Five Questions

Abigail Correu is a singer, songwriter, creator, explorer, and mother who lives in Nashville, Tennessee. I found her on Instagram around 2014/2015 and really appreciated her honest and authentic energy that she shared via the medium. I had wanted to connect with her for Five Questions after following her for a couple of years and finally had the chance when I visited Nashville this past summer. Abigail invited me to her house and we immediately started in on the unfiltered conversation that I love. We ended up talking for about an hour officially, then continued off the record for another hour. It felt like it could last for days if it wasn’t for the outside world calling on us to rejoin its ranks. We chatted about her recent leap into motherhood, the trials of heartbreak, and the shining good we both see in people. And she totally answered Five Questions. Meet Abigail.

Kevin Avery is a comedian, actor, and writer for TV. He’s written for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Jim Jeffries Show, The New Negroes, VH1’s Best Week Ever, and served as head writer on Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell. Also with Kamau, he hosts Denzel Washington Is The Greatest Actor Of All Time Period. The title speaks for itself. In essence, Kevin’s pretty damned funny. He also recommends really good lunch spots. Kevin has lived and worked in San Francisco and New York, but it was in LA where we connected to chat about artistic collaboration, helplessness in love, the spiders that seem have taken residence in his apartment, and his process of writing. And before you ask: Yep, he answered Five Questions. Meet Kevin.

Hammock intertwines musical sub-genres of modern classical, ambient, post-rock, and shoegaze with ease, while consistently walking the fine emotional line between hope and despair. They truly are masters of emotion. Hammock is also regarded in the highest company of similarly influential artists, and their music has been featured in film (Columbus soundtrack), video games (Far Cry 5 soundtrack), radio (BBC), and TV (Ricky Gervais’ Afterlife). Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson, the two members of Hammock, also happen to be lovely human beings. They graciously invited me to Marc’s home studio where we dove deep into the challenges of life in many different facets, as we normally do here at Five Questions. And today, during our chat, Marc opened up about something that he had never shared publicly before: His 5-year struggle with alcohol addiction which he called “a journey into authenticity.” I am honored that Marc chose to share his story with me and the listeners of Five Questions. His fortitude reaffirmed in me that this project is a safe space for the vulnerability of humans like Marc, like Andrew and me, like all of us. Marc, Andrew, and I also spoke about a ton of other deep and contemplative thoughts and feelings, and of course, they answered Five Questions. Meet Hammock.

Elizabeth Traynor is a writer, speaker and an avid runner based in Boston. At 24 she lost one of her closest friends to cancer, and shortly after broke her hip during a marathon – which caused her to spiral into a deep depression. Despite struggling heavily during that period, she found an outlet through writing about her grief, trauma and recovery. Her writing has been featured in SELF Magazine, Better Homes and Gardens, Fitness magazine, Women’s Running, to name a few. Elizabeth and I chatted about the fear of abandonment, coping with loss in the face of grief, feeling hopeful about family, and many other intriguing topics. Oh, and of course she answered Five Questions. Meet Elizabeth.

Jordan Rich is a seasoned veteran of the broadcasting industry and a staple of Boston’s airwaves having worked in the field for nearly forty years. His silky smooth voice that was destined for radio complements his interest in people and their lives. He happens to be a good friend of my dad’s too. The two of them worked in radio together in Boston for many years. Since his retirement (if you can call it that with all the work he does), he has continued sharing peoples’ stories on his podcast On Mic with Jordan Rich. A show on which I was a guest. I connected with Jordan at his studio in Massachusetts where we conducted back-to-back interviews of each other for our podcasts. During the recording of Five Questions, Jordan opened up about delivering the eulogy at his first wife’s funeral, how comfort and excitement are key components of true love, and how he finds joy in life by affecting people in a positive way. And you got it, he answered Five Questions. Meet Jordan.

Christina Agapakis is a biologist, writer, artist, and a mother of two. She collaborates with engineers, designers, artists, and social scientists to explore unexpected connections between microbiology, technology, art, and popular culture. Christina invited me over to her apartment where we talked about world travel, bias in biochemistry, how framing failure can reveal the process of learning, the difference between STEM and STEAM (and how STEAM is better), and the root of all consciousness…ya know, light-hearted topics. Oh, and of course she answered Five Questions. Meet Christina.

“I’m a lot like my dad. I’m not very vulnerable. That’s mostly because I tend to be 1) A black man in America, and 2) I work in a field where I’m a black man in America and I have to be able to prove twice as hard that I’m right compared to whoever else might be in the room. Sex, race, gender, whatever, be damned. I’m learning now, that as much as I have a gift for empathy, I am a vault sometimes. So I'm trying harder to make space for myself and the people around me. Also new people. Because I want to be inspired. I think friction makes the work better. I like bumping up against other good minds, other good intellects, other good creativity, other expressions, other forms, other function. To do that though, you have to continue to be somehow open.”

Sophia Moon is an abstract painter, a musician, a loving and conscious mother, and the newest host of CreativeMornings Boston. CreativeMornings is a global organization with chapters in 188 cities who host monthly events geared towards nurturing creativity. Their volunteer teams not only celebrate their city’s creative talent, but also promote an open space to connect with like-minded individuals.  Sophia invited me to her new studio space which is undergoing a rad renovation, and we chatted about the effects of her parents' divorce on the way she nurtures her own growing family, discovering a part of yourself in another person, combating imposter syndrome, and she even turned the tables and kindly talked me through some thoughts about depression and perfectionism. Talk about a versatile guest! Oh, and of course she answered Five Questions. Meet Sophia.

Will Dailey is a versatile and award-winning musician based in Boston, Massachusetts whose latest record Golden Walker will be out on June 1st. He is deeply involved with multiple charitable organizations including Farm Aid, Foundation to Be Named Later, and Zumix as well as other local organizations. He's a husband and a father of two, and a genuinely down-to-earth, affable, and humble human being.  I met up with Will at his home and studio just outside of Boston where we had a long and compelling chat about the positive impact on the arts of affordable access to healthy food, the selfishness of making art, the difference between quitting and moving on, the consequences of trying to do everything by yourself, the automatic privilege of being a white male, that guns represent weakness and fear, and we even had time to go off on a tangent about our magical experiences of seeing Pearl Jam in concert for the first time. Meet Will.

Kalmia Traver is the front-woman, co-band leader, and saxophonist for the art-pop-dance band Rubblebucket. She has an equally dynamic solo project called Kalbells which performs with an all female band. She is an avid nature lover having spent her childhood in the woods of Vermont. And most importantly, she's a cancer survivor.    I met up with Kal backstage at the House of Blues in Boston at which Rubblebucket was headlining the annual world music festival CRASHfest. (They absolutely crushed it, by the way.) We found a spot in the wings and watched a killer performance by Flor De Toloache, then found a cozy corner backstage, and chatted about finding peace inside relationships, the powerful spirit of an all female band, Kal and her mom's revolutionary love experiment, the lessons of trees, breaking up a romantic relationship with your bandmate and remaining a band, experiencing infinity in love, and also randomly discovered that Kal went to high school with my cousin. Small world! Oh, and she answered Five Questions. Meet Kal.

Jeremy Ogusky is an artisan potter whose work can be found in restaurants all over the Boston area. He's also worked extensively in public health in Africa, South America, and the US, is the founder of the Boston Fermentation Festival, met his wife in while working with the Peace Corps in a little country called Lesotho, has a one-year-old son, and somehow managed to make time for me to ask him Five Questions. He invited me to his pottery studio and workspace and we chatted about the struggle of balance in daily life, finding efficiencies within restrictions, the joys and difficulties of collaboration, and of course he answered Five Questions along the way. Meet Jeremy.

Maria Molteni is a prolific multimedia and performing artist, educator, organizer, and artist-in-residence with the City of Boston whose work has been featured across the globe from Croatia to Colorado, from the Philippines to Pennsylvania, from Brooklyn to Boston.  Maria and I met up at her fabulously creative workspace/home in Boston, and had a wonderfully inspiring conversation full of laughs and insight about inventing spaces for teaching art, her paralyzing fear of taxidermy, radical vulnerability in love, The Shakers, and the imbalance of power between men and women and its direct effect on her life and career. The most memorable and touching part of my meeting with Maria happened when the mics were unfortunately turned off. After recording, before taking photographs, Maria and I continued our chat. I shared my feelings of guilt that come up regarding the difficulties women go through in the world, and that I think about the things that I have done in the past that may have been inappropriate. Thankfully, nothing came up along the lines of what's being reported in the media, but the fact that I may have looked too hard at a woman, or asked one too many times for sex, or done anything that negatively affected a stranger, a date, a girlfriend, or a partner without knowing, weighs on my conscience. Maria was kind enough to listen, and offer me thoughtful words of insight, comfort, and truth. I'm sure I've made mistakes. But taking responsibility for them, owning them, and correcting my course is something I have been focusing and will continue to as I progress in life. 

Karen Jerzyk is a photographer whose trademark is photographing elaborate scenes in abandoned buildings. Her work is often wildly colorful and dynamic and creates a sense of surrealism and chaos with meticulous detail.  Karen kindly invited me to her studio where she was designing a set for her latest work. The place was full of antique pieces, dismembered mannequins, old paintings, and photography gear. We chatted about not fitting in, struggling to find artistic voice, favorite filmmakers, and her father's battle with cancer and its affect on her work. Oh yeah, and she answered Five Questions. Meet Karen.

Carl Shane is the frontman, primary songwriter, and guitarist for the Boston-based band Kal Marks who's new record, Universal Care, came out on February 23rd. Kal Marks has been called "the loudest band in Boston" by NPR and are on a nationwide tour as you read this. I caught two Kal Marks performances in the span of a couple of weeks and felt compelled to get Carl on Five Questions. He kindly obliged and we linked up at his apartment on a bitterly cold night in January. We talked about panic-attack-inducing anxiety, collaborative songwriting, regrets in the wake of lost love, being on tour with a drug addict, and how conversations with friends are so precious. And yup, he answered Five Questions. Meet Carl.

Terry Marshall is deeply involved in social justice. He is the founder and strategy architect at Intelligent Mischief, a creative action design lab using culture, narrative and design to hack social change. Terry also founded Streets is Watching and the Hip Hop Media Lab. He is an affiliate trainer and consultant for the Center for Story-based Strategy (CSS), a Beautiful Trouble trainer, co-founder of The BlackOut Collective and sits on the board for Center for Artistic Activism. He's also an extremely personable and warm-hearted person. After a few missed attempts at meeting up in New York, Terry and I finally linked up at a Ula Café in Jamaica Plain and chatted about getting lost in Cuba with no money and little Spanish, how he go involved in social justice work, fighting back against systematic racism, going to a Sunni Muslim school as a child, observing human behavior, his comic book geekness, and how boring death is. And he totally answered Five Questions. Meet Terry.

Kimbra is an award-winning, world-touring musician from New Zealand who's new record Primal Heart is out April 20. She's won a bunch of awards (Grammy, ARIA, APRA, New Zealand Music Awards, etc) and worked with well-known peers (Brian Wilson, Queens of the Stone Age, The Roots, Childish Gambino, Skrillex, Gotye, The Dillinger Escape Plan, among others). She's also a super kind, thoughtful, and amiable person, which, in my opinion, is the most important part of this whole paragraph. Kimbra and I hopped on the phone for our conversation and she invited me to photographer her at her tour kickoff at The Paradise Rock Club in Boston. We talked about moving around the world, anxieties around growing up in the limelight, finding a mantra, and how love is all around us. And yep, she answered Five Questions. Meet Kimbra.

Betsy Schneider is a photographer and filmmaker who explores and documents transformations of individuals and families over time and place. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is featured in collections at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, and the Museet for Fotokunst in Denmark. In her most recent work, she photographed and filmed thirteen-year-olds across North America on a Guggenheim Fellowship. This work entitled "To Be Thirteen" will be a major exhibition originating at the Phoenix Art Museum in May of 2018 and it will be accompanied by a book and a feature length film "Triskaidekaphobia". I met Betsy when she was a guest speaker in a photography course I took at MassArt taught by Rania Matar. I was immediately drawn to Betsy's openness and her ability to discuss the multiple layers of her approach to her work and ideas, and found her photography expressive, touching, and memorable. Betsy invited me to her home studio near Boston where we talked about parenting through divorce, the meditative state of driving cross-country, failure's impact on her approach to life, and what it means to age. And, yep, she answered Five Questions. Meet Betsy.

Jasha Klebe is a film and TV composer, former professional gymnast, and a childhood opera singer. Some of his highlights include The 84th Annual Academy Awards, Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom, Diana: In Her Own Words, and BBC's Planet Earth II which he co-composed with Jacob Shea, and has worked closely with one of my personal favorite composers of all time, Hans Zimmer. Jasha invited me to his home studio in West Hollywood and we chatted about collaboration, what it feels like to leave home with a mission, parallels between sport and art, how being in love with music makes him a little bit crazy, and the motivation of creation. He was also kind enough to give me a bottle of wine which was absolutely delectable. And of course I asked him Five Questions. Meet Jasha.

John Walsh is a storyteller, an illustrator, and a father. He was selected as one of ten Artists in Residence by the City of Boston for 2016/2017. In this program, artists are supported as agents of reflection, collaboration, and activism, whether through process-oriented practice, direct community engagement, and/or as leaders of system-wide change projects at Boston Centers for Youth and Family and other City agencies. I linked up with John at his place in Boston and we hit it off right away. John is the definition of the term "salt of the earth" as you'll hear in our conversation. We talked about telling stories of interest, the joy and change that comes with being a parent, the drive to continue pursuing art, and how failure and success show up in art and life. Oh, I almost forgot, he also answered Five Questions. Meet John.

Adam Wasserman is a Flywheel Sports Lead & Master Instructor in New York City. We first met wayyy back in the late-90s at the University of Rhode Island where we attended the theatre program together as acting majors. Many moons went by and both of us took very different paths in our lives before we linked up again. But after years of pursuing our dreams, moving around the country, following the never-ending pull to grow, and becoming very different men than when we met, Adam and I fell right back into line as friends.  Adam and his dog Bella were kind enough to let me crash at their place for a few days when I was wrapping up a course in New York. I was super fortunate when he agreed to be a guest. We chatted about panic attacks, taking responsibilities for our actions, adoption, knowing when to ask for help, and of course he answered Five Questions. Meet Adam.

"I was always a big worrier. My whole life I was always stressed about things. Stressed about going to the dentist and whatever doctor, always worrying about things. But [going into back surgery] was the first time in my life that I was completely fine. Because I knew it was going to help. And I was in so much pain, every day of my life. I was in so much pain. I would take naps all the time because it was just fatigue. It was hard to think. It was a lot. And when I woke up from surgery—obviously I was groggy and out of it and in pain—but I immediately felt better. I could breathe. I never realized that my breathing was impacted, but I woke up and I was like, 'Oh my god, I can breathe.'"

"I still have the journal that I had when I was fifteen. I wrote an entry that was basically, 'I want to die. I can’t imagine being in a wheelchair all my life.' I’m so glad I have that. And my handwriting was even horrible, chicken scratch, that’s how depressed I was. Seeing that is crazy. People have asked me if I can relate to that girl. There’s part of me that’s in there, but then there’s a side of me that sees it as just the circumstance. Even though those were valid feelings, I can see now how life plays out in the sense that there’s a core you that can go through anything and those circumstances will overflow. It’s just like water. You can be on top of the water, under the water, you can be feeling like you’re drowning. Then at the end of the day it’s still you there figuring out that this is a shit storm. Then, wait, there’s land. And you can see the water from a different perspective."