February 13, 2025 • 57 mins
Kevin & Nate explore what being a creative means in the context of fatherhood & how it impacts their family values.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
M Boom back again, Dad Pod up three three three three,
Nate Finn, Kevin Stalker back at it. If I sound
weird today, I got a little congestion. I gotta you know,
when you wrestle with the kids and you get a
(00:20):
you know, a little knock. Whenever my kid heads headbuttoned
me in the lip, which is often.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
My body is just like a and it like blows up.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
It gets all sorts of tender. So I've been talking
funny for like three days, trying not to move my
upper lip. I'm just gonna get through it.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
For God. Yeah, get the get that ship talk on, Man.
I wanted to Last week, the last time we sat down,
we talked a big, a big bunch about fitness, and
uh yeah, just we went hard on fitness. And I
got a question that I've been thinking about for Man
pretty much since we started the talk of having this podcast.
(01:01):
This conversation is one, do you think creative endeavors or
hobbies help being a father? And if they do, how
with I guess that's I mean, that's a huge covers
a whole bunch of different topics. But yeah, I just
(01:23):
wanted to get your insight as being someone who's been
like a lifetime artist, someone who has continually pursued different
creative avenues to to now bring you to where you
are now right sitting we're sitting in your art gallery now.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah, uh, yes, the answer is yes. If I if
I were to quick break it down off top, I
think that.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I think that creative pursuits have a lot to.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Do with.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Like processing who you are in the world. And that's
either you know, processing trauma and bad stuff that's happened,
or it's proliferating positivity and beauty or alchemizing one into
the other. So I think that any kind of practice
that you consistently take in stimulus from the world, good
(02:20):
and bad and then turn it into something which is
you know, creation and creativity, I think that's I think
that helps you because in a sense, you're kind of
always looking at yourself, you know, like you're like, okay,
I've made this painting or this sculpture or this you know,
for me mostly these days, it's it's lyrics. It's kind
(02:45):
of like, Okay, I can judge myself. It's a microcosm
of I can judge myself really harshly. Yeah, and a
lot of us tend to, you know, but you you
keep going because there's that little piece of like probably
just love or passion for it. Right Like, you know,
when I was a kid, I drew and it was
(03:06):
like I would take the you know, the the album
inserts and draw my my favorite rapper at the time,
where I'd take the double xls and draw you know,
Snoop and Jay and whoever it was in there, and
or I was big into comics, so draw the comics,
you know, And in my head, I was just like, okay,
I'm just I'm just like copying this. So I didn't
(03:28):
feel like very creative to me, but quality or technique wise,
I guess it was.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
You know, I was good at it.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
So people are like, damn, that's dope, and like really
I just kind of like looked at it and like,
well I couldn't look at it and drew it.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I was like, okay, we'd and then up through you know.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Luckily for me, my my folks were super supportive.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Of always always supportive of art.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Always yeah yeah, and they you know, they have art.
You know, I grew up in a house with art.
Right now, actually, I just came back from their place
and like you know, it looks like a gallery or
a museum, you know, and which which is kind of
by my grandfather, my dad's dad.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
His house was similar.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
So they both have a love of art, and they
definitely both supported my you know, whether it was buying
nice markers or you know, what did.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
You ever hear growing up to get a job or
like you don't want to be you don't want to
be a starving artist, and the whole, that whole chain
of a belief that people have that like you can't
you can't do art, you can't pursue a creative outlet
because you're just going to end up poor or get
(04:42):
broke not being able to live from it, which I
think is a pretty common I don't want to say misconception,
because I mean the amount of people that are successful
living artists, that are successful off of their art is
is not not many, you know. I mean, I'm sure
there's a percentage of them, but like the amount of
people that are like actively creating things and then making
(05:03):
money off it is, it's got to be small.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
It's got to be small. I don't think I heard that,
per se. I think that you know, my pops, they're
both in the medical realm. You know, my dad's a
doctor and he they met God, they met doing.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Doctor and nurse stuff.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
You know.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, I think in New Mexico. I'm not great at details, but.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
You know, but so you know, by just by example
of what they and they both you know, my mom
was at home with us for the childhood and then
went back into nursing as we got older. And their
dedication to their jobs is a huge part of like
for me at least, like loving what you do. It
(05:52):
just so happened that maybe they didn't agree with the
stuff that I was loving or like, you know, I
don't ever remember them thinking telling me that art was
not feasible for a lifestyle. I think for me it
was just like a general like, hey man, you should
have some discipline, and you should have some focus, and
you should have some you know, all these things that
no matter what feels you're in, you need.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
And I wasn't trying to hear it.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Yeah, because I think with as a as an artist
or a creative, you have to have that ability to
shut people up. You know, you have to be able
to just not listen to what people are telling you,
but then also listen to people when they're telling you
(06:38):
things and finding that balance of like, yoho, who do
I listen to? Whose opinion matters? When everyone wants to
tell you an opinion on what you're doing, even though
they have no idea what you're doing. Because you don't
have an idea, you're just gonna, like, I don't want
to say aimlessly, but you're just exploring, right, Like the
(07:01):
art of creating something is exploration. And when people that
don't do that at all tell you, oh, we should
do this or have you tried this, and it's like, man,
I don't know, Man, I don't don't really really know
what I'm doing now. I just know that I like it.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
And you know, for all of us, you know who
grow up with trauma, which is I'm sure everyone.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Yeah, I've never met anyone that didn't.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
But depending on the flavor of your trauma, that trauma
pushes you to trust yourself because you don't trust your
parents or your you know, whoever's close to you, like
it forces that like, well, I'm gonna listen to me
because me is what I have, you know, me is
what I have for sure if other things feel tenuous. Yeah,
(07:54):
and like you probably are not giving yourself the best
advice you know. For a lot of it is like
do it's hedonism, Like do what feels good, yep, do
what makes you feel powerful yep.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Those things don't often align with progress positivity. Yeah. And
then and then.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
The flip side is like, I'm not doing what you
tell me because I'm not.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
I'm not. I don't want to do the things I
don't want to do. And we both know that doing
the things you don't want to do is discipline.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, And discipline is what gets you past whatever levels
you're at, and it.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Creates space like when you when you when you have
a little bit of discipline, a little bit of I
want to say, regiment. But if you look at your
time as your own and then create outside of that,
(08:45):
it frees up a bunch of a bunch of space
between the ears to like do other things where you're
not just like constantly getting ten thousand fleeting thoughts coming
through your brain every every second, you know, like you're
able to kind of like I got this, I got this,
I can do this, I can do this. Oh man,
I've got two hours now on a Thursday evening where
(09:08):
I can do something that I like or something that
I enjoy that's not a I don't know, that's not
this is something to do and to create, and I
think that that's so I think it's lost with I
don't want to just say our generation, but like I
don't know too many people of our age. I'm learning
(09:34):
and I'm getting to know more just from being up
here on this island and getting kind of entrenched into
this art community that is thriving up here. I mean,
there's a lot of people up here on the island
that are like doing cool shit and making cool stuff
that I think some of that has to do with
that we're on an island, right, Not to say that
(09:55):
people aren't creating art, you know, off of the island,
but it just think it becomes a little bit easier
when you have a little bit more time to think
about the things that you need to do or want
to do, right because there's not there's not an infinite
amount of things and that list of things that you
just has to be done when it's like yo, man,
(10:16):
like the grocery store is closed, I have to be
I'm home. What am I gonna do? Do I want
to sit and watch a Netflix or do I want
to sit and play video games, or do I want
to do I want to watch my kids watch Netflix,
or watch my kids watch other kids on YouTube play
video games, you know, And for me, it kind of
(10:37):
goes with like we kind of talked about it a
little bit briefly at on the first pod was being
a dad is like the ultimate creative expression because you
get to to mold this medium that has the ability
to tell you to fuck off, you know what I mean,
(10:59):
Like it has the ability like Nope, I'm not doing that.
I don't want to do that. I don't understand why
you're telling me to do that. And you've got to
figure out why you're saying that, Why you're doing that,
Why am I doing this? Why am I telling my
kid to not call me dude if I call him dude?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Like little things like that where you have the ability
to take a little bit of things from everybody that
you meet, every father that you meet, every parent that
you meet. You know of like, oh, I want to
I could be being around so and so makes me
very aware that like I don't do X, I should
(11:42):
probably do that a little bit more, or maybe I
should try to do this a little bit less and
get my kids involved here, and get my wife involved here,
and then yeah, I think it's to answer my own
question initially, is I think that agreed with you that
(12:02):
I think it absolutely has a benefit. And it doesn't
even have to be like a creative pursuit. It's like
a hobby having something. And like my wife and I
talk about all the time, is like people are lacking
passion in their life, like they just the amount of
things that people do is this work, Like that's their passion.
(12:26):
My passion is my work. And it's like, no, that's
your fucking job. Yeah, you know what are you passionate about?
Going to you know, getting up to an alarm clock
and going to answer emails and you know, doing doing
work things like it.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Now, well that's the trap, right, that's the anxiety.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah, And then it's the entrepreneurial trap, is like, oh,
I'm gonna be I'm gonna be on my own, No
one's gonna tell me nothing. Then you realize pretty quickly like, yeah,
I still gotta I still have to adhere to certain
I would say social norms. But you still have to
be a certain way in the world if you want
to do business because if you're not, you're not going
(13:04):
to do business. Like if you're disorganized or you just
don't follow through, like people are gonna be like, yo, man,
I don't. Yeah, he's cool, but like business, why I
don't really, you know what I mean, can't rely on him?
Speaker 4 (13:16):
And I think then you have to follow all the
rules of whatever you're you know what I mean, Like
you've got to get the the permit ellc is the
resellers that like any whatever the things, you got to
jump through.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
The hoopes no matter what.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah, and all of that to bring it back and
tie it in. Like I think that the creative pursuits
make you a better person and and that by proxy
makes you a better dad.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
And so why.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
What what leads you to believe that the creative pursuits
make you a better person.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
I think it's that.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
I think it's it's that looking at yourself and looking
at the world, like artists are always pulling in the
world around him and turning it into something.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
And whether that's like literally.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Looking at the landscape or people watching and doing portraits,
or whether that's hearing a transmission from some entity that's
like bring me into the world, you know, like I
was just talking with Maria Michaelson. She's like, when I sculpt,
it's like a lesser God is sitting on my shoulder
(14:31):
telling me to make them, like to bring them into
the world, you know. And she's like she's like that
feeling or that muse or inspiration is way different than
something like writing. As she's getting into her poetry journey,
it's like those muses feel like fairies that you have
to catch and like you have to be very all right,
I feel it right now, I'm capturing it.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
I'm doing it, And mean, do you think there's a god?
There's got to be a discipline to that, right, Like
if you're not putting yourself in that space, like it's
not just gonna come.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yeah, well, I think that's you know, for me, that
the the journey that I'm on right now is transitioning
from that kind of rebellion against the regimented schedule that's
placed on you as a kid, whether it's school and
practice and parents and homework and all the you know,
all the structures that are like this is what you
(15:28):
gotta do, rebelling against that and living kind of an
amorphous you know, like I'm gonna follow whatever whim and
I'm gonna follow whatever pleasure seeking and and like you know,
I'm gonna sleep till noon.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
And I'm gonna stay up till five.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
And you know, like those those phases are good too,
because it also shows you both sides of that coin.
Like the regimented schedule, You're like, Okay, I don't like
this because it's being foisted upon me. What I can
learn is that if I foisted upon myself, it affords
me that space. And it affords me that like I
(16:04):
can schedule in the time for creativity or meditation or whatever.
And and you know, I think your practices of you know,
every morning you wake up, you do your writing put
you in the mindset like getting yourself in the space
is where.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Your your receivers open.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
You know, you're constantly looking at what you're processing, whether
on the page or on the canvas whatever, and you're
you're reassessing. You know, you're always like okay, I can,
I can, I can shift, And like as you as
you meld that with who you're trying to be as
a person or as a dad, it's it's the same
as adding layers of color or switching bars here or
(16:45):
there or changing.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
You know what I mean. It's it's the work of
working on yourself.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
And you know that can I think the pitfalls is
like that can be selfish or self serving or narcissistic.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Or you can use.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
It as you know, to go back to the sculpture metaphor,
like you can use it as cutting away the extra
and and bringing out the shape that you envision as
the ideal end goal.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
You know. Yeah, it's funny, man, I've got I got man.
I got asked to be a guest artist at the
Salmon Island that studio tour right, had not shout out
Winnie Brumsicle. Yeah, first week into June, and had no
idea that it's like a thing. Oh that it's like
(17:34):
a thing. Had no idea at all. And I'm learning now, Okay,
you got to do art now now, there ain't no
fucking around, Like you are committed. You are committed to this,
like you need to commit at least five hours every
single week minimum five of producing art. And you know,
(17:56):
my schedule is pretty packed, man, Like I'm it's pretty packed.
And so when I am home, I have those feelings
of selfishness of like, man, I should be I should
be doing something with my kids. I should be doing
you know, I should have them out here with me.
I should not have you know what I mean? And
just battling that idea of is this selfish by me
(18:22):
doing this as as a father knowing that my responsibility
is my children. And then I actually I brought it
up to Winnie a couple of weeks ago, and I
was like, man, your kids are grown, you know they're older.
You're a living artist, you produce art. Do you ever
battle with that? Like, Man, is it selfish that I'm
(18:45):
doing this and I'm not spending time with my kids?
And it was interesting her answer. It really resonated with
me because she broke it down. She explained it to
me in a Christian philosophy, if you will of you
were given this ability from whoever, whoever your creator is.
(19:12):
Your children need to see you using that gift. You're
the only one that can show them to do that
gift because all of us have a gift. We all
have something, a purpose or a task that that we
are here for. And I'm not saying that my purpose
or task is to be an artist. But what I
(19:35):
can say is I like doing it. I like the
idea of like when you're reference to Mary Michaelson of
these little fairies, these little muses, these little things that
are tangible, but not when you're in that space and
you're looking at the canvas and you're just staring at it.
(19:55):
I realized that's a lot of the time what you're
doing as an artist is you're just staring at the
things that you've done or are about to do. And
every now and then you'll get that little ooh, ooh,
that'll look nice. Let me let me put that through
my process of doing it. And and I think I
(20:15):
think it's important to to have our kids see us
pursue things other than work, you know, and both of us,
both of us are in a very a very blessed
situation where like our children can come to work with us,
they can see us in our workspace, where a lot
(20:38):
of kids can't do that, you know, like my older
sons could not do that, they could not see me
at work. Where now allowing our kids into our work
for them to see that, like, not everything has to
be has to have an end, right, It doesn't have
(21:01):
to be like, oh I have to do this boom,
next boom. It can just be like, hey, I kind
of enjoy doing this, like, and it's important for me
as as self care to to do this because it
makes me better. And it's it's been I don't know,
it's been an interesting onion to start unraveling because like
(21:24):
I didn't do art for a long time, you know
what I mean, And now it's like back doing art
and it's like, yeah, you better. You got to like
do do some things. You know. You got to have
like ten pieces ready to go by June, and there's
no coming back from it, you know what I mean.
Like things are set in motion, whether whether you want
(21:44):
it to be or not. Like you, you committed to
this thing and now you got to see it through and.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
You showed me some progress picks. It's looking good.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Man. It's I don't mean not to again hype up
my wife, man, but you know, having a partner that
that allows me allows not the right word, a partner
that supports me in this endeavor, right, because like she
could be like, yo, we need to fucking wash the
(22:18):
windows or we need to clean out, you know what
I mean. Like there's always things to do. There's a
list of things to do all the time. And having
having a partner that supports you in the creative endeavor
really helps.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
She sees it as a worthy use of your totally.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Yeah, well exactly because I mean she's an artist, you know.
I mean she she understands the that you have to
put in. Like it's not just like, oh, I'm gonna
just be I'm just gonna have this all figured out
and it's gonna be it's gonna be fine and dandy.
But yeah, having having that support is the only way
(23:00):
I think it becomes possible, which then brings back to like,
as a parent and as a father, we need that
flip side to the coin, you know, know, like we
need to have that person in our corner that like
we can we can take some of the stress and
tension off of us as fathers, like oh, I got
(23:21):
to do this and this and this and this, all
these are my responsibilities. And then knowing that like, yo,
I got someone on my side that like going to
handle their shit, you know, and allow me to to
not only do things that are just purely for me
as an individual, but then understanding that on the on
(23:43):
a bigger scale that it helps us as a family, right,
like because we want we want our children to not
be afraid to explore creative physical avenue was to to
live in this world. And yeah, it's just it's hard
(24:06):
when you see people that I don't want to say,
don't agree with it, but I just did.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Yeah, people that just aren't doing ship, you know, they
just aren't doing anything. Man, They're just like I can
go to work, come home, I watch sports, I do
the Netflix Warriors. Yeah. Man. And it's like I wish
so so desperately that there could be a way that
(24:44):
we could we could bring that light to the masses.
But then I guess that's what art is, right, Like
you're bringing your internal you know, light and presence and
your experience to to everybody else, and.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
And doing it as an example for your kids is
also you know, it's it's it multiplies, it, it exponentially
grows as they get in, you know. And I was
just playing back some of my childhood memories with art,
and a lot of them had to do with the
schools that I was able to go to, you know,
shout out my parents, my kindergarten. I have very clear
(25:28):
memories of like recess shenanigans with the hommies and then
like sitting down with like okay, we're bringing out the
you know, the fancy big skinny cap fat cap, like
hundreds of colors like these, like and there was a
reverence like these markers are like.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Do you remember the pent tail ones that came in,
like the orange opened up. They would come in almost
like a like a peachy, right, it'd come in and
it looked like a pencil. Then you'd open up as
a book and there would be all just these nice nah.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah yeah, And like so though, like having access to
educators or people that were really passionate artists and the
job they happened to work was art teacher or whatever. Right,
and then going you know my high school, my middle school,
(26:30):
high school, uh Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences had
strong you know art class, dance class. You know these
days it's like the stamn you know, they got robotics
and all this stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
But like, you know, my.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Art teacher was shout out, April Fairy was was amazing,
and like I'm right in the the adolescent throes of
like who am I?
Speaker 2 (26:53):
What do I want to be? Fuck y'all?
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Fuck this, yep, and like you know, to just sit
in art class and have and she was like a
no nonsense you I mean, like she's a true artist.
But also like she's like, hey, man, I can a
fuck what you're you know, like school is school, like
do the things that you're supposed to do, but like
this is art, Like art is like you you find
your core of it and you you bring it out
(27:16):
and I'm here to help you with techniques of how
to bring it out.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Like this is not for a grade and for me,
like this is for you.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
And you know, she tried to push me to go
to art school, you know, and I just wasn't, you know.
I was like I was sure that I was a thug,
and thugs don't go to art school, you know. And
you know, I wanted to go to like if I'm
if I have to go to college, which I felt
like I did, then I want to go to.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Like classic college. So I did that. And I wish
I would have been wise enough to go to art school.
Even the college I went to.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
I wish I would have had something that was called
the Johnston Center and it was kind of like a
Evergreen where if you were enrolled in the Johnston Center
within the University of Redlands you could create your own
major and there's no grades like you get you create
your major, You work with the teachers, and you kind.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Of check in through the.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Quarter or semester or whatever and like track your progress
and at the end you have whatever you're Yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
It was fucking cool. Yeah, but in my head I
was like, man, that's stupid.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, but like I could have you know, I could
have been a hip hop visual art major, you know,
Like I was a Race and Ethnic Studies major, which
was cool, but a lot of book learning about like
how the systems I was in were fucked.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Yeah, you know, and like all the while.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
I'm writing rhymes in my notebook when I could have
been that could have been my fucking school experience.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
So like, you know, I don't I don't really look
at regrets or shoulds, but like that would have been
cool if I would have done.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
That I did. When at at SASS teaching you you
brought up bringing up like techniques for art did what specifically,
Like what does that? What does that? What does that
mean for techniques?
Speaker 1 (29:18):
I think it's exposure to mediums, you know, like like
we did Lino cut prints, we did sculpture, we did
water color, We did oil painting, we did batiquing, we
did like just exposure to mediums and finding the through
lines of like, Okay, I.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Like to I like this subject matter.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
I like to express myself this way, whether it's color
or composition or shape or whatever, and then which medium
is like I feel like I can express myself the
clearest and the cleanest with this.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Did you during that time? Were you already You were
already in the books, You're already writing rhymes, you're already
writing poetry.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Not in high school, not in middle school. High school, No,
I was listening to rap all like pretty much only
and reading. You know, I was a reader since a
young kid, so taking note subconsciously maybe of like how
(30:23):
language and story and vocabulary is used in hip hop,
like extremely creatively, extremely malleably and like uniquely. But now
I wasn't really you know, we had some poetry classes
and my poetry teacher was Dope.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Shout out Lorie Connor.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
And so like some of my poems would be in
Ryan form. But no, I didn't really start writing bars
until the end of high school. And there were some
kids who were doing music, making rap make and you know,
and like.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
So I was like, all right, like see them doing it.
I could write some bars. I can do it.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
And then really like college when I went away and
I was like, okay, I what I miss is you know,
because we used to share share music around the friend group,
and like I was like, all right, I got I
got what I'm listening to and what I'm used to
talking about and sharing. And then boom in college there's
a group of new people and you're sharing stuff and
(31:29):
I was like, okay, I can I can do this.
In my roommate Freddie Rodriguez, I was like yeah, man,
like let's you know.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Like we can write rhymes, we can we can make beats.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Like okay, ship, I guess it.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
And then once I intentionally put pen to pad for lyrics,
I was like, oh, it's it just would it would?
It was all stop, you know, it was it was
just coming out, and like I got to work in
some you know, I remember doing writing a song for
I don't even remember the class, but it was, uh,
(32:01):
border lives issues and like you know about the border
of Mexico and America and like I wrote this rap
song about like coyotes and trafficking and like illegals.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
And like the year.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
I graduated high school four, so I was in college
like five, six seven.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
You know, not to get political, but the border has
been an issue for a long time. People have been
doing people have been arguing about that one for for
some time now forever.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Yeah, and and you know, the feeling of like that
and to bring it back, that feeling of being crushed
by the schedule, regiment, expectations of society or family.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Was making me feel like if not this, then what and.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
What I was doing was writing rhymes and what I
was continuing to do since a young kid was processed
my life through hip hop and these bars and.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
These lyrics and these these artists that I'm hearing, and
I'm like.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
That's that that idea of like, okay, well maybe somebody
else could get something from the things that I'm writing.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
You know, that was a teeny piece.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Most of it was like I just like this, like
you said, like, this is just something I like and
I want to follow it.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
And then you combine that with.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Ah damn, the girl from down the hall in the
dorm that she had the one night staying with is
saying she's pregnant. You know, then it's like, ah, dang, Like,
what's the if that is true? My life trajectory is
pretty specific, you know, because like if she's telling me
she's going to have it, then I'm like, okay, word,
I support your decision, and like I will do my
(33:49):
part in that, you know what I.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Mean, whatever that looks like.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
So then that immediately collapses a bunch of options down
to like.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Oh shit, yeah you know. And so working through the
path of that.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Happenstance I guess you could call it, and then having
that not.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Come to fruition.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
She lost the baby a certain amount of time, in
enough time where it was like shit, like this is
what my life is now. So then when it didn't happen,
I was like, Okay, if I have a new lease,
if I have a blank check, what am I doing.
It's not sitting in fucking college, you know. It's trying
to be on this music shit. And you know, I've
(34:31):
been doing it with my boys in college, my my
buddies from Seattle who we had made a couple tracks
with a little project here and there.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
You know, we're in contact. We're like, yo, we should
we can do this, Like we can do this.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Everything is like okay, get back home to the six,
get in the studio, make music like fuck everything else,
do that, do that. And we did that, you know,
and we did that for a good chunk of time
and climb the ladder of local success and bigger success
and felt great about it.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
And uh, you know, but all all.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
That to say that those the ability to follow the
creative pull was something I had to decide to listen to,
you know. Yeah, I had to decide to prioritize that
because I was shown the other the other option, you know,
(35:29):
and I was like, I don't like that.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
I don't want to do that.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
No, I don't want that. I'm gonna do it if
I have to, because that's what you do. But if
it's up to me, I'm gonna follow this creativity. And
that's what I you know, that's what I would want
ultimately for my kids. Is like, if there is something
that you're passionate about, follow it. You know, it's it,
(35:52):
you know, And and like you were saying, be realistic,
like it's not for everybody. Not everybody's a rapper, not
everybody's a great painter, not everybody's.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
And if you love it and you do it for
you as a hobby. And I think maybe that's the
difference between hobby and vocation or calling or passion. You'll
get the feedback from your environment, you know, and like
if you put it out there, if you put it
out there, and like you said, you have to you
have to find that balance of listening enough to the
(36:22):
feedback of your environment.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
To be like.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Maybe this is whack, or like maybe this is not
for me, or like maybe there's something I need to change.
You know, this definitely is for me. Fuck what anybody says,
but like here's what I can shift and evolve and
get better at.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Yeah, that's funny, man, you bring it up because like
just today we were talking at the gym about that
self reflection in that moment where like, yeah, you look
back on on who you were even a year ago, right,
and how like if you're not if you're not looking
(37:02):
at yourself through that lens, then you're not changing, you know,
like if you're the same person that you were a
year ago, you know. And a friend of mine shadowed, easy,
we're gonna get him on the pod. He's wow, man,
he said something to me years ago that has just
resonated and I think about it probably once a week.
(37:24):
If you can't look back at who you were two
years ago and cringe at the things that you said
or the actions that you took, you're not growing. And
no one wants to be the same person that they
were when they were younger, no matter how old you are,
(37:45):
like you were younger at that time. And I think
some of that, I think some of that is going
to buy design to like curb out some of the
creative juice that and rebellious nature that comes with being
a creative right, Like, you know, you you find who.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
You are.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
And then you stay there. Yeah, you know, it's like,
oh this is who I am. I'm a fucking home
depot dad, I'm a Costco dad. You know, you just
kind of like stay in that lane where and you
lose that, You lose that ability to just like explore
an experiment with like this world that we're all in,
(38:25):
we all have to be here, right like, and how
do we how do we express it? How do we
internalize this this this ride that we're on, right Because
if we don't put something out like, we're taking it
in right, like we're no matter what we do, like
we're taking in this environment and so like, what do
we do with that?
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Are you accepting it passively and keeping your head down
and pushing through? You know, Like, Okay, I know if
I can just get through to Friday, yep, I can
sit back and and disassociate and distract from it, and
then Monday, I just put my head down.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
And then you do that for decades, yep.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
Do that for their guys, you.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Know, And like, you know, one of the beautiful things
about where I'm at right now in my life and
and like literally in this place is like I was
sitting down taking stock of my my my friend group,
my my colleagues, my peers, the stuff that we're working on.
There's a lot of irons in the fire with a
lot of different stuff, and I'm and I'm and I'm
(39:28):
looking at everyone, and I'm like, man, it's so dope
to be able to.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Have a group of people who are all on that
same Like I have.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Something that I am passionate about and I want to
build it and get it out there. And like it's
non traditional, it's not easy, per se, It's not you know.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
I don't know. Yeah, I think easy is to I
think that's the misconception. A lot of time with people
is like creating something is easy or it like naturally
comes to you, like whether it's drawing, painting, writing, like oh,
it's just easy. It's something that you just do. It's
like no, man, it's not.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Yeah. Well you're looking at you're looking at years of.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
Well and you think about how many, how much, how
many times where it's like you're having that battle with
yourself like you just fucking do it. You gotta do it.
You got you know what I mean, like you have
to have that moment and you know, just fucking do it. Yeah,
you know, instead of just like like you said, putting
(40:35):
their head down and just like pushing forward, like when
you're stopping when you're creating something like it's coming from nowhere.
M you know, like it's coming coming around. You have
to you know a lot of that time, as as
the creative person, you have to look at yourself. You
know this is coming from you. This is how you
(40:57):
are expressing your experience in this world. How do you
want it to be, how do you want it to look,
or how do you want it to feel? How do
you want it to be heard? And I think as
a as a father, the importance of that it can't
really be understated because we want that from our children,
(41:20):
you know, like we come to these conclusions in our
life at our ripe old ages, where how do we
have our children just think that or be that know
that from the ages they are now all the way up,
you know, so they don't ever have to learn it.
(41:40):
You know. It's just like, yo, this is just kind
of what we do as a family, right Like, And
which brings up to the next question was as a father,
do you see your children mimic or show interest in
the things that you do, Like when they see you,
(42:04):
when they see you writing, when they see you conducting business,
right like, when they hear you on a call, or
they see you in a business meeting. Like, do you
ever see or hear them a mimic? What what what
you do?
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Yeah, to a point, I think a lot of the
stuff that I a lot of the verbiage that I
use around my work is you know, that is lucky
enough to have my work be supporting artists and artists
are people who create things and share things and you know,
(42:51):
beautify the world around us.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
And my job is to.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
You know, sell their work so they can continue doing
that and Luckily for me, that means I'm surrounded by
artists and creatives and that makes me feel better. That
makes me vibrate higher and want to get my craft's own,
you know, and.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Like it's got to be inspiring, it's got to be
so I mean, I think it's.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Probably just normal for them, you know, like which which
is a blessing for them. They don't know, you know,
it's the same like we're talking about, like our kids
have no idea how much how lucky they are to
have the food that they have, Like you know what
I mean. Not everyone's cooking bomb food every day of
your life for you every meal. Yeah, but it you know,
(43:38):
the the ability for us to make that their norm
is why we're why we're doing it, you know, and
like it's it's a thankless job up until probably way later,
you know, they don't care that they don't care. Yeah,
but yeah, like whenever, whenever we're at a point of
like I don't want to be outside anymore, Dad, I'm
(43:59):
like I just want to play, And I'm like, okay, cool,
Like here's all the craft stuff. Like you can always
sit down and draw, you can always play with the
clay and the play though, like do any of that,
and like usually that means I'm sitting down doing it too,
because you know, I can't sit and be.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
On my phone while they're doing That's not that's not right,
you know.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
Yeah, And the kids will let you know, man, like
they let you know quick when you're when you're full
of ship.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Yeah. Yeah, And and.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
So no, I think I think I think the mimicry
is going to just be more like they're going to
take that in as their the core essence of themselves
is like we we value creativity, we value artistry, we value.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
You know, and there's got to be a conduit support it.
You know, there's got to be a conduit because there's
there's a population of artists that don't want to do
any of that. They don't want to have any sort
of marketing or any sort of dealings with the public.
(45:09):
You know, they just want to They just want to
do their thing. And so you have to have that
that satellite, that whole network of people that facilitate this
small population of people that ultimately define our times, you
know what I mean, Like the art that we create
now is going to define this generation of people. And
(45:34):
I think I think that's lost on a lot of people, sadly.
But I also also think inn and am inspired by
folks like you, right that like you, you you have
a platform here. We're sitting in this in this art
gallery that is I mean, it is the hub of
(45:57):
the the artists on the island, right Like, this is
a space where like people come and they should their
art and hang out and you have all sorts of
like events that come through here that touches like every
group of artists. And I think that's one of the
(46:17):
special things one of the reasons why I was drawn
to you as a person. I was like, yo, man,
this is fucking red. You know, like even when you
were in the old the space next to the next
to the gym, It's like, yo, man, this is like
kind of cool. And then met Buck Fifty's brother at
that at the show that you had there, and it's like,
oh shit, man, this is like an og BTM dude.
(46:40):
Tho yeah man. And it was like and I think,
I you know, I think he was wearing like the
home Run He's wearing like a home Run hat or something,
and it was just like yo, man, And he brought
up BTM. Then he brought up his twin brother, and
I was like, oh, man, rest in peace, Buck fifty,
you know, and it was just like, Yo, this is
fucking wild. We're up here on this little island, you know,
and there's like some some kind of real dudes up
(47:02):
here like trying to do like cool things.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
And it's those little, those little synchronicity, those magic tie
ins that I think being a creative, you know, you
got to put yourself in the space to receive those
see those nifs, whatever word you want to use, Like
if you're not if if your head's down and you're
disassociating through life, you don't get those magic moments of like, oh,
(47:27):
there is a larger whether it's Christian framework or whatever framework,
Like there's there's a larger playbook, there's a larger pattern.
You know, we're threads in the quilt, blah blah blah
whatever it is. Indra's web like, and that's actually speaking
of creatively, like Buddhist wise, that Indra's web is like
(47:48):
if you imagine a giant spider web of creation, and
at each intersection of web there's a jewel, and each
jewel is a person, and like all the jewels reflect
each of the other jewels and they're all connected in
this web and they feel the vibrations. And like, if
you put yourself in the spaces to be in touch
(48:08):
with that stuff, then you just have I think you
just have a risk life.
Speaker 3 (48:12):
You know, yeah, totally. Life is better, totally because I
think everyone is creative as a species. I think all
of us have something in us that wants to create
and do something. You know, we want to build something,
whether it's a family or it's a fucking table, you
(48:33):
know what I mean. We want to we want to
do things. We want to we want we want to
be creative and to to have the population of people
that are that population is getting smaller and smaller, and
then I think less valued, right, Like, there's less value
(48:55):
I think on people that create art. Just with the
way things are going with AI. I'm a big I'm
not a big AI kick today. Everyone's been talking shit
to me for talking shit about AI. But I'm gonna
bring it here to the pod is. It's just not
valued anymore. I mean when you can have when you
can have the computer do the simplest thing of even
(49:17):
like creating an email, right Like, that's the you know,
I only came up today and it was just like, dude, wait,
the way that you put your your words together matter,
you know, like, and if we're just gonna be subbing
all that out to something like people are gonna know,
people are gonna figure that out like pretty quickly. And
(49:37):
then I got a question, you know, for for another
pod of just like.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
How much is.
Speaker 3 (49:47):
AI affecting not just art, but just like business in general, Hue,
you know, and like, there's a couple we got a
couple of guys coming up on the pod that a
schedule to be on the pod. Are that on any
metric that you measure success with business? Like, these guys
hit that mark and I'm really interested in talking to
(50:10):
them about it because from the outside, it seems like
what makes a business successful is the individual at front
of it, like the one that is creating said business.
And if that person, if that is no longer a
person and it is subbed out to a program that
(50:35):
is going to look at things very black and white, like,
what then makes the person or the individual lack of
a better words, special or unique in what they're trying
to do? But again, yeah, I'll.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Touch on that real quick.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
Yeah, because I was a purist for a long time
the AI stuff, and in the last few months have
definitely been on my chat GPT as a tool for
the tedium, you know what I mean, like cutting through
the like give me a structure of a contract, give
me a structure of a by law for a nonprofit.
Give me and then also creatively for like act as
(51:18):
a creative writing teacher, and give me forty prompts for
the freestyle wheel if I spin it during a show,
like give me something to go off of, you know,
and like, so far that's the blend for me of
like thinking of it as a tool for you know,
people said the same thing about.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
The printing press. Yep, they said it about elect you know,
like a power tools versus hand tools.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
You know, there's always going to be advancements that people
don't like, and those advancements the difference between power tool
job and hand tool job may be underappreciated by a
lot of consumers, but the consumers who are looking for
it and the artisans who recognize it know the difference.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
You know, So like the people are always going to.
Speaker 3 (52:07):
Look for.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
This was created with zero AI or like this is
you know, whatever that's gonna be is gonna be a
thing that's like organic, you know, like you're gonna.
Speaker 2 (52:16):
Have the the label of like and I think they
already do.
Speaker 1 (52:19):
Like this, this piece of art was created with no
AI or whatever, and we see it in our town,
like the whoever won My friend just wrote an article
about this for the journal, like whoever won the contest
for the fair art this year? H a lot of
backlash because it was an AI image and people were like, no,
so he withdrew it, you know, And that's an interesting
question of like were you prompting a computer to do art?
Speaker 2 (52:45):
And is that an art? Like is the prompting an art?
I couldn't. I couldn't be convinced very easily, but like
maybe but for me, like.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
If I put in you know, I fed at some
of my bars, I was like I was like, act
like a creative writer in the realm of hip hop
and like analyze these bars and tell me what you think.
And that was cool to see, like and it got
most of what I was going for, Like it doesn't
still doesn't get the intricacies of some of the word
play and like the entendres, but like meaning wise or
(53:20):
things that it could infer from what I wrote was
like pretty on point, and I was like, that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
You know, I wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (53:26):
I'm like scared to do the next step of like
write a bar, write write a verse as me after
looking at six of these songs that I wrote, like
I don't like that, you know, but like I'm also
not worried about it cuz it's not me, you know,
Like you know, like when we we we got a
couple of minutes, but like we we saw that in
(53:48):
the Kendrick Drake beef where he released that song with Tupac,
you know, AI Tupac, and it's like, man, that feels
feels wrong.
Speaker 3 (54:01):
Yeah, you know, it's.
Speaker 1 (54:02):
Cool to hear pop on a track, but like we
know it's wrong, and that colors you know, if it
was just a rapper who came out and they were
dope and you were like, oh, this guy's cool, and
then five years later you find out like it was
an AI the whole time, that's a trip, you know,
And like, I'm sure it's already happening. I'm sure a
(54:23):
lot of things we see are already just AI. Because
if the if the military, if we have the tech,
the military is ten.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
Years ahead of us.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
So like whatever we're seeing, yeah, I'm not trusting most
of it, you know, No, So yeah, it'll be it'll
be a time will tell type thing. But you can
never take that human spark out of out of stuff.
And I think I think it's fine for like the tool,
you know, because like it could take me two hours
(54:51):
to write a contract and like look up how to
properly use the legal verbiage and like put it in
the right.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
Chat dot com? Is that the I mean, that's one
of them.
Speaker 2 (55:03):
Yeah, there's there's a lot of them.
Speaker 3 (55:04):
None of it, I don't know, there's a lot. And
it's not that I'm like against it entirely of its use,
but yeah, I mean I could totally see that.
Speaker 2 (55:13):
Being it just like kills the.
Speaker 3 (55:17):
Save a bunch of times.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
It saves time.
Speaker 1 (55:18):
And then you go in as the human and you're like,
I'm going to change this wording. I'm going to add
my my branding or my flavor, my message, like you
know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (55:28):
It's it's a template.
Speaker 1 (55:29):
It's a template exactly. It's like templates on fucking canvar
or whatever. Like I use that a lot these days,
you know, and like eventually everybody's gonna know it's a
Canva template.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
Because everybody's using it.
Speaker 1 (55:39):
Yeah, but like it gives you a jump off point,
you know, and like, yeah, I haven't.
Speaker 2 (55:47):
It's a different conversation with the ai art.
Speaker 3 (55:49):
Yeah, it's a whole that's a whole deal that we
could that I think we should. I think one day
we should.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
Just I've got a couple of people who are who
have some strong opinions on it.
Speaker 2 (55:58):
We could them or against I'm not sure.
Speaker 3 (56:02):
I would love to sit and talk with someone who
is for it, yeah, you know, just because yeah, I
want to know. I want to hear that side. I
want to hear someone who's like, yo, it's gonna you know, yeah,
here's why ai ai art is beneficial and hopefully learn
(56:23):
something like oh shit, I never I never thought of that.
Speaker 1 (56:26):
There's got to be something too, the ability to pull
out an image from your brain that you couldn't do.
Speaker 2 (56:37):
Yeah, you know, like.
Speaker 1 (56:38):
Not everybody can paint and draw incredibly well, but if
they're like I have a vision in my head and
if I can prompt this program enough to get it, like,
there's something there, you know. Yeah, I've seen some really
dope stuff that I'm like.
Speaker 2 (56:56):
That's really cool.
Speaker 1 (56:57):
Yeah, and like I couldn't have drawn that, you know,
I wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (57:00):
Have Yeah, I don't even know where to start with
that or like interesting one would be to throw throw
color theory into the AI and just have them screw
with it, you know of just like how this shades
and tones and yeah, just be wild. But anyway, man
to wrap it up, Yeah, do art, do art, do art?
(57:24):
Man be cool art and yeah any final uh.
Speaker 1 (57:31):
Waterworks gallery dot com, island verse dot org auh tap
in
Speaker 3 (57:36):
Yeah, man, good ship till the next time the light
M Boom back again, Dad Pod up three three three three,
Nate Finn, Kevin Stalker back at it. If I sound
weird today, I got a little congestion. I gotta you know,
when you wrestle with the kids and you get a
(00:20):
you know, a little knock. Whenever my kid heads headbuttoned
me in the lip, which is often.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
My body is just like a and it like blows up.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
It gets all sorts of tender. So I've been talking
funny for like three days, trying not to move my
upper lip. I'm just gonna get through it.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
For God. Yeah, get the get that ship talk on, Man.
I wanted to Last week, the last time we sat down,
we talked a big, a big bunch about fitness, and
uh yeah, just we went hard on fitness. And I
got a question that I've been thinking about for Man
pretty much since we started the talk of having this podcast.
(01:01):
This conversation is one, do you think creative endeavors or
hobbies help being a father? And if they do, how
with I guess that's I mean, that's a huge covers
a whole bunch of different topics. But yeah, I just
(01:23):
wanted to get your insight as being someone who's been
like a lifetime artist, someone who has continually pursued different
creative avenues to to now bring you to where you
are now right sitting we're sitting in your art gallery now.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah, uh, yes, the answer is yes. If I if
I were to quick break it down off top, I
think that.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I think that creative pursuits have a lot to.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Do with.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Like processing who you are in the world. And that's
either you know, processing trauma and bad stuff that's happened,
or it's proliferating positivity and beauty or alchemizing one into
the other. So I think that any kind of practice
that you consistently take in stimulus from the world, good
(02:20):
and bad and then turn it into something which is
you know, creation and creativity, I think that's I think
that helps you because in a sense, you're kind of
always looking at yourself, you know, like you're like, okay,
I've made this painting or this sculpture or this you know,
for me mostly these days, it's it's lyrics. It's kind
(02:45):
of like, Okay, I can judge myself. It's a microcosm
of I can judge myself really harshly. Yeah, and a
lot of us tend to, you know, but you you
keep going because there's that little piece of like probably
just love or passion for it. Right Like, you know,
when I was a kid, I drew and it was
(03:06):
like I would take the you know, the the album
inserts and draw my my favorite rapper at the time,
where I'd take the double xls and draw you know,
Snoop and Jay and whoever it was in there, and
or I was big into comics, so draw the comics,
you know, And in my head, I was just like, okay,
I'm just I'm just like copying this. So I didn't
(03:28):
feel like very creative to me, but quality or technique wise,
I guess it was.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
You know, I was good at it.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
So people are like, damn, that's dope, and like really
I just kind of like looked at it and like,
well I couldn't look at it and drew it.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I was like, okay, we'd and then up through you know.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Luckily for me, my my folks were super supportive.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Of always always supportive of art.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Always yeah yeah, and they you know, they have art.
You know, I grew up in a house with art.
Right now, actually, I just came back from their place
and like you know, it looks like a gallery or
a museum, you know, and which which is kind of
by my grandfather, my dad's dad.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
His house was similar.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
So they both have a love of art, and they
definitely both supported my you know, whether it was buying
nice markers or you know, what did.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
You ever hear growing up to get a job or
like you don't want to be you don't want to
be a starving artist, and the whole, that whole chain
of a belief that people have that like you can't
you can't do art, you can't pursue a creative outlet
because you're just going to end up poor or get
(04:42):
broke not being able to live from it, which I
think is a pretty common I don't want to say misconception,
because I mean the amount of people that are successful
living artists, that are successful off of their art is
is not not many, you know. I mean, I'm sure
there's a percentage of them, but like the amount of
people that are like actively creating things and then making
(05:03):
money off it is, it's got to be small.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
It's got to be small. I don't think I heard that,
per se. I think that you know, my pops, they're
both in the medical realm. You know, my dad's a
doctor and he they met God, they met doing.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Doctor and nurse stuff.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
You know.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, I think in New Mexico. I'm not great at details, but.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
You know, but so you know, by just by example
of what they and they both you know, my mom
was at home with us for the childhood and then
went back into nursing as we got older. And their
dedication to their jobs is a huge part of like
for me at least, like loving what you do. It
(05:52):
just so happened that maybe they didn't agree with the
stuff that I was loving or like, you know, I
don't ever remember them thinking telling me that art was
not feasible for a lifestyle. I think for me it
was just like a general like, hey man, you should
have some discipline, and you should have some focus, and
you should have some you know, all these things that
no matter what feels you're in, you need.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
And I wasn't trying to hear it.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Yeah, because I think with as a as an artist
or a creative, you have to have that ability to
shut people up. You know, you have to be able
to just not listen to what people are telling you,
but then also listen to people when they're telling you
(06:38):
things and finding that balance of like, yoho, who do
I listen to? Whose opinion matters? When everyone wants to
tell you an opinion on what you're doing, even though
they have no idea what you're doing. Because you don't
have an idea, you're just gonna, like, I don't want
to say aimlessly, but you're just exploring, right, Like the
(07:01):
art of creating something is exploration. And when people that
don't do that at all tell you, oh, we should
do this or have you tried this, and it's like, man,
I don't know, Man, I don't don't really really know
what I'm doing now. I just know that I like it.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
And you know, for all of us, you know who
grow up with trauma, which is I'm sure everyone.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Yeah, I've never met anyone that didn't.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
But depending on the flavor of your trauma, that trauma
pushes you to trust yourself because you don't trust your
parents or your you know, whoever's close to you, like
it forces that like, well, I'm gonna listen to me
because me is what I have, you know, me is
what I have for sure if other things feel tenuous. Yeah,
(07:54):
and like you probably are not giving yourself the best
advice you know. For a lot of it is like
do it's hedonism, Like do what feels good, yep, do
what makes you feel powerful yep.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Those things don't often align with progress positivity. Yeah. And
then and then.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
The flip side is like, I'm not doing what you
tell me because I'm not.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
I'm not. I don't want to do the things I
don't want to do. And we both know that doing
the things you don't want to do is discipline.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, And discipline is what gets you past whatever levels
you're at, and it.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Creates space like when you when you when you have
a little bit of discipline, a little bit of I
want to say, regiment. But if you look at your
time as your own and then create outside of that,
(08:45):
it frees up a bunch of a bunch of space
between the ears to like do other things where you're
not just like constantly getting ten thousand fleeting thoughts coming
through your brain every every second, you know, like you're
able to kind of like I got this, I got this,
I can do this, I can do this. Oh man,
I've got two hours now on a Thursday evening where
(09:08):
I can do something that I like or something that
I enjoy that's not a I don't know, that's not
this is something to do and to create, and I
think that that's so I think it's lost with I
don't want to just say our generation, but like I
don't know too many people of our age. I'm learning
(09:34):
and I'm getting to know more just from being up
here on this island and getting kind of entrenched into
this art community that is thriving up here. I mean,
there's a lot of people up here on the island
that are like doing cool shit and making cool stuff
that I think some of that has to do with
that we're on an island, right, Not to say that
(09:55):
people aren't creating art, you know, off of the island,
but it just think it becomes a little bit easier
when you have a little bit more time to think
about the things that you need to do or want
to do, right because there's not there's not an infinite
amount of things and that list of things that you
just has to be done when it's like yo, man,
(10:16):
like the grocery store is closed, I have to be
I'm home. What am I gonna do? Do I want
to sit and watch a Netflix or do I want
to sit and play video games, or do I want
to do I want to watch my kids watch Netflix,
or watch my kids watch other kids on YouTube play
video games, you know, And for me, it kind of
(10:37):
goes with like we kind of talked about it a
little bit briefly at on the first pod was being
a dad is like the ultimate creative expression because you
get to to mold this medium that has the ability
to tell you to fuck off, you know what I mean,
(10:59):
Like it has the ability like Nope, I'm not doing that.
I don't want to do that. I don't understand why
you're telling me to do that. And you've got to
figure out why you're saying that, Why you're doing that,
Why am I doing this? Why am I telling my
kid to not call me dude if I call him dude?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Like little things like that where you have the ability
to take a little bit of things from everybody that
you meet, every father that you meet, every parent that
you meet. You know of like, oh, I want to
I could be being around so and so makes me
very aware that like I don't do X, I should
(11:42):
probably do that a little bit more, or maybe I
should try to do this a little bit less and
get my kids involved here, and get my wife involved here,
and then yeah, I think it's to answer my own
question initially, is I think that agreed with you that
(12:02):
I think it absolutely has a benefit. And it doesn't
even have to be like a creative pursuit. It's like
a hobby having something. And like my wife and I
talk about all the time, is like people are lacking
passion in their life, like they just the amount of
things that people do is this work, Like that's their passion.
(12:26):
My passion is my work. And it's like, no, that's
your fucking job. Yeah, you know what are you passionate about?
Going to you know, getting up to an alarm clock
and going to answer emails and you know, doing doing
work things like it.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Now, well that's the trap, right, that's the anxiety.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Yeah, And then it's the entrepreneurial trap, is like, oh,
I'm gonna be I'm gonna be on my own, No
one's gonna tell me nothing. Then you realize pretty quickly like, yeah,
I still gotta I still have to adhere to certain
I would say social norms. But you still have to
be a certain way in the world if you want
to do business because if you're not, you're not going
(13:04):
to do business. Like if you're disorganized or you just
don't follow through, like people are gonna be like, yo, man,
I don't. Yeah, he's cool, but like business, why I
don't really, you know what I mean, can't rely on him?
Speaker 4 (13:16):
And I think then you have to follow all the
rules of whatever you're you know what I mean, Like
you've got to get the the permit ellc is the
resellers that like any whatever the things, you got to
jump through.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
The hoopes no matter what.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah, and all of that to bring it back and
tie it in. Like I think that the creative pursuits
make you a better person and and that by proxy
makes you a better dad.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
And so why.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
What what leads you to believe that the creative pursuits
make you a better person.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
I think it's that.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
I think it's it's that looking at yourself and looking
at the world, like artists are always pulling in the
world around him and turning it into something.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
And whether that's like literally.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Looking at the landscape or people watching and doing portraits,
or whether that's hearing a transmission from some entity that's
like bring me into the world, you know, like I
was just talking with Maria Michaelson. She's like, when I sculpt,
it's like a lesser God is sitting on my shoulder
(14:31):
telling me to make them, like to bring them into
the world, you know. And she's like she's like that
feeling or that muse or inspiration is way different than
something like writing. As she's getting into her poetry journey,
it's like those muses feel like fairies that you have
to catch and like you have to be very all right,
I feel it right now, I'm capturing it.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
I'm doing it, And mean, do you think there's a god?
There's got to be a discipline to that, right, Like
if you're not putting yourself in that space, like it's
not just gonna come.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yeah, well, I think that's you know, for me, that
the the journey that I'm on right now is transitioning
from that kind of rebellion against the regimented schedule that's
placed on you as a kid, whether it's school and
practice and parents and homework and all the you know,
all the structures that are like this is what you
(15:28):
gotta do, rebelling against that and living kind of an
amorphous you know, like I'm gonna follow whatever whim and
I'm gonna follow whatever pleasure seeking and and like you know,
I'm gonna sleep till noon.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
And I'm gonna stay up till five.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
And you know, like those those phases are good too,
because it also shows you both sides of that coin.
Like the regimented schedule, You're like, Okay, I don't like
this because it's being foisted upon me. What I can
learn is that if I foisted upon myself, it affords
me that space. And it affords me that like I
(16:04):
can schedule in the time for creativity or meditation or whatever.
And and you know, I think your practices of you know,
every morning you wake up, you do your writing put
you in the mindset like getting yourself in the space
is where.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Your your receivers open.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
You know, you're constantly looking at what you're processing, whether
on the page or on the canvas whatever, and you're
you're reassessing. You know, you're always like okay, I can,
I can, I can shift, And like as you as
you meld that with who you're trying to be as
a person or as a dad, it's it's the same
as adding layers of color or switching bars here or
(16:45):
there or changing.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
You know what I mean. It's it's the work of
working on yourself.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
And you know that can I think the pitfalls is
like that can be selfish or self serving or narcissistic.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Or you can use.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
It as you know, to go back to the sculpture metaphor,
like you can use it as cutting away the extra
and and bringing out the shape that you envision as
the ideal end goal.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
You know. Yeah, it's funny, man, I've got I got man.
I got asked to be a guest artist at the
Salmon Island that studio tour right, had not shout out
Winnie Brumsicle. Yeah, first week into June, and had no
idea that it's like a thing. Oh that it's like
(17:34):
a thing. Had no idea at all. And I'm learning now, Okay,
you got to do art now now, there ain't no
fucking around, Like you are committed. You are committed to this,
like you need to commit at least five hours every
single week minimum five of producing art. And you know,
(17:56):
my schedule is pretty packed, man, Like I'm it's pretty packed.
And so when I am home, I have those feelings
of selfishness of like, man, I should be I should
be doing something with my kids. I should be doing
you know, I should have them out here with me.
I should not have you know what I mean? And
just battling that idea of is this selfish by me
(18:22):
doing this as as a father knowing that my responsibility
is my children. And then I actually I brought it
up to Winnie a couple of weeks ago, and I
was like, man, your kids are grown, you know they're older.
You're a living artist, you produce art. Do you ever
battle with that? Like, Man, is it selfish that I'm
(18:45):
doing this and I'm not spending time with my kids?
And it was interesting her answer. It really resonated with
me because she broke it down. She explained it to
me in a Christian philosophy, if you will of you
were given this ability from whoever, whoever your creator is.
(19:12):
Your children need to see you using that gift. You're
the only one that can show them to do that
gift because all of us have a gift. We all
have something, a purpose or a task that that we
are here for. And I'm not saying that my purpose
or task is to be an artist. But what I
(19:35):
can say is I like doing it. I like the
idea of like when you're reference to Mary Michaelson of
these little fairies, these little muses, these little things that
are tangible, but not when you're in that space and
you're looking at the canvas and you're just staring at it.
(19:55):
I realized that's a lot of the time what you're
doing as an artist is you're just staring at the
things that you've done or are about to do. And
every now and then you'll get that little ooh, ooh,
that'll look nice. Let me let me put that through
my process of doing it. And and I think I
(20:15):
think it's important to to have our kids see us
pursue things other than work, you know, and both of us,
both of us are in a very a very blessed
situation where like our children can come to work with us,
they can see us in our workspace, where a lot
(20:38):
of kids can't do that, you know, like my older
sons could not do that, they could not see me
at work. Where now allowing our kids into our work
for them to see that, like, not everything has to
be has to have an end, right, It doesn't have
(21:01):
to be like, oh I have to do this boom,
next boom. It can just be like, hey, I kind
of enjoy doing this, like, and it's important for me
as as self care to to do this because it
makes me better. And it's it's been I don't know,
it's been an interesting onion to start unraveling because like
(21:24):
I didn't do art for a long time, you know
what I mean, And now it's like back doing art
and it's like, yeah, you better. You got to like
do do some things. You know. You got to have
like ten pieces ready to go by June, and there's
no coming back from it, you know what I mean.
Like things are set in motion, whether whether you want
(21:44):
it to be or not. Like you, you committed to
this thing and now you got to see it through and.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
You showed me some progress picks. It's looking good.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Man. It's I don't mean not to again hype up
my wife, man, but you know, having a partner that
that allows me allows not the right word, a partner
that supports me in this endeavor, right, because like she
could be like, yo, we need to fucking wash the
(22:18):
windows or we need to clean out, you know what
I mean. Like there's always things to do. There's a
list of things to do all the time. And having
having a partner that supports you in the creative endeavor
really helps.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
She sees it as a worthy use of your totally.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Yeah, well exactly because I mean she's an artist, you know.
I mean she she understands the that you have to
put in. Like it's not just like, oh, I'm gonna
just be I'm just gonna have this all figured out
and it's gonna be it's gonna be fine and dandy.
But yeah, having having that support is the only way
(23:00):
I think it becomes possible, which then brings back to like,
as a parent and as a father, we need that
flip side to the coin, you know, know, like we
need to have that person in our corner that like
we can we can take some of the stress and
tension off of us as fathers, like oh, I got
(23:21):
to do this and this and this and this, all
these are my responsibilities. And then knowing that like, yo,
I got someone on my side that like going to
handle their shit, you know, and allow me to to
not only do things that are just purely for me
as an individual, but then understanding that on the on
(23:43):
a bigger scale that it helps us as a family, right,
like because we want we want our children to not
be afraid to explore creative physical avenue was to to
live in this world. And yeah, it's just it's hard
(24:06):
when you see people that I don't want to say,
don't agree with it, but I just did.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Yeah, people that just aren't doing ship, you know, they
just aren't doing anything. Man, They're just like I can
go to work, come home, I watch sports, I do
the Netflix Warriors. Yeah. Man. And it's like I wish
so so desperately that there could be a way that
(24:44):
we could we could bring that light to the masses.
But then I guess that's what art is, right, Like
you're bringing your internal you know, light and presence and
your experience to to everybody else, and.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
And doing it as an example for your kids is
also you know, it's it's it multiplies, it, it exponentially
grows as they get in, you know. And I was
just playing back some of my childhood memories with art,
and a lot of them had to do with the
schools that I was able to go to, you know,
shout out my parents, my kindergarten. I have very clear
(25:28):
memories of like recess shenanigans with the hommies and then
like sitting down with like okay, we're bringing out the
you know, the fancy big skinny cap fat cap, like
hundreds of colors like these, like and there was a
reverence like these markers are like.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Do you remember the pent tail ones that came in,
like the orange opened up. They would come in almost
like a like a peachy, right, it'd come in and
it looked like a pencil. Then you'd open up as
a book and there would be all just these nice nah.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah yeah, And like so though, like having access to
educators or people that were really passionate artists and the
job they happened to work was art teacher or whatever. Right,
and then going you know my high school, my middle school,
(26:30):
high school, uh Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences had
strong you know art class, dance class. You know these
days it's like the stamn you know, they got robotics
and all this stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
But like, you know, my.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Art teacher was shout out, April Fairy was was amazing,
and like I'm right in the the adolescent throes of
like who am I?
Speaker 2 (26:53):
What do I want to be? Fuck y'all?
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Fuck this, yep, and like you know, to just sit
in art class and have and she was like a
no nonsense you I mean, like she's a true artist.
But also like she's like, hey, man, I can a
fuck what you're you know, like school is school, like
do the things that you're supposed to do, but like
this is art, Like art is like you you find
your core of it and you you bring it out
(27:16):
and I'm here to help you with techniques of how
to bring it out.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Like this is not for a grade and for me,
like this is for you.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
And you know, she tried to push me to go
to art school, you know, and I just wasn't, you know.
I was like I was sure that I was a thug,
and thugs don't go to art school, you know. And
you know, I wanted to go to like if I'm
if I have to go to college, which I felt
like I did, then I want to go to.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Like classic college. So I did that. And I wish
I would have been wise enough to go to art school.
Even the college I went to.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
I wish I would have had something that was called
the Johnston Center and it was kind of like a
Evergreen where if you were enrolled in the Johnston Center
within the University of Redlands you could create your own
major and there's no grades like you get you create
your major, You work with the teachers, and you kind.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Of check in through the.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Quarter or semester or whatever and like track your progress
and at the end you have whatever you're Yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
It was fucking cool. Yeah, but in my head I
was like, man, that's stupid.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, but like I could have you know, I could
have been a hip hop visual art major, you know,
Like I was a Race and Ethnic Studies major, which
was cool, but a lot of book learning about like
how the systems I was in were fucked.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Yeah, you know, and like all the while.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
I'm writing rhymes in my notebook when I could have
been that could have been my fucking school experience.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
So like, you know, I don't I don't really look
at regrets or shoulds, but like that would have been
cool if I would have done.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
That I did. When at at SASS teaching you you
brought up bringing up like techniques for art did what specifically,
Like what does that? What does that? What does that
mean for techniques?
Speaker 1 (29:18):
I think it's exposure to mediums, you know, like like
we did Lino cut prints, we did sculpture, we did
water color, We did oil painting, we did batiquing, we
did like just exposure to mediums and finding the through
lines of like, Okay, I.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Like to I like this subject matter.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
I like to express myself this way, whether it's color
or composition or shape or whatever, and then which medium
is like I feel like I can express myself the
clearest and the cleanest with this.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Did you during that time? Were you already You were
already in the books, You're already writing rhymes, you're already
writing poetry.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Not in high school, not in middle school. High school, No,
I was listening to rap all like pretty much only
and reading. You know, I was a reader since a
young kid, so taking note subconsciously maybe of like how
(30:23):
language and story and vocabulary is used in hip hop,
like extremely creatively, extremely malleably and like uniquely. But now
I wasn't really you know, we had some poetry classes
and my poetry teacher was Dope.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Shout out Lorie Connor.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
And so like some of my poems would be in
Ryan form. But no, I didn't really start writing bars
until the end of high school. And there were some
kids who were doing music, making rap make and you know,
and like.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
So I was like, all right, like see them doing it.
I could write some bars. I can do it.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
And then really like college when I went away and
I was like, okay, I what I miss is you know,
because we used to share share music around the friend group,
and like I was like, all right, I got I
got what I'm listening to and what I'm used to
talking about and sharing. And then boom in college there's
a group of new people and you're sharing stuff and
(31:29):
I was like, okay, I can I can do this.
In my roommate Freddie Rodriguez, I was like yeah, man,
like let's you know.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Like we can write rhymes, we can we can make beats.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Like okay, ship, I guess it.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
And then once I intentionally put pen to pad for lyrics,
I was like, oh, it's it just would it would?
It was all stop, you know, it was it was
just coming out, and like I got to work in
some you know, I remember doing writing a song for
I don't even remember the class, but it was, uh,
(32:01):
border lives issues and like you know about the border
of Mexico and America and like I wrote this rap
song about like coyotes and trafficking and like illegals.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
And like the year.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
I graduated high school four, so I was in college
like five, six seven.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
You know, not to get political, but the border has
been an issue for a long time. People have been
doing people have been arguing about that one for for
some time now forever.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Yeah, and and you know, the feeling of like that
and to bring it back, that feeling of being crushed
by the schedule, regiment, expectations of society or family.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Was making me feel like if not this, then what and.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
What I was doing was writing rhymes and what I
was continuing to do since a young kid was processed
my life through hip hop and these bars and.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
These lyrics and these these artists that I'm hearing, and
I'm like.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
That's that that idea of like, okay, well maybe somebody
else could get something from the things that I'm writing.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
You know, that was a teeny piece.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Most of it was like I just like this, like
you said, like, this is just something I like and
I want to follow it.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
And then you combine that with.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Ah damn, the girl from down the hall in the
dorm that she had the one night staying with is
saying she's pregnant. You know, then it's like, ah, dang, Like,
what's the if that is true? My life trajectory is
pretty specific, you know, because like if she's telling me
she's going to have it, then I'm like, okay, word,
I support your decision, and like I will do my
(33:49):
part in that, you know what I.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Mean, whatever that looks like.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
So then that immediately collapses a bunch of options down
to like.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Oh shit, yeah you know. And so working through the
path of that.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Happenstance I guess you could call it, and then having
that not.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Come to fruition.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
She lost the baby a certain amount of time, in
enough time where it was like shit, like this is
what my life is now. So then when it didn't happen,
I was like, Okay, if I have a new lease,
if I have a blank check, what am I doing.
It's not sitting in fucking college, you know. It's trying
to be on this music shit. And you know, I've
(34:31):
been doing it with my boys in college, my my
buddies from Seattle who we had made a couple tracks
with a little project here and there.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
You know, we're in contact. We're like, yo, we should
we can do this, Like we can do this.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Everything is like okay, get back home to the six,
get in the studio, make music like fuck everything else,
do that, do that. And we did that, you know,
and we did that for a good chunk of time
and climb the ladder of local success and bigger success
and felt great about it.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
And uh, you know, but all all.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
That to say that those the ability to follow the
creative pull was something I had to decide to listen to,
you know. Yeah, I had to decide to prioritize that
because I was shown the other the other option, you know,
(35:29):
and I was like, I don't like that.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
I don't want to do that.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
No, I don't want that. I'm gonna do it if
I have to, because that's what you do. But if
it's up to me, I'm gonna follow this creativity. And
that's what I you know, that's what I would want
ultimately for my kids. Is like, if there is something
that you're passionate about, follow it. You know, it's it,
(35:52):
you know, And and like you were saying, be realistic,
like it's not for everybody. Not everybody's a rapper, not
everybody's a great painter, not everybody's.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
And if you love it and you do it for
you as a hobby. And I think maybe that's the
difference between hobby and vocation or calling or passion. You'll
get the feedback from your environment, you know, and like
if you put it out there, if you put it
out there, and like you said, you have to you
have to find that balance of listening enough to the
(36:22):
feedback of your environment.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
To be like.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Maybe this is whack, or like maybe this is not
for me, or like maybe there's something I need to change.
You know, this definitely is for me. Fuck what anybody says,
but like here's what I can shift and evolve and
get better at.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Yeah, that's funny, man, you bring it up because like
just today we were talking at the gym about that
self reflection in that moment where like, yeah, you look
back on on who you were even a year ago, right,
and how like if you're not if you're not looking
(37:02):
at yourself through that lens, then you're not changing, you know,
like if you're the same person that you were a
year ago, you know. And a friend of mine shadowed, easy,
we're gonna get him on the pod. He's wow, man,
he said something to me years ago that has just
resonated and I think about it probably once a week.
(37:24):
If you can't look back at who you were two
years ago and cringe at the things that you said
or the actions that you took, you're not growing. And
no one wants to be the same person that they
were when they were younger, no matter how old you are,
(37:45):
like you were younger at that time. And I think
some of that, I think some of that is going
to buy design to like curb out some of the
creative juice that and rebellious nature that comes with being
a creative right, Like, you know, you you find who.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
You are.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
And then you stay there. Yeah, you know, it's like,
oh this is who I am. I'm a fucking home
depot dad, I'm a Costco dad. You know, you just
kind of like stay in that lane where and you
lose that, You lose that ability to just like explore
an experiment with like this world that we're all in,
(38:25):
we all have to be here, right like, and how
do we how do we express it? How do we
internalize this this this ride that we're on, right Because
if we don't put something out like, we're taking it
in right, like we're no matter what we do, like
we're taking in this environment and so like, what do
we do with that?
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Are you accepting it passively and keeping your head down
and pushing through? You know, Like, Okay, I know if
I can just get through to Friday, yep, I can
sit back and and disassociate and distract from it, and
then Monday, I just put my head down.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
And then you do that for decades, yep.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
Do that for their guys, you.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Know, And like, you know, one of the beautiful things
about where I'm at right now in my life and
and like literally in this place is like I was
sitting down taking stock of my my my friend group,
my my colleagues, my peers, the stuff that we're working on.
There's a lot of irons in the fire with a
lot of different stuff, and I'm and I'm and I'm
(39:28):
looking at everyone, and I'm like, man, it's so dope
to be able to.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Have a group of people who are all on that
same Like I have.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Something that I am passionate about and I want to
build it and get it out there. And like it's
non traditional, it's not easy, per se, It's not you know.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
I don't know. Yeah, I think easy is to I
think that's the misconception. A lot of time with people
is like creating something is easy or it like naturally
comes to you, like whether it's drawing, painting, writing, like oh,
it's just easy. It's something that you just do. It's
like no, man, it's not.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Yeah. Well you're looking at you're looking at years of.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
Well and you think about how many, how much, how
many times where it's like you're having that battle with
yourself like you just fucking do it. You gotta do it.
You got you know what I mean, like you have
to have that moment and you know, just fucking do it. Yeah,
you know, instead of just like like you said, putting
(40:35):
their head down and just like pushing forward, like when
you're stopping when you're creating something like it's coming from nowhere.
M you know, like it's coming coming around. You have
to you know a lot of that time, as as
the creative person, you have to look at yourself. You
know this is coming from you. This is how you
(40:57):
are expressing your experience in this world. How do you
want it to be, how do you want it to look,
or how do you want it to feel? How do
you want it to be heard? And I think as
a as a father, the importance of that it can't
really be understated because we want that from our children,
(41:20):
you know, like we come to these conclusions in our
life at our ripe old ages, where how do we
have our children just think that or be that know
that from the ages they are now all the way up,
you know, so they don't ever have to learn it.
(41:40):
You know. It's just like, yo, this is just kind
of what we do as a family, right Like, And
which brings up to the next question was as a father,
do you see your children mimic or show interest in
the things that you do, Like when they see you,
(42:04):
when they see you writing, when they see you conducting business,
right like, when they hear you on a call, or
they see you in a business meeting. Like, do you
ever see or hear them a mimic? What what what
you do?
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Yeah, to a point, I think a lot of the
stuff that I a lot of the verbiage that I
use around my work is you know, that is lucky
enough to have my work be supporting artists and artists
are people who create things and share things and you know,
(42:51):
beautify the world around us.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
And my job is to.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
You know, sell their work so they can continue doing
that and Luckily for me, that means I'm surrounded by
artists and creatives and that makes me feel better. That
makes me vibrate higher and want to get my craft's own,
you know, and.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Like it's got to be inspiring, it's got to be
so I mean, I think it's.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Probably just normal for them, you know, like which which
is a blessing for them. They don't know, you know,
it's the same like we're talking about, like our kids
have no idea how much how lucky they are to
have the food that they have, Like you know what
I mean. Not everyone's cooking bomb food every day of
your life for you every meal. Yeah, but it you know,
(43:38):
the the ability for us to make that their norm
is why we're why we're doing it, you know, and
like it's it's a thankless job up until probably way later,
you know, they don't care that they don't care. Yeah,
but yeah, like whenever, whenever we're at a point of
like I don't want to be outside anymore, Dad, I'm
(43:59):
like I just want to play, And I'm like, okay, cool,
Like here's all the craft stuff. Like you can always
sit down and draw, you can always play with the
clay and the play though, like do any of that,
and like usually that means I'm sitting down doing it too,
because you know, I can't sit and be.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
On my phone while they're doing That's not that's not right,
you know.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
Yeah, And the kids will let you know, man, like
they let you know quick when you're when you're full
of ship.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Yeah. Yeah, And and.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
So no, I think I think I think the mimicry
is going to just be more like they're going to
take that in as their the core essence of themselves
is like we we value creativity, we value artistry, we value.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
You know, and there's got to be a conduit support it.
You know, there's got to be a conduit because there's
there's a population of artists that don't want to do
any of that. They don't want to have any sort
of marketing or any sort of dealings with the public.
(45:09):
You know, they just want to They just want to
do their thing. And so you have to have that
that satellite, that whole network of people that facilitate this
small population of people that ultimately define our times, you
know what I mean, Like the art that we create
now is going to define this generation of people. And
(45:34):
I think I think that's lost on a lot of people, sadly.
But I also also think inn and am inspired by
folks like you, right that like you, you you have
a platform here. We're sitting in this in this art
gallery that is I mean, it is the hub of
(45:57):
the the artists on the island, right Like, this is
a space where like people come and they should their
art and hang out and you have all sorts of
like events that come through here that touches like every
group of artists. And I think that's one of the
(46:17):
special things one of the reasons why I was drawn
to you as a person. I was like, yo, man,
this is fucking red. You know, like even when you
were in the old the space next to the next
to the gym, It's like, yo, man, this is like
kind of cool. And then met Buck Fifty's brother at
that at the show that you had there, and it's like,
oh shit, man, this is like an og BTM dude.
(46:40):
Tho yeah man. And it was like and I think,
I you know, I think he was wearing like the
home Run He's wearing like a home Run hat or something,
and it was just like yo, man, And he brought
up BTM. Then he brought up his twin brother, and
I was like, oh, man, rest in peace, Buck fifty,
you know, and it was just like, Yo, this is
fucking wild. We're up here on this little island, you know,
and there's like some some kind of real dudes up
(47:02):
here like trying to do like cool things.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
And it's those little, those little synchronicity, those magic tie
ins that I think being a creative, you know, you
got to put yourself in the space to receive those
see those nifs, whatever word you want to use, Like
if you're not if if your head's down and you're
disassociating through life, you don't get those magic moments of like, oh,
(47:27):
there is a larger whether it's Christian framework or whatever framework,
Like there's there's a larger playbook, there's a larger pattern.
You know, we're threads in the quilt, blah blah blah
whatever it is. Indra's web like, and that's actually speaking
of creatively, like Buddhist wise, that Indra's web is like
(47:48):
if you imagine a giant spider web of creation, and
at each intersection of web there's a jewel, and each
jewel is a person, and like all the jewels reflect
each of the other jewels and they're all connected in
this web and they feel the vibrations. And like, if
you put yourself in the spaces to be in touch
(48:08):
with that stuff, then you just have I think you
just have a risk life.
Speaker 3 (48:12):
You know, yeah, totally. Life is better, totally because I
think everyone is creative as a species. I think all
of us have something in us that wants to create
and do something. You know, we want to build something,
whether it's a family or it's a fucking table, you
(48:33):
know what I mean. We want to we want to
do things. We want to we want we want to
be creative and to to have the population of people
that are that population is getting smaller and smaller, and
then I think less valued, right, Like, there's less value
(48:55):
I think on people that create art. Just with the
way things are going with AI. I'm a big I'm
not a big AI kick today. Everyone's been talking shit
to me for talking shit about AI. But I'm gonna
bring it here to the pod is. It's just not
valued anymore. I mean when you can have when you
can have the computer do the simplest thing of even
(49:17):
like creating an email, right Like, that's the you know,
I only came up today and it was just like, dude, wait,
the way that you put your your words together matter,
you know, like, and if we're just gonna be subbing
all that out to something like people are gonna know,
people are gonna figure that out like pretty quickly. And
(49:37):
then I got a question, you know, for for another
pod of just like.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
How much is.
Speaker 3 (49:47):
AI affecting not just art, but just like business in general, Hue,
you know, and like, there's a couple we got a
couple of guys coming up on the pod that a
schedule to be on the pod. Are that on any
metric that you measure success with business? Like, these guys
hit that mark and I'm really interested in talking to
(50:10):
them about it because from the outside, it seems like
what makes a business successful is the individual at front
of it, like the one that is creating said business.
And if that person, if that is no longer a
person and it is subbed out to a program that
(50:35):
is going to look at things very black and white, like,
what then makes the person or the individual lack of
a better words, special or unique in what they're trying
to do? But again, yeah, I'll.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Touch on that real quick.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
Yeah, because I was a purist for a long time
the AI stuff, and in the last few months have
definitely been on my chat GPT as a tool for
the tedium, you know what I mean, like cutting through
the like give me a structure of a contract, give
me a structure of a by law for a nonprofit.
Give me and then also creatively for like act as
(51:18):
a creative writing teacher, and give me forty prompts for
the freestyle wheel if I spin it during a show,
like give me something to go off of, you know,
and like, so far that's the blend for me of
like thinking of it as a tool for you know,
people said the same thing about.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
The printing press. Yep, they said it about elect you know,
like a power tools versus hand tools.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
You know, there's always going to be advancements that people
don't like, and those advancements the difference between power tool
job and hand tool job may be underappreciated by a
lot of consumers, but the consumers who are looking for
it and the artisans who recognize it know the difference.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
You know, So like the people are always going to.
Speaker 3 (52:07):
Look for.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
This was created with zero AI or like this is
you know, whatever that's gonna be is gonna be a
thing that's like organic, you know, like you're gonna.
Speaker 2 (52:16):
Have the the label of like and I think they
already do.
Speaker 1 (52:19):
Like this, this piece of art was created with no
AI or whatever, and we see it in our town,
like the whoever won My friend just wrote an article
about this for the journal, like whoever won the contest
for the fair art this year? H a lot of
backlash because it was an AI image and people were like, no,
so he withdrew it, you know, And that's an interesting
question of like were you prompting a computer to do art?
Speaker 2 (52:45):
And is that an art? Like is the prompting an art?
I couldn't. I couldn't be convinced very easily, but like
maybe but for me, like.
Speaker 1 (52:57):
If I put in you know, I fed at some
of my bars, I was like I was like, act
like a creative writer in the realm of hip hop
and like analyze these bars and tell me what you think.
And that was cool to see, like and it got
most of what I was going for, Like it doesn't
still doesn't get the intricacies of some of the word
play and like the entendres, but like meaning wise or
(53:20):
things that it could infer from what I wrote was
like pretty on point, and I was like, that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
You know, I wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (53:26):
I'm like scared to do the next step of like
write a bar, write write a verse as me after
looking at six of these songs that I wrote, like
I don't like that, you know, but like I'm also
not worried about it cuz it's not me, you know,
Like you know, like when we we we got a
couple of minutes, but like we we saw that in
(53:48):
the Kendrick Drake beef where he released that song with Tupac,
you know, AI Tupac, and it's like, man, that feels
feels wrong.
Speaker 3 (54:01):
Yeah, you know, it's.
Speaker 1 (54:02):
Cool to hear pop on a track, but like we
know it's wrong, and that colors you know, if it
was just a rapper who came out and they were
dope and you were like, oh, this guy's cool, and
then five years later you find out like it was
an AI the whole time, that's a trip, you know,
And like, I'm sure it's already happening. I'm sure a
(54:23):
lot of things we see are already just AI. Because
if the if the military, if we have the tech,
the military is ten.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
Years ahead of us.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
So like whatever we're seeing, yeah, I'm not trusting most
of it, you know, No, So yeah, it'll be it'll
be a time will tell type thing. But you can
never take that human spark out of out of stuff.
And I think I think it's fine for like the tool,
you know, because like it could take me two hours
(54:51):
to write a contract and like look up how to
properly use the legal verbiage and like put it in
the right.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
Chat dot com? Is that the I mean, that's one
of them.
Speaker 2 (55:03):
Yeah, there's there's a lot of them.
Speaker 3 (55:04):
None of it, I don't know, there's a lot. And
it's not that I'm like against it entirely of its use,
but yeah, I mean I could totally see that.
Speaker 2 (55:13):
Being it just like kills the.
Speaker 3 (55:17):
Save a bunch of times.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
It saves time.
Speaker 1 (55:18):
And then you go in as the human and you're like,
I'm going to change this wording. I'm going to add
my my branding or my flavor, my message, like you
know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (55:28):
It's it's a template.
Speaker 1 (55:29):
It's a template exactly. It's like templates on fucking canvar
or whatever. Like I use that a lot these days,
you know, and like eventually everybody's gonna know it's a
Canva template.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
Because everybody's using it.
Speaker 1 (55:39):
Yeah, but like it gives you a jump off point,
you know, and like, yeah, I haven't.
Speaker 2 (55:47):
It's a different conversation with the ai art.
Speaker 3 (55:49):
Yeah, it's a whole that's a whole deal that we
could that I think we should. I think one day
we should.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
Just I've got a couple of people who are who
have some strong opinions on it.
Speaker 2 (55:58):
We could them or against I'm not sure.
Speaker 3 (56:02):
I would love to sit and talk with someone who
is for it, yeah, you know, just because yeah, I
want to know. I want to hear that side. I
want to hear someone who's like, yo, it's gonna you know, yeah,
here's why ai ai art is beneficial and hopefully learn
(56:23):
something like oh shit, I never I never thought of that.
Speaker 1 (56:26):
There's got to be something too, the ability to pull
out an image from your brain that you couldn't do.
Speaker 2 (56:37):
Yeah, you know, like.
Speaker 1 (56:38):
Not everybody can paint and draw incredibly well, but if
they're like I have a vision in my head and
if I can prompt this program enough to get it, like,
there's something there, you know. Yeah, I've seen some really
dope stuff that I'm like.
Speaker 2 (56:56):
That's really cool.
Speaker 1 (56:57):
Yeah, and like I couldn't have drawn that, you know,
I wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (57:00):
Have Yeah, I don't even know where to start with
that or like interesting one would be to throw throw
color theory into the AI and just have them screw
with it, you know of just like how this shades
and tones and yeah, just be wild. But anyway, man
to wrap it up, Yeah, do art, do art, do art?
(57:24):
Man be cool art and yeah any final uh.
Speaker 1 (57:31):
Waterworks gallery dot com, island verse dot org auh tap
in
Speaker 3 (57:36):
Yeah, man, good ship till the next time the light
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