Actor, activist, musician, and artist Michael Broussard joined me back in 2021 to talk about his one-man show, Ask a Sex Abuse Survivor, and what he’s learned about destigmatizing trauma abuse through art. A few months ago, he mentioned to me that he’s been focusing on pulling the rug out from under himself artistically. He’s back today to talk about just what that means and how it’s actually been influencing his work all along, and his upcoming game show project. We talk about game shows over the years, improv skills—that ability to accept and adapt in the moment—as integral to art and to life, how we are each an experiential filter for creativity, the importance of creativity as self-care, and more.
Get tickets for Michael’s game show here. If you’d like to be a contestant, send 3 interesting things about yourself to [email protected]
Read this week’s post: Mucking about in the creek, here.
Listen to Michael’s earlier episode here.
Episode breakdown:
00:00 Introduction
01:11 Embracing surprises in performance adds excitement.
05:15 Creativity is influenced by internal and external factors.
10:32 Panelist embraces chaos, hosts semi-controlled game shows.
15:51 Influences shape individuality and creative process uniquely.
27:09 Repetition in performance can lead to boredom.
33:02 Understanding the challenge of listening and relating.
34:21 Benefits of good listening.
41:20 Improvisation and humor on the Match Game.
45:55 Zoom shows make audience feel ownership, enjoyment.
52:29 We’re trained to be passive, but need agency.
57:40 Denying ourselves what we love limits life.
01:04:50 Art is subjective; worth exploring and learning.
01:07:29 Story inspired by Disney; teacher encouragement.
Show links
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Transcript
Please note: This is an unedited transcript, provided as a courtesy, and reflects the actual conversation as closely as possible. Please forgive any typographical or grammatical errors.
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:06]:
Welcome to Follow Your Curiosity. Ordinary people, extraordinary creativity. Here’s how to get unstuck. I’m your host creativity coach, Nancy Norbeck. Let’s go. Actor, activist, musician, and artist, Michael Broussard, joined me back in 2021 to talk about his one man show, ask a sex abuse survivor, and what he’s learned about destigmatizing trauma abuse through art. A few months ago, he mentioned to me that he’s been focusing on pulling the rug out from under himself artistically. He’s back today to talk about just what that means and how it’s actually been influencing his work all along and his upcoming game show project.
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:47]:
We talk about game shows over the years, improv skills, that ability to accept and adapt in the moment as integral to art and to life. How we each are an experiential filter for creativity, the importance of creativity as self care, and more. Here’s my conversation with Michael Broussard. Michael, welcome back to Follow Your Curiosity.
Michael Broussard [00:01:11]:
It’s really great to be here. I appreciate you having me on to talk about the weird stuff that I do.
Nancy Norbeck [00:01:18]:
Well and and in the vein of weird stuff that you do, you mentioned to me a couple months ago that you have been pulling the rug out under from under yourself. And since we’ve already gone through the usual were you a creative kid stuff, so if you’re listening and you haven’t heard that that interview, you might wanna go back to that one. I’m curious to know what that looks like for you. What have you been doing to pull the rug out from under yourself?
Michael Broussard [00:01:46]:
Well, what’s interesting about that is, you know, I feel like I’ve been doing that more recently, and I’ll explain what it means in a second. But earlier this morning, I was thinking about it before this interview, and I realized that I’ve been doing it for at least 10 years without being aware of it. The idea for me of pulling the rug out out from underneath me is allowing things that may be surprising that I have no control over happening while I’m doing a performance because there’s meat in that. There’s, I’m a vegetarian. I won’t use meat again. There’s but there’s let’s say there’s gold in that. There’s there’s beauty in that. There’s there’s something new that if you haven’t you know, it’s something you haven’t anticipated, so the show gets more interesting and more exciting, and it feeds me to be able to do what I do.
Michael Broussard [00:02:39]:
And I realized thinking back that when I did that first show, ask a sex abuse survivor in 2014, the way I pulled the rug out from underneath myself was I said I’m gonna allow people during the show, during breaks in the narrative, to ask me whatever question they wanna ask me and to have that discussion. Well, I didn’t know what they were gonna say or they were gonna ask or, you know, could have thrown everything into chaos. But I did that, and the reality is it has made this experience of doing that show for 10 years richer beyond imagining because people have given me things that have fed back not just into the performance that’s happening at the time, but into performances that are subsequent over the last 10 years. Now you know that recently I did a thing called, wrong answers only.
Nancy Norbeck [00:03:31]:
Mhmm.
Michael Broussard [00:03:32]:
Where the whole point of that is pull the rug onto the up from underneath you. It had no fixed story. I had photos, and I had, little goalposts along the way that I could turn to if I felt that I needed them. Right? But, also, I let when people ask me questions and we’ve made comments, I let that turn me this way or turn me that way. And the freedom of that was that the story was true and not true. So if the story has to be true, there’s only one way you can answer the questions, really, which is with the truth. But if the story can be true and not true, you could answer them any way, and it can take the narrative in a whole different direction. And that way, you’re creating this thing along with other people.
Michael Broussard [00:04:19]:
And, you know, not being in control for somebody like myself can be very scary because as we’ve talked about before, I deal with mental health challenges. I manage stuff like that. So it’s scary not to know what’s gonna happen all the time, but I find that the balance of creative possibility outweighs that terror. I still get that terror in the middle of a show. Like, my god. Where are we now, and what’s going on? But sometimes that terror feeds into something really interesting. You know? So, yeah, that that’s what it’s like. That’s what I mean by pulling the rug rug up from underneath myself is allowing something not to be prescripted, preplanned, burned down to the last detail, what’s gonna happen? And let’s see what happens because creativity can be a solitary activity.
Michael Broussard [00:05:15]:
But even then, I think creativity is not a solitary activity even when you’re the one behind the keyboard or the one with the paintbrush or whatever. Because everything you’re doing is a result of, yes, what’s inside you, but what’s inside you is also affected by what’s outside you and what you’ve seen. Talk about somebody that I’m just thinking about this morning again, Vincent van Gogh. If you look throughout his career as a painter, his focus on different parts of the world and human experience changes. Why? Because he’s constantly seeking that thing that is what he wants to do. And in the process of that, he creates all these incredible works that range in stylistically and in subject matter and show us different parts of his soul, his mind. And I think that that is such a great thing for an artist to be able to be like, you know, I let this in and it comes out, but I’m not by myself, if that makes any sense.
Nancy Norbeck [00:06:24]:
Yeah. Yeah. It does. It does. And and what you’re well, I have multiple thoughts on all of that, but but to start from your most recent comments, and I gotta tell you how how thrilled I am that I’m not the only one in this conversation who’s tripping over pulling the rug out from under yourself. That phrase somehow seems to be tricky
Michael Broussard [00:06:46]:
trickier than you would think. It’s a bumpy rug.
Nancy Norbeck [00:06:48]:
Yeah. But, you know, that whole idea that you’re not the same person today that you were yesterday, that you were 2 years ago, that you were 10 years ago, kind of feels like it filters in there. Right? Like, that’s what’s going on with Van Gogh. That’s what’s going on with all of us. Every day, we know more stuff. We’ve had different experiences than we had the day before even if our days mostly seem routine. You know, get up, go to work, come home, make dinner, go to bed, you know, whatever. But but in there, in in big ways sometimes and more subtle ways other times, there’s still a little bit more.
Nancy Norbeck [00:07:24]:
You still don’t have the exact same backlog of experiences today that that you had yesterday. There’s something more in there. And and so I think that that’s that’s part of that too.
Michael Broussard [00:07:41]:
And you don’t have what’s just happened to you until it happens to you. And I know that sounds kind of groovy and spacey, but it it’s for me, it’s very true. You don’t have what just happened to you. And if you allow what just happened to you to affect yourself as an artist, I think that can be very, very rich. And, of course, there’s also the tendency and I yeah. We’re talking about potentially semi controlled chaos. Right? And that’s very scary. It can be very scary at times.
Michael Broussard [00:08:18]:
So when I’m doing these things in shows, that’s happening simultaneously in my brain. I’m looking for a handhold and footholds, but I’m also being fed stuff that changes the landscape. So the handholds and footholds are elsewhere now. You know? And striving for that handhold or that foothold that takes you somewhere you weren’t aware of when you started, I find a very rich experience. I mean, one of the things I wanted to talk about today is this next thing I’m doing. It’s a game show. Right? And the thing about game shows for me, I watched them when I was a kid, and I loved them when I was a kid. I watched a lot of them when I was skipping school because I was bullied and I didn’t wanna be at school.
Michael Broussard [00:09:04]:
So I was at home watching game shows and self operas. And, the game shows that I love, I can pretty much describe as semi controlled chaos.
Nancy Norbeck [00:09:15]:
Mhmm.
Michael Broussard [00:09:16]:
If you look at somebody like, okay. You wanna talk about totally controlled? Look at the original password and Allen Ludden. He tightly controlled everything, and he was really intense about the rules and how things had to be. And when somebody strayed a little bit, he’d grab them and yank them back with a rope. And I’m not criticizing what he did. That’s his personality. That’s fine. But you get to later on, right, and you get match game.
Michael Broussard [00:09:43]:
That’s fine. Match game, which is complete chaos. Right? The game is so incidental to the show. The game has very little to do with what the show is or why it’s funny or why it’s fun.
Nancy Norbeck [00:09:55]:
The game is just an excuse to have the show.
Michael Broussard [00:09:58]:
The game is an excuse to get a bunch of people together who are gonna say weird random things and boobs and are are gonna just be who they are. I mean and he was really good at that. He was really good at seeing the chaos and embracing the chaos. Mhmm. And it was beautiful. And they would do things like, you know, Charles coming on as Santa Claus. And, something would happen earlier in the week, and all of a sudden, it would be a bit at the beginning of the next episode. It would run through the entire thing, and it would be like improv.
Michael Broussard [00:10:32]:
Yes and, yes and, yes and, and the panel would do yes and about that thing that had happened even in the current episode over and over and over again. And that is he was willing to allow this chaos, this semi controlled chaos. And I don’t think it would have been as good a show, and it certainly would have captured my attention as well if it wasn’t semi controlled chaos. And you talk about password, super password, which is a several versions down the line in the eighties with Bert Convy, that was not as much as match game, but was in many ways semi controlled chaos because Bert Convy, who was the host, he was willing to go with the flow. He was nothing like Allen Ludden. In fact, he went with the flow so much that every once in a while, instead of prompting a contestant, he would accidentally, in the middle of a game, blur out the solution. And one of the greatest things are those times when they come back from commercial and he has gaffer’s tape over his mouth. Mhmm.
Michael Broussard [00:11:35]:
Because we can’t trust Bert. And it’s and he has people like Betty White on who, of course, is just very little controlled chaos. Right. And we love her for that. She’s a total chaos agent. Pat Sajak, on Wheel of Fortune, almost didn’t get the job because he was too much of a chaos agent. He wasn’t behaving like a normal game show host should be behaving. He was being too out there.
Michael Broussard [00:12:01]:
And you get Pat Sajak on, super password, and Bert says, so have any exciting things happened on Wheel of Fortune lately, Pat? And Pat says, well, you know, nobody’s been impaled on the wheel or anything lately, but and that’s fantastic. Right? And I know this sounds weird, but all this stuff in my mind, there’s this string, and it all connects together, man. Like, this connects to this connects to everything. This connects to the next thing I’m gonna do after the game show, which is gonna be, woah. I am so excited about that. And it’s forming little by little. All I can tell you right now is that it is called my brain hurts, and it is going to be a narrative with no foreseeable ending
Nancy Norbeck [00:12:49]:
Oh, boy. In chapters. Oh, boy.
Michael Broussard [00:12:52]:
And I going to allow for interaction. I’m going to go into it with a few goalposts maybe in each chapter, but I don’t know where I’m going. And it’s gonna be real, and it’s gonna be fictional, and it’s gonna be schlock horror, and it’s gonna be sci fi, and it’s gonna be, you know, everything. Who knows? All my music influences, anything. Right? So I’m finding everything I’m doing, the deeper I get into this idea of semi controlled chaos, pulling the rug from underneath myself and saying, what’ll happen? Let’s see. I find that this is such a rich artistic area for me, and I’ll refer back to that first show, back in 2014. I talked to my therapist about doing it, and she’s like, oh, I’m worried about what’s gonna happen because you’re allowing sort of this open dialogue. And I’m like, I can’t think any other way.
Michael Broussard [00:13:52]:
My brain is like that. So I’m this really strange mix of I have trauma, therefore I need to control circumstances around me. And but as an artist, if I totally control circumstances around me, my art isn’t as good.
Nancy Norbeck [00:14:07]:
Right.
Michael Broussard [00:14:09]:
So it’s a it’s a combination of the utter total terror and complete and total joy.
Nancy Norbeck [00:14:15]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I just wanna say for for younger folks who are listening before, if you’re if you’ve never heard of Match Game or any of these other things, you can find them online. Match Game is, like, the quintessential bit of the 19 seventies, I swear. It was just like a celebrity sort of quiz show, but anything went and usually with at least double entendre and and just I suspect most of them were at least a little tipsy a lot of the time.
Michael Broussard [00:14:49]:
Oh, you don’t have to suspect. There was a retrospective on Match Game some years back, and, it was when when Brett Summers was still with us, and she talked about it. And she said, yeah. There was a lot of alcohol on set.
Nancy Norbeck [00:15:04]:
I’m not at all surprised by that. But but if you really want the seventies in a nutshell, it it’s never occurred to me before this, but Match Game is probably that. So, you know, very, very much of its time and a different beast from the eighties. You can definitely see a contrast in what the seventies eighties were like comparing Match Game to any game show from the eighties. I didn’t know that Pat Sajak was such a loose cannon either. I thought quite the opposite.
Michael Broussard [00:15:34]:
Yeah. He almost didn’t get the job. He almost didn’t get the job because they were like, this is not what we’re looking for.
Nancy Norbeck [00:15:40]:
Yeah.
Michael Broussard [00:15:40]:
And for some reason, somebody was smart enough to say, yeah, but this is what we need. You know? And I think that that’s great.
Nancy Norbeck [00:15:51]:
The other thing that I don’t wanna lose track of is that what what you’re talking about with how all of this has influenced and I think this is really what what we mean when we talk about being influenced is that, like, each one of us has you know, obviously, we’re all different people, but and we all have different experiences, but I don’t think we usually think about that in practical terms, in terms of what that happens or or what that means and and therefore what happens in the creative process or, you know, life itself. In many ways, like, we are all to be the geeks that we are, you know, I’m thinking of that line from the 5 doctors, a man of is the sum of his memories. It’s it’s the same kind of thing. Right? We we are all the sum of our experiences. And so all of those things come together in us in a way that they don’t in anybody else because nobody else has had the precise same set of experiences that we have. And we are kind of the ones who are filtering and integrating all of that in whatever we do. It it all, you know, comes together in us and and in our work in in that unique way because that’s basically, you know, what what we are. I hope that made sense.
Nancy Norbeck [00:17:14]:
I’m trying to think of a good metaphor for that. But, but, yeah, that’s that’s why, you know, years ago when after the, oh, what was it called? The the 12 doctor episodes, was it before the flood and under under something? I can’t remember the the titles quite well.
Michael Broussard [00:17:36]:
Yeah. I I’m I’m not good with titles. I’m good with stories.
Nancy Norbeck [00:17:39]:
Yeah. It was it was the one that had, the underwater base with Mhmm. 12 and Clara, and and then there was this character called the Fisher King, And I spent the whole episode going, does he really mean fisher like fishermen, like the the the legend? Or is he playing with Fischer like a crack? And I mentioned that in an email to Rachel Pollock. You know, and I watched the credits, and I saw that it was the regular, you know, fisherman type fisher. But I’d mentioned it to to Rachel Pollock in an email, and she said, I know exactly what the fisher king is, meaning the crack. And she said, but I can’t use it because it’s your idea. And I said, Rachel, look. The odds that you and I would do the same thing with those three words are so incredibly slim that you should feel free to go and do what you wanna do with it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:18:31]:
And if I figure out what I might wanna do with it, I’ll do that. And, you know, because it’s you’re never gonna come up with the same stuff. You’re you’re just not ever gonna come up with the same thing, and that’s why her range of knowledge and experience was also immense, but completely different than what I would have brought to that idea. There’s there’s no way that they ever would have been remotely the same unless I let myself read that book before I come up with an idea. And at this point, it’s been long enough that perhaps I won’t come up with an idea. That was the only catch. I can’t read her book until until I’ve I’ve decided if I’m gonna use that idea. But, you know, you you are never gonna come up with the same the same two ideas out of out of the same prompt.
Nancy Norbeck [00:19:19]:
You just aren’t.
Michael Broussard [00:19:21]:
Out of the same prompt. Exactly. And to structure my storytelling as not dependent upon, but influenced by essentially prompts from other humans helps me do just what you’re talking about. Like, who knows what this who knows what they were talking about when they said it, or who knows what answer they thought they were gonna get because that comes from their experience. Right? That comes from everything, as you just said, of their lives and everything they’ve taken in of everybody else that they know and everything else that they’ve experienced. The other interesting thing about the Fisher King, of course, it could also have been a reference to Terry Gilliam.
Nancy Norbeck [00:20:04]:
Mhmm.
Michael Broussard [00:20:05]:
And the Fisher King, which is a wonderful film. Wonderful. So there’s a 1000000 different ways, and I that goes back to every single person who uses these pieces is gonna experience them in different ways and is gonna, you know, may mean them in a particular way, but that’s not how it’s going to get received necessarily by different people with different experiences and different backgrounds. And so there’s this infinite possibility of art, whatever art that is, sometimes based on the same things you overhear
Nancy Norbeck [00:20:40]:
Right.
Michael Broussard [00:20:40]:
Or the same things you read or the same things you watch or the same thing the same painting that you see. And that, again, we’re back to pulling the rug under out from underneath myself is saying, okay. I’m letting all this impact me, but not there’s a way that it has impacted me in the past certainly where you’re writing or you’re working on a piece, and you’re in your sort of you’re in your mode working on a piece, and you do your thing. And you’re by yourself, and you write the piece, and then you take the piece out into the world. Right? And, there’s a difference between that and being confronted with those things that potentially influence this piece you made and then presented. Being confronted with those when you have a framework for a piece and those happen in real time. And my brain may consider something I’ve read or something I’ve seen for a long time before it becomes a thing. Well, in that moment, you don’t have a long time, and that is a kind of real time artistic expression that I think is fantastic because it is it is the most immediate to me artistic dialogue I can have with other people where I am just unfiltered.
Michael Broussard [00:22:09]:
I don’t have time to filter. I don’t have the opportunity to filter. Right. And so everything comes out genuine. And, again, it goes back to the way I’ve done shows for years, which is even with all these different shows storytelling shows I’ve done, I’ve never written a script to any of these things. And that has to be has to do with the fact that I I tell my stories with more with a more genuine tone when I am telling them and I’m in a room with other people at that moment and hearing what they have to say, you know, and it comes out real. It comes out now. It comes out it sounds like now.
Michael Broussard [00:22:52]:
It sounds a bit like I’m Albert Brooks, and it’s like it’s like the the the the new age character he used to play in the seventies sixties. But it comes up now, man. And it’s it’s just so cool. It’s just so fantastic, and it gives me this endless open field of possibility. So, right, I I have these ideas, and I have my little phone app. And I type all these things in, and these things over time become different things, and they get revised before they ever start actually being they’re they’re being developed over there. Right? But they’re developing my brain too, and that’s how they’re being developed back and forth back and forth, a lot of conversation with my phone. But they don’t really become the thing until they’re
Nancy Norbeck [00:23:43]:
out there in the world. Right.
Michael Broussard [00:23:45]:
They don’t become the thing until then. And it’s the same thing. I mean, if you look at I will give the example of Hedwig and the angry inch because I absolutely love it. Right? Hedwig was majorly revised when it went from off Broadway to Broadway. It didn’t change the heart of the story. It just illuminated some things, and it just made some things stronger. And this was the obvious result of the person who created it looking at how people had responded to the piece over decades and saying, okay. Here’s this thing.
Michael Broussard [00:24:25]:
Here’s that thing. We’re gonna give it a little little more of this, a little more explanation of that, a little more emotion here, and we’re gonna use this line to go into this song instead of that line we used to use to go into this song. So they’re gonna feel this relationship more. Well, that’s like a slow motion version of what I’m talking about Mhmm. Which is just like, oh my god. You’re here. And what’s happening now? And what’s going on now? The thing that’s gonna be interesting for the the piece that I’ve got coming up that I’m gonna be working on for the next thing after I do this, which I said told you that that my brain hurts saying
Nancy Norbeck [00:24:56]:
Mhmm. Is
Michael Broussard [00:24:59]:
that it is going to be a combination of not just other people’s ideas and thoughts and, like, you know, not ideas, but, like, input as I’m doing the piece. And, well, yeah, ideas as well. They may have thoughts and ideas that get integrated in because of the the the experience that we we create something together. But I’m also getting very deep into the things I can do with my production software, with overlays and slideshows and animations and things like that. So I I I’m gonna have a bag full of those available to me that I can deploy when it’s appropriate. Right. And who knows when it’ll be appropriate? But the moment will come up, and I can’t anticipate what that appropriate moment will be, my brain will just go, ding. Time for the slow motion thing of a guy falling off a building.
Michael Broussard [00:25:52]:
We got that now. Time for the brain scans. We’ve got that now. Yeah. Time for the silly thing. Time for the, you know, time for the thing that’s look looks like a doctor who’s special effect from 1974.
Nancy Norbeck [00:26:05]:
Oh, excellent.
Michael Broussard [00:26:07]:
There’s always doctor who.
Nancy Norbeck [00:26:09]:
Of course. Of course.
Michael Broussard [00:26:11]:
There’s always doctor who. It’s scary, but it’s scary in a way that I find artistically exciting. You know?
Nancy Norbeck [00:26:25]:
Yeah. And and, you know, I I keep thinking as you’re talking that that the really cool thing about the way you work is that you end up with a show that is never the same thing twice. And that’s true even of, you know, a scripted Broadway play because something different is gonna happen all the time. But but that’s less much less, of, you know, never the same thing twice than what you’re doing. Because everything that that happens when you’re interacting with the audience, you can’t predict where it’s gonna go. You can’t predict where it’s gonna make you turn left instead of right. You know, you you have no idea where you’re gonna end up. So it’s a little bit like improv every time, which does mean that it’s more exciting for you.
Nancy Norbeck [00:27:09]:
I mean, when you’re doing the same thing over and over, and I do not mean this to sound like I am dissing people who do Broadway shows or anything like that in any way because I know that it’s not really the same thing for them, and that’s part of why they love it. But but if you were to set out to try to recreate the same thing every time, either you would get really frustrated because that’s not really all that possible, or you’d get really bored because, yes, I know how to do this. It’s like falling off a log, but it’s like falling off a log. It’s the same thing every time. And now what’s in this for me? People love it, but but what you know, I I need to go do something else. I need a new challenge, whatever. And that doesn’t mean that you’re gonna do that same show forever because it is so significantly different every time, but it does give it more longevity, and it probably spurs plenty of other ideas in the process. And having been to several of your shows, I know there have been moments where people have asked you a question that has completely changed the way you’ve seen your own story because it’s something that has never crossed your mind before.
Nancy Norbeck [00:28:21]:
And so you’ve got that whole extra layer of insight. So it’s changing you as well as changing where the show goes, and and that is so fabulously dynamic. It’s really very cool.
Michael Broussard [00:28:34]:
And it’s did you touch on something very interesting there? Because it’s not just changing me artistically. It’s changing my personal view of myself, which I take forward from the art and into my life, and it feeds my life in a positive way. And it makes me have conversations with my therapist that never would have occurred to me. It’s a new revelation. It’s a new growth point. I’m so grateful to all of the people over the years of things that I’ve done who, through their input and their interaction with each show that I’ve done, have given me new opportunities for personal growth, not just artistic growth, but personal growth, but growth in the way I see the world, the way I see myself, the way I heal, the way I look at other people, the way I show compassion and kindness, the way I understand and listen. I think understanding the hallmark of understanding is listening, and it’s really listening. A lot of people hear people talk, but they don’t listen to the degree that they put aside their personal preconceptions of what the person is talking about.
Michael Broussard [00:29:45]:
You know, there’s the old song, like, you’re listening to reply and not listening to to actually understand. And, yeah, that’s part of what I’m saying. And part of what I’m saying also is even when you’re listening to understand, sometimes it’s hard to go the extra step of putting aside the preconceived notions in your head, even though you’re actually listening, to hear something that may contradict or challenge those preconceived notions in your head. It’s why I look to the world and people in my life to teach me about their experience. We’re both on Blue Sky. I love Blue Sky. One of the things I love about Blue Sky is all the different feeds. I follow the Black Sky feed.
Michael Broussard [00:30:33]:
I follow the Trans Streamline. I follow a number of different ones because, honestly, I want to know what is going on for people from their perspective, and I wanna learn from that because you have to take somebody not as a version of what you conceive them to be or you conceive their experience to be, but as a version of what they’re actually going through. And that takes putting aside your ego completely and putting aside all the things you think you know. The reality is as a straight, cis white guy, I don’t I have not experienced what it’s like to be in these marginalized groups. I listen because that’s the only way that I will understand. And even then, there’s no way that I will understand it to the degree that I am experiencing it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:31:30]:
Right.
Michael Broussard [00:31:31]:
And taking people at their face value and supporting them the way they wanna be supported is tantamount to me. You tell me what you need. You tell me what’s what’s tough for you, what’s difficult for you. You tell me, and you know what? I’m not always gonna put the burden on you to tell me how I can help because that’s sometimes asking additional labor from people who are already struggling. I am gonna put the burden on myself to learn and to figure it out. You know? Take people from where they’re coming from. You know? And there’s there’s a lot of talk, you know, on social media and and in general about, different communities and conflicts that arise. And it seems to me that conflicts most often arise simply because people aren’t listening.
Nancy Norbeck [00:32:21]:
Right. They just aren’t listening. Right. Or they think that the way they would react in a certain situation is the way everyone would react in a certain situation. I just saw a conversation like that online, and and I was just like, okay. So you had x experience, and it was really good for you. And that’s great, And, therefore, you think that it would be good for anybody, and that’s not necessarily so great. You can’t expect that, you know, it helped to heal your trauma when it could actually re traumatize somebody else because you are not them.
Nancy Norbeck [00:33:02]:
And so it’s I I think that’s one of the most common things, and it’s very natural. Right? We wanna try to relate it to ourselves because it helps us understand it. But we still need to acknowledge that what we would do and how it would feel to us is not necessarily how it would feel to someone else or what it would do to them and leave room for, okay, this is how I think it would be for me, but I see what you’re saying. And, it’s that that last part that I think we lose and we lose it because we really really don’t listen. And I know I’ve said this multiple times before, but doing this show has made me a better listener and made me realize how much I didn’t listen before and how much people around me don’t listen because it’s just and, I mean, I’m not saying that I’m perfect about it. I don’t I do not listen perfectly all the time. If, you know, my family is going on about a thing that I’ve heard 16 times before, I’m gonna tune it out just like everybody else is. You know? But but I am more aware of it now.
Nancy Norbeck [00:34:06]:
So that has been an unexpected gift of of doing this is to to notice that. But then once you notice it, you become much more frustrated with people who aren’t listening. It’s a little ironic.
Michael Broussard [00:34:17]:
Oh my goodness. Yes.
Nancy Norbeck [00:34:20]:
Yeah.
Michael Broussard [00:34:21]:
I think one of the things that makes you good at this, of course, is that you are such a good listener. And it’s like having a conversation with somebody, the best kind of conversation with somebody as opposed to you speak, they speak, you speak, they speak, you and all that thing. This is something where you’re saying things, and I’m like, oh, okay. And I can hear from the way you respond that you’re hearing me too. And I think that that’s such an important thing because you get people who do this kind of thing like a podcast, who have their predetermined idea of what they’re gonna do, and you can tell sometimes that these people don’t listen. Mhmm. And you are one of the people who listens, and that’s why this is such a good a good forum, I think, for people. And I truly appreciate that it’s here for that very reason.
Nancy Norbeck [00:35:13]:
Well, thank you. It’s it’s actually I was I was thinking of this when I was talking before about, you know, never the same show twice. It’s kind of the same thing with me. If I came into this with just a preconceived list of questions and it was just I ask a question, you answer, I ask another question, you answer, I would be really bored. I did it that way for a while. And then, you know, I I ran out of questions one day, and I just started listening and said, hey. You know what? This is actually more interesting and much better. And it makes it more interesting for me.
Nancy Norbeck [00:35:45]:
It’s kinda like podcast improv. I don’t know what’s gonna happen.
Michael Broussard [00:35:48]:
Right. You know, I have
Nancy Norbeck [00:35:50]:
no idea. Generally speaking, I start out with one question. It’s the one I start with. Depending on who it is, I may or have 1 or 2 other things that I really hope we can get to. But, otherwise, it’s going wherever it’s gonna go, and that’s much more interesting for me and for everybody else, I think.
Michael Broussard [00:36:09]:
You talked about improv, earlier as well, and I wanted to say one of the things that fed into me doing what I do is the fact that I took improv classes with 2 of the best improv people who at the time were both in Philly, but they’re not in Philly anymore. And they were the team members of a particular improv duo, the Kristen and Amy show, of which they are still. And I got to learn so many things that I wouldn’t probably have learned quite as well had these people not been so good at what they do and at their ability to teach and to translate that into to, actionable things that we could do to learn how to get those things happening in our minds and our bodies.
Nancy Norbeck [00:36:56]:
Mhmm.
Michael Broussard [00:36:57]:
And that opened up my idea of what storytelling can be because well, from the second teacher, what I learned, which was wonderful, was improv does not need to be funny. And if you’re trying to be funny, you’re doing it wrong. It may be funny sometimes, but if you’re trying to be funny, you’re doing it wrong. You’re building off of the last person, and they’re building off of you. And this teacher in particular was very strongly like sometimes you can do something improvisational that is not funny at all. It can be revelatory and interesting and fascinating and powerful, but not necessarily funny. Improv doesn’t mean funny. So Right.
Michael Broussard [00:37:41]:
You know, I was doing that show wrong answers only, and I’m improving off of this sort of artificial idea of who my parents were because they’re these people aren’t my real parents, but suddenly they’re my parents. I’m improving off of what I knew of them, and I’m improving off of what somebody just asked me, and I’m improving what somebody told me about their background. And it’s not funny. In fact, some of it was kind of heartbreaking Mhmm. Certainly for me. But I don’t think I would know that as well had I just and I’m not putting down the theater classes I had. I had a fantastic theater classes, scene study and and all that and voice and all that stuff. But if I had not had the improv classes, I don’t think I would have opened myself up to the all these possibilities that feed absolutely everything I do.
Michael Broussard [00:38:29]:
And to get back to the game show thing, game show host was something I thought about for a long time. Like, oh, this is a dream in my life that will never happen because no one’s gonna hire me to do this. And I joke about the fact that, you know, Pat Sajak was retiring, and I’m surprised and shocked and horrified and offended that I didn’t get a call. You know? Because my Christy and I, my wife, Christy and I, we will sit and we’ll watch Wheel of Fortune, and she’ll be like, you know, you can do this. You guys tell the same jokes. And sometimes I’ll tell the joke before he tells it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:39:04]:
Oh, that’s awesome.
Michael Broussard [00:39:04]:
Like, oh, that’s one of your jokes. He stole that from you by the way he reacted to that person. And, I thought of that as something like, you know, an unachievable thing. Right? Because no one’s gonna hire me to do this. And then suddenly it hit me. What the hell? Why am I not just doing this for myself? Why am I not creating this thing for myself? And creating this thing where I can bring people in and have them talk about who they are and have them engage in this these games, these fun little games, which remind them of other game shows and stuff like that. And let them kind of improv their way through the experience. Because in a lot of ways, that’s what a lot of these game shows are.
Michael Broussard [00:39:44]:
People get through them however they get through them by figuring things out as they go. Right. You know? And what and things happen sometimes. God. I don’t even in the I think it was the last week of Wheel of Fortune. There was a puzzle, and I think they would have normally edited this out, but it was reminiscent of something that had happened decades before in another game show. And I don’t remember what the actual puzzle answer was, but the guy guessed right in the butt. And it was this wonderful explosion, and Pat was just like he just, like, stood there and was like, what do I do now? And then he started laughing.
Michael Broussard [00:40:35]:
And I know that they edit these shows to take certain thing certain things out. But I feel like the last week was just like, all bets are off, and it became the joke of the show. And that’s part of what being a good improver is. Mhmm. Being more than just a funny host is working with what happens. Right. And finding it and expanding it and having fun with the other people with it and from with them from where they’re coming from and from where you’re coming from and the charm of that. I mean, every game show host, every one of the good ones, in my opinion, was a freaking improv artist.
Nancy Norbeck [00:41:19]:
Mhmm.
Michael Broussard [00:41:20]:
They were out there going, what am I gonna get today to work with, and how do I do that? And the best ones, they they did that, and and we go back to match game, you had a whole ton of great improv artists. One of my favorite things that would happen on match game is where they would come up with a bit that they did at the beginning of the episode or something that had nothing to do with the game. They would just come out on, like, Charles Nelson Reilly dressed in a robe or something like that or or whatever. And there were several times where they would get to the end of where the bit was, and Charles would be like, so yeah. So the bit didn’t work out quite like I thought it would, and there weren’t as many laughs. So but that’s all I got. And that would be the biggest laugh of the entire episode
Nancy Norbeck [00:42:02]:
Right.
Michael Broussard [00:42:02]:
Was, like, acknowledging that he was doing a bit and bringing everybody in to this reality and this suspended reality. You know? And that’s what I love. I love reality and suspended reality. Like, you’re gonna go and you’re gonna see me do my thing, whether it’s in the game show or this my brain hurts thing or or my versus for what the fuck world or whatever they are. But, like, that’s what it is. It’s this artificial world that is also real because real people are playing in it, but anything can happen.
Nancy Norbeck [00:42:37]:
Right. Anything can happen. Right. And and what I keep thinking as as you’re saying this is that I really believe that that improv is a vital life skill, that we would all be so much better at life if we learned improv as, you know, as kids because, basically, that’s what improv teaches is to accept what happens and roll with it. And and I I I kinda think I knew this before I read Keith Johnstone’s in Pro about 2 years ago. But when I read that book and it’s a dense book, but it is a fascinating book. And and I just the whole time I was reading it, I thought this is, like, probably the best book on creativity I’ve I’ve ever ever read certainly ever that was ever written, I suspect. But, you know, literally, this man is telling you how how to get through life.
Nancy Norbeck [00:43:39]:
It’s it’s life skills as much as it’s theater skills. Theater skills is just kind of like super applied life skills. And it was amazing. I mean, absolutely amazing. I mean, it was basically like reading, you know, psychological aikido. You know, take the energy of the situation and and roll with it and use it instead of letting it knock you down. You know, whatever your partner throws at you, use that energy. I mean, in that situation, more against your partner.
Nancy Norbeck [00:44:07]:
But but still, you know, it’s it’s like how how to have that mental dexterity to not get stuck in, man, my bit didn’t work, and now I’m I’m upset, and I’m sad, and I’m gonna ruin the rest of the match game show because I’m gonna sulk over here because my bit didn’t work. I mean, the the the difference in energy between that and what you’re describing is immense. And, you know, if we all felt like we had the freedom to be like, well, hey. I was trying this thing. It didn’t work. You know? Bummer. Didn’t work. But, hey.
Nancy Norbeck [00:44:44]:
You know? Now you know, and now we can play with that, and we can, you know, see see what happens next, whether it’s, you know, a conversation with your boss or your partner or your kid or whatever, be so much so so freeing compared to where a lot of us get hung up and stuck.
Michael Broussard [00:45:04]:
And it’s it’s yeah. When people get hung up and stuck, that’s and I’ve certainly dealt with that in my life, getting hung up and stuck and and and not being able to move forward because something knocked me back. And this is not to minimize at all the reality of trauma and things like that, which sometimes you do get temporarily stuck, and that’s life and that’s reality. And I respect people who are able to, you know Right. Who deal with that, and they deal with it whatever way they deal with it. And if they can’t move forward from there, that’s also understandable. But there’s the value in being able to and you talked about Aikido, which is redirection. I’m pretty sure Aikido was redirection of force.
Nancy Norbeck [00:45:39]:
Right.
Michael Broussard [00:45:40]:
I think. And and the idea of redirection of force is fabulous because that’s a great metaphor for this idea of having everybody in on the joke.
Nancy Norbeck [00:45:54]:
Mhmm.
Michael Broussard [00:45:55]:
Everybody knows it’s a show. When I get on screen and I do these these Zoom things, these storytelling shows, everybody knows it’s a show. There’s not this pretense that it’s not a show. You know? And I think once you let people in on that, they have fun. They enjoy themselves, and they get to experience the moments that aren’t necessarily funny or fun on a deeper level as well because they’re part of it, and they feel an ownership. That is so important to feel an ownership to the work because, yes, the work is mine, but the work is also my audience Mhmm. Theirs. Feeling an ownership to the thing makes people enjoy it more, makes people get more out of it, makes people feel like they have agency in their own lives.
Michael Broussard [00:46:54]:
You know? And I think that is so very important to, feel that you have agency. And there are times when it’s really hard to have agency, and it’s hard to feel you have agency. And I remember those times, and they’re tough sometimes. And I’ve gone through them, and sometimes you get the wind knocked out of you and you can’t do anything. You just sit back and you just you sit there. You don’t your agency in that moment, you do have agency. Actually, you know what? You have the agency to do this. I can’t do anything right now.
Michael Broussard [00:47:24]:
I’m gonna sit down. I’m gonna watch my favorite comfort movie or comfort TV show, or I’m gonna listen to my comfort music, and that’s agency too. The agency to acknowledge I cannot process this now. I need to do something for myself. And, and that’s all agency too. And it’s true. All those all that stuff should be respected as agency, not just I have agency, therefore, I’ll keep pushing through, which is the the screwed up American ideal of, like, no matter what happens to me, I keep going. Like, sometimes you need to sit back, and that’s an intelligent choice.
Michael Broussard [00:47:57]:
You know?
Nancy Norbeck [00:47:58]:
Right. That’s why I said it’s it’s huge, you know, because so many of us are trained to think that that’s not an option. So sometimes the real power move is saying, yeah, you know what? I’m out right now. I need to get away from from whatever this situation is and go take care of myself for a while, and I’ll be back when I’m feeling up to handling it. You know? Sometimes, depending on the situation, you don’t really have that Gen z is so great at this.
Michael Broussard [00:48:26]:
Oh, yes. I have Gen z is so great at this. Oh, yes. I have learned so much from Gen zers if you wanna use all the Gen things. But Gen zers, I just admire them so much because they’re not willing to put up with this, I will devote myself to my job to the degree that I will have no life. They’re like, you have time? Take the time. It belongs to you. Take your take your your personal time off.
Michael Broussard [00:48:55]:
Take your your sick time. It belongs to you, and it’s valid to have a mental health day. It is valid. If you wanna do that, do that. And I think that a lot of employers are getting stopped up short, you know, by this, and they don’t know what to do with it because they’re they’re older people who are used to all their employees being locked into we must, we must, we must, we must. Mhmm. And they look at younger people who they’ve hired and going, oh, well, they’re not devoted the way that I’m devoted. And I’m like, yeah.
Michael Broussard [00:49:25]:
But you own the company.
Nancy Norbeck [00:49:27]:
Right.
Michael Broussard [00:49:27]:
You’re benefiting from your devotion. They’re just getting paid. They’re not getting any of that benefit, and it’s so true that it’s healthy to have things other than your job in your life. We had a conversation, Christine, about about this just yesterday. I was you know, I I’m having people who who apply for the game show send me three interesting things about themselves. Right? To date, nobody sent me their job, and I love that.
Nancy Norbeck [00:49:54]:
Excellent.
Michael Broussard [00:49:55]:
Because that’s such a, like, oh, you’re at a party. What do you do? I just think you do. And what I do for a living are different things. My job is not me. You know? Sometimes people’s job is them, but sometimes it’s not. And I had this conversation with her yesterday. I said, you know, I haven’t I’ve been, you know, having people come in for orientations, and I’m not asking them, you know, where they’re from. And I’m not asking them what their job is, But it doesn’t seem relevant to me where they’re from or what their job is unless it’s relevant to them.
Michael Broussard [00:50:23]:
And I said, do you think that’s a mistake? Because game show host always do that. She says, I think you should do what you do. And she’s right. I should do what I do. And unless somebody’s really tied to where they come from and they wanna talk about it, that’s great. But I got a guy who wants to talk about the fact that his dog eats chicken feet. That’s way better than where are you from or what do you do for a living or whatever. You know?
Nancy Norbeck [00:50:46]:
Yeah. That’s much more interesting.
Michael Broussard [00:50:48]:
You know? The guy who was married to his husband for a full year before they lived in the same country. Oh, wow. Great stuff. It’s fabulous, and it’s so human. So I don’t have to be locked into what people think is important. You know? I can be what do you think is important. You tell me what’s important to you, and let’s have that conversation.
Nancy Norbeck [00:51:09]:
Yeah.
Michael Broussard [00:51:10]:
And in the show is like the show I got coming up and all the other storytelling shows. People are gonna react from their point of view and how it affects them and what matters to them. And something I say that I know where it’s coming from underneath me may not say that to them at all. Mhmm. And may touch off something else inside them that then comes back around and the loop goes, oh, I never saw that that way. And now I see both somebody else’s perspective and my own perspective in a different way. And that’s that’s great. I love it.
Michael Broussard [00:51:43]:
Let’s improv. Let’s pull
Nancy Norbeck [00:51:44]:
that rug out. Let’s just do that. Yes. Yeah. Now it’s it’s it’s it’s a a broadening experience for everybody, You know? And and it’s not it’s not passive because something is happening inside you as you experience it. So, you know, I think I’ve never thought about this before, but I think there’s an awful lot of passivity built into our culture. You know? You get you get up, you go to work, and whatever happens to you at work, you largely have to just put up with. You come home, you have dinner, you, you know, depending on your domestic situation, some other stuff might happen.
Nancy Norbeck [00:52:29]:
But a lot of it a lot of us, it’s just it’s trained into us to be kind of passive and and just be like, okay. Well, that was terrible, but I can’t really do anything about it. So I’m gonna go on and, you know, hope hope that it gets better at at work or in my relationship or whatever the next time, and that’s not really a great way to go through life. You know, we forget that we have agency. We forget that we can make choices. We forget that that there are other options. I think we’d all be better off if we didn’t forget those things.
Michael Broussard [00:53:04]:
Absolutely. And it it’s it’s it can be hard to to realize at times because everything gets to be too much. Mhmm. So when somebody doesn’t realize that and me included, I get it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:53:13]:
Right.
Michael Broussard [00:53:14]:
The revelation of it is the key to everything. And I was thinking about this earlier today, and I was like, what would I do if I won the lottery? Well, you know what? The thing you would do if you won the lottery is the thing you should do. Not like going a big trip or whatever. If I won the lottery and I was thinking, if I won the lottery, I’d spend more time on my music. Well, just spend more time on your music. Yeah. Just do it. Don’t wait until circumstances change to make it right.
Michael Broussard [00:53:44]:
Just spend more time on your music, and your music may not be for public consumption or or whatever. It may not be for public consumption. It may just be for yourself. But if you were gonna do the thing and your heart wants to do the thing, whether it’s draw or paint or dance or whatever it is, do it because it makes you happy, and don’t wait for somebody to give you permission.
Nancy Norbeck [00:54:05]:
Right. We can give ourselves permission, and a lot of people get blocked because they think they have to wait for permission.
Michael Broussard [00:54:13]:
I ain’t waiting.
Nancy Norbeck [00:54:14]:
Yeah. But you’re absolutely right. Just spend more time on your music now. Even if it’s only an extra 5 minutes a day, go spend more time on your music now. It can grow over time. It may turn into something else. It doesn’t matter. Just just go do the thing.
Michael Broussard [00:54:31]:
Yeah. You have wonderful these wonderful, workshops that you do about play. Mhmm. And I think that that just strikes at the root of this entire thing right at the heart of this entire thing. We forget how to play, and we think that we can’t play until we give ourselves permission to play by doing a certain amount of things we don’t wanna do. Play. Or we
Nancy Norbeck [00:54:53]:
think we need permission to play in the 1st place. That’s why I called that workshop permission to play. We’re we’re adults. We’re not kids. We’re not supposed to play. Yeah. I I think that’s wrong. I think we are supposed to play.
Nancy Norbeck [00:55:06]:
I think when we get play trained out of us, that’s when something you know, that’s what we’re not supposed to do.
Michael Broussard [00:55:11]:
Mhmm. Yeah. And as artists, you have to give yourself permission to play, which is why I think a lot of artists that I know have that little kid much louder inside of themselves.
Nancy Norbeck [00:55:22]:
Yes.
Michael Broussard [00:55:22]:
And I love that that that that loud little kid who who will not be shouted down.
Nancy Norbeck [00:55:28]:
Yes.
Michael Broussard [00:55:28]:
Because he’s just he he, she, they are just happy and loud, and they don’t care how loud they are. And they’re like, this is great.
Nancy Norbeck [00:55:38]:
Well and that’s the irony. Right? We we say that all that stuff is childish, and then we avoid it, and we wonder where our creativity went. Like, really? Really? It’s kinda right there in
Michael Broussard [00:55:51]:
front of
Nancy Norbeck [00:55:51]:
your face. Yep. Because if you look at kids and the way that they create, it never stops. They never stop asking questions. They never stop coming up with stuff until someone tells them they’re not allowed to do that anymore. And that’s why and I I wanna write or or do something more with this. But, you know, the NASA study that looked at kids and gave kids the same test for creativity that they gave their engineers way, way back a good couple decades ago, and then followed them and watched what happens when they gave that test of 5 year olds, like 98% of those kids scored as creative geniuses. 98%.
Nancy Norbeck [00:56:36]:
I’m pretty sure that’s the right number. If it’s not, it’s very close. And then they followed them as they went through school and watched that number drop, which shouldn’t really have been a surprise to anybody, but now they had the data to prove it. And to say, hey. Look. Our schools are doing this, and I don’t think it’s just school. I think it’s the over culture too. You know? It’s your parents, your family, your friends.
Nancy Norbeck [00:57:03]:
It’s all built in there, this message that that stuff is for kids. You like playing with Lego? Well, that stuff is for kids. You know? And I
Michael Broussard [00:57:13]:
love all my friends who play with LEGOs. I love all my friends who play with transformers and collect them. I love all my friends who are into mighty morphin Power Rangers. I love all my friend. That’s probably something that people aren’t even into anymore. I don’t know. I’m old. I love all my friends, you know, who who, oh, great people who do nothing but really cool drawings of sharks.
Michael Broussard [00:57:35]:
I love all my friends who, you know, I love it. I love it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:57:40]:
Yeah. And and denying ourselves that stuff that we love is denying ourselves a full life. I don’t think that we were put on this planet to be tortured by cultural demands on going to work, especially if it’s a job you don’t love. If it’s a job you do love, then, you know, none of this applies. But but, you know, an awful lot of people are in jobs that they do not love and maybe even actively hate because of what they have to do or because of the the management style or or whatever, that’s not a life. And part of the reason that I do what I do is to encourage people to, okay, you may be stuck there for one reason or another. At least give yourself a couple minutes a day to go do the stuff you do love. And, you know, as you work on what you can do to change that other situation, give yourself time to do the stuff you do love.
Nancy Norbeck [00:58:39]:
Because among other things, it’ll keep the creative parts of your brain alive that may help you answer the other question. But it’ll also just keep you in that that kid space that is more alive than the person you have to be from 8 to 5 every day going into that job, you know, or dealing with that relationship or that set of parents or whatever it is. You need it. Creativity is self care. It is. It is how you keep those parts of you alive and with you and an active in you. And we write it off as a luxury and it’s not. It’s a necessity and that’s part of why.
Michael Broussard [00:59:21]:
Mhmm. I feel myself terribly fortunate that I chose a creative life, and had lots of terrible jobs as well. But I chose a creative life because it is the best thing in my life and gives me the most perspective on my life. And I’ve certainly been victim to some of the things you talk about over the years. And I gotta get straight, and I gotta do things the right way, and I gotta be the person that, you know, my society expects me to be and my job expects me to be and all this other stuff. And just being creative helps me. And, you know, when I say being creative, I don’t mean, like, I’m a creative person and and other people are not. We’re all creative people in a way, and we can all be creative.
Michael Broussard [01:00:17]:
And it doesn’t have to be you don’t have to be a successful graphic novelist. You don’t have to be a successful filmmaker or whatever. Just be creative. Let that out. Like you said, that play Does that 98% of whatever it was of kids who scored so high that being creative, and you said too also, is gonna help you deal with the things in your life that you now have skills that you just reclaimed that you can now apply to these things in your life that may be barriers to you or maybe making your life less enjoyable. And, also, I think to some degree, you’ll be less likely to want to put up with a less life.
Nancy Norbeck [01:00:58]:
Mhmm.
Michael Broussard [01:00:58]:
A less creative life and a less joyful life because creativity is joy, and everybody deserves joy. And I am so fortunate that when I do these things, I get to be creative with a bunch of other people.
Nancy Norbeck [01:01:11]:
Yes.
Michael Broussard [01:01:12]:
Who get to feed into what I do, and I get to, like, feed off of what they say. And it just it’s it’s it’s a wonderful gestalt thing. That that word gestalt. I use it whenever I can because no one uses it. Gestalt. But it’s a wonderful thing, and it’s it’s it all goes back to openness like you’re talking about. Let’s be open to the creative things. Let’s be open to the fun things.
Michael Broussard [01:01:34]:
Let’s be open to just having a good time and playing and not letting people stop us. And I have decided in my life I’m not letting anybody stop me anymore, and this isn’t because I’ve always known this. This is because I had to grow into
Nancy Norbeck [01:01:47]:
it. Right. And I’ve grown into it, and I am so freaking happy because I’m doing that. Right. Right. And so many of us make the opposite choice. It’s a choice, folks. You can choose otherwise.
Nancy Norbeck [01:02:03]:
Even if it’s 5 minutes a day, you can choose otherwise.
Michael Broussard [01:02:08]:
And don’t let anybody stop you from singing.
Nancy Norbeck [01:02:10]:
Right.
Michael Broussard [01:02:11]:
Don’t let them oh, your voice is terrible. Your voice is beautiful. It’s your voice. If it’s in your head, let it out.
Nancy Norbeck [01:02:19]:
Right. Right. Or painting or drawing or whatever. You know? I talk about how I drew bad stick figure art when I was teaching because that’s what I know how to draw. And honestly, I am pretty sure sometimes it was the highlight of a class because because we all had a good laugh at it. Like, yep. We’re gonna draw draw bad stick figures, and then one of my kids decided that some of their heads should explode, and so that became a thing. Yeah.
Michael Broussard [01:02:49]:
You gave them a prompt.
Nancy Norbeck [01:02:50]:
Exploding heads, man.
Michael Broussard [01:02:52]:
You gave them a creative prompt, man. That’s awesome.
Nancy Norbeck [01:02:55]:
Yeah. Yeah. We just we just ran with it, and it was cool. It was just kinda like, yeah. That’s that’s miss Norbeck’s thing. She draws bad stick figure art. So so yeah. I mean and and there’s joy in bad stick figure art with exploding heads because we all got a good laugh out of it.
Nancy Norbeck [01:03:16]:
You know? It was kind of a weird bonding thing with my students. It was great.
Michael Broussard [01:03:23]:
So There’s also at least one one, cartoonist who does stick figures by definition. It’s just like, this is what I do. This is what I can do. Right. And his little 4 panel cartoons are hilarious, and they’re brilliant, and they’re clever, and they’re insightful. So do what you do. Right? There’s all this stuff about, like, gatekeeping art and AI generated art. Right? Right.
Michael Broussard [01:03:42]:
Well, you know, they’re gatekeeping art because we don’t know. We can’t draw like they can draw, or we can’t paint, or we can’t do what the whatever. But and I’m like, you know what? It’s not gatekeeping. Pick up a pencil. Pick up a pen. Draw stick figures. Draw whatever you can draw. No one’s gatekeeping visual art.
Michael Broussard [01:03:59]:
No one is saying you have to be just like the guy who has, you know, all these things out in the world and is, you know, successful in the terms that we describe successful. Draw your stick figures, man. Put your little war balloons in them. Nobody’s gatekeeping it.
Nancy Norbeck [01:04:14]:
XKCD. Wanna draw. Which I think is what you’re thinking of with the comic is a wonderful comic.
Michael Broussard [01:04:19]:
Exactly what I’m thinking of. Thank you.
Nancy Norbeck [01:04:20]:
Yeah. XKCD is is amazing. Fabulous and super thoughtful. And I think it’s super thoughtful because the art is so simple. And so there’s room to to focus a little bit more on the actual words that keep it going. But, yeah, he’s been doing that forever, and it’s fabulous. So so yeah. I mean, Rachel Pollack drew her own deck of tarot cards, and she was not an artist.
Nancy Norbeck [01:04:50]:
You know? It’s not the greatest art you’ll ever see, but it’s her art. So and, you know, I say greatest, you know, by whose standard? Right? Is it likely to hang in a museum? I don’t know. There are things that hang in a museum that I wouldn’t have thought would end up in a museum, so maybe it could. I mean, who knows? Who’s to say? But but it’s worth exploring your stuff, and maybe your art is terrible when you start. You know? Maybe if I sat down and drew bad stick figures every day, someday I would end up with really good stick figures. You know, maybe they would turn into something else. I think you can learn anything if you sit down and decide that you want to. If I took an art class, I might be really surprised at what I could do.
Nancy Norbeck [01:05:28]:
I don’t know. Same is true for you or anybody.
Michael Broussard [01:05:32]:
Yeah. Explore it without without particular expectation. The expectation is I’m gonna do it, not the expectation is I’m gonna work my ass off to the point that I make myself crazy and and and and have and, you know, I’m I’m in constant physical, moral, and emotional pain. No. You just do it because you wanna do it and enjoy it and have fun doing it. And who knows what it’ll lead to? It may just lead to being happier. My god. What a wonderful thing.
Michael Broussard [01:06:00]:
And you may just be a happier person. Isn’t that nice? You may just be a more centered and a more focused person. Maybe you’ll get to learn. Maybe you’ll get to find that kid who you left behind on the road somewhere.
Nancy Norbeck [01:06:10]:
Yes.
Michael Broussard [01:06:10]:
Won’t that be nice?
Nancy Norbeck [01:06:12]:
Yes. And I do wanna add. If you take a if you take a class, like I mentioned, taking a drawing class, If I took a drawing class and somebody, you know, was the the especially the instructor was really judgmental about what I was drawing, I would find a different class. Or I would have a long conversation with the instructor and say, hey, look. I’m not here to be Michelangelo. I’m just here to have fun and see what I can do and not to be judged for it.
Michael Broussard [01:06:36]:
Right.
Nancy Norbeck [01:06:37]:
And see how they react. You know? I mean, because that’s that’s part of the agency and the choice that you have too, and you should feel free to exercise it. If you’re paying somebody to take a class, they shouldn’t be belittling you and judging you for what you’re doing. A good teacher will encourage you and understand that not everybody’s gonna operate at the same level, and not everybody wants to.
Michael Broussard [01:06:58]:
I look back at teachers, and I had some wonderful teachers. I had some miserable times at school because of fellow students, but I had some wonderful teachers. And one of them was an English teacher. And, every time she would give us a composition assignment, I would turn it into a piece of fiction. And she was so wonderful and encouraging and sweet and kind about it, and she loved it. And I always got a’s because she I think she was just like paper paper, but, oh, this person had fun. This is good. You know? Right.
Michael Broussard [01:07:29]:
The I I wrote some story in respond. I figured for the it was about somebody. It was about it was supposed to be about somebody turning into an animal. So I took my inspiration from all of those Disney movies, like the computer war tennis shoes and all those things where, like, Kurt Russell gets, like, you know, hit by lightning and turns into a computer or turns invisible or whatever. And I got a guy who accidentally turned himself into a rabbit. And there’s a point in the in the in the the story where he says where in in the end, he ends up, foiling a spy plot because of course. And in the end, he ends up throwing a rabbit punch. In parenthesis, I said which, of course, is the only kind of punch a rabbit can throw.
Michael Broussard [01:08:08]:
And not having a teacher who was just like, I like what you do. Just keep doing it. I was just like, I’m gonna put all the silly things that I wanna put in here just because because I wanna do it. And and I I I am so thankful to her because she made me feel like being open and free was a good thing.
Nancy Norbeck [01:08:27]:
Yeah. You know? Yeah. And open and free is really the key to all creativity. You know? Mhmm. The more open and free you can be, the better your work will be and the more you do it, the more open and free you will become. Mhmm. Yeah. Well, that feels like the perfect place to to stop for today.
Nancy Norbeck [01:08:52]:
So I love this conversation. I I love I love where we’ve gone and where we’ve ended up, so thank you for that.
Michael Broussard [01:08:59]:
Me too. You know what it was? It was like one of the shows that I do. I had no idea what you were gonna say, and I ended up in conversations I had no idea I was gonna be in. Thank you for that. That’s right.
Nancy Norbeck [01:09:09]:
Thank
Michael Broussard [01:09:09]:
you for that collaboration. This was a great collaboration.
Nancy Norbeck [01:09:12]:
Absolutely. And before we go, when’s your game show?
Michael Broussard [01:09:16]:
The game show is on September 14th, at 3 PM EST in Eastern United States time. It is on Zoom, and I can shoot you the URL. Right? And you can just put it into the podcast. I will shoot you the URL for it. And, we’re still looking for contestants, and it’s an opportunity just to
Nancy Norbeck [01:09:36]:
have fun. Excellent. That’s this week’s show. Thanks so much to Michael Broussard for joining me and to you for listening. The links for Michael’s upcoming game show are in the show notes, and I hope you’ll check them out. Please leave a review for this episode. There’s a link in your podcast app, so it’s really, really easy and will only take a minute. If you enjoyed our conversation, I hope you’ll share it with a friend.
Nancy Norbeck [01:10:00]:
Thank you so much. If this episode resonated with you, or if you’re feeling a little bit less than confident in your creative process right now, join me at the spark on Substack as we form a community that supports and celebrates each other’s creative courage. It’s free and it’s also where I’ll be adding programs for subscribers and listeners. The link is in your podcast app, so sign up today. See you there and see you next week. Follow Your Curiosity is produced by me, Nancy Norbeck, with music by Joseph McDade. If you like Follow Your Curiosity, please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to tell your friends.
Nancy Norbeck [01:10:40]:
It really helps me reach new listeners.