Latest / Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann / #122: Ephraim Herschmann / Jamming / Learning / Free Speech?

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#122: Ephraim Herschmann / Jamming / Learning / Free Speech? · Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann

0:01
Welcome to another episode of come together
0:16
Hello, we're Live I. Didn't realize I was live.
0:19
Hey everyone, we are back with another episode.
0:23
Solo episode today, first one in a while so I'm back.
0:28
Cheers. A bit of smoky Scotch, some ice
0:32
after a what feels like a possibly long day.
0:36
But here we are. And I got to say, I got to say I
0:41
never really thought that the hardest part of the podcast
0:46
would be getting people to just stick on schedule in terms of
0:52
planning and timing and dates and recording times and stuff
0:56
like that. Which?
0:57
You know, I mean all things. Considered there could be a lot
1:00
more complicated and difficult parts of the podcast, you know,
1:04
but things have been things have been absolutely bonkers beyond
1:11
words in terms of busyness. School started up again, and so
1:17
on top of the podcast and on top of being home with two kids
1:22
under 3 and the sales job and exercising every day, you know,
1:30
back to teaching for 2 1/2 hours, grading papers and coming
1:33
up with lessons again. 9th, 10th, and 12th graders this
1:36
year, which is really cool. And again, it never ceases to
1:42
amaze me. But every year, this is a fourth
1:45
year in a row, my students take me by surprise and just want to
1:48
think that I don't want to teach younger classes. 9th and 10th
1:52
grade have been really, truly awesome, smart, good, sweet,
1:56
creative kids. They might be listening right
1:59
now. They found out about the
2:00
podcast, came up in conversation, I guess, and I
2:05
told them that I'd rather them not listen to it in case you're
2:08
listening. Because I think that I have a
2:11
responsibility as a teacher to keep classroom conduct.
2:16
And then there is my own time, my own space, my own life, and
2:20
that's separate, which I guess, well, I guess, well, that that
2:24
would be the opening point. I love the circle back and the
2:27
references and the closing out the podcast with, you know,
2:31
circling back to the first topic.
2:32
So I'll probably end up circling back and talking about my a
2:36
little bit of my thoughts on this Jimmy Kimmel lunatic
2:40
nightmare that seems to be going on right now.
2:44
And not to say I haven't even decided whether I whether I'm
2:48
for him getting fired or not, but I guess I just have some
2:54
thoughts that I'm sure I'd flush out.
2:56
But yeah, I think that I think that now is a little bit it's a.
3:01
Little crazy, it's a little, it's a little crazy.
3:05
Life's been a little high pressure, like life's been a
3:07
little busy, more than a little busy.
3:10
And it kind of feels like I never even have two seconds to
3:12
stop and breathe and be, you know, and, and I try to make and
3:19
I make time almost every day to I think that my, you know, my
3:23
schedule in general is just so packed that even if I make some
3:28
time for the day to unwind or exercise or whatever, it doesn't
3:33
compensate for the need to just be still for a little bit and
3:36
let my head settle and let my thoughts settle.
3:39
And for the first time in literally years, probably, but
3:44
literally years, I, I was driving for probably 20-30
3:47
minutes and I didn't put any radio on.
3:50
I didn't call anyone. I didn't, I didn't even look at
3:53
my phone. I just, which I shouldn't be
3:55
doing anyway, But I just, I just drove in silence and just my
3:59
thoughts in my head and the windows down.
4:01
And, you know, this time of year in South Florida, you know, the
4:06
the summer heat kind of comes a culmination of humidity and
4:11
storm and rain. And that's actually what
4:14
hurricane, hurricane season tends to happen, if it does at
4:17
all, you know, on an annual basis right before.
4:21
And then and then, you know, all the rain and storms happen and
4:25
then there's a break in the humidity and then winter
4:28
happens. And that's the best part of it,
4:29
of being down here for sure. Even though summer this year
4:33
happened to have been pretty tolerable, pretty pretty
4:35
bearable, I thought when I was in New York for half the summer
4:37
that it was really just as bad, if not worse in a little bit of
4:41
a different way. But yeah, so I, so I, so I've
4:47
been, I, I needed to start just being, you know, just being,
4:56
just to spend some time in a healthy place and to have some
5:01
time having fun, which is something that it's crazy to
5:06
say, but you have to like, you have to really schedule it in
5:09
your adult's life as you become an adult.
5:10
Because even because our attention and our eyeballs are
5:17
constantly being fought over, you know, our, you know, whether
5:21
I guess not necessarily even our eyeballs, our ears too.
5:23
But you know, there's always something happening and urgent
5:28
that just requires your attention, whether that's a new
5:31
show that came out, whether that's a new news story that
5:33
broke on Twitter or whether it's a new podcast that you
5:36
absolutely have to listen to. You know, there's very little
5:40
time, I guess, for me that I really have that I really have
5:45
for just like fun. And by the time, you know, and
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obviously a lot of my fun time is playing with my son and
5:51
playing with my daughter, but and hanging out of my life, but
5:56
fun in my own self expressive kind of fun way.
5:59
You know that, you know, there's a famous Calvin Hobbes where
6:03
Calvin, you know, Calvin asks his dad, how come adults don't
6:07
they tell me about like, you know, playing or whatever.
6:09
And he goes, yeah, well, when you're an adult, it's not
6:11
allowed anymore, so you may as well enjoy it now.
6:13
You know, it kind of feels like that, even though I know it's
6:16
not the case because it's really just up to me.
6:19
But so the other, I guess about a month or two ago, I made more
6:23
Now, holy cow, I don't know, time's flying.
6:26
But I made I made a friend. I went to an open mic and I see
6:31
a guy that looks, he looks Israeli.
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It's just a very distinct Israelis have a look.
6:36
And then I saw he had a Hebrew word tattooed on I think his
6:41
neck or shoulder and a Humsa tattoo.
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And I was like, oh man, this guy's definitely Jewish.
6:48
Probably. I mean, I've seen Jewish people
6:50
with Jewish tattoos, tattoos as well, I guess, but you know, so
6:54
you kind of make eye contact, you know, give each other like a
6:56
little like what's up? And, and after I went to play, I
7:00
went outside, have a drink, take a smoke.
7:02
And he was outside too. And we started talking.
7:06
He was with his wife and we all started talking.
7:09
And then right before I was about to leave, he came dashing
7:12
outside. It's like, oh, let me just grab
7:13
your number, which I'm kind of happy that he did right, because
7:15
it kind of felt like we both were like on a similar page as
7:18
to, I mean, I'm sure you can relate to this.
7:23
You anyone listening literally, you know, there's just people
7:26
that you meet where like you kind of just have some good,
7:27
some good vibes and good chemistry when you meet each
7:30
other. And you can either let that kind
7:31
of go or you could do something about it.
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And I'm, I'm usually the kind of guy to let it go.
7:37
I'm bad at two things I'm bad at.
7:39
I'm bad a lot of a lot more than two things.
7:40
But two social things in this context and I'm bad at is
7:44
getting people's phone numbers saying, Hey, what's your phone
7:46
number? Which I've been really working
7:47
on and then, you know, just think it's not.
7:50
I have to get over that in my head.
7:52
And, and also starting conversations, initiating
7:55
conversations. So I will say that I initiated
7:59
the conversation just from my own just to make myself feel
8:01
better. But he came running after me
8:02
like, Hey, let me get your phone number.
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We should hang out sometime or at least come back to open my
8:07
together and see if we could, you know, just just to have
8:10
someone to hang out with because this was one of his first times
8:12
doing it too. I've been here for a while, but,
8:15
and he's a better, he's a far better guitar player than I am.
8:18
But you know, I mean, there's the performance.
8:23
There's a reason why performing is an art or why, you know, it's
8:27
a whole another skill. And and it's hard.
8:29
It's it's definitely hard. You're making yourself
8:31
vulnerable on stage. If you're not 100% secure, then
8:37
everything that everything that you're insecure about seems to
8:41
be amplified way, way more when you're in front of.
8:45
People, even if it's just a few people.
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Just, you know, like you're sitting in standing or sitting
8:50
on a, on a stool or on a, you know, whatever in front of a
8:52
microphone. I know I don't have a
8:55
particularly great voice. I don't know how I even sound.
8:57
I can't even tell when I'm sitting up there what my guitar
9:00
sounds like. I literally have no idea how I'm
9:02
playing when I'm playing open mics.
9:04
And I could only, you know, base it on how I feel about how, you
9:09
know, smooth or loose or organic, my playing sounds or,
9:15
or my voice and how tight and stiff and, you know, my voice
9:18
sounds because when you get nervous, or at least when I get
9:20
nervous, I tend to speak faster. And when I'm singing, my voice
9:27
kind of tenses up and you can really sense the strain.
9:31
So you know, we both so. Neither of us are, I guess you
9:36
know, well, he's a better performer than I am.
9:38
I'm a little bit more comfortable, I would say at this
9:41
point because I've, you know, I mean, I've done probably two or
9:44
three dozen open mics at this point, even though I'm still not
9:48
entirely comfortable and. So he came to me, you know, so,
9:53
so we kind of been in touch every now and then.
9:55
And you know, it's a great way to practice my Hebrew, which I
9:57
really love doing. And it's a great way to, you
9:59
know, and to practice casual Hebrew because I come across
10:03
biblical or I guess ancient Hebrew a lot more.
10:05
Frequently on a daily basis. And I used to speak more, I
10:10
guess, modern day Hebrew to with my grandfather who had passed
10:14
away a couple years ago and with my mom sometimes.
10:16
But short of that, there's not a lot of Hebrew going on in my
10:18
life. And it's fun to practice.
10:20
It also makes me feel like I'm kind of half on vacation or and
10:24
I really believe that there's also another part of our brain
10:27
when we when we switch languages, we shift that we
10:29
shift the gears in our head in the way that we think in our
10:31
perception and our even even our mood.
10:34
Like I've noticed that when I talk to people in Hebrew, I just
10:37
the flow in my state of mind is totally different than speaking
10:42
in English. And you know it.
10:45
Obviously if you're not and if you if you do know, if you do
10:48
speak more than one language and there's one language that you're
10:50
more comfortable than the other, you know, like Hebrew, like I'm
10:53
more comfortable obviously speaking English than Hebrew.
10:56
I have to spend a decent amount of time actually working hard to
11:00
even make the most casual conversation because all the
11:02
words that I'm. That I'm thinking.
11:04
Of that I want to communicate or express.
11:07
I have to translate over in real time and it happens quickly, but
11:10
it definitely has some kind of cognitive.
11:16
Cost. In the sense that, you know,
11:22
you're exerting effort to really just have the most basic
11:26
conversations. And the more frequently that I
11:28
talk in that language, the less effort it requires.
11:33
So it's fun to so it's fun to, you know, kind of be in touch
11:37
with them a little bit. And, you know, and we're both,
11:45
and, you know, so we we're both very, we're both very creative,
11:49
very passionate about music and self-expression.
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I believe, you know, from what I've been able to deduce from
11:56
hanging out and texting and talking, whatever.
11:59
And, and last week he went to an open mic together and it was
12:04
great. It was my first open mic in
12:06
probably six months. It was his second, I think
12:09
second or third ever. And he did great.
12:12
I played a couple of songs. The first song I played was If
12:15
You Want to Sing Out by Cat Stevens.
12:16
And that, that I, even though that's a song I was probably
12:19
most comfortable playing out of the three that I played, I
12:23
bombed it so hard. I just felt wooden and tight
12:27
and, and my voice was bad and my guitar singing was bad and my
12:31
rhythm was off and everything just felt clunky.
12:34
And then I got to a song called Cold Cold World.
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I've been listening to a good amount of Billy Strings lately
12:40
and he has this album called Live at the Legion, which I
12:43
think I may have said this in the podcast before, but Billy
12:45
Strings and Brian Sutton live at the Legion.
12:47
They're actually just they're touring together now or they
12:50
just played a back-to-back set of shows in I believe Nashville.
12:56
But they're both just incredible guitar players.
12:58
And when they play together, they take a lot of old classic
13:01
American folk, Blues, bluegrass, country tunes and cover them.
13:07
But with, you know, the magic of the magic.
13:11
You know, what's what's so much fun is about covers.
13:13
And the reason why you see so many covers with great musicians
13:18
is because you have a lot of your own voice and your
13:21
creativity and your own style, and you're taking something that
13:24
was already so good and of itself and you're kind of
13:27
blending the two. You know, that's why I always
13:28
loved, I used, I loved Springsteen covers.
13:32
I thought he did a remarkable job taking songs and really
13:35
adding a great little like rock. Not little, but great rock.
13:39
And. Emotional let you know, I guess,
13:44
tone to them. The Grateful Dead, as I've said
13:47
this before and I'll say it again, I'm sure I'll say it
13:49
again and again, started as a cover man, you know, and all
13:52
they played was just songs that they loved and they just had
13:54
their own style of expressing themselves.
13:57
And Billy Strings too, is a is a blue is a bluegrass acoustic
14:01
guitar player. But you know, he can play.
14:04
He he he play. He crosses genres all the time
14:07
and cover and does incredible, incredible covers.
14:10
So there's a great song by a guy named Blaze Foley, Texas kind of
14:16
guy. And if you haven't heard his
14:18
music, it's really, really awesome.
14:21
This song, the particular song I played, was called Cold Cold
14:24
World, but Blaze Foley has BLAZE Foley.
14:29
Foley has a bunch of amazing live and recorded albums.
14:36
That was just like great acoustic guitar, just, you could
14:39
tell that it was just almost like dripping with this, like
14:44
this country, energy, country vibe.
14:50
And I mean, I, I, I think, I, I think he's from Texas, but I, I
14:53
don't want to speak without knowing for sure.
14:56
I'm, I'm literally just starting to, to look into him, but you
15:01
know, so I play, I played this song called cold, cold world and
15:04
then don't think twice. It's all right.
15:06
It's a Bob Dylan classic. But I've, I've, I've been
15:08
practicing. When you play guitar, you can
15:10
either strum one time down or you can kind of pick and kind of
15:14
play each string and let each sound kind of come to life.
15:18
And it's, it's a totally different vibe and they're both
15:20
great sounds, but they kind of let them, they kind of create
15:23
different environments and atmospheres.
15:25
So I played a little slower down version of that than I usually
15:27
play. I usually played in the 24 waltz
15:30
time instead I played it this time just has a very slow
15:34
arpeggio peggio, something like that.
15:38
But yeah. And then so, so this so that was
15:40
last week and we had a great time this week.
15:42
He texted me. He's like, hey, man, like, you
15:44
know, if you want to go to open mic and go to open mic, but I
15:46
would love to just jam together and maybe just, you know, play
15:48
some originals, you know, show each other some originals hang
15:51
out. I have my I have, I have, I have
15:54
a, you know, we can hang out in the backyard.
15:57
Have a good time and just talk. And I came back and I was so
16:03
tired from the whole day again. You know the schedule from, you
16:06
know, waking up. You know, I've been rarely
16:10
sleeping through the night because of my kids.
16:12
But you know, you wake up, workout first thing, pray, work,
16:18
find podcast guests, maybe record an episode, continue
16:21
working, rent afternoon prayers. Min hum is what it's called in
16:25
Hebrew. Come home, realize in a panic
16:30
that I don't have a class ready yet for today or the class that
16:33
I thought I had ready wasn't good enough for the students
16:35
didn't like the one that I did yesterday.
16:37
So I have to change up what I was going to do and I only have
16:40
an hour to do it, you know, And all of a sudden, Oh my God, you
16:42
know, I got, I got to hustle. I got, I got to make and then I
16:44
got to go and I got to teach for, for, for the time.
16:47
Then I come home and put my kid to bed and I was about to bail
16:50
on him and I was like, no, man, I just need to do this.
16:53
I just need to, I need to go. I need to hang out with someone
16:58
and, and someone that it's not even just hanging out with
17:01
someone, it's someone that you know, is looking to share
17:04
creatively and literally just like have fun, you know, and I
17:09
was like, I'm going to push myself.
17:10
I got to just go do it. Even if I'm falling.
17:12
Even if I'm falling on my face. And I did, and it was so
17:17
wonderful and the reason why I feel like why I'm even talking
17:21
about this. It's because I know that I've
17:23
been preaching or talking a lot about the value of embodied
17:26
experiences and doing things with people.
17:29
And you know, an embodied experience could be a sports
17:31
game, could be a bar, can we could be a brewery, could be a
17:35
movie, could be, you know, jiu jitsu class, you know, workout
17:39
class, Pilates, whatever you want to do, you know?
17:44
But there's something I think. Really unique and cool and fun
17:51
about making, you know, the early process of making a new
17:55
friend or getting to know someone for the first time again
17:59
or getting to know a friend for the first time.
18:01
Because with a lot with a lot of people in our lives, I'm sure
18:06
that we that, that you can relate, but they already have a
18:11
we already have an image of ourselves.
18:14
We have, they have an image of us and we have an image of our
18:18
relationship of what we're supposed to be the way we're
18:21
supposed to act. And we kind of feel like based
18:23
on who we're hanging out with, we have to like kind of we have
18:25
to fill those. We have to, we have to fill
18:29
those expectations. We have to meet them.
18:33
And I think that's why people really, really feel like when
18:36
they escaped, you know, obviously aside from a
18:38
therapist, which is super important, barbers, you know,
18:42
are. People that everyone just loves
18:44
talking to or bartender, you know, or someone that like is in
18:50
front of you where you guys have no prior history.
18:53
You can be any person that you pretend that you want to be or
18:57
that you really are and that you feel like you can't ordinarily
19:00
be. Or you can pretend to be someone
19:01
new, you know, and I mean, I don't pretend to be someone new.
19:04
I think it's a little psychotic every time.
19:06
But I think that, you know, so I have I have friends with my
19:12
relationship to them is the goofy dude.
19:15
And there's some friends. My relationship with them is I'm
19:19
this thoughtful guy that. We that you know, that we share
19:22
ideas and books that we've read together and, you know,
19:25
philosophical, you know, ideas about, about religion and life
19:30
and God. And then there's some friends
19:32
that I'm, you know, that I work out with and that I'm an athlete
19:35
with. And there's some And so with, I
19:38
haven't had any friends at this point in my life, at least that
19:43
I became that I'm that I identify myself with and our
19:47
relationship with as a musical partnership.
19:50
And it's so, so cool and unique. And I actually think that one of
19:57
the things that I guess I'm really thinking these words for
20:00
the first time in my life, but. You know, one of the, one of the
20:04
benefits and values when people say of moving is like when you
20:07
move, you change your luck and you change, you know, your
20:09
circumstance is that you get to really do, you really do get to
20:12
reinvent yourself. And a lot of times, especially
20:15
with people that we've known for a long time, when you know, life
20:18
is life is always moving, life is always changing, things are
20:20
always happening. Our interests are always
20:23
evolving and developing. And you know, people that know
20:26
you in a certain way, at a certain point, we almost kind of
20:31
feel boxed in to the way that we have to act.
20:35
You feel like we're boxed into the association that we have
20:38
with and there might be another part of us that never actually
20:42
gets to flourish and get to breathe and get to really
20:44
express itself in and really embody itself in our lives.
20:48
And that's what that's one of the amazing benefits of creating
20:54
friends, of creating friends of going out of your way to meet
20:56
people, of going out of your way to talk to your Barber or talk
21:00
to a bartender or talk to. You know, you're a gym coach to
21:05
anyone, you know, just like just the notion that like there's a,
21:09
I'm sure that we all I know for myself, obviously, but I'm sure
21:13
for all of us, there's parts of ourselves that we really want to
21:16
access more. That we really want, that we
21:18
wish we could just manifest and bring out more in our lives.
21:22
And when we don't either, that feels locked up.
21:27
And, you know, it sucks that that's a really bad feeling to
21:30
have things held back in like that, or it's suffocates and
21:33
dies and just goes away. So I ended up feeling far more
21:40
free, you know, that night. And we sat, we played, we played
21:45
a couple of covers. We played some original songs
21:47
that, you know, I mean, I haven't played in years or for
21:51
anyone else before, not for a long time.
21:54
And we talked about the backgrounds of the stories.
21:56
We talked about different points in our lives, you know, a lot,
21:59
you know, talking about different concerts that you went
22:01
to or people we'd like to see or things you want to do.
22:04
And it was just like 2 hours or 2 1/2 hours of really just this
22:12
freedom of me expressing myself in a way that I don't almost
22:17
that for the first time in my life.
22:18
Because I almost never ever, ever really expressed myself as,
22:22
you know, the guy that's a musician, the guy that plays
22:24
guitar, the guy that has that, that, you know, was learning
22:27
about it and practicing and playing and being creative and
22:30
finding his own voice with it. And, you know, and crossing over
22:33
genres and trying to figure out, you know, where exactly my, my
22:36
sound is. And it was such a magnificent
22:39
experience. And I came home and I felt, and
22:42
on the way home, I just felt so light.
22:44
And it's like the weight of the world had just been, you know,
22:49
just moved off me for just a little bit.
22:52
And there's something that I think that that I wish that, you
22:55
know, first of all that I had on a more regular basis.
22:58
But I really want for more people to have because that
23:01
feeling of liberation and that feeling of this is who, you
23:05
know, I, I can be more than what I am, then I can be my let you
23:10
know I can, I can my life could be more than just a general
23:15
trajectory that it's on right now is such an invigorating
23:18
feeling that it just brings a whole new level of life and
23:21
awareness. I think that it was really,
23:24
really necessary for me to, to, to make it through, to make it
23:29
to, to make it through the world, man.
23:31
You know, I think that like, you know, I think everyone has a
23:34
tough life. I think everyone goes through
23:36
hard times. And I think everyone needs
23:39
healthy ways to be able to, to, to, to, to, to go through it, to
23:44
make their way through. There's healthy ways and
23:46
unhealthy ways and for, you know, a long time, you know,
23:49
it's easy to numb. It's easy to shove it, to shove
23:52
these feelings. Down or you know.
23:54
Hide them away or force them into the pit of your stomach or
23:57
somewhere else, or even try to work it out.
24:00
Like to try to, you know, try to force it away by working out or
24:04
casting it far off into your subconscious.
24:06
But it can't be that far off. And it's always on the.
24:08
Surface whether we're aware of it or not.
24:10
So you know that was that was one thing The other thing that I
24:14
think that I was thinking a lot about for today.
24:17
I had a friend I have a friend Shuwa friends of the podcast,
24:23
pretty frequent guest. I would.
24:24
Say I think he's been on three or four times, although only
24:26
once I think by himself. But he, you know, so in I get,
24:32
and this is a Jewish concept that I want to elaborate on, but
24:35
I think that is philosophically, intellectually, and as far as
24:38
education and and values goes is something that's really, really
24:43
worthwhile and worth thinking about and talking about.
24:47
So, yeah, I have especially in Judaism, you got, you know, the
24:50
oral, you got the oral law, you got the written law.
24:54
The written law is obviously very famous as the Old Testament
24:57
or the Bible or the Torah, whatever you want to call it.
25:00
And then the oral law is what's called in Hebrew Torah, Shabbat.
25:05
So it means the instructions that were delivered from the
25:10
mouth or. You know, through.
25:12
Speech and there's and you know, at a certain point in Jewish
25:17
history, we were forgetting Jews were forgetting the Oral Law and
25:22
even though it was originally meant to never be written down.
25:28
Out of fear. Of potentially losing it.
25:30
We did write it down and we didn't write the whole thing
25:33
down. We'd write clues and hints and
25:38
very esoteric, I would say conversations that we're, it's
25:46
so fascinating because if you look at most of the oral law,
25:50
most of the Talmud is what you'd call it, the Talmud or the
25:52
Gemara. It's broken up into several
25:54
different volumes in seven different books and ranging from
25:58
category to category. And they're all cost referenced
26:01
and they're all, you know, relating to each other, which in
26:03
and of itself is really magical and amazing.
26:06
But you know, it was written with the intention that to to,
26:14
to constantly revisit it and the and the metaphor.
26:19
That I love to give and that I believe I've said.
26:21
Before, but if not, I'll say again, is the equivalent,
26:24
especially from from my teaching perspective, you know, we have
26:27
things we talk about in class and then we have the homework
26:30
that you give, I give and then you have the assignments that I
26:33
give and then you have the textbook or you know, the source
26:37
material and if you're a student in my class.
26:42
And then I. Ask you a question.
26:44
A lot of times I'm not asking you a question based on one
26:48
specific thing. There's several different
26:52
aspects or avenues of information that I'm including
26:56
in my one question. If I say, what do you think of
26:59
the song Father and Son by Cat Stevens?
27:01
Because he's learned about that song in class, or we did.
27:03
Or today we did, Me and my uncle by the Grateful Dead.
27:07
You know and. Excuse me.
27:09
And I say what's happening in that?
27:11
Try and just read the lyrics of the song, but you won't realize
27:14
if you weren't paying attention to what we're talking about.
27:16
You won't get what I was trying to tell you.
27:18
You know, we looked at the mapping class and you know, so
27:21
for example, the song me and my uncle's opens me and my uncle
27:25
when riding down from S Colorado, West, TX bound.
27:28
What? Where's West TX?
27:30
Where's S Colorado? Are they close to each other?
27:33
We stopped over in Santa Fe, you know, it was about halfway and.
27:38
And you look at the map and you're like, oh, OK, I got it.
27:41
And then you say, OK, well, this song is meant to be a cowboy
27:44
song. And so where this guy's coming
27:46
from is relevant. So while we're doing this, you
27:49
know, while we're listening to the song and.
27:50
While we're following the lyrics, I pull up a map and
27:52
we're looking at the map. We're saying, look, this guy's
27:55
already like this guy is not some naive young kid, the
27:59
protagonist in the song. This guy's already in the West.
28:03
He's coming from the West. So it's more of an interaction
28:05
between two Cowboys rather than than one, quote UN quote,
28:09
civilian and one cowboy or one, you know, city boy and one
28:14
cowboy, you know. And so now when I ask you about
28:19
the song, I'm not just asking you about the song.
28:22
I'm asking you about the geography that the song
28:24
references to. I'm asking you about the
28:25
characters. I'm asking you about what we
28:27
talked about in class and how it relates to American culture,
28:30
what the Western expansion was like.
28:32
It references the Grateful Dead and who were they to sing that?
28:36
What? What do they enjoy about it?
28:37
Where were they based? You know what, what's going on
28:39
over there? So.
28:42
Excuse me? So all this is to say that when
28:46
you have the Talmud and then you have a sentence or you have a
28:49
line or you have a quote or you have a conversation, you know, a
28:52
debate, it's called in Hebrew machlokas, which means I guess a
28:57
breaking down of it literally means to break down points and
29:02
argue, which is probably the way the argument.
29:05
And I mean, you know, and I don't even know if this is true.
29:08
You always. I've always heard.
29:09
Growing up in the Orthodox Jewish world that apparently
29:12
lawyers helps, you know, the Talmud helps you become, you
29:15
know, a lawyer because it helps you think a certain way.
29:17
And lawyers sometimes study the Talmud.
29:18
And I'm sure there's truth to that.
29:20
I don't know, you know, whether that's like a universal truth or
29:23
not. But but I, but I believe it.
29:26
I believe it because there's no, there's no word that can't be
29:32
flipped over, you know, dozens of times that can't be cross
29:36
referenced, that can't be, you know, talking about, you know,
29:40
several different contexts all in one go, right.
29:43
And you know, and I would, and I'm pretty, I'm pretty confident
29:48
saying that, you know, most Orthodox observant Jews would
29:53
say that, but that studying Talmud or Bible or the Oral Law
29:57
is a pretty significant part of their relationship to the
30:02
Judaism. It's not just the Old Testament
30:04
in the in the written book, It's also the way to understand the
30:07
written books and the Oral Law that kind of contextualizes
30:11
everything, even though that in and of itself also needs
30:13
context, right? So.
30:17
All this is to say that. What happens in order to
30:20
encourage? I would imagine that in order to
30:23
encourage, I don't know for certain, but I would imagine in
30:26
order to encourage this, you make something called the seam
30:29
or some little like celebration whenever you finish a designated
30:34
portion of it. So you know, the Talmud is
30:37
divided into different sections that you know, or different
30:40
aspects of life that it's pertaining to, you know,
30:42
holidays or laws of damages or laws of relationships or laws of
30:46
personality. And then, and then within those
30:51
broader categories, you have several different volumes of
30:53
books and each book could, you know, ranges from generally like
30:58
1520 pages of information of written conversation or written
31:04
text to, you know, dozens. It gets pretty, pretty meaty,
31:11
pretty big. And what you do at the end,
31:14
though, is when you finish a book, you know, you make, you
31:17
finish one of the books, you make a party, you make what's
31:19
called the Seam. And you have a, you have a meal
31:23
and you're supposed to invite at least 10 men and it's considered
31:28
a celebration. And you're supposed to have some
31:30
wine, You're supposed to have some meat, some meat or some
31:33
bread. And one of the and what, and the
31:37
point that I'm trying to get to with talking about this concept
31:40
is that the very first words that we that, that, that, that,
31:45
that come out of your mouth is I'm going to come back to you.
31:50
I'm going to come back to reviewing you again.
31:53
Meaning, just because I read this book one time does, that
31:56
does not mean that I have the ultimate, you know, master.
32:01
I'm not a master of the knowledge written in this book.
32:05
And even though I'm celebrating that, I've taken a step along
32:09
the way to understand the context of this book and
32:12
understand the context of the bigger Jewish perspective and
32:14
philosophy. I still have to go back and do.
32:19
It again, because you know what? I understand things totally
32:24
differently when I'm 29 then when I was 19.
32:29
I understand things completely differently when I was 25
32:32
compared to when I was 29. And so if I were to consume
32:37
information, if I were to read The Fountainhead by EIN Rand as
32:42
a 14 year old, and then I read again as a 25 year old just
32:45
graduating college, 22 year olds just graduating college and
32:48
trying to figure out what to do with my life, it's going to have
32:50
massively different implications and impacts on me.
32:56
And what's amazing about, I mean, and what I guess a lot of
33:01
these types of materials discussed, the religious texts
33:05
and materials are. Ways to navigate.
33:12
The different stages of our lives and different, different
33:15
sets of reality that we go through.
33:16
Because let me tell you something, the lens that I look
33:18
at reality through right now in my life is totally different
33:22
than any other way that I've ever looked through it before.
33:23
And I don't think it's a bad thing.
33:26
It's, I think, I mean, I think personally that it's evolved, of
33:28
course, but I'm kind of inclined to say that about myself.
33:31
But you know, it definitely feels like it evolved.
33:34
And I think that's really awesome.
33:36
And I think that we kind of have to treat more aspects.
33:39
Of information in our lives. Like that, you know, we feel
33:41
like you're done with high school, you're done with
33:44
college. Or I read that book already, or
33:45
I did that already. And I'm I'm guilty of this all
33:47
the time myself. I saw this already.
33:49
So I don't give a, you know, I don't care what was, you know,
33:51
actually a great example was one of my favorite movies ever was,
33:57
or at least nowadays was Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in
34:02
Hollywood. And when I when I first watched
34:06
that movie, I didn't know the whole Charles Manson story.
34:10
And so I. So I didn't get what?
34:14
Was going on, I didn't get that this, I didn't get the hippie
34:16
movement. I didn't get the girl with the
34:18
armpits. I, I, with the armpit hair.
34:20
I didn't get, you know what? That the, that the, that these
34:23
hippies were in some kind of evil death cult.
34:26
They were getting hoodwinked by Manson and, and, and, or
34:29
whatever it was, even if they weren't hoodwinked, they were,
34:30
you know, getting drugged by Manson and, and starting this
34:33
cult. And so I watched the movie.
34:35
I'm like, whatever. And then I was like, I wonder
34:38
who Charles Manson is? And I listened to a couple of
34:41
podcasts that, you know, kind of talked about his life a little
34:43
bit. And then I was like, oh, whoa.
34:46
And then I went back to the movie again, a couple, you know,
34:48
after a couple of months of just casual reading and looking into
34:51
it. And I watched the movie and I'm
34:53
like, this movie is perfect. This movie so good.
34:58
And I couldn't get over it. And I was like, this is so
35:01
silly. So, you know, the only point.
35:04
So my point being that. If there's, you know.
35:10
Information kind of stays the same, I would say, but we are
35:14
always developing and we're always changing.
35:17
And I think it's really, really important to take the time to
35:21
realize that just because we consume something when we were,
35:24
you know. Even a couple of years.
35:26
Ago and we had a perspective on it to look back on it and deal
35:31
with to say I'm going. To try this, I'm going to try
35:34
this. Again, And I'm going to keep an
35:36
open mind because my life is different now than it was and
35:39
the way I think now is different and my associations and my
35:42
exposures are different now than they ever were before, you know,
35:46
so. Yeah, I got it.
35:49
I got to. Relook at it and you know,
35:51
listen, If it didn't speak to you, it might not.
35:53
It might not still speak to you. If it did speak to you, it might
35:56
not anymore. You know a lot of Springsteen's
36:00
music, which meant the entire world to me for.
36:04
So long, so many years of my life.
36:06
Probably 656 years of my life was just like Springsteen was
36:10
like my, like the way that he would expect my emotional, you
36:13
know, guiding star, like the way that he would like manifest and
36:17
describe the feelings of loneliness or meaning or
36:20
happiness or hope or betrayal or or heartbreak or enthusiasm and
36:26
excitement and passion for life. The way that he manifested all
36:29
of that, I felt so strongly as like a young single guy trying
36:34
to figure out what I was trying to do with my life.
36:36
I didn't know what I wanted to do for a career.
36:37
I didn't know what my passions were.
36:38
I didn't know what kind of girl I wanted to marry, what kind of
36:41
family I wanted to have. I didn't know where I wanted to
36:43
live. I didn't know I wanted to figure
36:45
it out. And I knew I felt lost and you
36:49
know. And he gave that to me.
36:50
And he helped me navigate that. But it doesn't.
36:53
But it doesn't mean it doesn't speak to me the same way now
36:56
when I have. Projects in a career.
36:59
That I'm working on, you know, I have a family that I'm building
37:02
and I know where I, I bought a house.
37:04
I know where I'm living, you know, and all of a sudden, a lot
37:07
of the contacts in my life that that made Springsteen speak so,
37:12
so clearly and so rings so true to me for so many years.
37:17
He's still just as talented as he was eating.
37:20
Stop being one of the greatest singer songwriters and
37:23
performers in American history just because I don't understand,
37:26
you know, just because I don't relate to it the same in the
37:29
same way. But I fundamentally changed and
37:31
all of a sudden, you know, I relate a little bit more to, you
37:35
know, the little bit more of a different type of genre, a
37:37
different type of musician or different, you know, a different
37:40
type of conversation. And maybe my conversations a
37:43
little bit. Maybe what I'm relating to is
37:44
more on, you know, I'm just trying to, you know, I'm, I'm,
37:49
I'm swamped and I'm trying to find a way to.
37:54
Enjoy all the. Moments in the chaos that I have
37:57
in my life and find people who manifest that idea, this idea of
38:03
exhaustion, but still wanting to fight on the feeling of more
38:07
exciting to excited to build something new.
38:09
The the building. The feeling of creativity and
38:12
the feeling of fun. Finding something fun for the
38:13
news time for the for the first time or really making a
38:16
breakthrough on something for the first time.
38:18
So all this is to say that these this concept, this Jewish, you
38:24
know, this Jewish concept of a seum of this commitment, not
38:28
just to. Learning new information and.
38:31
Processing information, but also a commitment to revisiting it as
38:35
we go through our lives. I don't think obviously
38:38
shouldn't just obviously it does apply to Judaism, at least for
38:43
me, but it could apply to everyone for literally anything.
38:48
And I think that we'd all be doing ourselves a bigger favour,
38:50
a huge favour, if we're able to. Really, just keep an.
38:55
Open mind and understand that just because something didn't
38:58
speak to us once before doesn't mean it never will again.
39:02
Anyway, Jimmy Kimmel got fired or what Was it indefinitely
39:10
suspended? Which doesn't sound too good if
39:13
I was. Indefinitely.
39:13
Suspended. I wouldn't be thrilled and.
39:20
I'm trying to figure out the best way to put.
39:21
This which is coming out of 151015 years of cancer culture
39:28
and. I don't even think I.
39:32
Heard what Jimmy Kimmel said. I'm not even going to pretend
39:35
to, you know, be a fan of it or not.
39:38
I don't actually know almost anything about Jimmy Kimmel.
39:41
I've the only I've only heard his name in the last couple of
39:43
years. Nothing I've ever heard from him
39:46
was. Particularly funny.
39:47
My understanding what I've heard is that he was.
39:49
Actually, you know, funnier. You know, prior to the whole
39:53
woke era, but he's not now. And.
40:00
And he apparently got cancelled. First, you know, he got he got
40:02
fired for or Disney said or ABC said that they're that they're
40:05
not, that they're suspending his show after some insensitive
40:09
remarks about Charlie Kirk and the MAGA movement and whatever
40:13
it was. And I don't have too many
40:17
thoughts on this. I'm actually extremely,
40:19
extremely disappointed. So disappointed in the the
40:27
people. In the.
40:28
Administration right now, the Trump administration for trying
40:31
to crack down and have government censor government
40:39
censorship when it comes to speech, obviously other than
40:42
inciting violence or whatever doesn't, you know, whatever's
40:44
not included in the first right in the 1st Amendment rather.
40:47
But we just went through this for so long, for so many years,
40:54
right? I don't think that the Trump
40:56
administration or any government administration should tell a
41:00
talk show. Host or a late.
41:02
Night show host or anyone in you know anyone in any kind of
41:07
private industry what to do with their employees and by the way,
41:12
on the other hand. If Disney decided.
41:16
On their own or ABC decided on their own.
41:17
Hey, man, that was a really not I didn't even again, I didn't
41:20
even know what he said. But hey man, that was a really
41:22
not cool thing to say. And you know, I really don't
41:26
think that you're the kind of right fit that we want to have
41:29
in our environment. Obviously we know that Disney
41:32
does not have such moral quandaries, you know, and such
41:37
and such internal debate. All they care about is obviously
41:41
making sure that the administration in power likes
41:44
them enough to allow. Them.
41:45
To keep on making money and not give them a hard time and not
41:47
affect the bottom line, which I get and it's totally.
41:50
Fair. But still, end of the day, you
41:54
know, like I I don't think I don't think that is considered
41:57
getting cancelled if you're fired for saying something
42:00
stupid. I think that if you're now, if
42:03
other now, if there's almost like a systematic, a systematic,
42:10
you know, conjoined effort to make sure that not only your
42:14
5:00 but you can never get another job again.
42:16
I think that might be something else.
42:17
And that might be another conversation to have.
42:20
But. I don't know, I kind of feel
42:23
like. It's in everyone's right.
42:24
If I was working with someone and they started celebrating
42:29
Charlie Kirk dying, you know, getting dying, I'm sorry,
42:33
Getting murdered, getting executed in broad daylight in
42:36
front of thousands of people, I'm sorry to put it.
42:38
Dying the. First way he was executed and
42:41
murdered in front of thousands of people.
42:43
And someone was. Celebrating that, I'd be like,
42:45
hey, man, I don't want to work with you and I'm entitled to say
42:48
I don't want to work with you, man.
42:49
Like that's really, really not cool.
42:51
And like, are you allowed free speech?
42:53
Sure. Say whatever you want.
42:54
I don't want you in my business. I don't want you working for me.
42:56
I don't want you working with me.
42:58
I don't. I don't have to give you my
42:59
business and I think that. I think that if Disney, you
43:05
know, and. Obviously, Disney not saying
43:06
this out of some kind of like moral high ground or some kind
43:09
of emotional place. Where they?
43:12
Cared so much about who Charlie Kirk was.
43:15
They're again protecting themselves, but.
43:19
I think it's just it's I. Mean it's been so crazy going on
43:22
social media and seeing on Variety how explosive the
43:29
response to Jimmy Kimmel getting fired is when we literally, I
43:32
mean, think about everything everyone that got cancelled over
43:36
the last 10-15 years. Think about everyone that lost a
43:40
job, that lost that, that every actor, every writer, every,
43:45
every person on social media at home that was just minding their
43:48
own business and just said something in their own time and
43:50
again. If a company.
43:54
If a private company feels that they don't want to work with
43:56
that person, they don't have to work with that person that you
43:58
go both ways, right. And just like I believe the
44:04
government censorship should not be allowed.
44:08
You know, I I was really, really done.
44:10
Quite, quite. What's the?
44:15
Word for it when it's like so. Out there so blatantly by the
44:17
Biden administration, you don't want to, we don't want to set
44:21
this precedent that no matter who's in power, they're just
44:24
going to be silencing other voices and deporting people
44:26
because of things that they say or things that they believe.
44:29
And I mean that that that's that's playing the same game and
44:34
you're falling to the same stick.
44:36
And and I know that I know that power is enticing, but it also
44:41
shows, you know, I've been a little deenfranchised with the
44:47
system. I really thought that there was
44:48
going to be. Change I always I really
44:50
thought. There's going to be, you know,
44:52
change in in American Society and American culture.
44:56
And, you know, I mean, even in I have to say this because I think
45:00
it's really important, even all this Israel stuff for people
45:03
trying to silence people that are critics of Israel.
45:06
It doesn't help. It does not help.
45:09
Engage in the conversation, engage in the argument.
45:12
Don't get someone deported because they'd say free
45:14
Palestine. Don't fire someone because they
45:17
say that they that that Israel's committing A genocide.
45:20
Have a conversation. By the way, again, you could
45:22
fire them if it's a private business.
45:24
Do you think don't have the government come after you?
45:27
Don't have the don't have ICE knocking on your door.
45:30
Don't have the Trump, don't have the FBI, you know, break into
45:33
your house for. A meme that you sent?
45:36
Come on. You know, I feel like we're
45:38
better than that. And even though I feel that way
45:41
at the moment, it doesn't look like that.
45:43
I guess the only positive things I could say about it is that
45:45
there's been an enormous amount of right of right leaning people
45:49
pushing back on some of the exact things that we're talking
45:52
about now. And I forgot, I think it was
45:56
Dave Smith. And I know, I know that right
45:58
now invoking his name would cause a rather vitriolic
46:02
reaction. And that's OK.
46:03
But I think that the guy has, I think the guy's entitled to his
46:06
opinion. I think he's, you know, I don't
46:07
agree with him about Israel specifically, even though a lot
46:10
of the things that he says, I, I, I, I couldn't understand
46:13
where he's coming from. But I think that he's really
46:16
smart with a lot, a lot of different things.
46:18
And he's super, super articulate and eloquent and really, really
46:22
dynamic and smart guy. He's like, you're going to see
46:26
this is going to be used to just clamp down on free speech like
46:31
Charlie Kirk's death. Charlie Kirk, the guy that
46:32
wanted free speech, that wanted conversation, that wanted to
46:35
welcome anyone to have any kind of point of view that they had,
46:37
and we'll talk about it. In his name.
46:40
Free speech is getting shut down.
46:42
He's like, you'll see. They all end up the same and
46:45
unfortunately I guess I guess it looks that way.
46:48
I guess we'll call it there for the night.
46:51
This was good. I haven't done a solo episode in
46:54
in months so this was fun. As always any feedback feel free
46:59
to reach out. Going to have some more guests
47:00
for you coming up. And as always, love you all and
47:05
have a good night. Bye.