Babies, Boredom & Folgers in Your Cup with Nicholas Webber
I sit down (virtually) with my old friend — actor, musician, writer, and unapologetic decaf drinker — Nicholas Webber. Nicholas and I have made a lot of things together over the years, and this time the thing we made is a conversation about fatherhood, faith, AI, and why technology might be the new religion. We get into logic and mystery, and the strange comfort of the small rituals that hold a life together.
Follow Nicholas on Instagram @wuckald
Listen to NICKCASEY's newest album – Life in My Head – on Spotify or Apple Music, watch the the video we made for Bandages, and learn more about the band at nickcaseymusic.com.
Please show some support for the podcast and get access to some extra content by subscribing to the Patreon page: http://www.patreon.com/onefjef
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Email: onefjefpod@gmail.com
You can also call the podcast and leave a voicemail at 1-669-241-5882 and I will probably play it on the air.
Thank you for listening, please do it again, but while drinking decaf.
Onefjef is produced, edited & hosted by Jef Taylor.
Transcript
We like to say like we do this for the money.
Speaker:No, what we really do it for is the emotional recognition.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:We judge the success on how much the job gets paid, how much it gets out there, how many
Speaker:people see it.
Speaker:But maybe all that is just a substitution for the more painful experience, which is that
Speaker:of somebody not caring.
Speaker:Love me.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Yeah, love me, right?
Speaker:This is episode 22 of onefjef.
Speaker:The number 22 carries an odd mix of logic and mystery.
Speaker:In numerology, it's a master number, the master builder symbolising the power to turn vision
Speaker:into form.
Speaker:In culture, it lives on through Catch 22, Joseph Heller's phrase for a maddening no-wind
Speaker:dilemma. The Bible ends its new testament with the 22nd book, Revelation, echoing a sense
Speaker:of completion and destiny.
Speaker:Even in science, titanium, atomic number 22 represents strength and resilience.
Speaker:It's a number that sits perfectly between structure and chaos, solid, paradoxical and
Speaker:strangely magnetic.
Speaker:Hello, my friends.
Speaker:I hope you're all thriving.
Speaker:Or if you're not thriving at least you're comfortable with that and optimistic about
Speaker:the future in some way.
Speaker:I guess today is Nick Weber.
Speaker:Nicholas Weber is an actor, musician and writer known for playing COJ Alvarez in Orange is the
Speaker:New Black with additional roles in law and order, unforgettable, funny bunny and you mean
Speaker:everything to me.
Speaker:He's also one half of the Brooklyn-based rock duo NICKCASEY, whose soulful, Americana-infused
Speaker:sound showcases his storytelling through music.
Speaker:Beyond the screen and stage, Weber co-created the future forest pandemic letters and ambitious
Speaker:collaborative project-blending fiction, illustration and correspondence into a poetic chronicle
Speaker:of human connection.
Speaker:The music you're hearing underneath me is a song called "Bandages" by NICKCASEY from their
Speaker:debut album.
Speaker:And I took most of the vocals out as much as the AI could at any rate so that they wouldn't
Speaker:distract from this intro.
Speaker:But you can and should go listen to all their music on Spotify or Apple Music or go
Speaker:over-every platform you use for the music stuff.
Speaker:I'll put a link in the show notes.
Speaker:This song brings me right back to 2009 when Nick and I and some friends made a music video
Speaker:for this song in my apartment in Park Slow Brooklyn.
Speaker:The video involved dancers from the Mark Morris dance troupe, Dry Ice and these old lights that
Speaker:we borrowed that made the apartment so brutally hot.
Speaker:It was already like a hot summer day and there was like one room with an air conditioner
Speaker:in it.
Speaker:It was my bedroom so in between takes like the dancers would go and just sit in my bedroom
Speaker:which was tiny.
Speaker:It was like basically the size of a bed that was all that really fit in it.
Speaker:Oh, New York.
Speaker:And it's a very weird video.
Speaker:I'll put a link to that in the show notes too.
Speaker:I have such a vivid memory of that day.
Speaker:Maybe in Park because I edited the video so I spent so much time with the footage.
Speaker:And maybe also because it was kind of a magical day.
Speaker:It was the first music video I'd ever worked on and we were young and foot loose and fancy
Speaker:free and all that.
Speaker:We were just kind of making it up as we went along.
Speaker:And I think it came out well.
Speaker:I'm still proud of that one.
Speaker:And in the years after that first collaboration, Nick and I ended up working together on a lot
Speaker:of creative stuff.
Speaker:We made more music videos.
Speaker:We made short films.
Speaker:We made some promos.
Speaker:We made some weird random experimental stuff.
Speaker:And looking back, I'm kind of amazed at how much stuff we made together.
Speaker:It's not like I didn't realize it at the time but it just seems like I don't know.
Speaker:We worked together a lot.
Speaker:Nick was always kind of down to do whatever and I really appreciated that about him.
Speaker:And here we are still making stuff together with this podcast episode.
Speaker:So it continues.
Speaker:I think the last thing I worked on with Nick was my web series of adults that he acted
Speaker:in and he actually has my favorite line from the entire series in it.
Speaker:Fuck you Jeff.
Speaker:Nailed it.
Speaker:One more time.
Speaker:Fuck you Jeff.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:This episode was recorded remotely as Nick lives in New Jersey and I'm here in Ohio.
Speaker:And there were quite a few technical issues as you'll hear, which I blame on Riverside,
Speaker:which is the platform we were using to record this episode.
Speaker:Then which I have had many issues with in the year or two that I've been using it.
Speaker:Never as many as we had in this episode though.
Speaker:So there are some places where the conversation just gets cut off and the audio quality is
Speaker:sometimes not ideal.
Speaker:So I apologize for that.
Speaker:But don't blame me.
Speaker:And don't blame Nick.
Speaker:Blame Riverside.
Speaker:And Riverside, if you're listening, get your shit together.
Speaker:Also this episode was recorded earlier this month, I think like three weeks ago.
Speaker:So some of the stuff we talk about will be a little bit dated, no matter when you're listening.
Speaker:Like if you're listening to this in two years, of course it'll be dated.
Speaker:But it'll be like a trip down memory lane in a way.
Speaker:But if you're listening to this on the last day of October or in the beating in November
Speaker:of 2025, it'll still seem a little dated.
Speaker:I'll be at less dated than it would if you're listening to it in 2028 or 2029.
Speaker:If you are listening to it in 2029, how's it going?
Speaker:Do we still have a country?
Speaker:Is Trump still alive?
Speaker:If he is, don't tell me, because I don't want to know.
Speaker:Anyway, in spite of the technical issues, I think I was able to kind of cobble together
Speaker:a coherence and interesting conversation here.
Speaker:Nick and I have been friends for years and I really enjoy our conversations.
Speaker:I find them to be interesting and unique and engaging.
Speaker:And I hope you will too.
Speaker:I'm sure you will too.
Speaker:Thank you for listening.
Speaker:Thank you for being here.
Speaker:Here's Nick Weber talking about DeCaf.
Speaker:How many cups of DeCaf are you up to these days, Nick?
Speaker:Probably three or four by the time the day's over.
Speaker:Wow, you got to be careful.
Speaker:Well, it's the acid.
Speaker:Do you feel it in your stomach?
Speaker:You know, it's like a bit.
Speaker:Sure, sure.
Speaker:Sure, yeah.
Speaker:I haven't been off caffeine since college.
Speaker:It's not a problem.
Speaker:Yeah, I wouldn't drink coffee if it wasn't for the caffeine.
Speaker:The caffeine, most people.
Speaker:It's become a thing around here, DeCaf.
Speaker:Like my wife made fun of me for it and then she was always charmed by the fact that I would
Speaker:seemingly have forgotten about it and then get really excited about me.
Speaker:Oh, I can have a DeCaf.
Speaker:Like DeCaf is like a joint or something.
Speaker:But my friends made me some DeCaf shirts.
Speaker:I've made a thing of it.
Speaker:So does your wife drink caffeinated coffee?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:She was off it during the pregnancy recently.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But she's gone back on it.
Speaker:So you have to have two pots of coffee going at the house.
Speaker:We have...
Speaker:She likes espresso.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:And then I was making Americano's out of that for years and just this year I purchased a
Speaker:drip machine.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:It's an exciting time to be alive.
Speaker:When I was a kid, my parents would have...
Speaker:My parents would have people over.
Speaker:It's always like, you know, the coffee pots on the house smells like drip coffee.
Speaker:There's the end to them and so on.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So there's an nostalgia factor to me of...
Speaker:And I like having a cup and then going back and being able to pour a second cup that
Speaker:is still hot.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:That to me is...
Speaker:It's like that commercial.
Speaker:What was the commercial?
Speaker:Maybe this is dating me.
Speaker:There was a commercial that was like a cheesy commercial where they would brew the pot of
Speaker:coffee downstairs, some shitty, you know, ground coffee and then everybody would smell it
Speaker:and be like, "Oh, it's time to wake up.
Speaker:I can smell it."
Speaker:Folgers in your cup or something.
Speaker:So I will say like that.
Speaker:Folgers in?
Speaker:Yeah, which is a god awful coffee, but that's all they had back then, you know?
Speaker:The best part of waking up.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:It's the best part of waking up.
Speaker:You know, and that's amazing.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:It's decaf in your cup.
Speaker:Do you feel like the decaf wakes you up?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:It's just a soothing, comforting thing.
Speaker:It's like anything.
Speaker:It's like drinking a carbonated water.
Speaker:Does it really hydrate you?
Speaker:Like not as much as flat water does.
Speaker:I have no idea.
Speaker:There's no refreshing, you know?
Speaker:I don't really care for the carbonated water, the cell tours.
Speaker:I had the thought years ago when after I had quit smoking that part of the appeal of carbonated
Speaker:water or soda in general, especially when you chug it, is that throat hit where the bubble
Speaker:sort of like hurt a little bit?
Speaker:Because when you quit smoking or when you go over to like nicotine lists cigarettes, that's
Speaker:the big thing.
Speaker:It's like, well, where's the hit?
Speaker:Like, I want the hit.
Speaker:So I kind of have a theory that people that are addicted to carbonated water, there's
Speaker:a similar sensory thing that there is to smoking.
Speaker:It's like this mildly uncomfortable throat.
Speaker:Yeah, they should maybe put like nicotine and then they'd have a real like a winner on their
Speaker:hands.
Speaker:It's double trouble.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Lots to think about here.
Speaker:Lots to think about.
Speaker:Anyway, Nicholas Weber, Nick Weber as I call you, thanks for coming on to the podcast.
Speaker:It's good to talk to you again.
Speaker:I was thinking about when I actually met you and like I do with, you know, many of the
Speaker:guests that are people that I've known in my life.
Speaker:And I think that we actually met on a rooftop in Brooklyn in, I'm thinking it was 2008 or
Speaker:2009.
Speaker:I had come up there, of course, with Michael and yeah, we, I think it was, it was me and
Speaker:the fourth of July actually.
Speaker:I was just going to say was that were there fireworks?
Speaker:Yeah, I think there were.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And you and Casey came and then we, I think we went back to Tisdale's.
Speaker:I don't know if you came, but like ended up watching this Beckett DVD collection that he
Speaker:played all the time for some reason and getting, getting stoned.
Speaker:I remember the Beckett on film.
Speaker:Yeah, there was a lot of that.
Speaker:I don't remember Michael having it, but I remember first discovering it and thinking
Speaker:it, it, I too thought it was, no, I thought it was good.
Speaker:It was just played quite a bit.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So yeah, that's, I believe the first time we met.
Speaker:I can't say for sure, but that's my memory.
Speaker:That makes sense.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And yeah, there's been a, it's been a long path.
Speaker:We've made videos together.
Speaker:We've, I mean, what else have we done together?
Speaker:I'd be true at poker one time.
Speaker:Well, we did music videos.
Speaker:We've done narrative shorts.
Speaker:Oh, yeah, we've done narrative.
Speaker:We were in some of my films, yeah.
Speaker:And yeah, we've done a lot of stuff together.
Speaker:You've edited films of ours.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So done a lot of stuff.
Speaker:And now I don't live in New York anymore and you have a child.
Speaker:I have two children.
Speaker:Oh, do you really?
Speaker:This was the second one was born about a month ago.
Speaker:Oh, I have no idea.
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:No, I had no idea.
Speaker:I did not know that your wife was bringing them again.
Speaker:Yeah, the two boys, the older one is now in kindergarten
Speaker:and the younger one is newly here.
Speaker:What's the younger one's name?
Speaker:Thomas.
Speaker:Thomas.
Speaker:And the other one is--
Speaker:Benjamin.
Speaker:Tom and Ben, one syllable nicknames, just like Nick.
Speaker:Sarah was not hip on Tommy.
Speaker:It doesn't really love Tommy.
Speaker:But Benjamin was Benby as a kid.
Speaker:And we did sort of like stumbling upon Tommy
Speaker:as a sort of nickname for a little baby Thomas,
Speaker:we thought was fun.
Speaker:T-O-M-B.
Speaker:T-O-M-B-Y, Tommy.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Oh, Tommy.
Speaker:I've never heard that before.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's cute, right?
Speaker:Yeah, that's cute.
Speaker:I don't know if I feel positive or negative about it,
Speaker:but it is cute.
Speaker:Jeff B. I could go with Jeff B. Nick B.
Speaker:Why don't we just all do that?
Speaker:So how does it feel to be a father again?
Speaker:It's good.
Speaker:I recommend people should do it.
Speaker:I thought it obviously is not as popular these days.
Speaker:This whole family thing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But I think it's--
Speaker:speaking for myself, it's been great.
Speaker:It just-- there's before and there's
Speaker:after having kids.
Speaker:There is no-- unless you do it, you don't really understand it.
Speaker:I mean, lots of people say, oh, I have nieces and nephews
Speaker:and stuff.
Speaker:I'm like, yeah, you don't get it.
Speaker:It's not the same thing.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I can walk away from the nieces and nephews,
Speaker:but you have to remain.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it's a responsibility.
Speaker:Like, you are the primary response.
Speaker:It just changes everything.
Speaker:I think more people should do it.
Speaker:Yeah, I don't think that all--
Speaker:I mean, maybe I'll do it someday.
Speaker:It's just not on the radar at the moment.
Speaker:It wasn't really on my radar.
Speaker:I kind of felt like I stumbled into it.
Speaker:You know, obviously they come out of relationships.
Speaker:I mean, that's the biggest thing, like, among the women
Speaker:that I work with at the restaurant.
Speaker:Like, they-- you know, this is a lot of women
Speaker:in their mid-late thirties that are not
Speaker:in serious relationships.
Speaker:And they're now bemoaning that, you know?
Speaker:Because they can freeze their eggs, right?
Speaker:That's what they're really doing now.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:But still, the idea of the promise of--
Speaker:it feels-- most people aren't willing to take that dive
Speaker:unless they're in a relationship.
Speaker:I would imagine.
Speaker:I don't have a stand on that.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:They're cheap.
Speaker:It's freezing your eggs, doesn't solve the relationship problem.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:No, it doesn't.
Speaker:It doesn't.
Speaker:Is your wife going to get the certificate from Donald Trump?
Speaker:Because I think he's giving certificates in money
Speaker:for people who reproduce.
Speaker:If there's money, we will for sure take it.
Speaker:We've got to get that certificate.
Speaker:You've got to put that on the wall.
Speaker:How new--
Speaker:how new of a development is this that he's handing out?
Speaker:Oh, I mean, since who the fuck two knows anymore?
Speaker:Since he's been president so in the last six months,
Speaker:but I know that that was a thing.
Speaker:Yeah, I don't know how much of this stuff is real.
Speaker:Like, you know, the tax on tips thing, you know,
Speaker:all of the-- no tax on tips.
Speaker:Is this going to happen, too?
Speaker:Am I going to get no tax on one of them?
Speaker:That in the big and beautiful bill.
Speaker:I thought it was in the big, beautiful bill, as he calls it.
Speaker:I don't follow the details, you know?
Speaker:Yeah, nobody knows what's happening anymore.
Speaker:Except for the fact that we're not making anymore pennies.
Speaker:So that's one thing that I can say, good job, Donald Trump.
Speaker:Tired of the penny?
Speaker:Don't want that shit anymore.
Speaker:Got rid of that.
Speaker:Boom, bang, bang, boom.
Speaker:Did you watch Kimmel's come back monologue?
Speaker:I watched a little bit of it.
Speaker:You know, next to so much of this is just distraction,
Speaker:but you know, tell me about it.
Speaker:[LAUGHS]
Speaker:I thought it was excellent.
Speaker:I thought it was a very humanitarian, very carefully--
Speaker:carefully thought-- I mean, one of the things
Speaker:that he said that struck me was like, look,
Speaker:I've been doing this for 20-some years.
Speaker:I've done over 4,000 episodes of the--
Speaker:you know what I mean?
Speaker:You get good at what you repeat.
Speaker:And it was just flawless.
Speaker:It was like if you handed that in as a paper in college,
Speaker:you would get an A plus.
Speaker:And the teacher would read it in front of the class.
Speaker:Yeah, it was just pitch perfect.
Speaker:Pitch perfect.
Speaker:I'm sure they had quite a few people going over that over
Speaker:and over and over to make sure it was the exact right thing
Speaker:to say.
Speaker:The performance of it, too, was flawless.
Speaker:You know, like again, it's just he's been doing it for so long.
Speaker:It was like watching the ballerina,
Speaker:just like a really great performance.
Speaker:It's somewhat ironic, though, that he got his fame
Speaker:from that man show that he used to be on Uncommon East
Speaker:Central, which involved women in bikinis jumping up and down
Speaker:on trampolines.
Speaker:Do you remember the show?
Speaker:It was the most like, I guess, sexist show on TV.
Speaker:At the time, it was a very leaning into--
Speaker:Strong male guys.
Speaker:Strong male guys.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Strong male guys.
Speaker:And now it's gone the entire other way.
Speaker:Cable was never a thing in my life.
Speaker:So all of those shows, all those comedy central shows,
Speaker:they're very periphery for me.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Because of the Christian upbringing.
Speaker:Was that because of that or was it just--
Speaker:Starting with that, so it wasn't in the home growing up.
Speaker:But then once I got to college, I was so consumed with music
Speaker:and literature that I didn't--
Speaker:I didn't own a TV until a long time after college.
Speaker:And then my first real dive back into media aside from movies.
Speaker:I always loved going to the movies.
Speaker:But then when--
Speaker:I came in late to the big HBO heyday.
Speaker:So I pirated all of those big HBO shows for the first ones.
Speaker:I think Rome was maybe coming out when I was doing this.
Speaker:So I watched like-- I binge like what-- not Westworld.
Speaker:What was the deadwood and the sopranos and six feet
Speaker:under and all of that.
Speaker:And then I started sort of taking in television media
Speaker:a little bit more.
Speaker:But I still don't watch television.
Speaker:It was never-- it's never been a thing really.
Speaker:You're like a deliberate watcher as opposed to a pastor.
Speaker:Like you're not just going to put it on.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And these days, if I'm watching a movie or something,
Speaker:I'm doing it in like probably like 10, 20 minute chunks.
Speaker:Like while I'm eating, I'll watch the--
Speaker:and then I got to go on and get above them.
Speaker:Right, right, right, right.
Speaker:So you did grow up in a pretty--
Speaker:like a fundamentalist Christian household,
Speaker:but was it fundamentalist?
Speaker:I think Born Again gets there.
Speaker:You know what I mean?
Speaker:It's--
Speaker:Born Again.
Speaker:Born Again.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's part of the evangelical Born Again movement,
Speaker:like going to--
Speaker:like some creationist seminars and--
Speaker:prayer in the schools and like--
Speaker:sinners, prayer, except Jesus into your heart,
Speaker:this kind of language, right?
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:There was speaking in tongues and slain in the spirit
Speaker:and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker:The power team--
Speaker:I don't know if you've heard of the power team.
Speaker:No, no, I never--
Speaker:I couldn't watch pro wrestling, but the power team was--
Speaker:The Christian wrestlers.
Speaker:Kind of.
Speaker:Yeah, they would do these feats of strength,
Speaker:like blow up water bottles with their--
Speaker:like hot water bottles.
Speaker:They'd like inflate them like balloons
Speaker:or they'd break out a handcuffs in Jesus name.
Speaker:You know, a real--
Speaker:Real theatrical--
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Steroidy stuff.
Speaker:But it was all because of Jesus.
Speaker:It was-- yeah, that was the hook.
Speaker:Right, Jesus did it all.
Speaker:I wonder if they pre-prep those bottles
Speaker:to make an easier blow on?
Speaker:It would say that if they pre-prep the water bottles,
Speaker:did I lose you?
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, but it's fine.
Speaker:It was a stupid joke.
Speaker:They probably--
Speaker:They probably look.
Speaker:You hear me?
Speaker:Yeah, look.
Speaker:Can you hear me?
Speaker:Hello?
Speaker:Hello.
Speaker:Hello.
Speaker:Uh-oh.
Speaker:So yeah, as I warned you in the intro,
Speaker:this is the first of, I think, two or three times
Speaker:when the conversation got interrupted
Speaker:by technical issues.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:I hope you're enjoying the conversation so far.
Speaker:And I hope you continue to enjoy it.
Speaker:In spite of the anticipation, you may be
Speaker:feeling about the next time it gets interrupted.
Speaker:All right, moving on.
Speaker:OK, good.
Speaker:We're back.
Speaker:Where were we?
Speaker:Oh, I asked about--
Speaker:The fundamentalist are the born again Christian childhood.
Speaker:Was it school?
Speaker:Did you go to school for the fundamentalist
Speaker:are born again Christian school?
Speaker:No, public school.
Speaker:Oh, that'd be hard for your parents to let that happen.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, Christianity, like autism,
Speaker:is a spectrum.
Speaker:Right, right, right.
Speaker:But born again is way on the edge of the spectrum, though.
Speaker:I mean, there's my mom's Catholic quote unquote,
Speaker:but I don't think that she's--
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, I still struggle with how
Speaker:to navigate all of this.
Speaker:I don't know that it was hard to send us to public schools
Speaker:if I'm answering that question.
Speaker:I mean, my dad taught at a public school.
Speaker:He taught high school.
Speaker:Huh.
Speaker:That's actually interesting that they're able to--
Speaker:there was like a putting everything in a little cubby hole.
Speaker:Right, you've got to sort things based on importance,
Speaker:I guess.
Speaker:I mean, I think everybody does.
Speaker:But the most Christians I don't think
Speaker:at home school their kids, most people that--
Speaker:I mean, I don't even love this word Christians
Speaker:is because I don't know exactly what we're referring to.
Speaker:I mean, people have different denominations of Christian,
Speaker:which will-- the way that they talk about their quote unquote
Speaker:beliefs will be more or less palatable.
Speaker:Some people that-- it goes across the political spectrum.
Speaker:I think when my wife used the term Christian nationalist,
Speaker:recently, which I think sort of zeroes in a little bit better
Speaker:on some people that we're talking about.
Speaker:Right, right, right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, I feel that that's coming from a Reagan era thing,
Speaker:even probably before that.
Speaker:Like there are roots in that.
Speaker:This idea of the Republican Party co-opting Christ
Speaker:in order to appeal to a voter base.
Speaker:It's not a hard to track.
Speaker:Sure, sure.
Speaker:I mean, Trump's a whole different game, though,
Speaker:because how do you--
Speaker:In what way?
Speaker:In what way is Trump a different game?
Speaker:Let's-- let's--
Speaker:[LAUGHS]
Speaker:Being facetious.
Speaker:I did hear, though, an explanation
Speaker:of how the Christians or a lot of them are justifying it.
Speaker:There's some-- I forget the name of the figure in the Bible,
Speaker:perhaps you do-- that was kind of like a oafish fool
Speaker:but who ended up saving Israel or the Jews in some way or another.
Speaker:I had never heard the name.
Speaker:Maybe starts with a C or something?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:But it was interesting.
Speaker:I'm like, oh, of course they found somebody there.
Speaker:They found some biblical character who they can say,
Speaker:oh, well, Christ is a terrible human being and kind of an idiot.
Speaker:But look, it's he's just like whatever his name was--
Speaker:Clyde or whatever his name was.
Speaker:Well, I don't think anybody is calling Christ
Speaker:the terrible human being and an idiot.
Speaker:I am.
Speaker:You think Christ is a terrible human being and an idiot?
Speaker:Maybe an idiot?
Speaker:And they're not Christ.
Speaker:I meant Trump.
Speaker:I meant--
Speaker:Oh, my bad.
Speaker:Trump.
Speaker:My bad.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:Easier to call Trump a terrible human being than Christ.
Speaker:No question.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:You've got to find a way to thread that needle really.
Speaker:Yeah, there are multiple sort of conversion stories
Speaker:in the Bible, you know?
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:Trump doesn't really follow any of them.
Speaker:No, I don't believe Trump is genuine in any of his rhetoric, you know.
Speaker:How do your parents feel about him?
Speaker:Do they feel all right about him?
Speaker:They vote for him.
Speaker:Yeah, they're on board.
Speaker:That's a hard one.
Speaker:I don't really say-- I just don't--
Speaker:I know.
Speaker:And I keep-- there are things that happen in the news and things
Speaker:in like articles that I read.
Speaker:And there's-- I'm kind of over the like trying
Speaker:to own or convince them of anything, because I just don't want
Speaker:to get into--
Speaker:I mean, there are many reasons why.
Speaker:And again, without kids, that it probably looks different.
Speaker:I don't know whether you're keeping the first part
Speaker:of our conversation or not.
Speaker:But I'm going to try to if we got it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, kids change everything, you know?
Speaker:Kids change everything.
Speaker:I'm sure.
Speaker:I'm sure.
Speaker:I wonder what it'll take for the divide, you know,
Speaker:because I've given up.
Speaker:Like everybody's kind of been like, I've
Speaker:given up trying to talk to my relatives about any of this.
Speaker:I've given up trying to even--
Speaker:because it's kind of useless.
Speaker:We're so divided.
Speaker:There's nobody's going to listen to each other anymore,
Speaker:because the internet's, you know.
Speaker:But like, I wonder what it'll take for the--
Speaker:if anything to bring this country.
Speaker:And to some extent, the world back together again.
Speaker:But I think this country is really much more--
Speaker:it's much more acute in America than in most places
Speaker:at this point.
Speaker:But yeah, you wonder like a catastrophe of some sort, right?
Speaker:War.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So how old were you when you started to question
Speaker:the upbringing that you had been--
Speaker:I think from the beginning, if I really were tracking it,
Speaker:I think there was always things that felt sort of weird or off.
Speaker:And then as you try to have conversations with people
Speaker:about these things, and you just watch those conversations
Speaker:kind of fall flat, because the people
Speaker:that you're talking to--
Speaker:they're not approaching this subject with any sense of curiosity.
Speaker:Instead, they're already on the other side
Speaker:of their conclusions about the subject.
Speaker:And so it takes--
Speaker:you know, a real curiosity when approaching religion or theology
Speaker:or mystery at all is something that gets harder and harder
Speaker:to find.
Speaker:I think the older you get.
Speaker:And there was also--
Speaker:I think a big thing for me with the church
Speaker:was that there wasn't a lot of kids my age.
Speaker:So there wasn't really a community for me there.
Speaker:I was always trying to hang out with kids
Speaker:that were older than me, or even hang out with the adults
Speaker:when it came to more fun, sociable activities.
Speaker:So that, for me, was the big difference between going to school
Speaker:or hanging out with kids on the other side of the block
Speaker:and roller-blading around and things like that
Speaker:versus going to church was just that the demographic
Speaker:looked different.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I wonder if it would have been different.
Speaker:Had you had a bunch of kids your age who
Speaker:were also born here in Christians?
Speaker:Yeah, of course.
Speaker:Yeah, I feel like the difficulty in having
Speaker:any kind of true religious argument
Speaker:is that there's a logical piece that a lot of times
Speaker:the faith piece-- there's no-- you can't put the faith piece
Speaker:and the logic piece together in a neat puzzle.
Speaker:It just doesn't jive that way.
Speaker:So when you start having that argument,
Speaker:a lot of people who are born against have thrown away
Speaker:the logic piece in favor of the faith piece.
Speaker:And so it's just a pointless.
Speaker:It kind of reflects what's going on in the country, too.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:For sure, there's so many places to take this.
Speaker:I think the afterlife for me is a real clear cut one, where
Speaker:when I'm talking about whatever-- if we start talking
Speaker:about what happens after we die, and you're trying to do so
Speaker:in a logical way, like it's just this conversation's over.
Speaker:You've ceased being curious about the subject at hand.
Speaker:Instead, you're just a mouthpiece for whatever
Speaker:ideological nonsense you're spouting.
Speaker:That for me is a very clear line.
Speaker:What if we were to ask the question in an hour to say,
Speaker:well, I think that your body stops functioning
Speaker:and your brain dies and you get put into a hole?
Speaker:Yeah, that sounds logical.
Speaker:It's hard to argue with that one.
Speaker:But I also don't think that logic necessarily
Speaker:fits with all the-- there's so many new understandings
Speaker:of science right now that suggests that maybe this isn't
Speaker:the end of what we understand to be.
Speaker:Well, in logic only goes so far in conversation
Speaker:in and of itself.
Speaker:We're all in part of--
Speaker:Right, that's really logical creatures.
Speaker:Yeah, I think we kind of forego the other part of ourselves
Speaker:too often, perhaps.
Speaker:At least I do anyway.
Speaker:I think logic is often my baseline.
Speaker:But the other stuff, the-- perhaps the ethereal stuff,
Speaker:the spiritual stuff that is out there,
Speaker:I kind of push it away because I don't understand it.
Speaker:So I can't engage with it.
Speaker:But it's still out there.
Speaker:Well, remember when you first got to Ohio,
Speaker:I don't know how long you were in Ohio before.
Speaker:I also just quickly want to comment on this lag
Speaker:is not good for comedy.
Speaker:So I'm just going to try to avoid jokes.
Speaker:Yeah, I don't know why there's a lag.
Speaker:The pause for the lag, it just doesn't work.
Speaker:But when you got to Ohio and you joined that choir--
Speaker:remember the community choir that you would go to
Speaker:and you sing with people--
Speaker:Harmony, pardoning, project, yeah.
Speaker:So that to you was a very important thing for a while.
Speaker:That filled a need for what happens when people get together
Speaker:in community in a spiritual way.
Speaker:There's not a whole lot of doctrine to that.
Speaker:But there's a whole lot of embodied activity, ritual,
Speaker:which is religion, I think.
Speaker:So that was-- I don't think you're totally void of it.
Speaker:I think that you're starting a podcast that
Speaker:has a rhythm to it.
Speaker:And anything that's repeatable that becomes embodied
Speaker:and works through the seasons in the year
Speaker:and that you're marking things by, it has a religious component.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm still in the choir.
Speaker:It's just lost a lot of its funding because of the present
Speaker:day in the United States.
Speaker:Oh, nice.
Speaker:Yeah, so that's great.
Speaker:That's great, great story.
Speaker:[LAUGHTER]
Speaker:So when you went to college, was that when--
Speaker:like at some point did you decide to--
Speaker:were you pretending to believe or were you very clearly not
Speaker:believing or were?
Speaker:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker:I went to-- when I was in the sixth grade,
Speaker:the pastor left the church that we were at.
Speaker:And that was kind of like what?
Speaker:I didn't understand that.
Speaker:That felt like you were getting abandoned kind of like,
Speaker:well, why?
Speaker:I don't understand.
Speaker:And so we looked for new churches.
Speaker:And the new church that we went to was a four square church.
Speaker:And then the building where we were at ended up being condemned.
Speaker:So we were meeting in the auditorium of the junior high
Speaker:where I was also going to school.
Speaker:So there was this interesting overlap between being there
Speaker:working on a play during the week.
Speaker:And then on Sunday--
Speaker:oh, Jesus Christ, the fucking thing.
Speaker:[CHANTING]
Speaker:And again, yes, this is the second time
Speaker:that the conversation got interrupted.
Speaker:Again, I warned you.
Speaker:I did.
Speaker:And I'm very sorry.
Speaker:I hope it's not taking you out of the thing too much.
Speaker:Maybe it's actually making it a little bit more exciting.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:But yeah, fuck you, Riverside.
Speaker:Fix your goddamn platform.
Speaker:[MUSIC PLAYING]
Speaker:Tag here now.
Speaker:Still pretty bad.
Speaker:If I take-- yeah, we'll see.
Speaker:[MUSIC PLAYING]
Speaker:That seems right on it.
Speaker:Yeah, that seems right on it.
Speaker:I don't know what--
Speaker:but like, I don't know how long that is after you've said it
Speaker:that it's coming to me.
Speaker:But they're late to at least.
Speaker:No, my first thing just finished uploading that second tab
Speaker:I closed as I was getting out.
Speaker:And so maybe that's all lost.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:[MUSIC PLAYING]
Speaker:I mean, if we can have a conversation with less lag,
Speaker:I think we just start over now and see what we can get.
Speaker:Or if the sound quality is enough, I mean,
Speaker:I'm not-- maybe I should put earbuds in and use that
Speaker:as opposed to just my mic.
Speaker:That stops the feet-- yeah, the lag.
Speaker:But let me try my AirPods.
Speaker:You tell me which sounds better.
Speaker:Let's see.
Speaker:It does that sound better to you?
Speaker:Similar.
Speaker:Or whatever.
Speaker:OK.
Speaker:[SIGHS]
Speaker:Well, that's the fantasy, right?
Speaker:You would do something that could affect a corporation.
Speaker:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker:What a fantasy that is.
Speaker:That's the real American.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, that's good.
Speaker:You're making some noise.
Speaker:No, I feel like the lag is a lot better.
Speaker:I feel like we can overlap each other better.
Speaker:So where do you stand now with God?
Speaker:Or it's the lack of-- it's the lack thereof?
Speaker:What a great question, Jeff.
Speaker:What a great question, thanks.
Speaker:Can I throw it back at you?
Speaker:Like, right, just throw back at me immediately or without answering?
Speaker:Where do you stand with God?
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Interesting, interesting game to play.
Speaker:I don't believe that there's--
Speaker:I think we've talked about-- but I've read the entire book,
Speaker:the entire Bible.
Speaker:Beginning to end, it's quite boring.
Speaker:They really need a good editor, to be honest.
Speaker:But if there's any kind of a higher power of any sort,
Speaker:it's some sort of--
Speaker:I don't think necessarily we're gone.
Speaker:After we die, I think there's a lot of evidence
Speaker:even scientific now suggesting that consciousness kind
Speaker:of does continue to exist in some way.
Speaker:So it's funny.
Speaker:This is usually my last question, usually,
Speaker:about the nature of death and whatever it is.
Speaker:But if you're talking about God, you're kind of talking about death
Speaker:in the same thing, vis-à-vis.
Speaker:So yeah, I don't think that there's a man in the sky with the beard.
Speaker:But I think that there is something beyond us
Speaker:and beyond our scientific knowledge
Speaker:that we don't understand, not necessarily
Speaker:that controls everything, but that exists
Speaker:and that we don't yet understand.
Speaker:And perhaps we do get to understand that after our physical bodies
Speaker:have shat the bed.
Speaker:Yeah, literally.
Speaker:The field will look different.
Speaker:What is the compelling evidence that you've heard recently
Speaker:or like scientific or whatever about consciousness
Speaker:continuing after death?
Speaker:What do you think of when you're referring to that?
Speaker:I mean, I'm just thinking--
Speaker:I mean, there's been quite a few articles that have come out
Speaker:that have established that consciousness is like a separate energy
Speaker:outside of our bodies in a way.
Speaker:I'm not going to give it-- I'm not a scientist,
Speaker:so I'm not going to give it the--
Speaker:and quite frankly, I probably skimmed it.
Speaker:But the impression I got there's been quite a few that have kind of suggested
Speaker:that there's more to consciousness than we understand
Speaker:and that consciousness is something beyond our physical beings.
Speaker:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then you hear the stories of people
Speaker:like having near-death experiences.
Speaker:And there's some uncanny ones that are like,
Speaker:well, how did you-- maybe they're just bullshit.
Speaker:But I've heard enough where I'm like, oh, that's hard to dismiss.
Speaker:So, or maybe it's just my mind looking for something to grab on to.
Speaker:What's the-- there's something about--
Speaker:there's some study where when you first start
Speaker:to learn about something, you feel like you're an expert on it.
Speaker:And then the more that you learn, you start to realize,
Speaker:oh, wow, I don't know shit.
Speaker:And then it takes a while for you to get back up to like,
Speaker:yeah, I got a handle on this.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:That I feel like, yeah, the brain consciousness--
Speaker:these are all things that we're only kind of skimming
Speaker:the surface of understanding.
Speaker:Yeah, but I do think it's interesting that we're finally doing it
Speaker:and the things that we're slowly figuring out.
Speaker:Like, I think there's a lot of interesting--
Speaker:there's a lot of horrible things going on in the world.
Speaker:But we're using AI to translate whale talk.
Speaker:So like, hey, I'll take half and half, right?
Speaker:I want to talk to whales.
Speaker:I think the God thing is just--
Speaker:it's a really hard question to answer.
Speaker:I don't think that I think it's pretty kind of boring,
Speaker:because what are we talking about?
Speaker:It's a little like what we talk about when we talk about,
Speaker:whatever.
Speaker:Love, or-- I think there's a mysteriousness to--
Speaker:there are things that are mysteries
Speaker:and how we face those things or don't face those things.
Speaker:How we orient to them is all a little confusing.
Speaker:But again, the kid thing, the idea of having kids,
Speaker:like that changes your God in a way.
Speaker:I remember the road, the Kormac McCarthy novel, right?
Speaker:Yeah, never read it, but yeah.
Speaker:So the kid in that is very--
Speaker:there's very blatant language where
Speaker:he refers to the kid as his God.
Speaker:Whatever your oriented to, whatever your ideals are.
Speaker:And how aware of those you are is not necessarily clear either,
Speaker:some more than others.
Speaker:But the kid thing changes your orientation
Speaker:to a lot of these things.
Speaker:It's interesting that oftentimes the mythology does paint
Speaker:the deity as a younger person, even like Dune,
Speaker:as well as also be a young Messiah character to a degree,
Speaker:and trying to think of something else.
Speaker:Well, you think of the Christ story
Speaker:and the importance of the birth and the idea
Speaker:of the possibility of--
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:The future starts to include this idea of the eternal a little bit.
Speaker:I saw the second biggest Christian cross in the United States
Speaker:when I was on my road trip in Effingham, Indian Hill.
Speaker:Effingham, Illinois.
Speaker:The second biggest--
Speaker:The second biggest--
Speaker:How big was the second biggest?
Speaker:Just high enough so they didn't have to put blinking red lights on it
Speaker:for FAA regulations.
Speaker:[LAUGHTER]
Speaker:And that's what they told me with a straight face.
Speaker:And I was like, oh, all right, that's great.
Speaker:That's good.
Speaker:A lot of fatigues.
Speaker:I mean, it was big.
Speaker:It was big.
Speaker:I'm not sure what Jesus would think.
Speaker:This is my whole thought all the time.
Speaker:And if Jesus came back, what would he think of all this?
Speaker:I mean, I've seen--
Speaker:went to Bogota's abrutilized statues of Jesus
Speaker:being whipped to death.
Speaker:And it's like, why?
Speaker:I wouldn't want to see any of that.
Speaker:I wouldn't.
Speaker:Well, these are internal fantasies
Speaker:that are getting memorialized here.
Speaker:It's very strange.
Speaker:I mean, if you came back and you saw it,
Speaker:you got things of me on the cross, dying in your every--
Speaker:that's how your worship--
Speaker:I'd be like, what?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:My brain would explode a little bit.
Speaker:But it was a big cross.
Speaker:It was a pretty kick ass, bro.
Speaker:Pretty kick ass.
Speaker:Here's the thing.
Speaker:If we're going to circle this religion thing,
Speaker:here's my latest sort of thing that was bothering me.
Speaker:And after Charlie Kirk's passing,
Speaker:Charlie Kirk, who was like a blip on my radar,
Speaker:I barely knew who this guy even was.
Speaker:I was surprised when I was seeing headlines
Speaker:like that he was a huge voice in the conservative party.
Speaker:And I was like, oh, wow.
Speaker:Because everything that I--
Speaker:the guy is obviously saying things that are not--
Speaker:[PLAYING MUSIC]
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So this is now the third time that the conversation has
Speaker:been interrupted.
Speaker:And this is the last time.
Speaker:So you can rest easy on that.
Speaker:And you can now enjoy the rest of the conversation
Speaker:without having to worry that it will get interrupted again.
Speaker:We now return to your regularly scheduled podcast.
Speaker:Slowly, flock.
Speaker:Did your computer just crash or what happened?
Speaker:My screen was down.
Speaker:And then I was in the middle of talking.
Speaker:And then I look, and my screen is black.
Speaker:I'm like, OK, don't tell me this has gone down.
Speaker:And then I opened it up.
Speaker:And it said, your recording has stopped.
Speaker:Everyone else is still being recording.
Speaker:So I don't know why.
Speaker:I just reset my computer to not go to sleep on this.
Speaker:I don't know what's going on.
Speaker:I feel like I'm the one that looks stupid here.
Speaker:Don't do that.
Speaker:I'm adding that out.
Speaker:I'm just making it look server side side.
Speaker:By the point of the way, there's no--
Speaker:But you've turned down more than one job from me
Speaker:because the editing requirement is too big.
Speaker:And now here I am under podcast doing an episode
Speaker:in which I'm making your job too difficult.
Speaker:This is all too resonant for me.
Speaker:This is a strange theme.
Speaker:No, Weber, you're too much work.
Speaker:You're too much work, Weber.
Speaker:I'd never-- if it makes me any better,
Speaker:I've never thought of you as a person who's too much work.
Speaker:So none of the things that are sticking with you
Speaker:are sticking with me.
Speaker:Do you want to talk about AI real fast?
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:What kind of AI do you want to talk with?
Speaker:This part of AI.
Speaker:Well, the thing to me that's so frustrating about this AI
Speaker:conversation is this argument that it's going to help
Speaker:with all of these things that are like remedial or boring
Speaker:or like all of the things that you don't want to have to deal
Speaker:with, like it will deal with.
Speaker:And so then you have the time in order
Speaker:to do the things that you want to do.
Speaker:But that's not how creativity works.
Speaker:Like you have to be bored.
Speaker:It's in order to get there.
Speaker:It's those boring remedial tasks that
Speaker:are the valuable ones.
Speaker:So that's my backward take on what we are touting
Speaker:as the value of AI.
Speaker:I think is entirely wrong.
Speaker:Oh, then we won't have to do these dumb jobs.
Speaker:It's like, well, what are people going to do if not dumb jobs?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, I guess I feel like I have a couple of thoughts on that.
Speaker:One thought is that I don't think a lot of people really
Speaker:know what they want to do.
Speaker:So I think because of jobs-- so like the job kind of is like,
Speaker:oh, I can just lean on the job and so I don't have to ever
Speaker:think about what I--
Speaker:given the time, what I would do.
Speaker:And I think that's a more profound issue than AI.
Speaker:But with the AI thing, what you're doing something in a job.
Speaker:Sure, but it's not a thing that you necessarily want to do.
Speaker:You're being forced to do the job.
Speaker:Doesn't matter.
Speaker:It doesn't matter.
Speaker:Who's to say that you know what you want?
Speaker:OK, let's say with this podcast, though.
Speaker:So the podcast, I'm not getting paid for it.
Speaker:I mean, not really.
Speaker:I'm spending a lot of time editing these things
Speaker:and yadda, yadda, yadda.
Speaker:But I'm also using AI to do some of the shit that's
Speaker:like come up with some fucking names for promos.
Speaker:Give me some thumbnail or ideas for the description of a promo
Speaker:for Instagram.
Speaker:I should clarify.
Speaker:My problem with AI is not AI itself.
Speaker:My problem is with the conversation around it
Speaker:and what we're touting as its value.
Speaker:I agree with that, because the value is
Speaker:going to be in like, inventing new drugs
Speaker:and being able to talk to whales.
Speaker:The whales.
Speaker:What's the first question you'd ask a whale?
Speaker:Got to be good.
Speaker:Smash your pass.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Wasn't expecting that.
Speaker:That was--
Speaker:I would ask it something like, what's
Speaker:it like to live in the ocean?
Speaker:There's a woman I work with who, when the new GM came on,
Speaker:and we were going around the circle, said she didn't say it.
Speaker:But afterwards, she was like, could you imagine if I had said--
Speaker:and then she said that.
Speaker:And that was just one of the funniest things.
Speaker:I don't think that the whale wouldn't necessarily
Speaker:understand that smash your pass.
Speaker:What would you ask a whale?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I just want to--
Speaker:How does a whale think?
Speaker:How does a whale--
Speaker:What do you think of humans?
Speaker:Do you like us?
Speaker:Do you like?
Speaker:What do you like?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Do you have feelings of--
Speaker:I mean, I think they pretty much just--
Speaker:I was at Dolphin's definitely have friends and they rape
Speaker:and stuff.
Speaker:So they're there.
Speaker:Oh my god.
Speaker:They do.
Speaker:If you see, if you've gone on YouTube,
Speaker:you can watch videos of Dolphin Rape.
Speaker:But that's the spectrum.
Speaker:There's friendship and there's rape.
Speaker:Oh, no.
Speaker:I mean, I was just--
Speaker:I was doing the edges so that you
Speaker:could fill in the rest in between.
Speaker:You can-- you know, they sing songs together and stuff
Speaker:and whatever.
Speaker:What if we deciphered so far about whale talk?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I just--
Speaker:I'm over here.
Speaker:Fall of danger there.
Speaker:Honestly, just read a headline like three months ago.
Speaker:And I was like, oh, I like that.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:You know why I deleted the social media is off of my phone?
Speaker:I don't.
Speaker:It's the scroll.
Speaker:It's the scroll itself.
Speaker:It's not just like the information,
Speaker:but the act of the scroll is something
Speaker:that I think is not good for me.
Speaker:Oh, I mean, none of it's good for--
Speaker:You think about how these tech executives
Speaker:who make these products, they don't let their kids use
Speaker:these fucking things.
Speaker:So I mean, what does that tell you about everything?
Speaker:Again, kids, right?
Speaker:They're reorient.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And also the idea that the winners in this whole mess
Speaker:of America, Morass, whatever are really
Speaker:the media companies and the politicians.
Speaker:Because the media companies are raking in money right now.
Speaker:When Charlie Kirk dies, everybody goes on the internet
Speaker:and posts about it and have all these theories and says, blah,
Speaker:blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:Oh, ching, ching, ching, ching.
Speaker:Twitter had more downloads, more new downloads
Speaker:in the week that Charlie Kirk died than ever before.
Speaker:Well, well.
Speaker:To Ching, to Ching.
Speaker:I served--
Speaker:I waited a party at Chisiyama.
Speaker:There was a bunch of these media companies
Speaker:like people from them.
Speaker:I don't know, not like tops, but like people
Speaker:that were in the whatever departments.
Speaker:And it was-- and from all over, it was like they were from TikTok,
Speaker:from YouTube, from the fucking Facebook, and other--
Speaker:it's all sorts of media companies.
Speaker:There was maybe 40 of them.
Speaker:And they had a conversation.
Speaker:They talked the whole meal.
Speaker:They talked like round table talk.
Speaker:One guy was kind of upstanding around sort of emceeing the thing.
Speaker:And half of the things that were being said were interesting
Speaker:and half of what was being said was some of the dumbest shit
Speaker:I've ever heard.
Speaker:Just with things that they were saying that they think
Speaker:or they believe or like ways that they were judging people,
Speaker:I was like, are you 12?
Speaker:How is this being--
Speaker:it blew my mind.
Speaker:It blew my mind.
Speaker:Some of the dumb things they were being said.
Speaker:Do you remember any of the dumb things?
Speaker:About like addiction, about like attention spans,
Speaker:about the use of screens in society about--
Speaker:you know, one guy said, which I think I agree with,
Speaker:one of the-- I don't know if it's smarter or not,
Speaker:but like one of the things that was said was that he doesn't think
Speaker:that AI will ever be able to replicate sort of human creativity
Speaker:in the same way.
Speaker:That like if you have say 100 videos on Facebook
Speaker:about where to go when you visit this country
Speaker:and what restaurants to go to or whatever,
Speaker:like little tour guidey things.
Speaker:And one of them is Anthony Bourdain
Speaker:that according to him, not because of Anthony Bourdain's fame,
Speaker:but sort of in a vacuum, that one would still end up winning out
Speaker:because Anthony Bourdain is a personality, right?
Speaker:Not just a personality that we know, but even in a vacuum.
Speaker:Well, this is the thing with podcasts now, right?
Speaker:Like a lot of these podcast people
Speaker:that have been doing this maybe got in sort of at the beginning
Speaker:are now saying, well, I don't recognize the landscape at all.
Speaker:If I had to start a podcast today, I would have no idea
Speaker:how to navigate through the morass and arrive
Speaker:at anything that is worth, you know?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I wonder though, like the creativity question
Speaker:is one that I've talked about a lot.
Speaker:And I kind of find it fascinating in that--
Speaker:because right now when you try to get AI to be creative,
Speaker:it'll be creative to a degree.
Speaker:Like you can kind of tell there's a distance,
Speaker:there's a lack of, you know, not a humanness to it, perhaps.
Speaker:But you know, who knows in 20 years?
Speaker:Like I always have this argument that if we start making AI movies
Speaker:entirely, they aren't going to be good
Speaker:because they're going to lack the human element.
Speaker:But I've started to think that that's probably not true anymore.
Speaker:And that's concerned.
Speaker:Yeah, maybe not.
Speaker:That's concerned.
Speaker:I mean, but also it depends.
Speaker:It's individual.
Speaker:Like I came to the realization this year,
Speaker:this is going to sound really eye-roly,
Speaker:but it's kind of true.
Speaker:I would rather be reading a novel than watching a movie
Speaker:or a television show.
Speaker:Well, that's just wonderful for you, Nick.
Speaker:That's just--
Speaker:But it's true, though.
Speaker:It's like a genuinely true.
Speaker:So where my focus is, where my attention is,
Speaker:what I find interesting, what captivates people
Speaker:makes me feel healthy and whatever.
Speaker:But it's different than other people, you know?
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:But I don't understand the whole Marvel thing, you know?
Speaker:No, I don't--
Speaker:I put on Superman the other day because it's hard not
Speaker:for me not to watch a Superman or a Batman movie when it comes out.
Speaker:And I was-- I got 20 minutes in and I realized,
Speaker:well, I don't know why I'm watching this.
Speaker:This is yet to capture my attention at all.
Speaker:Yeah, I haven't seen it.
Speaker:So I don't watch any of the superhero movies.
Speaker:They all seem like they're idiotic.
Speaker:That's the word I use.
Speaker:Fucking completely idiotic.
Speaker:But I wonder if AI will ever be able to like, you know,
Speaker:paper banana tool wall, right?
Speaker:We'll ever understand that level of weird art, you know?
Speaker:Or will it just be like, vango?
Speaker:I guess at this point, like in my week, I just don't--
Speaker:I don't know that I care.
Speaker:Like, I don't know that that's an interesting question to me.
Speaker:Does that make sense?
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:Yeah, sure.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:What do you want to talk about?
Speaker:What's an interesting question?
Speaker:No, no, no, no.
Speaker:I don't mean to say that it's--
Speaker:I just think about it right now.
Speaker:I'm like, do I care?
Speaker:Like, whether AI can--
Speaker:again, like, when I have time off, I just
Speaker:want to spend it with like, you know, with my kids.
Speaker:Or-- I don't know why I keep getting hung up on the kids thing.
Speaker:But like, again, it just--
Speaker:No, I get it.
Speaker:You're swamped in kids right now.
Speaker:And I get it.
Speaker:I totally get it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, I'm interested in it, and as much as these technologies
Speaker:are going to change the world in a profound way in the next 20 years,
Speaker:and like, and hypothesizing about it is interesting to me.
Speaker:That's kind of it.
Speaker:Also, I use these things a lot.
Speaker:Like, I play with them a lot.
Speaker:So because I don't have kids.
Speaker:So I have a question for you.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So like, after the Trump-tyletal thing, there was--
Speaker:one of the podcasts that I have on my phone
Speaker:that I'll look at occasionally that I started looking at during--
Speaker:I think the 2020 election was the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's
Speaker:Front-Burner podcast.
Speaker:It's like--
Speaker:OK.
Speaker:--so it's got a Canada.
Speaker:So it's something that's at least a little bit outside
Speaker:of the bubble of our culture more.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:At least a little bit.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So I listened to their episode in response to that,
Speaker:in response to vaccines and response to autism and response
Speaker:to Tylenol.
Speaker:Tylenol.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And for me, it was kind of comforting to listen to--
Speaker:to get back to somebody that had a stronger understanding
Speaker:of the subject at hand and where we are and what
Speaker:our relationship to it is.
Speaker:And do you think that, like, as you're taking more facts,
Speaker:as you get a greater understanding of the landscape
Speaker:on the whole, that sort of despair, that sort of counteracts
Speaker:fear and impulsive actions and conclusions?
Speaker:Or would you say that there are some topics that
Speaker:are just sort of existential problematic
Speaker:and that you kind of just need to avoid?
Speaker:Like, if you go really down the hole on, say, nuclear weapons
Speaker:or on climate change for some people
Speaker:would be another big one, is it not that?
Speaker:Is it the kind of thing that causes more anxiety?
Speaker:Because it's essence is ultimately something that's
Speaker:too dangerous and too in your face.
Speaker:As opposed to the autism thing, the more the year people
Speaker:talk about it, the more you're like, yeah, bravo, humanity.
Speaker:We got a handle on this.
Speaker:We're doing everything that we can in order
Speaker:to confront the problem.
Speaker:Aren't people fucking awesome?
Speaker:That was kind of the feeling that I had
Speaker:after listening to saying people respond
Speaker:to what that press conference was.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I mean, I don't get too--
Speaker:I mean, I do my best not to get anxious or upset
Speaker:or really any of these things about the things
Speaker:that are going on in the world.
Speaker:I mean, perhaps that sounds impossible.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:But I think working in politics for so long,
Speaker:it's given me a weird distance from it so that--
Speaker:and I really don't want to give any.
Speaker:I find it interesting.
Speaker:I find this political moment we're living in.
Speaker:And I know you're not just talking about politics,
Speaker:but this is where my brain went.
Speaker:I find this political moment interesting for sure,
Speaker:like fascinating, unprecedented, I would say.
Speaker:But in terms of me spending time being worried
Speaker:or anxious or angry about it--
Speaker:because it hasn't really affected me that much yet,
Speaker:to be honest, and it was policies to be--
Speaker:they will.
Speaker:I'm just saying that my anxiety and my fear and my anger
Speaker:about these issues aren't going to make
Speaker:a goddamn bit of difference.
Speaker:So why am I sitting here, expelling these emotions
Speaker:that are just going nowhere?
Speaker:And are probably in a way them winning, right?
Speaker:Well, dealing with those emotions
Speaker:is kind of a separate thing, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like how to manage one's anxiety and all of this
Speaker:and its relationship to information that's coming in
Speaker:is kind of its own.
Speaker:Right, but it's a TV show now, though.
Speaker:I mean, that's the thing.
Speaker:It's like your anxiety is really largely based.
Speaker:As you said earlier in the conversation,
Speaker:I don't know if we caught that part.
Speaker:But how many of this stuff is actually real, right?
Speaker:Well, what Trump is saying?
Speaker:This smart response to that is, why would you listen
Speaker:to anything that Trump says?
Speaker:Because you know that--
Speaker:like, why are we mining Trump's speech for what's true or not?
Speaker:Like, that seems like a fool's errand.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Like, why don't we just find somebody
Speaker:that actually is more trustworthy and then listen to what they say?
Speaker:Well, I guess the answer is that because he's
Speaker:the leader of the free world quote--
Speaker:Right, raise the president's taste.
Speaker:So--
Speaker:You know what--
Speaker:Wot, wot, wot.
Speaker:And honestly, Trump, like, if you can separate yourself
Speaker:from it, Trump's a funny mother fucking president.
Speaker:Like, he's the funniest president.
Speaker:I had this conversation with Sarah yesterday.
Speaker:He's fucking hilarious.
Speaker:You know, I kind of--
Speaker:I see the guy's charm.
Speaker:And she just about spit up her lunch.
Speaker:I mean, she was--
Speaker:You know, I get why that's a very repulsive thing
Speaker:to say to people.
Speaker:But it's also stupid not to acknowledge.
Speaker:When he's at the bottom of the staircase,
Speaker:and the staircase stops at the UN in Melania goes up.
Speaker:And he looks back behind him, like,
Speaker:what the fuck's going on?
Speaker:And then he just kind of points up and starts,
Speaker:that shit was funny.
Speaker:The shit was funny.
Speaker:I mean, yeah, that's fun.
Speaker:I mean, there's a lot of his--
Speaker:I used to watch all these speeches.
Speaker:He had like--
Speaker:He was like a stand-up comic with these speeches he would do.
Speaker:There's a reason everybody impersonates the guy.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:I would watch him as he would hone a bit.
Speaker:Like, watch from different speech,
Speaker:the different speech he would hone a bit.
Speaker:Like, the one about the water pressure, which was a great bit.
Speaker:You know, we talk about how he has to flush the toilet.
Speaker:Like, 10 times to get it to flush and watch his hands
Speaker:for 20 minutes, and then he changed it to--
Speaker:Hey, he added something about his hair.
Speaker:And you know, it's like a stand-up comic.
Speaker:He's very good at that.
Speaker:I've always liked the argument too with all of these folks
Speaker:that these speeches, these Paul--
Speaker:they are comedians in the fact that, like, if it doesn't resonate,
Speaker:you're not going to keep saying it.
Speaker:That this is a good way of looking at even Hitler's rise.
Speaker:It's like, what everything that he's saying,
Speaker:it's not like he forced that on people.
Speaker:If the crowd wasn't responding,
Speaker:he wouldn't have said it.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:He was accessing fears and ignorance
Speaker:and unsureity in people and giving it a voice and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:So like, yeah, again, Trump, if it wasn't resonating,
Speaker:he wouldn't say it.
Speaker:In fact, he does.
Speaker:That's why he changes what he says all the time.
Speaker:You know?
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:But it doesn't matter.
Speaker:He can say whatever he wants and get away with it,
Speaker:because he can just pretend he didn't say it in the first place.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think using Trump for is this truer, is this not?
Speaker:That's a fool.
Speaker:It's just a fool there.
Speaker:There's no point in.
Speaker:I think using any politician for is this truer,
Speaker:is this not as a fool there?
Speaker:To be fair.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:There was a documentary that came out.
Speaker:I forget the name of it.
Speaker:It's on YouTube.
Speaker:But it was basically going into--
Speaker:and I thought it was fascinating-- it was going into the rise
Speaker:of Joe Rogan and that circle of comics
Speaker:and how, at first, Joe Rogan was kind of a counterculture
Speaker:icon because he was promoting marijuana and--
Speaker:Like I, and all that.
Speaker:And then he shifted and now he's being embraced by the right wing.
Speaker:As is a large wing of comedy.
Speaker:And when you talked about Trump being funny--
Speaker:and then Hitler-- I mean, I don't know how funny Hitler was.
Speaker:Or Tim Dylan too, right?
Speaker:I mean, Tim Dylan is an interesting one,
Speaker:because he kind of walks the line.
Speaker:And he's actually-- maybe just because I still like Tim Dylan,
Speaker:and I don't want to let go of that one.
Speaker:He's a very-- what's it the word when you don't care about it?
Speaker:And nihilism.
Speaker:It's all nihilism for him.
Speaker:Like, ultimately, whatever argument
Speaker:that you might have seems to just--
Speaker:if he doesn't want to engage with the argument,
Speaker:he'll just go nihilistic and be like,
Speaker:it doesn't fucking matter.
Speaker:I'm going to get my fucking money.
Speaker:I don't care.
Speaker:He says that.
Speaker:But I think that's also-- again, he says it
Speaker:because it works as a bit and because it's funny.
Speaker:I don't-- that's the thing with comedy, right?
Speaker:That's why so many people hate Seinfeld.
Speaker:Or think that's, well, there's many reasons why people
Speaker:don't like Seinfeld.
Speaker:But one of the reasons I think is that he just holds--
Speaker:like, he holds comedy to too high of a standard
Speaker:that everything is a bit.
Speaker:And if it's-- it's kind of like the politicians use the facts
Speaker:in the same way.
Speaker:Why are we-- in the same way that we wouldn't want to parse out
Speaker:what's true and what's not that a politician says,
Speaker:why are we parsing out what is moral or not
Speaker:and what Seinfeld says?
Speaker:Because everything that he's saying is just so joke-oriented.
Speaker:It's the comedies that end all be all.
Speaker:And he'll say that himself again and again and again.
Speaker:Is this the thing?
Speaker:Is this not?
Speaker:That's all that matters.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Whereas other people that are in his circle
Speaker:that he taught-- like someone like Letterman
Speaker:is especially in his later life as a different sort of--
Speaker:again, he had kids.
Speaker:Seinfeld had kids seem to miss that part, I guess.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Right, right.
Speaker:Seinfeld, yeah.
Speaker:Isn't he outspoken with the Israel thing now these days, too?
Speaker:Which is--
Speaker:Well, I've heard him say things like,
Speaker:why do we care about something that's
Speaker:happening thousands of miles away?
Speaker:I've heard him say the sparing things about the Gaza
Speaker:situation or things that just--
Speaker:he's made light of people's concerns
Speaker:in ways that are the gruss, you know?
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Toned death, if you will.
Speaker:Toned death, yeah.
Speaker:Everybody's got an agenda.
Speaker:So yeah, it's a tough world because everybody wants to be--
Speaker:Outrage sells, right?
Speaker:I think that's another reason why I took them off my phone.
Speaker:Right, which is why I--
Speaker:I mean, there's certainly stuff when I'm looking at Instagram
Speaker:that there's non-outrage-based stuff.
Speaker:I find it like, I think some music stuff on the way.
Speaker:But when you start getting into anything political at all,
Speaker:it just becomes about the outrage.
Speaker:But in my defense about taking stuff off my phone,
Speaker:even if it's stuff that's not outraged,
Speaker:it still is being fed to you in a scroll.
Speaker:It still is this sort of like, what's the next thing,
Speaker:what's the next thing, anticipation?
Speaker:It's hijacking your reward system.
Speaker:Oh, yeah, it's crack.
Speaker:It's like dopamine.
Speaker:Yeah, it's really bad.
Speaker:Mean but genius also in its own way, because that's why it's--
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, it's right.
Speaker:Like the Adam bomb is genius.
Speaker:You know what I mean?
Speaker:But it's still--
Speaker:It's stupid here.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But I mean, it's genius also in the way
Speaker:that the people, the powers that be who are--
Speaker:like, make them mistake about how many of the media
Speaker:executives were at the inauguration are arguably, you know,
Speaker:happier when we are all sitting there
Speaker:slaves to our phone because we are not
Speaker:and hating each other and yelling at each other
Speaker:because we are not pointing the figure where the fingers
Speaker:should be pointed, which is at the politicians
Speaker:and the media companies that are just all profiting
Speaker:and are just scooping up money left and right
Speaker:with all this division.
Speaker:It's real bad.
Speaker:And I don't know how to fix it because at what point
Speaker:do the algorithms stop profitizing, you know,
Speaker:because outraged is money.
Speaker:So Jeff, if to tweak the algorithm,
Speaker:it has to be legislation, which I just--
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I'm worried.
Speaker:It also strikes me as like that's part of the truth
Speaker:behind what resonates with Trump's response
Speaker:to Kimmel's monologue when he's like, Kimmel's dead,
Speaker:Kimmel's like a wash up, you suck, you have no talent.
Speaker:Like, none of that's true.
Speaker:But what is true is that the networks have an average
Speaker:viewership of like people nearly 70 years old.
Speaker:And like, they only exist for us as sound bites
Speaker:on our Instagrams or as YouTube clips.
Speaker:So it also is an actor for me.
Speaker:Like the network television show used to be the thing,
Speaker:you know, as far as making money.
Speaker:And now I just don't even know, you know?
Speaker:No, I mean, the whole thing is dying.
Speaker:Like, I mean, look, Conan went into podcasting
Speaker:and is making a fortune from what I understand.
Speaker:And like, that's probably where--
Speaker:Oh, he's doing very well.
Speaker:He's got a whole network now of different podcasters
Speaker:on his thing.
Speaker:I'm sure he's making a ton of money.
Speaker:So what like Gladwell does, too, right?
Speaker:Doesn't Malcolm Gladwell?
Speaker:A lot of him are doing that business.
Speaker:And like Stephen Colbert, the reason that show got canceled,
Speaker:I don't think it was because of Trump.
Speaker:I mean, they argued it was.
Speaker:But really, the amount of money they were spending on
Speaker:that show was absurd.
Speaker:Like, it was costing that company a fortune.
Speaker:And like, and frankly, Stephen Colbert's just
Speaker:going to go to YouTube, start another show with one
Speaker:10th of the staff, and it'll be just as good.
Speaker:What do you think happened to that guy?
Speaker:Because like, he was--
Speaker:I had this conversation some of the other day.
Speaker:Like, he used to be the most funny sort of--
Speaker:he was way funnier than fucking Stewart was.
Speaker:Edgy.
Speaker:He edgy.
Speaker:And he came out of that, and he was doing really edgy,
Speaker:like, hilarious stuff.
Speaker:And then what happened?
Speaker:I think that he got a show on a major network that, you know,
Speaker:is beholden to certain advertisers and so forth.
Speaker:And so he can, you know, remember how uncomfortable
Speaker:he got when John Stuart came on and suggested
Speaker:that made jokes about how COVID probably came from China
Speaker:because there's a lab there called the coronavirus lab.
Speaker:And he got extremely uncomfortable and was trying
Speaker:to silence him.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I don't remember that.
Speaker:Yeah, that was a wacky one.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, that was the only clip you ever really need to see.
Speaker:So in that sense, he sucks.
Speaker:Like, he's the one that lost that gig long.
Speaker:He lost his gig and his voice long before they could cancel him.
Speaker:Yeah, that's kind of the way that I felt about it.
Speaker:And he wasn't even being that hard on Trump.
Speaker:I mean, every goddamn comic is making,
Speaker:I mean, except for the ones on the right.
Speaker:But, you know, there's jokes about Trump on late night TV.
Speaker:This is not a new thing.
Speaker:I wonder what the people, I wonder what the people who made
Speaker:Tylenol did to Donald Trump to piss him off
Speaker:because that's all I can think of with the Tylenol thing
Speaker:is like, I just, it's just a very random, like, I did not see
Speaker:if there's a bingo card for things Trump would do or say
Speaker:or anything.
Speaker:I don't think anybody would have had, you know,
Speaker:telling people not to take Tylenol.
Speaker:Like, it's just, that wasn't even mentioned once in his whole.
Speaker:But I'm for it.
Speaker:God damn it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, you remember when RFK earlier in the year was like by September,
Speaker:we're going to diagnose where autism is coming from by September.
Speaker:Oh, I see Tylenol.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:That's why the, well, one thing you got to give it to him is,
Speaker:well, at least he's, he's sticking to his timeline,
Speaker:even if what he's saying is absolute, like, yeah.
Speaker:You want to talk about your experience on orange is the new black?
Speaker:Yeah, I wish I was better on it.
Speaker:You don't think you were good.
Speaker:You look back and you think that was very good.
Speaker:No, I had some funny moments, but did you think that that was the case
Speaker:at the time or is that a looking back thing?
Speaker:No, that's a looking back thing.
Speaker:I think my, it's a problem with auditions, it's the problem with auditioning.
Speaker:You know, I've done it so many times and then not gotten the gig
Speaker:that I think it affects a little bit how the work is when I do get the gig.
Speaker:And I feel like I was always just trying to, I didn't feel free.
Speaker:Maybe he's a good way of putting it.
Speaker:I didn't feel like I really owed that role or was doing things
Speaker:that really I wanted to do.
Speaker:I don't know that I took the time to think about what I really wanted to do.
Speaker:I was still just thinking about, well, what am I supposed to do?
Speaker:You know what I mean?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But that's a, that's a natural response to getting.
Speaker:I mean, this was your first, like, big role in a, in a big series
Speaker:that was extremely popular at the time.
Speaker:So like, I think a natural recurring role.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:So like, I feel like, like, the natural response is to be like, what am I supposed to do?
Speaker:And then looking back, it's very easy to be like, well, well, I should have done this.
Speaker:But like, you can't like, you know, if you're still doing that on your fourth or,
Speaker:if, you know, fourth or fifth, you know, recurring role, then it's like, okay.
Speaker:But like, your first one, it's like hard to, how do you, how do you find that
Speaker:to be in the moment, right?
Speaker:Yeah, I don't know that I'll ever get really good at it because I don't know that I'll
Speaker:ever do it frequently enough in order to get really good at it.
Speaker:I mean, maybe I'll get really good at auditioning.
Speaker:Yeah, you never know.
Speaker:You never know.
Speaker:I mean, was that good?
Speaker:I'll bet you some of my, I'll bet you, not even I'll bet.
Speaker:Like, it's just true.
Speaker:Like, all of the interesting stuff that I've done is on tape somewhere.
Speaker:And only a couple of people have seen it.
Speaker:And, and they saw it.
Speaker:And they might have thought that it was the most interesting thing that they've seen.
Speaker:But unfortunately, they're nephew, whatever, or this other person, whatever.
Speaker:Like, it's all so political.
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:It's not that cream doesn't rise.
Speaker:But again, I, it's just no knowing.
Speaker:And there's no gauge when there's no feedback.
Speaker:So there's no ability to respond, you know.
Speaker:Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I don't look back at Org's like, wow, that was really a lot of fun.
Speaker:Or, wow, that was, I was, you know, that was me doing it.
Speaker:Like, it just kind of makes me, I don't know, sad.
Speaker:I guess a little bit.
Speaker:But do you think it's partially because like, you haven't gotten a ton of work since then.
Speaker:So it's like, it's easy to now go back and criticize that thing because
Speaker:that's the, there's been no thing since.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, I did, I did an episode of New Amsterdam after that.
Speaker:I was more proud of, I think, then what I've done on Org.
Speaker:But since then too, I've seen that and I've, I've, I'm able to find it unwatchable.
Speaker:Right. I mean, it's human nature is hard to look back on your old work and say, I, you know,
Speaker:I have the same kind of a thing.
Speaker:I prefer not to look back on it, I guess.
Speaker:You know what I mean?
Speaker:Right. There's no good can come from that, really.
Speaker:Yeah, how we like, like memorialize things or how we make things of import in our lives.
Speaker:Like, there's the ability to show up in the moment.
Speaker:But then there's also, again, this change is once you have kids, is how you sort of archive or
Speaker:save things or make things important.
Speaker:Like when they're kids and they're coming home from school and like, every day is filled with,
Speaker:so like my kid draws a lot.
Speaker:Like it's one of his favorite things to do.
Speaker:He finds it calming, finds it whatever is creative.
Speaker:And but there are just papers with drawings everywhere.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And it's like, well, how do you archive this?
Speaker:How do you like what that that question, I think is a good one and is a very human one.
Speaker:And with orange, I think I don't think about it very much because it kind of was the thing that was
Speaker:the most out of my hands.
Speaker:There was a whole thing.
Speaker:It was a huge show.
Speaker:So it's there.
Speaker:It's not going anywhere.
Speaker:You know what I mean?
Speaker:Like what do I need to do in order to commemorate it?
Speaker:Whereas, you know, my band or things that I write for other people are like the future forest,
Speaker:right?
Speaker:That huge pandemic book that I wrote, all of these things that aren't archived on Netflix.
Speaker:You know, I think a little bit more, I guess they occupy more space in my mind because they
Speaker:require more of my efforts to preserve them.
Speaker:You know, right, right, right.
Speaker:And something about also like not getting paid for a thing is also, you know, money changes the
Speaker:equation.
Speaker:You know, I started like doing this thing with my friends in California for their birthdays where I would
Speaker:write them.
Speaker:First, I was just writing like little poems and then they turned, they got longer and longer and then
Speaker:they became more like they've morphed into these recordings that I'll make that are sometimes
Speaker:songs, sometimes they're like rap mostly raps, like really ridiculous lengthy sort of avant-garde
Speaker:raps, you know.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:And they've become really enjoyable for me to make, but also it's strange how just to sort of clock
Speaker:what I expect is far as a response and also what I get as far as a response.
Speaker:Like if I'll send it, like I'll notice like, oh, these two guys, they didn't like laugh for a
Speaker:split, they didn't hit the ha ha emoji back.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Oh, they didn't comment or anything like one guy I am or the biggest one was my manager for his
Speaker:50th birthday.
Speaker:I was like, I just kind of started to do this and I was like, do I do this for him?
Speaker:He's not really like an old friend like all these people from California are.
Speaker:I don't know that he really deserves this like then his friendship with me really fits in
Speaker:the same world, but I was like, fuck it, I'll do it.
Speaker:And so I did it for him and it was again, I do it during the course of a day.
Speaker:So I let it entirely occupy me for a full day.
Speaker:But by the time that day's over, I have to make a recording and send it off and then let it go.
Speaker:And so I did this for him.
Speaker:It was a big, it was like two, three minutes long.
Speaker:This big wrap about him for his 50th birthday and he didn't say anything.
Speaker:Did it respond at all?
Speaker:And I was so fucking mad.
Speaker:I was so fucking mad.
Speaker:I even later brought it up at one point. I was like, did you like get that?
Speaker:You know like blah blah blah.
Speaker:Like did you receive it even?
Speaker:He was like, oh yeah.
Speaker:And he just sort of like blew it off.
Speaker:I can't know. I got it.
Speaker:And I was like, well, why wouldn't you say, you know what I mean?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Like this, no, I totally this gift giving thing is a strange our relationship to our creative stuff.
Speaker:So this, this is like things that I'm blatantly not doing for pay.
Speaker:There's no pay coming.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But still there's an expectation of some kind of acknowledgement of, you know,
Speaker:people don't, I think some people don't know how to
Speaker:respond to artistic expression.
Speaker:You know, I think that that's a part of it, maybe.
Speaker:Is it because it's too intimate?
Speaker:Possibly. Yeah.
Speaker:I think there's there's probably levels there.
Speaker:But then again, I have people like, oh, I made a video, you know,
Speaker:just for random, I was out camping in the woods.
Speaker:I made this video of like the stars these time lapses.
Speaker:It's very cool. I'm very proud of it.
Speaker:It was the first creative thing I'd done in a long time.
Speaker:And I sent it out to a bunch of people.
Speaker:And like, you know, 90% of them, you know, no response at all.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Nothing.
Speaker:So like, and it's again, it's the same, it reminds me of like adults because it's like the same thing.
Speaker:But adults, I thought, you know, the series that you were in, I thought it was very good.
Speaker:I still, I still do.
Speaker:But, you know, it didn't do well.
Speaker:It, you know, it got into a festival or two, but it didn't do as well as we were
Speaker:expecting or hoping.
Speaker:And then I realized, well, the joy has to come from the same.
Speaker:All right. So maybe, maybe this is it.
Speaker:Maybe the money is the thing that we can accept as the substitute for that.
Speaker:Because, right?
Speaker:In other words, like we like to say, like we do this for the money.
Speaker:No, what we really do it for is the emotional recognition.
Speaker:The connection that comes from somebody else recognizing it and kind of ordering it.
Speaker:But we accept, we'll accept the money.
Speaker:We're kind of whores in this way, right?
Speaker:Like the muddies is the substitute for the connection.
Speaker:Right. But did your boss give you a raise after you sent that to him?
Speaker:No, he's my, he's my man.
Speaker:He's just an agent.
Speaker:All he can do is submit me, you know, a manager.
Speaker:Right. So you couldn't give you any more money.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. So you got neither.
Speaker:I'm just saying, you know what I mean?
Speaker:Like maybe we sit, like we say, oh, we, we judge the success on whether or not,
Speaker:you know, you book the audition, whether or not the job gets, how much the job gets paid,
Speaker:how much it gets out there, how many people see it.
Speaker:But maybe all that is just a substitution for the more painful experience, which is that of
Speaker:somebody not caring or somebody not.
Speaker:Love me.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Yeah. Love me.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:The fundamental.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Well, gift giving is one of the love languages.
Speaker:That's kind of silly as that sounds.
Speaker:No, absolutely.
Speaker:It's true.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:How you, how you give and how you receive a gift is an expression of love.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, I, I turned 50, you know, about two years ago and I would have responded to your rep,
Speaker:but I didn't actually get one.
Speaker:So I had nothing to respond to.
Speaker:I can send you my managers.
Speaker:I can send you the one that I've been from.
Speaker:I don't want your fucking sloppy seconds.
Speaker:Fucking, fuck that shit.
Speaker:Well, my friend, one of my friends sent the managers.
Speaker:I'll put it on the podcast if you want me to.
Speaker:I can feel like me.
Speaker:I'll put it on the podcast.
Speaker:It's going to be offensive.
Speaker:That's the only thing.
Speaker:Oh, that's fine.
Speaker:They are offensive.
Speaker:They're not PC.
Speaker:No, and I wouldn't play the whole thing.
Speaker:I've just played part of it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Yeah, I'll send it to you.
Speaker:Yes, send it to me.
Speaker:I'll definitely use it.
Speaker:It mong.
Speaker:Die, max, max, and mong.
Speaker:Die, max, max, and mong.
Speaker:Die, max, max, and mong.
Speaker:I got to write his birthday song.
Speaker:But what if I say something wrong?
Speaker:He won't give me a thumbs up.
Speaker:He won't cup my ego ball.
Speaker:So my friends that I do this for,
Speaker:there's a group of like 12 of them.
Speaker:And after this last one,
Speaker:somebody responded with like,
Speaker:"Well, we finally got like a rap for everybody."
Speaker:Like blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:You could finally put a bow on the project.
Speaker:But all I heard with that response was like,
Speaker:"Can you please stop doing this?"
Speaker:I don't want to take the time to listen to them.
Speaker:Yeah, you don't.
Speaker:That's probably what he was saying, actually.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, I love it, Nick.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:I'm just, I'm feeling disappointed because I never got one.
Speaker:But it's fine.
Speaker:I am.
Speaker:I'm not going to lie.
Speaker:But also, you got to pick your audience, I think, with a thing like that.
Speaker:Well, part of the reason why I limited it to that group,
Speaker:there was a couple that I did outside of it.
Speaker:But for the most part, I limited it to that group
Speaker:because it's a text threat of 12 guys.
Speaker:So it is a bit of an audience.
Speaker:And the inside jokes can sort of be enjoyed by everybody.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Whereas if it's just for you,
Speaker:then there isn't a crowd there.
Speaker:It's a little more, you know.
Speaker:Right, right, right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I get it. No, I mean, no, it's fine.
Speaker:But I'm just saying that like, you know, there's a,
Speaker:I guess an artist's way of looking at the world
Speaker:or a creative's way of looking at the world.
Speaker:And a lot of times, it's not.
Speaker:It seems to be at odds and a lot of ways
Speaker:with the way that other people look at the world
Speaker:and the other way.
Speaker:I just, I don't know.
Speaker:Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker:So we'll say say more.
Speaker:There's not much else to say, I say.
Speaker:From like, even when I moved to Columbus from New York,
Speaker:and I mentioned this in other podcasts,
Speaker:but like, like the amount of people that are here,
Speaker:like get, like that my filmmaking and the art stuff
Speaker:and all that stuff, like it's not very many, right?
Speaker:Does this overlap with the way the religion
Speaker:kind of functions for people as far as things,
Speaker:like what we would say is like,
Speaker:oh, indoctrination or whatever, but the way in which,
Speaker:like that they're just,
Speaker:I, you know, our mutual friend Michael at one point,
Speaker:I think, set framed it by saying,
Speaker:there are people who understand metaphor
Speaker:and people that don't.
Speaker:Right, right.
Speaker:Iron A2, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Like people that can read the Bible in a sort of meta way,
Speaker:and then people that can't,
Speaker:the people that just have to believe the crisis coming again,
Speaker:literally, and that the rapture is like, if that, you know,
Speaker:it was yesterday, it's supposed to be yesterday, right?
Speaker:I saw that.
Speaker:I was mid shift when the rumor started to spread,
Speaker:because again, I'm not, I was never on TikTok,
Speaker:but I'm right.
Speaker:I cannot open any sort of social media on my phone anymore.
Speaker:So there was, there was a video I saw on Instagram,
Speaker:where a guy was like made like a fake Jesus,
Speaker:and was got all these, and got these helium balloons,
Speaker:and was going to try to make it look like Jesus was floating
Speaker:above, like going up in the rapture above his house.
Speaker:But Jesus, the Jesus was too heavy,
Speaker:so they couldn't get enough balloons.
Speaker:It's the up, you know, it's the up dilemma,
Speaker:which yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker:which how many balloons would you need?
Speaker:Jesus was too heavy.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Which just brings me back to the giant cross.
Speaker:That would be where that, you know,
Speaker:mega Jesus on the giant cross.
Speaker:All right, I'm going to wrap this one up,
Speaker:because I have already asked a question.
Speaker:It's too much.
Speaker:Well, I have no idea how much I have at this point.
Speaker:I really don't, but I think ending on a Jesus being too heavy is good.
Speaker:I have no idea how much content I have,
Speaker:because I don't know what's uploaded and what hasn't.
Speaker:So we'll find out.
Speaker:Let's see what I can turn it into.
Speaker:Again, some more work.
Speaker:Now that you've said that, Nick, I'm not going to be able to forget the thing about
Speaker:the workload thing that I that I'm a burden.
Speaker:Yeah, it never occurred to me once until you brought that up.
Speaker:And now when I'm editing this podcast,
Speaker:someone just can be thinking, uh,
Speaker:fucking Nick, man, God damn it.
Speaker:Fucking I won't be thinking that.
Speaker:This relationship is not worth the birthday song that I didn't receive.
Speaker:I wouldn't say that now.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Usually at the very end, I ask people what they
Speaker:think happens when we die, but I think we've already pretty much hit on that one.
Speaker:So no need for that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, my answer to you would would be that I just just not keep my mind
Speaker:quite as much as maybe it would if I didn't have kids.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I think that that's probably going to be the name of the podcast.
Speaker:There will be something in kids.
Speaker:If something kids are kids, just kids, maybe kids.
Speaker:Anyway, anything else you'd like to do,
Speaker:do you have anything you want to promote or share or say or anything like that before?
Speaker:We, uh, we conclude this, uh, you know, spot, uh, no.
Speaker:Nick caseymusic.com.
Speaker:That's one you should promote your band.
Speaker:We didn't get a chance to talk about that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The main, if the band was active.
Speaker:I mean, yeah, you can listen to Nick casey music.
Speaker:Nick casey one word.
Speaker:There's a great back catalog.
Speaker:Great back catalog.
Speaker:You got to go dig into the old stuff.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:What's that one song that I always like with the piano riff?
Speaker:The, uh, yeah, you like, um,
Speaker:don't don't don't don't don't don't halfway sat.
Speaker:No, it's, um, it's on the, it's on that first record.
Speaker:Yeah, maybe I'll use that in this episode somewhere too.
Speaker:What is the fucking name of that song?
Speaker:Uh, yeah, it's never something like that.
Speaker:Always or never or something.
Speaker:We might be working on, um,
Speaker:the musical.
Speaker:Oh, that's fun.
Speaker:Maybe about something in particular or like somebody hired you to do it or, uh,
Speaker:no, we're just, we're just talking about it and getting some ideas going.
Speaker:Oh, that's fun.
Speaker:It's called natural law.
Speaker:That's the one natural law.
Speaker:That's the run that's the cue into the song.
Speaker:The q anon into the song.
Speaker:I, I wonder if they're still around.
Speaker:That's a whole nother wormhole.
Speaker:Anyway, Nick, thanks so much for coming to the podcast.
Speaker:I appreciate it.
Speaker:But of the technical issues we have, uh,
Speaker:it was good to talk and catch up.
Speaker:Yeah, congrats on doing it, man.
Speaker:Yeah, thanks, man.
Speaker:I appreciate it.
Speaker:And, uh, yeah, let's know when it comes out and we should also, like, catch up again soon.
Speaker:Performance somewhere.
Speaker:I don't even know you had a fucking kid.
Speaker:So congrats on the kid.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Second kid. He's here.
Speaker:Yeah, any more?
Speaker:No more?
Speaker:Last one?
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:Oh, that is, this, this second one was, was, was, it was a whole, a whole ordeal.
Speaker:So I see.
Speaker:Yeah, that's it.
Speaker:Well, make sure you get your certificate from Donald Trump.
Speaker:I would write them a letter or something just so you get that certificate.
Speaker:I want the money.
Speaker:And the money, but you know, it's time for Donald Trump.
Speaker:His whole hand right.
Speaker:Anyway, man, love you, my friend.
Speaker:Good talking to you.
Speaker:Take care yourself.
Speaker:Love you too, Jef.
Speaker:Onefjef?
Speaker:No, just Jef.
Speaker:Yeah, love you buddy.
Speaker:Talk to you soon.
Speaker:Bye-bye.
Speaker:And that was Nick Weber.
Speaker:And the song you're hearing underneath me right now is the instrumental version of
Speaker:Nick Casey's song, "Natural Law," which is also on there.
Speaker:First album, which will be in the show notes.
Speaker:I hope you enjoyed listening to that conversation as much as I enjoyed having it,
Speaker:in spite of the technical SNAFUs.
Speaker:You can find Nick on Instagram at
Speaker:@wuckald, that's WUCKALD.
Speaker:Wuckald.
Speaker:I should have asked him what that means.
Speaker:I always wondered Wacald.
Speaker:Wacald.
Speaker:You can also learn about his band and here's some of their music at nickcaseymusic.com.
Speaker:You can follow the podcast on Instagram at
Speaker:@onefjefpod
Speaker:And you can and should email the podcast with your thoughts, queries,
Speaker:suggestions, complaints at onefjefpod@gmail.com.
Speaker:And yes, I still do have a Patreon page.
Speaker:And yes, there are still new subscribers coming in.
Speaker:So if you enjoyed this episode and would like to support the podcast,
Speaker:go to patreon.com/onefjef.
Speaker:And donate as well as $5 a month.
Speaker:And you get some extra content as well.
Speaker:I just put some pictures on there from my recent Colorado trip.
Speaker:And then before that, I think I put a bonus episode on there that
Speaker:normal listeners who are not Patreon subscribers cannot hear.
Speaker:So if that appeals to you in any way, patreon.com/onefjef.
Speaker:Thank you to Nick for taking time out of your busy
Speaker:child-filled day to record this.
Speaker:I really enjoyed it.
Speaker:And thank you to you for taking time out of your day to listen to it.
Speaker:I really appreciate it.
Speaker:Once again and only because I can't get it out of my head,
Speaker:I'm going to leave you with this Buddhist meditation I heard on a podcast several months ago.
Speaker:I'm of the nature to grow sick.
Speaker:I'm of the nature to grow old.
Speaker:I'm of the nature to lose the people that I love.
Speaker:I'm of the nature to die.
Speaker:How then shall I live?
Speaker:I'll see you next week.
Speaker:Very good, Jeffrey.
Speaker:[BLANK_AUDIO]
