6. The "plastic" trap: discovering depth in your work

Are you stuck in the cycle of scaling your creative work, but feel like you're compromising on quality? Fear not, we've all been there. This episode is a vibrant exploration of the paradox of wanting to grow without losing the essence of our work. We discuss the allure of 'plasticifying' our endeavors – making them more appealing to the masses – and how we can safeguard our creative integrity. Ever felt trapped in the realm of complexity? It's an alluring place, but sometimes, simplicity delivers elegance and authenticity. We discuss how overcomplicating our lives with material possessions can distract us from what truly matters. Using the example of a movie remake simplified for a mass audience, we delve into the potential drawbacks of plasticity in our creative processes. We’ll also address the challenge of balancing artistic vision with commercial goals, a common quandary for creators. We round up the conversation with a dive into live streaming and its value, especially when compared to traditional newsletters. The spontaneity and real-time connection that come with live streaming can catalyze a unique bond with the audience. Lastly, we discuss the joy of handcrafting unique experiences, embracing minimalism, and reducing complexities. Join us for this enlightening conversation and learn how simplifying your life can sometimes lead to more success. - Ai 

Alex referenced a movie called "THE FOLLOWING" during our conversation, and he meant to say "THE VANISHING" - link below. 

Show Notes:

The Graduate: https://www.criterion.com/films/28578-the-graduate

Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck: https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/classrev/charley.htm

The Vanishing (1993): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vanishing_(1993_film)

The Vanishing (1988): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vanishing_(1988_film) 

Coca-Cola Buys Topo Chico: https://bit.ly/45UR0B6

Fake Plastic Trees by Radiohead: https://youtu.be/n5h0qHwNrHk?si=0vXqkBPG_VRKxQ2U

Van Neistat GoPro Video: https://youtu.be/tPv83XxkrWo?si=VddLvDGgzCsBtw8i

Willem Verbeek Canada Road Trip Video: https://youtu.be/I6ESg2Fdtn4?si=oULCDAZ3YPf3HHQ-

Seinfeld Episode with John Cheever’s Letters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyT3jlANQ_Q

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a rating and/or a review. We read and appreciate all of them. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode.

Links To Everything:

Video Version of The Podcast: https://geni.us/StudioSessionsYT

Matt’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/MatthewOBrienYT

Matt’s 2nd Channel: https://geni.us/PhotoVideosYT

Alex’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/AlexCarterYT

Matt’s Instagram: https://geni.us/MatthewIG

Alex’s Instagram: https://geni.us/AlexIG

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

I just want to say one word to you, just one word. Yes, sir, are you listening? Yes, I am Plastics, exactly. How do you mean? There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it? Yes, I will, I've said it. It has been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.

Alex: 0:39

If you take a photo. You take a photo and you stage the photo and then you tell people that it's not staged and that it's authentic representation of reality. It's bullshit, it's a lie. It's okay if you stage a photo and it's okay if you don't stage a photo. But you can't put a stage photo and try to pass it off. It's not, because then you're inauthentic from the start. So anyways, so we got a lot to talk about. I like the plastic and the losing ourselves topic.

Matt: 1:24

We can dive into that one.

Alex: 1:26

I'm down to diving into that one, if you are. I don't know what my questions are. Maybe to preface, I'll set up a general outline and then I'll just hand it off and see what you think. But you talked about not falling into this trap of doing things because it's necessarily seen as a best practice, or maybe in even better ways, like industrial, like almost. I guess the first thing should be we define what makes a thing plastic versus not plastic, and then we can use that working definition and build from there.

Matt: 2:17

Yeah, the conversation that we were having leading up to this, that word plastic came out in reference to Steinbeck's book that I haven't read but Will, and that was just the way that you said it. And summing up that part of the book or that notion in the book, really, I think it's a good idea to put it in the book.

Matt: 2:46

So I don't forget. Yeah, thank you, and you're rolling on audio, right? Yep, so this book travels with Charlie in search of America, and it's so funny how we just pull in all this stuff into what we're talking about and what we're struggling with. And then we're talking about the fact that you know are what I call extreme concept. You know, like let's, you know what happens if you live stream for 12, you know you're going to live stream until you reach a certain amount of subs or you put yourself in some kind of extreme conditions or you don't eat for 30 days, or you know all this stuff, right. And then also talking about, like the thread boys on Twitter and everybody saying like I grew this channel or I grew this thing or I did this thing here, you know, read my thread to find out how I did it. How I did it, you know.

Alex: 3:47

Follow these six easy steps.

Matt: 3:49

Yeah, and we saw that with, like you know, the real estate gurus back in the day that would like do an infomercial and say you know, follow my simple system and you two can be a millionaire and have and not have to do any work. So I think this you know, so that word plastic, I keep, I've been using up into this point the word playbook, like following the playbook. So I was talking about you got to do a final cut course, you got to do an e-news letter, you got to do this, like there's this playbook, and I just I feel myself with a lot of pushback on that, not to the extent, I think, especially early on as you have, and I don't let me mischaracterize you, but I definitely feel like you're. You're pushing back against something the temptation to plasticify your YouTube channel or your art, your creativity, what your work, the work that you're making, and that's self importance.

Matt: 4:44

Yeah, you know, we're bombarded with advertising and marketing and YouTube and success and videos where people have this and they have that and all this stuff. We have our own pursuits, our own dreams, using money as a tool to you know set in the previous podcast about it just would like to hire a housekeeper to uh who comes once a month or whatever, to help clean things up. You know, and so you know you start thinking about those things and you can give into the temptation to turn the thing that you're making, your work, into a piece of plastic. And that's essentially like you know, plastic to me is you have simplified the form of something down into uh, uh, something that you can stamp. You know form in a mold and a factory and it's a McDonald's production line.

Matt: 5:33

It's a Ford production line, the assembly line a vacation of things and and and the sacrifice you have of quality, and certainly on the flip side you know you have where things are so painstakingly crafted the person can only make one a year and so sort of the world is deprived of this amazing thing because so much time and care and attention goes into making it. Um, is there some middle ground that for the person who has this talent, skill, artistry, craftsmanship, um, artisanship, to make something, um without mass producing it and turning it into this piece of plastic because they want the money, they want to sell volume, they want to whatever?

Alex: 6:14

Yeah, scale. Yeah. You got to do the, you got to scale yeah.

Matt: 6:20

If you're an entrepreneur, you know all this entrepreneur culture, all this stuff, and I can feel myself succumbing to that in certain areas, whether it's sponsored content, um, trying to think about how to increase revenue for my channel, because I think that the money that I make is going to help rescue me from financial issues. All this stuff, and how much are you willing to give up of your artistic creative integrity to plasticify something or turned into a flaming hot Cheetos?

Alex: 6:47

Yes, you know, so that everybody, yeah, yeah, it's attractive.

Matt: 6:52

Um, you know an example here Topo Chico right. This is about as simple as it gets. Great, great, great. Well when I found out that Coke bought them or owned them, well, and I went from this boutique uh, beverage that comes from Mexico, and you know all that stuff to you know, it's just another part of a giant plastic.

Alex: 7:14

Well, Topo Chico is interesting.

Matt: 7:16

I have two examples from, from recent life and not sponsored by Topo Chico, by the way, we wish.

Alex: 7:22

Topo Chico, if you're out there. But yeah, you start to expand and, oh well, we need to do this, we need to do this, we need to. You know, we're going to license this brand out to here, and here you get away from the core or the humanity. Um, another interesting thing we watched this movie the other night, the following so there's a following that came out in like the nineties with Jeff Bridges, and I don't know if you've seen it. Um, it's rough. But so the same director put out a movie a couple of years before and this, you know it's like a subtitle film, but the original one at. You know, it's all no American actors whatever.

Alex: 7:59

Right, and it was amazing. You know, like Roger Ebert, like four to four stars. And it's all the thumbs up. I mean it's, it's, but it's really, in my opinion, um. It's a great movie.

Alex: 8:11

It's we've really enjoyed it. It's, you know, I will definitely revisit it, which says a lot Like, I don't. You know, I only revisit the films I really enjoy, um, but I thought it, we thought it was great, and then we were curious. Okay, so what happened is an American studio saw the success of the film. They bought it Same director, but we're going to, you know, we're going to get our DP in there, we're going to get our sound designer in there, we're going to Jeff Bridges and we're going to have, um, who's the actress from the blindside? Um, sandra Bullock.

Alex: 8:40

Yeah, we're Sandra Bullock and da, da, da, da, da da, and they put this great thing and, okay, they made, they make the American version and it's terrible and they changed the ending completely. Like, abandon the, like the great philosophical conflict or the, you know the conflict of, uh, you know the, the, the whole conflict of the original story and the, the questions that it asked. They Americanify it and they changed the ending because it tested better with audiences and they ruined them. It's going to have more mass appeal.

Alex: 9:10

The whole yeah, and it's awful. It's terrible Endings, terrible. The film itself is to like. It's got that nine early nineties DP lighting feel you know that kind of like cringy, all the the whole thing has like that crappy sound design where it's like, you know, like, uh, um, I call it like it's the I don't know Like think of like a diploma film. Yeah, like there's some great diploma films where I'm just like if he just would have hired a different person to do the score, this would be like a masterpiece. But like some of those, that's personal opinion. Of course some people might enjoy that. But that early nineties score where it's just like oh, you know exactly what we're talking about and added that you know they got their American. This is our guy, this is our DP.

Matt: 9:55

Yeah.

Alex: 9:56

And you know the actors. They rolled out the playbook and they repeated all the lines from the original script, but it didn't have any of the emotion behind it. They ruined. The remake is awful. We still have the original, thankfully, um, but you know that's. They tried to make turn it down the assembly line, that's exactly right.

Alex: 10:15

And they ruined, they took all of the humanity out of it. Yep, and I mean, I've run into this problem too, with some of you know doing certain agency work or things like that, where you know you have this thing that worked when it was done in a, with an artistic intention behind it or whatever. And then you try to recreate it for a brand and you know, get too many cooks in the kitchen and then it doesn't work anymore. Um, so.

Matt: 10:41

So something I think is interesting is we both have two channels, right? Yeah, yeah, we have our main channels that are quote unquote having success, you just got success.

Alex: 10:52

These are different levels.

Matt: 10:54

You reached a milestone that you know. To some people listening may be like no big deal, but you are eligible for monetization on. Youtube. With over a thousand subscribers, 4,000 public watch hours, I've been monetized for a while now 35 years, I mean rather than closing on 27,000 subs. I've done sponsorships, all this stuff right. We both have second channels and both of our second channels at least you know. First of all, I'm not telling really anybody about it. It's ridiculously simple in comparison to the all the production that goes into my main channel, all the edits and tutorials and live streaming.

Matt: 11:35

all this, and this same goes for your second channel, is is almost as simple as it.

Alex: 11:42

Do you think?

Matt: 11:43

that what we're doing is a response to any feelings or fears that our main channels are being consumed by plastic molecules, or that they could be, or that we could give in more. You could give in more to that, and so I need.

Alex: 12:03

I need to think on this, but the first thing that struck me when you said that was complexity.

Matt: 12:07

Yeah.

Alex: 12:08

I think a human tendency is to make things more complex, because I think you know we talked about earlier serving your ego. Yep, I think complexity serves our ego. If it's complex, well, not just anybody can do it. Right, this is special, this is this. You know I'm a plan, this is something only I can do. Complexity serves our identity and that's not like a, you know, a grand realization or anything.

Alex: 12:38

But I think, when you, when you simplify things, when you're not afraid to simplify things, some of the best film or moments of films, some of the best photography, I think it's blatantly obvious, yeah, and it's the greatness of it, is the lack of complexity, right, and there's certainly things that you know have a lot of complexity and and they pull it off. That's certainly. You know, this isn't a blanket statement, but I think a lot of the things that we find most appealing as a species are simple and yet elegant, or simple yet Right. We talked about this a little bit in an earlier episode. But that idea of you know when, when you build something off of intellect, the furthest you can go is the, the max of your intellect, right, when you leave room for, you know, whatever, whatever is out there floating around the ether, when you leave room for that and for for interpretation, suddenly, that you're not capped by your intellect, your everything's open.

Alex: 13:54

And I think sometimes simplicity can it works in favor of that, not, you know, capping yourself with your intellect. And I think you know the plastic I mean, that's, that's kind of what. What maybe it's the plastic is a byproduct of that, or that more plastic feeling. I'm just thinking of the radiohead song, the plastic trees. I think we both love that song, so I think that was almost. That was almost the podcast, yeah. But I think the like, what is things become plastic? It's because we're making them more complicated.

Alex: 14:44

Right, you've got, you've got non GMO crops, right, or organic crops. But then we add pesticides because, oh, we can increase our yields with the pesticides, oh, but then the pesticides are causing a reaction and we're killing off more, so we need to add more pesticides. And then, oh, we need to change the soil composition and you're creating a new problem and you're solving it. And then you're creating a new problem and you're solving it. And then what happens at the end of that is you have a lot of farmers that are just like, yeah, I'm just going to go non, non GMO, because the seeds are cheaper and the yield is. You know, it's pretty, it's fine, and you know, with the taste better, it tastes better.

Alex: 15:22

Yeah, so it's. You know we're just creating I don't know why that was the example, but we're just creating all these new problems and you know we have to solve them and societies go through the same thing, right, right, you're creating all of these new problems and they're completely artificial, yeah, and then, as you're solving the new problems, you're getting so far away from the original spark, the original, you know, light the intention that that you know. You're like, oh, but now you're worried about solving some offset of problems and you're not even focused on the core idea anymore. Yeah, and I think that leads to artificiality or to, you know, things being plastic.

Alex: 15:58

I'd be curious, just going into specific examples, like do you feel like you know you've identified maybe some, some possible, you know some headwinds or some possible problems that could arise if you did things one way on your channel and you're kind of avoiding them? And I'm sure you've identified things that you've already done that you're like I don't want to do that again, you know, why is it the hardest? I guess this is my question. Why is it the hardest? The hardest thing to do is to stare complexity in the face and be like this is not even necessary. Why, why have I created? You know why am I six layers deep on something that was working.

Matt: 16:47

Fine, I think the first word the first word that pops into my head, and especially in the context of me, is impatience.

Matt: 16:54

Yeah, I think you know, I agree that we're drawn sometimes to complexity because it feeds our ego and it makes us to, sort of demonstrates us as having made something or doing something that's unique or one off or whatever. You know, for me, when I look at let's get channel memberships, let's get a course going, let's get the email newsletter, like part of it is that you're bombarded in social media. If you're following, like you know, being a YouTube creator, if you're pursuing photography and you're hearing other photographers talk about what they did to find success or to earn, you know, build revenue, or to get published or whatever, everybody wants to share their experience with how to do this stuff. Because we want, we want to be known, we want to have, you know, a sort of standard definition of success. I find that I am drawn to the playbook because I feel impatience sometimes with not achieving some of my goals, whether it's revenue or vanity metrics and all these things that, on a higher level, I don't want to succumb to but, on a practical level.

Matt: 18:07

I feel so much pressure to do so because I need to get to that point and it's not as much like I mean there is an emotional element to it, but I just look at like what the score is in my life, whether it's how much money I have or retirement savings, or we have an 18 year old car that needs to be replaced or you know all these things, an older house that we had to had a plumber out this past week and it's a whole thing and I have to fix the floor. I just want to call somebody and have it all taken care of, but I can't because I can't afford it.

Matt: 18:38

And so those forces push me towards plastic sometimes, because I'm impatient about those things obstructing what I really want to do with my life and my time. And maybe if I do an e-newsletter and if I get a final cut course and if I do all these things to increase revenue and scale my value proposition, all this stuff, it'll get me to that spot and I feel impatient about it. So for me, I'm just much more susceptible to turning something that maybe was that sort of indie underground band that a few people knew about and loved into you know the arena.

Matt: 19:27

Let's do a tour. Let's go on Senate Live. Let's do a sh-ting on Good Morning America. Let's let the producers and the record company tell us what we need to do. Let's have them do their scientific research and get the focus groups together and like get the next album out so that we can sell 40 million copies and dethrone whatever artist has the most album sales in the US in a two-week span. Whatever it is, you know what I mean. Like oh shit, well, that shit.

Alex: 19:57

My question. Then that came up while you were saying that would be, I'm not going to do that again. So you named all of these things.

Alex: 20:07

Like you know, the house, the house needs repairs or it's getting old, the car is getting old and it's like how much of these things are also kind of artificial complexities that we've created for it because I noticed myself doing this, where, if I've had, you know, a relatively good couple of weeks and I'm like caught up on things and I feel like I'm in a good place with all of these things and I'll invent problems, sure, oh well, now I can fix this, now I can do this. Or, like I've been wanting to, you know, fix this for a while. Or you know we're going to Okay, well, we'll do that. You're creating new voids to fill, because we're almost more addicted to that process of filling these voids and create. Like you have to create the void to fill a void, right, and you get almost more addicted to that process than you know. Imagine if the home thing, for example, like you know, there's times when I'm like, oh man, I wish, you know, I just wish we like had a house that we loved and it was just out and we owned it and like had a space. And then I'm like you have a great space, absolutely. Just shut up and appreciate what you have. Like you know, you never know if you're going to have tomorrow, so just sit here and appreciate it. Like stop creating new problems.

Alex: 21:27

And then you create a new problem and I do it myself and I'm wondering what your thoughts on like do you think some of those things are artificial kind of creations? You know, like, oh man, we got to repair the house, we got to get the bathroom fixed. It's like, is it the most aesthetic? So like, the other day we took the Lexus on a trip and our dashboard has like like little micro cracks in it because there was a recall and it wasn't replaced. Like I want to replace the interior and like the seats or like the leather's a little worn and stuff, and so I'm like, oh you know, I just want to get the interior redone.

Alex: 22:05

And then I'm driving it the other day and I'm like this is a car that you've wanted for, you know, forever. You got this. And like this is a car that you fully intend on keeping like as long as you possibly can. And you're, you have this amazing ability to do all this stuff with it. And like it's great and you're finding something wrong with it. You're finding a flaw that is completely superficial and surface level and then you're inflating it to be this larger problem than it is. And I caught myself in that and I was like I was afraid, I was embarrassed to have that, but we do it all the time and that was the first thing that came to mind when you were going down. That list is like do you feel those things are artificial? And then if they are like, so does that change the relationship to them? Should we try to look past those things and just focus on you know, the work or what's?

Matt: 23:01

the well, I think you know culturally. I think the first thing I'm thinking about when you're saying all that stuff is you know all the minimalism movement, you know simplification, you know I'm thinking just now visually in my home. You know the way it was when we moved in, versus how much crap is in there. Now that we have two kids, which you know creates complexity.

Matt: 23:27

Creates a lot of complexity. Yeah, and then all the stuff, the tools you need to have kids, all the toys they get because of birthday parties and Christmas. I was just at the container store and I'm walking around going. Look at all these tools that people spend money on to store their crap.

Matt: 23:43

And I was there to buy these little plastic trays to put in my refrigerator to store all my film. Because I want my film separated by its own little category and I think I'm simplifying things, but I'm like well, no, now I'm thinking about, I'm adding, exploring this new component of the art form of photography is. You know, am I drawn to it? Partially because of the complexity you gotta have film, you gotta send it off and develop Makes me think of those like here's your workflow optimization da, da, da, and it's like.

Alex: 24:14

All you do is these 20 steps and it'll make your workflow easier than ever. Or I could just write ideas down in a piece of paper and that's it. That's the end.

Matt: 24:24

I went into my garage this weekend looking for scrap wood, because I have all this scrap wood stored and I said to myself I just need to get rid of all this stuff, but then part of you goes yeah, but I might need it sometime. I'm gonna build something here To help make this thing I'm making more complex, more complex, but in my mind I think for example, what if I need to upgrade my desk?

Matt: 24:43

Yeah, so I got some scrap wood out and I fabricated a little shelf, kind of like yours, but about half is deep, and I ran it across the wall behind my desk in my studio and so I could put all of the cameras.

Matt: 24:58

I'm acquiring and you know, of course, all of those cameras is getting ridiculous and out of hand and you need more stuff to manage all that. And I have multiple workstations one for live streaming, one for this. The other day I was like God managing all the software for all like updates across all these computers. That's paying the butt. All the batteries from all the digital cameras. I'm just sitting here going. What are you doing?

Alex: 25:25

dude, what's going on, man?

Matt: 25:26

What are you doing, like your pursuit of all this stuff? Yeah, like, does that addition of complexity push you towards plastic? Because you have to acquire the financial resources to manage all that complexity that you could argue 90% of it is completely unnecessary.

Alex: 25:48

And you can also argue like, well, the shelf is gonna add some character to the space, and now it's more yours and that's less plastic. You know, that's an argument that I think is a valid one, but at the end of the day, yeah, you know what I love? You know, I painted my thing red. So it's this electronic typewriter and or word processor, and it was black and I painted it red and it took me like an afternoon to do. And I'm sitting here and I didn't write that day, ironically, right. And I'm sitting here and I'm like, well, this is so great. Now you have this object, this red typewriter, and I'm like, or you could have just taken the five hours that you took to paint this and finished like a scene or two, or you could have, you know, you could have banged out half a chapter or whatever. You know, you could have done some, you could have made something. So, and it feels good to make things like that with your hands.

Alex: 26:49

It really is, and I think there's something to be said for the therapeutic process and things like that. But the Van Nijstab video last week I don't know if you saw it, but you got this camera right. Yeah, did you watch?

Matt: 27:00

that no.

Alex: 27:01

So I this is, this is fantastic. I recommend anybody listening go check it out. But he gets this GoPro and he wanted to attach a separate lens to it because he couldn't you know, the focus was crap and like it was too wide. So he gets this adapter for the GoPro lens and he builds this setup and you know he spends I think he spent like $3,200 on it and you know it takes multiple lenses and you can zoom in. It's all manual and it's just this beautiful creation, right.

Matt: 27:33

Yeah.

Alex: 27:34

And he's like he's. I feel like I just spent $3,200 to make a more fragile version of my DSLR.

Matt: 27:43

Exactly.

Alex: 27:44

And then you know he does. He has this conclusion where he's like but anything that's crazy should be pursued. Yeah, and I know we're getting a little away from the plastic and I'm sure we'll wrap it back, but it reminded me of the black magic, right? I got that. I'm like, oh my God, this and this and this and it's like you do all this crap and you're like this camera's 15 years old. Yeah. And I just spent yeah, I spent like $2,500 on getting it to the point I wanted it to be at. Right.

Alex: 28:13

But it has a character to it, right? Yeah, so you know it's interesting. And I think, if anything, what I'm getting, you know, going through these, and these are just firsthand as they come to the head but maybe complexity isn't necessarily a prerequisite to plastic, maybe complexity is just something that is present in plastic things and in things that, because you know there's a lot of complexity of making a handmade leather bag Right, absolutely so well, and I mean, like you know, coke is a complex ecosystem right.

Matt: 28:50

Coca-Cola, and they have to turn more profit, turn more profit, turn more profit. There's always pressure to do that, and so they have to acquire companies and invent new products and all this stuff. And does you know the complexity of that system of having to, you know, be profitable and make more, and you know, sell more and all that stuff you know.

Matt: 29:08

Fuel them to you know. Continue to pursue plastic scalability acquiring companies. Hey, the clear glass is five cents more a bottle to produce. We can use this cheaper green tinted glass and save well $2 million a year.

Alex: 29:24

The green is superior. So if that's the case, Coca-Cola, just do the green.

Matt: 29:29

Or so yeah and I. So the thought really is just it's funny because we've gone in a circle, because, well, we were also talking about Willem Burbeque earlier and I was remarking on his latest video and how he said that we got to stop dating our podcast so much.

Alex: 29:46

It's a habit we've gotten into, but I just I'm like the van video and you're like the.

Matt: 29:53

He went on a trip to buy a car up in Canada and then they drove it back and he shot one roll of film the whole nine day trip. And you know he's, you know, found that odd because you know before he would look at every opportunity he could to take as many photos because it's going to be a video on his channel and help move him forward with subscribers revenue whatever.

Matt: 30:14

And what I thought was interesting was he's gotten to this point where, whether his revenue is solid, he's good. You know, maybe he has some financial security. Whatever it is, he's simplifying things by not looking at every single thing he does out there, uncomplexifying it.

Alex: 30:32

Yeah, simplifying it or driven by incentives. Yeah, like specific incentives. I mean, I guess revenue is the incentive and what sucks is I sit there and I look at that.

Matt: 30:43

My first thought is what do I need to do? To plasticify my shit so that I can get to the point where I can undo it, yeah, where the financial aspect that you know, whatever, whether it's real or an illusion, I think if I get there, then I can really do what I want to do. And so that comes full circle to the second channel. Yeah, which is my way of doing that.

Speaker 1: 31:09

On the side and still having it, and still having it.

Matt: 31:12

Whereas I just want the you know, want the one thing to just be the simple thing that I make that keeps the finances and all those things taken care of.

Alex: 31:24

but I am not succumbing to the plasticification of the whole thing and you could even argue that and I mean, you know if if Willems listening. I made a comment after Matt mentioned that I hate when I'm like if someone says listening when they're definitely not listening. But no, I mean, I I've been following his stuff just since, you know, early film, YouTube days.

Matt: 31:51

Yeah.

Alex: 31:52

And I think he's creating the best work he's ever, he's ever made, and I mean that's only from what I can see that he's shared Right. But he really has identified a voice and you could almost argue that's the beautiful paradox of the whole, the whole question of you know what makes something plastic, what doesn't is. You could argue that he has assembly lined his channel a little bit.

Alex: 32:15

You know he's got the beats that he's going to hit in each video and I'm not saying it's not loaded with, like him and his personality, his voice yeah, it's got his voice, but and maybe that's why the work has gotten so much better is because, like, he started to put his voice and his you know less assembly minded, assembly line minded, you know ideas, into that, into the work, and then he's using this as a support mechanism for that work. What's?

Matt: 32:41

fascinating is you haven't watched his latest video and I have, yeah, so you're essentially pointing out what he talks about in the video, which is that he's he's saying in the video so much of my work was taking these little road trips and taking photographs to serve the channel which I would argue is plastic, right yeah.

Alex: 33:03

And not necessarily full blown, but there's like a.

Matt: 33:05

there's the some of the motivation behind it is what we're talking about when we say the word plastic, whereas now he's starting to be more intentional. He says in the video how he's thinking of things more in terms of a project. Yeah, and he's. It seems to be more connected to the craft, his vision, his artistic thoughts, feelings, beliefs, the stuff he's really drawn to, and it's more. It's more about that now. It's not about the frequency of uploads. It's not about eight videos a month. It's not about go take photos of mountain landscapes on a quick little road trip for the weekend, cause I got to turn out another video, cause I got to get to this subscriber count or I got to get to this level of revenue or whatever. So all of that has like chilled out.

Alex: 33:50

It's. It's really interesting and that's what I want. The words got better.

Matt: 33:53

I sit there and I think I go, I want, if I can get to a point where this foundation is there, then I can really do the stuff that I think is good.

Alex: 34:03

It's interesting cause, yeah, I think you know we you and I both want the same goal, and he's somebody who's seemingly achieved that goal, and it's um, we're approaching it from the opposite direction in a way.

Alex: 34:17

Um, but I look at that and, um, you know, that was something that I'm not. I don't want to like, act like. I'm trying to draw a comparison between you know, um, my work and, um, his work. But I, I made a couple of those videos where it's like, you know, you're going out and you're shooting or you're you're the work, is the, the thing of the? And the thing like I was trying to demonstrate is like, oh, this is a process, it's about attrition, it's about, you know, constantly approaching it, having an idea of what you want, and going out and you know working towards that, um, but it's very hard when the subject of your channel is the is is the work, um, and I think it's almost better to let the work be itself in.

Alex: 35:01

The channel needs to serve a different purpose.

Matt: 35:04

Yeah.

Alex: 35:05

Uh, or, you know, the channel, the outlet, whatever the public facing, if there is a public facing, and that's why some I think so many great artists don't have any public facing, because it's very it's. It's a just a difficult thing to do.

Alex: 35:20

Yeah you're either focused on the work or you're focused on something else and usually, if the work is of importance to you, then everything else feels superficial, right, and it's a hard line to walk and I think if there's any pushback I have to the whole creator movement of like, oh, you can support yourself and you know you don't have to rely on any kind of anything and you'll support yourself fully off your work. Youtube it's this great thing, yeah, yeah, whatever, and it's. But the work, even if it doesn't appear that this is happening, the work is going to suffer. Yes, because it's not the primary focus. There is either the attention split, which is fine you know there's a lot of great artists that have hobbies that they're really into or, like they're have other things going on families, etc. But either the attention, when the topic of the channel and I'm rambling, but the topic of the channel is the work that you're creating, then the work that you're creating is incentivized by the channel.

Alex: 36:20

In some ways and that's a dirty incentive that might not be easy to recognize, but it's always. It's ever present.

Matt: 36:28

Yeah, and it's just the fact that it's a channel, there's an element of commerce. I mean, there's there's no doubt that that the creation of it and not that everybody who creates a YouTube channel is is sort of motivated by the commerce side of it like my goals to get this monetized. You know like I'm going to do the playbook monetize, get to subscribe e newsletter. You know, have an online store of all this stuff. You know like go through the process of building out my, my business, in a sense.

Alex: 36:59

How many e newsletters do we need?

Matt: 37:04

That's a, that's a joke, but at the same time, yeah, I've had friends that are doing YouTube and they have a newsletter and they talk about you know how much it has helped them with revenue and connecting with their audience and all that, and I just can't do it.

Alex: 37:19

I'm not opposed to it. I'm sorry, but your newsletter is not the best newsletter.

Matt: 37:23

Yeah, so so my form, I form.

Alex: 37:26

I've wanted to do a newsletter too, and if, if I ever, you know, had the the, the only idea that I've ever felt like it is actually sustainable is just, you know, here's three things I found interesting this week, whether it's a quote, a video song, and just kind of like our text threads yeah, where it's hey, dude, check out this podcast. Yeah, hey, like great 1974 country music song that I found.

Matt: 37:50

So you know what my newsletter is. It's a weekly live stream. Yeah, it doesn't function the same or it doesn't sort of get the same result. Yeah, in the sense of you know if, like you, some people talk about using your newsletter and if you have, like digital products or something you know, you can run a sale or a promotion just for your newsletter recipients, whatever and those convert sales really well. You know all this revenue talk and all the revenues right.

Matt: 38:20

You know, the thing I like about newsletters is when the source actually provides me with information, recommendations, something of value. Now I'll admit almost I would say probably 95% of the newsletters that I have not unsubscribed from I almost delete reflexively without doing reading and even reading the body of the Audrey knows I have a quarterly purge, purge, purge, yep, yep.

Alex: 38:47

Where in purge?

Matt: 38:47

a week.

Alex: 38:48

simplification week, yeah, no, absolutely, and so my email inbox is you know it used to be crazy and Audrey's is hectic, but my inbox I reeled it in a couple of years ago and I've managed to like maintain it. It's pretty well. You know, I don't have a lot of just shit sitting there, yeah.

Alex: 39:08

But, yeah, we have purge, purge week and she knows about it. About this point, it's Christmas and Black Friday, my favorite holidays, because everybody sends their newsletter and you're like, oh, got unsubscribed from that one like and no, I mean there's, you know, there's a couple of things that reach my inbox, yes, and most of it you know. Once that purge week hits, it's see you later, pal, get it out of here.

Matt: 39:31

So so I make the live stream because when I think about it I'm like it's a Final Cut Pro tip of the day. It's the direct. The videos that I've watched on YouTube that you know often are some related to Final Cut, some that are a lot less intrusive. Yeah, and it's. These are the recommendations I have. And then a core topic like today was you know, did the Final Cut Pro 10.6.8 update fix all the problems with the 10.67 update that caused so many issues for two weeks straight?

Alex: 39:59

Yeah. And I brought a guest on Well so I love that because you almost have it's a lot like the show right? You're just sitting down and here's what's on my mind.

Matt: 40:11

And here's the beauty of it right the live stream and this podcast versus a newsletter or some other, I don't know, digitally tangible thing. Yeah, like a newsletter takes a product A shitload, more time to put together. Yeah, then me doing a live stream Now I sit down in the morning.

Alex: 40:37

Some people are listening. They're like, yeah, we can tell it takes a lot more time than it takes you guys, I can't accept this podcast.

Matt: 40:43

But for my live stream I make a thumbnail. I I know that, I know the format, I know, I know what my tip is, I know, um, now I put a lot of work into the whole live streams, you know. So like, there's a bunch of work, oh, yeah, once you do all that upfront work well, and maybe you could argue that with the newsletter as well. But yeah. I don't know, the live stream to me is my newsletter and then a podcast. The same thing.

Alex: 41:04

Well, even with this, like we put in weeks, months, you know if you go from initial concept to when we actually started executing post production on it and then post production, there's a video element.

Matt: 41:16

Yeah, and I mean recording right.

Alex: 41:17

We've, we've slimmed those down, but yeah, I mean we put in a lot of intelligence a lot of AI shops. We put in a lot of you know, we've laid a lot of groundwork, yeah, and all of that was and yeah, you can make it with, but I think there's something to that.

Matt: 41:36

And I think too, if I sit down and think about I gotta put together this week's newsletter together, or if I were to do them in bulk, like I'm gonna just do like six, eight of them, whatever, yeah, I'm like the emotional labor involved is so but to do a live stream. I'm pumped to do it. I love live streaming and I love doing this.

Alex: 41:53

Now.

Matt: 41:54

I'm, at least so far in the it's cake for me to do this, because I'm sure your house for two to three hours and you're very gracious with handling the post on it. The post does not take a long time which?

Alex: 42:07

is great. Yeah, we split everything kind of down the middle and, yeah, the post is, it's not bad. I think there's something to that. It's, at the end of the day, it shouldn't. I think the thing of this podcast, just like we were talking about, we didn't want it to feel plastic, you know. We didn't want it to feel like okay now welcome to segment three hey, everyone, welcome.

Matt: 42:33

it's Matt and Alex and the intro you know.

Alex: 42:36

Here's exactly like oh, we only got five minutes to talk about this, right?

Matt: 42:39

okay, we gotta wrap that up because we gotta move to the next segment.

Alex: 42:41

Yeah, and you know we're trying to. We keep it on paves, we're getting better at our timing and things like that. There is there's elements to it that follow a format, but I mean the first thing we said like we didn't get to record an episode last week because Matt had some. You know there was a little bug that struck his household. And so we didn't get to record, and the first thing we said today is like man, it's good to see.

Alex: 43:12

I mean, we talked for three hours before we even got in the room to record not three hours, but I mean we sat on the porch and talked, for you know an hour and a half two hours.

Matt: 43:22

So so it's, we can cover three hours worth of it, if you think that this is off the wall it's just I hate exactly no, there was.

Alex: 43:31

we were just happy and excited to do it and it just at this point it feels like a just a necessary part of the routine.

Matt: 43:39

And I think that's.

Matt: 43:41

It's gotta feel like a necessary part of the routine, there's value in it, there's fulfillment from it, there's connection. I mean all these things. And I think about some of these, these ingredients from the playbook, like, again, an E newsletter and I'm not trying to, you know this is very subjective, it is I just don't have, I'm not drawn to a newsletter. I'm not, I don't. I don't find a lot of value in the ones that I receive. I know that the people that send them put a lot of work in. You know there's thought. I can see that they're well made, but it's just I'm not drawn to it and that's okay. Like, this is the problem with the plastic that's out there on Twitter and all this. The Thread Boys and the do this and these six steps and all this shit. It just puts all this pressure constant. You create the pressure in a sense, but it just puts this thing on you. For those listening, I'm gesturing with my hand to like showing like something just bombarding me with.

Alex: 44:38

It's a weight that you have to carry at all times.

Matt: 44:39

Yeah, it's like I, just you know you're going like I don't have a cook course, I don't have an E newsletter, like I'm not doing it right, and if I'm frustrated with not being there yet it's because I'm not doing the playbook and I just I hate that all that stuff takes you away from the center of it all, which, to me, is going out and making work.

Matt: 45:04

And then sharing it and that stuff happens. Maybe it doesn't happen as quickly as if you did it the playbook way, but the connection to your audience might be more authentic the people that are actually consuming what you make are like a truer connection to what you're trying to do.

Alex: 45:21

And those and the thing. The thing is, first of all, long-term, that's much more sustainable.

Matt: 45:26

Yeah.

Alex: 45:27

Because you're creating real relationships, You're not creating some artifice and but I need to build more shelves now.

Alex: 45:33

Well, second of all, there's, when you were saying that, something came to my mind the that Steve Jobs quote where he talks about everything in the world was invented by people not that much smarter than you. It's like he's like when you poke in, something comes out and you're like that embodies. You know, all of these playbooks, we're just, they're just structures that were created by other people. Yeah, and yes, some of them are because of best practices, but nothing in the universe says that that is the only way to do anything, and a lot of times when you try to follow somebody else's playbook, it does come off as artificial. You know, we we talked a little bit about politicians and that's one of the biggest problems with a lot of politicians these days is it's just well, here's the beats, gotta hit the beats, gotta have this, gotta have this. Oh, you didn't get this, so you didn't do this and nobody's just willing to. You know, have a conversation or whatever, and it you know.

Alex: 46:31

So then what happens? People disconnect and you see that with music all the time, right, you know, you gotta have the beat you gotta have. Do you have a sad song on your album? Put the sad song and he's track number. Track number six upbeat song at number four transition. You know, and then it's gonna go and we need to fight back, we don't need to do anything, but I think it's worthy. It's a worthy cause to fight back against that and to push back against, you know, recipes predetermined because there's infinite ways to do anything, and the only way you're gonna figure out a different way is to do things a different way.

Matt: 47:12

Well, in, in, in, in, bucking that you know, like, like when you were saying that I'm thinking, you know, of course I've really gone all in on, like photography, youtube and watching lots of videos and I'm not necessarily and I'm already seeing myself seeing stuff in my feed that are like how to get assignment work for publications, how to sequence your images in a gallery, you know like speaking of recipes and I just, and you start, it inspires you in a sense, and that's not necessarily in a good way, but I sit there and I go okay, well, how do I get a website where I can showcase some of the work that I've done?

Matt: 47:51

because I wouldn't hate if the world herald or you know a magazine contacted me because they, like, they need a photographer in Omaha to cover this thing and they saw my YouTube channel and my work on the website and they want me to go do it, you know. So how do I figure out what the get assignment work playbook is.

Alex: 48:10

You know what we should do. You know, and this this is just an idea that came to me we should do a show. So there's a gallery in Omaha that you can rent out, yeah, and you can do a show, and just you get one side of the gallery. I'll go.

Speaker 1: 48:25

So, funny enough the meeting that we're trying to have with Chris and Dan Dan from Lumen.

Matt: 48:32

He on his website and I don't know if it's there yet, but his concept for his brewery is part brewery, part gallery, artist space, because he's a photography background. And the first thing I thought about when I read it on the website was me and Alex putting our photos there.

Alex: 48:48

I mean, I think, and maybe it's just inspired by the rhetoric of this episode, but we just there are. No, you don't want to have a name, and here's the program. Yeah, let's just pick some photos that we enjoy and display them.

Matt: 49:07

Yeah.

Alex: 49:07

And hold a showing and have people together that we care about and there's food or drinks or whatever and maybe just have a conversation about the process of creating the work where it's not. I don't know, this is super novel idea, but no, that's the first thought that comes to mind. It's, I think, one of my favorite things, and I tell Audrey this all the time. I'm like, hey, vote with your dollar, you play within the rulebook that's made. And whenever we have the chance, I'm like vote with your dollar, and if you don't support something, don't support it. And if you do do and I know you and I feel that way about supporting local businesses and stuff.

Matt: 49:50

Absolutely. Vote with your dollars, 100% do.

Alex: 49:52

Vote within. Sometimes, voting with your dollar is not the most convenient thing, but the same goes for YouTube. Like when I'm putting up a video and I'm like I got a perfect caption for this and it would probably do well, and then I'm like you just got to sometimes be like, I know, but this is not Vote with your dollar and you be the change you want to see in the world. It's something as silly as YouTube, photography channels or whatever, but I think it's got to apply to the small stuff, to apply to the big stuff and just be demonstrate what you want to get. You should expect from others what you give to others, that kind of thing, and that's just, I think, the best way to look at it. I do have an idea about a newsletter, though, that I wanted to do with the channel. I haven't done it yet. By the way, subscribe to our podcast Newslet Now.

Matt: 50:49

That's right, I know.

Alex: 50:52

I wanted to do a once a month. I collect all of these things and this is so stupid and this.

Matt: 51:01

In plastic.

Alex: 51:02

Well, I wanted to type it out on the typewriter.

Matt: 51:04

I thought it was so funny and I wanted to mail it to people.

Alex: 51:07

And I wanted to do. If there were videos that I found were cool, I literally wanted to print it out on that printer, cut out the QR code and then scan the whole thing and print out like 40 copies. You get some cool paper. It's so funny. Put them in envelopes. I already have this.

Matt: 51:21

I literally bought a stamp for it, and I had a very similar thought yesterday, where I said to myself maybe we should try this on our channels and just see how it. I'm emailing with my grandma.

Alex: 51:34

Yeah.

Matt: 51:34

And I'm like how cool would it be to get a typewriter and send her instead of just emailing her?

Alex: 51:39

Yeah, I started reading all of these. There's so many authors that have. Steinbeck has one where it's a collection of letters. There's Fitzgerald has one, hunter Thompson has one. There's tons of authors that have American authors that I hold.

Matt: 52:01

Is it like a famous one? Because a Seinfeld? Maybe like John Cheever's letters, yeah, yeah.

Alex: 52:08

No, but you can read through these letters. Most of it's just correspondences with their parents or their friends and things like that, and part of what that's how I feel about these podcasts. These are like our letters, right, we're just waxing about something and then you change topics and it doesn't have a strict format. But I do like the idea if there was some way and I know people just do it with an email Like that's a lot more, but no, there's just something.

Alex: 52:32

I typed my mom a letter last year and I typed it out and I sent it to her and then she hand wrote me a letter back.

Matt: 52:37

Right.

Alex: 52:37

And I have it like man. I have this forever. This is my mom's thoughts right now. She hand wrote me like a two-page letter. I typed her like a two-page letter too. We just didn't continue that and I'm like this is so cool, so something about this yeah, it's hipster.

Matt: 52:53

Totally. But we, I think we're just drawn to what's the different way of doing it.

Alex: 52:59

That just and isn't that funny, everybody was. Their mailbox was crowded back in Like 90, 2000s, and now we're circling back. I think it might be cool to send a paper letter.

Matt: 53:11

Yeah, but yeah, yeah, yeah, they would love to explore something like that and just have conversations around finding.

Alex: 53:21

And that's asking a lot of trust. You're asking people, but you don't have to send like name and address. No or just send a pseudonym and then your address.

Matt: 53:29

Right.

Alex: 53:29

Or whatever. And yeah, mail letters and I think you'd have to protect it.

Matt: 53:37

You don't want to, obviously, incorporate your address onto it and make that public information, but I don't know, I don't know, it'd be cool, yeah, yeah.

Alex: 53:47

A stamp costs 50 cents. Right, you're going to pay more for an email list, but you could just ask people to send you addresses and put it in an Excel doc. And is that the most scalable thing?

Matt: 54:00

No, it's not, it's the opposite.

Alex: 54:02

But you know what Cap it We've got? We've got a 400-person mailing list at most, or whatever.

Matt: 54:07

Yeah, or you know again, not plastic, but like certain I don't know like you subscribe at a certain time or you, I don't know, there's some qualification or whatever that gets that. It doesn't have to be money, they're paying some premium.

Alex: 54:26

Yeah, I don't think it should cost anything.

Matt: 54:28

I mean if it does.

Alex: 54:29

It literally costs the price of a, or you can select Like you do do an e-newsletter.

Matt: 54:33

But there's 10 people that get the physical mail.

Alex: 54:37

Well, I mean and I'm like first of all, how much fun is that to you type it out.

Matt: 54:42

Yeah.

Alex: 54:43

And it's got grammatical mistakes.

Matt: 54:44

Whatever, you could go through it and cross it out. You can correct it with a pen.

Alex: 54:47

Yeah, and then you find these QR codes or whatever this music that you like and you can write it in. Yeah, you can cut out the QR codes and put it in there and tape it in, and then you scan the whole thing and yeah it's not the direct contact print of your type out, but it's its own thing that was handcrafted.

Matt: 55:05

Yeah, yep.

Alex: 55:06

I just think that that's a cool concept that I might like to explore more, but we'll see.

Matt: 55:15

Yeah, and I think those conversations around and this goes back to what I've been talking about with some One of the partnerships that I'm trying to work on with my channel is how do we do this differently than what we're seeing in the playbook and all this stuff and I think, that's part of why I'm drawn towards that.

Alex: 55:32

The illusion of financial freedom or financial security is like I just want to throw all of that stuff out the window and just do it how I feel like doing it, and I just have this odd feeling that the ironic part of that, or the irony of the whole bit, is that when you do start to throw that playbook out is when the biggest success starts to work in, and it takes time to discover the playbook itself and to start pushing back against it.

Matt: 56:01

Yeah, and sometimes you need to go all in on it to reject it and get back to Get back to the pendulum, go all the way into complexity to figure out that you had it right To start, and I think that that is a natural reaction why we see people move towards minimalism. I applaud you for simplifying your cameras and we talked about this the other day that you're like three which some people could argue that's ridiculous.

Alex: 56:24

Yeah yeah, you could have two. Realistically they should be two.

Alex: 56:27

Yeah Right, but it's also hard to give up a Leica that you've owned and invested in Well and that's the biggest thing is, I mean, the only reason that I bought the, the, the third camera that shall not be named here, yeah, was to, because the second camera that shall not be named was in the shop, yeah, and I was like, oh, I just want to have this experience. I know this is the way I look at experiences. My life philosophy at this current moment is that experiences can never be found in a different way and not in a new way. We've had a lot going on in that way, so it's a lot of people are like man, I can't, eventually I'm going to remodel my basement and it's going to be great, or I'm, eventually I'm going to do this.

Alex: 57:09

If there's nothing that was going to put you in a long term, permanent disadvantage, do it now. You know, just get it out of the way and start a free enjoying it, which is, you know, that's in paradox, the feelings that I expressed at the beginning of the podcast, where I'm value from aesthetic beauty around me, and you know, the cameras are something that I get a lot of joy from, right, I get just as much joy from, you know, the selecting a coffee cup in the morning, which one I'm going to drink out of. But, um, I like to index heavily on those things that I do get joy from, because you know we're not promised anything and you just got to take advantage of that.

Matt: 57:45

I think that's part of why I'm you know, there's two reasons, but I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, very early on in film photography, specifically in the second channel. But I am very much looking at and buying cameras that are inexpensive, some that maybe are sort of inexpensive in the larger context of how much a very expensive camera can cost. But you know, a hundred dollars from a 1983 point and shoot, you know, and the collection is getting big.

Matt: 58:12

Yeah, it's getting part of that is the concept behind my channel is I'm going to rotate through a lot of different cameras as as part of of the different photo videos that I make, because not only do I want to experience you know what it is to use them, especially the film cameras, because they're not as nuanced as a digital camera and the menu systems and the this and the that, but eventually I know the pendulum will swing back and there'll be a point where I'm like I'm tired of sourcing all these different cameras will my.

Matt: 58:47

Is that a such a character in my channel that my audience is going to be upset? If I simplify, and use two, three cameras. And that's it, because it's about the photograph, not the tool anyway. So yeah, finding Kevin Walker at Walker Repair is awesome and horrible at the same time.

Alex: 59:06

Hey, just like I can buy all of these cameras, so I'll tell you a quick story.

Matt: 59:09

I went, I went, I took this, um, the Canon Shure Shot line. There's three from the early 80s that have this like sort of black, clunky, retro, like cool look to it, my really drawn to the design of them. And I have the third one, the last one, uh, that I bought first but the batteries had corroded, whatever. I got a second one on Facebook marketplace, the middle one that was made. So I took the, the one I had into Kevin and I'm like, can you fix this? He's like I'll take a look.

Matt: 59:36

Well, he ended up taking a bunch of them that he had, taking all the best parts from all of them to build one super camera that works and, of course, when I walk in to pick it up, because he's done doing the repair work, the first one in the series of those early Shure Shots is sitting on the counter and I'm like where did this come from? And he's like a customer just brought it in and I bought it from him. I'm like how much and he's like 60 bucks. I'm like sold.

Alex: 1:00:00

Unfortunately that's right within my price range so anyway, just so, I have quite a few cameras so we're just gonna get giveaways, like massive giveaways when you hit that pendulum swing point.

Matt: 1:00:12

Yeah, stay tuned it'll be giveaways or I'll. You know there some of them. It just aren't. You know, 60 bucks, 40 bucks is it even worth it to to sell it? I almost would rather see it in the hands of someone that, like, was really excited about that camera or was gonna use it one of my favorite.

Alex: 1:00:27

I gave away film earlier this year to celebrate. Was it like it might have been like a thousand subscribers or something? Yeah, I gave away film, though, and the person messaged me and we had a like a brief conversation, but it was one of my favorite things. I want to do more giveaways.

Matt: 1:00:42

I feel like that's what film did you give?

Alex: 1:00:43

away. I just gave like a pack of portrait, for it was like 120 portrait, 400 yep, which I guess is like gold now.

Matt: 1:00:51

But yeah, but yeah, I think we did a good job uh we stayed to that. Yeah, we went off and on and all but so the last thing on plastics it popped in my head earlier was you know the line from the graduate where you know he's talking to the older gentleman at the pool party or whatever and he says one word or I can't remember the line, but he goes plastics and it's been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.