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Episode 67 - Is ART for ARTIST, or is ART for the AUDIENCE? image

Episode 67 - Is ART for ARTIST, or is ART for the AUDIENCE?

S1 E67 · Woodworking is BULLSHIT!
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1.4k Plays6 days ago

Have you been to a concert where the crowd was involved, singing, dancing, screaming along to their favorite songs. You probably left thinking, "THAT WAS SO AWESOME". Have you been to a concert where you weren't quite sure what the artist was doing?  You sat there quietly trying to make sense out of what you were witnessing.  You might have left confused or you may have left thinking, "geeeez I've never seen anything like that, how interesting!".

In both of these cases something different was happening.  In the first case, the art was clearly FOR the AUDIENCE, THE AUDIENCE AS PARTICIPANT.  In the second case, the artist was exploring an idea they had or chasing something deeply personal and the art was FOR the ARTIST, with THE AUDIENCE AS WITNESS.  In this episode we welcome a close personal friend of Paul's, his college roommate and professional Jazz Bass Player (!!), Thomson Kneeland,  to help us understand IS ART FOR THE ARTIST, OR IS ART FOR THE AUDIENCE?

To read a brilliant essay Thomson wrote about this topic, click the link below to go to his substack:

https://open.substack.com/pub/quantafugue2718/p/the-shared-horizon?r=a9gvw&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

To watch the YOUTUBE VIDEO of this episode and theirreverent & somewhat unpredictable AFTERSHOW, subscribe to our Patreon:⁠⁠ http://patreon.com/user?u=91688467

Gorilla Glue Wood Filler and Wood Glue (less water)mentioned in today's show: http://gorillatough.com/woodworkingisbs

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Transcript
00:00:01
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
A few months ago, I'm at a concert, a jazz concert. Herbie Hancock and friends. Yes, that Herbie Hancock, the legendary jazz pianist of the Miles Davis Quartet.
00:00:13
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Parts of the concert were absolutely dazzling. Herbie's 86 year old hands fleeing effortlessly across the keys, dazzling us with the music he was able to play.
00:00:29
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
jazz standards, all the things we long to hear from him. And other parts of the concert were simply horrible. Like when he wouldn't stop talking about AI and the dangers within through an antiquated vocoder, digital voice transitional ah technology.
00:00:50
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And it was just horrible. 20 minutes, he wouldn't stop. Absolutely self-indulgent musings. And we hated it. And the audience was starting to revolt.
00:01:03
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Now, this got me to think, after the concert,
00:01:11
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
is art for the artist or is art for the audience?
00:01:30
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh, your favorite group of troublemakers is back and we're going to stir up the pot tonight. I promise that. This is Woodworking is Bullshit. I'm your host, Paul Jasper of Copper Pig Woodworking, scientist by day, woodworker by night. And of course, I've got my boy in the chair, Eric Curtis, fine furniture maker and content creator.
00:01:51
Tina Turner
Arriba, motherfuckers. Let's ride.
00:01:55
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
You can tell Eric is on his third bourbon tonight.
00:01:58
Tina Turner
Wow. I wasn't going to tell the people, but okay.
00:01:59
Thomson
Thank you.
00:02:01
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Well, I just did.
00:02:02
Tina Turner
but
00:02:02
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Tonight, we have a very special guest. I've been super excited about this episode because I've been trying to get him to come on the podcast for months and months.
00:02:14
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
This is my college roommate, Thompson Neyland. And you say, Paul, what are you talking about? Your college roommate? What does that have to do with woodworking's bullshit? Well, after earning an engineering degree,
00:02:28
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
when we were roommates, in electrical engineering no less, he became a professional upright bass jazz player. Eventually moving to New York City and pursuing his dreams of being a full-time jazz musician for more than 20 years.
00:02:45
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
An absolute beast of a jazz musician, releasing five of his own albums and appearing on more than 60 recordings as composer, leader, or sideman.
00:02:56
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Now, more than that, though, of course, I find that dazzlingly impressive because I tried to be a jazz musician for a small period of time and failed miserably.
00:03:06
Tina Turner
ah
00:03:07
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah But more than that, Thompson is one of my favorite thinkers. ah he's in i would I would describe him as insatiably curious, deeply philosophical, and wildly open and appreciative to whatever life has in store for him.
00:03:25
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
When we catch up on the phone is like drinking from a fire hydrant of ideas and like, it's almost too much for both of us. So I thought, you know, on this question of is art for the artist or is art for the audience?
00:03:41
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Who could answer that better than someone who's been playing jazz for 20 plus years in front of countless audiences? And jazz is known for being kind of in the pocket.
00:03:53
Tina Turner
Mm-hmm.
00:03:53
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Like sometimes it's for the audience and the audience likes it And sometimes the audience doesn't understand what the players are doing. This is the perfect person. So Thompson, Nealand, thank you so much helping us tackle this question today.
00:04:07
Thomson
Yeah, thanks, guys, for having me. Paul, good to see you again. i'm i'm looking forward to this. This is going to be awesome.
00:04:12
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh my God. i so excited. Eric knows I'm absolutely titillated today.
00:04:15
Tina Turner
ah He sent me for for the audience. He sent me a photo of it had to be five to six pages of handwritten notes. He was like, I've been in the fucking zone this afternoon.
00:04:27
Tina Turner
I was like yeah, dog.
00:04:28
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
my God.
00:04:28
Tina Turner
Yeah.
00:04:29
Thomson
Yeah.
00:04:29
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Well, Thompson and I made the mistake of having a call about three days ago where we touched on some of the thoughts early on. And we literally had to cut each other off. It was too much. Like, you don't want to blow the wad before the episode. So I had to cut us off at that. But what we came to about this question, is art for the artist or is art for the audience? Which I think is a fantastic, rich question.
00:04:53
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And it crosses all disciplines, not even art. It's even outside of art, believe it or not. But we started with this idea, you know the first thing Thompson said is you know I've been thinking about this all week and he's like, you know art, so if art is for the artist, you think of like art, the artist as an explorer, like a self-contained explorer on the search for something new, like in in in some ways by themselves.
00:05:21
Thomson
Thank you.
00:05:25
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So the artist as the explorer, versus the artist as a collaborator, drawing audiences in, bringing them together, coalescing people into a sort of a unified group, dynamic, collaborative, inclusive.
00:05:43
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So that is the dichotomy. And we're going to develop this further. It's not that simple. But this is the polar, like the two poles of the conversation that ah Thompson mentioned, artist as the explorer or the artist as the collaborator. So Thompson, in your own words, I would love to hear you describe your thinking on this.
00:06:07
Thomson
Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, this runs deep. um One thing I do have to say, as a jazz musician, one of the things we're really called upon is to hone our improvisational skills and just have the ability to take a structure, take a song, and be able to improvise off the cuff. So that can be very abstract to audiences, but it has this inherent ah risk that's always involved in playing. So if you're a classical musician, you're reading off a page, a certain set of music that's fixed. It has a structure.
00:06:41
Thomson
If you're playing jazz, you're dealing with these structures that are very improvisational. And to the listener, that can tend to be lot more abstract. So as a musician, one of the things I always faced ah in my life was how do we, what what is our relationship to the audience? You know, who who is listening and what kind of role do I have in my relationship with the audience? So so just to kind of set up um how I've been thinking about this.
00:07:08
Thomson
I have to say, as an artist, I certainly have been very self-indulgent. i I came to this because I wanted to explore. I wanted to be a visionary. so So for me, that's a very personal thing. i I didn't come playing music because I just wanted to make people happy. i wanted to explore, find new territories, ah you know just go places people hadn't been before.
00:07:33
Thomson
and create new music, new art, new visions. so So I kind of, I conceive of this, as you were saying, like the the artist as explorer, you're looking at novelty, you're looking at new experiences, you're looking to expand the history from where it's been.
00:07:49
Thomson
We could play the music of Duke Ellington, we can play big bands, you can play Miles Davis, you can play standards, but you also have John Coltrane, who's just taking all of those, creating entirely new forms, new structures,
00:08:03
Thomson
but it still can be completely functional. And then as you move forward historically in jazz, you also have the avant-garde in which very abstract people are just working with free improvisation.
00:08:14
Thomson
They're ah not even having structure, they're getting rid of structure. and And that applies to so many artistic disciplines. If you're looking at a you know Rembrandt is a you know very classical artist, but you also have Jackson Pollock who's splattering paint all over the the place.
00:08:31
Thomson
You have Rothko with these abstract colors and forms and structures. You have ah Dolly who takes structures ah or Picasso, cubist structures, but you're you're taking classical structures, turning them, inverting them, adding extra dimensions and finding new ways to look at reality and so forth.
00:08:52
Thomson
So I always wanted to be more of the Picasso, the Dolly, the Pollock, and just go somewhere people have never been.
00:08:53
Tina Turner
So I always wanted to be more the capacity the
00:08:59
Thomson
Like where, where You know, what what can I find out there? If I were a woodworker, you know, I'd want to create a form that was entirely unique and put my own twist on it and and just find some new structure, a new way to go that hadn't been thought of before.
00:09:16
Thomson
um So artist as visionary, you're challenging the status quo. I think there's another aspect to this. So as Paul mentioned, this can be very multidimensional.
00:09:27
Thomson
um For me, music has always been very spiritual, I think is the best word ah to to kind of encapsulate it.
00:09:32
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Mm-hmm.
00:09:35
Thomson
So music can be meditative. It's something that connects people. But you have this ah almost a transcendental journey that can happen with music.
00:09:45
Thomson
You're listening to this piece of music and you're transported to an entirely different world that's just kind of beyond our physical realm in a sense. That's, you know, it's a maybe...
00:09:56
Thomson
putting it in religious terms almost in that sense. But for me, playing music is like going to church. It's like sitting there ah in a holy place and communing with like the deepest levels of reality that we possibly can. So for me, there's the explorer aspect. There's the transcendental aspect as well.
00:10:18
Thomson
um On the other side, you also have the artist and performer the poll that Paul mentioned as kind of, ah you can look at it a few different ways, the the collaborator, um the community gatherer, the organizer. So in terms of this, I was thinking I could also frame it as an architect, a facilitator to the audience. So the artist becomes the guide.
00:10:47
Thomson
we're ah We're not here to explore a new territory. We're here to communicate to the audience, bring them in, have a journey together and experience something together, whatever this is.
00:10:58
Thomson
That could be transcendental, like I was saying before, but it also might just be, man, we want to dance and have a good time, right? yeah Like jam, just have fun.
00:11:07
Tina Turner
hmm
00:11:07
Thomson
So this art form, it doesn't we don't always have to be in these super abstract explorer categories.
00:11:08
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:11:14
Thomson
Sometimes it's just this visceral rhythm pumping on the dance floor and like, yeah, I mean, get down, have a good time.
00:11:24
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
All right, so so Thompson, I find this this these two poles of artist as the explorer versus artist as the collaborator or aggregator for the public a very useful tool.
00:11:39
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
A very useful framework that I think the rest of the conversation is going to hang on. And you said, you know, the audience in one case is a witness to what's happening. They're not necessarily part of it, but they're witnessing it. And that can be powerful.
00:11:52
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I'm sure we've all been witness to something artistic where you're like, holy fucking shit. Like what is going on? Like that's incredible, even if you're not part of it. But then there's audience as participant.
00:12:06
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And we know that is extremely powerful too, because the people feel part of something that is bigger than themselves. I think of Jacob Collier.
00:12:17
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Have you seen, i sent Thompson his videos where he turns a huge crowd audience in a theater into a huge choral instrument. So he divides the audience into thirds and he gives them a note. This third gets this note, this third gets this note, this third gets ah ah another note.
00:12:35
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And through the action of his hands, he has them go up and down section by section and turns it into like a human organ with their voices. And you say, yeah, but they don't know what notes to sing.
00:12:48
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Well, he doesn't tell them what notes to sing. They just kind of know. he like He'll go up in this section and they'll go to the note. How do they know what note? They must have some musical background or just their human brain tells them that that's the right note to sing. And maybe 80% get it right. Maybe 20% get it wrong. But 20% are shit, I'm singing the wrong note. Yeah.
00:13:09
Thomson
Yeah.
00:13:09
Tina Turner
Well, that's safety in numbers right there is what that is.
00:13:11
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
yeah And then join.
00:13:12
Tina Turner
Yeah.
00:13:12
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So like there's that that can be incredibly powerful. And you see people emerge from that kind of experience where they're the participant. And I'm sure as ah as Thompson and I were texting earlier, they probably feel like that was probably one of the most moving experiences of their lives.
00:13:31
Tina Turner
Well, can we come back? So, Thompson, in that opening, which was fucking beautiful, um you touch on structure a lot and and the people who work within the structure and the people who step outside the chart, the explorers.
00:13:40
Thomson
Yeah.
00:13:47
Tina Turner
Right. And Paul, what you're describing is somebody who understands the structure so well that they're able to explain the structure to an audience and invite the audience to participate in said structure.
00:14:00
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
To be part of it. Yeah.
00:14:01
Tina Turner
But what's what's powerful, at least to me, and please disagree with me if if either of you think so.
00:14:01
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:14:08
Tina Turner
But what seems to me to be so powerful about moments like that, and I've been like Ben Folds is a pop artist who does this a lot, and he's so fucking good at it, right?
00:14:15
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm. Hmm.
00:14:18
Tina Turner
But you you are assuming that the audience knows the structure and then you are providing additional structure on top of that for them to participate in. And so there is an understanding of like, I don't want to sound like a dick here, but like like Ben Folds knows more about music theory than I do. Right. So there's an understanding of like, you know, more than me. I know more than you. But I'm going to give you the framework in which to participate and you can experience the making of music it's paint by numbers via music. Right.
00:14:47
Tina Turner
I can give you that experience because I'm giving you the structure.
00:14:47
Thomson
Mm-hmm.
00:14:51
Tina Turner
So the the dissonance for me at this early in the conversation, 14, 15 minutes in is we're both talking about the experience of the audience, understanding the structure and the desire for the artist to break outside of the structure and do something new.
00:15:09
Tina Turner
And i don't I don't know if you can collapse those two things into the same artist.
00:15:14
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
i don't I don't know that they collapsed in the same artist at the same time, Eric. I think they're sequential. And so this is one of the hypotheses I want to put forth. Your question was like such a great intro to this hypothesis. So I think I'm going to put a hypothesis out there. and And that is with the purpose of testing it and whipping it. So feel free to disagree.
00:15:40
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
When we're young, we are largely in an exploratory phase. We are upstarts, we want to disrupt things, we want to change the world, right? You know, that every commencement speech at high school, my daughter just graduated, every commencement commencement speech is like, now you're going to go out and change the world with your fresh ideas, right?
00:15:54
Tina Turner
Mmm...
00:16:01
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Like it's like all engineered to be the explorer, the disruptor, find who you are and change the world, right? And then, i'm this is a hypothesis. I'm not saying this is the case, but this hypothesis.
00:16:15
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
you're You're the explorer for a while and you're hungry as fuck, right? Eric, think about how hungry you are when you first started making furniture.
00:16:23
Tina Turner
Sure, I'm still hungry.
00:16:24
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
You're like, yeah, I'm going to test. I'm going to push the boundaries. I'm going fuck people up with my designs, right? And then as you get older and and time moves on and you've kind of scratched that itch,
00:16:37
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
You enter a different phase of perhaps being more the collaborator. Life's about joy and bringing joy to others and uniting people. and And we know the data from the Harvard study of adult development. It's about deep relationships. It's not about just being alone all the time and like pursuing your exploratory ideas. It's about deep relationships.
00:17:01
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
relationships that are meaningful to you. And that all smells of inviting people into your life. Perhaps you have children, perhaps you have a wife, perhaps you have a house and things slow down from the explorer phase, right? You're not so hot and hungry when you're older, but you're wiser and more integrative.
00:17:23
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So my suggestion, that my hypothesis to be clear, is that often these phases, Eric, maybe don't co-occur in one person at one time.
00:17:34
Tina Turner
Hmm.
00:17:34
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
They can, of course. And I think our later discussion that we'll have on Rick Rubin may may suggest this, but um I think it's a development it's often developmental.
00:17:47
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
When we're young, we're the explorer. And when as we age, we're more the collaborator. Please feel free.
00:17:53
Thomson
So I'd like to to bring something in there. So you guys had a great episode talking about the big five and personalities. So I think there's one aspect of this, which certain people have certain proclivities to maybe be more of an explorer, more conservative and looking for safety, comfort, security versus you know novelty, adventure seeking, risk seeking, and that. So I think there's one aspect, which is just personality.
00:18:19
Thomson
Another thought, Piaget was a child event child deal developmental psychologist who's kind of key with Big Five and other aspects of psychology.
00:18:20
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
00:18:30
Thomson
But his thesis was just early childhood is a point where we're all learning the rules. But we don't learn the rules by someone telling us, do this, do this, do this, do that.
00:18:42
Thomson
What we do is we go out into the world. We have a ball. We play kickball and we start going back and forth and you navigate the rules in a social context and we build those rules together in a collaborative fashion.
00:18:50
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.
00:18:55
Thomson
So this this rule learning is often in a collaborative social environment and kids that aren't exposed to that actually don't learn rulemaking as much. So it's just a thought to bring in there.
00:19:07
Thomson
When we're young, we're figuring out the rules, we're making the rules. And then we're also breaking the rules. We're pushing those boundaries. Kids act out. You get your teens and you just want to break everything.
00:19:19
Thomson
You're not coming home at night.
00:19:19
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
it Burn it to the ground.
00:19:20
Thomson
You're getting trashed. Like, yeah, burn it all the ground.
00:19:22
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
hu
00:19:23
Thomson
i don't want to be part of society. i don't want to fucking be part of any of this. Screw my parents. Like, yeah.
00:19:29
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
They don't understand me.
00:19:30
Tina Turner
They should have done better.
00:19:31
Thomson
Yeah. so So I think there's a certain developmental aspect, like you're saying, like, man, you know you just want to break the rules. And certainly in my early development, for myself as an artist is like, I want to break the rules.
00:19:44
Thomson
i don't want to do this stuff that everybody's been doing for the past, you know, however many years I want to do something completely different and break it all down.
00:19:52
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I'm gonna fuck this shit up.
00:19:53
Thomson
Yeah. Tear it down to the yeah scorched earth.
00:19:55
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
m
00:19:57
Tina Turner
Well, um I'm glad you brought up the idea of games because ah that's immediately what I thought of. like If you've ever played a game like a collaborative game or a board game or a creative game with somebody else, like you're working within the structure of the game. You know that like there is there is a beginning, there's a middle, there's an end, there's a goal there. And there's nothing more frustrating than playing a, like let's just take a board game, for example. a board game with somebody that keeps going like, well, actually, I've been playing this game a lot and like house rules. So like that, that doesn't, you know, they keep changing the rules on you. Like, what's the fucking structure? Like, what are we doing?
00:20:35
Tina Turner
What is the point of this game? um And, and, I think music is similar in that regard. right but ah You're the professional musician. Please tell me to shut the fuck up and stay my lane.
00:20:46
Thomson
ah You get it.
00:20:46
Tina Turner
but But I think there is that component of it of like, listen, we understand, at least in Western society, we grew up with certain structures that are resonant and pleasing to our ears and to our souls.
00:20:59
Tina Turner
And so as long as we play within the boundaries of these structures, we can do anything we want. But there's always that one guy who's like, but what if, you know, like, what if I play a B sharp? You're like, well, that doesn't exist. So go fuck yourself. And he's like, no, no, no. But like, what if I do it?
00:21:18
Tina Turner
You know, and and that can be really difficult to um collaborate with.
00:21:28
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah Eric, as Thompson described himself in his early musical career as wanting to break the rules and see what's possible.
00:21:36
Tina Turner
Yeah.
00:21:36
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Do you feel like that was you also in your early woodworking career?
00:21:41
Tina Turner
I mean, flat answer, yes. um I think the idea of it being a developmental thing I wanted to push back against, but I don't think I can in good faith.
00:21:53
Tina Turner
um ah um
00:21:54
Thomson
Thank
00:21:56
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Bitch, the research says it's the case.
00:21:57
Tina Turner
I mean, and and it's it's fair. It's fair. i think we all anybody who has a driving passion to create. um probably also in this could be an overstep, but I think it probably also has a ah driving passion to discover their own voice.
00:22:17
Tina Turner
And I think part of that is going like, you have told me that X plus Y equals Z, but I have to find out for myself, right?
00:22:26
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Right, right.
00:22:27
Tina Turner
So so yes, when I was early on in my career, I was like, you said that like ah Walnut and Purple Heart don't go together. But like, what if you know, like, do you know that? Like, I have to figure it out myself. um So, yeah, I think there was there was a big component of ah pushing back against the status quo.
00:22:48
Tina Turner
And i I know better than you. And that that doesn't lead to good collaborative pieces.
00:22:57
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
No, and it doesn't invite an audience. You're this young upstart just trying to fuck shit up and figure out who you are.
00:23:01
Tina Turner
Well, yeah, well, you're you're better than everybody else.
00:23:03
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:23:04
Tina Turner
So of course, like if the audience doesn't get you, it's just because you're so smart that like they don't understand your vision.
00:23:04
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Right. Actually, ah so, Eric... you know I was thinking about like artists as explorer, artists as collaborate, and some of the some of the things that correlate with that based on people's ah ah how people see that or you know perceive that in the domain. so um People, I think, often think of artists like, oh, I make art right with their long cigarette extender. Right? I make art because I'm interested in as arrogant, self-indulgent, occasionally genius, right?
00:23:41
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
But like mostly negative. There's a lot of negative connotation that comes with the kind of the explorer.
00:23:44
Tina Turner
Hmm. Hmm.
00:23:47
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Like ah they don't care how I feel. I came to the show and they fucking noodled around. i don't know what the fuck. Yeah. Yeah. And then how do people see a concert? What were we seeing? Ben Folds or Jacob Collier, who like invites the audience in and makes them feel part of something that maybe they're not even qualified to be part of like on their own.
00:24:05
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
you know i mean They don't have the skills to hang with Jacob Collier, but he invites them into like this joint thing. And they'd say, it was transcendent. It it brought me... a way to a new place from my daily grind.
00:24:16
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It gave me a sense of community, a sense of belonging. I was dancing, I was singing. I felt culturally tuned in to all these beautiful humans around me, which I do think plays into who we are as humans from a DNA like level.
00:24:30
Thomson
Mm-hmm.
00:24:31
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
um So like those two things, the artist as the explorer has many negative connotations often associated with it. And the as the collaborator has many positive associations with it. However, I will push back on my own point. with Well, ah I will say there are trade-offs because breakthroughs are probably not going to happen when you're playing your hits to the crowd that they love.
00:24:56
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
You're just rehearsing what you've already done. Whereas breakthroughs will more much more likely occur when you're on your own, considering new ideas, challenging the status quo, and you're hungry, hot, and bothered.
00:25:11
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I think the probability of breaking new ground is higher in one case versus the other.
00:25:16
Tina Turner
Is that true, though?
00:25:16
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Eric, you're... Well, okay. Sure.
00:25:18
Tina Turner
Is that all right? I want to stick in the music universe right now.
00:25:20
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
well well okay
00:25:22
Tina Turner
um and And let's take Ben Folds, Jacob Collier as examples of people who are open to exploring new experiences with audiences versus
00:25:34
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Okay.
00:25:36
Tina Turner
the Rolling Stones, for example, they like, they put it out a fucking album in 2026.
00:25:39
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yep. Okay.
00:25:41
Tina Turner
You know, who doesn't want new music from fucking Mick Jagger in 2026, anybody, but Mick Jagger.
00:25:42
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Okay.
00:25:45
Thomson
ah ah Yeah, yeah.
00:25:47
Tina Turner
Right. But, but he, I imagine like thinks of himself as the Explorer, as the person, like trying to do something new, trying to reinvent sixties rock in, you know, 50 fucking years later.
00:25:49
Thomson
yeah
00:26:02
Tina Turner
Um, yeah, So i don't I don't necessarily know that you have to be on your own stepping out into the abyss. I think you can invite people on that journey with you.
00:26:14
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Eric, let me push back on you again.
00:26:16
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
when did you make your when did you make your most When did you make your most influential like statement pieces?
00:26:16
Tina Turner
Please, I love it when you push me from the back.
00:26:18
Tina Turner
Sorry, what? What?
00:26:25
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Was it at the behest of your audience or was it when you had something deep inside you that you were searching for?
00:26:32
Tina Turner
Sure, sure, sure. But that's I'm I'm me
00:26:33
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
no, no, no, just give me this sure, sure, sure stuff.
00:26:35
Tina Turner
Yeah.
00:26:36
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
No, no, no, you don't get to fucking sideline my rebuttal, fucker.
00:26:42
Tina Turner
Listen, I don't disagree with your point.
00:26:42
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah
00:26:45
Tina Turner
Yes, I have said on this podcast before that I think my best work has often come from moments of deep self-reflection. However, however,
00:26:55
Thomson
OK.
00:26:55
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh, what?
00:26:56
Tina Turner
However, i am me and we work in a medium that is relatively isolated.
00:27:01
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:27:02
Tina Turner
Like we work as individual furniture makers and there's not like we collaborate because we seek that out. But that's not the norm in woodworking versus music to play the upright bass by itself and to be exceptional at it is a rare, rare fucking talent.
00:27:21
Tina Turner
So to be able to communicate emotion via the upright bass as its own instrument, and that's it. That is, that's one out of a million. Most of the time, the upright bass is in symphony with other instruments to create something larger than itself.
00:27:40
Thomson
Mm-hmm.
00:27:41
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Wait, so is that saying I was right?
00:27:43
Tina Turner
Yeah, you were right, motherfucker. Get the fuck over yourself.
00:27:44
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
and no yeah no No, no, no, no, no. It's not, it's not actually me being right.
00:27:47
Tina Turner
ah
00:27:49
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It's just this idea. It's just this idea that that explorer time is, is when some really important breakthroughs occur. And we would say like, that's when your authenticity might be highest, like your true authenticity of like kind of who you are, your voice, and your voice is always mired with other influences outside yourself.
00:27:56
Tina Turner
Sure, sure.
00:28:08
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I don't mean to say you have one true voice and there's nobody else involved. That's a fallacy. the obviously community is involved in your voice. But when I'm looking for who I really am, i have to turn the volume down, i think, around me and just kind of listen to myself.
00:28:26
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So perhaps in explorer mode, I can hear myself think more clearly than if I'm listening to this person say, oh, you should do this or this. but Oh, you should do that. Oh, you should use more of this. You should integrate more of that. So like this idea of explorer versus collaborator I think it has a parallel to authenticity of your voice or like clarity of your own voice.
00:28:46
Thomson
Mm-hmm.
00:28:47
Tina Turner
That's fair. I can't disagree with that.
00:28:47
Thomson
Yeah.
00:28:48
Tina Turner
I want to hear what Thompson thinks because we've been mansplaining music to him for like 10 minutes now.
00:28:50
Thomson
Yeah.
00:28:52
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
No, no, you have.
00:28:53
Tina Turner
Hmm.
00:28:53
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I've been talking about the other...
00:28:54
Thomson
Yeah.
00:28:55
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ha
00:28:57
Thomson
I mean, like it can go so many ways. ways So I think, um like like with what you're saying with the musician as explorer, at least with myself, a lot of times when when I was coming up, I could say,
00:29:12
Thomson
I was searching for something outside myself. I was trying to find something somewhere, go to a new destination. And for myself, maybe with maturity, what I found is it was there within yourself.
00:29:25
Thomson
Like you had to find the origin, your original voice. So I think, whereas maybe when we're young, we're searching for something, searching everywhere. And we think it's somewhere else.
00:29:38
Thomson
But eventually, as an artist, with your maturity, you find like, no, it's right here. This is my voice.
00:29:42
Tina Turner
Hmm.
00:29:43
Thomson
I don't need to discover something absolutely new. All I need to do is be myself to to find the originality of what I have to say.
00:29:54
Thomson
So I think that's part of maybe maturity and maybe why as artists develop ah and they get older, we might say, ah, they're just kind of repeating themselves. But in a certain sense, maybe they found themselves. They found their core. They found the place.
00:30:08
Thomson
That just exemplifies who and what they are, what they have to say. Yeah, just some thoughts there.
00:30:14
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And they became famous for it and then leaned on it.
00:30:18
Thomson
Yeah. and And also, how many times can you reinvent yourself if you're just taking the explorer facet?
00:30:23
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Ah.
00:30:24
Thomson
Like, can I really reinvent myself every 10 years to become an absolute, like, I'm going to become, there are only so many ways you can reconceptualize any art form.
00:30:35
Thomson
Like maybe we're just limited by the way we view the world. Like I can't change how I see color every five years or every 10 years as a painter. I can only kind of reconfigure things, see shapes differently, change myself, still resonate with my medium.
00:30:50
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh, yes.
00:30:51
Thomson
but
00:30:52
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Thompson said to me earlier in the week, does any one person have the neuroplasticity to reinvent themselves multiple times or like continue reinventing yourself?
00:31:01
Tina Turner
Hmm. Hmm.
00:31:03
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So I want to come to some research on this. OK, there is a huge body of research on this topic.
00:31:13
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Like when do people do their best work in a field? Do they get dull? Do they get stale? Can they reinvent themselves multiple times? There's a map. And it started, ah gosh, in the, well, it started in the 1800s, actually, some of the earliest observations. But in the 1950s, a huge book was written about this topic. And there's been people who have followed that. So let me give you the first, the first, ah
00:31:45
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
observation about this. So there was someone called Lehman who published a big book on the topic of when in life do you do your best work? What age? you know Is this a time-limited offer?
00:31:58
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And lemon ah Lehman um leman quantified like when do doctors, ah medical doctors do their best work? When do phsic physicists make their biggest discoveries? When do artists make their seminal breakthrough paintings or you know music musicians? And it was quantified over like almost every you know every possible job.
00:32:26
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And the pattern was deafeningly clear. you do your the biggest The best work seems to occur when you're like 30s and maybe early 40s.
00:32:39
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And then it goes up to a peak around 30 or 40. And then it's precipitous downtrend after that, right? 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, right? And so Lehman published this and said, well,
00:32:54
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
um your best work, your best ideas comes when you're like 30 or 40 and then it's downhill from there. And boy, did that cause a stir because a whole bunch of other scientists were like, oh, hold on broski. It's not that easy.
00:33:09
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Like, are you... um are you considering ah quantity? Like maybe you put out more ideas when you're 30 or 40 or more papers, or, you know maybe you're publishing more, maybe you're doing more than you are when you're 60. And that the the probability of a good idea is the same at both ages. It's just, you're doing three times the work when you're young because you're young and hungry and poor and you want ah get a career under you and prove yourself. So ah ah another ah scientist named Dennis argued exactly that, that this is not correct and that it's a result of quantity, not just quality. And through a rigorous study, he showed that it's its it's quantity that's happening in your late 30s, 40s. You're doing more.
00:33:58
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And that's why good ideas are happening. But the probability of a good idea is the same when you're 30 versus when you're 50 or 60. So that was a really interesting wrinkle to the whole idea that you peak when you're 30 or 40 and it's all downhill from there.
00:34:05
Tina Turner
Mmm.
00:34:06
Thomson
Yeah.
00:34:10
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
But that's actually representative of the quantity of work you're doing. And then a third scientist, Simonton, said, yes, this is correct.
00:34:20
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
He backed this up with a massive data set. He said, Dennis is correct. It's about quantity. um The probability of a great idea is stable throughout your life, and it is about volume, but he wanted to...
00:34:36
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Talk about when the good idea happens in your life. Like we said, it oh, it's 30 or 40 and then it's downhill. It's not your chronological age that determines it.
00:34:47
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It's your career age that determines it.
00:34:50
Tina Turner
Hmm.
00:34:50
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So in other words, you might start a career and maybe five to 10 years later, you'll have your apex, your breakthrough, and then it's downhill. But if you switch careers, you'll have another one.
00:35:02
Tina Turner
Hmm.
00:35:04
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It's not your chronological age. It's your career age. And I thought that was a fascinating idea because Thompson, you just switched careers, bitch.
00:35:13
Thomson
Yeah. Yeah. I like, I like, i like that one.
00:35:14
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah
00:35:16
Thomson
Yep. because i Because I do have to say, i mean, that having heard of this this whole yeah scientific study, it it almost bothers me to think like, oh, am i as an artist, am I really unable to have more of an impact and come up with new ideas like that?
00:35:32
Thomson
is it Is it limited kind of by your network? So one thing I would say to that is we're building our network early on. And to have an impact, you need to have the relationships, know the people, have a certain established authority and credentials and trust of whatever your peers are to be able to make an impact.
00:35:51
Thomson
But then, like you're saying, I mean, 20, 30 years later, can I still have an impact? Or will I i just be seen as, yeah, an old has-been that's kind of done it?
00:36:00
Tina Turner
Mmm.
00:36:01
Thomson
But I think you could reinvent yourself in a new career. So maybe... You know, like I went into engineering. So I started as an engineer. i was a musician for about 25 years. And then I went back into engineering. Now I'm doing AI software and so forth.
00:36:17
Thomson
Still doing architecture, still thinking about these things. But it feels like a whole second leg to my life, which is great. It's like a new place to explore, new areas to go. And I'm just kind of on the up and up in that in that area.
00:36:30
Thomson
So it feels like I have all this excitement that I ended up kind of lacking a little bit in the artistic career.
00:36:33
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Right, right, right.
00:36:36
Thomson
Yeah.
00:36:37
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Eric, what do you think?
00:36:39
Tina Turner
I try not to, but um I don't know.
00:36:40
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah
00:36:41
Thomson
ah
00:36:43
Tina Turner
It's I don't know what I think about that there. I again, i found myself wanting to push back at multiple points, but then you kept coming back around to to points where I was like, well, you know, I can't disagree with that.
00:36:58
Tina Turner
i
00:36:58
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
and Why do you want to just scream with me all the time?
00:37:00
Tina Turner
and Because that's our roles on the podcast, bitch.
00:37:00
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah
00:37:05
Tina Turner
No, I mean, look, I'm... i'm of closing in on 15 years into this career, you know, and ah like we've talked to you and i many a time about, I don't, I don't know that I have any more ideas left, you know?
00:37:14
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Mmm.
00:37:20
Thomson
Yeah. Yep.
00:37:20
Tina Turner
And so maybe that timeline does pan out. Um, I am in a point now where I find myself, I was just talking to a couple of people over the last week about this.
00:37:32
Tina Turner
Uh, I'm more interested in teaching than I am in making, you know? Um, but in in And maybe that comes back around at the beginning of the conversation about like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:37:42
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
That's art as the collaborator versus art as the explorer.
00:37:44
Thomson
yeah
00:37:44
Tina Turner
The the structure, the structure.
00:37:45
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:37:46
Tina Turner
Like i I feel as though, and this could be a very arrogant statement, so please forgive me if it's if it's overstepping or pushback against me.
00:37:46
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:37:54
Tina Turner
But I feel like I have explored all of the areas of my field. um That's not to say that there are unseen areas, like unseen corners that I haven't explored, but like overwhelmingly, like there are seven stories in literature to be written. Right. And similarly in, in furniture, I feel like I have said everything that I have to say, and I am more interested in this moment in,
00:38:23
Tina Turner
explaining the structure and seeing new people find that same level of excitement about the structure and about their capacity than I am in continuing to explore my own capacity.
00:38:36
Thomson
Sounds like maturity to me.
00:38:36
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Wow.
00:38:38
Thomson
Yeah.
00:38:38
Tina Turner
yeah Maybe it's just fatigue. Maybe it's maturity. don't know. There's no way to know, oh you know?
00:38:42
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It might be both because there's an age component to this and there's a career cycle component, right? Or sorry, there's a chronological age and a career age. And and Eric, they're both happening to you at the same time simultaneously.
00:38:54
Tina Turner
Yeah, yeah, I'm getting old at the same time from both.
00:38:56
Thomson
ah
00:38:58
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Like you're getting long in your career.
00:38:58
Tina Turner
My knees ache in both simultaneously. Hmm. Hmm.
00:39:02
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah you know I find this idea of a career age, meaning like, look, look we can we can only come to the table with so many upstart original thoughts in one domain and you run out of ideas.
00:39:18
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Right. you You burn bright early on. There's a lot of gas. You pour it on the fire. The fire burns like crazy, like out of control. You're so hot about these ideas. You can't even like you don't go to bed till two in the morning because you're so motivated to stay in the shop.
00:39:33
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Thompson practicing late into the night.
00:39:34
Thomson
Oh, yeah.
00:39:35
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Right.
00:39:35
Thomson
Dude.
00:39:35
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Right.
00:39:35
Thomson
Yep. Yeah.
00:39:36
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
every possible yeah fucking modal i'm gonna mix lydia in this fucking shit into and eric eric you're probably like late late into the night like because you you want to realize these ideas because you're so fucking hot about them when you're early in the career and often early in your life and they often correlate but then as you scratch all the itches and eric you said you've explored a lot of areas within woodworking
00:39:36
Thomson
2 a.m.
00:39:37
Tina Turner
Yeah.
00:39:38
Thomson
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:46
Tina Turner
Oh, yeah.
00:39:51
Tina Turner
Yeah.
00:40:04
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
All right. I kind of see. you know You don't have itch isn't as strong.
00:40:08
Tina Turner
Yeah, that doesn't that doesn't diminish the admiration or the love for the thing, but it but it does make you go like...
00:40:11
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
No. No.
00:40:16
Tina Turner
do i do I want to stay up till 2 a.m. in the shop tonight?
00:40:19
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Right.
00:40:19
Tina Turner
you know like i I have a rough idea of where this idea is going to lead, which is, on the one hand, that's wisdom, right?
00:40:20
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Right.
00:40:20
Thomson
Yeah. Yep.
00:40:27
Tina Turner
Because you can you can see down the road before you traverse it.
00:40:27
Thomson
Mm-hmm.
00:40:28
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:40:30
Tina Turner
On the other hand, that's a little bit sad because you don't bother to traverse down some roads that might lead to new things because you go like, I think it will probably end up here even if it's not a guarantee.
00:40:44
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah, yeah. It's true. It's just, I think the career life cycle is is is, wow, this is a whole new idea. And I've been reeling this whole week based on some of these things.
00:40:54
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
But, ah you know, to speak about the last, go ahead
00:40:55
Tina Turner
Hold on, hold on, hold on. Paul, where are you in the science career cycle?
00:41:00
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ahead.
00:41:00
Tina Turner
This is safe space. Your bosses aren't going listen to this, I think.
00:41:03
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh, wow. boy.
00:41:10
Tina Turner
Oh, he didn't think about this beforehand, huh?
00:41:10
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It's a bit of a mixed bag.
00:41:10
Thomson
mean You got him. You got him.
00:41:12
Tina Turner
Yeah, I got him.
00:41:13
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I didn't.
00:41:13
Thomson
Yeah.
00:41:13
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I didn't.
00:41:13
Tina Turner
I got him.
00:41:14
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh, fuck you. I didn't think about it at all.
00:41:17
Thomson
hey
00:41:17
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
God damn it! ah Um...
00:41:20
Tina Turner
Seven hours of preparation for this pod and he didn't self-reflect at all, you son of a bitch.
00:41:23
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I know. I did. i did it I did.
00:41:25
Tina Turner
Hmm.
00:41:25
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I was thinking about you guys than I was thinking about myself.
00:41:25
Tina Turner
Hmm.
00:41:30
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah um I would say it's a bit of a mixed bag. If I was left to my own devices on what I want to study, I'd probably be bored. Like the career life cycle has like largely played out. But fortunately for me, I'm given projects that I wouldn't otherwise pick. And they're always new. It's always a new domain area. So even though I know the scientific process is the same, it's all new stuff. It's like a new disease. It's like a whole new drug type or modality or like approach. And so that keeps it fresh every time.
00:42:00
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So it's a little bit of a mixed bag. It's like, yes, it's science and yes, I know it well, but everything feels fresh because it's always a new problem I've never seen before. And that to me is like the sweet spot for my career.
00:42:12
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
But I want to do, say I did want to say the last time I stayed up till 2 a.m. like just because I couldn't stop, right? I was so hot. Was just like a week or two ago when my daughter asked me to be the DJ for her graduation party.
00:42:28
Tina Turner
This was, I have to admit, this was my favorite text I've gotten from you in years.
00:42:28
Thomson
Nice.
00:42:29
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah
00:42:30
Thomson
Yeah.
00:42:34
Tina Turner
I just got a random fucking video of a party happening. And then I literally, I was watching the video and I was like, is that like no context?
00:42:38
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah, it was so good.
00:42:43
Tina Turner
No, no text.
00:42:44
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:42:44
Tina Turner
No, nothing. I just got a video and I watched it and I was like, is that, is Paul DJing this party of like a hundred teenagers?
00:42:45
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Nope.
00:42:50
Thomson
Paul as DJ.
00:42:51
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:42:51
Thomson
Yeah.
00:42:53
Tina Turner
What the fuck is happening? Yeah.
00:42:55
Thomson
Yeah.
00:42:55
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I was eating teenagers in my backyard.
00:42:57
Tina Turner
ah
00:42:58
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And I was, was like real DJing, like beat matching tracks and overlapping them and fading in and filters, high pass filter and like, you know, bumping the bump in the B, you know, all the kids are like dancing.
00:43:00
Tina Turner
Oh yeah! Oh yeah!
00:43:01
Thomson
Yeah.
00:43:05
Tina Turner
ah
00:43:06
Thomson
ah Nice.
00:43:09
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It was like, it was crazy out there.
00:43:11
Thomson
I got to see that.
00:43:11
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And, I mean, I was so because I I've DJed once or twice in my life before that way back in grad school, but I kind of forgot a lot of it and i the whole mixer and like I had to like reorient and it's I didn't want to crash and burn for my daughter. Like this is her party. I want it to be I want to kill. Right. And so I'm up at two in the morning in my living room. My house is shaking.
00:43:38
Tina Turner
Hmm.
00:43:40
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Because it's got to be loud, right? My poor wife's upstairs asleep with house music bumping. And I got the TV on YouTube playing like some fractal pattern to get me in the mood. I'm two bourbons deep. And I'm absolutely mixing these two house tracks together. And I look at time. like 2 a.m.
00:43:59
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And I'm like, motherfucker, what am I doing? But it dawns on me that that is that excitement of a new discipline.
00:44:03
Tina Turner
ah
00:44:08
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Something I'm not...
00:44:08
Tina Turner
Yeah, it's the excitement of the new.
00:44:09
Tina Turner
Yeah.
00:44:10
Thomson
Yeah.
00:44:10
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yes! And I'm trying to get it.
00:44:11
Tina Turner
Yeah.
00:44:12
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I want...
00:44:12
Thomson
hu
00:44:13
Tina Turner
Yeah.
00:44:13
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And I know I have a deadline looming. So ah to speak about a career age, like I'm so fresh on that DJ career.
00:44:20
Thomson
Yeah.
00:44:21
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Not that it's a career, but you know that was the last time i was motivated to stay up.
00:44:24
Tina Turner
Hmm. Nope, nope. It is now. i I am going to promote you as a party DJ for the next five to six years until you burn out.
00:44:27
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
and but But I'm not... ah But yet, Eric, I'm not motivated to stay up in the woodshop till 2 a.m.?
00:44:37
Tina Turner
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:44:39
Thomson
Yeah. And I'm,
00:44:39
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
What the fuck?
00:44:40
Thomson
I'm not motivated to go out and do jazz gigs till 2 AM anymore.
00:44:43
Thomson
Yeah. I want to, nope. I mean, not it not at that ah not that hour. I'd rather be home.
00:44:43
Tina Turner
No.
00:44:48
Tina Turner
So, so Thompson, what does motivate you?
00:44:49
Thomson
Yeah.
00:44:51
Tina Turner
Like what, what keeps you up till 2am at this point?
00:44:53
Thomson
but ah Not much. I would say, ah yeah.
00:44:56
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
but
00:44:56
Tina Turner
but
00:44:58
Thomson
I mean, yeah, you need something with adrenaline. So ah maybe if I find pottery or some new pursuit like that that just brings me in, I could i could see there.
00:45:01
Tina Turner
Yeah. Yeah.
00:45:08
Thomson
but
00:45:08
Tina Turner
But but you you switched back to engineering recently, yeah?
00:45:11
Thomson
Yes, yep, yeah, so
00:45:12
Tina Turner
ah So tell me about that, and that that's not driving that same passion?
00:45:17
Thomson
it's definitely driving the passion for a for architecture, complexity, systems theory, still a lot of the same drives in general.
00:45:25
Tina Turner
Hmm.
00:45:26
Thomson
But ah I would say, for I mean, for one thing, just professionally, my hours are much earlier, like I'm waking up at 5 AM.
00:45:32
Tina Turner
Hmm.
00:45:32
Thomson
m So yeah, my need to to be up at 2 is definitely not happening.
00:45:32
Tina Turner
Hmm.
00:45:36
Thomson
but But also as a professional now, I have this very structured format, which ironically I never had all the way up to my 40s, which is as a musician, you're making your own hours most of the time. You're you're practicing during the day, creating your own structure.
00:45:54
Thomson
And then now I'm working actual a corporate day gig and it's nine to five, man. It's a totally, totally different world where you're just clocking those hours.
00:46:00
Tina Turner
Yep. Yep. Yep.
00:46:04
Thomson
I might do overtime or something, but Yeah, it's it's not quite the same excitement, adrenaline, and so forth.
00:46:10
Tina Turner
What is it?
00:46:10
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Do the hours go fast, Thompson? Sorry, Eric, you're next.
00:46:14
Thomson
The hours do go fast, yeah, because I'm pretty involved, just like I used to do with composition and so forth. I'm working inside like ah software diagrams and writing code and things like that. So it's definitely still very intense and the hours go by. Yeah.
00:46:28
Tina Turner
Hmm. What's the what's the mental load of um like that that position that you're in now in this new and exciting?
00:46:35
Thomson
Mm-hmm.
00:46:37
Tina Turner
Sure.
00:46:37
Thomson
Yeah.
00:46:37
Tina Turner
Versus the mental load of practicing and and preparing for a gig.
00:46:37
Thomson
Yep.
00:46:43
Tina Turner
um
00:46:44
Thomson
Mm-hmm.
00:46:44
Tina Turner
Do you find that like. It's an unfair advantage because the one is new and in the other you've been doing for 20 years or whatever, but like.
00:46:50
Thomson
Mm-hmm.
00:46:53
Thomson
Yeah.
00:46:55
Tina Turner
You know, like, is is one more draining? Are you still doing gigs when you practice for that gig?
00:46:59
Thomson
Mm-hmm.
00:47:00
Tina Turner
Is it more just, like, rote memorization? You're like, okay, I know this so well, I got to go do a thing. Is it Paul making a box? Is it... Or or is it, like... Well, I don't i don't mean that derogatorily.
00:47:11
Tina Turner
Like, you know boxes so fucking well.
00:47:11
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah and That's messing.
00:47:12
Thomson
Yeah.
00:47:14
Tina Turner
You're so... Like, you've been making them for 15 fucking years, you know?
00:47:17
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I'm just messing. I'm just messing.
00:47:19
Tina Turner
ah So, ah like, i just I'm just wondering... like what is the placement of the new job in your life mentally versus what you've been doing for the, for the last 15 years?
00:47:28
Thomson
Yeah.
00:47:33
Thomson
Yeah, totally. so So it's definitely very intense with having to learn all these new disciplines, new learn different ways of thinking about things. i I would have to say in doing that, there have been times where I've been very busy and I haven't had time to practice.
00:47:46
Thomson
And I've had a gig coming up and I've had a bit of anxiety because i'm like, how am I going to manage this gig?
00:47:47
Tina Turner
Hmm.
00:47:51
Thomson
Like I haven't been playing properly. Like how am I going to do it? And what I find is when I pick up my instrument, it all just falls right back. It's right there. Like the the physicality of it.
00:48:02
Thomson
the, all the patterns I've done.
00:48:04
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
25 years, bro.
00:48:05
Thomson
Yeah.
00:48:05
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Bro, years of playing every day like
00:48:06
Thomson
Yeah.
00:48:08
Tina Turner
Yeah.
00:48:09
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
four to eight hours a day for twenty years
00:48:12
Thomson
Yeah. You embody it.
00:48:13
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
holy shit
00:48:14
Tina Turner
Yeah.
00:48:14
Thomson
Yeah.
00:48:15
Tina Turner
I don't think Keith Richards practices anymore at this point.
00:48:15
Thomson
And
00:48:19
Thomson
he doesn't need to. Yeah. And I think there's something about music and a lot of ah physical hobbies and pursuits that we do. It's very embodied.
00:48:29
Thomson
So there's an intelligence,
00:48:29
Tina Turner
Hmm.
00:48:31
Thomson
of the body that's very visceral and that takes place. And it's not just a cognitive, it's about how we use our hands. So even if my mind mentally might not be in that place, once I start playing, the physicality of all that action just brings me right back into it and I'm playing.
00:48:39
Tina Turner
Mm-hmm. huh
00:48:49
Thomson
And I think anything with your hands, you just have that relationship. It's visceral.
00:48:54
Tina Turner
God, we've talked about this so many fucking times on this podcast.
00:48:54
Thomson
Mm-hmm.
00:48:57
Tina Turner
Like this is, this is, this is the argument.
00:48:57
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I love it.
00:49:00
Tina Turner
Like people, i don't know how to, how to approach this argument, but like, You know, sometimes you hire like a mason or a carpenter or a roofer and you're like, I don't know if that guy is sober as he's working on my house, you know, but but it is a thing and I'm not encouraging working of an altered state of mind on the job.
00:49:18
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
yeah
00:49:25
Tina Turner
However, there is a thing, the intelligence of the hands and the intelligence of the mind are often two separate things. And you can do a thing, you can know it so well.
00:49:34
Thomson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:49:37
Tina Turner
And if you don't have the luxury of exploring new avenues because you got bills pay, you got kids to feed, you got a roof to keep over your head. um Sometimes those folks...
00:49:49
Tina Turner
imbibe early on in the day and their hands know enough that they can carry them through the workday.
00:49:56
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
yeah
00:49:57
Tina Turner
In the same way, I don't think that's dissimilar from being like, I haven't picked up the instrument in two and a half weeks, but when I go to this gig, I did it for 25 years.
00:50:07
Tina Turner
I know this instrument in and out and I know that my hands will know what to do.
00:50:15
Thomson
Mm-hmm.
00:50:16
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah People ask, can you still play the trombone? And I haven't picked it up in like I mean, a year or two at a time?
00:50:23
Tina Turner
Mm.
00:50:23
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Absolutely. You pick it up, it's right there. Because you did it for so many years.
00:50:26
Tina Turner
Yep.
00:50:28
Tina Turner
Yep.
00:50:29
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It's like permanently encoded. It's like there's no losing losing it.
00:50:33
Tina Turner
I did that with my with my nephew recently. I picked up my trumpet for the first time in probably 15 years. And immediately I was like, no, my embouchure was not great anymore.
00:50:44
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Sure.
00:50:44
Tina Turner
You know, you know, but sure, sure, sure.
00:50:44
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah. The muscle tone is dead.
00:50:46
Thomson
Yeah.
00:50:47
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:50:47
Tina Turner
But but all of the muscle memory was there.
00:50:47
Thomson
Yep.
00:50:50
Tina Turner
And he was like, you know, whatever. Play. Give me give me a. aeolian scale and i and i just did like i don't even know that i could intellectually articulate it but it was there the muscle memory the fingers were there
00:51:04
Thomson
There you go. Man, and and you said you didn't know music. You know music. Aeolian scale.
00:51:08
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I know, he's giving modal- modal scales!
00:51:10
Thomson
Yeah. Yeah.
00:51:11
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Whatever, you dick!
00:51:13
Tina Turner
yeah i i dabble in a phrygian every now and again you know you know Hey, you know who else dabbles in a Phrygian every now and again?
00:51:16
Thomson
Oh, okay, okay.
00:51:16
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh, whatever. Okay, okay, tough guy.
00:51:22
Tina Turner
It's our Lord and Savior, Billiam Teresa Burkle. ah At WTB Woodworking, at 390 Pike Road, Unit 2, Huntington Valley, Pennsylvania, 19006. I don't know if I've ever given the zip code. um Paul, let me let me ask you a question.
00:51:42
Tina Turner
How do you feel about woodturning blanks?
00:51:46
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I feel like they're important to get right, that you need the correct interesting material, because if you start with an ugly blank, you're going to create an ugly pen or an ugly wood turned object.
00:52:03
Tina Turner
That's fair. That's fair. How do you feel about getting 10% off all one turning blanks in store? Does that make you feel better about taking creative risks?
00:52:09
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I think... What I think is that that would minimize my probability of being pissed that I picked the wrong blank. If it's 10% off.
00:52:18
Tina Turner
and Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. That's fair. That's fair. Now, Thompson, let me ask you a question. how do you feel about slabs?
00:52:25
Thomson
I love slabs.
00:52:26
Tina Turner
Love slabs. Have you ever made an instrument out of a slab?
00:52:27
Thomson
Love slabs. I've never made an instrument out of a slab.
00:52:30
Tina Turner
Okay, but if you were to make an instrument out of a slab, wouldn't it feel good to get that slab for 50% off in store? Like if you were to take that creative risk?
00:52:38
Thomson
Oh. In a second. In a second.
00:52:40
Tina Turner
In a goddamn second.
00:52:41
Thomson
Yeah. Yeah.
00:52:43
Tina Turner
Okay?
00:52:44
Thomson
Yep.
00:52:44
Tina Turner
Let me tell you one more thing about ah ah William Teresa Burkle. The summer cast iron credit promotion from SawStop is actively in place. So if you purchase any new SawStop cast iron table in store through July 31st, which is...
00:53:03
Tina Turner
Maybe before this episode comes out.
00:53:07
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
When?
00:53:07
Tina Turner
There's no way to know. i'm I'm reasonably confident that this episode will come out July 31st.
00:53:09
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
When? What's the date?
00:53:14
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh, it's before July 31st.
00:53:16
Tina Turner
Okay, okay.
00:53:16
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:53:17
Tina Turner
You might have like three to four business days, but...
00:53:18
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
it's It's July 22nd this comes out.
00:53:21
Tina Turner
Oh, okay. jump You got like 11 days or whatever the fuck that is.
00:53:23
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Plenty of time.
00:53:25
Tina Turner
Nine days. um If you purchase an in-store a cast iron saw stop, you can get an online store credit of up to $450.
00:53:36
Tina Turner
So go do that thing and ask Bill for a hug and a squeeze and a caress.
00:53:36
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm, what do you know?
00:53:45
Tina Turner
Paul, how do you feel about Gorillaz?
00:53:47
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Well, first of all, gorillas should not be made into glue. Let's start with that.
00:53:52
Tina Turner
Nobody has ever said that, my brother.
00:53:52
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Okay. Okay, that's that's the first. I want to start with, no gorillas were harmed in the making of glue, okay?
00:53:59
Tina Turner
How do you feel? How do you feel about gorillas working in a production environment?
00:54:06
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
but
00:54:06
Tina Turner
no
00:54:06
Thomson
Mm-hmm.
00:54:07
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I think gorillas are probably I think they're probably capable a lot more than we realize if i would if I were to be honest high level primates are capable of a lot more remember Coco the gorilla who learned like what 2010 I'm sorry
00:54:13
Tina Turner
Yeah, you do you think they could work in assembly line situation?
00:54:22
Tina Turner
Sure. Yeah, we dated in high school, I think.
00:54:33
Tina Turner
She learned 2,000 words?
00:54:35
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
No, like Coco the gorilla had a vocabulary of what was it? 10,000 signs or 2,000 sign language? Like Coco was speaking in almost full sentences.
00:54:43
Tina Turner
couldn't tell you, she she never she never communicated well with me, but that's neither here nor there.
00:54:45
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So I think, well, ah I think gorillas are capable a lot more familiar than we think, Eric.
00:54:56
Tina Turner
Okay, what do you what do you think about... Nope. I was gonna... say that i was gonna i was gonna ask you how you feel about gorillas filling holes, but then Uh-huh.
00:55:00
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
No, don't, no. No. Gorilla Glue is great in terms of its wood filler for filling holes when you drive nails in, Eric.
00:55:08
Tina Turner
yeah
00:55:11
Tina Turner
Uh-huh.
00:55:15
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah And you leave these huge divots because you couldn't give a shit to control the intensity of the nail gun.
00:55:23
Tina Turner
Wow, that was uncalled for.
00:55:24
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I'm sorry. What? In fact, I did it the other day. i was actually de-rodentizing my shop, putting huge blocks of wood into the eaves where the rodents in my shop have set up like a nightclub.
00:55:32
Tina Turner
Yeah, you were. You rat bastard.
00:55:39
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
They'll they' all they'll hang out up there fucking dancing and shit. It's very art as a collaborator, artists as a collaborator.
00:55:46
Tina Turner
ah
00:55:46
Thomson
ah
00:55:46
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
They're very collaborative up in my the eaves of my shop. So I like filled them in. And I shot with a nail gun. And ah if I were to fill the holes, I would fill it with a Gorilla Glue wood filler.
00:56:01
Tina Turner
Goddamn right you would. How did you glue them in? Did you glue them in with the Gorilla wood glue?
00:56:05
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I did. In fact, I did.
00:56:06
Tina Turner
Goddamn right you did. Because you know why? Because it has less water, more glue, and a stronger bond than the other guys.
00:56:12
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
i mean, i used nails as well that I filled with the wood filler.
00:56:14
Tina Turner
Sure, sure, sure. But nails, are what ah what are nails but a permanent clamp?
00:56:15
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
But I started yeah start start with the wood glue.
00:56:18
Tina Turner
You know?
00:56:18
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:56:19
Tina Turner
You know? If you want to think of it that way.
00:56:20
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
00:56:21
Tina Turner
Listen, I'll tell you this. It cleans up with water.
00:56:23
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Please.
00:56:24
Tina Turner
It's non-foaming. And that bond is actually stronger than the wood itself.
00:56:28
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Stronger than the bond you formed with your gorilla girlfriend in high school.
00:56:31
Tina Turner
Goddamn right. Listen, coco Coco was a gentle but attentive lover. Okay? but
00:56:36
Thomson
Bye.
00:56:37
Tina Turner
so So Gorilla is tough enough for the pros, easy enough for everyone.
00:56:38
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh God, where were we?
00:56:43
Tina Turner
You should order yours today at GorillaTough.com slash woodworking is BS. That's GorillaTough.com slash woodworking is BS. And thanks to Gorilla Glue for sponsoring this week's video.
00:56:55
Tina Turner
And to Billy and Teresa Burkle.
00:56:58
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Thanks, Bill. If we weren't canceled before, we're gonna be canceled now. Just wanna say that.
00:57:02
Tina Turner
I don't know. Because I dated a gorilla. That's so fucking specious of you.
00:57:05
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Okay.
00:57:07
Tina Turner
Okay.
00:57:08
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Back to the matter at hand, Eric. Holy shit.
00:57:12
Tina Turner
ah
00:57:12
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
artist as explorer is art for the is art for the artist versus is art for the audience. And we've we've traversed a lot of ground. we've We've talked about it.
00:57:23
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
The do two poles and and the the reputations associated with each, we've talked about it, perhaps it's a developmental cycle, not so much chronologically, but maybe topically, like within a career that there's ah a certain life cycle in a career. And it often...
00:57:39
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
correlates with lifetime of often. So it's it's easy to kind of mix those. um One interesting point that we didn't get to that I want to bring on, Eric, is how this applies to woodworking. I would like to draw a distinct like parallel.
00:58:02
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So we've talked a lot about craft versus designer versus artist, right? We have two episodes on art versus craft.
00:58:12
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And in those episodes, he'd say, okay, Art is for the artist, right? Like, I'm going to make this. And and people if people don't understand it, it's their problem. you know Contemporary art, right?
00:58:27
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And craft has often been a little bit looked down on as like utilitarian. it's It's a Windsor chair. Well, that's not very creative. Mm-mm-mm.
00:58:37
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
But one ah one of the things that i I sort of stumbled upon as I was thinking about how the art for the artist versus art for the audience, you'd say art for the audience is craft, right?
00:58:51
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Like it has a function. And therefore, craft has an audience floor associated with it, right? Craft, whether it's cutting boards or chairs or benches or beds or whatever, or dressers,
00:59:08
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
They have an innate function associated with them. That's why we and we call them craft. They're part of a tradition. And they have a built-in audience. The audience comes with it. Everyone needs a cutting board. Everyone needs a chair. Everyone needs this right?
00:59:22
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Whereas art, for the sake of art, doesn't necessarily come part and parcel with an audience. You have to earn that audience, whether it's through storytelling or like, oh I'm trying to make a piece that you know challenges the thinking of this. And you have to kind of tell your story.
00:59:38
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
like and earn that audience through art. Whereas craft comes with a built-in audience, part and parcel of it being functional. What do think?
00:59:48
Tina Turner
I mean, i I agree wholeheartedly. I think that the craft furniture versus art furniture is a little unfair in this argument because.
01:00:00
Tina Turner
Our craft furniture, the the pieces that we make that have a function, have a very clear inherent value. So it's very easy to say, like, yeah, you need a chair because you're too lazy to sit on the fucking floor and develop lower back muscles, you know, like as.
01:00:15
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Mm-hmm.
01:00:16
Tina Turner
um Versus in a context like music, I think it's it's maybe harder to convince people.
01:00:27
Tina Turner
Maybe not. Thompson, please push back on me.
01:00:28
Thomson
Yeah, I mean.
01:00:30
Tina Turner
But I think it's harder to tell people that like this thing is beautiful because you know it versus this is beautiful because I'm exploring it and I believe it's beautiful and you should trust me.
01:00:44
Thomson
Yeah, so so kind of tangential to that, another framework I had thinking about music and art is the cultural aspect. So if you go to see a blues concert, ah there's a whole cultural component and history involved with that that might be very specific to a certain population subset of people.
01:00:57
Tina Turner
Mmm.
01:01:03
Thomson
By the same token, we could go hear an Indian concert or maybe ah maybe there's a Chinese ensemble coming that you go hear a concert of that would never have the opportunity to hear otherwise.
01:01:18
Thomson
Similarly, you have cultural components to crafts like like a shaker furniture. or something. So I think there can be a certain cultural sense where it's not just functional, but it's also a cultural component to the things that might draw us to them. You might be into arts and crafts. You might be like a Frank Lloyd Wright, how they how he ties furniture into the functionality of a chair and a table, but it actually embeds itself within the home itself.
01:01:49
Thomson
So you have artistic movements, you have cultural movements, I think there's another aspect to it involving culture.
01:01:56
Tina Turner
Is there a function that for music specifically? Is there a function that music plays in our lives in the same way that like a dining table plays or or a kitchen cabinet plays? You know, like what does music do for us that makes a musician a craftsman versus an artist?
01:02:17
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
That's is such a great question, Eric.
01:02:19
Tina Turner
Thanks, I have at least I got one an episode.
01:02:20
Thomson
Yeah.
01:02:22
Tina Turner
That's my burn. I'm going to sit back now.
01:02:25
Thomson
Yeah, that's that's a tough one. But I think if you look at music functionally, like like dance is the foundation of music, dance and rhythm. And you're going to see that in all.
01:02:36
Tina Turner
hold on hold on hold on that's a really interesting statement so you're are you saying that like dance is the thing that made music happen like we wanted to dance and therefore we made music to allow us to dance god damn go on brother
01:02:47
Thomson
Yes.
01:02:50
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh my God, Thompson, educate us, go.
01:02:51
Thomson
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so so I would say that that rhythm is the most primal force involved in music making all around.
01:03:02
Thomson
It's an internal rhythm. Again, it comes back to the embodiment of sound.
01:03:06
Tina Turner
Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm.
01:03:07
Thomson
So if you look at every culture across the entire world, what's the first instrument? You basically have the voice and you have drums.
01:03:15
Tina Turner
o
01:03:15
Thomson
And drums, dance, and rhythm. So all of these are part of ah rituals. They're part of coming of age rites. ah when people get married, when you're you're coming of age, when someone dies and you have a funeral. Music is a thing that's tied in almost religiously in terms of every part of our our existence for every festival, for every season passing, for every birthday.
01:03:44
Thomson
So music, I think, is like this this incredibly potent a rhythmic force that Yeah, i'm I'm losing this right here.
01:03:54
Thomson
But it, it yeah.
01:03:55
Tina Turner
no No, no, no, no, no. That's fucking brilliant. So I guess what I'm wondering is like, if we're going to tie this back to craft versus artists and in woodworker versus fucking studio furniture maker, whatever it is, like, there's the, well, I like as a studio furniture maker, like maybe get over myself a little bit.
01:04:10
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Dismissive, Bunch.
01:04:14
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah
01:04:15
Tina Turner
But there's there's this component from the way that you're're you're communicating this idea, which is really interesting. And I feel like this is an entirely different episode.
01:04:26
Tina Turner
But... um Is the person who makes objects born out of those primal desires in the same way that like music to your suggestion and I don't think I have no reason to disagree.
01:04:41
Tina Turner
Music is born out of the desire to move rhythmically and like be in communal ah community.
01:04:44
Thomson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:04:47
Tina Turner
is the furniture maker born out of the person who makes the wooden drum or the the drum out of the horn? And then we go like, well, you can make the drum. So maybe you can also make a stool because they're like kind of roughly the same object. And we need a place to sit because she's 65 and her knees don't work as well.
01:05:06
Tina Turner
Like, is there, you know what I'm getting at?
01:05:08
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah, i see I do. I see.
01:05:10
Tina Turner
Like there's a loose tie there.
01:05:10
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It's like the the yeah the the primal force that drives music to be rhythmic is very lizard brain. And then there's music that's very ivory tower.
01:05:17
Tina Turner
Yeah.
01:05:20
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Many layers of it abstraction, modal this you know thought that.
01:05:20
Tina Turner
Sure, sure, sure.
01:05:20
Thomson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:05:22
Tina Turner
Sure.
01:05:25
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
it's It's like super intellectualized by the human brain.
01:05:29
Tina Turner
And in this, and in the same way.
01:05:30
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And is the is there yeah is there a a direct parallel to woodworking?
01:05:32
Tina Turner
yeah
01:05:36
Tina Turner
Well, in the same way, there is like at some point, some caveman looked at his mother and went like, you have a hard time squatting all the way down to the ground.
01:05:45
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:05:46
Tina Turner
Maybe I make a like a stump for you to sit on. And then out of that was born the ivory tower version of like, well, my furniture is good because it had because of the way I draw the eye around the piece and into it.
01:05:56
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Right, right, right, right. So...
01:05:59
Tina Turner
The fucking viewer like go fuck yourself. Just sit on the fucking stool.
01:06:02
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Atlas table. what's What's up Atlas table?
01:06:04
Tina Turner
yeah
01:06:05
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Okay. So, so Eric, Eric, you tell me what's the lizard brain equivalent of woodworking. I think it's like cutting boards and spoons and stools and chairs and tables, right?
01:06:18
Tina Turner
yeah i think i think it's too it's useful tools like it is it is objects that play a central role in the communal life um and then
01:06:29
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
01:06:29
Thomson
Mm-hmm.
01:06:31
Tina Turner
probably like a a chulian handaxes or whatever the fuck it is jack uh a chulian a chulian handaxes yeah um at some point some like 18 year old dude was like you made a stump but like if i made a sexier stump maybe i'll get laid more and like the furniture studio movement was born you know like
01:06:39
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
A Chilean hand axis, yeah.
01:06:48
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Homo erectus, yeah.
01:06:51
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
01:06:57
Tina Turner
ah
01:06:59
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Well, it definitely, it the the whole intellectualization of whether it's music or craft, I mean, it does seem to reek of some kind of, I don't know, pushing the boundaries or evolution of something.
01:07:14
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So it's like, okay, we've been doing what's the necessity for a long time, whether it's like dance and primal or spoons and chairs. and But like can we take it to that next level that's not so primal, that's less lizard brain and more you know, homo sapien brain, you know, but above the lizard level.
01:07:30
Tina Turner
but but But is it is it homo sapiens specific? Like, is it... are are Are the birds who do stupid fucking dances to try to get another bird to fuck?
01:07:35
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
oh that's a whole, okay, that's Eric. mean, come on. oh come on, Eric.
01:07:43
Tina Turner
Like, is that...
01:07:43
Thomson
ah
01:07:44
Tina Turner
That's not lizard brain. That's just...
01:07:46
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I, no, that's,
01:07:46
Tina Turner
That's bird brain.
01:07:47
Thomson
Bird brain.
01:07:48
Tina Turner
Like, you get you get some birds out there in the African safari just like, ah!
01:07:52
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah Oh, God. Okay.
01:07:54
Tina Turner
You know, like...
01:07:54
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Okay. Okay. yeah I don't know. I don't know. That's a whole different discussion.
01:07:58
Tina Turner
I don't think we're the only ones who do it. That's all I'm saying.
01:08:00
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
The whole... What's your...
01:08:01
Tina Turner
i I'm shitting on it right now, and I think rightfully so, but I think in fairness, I don't think this is a uniquely human experience.
01:08:01
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Eric. Eric.
01:08:05
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
to eric eric
01:08:09
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Eric, what you're bringing up is where do you draw the line on what is a lizard brain and what is higher sentient thinking beyond the lizard brain? And I'm not prepared to address that right now. But what I am prepared to address is the next topic, which is Rick Rubin's take on artist as explorer versus artist as collaborator.
01:08:29
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And Rick Rubin would say, it's not about your lifetime. It doesn't happen across a life. It doesn't have to have to happen on these timescales. Every project is a small unit of this,
01:08:43
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah what do you call it? Like every project in isolation can be this workflow. So when you start a project, for example, you, Eric, you're going start a new project, right?
01:08:52
Tina Turner
right.
01:08:59
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah or Thompson, you're going to start a new composition.
01:09:02
Thomson
Mm-hmm.
01:09:03
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
You want to start as the explorer. You want to minimize the noise from the outside. You want to be your true authentic self. Rick Rubin would say you want to create without influence based on who's going to like it or whether the audience wants this, the audience wants that, because that degrades the true you.
01:09:21
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And then after you make the piece of art, then you release it into the wild. And then you can like play it a bunch of times and interact with the audience a bunch of times and tour stadiums and you know talk about it and do interviews and like have the collaborative experience after you've made the art. And this is a small unit of work.
01:09:42
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
it's i make I make it without considering the audience. And then afterwards, once I release it, I very much invite the audience and consider it. Then on my next piece, I go back into the studio and I'm true to myself again. I'm the explorer again.
01:09:59
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
i put the i put the, you know, the... the the blinders on. And I, yeah so that's kind of Rick Rubin's that it's not over a career and it's not chronological over a life, but this is a workflow that occurs each and every project. What do you think?
01:10:17
Thomson
I love Rick Rubin's take. I mean, big inspiration. It's just incredible guys working on Slayer, Beastie Boys, and you know who knows what else. But yeah, he's he's always talking about the workflow.
01:10:31
Thomson
And it's it's about the process.
01:10:31
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
is like an
01:10:32
Thomson
Yeah, it's the process
01:10:33
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It's like an episodic it's like an episodic or an episodic framework, Thompson, right?
01:10:36
Tina Turner
Hmm.
01:10:39
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Like every project is in and of itself one episode, right?
01:10:44
Thomson
yeah and it's just he always just has this, he's delving in and like you become one with your art. you you You get into that workflow, you find out what is this piece saying? what what What am I trying to create here? What is this wood speaking to me? Like, listen. So there's a certain openness and a listeningness, a presence to, I've got this piece of wood here. What does it want to become? what What am I hearing? I have to listen. I have to open myself up to it and then start to have a vision. and then,
01:11:15
Thomson
He talks about then the craftsman comes in after you start to have that vision of of the insight of what this should be, what your project should be. So there's there's always a craft involved, but there's that openness and inspiration that has to happen first.
01:11:31
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So it's like you're the artist as the explorer early and each project. You're the artist as the explorer. And then you switch to the craftsman or the artist as collaborator within each unit of project or within each project. you You wear both hats and you repeat that pattern again and again and again.
01:11:52
Tina Turner
Yep.
01:11:53
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
What do you think, Eric? Yeah, you you buy that?
01:11:55
Tina Turner
Yeah, no, I don't disagree with any of that. um I think Rick Rubin, insofar as I understand his career, and I've watched several YouTube videos with him kind of explaining this process, is one of one.
01:12:10
Tina Turner
in that he is exceptional in the ability, not even to to go from explorer to ah editor, but the ability specifically to identify what stage of exploration the person that he's working with is in, which is like, that's a teacher.
01:12:30
Tina Turner
He's a fucking phenomenal teacher.
01:12:30
Thomson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:12:31
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah, hes he's like a mentor. Yeah, he's a mentor to yeah.
01:12:34
Tina Turner
Yeah, he can he can spend a couple hours with you an afternoon, a day, whatever it is, and identify where you're at and then meet you where you're at. And I think that's probably his superpower because he knows the craft so well that he can go, okay, so you're capable of...
01:12:52
Tina Turner
X level of exploration, I'm going to let you push your boundaries. And then I'm going to bring this whole conversation back to well, what is going to make your vision ah approachable or or understandable or digestible by the larger audience?
01:13:10
Tina Turner
That's his superpower insofar as I understand it
01:13:11
Thomson
Mm-hmm.
01:13:15
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
What do you think about his episodic framework as opposed to a career? Like we've been talking earlier about you're the explorer earlier in life and then later on you're the mentor.
01:13:27
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And it's true in art. It's true in business. It's true in science. In my early science career, I was the explorer and now I'm the mentor. I'm the leader. I'm expected to teach others. This is true across discipline. So there's like this big arching chronological idea that it's a life-based a developmental cycle.
01:13:48
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Then there's the idea that it's a career-based developmental cycle, that it's it's like, oh, you have to change you have to change topics to feel the the new ah the newness again.
01:13:59
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And it's it's a cycle within a field. It's like field-based. And then there's the idea that it's even shorter than that. It's project-based. You see what I'm saying? It's like a timescale change from life to project to, sorry, life to topic or area to even project that this life cycle takes.
01:14:08
Tina Turner
yeah
01:14:08
Thomson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:14:19
Tina Turner
Well, I could be wrong on this, but I think insofar as all of the major artists that I've heard have worked with Rick Rubin, it's always been between one and three albums.
01:14:31
Tina Turner
Like it's not ah it's not an extended period of time. And it could be. the first album that they do, but more likely it's usually like the third to fifth album that they do.
01:14:38
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Mm-hmm.
01:14:40
Tina Turner
And then they have one, two, three albums with them and then they move on to another person. And I think that speaks to the career lifecycle. This thing of like you have put in enough work to understand the thing and now you need a reinvigoration and you're hitting your peak and and you need a guru like Rick Rubin to come in and be like, this is what you're going to go do.
01:15:04
Tina Turner
And then after that, to my understanding of all the people I'm thinking of, you kind of find your sound and then you live in that space.
01:15:13
Thomson
Yeah, kind of plateau potentially.
01:15:15
Thomson
I mean, there's there's there's an interesting thing. If you if you look at all these artists, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, John Coltrane, all these people in the music world, we at least think of, they changed music forever.
01:15:15
Tina Turner
Yeah.
01:15:27
Thomson
Rock was never the same after the Beatles and so forth. Well, how long was their career? Everybody has about a 10-year lifespan.
01:15:34
Tina Turner
Mmm.
01:15:34
Thomson
So Led Zeppelin, 10 years, and then like that's it.
01:15:35
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh, shit. ah
01:15:38
Tina Turner
Yep. Yep.
01:15:39
Thomson
Beatles, you go through the 60s. end of the 60s, that's it. I mean, they did their thing.
01:15:44
Tina Turner
Yep.
01:15:44
Thomson
They changed pop music. John Coltrane, he changed everything, but it was like 59 to 67.
01:15:51
Tina Turner
Mmm.
01:15:51
Thomson
So I think there's there's a certain, we look at the arc of a person's career artistically, but a lot of times it's just a 10-year lifespan. There are only, again, so many ways you can reinvent yourself.
01:16:02
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
But Thompson, why do you think that the lifespan so short? Is that because that you've run the whole trajectory in that 10 years and you've become kind of like depleted of ideas?
01:16:14
Thomson
That's tough. It's probably also interpersonal. Because at least in these bands, there's so much friction that takes place between the band members.
01:16:22
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
01:16:22
Thomson
And a lot of times, it's not simply collaboration. It's the dissent and the disagreements that kind of create friction that actually creates something special that that might just be another aspect to it.
01:16:30
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I see.
01:16:36
Thomson
But you can't do that for 20, 30 years. you're You're at each other's throats.
01:16:40
Tina Turner
That's another fucking episode right there.
01:16:42
Thomson
Yeah.
01:16:43
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Right. ah In fact, I've thought a lot about this. Like as you go from young nobody upstart to like cemented famous band who's older, so much stuff changes, right? You're getting older. You're going from say what I would call a fluid intelligence to a crystallized intelligence. Like you're young, you're hungry, you're willing to do anything. Your brain is like a Ferrari to, as you get older,
01:17:10
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It's more about your experience and what you've seen before. So you you're you're different as the artist, right? um Your reputation. When you were young, you had no reputation. You were willing to fail and take risks.
01:17:25
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Once you have a reputation as a bad boy, are you are you willing to fail in the public eye now that you're lauded globally as some some amazing artist?
01:17:28
Tina Turner
Mm-hmm.
01:17:36
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
um Are you willing to unlearn what you've learned to try something new? Lehman talked about an unlearning cost to reinvention, that you can't reinvent yourself without unlearning to some degree what you've already learned.
01:17:51
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah This accumulation of obligations, children, houses, financial burdens, wives, friends, they all expect continuity out of you in some way. Like you're going to be there for them when they need something. Your kids need to go to the dentist. Are you going to be some young upstart? Are you going to be some like reinventing yourself at 50 when your kids have to go to college and you have to drop or, or you know, 40 when your kids have to go to a dentist, you know?
01:18:19
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
um life gets in the way, financial obligations. What about loss, um deaths in the family, mental health?
01:18:31
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
You know, we wear the scars of life in us over time. Are you all about like, oh, I'm going to recreate this and I'm going to take this person's idea and fucking flip it on its head when your mom just died and you're like reeling from the loss of like not having this person in your life. You know, life gets complicated as you get older.
01:18:52
Tina Turner
Well, some people some people are, but those people are, I think, colloquially nailed it, known as sociopaths.
01:18:52
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It's not so easy.
01:19:02
Tina Turner
Yeah. Hmm.
01:19:03
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
yeah Yeah, I'm just saying like, there's a timing and a life component to all of this we're talking about whether you're in the explorer. And I think that's why it's easier to be the explorer when you're younger.
01:19:16
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
you have less to lose. You have less obligation. you're You're freer. You're free and clear to just fuck shit up as opposed to when you get older.
01:19:23
Thomson
Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you just got to pay your mortgage. You got to pay the bills.
01:19:27
Tina Turner
Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah
01:19:29
Thomson
Yeah.
01:19:30
Tina Turner
That's fair.
01:19:32
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
right, guys, this is a fascinating topic.
01:19:32
Thomson
Yeah.
01:19:34
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And I want to do a little a little segment now. I didn't tell either of you this. Called, what did we forget? It could be anything you thought about this episode.
01:19:47
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Any thoughts you had throughout the entire hour and 20 minutes that we didn't get to.
01:19:51
Tina Turner
I already know what it is.
01:19:54
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Let's bring it up right now, even if it seems like it's a non sequitur.
01:19:57
Tina Turner
Okay. ah No, no, no, please, Thompson, please.
01:19:58
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Thompson or Eric, you want to go first?
01:19:58
Thomson
Yeah. Eric, go ahead. OK. Yeah, so so it's interesting you brought up Rick Rubin, which I didn't expect. But I had been thinking about, ah we you know we had this explorer versus collaborator. ah So where where would how would you bridge the gap?
01:20:14
Thomson
So i was thinking, what kind of personality bridges that gap? And I came up with, here's my my take on it. So I like to do a lot of hiking.
01:20:21
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Please.
01:20:22
Thomson
My wife is definitely, she's a mountaineer. So she she likes to, she's been to Antarctica. She goes to the mountains. She does some serious, serious hiking far beyond what I've done. But I was thinking, you know, there's kind of the artist as a Sherpa, a navigator.
01:20:37
Thomson
So what does a Sherpa do? youve yeah You've got a guide who's completely knowledgeable about the lands. You need to get to this summit. They know the different ways to get there.
01:20:48
Thomson
They know all the hazards. They've been over this time and time again.
01:20:52
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Rick Rubin.
01:20:52
Thomson
Yeah.
01:20:53
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Rick Rubin.
01:20:53
Thomson
Yeah. It's Rick Rubin.
01:20:54
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Right?
01:20:55
Thomson
they They know the history of the area. They know the cultures.
01:20:57
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Huh?
01:20:58
Thomson
They know where to get food. They know the seasons. They know the things to look for in the weather.
01:21:03
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
01:21:04
Thomson
They can deal with all that challenging terrain and so forth. But they're guiding a group of people there. So they're not just, i need to get to that summit and get there at any cost.
01:21:15
Thomson
No, they've done that 100 times, but they've got 10 people with them. They're carrying the bags and the tents, and they're watching these people.
01:21:21
Tina Turner
um
01:21:25
Thomson
to see, are they tired? Do they need a break? Are they hypoxic? Are they running out of oxygen and we need to take a break and there's weather coming?
01:21:31
Tina Turner
man
01:21:32
Thomson
They need to guide their audience.
01:21:33
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh.
01:21:35
Thomson
Okay, it's time to make camp. It's getting too cold. My people need to rest. like let's Let's have a break here, make a campfire, sit down, have some food. It's not about me getting to the top. We're going to get there, but I'm going to be your guide. I'm going to bring you there. So I think of Rick Rubin really fits that that paradigmatic way. They're They're relieving the audience of a lot of these aspects, but they're with maturity, like you're saying, I wanna teach people. They're still bringing them to the summit, but they're gonna do it at a different pace and with complete ah compassion and ah guidance.
01:22:13
Tina Turner
That's fucking phenomenal, man.
01:22:16
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Oh, dude.
01:22:16
Tina Turner
ah Paul, you go next because I think my question will lead into the after show.
01:22:23
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah did ah Did we miss anything? Um...
01:22:26
Tina Turner
This was your fucking like segment. What do you like?
01:22:29
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Fuck.
01:22:32
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah No, I think I largely touched on all the points I wanted to looking at my five, six pages of handwritten notes in front of me.
01:22:37
Tina Turner
Oh, you son of a bitch. Come on.
01:22:42
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
um Yeah. Gosh, no, I think I touched on everything I wanted to touch on other than to say, wait I will say this is really.
01:22:48
Tina Turner
you You motherfucker. You just wanted to tell everybody that you're better than us, huh?
01:22:54
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
What?
01:22:55
Tina Turner
Oh, yeah.
01:22:57
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Shut up. um What I will say is like this whole idea of ah of a career trajectory is new to me. I'd never really considered it. And I thought it was very interesting to apply it to the three of us.
01:23:12
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
i was like, Thompson, I was like, oh, he he like he pivoted careers like it played out in jazz.
01:23:13
Tina Turner
oh yeah
01:23:19
Tina Turner
now
01:23:21
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And he's like, enough, like it's not supporting my life the way I need it to. And i don't know, Thompson, you can elaborate on this for sure. and And you switched.
01:23:29
Thomson
Yeah. Yeah, I did. Yeah. there I mean, there are really two components. There is, had done something which I felt was fairly successful for 25 years. And i I looked ahead at my life and I just said, how many,
01:23:41
Thomson
times am I going to be able to pivot and go somewhere new? And I get this one chance and it's time for me to just try something completely different. It's not completely different, but life is an adventure and I wanted to just go exploring somewhere else. And it it came with a certain loss and it wasn't an easy decision to make, but I mean, I'm still playing. I'm still able to do art. I compose, I play. So it's not like that disappears. It's something you're always going to have with you.
01:24:06
Thomson
but But definitely, i just said, you live once. I've got another half of my life to live. Let's try something new.
01:24:14
Tina Turner
Fucking amazing, man.
01:24:14
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And Eric, I've been thinking about some of the stuff you've been struggling with about, do you want to continue with content creation? You know, you've had so many phases with whether it's working in a cabinet shop or on your own as the studio artist. And then more recently as the content creator of social media. And even that's feeling not as fresh as it used to. And so you're kind of, and oh, by the way, your educator phase, sorry, I didn't mean to forget that. Of course, you were a teacher in middle school for many years.
01:24:41
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
and ah gymnastics coach, like you've had so many, um you know, chapters already. And I feel like you're heading towards even a new one. And that made me think about you in terms of your career trajectory.
01:24:51
Tina Turner
Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't know where it's headed. um But I do know um Maybe I have a shorter career life cycle or like the the cyclical path of each phase of my career is shorter than maybe most. I feel like I'm on a five to seven year.
01:25:16
Tina Turner
Every every time that happens, I'm like, all right. but the fuck else is out there, you know, which, which on, on the one hand is, is lovely because I get to ah explore new things.
01:25:21
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
so
01:25:29
Tina Turner
On the other hand is viscerally unstable, ah you know?
01:25:29
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
yeah
01:25:32
Thomson
Yeah.
01:25:33
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Right, right. Because you earn more money the longer see in a field and all that, right?
01:25:36
Tina Turner
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
01:25:39
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And I thought about myself with regards to that as well, which is like, sure, I've been lucky to have science the whole time as kind of the financial underpinning because, and I i said earlier that all the science I do is fresh all the time because I'm given problems from outside externally and I never know what I'm going to get.
01:25:41
Tina Turner
Hmm.
01:25:54
Tina Turner
Hmm.
01:25:58
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And it's wildly different project to project. So that keeps it fresh enough that I don't think I lose my boner for science, but Outside of science, I've had music as a passion for a long time. And that is, i mean, i still love music, but I hardly ever play anymore, ever.
01:26:16
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah And woodworking has come up as a second huge ah trajectory in my life. And even that, look, I'm not staying up till two in the morning. i mean, I have some real exciting ideas that I'm working towards, but it takes me the better part of a year to realize some of the projects that I'm um'm hot about.
01:26:26
Tina Turner
Yeah. Yeah.
01:26:35
Thomson
Mm-hmm.
01:26:35
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And so I see a life cycle even with that. And now, you know, beekeeping and gardening has come on board a little bit. You can see it. It's just, you see these things coming and going.
01:26:47
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
So to me, that piece of today's conversation of of of career being the envelope of explorer to collaborator has been interesting.
01:26:48
Tina Turner
yeah
01:26:58
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Eric, what did you, what's, what did we forget to talk about that you had?
01:27:01
Tina Turner
right, well well, I want to bring it back to a very specific thing. And maybe this can be a thing that we lead with the after show. And because in the first five minutes of this podcast today, you brought up Miles Davis versus John Coltrane.
01:27:18
Tina Turner
And immediately I wanted to know more about the distinction between them, because i
01:27:19
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Hmm.
01:27:27
Tina Turner
I could be wrong, but I think Miles Davis is the more famous jazz musician of the two. John Coltrane certainly has a name, right? Everybody knows who John Coltrane is, but Miles Davis is like the pop culture icon of jazz musician or or jazz music.
01:27:42
Thomson
Mm-hmm.
01:27:44
Tina Turner
So what I want to know, and I think we can push this to the after show because I think this will be an interesting conversation as a professional musician. um it ah I don't want to say you you spoke negatively of Miles Davis, but there seemed to be an admiration of John Coltrane that was not there ah in in the mention of Miles Davis.
01:28:10
Tina Turner
And as somebody who knows Miles Davis's work more than John Coltrane's work, I'm just very curious to hear you elaborate on that.
01:28:19
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
After show.
01:28:20
Tina Turner
Paul's face through that whole
01:28:20
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
After show. Thompson.
01:28:22
Tina Turner
that whole thing
01:28:22
Thomson
Yeah.
01:28:23
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I'm like, what? I already know what Thompson's going to say, bitch. ah All right.
01:28:28
Tina Turner
Well, I just want to know. I want to know. I think for the people out there, I think that could be a really interesting conversation.
01:28:31
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
We're.
01:28:33
Tina Turner
Miles Davis, listen, this is for the millennials among us. If peeing your pants is cool, consider me. Miles Davis is is a seminal sign. You know, that's a that's a that's a what the fuck are you holding up?
01:28:45
Tina Turner
OK, all right.
01:28:46
Thomson
Oh, look at that. There you go. Yep.
01:28:48
Tina Turner
So what do you pushing back on me saying that people know Miles Davis better than John Coltrane? You got a fucking poster.
01:28:55
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
ah At any rate, we'll take that on the after show. and and i definitely Thompson, I do want to hear more.
01:28:59
Tina Turner
ah
01:29:03
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
i mean I know some, but I think everyone would love to hear more of what it's like to exist as a professional artist for 20 years in New York City, cutting your teeth in that in any scene, never mind jazz, which is tough.
01:29:13
Thomson
Sure.
01:29:17
Thomson
Yep. Yeah.
01:29:19
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
um Thank you, guys. What a great discussion. I feel like I learned...
01:29:22
Thomson
Yeah.
01:29:22
Tina Turner
yeah
01:29:22
Thomson
Awesome.
01:29:24
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
This topic about art is art for the artist or is art for the audience? Man, like, how do you? All right. like Let's let's end on this. How do you answer that?
01:29:34
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Eric is art for the artist or is art for the audience?
01:29:35
Tina Turner
i don't I don't think we did, so that that speaks to the the harsh of the question. Yeah.
01:29:41
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah, but like it's so fucking complicated, the answer.
01:29:41
Thomson
Yeah, it's...
01:29:45
Tina Turner
Yeah. Because, i mean, the answer is both, right?
01:29:46
Thomson
Yeah. Yeah. It depends.
01:29:48
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
01:29:49
Tina Turner
Yeah, yeah.
01:29:49
Thomson
Yeah.
01:29:50
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Yeah.
01:29:50
Tina Turner
Which is a dog shit fucking answer.
01:29:50
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And it
01:29:51
Thomson
Yeah.
01:29:52
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
I know, but it depends on you.
01:29:52
Tina Turner
ah
01:29:54
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
It depends on your age. It depends on how long you've been in the field. It depends on your brain. It depends on your personality type. It depends on so many things. But I know that often we don't answer these questions unequivocally black and white, but that's because there aren't black and white answers.
01:30:11
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
And I'm personally okay with that. i don't know if the audience is okay with that. You can ask yourself, do you make art for yourself? Do you make art for your audience? i suspect I suspect if you're trying to sell it, you're making for the audience.
01:30:24
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
But ah I think it's a worthwhile thing to think about. Thank you all for tuning in. Thompson, you're amazing. We'll talk to you in the after show.
01:30:31
Tina Turner
Yeah. Thank you, brother.
01:30:32
Thomson
Yeah, you got it. Thanks.
01:30:34
Tina Turner
Okay, bye.
01:30:34
Woodworking is Bullsh*t
Bye, everyone.