Episode Sixty: The Interview - Cheth Rowe

Cheth's family has always had relationships with angels and the stories passed down affirmed this heritage. Hear how, as a young boy, this legacy showed up at the very time he needed it, telling him something that would serve him his entire life.

Transcript

Welcome to Episode 60,

The companion episode of 59.

In this episode,

I interview the intriguing and interesting Cheth Rowe.

He's both a computer programmer and an artist,

And if you go to his website at cheth.

Com,

And that's C-H-E-T-H dot com,

You'll find his Meaning of Life.

To the right,

If you click on Rev-The-A,

It'll take you to a webpage where you're given a chance to spin the ball.

Below this ball,

Cheth asks,

Can the combined thoughts of humanity,

The noosphere,

Prejudice random processes into interesting combinatorial patterns,

Words,

And perhaps even poetry?

This question is the foundation of the experiment.

Can the slot machine-like wheels,

And perhaps something suggestive of humanity's theorized collective beauty,

Will result?

Or not?

It is with this dose of whimsy that I begin this interview.

I hope you enjoy Episode 60 as much as I enjoyed making it.

And now,

My interview with Cheth Rowe.

When I turned eight,

My father,

For the first time,

Let me push the wheelbarrow full of wood back up to the house.

So maybe,

Maybe I was out of breath and exhausted by that experience.

But at age eight is the,

Mormons call it the age of accountability,

And everybody gets baptized at age eight,

And you know,

Forgiven for all their sins,

And then theoretically responsible adult,

Semi-adult at that person,

At that place,

Time.

So after having pushed the wheelbarrow up to the house,

I don't know,

I went for a short walk to the edge of our property,

I was facing east,

And I saw an angel.

And I,

I don't know a whole lot about that experience.

It was distinctly female,

And it told me,

Everything's going to be all right.

So that,

How would I introduce myself is slightly different from what I think of in terms of what am I as a person at,

If you ask me what I am as a person,

I don't know,

I'm probably going to say,

I see the big recording light on,

I'm probably going to say I'm an asshole.

And you know,

You'll have to decide if you have to kill that or not.

But if I were to answer that question at a gathering,

You know,

I'd probably say,

Oh,

I'm a musician,

Or I'm a pianist,

Or else I'd say,

I'm a computer programmer.

Those are the two big parts of my life that I normally mention.

I've been a professional musician for a long time,

Most of my life in one fashion or another,

And I've been a professional computer programmer since 1973,

Which is a long time.

So,

You know,

I have had the experience of writing software on punch cards,

Playing in rooms with those big tape drives that spin around.

And that's been a big and important part of my life.

But then the music has also been a big and important part of my life.

I quit my first programming job to go play in a rock and roll band in Alaska.

That didn't really work out so well.

We got fired halfway through our,

We were supposed to play there for three months,

And we got fired halfway through.

But it was kind of cool when that happened,

The night before we got fired,

And we were there in the dead of winter,

You know,

We arrived in early February.

But the night before we got fired,

We had to walk from the Rainbow Bar and Grill in Kenai,

Alaska,

To our apartment on the Kenai River,

And there was the most amazing auroral display I've ever seen in my life,

And Andy and I both saw it,

And it was just,

It was glorious.

I could hear it,

And it was all overhead and everything,

And then the next day we got fired.

And so I would always,

I never felt bad about that.

I was really tired of being there.

They made us learn to play Leonard Skinner tunes,

Which I'm sure many people love them.

But being told that you have to play something that's quite different,

And I've never been able to tolerate the music since.

Well,

My father played piano,

So there was always a piano in the house.

He played at church meetings often.

He played at priesthood meetings.

He was never really very good,

But it was always there,

And so that was always an influence.

And in terms of aptitude for science,

I was aware pretty early that I had an aptitude for that.

I've heard that music is very mathematical.

Do you sense the relationship between computer programming and music?

Maybe vaguely.

I mean,

I think it is a misconception to think that computer programming is mathematical.

A lot of people think that it is not,

Or rarely is it.

Music is more mathematical,

But that is not the aspect of it that is transcendent or that really particularly attracts me.

It's like,

The mathematics is important,

It's a fundamental part of it,

But you have to go beyond that in order to be able to convey something with it.

I mean,

It's kind of like speaking.

We can all know the words,

But you have to have something more than that to get something across.

So yeah,

The mathematics of music is a necessary thing,

But it's not enough to actually convey emotion or meaning.

It's very interesting.

I just find it utterly fascinating.

You can find math everywhere in this creation of ours.

And I think because you can find math everywhere,

There should be a relationship or relatedness between everything because that language is there behind everything.

So I just,

I like asking those questions.

I have not interviewed someone who is both a musician and a computer programmer before,

So thank you.

Well,

You're welcome.

Yeah,

And I totally agree that math is behind many,

Many things.

And I think that,

I find it really interesting that computer programming itself is also behind many,

Many things that,

And here I am thinking of DNA,

Which is essentially a computer program,

But it's better written than any I've ever encountered.

And obviously it underpins everything that is alive,

At least on this planet and maybe elsewhere,

Who knows.

I'm a fourth generation Mormon.

I have ancestors who came across with Brigham Young to Utah,

Who saw angels at the dedication of the temples in Illinois,

I think.

So yeah,

I definitely grew up in a religious household.

I mean,

I can say more about that.

I think that was,

You know,

Mormonism is a very interesting religion.

Ultimately,

They excommunicated me,

But I'm glad that I had that experience.

It taught me a lot about self-reliance in a way.

I like that they have this attitude that people should learn how to speak in public.

I'm not sure that I am ever very good at that,

But I did learn something about that.

I got to play some of the,

I got to play piano in church meetings,

Not the way my father did by playing hymns,

But by playing stuff that I had written.

And I thought that was pretty cool.

I got to sing in their choir.

I loved doing that.

That was a great experience.

There's definitely problems with Mormonism as well.

One of the first things that I encountered as a problem was I learned that as a political expediency,

They decided to throw out a major tenant of their religion,

Polygamy.

And I thought,

Well,

That's kind of weird.

If you have something you really believe in,

Why do you submit yourself to political reasons to give something like that up?

And then,

Of course,

A similar thing happened with their refusal to allow Blacks to hold the priesthood,

Which they finally rescinded in the 80s.

But that was after my time in the church.

I think it's one of the things that has come up again and again with a lot of different people that I've interviewed for the show is just being a child within a religious institution and witnessing the hypocrisy.

And then what do you do?

Do you try to navigate that and make it OK inside your heart?

Or do you call people to account or call it to attention?

And I think that's a really heartbreaking thing to ask of a child is to kind of resolve that tension inside yourself with this God that is supposed to be all-knowing and these people who are supposed to be the leaders and kind of the speakers for God,

The ones who are in relationship with God and kind of conveying what it's like to be in relationship with God.

I think that's really hard.

Was that difficult for you?

Yeah.

I don't know if I'm going to be exactly answering your question.

But a thing that happened to me with Mormonism that was early on as a formative experience I'm going to tell a little story here.

When I was eight,

We always had wood heat.

That was the only heat we had in our house.

And we had two acres and the back acre was woods.

So a great source of fuel.

And when I turned eight,

My father,

For the first time,

Let me push the wheelbarrow full of wood back up to the house.

So maybe I was out of breath and exhausted by that experience.

But at age eight,

Mormons call it the age of accountability,

And everybody gets baptized at age eight and forgiven for all their sins and then theoretically responsible adult,

Semi-adult at that person,

At that place,

Time.

So after having pushed the wheelbarrow up to the house,

I don't know,

I went for a short walk to the edge of our property.

I was facing east and I saw an angel.

And I don't know a whole lot about that experience.

And it was distinctly female.

And it told me everything's going to be all right.

And that's really kind of the extent of my remembrance of the experience.

But I told people,

I told my father who said he believed me,

I told people at the church who said,

No,

You can't,

That can't be true.

You're wrong.

You're deluded.

That didn't happen.

And at that time,

I really wasn't aware of my family history.

I didn't know that I had ancestors who had been angels.

But that didn't sit well with me.

And I suppose that was the beginning of my disillusionment with the church.

But I do remember being baptized.

They do,

They have these,

You know,

Complete immersion fonts,

Very fancy looking.

I did go through that.

I remember that experience.

Didn't really make me feel any different,

But it was a cool ceremony.

I think it's fascinating that your family seems to have this legacy of seeing and witnessing beings from the angelic realm.

Was that ever a heavy burden to carry?

No,

I didn't think it was a heavy burden.

I thought it was cool.

I have been disappointed that I have never had that experience again.

I have begun to think,

Well,

Maybe when I'm 80 or when I'm 88,

It'll happen.

I think what's really cool about childhood is they always say that children are,

By virtue of being born and coming to this world for the first few years of life,

They're,

They're the closest to that liminal realm where souls originate from.

And so they have the strongest tether to that and the ability to see and sense things that other people might not.

I can't even imagine being a child and seeing something so precious and miraculous.

And then having that taken away and having someone say,

No,

You're,

In effect,

They were calling you a liar.

I mean,

It's one of the many,

Many ways that adults wound children and I wish it didn't happen.

Yeah.

And I don't know what the motivation was to say that.

I mean,

I got the message that the prophet,

The head of the church,

The head of the church is always considered to be a prophet,

That that was the one person who could receive messages from God.

Well,

I wasn't claiming I got a message from God.

I was saying I got a message from an angel,

Not the same thing.

I was just going to say jealousy,

I think is probably,

But the message was also,

It was a personal one for you.

Yeah.

And,

And I thought that that spoke maybe to problems in the household.

I think that there was definitely friction between my parents.

Maybe that was trying to guard me against,

Or maybe it's crazy things happened in life.

And I don't know really what that applies to,

But every once in a while I remember it and go,

Well,

Okay,

Guess it'll be okay.

So I want to just change direction here for a second.

And I've been thinking about this question since we scheduled our interview and I interviewed your wife,

Your lovely wife.

And I wanted to ask you,

I would love to hear the story of how you two met from your point of view.

Okay.

Yes.

Well,

Sure.

We met in Pioneer Square in Seattle at a club called Hibble and Hides.

It of course is no longer there,

But it was in Pioneer Square is an amusing term because it actually is centered on a triangle.

This club was right on that triangle.

It was a blues club.

That was really all that ever happened there.

And blues has always been a genre of music that I've been particularly attracted to.

And so I just went there and I was just sitting at a table drinking.

It was St.

Patrick's Day.

So I was drinking Guinness and this woman comes over to me and falls on the floor on the way there,

But then says,

Would you like to dance?

And I guess I thought,

Well,

This looks like an easy make.

So sure.

And we danced together all night long and it was,

There was magic.

And it was clear to me that this was something I wanted to pursue.

And I suppose I was in my testosterone fueled excitement.

That's probably the thing that I was originally thinking,

But on the other hand,

I was aware that we both had an interest in music and that was really powerful.

I don't remember who it was who played that night,

But Hibble and Hides itself was kind of an interesting thing because the owners of that establishment imported the first espresso machines that Starbucks actually used.

So in a way that was the beginning of this giant mega corporation that we have today.

You know,

In the movies,

They have this term for when the two protagonists meet each other and it's called the meet cute.

And it's supposed to be,

You know,

Unique and interesting and funny and charming.

And I'd have to say yours is all of the above.

I always thought that it was.

Absolutely.

And we certainly always celebrate St.

Patrick's day.

This is a question that just came to my mind and it's going back to the legacy of your family seeing angels and your comment earlier on DNA.

And so I'm wondering if you've ever considered that the aptitude for seeing angels or being able to witness those heavenly beings.

Do you think it's a genetic predisposition?

It could be.

I have read that there are some theories that there is a particular gene.

I've even seen people name the gene that might be responsible.

And I've heard that other people have said,

Yeah,

Maybe that accounts for a few percentage,

But I don't know.

I think it's possible.

I really don't know.

It's such a large question.

And I just wanted to know your thoughts.

I rarely get the chance to marry science and religion in this show,

And I'm a huge science nerd and I've been reading science magazines since I was 13.

Certainly one of my goals in my life,

It's such a lofty goal and who knows if this will ever happen.

I would love to be a part of a community that bridges these two seemingly disparate topics,

Religion and science,

Because I think they're more alike than we or some want to realize.

It's going to take a lot of work.

So we'll see what happens.

Well,

I have always been interested in that juncture as well,

I guess,

Because it seems like it can't,

There can be,

How could there be a connection between the two?

And so something that seems impossible always attracts me.

I've always found that to be interesting.

They have that question,

Which I find so intriguing,

Is mathematics invented or discovered?

And I'm of the camp that mathematics is discovered,

That it's the language of the universe,

Of everything that we can see,

Which doesn't take away its divinity or its ability to live in the spiritual realm or to be something that is numinous.

I think that when you think that it's an either or,

You take away the magic,

You take away the possibility.

And I don't think mathematics,

Because it's been so long associated with science,

Things of the mind,

That it's any less divine or can provide an avenue for the divine to show through in this world.

Well,

I agree with you.

I think mathematics is definitely a discovered thing.

It's not invented.

It's not like computers,

Which definitely are invented.

And it's not just mathematics.

I mean,

Like even other kinds of things that are more traditional.

I think of mathematics as sort of separate from science,

But even things like physics or chemistry,

We aren't necessarily inventing things there.

We're discovering things.

And even if someone manages to patent a new chemical,

They discovered that chemical,

At least in my view.

The first sort of piece of magic that I think of beyond that early experience was seeing a shooting star.

I remember the first time I saw that was with my mom out in an early evening.

And my mom said,

Well,

You wish upon a shooting star,

Which,

You know,

Okay,

Fine.

That was a way to relate to that experience.

But it helped to kindle in me a kind of lifelong interest in astronomy as a visual occupation.

And then I was thinking about how the other kind of out-of-this-world experience that I had as a young age was also an audio thing,

Which I realized this is an audio thing we're talking about.

I remember listening on the radio as astronauts went up into space as I was a kid.

And,

You know,

I don't know if that's magic or not.

It's technology.

It's not discovery.

It's invention.

But it was definitely out of this world.

And it helped kindle in me an interest in science.

But other things I think of that are more in the realm of magic or at least amazement,

I remember that Andy and I played a concert in Sarajevo and a building that had been,

That still had a hammer and sickle on it,

Been a communist meeting hall and apparently had not been used for 10 years or something since the fall of Yugoslavia.

And that was just a magical experience.

Andy's had probably more of these kinds of experiences than I have.

I know that when we were in San Francisco,

A woman died who was,

You know,

How houses are stuck that close together to each other.

And so she was in the next house.

And Andy felt that person pass through her body.

Well,

This is hearsay.

I don't know if she told you that story or not.

But one thing that I recall,

And this is going back to being a kid again,

One day I was fortunate to live in an area surrounded by a lot of woods.

And I remember that one day I had walked on what had been,

I guess,

A surveying trail at some point and gone a very long ways into the woods.

And I stopped and I suddenly just kind of felt this,

I don't know,

I guess I thought it was magic.

I felt like this connection with the forest and the land.

That's something I've always held throughout my life that I loved to walk.

And I loved being out in mother nature.

I think what's so interesting about that story is it sounds like you were walking and walking.

And sometimes when you're out in nature,

At least this has happened to me,

The idea that you're separate from nature disappears and you become part of it.

And I'm so curious if that's what you felt.

Yeah,

I think it is something like that.

And that reminds me of another kind of related thing that I should mention,

Which is that I find that experience often when I'm walking.

I also find that experience,

At least sometimes when I play piano,

That I often play improvisationally.

And I feel like when I do that,

That I am occasionally connected with something that is outside me.

I tend to think of it as being connected with cycles in the universe,

Motions of planets or motions of neutrinos.

I don't know what it is.

Whether it's the big scale or the micro scale,

I have no idea.

And maybe I make it all up.

I don't know.

I'm going to go out on a limb here for a second and just say that you playing the piano and doing it improvisationally is an expression of what's in your mind,

What's in your heart.

But it's also an expression of,

Because I'm a romantic,

Maybe something that the universe,

Those neutrinos,

Some sort of something that they want to hear.

And so because you're there at the piano,

They're calling it into being through you.

So you're the channel.

Oh,

That could be.

This is not a theory that I particularly ascribe to,

But I have heard it said that,

You know,

Why did God create man?

He made all these other things.

They were pretty cool.

But maybe he created God or God created man because he wanted someone to go,

Oh,

Wow,

Look at all these movie things.

But then man went ahead and created his own stuff.

And I don't know what God thinks about that.

Thank you so much for listening to Episode 60 of Bite-Sized Blessings,

In which I get to interview the wonderful and whimsical Cheth Rowe.

It's very rare to find a guest who's both a computer programmer,

But also has a spiritual side.

So I really appreciated our conversation.

I need to thank the creators of the music used,

Taiga Sound Production,

Ryan Holtz Music,

Sasha End,

And Music Elf Files for complete attribution.

Please see the Bite-Sized Blessings website at BiteSizedBlessings.

Com.

On the website,

You'll find links to music,

Changemakers,

Artists,

And books I think will lift and inspire you.

Thank you for listening.

And here's my one request.

Be like Cheth.

You don't just have to be a computer programmer or an artist or a mathematician or a scientist.

Our society is so reductionist these days.

Labels about others are easy to make.

Be a computer programmer.

Believe in science and religion.

Worship God or don't.

Be an artist who does math.

Be whoever you can imagine yourself to be.

This world needs more variety.

And with more variety,

I imagine it will only get more beautiful.

Thank you.