Have you ever found yourself rising from the ashes of a tough situation, transformed and ready to tell your tale? That's exactly the journey that voice actor and podcaster Dex recounts on Infinite Prattle, where I, Stephen, host a heart-to-heart that digs deep into resilience and the cathartic nature of storytelling. Dex unveils the origins of his own podcast, "Dex - Phoenix from the Flames," born from personal trials and tribulations.
As we navigate through life's tumultuous waters, is it the unexpected twists and turns that often lead to the most profound reflections?
This episode traverses the landscape of perspective shifts following life-altering events, revealing how such occasions can pivot our worldviews towards unforeseen positivity and opportunity.
From a night beneath Belfast's stars that offered me [Stephen] a moment of clarity to Dex's musings on the role of fate versus choice, and loss. We confront the poignant queries that shape our existence. Furthermore, we engage in a tender exploration of grief, the symbolism of flower memorials and the ghost bike, and the personal stories that help us process loss—inviting you to ponder your own experiences and the unique ways we all commemorate those who have left us.
[Also check out the video version of this podcast - a first for Infinite Prattle! on this link
Check out Dex's work and Podcast on the below links!
Have you ever found yourself rising from the ashes of a tough situation, transformed and ready to tell your tale? That's exactly the journey that voice actor and podcaster Dex recounts on Infinite Prattle, where I, Stephen, host a heart-to-heart that digs deep into resilience and the cathartic nature of storytelling. Dex unveils the origins of his own podcast, "Dex - Phoenix from the Flames," born from personal trials and tribulations.
As we navigate through life's tumultuous waters, is it the unexpected twists and turns that often lead to the most profound reflections?
This episode traverses the landscape of perspective shifts following life-altering events, revealing how such occasions can pivot our worldviews towards unforeseen positivity and opportunity.
From a night beneath Belfast's stars that offered me [Stephen] a moment of clarity to Dex's musings on the role of fate versus choice, and loss. We confront the poignant queries that shape our existence. Furthermore, we engage in a tender exploration of grief, the symbolism of flower memorials and the ghost bike, and the personal stories that help us process loss—inviting you to ponder your own experiences and the unique ways we all commemorate those who have left us.
[Also check out the video version of this podcast - a first for Infinite Prattle! on this link
Check out Dex's work and Podcast on the below links!
Hello, welcome everyone to Infinite Prattle. Today's episode is an incredibly special one because not only do we have an amazing guest on, but it's the first time that I can see you're looking around, but it's the first time we've ever done a video recording on the podcast, so expect probably more disaster than usual. I would think so, because not only now you can hear me, but unfortunately you can now see me. And yeah, but let's talk about Dex and what he's got to talk about with his voice acting career and his podcast and everything that's led him to areas. Now You're listening to Infinite.
Speaker 1:
Prattle with your host, Stephen. Thanks for joining me. For unscripted, unedited everything Excellent. Welcome, Dex. Thank you very much for coming on the podcast.
Speaker 2:
For having me. Excellent I do love your intro.
Speaker 1:
I'd like to say there was a lot of thought that went into it, but it was five minutes on the Sunday afternoon when I was like I really need to make a everything in my shows. Last minute I tell you Everything's like I should do this. Then I just do something and go. That'll do so very professional.
Speaker 2:
I'm a great believer in you can over prepare.
Speaker 1:
Definitely.
Speaker 2:
Definitely, and the best things happen by accident. So we are.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to Infinite Prattle, series four. We kind of contacted through LinkedIn, we kind of. I remember when it was now it was towards the end of last year, I think, wasn't it and we've been a little bit of contact and I thought it'd be really cool for my listeners to hear about your story and what you're up to currently and the podcast that you've now got. Since we connected, you now got your own podcast and you've released. Is it four episodes now? I think it is.
Speaker 2:
We've had four. Another one due this Sunday, although my guest my guest this week was ill, so I'm going to be making it up on Sunday.
Speaker 1:
I would like to say if you need any tips, but I wing every single one. So what's your podcast?
Speaker 2:
about. I shall probably. So what the one this Sunday?
Speaker 1:
I've no idea, Thus far at least anyway.
Speaker 2:
Thus far. So my podcast is called Dex Phoenix from the Flames. And it's called Phoenix from the Flames because I've had a number of times in my life where Am I allowed to swear? I'm going to swear. Where shit has happened and, like many people, I'm not alone. I find myself emerging from the ashes of whatever conflagration has happened On a new path, coming out of it not smelling of the wrong thing but, it sort of worked out and it occurred to me.
Speaker 2:
I've got to the point in my life where it's occurred to me that actually there might be a bit of a story to tell and certainly, if nothing else, it's a way of me sort of documenting it. But also I think that if it resonates with people, if they've had the same experiences or if they find themselves in that circumstance, the hope is that it just gives people a little bit of thought that, well, you know this too is temporary and you know I'll get through this, and you know it feels like the end of the world at the moment, but it isn't, and I can come out the other side. You know, stronger, better. That's the what's the song stronger, harder, better, faster.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, we're both showing our age there by not knowing that. Yeah, that was surely only last year. I'm not even going to do that.
Speaker 2:
Oh, that's, yeah, that's effectively the. So I've had four episodes, which has just been me talking about three main sort of hit storms that have happened in my life. So a little bit of a potted sort of autobiography, really, and I've kind of run out of stuff. So I thought, hey, I'm going to get guests on and unfortunately my wonderful guest that I've got lined up is not well. So this year this Sunday will be me again. I try and do a podcast every two weeks, but it was your wonderful self inviting me on here that made me think, hey, you know, I could get some guests on and then they can do some of the talking. Yeah, definitely, Definitely. I see what you did. I see what you did here.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, you see, you, see I just worry that people are sick of me talking. If I'm honest with you Like it's like I get sick of myself talking. So like I think you know, if we can give someone else a chance, then you know I can blame them if people moan about the talking.
Speaker 2:
I've listened to your podcast. I don't think anyone gets sick of you talking.
Speaker 1:
But I know what you mean. It is nice sometimes.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, definitely it is nice sometimes to have some other ideas injected in.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think it's. I haven't listened to your podcast. I think, as you say, it's kind of what you said then kind of resonates with me, like you know, trying to tell a story and trying to document it a little bit. And I think you know, in a weird roundabout way, that's kind of what I'm doing with my podcast is I'm kind of telling stories from my life and just saying things that I like. So earlier in the podcast I always go talking just about songs and stuff that I liked and stories from my past and just just thought it was the end of my head that I just want to give my opinion and my view on and just tell people stories really. So it's kind of like a similar thing. But having listened to your podcast, I can highly recommend it for one. It's not because you're on the podcast. Having listened to it, it's wonderful. You wait till I'm gone.
Speaker 1:
See what he says then and the career you've chosen to go into. I can highly see why you've chosen to go into that as well. You know you've got a very soothing voice and a nice clear voice and listening to it.
Speaker 2:
You get to earn some money at it. Yeah, definitely Thank you for that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and the story in your podcast is I can't believe that you've got nothing else to talk about. I think that there must be a myriad of stories that interweave all that drama and all those massive events.
Speaker 2:
Not all of them are broadcastable.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think sometimes we have to keep some stuff to ourselves, don't we as well? But I think the content of the podcast I don't really want you to give too much away, but if you talk about some of the things that you've touched on, if you don't mind, yeah, because I was really drawn into the story and it's a very human story and it's a very much a story I think that we can all relate to and also think, what if that happened to me? How would I react? And I think it's a very positive story the way you explain it and I think it's just. I would genuinely recommend people to go and listen to your podcast just for that insight into basically rising like a phoenix from the flames. So yeah, so what kind of roughly is your podcast about without? I want people to go and listen to it and enjoy it. But yeah, we're just general.
Speaker 2:
The problem is is that, if you, if I give?
Speaker 1:
which I will. You can't give too much away, can you, Because it's very delicate, isn't it?
Speaker 2:
I think if I give a very potted version of it, it sounds like you'd want to run a mile from it Because it's full of death and mental health issues and you'd think, my God, that sounds like a stone, cold drag and I, how on earth can you talk for 20 minutes on that? And it'd be a tall, humerus or interesting or anything other than whatever. But it is not. It's not intended as to be full of pathos and to be full of negativity.
Speaker 2:
The events I talk about, you know I talk about them because they happen to me, but I'm talking about them with the benefit of hindsight and so I can see the when somebody dies, for example. You want to remember them, but you want to remember the funny things that happen, the fun times, the humorous things. So the first one is my lovely mum, who was the first person in my life who passed away, who really meant something to me, and I was 30, something you know, and it affected me deeply. I was far more than I ever realised it would, and so in the podcast I talk about the kind of person that she was, with some of the anecdotes and in fact there's many more, but some of the anecdotes of things that she was quite a rebel. So she was in the Women's Institute and one of the anecdotes which I'll share was she came back one day a bit miffed because they had to write a poem about spring.
Speaker 2:
She thought it was all a bit twee and a bit typical WI. You know jam in Jerusalem and so you know they turn up the next meeting and these women stand up and talk about the gambling lambs and the scudding clouds in the blue sky and the daffodils, and my mum stands up and, to the horror of some of them, says, you know, with a little script, says the spring has sprung, the grass has risen. I wonder where my husband is up the red line, down the plough. He really ought to be gardening now. And he sat down and there were one or two of them apparently who laughed, but most of them were that kind of blue rinse per grade, horrified that she hadn't taken it seriously.
Speaker 2:
And that's the thing, you know, that's. It's really tough to remember that about someone when you're really you know a really short while after they're not around anymore. But what time does is it doesn't make that loss any more pain, any more painful, but it does give you that perspective to be able to look back and at least enjoy the stuff that happened when that person was around. So yeah, you know, and the the Phoenix from the flames, part of that was that you know around. About 10 years prior I had passed my motorcycle test and I loved doing it was an intensive course in a week long course. It always tends to call it a crash course, but you shouldn't do that with motorcycle training.
Speaker 1:
No, definitely.
Speaker 2:
It's an intensive course, not a crash course and absolutely loved it. I thought, oh my God, I want to be a motorcycle instructor and just didn't, you know, just did the kind of suited and booted corporate thing and my mum not being around anymore, basically something clicked in my head and I was like you know, I could die, anyone could die. Yeah yeah, this person I thought be around forever isn't around anymore and that prompted me to become a motorcycle instructor. You know I took a massive pay cut and lived in a caravan for a while but I did it and I actually ended up running my own business doing it and I loved it to pieces and I've got, you know, friends for life from it. And you know it was a fantastic chapter that probably wouldn't have happened had it not been for that you know, rather shitty thing that happened.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
So I think you can't go through life insulated, shielded from stuff happening and you don't know how you're going to react when it does. But actually you know there are positive, there's a silver lining that comes out of you know that comes out of it.
Speaker 1:
So potentially, you know it's always possible and I think that kind of like your outlook from it you know just water.
Speaker 2:
Honestly, that's really I'm a bit jealous actually.
Speaker 1:
When I saw you drinking that before, I was thinking is that a bit of a bit of hooch?
Speaker 2:
It's it's, it's tonic with some, with some lemon in it. Very exciting.
Speaker 1:
I'll be better Gene, yeah, maybe, maybe it's hard, yeah, but I think I need a tiny bit and I think the whole premise of the Phoenix from the flames, as you say, like everyone goes through, who has to go through life and death kind of thing, and that death happens and I think the first time it happens to you, but I think the first person that passed away for me that I was really close to was my granddad. And I don't say I'm a cold hearted person, but I kind of react to death in a slightly different way. I kind of know it's going to happen and just kind of accept it. But I think the first time I happened to someone that was super close to me, he kind of hit home a little bit and it did it kind of spurred me on maybe not in the same way to, like you know, put my job and go and invest in something. But I kind of think I just was like you know, life's too short to.
Speaker 1:
I think I took the thing I had life's too short to put all people's bullshit and I just went through life like I'm going to do what I want to do and you damned kind of thing. You know like. You know like I'm going to be. I think I'm a good person, I try and be a good person. But I'm just going to be like that and really not take kind of people's, you know negativities and stuff, and just try and be me and just try and live a good life and I think how old, how old were you.
Speaker 1:
And I was like oh, I want to think that much I was. I was probably, I was probably just under 30, I think probably just under 28, maybe 29. And I think it's one of the things until.
Speaker 2:
Oh, last year then.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, of course, yes, of course. Yes, I'll give you some. I'll send you the check later.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, thank you. You knew you got me on for a reason, right?
Speaker 1:
Exactly exactly. But I think when you have a big life event like that, it does put things in perspective about a bit of everything, and for some people that might not be someone's death. It could be just a different event where you lose a friend, your friendship breaks up or something like that, and that can be a thing that turns your brain and that you think to yourself I've been looking at things all wrong. But yeah, I think the way you describe things in your podcast and obviously that's not the only story, but we won't go into anymore. I think we'll leave the secrecy the last people to go and discover it.
Speaker 1:
For me, it was just so nice to hear positive from a negative. Don't sound cliched, but it was kind of like you've taken something there's brand new, you've used it to benefit and, let's face it, you know them. Stories about people is what keeps them alive. Their memories and sharing them stories is what really keeps people's memory alive, isn't it? Because I've got so many good memories of my granddad and there's a whole story about I never got to go to my granddad's funeral because there was a big bust up in the family and I caused it. But that's for another time. You caused it? Yeah, I didn't. I won't go into it because it's a whole story.
Speaker 2:
Oh my gosh, you can't drop that and not tell us. I know you're supposed to be the host, but come on what's.
Speaker 1:
Well, basically what it was, is I wanted. I think it was struggling to deal with it and I didn't know how to handle it. So my granddad lived in Ireland because my mum's Irish, so it was that side of the family and I didn't want to. I just wanted to get my own way to their house. I didn't want to. It was under the Irish kind of tradition. He was in the house in a coffin, open casket and I really couldn't deal with that. I don't know why I didn't want to, because I knew I was kind of going to be forced to look at him when I got there. Really, it was kind of like going to see your granddad kind of thing and I didn't know how to deal with that. So I kind of just wanted to make my own way from the airport.
Speaker 1:
When I landed, just get the bus and just take some time. And now I've landed, in my head I was like I've landed, our bus transfer is prepping me self and one of my family members basically wanted to come and pick me up and I basically said if you don't normally want to visit, so why would you do it? Now? Just let me do what I want. It took a while to get to that point, he forced me into a corner to say that. But I think, with the emotion I just I just put a bit back and was like listen, let me just do what I want to do. You wouldn't normally insist in picking me up as a bus. I'm going to get the bus. I'm an adult, let me know I'm fine. And that was before I'd left Liverpool. By the time I landed in Belfast it didn't go well for me, let's say, and I was on the ferry home the next morning and didn't go to the funeral. So oh my gosh, but I Families.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, exactly, I like that.
Speaker 1:
And you know I'm completely at peace with that and I was at the time. I was upset, but you know, everything happens for a reason and I got the train back from Ireland. Oh well, not the train, Obviously I had to get a ferry first, but I got the ferry over the train back through Scotland and as I was travelling back, my best friend got hit by a car and I was able to go and see him in hospital. So in a weird way, like you wouldn't have been there.
Speaker 1:
I would not have been there and to support my friend and I've never been one to believe in funerals anyway. I don't feel like you need to go and send someone off. I feel like there's some bigger part in you. You just send a message to the world, into the universe, and I've probably got the best background ever for this moment. I feel like you just go. I know you've died and the universe knows how much I care for you kind of thing. I don't need to stand in a church or a memorial hall that represent that. Yeah, and I think that things can turn around so quickly in emotional times, can't they? And it's yeah, it spiraled quite quickly, let's say.
Speaker 2:
And was your friend? Okay, he was, yeah.
Speaker 1:
He was lying in a hospital and he ended up that he broke his leg quite badly, but he was in hospital about four hours before the X-ray dim, so they didn't realize he was lying there with a broken leg. So yeah, it was, he was there and I was. I had a car, I was able to help with varying people to hospital and stuff, so it worked out well, and I think that's weird how things work out, isn't it?
Speaker 2:
So I've got this theory. I'm not religious and I don't believe in fate. I think we have, we can determine what we do, yeah. But I do have a kind of half, very half-baked theory that when you look backwards there's a kind of strand of continuity and that only happened because that happened and that couldn't have happened if this didn't?
Speaker 2:
And you know, I suppose it's summed up by the everything happens for a reason, but I think it's probably more complex than that. But it does feel like, in retrospect at least, there's a bit of a plan going on.
Speaker 1:
Indeed indeed.
Speaker 1:
When I was in Belfast, my family member came to pick me up and we had a massive argument in the car and I'd just got out of the car and started walking I didn't know where to. I was just walking in the middle of nowhere, like about four miles from Belfast International, and it was the clearest night. It was so clear you could actually see the Milky Way across the sky. It was like a bit like my background and I just looked and I just thought to me, granddad, I just said, listen, you all make this turn out the way it needs to. And I remember thinking that I was on the ferry the next day so it probably didn't turn out the way to go to the funeral, but in retrospect I was at my mate's bedside that evening.
Speaker 2:
You know, come for an ear's moment and make sure he was all right.
Speaker 1:
And yeah, and it's so for me, weirdly not needing to go to my granddad's funeral and probably being probably too emotional to go to anyway Because I wouldn't have been able to hold me water. I've never been one to keep storm. I find it very difficult not to tell people what I think, Partly the reason why.
Speaker 2:
I do podcast. Really, you hidden that so well?
Speaker 1:
So yeah, it is, and I think what you say is like you know that whole. Yeah, maybe it's cliche to say everything happens for a reason, but I think sometimes you do see weird connections and things when you do like represent, represent, you know what I'm trying to say. Retro, that word, that means looking back.
Speaker 2:
Retrospectively.
Speaker 1:
When you, when you use, when you, can you say that word have you been on my gin? I'm drinking? I'm drinking bottled water and I well, it's got a bit of juice in it, but I'm not going to say it's a funny color.
Speaker 2:
Where did you get it from? A ditch somewhere, tell you what tell you what?
Speaker 1:
I don't know. There's something in it. I don't know After asking my wife which she used this bottle for previously. But yeah, I think, I think, when you look back, I think sometimes you can see a connection, can't you? But yeah, it's very unusual how things, how things go. But yeah, but I would say to people highly recommend Texas podcast and the link will be in the description of this episode along with links to his LinkedIn. If you're okay with that, dex will, will you know?
Speaker 2:
Yes, of course. Yeah, I mean I do. I can do with a few more followers.
Speaker 1:
I think you're not really. I think you're not really.
Speaker 2:
It might be a little bit controversial but it's linked to what I did there. It's linked to what you just said about funerals and not not really kind of perhaps fully needing them or getting them. They're useful sometimes for some people. I get that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
And certainly they've been useful on occasion for me. But when I've been really close to someone, the funeral has been very much for other people because I've done my own breathing separately. Yeah Well, one of the things that I and perhaps I don't understand it because I've never experienced it, but I've always found, and this is perhaps a bit controversial is when somebody dies suddenly, which must be the worst thing. I've never had it. It must be, I reckon, the absolute worst. This is a cheery podcast. Everyone Relay on Dex. We'll move off death soon. I don't understand.
Speaker 2:
I don't fully understand the flowers at the place they died on some random bend in a country lane or something, because that wasn't a special place to them. In fact it was the worst place and actually the special place was the park they always went to or the church they frequented or the football ground or whatever. And I sort of get having a bench at those places. I mean, I do sort of get the flowers at the roadside. I'm not completely careless, but I just think.
Speaker 1:
Because I think the same thing, because I'm very much like you.
Speaker 2:
If I go to, a funeral.
Speaker 1:
I kind of feel like I'm there for other people because I'm okay and I'd prefer to be upset somewhere else. But yeah, the whole thing I was at, especially from the previous job I used to do on the railway and stuff. You get memorials at the most odd places and, as you say, that's probably the saddest place because, as you say, that's where the event happened, where surely you'd want it to be. It's quite a difficult place to visit as well, I would imagine.
Speaker 2:
Because it's sort of really dangerous. You know it's a railway track you can't get to, or a roadside or something. But, as I say, I've never experienced that sort of loss. So, you know, I imagine that there's something deep within people that they feel they want to recognize that place.
Speaker 1:
It happens enough that it must be a thing, mustn't it? It does happen. Yeah, it's a frequent thing, isn't it Well?
Speaker 2:
I've seen the one with I don't remember where it was. Now it was a cyclist and they'd done like a ghost bike.
Speaker 1:
Yes.
Speaker 2:
Yes.
Speaker 1:
Yes, have you seen this? The white bike in the thing? We've had that in our town as well. Yeah, we've had that. Yeah, yeah, I think it's just now left for you, whatever grief you have sometimes, isn't it? It's just a place to outbore Whatever work.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, One of my sisters-in-law. I have to tell you this story. It's about death, but I find it particularly amusing.
Speaker 1:
We're in it now. Let's just carry on. We're in it now.
Speaker 2:
So things, I can't tell this story without giving away the big event in the second podcast, but I'll give it away anyway.
Speaker 1:
You don't have to, it's fine. It's fine, we can see it as a cliffhanger.
Speaker 2:
There's this story. So there was a death of someone very close to me, who I was married to, particularly close, and I had two small children at the time, so that makes it particularly poignant, I guess, although they were quite little. So perhaps it doesn't affect them at the time as much as it would have done if they were older. But I've never done the thing with them. Where you go, oh, mummy's watching everything you do from heaven, because, like, who won't be watched when they're on the loo? Or you know you won't do that because Mummy will know.
Speaker 2:
I've never done that and I've never done the oh look, if you look up to the stars, you can talk to her, because I don't believe it. You certainly talk to her, but you have to look at the stars A few weeks after, or it might have been a year later, but anyway they were with her sister, my sister-in-law, and without asking me she decided to send some messages up to the kids, send some messages up to Mummy and the stars, right, and you know those lanterns you can get where you light a little candle in the bottom.
Speaker 1:
Oh yeah, and you let them go and they fill it up, yeah.
Speaker 2:
The other ones that kill cows. If they end up in the field, the cow eats them and dies.
Speaker 1:
They set fire to the futch the cottages and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:
That's the one. So, oh, I'm a horrible person fighting this funny. So the kids wrote these messages to Mummy and I think they were thinking I'm sure Dad can go for this, but we're writing the messages to Mummy. Mummy, we love you. Whatever they put them in these things, you know they got lit, they went up and they got stuck in the trees. They said the lights, the trees were high and the wind was blowing and they were like, yeah, mummy will probably read that, yeah, they'll be fine they'll be fine, yeah.
Speaker 2:
And they just sat in the tree and generally sort of burned out and just sort of hung there through the rain over the next few days, you know, just getting stoddered and but it could have been worse.
Speaker 1:
It could have acted like kindling and just the whole thing could have gone up.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean that would have been an awful story. It's a bit like the story of people who go and distribute ashes and get the wind wrong and end up with a face full of grandma or whatever. Yes, yes. You know, no one wants a face full of grandma.
Speaker 1:
Definitely not, definitely not.
Speaker 2:
Well, I mean it's got niche websites.
Speaker 1:
Well, I was going to say there probably is someone. Well, oddly enough, that's probably the best place to leave it for now. We said this might go wrong, didn't we?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I'm really sorry.
Speaker 1:
Oh God, there is a part two. It will be coming up after we're going to. We're not going to get changed or anything. We're going to record it straight. After this. There's no mystery to this show anymore.
Speaker 2:
It is a different play.
Speaker 1:
I'll take my jacket off. We'll lie about it then, but yeah, well, thank you very much for joining us, dex, we'll see you in part two, which will also be a video episode, where we'll be talking about your latest venture, your new career.
Speaker 1:
Yes, we'll try and avoid death and we'll try and speak less about death. I would say not because it may come up, I don't know. But yeah, we'll talk about that and thanks very much for joining us for this episode, dex, and we'll see you in part two very soon. Thanks for listening to.
Speaker 2:
Infinite Prattle.
Speaker 1:
With your host, Stephen. Follow me on social networks at Infinite Prattle and don't forget to subscribe. Thanks very much.
