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THE ROBCASTHOSTED BYROB BELL

The RobCast is a podcast by Rob Bell.

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A Small Processing Fee cover art

The RobCast

A Small Processing Fee

Wed Apr 10 2024

College students in Iowa like? What do you have in your head? What do you think college students are like? Because these Iowa college students would say things like yeah. I can see how the play is a very direct commentary on the failure of late stage capitalism. And I've seen this obviously with my own kids. I'm telling you, my friends, the soft the software has been updated. There are so many subtleties and nuances that they picked up on that are just like obvious, just just so obvious. For example, you cannot endlessly extract resources from a finite planet. You just this whole system, the way it just keeps extract, it can't be done. That this particular arrangement right now, it has like an end point. It goes off a cliff at some point, and you could see, or how many institutions that were set up to help humans thrive have actually created dehumanizing experiences for people. And, like, these students just are on to all that. They could just see it and, so articulate and so like, things that 20 years ago, I was like, woah, seem so, like, new and fresh and, like, wow. They're like, yeah. Mhmm. Of course. Which I've seen in my own kids, which which I think is so fascinating is to see it. You just go someplace like Iowa and interact with these college students and you're like, oh, yeah. Yeah. When those folks are in charge yeah. Mhmm. Mhmm. So the whole experience, and then opening night, to sit in I had my favorite seat in the back row so I could watch the people watch the play. It's like 2 shows for me, the show, and then how people were responding to it. And, and I wrote the play 5 years ago, February of 2019,

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The RobCast

Toyota School

Fri Mar 22 2024

Again, when I was 16 and my friend Steve got a Toyota 4 Runner. His had stripes down the side, and he pulled his water ski boat with it and the boat matched the truck. So that was a little over the top. Let's be honest. It was very 1986, if you know what I mean. But that 4 Runner, he had a his dad got him a Toyota 4 Runner. I thought that was the coolest. God, I just love that truck. So I think it was then as somewhere in adolescence that I was like, oh, Toyota 4 by fours are the best. And so for years, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, to me, like, the ideal vehicle was like a toy like a Toyota Tacoma pickup. Oh, come on. That was like my own personal squad goals. And, I went to college, then I went to graduate school. I got a master's degree. And while I was getting a master's degree, I was like, oh, I'll I'm gonna get a job when I'm done with this. I'll get, like, a full time job like an adult. And, I remember 23 creeping up on 24. I'm gonna finish my master's when I'm 25, and then I'm gonna get a some of you already know where this is headed. I'm gonna get a job, and I'm, for the first time in my life, gonna be able to afford a Toyota Tacoma pickup. I was. Yeah. Mhmm. I was fired up. I was like, I just wanna do this work in the world. I just wanna give a big, generous gift, but I would also like a Toyota while we're at it. And then I graduate and I get my first job. And I got my job, I got a job in a church. Are you have you heard of these? And I never forget. They said, alright. You're going to be an assistant pastor. And, it felt a little assistant to the regional manager, assistant to the assistant to the regional manager. It felt a little bit like, wait. What? And then they said, and, we're gonna pay you $25,000

And Then He Skated Away cover art

The RobCast

And Then He Skated Away

Tue Mar 05 2024

Venues thing, and I was like, I at some point, I have to go back to Bickerfield. So I put that out there, and, you people responded. So we're gonna try this. We do not have there were no Bakersfield suggestions. Yeah. So we're not gonna do Bakersfield in the 1st round. But Bakersfield, I see you. I love you. And I'm just waiting for the magic to appear within your midst. But as it is right now, in April, I'm gonna do, let's call them spaceship sessions. Doesn't that feel right? And, April 13th, I'll be in Pomona. I'll be at a medical university in the yoga space upstairs. All this info is at my site. And then, the next week, I'll be at is it Goat Moon Coffee? I always wanna say moon goat, but goat moon is better. In Costa Mesa, I mean, if if a coffee place has goat and moon in the name of it, we're doing something there. Right? We're meeting up. So I'm gonna go I'm gonna pierce the the veil and head into the go behind the orange curtain and be in Costa Mesa. And, so the Pomona one is 5 to 7. The Costa Mesa Goat Moon is 7 to 9. And then because you people had some ideas. I mean, you give people, like, just a you give people the the skeletal structure of an idea, then you let them go with it. My goodness. There were some ideas. But one of them that I instantly was like, oh, we are for sure doing this. Is somebody in San Luis Obispo. Slow. I'm coming your way because somebody suggested a parkway. Apparently, there's a beautiful street, and they sent a picture of it where there's one direction and then the other direction, but in between them, there's like a grass parkway in the middle of the street. And, apparently, lots of people walk on this street, and so they're like, why don't you just set up in that parkway?

This Must Be The Void cover art

The RobCast

This Must Be The Void

Mon Feb 19 2024

Or, especially in those, when I'm in one of them, somebody, anybody who you can feel that their message to the world or the thing they're saying is you just gotta push harder. Anybody using the word grind, get out of my face right now. I'm sorry. Just please leave right now. I get, like, super blunt and, like, mm-mm. No. It's it's like this it is just like a kill switch. It's like, and I and I I love my family, and I could I could in those moments, I could I could, of course, say things that I love and enjoy. I might even be able to say something I'm looking forward to. And yet, also, there's just this god. Flatness might be, one of the better words for it. Kristen calls it the void, the abyss. It can have, I mean, depression's a very complicated experience, but it has, like, despair and depression in it. Dark night of the dark night of the so dark night of the soul, dark week of the soul, dark fortnight of the soul. They can feel like a fog. God, I love the word malaise. It can often feel like that. Like, everything just has a layer of to it. Just like a it's like a sludge in the hearts. Now, I'm I'm realizing now, if you don't relate to any of this, then there's a circular button with a square in the middle on their screen. You can just touch it and the episode's over. But if you find any of this remotely resonance with you yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it lasts, I mean, a half day. Sometimes I wake up with it and buy I mean, obviously, coffee. But sometimes by lunch, it's gone. Other times

Jeremy Parked Out Front cover art

The RobCast

Jeremy Parked Out Front

Mon Feb 12 2024

Describing. You say her voice is unexpectedly deep and gravelly. Is that a word? Scratchy. So in my own writing and and your your previous books, would you have said, is that a word? Yeah. Right. There's like a putting the narration put putting the act or the description on the page, but then putting the reflection and narration of the act on the page as well. Correct. Which is what we we actually love that when people do that. When people are, like, telling us a long, drawn out story, but we're actually but it's actually quite entertaining, then they'll stop and be like, is this not the longest story you've ever heard? I'm finding myself wondering why I keep telling the story, and then we just keep telling the story. Yeah. It's like the thing in your head is actually often quite interesting. Mhmm. Yeah. It's like the naming the naming of it. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's like it's like we're letting each other know we're in on our own joke. Mhmm. Because I'm reading your book at the same time I'm trying to write my first book. And when I'm writing my first book, I would think gravelly like you did in that line, and then I would spend 15 minutes on thesaurus.com. You know, oh, is that the right word to use? Oh, is that even a word? And then as if I'm, like, Steinbeck or someone. Yeah. And then Or me, I would have do good writers use a word like that? Does that make me appear, like, not a very good writer or, like, not serious? Or is that too, whatever, trivial? Bingo. I would have a whole running dialogue about how I would be perceived. And and maybe you're seeing it through the eyes of someone important, air quote, who's who's reading it Yeah. And thinks gravelly, you know, as if you could never say that. Yeah. So but, I mean, just writing or reading your book, I was like, okay. If you can say gravely, is that a word? This book was fun to write. And if it's not fun doing this, why the hell do it? Right. Right. Right. Yeah. You you're you're pulling out something really compelling, like. And her voice was deep and kind of gravel.