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Michael Burns
172 Plays6 years ago
Michael Burns is a university teacher, writing coach, film director, labor activist, editor, and storyteller. He has a B.A. from Georgetown University, an M.S. from University of Massachusetts - Amherst, and holds a Ph.D. in documentary film history from the University of Birmingham in the UK.
Burns directed five films for international television and his work has been seen in over twenty countries. He is the founder, director, and curator of Tall Tales, India’s longest-running, true storytelling event series that features live performances and writing workshops of all kinds.
He lives in the United States of America for six months each year and the other six in India.
I was so happy to catch up with Michael from Mumbai, India for an incredible chat and exploration. Enjoy.
https://www.michaelpburns.com/bio
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Hosts
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host Ken Vellante. Editor and producer Peter Bauer.
India's Pandemic Response: Success Amidst Challenges
00:00:16
Speaker
Just generally right now, you're doing okay now? Everything all right? Strangely, yes. You know, like, because of the way India is so overpopulated and
00:00:29
Speaker
under infrastructure and so forth. It usually takes the brunt of all of these pandemics in one way or another, but we've been incredibly lucky with this one. So fingers crossed at the moment, you know, it's possible that they can undo if, for example, if they open the trains too early, they could undo a lot of the good work that's been done. So fingers crossed people will be smart about letting it go for another few months. Yeah.
00:00:57
Speaker
Yeah, well, that's certainly good to hear. And it was and you mentioned, too, about I knew just in general about that dynamic that can impact India as a country. And of course, you live there. How long you live there now, Michael?
Michael Burns: Life Between Mumbai and Puna
00:01:13
Speaker
Just six months shy of 10 years, six months shy of 10 years. And you are in Mumbai specifically.
00:01:20
Speaker
I have one apartment in Puna, Maharashtra and one in Mumbai. They're about two and a half hours away from each other. So I spend the weekends in Bombay where I have two businesses and then I teach on the weekdays in Puna. And so everybody, I should mention that this is Ken Volante with something rather than nothing podcasts.
Michael's Background in Labor Studies and Filmmaking
00:01:41
Speaker
We are talking with Michael Burns who
00:01:46
Speaker
uh... is is is a friend of mine and somebody i studied uh... with at the university massachusetts and uh... labor studies activist uh... uh... program uh... uh... great man and great artist and uh... part of this is catching up uh... with with with michael who's done um... uh... some documentary film he did one on the mdr uh... therapy uh... and he has uh... you did
00:02:15
Speaker
has a lot of writing. He's been on TED talk. You see videos of him that way. And also well known made a name for us up in a very, very popular tall tales,
The Birth of Tall Tales in India
00:02:29
Speaker
right? Michael, can you tell us a bit about just a bit about tall tales and just how you got started in India, putting that together and talking about storytelling?
00:02:41
Speaker
Yeah, sure. I'll try to sum it up in a few minutes. About six years ago now, I was just trying to find something to do with my time. I came to India with my ex, who was doing work here. When that happens to you, the other partner is trying to find things to do with their time.
00:03:01
Speaker
And I was starting to get into a few ideas with writing, but I said to myself, you know, I've always been a big fan of the moth. You know, what if I did one night of storytelling here in Bombay and we I put together one night and it was a lot of fun. And, you know, people told true stories, you know, true personal stories. And then we said, hey, that was so much fun. Let's do another one. And six years later, the next show will be our seventy seventh show.
Growth of Tall Tales: Workshops and Shows
00:03:30
Speaker
Uh, and in addition to that, you know, we, we get about 20 stories per month for people that want to tell stories at our live show. And we only select four or five of them. So what happened was those other 15 were saying, okay, what's wrong with my story? How can I get some advice? And you probably know this from any, any work that you've done can giving people concrete advice about how they can improve their work is something really time consuming. So.
00:04:00
Speaker
So about five years ago, I said, hey, I have an idea. Why don't I put together a little workshop where I can talk about some of the ins and outs of quality writing and quality storytelling so that the people who got turned away for one reason or another can improve their stories. And that was, again, just a one off thing. But my next workshop will be somewhere around my 250th workshop. And now I'm doing work in different countries.
00:04:28
Speaker
And this small little thing is now grown into the most popular creative writing workshop in South Asia. So it's balloons to this giant thing. And I've learned so much along the way. So it's all tales. We do these live shows. We do the public workshops and we also do private consultations and trainings for companies and organizations. It's really exciting to hear. And it's very
Bravery in Storytelling and Modern Misuse of 'Story'
00:04:54
Speaker
I could just hear in your voice, you know the excitement the excitement around it and I and I you know I've and I've listened to some of your stuff and some of the things you've had to say about it and Yeah, there is a very compelling Component about about how you talk about the process but also just you know the bravery that we have to try to find as humans to you know go up there and and
00:05:19
Speaker
You know, there's so many questions that buzz in our head, but just to kind of tell the story, tell a story, tell, you know, what happened and, uh, well, you know, try to get that down. Yeah. You hit right on it with this idea of bravery and courage. You know, um, uh, one of the, I shouldn't even say one of the, the Supreme problem right now, uh, in the world of storytelling is the overuse of the word story, you know, uh,
00:05:45
Speaker
Everything is a story. You know, Instagram says your your breakfast is a story. You know, it's like it's almost to the point where any pile of words on a piece of paper is a story. And the problem with that, not like that, that's a very nice sounding thing. And I hate to kind of pick on something that has a nice ring to it. But the problem with that
00:06:05
Speaker
is if you want to be better at storytelling and yet everything is a story, you will never be able to fine tune those details because you've taken this very all
True Stories vs. Narratives: Building Bridges
00:06:17
Speaker
-encompassing approach. And actually, you know, a poem doesn't want to be a story. Sometimes a photo just is a photo, right? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes a story is a story. And I think that
00:06:30
Speaker
One of the reasons my workshop has resonated with people is I tell them, let's not take this kumbaya version of what a story is. Let's talk about what a story is like we're building a bridge. A bridge is not the same thing as a sphere. A bridge is not the same thing as a car. Let's build the bridge together. Once you learn that, you're free to build any bridge, any size, any color, any shape, any function that you possibly want to. I think people like that.
00:06:59
Speaker
they actually liked zooming in on the art of what a story really is and what a story isn't. So in my workshop, I spend a lot of time talking about what a story isn't. And believe it or not, people like that. Oh, yeah. Well, and I can I can definitely see, you know, it's like guiding that.
Michael's Academic Journey and Curiosity
00:07:18
Speaker
Well, let's let's one question I want to ask you in, you know, you know, kind of zooming back a little bit is
00:07:25
Speaker
And I ask a lot of the creators that come onto the show, um, but, you know, did, did you always, uh, you know, we always a storyteller. Did you learn it? I mean, what were you like as a young, you know, as, as a young Michael, a younger child? And, uh, you know, as far as areas around creativity or what interests you stories, anything like that.
00:07:50
Speaker
You know, I had a strange upbringing in terms of where I ended up.
00:07:58
Speaker
But, you know, like you don't have another life that you live simultaneously side by side to compare it to, you know, so it's kind of strange. Like I would never have it any other way, but I certainly see things that could have been different. But one of the reasons I love the kind of strange path that I took is that I was never encouraged to read when I when I was young. I don't even really remember finishing a book until I might have been 13 or 14 or something like that.
00:08:27
Speaker
I was raised on TV like a lot of American suburban kids. And I was always good at school, but it was just pure luck, you know, no studying that type of thing. I'm bored with high school, but very good grades, you know, because I was I guess I was just bright enough to be able to do the subjects that were being taught competently. But the reason why
00:08:54
Speaker
I appreciated that is because when I got into university, when I started in college, I felt like I was born. You know, I always joke with friends that when you turn 18, you should take on a new name. You know, you should get a new name because in some ways you have a new identity as an adult. And that fits me perfectly because as soon as I entered university, it was a new person that was born, somebody who was curious about the world, somebody who suddenly found themselves loving reading and just soaking in every experience around me.
00:09:23
Speaker
So university became this hypersensitive time for me, whereas maybe for another another young person, university might have been just an extension of their high school experience. And so for me, I found a home in academics and went on for a master's as you and I studied together and then a PhD later on. And
00:09:44
Speaker
It was a very late homecoming in the sense of an academic home, but I'm glad I found it. And I found it with more passion. There's something called the enthusiasm of the late learner, somebody who comes to a field later in life. And I found that, you know.
00:10:02
Speaker
Yeah. And I definitely share some of your experience and the energy around the impact of the university or whether it's a university or new ideas or as you get to adulthood and just being like, you know, intensely curious, you know, about things and what about this? And I remember, you know, with you just a lot, you know, like history and, you know, other type of
00:10:29
Speaker
uh, you know, interest in ways you developed. And, um, you know, I definitely identify with a lot of that.
Michael's Diverse Interests: Documentaries and Psychology
00:10:36
Speaker
Uh, so now if we look at, if we look at, um, you know, I've alluded to, you know, some of the things that, you know, that you've done to, to, to start the podcast, you know, your current, um, you know, teaching the role of a teacher, um, uh, you know, storytelling yourself. I know you've done.
00:10:57
Speaker
you know, uh, you know, uh, comedy and you've done a documentary film on EMDR. You have an interest in psychology in this podcast is about creators. So what is for you? What, what parts of art or creativity, uh, attract you? Um, is that constantly changing? Um, let's see. Uh, you know,
00:11:27
Speaker
It's hard to pinpoint because I heard this thing. You hear these things and they just stick in your brain. I heard one time that somebody is supposed to have three careers in
Art as Communication and Evolution of Interests
00:11:38
Speaker
their life. The first time you hear that, you're thinking, well, what is that all about? The more you think about it, the more you realize that a fulfilling life is actually full of multiple interests, multiple passions.
00:11:52
Speaker
There was, I made five documentaries for American and international television. And then I reached a point where I felt finished with that, like not in a sense that I had conquered the field or anything, but I was just ready to move on to another aspect of another dimension of my personality. And ironically, my PhD dissertation was on the
00:12:16
Speaker
the kind of psychological pitfalls of storytelling, the types of stories you can tell that lead to a worse society or that lead to a destructive psyche.
00:12:28
Speaker
And strangely, I mean, incredibly, who would have thought that somebody who wrote that dissertation is now giving workshops on storytelling. But the reason I think that that's helpful is because I don't look at storytelling as this panacea. I look at it as something that's useful for some things and not useful for other things. So my pursuit of art is just a reflection of the different curiosities that I have. And I don't know about you, Ken, but the more
00:12:56
Speaker
The more I get older, the more I realize that curiosity is probably the most important thing that I want to nurture in myself and the most attractive thing that I find in other people, too. I would completely agree with what you just said. And I also think it
00:13:16
Speaker
It can it can challenge a lot of us when when those energies come up. And, you know, it's not necessarily to stay on one of those tracks or if you have an artistic mind bent or you like to create or you're a seeker in some sort of sense, you know, you're not going to get at the end point. You're kind of going to keep moving in developing. Right. So
00:13:43
Speaker
Given that, just chatting a little bit about art and, you know, kind of ways of creativity. For you, do you have a definition of art? You know, what is art?
Defining Art: Subjectivity and Experience
00:13:57
Speaker
You know, I like to, you know, some people don't like to define the undefinable, but I like it because we also recognize that no answer is final. But I always thought that art is something that communicates to somebody.
00:14:11
Speaker
So if something if there's a communicative experience going on here, then I think we have entered into into art. I mean, when if you go if you go to a modern art museum with somebody who hates modern art, you can see this in Technicolor because they'll say this is nothing like this is just a
00:14:32
Speaker
This is just a red canvas and it's all kind of a capitalist game just to see how much money you can make off. There's rich people doing, bartering with having too much money and so forth. But if it says something to me, then it's art enough for me.
00:14:54
Speaker
So when something is entirely subjective like that, you just have to ask yourself whether there is a message for you or a reflection for you or a question for you. And if there is, it's art, no matter how vehemently somebody else tells you it's garbage or a waste of time, you know? Yeah. And it has that component. I think when, you know, when you, when you were talking about storytelling in, in,
00:15:23
Speaker
your thesis, and I'm sure people start asking you additional questions about your thesis anytime you're talking. But I just want to make sure I don't miss that.
Storytelling's Dark Side: Propaganda and Sitcoms
00:15:35
Speaker
I found it very evocative that you're saying you're in the business of storytelling, and a lot of times when we talk about processes or activities, they tend to be like, wow, that's a good thing to do. When you said that there are some stories that don't quite
00:15:52
Speaker
work that way that are harmful and things like that. I immediately jump to politics, but I don't want to assume what you're saying with that. What do you mean by that? Yeah, there's a political dimension, there's social dimension, and of course it all dovetails into the individual psychological dimension. So I was lucky enough to be the first student in the history of the UK to do an audiovisual dissertation. So I did a
00:16:17
Speaker
I did a three-part documentary in six different countries looking at young people's perceptions of democracy at the same time as writing 300,000 words for my dissertation. And one of the things that I was focusing on was the way that young people think about politics, the way they think about stories, the way they think about the stories that kind of animate their country's histories. And what I found so fascinating is that
00:16:49
Speaker
that even though, again, we have this really beautiful idea that every moment is a story, that storytelling has a very dark underside. And you mentioned politically. So a story, people often ask me, a reporter will often ask me, what is a story? Can you give it in a brief sentence? And I don't like to do that because I think a story is building a bridge. So you have to talk about the whole process. But you come up with certain answers.
00:17:16
Speaker
And I think if I had to boil it down to something, a story is an attempt to solve a problem. So a story is an attempt to solve a problem. So politically, if you position your propaganda, you could say ideology, however you want to say it, as leader X will solve that problem for you. For example, North Korea, you know, leader X will always be able to solve problem Y for you.
00:17:42
Speaker
you have a type of storytelling that has a very dark nefarious underside to it. It is solving a problem, but the answer they provide is shoved down your throat rather than proposed to you as a question. The lighter side of that, I would say it's equally as dark, but it has a laugh track to it, is the sitcom.
Life's Complexities vs. Story Resolutions
00:18:03
Speaker
In the sitcom, we have a problem and we have a resolution.
00:18:08
Speaker
But the truth is that life's problems are far more complicated than 22 minutes can solve. And I think what it does is it prompts, it primes the brain to think of problems as things that are easy to conquer and to think of our life challenges as things that will be very, very temporary. And in fact, they might, existential crises and other problems might last your whole life.
00:18:33
Speaker
So we live in a world where storytelling tells us that everything is a happy ending, but very often the endings are absurd and tragic as we're seeing right now. Yeah, and I think when you're saying that right there, I haven't quite looked at the kind of timeframe of how you tell the story and that there is resolution and, you know,
00:18:55
Speaker
just thinking about the idea of what type of behaviors or what type of things we mimic or what our expectations are. I get this nagging problem and it's still nagging me. That doesn't seem right. So then when that happens, people ask, well, what's wrong with me? Everybody, I look at all these smiling faces for me.
00:19:17
Speaker
Watch all these shows where everything is tied up at the end. Well my life the problems persist What's wrong with me and then depression and then so forth, but actually that's the normal state of reality, you know, yeah So have you ever stepped back You help people create and you create yourself. Do you ever step back and say Why do I create or why am I creating this? Um
Creative Work for Social Justice
00:19:47
Speaker
You know, there's if you step back far enough and you start to look at these big questions, which which kind of you're hinting at a little bit, which is, you know, why are we here and so forth? You know, there are no good answers and there are no good. There are no there's no solid ground to stand on, because as we know, you know, this whole thing might be a projection. This whole thing might be some kind of strange experiment, you know, but one thing that seems true for me
00:20:14
Speaker
One thing that seems to resonate as real as anything can be is unnecessary suffering in the world. So I see my job, I see the job of all of us is doing as much as we can to mitigate unnecessary suffering. And my work has been centered on social justice issues. My first film about the, my first major film about the Bush administration. I did a film also about the third party politics and getting more voices into politics. And then I did this one about
00:20:43
Speaker
EMDR and psychological catharsis. But my other work also is about recognizing the parts of our own lives where we are suffering with unresolved trauma and facing that. Plato's Apology, line 38A, the unexamined life is not worth living. I take that to heart and I believe that it's our job to look at where we're suffering ourselves. And once we free ourselves,
00:21:11
Speaker
from that, we can start to look at the suffering of others. And to me, that's as real as anything. And that's as unifying of a human mission as anything I can think of. Yeah. And I think you gave me a tiny bit of license by mentioning Plato. I do have to say when in your, like I said, I was very intrigued about
Plato's Art Views and Storytelling Influence
00:21:34
Speaker
the concept, the sitcom or that timing component. I really did move back to think about and thinking about Plato and Plato's philosophy and kind of like some of his comments about art and the Republic and about poetry, but that it's kind of like this repetition of almost like a false story or an artificial story that kind of stultifies the mind.
00:22:04
Speaker
as a writer and Plato being a brilliant philosopher, it was always kind of it was always kind of troublesome because he had such, you know, harsh words for public and others in his theory of art was like extremely vexing and difficult. But there was seemed to be something near about, in my opinion, that kind of anticipated a more modern media or the role that stories that
00:22:34
Speaker
aren't positioned well or aren't aimed in the right direction can give some negative results. Yeah. I just, I, I felt, uh, I felt, uh, some of that in, uh, felt some of that in, in your answer. And I know you've done, you've done a decent amount of Plato, if I recall correctly. I'm interested in everything, you know? So, um,
Michael's Writing Coaching Approach
00:22:59
Speaker
Another thing I wanted to capture is, and just to make sure I have it, as far as how you help folks with storytelling, is this say you're helping me? Is this me going up on a stage and telling my story that way? Is it me getting it down and writing and telling the story that way? Or people do both? Or how do you specifically help?
00:23:28
Speaker
help people do that. Yeah. So the live storytelling is just for it's just for fun. I mean, like even, you know, it's even when it's bad, it's still good. You know, it's still fun to get up there and tell your story. So, you know, like sometimes it's hit or miss. But but but it's it's fun nevertheless. But most of my work right now is involved in writing coaching. So people will bring a manuscript to me or some idea about what they want to write for either fiction or nonfiction.
00:23:57
Speaker
And I will help them to shape it. As I said to you before we started recording, there is so much terrible advice out there about writing, including you're either born with it or not, you know, or this idea that the whole idea is going to come to you in one shot or something like this. There's so many totally insane ideas that reject writing as a craft.
00:24:23
Speaker
something that you can be improved at, something that you can be better at. And in a weird way, that's good for me, because I think I'm providing a little bit of a hard, hard knocks, you know, not not not a lot of hand holding us in terms of how to build a bridge and how not to build a bridge and people like that. And so they bring me their puzzle pieces and I help them to find out what a story is. We learn that together.
00:24:49
Speaker
And then once we learn that to start to put the pieces of what they have together and recognize what's missing. And it's so much fun to see a novel like totally click for somebody once they recognize how the how the bridge is held up and how the suspension actually works with the other pieces and so forth. So it's a it's an incredible feeling to help somebody make their dreams come true. And so, yes, we do that on the on stage also. But
00:25:17
Speaker
The really fulfilling work is, uh, is with books. You know, I, you might know this, but 84% of the population wants to write a book someday. Uh, but that number, I would, I would, I would argue is, uh, uh, a lot higher than the people who are taking time to learn how to do that. And so my role is to help them to, uh, to fulfill that dream, you know? Yeah. I really
Cultural and Intellectual Climates: US vs. India
00:25:41
Speaker
love that. And what you had to say there, uh, I had a question.
00:25:45
Speaker
I was thinking about, you mentioned a little bit earlier that you've been in India for about a decade and you've created there and worked there and you mentioned before that, that you've done documentaries stateside and done work and in that capacity,
00:26:10
Speaker
Um, when you were going into creating something or trying to navigate to different countries, right? So particularly United States and in India, I mean, were you able to identify stark differences as far as what you were trying to do and what type of space there was for you to be creative in, in each country? Um,
00:26:34
Speaker
Yes and no. Both of these countries are big enough that you can carve out. As you know, there are some incredible pockets of society in the US where art is appreciated, where conversation and disagreement is celebrated and so forth. And then there's the vast majority of the place. The same thing is true here. Democracy is very much under attack in India in terms of a free press.
00:26:59
Speaker
in terms of quality elections and a whole bunch of other issues, including human rights, workers' rights, gender equality. We can go right down the list. In some aspects, we're still in the Stone Age here. In the US, we almost have this kind of dystopian, postmodern version of it where people are willfully ignorant. Whereas here, they're desperate to learn. In the US, the willful rejection of the hand in front of your face
00:27:29
Speaker
has terrified me so much, Ken, and I'm so glad that there are people, I'm so glad there are people like you who are willing to stick it out, but I just had to get out of there. I literally couldn't take it anymore. And I spent some time in Europe and I loved that, and I spent some time in India, and I love it and hate it here too, but the US is a place that's hard for me to spend a lot of time right now because of what's happening to the culture.
00:27:56
Speaker
Yeah, understood. I mean, not to sit here and read everything into it, but you mentioned some aspects of the sensitivity to what's going on. I think there's always this frustrating component within the United States of this fervent anti-intellectualism.
00:28:18
Speaker
And it's just so vitriolic. And if you combine that with a curious personality, you know, there's plenty of people curious about a lot of different things. I want to explore a lot of different things. And, you know, if that's not valued, you kind of feel, well, OK, I feel like I'm going against the grain all the time. Or I am going against the grain all the time.
00:28:45
Speaker
You want to, I'll tell you a little funny anecdote that I think about all the time. I think about this way too much. Um, so one of my good friends, I did my PhD with Maria. We were chatting a few years ago online and she said, I just came back from a trip and she was kind of irritated
American Culture: Identity and Impact
00:29:01
Speaker
about something. I said, Oh, did something happen? And she said, yeah, you know, I was sitting next to this guy on the plane, this old British guy. And you know how you sit next to people on the plane and they start talking. So I said, yeah, okay.
00:29:11
Speaker
And she said, and he asked me, you know, I asked him what he did and he told me, and he asked me what I did. And Maria said, I told him I teach American culture at Nottingham University in the UK. And then she wrote to me, she said, can you believe what he asked me next? He asked me, is there such a thing as American culture, you know?
00:29:31
Speaker
And then she was, she was like, I was so offended. I just turned my head and I didn't look at him for the rest of the plane ride. And, and I said something I probably shouldn't have said, but I wrote to him. I said, I'm not sure he's wrong. You know, I, I'm not sure what it is because, because I know culture has something to do with history.
00:29:48
Speaker
If I had to pinpoint it, I would say American culture is buying junk with money you don't have. Or we can go back to conquering the wilderness and barbarism. I don't know. I really just don't know what it is. So one of the reasons I see myself as a citizen of the world rather than a permanent resident of the US is I feel like unlike Europe and unlike some other civilizations,
00:30:15
Speaker
We're so new that there is no identity formed. And the formation that's happening is too terrifying to watch up close. Well, let me let me let me try. I mean, you've really prompted my thinking. You've really prompted my thinking. I'm going to try to sum up the sum up the U.S. and some of the questions we ask to hear, you know, I'm asking what is our right. So
00:30:39
Speaker
I love, you know, I started painting two, three years ago, love art, love painting, find out new things about myself, like what I create, all those types of things. And the headline today was that the White House was going ahead with an approval to paint the entire wall between the United States and Mexico with black paint to the tune of a half billion dollars. And I
00:31:07
Speaker
put my phone down, I would have folded my paper down a few years ago and said, well, that's it right there, isn't it? A half billion, not only, you know, the wall's the wall, right? To make sure it's painted black for half a billion dollars and say, we are, we are no longer, we are unhinged from things I can understand, but thank you for, thank you for helping me with that a bit. No, the willingness, uh,
00:31:36
Speaker
the willingness to sacrifice, because when we're talking about money, we're talking about sacrificing people's lives, of course, you know, so like the willing the willingness to put people's lives in jeopardy for the sake of some death worshiping cult ideology is so profound in our country that it's really it. The only way you can survive is by putting it out of your mind. Otherwise, you would just throw up constantly, you know. Well,
00:32:05
Speaker
I don't know if this questioning is going to lead in or color the particular question, which is the big one, Michael.
Storytelling for Healing and Truth
00:32:16
Speaker
I was wondering if you knew why there's something rather than nothing. I don't know whether there is something rather than nothing, but I do think that when somebody is healed,
00:32:36
Speaker
It is a moment that you share. And all the work that I do, whether it's trying to educate people through my films, my writing, or in the catharsis that I think I bring out through my storytelling work, it's all about healing wounds. So healing them as a country, as a policy, or as an individual. And that moment, if it is an illusion, if it is nothing,
00:33:05
Speaker
If it has no resonance beyond its surface appearance, then it is the greatest illusion ever created because those moments have ripple effects. Those moments can change your life. They can change the lives of the people who witness them. So in storytelling, when I see that, I'm touched by it in a way that makes me guess that there is something rather than nothing.
00:33:36
Speaker
All right. Thank you for that, Michael. Now I know we haven't seen each other in quite some time, 20 years. Now I know I know I know I miss you. I just know that's just that that's just lovely. And one of the things I was forgot to mention at the beginning, I remembered that we had at the University of Massachusetts, we had collaborated together on the living wage study for Boston, Massachusetts.
00:34:06
Speaker
Right. And we worked on that research project for
America's Evolution and Future Change
00:34:11
Speaker
a while. I remember we were annoying a lot of people with a lot of information requests. You know, having having beat up on the U.S. for a little while in the past few minutes, you know, let's just talk about the flip side for a second, because as we're seeing with the living wage 20 years ago and as we're seeing with Bernie Sanders campaign and other things is that ideas that were once thought to be absurd.
00:34:35
Speaker
or impossible are now becoming self-evident. And this is fantastic. This is the great thing about America. So there are many, many tragic things. But the best thing about the American experiment is its willingness to relook at any idea and redo it if it needs redoing.
00:35:04
Speaker
In Europe, you have the tradition for tradition's sake type of thing. In the far east where I am, you have more of an autocratic way. So-and-so says to do it that way, we're going to do it that way. But in America, there's the spirit of entrepreneurship and experimentation that is incredibly attractive and important.
00:35:23
Speaker
I love the fact that we were involved in something that made a difference eventually. And I think that instead, because of the weird times that we're in now, instead of thinking about watching our trees come through fruition, we should be thinking about planting seeds that somebody else is going to nurture in the future.
Michael's Online Classes and Creative Ventures
00:35:39
Speaker
No, I really, really appreciate that brother. Um, I want to, um, to have, uh, uh, folks who are listening to podcasts to, you know, to be able to connect with you.
00:35:52
Speaker
and the work that you do as well. So can you just kind of lay out just kind of ways to access the work that you do or point out creations or things that you're working on, whether it's online or just so folks can link up with the work that you do.
00:36:13
Speaker
Yeah, of course. So my newest thing is I'm launching four new online writing classes. So I've teach almost exclusively in the US, India, and I just did a workshop in the Middle East. But now I'm starting June 1st. Starting this summer, I'll be doing some online writing classes worldwide.
00:36:34
Speaker
that's talltales.com. So, Podia is a great platform for teaching online classes. So, that's my newest venture. talltales.in is the website for my company. I also do this, I have this small company that does non-electronic educational toys for kids, you know,
00:36:58
Speaker
Sadly, everybody's just staring at their phones all day here. So I have a company called KahaniCubes.com, which means StoryCubes in Hindi. And it'd be kind of trying to bring back non-electronic ways to spend your time with friends and family. And then I have my website, MichaelPBurns.com, where you can find out more about my film work, my political leanings.
00:37:24
Speaker
my interests as well as my new focus, which is the art of storytelling and the importance of telling stories that have never been told before. Thank you so much, Michael. I'm definitely going to deliberately connect with you on the writing workshop and I know
00:37:51
Speaker
It's just that the times, the time's right for me. And I know there's been a couple, you know, over the years, you and I have kind of sent a message here, they're back and forth in the, the same type of things, uh, you know, resonate, um, for me, I think what you had to say about, you know, the, the onto something rather than nothing question about, you know, the healing and the catharsis and the very, very deep, powerful human.
00:38:18
Speaker
uh, transformation, uh, that you can help folks with, you know, with the storytelling and with being able to write or, you know, attempt to understand our experiences, uh, really some profound stuff. And, um, also wanted to thank you for taking the time, um, to, to join the podcast, um, from, from India, it's been a, an absolute great pleasure, um, to connect with you, Michael. And I, I very much look forward to, um,
00:38:45
Speaker
working with you in that writing process and, you know, tap into some of the things that seem available within me. So I want to thank you for that. Thanks so much, Ken. Really nice talking to you. Always good to talk with an open-minded person. Take care, brother, and thanks again. Bye-bye. Bye now. You are listening to something rather than nothing.