0:02

It's hardcore history.

0:07

I have always loved the quote

0:10

from mozart. And I think it's abbreviated.

0:12

I think it's a couple of different sentences cut

0:15

out, but the quote

0:17

as put together is wonderful and it's

0:19

symbolic of something we're gonna talk about

0:21

today. And the quote is, when

0:24

I am completely myself entirely

0:27

alone, or during the night when

0:29

I cannot sleep. It is

0:31

on such occasions that my ideas flow

0:33

best and most abundantly, When's

0:36

and how these ideas

0:37

come? I know not, nor can I force

0:39

them?

0:43

I think many of us can relate

0:46

to that, at least the latter part, right, nor

0:48

can I force them? But if

0:50

you're in a field where creativity is

0:53

required for you to prosper,

0:56

eventually you start wondering about

0:58

this thing creativity.

1:01

There's other ways to put it, you could say,

1:03

insight or originality or

1:07

novel t. I mean, there's

1:09

there's multiple different ways to

1:12

try to define this thing that

1:14

is so wrapped up in the condition

1:16

of being human, that

1:18

one could easily make case that all human

1:20

civilization is the result of creativity

1:24

over millennia, you know,

1:26

laid upon itself.

1:29

Right? Generation by generation

1:31

by generation. Depends

1:34

on how you define creativity. Of course, if

1:36

you were gonna write a book on the subject

1:38

of creativity, and I don't mean like a

1:40

book about other people's creativity. I

1:42

mean, the concept. What would

1:44

it sound like? Would it sound like a scientific book?

1:48

Would it sound like an instruction manual?

1:50

Would it sound like tips?

1:53

I mean, I have one on the great creative

1:56

people over history and their working

1:58

habits or the habits that they had

2:01

in order to get in the right frame of mind to

2:03

do their creative

2:04

work. Or would it sound kind

2:06

of metaphysical? You

2:08

know, something along the lines of

2:12

the Greek idea of the muses? You

2:15

know, the creators

2:17

of inspiration, the ones who sort of

2:19

sprinkle your brain with the original thoughts.

2:22

I read some stuff from the

2:25

Hindu religious texts once suggested

2:27

it was sort of an opening up

2:30

to the divine to be inspired from

2:32

somewhere else. Right? The inspiration didn't come from

2:34

your own brain. It came from without and

2:36

the people who could do this really well were people

2:38

that could sort of open that door

2:41

to the realm where while the

2:43

Greeks might say the muses resided.

2:46

If you go on Wikipedia and you look

2:48

up create activity. It'll blow your mind all the

2:50

different ideas out

2:51

there. I have a couple books like that too where

2:53

they're getting into like neuroscience and

2:56

dopamine and frontal lobe

2:58

working with other parts of the brains and in creative

3:01

people, you see more of that. I mean, it but

3:03

when you read a lot of the accounts and the

3:05

people who actually do this creative work,

3:08

there's this real sense of

3:10

no knowledge where this stuff

3:13

comes from just like the mozart quote. I mean, I read

3:15

a quote once too from a comedian who said

3:17

And I I don't know if this is true or not. And

3:19

I'm and don't remember the quote really well, but it was

3:21

something to the effect of every comedian has the

3:23

same fear. And the fear is that that

3:25

reservoir of material that's inside

3:28

you that creates the jokes, the

3:30

stuff that you make living out of that just, you

3:32

know, you do better than other people, that that will dry

3:34

up one day and one day you'll go there to,

3:37

you know, get a new set of, you know, creative

3:40

materials, you know, being produced by your

3:42

you know, the creative assembly line in

3:45

your psyche and it will be empty. And

3:47

it's a sign of how little you know about,

3:49

you know, what it is, that

3:52

could lead you to a fear that someday it might

3:54

run out. So I study this stuff as

3:56

many of you do. And I also think that we

3:59

place too much emphasis on creativity

4:01

for obvious artists. And if you're

4:03

a painter, you might be a very creative person

4:06

obviously by our modern standards, but no one

4:08

thinks about how much creativity it

4:10

takes just to get through life

4:12

for people who don't consider themselves creative

4:14

at all. Any novel solution you come up with

4:16

for problem is an example human

4:18

creativity at work. I

4:21

think you can see the same sort of thing

4:23

going on in the animal kingdom too. At a

4:25

lower level, you see apes doing things that are

4:27

creative, original novel.

4:30

But as I said, if you were gonna write a book on this,

4:33

what would it sound like? Music

4:35

producer and that is a weird very

4:37

narrow term to describe somebody with

4:39

a much wider Vista and

4:41

experience makeup. But

4:44

known as music producer Rick Rubin has

4:46

written a book called The Creative Act,

4:48

a way of being. And

4:50

at the moment he's doing the book circuit,

4:52

So I think we're like the last people in the world to have

4:54

Rick on, but he is

4:57

you know, he's worked with everybody.

5:00

He's known I would call him a creativity

5:03

amplifier, but he's a very creative guy in

5:05

his own right. He

5:07

has an image, a public

5:08

image, a sort of a Zen kind

5:11

of a character, right, a a meditator,

5:14

big beard,

5:17

sort of a metaphysical sort of a

5:19

cast to him. He seems little eastern mysticism

5:22

ish. But

5:24

this book was one of those things

5:27

where when you read it, and Rick had

5:29

sent me before this talk, two

5:31

reviews, a good review and a bad review for

5:33

the book, And the bad review was talking about

5:35

how the book was, and I'm I think I'm quoting

5:37

the review, woo woo. So

5:40

sort of, you know, out there. But

5:42

if you think about the concepts we're talking

5:44

about here, that's why I brought up the mozart quote

5:47

and all those other things to begin with. It's

5:49

a hard subject to talk about without

5:51

it being sort of metaphysical

5:53

sounding. I mean, the concept

5:55

in the middle ages and the renaissance, I mean, it was

5:57

religious. I mean, that's what

6:00

creativity was. It was just simply God

6:02

speaking through you. I mean, there's there's lot of

6:04

connections between inspiration and

6:06

the divine if you study it long enough.

6:09

I I feel like it's in the modern world

6:11

where we sit down and try to figure out now,

6:13

how can we categorize this

6:14

scientifically? And I read people like, the

6:16

lates or Ken Robinson who was talking about

6:18

how the schools crush creativity and the things

6:20

we can do to sort of reinstall it.

6:23

I went on Wikipedia and

6:25

read, as I said, about creativity

6:27

and the stuff about neurotransmitters, I have a book

6:29

on geniuses and how they can sit there and

6:31

try to do statistical evaluation,

6:34

you know, twenty percent of the people in this class turn

6:36

out to be, you know, more original thinkers. It's interesting

6:38

stuff. But if you're the person trying to

6:40

rely on the creativity, none of that stuff matters.

6:43

To you. You're just trying to figure out what it

6:44

is, where it came from, how I can amplify it,

6:46

and get more of it. And Rick Rubin

6:48

can be very helpful at that. He's

6:52

also a fascinating person

6:54

to talk to who consumes more

6:58

content information, history,

7:00

politics. I mean, things far afield

7:02

from what you would think a music

7:04

producer would consider to be

7:07

sort of his lane. Rick has

7:09

no lane and that will become apparent in

7:11

this extended conversation that we're going

7:13

to have

7:14

now. And yes, we're going

7:16

to tie it into history. With

7:18

Rick Rubin. So

7:26

I had thought that there's a historical angle to this

7:28

that you brought up in your book that I just love.

7:31

And it's this idea that what these were let's

7:33

just talk about a recording, but it could be a television

7:35

recording, a movie that someone produces,

7:37

or certainly music and audio. But

7:40

what happens there is you've got a

7:42

time that's frozen in Amber.

7:45

And that frozen in Amber means that the

7:47

so let's just take Mick Jagger in the rolling

7:49

stones on something like exile in Main Street.

7:52

That is a representation of where

7:54

that band was in the

7:56

late sixties. And when Mick Jagger

7:58

comes in to record his tracks, he

8:01

was just out doing something in the

8:03

late sixties. He's living that time period

8:05

as person of that age. And

8:07

then when we listen to it today, you pointed

8:09

out in your book, we may get a very different impression

8:11

and feel than someone who listens to it

8:14

right after release. But what we're really

8:16

getting no matter what, like, if you listen to the tone of

8:18

his voice, and the things he's singing about and the lyrics

8:20

he came up with, you're getting a little bit

8:23

of a frozen and amber moment

8:25

of of a time. In other words, if we wanna talk about

8:27

history, if you can imagine, I've always

8:29

said if Alexander the great had a podcast,

8:32

you would be catching that moment

8:35

sort of like like the insect frozen

8:37

in in in the amber, you get a chance

8:39

to see and feel like a time

8:41

capsule almost. Does

8:44

that strike you? Like, when you look back on some of the

8:46

recordings you did and you listen to them

8:48

and then they're thirty years ago maybe,

8:50

does it bring you right back? Do you remember the

8:52

people at you know, you may know these guys now and

8:54

they may be fifty five years old, but that recording

8:57

is of a voice of a twenty two year old

8:59

or twenty three or How much does this act

9:01

as a time capsule for you when you listen

9:03

to things?

9:06

Very much. I rarely relisten

9:08

to things unless there's a reason. So

9:11

I I don't spend a lot of time listening to

9:13

things that I've worked on because I'm always I'm

9:15

always working on something new. So I mean, they're listening

9:17

to the new thing or just listening to

9:20

things I like and new things that I like.

9:22

So I like learning about music all the time

9:24

and being surprised by music.

9:27

So if there's a reason for me to

9:29

listen back, I do listen back.

9:31

And when I'm listening back, I'm

9:34

usually put back in more

9:37

often than not put back in the place

9:39

of recording, either having

9:43

picturing the place that we recorded,

9:46

picturing what was going

9:48

on that day, maybe not in

9:50

great detail, but some sense of

9:52

of what the feeling was in the room

9:56

and maybe some particular I'll

9:58

still be surprised by things. I'll hear things.

10:01

That we may have poured over

10:03

a long time deciding, and

10:06

they may completely hit me

10:08

by apprise when they happen, and that's a great

10:10

feeling of of not being I

10:14

get to experience it, but in

10:16

a way that in

10:19

a in a new way, in in

10:21

a way like hearing it for the first time. It's

10:23

a funny funny combination of both familiarity

10:27

and feeling of, like, I'm hearing it for the first

10:29

time. And and sometimes I'll hear

10:31

I'll be in a coffee shop. And

10:34

I'll hear a song come on that I produced

10:36

and it'll strike me in a certain

10:39

way and sometimes I'll hear a song come on

10:41

that I've listened to, that I love,

10:43

that that I have no had

10:45

no connection to, other than I listened to it

10:47

a million times. And

10:50

I hear it and I start thinking, wow, where

10:52

where did we record this? You know,

10:54

like, I I like, I

10:56

I it's too familiar for

10:59

me not to have recorded this, but I didn't

11:01

record it. It's, you know, led Zeppelin, let's

11:03

say, which I've never

11:04

recorded. I never got to work with

11:06

them. It's a you know what it is? It's

11:08

a variation on how a person listens

11:10

to music who wasn't involved in the production

11:12

process at all. Right? You could be walking around

11:15

here something from thirty years ago. And

11:17

flash back as a part of your life ago, oh

11:19

my god, what was I doing thirty years ago? What was I doing

11:21

when I used to listen to that song every day?

11:23

And and I think it has a has it's it's

11:25

in a way It's an emotional time

11:27

machine if you think about it.

11:29

It is. And I I think I I speak in

11:31

the book about these the

11:34

things that we make are like diary entries.

11:36

And one

11:38

of the things that's helpful about knowing that

11:41

is So many artists are are

11:43

precious about the things they're making

11:45

to a point where it's nearly impossible

11:48

to put anything out. There's

11:51

some great artists who, you know, have

11:54

great success and then it might be three

11:56

or four or five years between projects.

11:58

And it's not because they're not great and it's not

12:00

because they can't come up

12:02

with beautiful things to

12:04

share during that window of time. It's

12:06

usually some issue of

12:09

not feeling feeling like it's not good enough,

12:12

feeling like it

12:15

doesn't it doesn't

12:18

portray who they are forever.

12:21

You know, it's it's it's

12:23

not historically the best work

12:25

they believe they can ever do in their life. And

12:28

if they don't believe it's the best work they

12:30

can ever historically do in their life,

12:32

then why share it? I'll

12:34

keep working on it until it's the best

12:37

thing in history, but

12:40

it doesn't really work that way because these

12:43

are diary entries and all

12:46

it can be is a true reflection of who

12:48

we are today and if

12:50

we wait too long, it

12:53

starts losing its charge. It doesn't

12:55

get better with time. Your

12:58

relationship to it changes

13:00

because the thing that the person who

13:02

started the project and

13:04

the person who's finishing the project are two

13:06

different people. So if

13:08

you're finishing and you're not

13:10

related to the person who started

13:13

the project, it can

13:15

be very difficult to finish it. And and

13:17

you can feel like, well, this isn't really for me.

13:19

It's like it's not for you. It's for

13:21

you. Six months ago or it's

13:23

for you one year ago. And

13:26

finding those those

13:30

ways in, where

13:33

if you made something and you feel

13:35

excited enough to play it for your friend,

13:38

that's a good time to put it out

13:40

into the world. Like, if if you're excited

13:43

enough to play it for your friend, that's

13:45

the highest level of

13:50

it being ready. I

13:53

almost feel like that's directed at us a little

13:55

bit because it it describes our situation

13:58

pretty darn well. Let me let me throw another

14:00

dynamic though that comes into play that I know you're

14:02

very familiar with, but from an artistic

14:05

standpoint, there's that, you know, when you

14:07

put out something that is and I

14:09

don't like anything I do. So, I mean, I'm not the right

14:11

person to talk, but But if you put out something

14:13

and people enjoy it and they say, wow, this

14:15

is the best thing you've ever done or whatever they might

14:17

say, the problem is with the

14:19

following work is that the

14:22

best work you've ever done becomes the

14:24

expectation for the next work in

14:26

all the subsequent work. Right? In other words, if

14:28

you have an paper or you hit

14:30

your or you're a salesman and you hit your monthly

14:32

quota and far exceed it. Well, your next

14:34

monthly quota is going to have that as

14:36

the baseline. And so I always feel

14:38

like there you know, you're always chasing

14:40

the dragon a little bit on this thing.

14:43

And at some point, you're gonna hit a wall

14:45

because there is no way to continually outdo

14:47

yourself forever. And I feel

14:49

like that becomes something that holds

14:51

you up. Like, we've will sit on

14:53

shows for months that

14:56

would have been fine shows by our

14:58

standards eight or nine years ago,

15:00

but the expectation level of the quality

15:02

has been raised. And truthfully, in

15:04

our medium, if you go listen to podcasts

15:06

in two thousand and six, you know, the year

15:09

after we started, The quality

15:11

level is so low. The divide go listen to

15:13

show 1234, hardcore history.

15:16

They said they're cringey to me now, but

15:18

at the time by the standards in that

15:20

day, they were considered good.

15:23

I know you work with a lot of artists who had a lot

15:25

of previous success before you worked

15:27

with

15:27

them. How does one deal with this dynamic?

15:29

Because it seems to me to be absolutely ubiquitous

15:32

in art. The

15:36

best way to say it is your

15:38

old work isn't better or worse

15:41

than your new work, and your new work isn't

15:43

better or worse. Than your old work.

15:46

Your old work was a reflection

15:48

of that time. You you you said it

15:50

you said it yourself. It's like in the context

15:52

of the world that you were in, that

15:55

was great. And you can't

15:57

look at it as well, I can go back to

16:00

two thousand five and

16:02

redo something from men. I mean, you could

16:04

do a new episode now and it would probably be

16:07

very different and probably much more

16:09

in-depth and much more detail. But it

16:11

wouldn't be the same thing as

16:13

the thing that happened in two thousand five.

16:15

That is, as you said, frozen

16:18

in amber. And sometimes

16:21

it's those it's

16:24

an iterative process. It's it's those

16:27

early ones that

16:30

may not be at

16:32

the same level that you're at now that

16:35

allow you to get to the level that you're at now.

16:38

And doing it in public

16:40

is part of it. The fact that

16:42

those exist. The fact

16:44

that there's a history there. Is

16:48

is part of the power

16:50

of it, that that the growth exists,

16:52

that you as an artist continue to

16:54

make things, and put them out.

16:56

And yes, where

16:59

all of us as artists are

17:03

always trying to beat our past

17:05

work, which is a a very noble

17:08

and reasonable goal. I I'm

17:10

not I'm not so interested in trying to beat

17:12

anyone else's work. But

17:14

any any possibility of

17:17

beating my own work is exciting. It's like

17:19

any any any

17:22

possibility of expanding what

17:24

I'm doing or finding a new way to do

17:26

it or to

17:28

reach someone different than

17:31

we were reaching before. And

17:33

when I say that, it's that never happens

17:36

intentionally. It always happens as

17:38

an outgrowth of whatever

17:41

new method we found of

17:43

working that's exciting us because

17:46

I never do anything based on what I think

17:48

the audience gonna think. I always do it based on

17:51

what I think. I don't know what the audience is gonna think.

17:54

And I can't assume what the audience is gonna

17:56

think. And I'm I'm I don't think

17:58

I'm smart enough to assume what anyone else

18:00

is gonna think. All I can do

18:03

is be true to what I feel.

18:05

And I try to make things that I feel

18:07

to the best of my ability,

18:11

and then, you know, you let the chips fall

18:13

where they may. Well, and the audience

18:15

changes. Doesn't it? I mean, for example,

18:18

I constantly had discussions with people

18:20

where I'll play a piece of music for them. Usually

18:23

something from my youth And

18:25

I'll, you know, take the sex pistols. You play the sex

18:27

pistols, which is music now. Basically,

18:29

it's elevator music. And I'll play

18:32

it for Pete for for some young person or one

18:34

of my kids and they'll look at me and go, okay,

18:36

I don't really see the big deal. And they don't see

18:38

the big deal because they weren't there when it

18:40

came out. It doesn't hit them the way

18:42

it hit me because there's been a hundred

18:44

thousand bands that have been influenced by

18:47

the sex pistols and have used elements of

18:49

them since. And as far as that kid

18:51

is concerned. It sounds just like all that other

18:53

stuff they've heard. We always talk about

18:56

what we're doing here and what every podcaster is

18:58

doing is is creating something

19:01

that is etched in digital stone.

19:03

And because it's etched in digital stone,

19:05

the various people that are gonna come across that

19:07

inscription in stone may not even

19:10

be alive yet. And the way they're going to react

19:12

to that work is going to be so different

19:14

that there would have been no way to try to

19:16

create a work for someone a hundred years

19:18

from now. You know, you mentioned Zeppelin

19:21

for example. How could led Zeppelin

19:23

have known in sixty eight or sixty nine or

19:25

seventy? That what they were writing

19:27

had to stand the test of time. Right? Don't

19:29

they have to just write for their contemporary

19:31

era and let the chips historically fall

19:33

where they may?

19:36

Absolutely. All you can do

19:38

is be in the moment. That's all all there is

19:40

is the moment. All there is is the present

19:42

moment. There is no past. There is no future.

19:45

The the benefit we have the

19:49

in the present, we can experience

19:51

the past. But

19:54

that's all it is. And when we experience

19:56

the past, we're not really experiencing

19:59

the past. One of things I wanted to talk about

20:01

with you, which is I don't I don't know

20:03

that we could ever know anything about history.

20:06

How much can we know? We

20:08

don't know we don't really know

20:11

about what happened last week from

20:13

the sources we have telling us

20:15

what happened last week. We don't really

20:17

know So how can we possibly

20:19

know what happened three hundred years ago or

20:21

five hundred years ago or a thousand years

20:24

ago? How can we know? Their stories.

20:27

We may like the stories,

20:29

that might be fine, but at

20:31

best,

20:33

their interesting stories. History

20:35

is a set of lies

20:36

agreed upon. Right? Yeah.

20:39

Well, but you know Is that is that is that a

20:41

is that a known Yes. Yeah. History

20:44

is a set or history is a set of fables agreed

20:46

upon. I think Napoleon may have said that, but every

20:48

time I say, so and so said that someone

20:50

corrects me. Because that was wrong too. So

20:52

that's a perfect example of what you're talking

20:54

about. But but here's and, you know, it's

20:56

it's funny because this is debate that historians

21:00

have at the highest levels. Can

21:02

we really know any of

21:04

this? And the problem is is eventually

21:06

if you start to naval gaze that long

21:09

enough, you you eliminate the

21:11

need for the historian at all, and

21:13

it becomes a sort of a prophecy where you

21:15

destroy your own, you know, your own specialty.

21:19

I remember asking James Burke, the famous

21:21

science historian, something to that

21:23

effect. And his answer I

21:25

kinda thought he was gonna answer the way we're talking

21:27

now, but instead he he shocked me by saying

21:29

no. We can know. And lot

21:31

of this is cross referencing. Right?

21:34

So you so you say if you just have one

21:36

data point or one source, It's not

21:38

that useful, but if you can start to cross reference

21:40

it. So imagine today the

21:42

way our life is now and future historian

21:44

trying to disentangle all the pieces.

21:47

Well, If the only thing that made it through the

21:49

historical window was one news

21:51

channel. Right? You would have a

21:53

very different view of history than if the historian

21:55

in the future could cross reference you

21:58

know, Fox News, with NBC News, with,

22:00

you know, the more sources you have, the more you're

22:02

able to construct some sort of a a connect

22:04

that dots image that looks like

22:06

something if in but like this this Viking

22:09

show that we just completed, there's

22:11

a lot of times in the story. Where there's

22:13

one person telling it to you. There is no

22:16

cross referencing. There is no way to

22:18

cross check what you're reading. There's

22:20

a wonderful line. That that

22:22

in a book by

22:24

Pierre Briant on on ancient

22:26

history. And he started the book off with

22:28

a famous quote, and I forgot who said it, but he said

22:30

even if it's not true. You

22:33

have to believe in ancient history. And

22:35

I think his point is is that if

22:37

you start questioning it too much, we

22:39

don't know anything. And if we don't know anything,

22:41

then there is no history. And if there is no history, what

22:44

you

22:44

know, how do how do you write anything about the past?

22:46

So what you've said is fundamentally true,

22:48

but I'm not sure what our choices in the

22:50

matter are. Does that make sense? Absolutely.

22:53

And and and I think as long as we're

22:57

taking these stories in as stories

23:00

and as it may have been this

23:02

way or someone

23:04

said it was this way. That's

23:07

realistic, but just think that

23:09

this is what that we know what

23:11

happened, you know, something

23:14

fairly recent history, the

23:17

JFK assassination. I

23:19

don't know. What do you

23:21

think? Well, you know, you you I

23:23

had a moment with you like this once.

23:25

Like, I was telling you that I had read

23:27

something by a very well known

23:29

and respected music historian. And

23:32

he had said something about you and

23:34

a and a famous musician you

23:36

know, maybe doing something once upon a time and

23:39

I mentioned it to you. And you sat there

23:41

with this look on your face and you started rubbing

23:43

your chin and you said, that's very interesting

23:45

because that never happened. And I remember

23:47

thinking, okay, now do I

23:49

now discount everything I've ever

23:51

read from that person? I couldn't figure out and

23:53

it wasn't one of those things where he could have just gotten

23:55

something wrong. It was an invention.

23:58

And I thought, okay. Now, what am I supposed to

24:00

do with everything else this guy has ever written? So

24:02

so you and I had that moment where I I

24:04

got to look at the sources and and and I've been

24:06

doing the show, I would have quoted

24:09

that person verbatim as a source

24:11

and would have assumed that what they said was

24:13

true. So I think that backs up what you just said a

24:15

bit. And to

24:17

defend the show is

24:21

it it's it's entertainment.

24:24

It's interesting. It's thought provoking.

24:26

One of the things that I love about what you

24:28

do is you call you say that you're not a historian.

24:32

And and think that that's

24:34

a it's a

24:36

bold thing to say and it's

24:39

true thing to say, and I I'm wondering

24:41

if anyone who calls themselves a

24:43

historian is actually telling

24:45

the truth. Do you know what I'm saying? I

24:47

I don't know if that's possible. I say

24:49

I don't know anything about music. It's

24:52

it's I really

24:55

think so much of our

24:58

downfall is in

25:02

thinking we know things we don't know.

25:05

And this can lead to an interesting

25:07

thing an interesting conversation

25:10

about belief. And

25:14

I got this from listening to your your

25:16

new podcast. There's a part where you're talking

25:18

about belief and the power of belief.

25:21

There there was a religious belief that

25:23

fueled great strength in

25:25

a in Oh,

25:30

this is the Vikings. Right? Creating a sort

25:32

of Yeah. Yeah. Their belief in valhala

25:34

and all those sorts of

25:35

things. Right? Eating at the table with odin.

25:38

So whether valhala does

25:40

or doesn't exist? The

25:43

power of believing in Valhala

25:47

gave the Vikings a a

25:49

strength and power maybe

25:53

fortitude would be the word that

25:55

others didn't have. And

25:58

so much of what we do as

26:00

creative people is rooted in belief.

26:03

Now it doesn't matter whether it's true

26:05

or not. It's not it's

26:07

not about truth. It's

26:10

about belief and

26:13

we we believe things

26:15

into existence. As

26:18

artists, as creative people, were

26:20

believing things into existence. If

26:23

we didn't believe they don't exist, And

26:27

without our belief, they

26:30

they will never exist. But through

26:32

our belief, we make the things that we make

26:34

and get share

26:35

them. Reminds me of the concept when we talked

26:37

about this in some of the history shows to a magic.

26:40

And I think I had said something to the effect

26:42

once probably in a more eloquent way.

26:44

That just because you and I don't believe

26:47

in, you know, in the air quotes, magic doesn't

26:50

help us if the people in the past in an entire

26:52

society did because the

26:54

the collective belief in magic

26:57

has a power to create a reality

26:59

based on that. Right? So if if you believe

27:02

that that water is hot

27:04

instead of cold when, you know, you dip

27:06

your feet in the ocean. You're

27:08

going to base everything that

27:10

you base on that idea differently, and it

27:12

creates a different reality based on something

27:14

you could turn around to Dango. While all those

27:17

people were completely deluded, believing something

27:19

that was completely untrue, but the reality

27:21

that they created is based on

27:24

that magic or whatever. So if

27:26

you don't understand that, it's very

27:28

hard to start getting into the mindset of the people

27:30

who lived once upon a time. I mean, if if

27:32

if you're gonna go off to the crusades, and

27:35

fight and die because God wills

27:37

it. It was the saying that the that the pope

27:39

had said in the battle cry that everyone took

27:41

up. And if you believe that all your sins

27:43

will be washed away if you go on this crusade,

27:46

we may think that's silly. But a lot

27:48

of these people went and did that giant

27:51

historical thing because they believed

27:53

in that level of magic. So if

27:55

you're right, this magic creates a belief that then

27:57

impacts reality even though the magic

27:59

itself may not be

28:00

real. And and if it does impact

28:02

reality? Who's to say it's not

28:04

real? Do you know what I'm saying in some

28:06

ways? The fact Well,

28:08

the impact is real for sure. Right? The

28:10

impact is real. It's like where's

28:13

the line? Do you know what I'm saying? If

28:15

it's It seems

28:18

like if you believe in magic

28:21

and magic happens because

28:24

you believe in

28:24

it, Who's to say

28:26

magic's not real? Well,

28:28

and now we're talking about something that I think dovetails

28:31

well into the into the point of your book.

28:33

Creativity. And

28:36

and the idea you know, those of us

28:38

III think it was I think it was comedian

28:40

Jan Hooks was talking about once

28:43

the difference between just

28:45

fooling around creatively when there's

28:47

nothing at stake. And then getting to a point

28:49

where you realize, wait a minute, This is what's

28:51

putting food on the table for me.

28:53

So it's kind of important that I not just

28:55

understand it, but try to figure out ways

28:58

to improve it have

29:00

it more often, intensify it.

29:03

I mean, let's talk a little bit about

29:05

the mews and the idea behind

29:07

the Muse. For those who don't know, the Muse goes back

29:09

to ancient Greek history, and it's

29:11

and mythology. And it's all about this idea

29:14

that there is something out there that

29:17

influences people's art and

29:19

creation. And it's well, why don't you

29:21

explain it? Rick, what is the muse when you hear

29:23

that

29:23

term? It's

29:25

something that coming from

29:27

outside of ourselves that inspires

29:30

us to make the things that we make. And

29:32

there's a there's a uncontrollable

29:35

magical element in the Muse.

29:37

Sometimes we think of the Muse as a

29:40

as a female character. I think

29:42

that's how it was in ancient times, that's how it was

29:44

thought of. Yes. But

29:46

now when we say the muse, it it doesn't

29:49

have to be in human form.

29:51

It's the energy that

29:54

that it's like

29:56

a

29:57

it's like the breath within the breath.

30:01

So so this is interesting to me

30:03

right away because you had sent me

30:05

couple of different reviews about your book.

30:07

One was a very positive one about all the great

30:09

things that are in it. And then another one was that

30:12

could have been written by a very terror

30:14

firm a sort of person who thought think

30:17

I think the term they used was that was little

30:19

woo woo. But when I think

30:21

of where this creativity

30:24

comes from. I think it

30:26

is almost inherently this

30:28

woo woo concept because we

30:31

don't know. And you can't I mean,

30:33

you can't you can say you can create with sort

30:35

of a connect to dots. I mean, when you and I were kids,

30:37

we had all these models, model airplanes, or

30:39

whatever, and they came with these directions that said,

30:41

you know, put slot a into into

30:44

section b or whatever. I think

30:46

there's people that think that you can do

30:48

that with creativity. But the magic

30:50

comes with that thing where all of sudden you're stuck

30:52

on something and then boom, this

30:54

weird thing out of nowhere hits and you go, well,

30:56

where did that come from? I mean, isn't

30:59

there something sort of woo woo

31:01

in the whole creation process no matter

31:03

what your own sort of bedrock personal

31:06

beliefs on things like magic and whatever

31:09

are. Isn't there? I mean, that that's what the Muse sort

31:11

of represents. Doesn't it? Absolutely.

31:14

It's

31:14

it's always magical. It's always

31:16

spiritual. How how often

31:19

does it occur? I I I've never asked you this.

31:22

Do you say something in your improvisation

31:25

as you're working on your show?

31:27

How often do you say something and

31:30

surprise

31:30

yourself? By what you've said.

31:32

That happens pretty often, actually. And and

31:35

and that's kinda how we sort of inch

31:37

our way to where

31:39

we're going because I never know. I

31:41

you know, what we do is like sculpting

31:44

out of clay, but you have no conception

31:47

what you wanna make. And as you're making

31:49

it, you yourself are looking at it going, this

31:51

kind of looks like this or this kind and

31:54

and and some of the some part of you may

31:56

say, Well, it's kind of looking like a dog.

31:58

So I think I'll make a dog. But

32:01

but if you go that route, you know,

32:03

a month down the road, you're

32:05

gonna go, you know, I don't really think it

32:07

looks that much like a dog. I put seven legs

32:09

on it, so maybe it's a horse or, you know, I mean,

32:11

I I think that that process

32:13

of discovery when you're especially doing it

32:15

the way we do it where there's no scripts and it's all

32:17

improv, you find out I mean, this

32:19

is where your book really resonated with me because

32:22

we rely on that sort of weird

32:24

magical thing every

32:26

step of the way. I mean, some writers will write

32:28

something And the magic happens

32:31

during the writing process. And then during

32:33

the recording process, there's no magic because

32:35

the magic happened when you were writing. We don't

32:37

write. So the magic happens while

32:39

we're recording, and that's why

32:41

we end up I mean, the show that's part one

32:44

that we just put out recently this viking

32:46

thing I thought that was only gonna be part one.

32:48

And I thought it'd be about four hours. Well,

32:50

of course, you know, it isn't, and that was

32:52

no planning at

32:53

all. We really do take

32:55

it where it takes us. And and

32:57

I think that that's part of that magic you were

32:59

just talking about. I

33:01

think that's part of why the show is

33:04

as great as it is and

33:06

as different as it is. And

33:10

for the for the people who don't understand

33:12

the magic, they

33:15

couldn't bring out this kind of material

33:17

because they think It's just an intellectual

33:20

act. I'm just I'm learning something

33:22

and I'm regurgitating what I'm learning. That's

33:24

not what it is. It's some

33:27

whole other thing. You've you've taken

33:29

a a tremendous amount of

33:31

data to start with, to work from.

33:34

And then you're weaving your way through

33:36

it. As a

33:38

jazz artist essentially. You're you're

33:41

you're doing a jazz saxophone

33:43

solo with your voice. With

33:46

all of these melodies, which would be the

33:48

stories that that you have. And

33:52

there's they're stringing together, not

33:55

with your I

33:57

I don't remember, which is the left side, which

33:59

is the right side. If the brain but

34:02

it's not the side of the brain that

34:04

does the the thinking. It's

34:08

something else. It's not coming

34:10

from thinking. There's thinking

34:12

involved, but that's not

34:15

primarily what's going on in this

34:17

process. You know, it's

34:19

funny because I think sometimes this is

34:21

a lens question or or the way you explain

34:23

it question. So for example, if

34:25

if if I got some and I wanna say engineer,

34:28

but then I can hear engineers saying there's so much

34:30

creativity involved in engineering, Dan. You don't

34:32

know what you're talking about. I try to think of the

34:34

most terra firm up people that I

34:36

can think of, and how one would

34:38

explain creativity from

34:41

their point of view, and and there's a Steve

34:43

Jobs' explanation of creativity.

34:46

And I juxtaposed his

34:48

definition next to one of yours,

34:50

and I think you're both saying the same thing

34:52

from a different viewpoint. So the Steve Jobs

34:54

quote is the famous one if you've you've ever read

34:56

books on Steve Jobs. He said, creativity

34:59

is just connecting things. When

35:01

you ask creative people how they did

35:04

something, they feel a little guilty

35:06

because they didn't really do it. They just

35:08

saw something. It seemed obvious

35:10

to them after a while. That's because

35:12

they were able to connect experiences they've

35:15

had and synthesize new

35:17

things. And the reason they were able

35:19

to do that was that they've had more experiences

35:22

or they've thought more about their experiences than

35:24

other people. Unfortunately, that's

35:27

too rare a commodity. A lot of people

35:29

in our industry haven't had very diverse

35:31

experiences, so they don't have enough

35:33

dots to connect. And they end up with very

35:35

linear solutions without a

35:37

broad perspective on the problem. The

35:40

broader one's understanding of the human experience,

35:42

the better design we will have. Now that's

35:44

sort of maybe an engineer's way of explaining

35:47

the magic without saying magic. And

35:49

you said, as artists, we

35:51

aim to live in a way in which

35:53

we see the extraordinary hidden

35:56

in the seemingly mundane, then

35:58

challenge ourselves to share what

36:00

we see in a way that allows

36:02

others a glimpse of this remarkable

36:05

beauty. Yours is an almost

36:08

Zen way of explaining

36:10

a very terraferma Steve Jobs.

36:13

I have a BMW in the lobby

36:15

so you'll be inspired kind of way.

36:17

Is this just a question of different

36:20

people trying to explain magic with

36:22

different terms? Absolutely.

36:24

We're saying exactly the same thing, and

36:26

it's just

36:28

we're choosing different metaphors,

36:30

but we're we're saying the same thing. So

36:32

let me add so this gets me to you a little bit

36:34

because one of the things about your

36:36

book is it's a real reflection maybe

36:38

inevitably of of

36:40

what it's like to be talking to you

36:43

personally. And, you know, there's

36:45

a we talked about history earlier and how many

36:47

myths and weirdness and things that they get wrong, and

36:49

that can include biography like about

36:51

yourself. But there's a let's

36:53

call it a snazzy,

36:56

candy coating wrapper around

36:58

who you are, Rick, that's got a very sort of a

37:00

Zen feel to

37:01

it. Where does that come from?

37:04

I mean, were you this way in high school?

37:06

I mean, where did where does this where

37:08

does this tone that one associates in

37:10

popular culture with Rick Rubin

37:12

come

37:12

from. I

37:14

think the fact that it's known

37:17

that I learned to meditate when I was young

37:19

and that I speak of it

37:21

in as having such

37:23

a profound impact on my life probably

37:26

is part of it. The beard is another

37:28

part, which was not intentional in any

37:30

way. It just when I was in college, I decided

37:32

to stop shaving. And this

37:35

is what happens when you if you decide

37:37

to stop shaving,

37:40

but there would no there was no thought behind

37:42

it or method behind it. Yes.

37:45

But when I'm but when I'm with you, forget

37:48

the beard, forget the imaging. You

37:51

have a very like, when we'll talk about

37:53

creativity. Your your

37:55

approach to it is so There's

37:57

a very Buddhist y

38:00

kind of feel to the way you approach

38:03

opening up your soul to the

38:05

universe so that it can allow this

38:07

magic in. Is that how you

38:09

worked in your very early years? I mean,

38:11

were you having conversations with the

38:13

beastie boys, like like the kind of conversations

38:16

you have with bands now about magic

38:18

and creativity and and the source

38:20

of things like new ideas

38:23

I probably didn't have conversations with

38:26

anyone about it then, but

38:28

I recognized that that was the underpinning

38:31

of why the things that got made, got

38:33

made. It's always been

38:38

I I might not have understood how magical

38:40

it was then. But

38:43

over time, the more the more I've

38:45

been exposed to it, the

38:47

more obvious it is. That

38:51

everything we're dealing in is

38:53

magic and it's beyond us.

38:56

And we're we're

38:58

really blessed to

39:01

be part of this this process

39:04

and and to

39:06

to live in a way that allows it to

39:08

come through us which is

39:11

a a real it's it's work. You

39:13

know, it's not it

39:16

doesn't come easily, let's say.

39:19

It does and it doesn't come easily. It's

39:21

so hard to talk about this. So I took

39:23

so long to write the book. We're talking about

39:25

things that are really hard to explain.

39:28

They're hard to understand, they're hard to explain.

39:31

Well, and that's why I think I got so much

39:33

out of it because I think when

39:36

you've been through I mean, we I joked with you

39:38

that that we have a whole bunch of shorthand

39:40

terms in house here for when this happens

39:42

or how we're gonna deal with that. And they're all things

39:45

that that you would invent the terms as

39:47

needed over the years. But when I'm reading

39:49

your book, I'm going, well, Rick Rick's talking about

39:51

these same terms. I mean, these are the and and there

39:53

are the sorts of things that if you've ever been working

39:56

and you've encountered what you mentioned in the book,

39:58

you nod your head and you go, oh, yes, I know

40:00

what that's all about. I wonder if it

40:02

would have the same sort of impact on somebody

40:04

who's reading your book as as a as

40:06

a jumping off point for starting. And

40:09

they know none of these things through

40:11

their own experience, so

40:14

they can't nod their head. They just have to sort of

40:16

take it on faith. How, you know,

40:19

Do you read much about the

40:21

creativity itself? Because I find

40:23

myself buying books on this as

40:26

as an attempt to try to figure out how to

40:28

amplify or or

40:30

enhance or expand

40:33

my own creativity, do you buy

40:35

books on

40:36

creativity, Rick, do you study creativity?

40:39

Well, I'm at the time

40:41

that I decided to work on this book, which was probably

40:43

about eight years ago, I

40:45

went to And you did it with Neil. Right? You did

40:48

it with Neil. Well, when I first started, no.

40:50

I started with

40:53

the the first writer that I worked with his name

40:55

was Virland Klinkenborg. And I worked

40:58

with him for four years. And

41:00

Neil was involved from the beginning, but

41:03

he wasn't working on the book with me. He was

41:05

just my friend who would

41:08

continue the interviews because Virland

41:10

was a Yale teaching. So Virland

41:13

was in another place he

41:15

came we spent ten days together. I mean,

41:17

Verlyn, he he interviewed

41:19

me a lot, and we started,

41:22

like, getting to the material and

41:24

then when Virland left, he

41:27

said, okay, I'll start I'll start working on what

41:29

we talked about. And I said, well, I feel like we haven't

41:31

scratched the surface of the information,

41:35

so I'll keep doing what we were doing with

41:37

Neil, and we'll

41:39

send you all the material. So

41:41

Neil was involved from on a content

41:45

capture basis

41:47

from the beginning, but Virland was

41:49

originally the

41:51

professional writer involved. And

41:54

And this is Neil Strauss, the guy, by the way, folks.

41:57

Neil Strauss is the guy who wrote the book. With

41:59

Rick. I should have said that ahead of time.

42:01

So so back to the original question, do

42:03

you read about

42:04

creativity? Do you study the concept? Or

42:07

is this just something where It's

42:09

almost studying magic in a weird

42:11

way might be as important

42:13

as studying history that you don't believe happened.

42:15

You know what I'm

42:16

saying? Well, I

42:18

started telling that story because in

42:21

eight years ago, when I decided I

42:23

wanna write a book about creativity, I

42:25

went to

42:26

BookSuite, which is a great bookstore in Los

42:28

Angeles, my favorite.

42:29

Wonderful book store. Yes.

42:30

It's actually one of the reasons that

42:32

I moved to Los Angeles. Book suit.

42:35

You're kidding me. That's true. At

42:37

the time, believe it

42:39

or not, in, I

42:41

guess, it would have been nineteen eighty

42:45

nine and nineteen ninety,

42:48

while New York was the city that never sleeps.

42:52

There were no bookstores that were open late at night.

42:55

And my life was I

42:57

was living a late schedule at that time.

43:01

And book

43:03

soup was open till midnight. And

43:06

when I first came to California and I

43:08

would go to book pretty much most evenings.

43:10

I would go to tower records on one side of the street,

43:12

and then I would go to book soup on the other side, they were both

43:15

open till midnight. And

43:17

when I when I start and I

43:19

never really liked California. Once

43:23

I realized that there was a book soup

43:25

this there was bookstores and it was

43:27

open till midnight. It kinda

43:30

changed my view of California because

43:32

I really like spending a lot of time in

43:33

bookstores. And and I

43:36

could not do that in New York. Book

43:38

Soup is not a big bookstore either. You

43:41

you add Book Soup to the Bodie Tree down

43:43

there and they had a couple of fun little places

43:45

in LA at the time. I went

43:47

to the Brody Tree at least three

43:49

times a week the entire from

43:51

the day I found

43:52

it, until it closed from

43:55

my favorite bookstore. Yeah.

43:57

Very

43:57

unusual. The reason the

43:59

reason I was telling the story about

44:02

book soup is eight years ago.

44:04

I decided I'm gonna write book about creativity, and

44:07

I think, okay, I'll do a little research. Let me see

44:09

one of the books about creativity. There are.

44:11

At eight years ago, there were no books

44:13

about creativity. There was actually one,

44:17

only one, and it was

44:19

by twylitharp, the

44:22

choreographer, and

44:24

it was called the

44:28

something habit, the art habit, I

44:30

can't remember what it was called now, but

44:32

that was the only one I could find. And

44:34

it was really rooted in dancing. It

44:36

was really about dancing. But

44:38

that was the only one I could find. since

44:42

the idea. It's one of the things I talk about

44:44

in the book. I never made the connection before.

44:47

This specific connection. But

44:49

when an I when when you have an idea

44:51

for some If you don't move on

44:53

it or if you don't move on it quickly,

44:56

someone else is gonna do it. Not because

44:58

they're stealing your idea. They're they're all

45:00

the books that have come out about creativity since

45:03

eight years ago when I started, they're

45:06

not people who stole my idea. It

45:08

just means this

45:10

is something that there's a real need for.

45:12

There's a real interest in this. And

45:17

so so during that time,

45:19

I would, on occasion, look

45:21

at creativity books that came out. But anytime

45:23

there was one, I would read

45:25

a little bit of it, and I would say, oh, this is So

45:27

not what I want. Like, this is not what I want.

45:30

I was looking for a book closer

45:32

to to the creative act, which didn't

45:34

exist. Oh, there there's

45:36

one other I I don't know that you'd call it a

45:38

creativity book, but it's a book about writing

45:41

called about

45:43

the Julia Cameron book. The

45:47

artist way. The artist

45:49

way is a book to get

45:52

over writer's block and and

45:56

and it's primarily for writers. And

45:59

that's another book that I think is now twenty

46:01

five years old. And I guess

46:03

now we think of it as a creativity book.

46:05

But at the time when there was before there was genre

46:08

of creativity

46:08

books, it was a book on how to write.

46:12

You know, I I'm looking at I wrote down

46:14

a couple of different examples of ways.

46:16

One might write a book on creativity,

46:19

write what the different approaches like I have one

46:21

called daily habits, and

46:23

it's a book about what other people

46:25

who are creative do to get

46:27

into the right frame of mind and the right

46:30

place there are there are more

46:32

creative books that are a little like the a to

46:34

b to c. You know, you do this, you do that, you

46:36

do. And then there's many that have that

46:38

sort of metaphysical sort of

46:40

feel to it. I noticed in yours

46:43

that that you grab a little

46:45

bit from each of these approach Right?

46:47

At one point, it will seem like you're reading

46:49

something very amorphous and we're talking about

46:51

the universe and the mews and all these sorts of

46:53

things. And then all of a sudden, you'll turn the page

46:55

and you have a book on habits. Or

46:58

if something isn't working, you have practical

47:00

advice like, try speeding it up, try

47:02

slowing it down. I mean, things that I would consider

47:04

to be more what an you know,

47:06

what a what a grounded engineer would want.

47:09

I want some in structions on this and you include

47:11

those as well. Is there any

47:13

one way to teach people about

47:15

creativity or must you hit them from

47:17

multiple different angles because everyone's

47:19

different?

47:21

Well, I don't think that you can teach

47:24

people about creativity.

47:26

It's what what

47:29

the book is is

47:34

It's it's a glimpse

47:36

into a way of thinking about things that allow

47:38

you to be creative. I wouldn't call it

47:41

I wouldn't call it teaching creativity though.

47:44

I would say it's it's

47:49

about

47:50

learning to be yourself. That's

47:54

what the books about, the books about learning

47:56

to be yourself. And

47:59

the there are aspects if

48:02

in learning to be yourself, if you're gonna be

48:04

making something where having practical

48:07

engineer like advice is helpful. And

48:10

I think that those things are helpful

48:13

when I read the book Those are the

48:15

least interesting parts of the book to me.

48:18

But for some people, it's the best part. It's you

48:20

know, those are the most helpful parts. I

48:23

know that the parts that

48:25

are less grounded

48:29

are the ones that

48:32

have the power to change

48:34

things in a big way. Now

48:36

that said, a small positive

48:38

habit can change your life.

48:41

So, you know, deciding

48:43

to what was an example

48:45

of a practical one taking three

48:47

big breaths when you wake up in the morning

48:52

can have great power as well. The

48:54

the ones that change the way you think about

48:57

the world, I think are the ones that

48:59

allow you to access the

49:03

real creative spirit that

49:07

I wanna say where the work starts doing itself.

49:09

It's funny thing to say because it's the hardest

49:12

work in the world. You'd never stop.

49:14

It's a it's a it's

49:17

the most full time

49:19

job you could ever have.

49:21

And when it's

49:24

working, it happens

49:26

by itself. Yeah, you go

49:28

from a moment where you're you're you

49:30

know, and and this can the order can change.

49:32

Sometimes it starts by pulling

49:34

you and then you push and other times

49:36

you're pushing and then eventually it takes over

49:38

and pulls. And, you know, we had

49:41

mentioned earlier when I was

49:43

doing improv many many years ago,

49:45

I remember a teacher who was helping

49:47

teach us who was saying the more

49:49

you do this the more you

49:51

will walk around twenty four hours

49:53

a day, seven days a week starting

49:55

to find little things. In other

49:57

words, it's like a muscle that you develop and

50:00

over time you become very good at

50:02

at ruminating when

50:04

you're not working about the various seeds

50:06

of things that you'll need when you were to

50:09

draw from. But, you know, and I've

50:11

maybe unfairly, you know,

50:13

I used my engineer example, but

50:15

maybe unfairly sectioned

50:18

off creativity as something painters

50:21

do or musicians do

50:23

or writers do But in reality,

50:25

I mean, this entire civilization that

50:27

we've built over thousands of years

50:29

involves creativity on every level.

50:32

I mean, an engineer is a perfect example. There's

50:34

tons of creativity that goes into

50:36

designing a new car, for example.

50:39

But we only think perhaps of being mozart

50:41

or monet or someone like

50:44

that. But I mean, I I was watching a special

50:46

the other day on primates, and they

50:48

were showing how these primates use

50:50

creativity to develop solutions

50:52

to problems they

50:53

have. So this is almost an innate quality, wouldn't

50:55

you say? Absolutely.

50:58

We're all creative beings. We do it

51:00

every day. We we can't survive without

51:02

creativity. That's that's the

51:04

the thing that has allowed us to flourish

51:06

as a as a species has

51:09

been our creative nature.

51:11

So let me talk about building

51:14

layers because I thought about this in terms of

51:16

creativity. I thought about the difference

51:18

between somebody and and maybe this

51:20

can get into more of a hardcore history sort

51:22

of view of this. But, I mean, I thought about

51:24

how your creativity

51:27

is enhanced by being exposed to

51:29

other people's creative works. So

51:32

and I think I'd mention this to you earlier. Like,

51:34

if if when I was a kid, I watched every

51:36

twilight zone episode. And all the twilight

51:38

zone episodes have these wonderful

51:41

writers who who write from weird angles

51:43

that make little popping sounds in your brain

51:46

as you start thinking about that's what they're supposed to

51:48

do. As you start thinking about the very interesting weird

51:50

concepts that they write about, But

51:52

the fact that I have a couple

51:54

hundred or however many it is, twilight

51:57

zone episodes in my brain sort

51:59

of adding a layer of examples

52:02

of creativity, little

52:04

jumping off points. I mean, I feel like then

52:07

when I'm doing my work, it's

52:09

infused by that in a way that

52:11

if I was a person in

52:13

the middle ages trying to write something,

52:16

and yet I had none of those things as

52:18

part of the foundation, you know, to sort

52:20

of infuse my writing, that the writing

52:22

would be different. How much how much of what

52:24

we do today is is and

52:27

I think you you said it. You said

52:31

I'm looking at the exact quote. You

52:33

had you had talked about nothing

52:36

begins with us, you said in your book. The more

52:38

we pay attention, the more we begin to

52:40

realize that all the work we ever

52:42

do is a collaboration. It's a collaboration

52:45

with the art that came before you.

52:47

This is a fascinating concept for

52:50

me because, you know, it ties you

52:52

into works that you have no connection with. I mentioned

52:54

the stones in Exelon Main Street, but the fact

52:56

that I listened to the stones in Exelon Main

52:58

Street somehow unconsciously influences

53:02

what I do. Can you talk about this

53:04

a little bit? I mean, the fact that we're all building

53:06

upon, you know, we all stand on the shoulders of giants

53:08

as the old saying goes. We're

53:10

standing on the shoulders of giants and everyone

53:13

else. We're we're taking in

53:15

whatever we notice. On

53:17

a daily basis. It could be could

53:19

be a great movie, great television show, but

53:21

it also could be the way

53:24

the the light reflects

53:26

off of a building that we're

53:28

looking at and how the light changes

53:31

over the course of the day. When we're

53:34

driving and sometimes we have to put

53:36

down the little flap because the sun's in our

53:38

eyes. Why is it at that time of day?

53:40

How does it change the way we perceive everything?

53:43

Much more difficult is it to drive based on

53:45

the son's position? How

53:47

different is it to drive at night than in

53:49

the day? How how

53:51

different is it to drive at night with your

53:53

lights off instead of your lights on.

53:56

We're always working in concert

53:58

with everything else that's going on. Everything

54:01

that we notice, everything that we see,

54:03

and all of the great work that's come before

54:06

us definitely plays a role. Anything

54:08

anytime we see something or read something

54:11

that changes our mind about something. It

54:13

changes our mind about something. We're

54:15

now a new person. And

54:17

now we're moving through the world as

54:19

this new person. And every day,

54:22

we're new there's some part

54:24

of us that's the

54:27

same, and there's some part of us that's

54:29

always changing. And

54:32

when we come into this world, I

54:34

believe we come in as

54:36

more of a blank slate. And

54:38

then through the things that

54:41

our parents read to us as children

54:43

or sounds of

54:46

music of the day that happens to be playing.

54:49

And then once we

54:51

start choosing the things for ourselves,

54:53

the the books that we choose to read or the

54:55

TV shows that we choose to watch or the movies

54:57

we choose to watch or the

54:59

museums we choose to go to or the

55:01

places we choose to travel to

55:04

and the things we choose to see.

55:07

All of those things impact us

55:09

and when we're making whatever

55:12

it is that we're making when we're making dinner.

55:15

All of that that came before us

55:18

goes into the choices we make. We

55:20

don't know it. It's not a conscious thing.

55:23

We're made up of these

55:25

experiences and these experiences

55:28

that have either pulled us in or

55:30

pushed us away. Great example

55:32

would be the the movie jaws. I don't know

55:34

if you know this, but People

55:37

were not afraid of sharks before

55:39

the movie draws. Now,

55:42

there's a percentage of the population that

55:45

are afraid to go swimming in the ocean because

55:47

they're afraid of sharks, whether it's a shark

55:49

infested area or not. All

55:52

because of a movie.

55:54

It changed our world to

55:57

be afraid of sharks. I'm

56:00

glad you brought that movie up too because there's

56:02

a

56:02

wonderful, creative aspect

56:05

to that movie that I always use as

56:07

an

56:07

example in my own work. Which

56:09

is and many people may not know

56:11

this. But the shark didn't work. Right?

56:13

The the the the mechanical shark

56:16

rarely worked. And so

56:19

Spielberg, who had all of these ideas

56:21

for scenes where the shark was going to

56:23

appear, had to figure out ways

56:25

to write the scenes without the shark because the

56:28

shark so rarely was available. And

56:30

it turned out that by doing that,

56:33

it created a building suspense in

56:35

the film that wasn't there in the original

56:37

treatment for the movie because they assumed you'd have

56:39

a shark to work with, and it worked out

56:42

better because of it. So it's almost turning

56:44

lemons into lemonade kind of an idea

56:46

there that I and and we do that all the

56:48

time in the works. Right? Creative ways around

56:50

problems that crop up and all this. I

56:53

I wanted you know, because we had talked just second

56:55

ago about how maybe call it an advantage

56:58

that people right now have over people

57:00

a long time ago because we have all these other work

57:02

that we can draw on and that influence

57:05

us. And when you were talking, all I could think of is

57:07

the Pink Floyd lyric, you know, where it says all

57:09

that you touch and all that you see is all your life

57:11

will never be on all these things that

57:13

make up who we are. But you had

57:15

said in the book something that I think about all

57:17

the time, and you'd said, and I'm

57:19

quoting, not using my big quote voice or anything,

57:22

but there are those who approach the opportunities

57:24

of each day, like crossing items

57:27

off a to do list. Instead of

57:29

truly engaging and participating

57:32

with all of themselves. Our continual

57:34

quest for efficiency, discourages

57:37

looking too deeply, The pressure

57:39

to deliver doesn't grant us time to consider

57:41

all possibilities, yet it is through

57:44

deliberate action and repetition that

57:46

we gain deeper insight. And

57:49

I think all the time about how, you

57:51

know, because we have so many things to do

57:53

in so many distractions and we're so much more

57:55

easily bored that we don't perhaps. And

57:57

when I say we, I don't mean every individual

57:59

because obviously there are exceptions. But I think

58:02

most of us think less deeply

58:05

and concentrate less intensely than

58:08

we otherwise might. And I wonder

58:10

if there's any downstream societal

58:13

effects from something like that. Right? I mean, someone was

58:15

telling me the other day, someone came a worker came to

58:17

do some stuff in my house. And he

58:19

looked up on the bookshelves, and

58:21

said how happy he was to see books

58:23

on the bookshelf. And I said to him,

58:25

what else would you put on a bookshelf?

58:27

And he goes, I go into houses all the time. There

58:29

aren't any books in them anymore. And

58:33

I wonder what the downstream

58:35

impact on us all from less

58:37

deep thinking, less deep concentration, less

58:40

book and all that will be.

58:42

I mean, maybe one could make an argument that

58:44

from a standpoint of deep human

58:46

creativity and deep human thinking,

58:49

that people in the past had a had a somewhat

58:51

edge on us now. Does that does that

58:53

ever occur to you this idea of

58:55

just, I mean, monks could sit there and contemplate

58:58

stuff. We don't do that very much anymore.

59:00

Is there a cost to that? Absolutely.

59:03

But there's both a cost to the lack of

59:05

contemplation and to

59:07

the lack of trusted

59:10

sources of information. I'll tell you a

59:12

story. I was listening

59:15

to I I don't

59:17

know much about classical music. I like classical

59:19

music very much, but I don't know much about it.

59:21

And I was listening to a classical radio station

59:24

and a piece of music came on that was

59:26

a a chanting, like,

59:33

a a beautiful a beautiful piece

59:35

of of religious music. And

59:37

I shazammed the piece of music.

59:40

And what came up in the shazam was

59:44

it was the piece of music, but

59:46

it wasn't the recording that I heard.

59:49

And if you know much about classical music,

59:52

like now if you if there's if

59:54

you want the Rolling Stone song painted black,

59:57

You look up paint it black, you'll find the Rolling Stones

59:59

version. There may be one or two other cover

1:00:01

versions, I'm not sure, but

1:00:04

not many. Whereas in classical music,

1:00:06

there is this canon of

1:00:08

material and there are many, many,

1:00:11

many recordings. We don't have

1:00:13

the BAC recording of

1:00:16

bach pieces. We have many

1:00:18

different great orchestras

1:00:21

and pianists versions of the

1:00:23

bach pieces or or cellists or

1:00:26

or violinists. So

1:00:29

it's always being interpreted by

1:00:33

a new artist who's collaborating

1:00:36

with Bach and making a

1:00:38

new a new piece out of Bach's

1:00:40

music. They're collaborating with a dead man.

1:00:43

Yes. And so I

1:00:45

heard this this this

1:00:47

beautiful chanting piece and

1:00:51

and I found out the name of it But

1:00:53

when I listened to the first one

1:00:55

that came up, it wasn't the one that I heard, and

1:00:57

it didn't have the same magic in it as the one

1:00:59

that I heard, which is why I jazzammed

1:01:02

it in the first place. So

1:01:04

I started thinking about, okay, how do I find

1:01:06

the best recording of this? Because now

1:01:08

I know the the name of the piece of music.

1:01:11

And I remembered back to my days of going

1:01:13

to Book Soup and Tower Records on a,

1:01:15

you know, probably five nights a week

1:01:18

between, you know, one or the other

1:01:20

or about both. And

1:01:26

there was the tower records on one side

1:01:28

of the street, and then on the side where Book Soup

1:01:30

was, two doors down, three doors down

1:01:32

from Buck Soup, was Tower Classical,

1:01:35

which also had videos. And

1:01:37

I went to Tower Classical, and I would spend time

1:01:39

in Tower Classical back in those days.

1:01:42

And there was a book called The Penguin

1:01:44

Guide Classical Music. And it was

1:01:46

a big probably

1:01:48

a thousand pages had a black cover,

1:01:51

and there was a new edition that came out every

1:01:53

year. And if

1:01:56

if there was a piece of classical music that

1:01:58

you liked, you would reference the penguin

1:02:00

book to find out what was considered

1:02:02

the best recording. And they would usually

1:02:05

have the best recording and then another

1:02:07

interesting recording and maybe

1:02:11

if there was another one that was of

1:02:13

interest. Different than the best

1:02:15

one or or

1:02:17

a reason to particularly care about an

1:02:19

alternate version they would have that too.

1:02:21

So it was the definitive place to go

1:02:24

to learn about to to

1:02:26

learn about classical music. I

1:02:28

would I would hear

1:02:30

a piece I would refer I would go to

1:02:32

the store. They had probably six

1:02:36

or eight copies of the book behind

1:02:38

the desk, all dog dog

1:02:40

geared and and well worn kinda like

1:02:42

phone books. And you take

1:02:45

one and you could shop in the store.

1:02:47

And then if there was piece that you're excited

1:02:49

about, you would read the section, and then

1:02:51

it would help you determine which one to purchase

1:02:54

because there might be a

1:02:56

dozen versions of the same piece by different

1:02:59

people. So that

1:03:03

recently I had this experience hearing this

1:03:05

this this chanting music

1:03:08

and I look up the Penguin book online.

1:03:10

And it turns out the Penguin book has not been

1:03:12

imprinted since the

1:03:15

probably nineteen ninety eight was

1:03:18

the last year of the Penguin Guide.

1:03:21

And and then I researched, is

1:03:23

there What do people

1:03:25

use now? And there's no answers.

1:03:28

I can't I can't get any information. And

1:03:31

the Penguin Guide is no longer available. And

1:03:34

luckily, I know people at Penguin

1:03:36

now because my book is being published by Penguin.

1:03:38

So I called my editor at Penguin

1:03:41

said, There was

1:03:43

this book, this reference book that was

1:03:45

really important called the Penguin Guide to Music,

1:03:47

classical Music. It's no longer in

1:03:49

print. Why is it no longer

1:03:51

in print? What happened? And

1:03:53

he researched and came back to me and

1:03:55

he said, that one came

1:03:57

out of the UK office maybe

1:04:01

you can speak to someone in the UK office.

1:04:03

And I called a friend who works at

1:04:06

an editor at Penguin in

1:04:09

the UK, and I asked

1:04:11

them about it, and they said, oh, that was

1:04:13

part of. They said, in back

1:04:15

in nineteen ninety eight, A

1:04:18

third of all of Penguin's books

1:04:21

were reference books. And

1:04:24

starting in around nineteen ninety eight, we

1:04:26

stopped doing reference books. And

1:04:29

I said, why'd you stop doing reference books? And they

1:04:31

said, well, because of the Internet, And

1:04:33

now with the Internet, we

1:04:36

don't need to put out these annual reference

1:04:39

books because It's

1:04:41

just all online. And

1:04:45

that it thinking

1:04:48

about that. It went from my concern

1:04:50

about not being able to find the piece of classical

1:04:52

music I want because the book's not

1:04:55

in print. To realizing in

1:04:58

nineteen ninety eight, the

1:05:01

library of Alexandria got

1:05:03

shut down. And

1:05:06

now we're we're

1:05:08

basically going

1:05:10

on crowdsourced opinion

1:05:14

for everything. There is no there

1:05:17

is no definitive reference source anymore

1:05:20

since the Internet. It's over.

1:05:23

Well,

1:05:23

okay. So let me I think that leads into something

1:05:25

I wanna ask you about because I there

1:05:27

was an interesting thing on Twitter that somebody

1:05:30

had shared some artwork. And

1:05:32

I retweeted it thinking it was very interesting

1:05:35

and then got some not nasty but disappointed

1:05:37

responses by people who

1:05:39

were artists that were that were upset that

1:05:42

I was retweeting artificial intelligence

1:05:44

created art. And I thought

1:05:47

about this a little bit, and I thought Well, what

1:05:49

does Rick think about? Artificial intelligence

1:05:52

art? I read a story the other day and I think it's

1:05:54

absolute BS at this point, but maybe someday

1:05:56

it won't be that, you know, a giant

1:05:58

chunk of the content that we consume in

1:06:00

two years is going to be artificially

1:06:03

created. Will artificial intelligence

1:06:06

ever make music better than people

1:06:08

or art better than people? I mean, what are your thoughts

1:06:10

on this according to one of my

1:06:12

artistic friends, this

1:06:15

this looming death threat

1:06:17

ahead of them in terms of what they do

1:06:19

for a living. What are your thoughts on that.

1:06:22

It's a little bit like the conversation we

1:06:24

had about magic and

1:06:26

the mews. And for

1:06:28

people who don't who aren't

1:06:31

involved in working with the

1:06:33

Muse, they don't understand the Muse,

1:06:35

and they think that's a made up thing. Art

1:06:39

essentially is

1:06:42

a it's a

1:06:44

made up agreement And

1:06:46

it's a made up agreement rooted

1:06:49

in a concept,

1:06:51

an idea, the idea

1:06:54

that the the idea behind

1:06:56

the peace is

1:06:59

what The the piece is a is

1:07:02

a outward reflection of

1:07:05

a concept. And

1:07:08

as far as I know, the things that are being

1:07:10

generated by AI are not

1:07:13

rooted in an

1:07:15

original concept. So

1:07:18

I don't know. I

1:07:20

don't really know that that it functions

1:07:23

as art functions. It could be

1:07:25

something decorative. It could be something interesting.

1:07:28

It could be something beautiful. But

1:07:30

I think what breathes in

1:07:32

art, as as I understand it,

1:07:35

is what's

1:07:37

behind it What's

1:07:40

behind it is what makes it interesting.

1:07:44

And I don't know that what's behind AI

1:07:46

art

1:07:47

is interesting. If you

1:07:50

put it up at the Metropolitan

1:07:52

Museum of Art, if you put up some artificially

1:07:55

created works.

1:07:58

And you put them up next to works by, you

1:08:00

know, known artists. If

1:08:02

it you know, I think there's two sides

1:08:04

to this and and I think you you break it down very

1:08:06

well in the book. There's there's the side from the

1:08:08

artist's side and then there's the side from

1:08:10

the one who is viewing or

1:08:13

experiencing the art. I

1:08:15

certainly think that what you just said applies to

1:08:17

the artist's side of this. But if the art ends

1:08:19

up move and I'm not trying to defend just

1:08:21

thinking about it. But but if the art ends

1:08:24

up moving you somehow, is

1:08:26

at least half of what we

1:08:28

consider the goal of art being

1:08:30

accomplished? I mean, if it ends up moving somebody

1:08:33

on the receiving end? Absolutely.

1:08:36

If it if it works for you, it's

1:08:38

great. There is no There's no

1:08:40

saying what is and

1:08:41

isn't. It's it's in it's always in

1:08:43

the eye of the beholder. Oh, boy. It does

1:08:45

make it look like, you know, obviously for our shows, we

1:08:47

use a fantastic artist. A a guy

1:08:49

named Nikolay, and I can't imagine ever

1:08:52

replacing Nikolay with

1:08:54

some sort of computer algorithm no

1:08:57

matter how nice the the and how fun

1:09:00

it might be to play with. I was I was online. I'm not

1:09:02

technically sophisticated enough to know how to

1:09:04

use it, but I was I was interested in the

1:09:06

idea of being able to set the parameters

1:09:08

myself, say I wanna have the

1:09:10

starship enterprise, attacking

1:09:13

Roman legionaries and show me a picture

1:09:15

of that. Somebody somebody did it for the show

1:09:17

we just did where I had mused about what it

1:09:19

would be like if the Vikings today

1:09:22

attacked Laguna Beach or Malibu

1:09:24

or something like that, and somebody

1:09:26

put it into the computer AI algorithm

1:09:28

and spit out a picture of that. And

1:09:31

I remember looking at it going, holy

1:09:33

cow, now an artist could have painted

1:09:35

that certainly. But to be able to sit

1:09:37

there and just go, you know, I wonder what that would look

1:09:39

like. And thirty seconds

1:09:41

later, it's there in front of you. It's

1:09:43

a very weird time we live in, Rick. It's

1:09:46

super cool. It's super interesting

1:09:48

and cool. I'm

1:09:50

not sure it's art. It's

1:09:52

something

1:09:54

It's definitely something, but

1:09:56

I don't know that I would call it art.

1:09:59

Okay. So then that gets to something we're

1:10:01

we're going from like visual like

1:10:03

a painting slash medium. Let's

1:10:06

go to music with that same sort of thing.

1:10:08

So we go from a time period where

1:10:10

you and I are young people growing up. And

1:10:12

it's the seventies and

1:10:14

the really, really fantastic bands

1:10:17

out there that everyone you know, pay his attention

1:10:19

to our Virtuoso performers

1:10:22

that took many many years to

1:10:25

create their talent and their craft and everything.

1:10:27

And of course, punk came along and kind of

1:10:29

blew that out of the whole water. But now

1:10:32

fast forward and then you get to the era where

1:10:35

hip hop and rap music come around where

1:10:37

these people are the equivalent in my

1:10:39

mind of like Homer and the old way

1:10:41

that poetry used to work, you know, in the

1:10:43

ancient world. And then

1:10:46

you move forward to where we are today. I mean, I used

1:10:48

to joke that if I just had the loops

1:10:50

with the drum track and if certain

1:10:53

sort of groove. And listen, I could make music

1:10:55

too, and now people are. So

1:10:57

what do you think about the the creativity

1:11:00

that is almost like let's call it cyborg

1:11:03

like where you have a human being working

1:11:05

with a computer to create

1:11:06

something. I mean, what do you think of that kind

1:11:08

of partnership for lack of

1:11:11

a better word? I

1:11:13

I love it, and I and I the

1:11:16

the the record that really changed

1:11:19

the world in many ways was

1:11:22

I feel love the

1:11:24

-- Oh, yeah. -- song. From the seventies.

1:11:27

That was Yeah. That was done by

1:11:29

Georgios Moroder. And

1:11:32

the the music was completely

1:11:35

generated. It wasn't played by people.

1:11:37

Although, Georgia did control

1:11:40

the parameters of the machine that was

1:11:42

making the sounds, but it was

1:11:44

the first big record that

1:11:46

was all generated

1:11:48

through a machine. And

1:11:51

and and then craft work also they

1:11:55

were a Prague band who turned into

1:11:57

this machine based band, and it's

1:11:59

incredible music. And

1:12:01

in in both of those cases, there's there's

1:12:04

a collaboration between the human

1:12:07

and the machine or how the machine

1:12:10

how the way a human uses

1:12:12

technology in a new way. This was actually one

1:12:14

of the things I wanted to ask you about, which was

1:12:17

is technology always

1:12:21

the reason that the

1:12:23

next chapter of history differs

1:12:25

from the last chapter of history. Is

1:12:28

it always a technological change?

1:12:32

That that makes the next

1:12:35

war different from the last war

1:12:37

or the flow of information

1:12:40

different than how you to be? Is it

1:12:42

always a new technology comes

1:12:44

and the world changes? Is it always the

1:12:46

case?

1:12:48

I think you could substitute to several different things for

1:12:50

technology. I I'm not gonna disagree with that

1:12:52

statement at all, but there's also differences

1:12:56

in organization and

1:12:58

approaches. And, you know, and you might

1:13:00

consider that to be part of the feedback

1:13:02

loop between technological changes

1:13:06

and how humans then respond.

1:13:08

So we just talked about a possible collaboration

1:13:11

between computers and human beings. Well,

1:13:14

I mean, if you look and there's also just to be

1:13:16

honest, there's also and this probably applies

1:13:18

to art music also. There's there's also this

1:13:20

sort of dynamic of

1:13:23

of cause and effect. So

1:13:25

if for example, we're going back to

1:13:27

ancient warfare and you talk about the dominance

1:13:30

of of a weapon system like

1:13:32

Alexander, the great type faylances.

1:13:35

Right? Sixteen ranks

1:13:37

of people holding twenty one

1:13:39

foot spears in giant blocks

1:13:42

of people, and you think to yourself, well,

1:13:44

nothing's ever gonna defeat that. Well,

1:13:46

that prompts, of course, someone trying to come

1:13:48

up with some way to do that. And then

1:13:50

when the Roman legions figure out the right

1:13:52

approach to doing that, and

1:13:54

it's partially technologically oriented,

1:13:57

but it's also organizationally different.

1:13:59

And also, from an artistic standpoint, if

1:14:01

we can use military in in

1:14:03

in an artistic sense, It's also

1:14:06

coming up with a creative solution

1:14:08

to a problem that bedevils your

1:14:10

military. How do we defeat this giant

1:14:13

phalanx and you come up

1:14:15

with a way. And when you do, it's it's

1:14:17

a melding of technology, right, a

1:14:19

certain kind of sword,

1:14:21

for example, with a certain kind of

1:14:23

shield, and then you you mix

1:14:25

that with certain changes in how you do

1:14:27

things. Right? Smaller unit that are more

1:14:29

independent, right, that can outflank you and

1:14:31

handle terrain differently. And all these

1:14:34

things can combine because

1:14:36

you have a need, right, cause and effect

1:14:39

call and response, you have a need. And

1:14:41

and those things fuse together into

1:14:43

in in military history, you would call it a weapon

1:14:45

system. But the weapons system

1:14:48

is is several things that are

1:14:50

fused together. And some of it is creativity,

1:14:52

some of it is technology, some of it is the way you

1:14:54

do things, And then one might make the case

1:14:57

as we currently have drone

1:15:00

warriors who are in, you

1:15:02

know, small rooms in places like

1:15:04

Kansas who are fighting,

1:15:06

though, from those small rooms on screens

1:15:08

that look like video games in the Middle

1:15:10

East. Right? Does that change the

1:15:12

nature of those people as

1:15:14

warriors. Well, I think it does, but

1:15:17

that again is a creation of a new weapon system.

1:15:19

The melding of technology with approaches,

1:15:21

with people, I mean, if you imagine

1:15:23

trying to hand that Roman legionary,

1:15:26

a device that looks like a PlayStation controller

1:15:29

and say, go out and kill the enemy with

1:15:31

this. I don't know how many years it takes before

1:15:34

somebody can do that because you would have

1:15:36

maybe had to grow up with video games. You

1:15:38

might have to have you know, an entire

1:15:40

personal relationship

1:15:42

with the technology in the state of the times

1:15:44

to understand what you do. So in other words, I think

1:15:47

the answer to your question is, the technology

1:15:49

is a part, but what technology does is

1:15:51

replasticify, replasticify, if

1:15:54

you will, the whole thing where then everything

1:15:56

remolds itself around the new technology

1:15:59

so that you can best use the new technology

1:16:01

to do whatever it was was prompted

1:16:03

by the need to have a sort of cause and

1:16:05

effect. Does that make any sense? Absolutely.

1:16:08

That's a great that's a great description. I can remember

1:16:10

you had an episode where you talked about the

1:16:14

the people of the steppe who

1:16:17

who were great horsemen and their advantage

1:16:20

was they could do things while on horseback

1:16:22

that other people couldn't

1:16:23

do. Right. And, you know, you could

1:16:25

try to I love that example too because

1:16:27

people tried to emulate it, and lots of countries

1:16:30

had mounted archers. But

1:16:32

there's a difference between a

1:16:35

mounted archer that, you know, comes

1:16:37

into your your training school

1:16:39

at twenty one years old and you start

1:16:41

teaching the art to compared to a

1:16:43

comanche that grew up on horseback

1:16:45

so much that he's bow

1:16:46

legged. Right? So -- Mhmm. -- I do

1:16:49

think that that that and to me, that's

1:16:51

almost

1:16:51

like that's almost like, you know, that that's

1:16:54

when the try before modern technology totally

1:16:57

overwhelmed aspects

1:16:59

of of military history like that. There

1:17:01

were various peoples all around the world

1:17:03

that could do different things that we would almost

1:17:06

consider to be minor superpowers today.

1:17:09

And that's my my favorite example is

1:17:11

that -- Mhmm. -- is the nomadic horse archers of the step

1:17:14

that were supposedly

1:17:15

the inspiration for the Greek myth

1:17:18

of the centaurs.

1:17:19

Wow. That's beautiful.

1:17:22

You know, I'm looking over the notes now,

1:17:24

and I'm seeing that that we've covered a

1:17:27

lot of the stuff I wanted to cover, but I I'm it's

1:17:29

a good time to take a break and just ask

1:17:31

you know, where should we go? What what haven't

1:17:33

we sort of delved

1:17:36

into that would be fun or that you would

1:17:38

like to see us go into because

1:17:40

we got a lot of notes for this show. So

1:17:43

so the more notes we have, the harder it is to pick

1:17:45

anything out specifically. Anything

1:17:47

you'd like to get into, I mean, we didn't talk much about

1:17:49

you as a background or

1:17:51

any of the music that you've been working on.

1:17:54

We didn't talk about what you personally. I mean,

1:17:56

I was curious because obviously

1:17:58

being a music producer, you're you're involved

1:18:00

as an art in art creation

1:18:03

just in that role. But is there anything

1:18:05

else you're enjoying doing that I don't know about? I

1:18:07

mean, I don't know. Do you sculpt? Do you paint? Do

1:18:10

you do you know, the pricks haven't been around for

1:18:12

a long time? Is there a reunion in our a future

1:18:15

of that man. So

1:18:17

so maybe we could talk about any anything that

1:18:19

that sounds like we didn't touch on already

1:18:21

or that you'd like to get into. Okay.

1:18:24

I have I have loads of things for us to talk about.

1:18:26

Yeah. Yeah. You you why don't you drive

1:18:28

the car for a minute? And I'll try to follow. When I start?

1:18:31

Yeah. Okay. Let's

1:18:35

talk a little bit about how

1:18:37

we decide to

1:18:41

continue or not continue what we're

1:18:43

doing. And the reason I'm

1:18:45

I'm asking you this is You

1:18:48

had a podcast called Common Sense,

1:18:51

which you did alongside

1:18:54

hardcore history for a very long time.

1:18:57

And then common sense stopped. And

1:19:01

I just wanna talk about

1:19:02

that. I wasn't

1:19:04

expecting that. Okay.

1:19:07

Well, you know, the way you said it, common

1:19:10

sense stopped might be a very good way

1:19:12

to describe why common sense stopped.

1:19:17

This gets sort of to the reason

1:19:19

that we thought about talking about that

1:19:21

sort of stuff to begin with. It was based on

1:19:23

certain assumptions. And for me, hardcore

1:19:26

history is a brand new, created

1:19:28

for a podcast kind of program,

1:19:30

whereas common sense was something

1:19:32

that is a deliberate evolution from

1:19:34

what I used to do on the radio for many, many

1:19:37

years. And the tagline, you

1:19:39

know, all those commercial talk radio

1:19:41

shows always have a tagline when

1:19:44

you start the top of the hour. So anyone who

1:19:46

hasn't heard you before gets sort of the

1:19:48

one sentence or two sentence run down

1:19:50

about what you're all about. And I could still

1:19:52

remember it because I used to say it every day, you know,

1:19:55

at the start of all three hours. And it

1:19:57

was, we are your independent alternative

1:20:00

to the partisan voices you normally

1:20:02

hear. Now you'll hear radio

1:20:04

show hosts say stuff like that all the time, but they

1:20:06

don't really mean it. We

1:20:09

did mean it. And my basic

1:20:11

assumption was that you

1:20:14

know, there is huge problems in

1:20:16

American government, for example, that

1:20:19

need to be addressed, but they are bipartisan

1:20:21

problems. And in order to

1:20:23

address them, we almost have to

1:20:26

sub sub sub suborb take

1:20:28

our differences and put them aside for now.

1:20:30

Because differences and disagreements are

1:20:32

built into the pie in any sort of representative

1:20:35

system. That that comes with the territory.

1:20:37

It's not a bug. It's a feature. But

1:20:40

we need to you know, there's a not

1:20:42

to change subject because it's not a change of subject, but

1:20:44

there's a a book by Yale

1:20:47

Notar. I think he's I can't remember. It was Harvard

1:20:49

or Yale, but Lawrence Lessega, who's

1:20:51

a law professor. And he wrote a book

1:20:54

called Republic Lost, and I

1:20:56

loved the way he did it because he he

1:20:58

he assumed the same thing. But these

1:21:00

problems, these systemic problems

1:21:03

require us all to sort of work together

1:21:06

to solve. Right? We need We need to fix the

1:21:08

boat from sinking before

1:21:10

we can talk about the direction we want the

1:21:12

boat to go. And the way he did it

1:21:14

was one page, let's imagine

1:21:16

the left side of the page would be the arguments

1:21:18

for why we need to do this to people who are

1:21:20

more liberal. And then on the right side of page

1:21:22

would be the same arguments for why a conservative

1:21:25

person would would wanna do this also, implying

1:21:28

that it's going to take both

1:21:30

sides to fix systemic problems.

1:21:33

And the common sense show was based on

1:21:35

this too, this idea that the

1:21:38

problems that divide us are less

1:21:40

important than what we need to do. I mean, think about it.

1:21:42

It's like an infrastructure thing. We're

1:21:44

arguing about cleaning out the barn

1:21:46

here so that we could continue to

1:21:49

stable horses in it. And and

1:21:51

the assumption was that you know,

1:21:53

for a while, I thought we were winning on that front.

1:21:55

I mean, I really thought we were. And

1:21:58

then things went sideways.

1:22:00

And they didn't go sideways because

1:22:02

of anything any politician did or

1:22:05

anything like that. They went sideways in

1:22:07

your your's truly personal opinion

1:22:09

because of us. And once

1:22:12

I decided or thought or

1:22:14

assumed or or

1:22:16

concluded, that the

1:22:18

problem was stemming from us.

1:22:21

Well, then I couldn't figure out what the

1:22:23

solution for that. Was where there's all

1:22:25

sorts of practical solutions for corruption

1:22:27

in government and money and politics and gerrymandering

1:22:30

and and long serving politicians and

1:22:33

partisanism I couldn't figure out

1:22:35

what to do if the problem is

1:22:37

us. Now, I may be wrong

1:22:39

about that, but that

1:22:42

sort of shut down the

1:22:44

program for me because the entire

1:22:46

premise under which I had

1:22:48

labored and not just with the podcast, but in the entire

1:22:51

radio show that it grew out of. Right?

1:22:53

We are your alternatives, you know,

1:22:55

to the partisan voices you normally hear.

1:22:59

If not proven because because it's possible

1:23:01

that that was a correct statement in the

1:23:03

middle nineteen nineties. But

1:23:05

by the time the show sort of ended, if

1:23:08

it's ended, I didn't feel like

1:23:10

that was a true statement anymore. So what's the

1:23:12

old line, you know, the problem dear Buddhist

1:23:14

is not at our stars, but in

1:23:16

ourselves. And that's kind

1:23:18

of what I concluded, and that sort of short

1:23:20

circuited my whole approach because I don't know how

1:23:22

to fix

1:23:23

us. Does that make sense?

1:23:25

Interesting. It does.

1:23:27

I I also would be really curious

1:23:29

to hear if the show continued

1:23:32

on based on that assumption, which

1:23:34

would be not

1:23:37

so much you knowing

1:23:39

what the solutions are, but

1:23:43

but being able to clearly address the

1:23:45

problems to to speak

1:23:48

the problems as you see them in

1:23:51

the hopes that a

1:23:54

solution can be found. You know, sometimes

1:23:56

identifying the problem is

1:23:59

the biggest piece

1:24:02

of the creative puzzle. Do

1:24:05

you

1:24:05

know if you see if you see a a if

1:24:07

we're working on a project and something's

1:24:10

not right and you know it's not as good as

1:24:12

it could be or it's not making you feel

1:24:14

something that he thought it was gonna make you

1:24:16

feel knowing what

1:24:19

to do. You know, knowing

1:24:21

what why where's

1:24:25

the splinter in this?

1:24:27

Why why am I not getting what

1:24:29

I want from this is

1:24:33

really helpful. So I'd be curious

1:24:35

to hear that. And the re the reason I asked also

1:24:37

is because I've been doing a a podcast

1:24:40

called Broken Record for about

1:24:42

five years, I think. And the

1:24:44

way that that started was my

1:24:47

friend Malcolm said he want to do a music

1:24:49

podcast and if I want

1:24:51

to do with him so that seemed like

1:24:53

fun ideas. So I started doing that music podcast

1:24:55

and we did that for this time.

1:24:58

And then recently, I've

1:25:00

come to realize because originally, I didn't think

1:25:02

it was gonna be a interview

1:25:04

show. I thought it was gonna be more of more

1:25:06

like revisionist history, more like his show.

1:25:08

Yeah.

1:25:09

This is Malcolm Gladwell, by the way, we should

1:25:11

say. Yeah. This was gonna

1:25:13

be more of a story to I thought it was gonna

1:25:15

be more of a produced storytelling thing,

1:25:17

and which I think maybe all

1:25:19

of us thought at the beginning, yet it

1:25:21

turned into being an interview show. And

1:25:25

and it's been really fun to do. And

1:25:28

because Broken Record is so specifically a

1:25:31

music show and it always set out to be

1:25:33

a music show, I realized

1:25:36

I'd like to talk about things outside

1:25:38

of music just as much. And

1:25:42

So I've been thinking I'm gonna start

1:25:44

a podcast which

1:25:46

will be called Tetragrammaton. And

1:25:49

Tetragrammaton will be where

1:25:51

I have the conversations about everything.

1:25:54

And at and at first, I was thinking maybe

1:25:57

I need of specific podcasts

1:26:00

to talk about this subject and another specific

1:26:02

podcast to talk about this subject and another

1:26:04

specific podcast to talk about this subject.

1:26:07

And then I realized it's probably more interesting

1:26:10

if I just have a podcast

1:26:12

where I can talk about anything that's

1:26:14

interesting to me and talk to people

1:26:16

who are thing to me wherever

1:26:18

they come from. So that's what

1:26:20

tetragramatin will be. And it'll it'll

1:26:23

end up having music interviews

1:26:25

as well because that's interesting to me, but

1:26:27

it's not what it's about. It's a it's

1:26:30

a piece of the puzzle instead of it being

1:26:32

the

1:26:32

puzzle. I think that provides a lot

1:26:34

more freedom for you to do

1:26:36

it that way than than common sense,

1:26:39

which was specifically geared towards

1:26:41

a specific attitude. And

1:26:43

and part of the problem too, Rick, in

1:26:46

the times in which we live, which

1:26:48

I truly believe we're

1:26:50

going to look back on in twenty years

1:26:53

as one of those times where people

1:26:55

go crazy collectively. I mean,

1:26:57

the the way that you and I would look have looked

1:26:59

back on the McCarthy era, from

1:27:02

the nineteen eighties when those people just look

1:27:04

crazy. Right? I mean, you just look back and you go, the

1:27:07

everything went nuts for a while. I

1:27:09

think those things happen. In human

1:27:11

history. And the reason it comes into play

1:27:13

in the common sense discussion is because part of

1:27:15

the common sense discussion was finding common

1:27:17

ground. But in an era where everyone

1:27:20

goes nuts. And both

1:27:22

sides think that we are in apocalyptic

1:27:24

situations in terms of the stakes,

1:27:26

then to try to walk some line where

1:27:28

you try to see both sides is the equivalent

1:27:31

of trying to see both the Nazi and the

1:27:33

communist viewpoint. And people

1:27:35

don't stand for that. And I understand that.

1:27:37

But at the same time, I think twenty years from now,

1:27:39

someone's gonna say, why didn't we do a little

1:27:41

bit more trying to find common ground because

1:27:43

obviously, you know, everyone's being

1:27:45

radicalized, the the

1:27:47

ballast of society, which is the

1:27:50

middle, has has seen both

1:27:52

edges, the left and the

1:27:54

right edge from the middle be co

1:27:56

opted towards the streams because

1:27:58

people turn to the people in the middle and go.

1:28:01

Now is a time for choosing as the old

1:28:03

line goes. Right? Now was it wasn't that a Ronald

1:28:05

Reagan thing from the early NOW IS A TIME FOR

1:28:07

CHOOSING. WELL, THOSE OF US WHO

1:28:09

TRIED TO SEE BOTH SIDES THEN BECOME INSTEAD

1:28:11

A PART OF THE SOLUTION IN THE MINDS

1:28:13

OF MANY DURING THIS crazy time like

1:28:15

the McCarthy era, we become

1:28:18

part of the problem in those people's

1:28:20

minds. And so I do think that

1:28:22

twenty years from now, what you're saying

1:28:24

about common sense might absolutely be

1:28:26

the way most people see it. I get accused

1:28:29

of things like both sides areism That's

1:28:31

a word

1:28:32

now. Both sides ofism. But in

1:28:34

my mind, without both sides ofism, you

1:28:36

have one sideism, and how is that any

1:28:38

different from what everybody else is doing? I

1:28:41

think the only reason that

1:28:45

I don't I wouldn't say that people today are

1:28:48

crazier than they've ever been.

1:28:51

It's the inputs that they're getting that

1:28:55

is is getting this result. So

1:28:59

in some ways the time

1:29:01

for a common sense show

1:29:04

that speaks reasonably and open

1:29:06

mindedly about both sides is

1:29:11

maybe the only thing that

1:29:13

could ever solve the problem.

1:29:16

Because the the the finger

1:29:18

pointing and the the reason

1:29:21

people are so divided is

1:29:23

because the stories that they're being

1:29:25

told on each side. The stories

1:29:27

on each side are so against

1:29:29

the other side instead of rooted in

1:29:32

any reality on both sides.

1:29:34

Well, let me just say, I don't I've

1:29:36

never had a problem with people speaking.

1:29:39

They're true beliefs. Right? I mean, my

1:29:41

problem in in the modern media

1:29:43

landscape the way it is right now. And I

1:29:45

have deep experience in in

1:29:47

in this subject. Is the

1:29:49

fact that so much of what is turning

1:29:52

people against each other and increasing the

1:29:54

the temperature in our society is done

1:29:56

purely for commercial reasons. Purely for

1:29:58

money. Mhmm. They used to call

1:30:01

it back when I was in radio. They used to

1:30:03

call it heat. Right? Heat.

1:30:05

And heat equals engagement. Now heat

1:30:07

means argument. Right? And and being deliberately

1:30:10

provocative for the sake

1:30:12

of creating things like anger.

1:30:14

Because I remember them explaining to me,

1:30:16

you know, I I My whole radio career was

1:30:18

me arguing with consultants and program

1:30:20

directors and everything like that because

1:30:22

they would say things like we

1:30:24

need to keep people listening through the break.

1:30:26

How do you keep people listening through the break? You

1:30:28

piss them off. Right? And then they're angry.

1:30:30

And then they wanna hear what comes. And especially if

1:30:33

you piss somebody off, and then a caller

1:30:35

calls up to deal, you know, aggressively with

1:30:37

you because you pissed them off. But your point

1:30:39

of view was the one that the original listener likes.

1:30:41

So they get pissed off at the caller, People

1:30:44

love heat, heat, heat, they would scream at

1:30:46

me. Heat, heat. Well, that's not

1:30:48

legitimate heat, which I have no problem

1:30:51

with. That's manufactured heat. You

1:30:53

look at somebody I mean, I'll give you perfectly and

1:30:55

I'll I'll name names. Tucker

1:30:57

Carlson is a deliberate

1:31:00

provocateur for money.

1:31:02

And that drives me crazy, especially drives

1:31:04

me crazy when people consider themselves, and I'm

1:31:06

using air quotes here, Patriots. People

1:31:09

who wanna see the country you know, do well

1:31:11

and succeed and thrive. And yet,

1:31:13

for the sake of money, I can hear the

1:31:15

program directors offstage going,

1:31:17

heat, heat, heat. I mean, this is

1:31:20

this is a systematic problem, a

1:31:22

systematic problem we've created with

1:31:25

a commercial attachment to

1:31:28

the creation of anger

1:31:30

that would not otherwise be there.

1:31:32

And everybody does it because there's, you know,

1:31:35

elements on the liberal side of thing,

1:31:37

the the things that that also benefits from

1:31:39

the same problem. Right? The the need to

1:31:41

create ongoing engagement. And

1:31:43

now, with the knee and you know this too,

1:31:46

with the need to have little snippets that you

1:31:48

can then share on social media as a part

1:31:50

of the way you produce a show, Well,

1:31:52

now you want that heat to carry over into

1:31:54

different mediums. So

1:31:56

I feel like the difference

1:31:58

between and this this plays into what you're saying.

1:32:00

Right? The fact that technology has then introduced

1:32:03

something, can you imagine what somebody

1:32:05

like Joseph McCarthy would

1:32:07

have been able to do with the tools

1:32:10

available today. Right? Or a father,

1:32:12

Carlin's, or somebody like that. And so

1:32:14

think what you're seeing is and I do think we we almost

1:32:17

recover from an earlier era. And then the technology

1:32:19

changes like we talked about with military things

1:32:21

earlier, there's a cause and effect. But

1:32:23

the new technology allows old

1:32:27

old old

1:32:29

monsters to be re conjured. And

1:32:32

I think when the spell is broken,

1:32:34

like the McCarthy era spell was broken when

1:32:36

the famous representative said,

1:32:38

you know, have you no shame. And it was literally

1:32:41

as as though the the cloud dissipated,

1:32:43

think we'll probably have a moment like that again.

1:32:46

And just like you and I in the nineteen eighties looking

1:32:48

back on this era, I think people twenty years

1:32:50

from now will think we were crazy right now.

1:32:52

But I think, you know, we're living in an era

1:32:54

where we're all guinea pigs. I mean, you know,

1:32:56

I'm raising and you're raising children. We're raising

1:32:58

children in this time period. There is

1:33:00

no precursor. There is no example.

1:33:02

I mean, we you know, when we were trying to figure out what

1:33:05

age you allow your kid to getting on social

1:33:07

media. You can't say, well, when I was a kid, we

1:33:09

didn't get to be on social media till we

1:33:11

were eighteen. I mean, we're flying blind

1:33:13

here and we're all, as a society, a

1:33:15

guinea pig, to what happens in

1:33:17

a society with these sort of

1:33:19

tools and not just the sort of tools

1:33:22

that we can use for ourselves. But let's remember,

1:33:24

when we were kids, The Soviet

1:33:27

Union, back in those days, would

1:33:30

freak out because there was one radio

1:33:32

station, radio free Europe that you to

1:33:34

beam across the Iron Curtain and that would

1:33:36

would destabilize the Soviet Union and would

1:33:38

freak them out. Well, can you imagine today

1:33:41

I think maybe we're almost seeing it with some of

1:33:43

the stuff going on in the war in Ukraine

1:33:45

right now, but these are, you know, we talked about

1:33:47

technology. These are new elements that

1:33:50

humanity is trying to figure out how

1:33:52

to deal with, and the the problem that I see is

1:33:54

not the new technology, but

1:33:56

the pace at which it continues to

1:33:58

change So just a society

1:34:01

with its plasticity begins

1:34:03

to react and change and adjust

1:34:05

technology changes again. If

1:34:08

this isn't too fast for we

1:34:10

humans to handle, then it will

1:34:12

be at some point. Does that make

1:34:14

sense? Absolutely. And there's some

1:34:16

sense of when

1:34:19

things change and we adopt to

1:34:21

change quickly. We

1:34:23

miss that maybe the

1:34:25

thing that we're changing to isn't better than

1:34:29

is is not better than what we had

1:34:31

before. Now, sometimes that's the case or

1:34:33

sometimes there's a version of it, where

1:34:35

there's some aspect of it that's better, but it's

1:34:37

not universally better. That

1:34:39

was the case with I mean,

1:34:41

at the time that asbestos was created,

1:34:44

it was this wonder of

1:34:46

science that was gonna make fire proofing

1:34:49

cheap. And buildings

1:34:51

all over all

1:34:53

over the world started using this material

1:34:56

and then thirty, forty years later,

1:34:58

we find out it's a carcinogen. And

1:35:01

now you have to have people

1:35:03

with hazmat suits come and take it away

1:35:05

if you have if you're unlucky enough

1:35:07

to have a building that has

1:35:10

that stuff in it. So

1:35:13

we keep seeing these man

1:35:16

makes these breakthroughs, but

1:35:19

we don't really understand them.

1:35:21

And we adopt them before we before

1:35:24

we really understand them. And

1:35:26

we're very quick to either embrace something

1:35:28

that maybe

1:35:30

we would wanna be slower about embracing or

1:35:32

reject something that we're really quick

1:35:34

to reject. We may find

1:35:36

out that cellphones fall into that same

1:35:39

category somewhere down the road.

1:35:41

And and and but here's the difference maybe between

1:35:43

something like asbestos. And something

1:35:46

like some of the other stuff

1:35:48

we were talking Cellphones might be a good example.

1:35:50

You can pivot on a bad

1:35:52

decision like thalidomide or

1:35:55

asbestos. You can say, wow, we had

1:35:57

no idea we're gonna phase out

1:35:59

the use of that. Imagine

1:36:01

trying to phase out the use of cell

1:36:03

phones or social media. I

1:36:05

mean, sometimes we have no option.

1:36:08

Sometimes there is no I mean, it's almost

1:36:10

like with certain technological developments, it's

1:36:12

almost like the spikes where it says, you know, do not

1:36:14

back up or your tires are gonna pop.

1:36:17

Some things are once you're through the vail,

1:36:19

there's no going back and some things you can

1:36:21

pivot on. I think as best as an example

1:36:24

of a decision human beings can make and then decide

1:36:26

they made a mistake and and double back.

1:36:29

And there's some things where I think you're along

1:36:31

for the ride. And as I always say, in the podcast,

1:36:33

you know, you go from pushing a development

1:36:36

to having that development pull you.

1:36:38

And think some of these things they're

1:36:42

not going to change. So the question is, can

1:36:44

humanity change? I don't know.

1:36:46

And when there's a to double back to the idea

1:36:49

of being a financial interest in pulling us

1:36:51

part. If there's a financial interest

1:36:53

fighting the idea well,

1:36:55

it's the the environment's a perfect example.

1:36:58

Mean, if we wanna talk about improving environmental

1:37:00

problems, sometimes it's

1:37:02

difficult because cutting down a forest

1:37:04

is instant money and and impacts

1:37:07

people's lives now, sometimes

1:37:09

for the better, whereas long term preservation

1:37:11

of a forest is a much more amorphous

1:37:13

thing where we have to subvert you

1:37:15

know, our needs of the moment and our possible

1:37:18

gains in this lifetime for

1:37:20

long term gains. And I'm not sure

1:37:22

that the way human beings developed

1:37:25

from You know, neanderthals to now

1:37:27

is necessarily hardwired for

1:37:29

that sort of an

1:37:30

approach. What are your thoughts

1:37:32

on that? Well, it I hadn't

1:37:34

I hadn't experienced this morning

1:37:37

related to this. I was walking on a beach

1:37:39

in a remote place where

1:37:42

there were no footprints. It was place where nobody

1:37:44

walks. I was walking and I was

1:37:46

noticing the way and

1:37:50

the erosion water

1:37:52

was coming from under the sand and

1:37:55

creating these vein

1:37:57

like structures in the sand that

1:37:59

went that went really long

1:38:02

distance. They were very beautiful. And

1:38:04

it felt like, oh, this is like What

1:38:06

What's This looks like a

1:38:09

tree, and this looks like our

1:38:11

veins, and this looks like

1:38:14

whatever this system is, however

1:38:17

life works on the planet, I'm

1:38:19

getting to see an expression of this how

1:38:22

life works in this moment.

1:38:26

And and I realized that

1:38:29

it's rare to be in a

1:38:31

place that's less trodden

1:38:34

like this one or un trodden in this case.

1:38:37

And if this same place

1:38:40

had fifty or

1:38:42

a hundred people walking back and

1:38:44

forth on it over the course of the day.

1:38:47

What I what I got to see today would

1:38:50

have been invisible. And

1:38:52

I'm thinking about in our

1:38:56

suburban world, and in

1:38:58

our urban world, how

1:39:01

little we

1:39:03

get to see of

1:39:06

what what creation

1:39:09

has to share

1:39:11

with us. We

1:39:13

get to see something else. We get to see

1:39:15

man's creation, but

1:39:17

we only get to see man's creation.

1:39:21

And there's something about being able to see

1:39:25

I remember hearing a story years

1:39:27

and years ago, I was in Hawaii

1:39:30

and I was listening to the the

1:39:32

local public radio station in Hawaii

1:39:34

and there was an old Hawaiian