McNabb: Well, we’re going to move this whole team that we have behind the cameras to the hospital later. You’re going to be taking part in a ceremony. It’s at ribbon-cutting for a brand new building or a brand new facility at the Jefferson General, is that correct?
Matt Ready: That is correct.
Scotty McNabb: It took a lot of, I’m sure, deals and power struggles to get that building even agreed upon, much less built.
Matt Ready: It did indeed, and I only was a witness to some of them, some fairly minor ones. Yeah, you don’t build a $28 million facility without — I mean, that’s power, that’s exercising power.
Scotty McNabb: That is exercising power and to see it come to fruition like that. How long has it taken to build this, do you know?
Matt Ready: I believe they’re saying it’s been like a five year, you know, from the first conversations when it started, but the actual construction was much shorter than that.
Scotty McNabb: That’s great! That’s a little different usually than normal, where the contracting goes long. What do you think about the power that it takes to make something like this for a community?
Matt Ready: Well, I mean in a way it is showing, it is demonstrating how a community can exercise its power to use its wealth, that it has access to in some way, to build a monument. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s the County City Hospital, or… it doesn’t really matter even, if it’s a like a local non-profit raising money to build something, it’s people saying in some way, somehow they’re using that mechanism of collective energy to say, “We want to build this,” and it’s built. What happens though, of course, is when you do anything there’s people, whether you’re building a school or a hospital or whatever, there is people involved in it that are often doing the, you know, power struggling, like, “I don’t think it should be this way,” you know, and so that happens, or there’s massive opposition to something. There’s all sorts of — it’s modern battles of power when your building any sort of monument.
Scotty McNabb: Right, right. Have you heard about or read about anything where people are on the opposite side saying, “Hey, we don’t need to spend our money this way,” or perhaps on this very location it’s a problem because of this or that? It’s going to cause traffic or parking or…
Matt Ready: Oh yeah. There’s definitely been opposition. There’s been public comment at our board meetings of who opposed to it, but I think from my perspective, a pretty strong sensible majority — well, I’m sensing that the majority of people are in favor of it, but I might be wrong about that. I guess I don’t really have a great line of sight on that information.
Scotty McNabb: Okay. When you look out from your spot, sitting at one of the head tables or around the spot where they’re actually going to bring out those enormous scissors, right?
Matt Ready: No, no. It’s not enormous scissors. It’s 12 pairs of scissors with gold-ish handles and I am going to be one of the 12 people that will be —
Scotty McNabb: Scissoring?
Matt Ready: Scissoring, simultaneous scissoring on this giant ribbon.
Scotty McNabb: It’s a joke.
[Laughter]Matt Ready: I don’t understand what you said and I have no idea what that means.
Scotty McNabb: You’re doing a great job.
Matt Ready: [Laughs] But I have been thinking about this ribbon cutting, and there’s a reason there’s 12 scissors. It’s because it’s symbolic who cuts the ribbon first, and so when I get up there and we’re all lined up, I’m just going to swish!
[Laughter]Matt Ready: I’m just going to cut it really fast and I’m going to be like, “Wooo!”
[Laughter]Matt Ready: What do you think?
Scotty McNabb: I think it’s great, yeah. It’s a great plan.
[Laughter]Matt Ready: I think I might have — no, I won’t really do that, but it would be an interesting scene to see. [laughs]
Scotty McNabb: Yeah. I imagine there’s going to be some folks sitting in the seating area to watch the ceremony, not only those folks that are going to be using the scissors, but when you look out at those folks that are there in attendance, what does it mean to you to be in a position of power? To be one of the twelve?
Matt Ready: It is totally surreal. It is really surreal.
[Laughter]Scotty McNabb: For real?
Matt Ready: Real! For real it’s surreal [laughs].
Scotty McNabb: Really?
[Laughter]Matt Ready: Really, because I’m going to be there, it’s particularly powerful to me ‘cos there’s going to be a State Legislator, Steve Derringer, cutting the ribbon, who I have a lot of respect for, but he’s at a state legislative level, and then Derek Kilmer, U.S. Congressman, who is in our area, he is our gateway to the Federal Government, to federal power. I mean, if you care about something at the federal level, you’re — the weakest representative we have at the federal level that will care about what people in this county say is Derek Kilmer, because he is a Congressman for a small districts, that’s about as small as it gets at the federal level. Now, anyone else at the federal level that—anyways, that was kind of a tangent—but I’m going to be standing there with people with real power, with connections to real power. I mean, you’re talking state and federal level, that’s real power over real police force, military violence, that’s power. So for me to be up there symbolically cutting a ribbon with them, and I guess I should say, I think I’m one of the 12 cutting the ribbon. There’s a chance we’re going to get there —
[Laughter]Matt Ready: — and they will be like, “Sorry Matt, we have 12 other people.” I’m pretty sure, I think I’m cutting the ribbon.
Scotty McNabb: Okay.
[Laughter]Kim McClurg: We have a comment from Ramon. He said, “I can’t say I know a lot, but in a [prude] hospital facility, it sounds like a good thing.”
Matt Ready: Wow, Ramon, former hospital employee. Ramon Dailey, Dailey computer consultant. They are one of our sponsors. Not really –
[Laughter]Matt Ready: — but he loves to show up [unclear 00:12:14]. Old friend of mine, Ramon Dailey. So we have two of my oldest friends, if you are still there. Ramon and Yaron. You have to sort of have a name with two syllables and an R to be like a really good friend of mine, Yaron, Ramon.
Scotty McNabb: I’m out!
[Laughter]Scotty McNabb: That’s okay, we’ll keep it business. [laughs]
Matt Ready: Okay, oh! It’s… what time is it? Is it —
Kim McClurg: Almost quarter to twelve.
Matt Ready: Almost quarter to twelve, so I’m going to need to run to the ceremony and you’re the director of this crew, so you’re going to do what you want to do to cover that event however you see fit. It’s an important event. It might be an interesting symbolic event to witness, so I’m excited that my friends and supporters of The Mindful Activist podcast are going to help do a little coverage of it.
Scotty McNabb: It should be interesting, and thanks for inviting us. So we’ll transition here as you take off.
Matt Ready: Transition. All right.
[Matt gets up]Scotty McNabb: There he goes! [laughs] He can still hear us. We’re going to go ahead and start breaking down a little bit, but I think we’re going to keep the cameras rolling as we travel, whoever’s got one, if you can. If you cannot and it’s a hazard, then go ahead and turn it off, but if you can, just keep it rolling. We’ll get some B-roll that way and it’s interesting.
[Phone rings]Scotty McNabb: That’s the fake phone call we’ve been waiting for. I’m just kidding. I don’t know who’s phone that is. We can sign off for now and then start back up once we get into the vehicles, ‘cos there’s going to be a lot of bumping around. Okay? All right.
[Matt and Scotty leave the house]Speaker 1: Hey, how are you?
Scotty McNabb: I am great. I’m live also. How are you?
[Laughter]Speaker 1: I’m good.
Scotty McNabb: I’m digging that bolo.
Matt Ready: Yeah? [Laughs]
Scotty McNabb: It’s really cool.
Matt Ready: Okay.
[Matt and Scotty walk to the car]Matt Ready: Continue us live [unclear 00:14:50] is fine.
Scotty McNabb: Yeah.
Matt Ready: It’s interesting.
[Indistinct chatter] [Matt and Scotty drive off]Matt Ready: So we’re off! Let’s hope this doesn’t become one of those great YouTube videos of a car accident live streaming, you know?
Scotty McNabb: [Laughs] Yeah, really. How are you feeling?
Matt Ready: I’m feeling remarkably good for such a crazy day.
Scotty McNabb: Yeah. Okay.
Matt Ready: How are you feeling?
Scotty McNabb: I’m great, yeah. This is good stuff.
Matt Ready: This is totally reminding me of work I used to do with Ramon. We did a lot of guerrilla film-making when I was a — 15 years ago. Ramon Dailey, still making movies and stuff. And you’re in Film School?
Scotty McNabb: I am going to school right now through Full Sail, but we haven’t started the film portion yet and getting all the prereqs done.
Matt Ready: Let’s see, we can check see if [unclear 00:16:28] but I’m going to stop directing. Somewhere I’m letting go, I’m not directing.
Scotty McNabb: That’s a good idea.
Matt Ready: Oh, I think Ramon just went. [Inaudible].
Scotty McNabb: Yaron said, “Matt, what’s the meaning of life?”
Matt Ready: That is the second time I’ve been asked that on a video interview.
Scotty McNabb: It’s a movie actually.
[Laughter]Scotty McNabb: Pretty funny.
Matt Ready: [Deep breath] Meaning of life. I think the meaning of life is whatever purpose you choose, and for me the purpose is individually to thrive and then to help my neighbors, which is everyone on Earth, to thrive. Those are the two things I think about.
Scotty McNabb: What about you, Scotty? What do you think the meaning of life is? Being funny and [laughs] enjoying myself. No, I think the meaning of life is probably, more accurately love and be loved. To me, that’s the answer at least to make life meaningful.
Matt Ready: Love and be loved. I like that. That would work. I mean, if someone had to [unclear 00:18:10] really quick, meaning of life, love and be loved. That could [inaudible] good.
Scotty McNabb: I mean it’s really what all of us want, to be loved ultimately, and those things as far as being successful and all of those things that we all go for, ultimately if you’re not loved, you don’t feel loved, then you feel empty, and the best way to feel loved is to love other people because it comes back to you.
Matt Ready: But if you’re really lonely, I mean, I sort of — the other piece is, you also need to feel a safety and security alone, because of loving yourself, because of valuing yourself, ‘cos you have to be — that’s the only way you ever feel comfortable standing alone when you need to stand alone.
Scotty McNabb: That’s very true. That is a very important lesson that sometimes comes after being in relationships, and sometimes it doesn’t, [laughs] but that time by yourself where you gain strength and learn to love yourself, I think that’s hugely important. The sooner you can learn to love yourself, the better you can love others I believe.
Matt Ready: Oh yeah.
Scotty McNabb: It’s more true and honest.
Matt Ready: You sort of think about, if you’ve ever tried to help someone who’s been personally struggling with something, whether it’s an addiction or just some bad habit, or a bad relationship, or a bad relationship habit, or an addiction to a relationship, any combination of those things, it becomes so obvious, it is so hard to help another person overcome an obstacle.
Scotty McNabb: Sure.
Matt Ready: But the person you can help to overcome an obstacle is you.
Scotty McNabb: True.
Matt Ready: You spend this time trying to help other people, but it’s like, start with yourself and realize you have the right to scream at yourself, and get yourself to do whatever needs to be done to make your world the way the world should be. That was a nice philosophical tangent.
Scotty McNabb: Yeah. [Laughs]
Matt Ready: I like it.
Scotty McNabb: So do you think Manresa Castle’s really haunted? [Laughs]
Matt Ready: I do. The world is haunted. What time is it? Am I late yet?
Scotty McNabb: I seem to have left my phone —
Matt Ready: Oh, really?
Scotty McNabb: Yeah.
Matt Ready: Lots of people!
Scotty McNabb: Another question, “Matt —
Matt Ready: There it is, down there.
Scotty McNabb: — what does thrive mean to you?” also from Yaron.
Matt Ready: From Yaron?
Scotty McNabb: Yes.
Matt Ready: Thrive. Happiness. So if you look at a tree, like an apple tree, and you say, “Does the apple tree have its branches spread, and leaves look healthy, and it’s bearing fruits?” That’s a healthy apple tree, and you can pretty much look at human beings and you can just tell by just like looking at an apple tree, you can tell if it’s thriving, you can tell a human being is thriving. You can tell, are they smiling? Do they have joy in their life and in their heart? Are they learning? Is their life a celebration or is it a struggle?
Scotty McNabb: Or is it both!
Matt Ready: Or is it both, yeah! And how are they taking care of themselves? Are they winning the battles with themselves, with their own demons and challenges?
[Matt gets out of the car]Matt Ready: All right, well I’ve got to move fast.
Scotty McNabb: All right, take it easy.
Matt Ready: Lock up this really valuable car.
Scotty McNabb: [Laughs].
Matt Ready: [Inaudible].
Scotty McNabb: Right, exactly.
Matt Ready: All right, enjoy the show!
Scotty McNabb: Take care.
[Matt runs ahead]Speaker 1: Oh, he’s tying his shoes too. It must be the shoe-tying [station].
Scotty McNabb: Yeah, that’s it. That’s the spot right there.
Speaker 1: [Laughs]
Scotty McNabb: I can’t wait to get there. I’m glad I have a longer lens.
[Scotty arrives to the Jefferson General building]Speaker 2: So we’ve been working on this project since 2011, and I want to make sure I recognize all of the Commissioners who have worked to make this happen. Matt Ready. Matt Ready. Matt Ready.
[Matt stands with city leaders for the ribbon-cutting ceremony] [Applause]Matt Ready: That was great. Those speeches were fantastic [laughs]. What do you guys think? I forgot to explain if it crashes how to start a live stream again. We went over a lot of details, we did a lot of good planning. You can film it if you want. Actually, we could go back on the live stream. Should we wrap up or should we…?
Speaker 1: We should do a wrap up, because we [lost it].
Scotty McNabb: Let’s get out of the…
Speaker 1: The shrubbery?
Matt Ready: That’s the selection of your location, director.
[Laughter]Scotty McNabb: I got the shot, that’s all that matters.
Matt Ready: Yeah! Nice job. Okay, so that might be kind of the end of this episode of The Mindful Activist. I don’t know if you want to add anything.
Scotty McNabb: Yeah. What was your experience up there? How did you feel?
Matt Ready: It’s weird! It is weird, you know, with powerful people it’s weird. But you also feel your allyship with, you know — a lot of what was said really resonates with me.
Scotty McNabb: Did you feel like — can we face this way?
Speaker 1: Yes, ‘cos the lighting is not so…
Scotty McNabb: The lighting is bad. You said it was kind of weird being up there, but what was your take-away from when most of the people were talking about how this was the team and this is for the Community, and all that kind of thing? What’s your buy-in on that as far as getting this done?
Matt Ready: Well, a lot of people have told me over the years that everyone — I mean, most people really are trying to do the right thing, they’re really trying, so even though there’s a lot of power struggles that go into a project like this, a lot of disagreement and a lot of bumps and bruises along the way, even those halls of power, I mean the 12, 10 people up there that were cutting with scissors, we all were like involved in some interesting moments of power show. For the most part, I think at this level, everyone is really trying to make this world a better place. So in the end, the combination of all the different visions and values I think did make something really good for our community. So yeah, I basically feel good about it. In general, I feel like I don’t like speeches like that, it takes a long time. I don’t really like that as a format for communicating with you. I like a conversation, unless someone really works at their speech, I mean if they could really like entertain us, you know, like Scotty McNabb double stand-up comedy. You know, if you were doing that speech, you’d be like, there’re people rolling, and that would be…
Scotty McNabb: [Laughs] Yeah, I don’t know. I might get a couple laughs at my own expense.
[Laughter]Scotty McNabb: Just like that, yeah, but more importantly, what would you suggest instead of this format? Because this is one of those things where it’s been the same format over and over and over, where we have to have ribbon-cutting, we have to have grand opening, and that kind of thing. What do you think [crosstalk] —
Matt Ready: I think we should build a — I think you and I should build some sort of facility, and design our own Mindful Activist studio.
Scotty McNabb: Right.
Matt Ready: Build a studio, and you can also do your documentary work in there, and you combine podcast, film-making studio and then we’ll do a ribbon cutting and we’ll design it the way we think.
[Laughter]Matt Ready: I don’t know what we’ll do. There’ll be dancing and music and there’ll be field games [laughs] and ice cream.
Scotty McNabb: Your done, right? Is that what you’re saying? You’re done? This is done?
[Laughter]Matt Ready: No!
[Laughter]Scotty McNabb: Are you being serious? Because I am all about the dancing. I have to cash for it.
Matt Ready: Really? Let’s do some dancing, because usually we have dancing in our episodes.
Scotty McNabb: That’s true, we do.
Matt Ready: Yeah, so we’re going to roll with closing music.
[Matt and Scotty dance]Matt Ready: And this has been an episode of The Mindful Activist. Thank you for watching and we’ll see you next time. Any questions from the live stream? Anyone out there?
