LIVESTREAM: FRIDAY JANUARY 12, 2024 9am PST
Published · 1:17:11 · 1,662 views
About This Video
A January 2024 Friday session kicking off the new year. Van answers patron questions and previews what is coming for the channel.
Transcript
all right it says I'm live but I don't see any uh [Music] comments strange they change the you know YouTube changes its format every once in a
while and uh I must not have the right update I haven't explored it
properly okay but I have your comments on patreon so in keeping with Trad
uh the David Lynch inspired weather report today is like a puffy coat
Day by the afternoon it will probably be a wool and railroad jacket day no chance of precipitation all right so the first question question comes from
Danny and he asks hey van what are some fond memories you have of Connecticut if you had to place your
voice as a filmmaker an artist geographically where would you say it comes from so fond memories of Connecticut so
we grew up we had Woods train tracks and River so it was a
lot like Mark Twain stories where we lived and some fond memories in the summer we would jump off of the railroad
train trestle that went over the over like a little Inlet with water we jump off into it and
one summer somebody had an old junky BMX bike and we jumped that thing off into the into the water and you got to put a
life preserver on the handlebars because it's steel and it's insanely hard to get that thing off the bottom of the the
bicycle is steel it's insanely hard to get it off the bottom of the river um let me see there's this place
called Stonington burrow Connecticut which is this little it's the last commercial fishing uh Port I think in
Connecticut and uh it's beautiful it's from the like 18th and no 18th and 19th
centuries the houses that are built there and they're predominantly like whaling Captain's houses and wailing crew men's houses and they have plaques
on them and um there's a scene in in uh this movie called Mystic Pizza which is
probably like 40 years old now um and Julia Roberts is in it and Matt Damon is
in he plays like the brother of the rich guy um he's like at the dinner table
he's like a teenager or something anyway they're on this road and I think the rich guy's Porsche runs
out of gas and so Julia Roberts like some you know uh hitchhikes to get a ride or something and um that was the
first road I remember my mom pulling over her Volvo 740 turbo sedan and uh she was like all right you
drive and that was like the first road I ever like drove on without stealing a car without like sneaking out of the
house and borrowing someone's car um and um yeah I still go there every once in a
while when I'm home I go not home wow when I'm in Connecticut I go um I go to the Stonington Boro they have a good
little restaurant there so that um what else you know it's all childhood stuff
because I I kind of grew up there uh yeah and then just your normal you know childhood teenage High School memories
football games and stuff they think they I think they won the state championship the football team like two two out of
the four years I was there and that was really fun
um and oh and same Danny also from Danny uh if you had to place your voice as a
filmmaker and artist geographically where would you say it comes from I would say New York I would say it comes
from New York and traveling probably uh that's kind of where it comes from I
think but you know a little Connecticut a little New England like country boy stuff mixed in
there oh would you like this comes from Andreas would you like to make follow-up interviews of your Americans in Berlin
videos I would would but there's like a there's like a a heartache
dread in my heart about like finding those people and like the years between
when you're like 20 22 30 around there the 23 or I'm sorry the 20 intervening
years those are hard years those might be the hardest years of your life and so there's some kind of you know I don't
know reticence to like what I feel like I'm exploiting these people I me I guess they could just say no to the interview but like you know
I'm afraid of like tragedy like I don't know but yeah I guess so it would take a lot of it
would take a bunch of leg work and so forth to do it um and then of course I'd want sort of a
theme but yeah it's something I'd be interested in this is from Jack hey Jack how you
doing uh how has having a daughter changed your understanding of fatherhood um it hasn't really changed
it I think it's just now there's just like the dials have turned the intensity of everything's a little bit more turned
up um um but it's uh no it's it's been it's been great she's just a little you know
she's like a month old so she's just crabby little girl who wants milk and to be held all the
time um Adam ask why did you take down your peter Zan Banks video and will you ever
consider remaking it slash reposting it I really liked the message okay so a few months ago actually not a few months ago almost a year ago I think it was last
April I made this sort of rant video where I was there it was during the banking crisis when um Sun uh so on
Valley Bank had like gone out and then there was all this every all the news and all the internet you know stuff was
this could be the collapse this is blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah and I had been through so many of these like end of the world banking stories in my
life I just sort of did a recount and I just said to people you know this isn't gon to affect you this is you
know this is just a news thing and I was under a lot of pressure that week and it
was a i it was a sponsored video and I pulled it down on the advice of
[Music] um like a a wise person who said you know just stay away from talking about money and stuff uh which is a shame I
feel like I can talk about money with patrons but with the public people are extremely touchy about money and it's a shame because I feel a little bit robbed
of like things I should have been warned about um uh so I took it down because of the
tone it was like hastily thrown together because it was sponsored it cost me money to take it down because I had to postpone that sponsorship payment but um
the tone of it was a little bit too angry it was kind of a casually made video like it wasn't it didn't have the kind of work that I like to put into
them before I publish them and then um the subject matter was a little insensitive um
uh but um what was I saying oh I I wish we could I wish it
was more socially acceptable or I don't know what the phrasing is but to talk about money publicly and I wish I had
heard more about the importance of it because and I maybe it's just my generation maybe it's just like a Gen X
thing but there was this absolute denial among like hip Gen X like Kirk Cain and
that gang uh that like I don't care about money and you know money's vulgar and blah blah blah and it was just it
was [ __ ] it was a lie that's not true of course you care about money you're not gonna go tur I'm picking on
Kirk oain because he's like the famous dude Gen X uh you're not going to go on those tours wreck your body you know 200 whatever nights a year if you don't care about
money and um it's so important and I say that art school should be 80% business education
80% entrepreneurial education and 20% technique uh but money is you know it's
a touchy thing especially in America because we're led to believe that you know the basically the only thing that
matters is how hard you work and your drive um and you'll be like very
successful uh you know person and make a lot of money which is it's more true here probably than any other place in
the world but you know it leaves out a very very important probably the most important factor is that it's also depends on your gifts and it depends on
your just intelligence just your born intelligence and um that more than anything gives you the edge
and then if you have intelligence and you're like a conscientious driven person then those are the people that know and that those are the Elon musks
those are the Peter teals those are the you know the top richest people and the most successful
people but there is that there is that ground where if you really you
know if you really like ante up and go for it you can I've seen a lot of people who shouldn't have made it based on
their paperwork and uh do do very very well and then there's all these other un un there's these very practical people
who have like uh businesses that we all depend on that we just take for granted but they do very very well especially
where I live now like car guys like guys who fix like like my land Cruis guy is a it's I don't even know if it's a guy
it's like a whole business there's like a Land Cruiser specialist in the valley and like everybody takes their cars they're always busy I hope they're making money hand over fist and they
probably are I think mechanics do really well here I think uh uh you know contractors so forth those guys do
really well and uh yeah there's all these hidden Pockets but of course I'm in La so it's very
economically active place but that's why I took the video down because I was advised take it down you're alienating people and you're
kind of rubbing your success in their face uh okay oh can you please this comes from
Anthony can you please tell me where you found the anchor for your camera straps that you made okay so I have the camera right
here's pretty sure he's talking about this mik ae1 this is my film uh photography camera you see it's
got the Kodak portrait 800 in it um and these look so fancy and amazing maybe
because I'm old they look like like to me this looks like a pan Vision motion picture camera this is like if you go on eBay this is you could probably get this
for $100 um and then when it came out it's probably 500 but so he's talking about these little don't know oh they're
called uh Marin the thing that Marlins no I don't I don't know what they're called they're called shackle
and shank or something like that I don't know but um I got these I think at West
Marine I think they're stainless steel they're for like Marine like for sailboats and stuff to for the cables
maybe but you know you have to Mill the you have to bore this hole out that's on the camera and it's relative easy to do
because this is I think nickel plated brass um and then you have to
Mill the shackle thing right here with a Dremel so that it will it'll fit because
there's almost no clearance there so that's where I got marine supply somewhere but I think West Marine I think maybe I bought them in person at
West Marine but I might have also bought them in Japan I don't think so though I don't think so because I had the camera before I went
I don't know I don't know so strange that there's no comments on YouTube maybe I was supposed to enable comments
and I can't tell the difference there's that switch there's that like binary switch and it's like well which one is on and which one is off and it's gray
it's not green and red or whatever uh anyway so oh next
question um I am reading oh this comes from Lucas I'm reading excuse me I'm reading what
is art by tolto on your recommendation I love it I'm paraphrasing but Tolstoy essentially states that whether
something qualifies as art is whether or not the artist is conversing communicating with the Observer and the Observer is feeling something by
communicating with the art uh I'd love to hear you Riff on that idea and how art that speaks to you and
vice versa um I remember you saying the first time you went to Sax's Studio was the first time you felt like there was art that
understood you or maybe you understood it for the first time thanks for sending art out that I connect with
so yeah so to story I I watched this documentary about um Dennis Hopper and in the documentary one of the subjects
of the documentary talks about this book called what is art and I went to college
during the beginning of like the postmodern takeover of college where it became a little bit nihilist and
everything like meant everything and everything was everything and everything is Art and the Art of this and the Art of Shaving and the Art of washing your
car and the Art of shining your shoes and the Art of raking leaves and art art art art everything is art art art art
art art art and then I went and worked in the art industry um with Tom Sachs
and then I got to see what the Millionaires and billionaires considered to be art
and there was a lot of discrepancy between what seemed like art to me and what seemed like art to the
marketplace and there continued to be this like sort of unspoken definition of art among the
Vanguard that was just like well you just have to kind of know what it is and so for this master this like
forever author and artist Leo Tolstoy who's like every language reads him and
he's forever um for him his last work before he died was to write this book what is art and he very clearly and
practically uh defines what art is and basically art is a medium by which the
by which feelings specific feelings of the Creator are transmitted to the
consumer of the medium so that's what constitutes art and I agree with that one I don't agree
that everything is Art I don't believe that extreme High craftsmanship is Art I think that art conveys feelings now
sometimes extreme High craftsmanship like with cars like when people make insanely great cars and there's a
feeling that that Creator put into that car and that you as an observer you feel that creat that counts you know that
that counts so um yeah and then going into Sax's Studio I was like 25 years old for the
first time and I understood that okay this is this is a person who funds who has a a business an art business and he
makes enough money to live off of his artist he's of his artwork he's an artist he's not just somebody who makes
stuff he's somebody like uh um Zappa Frank Zappa said an artist
makes something out of nothing and sells it and that's what Tom saaks did and I walked into the studio having no
familiarity with Contemporary Art and then it was the art on the walls looked to me like art like things that someone
had made sculptural Beauty and then the subject matter was all little
ingredients from the world that I had lived in so the one thing that really sticks out in my mind is he had mounted
to police barricade 2 by sixes or two by8 on uh he had mounted this old from
the early 80s Defender video game these old like LCD video games that are just like a
blue background that kind of look like a digital watch of like you know dots coming down and then you're a DOT that can go across and shoot those dots
basically um he had that and he had made linkage with with like steel like hand brazed steel and pennies for buttons he made linkage to all of the different control
buttons on the on the little plastic video game so that you never so you could play the game without touching the
the the game the plastic game console thing it was and it was wall mounted it was just a beautiful object and it was
made of all of these things and then there's all and then there was you know something mounted on police barricades which he stole from the streets and it just had all this language to it and it
was all unpretentious and un and uh and uh and funny and there was just tons of
stuff and then you know he had cataloges and I would look through those and it was just funny I got all the jokes I got why everything was funny and then I just
you know this stuff conveyed conveyed feelings to people and that's why they connected with it and that's why they bought
it so yeah I hope that's [Music] helpful congratulations on the birthday oh this is from Drew uh how does your experience change when driving your motorcycle compared to
your Land Cruiser this is such a good question is there a different mindset you have when driving one compared to the other how does this affect your
state of mind okay so the motorcycle is a skill it's a
skillful um riding a motorcycle is takes skill and you can just keep getting better and better and better at it of
course you know like all other athletic Endeavors you're going to Peak at some point but maybe you continue to get better at it and some way
so there's a real athleticism to it and so when I'm riding a motorcycle I try to
stay within 75% of my maximum capability and I guess that translates as speed
like how fast can I go into corners and um so it's kind of like a sort of like a race mentality when I'm riding my
motorcycle I just I don't know I just love it and if I'm in a I have this kind of rule that you should only speed for
fun like you shouldn't speed if you're in a rush but I do it all the time and you can split the lanes here in California
so riding the motorcycle it's just like oh my God it's like drinking it's there
it's like some it's just like a fun kind of naughty dangerous thing and you're basically
faster than everybody because yeah you're on a motorcycle people Teslas are faster than my motorcycle but Tesla people don't drive the way that I ride
my motorcycle and they can't fit between cars so that's the motorcycle motorcycle is basically it's fast it's the fast I'm
the fastest thing out there and then the Land Cruiser is slow I mean I have this I have the new engine in it so it's
pretty fast it's pretty fast for that machine compared to other Land Cruisers of that year and model um but
um yeah I just kind of drive that I'm I don't know I just feels tough
driving it and it's just like solid and I just I uh I enjoy driving it I really enjoy
driving it I like being engaged I like this standard and I guess I'm trying to like drive it as well as the machine will perform and try to be as like
Smooth with every gear shift and every clutch like I took X up my son up to there's this part of M Halland drive
that's called dirt M Holland and it it terminates here in uh Tanga and then turns into a fire Road and so I rode we
drive up there and it's extremely Steep and you go up this private road it's just supposed to be for residents only
but I live in Tanga so I'm like okay I can do this H even though I don't live on that road oh but our friends have
rent like a horse uh stable up there they keep their horses up there so I technically it's
okay and I drive very slowly but it's super steep super narrow there's tons of potholes I think I ran over a rattlesnake dead rattlesnake in the road
yesterday um and I'm just trying to like operate the vehicle because it's just it's a standard transmission so you're just
connected to unless you're Feathering the clutch you're just connected to the drivetrain with your accelerator foot so if you go go over a if you go over a
bump and your body bumps and your foot bumps the gas and then it's a
feedback and you're just and the Eng is going in the transmiss and uh I'm trying to learn how to like mitigate that by
being in higher gears and then like Feathering the clutch or just going like not flooring it but like stomping on it to keep the pressure so that it doesn't
bounce same with driving in the desert or driving Offroad so it's I don't know I guess I'm trying to they're simar in that I'm trying to
develop my skills in both but the Land Cruiser is the slow kind of like uh
utility truck and the Motorcycle is like the sport toy
um okay you mentioned in one of the live streams that Tom Sachs believed oh this is from Raphael you mentioned in one of the live streams that Tom Sachs believed
that the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind by Spielberg is actually a metaphor for becoming an artist and that
the protagonist of that dreamt of a mountain and sculpted did it became an artist when he
saw the mountain on television and left immediately to go see it why is that the becoming moment in your personal journey
of becoming an artist did you also have an epiphany moment or was it gradual and almost
perceptible okay so yeah so uh in Close Encounters Richard dfus is sculpting the sculpture out of everything out of
mashed potatoes out of clay out of everything out of shaving cream honey what is this what does this look like she doesn't even answer him um and he
doesn't know why he's doing it he doesn't know and then but he can't stop doing it
and he can't stop doing it and then he sees on TV that all these what is the news story that there's like a gas leak at Devil's Tower
in in in uh Wyoming and they showed Devil's Tower uh on the television and he like accidentally sees it and then he just
jumps up gets in his car abandons his family and heads he probably lives in Cal can't oh he lives in Indiana and he
just races straight out to Devil's Tower and I think the reason is because it's like
oh okay for him it's oh that's what I was sculpting now I have to take the next step right that's that's his that's
literally what's happening in the movie oh that's what I was sculpting and then the next step is I have to go there I don't know why but I have to go
there and I and and the artist thing is like you know when you're you're
starting out and you're I'm so uncomfortable with the word artist because I just you know like most you know you think of museums and Danang go and all that stuff but like people who
are make things out of nothing and then sell them um if you're that kind of person most of us almost all of us we're
not focused from fifth grade you know I'm a painter and that's what I want to do most of us it's this it's a almost a
form of insanity it's like oh I like building skateboard ramps I like building tree Force I like building cars I like drwing I like doing music I like
I like singing I like being in shows I like playing with cameras I like you know all this stuff and eventually Something's
Gonna Lu hopefully you know if you're blessed Something's Gonna draw your interest and you're GNA not know why and
you're not going to understand it and it's and you're just going to not be able to stop doing it and maybe it'll be like kind of an addiction you lose
things because of it and you know and and and um and then it's this come this like and then maybe you get like paid to do something or somebody's like hey I saw
that video you made for your cousin do you think you could do that for my wedding or whatever and maybe it's and then you
just are like oh maybe this is it maybe I can maybe I can make a living out of this it's strange now because you know
back when that movie was made I think it was made in like 7778 something like that and that's like I was a kid then
and you know then was different you didn't have you couldn't just take your phone and and look at 50,000 millionaire
artists that were like you know that made or whatever you know you know that
make uh uh uh uh AI imagery out of you know just commands
and now they have a Versace campaign um you didn't have examples of artists
everywhere you didn't have people who were making a living at it was just a legend it was like I don't know it was
like someone in the NFL or NHL or something like there's no professional
artists you know in my town count whatever I have no accd to grew up in like a Navy town in a town that built
nuclear submarines and there's no there's no this just something you've heard of it's for almost every community
in America yeah if you're from New York City if you're from San Francisco if you're from Los Angeles okay that's different but like if you're from if you go to a vocational agriculture High
School you just don't know there's like kids who are really good at drawing and then in that era you for me I was just
wasn't good enough at anything to make a living so I had to just keep tinkering with what the hell am I going to be able to do and my thing just hadn't been
invented yet digital video and internet streaming video just hadn't been invented yet and piece by piece I got the
little piece by piece I got the little Clues you know the Apple came out with the iMac DV and I had all these VHS
tapes from that my mother had recorded of the family and uh then you know there was a Sony made this TRV 9 camera that
you could digitize the VHS tapes with and then you could import the digitized footage into the Macintosh and then wow
you could edit and it was just these little Clues little Clues little Clues and then it came to me gradually but in the
movie they don't do it I mean it comes to him sort of gradually in the movie but you know it came to me gradually and then it's just all of a sudden I
remember saxs used to say like he's like as soon as you have you have a little bit of success or make a little bit of
money with this get yourself in debt get yourself in trouble with money because you need to be forced into it you can't
have any options out and one of the first things I tell people when they when they're serious about you know they want to do something that's in this
extreme hyper competitive there's 30 million YouTube channels there's 30 million YouTube channels so when people
want to do some this extreme hyper you know competitive creative uh professions I say the first
order of business it's more important in your work the first order of business is to get a place where you are not being supported by your parents get if you if
you live with your parents if you're at you know if you live in their house or whatever get out that's the first order it's more important than you making your
YouTube stuff you get out get out and go move in wherever and I know it's a lot harder now than it was when I was a kid but there's way more opportunity than
there was when I was a kid so um so yeah the moment when he's just
drops everything and goes it's the beautifully done in the in the thing and of course Spielberg had that moment too
when he you know I I think he co-wrote that movie but he directed that movie so
um and maybe he adapted the screenplay I don't really remember but you know he had that moment too and he just put it in there but it's it's Perfection
to me it's Perfection when there's another scene where he's starting to lose things in his life because he can't
stop making this sculpture and at one point he just runs out of the house and he just screams up into the heavens he
goes what is it and it's it's it's it's one of my favorite movies in
cinema okay um oh this is another one from Raphael I like this question
too you said uh I was thinking about renters mindset and how you've come away from it let me explain renters mindset
is when you do modifications to something that could be easily undone without any irreversible steps in the
process like a renter uh would avoid making modifications to an apartment that a landlord could frown upon do you
did you always have this owner's mindset in making or did you become
one become an owner be you know did I always have the owner's mindset or did I
like um evolve into it I think no I think I always did I
think I always did it's like well it's mine now and so and then you
know meeting Sachs and and seeing what he would do with his stuff was just like oh you can go as far as you want with
these things and taking them apart and modifying them and changing them and so
forth um yeah so I think and when I was a kid I would get in trouble i' like take my bikes apart and like oh I remember one thing that drove my dad
crazy it would get so angry is when you would when I would get a new when I get a BMX bike BMX bikes I think
by law had to have reflectors all over but the BMX Racers and freestyle guys they never had reflectors because reflectors aren't cool so I would take
all the reflectors off and they would make my dad so [ __ ] angry but um you know did it anyway um I think it
started with that skateboards and BMX stuff and bikes and mountain bikes and so forth
[Music] um okay oh Nick asks did you ever consider staying in Berlin What attracted you about the city and what made you leave I
was only there as part of this as part of Tom Sax's uh nsis so I was never
going to stay there um I went back a bunch of times to visit um friends um but no I was never going to
stay there um What attracted you about the city and what made you leave so I had to leave because the show was over and I
had to get back to my life in New York and um what I loved about the city is that it was a very free place because it
was very very inexpensive and it was also very secure it wasn't like you know there are inexpensive places that are
dangerous and also it was filled with you know it was like it wasn't it was it was Germany it was like these are the
people who build Mercedes and BMW and porsa like it was full of like you know
very functional capable people and uh full of artists it was a great place to develop I think as an
artist but the opportunities to make money aren't weren't really there the opportunities to survive were there like there's um I think it was Ron he was
talking about how he was he did these karaoke parties and he like made a living and he had a nice little apartment but like the opportunity to
grow that into a big business and make uh money to buy an apartment and to you know send kids to school and all this
stuff probably not there but um the you know a lot of people don't need that a
lot of artists don't need that and if you're it's a great place to be broke and the community was there oh there's one I'm going to do one um I'm going to
do one about this uh I didn't I don't think they call him trans back then but this I think they
just called each other call themselves drag queens or something I'm going to do one probably come out I don't know when
but um I have a lot more of these interviews this uh
man I guess you would say transwoman now but actually it was you know I think I knew him both on both sides and he just
like would dress up uh what did he call kryon Superstar and he hosted this
um thing called black girls Coalition and was it had nothing to do with being black it was just run by black girls but
they were guys and girls and uh it was to help people who had just
moved to to Berlin it was like a little I don't even know what you would call it it was like a welcoming committee but they'd help you find apartments and
stuff and they did this thing once a week that they stole from the Communists called the vks cuka The People's Kitchen and it was like €
two and you'd come and I think maybe you do a little work or if you worked it was free but it was two if you didn't work
and it was just a huge dinner and they did this back in like East Germany and it was just like a hall uh it was like was like a a bar but
in East Germany it would be like a haul with long tables and you just sit with people from your community and have dinner that like a bunch of people made and like you'd take turns making dinner
they do it in Denmark um they do this kind of stuff um for instance and that was like
so that's a meal for € two and I found the first interview was Brandon and I
after I posted the video I found all of these um I found a bunch of footage on
the on tape of Brandon's apartment like building with the he had like a it was
his apartment was I think he paid hundred and something1 130 a month or something like this but he had roommates and they had like a winter
garden and they had like a on the roof they had a a roved walkway that went along the apex of the roof that you
could go out at night or in the daytime and I found footage of it and I would have loved to have put it in the Brandon interview but it I found it too
late um but yeah that's what I was attractive to me about Berlin it was like a sanctuary from being broke or it
was like a sanctuary for being broke and it was like Lively and super fun and the summer you know it's like it's up
North so you know the sun would stay out really long time people partied until like five o'clock in the morning and it's all bicycle
based um and I just loved it um arj says will you ever have a meet and greet or one of those fix it tables events are you getting any sleep now
that you go okay um I I'm I think I'm going to be doing one I'm not going to announce anything but I'm thinking there might be something
coming up in April in Austin Texas uh but not haven't finalized it or
anything but I I might be that might be happening in April in Austin Texas I want to do it really well but uh what AJ
is talking about I did a video about it but they have a swap meet here in um Tanga and for one of the swap meets I set up
Braxton I set up a um like a booth out of the back of my Land Cruiser with and I had a like a mobile
toolkit and everything and I just people brought stuff and I fixed it for them for free it's called free repairs I
loved it it was really fun it's kind of hard to film oh no no it wasn't hard to film because Braxton filmed it but uh yeah it was really cool it was intense
but it was uh it was it was cool so I'd love to do that again um getting any sleep now that you guys have
a third member of household yeah we're doing all right we're doing okay oh when is the new addition of e coming out so
uh patreon did some sneaky thing where they now have like members who aren't actually
paid patrons so that made my numbers look like I'm over 4,000 but that wasn't
the deal I made the deal I made is when I have 4,000 paying patrons then I'll do the next
and I'm going to start uh advertising a little more in my YouTube published videos I'm going to advertise the patreon more and I'm going to be posting
more uh like content and um I'm G to put a little bit I'm going to put more energy into the patreon this year that's
what I'm for 2024 that's my intention so hopefully I can boost the numbers we'll get over 4,000 and I can do another Zen
um okay so this is from Misha typewriter questions where do you get your ribbons okay I'm gonna try to
find so I get them from um I don't know the name of the business
but it says um veteran owned [Music] and I get them they're brand new and they're cheap typewriter ribbon uh okay typewriter ribbon for yeah I just get on Amazon it's like the first thing that comes
up and uh it's these guess I should just cut and paste copy and paste to the thing but
yeah that's where I get them Amazon God bless Amazon I sorry I love Amazon and I
hated when I there we go just putting it in uh I used to hate the retail experience for like everyday things like posted notes and pencils and spray paint and stuff
like that I just despised it because the people were what was happening was the retailers were becoming these giant
corporations like Staples and the workers the people work there were becoming more and more alienated from
like the the the business like used to be you'd work for you know a locally owned business you knew the owner you knew their family and like you knew the
people shopping there and that went away and it got taken over by like big Superstores and and
chains and so the people increasingly cared less and less and didn't want to help you at all and um I just hated the
experience especially and I'm just I'm talking about New York City this is what it was like in New York City shopping and places and then the Amazon experience is
just like because I always know exactly what I need you know I just know I I'm not shopping because I'm like what should I get I just know what I need I
need like I need 8 inch or 16th inch cut off wheels for a Makita angle grinder
and so I don't know sorry uh Vincent says can you make a Dremel
video um that's a great idea I should do that Zach asks
um I was wondering if you think your parenting techniques will change modify now that you have kid number two I think so especially it's a daughter I don't
it's like a different world they have different interests um I have two nieces and
they're interests are a lot different than my son's interest although they have common ground like swimming and
stuff like that but um so I don't know I I don't know I kind of want to do all the same kind of stuff like hik
every day when in the backpack with when they're little and then doing the bicycle stuff I'll do all the major stuff the same but then I don't know
about the like cultivating interests they'll be different and uh he says I success Zach
says I successfully made my mom cry with a website of my family's home movies I digitized for Christmas all right man
you're on your way um this is a good question Nathaniel how do you add new ongoing disciplines
to your routine one of the hardest things for me to do is figure out how to add something new to my life without the established routine falling apart
doesn't matter what the thing is might take five minutes yet it somehow looms large in my mind and I struggle to find where to put it in my life do you
experience this and if so how have you overcome it I so do I so do and um yeah
just adding one and things are just as I think the older I get and the more sort of like
responsibilities I have the longer things take also in Los Angeles things take a lot longer than New York which
I'm becoming more accustomed to Los Angeles and less accustomed to New York although when I go back to New York it's
so natural to just be there it's so easy and natural for me so yeah um that's a
tough that's tough tough tough adding like I should be I run every day but I don't do weights and I need to start I
need to add weights and you just start doing weights but it's not there it's it is long the thing is I know how long
things take I know how much time things consume and it's not what it seem like 20 minutes no because you got
to go to the place or like put the I'm not having weights here I don't want weights here at my house it's too small so you got to go to the place and you
got to get back from the place and then there's like maybe you don't I mean maybe you don't have to shower you can work out in your street clothes or whatever
but you know it's two hours it's two hours I'm sorry I live at the top of a mountain you know it's two
hours so yeah I don't know it's very hard you have to be really selective I don't know I feel like I'm just maxed
out with all my little routines and stuff and in a good way like it's all synced up like yes yesterday I had to pick up my son from school at like on
Tuesdays and Thursdays it's like at 1:40 um so I had to like I was like finishing a video and and it all just
like synced up and it was nice and that's nice but like there was no room for anything else I was busy right until I went to bed so I don't know that's a
blessing but yeah it's hard but I think things will clear up things change get more time don't know when the daughter's older she'll be she'll require less
attention from Isabelle because like she's like Round the Clock basically demands you
know something uh so that'll even out a little bit but we'll see but yeah I
don't know how you overcome it um so Hugo ask when will we have a community project and if not why um just
I'm uh I'm getting used to having two kids uh the holiday breaks are always disruptive so I haven't had my time has
just been uh very disrupted so um that would be the why I don't know when you
know I'm thinking April Austin might do that thing might do the free repairs station
um but that's why I'd love to do it more but it's the getting the videos out every week that's it that's a full time
just kind of it's almost just me you know it's you know I have helped but not
you know it's almost entirely me to do it all so um yeah that's what would suffer if I
did more the quality and the frequency of the videos would suffer I'm really just trying to make them the best that I
can uh Steve asks um I'd like to ask for guidance with creating training videos for my
workplace I'd be especially curious to hear your philosophy and practical advice about how you'd recommend going about creating van nice
that ask workplace training videos similar to the 10 bullet Style videos you did for the studio we are big fans
of your work feeling that your approach is well suited for the industrial workplace oh boy yeah try to keep it
light try to keep it puts a couple little jokes in there every once in a while
uh I don't know uh oh watch a bunch of them try to watch
the good ones um try watch the EM e mes watch their movies they have one about
the sx70 which is a Polaroid camera and they made a video it was for the in-house
video for the people who worked at Polaroid uh and it's like a masterpiece of like the industrial
video um yeah maybe try put a little feeling in it you know if you want it the pro this is what the thing is the thing is
if you want the thing to be good it's an insane time commitment it's an insane time commitment because you can make an
okay thing like just take your camera and walk around and narrate and blah blah blah and you can do that in an hour
but to do you know it's 50 hours 40 hours to do like what I you know the ones I
make so and I'm fast and I know how to do all this stuff and I've been doing it for 23 years
so 24 years so uh so that's the difference is just like an insane amount
of time that that goes into this stuff um and then an insane amount of like learning curve
too uh and then you watch like oh my God I was watching there will be blood
yesterday holy moly just how well done all that that world that's I said I met a
director I had um lunch with a a director like a Hollywood director the other day and uh him and a bunch of
other people and I said what he does is Formula One and what I do is skateboarding that's I think that's the that's the right metaphor Formula 1
teams have a thousand people on them in like a $600 million a year budget and then a skateboarder has himself and a
$100 skateboard and that's that's the difference in magnitude between those two but
that's either here nor there Bobby asks uh Bobby Rose asks this seems like a lot to ask feel free to ignore but I'm a
Creator to America's car guy on Tik Tok my last two videos seem very similar to me but one did 1.3 million views and the
other did 10K can you tell why no I can't nobody knows people that guy like Mr Beast thinks he knows but he's you
have to take him out of the data pool like he thinks he knows why his videos are so popular he just he doesn't he's
just they are he's just insanely good they're insanely good uh but no even I
talked about this I talk about this with Casey nice dad with my brother he's like some videos I think are going to be huge hits and nobody cares some videos are
just throwaways and people freak out about them it's like kind of a relief to just not know
and just be like well I'm just gonna make the thing that I want to make and do the best I
can okay so okay I'm G to try to around this up where am I we got a bunch more questions okay so this person has a
question about Keys um How do you carry your keys um all right so this is how I do my
keys so I have a key rack in my house and then each vehicle is its own separate
key unit they're not all on one thing they're not all on one thing so there's like the Tacoma keys and there's the
Land Cruiser keys and there's Isabelle's husk Varna key and then there's my my BMW key
and I think maybe in the sewing video I showed the keychain I make for them all but so each
key uh is just the vehicle key and um and then the associated locked key requiring security devices with that
vehicle so like I have the bike locks for key on my Land Cruiser keychain and
I have the top case thing the bubble that goes on the roof it's not on there now but it was on there last week of the Land Cruiser that key is on the Land
Cruiser keychain and then I have the backups of those uh for
everything um it's hard to talk about it's like security [ __ ] you know you don't want to give away uh
and then I usually I try to have like four Keys per vehicle and for some like I know the new
cars they have those electronic keys are like $2,000 each or whatever so you don't have it but you just have the two for those but
uh yeah that's how I do it everything has its own separate unit so sometimes I have a few sets of keys in my pockets
like I'll have a motorcycle keys and you know motor and the truck keys and stuff but there's not that many keys on the
keychain and then I make these like out of this out of this like rainbow or this uh
American flag webbing stuff I make a keychain for all of them and that hand
sewing those together it burns the keys importance into your subconscious so you
don't lose them like thank God I very very very rarely lose Keys thank God like I have the original BMW key to my
BMW motorcycle and I bought it in 2007 so that's what 17
years uh but yeah key driving me crazy I just did a little trip with X Out to the desert and I had like bike keys lock
keys truck keys the and I had two separate and I'm just reaching which pocket are they in and then I was it's driving me nuts and like I fantasized
the whole time about like what I wish I could do to thieves imagine just imagining a world
with no thieves in it no keys no keys that would improve my life to a sizable percentage to not have keys and oh I
forgot my keys I ran up and I gotta lock this and I didn't Lo and I left this and we it's crazy
but um and what drones do you have oh okay I have the uh I got as a gift I got the mavic or the DJI mavic like big drone
that my brother Casey gave to me and then I bought with my own money
uh the mavic mini DJI M DJI mini pro three that thing's the best I love that thing it's 249 grams so that
you don't so that the FC no the FAA doesn't bother you because it's
not considered like a a a aeronautical vehicle or something because it weighs less
than a pound is that right something I don't know something like that or I don't know but it's and it also can
track you sort of so that's the one I have and it has a cool has a good controller I can't stand the one re have these are Dam damn phone again for
another thing um and it has a controller just a built-in screen and stuff I like that
one uh this is oh and that question was from Byron uh this is from Tony my question is would you ever take your
kids when they're older on the back of your bike my youngest daughter keeps asking she's nearly 12 12 I'm a little torn motorcycle I think Tony's asking
about there's a picture of a motorcycle and his um uh Avatar so
uh would you ever take your yeah I'm gonna yes I am the longw in California their feet have to be able to reach the
foot pegs you can put your foot pegs wherever you want so uh I remember on my street in
New York City there was a man and he would bring his little kid to school on the back of his uh he had a
BMW uh G6 or F650 GS yes and he had a little kid on the back with a little like I
think it was a motorcycle helmet I would totally do that yes so I mean can't go crazy just a little tiny
bit um this is from Chase do you have any goals for
2024 uh you know I have the same Pursuit I'm just trying to make the best I'm trying
to get my process to be as good as it can be you know my like process of making these things and I'm trying to
through that process make the best things I can make the best videos I can make but you know I want to like I just want to boost my numbers but I want to
do it that way through the process maybe yeah just I'm probably gonna need it yeah
yeah so that's kind of my goal I mean I do have like numbers goals that I'm trying to achieve and so forth but that's not very interesting but I'm
going to try to do it through doing the best work I can do and embracing the process as much as
possible um have you considered making a video forther exploring or replicating the experiments you made for the Scholastic Kids magazine experiments are
terrible so no I'm not doing they're just very boring mundane like tin foil hot dog cooker stuff that doesn't work
so no what are you currently reading all right so I'm reading the the the
isacson uh uh Elon Musk biography and then I'm reading war against the Jews by Alan dtz
which he like published in two months or something it's like out now it's about October 7th
um this is from William what advice do you have for a man who's going through changes and giving up old
habits but struggling to complete the ladder uh or health habits oh you just
got to go gradual and stick to it and don't be too ambitious like I don't know if you're trying to like get a running routine
don't like I'm gonna run a marathon stupid don't do that just try to see how long you can run four miles a day for
how many decades can you run four miles and just stick to it so I would
say realistic goals and just try to aim for perpetuity and just you know one day at a time that's it do you ever imagine
stopping this YouTube channel and if so what else do you see yourself doing yes I do yes uh especially at the pace at
the like video a week Pace um and then I would just I think I don't know professional speaking or maybe a
combination of like per not performance but like I don't know fixing stuff on
stage and talking I don't know but uh yeah these things have a shelf life 10 years or so but maybe not I
don't you know a lot of these podcasts that are really big right now uh like Tom
sagora um or Tim Dylan or stuff they've been doing it since like 2009 you know
that's 15 years and now they're at their like Peak so I don't who knows who knows I don't know maybe a new platform comes
along I don't know I getting I don't know really how to do much else what are some things you
forgot and now relearning with your son oh that's a good question uh just like wasting
time like we were at a hotel a couple weeks ago and I just like was this like it's
like stay in a pool with perfect temperature water and I just said we're going to do two hours in here and it was
like like forever but I just let it I just enjoyed it just let it go and tried to be like this is really great and
you're not gonna be able to do this for a long time so just that stuff what he's good at is like you know if we're on
like a yesterday we were on electric dirt bikes going through single track and he'll just like see something that
he likes and just pull over and get off his bike and just start checking it out or pull over and be like do you have any
granola bars I like that and then I need to build more of that into my life what would the spirited educator
teach his pupils I teach design and technology in London my understanding is that this is like shop class on your
side of the pond your Matthew Crawford recommendation was really good was a really good read in 10 bullets has been
super influential on how we run our workshops and I really and really how I came to you any thoughts welcome and
appreciate it what would the spirited educator teach his
pupils you know in the kids when they before they leave the they leave when they like give their
graduation speech or whatever I'm thinking of uh say anything when Diane Court gives
her ex her valid dictorian speech and she says you know everybody talks about the real world and what's the real world
and all this stuff and the real world is the independent world that's what the real world is and so I think that like teachers
like parents basically what you're fundamentally teaching the kid is like Independence I think I think you know I
think that's the fundamental thing even like well there's I mean that's that's a
little simplistic but I think Independence are like I don't know teaching is very
strange and the school system is very strange and it's and same how little
people know I mean it's really crazy to me that like the average person how little little little they know how
little Common Ground they know and I don't know I think I don't know what you I don't know what would the spirited educator teach his
pupils I guess how to find something to be interested in and how to pursue the interest I think that's what you got to
teach that's what children and students need to need to know although it gets so
annoying it gets really really annoying I think it's I think I think it's important to ex to to to
discourage to like overtly and explicitly discourage creative Pursuit like creative professional
Pursuits I think it's such an unrealistic and often like egod
driven Pursuit that like it's just like what everybody just wants to be a
YouTuber it's like no you don't no you don't um I don't know but I don't know what what the hell do I know but it
seems I don't know I think about this a lot I think about school and education a lot it's like our education the
fundamental of our education system was developed in Austria in like the 18th or 19th century and I think it was just for
like industrialization it was teaching screening out how how to people to work in factories which
were new and also to find military people I think and probably to screen and train for those applications the
current education system is probably pretty good but that seems like a pretty small percentage of vocations that
people do nowadays and it's seems like it's also like the teacher
job the teacher job to me and I don't know anything but the teacher job to me it's so straightforward to get it seems
it seems like you get these qualif it's like it seems like getting a driver's license there's these qualifications and you meet the
qualifications and then you take your certificate and you apply to different
um I don't know school districts or whatever and depending on who needs what you you kind of like get the job
so that's the only thing that's like that you know maybe or maybe maybe maybe like the military might be like that or
or maybe just government jobs are like that I think but just and I'm talking about an America I only know America but
like that's not how you get that's not how you make a living I mean that's I mean I don't know that's not the optimal
way to make a living in in America so you you know to teach to be a teacher to
teach students to like career stuff I don't know I don't know like school
system teachers are kind of equipped to teach although a lot of school system teachers are have come from different
Industries too um but you're just kind of qualified to teach children how to
[Music] become teachers I think and there's not that many teachers so uh I don't know what would the spirit education yeah teach what you're teaching that stuff's needed by all human beings shop class
stuff so just do it just keep doing it uh Carlos uh in retrospect and from your most personal point of view what was the main difference between Berlin and New
York at the time you were at the former uh uh just the price point of everything how much more
affordable um Berlin was and also and it's expressed by almost every subject in
these there's I just's dozens of these interviews too there's I think nine tapes and each tape has multiple
interviews on them um I they it's just it was uh less
uh it was the the term that they use the subjects use is free you just felt more free you could go to the bathroom outside if you had to go to the bathroom
you know you could you know back then you could smoke cigarettes in restaurants and stuff and you could drink in the street and you can all
kinds of stuff that you could do that nobody really cared and like it was it was just a lot less
[Music] um uh authoritarian or something I don't know it was just easier like you didn't need per people would have fires in the
park imagine having a fire in Central Park you know and they were respectful and that was probably why they were allowed to do stuff is because the
citizens weren't insane Maniac animals like we are here in America and so they were like respectful of Commons you know
common areas and so forth um uh yeah that was the main difference
like it was just a lot cheaper it was a lot more free and people were were more um you have to remember that like a lot
of my friends had grew up under communism so they were much more um uh collaborative they were very collaborative much less independent than
the New Yorkers were um so those are some of the big
differences oh and then he asked did you ever consider going back and living this is from Carlos in
Berlin uh no no I [Music] didn't uh as a fellow father of two I oh this is from Illy as a fellow father of two I wanted to ask you if you have had
a chance to reflect on how your creative work time may change with a baby in the mix yeah at the very beginning I started being like five minutes late for
everything it was like at the very beginning it was just like I was five minutes off I wasn't late but I was like
five minutes off for for everything um and I was like okay I have to there's
something I gota I gotta build something in thing it's like I have to prioritize my work less which is like the worst
thing for me um okay James asks what advice can you give to someone starting to share their work on YouTube
I'm an art restorer and struggle to find the time to do the work and make the videos and my best to upload weekly or
make a batch of videos in advance I'm one year in and see lots of creators drop off after only a few weeks what
helps you stick to your schedule yeah you gotta you you got to be regular with it I don't know I mean
it depends what your goals are of course which is a terrible answer but like are you trying to like make money off of YouTube because then you're just gonna
want to do consistency as much as you can like yeah every week if you can swing it
uh but I don't know whistling Diesel doesn't do every week that guy's so erratic and how often he post but he's
huge he does makes tons of money and has tons of viewers and all and and uh so I
don't know I don't know but uh I try to be consistent even though I've missed like this last few months I mean had a
baby and then it was the break and everything so I haven't really been posting but I have the backlog of the patreon
videos to put on put on YouTube uh yeah just I don't know just be consistent just make
videos I'd say I'd say just be willing to make them bad and make them
regular you know and then try to refine your quality within the pace of doing
it um yeah it's difficult uh okay this is the last one Ryan thinking
about thinking about your etiquette video in particular I get the sense that you're are very kind and generous in your interpersonal interaction no I'm an
[ __ ] you also indicate that you deal with anger rage and screaming as someone who holds themselves and sometimes
others to high standards what perspectives do you have on being hard on yourself and hard on others where is the line drawn in the benefit versus
detriment of neuroticism and disagreeable and disagreeability so um okay
what perspectives do you have on being hard on yourself and hard on others yeah it's hard you got to ease up on yourself
it's hard to do it's hard to do that and be productive and like driven um and
then yeah it's hard to be patient with others too but people are very very nice to me
people are very nice to me and my family like wherever we go people are really kind and um
I'm not that nice I can just flip uh I took one of these like personality tests
and I was in like the 99th percentile for volatility in a room of a 100 people I'm
the most volatile person uh I don't know that's all like the it's like my last demon to slay is yelling at
people is yelling and I'm gradually chipping away at it but
um yeah I think just uh for me it's like going to AA meetings and interacting
with my AA guys and uh trying to go slow that's hard to do going slowly and just
that like gota kind of like let go of stuff and all that
usual stuff but the line drawn in the benefit versus detriment of neuroticism and disagreeability
yeah I think once you start causing damage doing harm to others that's the
line um yeah but that's a tough one it's tough get lots of sleep I guess if you
can do it take breaks all right everyone have a great weekend uh I love doing these I got to
do them more often and there's going to be more coming on the on the um on the uh patreon
so I have something going up next week all right guys have a good weekend and take care bye bye
Products & Tools Mentioned
- Canon AE-1 mentions — film camera Van uses regularly
- Kodak Portra 800 mentions — preferred film stock
- Leica Q2 mentions — digital camera Van uses
- DJI Mini Pro 3 mentions — drone for aerial shots
- Makita angle grinder mentions — workshop tool
- Volvo 740 Turbo mentions — car referenced in discussion
People Referenced
Tom Sachs, Elon Musk
Books Mentioned
- What Is Art?
- Elon Musk biography
Films & Media Referenced
- Steven Spielberg — film referenced in discussion
- Donald Petrie — film referenced in discussion
- Paul Thomas Anderson — film referenced in discussion