September 3, 2025 • 12 mins
Interview with Brad Alexander - The Culture News
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ladies and gentlemen, Good afternoon, Welcome on the Culture News.
My name is David So we roid have the pleasure
to have today on iHeartRadio on the Coulture News a wonderful,
wonderful director, film director. His name is Brad Alexander. Brad Alexander.
He has released a wonderful new featured documentary called The
(00:24):
Threshing Floor. He's going to talk to us about it,
which is the story of addiction and recovery. Is stripped
of cliche and sanitized narrative arcs, and this is a
very very beautiful, raw story, deeply personal, the unflishing testimony
of Tim Arigo, former addict turned clinical counselor, whose story
(00:48):
is reshaping how we think about male vulnerability, healing and redemption.
We love this kind of raw, beautiful stories, and this
is brought together by the wonderful director Brad Alexander, who
we have today on the phone. Brad, how are you.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Today, I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on today.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Thank you so much for being with us today. I
really really appreciate.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
So.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I would love to know first more about yourself. Can
you tell us where you're from and how did you
start filming.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Well, I'm born and raised in Orange County, California. I
live in North San Diego now, but I've always lived
in southern California, and i come from a skateboarding background,
So my film roots originated in the skateboard scene, and
over time, with the music skateboard background, I moved into
(01:45):
music videos and I eventually found myself working in the
commercial world and I was an editor for a company
and I would kind of serve as director of photography
on certain shoots and when we had the multitask things.
And it wasn't until twenty twenty when everything kind of
shut down that I was able to transition into what
(02:06):
I really wanted to do, which was tell impactful stories
in the documentary format.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
That's beautiful. What do you like so much about the documentary?
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I think there's something really beautiful about journalism because if
you see things in the world that you wish you
could change or you wish people knew more about, you
have a really great format to storytell, but to hopefully
show people why we should care about certain issues. And
with the film like The Threshing Floor, you always as
(02:38):
a director want the material to resonate with you and
be impactful, but you want to change the conversation at large,
and addiction is a conversation that I feel like there's
a lot of nuance to and often is very misunderstood.
So I feel like by telling raw stories that are
kind of unafraid to go into uncomfortable places and talk
(03:01):
through a lot of vulnerabilities, you can really humanize these
issues in a way that maybe people haven't seen before.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
And you're doing that really well. So now fast forwarding
to these great new documentary of Use the Threshing Floor,
can you tell us about the story and why was
it important for you to do it well?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
It resonated because I knew the central subject when I
was growing up skateboarding. We'd lost touch for a very
long time. But I think what resonates about his story
is the Orange County story of growing up in southern California,
growing up in really nice neighborhoods, but still falling victim
(03:46):
to the oxycotton pill kind of epidemic that hit in
the early two thousands into the kind of mid twenty
ten twenty twelve region, we saw a lot of people
that you wouldn't expect fall into really heavy addiction and
eventually kind of fall from pills into things like heroin
(04:07):
and meth because they were cheaper alternatives that were more powerful.
But I just felt like there's such a statement to
be made because the beautiful part about Tim's journey is
he's got a wife and he has two kids, and
he's been not only sober for ten years, but he's
really healed and he has a business and he walks
(04:29):
in a lot of freedom. And the narrative I had
always heard is if you go into some of these
harder drugs, the rest of your life is skewed by
relapse and brokenness. And Tim talks about addiction in such
a hopeful way that you can be healed and you
can break out of these patterns that I just I
wanted the world to have hope that no one is
(04:50):
too far gone and that you can come back from
even places people think you can't.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
And I love how you say it, and I love
what you're saying. It's a you can tell that you
spend a lot.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Of time on that yes documentary, Like I believe you know,
as directors, we spend so much time on the documentary
that we become the subject at some point, you.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Know, Oh yeah, you're so immersed in it. Sometimes you
know their story better than they do, and you can
press into things because you can see the forest for
the trees, you know.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
You know it's not scripted.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Also, like you don't give to the person you're interviewing
your script, you know, so you have also sometimes to
do with what you have and to organize it in
a way that is great for the documentary. I think
that's pretty interesting.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
What do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, I think a lot of times you're just documenting
life unfolding in real time and trying to show real people,
real stories and real kind of everyday situations and sometimes
extraordinary situations. But I think with documentaries that is different
from narrative is you can run with smaller crews at times,
(06:08):
so it becomes very intimate, and I try and run
with smaller crews just you know, we tell some overdose
stories and we talk to families that have lost kids
to addiction. That's really hard to do with a room
full of people to access those kind of emotions. But
I think there's always moments that you find the story
within the story. So because you're not going in with
(06:30):
the screenplay in the script, you're going in and saying
I feel like the story matters, And as you film
for a year or two, you start to find, oh,
there's a story beneath the story that I want to follow,
And I just love that aspect of documentaries, there's always
kind of some turn you weren't expecting, or some narrative
that you're like, whoa, this is the film and I
(06:52):
had no idea until I was immersed in it.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Well, I love how you said a story within the story.
I really love that. That's that's beautiful. I used to
say the litle story within the big story, but you
said it much better than myself. So what do you
expect people to take away from watching this great new
(07:17):
documentary of yours the Threshing Floor and we are today
with Brad Alexander.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Well, I guess there's a few things. The first thing
was always we want to humanize addiction in a way
that people who are affected by it through a family member,
not affected completely would see that. No one wakes up
one day and says I want to go live on
the street or I want to go live in a
(07:44):
motel room, and this is the life I'm choosing. It's
usually a series of decisions and those decisions are often
made out of addiction being a solution, So it's a
symptom of a problem. It's how we're trying to solve
a problem. Most people who fall into an addiction pattern,
it's because there's deep rooted trauma, and that's subjective. It
(08:07):
could have been bullying, it could have been a parent's divorce,
it could be really heavy stuff. But there's something that
I don't feel okay inside, and I'm using alcohol or
drugs or any number of things, gambling, whatever it is
to solve that problem. But it's temporary, and we wanted
to humanize that and show people that these aren't bad people.
(08:29):
It's a series of decisions that get made that drag
you deeper and deeper into this thing. And that was
one thing. The other thing we want people to take
away is no matter how low you get, it can
always be turned around. And we don't want anyone to
ever give up on your son who's living on the streets,
or your dad or your cousin, because even though you
(08:51):
need to put boundaries at times because their behavior can
become toxic, reminding that person that they're valuable and they're
loved is actually what's going to help them want to
get help and turn it around. So we wanted to
humanize it. We wanted to make sure people know that
no one's too far gone. And I mean, our faith
(09:12):
isn't heavy handed, but it is an aspect of this film,
and we just believe that God loves people and he
wants to set people free from the chain some addiction
and you know, noting a point your finger and shake
it way, but if you have to wake up every
day and take a substance that you don't want to
take just to survive the next day, we hope that
(09:33):
maybe somehow you'll see this film and you'll know there's
another way out and you just need to reach out
for help and that help is available.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
And that is really beautiful. And thank you for doing
such a documentary, for bringing attention to this very important
story the threshing floors. So before we start to say
goodbye to each other, what are your next project? What
is coming up for you?
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I'm in the final post phase of a film called
Tell Me About Tomorrow, which is the life and death
of Cooper Noriega, who was a social media influencer living
in Los Angeles and two of his best friends are
musicians that were signed to labels. His girlfriend, a lot
(10:21):
of his friends were models and influencers. He was transitioning
into modeling and he took a xanax that wasn't a xanax,
it was fentanyl, and it took his life. And I've
been working with his family to tell his life story
and also how they've carried on his legacy to help
(10:41):
others and raise awareness on fentanyl. And we are right
at the end of that. So the film is an
hour and fifty minutes picture locked and we're just getting
the closure on the ending and then that's going to
go off to film festivals. So we're really excited about
that project as well.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Well, we'll be there you to talk about it and
to definitely support all your great work and these beautiful
stories that you are doing. And congratulations again for the
great work you are doing. Ladies and gentlemen. My name
is David so we Ro. I had the pleasure to
have to don't with you on the Conture News. A
(11:19):
wonderful director who has released a great feature documentary. Of course,
I'm talking about Brad Alexander and the name of this
documentary is called The Threshing Floor. We say hello to
our dear friend Jane Owen. And of course we are
(11:40):
so glad to have this documentary out and we encourage
everyone to watch it. Bet if it's going to be
released in a week and it will be released on
all the major digital platforms such as Amazon Prime and others.
Good to watch it. The Threshing Floor by the great
director Brad Alexander. Right now we continue with some more music.
(12:03):
It's a beautiful day Statune with us
Ladies and gentlemen, Good afternoon, Welcome on the Culture News.
My name is David So we roid have the pleasure
to have today on iHeartRadio on the Coulture News a wonderful,
wonderful director, film director. His name is Brad Alexander. Brad Alexander.
He has released a wonderful new featured documentary called The
(00:24):
Threshing Floor. He's going to talk to us about it,
which is the story of addiction and recovery. Is stripped
of cliche and sanitized narrative arcs, and this is a
very very beautiful, raw story, deeply personal, the unflishing testimony
of Tim Arigo, former addict turned clinical counselor, whose story
(00:48):
is reshaping how we think about male vulnerability, healing and redemption.
We love this kind of raw, beautiful stories, and this
is brought together by the wonderful director Brad Alexander, who
we have today on the phone. Brad, how are you.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Today, I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on today.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Thank you so much for being with us today. I
really really appreciate.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
So.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I would love to know first more about yourself. Can
you tell us where you're from and how did you
start filming.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Well, I'm born and raised in Orange County, California. I
live in North San Diego now, but I've always lived
in southern California, and i come from a skateboarding background,
So my film roots originated in the skateboard scene, and
over time, with the music skateboard background, I moved into
(01:45):
music videos and I eventually found myself working in the
commercial world and I was an editor for a company
and I would kind of serve as director of photography
on certain shoots and when we had the multitask things.
And it wasn't until twenty twenty when everything kind of
shut down that I was able to transition into what
(02:06):
I really wanted to do, which was tell impactful stories
in the documentary format.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
That's beautiful. What do you like so much about the documentary?
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I think there's something really beautiful about journalism because if
you see things in the world that you wish you
could change or you wish people knew more about, you
have a really great format to storytell, but to hopefully
show people why we should care about certain issues. And
with the film like The Threshing Floor, you always as
(02:38):
a director want the material to resonate with you and
be impactful, but you want to change the conversation at large,
and addiction is a conversation that I feel like there's
a lot of nuance to and often is very misunderstood.
So I feel like by telling raw stories that are
kind of unafraid to go into uncomfortable places and talk
(03:01):
through a lot of vulnerabilities, you can really humanize these
issues in a way that maybe people haven't seen before.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
And you're doing that really well. So now fast forwarding
to these great new documentary of Use the Threshing Floor,
can you tell us about the story and why was
it important for you to do it well?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
It resonated because I knew the central subject when I
was growing up skateboarding. We'd lost touch for a very
long time. But I think what resonates about his story
is the Orange County story of growing up in southern California,
growing up in really nice neighborhoods, but still falling victim
(03:46):
to the oxycotton pill kind of epidemic that hit in
the early two thousands into the kind of mid twenty
ten twenty twelve region, we saw a lot of people
that you wouldn't expect fall into really heavy addiction and
eventually kind of fall from pills into things like heroin
(04:07):
and meth because they were cheaper alternatives that were more powerful.
But I just felt like there's such a statement to
be made because the beautiful part about Tim's journey is
he's got a wife and he has two kids, and
he's been not only sober for ten years, but he's
really healed and he has a business and he walks
(04:29):
in a lot of freedom. And the narrative I had
always heard is if you go into some of these
harder drugs, the rest of your life is skewed by
relapse and brokenness. And Tim talks about addiction in such
a hopeful way that you can be healed and you
can break out of these patterns that I just I
wanted the world to have hope that no one is
(04:50):
too far gone and that you can come back from
even places people think you can't.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
And I love how you say it, and I love
what you're saying. It's a you can tell that you
spend a lot.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Of time on that yes documentary, Like I believe you know,
as directors, we spend so much time on the documentary
that we become the subject at some point, you.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Know, Oh yeah, you're so immersed in it. Sometimes you
know their story better than they do, and you can
press into things because you can see the forest for
the trees, you know.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
You know it's not scripted.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Also, like you don't give to the person you're interviewing
your script, you know, so you have also sometimes to
do with what you have and to organize it in
a way that is great for the documentary. I think
that's pretty interesting.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
What do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, I think a lot of times you're just documenting
life unfolding in real time and trying to show real people,
real stories and real kind of everyday situations and sometimes
extraordinary situations. But I think with documentaries that is different
from narrative is you can run with smaller crews at times,
(06:08):
so it becomes very intimate, and I try and run
with smaller crews just you know, we tell some overdose
stories and we talk to families that have lost kids
to addiction. That's really hard to do with a room
full of people to access those kind of emotions. But
I think there's always moments that you find the story
within the story. So because you're not going in with
(06:30):
the screenplay in the script, you're going in and saying
I feel like the story matters, And as you film
for a year or two, you start to find, oh,
there's a story beneath the story that I want to follow,
And I just love that aspect of documentaries, there's always
kind of some turn you weren't expecting, or some narrative
that you're like, whoa, this is the film and I
(06:52):
had no idea until I was immersed in it.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Well, I love how you said a story within the story.
I really love that. That's that's beautiful. I used to
say the litle story within the big story, but you
said it much better than myself. So what do you
expect people to take away from watching this great new
(07:17):
documentary of yours the Threshing Floor and we are today
with Brad Alexander.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Well, I guess there's a few things. The first thing
was always we want to humanize addiction in a way
that people who are affected by it through a family member,
not affected completely would see that. No one wakes up
one day and says I want to go live on
the street or I want to go live in a
(07:44):
motel room, and this is the life I'm choosing. It's
usually a series of decisions and those decisions are often
made out of addiction being a solution, So it's a
symptom of a problem. It's how we're trying to solve
a problem. Most people who fall into an addiction pattern,
it's because there's deep rooted trauma, and that's subjective. It
(08:07):
could have been bullying, it could have been a parent's divorce,
it could be really heavy stuff. But there's something that
I don't feel okay inside, and I'm using alcohol or
drugs or any number of things, gambling, whatever it is
to solve that problem. But it's temporary, and we wanted
to humanize that and show people that these aren't bad people.
(08:29):
It's a series of decisions that get made that drag
you deeper and deeper into this thing. And that was
one thing. The other thing we want people to take
away is no matter how low you get, it can
always be turned around. And we don't want anyone to
ever give up on your son who's living on the streets,
or your dad or your cousin, because even though you
(08:51):
need to put boundaries at times because their behavior can
become toxic, reminding that person that they're valuable and they're
loved is actually what's going to help them want to
get help and turn it around. So we wanted to
humanize it. We wanted to make sure people know that
no one's too far gone. And I mean, our faith
(09:12):
isn't heavy handed, but it is an aspect of this film,
and we just believe that God loves people and he
wants to set people free from the chain some addiction
and you know, noting a point your finger and shake
it way, but if you have to wake up every
day and take a substance that you don't want to
take just to survive the next day, we hope that
(09:33):
maybe somehow you'll see this film and you'll know there's
another way out and you just need to reach out
for help and that help is available.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
And that is really beautiful. And thank you for doing
such a documentary, for bringing attention to this very important
story the threshing floors. So before we start to say
goodbye to each other, what are your next project? What
is coming up for you?
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I'm in the final post phase of a film called
Tell Me About Tomorrow, which is the life and death
of Cooper Noriega, who was a social media influencer living
in Los Angeles and two of his best friends are
musicians that were signed to labels. His girlfriend, a lot
(10:21):
of his friends were models and influencers. He was transitioning
into modeling and he took a xanax that wasn't a xanax,
it was fentanyl, and it took his life. And I've
been working with his family to tell his life story
and also how they've carried on his legacy to help
(10:41):
others and raise awareness on fentanyl. And we are right
at the end of that. So the film is an
hour and fifty minutes picture locked and we're just getting
the closure on the ending and then that's going to
go off to film festivals. So we're really excited about
that project as well.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Well, we'll be there you to talk about it and
to definitely support all your great work and these beautiful
stories that you are doing. And congratulations again for the
great work you are doing. Ladies and gentlemen. My name
is David so we Ro. I had the pleasure to
have to don't with you on the Conture News. A
(11:19):
wonderful director who has released a great feature documentary. Of course,
I'm talking about Brad Alexander and the name of this
documentary is called The Threshing Floor. We say hello to
our dear friend Jane Owen. And of course we are
(11:40):
so glad to have this documentary out and we encourage
everyone to watch it. Bet if it's going to be
released in a week and it will be released on
all the major digital platforms such as Amazon Prime and others.
Good to watch it. The Threshing Floor by the great
director Brad Alexander. Right now we continue with some more music.
(12:03):
It's a beautiful day Statune with us
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