December 2022 Q&A

Transcript

Hey Moonbeams! It is time for another Q&A and I'm going to preface this by saying it is January 6th as I record this but this is the December Q&A and those of you who've been around for a while know that I had a move in October that was an absolute disaster. It really set me behind and I do feel strongly about getting all of the content out even if it is a little bit late and so between that, travel for work, the holidays, guests around the holidays, more travel, more holidays, and then the ongoing project that was getting this house together for a month.

It really took me a while to get on top of things and I have a little bit more content to get you for for December and then at that point I'm gonna be totally caught up and be able to focus on January. So unlike November that had the last of its content come out on I think New Year's Eve, sorry about that, this is gonna be all done a week or so into January and January I really hope to keep what is posted in January is recorded in January or something. I'm a dork it's okay.

All right we're gonna dive right into this. Gina Magrin asks is there any audio style or type you wouldn't record any particular genre or topic? If yes what are they and if you don't mind what's the reasoning behind this? Recently found your channel and love your work.

Well thank you for that and thank you for joining as a patron and and taking the time to submit questions and hopefully listen to the answer. The first and most obvious thing that comes to mind is that I will not do not safe for work audios. That is part of my life, part of who I am that I want to reserve and not put out there publicly.

And I have those of you who have been around a while know that I don't get preachy about religion but I am a devout Christian and for me I want to stay away from from audio porn and that's just part of my religious beliefs, my upbringing values and and just somewhere that I don't want to go. As far as topics there are some very controversial topics that I'm not gonna touch with a ten-foot pole. Well I mean it was just Christmas I wouldn't touch them with a thirty nine and a half foot pole I think I should say.

Things that are overtly political things that may not be overtly political but that people have attached a lot of political significance to whether I agree with that or not. I just don't want to do that and one of the biggest reasons is I want my audio to be accessible to my listeners and so I don't I don't want to get into situations where I'm alienating listeners by going into controversial topics, going into things that may rub them the wrong way, that may be against their code of ethics and morals. I mean you can see this even in in regular audios you know I record mostly M4A and I started out my audio career recording exclusively M4F and then thinking about it I was like you know it's not that big a deal for me to remove female specific pronouns in terms of endearment because there are plenty of gender-neutral ones that I can use and not have to alienate you know and and looking at YouTube statistics I want to say it's about 5% of my listener base is male and so I decided a long time ago that I wanted to record mostly M4A and there are some times I go into M4F but that I would want to mostly do M4A to be more accessible to that portion of my of my listeners even if they are you know very outnumbered by my female listeners.

I also don't record anything M4M. I have been asked to in the past and I've declined the reason being number one by recording something that is M4M I would exclude 95% of my listeners. Secondly I have no problem with people loving who they want to love being attracted to they want to be attracted to whatever the track I should say attracted to who they are attracted to I don't have anything you know to say about that or negative to say about anybody's choices or or the way they're wired or anything like that however I myself am a heterosexual man and I am attracted to women and so it would not be authentic for me to be making M4M content.

It would be forced since it's not for me just simply script reading I put a lot of personality a lot of who I am into my audios and so I would be diverging from that to go into M4M territory. So those are a few of the things that guide me in terms of what I will and will not record. Yamakun says hey Matt I hope you're doing well and that your holidays went great they really did and I hope yours went well as as well.

Mine I had some people that are close to me over for Christmas wonderful time opening gifts and hanging out and laughing watching movies beautiful Christmas dinner still working on the leftovers for that I had a turkey sandwich for lunch yesterday although I did throw out the rest of the green bean casserole it was not it was good you know as green bean casserole goes but it didn't really get eaten very much and and I didn't see myself finishing it either so we'll have to see if I make that going forward. Question one do you make New Year's resolutions if so do you make one big one or a few small ones? I really don't do anything special for New Year's in that respect I I tend to make goals as I as I see fit throughout the year and I set my goals and I set ways to measure them in ways that I hope to accomplish them and then reevaluate and see if I need to adjust the goal if I want to change the goal if I want to abandon the goal if I fulfilled the goal whatever and some of them are big and some of them are small it all depends on my needs and what I'm trying to do and how I'm feeling about things what I have on my plate that sort of thing.

What is the best Christmas present you got as a kid or teen? hmm that's a really good question one of the best gifts that I got in my prior to age 18 years was my parents gave me a leather jacket and it's it's several years old now it's a beautiful brown leather jacket need to get it restored a little bit get the leather you know get a little bit of care for it when I get when it when it gets to the top of my priority list is when that's gonna happen but a beautiful jacket and yeah that was a very thoughtful gift from my parents I it's one that I will use for years to come. Do you like homemade cookies or store-bought better? hmm I'm gonna say the biggest question I have you know you get more info for this question is who's making them because I've had some cookies that were absolutely terrible I've had others that blow the doors off anything store-made so if the cookies are good and the recipe is good I would I would definitely prefer homemade.

What's your favorite Christmas movie? that is really tough I really like I really like the Miracle on 34th Street the the original I really like a Christmas story I really like National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and there's always gonna be a soft spot in my heart for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and a Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas you know the the ones I used to watch when I was a child so those are some of my favorites this year I didn't get around to most of them honestly I watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and I watched a Christmas story and I watched Home Alone and those those are my Christmas movies this year. Do you like going all out on decorations or do you like to keep it simple? no I like to decorate you know I put wreaths up outside on the windows of my house and I put up a wreath on the front door Christmas tree with lights and decorations ornaments and all that like to put up some other decor around the house one thing that my parents did for me when I was a kid and I may actually start doing this again they would take a string of those mini Christmas lights like one of the strings of a hundred you know one of the shorter ones and they would frame you know that the top and sides of my doorway with them and that was something I really looked forward to every every December was my dad putting those lights up around my bedroom door and and getting to use those Christmas and it wasn't even a scared of the dark thing this is years and years and years after I had stopped using a nightlight you know and but just a little fun a cute thing that my dad did that I grew up with and really enjoyed and PS I hope you have a fun and safe New Year's I really did I hope yours was also similarly safe and fun I I fortunately avoided any bodily injury I also I this was this was clutch I had a whole bunch of cardboard in my garage because you know moving into a bigger place I ended up buying some new furniture some new decor and I had a bunch of a whole bunch of big cardboard boxes in the garage and my old place had a gas fireplace this one has a real fireplace an open one wood-burning one and so I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me before but it it hit me I was like because my car is not all that big and these boxes were too big to put in the recycle bin but they were also too big to put into my car to take to the recycling center so I was gonna I was gonna have to borrow a truck off of a friend in order to get those boxes out of there and it occurred to me it's like why why am I not why am I not burning these and and so I ripped up all those boxes and it was a bunch of really really big boxes and I ripped them all up and I burned them in the fireplace and it was wonderful because it was during that cold snap that we had here on the East Coast and so it was you know temperatures were disgustingly low and so it was real nice to be able to burn those and I got rid of all the cardboard and I didn't burn the place down so that that is key.

Caroline says happy holidays thank you to you as well. Are you close with your siblings do you have a good relationship? Well I so my I'm not gonna give much detail on my family aside from to say that I have cousins and and I am not physically close to any of them but we have a good relationship we don't talk all that much we don't we kind of all have grown up and and are living our own lives and but we do see each other at family gatherings every every so often and yeah I really have a good relationship with my cousins and and the other members of my family that that I get to see.

What is your go-to way to talk with your friends do you make a phone call or would you rather send a text? Honestly depends on which friend and you know my best friend and I don't live near each other anymore and he and I texted back and forth a bit trying to find a time to to chat and finally he actually just called me on Thanksgiving he's like well Matt's gonna be home and and you know I always think I'll call him later I'm like well no I'll just call him now and so he and I had a great chat a lot of other times I just text with my friends honestly you know I'm extroverted so if I've given the chance I'd rather be with my friends and and hang out and actually do something together. Amanda says I've got two who are you rooting for in the upcoming Rose Bowl game University of Utah or Penn State?

I have to say Penn State was the one I rooted for I you know I just I like their color scheme I like their mascot I live closer to Pennsylvania than I do to Utah and the University of Utah is red just you know throws me off.