Month: March 2018

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Been a Vegan 5 Years as of Today, Still Haven’t Died from Lack of Protein, But Became 6 Pounds Overweight Instead.

Truly I am a walking contradiction. Why I am not withering away and gasping for my breath? How did I actually end up gaining weight and becoming 6 pounds overweight, as a vegan?

Yet it’s true, as of today, I’ve been a vegan for 5 years now. And as of a month ago, I am no longer overweight; thanks to my strict dedication to consuming less empty calories as well as less protein (like chia seeds and almonds), as a vegan.

I would say the main thing I’ve learned about living my life as a vegan for the 5 past years is that despite it clearing up my dyshidrotic eczema, constant sinusitis, and pet allergies, people remain unimpressed. When people hear that, they immediately react the same way every time:

“Oh, wow. I could never become a vegan.”

But that’s the thing. I’m a Libertarian. I don’t care if other people become vegans like I am. I don’t care what other people eat. In fact, I encourage other people to go out and eat the burgers I’m not eating to fill that void in the universe..

I’ll admit it would be nice getting some recognition for finding a personal, non-medical cure for dyshidrotic eczema, constant sinusitis, and pet allergies… but I recognize that all that really matters is I’ve helped myself; even if I can’t help others because they continue to believe they can’t get enough protein without consuming animal products.

It’s funny too that people also immediately assume it would be too difficult to switch over to the vegan diet. Yet again, I became overweight as a vegan. That’s proof that the market has been forced to cater to now 6% of the American population who is now vegan.

You want vegan ice cream? Vegan cake? Vegan burgers?

They’ve got it all!

And I ate it all. And had to make some changes in other to lose the weight I gained from eating it all.

So this is my life. Even if I wanted to return to eating animal products, my health issues would return.

I was destined to be a manly vegan. I am comfortable with my fate.

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I Guess We Need to Talk About the Fact I Shaved My Head, Right? 3 Reasons I Chose the Bald Look.

For nearly two years of my life, for continuity purposes, it was important that I maintained the same look as my doppelganger on the soup package, for my journey on The Lifetime Network’s This Time Next Year; which just aired last week. But now that the episode has aired, I was ready to move on; yet it’s impossible for a guy who is known for having hair to abruptly shave it all off with a zero guard and not be met with this response:

“Wait, what?! What did you do? You can still grow hair right? Why did you shave it all off?”

Therefore, I figured I owed it to the entire world to explain my specific reasons why I would choose the life of a bald man; for now, at least.

1) I was ready to experience a dynamic character transition, like Thor in the new Ragnarok movie.

I’ve never been the kind of guy who could keep the same hairstyle. Ever since college, I’ve had this habit of buzzing off my hair, then having it sort of short for a while, then shaggy for about 2 weeks, then my wife would make me get it cut… to which I would return to the buzzing it all off again.

So perhaps it’s understandable that psychologically, I have been more than ready for quite a while to return to my “bald by choice” status. After modeling my look after another person for nearly 2 years, I was ready to look like “myself” instead.

2) I wanted to prove to myself that having hair was not a confidence crutch.

A secret that many men keep, but most don’t admit, is that they fear, at any age, they will go bald; and therefore, will believe the misconception they are less valuable as men. This is so much of an epidemic, that in my most popular YouTube channel, I serve as a mentor in reminding younger men (who are showing signs of balding) that they are judged by society for other reasons (like being confident, being skilled, being helpful, etc.) but that hair is simply a distraction from their true identity.

I have preached that message so much that I felt it was important that I myself proved that my hair was not a source of my confidence. So I did. And I was right. I don’t need hair to be confident.

3) I knew it would be a smart move in making more revenue as a YouTuber.

My YouTube channel for this blog (Family Friendly Daddy Blog) did not get the newly required 1,000 subscribers before February 20th that it needed to continue to be monetized. Therefore, I needed a way to make up the money I’m losing now. So I figured I could make up the difference on other channel (Nick Shell), the one dedicated to mentoring younger, balding men.

Fortunately, my gamble paid off. My subscribership to that channel is now soaring, now that I’m bald by choice, which hopefully will lead to more revenue maid from that channel.

But really, my decision to shave off my hair was this simple: I wanted to. I felt like it.

So I did.

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What It Was Like Meeting My Doppelganger on “Dudes From Different Latitudes” of Lifetime’s “This Time Next Year”

I am completely satisfied and proud of the way my episode turned out. That was my 7 minutes of fame, and I’m grateful for every minute of it.

However, so much of the footage was cut. For example, the main thing you didn’t get to see was when I actually met my doppelganger Steve for the first time.

He and I were both driven separately to this Mexican café somewhere right outside of Hollywood. When we met, we immediately hugged, then my first words to him were, “Man, you’re a good looking guy!

Naturally, he instantly returned the same compliment.

We exchanged gifts soon after: I brought him a Nashville t-shirt and he brought me a Canadian t-shirt; as he lives north of Seattle, in Canada.

Then with Steve’s phone, we took some selfies, including one of us making the “Campbell’s Soup” face.

Steve and I were able to spend the whole day together from that point forward, including just waiting around the dressing room, as other guests on the show would stop by and ask us, “What was your guys’ goal?”

Our simple and strange response: “To find each other.”

To which they would ask, “Oh, you two are brothers?”

Then another simple and strange response from us: “No, he was on a package of soup.”

I liked Steve so much that it really is a shame he and I truly are “dudes from different latitudes.” I am convinced he would be a friend I would hang out with a lot.

And this is funny too: In the weeks leading up to the show airing, he was “liking” my Facebook posts about the show, though no one realized who he was at that point.

One of the famous questions people have asked me about him was whether I thought we actually looked alike.

He says I look more like his brother than his own brother looks like him. Meanwhile, I say that I look more like his picture on the package of soup than he does.

For what it’s worth, one of my cousins took a picture of Steve on the TV screen when the show aired and posted to Facebook. Turns out, Facebook’s facial recognition software immediately detected that Steve was me.

So apparently, we can at least fool a computer.

I thought it was cool how on the first part of my segment, I told Cat Deeley, “He may even be 6′ 3”.

My prophecy came true: Steve is 6 foot 3 inches tall, in noticeable contrast to me being 5 foot 9, as we walked through those This Time Next Year doors on stage.

Steve really is an awesome guy. I told him if he’s ever in Nashville, he’s got a place to stay. To which he immediately made the same offer if I’m ever in British Columbia.

All because of a package of soup.

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How My Song “Dudes From Different Latitudes” Surprisingly Ended Up Being on Lifetime’s “This Time Next Year” (Lyrics Included)

Even though I was just one of 6 guests featured on the Episode 6 of “This Lifetime Next Year”, the episode was actually named after the song I wrote for my 7 minute segment of the show. Here’s what’s interesting though: That song was more of an accident, an afterthought, and a shot-in-the-dark attempt to introduce the world to my jingle-writing abilities.

Since I found my doppelganger earlier on in the year, yet I was still expected to keep submitting weekly video diary entries for my journey, I decided to have a little fun. I figured, “Hey, if I’m going to be on national TV, then I might as well make everyone aware I have a special talent of writing theme songs and jingles. This is my big chance…”

So I wrote a theme song for my portion of the episode and submitted it to my producer that week.

Then about a week of wondering if anyone had even seen it, the producer was asked me to bring my guitar to perform the song on stage in front of the audience, for the final recording of the episode.

For the next couple of months, I practiced that song until it became muscle memory. It was important to me that I sang perfectly on key, on rhythm, and didn’t need a 2nd take when it was recorded for the show.

Fortunately, my obsessive practice paid off and I was very pleased with the performance.

And here’s what’s funny to me about all this:

The whole episode was about me meeting my doppelganger, yet the majority of the feedback and the hype I’ve been receiving online from people who have seen my episode has been more about the song that I wrote and performed about actually meeting my doppelganger.

And apparently, the producer of the show recognized that the song was important, because not only was the episode named after the song, but the thumbnail they chose to promote the episode on their website is of me playing the song.

I am happy that the world now knows about talent for writing theme songs. This is not my first go at this.

Back a few years ago, I wrote and performed the theme songs for both of my children’s series on YouTube:

Jack-Man

Uncle Nick’s Enchanted Forest 

My inspiration for the title of the song, by the way, was Jimmy Buffett’s 1977 song, “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes”. Because after all, British Columbia in Canada is undeniably a different latitude than Tennessee.

So yes, the song was the result of me deciding to make things a little extra exciting for my 7 minutes of fame. It was a plan that came together and turned out even better than I had hoped.

I guess “Dudes From Different Latitudes” became an unexpected hit!

Here are the lyrics:

Perfect strangers, doppelgangers, it was just their fate

A soup package, a text message, a Facebook friend request

Dudes from different latitudes, Canada and America

Same face from another place, identical twins but they’re no kin

Dudes from different latitudes

 

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What It Was Like Meeting Cat Deeley, Both Times, on The Lifetime Network’s “This Time Next Year”

Other than the lead singer of the country group Alabama, Randy Owen, whose son Heath is my age, I had never actually met anyone famous before. (I grew up in Fort Payne, Alabama; the same hometown as the group, during the 1980s and 1990s, which was the prime time of their success).

Honestly, I’ve never been the kind of person who has been too caught up in meeting celebrities. Since 2005, I’ve lived in the Nashville area, where you assume that everyday you’re unknowingly standing in the same room as some successful musician or songwriter.

But the way I’ve always perceived it, I felt it would be dehumanizing to reduce a celebrity to approaching them in an attempt to get their autograph, or these days, a selfie.

That’s why back on Valentine’s Day 2010, when I just happened to be in the Cool Springs Whole Foods getting flowers for my wife, and Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman where there having lunch, I did my best to pretend I didn’t see them.

Granted, I immediately texted my wife a picture from far across the store where Keith and Nicole hopefully didn’t catch me, but still… I had no interest in going up to them and making a fool of myself and saying, “Uh, hey, uh, Keith, man… I love your songs, man… that one where you talk about driving a car… and Nicole, you were my favorite part about the Val Kilmer Batman movie…”

But now, I have officially met a world-famous celebrity. And let me secret the record straight: She is the real deal.

I’m referring to Cat Deeley, the host of So You Think You Can Dance, and now also, This Time Next Year; the show where I made my TV debut this week.

In case you’ve seen my episode, “Dudes From Different Latitudes”, you know that I met Cat Deeley twice; with a year in between.

She truly is an exceptional human being. I can see why she was chosen as the host for this show; serving both as a sympathetic cheerleader and a bright narrator.

Granted, I was the token comic relief for my episode, as the other 5 guests on my episode had deep, heart-felt stories. So when it came time to meet me on the show, she had to shift her role to reflect the quirkiness of my personality and the novelty of my year-long goal.

I have to say, I wasn’t nervous at all. But had I been, she would have put my nerves at ease. That’s one of her many talents.

When we shot the first part of the episode out in some nameless, mysterious studio in Hollywood in November 2016, the director had Cat and I redo the end of the scene.

That’s because right before I stood up to go walk out that magical door for my year-long journey, she hugged me in support of my goal.

But the moment after I walked through the overly illuminated door, I was greeted by the producer, who explained with a smile, “You did great! But I’m being told we have to reshoot that last part. Cat hugged you. She’s not supposed to hug anyone on the show.”

So we redid that part, and this time, she remembered not to hug me. But right before they pressed record, during those couple of seconds where no one could hear what she was saying but me, she told me, “You’re freakin’ awesome.”

I share that story because it illustrates how warm and encouraging her personality is. I also sensed that was her way of saying, “I could use a laugh right about now,” in the midst of all the serious stories she had been hearing that day.

If so, I’m glad I could brighten her day, as she surely brightened everyone else’s.

Even if it’s a long shot, I hope she’s reading this now. I want her to know what an amazing job she’s done as a host on This Time Next Year.

And that’s the case with all the other people who were featured on the show with me. We all spent a lot of time together and got to learn each other’s stories. This was a common theme in every conversation:

“Wasn’t Cat just great? She has such a way of making a person feel comfortable and natural.”

So yes, that’s what we were all saying about her. And that’s what I’m saying about Cat Deeley again today.

Honestly, it would be my dream to co-host with her someday.

If nothing else, I can now officially say I have met a famous person. Plus, she handed me my guitar.

Yes, a famous person, who is really really cool, touched the same guitar I played the song “Dudes From Different Latitudes” on.

I think I’ll be bragging about that for a while.