Studio Sessions
Discussions about art and the creative process. New episodes every other week.
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Studio Sessions
57. Private Work, Public Truths
We explore the tension between private creative work and public output—why some projects stay hidden in desk drawers, what gets lost when we don't capture ideas in the moment, and how the act of recording thoughts (whether on paper, voice memo, or typewriter) shapes what eventually gets made. The conversation moves through the craft of writing, from Dostoevsky dictating novels to assistants to the question of whether our image-saturated culture has made us illiterate in different ways than previous generations.
The second half examines our complicated relationship with technology: the gratitude for AI tools that eliminate tedious tasks versus the frustration when a 2019 truck takes 45 seconds to connect to CarPlay in 2025. We discuss why analog tools aren't about nostalgia but about reliability—buying things that work the same way in year six as they did on day one, seeking friction and discomfort as antidotes to seamless existence, and recognizing that many technological "solutions" only fix problems technology itself created. Through references to Orson Welles films and a discussion of One Battle, we land on the strange appeal of living without constant connectivity, even as we acknowledge we'll never fully escape it. -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 sunlight that this podcast is.
SPEAKER_02:Um I'm not trying to convince you otherwise to talk about it on camera or to include it in the episode, but um I I'm sorry, I had just thought of uh I thought of the movie Private Parts with Howard Stern. And when he like turns the corner, and obviously it's all summarized up in like a perfect little movie way, but when he turns the corner with being a disc jockey, it's when he just like sort of and I'm not saying you're doing this, but it's when he sort of like stopped managing his on-air presence and just started being himself, yeah. And you know, I certainly wouldn't want to share everything you shared and and all that stuff, but there was it's just something interesting about him sort of uh sharing the truth of his experiences and all that stuff. So that that's the nugget I'm latching on to, you know.
SPEAKER_01:I feel like the truth of what you're going through is I feel like the truth for me though is that it is a private experience. Like yeah, like it is uh like I'm not writing to make a movie that's gonna make me millions of dollars, and I'm not writing to make a book that's gonna sell uh you know a hundred thousand copies or anything like that. Like I'm just kind of doing it because it's interesting, yeah. And um yeah, I don't know. I it's I just haven't released anything. Like I've I've never gotten anything to the point writing-wise where I've been like, oh, I want this out in the world, yeah. And so I don't want to I want to keep them like to myself until that I feel like that is something I want to do. Okay, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. It doesn't to me because I'm the complete opposite. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I mean, yeah, you you and you know me. I can just a kind of yeah, private about some of those things. Uh-huh. That's just kind of where I am. It's the desk, though.
SPEAKER_02:That is what's interesting about the two of us. I am not at all. Talk about it, put it out there to a fault. I mean, I I don't think it's to a fault, it's just yeah, different. I'm thinking of certain situations.
SPEAKER_01:Like, there it fucked me where I've shared things when I shouldn't have.
SPEAKER_02:Fair enough. And you know, it's like I wish I could gobble that back up and maybe use some better judgment to not send that off. Um, but you know, for me, the you know, it it's one thing where it's like don't send it off at all ever and keep it private versus don't send it off yet because it's not ready. And those are two two sort of different things, but but yeah, and I don't know when these when these things will land, but I mean I feel like I'll know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. It's just getting through it, it's just like sitting down and continuing to to move.
SPEAKER_02:I wonder how much private work some of our favorite writers have, like stuff that they wrote.
SPEAKER_01:Dude, I was listening, I've got to have just Horsin Wells thing yesterday, and he's like, there were somebody asked him the question about his scripts being about regret and like power and darkness, and he basically said his I thought his answer was pretty insightful. He said, You know how many scripts I've written?
SPEAKER_03:Right, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:He said it's complete luck of the draw as to what gets made. But I've written scripts about every emotion that a man can feel. Right. Some of them are just more they they get made more than others, and I can't he know he said at the end of at the end of an artist's life, um it's almost dumb luck as to what gets gets turned into actual output.
SPEAKER_02:I think about painters and how many paintings are painted over a painting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That they just were like, nah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we don't want to uh move on.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And they just painted over it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:No, I mean I'm sure just yeah, stuff that they just kept to themselves or never like, eh, this isn't good enough, or I don't I'm not really feeling it, or whatever it is, and they just it's in the well and some dusty corner.
SPEAKER_01:A lot of people's first uh books or first novels just get tossed aside, and you take the learnings. And that I that's kind of another reason why I don't want to talk about that in particular.
SPEAKER_02:Sure. It's the first time.
SPEAKER_01:First, yeah, like I might finish it, let a couple people read it, maybe, maybe not, and then just move on. Learn the lessons I learned, which I am I am literally, I feel like I'm in school right now. Like I'm which is amazing. It's a good thing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um that's a good thing to even be cognizant of because to me, it's always been I have this goal or this result that I'm trying to achieve with my career or my money or success or attention or fame or whatever it is, a combination of all of it, where it's like a refusal to even consider abandoning a piece of work as sort of a training exercise or a good first crack because this has to get me to where I want to be. Yeah. And I think that's another element of how we're different, because you know, the idea to write this didn't dawn on you because it's going to create some commercial or personal benefit outcome that you're excited about, and you're gonna sit down and get it done to get to that as quickly as possible. It's you know, more from an artistic place, which is I have this idea or I have this thought, or these people are talking in my head, or I can hear, I can see the words that describe what's happening. I see a scene, a moment, I know the ending, whatever, and it's just I have to put this out there. But it's not okay. Well, what's my plan when I have this done to contact publishers? Who am I gonna go? Do I have a friend? Do I get on LinkedIn? What do I do I do this? You know what I mean? Like, and that's the kind of shit that I do.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It's I oh, that's a cool idea. All right, immediately let's convert it into uh uh a career opportunity.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'll just find these things and I'll be like, oh, that's interesting. And yeah, like I woke up the other day, I had this idea for uh I don't know what it is, I don't maybe a short story or something, but this guy that tries to reconstruct ancient Egypt in the Caribbean. Nice, like I don't know what that is. Yeah, but I was like, that seems like there's probably something there that's interesting. Um I had this idea that about this this like the these two um people that are married, and they I mean this uh this has kind of been done before, but I think it's interesting. I was listening to a John Casavetti's interview about uh about the film opening night, and yeah, he's talking about the play within he basically wrote a fake play to make this movie, and he's talking about the dynamics of like the play can't be good. But he's like, How do you write a bad play and not have it feel like it's a like within the character's mind, it's obviously not a bad play, right? And she's a very experienced whatever, so how do you write and I thought that was interesting, so but then I what came from that was this idea about these two people uh both married and in like you know long-term relationships, and then they fall in love on stage and like in like beyond love, like there's like a lust connection, the whole bag, and they can only kind of I guess explore that when they're on stage together, and like what would that be like? I feel like there's an interesting thing there for a film. Um, if you can actually keep it like somehow there's a barrier that breaks loose when you're yeah supposed to because I do I mean there's interesting material there just in terms of the metaphor of of um you know performance art um and you know finding a character within yourself and things like that, but then there's also I just think that's an interesting dynamic of like I do too. You've got to cage yourself off because this is not acceptable in the outside world, but for some reason when you're inside of it, that then it's totally acceptable, yeah. And there's no difference, it's just but then also the but when you're in front of an audience of people, it becomes acceptable to lust after another person, right? And this I think it's I don't know, that's something I'm like there's that almost is just a scenario that I'd like to play out. Like you get enough backstory to give two skilled enough actors uh enough of a grasp on those characters and then see how that plays out, and then just put a camera and kind of follow that interaction, yep, and then take it off of the stage and see how the repression looks. And that's interesting. I that's the first time I've said it out loud. I literally thought about this last night. It's like, oh, I wrote it in my phone. Like, good. What do you think about that? Like, you've you have acting experience like on stage.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I've never um never had a role where there was a romantic element with another character, but I've thought about that a few times. Um like I did uh a little short film when I was at Florida State, and I was like the guy that the main character was into and uh had a crush on. And I, you know, the idea of well, what if the director wants me, like wants a scene where we kiss or something like that, you know? Like, how do I communicate that to Aaron? We weren't married at the time, not that you have to be married to like have that be okay or forbidden, but like and so when you mention your idea, I just sit there and go, it's this very odd place where your profession and your art sort of allow you to be intimate with another person. Um, and sometimes it's I imagine it's full performance, it's clinical, there's no romance, there's no whatever, and you have to act. Yeah, yeah. But I'm sure and obviously plenty of times actors and actresses have felt the spark and yeah, whatever, and uh had an affair or left their significant other to be with that person. All I'm sure that stuff that I know that stuff happens all the time. Oh, 100%.
SPEAKER_01:But what happens if you both have a strong enough idea of boundary? Yeah. Like may like a just enough of a grasp on that level of the forbidden.
SPEAKER_02:There was uh that moment, sort of that moment where uh this a spouse sees it happening on stage, yeah, even though they're not physically touching each other, but sees that it's there.
SPEAKER_01:There's a charisma or a chemistry between, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And it's uh it's not like some Orson Wells obscure movie, but it's uh the greatest showman with Hugh Jackman and uh Michelle Williams. Great actress and the actress, I I do like it. But the actress that he's on stage with when he's looking at her singing that huge song, and Michelle Williams like just it dawns on her. Oh no. Yeah. But at the same time, I feel like there's something about the the me in that situation trying to rationalize to my to my significant other, my wife. I personally want to see this person again on stage. I want to explore the lust, I want to explore the love, I can feel it happening, and I sort of have permission without hurting my my wife because it's for the art or profession.
SPEAKER_01:When I when I know full well that feelings, that was the interesting dynamic for me is if both of these people are like like you you want this exploration, you want to see what this is is like. You want like you could you see a new world that you can explore. Well, and you probably without consequences, like a completely forbidden world that you're allowed to explore without consequences, but it's in this finite, and there's still consequences, like you said. You have a significant other, right? So, yeah, what does that look like? How could how could what if we played that out in a 20-minute short film and just explored that dynamic?
SPEAKER_02:Could we one capture that like just intensity of emotion and lust and and there was there was like elements of that, not it was this wasn't from the same situation, but I I as you speak about this, I keep remembering some of those scenes from uh the Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac version of scenes from a marriage, especially when she was seeing the her boss at the startup or whatever, and they were talking through like all of that. Yeah. And I mean, I it was like painful yet fascinating to watch. Uh to see them what felt like very real and truthful dialogue and dynamics and the questions that the one had and the pain they felt and all of that stuff. So uh also a marriage story comes to mind as well. These long scenes with dialogue of them hashing out all their conflict and their issues and all that stuff, and your idea lends itself to to something like that as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's a very uh a very interesting dynamic that I feel like some movies have just sort of like touched on it like like Greater Showman, it's like an element in the story, but like making it the story is interesting.
SPEAKER_01:There's something too if you don't if you're not too didactic about it and you really let it kind of explore itself, there's a lot. I think there's a lot there in the sense of what it takes to get something that's what like truthful, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and when the audience goes, I get it that this guy's doing this.
SPEAKER_01:Like, wow, they they feel like they're in love.
SPEAKER_02:I hate him, like, because I'm with his wife as well. Like, what a betrayal of the thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but it's you know, it it at the same time, is there any way to actually differentiate between like man, they feel like they're in love. Look at how good they are at what they're doing. And it's like, how do you like there's no way, yeah, other than a subjective eye to differentiate between those two things. There's a really great play, too. I'm gonna have to cut this out too, because it's not even I like it though.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, you know, just don't don't steal my idea.
SPEAKER_01:No, I'm just kidding. Do whatever you want, man. This is there's a this has probably already been done. It it's probably like a short story or something that I just haven't read.
SPEAKER_02:Or you should read a film that I as you explore this. You should read Edward Alby's play called The Goat or Who is Sylvia? Um it's fantastic, but it is this exploration of love and lust and betrayal and truth in a relationship, a a long-term marriage, and the the man the husband in the relationship falls in love with a goat. Interesting. And it's like this uh well seriously, one of the best plays I've ever read. I mean, like it is.
SPEAKER_01:I feel like I have heard about it.
SPEAKER_02:I might have a copy of it.
SPEAKER_01:It might have been you that brought it up, but somebody brought like I feel like a couple of weeks ago, somebody brought this up.
SPEAKER_02:Might be a different I haven't read it in a long time, but I remember reading it and I'm like, every word of this is the truth.
SPEAKER_01:If you have a coffee, uh if you have a copy, I'd love to.
SPEAKER_02:I'm sure I do. Yeah, I I love that script, that that play.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Edward Albi's a good playwright to uh to explore.
SPEAKER_01:I I wonder like how would it I wonder how it would work as a play.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Like that idea. I think it would work well. Like you write the artificial play, and then it is just almost like an acting experiment. Yeah. But I mean, yeah, you'd have to how do you get that's just kind of a fucked up psychological experiment. When you're trying to like get two married people to fall in love, never mind. I think that's how it would work as a play. Like in the in the most technical uh definition of the word work.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. But there's a way to crack it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. There's something there. I don't know. It's an idea I'll explore more.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I uh oh, so here's here's a question related to to this. Yeah. But it's a little bit more about sort of like a little bit more about craft. I latched on to you saying you had that thought and then you put it in your phone, right? So I was driving up to Fremont today and listening to the environment. I think I had the latest tetragrammaton on and started going to an interior place thinking about uh a way to uh an angle into this video. I was just talking about it about um the soul of an image and why I like shitty cameras and I started just going all these ideas and this flow state starts happening internally, and a part of me goes, You should probably like write this down or record this, because what happens to me is I I get all that inspiration in that flow state. I'm in a car, I can't easily do this or that, and I just let it go, yeah. And I don't forget all of it, you know. I I whatever, but I'm like, I'm like literally saying like voiceover scripting in my mind, yeah. And I'm like, you're losing all this. So I said to myself, you remember listening to a lot of musicians talk about, and even like um Jerry Seinfeld always has a pen and paper around, um, Larry David has his journal.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, we've talked about it on the show, the guy clerk, just like in the back of a car working on a shitty cocktail napkin.
SPEAKER_02:All the the the the to me, the the artists and comedians and writers and all that musicians always get that stuff recorded somehow. Yeah. And I, and this is part of my issue, and I won't unpack this too much, but it's sort of just like I just always take the easy out. Yeah. Like it's too much work to get the phone out, but I turn the voice memos app on, start talking.
SPEAKER_01:I'll get you, I have like a hundred of these.
SPEAKER_02:I know, and I'll I carry those with me. I literally have one in my bag. But then I'm driving and I go, well, I can't write stuff down, so I might as well not do it. So then I said, just get your phone out, turn on the voice memos app and start talking. Yeah. And for 20 minutes I sat there and rattled off all these ideas about then you can send that to you can transcribe that.
SPEAKER_01:Super easy, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I went, what if you know, how can you just like send this to AI and both get a transcript, but then also get, you know, a summary or something of it, bullet points or whatever. So I'm have a lot of respect for you for having an idea and recording it because I'm uh either a lazy I'm uh or I have this confidence that I'm not gonna forget any of this, it's gonna stay with me and then I'll access it later, which does to a certain extent that working. But there are forgotten like yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and you you talk about like a a writing project. Like part of the cool thing about writing projects is to live with it. Yeah. And then something will present, like you'll go three days and you won't make any progress. Like, I have no idea where this is going. I don't know how to I don't know how to move this thing forward. And then you're sitting and you overhear something, or you just, you know, you you notice an interaction in public between two or three people. Right. And you're like, I know exactly how to take this forward. Yeah. And so there's just been enough instances of that where I'm like, I just write this down, just like the most basic interpretation of what I'm seeing or thinking, and then usually if I just if I cover enough, it'll come back to me. Yeah. Sometimes not, but most of the time. And then yeah, that's it just it's happened enough where I've lost a good thing.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:Where I'm like, okay, there's something to just get it down, and you can come back to it later.
SPEAKER_02:And I think for me, AI is a tool that really unlocks, and there probably was ways to transcribe a audio file and you know, whatever, and and maybe it was, you know, fine five years ago, there was something that could do that pretty much no problem. But the fact that I can just drag that voice memo file into Chat GPT and just get a transcript on the floor. Transcribe this file makes me it it's it's uh another level of motivation to make it a reflex that when I get into that flow state to just open the voice memos app and talk.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. That's something I want to do more of. I I read about how all these authors, like um Dostoyevsky and Proust, and they would just sit and transcribe to an assistant.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, I know, right.
SPEAKER_01:And I genuinely feel like I can't talk the way I can write. I don't know why that is, but I have partially speech patterns that I've developed, or just for some reason when I'm writing, I'm not writing to a voice in my head all of the time. It's just kind of a and and when I'm talking, I am kind of echoing a voice in my head. Um I don't know why that is. It's just my experience. You know, um, I'm sure there's a lot of different experiences to that, but I I really want to be able to write out loud.
SPEAKER_02:But I w I wonder though if those guys were writing a framework, if they were if it was like a really rough draft what they were saying. I mean, I can't imagine I'm sure there were moments of eloquent prose in what they were saying.
SPEAKER_01:But other moments in the I think it was the gambler, the preface to the gambler, Dostoyevsky.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um not the James Conn movie.
SPEAKER_01:I no, I the Jimmy Kahn and then the Mark Wahlberg movie, which is also a fun watch. Um I think both of those have elements of this. Yeah. I don't know if they're I mean, I don't they're not adaptations per se, but they are inspired by inspired by. Yeah. Um God, that's a good movie, too. Both of them are. And the Mark Wahlberg one ends with the running, but um, anyways, what I was saying is I think I read in the preface to that book that he transcribed it over the course of a couple of weeks to an assistant, and it went from transcription to publish in a couple of weeks. I don't know how much of that is mythology or his version of like branding himself.
SPEAKER_02:If it's not, if it happened to be something that he was able to do, and obviously, you know, maybe not too.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, also like if you're a master of the form, you've you've you're probably able to edit live. Yeah. Like they always joke that uh John Ford would edit on set. I didn't care, yeah. All right. But we uh got it.
SPEAKER_02:What's yeah, editing camera. Bob Bogdanovich did that for Last Picture Show. He edited, he shot it, he edited it in camera.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and he was he was a disciple of John Ford, so I'm sure that that's where that came from. And a disciple of Wells who was fascinated with Ford's ability to edit. He was like, You edit, you always go to the editing room, unless you're John Ford. Um, and I mean John Ford obviously edited. There's uh I have a textbook up there, I think, that talks about one of his films and the the editing process on it. But um yeah, just I'm fascinated with that that being able to verbalize these amazing pros and ideas.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and I wonder if if some of the limitations for that too are uh uh nature uh or uh nurture, I'm sorry. It's m more about you know what you learned. It goes back to Neil Postman and and living in a in uh in a world where your brain is wired for imagery, not for speaking and oral tradition and verb, you know, verbal communication primarily. And you know, uh in do for do Dostoevsky him being exposed to that early in his life. I mean, who knows how many stories you heard from from adults or relatives or a grandparent or whatever, um, the stuff he learned in school, uh his just a natural talent for telling stories to people um uh from an early age because he sees what it does to his audience and he just was exercising that muscle from a very early, early, early uh age, but then also was nurtured that that that talent was nurtured versus something you might have to fight against because we are raised in an image-based culture. Yeah, so don't sell yourself too too short on that. And that's what as you were talking about Dostoevsky doing that. I was thinking back on Postman going, what are we losing by everything being so image-based? And is that an example? Like we we almost can't are uh can't um have an illiteracy in a sense, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um you could probably even argue, though, that images are more effective at translating the unexplainable qualities of our world.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um I and I think some of the best prose is so effective because it is so image-based. It's so, you know, you're perfectly capturing some grand visual metaphor or some visual idea in a very economic, you know, yeah, presentation of a sentence or a couple of sentences or a paragraph. And yeah, I I almost wonder if maybe our world being so image-based isn't, you know, it it maybe it's not the same, yeah, but maybe it's not worse. Yeah, and I don't know that it's worse. You talk about you you you think about Herzog and like the degradation of our language, and I think that goes our language goes for uh um phonetic and visual. Yeah. Um you could argue that for sure, that our language is starting to degrade, or that the the sophistication, like I don't think um, you know, biblical imagery and uh TikTok. The the average TikTok video is I don't think those are comparable things. No. And you probably are losing a lot um in that fall off, but yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I was watching uh a video from a uh movie critic and talked about the prevalence of having watched a lot of movies that have just incredible imagery, or sort of like you're bombarded in in a very stimulating way with rapid fire imagery or just like stunning visuals, whether it's the quality of the the CGI or the way the spaceship moves or the way the characters are fighting, or whatever it is, and you're just like so so blown away with the imagery that it isn't till a few hours later, days later, where you go, but what what what the hell did I just watch? What was the story, you know? Like this sort of vapid, soulless, nothing thing, because the brain of the creator is so connected to these powerful images. Yeah. And while they are beautiful, they're empty. Yeah, they're empty. They're it's missing the connective tissue and the in the in the quality storytelling and all the stuff that. that that that that that we crave and you know part of why you know you're you might be particularly drawn to older movies especially I like movies where I feel like I'm watching the filming of a play yeah you know big long master you know like long takes dialogue room to breathe all that stuff I remember watching James Gunn's uh interview about the Superman movie and it was such like a huge risk to have a 12 minute scene of two people talking yeah in a superhero movie like this was this was someone taking a major creative risk yeah and I'm like this is what it's come to meanwhile yeah you're you've got the shining on repeat all the yeah all of the time and it's just the complete opposite yeah yeah or Casablanca or um the third man or the river I have the criterion version of that on laserdisc.
SPEAKER_01:What did I watch the other day that's um and I've I've really been watching a lot of I watch watched Touch of Evil the other day the the older I get the more well like Wells was one of those people who you know you you you take the first film class and you're like Orson Wells. Yeah and the professor is like Orson Wells this is the greatest film ever and then you know at least in my experience I'm like oh going back I I don't think the professor believed that I think it was more of like this is the greatest because it I need I need to say this is I'm expected to yeah yeah and I wish that the professor had that experience or they would have just said like what their favorites were because I mean we we talked about it earlier this year uh with citizen cane to uh in particular yeah I do think like I'd seen that movie four times and then we saw it this year last year yeah uh downtown and I was I we left the theater I was like that might be the greatest movie I've ever seen in my life I mean I was that might be the best movie I've ever yeah that's ever been put to put to the screen and um it just something about it unlocked it for me and the more I go back to Wells work you know F F F is uh F is for fake uh Touch of evil uh touch of evil is what I watched the other day I'm like I'm just blown away yeah and not because of the technical side that people get excited about it's like that's completely secondary it's just the the the craft of telling such a it's such a uh just resonant story it's just such a truthful um just unafraid engagement with yeah with the world I mean it's it's unbelievable yeah and then I watched um yeah the immortal story last night uh Amberson Magnificent Ambersons earlier this year um I want to dive into more of his Shakespeare um work because that's I haven't explored that enough and yeah I'm just uh I don't even know what my original point was I think what were we we were talking about that difference between that different like going back to older it's just so films with incredible imagery but lacking yeah really high quality storytelling we yeah and that's the thing it's just so rich compared to I'm not saying there's not good films that have been released um in the past 10-15 years like that's that's a misconception I think where I'm just like I I uh drive my car um comes to mind um worst person in the world comes to mind um Wolf of I guess that was like 2013 um Irishman is fantastic um like there's there's plenty of phenomenal I'm missing uh the best one is um probably the Malik film that came out in 2019 um about uh what is that um I haven't seen that one I I it's probably the best film that's come out in the last 10 years yeah um there's there's a lot of really good work that has come out absolutely not saying that the quality is like I do think you know we're in the middle of the shuffle so obviously everything that gets put out there's gonna be plenty of bad stuff yes but I yeah I do feel like like one movie in particular we both read and saw well I guess we're kind of transitioning well to this but um it's the hidden life is the Malik film by the way but what I was gonna say is um uh it does feel like there's a bit of a fall off and maybe that'll come um I have an interesting theory that I've never really discussed with you but I don't think I I was listening to this PTA interview and he was talking about how there's always been these things like one battle after another is this movie about like loops and how history kind of repeats itself and things like we're just as humanity we're in these constant cycles even if we don't see them and they might be a little bit different but you know the the core humanity is pretty much the same. Turnings you could say yeah you could say you know the the fourth turning or whatever but um this idea that um that these loops have always happened and um he he had this quote in this interview that we're selfish we're being selfish like these things that we're dealing with have always been present they will always be present and we're just being like very selfish to act like we're it unique and obviously that's a human urge to want to feel unique. And I just see the art that's like in times in history where there's been great strife there's always been really great art that comes from that. Yeah and so maybe it's just premature or whatever but it kind of I uh part of me is like are we overdramatizing things because we have this now we have this self-image that is a byproduct of the last 150 years hundred years and because the art isn't there like I'm looking I'm desperately looking like where's the art that is speaking to these these seemingly worst times we've ever been in it's not there. It's kind of hollow. So it makes me think okay this is probably just another normal this is probably another loop. Well and my concern is and we don't have to go into this too much is that we're so self-centered because of these forces we've talked about before the century of the self that we're so hyper focused on our own individual pursuits and where we are in the race and with our own goals and objectives that we tune out those things that are happening in society and culture and the world because that paying attention to that doesn't help me become a I wish more I I wish yeah like because yeah it's well are these artists or are these just people that want to talk about it online and everybody has capability to be an artist I think when every when everybody is focused on on doing the things that they could could justify as their art like the thing that they are most into I think that's when the world is the most beautiful yeah the world is never going to be like sorry like the world is never going to be this perfect thing but when you're when you have everybody putting their attention towards the either finding the thing that they are most in tune with or expressing that the world is going to be a better place when that happens and right now I think there's just a lot of nonsense that's distracting everybody. Yeah. And um I had a conversation with a with a a friend of mine he's an older person and I'm just like like you have this and he is like he's a very music very good musician and he's a writer and um you know he's written musicals and things like that and um just getting caught up in like things that are of the moment and I'm like I'm like you have a gift to create things that bring people beauty that bring people like legitimate happiness like from the core of their soul like don't I don't I don't want to hear your thoughts on X, Y, or Z, you know, surface level thing that nobody's gonna remember in five months. I want you to go do what you do best because that's where your life is going to be the best and you know serving the best the highest purpose and it's also going to like the byproduct of that is going to reach out and touch everybody who interacts with that.
SPEAKER_02:And I think that's that goes back to the conversations we talk we've had where you know we've we've talked about like where's the scene or where's the movement or where's the this thing that feels like it is growing and accumulating the real velocity not the momentum.
SPEAKER_01:The one that's coming from X, Y, and Z PR firm. Right.
SPEAKER_02:And that's what and that yeah a counterculture a uh a reaction to something uh and that's what what I mean like we're all sort of in our own lanes that we're we've got blinders on to sort of like you know maybe achieving whatever our objective is as it relates to uh peacocking um where we where our uh our places in comparison to our friends or people that we don't even know that we want to look at us and go, oh yeah you've got this and you've got that and you've accomplished this and whatnot and that closing you off to taking in what's happening around you and responding to it through creativity. Again whether it's music, an essay, painting, uh a podcast, whatever it is yeah. And that then catching on with other people and what they're making feels like it's a part of the soul and the vibe and the feeling that is developing in reaction to what's happening.
SPEAKER_01:I think there's always going to be I think there's always been more fragmentation than we think. Um I I think there it was just a byproduct of having closed media circuits and things like that it felt more of a scene like I I the more I the more I think about it the more I think maybe like the scenes were a byproduct like a manufactured thing. Maybe that isn't the natural way that humans interact or culture interacts with with a society but I do think that there are there are still like tr societal trends that I think you can you can see um I mean I I the new um the iPhone came out. Yep iPhone 17 yeah iphone 17 came out who cares like I that's the reaction that I've found in like even with people in my life who I know for a fact were it was a big deal when like the iPhone 5 came out or something like and it was for me. Who cares? Yeah I mean you're a good example like you're a a fan of Apple as a company I want all of their products I want to care deeply about the iPhone 6. See but I I just I like talking about greater trends like I feel like that's kind of a trend. I feel like we've like tech ourselves out and so like all of the postman things that we've read and the the concerns I'm like oh wait maybe the pendulum just swings naturally anyways like there's no point in worrying about it. Like it's kind of just we've kind of gotten tired and like there's almost you know I I don't want to go as far as saying this I'm not gonna actually like this isn't how I I feel it's obviously there's it's more complex than this but you just have your humanity at the end of the day and we're we are like we are a body of humanity existing in a world that doesn't really um that allows us to exist in in a like it's I don't know if it's quite the if it's like pushing back against us but it's just like there is no I don't think there's like a des a destiny there or anything like that. It's just we coexist. We're forces that coexist and um yeah there's these things that pop up that are kind of man-made ideas or man-made movements or man-made whatever and then that'll go for a little bit and then it'll come back and on the grand scheme of history none of it'll matter and I don't know I might have just had too much whiskey.
SPEAKER_02:No there's there's uh I just think there's validity to that that that viewpoint on all of that stuff.
SPEAKER_01:Um like the iPhone thing is a funny like I just remember how much people react it and even with all of like the fun stuff that's happening with AI or with this and you know maybe that is just me being caught up in like a very like anti-tech sentiment or whatever. Yeah. Um but like I don't know I I I I don't feel like I'm anti or pro anything. I'm just like I appreciate technology um and I don't care about a lot of I'm just kind of uh I'm tired of being marketed to at a certain point and it's like okay what what do what were we watching where it was like someone said something about like the perfection of advertising science or something that was that was one battle.
SPEAKER_02:It was one battle yeah I that that was one of the lines that I was like that now that I that I love.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well do we just want to so we've kind of been circling around it the whole time do we want to talk about that? Yes. So we've got we've probably got about 35 minutes of usable yeah if I mean maybe I could leave some of the other stuff but let me put a button on what I was thinking at the end of what you said.
SPEAKER_02:I I also wanted to explore a little bit of we've talked about it before but you you you the shining and apocalypse now and some of the yeah yeah yeah I'll I'll put a button on that little chapter in this conversation but it was you know like you mentioned AI and I had a flash of a thought like yeah kind of the most exciting things for me in my life with the embrace of technology has been on the AI front in very simple ways. Every video that I make now I master the audio I don't I give it to I give it to AI and let it master it. And it is I am so grateful for this tool because I hated adding compressors and channel EQs and sweeping the thing and pulling this down and doing all that.
SPEAKER_01:We've paid for like we we've given Autopod like a thousand dollars over the course of this podcast.
SPEAKER_02:Right autopod auto editing this uh these three camera angles um and then you know some of the like like as stupid as it is I will get a vintage t-shirt and it'll have a tag in there I'm like I or a symbol on it I'm like I don't know what the hell this is today I was flipping through a couple shirts and I'm like what is this take a picture put it up on chat GPT what I literally just go what is this so I sit there and I go okay I love this. Yeah it's great I I and I use it constantly constantly and it's it's added value but it hasn't so my thing is I'm I I get just as excited about those tools as I did when the iPhone 5 had LTE no more 3G yeah I gotta get that fucking phone yeah at the same time though unlike back then there is a lot of pushback against technology lulling me with its siren song into this state of comfort that if I feel uncomfortable at all something's wrong. I need all of these things to be making my to just be like letting me float on air and just sort of move through life with the greatest of ease 72 degrees a slight air movement no humidity and I don't mean literally I'm just saying like that's no a seamless existence. Yeah no friction uh no pain none of that stuff and going I like I want to I want like I had this thought with with you and Audrey I'm like I want to get the tent thing that goes on the back of the truck and I just want to go camping but I don't want to like sit there and go okay well hey chat GPT what are the 10 essential tools you must have when you go camping within 50 miles of your home yeah I'm gonna go buy those things because I basically want to move my home the all the best things about living at home to this campsite so that I don't have any I don't wake up hot I don't this no sounds I got a fan like I'm like I just want to go struggle.
SPEAKER_01:I want to be in pain you discover those things over time and that's what makes those things special in the first place is that man it took me 15 trips yeah to discover this one thing that really does add value every time. Right.
SPEAKER_02:But then I also want to go but I want to be careful that I don't audit every time I go do this thing to go how can I make it just a little more comfortable I want to find that sweet spot where it's like I'm comfortable enough but I'm also dealing with some pain and discomfort that makes me feel fucking alive and present. Yeah and that's the button I want I want I want this hybrid existence of like like trying to run through water and also I don't have to run. This thing just puts me on a bed of cushion of air and takes me along like and I want to have well there's certain things I don't want to I don't want to run through.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah there's certain tasks and that's what it that's where you know some of this technology is so special. Like I I I see things all the time where people are just like completely anti-technology and we're certainly not that I I don't think I think you can go back and listen to any old episode and it's like okay these guys are clearly yeah a little bit whatever technology build or whatever you want to call us but um so who I but at the same time you know take a lot of the problems that technology's really good at solving were problems that weren't really problems until we started poking at things yeah as as a society as a as human beings when we started fucking with things we created new problems that now in 2025 you have to solve with certain pieces of technology or products or services. You know it's it's you're playing the game I don't want to check out of you know I like we went and got a sandwich for lunch I can go get coffee in the morning I use my you know computer to write or I'll use my typewriter but it's depending on what I feel like doing that day I can I can do it I can have the TV going on the background.
SPEAKER_02:I like those things I've talked about it a hundred times on this show like I like those things I I want that to be a part and yeah you know all of the bullshit friction that we have created yeah from you know poking in and poking things coming out the other side yeah if let's affect try to effectively solve those things with technology and I get it sure would it be better if we didn't create those things in the first place yeah but that's not the time I live in that's not where I I am I think of a I'll wrap this up my my thing up with there it is with a little scene I'll wrap this up the scene is I'm pulling out of the garage in the truck and I haven't plugged my phone in yet to the cord that lets CarPlay come up I have a garage door opener on the visor and then I have my phone when my truck was new in 2019 I could plug my phone in and almost instantly CarPlay came up and I could hit the button on the screen that lets me close my garage door through the wireless bullshit that you know lets me do that. Dude when I plug my phone in now I swear it takes 45 seconds for the infotainment system to boot up and then the phone to be registered and then CarPlay to boot onto the screen and I wait for it every fucking time.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah but I could just reach up and push a button on an old yeah it's not even infrared it's a whatever wireless communication of the thing that people are pissed off with this tech about is that that happens. Yes and that if it took you five seconds in 2019 it should take you five seconds in 2025.
SPEAKER_02:No excuse and the point of it is someone's going well we gotta make these people get new trucks. Yeah yeah meanwhile you mean you know people that drive uh trucks from 1990 and dude there was a guy at the thrift store the other day who had I swear to god it was like a 1990 Toyota little Toyota pickup wasn't even a might have been a smaller one tiny little fucker yeah yeah and so he's getting in the truck with his granddaughter and the windows are open and I'm like God your truck's amazing no rust on it it's beautiful and I'm like how many miles you have on this thing he's like oh 270 something I'm like would you ever consider selling it he's like I mean this guy's like gotta be 88 years old he said hell no I was this close to giving him my card and being like like please let me buy your truck if you ever decide you want to let it go those Toyotes are go to like a like there's people on Reddit that are oh yeah mine's got a million two on it I've replaced a couple of I I replaced the transmission one time or something. I'm like I just want to get that with a little Tonneau cover and then go to estate sales in my little tiny Toyota Tacoma it was a five a four or five speed I think it was a five speed yeah anyway it's no it's it's unbelievable like and the the that's this is what this is what gets me is that everything has to have a computer like the I don't buy old things because it's like a vibe.
SPEAKER_01:I buy like most of the old things I buy I buy the old thing because it's simple. Yeah the the bike is that's a 2023 it has no computer in it. Like it is as simple as it gets analog baby it is as analog as it gets it's I don't buy analog to be like analog it's just I like knowing that something's gonna work every time I need it to and I also like knowing that after six years it's gonna work the way it worked when I bought it. Yeah not getting slowed down because of six software patches that were unnecessary.
SPEAKER_02:You know I like some of this analog stuff too because I like that sometimes I have to like get it fixed or service it. Yeah or like my Morance receiver must have blown a fuse it's making a weird noise. So I have to like take it to my buddy Byron and hang out with him for 30 minutes and then he's gonna fix it. I'm gonna pay him 80 bucks and then I'll go pick it up and then I'll bring it home and I'll reconnect it and I'll be excited or I picked up this uh like it must be World War II. A World War II peacoat you know a Navy issue peacoat yeah but it's missing three buttons so I ordered them on eBay and so and I'm gonna well I'm gonna take them to a tailor to have it sewn properly I mean I can sew but I'm not gonna do it like the right way. No I guess that that um US mailbag the leather mailbag I took it to a tailor and they stitched up the seam that you have the chair the the armrest like there's something fun about well and then records you know uh and obviously you can cross over into a place where you know kind of like your merit or the the play you know like yeah you can make out with the actress during the play because that's what has to happen. Yeah but if you cross over into something else we got a problem. Same thing with records if you start guys start going to estate sales and you're like where we go where we gotta go if you just like got boxes of shit all over the place.
SPEAKER_01:You know your truck's full up of random crap you don't need you know there's like I don't I don't really have a fear of I feel like I really don't like having things around I get anxiety if I have things that I don't use. I like to use everything I have yeah um I mean yeah yeah do we have anything else we want to cover here I I just we're gonna we can get on here and talk about how we love analog so we will do it so I'll I'll segue this into one battle.
SPEAKER_02:So one of the things I loved about that movie So do you want to give some pretext or maybe how about I just get into get into this point and then we do a pretext. So we'll segue we'll segue with this there's a there's a portion in the movie.
SPEAKER_01:This is gonna be the most like current events thing we've ever talked about too I don't know why but I guess maybe I maybe we've earned it with the fucking we have if these fuckers don't talk about that movie.
SPEAKER_02:But the thing is is later in the movie when uh Leonardo DiCaprio is older he's at a place where he doesn't have a cell phone and I remember sitting there going what what what's that like? I'm like and he just like doesn't have a choice he just can't have a cell phone and there's something there's something interesting about what that would be like and I don't spend a ton of time on my phone. I'm not like TikTok and all this stuff and it's there. I know again I'll buy you one again like today when I was out at the estate sales dude the only time I pulled my phone out was to check a records value you know maybe if I got a message about an item that sold I quickly like quite quickly checked or whatever.
SPEAKER_01:You've never had you've never had a phone problem per se.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah and don't get me wrong like if I'm waiting in line at the estate sale by myself I'll like buzz through some social media or like I'll use the phone as a thing to kind of just pass the time or whatever but I uh do not have a phone problem.
SPEAKER_00:It's been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summary
