Jim Meskimen - Actor / Impressionist / Artist

Ever wonder what it's like to grow up with TV legends and find your own creative path?

In this inspiring episode of HEADSMACK, join host Paul Povolni and the incredibly talented Jim Meskimen as they delve into the art of impressions, the impact of "Happy Days," and the power of indulging creative impulses. Tune in and discover how Jim turned ambivalence into a flourishing career!

Jim Meskimen is an accomplished actor and impressionist, known for his roles in five feature films by director Ron Howard and appearances on popular TV shows such as Friends, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, S.W.A.T., Hunters, Gaslit, Parks & Recreation, and NCIS. His impressions have been showcased on The View, Fox & Friends, The Tonight Show, and America’s Got Talent. Currently, he stars in The Big Door Prize on AppleTV and American Auto on NBC.

Key Takeaways:

1. Embrace Your Passions: Continuously create and indulge your creative impulses. It will lead to fulfillment and joy.
2. Practice and Preparation: Mastering new skills, such as impressions or accents, requires dedication and practice.
3. Family Support: Having the support of loved ones can make all the difference in pursuing ambitious creative dreams.

Link: https://jimmeskimen.com

Paul Povolni, the founder of Voppa Creative, has been a creative leader for over 30 years, with clients around the world. He’s led teams in creating award-winning branding and design as well as equipping his clients to lead with Clarity, Creativity and Culture.

Headsmack Website

Transcript

Jim Meskimen [00:00:00]:
Your creative impulses, if you indulge those and really, really double down on them, you will solve a lot of problems for yourself and others, and you'll feel better, and you'll help other people to recognize that life doesn't have to be quite so serious. It isn't necessarily a grim and dismal and, you know, fated kind of existence. We can build something pleasant and meaningful, but it's done through creativity.

Paul Povolni [00:00:40]:
Welcome to the Head Smack podcast, where we have candid conversations with misfits and mavericks, those not afraid to stand up and stand out, the dreamers and the doers, the ones who've stumbled, fumbled and then soared. Here we delve into the inspiring journeys and pivotal aha. Moments that have shaped their worlds. And maybe through sharing their adventures, you get hit with a head smack that'll change your destiny. Welcome to the Head Smack podcast. My name is Paul Pavolny, and I'm excited to have you along for our conversations with misfits and a wonderful misfit that we have today. With us is Jim Meskerman. He is an actor impressionist who has been in five feature films with director Ron Howard.

Paul Povolni [00:01:19]:
He's been on TV's friends, the marvelous misses, maisel, SwAT hunters, gaslit parks and recreation, and NCIS, and. And tons more. Tons more. His impressions are featured on the View, Fox and Friends, the Tonight Show, America's Got Talent, just a few of them. And right now he's on Apple TV for the big door prize, as well as american auto on NBC. Jim Eskman, welcome.

Jim Meskimen [00:01:44]:
Thank you, Paul. Nice to be here.

Paul Povolni [00:01:46]:
And so for the folks that are out there that are pretty impressed with that, that's only just a touch of what Jim has actually been a part of. He has been on hundreds of not only tv shows, but he's been on movies. He does voiceover work for video games. And so if you're part of any kind of popular culture at all in the last, you know, whatever a couple of decades, you've probably heard or seen Jim Eskerman. And his body of work is wonderful. And the work that he does with both impressions as well as acting is just amazing. Jim, one of the things that, you know, we don't talk about it as much anymore, but one of the things that we like to do, or we used to like to do is do the seven degrees of bacon. And so how many degrees of bacon are you?

Jim Meskimen [00:02:38]:
You're talking about the six degrees of Kevin Bacon, right?

Paul Povolni [00:02:40]:
Yes, six degrees. Six degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Jim Meskimen [00:02:42]:
I guess with inflation at seven degrees now.

Paul Povolni [00:02:44]:
But yes, it's 2024.

Jim Meskimen [00:02:47]:
Well, I'm, I'm one degree. I've worked with Kevin Bacon. I was in frost Nixon with Kevin Bacon. I was in Apollo 13 Kevin Bacon. So I'm, I'm, I'm in the, I'm in the skillet, hopping away.

Paul Povolni [00:02:59]:
Sizzling, sizzling right there along with them with the best of them. That's amazing. And, yeah, and, you know, and so, you know, with, with a lot of people, they probably can play six degrees of bacon, using you as the connector because. Yeah, because you've worked with so many different actors both on television and in movies and Academy Award winning stuff. So I'm actually three degrees a Meskamin. I think there needs to be a six degrees of Meskamin because I'm about three degrees a mescarman. So I have a friend, his name's Kevin Thibodeau, and he was on I love Lucy. He was also on the Andy Griffith show with Ron Howard, who you've done five feature movies with.

Paul Povolni [00:03:50]:
But the also, the interesting thing is, is Ron Howard was on happy days and happy days had your mom. And so you are actually the son of misses C. And so there I am, three degrees of mescomin for Paul Pobomi. Boom.

Jim Meskimen [00:04:09]:
Boom. Yeah. Yeah. Kevin Thibodeaux. That sounds like a very familiar name. So he must.

Paul Povolni [00:04:15]:
Richard. Keith. Yeah.

Jim Meskimen [00:04:17]:
Okay, Keith. So he must be in his seventies or eighties.

Paul Povolni [00:04:20]:
Yeah, he played little Ricky.

Jim Meskimen [00:04:22]:
Oh, he was little Ricky.

Paul Povolni [00:04:24]:
He, yeah, he played little Ricky.

Jim Meskimen [00:04:26]:
Okay, interesting. Yeah, mom was obviously unhappy. He's played misses C and is beloved all over the world and was my, you know, de facto mentor for ages and ages. And she's still around, not working anymore, but enjoying her retirement. She's about 95 and she's just a treasure. We're always, you know, just going and enjoying her company. She's not, lives not too far away from me, so I see her all the time. And, yeah, she introduced me to Ron Howard at an early age and very, very pointedly, I remember even before happy days, my mom, when we watched television, she would say, that's Ron Howard.

Jim Meskimen [00:05:14]:
And I never thought about it at the time, but I was just kind of, oh, okay. And then I realized, well, that she, she was doing that on purpose as, like, here's a, here's a role model. Here's a, here's something to aspire to. And although our careers couldn't be more different, less similar, more more different, we have intersected and become friends. And obviously he's hired me a few times and we stay in touch. And that was a, I think it's an important contribution that a parent makes is to point out people, hey, you know, not for nothing, you should notice this person because they have, that may be a kind of a direction for you to go in, right?

Paul Povolni [00:05:56]:
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, any gen xer out there absolutely loved the work that your mom did on happy days. She was feisty, a great, great actress, and it's so good to see her on that. And her pointing out Ron Howard and saying, hey, follow him. Pay attention to what he's doing, I think is just a reflection of her character. And the, you know, in talking to Keith Thibodeaux, you know, he had talked about off screen, on screen how different people were, and he had talked about Lucy and Desi adopted him as one of their own. You know, he was, even though he played their kid, little Ricky, he actually became a part of their family and spent time with their kids. And so, you know, with your mom being as big as she was, did you fully understand, like, the scope and the size of what happy days was at the time?

Jim Meskimen [00:06:46]:
No.

Paul Povolni [00:06:48]:
No.

Jim Meskimen [00:06:48]:
It was impossible to grasp. Even today, I'm still kind of learning because, you know, I encounter people that come from what I consider far flung places, you know, like Italy, who were like, oh, your mom. Like, how is this possible? And at the time, being in the center of it all and not really having a good grip on most of life. And certainly today we have all kinds of metrics and ways of kind of quantifying the amount of reach that piece of content, for example, has back then. If you heard, wow, the Nielsen ratings, this show is number one in the Nielsen. What does that mean? And the happy days was number one quite often. It was like, well, that means 15 million homes. And you're like, 15 million homes.

Jim Meskimen [00:07:40]:
You don't really have a good grasp of what over the decades. Then you start realizing, oh, well, over the years, people, my mom and that show had an effect, a positive effect on just scads of people, just like in a wave over time where people commonly come up to my mom and say, you raised me, wow. And that sort of phrase over and over again, it's like, wow. How do you sense that on a Tuesday night? Like, well, I think the show went pretty well tonight. I think probably three or 4 million young men think that I raised them.

Paul Povolni [00:08:26]:
I don't think you get that, right, right. Well, yeah. And for Gen Xers, I mean, it was, it was the show. I mean, it was so, it was such a big show. For them to watch. And just your mom, just the way she presented herself, you know, she wasn't your normal mom. You know, she had spice to her. She had, you know, her own thoughts and feelings and passions and emotions and all of that stuff that made her a wonderful character.

Paul Povolni [00:08:53]:
And so I think that's why everybody just loved her. She was just, you know, you can't fake that. I don't think you can fake likability. I think there's just some people, you just sense something about them, and they just. They're just likable, you know?

Jim Meskimen [00:09:07]:
I think you're right. I think you're right about that. Yeah. And I talking about, you know, not knowing the effect of what you're. What you're creating sometimes. I was in the episode of Happy Days. I did one episode of Happy Days, and I had a lot of nepotism at work there, but because I was not a professional actor at that time, and I had not committed to being an actor at that time, but I'd done some plays, and so I wasn't, you know, like a complete newbie, but. But my mom got me into the episode, and it turned out to be one of the more famous episodes over the years.

Jim Meskimen [00:09:39]:
The jump the shark episode.

Paul Povolni [00:09:41]:
Oh, wow. Wow.

Jim Meskimen [00:09:43]:
Very stand out. You're right. I was a kid on the beach. I'm the kid who runs by with another kid. And we announce the fact that there is a shark out in the water. And it's a funny line because it's like, yeah, they caught a shark out there. Marine land is going to come and pick it up. They got it penned up out there until Marine land can come and pick it up.

Jim Meskimen [00:10:06]:
And, you know, at the time, it's like, oh, yeah, that's all the exposition we need. We just need to put the shark out there. And why is it penned up? Well, it's going to be picked up. Yeah.

Paul Povolni [00:10:16]:
And Fonsi's going to jump in a.

Jim Meskimen [00:10:18]:
Lot of scrutiny, but it's enough. And that show, jump the shark, Fonzie jumps the shark. And it's like, that turned out to be one of the more memorable catchphrases.

Paul Povolni [00:10:32]:
Wow.

Jim Meskimen [00:10:32]:
I just happen to be connected to that. Not many people know that.

Paul Povolni [00:10:36]:
That's amazing.

Jim Meskimen [00:10:37]:
I was 17. It's on YouTube. It's kind of fun to watch. I was in great shape.

Paul Povolni [00:10:43]:
Yes. Good memories captured right there on celluloid.

Jim Meskimen [00:10:47]:
Yeah. Nice. And so every now and then, I'll get a check from Paramount, you know, for a dollar 14 or something.

Paul Povolni [00:10:54]:
Well, yeah. Even in the reruns it's just an amazing show to watch. And so. So was that your first speaking role on, on the small screen?

Jim Meskimen [00:11:02]:
It was. It was, it was my first speaking role. Worked a couple days, and then I didn't really, then I went to college. I wasn't fully, in my mind, committed to being an actor. I was, I also trained and had a lot of early intention to be a cartoonist, illustrator, visual artist.

Paul Povolni [00:11:22]:
Okay.

Jim Meskimen [00:11:23]:
And so I taught myself to be a cartoonist. I read Mad magazine, you know, cover to cover.

Paul Povolni [00:11:30]:
Right.

Jim Meskimen [00:11:31]:
And there were people that I admired that I tried to emulate, and I worked professionally. My first real professional job was as, as a cartoonist illustrator. I did a lot of freelance work in new York City. At the same time, I was studying improv and trying to break into commercials and plays and tv shows and stuff. So I was ambivalent and on the fence about it for a long time. And then I made a commitment, moved to New York. And while I was pursuing my acting career, I worked as an artist. But at that time, at happy days, when I got that happy days job, I was kind of like kind of an idiot 17 year old and with artistic, you know, vague artistic ambitions.

Jim Meskimen [00:12:16]:
And I just went back to college after that. And I didn't work professionally then as an actor for many years.

Paul Povolni [00:12:21]:
Yeah. So, you know, being in that part, were you, you know, with your mom, of course, being on the huge show, did she keep you kind of away from acting? Did she, were you on set quite a bit and you got to see it?

Jim Meskimen [00:12:35]:
I used to go, well, I used to go when I could drive, which was about midway through the show, the run of the eleven seasons of Happy Days, which sounds like a play, doesn't it?

Paul Povolni [00:12:50]:
Eleven seasons of happy days.

Jim Meskimen [00:12:53]:
I used to drive down to paramount myself on a Friday and watch the show tape, and that was very exciting and a real treat, which I totally took for granted. And I'd go backstage when I could and hang out, and I knew all the guys and they knew me. I knew the crew and I knew the director and all the folks. And it was kind of like, I felt sort of special and kind of cool. And it was a very popular show, so it was, like super fun.

Paul Povolni [00:13:18]:
And that gave you street cred, of course.

Jim Meskimen [00:13:20]:
Yeah, I guess. I guess. But my mom didn't dissuade or push me either way. I mean, again, you have to realize that she was a single mom raising two kids with a very, what came to be a very busy life on her own. So I think she always, she was, had ambitions for us both, my sister and I. My sister, who became a writer and a showrunner on her own of television comedies and worked on friends and won an Emmy. And she's quite a success story and a very funny, wonderful person. But she had ambitions for us to be productive and to work and to do whatever we wanted to do.

Jim Meskimen [00:14:03]:
I mean, she was very happy that I was an artiste, and she supported my visual arts. So she's just a great mom to have from that point of view of, like, what do you want to do? Well, why don't you get busy and do that? Because I think you could be a success, but why don't you do that?

Paul Povolni [00:14:18]:
Yeah. Yeah. And so you pursued, you know, you pursued the art part of your, your abilities. What drew you back into wanting to be on stage or to perform?

Jim Meskimen [00:14:30]:
Well, I had an epiphany at a certain point. I was studying art in Spain, and I was living in Madrid, which sounds very romantic, and this is in the early eighties, and I ran into Harvey Keitel, the actor on the street, of all things and of all people, and we spoke, and I realized that I was electrified by that experience. And although I had met many celebrities before and many, many artists and painters that I respected, that had a particular impact on me. And I began, I was, you know, in a very clear headspace at that time. I had stopped doing drugs. I kind of really, you know, sort of cleared out the space. And it was lucid enough for me to realize, you know, I'm really attracted to this world of entertainment, not just as an audience member and appreciator, but also as a creative person. And I think that's, I think that's what I should do.

Jim Meskimen [00:15:29]:
It's more social than what I've been doing, because painting. And at that point, I was doing, like, realist oil painting, which took months and months and was very isolated. And I realized, well, this is more social. It's actually a group activity, doing plays, doing tv, even doing commercials. There's, you know, bunches and bunches of people, which I need to be around, I think, for my own sanity. So that was when I made the commitment, and I lickety split pretty soon after that, moved from new, from Madrid to New York and started my, started my life that way.

Paul Povolni [00:16:05]:
Was your mom overjoyed with that decision? Or was she like, hey, I'm glad you finally found it, I knew it all along? Or what was that? That.

Jim Meskimen [00:16:12]:
I don't think she was overjoyed. I think she was joyed, you know, not underjoyed. She was joyed. Yeah, I mean, I think she was glad that I was back in the States and.

Paul Povolni [00:16:20]:
Yeah, yeah.

Jim Meskimen [00:16:21]:
You know, like a lot of parents, I think my mom was just kind of like, have you found something that you love and you're going to pursue that? Awesome. Go, you know, and I'll help you. And she did continue to help me and has always helped me. She's been a. She's interesting because mom is, you know, you think some people say, oh, you were raised by Misses C, and I wasn't raised by Misses C. Nobody was raised by Misses C, actually.

Paul Povolni [00:16:46]:
Right, right.

Jim Meskimen [00:16:48]:
Misses C is a character, and my mom was a different entity entirely. There were overlapping things. You know, her feistiness and her sweetness were similar, but her ambitiousness and mischievousness were something else. And her support of me and my sister as individuals and as creative people was something that I find is quite rare. And when I talk to other people and their relationships with their parents, I realized, oh, I really lucked out in a way that was different from, like, if I'd had misses c as a mom, that would have been lucked out, too, I guess, but in a different way. And maybe not. Not as. Not as helpful in a way.

Jim Meskimen [00:17:38]:
You know, my mom was never home to cook dinner.

Paul Povolni [00:17:41]:
Right.

Jim Meskimen [00:17:42]:
Never. You know, or if she did, she did a kind of a not great job of it. She's not a great cook. You know, she's okay. But often we joke about it because we remember back in the days before we had any money because she was a working actress. Like, I am kind of in struggling. And again, two kids, one salary. So she would open up a can of, like, Del Monte string beans, put it on the table, we fish them out and eat those as a kind of an appetizer.

Paul Povolni [00:18:17]:
Yeah.

Jim Meskimen [00:18:17]:
Midwestern. Midwestern girl. She grew up in Minnesota, so.

Paul Povolni [00:18:21]:
Right, right. And so, you know, so she was pretty excited about your move back, of course, because that, that would mean you're closer. And so you started doing the improv. Were you, were your goals to be a stage actor, or was that just a. An outlet for that? That creative desire to be in front of people and perform?

Jim Meskimen [00:18:44]:
It was both. I think it was a path. It was something that I felt. I felt very much, you know, I'd been indulged a lot in my. The world of ideas and coming up with things and being spontaneous and doing voices, doing characters. And this is before I really concentrated on being an impressionist, per se. But it was always, that was always a skill that I kind of was working on in the background. But improv, I felt, was like.

Jim Meskimen [00:19:10]:
I felt attracted to stand up comedy in a way, but not the lifestyle of it. I was more interested. I was familiar because of my mom, I guess, with theater, the backstage, the rehearsals, all those things that are fun, the opening nights, the cast party, all these things that are kind of fun.

Paul Povolni [00:19:29]:
About theater that attract the energy, you know, the immediate response from people, the. Yeah, all of that.

Jim Meskimen [00:19:35]:
Yeah, all that that makes it, you know, just. Just so delicious. And stand up was like something I didn't quite understand. And I didn't like being up at night that late doing that. And I didn't like the alcoholic air, you know, the whole. That environment and the heckling and the fact that maybe you're doing something wonderful, and the waiter comes by and says, could you just cover. Can you pay this now? All these things that are not part of the theater.

Paul Povolni [00:20:04]:
Yeah, you're messing with my momentum. Yeah, yeah.

Jim Meskimen [00:20:07]:
Can you do that later? The credit card machine? The old credit card machine.

Paul Povolni [00:20:11]:
Yeah, the old school. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No subtlety about it.

Jim Meskimen [00:20:16]:
Yeah. So, yeah, so I found, you know, improv was actually a really, really good thing for me, and it helped me in so many ways, just creatively to trust in my own impulses creatively, because you have to kind of an improv, I'm not sure what your experience is with it. Have you had improv? A little.

Paul Povolni [00:20:38]:
A little bit of it, yeah. But not a whole lot at all, so.

Jim Meskimen [00:20:43]:
Yeah. Well, you probably could recognize, though, the factor that in improv, you don't have a lot of time to go. Is that a good idea? Is that a good idea? Should I do that? It's just like, bang, first idea, go. After you've done that over and over again a thousand times, you have a lot of confidence that, you know what? I'm just going to get an idea and run with it, and it will be fine.

Paul Povolni [00:21:05]:
Right.

Jim Meskimen [00:21:06]:
Sometimes it will be freaking genius. And that's okay. You know, I can live with that. So that orientation and preparation helped me out so much just in daily life, and it helped me out in the world of commercials because I happened to go on an interview, an audition interview for a grocery chain that was looking to hire somebody in Texas to, you know, I was in New York at the time, but they were hiring in Texas, in New York for a Texas chain to interview people in a store, improvise with them, have some fun, and make it sound like it was a fun, friendly store, and that I was successful in that audition, and that went on to a whole subdivide career of being a spokesman for stores and improvising with people. And I did it for multiple stores, multiple chains over a maybe a 20 year period, you know, and it was a massive, massive help to us.

Paul Povolni [00:22:10]:
It's amazing how those little, those experiences, you know, the improv gave you the skills for the next level, you know, and so was doing the tv commercials kind of your first step back in front of the screen after the jump, the shark episode, was that how you.

Jim Meskimen [00:22:26]:
Said, yeah, it was around that time. I mean, I'd done other things just as an actor, done other commercials and things, but that was like a solid gig that lasted for, like I said, for decades. I worked for various companies, and so I spent tons of time in front of a camera and experimenting and creating and improvising. And that made me feel very comfortable with a microphone, with cameras, with, you know, producers and other creative people. So that it was like on the job training that just went on and on and on. And so when I then got opportunities to be in movies and television, that was not an obstacle. I felt very comfortable being in front of a lens, which is, you know, that's a phase that every actor has to go through. They're like, kind of like there's something about being in front of a camera and knowing that the clock is ticking and that the money is being spent.

Jim Meskimen [00:23:22]:
You have to kind of make your peace with that. And I'd already kind of, like, burned through that.

Paul Povolni [00:23:27]:
Well, and it's an interesting different kind of pressure, too, because when you're on stage, you know, there's a certain adrenaline, certain rush, certain, like, the show must go on type feeling, whereas with television, there's another kind of pressure. You know, you think you can stop and start as many times as you want and whatever, but it's no, it's like, okay, we got to keep moving, folks. We've got, you know, we're burning sunlight, you know, we've got to keep going and moving. So it's a different well, too.

Jim Meskimen [00:23:51]:
And there's other people. Like, I worked on the marvelous misses Maisel, where I played an impressionist from the, from the sixties, you know, and I got that job by creating my own little monologue with, you know, people like John Wayne and Burt Lancaster, people that they would have imitated in the sixties, and I forget the other ones. James Mason, of course, James Mason was still a big movie star in the sixties. And so I created this thing. I got the part, and then I go out there and they write a routine for me, but I didn't have a lot of time to work on it because they gave it to me, like, I want to say the day before, oh, wow. And it was supposed to be a routine that I knew very well, and I was like, oh, my God, I'm having trouble with this. Amy Palladino is a writer producer who created that show, who is really expects you on those productions to, to do every word that she wrote and not even abbreviate anything or no contractions. I mean, everything is, like, letter perfect.

Jim Meskimen [00:24:50]:
I was like, oh, my God. So I was sweating it a little.

Paul Povolni [00:24:54]:
Bit, I could imagine, to say the least.

Jim Meskimen [00:24:57]:
And so on the day, I'm like, you're talking about feeling the money clicking and then everybody's time, and it's like, obviously, it was a big production. It was in a nightclub, an actual club in New York City filled with extras and smoke, but all these extras are wearing period costumes, and there's cameras and big stars, and it's like, oh, my God, this is. And it's all about me not, you know, being able to remember every word and delivering it brilliantly and as if I've done it a thousand times before. And that was a, it was not a relaxing experience.

Paul Povolni [00:25:41]:
Yeah. It's the pressure of both worlds. You're doing stand up, and you're in front of a camera, and you're in front of an audience. I mean, it's almost a combination of those two things, and you've got to nail it and be perfect about it.

Jim Meskimen [00:25:55]:
So I could a little bit the actor's nightmare, for sure.

Paul Povolni [00:26:00]:
And so, you know, you mentioned you're an illustrator. You like drawing and things like that, and, of course, you know, the impressions and stuff. And so one of the things that I've seen you do in your videos, and I I've watched quite a few of your videos.

Jim Meskimen [00:26:13]:
Oh, thank you.

Paul Povolni [00:26:13]:
Brilliant stuff. Hilarious stuff. And so I wanted to see if you wanted to do a couple of illustrations. I have a couple. And do you have any for me? I'd love to wing it and see if I could come up with something on the fly. If not, that's totally fine.

Jim Meskimen [00:26:31]:
I don't. I apologize. Shoot. I would have loved to do that. We'll do it another time. I would be happy to do it. I don't have anything for you.

Paul Povolni [00:26:40]:
Oh, that's okay. That's okay. Let me pull these up. And so just, just so people can enjoy the brilliance of what you do. And so I've got a couple that I drew here on my iPad. I gave them names. And so here, here is the first guy. And let me see if I can get this in front of the camera.

Jim Meskimen [00:26:58]:
If you guys see. Yeah, surely. There you got hold a little closer, Will. Yeah, a little bit closer to the screen. There you go. That helps to. Oh, yeah, surely. He's missing some front teeth there, but he's got a real stylish slouch hat on there.

Jim Meskimen [00:27:16]:
I tell you, it looks a lot like, like a lot of fellas that used to see around the old days. For sure. Yeah, he looks a little startled, like, oh, I didn't expect you to show up. Wow, I'm wearing my favorite brown jacket today.

Paul Povolni [00:27:35]:
That's brilliant. That's brilliant. Okay, the next guy is Mister Slick William. Here's Slick William. And let me see if that's in front of.

Jim Meskimen [00:27:45]:
Hello.

Paul Povolni [00:27:46]:
They're a little off.

Jim Meskimen [00:27:47]:
Yes. My name is Slick William. I don't know whether this is a magnifying glass or a mirror, but I rather think it's a, it's a mirror, hand mirror, where I'm adjusting my very, very, my very, very convincing hairpiece. And I know you're scrutinizing me, but I'm scrutinizing you as well with my raised eyebrow. My pencil thin mustache is a bit askew. I must apologize for that. But I think my hairpiece looks really extraordinary, don't you? I lay it on with a lot of adhesive so that even in a strong wind, it's not going anywhere. Trust me.

Paul Povolni [00:28:32]:
That's amazing. That's absolutely amazing. Now here is concussion.

Jim Meskimen [00:28:41]:
Hey, my name is concussion. I don't, they call me cushion. The cushion. Because when you smack me with your fist, my face is so soft by years and years of pummeling that you won't, you won't feel any discomfort at all. I have a distinct lack of bones in my head at this point. It's all just soft as it. It's like guacamole, if you've ever really pulled back, and slug guacamole with your fist, it's about the same sensation. That's me.

Jim Meskimen [00:29:13]:
Yeah, cushion. The cushion.

Paul Povolni [00:29:18]:
Absolutely brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I love that. I love that.

Jim Meskimen [00:29:23]:
Okay, here we go.

Paul Povolni [00:29:25]:
All right. This could be embarrassing, or it could be fun, but I think it'll be interesting.

Jim Meskimen [00:29:30]:
I think it could be really good. All right, here we go. So here's a guide for you. He doesn't have a name.

Paul Povolni [00:29:35]:
All right, so here we have an elder, elder farmer, gentleman. Well, I think I'm about to go dig a hole because I need to get myself some, some water because I'm feeling a little dehydrated, and my tummy's kind of, kind of blowing up because I ain't been drinking enough but anything but beer. And so I'm going to go dig a hole and see if I can get myself some water and do some, some hydration. I do not do improv, but.

Jim Meskimen [00:30:13]:
Well, it's good, though. You make a choice, you know? You make a choice.

Paul Povolni [00:30:16]:
You make a choice and go with it. Just roll with it.

Jim Meskimen [00:30:19]:
There's another guy, and he's, he's got a little, he's got a little motion going here, so.

Paul Povolni [00:30:27]:
Hey, how you doing? My name is Bill, and I just want to sell you a car. This car is absolutely fantastic. I think you're gonna like it. It has four wheels, and it has a shiny new interior with, with nice velour, and it's, it's pink. And you might be the best thing you ever drove today.

Jim Meskimen [00:30:51]:
Best thing you ever drove today. Great. I'm gonna, I'm gonna shift gears here. Shift gears here tremendously. Let's see.

Paul Povolni [00:31:05]:
I'll blame my lighting for how red my face is right now. And if you want to actually see these drawings, guys, you're gonna have to watch the YouTube video. And these, these are great. These are great illustrations.

Jim Meskimen [00:31:19]:
There's another one now. It's totally different.

Paul Povolni [00:31:22]:
Oh, wow. Okay. This one is an evil creature with a snarl. It's a fantastic drawing, by the way. Um, thank you. Let's see. Hello. My name is John, but you might know me by other names, but I don't even know what to say.

Jim Meskimen [00:31:45]:
John. That's John.

Paul Povolni [00:31:47]:
His name is John. You know, he's probably got a more. Yeah, I have scarier names, but I think that's what I'll call myself. I don't know. I need to do some improv because I have no idea what to say. He looked like a demon potato. Demon potato.

Jim Meskimen [00:32:12]:
What about this one?

Paul Povolni [00:32:16]:
Oh, wow. Okay. This is a spider monkey. How would a spider monkey sound?

Jim Meskimen [00:32:21]:
Look at that shoe.

Paul Povolni [00:32:23]:
Oh, wow. Hey, I'm a spider monkey, and you can call me Michelle or Michael, either one. But I just found these really great heels. And as a spider monkey, they make a very high, hard to climb trees, but they do give me good grip occasionally. But they're not very good for climbing fast because my heels do break occasionally, and they do come off rather easily because of my toe configuration. Oh, my goodness. Wow. I put myself on the spot there.

Paul Povolni [00:33:07]:
But that was fun. That was fun.

Jim Meskimen [00:33:10]:
Clubs can do that.

Paul Povolni [00:33:10]:
So, you know, with your impressions, I absolutely love the work you've, you've done. The videos that I've watched, I love the ones where you've done the deep fake, absolutely amazing, where you transition from one character to the other seamlessly, and it's just brilliant. But I've also seen videos where, you know, your, your face transforms. It's amazing how your face literally transforms into the characters. You know, when you do, you know Robin Williams or you do any of those, is that where, when you're, when you're doing the characters, is that where it starts for you? Like, is that, is that the trigger to get you in character? Or is there a word or a phrase that you usually use to do that?

Jim Meskimen [00:33:54]:
No, it's just, you know, in acting, you just make a decision to be another person. And to the degree that you can do that quickly and with facility, I mean, that's all it is. Like, you know, for example, just being Patrick Stewart, it all comes as a package. In other words, you know, you just sort of decide, well, now I'm going to look at the world and use the vocabulary of Patrick Stewart. And it's a shift then, if you want to be Robin Williams, it's totally different. You hold yourself differently. You speak at a totally different velocity. You say things that are outside the box and use a completely different vocabulary sometimes than you would as Tommy Lee Jones.

Jim Meskimen [00:34:35]:
And that's a whole different attitude. It comes with a different emotion and energy level, that sort of thing. Like Tom, like Matthew McConaughey is another one, just sort of has a whole different rhythm and the kind of things you'll talk about and think about. But that's all done with a lot of practice. You just kind of got to drill it over and over again and then it comes to you kind of second nature.

Paul Povolni [00:35:00]:
That's amazing. That's absolutely amazing. Well, now, what I've loved about you as an entertainer is during the lockdown, lockdown was kind of tough, especially for the entertainment industry. And a lot of people within the entertainment industry stopped entertaining. Now, there were several and maybe there were more than I saw. But yourself, you were producing content. You're still continuing your craft online. You know, Jack Black, I think, was doing a, John Krasinski had the, some good news thing that he did with, you know, doodles from his kids as the backdrop and whatever, you know, talk a little bit about being creative as an approach to living a satisfying life.

Paul Povolni [00:35:42]:
How does, how, like, what drives you, how, what motivates you to keep going and do things like that.

Jim Meskimen [00:35:49]:
Well, you know, if you start to, if you start to worry about existence, it never ends. You know, we're on a spinning sphere in space, you know, the vastness of the universe, and it gets to be pretty depressing the more you focus on that. You know, like William Shatner famously recently went, you know, up into space, and he said he was just grief stricken by the fact that there was so much death, basically, and so little life in his field of view all of a sudden. And so that can be quite depressing. However, I believe, and again, this is something that I learned from my mom, is that your creative impulses, if you indulge those and really double down on them, you will solve a lot of problems for yourself and others, and you'll, you'll feel better, and you'll help other people to recognize that life doesn't have to be quite so serious. It isn't necessarily a grim and dismal and fated kind of existence. We can build something pleasant and meaningful, but it's done through creativity. It's done.

Jim Meskimen [00:37:13]:
And when I say creativity, I just mean getting busy manifesting some idea you've had. And that could be on the piano, it could be with wood, it could be, you know, with your body as a dancer or in writing, or in building a business, or in dressing yourself or tattooing your head. You know, all those things are legitimate.

Paul Povolni [00:37:36]:
Yeah.

Jim Meskimen [00:37:37]:
Because they start with a concept that you have, and then you manifest them in the world as opposed to receiving, consuming all the time. Assuming that, because, unfortunately, there's still a lot of us who do not feel like we can create. Unfortunately, one of the hallmarks of most criminals is that they feel they cannot create and therefore must steal.

Paul Povolni [00:38:06]:
Wow.

Jim Meskimen [00:38:07]:
So if you can even in a small way, create a little something every day, it will be the beginning of something that has tremendous potential for you, even though it's, like, indefensible, even though you can't say, wow, I'm going to spend ten minutes doodling, and it's going to result in me receiving worldwide attention and a million dollars. It's not gonna be like that, but it is going to lead in the, on a vector, if you will, a direction that is more positive than if you go, I'm just gonna watch tv for 3 hours, you know?

Paul Povolni [00:38:48]:
Right.

Jim Meskimen [00:38:49]:
Or I'm just gonna hope that I get a handout, or, you know what I mean? Or always being on this intake.

Paul Povolni [00:38:57]:
Right.

Jim Meskimen [00:38:58]:
Which is eventually gonna. Gonna burn you. It's, it's gonna, you know, it may seem good on the short term. But as it becomes a habit, just like most habits, a habit of receipt, then you're gonna, you're gonna suffer from that, and people around you are gonna suffer from it.

Paul Povolni [00:39:17]:
Right. Well, and with you, with what you're doing, you know, I see that you're creating content always, constantly, you know, you're creating TikTok.

Jim Meskimen [00:39:26]:
Actually, you and I are creating content right now.

Paul Povolni [00:39:31]:
And so you're creating TikToks, you're creating YouTube videos. You're creating a lot of stuff to keep your craft going. You can't wait for somebody else to give you that opportunity. And that's why, you know, what you did during lockdown is you were creating. You didn't say, well, I don't have a script. I don't have a camera pointed at me. I don't have somebody paying me. Therefore, I am going to stop being an entertainer.

Paul Povolni [00:39:54]:
You know, similar to, you know, as I mentioned, Jack Black and John Krasinski, they found they created stuff because that's who they were. They didn't just stop and say, well, you know, my craft is over now. And so that's, I think that living that creative life, if you're, if you're a creative person, is just express it. Express it anyway whatever way you can, and even diversify it and do it in different ways and try a different style, a different method, a different whatever, but keep pushing yourself creatively and don't just wait until there's a paycheck attached to it, you know? And so what, what keeps you, like, what, what keeps you going? What, what keeps you driving to do the things that you're doing, the content that you're doing?

Jim Meskimen [00:40:44]:
Well, I like to, I like to meet new people. I like, I have a high appetite for, for fun opportunities, you know, like, I, two weeks ago, I went and I had auditioned for a show with Billy Bob Thornton, a Taylor Sheridan show. And so I flew to Fort Worth and worked on that show with him and Demi Moore. And, you know, that was two weeks ago now I'm like, I'm already like, there's nothing happening. I'm so, just disappointed. So I have a high appetite for things, for lucky breaks and things and wonderful things to come in. And so also, you know, I've got a mortgage like everybody else. I got bills to pay.

Jim Meskimen [00:41:28]:
I've got things I'd like to finance. So that keeps me, keeps me hopping. You know, I've been doing Colonel Sanders for quite a while for the KFC people. That's slowed down a little bit. But I did that for about six or seven years. And again, that's based on an impression, because I remember very well the original Colonel Sanders, who he used to do his own advertising machine. And I remember that voice in my head pretty well. So I've been doing that, and I love things like that and animation and, and it gives you pleasure.

Jim Meskimen [00:41:59]:
It makes you feel like, you know, it's a fun kind of fun kind of challenge. Everybody likes something different. They feel different comfort levels and different activities. But for me, a lot of what I do just centers around the voice and creating characters that way.

Paul Povolni [00:42:12]:
Yeah. So if you, if you were given a choice and said, okay, you can either do impressions or you can do character actors, which one would you, which one would you like to do? Which one would you prefer?

Jim Meskimen [00:42:25]:
That's a good question. I get asked variations of that question quite a lot, and I think I answer it a different way every time. But right now, when you say it, I think that because of the impact that impressions have on other people, original characters, it's a little more of. A little more selling that has to happen, a little more explanation that has to happen. But, for instance, Robin Williams, people just love that Robin Williams thing. If I do a little TikTok or a little something for Instagram as Robin Williams, and people instantly respond, they say, oh, you gave me the feels. He brought a tear to my eye. I like having that kind of an impact on people, that I emotionally impact them.

Jim Meskimen [00:43:03]:
And if I have to hijack somebody else's personality for a second or two, so Beefe.

Paul Povolni [00:43:12]:
So, so people, do people expect you to be on all the time when you meet, meet them, do they like Robin Williams or, and even Jim Carrey said, you know, Jim Carrey was a character, you know?

Jim Meskimen [00:43:23]:
Yeah.

Paul Povolni [00:43:24]:
And people expecting you constantly to be on.

Jim Meskimen [00:43:29]:
I don't think so. I don't think I have that brand. Jim Carrey certainly does. I work with Jim on the Grinch, and, and I discovered that he was not on all the time, and I understand that. And Robin Williams, I think, really that was part of his brand, was that he was outside the box and an unlimited source of creative energy all the time. Some of that, I think, was medically, pharmaceutically inspired. But it became his brand, and he could deliver on it for decades. So I think probably, you know, that's the kind of corner I don't want to paint myself into.

Jim Meskimen [00:44:13]:
And I'm actually a pretty, as you can tell, I'm a pretty sedate person. I'm not bouncing off the walls or anything like that or like trying to try to top myself or trying to dominate the conversation. I'm not that way. And the thing I admire most about Robin Williams was his acting work. You know, the films that he did where he played a real person, you know, and they had a sort of attentiveness and an empathy about him. And you would embrace different kind of feelings and emotions and things and play. Play like a real guy.

Paul Povolni [00:44:42]:
Right.

Jim Meskimen [00:44:43]:
I like that kind of better for me than even the stand up, which is brilliant and which I can appreciate. But it's not like, it's not so much my thing. I like the other part of it, so I forget the question.

Paul Povolni [00:44:55]:
Well, about being on.

Jim Meskimen [00:44:57]:
I'll be on all the time. Yeah. I don't think that's part of what people just necessarily expect. I'm on, for example, this Sunday at 07:00 p.m. i'll be on for about an hour and a half in my Jim preschen show. And I'm on. When I'm on my, when I do a live for TikTok or Instagram, I am on. And then I am.

Jim Meskimen [00:45:18]:
And then I'm off and I'm doing other things.

Paul Povolni [00:45:20]:
Right, right. Have you ever done an impression in front of the person you're doing the impression of?

Jim Meskimen [00:45:25]:
Well, I have. I have done Ron Howard, and he has been in the audience for occasionally when I've done that. But I, and I once did it to Sam Elliot because I ran into him at a recording studio and it took me by surprise. And even though I kind of have a policy, I definitely have a sort of operating policy of not imitating people to their face. I found myself absolutely just trying to impress him with my great impression of Sam Elliott, and he was quite gracious about it. But, you know, I felt just a tiny bit embarrassed by the fact that I just launched right into it like that.

Paul Povolni [00:46:05]:
So what's the newest impression that you're working on? Obviously, there's new people that pop up that, you know, become a part of our collective. You know, we know they exist. Who's somebody that you're doing?

Jim Meskimen [00:46:21]:
Well, I was listening to Paul Jamatti a lot because I, you know, I enjoyed very much the holdovers, which was, I really thought he was going to win the happy golden man this year for that role, but it was Killian Murphy's time. So I took a look at Paul Giamatti. He's about my age, and I think we have a similar kind of aesthetic. But he's definitely very talented. Very talented guy.

Paul Povolni [00:46:52]:
Absolutely. Now, are there any impressions that you won't do or can't do?

Jim Meskimen [00:46:57]:
Well, impressions that I can't do. I would say most of them, I do. The ones that I do. There are an awful lot of celebrities and a lot of well known voices. So, yeah, I mean, you know, I'm always, I'm always kind of listening. I'm an observer, a listener. And when I, what attracts me to impressions, why I started as a kid, I, and have continued this sort of practice is that I have an affinity for certain sounds and certain accents and characters and emotions and things. And when I hear something that I like, I try to duplicate it and I even go around in life and if I hear a sound that I like that, you know, I will figure out a way to replicate that for my own enjoyment.

Jim Meskimen [00:47:52]:
And it's a way of me having a conversation with the universe, I guess, the little things in life and a car goes by.

Paul Povolni [00:48:01]:
Now, are you musical? I mean, you've got such a fine tuned ear for sounds because, yeah, I am fairly musical.

Jim Meskimen [00:48:09]:
I like to sing and I don't play ukulele a very little bit. But I, I never really went down that because I was drawing all the time. I didn't get on the piano or get on the guitar because I only have, I'm not, I'm not like Vishnu, you know, I wish I had, wish I was sometimes, but, uh, so I, but I love to sing. I've done a lot of singing. And you're right, it's, it's vibrations, it's wavelengths.

Paul Povolni [00:48:35]:
Right.

Jim Meskimen [00:48:35]:
And discernment. You know, is it like this or is it like this, you know, all those different kind of shades. And I love that. I love that texture and that way of just being conscious and being perceptive.

Paul Povolni [00:48:48]:
Right, right. Well, and what you hear in your head is very different to what people are hearing when you speak. And so you've been able to transition that to where you've got that sensitivity to the nuances of a voice and an accent, which is a combination of both of those things, the voice, the accent. And then, of course, you nail the facial expressions that help you to get there. What is, and I've got a two part question. What is the process that you go through in doing an impression or starting or learning a new one or developing a new one?

Jim Meskimen [00:49:21]:
Well, at this point it's very rapid, so it's kind of hard to break down. But I basically listen. I listen a lot. I observe the best is if you can actually see the person in person because you get a lot more data just from that encounter. But I. You know, I'm commonly given things from my agent. Can you do this voice? We're trying to replace this voice. Sometimes it's a famous person.

Jim Meskimen [00:49:45]:
Sometimes it's not a famous person. Like I did Harry Truman's voice for George Clooney's movie the monuments men. And I was not particularly familiar with Harry Truman's voice at all, as most Americans aren't. So I had to go on YouTube and kind of investigate and listen and listen and look at him. How does he hold his jaw, his teeth? Does he open his mouth very wide? All these little factors. So I study. I study, and then I practice. And at this point in my career and in my experience with myself and my body and my sound, I know pretty much where my range is.

Jim Meskimen [00:50:23]:
I know what kind of instrument I have. And so if something comes along and it's a different. It's like a tuba or a piccolo, I'm like, no, there's some guys that are really good tuba guides, and there's people out there that are really good piccolo guys. And I'm not. I'm not. I'm somewhere in the. In the middle there. And so.

Jim Meskimen [00:50:42]:
And if it's an accent, I'm like, well, that one's in my wheelhouse. I can do that. I'll add that onto that. And there's like, you know, maybe four categories of things that if I listen to it, I go, okay, old british guy, received pronunciation, you know, which is standard british, kind of whispery middle tone, you know, as far as the vibration. Yeah, okay, yeah. Now, what's his emotion? How does he present things generally? You know, is he very, very calm? Is he very, very studious and important? Or is he like this some more kind of, you know, guy who's sort of a working class guy who maybe has, you know, type two diabetes? You know, these are all evaluations that I do quite, quite quickly and don't even sometimes verbalize them. So it's. It's.

Jim Meskimen [00:51:41]:
It can be a super fast process because I'm practiced.

Paul Povolni [00:51:46]:
Right.

Jim Meskimen [00:51:47]:
Because I've done it a gazillion times, you know, memorable times.

Paul Povolni [00:51:51]:
Now, doing accents. Have you ever had to do accents in front of people with the real accent?

Jim Meskimen [00:51:57]:
Yes, and it's daunting, especially the Brits.

Paul Povolni [00:52:00]:
Yeah.

Jim Meskimen [00:52:01]:
Because, I mean, it is absolutely down to the micro syllable. And I understand that, too, because I watch british television quite a lot, and every now and then, they'll stick an american in there, and you can, you know, it's a story about World War Two. And they'll have this visiting yank come over and interact with the detective, you know, and foils war or one of these shows. And I. And you can tell, I watch that actor that's playing the American. I go, is he an American? You know? And he'll say something like, yeah, it's great. We've got all the trucks and the jeeps are lined up out there outside the missile base. You go, missile base? Wait a minute.

Jim Meskimen [00:52:42]:
Wait a minute.

Paul Povolni [00:52:44]:
Yeah, something's not right.

Jim Meskimen [00:52:46]:
Something's not right here.

Paul Povolni [00:52:48]:
Yeah.

Jim Meskimen [00:52:49]:
Yeah. So it's. Yeah. So I. It's daunting to do accents in front of the people, but I'm. I flatter myself that I've gotten away with it quite a lot because I is particularly in the british accent and irish accents. I have worked excessively hard and studied enormously for decades now. And so I recently, you know, I work on a show called the Big Door prize on Apple tv, and I play Chris O'Dowd's father.

Paul Povolni [00:53:17]:
Right. Wow.

Jim Meskimen [00:53:18]:
And I think they thought I was irish because I certainly didn't tip.

Paul Povolni [00:53:23]:
That's a huge compliment.

Jim Meskimen [00:53:24]:
Yeah, it was a huge compliment. And the last time they worked on the show, they had an irish director, and he said, at some point during the taping, he said, it's. What part of Ireland are you from? I said, oh, you've just given me a great compliment. Yeah, I'm from, you know, Tarzana.

Paul Povolni [00:53:41]:
Yeah. Well, and in England, I mean, literally, you cross the road almost, and there's a different minute difference or sometimes even a radical difference between accents. And so nailing those is quite a skill in itself. Do you do an australian accent? Are you willing to do an australian accent in front of an australian?

Jim Meskimen [00:53:58]:
Well, luckily or not, for better or for worse, I've been down to Australia several times, so I've been to Sydney and I've been to Melbourne, Adelaide. I've been up to Hamilton island. I'll have someday to get to Perth, even though it's bloody far away. And, you know, there's something very attractive about the australian accent, which I'm probably doing miserably right now are a little bit overacting, but there's. The muscles involved. For an american to do an australian accent are completely different, and you got to treat your mouth in a completely different way. And I struggle with it because it's bloody difficult. It's like saying, you know, would you like to carry this small box upstairs, or would you like to carry this piano? It's great.

Jim Meskimen [00:54:39]:
Great difference.

Paul Povolni [00:54:40]:
It is. It is that well done? That was really good. And Australia does have regional as well as cultural accents.

Jim Meskimen [00:54:49]:
Right?

Paul Povolni [00:54:49]:
You know, and for me, like, my accent is so far from australian. Like, when I go to Australia, they ask me where I'm from. And so, you know, because you say.

Jim Meskimen [00:54:58]:
Far, and from which starts. It starts to tip the hand. You've got a light now. It's a sort of a light australian accent. It's been kind of weathered down by your time in the south.

Paul Povolni [00:55:08]:
Yeah.

Jim Meskimen [00:55:09]:
And then also, if you go to place, like, Melbourne, for example, they sound just. They sound mostly english, and they don't really sound very australian at all. It's tiny little bit, but like you say, it's regionalisms and stuff, and it's wonderful. It's all richness to me. It's all, like. It's got the DNA of past individuals and cultures all in that thing that we carry forward. The fact that it survives in the UK as much as it does and as distinctly as it does is a marvel to me. It's like, what do you have to hypnotize these people? How does this happen?

Paul Povolni [00:55:46]:
Well, and in Australia, too, because of the immigration, my family were first generation immigrants to Australia. I'm from Europe, and so I was raised on the west side of Melbourne, you know, and so on the west side of Melbourne were where all the european Australians were. And so, you know, the european Australians had a very different type of accent than the regular Australians. Regular Australians are very nasal up in their nose.

Jim Meskimen [00:56:13]:
Yeah.

Paul Povolni [00:56:14]:
Whereas the. The Europeans were a little deeper, and that's where kind of mine is. They also talk a little different. Like, a little different. Like, they've almost got a. I can't even imitate it anymore. I used to be able to do a lot better, but so you've even got those regionalities within Australia that's kind of interesting. Not as broad as England, but certainly you do.

Paul Povolni [00:56:33]:
You have the more white Australian, you know, with anglo saxon roots, you know, that. That are a little more refined, and you have actors within Hollywood that kind of come from that area. And then you've also just got more regular, you know, the redneck Australian. That's super bad. And then you've. So the diversity is pretty amazing as well. And then. So, kudos on nailing it.

Paul Povolni [00:56:57]:
And so, as we wrap this up, one final question that I think could really help the listeners because you're such a master of voice, you know? And I watched an interview with Bill Hader, and Bill Hader is another impressionist comedian, star, whatever, and his and his natural speaking voice is very nasal. It's really up in his nose. That's right.

Jim Meskimen [00:57:19]:
Bill Hader. Yeah. He definitely has this kind of orientation. Right. But he can shift it around any way he wants. It's really interesting.

Paul Povolni [00:57:26]:
Right. And so he can. He can imitate somebody that has a deeper, more, you know, chest voice. But his default is going back to his nasal. Nasal voice, which I find very interesting. But what it also tells me, and I think this is where I think people can really learn, and maybe. Maybe you have some tips for this, of some of that voice control that gets it out of nasal. Like, are there any methods or tools or whatever? Because, you know, getting out of that nasal, australian nasal, southern nasal, whatever that nasal accent is like, if you can bring it out of there and get it into your chest or get it into a different place, it could help you with presentations, with being on phone calls, being, you know, how you show up on Zoom calls on video, social media, or whatever.

Paul Povolni [00:58:20]:
Do you have anything that you could leave as a tip for somebody that might be. Maybe they are nasal. Maybe they do have something that's either regional. It's not. It's not natural, just like Bill Haders is not, you know, it's. It's just regional or wherever he's from or whatever. He's, I guess, adopted. I don't know him.

Paul Povolni [00:58:39]:
Do you have anything that you recommend for somebody to get down and to take it down? Do you have any tools in your toolbox?

Jim Meskimen [00:58:47]:
Yeah, and, you know, I don't have. I don't think we. I don't have nasal phobia or I don't think we need to be nasal shaming. You know, people sound the way they sound. And obviously, we're given a body and a head that has a certain sound, and we can fight it or we can change it. We do whatever we want with it. It is a creative instrument. You can take a guitar and play like Django Reinhardt, or you can play, like, you know, Joubert or one of these spanish guitarists, Segovia.

Jim Meskimen [00:59:24]:
It's an instrument that you can make sound in different ways. The way you attack it, the way you control it. Control, I think, is the key factor. And what I recommend for that is if you want to, I think most people, present company accepted, are unfamiliar with the way they sound, really out in the air, and maybe even have a lot of antipathy about it. They don't like the way they sound. They don't like their voice. That's because they're very, very unfamiliar with their voice, and they haven't come to terms with it and found anything to appreciate in it. They've only had the shock of hearing it recorded and going, oh, no, that sounds terrible.

Jim Meskimen [01:00:06]:
I will use my voice as infrequently as possible from here on out. And so they squelch it in a variety of ways. Sometimes people kind of got to talk like this just because they're trying to just get the words out as quickly as they can and not put any inflection or music behind it at all. The cure for it is to record yourself and listen a lot and get over yourself. And by that, I mean not become depressed about yourself, but rather just become so familiar that you go, oh, yeah, that's my voice.

Paul Povolni [01:00:34]:
Right?

Jim Meskimen [01:00:35]:
And then you can decide, well, that's how I sound to other people. I'm not in grief about it anymore. I wonder what I could do to make it sound a little more sonorous. You know, like the people that go suddenly go to Juilliard and all come out sounding like this. This is what happened to Robin Williams. You know, they sort of decide to soften their voice and make it more acceptable, more just easily approach people rather than just be percussive and like this, you know? Or maybe you want to sound that way. You know, maybe you want to cut through every now and then. Let.

Jim Meskimen [01:01:08]:
Hey, listen up. I got something to say. You know, it depends on your purpose, but if you record yourself and get super used to what you actually sound like, then you can begin to control your voice and do whatever it is you want to do with it. I feel like we've lost touch. I seem to be the only person in the room right now. It's very sad, very lonely. I've lost the host. Maybe we ran out of time.

Jim Meskimen [01:01:38]:
Was there a time limit on this thing? I see there's echo cancellation. Echo. Echo cancellation. Well, it's been a wonderful time, and those of you that are still watching, I appreciate the fact that you've tuned in. I'm sorry that I had to vaporize your host, but that's the way it happens sometimes, you know, everybody's got a shelf life. If you don't have one, well, maybe you'd like to get one. Go to www.iwantashelflife.com. well, we're 99% uploading, which is exciting, but I've.

Jim Meskimen [01:02:18]:
I've lost my. My host. What's going on? What happened? Did you lose power?

Paul Povolni [01:02:24]:
Yeah, we absolutely lost power. We actually had tornadoes a couple of days ago, and we survived that and massive hail and. And all that, but I guess it finally caught up with us, man. That was such a good answer, too, that you were giving.

Jim Meskimen [01:02:41]:
Well, I continued talking, so it's all recorded. Yeah, sure.

Paul Povolni [01:02:46]:
Okay, good. Well, I'm glad you kept talking because it really was a good answer because, yeah, I agree with you that for some people, they're just totally fine with it. But for somebody that says, hey, I don't like the way I sound, what can I do about it? And I think your answer was really, really good. All right, man. Well, thank you so much for today. This was really, really good. I hope you enjoyed it.

Jim Meskimen [01:03:06]:
I did. Very much. Thank you. Your questions were very good. My pleasure, Paul. Okay, we'll talk soon.

Paul Povolni [01:03:13]:
Take care. Bye bye. Thank you for joining us on the head Smack podcast. We've shared some candid stories and life changing ideas, and now it's your time to act. First, take bold action on just one idea and see how your life can radically change. Secondly, whatever platform you're listening to this on, please rate it, share it, and leave a comment. Let us know where this episode impacted you. I appreciate you giving me your time, and don't forget to join us for our next misfit conversation.