July 15, 2019 • 59 mins
Who records your family’s history? Learn more at www.ephemeral.show
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's July and we've never done this before, but since
it's the last episode of the first season, we wanted
to say thank you, thank you for listening. When you
start something like this, you don't know if anyone will
ever hear it. We're already working on a second season
and a lot of new stuff to publish in the
(00:21):
feed in between now and then. In the meantime, if
you were so inclined, there are a few ways you
can help support the show. Subscribe, write a review with stars,
tell someone they might like it even if they won't,
and drop us a line at ephemeral show music. This
(00:45):
episode from Nathaniel Kraus k r a U s E
here more at Nathaniel Krause dot bandcamp dot com. A
femeral is a protection of my heart Radio Roly. There
(01:12):
may be one in your family. The ethnographer, the documentarian,
the person whose self imposed mission it is to take
the picture, start the recording, point the camera in your
face and hit the little red button. Maybe it's you.
These are some of the family documentarians I've been fortunate
(01:35):
enough to meet. First, our producer Matt Frederick getting ready
to move to sell the house. This is an old
tan tape cassette that my mother found and cleaning on
a closet. We found the cardboard box ahead some old
(02:00):
dick to belt and it I know him as Papa.
His name is James Phillips. He was recording this after
he found some old tapes dick to belt. They had
been creased and badly neglected that he wanted to find
a way to transfer over onto cassette tape. And I've
(02:22):
tried to rig up the machine to the cassette recorder
to see if we could pick up some of it.
As near as your mother and I can tell, his
first bit was probably recorded in nineteen fifty one. I
(02:42):
had brought the machine home. I remember to try to
record joyce first words. Here are the facts. My mother
was born Christmas nineteen. Every year Papa and Granny would
call to the minute that my mother was born and
wish her a happy birthday. I have a three year
(03:05):
old son, and I know early on when he was
beginning to vocalize, my wife and I had our phones
out all the time, attempting to capture this magical moment.
The first word, and that's exactly what my grandfather was
attempting to do. Just with this older technology, so he
(03:29):
can't just sit there and roll tape for hours and
hours or days or days the way we can with
our digital technology now. He had to very purposefully go
to attempt to get those first words out of her,
almost like this interrogation, and it doesn't go well, No,
it does not go well, Oh, go ahead, daddy, you
(04:00):
you know, kind of baby talk and tricks to get
her too do something, and resulted only in making her
take the following first recording protest that was about all
(04:20):
the crying from Joy as a little tiny baby that
we could talk, all right, So the frustration that he
has and thinking about it, in the disbelief that anyone
ever would be interested in listening to this. We are
cutting over that part. Even now, forty years, forty one
(04:41):
years later, I can't understand why I recorded so much
of it. That is a baby sound. As a father,
I know exactly how old of a child that is.
I mean, it really is between zero and six seven months,
so it must be in nights in fifty one when
(05:02):
you're moving. Think about how hectic that situation is, trying
to get all of your worldly possessions. It's boxes, I
guarantee you that while they were planning to move. My
grandfather stumbled upon this, and then late one night, he
got out of his cassette player, he got out some
old hardware that he haddling around somewhere and just began listening.
(05:25):
And as soon as he stumbled upon it, he felt
like he needed to have it. We have advanced forward
on the tape and we could hear efforts to play
on a little music box Brahms lullaby, and Mama was
able to get her to concentrate on that, and later
(05:49):
she and her mother started quite a conversation. I think
maybe that would be worth saving. So let's see how
it sounds. The sounds you are hearing now are the
(06:17):
ones set we're precious stand and are still precious now.
I went over to my grandparents in search of a
cassette tape. That's Michael, a specific cassette tape that was
(06:40):
recorded of my great grandparents along with my grandparents eating
dinner and my mother and my uncle singing songs when
they were kids. It's an odd tape. It's odd they
(07:01):
would record themselves eating dinner. My guess is that my
mom and my uncle got ahold of the tape. Recorder
and they were just running around with it. At some point,
maybe they set it down to eat their dinner and
caught everybody on tape. I had never met my great grandmother,
who was recorded in the audio talking right. I'm pretty
(07:27):
sure I did not digitize the whole tape. They're just
a section of it, so who knows what else is
on there. At some point my grandmother wanted it back,
so I gave it back to her and I got
lost in a big pile of stuff. I went over
there looking for it and I asked them about it,
and they have no idea where it is. And my
(07:48):
grandfather said, oh, I can get you more tapes, and
he's he's hard of hearing. I don't think he understood.
I was looking for cassette tapes and specific and he
came back with two v Jess tapes. When as eight
millimeter home recordings Bob and Sherry in Avondale, you can
hear the projector running, okay, we've got t ball here
(08:11):
back in nineteen Bob playned t ball that we're going
to go to some kind of party that must do
a districute party, and some scenes of our home there
in in and Dale n so he's recording from eight
(08:31):
millimeter to VHS tape. These are about five different tapes
and are twice together here different occasions. I think it's
got bob seventh birthday and I wanted also that's the
introduction and it's pretty much quiet, no narration, nothing. At
some point he coughs, which I like. I don't know
(08:56):
if he actually shows the whole film or or I mean,
at some point this VHS tape got recorded over thank
you from all Eastern employees in Atlanta. So my guess
is my grandfather recorded over the tape to record a
(09:18):
football game. The Bears have lost a leader on the field.
I'm not sure if he started his recording at the
end of the eight millimeter tape, or if he just
cut off the in portion of it or didn't realize
what the tape was, or if he just didn't give
a I just didn't care. Papa is notorious for taping
over things. He would always go out on the back
(09:40):
porch to rehearse his Kingdom Hall talks. And he used
one particular cassette tape and go to heaven after death
where everything is perfect. That Pickwick, that black pickwicked in
many different ways. He would record himself rehearsing in and
he would go and listen to it in the living room.
If he thought something needed to be changed, he would
(10:02):
go and record himself over the old recording where everything
is perfect. And pretty much every time he gave a talk,
he would use the same tape, just record over what
was previously recorded and be onto the regions of Idris
space with their stellar bodies. That's how he practiced for
his Sunday school talks. How many times do you think
you recorded over that? It's hard to say. He's given
(10:23):
a lot of talks, like years of recording over the
same tape. Yeah, I mean, I remember when I was
a kid he was using that tape. The other one
was two thousand two trip to Colorado, so I had
to have been thirteen. Can I go, pet Hey? I
(10:51):
was usually the trip videographer. We used to have an
old VHS cam quarter at first, but I took that
into a hot tub when we were in Florida and
it never worked after that. So did it? Was it submerged? Oh? Yeah,
so this one was documented on a VHSC tape that
(11:14):
was actually later transferred to VHS. I'm pretty sure I
did that, and I thought it'd be easier for them
to watch on VHS to figure that out versus putting
the tape in the little VHS converter tape device at
the Alamo. Momem it's me doing a lot of recording
(11:34):
in the car on our way to Colorado. Kristen was there,
Jeremy was there, and take Jeremy always set in the
front seat. Kristen was in the back with me and Granny. Okay.
(11:57):
She would periodically point out the wind at different things
that she wanted me to point the camera at. I
was always kind of reluctant to do it. For some reason.
I was more interested in recording the family in the car.
I didn't really care about the surroundings in Arizona, the
(12:18):
beautiful desert and everything. I just wanted to record the family,
tourist accordination, they the tastes, not just riding in the
car across all these states. I also you know, record
some when we stop it the different resorts or motels
(12:39):
or wherever we stayed at. To progress the film, you
have the you have the car ride, you have the
place we're staying at, you're walking into it. One For me,
(13:00):
how do we meet. We met in film school, we
met in experimental media with Nick Volmer. What was the
project that you were working on? The final project to
that semester? That class. Goodness, it's been almost a decade
since I watched it. That's not it's been eight years
since we've been had nine years since we've been out
(13:21):
of college. Oh my god, Yeah, we're old now getting there.
This is my wife, Victoria. So it's experimental media, and
a lot of the films that we had watched up
until that point had obvious visual signs of decay. Works
like Ken Jacob's Perfect Film and Arianna Gerstein's lay At,
(13:44):
in which the noise and degradation of the film stock
is foregrounded in the aesthetic. That inspired me to look
at my home movies that my grandfather shot and just
see what I had to play with to work with.
Actually noticed it's some of the video tapes already had
some signs of decay. The images were jumping, the sound
(14:05):
got worked, the color went from color and then black
and white. With the actual visual skips and jumps of
the film, I realized it was actually already a little
bit experimental. It sounds like he's gonna get a heavy
on the music. Grandpa was born September nineteenth, nineteen. I
(14:30):
think he was born in Ohio. I know he's buried
in Lebanon, but I can't remember where he was born.
I can't believe you just knew his birthday off the top. Yeah,
Grandpa Bob was born in September nineteenth. Grandma Betty was
born February eight and she was three years younger than him,
So he was born in twenty five. She was born
in I think he died June one, So he just
(14:54):
it's just been some wow, eighteen years since he's passed.
It's a long time. Do you guys would here? Let's
see Ky Belasia, Jonathan up Bid, Jarna Bay. He went
to Texas A and M, and he graduated in three years,
(15:17):
comes back to Ohio and he's working in television. He's
a broadcast engineer. Grandpa Bob worked at w c M
a c MHTV Columbus, Ohio, an NBC affiliate that is
still Channel four in Columbus from the days of Dumont
to the days that were twenty four hour news. You're
watching news. Watched four Columbus h television for as long
(15:40):
as he was alive, and he was working. He was
in television. He must have really loved it because he
worked and was around cameras all day at work and
then came home and then had a camera in his
hand to record his children and then eventually his grandchildren,
and he would just record anything. I didn't realize how
(16:00):
special it was, but he recorded one us all the
time outside, you know, playing hop scotch, or playing with
her dolls, or picking raspberries from the bushes that mimial
Betty grew. Nothing eventful happening, but he always had the
camera on, always shooting the video. Ok folks, And he
(16:24):
did that with his children too. We're now back in
nineteen sixty seven summer folk Stone Road and day nor
have because there's tons and tons of video and snapshots
of my mom and her brothers tookaren do. My dad
(16:45):
was in the military. My mom was a nurse, and
so we moved like seven times when we were growing up.
More on washing the footage of Becky as a baby.
My grandfather definitely shot because my parents didn't have or
couldn't afford a video camera. Then like us over to Berkeley. Okay, okay,
where are you going? But when Grandpa did get us
(17:08):
a video camera, my mother, you swing in, would film
everything for him. If it was Easter, or if it's
like a random Tuesday in April, hey put she Mima
And people used to send us goodie boxes all the time,
(17:30):
just randomly because they found something that we might like
at Meyers. So it could be May when there's no
massive celebration and we'd get a goodie box. My mother
would record this and then send it back to Grandma
and Grandpa. When we were cleaning out their house after
Grandpa was gone and after Grandma was moved into it
and living, we had the videos that my parents shipped
(17:53):
back to them, and then we had Grandpa Baba's version
of my mother's version. We grew up having a camera
in our face. We thought it was really normal. Oh
it wasn't until I got older, and I think when
I met you that I realized that not every child
(18:13):
had a treasure trove of her movies. I suppose I
didn't know anyone had this much family history documented on tape.
There's just one video of Andrea sleeping on the kitchen table.
(18:34):
She's really little, she's like two or three, and so
she's on the very edge of the chair and her
little head is on top of the table and she
wakes up, looks at them and just starts bawling, bawling
out of nowhere. I guess that's that's a sleepy, tired,
cranky baby. There's a video of me standing in front
(18:58):
of a Christmas tree as little two year old with
a raspy voice. Yea my only ation. Yeah you make
magen yeah singing you are My Sunshine. That was my song,
still my jam magain, Yes, thank me. Yes. Becky, my
(19:18):
oldest sister is behind me and trying to sing it too,
and I get so irate. I'm push sure, I think,
and I said, oh, seeing it because as a way
made it okay, Candy that way with me, You're gone.
(19:39):
There's one music park. I wanted hot chocolate, and I
don't think that anyone really cared. No, what are you
seen there? They're still filming the sights and the rides
around me, And then there's me, a little graded seven
year old, jumping up into the lens of the camera,
popping up. I want to chocolate. I want to talk it.
I don't think you understand me. I want to chocolate
(20:00):
her Victoria and he loved his cats. Bore you're okay?
Or another one over there? Asha? Where are you? Hasha? Okay, Sasha,
(20:24):
my Dasha, Gosha, look in here. We have so much
of Grandpa's gear. We have a Yeshika, a fin Tas,
a nineteen Coda autographic, a Brownie Hawkeye. We have a
Super eight handheld stick camera. We had this gigantic Crosby
(20:45):
box that I think came from the studio that he
was working out, and eventually they retired it. I think
we still have the tube. I don't think we have
this big VHS camera. I don't know what happened to
that video, okay. And we have a treasure trove of
HS tapes and we only have like a fraction of them.
There's more at my parents house, hundreds upon hundreds of tapes.
(21:08):
My dad started digitizing them many many years ago, and
I think he took a little break. Kind of made
him sad to see his little babies all grown up
in real life and his little babies there and film.
So you've undertaken the mammoth task of digitizing them. I've
(21:28):
sort of only done it in so far that I've
said that I'm doing it you've done m hmm, We've
probably done like ten twenty tapes' two slow task. My
dad once told me I was the family documentarian. And
(21:50):
while I have rolled a lot of tape, it's mostly
people doing bits, playing characters. Best are of Hotel A
very little could be considered nonfiction. And I can't help
but feel guilty like I haven't been a good steward
(22:13):
of William's history. Turns out, the feeling runs in the family. See.
I feel like I didn't do a good job of that,
and it makes me cringe a little bit even to
talk about it, because it's not like I have a
great historical record of sound of our family. My parents
had eight millimeter, not super eight, eight millimeter movie camera
(22:35):
and it had no sound. Everything is a silent movie.
A lot of that footage that we have was recorded
by Grahama Williams. She would spend hours shooting eight millimeter
out the car window as they were driving around with
their airstream. There's stretches of farm land and countryside that
(22:57):
you have no idea where it really is, and then
all of a sudd there's relatives appearing in a yard
running around. It's like, where are we and who are
these people. One of the reasons that we never bought
a camp orders is just expensive. Spending the money on
it would have been hard. Instead, got the VCR and
time shifted all your shows, which seems so salient now
(23:20):
that we all watch our shows whenever we want. Anyway,
I know we have a video of some play Max
was in when he was in kindergarten. Here, yes, I
think we have a video of a baby shower, one
of your guys. Baby showers Bay is the only one
(23:42):
that everybody was hope it in double over. It not
that baby showers are so great. There's a video from
the wedding. This is footage from our wedding shot on
my brethre in law cell phone. The video of my
parents wedding is silent. This is all stuff that I
(24:04):
guess other people shot because we didn't have game for it.
But I mean, the problem is thirty one years of
magnetic degradation. I have no idea what it's gonna look like.
But as VHS, I have a working VHS deck. Last
time I checked, like four years ago. I don't think
(24:24):
there's any audio really, so I don't think there's much.
It's sad, is it. I don't know what would we
do with it anyway, right, I have no idea what
can one do with old tape? To keep things straight?
So you've got it filmed. That's Bob and Sherry. You've
(24:47):
got a tape that's Bob, Sharon, Larry's your role. A
five different tapes are s twice together. Here they're on
a gape. And then you've got a tape that you
made that's Bob, Jerry and Larry. But then you're in
there even though it's not you're just through your voice,
like there's an element of you. Oh yeah, re recording
of the recordings. Yeah, we were exactly in a room
(25:12):
full of analog tape machines. Michael live mixes, reels, transcription tapes.
First First of the World sets, all kinds of things
recorded live in stereo on reel to real tape. The
first collection of this work, titled Home Movies, was composed
(25:34):
from the tapes described at the top. Everything I had
kind of planned out and like, okay, I don't want
to press play on this first, Wait a little bit,
press play on this one the next. See what happens.
Let's play on this one. Pretty simple struck. Everyone has
(25:57):
a good Boys, and the cassette was looking for in
the first place was used on the album third Bouquet
for Elizabeth Warriors. Why do you choose the family recorded
(26:20):
tapes for creative projects? Because they were handed to me.
What are you gonna do with them? Now? Probably hold
onto them, just sit on them, I mean, put them
with the other tapes? What else can you do? Ready?
Where were we? Spring semester of film concluded with the
(26:45):
assignment of an autobiography. I don't know what to do.
I'm coming down to a deadline. Okay, I'll do video
tapes and then I think during that process in making
that film, for a couple of weeks, I remembered that
I had that camera and codak autographic. When you look
at it and it's closed, it's like the height of
a VHS tape and probably two or three inches across.
(27:09):
You push a button on the top and the lid
opens just slightly. You pull that down and you can
see the lens. You clamped two pieces in the side
and you pull out the billows. The billows unfold and
you're able to look down into the viewfinder and see
a very fuzzy image. And then ever so slightly take
(27:34):
the trigger. Grandpa Bob took really good care of his gear.
This is one of his mics, an electro voice run
through an old brown XLR that was his. As far
as we know, this Kodak autographic has worked beautifully since,
but it takes an outmoded film stock A one six,
(27:56):
but you just can't find anymore. I wanted to figure
out how to get this coldek autographic working, so I
go over to the camera doctor. We missed your camera doctor.
He taught me how to build up the spindles in
size so that they could fit one twenty film, which
is what we have available today, and what he developed
(28:17):
in his shop, just cutting off rounded pieces of black
cardboard and fixing them with epoxy, stack stack, stack, stack,
until we had the height that would fit one film
onto that spindle. So in the film, I'm mixing together
the videos and there's a little footage of me continuing
(28:41):
on with this process of building up the spindles. I
think I started to restore it, not thinking it would
be part of the film, just feeling sentimental watching Grandpa Bob,
watching us all of her family, and then taking into
that shop and learning that it's not just a piece
of art. It could be restored and used. Victoria, Hey,
(29:03):
let's go. I never met Grandpa Bob, but I have
to imagine that given a beautiful camera that he couldn't use,
he would have done the same thing. As you can tell.
The recording session ended on a very very happy note.
(29:27):
God Da, oh, you're gonna go baby again. Why don't
you just playing yourself this time? You know, just be Joyanne.
Say this is Joyanne. I'm talking to you from goggle Ball.
Say anything on, take me get you dot the mat
(29:52):
of the clock, the clock Brandon Rass and day Gray dot.
Thank you all anyway, so you say conde yees are you?
You don't have to push anything. Don't push. This is
a historical recording. We're not sure about this next series
(30:12):
of sounds from the tapes all they're out of synchronization
certainly as far as chronology is concerned. It is being
recorded by Joyce and Jim itself. I'm just going to
get it all down and then we'll try to do
something with it later. So here goes now all the
(30:39):
um I don't to say. My mother is making us practice.
Now I have a broad back and we are having
some sorts, sweet roles and again, okay, take up hello thanky,
(31:05):
duncy hard now shaw girl, I gotta think say okay,
man and do And the next time you will hear
will be joint and snapping her fingers. Joe will now
(31:31):
whistle whistle while you work. Thank you whipple, Oh movie,
Jimmy humming a song, Holly song Mester. How the chronologically
(31:59):
they got so screwed up? I don't know. Restaum me up. Yeah,
it's warming up. One. Can I take some of the
eleven he took? Do talk Lena so interesting, kicks in
tin Hi Canny say Tenny for skin. He stay five
(32:27):
twenty six, twenty celty at kink Nike Tenny nine ten
goady and we got Dick Jenny machine. And he says,
maybe we're gonna cut in on this last part of
this tape to explain that danks my father Mr Till somehow,
(32:51):
some way, this is Joyce be class today in doing
these dicta belts. A girl told me that she stole cars.
They got all all messed up. I got it down today.
I love my mother. How nice it is for us
to be in here playing with this machine and my
(33:11):
father's sitting on the catch reading the paper. Mama's out
in the kitchen doing the dishes, and I'm up. You
don't eat your spaghetti and meatballs all gone exposure to sista.
(33:31):
And remember this is scare Jimmy Phillips, good night. You
have to just take up that big skip um. Just
being recorded on Saturday, March thirty, nineteen hundred and sixty three.
(33:54):
I'm five years old and I'm in kindergarten. I cleaned
the upstairs and Daddy enjoyed getting here. That's fair. I
painted the sand box. Then Jimmy and Joy were all
buddy duddy. So in a few years of anybody ever
(34:14):
listening to us for setimental reasons there it is unco
thanking to do it. We have jim at a much
earlier age with Joy finishing off the tape not to stay.
They must have been doing some of them in the office.
And I'm in and out office in which we are recording,
(34:42):
recording while they're playing with the dick and dictating chen.
He says, maybe we're going to cut in on this
last part of this tape over or Tony, have shiny
(35:08):
notice moda gord to show my bitch it I made
that the Johnny Jump. I said it best. The thing
we are like to hear you think up your so
users user pleaserable of born on AMASAF thing bank in
(35:42):
the free and like so we new every tree I
made him a bar twenty was only alright, Michael, Yeah,
(36:20):
hold on, felm a little bit more. Do you think
your grandfather was the documentarian before you? I'd say so.
He used to make most of the trip videos at
some point. I guess when he got this new cam
quarter you let me start doing it. I kind of
took over. I think I did a crappy job. I
think are right when when you started recording? Did your
(36:44):
grandfather stopped recording? You know? I don't know if he continued.
I'm sure he still records things. I know he goes
around taking pictures more than anything. As far as film,
I don't know if they've made any recent films done
anything like that in a long time. I've never known
them to document anything on the set. That's why that
(37:05):
one family cassette so interesting. Do you feel like you've
followed in some way in your grandfather's footsteps? Certainly that
motivation was placed on me a lot, and I think
I took it to heart. Papa always would call me
his one and only, so my one and only because
(37:26):
I was his only grandson. I'm going to inherit his
earth and his family and all these people he's influenced
and affected where I was going to be the next
I feel that now heavily great Grandpa Bob was definitely
the family documentarian and his family, and then my mother
(37:48):
was in our family. And when he was in the
convalescence inert at the end of his life, that really
had an impact on me. When he was there, he
said something to either me or my mother, saying keep
shooting the video, and I didn't realize that was like
a mantra of his, but my mother says it all
(38:09):
the time, and so it's a mantra of mine now too.
The document I think this is my favorite spot in
Quebec thus far. So where are we right now? The
Grand Canyon? Where do you call it back? So they're going, yes,
(38:31):
say Louis, I get this feeling, Oh, that thing just
passed me by. I wish I had that, And then
I get this other feeling like I've got my phone
out and I'm recording my cat. Well, that's never a
bad idea. But I've got my phone out and I'm
recording something, and I wish I was just interacting with
(38:53):
this moment and living in it. But I turned my
phone off, and I'm worried that I'm missing it. How
do you use when to hit record? As soon as
I got my video degree, I felt this pressure from
my family is like, well, you're gonna be the one.
He was like taking movie quality images of everything we're
going to be doing. I have not been doing that.
(39:17):
I want to be there with those people in those moments.
But at the same time, if we don't record it
in any way, then it is gone. And those two
ideas exists always together at the same time. When I
went to Maui with your mom on our honeymoon, we
ended up at a hotel which was very, very swanky,
(39:40):
that had a nice breakfast and they had black swans
swimming in a pod on the Lennai. We got really
lost trying to get to the restaurant, and we ended
up windering through the hotel pool, not literally through the water. Now,
mind you, we're in Maui. There are beautiful beaches in
every direction, but there were all of these rich people
(40:01):
on lounge chairs, and it was packed, and there were
no less than five guys standing around the pool with
camcorders videoing all of the rich people in their chairs.
And I'm thinking, Hey, there is nothing going on here,
why are you filming this? And b I don't want
to be a guy who spends all of his time
videoing what's going on instead of being part of what's
(40:22):
going on. And that is the way I've always lived
my life. And I always feel guilty about it because
I feel like there needs to be a record. I
don't want to begin O Santi Vick and necks one.
(40:48):
They're your loved ones. And when their children, everything they
do is fantastic, Every new thing that they learn or
that they show you is awesome. I mean, it's all inspiring.
So why wouldn't you record it? Why wouldn't you record
(41:10):
it so that you can watch it when they're a
couple of years older, or you get older, when they're
out of your house, so that their children can see
what they were like when they were little. Because it's fleeting,
especially when it's someone's childhood that goes back quickly. You
say thank you again. Okay, I think we're gonna turn
(41:34):
it off now now that it's still going. I don't, Joe,
I can't. I think about it this way. If I
know my wife is they're enjoying a moment with my son,
that she's so present with him that the thought of
getting her camera out or any kind of recording device
(41:56):
and hitting record is nowhere near where her mind is.
But I'm, you know, a bit of a third party
to what's occurring. That's when I will record and things
like that. It's registering that you're talking and showing you
sound wave, but to what sound way you see when
you talk? It makes it go up and down? Watch this,
(42:22):
Watch this, watch the sound like you all? Is it
a little back. My sister and her husband live in
Phoenix with their six children. My parents are in South Carolina.
(42:47):
You and I are here, so is Andy. And so
when we're all together, I want to film as much
as possible. I want to take snapshots as much as possible,
because we're so far apart from each other, and those
more much that we're together are so important and so
happy and so joyous. Wow. I can enjoy it and
be in the moment. I also want to preserve and
(43:09):
no one and her family thinks twice about taking a
photo when we're all together, but are you doing or video?
And when we're all together eggs, one green egg and
help everyone experiences family time together like that too, because
well it may put some people on the spot to
like be in a video recording. I think I'll be
(43:31):
so grateful that someone took the time to preserve that
in ten years time. There have been lots of family
occasions where I wish I had taken a couple of photos,
because that's not the same thing. Videoing something live is
almost all considered. It requires almost all of your attention,
and you can't talk because you're gonna be the loudest
(43:53):
voice in the video if you talk, and you can't
put the camera down because you're gonna miss something. I
guess it is a delicate balance of when to record
and when to quote unquote be in the moment, But
I don't think that those things are mutually exclusive. You're
in the moment and recognizing that it's a very special
time and you want to preserve it. It seems to
(44:15):
me my parents used to take a snapshot like every
time we opened a present. This is the days of
the instematic camera, so not good snapshots is what you
should read into that. It was exciting for them that
we were opening the presents as little children, but the
photo wasn't necessarily worth anything after that. Maybe I'm wrong,
(44:37):
I don't know, but they thought it was important to
spend the money to buy the film and take the
photo in the moment and then get it developed. And
then they look at it and they're like, oh, yeah,
it was Christmas December nineteen two footage. Oh Alex Williams.
This Christmas party for Uma is pretty school. This is
(44:59):
young man. It's preparing the documentation for this tape. He
is ready to go to the party, a party which
he may never remember, but in which he will enjoy himself. Nonetheless, Victoria, Matt,
(45:20):
Michael and I all came of age as digital recording
technology overtook the old ways of doing things. Nostalgia's side,
is there something special about analog media, some intrinsic property
that does not translate into binary I think it all
has to do with having a physical interaction. Imagine that
(45:44):
moment where you're going to the closet, like my grandfather,
did you open the closet, you smell the clothes that
have been there for a while. The boxes that are
maybe a little bit dusty. You reach up and you
pull out an old shoe box or some thing that
has cassettes lined up in it, and you open that
box and you pull out a cassette tape. You hit
(46:06):
the eject button on your cassette player, You slide that
cassette and you make sure it's perfectly in there. You're closing,
you hit that play butt, and then this voice comes
through of someone that you love. I mean, that's a
magical thing. I don't know if it's just because of
(46:28):
when we grew up and what we experienced and living
through that, but it's not the same as moving your
mouths over your track pad over and clicking on a
file or just hitting spacebar that kind of connects you
more with the past. I feel like that hard plastic
(46:48):
VHS tape and you know, you could pop the top
off and look at the magnetic tape and run your
finger across it, and I hope that your VCR is
not going to eat it up. Do you feel that
way about Real too? Real? Yeah? I think it's great
the sound of its spinning, especially when it real ends
and it's just hitting the tape against the machine. It
(47:11):
almost seems like it has this warm quality to it,
but that could all be in my head completely. There's
a reason we still print out family photos and put
them on our walls, so that we can be reminded
of this beautiful, tangible moment. We are attracted to a
VHS tape or a DVD or a real to real
(47:32):
this quote unquote archaic technology or this this out of
date medium. But it's also so romantic that you're holding
something that they held for our grandfather's, grandmother's This was
the everyday, commonplace thing that they had when they were
young or when they were, you know, raising their children.
(47:53):
You could watch it tonight when you have prints. It's
so tangible. And when you guys were young, all of
our photography was on princes and we have all of
that soul. Whether we should or not, you know, because
some of them are terrible photos. But I worry about
digital photography a lot. I have this bad feeling that
(48:16):
people are losing parts of their family history all around
the world because people are crappy at managing computers and
they just die out of the blue on you. It's like, oh, man,
all of my personal files were on that hard drive,
and I think pushing it all online, like into the
cloud or into Facebook or any photo service possibly more perilous,
(48:38):
just because how much are you exposing your family to
the world. We're all giving our data away without even
realizing it. The things that we count on from our
childhood's like my grandma's horrible eight millimeter films shot out
the window of the Lincoln. Those are kind of special,
(48:58):
the bad eight millimeter of me jumping off a stump.
When I was two. My stepmother, her daughter died, and
one of the things she regretted the most about it
she never had a recording of her voice, no audio,
and she was afraid she would forget what it sounded like.
(49:21):
That's such a big part of the identity of a person,
their voice and how they sound. And I told you
about that when that when I heard that, and that
had a big impact on me. I feel like, maybe
that's why I've been so focused on these family recordings,
some just trying to document voices. When you you asked
(49:46):
me to come down and talk, I started thinking about
do I have any sound of my dad because he's
the one who's so absent from my family of origin,
because he died so young. It's it makes really uncomfortable
sometimes to think about the fact that I've outlived him
by more than ten years now, And so I think
(50:07):
back to my dad because he was so alive and
so present whenever we were together as a family, which
was a lot. And whether I actually have any of
his voice recorded, because I bet you've never heard it, folks.
Judy and I have a few things we wanted to
say to you before the children come down, and they'll
(50:28):
be a part of this tape later on or on
the other side, depending up put how long it goes.
We just found this aunt Jennifer and Uncle Day have
spent their Saturday tracking down this cassette and the hardware
to digitize it. Well, what was the first thing we
wanted to talk to him about, dear, Well, we were
going to tell him about the heavy snowfall we've had
(50:49):
within the last couple of days. I mean, you were
already the family documentary because some for some reason, you're
a thirteen year old kid and you like feel like
compulsed and to turn the camera on and document things
as mundane as like you know, sitting in the car
and checking out the new hotel room. With the bathroom.
(51:10):
Looks like that complusion is already there, but maybe they
put a finer point on it. Yeah, yeah, no, it
it affected me in a way. I kind of started
thinking about who's going to die next, and how I'm
going to possibly get their voys their voice any time
for anything in any medium. That's tens of thousands easily.
(51:34):
How many tapes do you think we've made together? Oh? Man? Uh,
tapes of any time? Tapes where it's audio tape, videotape,
digital tape. Over a hundred, maybe hundreds. It's all right,
we'll we'll do it again later. We were kind of
obsessively recording on tape cassette for a while. First, how
(52:05):
many times do you think that we've been together and
hit record? H O? Could I could go into the
thousands maybe, And most of the times we kept the
first thing, even though it would have been better if
we've just done it one more time. Yeah. Yeah, But
(52:29):
then you know there's something to that as well. I
feel like, you know, you get to hear all these
mistakes and how it just how it sounded when it
first was born, hearing the birth of something. How many
times we recorded something? Oh, it's uncountable. There's how many
photos of cats do you and I trade on a
daily basis? I would say, on a on a low day,
(52:54):
two or three on a good day, ten snapshots that
you're going to see in a couple of hours. But
you think that they really have two cats, But they're
being so precious and so sweet and so like evil
that day, and you just have to take a snapshot,
even though you're gonna come home to it in a
couple of hours. But it's that important right then. I
(53:16):
think it's so amazing that that could touch someone so instantaneously.
Someone's had any really crap day at work and you
send them a cat photo day made like you feel
much later? Where are you some vicious today? How? I
think it's amazing that cost doesn't weigh into whether someone
(53:38):
can be the documentary and their family now, not to
do any extent that it was in the fifties and
sixties and even in the nineties when I was growing up.
A camera is expensive. Just get the shot, Um, yeah,
I got it. Why do you think we recorded so
many things just kind of being obsessive about it? I
(54:00):
don't know. I mean, I I guess we both came
from backgrounds where we had the tools to record and
do all of this stuff. Mari. When we first got together,
it was on a film project. We have watched that recently.
I bet it was horrible. It's not great, it's rough.
We're editing on a VHS tape. Thanks for that, Dad.
(54:22):
I have a lot of stories about dobbing. I try
to be very cognizant of what should be easily disposable
in case I should pass on, because I think a
lot about what happened to my mom when my dad died.
But I have my weakness is I have a lot
of VHS tapes, a lot of which are probably not
(54:43):
very watchable anymore, and haven't figured out a good way
to recycle him. You know, they won't take him in
the big blue bin. I spent a lot of time
collecting media or I have at least at various junctures,
like with my DVR and video tapes. We are all
interested in the future of all that is where you
and I are going to spend the rest of all eyes.
(55:04):
I like to think that other people have enjoyed the
things that I've recorded, but it's mostly for me. I
know that such a the will affect you in the future.
But the stuff you don't get rid of by chance
or by choice, the good they're not so good. What
happens to all of it? Thick and I have been
(55:25):
fixing up our old house, which inevitably means sorting ephemera.
What goes to a thrift store, what goes to a friend,
what you try to sell, what you need to recycle,
what you have to throw out, and what you keep.
(55:47):
We have a historical box that has you and Max's
stuff in it, and I have a history box that
has stuff from my childhood in it. There are some
amazing things in there that, like I would not be
able to not cry if I pulled out and explain
to you what they were. People who have been important
(56:07):
in my life, who have been dead for decades. More
than likely they're just gonna get boxed up and left
in the attic someone's attic, maybe my kids or my grandkids.
I would hope something like that would happen versus them
getting tossed out. Really, what's the difference? I mean, I
(56:30):
guess if they're stored somewhere, then there's the possibility that
someone could find it later, in versus if they get
thrown out, give me something to think about this. They
will just fall apart on their own too. Yeah, that'll
take a while. I don't know what the shelf life
for a cassette tape is, but some of those reels
I have are recorded back in the fifties and they
(56:53):
still have audio on them. I'm also we wasted a trips.
Now we've gotta go. Now, goodbye, We've gotta see mommy
by Daddy, Bye Jimmy, by everybody. Let's listening to this
take someday with this, it's a very talk of woman,
and I'm so sorry to wold from your first joint.
(57:17):
And there lest farewell, cruel world. Goodbye, we gotta go
a home and see you later. M Ephemeral Season one
(58:25):
was written and assembled by Millions and produced by Annie Reese,
Not Frederick and Tristan McNeil, with technical assistance from Sherry Larson,
Matt Michael Victoria. Thank you for sharing your families with me.
Albums to stream and handmade reels to buy at Michael
Weaver dot bandcamp dot com, and a podcast to stay
(58:47):
in touch with at Ephemeral dot Show.
It's July and we've never done this before, but since
it's the last episode of the first season, we wanted
to say thank you, thank you for listening. When you
start something like this, you don't know if anyone will
ever hear it. We're already working on a second season
and a lot of new stuff to publish in the
(00:21):
feed in between now and then. In the meantime, if
you were so inclined, there are a few ways you
can help support the show. Subscribe, write a review with stars,
tell someone they might like it even if they won't,
and drop us a line at ephemeral show music. This
(00:45):
episode from Nathaniel Kraus k r a U s E
here more at Nathaniel Krause dot bandcamp dot com. A
femeral is a protection of my heart Radio Roly. There
(01:12):
may be one in your family. The ethnographer, the documentarian,
the person whose self imposed mission it is to take
the picture, start the recording, point the camera in your
face and hit the little red button. Maybe it's you.
These are some of the family documentarians I've been fortunate
(01:35):
enough to meet. First, our producer Matt Frederick getting ready
to move to sell the house. This is an old
tan tape cassette that my mother found and cleaning on
a closet. We found the cardboard box ahead some old
(02:00):
dick to belt and it I know him as Papa.
His name is James Phillips. He was recording this after
he found some old tapes dick to belt. They had
been creased and badly neglected that he wanted to find
a way to transfer over onto cassette tape. And I've
(02:22):
tried to rig up the machine to the cassette recorder
to see if we could pick up some of it.
As near as your mother and I can tell, his
first bit was probably recorded in nineteen fifty one. I
(02:42):
had brought the machine home. I remember to try to
record joyce first words. Here are the facts. My mother
was born Christmas nineteen. Every year Papa and Granny would
call to the minute that my mother was born and
wish her a happy birthday. I have a three year
(03:05):
old son, and I know early on when he was
beginning to vocalize, my wife and I had our phones
out all the time, attempting to capture this magical moment.
The first word, and that's exactly what my grandfather was
attempting to do. Just with this older technology, so he
(03:29):
can't just sit there and roll tape for hours and
hours or days or days the way we can with
our digital technology now. He had to very purposefully go
to attempt to get those first words out of her,
almost like this interrogation, and it doesn't go well, No,
it does not go well, Oh, go ahead, daddy, you
(04:00):
you know, kind of baby talk and tricks to get
her too do something, and resulted only in making her
take the following first recording protest that was about all
(04:20):
the crying from Joy as a little tiny baby that
we could talk, all right, So the frustration that he
has and thinking about it, in the disbelief that anyone
ever would be interested in listening to this. We are
cutting over that part. Even now, forty years, forty one
(04:41):
years later, I can't understand why I recorded so much
of it. That is a baby sound. As a father,
I know exactly how old of a child that is.
I mean, it really is between zero and six seven months,
so it must be in nights in fifty one when
(05:02):
you're moving. Think about how hectic that situation is, trying
to get all of your worldly possessions. It's boxes, I
guarantee you that while they were planning to move. My
grandfather stumbled upon this, and then late one night, he
got out of his cassette player, he got out some
old hardware that he haddling around somewhere and just began listening.
(05:25):
And as soon as he stumbled upon it, he felt
like he needed to have it. We have advanced forward
on the tape and we could hear efforts to play
on a little music box Brahms lullaby, and Mama was
able to get her to concentrate on that, and later
(05:49):
she and her mother started quite a conversation. I think
maybe that would be worth saving. So let's see how
it sounds. The sounds you are hearing now are the
(06:17):
ones set we're precious stand and are still precious now.
I went over to my grandparents in search of a
cassette tape. That's Michael, a specific cassette tape that was
(06:40):
recorded of my great grandparents along with my grandparents eating
dinner and my mother and my uncle singing songs when
they were kids. It's an odd tape. It's odd they
(07:01):
would record themselves eating dinner. My guess is that my
mom and my uncle got ahold of the tape. Recorder
and they were just running around with it. At some point,
maybe they set it down to eat their dinner and
caught everybody on tape. I had never met my great grandmother,
who was recorded in the audio talking right. I'm pretty
(07:27):
sure I did not digitize the whole tape. They're just
a section of it, so who knows what else is
on there. At some point my grandmother wanted it back,
so I gave it back to her and I got
lost in a big pile of stuff. I went over
there looking for it and I asked them about it,
and they have no idea where it is. And my
(07:48):
grandfather said, oh, I can get you more tapes, and
he's he's hard of hearing. I don't think he understood.
I was looking for cassette tapes and specific and he
came back with two v Jess tapes. When as eight
millimeter home recordings Bob and Sherry in Avondale, you can
hear the projector running, okay, we've got t ball here
(08:11):
back in nineteen Bob playned t ball that we're going
to go to some kind of party that must do
a districute party, and some scenes of our home there
in in and Dale n so he's recording from eight
(08:31):
millimeter to VHS tape. These are about five different tapes
and are twice together here different occasions. I think it's
got bob seventh birthday and I wanted also that's the
introduction and it's pretty much quiet, no narration, nothing. At
some point he coughs, which I like. I don't know
(08:56):
if he actually shows the whole film or or I mean,
at some point this VHS tape got recorded over thank
you from all Eastern employees in Atlanta. So my guess
is my grandfather recorded over the tape to record a
(09:18):
football game. The Bears have lost a leader on the field.
I'm not sure if he started his recording at the
end of the eight millimeter tape, or if he just
cut off the in portion of it or didn't realize
what the tape was, or if he just didn't give
a I just didn't care. Papa is notorious for taping
over things. He would always go out on the back
(09:40):
porch to rehearse his Kingdom Hall talks. And he used
one particular cassette tape and go to heaven after death
where everything is perfect. That Pickwick, that black pickwicked in
many different ways. He would record himself rehearsing in and
he would go and listen to it in the living room.
If he thought something needed to be changed, he would
(10:02):
go and record himself over the old recording where everything
is perfect. And pretty much every time he gave a talk,
he would use the same tape, just record over what
was previously recorded and be onto the regions of Idris
space with their stellar bodies. That's how he practiced for
his Sunday school talks. How many times do you think
you recorded over that? It's hard to say. He's given
(10:23):
a lot of talks, like years of recording over the
same tape. Yeah, I mean, I remember when I was
a kid he was using that tape. The other one
was two thousand two trip to Colorado, so I had
to have been thirteen. Can I go, pet Hey? I
(10:51):
was usually the trip videographer. We used to have an
old VHS cam quarter at first, but I took that
into a hot tub when we were in Florida and
it never worked after that. So did it? Was it submerged? Oh? Yeah,
so this one was documented on a VHSC tape that
(11:14):
was actually later transferred to VHS. I'm pretty sure I
did that, and I thought it'd be easier for them
to watch on VHS to figure that out versus putting
the tape in the little VHS converter tape device at
the Alamo. Momem it's me doing a lot of recording
(11:34):
in the car on our way to Colorado. Kristen was there,
Jeremy was there, and take Jeremy always set in the
front seat. Kristen was in the back with me and Granny. Okay.
(11:57):
She would periodically point out the wind at different things
that she wanted me to point the camera at. I
was always kind of reluctant to do it. For some reason.
I was more interested in recording the family in the car.
I didn't really care about the surroundings in Arizona, the
(12:18):
beautiful desert and everything. I just wanted to record the family,
tourist accordination, they the tastes, not just riding in the
car across all these states. I also you know, record
some when we stop it the different resorts or motels
(12:39):
or wherever we stayed at. To progress the film, you
have the you have the car ride, you have the
place we're staying at, you're walking into it. One For me,
(13:00):
how do we meet. We met in film school, we
met in experimental media with Nick Volmer. What was the
project that you were working on? The final project to
that semester? That class. Goodness, it's been almost a decade
since I watched it. That's not it's been eight years
since we've been had nine years since we've been out
(13:21):
of college. Oh my god, Yeah, we're old now getting there.
This is my wife, Victoria. So it's experimental media, and
a lot of the films that we had watched up
until that point had obvious visual signs of decay. Works
like Ken Jacob's Perfect Film and Arianna Gerstein's lay At,
(13:44):
in which the noise and degradation of the film stock
is foregrounded in the aesthetic. That inspired me to look
at my home movies that my grandfather shot and just
see what I had to play with to work with.
Actually noticed it's some of the video tapes already had
some signs of decay. The images were jumping, the sound
(14:05):
got worked, the color went from color and then black
and white. With the actual visual skips and jumps of
the film, I realized it was actually already a little
bit experimental. It sounds like he's gonna get a heavy
on the music. Grandpa was born September nineteenth, nineteen. I
(14:30):
think he was born in Ohio. I know he's buried
in Lebanon, but I can't remember where he was born.
I can't believe you just knew his birthday off the top. Yeah,
Grandpa Bob was born in September nineteenth. Grandma Betty was
born February eight and she was three years younger than him,
So he was born in twenty five. She was born
in I think he died June one, So he just
(14:54):
it's just been some wow, eighteen years since he's passed.
It's a long time. Do you guys would here? Let's
see Ky Belasia, Jonathan up Bid, Jarna Bay. He went
to Texas A and M, and he graduated in three years,
(15:17):
comes back to Ohio and he's working in television. He's
a broadcast engineer. Grandpa Bob worked at w c M
a c MHTV Columbus, Ohio, an NBC affiliate that is
still Channel four in Columbus from the days of Dumont
to the days that were twenty four hour news. You're
watching news. Watched four Columbus h television for as long
(15:40):
as he was alive, and he was working. He was
in television. He must have really loved it because he
worked and was around cameras all day at work and
then came home and then had a camera in his
hand to record his children and then eventually his grandchildren,
and he would just record anything. I didn't realize how
(16:00):
special it was, but he recorded one us all the
time outside, you know, playing hop scotch, or playing with
her dolls, or picking raspberries from the bushes that mimial
Betty grew. Nothing eventful happening, but he always had the
camera on, always shooting the video. Ok folks, And he
(16:24):
did that with his children too. We're now back in
nineteen sixty seven summer folk Stone Road and day nor
have because there's tons and tons of video and snapshots
of my mom and her brothers tookaren do. My dad
(16:45):
was in the military. My mom was a nurse, and
so we moved like seven times when we were growing up.
More on washing the footage of Becky as a baby.
My grandfather definitely shot because my parents didn't have or
couldn't afford a video camera. Then like us over to Berkeley. Okay, okay,
where are you going? But when Grandpa did get us
(17:08):
a video camera, my mother, you swing in, would film
everything for him. If it was Easter, or if it's
like a random Tuesday in April, hey put she Mima
And people used to send us goodie boxes all the time,
(17:30):
just randomly because they found something that we might like
at Meyers. So it could be May when there's no
massive celebration and we'd get a goodie box. My mother
would record this and then send it back to Grandma
and Grandpa. When we were cleaning out their house after
Grandpa was gone and after Grandma was moved into it
and living, we had the videos that my parents shipped
(17:53):
back to them, and then we had Grandpa Baba's version
of my mother's version. We grew up having a camera
in our face. We thought it was really normal. Oh
it wasn't until I got older, and I think when
I met you that I realized that not every child
(18:13):
had a treasure trove of her movies. I suppose I
didn't know anyone had this much family history documented on tape.
There's just one video of Andrea sleeping on the kitchen table.
(18:34):
She's really little, she's like two or three, and so
she's on the very edge of the chair and her
little head is on top of the table and she
wakes up, looks at them and just starts bawling, bawling
out of nowhere. I guess that's that's a sleepy, tired,
cranky baby. There's a video of me standing in front
(18:58):
of a Christmas tree as little two year old with
a raspy voice. Yea my only ation. Yeah you make
magen yeah singing you are My Sunshine. That was my song,
still my jam magain, Yes, thank me. Yes. Becky, my
(19:18):
oldest sister is behind me and trying to sing it too,
and I get so irate. I'm push sure, I think,
and I said, oh, seeing it because as a way
made it okay, Candy that way with me, You're gone.
(19:39):
There's one music park. I wanted hot chocolate, and I
don't think that anyone really cared. No, what are you
seen there? They're still filming the sights and the rides
around me, And then there's me, a little graded seven
year old, jumping up into the lens of the camera,
popping up. I want to chocolate. I want to talk it.
I don't think you understand me. I want to chocolate
(20:00):
her Victoria and he loved his cats. Bore you're okay?
Or another one over there? Asha? Where are you? Hasha? Okay, Sasha,
(20:24):
my Dasha, Gosha, look in here. We have so much
of Grandpa's gear. We have a Yeshika, a fin Tas,
a nineteen Coda autographic, a Brownie Hawkeye. We have a
Super eight handheld stick camera. We had this gigantic Crosby
(20:45):
box that I think came from the studio that he
was working out, and eventually they retired it. I think
we still have the tube. I don't think we have
this big VHS camera. I don't know what happened to
that video, okay. And we have a treasure trove of
HS tapes and we only have like a fraction of them.
There's more at my parents house, hundreds upon hundreds of tapes.
(21:08):
My dad started digitizing them many many years ago, and
I think he took a little break. Kind of made
him sad to see his little babies all grown up
in real life and his little babies there and film.
So you've undertaken the mammoth task of digitizing them. I've
(21:28):
sort of only done it in so far that I've
said that I'm doing it you've done m hmm, We've
probably done like ten twenty tapes' two slow task. My
dad once told me I was the family documentarian. And
(21:50):
while I have rolled a lot of tape, it's mostly
people doing bits, playing characters. Best are of Hotel A
very little could be considered nonfiction. And I can't help
but feel guilty like I haven't been a good steward
(22:13):
of William's history. Turns out, the feeling runs in the family. See.
I feel like I didn't do a good job of that,
and it makes me cringe a little bit even to
talk about it, because it's not like I have a
great historical record of sound of our family. My parents
had eight millimeter, not super eight, eight millimeter movie camera
(22:35):
and it had no sound. Everything is a silent movie.
A lot of that footage that we have was recorded
by Grahama Williams. She would spend hours shooting eight millimeter
out the car window as they were driving around with
their airstream. There's stretches of farm land and countryside that
(22:57):
you have no idea where it really is, and then
all of a sudd there's relatives appearing in a yard
running around. It's like, where are we and who are
these people. One of the reasons that we never bought
a camp orders is just expensive. Spending the money on
it would have been hard. Instead, got the VCR and
time shifted all your shows, which seems so salient now
(23:20):
that we all watch our shows whenever we want. Anyway,
I know we have a video of some play Max
was in when he was in kindergarten. Here, yes, I
think we have a video of a baby shower, one
of your guys. Baby showers Bay is the only one
(23:42):
that everybody was hope it in double over. It not
that baby showers are so great. There's a video from
the wedding. This is footage from our wedding shot on
my brethre in law cell phone. The video of my
parents wedding is silent. This is all stuff that I
(24:04):
guess other people shot because we didn't have game for it.
But I mean, the problem is thirty one years of
magnetic degradation. I have no idea what it's gonna look like.
But as VHS, I have a working VHS deck. Last
time I checked, like four years ago. I don't think
(24:24):
there's any audio really, so I don't think there's much.
It's sad, is it. I don't know what would we
do with it anyway, right, I have no idea what
can one do with old tape? To keep things straight?
So you've got it filmed. That's Bob and Sherry. You've
(24:47):
got a tape that's Bob, Sharon, Larry's your role. A
five different tapes are s twice together. Here they're on
a gape. And then you've got a tape that you
made that's Bob, Jerry and Larry. But then you're in
there even though it's not you're just through your voice,
like there's an element of you. Oh yeah, re recording
of the recordings. Yeah, we were exactly in a room
(25:12):
full of analog tape machines. Michael live mixes, reels, transcription tapes.
First First of the World sets, all kinds of things
recorded live in stereo on reel to real tape. The
first collection of this work, titled Home Movies, was composed
(25:34):
from the tapes described at the top. Everything I had
kind of planned out and like, okay, I don't want
to press play on this first, Wait a little bit,
press play on this one the next. See what happens.
Let's play on this one. Pretty simple struck. Everyone has
(25:57):
a good Boys, and the cassette was looking for in
the first place was used on the album third Bouquet
for Elizabeth Warriors. Why do you choose the family recorded
(26:20):
tapes for creative projects? Because they were handed to me.
What are you gonna do with them? Now? Probably hold
onto them, just sit on them, I mean, put them
with the other tapes? What else can you do? Ready?
Where were we? Spring semester of film concluded with the
(26:45):
assignment of an autobiography. I don't know what to do.
I'm coming down to a deadline. Okay, I'll do video
tapes and then I think during that process in making
that film, for a couple of weeks, I remembered that
I had that camera and codak autographic. When you look
at it and it's closed, it's like the height of
a VHS tape and probably two or three inches across.
(27:09):
You push a button on the top and the lid
opens just slightly. You pull that down and you can
see the lens. You clamped two pieces in the side
and you pull out the billows. The billows unfold and
you're able to look down into the viewfinder and see
a very fuzzy image. And then ever so slightly take
(27:34):
the trigger. Grandpa Bob took really good care of his gear.
This is one of his mics, an electro voice run
through an old brown XLR that was his. As far
as we know, this Kodak autographic has worked beautifully since,
but it takes an outmoded film stock A one six,
(27:56):
but you just can't find anymore. I wanted to figure
out how to get this coldek autographic working, so I
go over to the camera doctor. We missed your camera doctor.
He taught me how to build up the spindles in
size so that they could fit one twenty film, which
is what we have available today, and what he developed
(28:17):
in his shop, just cutting off rounded pieces of black
cardboard and fixing them with epoxy, stack stack, stack, stack,
until we had the height that would fit one film
onto that spindle. So in the film, I'm mixing together
the videos and there's a little footage of me continuing
(28:41):
on with this process of building up the spindles. I
think I started to restore it, not thinking it would
be part of the film, just feeling sentimental watching Grandpa Bob,
watching us all of her family, and then taking into
that shop and learning that it's not just a piece
of art. It could be restored and used. Victoria, Hey,
(29:03):
let's go. I never met Grandpa Bob, but I have
to imagine that given a beautiful camera that he couldn't use,
he would have done the same thing. As you can tell.
The recording session ended on a very very happy note.
(29:27):
God Da, oh, you're gonna go baby again. Why don't
you just playing yourself this time? You know, just be Joyanne.
Say this is Joyanne. I'm talking to you from goggle Ball.
Say anything on, take me get you dot the mat
(29:52):
of the clock, the clock Brandon Rass and day Gray dot.
Thank you all anyway, so you say conde yees are you?
You don't have to push anything. Don't push. This is
a historical recording. We're not sure about this next series
(30:12):
of sounds from the tapes all they're out of synchronization
certainly as far as chronology is concerned. It is being
recorded by Joyce and Jim itself. I'm just going to
get it all down and then we'll try to do
something with it later. So here goes now all the
(30:39):
um I don't to say. My mother is making us practice.
Now I have a broad back and we are having
some sorts, sweet roles and again, okay, take up hello thanky,
(31:05):
duncy hard now shaw girl, I gotta think say okay,
man and do And the next time you will hear
will be joint and snapping her fingers. Joe will now
(31:31):
whistle whistle while you work. Thank you whipple, Oh movie,
Jimmy humming a song, Holly song Mester. How the chronologically
(31:59):
they got so screwed up? I don't know. Restaum me up. Yeah,
it's warming up. One. Can I take some of the
eleven he took? Do talk Lena so interesting, kicks in
tin Hi Canny say Tenny for skin. He stay five
(32:27):
twenty six, twenty celty at kink Nike Tenny nine ten
goady and we got Dick Jenny machine. And he says,
maybe we're gonna cut in on this last part of
this tape to explain that danks my father Mr Till somehow,
(32:51):
some way, this is Joyce be class today in doing
these dicta belts. A girl told me that she stole cars.
They got all all messed up. I got it down today.
I love my mother. How nice it is for us
to be in here playing with this machine and my
(33:11):
father's sitting on the catch reading the paper. Mama's out
in the kitchen doing the dishes, and I'm up. You
don't eat your spaghetti and meatballs all gone exposure to sista.
(33:31):
And remember this is scare Jimmy Phillips, good night. You
have to just take up that big skip um. Just
being recorded on Saturday, March thirty, nineteen hundred and sixty three.
(33:54):
I'm five years old and I'm in kindergarten. I cleaned
the upstairs and Daddy enjoyed getting here. That's fair. I
painted the sand box. Then Jimmy and Joy were all
buddy duddy. So in a few years of anybody ever
(34:14):
listening to us for setimental reasons there it is unco
thanking to do it. We have jim at a much
earlier age with Joy finishing off the tape not to stay.
They must have been doing some of them in the office.
And I'm in and out office in which we are recording,
(34:42):
recording while they're playing with the dick and dictating chen.
He says, maybe we're going to cut in on this
last part of this tape over or Tony, have shiny
(35:08):
notice moda gord to show my bitch it I made
that the Johnny Jump. I said it best. The thing
we are like to hear you think up your so
users user pleaserable of born on AMASAF thing bank in
(35:42):
the free and like so we new every tree I
made him a bar twenty was only alright, Michael, Yeah,
(36:20):
hold on, felm a little bit more. Do you think
your grandfather was the documentarian before you? I'd say so.
He used to make most of the trip videos at
some point. I guess when he got this new cam
quarter you let me start doing it. I kind of
took over. I think I did a crappy job. I
think are right when when you started recording? Did your
(36:44):
grandfather stopped recording? You know? I don't know if he continued.
I'm sure he still records things. I know he goes
around taking pictures more than anything. As far as film,
I don't know if they've made any recent films done
anything like that in a long time. I've never known
them to document anything on the set. That's why that
(37:05):
one family cassette so interesting. Do you feel like you've
followed in some way in your grandfather's footsteps? Certainly that
motivation was placed on me a lot, and I think
I took it to heart. Papa always would call me
his one and only, so my one and only because
(37:26):
I was his only grandson. I'm going to inherit his
earth and his family and all these people he's influenced
and affected where I was going to be the next
I feel that now heavily great Grandpa Bob was definitely
the family documentarian and his family, and then my mother
(37:48):
was in our family. And when he was in the
convalescence inert at the end of his life, that really
had an impact on me. When he was there, he
said something to either me or my mother, saying keep
shooting the video, and I didn't realize that was like
a mantra of his, but my mother says it all
(38:09):
the time, and so it's a mantra of mine now too.
The document I think this is my favorite spot in
Quebec thus far. So where are we right now? The
Grand Canyon? Where do you call it back? So they're going, yes,
(38:31):
say Louis, I get this feeling, Oh, that thing just
passed me by. I wish I had that, And then
I get this other feeling like I've got my phone
out and I'm recording my cat. Well, that's never a
bad idea. But I've got my phone out and I'm
recording something, and I wish I was just interacting with
(38:53):
this moment and living in it. But I turned my
phone off, and I'm worried that I'm missing it. How
do you use when to hit record? As soon as
I got my video degree, I felt this pressure from
my family is like, well, you're gonna be the one.
He was like taking movie quality images of everything we're
going to be doing. I have not been doing that.
(39:17):
I want to be there with those people in those moments.
But at the same time, if we don't record it
in any way, then it is gone. And those two
ideas exists always together at the same time. When I
went to Maui with your mom on our honeymoon, we
ended up at a hotel which was very, very swanky,
(39:40):
that had a nice breakfast and they had black swans
swimming in a pod on the Lennai. We got really
lost trying to get to the restaurant, and we ended
up windering through the hotel pool, not literally through the water. Now,
mind you, we're in Maui. There are beautiful beaches in
every direction, but there were all of these rich people
(40:01):
on lounge chairs, and it was packed, and there were
no less than five guys standing around the pool with
camcorders videoing all of the rich people in their chairs.
And I'm thinking, Hey, there is nothing going on here,
why are you filming this? And b I don't want
to be a guy who spends all of his time
videoing what's going on instead of being part of what's
(40:22):
going on. And that is the way I've always lived
my life. And I always feel guilty about it because
I feel like there needs to be a record. I
don't want to begin O Santi Vick and necks one.
(40:48):
They're your loved ones. And when their children, everything they
do is fantastic, Every new thing that they learn or
that they show you is awesome. I mean, it's all inspiring.
So why wouldn't you record it? Why wouldn't you record
(41:10):
it so that you can watch it when they're a
couple of years older, or you get older, when they're
out of your house, so that their children can see
what they were like when they were little. Because it's fleeting,
especially when it's someone's childhood that goes back quickly. You
say thank you again. Okay, I think we're gonna turn
(41:34):
it off now now that it's still going. I don't, Joe,
I can't. I think about it this way. If I
know my wife is they're enjoying a moment with my son,
that she's so present with him that the thought of
getting her camera out or any kind of recording device
(41:56):
and hitting record is nowhere near where her mind is.
But I'm, you know, a bit of a third party
to what's occurring. That's when I will record and things
like that. It's registering that you're talking and showing you
sound wave, but to what sound way you see when
you talk? It makes it go up and down? Watch this,
(42:22):
Watch this, watch the sound like you all? Is it
a little back. My sister and her husband live in
Phoenix with their six children. My parents are in South Carolina.
(42:47):
You and I are here, so is Andy. And so
when we're all together, I want to film as much
as possible. I want to take snapshots as much as possible,
because we're so far apart from each other, and those
more much that we're together are so important and so
happy and so joyous. Wow. I can enjoy it and
be in the moment. I also want to preserve and
(43:09):
no one and her family thinks twice about taking a
photo when we're all together, but are you doing or video?
And when we're all together eggs, one green egg and
help everyone experiences family time together like that too, because
well it may put some people on the spot to
like be in a video recording. I think I'll be
(43:31):
so grateful that someone took the time to preserve that
in ten years time. There have been lots of family
occasions where I wish I had taken a couple of photos,
because that's not the same thing. Videoing something live is
almost all considered. It requires almost all of your attention,
and you can't talk because you're gonna be the loudest
(43:53):
voice in the video if you talk, and you can't
put the camera down because you're gonna miss something. I
guess it is a delicate balance of when to record
and when to quote unquote be in the moment, But
I don't think that those things are mutually exclusive. You're
in the moment and recognizing that it's a very special
time and you want to preserve it. It seems to
(44:15):
me my parents used to take a snapshot like every
time we opened a present. This is the days of
the instematic camera, so not good snapshots is what you
should read into that. It was exciting for them that
we were opening the presents as little children, but the
photo wasn't necessarily worth anything after that. Maybe I'm wrong,
(44:37):
I don't know, but they thought it was important to
spend the money to buy the film and take the
photo in the moment and then get it developed. And
then they look at it and they're like, oh, yeah,
it was Christmas December nineteen two footage. Oh Alex Williams.
This Christmas party for Uma is pretty school. This is
(44:59):
young man. It's preparing the documentation for this tape. He
is ready to go to the party, a party which
he may never remember, but in which he will enjoy himself. Nonetheless, Victoria, Matt,
(45:20):
Michael and I all came of age as digital recording
technology overtook the old ways of doing things. Nostalgia's side,
is there something special about analog media, some intrinsic property
that does not translate into binary I think it all
has to do with having a physical interaction. Imagine that
(45:44):
moment where you're going to the closet, like my grandfather,
did you open the closet, you smell the clothes that
have been there for a while. The boxes that are
maybe a little bit dusty. You reach up and you
pull out an old shoe box or some thing that
has cassettes lined up in it, and you open that
box and you pull out a cassette tape. You hit
(46:06):
the eject button on your cassette player, You slide that
cassette and you make sure it's perfectly in there. You're closing,
you hit that play butt, and then this voice comes
through of someone that you love. I mean, that's a
magical thing. I don't know if it's just because of
(46:28):
when we grew up and what we experienced and living
through that, but it's not the same as moving your
mouths over your track pad over and clicking on a
file or just hitting spacebar that kind of connects you
more with the past. I feel like that hard plastic
(46:48):
VHS tape and you know, you could pop the top
off and look at the magnetic tape and run your
finger across it, and I hope that your VCR is
not going to eat it up. Do you feel that
way about Real too? Real? Yeah? I think it's great
the sound of its spinning, especially when it real ends
and it's just hitting the tape against the machine. It
(47:11):
almost seems like it has this warm quality to it,
but that could all be in my head completely. There's
a reason we still print out family photos and put
them on our walls, so that we can be reminded
of this beautiful, tangible moment. We are attracted to a
VHS tape or a DVD or a real to real
(47:32):
this quote unquote archaic technology or this this out of
date medium. But it's also so romantic that you're holding
something that they held for our grandfather's, grandmother's This was
the everyday, commonplace thing that they had when they were
young or when they were, you know, raising their children.
(47:53):
You could watch it tonight when you have prints. It's
so tangible. And when you guys were young, all of
our photography was on princes and we have all of
that soul. Whether we should or not, you know, because
some of them are terrible photos. But I worry about
digital photography a lot. I have this bad feeling that
(48:16):
people are losing parts of their family history all around
the world because people are crappy at managing computers and
they just die out of the blue on you. It's like, oh, man,
all of my personal files were on that hard drive,
and I think pushing it all online, like into the
cloud or into Facebook or any photo service possibly more perilous,
(48:38):
just because how much are you exposing your family to
the world. We're all giving our data away without even
realizing it. The things that we count on from our
childhood's like my grandma's horrible eight millimeter films shot out
the window of the Lincoln. Those are kind of special,
(48:58):
the bad eight millimeter of me jumping off a stump.
When I was two. My stepmother, her daughter died, and
one of the things she regretted the most about it
she never had a recording of her voice, no audio,
and she was afraid she would forget what it sounded like.
(49:21):
That's such a big part of the identity of a person,
their voice and how they sound. And I told you
about that when that when I heard that, and that
had a big impact on me. I feel like, maybe
that's why I've been so focused on these family recordings,
some just trying to document voices. When you you asked
(49:46):
me to come down and talk, I started thinking about
do I have any sound of my dad because he's
the one who's so absent from my family of origin,
because he died so young. It's it makes really uncomfortable
sometimes to think about the fact that I've outlived him
by more than ten years now, And so I think
(50:07):
back to my dad because he was so alive and
so present whenever we were together as a family, which
was a lot. And whether I actually have any of
his voice recorded, because I bet you've never heard it, folks.
Judy and I have a few things we wanted to
say to you before the children come down, and they'll
(50:28):
be a part of this tape later on or on
the other side, depending up put how long it goes.
We just found this aunt Jennifer and Uncle Day have
spent their Saturday tracking down this cassette and the hardware
to digitize it. Well, what was the first thing we
wanted to talk to him about, dear, Well, we were
going to tell him about the heavy snowfall we've had
(50:49):
within the last couple of days. I mean, you were
already the family documentary because some for some reason, you're
a thirteen year old kid and you like feel like
compulsed and to turn the camera on and document things
as mundane as like you know, sitting in the car
and checking out the new hotel room. With the bathroom.
(51:10):
Looks like that complusion is already there, but maybe they
put a finer point on it. Yeah, yeah, no, it
it affected me in a way. I kind of started
thinking about who's going to die next, and how I'm
going to possibly get their voys their voice any time
for anything in any medium. That's tens of thousands easily.
(51:34):
How many tapes do you think we've made together? Oh? Man? Uh,
tapes of any time? Tapes where it's audio tape, videotape,
digital tape. Over a hundred, maybe hundreds. It's all right,
we'll we'll do it again later. We were kind of
obsessively recording on tape cassette for a while. First, how
(52:05):
many times do you think that we've been together and
hit record? H O? Could I could go into the
thousands maybe, And most of the times we kept the
first thing, even though it would have been better if
we've just done it one more time. Yeah. Yeah, But
(52:29):
then you know there's something to that as well. I
feel like, you know, you get to hear all these
mistakes and how it just how it sounded when it
first was born, hearing the birth of something. How many
times we recorded something? Oh, it's uncountable. There's how many
photos of cats do you and I trade on a
daily basis? I would say, on a on a low day,
(52:54):
two or three on a good day, ten snapshots that
you're going to see in a couple of hours. But
you think that they really have two cats, But they're
being so precious and so sweet and so like evil
that day, and you just have to take a snapshot,
even though you're gonna come home to it in a
couple of hours. But it's that important right then. I
(53:16):
think it's so amazing that that could touch someone so instantaneously.
Someone's had any really crap day at work and you
send them a cat photo day made like you feel
much later? Where are you some vicious today? How? I
think it's amazing that cost doesn't weigh into whether someone
(53:38):
can be the documentary and their family now, not to
do any extent that it was in the fifties and
sixties and even in the nineties when I was growing up.
A camera is expensive. Just get the shot, Um, yeah,
I got it. Why do you think we recorded so
many things just kind of being obsessive about it? I
(54:00):
don't know. I mean, I I guess we both came
from backgrounds where we had the tools to record and
do all of this stuff. Mari. When we first got together,
it was on a film project. We have watched that recently.
I bet it was horrible. It's not great, it's rough.
We're editing on a VHS tape. Thanks for that, Dad.
(54:22):
I have a lot of stories about dobbing. I try
to be very cognizant of what should be easily disposable
in case I should pass on, because I think a
lot about what happened to my mom when my dad died.
But I have my weakness is I have a lot
of VHS tapes, a lot of which are probably not
(54:43):
very watchable anymore, and haven't figured out a good way
to recycle him. You know, they won't take him in
the big blue bin. I spent a lot of time
collecting media or I have at least at various junctures,
like with my DVR and video tapes. We are all
interested in the future of all that is where you
and I are going to spend the rest of all eyes.
(55:04):
I like to think that other people have enjoyed the
things that I've recorded, but it's mostly for me. I
know that such a the will affect you in the future.
But the stuff you don't get rid of by chance
or by choice, the good they're not so good. What
happens to all of it? Thick and I have been
(55:25):
fixing up our old house, which inevitably means sorting ephemera.
What goes to a thrift store, what goes to a friend,
what you try to sell, what you need to recycle,
what you have to throw out, and what you keep.
(55:47):
We have a historical box that has you and Max's
stuff in it, and I have a history box that
has stuff from my childhood in it. There are some
amazing things in there that, like I would not be
able to not cry if I pulled out and explain
to you what they were. People who have been important
(56:07):
in my life, who have been dead for decades. More
than likely they're just gonna get boxed up and left
in the attic someone's attic, maybe my kids or my grandkids.
I would hope something like that would happen versus them
getting tossed out. Really, what's the difference? I mean, I
(56:30):
guess if they're stored somewhere, then there's the possibility that
someone could find it later, in versus if they get
thrown out, give me something to think about this. They
will just fall apart on their own too. Yeah, that'll
take a while. I don't know what the shelf life
for a cassette tape is, but some of those reels
I have are recorded back in the fifties and they
(56:53):
still have audio on them. I'm also we wasted a trips.
Now we've gotta go. Now, goodbye, We've gotta see mommy
by Daddy, Bye Jimmy, by everybody. Let's listening to this
take someday with this, it's a very talk of woman,
and I'm so sorry to wold from your first joint.
(57:17):
And there lest farewell, cruel world. Goodbye, we gotta go
a home and see you later. M Ephemeral Season one
(58:25):
was written and assembled by Millions and produced by Annie Reese,
Not Frederick and Tristan McNeil, with technical assistance from Sherry Larson,
Matt Michael Victoria. Thank you for sharing your families with me.
Albums to stream and handmade reels to buy at Michael
Weaver dot bandcamp dot com, and a podcast to stay
(58:47):
in touch with at Ephemeral dot Show.
Ephemeral News
Host
Alex Williams
Show Links
AboutPopular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Cold Case Files: Miami
Joyce Sapp, 76; Bryan Herrera, 16; and Laurance Webb, 32—three Miami residents whose lives were stolen in brutal, unsolved homicides. Cold Case Files: Miami follows award‑winning radio host and City of Miami Police reserve officer Enrique Santos as he partners with the department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, determined family members, and the advocates who spend their lives fighting for justice for the victims who can no longer fight for themselves.