LIVESTREAM 8.22.25

About This Video

An August 2025 live session. Van takes questions from the community and catches up on summer projects. Late-summer workshop energy.

Transcript

camera and I'm seeing dots on the audio. Let me try something. I'm playing with the knob on the back of this mic.

Okay. So, this is my speaking voice. All right. Okay. [Music] I'm taking you off headphones. All right. Bye.

This thing keeps [Music] Uh, okay. Welcome to the live stream. in keeping with tradition uh and as a homage to the great David Lynch, the weather report. And for the

second live stream in a row, the weather is perfect.

Uh, okay. So, we're gonna start with Eduardo. and he says, "I'm a 22-year-old film photographer and I was planning on moving to Los

Angeles for film production and freelance." Oh, I think he means like cinema like movie photographer, not he

shoots on film. Um, and I was planning on moving to Los Angeles for film production and freelance with photography with no incity connections.

pretty much just freeballing it, but I came across a legal battle that has set me back a year, yet still planning to move next summer. To my question, is it

naive moving to a new location with no connections and completely freeballing it? I have a feeling my talent and

ambition for this craft will take me far. What's the first order of business in a new city as an artist? Thanks.

Okay. So, it's important to understand that my world this like influencer I guess they call it or creator or someone

who has their own shop and uploads to YouTube kind of basically no matter how

big you are. That world has absolutely positively nothing to do with the like

big I we make stuff for Netflix and we make stuff for um HBO and we make stuff

for it's a whole they are not related at all. They are totally unrelated. So um there is there is like maybe three or

four people and I'm not exaggerating who overlap into both. There's it's it's just not it seems like the same thing

but it is absolutely not the same thing whatsoever at all. That is a completely different it's more different than a

different country is different. So having said that I don't work in that business. I have worked in that business 14 or 2010 that Nice Brothers came out.

15 years ago I worked in that business. But um I work in the it doesn't matter where you are. You have a shop and you you know you pick where you want to live and

that's where you make your your stuff about. So if you're like I want to go be part of Netflix ma production making

[ __ ] or I want to go be part of Paul Thomas Anderson uh productive production [ __ ] you know

that that that that world which is a world I know almost nothing about I know much less than like

somebody who's a hobbyist because I'm just an ignoramus and I don't care I don't look into that stuff yes my youngest brother Dean Neistat he works

in that business and he would be a good person to talk to about this he's a stunt coordinator veteran jet pilot has all these he got into it I don't know 15

years ago he started doing it very successful he works but he works with like Ben Stiller. He directs Second Unit stuff. He's like, you know, he works

with the big all the big productions. He worked on the Bob Dylan um uh thing, the

Bob Dylan biopic with uh Chatter Lane and Steno Stanagain Charlemagne. Charlemagne Charlemagne,

Sydney, Sydney, Charlemagne, Charlemagne. What the hell is that guy's name? Shalomé. Timothy Shalom. Timothy

Shalamé. Timothy Shalamé. you know what I'm talking about. Um, but my world like I'm kind of the wrong guy to ask for

that. Having said all of that, I'm also a little tiny tiny bit of an insider and I know people who do big big big things

like I know the top of things and I don't know that El Los Angeles is the place that you want to go to. If you

love Los Angeles and you want to live in Los Angeles, which is why I am here, um, that is a completely different

story. But I came here after having made my bones. So, I could have picked anywhere. I picked Los Angeles. Um, I

don't know that this is the time to move Los Angeles. like the film industry here is kind of collapsing in the place

that's not in a fundamental way, but just as if you're a young kid trying to make inroads in that way. I'm not sure

that this is the place where you want to be. First of all, there's fewer and fewer productions being done here, which these productions, it's the same gangs

on all these, they hire the same people basically on the same thing. They're not really hiring new people. Um,

and Austin and Texas in general is getting all of this funding. They're building all of these facilities.

They're hungry. They're growing. They're like, "New stuff. Let's try new stuff." This place is all regulations and this and tax thing and what's your deferment

and blah blah blah and I need this and I need that and and that. It's an insane.

This place uh Los Angeles is a place to move if you're very rich or you're very very poor. And it's not really for

middle class people, ambitious people who want to like build a career. That's not what this town is. This town is like a is like for retirees or for people on

like that are very poor. So I would say investigate. And now you're not going to get the weather. That's the trade-off.

You're not going to get the incredible We've had the most incredible summer weather-wise. Um and you know in Austin it's probably 115 120 degrees now. But

there's like there's facil there's big facilities that they're building and next year they're probably coming online. So next year there's going to

probably be tons of tons of uh people coming onto the coming onto the tons of

productions coming into those studios and uh so I you know that's that's what I would if I if you're going into that

world right and then in that world you need to understand the hierarchy of that world. It's real. It's not negotiable.

It's not like the YouTube world where you can just be like, "Yeah, I don't want to deal with that [ __ ] I'm just going to make my own thing and do it my way." It is not the I'm going to do it

my way. It is probably It It's more It's probably more regimented than the military. Like, it is insanely like

you're either camera department, your creative, your your your art department, you know what I mean? There's like you watch the credits on any movie, you're

in one of those departments. Bang. And you ain't getting out. and you ain't getting out of one of those departments probably. You're probably it's I mean

you ain't getting out the same way you're not winning the lottery when you buy a lottery ticket. It's like that kind of thing. You're just locked in. So you got to pick precisely what are you

in this for? What do you want to do? Do you want to be a camera guy who takes thousands of pictures and and goes through thousands of pictures and looks

for things and blah blah blah and you're competing with every guy on set with an iPhone who can take you know those iPhone photos are pretty great. Like if

that's your thing if you're a uh production and freelance like what part of production film production that's pretty that's pretty vague. Are you a

carpenter? Are you a painter? Are you a uh AI engineer person who can do prompts and

stuff? Are you a graphic designer? Are you like do you do 3D Studio Max? Do you do 3D animation? Do you do electricity?

Do you like what what is what what do you mean? Are you trying to be ACCE uh or as I'm sorry, ASC or ACCE

cinematographer and and editors? Like where are you in that in that world? And then you just have to go through that.

It's like a set thing. You just go. It's like going to engineering school or whatever. Or it's more like No, it's like going to trade union stuff. It's like, okay, you become a you know, it's

like it's all union. It's it's all union stuff. So like if you want to be DP, if you that's your ambition. Oh, I want to

be the next uh um uh uh uh Yman, the guy who shoots the Wenderson movies. Or I want to I can't even remember any of the famous Isn't that sad? I can't remember any of the famous cinematographers.

Um, then you got to go on that track and it's just a union track, but I just look it up on the internet. It's just you do it's four years as an apprenticeship under blah blah blah, this number of

hours and then this exam and then this like da and so that's that's that world.

I mean, and I think you have to, you know, you have to like m you have to spend your you have to provide for I don't know what your financial situation

is. I'm just going to assume you're a middle class kid. Um, and you have to make your own money because you spent all everybody else's money on your

college or whatever. Um, so you're going to have to have a way of paying to be alive and you don't want to do that in

Los Angeles starting out. Believe me, you don't want. Plus, it's super freaking dangerous here. like all those all the neighborhoods you can maybe

afford with a bunch of your friends um they're super probably super dangerous

and you have to have a car here um which is super expensive blah blah blah so I don't know I would say don't come here

go to go to there go to go to Austin Texas I keep saying Austin but you have to you have to do some

research because they're not built in actual Austin they're giant [ __ ] facilities like huge like the size of a college campus facility. And then

there's also Georgia and then um just New Mexico, maybe Albuquerque. I would look into one of those places if that's

what you want to do. If you're precisely set, like my brother Dean, you're precisely set. I want to make Hollywood

production, Hollywood style production cinema. I want to make these big. If that's what you're doing, then you I wouldn't I wouldn't come here. I mean,

if you're established, if you built a huge thing in New York and you're a big shot like in or whatever and people love you and there's deal, you come here if

you're recruited basically. If you're recruited, that's I think that's good advice. Like you come to LA if you've been recruited like

uh I just watched the Billy Joel documentary and he was like recruited to come out here and record albums and you know that's different. I'd say go to I'd

say go to um I'd say go to one of those places. Uh so and then what's the because you have a year so you can you

can you can and like Okay. So, uh, I was, uh, planning. You didn't say when you were planning on

moving here, but like I'm sure your plans didn't include, oh, and the town has burned down and Altadena has burned

down and that's all and that's where all of the people who are in production side of movies, that's where they all live is

Altadena and it's gone. And they're desperate for work and you're got to compete with them. And people are desperate to hire them. people around

here, they've got their kids in school here, the people, the crew that lives out in Altadena. People around here are desperate to hire those people because they want to keep those people in

business because those are the people who help them get where they're getting. So that's who your competition would be.

And then, you know, with all this housing burn down, all the housing is super more expensive now. Um, so I would just And then in Texas, they built too

many houses. So, the housing market in Texas and like the greater Austin area especially is kind of like it's on the

down it's on the downturn. It's getting more and more affordable. That's what I would say. But again, I'm not the guy to ask for this stuff. Okay, next question.

Raphael, um, one of the things you made with your hands that changed the course one of the things you made with your hands that

changed the course of your life. Can you recall them? Of the things you made with your hands that changed the course of

your life, can you recall them? Sorry, the wire for my camera is in front of the screen, so I can't. Maybe I'll tape it. I'll get some gaff tape and tape it.

Of the things you made with your hands, I probably just made the camera crooked.

Uh, that changed the course of your life, can you recall them? I remember you saying that the steady cam mount that you made to fix your bike was what

got you your job as a studio assistant with Tom Sachs. Are there any more other remarkable artifacts that shaped your

life? Yes. Um but and in a different way and but in a different way and I can only think of one example but those are

kind of the two base fundamental examples. So Tom Sachs one day we're melting this we're building this um

unitated to habitation this scale model of this uh the kabuzier building uh and we're building it out of foam core which

is it's like styrofoam with cards stock paper on top and cards stock paper on the bottom. It's called foam core and that's what you make architectural

models out of. And Sax makes like a whole a whole there's a whole uh there's

a whole category of Sax's work that is made out of out of uh out of out of um

uh when you get old you forget what things are called out of

foam core. Out of foam core. So Saxs would do these little kind of like

unspoken auditions like buds, you know, like the Navy Seals. They have to go through this thing to determine whether or not

they're Navy Seals. They have to go through this training and get through it. So he would do little things kind of for a lot of people or people who he

liked or people he saw promise in. And so he one day I'm cutting out windows for um you know there's

hund 200 300 apartments in this building that we're building and each one has like this elaborate window thing and you have to cut them out blah blah blah took

weeks. So we're cutting foam core. I had been working with foam core and razors and all that stuff for like a couple months. And he comes in and he's got a

little plastic doll this big. Uh a mythy doll. I think I put this in one of the

movies. Oh, no. I put it in the Heroes Journey that I made for Tom Sachs that stars Grace Serenti, who's like a famous

photographer now. Um uh and so the actual object is in that

one. So he put he put um this little plastic doll on my desk and he said, "Make this

out of foam core. Do this sculpture. do the sculpture but do it exactly the same but out of foam core. And now he has this lady named

Axana Todorova who was his first studio assistant. She's from Ukraine. She could engrave money. She has perfect perfect

hands for craft. She's virtuoso can make anything out with her hands. And she was

the corn of sort of the default leader of and practitioner of all of the sculpturing stuff in the studio.

So, she she had made one of or maybe John Ferguson, who's the male version, uh either she or John Ferguson had made

one of these Miffy dolls and made a bunch of the Hello Kitty characters out of foam core. And they're just per they're just per perfect faximiles just

like it looks like you 3D print. This is before 3D printing. It looks like you just 3D printed this thing out of they look exactly the same, right? And I just

said to him, I was like, "Oh, no, no, no." And I was the only one of the only kids there that wasn't art school.

Everybody else was art school. So people go to art school when they're good at drawing and [ __ ] They're like, "Oh, I should go to art school cuz I'm good at drawing, making sculptures." I was like, "Oh, no, no." I was like, "I don't I I

can't do I can do this [ __ ] this like handywork stuff, but I can't I I'm not I don't have the I don't have the wherewithal to do the this like

precision exact copy." And he was just like, "Ah, just do your best." And what he liked about me is I was bad at stuff,

but I would go all really hard, really hard, as hard as I could go to get it to be an approximation of what it should

be. And that's what he wanted. He wanted to see that in the work. He wanted to see the struggle. I was like, he got it and you can see how hard it was. Like a good example would be that drawing. My

drawings are full of like 10 layers of eraser because I draw the thing, it's wrong. I erase it, start over again.

It's wrong. It's wrong. It's wrong. just to draw like a simple easy Mickey Mouse head or whatever. So anyway, I did that and it was an absolute struggle. It was

an absolute like this is this little thing has taken me like over a week or something to make. And um

I don't know what the [ __ ] breakthrough was. I don't know how I reached a breaking. There were there was times when Oxana would have to come in

and tell me and like gradually like with a nice soft female countenance be like, "Oh, you know, no, this is right. You

just you see how this is curves like this. Try it this way. Do a little do it this way. Oh, I see what." And it's this little thing. It's this big, but you're

trying to make a perfect It's not simple. It's not as simple. It's not as simple as doing Hello Kitty because Miffy has a hood on. She has a hood

that's a little three-dimensionally like a sixeenth of an inch off of her face.

And the hood goes behind her head. And then she's got these like one ear that comes down and it's not the pointy ear.

It's all round. It's all compound curves, right? And then she's got the other ear that kind of goes like this cuz she's like a rabbit. Wait, no. Hello Kitty's a rabbit. No, Hello Kitty's a

kitty. I think my is like a rabbit, but she has a hood on. So, and then she's got like a little she's

got a little this sculpture. She has a little like um like a little uh uh like a a frock like a like a a like a kind of

a jacket type like a Sherlock Holmes jacket that comes down and that comes like an you know a sixeenth of an inch off of her back and then goes around and

then her face is a compound oval. And if you get the it's like drawing you ever try to draw the Nike logo try to draw the like do it right now. try to draw

the Nike logo. And if you're a drawer, you can get it so that it's a recognizable Nike drawer. Nike logo, but if you're not a drawer, it just looks

absolutely it's not recognizable as the thing. You can't get the character of it right. So, this thing,

it was that it was like you had to get the you had to get it like there was there was wiggle room, but there was like a there was tolerances.

And so, and I don't know, it just all of a sudden it just started because you make it in two pieces. You make the head and then you make the

body. And both had the little 16th of an inch bump out thing that you had to make. And I [ __ ] got it still. He still has it. And every time I go to his studio, I take it down and look at it.

And I'm just like still like, "Oh my god, if I had to make this again today, probably could because I know I can do it." But when you're trudging through

that forest and you don't know you don't know if you can do it, it's a it's a lot different. So that was a huge that was

freaking huge because I felt like when I was done with that, I was like, "Oh, I can make anything. I can make anything.

I can make anything. I can make an airplane. I can make anything because I could make that little thing." It's not like making electrical stuff where you connections and oh, it doesn't work and

I get No, no, no, no. This is like this is real deal sculpture like Rodan with

you know or Rodan worked in bronze so he probably was doing it out of clay but uh you know Michelangelo

so that was that's that's the one to answer your that one was huge and I can't really think of all the other ones because those were so big those two were

so big that uh and then I've just made so many things that I don't know they've all disappeared How are the limmer boots holding up from Drew? Okay, they're perfectly broken in.

They're like gloves. They work. They fit perfectly. But I got the in the mail. I got the custommade ones

that are custom made. I don't know if you can see it, but they look like my foot cuz they were built from a custom

last like layers of of measurements that the the like the the cobbler came to Los

Angeles and set up a shop in a hotel conference room and had all these like hundred-year-old tools that he used to measure my foot with. And then he had

like some modern stuff that I would like step into and it was like foam and it would do it. And then he packed that up into a case each foot and uh it was like a long consultation. It was really cool.

And then they build the It took a year to make the shoes and then I got them in the mail. And uh I'm just like wearing I

got a thicker midsole. So like this part with my with the old ones. I got like the the lightweight this part which is

like eight eighth of an inch like rawhide or whatever it's called. Like it feels like wood but it's leather. And in this one I got the quarter inch. So it's

twice as thick. because it makes the boots heavier. It makes them stiffer.

And these soles, they're um like number six sheet metal

screws to Can you see these soles are like they are screwed

into the into the midsole, whereas the other ones are just contact cement.

They're just glued. Those are the offtheshelf ones. These are like four or five times as expensive, and the other ones ain't cheap. Um, so these the other

ones are like perfect gloves. It's like wearing slippers, but I'm in the process of breaking these in. And I don't know which I don't know how I'm going to wear

the two. I don't know what purpose they to serve now. But these they break in much faster because they're custom made

to my foot. Um, but they're nowhere near broken in. Nowhere near broken in. still get, you know, I can still feel where

it's getting a little like warm spots on my feet. Anyway, but the Limmer boots are holding up perfectly. I need to grease them so that they're waterproof.

Um, they're probably still pretty waterproof, but I need to grease them.

Um, I'm Okay, Clint, I've been seeing Braxton posting some shorts on YouTube.

Good to see him making those videos again. Is he still helping you out? Yep.

He Raxton helped me set up this thing uh on uh how to set up this live stream which failed and we had to take it down and reset it up.

Uh yeah, he's got some exciting he had just had a big hit video on Tik Tok that did millions and millions of views. So,

he's got some cool stuff coming up and I think he just did like a marathon of posting videos every day or he's in the middle of it or whatever. So, more he's

about to blow up. Um, Zachary says, "Sup van. Happy Friday. What's the

rack you use for you and your son's motorcycle and straps? Also, has X upgraded his

bike yet?" Okay, so the rack is called a Moto. You know what? I got a computer right here with everything you need to know. Uh, command new Uh, motorcycles.

Motor rack. Texas. Made in Texas. In Texas. What's it called? Nope. No. Moto tote. Motote. That's what it's called. Motote.

Now, I'm going to tell you the thing about this. They have an electric bike one that's pretty heavy duty and they have a

motorcycle one that's super heavy duty and big. So the I think the capacity it said was 300 lb for the electric bike one.

Um my electric bike weighs 136 lbs with the battery I'm pretty sure. So it weighs about 100 pounds without it. And the next little bike weighs I don't know

25 lbs. So, it was like way way above the above the uh above the above the

rating, right? So, it's or above the load I'm going to put on it. The rating was way above the load.

So, I had it for a while. Now, the thing is it comes it comes this is important. I have to

tell you this. It comes with uh like a the the rack the the tow hitch bar.

The stock one, it's got a hinge in the middle so that you can fold the rack up, but that hinge broke. I mean, it came

very, very close to catastrophic failure breaking, but it bent and bent and bent and bent under not anywhere near the the what it's rated

for load. So, I had to get I had to take all the hardware off of that thing and then get like the heavyduty straight bar

and then drill that out. And this is quarter inch steel. So, you know what that means? The the holes don't line up perfectly with the electric bike one.

So, blah blah blah. But, so it was hard to do and it took a while and I was like cursing the company for that. But,

that's what I have and now I'm happy with it and it's worked fine and no failures or anything like that. The straps are the straps you order from

that company. They're just the kind they're like carabiners on both sides but with the little gate, right? So that they're they're toe strap. They're like

the cinch straps. Those ratchet straps you don't really need. I don't even think you need those for motorcycles.

Maybe for the rear tire, but I I don't think ratchet straps you need. You just kind of pull I blew this fork seals out, so be careful because that's like a $700

job to fix. But so you cinch the thing down, but not too much. And then the back is a little And then there's these

other straps that are just they're the same, but they don't have the hooks on them. They're just like a little like

clasp thing that it goes through and you can cinch one way and they won't go the other way. And that's how I do the rear wheels on both bikes. And then for the

front of my son's little bike, I just have the non carabiner ones and they just go through. It's this strap and you pull it through and you cinch it down.

But there's no carabiners. It's just like a loop that goes around the handlebars through the rack, blah blah blah, and they're perfect. And we'd like go on really bumpy place off-road. Like

we drove for 30 or 40 miles getting out of Zion on this like dirt, rudded up, screwed up

road, and they were just fine. They were just dirty. Um, but you got to do class eight bolts when you bolt it all to your

car or have somebody else do it. Um, grade eight. Grade eight. They're kind of golden. um steel.

So yeah, that's it. Uh has X upgraded his bike yet? No, but he had a bad like not bad but like [ __ ]

terrifying wreck two in a row at um Griffith Park last Sunday where he just

wrecked at speed and got like road rash all over his body and his knees and his elbows and he was all messed up and he has scabs everywhere and his chin the

chin on his fullface helmet was all scratched up and screwed up. I was like, "Wow, thank god you had that on." And I think just that bike doesn't have

suspension and now he likes to go really fast and just it gets the bumps and it just loses, you know, the center of gravity is too high because he's kind of

too big for it. It's a 16 inch. So there's this like cheap Chinese electric bike that goes like 40. It has full suspension. I can't remember the name of it. It's called like it begins with a T.

It's got a U in it. I want to say it's like tulery like the gardens in in Paris, but it's uh t tooti something

like that. I don't know. I'm just going to get them that. I've seen kids around here watching riding those and I think it'll be a little bit too big for him, a little bit too heavy for him, but that's

good because it'll be more conservative on it. But that's going to have to be a Christmas present because it's I can't really afford it right now. Um,

uh, Sabia, do you ever wish to become really famous like Casey, or are you constantly

are you consciously choosing to keep things more low-key? Yeah, I'm trying to figure out how to do this stuff without becoming famous because there is a line

like if you're not becoming rich and famous at the it's expensive to be famous. It costs a lot of money to be famous. Like everybody wants bigger

tips. You're expected to give bigger tips for instance. And um you know there's security stuff that's no joke.

Like and then there's like places you you don't want to go because you're just you're just harassed by people. And then

the places that you do that you want to go where you're not harassed by people are very expensive places. So no, the trick is you want to do for me I want to

be rich and as as un and conveniently famous which means they don't have to

look you up at places. You just have access based on your face which I have now. I sort of have now like I don't

have it at I don't have I have it in New York. I have it at all the at the places in New York, but here I don't have it in

uh like Soho um the uh Nou Soho. Like I can't I'm sorry,

Nou Malibu. I can't get a reservation there for dinner. No way. Um based on fame [ __ ] So like here I'm

conveniently famous for at other places. So that's that's very very nice. But no, I don't want to be really famous. Like there was a while

there where in case he's gotten really good at not going to the places and the way he moves. He goes to places where he doesn't get bothered, but like certain

places where people don't understand how to be courteous of other people and they think ah like it's it's it sucks for

everybody around you. Same with Yane Schulman. like when he's on, you know, he's on he's uh on Catfish and like I

went to I went to IKEA with him to get lawn furniture for his house to like help him. And uh I had

just forgotten that he was famous. And it was I was like, I'm never doing this again. This is [ __ ] triples the amount of time that this takes to do because it just like tons of people want

the selfies and they're all entitled to it. People want selfies and stuff. They all got him there. So, and he's super super these glasses are broken again.

He's super gracious and fame made Neve a better person, which is strange, but it's true because I knew him on the other on both sides of it. So, Decom

asks, "I have an old Toyota 4Erunner with a soft top and it's a loud car to drive, but I love it. I love it, but I

want to make it more enjoyable for my wife and kids so we can take it on trips." What's the intercom walkie-talkie headsets that you use and would you recommend them? Okay.

So, I've never done more than two. We've never actually really used them, but um they're walkers, right? And they're you

get them at gun shops. They're for the shooting range. And uh there's a little thing that you buy separately that

clicks in and it has channels and you can pick the channel. Channel 8, channel 7. I think if you got eight, like four pairs, all four could be on the channel.

But the but the protocols for using those things you have to get used to because if you do the automatic where

you just talk without having to push a button, it doesn't work that well unless you go like you go start and then it

knows that you're talking and then you start talking and then you stop and then the next person does it and then or you can push a button but then you have to

take a pause so that it sends the signal. or whatever and then the other person hears it and then you can talk

and it's hard for like my ex never got it. My son never he never figured it out because it's like patient. You have to

stop and like push the thing. But um just to have the the walkers if you take those out they

the walkers have microphones in them to protect so that you can hear the outside world but it protects you from the ear

damaging levels of of the whatever guns or explosives or whatever. So, there's a microphone on

the outside of the of the headphones and then there's headphones inside the head ear protection and you can hear the

person's talking to you and stuff. And then also has volume and you can turn it off and that'll protect you from ear damaging things. And I just wear those

and I turn it off and I just wear those and everybody's on their devices in the car anyway. And that's what we do. And then if Isabelle's riding up front with

me, which is so rare, but we did it in on the Montana trip, then we just kind of yell back and forth

and we don't wear them if we're talking and then we do wear them if we're like disappearing. If I'm listening to podcasts and she's, you know, disappeared into her screen.

Um, any other recommendations for creature comforts for the family? Yes. So, if

you're traveling in summer, there's uh I'm Makita based for my 18vt batteries. You might be DeWalt based,

you might be Milwaukee based, whatever they all make them. Whoever your thing is, get one of those shop fans that

takes the get the good one that takes the 18vt battery that you turn on. Get that for like I don't know how many kids you have, but they're kind of expensive.

They're like 150 bucks, but I got that for the time between cuz these oldfashioned cars, even though I have a brand new air conditioning system with

the brand new engine, they take a long time to cool down and they're big and I had to tint all the windows cuz the sun just turns that thing into a greenhouse.

So, it takes a little time for the air conditioning to, you know, penetrate the entire big ass interior. But so, my son I illegally let ride in the way back.

Sorry, I'm bad dad. What can I say? He had that thing. He had this Makita 18volt fan and he just put it on high

and so while the car is in the process of cooling down, he'd just have that thing and it also perfectly fits the base of it perfectly fits through the

stansions on the headrest. So we strap it in there and he's when he's sitting in his car seat it blows on him for the hot period when the thing starts. So I

recommend that. Okay. Um, uh, can we have another conversation

with Tom, but with less less structure and more free? I would love to hear you and Tom talk about whatever art life. Yeah, he said that's the first podcast.

So, yeah, that's probably going to happen again. And it's good because, you know, this is I think the reason Rogan does his is so he can hang out with his friends because he's so busy. You know,

he's such a busy dude, Rogan. And he'll get lost in his little hobbies, his archery and all that and working out.

And I think it's just one of the big reasons is it's he gets to new meet new people that he finds interesting and then he gets to hang out with his

buddies. It's an excuse like yeah we can hang out for three hours and get drunk and I mean I don't drink and do drugs and everything so yeah. So yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Um that's very likely to happen. Uh any advice on getting started in freelance? Keegan. Um, I'm a young mechanical engineer, fabricator, and I

have a side business doing consulting, design work, etc. But it's difficult to find work when I have a small client base, mostly through colleagues. Any

tips on how to whenever you guys are asking these advice, you have to tell me where you live and you have to tell me how old you are. I need to know those two things. Where are you? I can't give

you advice on like I live in a little town outside of outside of outside of it's 560 miles away from the nearest

airport. There's 50 people in like I can't give you advice like that but if you're like I live in Rita

I'm 27 years old like I can give you I can advise you on that but so I don't know. So, getting started on freelancer, you're probably mechanical engineer.

You're probably just out of college. You're probably 23, probably in a big city. Uh, because that's who I think my audience is. Um, engineer, young mechanical engineer, fabricator. Just

seems like you would have um explain expand your client base or more

work. So, what that guy um what that guy uh Seth Goden, he's like a

marketer guy and uh he's been in the game for a long long time. What he says to do is you find your little tiny

little niche thing with like okay uh engineer fabricators very wide. Where in there are you most where is your talent

and your genius? Like where are you most interested? And and so most interested is one circle in the ven diagram and

good at is the other circle in the ven diagram. So whatever that you might not know it yet, but it'll come to you.

It'll come to you like kind of unconsciously and all of a sudden you'll be like, "Oh, I'm really good at this certain thing." Get in the top. Be the

number one guy at that in the world. And then you don't need that many clients.

You don't need that many clients. You can just have like the super duper.

you're going for the super highlevel clients and Alex Hermoszi, you should be listening to all these people. Seth

Goden, Alex Hermoszi, Tim Ferrris, all these rich guys um that are that have these podcasts that are about how to

that are how about how to be successful in business by guys who are super successful in the current state-of-the-art businesses. Listen to them. Alex Hormoszi, he and everyone

Cody Sanchez, they all say the same thing. Uh uh um uh Steven Bartlett,

the super top clients, right? They pay you tenfold more, whatever. They bother you one because their time is so

important. They bother you like 1/100th the amount of time as the bottom clients. So that's what you're going.

That's where that's what you're pursuing. And if you're uh what kind of engineer? Mechanical. Oh my god, that sounds so cool.

Don't forget what the big things what they're building. They're building um data centers. I know that's electricians, but you probably need mechanical engineers for that, too. And

those just research, go on Grock or whatever. Where are the biggest data? I think there's one going up in Georgia.

Um I think there might be one going up in New York. The all these guy all these ones you've heard of. So Claude uh the

the X Grock thing the um or maybe there's X intelligence X AI something like that the Google one I think

Microsoft is the um chat what's the open AI um entropic entropic which is claude

enthropic entropic I don't know entropic look up all the where are they building their data centers they need people

these people need and I think this is another piece of advice. I think probably the place that's the least desirable to live in, like if they're

building one up in in Alberta, bad example, okay, they're building one like south of Alberta in like Montana or something like in the middle of nowhere

or something, that's going to be the one probably where you're going to be able to have the get the best deal and they're going to have the they're going

to be the most desperate for people. Um, so that's it. I don't know that you need a big client base. You just need a really good one. Like, [ __ ] man. And I

have like when I do work I work for like three people you know in the world. Um

so you know Nike you know like whatever like that. So that's what you want. You just want to refine until there you go.

Um so yeah you're not looking to you're not looking to expand your client base. You're looking to get better and

better clients. Also, rich people need rich. You want to work for rich people. You want to work for people with tons and tons with ultra

high net worth above $40 million net worth. Okay? That's who you want to be working with and for. And the thing

about working with and for them is they demand excellence. And that's where you want to be. And you will be excellent.

And you will be the guy who shows up exactly on time. Client doesn't have to show up on time, by the way. He should.

Um, but you're the guy who shows up on time. You're the guy who comes in on on budget and on schedule. You're the guy

who can figure it out. You're the guy who goes the extra mile. You know, there's a whole business to be had, I

think, of being the detail guy because the contractors just they get their money, they finish the thing, and then you're like, "Okay, but there's this, this, this, there's a little [ __ ] in here. There's a little blah blah blah.

There's a little thing." and then they kind of barely over the course of years will come back and fix that [ __ ] until you forget about it or do it yourself or

have somebody else do it. Be the guy whose crew does all that cool stuff. I mean, we had a guy who did our house and

now we can't get them because all of the huge monster retailer rich Louis Vuitton type retailers, he does contracting work

for all them because they like he that was his work ethic. He did everything perfectly. He'd send his guy. If you had a problem, he'd come. He was fast. He

came in under budget. He was smart. You know, I can't remember. Brian, he lived around He lived around here somewhere. I don't remember. Maybe he lived in Woodland Hills. Anyway, that's my that's that's what I'm that's that's my advice.

Okay. All right. Having made so many vis videos and posting regularly now since beginning your channel, what's the number one lesson you have taken from it compared

with the artist you life you lived previously? Number one lesson.

Okay. It's probably something that I already knew and I'm just stubborn. But

I think is you gota you you me many hands make a light the work or something like that. Like you kind of

got to work with other people. It's really important to work with other people and be with other people and you're going to like scale if you have

other people. You can go probably something like that. and and also go go slow.

Um uh although I think I was doing that at the beginning of the channel, going

slow. Oh, and then I've just like kind of had to like Oh, this is a big one, but this is something if you're in your 40s and 50s and stuff. This isn't apply

if you're in your 20s and 30s is like be careful about giving expectations

that your work is your full throttle best work that you can't sustain.

So like this is this happens with like dating. Oh maybe it doesn't happen with dating anymore but it used to happen with dating. Like you could be like

you're at the absolute best pinnacle best mo. Ah, maybe that's not true. I'm taking that back. I'm taking that back about the dating thing. But anyway, like

if you can like go, you know, don't go 100. Figure out your productivity like

how fast you can make stuff under a sustainable under sustainable conditions

that allow for like another life. I think that's it. I think that's it. Okay.

Uh Aaron, I'm a lover of Milwaukee tools. Uh I see you primarily use the 12 12volt system versus the 18. Is that due

to lighter weight minimized form factor or dot dot dot? I can't remember when I bought that, but I think I've had it for 20 years. I think or more my first my Milwaukee like hammer drill.

Is it a hammer drill? No, one of them is not a hammer drill. One of them is and the one that is a hammer drill is a newer one. And the older one is not a

hammer drill, I think. Yeah, I think that's right. Um, it must have been cost. It must have been form factor.

Also, like Tom Saxs himself only uses the little 12volt Bosch. Like his crew

uses the big 18vt DeWalt, I think. But, um, again, it's just lighter. It's lighter and like those things charge.

They hold enough charge. And like I'm not working on a I'm like in an artist studio. I'm not working on some big I'm not building a you know 100 unitit

apartment complex. Uh you know I'm just I'm never I have two batteries and I charge them back and forth and I have

two drills. Oh no I have three batteries and I charge them back and forth and I have two drills so one can be like pilot and one can be this screw bit and uh

that's why they're good enough and they're light and uh yeah that's why uh I loved your last video. Oh, Paula, I love your last video so much. Question.

Do you have a relationship with what you might call your spiritual self? Yes, I do. I sure do. Uh

but uh it's sort of forged in the body, I think, the spiritual the spirit. But yeah, I'm also like pretty rel I'm not like very religious. I'm lazy, but I

like, you know, I like study Torah and everything. And, you know, I I meet with

the rabbi once a week. This is like very, this is new, but you know, I'm doing this uh business ethics class

according to the Torah and the Talmud, which is super fascinating, by the way.

Um, so yeah. Okay. Shaker hand. Shakerhand asks was thinking back to some of the scenes you filmed about your time working on

Nutsies and the Unite model. I'm curious if you've given any thought to La Kabuzier's other works like his furniture. I [ __ ] hate Kuzzier and I

think he ruined planet Earth. I [ __ ] hate all that [ __ ] And Sax has his whole ideological take on Kerbuzzier and no no he was he

knew this was coming and he you know he was going to be the you know butress against it blah blah blah blah blah [ __ ] all that. I hate it. I hate hate hate

it. I hate brutalism. I've never been to the Unit. I'll bet you it's okay. I'll bet you it's like for that kind of building. It's like the nicest best one.

And I'll bet it's not too bad living inside them or whatever. Although I think they're very hard to maintain and I think the the the management companies

don't maintain them. But maybe in France they do because they respect. But I hate brutalism. I hate conc poured concrete.

I hate all of that stuff. I think it's disgusting. And um what's his furniture? I think he did do cool furniture though.

I don't remember it. Is that like mid-century modern furniture or pre-war modern furniture stuff? I don't remember. Kabuzier. Oh, okay. There's

the Em Lounger. Then there's the Kuzier like cube thing that fits inside the chrome, right? I don't really know. I

don't care about that stuff. I really don't. I mean, it looks pretty and I like I appreciate it when I go to a rich person's house and they have a room that they never use and it's full of that

that stuff and I love seeing it in like the showrooms of furniture stores and everything, but I don't really care. Um,

but yeah, it's probably the coolest. And I I do like the um I like the like Danish stuff. I like the modern chairs

and the Florence null square couches and uh those I don't I should

know the designer who is it where it's just like a hardwood plain chair with two cushions on it. We

have those in our house, but ours are from like Yugoslavia, which doesn't exist anymore, and they've like fallen apart totally, and I've had to like

screw them all together, which sort of destroys the seamless ex the seamless um

or quasi seamless aesthetic of them, but I don't care. You get the point. Okay. So, but that's my that's my take.

There's this cool channel called the world on war on beauty and it's this young lady here in Los Angeles

and she goes she's getting better but she has a hard time bridging she likes to talk about how the Catholicism

brought us like insanely like those beautiful churches and Michelangelo and all of this this real value of beauty

but she hasn't like her transition from like um you know the new Cracker Barrel

design is hideous and it taking the po is further taking the poetry out of our life. Um her transition from those kinds

of insights which are great to um her Catholicism like um

grounding is a little awkward but she's very young so but she's right. The war on beauty and she talks about how important it is and how it's just being

decimated. It's just being destroyed for profitability and reproductivity and sustainability and and all this stuff,

but mostly profit and like you know Starbucks has their original like handpainted logo which is really cool and weird and then they do a focused

group and then this one that's slightly uglier means that they get a 0.000000002%

increase in profits. So they go with that one and then they go down to this one and this one has a 0.00005 uh% increase in profit. So they do that

and then eventually they all the all the every company almost every company except like Hermes, okay? They all they

do that they just grind around profit profit profit profit profit profit profit until it's just [ __ ] disgusting public bathroom aesthetic.

And I don't mean the public bathroom at the Malibu Country Mart, which is the nicest one I've ever been in. I mean public bathroom like Central Park

or like uh you know jail or school high school bathroom. Um here we go.

Wait, did I skip one? Wait a second. I was thinking of seems you filmed. What? Why did that guy I just went off on some crazy tangent? Okay. Uh, okay. I sell my artwork at Oh, anyway,

the concrete did that. The building everything out of concrete and just the square and right angles and no beautiful, no spirit like Paula was

talking about. No human, you know, the same people who build the schools build the prisons and they're built the same way. And you look at these works, WPA

post offices from the 30s and you look at it's all that's all gorgeous and beautiful because they cared. Um, Bali

Servin Servinasen, Biology Cervinasen, he's awesome. Uh, he talks about how like in a lot of places the old stuff is

the disgusting crap that they're trying to get rid of and the new stuff is great, but here the new stuff is the disgusting crap that we wish we could get rid of and the old stuff is great.

We have all that WPA, especially here in LA, you know, we have the observatory, the Griffith Observatory.

Um, this is just our values changed. Um, Parker asks, "I sell my artworks at

events and conventions, and I lug around the 6' x4 foot metal grid to display paintings and prints on. I love it for a

display, but I hate to carry it. It's heavy and awkward to carry. I pinch my fingers and bang my shins on it. For all

my other stuff, I have a dolly, but the grid is too long and awkward for the dolly I have. I'm not I'm trying not to spend money on anything. How would you

solve this problem? I have some tools, a jigsaw and a drill. I'd like to make like a carrying case with handles and wheels. So, you want to keep this metal

grid 6 foot by 4 foot, which is kind of an awkward is awkward dimensions and it's

big um metal grid. You want to keep that, but you just want the wheels. How would you solve this problem? I have some jigsaw drone take carrying case

with to make like a see I need to know what's your vehicle and what's the what's the what's your vehicle and how far of a

distance what are and events are they outside swap meets are they uh popup stores inside you know are they in malls are they in Grand Central Station where are

you do you have a car uh are you in New York city and you're doing this, like I need to know all of that stuff. I can't

just All of those things are your design factors. Those are what you have to consider when you're doing this. Like,

um, so 6x4 foot metal grid to display prints on. I love it for a display, but I hate to carry it. It's heavy and awkward to carry. I pinch. How much does it weigh?

I pinch my fingers and bang my shins on it for all my other stuff. I have a dolly.

Can you do another dolly and do two trips? Oh, no. You have one dolly.

Can you do two trips with the same dolly? There's something about the problem that I'm not understanding.

So too long and awkward for the dolly I have. I'm trying not to spend money on anything.

How would you solve this problem? Don't suffer. Spend the money. Put it on your credit card. Um, this is Don't be cheap with this stuff. Don't be cheap with this stuff.

Um, yeah. I mean, stuff is cheap. You can find a used dolly somewhere,

can't you? I mean, dollies are one of those things that like ladders that seem cheap, but they're not cheap. There's like a whole world of stuff that's like

that. Toolboxes, vintage toolboxes, 10 times as expensive as brand new ones.

Um, so shoot. Um, God, I have to see it all. But no, get yourself a good dolly, man.

You've earned it. You're selling stuff. You're selling. You know what? Charge more. Charge more for your work. Charge more for your work. And uh, get get the

good dolly with the inflatable tires that's like big and heavy and you can do it all in one trip. You know, if you're an artist, be an artist. Be an artist.

those artists that are starving themselves to death. Not not now, but like, you know, they had thousand dollar

shoes, you know, the paints, the paint brushes cost $150 each and were made out of like handmade out of squirrel hair.

Like, you're an artist, man. Go all the highest possible standards. So, yeah, get yourself a real dolly. That's what I'm saying. [ __ ] steal one, man.

Steal one. Don't steal it from a worker. steal one from some spoiled brat or steal one from a store. I don't know where you live, but where where I live, you it's legal

to shoplift. Um, Jorge asks, "Uh, I have jumped in the

Land Cruiser wagon and I've been doing much of the work myself with most of the inspiration to fix

stuff coming from your channel. My question is, would you ever consider doing a major frame off restoration on your TLC by yourself? No, I would never

do that. Uh, now that I have been working on mine, I can only imagine how great I would never do that. Nope. That's a deal deal breaker. Nope. Nope.

Um, myself, like get the lift and do all that and take all the carpeting out and take all

the bolts off and keep track of the bolt. No, no, no. I would never do that.

Nope. No. Jonathan Ward would do that. Jonathan Ward does that. He did it himself in the beginning. So, go have him do it. And I like Jonathan Ward and I would love to give him money. So, uh

uh No, no, no, no. But I would I would do a frame off restoration. Yes. Um

No, no, no. That's too I'm very very slow. The things I make are neat and cool because I use I spend an absurd

absurd amount of time like to build these shelves or something. It would take a contractor um an hour and a half and it would take

me a week or it would take me five days because I'm going to do it different.

I'm gonna I have all these little tiny de like those finishing details I was talking to about to about about to the

mechanical engineer like I just it's like sack Tom Sachs we talk about this all the time is like the only way he could make this stuff is if it's art

prices you know those little they're hundreds of thousands of dollars this knife I carry around my pocket is probably $25,000 I'm not exaggerating we

could look it up there's only a hundred of these and there's a million people who want them um you know he sold sold his a box of his guns for a million

dollars like 20 years ago. I might have that 20 years ago. It might have been 10 years ago, right? Like but

you know the amount of time he obsesses into these little things and they just look like oh the the trick that we're

playing on you is they look like they were cobbled together in like an emergency like a MacGyver or an A team. But no, no, no. We're tricking you.

We've like you're seeing the he calls it the scars of labor. That's what you're seeing. It's all real. That's why a lot

of his work has to function because the difference between making it look like a um Makita battery powered um uh uh uh

matcha stirring milk frother thing and having it actually be the thing that actually works. like the difference

between stage craft and actual like craft. There's a there's an aesthetic difference. There's mistakes you're going to make and you're going to back out and you're going to have to fix and

that becomes all part of the all part of that world. I just did a big production project that was like all I did 100%

myself. And I remember finding sitting like doing parts of this and being like, "Oh my god, overboard. Oh my god, this is a 10second thing.

This is a 10 second sequence. Uh oh. Allan, are you on the thing? Are you on the live? Are you on the live stream?

Allan's calling me. And I don't know if he's on the live stream telling me that the the thing, but I think Braxton would do that. Anyhow, Allan's calling me um

from Revival Cycles. Speaking of people who go slow and do an incredible job.

So, no, I wouldn't do it myself. Um too I'm too slow. I'm not like not smart enough. from like really really slow like this. What's very slow is me

understanding things. So, okay, but if you're good and fast, hell yeah, do it yourself. I wish I was the kind of person who could do it myself. But

there's a lot of little details. And when I'm doing something like that scale, the reason I'm doing it is I want everything to work right. Like when I put the high beams on on my car, I don't

get the high beam indicator because that's a maze.

I've taken it to multiple people. I've taken it to like aeronautic, you know, like uh aerospace engineering people to try to figure that to to fix that thing.

The little light that's when you push the AC button in, there's a little light bulb in there and power that it's supposed to turn on and illuminate that little tiny detail. Nightmare.

Nightmare. I've tried to same aerospace guy. Had to have him fix it. There's a bunch of little tiny little things that you can live without. But if I'm doing a frameoff restoration, all that stuff's

going to work perfectly. It's going to be like getting in a brand new rental Toyota. the 2025 Tacoma where everything just works perfectly. So, I'm not

willing to go through the the hell that it is to do that when, you know, I I have fun making money this way. You know, I'd rather just work and work and

work and be able to afford to have Jonathan Ward's geniuses do it all for me and they know all the tricks that I would have to learn. Anyway, but you know, I'm 50 years old, so there you go.

The cheap audio man. How do you balance what video you want to make versus what video will the audience like? Do you even think about that when making a

video? It's I put it much more on what I want to make and then for what will the audience like? I go to Braxton a lot.

Like, hey, what should we do? What's something that people are talking about or blah blah blah? I'll say, "Oh, people really like the blah blah blah blah blah building video blah blah blah." So,

that's it. I'm trying to like It's like a present, you know, like getting a giving a present to someone. It's like what do

you want to give them which is versus like what do you think they'd also really really love. So you got to kind

of take that into consideration. I know there's a big mythology of oh just make the work for myself. How come I've seen it then?

Really? You just make the work for yourself? How come I can buy it? How come I get to watch it on the screen?

You're just making it for yourself, right? So why? It's a [ __ ] hell of a lot of trouble. You can make a lot more work if you're just making it for yourself and you don't got to go through

all those people to get it up on the screen. So, if you're just making it for yourself, why how come I can buy it? How come I've seen it? No, you're not making it for yourself. You want to be rich and

famous like everybody else. Um, I think Bob Dylan might be one of those people, but there didn't take anything for him to make his work.

Guitar that I can just find in the garbage, right? I don't need all these resources.

And then the guy from Colombia comes to him and then he's just doing blah blah blah and he the things he likes he's making for himself. This world, nah,

there's too many moving parts. It's too precarious. There's too much competition.

I There's that mythology of like if Mean Streets came out today,

[ __ ] 2500 views. Sorry, that's the world you're in. Uh, more Okay, more than a question. Johnny asks, "More than a question."

Uh, but then once I've decided, it's all me. It's once I've decided what to make, it's all me. I'm going to make it my way and it's going to be this. I don't show people stuff and be like, "What do you think? Is there anything?" I just put it

up. But the YouTube channel, I just put it up, you know? Um, more than a question is a suggestion. Do a video. Do a video with your brother Casey, please.

I already did that. I did that for 10 years. There's a whole bunch of them.

Also, I like your videos about everyday life. Example, your truck working around home. Oh, cool. I like making those.

Those are fun. Uh, do a video with your brother. There is no working with Casey.

There's only working for Casey. I can't help it. So, maybe somebody a third party will have us. Nah, he's two.

It's like asking like Joanie Mitchell says, she was like, you know, the difference because she's a painter. She's like, the difference between being a painter and a musician is nobody ever says to Van Go,

"Hey, paint this paint a starry night again, man." Uh, okay. Hey, Van. Is the British director

Peter Greenway on your radar? No. I highly, if not, I highly recommend The Falls. If he is on your rad radar, do

you have a piece by him you would recommend? Also, Peter Greenway. I don't have a piece of paper, but

um no, I'm really out of the cinema loop. I like Yorgos Lanthus and then all the guys that I liked from the olden days

like Wes Anderson and stuff. Oh, I've come around on the Wes Anderson on the Phoenician scheme. I watch it like three

or four times a week. I watch it with my kid. It's so great. It's just complicated and really hard to follow.

And that's fun because when you watch it every time you're like, "Oh, I get it.

The whole thing's about him messing with the gap. There's just so much information and it's all really important and it's just and he's the only film director that I give the um that I give license to where

he doesn't have to adhere to the story and he can do as much needless dialogue and explanation dialogue as he wants

because he pays for that with the insane misen of his movies which is the best.

Um, I have Okay, thatcher. I am moving soon and have some pieces of furniture that I made myself but will not be able to take

with me. What is your decision process when you're deciding whether to keep or throw away things that you made personally? These were early projects

that I did and am thinking I might disassemble these and bring certain raw materials with me. Yeah, I think that's a good idea. I have like one thing and

it's this desk that's in my shop at home now that like migrates and then all the other stuff that migrates are the containers

really that hold stuff and then but uh yeah it's just brutality. It's like, you know, there's that Maria

Condo. Does it spark joy? Like if you love it, then you bring it and if not, don't you don't have any I don't think you have any responsibility. You don't

have any to the project or whatever. Um when you Tony asks uh when you decide on a theme for a video, how do you structure your takes?

Like take one, take two, take three. Um, your storytelling seldom seems to follow a general three-act narrative.

Totally does. A general three-act narrative, and you leave plenty of space for your audience to wander off, inspired by your out of the box approach. Your style is unique, and I

love the flow, man. I'm a big fan of your work. It's very seldom not a three-act narrative. You You could find somewhere I was in an emergency and I didn't have enough time and I had to get a video out where it's not a three-act narrative.

very much structured heavily on a three-act narrative. Almost every single thing, if we were to go through and analyze them all, a building video is a

three-act structure. It's problem in the beginning, building, and then they pay off the thing that's happening in the end, and there's a surprise because there's some little breakthrough thing

that you didn't count that they're almost all of them are uh uh a a three-act narrative to my mind. And

if not, and if it doesn't appear that way, then I have completely succeeded beyond my ambition because I've just

hidden the I've hidden the structure within within the thing. Um,

so when you decide on a theme for a video, how do you structure your takes? I don't really know what that means.

Your takes like take one. I don't know what you mean. Uh,

how do I structure the script maybe is I just do I try to do what I said. I try to have it be I'm basically the fundamentally I'm just trying to keep

make make something that people can't turn away from that they have to watch all the way through because they're just too curious. They want to see what happens next. So I present a little

problem in the few in the beginning spend the middle two half which doesn't sound right but it's a quarter a quarter

and a half. That's the structure. So the middle half is the building or the solving the problem and then there's a

breakthrough and then there's the conclusion. The breakthrough or the failure and then there's the conclusion which is a quarter quarter quarter setup half building making whatever.

So that's how I do it you know and I do it all myself. So I don't have people to I don't refine I mean I refine as much as I can with the

amount of time that I want to work on it. Okay. Next. Mateo Chiao Vanam. When you say if you don't know what your thing is, your job is to find your thing. No.

What I say is if you don't know your life's mission, then your life's mission is to find your life's mission.

Do you mean something defined by economic success or at least by the prospect of growth that could support yourself and a family and ensure a decent living? Or do you mean something

more artistic where the main value is in doing it and enjoying it even if it brings a little economic or professional

outcome? I asked because from my point of view including the economic side makes everything more challenging. Maybe

that's the whole point. What is your take on this? Thanks a lot Ben. Sorry if the question is too long.

What do you want to spend your life? What do you want to dedicate your life to? That's what I mean. Maybe it is money. Maybe it is, you know, if it's family, it's money.

Unless, you know, it depends on how you structure your family. But the I think the most successful families, the ah I'll just get in trouble. But, you

know, I think um yeah, if it's your family, it's money.

You're going to need money. I don't care how idealistic you are. I don't care how that kid gets sick, he's going to need something, you know, and it's on you.

So, my thing is like I just I grew up in the '9s, man. There was infinite money

everywhere. It was all over the place. I want to be a person who does little paintings on fingernails. Yes, that is a

job. The 90s was absolutely nothing like it was now. And the early 2000s was absolutely nothing like it was now. Now,

uh, 99.7% of the global population wants to paint little fingernails on, you know what I

mean? You know, 99% of the world wants to be I'm obviously I'm being hyperbolic, but they want to be like a Mr. Beast or something. Whereas back

then and it was a different world. There was money everywhere. There was like innovation. Now it's like hyper

hyper like I've never seen I'm not that old but I've never seen the the the conformity that is is our era. Everyone

has the same there's two different phones. You know when those phones came out there was a thousand different phones.

Like each company like AT&T had a hundred different phones. SNET had or not SN Sprint had a hundred different

phones. So, uh, the thing is is like I just wasn't and

same with Isabelle, like we weren't taught the insanely insane importance of

money. We were just taught that money is just something that like that that vulgar people talk about. No, no, no, no.

money is the instrument that all the other stuff that makes all the other stuff possible. So, um, but the life's

mission thing is like it's like, you know, not everybody has one and not it's not all glory. It's not all like, oh,

what is your thing? No, like it's just fashion like everybody,

you know. Okay. So, there's Oh, the new Y'all have to see the new It's called Shifty. The new You don't have to see

it. There's a new Adam Curtis movie that came out like a month ago, right?

Five-part series called Shifty. It's about the living in about the England in the 20th century. What it was like to be

live at the end of the 20th century. So, from about like the time I was born like 1975 or something until 2000, something like that.

And the thing that's great about Adam Curtis, one of the things that's great about him is he keeps an extreme big

picture outlook on things. He's his extreme big picture, like as wide as we can go. And

you know, one of the things he talks about in the interviews, and there's not that many. I've only been able to find four interviews that he did promoting Shifty, his new movie, his new series.

One of the themes he talks about that's in Shifty is that

um it's very complicated and it takes him like seven and a half hours or 10 hours to explain it and I'm trying

trying to sum it up but he arrives at this point of view at this point of view is like we might be

we're on the verge of like really we have to really I mean the other you know Neil Strauss calls it the fourth turning we're going

to have to rethink every thing rethink all everything every all of our points of view all of the things that we there

was a there's a book he recommends and it's called the uh revolutionary spring and it's about the uh basically the

spring and summer of 1848 and that was there was like a revolution

in uh Spain, Austria, uh Hungary, France, Ber uh uh Germany, Italy, like all of the Europe was having these I don't

think England but all of Europe was having these revolutions. Okay.

And from those revolutions, we got the language that we use today

that wasn't available to the people until they had their revolutions. Words like

weekend, words like child labor, words like unionization, words like the

left and the right politically, the left and the right. um conservativism, liberalism,

um uh uh you know uh uh in in the context of business like uh uh uh pay discrepancy like all this. And before they went through their revolutions,

they didn't have the language to talk about the time that they were in. And after they went through their revolutions,

they developed this language that we all take for granted. Our world is built on today, right? I don't mean the entire I don't

mean English. I just mean, you know what I mean? And we this book that this book that's called uh the the book called Revolutionary Spring, I think it came out either this year or last year. It's

a new book and it's big and I'm listening to it on audio right now. But the author draws that parallel to now.

We don't have We all are working really hard and we're all told that this world is really great, but we all hate it. It all bothers. Nobody likes it. None of us

like this [ __ ] And like we have all these devices and they're supposed to have brought all this stuff. None of us like them. And but we don't have a

language for this time. We don't have a language to talk about exactly what that what

that disgust is or what the solution to that disgust is.

So, one of the funny things that that that that Curtis arrives at is we have all of these values today that we take for granted as permanent values, right?

just like they did before the revolutions. And he's like, but they're negotiable. We're human beings. We are we change. We adapt. We become a human

being now is not the same thing as a human being 200 years ago. And he said, one of these values that will maybe is possible that will just vanish is this value of self-expression.

Like everybody needs to have this self-expression. It's like part of everyone's life. It's like a huge virtue for everybody. Self-ex. He's like, but

maybe there's an era where like nobody does self-expression anymore. And we look back on this PE period where we're just like these are all these just these people just expressing themselves badly

and it's like very boring and why were they doing that? So my point is like your life's mission is like basically what are you going to do with

your life? That's your choice. Not just whatever is the easiest. Well, I was born in Iowa on a farm and my parents

did the farm and it's the easiest thing for me to do. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about your adventure.

And it's not for everybody. It's not for everybody. There are some people who love the farm who want to stay there and just keep doing it. It's not for like

this universal thing is very it's like why I'm against art school and stuff.

Like it's not for everybody, man. It's for like you do have your like you do have your struggle that you get to choose. And this is also just western

[ __ ] that I'm talking about. This is like in our world like this is what it's designed for. That's what like Christianity is about. It's about that

you choose your suffering. That's what we get we allow you to do here. You get to choose the way that life is going to

suck because life's going to suck anyway. But we're going to allow you to choose the way it's going to suck. And that's and that's the that's what your

life's mission is according to me and that's what I think. And part of it is how much money you're going to make. You know, how much money are you going to

make? maybe, you know, and then there's like the mom thing is a [ __ ] life's mission and that's a complex that's also

you need money to do that. And it's also like a whole career thing and you it's all

you know all these families are pulling their kids out of the public schools now that I think Florida's down 45%. They just pull their kids out of the school

because people are in reinventing the the education system. So maybe, you know, it's that. So that's what that's what I mean. That's what I mean. It's

the whole shebang really. It's the whole shebang. How do you feel as a father about the increasing hate speech on social media and politics and the world in general?

I'm struggling to keep alive, keep a positive outlook on the future. There is no increasing hate speech. There's probably less hate speech than there's

ever been ever. And uh they've just permitted it. There's just now the the it's not regulated like it's not

supposed to. like our constitution does not protect us from hate speech. Um how do you feel as a father about the

increasing hate speech on social media in politics and in the world? And social media is a choice. Social media is a

choice. You can pick and it will very greatly and the most sophisticated machines man has ever developed will aid

you in your interests if you're disciplined about it. you can scroll through and never have hate speech ever just by your own choices. But um hate

speech is I is is protected by the law in my country and it's necessary because

we need to know what people are thinking and we need to allow them to think that out in public so that they don't go underground and start blowing up colleges and sending anthrax to people.

Um, and I think as a father, like that iPad is a drug. That iPad is is worse than

cigarettes. And uh, when my son when I have to take him off of that drug or he's allowed to go on that drug, when I

take his his reaction is exactly the same reaction that a seven-year-old would have if I was taking away his

heroin. It's it's a it's a dangerous, nasty little piece of [ __ ] window and you can kind of guide it and

you can make sure that they're watching like interesting things that might be ambitious and the [ __ ] that he watches on YouTube and stuff. We go do like we

go do magnet fishing. We go do we went down into a mine because he's really into mining and like gold mining and stuff. We've like smelted metal before

because he likes watching videos about guys pouring lava through, you know, the windshields of cars and stuff like that.

So even but like left to his own literally devices, he will destroy himself. He will destroy his life. So that's as a father, that's what I do.

And the hate speech hasn't gotten to him yet. But hate speech is a necessary part of the development of this of of our

evolution. Like it's just out there. And um uh and I think the bar for what hate speech is just going lower.

Like there was like a couple years ago if you called if you trans person him or whatever that constituted hate speech.

And I think this thing that I think that hate speech I think that phrase hate speech is a tool that people like the

leadership in England are using to oppress people and monkey with the laws that were perfectly fine. Like they're aren't they arresting this is what I'm

hearing. I don't know if it's true but I'm hearing it from a lot of people who aren't liars that um England is

arresting like 30 people or 300 people a day for [ __ ] Facebook posts.

No, I'm against that. So, uh, struggling to keep a positive outlook on the future is the thing that I'm talking about. We

are all struggling to keep a positive outlook on the future. You know why?

Because our world is disintegrating around us and we can see it. You know, we can see it like the rebrand of of Cracker Barrel to take it from this

thing that was like uh just a little funny little piece of poetry. It was tacky. That's what we

loved about it. And it was full of all of this all this tacky stuff, all of these old technologies and it was fun to look at it and it was that's what we

loved about it. It was just a funny little post. It's like not rational.

It's just a funny little thing. And now it's gone because they did a study and they found that if they whitewash the whole thing and get rid of everything and make it look like a school

cafeteria, then they will have a 0.000025 increase in their profitability.

Um, so keeping a I mean it's a it's it's it's a it's a it's a virtue to keep a positive

outlook, but it's really hard to have a vision for what, you know, what to do next. It's really hard. I'm with you. I struggle to have a positive outlook,

too. I just feel like I'm putting putting out fires and I just feel like my, you know, that my I don't know. Listen to the bology.

Maybe I'll post it. the biology cernavas and he was on like some guy Patrick something or other his damn it I'll just

tell you I'll just tell you give me 90 seconds um I'm going to find it um collapse of the west bology b a l a j i cernavasan forget it collapse of the

Let me see what's the name of the what's the name of the uh the channel or the show that he's on is

Peter McCormick, The Collapse of the West. And the way that these guys and this is all you got to watch, I'm telling you, you got to watch these Adam Curtis movies. You got to watch all of them. I don't know how you find Don't Don't

watch Netflix and stuff for a month and just watch them all. They're so damn good. Um

his take is absolutely right. Um first of all, we're just looking at the past now. Everything we're just looking at the past. That's what our whole culture

is doing now. It's just, oh, oh, look at this. And we watch all these old movies.

We listen to all these old songs. Listen to all this old stuff. The new movies are just remakes of old movies or the new movies take place in the olden days

and so forth. Um, and what this guy Bali Cernovas and he's a venture capitalist.

So he puts his money where his mouth is because his ideas have been right for the last 30 years or 25 years. He's been right about his guesses. He's been right

about where he thinks this world is going and that's why he's whatever probably worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Um but his what he says is

in America in the west the left is allying with China the right is allying with crypto and the internet and u he

makes a great case for that like um Gavin Newsome says that uh you know he tells Xihinping if you deal with companies in California you don't have

to pay the federal tariffs because he's not allying with the federal government of his own nation Gavin Newsome he's allying with

And when you hear there's this guy um his name is Hassan he's like the there's he's like the second biggest or biggest streamer.

There's Hassan [ __ ] and he was on Tom Billu last week

and Hassan [ __ ] lives in a $2.7 million house in West Hollywood but he's one of what I call a um

he's a uh Cardier communist and he's having this they're having a extremely civilized conversation. These are guys

who very they're just trying to find common ground but they're at opposite ends of the spectrum even though they

have kind of the same job. Um Tom Billu Impact Theory and this guy um Hassan

[ __ ] and Hassan [ __ ] he's giving all these examples of how it should be here of how unfair it is here.

You know he's a big supporter of the guy Zhan whatever his name is in in New York. So Hassan is saying it should be

here. It should be like this here and here's an example from China where it's perfect. China does it this way and

China and and the and the subtext is and China is perfect.

That's just another example to support Bology's thesis that the left is aligning with China and the right is

aligning with the internet and you know and uh and and and crypto. You know,

they they say they blame Rogan and Sean Ryan and all those guys, all the

internet guys for putting Trump in office, all the right-wing so-called guys.

So, yeah, it's it's it's not not being able to keep a positive outlook, though we have to do it. Um

is because we're in a we're in like a tail spin. Um, you know, 30 that $36 trillion in in debt is very likely going to destroy this country. Very likely.

Read the death of money about the Vimar Republic. Read read about what happens when the money goes to zero. We're

living I I can't go into it because it's extremely sophisticated, but I've been obsessed with it and getting as much

information as I possibly can since 2008. So that's 17 years of trying to understand the water that I'm swimming

in. Anyway, how do you feel? Okay, I already got that. Great you were able to get uh No way, Jose. Uh van, great you

were able to get that get the shot of the sign in Missoula.

Whatever happened to it? Missoula is great. Did you stop at the Big Dipper for ice cream? Probably. I don't remember. My niece lives there and we

visited for her wedding. Uh I'm not a fan of Missoula. I didn't have um I don't know if it was a college town. I don't know if it was because I had an

Israel sticker on my truck, but um I was not treated well there. And I found the people to be like I found it to be an entire town full of Kairens. Everybody

tattling on this and yelling and screaming and flipping me off and uh you know yelling at me for not wearing a

belt on the merrygoround even though none of the other none of the 20 moms in front of me had their belts on.

um just like every day something like that. So I'm not like a big fan of Missoula. I think it gives Montana a bad name and I couldn't understand what the

hell everybody was doing there. I couldn't understand like what was so great about it. I mean, the river is pretty nice and the I love that they

built that. They built they got them they all got together as a community and they list the donors and stuff and they

built that wonderful carousel and everything, but seemed like like super much of a ripoff. It was like

the hotels were a ripoff and I don't know, it just seemed like any other damn town in America. Petco. Um,

anyhow, that's me. I'm a snob. So, I have the sign in storage. I have the sign in storage.

Oh, I was wondering if your home feels different to you since you moved with the studio and are filming. Less are hardly at home. Yeah, I'm less anal.

It's It's like we have two kids. I'm more tolerant of the messes and the clutter and like it'll catch up to me sometimes and I'll have an outburst, but

like Isabelle, I hate appliances. I hate appliances.

Everything an appliance does you can do with a knife and then they're this big.

It's like, oh, this this machine makes um this makes this thing and then the

machine is this big, right? Oh, this machine makes uh is like a juicer. It can make juices. The juice is this big.

Um you know, if you have a pot this big, it's because you're making that much sauce or you're making that much spaghetti.

And so there's no, we live in a tiny little, it's like our house is 700 and something square feet and there's three of us in there, four of us in there. And

uh I'm just more tolerant of it because I can keep my studio perfect. And so I don't know. I guess I need that kind of

outlet, but that's it. Uh but yeah, it feels different and I'm also more relaxed there now that I have this. What are your thoughts on

stargazing? Oh my god, I miss it. That's what my thoughts on stargazing are. I miss it and I take advantage of it when I can when I'm in dark places.

Andrew Mack, I've been a Hollywood assistant at a major studio for a couple years. Feeling pretty stuck, wanting a way up or out to build my own thing.

Seems it sucked the joy out of it. That feeling of making movies with your buddies just doesn't exist here. Any advice? Out with old Hollywood big studios. There's still some life to it.

Well, I answered that at the beginning. I mean, I think the best way there's this documentary that I watched some of or I

watched something there was a piece of it in another documentary and it's and I think Vim vendors might have made it and it was like the death of cinema. It was

made in like the 70s or maybe 1981 or something and Verer Herzog is in it and everything

and I just think the cinema is becoming like opera. It's just like this old-fashioned hundred-year-old um art form that like old people love.

Young people don't really care about it. It's kind of been supplanted by all this other stuff. There's still a couple of hand there's a handful of people who love certain things and then there's uh

some infrastructure that's being kept alive because there's certain spectacular intellectual properties that children love and they can squeeze a lot

of money and products out of it. Then there's a couple new intellectual derivative video game properties that they can do the same with. But as far as

an art form, it's not an art form. It's a it's a as much of an art form as um Walmart is an art form. Now for some

people it's an art form for Wes, but they started 30 40 years ago. Wes Anderson, Yorgos Lenthtomos, that guy

Austster Aster, the guy who did Hereditary, he's one of the, you know, he's a new newish person, but he looks

like he's pushing 50 or past 40 and again, no name. No, I don't know.

So, studio assistant for a couple years. I'm thinking you're 24, 25. Um, I don't know how old you are. Um,

I either go the route, write the screenplay, and blow everybody away and get the thing made, whatever it takes.

Um, which is extremely extremely unlikely, unless you're some kind of genius.

And then you'll know after 30 days whether or not that that's the right route. And if not then and you just

can't help yourself from making stuff then do the thing that I'm doing and like become an electrician or something.

I don't know. I don't really know. I didn't start now. It's very strange.

Like I can tell you how to do it in 2000. I can tell you how to do it in 03, but I can't tell you how to do it

because I didn't start now. It took me 25 years and I'm not even that far. I'm not even that, you know, I haven't become that big of a success. I mean, I

feel like I am, but in the grand scheme of things, um, I'll tell you what to do.

Do a um, find out a way to be innovative on live live streaming. Live streaming is huge. Like the Twitch and all that

stuff. Find out. It's all video game people. It's gamers and gamers talking about politics. Those guys, Osman Gold

and uh, [ __ ] Hassan [ __ ] they're, you know, they're millionaires who just they sit, they do this all day long.

They do this and they read the news and they have like screen sharing and then they have like Google open or Twitter or subst I don't even know uh Reddit I

don't know they have it open and then they're just reading and then commenting on it and sometimes they double click on things and share the screen so that

people can watch and like maybe there's a way to do live streaming that is some

innovation that is aligns with your storytelling and cinema interests that you could do multiple Like you get I

have this little camera. I can't remember what it's called. It's called like a popsicle or penguin or something.

What's it called? I can't remember what it's called. Hold on. It's somewhere around here.

Opal something or other. Opal penguin. Opal. Opal. Oops. I just I might have just screwed up the whole live stream. Opal tadpole. I don't know. There's a way to manipulate all these cameras and build

your own little system with extra long wires and switchboards and stuff and like be innovative in the in the live stream. But if you're going for the

Hollywood thing cuz Yeah. Okay. I got news for everybody. We all love movies.

A billion human beings or six billion movies all love movies. They all touched our hearts. They all blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. All we could think

about was being in the movies and making movies. That's 100% of people basically, okay? Or 90% of people, okay? That's not

good enough. This isn't 1991. That's not good enough. Like if you're if you're in it two, how long? Two years. God, a

couple years. Two years. Major Hollywood assistant at a major studio. Give me a break. No way. That is absolute hell for

me. But you might have a skill set that I don't have, which is navigating those hierarchies, in which case you can kind of do anything. Um, but maybe not

Hollywood because it just it just I don't know. I've just watched those I

watched that um swimming with sharks and I'm like, nope, that's not the route I'm taking. I don't care. Nothing is worth

that. Um or uh Devil Wears Prada. And then both those industries kind of collapsed magazines and Hollywood. So, uh, any advice? Okay. Seems to suck the

joy out of it. Feel mix. Any advice? I'd find a skill thing that's universally sellable. I don't know what that means.

Maybe it's, uh, AI something or other. Some kind of skill like I can at the end of the day I can cut on Final Cut. I can cut wedding videos. At the end of the day, I can shoot. I know how to use all

the cameras. you know, at the end of the day, I can do all that stuff. Like my handmade stuff, I'm not very good. I'm not like professionally competitive with

all that stuff. And like I said, I'm too slow and it's all specialized. But like my I have skills. I have 25,000 hours

into this into editing and shooting and so forth. So at the end of the day, I have that even in this. And then because

I have so much experience and so many people and networks and stuff that was 25 years in the making. You know, when I

started out, there was this many people that made digital. There was one digital um movie. It's called Chuck and Buck.

That was it. One. There was one. There wasn't upload your video onto the internet and people can watch it. That wasn't a thing.

Um that was like like VO3. I don't know if you're making stuff in VO3 right now, but that's about a a million times more

popular than uploading than in 2000 uploading your videos on the internet was. Like that was like

nobody did it. Nobody did it. Um it was like every single dad had the tool that I had. Every dad had a a vig a video

camera. They didn't know the difference between a digital video camera and an analog video camera. They just went to Circuit City and bought whatever one

that they liked the form factor of. They didn't know. They weren't going to be making movies and stuff with it. Oh. Oh, I Oh, I think mine is digital. You know

what I'm saying? But I'm just trying to put into perspective how weird not mainstream. No one else was doing it. It

was this weird. And there's something like that out there now. There's something like that out there now. I don't know what it is, but there's

something like that out there now. I mean, I don't know. I would listen to Scott Galloway, that guy, because he's just like all of those. Unless you're

rich and you don't have any and you have you don't have to worry about money, don't go into the glamour stuff. Don't be a DJ. Don't be a writer. Don't be a

that. That's like this is not the time for that. Also, you don't have the audience for that. You know, the audience, you know, you know, all this

stuff. So, that's what I would say. I would say uh find some angle somewhere.

Find something that you've like you're going to hobby like that you would get so addicted to. Like some hobby thing that's not playing video games. That's

not consumption. That's creation that you just can't stop yourself from doing.

You have to do it and you spend your money on it and you blow off friends and you and maybe you don't have that. And then you can just I don't know. You can

be uh you can you can be someone who helps facilitate. You can be uh I don't know what the the people are

called, but the [ __ ] like a field like the field marshals, you know, the the the the the brass in the military that just kind of

directs what's going on. Anyway, that's it. But man, if you've done time as a studio, assistant, Hollywood assistant

in a major studio, you can tolerate anything. you've got you've got social skills be on top onetenth of 1% and you

can like navigate through social stuff like I just think that that business is kind of

super tacky and dumb and they're making garbage. Um, thank you for the shelf tutorials.

I've built my kids 16 shelves in the room this week. Yes, case. That's cool.

Uh, what's the difference? What's the difference between artists like Tom Saxs and other less financially artists? In

your observation, when and how did Tom cross the line from struggling to turbo famous, traveling the world first class?

I never knew him when he didn't travel first class. The difference is their standards. It's the [ __ ] I was talking about earlier about the guy or I'm

pretty sure it was a guy, I don't remember, with the dolly, Tom Sachs. I don't care how broke he was, he wouldn't have had a shitty dolly. I don't know.

He would have stolen a dolly. He would have stolen a dolly off of a um off of a a a loading dock of a building. He would have done that. But he never would have

used a shitty dolly no matter what. And I never knew. I met him he was 35. He never didn't fly first class. Okay.

Business, but that the same [ __ ] thing, right? Business. First is just like slightly nicer than business, but

first class domestic and then crossing the oceans. Business.

I never didn't know him. Um, and the reason is because that was his standard.

He was I'm not doing this unless I get to do it this way. Always ate in nice restaurants. You know, even when he was broke, dead broke, he would have the

right tool and every dime he make, he put back into the business. He took big and he did it in a scary way, which is by spending it on people. By this is the

thing I haven't figured out yet. So, like he was welding fire escapes. Okay.

He hired Oxana to make his own art. He was out there so he could pay for the studio. He was up on a [ __ ] fire escape that was made out of I I think they were cast iron, but maybe they were

steel, but it was Soho, so it was probably cast iron. And I don't know how that cast iron brazing and all that stuff. So, he's up on a fire escape that's about to fall off the building.

Super dangerous with tanks and stuff. He's a little guy. He's not like a big strong dude. And he's doing that stuff because he could make $80 an hour. And this is 1994,

he could make $80 93 he could make $80 an hour doing that. But if you were to get like the union guy to do it, it was going to cost you like $150 an hour or

whatever, right? And with that $80 an hour, he could figure out how to pay for the studio, which he himself built a little apartment inside of. It's also a

different era, but he himself built a diff he built a little apartment inside it so he could live in there and probably illegally plumbed it so he could have a shower and all this stuff.

And then he had enough to pay Oxana to build the works that he wanted to make, but he didn't. And she had better hands than

him anyway. She's a better craftsman than he is. Um, and that's how he did it. Um, but

he he he's not a good example cuz he he hit fast and he came on the scene at a totally different time than now. The art

the the contemporary like the fine art contemporary art industry thing that that's it's crumbling now because the

west is crumbling because you know the money's is is moving to different places. So that's not what it

used to be um when I was coming up. It's not on the graph. it's not going the same way. But uh so I never and he was

always wanted more and he's super insanely insanely ambitious. No matter what he went into, he would have been what he is now in his thing, he would

have been. And uh yeah, that's was it. That that that was

it. He just always had it as part of his standards. He always had it as part of his vision. He like taught me, no, you got to have the standards. Be the thing.

He was like, he said to me once, I never, he's like him talking. So I'm Tom Saxs right now talking. I never ever

would have gone and worked for me. I never would have been an artist assistant. He was like, there's no way I was going to do that.

And he did what he did. You know, that was he he he did what he did. But then he also says to me, if he were coming

out when I came out, he would have gone into video too. He would have said, I wouldn't I would have done video. I would have done that film making a video

because you got to understand it. I I just put it in terms of dollars. It was $5 a second

after rent before renting the camera which was I don't know $1,000 a day, right? $5 a second to shoot film back

when I got my video camera. And I think that's just for the film stock. That's not It's probably another five for the developing for the processing.

um or it might even be more $5 a second as opposed to $17 for one hour. And that's the that's the difference between

if Tom went into film making when he got out of school versus me going into film making when I got out of school. And now it seems like every single thing except

for building like server farms or building data centers is that right now everything's been commoditized.

Everything's unbelievably cheap. Um okay. And the difference is that those people have a realistic uh conceptualization of what money

actually is. And I think what money actually is is what Michael Sailor, the big uh hedge fund guy, says money is.

And money is the highest form of energy that human beings can channel. And if you think about it like that, you got to

put it at and you're trying to do work which is energy which is like energy you know directed into a specific direction

then you money is the most efficient money is the most efficient form of

energy that human beings can channel. So that's where you want to concentrate because it's your most efficient energy

source is money. So, I think that's the difference. And all those rich guys, I mean,

all right, I heard Ed Rcher talking. Uh, he was on Tetrogrammatron, right? I've worked with Ed Ed Rche. Um,

I've met Ed Rchech. I've been to his studio. He I believe him. He came here in 1956 from Oklahoma. He came to Los

Angeles. Okay. when you could rent a, you know, you could rent a 20,000 square foot mansion on the o Pacific Ocean for

$79 a month, right? You know, you needed a studio. You could rent an abandoned airplane factory for $50 a month. You know what I mean?

So he I believe him when he says he never really cared about money, but also

the paintings that he made that sell for $50 million, he made $500 on. And he don't get none of that. That's the thing about contemporary art. They lost.

They've tried to get intellectual property rights. They didn't they didn't get them. So he Can you imagine that?

The very same thing that you It's not like that with video. It's not like that with music, unless you sign a terrible deal. But like, could you imagine that?

You make a painting and you're [ __ ] destitute. Not destitute, but you're struggling to make it. It's hard. It's a sacrifice. You're not rich.

And you make it and you sell it by miracle grace of God for whatever 500,000 bucks, whatever it is, enough money to carry you for the month or

whatever. Um, and then $50 million. Same thing, same painting. So, yeah, he didn't have to worry about money because he came during the time of America's richest, probably the richest,

most evenly distributed of in human history probably where, you know, if you're, you know, you worked at a gas station, you could afford to buy a

house. Okay, that era he came he came he was coming here as an artist during that era which means he was saying no to tons

of lucrative things. He was saying no to tons of lucrative things including commercial art which was very very um it was a very easy way not very easy but

relative terms it was very lucrative thing to go into and there was so much artists so many artists doing commercial work because all the commercial work

there's no computers yet so you know he he's like an he's like the only exception I know who's didn't

he's an old guy you know Verer I've had long I had a long conversation with Verer Herzog and how he does the fin how he structures the financials of his

thing. That's where it starts. That's where the thing starts is with the money, you know, and that's the that's the difference. That's the difference is

the money is they think is they think money is they say money is the highest form of energy that human beings can

channel. Not oh money. I don't even think about money. I I I love it when people say that. I love it when people like big movie stars who say that.

Really? Then why do you give your agent 10% of your money so that he can or she

can negotiate the highest possible paying deal for you? And why do you live in a $20 million house if you don't care about money?

And caring about the things that money buys is the same thing that as caring about caring about money. And I'm so adamant about it because it's it's like

the it was the biggest fraud that I I believed when I was um starting out. Okay. So I think this is the last one.

How about this? Has there been any diff significant developments in America's position in the fourth turning since your initial video on the subject? I believe the

current rapid adoption of surveillance information state technology and enforcement by governments i.e. UK, Canada, and soon our own might spark an

insurrection by the greater populace, marking the This is a hell of a one to land on, marking the beginning of a new

turn in which digital rights and privacy are protected, but maybe something more unlikely will occur. Oh, there's been significant

developments. My town burned down. my town burned down and um

and Maui burned down and nobody cares enough to hold the people

responsible accountable for what for starters and then you have these inter you have these a you have governors saying they're not going to do

what the feds are going to do. You have the feds sending in the military to do

municipal work. You have part some faction of the country fighting against

law enforcement. People say, "Oh, uh, in DC it's martial law." No, that's law.

That's civil law. They're enforcing the civil law. This is a democratic republic. These are the laws you chose.

the laws you you chose that it's against the law to be robbed. It's against the I'm to I'm sorry to rob. It's against the law to rob people. It's against the

law to shoot people. It's against the law to beat people up. And like they're sending in the military to these places.

Got men in, you know, I've had I've said this before probably on this live stream. I'm 50 years old. 50 years old.

That's half a century. And two times in my life and I've lived in big places.

I've lived in big global places. Two times in my life, there have been military

my where I lived, my home was locked down by the United States military, machine guns, armored personnel video

vehicles, 50 caliber, you know, all the gear and all the helmets. And that was after the fires. I had to go through a military checkpoint to go to my home.

And um September 11th, 2001, I lived on 13th Street, which at the border, the military checkpoint was at 14th Street.

I lived on 13th Street. So if I want to go uptown or come down, military checkpoint.

Um, and now like the military checkpoint is like the streets of of of Los Angeles

sometimes with the ICE raids and the streets of DC sometimes with the with the National Guard stuff and it's just a

breakdown. It's just I mean it's it's way different than when I did that movie five. That was before the pandemic by the way. Oh, no, no, no, no. That was

right as the pandemic was that was right as the pandemic was was was unfolding.

And turns out all that stuff they were wrong. They were wrong about all the lockdowns. They were wrong about all the masks and stuff. They weren't wrong about like N95 masks, I guess, but like

non-N95 masks. They were wrong about her immunity. They were wrong about Ivormectin. They were wrong about all that stuff. And yet they went and just locked us down. But what's changed?

What's different? I mean I think that thing uh that Bology Cern Navasan said about the left is now

allying with China and the right is allying with uh you know the internet and and cryptocurrency.

I think that's a huge huge difference. Yeah. I mean these in institutions that we take for granted, the schools that people are the the daily, the New York Times, the daily two days ago not just

did a we pulled our kids out of the school, the um our kid out of the school. They just did a thing about how this like me many Americans are pulling

their stuff out of the of the public school system here because it's another thing that's collaps you know and I you

know Isabelle said to me I don't even know if this is private but it's probably if any of you guys have kids in public school and this is disgusting and

it's just a [ __ ] you know it makes me cry is that you know when you go pick your kid up from school you think about

school shooter you think about scenario what would I do how I think that like the worst thing that

happened in this country was that um in New Town that high school and that that elementary school I went to a

school like that. I I grew up you know it looked like that. My the road that my school was on it looked just like that.

They flew a helicopter over. It looked just like my school because I was, you know, I went to elementary school in Connecticut and that was the worst thing. Just killing children, killing little six-year-olds.

And that's be, you know, that's before that's, you know, that was that after 2010. Yeah, that was the or after 2008.

That's fourth earning [ __ ] So, you know, Coline was right before it's 10 years earlier than that. Um,

but yeah, I mean, I hate to end on a downer. Oh, but I'll end on an upper.

It's like this is how um this is how the last book was uh the last

uh Adam Curtis series was called I think it was uh I think it might have been

Trauma Zone or it might have been I can't remember. can't get you out of my head. But he ends with this David

Greyber quote. And David Greyber wrote um debt the first thousand years um of

the first 5,000 years, the history of debt and money. And he was just this kind of libertarian guy who wrote about economics and everything. He also wrote

a book called [ __ ] Jobs. He also wrote a book about bureaucracies called Utopia of Rules. And anyway, he's dead.

But he uh Curtis ends this documentary series. Can't remember which one it was exactly, but I think it was Hyper. I

think it was Can't get you out of my head. He said, you know, we built this.

We thought all of this up. We built we made all of this and we can remake it all again the way we want it to be. And that's what we got to do. And this is

just one of those shitty this is like junior high. We're just going through a junior high where everything just [ __ ] sucks and it's a nightmare and it's this transition and you got to get

through it and it's just we got to endure the next like five t years. But um keep an eye on that debt,

keep an eye on that national debt, keep an eye on the res global reserve currency status,

start listening to these guys who talk about money. But uh hey, it's the weekend, perfect weather. So, uh, thank

you guys so much for tuning in and I hope I didn't bum you out and, uh, bye-bye. Have a good weekend.

Products & Tools Mentioned

• Limmer Boots essential
• Makita recommends
• Milwaukee recommends
• DeWalt mentions
• Bosch mentions
• Toyota Land Cruiser essential
• Moto Tote uses
• Final Cut Pro uses
• Netflix mentions
• HBO mentions
• Opal Tadpole uses
• Leica Q2 uses
• Nike mentions
• Tacoma mentions
• Swiss Champ essential
• Reddit mentions
• Twitch mentions
• Hermes mentions
• Louis Vuitton mentions
• Petco mentions

People Referenced

David Lynch, Paul Thomas Anderson, Dean Neistat, Tom Sachs, Timothee Chalamet, Ben Stiller, Joe Rogan, Seth Godin, Alex Hormozi, Cody Sanchez, Tim Ferris, Steven Bartlett, Casey Neistat, Jonathan Ward, Allan Stalberg

Books Mentioned

• Revolutionary Spring
• The Death of Money
• The Fourth Turning

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