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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Welcome to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. If you believe you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire. Today I am m joined by author and music composer Christopher Kaufman. Christopher has been writing fantasy for a long time. He has his doctorate in music composition, so we're going to be talking to him about that. And even during the show we will be viewing some of his musical composition and how he does it in his own unique way. So, Chris, thank you so much for joining me.
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> Christopher Kaufman>Thanks for having me. Very glad to be here with you.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?
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> Christopher Kaufman>Okay. Well, I, I'm a composer, an author, a concert presenter, teacher, illustrator, and I've been composing, for a long time. I started writing, or actually I should say I've started creating the fantasy story books with beautiful illustrations, colorful illustrations going back to when I was, let's say nine years old. And then, a few years later I went to the New Orleans center for Creative Arts in New Orleans and I started music. I had great teachers there. Ellis, Marcellus, Wynton, Marcellus's father was one of my teachers and they were classmate Winton and Branford. And so a lot of talented people were there. My main teacher was a fellow named Dr. Bro who was of the more classical vein and a great teacher, did all kinds of things. He had me, I sang the solos and in Messiah, the bass solos. I studied oboe with the principal oboist of the New Orleans Philharmonic and started piano and composing under his tutelage. And then basically I lived, I got hooked into music and I lived the life of a composer. I went, to the Cleveland Institute of Music and Ithaca College and studied with Pulitzer Prize winning composers and the like and made all kinds of musical friends and composed tons of music, all the way through my doctorate at Cornell University, where I studied with Pulitzer, prize winner Carl Husa and all these people. And but my, my story's never left me. You see, I'm the type of person that, you know, when I go to sleep at night, I have to have a kind of involving, imaginative scenario, you know, to get myself into sleepy land. And so the way it evolved was at the time that I completed my advanced degrees in music composition. And all of that I also had in my mind the complete universal event structure of Tales of the Ocean City, my classical fantasy epic story all the way through book eight. Which I'm completing now. So that's like, I've been working on this Tales of the Ocean City for, you know, 35 years or something like that. And then, But, you know, I started writing it down in the early 2000s, you know, and it just. It was good. It was okay, but, you know, but it wasn't quite happening until I started my home laboratory with the logic program. I did, music for independent films and all this and developed all these techniques. And then I said, hey, why not? And so I had this full orchestra in my computer and I started narrating out loud the words for Tales of the Ocean City and composing the music that goes with it at the same time. It's like symphonic, dramatic, you know, epic, symphonic music. Cinemagraphic music I call it sometimes, and fusing together. So I started composing the music, saying the words out loud, and conceiving of the story and getting all filled out all at the same time. And that's when it really happened. And I found my voice as a fantasy writer by doing it that way. And I continue to this day.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Yeah.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, it's interesting that you mentioned New Orleans because I'm originally from Louisiana.
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> Christopher Kaufman>Sure. It's a great place.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>So you mentioned music and how you put it in your story. So talk to the listeners about how music is so important and it plays a role in your storytelling.
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> Christopher Kaufman>Yes, thank you. It's really, ah, vital. In fact, in these first two books of Tales of the Ocean City, I think of the, I don't call them audio books, you know, I call them audio albums because there's so much music, in fact, back then, audible, in those places. I couldn't even get it on there because the music was so, you know, strong. In fact, sometimes I think that the story and text are accompanying the music rather than the other way around. So it's really important.
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> Christopher Kaufman>And the narration is interactive with the music.
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> Christopher Kaufman>So I might say a phrase and the music will, Will respond and hear, you know, and the other way around too. So it's very fundamental. And of course the principles and the. Of being of music.
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> Christopher Kaufman>The principles of music, you know, like I'm talking about, like, how harmony music, harmony, no matter what kind of music, you know, time period, classical, jazz, whatever you call it, it's about creating complexity or a thicker, more complex texture and resolving it to a more consonant one. So there's this interplay, this constant expression of. Of building up of things and resolving them. And then. So that's my story really responded to that as I was composing and saying it and writing it at the same time that, you know, this buildup of obstacles that are overcome.
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> Christopher Kaufman>You know, like, the first book is called Battle in the sky. And, just briefly, it starts off, you know, with the main characters, Harlow, who's a young man, and Vespucian, who is a kind of telepathic Pegasus. Very intelligent. They're co.
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> Christopher Kaufman>Equal and they're like family. They're really closely bonded and they speak to each other in inner dialogue, telepathic throughout, which is really fun to write and experience. Anyway, they're. They're flying over the southern plane.
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> Christopher Kaufman>They're ready to go to join in the. The life of the Ocean City. He's growing up a little bit, you know, and then he sees the. The Princess Brian Lynn and her Parian bond as they're called, Pegasi are called Parianths. They're different than Pegasi, but they're similar to it enough for the image to get in your mind and progress from there.
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> Christopher Kaufman>He's going to go over and say hello. And then they're attacked. They're attacked by these warriors that are called the Vorm. Vorm. Like transmorification, random shapes and sizes. But it's a whole long story about the backstory and how they come from. But in any case, they're attacked and the whole first book is this long, visceral, powerful, fun, exciting, battle scene.
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> Christopher Kaufman>That's why it's called Battle in the Sky. And it has, you know, build up of intense obstacles and challenges that resolve just magnificently, just really in an ecstatic way at the end. It's very powerful the way, the ending resolves all of this that happens. And so the music, being a composer, made all of that happen in this really organic way that, you know, continues to happen through the books. There's. The first five books are like a series called the Vorm War. Books four and five, are the epic battle scenes and all this kind of stuff that happens as they confront the past.
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> Christopher Kaufman>Because there it says from the beginning, the Tales of the Ocean City is a story about a civilization turning the corner into the future.
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> Christopher Kaufman>But first they must face this terrible enemy from the deep past. Actually goes back to when they were evolving as. As a. As a species. You know, this conflict goes way, way back into their lives and their histories. And they have to, you know, resolve that obstacle before they can move into the future. Right. Just like we do in our lives.
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> Christopher Kaufman>You know, good fantasy is often metaphorical in M in many ways. And it is in my work. And so they move forward into the future, in the future, the next follow on series and stuff like that. But the music is everywhere in it and of course there's actual music all over the place and they have themes and that relate to the different characters and the music. For Flight. There's a lot of images and experiences of flight as he's flying on disputants back through, you know, all kinds of situations, whether it's idyllic or it's a battle scene or what have you. And so you get music that reflects all of these different levels and it really enhances the experience so you're, you know, how to feel about everything, you know, so the emotions are very strong as well.
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> Christopher Kaufman>Tales of the Ocean City is the epic tale about a young civilization turning the corner into the future. But first they must face a terrible enemy from the deep past. The main characters are a young man named Harlut and his lifelong companion Vespucian, who is a parianth, a kind of telepathic Pegasus. Book 1 Battle in the Sky Disputian aloft.
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> Speaker C>Cried Harlut. With a thrust of her wings, the white Pegasus shot upwards through billowing clouds. Harlut stood with his arms held out, balancing on her back. They burst into vast heights. The realm of Kor Ra, the morning sun.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Sun.
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> Speaker C>Whose powerful beams illumined iridescent mist on his golden sk. Far below, the ocean roared and thundered. Dispution reached the pinnacle of her high arc. Now, she thought to him. The Pegasus hovered and Haruk dove backwards from her haunches in a swan dive. He clove through tiers of frothing clouds. He used his chest and arms to glide in a spiral through the planet turf wall's thick atmosphere. He reached the cool misty air just below the clouds. Jack knifed them, straightened, then sliced right into the churning ocean currents.
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> Speaker C>Dark purples and greens suffused his eyes as he penetrated cold, shadowy depths. He arched his back, throbbing and drifted lazily up towards a ceiling of shimmering blue light. A quick flash of fiery light caught Harlute's eye. He saw a circlet of fire jade winding through the Princess Brineland's hair which flowed about her neck and shoulders like a cloud of red and orange flames. A scarlet ribbon wound around her light form and down her back to meet an abundant sash. A skirt of loose swags flared about her legs in the wind.
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> Speaker C>Harl ut cleared his mind with a mesmerizing vision, stood on Vesputian's back and prepared to utter his call and greeting. But this Putian suddenly pulled up short in the air and mouthed the rasping bark. Her telepathic voice rang in his mind. Danger. Alarm. Enemy. Harl.
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> Speaker C>Ut instantly hunched over, gripped the mesh along her withers with one hand and craned his neck up into the left. He followed this Putian's stark gaze. Multicolored whorls dissipated in the thick glaze of morning light fluuricorn at the edge of his vision and separated into three jagged shapes growing in size. Blood red streaks rent the air as three giant warriors riding massive red and black Parians shot past, heading directly towards the princess. A mind gummy heating sound followed by a venomous sweet acrid miasma sliced to her loose senses.
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> Christopher Kaufman>All went dark.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, I know that you have a favorite fantasy author, Lloyd Alexander. So explain to the listeners why Lord Alexander is your favorite fantasy author.
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> Christopher Kaufman>Thank you very much for that question. So, that's a real core question, is this particular writer, Lloyd Alexander, he wrote the Chronicles of Prydain, which you may know they made some bad Disney movies, but it's really powerful stuff.
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> Christopher Kaufman>the, the main thing is that you can find it. If you look him up on YouTube, you can see an interview. And in that interview he talks about how he wrote books for a long time for grownups, adults, you know, and they were fine and the good and they were successful. But when he started writing for the younger audience, for young people instead of. It didn't become, you know, you might expect, oh, the, the emotions, the situations become more trite or something like that. But he said no, the opposite is. It got deeper. The emotions and the experiences and the experience of writing it and everything got deeper and more powerful. It was the opposite. So I've had that experience and I identified with it. Cause I have a career as a concert composer writing all kinds of serious pieces and string quartets and symphonic tone poem and environmental pieces and chamber works, all these things. But when I write the Tales of the Ocean City, it just fulfilled.
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> Christopher Kaufman>It's very fulfilling and deep and powerful and so identified with his life story as an artist. And the particular works, the Chronicles of Prydain are just wonderful and they're just perfect like glorious fantasy books. And he was the one that speaks about like Tolkien would say. Tolkien would say that, sure. Fantasy is an escape. I mean it's like you're escaping from a, ah, prison camp. So you're honor bound to escape and to bring as many people with you as you possibly can, you know, it's your. Your honor bound to do it. But Lloyd Alexander, says more. He talks about more the, metaphoric aspect that, ah, you're really in a fantasy situation. You're talking about all the different characters, the monsters, the. All the different people. They're metaphors for us and our lives and different aspects of our lives are being personified in the story. And then you can talk about those different levels of one's humanity and our joined, you know, collective humanity in this situation and how things happen and resolve or don't resolve whatever happens. We're talking about our lives, our people, our insides, our psychology.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, you know, you've been talking about the arts and all that good stuff and the great benefits that it provides. So talk about some ways that we all can participate in the arts and reap the benefits that you're talking about.
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> Christopher Kaufman>Sure. Well, I believe in the, you know, the transformative power of imagination and that in our present situation, in our lives, in our culture, the imagination has been demeaned. You know, it's been deflated, it's been attacked. I have a story, the fantastic Zoo, where children go into a fantastic zoo and they hear the stories of the phoenix and the mermaid and the dragon. And the dragon is talking about the war on imagination that we experience now. It's misused, it's degraded. I mean, we live in, you know, cubicles.
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> Christopher Kaufman>And, we don't go outside and see the horizon in the forest and experience nature as we used to.
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> Christopher Kaufman>the buildings, you know, they have these fluorescent lights, you know, so it's very gray.
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> Christopher Kaufman>And, then it. Where it used to be. I mean, you go outside and you see what used to be, a glorious, beautiful ecology of natural life. And it's now a parking lot, literally paved over, like dead deadened. And then you even see parking lots for a place that's, you know, the built. The business is out of. Out of business. But you still have this dead parking lot sitting there, right? So we need to. And then that. That reflects in our psychologies. People might feel more limited, they might feel less enthusiastic or ecstatic or passionate. The emotions might old. And by, experiencing and diving into the great fantasy stories, for example, you know, it's more than that, but there's other. You go to modern dance and all kinds of things, any kind of art form, especially if you do it yourself at home. You could paint, you could do anything. I know a lot of older people who start playing cello. They're retired, but they play and it opens things up for them. The vibrations of them, it's the strings.
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> Christopher Kaufman>But especially in a fantasy story, then you can, you know, infuse your life with imagination once again. Mythologies, fantasy stories, music. And, you know, then everywhere you look, it's brighter, there's more color, and you're interpreting everything around you and in a much more, you know, evocative, alive, fun way. So you can't get bored because you can be standing in line and, you know, something like that and just go into your imagination and imagine things. You know, the clouds, who you're traveling. Or if you're in a situation like in a classroom and the teacher is saying things you already know and it's boring.
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> Christopher Kaufman>Well, you can imagine all kinds of things going on around it. You can turn bullies into, into orcs that you have had the experience of defeating because you read the Lord of the Rings, you know, and you can just feel I'm going to be. Feel like Aragorn's energy in me. And I'm going to get through this situation. It might be getting up in front of a classroom and speaking or whatever it is you're going to do. And or it's just, you know, a staff meeting. It's boring. You can feel and infuse yourself with all of these energies that you glean from your imagination, that you feed.
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> Christopher Kaufman>You feed your imagination through. Well, in one.
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> Christopher Kaufman>One scenario, one instant great fantasy stories, which are a great way to do it.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, let's talk about some of the autobiographical elements of your stories.
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> Christopher Kaufman>Okay, that's another good question. I was talking about book one, the Battle in the sky, where, Harlot and Vespucian go over the southern plain.
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> Christopher Kaufman>They see the princess, they get into a battle in this Islam battle scene. Well, the Vorm warriors are led by a really vicious, kind of terrifying chieftain character. He's huge and he's imposing and he, By the end of the story of book one, the princess, Brian Lynn is, you know, fighting this creature and being wounded and beat up by it a lot. And she ends up wounded, at the end of the story. Now, spoiler alert. She returns later in the books as an almost superhero like character and has a great arc and becomes a leader. But this point she's like fallen and her arm, I mean her.
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> Christopher Kaufman>She's been maimed. Her hand has been cut off and she was fighting and the blade of the, So anyway, I realized. And Harlow, he's over here fighting, but he's witnessing it. And I realized that I was kind of reliving things I experienced when I was young, which was a very unfortunate kind of abusive situation. And I saw my father be violent with my sister.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Right.
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> Christopher Kaufman>And then I realized that that's what I was reliving. And that added to the, the ecstasy of the resolve later on in the powerfulness of this story. And so I realized that the character Brian Lynn, the Princess, was kind of a Persona infused with my, with my sister like that, my sister, it was Brian Lynn. And then later at that time the Sister Twain, the Captains of the Guard arrived with They are these two sister. These powerful, you know, warrior sister characters. And originally I had them given number different names. But then when I realized what was going on with this story I renamed them Alessia and Alexa.
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> Christopher Kaufman>And my two sisters are named Alice and Alexandria.
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> Christopher Kaufman>So Alexandria actually is in there twice. She's Brian Lynn and Alexa. And anyway, things like that. And then I. So names changed and I realized this charact represented my stepfather who came in and helped saved our family in a way and he's the one that saves Brian Lynn from being killed. And all this kind of stuff started coming into it and it just added power to the story and this whole cathartic nature of the resolve and what happens in it through this book one and in the future books. And so, I think it's therefore, Now there's a lot of people who read the book who don't know that but I've had some people who had ah, challenging lives when they were young who really loved this story and I think that that was why, because it was infused with this, this solving of these problems. You know, whether it's music or it's autobiographical, it's, you know, part of the story.
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> Christopher Kaufman>Oh, another one, a good one is the Prions. The telepathic Pegasi characters, their own civilization and highly intelligent, all this kind of really fascinating characters. But the way they're close, you know, Harlute and Vespucian.
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> Christopher Kaufman>Well, I realized that the Parian are based on our animal friends. And as I grew up I was very close with my pet, my dogs especially one I named a narion after a character from the Lord of the Rings. And we were. She's. I almost thought sometimes we had like telepathic connection to our, to us. And so the, the connection between, you know, the animal friends and all these things are you know, part of the autobiography of the story.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of.
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> Christopher Kaufman>Well, yes, I'm, working on book eight and you know, these, these stories, the chapters, I call them episodes because they're actually organized that way, like radio drama episodes. And so I'm going to be. It's going to be a little while because I have to get like 13 episodes up front.
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> Christopher Kaufman>And then I'm going to put it out as a podcast where there's an episode a week. And then the second half of the, of the podcast episode will be readings and some interviews and music and soundtracks. All kinds of different things like a variety show. And once a year, another completely different project, I put on a concert called the Fantastic Theater. It's kind of my, arts education outreach program. And I present new music and art to people of all ages all at once. So that comes along on a regular basis. So you can go to, people can visit me at my home website, which is soundartists.com and that's SoundArt US Sound Artists. Actually, Dr. Soundartist was a character from one of my other books, the Musical Forest, which is a whole other story. It's like a family theater piece. And so, Sound Artists, you, go there and there's a lot of things. You can press the composer button to hear my music. I have a music player on there. You can press theatrical productions to see these musical plays I've created. you can go to the ah, Fantastic Theater and see all that's going on with that, or just press the author and that'll take you to talesoftheoceancity.com which is all about the books. And I also have a YouTube channel which is also called Sound Artists, Sound Art Us. And there's a lot there. I have films of some of my theater productions. I have all these, book trailers and some readings performances. And that's something that I'll be doing regularly in the spring is, live readings of Tales of the Ocean City. I have a screen, a portable, beautiful screen LED screen I carry around on wheels and then a Bose PA system and a microphone. So I do like the audio album, but the music doesn't, you know, I do the narration live, in other words, with the music integrated in the way it is in the audio album. And I do like, scenes from the stories.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>All right, well, that was my next question. Your website, soundart Us, so close this out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on or any final thoughts you have for the listeners?
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> Christopher Kaufman>Well, something, we've said but can't be emphasized enough, and that is to use re infuse and reinvigorate your imagination in every way you can. Everyone's different. You know, you might have other experiences other than the great fantasy stories that I have from my youth. Truth.
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> Christopher Kaufman>And, you can, you can find, like Joseph Campbell's the Power of Myth online. And it just, it's very powerful stuff that reinvigorates your life, and it just can be very, transformative. So go for it.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>All right, ladies and gentlemen, soundartus dot com. Be sure to check out everything that Christopher's up to. Check out the books, check out the music, and keep up with everything that he's up to and gonna be up to. Please be sure to follow rate, review, share this episode to as many people as possible. And if you want more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, please visit www.craveballuh337.com and be sure to share the website to as many people as possible. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Christopher, thank you for all that you do and thank you for joining me.
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> Christopher Kaufman>Thank you so much for having me, Curtis. Really appreciate it.
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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.craveball337.com until next time, keep living the dream.