18 - The Art of Healing—with guest Julyan Davis, painter and writer

Anne and Alison interview Julyan Davis, a British-American artist living in Asheville, North Carolina about growing up going to Catholic boarding school in England, the particular British outlook with low expectations, his new novel A History of Saints as a healing project, the patriarchy, murder ballads, and more. For more than thirty years he has painted the vanishing architecture of the South. Collaborating with musicians, historians, and writers, his traveling museum exhibits chronicle the folklore and lost histories of the region.

Show Notes:

Coming soon.

Transcript

Alison Cebulla 0:06
All right. Welcome to another episode of latchkey urges and friends.

Anne Sherry 0:11
And not like I'm friends. I'm not wavering on that friends are important. Yeah. That just came to me to like, date it own it. Somebody say you know what Tamar sent me the greatest Tiktok a fuck yeah, tick tock. We'll have to post it but basically Fuck yes. I'm up for this Fuck yes, I'm up for this and if you know Yeah. Yeah, so it was

Alison Cebulla 0:40
tic TOCs are coming to the rescue lately we spend a lot of time watching tick tock

Anne Sherry 0:45
tick tock hole scrolling mixed scroll stir. Yeah, even after I had a goddamn therapy session where I was like, oh, yeah, I know what this scrolling part is about. It really wants me to like folk, you know, wants me not to it's about like, not feeling my feelings or something and then and then messed up pissed me off because it was like, oh, yeah, you trying to get rid of me? Let me show you some tick tock. I think it's. So I'm being kind and tender. I

Alison Cebulla 1:16
am working on my scroll. What I realized about my scrolling is that it's a self soothing activity. So yeah. Now if I noticed myself scrolling for too long, I and it's so far it's going okay, I just go What am I avoiding feeling? Or do I need to soothe myself in some other way? And? And like, what would make me feel really, really good in the long run? Because if you ask yourself, sort of what your long term goals are, those are the types of activities that get you like that I always procrastinate on, like, should I do something for our podcast? Can I do? Can I work? You know, and I did a lot of work this week, because we're going to do like a little rebrand that I'm excited about our website just got hit with some another malware tag. But

Anne Sherry 2:03
I actually don't want to go down that I'm just like, fuck off with your malware, whatnot. I don't know, I know,

Alison Cebulla 2:08
this is just a random attack, we must have had a piece of software, maybe it's even the one where we asked people to submit their stories. Maybe that was like a weak link or something, you know, that listen thing that I installed. Yeah. Okay. And then it just gets in there. And installs. Basically they're trying to get people's credit cards, it kind of like installs a thing that says like, put your credit card information here on our website. So Got it, got it. Okay. And then once the internet realizes that our websites unsafe, then it's like, it takes it down. So when people try and visit our site, it's like you can the dangerous site. So then that's like bad for our brand.

Anne Sherry 2:47
Right. But also appropriate, you know, like where we're at? I'm thinking of that kind of like thing through the lens of like abuse. And then you get taken offline, or I don't know, so I don't know,

Alison Cebulla 3:04
wait, everything goes through. What's the comparison for me?

Anne Sherry 3:07
I can make the comparison. So you get like, you're, you're really open as the kid like, hey, I want to connect. Give me your like, Yeah, let's be with our vulnerability. And

Alison Cebulla 3:20
that's asked with a podcast. Yeah, I guess. I don't know. And then it just gets down and then it gets smacked down. And yeah, there are

Anne Sherry 3:30
protectors come in and take you offline. Right. So we're seeking the self of the internet. Yeah, we know you're okay. Yeah.

Alison Cebulla 3:38
Thank you. And I love that you

Anne Sherry 3:43
had your parts that had to just like work and work and work and work and work at it. Right? Because yeah, yeah, trying to figure it out or something. So low industrious parts that come on line, but we can ask for help. Right?

Alison Cebulla 3:57
I'm, we're getting it. Yeah. Yes, I'm hiring a malware expert all there on the internet to help. Yeah, I'm hiring. And so I have this real resistance because I've been talking with a couple of web developers for our website, because I am pretty good with WordPress and I, you know, I could build some basic sites. I'm not like, you know, an expert or anything, but I could I could put some stuff up. So I can tell that I have this real resistance to accepting help and being like, what if you were to hire this person what their worth to do their job, you know, and actually, community of people building a thing together and even just saying that like, I'm like, you.

Anne Sherry 4:39
I can feel that I can feel the shit climbing up my chest. But we're gonna be other people. And yeah,

Alison Cebulla 4:48
we're i i wanted to clear IBS the episode with the the, the young woman who owned the Asian bakery, that OMG squeak. She did not want the help. Could you tell? She was like, I don't want to do this. I don't know why I'm doing this. I don't try to lay clothes. I don't like this remodel. I don't like this here. They

Anne Sherry 5:10
followed up on her. Yeah. And then when she went in, and they're like, look, we've redecorated your whatever I showed her face fell. She was appreciative. That's so interesting. That's the episode that we are our guests. That's coming up. Julian Davis, I brought him. Oh,

Alison Cebulla 5:25
that's the episode we watched. Yeah. So, um, and it was really sad to watch her in particular. Although I feel that this season, they picked some hard cases. I think they probably did that on purpose. But then watching the, the man who performs as the stage name black light, then the next one, and he wanted the help. It was like, think, yes. You want to help? Yeah.

Anne Sherry 5:53
Yeah, that was a good connection was

Alison Cebulla 5:54
such a joy to watch him say, Oh, let me let me do a little more. Let me do a little more. It was just like such a joy. But that woman from OMG squee. Like, they were like, Honey, this is you have to run a business. Like you have to train some people to do this. Like, you can't just stay in the back.

Anne Sherry 6:11
Are you? Naturally Are you? Are you

Alison Cebulla 6:16
saying? That's what I'm saying? Is like I do see i Yes. Some of those parts of like, I don't want anyone to help with this, which is which I'm gonna I'm gonna, I'm gonna work on I'm gonna work on that.

Anne Sherry 6:30
Okay. It doesn't comment. Well, that's some some of your one stuff. It has to be I imagined it must feel like such a burden when people are helping and they're not doing it right. Or as good or whatever. I mean, like, right. So you do have tremendous competence, you know, like, so. Thank you snatching. It's hard. Yeah.

Alison Cebulla 6:51
Thank you. Wow, you're offering me so much compassion today. I mean, you usually do, but it feels good. Thank you

Anne Sherry 6:59
for taking that in. Wow. Okay.

Alison Cebulla 7:03
I'm gonna take the help. I'm gonna hire a great web developer and a great graphic designer we're gonna do

Anne Sherry 7:07
is complain about it. You know, your parents complained about it. And it'll be good enough because the balance is you're gonna lose your mind if you keep trying to do every single bit of it. Right. I mean, that's what happens.

Alison Cebulla 7:20
Yeah. Yeah, I think so. How are you this week? Oh, how

Anne Sherry 7:24
am I this week? How am I this week? I feel like I have COVID all the time. Just because it's everywhere.

Alison Cebulla 7:31
I don't have my coffee.

Anne Sherry 7:34
I think I just walk around with a psychosomatic COVID. psychosomatic? COVID. Like I'm like, Oh, that's a headache. That was a headache, right? It's like, no, you've had six cups of coffee and no water. Like, that's what that is. Or oh, there's, I can feel a little respiratory. Like, you know, so I'm getting really hypochondriac with my, because everybody has it. Like I saw, I don't know. 20 Something clients this week. I think half of them have it, or yeah, you saw them over the internet over the internet. Yes. But they got it. And most you know, they're all careful in the ways that we are wearing.

Alison Cebulla 8:11
Right, this very annoying, but seems like everyone's gonna get it. Yeah, two of our guests got it that were lined out. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Last time.

Anne Sherry 8:20
So. So there's that what else is going on? Um, it's finally cold and Asheville. kind of dig in actually having winter. I'm

Alison Cebulla 8:32
jealous. Literally. 75 supposed to be 75 here today. I cannot even on the bed and we love cozy flannel sheets. And then we were like, if we just shouldn't have done this,

Anne Sherry 8:45
do you have AC? Can you just create a little winter in there? Yeah, can you

Alison Cebulla 8:49
better we need to

Anne Sherry 8:53
turn AC down to like 40. Yeah.

Alison Cebulla 8:56
So how

Anne Sherry 8:58
do I know? Oh, yeah.

Alison Cebulla 9:01
Um, yeah. So thank you for asking. I have to say, um, um, I feel good about where I'm at. And this year, I'm not feeling like my most resilient self. And I think that's just from two years of the pandemic. It feels so surreal. Everybody's a little shaken. Yeah, but I do feel optimistic. Like I've been going to yoga and I just found this new great yoga studio who actually cares about COVID They're not anti vaxxers They're very pro Vax, which I love. And people are wearing masks like, you know, around you don't have to wear it in class, but some people do. But you do need to wear it like around the studio and everything. I just makes me feel good that they care that you know, whereas the other studio I was going to I was like I don't I think they're trying to ignore this whole thing. And there may be even anti because a lot of Yoga people are antivax so that's been stressful for me is like, yoga is so good and healing For me, in fact, when you the one that introduced me to yoga back in 2005, at like my yoga when

Anne Sherry 10:06
I had my big job as a yoga yoga office manager, yes. Big breakout role for me 40

Alison Cebulla 10:15
You were not 4037 Okay, yeah, that's how old I am. Okay. And now

Anne Sherry 10:24
you see who I really was. You were like, I know,

Alison Cebulla 10:27
but I still feel like that am I doing with my career? Like I do. I'm like, why this so many years, but okay, but so yoga really saved my life. Like it really saved my life. Back when you introduced it to me, I needed it. So that and I was not inhabiting my body. Like I would go and they would and I yank our you know, they give you all these different supportive props, which is great. And I like couldn't even do downward dog like they had to put blocks under my wrist because my risk would get tired after like three seconds. Like I couldn't my had an anger

Anne Sherry 10:59
for a long fucking time. Just problems with that. But I, but still, I didn't learn the poses for sure. Yeah. No, but you weren't you. You got to feel inhabit your body was

Alison Cebulla 11:12
Yeah. And it was so healing. But I have to say now and I'm I'm taking a break. I'm not going to listen anymore. Can spirituality for a while. I'm just going to the last one I know. But Charles Eisenstein, but I already know that he's insane. Okay, yeah. Okay. All right. Um, um, but you're right. I do feel cool. It's too cynical. And so I'm like, How do I go? Do yoga now that I don't have that same reverence for the spiritual side of yoga anymore? And I don't want to hear about that from anyone.

Anne Sherry 11:47
Right? Just get high and go to yoga. Oh, okay. Maybe helps you focus? Yeah, smoke a loss and you live in California, you can do that? Of course, I can't do that. I would never do that and go to a restorative yin yoga class ever. I wouldn't do that. Because Because what would happen is it would be a nightmare getting 700 props out. If you were to get to your mat. The best, I imagine. Yeah. I would imagine it would be really good.

Alison Cebulla 12:24
So, um, today we have Julian Davis. Yes.

Anne Sherry 12:29
So interesting. Is a smart dude. He's a smart dude. He's got he's reads a lot. been reading a lot. He was well educated in England. Finally, so curious about the world too. I love talking in his Prezi I know. I'm like, I read a lot more. I used to, and I do somewhat but I do a lot of listening now. So yeah,

Alison Cebulla 12:59
that's the same thing. I so I have this goal for myself this year. Just because I saw someone else make a post about it. 52 books so I'm gonna I'm gonna read two books a share.

Anne Sherry 13:08
52 books. I'm already two books behind. I just

Alison Cebulla 13:13
saw I just finished that. Nadia bolts Weber. Patrick's

Anne Sherry 13:17
Oh, I heard Did you hear that? The sheet there's a great little bit culty little bit called Tea. Yeah, it talks about why why she chose that name. Yeah,

Alison Cebulla 13:26
yeah. And so after listening to that a little bit culty episode, I downloaded the audio book, which she reads and it is so

Anne Sherry 13:34
yeah, good. She's one of the best. Yeah, I saw that somewhere. I'm figuring out how to we all have Kindles, like August actually really likes reading on a Kindle. More so than he's so funny. He's like, Look at this. Like, look how many pages are in this book? Like, look at my arms. Like, this is so heavy. I'm just like, fuck it. Your books are gonna go away, I guess. So. He will read the shit out of my Kindle. So Oh, but you can connect to the library. You don't have to just buy every book. So I think that's great. Anyways, so yeah, making use of the library is on our docket as well. Great. Yeah. Yeah.

Alison Cebulla 14:13
So today we talked to Julian a little bit about patriarchy, we kind of go all over the place

Anne Sherry 14:19
all over that we sort of follow his like, it's like you go into this like you were allowed into his like, if you know English stuff, Doctor Who like his brain is a TARDIS. Do you know that artists? It's like this little phone booth. Doctor Who fans will know this. So him being English. But it's just this Wonderland. You just open up you can hang out with him and you just go into this huge room because he will just meander to all these subjects and like, anytime we've hung out with him lately, I used to hang out with him more and we're kind of reconnecting or we're seeking Him out more. Yeah. Because he's so damn interesting. Yeah, you just, he's like, Yeah, I was really pondering over blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, Man, you never stop like, and he does. He talks about going on these I went, he's written a book called,

Alison Cebulla 15:13
let's talk a lot about it in the interview. So yeah,

Anne Sherry 15:17
yeah. But he goes on 18 mile walks, and just lets the characters talk. I mean, he really keeps so cool. Like, I think he's one of those people that uses, you know, we only use what 10% of our brain are five or three or two lately. But he uses a lot he leaves. A lot of his brain is lit up. So he's fascinating. And yeah, so funny and humble, and all the things. Yeah. So

Alison Cebulla 15:42
you're you all are gonna love this interview. I hope we love talking to Julian, and here it is

Anne Sherry 15:47
joy.

Alison Cebulla 16:01
All right, well, we are here with one of our favorite people. Julian Davis, and lots of people's favorite

Anne Sherry 16:09
people. Yeah, we're

Alison Cebulla 16:10
so lucky to have him on. And I have known Julius for a long time, probably almost as long as I've known and so almost like 15 years. Yeah, yeah. And, and so I'm gonna read Julian just had a book come out. Congratulations. Thank you very much. And yeah, yeah. Anna and I are both reading. I love it. I love it. It's

Anne Sherry 16:36
so good.

Alison Cebulla 16:37
It's so good. It's called a history of saints. And so, the we'll put it we'll put links in our show notes, but you can order it direct from the publisher, which is what I what I did. So S M P books.com. And so I'm going to go ahead and read your little cover bio here. Julian Davis is a British American artist living in Asheville, North Carolina. For more than 30 years, he has painted the vanishing architecture of the South, collaborating with musicians, historians and writers. His traveling museum exhibits chronicle the folklore and lost histories of the region. His work can be found online at Julian davis.com. and on Instagram at Julian Davis. A History of saints is his debut novel. Thanks for being here, Julian.

Julyan Davis 17:27
Thank you very much. It's lovely to be here.

Alison Cebulla 17:31
So our first our first question that we always that we always start with is how do you relate to latch key kid or urchin? What was what was your childhood like?

Julyan Davis 17:44
Well, I wasn't particularly a latchkey kid, I was talking to my sisters about this. I was sent off to boarding school when I was I think about nine. And it was because

Alison Cebulla 17:58
I was a latchkey to me.

Julyan Davis 18:01
couple of rounds. I was a bit of a delinquent. And I'd fallen in with two kids at school when I was

Anne Sherry 18:09
nine. At nine you weren't you were classified as a delinquent.

Julyan Davis 18:15
delinquent. He was skipping school. We were going to the sweatshop, the candy shop.

Alison Cebulla 18:19
You were a kid.

Julyan Davis 18:23
Anyway, yes, I fall in love with them. And I my exam results were so bad that the school I was trying to get him to vote to my parents and said, you know, how dare you let this child take up a desk for these entrance exams? And so they said, Well,

Anne Sherry 18:42
they're rough in England. Yeah. I mean, it's like Oliver going on there.

Julyan Davis 18:47
Yeah, they were aggravated. So my parents said, Well, unfortunately, we're gonna have to send you off to boarding school. So yes, you're right. It's a kind of latch key thing. My sisters were quite envious though. They didn't get to go to boarding school and they would have liked to where they are okay.

Alison Cebulla 19:11
As young girl 60s That makes me think of when we interviewed Ian, Ian Nicholson, and he said he went off to rocket camp and didn't miss his parents. You know that your sister's like, how can we get out of here? You know?

Anne Sherry 19:28
Like, here we are being good and following rules, and Julian gets rewarded with boardings. Maybe we're making some assumptions here about what it was like. Yeah, yeah.

Julyan Davis 19:38
But I know the term. I know the term latchkey for sure. And I would say my son is a bit of a latchkey kid, because his mom, his mom was, you know, raising him most of the time and he is you know, she has to work and so he's definitely let himself in and out and all that so,

Anne Sherry 19:57
and he asked, he's 11 1011

Julyan Davis 19:59
he's alive. Have a love

Anne Sherry 20:00
and now right? Yeah, yeah, but

Julyan Davis 20:03
he has. He's got a lot of freedom. He's got a lot of independence I think because of that. Yeah. I was institutionalized. Okay.

Alison Cebulla 20:12
Okay talked about,

Anne Sherry 20:14
you know, there are gifts that come along with one you end up pretty funny and to you know, just the skills of like, how to get out of scrapes like August cannot still cannot stay at home. Like he's still

Alison Cebulla 20:29
sort of like He's younger. He's younger. My lovin is degree nine. Yeah, but 11 is a good age to start hanging out alone. Yeah, I think yeah, yeah.

Julyan Davis 20:39
It's, it's interesting, that thing, I was just listening to Bruce Springsteen's autobiography. It's such a rock and roll around, you know, the way he talks the whole life lingo? Yeah.

Alison Cebulla 20:48
Next slide, please.

Julyan Davis 20:49
He's so loves all that shit he went through as a kid. You know?

Anne Sherry 20:55
This is like, a whole career on it. Yeah, it's like the 10 things

Julyan Davis 20:59
you need to be a rock and roller. You know? Drinking my dad drinking that you know that.

Alison Cebulla 21:07
Wow, the spiritual teachings I didn't know I needed for Springsteen.

Anne Sherry 21:12
Now everything is how do you monetize it? So it'll be like, wait a minute, give me a latchkey kid, let me monetize that shit. And yeah, yeah. Socrative. And we're trying to we're trying to nurture and do so social, like good social life

Alison Cebulla 21:28
cost money. And what are you doing here? And

Anne Sherry 21:32
I know no, like, no, in school. They're all super friendly, you know, like, really support each other and stuff. They don't they don't get in. Well, not in every school system. But in lots of the school system, that movement to like, how do we solve this as a community? And how do we work together as a team on this? So we did great stuff. Yeah. all that great stuff. Yeah. I want to hear more about the English childhood. Yeah.

Alison Cebulla 21:57
I was boarding school in town, what age

Julyan Davis 22:01
on an off up to about the age of 16. Okay, yeah, yeah. Well, neither my sisters or I went to school for almost a year. My father

Alison Cebulla 22:15
was there a pandemic.

Julyan Davis 22:20
My father was ill and my parents just sort of forgot to put us in school, out to the countryside. And we all look at that as sort of Halcyon time where we were given tons of books to read, and it didn't seem to affect our, you know, returning to school the following September. It's interesting. Yeah, it's saying,

Alison Cebulla 22:39
Yeah,

Julyan Davis 22:41
but the English childhood I was just telling, and I've got a poem here. And it's sort of suits your show. So it's, yeah, and it's the most, it's often voted the most popular poem in England. In fact, I saw it once on a train and it has this obscenities in it. So it was kind of funny to see it on this London undergrad. But it's by a poem, Philip Larkin, and it's called this be the first and it reads. It's, they fuck you up your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with all the faults they had, and add some extra just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn. By fools in old style hats and coats, who half the time was soppy stern, and half at one another's throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can and don't have any kids yourself. I love it. I love it because it's so English, you know, and I was saying what is an English childhood like? Well, the English they've got less so but they're pretty fatalistic.

Alison Cebulla 23:55
Like Pink Floyd. Yeah, like a Pink Floyd. Right? So angry at your parents?

Julyan Davis 24:01
Yeah, it's so it's extremely Pink Floyd. Yeah.

Anne Sherry 24:06
Yeah, I remember. Well, my ex husband's from England. And I remember some of the, I mean, just really being struck by just some of his stories and the brutality in school and just phrases like, cheer up. It might never happen, you know, like, like, Do not be sad. Don't think about that. Things are just like, fuck it. Like, no one's coming to save you. So it was it

Julyan Davis 24:34
was a bit tough. Actually, I was. I think my mum particularly did not want me to go to this boarding school and she was a bit. She was a bit hard, but years later. This is interesting. Years later, I was I was with the Jesuits, the Catholic priests and that brotherhood Jesuit brotherhood, and they're pretty tough. They're kind of considered the Gestapo of the Catholic the intellectual side that is, send them into combat zone sort of things. And they were excellent teachers, but they were very tough. And, and years later, I was telling my parents, there was a dinner party and I, I said, you know, we used to get beaten quite a bit. You know, we had this extraordinary system of tickets. You get a little booklet, like, post it notes and tickets, graves were called forfeits. And if you lost eight of them, you had to go to the headmaster, and they would judge if you lost them too quickly, or if it's taken enough time for you to break 10 laws, you know?

Alison Cebulla 25:56
Yeah, we have cards, we have cards in school that you have that and my I was constantly getting that my yellow card and my red card and having to go sit in the corner and think about that I've done.

Anne Sherry 26:07
I can't remember, but like, so carry some love. This one sucked. Yes. Yeah.

Julyan Davis 26:15
Yeah. And that's exactly it. If you lost the 10 too quickly. You would get beaten. And I remember.

Alison Cebulla 26:24
We didn't have that. We didn't have that when I was in school in the 90s. Okay, yeah. So

Julyan Davis 26:29
that was pretty strict. So of course, there was a huge black marketing thing going on, because the most valuable thing could have was this ticket tickets. Incredible. You would? Yeah. So you would use them to get candy, stuff like that, you know, in

Anne Sherry 26:46
prison a little bit back to like, yeah, yeah.

Julyan Davis 26:50
Yeah. Anyway, I said at this dinner party, with my parents friends, I said, you know, but the headmaster, Father Taunton, who I said, Maybe I shouldn't mention his name, literally. I said,

Alison Cebulla 27:04
Yeah, I think you can. We're like a different continent of different era. He's still around,

Julyan Davis 27:11
he's died. You can

Alison Cebulla 27:13
you can call him out.

Julyan Davis 27:14
Okay, yeah. Well, the headmaster had been much kinder than the other people who beat you. Because he always would Masada buttocks between each blow. And there was this dead silence around the dinner table. And my father jumped up. He's like, What the hell, you know, and I had not realized, yeah, I had no idea until that moment. I just thought he was being kind. Wow. Yeah. And then recently, I stumbled on a newspaper article. And sure enough, several of the boys at the time had filed a suit or, you know, taken three priests to court. And the first and he was one of the accused. Yeah. But at the time, he was 82. And I don't know if anything happened.

Alison Cebulla 28:06
Wow, that's that's surprises. Literally no one to hear anymore. No, like for our listeners. It's just like, we're just waiting. Like, we're actually waiting for you to share that with us. Because we knew what was coming. I was I was like, when do we get to the abuse part? Yeah.

Anne Sherry 28:26
way that it came about that, like overnight, realizing you were not only physically sure that you were sexually abused, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Julyan Davis 28:36
I definitely knew I'd been physically abused. But that no,

Anne Sherry 28:43
because you were sitting away, like, yeah, we

Julyan Davis 28:47
used to say, you know, God, we've played there was a little alternative of Mary and we can pray and say, Please, God, let it be father, Taunton, because he won't hit us on our hands. He'll hurt us on our backsides. And He'll mess our jaw bottoms.

Anne Sherry 29:06
Julia next novel, I hear

Alison Cebulla 29:09
ya, written? Yeah.

Julyan Davis 29:15
The Watson shock about

Alison Cebulla 29:18
my I have a close friend here in town who does research in this area. And it's tough to collect data on schools and childhood sexual assault. But she managed to to get some data together. She's a statistician and found that one in 10 of her subjects studied was sexually assaulted by a staff or faculty member in the population, one in 10. This was a US study. So you combine that right? You're already in danger if you're at school. You combine that with the boarding school you combine that with the Catholic Church.

Julyan Davis 29:56
Yeah. You bet as Catholic,

Alison Cebulla 30:00
I was, yeah, I was for a small amount of time. And then my parents went to therapy. And my, my parents have always said that Republicans and Christians are just people haven't had therapy. I don't know who I'm gonna find, hopefully, you know, everyone, but for them, they really gave up. My mom was born was raised sort of, like Born Again Christian like Baptist, you know. And then my dad was raised Catholic, I went to Catholic school with a lot of physical abuse. And then so they just thought, well, you're just supposed to raise your kids that way. Then they got therapy, and they're like, all bets are off. There's no God.

Anne Sherry 30:50
There's no that's where you go. Like, there's no spirituality. There's no my parents were raised in the Hellfire damnation sort of lease my father. And I don't know what kind of abuse might have been occurring, but like,

Alison Cebulla 31:04
what we can do is based

Anne Sherry 31:07
on the statistics, certainly, but yeah, they were like, you're getting nothing. It's just there's nothing, you know, so we were left you were raised legally. Yeah, nothing. Oh, kidding. No, yeah, I feel that's visual for your generation. And it is and in the south, and it was very shameful to not belong to a church want to be a Democrat in the south at that time, and to not belong to a church like I would go to, to church. You know, if I spent the night with friends on Saturday night, they'd always be this like, oh, one I gotta have fucking church clothes. And two, I gotta go to church and pretend like I know shit or like, why why what church do your parents go to? Why are you with this person this week? And I for the longest for many weeks, I was doing just going with my friend to for confirmation or not confirmation, but like, eating the drink of the wine and biscuits or whatever. And her mother found out that I had not been baptized or confirmed. And it was over like, I couldn't go back to church royally so I took myself to confirmation class at like, 10 I was in adult confirmation class and got baptized just so I could spend the night with her because on the way to church, we used to get hearty steak biscuits.

Alison Cebulla 32:28
I knew this was related to food for you. Always. Yeah, yeah. Oh,

Anne Sherry 32:32
yeah. Fresh dice. Hardys, like steak biscuits. I was like, I do not care what the fuck I have to do. I gotta have that biscuit. That was the body of convinced. Yeah, that was. That's what I really wanted. Yeah.

Julyan Davis 32:48
It was amazing. It's funny. You're talking about the hellfire and damnation. I remember kid. Some kid saying when I first got here to Alabama, some kid saying, you know, hell. Hell is really bad. It's all like how far and Dalmatians? Sounds pretty good. It sounds pretty good to me. Yeah.

Alison Cebulla 33:09
Ah, so Okay, so you were in this boarding school? You had a moment where? Okay, I got a we got a backup. So your dad. So your dad is like, Wait a minute. That sounds suspicious to me. But now a lot of parents from that generation might have just gone well, I'm just gonna put the blinders on. Like that's like a very common thing. Like so many people have the story of like, my my parents just didn't want to deal with it. So they didn't What did your What did your dad do?

Julyan Davis 33:45
That's good question. I don't know. I know he was support. And of course he was he was a lawyer. It's possible that the the person for the Taunton was was was dead by then. I don't know why. No, he wouldn't have been.

Anne Sherry 34:00
Yeah. Wait, so

Alison Cebulla 34:03
wait, how old were you? How old were you when you told the story about the the the. But massages. How old were you when you said that? 15 or 16. So those days were long gone. Yeah, well,

Anne Sherry 34:15
not that. 16 right.

Julyan Davis 34:18
I left. I left the school at 11. Okay, for 22 years.

Anne Sherry 34:23
Two years. Yeah. Okay. Yeah,

Alison Cebulla 34:24
yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. So. Okay,

Julyan Davis 34:28
good question. It was a tough school. Yeah, no, I think about it. God knows what effect it has. I remember. One thing was there was one particular priest in charge of our dormitory, and he had a obsession with cleanliness. He had a sort of phobia. He was a sort of germaphobe which is the worst person to put in charge of little boys. And yeah, yeah. And I had this rule he had this rule you once the lights were out, you couldn't go to the bathroom in for an hour. By After an hour, it was okay. But if you look straight after the lights without that sort of breaking one of these rules, so we all of us probably develop bladder issues. We probably all need to, you know what I mean? But I actually I got to,

Alison Cebulla 35:15
unfortunately, Julian's audio cut out in this section. I think he's saying that he got some stomach pain.

Julyan Davis 35:21
And I, I lay there and I didn't know who to go to. And it actually turned to peritonitis. My appendix burst, and school. I was vomiting blood into a bucket. Just quietly Oh, not Yeah. Julian. Yeah. And it was because that guy was so fearful first.

Alison Cebulla 35:44
Yeah. Okay, we need another book. We need another book. Yeah.

Anne Sherry 35:51
Yeah. Fuck, then, back to Frank back to the character, the main character, which I think is based on you a fair amount. Frank in your novel. That's a bit of it is yes. Yeah. Yeah. So send Frank to a childhood and it backstory.

Alison Cebulla 36:08
Frank's childhood here, but I'm just like, Julian, hold up your childhood? What the? Does this ever hit you? Are you just taking it in stride? Or like, what's the deal?

Anne Sherry 36:22
Well, let's hear how you've made it relates to you here.

Julyan Davis 36:30
It does relate to that poem. It's, you know, that rather grim you know, idea that that life is a veil of tears. It's going to be difficult. And don't extol expect happiness, you know, it's not like it's See, that's what

Alison Cebulla 36:45
Americans are doing wrong. That's what we're doing wrong. Why do we

Anne Sherry 36:52
think about like,

Alison Cebulla 36:53
this job notice hope

Anne Sherry 36:55
and happy and why aren't you happy? Because it's a fucking industry. It makes a lot of people a lot of money.

Julyan Davis 37:00
I really like what you said about that in the past on your podcast. Yeah, it's very interesting. It's like those some extraordinary commercials for medication, where they say, you know, something like 100% likelihood of fatality, you know, or reduces, reduces likelihood of death. Right? You know, this extraordinary like, No, you can't reduce the chance

Alison Cebulla 37:32
of that we're all gonna die. We're all dying. Sorry to say we're, but but that is what I we do talk about that a lot. And what I've always come back to is that America was founded by schmucks who wanted to sell something Grifters and charlatans and people who wanted to get up on their soapbox and rant. I mean, have you liked Dr. Bronner's? Have you ever read all the little words on the Dr. Bronner's. You don't have time. So it

Anne Sherry 38:05
used to be used to help you help you poop before you took your iPhone. Right before you

Alison Cebulla 38:09
have your iPhone, you grab your Dr. Bronner's and read a little bit. But so he was he was I hosted an event where someone from that company came and spoke and I was like, You got to tell us what's the deal? You know, he was one of these people that really wanted to change the world through soap, like he really thought you know, he was all about Jesus. And that's America in a nutshell.

Anne Sherry 38:31
I mean, we buy it hook, line and sinker I was just listening about Transcendental Meditation like believing that if you've got enough to immerse in a in a area you could you could have world peace and I really levitate

or levitate a little bit. Julian if you haven't read the book, I listen to him I think you've turned me on to this book white trash which really

Alison Cebulla 38:53
you would like to do it

Anne Sherry 38:57
yeah, I mean it really goes back into like the English sending over like your hard core on your poor people. I was some oh you

Alison Cebulla 39:07
know over somebody's

Anne Sherry 39:10
doorstep like go make them work and just send you know so what if like 80% of them died just we'll leave them over there. Be useful and make any money.

Alison Cebulla 39:21
People Cisely waste people like literally historically they find records of like the poor people were called waste people.

Anne Sherry 39:29
Right? Yeah. American like hope we're trying to get out of this ledge we will not become generations of like, stuck in like, all of it.

Julyan Davis 39:42
That's it's really interesting. who settles the country is now it's like being in the south, the whole Tidewater Virginia idea that the South was settled by this Cavaliers. And you think no, it's not the case at all that anyone who had land and money in England would not pick up and go to some godforsaken wilderness. That didn't happen now and then you got further up north. You've got all these religious nurses. Yes.

Alison Cebulla 40:12
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. The country didn't want them. They're like, You're crazy. Get out of here.

Julyan Davis 40:22
The best migration, the best migration America ever got was the was, you know, between between the wars with all the middle European people. Those people were spectacular, you know, fleeing Hitler. They were very smart. They boosted everything. Hollywood's the arts everything.

But torchy, yeah, I should be careful what I'm sorry. I should be. I should be careful what I'm saying because I became a citizen last year, so I technically.

Alison Cebulla 40:56
Yeah, you're American now. Hey, welcome. We want to we want to ask Julian, about your dad and the military. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about that.

Julyan Davis 41:08
Well, I just think that's very interesting that, you know, you've talked in the past about the patriarchy. And I think there's a lot of that in there. I tend to think of it as a as a to n as more of this culture of honor, which is something that is a military thing, but in particularly here in the south. It's a thing that came from the Scottish Borders, and it was a big part of what I painted. did a whole series based on murder ballads. Yeah. And that was all about. Well, I mean, women were considered, you know, property. Yeah. Something. But there's this weird. I was most interested in the sort of fatalistic view that women from that culture and in the Appalachians had, it's kind of like this is the way it is kind of like The Handmaid's

Alison Cebulla 41:59
Tale out of the south. Yeah, it is.

Julyan Davis 42:01
Yeah. And I was really intrigued by the sort of women who are in those old murder balance, which are often based on true crimes and why they're comfortable in that, you know, why, why they've settled for that good question as a cultural thing. Because some of them I mean, it's, and also in the south, why it is there is more violence, why there's more suicide and things like that. So I think the drama of the South is what brought me here, all the storytelling and all that and yeah, so a lot of that came from my, from my dad, he loved America, and he loved, you know, folk song and all that stuff. But Ben, he was also a novelist. And his novels were quite a crime fiction, like, totally Victorian to crime. So he, but I'm just fascinated, because he, he killed himself when he was in his mid 40s. So I was, you know, in early, my early 20s. Okay, and so I never really got to have all these conversations with him. And I'd love to, you know, I'd love to know how he felt, for example, about his dad, I always thought that he was very much in competition with his father. My grandfather was a professional soldier. He was a brigadier. And he had been, he'd been in the First World War. Yeah, he actually had my he was in his mid 40s, when my father was born. So there's this big generational gap. Yeah, it's almost like my grandfather's almost a Victorian, you know, it's interesting. That's always very interesting when you've got an older parent. Fascinating. But yeah, so my grandfather had been through all this stuff. He had done World War One had been in India between the wars and then the end of the war, World War Two. He did, he was in the Army legal service. Or the war crime trials. Then from Singapore, he went to Nuremberg and carried on the war, the war contrast there. So that's a very heavy bit of your dad. My grandfather,

Alison Cebulla 44:22
your grandfather, I'm just thinking of the time so he was How old was he?

Julyan Davis 44:28
He was born in about 1890 Something

Alison Cebulla 44:32
got it. Okay. Got it got it.

Julyan Davis 44:34
was old enough to be in World War One.

Alison Cebulla 44:37
Yeah.

Anne Sherry 44:37
Wow. That is intergenerational trauma.

Alison Cebulla 44:43
That yeah, World War One World War Two, just trauma.

Julyan Davis 44:47
Yeah, heavy trauma. And so my, my dad was born in India in 1941. And as a little as a little boy, after the war, he went with his parents to Germany. Okay, he had a German, a German tutor who taught him. But he was around that really dark stuff. And I remember he, he has a little boy in his I'd sit there in his study, and he had all these books that he had got from his father. Yeah. Which were the official crime in the trial trials of the death camps. And all that I used to say my dad was, you know, he's a criminal lawyer. He's dealing with murder, crimes like that in London. His father dealt with the war crimes and

Alison Cebulla 45:40
family legacy. Wow.

Julyan Davis 45:43
Yeah. So I sort of, I guess, the murder ballads when I painted that it's kind of carrying on this tradition of Yes. It is a fascination with the dark side of things, I think. Yeah. But, but I would love to hear. Yeah, I really do think my dad spent his life competing with his father. You know, I think my mother always said that my dad should have been a soldier. That's a that's what he wanted to do. He chose not to be but you know, I think this this male thing, it's this thing of the Sun trying to match your father.

Anne Sherry 46:22
Yeah. I imagine his dad like had I mean, they're not as far as an emotional connection that, yeah, I doubt what is available. But so how

Julyan Davis 46:32
to launch because that's a generational thing. You know, got that. It's, it's a generational thing. You know, you've got someone born in 1940. Dealing with someone who's born in 8090. Or, you know,

Anne Sherry 46:45
yeah, that's, that's

Julyan Davis 46:47
a big difference. That's a Victorian talking to somebody.

Anne Sherry 46:51
Both of my parents were born in rural Alabama. And then you have Yeah, very, very similar. I mean, I was born to them at 30. But they were on my mom's side, youngest of 10. And she was born in 38. So her mom was at 90 or something. My dad was youngest of seven. And the distance between him and his next sibling was 12 years. So that family was done. Yeah. So I never knew that my, my peers had I just thought they their life was also black and white. They, their parents didn't have toilets or electricity, or, you know, so they were very much identified with that. So insurance anyways, yeah, similar.

Julyan Davis 47:38
It's this life of you get left for this life of question. So this one of the very difficult things about suicide? Yeah. Is that all the things that when you're old enough to ask the person, in my case, the person isn't there? And, you know, I just, I know that his life was, you know, he messed things up a lot. And he was under a lot of stress and things, but I would just love to ask him, you know, what did he feel about his dad? In what ways was he trying to match up and I certainly felt that and I it's taken me years, because, you know, I, I remember when I was about 12, or 13. I mean, young, you know, coming back from boarding school. And I had this because my dad was always doing weights and lifting weights and running and, you know, pushing himself all the time. It did mountain climbing, you know, Sky jumping, and sky jumping. Is that a word?

Alison Cebulla 48:42
I think so. You know? We know what you mean.

Julyan Davis 48:47
Yeah. You know, anyway, he did all that. But yeah, I would get back in the holidays, and I made myself this assault course. You know, and it was like ropes and weights, logs, and I just run around the yard. Putting myself yeah, imitating him, I drift push ups and sit ups. And you know, just killing myself. It's really cute. It's cute. But, you know, I didn't really see that, you know, it didn't even occur to me. I was born really, really short sighted. So I mean, you know, first of all, I never could have been, you know, just blind as a bat, you know, being the kid who drew and drawing and the class and everything. But I it took me years. To if I'm honest, it took me years and years to say, you know, you're okay, as you are. You know, to your Sass Yeah. To myself. Yeah. And there's all this weird guy stuff. You know, this thing. We have

Anne Sherry 49:50
a lot of storms. We need to have a whole season.

Alison Cebulla 49:55
So last week was our eating disorder episode and an anime We're talking about um, I think I think it's a stereotype that women have it harder with body image but I think it affects both genders I think I

Julyan Davis 50:11
think you're spot on I think you

Anne Sherry 50:14
just don't

Julyan Davis 50:16
hear more than EFA it's got really crazy like in England it's gone crazy with guys you know shaving themselves or that the shape of their whole bodies and

Alison Cebulla 50:28
that's a real like a whole

Julyan Davis 50:29
thing and this was money to

Anne Sherry 50:31
be made to be made there's a whole segment of people we're not selling to so

Alison Cebulla 50:39
if you guys see like the men's all the it's like just regular products at the at the CVS or whatever but now it has the word men on it men's lotion. Yeah. Shampoo it's like what the hell is this? Yeah. Oh,

Julyan Davis 50:55
yeah. That bio dysmorphia? Is it bio dysmorphia? Is that word

Anne Sherry 50:58
body dysmorphia? Body Dysmorphia? Yeah.

Julyan Davis 51:01
Yeah, that is a huge thing. Yeah. And my dad certainly had that he poor guy lost a lot of his hair when he was in his 20s. And that freaked him out. And that's why I got into really lifting all the weights and stuff. And that's really funny. You know, I go to the y, here in Asheville, and it's the North Asheville y so it's pretty sedate.

Anne Sherry 51:24
You should kind of go Woodfin Well,

Julyan Davis 51:28
that's probably go. I got no

Anne Sherry 51:29
not the you go to the Woodfin. When I know on Woodfin street, I go to the downtown.

Alison Cebulla 51:35
One. Yeah.

Julyan Davis 51:37
But it's so funny. The guys, the owner, you hear this? There's two or three guys. So trying to bodybuild you know, they're just it's so sad to hear them talking about their calf muscles. That's that's all they talk about. They look at the back of their calves and they're like, oh, man, come on.

Anne Sherry 51:55
I gotta let me see your calf muscles right now.

Alison Cebulla 51:59
I want to objectifying Julian today. No, not today.

Anne Sherry 52:05
I'll get you eventually doing?

Julyan Davis 52:07
Yeah.

Anne Sherry 52:08
So can I can I ask this? Because like, just like, how did you heal? I hear you say, and I know it's an ongoing process. But like therapy Psycho and that, like you don't do therapy in England, like English people don't go. I mean, they do now.

Julyan Davis 52:26
But I do know.

Anne Sherry 52:28
When I was when I was married to my English husband. years ago, it was like, and I was expressing interest in being a therapist. They were like, You Americans are always fucking working on yourself. And I made the joke, you know? Yeah.

Julyan Davis 52:44
It's that Hollywood thing? Yeah, it goes back to sort of therapy therapy stuff from Hollywood. Yeah, that's where the English bias is. But it's yeah, it's got better, I still feel that all the people who most need therapy are the least likely to go to it. I mean, it's almost like a given. somebody really needs it. They're never ever gonna go.

Anne Sherry 53:06
Until you're, like, checked into a hospital,

Alison Cebulla 53:09
or illnesses, to trick you into thinking that you're fine as a survival mechanism. Like if you have Bipolar, or schizophrenia, part of the illness in order to keep you alive, because your trauma would have probably killed you is like, Yeah, I'm gonna invent this whole alternate reality in which you're fine. And you're gonna always think you're fine. No one else is gonna think that, you know?

Anne Sherry 53:35
Yeah.

Julyan Davis 53:37
But to answer your question, I would say probably I, I just aged out of it. You know, I just got to suddenly get to an age probably in my late 40s. Where you just think this is ridiculous. Yeah. You just say, Do you know what? You're not gonna get any taller? Your boost? Newsflash.

Anne Sherry 54:01
This must have been some, I mean, maybe bringing in history of saints like you really do an amazing job of just bearing witness. non judgmental to all this. What seemed like people with various ways that they're organized in the world, and there's just such a kind lens. It's on all the people who see your character in the book. Yeah,

Julyan Davis 54:26
there's just I do that. That's that's why it's history of science. Yeah.

Anne Sherry 54:33
That you have like, yeah, yeah.

Julyan Davis 54:35
Yeah. Yes, I mean, it is about real eccentrics in Nashville, and some of them are vendors plenty.

Anne Sherry 54:44
Wow. anymore. Everybody's being priced out. You know? Well, yeah, that's true. Explain this quote, the history of saints is mainly the history of insane people. Benito Mussolini.

Julyan Davis 54:55
Yeah, yeah, that's yeah. Can you tell us why you

Alison Cebulla 54:57
picked that as your title of your book? can look.

Julyan Davis 55:03
That is such a great question. Yeah, the reason I did is because the main character Angus is so accidentally politically incorrect. And so that's I wanted a quote that was politically incorrect because it just goes pear fangirl splinters. He's just so obsessed with virtue signaling. He's so excited about Obama becoming president. Just so clumsy. Yes, handling of it means so it means so well, but it's Yeah. So that's, that's why I picked that.

Anne Sherry 55:33
Okay, perfect. I love it.

Julyan Davis 55:38
Yes, no, I just sort of aged out of that. I will say it's interesting. I was looking at someone asked me about the ballot paintings I've done. And I have used the same model for all my narrative paintings. There's three different three different series, but I've used this model Amy, uh, her name is Emmy deliver, but she goes by me delirium, which is a perfect name for that's great. She's fantastic. She's very cheerful person, but she's fantastic. Conveying angst. You know, she's just a natural that sort of clutching her hair and looking pained or tortured. But I've had her play these different roles. So the Appalachian victims, or as an exiled Napoleonic mistress in Alabama, or even a mermaid, there was a mermaid legend, you know? Yeah. But I someone said, you know, why do you keep painting? Why are all your paintings, there's this woman character. And I do wonder if that's me, sort of, you know, using the art as a kind of therapy to just sort of say, well, in my life, I for many years, I felt too feminine. You know, I interesting, I didn't feel I could match up to my dad. I felt, you know, I don't I don't think he was disappointed, you know, but I wasn't quite as you know, macho, perhaps as he would have liked and I had to, to strong sisters and a very strong mother, very fond. You know, I'm very, very close to my mom. So speak to her every day and everything. So I may have taken a very feminine approach to it. Like what is it like to be to be a feminine or have feminine qualities in this very masculine world? And then one of that's why I've painted me again, again, and again, as someone who is caught up in history.

Anne Sherry 57:50
So interesting, because I don't know if I hope it's okay to share it, like getting feedback that we don't see you and your paintings or something that feedback, and then hearing you say, there you are, right, I am in my paintings. I think so. Yeah. I think yeah, at least

Julyan Davis 58:07
I empathize. The current the current book I'm working on now. This is taking a female, female, the young female character, printmaker in London in the 1980s. And it's just so much easier for me to put myself

Alison Cebulla 58:31
here, yeah, yeah. Can you help us understand what you define as a masculine or feminine quality? Because I don't think we should take that for granted. Like people know exactly what you mean. So tell us what you mean. Yes.

Julyan Davis 58:47
Well, that's interesting, because I think what I found interesting about this new character is that she's, it's partly the art world, it's less sexist. Now, it's much become more diverse. But at that time, it was more sexist. It's more the idea of being the view of an outsider, I have found was writing female characters. The trick is not to overdo it. You know, it's like, women think a lot like men. It's not it's not like some giant difference, you know, women seem to notice more of different things than men, you know, they notice they're, you know, just different qualities, people's moods, the word they're closing the appearance, things like that.

Alison Cebulla 59:38
I just have to say, though, because because this is actually scientifically based, I have spent some time actually looking at what are the biological differences between men and women. And inherently, women do perceive emotion more than men and that's one of the only biological differences because of having to they think that it's because I'm having to keep the baby alive. Because typically it's the mom that's breastfeeding and taking that primary caregiving of the baby. And so in order to read, actually, the I think the study I was looking at was that women can can perceive negative emotions more. And so this was a survival thing to keep the baby alive is the hypothesis. So it's interesting to bring that I would also say,

Anne Sherry 1:00:21
I think it's an Jenna, the book I referred to fair amount, divergent mind that that also is a it's a masking you know, how to belong, right? Because the systems are not here to support you the way under diagnosing of autism, sensory issues. And so women girls early learned, you see that you see it in like classrooms, so the little girls are much more well behaved. They've already learned to mask in lots of ways and then have say, Yeah, we're like, God, you always you're so

Alison Cebulla 1:00:57
You're so thoughtful. Yeah.

Anne Sherry 1:01:00
When you think about those, and you're just so sweet, and you're quiet, and that those either get co opted or

Alison Cebulla 1:01:05
survival. And so it may not be

Anne Sherry 1:01:09
innate. It's just what we learned to do to survive ourselves in in society. So, yeah, so

Julyan Davis 1:01:20
I wouldn't say I'm an expert on any of this either. I just find it fascinating. I've always felt very much sort of outsider and to put myself I just find, it's, it's a way for me to see through another person's eyes, the more different person is for me, the better. Yeah, like in the novel, the history of saints. That was interesting that my view of myself, particularly from the time when I was a teenager, young teenager, feeling very much an outsider and a bit of a geek, you know, with my thick glasses and everything. It's, it was so easy for me to put myself in the character of Frank, as being a overweight, you know, guy who's never sort of, you know, just a more sort of homely overweight guy is just genial and just a very different. I could totally see I could just when I was writing his character, I could just imagine myself, you know, yeah, with my with my tummy resting on my thighs. And just comfortable.

Anne Sherry 1:02:27
Not to, I have recently come across where he goes to do yoga at but then he goes, he does belly dancing, like the yoga classes over and Yeah, and he's like,

Julyan Davis 1:02:41
yeah, yeah. So good.

Anne Sherry 1:02:43
It's so good. But this thing about feeling like an outsider. I think that is one of the things that Alison and I have talked about a lot, just this perennial, and I think it does come from neglectful childhoods or being in that stream of like neglected parents neglected grandparents neglected by society. You don't belong, like I still interspaces where I'm like, I'm really not actually wanted here, you know. So yes.

Julyan Davis 1:03:09
I think it definitely came from partly the boarding school experience. I remember, I entered that school at the not at the beginning of the year, but in the summer. So that was, that's like coming in as a complete outside. Everyone's already made friends. And then I think my sisters had a bit of this too, because my parents moved a lot. So we kept changing schools. And that alone, that alone will give you a very strong identity for the rest of your life.

Anne Sherry 1:03:37
He will stay like yours. Therapy on that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's wild.

Alison Cebulla 1:03:46
Yeah. Okay. Well, I just wanted to get more I wanted to talk a little bit more about your trauma and your family trauma. And you I think you may be shared that you had had a hunch that maybe your dad experienced some of the same type of trauma in the Catholic Church, is that right? You were kind of sharing

Julyan Davis 1:04:10
Yeah, I would imagine I mean, his went to school system he went through was basically the same. Okay, so I mean, I don't know if I don't know if the priests were fooling around with him on Arch but he certainly would have gone to a very fascinating you say that because I one thing we have in my family is my mom and I particularly have the most the worst memories so we're always having to check with other other relatives to get the facts right on things. So I spoke to her before this podcast and I said you know, can you find out the actual details of Yeah, Dad's yet so I know a fight. Well, I've did find that he scores he is if he was born in 41 and spent four he would have spent it would not have gone to Germany for Towards the end of the war, obviously, right? He would have spent four years in India. And then he's then spent three years with this German tutor. Alright. So that meant he was staying at home as the first child that you know, the boy child, the golden the gold, were not the first child, his both his sisters were older, but he was the first boy and all that that's a big. So that would have been a huge shock when he was then taken back to England and put in boarding school. So that would have been a big thing for him. Yeah. And then he, apparently, because he'd been with this tutor, he had trouble reading and writing, or he'd been it his job as a teacher, the tutor tried to teach him German, and his. So he actually had to be taken out of school and get private tuition on and off early on. So I think it would have been traumatic.

Alison Cebulla 1:06:06
Yeah, this is all sounding like way too much for one childhood. So it's interesting, because often, yeah, yeah. What was the original trauma, you know, in a family? And it's like, It's turtles all the way down? You know? Yes, yes. Trauma all the way down.

Anne Sherry 1:06:25
Oh, my gosh. Oh,

Julyan Davis 1:06:26
it's like, it's like that line, isn't it? Man hands on misery to man. It's it's found the power limits? Yeah, it's damage gets passed on. It's really interesting. One of the things that the culture of honor, as I said, which is part of the ballot series I did that came over from Scottish Borders. And that's that those were the people who settled the Appalachians. And that, yes, people are still even into the state of England. They're not really aware, just how traumatized that part of the world was. It basically 400 years, it was the wildest, most violent place in Europe. You know, if you were the king, or queen of Scotland, or England, you would not go through the middle. You had to get on a boat and go right. And it was like, it was like Afghanistan for centuries. And those are the people who came over to New England, the quake is the Puritans could not deal with them. They moved them out to Western Pennsylvania to fight the Indians and they came down. Yep. And they settled the South. Those are the people who settled the south and yes,

Anne Sherry 1:07:38
so much sense now. Yeah. Okay.

Julyan Davis 1:07:40
And, and what was interesting to me was, I spoke to a guy at Chapel Hill and his his his point is that those people, those people, yes, they were, you know, terribly, you know, warlike and, you know, victimize the Native Americans, but they were also victimized damage dealing for salvaged people

Alison Cebulla 1:08:01
are Americans talking about trauma, these clans

Julyan Davis 1:08:05
are generation of generation of blood feuds and vendettas and all of the world's you've got these cultures like this, and that's why I'm really interested more in the culture of honor, as a threat in a way to civilization.

Alison Cebulla 1:08:24
Want to hear everything?

Julyan Davis 1:08:27
culture, the culture of honor, you know, the Malcolm Gladwell talked about this and there's this wonderful book by this there's two psychologists Nesbitt and Cohen. But it's this herding culture thing. So, you know, early on society splits into a culture that herds animals by and an agricultural culture. So, so say the Middle East and ancient Greece, Rome says you know Sicily, Scotland these are all hurting cultures and and that that culture is all about a very vulnerable property sheep or cattle which you steal from a they adopt that same attitude to women as property right. It's weird that those cultures like again, it's very war very war, like they always make your warriors they, they they're the ones who produce really the most poetry music song, which is interesting, but that they have time for art. Your agricultural society is much more

Anne Sherry 1:09:44
they gotta do something with all that trauma. Like yeah,

Julyan Davis 1:09:47
it's so it's a society split. And now like in America, we see this I think with you know, America is now split over people who think about the common good, you know, and people who think about individual rites. And in a way that is an extent and super herding culture and the agricultural culture. So like New York is the other common goods, you know, or California.

Alison Cebulla 1:10:13
Right, right.

Julyan Davis 1:10:14
The South is the deep south is pure individual rights. And, and it's it's like you've got to find a happy ground.

Alison Cebulla 1:10:22
Did you? American character, Julianne American character? I haven't No. Okay. It's all the book covers this exact thing. It's one of my favorite books I've ever read. What are Colin Woodard? He's in Maine. He's a true American. Yes, yes. Yes.

Julyan Davis 1:10:39
I've read that I've read about the American

Alison Cebulla 1:10:41
character. Oh, my gosh, it's just exactly about exactly what you're talking about. And he, he says like, one of the only historical examples of libertarianism in the history of the world is the American South before the Civil War. There aren't that many examples because it doesn't work. You can't just have a government it just doesn't work. That's right. And you end up with these huge inequities and enslavement and all this when you just have no laws and rules.

Julyan Davis 1:11:05
Yeah, I was thinking about that driving over this afternoon because I was thinking wow, how is it the South? It's basically a herding culture mentality. How is it that works because obviously the South was an agricultural plantation based thing. But then I realized that they're not really agricultural. They're not like thinking like Vermont farmers, because they're not doing the damn farming. They're not doing the work if you own you own people who are doing all the damn work in the fields then you could still hurting hurting Oh, yeah.

Anne Sherry 1:11:41
Yeah, that makes that is

Alison Cebulla 1:11:42
fascinating. So what have you read something that you recommend about this?

Julyan Davis 1:11:47
Well, I've read American nations and there's a great book Albion seed which is 40 years old about different folkways coming into the British up into America from the British Isles. And how different they are? Right yeah.

Anne Sherry 1:12:04
That's going Julian help us understand.

Julyan Davis 1:12:09
I don't know I just I would love to. Yeah, how Yes, what a good question.

Anne Sherry 1:12:14
Am I here in America now? Good, Happy.

Alison Cebulla 1:12:18
Happy. Which kale to eat?

Anne Sherry 1:12:23
You got your happy card?

Julyan Davis 1:12:25
Yeah, I suppose that's it, isn't it? It's like each side has to come a little way towards the other and say, to understand like, it would you know, with the with a pandemic, if you could get people together and she's explained why it some people don't want to wear masks and other people. Yeah, no, it's but at the moment, it's like, the world is you know, it's like half of us a mere cats and the other half, you know, cougars or something. Yeah,

Anne Sherry 1:12:56
yeah. Yeah, it's gonna be a way for the polarization is intense and exploited by social media. No doubt. Yeah.

Alison Cebulla 1:13:05
Have you been watching queer? I? Julian gotta watch queer Hi. But they I'm in this season in Australia and

Anne Sherry 1:13:14
reads he doesn't watch

Alison Cebulla 1:13:16
I know but he is so good. We were watching succession and I was like, this is just mean assholes being mean assholes all the time. I was like, Can't we find nice people being nice? And I was like, queer i Yeah, and um,

Anne Sherry 1:13:29
it was come for dinner tonight. After we finish here, come home for dinner, go watch Queer Eye efforts. I'm texting Tom right now five

Alison Cebulla 1:13:39
for gay men and one non binary queer person and they go and do these you know life makeovers, but they do not just the not just the appearance but kind of the soul makeover as well and the relationships and taking care of yourself. And they did one with this woman who teaches like line dancing and two step dancing in Texas. And it's interesting because if you kind of research her because she she very obviously seems like someone has a lot of baggage like maybe I even think she seemed like she was potentially on uppers while they were filming because she's really jittery. And, um, and if you go and read about her online, it turns out that she has made some racist and kind of anti gay comments in her classes that she teaches at the whatever Broken Spoke, you know, like step two step dancing. And it's interesting because people were being critical online, like, did they do the research? And how could they pick someone who's so anti? And I was like, No, this is what they're trying to do. Yeah, that we can see each other even even people who we have cast out, we can bring them back in and say, No, let's connect. Let's bring the love in. And it's and that's what I love about that show. And to me, it's like, that's the energy that you're you know, that you're kind of saying is like we need to just See people where they're at? You know? Yeah,

Julyan Davis 1:15:03
I know. I know, I wish someone could just do a sort of national survey of all the things we have in common with each other. Just fill out a form, and everyone realized, wow.

Anne Sherry 1:15:15
That's what Queer Eye does. Yeah. Yeah, it really does. It's a start. It's a start. It's a very, very popular show. Yeah,

Alison Cebulla 1:15:23
I signed up for this thing called America talks, where you sign up, you take a survey, so they know how liberal or conservative you are. And then the day of you get paired up with somebody who is opposite. So I'm pretty liberal. So I was, you know, paired up with someone conservative. And then you they do all this coaching of how to have a conversation, like kind of a neutral conversation where you just listen, and you do all this, and you do all this. And I showed up, and I got there. And my conservative person didn't show up. And so they paired me with another liberal woman in Tennessee. And we had a nice conversation where we agreed on just about everything. Yeah, her her conservative person didn't show up either. And I thought that was really interesting, because I heard that from actually every single person is that the conservative ones didn't show up. What do you guys think about that?

Julyan Davis 1:16:15
Oh, wow, it's such a lovely idea.

Anne Sherry 1:16:18
It is a lovely idea. I mean, I hear it, because we do we're in Asheville, but we do have Buncombe County around us and like our Airbnb is out in Candler, and I mean, you know, so there's the amount of support amongst the neighbors of just actually like, you need a tree cut down, or you need actually showing up for each other. And the things that I will hear at times is like, they will make fun of me, or I mean, just the like, they're gonna make fun of the way I talk or the way I think or, you know, so this, the liberal elite has a lot of their own work. Oh, yeah, around. Well, I mean, it's like, yeah, but we could easily be like, Look, I'm here, I'm going to show up. But like, it isn't just one and you know, one night stand with, like, connecting, I mean, you got to build a relationship. And who I love around this is will Campbell, a brother to a dragonfly, do you guys know this book? Oh, he's passed away. He was a white minister, who, you know, his church is right where he stands, basically. But he did a piece and brother to a dragonfly, where he called, he was at a college showing a film of kk k. Members being marching or something. And one of the kids turns, you know, like this 1517 year old kid who turns you know, they turn to the right, and he goes left and the whole college audience breaks up and laughter and he calls them out on that. He was like, look at all of you, like, many different colors. You are here in this college education, you know, and here you are making fun of this person had no no exposure to anything but this, you know, so for you to sit and laugh, you know, like he was so he had an amazing way of trying to say, We've got to keep coming together. We've got to keep coming together. So anyways, brother. wonderful book. Yeah. And his work is wonderful. Yeah.

Julyan Davis 1:18:25
It does seem okay. I mean, I just think the perfect balance is between the two, you know, the thing of individual rights and group common thinking is, you know, it's been interesting of the last couple of years, you know, like, Scotland's got some pretty scary laws now, in place, like, what about, about? Well, partly, partly the, mainly the pandemic, but you know, things like, it's okay to, you know, make calls to, you know, like about your parent of your kids, you can, you know, you know, let the police know about your parents, you know, not wearing masks or really, yeah, wow, where do you yeah, that's, that's kind of that, you know, 1984 stuff. If you can understand why, and I suppose Americans, you know, it's, it's built on that idea. It's built on anti government, it's a revolution. And there is a balance, because there's no doubt you're gonna have to look at, you know, Nazi Germany or Stalin, to realize that a country can go very quickly into totalitarianism. And so yes, it's not a bad idea. to I mean, I'm not Yeah, I mean, ever since I got I've been in the South for 30 years. I think from the start. I was you know, I remember I had the gun control bumper sticker on my car and I got some someone tried to shoot the car and it was parked. That guy was Yeah,

Alison Cebulla 1:20:00
Someone shot in your in your anti gun my

Julyan Davis 1:20:04
my landlord's car in front of mine because they couldn't shoot. Yeah, he was and he was someone who was all you know, he was felt as many guns as possible. So I have sort of been on the side of you know, but I do understand this thing about individual rights. It's it's a balance, isn't it? Totally it's been 3030 years in the South has taught me to be able to talk to people who are less liberal than I am.

Anne Sherry 1:20:29
That's for sure. Yes, yeah. Well as Mother Teresa says, We've the problem with it all is we've forgotten we belong to each other. And I think that is the that does have to do with generations and generations of trauma. Like you don't know how to be with people you don't know how to be in relationship. Like I want to disappear people all the time. If there's a conflict or anything I'm like, I'm out of here. You make me feel weird. I'm like, by we don't need to exist anymore. Like I long line of Hatfield. I'm in my family splits, where they went to their graves not talking to each other. My past is littered with plenty of people that are like, where did you go? Did we? Did we have a conflict? I'm like, Oh, I did.

Alison Cebulla 1:21:10
That brings me to, I have for julienne, which is because I'm thinking about kind of disappearing ourselves. What brought you to the US will disappear your home country?

Julyan Davis 1:21:22
Well, that's a good question. Yeah. Like I say, if I start off by, you know, questioning the the merits of people who moved I should pay attention to myself. Yeah. I, I came here, I was just really interested in the south. And it was just that I discovered this old book, and there was the history of Demopolis, Alabama. And I just thought I would go there and spent three months just exploring that painting and writing and things. So that's, that's what brought me here. And I ended up getting married and marrying someone from Alabama. And so that's how I ended up here. Okay, so that's, that's the short version. Yeah.

Anne Sherry 1:22:09
Looking at Demopolis. Alabama, where is that related? Is that

Julyan Davis 1:22:14
it's south of Tuscaloosa. Okay. And it was settled by Napoleonic exiles. And I just liked this idea of this particular who have been asked to Kratz, you know, generals in France, suddenly being exiled and having to try they tried to grow grapes and olives down there, which was a disaster, sir. Oh,

Alison Cebulla 1:22:38
wow. Another novel another yeah, that's

Julyan Davis 1:22:42
that was that was?

Anne Sherry 1:22:44
Do you need an agent? We

Alison Cebulla 1:22:45
need that he?

Anne Sherry 1:22:50
I know. But we just we've just

Alison Cebulla 1:22:52
like why indemnify you for books that you're promoting? Yes. Yes. Yeah, promoting this book. I'll read a couple. I'll read. I'll read the inside jacket here on the other side. So this is a history of saints. This is Julian's novel, a playful satire of the Great Recession set in America's quirkiest town. So during the recession to keep from losing his home, the stately Carolina court in Asheville, North Carolina, Frank Reed becomes a reluctant landlord to a house full of misfits. So get this book. It is good. It is so good. And the the the great recession. So Julian, yeah, that was what I pieced out of Asheville. So I loved this book, because I could see it happening in front of my eyes. I was working for a golf resort community and Arden. It was like a Jack Nicklaus golf, you know, community. And I could see that like this scam that they were trying to pull where they were telling everyone that they would build these homes, and they could flip them immediately and make all this money. It wasn't working. And so people were moving into their homes, their homes were a disaster, these multimillion dollar homes, and then they were not able to resell them. This was in 2007. And it was starting to crumble. And I was like I had a I had to write so because it would be like another year before everything would crash. But I was like what is happening? And it was it was super insane to be working in the housing industry at that time. And so I just love your book that really captures that crumbling because Asheville was hit pretty hard. I mean, because it's like a destination for people who want to retire. So that means you know, the housing industry is always is always booming and that's what was hit the most, you know,

Julyan Davis 1:24:42
well that that book is really I got to say that book is a very effective example of art as therapy because it you know, I had this big house in Munford and I did try to keep it by renting all the rooms, and I ended up a bit Well a bit like Frank in the book just throwing up my hands and say I can't I can't do it and it was a huge financial blow, you know, I won't really recover from that loss because I bought it high and sold it at low. Yeah. And and it was I didn't think about it at the time but to write that book is to be able to look back on that exact period with real pleasure and nostalgia and just see all the humor Yeah, and so I have no negative feelings about it at all. Yeah, it's amazing. I've really quite positive memories of the whole fiasco that you're sharing. Yeah, yeah. So it was good. Good you Sivan

Alison Cebulla 1:25:52
and Mandy ending thoughts as we as we wind down man this this this husband so so great to talk with you any any other thoughts?

Julyan Davis 1:26:03
I can't think of any do you have any other questions? I think we covered everything

Anne Sherry 1:26:09
we have I love spending time with you. Yeah, incident questions,

Alison Cebulla 1:26:13
you know Yeah. We'll have to have you on again. I can already tell ya.

Julyan Davis 1:26:22
Well, thank you so much. I loved it.

Alison Cebulla 1:26:25
Thank you so much, Julian All right.

Anne Sherry 1:26:29
Bye keep telling you watch it cuz you know damn well

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