LIVESTREAM MONDAY 11.21.22, 9am PST

About This Video

A Monday session from November 2022. Van answers viewer questions and talks through what is happening in the workshop that week. Monday sessions are rare.

Transcript

good morning happy Monday long time no video drugs weather report and keeping with the

David Lynch tradition so I ran today at um six something a.m 6 30 a.m and I wore

a full sweatsuit and I had my hooded sweat hood for my hooded sweatshirt tied

and I didn't untie it and take the hood off until 10 minutes into the Run and when I was done I was slightly

sweaty so it's pretty cold up here in Topanga all right I got 46

questions that were left in the comments section for when I originally posted the announcement on Thursday for this live

stream that I'm sorry though I tried my best I could not get the I couldn't get first like the

internet was wiped out until yesterday or until Saturday and then on Thursday I went to another person's house to do the

live stream and for some reason the effing camera on my laptop just would not work restarted finding you know

looking it up on you know how do I get the camera to work with chrome and uh it just wouldn't work and I have to use Google Chrome to uh do a live stream

through YouTube okay so I'm gonna try to get through all these questions there's 46 of them and uh maybe we'll go a little late today

so Brendan asks how much do you value road trips and travel in general

and there used to be like such a source of inspiration for me because when you live in New York City it's very difficult to get out of New York City it's very expensive

and also there's just a mental entrapment there's like it's an island um so it used to be super super value and I'd get just flooded with

um ideas and inspiration on traveling now I have a family and I'm kind of in the place where I want to be like I don't like to leave Topanga I just love

it so much here and Los Angeles is sort of a little nation in and of itself so when I go away now

you know without my family it feels very much like a job it feels like work

it's easier when I travel it's easier than my day-to-day life here at home even though I still run and meditate and

fast when I'm traveling it's just easier because you know I don't have to maintain my fam like I don't have to

serve my family like in real time and then I've gotten kind of I'm old and

I usually if I'm traveling it's for other people and sometimes it's for like clients and then if it's clients I make

them fly me business or first class and then I've recently been buying like domestic first class tickets recently by

I mean I've done it one time and it was like a 200 upgrade so it wasn't like you know tenfold like when you fly

I booked tickets to Miami I flew to Miami a few weeks ago and uh it was like 300 bucks round trip or

something like that and then same airline it was three thousand dollars

First Class 10 fold as expensive so I just flew like um

YouTube premium like the seats that are closer to the front of the jet but I really really don't want to fly Jets

at on on Commercial aircraft like ever um and you know that's why I'm trying to

build up that's why I'm building up this this Land Cruiser truck so I can go with my family on awesome adventures in North America okay that was long I'm eating

into my budget here uh what paint did you use to mark your Stanley power lock and GoPro cam cameras so the Stanley

this is a sticker and this is a Tom sacks piece uh it says Stanley Kubrick is dead and this isn't

my invention this is Tom saxon's invention and then he he had it hand painted on an actual like big 25 foot

Stanley it was like one of the it was the first movie I made in Tom Sax's Studio was it opened with the shot of

that of that Stanley Kubrick is dead um tape measure but this one I touched up

because the yellow didn't match the yellow of an actual Stanley

tape measure it like came out green because I guess I maybe I scanned Toms and then printed it out on a printer and it just came out green and I'm trying to

get kind of to this so I used this paint which is what is this liquitex basic acrylics like 10 bucks or

something and then to get the white paint I think Oxana todorova painted this with like a teeny tiny brush but

her hands are so perfect she could um she could she could etch money she could counterfeit dollar bills her hands are

so great and she for a very long time was uh worked in was like sort of the head of Tom sachs's painting department

and now she's off on her own she has her own studio and does her own work and probably has her own gal not her own Gallery but her own Gallery representation

um but for the these guys for the for the um for the GoPros I use I never know which one it is but I use

either this it's a uniball signo I think I got this maybe in Japan

or maybe I am got it on Amazon or something and it's

um one five three it's either this one or this like Amazon it says art and fly on it

uh I can't remember which one works but you got to do like multiple Cuts you got to like do the letters and then let them dry

and then go over them again and then because it's very fragile that stuff's very fragile then I use this like it's

called Touch of color and strengthener and it's like really strong lacquer for your fingernails

but a very robust white out pen let me see if I used it oh like for instance on this

I use these Presto jumbo correction pens by I think they're Pentel why won't this Focus so gross I guess it's focusing on

my head probably um so yeah that's that um okay so the first question was Brandon

then it was knee T this one is Brian how do you respond to an unexpected problem is it an inconvenience or an opportunity

depends on the problem um usually I try to solve the problem right away which is not exactly the right way to do it do

problem solving all the time it depends how urgent it is it depends how far away it is from like whatever

it's interrupting lately I've learned to call and ask for help sometimes I just panic and like

scream for help and just start yelling at people um um but yeah it's a it's a gosh darn

inconvenience and sometimes it's an opportunity but I haven't been in the headspace because I've been so optimized with my time I haven't really been in

the headspace of it being an opportunity uh recently it's also because I'm old and my brain is less flexible and

plastic than it used to be um how much time have you spent in UK and what's my favorite British film that

comes from Beck I think I've been to the UK three times probably spent like three or four days each time there I dated a

gal who lived in North London in Greenwich near the the Greenwich is it called an observatory I think

that's what it's called like where granted mean time begins um and my favorite British film I'm gonna think of the one

oh why didn't I say such and such but uh I love you know all the Guy Ritchie films I

love them all and you know that's all it's kind of like one film to me you know I really love the one he made one no one really talks about it but

it's called um rock and roll I think is what it's called about like the real estate boom in London I love snatch I love Lock

Stock and Two Smoking Barrels there's two Scottish films that I love and I think Scotland's technically United Kingdom right there's one by this

filmmaker named Lynn Ramsey and that film's called rat catcher I love it it's a masterpiece uh it's hard to find I think the only place you can find it

really is on the uh uh Criterion Channel and uh I love that movie Trainspotting

like we all love that movie transplanting but I think that's also Scottish film um okay so from Johannes

um hey van you're making great videos but you do the writing directing filming editing music Etc what do you consider to be your what do you consider to be

your medium how is your relationship to the others are they just like never loved step

children you have to take care of to spend time with your love and making a living from it or do you enjoy the time with these aspects in a similar way like

you do with your medium so I think my mind is like writing and editing I think are the thing I like the

most and I like them because you just need well for writing you just really need a pencil also there's like a strange therapeutic

side to writing and then there's like a hell of the cycle of writing and you kind of get over these humps and everything

and the writing make if you do it well enough it makes the other parts of the process less stressful and then the editing is like

you know that's your last line of defense until the the it's sort of like your last line of defense but you're also it's sort of like you're on the front line of the war

because uh you know you're making the thing that everyone's going to see there's no more layers and uh

it's very easy with editing to get into a flow state so easy that like

I have to manage the amount of time and effort that I put into edits and just let things go that might have been

enhanced the final project just so that I can post movies or videos regularly on on on YouTube

[Music] um uh some I feel like shooting is sort of a necessary evil there's this filmmaker he just released a new movie like within the last month his name is Adam Curtis uh he's a BBC documentarian he does not

use a camera all of his and he's one of my favorite filmmakers he no camera he just uses the archive uh the BBC News

archive which is probably millions of hours of news footage from all over the world because BBC has a lot of reporters that

you know they spend real money on like um fundamental journalism and he just did one called um

called trauma Zone trauma Zone and it's about what it felt this is the subtitle

of it it's like trauma Zone what it felt like to experience the collapse of the Soviet Union from like 1985 to 1999.

and it is at first when I was first watching it I was like am I watching this wrong am I using the wrong player or something is there supposed to be

am I missing the like the voiceover track because normally there's narration by Adam Curtis which is masterful and

this was just footage of these little vignettes of news footage but some of it's super personal news footage like you know a lady getting an

abortion in in in the Soviet Union Soviet Union was the first nation in the world to legalize abortion um

but no narration just occasional subtitles that explained like very broadly what you were watching

and I think it's a seven hour or seven part series maybe it's a 14 hour part series and when things like

that come out I just put my headphones in and like as much time as I can find throughout the day to do manual labor to

do work labor I will just do the labor to justify listening to the to the

to to the Adam Curtis project to his documentary this one I couldn't really do that with because it was so dependent

on the visuals but luckily I was like flying across the country and there was like a bunch of

um there's a bunch of uh little uh there was a uh there was opportunity for me to watch it but

yeah I think shooting is it's just such a pain in the neck and there's nothing really it's just utilitarian to me it's nice I mean I hope that doesn't come

across I do think it does come across in the final product but I don't think significantly like there's nothing really fancy about the

way I shoot and you know what there's nothing really fancy about the way Quentin Tarantino shoots either he you know he's a One camera guy he has one camera on his sets and he moves it

around and he blocks it and he does the shots and then he punches in the close-ups later and you know but the films are so

striking so I try to maximize that kind of old-fashioned production um process

whereas my brother has all these amazing drones he has this drone that'll follow his car around well you know the control you know the controller which is inside

the car and it'll do like 360 sweeps around it and he's always interested in oh he has like the 495 gram

drone because it you know um uh you don't need a GPS you don't need FCC law doesn't apply to it because it's too

light um and uh uh you know he has he does those insta 360 cameras which you know are like kind

of like virtual reality like they'd shoot a whole virtual dome which I've done before but it's just too hard and too time consuming for me maybe when I

get a crew like a little crew I'll start taking more advantage of that and try to find people to work with that and really

enjoy the camera stuff but the thing I'm most paranoid about is like any part of this process I have a week to make these things not even I have four days to make

these things I have Monday through Thursday to make these things any one of these parts of the process if you're not going can suck the entire week up like

color correction can suck the entire week up mixing can suck the entire week up shooting and it's just I don't have that luxury and it's really important to

upload to me it's very important for like a uh an array of reasons for me to be

uploading every week and like these last few weeks have been very stressful and I've had disasters just in my personal

life that I've had to like triage um and so I have like God I don't know have I uploaded in November yet it's the

21st I don't think so I think today I'm supposed to I'm just like waiting on a on a sponsor or yeah and the sponsor to get back to

me yes this is approved it's okay we'll upload it but for instance so yeah necessary evils and

you just gotta go go go go go and in my position you just gotta go go uh Spencer asks if money is No Object how where are you spending Thanksgiving

what's the ideal Turkey Day celebration so I just wrote down a giant mansion in a ski town and private jet all of my

friends and their families in and put them up in five star excuse me you know accommodations and then get

them back to the you know all of the logistics of everyone who would have to travel just if money's No Object just

like a team of Hollywood producers each one assigned to each person I've invited to completely facilitate as painlessly

as possible everyone coming to the thing to the whatever this celebration at some giant mansion and wherever Jackson Hole Wyoming

and uh and then we just have a big everyone would have their own residences to live in with drivers that drove them

back and then we'd just have a big meal and it would be like whatever a one day or two day or three day maybe the whole weekend a fair but that would be that

would be my thing friends and family um and their extended family money's No Object extended like 400 people

um and then chefs for each family so it's not like one giant like institutional meal that's like 60

you know meals that are done by chefs 60 chefs or something okay um

Ryan asked how does one deal with routine blows to one's confidence I'm a history student in college and I have

dyslexia I work through readings albeit so very slowly and with great frustration but it's so negatively

affects my confidence well this kid can write sentences uh and I haven't seen any spelling errors

so you're very careful um there are some there's some [ __ ] supers

super successful people with uh dyslexia the man who bought my house

uh actually I shouldn't say that but there's family members uh

uh I've I've in my uh in my like in-law family members

they have uh they've been very successful despite their dyslexia I should say um

so how do you this is where is it what was the question close to one one's confidence I've I've

been hearing about confidence a little bit lately from people especially from a couple people who well especially one person who I won't

name who's extremely capable way more capable than me and in my mind I am like furious at this person that they they

claim to not have confidence and a lot I think a lot of conf of some I because I I don't think I've ever had

trouble with confidence I've had trouble with competence like I'm absolutely it's hard to believe

because I have a successful YouTube channel or whatever but I'm really really bad at nearly everything I'm I'm

laughably horrible at everything almost everything I mean I've put disproportionate amount

of times into things I'm sort of capable at but um

I don't know confidence to me is like it's arrogance failure foolishness and

persistence I think it's like a combination of all those things it's like all this negative stuff is how you get to confidence and like confidence is to me it's like

the beginning it's like the beginning point it's like I used to talk like talking to my parents friends after I my

brother and I did this the HBO show and they would like confide to me oh I always wanted to move to New York City and in my mind I'm like you didn't get

that far like that's not the hard part the moving to New York City yeah it's really hard but that's not where it gets hard

um yeah the confidence is like a huge part of it is is foolishness like you really shouldn't be thinking about whatever the

thing is you're trying to do and you should just build in fit like years of failure like failure is your r d you're

just gonna fail and you gotta go and the harder you work and the more and the more like energy and commit the heart the most the

more committed you are to the thing you've failed at the bigger the education will be once you come out

the other side um and then confidence it shouldn't like I remember I don't know if I do I think

I remember when projects were like an event like I was doing a project you know I have to I'm going back in my

mind when I was in my 20s like early 20s and I think I remember a time where it was like oh this has to be good

and well maybe in college when you're submitting your story and you're in a workshop and there's people in that

Workshop who are just way way way better than you and more and just naturally gifted more than you they don't even

work harder than you and this is when you're I'm talking about when you're 22 years old or 21.

um and when you're writing for that or you're writing for something some kind of thing that people are going to see or you're

making for something that people are going to see in your mind sometimes you can make an event out of it like this is an event like this oh this has to be

really good and I think that is how you destroy your ability to

um build your confidence or make your confidence and what makes your confidence is just

repetition and failure and just keep going keep going keep going keep going next thing next thing next thing next thing I don't I'm not the person to talk

to about I've been working on this project for 17 years I am not that person because I don't do that and I've

never done it like there's nothing I've worked on for a very very long time I've worked in the same medium for 22 years now

um but I'm not the person who did you know like Ari shaffir the comic he has this incredible

stand up out on YouTube right now this incredible stand-up special called Jew and he worked on it for five years which

means he'd write it he had you know he wrote jokes jokes jokes jokes went and tried him out at like the comedies he's from New York like the comedy seller or

whatever like five or six nights a week maybe seven and then as it got better he developed it in bigger clubs then he

took it on the road and they got better and kept writing it and kept writing and kept writing it saved a bunch of money and paid to shoot the special over the

course of however many four performances or something like that five years I mean it is magnificent it's such a great it's

like super high concept and it's super simple it seems really obvious but it's not and it's essentially he was an orthodox Jew and he left the faith and

he just talks about all the Jewish stereotypes like and it's all unbelievably funny jokes like every concept and everything he explains is a

joke and it's not offensive and it's really funny and it's weird and it's got offensive stuff in it but the point is

he I'm not that guy I let's put it this one let's put it this way I don't have experience with that I don't have

experience with putting years and years and years into a thing I have ex even my like the nyset brothers HBO show was

like eight little things per or whatever five or six or four or three little vignettes per it was like 13 minutes per

episode and each one of those was like an episodic thing so for me there's just so much

you know there's so many opportunities it's like beginning middle end you know or like riding shooting editing done

next one writing shooting edit done next one all right for 22 years um

and oh God I'm going on and on about this confidence thing but like you just

I don't like confidence like I don't know what I I don't know it's like what

okay so like I gotta do a video about confidence because confidence is a real mystery to me because confidence because I don't

have trouble with it I guess I don't it's one of the things I don't have trouble with I have trouble with like remembering stuff but confidence I don't have trouble with

and the people around me don't really have trouble with you just go and also another thing is like

it's very helpful to be in a situation where you don't have the luxury to let

lack of confidence be the thing that is like uh getting in the way of doing the thing

like I think you I one thing I don't think about but I've been thinking about a lot lately is

um I think the millennial generation is like the first generation in 80 years or is it the largest generation in 80 years

to like not have their own homes to like live with their parents or whatever and like get this as far as my

experience is concerned get your own place it's more important than your art projects and your YouTube channel and

all of that stuff get your own place get out of your parents house if you live with your parents if you're a dependent

on living with people get out of there man get out of there you need to I feel like you need to do that before you can

do I mean coming from a Gen X are all granted but I feel like that's the primary that's the thing I did first that's how I learned how to be a closer

that's how I learned how to be confident that's how I learned to be motivated because yeah the law will come and throw

you out on your ass and like well I'm living with my parents so I can save some more money so I can no no

go out and figure it out like go move to a country that's cheap where rent is really cheap and then figure I mean I don't know I don't know how you'd do it

now super I mean I don't know it's expensive now but there's so much more opportunity now it seems although I don't know I

don't know I'm also very lucky that I'm a gen xer because the times I was coming up with like the country was flush it

was like I don't know but I moved to New York during the height of the internet boom during the.com boom it was insane how

expensive things were it was just insane I went from 100 a month for rent at College a hundred dollars to twelve

hundred dollars okay in one month so it was like 12-fold more expensive and yeah I like I

had a girlfriend and we like split it and some months I couldn't hack it I couldn't I couldn't come up with my six hundred dollars and her parents had to

like cover it and like that's happened to me like recently not like within the last couple of years and but you know

that's part of the failure and just going and do boom boom and but yeah I would say you want to be confident move out of your house move

out of your family's house don't be a dependent and you know get your own get your own thing okay what's the next one how many times

do you mess up on projects in your early days and how did you pick yourself up this is from Veronica and continue your motivation despite any possible setbacks

and I just wrote down I make one significant mistake per day that's like every day of my life I make a stupid idiotic mistake I'm like ah I just cost

myself three hours but this one dumb thing maybe sometimes I don't make a mistake maybe some days I make three or four but

mess up on projects in your early days um I left the camera I lost one camera

once that had footage on it one one and I'm a forgetful like what the thing

that I've conditioned myself I've conditioned out of myself one of the things you don't get to do one of the things you don't get to do is

assign these Character defects to yourself and then defend them and allow them to exist like well I'm just a forgetful person I'm just late all the

time you don't get to do that you know you get to do that if you're like Justin Bieber and you're bringing in hundreds

of millions of dollars for hundreds of or dozens and dozens of people yeah you can do that but like on our level you have to be sharp and

part of this whole thing is to refine your virtues and to develop your character and so

you know part of like making mistakes and uh messing up projects is like refining your Character defects or your

your flaws and so you know one thing for me is like I know I'm not good at thinking on my feet I have to really

super prepare in an obnoxious and stressful and way too much time consuming

uh uh manner so um you know that was that's one of my

that's one of my plots I'm super super super super super super super super super super super super super super forgetful

unbelievably forgetful maybe the most forgetful person I've ever met in my life is me so I'm constantly writing

things down and then that means you gotta have a pencil that means you gotta have paper that means you're always on you because by the time you find the

pencil and paper you're gonna forget the thing I'm like the guy in Memento I'm like that that's what my life is like I'm like like huh like what the hell am

I doing and he just has like tattoos all over his body to remind him his like what his life is

um same with punctuality same with um oh another character defect I have is

uh an absolute the worst sense of direction of anyone I've ever met of anyone I've ever met in my life I've never met

someone with such a bad sense of direction I'll walk out of a bathroom I just gamble like I'm in a new place and I come out

of the bathroom I just take a left just I just gamble I have no idea whether I'm going left or right if I'm at a movie theater or whatever a new

place like I don't know because I don't my it's I don't know what it is I don't know if it's wiring or like it's something I never like developed

you know and so thank God luckily for me it's like GPS and all of this and like I can't really try to wing it I can't I

have to use the GPS every time I use GPS to go to places that I've been to dozens of times you know and then you know

once you reach a certain Mastery you can use your faults as uh advantages so like sometimes it's

really awesome to not have a good sense of direction just to wander around like especially for me on a motorcycle just

to wander and I'll discover all of this new stuff I'll discover new Roots I'll discover like oh this neighborhood is connected by this and you can get to

this and you can go up on Saddle Peak Road and ride all the way to Malibu and then there's this other road and it puts you out on uh Deer Creek Road and that

brings you down to the one and it's like a two hour ride and then just like by just wandering just wandering because I don't have a sense of

Direction so all right where am I all right I'm 1 6 of the way through and we're halfway through the amount of time

okay what's your dating advice for young men oh this is from Ryan who grew up without a father God this is

Ryan's second question okay okay what's your dating advice for young men who grew up without a father okay

um I'm a heterosexual guy so I can only give heterosexual advice I don't know how uh gay people do it I don't know how

they do it um I think it's probably easier for gay guys than it is first so I think it's

probably easier for gay guys to date other gay guys than it is for straight guys to date women so the advice that

um I think it might be the only advice I'll probably end up giving my son because no one wants no son wants advice from their

dad uh is um do not take dating advice from women if you're a man do not go to women and say what should I

do for women blah blah blah they don't know I mean even I mean I guess you could maybe with lesbian women but no because you're not going for a lesbian woman

you're going for a if you're a heterosexual man you're probably going for a you know heterosexual or bisexual woman so do not take dating advice from

women that's the advice I would give and there's a great example of why you don't take dating advice from women

I believe it's in the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell and there was this study

where they did they had a bunch of women fill out a questionnaire of what they were

looking for in a man right what were like that I don't know exactly how the questionnaire went but it was like the attributes in a man they had to have in

order for this for these for this each particular woman to date them like I don't know he's got to be tall he's got to have a good job but he I want a guy

who's an exercises a college educated blah blah blah and so then they did this speed dating round where they took these

women you know I'm sure they replicated this thing hundreds of times or whatever but this is what the experiment was and they

had speed day when they sit with men for five minutes they have a conversation move on to the next one move on to the next one and then the women would make a

selection of who they were going to date and then the scientists doing this study or the psychiatric psychologists doing

this study matched the profile of what the women wrote on the thing versus the reality of the man that they

chose no correlation no correlation it's not a rational thing it's not a

rational thing although you know I don't know and I don't know I'm also from I'm

pre-dating app I'm predating at man I don't I've never used the dating app the idea of of using a dating app is

completely I would I just wouldn't I don't think I would ever use one you know God willing

so that's my advice don't take advice from women take advice from men if you're a straight guy okay uh Dustin asked me are you or Jack Conte

posting the interview you did you did we're both posting it I did an interview with Jack Conte who is the founder and

the patreon number one he's the founder of patreon and he is the first patreon account uh I did an amazing interview

with him we got along like peas and carrots he's a super I mean amazing dude uh but and he it's going on his

Instagram and then it's like uh they send me a link and I click a button and then it's also on my Instagram

and I guess it's an Instagram I don't really know how Instagram Story how Instagram works but I think it's an Instagram story maybe or Instagram video

or something like that so I don't know that I think I've clicked the button and I don't know it should be coming out any day but yeah we're both posting it

uh Gavin asks love your folding table and would be interested in a video on how to build one I'll just show you I

have my iPad here I'll show you a picture of what they're talking about of what Gavin is talking about

uh it's this it's right next to me this folding table so

it's basically like I don't know where you get these I think you get them at e at Amazon I also have one for my laundry room they're just plastic the legs fold

up or the the legs fold up and then uh the the thing folds in half

and stores like a little suitcase and I just screwed up quarter inch sheet of like AC plywood on

the top and then put linseed oil on it and like these little black things are to hold a little apron

or what would that be called like a kind of a tablecloth but it doesn't go over the top for when I do my Repair Station

yeah maybe I'll do a video about that um when I need another one of those tables maybe I'll do it

um okay but great idea Gavin thank you Alex asks organizational question question for you which metal brackets would you

suggest to use for shelves okay so there's two kinds there's these they're called Corner braces they're not sold as

shelving brackets if you're looking for like shelving that that's not what that's not what these are but I use them as shelving brackets

so you go to Home Depot and it's I think it's in the Fasteners aisle or maybe it's in the hardware aisle and it's called the corner braces they come in

three sizes like four inch three inch and I think two inch or like one and three quarter inch or something like this I love those and then the second

kind I use are like big for bigger shelves I have also I get these at Home Depot

they're like eighth inch steel and then they have this uh like uh I don't what's that part of

the isosceles what's that part of the triangle called the hypotenuse they have this like steel hypotenuse brace

and they're kind of expensive that one's like eight by ten or eight by ten I think they're maybe 10 bucks each but the labor they will save you and they're

pretty bomb proof I put way too many screws in this one I don't know why probably drilled it for some other thing and I just wanted screws in there

um and then there's a Third Kind which is the heavy duty version of of that which are like these this is what I used

to hold up the desk that the computer is on right now like the desk in front of my face and uh these are like folded

over steel it's like double Steel and this is I don't know maybe it's like

12 by 10 or something or more but those have all worked great for me and they're relatively fast

and that's what I use and just get them all at Home Depot and the reason Home Depot is because no matter where I am in America there's a Home Depot so I just want to have a system that I can you

know that translates or whatever okay Chad Simon how did you feel the first time you made

a big effort into a video or film that turned out not good in your eyes what did you do to overcome that oh man I made this music video with

Casey and I like spearheaded the whole thing and it was kind of a lot of money to make I mean it was very cheap for a music video but it was a lot of money for us and I just [ __ ] sucked and I

think and I don't want to say what it was or whatever but I think it was just that with music videos one of the things I learned is

if the song isn't great it doesn't matter you cannot make a good music video for it in the and the opposite is also in the in the contradiction is also

true if the song is good enough it almost doesn't matter what the video is so I mean we're at past the age of of

music videos so they don't really it's not really a thing anymore I don't think I guess maybe it is sort of it's like

something that you know Vivo or whatever puts on YouTube um but how do what was the question

um the first time I felt I felt like a just a I just like I let everybody down it was really horrible

and then like anything else to overcome the feeling you just do more and more onto the next thing onto the next thing on to the next thing and then it just Fades and it's you know

it's just an expensive lesson that you will learn sod buster asked what are your thoughts on William S but William S Burroughs

uh uh oh I saw a documentary I think he was like it was either William S Burroughs or Alan Ginsburg or both they were extremely nice to

um and helpful to Patty Smith and I love both of them for that um and

he was just like a bone Vivant you know he was born into a wealthy family and you know he's very famous for being

a drug addict essentially and he made I miss that kind of I miss those kinds of people the dysfunctional

people it seems like the only people we kind of hear from are like brilliant people who make big mistakes every once in a while

and then these like people who are just like him or Hunter Thompson or whatever who are like either drug addicts or

they just I don't know they kind of get weeded out or something or the the the economics of these media don't support

that kind of person anymore like you can't get by being like that and he made this he had this like speech

and I've seen it on video on YouTube and I can't remember if it was part of it was kind of like a 10 bullets type

thing it was kind of like uh lessons for life kind of thing and one of them I kind of feel like there was multiple of these and one of

them was like don't associate with [ __ ] ups and I loved I heard it and I was like that is absolutely correct that takes so

long to learn and the reason is because it rubs off it wears off on you like if you associate with with f UPS uh it

you'll start being you'll start being like a nincompoop um

but yeah he's uh bully is from on the road the Jack Kerouac book uh bullies based on him and those

are some of the great chapters in that book and his philosophy and he's just crazy he like shot his wife by accident doing

a I think he might have killed her and he got off because she volunteered and he was like doing a William Tell thing shooting an apple off her head with a

handgun and he I'm pretty sure he killed her Jesus Christ um

uh left Harris asks I don't know if you've answered this before but what are your top three favorite movies I'll just say the rider

by Chloe Jean Zhao sorry excuse me Chloe Zhao Empire of the Sun by Steven Spielberg and Rushmore

they're all about dudes um and Rushmore by uh by uh Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson

co-wrote it um I guess those are probably my top three but you know that changes

Christian asks do you have a relationship with Mania if so how is it managed I am bipolar and often seek refuge in your content while weathering

my manic storms I have to wonder is there something to this I apprecially appreciate what you do and I couldn't thank you

enough so one of my teachers coming up was this man named Glenn O'Brien and

Glenn O'Brien was part of Andy warhol's Factory he was like I think he ran the

factory anywhere had two factories and I can't remember where the first one was but this the second one was in Union

Square and I'm pretty sure Glenn ran that one and Glenn said a man is a

successful maniac and uh you know I kind of just use I try

to use work and ambition to kind of be my cure-all for everything I'm much less manic than I used to be like quitting

drugs is very helpful and then being in like uh 12-step programs very helpful because it helps mitigate all of those

impulses and stuff and then I just don't have the energy for it and nothing really is that thrilling to me anymore

so uh uh but I do get crazy I mean I get insane still [ __ ] screaming blowing

my voice out just like yeah but I try to do it in private and then I have you know I have like

better help therapists and I have the psychiatrist and then I have my AAA guys that I call and talk to and my sponsor that I don't

call enough and then oh and then like couples therapy and that you know and so a lot of it is just management

um so I yurt would like to know your opinion about the book of tarkovsky sculpting in time in case you read it I'm reading it and

I'm really impressed with the comments about script writers Etc the tensions between director and script Writers Do you have any do you have

did you have kind of tensions between co-workers on some projects and how did

you handle it so that's this book right here that's this book sculpting in time

tarkovsky the great Russian filmmaker a tour you know I don't work with many people

[Laughter] you know I worked with sax and we worked together for so long and we're old now so it's just much we're much easier around each other and you know

uh and I don't do that traditional like Hollywood or traditional filmmaking process

that's super collaborative and one guy writes it one guy directs it I just you know I do all the steps myself

um but it's a magnificent book and everybody should read it is there a correlation between reading studying and creating meaningful work is there a

correlation Brennan is there a correlation between reading slash studying and creating meaningful work

absolutely you have to read sorry um maker guy makery guy recently I've had

the recurring thought that it isn't passion that needs to be found finding our passion is such a buzz right now but I don't think that a person's passion is

lost at all what needs to be Foster and developed is self-confidence get off the trail of passion and practice actionable steps to build the

self-confidence it takes to do the work you already know what to do thoughts yeah there's that guy Mike Rowe

the Dirty Jobs guy uh you know his like Father built Earth's grandfather or his father something like built their house from

scratch like milled the wood and uh he's super and himself this guy

uh I just said his name two seconds ago Mike Rowe uh he wasn't handy so he made

this TV series it's been it's it's like series it's like season 40 of it or something where he goes and does these like for one day he does these crazy

jobs like being a beekeeper being the guy who cleans the filters at a sewage treatment plant like all these crazy

jobs like that and he's a big proponent of don't fight following your passion is for foolish people and like passion that's why you kill your wife you know

and I I kind of tend to agree with him it's like you gotta lead your passion first of all and second like if that is

your Criterion for discovering the like job that you're going to do or the

career you're going to have is like well what degree of passion are you talking about like an all-encompassing passion

that makes you like you have to work on it 24 hours a day and you suck in the entire world just then you're probably a [ __ ] genius and you don't need any of

this stuff you know if that's your if that's your Criterion and you're trying to find it forget it you just have to

find something that you like doing or you're interested in and then do it as well as you can that guy doc that guy Bob Ross he said what did he say he said

Talent is interest pursued and yeah I agree just in confidence we

already talked about that is yeah just you just have to do the thing and like also man maybe you don't have the thing

in you maybe you don't there's very very very very very very very very few people who do very few like Rogan always talks

about he's like there's a thousand stand-up comics and they said how many millions of doctors are there he's like there's a thousand standard I think what he means

is touring being able to live like this at least like a successful dentist you know stand-up comics it's like

this is very very rare like art is a last resort this stuff is a last resort there's so much other stuff to do if you

have competence and interest in any of that other stuff do that other stuff this stuff is for like the losers it's for like the people who who tried to

cheat or tried to like get game the thing or like were too short or too this or too that or didn't have this and like

it's just become this it seems to me all this like Creator stuff has just become this like cool hip fad and it's like oh

no this is the cool thing to be now so I'm gonna do it and it was probably like it's probably like being an engineer in the 50s was that and being in the 40s it

was like being in the military like being a big mocker in the military and then in the 60s it was like being probably a musician and then you know in

the zeros it was being an app developer those things and just I you know yeah I

think passion is like totally abused word I don't know what it means anymore I mean

yeah I don't know I don't know maybe I'm just taking my passion for granted uh Grady writes

um I've appreciated the videos you have posted that include x in some way I would be very interested in learning to

hear your thoughts uh and I'm sorry I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts on becoming a father later than some I'm at a

crossroad myself life finally feels stable enough for a kid but worry about being too old value your experience and if you opt to

make a video rather than talk about it live that's cool with me Bill Burr has a movie coming out that he wrote and directed called Old dads I can't wait to

see it but yeah it has it's like anything else it has its advantages and disadvantages I'd say if you're going to be an old dad you you have to you it

um I think it's very very helpful to be in good physical shape to be in strong

physical shape because you have to pick the kids up all that like literally pick them up with your hands and hold them uh a lot

especially like the first few years and you're going to want to keep up with them with their stuff uh

I don't know it's pretty great I recommend it uh if you had a modern vehicle today what would you buy and why okay so I

wrote down a four a Toyota 4Runner because they're like super durable they'll last forever

and their high performance in their uh what's uh yeah and they're reliable um but I don't think they get a good fuel economy so diesel Volkswagen even

though they had that Scandal especially because they had that Scandal uh they get unbelievable gas mileage in their Diesel and the last also they'll last

forever although the Volkswagens and the Audis all the little things kind of start to go at like 60 000 miles an hour sixty Thousand Miles like the little

switches and stuff little knobs in the Isabelle had this Convertible Audi that

I think it was her mom's and then the mom gave it to Isabelle and it was like every time it broke like

it was like 900 for the part for the like when the air conditioner broke the thing was only like it was a 2009 and

she had it in 2016. it was only seven years old and uh I was just like what's going on

with this thing and then I you know I don't know so anyway diesel Volkswagen or the new Civic Type R

which I love because it's just a little Honda Civic little four-door you know hatchback and it has 320 horsepower

and it's a you know it's just a sleeper gnarly and it'd be so fun to ride drive around in the canyon and then you just like it's a Honda Civic you know you

pick your kids up in it so that's a I think those are the cars that I would like have you ever shocked yourself doing

electric work electrical work yes but I have a pair of Klein uh wire stripper things that I've had

for at least 12 years and thank God I have not arced them in the cutting thing at the you know at the mouth at the base

of the Jaws it doesn't have that little Nick in it from cutting a hot wire thank God and I hope it never gets that

um this is from Eric uh full time [Music] okay working full-time as a videographer slash editor for an ad agency has left me feeling creatively burned out on my own video related passion projects do

you have advice on on how to manage I know a lot of people in advertising and

I don't think I know of a single person who's escaped it I think because of the money you make it's like you go from

making I mean I don't know what the marketplace is like now but it was like you would go from making 250 300 000 a year and then if you want

to go do your own thing you're going to zero you're paying to make your own thing so just for the most part they don't do it

and yes you're going to be able to name a 75 people that are at the top of the of whatever industry who also do

advertising myself including included but uh those are the exceptions and they're

not career ad they're like proxy at or they're um de facto ad people who like the you know the agencies go to them because they have lots of money and they

can like hire Paul Thomas Anderson to make an Ikea commercial or whatever um so I don't see how it's done I don't

see how you can have both because advertising is going if you're working on an agency level what does he say full time for an ad agency yeah they're

they're taking you're putting 100 in on that and I think just go for it go for being the ad guy you

know it's like working for the it's kind of like Wall Street because those ad guys like they have to like understand business

it's and they're like the face of the business and the identity of the business and like if you have a good enough relationship with a business like

how long is that progressive lady been doing those Progressive commercials you know and she probably has a very

nice house and puts kids through the most expensive colleges and just been doing that one thing that's what I think I think forget your own

thing you have your own thing on my own video related passion projects yeah just hobby them they're your hobby just work on them on the weekends and

you know a couple hours here and there after after work that's what I suggest or maybe do a big one big long-term thing when you have a break off if you

ever get a break but I would just say stay within the advertising industry be on top of things where is it going blah blah blah and

just keep doing it uh although he says I'm in the first years of my career

hoping to make a transition to freelance slash documentary work given more experience and context in the next few

years well I guess you could also learn a lot of the technical stuff with a job like an advertising job you can learn all the cameras and the

lenses and the and then the inside stuff like who has what what are the rates what do I have to pay to to hire such and such

what do I have to pay to rent such and such equipment so maybe look at it as a school that's another way you could just look at your advertising career as a

school and then um I just don't know how you get out of it uh okay Gustavo what's the update on the

Land Cruiser engine I'm gonna show you a picture okay what's the update on the Land

Cruiser engine well there it is that's that's the Cummins R 2.8

and I also had uh not Overland Cruisers but another company tune the ECM on the

to give on the engine the electronic control man module to give me for more horsepower and more torque and I'm going

to pick it up a week from today God willing if my bank account holds out

because I am cutting it razor thin my last payment for

my last payment to the to the you know to the to the garage that did this work it's very very expensive project my last

payment is a is the biggest one and I got to pay it on next Monday and I am just like

I have the money coming in to cover it but I don't know it's Thanksgiving week I don't know if the transfers are going

to come in but I have enough right now in my bank account and then uh I intend to drive it home from from Montana so that's next month and

it's basically all I think about it's what gets me through the hard times I'm like a little kid Imagining the things under the Christmas tree and like you

know this is obviously it's foolish and not true but it's like it's gonna solve all my problems this is when life begins all that I don't know it's fun you're

supposed to buy dumb stuff when you get a little bit successful uh 10 a.m all right I got where I'm an hour

in how many more about halfway through I don't think I'm gonna go two hours I'll try to go fast

should I go to the Tom sack spaceship exhibit in New York I'm from DC yes go it'll be a fun adventure

um that's from Felix and then Wyatt asks uh do you buy the extended warranty when you get a new camera I feel like a sucker but I tend to break things no but

if you break things get it um just keep track of the paperwork and the receipt and things because I feel like they're going to try to mess with

you if you don't have that Dan oh um he just asked me if I ever dump out a

drawer okay when things are unorganized sometimes one just needs to dump the whole drawer out onto the floor creating a mess to find what they're looking for

do you ever use this approach with storytelling idea creation dumping out all of your thoughts in an unstructured way so that you can find what you're

looking for amidst the mess yes I do I even like I've built a couple like idea machines where you like pick out a little ping pong ball or like a bingo

number thing with an idea written on it and then you just commit you're just like all right this is what I'm making the thing about and then you kind of

rack your brain and do it so yes uh do you have a story oh this is from Nick do you have a story about a time

you made a creative choice that cost you way too much money or other but ended up being worth it I don't really think I do I don't really think I

do have I think I've done those projects but it just I look at them with like kind of regret and being like you're

just being pretentious you're being you were motivated incorrectly by the wrong thing but I guess it has some value

he says do you see the spirit of man as a lifelong project I don't I think I'm gonna put in 10 years and then that'll

be it so eight more years after April um but who knows who knows but that's that's my intention okay starting in the

eighth grade I've taken medication or others from William uh starting in eighth grade I have taken medication regularly for school due to my focus and

impulsivity you mentioned your usage of medication a previous stream and I understand you are not a physician but what do you think of

medicating Youth for attentional and behavioral reasons I only ever took it as an adult I only ever took these things as an

adult like I took Ritalin a very very light dose of Ritalin like 10 milligrams something like this

[Music] um I really I there's this guy that I really like named Patrick Bet David and he has a very successful Channel and podcast but he built this big

um insurance company from scratch and he was a marine and he wasn't he didn't do high enough on the placement exams and

the Marines to do any of the like kind of above average Marine stuff which is to say that he the government

system that's designed to filter out exceptional people right for their for the government's own uses military

or um School Public Schools they're not designed for everything so this guy's an

extremely 60 he's worth hundreds of millions of dollars I think he's worth 400 million dollars he's younger than me and he started an insurance he's an

immigrant too he's from Iran uh and he started this big insurance company and he has this super successful Media

company this you know Channel and podcast and everything and he had he has children and he told this story on his

podcast that the teacher called them in because the kid was being the kid was not focused his son I don't know how old the sun was maybe he was 10 12 something

like this and bet David went in and he just said okay I'm just going to listen and I want to hear their side of the thing I want to hear what they say and

so he listened and of course he was right that's where they steered the whole thing and we think he should be and his simple his response was like

I'm success he didn't say this and he didn't even say this on the podcast but it was essentially I'm like this I'm

like this my son I was like that in school I did not take them I am thousands of times more successful than

you are a teacher so no he's not being put on the medication I mean it's kind of a challenge it's

like I don't I think it's a very big problem it was very rare I knew one person my whole life growing up between zero and college

I knew one person that was on Ritalin and then she told me of another person that was on Ritalin that was there was no adderall at the

time so it was a extremely rare and she was from like a medical family like her father was an oral surgeon so

they knew more stuff than regular people non-medical people would know and yeah I'm not a doctor but I didn't take that stuff I only took it as an

adult and I went years and years decades with in between taking it and not taking it and uh

I mean now it's very helpful because I've refined everything using all of these like coping mechanisms and stuff I've refined everything with like

scheduling and routine and why Keys always go in exactly the same place and I have like on and on and on and on and on and trial

and error and um and yet like I'm up I'm working at such I'm working at such a like

ambitious optimized level that like just the stress of it is like preventing me from holding things in my

brain long enough to like write them down so my psychiatrist was like do it just try it again and the reason I'm

still on it is because there's a service that will deliver it to my house like if I had to go every month because you only because it's it's like a controlled

substance or whatever if I had to go every month and to the pharmacy and wait in line and and get the thing and like every month have a

meeting with the psychiatrist I mean that's why I stopped taking it for the last 10 years is because forget it it's too much of a hassle but now

that I can do Zoom with my psychiatrist and then he just there's this company called capsule that just delivers it they're delivering it today at noon just

delivers it to my house then I'll take it but I don't know I'm not putting my kid on it no way I'll pull him out of school

I'll homeschool them or whatever I mean just I have like I know a lot of really successful people I know a lot of six of

like hyper successful people and that not one of them was did well in school I mean they did

okay in school but not one of them was like an Ivy Leaguer I don't know any successful ivy league people it's not it's just because I don't know

very many ivy league people because there aren't very many ivy league people in the ivy league people that I've like come across they're either like

off the [ __ ] Spectrum with intelligence right um

actually I should take that back I knew two ivy league people who are very very successful but they're unbelievably smart

they never needed ritalin or Adderall or whatever are they like skipped grades and like skipped like 11th grade you

know 10th grade um so I don't know I think it makes it much more convenient for the teachers

and stuff that the kids are all drugged and they sit there because the kids are maniacs uh

[Music] oh I find Sax's description of Adderall interesting as something dangerous and that should only be used recreationally but how

but also how members of the studio got over it through routine repetitive work yeah you can also do

you know if you have attention problems you can work on really repetitive routine work and just sort of strengthen those neural Pathways I think

um now so m grun do you have any advice for someone who

wants to find their own kind of expression so they don't fully give in to their fanboyism and start copying you and Tom sacks

uh I already made my own Victorinox champ and bought a series of spray paint similar to those in the colors video

um it's very hard not to copy people that you whose work you really really connect with and you really really love it's

really hard not to copy them and I think it's okay to go through a phase where you're copying but there's

like a it's very hard to articulate but like what you're copying

is important like counterfeiting I think is okay but not counterfeiting and passing it off as your own like counterfeiting and passing it off as you know somebody else's

I think that's obviously Superior than counterfeiting and passing it off on your own and then also

okay so this so if you were this is okay if you were to copy like Quentin Tarantino right

what you would want to copy is that he or Wes Anderson sort of similar

what you would want to copy from this person is that they rather than like life experience their movies are

comprised of the movies like thousands and thousands of movies

they're Tarantino and Anderson's work is comprised of little tiny little details from thousands and thousands of movies

that they loved even like story lines like the storyline of

um the Wes Anderson film The Royal Tenenbaums Anderson himself said he sort of lifted from the this I think it's

north Orson Welles film called The Magnificent Ambersons about like child geniuses right who grew up

but you wouldn't want to copy and then there's also generally speaking you don't want to

make a non-episotic gangster film with Snappy dialogue

that has Surfer music in it like Pulp Fiction like you don't copy to that degree

I think you just sort of copy like process maybe I think that's fair game

and then you have to decide for yourself and learn for yourself do you really have

something to say do you really have something to say or do you just want to be cool do you just want to make cool things like such and such made because

such and such gets hot women and gets to stay in fancy hotels and you know they give lectures to big rooms of people

like what are you in it for and um maybe you don't have something to say

but if you love the thing so much you just keep doing the thing over and over again until it gets you into so much trouble that you get out of the

trouble and you you know you develop as a human being and then all of a sudden boom you do have something to say and I think that was a lot of my

development was I didn't really have anything to say and lucky for me I grew up you know when I grew up and I'm a Gen X guy and it was

like we were really conditioned to not be political and like Paul like

something to say like man it's inequality and people don't and these rich people and this is like really

you're sophisticated enough to make those judgments and you're gonna drag that [ __ ] into your art and you're gonna I mean what's the difference between that and a propaganda

so I don't know I think you got to know what you want to say and if you do have something to say and

you need to steal other people's techniques and processes to say your thing that might be okay but if you're

just doing it because it's cool and you really like like cameras or something I don't know just

make it a hobby just have to be a hobby and get a job and like I don't know but

um yeah but I think it's having said that I think it's a really good exercise when you're starting out to to copy people

and see how things are done you know make a frame for frame remakes of stuff is like a really great creative

exercise uh Bastion what do you think about showing your son in your videos

it's a big dilemma ah I think I'm gonna stop doing it because he's gonna uh

uh he's not gonna look much different in the future when he was little you know you grow up and you look different and you won't be recognizable so

a lot of times I do it so that I can spend time with him like I want to spend that time with him and I don't have the time to spend unless I'm making the video

so I don't know I'm I there's these people who are who who like homeschool their kid and their kids their kids and they

have like entire Channels with like 11 million followers or subscribers and uh you know each video has 60 million views

and it's like an industry I don't really like that

uh Charles uh was curious if you've ever tried computer programming coding and just your general thoughts on the craft for some reason the subset of your

videos remind me of my computer science Pro professors it very explicitly tell us this is how we do things around here where each step has been well thought

out but at the same time coding is quite creative so there's the spouse reminds me of 10 bullets thank you um I took computer science in college

and I grew up sort of with as computers like uh personal computers

which are computers that fit inside your house I grew up with the technology so in the beginning the only way you could use

them was by writing code and I did do that but I had so much trouble with the keyboard and the writing and it was so unbearably tedious

that um I just wasn't interested in it and I had to wait until like The Mouse and the

uh you know GUI with the macintoshes and the the what you see is what you get word processing made it easier than

looking up things in the in the um dictionary you know looking at that spell check made it easier than looking up words in the dictionary so

instead of a typewriter I'd use a computer and then you know if you had to do a second draft boom you didn't have to write it all over again you didn't

have to type it all over again it was just there and you could just change the drafts and that's why I used computers but like I was talking to some I was I

went to this like Think Tank um that I can't talk about but in uh Austin and they were all four

all for generations of this circulum were represented at this conference so there

was a boomer there was gen xers there was Millennials and there was gen Z at this thing

I was talking to this Jack and Z Creator successful creator has a successful Channel 20 whatever 21 years old and

um I hadn't thought of this and I think I've even heard this before but I had until I was talking to this person like on the level because we're peers

he said one thing that he noticed was that for my generation we live in the real world and then the

computers are these devices that we live in that we use within the real world and he said for

his generation for Gen Z he said there he said my life is the digital life in the real world life is just a place

where I get stuff food you know place to sleep whatever and you know we're kind of on Common Ground

at this conference there's a no hierarchy or anything and um that's very significant to me you know

I'm really interested in in in generations and phenomena of generations and the differences between generations

and the significance of being born certain Generations and

I know that programming and coding or whatever like you don't have to type in letters and there's like click and drag

and it's logic and it's really interesting with your brand but like I [ __ ] hate computers I hate

these devices I don't want to do them as a hobby I don't they're a necessary evil in this world and you know I understand uh the

opportunities and the this and though you can do and it's great and I love the things that they are able to do I love that I'm able to talk to you all with a

camera that's the size of a you know it's the size of an exclamation point you know on the cover of the New York

Times and talk to the entire world and I appreciate all that and I love all of that and that's all great and I love

that I can be a filmmaker in my own house and distribute to the world but I don't like the devices through which you

have to do that stuff like it's my least favorite part of the thing I do not like these machines I don't like them

and so they're a necessary evil I have to use them and so I'm not going to really pursue any hobbies or any

interests that require me to put in even more time on these devices I just I'm not interested I'm interested in things

that require no computer whatsoever and um it's it's it's really hard to find that

place for myself like motorcycles driving around playing with my boy going to playgrounds going to the beach going up in the mountains going for runs and

stuff like that is like you know if I had billions of if I had unlimited amount of money I would

never use a computer I wouldn't have a smartphone oh I might have a smartphone so that I could listen to podcasts but that's it I mean I would probably just

have iPod touch or something and uh you know I'd have just the GPS box in my car which is a computer fair enough but I

just have like the old crappy Garmin thing on my link but so that's why I don't do you know that's why I don't do 3D printing that's why I don't do and I

know I mean I'd love to work with people who love that stuff maybe I'd love to work with people who love that stuff and but I'm not like I don't like it it just changes too fast

and it's just a game of ketchup also for the millennial or for the Gen Z's and the and even to the Millennials for some extent and I say this a lot I repeat

this a lot as like y'all haven't had to learn new paradigms all the time like it's been the iMac for 20 years it's

been the touched thing whatever this iPhone thing it's been a touch screen based technology

with the same basically the same operating system for 15 years now you didn't have to do the the next tell you

didn't have to do the T9 on the on the on the Nokia you didn't have to do the um the the the

um the the Blackberry you didn't have to I mean by do I mean learn these os's and learn these things there was this I heard Neil Brennan talking about this

phone that every one of us had and it had like a screen I can't remember what it was called and it was I think it was a Nokia and you'd flip it in the screen flipped and it had a full-size keyboard

on there like each one of those things you had to learn from scratch you had to learn the OS from scratch you had to learn the to do the new like

um address books and all of that stuff and like if you're 25 years old it's just been the iPhone you haven't had to learn

anything you've had to learn the iPhone and then there's been yeah oh well there's this new app yeah that's not a paradigm well there's like you know

Instagram is that old yeah but it's you you touch a thing it opens and you do it's the same logic it's not a paradigm

like it's not a change in Paradigm like has anyone I mean have any of you people out there used a

non-os10 Mac have you ever used os8 I have I've used os3 you know like they're totally different

you know all the icons are different so anyway I don't know I love to rant about technology and yeah I I appreciate all

the things they can do I just don't like the devices I think they're they're gross and they're stupid but I'm old so no I'm sorry I'm not interested in in

coding um although I heard on Colin Samir Colin and Samir they they said that editors are the coders of Storytelling and that's true I agree

because it is kind of like code putting all those little tiny I don't know if any of you guys don't edit there's thousands of little pieces each

one of them has been adjusted in a certain way like even my simple videos that just look very simple and straightforward thousands of little

pieces of audio pieces and video pieces and frames and this and color correction and sound blah blah blah each one has

been hand super sophisticated thing anyway uh subscribing to okay

oh boy how crucial is okay how crucial is prototyping do you document your tests and adjustments

prototyping is like drafts you just it's part of the process it's it's it's uh crucial it can't be avoided really

sometimes you get it the first time I think if you're making something sometimes you get it right the first time sometimes you but like maybe

like this thing I think I got right the first time this little stand but this isn't the first one of these I've made so it's maybe the other one was a

prototype and I don't know but pretty crucial uh do you document your tests and

adjustments not really sometimes but hey van will the ritual video you did with Tom still release

I might I hope so maybe I'll I can convince him to let me release it on my channel I did this series with sax about ritual

um but it's like a Samsung Studio film so I don't know I don't know how we would do it but maybe

uh Perry asks how who does your post-production sound editing mixing I would love to help a fellow spirited man I am accomplished sound editor mixer I

do it and there's not enough time for me to collaborate with it I can't collaborate with someone because um

when I'm done I upload boom there's no room there's no room to collaborate there's no room to like send the vid like how do I send the

thing to you well you just there's Dropbox and then there's okay fine the files are a hundred gigabytes

and so what I'm gonna send you the 100 gigabytes and then you're gonna send it back to me and you're gonna make your changes we're gonna go back and forth now so I'm just doing all myself and

maybe in the future I'll have a more streamlined like production system with somebody who can

who can do that but I just I just go Thing by thing and just that's why nothing's really that perfect

um just that's I'm it's too slow to work with others um and like you can't pay people

to go fast it's like not in their interest to go fast because they're gonna get paid they get paid

for duration I think I don't think you can can you pay people to go [ __ ] you can't because

if you say I don't know it's very very very very difficult to have employees it's very very difficult to work with people okay uh

could you share a story of how you and buck met I don't remember we met through uh

Greg gersten maybe we met on the beach some beach down on uh in like 2019 maybe down on uh and one of those beaches

where you have to climb down like through the woods in Malibu I think that's how we met I don't remember but

he lives up the street uh uh Jonas our minds control our reality do you agree with this statement are you

able to learn about things and finish tasks you have no interest in uh if so how I struggle with being

motivated to do things that aren't up my allity Ally uh our minds control our reality I don't agree with that

statement I'm sorry my mind has nothing to do with the rate of the Sun

the rate of the Earth's orbit around the Sun and you know how many valence electrons like polonium has so no I

don't I don't my or my my mind does not control reality my reality um

foreign yes I am able to learn about things and finish tasks I have no interest in and if so how because if I don't I'll be

jailed or people will get harmed including myself so I have to pay taxes I have to pay bills I have to like

do insurances and emergency rooms and things like that because the consequences are too dire if I do not

and then he says I struggle with being motivated to do things that aren't up my alley yeah I'm I'm the same I struggle I think

that's that's Universal it's hard to do man it's hard to do things

Jordan Peterson has that second book called 12 more rules and one of them is don't do any don't do things that you hate

uh uh but sometimes you just can't get out of it okay Eric hey van subscribing to the ideology of working hard getting you far and knowing that reward for good work is

more work how do you prioritize your workload slash projects I know you write do lists but interested

to know your thought process behind how you categorize the tasks at hand usually I write them down as they could occur to me my tasks I like write them down and

then sometimes I have to rewrite them in order of priority which I find really hard to do and then sometimes I rewrite them into

order of priority and and with the time like 8 30 to 9 30 9 30 to 10 30. that's rare

um and I have a very hard time with I remember taking an intelligence test when I was a kid and they had me

prioritize all of this stuff like they gave you a list of stuff and I think they said okay you're trapped on the moon and you have to get back to the spaceship and you have these items list

them from the most important to the least important so the first couple are obvious like the first one's air you

know um but then after that I just see everything as being equally important and that's one of the things I need I

need help with I need to I need to voice um you know my my uh

uh trouble I need to voice my like process with like I have these eight things to do what should I you know I

run them by Isabelle or whoever and say I have this this and this and then it's like and then when they say it back to me it's so obvious it's like well

before you go to the airport you need to book the car service I was like oh yeah and uh

that's how I think I just run it by people and then practice practice and then routine you know that's one of the blessings of

having a YouTube channel is this you can develop a routine because that you know they really encourage you to be

um consistent with your with your with your with your upload okay Matt Smith MBA I love that you write Matt Smith

comma MBA that I love that okay uh and then he writes you love that AC plywood

but when do you indulge in Baltic Birch ply and the answer is never or if I find

a piece and unknowingly I use it because I feel like there's one piece in there that I have from some scrap that I've

used for stuff but I don't I don't I can't even remember which one the Baltic Birch is

um Tom asked what do you value out of your collaboration with Greg gersten uh

um I'm going into sound tracking sound design and I'm curious about your working together how you communicate and achieve such congruence between sound

and image well Gray's a very special person and um I mean I haven't talked to him in so

long I really need to call him um I think one of the things that he makes

him very very effective is he gives me like pieces of of music so he separates them into like I think they call them

stems maybe so he'll do like say he made a song called like ferris wheel he'll be give me like ferris wheel

with all of the stems and then he'll do like Ferris wheel base Ferris wheel guitars Ferris wheel I

don't know synths and then I can it allows me to like make put them where

I want them to go and it allows me to um but I think yeah give give the most

option but I don't know everybody works differently I don't know I don't know how to work with these teams of people

and then some people just expect a complete score I think it depends uh I hope you're still able to keep work

Life Family balance this is from h p it seems you do incredible amount of prepping for anything you decide to tackle

uh your videos messages have helped me greatly in my latest pursuit to short format telling

storytelling I will share my first video one day soon I think it's good enough you have lots of questions to answer already cheers incredible

uh I like Tony Robbins says it's not work life balance it's work life integration and I think that that's kind

of the key although I try to keep the weekend my weekends work free so I can spend the time like helping my family out

um uh Hair W house B hey van you've mentioned that you have

been to Berlin before and I keep spotting the VHS tapes from Berlin in your intros there are many types

it's my hometown and I'm really curious about your experience in Berlin are you planning to explore other countries in Europe anytime soon maybe together with

your son I'm not I'm not planning I don't have any plans to go to Europe although I love it um

I do get like uh urges to go because it's so beautiful and nice and it's very intuitive I find you're very intuitive

and I find the parts of Europe that I really like to function very well the trains come on time the you know the

service is good um maybe not the restaurant service but like the other kinds of service people

at hotels are like nice to you and um but no I don't have plans I'll take my

son to Paris soon you know when he's old maybe when he's five in a year uh Timothy

oh he wants me to talk about the oh this is the last one he asked me about the Greg Gerson method and I just answered

it all right 93 minutes thank you 25 all 25 of you who watch this

and uh have a good week it's not the weekend and I'm waiting to hear back from one of my sponsors from a sponsor

from ecoflow as to whether or not uh uh they're happy with uh what I made

with their ad that I put in the uh in the video so it should go up today I

should have the new video up today which is a really cool one about uh resentment versus gratitude that I made with Tom

sacks um all right guys have a good week hang in there thank you

Products & Tools Mentioned

• Stanley (tape measure) uses — tape measure with 'Stanley Kubrick is dead' sticker from Tom Sachs
• Liquitex Basic Acrylics uses — paint used in studio
• Uniball Signo pen uses — pen used for writing
• Pentel Presto jumbo correction pens uses — correction tool
• GoPro uses — camera discussed
• Insta360 mentions — 360 camera discussed
• Home Depot mentions — hardware store referenced
• Klein (wire strippers) uses — electrical tool brand
• Ecoflow mentions — sponsor - portable power station
• Capsule (pharmacy delivery) mentions — pharmacy service mentioned
• Volkswagen diesel mentions — vehicle discussed
• Audi convertible mentions — vehicle discussed
• Honda Civic Type R mentions — car discussed, 320hp

People Referenced

David Lynch, Casey Neistat, Tom Sachs, Oxana Todorova, Jack Conte, Ari Shaffir, Patrick Bet-David, Adam Curtis, Bill Burr, Jordan Peterson, Chloe Zhao, Steven Spielberg, Wes Anderson, Owen Wilson, Glenn O'Brien

Books Mentioned

• Blink
• Sculpting in Time
• 12 More Rules

Films & Media Referenced

• film discussed and praised
• film discussed
• film discussed
• film discussed
• film discussed
• film discussed
• film discussed
• film discussed
• film discussed
• film discussed
• documentary discussed
• film discussed
• comedy special discussed

Related Videos

• LIVESTREAM Friday, September 8, 9am PDT
• LIVESTREAM #5 March 11, 2022 9:00am PST
• LIVESTREAM, FRIDAY, 10.07.22 9am PDT
• LIVESTREAM #7 Friday, April 8, 9am PDT
• LIVESTREAM FRIDAY, 1.28.22