Studio Sessions
Discussions about art and the creative process. New episodes every other week.
Links To Everything:
Video Version of The Podcast: https://geni.us/StudioSessionsYT
Matt’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/MatthewOBrienYT
Alex’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/AlexCarterYT
Matt’s Instagram: https://geni.us/MatthewIG
Alex’s Instagram: https://geni.us/AlexIG
Studio Sessions
56. Seasonality, Not Speed
We examine the tension between artistic evolution and audience expectations, using examples from Mac Miller to Paul Thomas Anderson to explore what happens when creators follow their interests rather than trying to replicate past successes. The conversation moves through Matthew's strategy of operating multiple YouTube channels as both creative experimentation and financial hedge—separating pure documentation from tutorial content while trying to preserve the act of curation from the corruption of commerce.
The discussion deepens into questions about cultural pressure and achievement metrics: the constant comparison to others' milestones, the invisibility of what you've already accomplished when fixated on what's next, and how scarcity (real or perceived) compresses time and forces short-term thinking. We explore the concept of "chaotic clarity"—knowing exactly what you want to make but creating a mess in the execution—versus the anxiety of precarious stability where everything feels one incident away from collapse. The episode touches on sponsorship ethics, the difference between promotion and curation, and ultimately asks whether the framework of constant achievement is even the right lens for evaluating a creative life. We close by each defining our current season, revealing how different our experiences of uncertainty and momentum actually look. -Ai
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
It had been a golden afternoon, and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the somebody else.
SPEAKER_03:I mean six months from now I could be like, yeah, you know, it it would be cool to have this all under one roof and I'm just gonna take those channels down, re-upload that content, put it all yeah, put it all up in there, or I'm gonna just skip YouTube altogether and just build a website like yours and just house all my stuff like like different, you know, different sections or pages of the website, you know. I yeah, I I I certainly hear you. And it's like, well, you have two photography channels now, so you have one that's just these videos of the photos you get with these digicams and Cynthia music and vibes and all that stuff, and then the other one is like the camera short about cleaning a camera, and then now then it's you talking about this dilemma you have with your Leica, and I don't know. There's something also sort of fun in the chaos of all that where I'm like where I'm just Well, you're a chef and you're in a kitchen. It's like instincts, I don't know, needs a little dash of salt, it's this, like taste, like uh needs this, needs this, and like, yeah, you know it's just yeah, I you know, there's like an element of making it up as I go along, improvisation, experimentation, winging it, and it's messy and a little chaotic, especially to someone who might, you know, that I think too when you say a project and a project album or whatever, and especially with like what you're doing, you're you're just so much more focused and deliberate, it feels like. And and if you hear this and you're like, yeah, no, I don't think that's a right character conversation. Because I know you're you have all you know, you've got all kinds of stuff going on. It it's just uh it just hasn't like all been put out there, and I'm just like, you know, again, think it, feel it, make it, send it. Like, okay, like I I made 30 recordings of the different vinyl record halls I've got.
SPEAKER_01:That's really cool that you have 30, though. Yeah, they're just sitting there.
SPEAKER_03:Well, some of those, the first two on that channel are from January. That wasn't like last week. And so I'm I know it's just that's awesome, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And then the one that also it's cool to think that you were just making those things and you weren't sure. Like it was because that it was and I did get that vibe watching them too. It it feels I mean, I don't want to say pure, but yeah. It feels it does feel pure. It's you're interested. You're involved, like you were just this is this is what I want to do right now. So I'm gonna do it.
SPEAKER_03:And that's and that's probably of all the stuff that I make the purest in a sense because I I just want a record of everything, pun intended. I just want a record of everything that I've gotten.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And what you know, I I don't go so far as to be like, okay, I out of these 50 records I picked up, I took 38 of them to the record shop, and here's how much money they gave me for them and what my profit was and all that stuff. Uh and it's gonna evolve. I'm probably going to watch them back and be like, I'm kind of like, I don't want to just watch you spend 75 cents a record and you're buying just bullshit stuff that isn't interesting or stuff you're gonna keep. It's just all about I'm gonna spend 75 cents on this record and I'm gonna go sell it to homers for a dollar fifty and double my money, and and that's it.
SPEAKER_01:There is something to the idea of like the ch your channel is like the majors.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And then these are like the miners. You can send your content down to the miners to refine itself and then bring it up. That's interesting. And then on that you're figuring it out, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And and like you said, you know, if it's more pure, it's it's because I literally like I'm not if people are interested in it and they watch it, I I'm always happy for that. And do I check like, oh, did anybody watch this? That's not the thing that I care about most. Whereas with my main channel, like I get really bummed out when a video that I made trashes or doesn't do that is a decent split between I really want to make this and I see what I want to do with it, but I also am like trying to trying to um provide value to the audience, which is you know kind of goes against it goes against uh you know some of the things we've talked about on here. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It is it's just interesting, yeah. I mean, I I think yeah, you you summed it up well where there's just different ways to do things. And not like there's not a wrong way and a right way. There's just different ways, and they all have merit as long as they fit into the system that you're you're doing, but that I'm bashing through. I'm just glad that you're making these these things because for a while it was well, it's funny because I the whole I'm like I feel like you need to make content around this or do this. And you're over here making them since January and just you're like, I'm doing it. Yeah, yeah. Were you editing them as you made them?
SPEAKER_03:No, just the raw footage and audio just sitting in a folder template because basically I said to myself, you can't create the channel and make it visible unless you're really gonna do this. And what if after three times sitting down and recording your vinyl haul, you're just like, I don't feel like doing yeah, I don't feel like sitting down and recording what I got. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's kind of like didn't we have like five episodes stored up?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, right. That's exactly where we like we have to make sure we're gonna do that. We we we weren't gonna put an episode until we had.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And even just in watching back the first two on the vinyl channel, I'm like per like personally, I'm like, I really need to in certain situations get video of like a shot of the records just all sitting there and then flipping through them so people because it does it feels like something's missing. Like just the dude sitting down and going, I went to the thrift store and here's everything I got. While that's fine, it's not quite as interesting for me. Because I like, here's what I like. This is so dumb. We're spending time on this, but like part of me is. We'll get back to seasonality, the title. I've already I I I've already looked back at the very first flip-through video I I did, and it was to send a Simon at Grapefruit Records so he could tell me what records had value. So I could bring them to him, and then he could buy them and then sell them in the shop. And I've already looked back at that video and been like, oh, I would have grabbed like today, me, I would have grabbed that one, I would have grabbed that one, oh, I would have grabbed that one. And some of them might have been for personal, or some of them might have been to sell or put in Josh's shop or take to Homer's because Simon doesn't want them or whatever. And that's interesting to me. It's interesting to like see this. Like when I watched that video back, I was like, Man, you had no clue what record was what, if it was valuable, you didn't even know what discogs was, you know, there's just you you you're clueless. Yeah. Um, and five years from now, when I look back at a video that I made today, I'd be curious to go, you know, would you have made the same selections or left this stuff behind or whatever? Um, or maybe I've you know, like whatever band I left behind of the cassette tapes today, five years from now I've listened to some of their stuff. I'm like, that's actually really good. Is it valuable? No.
SPEAKER_01:Matt left a treasure trove of wild loved tapes behind.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So I don't know. There's that too. Sports, Huey Lewis. Yeah, I did leave the Huey Lewis. I did leave that. That's a break-even cassette right there at the record shop at best. Yeah. Probably a 50 center.
SPEAKER_01:Not popular these days. No.
SPEAKER_03:Although Goldie keeps listening to Power of Love because we watch Back to the Future and she can't get enough of that song.
SPEAKER_01:Which is not on sports, by the way. But what's the uh what's the experience like starting to go through these movies to see the so we Aaron was out of town? It's just gonna get better and better. Like next year is gonna be even more insane. I know we talked about this last year, but yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Aaron was out of town, and so we went downstairs where I'm in my studio where I have there's like a 55-inch TV and uh a basic stereo surround system. And with Aaron not being there, we could really crank the volume. I moved the couch up really close to the TV so it felt bigger because from across the room, it's like looks like a little postage stamp across the way. And I'm just like watching Dottie watch all like the key moments from Back in the Future, and she is just loving it. Yeah, loving it. I'm like, if I was Robert Zemeckis and I got to watch this little nine-year-old, yeah, or you know, um Bob Gale, who wrote the who co-wrote the script, Spielberg who produced it, if I got to watch this nine-year-old just yeah, I mean, it was amazing just watching her uh react. And she's a active um movie watcher, whereas Goldie is more subdued. Yeah. And she probably enjoyed it at the same level, but just doesn't visualize or externalize her reactions as much. So it was cool, it was really awesome. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And it's a it's an awesome way to re-experience a movie by you're getting, I mean, she's gonna be at the age soon where you can just open up the canon. That's right. And it's start getting crack it, and it's every night we're watching this, we're watching this, we're watching this, and it and it and it can start getting into stuff. Start to form the coolest high schooler of all time.
SPEAKER_03:Like my sister did that for. What do I wish I knew in high school? My sister did that for our cousin Britt. Um, she was quite a bit younger, and my sister would babysit her. And every time, every time all of us are like at Thanksgiving or whatever, and Britt's there. She's just like, Katie, you showing me all those John Hughes movies and everything when I was, you know, probably, I don't know, 11, 12 years old, even younger. Um, like just like was so powerful for me. And that's where this idea of curation comes in. Not to do a transition or whatever, but we talk about Josh's shop and going to these estate sales and the seasonality and all that stuff, and my channel. There is like a tide in everything. Well, it just popped into my head. It was like a lightning bolt. There is part of me that's like, I want to be Katie, my sister, for all the Brits out there that don't know that this Apple shit is cool, or that these cassettes are awesome, or this band is great, or these cameras, you go in nuts about that canon camera. And even though that might not motivate you to make a video on your channel about it, like to talk about it and why you should consider this, you might make a video using it with it, yeah. And someone goes, What is this made with? Yeah, or you mention it in the description or whatever. And we talked about Josh's shop, and you got really amped about doing this kind of an idea and um and having curated stuff in there. That's a big part of it. It's about going, I went into a shitty, dirty basement, and there was a bunch of old Apple shit. Yeah. And I think I was most excited for the shitty Apple monitor, which is a cool monitor, but shitty in the sense like it's in the corner of this dirty basement. Yeah. That you get to make your weather station with if it works.
SPEAKER_01:We're gonna try it. I so when you sent it last night, yeah. I I started looking at the logistics and I think I can do it with the pie. Yeah. And I already set the browser up to our I self-hosted the actual application. So it's I don't have to worry about the application going down. It's hosted on my server now.
SPEAKER_03:So the biggest the biggest thing is we gotta get a power cable for it, which is a standard power cable. I checked it because there was another Apple monitor that had a weird hookup. So this is a standard? Standard like normal Dell monitoring.
SPEAKER_01:I've got to get the VGA to I think it's different than VGA. Oh shit.
SPEAKER_03:That's what I was worried about. We're gonna have to double check whatever that thing is. And I gotta get it to HDMI somehow.
SPEAKER_01:There's gotta be some way to route that 100%.
SPEAKER_03:Somebody's come up with something.
SPEAKER_01:There's yeah, there's it's pretty rich in the world of conversion, but we're gonna figure it out. We're gonna put it right where that fan ends.
SPEAKER_03:That's the title of the episode. It's pretty rich in the world of conversion. That's a good sentence. Throw that out there. But but that you showing me your website, you talking about the weather station, literally, dude, you telling about that. I'm like, I would have never in a million years thought of that. I want that in my studio. I don't want to build it. Well, we're gonna have to but I want Alex to like create the kit, not like we'll figure it out.
SPEAKER_01:Kind of, I mean, it's like the Apple TV. And then uh yeah, we'll be able to do that. Now you did that, and I went, oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. What did I do? I did I did the exact same thing. It's so much cooler though because it swivels. That's pretty fucking cool. And it's a little smaller, too. Yeah, it's perfect. Yeah, but no, I mean, yeah, it's just figuring these little things out.
SPEAKER_03:We talk about this all the time, where you know, we talked about promotion versus curation. Yeah. And you talk about that. I go buy the little accessories that you sent me. Yeah, that's all I want my channel to be. I don't want to sell people shit. I just want to be like do the same thing.
SPEAKER_01:This is how you can also do this is how you do it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you don't have to. Well, and I'm I'm hoping to do a little bit of that with with the website too. Of I want to get a little like I mean it's like you said, like, I'm always messing around with these stupid things where they don't really have a purpose. And yeah, just I'd like to put a place to share that where it feels just I don't want it to necessarily like for me, I don't I don't want it to be like, oh man, like I'm creating this channel and I'm it is just a total like you're coming over on a Friday or Wednesday, and I'm like, check this out. This is what I've been working on.
SPEAKER_03:And I think your experience of me as a person informs your wondering about why are you separating all this stuff out? It's like when you hang out with me, we talk about photos, we talk about this, we talk about vinyl. Like it all blends together, and you're not like, hey, whoa, we're talking about records, bro. I'm not interested in that. So honestly, I'm gonna tune out. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? And so I think naturally it's like, well, why can't you have conversations about all that stuff in one place instead of you know separating it out?
SPEAKER_01:I've always hated the uh when when somebody's like, well, they don't make movies like they used to, or they don't make this was my favorite album, and I don't ever want them to make music that sounds different, or like I don't for some reason they evolve or they changed. Yeah, they don't sound the same. Right. That's the whole point of all of this. Listen is the evolution. And so if yeah, if you evolved and you're like I don't care as much about Final Cut and like technical bit by bit filmmaking as I did. I'm just more interested in like these interesting things, and I I have all these I've internalized all these skills, and I'm gonna use them. Yep, to then that's it's like you've evolved. Yeah, you you were making pop music and now you're making conceptual like psychedelic music, and that's fine. That's sick.
SPEAKER_03:Let's see what this is about. So I think that this comes down, it comes down to this. You your primary interest is me. Yeah, most of my subscribers, I bet, is the subject matter, not the person. And and I and I think that there's a lot of people where it's real close, one's higher than the other. Some people that are like, dude, just shut up and show me how to make it.
SPEAKER_01:When you talked about manifesting the butter chicken, though, like you can totally manifest the change of they start to view you. I mean, it's like take any musician who took a leap and they went from so like I the the example in my head, and this is maybe more my generation, but I think of like my favorite one of my favorite people to follow was Mac Miller. Yeah, and I mean, yeah, the intro thing to our podcast. And the first couple of things that he came out with were like, yeah, like the frat rap kind of whatever. And then he comes out with you know, a mixtape that's like, oh, it's a little bit stretching. Then he comes out with an album that's completely people are like, Whoa, this is very different. I hate this.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:And the first time I heard it, I was like, what is this? Like, I don't and then I was I was like, okay, let me give it a chance. And that taught me like one of the most valuable lessons about art that I've ever learned. I mean, I was you know a teenager at this point, and I didn't have that super good curated guidance, super effective curated guidance growing up. I I was kind of on my own and I was a product of shitty daytime TV. And like, yep, you know, I I didn't have any level of taste. I didn't know better. Yeah, that was my experience. I didn't grow up in a house with books, I didn't grow up in a house that really loved movies. Not that those things weren't important or I didn't see that, but yeah, I was one of those people that was like, Oh, why would you waste all your time in a movie or something? Right, which is just insane for me to think about now.
SPEAKER_02:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:I didn't know better. So uh when yeah, he he took this leap and he released this thing that was more conceptual, and then he just kept everything was a little bit different, everything was different. And I what at first people were like, Whoa, that he's not the same, or this isn't the and I mean I'm sure some people were like, Okay, this is different. I don't, this isn't for me anymore. Yep.
SPEAKER_03:Because I want I want I want new songs that make me feel the way the old ones did.
SPEAKER_01:And there's still people that I'm sure listen to those old mixtapes, those old albums, and but he kept going. Yeah, all the way up until he died. He kept everything was different. Every and you by the end of it though, you have this incredibly loyal base of people that only care about him and they're growing with him, and they're growing with the music, and every new experience that he's releasing, they're tuning in to see what that is. What okay, what how has he pushed it to a new place? How has he pushed it to a new the end of his career? He's releasing like something that is more akin with like a senior songwriter, like I mean, it just like amazing stuff, completely unique. He just followed his own interest the entire time. Well and what I'm getting at is yeah, you know, he took the risk to be like, okay, I'm gonna alienate these people that are and it worked out tenfold. And then now I mean his legacy is completely secure. He's like probably one of the most important artists of that generation, right? Um, I mean, I might be overstating it, but I I mean, I think he's got like 10 billion views on YouTube or something, like not insignificant at all.
SPEAKER_03:So well, and what ends up happening, I think, in that situation is some of the people that fell off need five, seven, ten years to come around. To come around. And then they go, Oh, I see what he's doing.
SPEAKER_01:I didn't I couldn't see it. And you you don't get that if you're if you're pandering to those people. And you get that if you're moving forward and you're listening to your own voice. That's right.
SPEAKER_03:And that happened with that sounds with the beach boys. Everyone's like, what the fuck is this?
SPEAKER_01:The Beatles are a great. I mean, the Beatles were what I was thinking about earlier when I said you go from pop to conceptual, like they everything was just pushing forward, pushing forward, pushing forward.
SPEAKER_03:And they never really released an album that people were like, as far as I know, and please. So, you know, Pet Sounds was like, okay, let's get the surfers and the surf song and all this stuff. Uh and I think of Weezer, um, not to put them on uh like necessarily the same level as Beatles and Beach Boys, although for me they are.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um the blue album comes out in '94 or whatever it was, and then Pinkerton comes out in '97, '96, '97, and everybody goes, What the f is this? Yeah. We just want more buddy Holly and say it ain't so and all like, what is this? And I loved Pinkerton from the start, and I feel like I'm like, I'm all in on these artists.
SPEAKER_01:You're in on the group, not the and it uh it's like I mean, PTA. Like I, you know, you can completely draw a line down the middle of his work. Yeah, it's like this is completely different than this.
SPEAKER_03:100%.
SPEAKER_01:And there might be some people that are like, I just want another boogie nights, right? I just want another Magnolia. Yeah. But he continued to progress. And he can tend everything is different. And yeah, I mean, I'm a fan of it right now. Right. I think you know, the I think the later half is far more interesting. The work is a lot richer, it's so much more um conceptual, it's so much more interesting. And you're meaning like um licorice pizza, uh Phantom Thread, the Master, Inherent Vice. There will be it's there will be blood to I think Inherent Vice to Phantom Thread to Licorice Pizza, the Master.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Like those films are so much different than Punch Drunk Love, right, uh Heart 8, Magnolia, and was Punch Drunk Love before And then he did the documentary too. He did the the the doc Junon, or I think that's what it yeah was it Punch Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood? Punch Strunk Love, and then he took a six-year hiatus and then There Will Be Blood. There will be blood. Yeah. Yeah. Or a five-year hiatus.
SPEAKER_03:And that stretched for me, Punch Strunk Love, There Will Be Blood. Uh Phantom Thread came before Inherent Vice, right?
SPEAKER_01:Uh after. After? After. Yeah. It was the master and then Inherent Vice and then Phantom Thread, I believe. Okay. And then um Licorice Pizza.
SPEAKER_03:I need to go through Inherent Vice again.
SPEAKER_01:It's it's good. We're I'm gonna give you an edible and we're gonna go stay in the field. Okay. You and I are gonna take an edible.
SPEAKER_04:All right.
SPEAKER_01:I'm gonna we'll we'll plan it ahead so you can kind of yeah, deal with what you need to. And yeah, we're gonna go and see. Because it it is, especially when you're locked in, it is it's crazy. But what the the the greater point is he's somebody who's continued to press forward and he doesn't really think about, he's not thinking about, oh, what are my contemporaries doing or what is expected of me?
SPEAKER_03:What what is this film that I'm working on now? What is it, how does it relate to what the audience expects based on what I made last time?
SPEAKER_01:Just interested totally in what he's interested in. Right. And that's all that matters.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's how I think good art gets made. Yeah. And yeah, I d I don't know. I I and I don't know how this ties in. Like, I I I don't I'm not this isn't a a big thing of me making an argument of like, well, you should do it this way. Well, like I I get it. I totally get the I the idea of it also gets having something that's low stakes to kind of experiment in.
SPEAKER_03:It also gets murky too, because and I know this is like a for some people kind of a like a a trigger word, but like these the difference between content, especially in the relation to what I'm making, final cut tutorials, um you know, the probably the most artistic thing I make is the photo video stuff. Yeah. But then also, just like you said, I mean, I've like went this is what the forum needs to be, and every video is gonna like be similar to itself, to the one that came before it. Um so there's like there's those challenges as well, like personal documentation, making quote unquote content, um using sort of artistic tools or instincts or whatever in some of these videos, but ultimately it's just kind of a straightforward communication of something. This is how you do this in Final Cut, these are the records I got at the thrift store.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:This is my dilemma with this camera that I acquired. You know, it's not it's not a a translation or transformation of a feeling into a a piece of work that you could argue, but I mean we can't.
SPEAKER_01:Spending so much time with the form is gonna translate to something inherently.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You know, because I do think about like my screenwriting, and there was like, oh well, uh I wrote this like coming of age, supernatural kind of horror movie. So why am I writing a hard-boiled cop movie next? You know, like there's no, I don't give a shit. This is what I this is the story I have in my head. I don't care what what the previous script is.
SPEAKER_01:It's what's what's got your attention right there. Yeah, and I think that's the biggest thing is just if you stay true to that, you're gonna go further than if you're constantly second guessing yourself. Or like anything that's like I shouldn't be doing this, you're listening to another voice. Yeah, somewhere. So I mean, there's it's not always a bad thing to ignore that I'm gonna do this, and then if something comes up and says I shouldn't be doing this, maybe that maybe that is you know, hey, do you want part of my shop? Right. I shouldn't be doing this. Yeah. No, I don't want, you know, it's a good thing. Yep. Sometimes, but yeah.
SPEAKER_03:But the voice that I do want to listen to, and I wish it was easier for me to just do it is like when I'm running around town like this, I see things that speak to photography projects that I've yeah, screwed around with. You've like I've taken some photos, like, oh yeah, that like you know, these different projects I have in my head that I have done something toward. I go, I see that thing, and that would be perfect for this project I've started. But I gotta go get this thing, I gotta go grab this, I gotta, you know, like I just keep not making the work because I'm chasing what I'm gonna do.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and maybe maybe what you're doing with creating all of the channels is you're spreading it subconsciously, you're spreading it out because then there's more there's more surface area for one of them to really stick. And then and then bust you out of this that's right. And I think this I think there is an element cycle of I don't have enough revenue.
SPEAKER_03:Like I need more, I need to buy more lottery tickets.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you're buying more lottery, exactly. And it's if the vinyl channel rips and goes to 300,000 subs, all of a sudden, uh you know, you're you're not putting all of your eggs in the basket of Matthew O'Brien. Right.
SPEAKER_03:Suddenly you have a vinyl channel that pays the bills, and you can and then some, and I could be like, I'm gonna spend the week driving around Omaha to for these photo projects, and I don't have to stress about it one bit.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. I so I get I get that. And I didn't necessarily, yeah, I mean that's and there's an element of that for sure. And there's also the subconscious like protection element of uh you you kind of hit on this at the beginning of the episode, but you you know, spreading there's more hope. I mean it is the lottery ticket thing, but there is I had a conversation with a buddy this morning, and he's not you know, he's not loving his job, and he's like, I really want to do my own thing because at least that way when I have a shit day or a shit week, I'm building towards something that has the potential to break me out of that's right. He's like, right now I have a shit week, and all I have guaranteed is the salary that I've negotiated or whatever. And I'm like, I get that. You're you know, it's just having he something he said, he was just like, I want the hope of something. More. Yep. Like I just want the idea that there could be something more. And so maybe that's part of it is yeah, there's having all of these, there's more of just you've more irons on the fire.
SPEAKER_03:And there's the there's just this feeling of infinity versus can just like this finite paycheck and pain. Yeah. And um I think too, the multiple channel thing is a reaction to I mean, and it's literally documented in this podcast, all of the conversations we've had about art versus commerce and my struggle with I don't want to make a video to sell people stuff. Yeah. Um, I have a sponsorship video that is gonna I'm gonna work on next week. And I believe in the product. I use the product. I think other people should be using it if they're shooting and and capturing footage to a hard drive or using Final Cut and needing to reduce their file size consumption, all that kind of stuff. Um, and I'm gonna have to make I'm gonna at least in my first thoughts craft a video that feels like um I don't know, something that feels like a big like I think if someone really goes, What did I just watch? If I really take myself to test, that was just a big commercial. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now my intention isn't to make a commercial, my intention isn't to, you know, it's to make it in a way that is valuable and entertaining, hopefully, and interesting or vibey or whatever, whatever I end up doing. But to curate something, like I'm telling you, oh dude, you're not capturing your footage using this software. Yeah, dude, when you're out in Colorado and you're and you're doing the stuff with the DV camera, you gotta put it on two hard drives. Just use this app and it does it. And between you and me, you might be like, Oh, cool, I'm gonna check it out. Yeah, you know, and if it checks all the boxes, it's not too expensive. Like, thanks for curating that for me. Yeah, for sure. Um, and I think all of these channels, there's an element of that. Speaking of hard drive, I'm gonna need your help.
SPEAKER_01:I gotta upgrade this thing. It's just been five years. That we'll see. I I can take out the drives, I just want to replace them with new drives. Oh, yeah. I've got it all cloud backed up and everything, and I'll keep those drives probably for, but yeah, just needed to slip that in there. Gotcha.
SPEAKER_03:Maybe this product. Right. So I I think having the multiple channels too is a reaction to I don't want to be dependent through one channel on acquiring sponsorships that make me feel like I'm selling people stuff versus curating them stuff. So if I can create these channels and those channels can include a link to a film stock, a link to um record sleeves that I use and really like, and those things generate affiliate revenue, I can break myself free of this feeling of depending on sponsorship revenue as the main driver of profitability for my business. And I get the best of both worlds.
SPEAKER_01:I get the revenue and I get to curate you get the experience of curating something that is meaningful to you. It's like us having Topo on here.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah and and talking about Canara. We were sort of did it in a joking tone, but you're you literally curated. Some people might be like you promoted it, but like, no, yeah. Like we didn't plan this. We definitely aren't getting any benefit.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we don't have affiliate route. I would love if they wanted to. No, right. No, I mean it absolutely. It's like the we drink cuddy on here, and I've had a couple of people reach out and be like, tried cuddy. It's actually a lot better than I anticipated. I thought it was shit. Like it's you know, it's it's not the greatest scotch in the world. It's great. Pretty good, it's pretty good. And yeah, you know, that's cool. Right. It's just something that, you know.
SPEAKER_03:And some people might watch Punch Drunk Love and they haven't seen it before, or you know, uh go to an estate sale because they've never been to one before.
SPEAKER_01:I think that's that's the thing is we we have to and it's not convenient for anybody's bottom line, it's not convenient for anybody's sales quotas. Lights out. But the idea that you know, not being not sponsored, but curated. Yes. And obviously, this is gonna this is gonna get abused. Like this, if this gains any kind of real world traction, this is gonna get abused, and then every sponsorship is gonna be disguised as a curation.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And it's gonna completely ruin the idea, corrupt the idea of a curation. But I mean, yeah, there is something to and we've already seen it. Like, we're in the evolution right now where things are clearly sponsorships because it used to be you'd read an ad or something, and I think there was a bit more of a novelty or like a naive presence to when you received that, you'd be like, Oh yeah, I'll check this out. And it felt like a curation. Yeah. And that's been betrayed at some point in the last couple of decades. Yeah. It's been betrayed in culture, and now everything is just kind of accepted as an ad.
SPEAKER_03:Well, and you know, like, you know, when you um when you used to watch television, cable television or network television, you know, like you'd have your your six-minute run of saved by the bell, and then there would be all these random disconnected commercials. I mean, maybe they'd fall under like kids-related stuff because that was more appropriate for that demographic of viewer and all that, or you're watching MTV and you see commercials for this this thing or that thing or whatever. But it was pretty general. The audience goes, I okay, you know, I'm watching MTV. Oh, now there's a commercial. This has nothing to do with MTV. This is a bank of commercials that make the company that owns MTV some ad revenue, and and then we go back to MTV. Yeah. With YouTube, it's all interwoven. It's what you're talking about, just cutty sark on the table, and people get interested in it because of its sort of product placement, even though it that's an intention there in the term product placement, where this is not in hey, let's increase cutty sark's because like on you know, there's no intentionality behind that.
SPEAKER_01:Um versus then the squarespace. What happens is if somebody finds out, oh man, that podcast sure is selling a lot of cutty sark. Yeah, then somebody's like, I will pay you ten thousand dollars to put my whiskey on your table. Right. And only my whiskey. Yep. And then suddenly this cutty sart goes away.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_01:And this comes in, yeah. And we don't talk about it. Right. Because it's like, oh, well, this oh yeah, we just found this stuff.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and maybe we don't even like it. Yeah. Or prefer it. But the money's there. Yeah. And that's where I go. No, it has to just happen organically. You have to like the cutty first, yeah, and then it just becomes a character in the channel. Yeah. I have to like the software application that I'm gonna do a sponsorship with. I have to like the record sleeves that I'm gonna mention on my, you know, in the description of my video or the film stock that I use or the camera, whatever. And uh and and and go from there with incorporating it into the work that you're making. And that's what I'm interested in. Yeah. And yeah, I think some of the I think these channels, there's an element of these channels um that makes me feel like it's has this new new frontier of hope to generate revenue, but also have the return value of people going, hey, I tried that thing that you mentioned, and yeah, you're right. It is cool. It was great. And it improved my experience.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, just with the music, I mean, you know, you it's funny. We listen to Astral Weeks on this recent drive a couple of times. It's one of my favorite. I uh any kind of road trip I try to work it in at some point. But yeah, you you found that record, and I was like, oh, yeah, I need to run that back. Yeah, like I need to check that out again. Yep. So I mean, yeah, it's I get it. It's it's they're different, they're built for different things. Yeah. But um, I do want to get back to seasonality just to yeah, because we've never wrapped up that that point on an episode. I think we started talking about seasonality like three or four times. And then the one episode that we actually went through it was the last episode. Also, it smells like there's a skunk outside of the door. Do you smell that?
SPEAKER_02:No. Am I just smells like fall? Smells like falling over. Oh, wonderful.
SPEAKER_01:So perfect. Perfect.
SPEAKER_03:Is it that Indian food Alex? It's my own breath. Yeah, he's just gonna have a stroke. Jesus.
SPEAKER_04:It's my own breath.
SPEAKER_01:Just gassing myself out here. Um so seasonality. Um I mean, yeah, what is your like the biggest thing that I'd say is it kind of gets into the whole discussion we had about just kind of following whatever comes. Like, you know, I I don't want to write about this, I want to write about this. Knowing, like, I mean, obviously there's there's limitations that you need to have because you can, I mean, if you're anything like us, I'm sure you could just completely get off track. Oh, yeah, and just off the road, never yeah, never tie a thread together. But there is something to just knowing that things come together, and sometimes you'll work on something for two months, and then you'll want to, you know, take a month and do something else, and then you can come back to that, and the passion can still be there, and this can play out over the course of a decade or you know, two decades. It doesn't have to play out in this hyper uh concise, this artificially manufactured kind of time frame that I I just feel like as a culture we've gotten very used to the idea that everything has to be quick. Yes. If you're gonna start a business and you're not making five hundred thousand dollars a year in two years, then you're a bum. Yeah. If you're gonna do this, if you're if you're gonna, you know, write something or you're gonna pursue something artistic, and if it's not this metric of success and this metric of time, then you're this metric of a piece of shit. Yeah. It's and it's it's brutal. Results, results, results, let's go. And it's completely fake, it's completely fabricated, it's completely I mean, it's just toxic. It's toxic if you buy into it, it's toxic if you yeah. So I'm I'm curious, like, what is your relationship with seasonality? I'd love we can maybe talk about some personal examples and then we'll we'll tie this thing up.
SPEAKER_03:I want to hear your relationship with seasonality. I feel like I've been talking this whole time.
SPEAKER_01:I mean how like what how so? How so I think that was that's a good way to describe it how I just did of you don't need to do everything right now. You don't need to do everything doesn't have to come immediately. Yeah. Like you don't have to yeah, bring uh bring it all, lay it all out on the table, and then tie it all up immediately. It's just taking time with things. And maybe that's just something that comes with age, but I I I think it used to be more of an age thing, and now since everybody's kind of online constantly, it's less of an age thing. It's just more of a cultural expectation at this point.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and I think cultural expectation plays into it a lot when you let markers and milestones and results and your age and your demographic and the sort of quantified results of your life when you start letting those things give you a view of where you are in the race. Yeah. How am I doing? Am I gonna get that three, you know, that three hour marathon? Am I am I uh in sixth place in the in the race, you know? Um am I pulling am I getting lapped by the by the lead car, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Um just like a linear progression model of your world.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and it just it just compresses time for you, and you're like, well, if if I if if I want to win this thing or I wanna get to this point, then I you know I don't have Who's my competition? Oh, I'm not ahead of them, but I am I'm killing them. Um yeah. If I get lapped, if I get lapped after 10 laps, um ver, you know, you know, there's a different perception of what you have to work with to try to make it better. If you get lapped by the lead car with six laps to go in the race, the pressure's on. You gotta, you know, figure it out. And I bring all that up just because I I'm in a place with my age and where I am financially and what my wife, you know, sort of where she wants to be, hopes for having money to pay for kids' college, paying off student loans, like all these things. College won't be a thing once they're there. No. But I so I, you know, and this is what I talk about, those kind of cultural pressures, you know, like they impress upon my wife, they impress upon me. This sort of like, where are you in the world of this? And when you have friends that, you know, uh, I'm not saying this is affecting me, but oh, Ashley and Cody went off to Toronto, you got a motorcycle and a camper and are doing this. Um people can sort of see that stuff and go, oh wow, I'm like really behind in the race. But then you guys might go, well, Matt and Erin have two kids, they're already young, or they have a house with equity, you know, this stuff. And it's like, I take that for granted because I have it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You never you never look at you never take stake. It's always right. And so you do take stake, it's just of other people's experiences.
SPEAKER_03:And so sometimes I think those cultural pressures, uh a legitimate scarcity of resources, even if it's in a system that you wish didn't work this way, um, your age, uh, there's a lot of variables that can influence you to have maybe shorter term thinking or trying to get immediate results. Um, you know, wanting validation, you know, wanting to achieve some kind of significant result. Um, because maybe like this is for me, you know, there's a a big element of ego with me that thinks, like, I mean, there's times, dude, where I'm like looking at clothes at a thrift store and I'm like, what the f are you doing? Yeah, yeah. The ego part of me. Yeah, yeah. And I mean like the ego part of me that like we talked about this in a previous podcast, thinks I should have uh, you know, an academy award. A mansion in LA and yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, all this stuff. But but you he but you don't have to do all the hard work to get that. Like you just deserve that because you're special or um you're talented or whatever, you know. And and that I'm saying all that as as sort of like being uh disparaging toward my ego that would even make me think that that's remotely possible. Um but all those things factor in and the right combination of them can apply pressure, yeah, and then you do something in reaction to that pressure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. What is your so like how do you feel like you're able to decompress that time frame or like how do you how do you deal with those expectations or set your because I like this time of year especially is a great reminder of like, oh yeah, things are in constant change and you can fight it or you can just embrace it and go with it. And if you embrace it and just roll with it and you know don't have it's just there's something refreshing about the idea that I can do this for a little bit and then I can step back and then I can do something else, and then I can maybe I I can definitely come back and do this again. Or so yeah, I mean tie how does it how does it tie in?
SPEAKER_03:Well, the decompression from all that I think comes from you know, we've talked this, you know, just the idea of surrender on this channel and I think truth. And I think for some people it's like, look, this is the truth of your life. The decisions you've made, the places you've gone, the people that you're with, this is what your life looks like. And while that may not be in alignment with what your ego thought it was supposed to be when you were 17 years old, um, or like we said before, like we said just a little bit ago, um because you have a house with equity, you don't see it as anything special. Yeah. Um, because you have a really great marriage and two wonderful kids, that that can become invisible to you.
SPEAKER_01:That's the baseline, and then everything else is better than that at that point.
SPEAKER_03:Or also, you know, and I was thinking about this, and I mentioned it, I was thinking about this the other day, and I mentioned in the podcast before. I mean, like my you know, I I was in acting school, I asked my buddy John, John uh the love of your life or your com you know, your your acting comedy career. You have to choose one, the career.
SPEAKER_01:But my my answer is he's like, you know, he's had some success on that.
SPEAKER_03:He's he's uh yeah, I mean, his he's he's a uh uh an expert in his craft, funny. His last name's Mulaney, yeah. All that stuff. And my answer was, well, the love of your life. And so I've always said to myself, you pretty much were working toward creating, manifesting, creating that in your life, you know, the person that you were gonna spend your life with and having kids, and you taking your failures in past relationships and even in your current relationship and improving yourself so you wouldn't you wouldn't ever be at risk of causing so much pain to someone that they didn't want to be with you anymore. And so it's easy for me to sort of just not see all the hard work that went into creating that. Getting to where you are, yeah. And um and I think going back to the what I said earlier, sort of surrendering and and all that, you you have to um I don't know. I think you have to reconcile the part of you that is trying to achieve something with the part of you that has achieved a lot already. And I think for a lot of us we go we we have that invisibility of what we've done and what we've accomplished because we're always focused on what we're trying to get next. And um, and that's something that I struggle with. So if I want to take that pressure off, for me, it's about going, yeah, there's a lot that you haven't done. There's a lot that you want to do, there's a lot that you don't think you have time to do, or the resources, the talent, the whatever it is that you're not gonna be able to do, but look at what you have done. Yeah. And that's the hardest thing.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think there's also just like that the whole framework of achievement being the the goal is kind of fake. Yeah at a certain point. Achievement is it it can be a goal, but you know, there's nothing that says humans are put on this planet with the sole goal of achieving. It's just not true. Yeah. And it's, you know, yes, having motivation or having these are not bad things. It it's good to want to achieve something, it's good to have a goal, or it's good to have, you know, an iron in the fire because it gives you hope and it carries you through your life. It's it gives you a momentum, it pulls you along. But it's not the only thing. Yeah. Now don't take that and be like, okay, well then I'm just gonna throw it all out, and then yeah, I mean, I think, you know, there's definitely it's not it's not a black and white thing, but yeah. There there are other things out there that aren't achievement based necessarily or achievement based in the way that we might define it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That are extremely worthwhile. And there's things that aren't optimization-based that are extremely worthwhile and worth doing.
SPEAKER_03:And there are things that I think are worth doing, but they don't create the markers of success that our society needs to see in order to look at a person and go, Yeah, you're really crushing it. You really got this figured out. You've got the big house, cars, you've got the money, you've got the vacation.
SPEAKER_01:Society is like a parasite on individual achievement. Like in order for that to continue, individual achievement is kind of a prerequisite. Yeah. So that has it has to incentivize that because without that, it it in its current form begins to crumble. So what happens when that happens, who knows? But I I am interested. Um, we can end out on this, but like what is like what's your current season? If you had to sum it up in a couple of words.
SPEAKER_03:Chaotic clarity.
SPEAKER_01:That was less words than I anticipated. There you go.
SPEAKER_03:That's what it is. I know exactly what I'm trying to do, and I am creating a giant place tornado. It's like I'm gonna make this video and my whole studio is torn apart to do it. Yeah, yeah. That's what it feels like. Yeah, like I know exactly what I'm doing. Yeah, but I gotta make a big fucking mess to do it. Yeah, you gotta tear down the walls. So, yeah, chaotic clarity. I would I would say that. And I think because we, you know, you talk about the season maybe leading up to this, yeah. You know, and the the sort of um down one. Your it's yours, not mine. Yeah, but the kind of the bomb that went off in getting into vintage and film photography and all that stuff. That was sort of like chaotic experimentation. Yeah. I don't know, I don't know what I'm gonna do with all this.
SPEAKER_01:Now you finally feel like you know, you just have to figure out how to do it.
SPEAKER_03:And it'll change, it'll evolve. It'll be like, oh, adjust here, adjust there, maybe drop this or whatever. But I'm like, I know, I know the videos I want to make, I know the things I want to do. You know, like I and it and I'm making a mess to to to do it, not to figure it out, but to just execute, yeah, evolve, execute it.
SPEAKER_01:You don't have any processes yet, you don't have any yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, how about you? Well, I don't have a camera to speak to, so stare at the wide, or just creep into my shot, lean in. But you you can't leave everyone hanging without no, I for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Um what do I uh what do I feel like? If I just stall long enough, both these things will die and I'm out free. Um actually now I feel pressured. Shit, that one's gone too. Oh no, just a wide. I legitimately too much anxiety now. Um what do I feel? My season is. I don't know. So I am constantly afraid that oh, that one died too. Now it's just audio. It's just audio. We gotta finish. I'm gonna cut it off on YouTube and we can point people to the audio podcast. Savage, bro. No way. Go go check out the podcast. Look at you. Um well now the pressure is gone. That's nice. Um a little red light. So I'm I constantly feel like I'm just like one thing happening away from everything crumbling. Like every like, you know, I finally feel like there's a little bit of like stability, and you know, it's a very unfamiliar feeling. Yeah. And so I feel yeah, I mean, I feel like I'm just somebody's blowing at the and everything's just gonna fall apart. House of cards. Yeah, I don't think that's true. Yeah, but I think that's true, you know?
SPEAKER_03:There's no making sense.
SPEAKER_01:It just wrapped up that writing. So there is a constant fear there, and I'm trying to get past that and put that out of my head. Yeah. Um I mean, on the other side of that though, there is a glimpse at just space to do what I want to do. So that's somewhere between those two extremes. Everything is inches away from falling into a million pieces and shattering, and then space to make what I want to make. I don't even know if that makes sense. Nothing makes it makes sense to me, but yeah. No, I hear you. Yeah, that's all that matters. So we'll see what we'll see what happens. Get this weather station.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, dude, it's gonna be so good. I hope that then monitor better work. We're gonna figure it out. If I have to I just don't want to like get all the stuff and then hook it up and we're like oh it might be.
SPEAKER_01:That's why Amazon, yeah, yeah. Smoke comes out, catches the curtains on fire, burns down the studio. It was so it just it was gonna be so perfect. Well, we did two hours. Holy shit. Uh 30 minutes of it was us eating Indian food. Whatever.
SPEAKER_03:So thanks for listening to us eat and tink our spoons on our bowls. Thank you to our Doordash driver. That's right. Who forgot my mango, Lassie? Son of a bitch. She's not even paying attention. No clue. Two stars. Two stars. Two stars, no tip.
SPEAKER_01:Two stars, no tip. They already get a driver's fee.
SPEAKER_03:It's fine. We're gonna request a different Doordasher next time.
SPEAKER_00:It had been a golden afternoon, and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer experience.
