15. Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out: Finding Meaning in Art, Film, and Life

Have you ever felt an urge to just drop out? Break away from the norm and live on your own terms? This episode explores that feeling, drawing from the film "The Arrangement" and the documentary "Alone in the Wilderness." We discuss midlife crises, searching for meaning, and the value of making things by hand. It's about questioning if we're truly living our own lives or just following someone else's plan.

We also examine how documentaries balance truth and the filmmaker's perspective, especially in films like "Past Lives" that make us think about our surroundings and what shapes us. We explore how films featuring historical events and personal stories challenge our beliefs and values.

The episode takes a more personal turn with a story about a day of street photography that becomes unexpectedly intense. This leads to a debate on the ethics of photography and how art can change us. We wrap up with thoughts on how our experiences color our creativity. -Ai

Show Notes:
The Arrangement (by Elia Kazan) - https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-arrangement-1969
The Arrangement Trailer - https://youtu.be/9txF5Ma6G68?si=4LAldm6A6wXqIdNx
Alone in the Wilderness - https://shop.pbs.org/WA0792.html
My Self Reliance - https://www.youtube.com/@MySelfReliance
Walden & Civil Disobedience - https://bit.ly/3TDIsvM
Fargo - https://letterboxd.com/film/fargo/
John Prine - https://store.johnprine.com/collections/john-prine-vinyl
Ned’s Atomic Dustbin - “Kill Your Television” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaTcIzLk880
The Zone of Interest - https://a24films.com/films/the-zone-of-interest
Past Lives - https://a24films.com/films/past-lives
The Kennedy Films - https://drewassociates.com/films/the-kennedy-films/
Stephen Shore - http://stephenshore.net/
Miami Vice (Michael Mann) - https://bit.ly/3VmAad1
Tetragrammaton with Dr. Jack Kruse - https://bit.ly/43jYsGv

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: 0:01

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: 0:12

What if we? Okay, so maybe we just try this for this one episode and if it doesn't work then we move on. Yeah, but we'll call this like top of the show. Okay, and maybe you and I spend five minutes and we just talk about what's been on our mind. Okay, like art-wise, like what have we seen that's influenced or brought out some kind of reaction over the past seven days since the last we last sat down? Yeah, maybe this is something we do week to week, maybe not, but like we always touch on little things in the conversations that we have. But this might be cool to just be like hey, watch this this week, did this, saw this, read this, and then we can link that up in show notes and if we don't like it, we can always just take it out and get it. Yeah, I like that.

Speaker 2: 1:11

So I guess, to start off, like we spent a lot of pre-show talking about Ilya Kazan, but specifically one of his films from 1969 called the Arrangement. I watched it on Tuesday or Monday or just in the past week and left it. I had to pause it multiple times because I was like man, this is just a little bit. This is a lot to take in at one time, almost like watching certain like Cassavetes films, but it wasn't in that style. I mean, it was very like melodramatic 60s kind of heavy handed Is that.

Speaker 2: 1:55

Some of it was heavy handed, some of it was just like trying to do a hundred million things at once and I'm not necessarily sure if it pulled it off or not, but it moved me immensely. And you know, when you finish something and you're like wow, I don't know if I like that, but it moved me, yeah. And then seven days go by, especially for me, like, if seven days go by and I'm still thinking about a film, it usually means something Like it's worth revisiting, there's something in there that's worth continuing to look at. And so the Arrangement by Ilya Kazan, it really just yeah, I'd say it moved me in last week and we spent a lot of time talking about that and the concept is kind of like it's almost like a midlife crisis film, but it's basically this guy figures out that he's just serving all of these just not necessarily false idols, but just this like he's bought into this world, this arrangement, advertising, marketing complex.

Speaker 2: 2:57

Yeah, he's just yeah, he's bought into it and he wakes up, you know, halfway through his life, and he's like man.

Speaker 2: 3:02

This is nonsense. Yeah, I don't like this and I don't it, just it was a really interesting watch and I highly recommend it. And then the other thing Alone in the Wilderness, which is an old PBS documentary about this guy called Dick. His name was Richard Pernicke, dick Pernicke, and when he was 51 years old he moved out to everybody's like man. I know what kind of vibe Alex is on recently, but you know he's 51 years old. He moved out to the wilderness, the Alaskan wilderness, and he started. He built a cabin by hand, using hand tools, and like literally built this thing, recorded the whole thing on a 16 millimeter camera, bolex.

Speaker 1: 3:45

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 3:46

And took photos.

Speaker 1: 3:49

Took photos of the nature documented it all. Did he speak to camera at all? Was there any?

Speaker 2: 3:53

I mean no audio, no audio because I'm sure it was kind of like the K3, right, it's just no crystals. But that got me excited Again. It opens the possibility. I'm like wow, like you know, you're in the Alaskan wilderness, you got to be able to deal with weather and you got to be like you're not going to be. He had no electricity, you're not going to be charging batteries or anything. So, yeah, it really kind of reiterated to me and gave me a new appreciation for the K3 in terms of just like this has its purpose, like it's a fully mechanical windup thing. But you know, he documented the whole thing, kept really precise journals. There's a couple of books about it. There's several documentaries. The quality is not great. I was telling Matt we need to start the restoration push campaign.

Speaker 1: 4:41

Yeah, and get Marty involved, our old friend Marty involved.

Speaker 2: 4:43

Please, Marty, let's, let's make it happen. But yeah, so those are the two things alone in the wilderness and the arrangement that I feel like really kind of which is interesting because they feel like the protagonist in that story is sort of starting at opposite sides of the spectrum.

Speaker 1: 5:01

Yeah, and it's like you know you're alone in the wilderness. For whatever his motivations were to check out of contemporary society, civilization and escape to the mountains of Alaska to build this house, and then someone like Kirk Douglas's character I haven't seen the movie but from what I saw of that opening scene and all that you know someone who isn't going to but is on a trajectory to maybe something similar to do something to reject all of the constructs of yeah, you know, and.

Speaker 1: 5:34

And try to make a change in his life from you know, doing maybe what's expected of him, to what he wants.

Speaker 2: 5:39

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:40

Which, for this guy in the woods, something very similar.

Speaker 2: 5:43

And this is just also just the idea of like, yeah, building something of substance, or like right, metaphorically, or, you know, physically.

Speaker 1: 5:53

So there is a cabin a YouTube channel I watch where a guy had, you know, has a family, sold his business and he had owned property in British Columbia, I think, and he built a cabin there all by hand and documented it on YouTube and interest, yeah, I mean like it's literally like 30 minute long episodes of just the different angles he sets up of him building this cabin Just very methodical yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:22

And every once in a while he talks to camera just like drinking a cup of coffee or whatever, and he sits down and kind of just very simple, what he's terms explains what he did or what he's going to do, or you know. But he built a cabin, he built a sauna, he built a, like a shelter for his firewood, a kitchen area. I mean all this stuff.

Speaker 2: 6:42

It sounds so just satisfying. Yeah, beautiful.

Speaker 1: 6:46

I haven't watched any of his videos for a while because I kind of had the emotional rug pulled out from under me, as I'm sure he did.

Speaker 1: 6:54

He had some kind of dispute with somebody who owned the property next to him where they were blasting loud music and doing things to disrupt his filming because they knew he was a YouTuber and they had some kind of property dispute. Yeah, he never really went into it. He ended up abandoning everything he had built and he went somewhere else on his property, farther away from this person, and started over from scratch.

Speaker 2: 7:18

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:20

And.

Speaker 2: 7:20

I'm just like that's unreal to me.

Speaker 1: 7:23

The idea of starting over from scratch after all this work that you did to build this.

Speaker 2: 7:28

It's funny because it's like you know, building is a really physical metaphor for it, but that's exactly what. There's a direct correlation between that and I was working through you know photo projects or writing a script or a story or making a documentary or whatever.

Speaker 1: 7:48

Right.

Speaker 2: 7:50

You gather your materials and then build them into something. I just want to give a quick shot, because this is what I was thinking about the whole time is I mean Thoreau Walden? You know there's a lot of audience on that, but that always has been one of my favorite books.

Speaker 1: 8:08

And that book is called Walden and Civil Disobedience.

Speaker 2: 8:11

Yeah, walden is the. Walden is, I guess, the book, and then there's an essay called on civil disobedience and the row is if you're familiar with the row, then, yeah, you have opinions about it.

Speaker 1: 8:23

I've never read Walden.

Speaker 2: 8:25

I know of it. Of course it's just a really interesting. You know there's people that try to discredit or whatever, but I just the idea, the core principle behind it, like don't get caught up in whatever, just like think about this idea of you know rejecting that there has to be a way to do something, and just really quick. One more thing, and then I'll kind of pass it off to you. I was listening to an interview with somebody on. It was talking about I don't know how it broke down, but it basically got into the Cohen brothers. You know that little credit, title credit at the beginning of Fargo that says this is based on a true story yeah right and obviously it's not based on a true story.

Speaker 2: 9:12

Yeah, who's the the he was in shameless, will you?

Speaker 1: 9:22

make me, will you?

Speaker 2: 9:24

make me thank you. So Bill Macy said when he saw that that you can't do that, right, you're not allowed to. That's you know, you're not allowed to do that. And basically I, one of the co-brothers, was basically like why not?

Speaker 2: 9:37

you can do whatever you want yeah making films here, yeah, and so I kind of think in in creating work and in creating life that's been something I've been like thinking about. A lot is just do whatever the fuck you want, like you're allowed to do whatever, like literally nothing is off limits, yeah the rules yeah just, you know you can't do that, why not?

Speaker 2: 9:59

yeah, like you know, and if you're, you know, if you're not happy and how, like you know, these dick Pranicki and you know the row, like they're not happy with what's going on, like, okay, then go build a cabin in the woods and yeah, you know, do whatever.

Speaker 1: 10:16

I know I keep bringing it up over and over, but it goes back to that, that moment from madmen doing what's expected of you versus what you want. Yeah to me that you know, a lot of what we talk about comes down to that battle that we have.

Speaker 2: 10:31

Yeah, what I want to do versus what versus was expected of me, what I should be doing and what society, culture, civilization puts on you with all of these systems and constructs.

Speaker 1: 10:44

And then what you want to do, and maybe it is to peace out and build a cabin out in the woods, or it's to not take a corporate job and live in a small apartment and scrape by because you're focused on your work or maybe it is to take a corporate job and you know the benefits that come with that, yeah, in the big city, and you know.

Speaker 2: 11:11

But you, there's no one way for everybody. Everybody's got different tastes and yeah, you know what? What works for certain people that don't work for for other people. But there's oh, and then I got this. I was gonna wear this for the yeah, the pod today, but John Prine hat. I don't know who that is. So John Prine is a best known as a songwriter. I guess, okay, what is? I know that he hates the song, but this is probably like his most well-known song. You know that I think it's David Allen Coates. You never even call me by my name you call me darling darling, yeah yeah, so he wrote that one back.

Speaker 2: 11:57

He's written. Yeah, he has one of the best collections of songwriting. But he has an album and there's a song called Spanish pipe dream and we got really big on it a couple of years ago. It's it's still a great song. The whole album is unbelievable. Yeah, but there's a song called Spanish pipe dream and basically the idea is like he meets this, this stripper, and they run away together to the country and it's like blow up your TV, you know, move to the country, blow up your TV. Have, you know, have a lot of kids feed them on peaches, like just this. It's a wonderful song, but anyways, a buddy of mine told me about this in the John Prine store.

Speaker 1: 12:49

So that makes me think of a song from a band that I was, like, completely fixated on in the early 90s. Mid 90s band called Ned's atomic dustbin and they had a song that. I love called kill your television so your television and I can't remember. I mean, like if I played the song right now I would be able to sing to it, but I can't recall the lyrics, other than maybe the chorus, to know if it's like a profound resonating song, or if it's just kind of like just kind of a cool song it's the John Prine, though, definitely recommend.

Speaker 2: 13:24

Yeah, yeah, let's. I really listen to the album this week and yeah, so that's where my head's up coming into this. This podcast, I think, is, you know, I'm like two steps away from moving to a moving to the wilderness.

Speaker 1: 13:40

Well, one thing, one thing I wanted to circle back to for just a moment with the arrangement and some of the movies we and I have watched this week. What's interesting me is just how you're describing the arrangement and how it's presented, how it's made, how the story is told, in contrast with a movie you and I saw zone of it, the zone of interest, and then another movie I saw, past lives I saw yesterday, and how I very much felt like both of those movies were, you know, a camera observing something that happened. Yeah, especially with the documentary, you're talking about someone who's just sort of filming what they're doing and I felt like both of those movies there was a lot of restraint from the filmmakers to sort of just show us what happened. Yeah, and again, the zone of interest isn't necessarily a documentary but they're just very basic scenes of yeah what the commandant of this?

Speaker 2: 14:39

as I subject to the cameras you can have. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 14:42

I mean like.

Speaker 2: 14:45

This isn't a, you know, this isn't a characteristic of the camera.

Speaker 1: 14:47

Maybe it is a little bit, but you know, having the wall, yeah, and then what's on the other side of the wall is definitely, but that, if anything that speaks for objective camera, my phone keeps buzzing in your toolbox yeah, if anything, it speaks to the idea of the objective camera, because you know you could point away and choose not to show that wall right and suddenly that's introducing, yeah, a level of subjectivity, but yeah, no, I think, that idea of just completely objective cameras and there were a few moments in past lives where they made a very subjective choice, yeah, and it worked really well for me because of the restraint, and then, in these powerful moments, they let go of that restraint to do something with the, the imagery, to kind of drive the point home without being. I think you could argue that it's heavy-handed, in a sense that it's. It's hard to misinterpret what it means, even though there's there's shades of interpretation within that what it means.

Speaker 1: 15:59

So sort of you know, if this documentary of this man building the cabin even though it's subjective in the sense that he's setting up the camera for himself, versus a filmmaker setting up a camera in a world that he's observing or we're observing, from that documentary to the zone of interest, to past lives, to this film with Eliak Zan, are start made by Eliak Zan. That's a little bit more, at least my interpretation a little heavy-handed, possibly a little didactic, like really trying to communicate some of it, yeah, some of it definitely.

Speaker 2: 16:32

I don't, I really can't explain, yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:37

I'm just perplexed about it right? Because?

Speaker 2: 16:40

you know, sometimes you typically I first of all, I watched probably more films than yeah most people should spend their time, but most things don't stick with me that long like I'll think about it for a couple of days. Most things I'm over by the morning, like I wake up and it's on to the next. Yeah and yeah, this has just been stuck with me all week and I was telling Matt like one thing you really because and does, is he understands human psychology really well and like he's tapping into that.

Speaker 2: 17:11

You know that very, you know core vein of what what it means to be a human and to have human feelings and, you know, have those influenced by, by an environment. But yeah, I don't know it's. Yeah, it's, some of it's heavy handed, some of it has a clear perspective and some of it's just like just I don't know. Yeah, yeah, it's the only way I can describe it is like go watch it. Yeah, some people I'm sure are going to be like I don't, not for me Right. Give it a chance though.

Speaker 1: 17:46

Watch all the way through and Well, we'll put the trailer that you showed me in the show notes.

Speaker 1: 17:51

That was all I needed to see to be like I am watching this movie because it resonates so deeply with all of the forces and play up my life between the conversations we've had about art and commerce, the role of you know, the work that I'm making in the greater advertising marketing complex as it relates to YouTube, and so a lot of what I was seeing there was very resonant with me. And then also what we talked about about earlier, the role that technology plays in mainlining this stuff into our minds and our bodies. Yeah, you know again, advertising marketing, desire, individualization, all these things that we've talked about over the last year with this podcast.

Speaker 2: 18:40

Yeah, it's wild stuff. So I'm interested like did you have any like takeaways from the objective camera? Because you were kind of going in a direction, I do feel like I cut you off and I want to kind of hear what you're like.

Speaker 2: 18:55

Has that changed the like? One thing I noticed I was watching, so I think it was a pen and baker. There were documentaries, though, for the Kennedy administration, yeah, in the 60s, and I was watching. One of them was on Max, and I went through and I watched it. They're like an hour long or something and one of them was on the first the admission of the first black students at the University of Alabama.

Speaker 1: 19:28

Right.

Speaker 2: 19:28

And then the governor of Alabama at that time, george Wallace, like segregation, now segregation, you know the antithesis of like that. You know, I guess, that civil right, more civil rights, guided like Kennedy train of thought. And you had the filmmakers filming Wallace and then filming more, so Robert Kennedy in this case, but it was George Wallace and Robert Kennedy and John Kennedy and bits and pieces. But one thing I did was I turned to Audrey and I was like this is so just objective. Yes, in a sense like, yeah, as much as you can like, obviously you're looking at it and as a viewer, you're going in, especially as a viewer. You know, 60 years later, we're going in and we're looking at this, we know how it turned out.

Speaker 2: 20:27

Ciguration, obviously not a good period of American history. One of these guys turned out to be extremely, you know, not correct in the eyes of history, at least you know as much as you can say that. And I, but I turned to Audrey and I'm like this is just, it's like they filmed him having breakfast and whatever. And I just think of how unobjective a lot of everything is these days, especially like if you're doing a film on a political piece, like, okay, you know, you're going to take that, and I know a lot of filmmakers and a lot of good filmmakers who would probably go in and with this is the right idea, right, like segregation and bad thing, let's, let's highlight that, yeah, but it was.

Speaker 2: 21:20

There was just something that was really amazing about just like how objective the camera was. It was just like, hey, these are just forces, right, and we're going to observe these forces and trust the viewer to be able to not need to be told that this is bad or this is good, right, but also that this isn't completely black and white, right, this real people on all sides with real internal conflicts and external influences. And I just thought it was. I just wish we I don't wish I just that's something I appreciate and I want that to be a quality of the work that I produce, and then I want to seek out more work that that's able to do that.

Speaker 1: 22:02

I'm right there with you. I mean watching the zone of interest, watching past lives, even though there are, you know, less objective choices made in the storytelling, and that in that film, I do still feel like I just got to be a voyeur, in a sense, on moments in these people's lives. And you know, certainly, while a wide shot to a medium shot, you know a close up, is minute. I mean it's gonna manipulate my emotions and my understanding of it.

Speaker 2: 22:36

It's a narrative screenplay as well, Like you know, there's things that are decisions that are being made.

Speaker 1: 22:40

But exactly, and that and that happens in the zone of interest. It's not like they just set up a camera.

Speaker 1: 22:45

Yeah, like you know, like, like in a cross section of the house and we just watch people, you know, going about their lives. You know there were definitely choices made, but but so much objectivity, just watching a scene unfold, a simple moment between a mother and a daughter, or you know. You know I come up from a. You know action movies in Spielberg and like all this, like very heavy camera, movement, storytelling, cinematography, I mean like all this so much that is like consciously made and chosen, that there was just something really resonant with watching the zone of interest, the theater. You know like it's like one of those movies where it's quiet and you're like, if you chew your popcorn too loud, like you're adding to the soundtrack of the movie, versus what I'm used to. Like go see, you know, the Avengers and you can shred a bowl of popcorn and nobody even knows what you're doing.

Speaker 2: 23:56

You're having a full-on conversation with somebody right next to you and nobody's even yeah, and and and you know what.

Speaker 1: 24:02

What interests me about that is, you know, everything from the content that I found myself gravitating toward consuming on YouTube, which is sort of like photography videos or people, just kind of like just watching them do their thing, like live their lives, type on a computer, make themselves dinner, a little bit of voiceover, talking about this or that stuff. That's just simpler and much less fewer ingredients. Yeah, and then just myself and the stuff that I've been exploring on the photography side, making photography videos that are just simply sort of stills video form, but you know, still images and then the photos, with probably the music being the most prominent ingredient in the sense of how it communicates, how you might how you should be feeling while watching it.

Speaker 1: 25:02

I don't recall there really being any music in the zone of interest.

Speaker 2: 25:05

I mean obviously like the sounds is very industrial yeah.

Speaker 1: 25:09

Yeah, and that was important, because there's gunshots going off in the background, trains pulling up into the concentration camp, juxtaposed with the sound of a stream and the sounds of a seemingly quote unquote normal family living their lives in their lives in this house.

Speaker 1: 25:28

So, yeah, I find myself gravitating towards content that doesn't create feelings in me through the ingredients of cinema and cinematic storytelling, but sort of just presents me with something to observe and the feelings develop from those observations you know, from what I observe, I think I think that's I just want to really quick like there's this idea of like the cinematic, like the visual metaphor.

Speaker 2: 25:57

I think that's kind of what cinema is there for, in a way.

Speaker 1: 26:00

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:00

Like giving us imagery to explain our lives and our feelings and whatever.

Speaker 2: 26:11

And I think that when work is less hey, I'm going to give you a lecture, hey, I'm going to teach you you're allowing people to supply. You know, you're giving them the visual to work with or the sound or whatever you're giving, and then you're allowing them to come in and provide this key, you're providing the base of the triangle, and then they're coming in and bringing this lived experience and providing that third point and everything it connects. And you know, some people have different metaphors for different things and that does like there's no one right visual metaphor. There was a case this week where I, we did something where we used an icon or something, yeah, and somebody was like well, this means this. And I just thought it was funny because in the idea of that piece, like we designed it around, we took that and gave it an association in the piece.

Speaker 1: 27:18

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:19

So, like that's, that's just a symbol, that's just an icon Right, and by how we're using it, we're creating our own metaphor for it.

Speaker 1: 27:28

Right.

Speaker 2: 27:28

And then that allows it to be, you know. But then somebody saw it and the comment was this is just. This means this, isn't that a little confusing? And it's like, well, no, we've, we can reappropriate it, like that's completely within the realm of possibility and I think, a lot of work, that, at least recently, that has moved me more, is able to do that, more so than like, oh, let look, I'm, I'm right, you know, we, we saw the movie trailer where it was like I don't ask, like I don't write questions, I write answers or something it's like it's like all right the ego to think that you've got the answers is pretty astounding.

Speaker 2: 28:11

You know, we are little blips on the timeline of history and all we can do is write questions. I think, yeah, I'm sorry for hijacking that, but no, I just think that I think that the idea of, like, providing metaphor and then room for interpretation is a much more noble pursuit and creating work.

Speaker 1: 28:34

Well, I think that even goes back to our previous conversations on this podcast about something as simple as just naming your photographs. You know, like we talked about naming a project, a body of work, a collection of photographs that maybe add up to something, but then individual photographs, and you know we've joked around about some of my naming habits in the past whether it was something that was what was the short film title, grass to Pity A. No, no, come on, give it to us Terrible, grass to Pity A. And just that ego, right, you know the ego and the role that it plays in. You know, wanting to make sure that I'm in control of how I'm perceived, and I think you know a journey that I'm on and the work that I'm creating, especially as I transition from thinking about commerce first, um, in what I make and that being a priority, because I've got student loan debt and bills to pay and all this stuff. You know the, the arrangement piping in advertising. You know all this stuff Got to get that vision pro Got to get that new.

Speaker 1: 29:42

You know Toyota forerunner Got to get all that stuff, um, and sort of moving more towards creating work from, uh, you know, a place of self-expression or asking questions or, um, being curious, wondering you know, what is this? I don't know. I took a picture of it. What do you think? Um, and seeing that shift in the work that I'm, I'm drawn to, um, you know the photography books that you've shared with me and the different street photographers and photographers who, simply, you know, present the what feels like more objective frames for you to see what you see in them.

Speaker 1: 30:22

Yeah, yeah, especially, I think of Steven shore, and just like a food on diner, and it's just like you know, it can hit me like a cement truck, but then somebody else is, you know it, it affects them in a different way. Uh, obviously, with something as powerful as the zone of interest, there's not a massive range of interpretation to take away from what you're observing there, but I appreciate the storyteller, the filmmaker, the observer giving it to us in a way that is as objective as possible when choosing to make work around something.

Speaker 2: 31:04

Auschwitz, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 31:06

Rebuilding the past in front of a camera and then filming it in very deliberate, intentional ways.

Speaker 2: 31:14

I like I walked away from that with such like first of all, the film is very detached, yeah, and how, like you know I mean that I guess that maybe is is a part of being objective is you kind of have to be right removed in the filming?

Speaker 2: 31:30

Um, yeah, it is, it is, there's a distance between the frame and the subject matter, but it humanizes better than any film I've seen in recent memory. I mean, maybe that's not exact, but it does a very good job at humanizing and, like you're humanizing Nazis, right Right, You're humanizing people that are directly, you know, involved in just some of the you know the greatest atrocity that we've seen.

Speaker 2: 32:06

Yeah, and you're, but you're doing a really good job at humanizing these people and you can leave that with some really interesting takeaways. Yeah, and hopefully you leave it with, because I don't think Glaser had any intention to be like he doesn't. I don't think he sees this as like a binary thing, like good and evil.

Speaker 1: 32:30

Right.

Speaker 2: 32:32

I think he sees it as a more nuanced, like there's a lot of factors that went into getting people to the point where these you know atrocities were common place.

Speaker 1: 32:43

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:44

And when you get to the point of that, like that, these are the lessons from history, right, and I think it's, yeah, it just that, yeah, that's. That's another one that that moved me.

Speaker 1: 32:57

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:58

And it was. It was very illuminating, I think. I think it's worth worth a watch.

Speaker 1: 33:05

Absolutely. I'm glad we saw it, and not only just what I could take away from how the work was made and the choices that were made by the filmmakers, but you know what you learn about the human condition, yeah, and you know you mentioned this in some of our post movie chats the banality of evil. You know you're sort of one charismatic order away from being convinced or persuaded or brainwashed whatever you want to use the term to being okay with in order to achieve your dream. They talk about this in the movie of having a home and kids out in nature, out of the city. I'm sure they had. You know that money wasn't a concern because he was well paid as the most efficient commandant of a concentration camp and all that and sort of like, where you, where you have the capacity to go to fall in line with what you know this person dictates and what you're willing to do to get what you want.

Speaker 2: 34:19

Yeah, yeah, I think when we start to lose touch with that, that's when it's, that's, that's, that's the most dangerous thing. Right, it's not. I like there's. I'm sorry, but there's just very little chance we lose touch with. You know, the, the, we can identify the atrocities as that.

Speaker 1: 34:39

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 34:40

It's. That's not the issue. That's not why people say study history Right, like, yes, you don't want to forget that, but we don't want to forget how susceptible we are at any given time to any given thing. I think that's the lesson from history, one of them. I mean, you know this, you can't boil it down Right. It's what makes it a great piece of work, is it's? There's no one or two points that are trying that there's no point, that's. You know that there's no like yeah, it's a little bit of everything. There's the banality of evil, there's the, you know, turning your your blind eye to something that, because it's a little bit inconvenient to think of, there's a lot of factors at play.

Speaker 1: 35:23

Well, and for the wife's if, in that story, her fixation to be around the, the life that she dreamed of, living in a rural setting, very idyllic, her kids able to go, come and go as they please. They're in school, the house is, you know, more than what they could have wanted. You know it checked all the boxes for her and she, you know, was willing to participate in this.

Speaker 2: 35:52

So much pride when she's showing the mother around.

Speaker 1: 35:54

Yeah, and I know in my life, as someone that you know has sort of dreams of that sometimes are on the more material side, whether it's a nice house or newer vehicles or more money in my bank account or a vacation to Europe or whatever Europe you know, sometimes I'm presented at a crossroads we talked about this earlier and you know, a corporate job that might be an option for me in the future, or to make a sponsored video with a company that isn't terribly aligned with the content on my channel. But the money that, the money that they're talking about is it worth it for me to sacrifice what my, what I'm trying to do with my channel in order to achieve a financial objective? Right, and so you know, just latching on to like what are the things we're willing to sacrifice or to look beyond to achieve what Kirk Douglas has in the arrangement? Swimming pool, servant staff, jaguar, convertible, all this stuff, like what are you willing to give up to have these things?

Speaker 2: 37:11

Well, and then this is a really, this is probably connection, the arrangement, and I watched Miami Vice last night, the 2006 Michael Mann director's cut.

Speaker 1: 37:23

I haven't seen it.

Speaker 2: 37:25

It's pretty good, it's just it's fun. But there's this quote in the movie called, and it's the quote is just time is luck, which you can geek out about it, but time is luck. And I really started thinking about that in the context of all of this and I've been thinking a lot about just time and whatever. But time is luck Like every bit. Like you can't, don't take the time you have to do anything for granted, time is luck. Like luck is what is luck. Right, go to a casino, put it on black, spend the wheel, and the idea of time is luck. Like you could. I always like to think that you could get in the car and something tragic could happen. Something tragic could happen right here.

Speaker 1: 38:20

You're setting me up here, buddy, like so.

Speaker 2: 38:23

Perfectly Well, this is unplanned, but time is luck.

Speaker 1: 38:28

You literally could not set this up for me any better.

Speaker 2: 38:31

It's just the perfect. It's the perfect, it's just this wave looking at things, like if you're doing what others expect versus what you wanna do. Like, just think about that. Time is absolutely not guaranteed and every bit of it you get is just complete. Yeah, this is not planned, by the way. So, matt, let me preface this. Matt brings this thing, this car part, which I don't even know what it is into. He brings it into the studio and just sets it down on the table and I'm like what is? Is this like a lens housing? Like what are we doing with?

Speaker 1: 39:11

there For people listening. This is like a two pound hunk of metal. It's a cylinder and it has like one half looks kind of like a steel pipe. The bottom half looks like a like a gear would meet up with it to spin it Inside. There's some gears in there.

Speaker 2: 39:30

So he brings this in and just sets it down. I have no idea what it means.

Speaker 1: 39:33

I still know what it means and I you know what's beautiful, what's kind of fascinating about you bringing up the time is luck thing from you know Michael Mann's director's cut of Miami Vice. I didn't really know how to tell this story or bring this up and I thought, well, maybe we'll do a standalone episode because I did have something to kind of pause it or talk about or ask you about after you know telling the story.

Speaker 2: 39:59

But you know, we might break that off that into a different. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 40:02

Possibly yeah, but the time is luck thing is certainly one of the takeaways from what this object represents and the story around it. So I'll tell the story. What day is it? Sunday. This was Friday. So so Friday I get done listening to an episode of Tetragrammaton. Not going to go down that path, but the episode inspired me to just like get outside.

Speaker 1: 40:32

I spent most of the week inside at my computer and the episode it's a whole thing but it's. We'll put it in the show notes. It's with Dr Jack Cruz and Andrew Huberman and he talks about the role that light plays in human health.

Speaker 2: 40:44

You're just like man I need some light. So I was very excited. I'm like I'm going to go outside and I'm just going to.

Speaker 1: 40:48

So I'm like what you know, it wasn't like a question of what I'm going to do, because for my photography YouTube channel I go out with these different digital cameras and sometimes film cameras and photograph different parts of Omaha or different places I travel to and kind of just get lost in the flow and zone out and take these photos.

Speaker 1: 41:10

So I decided this camera that I had, which I have with me, it's a purple Canon DigiCam, you know, pretty good value on eBay and I had bought it off Facebook Marketplace, knowing I wanted to make a video with it. But then, you know, sell it for some profit. So it's kind of eating at me, like I don't want to keep this camera, so I want to get it done but I also want to make a video with it. So I'm going to go to Midtown Omaha, which is, you know, obviously the sort of the central part of the city, between the start of West Omaha and downtown Omaha. It's a, you know, kind of partly cloudy, you know a little bit of blue sky. It's a nice day, it's like 52 degrees.

Speaker 2: 41:49

All this stuff.

Speaker 1: 41:51

So I'm going to go, park the truck and walk around for an hour or so I think I had about two, two and a half hours before I had to pick up my daughter. We weren't recording a podcast that day, so I just started going around with this DigiCam and I'm taking photos. I'm walking through parking lots, along the sidewalks. Most of what I'm photographing is an interesting shadow on an old building or a couple of skateboarders. I asked to take their picture and they're like, yeah, totally cool. There was a gentleman that you know looked like somebody who was, you know, maybe down on his luck. I don't know if he was unhoused or what, but I don't like to take photographs of people that are in like a bad way, whether it's, you know, they don't have a home, or they're transient, or they're dealing with addiction, substance abuse, whatever, like. I'm not going to take photos of them and put it on my YouTube channel and you know all that stuff.

Speaker 1: 42:45

So this guy. I asked him, he was interesting looking, and I said you know I'm out taking photographs. Do you mind if I take a photograph of you? And he said, yeah, sure, go right ahead. I took two photographs of him, asked him what his name was his name was Chester and you know he went along his way. So I kept going and there was a family unloading the back of a truck and I took a photograph of them. And then there was like a playground in between their building and another building and light was hitting stuff and taking photographs in there. They're kind of looking at me like who's this tall white guy?

Speaker 2: 43:19

all black, walking around with a purple digicam taking photographs.

Speaker 1: 43:22

So I kind of tell the wife was like taking pictures of me with her cell phone and then she was in her window and she was filming me. I don't know if she was just like who is this guy?

Speaker 2: 43:32

Or she was worried she needed to call the police or something.

Speaker 1: 43:36

I don't know, but I was in public spaces. I wasn't like walking on people's private property. Keep walking around, keep walking around. And eventually I see this dog running through an intersection by like 24th and Dodge, by the Jocelyn Art Museum, and there's a guy chasing after the dog. Has, you know, beige pants on a gray hoodie, bull's hat on glasses, you know clean cut white guy. And so I stop and, you know, trying to kind of get the dog to come to me to help him get the dog. Well, the dog runs away from me and I just keep walking and the guy crosses the street. We're on the same side of the street. He's very angry. He jump, kicks a bike like one of those rental bikes, yeah, Kicks the seat, knocks it sideways, yelling for the dog. His voice is kind of hoarse and I'm walking behind him, going. Oh, there's some interesting sort of street drama unfolding here. I'm going to photograph this, you know, while it happens, take a few photographs from behind.

Speaker 1: 44:34

He ends up down in the next intersection there's a younger woman waiting to cross the street, a young man with his dog, and the dog that's on the loose is kind of interested in the dog that this guy has on a leash. The dog's just kind of going all over the place and I'm just popping off a few wide shots, as it happens. So I cross the street. The woman's trying to lure the dog toward her. I take a picture of her doing that and keep walking and this guy is still chasing the dog around. So I'm still a photograph here or there, nothing crazy. The gentleman with the dog on the leash crosses the street. He realizes he can use his dog to lure this dog in, to recover the dog. For the guy that all happens. I take a photograph of the guy who was chasing the dog. He shook the guy's hand because he was able to recover his dog. And then I start walking away and I just kind of vaguely felt like the guy that was chasing the dog said something about toward me and I just kind of brushed it off. I, you know, kept walking and then I turned around and I just kind of saw a shot that I liked. I zoomed in on the camera, took the photo and then turned up the block and started, you know, continuing on my way.

Speaker 1: 45:54

I get to a restaurant and I see like a shopping cart, there's a shadow. I'm taking some pictures in the parking lot of this restaurant. And then I turn to my right and the guy that was chasing the dog is charging toward me and I'm like so my suspicion that he had said something toward me, kind of connected, like he must have said something about being frustrated that I was taking photographs. So he's charging toward me and I'm just standing there and he goes, hey, give me that camera. And I'm like, no, he comes right up next to me, right next to me, and winds up and you know it didn't quite go slow motion, but my brain goes I see something in his hand. It looks like a steel pipe, like a part of a steel pipe, and he throws it at my head as hard as he possibly can.

Speaker 1: 46:48

And in that instant, when his arm starts going toward me, I ducked down like squatted, all the way to the ground. Whatever he threw which is this object, this thing is not light either flew over me and hit the building. And then, you know, when I recover from ducking, because I'm like I squatted to where almost my butt could hit the ground and I shot out of my lowered stance toward the sidewalk to assess what he was going to do. And he was running toward this thing to get it to come at me again and I'm like, oh shit, he's going to come at me again. So I run across the street against traffic because the signal wasn't up and I had to go behind a car and there's a coffee shop up just across the street called Zen Coffee. Not that that's important, but my thought is I'm going to go inside a crowded place like this guy's not going to come in after me there and I'll be safe.

Speaker 1: 47:43

And sure enough he had retrieved the object and threw it back at me and it hit the parking lot you know ground and bounced off next to me as I went into the coffee shop and I'm looking out the window that you know the door, and he's yelling at me from the sidewalk and kind of marching away and I think to myself, well, I need to disconnect visually from this guy, to kind of start communicating to him that I'm not going to be accessible anymore and that he'll kind of give up and go away. So I'm in the coffee shop for maybe 90 seconds and I'm like I want to get out of here and I open the other door there's two doors to get in and I go back up to my truck and get in the truck and I just kind of sit there like Like adrenaline, obviously a little bit out of breath, heart pounding.

Speaker 1: 48:30

Yeah like what just happened.

Speaker 2: 48:31

Yeah, yeah, like again, so I'm like, thing probably weighs like five.

Speaker 1: 48:39

It's I waited. It's just over two pounds. Yeah, it's sort of it feels heavier than it actually is because of the substantial I don't know how substantial it is. So I'm sitting in the truck Kind of get my breath, get my bearings, like what? What do I need to do next? Like is this a thing like do I need to call the police? Should I call 911?

Speaker 1: 49:00

What did this guy actually try to do to me? I'm like, well, first off, I want to go get what he threw at me so I can understand. Like Maybe if I know what it was he threw, I'll have a better idea of what, like what his intention was. Yeah, and so I go back to the parking lot and obviously I'm paying attention, like to see if this guy is still around, like waiting for me, and I'm probably 10 minutes had gone by and I'm searching through like the landscaping that's on the edge of the building and I find this hunk of metal. I'm a golly shit. Like this guy, yeah, stood right next to me. I mean, that's what it killed you and he tried to throw this thing at my head. Yeah, like he tried to like I mean, like this thing would have crushed my skull, it would have knocked me out out cold. Who knows what he would have done to me had I been on the ground head bleeding completely. Yeah, it's like peace inside. Yeah, come out I. I cleaned the crap out of this thing wild.

Speaker 1: 49:56

Yeah, I'll kind of talk about that in a second to token.

Speaker 1: 50:00

Yeah, like, yeah. So you know, I'm like, well, I'm not gonna take any more photographs. I you know I probably had another hour before I had to pick up my daughter, but I'm like I guess I'll just go pick up my daughter at preschool and, yeah, take her home. So you know, I put this in the well, the wheel, well, foot well of the truck and drive to go get her, pick her up, take her home, put this in a ziploc bag, as I'm starting to think I should probably go to the police. Because if this guy is gonna do something Like this to me, what if he did something like that to somebody in the future? You know that would really bother me that I hadn't done anything and this guy's kind of dangerous. So I talked to my wife about it and she's like, yeah, maybe go to the police station and talk to a police officer or something. Well, I guess it doesn't really work that way.

Speaker 1: 50:51

After four o'clock it was after four I called the report line. They told me that sounds like you know someone's like Try to a very serious assault, if not attempted murder, trying to hitch in the head with this thing. You should call 911, go to the location and talk to a police officer. So I call 911. They don't really think much of it in the sense of like the severity that I Felt it was. So they transfer me back to the file, a report line, and I talked to a guy, give him all the information. Basically, I'm like I have photographs of this guy, like clear photographs of his, the way he looks, all right. They just are kind of like, well, you know, you know, something like this is probably a transient or whatever. Like there's not, you know, the likelihood of finding this person's pretty low. Like we'll file the report and just kind of see what happens and I'm not like I want justice, yeah, you know. But I'm sort of like this guy could be dangerous. Like you know, I don't know what he's willing to do that.

Speaker 2: 51:53

Yeah, what are you willing to do? Sure.

Speaker 1: 51:55

So you said time is luck, and that's sort of one of the things that's been running through my mind and I refer to this often, as I've had a sort of luck in my life of winning the lottery in ways other than financial. Right, we all dream, you know not all of us dream, but a lot of people dream about winning the lottery, checking out of the system. Big pile of cash, do what you want, you know, you're out of the rat race, right? Well, I have had a lot of lottery wins in my life, with An accident that happened with fireworks on the 4th of July and nobody was hurt by some miracle. I've had, uh, you know, a couple car accidents that wouldn't have been my fault, that I was able to avoid by some. What felt like a miracle? Yeah, um, what was the other one? Oh, this tree that fell between my house and my neighbor's house like a gust of wind took this 50 foot tree down Perfectly in the center of our house of our homes and caused no damage at all.

Speaker 1: 52:55

Uh, just little like stuff like that where I'm like holy shit you want some wins.

Speaker 2: 52:59

Yeah, yeah, you might not even yeah.

Speaker 1: 53:00

And then I'm thinking about this moment and I'm like did you just win the lottery again by, by some miracle, instinctively ducking the instant that this guy wound up?

Speaker 1: 53:11

to lock you in the head with this probably life changing a hunk of, of, like a car part um, just to just to kind of wrap up the, the reaction of what he did. The one head scratcher I have, though, is, if this guy was trying to hurt me and he missed, what made him not just bowl me over and start pummeling me, like with fists or some other object nearby? Like, why did he run toward the object to get it? Yeah, to throw it at me again, when, if his intention was to do me harm in that vulnerable position of being ducked down, he could have easily just like bowled me over and pinned me down and just started pounding on my face or kicking me or something. Yeah, so the like. The one thing that I've thought is and this is kind of me interpreting things and analyzing things the death is Was it possible that he was just trying to scare the shit out of me?

Speaker 1: 54:20

And his intention was, had I not ducked down, he would have intentionally thrown this thing and he would have intentionally missed.

Speaker 2: 54:26

Yeah, to sort of like, but part of it, like you could just be attributing, like you're like he, there's a good chance. He was probably just schizophrenic and I had no like there wasn't a thought of like I'm trying to. It was, yeah, throw this at his head. Yeah, go get it, do it again. Right, like yeah, I mean there's no, there might not be a logical progression Absolutely behind his.

Speaker 1: 54:50

Yeah, yeah and it was lord, it was difficult to assess his um, his mental state because he was so agitated about the dog He'd been chasing it. I vaguely heard him at one point, like over. He said something like over an hour, something like that.

Speaker 1: 55:04

So he'd been chasing this dog for a long time and his voice was hoarse and all that stuff. Now, like thinking about the drama of this moment, right, if there was somebody observing this, speaking of observation, if someone was just filming this, happen like in a very objective way, um, especially if they filmed this person's life that day woke up possibly, you know, unhoused, living on the streets.

Speaker 1: 55:29

You know, has a dog. I think there was another person that was sort of At the very beginning of where I saw. There was another person like sort of in the area where he was coming from, so maybe there's somebody that he spends time with. I think he had to have, because if he took the dog back he had to have the dog secure. But for him to then choose to come back after me, right, and I think about you, know, as someone that really tries to understand what motivates people to do things that are seemingly crazy or irrational or whatever. Um, you know, this guy's been chasing this dog for an hour. He probably has a pretty difficult life especially if he's living on the streets, um, and probably had a difficult upbringing, all of that stuff and he is Frustrated beyond belief that he can't get this dog to listen to him and and just get back to normal. You know a place where he can just feel no control at that moment.

Speaker 1: 56:23

Yeah, where he's not, he's not doing something, he doesn't want to do, all of that. And then you've got this tall, seemingly well to do white guy With a purple digicam Taking pictures of his plight, right, yeah, and the in could, in, could, in credulity he must have felt, or the violation, maybe he felt, from somebody in a place of privilege, maybe um, who kind of was trying to help him, yeah, but ultimately Taking photos of the situation um, you know I try to think of, in his enraged state, you know, to trigger him even further. And this isn't me like, sort of like I'm at, this is all my fault, uh, just trying to understand the psychology and the in the thinking. You know the emotion of this person. I can certainly see how that would have incensed this person and um, and and created those emotions.

Speaker 2: 57:24

Now, when you did with them you know, obviously I don't pray with all that, but I get that I mean, yeah, you feel like you're being exploited or something.

Speaker 1: 57:33

Yeah, especially because you know. You know there's nothing that like. I'm not wearing a sign that says I'm an art photographer. Yeah um, uh, I also just like couldn't get a read on what this guy's status was. Yeah, my thinking was was that, you know, sure, like there was a roughness to his energy, yeah, but my first thought wasn't this guy's, you know, unhoused, or this guy is an addict, or this guy is like like you know, he had, like our heart, pants on, a hoodie, a new looking bull's hat, like he had glasses on.

Speaker 1: 58:08

You know, short hair. You know like, like, like, cut hair. Yeah, you know, like there wasn't anything about him that screamed um, someone who's has a rough life.

Speaker 2: 58:20

I mean, who knows, I could have just been like a breaking point. Absolutely right, you know people break and I can.

Speaker 1: 58:27

I say to myself and this is part of, you know, the conversation with us, when we, you know, I think some people are drawn to street photography because it allows them to Overcome some of their fears.

Speaker 1: 58:38

Yeah and overcome some of their, their issues with Exposing themselves to A reaction from someone for doing something that isn't illegal. You're in a public place and you're sort of documenting life or Finding meaning and an interaction between two people, or a mother and a child, or a person sitting alone on their cell phone, whatever it is. You know, you're sort of Reading what the universe is putting out there and capturing it in a photograph. Sometimes there can be Something therapeutic about pushing through your fears or your concerns or your self consciousness or whatever it is to take these photographs, and there was definitely a distinct moment when I'm walking behind this person, or part of my brain was like you know, ah, don't, don't take pictures of this, not like You're doing something wrong, but just sort of like I don't know, like Whatever that feeling is when you're doing street photography and and you think to yourself I don't want to expose myself in this way, or I don't know what it is pun intended.

Speaker 1: 59:47

Right, I feel like those are typically the best.

Speaker 2: 59:51

That's right, almost a sign to push through.

Speaker 1: 59:54

And so I literally told myself push past this. This is interesting drama. He's chasing his dog through the street like this is, you know, objective and obstacle. Yeah, you know classic drama. Yeah, take a photograph of it. And I did, and and there was a An element of brazenness to it, I think you know standing on the sidewalk while he's running through the intersection. You know, with this digital camera for those listening, I'm kind of holding. You know what it is to take a photo that's like a purple cannon, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:00:23

I know and taking photos. So this is the second time I've been assaulted doing street photography. I was assaulted in Los Angeles. I took a photograph of a motel and a young woman Was sitting on the curb and I wasn't a hundred percent sure if she was unhoused or what her situation was, but her silhouette and the photograph is part of what intrigued me for the Composition. I took the photograph and five minutes later she's charging after me with a like an unfolded, like an unwrapped coat hanger.

Speaker 1: 1:00:54

Yeah, a coat hanger and she smacked me on the arm with it and was screaming at me to delete the photo. Yeah, and you know I tried to be civil with her and told her you know, ma'am, you're out in public, you know I'm taking a photograph of the motel and yeah, you're in the photo. But that wasn't the the reason I took it. Yeah, it didn't really Calm her down a ton, but I think us connecting and we looked at each other in the face, I think it disarmed her just a touch. Yeah, because she was Probably trying to assault her circumstances. Yeah, and then, like all of a sudden, like I was a person and it just took her down a notch.

Speaker 2: 1:01:37

I think that's a key, is just like, and part of that is, you know, if you're living in the streets, maybe you're not making that human connection with people. Yeah, how frequent, frequent basis, or you're being mistreated or just ignored. You're being ignored or you know, but I do think like sometimes it's just important to look so many in the eyes.

Speaker 1: 1:02:00

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:02:00

And if you don't do that for long enough, it becomes easy to kind of create or just buy into whatever the story in your head is, yeah, and put that out, and I think that's actually a good place to kind of tie it. Like we talked about objective camera a lot Like. I want to be clear like nothing is objective Right About. Like objective camera is more of like striving for perfection, knowing you're never going to achieve it, right, you're not like there's no, there's never when you make something it's, it can't be objective.

Speaker 2: 1:02:31

Yeah, like from the there's just there's by choosing to set a camera down. You've made a choice. Yep, you're choosing what, what, the what? The point of that, you know, I think it is. It isn't something that's good to strive for, and that's the always the Gary Winnigrant thing, right, he's like always, I just want to be a camera floating through space, and you know, but yeah, like just the same way that she's projecting hers, or you know, he was projecting his circumstances onto you, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:03:04

The intense subjectivity. Yeah, and you know making subjective conclusions about what my motivation was and what. You know what I was there to do, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:03:17

I'm glad you're still with us and she's.

Speaker 1: 1:03:20

I mean yeah, so I mean and I and and so like, why do I have this? I I went through a pretty intensive process of cleaning it because I knew from from the moment I grabbed it, I was going to keep this forever as a reminder of just how multiple things, but time is luck and there was something about cleaning it.

Speaker 1: 1:03:41

you know that that speaks to my psychology, but then also, I don't know, transforming it into something else, like a murder weapon to trophies not the right word but just like a representation of what happened.

Speaker 2: 1:03:56

So I mean.

Speaker 1: 1:03:56

I put degreaser on this soap, I scrubbed it with brushes, I mean, I spent like probably two hours trying to clean this thing so that it was I don't know transformed into what I wanted it to be.

Speaker 2: 1:04:09

There was a great John Mayer quote that I heard last week. It was like like you got to keep like tokens. Yeah, because like as time goes on, you forget experiences Right All, like even the most meaningful. Yeah, we'll start to lose their right there, I guess, their potency over time, but you can keep like this.

Speaker 1: 1:04:26

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:04:27

And you know 30, 40 years. You can pick this up and be like, take you right back into the moment, exactly To never forget.

Speaker 1: 1:04:35

Yeah, so as we wrap up, you know I've been inspired by Alex in a lot of ways with photography, with analog stuff, and I tend to appropriate a lot of things from the close relationships I have. This isn't necessarily a criticism, but I'm very much a sponge for the things that other people are interested in and passionate about, from my buddy, dj, and his impact on just the clothes that I like to wear. I never used to really wear all black and all that, but I kind of it kind of felt good to me and I'm sure that'll change at some point. But with you and photography, especially film photography, and then really liking you know what you had to say about your electronic keyboard, your typewriter. You know I picked up a typewriter on Facebook marketplace and this morning I sat down on my iPad with the you know, the Apple pencil and just kind of wrote something.

Speaker 1: 1:05:42

I didn't like like I'm going to write a poem or whatever. Like I just wrote stuff and it just kind of flowed out of me and I sat down at the typewriter and took what I had handwritten and typed it up into this four page. It looks like a poem. I don't know if it is, it's just something that came out of me and so I don't think we'll have time to get into it now, but whether we talk about it in a future episode, the next episode, whatever what I was coming into this wanting to discuss and maybe a little bit prompt you and your thoughts on this, was when stuff like this happens to us, not only big things like this that have an impact on us as people, but the micro impacts that we have over our lives and how all those things add up to finding their way into our work. And you know, for me to sit down and write something which I haven't like really done in a while, something that's creative and quite a while, or sort of like artistic writing.

Speaker 1: 1:06:44

Maybe not even artistic, just like. I just mean, like it's not a script for a. Youtube video You're not trying to like, you're not working, yeah, right. And then you know today, my intention is to film the video portion of that. You know, to go back with the black magic. That's another inspiration from you the black magic camera to film the video portion that I need to make that video.

Speaker 1: 1:07:08

But what am I going to do with that video? Is it just going to be the same Kind of video as the other ones I've made, or am I going to be inspired or motivated, or in that kind of idea of writing a diary entry? Am I going to come up with something else that I don't know, whatever? So to be continued, but just wanting to have a conversation about when things like this happen to us, how it gets transformed into our work how it's going to be done.

Speaker 1: 1:07:33

how it's going to be done, and then I'm going to come up with a conversation about when things like this happen to us, how it gets transformed into our work, and maybe the good, the bad of that. Is it therapy? Is it self-serving? Is it didactic? Is it sharing these? Is it a warning to other people?

Speaker 1: 1:07:56

You know, like wow like how does an experience like this transform through the work that we make, how does it make work that we wouldn't have normally made? And and and propel us on whatever journey we're on, however you want to say it, as we develop, as people who are trying to make work.

Speaker 2: 1:08:14

This is a really goofy like visual for this, but you know I was thinking of it as, like you have a glass of clear water. Yeah, when you start adding things to it, like those just become a part of that like it's difficult to make that clear again, but it becomes its own. Or like you have a clean block of wood, over time it starts to get chipped away out near yeah, this is. This is interesting, though I think it's a good place to a place to wrap it. I think so too.

Speaker 1: 1:08:42

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.