Jessie East and Jason East

[00:02] JESSE EAST: My name is Jesse east. I'm 45. Today is Monday, May 2, 2022. We are in the Ozarks, Missouri. My interview partner today is Jason east, and he is my husband.

[00:16] JASON EAST: My name is Jason east, and today is Monday, May 2, 2022. And we are in the Ozarks, Missouri, the southwest corner of Missouri. And my partner's name is Jesse east, and she is my best friend and wife.

[00:40] JESSE EAST: Aw. So, Jason, I wanted to do this today because I think your story is one that's really interesting and very timely. You spent most of your adult life, if not all of your adult life, working in a very intense field full of also toxic masculinity. And you have removed yourself from that line of work to become a stay at home parent, which is not something that is commonly seen around here, especially for dads. And I wanted you to talk about that experience and also the fact that you are on the cusp of becoming an entrepreneur with your art. So let's take it back to the beginning. I want to start in college when you were deciding that college wasn't the route that you wanted to take, and baseball wasn't something that you wanted to continue pursuing, either.

[01:49] JASON EAST: Okay. Well, at that point, yeah, I had gone to college basically to play baseball, not to study. And the baseball career was not panning out. I wasn't as good as I thought I was when I went down there to play. And then, yeah, you know, I came home from school, and. And basically, well, my father pretty much felt like it's time for you to go to work now. And I was still pretty young. I guess I didn't have much direction, so I took the path that he paved for me, I guess you could say, or laid out before me. And it was in the construction industry. And so, yeah, I started working in the construction industry in 1996. I actually started in the office, and then during one of the downturns in 2009, I think it was, I got laid off from that work, started working as a carpenter, and did that for a couple of years, and then went back to the office for a few more years until 2018, when, as you said, we decided that I should quit and stay home with our then two year old son.

[03:30] JESSE EAST: And when we had that conversation, we knew that one of us needed to stay home. Right. Because Alex had developed some special needs, and we learned that he had epilepsy, and he had developed some delays because of that. So we were fortunate enough to live in a community where we had access to free preschool that he could go to for half a day. But that required somebody being at home to take him, to get him to the bus. They had a little bus that came down. No, we didn't. Did we? That's right. We just knew that he needed to be with one of us that came.

[04:08] JASON EAST: Along later that fall.

[04:09] JESSE EAST: You're right. Yeah. We just.

[04:12] JASON EAST: It was just me and him.

[04:14] JESSE EAST: Yeah. He wasn't sleeping at all, so we weren't sleeping at all. And he demanded you in the middle of the night, too. He always wanted you to comfort him, not me. So you were even getting less sleep than anybody, and yet you were working, what, 45, 50 hours a week?

[04:32] JASON EAST: Yeah. An eight hour day in the construction industry is considered part time, and a five day workweek is also considered part time.

[04:40] JESSE EAST: Yeah. You felt like you were fighting every day when you left, and you had to drive an hour there, 30 minutes, 45 minutes there, and it was a stressful drive.

[04:54] JASON EAST: So, yeah, you told me I looked gray.

[04:57] JESSE EAST: You did look gray.

[04:57] JASON EAST: And I think it was as much as it was aura as it was my.

[05:00] JESSE EAST: I was just. Your skin color. It was like grayish green. You were in an office with no windows. Right, right.

[05:08] JASON EAST: And no natural light, no natural air.

[05:12] JESSE EAST: Uh huh.

[05:13] JASON EAST: Yeah.

[05:14] JESSE EAST: People. Anyway, people listening to radio shows that were not.

[05:20] JASON EAST: Yeah. Partisan radio that. Yeah. I want to be careful. I don't want to be too partisan myself.

[05:28] JESSE EAST: The point here is that it was an assault on your senses in all aspects of it.

[05:33] JASON EAST: I was the square peg in a round hole. Or vice versa. Yeah, definitely.

[05:38] JESSE EAST: But you stayed there for such a long time because you felt like you had no other options.

[05:44] JASON EAST: Yeah. So anyway, yeah, we quit, and I put my focus on. Or I quit and put my focus on our son. And I learned how to play again, playing with him, you know, and how to enjoy just living again instead of working. You know, I put my focus on our life and our home instead of making a pile of money for somebody else, you know, and this actually happened before the pandemic. I know a lot of people have come to this conclusion since. Yeah, we were already there a couple years before it. And so when it hit, I was already at home, which was pretty fortunate for us. We didn't have to do too much adjusting on that front.

[06:41] JESSE EAST: Yeah, that's true. So when you first started telling people that you were leaving your job, how do you feel that they responded to you?

[06:50] JASON EAST: Oh, some of them responded positively. Well, no, I shouldn't say. I think I sensed some real jealousy from a couple of them. I did pick up a couple.

[07:11] JESSE EAST: You mean cowork people that you were working with. Previously.

[07:14] JASON EAST: Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. The bosses were kind of snickering and. Oh, he'll be back. He's not a nurse maid. I remember that quote.

[07:26] JESSE EAST: Nursemaid. Yeah.

[07:30] JASON EAST: Yeah. This was the same guy that was trying to get me to put whiskey in Alex's formula. Whatever, baby. Oh.

[07:41] JESSE EAST: Because he wouldn't sleep. Oh, dear. Yeah, I remember that.

[07:47] JASON EAST: Can you edit this? I hope they can edit.

[07:49] JESSE EAST: Yeah, they're editing. Why? I don't think he said anything that needs to be edited anyway. Yeah. So. And they did actually call you in January of this year, asking you to come back, too. Right?

[08:03] JASON EAST: They called me the day after Christmas.

[08:05] JESSE EAST: That's right.

[08:06] JASON EAST: Asking me to come back.

[08:09] JESSE EAST: I remember hating that so much, how every. Every year, without fail, around Christmas, suddenly some emerging would see. Would come up, and they would need everyone to be in the office. And I'm thinking, you cannot tell me. I mean, that just reeks of.

[08:25] JASON EAST: It's control.

[08:26] JESSE EAST: Yeah. Control and a martyr complex. Like, I think that they really. They manufactured these quote unquote, emergencies because.

[08:34] JASON EAST: Feel important.

[08:35] JESSE EAST: To feel important. And also, I think, really, they were uncomfortable being around their families, and maybe that's because they were at work all the time.

[08:42] JASON EAST: Exactly.

[08:43] JESSE EAST: Now, I don't know these people.

[08:45] JASON EAST: Chicken or egg, though?

[08:46] JESSE EAST: Yeah. Yeah. So. And I didn't want you to be a part of that, so I'm really glad that you made that escaped. Yeah. And I. You know, I love my work, so I didn't really. I wasn't so totally sold on the idea of staying home.

[09:01] JASON EAST: Yeah.

[09:01] JESSE EAST: You know, and that was hard for me, too, because I feel like sometimes maybe. Well, I mean, I don't feel like I know that I'm never gonna. There's. I'm not gonna get Alex's earliest years back. I don't get that time back. So it was not an easy choice. But knowing that you were staying home with him, finally, you know, we tried a lot of different daycare options and childcare options, and nothing was working well, so when you started staying home with him, he really started. That was his. When he started thriving, that's when he started going uphill.

[09:38] JASON EAST: And me, too.

[09:40] JESSE EAST: Yeah, right. Both of you. Like, you got your healthy glow back. You just seem to have blood circulating all over your body again and. Yeah, eating better and spending less time in the car, spending less time seated, and. Yeah, you guys got really creative, too. So that's where you started playing with him. And the teachers would send home activity ideas, especially during the pandemic. So then the pandemic hits, and suddenly you become also a preschool teacher.

[10:16] JASON EAST: Yeah. And so, yeah, he needed to learn how to use scissors. He was. Was he four yet at that time? Maybe. Yeah, he was four, I guess.

[10:30] JESSE EAST: Yeah, he was.

[10:31] JASON EAST: And he needed to learn how to use scissors and tear papers. And he was just refusing to do both. And I'm looking at him like, kid, I've been trying to keep these sharp scissors out of your hands all the time you've been alive, and now you're refusing to use them. Are you kidding me? Same with Taran. You know, you're trying to keep tearing things up, and now he's refusing to do it anyway. So at the time, he was really into weather and tornadoes, particularly. You like to watch YouTube clips of tornadoes and. Or Internet clips, maybe I should say tornadoes. And there were some kids that were making some animated tornado movies on there and posting them. And so I got the idea, maybe we should, since you won't cut paper or tear paper, maybe we should cut some scenes out of construction paper that we had and. And make a little tornado video. And I bet I can find a stop motion app on the app store. And sure enough, I did relatively cheaply. And so we started making little stop motion movies out of construction paper, and it worked. He started using his scissors, learned to tear paper, and. And then we would do the same thing with coloring. You know, I would lay out a scene and have him color it, and then we would make a little movie with that.

[12:04] JESSE EAST: And he was really proud of those. He's still really proud of them.

[12:07] JASON EAST: He is proud of them. And then I started seeing a lot of creative possibilities with this app myself. And I started making. Staying up late at night and making my own little videos by myself. And, well, it started, you know, I was including him. And they got a little too complicated for you. Yeah. You know, attention span. And I made a couple of music videos and one and posted them to some social media sites. And luckily, I did not get sued. In fact, one of the band members and one of the band saw one of the videos and contacted me, and now I'm working on one specifically for him. And hopefully it will be successful.

[13:06] JESSE EAST: So that's where you are now. So we moved into a new house. We left Ozark. We were living in Ozark previously. We moved into Springfield this past summer. And so we've been in this house for about a year now. And you've got a nice space in the basement for creation.

[13:22] JASON EAST: Yeah. Big studio space.

[13:25] JESSE EAST: Your space setup. You've got a big drawing table.

[13:31] JASON EAST: Yes.

[13:31] JESSE EAST: You've gotten some lights over it.

[13:33] JASON EAST: Yeah.

[13:34] JESSE EAST: First you were doing everything on your phone with a cracked screen.

[13:37] JASON EAST: That's right. The first video that I made that caught the musician's attention, Washington made on an iPhone with a cracked screen. That's correct. And I've since got a new phone and a new laptop. And, yeah, the work has. The quality of the work has improved as a result, for sure.

[13:54] JESSE EAST: And you've got an iPad now, and you're playing around with procreate. So you're learning this new software, which is really exciting.

[14:03] JASON EAST: Yes.

[14:04] JESSE EAST: You've had a love hate relationship with computers since leaving the construction industry.

[14:09] JASON EAST: Yeah. That's why I didn't.

[14:10] JESSE EAST: You were steel detailer.

[14:12] JASON EAST: Yeah.

[14:13] JESSE EAST: You were at a computer all the time.

[14:15] JASON EAST: Right. I didn't want to have anything to do with a computer. Yeah. For a while there, and I still kind of don't. But if it's fun like this, that's different. Yeah.

[14:27] JESSE EAST: I think it would be fun to mention that. The first music video that you did.

[14:32] JASON EAST: Okay. I didn't know if we were allowed to use name names or name brand names or whatever in this interview. I thought I was kind of staying away from that.

[14:40] JESSE EAST: Any proprietary limitations on this?

[14:44] JASON EAST: She's nodding her head. Don't mention names.

[14:49] JESSE EAST: So. Okay.

[14:50] JASON EAST: I don't think we should. Yeah.

[14:53] JESSE EAST: The. The first type of art that you did was just straight up construction paper glue.

[15:02] JASON EAST: Yeah, I was cutting shapes out of construction paper. Well, my idea was I don't want to have to do 5000 drawings, you know, to animate this thing. So I'll just make these paper dolls or paper action figures, if you will, and I'll move them about, you know, in different poses and take pictures of them with a stop motion app. Yeah.

[15:22] JESSE EAST: And you've. You've since incorporated glitter, paper, feathers and.

[15:28] JASON EAST: Yeah. Feather boas and. Yeah. All the things you find at the scrapbooking aisle and in the craft store. I'll be there with the, with the scrapbooking ladies in my puma tracksuit, and I don't really fit in, but it's okay.

[15:47] JESSE EAST: And me having been a children's librarian, where I was, you know, using construction paper for all these years, and now you're the one who's, like, all about the construction paper, and it's really fun. Yeah, it's really fun.

[15:57] JASON EAST: It is very fun. Very much fun.

[15:59] JESSE EAST: Now, we used to be in a band, and you used to draw all of our art posters, all of our promotional posters.

[16:05] JASON EAST: I did.

[16:05] JESSE EAST: And you had a lot of fun doing those. You've been doing art since you were a kid.

[16:08] JASON EAST: Yes.

[16:09] JESSE EAST: You've always loved drawing.

[16:10] JASON EAST: Yes. It's not a new thing, but this focus on it sure is. And. Yeah. And I'm really happy. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to free myself enough that I can focus on it.

[16:24] JESSE EAST: You're welcome. It's nice to see you happy. I remember back when you did the construction or the carpentry business, you were kind of doing an all around handyman carpentry business for yourself. You didn't enjoy it.

[16:38] JASON EAST: No.

[16:38] JESSE EAST: You know, we thought that maybe it.

[16:40] JASON EAST: Was a have to kind of thing, not a want to.

[16:42] JESSE EAST: Yeah. So. But your idea now for your new endeavor, can you explain that?

[16:51] JASON EAST: Yes. I want to start an art studio that focuses on providing social media content for musicians to use on their. On their platform social media platforms, particularly animation, but not limited to animation.

[17:12] JESSE EAST: And so we're learning a lot right now, too, about the metaverse.

[17:16] JASON EAST: Yeah. So we're trying to. Anyway, yeah. Trying to study up on some of this new stuff. NFT and things.

[17:24] JESSE EAST: Yeah, yeah. Nfts are a new thing. And you seem to be on the. In the right place at the right time.

[17:32] JASON EAST: Well, I hope so. When I first started hearing about these things, I'll admit I had an old codger attitude about it. You know, I was afraid of it. I'm against it, you know, but the more I read about it, I think it's probably gonna be the next. Well, it's already here with Fortnite and some of the things they're already doing some of that stuff with. With their own. You know, you have to use their tokens to buy the various in game purchases and whatnot. So. Yeah, I kind of got off point there. Sorry.

[18:03] JESSE EAST: No, that's okay.

[18:05] JASON EAST: I can't remember what I was gonna say.

[18:08] JESSE EAST: You typically have not been a guy who's been super excited about social media. You're not a first adopter. So this is, the fact that you're. You are investigating all of these things and showing so much excitement about all of these things tells me how passionate you are about this new chapter in your life, which is really exciting for me to see as your partner.

[18:30] JASON EAST: Yeah, well, in the past, social media before, you know, I took this path and started seeing the possibilities that and opportunities for an artist, I didn't see them before because all I was seeing was political nonsense on my social media feed. And. And when I say nonsense, a lot of it is, you know, this background noise, gossipy type stuff, you know, and some of it, a lot of it's not even true. And and so I figure out how to groom all that out, how to weed all that stuff out. And, yeah, I've just, now my social media platforms are filled with my art, not complaining about politics. So, yeah, there's. I mean, I've been guilty of that for sure. But you got to be careful where you put your focus.

[19:28] JESSE EAST: Mm hmm. And your energy. Right.

[19:30] JASON EAST: Yeah.

[19:33] JESSE EAST: So looking ahead to this summer, you are trying to figure out how you're going to continue working on your projects.

[19:43] JASON EAST: Yes.

[19:44] JESSE EAST: While also having Alex at home for the summer.

[19:46] JASON EAST: Yes. Yes, that's true. And I've started to wrangle in some help to help with production work.

[20:02] JESSE EAST: Which I think is also interesting because you've never again, in your previous endeavor as an entrepreneur, you weren't interested in having any help. You didn't feel confident enough to.

[20:15] JASON EAST: I didn't know anyone that I felt comfortable partnering with in that line of work. I do know at least a dozen artists that are great and woefully underemployed at the, you know, a box store or something. So, yeah, it just feels easier.

[20:37] JESSE EAST: Oh, and I wanted to mention, too, that you. You've also been contacted by someone who's making a documentary film.

[20:42] JASON EAST: Yes.

[20:42] JESSE EAST: And by a person who has a podcast.

[20:44] JASON EAST: Yes. So, yeah.

[20:46] JESSE EAST: Having a promo piece.

[20:47] JASON EAST: Yes. Yeah. So, yes. It seems to be starting anyway, and I'm really excited about it.

[20:55] JESSE EAST: It seems to be an interesting. For sure. Yeah.

[20:57] JASON EAST: Yeah. And that stop motion, I've been noticing it everywhere lately. It seems to be a trend, and I wonder if it's not a pandemic born of the pandemic, like it certainly was for me.

[21:09] JESSE EAST: Uh huh.

[21:09] JASON EAST: You know? Yeah. People had time to tinker with things like that.

[21:14] JESSE EAST: You know, there may be a wing in an art museum someday called the pandemic. It's all construction paper.

[21:21] JASON EAST: Well, it's stop motion. Yes.

[21:24] JESSE EAST: Cotton balls.

[21:26] JASON EAST: But, yeah, I think the shift in lifestyle during the pandemic has actually been a good thing for me.

[21:35] JESSE EAST: Talk more about that.

[21:36] JASON EAST: Well, it's not just the staying home. It's when we made that choice in 2018 to put more focus on our home instead of on our income, we were not very. That was not a common thing, and now it seems to be much more common. I feel like we were kind of ahead of the curve on that. A lot of people have come around to that line of thinking. It seems to me, anyway, since. Since 2020. And, yeah, I just felt like, I remember during those first few months, I remember just feeling a sense of relief that it's okay for me to just focus here and do focus right here at what I'm doing in my home. And I don't know why I felt like I needed that permission. And I don't think I articulated that to myself at the time. It was just this general mood. It's okay to focus on at home.

[22:44] JESSE EAST: That's not the message you get when you're in.

[22:46] JASON EAST: No, it isn't.

[22:47] JESSE EAST: When you're, you know, drowning in toxic masculinity, that's not the message.

[22:51] JASON EAST: Yeah, yeah. It's not just toxic masculinity. It's. It's just that grind culture in general. I think toxic masculinity is probably big part of it, but it's also got a lot to do with greed and money.

[23:05] JESSE EAST: Yeah, it does. You're right. A lot of deconditioning has happened.

[23:10] JASON EAST: Yeah.

[23:12] JESSE EAST: So when you talk about yourself as a stay at home parent now, do you feel like you get, how do you feel about the responses that you get now versus when you first started?

[23:23] JASON EAST: I can't tell you because I stopped paying attention to it. I don't care.

[23:26] JESSE EAST: Well, I think that's very telling.

[23:27] JASON EAST: Yeah.

[23:28] JESSE EAST: Okay.

[23:28] JASON EAST: I don't care anymore what they think.

[23:30] JESSE EAST: Good.

[23:31] JASON EAST: Yeah. Yep.

[23:33] JESSE EAST: Good. I know that when we are together and people say, where do you work? You know, and I say, I'm a librarian. And then for you I say, he's our stay at home parent. You know, one time you were like, I don't work. And I was thinking, no, no, no, that's not how we're going to talk about that.

[23:49] JASON EAST: That was early.

[23:50] JESSE EAST: You're our stay at home parent.

[23:52] JASON EAST: You know, it was early on in the deconditioning process.

[23:55] JESSE EAST: Uh huh. Yeah, yeah.

[23:58] JASON EAST: But, yeah, you know, again, I. I've really gotten past that caring.

[24:08] JESSE EAST: And so, yeah, I remember, too, you would tell me about times that you would take Alex to the playground and you might see groups of moms and they acted really skittish and nervous. I think I made them uncomfortable. Not that, like, they didn't know what to do with a dad, you know, there during the day there.

[24:26] JASON EAST: And.

[24:26] JESSE EAST: Yeah, it could be a little strange.

[24:28] JASON EAST: At times for all of us, I think, but it's okay.

[24:40] JESSE EAST: Okay. So when you're looking forward to this summer, what are you thinking about in terms of your schedule?

[24:48] JASON EAST: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We were talking about that. Went off on that delegation track. Yeah. I have enlisted some people to help me, but I'm probably going to have to burn the candle at strange hours and take some sleep here and there when I can get it, I think so I can be there for our sun during the day and still get my work done that I want get done. And this is a new feeling for me. It happened to me again this morning. I woke up at 02:00 in the morning and said, is it time to get up and work yet? Is it time to get up?

[25:28] JESSE EAST: You were excited, right?

[25:29] JASON EAST: And I was like, no, it's only 02:00 go back to sleep.

[25:34] JESSE EAST: You won't get up at 05:00 in the morning. You'll stay up till two and 03:00 in the morning working.

[25:38] JASON EAST: I mean, it doesn't feel like work. It does not feel like work.

[25:43] JESSE EAST: I can tell because you're sacrificing a lot and you're very focused on it. You're very excited about it. So I'm very proud of you. I think that this is going to be a really exciting chapter in your life, and I think Alex is all the better for you, having made the choice to stay at home. And a lot of kids don't get to have this kind of bonding time with one of their parents, so I think Alex is really lucky for that.

[26:17] JASON EAST: I feel like these last. It's been four years now, these last four years that I've had with him have been the biggest gift that anyone has ever given me. So thank you for that.

[26:33] JESSE EAST: You're welcome. Let's see. Something that I really admire about you is, like I said, making this decision that you've made. It was not easy. There was no. It was totally outside the norm for everything that you had ever been raised to believe was appropriate or responsible, and. But you decided that your priority was Alex and his development and his growth and his security. He's a very anxious child, you know, and we're still seeing signs of that. So as much security as we can give him, the better off he's going to be. So. And you are that. Are that source of that for him. So that's something I really admire about you.

[27:27] JASON EAST: Thank you.

[27:28] JESSE EAST: You're welcome.

[27:32] JASON EAST: And I admire, well, I've already told you that what you gave me was the biggest gift anyone has ever given me. But what I admire about you outside of our home is your. I don't. I'm struggling to find the here. It's your standing in the community, I guess I should say. Like, you're a leader in the community. People look to you, certainly here at your job, to lead them. And you're the best diplomat that I know. You can tell somebody that they're wrong without them even realizing that. You're telling them that they're wrong sometimes. You don't always do it that way.

[28:35] JESSE EAST: But.

[28:41] JASON EAST: I love you very much.

[28:43] JESSE EAST: I love you, too. Okay. Thanks for doing this with me.

[28:49] JASON EAST: Thank you for asking.