Mat Cothran of Coma Cinema and Elvis Depressedly

Please sign up to play my fantasy football game at klubhouse.gg

Mat Cothran of Coma Cinema and Elvis Depressedly joins the podcast to talk about conspiracy theories, Nintendo 64, and keeping music authentic even when it becomes your job. 

Mat’s a cool guy, I hadn’t met him before we played a show together and even then I didn’t get to talk to him all that much (I was filling in in that band and was grinding away at the songs like it was homework I forgot to do before class.) But really enjoyed this conversation and I feel like I got to know him pretty well just kind of chatting through whatever.

I went a bit longer on this one, mostly because I was having a good time, but also I feel like it’s a better flow to the conversation. Let me know if y’all like the longer episodes.

Check out Coma Cinema and Elvis Depressedly wherever you get music, and follow Mat @summertimeinhell on instagram

Thank you to How Strange It Is (@howstrang_it_is) for the music

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:24

But I have to do my little intro because this is how this works. Welcome to Hey Smiling Strange. A podcast. I guess it's a podcast about takes. I think that's what it is. It's a podcast about me like figuring out how to do takes or something. I don't actually really know. Realistically, this podcast is what I've started referring to as the worst marketing strategy ever devised. Because ultimately, everything I post online, I'm trying to get people to play a fantasy football app that I've been working on for like two well, building the app for two years, working on the game for like 10 years, and I just think it's fun. And this is the best strategy, Matt, that I've come up with to get people to play fantasy football is to talk to obscure indie legends like yourself. And I'm sure you probably love uh hearing the word legend, but Matt, say what's up. Tell people how they probably know you. What's up?

SPEAKER_04 1:14

I like obscure as well. Um yeah, I I had a couple bands in my time. I was in a band called Elvis Depressely for a while. Um I'm in a band called Coma Cinema since I was like 15. Um I put out records under my birth name, Matthew Lee Cotheran, and I was in a band called The Goin' Nowheres briefly. Um so I've just been putting out a bunch of records uh long time, and I'm middle aged now. Oh, dude, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

We're unk. It's it's not middle aged anymore. It's unk. You're unk. It's okay. Yeah, I'm unk.

SPEAKER_04 1:48

You're cool, though. Yeah, I'm I'm the golden unk.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Oh, the golden unk. I like that. Um, I like being unk because it's like it's cool, yeah. You don't have to be cool anymore. Like you actually kind of can't be cool. If I do something that is objectively cool, it's cool for somebody who's you know middle aged, who's unk.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

So it's like it's cool with a degree. If somebody's like, I don't know, 23 does a cool thing. That's just cool with no, you know, there's nothing else to it. You know, there's no hanging on of it. Uh so I like it. It's freedom. There's freedom in that. Freedom in being cringe as fuck, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 2:22

Uh oh yeah. Well, everyone's cringe at all levels, I guess, is what I'm starting to figure out. Like, uh, you know, obviously children are uh cringe in a very kind of free way. Like when you're like 12 and you're like in love with a cartoon character or whatever. That's I guess that would be a cringe to some people, but it's also kind of like sweet. Uh I used to be in love with um the girl from when I was like 10. I was in love with the girl from um Ocarina of Time.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Uh oh, hell yeah. The farm girl girl. Yeah, yeah. I uh funny is like I uh I fucking love Ocarina of Time. I have a oh my god, I have uh uh do you know what an Ever Drive is?

SPEAKER_04 3:06

Oh yeah, I got one.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Come on. Oh, this is gonna be dorky as fuck really fast.

SPEAKER_04 3:10

Yeah, it's it's nerd time.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

I've been playing through uh an Ocarina of Time hack called Indigo that is like brand new game, fixes a lot of mechanics, it like just feels like a sequel to Ocarina of Time. It is so good. I cannot recommend this enough. I keep telling people, I'm like, I genuinely don't think I need to buy another video game because they figured out how to make brand new N64 Zeldas and N64. There's a fucking Super Smash Bros. mod that has like 40 characters now. You know, you can play King D D Gandor, it's awesome. Shout out to Smash Remix.

SPEAKER_04 3:44

Oh, dude, I have to I haven't never um used it to play like mods and hacks and stuff. I just I just use it to play like Mystical Ninja and um you know Zelda and stuff like that. But the deep cuts, man, Buck Bumble. Buck Bumble's an interesting one, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

I've replaying uh Ocarina of Time back in the day, it's like I I I hadn't really noticed that uh all of the female characters in that game fall in love with Link immediately. They're all like there's the fish girl, the Zora girl, the farm girl, Zelda herself. Like every single time he comes up and does says nothing with his blank face or whatever, they're like, Oh, you're so mysterious and cool.

SPEAKER_04 4:26

He's cute, he's a cute guy, you know. I was kind of falling in love with him, you know, when he when he uh you spent a lot of time with him, you know, and and uh his pure heart or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

But my thing with the N64 thing is like they keep updating the graphics and they got like the the newest version of it, and it's like it starts looking like a realistic thing. It's like no no no, I like the weird blank canvas that was N64 graphics, where it's like they're just a couple of pixels, his nose is just a triangle or whatever, yeah, and my imagination turns that into like a real person. The more that he actually looks like a fairy boy or whatever, the more I'm just like I don't there's something about this I don't like. It looks weird to me. It yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:06

They gave him fingers. Like he should have a hand. Oh no, I don't need fingers. You know, yeah, just that should be it.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

The sword goes in it, it's just it's just there, or it's not there, you know. That's all I want. I don't need fingers. I have never needed to see a finger in a video game to enjoy the video game more. I've never been like a few. Yeah, you know, it's weird. Fingers are fucking weird, man. Uh, but yeah, I you know, man, dude. I could talk about N64 for a while. I know you wanted to talk about uh because we met recently. You played Toma Cinema played at the world famous uh Rainforest Cafe here in Portland, a famous DIY music venue, uh slash sometimes wedding reception venue. That's where my wife and I had our wedding reception. Uh oh, awesome. And yeah, it was sick. And uh I was filling in for How Strange It Is on bass. I met you briefly. I do have to, I gotta like kind of want to apologize. That was one of the days of like the lowest amount of energy I think I've ever had playing a show. I was like falling asleep the entire time.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Yeah. Oh man.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Yeah, it's not the band play great. I just like I was not like registering memories, you know, my brain was not working, but I did get to meet you briefly. We talked about Banjo Kazooie first.

SPEAKER_04 6:21

Yeah, we did talk about Banjo Kazooie, yeah. That's a good one. You know, the music in that game is so crazy. I used to have it on vinyl, the soundtrack, um, which is great. I didn't even realize was a you know, I just kind of searched it and it existed, and then um I sold a bunch of records going uh through a tough time last year. So I sold like I had so many cool records, um, but I sold pretty much all of them. I don't really own any. I have like maybe 20 records now or something.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Um, you know, there I mean obviously it sucks that that had to happen. You lost all the records, but there's something to be said about like, alright, well, these are the 20. This is like these are the ones that I liked the most, you know.

SPEAKER_04 7:03

Yeah, but I mean it's not like I'm like I mean, look at this disaster, you know. It's like I have all this bullshit. I got VHS tapes and Godzilla heads and drills and stuff. It's just it's nonsense. But this is you know, this is the room I do all the my work in, so I spend a lot of time in here, you know, and um I've entombed myself with my belongings or whatever, you know. But you're like a pharaoh. Uh yeah, no, yeah, like a like a living dead person surrounded by my uh belongings, you know.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

You there's a metaphor in there somewhere. I I'm sure a smarter podcast could probably uh uncover it, but uh I personally I just you know I kind of want to know more about uh how'd you get yourself like how do you get into the situation in terms of how did you get started with music? Are you one of those guys that just like picked up a guitar when you were seven years old and come from a musical family? You always wanted to do this, or is this just kind of an accident that worked out?

SPEAKER_04 8:00

Yeah, I mean my my family's musical. All my family are like talented, well, on my mother's side, they're all like talented artists and and and my mom's a really great poet and singer and she can draw. She she's pretty cool. But I didn't really get into it until I was like 15 or 16, and I s I started um with FL Studio when it was called Fruity Loops. And I used to make beats on there. I wanted to be like um Aphex Twin or uh Oh man. I was really into rap music um and I wanted to rap and I was real bad at it. I was terrible. Um but I did learn how to make beats, you know. Um and that was cool, and then I started playing guitar because of um I got really into uh Sid Barrett uh from Pink Floyd, and I started listening to all his shit. And because he I'm actually from the town uh called Spartanburg where this blues guy named Pink Anderson uh is from there. And Pink Floyd was actually named after Pink Anderson and Floyd Rose.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Um that's crazy.

SPEAKER_04 9:13

It's weird as fuck that Sid Barrett even knew about this Spartanburg blues guy back in the 60s. I don't know, maybe he had like an iPhone or something, like the first iPhone. That's what made him crazy. People thought he lost his mind, but he was just really like scrolling on the iPhone.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

But uh the first uh victim of brain rot, man. He saw a couple of whores back in the 60s. He's like, dude, yeah, I'm telling you, I know where this is gonna go. And then everyone else just thought he was crazy.

SPEAKER_04 9:39

He was watching like fruits cheat on each other and murder each other and shit, and he was like, Mice, we've got to we gotta go back, we gotta go back, end it, stop. Yeah, that's why Roger Waters abandoned him or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Um but yeah, patron saint of abandoning your friends, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:58

Not a very good friend. I I like uh I do like Pink Floyd a lot. I've uh that was one of the first bands I got like really obsessed with on my own. Yeah, and I still fuck with it. I like all that uh classic rock. Well, it's like what is it when it's not classic? Because classic rock now is like fucking Pearl Jam and Nirvana.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

So I know my brain, classic rock is like anything 70s and earlier.

SPEAKER_04 10:26

Yeah, but that's like a hundred years old.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Oh my god, it's it's ancient. Uh my the question I always ask people that like Pink Floyd, uh uh my wife and have had uh wife and I have had this discussion a lot, is uh animals or wish you were here for the uh in terms of albums. Which one do you pick? Definitely animals.

SPEAKER_04 10:45

Yeah, I like them both, but dogs is such a fucking good song. It's a banger.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

The thing is, I used to have a record player in my room. It was my dad's record player, and I set it up in my room. What's funny is like after I had it up in my room for like six months, he got like jealous of it and wanted to take it back downstairs. I'm like, you haven't touched this thing in five years. I'm listening to it. You can have it when I leave. Uh but I had uh a copy of Wish You Were Here, and I would put an album on to fall asleep to. So I'd have the album playing, and like, you know, it was great. It would play one side of an album and then would turn itself off, which it's kind of a beautiful sleep function. Except when I'd play Wish You Were Here, Shine On You Crazy Diamond, the second version of that on the second, it would skip at the same spot over and over and over and over again. And so now when I listen to it on like a digital thing, because I'd have to get up and turn it off because you'd wake up to the same thing looping over and over again. You know, I'd fall asleep and then wake up and just doing that. Going crazy in a dream. My brain is like, yo, uh it starts building anxiety. I feel my heart race because I feel like I have to go do something, you know, and then it goes right through the part that it used to skip on, and I'm like, oh yeah, that's what happens, you know.

SPEAKER_04 11:56

That's I used to um sleep to music. Uh I was just thinking about this uh yesterday because I've watched this Brian Eno documentary that was pretty good. It just came out, I guess. And um but I used to sleep to the fucking you ever s listen to the uh disintegration loops by William Basinki? It's like an ambient song he made about 9-11, I guess. But it just loops in this tape loop that just loops and loops and loops, and it um and what it does in your mind, um, there's sort of this auditory hallucination factor to it where as it loops, your brain stops fully paying attention to it. And so suddenly you'll realize that instead of doing this melody, you're just hearing like awww, you just hear like this this note, and then you snap back and you start hearing the melody again. Um, but I used to sleep to that, and I think it uh I think it messed up my brain a little bit and uh disintegration loops. I think it's kind of like um a more artful brain rod or something, but it's uh it is definitely a type of brain rod.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

I love uh somebody described as like the experience of living in America in you know the 21st century or whatever is like we are all our own lab rats that are running our own experiments on ourselves over and over again. And it's like you are like now the byproduct of an experiment of what if I listen to this disintegrating experimental tape loop to fall asleep to for a couple of years, and it's like what's funny is it's like yeah, that might directly tie to the fact that you were surrounded now by VHS tapes, these are your comfort objects, you know. Yeah, we don't know, we don't really know, but you ran the experiment.

SPEAKER_04 13:42

Yeah, that is true. I never thought of it that way, but it is sort of like with stimulus, because a lot of experiments are just stimulus and response, and now we're just like um constantly stimulated. I have to try to avoid it actively, especially lately. I've been trying to retreat more into um just doing one thing at a time and uh and shit like that. I I I really got um upset uh a couple like maybe half a year ago when I was watching something on uh TV, and then they kept having this character that would show up, and the character would just say everything that had just happened. Yeah. And I was like, what the hell is this person? Who is this person? And then I realized that they were just recapping it for people who weren't watching, and I was like, why are we catering to people who aren't watching? Like, I'm watching. You're and you're you're pissing me off because now I gotta look at this character, recap everything, and it was just ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Getting me is like how much somebody pointed it out uh on like a Twitter thread that movies now are all of the shots in the movies are centering the character in the middle of the screen, all the action happens in the middle vertical slab so that any part of the movie can be clipped on social media and turned into advertising. And it's like so now two-thirds of the screen aren't, you know, they aren't affecting they're no longer like in play for the move, the visual language of the movie, and it's just it's really fucking weird, man. It's super weird.

SPEAKER_04 15:17

They killed David Lynch with that shit. They murdered him. He's like, please stop, and they just they centered him, and then it was over, man. Because you ever see a thing where he's like, Don't watch a fucking film on your phone, or he's all mad about that shit.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

I saw that, and like part of me is like, dude, he's absolutely 100% right. Like, I can't I know for a fact I have watched stuff on my phone, and they got some big phones now.

SPEAKER_04 15:41

I don't think he realized how big it was gonna get.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Yeah, the other thing though is that like he might be right, but it also is how I watch stuff. Like, you can it's right not to do that, it's right to watch it on a big screen, and it's better to do that thing. But I'm also going to watch stuff on my phone, and it's like that's the part that I am more fascinated. It's like, all right, so what now? Do we make movies that fit on the phone? Do we, you know, do we get rid of the idea of a movie altogether and that becomes sort of a different thing? Like my uh interest in movies right now is like, is it going to become kind of like jazz clubs, right? Where there are jazz clubs in New York City, but part of the appeal of a jazz club in New York City is that it's almost like a Disney attraction. You know, it's supposed to reference back when there were jazz clubs in New York City or something like that. But like those original ones that were invented just because that was the music people went out to go see, that's the same a jazz club in 1920s New York is the same as like going to the club right now and listening to a DJ play or something like that. Now, but in 2026, if you go to a jazz club, part of you is just sort of experiencing the recreation of a jazz club. Even if they're modern players and they're not like putting on an act or anything like that. There's a part of it that is inauthentic to the actual experience when this was a thing that didn't have you know that level of competition. Will that be like with movie theaters? Are they just gonna be these independent movie theaters and it's gonna be this kind of you know, this thing that you do to kind of recreate the experience of going to movies, even though they don't kind of serve the same purpose that they served? You know, 50% of America saw The Wizard of Oz. 50% of Americans when that was created. So it's like that is never gonna re- get recreated. So even though movies are better to see on like a big screen, it is kind of I don't know what not a luxury, but like it's a treat. It's not a necessity, uh if that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_04 17:33

Yeah, no, totally. I've thought about stuff like that with music, like would it become like poetry where it was sort of more niche and but it's it's weird because you'd think that the more niche something becomes, the more authentic it would become, but uh if you look at poetry, you see that's not true. A lot of people get into poetry just because they're narcissists or whatever and they wanna they wanna be a narcissist or whatever. I think art will always exist as long as narcissism does. But I would I'm I'm interested in uh I mean you you'd think like in you know, movies I hate the so much, I hate the um the chairs in the movie theater now. Yeah, because I used to work in a movie theater and it would be like okay, um you got 37 seconds to clean four theaters, and one of them was how to train your dragon, and it was a bunch of children, and there's just mountains of trash everywhere, and it's like you got 37 seconds to clean it. I know for a fact they're not cleaning those chairs ever. There's so much like it's like that Warren Zevon song, it's like sweat, piss, jizz, and blood all in the chair, man. It's fucked up in there. And and so I'm sitting in these lazy boys, and I'm just I can't even focus on the movie because it's ch and I'm not even like a I'm not like monk or something, I'm not like a germ freak, I don't really care. But those chairs are so nasty, and I just want a folding chair. I just want a folding chair, like they hit people with in wrestling, and that's it. And really, my ideal theater experience would just be me alone with a folding chair in the screen, and that's it. And maybe, honestly, maybe like a group of talkative, um, like funny teenagers. Sometimes you want that in the movie theater. Some people don't like that, but sometimes it's they say some really hilarious stuff, and it can elevate a bad movie or make a good movie not so serious, you know.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

They should have uh like an on-call group of like five or six teens that it's like, hey, um, do you want the silent experience or do you want the teens talking over it? Uh you can select that option. Uh I my big thing in movies now is like I my knees just start to hurt if I'm sitting in that chair for like two hours. So at some point during every movie, I get up, I go walk over to like where the entrance is, and I just stand by the door and lean up against it. And I do that until it hurts a little bit to stand, until like I can't physically until I'm like, I gotta go sit down, and then I sit down and the relief of that. But it's always funny because like I'll be with my friends or something like that. You know, we watched the back room at least recently. Yeah, me too. Then at some point in the movie, I get up, walk over to the side, and I come back like 25 minutes later, and it just looks like he went, I went to the bathroom for 25 minutes. Uh but it's just like I just like to stand, I like to like shake it up a little bit, you know. That's why I want more trains, is just I can't stand up on an airplane, but on a train I can go walk up and down the aisles, and that that just helps, man. That just helps.

SPEAKER_04 20:31

Nice, yeah. I hate having to piss in the movies because but I've tried I've developed a system where I can kind of tell if the next three minutes are gonna be like not that important. Like I've sort of like learned to ride the wave, but every once in a while I'll get tricked. And backrooms was that way where I left. I was like, okay, it's gonna be another therapy scene. I got two minutes, and then I by the time I got back, it was like, oh, there's interesting things happening now, and I'm missing it. But I really I really liked that movie. Um I I I liked the backrooms YouTube videos, yeah. Um and I like I I remembered the original like post or whatever that with the weird picture, and I always thought that was kind of cool. But uh yeah, for like a 20-year-old I mean a 20-year-old director, that's pretty amazing. I've just I was like felt proud of like he was my little brother or something. I was like, wow, good for you, man.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Oh dude, I love all the millennials just being like, alright, cool, the zoomers are cool now. Good job, good luck, man. We we we are aware of what we thought was cool. None of us are proud of it. We're just gonna kind of step aside, just you guys get to make movies now. We kind of I feel like we're gonna give up our cultural hold much quicker than the boomers did. Like I learned about fucking Woodstock in elementary school. It's like who the fuck cares? It was a whole it was a music festival, guys. There's one every summer. But uh on the back rooms thing, uh I've always I I've been thinking about this recently where it's like everybody's trying to they're literally like trying to uh uh opt Reddit stories and 4chan posts and stuff like that. I'm like, guys, you're getting it all wrong. The backrooms thing isn't cool because of the little green text story under the picture. It's cool.

SPEAKER_03 22:11

I don't remember the story. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

So what do you need? Oh, this is my pitch for a movie. This will be my uh this could be like a little real cut here. It's like right it's this will probably be a uh a tweet or not a tweet. What are these things called a tweet? Real TikTok whatever, but it's just instead of going after the Reddit stories, just get opt creepy pictures and turn those into movies. Like those videos, what I want to see is a movie that is a movie about big ships going over very large waves. Because every time I see a video about a cargo ship going over a 20 foot wave in the ocean, I'm like, ooh, that's spooky. I want to see what happens. That's the movie. We could write a story about it later, but that's the important part of the movie is just an hour and a half of big ships going over increasingly scarier waves and then I don't know have a story about like uh picking your daughter or like relating to your daughter or something about that about trauma.

SPEAKER_03 23:07

I don't really care about it's not important.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Yeah I don't really care about the story of the back rooms that was just for him to get into the next room and go, oh this is the Christmas room. The Christmas room is very scary. I want to see that with big waves the movie. So uh Hollywood get in touch with me man it's not about the story it's about the tiny little picture that's kind of spooky. So there you go.

SPEAKER_04 23:29

That's my I remember there was a um there was a picture uh on like a 4chan board of supposedly of an alien that an alien took a selfie or whatever and and people were freaking out and I remember it like got deleted really fast or something and then people were like I saw the picture of the alien selfie and now I feel sick like it did something to me. And I was like that's interesting like that's a great I mean I fucking love like evil ET taking this which is ET's kind of evil anyway honestly he's a he's a creepy guy.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

There's a there's this little there's this fine line I always tell people like I really like conspiracy theories growing up I still like them. I love them because they're like modern ghost stories. They're fun because like you think of a ghost story in you know 1500s Europe a ghost story was a real story. Those people thought ghosts were real. So when they're talking about ghosts it's like this is a thing that could really physically have happened. For conspiracy theories now that like has the same thing. It's like yeah there really is a men in black there really are aliens out there. There's this sort of believability to it what is uh interesting to me is like there is a definitive line in my head between a full-on conspiracy theory and just uh like a green text like a creepypasta right even though creepy pasta kind of is a conspiracy theory it's supposed to be somewhat believable but like what is the distinction between creepypasta in that it's like definitively fiction even though it kind of pertains to being real versus conspiracy theory which is fiction but you know you come at it from the mentality of like is it real first? I don't know. That I feel like that's the line between conspiracy theory and just pure fiction is the it's like belief.

SPEAKER_04 25:07

Yeah like if a number of people believe it I could see different creepypassas becoming like actual conspiracy uh over time I could see that happening in South Carolina we have a cryptid um that people don't know about is uh the lizard man uh and he's very funny looking he um he's kind of buff uh there's a picture of him sort of similar to that Bigfoot picture that's famous from the video but it's it it looks like I mean it looks like a rubber suit it looks like some some ship from like um land of the lost or I don't even know what a more recent uh like Power Rangers villain or something it looks very like a bodysuit or something that common writer would fight but yeah the the the lizard man and uh he's awesome I actually went on my birthday recently I went to go uh visit uh Bishopville South Carolina where um shout out Bishopville you know where he's supposed to be um but yeah I love stuff like that I I miss um and I think it's getting back to it I th uh I miss I used to be very into like coast to coast AM you ever listen to art art bell it was awesome that stuff is like what's been funny weirdly enough is like this world cup that's been going on has been all of these Europeans coming over and realizing that all the dumb stuff Americans do is fun if you can get over the fact that it's incredibly stupid.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Oh yeah and it's like there is this I view coast to coast AM as like one of those things where I'm like this is a purely American invention. You know this is a purely American reaction to not just AM radio like having a radio show but like you gotta think about it. The the way it works the reason that these are always like AM radio stuff coast to coast or whatever is because AM was originally the like primary form of radio and then they invented FM which has clearer signal or whatever. Most channels shifted over to FM but AM was still there so they kept it on them. And so the space opened up on the AM dial for weirder and weirder shows. Oh yeah. Coast to coast FM is like whatever shop moved into the mall that you have now that like sells crystals or something just because they don't have enough tenants in the mall and they'll give a shop to anybody and like that mix of all these different factors playing in creates this very eerie American haunted vibe the static of the AM radio the fact that these random people will call in and give somewhat believable encounters with aliens and UFOs and stuff like that and you don't know what's going on or not and you're listening to it like two o'clock in the morning when your brain is not able to parse that it's a purely American experience you know that's like an and all of us kind of know it but it's like I that's the shit that I love about this country.

SPEAKER_04 28:01

Yeah AM radio man yeah it's it's artful it's mysterious and I I spent a lot of time in my teens like listening to Art Bell's show and it would be cool because he was also sort of a skeptic um in a kind way he would sort of be sarcastic you'd have some guests on there who would just be like a really eloquent schizophrenic. They would sound convincing but you could tell it's like wow this person's actually just sort of a schizophrenic and then art would just be like wow that's amazing like and then but you could tell he was like this is this is total nonsense but there was that one call that the guy called from Area 51 and he was like they're triangulating my position he's like crying and stuff and then the the radio went off the air and the radio station lost power and all this stuff and it was like wow that's kind of cool so good.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

It's so good and it's like I if it literally might just be a coincidence I kind of choose to believe in terms of that idea that like art is like kind of playfully skeptical about this I tell people this all the time it's like I have become very skeptical about aliens or UFOs or like all the conspiracy theory stuff solely out of how much I want it to be true. I have wanted to find aliens my entire life I've wanted to find Bigfoot or the Lochness Monster or something like that. Yeah whatever ghost anything like that and in that love of these things I've just researched so much that it inevitably kind of turned there's just so many times you can flip the coin and it comes up tails and at a certain point you just kind of go I don't just I'm not sure it's gonna be heads. You know I'm just not sure it's gonna happen. So uh but it's like it's it's not you know I'm not skeptical because it's like I don't I think anyone's dumb or stupid. It's just like I just I'm so I want it to be real. I need the skepticism because if I don't have that then I just believe everything or whatever. But like totally I'm honestly skeptical because I think at some point something's gonna break through like the story you were just telling me there's plausible evidence that that might be fucking real. The radio went off the air that's enough for me to be like that's a real one. This one's weird. I don't know what happened there. And that's all I need I just need a couple stories where I'm like I don't know what happened there.

SPEAKER_04 30:11

The guy uh well supposedly the guy called back a couple weeks later but he sounded it sounded like the same guy but it sounded a little off and he was like I was just pranking you art ha ha and it but it seemed a little bit it was kind of suspect because I was like wait a minute it's almost like they got to him and gave him like a some kind of uh uh mood stabilizing cocktail or something but um yeah that was freaky I love stuff like that like um you know like uh the uh I have a song that uh that's coming out some at some other point uh uh in the future that sort of references like the Max Headroom incident where the people bust into the signal and it's so creepy like um it really used to scare me as a as a kid. I actually uh when I was a kid they they there was this show coming out on Nickelodeon called like uh Alan Strange or something yeah and the way they promoted the show was during other shows they would have like the TV get all glitchy and then it was like something strange is coming and I remember being a child and like uh having like sh a total panic attack meltdowns because I didn't know what was happening to the TV and I used to be scared of the rapture and stuff so I th I thought uh I thought the rapture was happening or something and I freaked freaked the hell out and uh run. I I used to be a very terrified child.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

I used to be scared of like uh blood in video games I used to have a meltdown um nice when I would see the other reason that they uh have green blood and occarina of time that's yeah they put that in there for me yeah yeah it's my request they came up with the whole ESRB because I was uh I was a a little uh crybaby or whatever. Yeah congratulations you know I still remember back in the day K through A kids through adults now it's E for everybody I loved K through A you know but uh I mean that's one of those things where it's like I don't know being a kid is scary man as soon as you started talking about Nickelodeon I remember like the most scared I've ever been probably my entire life is uh the intro to Are You Afraid of the dark just like I would that would come on the TV and I would search for the remote like it was a gun and there was an invader coming into my house. Like if I couldn't find the remote like it was a full-on panic attack yeah just I couldn't even I couldn't even get to the point where I'm like I don't I don't I don't want to see what happens at the end of this very spooky intro scene it's too scary for me I have to go away but it's like I don't know that's that's part of being a kid it's like it is kind of fucking terrifying out there you know oh yeah I was for some reason that show never scar I loved that show but it didn't scare me.

SPEAKER_04 32:52

It was weird what would scare me like I saw the shining when I was like four or five and it was so funny because my mom my mom had me when she was 18 so she was kind of young and yeah and she was kind of a young cool kid and um I remember being like five years old and it and my mom was like you haven't seen the shining and I was like what do you mean I'm five years old I haven't seen anything I'm five years old. And she was 18 I probably don't remember and she like showed me she showed me the movie she like went and rented it and showed it to me and I remember being like that's hilarious not scared by anything except that bear blowing that guy and I was just like that's the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life and it took me years to watch it again because I was like I don't want to see that again. But then when I saw it again I was like oh it's actually more funny than anything else.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

Yeah that was my reaction the first time I saw it too it's like I none of it really scared me except for whatever reason that bear thing that creeped me out and it's like it creeped me out in a way that I eventually like went bad and watched it. These scare the scary my parents were also uh big fans of just letting us watch movies that we definitely shouldn't have been able to watch uh like the movie I watched the most growing up was Jurassic Park because my brother loved it so like I was like four years old but we would just speed fast forward through any of the scenes with them talking we'd just watch the dinosaurs eating people it was awesome.

SPEAKER_04 34:07

You should do a cut of the film that's just all the just the dinosaurs eating people that's actually really funny I should do that and then send it to my brother for his birthday he'd fucking get a kick out of it. That would be good I was I was watching um all the Superman movies a couple months ago um yeah and I realized that if I think it's Superman 3 but it's the one with Richard Pryor if you cut every single Superman scene out and just only leave the Richard Pryor scenes in you have like one of the funniest movies of all time. Like it's it was it's cracking me up and like I'm a big fan of Richard Pryor's like films and and comedy and stuff. I'm not much of a stand-up person but I like him a lot but uh it's like his best movie if you just cut all the Superman bullshit out.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

It's like uh Annie Hall originally was like a murder mystery and then they're like dude none of the murder mystery stuff works just stick with the love story and they they just cut it all out except for the love story and it turned into a good movie. That's crazy yeah editing editing is the most profound tool one has I think you know but George Lucas's wife is like credited as the reason that the first Star Wars movie wasn't a fucking disaster because she basically just tore it apart in the editing and like put the whole structure George Lucas you can see with the prequels he just shoots all his ideas. He's like this this would be cool. Let's do this let's do this and she was like she was the one that was like alright well this is gonna be act one and then we wanted to build into this and build into that so it's like that's one of the most famous kind of low keys saved in the editing movies is the original Star Wars or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 35:40

Dang I I used to love Star I was a big huge fan of uh Star Wars and now it's like there's there's so much that I don't way too much man. I just don't even care anymore.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

Like there's too much I completely agree man I what I loved about Star Wars weirdly enough and like there's this video on YouTube by this guy Aaron Signal he does video game reviews very in depth and uh dorky and it's one of my favorite things to watch so I'd probably like it yeah oh dude check out Aaron Signal he's the goat his video on uh Sonic the Hedgehog and speed is phenomenal. He just talks about like oh I'll tell that later but like yeah he talks about for a group of people roughly our age uh there was this time where like Star Wars was kind of primarily a video game property. This is before the prequels like come out and it's just like you're playing like Shadows of the Empire or like Sky Fighter or something. But like the whole world of Star Wars existed purely in this like video game form and their strategy at the time for the video games was just to let anybody use the license as long as they made a good game. So it's like this really that's my favorite type of Star Wars is like the video game war extended universe of it. And now it's just Star Wars is fucking everything now. Like it literally is like they're gonna they do Star Wars comedy movies, they do Star Wars action movies, they do Star Wars TV shows that everybody's gonna and you gotta watch all of it to know what the story is it's like no just give me the cheesy weird story in Shadow of the Emperor Shadows of the Emperor that like only exists because they've already built all the uh the set pieces of the video game and they just wrote a story to get you from set piece to set piece and it's like that's my Star Wars it's kind of cheesy.

SPEAKER_04 37:18

It's kind of weird it's kind of janky and I miss it you know now people would people would tell me like oh well but you gotta watch Andor it's it's a good show and I'm like I don't want a good show from Star Wars. I want it to be like barely coherent and like and dumb or you know I don't need it to be like some kind of you know AMC show or something where it's good.

SPEAKER_01 37:41

I don't need that that shit in my I don't need to see Star Wars Mad Men man. If I want to watch Mad Men I'll watch Mad Men I love Mad Men and yeah everyone yells at me to watch Star Wars too but like I kind of liked The Last Jedi and then the next movie whatever uh Rise of Skywalker or whatever was like a big I didn't see it but apparently it's a big like everything that if you like The Last Jedi this recons everything. I'm like alright I'm not doing this anymore. I'm not gonna watch I'm not gonna follow along with this thing that might just change directions over and over and over again. It's just gonna be like a bunch of corporate boardrooms talking about like what is or isn't Star Wars. I'm just kind of I'm tired of it and if I miss out on good stuff I miss out on good stuff and so everyone keeps yelling at me to watch Andor and I'm like I just don't want to there's other shit guys like I I'm sure it's good. There's plenty of good shit that I haven't seen.

SPEAKER_04 38:27

I don't really watch most things you know yeah yeah no did you see that guy um it was kind of a viral video where he he he was reacting which also reacting content is so strange but uh it's very odd he was reacting to the trailer and his name he had a funny name his name was Eric Butts which is like like you're already kind of starting at a disadvantage but he was reacting to the trailer and it's not even the first new Star Wars movie it's like the second one. So it's not like when they first announced it I was like oh wow they're gonna make some more that's cool but he's reacting to the second new one and he's like as soon as the music hits he's like crying but like crying in a way that I don't think like if I saw my child walk for the first time I don't think I would have that much emotion. He's just like and he's like it's so weird it's the weirdest video ever but and I was watching it and I watched the whole thing. It's like eight minutes of him just like weeping and and I was just like the first at first I was you know obviously I was laughing at it and I was making fun of him and stuff like that. But by the end I was like I I wish I could feel that about anything in life. There's nothing that's ever happened to me that made me that have that much like unbridled joy.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

It is wild I mean that's like I mean first off you're talking about uh a phenomenal piece of artwork apparently I I think of these weird YouTube videos and these TikToks and stuff like there is an art quality to it. The fact that you're your range of emotions watching this guy cry goes from like I'm gonna laugh at this guy to a profound sense of existential dread. It's like alright dude show me a fucking painting that'll make a guy do that.

SPEAKER_04 40:16

Very few yeah very few will no I agree completely um there's like there's a YouTube video um uh I forget the name of it but it's it's two old people and they're both they're pretty obviously ineverated and they're um there's basically it starts like in media ray like you s you start in the middle of the situation where there's this haunt there's this Halloween decoration it's like a skeleton that you hit a button and it dances to super freak. And they're both in the middle of it they're saying like it talked by itself. It just talked by itself that's why we started recording and they keep hitting the button over and over and over and it's like 15 minutes long and it's it just keeps building and building and the guy's just like it said I swear to god it talked it talked and it just builds and builds and I won't and you can find it you just type in like haunted skeleton toy or whatever. But I won't spoil the ending but the ending makes it honestly the greatest supernatural film maybe ever. It like it's better than poltergeist it's better than anything I was so blown away and I honestly I'll tell people in serious um conversation as we are now that I think it's the greatest short film ever made it's incredible. I don't I wish I knew the name but it's just like skeleton haunted skeleton toy it's got like millions of views but I love shit like that.

SPEAKER_01 41:40

That's awesome too to me I love the fact that it's like I don't know what it's called. I think like I'm I'm with you man I spent a lot of time looking at weird shit online. Not like weird shit like I've never watched like a beheading video I'm not in in in that spot but I mean you spend enough time online you will watch some people die. Oh yeah just the other day that that poor lady they threw off the clicks just bungee jumping yeah horrible that ended my uh any interest I had in bungee jumping that ended it right there it's done now it's a definitive zero you know never gonna happen but it'd be funny if it made me want to do it like hmm there's gotta be somebody it did you know but like uh I'm in the group too of like when people everyone sits around there like they recommend movies and you know uh TV shows and stuff to watch and it's like I don't know how to respond to that because it's like everything that I watch is like here's a you know what I like to watch on YouTube is like a 45 minute review of uh Grand Theft Auto Vice City and I was like this this is great is a really good in-depth review or like I mean the the one uh that I really highly recommend if nobody has seen it and you know I don't know if you're watching this how you have avoided it but uh there's a channel on YouTube called Defunct Land. They have a two hour documentary online at Disney World that has one of the greatest surprise twists I've ever heard when they reveal Shapeland to the audience it's one of the greatest twists I've ever seen in a movie and it's like I highly highly highly recommend that to people but it's like I don't know I feel like I still feel like a weirdo being like you should watch this two hour uh YouTube documentary. I was like but that's what I watch that's what I think is entertaining.

SPEAKER_04 43:23

I I like seeing this stuff you know no I'm with you there I I um I well YouTube's one of my favorite sources for like footage too I I like to you can if you search like file names uh that someone might use if they forget to name their video like MOV and then random numbers or IMG and random numbers you can find videos that have like no views and some of them are like it's like 17 years old zero views and you could be like the first person to watch it and I've I've in some of the music videos I've made and stuff like that I've found A lot of like really strange footage and um I I I don't know that to me to just sort of consume content that is made to be entertaining, sort of like you you're really cutting yourself off of a whole world um you know of real stuff and and it's like it's it's more stuff that like you know that AI can't really replace. AI can't really make something as powerful as like a 37-second video of somebody like accidentally filming their closet and then realizing and being like, oh shit, and then they somehow gets on YouTube and you see it 17 years later. Like that's something that's just like a weird, strangely human experience or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 44:50

Dude, I I totally agree with you on that. It's like that's uh a big part of the reason that I make the you know content that I do is like um I try to just walk around until I have an idea and share the idea immediately, right? I'm like trying to there's this the internet is an incredibly powerful tool for uh creating false things, you know, creating false narratives, selling you shit, turning uh normal people into advertising or brands, you know. Like the internet is trying to turn me into a brand to some extent, and I I'm playing around with that myself. It's like I I use the branding or whatever, but like the algorithm pushes me to make content that works. They want me to be the guy that does X, Y, or Z or whatever, and I'm trying to figure out ways to fight against that. But like for me, what is always gonna be the most interesting is like when TikTok first came out, or like Vine first came out, and nobody knew how to make a TikTok, they didn't know what this thing was gonna be for. There's all these moments of just people posting their actual lives, you know? Yeah, like there's that brief period of time where uh TikTok got shut down and everybody wants a Xiao Hong Shu and they went over to the Chinese internet, and it was going over there. Oh, this is this beautiful like two-week moment where people in China and people in the United States were just figuring out how to communicate on Xiao Hong Shu and having like real genuine moments and posting really genuine videos of just like a teenager being like, Hey, this is my room, I live in America, it's nice to meet you all. Uh I hope things are going good in China, and then Chinese people sending like a uh something back, and it was none of it was marketing, none of it was like a video to go viral. It was literally just like this is my room, this is who I am, these are my friends, or something like that. Yeah, and eventually, you know, it gets snuffed out by the stuff that does popular on the the inauthentic, eventually snuffs out a lot of the authentic. But if you keep searching, like you're talking about, you find these really authentic moments, and once you see something that is purely authentic, it does kind of ruin the inauthentic stuff for you, even if it's good inauthentic stuff, you know?

SPEAKER_04 46:44

Yeah, yeah. Acting has to be like on a whole nother level after you see someone cry to the Star Wars thing. Like, yeah, you know, acting has to be on a totally different um level, and it it it's it's weird, like the way I I do like when when things are allowed to be just totally free and people are allowed to express themselves without any kind of guidance because I feel like language is changing because of content restrictions where we'll when people are talking about like someone getting killed, they'll say like some shit that you would hear like in a Dragon Ball Z, like and then they were sent to another dimension, and it's like you're talking about real stuff, like we have to use these words, yeah. That's the word and I'm just like man, this is wham wham. Yeah, you know, when I and then some of it sounds and some some of the words they use uh to substitute really um undermined the seriousness of what they're talking about, so it's it sounds very cartoonish, and I'm like, this is not good. This this is sort of um it's desynthized this desensitizing us to it more so than I think just saying it would. And that that to me is worrying, but I I'm hoping that people um it's hard because you can't really control it. Like uh I always get frustrated because it's like I have a certain amount of followers in my mind. If I follow something, I want to see stuff from that, so like everything I do should go to those followers, and then they can unfollow if they don't want to see it. But in the reality, you put something out and you might have a thousand followers, but it'll go to like 20 people. And you're like, what's going on? Why? You know, what is the arbitrary rule there? And I just wish it was more direct. And I think there's so many walls being put up, and it's I mean, it's corporate stuff, it's like you know, it's oligarchy and all this nonsense that's doing it, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:46

I mean, ultimately they want to turn everything into these weird little brands so that they can, you know, collateralize the future profits off of them. They don't even want to make profit off of it, they want to collateralize the future profits, you know. It's uh everything always comes back to uh if you haven't read Michael Hudson, I'll shout him out again. He's an economist. Uh he wrote a book called Super Imperialism. Y'all should check it out, it's great. Uh, but you know, in terms of that, like the censorship thing with the you know, the directness, the kind of inauthenticity that's baked into all this stuff, it's like I agree with you. I would love for every one of my videos to go out to all of my followers whenever I send it out. Because they followed me, they they said they want to watch it. I that feels obvious that they should see the stuff that I make. But there is something uh in me that's like, alright, well, that's how I'd want it to be, but what it is is this thing. So, how do I the distance between what I want it to be and what it actually is, and for me to know what it actually is, I do actually have to know what it is, you know, like all of the stuff that you're talking about, like who it sends it to, why certain things get boosted, why certain things don't, they don't tell you that. You only learn it through experience, and but playing with that distance to me is like low-key, that is kind of fun. I think there's like I'm trying to frame it in a positive way where it's like Shakespeare is Shakespeare because he was writing about the court, he was writing about the rich people that lived in England at the time, but he used a pseudonym and he wrote it in a play in such a way that there was plausible deniability about who he was talking about, so he couldn't be, you know, accused of libel, accused of talking behind anybody's back. And that thing that he's trying to do by trying to play with the censorship that existed at the time creates the great works of you know William Shakespeare, if that's one guy, if that's a bunch of guys, but like the idea that these people were trying to say something and were forced by the limitations of the censorship of the time, you can create something that transcends the censorship and transcends like the time or whatever. Do I think you can do that with a reel or a TikTok? I don't know. I don't think so right now, but I hold the possibility that somebody could do it. I don't know, I don't know who it's gonna be or what it's gonna look like, but it'd be great if they did. I don't know. Uh the William Shakespeare of TikTok. Fuck it, man. They might be out there. Who the fuck knows?

SPEAKER_04 51:02

That would that'd be cool if they had the same outfit on, too. You know, oh absolutely shoes. I always want to like just kind of give up and start rocking like a rough, you know, around my neck and like some jeans. Might be me. I don't know. It might be me. The kids wear the pants now that are like um pants for the goths used to wear when I was in high school. Yep. The wide pants.

SPEAKER_01 51:27

That's a funny thing that uh tends to happen with culture, is like the stuff that gets uh what's it called? What is this thing? You know, like the the stuff that becomes retro. Like in when I was, you know, in the mid-2000s, it was all about the 80s, and it was all about like the neon lights and Miami, Florida, you know, Grand Theft Auto Vice City, like everything that creates that aesthetic. The amount of people that wore neon and had giant hair in the 80s is not a hundred percent, it's actually a smaller minority. The thing is that like that kind of gauche neon aesthetic didn't survive into the 90s and then get stuck in place in the 80s, it didn't get iterated on in the 90s, and so now when you see these kids wearing like the goth stuff, that's the stuff that didn't get iterated on, you know? Uh the best way I can put it is like when I was in high school, Abacrame and Fitch and uh what Spencer's Gifts, uh, those are like two different yeah, there's like the the kind of like those are two different mall aesthetics. You could be like an uh Abercrombie and Fitch person or whatever, but like the preppy Abercrami aesthetic got iterated on, and it's not like you don't think necessarily like oh that's 2007 when you see an Abercrombie and Fitch guy, but when you saw a you know Spencer's Gift clad person, you're like that is the mid-2000s. That's exactly what that is. So it's like this this the weirder subcultures are the things that get iterated on in the future, I think because they're more associated with the time and place than the stuff that was actually more popular at the time, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 52:59

Yeah, it's weird what gets left behind too. But at this point, I don't even know if anything will get because I guess this this culture is so cyclical now, and there's not a lot of it's like the stagnancy of capitalism or something, but I'm wondering when like the shirts that'll be like the voices in my head tell me to burn things and stuff like that will come back or whatever. I used to love seeing somebody with something like that on, you know.

SPEAKER_01 53:24

Oh yeah, the funny little meme shirts. I want I you know, I think honestly, my big thing in terms of like why we aren't seeing more new stuff, why everything kind of regurgitates here. It's like I just think we're uh we're exiting the American century and we're entering the Asian uh century, you know? Think of how many people now watch like Korean movies, uh watch Japanese anime, and uh you know, buy Chinese electronics or like Chinese uh what are those little dolls that people are buying or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 53:54

Like the Labooobos or that or Laboo Boos, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:58

And it's like I think uh you know the cultural center, because you think about it, it's like in the 1800s, the center of culture is like Paris, France. And then eventually it moves to like New York City, and now I just I feel like it's moving it's moving east, you know. I think it it and that is where the new is going to come from, is gonna come from Asia. We're gonna be stuck here regurgitating the American century, but like probably over. I can dig that, you know.

SPEAKER_04 54:25

I I like all those things, you know. I'm I'm here for it. Um it's i it it's it is interesting. I I used to be able to feel like I could predict where things were gonna go, but now I I I can't really, and that's okay. I've been having especially with music, like I I'm trying not to sound like too much of an old head, but I r I do my one wish for music is that I wish I wish new music like put me off more. Um whereas I feel a lot of it is just very pleasant. Um it's like I'll hear stuff and I'll be like, uh this this I I hear a lot of the same guitar tones and the same drum tones. I feel like before technology advanced so much, when you what would happen was, especially in my case, it'd be like I want to make a song exactly like this, and then I would try and I would fail horribly, but I would fail up into something very interesting and and and unique to me. But now it's like, well, I want to sound um like the cure, and I can download like the cure um amp simulator, and then it's like that's it, and then I and then it to me that there's um things are so easy now that it it's sort of like it doesn't create a good environment for failing, which is sort of the to me the heart of um experimentation and growth is like failing, it has to be a part of it, but um and so I feel like maybe that's what's happening, but I'm sure there's plenty of music that's like totally psycho, like nothing I've ever heard in my life going on right now. But I just I'm not being put on to it because you know a lot of my friends are my age and they're not listening to you know, they're just listening to incubus and stuff like me. So I don't know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:32

I mean, that's something I think about a lot, especially when I started uh kind of getting bigger make talking about music online. Um as you can kind of tell from this podcast, my uh talking about music is just I just kind of talk about whatever the hell I'm thinking of uh at the time. It's vaguely a vaguely music-related podcast.

SPEAKER_04 56:51

Uh we can play music, we have instruments in the background.

SPEAKER_01 56:54

Oh yeah, you know, most of these are my wife, my wife's stuff. So that's awesome, yeah. Oh yeah, dude, she's cool as fuck. But uh but like what you're talking about there, uh, one, I love the idea that it's like, yeah, um you you need struggle to create something new, you know. You're you have this idea of what you want to make and then struggling to do it. I I've always enjoyed that. And it is easier for these kids now to replicate what they're doing. At the very least, too, like even the difference between when I was learning how to play guitar, having to learn tabs, versus now you can just watch somebody play it, and it's so much easier to have somebody like show you the fingers and stuff like that. There's so many tabs I gave up on because I'm like, I don't know what this part's supposed to be. Yeah, I don't want to learn anymore. Yeah, but the one thing that I'll give to the zoomers that I I are you know, the people that are making music now, the ones that I think are doing it in an interesting way are the ones that are like, well, it's so easy to replicate sounds that uh and they've been inundated with so much music, they've had streaming services their whole lives. Genre seems to be less important to them. That like for our generation, you were, you know, I I made a video recently that was like if you were considered an emo person, if you listen to any music that was like remotely sad, you could be labeled as emo, and now you were stuck with the emo category. Like the genre was a hard-coded way to categorize people. Whereas now the music that I really like that the zoomers make, um, you know, shout out there's a band Robber Robber that's really cool. There's a band Lots of Hands from England that I think is really, really cool. And what I like about them is they'll take parts from genres that I wouldn't think would work in their music, and they seamlessly go into them. And I'm like, oh, because you didn't think that this couldn't fit in this, you know. I remember thinking I couldn't have a synth in my guitar band because that's not guitar music. Like, that's how fucking weird I was about that shit. I don't think the Zoomers have that at all. So the good ones are just there's more tools, they use them in a more creative way.

SPEAKER_04 58:51

Yeah, it's amazing what they're able to discover now. Like, it was so much harder to hear music. I remember reading about records in magazines and then like having to go get them from the record store. And we didn't have a record store in my town, so except for like Best Buy. And um they only had mainstream music at Best Buy, so I'd have to go to a different town entirely, and and it would it build up itself in my mind like what it was gonna sound like because I'd only read about it and stuff like that. And now it's like yeah, like you know, kids are uh in their teens and they've already listened to like entire discographies and genres and stuff that I didn't even get to know about until I was in my mid to late twenties. And that's kind of cool. The influence is there. I just I wonder if the if it's like okay to fail because everybody's so public now with their lives and they're sort of like making music and putting it out there, and then if it doesn't hit um they give up on it and stuff like that. But but it it can be very you kind of have to have um a defense, uh build up a defense. Like when I first started m making records when I was like 15, 16, I used to play it for people and they would be like, This sucks. You can't sing this song stupid. Like and it would just it it could have shut me down, but instead I was kind of like, you know what, like uh I'm gonna keep doing it anyway. I'm gonna do it more because it makes you upset. And um and then I'm gonna like um but I wasn't also doing it in front of like potentially millions of people. I was just sort of like pissing off the old heads in my scene. And um and that was easier, but now it's like I feel for people who you know they drop a song and maybe it gets like a a hundred plays or something, and then they're like, Oh, I'm a failure. I uh and but that's you know that's doesn't mean anything. Nothing means anything when it comes to these metrics. Well all that matters is if you reach somebody's spirit or whatever, and and that that's a harder thing to realize you're doing until you know you've you've got a big enough audience where people are like reaching out and being like, hey, this affected my spirit or whatever, you know. Um so it's it's weird. Um I'm not afraid of being replaced by like machines or anything like that, like some people are, but I I am afraid of just people sort of giving up um people who would be great artists, sort of giving up that space to machines because they feel so demoralized by the culture of like like kind of like we were talking about earlier, where it's like you gotta be funny and you gotta be cool and you gotta be a genius and all this stuff. It's like you don't really have to do anything, you you just gotta write from your heart and and and perform from your heart, and and that should be the only thing you gotta do.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:05

But yeah, I mean it's I think there's a difference between doing this in a way that like makes money and becomes a job and you get to spend your whole life on it. The thing I always tell people like at the beginning is like if you are interested in making music in any capacity, you know, even if it's just for fun or whatever, just start going to shows in your local scene, start finding stuff you like, and just keep going to it over and over again because ultimately, like the best thing you can get out of this is a group of people that you know are making music that they genuinely want to make, even if they're not getting rewarded for it or whatever, and that like you share this interest and this passion with, and then you maybe you start playing music with them that'll help you find people to play with, but like um I always think about it like even in even when I was coming up, you know, I'm in college and I'm playing guitar and shit like that every day, being uh being thinking I'm a cool kid, and like thinking about the music industry and being like, dude, there's really no there's no real career in being an indie rock musician. Like you can do it for a while, but like you're not gonna make you know the kind of money where it's like you sell a one-hit wonder. You know, this is a thing in the 90s, it was like you could sell a you could do one hit and get a couple million dollars.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:15

And now it's like time or something.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:18

And like that was such a prevalent thing that they would talk about it as like bands that chose to do that, and it's like that's not even an option on the table anymore for you now. Now it's like you do you want to play shows and tour until you physically can't do it anymore, and then get a normal job, and you might have to work a normal job the entire time, or you know, you just play for your local scene and you try not to make any money, or you just give up on it. But what I liked about that at the very least is that the people that did stick around and keep playing, they weren't doing it because of the chance that one day they were gonna get a huge paycheck. They were doing it for some other reason. That reason had was taken off the table, so only the people that were the people that remained, the only ones that were there, were there for a different type of reason, which is like, I don't know, I found that more authentic. It's what I like about the people I hang out with in Portland that play music. You were at that house show venue, like it was a lot of fun. That is not a money-making endeavor, but you can see how many people love going to that house.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:14

Yeah, everyone was so nice. I mean, I stayed there for like three days, and um Oh yeah, it was there was a lot of great dogs around, and uh we were having fun, you know. It's it's nice to be around um people like that, you know, those are the best kind of artists that are really in, you know, the love of the game and stuff, but you know, and I'm very lucky that I I've lived I've made a living off of music, like a pretty modest one, but um, you know, but that all came from um failing. Like, you know, if I had been successful and gotten like a bunch of critical success and ended up on a label, um, I would be broke, completely broke right now because I own all my stuff because no one wanted it. Um that means that I'm able to, you know, control it and and and make a living. And and I've I've had records that done really well and I've had records that have done really bad. And um I just I kind of like have tried to see it as um uh a motivating factor. Uh to me that there it's it's still very enthralling to try to figure out what people like um in music and not even in general, but just in my music. Because it's when you have an audience um it becomes a very kind of symbiotic um relationship in like good and bad ways. And I do find myself wondering like or making things and I'll be like, Oh yeah, people who like my stuff are gonna love this, and then they don't, and then I'm like, Huh, I don't know these. People at all, actually. And they don't maybe they don't know me either. And that, but that's okay, but it's like we're still learning, and it's been like a lifelong journey at this point. When we did that tour, there was a lot of people coming up to me that's like, you know, they listened to me for like almost 20 years now, and it's just like it's crazy. And they've stuck with me. And I even had one person come up to me and was like, you know, sometimes you put out some stuff and I'm not really into it, but I just know that like eventually you're gonna put out like another great song. And I was like, Man, I really want to sit with you for like a couple hours and and figure out what is exactly that you like. Because I don't know, I I didn't get into the um I never wanted to be a songwriter um or any of this stuff. I it's it's almost like a compulsion now. Um but I wanted to make like I wanted to make movies and go to film school, but I had the worst grades in human history, actually.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:52

But let's go, baby.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:54

Let's go at like a point.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:56

GPA blender, man. You need blender. I needed blender. I yeah, I've been trying, you know, I'll I got a blender that this is just you know, it's not the same one as he had, I think. He had a different blender.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:09

Um but yeah, I like uh I like your idea there where you talk about like your interactions back and forth with the audience, because I feel like the other direction that some people go into, especially with like Andy Rock, is they're like, I literally only am gonna make music for me, it's gonna be exactly what I want to do. They almost uh aggressively work against having an audience to some degree because they don't want to sound and it comes from it, it's projected as a security, but I kind of read it as an insecurity of like you don't want the audience to have an effect on what you think you've made. Yeah, like you don't want to give them the power to tell you whether or not you succeeded or failed, right? And that but it's more because it's not you know it's more to just remove the possibility that they could declare something a failure, yeah. But it's like you kind of need that. I like your reaction to it. It's like, dude, uh failure is the most illuminating thing you're basically saying. It's like this is the most illuminating thing for me. I'm much more interested in someone that's gonna tell me what I failed at. Just I want to understand why they think it failed so that I can like learn something from it. If you all you do is put out hits and bangers and everybody loves you, at a certain point, it's just like, all right, so what do you guys even like? What what is this? What are we doing here?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:20

You know, and it don't you don't have to even agree. That's the other thing. It's like you have to have the confidence to be like, um, if you truly love something you've done and then no one else likes it, that doesn't mean that it's bad either. It just means that y'all are on different wavelengths, you know. Like, um I did a record with Elvis DePressly, it was the last record I ever did. Um, and I went to Cleveland and went to a studio and put a bunch of money and time into it. I made an entire film for the album. It was called Who Owns the Graveyard was the name of the record. And um it's it's like my least successful record or whatever. But to this day, I still think it's awesome. Like I I think it's great. I think it's one of the best records ever. I I like and I put so much into it, and I I do think it's like gonna be like uh congratulations by MGMT, where everybody hates it, and then one day they're like, wait a minute, this is good.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:17

Um but you know I love that idea. Truth wins out in time, right? Like these things get you know, you know you know a book was considered a a total, absolute, abject failure at the time of its release. Moby Dick.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:30

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:30

Moby Dick, the great American novel.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:33

That's awesome. Yeah, people are like Melville's a failure. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:36

It's like uh well, Van Gogh was a failure when he died. These guys were failures, but it's like that doesn't mean that they that's the I mean that's the beauty of art at the uh uh the point is like art is an ability to communicate through time, and it's like you know, it's why I'm fascinated by like a band like Duster, right? Where they release Stratosphere at a time and place where most people ignored it, and then all of a sudden the internet takes shape in such a way that it low-key kind of demands stratosphere to exist to give a soundtrack to this new internet, and so it's like I use this term hyperstition of like speaking something into existence. But quick story of it is like if you want to invent an iPad, you first have to write a short story where somebody uses an iPad, right? Yeah, the idea has to come before the thing, and like Duster is a hyperstitious band, they like made Stratosphere, but then the world and Stratosphere creates the world in which Stratosphere is justified. But it's like that's a crazy experience. Think about that as a band. You made something, you pour your heart and soul into it, you love it, you think it's great. Yeah, no one gives a shit. Yeah, and then all of a sudden a couple years later, like I feel like my reaction to that would be like, Well, it's been there the whole fucking time, guys. Like it's not new. What what took you guys so long? But it's like, dude, uh, as Vladimir Lenin says, Men make history, but not as they please.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:56

Yeah, no, absolutely. It's it's I that's why I don't get too bent out of shape. I I kind of hold out and and and think that in time um you know things will things will get like what they deserve um on some level. But also sometimes sometimes the audience is right and sometimes you do do an idea that doesn't work. But to me, it doesn't mean anything is bad. To me, the the the the act of creating is so sacred and so um uh powerful and and and amazing in the sense that like a song is lit is like the most nothing thing ever until it doesn't exist and then you create it and you don't use any materials or of any sort. It just it it becomes real and um like some it's crazy, it's like some god power of of creating life. And so all songs are good on on that level. Um most you know, anyone who creates something out of nothing is is magical. But so you can't hate the things you make, but sometimes you can I can see the point when I know I used to use a lot of auto tune because I like it, because like Chief Keefe's one of my favorite artists, and yeah, hello. Uh and and I just love I love the way it sounds, and but people would be so mad and upset, but it's like that's just not your it's not your bag. But I could see why someone wouldn't like it, like even um when people are like, oh that you know that means you can't sing, I think they just don't understand the technology. But when people just don't like it because it kind of makes you sound like an alien, that's fine. I can understand that. Some people are scared of aliens.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:46

Yeah. Going back to the scariest movies I ever saw as a kid, uh what's it called? Fire in the Sky. It's a movie about alien abduction. The scariest fucking alien abduction scene. I saw that when I was like seven years old, scared the shit out of me. So yeah, I can see why some people might be scared of aliens. That shit's terrifying.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:03

Somebody else saw that and it probably like turned them on, and like now they're into that like sexual.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:08

Yeah, that you spend enough time online, you also realize that about pretty much everything. But like I like your idea here that it's like I like that you're taking the good and the bad out of it. You're taking the judgment out of it, even if somebody's saying this didn't work for me, which sounds like a judgment on you or the work itself, but like yeah, I think one of the reasons that you do create stuff is because sometimes it doesn't work. If it always worked, if it never failed, it'd be fucking awful. That's not a thing. You don't want that. Nobody wants to always succeed, to always to never have to strive for something. Creation is an act of will, you know. You wanna have to will it into existence. If it just happened, what's the point, man? You know, what's the point?

SPEAKER_04 1:13:49

Yeah, it's really hard for people who were like born uh rich to make art because uh because of that. Because they don't um because they don't have that striving kind of factor in their life, and i it's very difficult for them. And then they they wonder like why it it doesn't work, but it's like um because they won't mind the true struggle that they have, I think. Uh uh 'cause in the music industry I've had to hang out with a lot of born rich people uh over the years. And what I notice is that they they do anything they can to avoid looking at their true struggle. Their true stuff struggle is shame. And they they do anything they can to not see that, and that's why they lie about uh you know poverty or or why they um you know try to write about like um emotional problems they don't have because they they're they're unwilling to confront the true thing. I I think that if some of them were to really like make a song about how they're kind of like ashamed of something that they were blessed with, um, it might be a really powerful piece of art. But so few actually do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:04

I mean, that's uh the thing. I I love that you talk about shame and stuff like that. Like uh I tell people all the time, like, making these little videos that I make is a humiliation ritual because every time I walk by somebody and they see me making a video, I feel wildly embarrassed. Like I know I look like a jackass, and I know what everyone thinks about it, but it's like, but I want to make something so I have to like suffer this humiliation. When I told people I'm gonna do these videos, I'm gonna put them online, when when it started to take off a little bit, it gets a little bit easier because I'm being validated by numbers or whatever, but like I do have to tell people, like I I make these little videos online, I would like you to go take them out. That is in a way suffering a bit of a social debt death, right? Yeah, that like I think what you're talking about, especially with uh people that have a lot of money, is they feel they fear the social death that would come with being earnest, you know?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:57

By dropping any sort of facade by being themselves, by being earnest, they fear this social death. But you, as somebody who has, you know, failed openly out there in the public, has suffered the f the social death. You can have somebody come up to you literally at a party and go, like, you used to make music I liked, you haven't made music that I like since then. And your reaction isn't, oh my god, what oh my god, what are you doing to me? Yeah, that's humiliating. Your reaction is, oh dude, I kind of want to learn more about that. What's going on? Why do you think that?

SPEAKER_04 1:16:26

And it's like I've had people, yeah, I've definitely had that experience, and it's yeah, it's cool. But I always appreciate when people are open about something like that. It's the truth, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:35

The truth will set you free.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:37

It's more interesting than just um, you know. I mean, obviously I'm appreciative when people just tell me they love me and they praise my work. I mean, that's that's really great. But the um but I the only thing uh I guess for me personally, on a personality level, I have to be very careful because I'm prone to um fall into like ego-centric um narcissism and self-obsession and stuff. Uh I guess uh being like a manic uh or bipolar person, uh uh I can get sent into like a a wave of um thinking I'm like the greatest um genius of all time or something like that, or thinking that like I'm nothing and all things are nothing and I should be obliterated. So it's like um I have to be very like careful what I input. Um tours hard because you're in a room. Um luckily uh yeah, I could say I was in a room pretty much every night of people who really uh had a lot of love for me and wanted to see me. And that's a great thing if you can be appreciative of it without um then kind of letting it go to your head or whatever. And um that was definitely a struggle. Um but you know what you're saying about like dying a death when you're doing the videos, that's really funny to me. It makes me kind of want to um because I had the same issue where for many years I would just lie when people asked me what I did for a living, because I would be like, Well, they're not gonna believe me. Um unless I'm famous, they're not gonna care, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:18

One of my favorite 30 rock jokes of all time is never watched, is good. I love it. Jack Donegie's out for uh drinks with all the writers. He goes, You guys are all famous, successful comedy writers on a TV show. What do your parents tell their friends you do? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:34

Yeah, it's true. And it's like, I mean, my family, I feel like Elvis Depressley got in Rolling Stone one time, and it was like long, long after that meant anything. And um, and but then it was really like, oh wow, Matthew is a musician, then all of a sudden, instead of just like, I don't know what Matthew does.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:54

Um, dude. That's one of those things where it's like it's dumb, it's stupid, you kind of know by the time you get that validation, you kind of know you don't need it anymore. But like I had Michael Booblay comment on one of my videos once, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:09

The lounge singer.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:10

Yeah, I would be so. You know who was incredibly stoked? Yeah was my mother-in-law. I think it's the proudest she's ever been of her daughter's choice in husband was oh my god, Michael Booblay. And like from that moment on, there's this validation on everything that I was doing, and it's like I didn't need it, it feels good, but like the other part of it that you're talking about, like, guys, I want everyone to know when I do have a really popular video, when things blow up, there is a period of time while that is happening where I think I am the coolest, smartest person that has ever lived. Yeah, the greatest feeling. I have to tell myself while it's happening. It's like, you know, it's not real, you know this feeling's not real, Kyle. It's gonna fade eventually, and the crash is gonna be hard because it always crashes. But like, it's okay to like be happy and be proud. And if it takes the form of you thinking you're a golden god for a little bit, like let it happen. Just don't do anything drastic while you're on the high and let it fade. It'll go into the next thing eventually. But like, yeah, if anyone's wondering, I do really like it when a video gets really popular and everybody says I'm cool and smart. It makes me feel good. Whatever it ha I that is that's the truth. I have to deal with that, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:20

Do you have like um because in my case this is helpful, but do you have like a in your partner and your wife, like uh a loving but also like um like uh grounding presence where it's like alright, like have some um clarity here, like don't get too you know what I mean? Because I that that's what I have to get from from you know um from my partner. It's very like bring me back to earth, which I'm very grateful for because uh oh yeah, because true tru true love is not um, at least from what I understand of it, is not a um like a deification of someone. It's like it's loving every element of somebody, good and bad, and then like trying to be the you know make them into the best and be your best and try to elevate each other. But is that does that help you when you get into those ego zones?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:19

Oh, absolutely. It's just like I have always I tell people all the time, marriage is a unity of opposites, right? Like you are unifying. I told my wife very early on when we started like living together, it's like listen, from here on out, we're trying to be one normal person. If we can be one normal person together, we'll get all the stuff done. Like the taxes will get fired, the house will so that's all we gotta do now. Like we're two people trying to be one person, one normal person or whatever. But like the thing that I I love and admire about my wife, well, I'm very kind of like up, down, sort of very bursts of high energy and bursts of like I literally can't do anything, whatever. Um she is very, very consistent, very level-headed. If you've I mean you met her, uh, but like very briefly. She played guitar in the band that I was. Oh, awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:04

Okay, cool, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:04

Yeah, I remember. That also helps too, is like I I'm sitting here talking about music, being like a music guy. Every single person in Portland thinks she's a much cooler musician than I'll ever be. And it's it's like 100% true. She's in everybody's fucking band, everybody asks her to be in bands. That's awesome. Uh but like the thing that I think is honestly like the most admirable about her is I've just watched her be consistent every day on things that she wants to do. Just every single day she shows up. She goes to every the reason she's in so many bands, she goes to all the practices, she practices, she performs. It's not the manic energy, isn't what like creates good things, it's the repetition a lot of the time. And so, like, you know, she's more even keel, she's more consistent every day, and so stuff like that where it's like I'm riding these highs and lows of like making and putting out videos and being this kind of like public personality or whatever, and the times when I'm feeling really low or feel uh and I don't want to do anything, I'm like, well, what would you know what would my wife do in this situation? She'd put out a video because you have to put one out. You said you were gonna do this today, so you have to put one out and then do it again the next day, and do that again the next day. And it's like, if it if that's all you do this week is the absolute minimum, but you have to do that part. I think the old version of me would be like, Oh, I just can't do it this week, I'm not gonna do it this week. And now I have to get back on the horse. But like that little bit of thing where it's just you just kind of do the minimum, you just kind of hang in and you keep doing stuff. That she showed me the power of just watching her do it year after year and watching all this stuff in her life come into being off of consistency, not off of like manic energy, you know, not off of thinking I am a golden god and shit like that. But no, that that's very admirable. I love I also love how often this podcast gets to a point because she listens to all these, yeah, and it gets to a point where I get to say really nice things about my wife. Again, this podcast is very, very pro. If you want to be in a relationship, go find the right person. It's really nice. Good luck.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:59

Yeah, no, for sure. And I I that's really that's beautiful. I I love that. I um I was also a person where um like my uh before my relationship, I was very um I would only work when I felt like I could, and sometimes that'd be like 3 a.m. Sometimes that'd be like months of doing nothing, just like just drinking and and and and and just sitting in a room and drinking. And then um now that I'm on a schedule that sort of mirrored uh you know my partner's schedule, it's like I am more respectful of this gift I've been given to be able to make records people care about. Like Monday through Friday, I get up at 5 30, I ta I take care of the pets, I help take care of the pets. And then I get in the studio at like seven and I work and I work and I work until like two or three, and I do that every single day. And um, and at first I was like, this is not gonna work. I I'm the kind of person that has to just go when it hits me, but then I realized I'm a special genius person, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:15

I'm the I'm the special one, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:17

Yeah, and then I realized that that actually um this is better because I'm forcing myself out of my comfort zone is always going to be um doing as little as possible. Um, you know, I'm a s I'm at this point in my life, I'm like a sober person, but uh my comfort zone has always been to just be as detached, uh however uh I could be, and um just dissolving and just being a fucking amoeba, you know. Um yeah. But now it's like I get in the I take myself out of that zone, I put myself into a headspace where it's like I gotta focus on work, I gotta make things. And I've made like in the last year or two, I've made like a hundred songs, you know, and not all of them are good, some of them are hilariously bad, but some of them are great, and some of them are among the best I've uh ever done. And and having that um, and I think for some people, um it's a great thing. Uh I would tell people like who maybe feel like they get writer's block. I don't really get writer's uh block. Um, but I would say that people who do, I would say just like just get into a uh clock in, you know, like clock in and then work and then clock out. Um I mean don't force it if it's really, really bringing you down, but um but a lot of times if you just get in and start messing with stuff and and don't try to be serious. Sometimes if I don't have an idea, I'll be like, I'm gonna try to make the stupidest sounding song I can have conjure, and I'll just be, you know, like beep, beep, beep, you know, beepy, you know, I'll try to make like some insane clown posse type music, and let's go. But then it'll come out being something, you know, uh great, like insane clown posse.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:11

I've done that a million times too where I've been like back when I, you know, I play less music now than I used to, uh, because I'm doing other shit now. But uh every once in a while I'll be like, dude, I haven't recorded anything in a while. I'm gonna go downstairs with the intent of making the worst song that I can.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:25

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:26

I I don't, you know, if I if I think it's gonna be bad, I don't worry about whether or not it's gonna be good or bad. And then making stuff that I really enjoy. I don't know if anybody else is ever gonna enjoy it, but like sometimes like I'll clip it and use 30 seconds of it and something else. It's like who knows what it's gonna turn into. But uh, you know, I I I love that idea of like just go show up every day and just start doing it. Partly because it's like take yourself out of it sometimes. Like if everything you do is your choice, is a reflection on you and your values. And your greatness or something like that, that's just a lot of pressure to do everything, you know? But if it's just, hey man, you know, I'm showing up to work tomorrow, I gotta I gotta put something out. I gotta do it. This is my job today, you know. That it does help sometimes. It takes some of the pressure off.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:15

Yeah, I think that's a big element. You don't wanna uh feel like you got the gun on your back and you're you're you know, you're it's just easing because this stuff should be like joyful, you know. Um creating, being a creative person should be a a joyful thing. And um and yeah, so I I've been able to see the joy of it more and more. And um Yeah, I like your video. I I really gonna like them even more now because I'll be imagining people looking at you like as you're like power walking.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:49

There's a couple of times like friends of mine have been like, uh I'll like pull the phone out because they're you know they're kind of talking about videos or like making fun of me. And I'm like, oh, I don't think you guys understand just like how fucking embarrassing this looks. I'm gonna pull this out now because they're gonna see you hanging out with a person doing it. And their reaction is always the same of like, when I watch the video, it it looks, you know, it's just you, your face, and you're talking, and it looks so normal or whatever. When you are physically doing it, it's the most painful thing I've ever watched anybody do like that. Because that's just me holding my arm out in front of me and like I'll start the video. It's like, no, that wasn't good. Stop, restart, say the exact same opening sentence over and over again. Like, and I'm aware that this is very stupid and very dumb. Uh, but I love it. I love that people like it. Uh for me, this is the first time anything I've ever done has gotten any sort of attention, and I'm I'm thankful for it every day. Um but speaking of attention and thankful of every day and bad segues, uh plug whatever you got. Where where can people find you? Uh where can people listen to you? What shows are coming up? Also remember this might not come out for a week or two, or possibly three. I am uh I'm just trying to crank out as many podcasts as possible because when I try to figure out how to get good at something, and podcasting's the thing I'm trying to figure out how to get good at, I'm not the kind of guy that's like, oh, I'm gonna just figure it out and then do it. I'm just gonna do a million of these fucking things until I'm good at it. That's it. That's my only way of doing it. So yeah, we're uh where can they follow you? Also, thank you for obviously a really fun conversation. I hope you enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:21

No, absolutely. It's good to see you again, man. We had a good time last time, and uh, I hope to hang out uh up in Portland again.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:28

Um Dude, next time you're around, I'll I'll I will promise you this. We can play Super Smash Brothers for the Nintendo 64. I will destroy you. That's all I can promise.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:37

Maybe you might. Who you play? Who's your main?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:39

I mean, if I'm going super try-hard Pikachu.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:42

Hmm, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:44

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:46

I gotta go with Fox, my boy Fox.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:48

Oh, dude, I'll Fox did it. We can play with uh uh we'll play remix too. I'll I'll give you we can do Fox and Falco.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:54

Yeah, they got like the South Park characters in the remix and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:57

Oh, yeah. They have Conquer, they have a couple of things. Oh awesome I gotta pick up. My favorite one is you can be uh Mad Piano, it's the piano in Super Mario 64 that eats you. Oh, that thing's scary. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:09

It is that's so sick.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:10

It's kinda OP. It's kind of OP. But yeah, uh give your plugs, man.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:13

Yeah, uh I got uh Comas Cinema's doing a live album that we recorded in Philly. It's gonna be coming out in a couple months. Uh it's called Versus Audience, um, because the audience is hostile the whole time, which is fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:29

Um that's hilarious.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:31

Uh we're we're coming out with that soon. Um I have a YouTube channel, Summertime in Hell, uh, that I'm pretty proud of. Um Summertime in Hell on Instagram. You can catch anything I'm doing, all the streamings, the band camps, and everything. I appreciate everybody listening. Um also shout out a couple bands uh that I really love right now. Knife Play, uh the greatest rock band right now for me. Um Father Abstract, uh incredible um rapper and artist, um just incredible songwriter, and uh Haunted, uh H A U N T 3D, incredible techno uh uh producer. Um yeah, so just stuff I really dig. Um definitely it's very nice to talk to you.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:22

If you make a playlist of any of those bands or something like that and link me on it, I'll promote it because I just I want people to listen to new music.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:29

So yeah, yeah, okay. I'll totally do that. Yeah, I'll send you something. I'll put some good track, like 10 tracks or something. That'd be cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:35

Oh yeah, man. Well, thank you very much. Thanks for coming on and uh yeah, podcast. Yep, yeah.