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Show creators Ken Volante (Creator and Host) and Peter Bauer (Editor and Producer) have a fun conversation that will let you know what THINGS you will see in 2023!

We hope you enjoy this conversation and that some of the bigger ideas inspire you in your ART and LIFE.

ONE LOVE!

Check out Peter's work

Flaming Bison- Freeform Cosmic Groove: https://flamingbison.bandcamp.com/

 https://youtu.be/NJGdcKfgyp8

High Cascade Lakes- Guided Meditations: https://highcascadelakes.bandcamp.com/album/anicca

Something (rather than nothing) thanks you.

SRTN WEBSITE

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Transcript

Introduction to 'Something Rather Than Nothing'

00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host, Ken Zalante. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer.

Recording in Eugene and Podcast Growth

00:00:17
Speaker
This is Ken Vellante with Peter Bauer. Get to something rather than nothing podcast and we are sitting together in the fantastic track and field town, great university town, Eugene, Oregon. Peter, great to see you and welcome to the show directly onto the show, Peter.
00:00:39
Speaker
Yeah, thanks, Ken. Welcome to Warbling Creek Studios, studio in my house. Last time we were together here, I don't know, it was about halfway back through the show, episode 70-something, I think, maybe about two years ago. We've been at the show for a while. We're friends, we're co-workers, and we connect on, it's a pretty cool podcast that
00:01:05
Speaker
I've been working on for a while here. So happy to have you actually in person and not just through the screens, but sitting on a couch. Yeah. And relaxing and hanging out. Yeah, cool. Yeah. Well, it's welcome. It's great. It's great folks to talk to Peter directly and for the show.

International Guests and Podcast Popularity

00:01:27
Speaker
Been at the show for almost four years as far as recording Talking to artists and the show officially being released in out and places over three and a half years 167 episodes at present 46,000 downloads and
00:01:48
Speaker
So like really looking at and we've been talking about this like the energy around art and around what we're doing in particular on the podcast as a project. As a arts organizing project maybe arts incubator not maybe arts incubator and thinking about art and maybe looking at putting it resources into art but
00:02:12
Speaker
Shit, at the heart of the show is excellent, excellent artist guests. So it's a really exciting thing to do. And top 10% podcasts in the world. And we're just doing what we should do in this format, I think. Yeah, that was a cool text message that you sent me a couple of weeks ago. And we got that Spotify wrapped.
00:02:39
Speaker
year in review, and it was interesting to see some of the reach of the show and the way that it's grown, and particularly the number of countries that the show is streamed and listened in. We've had a number of international guests over the life of the show so far, and so it's really neat to see it's beyond just us here in the rainy Pacific Northwest, but there's actually
00:03:05
Speaker
a global community of guests and listeners for the show. I mean, even if you look at Indigenous guests on the show, we've had over 20 nations of Indigenous guests and guests from Greece, Turkey, Ireland, Scotland, Britain, Canada, a few guests from Canada and from some of the First Nations.
00:03:29
Speaker
Canada. So that's a piece that I really like and I saw the weird stat that we're fifth most popular arts podcast in Denmark. Okay. So every once in a while you get subject to these email updates that are just that they fascinate me to know in but we can club around and just you know get to that top spot in Denmark which is one of our beloved countries as well. I have some Danish heritage in my background. I think it's a good thing.
00:03:57
Speaker
Yeah, my great-great-grandfather was Hans-Peter Hansen. Hans-Peter Hansen. Yeah, so that's where Peter comes from. Yeah. Many stories. Yeah. Many stories for Hans-Peter. Yeah, from Copenhagen. Copenhagen.
00:04:12
Speaker
But starting the year out hot with Black Belt Eagle Scout first podcast in 2023.

Upcoming Guest: Black Belt Eagle Scout

00:04:21
Speaker
And she'd been trying to get Black Belt Eagle Scout on the show for a while and it's going to happen. And she's incredible. And you hear some of her music on reservation dogs.
00:04:33
Speaker
Rutherford Falls, other movies, but she's got a new album in World Tour coming out. We're also local, Pacific Northwest. So I don't know, I know when I mentioned that one to you, Black Belt Eagle Scout, I mentioned to other people, it's like super exciting if you're down with Black Belt Eagle Scout. Yeah, it's very good.
00:04:53
Speaker
It's it's it's a great it's a great one recently having Sharon Nova who said my brightest diamond her music project, but she does a lot of stuff as far as Composing singing and being part of on psalms for popular music some folks would have encountered her in the December's work hazards of love and the the live tour which
00:05:22
Speaker
I explained the shower on the show is like the, one of the unique questions to be able to ask is how is it that you sing in such a way that I get

Concert Experience: Sharon Nova

00:05:30
Speaker
goosebumps? Like what is happening? Physiologically for that to occur in order to talk to somebody who produces that effect. Yeah. In that experience, I had the pleasure of seeing that show with my wife. I, when they came through Eugene, they performed at McDonald theater and certainly some of her passages were
00:05:52
Speaker
you know, some of the emotional high notes of that first act or that first set that they put on. And in our own family, it's funny that album specifically is known to my children as the scary forest music. Yeah, because when we when we drive from Eugene to Bend or Eugene to the coast and we have to go through
00:06:11
Speaker
the forest and the mountain ranges, we tend to lose cell service. Yeah. So that's one of the, uh, the standby albums that's either on CD in our car or, you know, that live version, we picked it up on vinyl a year or so ago when it came out.
00:06:24
Speaker
But they have this almost a verse reaction to it because of that power that you're talking about, that ability to sort of sonically evoke something. Somebody singing from the woods at me. They probably look like the woods in Oregon. I'm driving through scary forest music.
00:06:43
Speaker
scary forest music core scene, right? That we like dropping. That's a good description, hey, from the mouth of babes, right? That's right. That's about as accurate a description of that you can get.

Ambitions for 2023

00:06:58
Speaker
So anyways, with the show going into the new year, I have a lot of big goals as far as, you know, one of the ways to
00:07:08
Speaker
measure podcasts the way that they're done and RSS feeds happen is downloads, which I don't know, modern era, it won't tell you.
00:07:17
Speaker
won't tell you about the quality of the philosophy in the show or won't tell you everything about the show, but as a tangible indicator that some people, something's happening and people are listening. It's the measure. So one of the things, uh, thinking about is getting to, you know, where we move it towards 50,000 at the end of 2023 to double, uh, you know, that just that number and look at a six figure, a hundred thousand four.
00:07:46
Speaker
uh having a big goal but also being an independent podcast right you know you and i plug it in together put in the hours that we do but with others too as like an arts community and we've always taken the podcast seriously but i think there's a way that you do anything and when you're creating something is where you dream bigger and you say
00:08:11
Speaker
What exactly is stopping us from connecting with these artists or having a festival or producing a label? I mean, we've done print.

Indie Nature and Art Engagement

00:08:21
Speaker
There's a podcast scene issue number two, all indigenous, coming out at the beginning of 23. So we think about print and we think about video and just thinking expansively. I mean, if you're in the arts and if you're not thinking expansively, you know?
00:08:39
Speaker
Yeah there's certainly I feel you know just in the way that we talk about it a momentum around the show and when I think about. There's different opportunities that we have to engage with each other around this some of the cross collaboration maybe in promoting a show or talking about a show some of the things that are created around that.
00:09:01
Speaker
have a very organic and fun feel. And I think that's part of the indie thing that we're doing here. This is very much you and I doing it for fun because these are the questions that are intriguing and really the guests that are interesting, not just to us, but maybe in a broader conversation about
00:09:21
Speaker
You know what art is and what the hell we're doing in life. What are we doing here? Well, I think I think there's a particular thing even like recording in a certain format like the street cast with Death Valley girls, you know, like, I mean, I know you and I were tripping on that, uh, like great energy. Like at that time I felt.
00:09:42
Speaker
You know anytime you work on something it feels like labor at times because you know you're working and I was really looking for like kind of kinetic energy like at the end of the summer being like what is you know let's tap into a live performance or let's tap into talking to somebody before they go on the stage so speaking with Bonnie Bloomgarden

Live Performances and Interviews

00:10:06
Speaker
and um in sammy uh before that show was fun because it wasn't all the you know what's our it's being like we're popping on the show like what's cool where are we standing yeah you know like there's an immediacy to it yeah we just bullshit and and then um you know they were so great live inside and just really just took a bootleg recording i just feel the energy even listened to that episode with them um because it's like
00:10:34
Speaker
as an individual participant in a show, I just can go back and experience that in a very particular, very discreet and unique way because we recorded and made the damn thing, right? That's right. Otherwise, it's a great experience. I think that's part of the momentum is that participation in not just the interview, but then
00:10:56
Speaker
seeing friends at a show, checking out a gallery opening, watching a screening. There's all these ways that that connection is built and continues to spread. And I think that's the arts organizing piece that you were talking about. And I know you and I both spend a lot of time thinking about the connection we have
00:11:17
Speaker
You know, each time a show comes out, potentially that's going to a new community of listeners. We have so many interesting sub-genres, you know, within our show. Of course, there's the indigenous piece that you mentioned. Some baseball. Baseball, the metal scene. A little bit. Look at that metal there. Painters. Burlesque dancers. Burlesque filmmakers. Yes. Opera. Yeah.
00:11:45
Speaker
introducing a lot of interesting ideas to a lot of folks that I think probably have more in common than they recognize. And then we have a longer form philosophy episode dropped in there, just to keep it fresh. Keep it honest. Keep it back to our roots, right? Keep it honest. Keep the academy happy, right? Yeah, this is so interesting. The way that this show has grown, the types of people who listen to the show, the places that they're from,
00:12:13
Speaker
And then the way that we interact with the art and the artist after the show happens, I think is kind of freeing up how I think about the show and just the way that, you know, each episode in some ways is a time capsule, right?

Platform for Artists

00:12:29
Speaker
For some guests, it might be their first interview. Sure. That's really interesting.
00:12:33
Speaker
For other guests, it might be the longest interview they gave of the year, right? At 30 or 45. And every once in a while, somebody, if they're in an interview, they'll be like, what's up with this fucking podcast? It could be anything. They can make anybody have whatever experience they have with it. Yeah. And just the way that it moves through time, there's sort of an evergreen nature, I think, to
00:12:56
Speaker
the questions and the creative process. But it's certainly been exciting to watch some of the folks that we've had on as guests continue to accelerate in their respective fields. It's really exciting because I get excited. I mean, there's part of an enthusiasm to the show that I think on the outside, you could say, well,
00:13:18
Speaker
I mean, I do get excited about all these things, but I think, you know, it might on the outside be like, you're excited about all this, you know, all this type of stuff. And I am because, uh, who's it a curiosity, but I really like to see in advocate in a certain way for the artists themselves. Seeing like, uh, Mitra Mitchell, who we've had on the show, who ever since I first saw her painting, I really think I look at Mitra Mitchell and say, you know,
00:13:47
Speaker
mention her name in places around the world and people would know the reference type of level of art. And then just seeing her get in the gallery and really be seen. And just hearing just yesterday, she has a funded one-year project within painting that uses live actors and uses elements of theater with the painting. This was just this morning. But just seeing around that, because that excites me and excites seeing what somebody's like,
00:14:17
Speaker
You know, it's fun to hit it. It's fun to get that thing. It's fun to have that song that people are singing. It's fun to be that painting where people are looking and being like, how the fuck did

Authenticity in Art

00:14:27
Speaker
you do that? It's a great, you know, and seeing that and being around that in the sense of community is exciting, something to celebrate, and the show's connected to it in the sense of part of the community, right? Yeah, there's such a cool mix, I think, in the different types of guests that we have.
00:14:45
Speaker
Um, particularly folks that are maybe just starting out or, or, you know, you can see that they're about, about to break, you know, or about to be exposed to a much wider audience because the quality of the, the, the, whatever it is they're producing is so, you know, next level. Um, but maybe not, you know, it doesn't have the reach yet or hasn't been exposed to the right, you know,
00:15:11
Speaker
conglomeration of an audience to really spread. Well, I think there's something within in doing the show, too, is there's these accessibility to the questions. The questions are the net. You being an artist and a creator is the net to bring folks in. So you can bring a wide assemblage of people because of that, because you're asking a question around
00:15:38
Speaker
around creativity. But I think what's best about that is the remarkable and varied answers you get, particularly when we're dealing with some polymaths on the show who are obviously super talented and have delved into the big questions we asked in different fields, whether it be architecture, music, design, fashion. I mean, they have gone deep into that. And
00:16:06
Speaker
you get different answers, right? I mean, earlier, before we get on, you had mentioned things about, I think it was from the Brian Eno cards, mechanized, the idiosyncrasy. I was talking about when things develop or there are revolution or there's cool art or there are movements, it's deep idiosyncrasy, it's deep flashiness or being conspicuous. That is not an extension of the norm.
00:16:35
Speaker
It's not an extension of what you've seen before. So you take notice of that. And I think on the show, whether it's like music or personal display or how people want to boldly present themselves, that's the shit we're down for. Yeah. Like that's the criteria. And then there's also, you know, there's the folks that are, you know, maybe at a more emergent part of their career.
00:17:03
Speaker
And then some really exciting people who are well established, you know, that we've been able to come in contact and interact with, which has been really exciting. Like I'm thinking of the Kitty Craft episode. Yeah. Yeah. Pam Valfer. Really exciting. That's what I was talking about, about architecture and learning a lot about museums and space. And, you know, you never know.
00:17:24
Speaker
You never know what you're going to run

Engaging Audiences through Instagram Live

00:17:26
Speaker
into. You never know who the podcast scene of the show was been in the secret election. Avizia Dikini in a secret ballot that had only, I think, eight or nine electors, but 142 votes for Avizia. So there's some irregularities there, but overwhelmingly the patron scene. And the voice of the show from Dublin, Rachel Lally, gonna be having
00:17:54
Speaker
her and poet artist Jeff Finan on Instagram live. So we're doing Instagram live. Okay. Vanessa Stockard, beloved artist from Australia. And I refer to them as the Irish, the primarily the Irish folks that I know through the show. And so we can have them on Instagram live. But there's a piece to the show that I know
00:18:25
Speaker
Whether it's because of time or how we present the show and how accessible that it is, there's something about the vulnerability for myself or for the show or of being live that I want to jump into so people can be like, I want to ask Vanessa a goofy question. I want to ask her about cats. And I want to hear a poetry performance from Dublin.
00:18:50
Speaker
uh you know i want to see these type of things so i think it'll add a this wide array and if you think about the component that you've been encouraging peter around um video um a little behind on production of that but you know in the near term video
00:19:06
Speaker
video podcast with Blair Borax. That's right. And live performance. Live performance there. And recently an upcoming show in the new year of Rebecca Mills from New York. Very talented, very talented visual artist. So basically more ways to use some of the energy that's out there.
00:19:32
Speaker
And just recognizing the different ways that folks access the show, the different channels, the way that they can connect to it. I know certainly for podcasts that I listen to, I enjoy seeing little YouTube clips where it's maybe two or three minutes.
00:19:49
Speaker
I end up watching enough of those and I think, oh, I should just listen to this whole episode, you know, here I am piecemeal again. It's an intimacy that's nice. But being able to, you know, I appreciate sort of the longer nature of this show and how we can range a little more, but it is also nice to pull out little ideas or moments that really stand out. And I think the live performance, particularly for our, you know, singer-songwriter types is really exciting. Yeah. And as we've discussed it for our visual artists,
00:20:19
Speaker
brings another dimension to the conversation. And it's one thing for me to picture
00:20:25
Speaker
an artist's studio, it's another for them to turn and hold up to the camera. No, but it's this blue, do you understand that? Make it easy for me. I think about that a lot and I know, I tried to do it even just recently and I had mentioned talking about Rebecca Mills who's a visual artist and you have to see her outer space depictions, you have to see mermaids.
00:20:53
Speaker
you know, just trying to facilitate ways to come into contact with the art. And actually, there's a whole bunch of the show like as serious as the questions are. I mean, there's something goofy about asking super serious questions to people you don't know that that well, there's something like really strange about that experience. But I've always felt at the heart of it is just like,

Art's Role in Healing and Self-Discovery

00:21:14
Speaker
It establishes a connection and for me, I think there's an absurdity to it all. I think there's a great, fun absurdity in art of asking, you know, what are you doing as an artist or like asking those type of questions and maybe a disruptive element to just kind of
00:21:31
Speaker
as you ask those serious questions you realize you're laughing you realize there's some jokes some absurdity and At the essence probably are am I having fun creating this stuff, right? Like am I enjoying my life? creating and performing and if not like maybe what adjustments do I want to make you know if I ask myself why am I doing this because some I
00:21:57
Speaker
guy out in Oregon, some show out in Oregon asked like, why do you create art? And I really started to think about that. That could help. Like in the sense of being like, that prompted me to realize that I wanted the sculpt rather than do what I was doing. So you don't know where it's gonna go. It's, I think that's pretty open-ended. Yeah. Well, how else, we talked about the zine. We talked about Instagram live.
00:22:26
Speaker
Talked about the video component. What other ways are coming up in 2023 that listeners and maybe guests have a way to interact and participate? Yeah, another great idea from Peter. Peter is an idea generator and editor and producer of the show.
00:22:44
Speaker
working on a Patreon as a system that I have personally on Patreon, you know, directly supported artists. Mark Palm, a guest we've had on who I love Mark Palm, probably one of the biggest Mark Palm fans out there, Mark J. Palm, he's supporting his art, getting things in the mail that are zines and sketches.
00:23:06
Speaker
um getting content uh in in photography or songs or early content so being around that and seeing what patreon does there's a component of the show that we've been talking about you and i peter of

Supporting Emerging Artists

00:23:21
Speaker
you know, generating funds and money and contributions to support the making and expansion of the show. Yes. Because it is worthy for those things. But even thinking really big, a big idea when it comes to offering more or having special, honestly, treats, art treats for those who support the Patreon.
00:23:49
Speaker
but creating things like art grants. Since the show does reach internationally, and we bring folks in from many different communities around the world, how is it that we find, you know, in terms of a micro-grant, the 19-year-old young artist, you know, who's able to get, you know, a request to us or a grant request to us that,
00:24:17
Speaker
you know, maybe the art wouldn't happen without it and, you know, thinking smaller amounts, but something that gets the supplies, that gets the canvas, that gets the basic equipment that's needed and helps to generate that art. And I think when it comes to the show and the community around it and the idea of investing in arts, I think that's exciting. And I think that's expansionist in the way of thinking about what art can do because
00:24:45
Speaker
If I keep going and interviewing and we keep working on this and one of the big things that I'm trying to figure out is how we use art to help heal, to grow, to have a better perspective, to be ourselves, that's kind of like the foundational aspects of society. Yeah, seems to certainly be a recurring theme in our show. Yeah. Is people talking about
00:25:15
Speaker
you know, art as healing both for self and for others. And yeah, this idea that we can sort of as a community start developing emerging artists globally, I think is a really exciting idea or thought immediately makes me want to think about, you know, doing like a short interview before they start a project, maybe. Yeah.
00:25:42
Speaker
Let's see the wrap-up. What is this thing? What is this thing? What was the short film that you were able to produce? How did the opening go? What did the demo sound like? If you had twice the amount of money, what have you done that you ran into as far as a material type of piece? Just thinking about it. To me, that's the most exciting part about thinking about the community within and around the show.
00:26:11
Speaker
is not just exposing each other to new ideas and perspectives and points of view, but actually investing in each other to further develop the really cool things that are
00:26:23
Speaker
you know, that want to happen that there are, you know, maybe some nominal barriers that are preventing something great from being started. Yeah.

Philosophical Questions in Podcasting

00:26:32
Speaker
And so it's that, you know, for me personally, that sense of wonder, you know, what could be what will be. Well, and the roots of my thinking in creating a show, I've mentioned Amanda Palmer's book, The Art of Asking, which is I mentioned it to a lot of people as being
00:26:50
Speaker
deeply influential of doing and asking, asking folks to do things, asking them to go on to an interview, asking them about their art. And I think that's a huge way to think about what you can do because you can ask the question and somebody says yes to an idea that you thought was outlandish and they wish to connect with.
00:27:14
Speaker
then it starts to become real. And I think that was the piece in Amanda Palmer that was most important like being bold and saying I'd like to do this and
00:27:26
Speaker
The question not asked conundrum, right? You know, the question not asked is never answered where you can at least learn by saying, Hey, would you like to do this? No, I don't know you. I don't know you. And these are strange questions and I don't know what a podcast is or yeah. Hells to the yeah. And we don't have to, we don't have to mention them by name, but I'm always excited when we get a firm no.
00:27:49
Speaker
from someone's publicist. I love firm, I love firm notes. It makes me think, well maybe they, maybe the public is listening to it. There's too much mystery, there's too much mystery in the world. Yeses and firm noes. Yeah, so I, and that's something that we've talked about too is sort of.
00:28:05
Speaker
almost as a tenant going after rejection and seeking it and being surprised when there's a yes. I worry there's one piece about it because part of my habit I think if I explain to you is like after I make an invite I erase that I made the invite because I don't want to come in contact with and have my mind be like
00:28:30
Speaker
why haven't they gotten back to me? I'd rather just do it. It's important to send out, but it's not important for me to chase or think about. So to any guests out there who haven't been on the show, but do listen that I've invited two or three times. Apologies for that. Apologies for that. That is the primary and only reason I think you had been multiple.
00:28:53
Speaker
I would not see the last message I sent. Coming back, you know it would be a good guess. You've asked me before and I'm still afraid of getting on a microphone. But no, it's just kind of like always asking, right? When you study philosophy with your mind, Peter, thinking about the big questions,
00:29:21
Speaker
Big questions can be annoying and they could throw you off a little bit. Or I know I've asked folks what is art and they've waited a long time for somebody to listen to them for five minutes, five seconds, 10 minutes. And that's cool. That's cool to be heard and be able to riff on something and be like, shit. Oh, now I know why I'm doing it.
00:29:52
Speaker
Yeah. You said it or you thought it as you were saying it. Yeah. It's creating that space to analyze and examine it and interrogate some of those maybe bigger questions that don't make it into a, you know, 15 second sound bite.
00:30:08
Speaker
Yeah. And just the way that sort of the format of the show allows for bigger thoughts and for thoughts. Well, I don't want the 15 to 30 second sound bite for our audio clip, but yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're in there. They're in there. And they're gold. Yeah. And there's a richness, I think, to this format that if it suits you, it can be rewarding.

Podcast Growth and Cultural Impact

00:30:35
Speaker
Well, it's interesting, I think, like, because I follow industry news on podcasting, it's interesting to produce something and, you know, what feels like as far as investments in it growing and ad revenue, all those indicators, you know, economic indicators, it's hugely expansionist in the sense of
00:30:54
Speaker
money being put into an advertising and accessibility. I mean, I think if you look at the accessibility, us, you and I putting together this podcast, and honestly, in general, from what I've seen being catered to in customer service from
00:31:08
Speaker
Our distributors, podcast vehicles, whether it be Apple, Spotify, Pandora, all the places you can find the show is that they put a lot of customer service into somebody producing content for free that is of good quality. And that allows you to get it out there. It allows you to get it to that larger audience.
00:31:36
Speaker
So there's a lot of resources, a lot of thinking, there's a lot of jokes about podcasts, any new form, right? You listen to podcasts, some podcasts are super annoying. I mean, it's like people putting themselves on a microphone. If you don't like somebody, then you don't know why they're riffing on this, but they're riffing on this because of this. Yeah, there can be a very, I mean, it's a range, right? But sometimes it can feel very much like a local cable access channel.
00:32:04
Speaker
And maybe that's where we fit into that. I don't know. I have such fond memories of that in college and undergrad. Well, we love those things. Yeah. I didn't have a lot of channels. We had like the free channels, which were the ones that sell you knives and coins and home goods. Yeah. And then the C-SPAN channels.
00:32:24
Speaker
Well, I've you bring up, unfortunately, you bring up these things like the the cable footage stuff, you know, with the found footage channel on YouTube. Unfortunately, there's a rise in counterculture that I've become in contact with in the Pacific Northwest around VHS and the found Boston found media and madcap performances at eleven thirty and, you know,
00:32:52
Speaker
Bristol, Rhode Island cable access, you know, 1987. There's some treasures in these places and there's some catalogers. Yeah, I don't know. So maybe there's a connection for me for, you know, as a child always wanting to be on.
00:33:10
Speaker
wondering what it would be like to be on cable access. Do a magic show. Yeah, who's this guy doing their weekly magic show every Sunday at 10.30 and thinking like this is just a guy, this is a person who's maybe at work somewhere right now, you know, sitting behind a desk. I'll just go up there, I'll get it, I'll put in the proposal, get my own baba buoy, right? And I'll just roll from there, I mean.
00:33:34
Speaker
Well, that's, so anyways, but no, but within the industry, just talking about the industry, it's, you know, it's growing a whole bunch and this and that's happened and there's investments, there's, um, conglomeratization. I don't know what that, right? That's a big word. That word, the big one where they all squish together.
00:33:52
Speaker
But uh, you know, there's bad trends and good trends, right? It's a it's a it's a accessible format in a concentrated capitalist possibly late capitalist model which will give us uh our royal podcasts in our obama podcast god bless them all and uh other people trying to
00:34:14
Speaker
You know, whether it's whatever they wish to say or what they want to do. But it is an accessible field right now and you can't say that a lot for a lot of places. That's right. I think that's what's cool about
00:34:35
Speaker
I think that's what's cool about podcasts and there is that democratic element and that you can produce something and see if it sinks or swims. Absolutely. Out there so and there's also the the in the pandemic.
00:34:51
Speaker
Oh my gosh. You know, crystallize this.

Podcasting During the Pandemic

00:34:54
Speaker
We were already there on a rudimentary level, but the ability to eliminate geographic space as a barrier to access, both for the listener, but especially for the guest, makes it a very exciting time to be working in this format specifically because you're not limited to who's in your town, right? Or who's coming through your town.
00:35:21
Speaker
But the way that we can think about the interests of us as producers at the show, but also the interests of the listeners and the various different ways that that takes shape.
00:35:39
Speaker
I think with the pandemic, we're able to do, you know, continue to do the show. I look at like because most of the shows were produced in like pandemic times and you can hear it within the show. I mean, I don't know what the it is. I think like that there was a pandemic going on, that there were questions about, you know, the pandemic or what pandemics do in the art or the fact that you couldn't perform, you know, over over time and just really just
00:36:06
Speaker
being able to continue to produce through that, because I think you might not have been able to produce for that because of physical limitations of what you're trying to create, or the fact that you were ill in a pandemic, or the fact that the outcroppings of that pandemic affected you mentally, or the COVID itself. There's a lot of fallout that we're still seeing.
00:36:31
Speaker
a lot of the show being produced within that and then seeing it kind of transition back out. But it's interesting because
00:36:41
Speaker
the show landed big guests early on, like in my head, you know what I mean? Like, like though we were learning like a ton of stuff, like as we were going along at the beginning, you know, we had a big artist from, you know, the UK for the first show, like Hannah Hall doing like incredibly intellectually challenging projects. We had Anya Khan early on, we had Vanessa Stockard, you know, like early on. So we came at it and I think we were like, like,
00:37:10
Speaker
strutting the strut a little bit as far as having the big yes, but definitely finding our footing and then the pandemic being like, what do you do? Labor is asking what to do at the beginning of that.
00:37:22
Speaker
I was like, am I going to die? Are we going to die? How long is this going to go on? Everybody going to lose their job? What the hell is going to go on? And then it's like, no, we can still create through this.

Technological Advancements in Podcasting

00:37:36
Speaker
Right. And the technology around that creation. The technology, which has improved. And we use Zencast, or now, as you know, high quality video, high quality audio, WAV files.
00:37:48
Speaker
an integrated experience and just like where the tools were using in the work that you do in production are just
00:37:56
Speaker
we can produce something pretty cool, we think. Yeah. Yeah. Especially, you know, from a home studio. Uh, I remember when I was first getting into playing in bands and recording and probably like 2004, 2005, uh, I, I sort of sketched out what I, you know, hope to achieve as far as, you know, microphones and gear and what I could afford. Yeah. And, uh, you know,
00:38:23
Speaker
17 years since then, 18 years, the bar to accessibility is so much lower to have the tools to produce something that's interesting.

Peter's Contributions and Music Projects

00:38:35
Speaker
But the tools and the technology is one thing, but it's sort of like the spice of the show. It's the flavor, it's the feel, it's the vibe.
00:38:42
Speaker
That that's the magic to me, right? So yeah, that's what the tools and technology are helpful but there's something cool about these questions and these guests and these listeners that The combination of that at least this year has felt different than the past two years. We've been doing this Yeah, so everybody Peter is
00:39:04
Speaker
Peter has a very fascinating background. He has a lot of skills that he brings to the show. He's an educator in editing and producing the show, incredible ear, musician himself, drums, and guitar. You play bass, too? Yeah. Bass. So he plays all those things. But one of the pieces is that Peter's hands are
00:39:30
Speaker
your hands are on each show and you help even on what some of the live performances, making those live performances sound the best in the work that you do. And I know when we first started the show, I would have to say we both had to be at a nascent period of way of thinking about doing
00:39:52
Speaker
art big and being the artist because you were thinking about things with music. You've been a musician. You've done a lot of things. You've painted. You've done a lot of artistic expression. You've been an artist. But at the point in starting the show where I'm like, hey, I want to start this podcast, you're just kind of loopy enough. And I knew that already. Be like, yeah, I'll help you out with it. And be like, all right, now you're hooked in.
00:40:14
Speaker
Um, and you do a lot of musical projects. So what like, you know, for you, Peter, like in kind of like, you know, developing your music and some of the other projects that are very much based on, um, sound, natural sound, mindfulness.
00:40:31
Speaker
in rock and roll separately, but what are you edging into? Yeah, I've tried to stay busy in the studio on a couple different projects, and I'm certainly hoping to release those in a more proper form. In 2023, we'll see how editing takes shape. The first is a project, Flaming Bison. Flaming Bison. Previously on the show, we'd played a track from our band, Blazer,
00:40:59
Speaker
We've had a reconfiguration of band members similar in the sense that it's long form, free form, improvised, rock and roll, but also different in the sense that we're incorporating
00:41:16
Speaker
a sample pad, a vocoder, a drum machine, and really just trying to expand sound and texture. There's definitely a video component, so maybe in the show notes I'll link to a video that we had done recently.
00:41:35
Speaker
Yeah, you play playing some live. Yeah, we played two shows this year. One in March at a legendary place here in Eugene. It's third incarnation called John Henry's. Yeah. And that was really fun back when they opened in March.
00:41:49
Speaker
And then at Old Nix in June, we played a show. Big shout out to Old Nix. We'll talk a little Nix later. Yeah, yeah. We stunt driver, our guest. Kim Priest. Yeah, that's right. That's how a show came about. Yeah, we just we met there. But anyways, you know that.
00:42:10
Speaker
We practice weekly. We've been recording some stuff recently. And then we'll be looking to play some live shows in 2023. I have, you know, just for fun, like a Wednesday nightclub and a standing invitation to five or six friends.
00:42:27
Speaker
just to drop by on Wednesday night, and it's just a practice recording, so we start with nothing, or maybe an idea, or maybe someone that, you know, hey, I found this riff this week, and I found this beat, or, you know. And then we just use it as a two-hour practice time to have fun, you know, take turns playing different instruments, challenging each other, producing each other, you know, what if you did it this way? What if we tried this sound? You know, let's cut that in half.
00:42:57
Speaker
And so it's a really interesting process of just practicing recording and practicing, you know, how do you serve a song? What does it need? Does it need more guitar? I think it does. I think you know it needs more guitar. Or maybe it doesn't, right? You know, hey, what if we cut the drums out completely here?
00:43:16
Speaker
You know, uh, so that, that's a fun exercise with some people. I know when Peter Swinford, a friend of ours plays, he fills in with the guitar. Yeah. Yeah. There's some, uh, top of there's some, uh, it's a very emotional, uh, very, uh, sort of splatter painting approach where
00:43:36
Speaker
Uh, I think to the uninitiated, it could be, you know, dismissed as that racket, you know, or just a noise. Uh, but, but perhaps, you know, there's an emotional depth to some of that flaming bison work. Uh, and then the last, uh, track or project that I'm really excited about and that we'll share at the end of the show is that project I have with a friend called high cascade lakes. And, um, it grew out of, uh,
00:44:08
Speaker
my own sort of interest in recording like new age spa music for lack of a better word. Sure. Spiritual ambient drone synth. I started, you know, to kind of pick apart what are the sounds that are present, you know, in that type of music. Maybe it's a flute, you know, maybe it's sort of an angelic vocal pad.
00:44:34
Speaker
And so I have a project with a friend where we've made some guided meditations. Just for friends and family, it's on Bandcamp. They're about 10 minutes. But in doing that, I was sampling nature sounds because I feel like that's a component of that type of music. And I had actually been listening to, like last spring and summer, just putting on nature sounds when I was working in the office. Yeah. So a lot of times I'll have background music, you know, maybe. It's Eugene, Oregon, after all.
00:45:02
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, but I thought, you know, I've been reading in a book around, you know, like lifestyle and movement and, you know, connecting and that sort of thing, your environment. And that was one thing is, you know, you know, where I think hardwired to be in nature and a lot of my life, the time that I'm in nature is when I'm walking to and from my car.
00:45:21
Speaker
Right. So, uh, nature, be that as it may. Can I, can I bring nature with me? And so in this meditation track, I started back in April, anytime I'd go on a hike or camping with my family or friends.
00:45:36
Speaker
Anytime we'd pass water, I'd kind of say, hey, can you go up the trail for, give me five minutes. And I started collecting, uh, some Northwest nature sounds. And so rivers and creeks in the ocean and, um, just interested in the way that, uh, you know, the tide comes in and then you can hear the rocks and shells moving around if you're listening, right? That can all get, you can tune that out pretty easily.
00:46:00
Speaker
You know, the soundscapes I've encountered artists doing soundscapes to feeling immersive that the sounds are around you and you're in that environment in some way. Yeah. So for me, the high cascade lakes, uh, between Eugene and Ben's up there in the mountains between, you know, four and 6,000 feet or some of the most stunning and beautiful, uh, you know, places in nature that I've encountered and have, you know, had a marked impact on, on me as an individual, you know, personally and spiritually on a lot of levels.
00:46:30
Speaker
Uh, and so this project is sort of like reflecting that back. And so, um, you know, long-term it's really, so I can have a mix of 50, uh, you know, places that I've been in nature that I can listen to in the office, but also just, um,

Mindfulness and Meditation Practices

00:46:46
Speaker
There's something interesting about those textures and soundscapes, like you said, that can say, oh, this is what yahat sounds like. This is what the beach and kusbe sounds like. This is what Summit Lake with the view of Diamond Peak sounds like. And it's like we're saying that these shows can be time capsules, I think.
00:47:10
Speaker
For me, as a sort of field recordist, it's a little memory of a trip, but also for someone else encountering it either on loop in a meditation or listening to a longer piece. I think there's something diffusing about the sound of running water, at least for me personally, and I imagine others as well. Yeah. And it's always great to hear about those projects.
00:47:38
Speaker
I know I'm supposed to record one, but I tell you, I hear myself, and I'll tell the listeners now, I hear myself in doing the meditation. I gotta get beyond, I can get to the point where I can be a guiding, smoothing voice, but I think I'd have the beginning of it being like, addressing the needs of the practitioner and say, some jag off out there, just cut you off before you came in here.
00:48:05
Speaker
Here's the principles, though. I'll put it in a nutshell before I record it for Peter, because he asked me a year ago, listeners. With posture, you feel that there is a thread from the heavens being held by an angel keeping your back straight and your head up. You are inhaling through your nose to the best of your ability.
00:48:39
Speaker
Your arms and hands are on your lap in some format that you're comfortable with in the tradition. And the thoughts is the biggest thing. You're set up for posture and the biggest thing that I've ever had help me as a mental way
00:49:07
Speaker
of detachment or disengagement with intrusive or troublesome thoughts is the snipping of the string of a balloon. So the thought is there and you can see the thoughts as balloons and I snip the strings in meditation
00:49:39
Speaker
You can still look at the things that are floating away. You can still consider them. But they're floating away.
00:50:04
Speaker
And so for everybody, there's these little tricks sometimes. I find that would be very helpful. And I do cut the thread to the thoughts through that, through physical attention. So that's beautiful. Thank you for sharing the demo of what's sitting in the Google file now known as Ken's track. I think we have some really good material to work with.
00:50:31
Speaker
I thought I thought I might be able to do it on one take. I was blessed to be introduced and study Buddhism at Marquette University. That's where I studied philosophy. I got a scholarship there and I had the course opportunity to take Buddhist philosophy, which was active and practical. And you could, we actually spent 10 minutes in class at a Jesuit university.
00:51:00
Speaker
engaging in mindfulness before we open those texts and really transformative and real blessing. It's interesting the way that mindfulness can be presented to a person. For me, when I was a teacher, I was a middle school teacher for eight years, seventh grade and sixth grade.
00:51:23
Speaker
It was early on, so I would have been a seventh grade teacher. Primetime, adolescence, you know, a lot of energy in middle schools. I loved it personally. Yeah. But we had an after-school professional development and usually it's, you know,
00:51:40
Speaker
some fly by night outfit and not very good. But in this case, it was from the Oregon Research Institute, which is near the University of Oregon, but not affiliated with it. And they were doing an educational study to see the impact of mindfulness training on educators for reducing stress. And they introduced us to Robert Sapolsky's book, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers.
00:52:04
Speaker
and the concept that in the wild, a zebra is chased by a lion, and it escapes, and it shakes hard for 90 seconds, and then it goes back to being a zebra. But we as humans are so good at carrying that lion around with us everywhere we go for the next 10 years of our life. For a long, long, long, long, long, long time. And so using some strategies to connect with the body, five things you can see, five things you can touch, five things you can hear. Yeah.
00:52:31
Speaker
combine all those things, let's practice. But I had not, you know, outside of that, not been exposed to meditation in any other way than, you know, growing up in Eugene or on the West Coast. And, you know, there's sort of a, it's baked in maybe ways that it's not in other parts of the country.
00:52:50
Speaker
as part of maybe the West Coast. You could feel the presentations culturally in different ways. Yeah, and maybe that's just more of an Asian presence on the West Coast and the impact of the blending and learning from different communities. But yeah, it's interesting how mindfulness shows up for a person who hasn't heard about it yet or hasn't listened. And so that's part of this project too, is just like, hey,
00:53:20
Speaker
Here's a track I made with a friend. Just listen. And it can be helpful. And I think there's an important piece too. It's like, I think both of us have a streak being snarky and cynical, but I think it's really important within mindfulness and meditation is to accept it as a good unto itself. Yes, it's being marketed. Yes, it's being packaged.
00:53:40
Speaker
Yes, everybody's doing it. Yes, I'm given meditation rather than a proper wage like all these things are really true, but I think it's really important to understand that fundamentally the practice you're not you're not you haven't won by rejecting.
00:53:57
Speaker
the not doing. You haven't. It's not just for the doing of it, but also for the practicing of cutting those balloon threads. When you're in a higher pressure situation, having already had that neurological experience of letting go and practicing of letting go,
00:54:19
Speaker
and saying, okay, and believe me, I'm good at this on like one day out of 10, right? I'm constantly learning by my repeated failures and mistakes. One of the peculiar things about trying to become healthier and have healthier habits with creative and breathing and all those type of things is that I've been able to implement them.
00:54:40
Speaker
And there's the startling discovery of the progress that can still yet be made. So you have to have the like proper mindset for it because I didn't breathe properly prior to the mindset. I also didn't walk the amount that I wish to as a goal each day would be eight to 10,000 steps. I didn't do those things. And now
00:55:03
Speaker
I'll be engaged in many situations, don't always employ it the best way that I can. I will actively almost automatically going into controlling my breath through my nose. Once I learned in my reading that it's that chicken or the egg type of thing with anxiety and the breathing, right? We think that our breathing becomes messed up because we're anxious and there's some interplay, but it's the fact that we're not breathing properly and don't have enough
00:55:33
Speaker
of what we need in the ear that is making us anxious people. So it's the way that we inhabit these spaceships, these biochemical processes that we're walking around in, this electrical sack of muscles and tendons and fat and bones.
00:55:53
Speaker
Hey, I wanted to talk about some, we were talking, I mentioned a couple of times, Rebecca Mills episode coming

Upcoming Episodes and Guests

00:56:00
Speaker
out. We were talking about a lot of that stuff, but some cool episodes coming up in the new year as mentioned, Black Belt Eagle Scout coming hot right off the beginning of the year. We have Brooke McCarthy who does a one.
00:56:12
Speaker
One woman act how to be an ethical slut on stage off that famous work on stage Does the whole thing herself? So it's her that's there we're gonna get a chance to talk to to her and I don't know like about the experience about inhabiting that space about
00:56:31
Speaker
why go see the show but that's actually going to be performed out in New York City and we get to get a chance to talk to her. We got painter Susan Carr coming on who's just absolutely just an incredible and wild artist and like I said with the Instagram live and the indigenous zine
00:56:50
Speaker
Issue two and the fact that we're looking to get maybe a couple episodes a week during the month of January to kind of keep the plate full both with like some of the bigger artists and some of the artists like Yo, check these people out like right now because like you'll be reading them in the New York Times like, you know in 15 months That's type of thing. So that's what we're trying to serve up. Yeah in the new year
00:57:15
Speaker
Yeah. Well, we were talking about this at lunch and I want to kind of come back to some ideas because we've also touched on them in this conversation as well. But I've been interested in thinking about questions around access to art and been talking to a friend about who produces art, who pays for the production and distribution of that art,
00:57:46
Speaker
Do they have the same values that we have, that I have, that they have? And then there's more discussion around the term like Nepo baby, right? Someone's parents in Hollywood or in film or music, perhaps.
00:58:04
Speaker
appears to put them in a shorter line. And I was curious of your thoughts. We've had a lot of different artists on the show, different folks from a lot of different backgrounds, but wondered some of your initial thoughts around access to opportunity, maybe for an emerging or developing artist. Yeah, I think it's such a great question, and it's super complicated. I don't want to say that at the beginning, because a lot of times you say a complicated question.
00:58:34
Speaker
but it is. But I want to maybe answer it in like a little bit of a different way.
00:58:38
Speaker
And this goes back I'm gonna look over at the poster Hunter S Thompson for sheriff and I want to talk about his his his style and the way he talked about Ideas that fucked with them. He taught like queering it up things would be queered by him And so I think when things get kind of queered up and mixed up and switched around Those ideas can be radical ideas and they can disrupt how you might view are and

Economic Aspects of Art Production

00:59:05
Speaker
And a big one for me in my reading and understanding is really almost traditionally Marxist. I studied the writings of Marx. And obviously within the tradition of socialism, there's a lot to say about production, production of art, religion, reinforcement of concepts that don't serve.
00:59:30
Speaker
the people, the gaggle of Catholics, the populace, the serfs, the working class. And I think those things are true. I think that's a real dynamic and a real way to explain things. I also think that if you look at
00:59:50
Speaker
If that is so, what we've seen historically, like in the Soviet Union, in oppressive states around issues of spirituality or religion and art, which I see intermixed in this sense, it's a foolhardy effort to go to human beings and force them not to be spiritual. It's stupid.
01:00:12
Speaker
It's a lack of understanding of the way humans are and what they seek for. They seek for big things. And I think art's the same dynamic when you see that the art has to now serve the state, not the bourgeois.
01:00:25
Speaker
you end up in this same type of dynamic wall. I think that the values that are being reinforced are better, right? That the working man is victorious, that you can defeat fascism, that these things, ideals are great, but it's still a dictated way of engaging with things. So I think at the heart of what you're asking is an economic question. I'm very influenced.
01:00:49
Speaker
I'm very influenced by that. It's like what do you do with Taylor Swift, right? Access questions, professional background, talent, opportunities, time. What do you do with folks who work in Hollywood as an industry and have easy access
01:01:12
Speaker
And if we make it problematic, you and I talking here, Peter, we're bringing in our guests on our podcast, right? And we're all fighters. Everybody, we're all fighting for time, attention, listen to our thing in our art. And it's tough. You spend a lot of time doing this, right? So that access question.
01:01:37
Speaker
So do you see so we're looking you and I when I say what the painting looks like you and I are looking at the painting and I'm gonna say Peter what we have to do is Experience this painting. It's a great painting. It's a fantastic painting and we just have to
01:02:00
Speaker
experience it. We experience it for the same amount of time we're going to look at. We don't have information on who it's from. It's a unique enough piece that's been presented to us. We can't establish it to a tradition. We don't know if it's male, female, or other. We don't know any of these types of things. We don't know the economic class it was produced. We really don't even know the time it's that type of work. And we got to sit there and look at that fucking thing and figure out what it is. It's tough.
01:02:26
Speaker
It's tough because the way we think about art, we're trying to grapple and understand that this person make it out of strife, that they make it easily. Was their genius tough? Yeah, and I think that's part of the question that's interesting to me is when examining the authenticity behind a piece or the perceived authenticity, does a person have to struggle
01:02:51
Speaker
in order for it to be an authentic piece of art, is the struggle that you were put in a shorter line or given access to opportunity, but now you have to hold on to it. Is that struggle greater? Can you equate the two or is that an unfair comparison because perhaps they're both challenging in ways that are incongruent? Yeah, I'm going to avoid it one more time. I'm going to queer it up one more time. Take a look at Francis Bean Cobain.
01:03:20
Speaker
Kurt Cobain's daughter. A very interesting quick study in that Kurt Cobain didn't come from the type of things that we talked about. He didn't want those things and maybe in the narrative that's his death. Everything that was created around him was too big for him. Couldn't deal with it. I don't know. We have theories about that. But it's a massive amount of wealth which was not given to Courtney Love.
01:03:47
Speaker
and was given to her. And I think if you look at Frances Bean's art, I think it's tremendous. I love her art. I think it's fantastic. But you're also looking at a trajectory which is very unique and gets to the core of the question that we have here. If there's a propensity for Frances Bean to become an artist, what's in her way?
01:04:09
Speaker
Sure. Kind of nothing. I mean, money, access, exhibition space, name, tragedy, tragic backstory, celebrity. It seems like there's a dialogue out there that somehow that experience is cheapened or it's not fair. What's the difference between her and her dad?
01:04:29
Speaker
It's the question itself. Her dad was the scruffy, scruffy punk world figure. From Aberdeen. From Aberdeen, for fuck's sake. And that's not where she's from. So I would say this in honesty, I always know and I always have thoughts about how somebody was able to do their thing.
01:04:53
Speaker
Like I do, I look at it because of the way that I think about things. I would also say that I actually, I think I actively discard a lot of that in that I find myself, me, my personal reaction to art to be more immediately taken over by the thing.
01:05:20
Speaker
rather than the other stuff. The experience. Right. Now, if that thing is the greatest thing I ever saw, and it came from a black woman who came out of the city who, you know, in 45, she started painting and produced that greatest thing. I think the way that we are, we look at that thing and say, that's even better. Even better and even bigger. It's that intuitive underdog.
01:05:45
Speaker
nature that we carry with us. Here's an additional wrinkle that I want to layer on this one more time before we let go of this thought. You talked about the way that art reinforced religious belief and has a cross-culture,

AI's Role in Art

01:06:04
Speaker
right? If we look at cave paintings, right? Those are religious traditions.
01:06:09
Speaker
And then the way that perhaps that gets morphed by the state, where the state is reinforcing a message. And by extension in modern times, I would say also the way that corporations produce types of families, types of shows, types of movies. This is what Christmas looks like. This is what your holiday classic should be.
01:06:29
Speaker
My question to you in thinking about who controls the means of production and distribution is what happens when more and more art is AI generated, be it in stock art that we put in our PowerPoint presentations in the way that a band could have AI put together their show poster.
01:06:52
Speaker
That's my next question beyond the inherent nepotism that we're talking about that exists beyond field. I want to zoom in more on the way that AI is designed, produced, or programmed, and then some of the inherent
01:07:07
Speaker
bias or limiting factors that come into that once we're interacting with that. I messed up on this issue because my first inkling and my first motivation is towards technology, not technology divorced from any consequence.
01:07:29
Speaker
I could not be more fascinated by something than I am by AI and the idea of it and thinking of what's produced in engagement and authentic human experience or creation of art.
01:07:42
Speaker
What I've heard about the AI stuff that's produced now, generally, and I don't have a strong opinion, but what I've read about it is that there are a lot of images, that there are a lot of hands, human-created things that form the churn of the AI. So I think in the way of talking about it, you have to talk about it properly.
01:08:09
Speaker
I don't know if there's a pure AI, but if we're talking about creation, that...
01:08:15
Speaker
is not perceived to be pulling in from the labors of the humans who are producing the things, then we can have a different conversation. But now the AI is generating from the hands of the humans and in an anonymous fashion that you don't know the fingers who created it. And in music too, another fascinating area where not only can it be produced, but the AI can also think about it.
01:08:45
Speaker
For you not only is a production type of thing but it's it's the thinking of the what should be produced of what would be? Appealing so just as we're having this conversation. I'm Imagining what an AI guest would be like so if there's a listener out there who has a connection to a great AI that we could interview or talk to and
01:09:09
Speaker
I think we could maybe cut right to the core of some of these questions. Didn't have a core episode for it, but I tinkered with it and I'm gonna try to find it. Her name was, this sounds like the beginning of a good blues song, Peter. You get the guitar out. Her name was Kiko, I believe. It was the A-I. Okay. And I'll have to pull that up again because as soon as I saw that was an A-I, I would answer any questions that you would ask them.
01:09:36
Speaker
uh you know all right what are we up to what's the universe doing please help yeah this is this will be an interesting uh thought to come back to in future years uh as as these technologies continue to develop i spent i don't know probably an hour and a half with my brother and wife a couple months ago he had access to some app i think is called dolly or something like that and we were just stringing together words to see what
01:10:04
Speaker
you know, what came up. One of my favorite
01:10:08
Speaker
Productions that it made it was a clairvoyant parakeet with watercolor Wow, how we describe a pastel watercolor gotcha and I'll be damned if it didn't come up with the clairvoyant parakeet and There there there it was so it was it was this fun exchange, but just thinking of the ways that you know Production and distribution is there there are already levers on those You know once AI enters into it. I think that's another
01:10:38
Speaker
level cog to examine there's a pocket. There's a podcast. It's called the it's a dash I dash M dash E dash E Amy is the name of the AI and the AI is the podcast host and interviews guests from a universe of superheroes that is created just for the show. They're not recognizable superheroes. So it's an insular universe.
01:11:07
Speaker
gossip, trashy, AI celebrity talk show. It exists. I love to hear you say it exists. My wife and I have a saying like, if you can say it out loud,
01:11:26
Speaker
And then Google it, it's probably a thing. We were going through a bunch of photos, you know, for prints around the holidays for grandma and grandpa and stuff. And it's like, I would love to get this picture as a tree air freshener and hang it in my friend's car. Yes. I wish there was a way to do that. Yes. She's like, wait.
01:11:46
Speaker
Search it right now, I bet it is. Sure enough, there's like three sites where you can upload your image. Of course you can, of course you can. But it's just, of course there's a show where an AI is interviewing other AI superheroes from this insular, trashy universe, so we can get that celebrity gossip. Of course there is. You don't even know why it's, what's interesting is such a radical jump. You don't even know why the shit's saucy. I mean, you can mention,
01:12:11
Speaker
It's a Kanye, all right. It's gonna be saucy, right? Like, you don't even know why, you know, the Moth Woman dating superbug is scandalous. I don't, maybe a few shows in. I'm not putting it down, I'm just saying. Of course it is. You dropped in. Yeah, I loved that. But, yeah, so...
01:12:36
Speaker
Big 2023, looking to double listeners, looking to print a video, Instagram Live for that kinetic energy, like we said.

All Indigenous Zine Issue

01:12:48
Speaker
When's that zine coming out? That zine, thank you. The zines have been late in production largely due to work schedules and such, but the zine, issue two, is almost ready to be printed and you can very much expect
01:13:05
Speaker
the All Indigenous Issue, zine number two in January, 2023. We will email it to you if you like as a PDF format. We also mailed them for free. When we've placed them on the shelves, which we've done at Quimby's bookstore in Chicago, lovely bookstore, lovely zine supporter.
01:13:27
Speaker
any of the proceeds that come in from that go to the Issue we've talked a lot about of missing and murdered indigenous women girls in two spirits which the show has Delved into with yes indigenous guests. So um, yeah, there's small proceeds coming from any sold zine Would go to that cause but yes regular zine Issue number two and after that they'll actually be another
01:13:57
Speaker
um zine issue three probably in february or march so starting in 2023 uh starting it hot love it and uh you and i both talk a lot about visualization picturing the future and i just want to verbalize back to you something i heard you say on the show uh and you mentioned it at the top too but that's the idea around something rather than nothing festival

Vision for an Arts Festival

01:14:21
Speaker
Yeah. So that's in its genesis. It's a seedling of an idea. It's 2024. Look, one of the cool things is, and then you think about it away and talk about it or maybe talk about it more. I live in Albany, Oregon, not too far from Salem, Oregon.
01:14:41
Speaker
You know, I talk to bookstore owners. I talk to musicians. I think that I spend my money, time on this podcast. I think it's worthwhile. That's why I would talk about it. If I'm doing something that's not worthwhile, I wouldn't be doing it.
01:14:56
Speaker
And I also want to be talking about it. So that's like that organizing piece of talking to musicians like in a place like, why isn't there a good musical outlet here? Who hasn't organized like pulling together some people? How come they're not authors here, but thinking about literary painting, fundamentally transforming the mind or having experiences where you encounter art that help you heal like that physical healing arts.
01:15:21
Speaker
we've talked about this from from the very beginning and I See it and I think what we talk about it and connect with our guests and supporters I think patreon has a part of that in thinking about for finances and the patreon given one of the things I want to say about that too is that the show has been free and a lot of things sent out free, but I also think that I
01:15:48
Speaker
when artists do things, it's important for me and my artists that I work with to say that there's money attached to the time and to the thing that we've created because there is value. And I think that the ideas of generating new artists, of being able to access things you like from the show and artists that you like to access, put a few bucks down, put it in the tip jar where buskin,
01:16:16
Speaker
Yeah, but I appreciate the inherent value. And as a person that's played a number of shows in my life, there's a difference between a show that you play for free and a show that's $5 at the door and a show that's $10 at the door and name your price. People are resting in it. And I really connect with that idea that it's not just
01:16:38
Speaker
us as the producers and the expenses associated with the show, but it's also getting other folks off the ground, putting together in-person events, building a community. There's a real connection there that is exciting for me and really taps into that organizer
01:16:56
Speaker
That's inherently in me of wanting to introduce people and connect people and to me that's the excitement of the show and the excitement of this You know the potential of what we're doing with the zine with the Instagram live with the video components thinking about a show having the patreon it's really exciting and I'm very much looking forward to the momentum that 2023 is going to continue to accelerate and

Commissioning Art for the Podcast

01:17:22
Speaker
Yeah. And I think even to just folks know, we've seen we, uh, podcasts looks to invest in commission are Heather Dean produced a piece for us with the claw machine pulling up on the microphone. Uh, Mark J. Palm, uh, who's been featured in mad magazine. There's a lot of great creations, including the Fang. Uh, he's doing commission art for us. We've had Greg and fake who do the Santos sisters, uh, put the podcast in one of their panels just by collaborating and asking, we'll have an ad.
01:17:50
Speaker
In issue number three of the Santos sisters best independent comic out there so like just just just just showing up and saying hey like we're for real like We're we're doing things. We've always said that and being idiosyncratic and showy about it for whatever is part of our
01:18:12
Speaker
entertainment piece of this because i think what's i think what's important is that both of us while we engage with the art the way that we do with the guests we also envision ourselves being up at the mic being the emcee or in the background handling sound productions or producing or whatever i think we both see ourselves in role of the creation and the participation with art so it isn't uh
01:18:39
Speaker
So it's immersive in that sense. And that's the part where I think that part comes from you and comes from us is to like, you like doing this shit. You like listening to this music. You like paintings like that. Amen. Let's rock and roll together. Let's not give a shit. And if you can't do it within arts, man, you're screwed. Yeah, it's beautiful.
01:19:02
Speaker
Thanks for hanging out with me today in the studio. Love you, Gene. It's a typical gray and rainy day. I got my son laid back home to tell me that the sun still exists. I got back from vacation in a sunny place and I think my tan will last about 48 more hours until I'm back to my pasty winter self.
01:19:26
Speaker
And that's just fine, too. I appreciated the vitamin D. Well, the thing is, for the heat and the heat and such, I know in Australia, we'll be talking to Vanessa Stockard soon. It's summer there, too. So if we need little blasts of different type of energy, we do have to circle the globe. We've got to reach globally.
01:19:44
Speaker
Awesome. Thanks for hanging out in Warbling Creek. Thanks for coming down to Eugene. I will start cueing some music now, and that'll be a segue into some high-cascading links. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Peter. Appreciate it. Yeah. All right.
01:20:10
Speaker
Take a comfortable seat on a chair cushion, or you can lie down on a bed, couch, or floor. You can also do this meditation outdoors, sitting or lying directly on the ground. If you are in a sitting position, keep both feet flat on the floor or ground.
01:20:54
Speaker
Take a deep breath in and know that you are breathing in. Exhale and know that you are breathing out. Let's take one more deep breath in. Breathing in, I know that I am breathing in. And then a full exhale, breathing out, I know that I am breathing out.
01:21:32
Speaker
Now let your breath return to its natural rhythm.
01:22:58
Speaker
Take a moment to feel whatever is supporting your body. If your feet are in the grass, you may want to wiggle your toes and notice what the grass and ground feel like. If you're lying down outside, feel the sensations of the earth in all of the places that your body is in contact with the ground.
01:23:27
Speaker
If you're sitting or lying down inside, feel the solidity of the floor or furniture beneath you. If you're not directly on the ground, take a moment to realize that whatever it is supporting your body right now is being supported by the earth.
01:23:50
Speaker
However your body is positioned, feel that the earth rises up to meet your body, to hold it and carry it.
01:24:19
Speaker
You may also want to imagine that your body is sending roots back down into the earth.
01:24:48
Speaker
Oh.
01:25:30
Speaker
Become aware of what you feel in your body at all of the places that are in contact with the solidity of the earth. You may want to take a moment now to rest your hands on the ground. Breathing in, I know that I am connected to the earth.
01:25:56
Speaker
Breathing out, I know that the Earth is connected to me. We'll take a few minutes of quiet breaths like this.
01:26:34
Speaker
you
01:27:03
Speaker
What is this connection between our body and the earth? Imagine that there are no barriers between you and the earth. Let all boundaries fall away. Feel the energy that passes back and forth between you and the earth. Notice that this happens all by itself.
01:27:32
Speaker
There is no separation between our physical bodies and the Earth. Every day of your life, the Earth has been supporting you.
01:28:00
Speaker
Where do you feel gratitude for the Earth? Maybe you're grateful for the Earth's solidity and stability, for its cycles and seasons, for its rivers, lakes, streams, and oceans, for its trees and mountains, maybe its deserts and plains.
01:28:35
Speaker
you
01:29:34
Speaker
As we close, I invite you to imagine that you have everything you need to feel that you are connected to the earth and the earth is connected to you.
01:29:48
Speaker
Breathing in, I know that I am connected to the Earth. Breathing out, I know that the Earth is connected to me.