Transcript
Speaker: You are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing. Creator and host, Ken Valente. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer.
Speaker: Hey, everybody. Ken Vellante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast. And lately, I've had been blessed with having like deep, great philosophers on on the show. And in that line, I have Lawrence Q. Marks visiting and chatting from Florida. Lawrence, welcome to the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast.
Speaker: Thank you for having me. of Really super to have you. Okay, so we're both philosophers, so we can skip a lot of stuff. what when when your When your brain starts getting tripped out on on on philosophy, like what what what what what did it? what Why that path?
Speaker: So i want to hedge everyone's bets on the the term philosopher. I'm someone who thinks deeply about things. um But that that started probably around 11 religious-based people. um You know, you sit in a Hebrew school class telling your, you know, this is what you have to do. You've got to get bar mitzvahed.
Speaker: And the rabbi just starts telling you things. And you're like, Rabbi, like, did Moses really split the Red Sea? Like, did this really happen? And and it was probably around there where nothing made sense at all.
Speaker: Nothing. And you just start asking questions. And then you go down that rabbit hole of question asking. um That was the philosophy part. It probably didn't really catch on.
Speaker: um So mid twenty s I took philosophy classes. My my education background is psychology, um really studied just so I understood why I thought the way I thought, not because I really wanted to hear what other people had to say, because that can get pretty annoying at times.
Speaker: But um I studied psychology, took philosophy classes. But you never stop just thinking, right? Like the whole tenet of philosophy is just to think about everything. And then you just wind up in existentialism and just all sorts of just ridiculousness. And, you know, well I know somewhere in here we'll we'll talk about ah my book and stuff, but like it's just the ridiculous. Imagine like.
Speaker: I don't smoke weed. I haven't in a long time. But when you take those hits that go all the way to your toes and back, yeah and then you're just sitting there, right? You know? yeah And you're sitting there like pondering all sorts of just everything. It's those questions have a lot of validity to them.
Speaker: And yeah they don't if you can seek through those and try to establish those answers, it's fun. And so that's the degree that I would consider myself a philosopher. um But yeah, that's the philosophy. Let's drop into the books. Let's use the books as a vehicle. Sure. Because i have a lot of i have a lot of folks who write books like ah bless blessed to to to to to anybody ah and and blessed to anybody puts their ah energies into into the words in creating right now. like yeah These are intense times. I'm just feeling it.
Speaker: Tell us about um the books and what you're trying to generate because you've got energy, you've got ideas. what what do you Tell us about yeah the books.
Speaker: There happens to be a first book. It's called Evidence of a Cluttered Mind. can show you a cover. That'd be lovely. Sexy. 20th anniversary edition. dang. I wrote this one back in college. In um my so like my psychology class, we we had to write a you know a faux thesis, if you will, for undergraduate.
Speaker: And I took a big risk and I wrote... um about 150 acrostic poems. And I turned that into my professor and they they ranged on politics and love and life and and just you know ripping catchphrases apart. It was just, it was a 20 something year old really exploring oneself, dissecting oneself and putting that down, not in a philosophical thesis, but in poetry and got an A on the assignment.
Speaker: And that turned out to be the first chapter of the book, Evidence of a Cluttered Mind. um That was dac back in 2002, 2006. I had four more chapters, if you will. I call them rounds around one, two, three, four, five. Like that. um There's about 650 acrostic poems and an acrostic is think of a long form acronym.
Speaker: You would have the word going down um like the word rather. And then you would use the word, the letters are a T H E R as yeah the sentence beginnings. And, it was the mindset of somebody who lacked any world experience any real substance and that guy was sort of a douche and 20 years later i had an opportunity to have my 12th grade english teacher who taught us this writing style and in her class write the foreword for the book and it ah it just got re-released uh this june for 20th anniversary but paid homage to the
Speaker: the great woman who instilled this creative writing style in me. um But it is, it's politics and religion and love and life and just the dirtiest parts of, you know, your inner soul of somebody who just doesn't even know what that means.
Speaker: And i made the philosophical decision to keep it exactly as is unedited because it's a timestamp of the person that was, And then fast forward to this past November and I released um Question Marks, which is 33 questions of an existential nature. um it's the first seven are on religion. There's love. They're the same topic. Tell us, tell us some of them right now, Lawrence, tell some of them. Yeah. So like one premise would be, um, if Jesus knocked on your door, would you answer? Like the whole ideal of faith is, you know blind faith. But if Jesus actually came to your door and knocked, how would you react? Would you push him away? Would you assume that he looks a certain way?
Speaker: Um, just where did we all come from? Like if the, if the universe is expanding, expanding implies boundary, But how could it expand infinitely if there's no boundary? And what was a God figure or a greater being doing before creation if he's you know everlasting and eternal? yeahp um There is birthdays, the the mathematics of birthdays. you know like if there Tell me about that. Tell me about that.
Speaker: So there's 8 billion people on Earth. And if you just continue to do to the division down to the second generation, You are one of 253 people who share a birthday per second.
Speaker: That turns out to be 0.0039% special for one second. But we all make this big hoopla about our birthday. And it's it's kind of like, you know, we all want our cake. And and and it's there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, yeah, right, right. But like you were diving down into it. much of a speck.
Speaker: of anything in the existence of humanity. Pale blue dot. Yeah. It's completely written a, in a tone of so of satire. um You know, like my idols are, are, are Carlin and prior and Chappelle. And so it's written completely in a satirical tone.
Speaker: um But there's 33 questions because I'm a big Celtics fan. My name is Larry and Larry Bird, you know, the best to ever do it. And so 33 where there's a chapter about fandom, sports fandom and superstition. And so I played into that.
Speaker: um The book is ridiculous. It's funny. um But it it the the responses that I'm getting are that it's all the things we think about and don't know how to articulate.
Speaker: And so I did the dirty work, I think, I hope. All right. Wow. on Just the type of range I wanted ah going into this episode. Larry Bird. ah Love it. I got my bird jersey in the other room. about Me too. About eight feet from now. Hey, next episode we'll do. We'll we We'll do some sort of true hoopla around Larry Bird for a little while. And I'm a Miami guy. So imagine getting i love that my entire life, you know, being the sole dude in Miami who likes the Celtics.
Speaker: not Not an easy path. Whatever. yeah But you this you study in philosophy. You didn't you didn't you know wake up and and choose the easiest path. um So, um yeah, absolutely love that question. and The questions and in in thinking about birthdays and numbers seems like we're definitely fascinated by ah some of the same things. Now, i do ah this is an art, philosophy, psychology, personal liberation show. It's a variety show, which I think you might – um appreciate. But I'm always like deeply interested. um Like we're seeing each other like via video now and you have beautiful background and colors. They're great for the mind. And in um just one of the when you when you think about these big questions, one of the big ones I always want to know is um an answer your or your your thoughts on what is art like? What is art
Speaker: Well, Ken, i happen to be an artist too. Like professionally, I'm an art director for a consumer product and apparel company. I've been doing art most of my life. I own an apparel company.
Speaker: All right, let's roll. That's a beautiful shirt. Keep going. Yeah. So, um, I, Yeah. Out of out of college, ah you wind up. I was a pastry chef. It's going to sound like I'm just making a bunch of crap up. but it's all No, go with it. roll it I was a pastry chef, um owners of the bakery, um authentic French bakery in Miami, made some some pretty risky business decisions, um had to let me go.
Speaker: um i was overqualified for just about everything. And my landlord owned this apparel company. And I asked him, hey, do you have any job openings? And he's like, what do you know how to do? I said, I can make a souffle.
Speaker: i was trying to become a tattoo artist. and'm I'm fully sleeved everywhere. And I'm like, i I was self-taught graphic design so that I could be a better tattoo artist, taking the body of a dragon and a head of a dragon and using Photoshop to morph them.
Speaker: And so the the owner of the apparel company was like, come on in. And I was a warehouse worker for about three months, getting about an hour behind the computer um each day. And just slowly I grew those ranks. I'm still working with them. 24 years later, i run their entire art department. So professionally, I live in the world of art um creatively on the side. I'm also i do freelance art. I paint. i um I have a counterculture T-shirt line, which is, you know,
Speaker: just how can I prod and make people think about uncomfortable things? Heck yeah. um Using passive apparel to do it. And so I live in this world the same way, man. I, um, I had this, this, this strange sequence of, uh, conversations. Uh, there's an individual, I was at the comic book store yesterday. The owner who owned it was my age, which is 54 and expressed to me that,
Speaker: they had run slash own this business since they were 15 years old. Oh yeah. And like there was this large, uh, stem of events. And then you mentioned in this kind of like happening at that time and coming together and creatively and on on my bid, I've done about the same length of time, uh, union organizing and yeah and and work in that way, just like a long stretch. But, um,
Speaker: ah Well, your mind, you know, talking to obviously, your mind thinks about different things. And even when you're going to start discussing about the different things you've done, I know, like, the kind of discomfort at first, like, sometimes it's been like, what they're going to think I'm fucking, you know, like, I did this and that. But I love that you're expressing you the ways to the ah creativity. So in in in in peeling down to the question again on what is art, taking into account, you know, you work with it, get paid for all the different things do you do?
Speaker: um Like right now, what what's your, you think, what do you think art is? Art's like the million dollar question of like it's how you would define art from ah a value of worth. It's to everybody finds value in a different way. For me, it's my escape. It's my therapy. It's my expression.
Speaker: um That's for for me. Why do I do art? Why do I paint? Canvas painting is the only thing that I've yet to try to monetize because I think it's the one hobby or skill set that I don't want to perverse with a capitalistic sort of endeavor. can understand that. Every painting that I have has either been a gift for somebody or my entire home is adorned with paintings. and It's my escape from all the other things that I do.
Speaker: So for me, art is a therapy session. It's my ability to be creative and put that creativity in some format. Art in general, I think is, like to think it's like that for most people in the sense of there's so many creative minds, like just throughout history, musically, literally, um just artistically, graffiti art, everything. There's just, it's so beautiful.
Speaker: And in some degree, I'd like to think that there's a self-serving purpose for it being that person's therapy, why a songwriter writes songs. um As long as there's consumers, there's going to be creators, not from a ah monetary monetary standpoint. But, you know, if there's people that enjoy what you do, you tend to want to do it more.
Speaker: And so art, i it's that expression. It's also um an easier digestible format of information. So you can have a textbook or you can have a picture book. And if that picture can depict the same things in the text textbook, someone's going to receive that a little bit differently, absorb that information.
Speaker: um So it's a different delivery system of information. I wanted to ask you, and thank you for that. A lot of ideas spurred for me from what you're talking about, but I i wanted to double in on um one one piece you mentioned. It's a piece I've thought about, too, is ah for my artist persona just in short term, it's really only the last seven or eight years where i've actively explored it through the podcast, through painting and other forms, and I love it. It's been amazing.
Speaker: really a life changer for me. But one of the curious things I discovered was, and I didn't know this, I only knew it through other artists, but I hadn't experienced the fact that when I did certain forms of art, so I would paint or I would do this or try to maybe some ah illustrate or I would do video, my relationship with each form was so radically different.
Speaker: It was, it blew my mind. And The one piece I'll tell you, and I want to hear you hear your you know your analysis,
Speaker: I've studied and read. i adore painting to no end. ah And so I've studied and I've thought about and I've read about the biographies of the personalities of being like all this wildness. So I know like that range.
Speaker: But the when I inhabit my painter personality, i am the bitchiest Fucking like, like I act out and I'm not trying to like replicate, I think in my head, anything, but I cannot compare that artist's personality versus any others. ah Tell me, tell me about what's going on with me or your experience. yeah For you, I can't help you. can I knew you back.
Speaker: like painting is that puzzle. You know, you go to the museum and somebody's going to appreciate the art piece for what it is. I'm appreciating it, trying to figure out how brush strokes. yeah Like I'm looking at it as a, as a jigsaw puzzle. Like I actually don't paint for any other reason of just to see if I can do it.
Speaker: Can I take the idea in my head? and, and
Speaker: the The origin story of becoming an artist was one of just growth. Like, I didn't know that I would be an artist. I thought I was going to be ah a chef my whole life. Like, you know, I wanted to be a pastry chef and um the restaurant industry is disgusting. And I realized really quickly, I don't want to be a pastry chef, but I fell into the role of artist. And it's just I think in that it nurtured the evolution of how I became more grounded in art. um I never saw myself young. Maybe it was like a lack of confidence in my skill. I know I was always creative, but I don't think i was very artistic in my youthful ages.
Speaker: And through Photoshop and then um just other ways, Illustrator, you know now I can pick up a pencil and I feel a lot more confident. But If you asked me to just freehand draw you a dragon, I couldn't do it.
Speaker: You know, I have to grid out my one by ones and scale it up. And now they have projectors, but I feel like an old man. I haven't figured out the whole projector thing yet. Like, but then once I have it, it's kind of like why I liked tattoos.
Speaker: and this is going to really minimize tattoos but it's it's trace and color right you do your outline and then you fill in the color and that works in my little peanut brain to process how to do that you know you stencil it out like there's guidelines it's rails it's kind of like why legos are so therapeutic right like it tells you exactly what to do and how to do it and but the painting side is really, i think it's that therapy because I'm trying to make this thing in my brain that I now have drawn out on pencil from a scaled one by one to see if I can do it.
Speaker: And so it's the puzzle of it more more than like the art piece, if that makes sense. From ah the writing side, because graphics i graphics I can do in my sleep. Like when I design a shirt, you know, I have the idea. i do what I do. yeah it's more It's more regimented and just, you know, knock out the product, knock out the product. The creativity is there conceptually, but the execution is very ah machinery. It's very just...
Speaker: there's an execution to get the deliverable for the client or for whomever. Um, sure writing in this form is not as manic as you just expressed yourself to possibly be in that space, yeah yeah but it's,
Speaker: It's another release, like the ability to take words and put them on page if it's poetry or if it's an essay that has to be cohesive. Like the essays was the lazy route, I think. I honestly think in real time talking this through, I think I wrote poems because it's the easy way. I didn't have to have form. There was no MLA or APA or whatever style they make us write in when we're in college. There wasn't that in how I was writing. And then I wanted to do better Hence the essays.
Speaker: And there'll be a forthcoming book coming out later. That's my next goal is to write a book that has a beginning, a middle and an end. And I'm i'm almost there. I'm in editing. But it it's always the challenge as an artist. It's I can only imagine like um ah like little Wayne has a quote. I haven't written my best song yet.
Speaker: you know it's always that goal of i want to be better i can do better i can create better i can create bigger a graffiti artist or any artist is like okay i did that that was cool how do i do it grander bigger more vibrant better detail hell yeah it's that exploration i think that's the creative mindset for most i'd like to think that's a a common core value of a creative is what can i do to make it better yeah I think we share in that. I would like Ken to co-sign that. okay i Absolutely. absolutely i yeah in In doing this too, um it's it's great to talk to you. I dropped down and then on the list and I went, holy shit, I got to host the podcast here. Everybody, we're talking with ah Lawrence Q. Marks, M-A-R-K-X. And um ah Great to have a lively conversation about art and philosophy. ah Lawrence, next question like on art itself. um
Speaker: As 2026, things feel a certain way, climate change, politics, ever whatever, it feels different to me that's to me than it has. That's what I would say. Role of art. What is the role of art right now? What's the role of art fall, autumn, 2026 here? What do you think?
Speaker: I hope it continues to push boundaries. If it's not, then we can all just, you know, let AI kill us all. Right. Like, I know that's the common messaging of this past week, but it's, it's, it's role is to,
Speaker: push ideas and push them past the uncomfortable. So I know we we kind of live in this, this time of snowflakery and everyone's offended by something. And I'm like, good, fantastic. Let's challenge that.
Speaker: Let's discuss that. Let's figure out why we're offended. Let's address it and internalize it. Maybe it's not so bad. Maybe it's a personal slide. Dig in on the conflict. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so like my entire t-shirt brand, it's called dumb kunst studios. Kunst is the German word for art. So you, you know, you get to play on words yeah and 240 t-shirt designs and it's not prodding and poking, it's not doing its job and it's not there to offend. It's there to challenge.
Speaker: And I think I do that in my writing. I do that definitely in my t-shirts. Um, comedians are the best at that. You know, like I said, that those are my and comedians are who inspire me. And if we're not challenging the norms, then we're not living and we're never going to evolve and we can just shut down the house now. And so art now I hope is doing that. I hope it continues. It needs to do that. We have to get over this hump or status quo sucks, man. Whatever we're doing now, it's questionable. You know, I'm happy I'm on the second half of my life here.
Speaker: You mentioned comedians a couple times, and of course a lot of philosophers I know just drop over back and forth comedy philosophy. When you're trying to discuss serious things, you just start laughing because it's all so fucking ridiculous. Richard Pryor, thanks for mentioning rich Richard. Richard Pryor for me has been ah ah some of the best. Yeah.
Speaker: performance. Carlin's my guy. He's Carl. always left garlan in me Yeah, yeah. yeah yeah um One of the first, ah it was so strange to one of the first kind of full AI creations in the first, was maybe a couple of years ago, they of recapitulating re uh vibing george carlin to do a current routine and all the kind of like how it sounded and how like yeah weird all that was i remember that at the time and i was like man this is so trippy what's me i don't know what else it was other than like trippy like what the fuck is going on right now yeah yeah um
Speaker: ah So um in in talking about – we covered you know art and in the role of art and having ah to to to push things um ah like in it to to provoke. You like that moment of provocation within philosophy, and I think there's a deep – uh, uh, tradition of that.
Speaker: I find two things at play and I wanted to just your thoughts on this. Like I read an article, I think it was wall street journal or New York times. And it was basically like revenge of the philosophers. And I was like, Oh wow. Like how'd we get revenge? Because it's actually, if you just look at economics, it's a well-paying degree, just not in ways people would think of. But, um, it was like revenge of the philosophers. And basically I was looking through the article and reading, i was like, Oh, that they are they getting jobs now as apologists for whatever needs to be, whether it's in healthcare, would be not an ethics board. It's like this, like apologist in this, like there's this massive like gulf between like, yes, that can happen. you know, we got our philosopher, he thought it through. It's fine what we're doing ethically or whatever. Versus like that deep spirit that you talk about, you know, i even go back to Plato, Socrates, you know, know being you know killed by the state. And so –
Speaker: um Do you agree with me, like in the sense of like the the deep core and probably just for to what you're saying, the deep core is that provocation, is that Socrates and that philosophy does that.
Speaker: And what is the tolerance for that right now for that type of conversation? Is it any better? You know, i think it's probably that hybrid of philosophy and psychology. You know, one kind of teaches us how to think the other one teaches us why we think and.
Speaker: It's probably a good blending of both that will save our grace. um That whole apologistic. Don't apologize for shit and like own it and move on and grow. um
Speaker: don't know, man. It's a tough place where we live, man. This whole world we're going on now just sucks. It's weird. It's a weird vibe right now. Right. Yeah. Everything is just so polar. It's just all over the place. You can feel it. You can feel it. The political shift is like impossible to navigate, man. Like where's moderation? All good things live somewhere in the center. And we're like, we govern from the fringest edges And like all of us semi-normal, moderate people, we're just like, I call us the taint. We are the taint of society, right?
Speaker: You got to clean up between the cheeks. You know, like both sides shit on you and you just got to keep wiping to clean it up, man. It's impossible. It's impossible. Is that from one of the poems or – I do mention I did pull that line out of the book. Yes. But but yeah, we're just the taint, man.
Speaker: Yeah. And I don't know how we get out of it. Honestly, like there has to be a ah significant dynamic shift in the way people think. All right. Let's go. don't that's happening. Let's go from that analysis to the big question. Why is there something rather than nothing?
Speaker: How existential do you want to get? I want you to drop right in because it's it's it's fun. It included saying the the questions wrongly posed. I want to know. I want to I want to hear from you.
Speaker: Yeah. So from the existential thing, you'll have to read the first chapter in question marks. um You know, we don't we don't know why there's anything. It's all theory as a little bit more finite.
Speaker: um There's something because there's amazing creatives in the world. And there's there's those right brain and there's left brain and the best are some crazy combination of both.
Speaker: um As long as creatives exist, there's always gonna be something. And who that something is for, who cares? Like, I think I design for me first, I do everything for me first. And if somebody appreciates it, likes it, that's that's the bonus, that's the the benefit. And as long as we have a healthy balance of right brains, there's always gonna be something amazing rather than nothing.
Speaker: those squares on the left side, you know, on on the, on the, on the cognitive left. And maybe there's not going to be a whole lot. We'll have some great math equations and stuff, but nothing enjoyable in life. No, I like that. Um, uh, music sounded like it had a big influence on you what your, primary yeah what what do you rock out on? What do you rock out on?
Speaker: Music, um, so all over the place. couldn't tell you a genre. like if you I turned on my radio today.
Speaker: There's this ah British guy named Ren. I'm always listening to some good old Pearl Jam, Outkast. like I like thoughtful music. I can't do this mumble rap crap and you know but i have 17 and 19 year old daughter so i get enough of that you know i hear enough of it but you know give me some some black thought from the roots or most f or you know i want some introspection in my um in my music um
Speaker: I really don't care what genre. I'm not a big country fan. And I don't know how much introspection there is in beer and pickup trucks, which just really sounded gross as I generalized an entire listening base. But whatever.
Speaker: Again, I'm not apologizing. i like it within the whole genre. I tend to veer towards the Western outlaw and, yeah do you know, like Johnny Cash. Yeah, Johnny Cash wasn't that. Yeah, I'm not good with I'm not good with trucks myself. I yeah i can't, I, you know, i I totally, I totally hear that. Uh, Lawrence tell us, um, and I want to make sure we get this in here about like, you do a whole bunch of things and like ah shirts in the books, like where do people find you in how both, uh, IRL and like online.
Speaker: Did you really just say IRL? I did. Okay. I'll let it slide. So in thanks for calling me out on that, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're welcome. I appreciate that. I'm leaving we're leaving this in.
Speaker: We're leaving this in. I hope so. It's a learning. It's a learning moment. So I appreciate you letting me have the opportunity to do this. um So um the easiest place to find all things Lawrence or Larry would be Lawrence Marks, M-A-R-K-X.
Speaker: I just screwed that one up. How about this? Question Marks, M-A-R-K-X dot me. Yep, www.questionmarks.me. From there, that's the greatest place to find the books, which is my biggest passion right now. um At the very bottom, you'll find links to the t-shirts and my graphic design services and just a webpage about this clown.
Speaker: And um that's the easiest one, www.questionmarks.me. dot me Love it. i got ah I got a couple couple more questions for you. In talking about your different art um are you know identities and what I was talking about, painter and the discovery of relationships with ah different forms of art, when you're at your feeling best creatively right now, or just whatever it does for you, right now for you, what space are you in with
Speaker: what you really like creating. I released Question Marks in November. I'm working on a completely different book with a completely different premise that will hopefully be out either the end of this year or Q1 of next year.
Speaker: Then I want to work on Question Marks Part 2 and then a second version of this new... like I just can't get these ideas to stop flowing. So right now it is um writing. My fiance would love for me to finish this painting that has been half completed for about a year and a half now.
Speaker: um I probably should put some paint strokes back to canvas again. um And T-shirts, um you know, I got 240 of them. When I have a good idea, i knock out a T-shirt. You know, it's not a pressing thing. There's no shortage of, uh,
Speaker: um provocative ah options for those of a apparel desire. And um but it's it's definitely riding, man. I just I cannot stop flowing. It's just it's it's just good. Faucet is on. Yeah.
Speaker: Good. um A lot of what you do, I know there's a lot of time and I think some of the areas too is you kind of go as an artist or philosopher or otherwise into like a bit of a journey where you're by yourself and a lot of time there and trying to ah create. But thanks thanks thanks for everything everything that you do. um Really love the conversation and and and and you know Larry Bird And it heck, you know, um but ah in in in the books and your other work. And um I'd love to talk again, like in in in in the future, building off of this. I know we could probably do a massive, massive episode. But ah and and before we get on, everybody, we're just talking a little bit about Oregon, where I am in Salem, Oregon. And just Lawrence, you know, like. sometime you want to end up exploring or finding out, you know about the the great beauty and mystery, the Pacific Northwest, Twin Peaks kind of smell in the ear, Douglas firs, etc. Is the invite open? Is the invite there? invite is absolutely open. Because this is absolutely a universe ah to be explored. And my goodness, I have never seen so many creatives. I ah walked around in Portland and being like, holy shit, if there's one thing I love, like every every place has its sins in its underbelly. If there's yeah one thing I love, people are creating. They're putting their freak flag out and they're fucking doing what insane what they need to say. And that environment for me for me is like fresh air. So like to enjoy that as well, brother. Yeah, sir.
Speaker: I appreciate that. No, another thing, Lawrence, is just so there just the artistic spirit here, um like in um in in in Portland and people just kind of like finding like their thing that they're passionate about and and not really thinking about all the other pieces, whether it's going to be well received or who's there for it. And just...
Speaker: It's a great spirit here of creativity. And um it's a piece that I really like, the strangeness about it and kind of like the openness and some of the things we've been talking about being like, let's get our ideas, our things, our stuff out there and let's like mix it up. There's no mixing it up or something in my head nowadays. But I just wanted to let you know ah anytime you're welcome to catch the spirit out here. I'd love to show you around in the the beautiful Pacific Northwest in the great state of Oregon.
Speaker: I love it up there. i visited there once with the kids. It's beautiful. Every component of it. so Great having you on the podcast. Best luck. Everybody check out the books. Check out all the art, all the writing, ah Lawrence Q. Marks. And um really just love the spirit of ah asking questions, finding them, popping them out, and being very, very patient, like not necessarily answering them, which is part of philosophy. I might not be able to answer the stuff that I obsess about.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't pretend to have any answers. It really is an inquisitive book that prompts people to question things in an unconventional way that they otherwise might not have considered.
Speaker: Thank you, brother. Thanks for your time. Ken, thanks for having me, man. Appreciate you, brother. All right.
Speaker: This is something rather than nothing.
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