Hi there and hello, higher side chatters.

It's been a while since I felt an interview needed context before we just got right into it,

but reset that countdown because this is one of them.

I mentioned Trouble in Paradise with the new studio, and sure enough, Trouble baked us a seven-layer cake with this one,

and I will spare you all the details, but it's almost comical, dare I say cosmic,

and I'm not one to invoke larger forces over what is often just technical difficulties,

but given that this interview is about Hermes and our guest felt like his epic book

actually came from a Hermes download, and he commented that it all kind of felt like Hermes fucking

with us.

I guess it's worth putting out there.

Let me just say, today was the first day that I ended up being late to the studio by almost

40 minutes due to a motorcycle accident on the highway that I unfortunately saw very close up.

And our guests had been sick and sleep deprived.

So it's just an awkward energy to start with right out of the gate.

Our normal studio sound booth boardmaster was absent.

So we had a few more sound issues that needed to be worked out.

You can see my pulling my headphones away from my good ear because anytime I

talked, my voice would come barreling back at me in a terrible echo loop. But that is just a me

problem. And in an even more rare circumstance, they had another client booked for the space

immediately following me so we couldn't go long.

And only that last factor really affects what you're about to hear because it came up quite

short.

...