# The JYLP 0101 with Keenan 'Hurricane' Harvey - Taking Care Of What You Can Reach

- Episode: 0101
- Date: 2023-08-09
- Duration: 2:40:29
- Guest: [Keenan 'Hurricane' Harvey](/guests/keenan-harvey/)
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILAlPLrVsig
- RSS: https://share.transistor.fm/s/372507ac
- Spotify (show): https://open.spotify.com/show/45J7CBdM8j29doqyBp2bFs
- Apple (show): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-junkyard-love-podcast/id1489118788

## About

Keenan is a member of the city council in Kelso, Washington. He's a commercial insurance agent, he's held jobs in the non-profit sector, has been a pseudo-law enforcement officer, has been a parole and probation officer, he has a bachelor's degree in Criminal Law and Justice, holds an advanced certificate of municipal leadership, is Vice President of Kelso Rotary, is active in the Kelso/Longview Chamber Of Commerce, and is on the Cowlitz Economic Development Council Board. Keenan is kind, fun, intelligent and compassionate.

In this thought-provoking and fun episode, Keenan and I talk about a lot of things, including changing times, technological glow-ups, growing up, hard work, valuable lessons, love for the city, homelessness, finding a reasonable middle with different types of people, future plans, music, not making judgments from the fringe actors, intrusive thoughts, impulsivity, mindfulness for people down on their luck, strange law-structures, addictions, alienation, the importance of community, self-policing, skatepark environments, spray painting dicks, pride in our city, beautification, personal stories, silly jokes, the fucking weather for some reason, music festivals at The Gorge, flowers in Castle Rock, response to a few questions submitted online from Facebook, some perspectives from Keenan about his job and vision as a leader, future plans, fat camp surgery, feeling better, foot races, friendships, being imperfect, and much more.

## Chapters

(none published in episode notes)

## Quotes

(none published in episode notes)

## Guest links (from published notes)

(none published in episode notes)

## Tags / keywords

keenan harvey, keenan hurricane harvey, kelso, city council, taking care of what you can reach, junkyard love podcast episode 0101, jylp 0101, homelessness, community, skatepark, municipal leadership, kelso longview, cowlitz, JunkyardLovePodcast

## Transcript

[00:00:00] Jacob: What's up everybody it is the junkyard love podcast episode 0101 and it's the man Keenan Harvey Hurricane Harvey himself on the podcast Keenan is a very good friend of mine we've been friends for many years um we have our distances we've been known to fight like brothers we uh we disagree vastly and there are certain times where I've actually like taken a break on our friendship uh just because I was going through things he was going through things but it's so cool how much you know we could realign and Rehab a conversation and uh just land right back right back in love with a friend you know I admire this person dearly a lot of my life has been um my friends have been my family that's really how life is has played out for me I'm a lot closer to uh to my friends than I have ever been to a lot of my family members um the Deep like unconditional love I've felt from my friends I'm just very blessed to have that and Keenan has been a huge part of that since I was a you know in the younger years of my teenage years me and him and a few other people we worked at the same Mall together so we just kind of bonded we'd hang out after work and it just stood into this beautiful friendship so um I'm coming from a place of you know I'm talking to him as a city councilman as a um someone who serves back in my hometown um under a role of a city councilman but a lot of this is just I'm talking to Keenan man this is just my friend he's just a person he has this role um I think he shows up very well in this podcast as just you know not trying to be anybody not trying to um you know present himself as like I am the city councilman or anything you know we're just kind of bsing as friends and he happens to have these jobs and we have a few conversations about them but um it weaves in and out I think it's a good combo it's always really I'm blessed to be able to just have conversations with friends on here you know is as crazy as it is that I get to talk to these like psychologists and scientists and you know like a millionaires or like all these like cool guests that I get to have I also love the fact that I get to have conversations with my buddies on here you know I've always wanted to leave room for that in my podcast in my in my conversations and just kind of have it this open experience of my life you know these are different facets of um you know things that I'm interested in um but I'm also just a dude who has friends and I happen to have a podcast and I could put a mic in front of them and we can have cool conversations that um you know hopefully in some ways benefit or at least positively entertain the listener so anyway without further Ado it's episode one zero one thanks for listening it's the junk I love podcast with Keen on Harvey If you like the episode please like subscribe comment all that sort of stuff it helps the algorithm I don't care about listeners or view counter any of that sort of crap I'm just doing what I'm doing but it does help more people listen if you think that it's beneficial share it send a clip to your friend if you hit follow if you could quickly on Spotify or YouTube or Pandora or apple music or wherever you listen to it if you do hit like five stars it's just beneficial it helps more people listen to it thank you so much anyway let's get on with the episode have better conversations with ourselves yeah interesting so it's not really even a place for it's not really even the right place for that then ice I suppose right

[00:04:02] Keenan: Right and that's why we use email or uh workshops or uh kind of town hall Type events or I've gone as far as Going door to door and asking people you know their opinions on the topic

[00:04:13] Jacob: So you're a brave man I would not want to do that especially also yeah dude yeah um Yeah there's so many things to say about that um excuse me I think I had my vape pen too hard last night or something I don't know I was uh I was just in um I was just in Michigan with my dad and uh I had taken a few month break from smoking weed but um I was just in Michigan with my dad and like dude just smokes a lot and so it was kind of a way to for us to bond I end up just being crazy stoned the whole time so I feel like I'm still my lungs are still recovering from that um this is gonna turn into the Joe Rogan uh Elon Musk interview where I'm gonna Get canceled for talking about weed yeah well let's do it over Zoom let's uh like Keenan do you have that blunt that I've sent you in the mail like we both smoke let me go get it uh that'd be too good that'd be too good um yeah well okay so um my podcast is actually like I mean You say Rogan it's I like the conversational aspect of Rogan's like dude if we feel like talking about you know your childhood trauma and then aliens four minutes later and then like city council stuff right after like Let It Flow wherever it's gonna flow like we'll just be us and whatever you know I I have a few notes but I'm not overly you know that's kind of what I expected I'm chilling yeah that's what I like that's what I like to do is just conversations and then you know you stumble upon cool stuff and you elaborate and you know sometimes you end up talking about like a you know the you talk about the temperature of refrigerators for 25 minutes somehow or something and you know that's what it is sometimes

[00:05:28] Keenan: That's interesting I operate better that way with all these uh all these politicians in my world they have What's called the stump speech and they talk for like three minutes about themselves and oh I'm so and so and I my grandma's mother's cousin was on city council 32 years ago I just want to follow on their footsteps and it's like that's not you just fire questions off I don't care right yeah so is that so like do you think that all politicians are all um you know council members have kind of uh you know basically an elevator pitch and they just kind of repeat it throughout their lives like here's who I am here's what's happened to me and here's where why I'm here sort of thing yep and they repeat it over and over and over and they memorize it and I don't operate that way so I not only am I on Council but I've worked campaigns for other people um to try to get good people elected and so I've seen the same elevator pitches from all different candidates even their opponents uh over and over it's very reductive yeah it's almost like they you know you type how to make a resume and then you follow a template and they kind of like do that same thing and then they eventually have their what do you call the stump speech or stump

[00:07:18] Jacob: Yeah it's called stump speech yeah okay well let me press you on yours what's your stump speech what's your uh what's your okay so like say somebody who doesn't know you they've never heard of you um they're stumbling across like maybe they listen to my podcast maybe it's the first time they listen to the episode they don't have to know anything about either of us uh let's put the pressure on you what is your what's your what's your intro here who are you doing this is what I'm the worst at uh because I naturally just don't like talking about myself um it's kind of kind of weird I do get it because there is a certain level of professionalism that people feel like they're obligated to uphold but I'm opposite I mean I'm surprised you're not like giving a disclaimer uh in the beginning of the interview like viewer discretion is advised because you know I'm gonna drop some drop some curse words or whatever

[00:08:11] Keenan: Um but no I'm Keenan Harvey uh I'm a member of the Kelso City Council full-time I'm a commercial insurance agent for a large insurance broker where I focus on Commercial um uh risk mitigation and Commercial liability for large business uh but I've held jobs in the non-profit sector I was the director of The Humane Society prior to this position and then uh I was a pseudo law enforcement officer for the Washington State Department of Corrections where I was in parole and probation sort of held jobs in public private and non-profit sectors and then before I was a parole and probation officer I worked at a juvenile uh juvenile prison in an integrated gang unit it was called the Hawthorne unit at a maximum security juvenile prison and then before that I was I interned in college with a juvenile Rehabilitation which was a minimum security juvenile prison for incarcerated youth but kind of to reintegrate them back in the community and so I have a bachelor's degree in Criminal Law and Justice um I'm graduating from Kelso High School so naturally I don't know how to do math very well but um no and that's uh basically who I am as a person um since I was elected I've got my uh a certificate of Municipal leadership and then my Advanced certificate of Municipal leadership which is fairly unique there's not that many elected uh people in the state of Washington to have their Advanced certificate in Municipal leadership um and then you know I'm active in the Kelso/Longview Chamber of Commerce on their board I'm on the Cowlitz Economic Development Council board a member of the vice president of Kelso rotary now um so I'm not only am I active uh and engaged but I kind of have my hat many different rings to try to better myself and kind of learn how to better serve the city of Kelso I love that well hey man just as your friend like congrats like it's so awesome you know I hope it doesn't this doesn't sound condescending but you know I'm proud of you I feel like you have accomplished a lot I've known you for many years so you know it's cool to know you dude how did you um would you say even from a young age that you had like a leadership background like have you always kind of been like this dude I I mean looking at where you're at did you plan on kind of ending up here or no and it really happened uh so I was elected four years ago but I really kind of started to get I think the wrong word's politically active because people assume that like attribute that to a negative now but um I think it was about seven years ago um six or seven years ago I started following local politics and I realized that at a local level you can actually do more um you can actually uh better your small

[00:11:06] Jacob: Community um because you have you're more Hands-On with people your policy is more local um and so I opted to start studying up

[00:11:16] Keenan: On local politics and then I kind of had a prime opportunity to run for Kelso city council and it was partially because the policies that my opponent at the time was proposing um were things that I thought were best for the city and so I threw my ring and I ended up winning um nice yeah that's cool yeah it's I think that's something that um you know probably a lot of us sort of learned I'm not super duped into the world of politics but I think a lot of us kind of saw you know the lockdown stuff and even before that you know I'll just kind of like a little bit of the madness that we've started having you know what since 2015 or something in our uh political realm I think a lot of us kind of started as we got older realizing oh this is all kind of nutty this is all you know like this is almost like a reality TV version of actual politics that we're really following intently um and then you know you kind of look around and realize there's a bit of responsibility and there's there is a bit more that you can do at a local level um than just following all of the national level stuff and I think it's actually pretty important and I like that and I like that um um I don't know I mean I think we should make it cool to run for you know local government I think that really is probably where change um that you actually see in your everyday life versus what's shown to you on your phone you know I think that's really where it's where it can happen is at a local level yeah and that's one of my biggest compliances uh young people tend to not get involved I mean they're not even voting in elections they're not uh they're not studying up on issues and

[00:12:56] Jacob: It's kind of been a a retired person's game you know they retire from the Mills and they're like hey I need a new hobby but what I found is that it kind of leads to the same mentality over and over and over um and there's not there hasn't been a whole lot of uh New Perspectives younger and energetic uh excitement to be in the

[00:13:21] Keenan: Political realm and it's kind of led to I think some stagnation especially in Kelso in Longview as you know um we haven't seen a ton of growth um comparative to other municipalities around us we haven't seen a ton of growth in development and I think a fresh perspective is kind of necessary at this point what's your way what's your way of going about that I mean I know that I saw like you're active on social media I think it's already a good thing um it seems like you're like unafraid to get your voice out there and talk about things which is also another good thing I saw that you had made a kind of a video like you're running for a re-election you made a video and when I saw that I was like oh cool you know more of this let's do more of this you know a few minute video of kind of who you are what's your background what are your kind of talking points you know that goes a long way that really you know it could catch the attention of people who are scrolling through social media not really paying attention to any of that sort of stuff it might draw them into it a little bit more

[00:14:18] Jacob: Yeah and in the public realm there's kind of this ideology that when you post on social media or when you're active on social media that it's they call it an echo chamber and I would make the argument that yeah that's probably partially true because you're speaking to mostly people that agree with you or uh news sites the

[00:14:39] Keenan: The news sites on Facebook that are you know localized uh we have one called Cowlitz County News there's Cowlitz County News uncensored um things like in those pages but my

[00:14:51] Jacob: Argument would be that my reach of people um to try to gauge public interest is significantly larger than just going and talking to your five neighbors um so I would much prefer my echo chamber over somebody that isn't active on social media or isn't um talking to a broader range of people you know if I'm wrong and I post something on Facebook they'll tell me right away um and you know you'll hear about it from people on in the social media realm so

[00:15:27] Keenan: It's kind of what we need and it's kind of in my opinion what I was elected to do is be transparent be open be honest speak to as many people as possible and engage my policy based off of that well I think also awareness is such a superpower you know being aware that hey this is an echo chamber there's a lot of potentiality for me to not get all the different sides of the story or different opinions that may actually matter and um I don't think that means that you know we put the name Echo chamber on all of social media and so we ignore it you know that's a bit foolish but I think that uh yeah having that awareness of uh of understanding like cool we could really get a consensus for maybe what my echo chamber what my side sort of thinks and then um you know elaborate on that um in

[00:16:13] Jacob: Other areas so dude I think um

[00:16:16] Keenan: It really is a pretty important thing

[00:16:19] Jacob: You know we have I think about like what social media and what the internet is for I guess Humanity as a whole you know it's actually pretty crazy you know it's the way that we've done things for so long and just over the last however many years we have this thing we call social media and it has this unserious Arc to it but it actually is um you know uh Twitter now called x uh you know they say it's the Public Town Square or whatever and there's a lot of there's a lot of people who make fun of that and there's a lot of ways that's not true but there is a lot of ways that it is in some ways and I think that um there's valuable there's valuable con conversations and valuable contributions that could happen on social media that we shouldn't Overlook it's a bit foolish for us to ignore it right well and uh kind of keeping up with Trends is important so I joke around about uh Tick Tock and uh and kind of how the younger generation chooses to use uh Tick Tock so I'm in my early 30s and you know I made it through the Myspace days where uh you had a top eight and you put a song on your profile and uh you feel like we were probably on each other's top eight to be honest oh yeah I'm pretty sure we were um but that was also how kind of how we how we flirted with girls hey will you be on the number one by top eight yeah and then there was this brand new social media called Facebook that popped up well so when I was younger it was actually uh

[00:17:49] Keenan: The aim uh aim what was he some of the other MSN message MSN Messenger I was on that yeah that was big in college County but most of the uh other uh parts of the United States use um different chat options but now they're kind of the running joke with the younger generation is hey Facebook is for your mom and dad and aunts and uncles and connecting with them but

[00:18:16] Jacob: Snapchat uh Tick Tock I mean whatever the next platform is for actually communicating so how do we

[00:18:25] Keenan: Recognize that technology is drastically changing how do we reach more people and younger people to get a different perspective and I have in a sense failed because I don't use tick tock I am on Snapchat but you know I'm still talking to Mike the only snapshots I send to

[00:18:43] Jacob: People are like my top 20 friends so yeah you keep sending me shirtless pics man I don't know why uh no I mean a year

[00:18:52] Keenan: Last year so hey I voted a lot you can vote once a day and I voted every day you know that so um man I well I think it's um I will say though you know as younger people so say you guys had someone come into your vicinity into your world of councilman

[00:19:07] Jacob: And stuff that was younger and they were using Tick Tock I'm sure you'd probably be the first one to go cool excellent it seems like you know a lot about Tick Tock that is important like run with it how can I help you know I think that you would be um you know not against that sort of thing I think do you think that there's a what are if any the innate differences between our social medias I mean because I think that you know as much as different age groups spend different things different times on various things um I do think that you're right about Facebook being there's something about it being kind of an older man's game but I don't think that's just an age thing or a generation thing I think it's how it happened in our society like Facebook kind of was the first online community that was an actual reflection of our community so you know I live in Austin now but you know I completely understand and I completely see and I still have Facebook of it really is like a local community there's a difference between what you say and what you post and what kind of interactions happen on Facebook versus on Tick Tock or SnapChat or Instagram or any of these sorts of things um and there is still um

[00:20:20] Keenan: Well I don't know you know it's it maybe at the time when it first came out like think about how different Facebook was when it first started like I always make the joke you know and this is like cringy to repeat back but like we didn't think about it when we were young but I would quote word for word Kid Cudi lyrics on my Facebook post and like I used the n-word on my Facebook post and now it's like whoa like I would never do that because I understand that's just like an insane thing to do but back then you don't you don't think that way and it's not that like I would say that I was an idiot or that I was just a young fool like no that's really just kind of the nature of how things were we didn't think about those things deeply when Facebook first came about it was just kind of a different beast but it did really grab the local community thing and I don't know I doubt that it's just our small town that has that I bet you there's small towns all across the U.S that kind of like their local Facebook Community is still sort of going strong as an actual reflection of what's happening in their Community what do you think about that yeah how do you think that Karen was born I mean that's really it's them from uh complaining about local issues on their Facebooks in you know maybe I'm wrong on that but uh we have it was Facebook really created certain subgroups in the community that are that are localized and I think the intent was initially good but now it's a little bit um it's it's kind of morphed into kind of a complaining Fest you know I'm I'm a part of many different like local localized Facebook groups to try to

[00:21:55] Jacob: Gauge public interest again but you know every so often or not every so often pretty frequently you hear oh so many so-and-so speeding down the neighborhood tell them to slow down oh that's wrong or did you hear that boom uh the random booms I don't get that not anymore but that's kind of what Facebook just has morphed into but I think the original intent was yeah localized communication a broader reach of people um this is a way to connect and then reconnect with uh past friends I'm friends on Facebook with people I went to high school with and I haven't seen since so you know I think it's kind of a double-edged sword where it has a lot of good qualities but um I to you that when we first started using the platform

[00:22:48] Keenan: Facebook I mean it was kind of no hold bar we posted whatever we wanted um and got away with it how on Earth we haven't been canceled from our past uh post and I feel like people are going to start taking up my past Facebook yeah please everyone listening dig deep into Keenan's trust me there's some good stuff on it was it was good back then well dude it's we you know it's a maturity thing as people in general you know we all kind of like dude who gave us this power to post whatever the heck we want and we're 14 anyway but I think that even a 14 year old back then is a different 14 year old than today you know they know uh their awareness of the general public outside of just their community in their in their town is very different than how we saw things you know I think about it with the podcast a lot of like you know am I talking to the people that I know are listening or am I talking to new

[00:23:44] Jacob: Listeners am I talking to people in my hometown or like my core listeners that like continuously show up or am I trying to talk to like the broad everyone as a whole you know and I think that kind of changes the way that we that we interact with things you know and I yes and I think to an extent back to the back to the point about kind of posting what we wanted at 14. I think you do still see um every time a new platform comes up you do still see a continuation of that so on Tick Tock there are 14 13 12 year olds that are posting uh inappropriate things that I know 10 years from now they're going to look back and say yeah I probably shouldn't have posted that right but the benefit to the new platforms I think is really the learning aspect so I don't have a tick tock but I do watch um the reels on Instagram and uh and on Facebook uh that are you know almost directly posted from Tick Tock onto those other platforms and I think the benefit of those um of that specifically The Tick Tock platform is that uh ability to learn in such a short amount of time I think it's what a 14 second video of Max or something like that on Tick Tock I don't really remember but you can post a really long video but there's a ton of short ones yeah right but the ability to learn um on a different platform than YouTube That's not several hours long you know cooking videos hey but uh you saute your veggies you boil the noodles you do all this and I think you can you can kind of make that into a public into my into my

[00:25:22] Keenan: Public space um you really educate people on uh the municipal aspects um like here's what uh if you if you do this will happen you know in a short amount of time so you keep their attention span you can really make it a positive I'm not so sure that we're there yet since I still see people doing two-step dances um which uh random lyrics but you know I well we'll do this thing where there's uh there's both the very unserious and the serious mixed in on the same you know platforms you know I've had this guy uh Eric Weinstein is his name he's like a physicist a mathematician I really like this the way that he thinks um and he's pointed out I mean a couple years ago he is basically saying you know we have these uncir we have this cute little blue bird you know it's this little app and we post our thoughts on there but it's actually at the same time there's various serious conversations that are happening there and I think Tick Tock and all social media is kind of a reflection of that you know it's there is way so I guess um and uh I mean somebody else can look up the statistics for this or um you know Jamie pulled up uh but there is apparently the younger generation gen Z and stuff um Tick Tock is the where they go for their information so whereas we might you know you and I wanna you know hey how do I change you know a drum break on my on my you know Ford Tempo we would look it up on YouTube they look it up on Tick Tock so the search function on Tick Tock is how they're learning to do a lot of things and I guess there's some sort of stats I've heard other people discuss on podcasts that is the most commonly used Search tool nowadays is Tick Tock and so it's basically short videos of you know and I even use it so um I've been dude I've been working out for a long time I've always liked working out going to the gym muscle building that sorts of things but over the last probably like four or five months I've found myself using Tick Tock and just kind of like relearning watching these videos of people who break down oh you want uh you want to do a shoulder workout well here's what you're going to do and they condense in 35 seconds with these visuals and it's perfectly sounding and it's this nice cool video but it's 35 seconds and I learn all this information that you know might have taken me over a 10 minute video of watching someone Ramble On so there is it's powerful man you know I think we're getting rid of like the we're cutting around a lot of the fat here with some of the social media and getting right to the point which our Young Generation really likes yeah and that's going to be important for information um you know in the future and kind of learning as a society so that's it's exciting um it's a little bit scary uh but because I feel like people kind of Chase that uh chase that high instead of slowing down they're like I need that information I need to need it now um instead of taking a breath and actually learning a trade and I think they're again more or less a double-edged sword because um sometimes things that you can learn on Tick Tock are a specific trade and if you cut corners and you reference a 35 second video you can run into some situations where it to be frank like working on car videos it can be dangerous if you don't do things the right way so kind of condensing it well the information is great um sometimes I think you need to slow down and learn the right way yeah no 100 and I also think that you know we look at where we're at as a society these 35 second videos are no replacement for a mechanic who's been doing it for 35 years right you know like there really is a lot you know don't go you know just because your grandpa kind of talks slow and it seems like he's telling you things that don't seem to be important don't underestimate that the man has something to teach you know it's great to get the 35 second video it's great to kind of get a condensed version so you can be empowered to do it on your own whatever but uh there's a lot of the more long-form ways of learning that are equally as valuable you know yeah and I think I think it kind of has on a broader scope it's kind of attributed to so because I'm on the Chamber of Commerce board um which is small business focus um most of the small businesses in town are having trouble hiring employees and it's not necessarily the initial hiring of employees but it's keeping the employees there and I think the short attention span that chasing the quick information has kind of led to um I don't want to use the word uh ADHD but um you know it's kind of kind of that mentality that uh they're so rapid with their uh with their judgments are almost impulsive that it's kind of created a different societal problem um or they don't want to hold on to jobs for very long because they're not getting that satisfaction if that makes sense um yeah no I think that is important thing I think that we're kind of uh you know this I don't even know if it's the correct terminology at this point but kind of just like drained of our dopamine we're getting these dopamine hits and it's like when we stop getting them so consistently it starts to kind of feel bad and then we um yeah I mean there's something again it's good but there's also a lot of value in slowing down in kind of um you know I

[00:30:48] Jacob: I guess being present with what's going on um instead of because you can have a lot of momentum of just all right what's next what's better what's better than this what's better than this and then you're really like almost uh trying to like run away from your feelings of like it's okay to have a shitty day at work dude like it's okay like some days at work the whole day is just crazy you know and that's okay that doesn't mean that you need to completely switch career Fields you know maybe you know if that's happening all the time you know live your life and you know I don't think any of this stuff is really worth us being miserable um you know there's no you know any sort of job is chasing the carrot on the stick of sorts right but uh there is not every day can be amazing and so fun at work you know that's really not the truth you know maybe eventually for some people that is somewhere where we can land but it really is the truth of uh being able to handle the days that aren't nearly as fun as the day before at work absolutely and I've kind of learned that I learned that in my whole day uh you know so I so I jumped into the political sphere when I was in my late 20s um and I uh I just got a pretty cool nickname a few weeks ago they called me Hurricane Harvey yeah supposed to be a disc but um and I think

[00:32:10] Keenan: It's because being young and energetic uh young

[00:32:14] Jacob: In the political world uh I tend to legislate and I tend to lead vocally but also um efficient or I try to try to push for the most efficiency as possible and in the public lifestyle in that especially in municipalities the they move at like half the speed of smell man you can't get anything done quickly um and so I don't operate that way so if I want a policy to be passed I'll put it on the agenda and I'll pass it and so I think that's kind of led to a perception of me that uh I'm a loose cannon or uh Hurricane Harvey but it's uh it's kind of by Nature uh me trying

[00:33:00] Keenan: To push the city of Kelso to be more efficient um and I happen to like the nickname so I'm going to run with it I'm gonna put it on all my campaign signs and everything um

[00:33:14] Jacob: No Rugrats but Hurricane Harvey yeah

[00:33:17] Keenan: Spell it wrong keen on those 18 year olds that forgot their so they had to get it tattooed on them uh right when they turned 18. was it was that UJ

[00:33:29] Jacob: I mean in my defense in my defense I was 17. my first tattoo I literally got the entire right side of my body um tattooed uh yeah anyway we've all been there you know represent with your last name what do you think about so I mean I like how you said that you kind of embraced this nickname though you know what are the what are the downsides of this of this way of thinking what are the downsides of being Hurricane Harvey the downsides of Hurricane Harvey no and I think it comes back to a perception um I think that's kind of the inner the inner struggle between uh some of the we'll call them more experience I don't want to I don't want to disparage anybody for being older and being in public life for a long time but they've been set in their ways and I think they're when they when they're challenged by a new way of thinking or a new ideology or a new way of governing um that's when uh they get defensive so uh I you know I think it's a delicate balance between kind of how I operate and recognizing that from a city we're Bound by um many rules regulations case law state

[00:34:45] Keenan: Law and so that's partial partially the reason why we have to take things in a slow approach but finding that delicate balance between hey how are we as efficient as

[00:34:57] Jacob: Possible but also uh with respect to

[00:35:01] Keenan: Laws and how we have to upgrade yeah yeah no it's definitely it's definitely um you know both and you know it's not that I do see ways in which you know the swiftness of hey this thing needs to be passed let's just get it done that is great you know but there's also uh you know um it's all of us that are that are living here you know it's not just because the young way sounds exciting and right now and it gets more stuff done doesn't mean that there's not valuable stuff in the old way you know it's really both I like this um uh I have a one of the spiritual teachers I listen to his name is ramdas he was a he real name was Richard Albert he used to be a Harvard professor and then he did psychedelics with Timothy Leary and went over and got a guru over um you know in the Eastern world but uh he would talk about how he would have um you know spiritual people would sit down and they have you know some sort of um uh what is it's not ashram what's the uh um a mantle basically of you know it has you know pictures of Jesus and their Guru and whatever and then he would always put somebody that's like really hard for him to love he would always put this uh you know like a picture of like Ronald Reagan or somebody who's like in the political spear who's not as easy to love is you know looking at a picture of Jesus and uh his way of doing it is kind of like hey they have to come too they're here too you know it's easy to love these other beings but there's also these other people who are part of our community and I think that's where a lot of us get a little caught up as we're like well we all need to be more like this I wish everybody else was more like this and you end up pushing people away who do have valuable opinions and the truth about the Melting Pot in the U.S is that it is all of us it's not we need to be more conservative we need to be more liberal it's like hey the truth of it is we have some people who are liberal and we have some people who are conservative um in we're all here so how do we make that work with all of us because there's value to both opinions it's not just we all need to be one exact way it's really like bringing everyone along and I've definitely noticed that um in not only city life but my personal life but in the city lifestyle in the municipal life um finding a common ground has been kind of increasingly difficult but what we forget is that regardless of where you stand on a position our whole goal is to better the community um just because we disagree on how to get there doesn't mean one's more wrong than the other um and I challenge that mentality every once in a while by just simply saying well we've tried it your way why can't we try it mine um and it does I do receive quite a bit of pushback pretty frequently but um at some point you know doing the same thing over and over what was the old adage the old saying uh it's uh stupidity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results I think that's kind of where why we are where we are so let's try something new I'm sure Austin is having a similar conversation on uh homelessness and the uh the homeless issues in their in the city Austin uh we have a neighboring city the city of Longview um that they're having a serious homeless issue um Kelso is a little bit better obviously I'm not that we have homeless people but um we operate on our side of the river so for your listeners that don't know the Cowlitz County area there's two cities basically connected um there's no distance in between the two cities um for sake of the conversation uh the only thing separating us is a very short River um obviously there's different boundary lines but uh for the sake of the conversation the river is what separates us um and we operate completely differently so where they're having serious conversations on homelessness and how to solve homelessness which it's never going to be solved but at least uh make an impactful difference on the conversation in the city of Kelso operates a little bit differently um and so finding that middle ground and saying hey your way is more right than our way or our way is more right than your way isn't benefiting anybody let's find a pathway forward since we're all trying to achieve the same goal which is

[00:39:29] Jacob: To better um the whole Community

[00:39:32] Keenan: Yeah I mean that's like one of the most important things is really you know it's so easy to get into the weeds of all this stuff and then at all times it's probably like you know probably something you find yourself doing is trying to bring everyone in the room okay cool we made some cool distance on that we made some uh you know we got into the Weeds on that and that's great but we got to rewind and we gotta back up and go what are we all doing this for our answer is actually trying to better our community are our answers and our um you know even you know arguments are going to happen in these things but are the arguments getting so far into the weeds that they're just silly or are they really getting to where we're solving the problem and making our community Better Stronger

[00:40:12] Jacob: Yep and so uh I'm up for re-election

[00:40:16] Keenan: Right now um and one of my focuses is going to be um kind of taking a step back as an elected and uh you know it fell on deaf ears or it didn't resonate with uh so I was talking to a room full of um full of uh the older population and I used the term they doing too much uh I think that kind of uh that kind of is true for electives too they're trying to get fancy they're trying to do uh do too much um where they're passing policies that aren't going to make an impactful difference and so one of my current campaign topics is hey let's take a step back let's focus on um the bare minimum let's fix our street lights let's potholes um and that once we make an impactful difference with the basics that's when we can kind of graduate to you know a broader scope of uh or I guess a more narrow scope of different ideas but until we fix our basic issues we can't afford or we can't push to change uh we can't we can't do too much because we're kind of bound by uh our failing current

[00:41:38] Jacob: Infrastructure if that makes sense why do you think they're doing too much like what is that why would they think that's the best way to go about solving the problem so the what comes first the chicken or the egg um so when you're talking about business growth and development in this in a community uh you entice businesses to move into an area or into a into a community by uh

[00:42:05] Keenan: By fixing your amenities right so about six uh six months ago uh we had a topic come across our agenda which is uh pushing for a kayak a kayak boat launch in the city of Kelso which is pretty unique we have a small uh small river that runs right through the center of town and it's pretty underutilized um and so one of the council members proposed uh putting a kayak boat launch

[00:42:31] Jacob: In uh on the cow human River well the idea is fantastic uh I agree um the idea is fantastic but we can't at this point put in a new park when we have other parks that are dilapidated falling apart so they're trying to entice new businesses or new growth and development with new parks but we still have failing

[00:42:55] Keenan: Current infrastructure so that uh Chicken and the Egg scenario you know how do we entice businesses to come to our community yes I agree we kind of have to do both we have to push for new and exciting ideas but we also need to fix our current uh issues that we're facing now yeah you can't just slap some new paint over the rust and pretend the rust isn't there you know I do see how that's very important man that must be a huge balance of just you know just the work that all of you guys do is of course the shiny new thing is fun of course it's gonna sell of course that's like a I mean that's a good election point of like hey look at this whole elaborate thing and we can have kayaks and you could do like a 3D render of it and you know you can even make some sort of AI video nowadays people playing in the caluman river on kayaks and just seeing that would be like whoa cool I want to do that yes let's vote for that but you're totally right yeah if other things are falling by the wayside how do you how do you I mean even just outside of the specific situation how do we balance that like in communities and how to how to counsel people um you know keep that in mind how do we not get rid of or neglect the things that are kind of rusting out while we're also contributing to the new exciting fun stuff you know again I think it is a delicate balance as you stated um but you know we can't entice new businesses I mean something as simple as painting crosswalks and curves or pressure washing our buildings

[00:44:31] Jacob: Um or pressure washing uh to the biggest

[00:44:34] Keenan: One of the bigger eyesores right the bridge that separates um the two Longview from Kelso and it's got mold and uh I mean we live in the Pacific Northwest so it's um exposed to inclement weather every single day and so you know cleaning our critical infrastructure beautifying our infrastructure and then doing the uh doing the shiny new things when we have the resources and this the staff to to complete those tasks right so it's the same Department that is uh maintaining our Parks uh and our roads

[00:45:12] Jacob: And our water so focusing on cleaning up our current infrastructure and then we can move on and graduate to uh putting the new shiny thing and then that's my opinion that's how I prefer to operate hmm yeah I see yeah I guess I was just kind of visualizing like you know you go into this new cool kayak launch but your car gets a flat tire because the road on the way there is just giant potholes and stuff so yeah that is probably like a you know uh a balance that's difficult to strike in trying to draw you know try you guys are probably all like look no this is important look no this is important and um into a little bit of all of it is important but I think that yeah the community members have to understand you know um it's cool to get the new exciting thing but we also got to take care of what we have you know that's always been a rule of I mean you've always kind of been a car guy that's probably something you'll hear often is like that's how you have nice things is you take care of nice things you know like it's I don't know I always kind of just buy the [ __ ] box and fix them up and that's why I have six projects sitting in the driveway and yeah that's actually very true yeah okay well I'll say the people that you're around you know yes Mark and Bobby and Dave yeah cool um well uh yeah dude Okay cool so so what else um what are your other running points on this re-election and um uh why are they important to you uh so this election again I'm running on uh fixing our critical infrastructure it's gonna be a huge Focus so our Police Department um our Police Department is I would argue probably top five police departments in the state of Washington um they're super polished they have in fantastic leadership they uh they've achieved a lot they're properly trained um and I think that by nature is because

[00:47:15] Keenan: Prior councils have focused uh almost hyper focused on one of the Departments and that's our Police Department um and there I have so much respect and so much high regard for them but in the focusing on one Department they've kind of not neglected it's a poor word a poor word choice but they haven't focused on other departments so right now uh the cityic also has 14 million dollars in backlog Road repair and we still only have one full-time or it's one and a half full-time equivalents in our street road department so we have one person to maintain everything or one and a half people to maintain every single Road um and so Staffing up our street and road department uh getting some of that infrastructure taken care of um and that street road department also is in charge of our facilities maintenance our building maintenance our signage our uh our Parks um our water and water and sewer and so really getting back to basics with that department and let's step up let's promote growth in that department um yes it's going to cost us some money up front but I believe the reward will uh will increase kind of tenfold in the future um so you know making those Investments now so other councils don't have to

[00:48:39] Jacob: Carry the burden for our understaffed

[00:48:42] Keenan: Our understaffed um area of our city is that is that a matter of allocation of current resources or is that a matter of drawing

[00:48:55] Jacob: Importance to get more resources towards that problem

[00:49:00] Keenan: So it's it I don't know so we run a pretty lean budget right now um I am proposing uh increasing our budget knowing that for a few years we're probably going to go in red but we need to take care of our current infrastructure and we're not we're not maintaining our current infrastructure at the at the level that we should right now and I think we're really feeling the effects of Prior councils you know 10 20 30 years ago yeah I know that's a very important thing is that what you do isn't just for right now it has Downstream it's going to have Downstream effects and it has to it's kind of a long game of you know building a structure that's continuously fixing and improving itself while it's fixing improving the city yeah future Council it might be this Council we're going to be faced with a really tough decision so we have a beautiful old building on our West uh our west side of the city it's called Catlin Hall um and we allocated a couple hundred thousand dollars for a root repair uh obviously the roof needs replaced um it's a 100 year old building it's a it's a staple of the neighborhood that it's in um and we found out just yesterday that the bid um to renovate Catlin Hall is actually 1.6 million dollars so we're going to be faced with hey if we can if it's feasible at all how do

[00:50:32] Jacob: We you know swallow the pill to fix the building or is it a lost cause at this point and it's gonna be a really tough decision in the future um kind of finding that happy medium is going to be really important because it's a it is a gem of the building I'm not sure if you remember it's the one that's uh in the spray park uh the splash pad spray park uh the big building cabinet Hall um in the west side of kelsa wait is it is that the one that's uh so it's next to like Big Lots and Joanne's Fabrics there the old Catlin pool oh yeah man one time um one time I

[00:51:10] Keenan: Was swimming there when it was a pool and someone pulled a knife on me and I told on them I just remember I was getting in trouble for running on the uh running on the pool deck oh well that's what you get you could have broken your arm I know you see here you are like here you are saying oh I almost got shanked and here I am saying oh I got in trouble for running hahaha I know I wasn't trying to represent as a whole it's not like a place where people get knives pulled on them all the time but I just remember like I think that I'm self-reflective because I was like I don't know why I had to tell on the guy probably could have just handled that on my own but uh yeah just get stitches Jake I know dude that is still haunting me around that's why I left the town actually because I was you know he just got out of prison and I was afraid he'd come for me so um no that's funny okay cool yeah that's uh yeah I could see how that's like that's it's hard to navigate I mean what a you know nearly impossible task but you know hats off to you guys for trying to solve these things and you know putting your putting your passion for the community you know trying to angle it into things that are better for the for the future of the community and right now you know I always love the anybody I think what it takes to be a leader is constantly thinking of that adage of um you know you're planting the seeds in the ground so your grandchildren could sit in the shade of the tree you know in that sort of mindset of um you know we got to do some hard work but it'll pay off and we'll establish these structures that will you know run themselves in some sort of ways and the payoff will be uh you know plentiful for the future generation so I think that's cool well in the renovation at Catlin Hall is really a reflection of how prior councils have led they've deferred the maintenance until now and now we're stuck with responsibility so changing the total ideology in the city where hey we need to take care of our current infrastructure so future councils don't have to have the same issue uh have we you know replaced the siding um added those Ada ramps that are required now to replace the Windows replace the doors you know one thing a year we wouldn't have we wouldn't be stuck with a 1.6 million dollar bill in one year but they've deferred the maintenance on that building so they're prior governance is really affecting our current records okay um the this is just uh it's been on my mind since you mentioned it is the homelessness things I kind of want to I kind of want to go back to that I think that's always kind of an interesting conversation um it's this uh it's this conversation that sometimes feels a little bit weird to have because you almost feel like you're being insensitive to those people because obviously they're people but it needs to be discussed um you know we have kind of these on the internet and in certain places in the U.S um you know they where they we want to call them the d-homed or dehoused or something and um I don't know I feel like our conversation around it gets a little strange and it's a very should be a very serious conversation I mean there's uh San Francisco for example I mean the amount of homeless people is just it's just an unimaginable number and it's really like for the future of civilizations that you can't I mean that's it's bad news you know there's a lot of bad stuff that can come out of that but obviously it's not just you know oh just all right we'll delete it and tell them they can't be homeless you know like tell them no you know so there's clearly something happening there so what do you think that um I mean you mentioned that Kelso seems to be doing a pretty decent job with the homeless what do you think that they do good that bigger cities might be able to learn from so like how does a small community handle um you know something like the Homeless Problem um in a way that other big cities can reflect on um and then and then after that I would love to open up the conversation just about mental health because obviously the core of homelessness is mental health like these are our brothers and sisters who are sick as [ __ ] they're so sick and you know there's a conversation that could happen there so but first like I guess what uh what do you guys do what do we do well in Kelso and what could like bigger cities maybe look at and reflect at so the problem is actually really historical from about 2012 2013. this so this uh back in uh back in 2012 2013 um just right about when I was graduating college back to Kelso Longview um the there was a non-profit that opened up and they put a homeless uh a low or a no barrier homeless uh not a shelter that's not the terminology they use anymore but um homeless facility smack dab in the middle of Kelso uh the low barrier model

[00:55:51] Jacob: Uh basically says there's no

[00:55:54] Keenan: Um no constraints for you to live in our homeless facility uh and so by Nature it created a huge uh hot spot for crime or calls for service for our Police Department or uh massive um and they were staying in a building that was rented or leased by the County Commissioners um so the county the county governing board at least that facility to the nonprofit and so the city of Kelso really didn't have a stay in our zoning or code um whether that could be there so that sparked code changes and so the homeless camps or low barrier facilities are there the requirements to put them in the city of Kelso now are much more strict finally that facility was shut down um and it kind of pushed uh the homeless issue into a neighboring City at the same time the city of Kelso passed a no camping ordinance uh are no camping ordinance so there was some case law that was passed uh you know in the same era uh that basically said it's not illegal to be homeless if there's no public forum for places to stay uh for homeless people to stay the city has to allow them to sleep in

[00:57:23] Jacob: Public locations so uh

[00:57:28] Keenan: Effectively the city of Kelso passed an anti-camping ordinance but our anti-camping ordinance complies 100 with the case law because we allow uh somebody that's homeless to sleep in the public domain from 9 00 P.M to 6 in the morning so we're giving them a place to sleep um so just about every morning at six at six o'clock when there's a homeless person sleeping or Police Department well and it's I've seen these interactions um they'll go to the a homeless person sleeping in a public location and say hey guys time to wake up for the day let's uh get moving oftentimes the homeless people will think our Police Department our police department will thank them and they'll move on for the day and so we allow them to uh the uh a place to sleep publicly um and it's that enforcement in that mutual respect between our police department and the homeless population that is kind of kept our numbers or our our community blacked out um so our just the enforcement of the ordinances uh has really helped

[00:58:35] Jacob: Passing good governance prior has really

[00:58:38] Keenan: Helped not only the public perception but also the mutual respect between the homeless people and our police department and that the that mentality

[00:58:48] Jacob: Is not being shared with neighboring cities and so that's why they're having the issues that they are um do you do you think I mean obviously that's not a forever solution but that does seem to be um uh you know useful for what we're handed so the neighboring cities are not allowing camping in public places overnight is that is that what you're saying 24 7 365. so right now

[00:59:12] Keenan: There's a beautiful smack dab in the center of the city of uh City of Longview um and they allow them to sleep there until more recently they allow them to sleep there and the public perception is that the City of Longview is not doing anything there's tents there's people defecating and urinating in the middle of a beautiful park there were some uh high school students that were trying to take their senior their prom photos in the park and they couldn't because uh of the aggressiveness of the homeless people that were staying there yeah and from the city perspective um and I guess for my personal opinion um we can't I don't think we should be lumping every homeless person into the same category of course you know there's a broader uh it's a much broader discussion because there are so locally in the city of Kelso they just uh produce new statistics they're not City because the Cowlitz County in general um there's over 2 200 homeless people uh and you know the uh first for a community of 100 and 111 000 people I believe is what our county is at right now um that's kind of a that's kind of high number and kind of densely packed in the in the middle of the two cities the city of Houston city they don't Branch out to clam or Castle Rock um but there's multiple different types of homeless people right there's a people that they're not lost causes they just don't want the help they want to be left alone they don't want government they don't want the authority they don't want the structure um but there are the homeless people that are down on their luck they're sleeping in a car with their kids they're sleeping on the streets and they you know for you know sometimes at no fault of their own have fallen on Hard Times you know we're all kind of a paycheck or two away from having to be classified as homeless uh you know that the statistics do include people sleeping from couch to couch it's not just the people that are in your face um and so What in my opinion focusing on the people that want the help um and we're talking about a couple hundred people out of the two out of the 2200 that are sleeping in the streets the ones that are in your face uh those are the ones that we should be enforcing our ordinance on but we should you know kind of take a step back and look at the people that want the help you know increase our housing Supply um figure out ways through public policy that we can uh build more doors with uh Adu ordinances with tiny home villages with low-income housing even some subsidized housing uh figure out how to focus Less on the ones that are in our face and more on the ones that are actually wanting to help and so that's kind of the Crux of the issue it seems like cities are focusing on the ones that are they're focusing on getting the people off the streets that don't want the help uh the city along you just put in a uh a homeless Camp they called Hope Village they spent 3.4 million dollars there's only 40 doors and it is a low to no barrier housing first uh facility so spending 3.6 or yeah 3.6 million dollars is the total bill spending that on the 200 people so less than one percent of the population um was probably not the best use of their resources had they just enforced their ordinance and then allocated that 3.6 million dollars to a housing project or in conjunction with changing their zoning codes to allow for tiny home Villages or uh kind of zero lot line developments um and increase the doors in the city they probably would have taken a more significant dent out of the actual problem yeah no I think that's important I think that's actually like something that's I mean what you're pointing at is something that we need to as societies and communities all over really remember is not be focusing on the loud Fringe you know like as easy as it is for you know the homeless person who's like really loud and there's kind of seem dangerous so you want to walk on the other side of the street and that sort of thing as easy as it is to like think they represent all of all of people who are um just not at the best moment in their life you know that doesn't mean that like they're representative of all of homeless so I think it's almost more difficult shooting in our shooting ourselves in the foot by trying to overly focus and spending so many resources on trying to help that version of people who are down on their Luck versus um you know the things that you said like people who are surfing couches people are just having a tough time you know people you know think about like dude I've been through I didn't

[01:04:17] Jacob: Thinking about like my instability as a

[01:04:20] Keenan: Person if I didn't have close friendships to help me out through my hard points you know like a bad breakup or um you know maybe lose your job or whatever it is like if you I mean it's so easy to be homeless really it's like you said like we're two paychecks of being one of those people you know and maybe that hurts to look at but that is the truth of it and so I think yeah totally there's ways that we could focus our resources and our help

[01:04:43] Jacob: And our attention on helping more of a majority than the extreme edges I think that's totally right I like how you said that yeah and so in the city of

[01:04:53] Keenan: Kelso we're moving forward with a low-income housing project um it is an 18 million dollar project so pretty significantly more than uh 3.6 million dollars but it's uh it's geared towards helping the uh it's gonna be 50 of the elderly population and the other 50 is classified disabled people um and it's that's going to be managed by the housing opportunities for Southwest Washington and Lower Columbia CAP which are two organizations that focus on uh on the people that we're talking about you know not necessarily the in your face hey we pitched a 10 on the front doors of City Hall it's focusing on the moms and kids that are down on their life and it's focusing on the uh the people that uh actually want the help that are just down on their left and I think that's really important the a lot of the cost of that build is actually because it's going to be above our new library and uh our new community center so we're mixing uh kind of a Community Asset with our library and Community Center with trying to engage um the people that use our facilities with the inquila's homeless population um interesting yeah I mean yeah what did um yeah thanks for thanks for exploring that with me I mean I needed such a the whole homeless thing is such a uh it's a tough conversation it's hard to know like where to go with it what's wrong or right um and then there's also this arch of uh you know feeling like you're saying the wrong things or not treating these people as people because of course they're people but um I think that sometimes we can get a little bit overly eggshell stepping on that sort of thing we don't have real discussions that we need to have so those are always good I'm always a fan of hearing of those so let's go my head is always using this analogy I think I heard on a TED Talk years ago and it kind of it's kind of stuck with me but um you know there's various jobs of different people you know I think different people serve well in different areas there is so say the analogy that I that I'm talking about that I got from the Ted Talk is say we have a stream in floating down the stream you're on the shore and you see you know young people they're drowning like they need help they need to get out of the water and you're seeing them floating in and then like your first initial instinct is jump in the water bring them to shore get them out of the water but then you know you get them to the shore and then you look up and there's more people coming Downstream there's more there's more kids you know that are um you know in these kids in this analogy or homeless people or people with mental health issues or whatever um you're continuously like jumping in to save them right here because you can reach them but at some point you got to go all right what's going on why are these kids falling in the river why are they falling like let's walk Upstream what's going on why are these people in the river in the first place that they need to be lifeguarded um and so that's I guess we can air into the conversation about mental health um you know like why are people falling into the river in the first place like what is I mean I get like this isn't a huge part of your you know day-to-day job but just you as a person and like what you think about and you know I know you well because so I feel like you probably have like a valuable opinion in this but um I don't know what do you think about mental health like what is it as a whole like why would someone how do we get homeless

[01:08:13] Jacob: How do we get to where we're um you know addicted to drugs like what is it what can we do better as small and large communities and just as individuals I guess um you know I'm not I'm not giving you a specific question to answer here Keenan but I guess just the mental health question as a whole like what do you think about it like what's going on with our with our world here with this

[01:08:37] Keenan: That's the uh I think uh impulsivity plays a huge role um and I think like we talked about with the tick tock discussion that uh I think some of the impulsivity stems from uh people being reactionary um and so it's I think that's kind of carried over into the public life and I could be totally off base but um from what I've seen you know working with um working with people that were convicted or that are convicted felons in my prior life what I noticed is that they're really impulsive um it was it was you know they didn't decide to just uh I don't I don't know how to explain this but uh there's something in their in their mentality in their brain that made them into a an impulsive person and some of that probably does stem from past dramas um but man that's a that's a tough

[01:09:40] Jacob: Tough question I gave you an impossible question of course okay well what okay so let me ask you this have you have you ever had an intrusive thought Keenan do you know what an intrusive thought is absolutely I think we all have yeah um so you know I think

[01:09:56] Keenan: I think years ago when I first kind of started having intrusive thoughts I was like afraid of myself I'm like oh my God am I evil like why would I think that who thinks of that oh my God but you know then you start doing a little bit of research you start having conversations with people you start learning a little bit about your own self and your mind and you gain some mindfulness for me like meditation and stuff really helped for me but you start learning like oh I'm Not My Thoughts oh

[01:10:18] Jacob: Okay like it's okay to have uh to have those things like come about like it's not that abnormal to it's not that abnormal to have a strange thought like here's an example this is going to be like hopefully nobody takes this and clips just this but like dude you can be holding someone's baby and the [ __ ] across your mind of like I could throw this baby pretty far you know what I mean like cool let's be real about it's not that I'm actually gonna throw a baby but it's actually you know some people um you know and maybe someone listen to this maybe they've never been aware of their intrusive thoughts maybe they've never had intrusive thoughts and that's cool but there is an actuality of we just have weird thoughts and they're um you know they're they stem from a lot of the things we consume um they stem from like not having peace they stem from um you know our there's a lot of humans are very intricate you know we have ourselves figured out in a lot of ways but also you know like where do ideas come from I don't know what I'm gonna what I'm about to say next I'm not planning it you know I'm just trying to be the filter of the person who has thoughts and then says them in real lived reality so um I mean I think it's when we could face those things and we could see those imperfections of just being part of The Human Experience within ourselves it gives us a little bit of compassion for other people of like oh man they are really at the mercy of those intrusive thoughts they're really at the mercy of those thoughts um of thinking less of themselves and then we have these ego protections that kind of like um you know you know come about in place of thinking those things because we think that we're bad when we have these intrusive thoughts um but so from someone who is like you know I've had my own struggles with mental health and all these things you know getting a wedge between

[01:12:10] Keenan: A thought in your reaction or a thought in your response to it is a superpower you know there really is something you talked about impulsivity is having no distance between you and your thoughts there is no Observer of what's going on and going oh I don't need to react on that oh I don't need to say that thing oh I feel this emotion in my body oh I'm actually angry right now well I know that making an angry reaction isn't going to benefit the future of my life or my community or my loved ones or my friends or the people around me so let's take a second take a step back um so I mean I don't know I think if there's some sort of I mean I don't know is there like mindfulness courses we could offer to homeless people in convicts and did you see any sort of was there when you were working um uh around the police force stuff and then the law enforcement stuff did you um uh is there any like meditation classes or mindfulness or is that a discussion at all so with the Department Corrections it wasn't necessarily meditation or mindfulness but the treatment uh the treatment programs were fairly plentiful the options were there the trick was giving the people to

[01:13:28] Jacob: Join and stick with equipment options um and you can enforce or you can you can require some of that through their judgment and sentences but you know I don't know how to kind of change some of these mentalities to drive that wedge in between their uh their reactions and their uh yeah they kind of have to want it right and and I think um in my opinion what I have seen the more successful people um have kind of stepped out of their milieu and into a new area and that's been more successful than anything so

[01:14:09] Keenan: Um this the Washington uh the state of Washington has a has a kind of an obscure law where um

[01:14:18] Jacob: You have to return to your county of origin um so when you release from prison you return to the county where you committed your first felony um not back to the community that you might be more successful in and it was fairly difficult to transfer somebody from their County of origin back to where

[01:14:41] Keenan: They might be more successful so I would literally have people that would have gone from supervision because walking down the street they were going past their dope dealer's house and it gave them that sense of urgency to use again so getting them out

[01:14:57] Jacob: Of this out of their environment that

[01:15:00] Keenan: Um contributed to their addiction was

[01:15:05] Jacob: Fairly successful in my experience

[01:15:08] Keenan: Um but you know from the law enforcement standpoint from the parole and probation I don't want to use law enforcement because people assume I was a police officer I was a parole and probation so I was about half uh half treatment and half enforcement um so getting people out of the environment that they um that contributed to their addiction was really important

[01:15:34] Jacob: Yeah I think that is valuable and do we have ways do we have ways of doing that in the future like do you see any sort of Route out of the way that we're doing that like do you think because it sounds like it's not super helpful for them to have to go back to where they first you know you know they're released and they're like all right cool let's like let's get my life back on track that sort of thing I mean dude even just everybody who's listening has probably moved a couple times in their life even just moving across town is expensive as heck dude like it's not it's not easy to move and like you really start a structure let alone like when you've been incarcerated for a while yeah well in the why I call that law obscure um so I actually had a case where uh a person was driving from uh

[01:16:17] Keenan: Kelso Longview area to Yakima they're not to Yakima through Yakima to the uh I think they were heading to the Ellensburg area and for people who don't live in Washington it's uh it's about a four hour drive um and over a mountain range uh and he was popped for marijuana things when he was 18 years old in this in the uh in Yakima which is dead center of Washington State uh and so at the time that was a felon um it was a felony violation of the uniformis controlled substance act he was 18 years old fresh out of high school and was just driving to visit a uh another city in route to that location um he was pulled over and arrested for marijuana and charged with felony he was convicted of that felony uh I think it was 25 30 years later approximately he committed another felony um he had fallen on Hard Times uh got into dope um it was arrested for dope and then uh

[01:17:17] Jacob: Served I think uh served just over a

[01:17:20] Keenan: Year he was he was uh convicted and served 366 days or something like that in state prison when he released because he had committed his first felony in Yakima County even though his old base and his whole family was uh in a different area he released from prison to Yakima County where he knew nobody because he committed his first felony and so it's a little bit odd it kind of plays a sticky game we did we were ended uh able to transfer him back to a different to the area that suited them better where he had that support group but um it was kind of a bureaucratic process for no reason I mean Common Sense would say hey release him to where his family is yeah but the way the laws written we couldn't yeah that's that is very tricky I mean I'm sure there's plenty of ways that like you know maybe I just don't know that are reasonable to release them back to that same spot but um yeah on the surface I mean how many we're just ignoring useful information how many studies is there about you know the thing with um have you heard the studies of like rats in a cage and you give them like a slow um like drip of crack or drip of some sort of drugs or whatever um it's essentially like if you alienate them from their community in the other rats they're going to continuously if they're alone they're going to continuously go and hit that they want that drug they're going to get that drug drip that's in the cage but if you put them back with the community they actually will end up ignoring it like if you put um I'm totally ruining this study so I want you to look it up for their own but uh if you put like just regular water right here and then right next to it is water with like some sort of drug in it when they're alone they're going to continuously hit that one with the drug because like it's like they're unhappy you know whatever but if you introduce community in their family and stuff back to them you know you know the rat homies they're going to eventually realize okay I feel terrible when I hit that drug water one but I know I need water they're just gonna hit the water one again somebody else look this up because I totally just butchered that study but it really is a it's just a reflection of who we are man as people as humans uh we need Community we need each other it's how we belong you know it's all it's like yeah getting people alone and alienated from their friends and family and people who could support them and people who could help them get back on their feet when they're on hard times it's a big deal you know we need each other and I don't think that should be ignored for homeless people who have like made a few mistakes in their life you know like they also need one another and I think the longer we alienate them um I mean this could turn into a whole stupid conversation of our whole prison system really but um yeah I just think we need each other you know and we need to understand that as much as we need each other as people who have jobs and we make our car payments and you know we're not homeless so you know we must be doing really well those are also people who need each other too you know they need their family just as much as we do they're just humans too so well and I'm glad you went that uh that way with the study because I think you can attribute that to my life uh as an elected as an elected um creating that sense of community that uh that pride in the community uh can seriously take a dent out of the mental health and uh and drug addiction issues you know having that having that pride in our area um and I think you get back to that sense of community by cleaning up you know go by doing the basics um you know right now and it might be a little bit off of it on a tangent but right now 60 of our street lights are um they're the not LED lights so there's no light in that neighborhood giving them a sense of Pride um and also obviously the obvious lighting up the uh lighting up the streets better will be a huge crime reduction method but um we just had a huge long debate and it actually turned into more or less a political fight over uh a park in South Kelso so South council is historically been our uh lower income neighborhood so we have North and South Coastal are kind of our lower income neighborhoods um we have a park smack dab in the middle of South Kelso uh The Proposal initially started as a as hey you know let's fix the park um and obviously that's the necessary action that our Council needs to take um but then the conversation morphed uh so one of uh the other council members that I sit on the on the board with um she said hey you know why not do this park the right way from the beginning since we have to replace it anyways and the standard Across the Nation that we're seeing is fully ADA accessible parks um and it's a fantastic idea um but we have a lot of vandalism in our Parks so balancing the vandalism with uh replacing the that critical infrastructure and uh obviously the fully Ada auction is going to be exorbitantly more expensive um instead of just replacing the park with 1950s technology let's replace it

[01:22:50] Jacob: With a better full Ada option and then

[01:22:54] Keenan: That will facilitate uh giving the South Kelso neighborhoods some pride on their park and help that Community aspect of it so the uh the political fight over the cost uh took place at our last meeting and uh ultimately we voted on moving forward with the full Ada option um but you know when you talk about community and drinking from that uh drinking from water infused of crack and drinking regular water you know giving them that sense of Pride and in a piece of infrastructure with smack dab in the middle of their neighborhood I trust that this South Coast neighborhood is going to police itself in

[01:23:36] Jacob: Um taking care of that partner um because it does give them that sense of Pride you know I you were around in

[01:23:44] Keenan: The Longview days when Colony Park uh the skate park was uh kept getting graffiti and so their solution to graffiti in the park was to graffitiate themselves with art and that gave the skateboarders and the excuse I think is the scooter gang um at the time it gave them that sense of Pride and uh in the Clooney Park in the skate park and now um they self-police it they don't yep you know you don't see the graffiti that we used to yeah we do I actually really like that you use that example you know I grew up as a skateboarder you know it's uh you know managed local skate shops and stuff when I was younger and the there is a sense like if you're a skateboarder you know it very well but there is like a you know if you if you go to the skate park and you try to leave your food or you litter or something around one of the local skate park guys they're gonna grab you by their shirt and go pick that [ __ ] up dude it's there is a sense of pride in let's take care of our stuff and I really like that they did that they worked with you know instead of like you know posting a police officer up and checking everyone's bags for spray paint cans it's like all right let's let them tag it let's let them make it beautiful tag though not just like you know uh you know skeeto was here or you know like whatever our like you know Chad loves Janet or you know just our like sloppy sort of like you know crackhead graffiti or something for that's probably a mean ass way to phrase it but um yeah there is a way that we could spray paint our parks and paint our parks in a way that's cool you know and something that we take pride in and I really like that I think that is a cool way of a cool example of community is local skate park people you know anybody listening who's ever been to a skate park or been a part of those there is kind of this like we don't need you know we don't need the big guys to come down with their shirts and ties and tell us not to litter like we got this under control we're proud of our park and we're going to keep it that way and you know when the older kids who the young kids think are cool are doing that sort of thing the young kids grow up and they repeat that same sort of stuff you know and so if someone leaves their wrapper they leave their Mountain Dew can laying out it's like hey man throw that in the garbage before you leave you know I think that's a cool example of kind of how a larger Community could work you know just say the quiet part out loud people love spray painting dips on everything yeah dude actually it's super bad I have a problem that 10 of all people have I like to draw dicks dude that scene that scene is unmatched that scene is really funny in that movie like just a very elaborate like all these that's too good I haven't watched that one in a while but um yeah I mean actually after this podcast so that's my plan I'm gonna go spray paint some dicks around Austin so you know it's amazing and that's the uh that's kind of a funny uh funny topic from City Life uh you've noticed that you know when people have issues with potholes uh they go spray paint a dick around it and it makes the city react so quickly that they fix the bottle yeah that's extra smart

[01:26:55] Jacob: I mean well it's beneficial it they did get it fixed what's it that what's the saying uh you know we would use it in the mill often was the squeakiest wheel gets the grease you know and there is some of that you know it's uh that's not that shouldn't always be the case and you know those are what should draw our attention to at that moment and but um there is something about that like hey pay attention to this because there's a big old dick on it you don't want your you don't want your daughter to walk by a big old spray painted dick do you uh but it was funny because in

[01:27:26] Keenan: The city along it's been pretty underserved and underrepresented uh there was a massive pothole and somebody took their full Christmas tree and stuck it right in the middle of it and anchored It To The Ground there the next day not only take the Christmas tree but also replace it or fix the pile um was it Mark Robbins Christmas tree

[01:27:49] Jacob: No he looked yeah no well he probably actually set his Christmas tree on fire in his backyard too yeah I guess I can't we can't point fingers yeah we had lots of fun okay what's a um something that I'm aware of as I get older is um you know and maybe even just like having some distance from my hometown is like I just love it so much I really you know I have the great opportunity to grow up there and so I really know the community in and out now you know I know the names of the back roads and I know who lives on this and I know this person Grandpa owns this store you know like I know like the hometown feel of it but I think just like the appreciation for a community the appreciation for um like you know

[01:28:35] Keenan: The pretty parts of Longview and Kelso both like dude Lake Sacagawea is crazy beautiful it's so it's underrated how cool that place is to me um every time I come and visit her I have work and work in town I like the first thing I do in the morning is I go run around like Sacagawea um what do you

[01:28:54] Jacob: Do you feel that as you get older just

[01:28:56] Keenan: As an adult um and obviously like you know your jobs you're focused on it but do you find that you uh appreciate your hometown more um you know not just the beautiful things but just all the little intricate little cool things about it that's uh that's why I moved back so I had the opportunity when I graduated I'll stay in Ellers I graduated from Smackdown Center of Washington state I had the ability to stay there um and I opted to move back because that's not home to me um and as I'm getting older so it is kind of tough to weed out through the drama of political life um where everything is a constant fight and constant bickering and uh you're wrong no you're wrong mentality um and just it's it's tough to take a step back and say hey okay here's our beautiful areas in Kelso uh Longview's gorgeous I talked about it uh I talk about the homeless um homeless issues but they're you know their Library the Monticello Hotel their post office their the Civic Circle Lake Sacagawea it's almost unmatched how there's kind of a they pay homage to the history of the city while you know taking care of their streets and parks and beautification in the city and same with the city of Kelso we have a historic downtown area we have a beautiful train station um and uh you know taking that step back and saying hey our area is you know unmatched um with how awesome it can be and the potential that it has and you know the things that we do have that are beautiful it is a little tough to take a step back um but I'm learning um but by Nature being in the Public eye uh I hear more of the negativity and the drama than uh sure yeah your job forces you to focus on like the you know the bum fight outside the train station and not the beautiful part of the train station you know I totally get that but I just do think that there's um there's something to be said you know as a young as a young person I think that I was very um you know I was like a you know I like punk rock and skateboarding and you know like there was kind of this like everything sucks sort of vibe in a lot of ways but as I got older you know I gained more appreciation for the beautiful sides of things and like how man it's this all takes a lot of work you know it takes a lot of community it takes a lot of you know really all it takes is like what if every what if one person a day like all right we all get to litter once a day everyone once a day every single day it's like slowly really very quickly your place is going to be filled with garbage you know and so there's these certain things of taking pride in your city taking pride in where you're from um you know to you know maybe as you're walking and you see somebody litter you know maybe don't be a Karen of some sorts but there is a way that's okay to go hey bro not cool pick that [ __ ] up you know that sort of thing they're just a pride that can um that

[01:32:09] Jacob: Can be very truthful as we get older um you know I mean I'm only 31 but I

[01:32:16] Keenan: I don't know I feel like just my comparison to who I was as a young kid where I'm like Kelso sucks there's nothing to do you know there's it's always raining you know it's like whoa maybe the rain sucks because I had holes in my shoes or something but overall the rain you know makes the beautiful Greenery in the other Seasons so yeah I don't know I love pointing out the appreciation for um just how awesome our place is back there and also like dude we're smack dab in the middle of like there's big cities to either side without that far we can go to the coast we can go to the mountains we could go to the beach like you know you can drive a few a few hours south and be like you know in Northern California not very far and you know it's really is a wonderful place and there is Downstream effects of taking pride in where you're from so that's actually a pretty famous criminological theory that I learned open Windows theory about uh you know when a building has a bro it's gonna kind of facilitate that mentality that hey it's okay to have other broken windows and that's what deteriorates a full neighborhood um and you're absolutely correct we're one hour from Mount St Helens uh which is a very famous volcano that erupted but it's absolutely gorgeous there's hiking there's whatever you want to do we're one hour from the beach uh we're one hour from Portland which uh negative uh negative implications aside is a beautiful city and we're two and a half hours from Seattle I mean whatever we want to do we have almost immediate access to go do it um and so that's I love that we're kind of um for you know not only are downtowns beautiful in Kelso among you but we're a hub for being able to go and explore and do whatever we want here and Reign aside I you know I don't mind it um it gets a little draining towards the end of the rainy season but I'm pretty well acclimated to it yeah well uh yeah I mean I mean it's funny I find myself as I'm explaining you know I'll be showing pictures of my favorite hikes or something to people that I meet as I'm traveling you know here in Austin or you know I travel for work too so I'll be telling people about these hikes or showing them pictures and stuff and that is always the things like well doesn't it rain there all the time like yes it does and you know it does suck and there is you know like the seasonal depression thing is a very real thing for many people you know even you know from a levels of vitamin D's and the ways it affects our hormones and that sort of things is very real but there's also there is a there is a high that I'll tell people about like yo if it's if eight months of rain and stuff once it hits summer like everyone is in such a great mood because we've all been through it together that summer is so fun it's so beautiful everything is utilized so well everyone's outside every day um yeah there is um I mean there's there's good and bad with anything but I think that um you know allowing the you know more

[01:35:20] Jacob: Often rainy season to define the entirety of the area is foolish you're really missing out on some really awesome Summers and springs and stuff over there yep and you're right though what do we do all uh all summer now we go sit on a boat when I leash we uh you know have a couple a couple of beers um just one or two though never more um and we go have a good time and it's it you're right the high that you get from the summer makes the winner worth it yeah absolutely I'm uh I'm uh being in Austin for a few years like I enjoy it I like being in the city I'm like 10 minutes from the main downtown you know I'm kind of I'm really close to everything um and I love it so much but I think that I am learning I might be more of a small town cold weather kind of guy like you know I'll tell you what I know is as often as I you know I've worked at warehouser for five years and as much as I was like this doesn't Define me and this isn't me and I need to get out and I'm an artist not like poetry and like all this stuff it's also like oh that's actually a huge part of who I am as I also like that other stuff and that's okay too you know like I like Romeos aren't so bad you know how much fun did you have getting blasted with mud on a side by side or an Old Logging Back Road dude my face hurt you know what's so funny is uh yeah no it really my face legitimately hurt from laughing like that was such a such a wonderful time yeah Keenan's referring to last time that I was that I came home um our good friend Mark has a side by side and so is four of us in there and uh just cruising through the old back roads like dude you can't get that like that's a you can't do that in every city in America you know that's a that's a really specific thing that we get to have is just mobbing through the woods laughing with your friends you know we have the music playing we're getting stuck in the mud it was freezing cold but amazing it was it was so fun that was actually like a that was so fulfilling for me man I feel like that lasted for a couple weeks for me yeah oh yeah it's always uh always a good time and then the scenery when you get up there a lot of people don't uh appreciate the fact that when you Crest the hill um up on an Old Logging Road you'd look out and there's just miles and miles and Acres of trees um and it's just absolutely it's breathtaking you can't even explain it your pictures don't do it justice um but it's such an awesome feeling to be able to just look over a valley over the tops of all these trees and it we're in a great area up here yeah it's it's unmatched I'm sure anybody who's from the area listening is complete in a complete agreeance like we don't really have to say it but it is funny that I notice uh I'll have I'll make new friends that live in Austin or you know they live in places where it's uh you know more flat and less nature in their lives and they'll literally send me videos or something from reels or Tick Tock of uh like these beautiful places that we went to when we were kids and teenagers and they're like bro could you imagine is this even real I'm like oh yeah I've been there and they're like what you know and of course the video you know really sells it has filters and effects and good music

[01:38:42] Keenan: So it sounds extra exciting but or even um uh you know the gorge you know the one of the most incredible music venues that any of us you're going tomorrow wait what uh oh Watershed is tomorrow whatever oh wow cool dude that's so fun uh yeah

[01:39:00] Jacob: Watershed for anybody listening is a big country music festival Keenan has gone many times um Keenan's if you're wondering Keenan's taste in music is also unmatched uh Keenan and I have been friends for very long and that's something that we've always bonded over is music so uh don't be afraid to hit him up for a song selection or a playlist recommendation

[01:39:19] Keenan: For sure what's um what's your plan for watershed this year are you guys doing like gold camping or what's uh and who's playing actually so we have kojo um Cody Johnson and the Friday night uh lineup is fairly light but then uh I'm most excited to see Cody Johnson on Friday night but then there's Keith Urban Luke Bryan uh Cameron Marlow Laney Wilson um you like her don't you lady good old Laney Wilson yeah for obvious reasons um no and uh I don't I don't even miss I've gone so many times and I've seen most of the artists um and I don't even follow the lineups anymore because it's just a weekend to decompress and get away um other than last year where it was 110 degrees and I felt like I was melting all weekend uh yeah uh and no shade um yeah but we camp in Premiere um it's just myself and my girlfriend going this year but we're meeting up with uh so I think seven years ago we ended up camping next to a group of Canadians and they brought like 30 people they had you know multiple campsites um they brought 100 foot slip and slides about eight pools um and we camped next to them and they adopted me for the second time in my life I was adopted uh and uh so we've been friends ever since and we meet up and they still bring the slip inside I think there's 12 of them going uh this year the same continuance of friends that I've met from a music festival seven years ago that we're still friends with today and all uh I've been up to Canada once but uh went up and met up with them and hung out with them uh in the off season uh outside of watershed but man the lifelong friendships that you make for music festivals in any genre music and it's it's remarkable yeah no it absolutely is I also grew up going to music festivals and stuff I've never been to Watershed it's always been one we talked about I'm like I would love to go I you know I don't listen to a ton of country um but I like a lot of country um I mean just with music in general I like more than I dislike with pretty much anything unless it's Yeah by Usher I hate that song Still um but uh yeah dude and dude yeah cupid shuffle all of it's terrible get better taste in music people listen to a new song um but uh yeah dude the friendships and just like the openness to new people I mean at a music festival it's this it's this thing that you wouldn't do anywhere else like you're all there for the same reason you all have you know already you have something in common with these people like hey we all like music or we're all um you know for the most part we're here to have a good time this weekend and so it just drops these boundaries you know and you can create um again to reuse the word Community to create little communities around you of uh people who are enjoyable uh people who enjoy the same things as you and so yeah there's a lot of openness there's a lot of connection that I've had at music festivals that um uh you know I've spent a lot of time in like the electronic music festival world and so there is this uh plur peace love unity respect and I know it's like silly and it has this like dorky thing but it really is you know there is music festivals and shows where when that's alive you can really feel it and it is this accepting thing um but you know even metal shows dude like there is something you'll hear the person on the stage say hey when someone gets knocked down what do we do and everybody goes pick them the [ __ ] up you know like there is a there's a at festivals it's a good example of togetherness you know and I really like that and so it's cool to see that um they're still doing shows there and you know because we recently had uh that there was a shooting at the Gorge a few months back at an electronic music festival and uh I would just hate for you know one bad actor who's bringing a weapon into this thing to paint or alter the future of um you know the beautiful nature of music festivals and stuff so do your best to attend the show there I know it's near Quincy Washington which nobody in their life has heard of or George Washington um is out in the middle of nowhere overlooks so the venue when you're standing on the top of the hill so it's an Amphitheater that with a very steep uh grass hill when you're standing at the very top and you overlook the Columbia River um the Columbia River Gorge and the bend in the river uh just

[01:44:02] Jacob: Over the uh over the stage it's

[01:44:05] Keenan: It's phenomenal I remember the first time I stopped was actually for a Christian music festival where I was working security um I walked up over the hill and I crested the hill and it might it took my breath away it was amazing no yeah I mean you've quite literally once you see it you realize oh I've quite literally never seen anything like this I mean just the fact that this stage is right on the edge of that giant Canyon it gives it this crazy depth and uh I mean a sunset there is wild and they usually do really well of timing whoever's playing on that Sunset slot to be a good fit for it seems like everyone is pretty aware of that so that'll be super fun man I hope you guys have a really good time um and I've noticed artists uh they perform better at the Gorge versus you know the stadium tour and so it's uh I mean you'll see the best uh so I was I've seen Tim McGraw play I've probably seen five or six times live uh you know one of my hobbies is going to concerts in general um and not just country concerts but when I saw him at the Gorge probably my most memorable time at the Gorge the sun was going down he sat on the edge of the stage in his T-shirt that said that so they call us shutters when you go to Watershed uh he wore his T-shirt that said shedder um and he's saying live like you're dying and actually he didn't sing it towards the end of the song the whole crowd sang it right as the sun was going down it's probably my most memorable moment with him just sitting I mean he had tears on his eyes just from the experience it was it was amazing dude I'm getting chills just for you talking about it because I just know how those moments go they really are they're just uh transcendental in a way they really are magical dude have you heard of the I don't think that I texted it to you maybe I did have you heard of the caverns in Tennessee oh my gosh okay so after this you got to look it up but um it's basically an underground concert venue like it's a cave it's a cave but you do I think they do quite a few electronic shows there and stuff um it's uh I mean dude I

[01:46:15] Jacob: Think it almost I haven't I actually have not been to Red Rocks yet either I haven't um I've been there as an attendee or ever worked a show there but I like it's at the top of my list of course but I'm almost thinking that the caverns is like flirting with uh you know the uh Red Rocks um you know with my desired wanting to go there so you'll have to look that up afterwards or listeners just look up the caverns in um Tennessee it's very interesting as the gorgeous

[01:46:41] Keenan: The other Gorge puts it to shame yeah see I've heard that from many people I think that I have such a connection to the gorge and I've had so many good times with so many good friends and so many memories um one is interesting as you get older like the amount of times that I've been singing side by side arm around somebody at the Gorge you know and then you I mean like I've literally like lost friends who aren't with us any longer and I but I've shared those moments with them at the Gorge and now it has this like extra beauty that I didn't know could be tapped into from that moment so it really is something special anybody listening definitely go to anything at the Gorton honestly like I mean you know don't move there keep it precious but also the Pacific Northwest is just so great yeah I mean Kelso and Longview is really cool Castle Rock Woodland Kalama it really is an unmatched place you know as someone like I you know we've seen the intricate insides of it by growing up there and being around there but um I think just even outside of that even just as a newcomer it's just such a cool awesome place it really is when's the last time you've been through Castle rocks downtown it's been a couple years uh go uh so they focused on a program called the communities in bloom program where every single light pole has a absolutely stunning hanging Flower Basket on it yeah and the way that they set up that it's Castle Rock Washington and every time you Google it comes up like Castle Rock Colorado it's not even on Google um Castle Rock Washington's at the base of Mount St Helens of the road to get up to Mount St Helens and they're downtown they're downtown beautification efforts are um it's they literally won awards from them so next time you're up here just drive through downtown Castle Rock and that's what we for the first time in my life I feel like this or in the city of Kelso's history we're trying to copy them uh nice because they have done so good at their downtown beautification efforts yeah well so I actually got to live the um uh you'll remember my house in Castle Rock we lived there for five years and uh dude I fell in love with that place like uh we were lucky enough to live close enough to where you know I could I didn't have to get in my car for anything like I walked to the grocery store walked to the post office every day and yeah you just even back then uh it's been a few years now even back then it was very beautiful they were really good about um uh the flowers and the beautification and like there's always somebody out there watering it and I also love the you know the time of year they would um uh based on the time of year they're playing like themed music from this from the speaker polls you know not super loud or intrusive but just like you know it's Christmas time so we've got a little Christmas music playing in the downtown area and that's so that's so sweet man that's I love that yeah it's a small town feel and I think they have public Wi-Fi throughout the whole city now um yeah I mean to me

[01:49:36] Jacob: That's like not only are they uh

[01:49:40] Keenan: A beautiful downtown they have public Wi-Fi everywhere like that's cool yeah especially for a small town you know it's kind of a um I don't know if we're allowed to say this anymore but it's I feel like it's kind of a hick town like a I mean that's what it seemed like when we were in uh high school anyway that always seemed like the guys with mud all over their trucks that came to school at Kelso like that they lived in Castle Rock you know they had their own section of the parking lot so you know that's how it was um well cool man um we're getting up here in time I mean you know no rush of course was there anything um at the Forefront of your mind that you wanted to make sure that we mentioned or anything that any Loops that you may have opened up that you wanted to close or anything of the sorts but well I do you know we had a couple questions on and I'm happy to happy to answer them if uh now's the appropriate time yeah so there was a question about why is the Cydia can also closed on Fridays um and we were faced with you know obviously since we're a smaller Community to our neighboring City uh we

[01:50:43] Jacob: Were faced with losing employees

[01:50:46] Keenan: Because the City of Longview is on four tens and they pay more so they got a

[01:50:53] Jacob: Higher wage and a better schedule uh and so it was just last year the city opted

[01:51:00] Keenan: To as a as a method of employee retention and employee happiness to be blunt we closed uh closed our city hall on Fridays I mean we gave we give everybody a three-day weekend it was more about uh

[01:51:18] Jacob: You know keeping our employees happy and

[01:51:21] Keenan: So uh yeah it's a it's an inconvenience for Citizens at times because it's you can't pay your bills uh in person on Fridays but um we have actually retained more employees um and not lost some of our employees to higher paying jobs because we're closed on Fridays so it's a decision like you're aware that it is an inconvenience for the people but it was a decision that you're that is for the employees that are working there that's what you're saying and that wasn't a council action I think I explained to you a little bit um so from a council perspective we don't um you know we're more legislative uh legislative um and we're more uh you know policy procedure budget uh

[01:52:08] Jacob: Law uh and so our city manager obviously

[01:52:11] Keenan: Told us about it as he as he should uh but uh that wasn't an action Council took that's really a management um an upper level City management role um to determine what's best for the employees obviously with respect to um the citizens because we are elected and we're gonna we're gonna take the brunt of the of the heat for those decisions but um it made all the financial sense because you know retraining employees losing long-term employees to uh municipalities that pay more it was it was a the right decision that's for sure oh yeah I mean yeah it makes sense I could see how it'd be frustrating though you know I could see how it's like um you know the commenter um I think was pointing out that were they basically saying that they didn't have time to um uh go there because they're working the four tens or this wasn't an employee who posted right that was it uh I don't think so um I don't he might be uh I don't know all of the employees at the city of Elsa but um so before our city manager takes any actions like that he has to clear it with all the unions um all the union reps make sure it follows all uh proper procedure make sure the majority of people agree um and then he takes that action so you know I don't believe this was a an action that he took willy-nilly or um as a rash decision I think it was well thought out um and it's actually saved from the city standpoint it's saved us some money having his doors locked on uh on Fridays um and you know we're not running as much power till our just our city hall building um just to keep the lights on very expensive um and so it saved us money uh obviously more long-term but it's saved us money in employee retention employee training but also electricity and uh keeping the door shut for one day a week sure yeah I mean there's something about like uh trying to save the money for the power in your building at the expense of me not being able to go there that does feel kind of crappy but it sounds like that's not the only Factor here you know it sounds like it's a employee satisfaction sort of thing too which is very it's underrated important to keep to keep the people who work for you happy and fulfilled and stuff so yeah and it takes less than a minute to pay your utilities online on the phone we've expanded our

[01:54:49] Jacob: Options for uh online pay

[01:54:52] Keenan: Um rather than just in person and we actually have I don't know if it's still operational we have a drive through to pay utility billing too so we make it pretty convenient uh Monday through Thursday um and I think even on the weekends you can call and pay your Municipal Bill and our automated system so you know it's not like there's really ever an opportunity where you just can't pay and I know our uh I know our finance department fairly well um and I know that they're going to take every opportunity to help our citizens that are

[01:55:27] Jacob: Can't necessarily meet our requirements

[01:55:30] Keenan: Um and we'll do everything in their power to help people help the citizens so you know if you're having trouble my recommendation would be to reach out to them and have that discussion yeah cool yeah I like that yeah so there are some you know some downfalls but it sounds like the resources are still there for them to do what they need to do um there was also somewhere around that same conversation um there was a comment about um uh the defend our ranks sort of position like uh if it feels as a I would like you to elaborate a little bit on that just because uh you know I could see how that would feel frustrating if you're um you know if there's not an open discussion or maybe they're not in the right place at the right time sort of thing of hey I have this problem but um it feels like the people who are listening on the council might be like trying to like shut you down and defending one another and that sort of thing and you know we want Solutions right we want to solve we have a problem let's solve it together um and if this commenter um felt that um they couldn't get through in a sense so uh could you elaborate on that absolutely because it frustrates the hell out of me too um our city uh so our cities the city of Kelso is really unique and where we're a charter code city so we are bound by a charter which is more prohibitive than the state law so our Charter which was voted on by our people is oftentimes more strict than state law and our Charter runs how we operate um because we're a charter code city um with what we call a weak mayor so not that he's physically weak but he has no other power than other members of council he's not he's not elected as mayor he's appointed by Council as mayor and it's basically to run the meetings um and so in our rules and regulations um through our Charter and through our code uh through our Municipal Code our meetings um are really regimented each person is three minutes no more um we our mayor does allow more flexibility when he can um for uh or when it's appropriate um for more than three-minute discussion but we as Council people cannot debate um we can't even we're not even allowed to click our microphone to raise our hand to debate with anybody that spoke so our meetings um which follow open public meetings act but also Roberts Rules of Order for a charter uh will not allow even a council member to speak more than twice on a single issue so we have to come very prepared to our meeting and so that's why we have other forms of communication that are made for different dialogues so we have Workshops the second Tuesday of every Earth second meeting of every month so the third Tuesday of every month we have a workshop and that's really what the public forum for communication with um and debate and talk to council members that's what that meeting is for because we're not it's a it's a workshop so we're not bound by the open public meetings act and we're not prohibited by our Charter um and quite literally nobody shows up to that meeting um so we have people that will show up at six o'clock for our regular schedule meeting where you can't debate but they won't show up to our meeting just prior where you can debate um but I'm also you know I give out my cell phone number good I'm you're afraid man uh and well that's where the that's where the Hurricane Harvey comment came from because I don't know a constituent called and quite literally chewed me out and told me I was an f and piece of [ __ ] and uh blah I think he called me like uh he called me like a fat whatever

[01:59:33] Jacob: Ugly whatever you just chewed me up and down and then he hung up on me and then two minutes later he uh posted on Facebook that it was Hurricane Harvey so um oh wait is that how the original origination of the name came yep oh that's too good I love it like three weeks ago this was it was a recent all right recent but you know my cell phone's always on um drives my girlfriend nuts uh because I'll answer the phone at 11 00 p.m uh midnight I don't really care I tend to answer more than not um but I also my emails always open too and I think the if somebody has a or wants to have dialogue um you know I don't know everything um uh so I do the best I can to research and learn but if I don't know something I'll respond to the person that I don't know but I'll find out and so I'm happy to have that open dialogue in email phone call um whatever uh so I I try to make myself as available as possible um I but I hear the frustration um that uh you know the dialogue at our physical meetings um is Pretty Tough uh it drives me it drives me absolutely insane right yeah um okay well I mean I guess like I'll just ask as an interviewer like if you can make sure that you guys are pointing people in the right direction like if they go to the wrong meeting and try to say the wrong things and you're like dude I can't even we can't even talk about this right now like make sure that they know when is a good time to speak about those things and it sounds like you guys already do but um yeah just for anybody listening who um you know maybe your responses and your uh the things that you want to raise are in good like maybe they're valuable but just make sure that they're being uh spoken about in the in the correct appropriate time so we can actually get to the bottom of solving some things and get to some sort of solutions and because yeah I can understand how it feel disregarded or like cool okay this isn't important to you guys so I guess that we don't get to talk about it you know that would suck yeah and our city um municipalities in general can do a better job of transparency um it's been something I've tried to push along the Finish Line since I've been elected you know how do we get that message out there like Hey we're having a workshop today um let's see let's put it on Tick Tock hey we're having a workshop today kids show up and um you know I how do we spread that message better because we can't so our mayor does uh will key up his microphone after a constituent comment and say hey um I recommend that you speak to the city manager or a doctor or well you know we just had a workshop on this please watch back to well they're not even recorded anymore um which drives me nuts as well but uh you know here's who to talk to get the information that you need um so he does have that ability key up and he'll Point people in the right direction but um yeah it's Uber frustrating

[02:02:40] Keenan: Frustrated yeah I can see that but I mean but dude I think it's cool that you're willing to listen you're not ignoring I mean it's insane that you provide your number just publicly for people to call uh I think you're crazy for that but I also think that it's um you know you've also you've never been afraid of conflict you've never been afraid of um having a conversation that you don't know the answers to and I really like that and respect that about you man like um I think that you know humanizing yourself is so okay especially as like a someone who's on a council of like dude you're not just you know some sometimes I see it where someone if um you know say I'm in a role where I'm in a leadership role or I'm a supervisor or I'm a manager or something and I'm wearing a collared shirt it's like immediately they're trying to talk to me as someone with a collared shirt rather than like hey chill man like I like ignore the collar right now it's not an authority thing it's a I'm a person who has a job I'm trying to do the best like really let's talk here to here you know don't talk at the image of who you think I'm representing or don't talk it um the don't talk to the caller talk to me right here and I feel like you make that very accessible and I think that's a really good thing I try to be as real um as real as possible um you know what I actually hoped for this interview is that um you know your

[02:04:02] Jacob: Listeners can see that hey I'm just a normal dude like I'll talk about spray painted dicks like I'll uh I'll have an

[02:04:10] Keenan: Open dialogue conversation yes I uh yes I'm versed on uh Municipal leadership but also hey I'm just a dude I'm a 33 year old dude that likes cars I like to go play in the mud uh you know I will have a beer or five on weekends like we are real people uh and you know don't be

[02:04:33] Jacob: Like don't put us on the pedestal um just because we are elected you know and that's been something that I've been trying to uh the perception that I've been trying to change with the community um is hey we're not a bunch of old white guys been in uh elected for you know 35 years and you

[02:04:55] Keenan: Know past policy the same way don't listen to anybody that's the furthest from the truth and in fact my uh so I drew an opponent the selection cycle um and he's a few years younger than me and I seriously thank him for filing for office um and you know obviously I think I'm a better candidate but the respect that I have for him willing to throw his hat in the ring you know just like we talked about prior um being a young um being a young leader is tough um and trying to change that perception has been a hurdle to get over and so I'm so glad and thankful that I drew an opponent and it's one that I can stand and shake his hand and respect him um just simply by throwing his hat with me like that's so commendable that anybody's willing to file for public office you know we're gladness for punishment it you know to what two days ago I'm thinking like I'm thinking to myself man this sucks this is I was getting I was getting [ __ ] thrown at me from quite literally sticks different ways um over uh my vote for an ADA accessible Park something that I thought hey we can all hang our hats on hey we're helping out uh differently abled people

[02:06:16] Jacob: Um have access to a park uh and

[02:06:20] Keenan: Apparently that was uh Uber offensive and I was you know here I was thinking I was doing the right thing um so the fact that somebody's willing to sign up to take that uh responsibility on is so commendable um and I can't respect him more for doing that the first thing I did was I messaged hey dude seriously thank you for reaching out uh let's you know uh if you ever want to have a coffee if you ever want to uh sit down and go over uh whatever you need help with I'm happy to do that because it's this is not a tough or it's not an easy position to be

[02:06:56] Jacob: No not at all yeah I commend

[02:06:59] Keenan: You for it's definitely uh man I really like it I think it seems so obvious when you talk and it comes forth of like this um if you're have you ever heard of uh Simon sinek he's like a motivational leadership uh speaker um you may have like stumbled across a couple of his videos he's been he's all over the Internet he's actually a wonderful author I recommend literally all of his books um uh but he has this very popular thing of start with why and starting with your why it's like you could handle any you could handle anyhow you can handle anything after that start with why and I feel like if you have a why of legitimately I love this city and I just want to make it good I want to keep it good and I want to make it make it better and like all this stuff like I just I just want my love and passion for this community that we have to shine through if that's your why then I think that anything that follows and it is just truth you know anything that um you know whether you're in some sort of debate or conversation where you don't know all the answers and maybe you're going to put your foot in your mouth or you know maybe you'll make a mistake or maybe you know you're human but I think that at the at the very core if you start with your why of um I mean I'm gonna sound so overly obvious and maybe corny but like just loving where you're from I think that really can solve a majority of problems or like at least keep everybody facing the correct direction well and that's what uh one thing that I wanted to bring up is uh in this interview um you know a lot of people um kind of they have different copies you know for me my uh public life is more or less my hobby um and I chase the high of bettering my community you know some people want to be uh Instagram influencers I want to be a public leader in the city that I

[02:08:48] Jacob: Love you know that's what I uh that's what I enjoy doing um and so that's why I do what I do uh more often than not it's thankless

[02:09:00] Keenan: But you know that motivation to hey I have the ability to actually affect change in this small town uh that is what keeps me doing what I do um and it's uh it's been it's been rewarding but challenging at the same time um but this is my hobby um my hobby is trying to better um better the city that I thought

[02:09:27] Jacob: Yeah that's great I think it's apparent and then I think that uh you know in any conversation that you have following um I think that'll will be apparent to them too you know so I uh I wish you the most luck on your on your upcoming journey and with the election and everything um all that of course I have I have a random personal question that I was just thinking like as you're talking about being a leader and just as someone I know uh well I don't know if we've ever uh discussed this or if your mindset has changed are you planning on having kids Keenan yeah or I mean like what would you like to have children oh absolutely yeah yeah I would love uh nothing more to have a have a us one of my spawns running around a mini keenone a little Hurricane running around no yeah it's the thing that I do have planned in the future um I want to get uh my finances my house my uh my life pretty structured um before I bring um I bring a kid into the world I want to do the traveling I want to do the uh you know do the life first before I um try to influence a little a little human's life if that makes sense so yeah it isn't it is something that I do desire to do I mean I hear you and I sound like I'm um like an old man with gray hair something who knows something about something I'm not a father yet either but um uh dude I think if you had if you know if you guys got pregnant tomorrow I think you'd be just fine man I think you're I think you're plenty ready now so um yeah I just think that's cool I uh I don't know it's just cool to like I think I spent many years never wanting to be a kid and I would also come from the world of um and it's weird it's actually like very it's really almost a selfish position that I realize now of like I'm not bringing a kid into this world this world is messed up and that's stupid dude that's dumb that's some corny [ __ ] that's um I don't agree with that now like I definitely um uh you know I don't know I'm the same boat it's where as much as I didn't want to when I was younger I'm definitely like oh yeah I would love to have some kids and uh you know what I think that I am worthy of raising a kid who um you know could be a good person and blah you know that sort of thing so did my girlfriend text you and ask you to have a yeah she's actually she's on FaceTime right now on the she's going yes uh no that's funny I always love to I always love to bring that up you know it's cool knowing people for so long and just seeing how we all change and we grow in our opinions of these sorts of things just expand and um you're smirking like you're like I haven't matured a bit that's one of the weirdest merch mentally no now that I'm running this election cycle I'm like 100 150 pounds lighter than I

[02:12:25] Keenan: Was last I should suck so I have changed uh yeah you've lost literally a whole person you know I actually have fat camp written down in my notes when did you go to Fat Cam two years ago no it was kind of funny I flew to flew to Mexico and had weight loss surgery and I joke about it being fat camp but it was a quite literally one of the most impactful things that I've done uh

[02:12:49] Jacob: So I didn't realize how uh how unhappy I was so you know when I when I first had the weight loss surgery

[02:12:58] Keenan: I was like oh you know I'm just doing this because I'm tired of people uh tired of people talking [ __ ] about my weight whatever um but now it's like my energy levels my happiness is has increased tenfold and it's like oh okay now I see um why people are pushing me um in the past and so I think you probably have noticed a change in uh my uh personal and my happiness uh now than from back then too you know most people that listen to your podcast uh probably don't know but you and I had disagreements in the past that um we obviously we've worked through at this point but um a lot of that stemmed from my unhappiness so yeah it was a uh as well as mine yeah the most impactful thing that I've done and some people call me crazy because uh I didn't even really tell anybody I just kind of flew to Mexico and had them remove 80 of my stomach um yeah it's not just some people call you crazy that's crazy that's really crazy you want to talk about impulsivity

[02:14:03] Jacob: Yeah you need some mindfulness bro yeah that's cool pictures from four years ago when I was campaigning to now I'm dude I

[02:14:17] Keenan: I looked like uh but dude I looked

[02:14:21] Jacob: Like Shamu's cousin back then man I was

[02:14:23] Keenan: I was I was large yeah well and I mean you

[02:14:27] Jacob: Can definitely vouch for it like you just said it's like you don't feel like yourself I mean you said energy levels but I think that's like an underrated that's like almost a casual way of explaining like you don't there's a level of you yourself like the expression of who you are that is being completely like bogged down by you know just being miserable and like just your body making you feel sick like when you don't feel when your body doesn't feel good your mind doesn't think nearly as clear you know and you have the stark contrast of the before and after to know like oh wow I really feel a lot better than I did and I didn't even I mean it's the same thing we as humans have um a fantastic ability to get used to what's going on to find Comfort or find identity in whatever it is that we are going through and so of course we're going to want to you know you know protect that from drastic change and um you know it's just we could show up as better versions of ourselves when we're um you know not carrying around so much extra weight mentally or physically yeah well and quite literally I no man I can grow dude Queen it's so so quick on my feet what's that you think you could beat me in a foot race oh I don't know I could try all right next time I come home dude it's on what people don't understand that joke but uh instead of beefing at the bar with people and getting in a physical altercation we just tell them to go hey let's go let's go foot race in the center of the road and so numerous times we would clear out a full uh establishment to watch two grown men foot raised on the stuff out of the street this is a life hack for anybody listen if you want to like take a little bit of uh the good juice from a small community something that you could do is uh well I will say we've also been in plenty of fist fights When We Were Young too like we've definitely uh like just way too many um but I will say that is a superpower of I would love to proliferate that around the world of like next time you have a beef with someone it could be very real and you're about to kick each other's ass shake your hand or you know you know go outside challenge each other to a foot race whoever wins whoever loses you shake each other's hands afterwards and that beef is over Dude a foot race will solve many problems I love that completely I have seen it in action where the two people can be just absolutely just angry at each other and one of them says fine let's go foot race let's go foot race in the middle of the street and you I mean everybody goes outside thinking you're gonna get in a fist fight and you line up and you sprint down the middle it's so funny it's good and it's great for everybody watching and it also brings this laughter to it's like the energy is almost transmuted into this like a weird silliness of like man we're about to fist fight in there that's crazy kind of right at the end of things it kind of just seems like uh well it probably if we're willing to solve our beef over a foot race it probably wasn't worth uh punching each other and potentially going to jail no there's no way called on us for foot racing uh and they got an absolute kick out of it uh where they when they found out the actual intent behind the foot race uh

[02:17:47] Keenan: They thought okay now we can get behind this idea yeah that's really similar that's some that's some Millennial [ __ ] right there somehow that really is like you know as our older people would go like you know what back in my day would go outside and kick each other's ass we buy each other a beer afterwards you know and you know maybe there's something about that too for sure uh We've participated in that as well but uh I like the foot race I feel like that's very uh that's a very modern way of solving problems yeah I remember uh so one thing that Kelso high school did really well was uh you'd get in a fist fight you'd help each other up and you'd shake hands and the beef would be squashed I mean I watched somebody throw a guy Through a Windshield of a car where all cars were all parked in a circle um behind the old Safeway and he picked up somebody threw them through the windshield of a car helped him out of the windshield they shook hands on their friends after that like uh you know so yeah we've been in our fair share of altercations but it was always uh always ended up out of respect um or not out of respect but it ended up respectful but it's the same thing applies to foot racing yeah you know what's actually funny there must be it's like a guy thing that we have access to is like squashing the beef after the fight I remember I had to a fist fight with one of my good friends like we ended up just like hating each other over the course of a few weeks we finally fought a couple times and then the next day at school I remember like just beelining right to like no we both got suspended or something anyway once it was all over I be lined right to him he beelined right to me we hugged each other was like sorry man cool I'm glad that's over and we're best friends literally like right away again so it's just like posted on social media that was I would hope that it's not on social media in any longer but um yeah I was probably like what 50 that was probably like 17 or 16 or something yeah interesting man yeah what a wild ride this is isn't it like we you know just growing and changing and evolving and having all these experiences lead up to like yeah like suddenly You're A city councilman you know we're talking about like fist fighting and stuff when we were in high school but now you're this um yeah and you also I mean yeah you brought up that we have been friends for many years but we had a lot of disagreements you know on both sides I think you know you said you brought up the fact that like you were unhappy and weren't feeling like your best but I was also going through a lot of my own like psychological uh mental health stuff that I was I was at a point where like any sort of um what I deemed to be negativity or anything that wasn't and looking back it's literally what I needed like I needed just like I mean I didn't even want to listen to like music that had cuss words at that point in my life like I was just very much like I just really I was I was sick I was I was really dealing with a lot of depression stuff I was sick so I was just like I need to be the uh you know the

[02:20:30] Jacob: Security guard for what's being put into

[02:20:33] Keenan: My mind and what in what's into my thoughts and my vicinity and so I was very much like anything that's negative I ain't having it you know and a area that you and I have always like got along with really well is like we will

[02:20:46] Jacob: Disagree for you know we'll disagree but be both very unafraid to talk about it you know and so sometimes our disagreements we'd always end up as brothers we always love each other and hug each other at the end but um yeah you know um uh you know I'm glad you're in my life Keenan and I'm glad to know you and I'm glad that um you know we're able to reconnect and we do we both do this very guy [ __ ] of like we kind of let it go we don't have to talk about it that much but it's like yeah I was wrong in this way you're wrong in that way but it's all love you know I really think that's cool

[02:21:17] Keenan: That was that was a year or two wasn't it oh yeah definitely I mean but you weren't you weren't the only one like I mean I was just I went Buckwild with some scissors and I was like out of anybody who is bringing negativity to my life or things that aren't um helping my mental health positively um I ain't having you around and so you know I was just like a bit a bit extreme with my with my views but I will say it's what I needed and so I'm glad to have um I'm glad to have rekindling and glad to have good friends still on the other side of all of that

[02:21:50] Jacob: Absolutely but yeah I mean but also on my uh I was named uh and it stemmed from uh

[02:21:59] Keenan: Me being unhappy oh dude I was a sloth uh now that I look back at it I mean I was falling asleep at work I was oh [ __ ] this person sucks man I just it wasn't it wasn't healthy um and so I obviously I recognize that now and uh it was uh we both grew um from that

[02:22:21] Jacob: Situation it just you know we've learned and we've uh We've reconnected and it's been it's been fantastic and you know I love you to death you've been uh

[02:22:33] Keenan: So it's been it's been it's been good yeah I mean that's kind of how it goes I think we've all got to uh you know if anybody's still listening up to this point of you know like

[02:22:44] Jacob: We're all growing we're all expanding you know that's something to take away from that as we're all um uh you know again to bring up uh ramdas spiritual teacher that I listened to he says we're all just walking each other home you know and just we're giving each other Grace and you know we're all just growing and expanding and becoming new versions of ourselves and um you know it's all okay and you don't have to be afraid of it you don't have to like try to keep it off social media because you have this image to protect I think that's what we don't like we don't like the like hey man we know you're lying but you think you have to keep lying but we actually just want you to tell the truth and talk about it and it's okay that you're human you don't have to pretend to be this whole thing you know it's uh stop all the [ __ ] let's just be real you know that's what we all want isn't that the John Bellion song human is all about that concept and we have we have close friends currently that do that they try to sweep everything under the rug instead of just having the conversation about it like everything is nobody faults them um for making mistakes making errors and you know that's how you learn and grow um and as cliche as it sounds I mean

[02:23:54] Keenan: Burying those issues and acting like oh I don't have an issue oh you know I everything's okay um that doesn't facilitate a mentality change so you know that's why I'm so glad you advocate for uh being open and honest about our own struggles and because we are I mean we are we also know I'd like to think that I'm perfect um but uh definitely Parker

[02:24:24] Jacob: Yeah no allow yourself to be totally human I think when you deny those sorts of things they come up in other ways there's uh there's this um Swiss psychologist uh Carl Young who talks about the collective unconscious and the Shadow Self of us and you know the parts and that Parts within us that we deny they come up in other ways what's called our shadow like they come up and um you know we're chill and then suddenly we react and we yell at someone and then um you know that hurts to look at so we back up even more or they come up in our addictions or they um they only come up anytime that we're drunk or we're doing drugs or something um you know and it's just a real part of being human is the um the art of of self-acceptance like radical self-acceptance is what I like to say it's um it's like it's okay to mess up like the truth of it is you know maybe we don't have words for it maybe we're not all this like deep and as mushy as I seem to push everybody into you know but like you know what you could lay out Keenan you could lay out everything wrong you've ever done on a plate and I have to read it out loud to you on a bolded list and at the end I'll still say cool man I still love you know it's like we our minds tell us this incorrect thing that we uh that we aren't lovable because of these things that happen or we aren't um you know we won't be accepted if everybody knew the truth of who we are in this mistakes that we've made or whatever but it's I mean everybody's walking around with that and I'm just anybody listening let me give you permission to just accept that you've messed up except that you aren't perfect except that I'm not perfect except that you could tell anybody these things and they're still they're still going to love you I mean you know maybe if you've like you secretly murder cats every Tuesday night like maybe that's like something you should like I don't really want to be friends with someone like that but you know like maybe you accidentally murdered one cat one time and you're driving and you know it's okay I'm just saying like dude you're still lovable outside of your mistakes or your shortcomings or if you're or if you're miserable inside because you're overweight and you don't feel good like dude it's okay you're still the person who you really are who I'm really friends with I love that person and whatever mistakes you made is okay yeah as long as you've known me I mean I am uh very thick skin but also very bull headed and not an emotional type of person and you know for me to recognize and to

[02:26:53] Keenan: Even for me to say that yeah well I was unhappy at the time like that it's a pretty big step for somebody like me um but yeah but and that's what I think people need to hear to grow and change because we're all different I mean I'm I'm a pretty uh how would you describe it I mean I'm pretty uh not anti-emotional but pretty uh not cold but uh not a not a feelings uh not a

[02:27:22] Jacob: Talk about my feelings type of guy yeah I mean you kind of like you're Direct in no [ __ ] but also I mean I wouldn't I wouldn't you know as someone who is an emotional fella you know like you've also I haven't felt ignored when I've expressed myself I haven't felt that you shut me out or tell me that what I'm going through isn't um isn't um real or something like I like I don't think that um you know I don't think that your reflection of how you are uh comes across as someone who

[02:27:57] Keenan: Doesn't listen to other people I think that uh you know uh this is corny but I think like your compassionate side shines through whether you want it to or not man you know and I also think that you know as much as my journey with mental health um has like led me to a place where I feel that I can connect with people on a much deeper level now that I'm kind of on the other side of these sorts of things I think that also I'm sure that you know you probably have this level of connection and acceptance for someone who's you know maybe really overweight and they're miserable and maybe they don't know that they're miserable or in that sort of thing I mean that probably creates a connection with you and other people that you wouldn't have got if you didn't go through that yourself so it's really nice I got a dealer to take care of it if you're on average yeah he hit me up I

[02:28:42] Jacob: Forgot is there is there any um is there any long-term effects like is there any long-term um things that you need to be worried about with the surgery that you went through is there any like I mean I know you feel great and everything but like yes how credible is the body dude that's so crazy yeah not at this point no um when you're when you're just right post-op you do have to worry uh them not suturing your stomach up but I'm all healed now lasting effects I mean the only lasting

[02:29:13] Keenan: Effect is really uh you can gain all your weight back because your body is fighting me change in nutritional value um so you can you can gain your weight back pretty easily and I have I you know I fluctuate quite a bit on a day-to-day basis but you know I have had some weight gain and uh try to try to put myself in check the mental part is the uh is the lasting effects um reverting back to I mean I do a tribute um so my biggest issue with my weight was uh um overeating uh it just you know I always kind of I'm a foodie by Nature um and I eat uh it wasn't so much the types of food I wasn't uh hey I'm gonna eat 75 McDonald's hamburgers hamburger um I was like hey you know I'm gonna cook uh leaving chicken but oh hey 15 of them in one meal so there's always portion control with me um and this is It's been a correction on my portion control but you know it I do have to keep uh putting myself in check it is almost like an eating addiction um to why I got to where I was um and you know just because I love good food um so that's been the correction between what I could eat at the time and what I can eat now has been the biggest hurdle right yeah I mean I think awareness is key too of noting like oh man I'm eating so much I don't feel good about myself oh I'm eating so much that I'm like um you know it's just the act of getting back on track when you when you bring awareness to it you know it's again we all have our we all have our crap we all have our addictions we all have our things that are hard for us specifically like it's really you know everybody's got something you know everybody's got their vices whatever it is and it's just kind of a kind of the act of not giving into it fully letting yourself live who you are where you are but uh bringing yourself back to it you know okay well you know I did have some fun it was Super Bowl weekend and we did that and I was eating crazy amounts of nachos but like cool it's back on Monday I know that I don't feel great enough to do um you know to show up and do my job to the best of my ability to even just mentally because I continued this like eating seven plates of nachos a day even after Super Bowl Sunday so yeah it's just raining yourself back in man it's um it's cool well I'm proud of you for taking that leap I mean that must have been pretty scary to be honest I had fun I actually made lifelong friends uh from that uh the uh the uh the doctor go to you only does four surgeries a day um and uh the three gals that I had surgery with it's off uh all about the same area and one of them actually just moved to Tacoma she got a got a new boyfriend moved to Tacoma so um we're you know lifelong friends we talk back and forth we haven't seen each other since we had surgery but um it's kind of a you know a subculture that camaraderie where you where you understand um that subculture that we've all gone through something and so now we're by Nature friends yeah that's cool yeah I like that yeah I mean it's all it's all about trying to build a community with people who have uh you know shared experiences I think I think that's really what it's about yeah well um cool man we are getting up here um in time um I am uh I do want to make sure I think we covered everything that we wanted to cover is there I mean I don't know if you want to like you probably want to drop your cell phone number on this but is there make sure everybody knows like where to reach you if they have more questions for you whether that be as a council person or maybe about the surgery um maybe about um you know yeah whatever it is maybe they just really resonate with some of the things that you said and maybe they want to just communicate with you so um could you could you let everybody know where to reach you at and where to find yeah so my city email is K Harvey kelso.gov um I tend to keep that as uh as my city um so from the city side of things every piece of information that you send me is the subject of public record

[02:33:23] Jacob: Um so somebody effectively could public records request the email you sent me so if it is personal um a personal question you can call text if I'll drop myself I don't care it's

[02:33:36] Keenan: 360-747-3842 I literally do not care um

[02:33:39] Jacob: Call or text um why I do what I do um I do have a

[02:33:49] Keenan: Personal email it's Harvey um

[02:33:52] Jacob: H-a-r-v-e-y-k-e-67 gmail.com um and I don't check that every day so I apologize if I do miss the response that's kind of my the spam email that everybody sends their spam to sign up for so many things that uh I think my Facebook notifications every Facebook notification still goes without even also Yeah well yeah and yeah and connect with Keenan on Facebook and social media and stuff too yeah no Tick Tock but you got to get on Tick Tock you know does it well I bet you know in the coming years I'm sure that um people being hired around you know as younger Generations get into this and stuff I'm sure there will be an arc or a time for tick tock and we'll find ways to make it generally helpful and that um you know brings more younger people into these discussions while also keeping along our older people because it's about all of us you know not just not just one way you know it's always there's valuable times um for every perspective I think so and go buy my feet picks on only fans oh yeah unsubscribed I am subscribed I laid in bed for an hour this morning looking at them it's crazy that people are actually making uh exuber amounts of money on that sort of thing it's very rare a weird world we live in yeah um okay cool man well let's uh let's end with like one more question let's um well let's go with uh what's something over the next so think forward in your life over the next five to ten years what's something that you want to remind yourself of what's something that you want to keep at the Forefront of your mind like from an internal perspective maybe or um you know just whatever pops in mind so looking forward into your future what's something that you want to like give yourself a continuous message about anything come up hmm that stuff um I'd say hanging my hat uh on things that I have achieved that

[02:35:47] Keenan: I'm proud of um so I was just awarded the Community leader of for the Kelso/Longview Chamber of Commerce and continuing uh and that's because I put in the work to earn that uh But continuing projects and things that I can hang my hat on that I'm proud of um keeping those in the Forefront because that's really why I do what I do and although I wasn't the

[02:36:16] Jacob: Wasn't the driving force behind the ADA accessible Park um in fact it took me a took me some uh some buy-in uh to

[02:36:28] Keenan: Really accept that it is necessary um from the council member that was proposing it and took the lead on it uh but projects like that are I think things that I can hang my hat on and be proud of and keeping those in the Forefront of my of my mind because those are really why I do what I do um and the impactful change that projects like that can have on a community even if it is as simple as completing a streetlight project where all of our street lights are changed to LED um to Aid in that crime reduction projects like that I can really uh hang my hat on and say hey I'm proud that I voted the band um keeping those in the forefrontamental that's going to be important for micro future yeah I like that and you know I think it's helpful for us to like take a step back and sometimes just you know thank ourselves in a way and like hey you know I'm proud to actually accomplish that thing you know because you know before long we might get to the end of our life and realize that we did actually accomplish a lot of the things that we wanted to but we never really slowed down and kind of Pat ourselves on the back and really cool like you know in some ways we never really arrive but uh in a lot of ways um I think uh you know we accomplish a lot of the stuff that we set out to do you know it doesn't always look exactly how we wanted it to but um it is it is helpful to take a step and go huh cool I'm proud of myself you know and then you know it's right back to work a lot of times but uh to take a second at least it never ends that's for sure yeah cool man well uh you know I commend you for opening up uh I appreciate you coming on to the podcast um I always appreciate our discussions um you know as I uh I'll have to have you back on in the in the coming times I I have intentions like my posting is pretty few and far in between these days um once my work life gets a little more stable I have some things in the works but I would like to go back to I would like to be posting at least once a week on the podcast so um we'll definitely get you on in the next uh you know in the coming absolutely I'm happy to talk from any perspective uh I know it doesn't sound as attractive but the risk management and insurance side of things or my previous life is the parole probation I got stories for days so

[02:38:45] Jacob: A good conversation as always but I really appreciate the opportunity yeah excellent cool um all right listeners you know where to find him love yourselves Keenan have so much fun at Watershed tomorrow man drink start drinking your water and stuff now like do your do your um uh you need to do some water enemas some Gatorade enemas some uh um some coffee enemas you need to you need to be putting water in all holes that are available look what I've used you can just drink some liquid ideas too or regular IVs yeah those as well all right man well much love buddy um I will talk to you soon everybody listening please love yourself and get a hold of Keenan if you want to talk to him and we will see you next episode Peace Out