In this semi-milestone episode, I enter the onefjef multiverse and sit down with… Jef Taylor. We talk about the odd intimacy of sharing an identity, the pretension & justification behind dropping the superfluous f, and what happens when you realize another version of you is out there working at a zoo, documenting Hot Wheels jousting, and looking for little pockets of joy wherever he can find them.

Follow Jef (the other Jef) on Instagram @urbpan, on YouTube at youtube.com/@Swamp_Hobbit, and if you're in the Boston area you can join one of his nature walks at facebook.com/groups/UrbanNatureWalk/

Please show some support for the podcast and get access to some extra content by subscribing to the Patreon page: http://www.patreon.com/onefjef

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/onefjefpod/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@onefjefpodcast

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@onefjef

Email: onefjefpod@gmail.com

You can also call the podcast and leave a voicemail at 1-669-241-5882 and I will probably play it on the air.

Thank you for listening, please do it again, but with a different name.

Onefjef is produced, edited & hosted by Jef Taylor.

Jef Taylor.

Jef, thank you very much.

Thank you Jef.

Appreciate it.

This is episode twenty of

Onefjef.

The number twenty represents awakening and higher awareness,

the doubling of completion, and the beginning of a new cycle.

In tarot.

It's the judgment card, a call

to rise and transform after

enlightenment.

Numerologically twenty combines the harmony of two with the

infinite potential of zero, symbolizing intuition amplified

by the void across cultures.

It's linked with clarity.

Twenty twenty vision

contemplation I Ching's Hexagram

twenty and triumph the D20s

critical success.

It's the number of reflection,

renewal, and the moment just

before transcendence.

Hello my friends.

Yes, you heard right.

When FGF is about to transcend

itself or transcend the

podcasting universe, if you

will.

What does that mean in the world of podcasts?

I don't know.

All I know is that I am proud to have gotten to twenty episodes

of onefjefq.

It's kind of fucking amazing.

To be perfectly honest with you, twenty episodes kaboom!

I wanted to say something about

Marc Maron, who just released

his last episode just a few days

ago here.

I started listening to Marc

Maron's podcast when he first

started.

Like his very first month.

It was September two thousand and nine.

I was living in New York City, in East Harlem.

I was working as an assistant editor at Howcast, which, if you

don't remember, is that company that made the how to videos

before how to videos became ubiquitous on the internet?

I didn't particularly like the job, to be honest.

It was pretty boring, but it was a day job, and my job before

that was working overnights at MTV, which was cool until I

started to slowly lose my mind because I was up all night and

sleeping during the day.

Fortuitously or not, I got laid off after about six months at

howcast, and within a year the rest of the internet had caught

on to the how to video trend.

And the rest of the staff, I believe, or most of the rest of

the staff got let go.

Their Wikipedia page now says

that they are quote unquote

dormant.

Anyway, I would listen to Marc Maron at this job at my desk to

avoid interacting with this woman who was ostensibly my boss

and who sat next to me.

She was very, um, how do I put this?

Challenging to work with, let's say.

Anyway, I listened to Marc Maron, so I didn't have to

listen to her.

And this was two thousand and

nine, as I said, very, very

early podcasting.

So in order to listen, I had to download the podcast at home

onto iTunes, and then transfer it to my iPod mini, and then

bring that iPod mini to work and listen to it with plugged in

Apple EarPods with the volume thing on the cable there.

You remember it wasn't so much

the interviews, but it was Mark

in his monologues before the

show that would sometimes go on

for a half an hour that I really

connected with.

He would talk about his anxiety.

He would talk about his stalled career.

He would talk about his failed relationships.

And it all felt very real and

very vulnerable and candid in a

way that I had never really

experienced before.

And I felt seen.

And it made me feel better.

I was also going through a horrible breakup at the time.

So maybe that had something to do with it.

So for years I listened to every episode.

I listened to it at work.

I listened to it on the subway on the way home.

I remember where I was when I listened to certain episodes.

It's kind of crazy how that happens.

And then after a while, podcast started to kind of catch on.

So I started to stray and listen to other people's podcasts.

But I'd always kind of come back to Marc Maron now and again,

just to see how he was doing and who his guest was and so forth.

And now I have my own podcast, and honestly, it owes a debt of

gratitude to Marc Maron for getting the ball rolling, in a

sense on these podcast things, for showing what was possible in

a podcast format, for exposing himself, flaws and all, and in

doing so, making me and other people feel a little less alone.

So if you ever hear this, I mean, when you hear this.

Thank you, Marc Maron.

You'll be missed, and I will

gladly fill the void that you

have left in the confessional

style podcast world that you

helped create.

Anyway, today's guest is Jef Taylor.

Not me, Jef Taylor.

I'm always on this podcast.

Another Jef Taylor, also with just one F Jef Taylor is a

Boston area naturalist, educator, and enthusiast for the

small wonders of life, insects, fungi, urban ecology, wildlife,

and unexpected corners.

He's known to lead nature walks,

apply science and practical

fields like humane pest

management, and engage people

via community driven side

projects.

Blending curiosity, play and ecological awareness.

About ten or fifteen years ago, a guy named Jef Taylor friended

me on Facebook.

We messaged back and forth once or twice.

Nice name.

Hahaha.

You know, that kind of thing.

And then a couple of weeks ago, I made a Facebook page for this

podcast, which you should all go and join, by the way.

Facebook.com.

And I invited probably all of my Facebook friends like you do.

And Jef Taylor, the other Jef

Taylor, he followed it right

away.

And he left a comment on one of my first posts that said it

would feel weird not to listen to this podcast, which I thought

was quite clever.

So I asked him to come on the show and he gladly agreed.

And in thinking about having this conversation, I started

thinking about what a name is.

How much do we identify with these two words that are so much

of us, and how strange it is that there's somebody else out

there who has the exact same name as me and experiences the

world with the same two words identifying him, and also in

this case, another person who wisely chose to remove the

superfluous F from Jef.

Which is a smart move because the amount of time you save from

not having to write that extra f every single time you write your

name, it adds up, my friends.

It adds up.

And it's strange, you know, to hear your name, your full name

out of somebody else's mouth.

But it's their name too.

Like, what does a name hold?

Beyond being just like a placeholder, I mean, it's a

placeholder for like, an entire narrative in a way.

And it's strange that when people who know that Jef Taylor

hear the words Jef Taylor, they have an entirely different

reaction and like thought process than when people who

know me hear Jef Taylor.

It would be super confusing if we knew the same people.

This episode brought me a lot of

joy, and it feels weirdly

perfect for the modestly

monumental twentieth episode of

one FGF.

Patreon subscribers new and old.

I love and appreciate you.

Of course, I love and appreciate

all of my listeners, as I've

said repeatedly, but I saved

just a little bit more for those

Patreon subscribers.

I'm going to record another bonus episode later this week,

so if this episode isn't quite enough Jef Taylor, there will

be more coming.

And if you aren't a Patreon subscriber and if you want to

hear more Jef Taylor, or if you want to just help support the

podcast, just go to Patreon.com and sign up for as little as

five dollars a month.

You can help support this fledgling podcast and also hear

me get on my soapbox and ramble from time to time.

Yell at the clouds.

So on and so forth.

Patreon.com.

And now it's time to enter the Jef Taylor multiverse.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for listening.

Here's Jef Taylor and Jef Taylor.

Jef Taylor, it's good to meet you.

I'm also Jef Taylor.

Thanks for coming on the podcast.

It's great to finally talk to you.

You've been on my radar.

I think we've been Facebook

friends for quite a few years

now.

Um, but we've never actually communicated.

You're the urban pantheist, right?

I was the urban pantheist back in the time that I, uh, that I

reached out to every other one, Jef Taylor, to see who we were.

And you were the one who reached out to me.

I don't remember who actually

started our Facebook friendship,

but it must have been you in

this case.

I think so.

I think it was a wild hair I got.

Where?

Back in the early days of the internet.

It was a fun thing to do, to search your own name.

And then I thought, well, who else has got this name?

And, uh, there was you and another guy who.

All I know about him is he was a

black fella and is a a football

fan.

And I know who that is in contact with him.

You know who he is?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know of him.

There's another guy who's a

painter as well who has the URL

Jef Taylor.

Com.

Yes.

Yeah.

Color fields.

Right.

I believe color field painting.

So, um, so so tell me, how did you end up being a one, Jef?

Did you were you a Jefrey?

I am a Jefrey with two F's, as

am I. And, uh, you know, the

honest answer is that it was a

sort of a pretentious

affectation of my becoming a

college student.

Yeah, I need to set myself apart.

Exactly the same, dude.

Exactly the same.

I was a pretentious English major, and I was like, I don't

need both F's.

It's the same pronunciation.

Exactly.

And, uh, yeah.

And it's worked out because people remember there's so many

Jefrey Taylors in the world.

Like, if you look in the phone book, I don't know how old you

are, but, you know, remember phone books, there'd be like on

and on and on Jefrey Taylor's.

But when if Jef Taylor's only a handful.

So you remember, you remember a one f Jef.

My, my brother who is an artist

who goes by f Andrew Taylor, uh,

likes to say that he won my f

off of me in a poker game, and

he uses that as his first

initial now.

Yeah, I used to say I lost mine in the war.

Yeah, stupid jokes, but in the end, it was.

It was like early internet when I took mine off.

And it's worked out really well for like, internet algorithms

because like Jef Taylor's, there's so many of them.

But Jef Taylor, then you search for that.

You know, I get good results.

It's tremendous.

Um, there's a I don't know if

you know, the app iNaturalist,

but I use it every day to

document, um, you know,

biological observations.

And my screen name there.

It's the first time I've gotten

the screen and I wanted and it

is just Jef with one F, it's

Jef.

Oh, nice.

Nice.

I've always just gone with one f, Jef because I felt like that

was my brand.

Yeah.

Anyway, tell me about the other one f Jef.

Tell me what the other one f Jef does.

I have no idea.

I have no idea.

Aside from would I do urban stuff?

Yeah.

What do you do?

Yeah.

So I, um, I have been working for the the major, um, city zoo

in my area for eighteen years.

I am a pest control technician there.

Uh, I prefer to lean into what I do when I'm not there, which is

lead nature walks, which is more, more fun.

But I have devoted, you know,

most of my adult life to the zoo

field.

For a while, I was the president

of our local chapter of the

American Association of Zoo

Keepers.

I was very proud of that at the time.

Oh, very cool, very cool.

What part of the country are you in?

I'm in the Boston area.

Oh right on.

I'm in Columbus, Ohio.

Oh, yeah, you're in New York for a while.

I was in New York for about ten years, and I moved here about

seven years ago or so.

And now I'm kind of hoping to

leave here, but that's another

story.

Um, so, uh, the natural, the

urban, the the naturalist, the

nature walks.

You've been doing that for a

long time, or is that a new

thing?

I've been doing it for a long time.

The first, uh, official walk,

the first one that I documented

was November two thousand and

three.

Oh, wow.

And so we had a twentieth

anniversary walk in November two

years ago.

Um, and it's become more, uh, the schedule has become much

more regular over time.

So now I can I do it every

month, the last Sunday of every

month.

And the interest in doing it has become, uh, interest in

participating has grown so much since the pandemic, uh, that

I'm, I've basically doubled up where I'm doing, um, I'm

averaging two a month.

Oh, nice.

And what do you focus on?

Um, for In the Walks, each event is different.

And some of the walks we are

just exploring the, the area

like.

Oh, they opened a new park here.

Let's see what that's like.

Or sometimes I will hire a guest

expert, a marine biologist or a

entomologist or something like

that.

And we'll focus on what their field of study is.

And sometimes we do history walks like we did the the site

of the Molasses Flood disaster back in January.

Um, we did the, you know, the Molasses flood.

I know it very well.

I'm fascinated by the Great Molasses Disaster.

I think it should be.

They should make it into a movie.

I've been thinking this for years.

Why is there?

Not really sure.

I mean, can you imagine, like,

the way the thing that

fascinates me.

And I've got.

There's a book too, that's about it.

It's quite dark.

Um, yeah.

Dark tide.

Dark tide is the name of them.

It's got to be the name of the movie, right?

It's got to be.

It's got to be and honest, they really don't need to change much

from that book to a screenplay.

No, no, it's such a great.

But I mean, the effects would

have to be, you know, they could

do it.

But like, the idea of drowning

in molasses is so horrific to

me.

Like, I can't even imagine how bad that would be.

You'd be sticky.

Which I don't really like, being like syrup and everything.

I like having sticky stuff on my fingers.

Right?

So, like to me, that seems like the most horrible way to die,

which I think would enhance the movie, frankly, because it would

bring some terror to it, because it would be a very slow, you

know, the slowest moving.

I can already see the trailer, you know.

Oh, yeah.

It was the slowest moving wave.

How tall was that?

That wave of molasses.

Like ten or twenty feet tall, I think.

Yeah.

It was like two stories tall.

Yeah, right.

It was a massive.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Great.

Great.

I love that.

It's it's strange that we both.

You're like, the only other

person I think I've ever talked

to who's known of the molasses

disaster.

Um, and I wonder if it's because we have the same name.

Um, what element of nature, what

brought you to doing the nature

walks?

Was there something in

particular about nature, like

mushrooms or birds or, you know,

whatever?

Or is it just the general?

So all my life, I've been the kind of little boy who plays in,

in, uh, tide pools or flips over logs to look for salamanders and

and centipedes and stuff.

So that's sort of that's my, my wheelhouse is little things that

I can hold up close and look at.

And at that time, I was working

for the Audubon Society as a

wildlife caretaker, taking care

of hawks and owls, education,

animals that couldn't be

released.

Oh. Very cool.

And so I knew a lot of birders, and I knew I knew some

entomologists and stuff.

And the first walk was a bit of a fiasco because everybody was

interested in something else.

And so trying to keep everybody

together was completely

impossible.

The birders stopped and were

looking at one bird for twenty

minutes trying to figure out if

it was a Swainson's thrush or a

hermit thrush.

Of course.

And so having having it be a little more focused works has

turned out to work a lot better.

And what's it like to work in the zoo?

You've worked in zoos for a long time.

What's that like?

I've never even imagined working in a zoo.

You know, the the thing that you imagine is, is very true, which

is you feel honored to be around these animals all the time.

Sure, sure.

Um, and I've been, you know, a working guy for so long that I

have to remind myself of that sometimes where I'm just, like,

wandering around angry that I. That I have to work in order to

maintain health insurance.

Um, sure.

And then I have to, like, slap myself up the side of the head

and say, like you, you tried to get this very hard, you know?

Right.

I was working in a warehouse,

you know, I was an art school

dropout when I started working

with animals.

And I decided this was going to be the way, you know.

And so I have to remind myself

that I'm where I am because I, I

tried to get there and that I

can't.

I can't let bad days get me down.

Yeah, well, I went to art school

and I didn't drop out, and I

have a shit load of student loan

debt.

So, you know, one version of Jef Taylor and the other

version of Jef Taylor.

Um, how do you feel about, uh, like like the ethics of zoos?

How do you where do you stand on that kind of thing?

Like, do you feel like, uh, I

find zoos kind of like it

depends on the zoo, of course,

like San Diego, which I haven't

been to, apparently, is like,

you know, the, the, the best in

terms of, like, the habitats and

all that.

But I've gone like the Cleveland

Zoo I've been to, and it's just

it makes me somewhat sad because

the animals don't necessarily

often.

I mean, it's getting better, I think.

But I still feel like the

animals don't necessarily often

seem thrilled about their

existence.

I think any adult going to a zoo is going to be sad after a while

because as as great as the.

Yeah, I know right?

No, as great as the care is that these animals are getting.

You know, the thing that you want to see about animals.

You want to see an eagle soar.

You want to see, you know, hoofed animals running in packs.

And in order to actually take care of these kind of animals,

they have to be in you have to be able to reliably get your

hands on them, you know, have the veterinary team get their

hands on them and stuff.

And so they're never going to unless you have something like

the big elephant sanctuaries where the elephants wander

around and they're smart enough to go where you want them to.

Um, I think I think I fully

understand why people feel that

way about zoos, because it is

just sad to see animals unable

to to freely do what they they

do.

But on the other hand, it is

it's a kind of science museum

where you get to see animal

behavior that you would not be

able to.

Um, the thing I like to say to

people is, how would you ever

believe that a giant anteater

was a real thing in this day and

age?

Unless you could actually go and look at it.

Right, right, right.

It looks made up.

It does not look like a real thing.

And so being in its presence is, is pretty awe inspiring.

And so, I mean, don't get me,

don't get me started about the

platypus.

That's the old one.

Exactly.

Right, right, right.

So, yeah, having having that

kind of access, you know, the

whole point of the zoos now is

that they're supposed to inspire

conservation ethos.

Um, and that's a tricky tightrope to walk, because the

people that are that lean that way are going to feel bad about

seeing animals in captivity.

But the kids who don't necessarily have a have all of

those preconceptions yet It.

They can be inspired.

They can be, you know, super excited to see a zebra or

gorilla or whatever it is that is that is the thing that

connects with them.

And so those are the kind of connections zoos are making.

Right.

And then a double edged sword in a way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the other thing that I think

about a lot is we didn't invent

zoos today to be conservation

organizations.

You know, we inherited zoos from the late nineteenth century,

early twentieth century, and they existed for a different

reason then the the the thought was great American cities should

have a place where humans can go look at animals.

And that's not it's not the right ethos anymore.

But the zoos have been operating for a little over a century.

And so you have to keep the

institution going, but you have

to change the, the, the, the

goal of the institution is, is

different.

And and that transformation,

everything at a zoo takes

forever because they're huge

organizations with tons of

bureaucracy.

So that transformation has taken almost a whole century.

But I think we're we're at that place.

Somebody said if zoos didn't

exist, we would have to invent

them because there will be a

need at some point for, you

know, these, uh, a lot of the

animals we have are critically

endangered.

Right, right, right.

So will there be gorillas twenty years from now?

We have insurance populations of

these very endangered animals,

but we also have things like

prairie dogs that aren't

endangered, that people just

want to look at them because

they're cute.

Right, right, right.

They're very cute.

I was just out in, uh, South Dakota and saw a bunch of them.

They're very cute.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So. That's good to hear.

I just posted the match number

six in season eight and didn't

get the engagement that I

wanted.

Um, yeah.

These are inspired.

Uh, another another artist and an actor named Aaron Yonda

created Junkyard Joust during the pandemic, and I was just

inspired by it.

I thought, this is great fun and started doing my my own fan

version of it.

For people who don't know what

it is, tell tell people like

what exactly?

This.

This exactly is.

So it's a game where you send Hot Wheels cars down a track and

they smash into one another.

Uh, there are teams and For each.

At the end of the round, each car that is still upright

continues on to the next round, but the ones that are sideways

or upside down do not.

And so you gradually eliminate

cars until you have your

winners.

So I just stumbled upon these

and I was like, wow, there's a

this is I mean, it was one of

the strangest things I've ever

seen.

I have never heard of this before.

And I was just like, it was kind

of mesmerizing just watching

these cars slowly slam into each

other.

There was something truly.

And your commitment to it was

the other impressive part,

because you were very committed

to it.

There was a lot of them out there.

You were putting them out like,

I think one every day or one

every other day for a while or

something, but it was

impressive.

Thank you.

Yeah.

So mine is called Backyard Joust.

And yeah, if I didn't have, uh, a full time job and an all

consuming hobby, um, this other hobby, I would be able to do a

video a day.

But as it is, I'm lucky to to get out, um, three in a week or

three every two weeks.

Right now.

Right.

It should be my winter hobby since I'm not doing as much, uh,

during the the summer and fall, I'm hired by the Audubon Society

to do mushroom walks.

And so I do a lot of mushroom

walks, and that's taken up a ton

of my, my time, which is also

great.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

Mushrooms are fascinating.

Yeah.

What were you going to go to art school for?

I initially was going to be a sculptor.

Um, I come from a small farm town in northern Connecticut and

got to Boston.

You know, my my eyes widened by the big city.

And, uh, for a hot minute I

thought it was going to be a

filmmaking major.

And, um, I got to see things like glass blowing and all of

these wonderful things.

That was a photography major for

a year and settled into a thing

called studio for Interrelated

Media, which was a kind of

self-guided.

Um, it's where at the time,

because technology was, you

know, this is nineteen eighty

seven.

Yeah, the technology at the time.

So any computer artist or video

artists or anybody that didn't

quite fit into, um, anything as

technologically advanced as like

so there was film, but there was

no video.

And so people who wanted to do video art went to SIM, but also

performance art, lots of performance art and event

planning and stuff like that.

And I ended up publishing the school comic book and doing that

for for a bunch of years.

And I did some performance art and some fiction writing and

then reading those aloud.

It's interesting to me that Jef

Taylor seemed to be like the

one.

Jef.

I think it's the pretense of

taking the other f off that we

seem to be drawn to the arts

like.

I just think it's interesting.

So like, it's one of my questions going into this was

like, is there a connection between us in some bizarre way,

aside from the label that we have for ourselves?

Right, that we've chosen in a way and I don't know about.

Yeah, I think there is.

And the other and there's another Jef Taylor out there

who's an artist as well.

So it's an interesting thing.

I don't know that the Jef Taylor who's into basketball or

whatever it is, is necessarily connected to us in that way.

But who knows?

Maybe I should talk to him.

Maybe I should make a whole nother one.

Jef podcast, which is just interviews with with Onef Jef

Taylor or something like that.

Maybe that maybe I should just do a spin off, a spin off

podcast that is just interviewing all the Onef Jefs

in the world.

I love it, but it's interesting though, like, because your name

is such an intimate part of who you are as a human being, and to

know that, like we have the I mean, aside from our middle

name, I don't use my middle name very often, but exact same name.

Like, do you have any issues with the Onef Jef?

Like going to Starbucks or whatever?

And you're like, Jef and you're

not bothering to tell them it's

onef because nobody's going to

know you.

Just you just accept that they're going to do two F's.

Yeah.

Um, you know, what's fascinating to me is getting emails and.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

And I sign my emails.

You know, I'm an old dude, so I, like, write my email and then

write Jef with one f. Sure.

And, and it's a real litmus test on the other person as to

whether they catch up and and and spell my name correctly.

Yeah.

And there are people that I've worked with for, you know,

almost twenty years that just haven't caught it.

It's amazing to me.

And you can't be like, uh, excuse me, uh, but I spell my

name with one.

If you don't want to be that guy.

Right.

You want to double down on the pretension?

Right.

It took my mom a while to to do the one f thing.

She didn't quite like it at first, but then after a while, I

don't remember when it was.

I saw her write my name and she wrote Jef, and I was like, oh,

she's accepted it.

She's accepted me.

You know, that's funny.

I remember my my dad accepting it too.

And that was like, oh, that's good.

Yeah, he's right.

At first it was like, what the hell are you doing?

What is this?

Right, right.

Do you ever make the joke about

how you pronounce your name a

little differently.

Like just you clip the F at the end.

It's not Jef, it's just Jef.

You never know.

Maybe that's just me.

I've heard other people say that.

Say, Jef at me.

How do you how do you feel about the how do you feel about

Joffrey's, the GE clan?

Apparently that was almost how my name was spelled.

Oh, you dodged the bullet there, bro.

You dodged the bullet.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

There's some story that I don't quite remember.

With my mom on drugs and my dad in the room, and they're having

to talk about how this kid's name is going to be spelled,

and, yeah, I, I squeaked through with the, with the, uh, the, the

Jef, the J spelling.

I've only met one one G Jef.

And I thought that was really strange.

Do you think that it was because

of the drugs or in spite of the

drugs that they went with the G.

The Jefrey with the J. Yeah,

I'm not sure on that aspect of

the story.

Um huh.

That's interesting.

Um, but either way, I do like that that drugs were involved.

I think that that makes it a do do.

Do you know what kind of drugs were involved?

Um, you know, whatever, whatever they gave mothers for childbirth

in nineteen sixty.

Oh, I see.

They weren't, like, doing Quaaludes or something.

All right.

I'm imagining they're on Quaaludes in the hospital.

Yeah, right.

Right.

All right.

The picture's a little clear now.

Fair enough.

Yeah.

Uh, how old are you, Jef?

If you don't mind me asking, I'm fifty one.

I'm fifty six.

Yeah, I was born in sixty nine.

Wow.

I think most of the one of

Jef's are going to be about our

same.

Because Jefrey wasn't the most popular name around like that.

Like sixty eight or sixty eight to seventy three or so was about

the pocket of Jefrey being a very popular name, but it's not

really a popular name anymore.

Did you go through, um, having

lots of other Jef's in your

classes and for sure, and having

to figure out ways to, to, uh,

differentiate them.

Yeah.

I mean, that was the theater kid, so it wasn't very hard.

Like I was the nerdy theater kid in high school, and I didn't.

I still had two apps then, so it was a different time for me.

Yeah.

But, um.

But.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you have any brothers or sisters?

I have my one older brother, the F Andrew Taylor.

Oh, right.

Right, right.

Yeah.

Oh, but no sisters.

That would be weird if you had

the sister with the same name as

mine.

That'd be.

That'd be.

That'd be scary.

Yeah, yeah, the metaverse would get even more bizarre, you know?

I wonder if there's a world in

which we could actually have,

like, a convention of Jef

Taylor's.

I wonder how many we could find.

Because I looked on Facebook and there's quite a few.

And I wonder how hard it would be to get a convention and,

like, you could film it.

It'd be the most interesting.

Uh, like the weirdest.

It would be, like, on This American Life or something.

You know, the convention of Jef Taylor's one f Jef Taylor's.

It sounds fabulous.

You'd have to figure out where the the sort of the density was.

And plane.

Right.

Where's the density?

I would imagine it's an East Coast thing more than a West

Coast thing, but I could be totally wrong about that.

But yeah.

Yeah.

Because I think I'm friends with maybe two others on on Facebook.

And honestly, I was so happy

when you, like, followed the

podcast page and then and then

you.

I don't know what you commented on the podcast or something, or

this should be my favorite podcast comment was and then I

was like, you should come on.

And immediately you're like, yeah, I'll come on.

Absolutely.

Then I thought about it and I

was like, that's the funniest

thing I could possibly do for

this podcast.

Have you ever gotten any emails meant for me?

That's a good question.

Um, yeah.

I'm trying to think we do have a

pretty similar Gmail address, I

think.

Oh we do.

Um, every once in a while, I'll

see your name somewhere that'll

pop up.

And I'm like, wait, that's not me.

Yeah, mine's just Jef Taylor at gmail.

Yeah, mine uses my middle initial, middle initial the old

middle initial C. Yeah, yeah.

And I think I may have added that in because of you.

I think I may have said, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna have to be

Jef C Taylor for from now on because I was first.

Yeah, yeah, I was first.

Yeah.

Honestly, like I've had people offer me because I got one from

the website and I got it on all the all all of the social

medias, uh, except for one or two, but, uh, yeah, I'm pretty.

I try to get it right away

because I've had somebody try to

buy one from me for like three

thousand dollars at one point,

and I was like, yeah, I don't

know.

No, it's not your property.

No, no, it's I need more than that.

I would need like thirty I would sell it for I think maybe.

Yeah, yeah.

Can I tell you I attempted a

podcast, um, I made twelve

episodes of a podcast called

Species of Least Concern, where

I was trying to basically make a

podcast version of the Urban

Pantheist zine or talk about,

oh, cool.

Yeah, weird animals and how nature interacts with humans and

that kind of stuff.

And I would introduce myself as one FGF because I was nervous

about using, um, using my, my last name on it, but sure, sure,

this is distinctive enough.

And so I actually referred to

myself as one FGF on those

twelve episodes.

Um, yeah, that's about as far as most podcasts get to about eight

or twelve is like, I think ninety percent of all the

podcasts like pit are out at that many episodes.

Um, but yeah, I'm only doing I've only been able to continue

to do this because I'm unemployed at the moment.

So, um, so yeah, I'm, I think this will be twenty.

I think this will be the twentieth episode.

Twentieth episode spectacular with Jef interviews Jef.

Yeah, yeah, it's a good a good milestone.

Um, how did you get involved in mushrooms?

I'm always interested in mushrooms.

I've seen the Paul Stamets documentary, um, and, you know,

have taken them.

So. Yeah, when I was working at

the, um, Audubon Society, uh, I

was surrounded by all of these

teacher naturalists.

You know, I was taking care of the animals.

They would come and they'd take

the animals and do programs with

them.

But there were all kinds of

programs that they would do,

including, um, lichens and fungi

and stuff.

And there was nobody at my

nature center that was great

with mushrooms, but I, I sort of

made myself into that person and

started training the other

teacher naturalists on

mushrooms.

I just jumped into them like I my the thing that I tell

everybody is they're just as fascinating as insects, but they

don't for sure.

You know, they hold still for photos.

And yeah, I've never looked back.

It's been a it's been a really

wonderful thing that that I feel

like I hit some new height this

year with the total number of,

of mushroom walks that I was

hired for.

I have a couple of private clients that hire me every year.

Um, but most of my stuff is done

through the Audubon Society, and

I feel like mushrooms or

mushrooms are blowing up to,

like, they've become much more

popular in the last five to ten

years.

Yeah, yeah, they are some kind of cultural zeitgeist that,

that, um, that got hit and it coincided a little bit with the

Stamets movie you were talking about, and for sure.

Yeah.

Um, and and the pandemic, you know, anything where you can,

you know, spend time somewhat socially and outdoors that

really helped blow things up.

Yeah, I think the psychedelic

mushrooms as well was part of it

as well.

The, the the more people trying those and more people talking

about those and books being written about those.

Yeah.

Um, I think it's a confluence,

but, uh, but yeah, yeah, I have

a good friend who just has, like

a whole Instagram account that's

just taking pictures of weird

mushrooms that she finds in the

woods.

So I wonder if I know them.

The mushroom community is is

pretty interconnected and

tangled.

Hers was called, like, intergalactic mushrooms or

something like that.

All right, I'm writing it down.

The whole name.

What, uh, what brings you joy, Jef Taylor?

What brings me joy?

Increasingly, it is getting

outside with a group of people

and and leading them, um, you

know, usually, like I said, this

year it's been a lot of mushroom

walks.

But anytime that I'm that I'm

doing my event series, my nature

walk series, that's been super

important.

You know, it's been honestly hard to to find joy.

Just kind of like banging your head against the onslaught of,

of terrible news and, and, uh, you know, the tidal wave of

fascism across the country.

And.

Put your phone down, Jef.

Put your phone down.

Yeah, exactly.

So if I can get out there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So if I can get out there, I

guess what the kids say is touch

grass.

Yeah.

And so for those two hours, that's the only thing I know

about is, like, we're all here together, and I'm showing you

what I think is cool about usually something that nobody

thinks about, like slime molds or little tiny cup fungi or

salamanders or whatever it happens to be wasps.

I love, I love that it's like.

It's like you're.

It's like almost a zen space

that you can be in where that's

the only thing that is at that

time.

You know what I mean?

Like, the outside world stops existing in a way, and you're

just locked in to the to the moment of, uh, teaching these

people about random nature.

Right?

It's very similar to when I was

doing more, uh, you know, visual

art that when you lock into it,

I'm sure the same thing happens

to you.

And and, you know, you forget to

eat, and eight hours goes by and

you're, like, enthralled with

what you're doing, and you look

up and you're like, oh, it's

dark out.

What's going on?

Yeah, that's the goal, right?

Right.

To get into that that headspace.

Yeah, yeah, I love that.

I find that it's harder to get into the older that I get.

Or maybe it's just I think I think the phones have a lot to

do with it.

I think that it was much easier to to do before all this

distraction, and I'm really struggling with it lately

because I feel like like my attention span has really, I've

noticed, has plummeted precipitously, uh, in the last

five to ten years, and I don't quite care for it.

Um, and I but I don't I don't know, it's hard because these

devices are so addictive and, um, the screens are so are so

pretty and colorful and they're meant to be.

But then you also think about the fact that the people who

invented these devices don't let their kids use them.

So it's like, um, you know, um,

so, uh, but really, you know,

this is, I think, the cause of

when we talk about how bad

things are getting, I mean, I

think the finger can be pointed

squarely at technology and the

algorithms that are, uh,

dividing us even further, um,

dividing us further and further

apart.

I've gone on this soapbox too many times on this podcast, so I

need to shut the fuck up.

But, um, but you know what I mean?

I absolutely do, and I think the the problem really is the

motivations behind the technology are not like, how can

we make a better world?

How can we, you know, remember the beginning of the internet?

Everybody talked about all of the information of the world

will be at your fingertips.

And that's kind of true.

You know, I use Wikipedia.

I pay for Wikipedia, I donate to Wikipedia, I use iNaturalist, I

donate to iNaturalist.

So like there are these information sources out there

and I'm constantly on my phone.

But the amount of time I spend just looking at garbage that is

designed to keep my eyeballs on it and keep me angry and

interacting with it is is.

Yeah, it's the endless scroll.

Indefensible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the reality of of it is also that like, you know, they're

monetizing anger and anxiety.

And that's really problematic

because that's what people want

to click on is things that make

them angry and anxious for some

reason.

It's like a weird human nature thing that really troubles me.

But, um, but yeah, I, I was in politics for four and a half

years, so I think I'm fairly numb to it all at this point.

Um, in what way were you in politics?

I was working at it was, you know, the Lincoln Project.

It was an anti-Trump organization.

It was all a super PAC run by former Republicans who are

trying to get rid of, um, you know, Trump back in.

We started in twenty twenty.

I got hired in the late twenty middle of twenty twenty.

Similar to the Midas.

Yeah.

Well, the Midas touch took our

took took Lincoln Project's

basically Mo and just did the

same thing.

Yeah.

Gotcha.

Um, and they're actually doing it better than Lincoln Project

is now between you and me.

But it's pretty sad.

Anyway.

Yeah, it really is.

Um, but, uh, but, yeah, I got laid off from there in January,

which is generally really a good thing because it's toxic, but,

um, but yeah, I made videos like wacky, like wacky recuts of

Donald Trump stuff.

Like, I would do, like, funny, weird, wacky videos making fun

of the Republican Party.

But now looking back, I feel like I feel like I was more like

at the time.

I think in twenty twenty it was really fun.

But then as this election came forward and after he won again,

I was like, oh, maybe I was part of the problem here, you know?

Oh, God.

Yeah.

I mean, honestly, you think about it.

And I was like, you know, the

narratives we were putting out

were this these narratives of,

like, these Trump supporters are

stupid idiots, blah, blah, blah,

blah, blah.

And I don't think that's a

healthy narrative to be putting

out.

I don't think that's the right angle at all.

I don't think that's helping anybody by.

Sure.

Um, putting people down and

saying that people are racist

and stupid, but but, you know, I

don't work there anymore, so,

um, I don't have to worry about

it.

It's not practical either, because it backs those people

into a corner and all.

They just cling to the unhealthy

things that they're they're

already on.

Yeah.

No, it's, um, it's a profoundly bizarre time.

I'm thinking about moving to, uh, Mexico or Guatemala or

something, because I can't with this America anymore.

Um, it's like, what's what's keeping me here anymore?

You know, America used to be

this place where it was like,

oh, there's so many great

things, but now I'm thinking

about it.

I'm like, I'm paying so much for health insurance.

I'm paying so much for everything.

Like, what am I doing here?

You know what's I mean?

Aside from friends and family, what's keeping me?

You know, I feel like my wife and I are on this tightrope

where if things get better, then we'll fall over into, you know,

retirement in America in ten years and will be happy probably

living in Southern California someplace where, um, where we

don't hate the weather.

Sure.

But if things continue going the way we're going, uh, she happens

to be a Canadian citizen.

Oh. Well done.

So falling over into onto that

side is, you know, where I hate

the weather, but the, you know,

they they just in Canada just

now made, uh, uh, school

lunches, universal school

lunches permanent.

Right.

They're doing a lot of things that we should be doing here.

I mean, health care, I mean health care and all the things.

But, yeah, I'd be there already if I were you, to be honest.

But, like, I get it, the weather is tricky.

Um, but Canada's Canada is also a beautiful country.

Like, I was up there a couple of

years ago, and like, in Calgary

and Banff and, boy, uh, it's

something to be said for the

Canadian Rockies.

Almost better than the American Rockies, to be honest.

That's the one part I haven't been to.

Yeah.

Oh, I recommend it.

How do you imagine that this

would ever return to normal,

though?

That's the thing that I always ask myself.

Is it like, I think it feels too far gone to me at this point,

but maybe I'm just too cynical, but I generally am not.

I'm not cynical enough in this

instance this year, because I

didn't think it was going to get

this crazy.

I don't think going back to normal as possible, I am.

I am hopeful in my better days

that that we won't have

Republicans in all three

branches of government and that

eventually the old man is going

to die.

And there's nobody like Stephen

Miller doesn't have any charisma

and JD Vance doesn't have any

charisma.

And so they're going to have to hope that they've they've gamed

the system enough that they will hold on to the levers of power,

um, without without their charismatic TV star strongman.

Um, yeah.

And I, I can see that falling apart.

I don't know that we have enough.

Um, people on the other side prepared to pick up the pieces

and fight as dirty for good as they have been fighting.

Dirty for evil.

On the other side, um, that's what I worry about.

Can we get and, you know, more

bernies more AOC's hu more Adam

Schiff's, more, you know,

Jasmine Crockett's these people

that really are saying the right

things.

Can we get them into power and

will they, um, will they undo

this tremendous amount of damage

that's happened?

You know, I mean, I think that

the only one of those people

that you mentioned that I'd

actually be okay with being in

office would be Bernie Sanders,

because he's the only legitimate

one.

Like, I think that the system is

so captured, and I think that

Donald Trump is a very effective

distraction, but I think that

it's far more nefarious than

that.

And I think that, frankly, both sides like the Democrats being

ineffective right now, that's not an accident.

You know, this is like the entire system has been so

captured by corporate money that when a person like Donald Trump

comes in, it's distracting from all of the other things.

And the other things are our government has been is being

legally bribed every single day by corporate money and has not

been a democracy for years.

Like, it's it's it's the problems run deeper than Trump,

which is the thing.

And that's where I think we really I don't really want to

get too deep into it.

But like I think we really blew

it with Bernie Sanders in twenty

sixteen.

I think he would have won.

I think he would have beat Trump.

And I think things would be totally different right now.

But, uh, but that's, you know, uh, maybe just, uh, me wishing

for a different past, of course.

But, um, but yeah, I think they they really blew it.

But but yeah, here's hoping.

I mean, it's certainly an interesting time to be alive.

Isn't that like the Chinese curse?

May you live in interesting times or something like that.

May you live in interesting times.

Yeah.

And I feel at times naive, too naive and too cynical and, uh,

and don't know exactly where to where to come down on it.

But, um, I basically agree with everything you said while

keeping in the back of my head the hope that, you know the

things will get better.

You know, that I have to have that hope.

I have to keep, um, trying to

inspire joy in the people close

to me.

So that.

Right, there's something still there.

Yeah.

I mean, I think that in my mind, the best thing that you that

that individuals can do at this point, you know, um, instead of

going on Instagram and posting your, you know, um, whatever

anti-Trump blah, blah, blah, whatever it is, you know, uh, I

think you need to, like, go into the community around you and

volunteer and help people in your community help out where

you can make this, make the place around you better, you

know, because that's all that you can do to really enact.

And that actually does enact positive change.

That's truly helping in a way

more than calling your

congressperson, more than all

these other things that I feel

like are just really

distractions.

Yeah.

Um, you know, for the people who have gone, you know, who were

really paranoid and they think, like, I need to have guns.

Um, which I don't entirely disagree with, but I also think,

you know, knowing the names of all of your neighbors is going

to be a hundred times more effective than owning guns.

Absolutely.

If if things go sour all around

you, like, like know like know

your your people around you,

like be figure out who needs

help and help them if, uh, if

that's if that's what's going

on.

I mean, I feel like that's part of the problem is we've really

lost the sense of community here in the United States.

I mean, maybe other places, but

I think the United States in

particular has really this idea

of community.

You know, how many people I

don't I don't know a lot of my

neighbors, a lot of my friends,

most of my friends probably

don't know a lot of their

neighbors.

I have one friend who knows all of his neighbors because he's

that kind of person.

But like, I just don't feel like

there is the sense of

togetherness in it because we're

all on the phones and on the

internet.

So it's a I don't know.

I don't know, um, but I really do think that finding community

again is really important.

And I love the idea of getting

to know all your neighbors

names.

That'd be amazing.

The cult of individuality, which I certainly, um, subscribed to

as a person who deliberately changed their name in order to

look more individual, um, is has been not great for America.

Um, you know, we we you look at the the, you know, watch a

Chinese dance routine or something and you're like, oh,

those people have a very different way of approaching the

world than than we do.

You know, they.

Yeah, they are willing to become they're part of the group.

They don't need to stand out.

And yeah, with, with the phones

that that allows us to be

insulated.

We can be a single person

trapped inside a single black

rectangle.

Um, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think Covid did a lot to accelerate this, um, in a way

that for sure.

Yeah, yeah.

Good times, good times.

Um, I mean, honestly, you can if

you can find joy in your own, in

your own life, then I think

you're doing well because you're

only you.

It's it's it's not what's happening.

It's how you yourself are

reacting to what's happening

that's important.

And I think that if you can find a way to say to yourself, I'm

not going to have negative reactions to these things, I'm

going to accept these things or not pay attention to these

things, then I think that's the best thing that I think a lot of

people can do, because it's bad vibes in America right now.

It's not it's not good vibes.

And I know that simplifies it, but I really would prefer to

have some better vibes.

That's just, you know.

Yeah.

And it's fun to seek out those

good vibes, you know, find

people that, in the face of all

this are having a good time and

figure out like, well, what are

they doing?

What are they how are they feeling?

This um, I had pretty serious depression.

Um, gosh, I guess it was leading

into the, the pandemic and

actually toward the end of the

pandemic up till now, when

things are.

Continue to be objectively kind of terrible.

I'm in remission from it, you know.

And I'm on medication.

I'm in therapy.

But the, um, same same.

But it's it's a it's paradoxical to me.

Like.

Like, shouldn't I feel the worst right now?

Um, but I guess I'm happy that I'm not.

So that I can think clearly and not just, you know, spend all

day in bed looking at my phone.

I can get out in the world.

It's a vicious cycle, isn't it?

Right.

Mhm.

Um, yeah.

I've also suffered from the depression as well.

Another other thing we have in common.

I wonder if it's the name Jef

that does it, or if it's all we

should do a scientific study of

some sort.

I'm not sure what it would be,

but, um, scientists could study

what.

Right.

The one F's.

Um, that's another.

That's a that's a movie name right there.

We should start a band and call it the Jef Taylors.

They would think it's like the Ramones.

But no. This is really your names?

No, it's really the Jef Taylor.

I wonder if we could get one more person.

Do you play any instruments?

I don't I could probably fake

being a, uh, uh, percussionist

slash.

Yeah, like tambourine or something.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh, lead vocalist.

Yeah yeah yeah, yeah.

Perfect, perfect.

You're in.

Yeah.

We're backing vocals.

We need you.

Yeah, we really need you.

Because you're the only other

Jef Taylor that I know right

now.

So we really need.

We need you in the band.

We can't be the Jef Taylor's without more.

At least we need at least two Jef Taylor's to call ourselves

the Jef Taylor's.

Yeah, we need, we need we need a third.

I saw a two piece the other day, and I was like, this is cool

what they're doing.

But actually I've seen two

opening bands that were two

pieces recently and I thought,

this is great, but like name the

super successful famous two

piece band because, um, you

really are missing out on a a

chunk.

Like for a rock band, like you could be a duo, you can be Simon

and Garfunkel, but like one guy playing drums and one person

playing the black keys.

Black keys, the white stripes.

Yep.

Those are two big ones.

Those are.

Those are good.

I saw the tune-yards.

I don't know if you remember them.

Um, but that's a two piece as well.

And she does a lot of looping and stuff.

But but it actually reminded me when, when you were talking

about, like, finding pieces of joy in this dark time, it was

actually like, it made me think that, like, because at this

concert, like, it was a very it was a wonderful concert.

It was very like small venue and

like everybody was very much

like into it and very happy to

be there.

And the performers seem very happy to be there.

And it was almost like it was

this joyful moment in the time

of darkness.

But it was like possibly more

joyful in the time of darkness,

because we're in a time of

darkness, and it's like a relief

to be in a place with happy

people, with happy music and

people dancing and yada yada

yada.

Um, for sure, for sure, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, uh, I kind of hate going to see live music now because I'm

old and I don't want to stand for three hours.

But I've been to a bunch of shows in the last couple of

years, and while I'm there, I'm like, look at this.

I'm in a room with five hundred people that are all here for the

same purpose, you know, and I don't go to church, so this is

the closest I'm going to get.

And this feels great.

And every once in a while it's a really good show.

Like, uh, you know, the band called death?

Yes, I've heard of them.

Sounds like.

Yeah.

Uplifting.

A a punk band that recorded a an

album in nineteen seventy four

that disappeared.

And then somebody found it and

they made a documentary about

it.

And anyway, the survivors toured.

Oh, was it called was it called a band called death?

That was the name of the documentary.

Yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

So there, there show.

Incredible.