We're not just here to share our journey, we're also on a mission. We aim to build a community of like-minded individuals, a space where authentic conversations spark creativity and inspiration. Our dialogues energize us, and we want to pass that energy onto you, our listeners. The podcast serves as a platform to document our thoughts and inspire others with them. So, let's navigate this exciting path of creating, sharing, and growing together.
In the realm of creativity, we're constantly stepping out of our comfort zones and embracing the ever-changing flux of ideas. From spontaneous trips that have led to unforgettable moments, to the thrill of unplanned adventures, we're constantly seeking inspiration from the world around us. We discuss the magic of surrendering to chaos, exploring new perspectives, and finding inspiration in the everyday. So, hop in for this thrilling ride as we navigate through chaos, find beauty in the unexpected, and cherish the extraordinary in the ordinary. Join us as we embark on this creative journey, filled with spontaneity, unexpected twists, and precious memories.
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
We're not just here to share our journey, we're also on a mission. We aim to build a community of like-minded individuals, a space where authentic conversations spark creativity and inspiration. Our dialogues energize us, and we want to pass that energy onto you, our listeners. The podcast serves as a platform to document our thoughts and inspire others with them. So, let's navigate this exciting path of creating, sharing, and growing together.
In the realm of creativity, we're constantly stepping out of our comfort zones and embracing the ever-changing flux of ideas. From spontaneous trips that have led to unforgettable moments, to the thrill of unplanned adventures, we're constantly seeking inspiration from the world around us. We discuss the magic of surrendering to chaos, exploring new perspectives, and finding inspiration in the everyday. So, hop in for this thrilling ride as we navigate through chaos, find beauty in the unexpected, and cherish the extraordinary in the ordinary. Join us as we embark on this creative journey, filled with spontaneity, unexpected twists, and precious memories.
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
And it's been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer and summer.
Speaker 2:And it's you're going to fall back on that, but that's easily breakable.
Speaker 1:I want to think you play more short term. You think you're short term thinking, like I'm going to. You know, like us, if we just did this podcast and released 10 episodes and like we got 30 subscribers and the video that did the best was like 120 views and we were like you know this, this is a waste of time, we're not. We're not getting the results that we want.
Speaker 1:You know, I think that's a clear indicator that you know you're trying to win the water, you're trying to, you're trying to, you're hanging your hat on again vanity metrics and and all that stuff and stuff is stuff's a slog man, it's a slog, it's not easy and I like the.
Speaker 2:The loudest people are the ones that you know they get the lucky lottery ticket and they go tell everybody how lucky they were, that they got the. And then everybody, instead of thinking like that was a lottery ticket, they're like, oh, I need to go buy more scratch offs. This is the way and you know you grow your whole life. I'm searching for that scratch off and you might hit it but like, even if you do like great, you're okay. Right, you still have any meaning behind it.
Speaker 1:There's nothing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think, um, I kind of want to talk a little bit about what we, what we discussed earlier in in regard to why we're doing this and then and you mean this, this podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like this, this podcast. So I guess for for viewers, you know we've we've done about 10 episodes.
Speaker 1:We filmed 10 episodes and at this point, three have been released.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I mean, do you want to kind of give the the the lead in as to what, maybe what's shaping our, our thinking right now, and then we can kind of differentiate how each of us are, Cause I think both of us have similar perspectives but different in a way. Yeah, I tend to be more self-critical and I tend to have more of a of a dialogue about this is ridiculous, and you are more able to just approach things as they are and kind of be honest with yourself. But if that's positive honesty too, then just think about it this way.
Speaker 1:Think about the amount of time and energy we've put into this.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And we have crafted it in a way where, if you think, big picture content creation, everything from the highest levels of film cinema you know, 90 days, 14 hour shoots, $300 million, all that stuff crazy amount of resources going into something you know compared to like someone just doing TikToks with their iPhone and it takes them 20 minutes to do the whole process. We really set this up to be fairly simple. Right, We've got flip cameras cause we like the look, but it's also low, low friction and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:You know your studio is great, you don't, you know, have kids running around Audrey's out while we're recording usually. So it's not a lot of complex, it's not very complex right, but if you still think about it, we've. This is maybe our 11th episode or whatever we've, you know. So we've sat down, probably cause of course we're here for like three or four hours every time we record one one hour episode all of the pilots that we didn't record.
Speaker 1:We're talking about like a week and a half, two weeks of your life that we've just been sitting here doing this, not let alone the time spent even with the assistance of AI crafting the description, editing me combing it, the show notes, the clips, all that stuff. So what makes you want to do that, like, like? It's not a small undertaking.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Especially when our lives. You've got a full time gig, you've got a YouTube channel. You're pursuing art and creativity in other ways. I have my two channels, the main one being my final cut channel. I've got my family, two kids, limited time and availability, so a lot of things pulling at us right.
Speaker 2:Yet we make time for this, so for me and what I would even we make we get excited about it. Like, like, like. So we've gone through a couple of weeks where we weren't able to record it and, like you know, stuff happens, yeah, and one time Matt had to bail, and then one time I had to bail, and it's like dude sorry. Like, I really like. I actually don't you know. We get into it and it's well, you, you start.
Speaker 1:I call it stacking wins. In a sense it's kind of lame, but it's just some people call it. What does Stutz call it? The Netflix documentary with Jonah Hill? He calls it a string of string of pearls, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and he's called. X is on the calendar. Yeah, yes, he built this. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:And you know Seinfeld's a great thing. I just read something about him where he sits down every day with a legal pad and writes and you know he puts in that work, he makes time for it, he does, he does all that.
Speaker 1:You know so. So we're doing that as well and you know, really, really pushing hard to have that consistency. So you establish that. And then life, children's, illness, travel, you know, work whatever comes up, and you miss a couple of weeks and it's like this, like, like, like friend, like literally a friend, but then also the actual making of this, thing is a friend and it's like, oh, like this, there's this absence in my life of making something, absolutely that you know.
Speaker 1:And this comes to the motivation again. Like obviously I get value out of this, just personally and we talked about this earlier like, are you motivated for more masturbatory reasons? Like, is this just something that's just for you that you get something out of this, and who cares if people get value. You just like sitting down, talking, being on camera seeing what kind of views you get on YouTube, all that stuff versus.
Speaker 2:I can safely say that the liking being on camera is not my motivation.
Speaker 1:Right yeah, and I sit there and I go. You know what's the what's the flip side of that coin for motivation, and I again just go in thinking of my relationship with you over the last four or five years, however long it's been, which is crazy to me that has been that long. I sit there and I go. You know, obviously, from all of our conversations you know we've worked ourselves up from what we've talked about, whether it's talking about movies or our own, you know, pursuit of art and creativity, all of that stuff where you're just like, do you remember that time we went out doing photographs and we got so worked up about, like doing a photo series on filming these office?
Speaker 2:Yeah, this was. This was just which I'm scared.
Speaker 1:I forget what we were doing. We were, I don't know. We were just out.
Speaker 2:We might've just been out like getting drinks or something.
Speaker 1:It was something pretty low key, but we had our cameras and we were kind of screwing around. I still, you know, I was still dabbling and kind of playing around.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Like street photography or this is the or I mean this is probably two or three years ago, yeah and yeah, oh my gosh, I love stuff about this series about old office buildings, like out out of date, yup, and I think about how you meet some people and you have that result from encounters with them, from conversations with them, from whatever it is, and you go.
Speaker 1:You know you obviously say that feeling has value to me. I want to feel that way. I want to, you know, have that, have that experience and kindred spirits and all that kind of stuff, and then you know you have enough of them and you go. You know we're working through some stuff, like I'm having some breakthroughs. I'm kind of getting a better understanding of myself, my approach, my work, whatever it is. I feel like other people would get something out of this, you know, especially people that don't have a you or for you and me or some of my other friends that I can really get into this stuff with. You know I think that they might get value in hearing our conversations and then, of course, becoming part of the community through YouTube our podcast, you know and leaving comments. You know who knows where this is going to go. If it's, you know there's some other mechanism that we have Couple more Scorsese videos, yeah.
Speaker 1:The moon. So then you know, you create that community and everybody's just helping each other.
Speaker 2:you know, figure stuff out or not figure it out, but I think I think it's a beautiful summation of what the what we intend this to be, because I, you know, for context, I came in today and I looked at Matt and I said you know, this is probably just because it's been a couple of weeks since we've recorded an episode and we've posted three episodes. At this point We've kind of seen the. You know, you've seen views go up, these go down, the audio version, the video version. You kind of see that and we have tried not to pay too close attention to metrics or anything. But you start to see some of it and there's really only been positive feedback.
Speaker 2:But you know that voice creeps up and it creeped up in the last week or so where it's just like what? Like you guys are just sitting there talking about this out of left field kind of stuff, and you know it has a core to it, it has a. We try to keep it kind of self contained, but we're talking about the stuff and it's just personal experience and you can find yourself asking the question. You know it's like it's the mushroom trip question. We are like you're, like I don't matter, like nobody should be paying attention to me, I have nothing to add to whatever, and you just kind of put together perfectly what, why.
Speaker 2:I think that's wrong because that's looking at like yes, we're trying to add to this thing or whatever. But I think we started this personally because we like the idea of you know the podcast as a form of craft, as a form of expression. So that's something that we get to experiment with. But it is that there's a couple of people in my life that I'll have a Conversation with and I can be completely Unmotivated going into that conversation, like completely haven't picked up a pin or haven't he sat down the typewriter, haven't picked up a camera in weeks, mm-hmm. And then I can have a 20 minute conversation with that person, or an hour conversation and I'm more charged than I've ever been to go out and I need to create something now.
Speaker 2:Yep and yeah and more of those moments have come from conversations that we've had then with you know and I want. I guess the idea is like can we bottle that? Yeah, I wanted to try, and Every episode might not have that, but I want to have something that's almost on-demand access for people. Yeah to where they have, because you know, I Went a long time in my life where I didn't have that resource. You.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you probably did as well where it's like you don't have access to somebody who just charges you up. Especially, we're more on the introverted side. So, right, you know, most of the time conversations with people Just drain us.
Speaker 1:Like you.
Speaker 2:You're like, oh man, thank goodness that's over and yet We'll leave two hour conversations. And I'm like, yeah, I gotta get out there and shoot like.
Speaker 1:Let's go like.
Speaker 2:I'm. I have more energy that I've had all week. Yeah, and like fired up and I want to like the. The idea is, can we bottle that and put it out there? Yeah and maybe not, but I think that's what we're. That's. The whole point of this thing is yeah, we're just discussing personal experience. Yeah, do we have any great knowledge to add? No, we have our perspectives, which is anything like that's all art really is at the end of the day.
Speaker 2:Yep and we're gonna talk about it and you know, for an hour every other week or so and Hopefully other people leave it and they're charged up about it and they have some different ideas, or we talk about something that inspires them to to think about something else and, you know, if that happens to just a few people, I think we've we've succeeded in yeah, in the podcast and you know, I going back to it, why do we do this? I think we enjoy. You get to that craft aspect of it and you know the benefits to us.
Speaker 2:While we do get excited about analytics and stuff, I Think the benefits to us are the craft of creating something building like this brand from scratch. That's a beautiful thing. We both really enjoy that and the idea of Journaling our thoughts, yes, and putting dates to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah and then putting that out, for it to be out there. It's terrifying and it's exciting and I think that us doing that Whenever I do that from an authentic place, if I ever do when you go back and you watch videos of yourself in high school, you're not cringing because it's a video of yourself in high school. You're cringing because that wasn't coming from a real place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and you know, I think that's the litmus test is are we gonna watch these in a year and be like? I Watch my YouTube videos from a year ago and some of them I'm like, but most of them I'm like yeah, that's just where I was yeah. That's awesome, I love and I love going back and watching some of those things and I'm sure that you have similar.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, I think I think a lot of times, when you know, just watching back the three episodes you have, I've obviously, you know, sort of watch them in a sense by Editing them or me getting the show notes or pulling clips, and all that, and that fear, I think, is always gonna creep in, like who are the? Who are these guys to have a podcast like what are we? Long podcast about the creative process? Yeah, what is you know this, and I sit there and I'll have those thoughts, maybe not as potent as they are potentially with you, your experience of it, but I'll have those thoughts and I go, you know, and I go back to that, that, that thing again, which is I Know that we're making this for the right reasons, like we're motivated from a good place, yeah, and I know, I am for sure, and I'll sit there and go. You know that that certainly takes that fear away and I go.
Speaker 1:if I was looking for a podcast to help me, yeah, this is the type of podcast I would respond to we're our favorite podcast and I have watched it back and I I literally will think to myself yeah, I wonder what other podcasts are out there that are, that have a similar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like you want to hear it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, yeah, and maybe part of that is that's affirmation that maybe we're on to something yeah, but again it's also. I want other perspectives on this. I want to hear about other people and this is something I've had a lot of thought about with other content out there from you know, especially in the YouTube world Colin and Samir and different people talking to well-established Creators, content creators that are successful. I sit there and I go all the time. I want to hear from the ones that are where we are.
Speaker 1:Yeah that are like trying to figure it out, that aren't Uploading banger after banger and and 350,000 views and silver play buttons and all this stuff, like I want to hear from the people that are struggling, that you know, question their motivation or or I want to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to hear Paul McCartney, but I want to hear him not talk about the hits I want to hear him talk about, but it would be. What do you do on a Tuesday afternoon when you're not motivated?
Speaker 1:But then also, like I want to hear from a Ted snow, like what's the difference, you know, and like what's your experience of it, what was motivating you to write all this music and how do you feel about not being a big arena sell-out act and in the, you know, country music Hall of Fame or Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or whatever? Yeah, so fear is one aspect, that that that comes in. When I'm kind of watching back and pulling notes and pulling clips and all that stuff and I'm more able to I am able to quickly dispatch that. Yeah, because I can go back to that kind of anchor thought. Yeah, which is, you know, the motivation is good and again, this is something that I would want to watch or listen to. You know, as someone who's been trying to figure all this out for the last yeah, geez, since I was.
Speaker 2:I think forever.
Speaker 1:Obviously, yeah, I've been literally making videos and doing all this stuff.
Speaker 2:My whole life. I think you said something important earlier, like we're not gonna get to episode 15. Yeah, it's got it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, figured it out wrap it up, boys, okay, so how can we be easier? Oh, that right, that, yes, that we're not gonna. We're not gonna get to some point where these conversations go. You know what? I think we've got it all figured out, I think, and, and you know like, I understand myself as a creative and artists pursuing this thing. And Now the struggle is gone because you, when I, we cracked it like it's good, it's all good, we're good, it's all good.
Speaker 2:Did it boys? Did it boys? Pack it up? Yeah, pack it up, I think. I think that's if anything too that's one of the thesis that we're trying to To explore a little bit is it's. It's unsolvable. There's never a right way. It's a it's constantly in flux, the, the work you're creating, the Things that are inspiring you, the thing, the thought process is you're having. It's in constant flux. Yeah, it's always an in motion and it's never gonna settle down. And I had, I had the concern, you know the same kind of doubt that crept in of why are we doing? This is worth it. But then you have the concern, like Humans are pretty redundant creatures. Yeah, you know, you get stuck on a narrative and you'll, you'll find yourself repeating that narrative and you might change out bit pieces and whatever. But a lot of people have the same, and so I had their concern at first. This is gonna start to sound redundant, sure.
Speaker 1:You guys covered that in episode 7. Yeah, we get into something new here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, but then I'm, you know. First of all, I think there's always new ways to look at things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I can't tell you how many times I've had the same conversation, whether it was you, my buddy, nick, yeah, but you use a whole new set of words, absolutely yeah and then also, too, I think part that's part of the challenge on the craft side is, yeah, how can we approach these topics?
Speaker 2:and yeah, there's there's different ways to approach it. There's a universal voice to a plot approach, just like music movies like there's.
Speaker 1:there's a lot of music out there, yeah, yet we keep getting new music absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know whether you still you're still discovering old music from like sure same time periods.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and obviously there's foundational elements that have overlap. You know, I don't know music terms very well, but you know yeah, melody. You know three. You know chord structure, you know all that stuff you know. But. But people figure out ways to make something feel new and I think that happens in conversations as well.
Speaker 1:Yes, there might be a lot of overlap with past conversations and we're gonna find that here in the podcast, but but you know you're talking about it in new ways, you're bringing fresh perspectives, you know you, you're Leonard Cohen example you know, like you know, he's going to talk about the things that were affecting him yeah, previously to him leaving for Israel. He's gonna talk about those things much differently.
Speaker 2:I'm gaining those experiences where there's this, this story that we, I guess 1973, leonard Cohen, wanted to step away from music. And I'm gonna butcher his beautifully, I like this quote, but he had this put it in this amazing quote where he was talking about and it's yeah, it's podcast episode worth worth a listen, I think, yeah, this beautiful quote though.
Speaker 2:Where he basically said I have nothing of value to add. I need, I feel like I need to close my mouth, like and sometimes I, oftentimes I feel that way. But yeah, he retired from music. This is in 1973. Obviously, he continued to make music after 1973, but at that point in time he thought that was his only option. He had nothing else to say and then he went out and experienced new things. And it's kind of a callback to the video I made last year where the like Moby Dick, ellie Kazan, where he talked about you have to.
Speaker 2:You know, if you're gonna create things, you have to experience what it feels like to be ankle deep and yeah like in the rivers of our, of our land, and you have to be in the field and feel the breeze and Talk to the people. You have to be a part of the world and then you come back and you create, and I think that's something that gets lost, especially in our generation and and the next generations that are there that are coming after us. I think that's something that's being lost that quality of Experience informing the creativity. I think we live in a place where we have a lot of people trying to Just create yeah, and you know you're not quite seeing the beauty, because you're.
Speaker 2:I want to make, I Mean let's. Let's look at it through the sphere of creativity in 2023. It's I want to make a YouTube video, or I'm gonna paint or do a DIY project, or something like that's creativity. Still, it's not. You know, that's maybe not the same as going out and making an album or, you know, like writing and making a great film or something, but it is the same thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah and I think we live in this world where, you know, people go out and they, they look for things to inspire that creation and they look around their lives and, oh, this isn't that interesting. But they're not quite looking for the humanity in every moment, they're just looking at it as well. What do I do every day?
Speaker 2:I Fixed coffee and yeah that's why you have the redundancy right and there is almost a lack of experience out out there and experience opens your mind, it informs you, it kind of breaks your binary and I Think a Lot of people that feel creatively Uninspired it's because they're Almost refusing it. Maybe they're afraid to go out and well, and there's this what the world has to offer.
Speaker 1:There's this Trick that the internet plays on us to think that the world is at our fingertips, and in a sense it is, and I think sometimes it makes us, it lulls us into Get up.
Speaker 1:You know, brush your teeth, make coffee, go into your portal to the digital world Explore, do things there, do your work, create content, connect with people whatever.
Speaker 1:Close the laptop, you know. Have dinner, go to bed you know whatever and rinse and repeat right. And For me personally, one of the things that creates a lot of friction for me in my daily life is feeling like I don't have the tools that I need to have more experiences outside of where I live the first floor of my home down to my studio and back and forth day in and day out and part of what I think motivates me to make the content that I make is how does that open connections to other people, other brands, whatever that might allow for these experiences, like going to NAB in Las Vegas or if a brand flew me to some event or whatever. But then also the revenue that I might generate, that I don't care about the money. I care about the money as a tool to allow me to go out and have an experience, whether it's another trip to Colorado or go to Germany or wherever. Let me ask you this?
Speaker 1:Give me new struggles to work through with you in this podcast.
Speaker 2:Well, there's definitely great writers. I don't know why my mind goes to writers, but there's great writers that the majority of their experience is. I'm thinking of Marcel Proust Well-to-do would go out and drink with people and talk and whatnot. I don't know if he was necessarily, I don't know enough of the background, but I know a little bit. I don't know if maybe he had this great depth of experience, but from what I know it seemed like he was just kind of very imaginative and would go out and talk to these people.
Speaker 2:And then I think of the contemporary proxy to that being the podcast. So theoretically you could listen to podcasts all day about people telling stories, and wouldn't that expand the experience? Basically what I'm saying. I guess the question I'm asking is this digital proxies that we've created, whether that's watching a documentary, or is that an effective gateway to this experiential humanity that we're seeking to inform our work, or is there something that's different about it that prevents it from being that? Do you need to go to a Colorado or do you need to go out and be in the world?
Speaker 1:Well, I think the big difference is when you're consuming somewhat. Someone else made a documentary, a painting, a podcast. It's all being filtered through a lens of that person or our experience. So there's a little bit of a disconnect from your direct experience of an interaction with someone in.
Speaker 1:Germany versus a podcast where that person had an interaction with them. They're relaying their experience and then you're, by proxy, experiencing it as well. I think that that still has value. But again, I think we have to have a mixture of these things between, again, what sometimes might be the monotony of daily life how we get into our routines and make our bed and have a coffee and go to work and do all that stuff combine with getting exposure to other worlds through the media we consume and the internet and all this technology but then firsthand experiences.
Speaker 2:I agree about the firsthand.
Speaker 1:And also challenge ourselves too, because I sit there and think well, you need to have a certain amount of money saved up, you need to have all this comfort and all this ease before you can invest in a trip here or a trip there, because you're going to want to stay at a place that's got air conditioning, you want to make sure you've got Wi-Fi and your cell phone works, and all that and part of me goes. I want to get uncomfortable. I want to not be thinking always in terms of as little friction as possible. What's some friction going to do in exotic places?
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And exotic can be Minneapolis, and like sleeping in my truck.
Speaker 2:We talked about Henry Miller a couple of weeks ago and I left that episode. I need to dive back into Henry Miller.
Speaker 1:I can't wait to rediscover it when I watch it, because I'm not remembering it immediately.
Speaker 2:We talked about it a little bit, and so he has, like this, three series of books. It's like Plexus, nexus and Sexus, and when I first moved to Omaha I read Plexus. It's interesting because I looked at some of the videos, even from this studio. I looked at some old photos and it was so sparse. At first I only had one of the desks because we didn't have enough money to buy the other one. I mean, there just wasn't a lot of money. One of the desks I had a little Mac computer that was from like 2015. The Canon 80D was the camera.
Speaker 2:But some of the stuff that I was doing I was really, really proud of. I mean, look, I've definitely made things that I'm more proud of since then. Sure, but I just looked at it and so the parallel to Henry Miller is he writes about all of his especially you read Tropic of Cancer or Air Condition Nightmare or Sexus Plexus, and some of his older books too, and when he was older it's just so chaotic.
Speaker 2:It's chaotic life, getting evicted and not being able to pay rent and living in hotels and prostitutes and filth and debauchery and crazy, but just this absolute lack of structure. I guess. And I read it and part of me is like oh my gosh, oh, I've got this very controlled, like I'll sleep.
Speaker 1:But then I got all my little things all the way I want them.
Speaker 2:But you read it and you're like, man, this stuff is great, this is really good. And then, yeah, I'll listen, I'll hear stories of people and I don't know if that's possible for me at this point.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because, like I was saying when I got here, it was awesome and now you know there's all this stuff and these things and like I put these weird values on these things and I don't know if that's a good thing, necessarily. I know I feel like I need to continue to find that line because you read some of the stuff or I'll hear stories I love hearing.
Speaker 2:You know I like John Houston movies and you listen to all John Houston stories or Orson Wall stories and you know these old Hollywood stories and they're just these crazy experiences, oh yeah, and whether it's military experiences or whether it's just like meetings with people or just crazy nights, and yeah, I'm like man, I'm like, oh, I want to need to get to bed by 9, 30. And I'm like I need to open myself up a little bit more because I mean, it's just do I think that you have to be in this crazy, you know, getting evicted to create great work.
Speaker 1:No right, that's not what.
Speaker 2:I'm saying, but I think you're right, when we get too comfortable, you know why is it that I would write every day when it was just me sitting at the desk with my 2015 MacBook?
Speaker 1:and I'm sitting at a table.
Speaker 2:But now I've got this typewriter and I've got this electronic typewriter and I don't write every day.
Speaker 1:I don't write every day, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, like why was I itching to get out the door every day to take photos when I had the Canon ADD? That didn't work right half the time because the focus was or whatever. And now I've got. You know, I've got it and it takes a fire down the street to get me out of my door to take a photo.
Speaker 1:Those were great photos.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:I went. I'd sweet. I checked it out before I came over. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, crazy fire.
Speaker 2:Yeah, didn't hope nobody was hurt, yeah, but yeah, I think that uncomfortable, just lack of control, is actually good for creativity a little bit, and I think it's good for the nervous system too. You hear about people like even there's these scientific studies on like shock, yeah, and just you know. So I'll tie this up in the story and then I want to continue to expand on this because I'm taking up all the mic time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you're good, I ran that marathon a few months ago. At this point I'm super out of shape now, don't even. But yeah, we signed up to do a marathon in Duluth and great town, great town, home of Bob Dylan. Yeah, robert's, robert's, we want to see his childhood home. It was sweet.
Speaker 1:Just driving up highway 61 that part of Minnesota and into the upper peninsula, Good Dirty like the carrier dirty mosquitoes, yeah, and I mean we're talking prehistoric, I guess. But yeah, like the Jurassic Park, no DNA situation.
Speaker 2:But anyways we're, we had this marathon scheduled and you know I I live a pretty cushy, yuppie existence, right.
Speaker 2:We do our thing meet at coffee shops, and you know I sit at my computer and talk on meetings and leather cameras and yeah, yeah, and so you know, and my schedule is pretty contained, and I had a schedule where you know I'd wake up, usually either run or do like something, and then in the afternoon I would get a run in. So you know I cut out like four and go for a run and then that would kind of transition me out of work into the evening. I do that every day, did that for like four months of training. Saturdays are long run, sundays are easy days.
Speaker 2:You know, maybe on Wednesday I'll do a workout and it was really. It was nice because it was like return to that college schedule where it's just like it's mindless and so I'm training and there's like six or seven weeks of training up to this marathon and then the week before I a buddy basically, hey, can you come help me out on a shoot? You know it was a travel shoot and it was, yeah, you got to get on the flight and do the hotel and you know the whole thing and you have a similar experience recently Just did and yeah, I can do it. So you know, get the okay to do. You know, hey, I'm going to be like remote on doing things and we're going to.
Speaker 2:So fly out week before marathon. This is Monday morning, like four am. We fly out. Yeah, old Omaha airport. We're getting back Friday or Thursday night, like two in the morning. Friday I've got to drive all day because we've got to get up to Duluth because the race is Saturday morning at seven and I mean you know how these shoots go, you're on your feet the whole time they're training.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it was 12 hour days, Brutal. You're, yeah, you're just kind of doing the whole thing Client dinners and just nonsense, right. So we do the thing and the whole week I'm looking. So I have the whoop thing, which basically it's just like health metrics or whatever. And it's really good when you're training because it can kind of be like hey, you should do your thing, you shouldn't.
Speaker 2:And a whole week I'm watching this and I'm like I'm so stupid, Like I'm just looking at the data and I'm like why are you so worried about the data? And like, but I mean, yeah, like you know, bad sleep all week because you're getting, you get to the hotel, it's like, well, you get six hours before we have call time, so, unfortunate, Not the way it should be done. But you know, that's kind of how these things go sometimes. And so we do the whole week and I had the choice to make of like I'm either going to worry about this or I'm just going to go through and just appreciate this for what it is and do the race and not have any expectations on myself, whatever. And you know, I introduced in the chaos. I was like this is going to, but this is going to destroy everything, but I kind of just let myself go with it.
Speaker 2:You got to almost release and just float surrender. You got to surrender to it, you know you got to open yourself to the chaos and it was a great week. It was an enjoyable week. We had a good shoot. I get back Thursday night. You know sleep until about nine. My I like to sleep eight to nine hours a night. That whole week I averaged probably six hours a night.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know, and at the first couple of days I was like grumpy or whatever. Then your body starts to adapt and I went to bed I got like five hours of sleep, race night and I woke up and I'd like a great recovery score because my body had just adapted to it and you just gave into it.
Speaker 2:I just gave into it. I was like, well, it can't change it, let's just do it. And so I get up and I ran the race and I you know I was I didn't run the entire week before seven days, Just didn't run at all because I was shooting. I was on my feet the whole time, Ran a fine race.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm like that's the lesson, like you just got to kind of. You know, I don't think. I honestly I thought back. I'm like I don't know if it would have run as good if I just kept the same cushy schedule and I was worried about like well, I'm going to get eight hours or nine hours before the race and you try to control it yeah.
Speaker 2:And so we had a. We had a friend that kind of did a similar thing, but he again tried to control the whole thing. Yes, yes, and yeah, didn't have it, didn't have a good race, and it's like, was trying to like, oh, I'm going to, I'm going to, um, like you know, slowly reduce my mileage as I get closer to the race and I'm going to do this. I mean, and I was just like, well, I didn't run, I haven't slept that much. Uh, I eat a cliff bar the morning of. Send it, send it.
Speaker 1:And in the race.
Speaker 2:I'm just like present and it was great. It's great and it just that taught me a massive lesson. It was a massive lesson of, again, with what you're saying. You know, chaos is not a bad thing, I don't think, if we can learn to channel it and learn to accept it and it's always nice to have this to come back to.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And if you, if you can learn to insert it almost like it's almost a necessity right, You'll go crazy. If you just live the cushy, Most of us will. Some people can do it.
Speaker 1:Well, and you know, to me, when I hear cushy, I'm hearing, like you know, regimented, repeated um, again controlled. Like I got to have my coffee at this time, I got to have this. Where's my thing? Where's the? I got to have this T-shirt. You know, like all these things that you're trying to control is just sort of like maintain this illusion of balance and sort of comfort.
Speaker 2:I didn't have my coffee, my whole day shot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so a similar experience and I won't go into it too much, but just getting thrown for a loop and having to fly to New York to film a golf event. I've never filmed for them before.
Speaker 2:This is my buddy DJ A week and a half ago, yeah.
Speaker 1:There's a new company he's working for now, and so your mind gets racing. Am I going to remember to bring everything?
Speaker 2:Shut up, great dude.
Speaker 1:I'm going to write cable. Like you start working yourself up into all this stuff you know, and anxiety. I get to leave my kids, you know, all all this stuff that you start freaking out about and slowly I just started unpacking not unpacking, but sort of surrendering. I jokingly said that word earlier. The reason I said it is because it's a word that's come up several times in previous episodes and it's something that I've been, you know, I've learned to do is. You know? Look at a situation. You've got a lot of anxiety, you're freaking out about it, you know how to control it, to get your hand, get a handle on it, figure out what you can control and then surrender to the rest.
Speaker 1:You know, I was on that shoot. I'm like you know, this just is what it is. It's 93 degrees out. You're running around with a camera. You haven't done this before for this specific, you know client. It's going to be what it's going to be and that doesn't mean you phone it in and you just half-ass it, but you just go, I'm going to take photo. You know I ended up not getting enough photos. I wasn't in like in trouble for it, but you know they would prefer more photos.
Speaker 1:And I was more focused on some stand-up interviews and this and that all this other stuff. So I'm going out again that's not as last minute, but I'm flying out to another golf tournament to film it because there's a scheduling conflict with DJ. I'm certainly less freaked out about it, but then at the flip side, I don't want to be so loose that I'm not sharp.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that I'm not paying attention, that I'm not you know that I'm just like I don't want to be careless, yeah Right, but I think just sort of uh, just like complete surrender and just you know if I remember to press record, great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Tying it, tying it in though, Like do you feel that when you came back, you were sharper about your day to day?
Speaker 1:I think it almost injected a well, I think, I think I just again, this is all about balance, like if I, if the deck is stacked too much on just my daily routine and getting the kids up and making coffee and sitting down and recording, like I need to have this back and forth of experiences that make me uncomfortable, that push the limits, that forced me to surrender, reset your baseline almost.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that, just that, just get me uncomfortable or get me out of my routine. You know, by the end of some of those experiences I'm very much craving going back. I can't wait to just wake up, make coffee, hang out with the kids, cause I'll appreciate it more. It'll be less about control and reducing friction and more about savoring it and being present in the moment. Right, and not going. How do I take three steps out of this process to make it a little bit easier? How do I buy more shit to make this thing easier to do? How do I talk to my kids or my wife about streamlining the morning routine?
Speaker 2:All this stuff that you're trying to control. I'm going to optimize all these trivialities, yeah.
Speaker 1:So you know, so, so, so I'll give you just a quick example, so you know when you think about getting picked up at the airport, whether you Uber home or somebody comes and picks you up. You know, you just got back from a thing. You're kind of tired, you want to get home. I did the opposite. I was like you know what, honey, can you park the truck at the parking garage and bring the kids into the airport, and let's just, let's just have a little thing here, so I said yeah, so.
Speaker 1:I went to the car rental lounge, which is kind of a cool lounge at Epley airfield and you can look at the looks like 2001.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's very cool.
Speaker 1:Kids came up, I wasn't like immediately okay, let's go, let's get in the truck, let's load everything up. It was like let's just hang out here for a minute. The kids love going to the airport. I wanted to just hug them and be with them because I missed them like crazy. And it was just, you know, choosing to kind of do the opposite of what you might normally do when you return home from someplace after being on the road.
Speaker 2:So you're sitting out. Man, you're like growing. Yeah, you're becoming more.
Speaker 1:But if again it just to wrap up the point, it's going. Look, there are times where I want a two week clip of my daily, boring, routine life, but then there are times where I want some chaos and I want some unpredictability and I want some spontaneity. I want some discomfort on an adventure, getting thrown into something I'm not used to if it's work related or choosing to just go. You know what, Alex, you've been talking about this. Let's get in the truck or the Lexus and we're going to.
Speaker 1:South Dakota and figure it out. Yeah, we don't have a hotel, we don't have a motel, we don't even know what we're going to do, but we're just going to make it up as we go and see what happens, yeah, and then you know. And then again you come home and it's the different perspective on.
Speaker 2:I think we'll overanalyze things to death. And Audrey and I, the first year we lived in this apartment, we went on a trip to Colorado. Colorado is what eight is. Yeah depending on which, it was the Rockies. So we. It was a little past the inverse of probably eight, eight and a half hours away.
Speaker 2:We left on Friday night and got back on a Sunday night. Yeah, or we left at Friday at like five and we had no idea where we were going. We figured out when we got a little close. Okay, this is where we're going. We started hiking into this random trail at like two in the morning. We saw a cougar to pull off the trail and camp. They didn't sleep at all.
Speaker 2:And then the next day we hiked like nine miles up to this peak and we ended up camping up on the peak and it was. I mean, it's fake. Yeah, it was fake, Like it looks.
Speaker 1:This is not possible.
Speaker 2:It's out of my perception of what is earthly impossible and we slept there and woke up and saw it in the morning and it was like kind of cold at night, whatever, but it was unbelievable and to this day we've been in color probably five or six times since then. To this day we're like we have not even come we and we've planned chasing that high.
Speaker 2:You gotta go to this, that rocky mountain high you gotta go, but you gotta go here, you gotta do this, this is and we've tried all of it and it's like we've never come close to that. Yeah, and it was just something we just try and you know, we drove back the next day. It was brutal, it was awful slept like four hours, you know, three nights, terrible for the body, but something that was such an inspiring experience. We've, we've, we've tried to reach that high, like you said, to this day and haven't been able to. It was just such a perfect experience and it's so funny because it was just unplanned. It was purely chaotic, and I think the best comes when you just give into chaos. And the same goes for creativity. You know you're trying to plan out every step of the way, you're limiting what's possible.
Speaker 2:You need to get uncomfortable, you need to get out there and you need to just start presenting yourself and you know, let the chaos present itself and I've even gotten a little more open on like you know, going and like just I'm gonna go hang out with with people, or I'm gonna go and, you know, have conversations, I'm gonna go and try to go to events and things like that, yes, exactly, just presents the out of my. I mean it's this cliche step out of my comfort zone, right, and I think we arrive at that because whether people really know the benefits of that or not, yeah, it's a common thing in our, in our language as a culture, as because I think people have seen the benefits of it yeah they, you.
Speaker 1:You get a fresh perspective on regular everyday life, but then you also have yeah, highs.
Speaker 2:Well, I told you. I told you the day when we just went on that camping trip for two days yeah, like put the phone away for two days and just kind of got away and I came back and I was like charged up, I was ready to go. I was like man yep, couple days away, doing some things that we don't normally do. It really just, you know, just walking, driving through towns, talking to people hanging out in people's stores. It just charges you up in a completely different way.
Speaker 1:I think, I think to it. You know it's a, it's a wonderful life. You know it's showing you when you come back to regular life. You know not to take that stuff for granted you know whether it's family or you know the the new post.
Speaker 2:You know that oh yeah, yeah, he loves all that stuff. Yeah, that's the.
Speaker 1:You know, I look at that every day and like man I should write now if he, if he, you know, goes 10 years without ever having an uncomfortable experience or whatever, you know he might fall into that you know, frustration again that you know that he was, that he was dealing with.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm going to, I'm going on his last minute trip, last minute ish trip to Oakland. So I'm flying to Oakland on Sunday and then filming this golf tournament, flying back on Tuesday. I have one day here. Then I fly back to California because I'm visiting friends in Los Angeles, but I'm also, you know, gonna be making some content, do some photography there.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna go to lack your favorite place to live in.
Speaker 1:LA for three years and never went to LACMA. Yeah, so I'm gonna finally, you know, check that out, do some other stuff. Yeah, I love, and that's a whole other conversation. Yeah, and then I'll be there from that Thursday to Tuesday and while I'm there I am gonna be experiencing pain, you know I. You know they have a very nice home in Los Feliz. You know I've got my own room. It's very, very cushy if you will absolutely but I'm gonna start feeling uncomfortable because I'm gonna be missing my family.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you're missing your environment. You're, you know, you know everything. Everything's together.
Speaker 1:I will say though, because I visited these friends so many times, that there is like a little routine there. Like I have my own bathroom, I know how to make the coffee you know, like me, cause asleep just wait to get there and find out they got a new coffee maker.
Speaker 2:Your head's gonna explode, I didn't get the memo.
Speaker 1:What's?
Speaker 2:going on everything's different.
Speaker 1:Everything's different, you know. But but even when I'm there because you know I don't have to make dinner, I don't have to pick up my daughter from school I'm sensing and I'm even actually thinking about how to kind of tell my friend, like I've got. You know, I've got some cravings for some adventure and one thing I've been thinking about is, you know, grabbing an Uber really early one morning and going down to Manhattan Beach and, yeah, watching the sunrise and taking photos, and you know making. You know making some photographs personally and for the other channel. You know just soaking it all in, like getting getting all that, because again it's, it's fuel for when I come home and it's again part of that yeah that vacillation between my life here and then, when I do travel, even if it's comfortably or uncomfortably, unpredictable and spontaneous and I just I want to break in
Speaker 2:because, like we. We've told like three stories now yeah, yeah yeah, it's all been about travel yes, it's like like look, some of the best experiences I've had are just a block away from here, absolutely like hanging out in somebody's house the photo excursions photo excursions a house party, yeah, you know, just going into like a weird bar or like a weird shop.
Speaker 2:Like you know, we drove to that shop the other day, audrey and I and that guy, and had this long conversation and took photos and like this is not. We're not saying you have to go, like this is not a vacation get on a plane it's not a yeah, like I think it's.
Speaker 2:We both work kind of satellite to that production world. Sometimes that's just what are weird out of nowhere things are. That's not. That's not what we're saying, though in terms of not, we're not saying anything, but you know it's, it's just getting out and trying new experiences. You read Henry Miller's like you read the topic of cancer and he's just talking about doing things around Paris and like his experiences with people in the conversations he's having and conversations about books that he likes to read or authors and why authors are like worthy of praise and not worthy of praise. And you know it's, it's just it can be as localized. I mean, sometimes the best thing is going for a walk around the neighborhood here. Yeah, the fire that was one of you know, that was one of the biggest experiences I've had in the last couple of months and I was sitting in here and smoke started coming in through the window and I was like what is that? And I grabbed the camera and I go over there and you know now.
Speaker 1:In that decision, though, was there any part of you that went and?
Speaker 2:I got. No, I don't know why, but you know the cameras right there. So I was just like what is going on? Well, gonna take this.
Speaker 1:And then I get down there and I was like I've never seen something, like I've seen fires before, but I mean this you saw the frigate, that was a dragon coming out of a thing is that thing is right out there in time, because that thing, that thing would have been a pile of ashes. Oh yeah, and a little bit more time. The whole.
Speaker 2:I mean the whole line was on. It looks like Armageddon and like I was across the street and you just feel the heat. Oh yeah, I mean, but that was, you know, that was a block away from my house and yeah, I know that doesn't really fit the narrative, where it's like I didn't have any. I was just like get over there because but I was curious, but no, I mean, it's just getting out, it's being open and the window was open. You know, if the window was closed that's maybe the metaphor in this story is the window was open and if the window was closed it wouldn't have smoked the smoke, I wouldn't have gone to investigate further, I wouldn't have found the fire. Make sure your windows open. You know, be open. New experiences yeah, I think that there are present themselves to you there are things like that out there.
Speaker 1:They're not, you know, dangerous or potentially, you know, hurting someone.
Speaker 1:But you know there's a small town in Iowa and there's a dive bar there and you you're scared to go to check it out, but you're like, you know what I'm gonna ask her on a Saturday night and see what this is all about and check it out, you know, in some of the best experiences I've had in my life, especially coming from the performing arts, where the part of me that's introverted and, you know, scared of being in front of people with something that's prepared, some of the best experiences I've had in my life are, you know, facing that fear, pushing past it and realizing on the other side like, oh, that wasn't so bad, and the euphoria that at least I personally have experienced when I come out of that situation that I'm scared of unscathed yeah yeah, or even you know better off because of it.
Speaker 1:You know that's the golf tournament, it's yeah, and there's definitely things I've turned down, that I've, that I've been like no, I don't want to do that because I'm I'm honestly, I'm too scared. You know, I want to remain comfortable making my videos in my base and just keep making dinner for my kids and all that stuff. That's a little too scary and you know, for some of them I've been like you know I've beat myself up a little bit for, for you know, kind of copying out on it.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean there's there's times when you're like, hey, do you want to go shoot? Yeah, and I'll be like oh yeah, like I do kind of want to hang out, but you gotta go down there right got part of the ground and I don't have to do it.
Speaker 2:I think, oh, yeah, yeah, and you know, most of the time, once you're in it, you just it changes the entire, it changes the math, yeah, and I think we need to just be more open because that's gonna inform the work you're making, that's gonna inform, and the problem with a lot of work, I think, is that we rely on I mean here digital proxy to humanity. Yeah, we talked about it a little earlier, but we're relying on these digital proxies of, well, I watch documentary and I can watch documentary and be like wow, that's cool, and get inspiration from it, but there's nothing. Like you know, I can watch all the documentaries about the we talk about.
Speaker 2:I talk about the south and like how I have this weird, you know just relationship with it and we can watch all the documentaries I can watch, look at all the photo books I want and like, wow, this is cool. But then you go down there and you spend a week and like the Appalachian Mountains, or you start talking to people. You go to a waffle house and 30 people are like, oh, how's your life going, like I hope it's just super nice people and you're like this is I could watch all the documentaries, like this is an experience I wouldn't have gotten.
Speaker 1:Well and I just had a conversation with my wife where I was like like trying to just sort of get on the same page with my need for like micro adventures, especially with my kids, because I don't want them to just live in our house in their classroom or preschool this bubble of contemporary life super tiny bubble and yeah, we go downtown or we go to a museum or we go here or go there.
Speaker 1:We go to my mom's house, but you know, like we can really open up the world to them. And you know, and my wife is a little bit more locked down on things, a little bit more concerned about finances, even to the point where it's like, well, if you drive the truck two hours, like that's gas, money and all that, and she's not like you know, but it just causes you know it's something that she wants a little bit more control of it. So there's some friction there.
Speaker 1:So it's funny, when my wife travels for work or she visits a friend or something, that's when I take the kids out and we go do it, so I had a conversation with her just to start wrapping this up, and I was like I just want to start preparing you for the fact that part of my creativity and and my inspiration is to sometimes, just on a Saturday morning, go kids were going to drive two hours to Waffle House and figured out in the northern suburbs of Kansas City.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got to go do something freaking great and we started. This is so stupid and hipster, but like we started taking back roads when we travel yeah, dude, I like, so it is like we drove back. From where did we go? Missouri?
Speaker 2:yeah yeah, we took the back roads back for the first, like four hours, yeah, and it added two hours to the drive, but we were like pulling off photos. You pull it off to explore little towns. We were so caught up in just like the land, yes, and like just falling in love with these little towns. Oh yeah, you see people's houses and you get a sense for how the people in that area live and you get a sense for what the land looks like. And I'm just like take highways, take highways, yeah, constantly take takeaways. The interstate, all contemporary life, tries to do, is just pull us away into these little bubbles and it's like the good stuff is out there when you're opening yourself up to people and you're having conversations and you're sharing experience with people.
Speaker 1:So my grandma turns 90 in November. Heck yeah, Just after she's been to like 80 countries. She's traveled all over the place.
Speaker 2:Is she still?
Speaker 1:traveling.
Speaker 2:No, not anymore. Okay, hey, there's some like 98 year olds out there. Yeah, 100.
Speaker 1:Getting after it like so I'm gonna go back. This is Thanksgiving weekend. It's my in-laws sort of turn for us to be home for Thanksgiving, so I'm gonna go back. I can't miss my grandma's 90th birthday.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I haven't decided if I'm gonna fly or drive the truck. I've got a 2019 Ford F-150 and it's nice to go on road trips.
Speaker 2:Drive the truck, I know.
Speaker 1:So you know. So again I've been going. You know I won't have the kids with me. I don't think they're, you know they're not gonna come, just cause it's a little. You know, school, they have school and all that.
Speaker 2:It's a little crazy.
Speaker 1:You know. So it's just not really feasible. But I'm sitting there going, okay, I'm gonna drive back Grandma's birthday, I'm gonna go in the city, I'm gonna get a hotel in Chicago, I'm gonna do some street photography down there, I'm gonna go to the art institute. Yeah, you know, ride the L like, go to my old haunts. I lived in Chicago for several years after undergrad and then I'm like well, maybe I'll go back, come back home, go down to Champaign where I went to undergrad. I haven't been back to.
Speaker 1:Champaign in 20 years. Yeah, I like stopped there and then cut across Illinois, go through Missouri and like, if I don't make it home in a day to Iowa, just like find a place to stay and you never realize how cheap and you know so many people are like oh cheap motels.
Speaker 2:But a motel is like like 80, 90 bucks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'll be all right. I'll find a place to stay, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's, like you know, contrary to popular belief, no, not all motels have bed bugs, right?
Speaker 1:But you know, check for them. But like, yeah, what's so stupid too is you know, these shoots, this New York shoot, this shoot in Oakland with this golf event. It's really short.
Speaker 2:I also. I like how we like, we're like get away from travel and then it's like highways and travel. We're gonna wrap it up after this.
Speaker 1:But these two last minute events you know kind of, you know, flush me up financially. So if I were to stay at like a Holiday Inn Express on the drive home for 110 bucks or whatever, like you know it's not a problem, you know it's not a concern, obviously.
Speaker 2:One of the best experiences that Audrey and I have had was last we were driving around Highlands, north Carolina, last year. It's like this groggy, foggy, gross night in the middle of winter, you know, it's like December 31st or New Year's or something, and we're in this town and we wanted to stay at this hotel in town but it got under 30 degrees there so all the pipes were frozen because they just can't really. Yeah, you know it's like it's North Carolina, but it's yeah, yeah right.
Speaker 2:So they're like yeah, it got down to like 20 degrees here. Old infrastructure is broken. So the hotel was closed so we had to go find, like the secondary hotel and it was just like this old kind of motel.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know it was fine, but it wasn't like they're the only hotel in town, so we paid way too much for the room.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:But it was this cute room. It was pretty dirty but like it was cute, had a fireplace, had a chair, I like moved the desk around and set up my typewriter and we had TCM on nonstop on the TV. We broke out, you know, cause we were in the truck so we had all the camping stuff. So we broke out and she like chefed up on the porch, like made our dinner and stuff, cause it was too late by the time we got there for anybody.
Speaker 2:I mean, man, that's like one of the most special experiences that I've had and like in like the last five years, I will always remember that shitty hotel, sleeping in that bed, watch like TCM going constantly.
Speaker 2:You know we had like Vajitas and you know it was amazing A little fireplace, waking up in the morning, going to the lobby to get like some shitty coffee and just drinking it and writing Perkeblowers. And we just got back in the car and went back to Georgia. It was like it was like awesome and I think that's what we need and couldn't. Yeah, well, and the whole time before that we were like like pissed and like we got to stop setting ourselves up for this, just these unplanned whatever's. And then we left and we're like, you know, maybe we need to make, not beat ourselves up so much, we need to make room, cause I'm like, yeah, it was a little more expensive and yeah, it was a little more chaotic, but that was way more magical than it would have been if we would have tried to plan this whole thing out. And that's the metaphor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, I couldn't agree more, and I crave that type of stuff and I think about that all the time there and to the point where, when we're in it, I'll go I know this is weird, or friction or money or whatever, but three months from now, a year from now, we're going to look back on this and we're going to wish we could do it all over again.
Speaker 2:How much money would you give if something?
Speaker 1:to go in a time machine and do it over with your current perspective.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and this is, you know, part of our conversations are learning how to shortcut to that in those moments so that it's not about and it's a lot of these things that, yeah, I think both of us have gone through pain and friction to kind of get to a maybe this is how it's done and so you know, if we can have conversations about it and that can allow other people to get to these, get through these slots, and then, you know, go past what we're thinking, figure out what the next iteration is. I think that's a powerful thing and that's why we're doing this.
Speaker 1:And it's been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.