Jimmy DiResta On the Power of Play and Stepping Out of Comfort Zones

Episode Transcript
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Jennifer Logue (00:11):
Hello everyone and welcome to Creative Space, a
podcast where we explore, learnand grow in creativity together
.
I'm your host, jennifer Logue,and today we're bringing you the
third episode in ourfan-favorite series, where we're
counting down the top fiveepisodes ahead of the Season 3
premiere on October 20th.

(00:32):
Today's episode is an absolutetreat, as we revisit my
conversation with the legendaryJimmy DiResta.
Jimmy is a builder, designerand maker, widely known as the
maker godfather.
Whether you've seen him onNetflix's Making Fun or his
hugely popular YouTube channel,jimmy has spent over 40 years

(00:54):
creating, experimenting andinspiring millions with his work
.
In this episode, we dive deepinto his incredible journey, the
power of curiosity and theunique stories behind his
creative process.
So, without further ado, here'sthe interview.
Hello everyone, and welcome toanother episode of Creative

(01:15):
Space, a podcast where weexplore, learn and grow in
creativity together.
I'm your host, jennifer Logue,and today we have the absolute
pleasure of chatting with JimmyDiResta, a builder, designer and
maker that is known as theMaker Godfather.

Jimmy DiResta (01:31):
Oh boy.

For over 40 years he's been making things
for a living and teaching peoplealong the way.
You may have seen Jimmy on hisNetflix show Making Fun, or know
him from his massively popularYouTube channel, jimmy DiResta.
Welcome to Creative Space,jimmy.

Thank you for having me.
I'm happy to be here.
Thank you so much.

Oh my gosh.
I have to start off by sayingyou're so cool and in the
process of doing the podcast,I'm getting to explore
creativity from different angles.

And.

I personally don't have any experience with
tools, carpentry, everythingthat's in your world,
blacksmithing out of mywheelhouse completely but it's
so cool to see you buildanything Like you can build
everything.
It's absolutely so cool.

I keep experimenting.
Yeah, you know what I keepexperimenting.
Yeah, you know what.
The way I put it is if I have aset of skills for one thing or
another, I just play a game withmyself and see how I could
apply that set of skills to somenew material or some new
process.
It's almost like if you couldtie your shoes, you could make
pasta, and if you can make pasta, you could run a dishwasher,
and if you could run adishwasher you could.

(02:40):
And so, like that little gameof dexterity and experimentation
, I just play all the time.

Oh my gosh, in a perpetual state of play, which
we need so much in this world,and so many adults lose that
sense of play.

Yeah, I've been accused of being a big baby, big
child.
That's a great thing.

That's something like I'm aiming for.

Sometimes it's not a compliment.
Balance, I guess right, I'lltake it yeah.

So where are you calling from today?

I'm in upstate New York.
I'm about 30 miles north ofWoodstock, new York, about 30
miles to the west of Hudson, newYork, and about 30 miles to the
south of Albany.
I'm in a little town calledEast Durham that nobody's ever
heard of, but most people haveheard of those other three towns
, so that's why I triangulate.

Love it.
So can you give us, for peoplewho may not know, your creative
space?
Do you want to give a highlevel overview of what your
space is like?

Yeah, I worked in Manhattan for many years.
So I started out on Long Islandand in 90, well, I went to the
School of Visual Arts, new YorkCity and I graduated the School
of Visual Arts in 1990.
I got right into the toybusiness and in and around 92, I
moved from Long Island becauseI was there trying to save money
for college.
From there I moved to lowerManhattan, east Village,
alphabet City, which we werejust talking about, and then

(04:08):
while I was in Alphabet City Imoved around a little bit.
I had a shop in a storefrontand I had a shop in a basement
space and at one point we had ashop at ground level inside of a
big garage and then I ended up.
We ended up I say we because Italk about my brother and I were
mostly working together.
Oh, cool.
But my last shop, my brother gotmarried and moved out of the
city and then my last shop wasmine alone in the basement of a

(04:32):
tenement building.
I had the whole basement, whichwas two tenement buildings
combined, so it was a basementthat had like a step down
because the basements were twolevels and it was a fun basement
.
But occasionally the deeperbasement would flood with sewage
so I always had that to contendwith and then the neighbors

(04:53):
would complain about the smellsof welding and grinding and
resins and stuff.
So it was always a give andtake.
You know when it could work andhow noisy it could be.
And a lot of times I'd go up onthe sidewalk and make noise.
So I was in that space until2017.
In and around 2004, I bought afarmhouse in upstate New York 40
acres and 12 bedroom farmhouse.
I bought it as an investment,where property up here was still

(05:14):
very cheap.
I paid really.
I had a really good price forit, and so I was like you know
what?
I can swing that mortgage.
It's kind of like a second rent.
So I was able to keep thishouse until 2017, when I moved
up here full time and gave upall my space in the city.
So I've been up here since 2017full time, and up here I
expanded into a big shop I builtfrom scratch with some friends

(05:35):
who were better at building thanme, but I had hired them to do
this big barn and if you happento ever see the TV show Making
Fun, that's the barn I'm talkingabout.
It's on the Netflix show.
It's really cool.
That's my main workspace, so,and.
But while that was being built,I rented a big shop down the
block really cheap.
I rented a shop that was like arundown warehouse that had been
unused for many yearsno-transcript for just a few

(06:12):
hundred square feet in the city.
Wow, Location, location,location.
Yes, and it's so important tohave that space yeah so I got a
big grungy space down the streetwhich is where I just took a
delivery with a forklift.
That's what I was telling youabout.
And then the clean spaces in mybackyard I call the TV shop in

(06:33):
the backyard.
I call it sort of like thetelevision studio, because
that's where we shot the TV show, and I keep everything somewhat
.
Although it's crowded now withprojects they're going to be out
soon.
I keep the place somewhatsparsely full just so I could
move things around and make roomfor cameras, cause I still
shoot my own YouTube channel inthere most of the time now.

Yeah, so you like to have another space, to
just keep things a little bitseparated.

Yeah, so I I said I've been very lucky.
And now me and my businesspartner just bought a house down
the block for a businessinvestment and it came with a
big barn.
It's a real antique barn, soit's post and beam cool post and
beam barn, so I'll probably beshooting some stuff in there for
fun awesome.
I have a lot of places tochoose from, which is all stuff
I never could have done in newyork city yes, now you can

(07:17):
spread out.
That's beautiful yeah, love it.
So I have the 40 acre farm here.
On the television show is thebest example, because we would
do all the silly builds in thebig new barn and then we would
do the third act of the show outin the grass playing around
like a bunch of big kids and youcould see that on the show.
That's all my property.
There's birds running around,my chickens are running around

(07:38):
and we're all having a goofytime in the grass.

That's absolutely beautiful and we'll
talk about the show a little bitlater in the conversation, but
you guys look like you're havingso much fun.

Yeah, of course we were.
It was.
It was a summer of 2021.
So it was, it was a great time.

Awesome.
So let's go way back to yourchildhood.
What was your childhood like?
Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Long Island in a town called
Woodmere.
There's a small town called theFive Towns and Woodmere was one
of the five towns butcollectively they're called the
Five Towns.
It's right outside of Queens.
I was born in Queens.
Right near Rockaway Beach iswhere I was born and the town is
near Rockaway Beach.
So I grew up right outsidethere and my whole family's from
Rockaway in Brooklyn andgrowing up my dad was a
carpenter and a fireman a NewYork City fireman and a

(08:27):
carpenter.
So his workshop was in thebasement of our house.
So he would be a fireman mostof the day and then the days he
had off he would do carpentrywork for people.
So he always had two jobs and Iwas.
Of my two older brothers and myyounger sister, I was the one
that spent the most time with mydad because I shared the most
interest.
All of us all four of us to avarying degree have developed

(08:49):
skills of building and problemsolving through my dad's
inspiration.
But I spent the most time withhim and I took it up the most.
And while I was in high schoolI took on jobs that involved
building and making stuff moreoften than my other siblings.
They would take various jobslike restaurants and stuff, but
I always try to find jobs thatinvolve building.

So when did you first start working with tools?

When I was like five or six years old.
Wow, yeah, I joke because I'mreally good on the bandsaw and
I'm always showing off on thebandsaw online for fun and I
like cutting out letters andlately I've been cutting out
little three-dimensional animalsand having fun with that.
And I started working on theband when I was like six or
seven years old.
Wow, and most parents wouldn'tlet their kid near one of those

(09:32):
tools until they were youngadults.
But my dad was.
He was not a helicopter parent,he didn't care.
He was like if you get cut,just put some black tape on it
and keep moving on Nice blacktape on it and keep moving on.

Nice, the toughness.

Oh my gosh, the 1970s.

Oh my gosh, I'm like the opposite.
I can't even work the powerdrill that I bought.
I'm working on it.
I'm working on it.

You can.
If you're not confident andyou're not you can get seriously
injured.
With all tools, even just akitchen knife, you can get
seriously injured.
But working with my dad, I justdeveloped a sense of confidence
and a sense of healthy dangerand I had a healthy respect for
the danger of the tool and, youknow, holding it in the right
direction.
And my dad also instilled inall of us anticipate what could

(10:15):
go wrong.
So when you grab something, youknow the biggest risk with a
drill, especially if you'redrilling holes is you know the
drill could grab and twist andbreak your wrist or pull out of
your hand.
You know twist your fingers.
So you know anticipate.
Sometimes drills come with thatextra handle and it's important
to use that extra handle tokeep the drill from twisting out
of your hands.

Yeah, definitely don't want that happening.

Yeah.

And my walls.
You know, they look so niceright now.
I'm like, oh, so nice right nowI'm like oh.
So your dad was obviously ahuge influence on you back then.
Did you have any otherinfluences when it came to
building and craft?

Well, it's my childlike curiosity.
I owe it really all to my dadbecause my dad's still my dad's
83 years old.
He's getting a little bit outof there.
My birthday was yesterday.
He called me the day before mybirthday was April 3rd.
So he called me on April 2nd.
He said is your birthday today?
I said no, it's tomorrow.
He said oh okay, the whole dayyesterday I didn't hear from him

(11:14):
.
We texted a little bit and hesaid happy birthday.
And then this morning on April4th he calls me and says I
wanted to call you to be thefirst to wish you a happy
birthday.
I said my birthday wasyesterday and then I had to
convince him that I wasn'tkidding with him, because he
thought I was kidding.
So he's getting a little senile, but he's mostly there.

(11:36):
But growing up my dad had areally childlike curiosity about
most things.
My dad was the first person Iknow to buy a computer.
I just turned 56 yesterday.
Wow, I just turned 56 yesterday.
So I was around when thecomputers became a novelty that
suddenly, you know, suddenlybecame, eventually became a
necessity.
So when computers were just anovelty, my dad would go to.
My dad went to radio shack andbought a computer and I said

(11:56):
what are you going to do withthis?
And he was playing games andshowed me like all these high
pixelated video games that hewas playing and it's like look
at this.
And he was explaining to mewhat an app was.
I was like I don't, I'm nevergonna need that.
I make things with my hands.
I won't need an app to makethings on a computer.
That was probably 89 90 whoa butmy dad had a computer and it's.

(12:17):
He would collect apps and himand his friends would exchange
discs full of stolen apps offthe, you know, off the.
I don't even know how theywould exchange, I don't even
know if the internet was aroundthen, but they would exchange
apps on floppy discs and floppydiscs.
And my dad was always proud toshow all the new apps he got
Like this one can do that andthat one can do that.
It was like it was almost verysimilar to the way like the apps

(12:38):
are on the phone now.

Yeah, it's so funny too, because you're
working with your hands now,obviously, building things, but
then you also do all thiscontent online, so it's
interesting how those two worldshave come together for you.

Yeah, I was building things my whole life
and then, in and around 2000, Iwas also always doing
photography, taking pictures andcollecting video, but not
really having any wherewithal toedit it.
I never really.
Maybe I knew how to edit oneday I can't remember exactly,
but I knew editing was going tobe a complicated situation
because there wasn't a digitalrevolution yet.

(13:17):
I was shooting a lot of videoand I know you could edit video,
but I didn't really know how todo it.
And then Robert Rodriguez cameout with I forget what the name
of his movie was, but RobertRodriguez came out with a book
about just before the digitalrevolution or right after the
digital revolution, about thefilm he made on VHS and that was
inspiring to me.

(13:38):
And then, right around that time, final Cut Pro became available
in 2000, or 99, 2000.
And then editing becameaccessible to everybody.
There was digital editing butyou had to go rent a suite and
you had to go rent an avid.
You know, an avid was acomputer program that was put up
on special computers that youhad to go and rent space at, you
had to go rent time at, and nowyou can edit on anybody's

(13:59):
pocket phone, but this is 25years ago.
You had to go and know somebodythat had access to avid the
avid machine, and you you had togo and know somebody that had
access to Avid the Avid machine,and you had to go.
And then Final Cut Pro came outand it basically put video
editing in everybody's hands yes, via Apple.
And then, shortly after that,they came up with iMovie, which

(14:19):
was a scaled down version ofthat same app that was
accessible to anybody thatbought an Apple computer.

I still have iMovie to this day.

I use iMovie to edit all my movies.
I was using Final Cut Pro butthere's just so many choices and
I'd find myself playing aroundwith spinning a logo and I was
like this isn't really.
I want it to be about thecontent, and so I stopped using
Final Cut Pro just because itwas too many choices, and then I
just became used to just usingiMovie.
I can breeze through and editreally quickly in iMovie and it
does exactly what I need.

Yeah, if it has what you need, you're good.

Yeah, and the good thing is you don't have to
pay for it, so I could just pulla hard drive and move it to
another computer in my house oreven at somebody else's house
and open up my movies and stilledit, which, you know, on a rare
occasion I'm in an emergencysituation I have to plug a hard
drive in someplace I'm notfamiliar with and I'm able to
open it up and do it.

Oh cool, I never thought of that before.
So you mentioned a few lessonsyour dad taught you Are there
any others that come to mindwhat you've learned from your
dad over the years.

My dad was always just work hard.
Be curious.
I mean he was almost, like wejokingly called my dad, a worker
bee or a worker ant.
He worked so hard and he almostdidn't even know why.
He just worked hard just to payhis bills, really.
But you know, I'm motivated towork hard because I'm deeply
curious about new processes.
I want to bring my audience new, interesting things that I make
and create and inspire them tomake and create and inspire

(15:48):
others.
But when we were kids, my dadjust worked hard just because he
was almost pre-programmed towork hard.
And that's how we all work,that way, even though we don't
all do exactly what I do, but mysiblings, we all work very hard
.
And it's funny when we meetpeople that don't work hard or
just like end the day at threeo'clock and they just go home
and put their feet up and donothing.

(16:09):
I don't know how their brainfunctions.

It's a different mindset.
You know, I find when you'redoing what you love, it's not
even it is work, right, but youput hours into it, way beyond a
normal job, but you don't feelit because you're driven by.

It's almost like if you have a love of solving
puzzles.
I know people that like to makepuzzles and put puzzles
together so they have adedicated table in their house
and they just spend hours justtrying to search for the right
piece.
I'm the type of person thatlooks at every work, every bit
of work I do, as a puzzle andI'm just constantly solving
those puzzles.
So I'm getting the satisfactionof solving puzzles and I'm also

(16:52):
getting the satisfaction ofcompleting work and creating
work and, at the same time, alsocreating income.

Yeah, and inspiring people.

Yeah, and inspiring people, that's a big
part.
Like this weekend, I met withsome people.
I I did an event called themake 48.
It was a tv show that will runon the internet and I was a
mentor helping the people.
That's a contestant show wherepeople try to come up with
inventions within 24, 48 hoursrather, and a couple people that
are like asking me because theythink I'm famous and I don't
think I'm famous the way they do.
But they said what is it likebeing famous?

(17:21):
Well, first of all, I don.
First of all, I don't think I'mfamous.
But if I was to give into youranswer and think that you know,
okay, what's it like beingfamous or do I like?
The question was, do I likebeing famous?
And I said, well, I don'tnecessarily think I'm famous,
but to answer your question in apractical way, it's nice to be
able to inspire people.

Yes.

As someone that's so-called famous, because I
meet people just like the peopleI was talking to that thought I
was famous.
They said they do certainthings because I did them and
it's all good, wholesome,learning, fun stuff, and to know
that I'm the type of personthat can show how I do something
because of my curiosity,because of my childlike
curiosity and then they do itbecause they've gotten out of
their comfort zone or I've.
I've inspired them to not bescared of doing something, and a

(18:08):
lot of people are scared to dosomething different because
they're self-conscious or theymight have an overbearing friend
or family member or spouse.
That's like stick, stay in yourlane.
You know people say that allthe time to other people.
People say all the time, stayin your lane.
And I've heard that so manytimes time stay in your lane and
I've heard that so many timeslike, oh my gosh and you know,
sometimes I say that to myselfyou know, when you're dealing
with interpersonal relationshipsand you don't like, you know,

(18:30):
like, for instance, you knowyour best friend's cheating on
somebody else, you're like youdon't stay in my lane this is my
you know I'm not going to bethe one to blow this out of the
water.
let them figure it out on theirown.
Stay in my lane.
But when it comes to workingand designing and developing
things, I like being on afour-lane highway and learning
all different things all thetime.
And it's a big problem for mostpeople that they're in an

(18:53):
environment that doesn't nurturethat need.
So when somebody wants to bethat type of person, or somebody
wants to stop their computerprogramming job or at least take
a break from it and do woodwork, their spouse or their father
or their mother might say whatdo you know about woodwork?
What do you know?
What do you?
What do you?
Just stick to what you're goodat.
And that's and I say it all thetime it's that particular

(19:15):
person who's being thecriticizer, it's the critique,
it's the critiques, personalfear that they they don't have
the ability to control.
And they think to themselves gowow, I couldn't do that.
I don't have the ability tostep outside my comfort zone and
step outside my lane so theyhave to impulsively verbally

(19:37):
criticize somebody else that'sdoing it.

To keep them feeling comfortable and safe.
It has nothing to do with yourjourney, your path.
It's all about them and theirinsecurity.

And it's sad because I get young students say
like my dad wants me to do this, he doesn't want me to do that.
And I remind him he's puttinghis own fear into you.
I mean, he loves you and my daddid it to me.
My dad, he's like you.
Sure you want to be an artist,because it was such a blanketed
term in the 80s when I decidedto go to art school, nobody knew
what a commercial artist was,or even what a graphic designer

(20:08):
did.
I didn't even know when Isigned up for school.
I just knew like it felt likethe right place to be.
He's like maybe you want totake a police officer's test so
you have something to fall backon.
I said I don't know a lot, butI know I definitely don't want
to be a police officer.
To me, being a police officeris the opposite of being an
artist and I was being morecompelled to being an artist
than being a police officer.

(20:29):
I mean, it was something Inever wanted to do, but my dad
just encouraged it and he pushedmy brother John.
So my brother John, thecomedian actor, he ended up
becoming a police officerbecause he sort of succumbed to
my dad's pressure.
I didn't't?
He did.
So you went, you went, walkedyour own path.
I did I did.

Yeah, happily so .
When you were at the school ofvisual arts, what did you study
exactly?

I was in school for graphic design for the first
two years I didn't really knowwhat that meant, but what we did
foundation year.
I think most colleges do afoundation year, most art
schools.
It just gets your hand-eyecoordination used to sculpting,
painting, spatial awareness,composition, art history.
You know all those things.
This foundation stuff that'simportant.

(21:14):
We took a couple classes inmedia, whatever that meant at
the time and then, uh, thesecond year we start getting
more into specific classes, likeI took a class with a teacher
who had designed severalpackages beer labels, wine
labels, potato chip labels, youknow like practical things.
And then a real deep study offonts and letter forms and where

(21:36):
they came from and why they'repopular, serifs and serif.
You know all this like a deepeducation.
So that's basically graphicdesign, commercial art,
composition, what an editorialspread is, and doing blocks of
type and blocks of font, allthis stuff.
And this was in 86, 85, 86, whenyou still would get like a

(21:57):
photo stat you would have tocall out to a company, you'd lay
out, you'd inspect the type youwant and the columns you want.
Now you're just dragging yourcolumns, change shape on the
computer right in front of youreyes and you change your
lighting right in front of youreyes.
Back then you'd have to get agalley, a type galley, which was
just a big photograph of allthe fonts you needed for that
particular layout, whichmight've been the side of a

(22:18):
packaging, and then you'd slicethem apart with an X-Acto knife
and stick them on a big boardand lay them out exactly how you
want, and then that getsphotographed and the color gets
added in the print process.
Nowadays you just do it on thecomputer and hit send and it
goes right directly to the printpress and they look at, you go
oh, they run a two of them andthey go okay, it doesn't look
right, let's change it again.

I wonder if just the satisfaction of doing it by
hand some of the magic is lost.
I know technology is amazingbecause it's faster, it's more
efficient.

Yeah.

But I just noticed if I work too long on
the computer I feel a littledead inside.
No matter what I'm doing Like Ialways feel more alive if I'm
playing music off the computer.

Well, I'm old enough to be able to say I
worked doing mechanicals theold-fashioned way.
I never really had a job doingit.
I did it more as a student.
So the old fashioned way.
I never really had a job doingit.
I did it more as a student.
So I did it as a studentmechanicals.
But then right after school Igot into the toy business and
then I would look at mechanicals.
I would look at for people thatwere working for the toy
companies that I was freelancingfor.
They'd bring in paste-ups andmechanicals for the packaging,

(23:17):
these big boards, and you flipback the cover sheet and you
look at where the placement ofthe photography was and usually
there was an envelope in thecorner and that had all the
proper photography for theprinter that the printer had.
This whole process that waskind of secret.
He did it.
And then that artist that wasdoing our graphic design got a
computer and everybody in theoffice was like, oh, I can't
believe they got a computer.

(23:38):
It's going to ruin the designprocess.
And the first couple ofpackages he brought in they were
stiff and clunky.
He didn't have a paste-up tolook at.
He would bring in a printed-outthing.
It looks a little bit like menon the computer, kind of lost
that human touch.
But shortly thereafter, once thesimplicity and the ease of the

(24:00):
computer started to reallybecome aware of the practice,
once you begin to practice andyou get outside of these sort of
rigid constraints you thinkyou're stuck inside of.
And then as you get you getdeeper involved in using
illustrator and photoshop andyou start to realize you could
pretty much do anything yourimagination will dictate.
But getting there is is thedifficult part because the

(24:22):
computer programs are so deep.
So in the beginning, when wefirst made that transition in
like 93 94, the artwork did looka little clunky, a little like
a little sterile, almostclinical.
But then as we got on like youlearn how to put in drop shadows
and deepen the letters andoutline stuff and and some of

(24:45):
those effects got overused too.
But then I used to do thesewalkthroughs in Walmart on my
Instagram and I'd look at allthe fonts and type and graphic
design and I would say like thedifferent tricks used in
Illustrator and Photoshop toaccomplish that.

Oh.

And my fans always liked that.

That's fun.

I'm just coming off a cold, so my throat's a
little dry, oh my gosh.

Yeah, I feel you , I just got over COVID.
Oh that was fun Not.

Yeah, but the the pace of some mechanicals.
I'm sure if you speak toanybody that was in between both
of those eras, they would tellyou that the computer is a lot
easier because I could sit on anairplane and design stuff.
I could sit in a waiting areaand design stuff.
I could email somebody a quickwhat do you think?
Here's a screen grab ofdirection.
I love it.
No meetings, no having to sendthe only art board that exists

(25:40):
in the FedEx and hopefully itcomes back without the damage of
being lost.
So the digital world has reallymade life a lot easier, I'm
sure, in millions of ways.

For the mobility alone, you know, and just the
ease of just getting things done.
What did you do after you wentto school?
What were your first three jobs?

Well, right after school, right before I
graduated school I should sayjust before I graduated school I
took a class called Toys andGames.
I had all the credits I needed.
So then it was for me.
The last semester was sort of agravy train.
I could do whatever I wanted.
I was paying my full tuition soI could pick.
I graduated with like 10.
This is so foreign to me now totalk about credits and
graduating with certain, but Iknew that I can graduate with a

(26:21):
lot more credits because I wasalways an overachiever.
I was just thirsty forknowledge.
So my last semester I took afew classes that I didn't
necessarily need but they seemedinteresting.
So I took one class called Toysand Games and I met a guy named
Mark Setteducati and Markbecame my toy teacher.
I was going to go intothree-dimensional illustration

(26:43):
and that involves anything likeprop making.
Anything with a photograph inan editorial or photograph on a
print ad is three-dimensionalstuff.
You know like, for instance,the great example at the time
was all the absolute vodka adsin the in the 80s was like
absolute tennis or absolute this, and it was like a 3d model of,

(27:03):
like an ad, like I remember,absolute maryland and like the
bottle skirt was blowing up andall the letters were blowing off
the bottle.
I remember that absolutechicago.

And like the bottle skirt was blowing up and
all the letters were blowing offthe bottle.

I remember that Absolute Chicago and all the
letters were blowing off of thebottle.
So all the Absolute Vodka adswere all real 3D models that
were photographed.
They were all 3D objects thatwere photographed on a set.
I actually worked for thecompany that made those for a
minute as an intern, so I got tosee them up close.
So I was going to go into thatworld.
And then when I met Mark, markencouraged me to stick around

(27:31):
the toy business and he saidcome, hang out with me, I'll
give you freelance work.
And that's really what Istarted doing with Mark is
freelance work.
He would say I have thisinvention.
Take it, give me four versionsof the way you see it should
work.
And then, once we decide adirection of the play, the
action or the gameplay, we'llcome up with a cool mechanism
that will illustrate or show theprototype.

(27:54):
And then we'll go and try andsell the product to a toy
company.
And you go and you pitch theproduct, just like you pitch a
television show or a movie idea.
And we go and pitch the productand sometimes you sell them.
Most of the times you don't,but in the process you learn how
to make anything to to doanything, because toys is just
an open-ended game, justanything you could think of I
didn't know that I had neverthought of that industry before

(28:17):
yeah, it's, it's really justlike.
You look like just like, like,really like the tv and game
business.
Sorry, like the tv and moviebusiness, you're always looking
at the other successes and belike, okay, I have an idea
that's like that.
It's not exactly the same asjaws, but it's similar to jaws.
It's like about a dog thatkills people on land.
So, yeah, so that was what thegame business was like.

(28:38):
It's.
It's like oh, a hungry, hungryhippos.
I have another game.
It's not hungry, hungry hippos,but it's like.
It's like snakes will get youand it's like the snakes are
going to eat all the eggs orsomething.
So those I'm just making upexamples.
But in the toy business, likeall the explicit examples that
were successful inspired peopleto come up with things,
including me.
That was similar.
You know a lot.

(28:59):
You have like an action gamefor kids where it's like a
hundred hippos or it's just likea lot of slap action and it's
loud and noisy.
And you have games likeMonopoly, where it's more of a
social interaction game.
Those are a little bit moreheady.
I never really did those typeof games.

I loved Monopoly .
I'm in my head a lot, though,so probably that's why.

And those games are difficult to sell because
they had to have.
You know there's rules andstrategy and you know you have
to educate the audience.
But like a game, like.
But that's also like from like10 and up and hungry hippos is
from like 10 and down, you know.
So there's age categories.
I fell into the category ofmaking novelties like squishy
balls that like eyeballs pop outof, and my big success was a

(29:37):
toy called gurgling guts, whichit's a squishy eyeball and you
squish and squeeze on it and itmakes a slurping sound like a
gross squishy eyeball and it'sgot a clear skin on it.
So you squeeze it and the theball inside sucks and spits on
blood.
So it looked like a squishyeyeball you still have a
prototype of it uh, yeah, well,I they.
They kind of deteriorate becauseof the blood and the rubber.

(29:58):
So it was fun.
They would go bad and likesquirt blood on people.
It was great, oh my gosh, it'sawesome.

It sounds very nickelonian.

Yeah, yeah, it was in 95, 96 when gross was
like a big trend in the toybusiness.

Oh yeah.
So your journey?
Did you ever have a goal whenyou came out of college, or have
you just organically followedyour curiosity?

My very loose goal and I think about it was
more like, even though I gotinto commercial art and I call
toy business commercial artbecause you've got to sell
products, you've got to design,develop and the invention and
you've got to design, developthe packaging design and then
you've got to design and developand invent the marketing.
So it's very commercial.
What I always wanted to do iscome up with something that I

(30:43):
thought of and was able to sellit, and that's a very broad
thing.
But to me that encompasses fineart, where you have someone
like damien hearst that putsanimals in formaldehyde and
sells it for millions of dollars.
He has the whim to makewhatever he wants.
He has a gallery that willsupport him and exploit him and
he makes money and then so in aroundabout way through the toy

(31:07):
business, then in the televisionbusiness, then in youtube.
I got to a point now whatever Imake every week, I have to make
whatever I can make, whatever Iwant.
Sometimes I have requirementsbecause there's an ad placement
in my video.
As a matter of fact, thisrecent video I put out the other
day was where I made a model ofmy workshop to do an
exploration of what the secondfloor would look like, which

(31:27):
doesn't exist yet in real time.
But in the model I made asecond floor In that video I
exploited some usage of type onglue and they pay me to exploit
the glue and to promote the glue.
So in that video it was anexcuse to me to do two things
Figure out what I want to dowith the floor and see it in

(31:47):
real time through the camera anduh, and exploit some some type
on glue.
They're satisfied and and I getto just do whatever I felt like
doing and you've built your ownempire.

Now it's like this is your.
Yeah, you have more control to.

You know, go where creativity takes you yeah,
for instance, in about fivedays from now, I'm going to post
a video and right now I havethree loose ideas of what that
video is going to be about.
Over the next five days, thatvideo is going to get focused,
shot, edited and posted.
You ask me, right now it's aTuesday, I'm not sure which one
it's going to be.

Okay.

But I have three ideas.
I think I know which one I'mgoing to go with because it's
it's more of a simple video toshoot and I'm going to pick that
just because it's more of apractical video.
But next week I can pick one ofthe other two because I'll have
a full week to work this,because yesterday I was in
kansas city yesterday so I lostmonday, which is a critical day
to get started.
So every week I produce anepisode of my TV show One man.

(32:51):
It's not huge.
It's not a huge production.
It's me alone with a camera andsome tools, alone in my shop
for the most part, but it doesget done.

Yeah, and it's amazing how you're able to do it
all on your own, like whenyou're not filming a larger
production.

Yep.
So the funny thing was is Iwhen I shoot most of the YouTube
videos alone, but when we weredoing making fun in the backyard
, it was two 53 foot trailers.
Every morning there was about40 people in my yard like eight
cameramen, two directors, peoplemonitoring the time code.

(33:30):
There's so much going on Makeuppeople and PAs running and
getting food and getting propsand getting materials.
It was crazy.
Every day was a chaos.

It's amazing to see the largeness of the
production.

They did a great job.
I mean, it was great.
It all came togetherbeautifully in the edit.
But every couple of nights Iwould shoot my own youtube movie
when everybody left, because wewere still, even though it was
my, the set of the show was myhome, my home, yeah.
So everybody was like hey,we're going to the pub over in
windham, what are you guys doing?
What are you guys?
I'm gonna work.
I gotta do a video on theouthouse, so you guys go, I'll

(34:06):
work.
You're gonna work all night.
I'm like I want to keep myyoutube videos alive yeah
youtube.
You got to kind of feed themonster, but it's, you know,
it's a healthy addiction, if youask me I agree, I agree even
with the podcast, like it's justgetting started.

But, like you know, my friends will be like oh
, you want to hang out.
I'm like I'm working my podcast, like you're always working,
and I'm like, yeah, I mean but,I enjoy it.
It's fun.
I get to meet cool people andtalk about creativity, so and
and consistency.

That's the only way you'll develop an audience.
And, when it's all said anddone, we're developing an
audience so that we could eithershare with them great cool
things, sell them things, sharein selling them things, inspire
them to sell things.
You know, it's like one big.
In a way it's like one bigadvertising ruse, but at the
same time we're all learning andhaving fun.

Yes.

People learn from me that they could do things on
a jigsaw or a bandsaw or a CNCor a laser and they leave their
job and now they're sellinglaser stuff on Etsy or they're
making bandsaw things on etsy,or they're doing pottery on
wherever, and so, you know, Isold them in the lifestyle that
they bought into, and nowthey're happy.

Yeah, you're, you're planting seeds in people.
Yep, they can um grow, you knowum.
So this is creative space, andI love asking this question of
everyone, because everyone hastheir own perspective on what
creativity is.
But what is your definition ofcreativity?

Creativity, I think, is problem solving.
It's as basic as that.
I think creativity is problemsolving when you see somebody
that says I can't draw a stickfigure, I don't know how you do
it.
But then they are the same typeof person that could make a
beautiful dinner, you know,complicated indian food or

(35:59):
something like that.
They don't realize they'recreative, or they you know.
Creativity is really justalways outlined to everybody as
hands-on creative drawing,painting, painting that's
creative.
But creative is problem-solving, engineering, making dinners.
I think people who can clean ahouse creatively.

(36:19):
Yeah, you know, like I havepeople like the girl I'm dating.
She makes my bed it looks likea hotel room.
When I make my bed it lookslike I'm covering up a murder
scene.
We had a joke about thatyesterday.
But it's like I don'tunderstand the problem-solving
ritual that she goes through tomake the bed perfectly, versus
what I go through.
You know I could make a car.

(36:40):
She can't make a car, but shecan make a beautiful bed and you
know she could also read andwrite beautifully.
She writes, you know, endlesslyLike.
You know, like chat GPT, shecould write and I can't.
I write an email.
We've been going back and forthin emails.
I just go, cool, right, awesome, you know, all right.

We all have different abilities, yeah.

So I think so the reason I bring that up as an
example is most people say I'mnot creative, but they do other
things that I, so-calledcreative, could never, ever do.
But everybody would define meas the most creative because I
could do all these physical,visual, artistic things.

Because it's what we you know think of when
we think of creativity.

Yeah.
So I mean, like people say, youknow, a lot of people might
argue that a producer isn'tcreative.
You know, producer of a TV show.
But no, like, when you see theTV show that we did, it's funny.
Derek, who's one of the castmembers of the show, he said to
me when it began he'd never beenon TV.
He just goes.
What is the role of theproducer?
Like, what is the producer?
Because aren't we on camera?

(37:44):
Like, by the end of that showhe's like I 100% now understand
the creative input a producercould do.
You know, mike would tell usMike was the producer of the
show, michael O'Dare, and wewould do something.
Mike would go you know whatguys do it one more time, but
this time say this at the endand then when you see it in the
edit, you're like, oh my God,that lands so much more funny.
And so he problem solved thatthrough a creative process.

(38:06):
Process, he didn't build adinosaur, he didn't get up there
and paint and screw and cutwood.
He gave us a couple of ideas tosay something in a funny way or
move in a funny way, or handthis to him and then, when he's
done, hand it back over thereand then that gets a laugh.
So you know, and then, as faras the whole entire overall
reach overarching concept of theshow, mike thought of the of me

(38:28):
being grumpy and me takingpictures from kids about what
they should make and beinggrumpy and mean to them because
I don't like kids.
You know that was all mike'svision, yeah the show was so
well put together.

I just thought it was crafted brilliantly thank
you.

so it was by the.
You know, I just showed up anddid the best I could, but the
guys did a great job and theydid a great job with the edit.
The edit won an Emmy.

Wow.

Congratulations, yeah Well, congratulations to
them.

They did a good job yeah.
Why do you think creativity isimportant?

Well, creativity is important because it's what
the world innovates.
The world is innovating all thetime.
It's the reason why 20 yearsago we didn't have an iPhone,
and now the iPhone is a criticalpart of everyone's life.
It's the reason why thecomputer didn't exist, and now
it's.
How could we live without acomputer?
How could we live without GPS?
Like I didn't even know, howdid we get anywhere 25 years ago

(39:27):
?
I don't even understand it.

I don how do we get anywhere?

25 years ago.
I don't even understand it.
I don't even know I can go.
You just listen to dad'sdirections and try and write
them down.
It's like crazy.
Look for the red flag and makea left.
It's like crazy yeah, I'm lostwithout my gps creativity is
important because it makes theworld go around.
And then, but you might want tosay, why is art important?
Because art is importantbecause it expands people's
consciousness, it expandspeople's curiosity.

(39:49):
It expands, you know, like,there's mechanical jobs, like
guys that are creative in a waythat they could, you know, keep
a hospital clean or keep alibrary clean.
I believe those guys arecreative because some people are
really good at that, uh, butthey might not consider
themselves artists and so, youknow, people might say why is
art important when the worldgoes around all these other ways
?
If it wasn't for art, we wouldnwasn't for art, we wouldn't have
cool-looking objects, wewouldn't have cool innovation,

(40:12):
we wouldn't have pottery.
People say pottery, pottery wassuch an important part of
society 100 years ago, 200 yearsago.
Pottery was the beginning ofsaving seeds and developing
farming techniques.
And now pottery people thinkit's something you do at the
rehab to keep people busy, butpottery was such an important

(40:35):
part of the evolution ofhumanity.
There's so many little thingslike that.
So when you see it in anartistic ceremonial urn that has
decorations on it, you're like,oh, isn't that cute.
But they don't realize that wasa pivotal part of, like, that
culture's existence yeah, partof.

Well, I'm not sure if they're earned as part
of survival but what I meant tosay?

like, uh, like a pot, like a pot that, would you
know, carry seeds and stuff yeah, so I um, I also think, like
the emotional.

There's people who don't think of themselves as
creative.
I feel I forget who said it,but music is the emotional life
of most people, you know, causeI've encountered people in my
life who don't have any.
They're not able to look within, but when they listen to a song
, that's how they feel, like thesong connects them to what

(41:28):
they're feeling which isbeautiful.

Yeah, I, I listen .
I love music, all kinds ofmusic, and so many times in a
day it'll happen to me at leastonce a day where I'll hear a
song and it kind of pings meemotionally and I didn't bring a
tear to my eye, even though itmight be just like an
instrumental yeah.

Do you have any favorite artists in terms of
music or?

I like everybody.
You know it's I really do.
I can find some pretty goodreasons to like most bands, most
music.
There's a couple of indie bandsthat I listen to and I could
find, you know, like you getlike a tape from somebody like
what is this, am I gonna reallylisten to this?
And you're popping like, oh,wow, there's actually something
cool.
And then you say to your friend, do you know?
Know Stevie Stiletto and theSwitchblades, they're like who

(42:10):
I'm like?
Never mind, you know, likethings like you'll never.
But in general I like if I hadto live on a deserted island
with one musician, it wouldprobably be jazz, like Chet
Baker oh nice, coltrane and thatkind of music and Nick Cave.
So it would be Nick Cave,coltrane and Chet Baker.

(42:31):
Those would be my musical.

Your soundtrack.

That would be my soundtrack.

I love it.
What drives you as a maker?
You talked about this a littlebit.

Curiosity?
Well, there's a couple ofthings.
There's some practical thingsthat I have to keep my audience
intrigued and I have to keepmyself intrigued.
And curiosity, and trying tofind new interesting things to
do every day.
I keep peeling the onion alittle bit more and more and
more.
Sometimes I'm out of age now.
I'm repeating things, but I'mdoing things that I did before,

(43:06):
but I'm doing them differently.
I'm doing them with a bettereducation, having spent so many
seven or eight, nine years laterdoing it again and I could say
I did this this time, but nowI'm doing it differently because
I have so many more resourcesor so much more learning under
my belt.
So what keeps me going is justcuriosity and the need to just

(43:26):
really keep myself entertainedand keep the dollars coming in
honestly.
But more than anything, whatdrives me is not money, not fame
.
None of that is really just myown personal curiosity.
It's like I get an old machineand I'm like I wonder if I can
get that to work again.
Let me see what it takes to getthat to work again.

(43:47):
And that's really the otherquestion start Can I get that
started again?
The other day we got a year agoI bought a 1920s Johnson boat
motor.
It's a little tiny, it's allaluminum.
It looks like something thatwould be hanging in a museum.
It's beautiful.
Me and my sister, rob, rob rob,polished it up, so it's

(44:08):
beautifully aluminum and brass.
It's like gorgeous.
And we just got it running.
Whoa, it's like we literallylike resurrected a dead object,
like a dead person.
We like brought this personback to life.
It's crazy, because it was justlike a beat-up, dirty thing
that would look like it wouldnever be clean and, piece by
piece, rob cleaned it a littlebit at a time and then, boom,

(44:29):
beautiful what is that feelinglike?
it's great.
I was away in kansas city overthe weekend.
Rob sent me a picture of itrunning.
He's like watch this videotapestarting it.
It was great.
A big smile on my face I loveit.

Um, so do you think it's harder for people
today to be creative with thedistractions from technology?
Like, technology is a tool, butdo you think it can sometimes
take away from us being present?

Well, I think you know what you and I are
comparing.
I mean, I don't know how oldyou are, but if you might
remember a time before iPhoneswere prevalent, I think you know
.
You might be asking me becausewe're comparing it to when they
weren't around, but young peoplethey're in an environment now
where iPhones are there.
They can film themselvessinging.
When we were kids we had tosing in a bar Hope.

(45:18):
Somebody noticed us, we had torecord, we had to rent space in
a recording studio, like allthose hurdles, and we still were
creative.
Now somebody can literallypoint the phone at themselves,
sing a song and become a hitsinger overnight.
So I don't think creativity ishindered in any way.
I think, if anything, the railsare greased, but people who are

(45:42):
doing it don't realize how therails are greased.
So I think human creativity isgoing to find a way.
It doesn't matter what it takes.
So, like I said, back in the day, when there was a million
gatekeepers and a millionhurdles, we had to find a
recording studio.
We had to find someone.
They knew how to run the board.
We got to find two inch tapeand we got to this.
And we got to that, we got tothis, we got to I remember when
I was a teenager and I wasn't amusician but I had lots of
friends were and then when theygot the coveted four track

(46:03):
recorder, like the task cam theygot the TASCAM four-track
recorder and it was just likeyou don't understand the
possibilities.

Yeah.

And like then.
You know, even you know I grewup with some hip-hop guys too,
and like to them that was likethat's it.
We are on the road to successwith our TASCAM four-track
recorder A couple of microphones, a quiet room.
Now people can produce an Emmyaward-winning album on an Apple
and an iPhone.

(46:34):
But the people that are doingthat don't realize they still
have their own hurdles to gothrough, and it might be more.
You know, less often thangatekeepers.
Now it's more personal.
It's like dealing with that wasalways prevalent, but that

(46:54):
might be more prevalent nowbecause there's less hurdles but
there's more.
You know, people steppingoutside their comfort zone,
people inspiring them to stay inthe bucket of crabs, you know
that kind of thing, that'sreally true getting out of your
comfort zone yeah, I don'treally think that because I
don't know what.
I know.
I'm a generation x and there'smillennials and then I don't
know what's after that, butthere's two more after that.
But I think that group iswildly creative and we're only

(47:15):
seeing it on TikTok, Instagramand YouTube now.
I don't know where we used tosee it before.
I guess the TV set.

If you got there , if you were able to break
through.

Yeah, and now it's.
I was talking to somebody theother day, a young woman who's I
met when I was in Kansas city,and she's like what do you think
about getting on TV?
She's trying to promote youngwomen in technology.
She's like TV show, this TVshow that I say don't even
bother with the TV show, becausethe TV show is going to
basically encapsulate theseseveral up if you get there,
which is impossible but once youget there, they're going to

(47:45):
give you six episodes of thisboom, this thing.
They're going to air it andthen, if it doesn't go well,
they're going to bury it.
It'll never be seen again.

Wow.

If you slowly develop your own audience on
YouTube.
I have 700 episodes of myYouTube video.
Do you think any network TVwould ever have allowed me to
make 700 episodes of anything?

Wow, yeah and never.

I'm in total control.
Wow, yeah, and never control.
I'm in total control.
Every single day Someone's like, hey, what, how can I do?
And I'm like give me a minuteand I send them three links to
three things I've already donethat can help answer some
questions, get them on a path.
I said to this young lady I waslike if you just stop
developing content differentcategories, how to program an
Arduino, how to set up abreadboard test model, whatever

(48:32):
it is and she's an electronicsmajor like you solely begin a
library that's yours, and infive years from now, when
production companies don't knowwhat to do anymore because none
of them had a youtube channel,they're going to look to
youtubers and start licensingtheir content, and then you will
, you'll be ahead of the curve.
So I encourage I was like, eventhough it doesn't seem
successful, to like make a rinkydink YouTube video every once
in a while.
I was like you begin to startdeveloping a library of content

(48:56):
that will be more valuable toyou than any TV show in your
resume, in my opinion.

Yeah, I've been a friend of mine is like pushing
me to put the video of mypodcast online, because I've
just been doing audio so far,because I'm so like oh, but I
don't have like a cool fancystudio like these other
podcasters.
You know, it's just out of myroom.

But then you get to see what all of us
knuckleheads look like.
You know what our rooms looklike.

Yeah, that's true.

Are you recording all the videos as well?

I am recording video for everybody.

Oh, good, so you have it.
You have it if you need it.

Yeah.
That's good In the beginning Iwas figuring out, like I didn't
have my camera tilted the rightway, so, like every video, you
see the progression of like justtotal disaster to like getting
a little bit better.

But you know, in this day and age, and that goes
back to you know, are peoplemore or less creative?
I think what in the 80s and 90sright now.
It's the actual, it's the heartand soul of the content.
That's most important becauseyou could have an amazing like.
This is an example I listenedto.
Um, well, this is a bad examplebecause I listened yesterday.

(50:00):
I I liked the whitney cummingspodcast and she had on david
tell, who's a comedian I loveand I've actually met him a few
times and I was like, oh, davidtell, and then she patched in
somebody on like Zoom call, soit was the two of them together
in the studio and then somebodyon a Zoom call and it didn't
record well, so it was ahorrible piece of content.
So I said that's a bad examplebecause that's a negative of the

(50:23):
point I want to make.
But we're so forgiving ofcontent these days because it's
more about the content of thecontent and not necessarily the
presentation of the content.
So if you have some really goodinterviews, as long as the
audio is good, that's really themost important thing in any of
this.
If the audio is not good likethe Whitney Cummings was a bad

(50:43):
example of what I was saying Ifthe audio is not good, it might
not even be worth publishing.
If the video is not great, itdoesn't matter.
You could get a look and a feelof what's going on, and that's
cool.
You know, like people want toput a face to my voice if
they've never seen me or whoeverelse.
You interviewed Sam right,that's how I found you, because

(51:05):
did you interview him?

Oh yes.
I was going to say I didn'trealize you knew Sam, the
legendary Sam Jones.
I adore her so much, yeah, so.

Sam lives in my neighborhood and we made friends
this year.
In the beginning of at the endof last year we made friends at
her bagel shop.

Oh my gosh, I haven't been yet, but like she
just creates so many cool things, I mean with her commercials,
and then she's making thingswith her bagel shop, and she's
just, and then she's makingthings with her bagel shop.

And she's just, oh my gosh, she's so animated
when she talks.
She's like I'm a New Yorker.
I move my hands around, I'mtrying not to bang the table.
Yeah, she, you know.
So I think, even if the videocontent isn't high quality or
you're in your room, I don'tthink it matters.

Cool yeah, she was on the podcast and she was
hilarious.

I mean like If anything COVID brought us, it
was what is the inside of youknow, Seth from Live with Seth
Meyers house looks like, or whatis the inside of Trevor Noah's
house look like, you know.

That's true.

You know it doesn't matter, we're all just
humans that have like a weirdspace we live in.

And it's so true , and it's so true, and it's not
, it's not perfect.

Yeah, no-transcript.
Well, today I got up andtoday's the day my housekeeper's
here, so I kind of stick aroundwith her in case she needs help
.
But I'm kind of picking upafter my own self.
My brother lives here duringthe week because he's up here

(52:32):
utilizing my workshop, so hestays up here during the week
and since it's like really firstnice day of spring, I did some
backyard cleanup.
I had to go out and collect theeggs because I was away in
Kansas City.
So I collected the eggs in thechicken coop, I washed them off,
changed the nozzle on the hosebecause the old one was broken

(52:52):
from this frozen winter and, uh,cleaned the eggs off the back
deck, drying on the porch, fedthe cats, played around with the
cats, got rid of some garbagethat accumulated, went and
picked up a delivery.
I got a bathtub delivered to me, a cryo tub from a friend that
wants me to look at her cryo tubinvention and fix it up.
So that's why I had to goforklift off a cryo tub off of
an 18-wheeler truck 10 minutesbefore we started and then I

(53:14):
shot back over here and I kindof knew like I didn't want to
get too deep into anythingbecause I knew I had 2 o'clock
with you.
Typically I would get deep intosomething and completely forget
everything, and then I'd get acall from you at three o'clock.
You're like are you coming onthe podcast?
One thing I did tell you when Iagreed to do this is you just

(53:35):
have to remind me multiple timesbecause I'll forget.

I get it.
We get in the zone.

Yeah, but I got a new sewing machine so I played
with the sewing machine.
But after today I guess everytypical day is me just putting
some of my projects.
I have several projects thatare long-term, some projects
that are short-term.
So I have two long-termprojects.
I'm working on a boat that isactually a bar unit.
It's a mobile bar unit that isbuilt in an old boat.
It does not come off thetrailer, it's just you pull up

(54:03):
to an outdoor summer event andyou walk up to the boat and
order a beer.
And I'm building that.
It's already built but I'mrestoring it because it's got
quite, quite deteriorated overthe years.
It's about 10 years old, so Ijust give it a refresher
construction wise.
It was falling apart, so fixthat up, rebuilt the windshield,
repainted it and so that's kindof ready to be put outside, but
it still has some work to do.
And then the uh, my own boat.

(54:24):
I'm building a boat fromscratch, so that's another
long-term project.
That's a rowboat that's goingto actually go in the water and
I built that from recycledmaterial.
So that's a cool little rowboatthat I'm building and I might
make a set of oars that's in oneof my three videos I might make
.
So just gathering the materialfor that, my new sewing machine.
I played with my new sewingmachine today, just to
understand it a little bit.

(54:44):
I do a lot of playing withthings before I actually ever
really use them on camera, justto.
So I get comfortable with seehow they work and, you know, see
what's possible and so it's thebeginning of the week and I
might begin to start collectingfootage, maybe after we talk on
uh, this video idea that I'mgoing to do.
I I'm going to do a video ofbandsaw tips how to use the

(55:04):
bandsaw.

Oh, your instrument of origin.

Yeah, so if you happen to notice my Instagram,
lately I've been doing a lot oflittle bandsaw videos and so a
lot of people are askingquestions.
So it's like let me just answersome of those questions and so
that might be this week's videothat I was talking about.
That's the easiest one to make,so I that's a video where it's
like me talking to the camera,so I'll slowly collect.
I won't do it all in one shoot.

(55:31):
I'll slowly collect the video,because then I'll go look at the
footage and be like you knowwhat?
This is a good idea, but let medo it again in this angle or so
.
So I just slowly inch my waythrough the long-term projects
and the short-term projects andnow that it's so beautiful like
I sat in the chicken coop todayfor about 20 minutes checking
messages with the birds walkingaround me.

That's so nice that was fun yeah.
Oh my gosh, how do you spendyour free time?
I mean, does it?

Exactly the same way.

Yes.

Love it, love it.

And you're drawing inspiration from nature,
from music, strong inspirationfrom nature from music.

Anything in particular lately you know, I
went for a walk the other daywith my friend.
We went to Beacon.
There's an art museum in Beacon, new York, called Daya Beacon
and there's lots of beautifulcontemporary art there.
So you know it's contemporaryart from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s,
90s and current day.
So I went and looked at allthat some very well-known

(56:27):
artists, some new artists.
So it's good to go get someinspiration from that.
But I derive inspiration fromeverything all over the place.
A lot from nature because I'min the country, there's lots of
lots of countryscapes up hereand lots of driving.
I just bought this old housewith my business partner that
has a graveyard on it thathasn't been used since like
probably the 50s.
So like the last person of thelast, like the last person who

(56:49):
knew, the last person buriedthere is most likely dead.
So this graveyard has noconnection to anybody living or
or alive at this point that Iknow of there.
None of the graves seem to beupkept and there is no flowers
anywhere.
So that graveyard inspires me.
I was in there yesterdayYesterday was the first spring
day when I returned home from myflight and I walked in the

(57:12):
graveyard to show my brother hehadn't seen it yet.
So we were just walking andreading gravestones.
I was really relaxed, I reallyenjoyed that.

It's interesting .
I was listening to DollyParton's autobiography and she
likes, she loves graveyards.
Um, you know she'll go there towrite, to get inspiration for
songs and stuff.

Oh yeah, Well, it's fine.
Now I I a graveyard.
There's a graveyard on myproperty.
I don't technically, I alwaysjoke.
I say I just bought a county,but it's on the property, it's
on my property and I will bemaking sure that I upkeep it and
we, we uprighted two or threestones yesterday, oh but we'll.
I'll do that much more in depth.
The this the graveyard looksjust like a haunted house

(57:55):
graveyard you'd see indisneyland.
In fact, I brought a friend toshow it and he goes is this a
real graveyard?
Like?
Of course it is.
Why, would you think?
Because it looks like a fakehaunted house graveyard, like
made out of plastic stones,because it's so cliche.

Wow, I'm getting a picture in my head of what it
could look like.

Let me see my phone, I'll show you one.
But yeah, no, it's a beautifulplace and that inspires me just
to sit and look, and it's new tome.
I know I'm going to really getinto it, I'm going to really
start to really enjoy it.
So this is the house, and thehouse is is seen across the
street.
Yeah, whoa, oh, that's crazy ohthe stones are broken A lot of

(58:40):
them are broken, a lot of them.
All those stories Like yeah,who are these people?
Who were they you?
You know this one particulargrave, which it kind of looks
like a mess in the picture.
It says died at 78 in the yearof 1790.

Wow, yeah, amazing so long ago yeah like
this isn't like 1900, something,that's, these are really old.

Yeah, yeah, amazing.

Crazy.

Yeah.

So now I want to get more into your projects.
We talked a little bit aboutmaking fun.
How did it come about?

Making fun started in.
We started shooting in April of21.
We shot the episodes April of2021 to July of 2021.
But the germ of the idea camewhen a production assistant or a
talent scout for a productioncompany named Intuitive
Entertainment found a picture ofme in the cast online and she

(59:46):
reached out to paul and now thiswas in the beginning of 2018.
She found a picture of usonline and said you guys
interested in making a tv show?
She found paul's address andwrote to him and he's like no,
we don't want, we're all onyoutube, we don't need tv.
And she's like well, let mespeak to each one of them.
Maybe you know, you know, maybemaybe I could talk you guys
into something.
She was very nice.

(01:00:07):
She was like pushy, but in agood way, and so we she ended up
reaching out to each one of usand we were all very kind of
like nah, tv is such a pain inthe ass.
And so she put together, shetalked us into it, to at least
doing a pitch, and so it took solong they did a sizzle reel

(01:00:27):
based on our interviews that wedid and you know some of our
existing footage, and that gotinterest of discovery channel.
So then, in the fall of 2019,we shot a physical reel while we
were all together, pertainingto the pitch concept of the show
, which would have been about usmaking things for fans ah, okay
so we would have made like.
People would have wrote in it'slike you know, whatever you wish
, we'll make it.
And then we made that and thenDiscovery passed on it.

(01:00:48):
Once they saw the footage theydidn't like the idea, or at
least something about it wasn'tfor them, but they showed it to
Netflix, that same reel andNetflix was like I love this
show, we love these guys.
Let's take on this concept andfigure out what to do with these
guys.
We don't necessarily love thisidea, but we love this, this
group of guys and uh, we werejust about to shoot in the uh,
going into the into, say, likeoctober of 20.

(01:01:12):
But then covert complicationswould become more restrictive
for shooting shows and stuff andwe were going to shoot this
idea where we make things forfans.
They were like they went withit.
But then I got a call from thatcurrent producer at the time
and he said we're going to putthe show on hold until the
spring of 2021.

(01:01:32):
And we all like, yeah, it'slike every hurdle in the million
there's a million hurdles it'snot going to happen.
And so then we started gettingcalls around february of 2021.
It's like, okay, we want to putthe show together.
We put a new guy on the shownamed Mike.
Mike's going to come back toyou guys and interview each one
of you and he's going to come upwith a new idea for the show.
And it was for discovery.
I mean, it was for Netflix, andMike came up with the show

(01:01:54):
where we do shark tank for kids,and then he talked to each one
of us individually into doing it, cause we didn't want to do it
it oh, wow, yeah, you know, it'sjust the idea got even better,
like I just think it's such aunique concept and, like kids
are so creative, they don't haveany barriers on them.

Jennifer Logue (01:02:11):
Yet society hasn't gotten to them yet as
much as adults.

Jimmy DiResta (01:02:15):
Yeah, and so that's and that's really that's
how it happened.
Mike pushed the concept andthen you know the whole, while
we didn't know what it was goingto look like, ultimately, we
did have fun shooting it.
We knew there was going to besome special moments, but we
still hadn't seen the edit.
We didn't know what it wasgoing to look like.
Ultimately, we did have funshooting it.
We knew there was going to besome special moments, but we
still hadn't seen the edit.
We didn't know what thetransitions were going to look
like and obviously it turned outokay.
It's becoming, even thoughwe're not making any more.
It's sort of like a cult.

(01:02:35):
It's like a cult.
It's got a cult following.

Yeah.

It put a smile phase.
I was watching it.
So, um, it's just, it'sdifferent and it's refreshing.
A funny thing is is derek and Iand mostly derek and I spend a
lot of time together and pauland pat spend their time
together.
Graz is a little bit of a of anoutlier.
He kind of spends time with hiswife because we all live in the
northeast.
We don't necessarily near eachother, but we make special time
to be together and this weekendwe're all going to be together.
So it's's going to be funny.
But a couple of weeks ago Derekand I were in Atlanta for a show

(01:03:07):
having to do with YouTube.
We were at a thing calledWorkbenchCon and we were walking
up and down this esplanade inAtlanta and a couple of kids
recognized us Like you're theguys from that show where you
act like an idiot.
But it was funny because wedress exactly the same as we do
on the show, like we just we'rejust who we are and, especially
since Carhartt gave us all theclothes for free, we just all we

(01:03:28):
wear is the same clothes thatwe wore on the show oh my gosh.
And we look the same and actthe same.
So when we see kids out in thestreet.
They recognize us.
We always have a laugh withthem.

Because you're just being you.
Just being us yeah, now, thiswasn't your first foray into
television.
I mean, you've been doing TVsince, like the early 2000s.

Yeah, in fact, my first television show was in
the summer of 2003.
We shot a show called Trash toCash that aired in September of
03.
So this is my 20th anniversaryon TV right now.
Wow, yeah, we did sevenepisodes of Trash to Cash was
the name of that show on FXnetwork.
And then a few years later wegot we sold that show based on a
video that I made.

(01:04:06):
My brother and I made thatvideo together of us doing
garbage picking and making funstuff.
And then a few years later, wemade a show that was kind of
more like a cooking show, but wewere making things not food,
but we were making.
So we'd be like today we'regoing to make a park bench and
this is how we make a park bench.
But all the while, hilarityensues and problem solving makes
things funny and and we shotour own episode and that episode

(01:04:29):
got picked up by hgtv.
There was no youtube or anythingat the time.
We shot it and we were going totry and figure out how to put
it up somewhere to publish it.
We didn't know where.
But we had a meeting with hgtvand, like you, got anything
interesting and we sent themthat and they loved.
It took a year but weeventually sold the show in 2005
and we got that on the air in2006 and seven.

(01:04:50):
We did 28 episodes of that show.
They changed the name.
It was called making it withjohn and jimmy.
They changed the name of it tohammered okay and then I got a
relationship developed with diynetwork because it was hgtv and
DIY Network was the same company.
And then I did a show for DIYNetwork, because it was called
Against the Grain, with JimmyDiResta in 2009.

(01:05:11):
And then in 2010,.
Well, in between we were alwaysshooting ideas, so we had
several ideas in the hopper andone of them was a show called
Lord of the Fleas, where we findgarbage and we fix it and sell
it at the flea market.

And that's on my .

YouTube channel now you can go back and look it
up.
It's way back.
And so Lord of the Fleas becameDirty Money and we shot that
show in 2010 and aired in 2000,I think, yes, we shot it in 2011
and it aired on DiscoveryChannel in 2011.
And then the show was doingwell in the ratings, but all the

(01:05:46):
executives that were on ourteam got fired or laid off, and
so the new executives had nointerest in doing anything that
the old team was working on.
So, even though our show wasdoing well in the ratings, they
didn't pick it up again, andthen I started doing YouTube in
2011.
Awesome, and when you first gotin front of the camera like was

(01:06:12):
there an adjustment period foryou, or were you a natural right
away?
By the time I was in front ofthe camera for the first time,
it was in 2003,.
I had been teaching art collegefor 10 years at that point to
art students, to 20-year-olds.
I started in like 92, 93teaching art college, so by that
point I was so used to justtalking about what I do, how I
do it and ways of doing things.
I was teaching art collegeevery Friday for three hours

(01:06:34):
from 93 to 2017 when I movedupstate full-time, so I have
hundreds of students passthrough my class and plenty of
time to hone my ability topublic speak.
I'm not great at it, but I'mnot shy about it.

Cool, that's brilliant.
And did you ever think you'regoing to do TV, or is it just
kind of?

No, it's really just like it happened.
Here's a funny story.
My brother got on TV in the 90s.
He ended up doing selling a TVshow and he was on a sitcom.
He was being a sitcom oh wow,he was being a goofball and he
was a comedian police officercomedian.
Everybody said to me at the timeI was young and single and
living alone in Manhattan andeverybody's like are you going
to follow your brother toHollywood, are you going to

(01:07:17):
follow John to Hollywood?
And when people rhetoricallyask me the question, I would
answer it honestly.
It's like I would only do oncamera stuff if I could just be
myself.
I wouldn't want to.
I wouldn't want to be acharacter Like my brother plays
these characters.
I said I would only ever wantto be myself and I didn't think
that I would ever be myselfinstructing.

(01:07:39):
I didn't know why I thought Iwould ever be myself at the time
.
I would ever be myself at thetime.
I would just be like I wouldonly ever do Hollywood stuff.
If I was ever just able to bemyself, I guess I might've just
thought I would be on some kindof reality show, but I didn't
know what and I never pursued ituntil my brother came up with
this idea and he was out therebecause he was in the thick of
pitching shows and I was justbeginning to make videos.

(01:08:01):
So the very first show, thetrash to cash show I went out
there and I shot a sizzle reelof the show, the concept reel.
I wasn't in it, I just shot itand produced it and then we
brought it to through John'sagent.
We brought it to Fox, a Foxaffiliate programming production
company.
It's called like FoxIndependent or Fox.
It was like it was called FoxIndependent or something like

(01:08:22):
that.
Fox Alternative was the namename of it.
It was a production companyowned by fox tv and the guy
loved it.
And then in that meeting he saidto me he goes why don't we do
this thing?
Is you guys, you, you, what doyou want to be on the show?
I was like I just want to be abehind the scenes art director,
producer.
He goes well, you makeeverything right.
I go, yeah, that's what I dofor a living, because I had the
toy business resume.
He said why don't you just makestuff on camera?

(01:08:45):
Why don't you just be the host?
Because you're better at justbeing yourself, being silly and
stupid, and you could just dostuff together.
You could make stuff, butmostly you do the hosting duties
and you do the building duties.
What do you think of that?
And right there, where I was,never thought I would ever be on
TV for any reason this producerput us on TV together as a duo.

Came together.

Just like that.
And he goes let's shoot anepisode and see if it goes.
If it doesn't work, it doesn'twork.
If it works, it works, he goes.
So let's shoot a pilot.
We shot that pilot in in likeApril of 2003.
And by July we were shootingthe whole season.

Wow, I love that organic journey.
It's cool to see how thingsunfold.

I really never like I never walked into that
meeting, ever planning on beingon TV.
I love it and I left booked onTV.

I love it and there's so many people out there
who have that as their goal,you know, and it doesn't work
out for a lot of people.

It's a difficult one.
It's a tough industry, a lot ofpeople.
It's a difficult, it's adifficult one.

It's a tough industry and it's, I guess,
following that spark.
When you follow that uniquespark for you, it'll take you
places you don't expect.

Yeah, yeah, and I say nowadays talk about the
gatekeepers of days gone by.
When I see a creative writer ora creative actor or comedian
that's not actively producingcontent for Instagram, YouTube

(01:10:14):
or anything like that, they'rejust waiting to be discovered.
They're going to never bediscovered Because they don't
discover people.
No one gets discovered bysomebody being funny online at
the bank anymore.
You get discovered because youhave a silly video that goes
viral.
That's how Sam got picked up.
Sam was a lot of that successof putting stuff on YouTube and

(01:10:35):
being discovered by people.
I think she's talented andgiving her a shot.

She's awesome, oh my gosh.

I think it's important.
I see people kind of stuck inthe old way of being like I'm
super funny, but I don't knowhow to use a camera.

Like you, better learn yeah, if you want to
compete, you better learn andthey don't jump into that beyond
the comfort zone.
They stay stuck where they arebecause this is where we are as
a society.
This is how you got to dothings um, and you got to be
disciplined about it.
Do you have any projects youwant to talk about that are
upcoming?

Well, we have the Graveyard House.
There might be a TV show aboutthat.
It's just so early right now.
I just had a few interviewsrecorded, interviews to put
together a sizzle reel and wehaven't even shot a walkthrough
of the house yet.
But that's going to be next andthere might be a potential TV
show pitch about the graveyardhouse.
In the meantime I'm going tostill work on it anyway for my

(01:11:34):
YouTube channel.
And there's another TV showwhich I sworn to secrecy, but
it's another funny, silly show,lighthearted show kind of like
that would take place onpeople's farms, so it would
involve animals.
It's a fun, stupid show thatsomebody else thought of and
they asked me to be the host.

Love it.

So that's a pitch .
I don't know where it's goingto go and in the meantime, I'm
buying an antique car.
I'm buying a 1947 car.
I'm going to restore thatComing up soon.
I'm buying this.
Well, I bought this house.
I'm going to finish my boat,take my boat on the water.
Hopefully in the next two weeksThat'll be with that little old
school motor Perfect timing.

(01:12:06):
Yeah, exactly.
So beyond that, I don't know,the house and the old car are
going to keep me really busy.

Cool, and do you have any advice for creatives,
you know, starting out in theirjourney?
Maybe they want to take thatleap of faith, the next step,
but they feel a little stuck intheir comfort zone.

Yeah Well, I always tell people don't share
your ideas with small-mindedpeople.
Only share your ideas withpeople that you know will
respect your ideas.
Don't share your ideas withwhoever that could be.
Sometimes you share your ideaswith your closest person to you
and they shoot them down.
Sometimes it's better off tojust do what you want and then

(01:12:47):
show them later.
Say you want to see what I did,and then they go.
I never knew you were sotalented.
But if you ask them, hey, youknow what I want to do.
I want to record a song.
They'd be like you don't sing,what are you talking about?
And that might throw you offyour game.
Throw you off your game.
So ask for forgiveness, don'task for permission.

Love that Awesome.
And what's next for youProfessionally, personally?

I don't know really, Honestly, it's just, I
just keep my eyes and ears openand just find cool things to
experiment, restore, fix up.
I have a barn in the backyard,a horse barn.
I want to finish my horse barn.
It's half built and so that'sfun.
I'm going to do someblacksmithing on all the
hardware for that.
Every day, it just unfoldsslowly.

It's like just playtime.

It's always playtime.
It's always playtime.

I love it.
For more on Jimmy DiResta,visit JimmyDiRestacom.
Thank you so much for tuninginto this episode of Creative
Space.
Jimmy DiResta's story is a truetestament to the power of
curiosity and creativity.
I hope you found theconversation as inspiring as I
did.
One of my favorite takeawaysfrom this episode is Jimmy's

(01:13:57):
perspective on staying in astate of play.
As he said on the podcast.
I've been accused of being abig child and, honestly, that's
something I'm aiming for.
Staying in a perpetual state ofplay is what keeps life
interesting and keeps thecreativity flowing and, wow,

(01:14:18):
that's such a powerful reminderfor all of us.
Anyway, I'd love to know whatresonated with you.
You can do that by reaching outon social media at Jennifer
Logue.
Also, if you don't mind, pleaseleave a review for Creative
Space on Apple Podcasts orwherever you get your podcasts.
Your support means everythingand it really helps other people

(01:14:40):
discover Creative Space.
Anyway, that's all I have forthis episode.
My name is Jennifer Logue,thank you.

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.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Cold Case Files: Miami

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Jimmy DiResta On the Power of Play and Stepping Out of Comfort Zones

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