More Than Words: Jason Heffler on Stuttering and Self-Expression

speaker-0: Did you? ⁓ Yeah. We are not it's called the Tragedy Academy for a reason. So ⁓ welcome to the Tragedy Academy, a show created to bridge societal divides in a judgment-free zone using candor and humor. My name is Jay. We are here today with Jason Heffler, author of Tongue Tide, children's book, helping kids overcome the shame and fear around speech challenges. Formerly bullied for his own stutter, Jason writes from lived experience to uplift others. Managing editor at EDM dot com by day, author, storyteller, and advocate by night. How's it going, Jason?

speaker-1: Good man. Thank you for having me and for that very kind kind ⁓ introduction. I appreciate it.

speaker-0: Well, it's well deserved. I mean, I don't think that we compliment each other enough on the ⁓ accolades or give each other accolades for the things that we accomplish in life, you know, of all levels and all kinds. So welcome to the show. Thank you for ⁓ for reaching out. You have such a great platform that you're ⁓ pushing here. ⁓ and I want to ⁓ give you a chance to discuss it. So why don't you tell everybody who you are, where you're from, and kind of go from there.

speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ so my name's Jason Heffler. ⁓ I'm originally from Philadelphia. I so yeah, I I wrote this book because I grew up with w w w with a stutter. You know, you can hear it. ⁓ I got bullied a lot. It was pretty, you know, kids are vicious. ⁓ Yeah. So I never really had a ⁓ a resource, ⁓ you know, books, podcasts.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: didn't exist then. So ⁓ I I, you know, the the older I got, ⁓ I'd always wanted to come up with something. so I wrote this book. It's a hard cover, kids can hold it. ⁓ it's for I would say f ⁓ three to nine-ish. ⁓ and it teaches kids that, you know, w with a speech impediment, they can still live a very happy and fulfilled. Filling life with a stutter or a praxy of speech or any other pediment.

speaker-0: A beautiful reason to bring this forward and a great platform. ⁓ I would like to so I like to understand how things come about and ⁓ what we do to navigate those different hurdles, those trials, those tribulations. ⁓ I was a bullied kid, not for the same thing, but I do understand what it is to question your own identity within yourself and not understand why you don't fit in with others.

speaker-1: Thank you.

speaker-0: Right. And and that's a very hard thing to grasp as a child because we're trying to become collectively accepted. We're trying to find our tribe. We're trying to find the people that love us, people that we can be ourselves around. And I can only imagine if you have a stutter, that you're gonna find ways to change how you act, how you interact with people, the way that you choose certain words that probably are easier to navigate, which probably won't be the ones that Actually describe things the way you want them to, but you've been left to a lesser degree word to not be able to identify what you're trying to convey. So, my question to you is: as a child coming up through that and trying to form your identity, we're large language models, just like AI, right? We're layering words and words and sentences, and we're putting weight on them and emotions and things like that. What is it like when you have a stutter and you are trying to layer your own words? Create who you are or become who you are.

speaker-1: Is a great question. Thank you, dude. ⁓ it is very difficult. basically, the best way I I explain it is that's like a d dam that's in your throat. When words try to come up, they just get stuck. some vowels or syllables are just easier. There's no, you know, rhyme or reason. ⁓ so you find yourself trying to wriggle through sentences and fit those those words in. And you know, it it makes it it makes conversations very awkward. because you still even though you're saying v vowels and syllables that you think you're not stuttering on, you probably are. ⁓ so it you know not only are you thinking in your head about what like what you're s saying. ⁓ but you you can't pr exactly like process and it just everything is just basically time f freezes and you just you can only hope that you have this golden th thread of ⁓ you know continuity.

speaker-0: So that golden thread, ⁓ I like that you said that because I feel that there's some weight to that, right? And that golden thread to me is a spiral of consciousness and being able to speak clearly, right? We're given rare opportunities in life that when we do speak, we don't even know where it's coming from. We're just saying the words, they're coming out of our mouth and we're hitting the mark and we're not thinking about what's coming next, right? I can only imagine that maybe just a little bit. That over time a stutter could start to be impacted by the judgment that you have for yourself and the words that you're trying to put out. You put you'll be inhibited in your ability to express yourself for the simple fact that you don't want to be judged by others.

speaker-1: Yes. Judgment, I would say is sorry if I interrupted you there, but No, please. Judgment just any any it and even if you have an like an empathetic person that you're speaking with, the fear of judgment just overcomes you. I mean it it it it really paralyzes you and then it makes your speech worse.

speaker-0: And dude. So the you you could probably attest to the fact that anytime you're put in a position, say like today, where you're public speaking, right? And you're sitting here and you're conveying what is very important to you, you're probably coming up to it and there's going to be a lot of apprehension, right? But what I would say is that in these situations, and I'm only pointing this out because I know that there are kids, there are adults, there are people that have the same impediment, you know, with their speech. And they're wondering, you know, how did this guy get up and sit in the chair? Well, I would contend after looking through your background and reading through, you know, your articles and the way that you approach life, because your articles are always of substance. They're always about authenticity, art, creators, and being yourself. Maybe you can speak to this, but in my mind, I think that you come out better like you are today, probably have harder times in other situations, but because you're being yourself, the moment you start discussing what you love, right? The moment that you know you're on your level with your ease, with your topic where you love, it probably starts coming out a hell of a lot clearer than.

speaker-1: I would agree with that. Yeah. I mean it's it's it's also a l like it's a it's a level of comfortability, right? If you're comfortable sp speaking about a topic, the words can sometimes flow a little better. ⁓ and that and that confidence can can come out.

speaker-0: So I say that because I do have a certain amount of vocabulary recall issues that have come over the years from a head injury. So what happens is, yeah. So what happens is ⁓ I got hit in the head with a marking team when I was in the army. Somebody dropped something on me. So and it showed up later. Yeah. 75 pound fully automatic grenade launcher that threw the turret of R.

speaker-1: ⁓ So nonchalantly you just left that out. ⁓ I just I that's amazing though.

speaker-0: What about me? Right. Well, and and that that's that's something that weaves through your life that you don't realize exists, but starts to rear its head at different times and manifest in different areas. And one of the things is verbal recall. And I'm like, fuck, this is my bread and butter. Right. So what I did going into this, the further that I got down the road, I mean, I'm I read and I like to utilize languages because I believe life lives in metaphors. It's what you plant between two spaces that help people understand, right? And I kind of say that because for people with a stutter, if you are stuck in a situation where you had to use a lesser impactful word for whatever reason because it was easier or whatnot, throw out a metaphor. Put something in between the two that tells people what it is you're trying to explain that doesn't require the word. I have to do it a lot. Yeah. Right. Because I'll reach into my bag and my bag that's usually full of words will sometimes not have similar words. Right. So then I'll grab and I'll say, you know what? If you look at this and this, you'll see why this exists. Right. So I kind of understand what it can be like when you get into that vocabulary area. I find myself using people like Jay, you're so well read. You have such a great vocabulary. Like I used abhorrent today. I was like, I used abhorrent because it was the only word I could think of at the time because the other ones were in the toilet. Like I didn't have a choice. It was like that was the one there that was left with somewhat of the meaning.

speaker-1: Yeah. I so that's true. you know, I do I do find myself kind of juggling wars in real time to think about which w one to say, but eventually, and like I learned this through trial and error, you know, a lot of public speaking embarrassments. I'll get into that as well. But eventually I learned that just acknowledging it off the bat is is the move. If you acknowledge it, you know, if you just embrace it like right off the top, let's say you're speaking with like a ⁓ like a job interview and you say something like, I just want to let you know I have a stutter, it has affected me my whole life, but it in no way affects the way I communicate. you know, I'm I'm a normal guy. If you just say that like right off the bat, I found that people's actually empathize and they say, you know, I respect that. and it actually they think it makes you a stronger person and a and a more honest person. So

speaker-0: I love that you do that.

speaker-1: And it yeah, it's not just with stutters, it's with anything, any disrespect ability. You know, if if you have any confidence issues, you can just say it out we're right. Because I think in twenty twenty five, there's a you know, there's more of a chance for for empathy than there was maybe ten years ago.

speaker-0: I think that we were taught to hide things so much we forgot that other people do have empathy. Don't take away another human's chance to be caring just on the assumption that they won't. Because I personally am insulted.

speaker-1: ⁓ yeah.

speaker-0: When someone doesn't give me a chance to exercise that level of care or love for my fellow man. If you assume that I'm gonna judge you for your stutter rather than just pointing it out, then I'm gonna feel bad. You know, I'm going to not want to be in that situation, right? So level set. Level set, levels that I do it too. I say things all the time. You prepare people for coming onto a show over and over. Eventually you start to see the different personalities that show up to the gate that need a certain type of understanding. And you have them tell you going in what do you like? What do you not want to discuss? You know, and I find that if you try to understand your audience, right, and you give them the opportunity to set the tone for a conversation, then everybody gets to enjoy it. It becomes Something that is non-existent, right? Upset with somebody with an accent, right? What the f is the difference? There's no difference. The words

speaker-1: Yep. There's no fucking difference. He's it's just the way the words come out. So

speaker-0: At syllables because that's the issue I'm saying, right? It's not anything else. So to me, I try to simplify things like that. And I'm not simplifying your condition in any way, shape, or form, or your, you know, your view on life and what you've had to go through. At the same time, I like to point out to people that, like, what the fuck are you upset with, or why do you even have some kind of hang up and how you're dealing with someone? Because they have a stutter. Like just Sit there and listen because there's some real profundity in those words if you shut the F up, right? People listening skills.

speaker-1: Yeah. It also teaches Exactly. And but so kids don't they haven't gotten those listening skills yet. So it's you know, it comes with adulthood. ⁓ and I tell kids all the time, you know, it it gets easier because of that. but the book is trying to kind of bridge that gap.

speaker-0: So let's talk about the book. What ⁓ what is the book about? Actually, you know what? When we get back, we get back from our break, we'll talk about the book.

speaker-1: Sure. Yeah. Yeah,

speaker-0: Here with Jason Heffler, tongue tied. He's turning speech hurdles into superpowers and we're gonna talk about this book that you just put together for children ⁓ based on your own experiences. Tell us what you got, Jason.

speaker-1: Yeah, so the book is called Tongue Tied. ⁓ it follows a chameleon named Cadence. ⁓ so she's a shy chameleon and she actually she has a speech impediment and she stumbles over her tongue. ⁓ and she's embarrassed, so she camouflages into the f forest because she's afraid she's not gonna fit in with the other animals. and without Giving too much away, she she meets, you know, these these whimsical characters in in the forest that teach her that, you know, you can live a fulfilling and amazing life with a speech impediment.

speaker-0: A beautiful metaphor for how people can try to absorb themselves into the wings without being seen in order to just thrive through life when they're never given a chance to be their full authentic self. It makes me sad inside to think of all those candles under glass, right? You are somebody that embraces art more than anything. And to see all of those people with that glass keeping their flame at such a small level. When all they have to do is hit it with a hammer. There's no reason that they can't be themselves at any given point. It's a self-limitation through judgment of other eyes or judgments that you think other people have. Isn't that fucked up? Right. We we reverse judge ourselves through other eyes and think that we're intelligent creatures. No, that's called mental illness.

speaker-1: Yep. It's like this weird osmosis effect. It doesn't exist but it just manifests in in in your head that everyone's judging you.

speaker-0: So Jason, in this book you said that the chameleon was camouflaging himself. What does that look like in your life going through childhood trying to camouflage yourself to not be seen?

speaker-1: Yeah, it was tough. I'll say this. Luckily I had an amazing s support system. My family was incredible. Parents supported me through everything. I had an older brother who would protect me. I mean, he he kicked a c couple bullies' asses for me. ⁓ and then I I had a twin sister who was catty and who would like

speaker-0: Fight everybody. I got it. I

speaker-1: lash out at at anyone who bullied me. So I had to yes, thank God. ⁓ but it was still very tough. ⁓ public speaking, impossible. In terms of camouflaging, there were times, most times actually, where I would go up after class to my teacher and say, Hey, I have this. I really can't do this project or speech. I don't know what's gonna happen. And the teacher would make concessions and I would get out of it in that moment I I would be very happy. But then there was also like a lingering sense of embarrassment because it's like, why can't I just go up in fr in front of a class and speak? so that like that sort of situation ended up trickling in into my everyday life where where I would, you know, if I if I wanted to make friends or if I saw a group of kids who were playing hockey baseball Like if I could feel that I was having a bad speech day, I would just not even bother with them.

speaker-0: Bro, that's extremely relatable. ⁓ the thing that I was bullied for as a kid was gynecomastia. Right. What that's that's a ⁓ it's it's like breast tissue on a boy during puberty and I was in a hillbilly town. ⁓ that bullied me as trans where I wasn't any anything even close to it, but they hillbilly threw shit at me. And I would hide under different kinds of clothes. I would wear different types of shirts. I would stand different ways. I would go to different areas where people wouldn't be around so that they wouldn't have the ability to comment. Right. Put yourself in, and that's why I said that camouflage thing is real. Like you just want to be the dude next to you. Like I'm not asking to be in charge. I'm not asking to be on a stage, but I'm just asking to be in this group.

speaker-1: So you just

speaker-0: And accepted nothing more, nothing less. And when you get in that position, it's a very special friend that comes into your life if you're lucky that will accept you, that will allow you to be yourself and will actually tell other people, you don't even know this dude. One of the funniest guys around, great artist. Have you seen him as a DJ? This guy's fucking amazing, right? The best stutter he's got is on fucking wax, right? That's what you want to fucking tell people.

speaker-1: I gotta use that. Holy shit, that is genius. Did you just was that just top of your head? Wow. Right? Yeah. I mean, well said, man. Yes. Yeah, I mean you just you just wanna it's a tale as all of time. You just wanna fit in and there's nothing it's just a normal thing that kids don't understand. And some self hatred, it just

speaker-0: It's fucking poetic. It's off the dome. Hatred's pretty hard.

speaker-1: It gets worse. It it it metastasizes the more of s situations you find yourself in, like the one you just explained.

speaker-0: Mm-hmm. And you're not growing anything worth a damn in that garden because it's just full of trash, self-hatred, everything possible. It's not being fertilized with a single bit of love, a single bit of care, a single bit of self-love, right? Which is all what's really important. Right. In the end of the day, if you have a stutter or you fucking have Tourette's or you got a lazy eye, I don't give a fuck what it is, right? The end of the day, it's How much you love yourself. Yes. If you love yourself unconditionally, two things happen. One, you're happy. Two, the people that you want in your life will come around you. Nobody wants to be with someone that thinks they're unlovable, right? You're not selling the product well. If you're like, yo, I hate myself, but you want to be friends? Right? No, you're not fucking making yourself lovable. You're not proving it in any way, shape, or form. And people go for that. They know what's inauthentic ⁓ what's inauthentic. So there you go.

speaker-1: I couldn't agree more. And I actually I have a story that you'll probably love based off of that. So in college, still no self-love, no self-exceptance. I had a big presentation in front of an auditorium, like one of those big cash ones with like hundreds of six students. Yeah, horrible. So I had a girlfriend at the time, And so I I did the I did this presentation. I stuttered my way through the entire thing. I'm talking like my for name. Like the J on my name, like right from the bat. And then I could hear giggles in the background. They were echoing. It was very like v the visceral. So I came home afterward, dejected, like legit. It was bad. And at the time I had just started DJing and making music. ⁓ and my girlfriend at the time was there in my dorm room and I said, I'm gonna quit. I'm gonna quit it all. I'm done with music. This, I'm done with like school. It was I was just down i in the dumps, ready to just quit everything. And she she looks at me and shh, he goes, I don't date quitters. And like it's an ultimatum. And I I I I I knew I loved her at the time. I hadn't told her yet. So I was like, well shit, like, all right, I gotta keep going. and yeah, and then after that my d d DJing career like kind of took off and she's my w and I ⁓ I married her. She's now my my wife. Yeah.

speaker-0: That's an ultimatum. Of course you did.

speaker-1: So like people like that, you just you need them in your lives. And I think I don't know what drew her to me in the first place, but I have to think it was some kind of ⁓ you know, personality trait that comes with with with my speech and myself. Yeah.

speaker-0: Yourself. It was probably passion for what you loved. She told you straight up, she knew you loved music. Music is probably the first place you felt yourself because I love music for that reason. Right. I didn't start doing anything with audio until my 40s, right? Nice. So, and that's the first time it don't give you a saxophone when you grow up with fucking no refrigerator and no front door, right? You don't know what music is, except for what you hear on like regular radio. And I knew I loved music. I always had a love affair with it. Sang in church for a little while, you know. But you find out later when you get the chance to finally make the art. I believe that art comes to you at the nexus of some growth potential, right? When you look inside yourself, you find that spot. And that's when I believe it's what you can't, it's it's no junk, no soul. Right? If you don't have a history, you're, you know, a boy band. No offense, boy, boy bands. You guys got tortured enough. But you don't have the art without the pain, without the growth, whatever it is. And you could be five years old, but you need at least one of those experiences to create whatever it is that you're putting out there. And if it's not yours to create, we all know it's not. It does. It might even sound great.

speaker-1: Yeah, It really does. Yeah. It no matter if it's music or writing or physical art, like anything, you and it also when you're actually creating it, ⁓ you know, these certain pieces of art they could take years even. And every session that you dive into to make that product, you have to shrink like a l little bit of that hardship has to trickle out in in in each one. And it it will show in in the final.

speaker-0: Absolutely does. I feel like music outside of vocals, right? You can hear tears inside of instruments. You can hear tears inside of EDM music. You can hear tears in anything. Laughter, hope, dreams. It's such a beautiful tapestry of ways to touch someone because you can go to war with a bass, right? Right. Or you could bring out some chimes and sit there and just brush them lightly, and you feel like you're in heaven. Right? You you have these associations. They're all right there. And I know for me that it was something I absolutely loved as soon as I found my flow. Once it became mine. And I'm curious when we get back, I would love for you to explain what it was like as a young man with a stutter. And going through everything you had, what did you find the first time you stood in front of those turntables and had the opportunity to start working with music? All right. Let's talk about that when we get back. This is gonna be great. I'm excited. I w I've been waiting to hear this. All right. So Jason, we're here. We're back. Why don't you tell us what it's like? You step up in front of the turntables. Were you in a diaper or were you like, you know, 16? I see these TikToks now where kids like.

speaker-1: So so I could have used a diaper with how drunk I got back in the day, but no normal diaper.

speaker-0: You can't leave either. It's not like you can put it on like repeat for a little while. Well, I mean later in the night you probably could.

speaker-1: ⁓ yeah, so I was I started DJing when I was ⁓ 19. I didn't even know at the time EDM or I I didn't know who Calvin Harris was, like I didn't know who any of the big artists was. My friends dragged me to Ultra in Miami, which is like the one of the biggest. Yep. ⁓ and it was one of those things where I walked in and I was like, ⁓ like it just immediately Just you just knew. I just I j I I knew in instantly. Yeah. So I came back to college after I bought my first like little tiny crappy mixers. and I could instantly tell this was it. ⁓ it this was my medium. And then in terms of you know speaking to me, it didn't happen until my first real major gig. I met like I did smaller clubs and stuff like that, but I I ultimately grew into spinning for this ⁓ it was for 10,000 people. It was for this life and color with this. It was crazy. Those shows that they used to like blast paint into the crowds, they got huge. So I opened for Steve Aoki. Wow. And I got up there and I like just I got into it and The first drop hit and the crowd's reaction was nuts. And that's when I was like, whoa, this is like I stepped into a new version of myself. And I even hopped on the mic, the stutter dissipated. I wasn't even stuttering at all. And I really stepped into like a new persona. It was awesome.

speaker-0: I feel like you went back that you found the original persona that was supposed to be out there the whole time. Gave yourself permission in that moment to be Jason, to stand there in all your glory, to watch people jumping up and down in a wave, to get up on the mic and know that they're vibing to your shit. That is fucking awesome. Never, ever, ever forget that as long as you live.

speaker-1: Yeah, exactly.

speaker-0: Right. That's that's an epiphany. That's a moment that not many people recognize. And you explain that very well. To be aware enough to have that moment with yourself within that moment is priceless. A lot of people don't have the mindfulness to make that connection. Right. ⁓ I would probably say that there is I I I I don't even think I'm guessing or assuming or anything like that that there is a crucial and critical amount of mindfulness in the mind of a person with a stutter for the simple fact that they're evaluating their speech at any given moment. You're aware of everything going on everywhere with anybody, aren't you?

speaker-1: ⁓ yeah. I mean it's heightened like crazy. Like people don't realize that every time stutterers open their mouths, it's like you know that ⁓ that gif or gif of Zach Gallif Anakis with it with like the algebra webs. It's like that every time we open our mouth and like navigating it is really hard.

speaker-0: It makes diamonds is what I see. Right? Pressure creates diamonds. If given the opportunity like yourself to be someone that has to go through a struggle for whatever reason, to find that opportunity to get out and scream their name in front of everyone is something that is, it's gotta be what the word I'm looking for here. It's just such a release, cathartic, something, you know, where it's just. Son of a bitch, all this time, this is what it was supposed to be. Right. And I love that for you. And I want that for so many others. And I can see that you didn't reach back or out to people your age. Right. Not that you're not communicating with us or your peers or other people about what it is that your, you know, your book is about or your message is about, but you reached your hand all the way back to Jason the Chuck. If so, Jason, the child, this is the tools you need in your toolbox in order to come out of this feeling whole. Yes. And I love that you're giving those to those children. You're giving them the tools that they don't have yet. And oftentimes the parents wouldn't have a effing clue if they didn't go through it as well. So you're giving them tools to pass on to them because I mean, you only get a lens by experiencing it.

speaker-1: Definitely well said. And the I and the book is also for parents. I mean it teaches I mean, yes, there's you know whimsical characters and it's for kids visually, but the messaging can apply to both. ⁓ I've heard from a lot

speaker-0: Physical shit, you're not my friend.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: If you're too old for whimsical, then you're just Yeah, you're Ben Stein and Ferris Bueller. Like

speaker-1: I don't like that yeah. Exactly. Yeah. You you you you gotta have a sense of wonder, even as an ad adult. but yeah, I I've I've heard from parents and doctors. Parents basically ⁓ they've learned to n to to not focus on what their kids on how their kids are speaking, but what they're actually s saying. That makes sense. A celebrating the small w wins of like maybe they stuttered, but at least they said what they had to s say.

speaker-0: Isn't that the only part that's important?

speaker-1: It should be, but it's it's d it's apparently it's not. I mean, but like I said before, k kids just don't understand that it's you know, it's the speaking is a means to an end. And if if that means is jumbled, they're gonna get mid pun of.

speaker-0: To be in mental handcuffs trying to have a conversation has gotta be paralyzing. To know that you have more to say than anybody could comprehend, but you're limited to a small book of words that are able to be articulated for whatever reason is something that I could only imagine. Do you find that music is the place that you can put the words that are not in? The stuttering dictionary.

speaker-1: I do. Yeah. I mean lyrically. Yeah. It's it's the d definitely I would say the best medium because you know, we we can't use our our words are not always or stutterers. Their words are not always viable. So writing them in lyrics and actualizing them in a song is You know, it's it's a therapeutic thing.

speaker-0: He brought up ⁓ that I'm glad you said that, writing it down because ⁓ I was I was at the gym earlier and I was talking to my ⁓ my trainer and was like, you know, we were talking about stuttering, right? Because I was gonna be coming in ⁓ and interviewing you and I was like, you know, where is the line? Right? Cause you explained it earlier. Yeah, I you I caught on it. You said it's here in the throat, right? Or you you had pointed here and said that that's where it was stopping at. And I I started to wonder, does that equate to the same thing? in writing or reading or things like that. Do you find ⁓ is there a is there a crossover in there or is it just something that doesn't exist? Like it's it that's just for a speech scenario.

speaker-1: It d differs with every stutterer, but with me, when I'm actually reading, there are times where I block. I can't yeah, I can't quite explain it. I'm not a neurologist or s scient ⁓ scientist, so I No. I was about to say Scientologist, I call myself.

speaker-0: Scientologists. Please please don't have us killed.

speaker-1: I know. But yeah, I I sometimes when I re when I read it's like I I I gotta stop and start over. ⁓ I'm sure there's some kind of neurological explanation there, but I'm not quite sure.

speaker-0: So I would think, and I'm jumping ahead of myself because I wanted to go one more segment before I talk to you about this, because you're a tech guy. You like, you know, where we're going in the world, but you like to anchor that in authenticity in the arts and things like that. I'm gonna take an early break that can kiss my rump, right? ⁓ when we get back, I wanna talk about large language models, AI, art, and music.

speaker-1: Okay.

speaker-0: All right, we're back. It's so late. I I we sit here during this break, right? Because you don't do the ad during the actual show. So it's funny when you're just it's like this awkward moment, right? For the producer to be able to find the spot. That's it. ⁓ but before we before we went to break, we were gonna talk about we're here with Jason Heffler. He's the ⁓ author of Tongue Tied. It's a children's book about stuttering and how to help children get through and navigate what it is to have that speech impediment.

speaker-1: Ha ha.

speaker-0: And we were on the subject of vocabulary, words, the brain. And I I always circle back to this where since I've been working with AI, I've started to see more and more that we're not much different as a large language model, right? We're comprised of layers of words that are in thoughts, in speech, in writing. in music that we define ourselves as. And when we're limited as to what we can utilize, my question is, does that become a limited application of how you speak to yourself internally?

speaker-1: don't think so. No. Beautiful. Yeah, the way I speak to myself internally, you know, it may not always translate to what I say externally. But ⁓ yeah, I I I I'm a confident guy. and my stutter doesn't really it doesn't

speaker-0: Cutter might as well be a necktie, dude.

speaker-1: What was that? Exactly. ⁓

speaker-0: Might as well be a necktie. What you're wearing or is you.

speaker-1: Exactly. I mean I I and let me say this, like it it it took a long time to build that confidence. Years and years and years. ⁓ when I was a kid, my internal, you know, vernacular was sad. I it was I ⁓ stuff constantly.

speaker-0: Where I'm going with right. And when we develop as children and even adults, we're writing our story live time. We're layering words internally in stacks that describe who we are, where we are, what we believe, how we feel. And they have so much power. Those old sayings of, you know, sticks and stones may break my bones and words may never help or hurt me, bullshit. Because guess what? Words layer on top of other words and they become repeated. The more you hear criticism from the outside, it becomes your inner voice, right? And if you continually layer or speak to yourself in horrible ways when nobody's looking, right? That internal voice that just constantly beats yourself down. Right. You run into a situation where you're not allowing yourself to be your full self. You're not loving yourself for your true potential. Right. And what you could be. I think that AI has the opportunity to help us with this. And I say that because of.

speaker-1: Yes.

speaker-0: The recursive nature with which you utilize a large language model allows for a connection like no other if you pay attention to it. It is you speaking to you clearer and clearer about more clarity, things that you need to know. And if you're doing it with intention, it could probably help in this scenario, right? Curve those internal thought processes.

speaker-1: Yes. Wielding AI with the right intention can help anyone in any vocation. ⁓ the problem with a stutterer is that is the translation. y you know, because we we can't ⁓ quite articulate ⁓ what we want to say, we're constantly we're we're we're aching to connect. deeper with with with other people. And no you know, no amount of AI can help you buttress your own your own natural language, if that makes sense.

speaker-0: I I agree. However, I've started to see some of the advancements in voice work for with artificial intelligence. And I'm only saying this because it's just something that you you you kind of brought up there where I have seen now that the most of the artificial intelligence voices that you hear are they lack soul. They're monotone, or they don't have intonation. They don't have anything. But they're only as good as what you put into them.

speaker-1: Prompt engineering is massive. Not even

speaker-0: Something in LP, straight up natural language processing, speak to it like you speak to your friends. The layers are all the same. Right. And it's going to adapt and it's going to start emulating and working with you back and forth and back and forth. I I absolutely absolutely love it. And I think it is about intention. Obviously, there's a people that are always going to misuse things, you know. But at its core, there's a huge piece of this. We've just brought up the large language piece, how you can utilize it to help yourself with mental health, right? Mental health to me is closely tied to the arts. Our constant inhibitions and expression of our creativity is killing us as a species. We are artists. We are born artists. It's just a matter of what your authentic piece of art is. Right. So AI is now standing next to music. And it's going, okay, I want to play the game too. People are bringing it, people are using it, they're trying to put things together. And you've written about this and you've studied it quite a bit. And I'm curious, what are your thoughts on how AI is now involved in music and what it Could be or should be, if we can say.

speaker-1: Yeah, r so r at this juncture, it's nefarious. ⁓ it's being used for all the wr wrong purposes, mainly just straight up song creation w with prompts. companies like Suno are completely bastardizing the art of music creation. ⁓ but there's The flip side, the positive side, is that a lot of producers are using AI to improve their their you know, their more granular w w work flows. I'm

speaker-0: You only have so much time to get into the the very minutia sound. Yes. Right? And to have that tutor on your back to say, yo, get in here and you can work this out and you're gonna change this sound? Fuck yeah. Who does it what do you

speaker-1: Exactly. If you c if you want to y use AI to improve your own ability to sound design and do arranging and all that, that's amazing. But when you're using AI, yeah, it's a pa paintbrush, exactly. Like when you're using AI to just create a whole song that's by the way, training itself on copyrighted material, that's not Creation at at all. You're just typing in a prompt. So it's insane. And like there's tons and tons of plugins now where producers can download these plugins and they use AI to speed up your workflow or make certain sounds crisper or more textured. ⁓ and that's an example of AI.

speaker-0: We've had this argument.

speaker-1: enhancing your your artist, not displacing it.

speaker-0: Was mad and punching the sky when AI started doing work that took me fucking years to learn how to do and edit through. I was like, You don't deserve this. Like it's somebody else. Like, you have not the amount of audio people don't realize to get a crisp, clean sound.

speaker-1: We didn't have to know you I don't know.

speaker-0: It's like being an archaeologist with a fucking fishbone and a rock dusting the fucking imperfections off of the vertebrae to get the right sound. It's very labor intensive. It's also fun as hell if you love it. It's great for if you're neurodivergent. I recommend sticking your face into a couple of D Ws, man. It could you could be home.

speaker-1: Okay. I I I interviewed James Blake, who's like a yeah, just the most unbelievable artist, a mind like I've never spok spoken with prior. He called ⁓ music production an infinity mirror. Like it's you you can just It is the tunnels endless and you can if you're neurodivergent. You can spend so much time there and make the craziest shit ever.

speaker-0: That's exactly what I do when I make music. And it's always dedicated to someone that's been on the show. Somehow that they influenced me, or I felt that their message came across. And I don't have a background in music. So I sat down and just I got pissed because I couldn't get an intro to my show. Like six or seven, seven years ago. I I farmed it out and I kept getting back hot trash. I'm like, they just this is no. What is this? I don't even understand it. I'm like, it came back and I'm like, you're not even and then I realized, you know, it's mine. Nobody is gonna give me back what I want because they don't know. So I sat down with garage band at the time. And I was like, holy shit, it's sound Legos. I'm like, this works. And I found myself getting stuck in loops. I can listen to one sound against another group of sounds over and over and over for six hours straight, just going through a hi-hat.

speaker-1: It takes me forever to my kicks.

speaker-0: It's like living in ⁓ God, dude. And loving it. Not even realizing. My wife comes in and she's like, Are you alive? You know, you have a family.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: So that's honestly I think what are what we're speaking to right now is that there is a playground for kids that didn't feel accepted. And that's art.

speaker-1: Yes. Right. Well absolutely.

speaker-0: AI to me can be something utopian. We write our futures consistently into a dystopian scenario. But why can't AI be the biggest paintbrush we ever fucking had? Right? I can't be using AI to take 500 instruments and put them into one track all in sync and sound right.

speaker-1: In in many ways it it also and this, you know, it it appeals to me as well, it gives a voice to the voiceless.

speaker-0: So much so. Think about all of the people that have never been exposed.

speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. I wish we had it when like do you remember ⁓ Cliff Notes? Like I used to use Cliff Notes all the time and those were like tough to get ⁓ your hands on. Now like it's just ⁓ that there's so it's so helpful now in any vocation. Especially music.

speaker-0: Yes. ⁓ you Question people that have true problems with AI amongst the public. Because in my eyes, it is the first opportunity coming from food scarcity and poverty as a child. I can tell you nobody was gonna hand me a set of books or a learning course or something of that nature to get me to cure generational curses. or to move beyond where I am. Or just by sheer location, I'm not exposed to X, Y, or Z. But you put AI in front of me and I want to know about what it is to do this, it's going to tell me all of it and I'm going to learn and I'm going to sit down and learn it. And it's not going to be gate kept by a hundred thousand dollar tuition.

speaker-1: Yep. Amen. ⁓ but to that end though, you do need like we still have to be free thinkers and analyze what the AI spits out and setting you know if it's if it's accurate or not. I I you can definitely tell. But man, how many people use

speaker-0: No. That big ass hyphen has showed up more in people's

speaker-1: This sucks dude because I've been using the ⁓ dash before

speaker-0: Is that what it's called? I don't even know what it's called. I'm like, why is there just listed in everybody's email?

speaker-1: dash. And I've been using that before since before the advent of of AI. So now that now that AI adopted it, all my writing, everyone's like, ⁓ that's AI. But it's not. Just because of that little ⁓ dash.

speaker-0: That sucks, man. But you know what, though? I think language is also a gatekeeper to success. And if you have the ability to utilize AI and, like you said, not let it think for you, but use it to articulate things that you couldn't have in the past. I find nothing wrong with that. In fact, I love somebody having a conversation with somebody through AI, not realizing that they're poor as shit.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: And don't have anything but you're their opportunity. And the moment they stand in front of you, you're like, Fuck, holy shit. I judged everything, all of it, and I'm seeing it in reverse right now.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: I tell a story all the time. I had a buddy got his front tooth fucking cracked out of his head with a remote control being thrown to him. He came running to my room. He was like, ⁓ he's laughing. He's like, dude, he broke my front tooth. And I'm like, no, he didn't. He pulls his hand away. And sure as shit, man, right down the side. He looked, he looked dumb. He looked poor. He looked unemployed. And I didn't like it. It was funny, but I walked away and I was like, why did my brain want him to be all those things?

speaker-1: Who

speaker-0: Why did my brain need that? Why did my need my brain just fucking took him and made him that? He's college educated. Like I know he lives down the hall. He's not homeless. He's not stupid. He's not any of these things. But that fucking tooth showed me an implicit bias in myself that I did not know existed.

speaker-1: Wow. At all. So think about that from the perspective of a person who meets a stutter. Like, ⁓ there's an amazing book by John Hendrickson. ⁓ he writes for the New Yorker, I believe. ⁓ in the book, he talks about how stutterers can walk into a party. ⁓ no one knows that they have anything, you know, quote unquote, wrong with them. They look like any other person. ⁓ and then like there's no implicit bias at all. And then they open their mouths and then it the person speaking to them, it just wallops them and they say, Well, who what's going on here? So the same the same ⁓ you know t tornado of thoughts and what w words it's the that same sentiment is going on in the other person who's speaking w with the stu

speaker-0: Brilliant observation.

speaker-1: ⁓ like how do I talk to this person? Is there some something wrong with them? ⁓ so it's you know, it's it's a fascinating dichotomy.

speaker-0: You you bring up something. Maybe there I like that you do set the tone because a stutter is not necessarily only just a stutter. It can have other things tied to it depending on the person. It may not just be a speech impediment. It could be a mental faculty that's, you know, that's. Not working properly or whatever it is, you know, that's caused that to happen. I had a friend of mine, very dear friend, that got into a car accident where he hit his head extremely hard. And for fucking like five years, he stuttered with no ability to stop it. One day, fine. Next day, stuttering. Temporal lobe fucking slap or whatever it was when he hit his head. I mean, it was it was pretty scary for him, and he still has it.

speaker-1: It is a

speaker-0: To a degree.

speaker-1: Wow. Yeah. You know, for for years people thought it was a vocal cord issue. And there are that there are there are there are elements of it. But then researchers and renowned doctors eventually came to to the consensus that it's a neurological issue. Believe it or not. It it is

speaker-0: Tested so clearly with him, we were like, son of a bitch. It was like one day this, one day this. And you could see the pain in him just not being able to say things that he actually was able to say prior to that. And it we would have long conversations. You would cry, sit at the table, and we would discuss it. I'm like, look, dude, you know, I I I obviously don't get it, but know that we hear what you're saying. Right. Well, I actually I'm we're the type of friends that I I made fun of him. You know, at the same time because that's just who we are. ⁓

speaker-1: friends and but that's how I show affection is I shit on my friends.

speaker-0: ⁓ dude, constantly. They're that's that's ⁓ they're the loves of of our lives. It's Nick and Frank. ⁓ they're the godfathers of my son. And ⁓ they are I'm actually gonna have him on the show. ⁓ and I have it for a long time because he's had that issue for so long that he didn't want to come forward. But these two gentlemen, they're their son used to be the intern on this show. His name's Jonah. he was born. Because his fathers were denied the ability to adopt even overseas because they were too gay men, right? So they so they went and found a friend who was ⁓ who was a lesbian and asked her, hey, you cool with doing us this solid for nine months? Right. And she's like, Yeah, I'm down. They went in their room, handled their business, they got their Turkey baster or where the fuck it was. And then went back into the other room. And Jonah's here at 21 years old, hanging out like nobody's business.

speaker-1: That is incredible.

speaker-0: Right? That's a wanted child. Who the fuck tells people that want children that they can't have one that has no parents?

speaker-1: Yeah, wow. Good for Jonathan as well.

speaker-0: Right? Yeah, dude, he's amazing. He's a good kid. He's neurodivergent as shit. He ended up being a ⁓ barber because of it. He's like, he has to be moving around and digging it, and he's so good at it. but I didn't even think about that before we came on here. Yeah, Nick had a stutter for for many years because of that car accident. And watching him go through that broke my heart, you know, to to see that he was a director for a Fortune 100 company. And then all of a sudden, you're not you're not doing that the same way.

speaker-1: I mean it's it's okay. Like, if I had known him, ⁓ and I had known what I know now, like basically the main the the messaging of this book is that people like him and kids are taught that speech issues and stutters have to be f fixed. But they're not. You can really embrace your your voice and your truth, exactly how it sounds, and it can carry you through a life with all the same possibilities as everyone else. Like I'm proof. I have this amazing job. I've DJed for monster crowds. I have this smoking hot wife. Like you you really can live a normal life. But kids when they're young, th they just they hear, especially from parents, how do we fix this? How do we cure it? Fix. And that's it's it's it's it's wrong.

speaker-0: Yeah, I can I can totally agree with that because we're born perfect. We're perfectly imperfect in our existence. ⁓ Jason, why don't you take a moment, tell everybody where they can find the book, where they can find your ⁓ website, social media, whatever. ⁓ and if you don't mind, I want to have you back on sometime on a detention episode where we just cut up music, talk about music, and ⁓ also maybe we'll do some dark humor. I'll see if I can get on with this. ⁓ about some dark humor. So

speaker-1: Yes, I'm in that's like that's my wife doesn't like the the dark humor aspect, so I'll make sure she's like not in the house.

speaker-0: I mean my my wife went and saw D Anthony Jesslinick with me. ⁓

speaker-1: I love him. He's the best. He's the best. His roasts are so funny. Same. ⁓ so yeah, w I'm in on that. But the ps or the book it's called Tongue Tide.

speaker-0: I love the art. That's so cool.

speaker-1: Thank you. you can find it on on on Amazon. Just type in tongue tied and then my name, Jason Heffler. yeah, that's pretty much it.

speaker-0: Dude, I couldn't recommend this more. I think that ⁓ I'm getting it from my son. He's only seven months right now, so I'll read it to him. But that for that impact a little bit later, because I believe that you don't buy these books for kids that have a stutter. You buy these books from different batches of different people that you will come into contact with in life to show them how they are and live and just the same as yourself. I want him to see those books. If he reads a book on stuttering, he meets somebody with stuttering, he's not gonna be like, well, what's that? You know, or have some kind of d derogatory thing or default to young boy mannerisms where it's like you've gotta make them look stupider than you, or some shit like that. But if he's got the book and he reads it, you're like, I read a book about something like this, this chameleon. Have you read that book? You know, and that's a much better introduction to another kid. Than it is to just have them stand there in front of the class saying something, you know, with all S.

speaker-1: Exactly. Yeah. And believe it or not, the book st doesn't even say the word stutter once. I I that was by the design. It's it's for kids who need to build confidence and who need to build confidence speaking, whether that's because they're bashful with new friends or they need to speak in class, whatever the case is. It's not just for kids with speech impediments. It's for anyone who needs to build c confidence. And self assurance.

speaker-0: That's everybody.

speaker-1: Everybody, exactly.

speaker-0: It's everybody. If you don't think you need confidence or self-assurance, then you're probably in worse than anybody else. Right. To be that to be that ignorant to your own plight is really either freeing as fuck or it's really sad. Exactly. ⁓ Jason, I can't thank you enough for coming on. And I I appreciate you for being a lighthouse, for standing up, for being authentic and showing other people their way by being yourself as hard as you can. Right. If we stand ⁓ Yeah, if we stand up and we do these things, you know, we show other people that they can do it as well. We give them strength and opportunities through being able to mirror.

speaker-1: It's your way.

speaker-0: your confidence. So thank you for that. Thank you for coming on and talking to my friends, my listeners. ⁓ I know they're gonna appreciate this. And like I said, you're gonna hear them again because I already opened invite you like how I put you on the spot. I just assumed you're gonna come. So you have to say yes. Right.

speaker-1: Yes, I thrive. Put me on the hot seat, dude. Dude, I'm in on that by the way.

speaker-0: I I know you are. I know you are. I can see it. I can see it. So again, thank you so much. Everybody make sure you go over to ⁓ the tragedyacademy.com or you can go to tragedy academy studios if you're looking for some voice work or ⁓ music. And again, remember everybody, be cool and keep learning.