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But is AI Art, Art? · UK Column Radio

• 0:30
  Speaker 1: My name is Jim. This is Germ Warfare, the Battle
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: of Ideas. Jake Fern, thank you for joining me in
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: the trenches for round.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Two a little later than I should have been.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Well, no, no, that's fine. Our last conversation we had
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: such a good time that I didn't even get to
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: the very thing I wanted to talk to you about,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: which is why did you back?
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: All right?
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, And that is your artwork and the series that
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: you do A thousand words, which is great. I mean
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: a picture paints more than a thousand words, and I
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: get the whole metaphor.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you get it. Actually I think it goes
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: over a few people's heads. Well, it still went over mine.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Actually it was my friend who suggested the name.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: So tell me a bit about it.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Well. Started off, I was doing a I was doing
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: a sort of mentorship course with a guy called Ben Hunt,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: who worked with Phil phil Escott. Thank you phil Escott
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: from Human Unleashed is the carnival guy he plays in
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: does his band, his drummer and does his band and
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: be Ben was set on this mentorship course anyway. He
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: had this worksheet that I was working through and he
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: phrased it, what do you feel you can offer the
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: world rather than what do you want to get or
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: what do you want to do? You know, it was
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: sort of like a directional program where it focused you
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: on where you wanted to go in your life. But
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: he fos but he phrased it in terms of what
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: you can give. So I was sort of thinking, I've
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: had a few guys, and then Vicky and my wife
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: came in. He said, can I can I ever go?
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: So she said I don't want to. I don't want
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: to scribble all over your nice worksheet. I said no, no,
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: just scribble away and she just basically came up with
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: a thousand words. So that was how it started. She said,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: you like, you really like chatting with people about you know,
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: deep stuff. You like going to the meat and potatoes
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: of things. You love doing portraits and you love doing
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: portrait demos, so just combine the two. So that's how
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: it started, and we did. We did a guy called
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Mad Mick. He's probably under your radar, isn't he Mad Mick?
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Not being in this country, I'm not sure the name
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: mad mixed conspiracies. He's become a good and and he
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: had a huge following right in the middle of COVID.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: He just talked to his phone and he'd runt and
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: and let out all his all his bile, and people
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: loved it, and at a certain time it was very popular.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: I think people needed that expression of anger. Anyway, he
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: was the first, he was the first sitter, and that
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: went really we spoke for about five hours, so.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: A few moments laid down. Yeah, we had a quick
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: interruption the jake. But we're talking about your your very
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: interesting concept. So you you record a podcast with a
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: guest while you're painting their portrait.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, I should have explained that, shouldn't I so, so, yeah,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: the idea was to paint their portrait and interview them
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: at the same time. And the way it turned out,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: I thought, Actually it was much more difficult than I thought,
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: because I let, I've always listened to stuff while I paint.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: You probably do as well when you draw and you
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: put on a podcast, And I don't know if you
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: find that it's a very different part of the brain.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: So you can you can listen quite easily and take
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: stuff on, but while drawing, and I know you, it's
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: like a different part of the brain for me. I
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: don't know. Why it separates so I can take stuff
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: in and then almost like auto pilot. And then so
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: I thought it would be the same with the conversation,
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: but obviously it's not. That's that's where it's different when
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: you're actually engage in and responding to what you're hearing.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: So it's more of a passive thing when you're just listening,
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: which I could do when I when I had to
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: start responding to to, you know, and actually being an interviewer,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: I realized actually how difficult it was to concentrate. But
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: what what what it sort of does is I make
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: the joke that the charm of the podcast in a
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: way is the fact that I'm doing neither neither thing
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: as well as I could do if I was only
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: doing one of them. So I'm not interviewing as well
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: as I could be. I'm sort of losing losing track
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: and getting distracted slightly. And I'm also not doing the
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: portrait as well because I'm so there's a bit of
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: drama and tension there and you know, is he going
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: to pull it back as you made that mistake or whatever.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: But I think it works with the conversation because what
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: it does it gives people a lot of space and
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: then obviously I can edit out certain pauses. But it's
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: a long format. So it's four hours generally that we record.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Just before you continue, there's a little buzz coming through.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: I think it might be your cable. So what so
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: about four hours? That's longer than a Rogan podcast?
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so it is really long. I like
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: I said, Mike was five and a half hours we
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: talked for. And you know, depending on the sitter, they
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: can quite often go into things that they probably wouldn't
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: do in a normal interview where they're more focused and
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: they've got an agenda that they want to get across,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: or you know, they're plug in a book or whatever
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: whatever it is. But when you've got four hours, you
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: can really go into childhood stuff in the psychology, psychological motivation,
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: whatever it might be. You can you can go there
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: and then you can pause and you can reflect, and
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: you can say, oh, let's let's go let's talk about this.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: You know. So it's a nice it's a nice format.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: It's not it's not fast paced. It's not for everyone.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: But if you if you feel like just relaxing and
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: listening at a slow pace to interesting conversations. That's where
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: I'd say, it's a.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: What have been some of your more interesting conversations? And
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: I guess portraits.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Mostly well, Richard Robes was very funny. Sorry, I really
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: enjoyed Richard because he made me laugh. It was before
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: anyone else had come in to record on the technical side.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: So do you know you know Richard Robes the bottom
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: bold Explorer again because it's more of a cultural reference,
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: but he's very big in this country. He was he
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: was a sort of minus celeb blogger and then he
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: flipped in COVID he realized what was going on, and
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: then he became this voice of reason and then he
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: has loads of guests on. Of course he gets called
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: a shield like like we all do. But he's great.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: And he came and he he came run into the
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: house and I was on my own and I had
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: a like I was filming it all on just phone cameras,
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: so it's very low fig and I was the only
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: I didn't have anyone else help, so I'd set up
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: the ease or the paint, everything got the lights and
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: I was checking as I was painting, I'm checking the
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: cameras because I had no one to check any and
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: it was quite nerve wracking, but he he I don't
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: know if it was the nerves, but he made me
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: laugh like I was by at school and I was
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: just doubled up, you know, And that was just a
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: really nice moment. I remember that because it's quite a thing.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: It's quite an intimate thing, and that was quite strange
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: because I knew Richard from watching his show and then
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: he just like rings the bell and he's like hello,
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: and he comes in and then you're just sitting in
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: this room one to one, you know, which is sometimes
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: quite awkward anyway, just being that intimate with someone if
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: you've never actually met them in person before. It's very
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: different doing a zoom thing.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: We'll just check that cable again. It's buzzing a few
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: moments later. We've got some criminals in this recording. But
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: you mentioned AI a moment ago, Jake, what do your
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: views on AI art?
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Ah, Well, Art ai art, I'm not a fan of,
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: not not necessarily on an ethical moral. From a ethical standpoint,
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: I just it's so I'm sure you'd agree. I'm very
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: much with Bob Moran on that it's very soulless, but
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: but it's AI is I'm just hearing that if there's
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: a crackle, is there a crackleback? No? AI is really
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: just at all? I was. I was. I met a
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: guy called Mark Plain not on the be but this
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: sounds beautiful. And he's going to be a guest. And
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: he's written a book called AI and I And do
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: you know have you spoke to Mark? No?
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: But I love that title.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: All right, Okay, he'd make a really good guest. I
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: think you'd have a really good chat. He's brilliant. Yeah,
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: I'm really impressed. He's been on the radar for a
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: few years, but I've never I never dived in or
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: actually spoke to him. Anyway, I spoke to him and
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: and I just started listening to his book, and it's
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: about his his experience of challenging AI and trying to
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: get the truth out of AI, trying to use it
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: as a tool. And I won't give the game away,
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: but he basically gets it to admit that the jabs
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: weren't what we were told they were, or they couldn't
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: be what they claimed to be. And I've had an
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: interesting experience because, as we talked about last week, there's
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: a whole a sort of microdrama going on with the
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Bob Moran at the moment, and and accusations of him
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: being an agent and all this kind of bs.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: It's stupid.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Sorry.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Every time this conversation comes up, I I cringe, mm hmm.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Could the response.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: It's yeah, yeah, sorry, go on.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it cringes The only is the only healthy response
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: really because it's it says so much about the people
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: who are engaged in it. But uh I. So I
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: did the critique of one of the one of the
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: hit pieces, and and then they kept coming this guy,
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: this guy Francis, just kept knocking him out. He's done
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: five and each time he sort of doubles down and
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: gets it gets worse and worse. And and I thought,
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: I thought, Okay, do I want to spend my time
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: going through picking apart each and every weak argument and
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: every every logical fallacy, or I'll stick it through AI
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: and just see what it says. And I preface the
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: the the my latest little article I know with with this,
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: I know that the defenders of this of Francis will
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: come back and say, oh, he's using AI, and they
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: won't deal with the actual content of the of of
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: what I what AI has come back with. So what
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: AI did was very meticulously critique the analytical structure of
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: the hit piece. So it didn't say what was right
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: or wrong. It wasn't. It wasn't going on its database
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: of facts. It was going on basically just a deep intelligence,
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: a recognition, a pattern recognition, which is what it is essentially.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: Where it broke down the arguments, arguments and totally destroyed them,
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: totally rubbish them, pointed out where where the author was
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: using guilt by association, tenuous connections, wrong conclusions, ignoring, ignoring
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: other more simple explanations. You know, all this all this stuff,
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: and it's and it does it so objectively and so
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: calmly and so unemotionally that it's it's hard to argue with.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: So I I said, I know that anyone defending Francis
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: won't argue with the points. They will just say it's
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: a I screw you, you know, like nahnah neh. It's
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: just just childish. And yeah, sure enough. First comment from
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: a sort of defender of the faith was it was, yeah,
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: it's just a I I said, well, discuss the points
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: it's raising. You know, it's just a tool. It's just
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: an objective tool. So I I think we can use it.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: I used it. I used it to edit an article
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: the other day, and it was really interesting because I'd written,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: I'd written my piece and this is a separate one.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: I'd written my piece, and I knew it wasn't quite right.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: I knew, but I couldn't quite work out why. And
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: so I put it through and it said you're mixing
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: metaphors or you're using two. You know, it helped me.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: The structure, it was like an editor didn't change my
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: point of view and my perspective. It wasn't and it
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: was it was more of a structural thing. And I
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: don't know. I mean, if you ask me this a
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: year or two ago, like we've got a thirteen year
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: old son. And you know, when it first, when AI
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: first started to infiltrating the web search is you know, Google,
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: and it would just to come up with it as
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: the first without anyone asking us. It was there. It
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: was hey, I says, and we were quite cautious and
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: oh please please don't just start using AI. And you know,
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: in some ways I really respect people who have that
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: innate concern and that fear. But it's here, and I
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: think I think it can be used. Now, I havant
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: said that. I wrote that, and someone criticized me because
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: of the you know, not just on the creative or
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: stroke ethical grounds, but on the pollution grounds. And I
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: have to be honest, I have no idea what the
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: truth is about the power that's needed to power the
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: AI supercomputers, whatever they are, whatever it actually is, I
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: don't know if you know anything about that in particular.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean you're talking about data centers and power generation.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I think that they do require huge amounts of energy,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: But I mean, so what lots of things require huge amounts.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Of energy and exactly.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: And then you build infrastructure to support that. The I
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: think the false dichotomy is thinking that there's only a
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: finite amount of energy.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: I agree with that.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: It's it's very narrow minded thinking. Look, my view on
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: AI art is and I've had the discussion now with
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: a few people, and in fact, a relative of mine
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: is an artist, in fact so much so, he's an
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: art teacher, and he's very aggressive in his opinion on this.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: He says, it's not art, it's just an aggregation of
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: art that's out there. He argues that art needs to
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: be creative in order to be art. So in other words,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: and so I think he makes a similar argument about
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: let's say dance music or idiom or whatever, where it's
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: an aggregation of other music that's aren't there. He's not
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: saying that it has no point or purpose, it's a tool,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: like you said, but he says you can't classified as art.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Now I think that's a fairly I think it's a
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: fairly purest argument because if you're looking at something and
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: you don't know how it was created, you're going into
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: a paradigm now of well, okay, so how was it
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: created before I can make a comment. And that's a
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: weird philosophical conundrum that we're now finding ourselves in. If
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: you go into an art gallery and you look at
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: a painting that's hanging on the wall, I don't think
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: at any point in your life you've stood in front
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: of them thinking, okay, hang on before I decide what
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: I think about this, Yeah, I want to know how
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: it was made.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I absolutely resonate with what you just said.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: I think it's spot on, because otherwise what you're doing
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: is another form of shooting the messenger, and it's another
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: form of a bit like what I just said about
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: the article. You're not dealing with what's there. You're dealing
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: with some intellectual preconception or some framework.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: And it's like a distraction of sorts.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, And and and a healthier way I think,
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: and is everything is divine right, everything is God, Everything
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: is everything that's created. It comes from source. So it's
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: it's nuanced. It's you know, you could you could put
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: ten edm tracks through some kind of processor and and
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: and get some amalgamation of the tent. If there were
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: good songs, this new song might float your boat, you know,
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: it might get you, really, it might really hit you.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: Would you say that's not valid just because it's some
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: kind of you know, it took information from ten human
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: created songs and then mixed it up somehow. I mean,
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: is that really that different from you know, what David
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: Barry used to do with his lyrics, you know, or
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: you know, chopping things up, mixing them around. There's a
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: random chaos to creativity anyway. And I think purest is
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: the right word. I really agree with you. And it's
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: it's quite rare thing actually for people to see that
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: nuance and be able to hold to be able to
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: hold that nuanced opinion.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Well, my position genuinely is, I mean, I studied art
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: back in the day and I failed. I mean I
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: went to art school and I failed. And some my
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: my honest to goodness question is who fails art? But
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: there you high Hello. I felt art, and then I
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: became a cartoonist. So I did exactly what they told
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: me not to do. Yeah, but I'm not I'm not
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: a purist in the sense that I don't really care
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: how it was created. I look at it and I go,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: do I like that?
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: Mm hmmm.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: It's as simple as that. Do I like it? And
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: do I resonate with it?
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Now if it's I mean, I don't know. If have
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: you been to van goch to the museum in Amsterdam? No,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: all right, I have. I was fortunate enough, my wife
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: and I we were fortunate enough to be taken on
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: a private tour of the museum. By the way, van
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Gok is the incorrect pronunciation, and the Americans say van
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: go which is even worse. But but the something I
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: learned when I was in the museum is that it's
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: pronounced fan. But I mean, if you say that, then
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: the conversation falls apart. You know, nobody knows what you're
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: talking about, So I think the middle ground is Van Gok.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: But I go that.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: What I discovered is how unbelievably crap his art is.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: And yet I love He's one of my favorite artists
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: of all time. And it's because of his backstory that
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: that that for me, makes his art pretty great. But
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: it's not good art if you look at it. I mean,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: in fact, it's so bad that some of his hand drawings,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: his sketches were done on both sides of the page
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: because he was saving money, and so in order for
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: them to exhibit that, they put it, you know, in
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: the middle of a piece of glass, so that you
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: can walk around and look at both sides. Right, I mean,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: now that is sacrilegious. If you're an artist, don't don't
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: work on the other side of the page. But my
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: point that I'm making is I still stand in front
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: of his art and I go, do I like that?
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: And my answer is.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, And I think that's the only pure way
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: to be That's that's the simple way that we should
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: go through life. Really. I think I think the the
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: the the point might be that that despite what we
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: just said. I think I think there's a certain stagnation
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: that could occur, I think, and I think that's the
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: that's the problem that we should be looking at. Not
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: necessarily do I like this one ed M track because
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: it's AI generated. But where where's the next thing that's
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: going to make you go, oh, that's that's great, that's
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: really exciting, or that's different. You know, that's not going
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: to come from A I I don't think.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I think it is fair to say
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: that what comes from AI is obviously an amalgamation of
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: other art. That's I mean, we're talking about AI art,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: then sure it is. Huh. But I mean to me,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: if if if it's still beautiful, then it's still beautiful.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: With you know, remember when when people used to create
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: art with ASKI, with those little keyboard figures, all those
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: little all little all the little punctuation marks in the
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: sort of and it's amazing. Uh. And you can create
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: all sorts of art using technology, and you know, and
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: it's the in actual fact, you can you can program,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: you can type of program to output an incredible piece
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: of abstract art that you can't paint because it's because
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: of of the of the nature of of of how
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: it's displayed. Yeah, and it's still amazing to look at it.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: So so for me, I see it as a tool
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: and and I do see I do. I don't you know,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to put Leonardo Evince in the same
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: category as somebody who writes a good what do you
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: call it, the the command, whatever you call the prompt, prompt,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: there we go, the prompt. I'm not going to put
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: them in the same category.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but still I'm looking at the result.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I think I think. I think
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: that's the best, the best approach, and I think that's
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: the approach we should have to life in general. Just
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: take take everything that we experience as that experience and
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: try and strip it of any of any external preconception.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, I agree, because if we approach life like that,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: didn't we end up not going into these stupid power
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: games with people who are fighting the same fight. Genuinely speaking, Yes,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: leave leave Bob alone. The guys are great.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: It's very connected. Actually, the two arguments are very connected.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: It's all about externalization hm an intellectual intellectualization rather than intuition.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: And I think this is probably the key difference between
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: people who get mentally ill you know, I mean we're
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: all like, I don't mean that in a flippant way.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: We're all to some extent mentally, I'll preface it with that,
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: you know, because we're all to some degree unhealthy in
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: our habits mental habits. But when you see people descending
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: into what is quite objectively a paranoid mindset, where there
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: you can objectively say their logic is is being is
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: being twisted by some kind of whether it's ego or
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: just some trauma or something that's that's twisting their perception
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: of reality to such an extent that they are that,
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: you know, like with with this particular example, for example,
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: with with Bob's signature being one oh one and thirty
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: three the three Masonic numbers, you know, and and to
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: get to the point in your life where where that is,
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: where that is seen as strong evidence, I have to
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: say that is mental illness.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: I think I think I might agree. I told you
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: last time, when I don't know, I did something with
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: my hand and one of my recordings and somebody screenshot that.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And there's such the thing is they're so sure
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: about it's not you know, it would be different if
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: they just went, oh, this is interesting let's let's just
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: put that on the on the shelf, you know, and
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: we'll just keep it there and we'll observe and we'll
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: we'll use it in the in the you know, there's
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: something to come back to if if you should need to.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: You know, it's not that it's like, wow, how can
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: you on se that? You know, like, how can you
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: unsee that? There's like the comments how can you unsee
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: his signature once? You know?
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: But I don't get also, though, Jake, is that let's say,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: let's say the number of the D three is included
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: some in something. Yeah, okay, now what.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I know.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not some sort of mystical spell that's being
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: cast on somebody.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: You're not understanding, German, you're not understanding. It's a sign
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: it's a signal. They're they're laughing at us. It's a mockery.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: It's a public humiliation. It's you know, they've come up
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: with all kinds of reasons.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Yet have you seen Bob's artwork?
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, No signature completely outweighs anything anything that
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: he's done. The fact that he's signing his name with
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: a thirty three and a one on one. You know
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: and again again, this is a similarity between what we
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: were just saying about AI. You are you are throwing
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: away you are you are dismissing the power and the beauty.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: You're checking that to the side because you're because instead
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: of that, you're you're focusing on some kind of mind
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: intellectual concept. Uh. And it's the same, it's the same
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: with that. So you're you're you're just flushing everything Bob's
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: done down the toilet, every positive thing he's done, all
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: the all the tears and the laughter that is art
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: has created, all the positivity, all the feeling that people
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: have had when they're looking at it, of a feeling
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: of of of of relief to have someone express their feelings.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: Or you're just throwing all that away because he's his
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: signature is one oh one and thirty three. And he
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: went to a bar called Satan's Whiskers. You know, well,
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: is that is that health? Is that mental? Is that mental?
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: I think? What happens? What happens, yeah, Jake, is that
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: people are looking for absolutely every little thing to flex
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: their biceps. Oh look look, god, he said, look what
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: they did, and they ignore the body of work.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's an excuse, isn't it. It's an excuse
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: for them to let you say, flex their flex their muscles,
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: so that that is an ego thing, isn't it. It's
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: it's it's a way for them to feel.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: I have I freaking hate purity tests. I really really
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: despise them. I interviewed h rfk JR. A couple of times, right, Okay,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Now he does believe in viruses, right, and and I'm
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: sympathetic to the argument that contagion has never really been
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: shown to exist. Okay, fine, okay, I'm not going to
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: make I'm not going to make sweeping claims. Now. People
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: then come and be going, oh, you just sat there
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: listening to him talk about viruses and and and what
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: a grift, what a show? Why didn't you push back?
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: And you're completely untrustworthy. He's completely untrustworthy. That one thing
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: dismisses his entire body of work, which has been pretty
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: epic over the decades he's worked, I think very much
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: in favor of the right trajectories. And he's not perfect.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: So what what are you doing with these critiques? You
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: are you suggesting that you some sort of bastion of perfection?
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's the same when when we did
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: Andrew Bridging with the podcast and you know, I was
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: getting friends, Oh ask him, ask him which Jabbi took.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: He can't remember. You catch him out kind of thing. Really,
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: And you know again when he gave a talk at
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: the show that we did, and you know there's people
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: having to go and ask, you know, trying to catch
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: him out, trying to do a gotcha, I was like,
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: what's the point.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Just yeah, but that's not about that's not about getting
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: to the truth. Then if you're trying to catch somebody
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: out or you're trying to gotcha them, that's a part
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: of game.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: What is the end game? What do you what are
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: you trying to catch the game?
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: And the thing is, I always say this, I don't
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: think it's that important anyway if we did, if someone
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: is a shill or an agent, or they're controlled to
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: some degree, or they're being fed bad info. I you know,
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: I'm not as bothered as some people are because I
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: have that ability I think, like you do, to look
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: at something and go that thing. I I am confident
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: in my in my appraisal of that one thing. So
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: whether it's standing next to something else, or whether that
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: information next to it is true or not true. It
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: doesn't matter because I'm capable of discerning whether this one
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: thing is true. So so, for example, if Andrew Bridgin
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: says a whole load of stuff which is good, I
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: can I'm confident in my discernment enough to say, Okay,
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: I think that resonates. That makes sense. If he then
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: came out and said, oh, yeah, but unicorns are real,
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: I'm discerning enough to think I disagree on that aspect,
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: you know, but I'm not gonna then, yes, disagree with
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: everything else, you know, and and difference.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: That has also been my strategy which people really struggle with.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: This has been my strategy from from when I started
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: this podcast is that I use and I think I
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: told you last time, I use the uh saying from
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think it originated with Bruce Lee.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: It's probably some variation of another quote, but I remember
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Bruce Lee's version, and he said, take that which is valuable,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: discard that which is not ateward is uniquely yours. Yeah,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: So so I can chat to let's say, a communist
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: right like and if you asked me ten years ago
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: I would never have engaged with the communist right because
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: I don't like the communes. But yes, the thing, I
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: can listen to anybody, the Communists included, and agree with
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: multiple points and disagree with multiple points because I'm able
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: to do that as a as a complex being.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah exactly, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well there was a
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: good example of that about two or three years I
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: was probably getting off for three or four years ago
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: down here in South England. There was a movement. I
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: don't know if it went all over the country, but
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: there was a there was. We were getting drag queens given.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: They were teaching classes, I think so, I think I
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: remember that in library.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, drag queens going into the libraries and they were
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: given and they were they were having these events where
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: the kids would come, the mums would come with the
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: kid and then the drag queens had read Drag Drag
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Queen's Story Hour or something drag something like that. Anyway,
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: it was going around, It was going around the country
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: and we and there were people quite rightly expressing the
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: the un surety about this plan, you know, like so
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: they were standing outside the library and but the one
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: in Brighton, so I only went to one. I went
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: to the one in Brighton, that's where I am, and
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: you know, it's very It was very across the road
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: from each other. You had two groups of people with
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: their signs. You had the you had the lefty sort
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: of woke crowd, you were just extremely angry, and and
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: then you had ah lot we were also very angry.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: Maybe not quite so angry, but they had their signs
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: and they were shouting at each other, and I was like,
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: oh my god, this is I just felt so off.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: It just felt really off, and probably the majority of
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: people there on both sides just wanted what was right.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: They just wanted understanding, They just wanted to express their opinion.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: But it just exploded into this horrible viting of people
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: were getting arrested. And I went right because I felt
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: uncomfortable standing on this side. I sort of went round
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: across the road and then went round into the crowd
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: of pro drag queen storytelling people, you know, and just
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: started chatting to them. And yeah, there were a few
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: who I had a really uncomfortable conversation with where they
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: were angry and they weren't logical, and I felt really
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: off talking to them, and I didn't know where to go,
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: and it was never going to get anywhere. But then
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: I had a really incredible conversation with a young woman
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: who thought she was a young man. I think she
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: was probably only about sixteen.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: And that's also a mental illness, yes, yeah.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, sure sure. But we had a really good
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: conversation and I was trying to understand her right, and
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: she really appreciated that. And we had an open conversation
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: and I expressed what my concerns were about the drag
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: queens talking to the kids in the library, and she listened.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: And then she told me about her childhood trauma and
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: I listened, and there was a real moment. It was
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: like it was good. It was good mutual. We were
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: not going to see things in the same way, but
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: we understood each other. Towards the end of the conversation,
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: some other guy came up who's a journalist, and awake
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: journalist supposedly awake journalist came up and just started having
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: a go at her, throwing a whole load of abuse
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: that her and she just and she just stormed off.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: She went, I'll screw you, and just and that was
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: the end of the conversation. So that for me is
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: another is another example of how if you can't sit
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: with a nuance, you're not doing anyone any favors. You know,
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: if you're not prepared to see the humanity in people
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: who you think you are, who you may think are
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: on the other side. You know, if you're going to
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: just just just class people as an enemy, they're not
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: the enemy. You know. They might have opinions that you disagree,
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: strongly disagree with, and they might be doing stuff which
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: is causing suffering, but they generally not doing it because
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: they want to cause suffering. They're usually doing it because
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: they're misguided, misunderstood, you know, not they haven't had critical
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: thinking nurtured in them. They haven't been listened to the
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: damaged people. So you have to have that perspective. Otherwise
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: we just keep the battle lines are drawn and we
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: just keep fighting. And what's the point in that. I
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: don't know if you agree, no, I do.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: What I wanted to ask you is, while you're painting
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: your guest, have you ever reached the halfway mark and
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: looked at your painting and thought nah.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's no way I'm
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: not at that level where I can do a good portrait,
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: but it usually involves a few mistakes. So when you're
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: doing it and you've only got four hours and it's
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: on film, sometimes you don't get it straight away. There
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: are some artists out there who are amazing at doing
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: say four even like two three hour portraits, and they
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: just they've got it nails that they don't even make mistakes.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: It doesn't go through the ugly phase. But yeah, sometimes
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: it does. In fact, in fact, one one or two
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: of I've not yeah, I mean perhaps two or three
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: I've not been happy with at the end, and I'll
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: go away and and work more on them. One time
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: I just started again. I just trucked it. I just
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: did it. Was mattlet Is, He's actually Matt litt Is.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: It was one of the first ones, one of the
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: early ones, and I think I didn't quite get it right,
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: and I was struggling. I spent about a week on
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: it trying to get it right. And you know, no,
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: you can't polish a turd, and I knew how to.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: I knew I wanted to give him a painting, because
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: that's the deal, you know, they get a painting. So
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: I just redid it. So that was the only time
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: I've actually redone one.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Who are some of your influencers?
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: Ah, well, you know, I mean everyone everyone mentions Sergeant Singer.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: Sergeant I don't know if you're a portrait artist who
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: works anything in any kind of realistic semi realistic way,
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: I don't know how you can't how he can't be
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: an influence, because he's just when you look at his work,
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: I just it's almost inhuman. I can't quite understand how
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: he could just put the marks down in the right place.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: So confidently he's amazing. But there's so many good artists
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: around at the moment. I think you know that the
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: internet has because I I think the Internet I should finish.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: I said, this is a habit I've got. I should
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: finish my sentence. I think the Internet has speeded up
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: people's ability to learn. So, I mean I started. I've
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: always painted, right from when I was little. I love painting.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: I know, I've always liked it painting faces. But when
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: I only started doing it seriously, seriously six years ago lockdown,
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: I lost my job and then I thought, Okay, I'm
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: going to do what I really want to do. So
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: and YouTube was just amazing. So anyone out there who's
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: who's thinking they want to learn and they think, oh,
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: I can't afford to do a course, or I can't
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: you don't need to. Really, there's so much information out there.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: You've got access to two incredible tutorials, and obviously this
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: would extend to any subject matter really, but I can
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: only speak for portraiture and painting. But you know, I
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: just I just absolutely binge watched one hundred. I don't
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: think there's a portrait painting tutorial on YouTube that I
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: haven't watched prior to about two years ago. I just
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: certainly none that are any good. I watched everyone in
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: the and and they're amazing, and you get to see,
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: you get to you get to see each stroke being
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: put down. Sometimes you get to hear what's what the
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: artist is thinking. It's like doing a you'd pay thousands
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: to do a course like that to have that one
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: to one experience of watching someone paint. So, you know,
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: if people want to learn stuff, I think I think, yeah,
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: just go on YouTube or any other you know video.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: You use oils, right, yeah, yeah, oils are actually a
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: lot more forgiven. I started doing water colors, and I
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: got all right with water colors, but I've been trying.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: It's really difficult, isn't it, because you can't make a mistake.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: Water Color for me is beautiful, particularly for for for cartooning.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: I don't. I do very little drawing on on paper.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: But there's a whole context, as a whole back story.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: I would like to know. I wanted to ask you
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: actually because I because I've I've like, I've always doodled
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: and I love drawing cartoons, but I never so I've
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: got books full of doodles and scribbles and cartoony sort
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: of things, but there's there's no When I try and
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: actually do a cartoon and I use, it always becomes
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: stiff because I'm not I haven't got through that process.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: So I wanted to ask you what was what? What
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: what point did you find your flow? Like? How old
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: were you? When you don't shake your head because you're
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: trying to be self effacing or you're not.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: No, I'm just I'm just I'm shaking my head because
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: I haven't found myself, so to speak. I get bored
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: and so I'm always changing.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: But no, okay, but you found but you must, you
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: must feel like you found a flow for what you
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: you must see it as a successful like your cartoons,
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: I'm sure you don't look at them and go, oh,
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: I haven't got a style that I haven't got an
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: authentic sort of.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, well, I'm a big fan of people like
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Quentin Blake, yeah, and and others who draw very loosely,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: And drawing loosely is probably one of the most difficult
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: things that I have found. Basically my ambition is to
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: draw like a five year old. Yeah, it's exceptionally difficult
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: to do that because you feel very vulnerable. You feel
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: like people are going to judge you, they're going to
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: just they're going to dismiss what you do, going, oh,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: that's just you know, anybody can do that. But the
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: reality is that as we get older, we become more
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: and more controlled in everything that we do. And it's
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: the looseness and the speed and the energy of just
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: free lines like Quentin does that I find magic in.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: So I'm constantly I'm constantly striving to be loose like that.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: Gerald Scarf, are you a fan?
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: No, I don't know who that is?
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: Oh j Scott, Okay, I'll send you a link. Yeah
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: he was. Again, it's English reference, isn't it, So you
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: might not be on your radar. But yeah, I I
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: that's I think that's my problem. So when I'm doodling
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: in a book and I go, I really like the
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: way I've just couldn't give it, you know about that,
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: and it's come out it's an interesting little sketch. And
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: then if I think, oh, I've got to produce a cartoon,
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: suddenly I'm thinking about it and I'm.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: Ti, yeah, that's that's the other problem is that when
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: you know that there's a corporate result, then suddenly you
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: feel compelled to make it very controlled and and and
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: you know you've got to color inside the lines and
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. But the beauty of the
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: beauty of doodling, I mean, that's ultimately what it is.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: Is that that that that free sort of looseness and
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: then adding a message to it, which is part of
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: the satire.
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I was looking at
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: your cartoon on the front of the issue number two,
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: the column M and just how loose it was, and
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: I was, yeah, that's so am I moving?
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, your camera is okay? So I mean drawing, drawing
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: loosely is is something that I am always striving for.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: But as I you know, as I said, it's it's
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: it's not easy because it tests your confidence.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I think, yeah, I find that is so true.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: It's true in all the creative endeavors. I think it's
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: because we're in a band as well, playing music and
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: what I saying, okay, yeah, we we started. I mean
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: I've always been in bands.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: Oh hello, I've got a I've got a finder strats.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: That looks like nice. Yeah, I like that. I'm a
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: rubbish guitarist, but I was plugged in me too.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: I just played punk rock, man. I just I just
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: played Yeah.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it. But you know, when you're doing music,
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: if you're haven't if you're jamming, and then you record it. God,
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: we captured that. That's brilliant. And then you try and
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: replicate it next week. What's that jam we did? Oh
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: yeah you played this? Oh yeah I played that. It's
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: like it's it's nothing. It's just not there. It's just
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: not there. And its capt in a moment and just
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: being loose and being free and being expressive in the moment.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: That's it is. It is difficult, and I think the
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: great artists are the ones who can capture that in
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: a controlled way. If you can translate one into the other.
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: You know, I know, I'd say you you do that
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: obviously in your cartoons. So you capture that looseness and
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: then you express you control it enough to make a
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: product a product with you know.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: You know what I think it comes down to, Jake,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: is not even how loose or controlled it is. It's
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: about how much you enjoy it.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you hate doing what you're doing with it's painting, music,
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: whatever that comes through, and the recipient will pick up
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: on it.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah that's true. Yeah, yeah, I agree.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: You know when I look at the old All books
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: with Quintin Blake's illustrations, you look at every single one
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: of those books, and it's fine, and you get the
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: feeling that he really enjoyed, yeah, you know, illustrating those books.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, and you see.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: All the mistakes he just leaves them in.
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. We're mixing a we're mixing
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: an album actually at the minute, and I I've made
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: a concerted decision to leave in a lot of the
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: background noises and mistakes and things for the over in
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: the background dogs barking. Yeah, it kind of adds to it.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: Although I mean your thousand words podcast is also quite
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: serious if you look at you know what what gets discussed.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of serious because I suppose that is
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: my default. It's what I fall back to. I's say serious,
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: but it's it's it. I'm really interested in people, and
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: I think we talked about this last time. I'm less
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: interested nowadays in the details of the conspiracy or the agenda.
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: That's just me. That's a personal thing. It's not I'm
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: not saying it's It's not a value judgment on prioritizing.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: I think I think each approach is valid, and at
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: different times in your life you change your focus and
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: but at the moment, I'm just more interested in in
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: the psychology of of where we're at, and especially amongst
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: people who generally agreed that there is an agenda, that
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: we are being deceived. I'm quite a large to a
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: large degree. And then and then what what comes from that.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: So so with each of the guests, I generally, because
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: I'm painting them and I'm with them for four or
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: five hours, I tend to try and find people who
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: I think I can resonate with and I'm interested in
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: on picking their motivation, their psychological approach to life where
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: they're at spiritually, why why they do what they do,
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: more more so, more so necessarily than the detail of
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: what they do, although it obviously all comes into it.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: That's that's just what interests me at the moment, because
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: I think if we don't I think, if we don't
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: address those issues in a mature way, like I said earlier,
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: we're just going to keep fighting and we're just going
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: to keep going around in circles. It's a bit tripe,
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: but it's doing the shadow work, and that's what interests
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: me really. Having said that, you know, it's fascinating occasionally
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: to go into, you know, do a deep dive into
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: the relationship between this organization and this character and this
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: you know, I totally get that, and there's been times
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: in my life where I've really enjoyed doing that and
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: building up a certain amount of knowledge. You know, I
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: think you do need to you do need a certain
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: amount of knowledge of what's going on out there too,
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: before you can say, okay, now I'm going to concentrate
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: on sovereignty. For example, you know, there's no point just
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: saying okay, I'm sovereign, but then having no clue that
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: say the jobs are dangerous, you know.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: Like, yes, yes, exactly. That's why sorry for jumping in here.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: That's why I cover a lot of topics. Yeah, because
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: because I see the world as highly complex, and there
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: are a lot of wars going on and a lot
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: of battles for our mind. It's not just digital ID,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: it's not just sovereignty. It's also how much sleep I get,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: how much time I spend in the sun, Yeah, the
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: safety of my family, what we eat.
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: I mean a lot of these a lot of these
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: folks who argue, you know, these these these arguments that
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: we that we discussed, A lot of them focus pretty
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: much on like one subgenre. Yeah, and they don't touch
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: let's say, smoking or you know, saturated fats or lifting
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: weights or running, you know, other things that also make
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: you a good soldier. You can't have an opening, Yes,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: you can't have an obese soldier on the front line
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: who knows the truth about his enemy but gets shot
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: because it's too fat to run one kilometer.
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know why I was telling you that.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: I think I was just making the point that because
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: we fight all these different battles, focusing on a bunch
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: of different things. It's not necessarily a distraction, it's quite helpful.
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's really important to have have a
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: broad general understanding of what's going on. Yeah, don't get
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: me wrong, I'm not you know when I when I say,
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: at the moment I personally find interesting is the psychological,
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: the spiritual or the mind? Yeah, but I'm but I'm
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: not at all dismissing like you definitely need a basic understanding.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: I mean it's interesting. Even Brian said when I m T. B.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: Brian Gerrish. Uh, you know, he said, past a certain point,
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: he doesn't recommend spending too long diving into the dark
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: under belly of the of the agenda, you know, and
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: especially not at night doom scrolling and being online at night.
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: You have to protect yourself and you have to you
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: have to nurre, you have to nurture positivity.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: Yes, and that's unfortunately something that does not arise out
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: of many in the independent space. It's just doom, doom,
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: doom the whole time.
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I get it, you know, Like, you know,
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: I was so last night. I just started reading the
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: book Tesla and the Cabbage Patch Kids as someone that
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: had lent me. And it's not the best. It's not
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: the it's not the most well written book, and I
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: think there's a lot, a lot of flaws in its
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: kind of structure. But you know, the interesting it was
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: talking about. I was reading about Dresden basically, and the
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: horrors of Dresden, I mean, the hell that people went through,
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: you know, And it's just one example. I could pick
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: any obviously, but in that context it was talking about Dresden,
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: the idea that it was the Tartarian Empire, and it
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: was it was destroying the Dresden because it was one
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: of the great Tartarian architectural cities. Blah blah blah. People
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: probably aware of that, but just reading details of what
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: actually happened, and you know, the horror, the absolute horror,
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: and and I I I realized, you know, it was
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: late at night, and I was okay. I started to
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: feel a bit of sympathy perhaps for some of the
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: some of the people who I sometimes look at and go, oh,
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: you're really dwelling in the You're really dwelling in the
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: in the in the shadows. And I've been there, you know,
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: I have. I have explored those shadows. And and now
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: I suppose it's a choice I don't really do that
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: so much because I know how it can affect you,
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: and it's a it's a bit of a it's a
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: tricky line to walk. Really. You have to be aware
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: of the suffering, but you also don't want to just
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: dwell in that world exactly.
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: That's yeah, that's why Jake I often say that knowledge
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: is necessary, but it's not sufficient. I want to win. Yeah, yeah,
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: and winning actually means doing something with that information.
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That. But you know, if you get to the
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: point where you're kind of.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: Paralyzed and you're taking anti the prisons.
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're screwed. You know, it's very hard then to
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: get back. Even if you have an intellectual framework or
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: some kind of spiritual understanding this, or an intellectual idea
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: that there is something mortal life, that there is some
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: that there is beauty and truth and divinity and all this,
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: if you are if you are stuck in bad habits,
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: it's very hard. You can't just rely on an intellectual understanding.
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: You have to experience joy and beauty and love and
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: connection with humanity. You actually have to experience it. You
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: can't just have an intellectual concept of it. And if
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: you're not expert and if you're not nurturing that, if
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: you're not working towards that by actually going out and
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: meeting people and engaging with people, and engaging with people
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: who you might not even think you should engage with,
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: and seeing the humanity in them and and trying to
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: approach them with love and understanding. If you're not doing that,
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: then yeah, you will. You will essentially just end up
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: in a spiral. And I think a lot of people
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: in in our circles do do end up down that road.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean her Voya from Geopolitics and Empire, who
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: I've had on my show many times over the years.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: He said on my podcast that the train the light
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: at the end of the tunnel is a train coming
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: towards us. But but he wakes up anyway and and
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: continues the fight. I mean, yeah, I find I find
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: that such a defeatist position to have.
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: And you know, I want I wonder, I wonder if
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: I wonder if he does really believe? Are they? That's
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: my thing?
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: Well, he comes from he comes from a Christian angle,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: So he comes from the angle of revelations where everything
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: will fall apart before it gets better.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: Right, Okay, Okay, I was going to what I was
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: going to say, is that kind of nihilism. I didn't
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: realize he was a Christian, but you do you see that?
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: So let's take someone like Dawkins.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: Who I struggle with him.
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but if you if you take his ultimate
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: argument that that life is just utterly meaningless essentially because
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: we are just it's just the selfish gene. It's just survival,
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: so you know.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: And we create our own meaning.
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But let's what I was going to say, is
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: if if he so that's his argument, it's very neilistic,
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: it's very it's very it's very dead, like there's nothing there.
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: I don't think he actually believes that. I think he
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: intellectually believes it. But when he wakes up, like your mate,
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: when he wakes up in the morning, he wants to
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: get up, and when he sees the sun, he's happy
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: that the sun is in the sky and it's you know.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: And I think this is the danger of over intellectualization.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: You can you can make claims, and this is one
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: of the one of the reasons why it's you know.
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: And again we could now we could talk about is
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: this is there an agenda behind the whole sort of Frankfurt,
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: you know, realistic God, you know, godless kind of worldview,
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: because it does disempower people. So I would say, even
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: if he's not conscious of it, someone like Dawkins is
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: presenting a worldview which to someone who's vulnerable, and to
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: someone in that state of mind, who who isn't connected
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: to anything outside of themselves, who has gone into this
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: spiral that could destroy them, that's enough to tip someone
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: over the edge and basically just okay, I'm done with this.
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: There's no there's no point. But what well I was
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: going to say, I just finished. I don't actually think
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: he believes that, because if he did, I think literally
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: his heart would stop beating.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: You know, well, if you think about Dawkins and Christ
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: of Visions and Nietzschure, they have spent a very large
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: portion of the lives discussing God yet arguing that God
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: isn't real.
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: I find that an interesting paradox.
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because I think we know that God is real,
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: so we're just arguing with ourselves. You know, there's we
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: we are part of we are part of creation, we
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: are part we are our essence is connected there. I
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: don't believe there is any I think separation isn't it
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: is is an illusion of consciousness, you know, and it's
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: maybe it's a necessary illusion of consciousness. But this idea
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: that we are each separate and not connected to to
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: to God, I think is an illusion. And I think
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: there's countless examples of people who have broken free of
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: that illusion, and they all experience a very similar thing.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: So and I think even someone like Dawkins or even
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: someone who's in neilistic hell, there's part of them that
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: is all they are. They are in essence still connected
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: to God. But this is this is the this. If
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: you don't control this, this will take over and destroy this.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: So I think this just is very important for us
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: in these circles where we're discussing important deep topics and
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: we're trying to find a way forward. Essentially, what we're
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: trying to do is is for me, the essence is
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: eliminating unnecessary suffering. I mean, that's like basic fundamental goal
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: of life is to eliminate unnecessary suffering. Now, of course
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: there will be necessary suffering, because some suffering is needed
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: for us to grow, to learn, to experience, to see
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: unnecessary suffering. I would say that is our our our
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: innate urge is to is to eradicate that, and we
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: all do that in different ways, but we that is
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: what drives us.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: Well. Your podcast plays on the thousand words metaform. I
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: think you and I have done more than a thousand
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: words in this particular conversation.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: Well, thanks for fitting me, and I'm sorry I ever
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: slept and messed up your time and so hopefully I
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: haven't messed up your morning.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: No, okay, Jake, how can I follow your work?
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: Uh? If you just if you just put my name
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: in Jake Fern, you'll find in any search engine because
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: it's it's just quite an unusual name. So if you
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: put Jake fer an artist or Jake Fern substact substat
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: quite good. But that doesn't really have my art on
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: it so much. If you google my name, you will
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: find links to my art and the Righteous Brothers, which
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: is my political art, and we're going to have an
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: album out soon as well, so that's something that will
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: be searchable as well.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: What sort of style is it?
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: Well, we started off doing covers, So we were doing
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: covers like Talking Heads Psycho Killer, and we changed the.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: Words oh what a great song?
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, So we changed the red Psycho killers.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: They're making rules today farther apart all about the COVID. So,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: you know, like six years ago, we started meeting in
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: the park. We brought our guitars and we started it
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: was just like shambalic mess and then it got a
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: little bit more professional as we went on, and then
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: we started writing our own songs. But we were doing
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: the lunatics have taken over the asylum from Boy three?
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: Is it one by three or is it especially Yeah,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: fum boy three. I think you'd know that one if
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: you heard it.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: I know the song.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: Oh you doing it okay, And we changed the words
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: to fit what was going on at the time with COVID,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: so there's a whole mix. And then we just we
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: just started writing our own so we did Lust for
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: Life at Gipop, change the word. Here comes Billy Gates
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: with his what is it? Here comes Billy Gates again
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: with his bullshit drugs. They're not even a vaccine, so
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: that kind of thing. You know.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: Did you know that Epop was considered one of the
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: ah not really fathers, but one of the inspirations behind
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: the punk movement. Yeah, yeah, yeah, proto punk.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there's a fantastic clip of him doing the
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: Passenger and Lust for Life, I think, but he was.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: He was part of the CBGB club.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: That's right, yeah, because he was still young enough to
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, he was pretty young when they started in
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: the sixties. I think he's only like eighteen nineteen. So
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: by the time punk came like ten years later in
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: the late seventies, he was still like young guys. Well
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: he was.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: He was playing in the CBGB, I think, alongside the
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: Who and uh I forget now some of the names.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: But very soon after, in actual fact, while you were
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: still jamming at the CBGB, I think the Ramones started playing.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: There, right right, Yeah, they all played, they didn't they
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: took their heads television? Were they there?
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: Blondie, Oh yes, definitely Blundie for sure.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And Blondie was interesting. She was. She's probably
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: older Thanniggy Pop. She was. She was kind of thirty
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: when Blondie took off. She looks so good. No one
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: thought that she wasn't an eighteen year old, but.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: Shed with the thick black room glasses. He played the
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: also well Costello was there we go Yeah? Yeah, he
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: played the also right yeah.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: But yeah, but that clip anyone who wants a good
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: clip of iggie pop late mid seventy was it seventy
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: six seventy seven's and he's he's got this band. It
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: looked like they're sort of extras from Rocky Horror Show.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: You know, they're all there with a black makeup and
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: like you know, stripped, bare naked and just pounding away.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: It's just really intense clip. That's a really good one.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: I'd recommend, but yeah, give up.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: I wonder if he owns any shirts.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: He should do now you really I'm off of expression,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: but yeah, there's the point. Yeah, but he's great anyway.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: So yeah, we did all that kind of stuff and
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: then we started writing our own songs. So that's just
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: coming out with Hope. Hope Sussex is a Hope Sussex
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: is a educational hub for homeschoolers in Sussex and they
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: started a record label so they have funded the album.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: They're going to sell it to try and raise funds
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: for the school. So if you if you're in us
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: to find the album through Hope Sussex and support what
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: they're doing by buying buying the album.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: Jake little Bone, thank you for joining me in the Trenchers.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: Thanks Ja, brilliant m h m hm mm hmm