Latest / Caught on the Mike... / "Choose the Adventure" with photographer Ryan Bakerink- Getty/Alt Press

Transcript

"Choose the Adventure" with photographer Ryan Bakerink- Getty/Alt Press · Caught on the Mike...

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Warning due to some language and subject matter.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Listener discretion is advised.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: When I was in eighth grade, I moved from the big city to the small town for the first time in my life.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: And while I only lived in this one small town for six months, I did make an impactful friend there.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: Required mutual interests like music and comic books.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: And many years later, while in college, I would see him again for the first time he was on stage taking photographs of the fan Goldfinger.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: Little did I know the impact that he would have on the music industry and the world at large with his beautiful photography.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: Music fans worldwide have seen his portraits of Faramore, Hawthorne Heights, and notably the portrait on Fallout Boys Take This Deer Grave album.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: I'd like to welcome my friend Ryan Bankrink to the show.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: We are going to learn about his purpose and journey as a photographer.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: Ladies and gentlemen, this is Caught on the Mike.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: So no shit.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: A couple of years ago, actually, it was a long time ago, Dotfest 1998.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I am watching Goldfinger play, and Bridget Gates comes up to me, and I hadn't seen her in years.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: She comes up to me and she goes, Do you see Ryan up on stage taking pictures of Goldfinger?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Holy shit, what is he doing up there?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: Ryan, how the hell are you?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: Good.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: How are you?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: This is a great story.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I hadn't heard.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: So how did you land that gig?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, uh, it's a story.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good one.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll for sure.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'll start off.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, I'll get to that.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely part of my journey.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, well, yeah.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first I want to start off with some compliments on your podcast because when you reached out to me, I started digging into uh your podcast and looking through um a lot of the previous guests.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so to your first point was a lot of your guests have a connection with a good friend of mine, John Feldman from Goldfinger.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that ties into this, and we'll get into that uh more soon.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: But I thought that was a really interesting theme.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people cross cross paths with that guy.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and then another familiar story that you often tell that I tell a lot of my friends is about Slipknot and how uh, and they get a kick out of this because Slipknot was a local Des Moines band uh in the late 90s, and they opened for literally everyone.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: They would open for the ska band, like Real Big Fish or Goldfinger.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: They would open for the pop artist like not Lady Gaga, but like a similar artist like Lady Gaga.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: They literally played with everyone, and my friends get a kick out of that, or they would have everybody play with them.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's yeah, honestly, that's how I got into bands and playing music was opening for Slipknot.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's amazing.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: So it's how I made friends with Sophia John and then it who I'm friends with, yeah.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: It sprawled over into my music time playing in Omaha.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: So, of course, there's always going to be that six degrees of separation between Slipknot and John Feldman for sure.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then Sophia John, I met her not even when she was working at uh in Des Moines, but when she moved to Omaha and she started uh working with bands, and uh we worked together with a few bands from Chicago, and and uh we went down memory lane and she's like, come to Omaha.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And uh she was she's awesome.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if she's still working in uh radio in Omaha.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she is.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's great.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: I should reach out.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, yep, yep.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: So was it Swizzletree that you were working with with her?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's C look at that.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: So funny.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And and then so the other thing I I was uh looking through your podcast and I saw an episode with Taylor Morton.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And he did he was the director of uh a documentary on ska in the 90s called Pick It Up.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and that reminded me to go back and watch it because I had an advanced copy he sent to me a while back and I just forgot about it.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so also in your in the little um blurb about him, there was a mention of Here's to Life, the story of the refreshments.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I was a massive fan of that band.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like I thought that was one of the best albums that no one cared about ever.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I still listen to it regularly to this day.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And here I am just now finding out that there's a whole documentary about them.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been wondering for years what happened.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I went down this rabbit hole for for two hours.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh my God, they've put out seven albums since then.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And here I am trying to find out what happened in them for years.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: So now I'm obsessed with that.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, your podcast kind of took me down uh several, several memory lanes.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, I even found myself, I saw myself in the documentary for the ska.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm like, oh, that's me.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, I was barely in it in the background taking photos, just the exact equity that I deserve.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Just nothing more, but it was good.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was so thanks to your podcast, I found all this, all this great stuff.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: So great work, dude.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: That is like the greatest set of compliments I could receive.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: I unintentionally trade in nostalgia, and it just it's just what works for me.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: Less about me, more about you.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: Let's uh let's talk a little bit about your origin story.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: Why don't you introduce yourself to my listeners and let's talk about how you got to where you're at right now?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Ryan Bakering.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a photographer in Chicago, Illinois.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: My work is mainly focused on the music industry, travel, advocacy work, and mental health.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess I do some, I guess you'd call it countercultural lifestyle, uh lifestyle stuff, if you could, if counterculture is still a term people use.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I used to do commercial and uh advertising work, but now I just mainly focus on fine art.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up in Fontenelle, Iowa, which is a tiny farming community in southwest Iowa.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's a town of 600 people, roughly, and it's directly between Des Moines and Omaha.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: When I tell people where I grew up, they often say, Oh, what city?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: What city in Iowa?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I laugh because I'm like, city, really?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I say the name and they don't know it.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: So then I say the next nearest big town and they don't know it.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: I say the next biggest big town and they don't know it.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: So then I eventually say, Well, Bridges of Madison County, I'm near that.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then they go, Oh, they don't know where that's at either.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I just say between Des Moines and Omaha.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's the best way for them to visualize it.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I was always interested in the arts, specifically music and photography.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: But uh there was no real opportunity for any of that where I grew up.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's basically your classic small town America.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Expectations are pretty low for adulthood.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, to try and paint a picture of this town for your audience.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there's only one restaurant, which is also the gas station, Casey's, which I love Casey's.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there are no grocery stores, no stoplights.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, three small towns make up my graduating class or make up my high school.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Up through my sophomore year, I had 25 people in my class.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then um, I think our graduating class when we consolidated with the next nearby town was 60, 65, something like that.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: So pretty, pretty small town.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I really appreciate the perspective of having lived there in that very rural life and then living um the opposite urban life now.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a really great, humbling perspective to have, and one that I don't really get to share with a lot of people.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it kind of helps me make helps make me who I am.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: When we first met, we were in eighth grade.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: I only lived in Fontenelle for about six months, but the funny thing is, is it it sounds like we kind of had reverse culture shock, like because I moved from a big city to Fontenelle, and you moved from Fontenelle to a big city.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's very interesting because I I do remember that.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, I've got a few memories about you and your family in particular.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, first time I ever learned who Venom was, the Spider-Man villain, villain anti-hero, was from your comic book collection.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: First time I learned who Pearl Jam was and heard a Pearl Jam album was from your brother and listening to CDs in your brother's room.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: And first time I ever had Casey's pizza was with you when you're I think your mom was managing that pizza at the time.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: So look at that.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: You've had a profound impact on my life, and you didn't even know.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: Look at that.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: All the best things in your life, I'm sure.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, dude, I still love Casey's pizza to this day.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: Who doesn't?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: I do too.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Every time I go home, I make sure I get I live in the pizza capital of at least the United States, but I still go back to that.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: So, what brought you to photography?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so um I I knew I wanted to get I went, I moved from Fontenelle to Des Moines for a hot minute, uh, knowing that that that was only temporary.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And and I started doing a little bit of photography there, uh, met some people in the industry, did some commercial photography work or um commercial and advertising work and some music work.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I then looked at all the schools in the Midwest.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why I stuck with the Midwest, but you know, I got uh accepted to all of these schools in um Minneapolis, Kansas City, Omaha, Milwaukee, Chicago.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I decided the second I stepped in Chicago, like this is it.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I moved to Chicago uh to study photography.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And uh my first two professors in photography were amazing.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't realize it at the time, but now they're legit legends in the photography world.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it was probably like the first like um of many time and place situations.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And uh simultaneously I immediately immerse myself into the Chicago music scene.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um I feel like most artists find a specific thing within their practice that remains constant and drives their work forward.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that for me was always music photography.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, although now I travel the world and create fine art, various subjects, and uh music photography is really just open most of the doors and keeps my work moving forward.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: I have a full-time gig with Getty Images, which is great.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I still have that, but I continue my practice and my craft almost as if my life depends on it.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: I am busy all the time, and I think of crazy things and I find ways to do them, and I live this crazy eclectic life that crosses many interests and cultures and geography, and my ambition and passion for life is just insane.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of where I am uh now.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but to go back to your question about music photography and and and goldfinger and that path, that was pretty interesting.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it's gonna start in a very interesting place.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: So remember in 1996 when uh the Smashing Pumpkins were touring, and there was the drug overdose with Jimmy Chamberlain and their keyboard player.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and that happened just was it just nights before or just a few nights after the Ames show?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was a four it was a few nights before the Kansas City show.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: Which I was going to.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: Right, gotcha.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it did push the Ames show back too.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: The whole tour got shifted back, which I also went to.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: So me and my friends uh were going to the Kansas City show.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: That show got canceled or postponed, which happened to be the same night Goldfinger was playing in Des Moines, so for like five dollars.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And they had just released Here in Your Bedroom.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: So like I barely even knew the song.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: But we're like, okay, we can't go to the sea smashing pumpkins.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: This show's five dollars.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go check it out.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Why not?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it changed my life.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was full of energy.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: There was stage diving.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: The band got naked on stage and played on stage.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, it was the first time I was at like a real punk show where they would give the mic to kids and they would sing on stage.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And right, you know, at that moment I was all in on punk and ska.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like that was it.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, sorry, this is my my new path.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it's great when a band can do that, like turn that switch for you.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it changed a lot of other things for me.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a lot of uh paths sort of adjusted with it.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: So and at that time, Goldfinger was also on their like year-long uh record-breaking tour where they played the most amount of shows ever um in one year.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of them were in the Midwest.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: They often attributed Ames, Omaha, Des Moines as some of their favorite places to play.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I would take photos of them and just whatever, uh, real knowing, no real intentions of doing anything with them.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: But then, like five shows in, the band started recognizing me and creating conversations, and we just organically became friends.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And here I am, just this kid in Des Moines, like no big deal.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And um they gave me just a ton of chances for no real reason to partner on a lot of things.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they let me do a lot of artwork for their first live video.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we were in conversation.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Oh, you should do a covers album.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And they went to Omaha at the Ranch Bowl and did a covers album, and they let me do all the artwork, uh, which was awesome.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh later they asked me to go on tour with them.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I went on tour with them.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And uh this was all sort of now after that Des Moines show that you pointed out earlier.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's when we were just sort of cultivating that relationship.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I went on tour with them, and you know, the good thing is I always had something else to provide, so it wasn't like a one-way relationship.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: We would always uh trade ideas, trade, trade work.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um going on a tour with a rock band at 20 years old was insane uh for me for being a kid from Iowa and finding it.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Especially that one.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, especially that one.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then I also just did their last album cover, which was uh their album, their last album is one of their best.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: I agree.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: So good.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: I agree.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: My my uh 13-year-old son makes me play that on Drives from Lincoln Omar.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's awesome!
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: He's totally into it.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, he's like, dude, let's put on the new gold finger.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, okay.
• 14:35
  unknown: It's so nice.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean how that came about.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: I was in uh California um a year before the album came out, and I just texted John.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, hey, I'm in California, let's hang out.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, okay, come over to the house.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I went over to his house, uh, where studio is, and that's where he records Blink 182 and the used and the latest Aver Levian album.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Everything he does, it's it's amazing.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so we're hanging out, and uh I just say, Hey, you know, what do you are you guys gonna do a new album?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I don't know.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I then said, Well, if you do, I have an idea.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: We should bring the Space Girl to life.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're not familiar with The Space Girl, uh, she's this uh cartoon that was on their first album and another album and a lot of their promotional work.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, that's an amazing idea.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you do it?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, absolutely.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: So when the time came around to uh to produce their next album, I'm like, hey, are you still in on that idea?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, absolutely.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: So uh here I am now trying like costume design.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: I've never done costume design.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: I built the thing myself, ordering crap on Amazon.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, does this work?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Does this work?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I flew out to LA and we uh uh put his wife in the in the costume and it fit.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: I had to create two just in case one didn't fit and ship them.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: And this was during the height of COVID.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: This was during um August.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: It was my only trip during COVID, so August 2020.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we did it.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I was so it was so fun, it was just so um rewarding to have something that's in your mind and then execute it and then create it and then push it out into the world, especially when it's something that is part of their legacy, like the space girl that's so identifiable with Goldfinger, right?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's their aesthetic.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it's just it's been just a cool connection with with him and um and their band.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: They seem to respect my thoughts and my opinions, even so much so that like the album title he looped me in on.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: So he would say, like, what do we call it?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: I I have these ideas, and he sent them to me.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's you know, like midnight, it's it's 10 o'clock and uh West Coast time, but it's late here.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I'm just like, I don't know.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: I've had I haven't heard the album yet, I don't know any of the lyrics.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so then he immediately sends me the album in a Dropbox.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so for the next two hours, I'm listening to the album for the first time, only listening to lyrics and not listening to the music at all.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, you know, like well, we did the we did the Space Girl, and I think Never Look Back makes the most sense because um it kind of has this meta vibe to it.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: The album's nostalgic, but we took the spacewoman and we took her from a cartoon and evolved her to be a real person.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: She's looking up at the future, so never look back seems to be like kind of tell a story of this cartoon evolving into a real human.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so that was really cool and rewarding in that way.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, it's been awesome, and you know, he does so much for so many people.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I was surprised that I mean I was probably one of the first people he kind of like, hey kid, come on, you're cool, let's go.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: Honest to goodness, like he really there's not too many bands from the early 2000s that you can't find his fingerprints on.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's funny because I uh I would always send him bands.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I remember hearing uh I one of the bands I worked with early on was a band called Thursday, if you know who they are.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um New Jersey, who were just awesome and great friends of mine.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I first worked with them and I told their publicists, like, hey, can you send me some extra copies of this album?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: No, I didn't tell them.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna give them to John.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, hey, John, check this out.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is gonna be the next thing.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: The Screamo thing is gonna be awesome.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think he just kind of like shoved it off to his side, like, okay.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then like a few months later, he calls me and he's like, dude, you were right.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: This band Thursday is awesome.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: They're blowing up.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, but they were already signed, it was kind of too late.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then he turned around and went and signed the used.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so he, I'm not saying I have anything to do with that, but I I think he caught up on like this is a thing, and I have this other band that's probably gonna be as big, if not bigger, and the used are huge.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm constantly sending him stuff, and it's it's just really cool.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so, how did that relationship and those the kind of foundations of those connections springboard you into the next step?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: Because obviously, the pink elephant in the room is the fact that uh Fallout Boys take this to your grave.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's your picture, yeah, it's a picture that you took.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm assuming there's some sort of connection there.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's when you um when you're in the industry, and I I happened to move to Chicago when um in 2000.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: So right around 2000, a little bit before.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: But in the early 2000s, the emo scene was exploding.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: And Chicago was a key part of that scene.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: You had Alkaline Trio, Rise Against, Fallout Boy.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: And because I had already sort of, you know, through John and through other people, I had already sort of been in the in the scene a little bit, knew enough people at labels, knew enough publicists to sort of be like, oh, do you know anybody in Chicago?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this guy, Ryan, call him.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so through probably roundabout through maybe alternative press or something, it got to me.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: And uh they called me up, like, hey, we're doing this album.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to do the album cover?
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I had heard of them, but I didn't, I didn't really know them.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: A friend of mine was in the band for a minute, and that's all I knew at them.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: So um I was like, yeah, so went to their house.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Three of them lived together here in Chicago, and uh getting to work with them was it was so great.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: They were so good to me.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I remember working on the cover, we're at their apartment, and we're working through ideas, and I'm talking to Pat, the singer, and Pete Wentz, uh, the bass player, and they just had this vision and they were just so creative and they knew what they were doing.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, damn, this band is gonna make it.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, there's no way with their level of just like artistry and just focus.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've worked with a lot of bands, and there were there weren't many that had their focus.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um I didn't even I hadn't even heard of them or I hadn't heard them, but I could just pick up on how creative they were and how how determined they were.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we created the album uh cover, but the original album cover uh we had to scrap.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: There were too many.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was a really cool idea, but uh we had to scrap it because there were too many conflicting copyright issues with it.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like we hadn't we had an Elvis Costello uh poster in the background and some Star Wars toys, and they had to scrap it.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: So they went with a very basic design.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um wasn't as cool as the first one, but now people love it, and I'm like, okay, that's fine.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but but uh yeah, it was great.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: They had tireless work ethic.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: I remember going and seeing them in Des Moines before they blew up, and of course, being an Omaha guy, I lived in I moved to Omaha in 2000 and uh I lived at the Ranch Bowl, basically.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: Such a great place.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: So um, you know, my buddy Phil did a lot of the promo work for the Ranch Bowl, and I remember being in the back room and it was a winner show, and I think there was a total of 10 or 15.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: People at this Fallout Boys show and and Pete Wentz comes back with a case of bass strings because he knew there was a recording studio in the back.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: He slaps them down in front of my buddy Phil.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: He goes, Hey, we just got endorsed.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: You guys want some bass strings?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's the weirdest thing ever.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's it was totally, totally great.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: But the funny thing is, is you know, going through your website, checking out all of the photos that you've taken, you kind of have this uh forest gump of the alternative press era thing going.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you it really is kind of weird?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was so much just I don't know, knowing people and being at the right place at the right time, and I you know, I I often think about like all the crazy stuff, and I I think about fate or I don't know if it's fate or coincidence or or whatever it is.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I often think about the concepts of coincident and fate from the context of my life.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And like, is fate real or just a series series of coincidences, or you just tell yourself that, or you know, you just re-redefine uh coincidences as fate.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I don't like I said, I don't know how I feel about that because that that implies that luck plays a bigger role in how things play out.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but really what it comes down to is simply showing up.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: I a coincidence or fate is if you believe in either, can't really happen if you're not making the effort to make things happen.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you don't know where those opportunities or when those opportunities come.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: So you just have to constantly be out there.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so I get a lot of questions like, well, how did you do this?
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: How did you make this happen?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: How do you know so and so?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I always just respond with, I showed up.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean that by just a physical sense.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean that by being present mentally, engaging, showing genuine interest in other people, listening more than you talk.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if you show up a lot, those connections just sort of organically happen.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, maybe your talent isn't as good as the next photographer or the next band or whatever, but you've made those connections and you're genuine.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: So people will loop you in.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: People will want to bring you in because they want to be around you.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's always been my my motto is just show up.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: It may not happen, but you were there and you tried.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: So to me, I just I just kind of contributed to always being always trying and always trying to show up.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's it's a sense of consistency that not everybody has and not everybody is equipped with, you know, uh cruising your Instagram page, your gym rat as well.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so so I it's kind of falls in the same philosophy is like consistency is king, right?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: And like 100%.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: And on that point, like people are always like, Well, how did you lose so much weight, or how did you do this?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: And like consistency.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Everything you ever hear about any trainer in the world, do those things, drink a gallon of water a day.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Don't, you know, if you mess up in your routine, that's okay, but just be consistent.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Do these things, and it'll happen.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: You may not see results in a month, but in a month and a half or two, suddenly you're gonna be so impressed with yourself and the progress you've made.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're not consistent, you're never gonna get there.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's that's phenomenal, man.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: So let's talk.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: There's there's two other projects that caught my eye that I was really, really, really impressed with.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, one of them was the Chicago 2020.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and of course, CBS Sunday morning did a nice feature about that.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: And and I really enjoyed, I just actually re-watched that recently.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: I really enjoyed seeing that.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: And the other one is the if I knew when or if I knew then project that you did.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: So let's talk a little bit about both of those.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: So uh Chicago 2020.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like this could be its own its own thing.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so 2020 was quite the year for most people.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, it was actually extremely rewarding.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you what.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: So prior to 2020, I had realized that I had moved to Chicago when I was 20 and I had lived there for 20 years.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I never really created work in Chicago.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: I would travel, I would do create work elsewhere, but I never just focused on my the city I live.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I really wanted to take a year-long project.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, 2020 was perfectly symbolic for me to do that project, living here for 20 years, moved here when I was 20.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I really wanted to do this project of self-discovery.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Why did I move here?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's so different from where I grew up.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I really wanted it to explore myself.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, like I said, a project of self-discovery.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, it was meant to be a project for me, a personal project, but because of the type of year 2020 was, it evolved into something else, uh sort of like a time capsule of Chicago in this crazy world that uh we went through.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um this crazy period we went through in 2020.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: And um because so much changed in by March of that year, it was the first time that I was able to take the time to focus only on my work.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: I had my day job, which was fine, but everything else was out the picture, out of the picture.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, there were no concerts to go to, there were, there was no social life.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's literally nothing else to do except focus on this project.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it also became like therapy throughout the year.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: And um so yeah, it focused, it kind of forced me to slow down, and not just in a physical way, but allowed me to give myself time to reflect on my work and on my life.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: And um I was also able to spend so much time on my craft.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's that old saying where, you know, you have to to master your craft, you have to spend 10,000 hours practicing, practicing it.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I didn't spend 10,000 hours on this project, and I certainly didn't master my craft, but um, the idea is still there in that I took a huge leap uh forward with the quality of my work, just based on the amount of time that I was able to focus on it and talk about it and think about it.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so I took advantage of the year in that way, and it was such a great opportunity to really just like peel every layer of yourself back and force and uh force yourself to look in a mirror.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then you're faced with a pandemic, then you're faced with social injustice, and this personal project became me also dealing with those issues, and you know, where am I here?
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, here are all the here's the whole Black Lives Matter situation.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: I need to shut up and listen, I need to care.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: There are many situations where I put my camera away in certain situations, and I'm just like, nope, this isn't my time.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right, I'm gonna sit here and listen.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so just being um so present and aware of humanity was was so fulfilling for me.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like I grew more in one year than I grew in the previous 20 years living here.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, and and uh I also think 2020 for me was great physically.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like once gyms reopened, I had nothing else to like get in the way.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: So suddenly, like fitness changed.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like I can't go out and drink, I can't go out and hang with friends, I can't do all this stuff, so I'm just gonna go work out all the time and focus on this project.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I and I think I'm the only person that thinks 2020 was great for me because because for some of us it went the other way.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like for me, for me from a very, very similar standpoint, like it was the perfect year to start a podcast.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like it was like like it was like okay, I played in bands for like 15 years to stop in like 2011, and then just had this lull for nine years where I didn't do anything creatively and it was killing me.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: So it was perfect year to start a podcast, but my gym routines went to shit in 2020.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like two years later, and I'm still trying to, it's like I climb that horse and I fall off and I climb back up again.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: But no, man, that's that's fantastic to hear because that's it's really good.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: It was productive for creatives in a lot of ways.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: So you know it's all a mindset, right?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, you I realized quickly for the first, you know, at the beginning of the pandemic, everyone was like, Oh, we're just flattening the curve.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna make bread and I'm gonna do these things, and I did too.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then as soon as I realized we weren't flattening the curve, I'm like, this is an opportunity that I may not ever get again to focus on my craft, to focus on myself, and I will not let this go to waste.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: So once that clicked in my head, I was just a maniac, and it was it was great.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: And you talked about the 10,000 hours thing.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's uh that's a Malcolm Gladwell concept, isn't it?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, yeah, I think so.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: Fantastic.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: So let's talk about your other pro the other one, uh, if I knew then.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: I I think that's fantastic.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: I I was on your website for a long time.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: I almost read every single one of those letters.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Did you do it without uh crying?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: I can't go through it.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: I I I I I plea the fifth.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever I talk about it or show it to people, it's it's the room is in tears.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: So um if I knew then, so several uh years ago, there was a string of highly publicized suicides in LGBT youth due to bullying or not being accepted by family or um or whatever the situation was.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I always thought that art could be a great catalyst for social change.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to do a project on mental health in the LGBT community.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um I thought a lot about how I would go about it and like what's the right story to tell, what's the right angle, and like what advice would I have to give to somebody?
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then I realized the only advice I have to give is to myself.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that was like my aha moment.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, that's the project.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: So the project in a nutshell is taking somebody from the LGBT plus community, photographing a portrait of them, and then having them write a handwritten letter to their younger self.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: I asked them to talk about anything they want.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it just has to be prior to them coming out or coming to terms with their sexuality.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it doesn't have to necessarily address their uh sexuality.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: I just want them to think of a person of that time frame.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a lot of people talk about um work life or relationships with family or whatever it is.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's it it just covers a lot of ground, which is really great.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Which also means it's you know, there are some that are funny, there are some that are sad, there are some that are um inspiring for those trying to find their place in life or career development or whatever it is.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm really proud of that.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really proud of how people um not only get to express themselves through the letter, their handwriting, the paper they choose.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they make little drawings on it.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody wrote just a few words on a taco receipt, and that's totally fine.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really cool to give them that space to um talk about themselves.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the project sort of has two purposes.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: One, it's it's therapeutic for the subject.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: They finally get to address this thing that they've probably never really been able to address or really thought about.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: So you sort of force them to really dig deep.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then um the other part is it's just like I hope that it does something positive for others.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: The ultimate goal is for it to be a like a coffee table book that could potentially serve as a a resource for people who don't have a resource or a network of people or a support network to go to when they're sort of coming to terms with with their sexuality or whatever it is.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: This can serve as that, and they can read these stories.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: I was gonna ask that exact question if you had plans on turning it into a coffee table book or something along those lines.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's phenomenal.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: That'll be my second book.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that was originally supposed to be the first book.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Chicago 2020 is going to be my first book, which comes out in October, hopefully.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then I actually have two other projects that are sister projects to Chicago 2020 that are done.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: But uh the if I knew them project probably has I'm probably 60% of the way through it.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: I need to find um a little bit more diversity and not just uh not just in ethnicity, but age, uh gender, you know, everything.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: So a little little bit more room to go there, um, but it's certainly on its on its way.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I share it a lot, I talk a lot about it at schools, high schools.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's really, really moving.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh like I said, like I said earlier, it's hard for me to talk about.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like if I read some of the stories, like I choke up and this is my project, but then everyone else is just like crushed.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, yeah.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: So in the perspective of some of these projects, how self-critical are you?
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, very um, super self-critical.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: I it's you know, things like editing your own work, and sometimes you think something is so good and somebody else just hates it and throws it to the side.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just like, oh my god, what are you talking about?
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the best images.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you get better with it uh over time, but super self-critical.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you may have noticed that um my website's completely different now than it was a week ago.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was super self-critical of it.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I'm gonna get rid of all this, dude.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: But but I think that goes for any of us that are creative, though.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's like something that sounds or looks good to another person, we might hate as the creators, yeah, or the ones that birthed that project.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, yeah.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: I I just gave um I just sent my uh Chicago book off to the publisher, and they're doing the final edit.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I just said, listen, these 25 images you can't cut.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: Anything else, like you're the publisher, go for it.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm I'm gonna give you that control because there are some things that you're just so married to for so for for no reason.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's just an emotional response to it, and it might be total crap, but you can't let it go.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I let them like okay, these 25 I have to keep, but the rest, just cut them.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's fine.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, whatever we gotta do.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be interesting to see what comes back.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: So I was gonna I was gonna ask you if you wrote a book about your life, what would that book be about?
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what would you cover?
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: It would be an adventure.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think it'd be like a choose your own adventure book.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's so funny because like you're kind of touching on something like um success.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think like I always feel like success is a moving target, and the only thing I've ever really wanted was to live an interesting life.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like I go back to I have this vision in my head, and it plays over and over, and you can put yourself in that vision because you've been to my parents' house.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: And uh this is kind of like my motivation for everything I've ever done.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: So this vision is me and I'm laying, and I'm a teenager, and I'm laying in my parents' bed, and I'm sort of like listening to, I don't know, Smash of Pumpkins, Melcolian Finit Saddis, whatever it was out when we were in high school, and I was obsessed with.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: And um my parents had a subscription to uh Rolling Stone and National Geographic.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember just being there, like, man, like was I born in the wrong place?
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: I want to do all this stuff, I want to go like work with these rock bands and go to these music festivals and clubs, and I want to travel to all these crazy places.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I just sort of thought, like, well, I don't have any of these opportunities.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is this isn't fair.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what's going on?
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then um I just said, well, thought to myself, go make it happen.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you can do this, you can just go make it happen.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: So um in a nutshell, there's this great singer-songwriter uh named Jason Isbell.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure if he's gonna be like, Oh my gosh!
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_02: He's my most favorite! He's seriously handsome.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's all good.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and he has a song, uh, you're gonna get this.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad you can you can relate.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: He has that song, uh, Are You Living the Life You Chose or the Life?
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, yeah.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, that describes the thing that I always have in my head that keeps me motivating.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's I look back at that where I thought I had no opportunity to do a damn thing until I just said, Well, sure, you can just go do it.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I moved to Chicago with$500 to my name.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: I had nothing.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: And all I do is just work harder and harder and harder to to have a life full of experiences.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'd rather be rich with experiences than financially rich.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: So my book to circle back would have a lot of bonkers experiences.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it would be fun.
• 39:49
  unknown: Yeah.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like, oh wow, wow, dude.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_02: No, I just I'm blown away, first of all, by the the, you know, we I I promise you, if you're listening to this, we did not plan this at all.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_02: But Jason Isbell is my favorite, like one of the best.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: I I often wonder if he's the guy everybody kind of discovers when they start moving on from post-punk and hardcore.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, for sure.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I spent my last year playing in my last year playing in bands.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: I listened to Jason Isbell, Ryan Adams, and Jay-Z.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: That's amazing.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_02: And and I was playing in like this this story of the year, a Trey Yu knockoff band.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: So it was, but that's that's phenomenal.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_02: But that's beside the point.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: The thing that really strikes me is you talking about life experience, because when I think back to doing this podcast, I think about playing in bands and such.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_02: I often tell people, it's like, yeah, I never made it famous or I never made it big, but I have all these great stories that I can tell that I guarantee you most of my peers won't have.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: You want to have a life of stories, yeah.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like when I reflect, uh, you know, here's a joke I always tell somebody.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: So if if you die first, or if I die first, you have to hold uh this, uh you have to make this happen.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I simply want my gravestone to read, I tried.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because I gave it everything I could.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, coming from almost nothing to be able to have a life of great stories, you know, I I don't know if it's necessarily a life of success, but I have crazy stories to tell.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that's that's the best I can really ask for.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I was just saying I don't care at all about things, like other than needing certain things to survive, like a car or home, camera equipment for sure.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: I I need that.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: But other than that, like I don't find value in literally anything physical at all.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: I also sort of like live unapologetically where I don't really compare myself to others.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: I never like I never say one day I'd like to do this or one day I'd like to travel here.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: I just do it.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like it doesn't even cross my mind that it's not a possibility.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: And uh to me, it's really that simple.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: Just hey, if you want to do this thing, go do it, make it happen.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: You're capable of it.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: And um I'm you know, a couple things I'm not capable of is boredom, jealousy, and napping.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because I have too many interests.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, there's no need to waste time on being jealous because we're all capable of making these things happen.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and yeah, I can just go out and and uh the napping part, I just don't have time.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's too much to do.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's too much fun to fun to experience, too many places to travel.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man, the whole time you're talking that that Isbel song's playing in the background, it's almost like it's playing as your background music.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's so good.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: It kind of makes me think of a just a few other stories about like you know, living the life you chose or the life that chose you, and um and going back to the story of the book and certain things I always try to tell people.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: I remember being in Machu Picchu once, and um, I was there two back-to-back days.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: One day it was a sunny, nice day, so there are a lot of tourists around, and kind of like, okay, this is nice, but whatever.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the next day it was raining, and uh it was really crappy, so nobody was there.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I was sitting up there and I was having these intense feelings of contentment and happiness and peace and just this general love for life.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I really took time to dissect those feelings at that time, and it's something I regularly do now, and it's um really sort of um it's that that practice in in leadership when you pull something back, like you ask the five whys, and you ask why are you feeling this way, and then you pull back and you go ask why again, and you ask why again, you finally get to the ultimate, the core of of what you're feeling or thinking.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: And now wherever I go, wherever whenever I'm happy or pissed off or um just feeling great, I take the time to really think of that.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's sort of like my own meditation.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can get to that point, you can sort of uncover what really makes you happy and continue doing those things and what really pisses you off and not do those things, right?
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: But it really takes a lot of work to sort of understand that and get that, and I'm lucky that I figured that out early because it helps me in my decision making and trying to live a really fun life and um have these crazy opportunities like going to Chernobyl, what so yeah, that's phenomenal, dude.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: So, where can my audience find you online?
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, so I am at Ryan Bakerink.com and um my Instagram is Ryan Bakerink, all one word.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's the word baker, B-A-K-E-R-I-N-K.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna link you up whenever I post this to promote it on um Instagram and Facebook and what have you.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_02: Dude, this has been amazing, and I hope this isn't the last time that we do this.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, tell you tons of stories if you want to hear.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: This is this has been awesome.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, man, I tell you what, I can't tell you enough the world's a better place with you and it, my friend.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, thanks, man.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_02: What a great opportunity to reconnect with such a fantastic guy.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_02: Please check out his body of work on Instagram.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_02: Also by going to RyanBakerink.com.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's worth it.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_02: It is a who's who of that era of music.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_02: Plus, all of his other projects are fantastic.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_02: While you're cruising around online, make sure you visit me at www.cotonthemic.com.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_02: Hit me up on all forms of social media, and give me that five-star review on Apple Podcasts.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: And now Spotify also has a review platform.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_02: This has been Caught on the Mike with Michael Clark.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Michael Clark.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_02: Until next time.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.