By Wendy Collier
How to Receive
When you need an oil change but don’t have time to take the car in, what do you do? Well, you used to just let it ride, but now you have someone to call. Isaiah Frizzell’s Oddest Jobs is a magical repository for help with so many daily tasks.
With a focus on AI and computer-based tech help, automotive work (think mobile oil and transmission filter changes, private chefing, you name it) and they might have the right talent to do it quickly and efficiently. Frizzell’s story is extraordinary. Having spoken with him for hours, there’s too much to fit in this article, but it could easily be a thrilling book.
The Call of the Valley
Frizzell has lived in Idaho for five years, spending the last two in the Valley. As a longtime writer for the Wood River Weekly, even while not living in the Valley, he got to know a wide range of people who create the community through interviews and writing.
“It was a foregone conclusion that I’d move here. I wanted to for years! But, there was much difficulty finding a place, which is probably not that unique, from what I hear.”
Frizzell has lived a wild, traveling life, working as a travelling chef, throwing private supper clubs in Dallas, Seattle and all over Los Angeles. He was on Chopped, many blogs and the National Culinary Institute’s magazine. He spoke and entertained for two years at Disney’s Imagineering Events and eventually found himself working in independent film.
“I didn’t really want to go on Chopped. I made it to the final interview for Hell’s Kitchen and turned it down. I’m not gonna have some celebrity screaming at me! I’d worked on those types of shows already and was disillusioned. It’s wild where the mind goes when you see behind the scenes. Like the Wizard of Oz, maybe. When I moved to L.A. my first job was in the art department for an obstacle-course show. It was incredible to go to the mountains in Santa Clarita every day, get paid very well, and see literally everything being fabricated for this crazy show! There were seamstresses, welders, it was amazing. I did that for a season, which helped me found my supper club, Pheast.”
Frizzell has worked at a high level in many industries. His cooking is probably the biggest but it’s not his only passion.
“Im entirely driven by passion. I fall in love with things, deeply, plus I like to solve puzzles. Creating new dishes is a multi-sensory puzzle—smell, taste, color, plating—it’s really fun but then I also loved being on set. The militaristic style of crews is amazing when you’re working with driven people, as well. Movie sets and kitchens are very similar. I spent four years of nighttime, making a movie with indie legend director Damon Packard. Just him and me sneaking into sets and filming everywhere with tons of gels. We got a house near Cameron Diaz in the Hollywood Hills. It was gorgeous. The movie is ridiculous, intentionally—that’s Damon’s style. I have three roles, one of which shows more than I wanted to. It’s called Fatal Pulse or the Untitled Yuppie Fear Thriller. Totally insane movie made 100% for free, and Damon was, well, Damon, and it was some of the funnest times of my life, unfettered and just pure filmmaking absurdity.”
Frizzell did sound, camera and lighting for a slew of independent films.
“I was kind of working my way up, I guess. Being first, a writer, I mean, above all else, I had serious dreams to make my stories into movies. My second film was a series, very stylized, like Frankenhooker meets Sleeping with the Enemy. We spent a lot of time and money. The harddrive it was stored on was lost in Mexico. Tons of music I made was lost on that one as well—art, collages, stories, scripts… that kind of thing really digs into your psyche but what else do you do? You just keep going. I’m writing more than ever. I write songs daily, it’s automatic, the tap just flows. I have new passions and talents but that kind of came from getting to know the community here.”
Community, Above All
Community is Frizzell’s focus at the Wood River Weekly and in his next venture Oddest Jobs, where he’s collected many talented friends across the Valley to solve problems in the community.
“I have a friend here, a much older woman who knows just about everything about everyone. I’ve heard so much about “the community! the community!” and I was skeptical at first but as I met, spoke with, hung out with people here it revealed itself. The community is absolutely real, beautiful, very thick and while it’s pretty clear the growth has introduced new issues, there’s still those who care and act to make this place a unique and friendly place to live. I’ve not seen anything like it in my travels except maybe the very, very tightly-knit communities in tiny Mexican towns.”
“Community is absolutely everything. There are a lot of shenanigans taking place on the world stage right and keeping tight with our friends and neighbors is the answer. We have to listen and be willing to help, to act.”
Frizzell moved to Idaho from Mexico where he had a place in Oaxaca he’d moved to to start an intentional community, gardening, farming and building using permaculture ideas.
“I couldn’t believe it. I’ve lived in the South my entire life and snow was kind of nonexistent. My first week in Stanley, I’d been used to 100+ degree days and now it was literally 51 degrees below zero. You walk outside and your eyes even hurt. It was an adjustment for sure.”
Intensely individual, Frizzell has worked on his and friend’s vehicles, changing harmonic oscillators, oil and transmission, you name it. And if that weren’ t enough, he fell in love with electronics.
“I got bit by the drone bug while making practical effects squibs and things like that. Most of those movies no one will ever see and no one cares but it led to me building my own drones from the ground up. That led to a brief job at a friend’s LIDAR company, connecting DJI drones to our in-house software, making boutique cables, building chips. It was fun but I’m not suited for that kind of stilted work environment.”
After a stint working at the Liquor Store in Hailey, “I needed to meet people, like.. engage with people outside of paper interviews and, you know, survive, of course.” Frizzell is now going into business with Oddest Jobs serving the Valley.
The website and details are forthcoming but, in the meantime, for any need you may have, he can be contacted at isaiah@woodriverweekly.com
