May 21, 2026 • 59 mins
What if the conversation you weren't supposed to have was the only one worth having?
David Deighton, artist and founder of Triptych Dialogue, walks into national parks and asks strangers three political questions. Sometimes they cry. Sometimes they say the worst things he's ever heard.
He listens, then asks for one word that ties it all together, and takes that word to someone else: what does freedom taste like? What does corruption taste like?
We get into the 14th-century triptych at the V&A that started it all, a plexiglass box at the Grand Canyon that quietly exposes people's echo chambers, French snail-catching, South Street cheesesteaks, and a 40-minute friendship with a DMV guy named Fred.
David's coming to Philly this fall to install free speech pieces around the Liberty Bell, and we're plotting a Dalessandro's run.
Want to be a guest on Drink O'Clock? Send us a message on PodMatch here: podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/drinkoclock
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SPEAKER_04 (00:36):
And we are live, baby.
Let's go.
I guess we kind of didn't haveany tech issues, which has been
like a thing for me over thepast like month.
Uh it's this company purchasedthe company I that I've been
using, which is this, andthey're trying to force us to
use something else.
And I don't know, man.
It's a bunch of fucking politicsand it's a pain in the ass.
(00:57):
But this is the Drink Glockpodcast.
I'm your host, Rob Valencius,and I have the absolute pleasure
of having with me David Dayton.
Is that did I say that correct?
SPEAKER_00 (01:06):
My wife calls me, that's her last name.
I call myself Dayton.
There you go.
Perfect.
That's her last name.
I use her last name.
SPEAKER_01 (01:14):
Okay.
Okay, cool.
Well, what's uh what's her lastname?
Her name is, well, she saidDayton.
I say Dayton.
Dayton.
SPEAKER_04 (01:23):
Now, uh, David, you're the artist and founder of
triptych dialogue, man.
Welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00 (01:29):
Thank you.
It's a pleasure to be here.
And somebody that can pronouncetriptych.
You know, I've I have peoplethat go triptish, tripty,
triptych.
SPEAKER_02 (01:39):
I mean, you gotta sound it out, you know?
SPEAKER_04 (01:43):
Yeah, you gotta sound it out a little bit.
It's it's uh it's a it's areally cool way.
I like I love it.
It's like your your your styleis fucking great, man.
So I'm I'm happy to have you onthe show.
But uh look, let's let's startfrom the beginning here before
we really kind of dig into thework that you're doing and
everything that's going on withtriptych.
Um talk to me about growing up,man.
Where'd you grow up?
What was your life like?
(02:03):
What what kind of got you likeI'm a I'm a creative myself, and
I know uh when you're talkingcreatives, we all kind of have
our own things.
And and what got you into youknow the world of the code.
SPEAKER_00 (02:14):
Well, you're a creative, you're doing a
podcast.
Are you doing more than that?
SPEAKER_04 (02:18):
Well, I do everything for the podcast.
So I design the YouTubethumbnails, I do all, I do all I
design the website.
Uh there's it's it's a one-manshow over here.
So that's art.
SPEAKER_00 (02:31):
And it brings people together, you got a public,
there's all the creation aspect.
To me, I put that definitely inthe art category.
SPEAKER_04 (02:38):
With AI, it's it's it's helped.
Um, you know, with at least interms of uh helping me with
ideas for what the hell I'mgonna do, because you might
think of an idea that AI kind ofgives you a tan, and you're
like, oh, I kind of like that.
And then you, you know, me theway I think, I roll with my
thoughts on that one specificidea, and I try not to overabuse
(02:59):
the AI aspect because it makesit ingenuine, you know?
SPEAKER_00 (03:02):
It's good to bring it up, put it out there in the
open.
I like that.
SPEAKER_04 (03:06):
Because sometimes when you when you're a creative,
you you think like you have uh,and maybe this is just me having
ADHD.
I don't know.
I have I'll have a millionthoughts about things, and then
you know, if I use the AI, it'llhelp me kind of hone in exactly
on on what I want to go for.
And then I'm like, all right, Ican do it, you know.
SPEAKER_00 (03:24):
I kind of get it.
And there's like some book thatjust came out or something.
I want to know what it's about.
I'll put it through, see if Iwant to know more about it or
not.
SPEAKER_04 (03:32):
Yeah, yeah.
Hey, uh it you know, it's goodwith crunch and numbers and all
that other shit.
And uh, I've had it, you know,you could create some really
good spreadsheets for you.
SPEAKER_00 (03:42):
And sometimes just tell you an outright lie to say
it with a straight face.
It's pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_04 (03:48):
It's it is sad.
That and sometimes the numbersaren't correct either, and you
gotta kind of like no that oneplus one is not five, bro.
That's not how this works, youknow.
SPEAKER_00 (03:56):
With a straight face.
That's amazing.
Uh yeah, so about myself.
Uh um, okay, I was born in theUS, I was raised in France.
Um, I've been always between thetwo countries.
I'm a product of both, uh, ofEurope and and uh and the US.
Um, and and there must becultural stuff I miss on both
sides.
(04:17):
Like, you know, uh at a super uhSuper Bowl game, I'm kind of
lost to what's going on.
And uh there, you know, and Ionly go back to France one or
twice uh twice a year, so Imight be missing some cultural
things there.
Um so uh yeah, um and uh justbeing a gallery uh owner, um
(04:37):
dealt with uh antiquarian uh oldlike 500-year-old manuscripts
and old engravings and drawingsall the way to modern art and
abstract uh contemporary stuff,in which I'd put my own artwork
in there, artwork on paper.
And um for about uh close to 10years now, uh been doing
(04:58):
different art projects uh thatare not with a gallery, which
are you know fighting uh fordemocratic values, getting
people to talk to one another onsensitive subjects uh like
politics without punching eachother and uh art installations
and tons of stuff.
I don't know.
I'm making a website right now,and it's amazing how many
(05:21):
projects I got going on.
It's nuts.
It's like, oh, I gotta have likeI have 12 boxes of 12 different
things going on.
SPEAKER_04 (05:28):
Yeah, I mean, hey, look, you're you're when making
your own website is tough, man,because you're trying to figure
out it's like your firstimpression of of yourself to
whoever's you know online,right?
And it's messed up.
Yeah, yeah.
And it's like you want it tocapture people don't have
(05:49):
attention spans anymore, right?
So you you gotta you gotta haveit, yeah.
You gotta have it so it capturesthat person's attention enough
to want to look for more.
And that is the hardest part isgetting people to stay and and
find out more about you and whatyou're doing.
SPEAKER_00 (06:04):
That's really good.
I'm gonna put dick pics on mine.
SPEAKER_04 (06:07):
Hey man, if you got it from it, that's what I say.
SPEAKER_00 (06:12):
That should do it right there.
SPEAKER_04 (06:14):
I mean, if it's if it's mine, I'm not I'm people
are gonna be gone in like lessthan a second.
So it's not mine's real long.
SPEAKER_00 (06:21):
You'd have a special crew, you'd have a special crew.
SPEAKER_04 (06:24):
I'm like, these same three people keep coming back to
my website.
I don't know why.
Now triptych.
Triptych means um somethingthat's gonna have traditionally
has three panels, right?
Um which I didn't I didn't knowwhat it was until I Googled it
uh, you know, before meeting youhere.
But you know, in in spite ofthat, why triptych dialogue?
(06:48):
And in in fact, are you know,are you bringing three elements
together when when you're doingall of this artwork?
SPEAKER_00 (06:55):
Yeah, yeah, but it you know, it's it's a lot more
basic than that.
It's turned into like three thepanels talking to one another in
a sense.
But I was um several years ago,I'm at a museum in London at the
Victoria and Albert Museum.
It's got a lot of cool stuff.
Uh, and uh, and I'm with mydaughter.
She's I don't know, she's likefive or something.
Uh and uh boom, there's this,there's this, there's a
(07:18):
triptych.
It's a religious panel from uhfrom the 13th century.
This one is from the 14thcentury, and and it has all
this, it's like a comic, youknow, it has all these different
uh imagery of hell and um and uhand uh and of heaven, and uh it
has a real story going for it.
However, half of the panels weremissing and they've been worn
(07:39):
away with time.
You know, it's not like thecenterpiece of the museum, it's
really worn out.
It's like, wow, that's amazing.
That's a lot of the narrativesand stories of our lives.
You know, we we have what wepresent, and then there's uh
what we hide, and uh, andactually everything of our
subconsciousness is not eventhere that can be filled in
anyway that we're not evenconscious of.
(08:00):
And um and that applies a lot inour conversations as well.
All that dynamic of those threethings are happening.
So it's like, well, that that'sit.
There's this like dialoguebetween the three panels, yeah.
And that's very much whathappens in our own everyday
lives.
Um, and I wanted to bring thattype of element to what happens
in a conversation with astranger, right?
(08:21):
Some of you just spontaneouslymeet.
Um, and uh then how do you deallike, okay, religion?
Don't you know we're notsupposed to talk in the US about
politics or religion with peoplethat we may disagree with,
right?
With strangers.
So I'm like, okay, let's dothat.
Let's let's let's talk aboutpolitics.
I'm gonna and where do I dothat?
You know, where do I do that?
So uh, you know, that all thatthat came together uh really in
(08:44):
front of that one piece, like inEpiphany when you go, aha, wow,
that's it.
You know, that happened there,that happened there.
I was just looking at some ofthose pictures uh the other day
for for the website I'm makingand like wow, that was looking,
that's what that's what I waslooking at.
That's what really got me goingfor all these uh the last uh
these last six years actually onthis one particular project.
Uh started from one from seeingthat particular piece of
(09:07):
artwork.
SPEAKER_04 (09:08):
It's that's cool when it comes, like when you
really think about it from ahuman perspective, right?
And and art, it can really fuckyou up.
Like one second you're lookingat it, the next second your
brain's like, you know.
SPEAKER_00 (09:22):
And sometimes you don't know why.
And you're thinking, oh, it's infront of a religious panel, too.
It's like, oh, this is divineintervention.
You know, where what's going onhere?
Yeah.
So that's what happened.
SPEAKER_04 (09:34):
So so France has got to be loaded with amazing art
and architecture, and just I'mobsessed with that old school.
I I um I when I was in college,one of my favorite classes was
um my Western European class.
And that's where and you justlearned a lot about, you know,
(09:56):
the the art, uh, the blackplague and and all of the the
the Renaissance and and all thatstuff.
And I was fascinated with justall like just the sheer culture
change that we had, you know,going from the dark ages into
Renaissance and and just thereally the creation of of a lot
of that amazing artwork.
SPEAKER_00 (10:18):
Yeah, sure.
I mean, I don't you know there'sall that going on, but there's
tons of stuff going on here.
Like I take it like every likeyou're you're making a podcast,
that's art, right?
To me.
Actually, to me, everything isis art.
Uh there there's no distinctionbetween politics and art and
everything that we do withintention, that's art.
(10:40):
Um and it's the it's it's theexpression of of intention in
all these different means.
Uh so uh when I'm so I see arteverywhere here in the US too,
but underneath the lens, uh themy personal lens of looking at
it.
But yeah, the history on theother hand, I gotta look in a
different dimension.
I I live in the Southwest, uh,and uh there's there's to me,
(11:03):
there's tons of of uh history ofNative Americans.
I see the pot shards, uh thecliff dwellings, uh the the
religious complex uh in ChacoHistorical Park with standing
buildings, 400 rooms, uh, youknow, several stories high,
freestanding, all this stuff.
And uh, you know, there's this,but it's it's it's kind of like
(11:25):
in a sense, in it's it's brokenin Anglo culture, like with uh,
you know, like, oh, that'sthat's native culture.
But it's not.
I live in New Mexico and it'sit's not separate.
It's very much permanent uhpermeates everything here.
You know, there's no there's noseparation.
It's it has and that to me isEuropean in a sense.
(11:46):
It has different cultures withdifferent um different
perspectives of things, a littlebit in conflict historically,
that are living side by side.
Uh and it happens to me moreliving here in New Mexico than,
for example, uh living in in aplace that has uh that's car
dominated with uh a lot ofsubdivisions and everything, and
(12:06):
people live behind walls, likeof a of their subdivision or
inside of their car, um in inbarrios versus uh you know
whatever.
Uh everything's uh there'sthere's more division.
And I find Europe has more of auh the the cultural mesh is more
interwoven with uh with all theuh with the people from lots of
(12:30):
different European uh countries,uh the new arrivals of migrants
that are living there, um, themusic, uh everything.
It's like living in a big city,but everywhere, even in the
countryside, you know?
And um I do like that.
I'll be going back in a fewweeks and I'll get back in that
part of me, you know.
SPEAKER_04 (12:50):
Yeah, and the the the crazy thing that I heard,
and and maybe you can attest tothis, is uh the food because
they've outlawed so many thingsover there that the food is you
could you could eat whatever youwant out there and you you don't
get you wouldn't gain the sameamount of weight than you would
here.
If if I heard I had some peoplethat that they told me that they
(13:11):
were out there for you knowthree, four weeks, they thought
they were gonna come home andand they gain 10 pounds because
they were eating pasta andbreads and stuff, and they lost
five pounds.
I'm like, how the hell did thathappen?
SPEAKER_00 (13:21):
You know, because they were walking, man.
That's it.
Yeah.
I know I'll be walking all overthe place.
I'm gonna go to I'll be going,there's a big art show every two
years in Venice with thisBiennale, it's full of like uh
abstract uh contemporary art.
And um, it's like the biggestshow on earth like this, and
it's all over Venice, and uh ithappens every two years.
(13:41):
And uh, well, there, you know,there's no cars, so I'm gonna be
walking tons, but I'm gonna eat,eat, eat well, and yeah, sure.
I don't have to worry about it,but here I'll be eating
tortillas in the US.
Yeah, here I'm in Philly.
Wherever I'm going.
SPEAKER_04 (13:56):
I'm in Philly, so I'm gonna be eating
cheesesteaks.
SPEAKER_00 (13:59):
Oh, there we go.
That's it.
SPEAKER_04 (14:00):
Our food's not gonna be, yeah, our food here is gonna
clog some arteries, you know.
Um my my boss was just out therefor a work trip.
I don't, I think she was in Ithink she was actually in Italy,
but she was she was in, youknow, she was in Europe.
I forget where exactly she was.
And uh she was saying, she'slike, I ate whatever I wanted
out there, and she's like, Ididn't feel bad at all.
(14:24):
Like if I would have eaten thatyou know, bowl of pasta here, I
would have been destroyed.
She's like, it was just atotally different um you know,
feel.
And I'm like, man, like youwonder because you see a lot of
Europeans and they're they'renot obese like we are over here,
and it's like that it's becausea lot of that shit is outlawed,
man.
That that the red five and 40and all that other stuff that's
(14:47):
like you know, just not healthyand not good for you.
And uh that doesn't make you fatthough, but yeah.
Yeah, just it's just giving youcancer.
You know, it's like it's like doyou want to be obese and get
diabetes, or do you want to befine and but you get cancer?
I mean, it's like or or both.
I don't know.
SPEAKER_00 (15:03):
You're but they're all that by smoking a cigarette,
you know.
True.
And then we got yeah, you know,maybe we'll die for something
else.
I mean, France is uh, you know,we got uh all of our power from
from nuclear uh from nuclearpower.
So one of those blows, we'll alldie together.
SPEAKER_04 (15:18):
I you know what, man, and that's um you know part
of the reason why I like doingthis podcast is because you get
so you I've interviewed peopleall over the world, so I get to
talk about just differentcultures that I don't really I'm
not familiar with.
Like you hear about it and yousee stuff on the news, but like
you know, I've interviewedpeople from Japan and the UK and
uh I don't know, I think Iinterviewed somebody from China,
(15:41):
and like you get to really kindof just get a feel for the whole
world's view of things and notjust this American view.
And there's nothing wrong withthat, but I like to be outside
the the box of thinking becauseif you're in stuck in this box,
then all we're gonna be talkingabout is you know, in this
world, it's it's you know, it'sall about division and politics
(16:02):
and how those two interplay witheach other.
And it's like we're all thesame, you know, we're all human.
So and uh the the cool thingwith art too is that everything
that you see is subjective.
So when you play into the humanside of it, I could look at a
piece, especially if it'sabstract, you could look at the
same piece, and we both have twototally different views about
what it is or what it does.
(16:22):
And that might be a totallydifferent view from from the
person that created the art, youknow.
Like, no, you're both wrong, butthat's cool.
SPEAKER_00 (16:31):
Oh, dude, you're totally hit onto the the the
echo chamber or point of viewthat that is totally my shtick.
I I really get into that.
You know, it's like grew up inone country and and be in the
other, those are like two echochambers.
I'm always interested, likewhere those things, two echo
chambers, where do they theyintersect?
(16:51):
Like, you know, your yourworldview and my worldview,
right?
Right now we're in a space,right?
Uh having this conversation.
We're finding like where thatintersection takes place.
What are the things that we havemaybe in common, but through the
filter of our own personalexperience, right?
Of how we've experienced theworld, but we're gonna find some
commonalities.
You're in Philly, you're inPhilly.
(17:12):
I've been to Philly, I haven'thad uh one of those uh chili
steak, uh, what do you callthem?
Uh chili Philly steaks in it.
SPEAKER_01 (17:17):
Yeah, yeah, chili steaks.
Yeah.
I look at them, I'm like, Idon't know.
SPEAKER_04 (17:21):
Oh, they're delicious.
But you gotta you gotta avoidthe Taurus traps.
You gotta go to a good place,like a hole in the good place,
yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (17:29):
Yeah, right.
Yeah, yeah, I'll do that.
I'll be going.
I'll be there.
I'm gonna be there in uh uhSeptember, October for a couple
of months.
And I will definitely,definitely have one then.
SPEAKER_01 (17:39):
You you you hit me up, man.
We'll take you out to a goodspot.
Okay, that's it.
That's what I wanted to hear.
Now we're intersecting.
This is the intersection.
SPEAKER_04 (17:47):
That's what we're here for, baby.
To to you know, to to uh clogsome arteries.
SPEAKER_00 (17:53):
I'll be walking afterwards, though.
SPEAKER_04 (17:56):
Dude, you know, you get a South Street they created,
uh they called it the the PhillyPizza and uh it's or the Philly
taco, I'm sorry.
And someone took a uh a uh Ithink it's Steve's.
There's a there's a place calledSteve's on South Street.
South Street's kind of like thespot you'd go, uh, and they just
have a ton of bars.
They have a ton of, I mean, it'sPhilly's version of, you know,
(18:17):
kind of uh it's not center city,so you're not like in the city
city.
Um but you're walking around,there's like a comic book shop,
there's bars, and um, you know,I think uh one of the bars was
like a place that Ben Franklinowned, and and like it's it's
kind of wild, but you're downthere and and that's where
everyone's you know walking upand down, and there's shops,
there's little shops, there'sstores, and uh, you know, uh
(18:40):
there's a place, there's acheesesteak place called
Steve's, and uh, there's a um apizza place, and I forget which
pizza place it is, but they'regiant, just regular cheese
slices of pizza.
SPEAKER_00 (18:48):
And so we call it a free one now that you mentioned
it on the I know, right?
SPEAKER_04 (18:52):
Yeah, but listen if you guys listen to this, hook us
up.
Um but they took a giant pieceof pizza and they put a
cheesesteak in it and theywrapped the slice of pizza
around the the cheesesteak.
And I'm like, well, one, that'sgenius.
That might be art, probably is.
Uh, but two, oh my god, you'reprobably eating 5,000 calories
(19:14):
in one shot.
So uh but that's that's that'sSouth Street, that's Philly,
man.
SPEAKER_00 (19:20):
Oh man.
Okay, yeah, that's the one.
That's the one.
But I'm coming with my Ziplocbag.
It's not gonna be good the nextday.
Or is it?
unknown (19:27):
No.
SPEAKER_04 (19:28):
Oh, you could definitely eat up a cheesesteak.
You could definitely heat up acheesesteak for sure.
SPEAKER_00 (19:32):
You can heat up anything, but I mean, is it any
good the next day?
SPEAKER_04 (19:35):
It's not the same because you know you got the
grease break, isn't it?
The grease and the cheese aregreat when they're melty.
When they're hard.
Yeah.
That's so hard.
Yeah, it's it's when you reheat,it's not the same because the
bread is super fresh and thenyou reheat, it's so you come out
of a bar, right?
SPEAKER_00 (19:53):
It's been you know, you had quite a few drinks and
stuff.
You go have uh you go have a yougo have uh one of these, and
then uh, you know, it's cold,it's the winter, and it starts
get what what happens?
I mean, uh, do you do you do youfinish it or what's it what what
happens?
I mean, do you toss it on theside of the road or do you do
you hand it to a homelessperson, or what do you do?
SPEAKER_04 (20:13):
A lot of times we're not leaving the aesthetic.
Like if I'm gonna get acheesesteak, I'm eating it in
the cheesesteak place.
So like uh like Steve's hasthat.
SPEAKER_00 (20:20):
Is that messy?
SPEAKER_04 (20:21):
A second floor.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (20:23):
Yeah, yeah.
It's not like you go, you youdon't take it with you.
SPEAKER_04 (20:26):
A slice of pizza, like like one of the Lorenzo's
slice of pizza, which isginormous, you're good.
You can walk around with that.
That's an easy, that's an easyeat.
And yeah, if it gets cold, Imean cold pizza's great.
But a cheesesteak, you got topretty much eat it there because
they're they're they're huge andthey're messy.
Dang.
Depend on how you get it.
You know, depend on how you getit too.
SPEAKER_00 (20:46):
I mean, uh you know, when this is like uh eating
eating snails, you know.
I'm acting like this is likeeating frog legs, which I have
no problem eating.
But this one I'm like, oh shit,I really, you know.
Like when Americans go toFrance, like, I don't know if I
eat those, those, uh, you know,I'll have one, I'll have one
snail, right?
SPEAKER_04 (21:08):
Oh, it's huge, yeah.
And I've had escargot.
I had it, I did it um and andlook, I'm not I looked at it, I
was on a uh cruise.
I looked at it and I'm like on acruise?
SPEAKER_01 (21:18):
That's dangerous.
SPEAKER_04 (21:19):
I was like, I don't know if I want to eat that.
That looks a little weird, butthen it was in some like butter
garlic sauce, and it actuallywas pretty fucking good.
SPEAKER_00 (21:28):
Yeah, it's the butter and the garlic.
That's what my daughter says.
She likes the butter and thegarlic, dip the bread in it.
I I had a I had a neighbor inthe south of France.
He had um we had a ditch behinduh behind the house.
You know, it's kind of a naturalenvironment, it's not like tons
of products and chemicals downin this ditch.
It was just an old ditch todrain drain the fields.
And he'd go over there and he'dpick up snails, right?
(21:51):
Pick up tons of snails.
And then afterwards you gottalet them uh you leave them
several days so that they canshit out all their goo and stuff
and kind of.
Cleanse, you know, you gottastarve them a little bit.
And then you put some salt onthem and then they froth up,
right?
They froth up, and there's allthis, there's just you know, it
it just it's just like a bubblebath, right?
(22:13):
In the bucket.
And then you gotta take them outand then and then he cooks them.
SPEAKER_01 (22:18):
Interesting.
So what's it taste like?
Well, it tastes like butter andgarlic, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_04 (22:29):
I don't know if I can catch snails uh like and and
then and then cook them, man.
I don't know if I can do it.
But then again, I'm from thecity, so I'm not I'm not
catching and cooking anythingthat I'm fucking doing.
SPEAKER_00 (22:41):
Which is kind of, you know, the the weird I'm
gonna say this now, but what wasweird is that you know the uh
the effluent from our the fromthe septic tanks would go into
that ditch, actually.
So there was quite a there'squite a bit of animal life
growing in there, and there werethe snails too.
So there was a little bit ofthat extra taste in it.
Yeah.
unknown (23:00):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (23:01):
Interesting.
The septic system worked sobadly that there were tomato
plants that were growing back inthere only because you'd eat
tomatoes and the seeds gothrough your system and they get
through the septic tank thatwasn't working too well, and
then it'd be like this overflowgoing into the ditch, and then
you'd have tomato plants.
Wow.
That's that's actually kind offunny.
That's kind of funny though.
(23:22):
That's funny, it's gross.
And when you think about eatingthe snails from that ditch,
yeah, everybody's gonna rememberthat one.
SPEAKER_04 (23:28):
Yeah, like someone someone shit out some tomato
seeds and and literally createdit their own plant and they have
no idea.
SPEAKER_00 (23:36):
Yeah, right.
Where do these tomato plantscome from?
Yeah, it's all about providence,no, knowing where your food
comes from.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (23:44):
Well, you know what?
I I wish we had more of that.
Um, I think some of the smallercompanies, they they do, they've
done a better job of that.
But you know, here in the US,they just throw that, oh, it's
organic on it, or they throwlike the buzzwords, grass-fed.
And a lot of people don'trealize that that they're just
(24:04):
like labels.
Like grass-fed, a lot of timesit just means that the the cows
were just standing there andthey were like literally pouring
grass on them and they theyweren't able to move.
They're not like uh, you know,pasture-raised cows, you know,
where they got to move aroundand and live somewhat of a life
before they were butchered, youknow.
And this is coming from someonethat loves meat.
(24:25):
I fucking love meat, I'll nevernot eat meat, you know.
Uh but those labels are a lot ofit here anyway, it's bullshit.
SPEAKER_00 (24:32):
People don't realize it.
Well, they're not totallybullshit.
I mean, it's just not maybe whatyou expect it to be, but it
still follows that category,right?
It better be.
True.
It better be.
SPEAKER_04 (24:42):
I mean, like they're eating grass, it's just they're
fucking not going anywhere.
SPEAKER_00 (24:47):
They're not in that beautiful field the way you
imagine them, right?
Eating the pasture.
Yeah.
But I I live out out here in thewoods.
They're they're they're chewingup the national forest, you
know, in the first couple ofyears before they go to the
grazing lots uh and uh to thefeedlots.
You know, they're the calves areout there having a having a
great couple of first yearsuntil they get rounded up and
brought over, get fattened outinto a feedlot, stinky as hell,
(25:11):
a mile down the road, and uh andthen off to go to the
supermarket, you know, afterbeing slaughtered and cut up and
everything.
But I mean, yeah, I I like toknow where my food's coming
from.
It's pretty important.
I it's really important uh in inEurope, though.
Uh we get to know for a greatpart where the food comes from.
And some of it doesn't evenleave the county because it
(25:31):
can't even pass the healthregulations.
You know, uh one of my favoritegoat cheese I've ever ate uh
couldn't couldn't was notallowed to leave the county.
The guy would sell it from theback of his car.
It was full of flies.
The thing that looked like itwould move, it had little
maggots and stuff, but you wouldyou would shave off the top, you
know, and all the sides, and uhget the maggots out, and then
(25:53):
you would eat the they wouldn'tcut to the core, but damn, that
was the best goat cheese I'veever had.
So what is goat cheese?
Like we eat goat.
SPEAKER_04 (26:02):
I've I've had goat cheese, but what is it made
from?
Like what is it?
Yeah, but is it so it's justgoat milk?
SPEAKER_00 (26:09):
It's just goat milk.
And there's you there's there'sewe milk as well, like for the
for the sheep and stuff.
I mean, it's pretty cool becauseyou know, when you go hiking out
the in the mountains and stuff,uh the you know, the shepherds
are bringing up their flocks uhand and going up in in the
mountains, and you're going andand and then by August, they're
way up at the top of themountains with their with their
(26:29):
flocks.
And uh, and then then there's afestival when they come back
down, back to be back in thevillage, and uh they bring back
uh uh all uh all their theirflocks back down, and uh it's a
bit of a celebration, whichincludes wine and cheese and
bread and whatever products.
SPEAKER_04 (26:48):
Best things for a party, man.
So yeah, it's pretty special.
So so you spent years as an artdealer.
Um you know, yeah, 17 years.
And you build a successfulbusiness.
What was the moment or maybe therealization for you that kind of
pulled you towards using yourart as or using art in general
(27:10):
as a as a healing tool ratherthan just for commerce?
SPEAKER_00 (27:15):
Oh, well, that was after having a commerce, I would
say.
Yeah.
Uh I mean, just the creation ofmy own art and being able to,
you know, to sell it, uh, thatthat's healing in itself, uh,
you know, for me as a person,you know, it um and and it feels
it feels good.
And when you have this form ofvalidation uh when people are
(27:37):
are buying uh your artwork.
Um and uh that that's healing.
Um if there was any wounds, Imean, often it's just pouring
out the wound onto the paper.
It's always seen, you know, it'sthere.
It's the you know, I'm doingabstract uh abstract pieces, so
uh they're they're kind ofinstantaneous pieces coming out
(27:58):
with all my emotions.
They're not they're not verystudied.
Um, so it's kind of all outthere on the paper.
Um, so I don't know if it was itwas healing, the the that part,
um, the money was.
The money was, but also the theappreciation people would have
for it.
Interestingly enough, my wifewas also an artist, so she'd
(28:19):
have her pieces in there.
And uh we had two differentartist names, so people didn't
know we were the artists, youknow, um, because people have uh
this illusion or vision thatthey want to maintain of the
they see a piece of art and theyimagine an artist.
And if they saw me, they'd youknow, some I I did that a few
times, they'd see me and go, oh,oh, that's too bad.
(28:41):
You know, they didn't imagine mebeing that person.
You know, half the time theywere happy, half they weren't.
And 100% of the time they'd beif they didn't know who the
artist was, they could justimagine whoever they wanted it
to be.
But my my wife would also uhpaint and she'd have her pieces
in it at the end of each show.
We do uh shows, you know, artshows.
And uh we could tally who soldthe most, right?
(29:02):
Was it her or is it me?
We had a little competition, andit was healing when I won.
Yeah, always is, yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (29:09):
And so the aftermath.
SPEAKER_00 (29:12):
But most of the time I lost in these little
competitions.
But today, what I'm doing now,when I when you pull out the the
money aspect of it, and you justyou don't care about um uh who
the client, if you want, there'sno more client.
And so they're they become uhparticipants in the artwork,
(29:33):
right?
It's the public, it's justsomebody else.
You're engaging with otherpeople often without them
knowing, they're creating thepiece of art together, right?
Kind of like I'm coming on yourart show right here, like a
podcast, and now we'reparticipating and we're creating
something together.
Um, and um that right there,that's that is 100% healing and
(29:53):
transformative when it uh whenyou remove the uh uh fiduciary
money aspect of it.
Uh and uh it's not one of uhpride or ego, it's it's more of
just uh exploration, uhexperimentation, um, and uh
touching deep within yourselfand touching you know deep
inside of others as well, uh andseeing seeing what happens, uh,
(30:17):
the microexpressions in people'sfaces and your yeah, yeah,
that's profound for me.
And uh yeah, that's pretty cool.
So the thousands of encountersI've had over the last six years
uh have really made the artworkthat I'm making now, which is uh
uh should I go for it?
Should I you have to talk alittle bit about it, right?
(30:39):
It's yeah about talking tostrangers about politics in in
national in national parks, infree speech areas, right?
Doing that this this thisproject where you're doing the
thing you're not supposed to do,just to talk to a stranger about
politics, to ask them politicalquestions, and then just listen
(31:02):
to them and give them the spaceto just express what they have
to say.
And then maybe that person criesbecause they haven't had anybody
that listen to them on such asensitive, sensitive issue, and
and it comes out, or at othertimes you hear just the most
racist thing you've ever heard,and and then you're trying not
to and you're not trying to gettriggered.
(31:23):
Yeah, and you're just okay, I'mgonna listen and and then I'm
gonna tell the person that Idisagree with everything they
said, but there you said theywere angry, and I get to also
tell them, you know what, I'mangry too.
Maybe I'm angry now because ofwhat you said.
But I can create bridges andshow people that they can create
bridges with uh with the other,especially in these times where
(31:45):
things are super polarized,finding ways for us to to bridge
the political divide, not infact or opinion, but on an
emotional level to show ourhumanity.
And um, yeah, so we don't shooteach other.
SPEAKER_04 (31:58):
Yeah.
I mean, look, that's the wholethat's the whole point of this
of why I created this podcastwas to be able to have
conversations with people andand make this podcast a safe
space.
Now, if someone comes on hereand you know is is blatantly a
racist, yeah, I'm that's that'sthat's an issue.
But I mean, being able todisagree with somebody or have a
(32:19):
disagreement, but um be able totalk about it with each other
like this.
And you know, I've haddefinitely had disagreements
with people on the show.
Um, and we talked through it orwe we uh had things that we
shared that we really enjoy, andthen I end up talking to them
about that for 45 minutes.
So I've had polar oppositethings happen, but I think it's
(32:41):
important to be able to have ahealthy discussion with
somebody, whether you agree ornot, because I come from a time
and you know, maybe you do too,where you know, we could kind of
discuss things with each otherand we have total polar opposite
things that we believed in, butwe could come into the middle
and be like, all right, well, Iunderstand what you're saying.
Do you understand what I'msaying?
Yeah, absolutely.
All right, boom.
And you can walk away from thatand just and not be angry at
(33:04):
somebody just because they havea different view than you do.
SPEAKER_00 (33:07):
Yeah, yeah, but we do less of that, don't we?
I mean, we're a lot a lot on ourdigital devices, you know, we're
getting uh, well, I was gonnasay entertained, but really
we're we're distracted, right?
Uh we spend more time beingdistracted uh than we are uh
connected to to the other,especially to people that have
different points of view thanthan our own.
(33:29):
Um and uh I see that more andmore and more.
Um and uh but I do see, I saymore and more and more, I do see
uh uh uh younger, uh the youngercrowd uh kind of pushing back,
like I'm gonna, you know, I'mgonna take my phone, I'm gonna,
at night, I'm just gonna go in abox and I'm not gonna open it up
and I'm not gonna doom scroll.
(33:49):
And I'm uh, you know what, I'mgonna read a book instead of
doing movies on Netflix.
Uh and uh what they probablyhaven't seen yet, are they going
out to talk to people withdifferent views?
Like uh, I don't know, ifsomebody got a MAGA hat and I'm
and they don't agree with MAGA,they don't go over and and go
talk to that person.
Whereas I think that's a greatopportunity.
I was like, oh, that guy's got aMAG hat, let's go talk.
(34:10):
Or I'm in a national park and uhthere's a whole group of
Mennonites uh coming to visitthe Grand Canyon.
It's like, oh let me go talk tothem, right?
Not that I'm in opposite, well,I have different points of view
than theirs.
And I and I want to show uh uhthat let's let's have a little
talk.
Not only because it's notbecause it's distracting or
entertaining, but to to makethat connection.
(34:31):
You know, that's my podcast.
It's it's uh in vivo, live,offline.
Yours is is uh is is is is kindof like in between, right?
It's it's offline because herewe are face to face in in a
sense, but we're still usingtechnology to do so.
Uh I just use my technology.
SPEAKER_03 (34:50):
You can edit it, shit.
Yeah, you can't edit yours.
SPEAKER_00 (34:53):
There's no editing mine.
Mine, there's no editing.
I use technology, I drive to getthere.
Yeah, no, there, yeah, I can'tedit any of that.
Nope.
SPEAKER_04 (35:03):
I interviewed a guy, um, I interviewed a guy named
Nicholas Atkins is maybe uh, youknow, a couple weeks ago, and uh
he had a a uh charity that hestarted that I thought was very
unique.
It was uh Pink Sox.
SPEAKER_00 (35:17):
Oh yeah, I heard that episode.
Yeah, tell me more about it.
SPEAKER_04 (35:20):
Yeah, yeah.
So it was pretty wild.
He uh they they wanted to he sohe uh he wears kilts and uh a
friend of his uh talked him intowearing a kilt and he said the
moment he tried it on, he saidhe would never wear parents ever
again.
So when you're when you'rewearing a kilt, he decided he
(35:41):
wanted to have fun socks becauseyeah, other than that, you're
not gonna have black just whitesocks, right?
So he would buy these crazysocks, and that's what he would
wear.
And uh people would always askhim about it.
So uh they were trying to uhraise comp uh money for this for
a company they were starting,and they went to like this
biggest healthcare uh conferenceto talk to people, and they
(36:03):
decided to uh make a bunch ofpink socks um with mustaches on
them, and they were handing themout to people, and when people
are um, you know, they were alsowearing them.
So when people would ask them,they'd say, Oh, here, here's a
pair.
And they're like, Well, whywould you hear?
And it would start aconversation.
So they you create a charity andit's it's a around the pink
(36:23):
socks, and uh it's a mustacheand a puzzle piece um as well on
it.
So what what they would do isthe the whole thing is, and I
think it's from Burning Man,because he went to Burning Man
for like 10 years, and withBurning Man, um there is no
currency.
The currency is kind of you andwhat you have on you, and like
(36:43):
you don't pay money for thingswhen you're there.
And uh they had these rules thatwere like basic human rights
rules, like don't be a dick,like is one of the rules.
And so he kind of took that andhe took the pink socks, and now
he carries pink socks with himand where you know he also wears
them.
And it would start aconversation where they would
(37:03):
go, Hey, well, what are thosesocks?
Those are pretty cool socks.
And he said that you know, hewould start saying, Well, hey,
you know, how are you today?
What's your name?
My name's Nick.
And it would start thisconversation, goes here, here's
a pair of socks, these are foryou, and I'm also gonna give you
another pair.
And I want you to take thispair.
And if someone sees you withthese pink socks on, pass it on.
(37:25):
And he started a charity though,and I thought it was so unique
and cool because um I think alot of us have gone away from
starting conversations withrandom people and building uh
just rapport with other humans.
You know, we're so used to doomscrolling or texting on our
phones.
I mean, a lot of us, myselfmajorly included, would rather
(37:46):
text than be on the phonesometimes.
And uh, you know, that's not howwe're uh wired as humans, right?
SPEAKER_00 (37:54):
But that that's I think you that's a really
important point.
It's the what I call a gimmickor it's the tool, right?
It's the excuse to have to toinvite the other to communicate,
right?
So how do you do that with astranger, right?
So he has the socks, right?
Uh I have threenon-confrontational political
questions, right?
Uh I also sometimes use a mic,right?
(38:16):
I might not even be on.
It's the excuse, like, okay,we're having a relationship.
We know that in a mic it's goingto be an interview.
It's also like the table setbetween two people in a
conversation.
It creates a certain uh areaspace and the space of uh
security, right?
And well, how do we communicatewith uh with somebody that a
stranger without a pretext?
(38:38):
Now, where if we're at a bar,it's a person next to us, we
have, you know, there's athere's there's a cultural
framework where we can talk tothe person next to us because
that's the space where you dothat, right?
Hopefully it still is, right?
But uh, you know, where arethese spaces, right?
Now in Philly, you might havequite a few because it might
happen in the line where you'regonna go get um a slice of pizza
(39:00):
or something, right?
But if uh the tourists are inline to go to the museum or
something, uh in line, whyaren't they talking to the
neighbor beyond uh the weatheror uh what you know, just the
chit-chat?
I mean, something profound,right?
If we have the opportunity tohave the conversation, I kind of
object to the fact that justhaving chit-chat.
(39:21):
You know, it's a limited amountof time.
Why don't we do something moreprofound, something more to the
meaning of our very existence,right?
To use that, that to elevate, toelevate the conversation to
another level, right?
Here's a the socks are aboutcreating uh community and uh
it's about uh compassion forothers.
It's uh it's about love and allthis stuff, right?
(39:44):
Uh when you're talking about theweather, uh yeah, sure.
Uh maybe you're creating alittle bit a feel-good moment.
It's a little bit too rosy forme.
I like the grittiness in thefood, right?
I'd want to have a little bitmore taste than the blandness of
what comes out of thesupermarket, right?
I want something that has moretaste in it.
And the conversations that havemore taste in it.
(40:05):
Now, I'm not saying that theyshould be like the the snails,
uh, you know, to know exactlywhere they're from.
But but it is good to know.
And so that's what I'm talkingabout is the flavor of things.
Um, I think this is the way Isee it.
And we should use all oursenses, right?
When we're having conversations,we we use the auditory and the
(40:27):
visual.
That's it.
You know, but how about touch?
Now, I'm not out to askingpeople go touch one another.
But you know, I was last coupleof years, I've been going to
hike uh in the winter.
I go up to North Africa and gohike in Morocco.
And uh, you know, the guys,we're like, hey, uh, we're we
hold hands.
Like that's something you do.
There's much more physical intalk.
(40:48):
We might not, we might belooking out at the the scenery
without talking to one anotherbecause they're I go in this
area in the pre-Sahara in themountains before the Sahara, and
we don't understand each other.
But, you know, we'll hold eachother's hand and we'll look out
to the view and and chill out,and and we're we're together,
we're having a conversation,right?
That that's tactile, you know.
(41:09):
Uh also people talk to eachother a lot uh closer, so the
smell is important.
You can smell what they ate,right?
They're having this proximity.
Uh, there's a study of proximitycalled proxemics.
Uh in America, and it's aboutthis the distance, the cultural
distance that people havebetween one another when they
feel comfortable oruncomfortable.
(41:30):
And uh, for example, in NorthAfrica, people are they're
comfortable with being close toone another.
And in the US, uh it's thedistance is much, much further.
You know, it's like three feetaway, you know.
And if you go to Australia, itcould be up to five feet.
That's the comfort zone.
You walk into that space, youturn into personal space, you
know, when you say personalspace, so that's important in
(41:53):
communication, right?
And it was the smell, right?
And also uh, you know, taste aswell.
And and I and I use and I use uhtaste in in uh uh as an
important tool as well, but moreof an abstract one where um I
ask people, you know, I I talkto all these people, I ask them
the same three questions all thetime.
(42:16):
And uh after the threequestions, uh I ask them to give
me one word that brings it alltogether.
That's the hardest one, youknow, one word brings it all
together.
And they might say, you know,remind you, I'm talking politics
or whatever.
So they'll they'll tell they'llsay the word is corruption, uh,
the word is cohesion, the wordis hope, or whatever it is.
And I take those words and I askother people, another group of
(42:39):
people, to tell me what uh takethe same words, these hundreds
of words that I've accumulatedover the years, and one after
another chronologically, I haveother people that I meet tell me
what that word that I come upwith from that list.
So let's say it's cohesion.
What does cohesion taste like?
What is freedom taste like?
(43:00):
Uh some people the word is shitshow.
So I say, well, what what doesthat taste like?
And that disruption, right, uhis is a way that we could also
uh use for uh an abstract wayalso in communication for
getting straight to somethingquite deep.
Uh if you start then peoplemight think you're crazy, but if
(43:22):
you get them in the right place,in the right space, uh and you
use that, you get straight intothis zone, this artistic, almost
philosophical zone where you'regetting deep into things.
I invite everybody there to trythat out.
If they got, you know, ifsomebody says something awkward
and then you ask, just say,Well, what does that that word
(43:44):
taste like?
And you're gonna get somewheregoing, you'll be like, What?
That's a human what what do youmean?
And then from there, you're sureyou're gonna go somewhere deep.
Right away.
SPEAKER_04 (43:54):
Yeah, that's a unique way of of looking at it.
Uh when I was interviewing Nick,he said something that was along
those.
Lines in that what when he walksup to someone or a stranger that
he's never talked to beforeinstead of saying it's nice to
meet you, he says, or he saidyou you should try to say
something like it's nice to seeyou.
Whereas and a lot of people,because a lot of people feel
(44:15):
unseen.
And it's it's just a becausewhen you say uh it's nice to
meet you, that's what everyonesays, right?
But when you say it's nice tosee you, um it it almost unlocks
something in in people that uhotherwise wouldn't be unlocked,
you know, by by just saying thenormal greeting or whatever.
Um but it's it's cool to thinklike think about that, right?
(44:36):
It's just all these differentways we communicate, but there's
just ways you can communicateoutside the box.
Yeah, and I think that's that'simportant.
I mean, look, I I talk uh thewifey's behind the green screen
back here, so she's probablygonna laugh at me, but um I'm a
talker and I like to probablytalk way too much and meet new
(44:58):
people.
It's it's uh it's you know, it'ssometimes it's at the detriment
of of my time.
Uh I was at the DMV last weekbecause in Pennsylvania they
were, you know, they requiredyou all to get a real ID here.
And I don't know if it wasnational or whatever.
I think maybe it was a selectnumber of states, whatever the
fuck it was.
I I changed my uh I did it somethings and I'm like, all right,
fuck it.
(45:18):
I'll just go finally do it.
So I went in, I went in.
You think of the DMV, you thinkyou're gonna be sitting there
for a while, right?
So go up, give the guy my stuff,and he's like, All right, sit
down, I'll call your number.
I was sitting there for likefive, six minutes, and I got
called up, and I'm like, ohshit, this gotta be a quick
trip.
Sit down and uh, you know, Idon't know if he's gonna find
(45:39):
this or listen to it at somepoint, but uh I sat down in
front of Fred, who's who's anolder DMV guy.
He was a little curt in thebeginning, right?
He was like, you know, becausehe's probably used to people who
just sit down, give him, givehim his stuff and bounce, and or
they're or they're a dick tohim.
And uh look, I worked retail fora long time in my life, not now,
but I am I try to be nice toeverybody because I know what it
(46:02):
was like when you're talkingdown to when people treat you
like shit.
So I try not to do that whereverwhen whenever I'm out.
And uh so before I leave, so soI'm talking to Fred, and and
remind you, there's a room fullof people.
Now the room's even more packed.
I probably talked to Fred for 40minutes.
SPEAKER_00 (46:20):
Get out of here.
SPEAKER_04 (46:21):
And I know everything about Fred.
I know about his grandparents, Iknow about his
great-grandparents that that uhwere were fighting Nazis.
I know about his brother-in-lawand his sister-in-law and his
sister and his brothers and andnieces and nephews.
I know that he's gonna retire intwo months.
I know all of that shit.
And I just let him talk.
(46:42):
I one thing I for me, it's justa uh sometimes people just need
to talk.
So I just let him talk, man.
You know, and I interjected acouple times, but I let him just
talk and he just kept going.
And I'm like, all right, youknow, I I should probably get
back to work at some point.
Um, and then eventually that itdied down, and I was like, hey
man, you know, congrats onretiring on your terms.
(47:04):
Not everybody gets to do that,and have fun in retirement, man.
Crack a beer, you know, we werelaughing, and I was like, You
have a great day.
And then I had to go get mypicture taken, which I I was
like, oh great, so that's gonnaadd time, but it wasn't too bad.
Uh, but I laughed because howmany people would do that?
You know, you finally get yougo, you run through a DMV,
you're quick, and then littledid I know I was gonna meet this
(47:25):
guy and have know all about hislife in 40 minutes, you know.
But I think more people didthat.
SPEAKER_00 (47:29):
You were there, you were you listened for you
listen.
Yeah, and I think I think ifyou're not gonna do that.
Unless he does that everyfreaking day.
SPEAKER_04 (47:36):
I hope he does it.
I don't know if he's retiringbecause he's not the most
productive DMV worker.
I don't know.
Uh, if you're listening to this,Fred, you'll have to let me
know.
But um, I I just um I think ifmore people did that, uh, you'd
also probably understand whatother people are going through
because some people just maybelike that.
Was my initial impression was hehe looked miserable.
(47:58):
And then I walk away and I'mlike his best friend, you know?
So maybe more people just talkto Fred a little more.
SPEAKER_00 (48:04):
I vacillate with that.
Some people look for just uh anear so they can just go on and
on and on about whatever.
I don't I like to ask questions,so at least it could be stay on
a subject I might be interestedin, or I might, you know, be
part a participant in theconversation.
Some people just have somethingthat they just need to say and
(48:24):
just go on and on and on and on,and you don't want to hear it.
That I find profoundly annoying.
I gotta tell you.
Yeah.
But I do hear what you did thereis that act of kindness.
And also because it was fun, andyou know, hey, what you know,
what the heck was it was if itwas a good story, then yeah,
that's worth listening to.
SPEAKER_04 (48:41):
Oh, dude, he was telling me about how his
ancestors were like, you know,in they were in Europe and they
were uh like rounding up Nazisand fucking killing Nazis, and
then they ended up getting umrounded up and they they put him
in a firing line and they gotkilled.
And yeah, I was like, holy shit,man.
Well, that's a pretty full cut.
I loved shit about like WorldWar II and all the craziness.
(49:03):
And you know, I was I'm justlike, what are the odds I would
know all of this about Fred atthe DMV?
You know, uh shout out to Fred.
SPEAKER_03 (49:12):
Oh man.
SPEAKER_00 (49:14):
But I like how you I like how you presented it.
I it did touch a little bit of anerve like a trigger for me when
it comes to conversations wherepeople just go on and on and on.
But this wasn't the case, sothat's cool.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (49:26):
Um now, you know, I know we're we're hitting that
point here, but tell me realquick and and tell my listeners,
because they might not know, youknow, what is uh what is
abstract art?
And you know, um obviouslyabstract art can be a lot of
things.
Uh in your point of view, whatis it?
And you know, what does itunlock in people?
(49:49):
Um, you know, because it's arepresentational style of art,
um, right?
Like it you're kind ofpresenting an idea that's might
be different in in because whenyou think of art, right?
Most people think of a paintingon the wall.
SPEAKER_00 (50:02):
Yeah, yeah, sure.
Well, uh, you know, when we'retalking about um the uh the
taste of a word, that'sabstract.
It's as simple as that.
So you can extrapolate that typeof association.
It's not just making any one uhany type of association, but
that that that's abstract initself.
(50:24):
So that applies to to sculpture,to poetry, to to performance
pieces, to theater, uh to alldifferent to all different
kinds.
Uh to me, uh abstract is is likea is a is a doorway that you
don't necessarily see, but hasuh like an epiphany that comes
(50:45):
with it where you have arealization with the experience
of the piece that takes yousomewhere else very quickly, not
into a landscape or anythinglike that, but takes you into a
thought, into an area, space ofyour mind where you weren't
before or that you forgot.
(51:06):
And uh they're the mechanisms,abstract art are the mechanisms
that take you there.
SPEAKER_04 (51:11):
Do you have a uh a favorite thing, a favorite piece
that you've done?
SPEAKER_00 (51:17):
Um yeah, so uh there's one I uh I really that
that was it was really cool.
I'm on the Grand Canyon, on theGrand Canyon Rim.
Uh the park very kindly got methis amphitheater for a couple
hundred people overlooking thenot that it was full, but it was
overlooking the canyon rimthere.
Uh um and um I brought a uh abox uh on a museum stand, a
(51:44):
glass, plexiglass box, just likeyou see in a museum on a on a
black stand.
And inside of that box I put asculpture.
I had lots of different thingsto put in it.
Just any old thing would havedone.
And people came up and wonderedwhat the heck this thing was,
and um and I'd come down from uhfrom the steps from the seating.
(52:08):
They didn't know I was theartist, you know, I could hear
what they had to say.
Hey, uh, you know, what do youthink that is?
And they'd say, I have nofucking clue.
I said, Well, you know, I said,well that that there, that's
that's that's that piece ofartwork in there is a
representation of me, it's arepresentation of you, it's a
representation of somebody.
(52:28):
And I'm not too concerned aboutthat.
My piece is the glass casethat's around it, right?
And this is abstract, right?
It's the glass, it's the glasspiece around me.
Like, what?
What do you mean the glass piecearound?
It's like that's plexiglassactually, so it doesn't break
and shatter and all this stuff.
Yeah, and uh and it's like,yeah, that right there is that
(52:48):
represents to me like ourworldview, the echo chamber that
you were talking about earlier.
That's what it represents.
And my question is if you're inin there, if you're that statue
inside, if I'm that statueinside, I I'm looking out.
I think my worldview is soexpansive that it's actually
quite limited, right?
(53:09):
By the box.
It's much smaller than I thinkit is.
And in my hand, I have a littlespice jar, a glass spice jar,
and I have a little statue init.
I say, look at this one, this isan even smaller echo chamber.
And I and I ask them, so howdoes this one that I'm holding
in my hand enter the one in thebox?
(53:33):
The one in the museum case herewith it.
How does that how do you howdoes it get in?
Or should it?
And then you can see people go,oh, should I what?
I have an echo chamber, I have apoint of view, I uh what what
there's I have a worldview, andit's smaller, all these things
happen in a very short amount oftime.
So a door opens, not every timefor sure, but for a lot of
(53:56):
people it's like immediatelythat entrance takes place, and
now we're thinking about echochambers, points of view, the
intersection of those two pointsof view, like you and I did
today.
Like where's that insertintersection take place?
That that was uh that was a verypowerful uh moment with uh a lot
of people that never would havebeen exposed, probably by this
(54:20):
type of art, that got to seethat and have an experience, and
we had very deep conversationsjust right there on the spot.
Uh, within just a matter ofseconds.
We were in a deep area, notlooking at each other's eyes, we
were looking off in the distanceand sharing deep, deep, deep
aspects of themselves to me andback and forth.
(54:42):
Uh and uh that that that thatconnection is is worth a lot to
me.
That's better than all thepaintings I've ever sold.
SPEAKER_04 (54:52):
That is actually really, really good.
Um, I love that con that's likea such a good conversational
piece.
Um let's end on this.
Yeah.
Um I I think uh I think this isthis would be important if I
didn't uh ask you about this.
So you've had thousands of theseencounters, right?
You dealt with thousands ofpeople.
Um what have you come to believeabout human beings that you
(55:17):
didn't believe before youstarted doing this?
SPEAKER_00 (55:27):
That's constantly evolving.
And right now there's so manythings that went through my
head.
Uh I I don't have a I don't havea direct answer that that one
you're gonna have to bring outan art installation for me to
open that door really quicklybecause that that question
didn't do it.
unknown (55:42):
Okay, all right.
SPEAKER_04 (55:43):
And look, you're an artist.
I wouldn't expect the words,man.
I I would expect the visuals atleast, right?
Or or something along thoselines.
SPEAKER_00 (55:51):
Yeah, that one hasn't happened to me yet.
SPEAKER_04 (55:55):
Well, look, uh I expect to see or hear of a
really cool exhibit that thatsome random podcaster gave to
you on a podcast.
SPEAKER_00 (56:06):
Well happened.
SPEAKER_04 (56:09):
Uh well, look, man, it's it was a it was such a
pleasure chatting with you,dude.
Um tell my listeners plug away.
Where can they find your stuff?
You got anything coming up uhthat you want to invite people
to?
Hit hit them, hit them hard.
SPEAKER_00 (56:22):
Well, I'm gonna say that what we did today, right
now, that we just experiencedone of the pieces together.
So you don't have to really lookmuch further than what we did
right here and what you listenedto without even knowing it.
Hopefully, some doors uh areopen.
I'd love to hear um theircomments as well and open some
doors for me.
Um and for that, um, they caneither go to uh YouTube channel
(56:47):
uh in the digital world and goto triptychdialogue, like trip t
y c triptych dialogue d I A L OG U E.
Type that in in YouTube.
You can send me a commentthrough there, or you can go by
the same name,triptychdialogue.com, and uh go
(57:07):
to my website uh and contact methrough there um and just see
all different stuff I'm puttingup on there all the time.
Awesome, man.
Hopefully, no dates.
And I'm gonna install somethings in your town, actually.
I'm gonna be there for twomonths.
I'm gonna go do stuff around theLiberty Bell and all that stuff
in all the free speech areasthat you guys got over there for
(57:28):
a couple of months.
So there'd be uh there'd be likehalf a dozen installations in
the in that area uh for uh wasthat fall?
unknown (57:37):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (57:38):
Hey, make sure you fill me in.
I'd love to see some of yourstuff, man.
SPEAKER_00 (57:41):
Well, I want to see where that place Steve's is or
whatever it was.
SPEAKER_04 (57:45):
It's uh South Street, South Street's the one
of the better places to gobecause you can get a a a real
feel for for Philly down inSouth Street.
All right.
Um Delasandro's is the bestcheesesteak place now.
They're not on South Street,they're kind of a little outside
the city, but they have the bestcheesesteaks in the city.
So you write that down if you'reif you're gonna be coming down.
Is that on a wedge?
SPEAKER_00 (58:06):
Is that on a triangular wedge?
It is like this, it is.
I think yeah, I think I've beenthere.
Yeah.
And there's a seating outsidemost of them there's uh goes
wraps around.
There's always the line.
There's always the line.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (58:17):
Uh Del Sandro's has the best cheesesteaks, hands
down.
And uh, I haven't had it in awhile, and now I'm like, I can
feel my mouth uh saladating fora cheesesteak.
Uh but hey, look, my podcast isdrink a clock pod on all
socials, drink a clock podcast,wherever you listen to podcasts.
And uh it was a pleasure havingyou on, man.
Let's do this again soon.
SPEAKER_00 (58:38):
All right, man.
Let's do it.
SPEAKER_04 (58:40):
Have a great night, man.
SPEAKER_00 (58:41):
You too.
And we are live, baby.
Let's go.
I guess we kind of didn't haveany tech issues, which has been
like a thing for me over thepast like month.
Uh it's this company purchasedthe company I that I've been
using, which is this, andthey're trying to force us to
use something else.
And I don't know, man.
It's a bunch of fucking politicsand it's a pain in the ass.
(00:57):
But this is the Drink Glockpodcast.
I'm your host, Rob Valencius,and I have the absolute pleasure
of having with me David Dayton.
Is that did I say that correct?
SPEAKER_00 (01:06):
My wife calls me, that's her last name.
I call myself Dayton.
There you go.
Perfect.
That's her last name.
I use her last name.
SPEAKER_01 (01:14):
Okay.
Okay, cool.
Well, what's uh what's her lastname?
Her name is, well, she saidDayton.
I say Dayton.
Dayton.
SPEAKER_04 (01:23):
Now, uh, David, you're the artist and founder of
triptych dialogue, man.
Welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00 (01:29):
Thank you.
It's a pleasure to be here.
And somebody that can pronouncetriptych.
You know, I've I have peoplethat go triptish, tripty,
triptych.
SPEAKER_02 (01:39):
I mean, you gotta sound it out, you know?
SPEAKER_04 (01:43):
Yeah, you gotta sound it out a little bit.
It's it's uh it's a it's areally cool way.
I like I love it.
It's like your your your styleis fucking great, man.
So I'm I'm happy to have you onthe show.
But uh look, let's let's startfrom the beginning here before
we really kind of dig into thework that you're doing and
everything that's going on withtriptych.
Um talk to me about growing up,man.
Where'd you grow up?
What was your life like?
(02:03):
What what kind of got you likeI'm a I'm a creative myself, and
I know uh when you're talkingcreatives, we all kind of have
our own things.
And and what got you into youknow the world of the code.
SPEAKER_00 (02:14):
Well, you're a creative, you're doing a
podcast.
Are you doing more than that?
SPEAKER_04 (02:18):
Well, I do everything for the podcast.
So I design the YouTubethumbnails, I do all, I do all I
design the website.
Uh there's it's it's a one-manshow over here.
So that's art.
SPEAKER_00 (02:31):
And it brings people together, you got a public,
there's all the creation aspect.
To me, I put that definitely inthe art category.
SPEAKER_04 (02:38):
With AI, it's it's it's helped.
Um, you know, with at least interms of uh helping me with
ideas for what the hell I'mgonna do, because you might
think of an idea that AI kind ofgives you a tan, and you're
like, oh, I kind of like that.
And then you, you know, me theway I think, I roll with my
thoughts on that one specificidea, and I try not to overabuse
(02:59):
the AI aspect because it makesit ingenuine, you know?
SPEAKER_00 (03:02):
It's good to bring it up, put it out there in the
open.
I like that.
SPEAKER_04 (03:06):
Because sometimes when you when you're a creative,
you you think like you have uh,and maybe this is just me having
ADHD.
I don't know.
I have I'll have a millionthoughts about things, and then
you know, if I use the AI, it'llhelp me kind of hone in exactly
on on what I want to go for.
And then I'm like, all right, Ican do it, you know.
SPEAKER_00 (03:24):
I kind of get it.
And there's like some book thatjust came out or something.
I want to know what it's about.
I'll put it through, see if Iwant to know more about it or
not.
SPEAKER_04 (03:32):
Yeah, yeah.
Hey, uh it you know, it's goodwith crunch and numbers and all
that other shit.
And uh, I've had it, you know,you could create some really
good spreadsheets for you.
SPEAKER_00 (03:42):
And sometimes just tell you an outright lie to say
it with a straight face.
It's pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_04 (03:48):
It's it is sad.
That and sometimes the numbersaren't correct either, and you
gotta kind of like no that oneplus one is not five, bro.
That's not how this works, youknow.
SPEAKER_00 (03:56):
With a straight face.
That's amazing.
Uh yeah, so about myself.
Uh um, okay, I was born in theUS, I was raised in France.
Um, I've been always between thetwo countries.
I'm a product of both, uh, ofEurope and and uh and the US.
Um, and and there must becultural stuff I miss on both
sides.
(04:17):
Like, you know, uh at a super uhSuper Bowl game, I'm kind of
lost to what's going on.
And uh there, you know, and Ionly go back to France one or
twice uh twice a year, so Imight be missing some cultural
things there.
Um so uh yeah, um and uh justbeing a gallery uh owner, um
(04:37):
dealt with uh antiquarian uh oldlike 500-year-old manuscripts
and old engravings and drawingsall the way to modern art and
abstract uh contemporary stuff,in which I'd put my own artwork
in there, artwork on paper.
And um for about uh close to 10years now, uh been doing
(04:58):
different art projects uh thatare not with a gallery, which
are you know fighting uh fordemocratic values, getting
people to talk to one another onsensitive subjects uh like
politics without punching eachother and uh art installations
and tons of stuff.
I don't know.
I'm making a website right now,and it's amazing how many
(05:21):
projects I got going on.
It's nuts.
It's like, oh, I gotta have likeI have 12 boxes of 12 different
things going on.
SPEAKER_04 (05:28):
Yeah, I mean, hey, look, you're you're when making
your own website is tough, man,because you're trying to figure
out it's like your firstimpression of of yourself to
whoever's you know online,right?
And it's messed up.
Yeah, yeah.
And it's like you want it tocapture people don't have
(05:49):
attention spans anymore, right?
So you you gotta you gotta haveit, yeah.
You gotta have it so it capturesthat person's attention enough
to want to look for more.
And that is the hardest part isgetting people to stay and and
find out more about you and whatyou're doing.
SPEAKER_00 (06:04):
That's really good.
I'm gonna put dick pics on mine.
SPEAKER_04 (06:07):
Hey man, if you got it from it, that's what I say.
SPEAKER_00 (06:12):
That should do it right there.
SPEAKER_04 (06:14):
I mean, if it's if it's mine, I'm not I'm people
are gonna be gone in like lessthan a second.
So it's not mine's real long.
SPEAKER_00 (06:21):
You'd have a special crew, you'd have a special crew.
SPEAKER_04 (06:24):
I'm like, these same three people keep coming back to
my website.
I don't know why.
Now triptych.
Triptych means um somethingthat's gonna have traditionally
has three panels, right?
Um which I didn't I didn't knowwhat it was until I Googled it
uh, you know, before meeting youhere.
But you know, in in spite ofthat, why triptych dialogue?
(06:48):
And in in fact, are you know,are you bringing three elements
together when when you're doingall of this artwork?
SPEAKER_00 (06:55):
Yeah, yeah, but it you know, it's it's a lot more
basic than that.
It's turned into like three thepanels talking to one another in
a sense.
But I was um several years ago,I'm at a museum in London at the
Victoria and Albert Museum.
It's got a lot of cool stuff.
Uh, and uh, and I'm with mydaughter.
She's I don't know, she's likefive or something.
Uh and uh boom, there's this,there's this, there's a
(07:18):
triptych.
It's a religious panel from uhfrom the 13th century.
This one is from the 14thcentury, and and it has all
this, it's like a comic, youknow, it has all these different
uh imagery of hell and um and uhand uh and of heaven, and uh it
has a real story going for it.
However, half of the panels weremissing and they've been worn
(07:39):
away with time.
You know, it's not like thecenterpiece of the museum, it's
really worn out.
It's like, wow, that's amazing.
That's a lot of the narrativesand stories of our lives.
You know, we we have what wepresent, and then there's uh
what we hide, and uh, andactually everything of our
subconsciousness is not eventhere that can be filled in
anyway that we're not evenconscious of.
(08:00):
And um and that applies a lot inour conversations as well.
All that dynamic of those threethings are happening.
So it's like, well, that that'sit.
There's this like dialoguebetween the three panels, yeah.
And that's very much whathappens in our own everyday
lives.
Um, and I wanted to bring thattype of element to what happens
in a conversation with astranger, right?
(08:21):
Some of you just spontaneouslymeet.
Um, and uh then how do you deallike, okay, religion?
Don't you know we're notsupposed to talk in the US about
politics or religion with peoplethat we may disagree with,
right?
With strangers.
So I'm like, okay, let's dothat.
Let's let's let's talk aboutpolitics.
I'm gonna and where do I dothat?
You know, where do I do that?
So uh, you know, that all thatthat came together uh really in
(08:44):
front of that one piece, like inEpiphany when you go, aha, wow,
that's it.
You know, that happened there,that happened there.
I was just looking at some ofthose pictures uh the other day
for for the website I'm makingand like wow, that was looking,
that's what that's what I waslooking at.
That's what really got me goingfor all these uh the last uh
these last six years actually onthis one particular project.
Uh started from one from seeingthat particular piece of
(09:07):
artwork.
SPEAKER_04 (09:08):
It's that's cool when it comes, like when you
really think about it from ahuman perspective, right?
And and art, it can really fuckyou up.
Like one second you're lookingat it, the next second your
brain's like, you know.
SPEAKER_00 (09:22):
And sometimes you don't know why.
And you're thinking, oh, it's infront of a religious panel, too.
It's like, oh, this is divineintervention.
You know, where what's going onhere?
Yeah.
So that's what happened.
SPEAKER_04 (09:34):
So so France has got to be loaded with amazing art
and architecture, and just I'mobsessed with that old school.
I I um I when I was in college,one of my favorite classes was
um my Western European class.
And that's where and you justlearned a lot about, you know,
(09:56):
the the art, uh, the blackplague and and all of the the
the Renaissance and and all thatstuff.
And I was fascinated with justall like just the sheer culture
change that we had, you know,going from the dark ages into
Renaissance and and just thereally the creation of of a lot
of that amazing artwork.
SPEAKER_00 (10:18):
Yeah, sure.
I mean, I don't you know there'sall that going on, but there's
tons of stuff going on here.
Like I take it like every likeyou're you're making a podcast,
that's art, right?
To me.
Actually, to me, everything isis art.
Uh there there's no distinctionbetween politics and art and
everything that we do withintention, that's art.
(10:40):
Um and it's the it's it's theexpression of of intention in
all these different means.
Uh so uh when I'm so I see arteverywhere here in the US too,
but underneath the lens, uh themy personal lens of looking at
it.
But yeah, the history on theother hand, I gotta look in a
different dimension.
I I live in the Southwest, uh,and uh there's there's to me,
(11:03):
there's tons of of uh history ofNative Americans.
I see the pot shards, uh thecliff dwellings, uh the the
religious complex uh in ChacoHistorical Park with standing
buildings, 400 rooms, uh, youknow, several stories high,
freestanding, all this stuff.
And uh, you know, there's this,but it's it's it's kind of like
(11:25):
in a sense, in it's it's brokenin Anglo culture, like with uh,
you know, like, oh, that'sthat's native culture.
But it's not.
I live in New Mexico and it'sit's not separate.
It's very much permanent uhpermeates everything here.
You know, there's no there's noseparation.
It's it has and that to me isEuropean in a sense.
(11:46):
It has different cultures withdifferent um different
perspectives of things, a littlebit in conflict historically,
that are living side by side.
Uh and it happens to me moreliving here in New Mexico than,
for example, uh living in in aplace that has uh that's car
dominated with uh a lot ofsubdivisions and everything, and
(12:06):
people live behind walls, likeof a of their subdivision or
inside of their car, um in inbarrios versus uh you know
whatever.
Uh everything's uh there'sthere's more division.
And I find Europe has more of auh the the cultural mesh is more
interwoven with uh with all theuh with the people from lots of
(12:30):
different European uh countries,uh the new arrivals of migrants
that are living there, um, themusic, uh everything.
It's like living in a big city,but everywhere, even in the
countryside, you know?
And um I do like that.
I'll be going back in a fewweeks and I'll get back in that
part of me, you know.
SPEAKER_04 (12:50):
Yeah, and the the the crazy thing that I heard,
and and maybe you can attest tothis, is uh the food because
they've outlawed so many thingsover there that the food is you
could you could eat whatever youwant out there and you you don't
get you wouldn't gain the sameamount of weight than you would
here.
If if I heard I had some peoplethat that they told me that they
(13:11):
were out there for you knowthree, four weeks, they thought
they were gonna come home andand they gain 10 pounds because
they were eating pasta andbreads and stuff, and they lost
five pounds.
I'm like, how the hell did thathappen?
SPEAKER_00 (13:21):
You know, because they were walking, man.
That's it.
Yeah.
I know I'll be walking all overthe place.
I'm gonna go to I'll be going,there's a big art show every two
years in Venice with thisBiennale, it's full of like uh
abstract uh contemporary art.
And um, it's like the biggestshow on earth like this, and
it's all over Venice, and uh ithappens every two years.
(13:41):
And uh, well, there, you know,there's no cars, so I'm gonna be
walking tons, but I'm gonna eat,eat, eat well, and yeah, sure.
I don't have to worry about it,but here I'll be eating
tortillas in the US.
Yeah, here I'm in Philly.
Wherever I'm going.
SPEAKER_04 (13:56):
I'm in Philly, so I'm gonna be eating
cheesesteaks.
SPEAKER_00 (13:59):
Oh, there we go.
That's it.
SPEAKER_04 (14:00):
Our food's not gonna be, yeah, our food here is gonna
clog some arteries, you know.
Um my my boss was just out therefor a work trip.
I don't, I think she was in Ithink she was actually in Italy,
but she was she was in, youknow, she was in Europe.
I forget where exactly she was.
And uh she was saying, she'slike, I ate whatever I wanted
out there, and she's like, Ididn't feel bad at all.
(14:24):
Like if I would have eaten thatyou know, bowl of pasta here, I
would have been destroyed.
She's like, it was just atotally different um you know,
feel.
And I'm like, man, like youwonder because you see a lot of
Europeans and they're they'renot obese like we are over here,
and it's like that it's becausea lot of that shit is outlawed,
man.
That that the red five and 40and all that other stuff that's
(14:47):
like you know, just not healthyand not good for you.
And uh that doesn't make you fatthough, but yeah.
Yeah, just it's just giving youcancer.
You know, it's like it's like doyou want to be obese and get
diabetes, or do you want to befine and but you get cancer?
I mean, it's like or or both.
I don't know.
SPEAKER_00 (15:03):
You're but they're all that by smoking a cigarette,
you know.
True.
And then we got yeah, you know,maybe we'll die for something
else.
I mean, France is uh, you know,we got uh all of our power from
from nuclear uh from nuclearpower.
So one of those blows, we'll alldie together.
SPEAKER_04 (15:18):
I you know what, man, and that's um you know part
of the reason why I like doingthis podcast is because you get
so you I've interviewed peopleall over the world, so I get to
talk about just differentcultures that I don't really I'm
not familiar with.
Like you hear about it and yousee stuff on the news, but like
you know, I've interviewedpeople from Japan and the UK and
uh I don't know, I think Iinterviewed somebody from China,
(15:41):
and like you get to really kindof just get a feel for the whole
world's view of things and notjust this American view.
And there's nothing wrong withthat, but I like to be outside
the the box of thinking becauseif you're in stuck in this box,
then all we're gonna be talkingabout is you know, in this
world, it's it's you know, it'sall about division and politics
(16:02):
and how those two interplay witheach other.
And it's like we're all thesame, you know, we're all human.
So and uh the the cool thingwith art too is that everything
that you see is subjective.
So when you play into the humanside of it, I could look at a
piece, especially if it'sabstract, you could look at the
same piece, and we both have twototally different views about
what it is or what it does.
(16:22):
And that might be a totallydifferent view from from the
person that created the art, youknow.
Like, no, you're both wrong, butthat's cool.
SPEAKER_00 (16:31):
Oh, dude, you're totally hit onto the the the
echo chamber or point of viewthat that is totally my shtick.
I I really get into that.
You know, it's like grew up inone country and and be in the
other, those are like two echochambers.
I'm always interested, likewhere those things, two echo
chambers, where do they theyintersect?
(16:51):
Like, you know, your yourworldview and my worldview,
right?
Right now we're in a space,right?
Uh having this conversation.
We're finding like where thatintersection takes place.
What are the things that we havemaybe in common, but through the
filter of our own personalexperience, right?
Of how we've experienced theworld, but we're gonna find some
commonalities.
You're in Philly, you're inPhilly.
(17:12):
I've been to Philly, I haven'thad uh one of those uh chili
steak, uh, what do you callthem?
Uh chili Philly steaks in it.
SPEAKER_01 (17:17):
Yeah, yeah, chili steaks.
Yeah.
I look at them, I'm like, Idon't know.
SPEAKER_04 (17:21):
Oh, they're delicious.
But you gotta you gotta avoidthe Taurus traps.
You gotta go to a good place,like a hole in the good place,
yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (17:29):
Yeah, right.
Yeah, yeah, I'll do that.
I'll be going.
I'll be there.
I'm gonna be there in uh uhSeptember, October for a couple
of months.
And I will definitely,definitely have one then.
SPEAKER_01 (17:39):
You you you hit me up, man.
We'll take you out to a goodspot.
Okay, that's it.
That's what I wanted to hear.
Now we're intersecting.
This is the intersection.
SPEAKER_04 (17:47):
That's what we're here for, baby.
To to you know, to to uh clogsome arteries.
SPEAKER_00 (17:53):
I'll be walking afterwards, though.
SPEAKER_04 (17:56):
Dude, you know, you get a South Street they created,
uh they called it the the PhillyPizza and uh it's or the Philly
taco, I'm sorry.
And someone took a uh a uh Ithink it's Steve's.
There's a there's a place calledSteve's on South Street.
South Street's kind of like thespot you'd go, uh, and they just
have a ton of bars.
They have a ton of, I mean, it'sPhilly's version of, you know,
(18:17):
kind of uh it's not center city,so you're not like in the city
city.
Um but you're walking around,there's like a comic book shop,
there's bars, and um, you know,I think uh one of the bars was
like a place that Ben Franklinowned, and and like it's it's
kind of wild, but you're downthere and and that's where
everyone's you know walking upand down, and there's shops,
there's little shops, there'sstores, and uh, you know, uh
(18:40):
there's a place, there's acheesesteak place called
Steve's, and uh, there's a um apizza place, and I forget which
pizza place it is, but they'regiant, just regular cheese
slices of pizza.
SPEAKER_00 (18:48):
And so we call it a free one now that you mentioned
it on the I know, right?
SPEAKER_04 (18:52):
Yeah, but listen if you guys listen to this, hook us
up.
Um but they took a giant pieceof pizza and they put a
cheesesteak in it and theywrapped the slice of pizza
around the the cheesesteak.
And I'm like, well, one, that'sgenius.
That might be art, probably is.
Uh, but two, oh my god, you'reprobably eating 5,000 calories
(19:14):
in one shot.
So uh but that's that's that'sSouth Street, that's Philly,
man.
SPEAKER_00 (19:20):
Oh man.
Okay, yeah, that's the one.
That's the one.
But I'm coming with my Ziplocbag.
It's not gonna be good the nextday.
Or is it?
unknown (19:27):
No.
SPEAKER_04 (19:28):
Oh, you could definitely eat up a cheesesteak.
You could definitely heat up acheesesteak for sure.
SPEAKER_00 (19:32):
You can heat up anything, but I mean, is it any
good the next day?
SPEAKER_04 (19:35):
It's not the same because you know you got the
grease break, isn't it?
The grease and the cheese aregreat when they're melty.
When they're hard.
Yeah.
That's so hard.
Yeah, it's it's when you reheat,it's not the same because the
bread is super fresh and thenyou reheat, it's so you come out
of a bar, right?
SPEAKER_00 (19:53):
It's been you know, you had quite a few drinks and
stuff.
You go have uh you go have a yougo have uh one of these, and
then uh, you know, it's cold,it's the winter, and it starts
get what what happens?
I mean, uh, do you do you do youfinish it or what's it what what
happens?
I mean, do you toss it on theside of the road or do you do
you hand it to a homelessperson, or what do you do?
SPEAKER_04 (20:13):
A lot of times we're not leaving the aesthetic.
Like if I'm gonna get acheesesteak, I'm eating it in
the cheesesteak place.
So like uh like Steve's hasthat.
SPEAKER_00 (20:20):
Is that messy?
SPEAKER_04 (20:21):
A second floor.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (20:23):
Yeah, yeah.
It's not like you go, you youdon't take it with you.
SPEAKER_04 (20:26):
A slice of pizza, like like one of the Lorenzo's
slice of pizza, which isginormous, you're good.
You can walk around with that.
That's an easy, that's an easyeat.
And yeah, if it gets cold, Imean cold pizza's great.
But a cheesesteak, you got topretty much eat it there because
they're they're they're huge andthey're messy.
Dang.
Depend on how you get it.
You know, depend on how you getit too.
SPEAKER_00 (20:46):
I mean, uh you know, when this is like uh eating
eating snails, you know.
I'm acting like this is likeeating frog legs, which I have
no problem eating.
But this one I'm like, oh shit,I really, you know.
Like when Americans go toFrance, like, I don't know if I
eat those, those, uh, you know,I'll have one, I'll have one
snail, right?
SPEAKER_04 (21:08):
Oh, it's huge, yeah.
And I've had escargot.
I had it, I did it um and andlook, I'm not I looked at it, I
was on a uh cruise.
I looked at it and I'm like on acruise?
SPEAKER_01 (21:18):
That's dangerous.
SPEAKER_04 (21:19):
I was like, I don't know if I want to eat that.
That looks a little weird, butthen it was in some like butter
garlic sauce, and it actuallywas pretty fucking good.
SPEAKER_00 (21:28):
Yeah, it's the butter and the garlic.
That's what my daughter says.
She likes the butter and thegarlic, dip the bread in it.
I I had a I had a neighbor inthe south of France.
He had um we had a ditch behinduh behind the house.
You know, it's kind of a naturalenvironment, it's not like tons
of products and chemicals downin this ditch.
It was just an old ditch todrain drain the fields.
And he'd go over there and he'dpick up snails, right?
(21:51):
Pick up tons of snails.
And then afterwards you gottalet them uh you leave them
several days so that they canshit out all their goo and stuff
and kind of.
Cleanse, you know, you gottastarve them a little bit.
And then you put some salt onthem and then they froth up,
right?
They froth up, and there's allthis, there's just you know, it
it just it's just like a bubblebath, right?
(22:13):
In the bucket.
And then you gotta take them outand then and then he cooks them.
SPEAKER_01 (22:18):
Interesting.
So what's it taste like?
Well, it tastes like butter andgarlic, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_04 (22:29):
I don't know if I can catch snails uh like and and
then and then cook them, man.
I don't know if I can do it.
But then again, I'm from thecity, so I'm not I'm not
catching and cooking anythingthat I'm fucking doing.
SPEAKER_00 (22:41):
Which is kind of, you know, the the weird I'm
gonna say this now, but what wasweird is that you know the uh
the effluent from our the fromthe septic tanks would go into
that ditch, actually.
So there was quite a there'squite a bit of animal life
growing in there, and there werethe snails too.
So there was a little bit ofthat extra taste in it.
Yeah.
unknown (23:00):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (23:01):
Interesting.
The septic system worked sobadly that there were tomato
plants that were growing back inthere only because you'd eat
tomatoes and the seeds gothrough your system and they get
through the septic tank thatwasn't working too well, and
then it'd be like this overflowgoing into the ditch, and then
you'd have tomato plants.
Wow.
That's that's actually kind offunny.
That's kind of funny though.
(23:22):
That's funny, it's gross.
And when you think about eatingthe snails from that ditch,
yeah, everybody's gonna rememberthat one.
SPEAKER_04 (23:28):
Yeah, like someone someone shit out some tomato
seeds and and literally createdit their own plant and they have
no idea.
SPEAKER_00 (23:36):
Yeah, right.
Where do these tomato plantscome from?
Yeah, it's all about providence,no, knowing where your food
comes from.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (23:44):
Well, you know what?
I I wish we had more of that.
Um, I think some of the smallercompanies, they they do, they've
done a better job of that.
But you know, here in the US,they just throw that, oh, it's
organic on it, or they throwlike the buzzwords, grass-fed.
And a lot of people don'trealize that that they're just
(24:04):
like labels.
Like grass-fed, a lot of timesit just means that the the cows
were just standing there andthey were like literally pouring
grass on them and they theyweren't able to move.
They're not like uh, you know,pasture-raised cows, you know,
where they got to move aroundand and live somewhat of a life
before they were butchered, youknow.
And this is coming from someonethat loves meat.
(24:25):
I fucking love meat, I'll nevernot eat meat, you know.
Uh but those labels are a lot ofit here anyway, it's bullshit.
SPEAKER_00 (24:32):
People don't realize it.
Well, they're not totallybullshit.
I mean, it's just not maybe whatyou expect it to be, but it
still follows that category,right?
It better be.
True.
It better be.
SPEAKER_04 (24:42):
I mean, like they're eating grass, it's just they're
fucking not going anywhere.
SPEAKER_00 (24:47):
They're not in that beautiful field the way you
imagine them, right?
Eating the pasture.
Yeah.
But I I live out out here in thewoods.
They're they're they're chewingup the national forest, you
know, in the first couple ofyears before they go to the
grazing lots uh and uh to thefeedlots.
You know, they're the calves areout there having a having a
great couple of first yearsuntil they get rounded up and
brought over, get fattened outinto a feedlot, stinky as hell,
(25:11):
a mile down the road, and uh andthen off to go to the
supermarket, you know, afterbeing slaughtered and cut up and
everything.
But I mean, yeah, I I like toknow where my food's coming
from.
It's pretty important.
I it's really important uh in inEurope, though.
Uh we get to know for a greatpart where the food comes from.
And some of it doesn't evenleave the county because it
(25:31):
can't even pass the healthregulations.
You know, uh one of my favoritegoat cheese I've ever ate uh
couldn't couldn't was notallowed to leave the county.
The guy would sell it from theback of his car.
It was full of flies.
The thing that looked like itwould move, it had little
maggots and stuff, but you wouldyou would shave off the top, you
know, and all the sides, and uhget the maggots out, and then
(25:53):
you would eat the they wouldn'tcut to the core, but damn, that
was the best goat cheese I'veever had.
So what is goat cheese?
Like we eat goat.
SPEAKER_04 (26:02):
I've I've had goat cheese, but what is it made
from?
Like what is it?
Yeah, but is it so it's justgoat milk?
SPEAKER_00 (26:09):
It's just goat milk.
And there's you there's there'sewe milk as well, like for the
for the sheep and stuff.
I mean, it's pretty cool becauseyou know, when you go hiking out
the in the mountains and stuff,uh the you know, the shepherds
are bringing up their flocks uhand and going up in in the
mountains, and you're going andand and then by August, they're
way up at the top of themountains with their with their
(26:29):
flocks.
And uh, and then then there's afestival when they come back
down, back to be back in thevillage, and uh they bring back
uh uh all uh all their theirflocks back down, and uh it's a
bit of a celebration, whichincludes wine and cheese and
bread and whatever products.
SPEAKER_04 (26:48):
Best things for a party, man.
So yeah, it's pretty special.
So so you spent years as an artdealer.
Um you know, yeah, 17 years.
And you build a successfulbusiness.
What was the moment or maybe therealization for you that kind of
pulled you towards using yourart as or using art in general
(27:10):
as a as a healing tool ratherthan just for commerce?
SPEAKER_00 (27:15):
Oh, well, that was after having a commerce, I would
say.
Yeah.
Uh I mean, just the creation ofmy own art and being able to,
you know, to sell it, uh, thatthat's healing in itself, uh,
you know, for me as a person,you know, it um and and it feels
it feels good.
And when you have this form ofvalidation uh when people are
(27:37):
are buying uh your artwork.
Um and uh that that's healing.
Um if there was any wounds, Imean, often it's just pouring
out the wound onto the paper.
It's always seen, you know, it'sthere.
It's the you know, I'm doingabstract uh abstract pieces, so
uh they're they're kind ofinstantaneous pieces coming out
(27:58):
with all my emotions.
They're not they're not verystudied.
Um, so it's kind of all outthere on the paper.
Um, so I don't know if it was itwas healing, the the that part,
um, the money was.
The money was, but also the theappreciation people would have
for it.
Interestingly enough, my wifewas also an artist, so she'd
(28:19):
have her pieces in there.
And uh we had two differentartist names, so people didn't
know we were the artists, youknow, um, because people have uh
this illusion or vision thatthey want to maintain of the
they see a piece of art and theyimagine an artist.
And if they saw me, they'd youknow, some I I did that a few
times, they'd see me and go, oh,oh, that's too bad.
(28:41):
You know, they didn't imagine mebeing that person.
You know, half the time theywere happy, half they weren't.
And 100% of the time they'd beif they didn't know who the
artist was, they could justimagine whoever they wanted it
to be.
But my my wife would also uhpaint and she'd have her pieces
in it at the end of each show.
We do uh shows, you know, artshows.
And uh we could tally who soldthe most, right?
(29:02):
Was it her or is it me?
We had a little competition, andit was healing when I won.
Yeah, always is, yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (29:09):
And so the aftermath.
SPEAKER_00 (29:12):
But most of the time I lost in these little
competitions.
But today, what I'm doing now,when I when you pull out the the
money aspect of it, and you justyou don't care about um uh who
the client, if you want, there'sno more client.
And so they're they become uhparticipants in the artwork,
(29:33):
right?
It's the public, it's justsomebody else.
You're engaging with otherpeople often without them
knowing, they're creating thepiece of art together, right?
Kind of like I'm coming on yourart show right here, like a
podcast, and now we'reparticipating and we're creating
something together.
Um, and um that right there,that's that is 100% healing and
(29:53):
transformative when it uh whenyou remove the uh uh fiduciary
money aspect of it.
Uh and uh it's not one of uhpride or ego, it's it's more of
just uh exploration, uhexperimentation, um, and uh
touching deep within yourselfand touching you know deep
inside of others as well, uh andseeing seeing what happens, uh,
(30:17):
the microexpressions in people'sfaces and your yeah, yeah,
that's profound for me.
And uh yeah, that's pretty cool.
So the thousands of encountersI've had over the last six years
uh have really made the artworkthat I'm making now, which is uh
uh should I go for it?
Should I you have to talk alittle bit about it, right?
(30:39):
It's yeah about talking tostrangers about politics in in
national in national parks, infree speech areas, right?
Doing that this this thisproject where you're doing the
thing you're not supposed to do,just to talk to a stranger about
politics, to ask them politicalquestions, and then just listen
(31:02):
to them and give them the spaceto just express what they have
to say.
And then maybe that person criesbecause they haven't had anybody
that listen to them on such asensitive, sensitive issue, and
and it comes out, or at othertimes you hear just the most
racist thing you've ever heard,and and then you're trying not
to and you're not trying to gettriggered.
(31:23):
Yeah, and you're just okay, I'mgonna listen and and then I'm
gonna tell the person that Idisagree with everything they
said, but there you said theywere angry, and I get to also
tell them, you know what, I'mangry too.
Maybe I'm angry now because ofwhat you said.
But I can create bridges andshow people that they can create
bridges with uh with the other,especially in these times where
(31:45):
things are super polarized,finding ways for us to to bridge
the political divide, not infact or opinion, but on an
emotional level to show ourhumanity.
And um, yeah, so we don't shooteach other.
SPEAKER_04 (31:58):
Yeah.
I mean, look, that's the wholethat's the whole point of this
of why I created this podcastwas to be able to have
conversations with people andand make this podcast a safe
space.
Now, if someone comes on hereand you know is is blatantly a
racist, yeah, I'm that's that'sthat's an issue.
But I mean, being able todisagree with somebody or have a
(32:19):
disagreement, but um be able totalk about it with each other
like this.
And you know, I've haddefinitely had disagreements
with people on the show.
Um, and we talked through it orwe we uh had things that we
shared that we really enjoy, andthen I end up talking to them
about that for 45 minutes.
So I've had polar oppositethings happen, but I think it's
(32:41):
important to be able to have ahealthy discussion with
somebody, whether you agree ornot, because I come from a time
and you know, maybe you do too,where you know, we could kind of
discuss things with each otherand we have total polar opposite
things that we believed in, butwe could come into the middle
and be like, all right, well, Iunderstand what you're saying.
Do you understand what I'msaying?
Yeah, absolutely.
All right, boom.
And you can walk away from thatand just and not be angry at
(33:04):
somebody just because they havea different view than you do.
SPEAKER_00 (33:07):
Yeah, yeah, but we do less of that, don't we?
I mean, we're a lot a lot on ourdigital devices, you know, we're
getting uh, well, I was gonnasay entertained, but really
we're we're distracted, right?
Uh we spend more time beingdistracted uh than we are uh
connected to to the other,especially to people that have
different points of view thanthan our own.
(33:29):
Um and uh I see that more andmore and more.
Um and uh but I do see, I saymore and more and more, I do see
uh uh uh younger, uh the youngercrowd uh kind of pushing back,
like I'm gonna, you know, I'mgonna take my phone, I'm gonna,
at night, I'm just gonna go in abox and I'm not gonna open it up
and I'm not gonna doom scroll.
(33:49):
And I'm uh, you know what, I'mgonna read a book instead of
doing movies on Netflix.
Uh and uh what they probablyhaven't seen yet, are they going
out to talk to people withdifferent views?
Like uh, I don't know, ifsomebody got a MAGA hat and I'm
and they don't agree with MAGA,they don't go over and and go
talk to that person.
Whereas I think that's a greatopportunity.
I was like, oh, that guy's got aMAG hat, let's go talk.
(34:10):
Or I'm in a national park and uhthere's a whole group of
Mennonites uh coming to visitthe Grand Canyon.
It's like, oh let me go talk tothem, right?
Not that I'm in opposite, well,I have different points of view
than theirs.
And I and I want to show uh uhthat let's let's have a little
talk.
Not only because it's notbecause it's distracting or
entertaining, but to to makethat connection.
(34:31):
You know, that's my podcast.
It's it's uh in vivo, live,offline.
Yours is is uh is is is is kindof like in between, right?
It's it's offline because herewe are face to face in in a
sense, but we're still usingtechnology to do so.
Uh I just use my technology.
SPEAKER_03 (34:50):
You can edit it, shit.
Yeah, you can't edit yours.
SPEAKER_00 (34:53):
There's no editing mine.
Mine, there's no editing.
I use technology, I drive to getthere.
Yeah, no, there, yeah, I can'tedit any of that.
Nope.
SPEAKER_04 (35:03):
I interviewed a guy, um, I interviewed a guy named
Nicholas Atkins is maybe uh, youknow, a couple weeks ago, and uh
he had a a uh charity that hestarted that I thought was very
unique.
It was uh Pink Sox.
SPEAKER_00 (35:17):
Oh yeah, I heard that episode.
Yeah, tell me more about it.
SPEAKER_04 (35:20):
Yeah, yeah.
So it was pretty wild.
He uh they they wanted to he sohe uh he wears kilts and uh a
friend of his uh talked him intowearing a kilt and he said the
moment he tried it on, he saidhe would never wear parents ever
again.
So when you're when you'rewearing a kilt, he decided he
(35:41):
wanted to have fun socks becauseyeah, other than that, you're
not gonna have black just whitesocks, right?
So he would buy these crazysocks, and that's what he would
wear.
And uh people would always askhim about it.
So uh they were trying to uhraise comp uh money for this for
a company they were starting,and they went to like this
biggest healthcare uh conferenceto talk to people, and they
(36:03):
decided to uh make a bunch ofpink socks um with mustaches on
them, and they were handing themout to people, and when people
are um, you know, they were alsowearing them.
So when people would ask them,they'd say, Oh, here, here's a
pair.
And they're like, Well, whywould you hear?
And it would start aconversation.
So they you create a charity andit's it's a around the pink
(36:23):
socks, and uh it's a mustacheand a puzzle piece um as well on
it.
So what what they would do isthe the whole thing is, and I
think it's from Burning Man,because he went to Burning Man
for like 10 years, and withBurning Man, um there is no
currency.
The currency is kind of you andwhat you have on you, and like
(36:43):
you don't pay money for thingswhen you're there.
And uh they had these rules thatwere like basic human rights
rules, like don't be a dick,like is one of the rules.
And so he kind of took that andhe took the pink socks, and now
he carries pink socks with himand where you know he also wears
them.
And it would start aconversation where they would
(37:03):
go, Hey, well, what are thosesocks?
Those are pretty cool socks.
And he said that you know, hewould start saying, Well, hey,
you know, how are you today?
What's your name?
My name's Nick.
And it would start thisconversation, goes here, here's
a pair of socks, these are foryou, and I'm also gonna give you
another pair.
And I want you to take thispair.
And if someone sees you withthese pink socks on, pass it on.
(37:25):
And he started a charity though,and I thought it was so unique
and cool because um I think alot of us have gone away from
starting conversations withrandom people and building uh
just rapport with other humans.
You know, we're so used to doomscrolling or texting on our
phones.
I mean, a lot of us, myselfmajorly included, would rather
(37:46):
text than be on the phonesometimes.
And uh, you know, that's not howwe're uh wired as humans, right?
SPEAKER_00 (37:54):
But that that's I think you that's a really
important point.
It's the what I call a gimmickor it's the tool, right?
It's the excuse to have to toinvite the other to communicate,
right?
So how do you do that with astranger, right?
So he has the socks, right?
Uh I have threenon-confrontational political
questions, right?
Uh I also sometimes use a mic,right?
(38:16):
I might not even be on.
It's the excuse, like, okay,we're having a relationship.
We know that in a mic it's goingto be an interview.
It's also like the table setbetween two people in a
conversation.
It creates a certain uh areaspace and the space of uh
security, right?
And well, how do we communicatewith uh with somebody that a
stranger without a pretext?
(38:38):
Now, where if we're at a bar,it's a person next to us, we
have, you know, there's athere's there's a cultural
framework where we can talk tothe person next to us because
that's the space where you dothat, right?
Hopefully it still is, right?
But uh, you know, where arethese spaces, right?
Now in Philly, you might havequite a few because it might
happen in the line where you'regonna go get um a slice of pizza
(39:00):
or something, right?
But if uh the tourists are inline to go to the museum or
something, uh in line, whyaren't they talking to the
neighbor beyond uh the weatheror uh what you know, just the
chit-chat?
I mean, something profound,right?
If we have the opportunity tohave the conversation, I kind of
object to the fact that justhaving chit-chat.
(39:21):
You know, it's a limited amountof time.
Why don't we do something moreprofound, something more to the
meaning of our very existence,right?
To use that, that to elevate, toelevate the conversation to
another level, right?
Here's a the socks are aboutcreating uh community and uh
it's about uh compassion forothers.
It's uh it's about love and allthis stuff, right?
(39:44):
Uh when you're talking about theweather, uh yeah, sure.
Uh maybe you're creating alittle bit a feel-good moment.
It's a little bit too rosy forme.
I like the grittiness in thefood, right?
I'd want to have a little bitmore taste than the blandness of
what comes out of thesupermarket, right?
I want something that has moretaste in it.
And the conversations that havemore taste in it.
(40:05):
Now, I'm not saying that theyshould be like the the snails,
uh, you know, to know exactlywhere they're from.
But but it is good to know.
And so that's what I'm talkingabout is the flavor of things.
Um, I think this is the way Isee it.
And we should use all oursenses, right?
When we're having conversations,we we use the auditory and the
(40:27):
visual.
That's it.
You know, but how about touch?
Now, I'm not out to askingpeople go touch one another.
But you know, I was last coupleof years, I've been going to
hike uh in the winter.
I go up to North Africa and gohike in Morocco.
And uh, you know, the guys,we're like, hey, uh, we're we
hold hands.
Like that's something you do.
There's much more physical intalk.
(40:48):
We might not, we might belooking out at the the scenery
without talking to one anotherbecause they're I go in this
area in the pre-Sahara in themountains before the Sahara, and
we don't understand each other.
But, you know, we'll hold eachother's hand and we'll look out
to the view and and chill out,and and we're we're together,
we're having a conversation,right?
That that's tactile, you know.
(41:09):
Uh also people talk to eachother a lot uh closer, so the
smell is important.
You can smell what they ate,right?
They're having this proximity.
Uh, there's a study of proximitycalled proxemics.
Uh in America, and it's aboutthis the distance, the cultural
distance that people havebetween one another when they
feel comfortable oruncomfortable.
(41:30):
And uh, for example, in NorthAfrica, people are they're
comfortable with being close toone another.
And in the US, uh it's thedistance is much, much further.
You know, it's like three feetaway, you know.
And if you go to Australia, itcould be up to five feet.
That's the comfort zone.
You walk into that space, youturn into personal space, you
know, when you say personalspace, so that's important in
(41:53):
communication, right?
And it was the smell, right?
And also uh, you know, taste aswell.
And and I and I use and I use uhtaste in in uh uh as an
important tool as well, but moreof an abstract one where um I
ask people, you know, I I talkto all these people, I ask them
the same three questions all thetime.
(42:16):
And uh after the threequestions, uh I ask them to give
me one word that brings it alltogether.
That's the hardest one, youknow, one word brings it all
together.
And they might say, you know,remind you, I'm talking politics
or whatever.
So they'll they'll tell they'llsay the word is corruption, uh,
the word is cohesion, the wordis hope, or whatever it is.
And I take those words and I askother people, another group of
(42:39):
people, to tell me what uh takethe same words, these hundreds
of words that I've accumulatedover the years, and one after
another chronologically, I haveother people that I meet tell me
what that word that I come upwith from that list.
So let's say it's cohesion.
What does cohesion taste like?
What is freedom taste like?
(43:00):
Uh some people the word is shitshow.
So I say, well, what what doesthat taste like?
And that disruption, right, uhis is a way that we could also
uh use for uh an abstract wayalso in communication for
getting straight to somethingquite deep.
Uh if you start then peoplemight think you're crazy, but if
(43:22):
you get them in the right place,in the right space, uh and you
use that, you get straight intothis zone, this artistic, almost
philosophical zone where you'regetting deep into things.
I invite everybody there to trythat out.
If they got, you know, ifsomebody says something awkward
and then you ask, just say,Well, what does that that word
(43:44):
taste like?
And you're gonna get somewheregoing, you'll be like, What?
That's a human what what do youmean?
And then from there, you're sureyou're gonna go somewhere deep.
Right away.
SPEAKER_04 (43:54):
Yeah, that's a unique way of of looking at it.
Uh when I was interviewing Nick,he said something that was along
those.
Lines in that what when he walksup to someone or a stranger that
he's never talked to beforeinstead of saying it's nice to
meet you, he says, or he saidyou you should try to say
something like it's nice to seeyou.
Whereas and a lot of people,because a lot of people feel
(44:15):
unseen.
And it's it's just a becausewhen you say uh it's nice to
meet you, that's what everyonesays, right?
But when you say it's nice tosee you, um it it almost unlocks
something in in people that uhotherwise wouldn't be unlocked,
you know, by by just saying thenormal greeting or whatever.
Um but it's it's cool to thinklike think about that, right?
(44:36):
It's just all these differentways we communicate, but there's
just ways you can communicateoutside the box.
Yeah, and I think that's that'simportant.
I mean, look, I I talk uh thewifey's behind the green screen
back here, so she's probablygonna laugh at me, but um I'm a
talker and I like to probablytalk way too much and meet new
(44:58):
people.
It's it's uh it's you know, it'ssometimes it's at the detriment
of of my time.
Uh I was at the DMV last weekbecause in Pennsylvania they
were, you know, they requiredyou all to get a real ID here.
And I don't know if it wasnational or whatever.
I think maybe it was a selectnumber of states, whatever the
fuck it was.
I I changed my uh I did it somethings and I'm like, all right,
fuck it.
(45:18):
I'll just go finally do it.
So I went in, I went in.
You think of the DMV, you thinkyou're gonna be sitting there
for a while, right?
So go up, give the guy my stuff,and he's like, All right, sit
down, I'll call your number.
I was sitting there for likefive, six minutes, and I got
called up, and I'm like, ohshit, this gotta be a quick
trip.
Sit down and uh, you know, Idon't know if he's gonna find
(45:39):
this or listen to it at somepoint, but uh I sat down in
front of Fred, who's who's anolder DMV guy.
He was a little curt in thebeginning, right?
He was like, you know, becausehe's probably used to people who
just sit down, give him, givehim his stuff and bounce, and or
they're or they're a dick tohim.
And uh look, I worked retail fora long time in my life, not now,
but I am I try to be nice toeverybody because I know what it
(46:02):
was like when you're talkingdown to when people treat you
like shit.
So I try not to do that whereverwhen whenever I'm out.
And uh so before I leave, so soI'm talking to Fred, and and
remind you, there's a room fullof people.
Now the room's even more packed.
I probably talked to Fred for 40minutes.
SPEAKER_00 (46:20):
Get out of here.
SPEAKER_04 (46:21):
And I know everything about Fred.
I know about his grandparents, Iknow about his
great-grandparents that that uhwere were fighting Nazis.
I know about his brother-in-lawand his sister-in-law and his
sister and his brothers and andnieces and nephews.
I know that he's gonna retire intwo months.
I know all of that shit.
And I just let him talk.
(46:42):
I one thing I for me, it's justa uh sometimes people just need
to talk.
So I just let him talk, man.
You know, and I interjected acouple times, but I let him just
talk and he just kept going.
And I'm like, all right, youknow, I I should probably get
back to work at some point.
Um, and then eventually that itdied down, and I was like, hey
man, you know, congrats onretiring on your terms.
(47:04):
Not everybody gets to do that,and have fun in retirement, man.
Crack a beer, you know, we werelaughing, and I was like, You
have a great day.
And then I had to go get mypicture taken, which I I was
like, oh great, so that's gonnaadd time, but it wasn't too bad.
Uh, but I laughed because howmany people would do that?
You know, you finally get yougo, you run through a DMV,
you're quick, and then littledid I know I was gonna meet this
(47:25):
guy and have know all about hislife in 40 minutes, you know.
But I think more people didthat.
SPEAKER_00 (47:29):
You were there, you were you listened for you
listen.
Yeah, and I think I think ifyou're not gonna do that.
Unless he does that everyfreaking day.
SPEAKER_04 (47:36):
I hope he does it.
I don't know if he's retiringbecause he's not the most
productive DMV worker.
I don't know.
Uh, if you're listening to this,Fred, you'll have to let me
know.
But um, I I just um I think ifmore people did that, uh, you'd
also probably understand whatother people are going through
because some people just maybelike that.
Was my initial impression was hehe looked miserable.
(47:58):
And then I walk away and I'mlike his best friend, you know?
So maybe more people just talkto Fred a little more.
SPEAKER_00 (48:04):
I vacillate with that.
Some people look for just uh anear so they can just go on and
on and on about whatever.
I don't I like to ask questions,so at least it could be stay on
a subject I might be interestedin, or I might, you know, be
part a participant in theconversation.
Some people just have somethingthat they just need to say and
(48:24):
just go on and on and on and on,and you don't want to hear it.
That I find profoundly annoying.
I gotta tell you.
Yeah.
But I do hear what you did thereis that act of kindness.
And also because it was fun, andyou know, hey, what you know,
what the heck was it was if itwas a good story, then yeah,
that's worth listening to.
SPEAKER_04 (48:41):
Oh, dude, he was telling me about how his
ancestors were like, you know,in they were in Europe and they
were uh like rounding up Nazisand fucking killing Nazis, and
then they ended up getting umrounded up and they they put him
in a firing line and they gotkilled.
And yeah, I was like, holy shit,man.
Well, that's a pretty full cut.
I loved shit about like WorldWar II and all the craziness.
(49:03):
And you know, I was I'm justlike, what are the odds I would
know all of this about Fred atthe DMV?
You know, uh shout out to Fred.
SPEAKER_03 (49:12):
Oh man.
SPEAKER_00 (49:14):
But I like how you I like how you presented it.
I it did touch a little bit of anerve like a trigger for me when
it comes to conversations wherepeople just go on and on and on.
But this wasn't the case, sothat's cool.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (49:26):
Um now, you know, I know we're we're hitting that
point here, but tell me realquick and and tell my listeners,
because they might not know, youknow, what is uh what is
abstract art?
And you know, um obviouslyabstract art can be a lot of
things.
Uh in your point of view, whatis it?
And you know, what does itunlock in people?
(49:49):
Um, you know, because it's arepresentational style of art,
um, right?
Like it you're kind ofpresenting an idea that's might
be different in in because whenyou think of art, right?
Most people think of a paintingon the wall.
SPEAKER_00 (50:02):
Yeah, yeah, sure.
Well, uh, you know, when we'retalking about um the uh the
taste of a word, that'sabstract.
It's as simple as that.
So you can extrapolate that typeof association.
It's not just making any one uhany type of association, but
that that that's abstract initself.
(50:24):
So that applies to to sculpture,to poetry, to to performance
pieces, to theater, uh to alldifferent to all different
kinds.
Uh to me, uh abstract is is likea is a is a doorway that you
don't necessarily see, but hasuh like an epiphany that comes
(50:45):
with it where you have arealization with the experience
of the piece that takes yousomewhere else very quickly, not
into a landscape or anythinglike that, but takes you into a
thought, into an area, space ofyour mind where you weren't
before or that you forgot.
(51:06):
And uh they're the mechanisms,abstract art are the mechanisms
that take you there.
SPEAKER_04 (51:11):
Do you have a uh a favorite thing, a favorite piece
that you've done?
SPEAKER_00 (51:17):
Um yeah, so uh there's one I uh I really that
that was it was really cool.
I'm on the Grand Canyon, on theGrand Canyon Rim.
Uh the park very kindly got methis amphitheater for a couple
hundred people overlooking thenot that it was full, but it was
overlooking the canyon rimthere.
Uh um and um I brought a uh abox uh on a museum stand, a
(51:44):
glass, plexiglass box, just likeyou see in a museum on a on a
black stand.
And inside of that box I put asculpture.
I had lots of different thingsto put in it.
Just any old thing would havedone.
And people came up and wonderedwhat the heck this thing was,
and um and I'd come down from uhfrom the steps from the seating.
(52:08):
They didn't know I was theartist, you know, I could hear
what they had to say.
Hey, uh, you know, what do youthink that is?
And they'd say, I have nofucking clue.
I said, Well, you know, I said,well that that there, that's
that's that's that piece ofartwork in there is a
representation of me, it's arepresentation of you, it's a
representation of somebody.
(52:28):
And I'm not too concerned aboutthat.
My piece is the glass casethat's around it, right?
And this is abstract, right?
It's the glass, it's the glasspiece around me.
Like, what?
What do you mean the glass piecearound?
It's like that's plexiglassactually, so it doesn't break
and shatter and all this stuff.
Yeah, and uh and it's like,yeah, that right there is that
(52:48):
represents to me like ourworldview, the echo chamber that
you were talking about earlier.
That's what it represents.
And my question is if you're inin there, if you're that statue
inside, if I'm that statueinside, I I'm looking out.
I think my worldview is soexpansive that it's actually
quite limited, right?
(53:09):
By the box.
It's much smaller than I thinkit is.
And in my hand, I have a littlespice jar, a glass spice jar,
and I have a little statue init.
I say, look at this one, this isan even smaller echo chamber.
And I and I ask them, so howdoes this one that I'm holding
in my hand enter the one in thebox?
(53:33):
The one in the museum case herewith it.
How does that how do you howdoes it get in?
Or should it?
And then you can see people go,oh, should I what?
I have an echo chamber, I have apoint of view, I uh what what
there's I have a worldview, andit's smaller, all these things
happen in a very short amount oftime.
So a door opens, not every timefor sure, but for a lot of
(53:56):
people it's like immediatelythat entrance takes place, and
now we're thinking about echochambers, points of view, the
intersection of those two pointsof view, like you and I did
today.
Like where's that insertintersection take place?
That that was uh that was a verypowerful uh moment with uh a lot
of people that never would havebeen exposed, probably by this
(54:20):
type of art, that got to seethat and have an experience, and
we had very deep conversationsjust right there on the spot.
Uh, within just a matter ofseconds.
We were in a deep area, notlooking at each other's eyes, we
were looking off in the distanceand sharing deep, deep, deep
aspects of themselves to me andback and forth.
(54:42):
Uh and uh that that that thatconnection is is worth a lot to
me.
That's better than all thepaintings I've ever sold.
SPEAKER_04 (54:52):
That is actually really, really good.
Um, I love that con that's likea such a good conversational
piece.
Um let's end on this.
Yeah.
Um I I think uh I think this isthis would be important if I
didn't uh ask you about this.
So you've had thousands of theseencounters, right?
You dealt with thousands ofpeople.
Um what have you come to believeabout human beings that you
(55:17):
didn't believe before youstarted doing this?
SPEAKER_00 (55:27):
That's constantly evolving.
And right now there's so manythings that went through my
head.
Uh I I don't have a I don't havea direct answer that that one
you're gonna have to bring outan art installation for me to
open that door really quicklybecause that that question
didn't do it.
unknown (55:42):
Okay, all right.
SPEAKER_04 (55:43):
And look, you're an artist.
I wouldn't expect the words,man.
I I would expect the visuals atleast, right?
Or or something along thoselines.
SPEAKER_00 (55:51):
Yeah, that one hasn't happened to me yet.
SPEAKER_04 (55:55):
Well, look, uh I expect to see or hear of a
really cool exhibit that thatsome random podcaster gave to
you on a podcast.
SPEAKER_00 (56:06):
Well happened.
SPEAKER_04 (56:09):
Uh well, look, man, it's it was a it was such a
pleasure chatting with you,dude.
Um tell my listeners plug away.
Where can they find your stuff?
You got anything coming up uhthat you want to invite people
to?
Hit hit them, hit them hard.
SPEAKER_00 (56:22):
Well, I'm gonna say that what we did today, right
now, that we just experiencedone of the pieces together.
So you don't have to really lookmuch further than what we did
right here and what you listenedto without even knowing it.
Hopefully, some doors uh areopen.
I'd love to hear um theircomments as well and open some
doors for me.
Um and for that, um, they caneither go to uh YouTube channel
(56:47):
uh in the digital world and goto triptychdialogue, like trip t
y c triptych dialogue d I A L OG U E.
Type that in in YouTube.
You can send me a commentthrough there, or you can go by
the same name,triptychdialogue.com, and uh go
(57:07):
to my website uh and contact methrough there um and just see
all different stuff I'm puttingup on there all the time.
Awesome, man.
Hopefully, no dates.
And I'm gonna install somethings in your town, actually.
I'm gonna be there for twomonths.
I'm gonna go do stuff around theLiberty Bell and all that stuff
in all the free speech areasthat you guys got over there for
(57:28):
a couple of months.
So there'd be uh there'd be likehalf a dozen installations in
the in that area uh for uh wasthat fall?
unknown (57:37):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (57:38):
Hey, make sure you fill me in.
I'd love to see some of yourstuff, man.
SPEAKER_00 (57:41):
Well, I want to see where that place Steve's is or
whatever it was.
SPEAKER_04 (57:45):
It's uh South Street, South Street's the one
of the better places to gobecause you can get a a a real
feel for for Philly down inSouth Street.
All right.
Um Delasandro's is the bestcheesesteak place now.
They're not on South Street,they're kind of a little outside
the city, but they have the bestcheesesteaks in the city.
So you write that down if you'reif you're gonna be coming down.
Is that on a wedge?
SPEAKER_00 (58:06):
Is that on a triangular wedge?
It is like this, it is.
I think yeah, I think I've beenthere.
Yeah.
And there's a seating outsidemost of them there's uh goes
wraps around.
There's always the line.
There's always the line.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (58:17):
Uh Del Sandro's has the best cheesesteaks, hands
down.
And uh, I haven't had it in awhile, and now I'm like, I can
feel my mouth uh saladating fora cheesesteak.
Uh but hey, look, my podcast isdrink a clock pod on all
socials, drink a clock podcast,wherever you listen to podcasts.
And uh it was a pleasure havingyou on, man.
Let's do this again soon.
SPEAKER_00 (58:38):
All right, man.
Let's do it.
SPEAKER_04 (58:40):
Have a great night, man.
SPEAKER_00 (58:41):
You too.
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