Seattledog

Episode07: Gramajo (@0xGramajo) is joined by Seattledog (@seattledog0603). Seattledog is an art enthusiast and collector whose passion for contemporary art is evident through the work that adorns their space. The walls serve as a testament to diverse tastes, featuring pieces by notable artists such as Gary Baseman, Gary Taxali, Takashi Murakami, and works from Kazakh culture. A long-time admirer of the artist Dalek, Seattledog has followed his work for decades, always seeking to add a piece to their collection, even when it proved difficult to do so.

The advent of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) opened a new avenue for Seattledog. This innovative digital marketplace enabled them to acquire some of Dalek's art more easily, paying for it with tezos—a form of cryptocurrency. Through this medium, not only did they expand their collection, but they also formed a personal connection with the artist they had long admired. The journey from scraping together resources to own a physical snowboard or skate deck with Dalek's designs to now being able to possess digital works reflects Seattledog's adaptability and their deep-rooted love for art.

Date Recorded: August 22, 2023

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00:00 Curiosity about blockchain leads to wallet setup.
10:12 Struggling to grasp new art format initially.
12:22 Twitter feed is now more relaxed and diverse.
21:37 Networking and collaboration can make work easier.
25:57 Recognizes artist for distinctive, innovative, supported work.
31:44 Asking opinion on feedback loop in art.
37:29 Personal connection to artwork, including specific pieces.
41:20 Cycling, pandemic, and seeing shapes with eyes.
46:55 Using tweezers to study spider behavior.
51:51 Minimal milk, loves experimenting with flavors and espresso.
55:35 Positive attitude and kindness can shape happiness.
01:06:41 Speculation about suggesting colors for burning preferences.
01:08:49 Limited color options for icon ticket holders.
01:17:31 Thanks for listening. Leave a review. See you next time.
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Links:

https://twitter.com/seattledog0603

https://objkt.com/asset/KT1F7jYs4iBCjGVSuriRARcSxn9X88doAKF7/0

https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c248420045cb7b5e/34821637141724221748172708412225984407817158577682437204533968103130246676487/

Music by: Lakey Inspired
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Transcript

0:00

Yeah, and the reality is, I mean, artists, you know, unless you're somehow independently wealthy and don't care what at all about what people think, that's the only way you're independent of the audience, right? No, I'm really just. Hey, guys, welcome back to another episode of behind the screen. This week I sat down with Seattle Dog. He's a moderator for multiple web three discords, a creator and definitely a big community builder and someone that I respect in the space. Thanks again for tuning in. Let's dive in. Yeah, so thanks again for doing this. I think we'll start off with who is Seattle dog? Yeah, we'll get started there. Obviously. Feel free to not dox yourself all the way or up to you. Yeah, no problem at all. I'm in. My guess where I live is pretty obvious. The fact that I am not a dog is just as obvious, hopefully. And I am in the healthcare field and been collecting for a couple of years now and been collecting art for way more than a couple of years. Art? Like in real life? Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, always been an appreciator, but art in real life for some time now. That's awesome, man. It's great to hear. I feel like a lot of people that are in the web three space, they weren't into art collecting probably beforehand. They almost went the other way around. Yeah, I mean, it's cool that people get into it both ways around, but I think the blockchain, for those of us who've been into art for a while, the blockchain just adds another dynamic and the ability to collect different kinds of art and interact and reach out to community and artists in a way you never would have been able to before. Yeah, agreed. What were you collecting beforehand, if you don't mind me asking? Yeah, no worries. Some vinyl, a lot of skate decks, some prints as well, and some original graffiti stuff and so kind of a broad range. Oh, awesome. Anything. What was I going to say? Anything you have like up on your wall or is all of it up on your wall that you've collected throughout. The years sort of rotate through some. I think as I look around I've got stuff from like Gary Baseman and Gary Tuxali. I have some murakami stuff on the wall, some Kazakh, some, you know, if I look at, say, dalek and as an example, been a fan of his for decades and sort of collected a little bit here and there and wasn't able to easily. But then when NFTs came along for a few tezos here and there, I was able to collect some of his work and then gradually have gotten to know him. And so such a different world than it was when I was trying to scrape some stuff together to look at one of his snowboards or skate decks in the past. Yeah, that's awesome, man. I think that's the best part about web three, is that you're able to meet all these people and talk to them. And I think we'll get into that in a bit. I know that you know some other artists, and you are a moderator for some of them as well, so we'll jump into that in a sec as well. So I was going to ask you, what kind of made you go from that collecting in real life to switch to web three? Yeah, I guess two things. One was during the pandemic. I had just finished my MBA, and I was curious about the blockchain and how it worked, and so wanted to do something to try to understand it better and to see whether that might be something I could apply to my irl job or just was curious about how it might work. And then I was talking to one of my really good irl friends, who is a pretty og guy in the space, and he really, in a way, kind of pushed me to do it. He said, you should look at hen at the time and think about collecting a few things. And I was kind of reluctant and didn't really get it. And so he had a nice guide and walked me through how to set up a wallet. So I set that up, and he was smart. He did a thing. He sent me 100 tezos into my wallet, and he's like, okay, now you owe me 100 tezos, but take it and buy art you like and repay me when you get around to it by buying me 100 tezos worth of cool art. And so that was kind of the kick in the ass that I needed to jump in. That's so funny. Yeah. I was just looking at your wallet as well, and I see the entry of the 100 Tesla. So what made you buy? I think it looks like it's called moo as your first piece. I mean, I think I know why. But I got to look back at my wallet, too. I don't even remember. Here. I could send it to you, and. I'm pulling it up now. No worries. I think early on, it was some of the stuff that either he had collected and I had liked, too. Which piece were you talking about? So I believe it's called moo. At least that's what I'm able to see from kind of the blockchain test side. Give me a second. I can look back at some of the stuff that I still have, and some of it is some early generative stuff. Some of it is kind of anime stuff from beans boys. And really of the pieces I have from back then that were early, I've got the dozier from lucress, which I bought, I think may have been the first piece I bought on secondary. This one is. Are you recognizing this or. No, it's not pulling up yet. Yeah, if we go in the other way around. Here. It is. These down here, they're pretty cool, actually. They like. I suspect that it's because they're kind of science related. Yeah, I'm not seeing that on your screen share. Oh, you're not on my screen share. Yeah, no, I see the. Okay, hold on. This is so funny. There we go. Oh, yeah, now I see it. Yeah, that's a Covid themed one. Yeah, that's what I figured. Yeah, totally. And I actually really like those. They're just like little short videos. And being in healthcare, we were going through Covid at the time, I was like, wow, that's art. That really connects with what I'm doing during the day. That makes me laugh at just the pandemic destruction all around. So, yes, I collected a bunch of those and gifted them to a few other people in healthcare, too. That's awesome. Have you been able to pay back the 100 pesos? Yes, I paid it back in art. And I know that he liked some of the stuff, actually liked all the stuff that I sent him and flipped some of it that he liked, maybe not as much, but liked and flipped and did way better than the 100 that he started with. That's awesome. Love to hear that. I think that's such a power move for someone to just send you 100 tez. And from what I can see too, is like when Tez is like four or $5 too, so it's not like a low amount either. And just be like, he'll pay me back at some point. Yeah. No, and that's what got me right. It was like, I guess I'll start looking at these nfts, but am I really going to spend$20 on a piece? And obviously things have changed since then and my attitude has changed. But, yeah, it was totally the power move. It's like, all right, it's now yours. You're in, whether you like it or not. Yeah. At this point, what was the most you had spent money wise on art beforehand before going into web three in real life? What was the most that you had kind of spent? I had spent in the $1,000 range, probably. Okay. And why do you think you had some kind of hesitation to even throw down, like, $20, let's say, on something? Yeah, I think it's early on, and I'm sure most or a lot of us kind of had this when you started. It's like, I don't really get what this new format is and what this new form is and how it all works and how can there be additions of things, even though the reality is it's the same as it is with physical art, too. And so it's just a matter. I think I hadn't quite wrapped my head around it the way I have now. Yeah, that makes sense. I agree with that. I think I had spent a couple hundred to 1000 on art beforehand, and it took me a bit to get over the hump on that. I think even for me, the jack was kind of the first piece I ended up buying from Des. And I remember thinking like, oh, man, there's a lot of. Yeah, yeah, totally. And I think the jack was probably the second piece that I bought of his. That's awesome. What was the first again? Dozier. The dozier. Nice. Yeah, very good piece. Because I think that's still your profile picture in discord, right? Yes, it is. Yeah. So I see also then was web three. What got you to sign up for Twitter as well? I had played around with it a little bit, but just didn't see any real use for it, really. I had signed up for it and it was all this just sort of political blather and just was not appealing. But, yeah, then I signed up for Twitter under my name here, and I was like, oh, there's this whole sort of subculture world that I didn't know about. And it was why I signed up for Discord, too. I'd never used discord before either. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. I think Twitter has benefited a lot from the web three space. It still is very angry. Like an angry place as a whole. Yeah, I think we could all use a little more anger in our lives. Yeah. But I think it's chilled out a bit. At least my feed is a lot more chilled now, I guess, compared to what it was before. It was just a lot of angry politics stuff. And I was like, yeah, it also was kind of like, not many. I don't think that many people were on it from the bitcoin perspective or they just kind of had a different vibe as a, like, once we introduced nfTs, it sort of kind of took off like Twitter. Yeah. I think the difference too is if you set up, say, a profile that's just connected to NFT Twitter, you don't really get all the other stuff as opposed to starting kind of a general Twitter account, know, bathing and all. Yeah, yeah, agreed. Yeah. I've been on Twitter now for, like, I don't even know too long, so I've seen it. Yeah. 2011. So, twelve years. Oh, yeah. That's wild. Yeah. It's a different world for me now that. Because even when. When I was really into bitcoin, it wasn't what it is now. So it's better now, I would say. Still a little angry, but. Yeah. So you mentioned discord. What discord service do you spend kind of your most time on right now? Well, obviously monsters. I spend time on some smaller ones, but monsters and Dalek and Kisklowskis and just going through my list, I've learned a lot from Nick Cooter, of course. Got to mention your discord, aperture, MP and Resva's. I'm in a lot of different discords. Mumbots, Jem, Hasimi. Yeah, a number of them. You're a moderator on a couple of those, right? Yeah, I'm a moderator, sort of, to varying degrees. I'm probably five or six of them. Oh, man. Which one are you, like, the heaviest moderator in? I would say in monsters is probably the one I spend the most time in, partly. It's also one of the most active and biggest communities. How did you actually. So you bought the dozer and then that's what got you into the monster server? Yeah, that's what got me into the monster server. And then it's such. Just a great warm community of funny people and a lot of people of different backgrounds with different tastes and are happy discussing, disagreeing, agreeing with, but know appreciating Lou Crest's art and I think a lot of it that drew me in there was really the warmth and the sense of humor of people. Yeah, it's a fantastic place. It makes the bear a lot more bearable, for sure. Yeah, totally. It also has the best cooking channel. Without a doubt, 1000%. That cooking channel is fire, actually. So how did you end up coming across the dozer or Des as a whole? I don't really know. I think it was probably through Twitter, maybe one of the. I spent a lot of time and still do in Dalek server and I think someone there was into Des's work and I think that's how I connected over there and it just took me a long time to get a piece and then to win one of the raffles and then got more and more involved. That's awesome. Let's see. I was going to ask, so what's it like being a moderator for some of these servers for people that aren't familiar with moderating? What does that usually entail? It really sort of varies. I moderate in Mumbot's server and that she really has me just sort of helping keep an eye on things in general. And I do some stuff here and there in Dalek server, same sort of thing. It's a pretty casual, but super involved. Great group of collectors in, say, crash blossoms discord. I've helped more with some of the setup and some of the more active moderation of things and same and Sam Hasimi's and then in monsters, because it's so active, it's really know a. We probably have more emojis and stickers than in any other discord in the universe in there. So I. I have a steady stream of those. But really, especially when there's drops or other activity going on, it's really just keeping an eye on things. It's not policing so much as just making sure that everyone is not even keeping it positive, but keeping it appropriate and a welcoming group and not coming down too hard on stuff and figuring out what the leeway is. Because I think each community has their own sort of flavor to it, too. And if you over moderate things, you just get rid of that flavor. Or at least that's the risk. Yeah, agreed. Do you guys have team meetings? Is that a thing? We don't really have team meetings. We have groups will talk about stuff here and there. You know, the in all of these discords will have like a moderator channel where you can talk about things and say, you know, what do we do in this kind of situation? But I think really, with the teams, it's a group of people who are on the team for a reason. And so there's not a lot of, there's not a lot of what's our mission statement? Kind of strategizing stuff. It's a lot more of just how do we keep things moving forward and how do we make sure that we are enabling the artist and doing the front end work that they shouldn't have to deal with and letting them concentrate on the art part and engage with the community in the way they want to and that they're comfortable with. Agreed. Going back to kind of like that comment on, you don't want to stifle the vibe or the community or the way that it talks or behaves, because obviously, every community is a little different and stuff. Do you, how do I phrase this? Do you feel like that's what makes you kind of stand out from whenever you join these servers is like, I'm assuming you started off as probably just like a regular contributor, and then based on your contributions, then that's kind of how you get asked to become a moderator. You're already kind of come into most of these as a moderator. I don't think I really came into any of them as a moderator. I think more just as a collector and just kind of. I tend to be a pretty calm person. I don't get agitated or reactive about stuff, and I think it's easy to get that way online, particularly when you're anonymous. And so I just don't have that personality, and I tend to be pretty positive. And I've liked learning the technical background to the extent that I know it on the back end of it. And so I think just being around and being positive and being helpful, and I don't really ask for stuff. I think it's just people or an artist or other mods will see, oh, here's a positive person who is in it to see the artist succeed and appreciates the art. And if you have that going in, then I think it just kind of happens. Yeah, agreed. Um, I mean, it sounds like it's a lot of work. If you were like a new artist kind of coming in, would you say it's pretty critical to build a discord server for your community or your collectors? Or do you think it's just too much work for an artist by themselves? I think you can do it any way. I think that if you engage with a group, that sort of multiplicative effect of having people who will connect with your work, connect others with your work, and sort of get the word out there more and more, makes it a lot easier to do. And I think that even just having someone to bounce ideas off of is helpful in a non public kind of way is helpful. So in servers where it's been pretty small, I'm sort of a member of a council in a few other servers, like, say, gengoya's server, where he's know, I'm not a moderator in a server, but I'm part of a group who he runs ideas by because I've been collecting his stuff since he started. And so I think those kind of things can help an artist as they get started in the space, and everyone has a different approach and a different way of doing things, but at least I've found that pretty helpful. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And I think you're right. I think that could be achieved in multiple ways, like a Twitter private group or sms or really anything. Yeah. Because there's no one way to do stuff. Right. And there's no one thing that will appeal to everyone. So if you have two, three, four or five people who have different points of view, then you can really discuss, and it's up to the artist. Right. They're the boss in all of these servers, and they'll take or leave your advice or we'll get advice from other people as well. But I think it helps, at least from what I've seen, and my advice has not been taken plenty of times. And that's great. It is what it is, and it's just given as input to, again, the artist who's the boss and has the vision and at the end is the one who's making the art and hopefully making a good living from doing it. Yeah, definitely. Kind of pivoting a bit. Who are some artists that you kind of think are underappreciated right now. Who are underappreciated? Yeah. Just by the market. It doesn't have to be money wise. That seems to be like the metric or the artistic that everyone measures by, but it could be attention. It could be whatever you think. It's almost hard because there's so many. Right? Yeah. And there's just so much great work that's out there, and I'm just flipping through the discord servers I'm in and just. You're in them because you like them. Right. But a lot of them do have just sort of a niche of people who have seen them and appreciated them and others are bigger but should be bigger than they like. I look at, say, pender van Arman's work, who is amazing and has gotten a lot of attention and I think should get even more. And I can't remember whether I mentioned Bondo earlier, whose work has gotten some attention, but I think is incredible and deserves even more than he's getting to this point. I look at servers that I'm in, like the sovereign server sovrn, and that's Ezra Shivalis project, and they do work with Mikey Woodbridge and other work like that that I think has some attention in niche areas but should have even more. And so it's a good question, but it's almost an endless list, which is one of the amazing things about the space. Yeah. You're always discovering new artists, that's for sure. I know you mentioned Pinder Van Armin, and you recently acquired a bike gans. What makes you bullish on course, you know, not financial advice or anything for. I mean, I think the work that he does, the things that appeal to me in an artist in general, are someone who has a distinctive style, a distinctive point of view, or is doing something different. And you look at it and you say, oh, the mechanism behind that, the style behind that, the approach behind that is something that I look at and I recognize and would recognize it in a second. And so I know that Pindar and I've had an opportunity to interact with him, is a. A really good guy, has a distinctive point of view, is doing some incredible and innovative work, and has been for a long time, and that he supports his projects. And so you look at the byte gans and you recognize what they are immediately as an on chain piece of art. You know, the work that Pindar has done with the robot painting projects with a number of his different releases, and definitely bullish on what he's doing and really almost anything that he does. Yeah. That's awesome to hear. Yeah. I think I actually found out of Pindar through you. Oh, cool. Yeah. It wasn't on my radar for whatever reason, but I do love me some on chain art, so I think that's what got my attention. Yeah. And right now, the prices seem pretty good, too. Yeah. No, they definitely are at a point that, for me, again, not my advice to any particular person, but for me, it was an easy piece to pick up to buy. Yeah. Other than that bike ants piece, what other kind of other grails do you have kind of your eyes on, or what are some pieces that you're keeping an eye on? Again, I think if you look at the things that people have done that are distinctive and are really interesting, I look at Crash Blossom's work, and he has the gold project and the burners and recall and really the different point of view with dynamic art. And so I think the gold project is a really interesting one, where the pieces are affected by what other owners of the piece do, and there's a lot more dynamism to it, but it's a cool, abstract work that changes all the time. Yeah. Can you explain that a little bit more? So it's an NFT that changes based on if a ton of people sell it or what are they kind of looking at that other people could impact yours. Yeah. And so a number of different ways. And so he has pieces that say he has one series that varies with activity of bitcoin. So what's the market doing? Or what is gas on Eth doing? So those types of things. So each of these pieces, say in the gold one, have a fixed trait. So when they're minted, they have a specific sort of elements in abstract art, some more abstract than others. And so the other pieces are dynamic. So the longer you hold it, things will start to change. If the art is flipped within three months of min to a sale, it has a change. If there are sales with royalty or without royalties, there'll be different approaches to it and different trends affect the way it is as well. Interesting. I like the other things, and there's. Kind of a vesting period with it as well. So the longer you hold it, there are specific things which will change on it and will stay changed. Interesting. Yeah, that sounds cool, actually. I like that. I think I heard about when I was talking to, what is it like abnormality he's telling me about? And this is why I love blockchain stuff, or just blockchain art as a whole. You could do some of some pretty crazy stuff. So he was telling me about like a ten K PFP project where basically whatever the Eth price was, because you know how that became a meme at some point that Eth was going to hit ten k. Yeah. So it was like a new piece would get minted based on the price. So the goal is that once it hits ten k, then all ten k are revealed or something like that. Oh, wow. Yeah, so it's like super interesting and all ten k haven't been revealed because we haven't hit ten k for e. Yeah, just super interesting stuff that you could do. Like that. I like that. And that's one of the things that I think we both share, is that this kind of art is opening up new frontiers that we couldn't have appreciated before. Right. Yeah. I wanted to touch on something you said a little bit earlier that just came to my mind and probably a little too much bouncing back, but we'll come back to this thread in a second. Have you followed up with front tech? I signed up for it and then got busy and haven't, so I can't tell you that I've been interested in it enough to make it a priority. Yeah, no worries. Yeah, I was going to ask your opinion on it in terms of. We were talking about artists and there's different mediums where you can get that feedback loop could be Twitter. It could be sms, it could be whatever, whatsapp, discord. So I was going to get your opinion on this whole frontech situation with essentially, like, the people that buy your, they're not chairs anymore, now they're keys. But the people that buy your keys are either speculative on you or supporters of you. And then now you have like a communication channel directly with the people that in theory would be supporters of you. So I was trying to see what you thought about that whole idea, but if you aren't too familiar with it, no worries. Yeah, I'm not that familiar with it. I mean, the way it came across just sort of in the two sentences, it just felt like, I love owning art by artists, but I never have it as a view of. I own an. Yeah, yeah. And so that just turned me off initially. I'm sure there's a lot more to it, but just that idea just rubbed me the wrong way. Yeah, I get that. Yeah. There does seem to be a little bit of that in the NFT space sometimes is that if you acquire a piece from an artist, that they're somehow beholden to you, to your responses and all that. I've even seen it, too, where someone, let's say, is quote unquote whale of an artist and people will say, like, why didn't you run this by me? Kind of situation that's happened a couple of times, especially with the OES, like the open editions that have happened. Although some people don't. You think it's. I mean, I agree with you, and I've seen that dynamic play in a positive way, in a negative way. But don't you think that's always the way it's been with art, with art patrons and everything else sort of going way back? Yeah, no, I would agree with that. I'm not saying it's good. No, yeah, I think you're right. Yeah, I think it's a little bit of. Yeah, I would agree with that statement, actually, that people do feel like now that they've gotten a piece from you, that somehow that decision that they made themselves, not under duress, which is the funny part, is somehow now they have to think about you all the time. Twenty four seven. Yeah, that does seem to be happening more. Yeah. And the reality is, I mean, artists, unless you're somehow independently wealthy and don't care at all about what people think, that's the only way you're independent of the audience. Right. But you also have to trust and not compromise your vision as an artist and be able to tell people no. Yeah, agreed, man. Yeah, that definitely made me think a lot more. That was a good way to phrase it. It's tough, right? I mean, you're telling your customer no, and maybe it's your best customer you're telling no. Yeah, it happens in business, too. But, yeah, I guess in time you will either see whether it was the right decision or the wrong decision. It's hard to know from the get go whether something was the right decision or the wrong decision from a scarcity or art perspective or whatever. Yeah, totally. And I'm not an artist, but I can imagine you have to be confident enough in your vision and have enough of an ego, but not too much of an ego. And how do you. Balance. Is a. That is a balance. I was reading a book recently on Picasso and. Yeah, you need to be confident enough in yourself, but, yeah, definitely keep it in check because you can lose sight of things as well pretty quickly. Yeah. At work, the expression we use is. And it's usually making fun of the surgeons. It's often wrong, never in doubt. I like that. Yeah. At work, anytime. Yeah, that's a good one. That's applicable to a lot of things. Exactly. Yeah. Actually, I'm going to ask you. We got a nice little boomer section towards the end of these questions that we can jump back to. Some sage advice, make sure it's not. Too late because people got to go to sleep early enough. That's true. That's true. All right, let's see. So if you could only have three pieces from your vault, what would they be and why? That's a tough one. I am here to ask harder questions. The hard hitting interview. And you can take your time if you want. We can't go to something else while you think about it. Yeah, no, it's pieces that I have a connection with. Right. So there's personal connections and then there's the art itself, too. And so I'd obviously have to have a piece by lucress in there and life of know, one of the series that I'm drawn to the most. And so definitely have to be in there, I think a piece by Dalek and some of it's because it's some of the early pieces that I bought. Right. Yeah. That I have a connection with. And so I like the SSMC, which is the space monkey Chaos club. I've got a one on one of his, and I have the line drawing version of that hanging up on my wall. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Which is great. You're going to have to send me a picture of. It's. It's. It's very cool. And then it starts to get hard because there's a bunch of these. Right. There's even one that I don't own but would love to pick back up, which is the collab that I was lucky enough to do with. And, you know, I think I've learned so much about art from Nick Cooter, and I have one of his confecta pieces that. Yeah. And I could probably keep on going from there, but, yeah, those are some of them. Yeah. No, I appreciate that. I know it's difficult to only pick three. There's a reason why they're in there. I did see the Lom series in there, so I was like, I suspect there'll be a lom for sure, which is a great series, too. Yeah, it is. I mean, if I look at some of the things that I think have the best possibility of being sort of out there as an icon in the broadest sense across all sort of art spectra, I think mon is one of them. I think Dalek has done it with the space monkey already, but I definitely could see Mon being one of those on the level of Pokemon and the rest of that kind of thing. Yeah, it has a lot of potential, for sure. That's why we have so many. I'm forgetting the word for them in discord. The emojis. Emojis. There you go. Oh, my God. Yeah. It's such a great image to be able to play. Yeah. Agreed. And so, you know, you have, obviously, the real stuff, which is what Des does and does so incredibly. And then you just have the sort of stuff that we've put together using the work that he has done or bastardized version of it. And thankfully, he's got a great sense of humor. Yeah. Seriously. Yeah. No, I think you do a great job with them. But, yeah, I mean, depending who you would ask, I'm sure if his ego was higher, it could be a bastardization, but I think they're hilarious, for sure. So I know you have your own collection as well, the googly eyes collection. So what made you kind of one? What is it, two, what made you start minting it? Or specifically, what made you kind of mint? One. Nebul. Yeah, thanks for asking. So the googly eyes is just that, like, years ago, probably three years ago now, I guess. So, I mountain bike a lot, so I spend a lot of time in the woods, like two or three days a week. And I used to race mountain bikes for a little bit of time and so every time I was riding, I was just trying to go as fast as I could and comparing my times, and I need to go 6 hours or I need to go 8 hours on a ride. And then I just sort of backed off some. And I think the pandemic helped me do that, too, and realize I wasn't having fun doing it anymore. And so I realized, you see faces or things, the way our brains work is we tend to imagine faces and things because we need to be able to recognize whatever is going to attack us by their eyes. And so I started to really do my rides more slowly, and I would see these faces and, like, it'd be kind of funny if I put googly eyes on them and took a picture of them. So I started collecting these pictures, and I realized when I stopped in the woods, I appreciated the time and the space and the quiet, and I would see things that I wouldn't have seen otherwise, whether it's a rabbit or a bobcat or quail or what it might be in the woods. And so it was my way of backing off the speed part and really appreciating life and where I was. And so that's the overall background of it. And so I had these pictures, and I figured, you know, I'm into NFTs now. Maybe people would be interested in picking up some copies of them. And so I released them, and I was lucky enough to have people start to collect them. And then I realized the full circle on this would be to take some of the earnings from what I'm making on the NFTs and donate them back to the nonprofit that is helping maintain and build the trails that I'm riding on. And so I brought it full circle and was doing that. And that's where if there were bags of dog poo that people were leaving on the trail, a I would find that if I put eyes on them, people would pick them back up because they noticed them more. But I figured, why not really recycle those and put them to good use and take pictures of them, put the eyes on them, and then give the money back to the people who are cleaning up the trails. And so that was the start of all that. That's awesome, man. Yeah. And the Pooh bag is like super iconic now. Well, that's been fun. There was a Tizos trash thing that was going on. I was like, you know, this is the perfect thing. I'm going to throw eyes on it and mint some of it. And then I just thought the shape of it and the whole idea behind it was so ridiculous that I could then parlay it as a blank canvas and turned an eight bit version of it and then sort of these blank token versions of it and put stickers together of it and some t shirts and some hats. And I think now the stickers are in six or seven different countries. People have sent me pictures of them, which has been really pretty fun to see. Do you know what countries those are? I think I saw it was in Spain recently. Yes. Let's see. Spain, England, Ukraine, Japan, Colombia, all over the. Think. And one's going out to Poland this week. Yeah. And I'll be putting one up in Italy. Oh, and Italy soon. Right on there. You. Yeah. Yeah. So that's either a positive of spreading a little joy and something light hearted around, which is what that basically is, or just putting pool around the world. Depends upon how you look at it. Yeah. Hey, it's me, Rajo, again. Just want to take a quick break to thank you for listening. Also want to talk to you about the Degen's agreement. If you could, like, subscribe, leave a review wherever you listen to your podcast. That's greatly appreciated. Helps with the channel, and we will have a Zealey word later on, so make sure to join the community. Thanks again. I wanted to talk to you about this spider with the googly eye. Yeah, it's like some crazy shots, man. Did you just throw them at the spider web and then wait it. Or how did you get some of these shots with the googly eyes and the spider? Yeah, I hesitate to describe. Yeah. So the two main things I've done with insects is one, I did a slug series because there's living in Seattle, in the woods, there's slugs everywhere. So I'm like, all right, I'm going to try putting googly eyes on slugs and take pictures of them. So that wasn't too bad. And this time of year, actually, right now, there's a ton of spiders around in our area. And so I was like, I wonder if I could get eyes to stick on webs? And it ends up not being that easy to do. No, that's why I was curious. And so what I do is I take long tweezers and I hold the eye really carefully and then find sort of a spot, usually at the intersection of the web, where they'll stick. And then the spiders sometimes it's amazing. And I have some videos of some of it where the spiders just will the way they kill prey. And I didn't really appreciate it before I started putting eyes and webs is they will spin the foreign object or the insect really quickly and surround it in web really fast. Or at least the spiders around that I've been playing with will do. And then sting it or bite it and then eat it. And so they try doing the same thing with the eyes so you can see them just sort of spin it, but as they get close to it. And if you put a pair of eyes, you can get some pretty cool shots. That's awesome. Yeah. So it's just a matter of trying to catch it at the right time, which I've always wondered. No one has seen me doing this, but I haven't come up with a good thing to respond to. When someone on the street would ask me what the hell I'm doing. There's just no good answer. There's just no good answer. Taking pictures of spiders, right? Yeah, exactly. That's hilarious. Yeah, because the spider series was some crazy shots, man. I'll make sure to include them. But yeah, there's some crazy shots in there for sure. Oh, thanks. Yeah, that was really fun to do. Yeah. Let's see. So I was going to ask you why a pooh bag? But you explained that very well already. Unless you think there's anything else you want to say about why you chose the pooh bag. No, I mean, that's another one where no one has seen me do it and asked me, why the hell are you putting googly eyes on a bag of poo on the side of the trail? Yeah, but, yeah, hopefully I won't have to answer that question. Yeah, I think it's kind of hilarious that. I like that you said that as humans, when we see eyes kind of looking back at us, it stands out to us more in nature. I think it's kind of hysterical that you put the eyes on the pooh bag and then I'm sure someone's walking and it makes them pick it up more. Yeah, totally. It's called face pareidolia. And we have this perception that we put meaning on something that's kind of vague or nebulous. And so you have this bag and that's the way of thinking about it, I guess, is if you have this nameless, faceless bag, you just leave it on the side of the trail, but you pop some eyes on that and you're going to pick up some trash. Yeah, I feel like this has a lot of potential. I wouldn't argue. Yeah. In terms of bad actors, I hate people that litter, so I feel like this could be there has to be a campaign somewhere in there where we put googly eyes on things and people will be more inclined to clean. Yeah. And it goes back to that. The amount of time I spend in the woods is a lot here in the northwest. And no problem with people walking their dogs on the trails. But why would you bag something up and just leave it out there in the forest? Yeah, that's an OD choice for sure. Yeah. It's just wrong. And so, yeah, throw some eyes on it. Yeah, I love it. So I know you mentioned that you mountain bike. What else do you do outside of kind of web three? What else do I do? Big into coffee. Oh, yes. So that has found its way in. I cook a lot. All kinds of food. Like, to eat, which goes back to that cooking channel. Those are some of the biggest things that I do. That's awesome, man. What was I going to say? What's your kind of favorite thing to cook? Mostly asian food. And so living in the northwest, there's tons of just great access to fresh ingredients, but also to all kinds of asian restaurants and different cultures. And so it's been fun to explore and learn about them and then about how to cook that food. Yeah. A lot of asian people up there too. Yeah. And the ingredients have been smoking salmon over the past month because the salmon runs have been great here, and so just sort of exploring what's around. Love it. Milk and coffee. What do you think about that? Putting milk in coffee? Yeah, I don't do a lot of milk. I'll put a little bit on top, but the same time it's fun to play with different flavors. Right. A, I like the taste of coffee, so I'm fine with a two ounce espresso, and that's most of what I drink. But an espresso tonic in the summer is pretty nice. I made a syrup out of the shiso I grow in the yard, and I put some seltzer water, some shiso syrup, and some espresso, and it's pretty damn good. Oh, man. I don't even doubt that. Is shiso kind of like mushroom? Is it like a fungi? Shiso is in the mint family. Okay. Yeah. They'll serve it a lot of times with sushi. It's kind of like a funky looking, frilly, either purple or green leaf. I think I've had it, actually. Yeah. It's got a really distinctive taste. You probably had it, but may not recognize the name of it. Yeah. Weren't you doing something pretty crazy with coffee? Was that the tonic coffee? Is that what you were doing, like, you were buying the tank and all that. Oh, no, that was seltzer water. That was seltzer water. That's what that was. Yeah. That was where I realized we were going to the market just to buy cans of water with bubbles in them, which just felt weird. Yeah. And so I bought a co2 tank. That's what it was. Yeah. I need to do that still, because I definitely am that person that still does that. Every two weeks, I'm running out of sparkling water or seltzer, and I spend way too much money on that. Yeah, totally. It felt wrong to be spending money on it, throwing away cans and driving to the store to get water with bubbles in it. When the water we have in the tap is great. It just needs some bubbles. Yeah, agreed. I need to get on that. Have you done anything like that with coffee? Pardon me? Have you done anything like that? Like bubbly coffee or anything like that? You can carbonate anything. I haven't, but I'll pour it over Seltzer water. Like, having espresso. Seltzer is pretty nice. I'm going to have to try that. Yeah. All right, I was going to ask. So, as promised from earlier, what's one of the best lessons from a boomer that you want to share with the audience? You're not a boomer, by the way, so everybody knows he's not a boomer. He's not a boomer. It's an inside joke at this point. What am I? Like, an old Millennial? I don't know what I am. I'm in some category. It wasn't boomer. Yeah, definitely not. But I think it's like a running joke now where anyone that's over 25 or 20 is like a boomer in web three. And it's kind of funny because it makes me feel. I'm sure you get this probably, as well, but recently, Adam or what's his name on Twitter, ryan rytonic or something like that, he was like, it's my 24th birthday, and I was like, holy crap, I'm freaking old. Yeah, totally. 24 was some time ago. Yeah. So I think that's what cracks me up about web three. Do you have any sage wisdom that you'd like to share with the younger audience? Yeah, I mean, I don't know that anyone's advice is any better than anyone else's, but at least for my approach to things is always. I've always loved learning and being open to new experiences. And then, I guess from what I see from people is how you look at things and mental health issues and depression. Those kinds of things aside, it's a choice whether you want to be a generally happy person with a positive outlook and kind to other people, or whether you want to react to things negatively that's in your control. And so you see so many people sort of, and it's more as you get older. I think people become just sort of angry at the world or disillusioned or upset. And you can decide the lens through which you view things. It's easy to become angry and to get pissed off if someone cuts you off in traffic. And I'm not saying I don't at times, but I do my best to try to say I can decide what my outlook on the world is going to be and I can let things affect that or not. But if I decide that I want it to be positive and I don't want to turn into some angry old man, but I'd rather be happy with the world generally and see the positives. Not to ignore the negative, but to enjoy the positives. That's a choice. Love that. Yeah, I tend to be a pretty positive person. So I appreciate that wisdom because, yeah, I fully agree. You're responsible for your own emotions and how you react to things. And you can either let something hold you back, you can let that anger consume you and hold you back, or just brush it aside and keep living life. Because sometimes if you let that anger consume you, you've almost let whatever, who or whatever caused that to you, you've let it win or define you. So when it's defining you, then you've lost control at that point. Yeah. And it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Yeah, exactly. Through my work I see a lot of the older population and there's people, men and women, who age and just become angrier and angrier and their lives weren't any better or worse than the people who are happy. It's just how they chose or what kind of mode they fell into. And so I try to make it a conscious decision. I don't want to be that negative person who's just unhappy all the time to the extent that I can control that. Yeah. Kind of staying on the topic of advice, if anybody was kind of joining, because there are some people that are still joining us in this crazy world of NFT and web three, what would be some advice you'd give to someone like, let's say they just got started today or yesterday. They wanted to get started. I think from a community standpoint, spend time in the places you enjoy and where the vibe is something that fits your personality. And obviously the art is what you like and gravitate. You'll gravitate toward like minded people and make friends, right? I mean, we've been friends for a while, people in a number of the discords I've met in person and have formed real friendships with. And that's a big deal. That's, I think, a part of the utility in this. That's a potential. Not everyone does it. Not everyone needs or wants that. But that's pretty cool when art can bring people together like that. And then there's the simple financial piece of things, which I think everyone knows, but not everyone follows or appreciates, which is don't put more in than you can afford to lose. Just real simple. And then if you love art and collect art you love, you never lose. Facts. Yeah, I think it's hard. Like you said, we lose sight of don't over leverage yourself. And if you're buying things that you like, then you own it. And you're not really, like, staring at the, is it up? Is it down? Is it sideways? It's like you're okay for the most part. Yeah, exactly. And there's people who've done incredibly well and have had life changing things in a positive way. But if you know that you have a tendency to gamble and to overextend yourself, and that's going to make you really unhappy, be careful because it's easy to fall down that slide. And to the extent that there's things you like to do, like we've talked about, I like to cook, and I've learned a ton about cooking and smoking in the monsters discord. I like art and I've learned a ton know color theory and art and have read books recommended by Luke Cress and by Nick Kuder and have learned a ton there and books that crash Blossom has recommended. I'm looking at doing a charity art project with the monogramma group. And so there's really just opportunity if you keep your eyes open and your ears open. Love that. You should send that list of book recommendations to me, man. I'm starting a series, like a miniature book club, all art based kind of things, because art's been around forever and there's a lot of lessons, I feel like, that we can all learn from the past, whether as a collector or as an artist. And why not learn from the past? Yeah, totally. And even things that my education, I had a liberal arts education, but I didn't really learn a lot about art in any kind of formal way. And so some of these texts are really interesting to read now that I am where I am and help me appreciate things more. Yeah, agreed. A couple more. Do you have any good dad jokes for us? I have one which, and I'll only preface it by saying that it was told to me by someone under 30 years old. Okay. Love it. I don't have a lot of dad jokes that I have memorized, but this was. What are duck feathers for? To cover their butt. Quack. Oh, my God. Heard that just yesterday. I love it. There you go. Yeah, that's a kid appropriate one. I'm sure I'll tell my daughter that in a couple of years. All right, so I know you have a monster icon ticket hold and I know Johan burned his for his birthday. I think there's like less than five out there now, right? There are. And it's going to be. Some more should be coming out, I would think. Yeah, I would think so too. But I trust Des that he'll release them in whatever method that he wants and at his own time. I'm sure it will be good and fair and everything. Agreed. So let's just say hypothetically, all five are out with unique holders. Are you on the side of burning as soon as you can to find out your icon or are you in the. I'm a hold out and see. So I've had it for a little while now. Yes. I have not burnt it and I don't have any particular strategy. How's that? That's fine, too. Yeah, I think just when it feels right and I'll have that conversation and burn it and see what I get. There you go. All right. That'll be the fun of it. I think one day I may wake up and say, you know, now's the time. Today is the day. Today's the day, my friend. Today I choose violence. I choose the burn. Oh, man. Yeah, that. The new icons were pretty sweet, though. Like the Johann's is really nice. I like his. Johann's is great. Yeah. I feel like I want to say I have the discipline to be like you, but I'm still a gambler. I feel like so I feel like that side of me would want to win at some point. I would wake up and be like. I feel like I wouldn't last like a month. Yeah, see, I'm not much of a gambler, which hurts me and helps me in this space. Yeah. Right. But yeah, at some point I'm going to have to burn that thing. Yeah. Has he said, I don't know if he said this or not. Maybe he has. But if you're like the last one, I don't think he would force you to burn, right? No. And I don't know that there's any advantage to being the last one either. Right? No, I don't think so either. I think it would be. Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think so. Yeah. It's an open question. So why the hell haven't I burnt it? Obviously it's your decision or whatever. I do like the fact that I just turned the interview around on you there. Yeah, that is a good question. Yeah. I don't think it is a benefit to be the last one. I mean, I think you could say there might be some speculation that it would go up in value so it would be worth more. But the reality is I'm not going to sell it. Right? Yeah, exactly. And the other reality is too. This is where I. So you wouldn't. So from my understanding is that when you are going to burn, you are able to make suggestions or give preferences on certain colors that may be taken into consideration or not. We don't know if all five have been drawn and it is what it is at this point. So this is all speculation. But it would be my understanding if you were inclined to a certain color and preferences are taking into consideration, then sooner would be better. Because if you're the last one you got the last color doesn't matter. Assuming that he has x number of colors and that they're already been made. Correct. Yeah. Good. I don't know if that's true. I don't know either. Yeah, I think I remember him saying that he hadn't actually drawn them all. But I mean, I'm assuming he just drew Johann's or maybe he had it kind of almost bunned up. Like ready to go. Maybe just added like that new halo attribute. Yeah, I'm guessing, obviously. I don't know, but. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I would definitely push for like a black and white one. That'd be cool. That would be my thing. I'm sure that would be like. It doesn't exist, so. You're crazy. Yeah, I don't know, actually. But that's kind of my theory. My theory would be like if there was even. I think there's like, what, eight colors? What's defi like? Eight? Yeah. Defi is eight colors. Right. So let's say those are the eight colors potentially available to you as an icon ticket holder. Obviously five is less than eight. So we're already limited. There could be duplicates within that. Yeah. I don't know. I think that's what would drive me to burn. Because if I had even a smidge of possible influence, or even saying, like, getting a preference, if I was like, okay, I want an orange one, then I would take it. It's interesting. I might go with, and I know lucratte, and I'm lucky to have him as a friend. And so for me, I might just say, I trust you. You know the kind of stuff. If you. I think you did confirm, too. If you own the ticket, you can claim the lawn pieces, right? I don't know. I think so. I think so. Right. I feel like that. I'm not positive, though. I feel like I remember someone asking that and then. Yeah, I think I remember that. Doesn't Daelic also have an icon? Yeah, he either has one or he did a collab. Yeah, I think he did a collab one, if I'm remembering correctly. Yes, that is correct. Yeah. I wonder who owns that. You ever tried making a move of that one? I have thought about it, yes, I almost did a while ago, and then I got the pack. Let me look. I can't remember what number it is. Number 29. 29. Sid fishes sold for 2.69. Yeah, that's a steal. That really is. That's a steal because the person that bought it beforehand bought it for more. That's a steal. Just. Period. Yeah. Now that I know that that's what it went for, I should have. Sorry, man. It happens. Yeah, no, thanks for nothing. You like daylic, so I figured that would be, like the holy matrimony right there. Yeah, no, thanks for that. Let's see. Kind of wrap up. Yeah. Do you have anything else you want to talk about? I have one more question, but I wanted to open it up to you since you like flipping the script on me. No, I think we covered some solid territory. Awesome. What should the Zealey word be for this episode? Pareidolia. Pareidolia. You're going to have to spell that for me. Yeah, I'd have to know how to spell it. That's where you see faces and things. Okay. It's P-A-R-E-I-D-O-L-I-A. All right. So the Zealey word will be pareidolia for those that have made it this far. Boom. There you go. Yeah. So the last one. And you don't have to answer this, by the way, but a young foo was asking what is the best means to getting a pumpkin out of your ass if it's stuck. Well, there's two different approaches. You could do the from above approach or you could do the from below approach. What's the from above approach? From above? You really want to create enough pressure pushing down. Oh, that sounds painful. Yeah. I'm not saying that. I mean, neither way is going to be good. Right. And so you can either do that with solid, liquid or gas. Okay. And so you just have to decide what approach you want to take and what you eat to do that. So that's the above. And the below. The below introduces some questions. Is this a whole pumpkin without any holes in it? Yes. Let's say for the sake of this conversation, yes. Because that's important. Because what you want to do is I think you're going to want to put holes in said pumpkin and potentially have it collapsed. Okay. And then the parts that stay in there, push it out afterwards. Yeah, that's the above approach or the forceps approach. Got it. Okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Actually, I was curious about this because you posted that on your discord server, which I will link on here. Oh, I must have missed that. You did respond, but not with this level of detail. And I was like, I need to know more. Yeah, I should say, I think it's important to mention that this is not the voice of experience. Yeah. And definitely no one should be sticking anything up there. Yeah, please don't. Yeah. If there's non financial advice, this is non life advice. Don't do this. Yeah. There's no orifice advice in this. No. Got you. Speaking of, though, what is actually the weirdest thing that you've encountered at your job? Oh, man, that is a very long list. I'll take the top two in the last five years. Well, let me give you a couple that come to mind. There's a guy who came in complaining of headaches and had shoved a pen up his nose. And you could invincibly see the pen when he came in. Correct. You could see just the end of it. One of the nurses saw the end of it. Yeah. I wonder why you had a headache. Yeah, exactly. It wasn't something I thought of as typically as a cause of headache before that. Yeah. I'll tell you some more from the same guy. And he also was stapling his scrotum. What? Yes. Interesting. Yeah. Just like a kink thing on both situations. Recommend against doing that. Oh, 100%. Yeah. Staples. Now my other question is, there's levels to staples. Yeah. This is more like a desk papal. Okay. Don't get me wrong, any staple on the skirt, that's a nuggo for me. We can quote you on that. Yeah, you quote me on that, I will put that as the tagline for this episode. Yeah, that's nuts, dude. All right, Staples has grid them. Okay. As you said, that is nuts. Literally. Yes. There's your dad joke right there. I know, but that's not really appropriate just yet. No, hopefully not for some time. Yeah, not for some time. Yeah, exactly. Oh, man, that's interesting. Got any other gnarly ones? Plenty. Maybe for another day. Yeah, no worries. Well, thanks again for doing this, man. Pleasure. Always great to talk to you and enjoy your discord. Your website, your YouTube, your podcast, the newsletter, the whole bit. Yeah, man, somehow I'm running. I don't even know how I'm doing all that, to be honest. I think I have to stop at some point. Well, you're putting out great content, interesting stuff, and are the king of all media. I appreciate it, man. Thanks again. Absolutely. You got it. Take care. If you're hearing this message, you've listened to the entire episode and from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for that. I hope you enjoyed this new episode. And if you did, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Please share this episode with whoever you think might find these interviews interesting. I will also be launching shithead history of arts major, where I dive deep into previous famous artists and contributors to the arts and entertainment. If you'd like to see any specific person covered in future episodes, let me know in the comments or on my social media. See you next time.