Dalek

This weeks guest is Dalek, an acclaimed artist known for his vibrant murals and beautiful work. We explore human behavior and the resistance to shifting from one platform to another, particularly in the ever-evolving web3 landscape. We'll hear Dalek's skepticism about the longevity of platforms like Ethereum and Solana and delve into the challenges of bringing an Instagram following to web3 platforms like Twitter.

Dalek shares his journey from graffiti to painting, emphasizing the manual effort previously required to pursue passions and how the ease of access today does not foster the same character development. We'll also discuss the relentless grind of making it in the art world, the impact of algorithms on social media visibility, and how web3 has opened new doors for artists. With anecdotes about his early life influenced by skateboarding and graffiti, and reflections on the current state of technology, Dalek offers a nuanced perspective on adaptation, commitment, and the essence of staying true to one's art.

Join us as we tackle the intricate interplay between tradition and innovation, the importance of hands-on effort, and the future of artistic expression in a rapidly changing digital world.

00:00 Exploring the relationship between humanity and technology.
08:27 Technology's impact on humanity through the ages.
13:33 Shift from traditional work to new methods.
21:40 Balancing art creation with keeping up online.
22:42 Exploring engagement with social media platforms.
32:10 Americans love underdog stories; apps should reflect.
35:45 Embracing web three for artistic growth and community.
43:02 Photography often misunderstood compared to other art forms.
44:27 Art reflects honesty, passion, and genuine connection.
53:04 Influenced by Japanese cartoon culture, found inspiration.
59:54 Focus on concept, execution varies among individuals.
01:06:32 Life's small decisions can have huge impact.
01:10:46 Grinding for success in a saturated world.
01:16:35 Persistence and effort are essential for success.
01:22:21 Customize feed, filter out unwanted content effectively.
01:24:56 Weekends off, new metrics, adapting quickly.
01:33:58 What's counterculture now? Leave a review.

Music & Sounds By: Lakey Inspired
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Transcript

0:00

And there'll be something else, you know, but the point is, is that's really been on display since I got into web three is everybody's just chasing like, you know, like my kids played soccer when they were young, right? You know that when they're like five, six, and they all just follow the ball. They all just go in a little pile and they follow the ball and they basically just kick it. No one scores goals. No one knows how to spread out or pass the ball. It's getting a little. That's web three. That's web three in a fucking nutshell, man. GMGM welcome back to another episode of behind the Screen with Maho, the podcast where we unravel stories, insights and secrets from top tier artists, avid collectors, innovative builders shaping the digital frontier that are known as web three. I'm your host, Gramaho, an avid crypto enthusiast that's been in the space since 2012, joined the NFT space in 2021. This week's episode is with Daelich. Dalek's been artists for many years or stage. He's a father. He was a military brat. He worked under Murakami for a bit, lived in Japan and Hawaii. We get to talk a lot about street culture, how you got started, and some of the struggles of what it's like working in web three to sit back and enjoy. And it's a good pleasure for me to. I finally did some research and it's going to be great to chat with you, man. I think it's highly requested episode by a lot of people in, in my subscriber base at least. So. No, it's cool, man. I love doing that. Yeah. And I got a couple questions from them as well. Nice. That's always fun. Yeah. So I wanted to start off with, you know, we'll start kind of with like a small intro again, dox yourself as much as. As you feel comfortable, but, you know, who is daylight, I guess, is where we can start off. Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm me, right? So James Marshall, that's my real name, you know, daily comes from Doctor who. So when I was growing up, I was watching Doctor who quite a bit. But, you know, back then you had four tv channels, so we had three networks, you had PBS and PBS aired all that old british stuff. And I loved watching Doctor who. So when I got into doing graffiti years later and was trying to find a name and something that kind of represented, you know, my feelings towards a lot of stuff, I was like, this is perfect. So I adopted it, you know, it's uh, you know, the Daleks, or the Daleks are kind of these, you know, trash can robots hell bent on wiping out humanity. And forever I've had this. This is where space monkey comes from too, right? The idea of button pushing, you know, this Pavlovian teach a creature to respond to a response, and it all goes back to humanity's relationship with technology, man. And how as we get more technologically advanced, we become dumber as a species and you get reduced to button pushers. And so it's been an ongoing thing. And because most people don't comprehend the full use of technologies they're using, you know, we end up in the position we're in now, right? So that's, that's where, you know, the Daleks have this, this weird relationship with, you know, technology and humanity, and that's, that's really kind of been a main focal point in my life. Oh, I love that, actually. I love the, that background. Yeah, it's funny because that was one of the questions, actually. I think it was from, for Mac minels. He was kind of like, is it related to Doctor who? So sounds like the answer is yes. And then it's gone deeper. Was it as deep when you initially chose that name? Like, did you think about kind of all that or. Yeah, yeah, unfortunately, man. Like, I had those kind of thoughts, like, super early on in life, you know, and I think it's an interesting thing, but if you, if you look at comic book culture and you look, a lot of stuff that, you know, came out that was basically the product of, of post World War Two, the atomic age, right? So the atomic age in the birth of the computer age, which in the fifties and sixties, and you start to have this new relationship between humanity and technology, right? Which is really a 20th century evolution, right? You have agricultural mechanical stuff like that, but you didn't really get into full blown technology until, you know, 120, 30 years ago, right? And so the evolution of it, how quickly it evolves and how it gets used, adapted, adopted, you know, man, it's an interesting thing. So comic book culture, science, you know, science fiction movies, right? Things like Doctor who, you know, but a lot of stuff from the fifties, sixties, seventies all deal with it, right? You know, it's like exposure to radiation. You become this monster or the superhero or, you know, Terminator, right? All the supercomputer people still laugh about Skynet, right? It's like, well, Skynet could be a thing at this point. Like it's realistic for it to happen. So if you, you know, that's all. It's just as ongoing. Let me just modify that again. My. My son has an appointment today, and they moved it. I'm on my laptop, so that's. If I get a ping. Do you hear those pings or. No, I hear them. Yeah. But no worries. Okay. I could. I could edit. I could try and edit them out, too. So you're good? No, you know, man. I mean, no, it's. It's real life. Real life pings. Yeah, yeah. I don't have. Especially after a long. After a long weekend. Yeah, man. No, I don't have a proper studio set up, so. You're good, man. Anyway, I do like that, though. Like, you know, I think it is kind of funny how people think the phenomenon of, like, the Internet, or even computers are the, you know, I would say, like, as a millennial, you know, people would think that it started kind of around our age, but really it actually got started even before that. You know, like. Like, it's obviously not to the level of what it is now, but, like, the Internet existed before the nineties. It was mostly used in, like, schools and stuff. Well, and look, IBM was developing stuff in the fifties and sixties that no one knows about, right? Like, you know, my dad was in the military, so I grew up around that kind of stuff. And, you know, they had all those big crazy computers on the wall with big spinning, you know, and the pink punch cards and, you know. But back to even what I was saying, like, if you look at the simple fact that, you know, we got our first cable box when I was 15, right? So that would have been like, 1983. You know, you. Cable started to come around in like, 81, 82. But, you know, man, it wasn't readily available. You know, we had Atari 2600, right? Like, in the same timeframe. So you're not. You're talking about 40 years. And if you look at where things have gone in 40 years, man, that's pretty dramatic, right? And you understand that technology evolves exponentially. What took 40 years will take ten, right? If not five. So, you know, you have so much more. I mean, look, first iPhone was 2000, what, nine, right? So that technology has something like that. Yes. That technology is 15 years old, right? Bitcoin is 15 years old. Like, none of this stuff is all. So if you. If you really look at the grand scope of things, like the hundreds and, you know, thousands of years that came before, right, how humanity evolved from, like, you know, ancient civilizations, Egypt, Greece, all this up to, you know, the 20th century, and then the advancements from that point on, you know, you can see, you know, and you see how technology affects people, you know, and is used to manipulate people. Right. Like, that's a big piece, too. And I think that's where things become problematic, is people don't understand the full scope of how to use technology. So scammers and people who do know how to use it take advantage of people. There's a number of things. So I think it's, what's the problematically is technologies advance too quick, and people give up too much of their own privacy and personal stuff to technology, and you end up getting caught up in that system. And you do, you get reduced to pushing buttons sometimes, you know, just train to get your online rewards. I mean, we all do it. I do it. Even though, you know, you still do it. Yeah, no, and it's, it's coming to bite us a little bit in the ass, I'd say, too. You know, like, especially with AI, like the gen AI right now. You know, it's like a wild race to it, but, like, there's like, essentially, like, it's like a black box. Like, people don't know how algorithms work. Like, it even happens in something like Barcaster, you know, like where we have, well, they got rid of, like, the priority feed or, you know, like the priority notifications or whatever. But, you know, like, when we don't understand something, you know, like, we kind of just, we, a machine is telling us, like, what to read or digest or listen to, you know? So, yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting. Right. And so, yeah, you can try your best to understand it. Like, we've gone through this whole thing with district one this week, and I don't know what you know about district one. It's on blast, and it's a, it's like a social fi thing. And, and again, some point, someone will get social fi. Right. I really don't think anyone's done it yet. Farcaster seems to have a good handle on it. You know, maybe it's got longevity, but. So it's basically just like a feed. It's like a discord feed, right? Except you don't have channels. You don't have everything. And what you do is people buy shares in rooms and they're chatting, and you, the host of the room, can hand out gems. And all this is for farming. Blast gold. Right. Well, and so they, you can get a room, and you have to have so many votes to get your room active, then your room's active, and then people have to vote to keep. Keep it active. But they moved us basically to an elimination section. But they don't tell you, like, how to get out of it, what you're doing wrong, what you're doing right. There's no guidance, so you're just kind of blindly trying to figure it out, you know, and people are losing their shit because they're like, oh, what's going on? I'm just like. I'm like, come on, man. Like, just, you gotta have fun with this, right? I'm like, nobody's given us any guidance, so just. Just go with the punches, man. But I'm like, this thing didn't exist two months ago. It probably won't exist six months from now. And there'll be something else, you know? But the point is, is that's really been on display since I got into web three, is everybody's just chasing. Like, you know, like, my kids played soccer when they were young, right? You know that when they're, like, five, six and they all just follow the ball, they all just go in a little pile. Yeah, all the ball, and they basically just kick it. No one scores goals. No one knows how to spread out or pass the ball. He's getting a little. That's web three. That's web three in a fucking nutshell, man. It's just a bunch of people running around. Oh, shit, it's over here now. Oh, fuck, it's over here. Like, let me. Oh, I'm gonna go click. And that's all they do is they run from coin to coin or this to that, chasing, fucking, you know, their free pennies. And. And again, man, I'm not taking myself out of that equation. I do it, too. But I'm saying, like, it's funny when you sit back and you think about what it really is, right? And you look at the behaviors that are going on, and you're like, all right, man, this is my life now. I get up every day and I log in. I fucking chase, chase the ball, right? Trying to get the carrot. Oh, my God, that. That's such a solid, like, illustration in my head right now. Like, it's sticky because it's so true. Like, you know, we will move from, like, friend tech to Maga to ets. Like, we're just chasing, you know, like, we went from Djen to now Fomo and then, you know, naked. And I don't even know, like, we're just chasing. Well, but it's interesting, right? Because part of the thing that's interesting about it, like, you know, besides making fun of it is, you know, the paradigm shifted, right? Where clearly people can't, you can't work a 40 hours work week and pay your bills, right? People are drowning credit card debt, you know, wages can't keep up, housing's out of control. So, you know, man, you look at things whether it's like, you know, you get, you know, play, you know, playing games to earn tokens or chasing things on sites, but it's like you have to find other ways to make money and engage, right? And it's just not plausible. The old models don't work anymore. The thing with the new models is they're just not developed enough yet. I think this is the first time, in my opinion, it's the first time in human history where we're thrown into things where they're basically on testnet. Like, everybody's develop, like, warpcast is being developed in real time, right, with us on it. So, you know, and that's part of why you're being rewarded, right? So it's an interesting place to be, and it's a great place to educate yourself and learn and, of course, engage, meet people, do all this. But, you know, it becomes exhausted, right? Where it's like, you know, you just, you, I got to spend half my day on 20 different sites just replying, posting. You know, it's like, well, I got to paint and draw, right? But it's like if you don't stay on top of it, you get punished, right? That's the other thing that I don't like, is you have to maintain it constantly or you, you start to vanish, you know, so there's things that need to be worked on, improved upon, built on. You know, I don't. Warpcast feels like it's probably a good alternative to Twitter. Twitter's fucked up, and Elon Musk is up his own ass way too much, man. You know, man, these, these megalomaniac billionaires are just, it's just weird how insecure they all are, right? They're all so desperate for attention, and I don't know if any of them really know how to run businesses. It was pretty fascinating. But, you know, the thing is, you can't. People are resistant to change, too, right? It's a funny paradox, man. It's really, psychologists could have a field day where human behavior, attention spans, but people are resistant to move from one platform to another, right? It's like, oh, I got to start over. I got to do this, I got to do that. Where it seems to me like the whole premise of web three is, you know, fuck around and find out, right? Just jump into stuff, try things out, see what works, see what doesn't. See what personally is a good fit for you, what isn't, but being beholden and sticking to one platform or one idea. Look, Ethereum is great, Solana is great, but there's nothing that says those companies can't go by the wayside and be the next AOL in Earthlink, right? Like, people get too caught up and, like, bitcoin's different because it's just a different beast. But, you know, all these other things, they're just, they're just companies, you know, and someone else can come along and do it better and squash it and what seems like it's gonna be the greatest thing in the world could be. I mean, when AOL came out, everybody was loving it, right? It was great. Oh, my God. AOL chat rooms were the way. Now, now it's just a good. Right? Yahoo. Earth. Yeah, hotmail. Like, all these things that were parts of that aspect, you know, they're just, they're gone. You know, they just couldn't, I mean. Hey, Earthlink is still kicking. My mother in law has an Earthlink subscription. There's, there's. Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. No, no, go ahead. Say the only thing with Earthlink was I had a free earthlink forever. And then one day they basically told me I had to start paying seven, you know, bucks a month or they wouldn't let me have access to my email. So I just let the email go. Right? I was like, I'm paying $7 a month for email. So I'm shocked. There's still a business, but probably not much of one. Yeah, I think it's just people, it's hard to move, you know, like, you get used to it, so. But that's like, the beauty of email, though, is you could port it over to, you know, to Gmail or something else pretty quickly. Well, that's why I didn't try to bring my instagram following to Twitter when I got into web three stuff, because, hey, I just wanted to build it from the ground up. But the few people I mentioned it to, they about came unglued. You know, they're like, oh, I don't understand Twitter. Like, what? I don't. This web three stuff's weird. That's hilarious. Strategic right there. Yeah, man. But it's, you start to realize, you know, people get comfortable. I know. You know, because, you know, when I grew up, like, if you were into a band and that band became popular. Like, all of a sudden, everybody would hate them. Like, how dare they? How dare they go and get a bigger audience? Like, so it's, it's. Again, man, human behavior is interesting. People get really caught up in things being a particular way and don't want to move and change. But then inevitably, they're always playing catch up because nothing's going away. It's just, I watched a great documentary about the stock market is interviewing all these dudes in the eighties, and they were making fun of computers and how computers are going to go away and they're just a passing fad and how real stock market traders are on the floor, like, grinding. It's like, yeah, man, is this, you know, and these guys are in their, like, thirties at the time, so it's like, they're clearly still here. But it's a thing, man, is people don't want to understand. Like, things are going to change and they're going to keep changing faster and faster and faster. So again, man, it's what, what you're using today, like, opensea, like, right? They had a first mover advantage. Everybody was there. They're just dead in the water at this point. And it's an old model and it won't work, you know, and people will build better models that are, that are more efficient. And so that's just. But that's part of it, you know? And I think that's the interesting part, is, you know, now we're in a space where things are going to evolve to meet needs way quicker than they ever did. But you need to understand. Yeah, true. Yeah. I wanted to hone in on something that you said a couple minutes ago, which was, you know, I I've. I've listened to ack or Alpha Centauri could talk about this before, and you brought it up a little bit, too. Where. And I think even Mendez. Mendez recently had this issue as well. But, like, you know, the juggling of, like, you need to make time to create art, you know? Cause that's what you're doing. You know, you're an artist. You want to create art, you want to make art. But you also can't disappear for, like, a week straight while you're making art, or else you get penalized by kind of, like, the algorithm. So, you know, and then on top of that, there's, like, a new app, like, spinning up or popping up every, you know, every day, and kind of what you were saying, like, district one. I'm not too familiar with the blast realm, but, like, you know, it could disappear in six months. Even, you know, warpcast or farcaster could even disappear as well. But, like, how do you, and I mostly want to ask you this because I know that you, you're, you're older, so you've seen a lot more, obviously. But I, how do you kind of, like, when do you know, you know, I should try this out. Jump in and spend some time here or, you know, kind of let something continue, you know, maybe not being first, but letting something kind of develop or mature a little bit. And then you're like, and you're like, okay, fine, I'll jump in now. Like, when it's, when it makes sense, like, how do you kind of juggle all that plus trying to create art? Yeah, I just look at, you know, for me, it's like, can I use this? Right? Like, is this a viable vehicle for me to engage? Right. So with warpcast, for instance, you know, a couple of people told me to get on it. This is before the dgen stuff, right? And I got on it and I posted and, you know, I was like, okay, I get the channels thing, but I'm like, I don't want to just, it's always been a problem, right? Like, I'm not going to go on Twitter and be like, come follow me on warpcast, right? Like, it's annoying to just keep hounding people to do, you know, I got to jump through more hoops to engage with you, right? So I left it, I didn't really see it. Like, you know, no one was using it. And then, you know, Apollo Doge came back, this is probably a couple months later and was talking to me about it and Ezra Eslin, which I'm assuming I'm pronouncing her name correctly. But, you know, they were, they were the whole dgen thing. And I'm like, okay, now what's going on over there? And I was like, all right, well, this makes it interesting, right? Because now you're, everybody's engaging because you're basically being paid to engage, right? So everybody's just throwing djen around and everybody's having a blast, you know, and so I got in. What was that? Right, April, you know, and then of course, this last month when they cut allowances, like, it was funny to see everybody kind of pare back, you know, man. And I like things that are fun. I like, I like high energy shit. I don't like people getting too serious, you know? And I think it's hard to get people to engage, like really engage, because I think, again, everybody spreads so thin. Even if you're following people, you got to engage with 100 different people every day. That's a lot, you know, and people have jobs and other things they got to do, you know? So I try to just filter out what has real staying power. Like, I tried friend tech and immediately was like, this is stupid. You know, it reminded me of that. What was that dumb bitcoin one that started before the. The bull run? What was that stupid thing? God damn. I can't remember the name of it. It was on. It was like, you not use bitcoin, but anyways. Like ordinals. No, it was. It was a. It was basically friend tech before friend Tech. But I remember some dudes. Oh, interesting. Some dudes on Instagram were telling me about it and, like, but this is back during the bull run. But it was like, you basically, same premise. People bought shares. The more interaction you got, the more, you know, your shares were worth, the more people bought. But again, man, you just. That is always going to set up people dumping on other people, right? So you get people who buy shares the beginning, and then other people come in and people dump on them, and so you get penalized unless you're, like, the first, you know, ten people in, and the first ten people in are always bots. Always. And they immediately turn around and dump on people. So friend tech was the same way, man. I saw everyone run in, buy shares, and then by the time I saw real people, they were getting dumped on. And I'm like, nobody wants to chat in here. This is stupid. Like, you're better off chatting in discord or somewhere else. Like, why pay to chat with somebody you wouldn't, right? Like, you're only doing it because you're hoping your share value goes up. And that's the same premise in district one, is buy a share. Hopefully your share value goes up so you can sell it, but inevitably, you dump on somebody else, and then that person's bitching that they got dumped on. So, you know, when you have these types of systems, man, it's not. You're not cultivating a community, right? You just fucking creating this nonsense like that. Alpha friends is the same shit. Like, I was like, this is just another one of these bad ideas where people stake, you know, money, buy shares, subscribe, and yeah, they get a percent back, but it's a fraction of what they're spending. And then they're. So they're gonna lose money for no reason, man. But the way it's gamified, it makes it like, oh, I'm winning. But it's Vegas style winning, man, you're gonna win $1 for every $100 you spend. So. And again, man, if people know what they're doing and they want to do that, they're right. But I think at a certain point, man, when you chase all this stuff and don't understand, like, you know, or you're farming, you know, blast has a lot of stuff where you farm stuff, but it's like you got to spend money to get the gold. So I'm like, ultimately, you're going to probably end up losing money like blur farming. A lot of people lost a ton of money, right? So you're just spending money to kill time, which seems like an odd thing, right? But I think in the long run, very few people actually end up on the upside of any kind of farming when you consider the amount of time and energy you have to put into it. So, you know, man, it's still, it's not an ideal system. It'll be interesting to see how it evolves. And at any point, something really does favor, you know, people like, I like the hyper sub idea. I think that's been a good one because it's a subscription model, right? You're buying a subscription, you're going to get drops. There's no dumping on top of anybody. There is ways to earn back, you know, and you can do referral urns which you don't have to put any money into. You just got to put time. So at least to me, that feels like you know what you're buying, right? You're buying into getting some art. You know, there's other options for you to, you know, potentially earn some of your money back and get free art, but, you know, you're not just throwing it down the drain hoping to get a token that's like, you know, like a hyper sub token. I'm going to spend $50 a month and get a hyper sub token that might be worth $10, right. So I think that's the stuff there. That's, you know, as time evolves and you can really create a model where everybody can benefit, you know, I think that's, that's really the sweet spot, man. You really got to lift everybody up. You can't. This just dumping on people or. Some people win, some people lose. You know, unfortunately, it always is going to favor the same group of people, right. You know, I saw this whole shit with Degen and apparently all these b, which apparently they've addressed for June, but, you know, with all these bot accounts just creating new bot accounts and then liking each other shit to get up allowances and then just giving the allowances to each other. So you just have someone make like 10,000 new accounts and just collect fuck tons of Degen and take it away from people who are really hustling. So you're always going to have that kind of corruption in the system until you can find a system that doesn't reward, you know, that type of behavior or allow that type of stuff in. Right? So, you know, I mean, that's what happened with that fantasy top, too. Like, people are boughting Twitter accounts to drive their scores up and so they could flip cards and move people in ranks to win competitions. It's like, so they had to go through and redo the whole thing to change the algorithms to take all that bonding out. But you can't really take it out. It just finds another way in. Yeah, that's exactly it. Someone will, they'll always be some kind of, like you said, it's like kids, though, they'll chase the next ball or they'll figure it out. You know, they'll find a way to. Someone will find real solutions at some point to do something. Right. So again, it's things like Twitter where you have to have 5 million impressions to be able to share revenue. Share. Like, I mean, you're favoring very particular people as opposed to giving people opportunities that are there building. And, you know, just because you can't get 5 million impressions, which is a stupid amount. Right. It doesn't mean you're not hustling, you know, which is why I like warpcast and the whole djen thing. Because if you're hustling, you know, you, you can, you can earn and share. And I think ultimately that's, that's what you need, is something that favors everybody for working hard versus just having a large account or a whale that can afford to buy the most of something, right, where it's all top heavy, you know, that's the problem with society in general, right? Society in general is too top heavy and there's not enough opportunities for other people to get in the game. So you need something a little more balanced, man. Which is funny because, like, at least in american culture, we love underdog stories. We love, we love people that hustle and stuff like that. But then our, our apps aren't built like that. And I think that's kind of why I ended up. I'm glad to hear you say that because I think that's kind of what attracted me to farcaster specifically, is that on Twitter, I don't have a huge following, and I couldn't even participate on, not necessarily revenue sharing, but I think they have a subscription, too, where someone could subscribe to your tweets or whatever. And I was like, well, everyone should have access to that because, you know, if I only have one person that wants to pay me on that, like, I have one person, that's fine. You know, I don't need, you know, a thousand, and I don't need a thousand impressions. I just need one person to, like, believe in me, and that will be, like, the nudge to, you know, maybe keep creating content or whatever. And so with Farcaster, you know, I didn't have a big account either, but I created a hyper, like you, I created a hyper sub. I was like, it's a very clear model to me. It's like, you know, for the people that believe in me, no matter how big or small I am, you know, they're there and they exist, I guess, and they support me, and it doesn't matter, you know, that my account only had, like, 100 people following me or whatever, you know, so, like, I don't know, like, it. If you're hustling, like, it seems like we should be allowed, we should be allowed to participate or partake into whatever the model is, and it shouldn't be like, oh, you need 5 million, you know, impressions or whatever. Like, I don't know, just seemed, I. Mean, that's the whole premise, right? I mean, it's this meritocracy, right? This idea of, you know, social media should allow platforms for everybody to, to be seen, right? And that's fine. You know, like, when I got on Instagram originally, you know, Instagram was still a straight feed, right? Like, in real time. It was just like, whatever time people you followed posted stuff. That's how it showed up in your feed. There were no algorithms, right? It was just, these are the people I follow. I'm going to see their stuff and a story. So if I had 500 followers, you know, man, I'd probably get 300 likes. So if you look at, you know, like, now on Instagram, you. You might get 5%, maybe less. Like, people just can't see stuff because the algorithms have destroyed it. And you got to look at stupid celebrities and fucking people making dumb cooking videos and shit like that. Like, it's, you know, that's fine. That stuff has its place, but I just have no interest in it, you know? But it's the same reason why TikTok's so big, right? It's just like all this mindless nonsense and weird, you know, people are just looking for these sorts of things, but the algorithms, everyone builds to the algorithm. No one's, you know, it's too hard for. For a normal artist, it's like, so what? I gotta, you know, put on a clown outfit and fucking juggle balls for you now to get some likes, you know, at a certain point, you know, it's like, look, man, I'm going to make art and I'm going to do my best to hustle, but, you know, I mean, you can't, you can't fight against these monolithic type accounts, right? Like, I don't. I can't compete with fucking dancing cats. Like, it's just not going to happen. So, you know, at a certain point, you're right. And back to your point is, yeah, man, you're there for the people who do believe in you, right? It doesn't matter if it's ten people, 20 people, you know, man, those people that are there who show up every day, whether it's discord or whether it's a subscription service or just show up to, say, gm, like, that's what you're there for, you know, and you can only hope to build over time through work, you know, and that's it. You just, you keep hustling, you know? And for me, web three was a way to, you know, expand my art, right? I mean, I was able to, you know, do animations and more detailed digital files and things that I wouldn't have been able to do without it. So it was a great vehicle for me to become a better artist. You know, it was a good vehicle to meet people who were from a completely different background, right? Like, I don't. I drew with pens, pencils, paints. You know, you get a lot of people that, you know, strictly work on iPads or computer programs or people who understand how to build stuff. I don't. So I've tried to, again, educate myself, learn the space, you know, and bring something constructive to it, you know, as a means to. To push my artwork. But, you know, that's, that's really the focus is. Is to keep pushing what I'm doing artistically, right? And I think there's a lot of really interesting, talented people in the web three space. And because it's as big as it is and it's global, man, your exposure to art you wouldn't have seen otherwise, I think is massive. I know. I wouldn't have seen it on Instagram. So, you know, seen on Twitter, and now farcaster. You know, it's been cool to continue to see stuff I just wouldn't have otherwise. Aside from cooking videos and cats. Yeah, cat videos and cooking videos. Hard to beat with those. Hey, man. Or fucking picture of a mountaintop. That's another thing I can't get enough of. I need more mountain photos in my life. Yeah, yeah. As a. I used to do a lot of photography and Instagram as well, and I talked about this with other people, but, like, it's so annoying. Like the. The photography community and Instagram, because it's all. It's like you said, it's like the same thing. It's like mountain tops or the one river, like the one lake that's on a mountaintop or golden hour. So a ton of golden hour shots or blue hour or neon lights, and I'm like, dude, come on. Like, I laughed at the. The one that, like, had me cracking up for the longest time was gas stations. So, like, gas stations at night was like a thing. Oh, and then drifter. Yeah, and then drifter shoots a while back. I forgot when this was. This is like a year or two ago, he dropped his gas station when. And I was just. I was dying hysterically when I saw it because I was like, oh, my God, like, here we go, Instagram land. So, like, everybody started posting their gas station shots. Dude. I was like, that's funny, man. Yeah, like that dude, man. First of all, that dude's crazy. Like, how he climbed. Yeah, you know, that stuff's nuts, man. I remember the first time seeing his photos just being like, holy shit. You couldn't pay me to get on top of a two story house, you know, much less climb up in those places, man. So, you know, I give, I give. Dudes, I haven't seen his gas station photo, so I'm not going to go looking for him. But I'll give that dude hardcore props for. For literally taking it to the next level. Yeah, no, his stuff is, is. It's nutty, man. But, you know, he did a shot recently that I. That I was in love with the. The Salesforce building. He was at top of the Salesforce building here in San Francisco, which is nuts. Yeah, man. But I think it's hard, right? Like, you know, like, you know, guido and like, dark mark and those guys, like, I love their work. You know, there's a lot of, I think, photographers in the space, you know, there's no appreciation for photography, man. And I don't think there's one thing with photography that's interesting to me. Because it's a similar medium is. I don't think people view it the same way they view art. Right. I think they lump it all into one thing. And so I don't think people really discern what makes a great photo versus just an average photo. Right. And just because you photograph something doesn't make it a good photo, you know? But it's. That's it. It's just. It's an odd thing, man. So, you know, I just. I love photography. You know, I hope to see more of it. That's not generic, but. Yeah, man, you get a lot of generic photography, man. It's. It's a bummer. Yeah. And it takes away from. From the stuff. I don't know if it takes away, but I feel like it dilutes because of maybe the way people perceive it, you know? But it's like, if you look at. What's her name? Cath Samard. Right. Yeah. You know, like her. Stuff like that. You know, man, again, you're gonna go live out like that and get those kind of photos. Like, that's. That's a different thing. Right? Like, you know, you're not pulling up to a scenic overlook and. And snapping some shots. But, you know, I think when you see the passion, I think that's what you get from good photography management. You can really feel the passion of the person, you know, that's behind it. Right. And so I think when you get that passion, you get a really unique point of view. And when you get a unique point of view, I think you get a good photograph. And so, you know, you can tell who's really got skills and who doesn't. But it's got photographers in the space. I agree with you because I thought we would have seen it by now. Like, I keep waiting for kind of photography for people to kind of start appreciating it, and I always laugh because, like, the common thing that people say is, like, well, you know, I have an iPhone, and it could take, you know, this shot or whatever, and I'm like, but you also have colored pencils that you can go by or, like, I don't know, a sharpie or, you know, spray can, and you don't say the same thing, but I don't know. I get it. But, like, yeah, it hasn't taken off. Yeah. Like, again, man, it's. I think that's the thing, right? Is it's. It's hard for people who really. It's. It's just the way it's perceived, man. I just really think that's it. It's. I think people look at all photography through the same lens where that's just not how you look at other art, right. Is that you don't look at painting or illustration or photo, you know, sculpture. Anything else is being the same. But I think people just throw a blanket over all the photography and just assume because they can, you know, shoot something. Like, I could shoot photos of people all day long and gas stations, you know, but it's like, you know, what's the point? You know, that's there's, you know, but that's what I'm saying is, like, anybody can take a photo, right? Not anybody can. Can make a painting or a drawing or an illustration or sculpture or, you know, anything else. So I think that's been the problem for photography is, you know, good photographers get, get lost in the mix or not appreciated perhaps, you know, as widely as they should be. I certainly don't want any photographers yelling at me for not sizing appropriately, but I'm trying to get the good ones their credit and. Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah, they deserve it. I mean, not many are going to Tanzania like calf and sleeping there and, you know, grabbing a shot. No, man, again. And that's it. I think you can sense, like, I think that's what makes any art good, you know, film, dance, anything, is that when you can feel the honesty, right, and you have a real connection with something, right. I think that you, you know, their backstories are important, you know, and it feeds into what they do. But you can see it in their work and you can see genuine work versus disingenuous work on, on any level, you know? And so I think that's it, right? There's a real passion there, you know, and it comes. It comes through in the photos, you know, like, I was taking photos of graffiti, you know, in the landscape because I was living in Chicago and I was like, you know, man, it's bleak here. This is before I got into even painting graffiti. But, you know, and I started to realize, like, the impact graffiti had on the buildings and the surroundings, right, where you have these kind of really bright, colorful galleries of art, you know, because in Chicago, most trains are elevated. And I was like, wow, man, it's really cool. So it became this thing where climbing around trying to get photos of graffiti in the landscape to show the impact of graffiti in a positive light, because I always felt like it was a really pretty thing, something that elevated the environment, not brought it down. So that was really my focus for years. And I got into painting graffiti and travel and painting graffiti and continued to photograph it and, you know, became a painter later, you know, and have tens and tens of thousands of photos that, you know, every once in a while, I post one. You know, it's a lot of. It's from the mid nineties, so. But, you know, I did that just because I love doing it, man. Like, I just remember, like, feeling super amped, like, you know, and you had to use a regular camera on your iPhones back then, you know, but it was. It was a passion thing, right? It wasn't about, you know, I'm going to take a photo and show it. I was just taking it for myself just because I wanted to capture that moment and have it, you know, and I think that's, you know, photography is a real personal thing like that, you know, just like art, man. It's. That's really where it has to start. You got to want to do it because you love doing it. You have a passion for doing it, even if you had zero audience. Let's take a quick break. I hope you're enjoying the episode. This episode was made possible with the support of my premium subscribers, Seattle Dog McMinals, Ko og Lecres, Johan Young weekend, and even that one wallet that I still don't know who it belongs to. 757958 is the ending. Thanks again for making this all possible. If you'd like to receive exclusive drops access to token gated content, make sure to subscribe to my hyper sub. I'll put the link below. Let's get back to it. I wanted to ask you a little bit about this one's kind of from Seattle dog. He wanted to know. I mean, I guess it's an overall question about how do you approach drawing some of the murals or the graffiti? Like, what is your approach to that? Do you, like, for example, the ones in Chicago? Do you pick a location first and then try and figure out what size ladder I need and then start drawing lines or how, you know, what is that process, like, of starting something like a piece in real life like that on a wall? Yeah, I mean, or wherever. Really? Yeah. Look, it varies, man. I mean, again, it's, you know, back in the days of doing illegal graffiti, there was no plan, and you just show up and paint, right? You just try to get in, paint as quick as you can and get out, right. And again, that's where, you know, tags and throw ups and things that are. That are, you know, that's where the space monkey really kind of evolved into these simple shapes was, you know, it was about, you know, something I could get up quick and get out that was iconic. Right. So you're not planning. You just. You just get in there and hose everything down, you know, fill it in, outline it and get out, you know, pieces. You know, when you're doing legal pieces or you're doing illegal stuff and chill spots where, you know, no one's going to bother you or you're doing a production or something, then, yeah, there's usually more planning, but it's usually a sketch. And then you're just kind of looking at the sketch and, you know, you just kind of scale it out, you know. And I think with murals, it's more planning, you know, because it has to be more specific, you know, to fit a space properly. You know, like if you're doing something graffiti, it's like if it ends up being 2ft taller, wider, shorter, narrower, none of that matters. Right. You know, so there's a little more freedom there to just kind of, you know, free ball. But you can't do that with a mural that has to fit a specific way in a specific space, you know, so for that, it's just a scale. You just take, you know, the walls ten by 100. So make a ten by 100 inch, you know, illustrator file, measure everything out and then just copy those measurements onto the wall at scale, you know, and then fill it in. But as you know, when that's usually what you would do with graffiti. Two, sketch it out on the wall, then you go back and fill it in. So you just try to get a sense of the whole thing before you, you know, you really commit to. To dial on it all in. Appreciate that. Have you done a lot of approved or where you had time to basically plan and do all that? Have you done a lot of that kind of work? Yeah. Like recently? Yeah, I mean, the last mural I painted was last October. You know, usually I'll do one or two mural projects a year. You know, the thing with mural projects is, man, they're, they're, they're really demanding physically. You know, it's a lot of labor, man, it's up and down ladders, scaffolding, taking things apart, moving things here, you know, so, you know, it takes a lot to do it. I don't usually have help. And you're also talking about, you know, large scale. Right. So you got to show up and work 14 hours a day for five days doing manual labor. And again, I'm not. I'm not sure, you know, so it's great for reaching, but it's horrible if I have to get to things that are lower, you know, the ground is, is not my friend. So, you know, I mean, it's, it's physically challenging, you know? And so as you get older, like, you know, fortunately, I'm in good shape, but it's still, you know, it's still not as easy as it was 20 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. I could only imagine, man. I could only imagine. I wanted to ask you a little bit about your time with Murakami because I was looking at. So he has a show right now here in San Francisco that I went to pretty recently. He has this massive wall that's just super intricate. Yes. I kind of wanted to ask you about your time with, working with him, and I'm assuming that he influenced your art, and I think I read it somewhere that he did influence your art in, in certain ways. But, like, what, what are some things that kind of have stuck with you, I guess, since working or apprenticing under him at what, like with now? Well, at this point, there's, there's nothing that kind of has stayed with me, you know? So, you know, I went to high school in Japan, right? So a dao station there. So I was there. It was like mid eighties, you know, and so, you know, and again, I was into cartoon culture. And so there's a lot of those old star blazers and speed racer and japanese, you know, stuff that was on in America before that. So, you know, the whole thing with, you know, japanese animation and then going and living there, you know, so what was interesting, I saw his show at the Boston museum in 2000, I think it was, and what I did take away from it, and it was interesting because at that time, you know, I was friends of cause, and cause was pain pretty flat as well. But I think when I saw Murakami stuff in person for the first time and saw how flat it was, I was like, this is it, because it's the idea really of, like, someone is kind of making cartoon based art, right? So it's, again, I know, you know, Lichtenstein was doing, you know, that kind of pop art stuff, and there were other people who had, who had done things in that vein. But I think because of living in Japan and having those experiences and really being influenced by cartoon and comic book art, I think Murakami's work really spoke to me on that level, you know? So going to work for him was really about learning studio practice, because I never intended to be a professional artist. So I think when I decided I was going to do it. I was like, I should probably learn how to do it, how to have a studio, how to have studio practice, how to make things. So it was a good way for me to get educated, you know, how to mix paints, how to prepare surfaces. So there's a lot in the beginning that was, that was big, you know, visually, there was no, nothing, right? Like, my character was already formed. Nothing in working with Mercury changed how I created what I was creating. It just gave me studio practice, you know, I learned how to, you know, water paints down, get things flat, get the finish I was looking for, you know, all that kind of stuff, how to get organized, you know. I think I was literally, like, using, like, you know, liquitex paints out of the tube while sitting on a couch. Like, before that, like, that's how I was making paintings, you know, I didn't have a dedicated space because I don't think I really cared, you know, because I was just making art for fun and for friends of mine. And so it was good, man. You know, he was, he was a good, encouraging person. It was cool to see a, you know, studio practice with a bunch of people working on stuff, you know, so you. Because you get thrown right in the fire. I learned a lot really quickly, which is why I didn't stay, you know, I stayed there like six months and I learned everything I needed to and then I left. Yeah. You know, and it informed how I made work. After that, I learned a lot about color, I think, from working on his pieces, you know, and that's been a thing for me over the years, is kind of teaching myself and learning how to use color better, so. But I needed that foundation, man. So that was pretty solid. Yeah, no, that's awesome. Yeah, I appreciate that. Does, does that studio work? Because, like, I, when I was at that exhibit, you know, they were saying that he uses, you know, the apprentices to kind of help him do some of these really big pieces. Like, I forgot the size of that wall, but it was ginormous. It was like twelve murals in one almost. Yeah. I guess the question is more like, how do you delegate to people? You know, like, how do you. Yeah, how does that work? Yeah, like, I'm just trying to wrap my head around that. Like, you know, like, obviously you have a vision, like you as an artist, but if you have someone helping you, like, how do you even delegate that to someone? Like, it's like, well, first, are they connected? Like, well, look, that was all paint by numbers, right? Like, he basically create the composition lay out the color palette, and then you just fill it in paint by number, style. Okay. You know, there was nothing. Nobody's making any executive decisions. It's like blue two there, green three here. You know, do this, do that. So it's just, you know, once you learn how to lay the paints down, then it's easy. So, you know, mixing the colors was. Was fun to do, you know, but you'd go through and, you know, preparing the canvases and all the technical work, but then they would just take, you know, like, almost like old. I don't know what those things are even called anymore, man. Like carbon copies. Right? Remember those? So, you know, you just lay it down, and it would just print, like, a version of the painting on the canvas, like, just an outline. And then you just fill it in. Yeah. And then they would screen print the black outlines on top of it after the fact. So those. Those outlines were all screen printed? They were. They were never painted. Um. Ah, and again, I don't know how much of his stuff is printed nowadays, versus I've seen stuff of his that I'm like, you know, maybe it's painted, but he doesn't paint anything. He's never. I don't. I've never seen that dude. Now, again, it's been years, but he just. He just directed traffic. I don't know if he came up with the compositions himself or not. That's not my place to say. But he wasn't physically doing any painting. Yeah, no, I think I appreciate that because, like, even for me, like, I. It was so hard to wrap my head around how you even delegate something creative or artistic like that to someone else. I mean, it has to be done, I assume, because, you know, you're able to do it with video photography and a bunch of other mediums, so. But thanks for breaking it down. Yeah, I guess, like, yeah, if it's literally, like, use this color here, and it's like a nice little box or whatever, then, yeah, that makes a lot more sense. A lot of planning, though. It's a lot of planning, you know? But again, you know, if your focus is the concept right, then the execution isn't what's important, you know? In other words, everybody's different. Like, I never. You can't fault do for not painting. You know, he came up with the vision and had other people execute it because that's what needed to be done. You know, for me, I don't like. I like putting my hands on stuff because, again, I like to make work for myself more so than anything else, right? So selling art, making art for a living is great, but I ultimately just, I like to make art. To make art, right. So if I took my hands off of what I did and gave it to somebody else, that wouldn't feel right to me personally. I'd be like, well, I didn't really paint that. And because I'm process driven, I learned through doing, right? So if I wasn't doing something, then I wouldn't learn from it, you know? So, for instance, like, I don't do my own animations. My buddy Diego makes them for me, and I just. I don't have the time to learn how to animate. Right. So I always make sure to give him his credit, because if I say, oh, you know, I do the animations, I'm not animating. I give him an idea, right? And then I let him animate because that's what he does. But, you know, I don't have the bandwidth to teach myself how to animate. Yeah. You know, so, you know, again, it just becomes this thing where it's, like, it's cool to do. I love seeing the outcome, but I don't ever view, like, if there's an animated work, I don't intrinsically look at it as my work. I look at it as his work. Right? Made the animation. Now, I gave him the artwork in this and the story, but ultimately he creates the finished artwork. And I'm not saying that other people can't view it differently. I'm just saying, like, for me, personally, that's how I view it. Right. Like, it's animation of work, but it's done. It's animated because of somebody else, and in that, it becomes their artwork, and that's fine. Like, I like that it's his artwork. I like that he puts his touches on it that make it more of a true collaboration than me completely just, you know, dictating one end of it. So I. And again, there's discovery in that. And I like discovery in art because I find it helps me, you know, continue to grow as an artist. Right? Yep. I'm too busy, you know, chasing online to be. Yeah. Like, I'm working hard for those DJ tips. You gotta get them tips, man. I'm kidding. So I know, I know. We got to hop off soon, so I got a couple more. When we did our intro call, you said you wanted to join the CIA, so I'm curious about that. What was the intrigue around kind of working for the CIA? I know that you were in the military and all that. I'm sure that played a part into him. But what. Why exactly? The CIA? Well, yeah, I wasn't. No, no, I know. I know. But I'm okay. I can see why it would have influence on that. Yeah. Yeah. So I grew up in a military family and, you know, obviously, again, you go back to, you know, comic cartoon culture, a lot of that stuff. I mean, James Bond movies, what have you. But, you know, I had a lot of fascination in and around DC and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, so when I came out of high school, I didn't really know what I was going to do. You know, we had moved to Hawaii right after I got a high school, so I didn't do anything for two years except go to the beach, you know, work at a surf shop. But, you know, I was trying to figure out. I was like, oh, I could do political science. I could see myself getting into politics, you know, into that whole world. Because, again, I was always fascinated by it, you know, a little more idealistic back then and not so jaded as now. But, you know, the CIA just seemed like fun. I was like, fuck it. So I had a buddy who I had gone to high school with, who went to George Washington University and was interning for somebody on Capitol Hill. And he had met somebody in the CIA or something. And he was like. He's basically like, you know, I got some connections if you need letters of reference or whatever. And, you know, this dude sent me like a bunch of books and things to read up on. And I was going to take my polisci courses. And this is what, again, is interesting with life, man, is I was totally on that track. And then, you know, I skate. I skateboarded for years. And so, you know, VCU, where I went to school in Richmond, Virginia, had a really big art program. You know, it does again now, but it was. It was big in the. In the late eighties and, you know, and that's. I was a punk and a skater and that's who I was hanging out with. And a lot of those kids were in the art program and so I started hanging out with them. And that's when I started, you know, really getting back into drawing and painting. And that's when I started getting interested in graffiti and. And all that stuff. So I think unwillingly, man, I got put on an art track, you know. And then I ended up going to Chicago to the School of Art Institute, you know. And then somehow I just kept doing art. Like, it's really bizarre. I don't think I ever really meant to be doing art this long, but clearly it's what I was intended to do, you know? So, you know, you just got to kind of answer the call, man. You got to. You got to trust sometimes where life is taking you. So, you know, I would have. I could have easily seen doing that. I probably would have had a blast. You know, I like DC. It's an interesting place, but it's probably a little too late now. Yeah, that's nuts, man. That it? Yeah, it is kind of nuts how life could be like that where couple. A couple, like, you know, small decisions or, you know, what we think are small then, you know? But in hindsight, it's like, it could have such a huge impact on you. And also, just, like, the other thing that stood out to me about that is just how influential kind of, like, skateboarding is. You know, like, for me, like, specifically, I just remember all the streetwear brands that kind of spun off from, like, you know, skateboarding. So, like, girl chocolate, like, even element. I don't even know. Like, now I think, you know, people are like, oh, those are, like, not cool anymore, I think. I'm sure there's, like, some newer skate brands that are cooler or whatever, but. Like, that's been part of that, right? The evolution of that sport. But, yeah, man, I think that, you know, skateboarding and thunk were kind of arm in arm when I got into it in the mid eighties, right? So, you know, and all this graffiti was the same. Like I knew about graffiti. I just wasn't living anywhere where, you know, I moved to Japan. The graffiti really wasn't a thing in Japan or Hawaii when I lived there. So when I came back to Virginia was, you know, when I first. But I had a buddy in high school, it was a sailor who was from the Bronx, and he would always bring back graffiti photos and stuff. And I'd be like, oh, shit. You know, because it was. It was going nuts in New York in the mid eighties. So he'd go home, he'd come back with all these photos of, you know, whole cars and all this stuff, and I'm just like, I gotta go, New York. But, I mean, I think that, you know, ultimately, man, life will take you where it's going to take you. Which is why, again, man, I just think you just kind of got to gravitate towards what makes sense and just roll with it instead of trying to force things so full circle. Back to the web three stuff. It's like, some things make sense and will work, and it'll be useful tools and others are a waste of time, you know? So you just kind of find the things that make sense to the path you want to take and lead the others by the wayside and just keep moving along, you know? Yeah, that makes sense. What do you think is our current. What is the skateboarding equivalent of nowadays, do you think? Like, punk culture? And I don't, you know, now, I guess. Nothing. We'd probably have to ask someone young. Well, that's the thing, man. Sometimes when I talk to my kids, like, I tell them stuff I'm into, and they're just like, they could care less, man. They're not into any of this weapons. They're just into, you know, who knows what they're into, man? But, no, I think that, you know, culturally, man, it's. It's not the same, right? Like, back then, culture was different. You didn't have the web. You didn't have any of these things, right? Like, so, you know, like, when I moved to Japan, like, if I wanted to order a record, I had to, like, do it through a catalog and have it sent to an FPO box in, like, Seattle and then ship from there to Japan. And, you know, you had to find them in, like, the backs of magazines. And, you know, when I got in graffiti, it was the same. You know, you'd get a graffiti magazine, and then you'd write, like, the address in the back and be like, hey, I'm coming to New York, you know, let's link up. So everything was manual, right? So you had to really hunt. Hunt for everything. Like, nothing was at your disposal, man. If I heard a new band, it's only because somebody turned me on to it or I went digging, right? So skateboarding, same way you had to go find spots. Everything was just a personal journey. So I think there was more of an attachment to everything you did because you had to work for everything. Like, you couldn't just show up to a skate park or just fucking open your computer and listen to a thousand new bands a day. Like, you had to. You had to grind for everything. But I also think that's where the work ethic comes from, right? Like, I don't mind grinding because it's fun. Like, that's the whole point of the journey, is to keep digging and finding gems, right? And those things, that part of your personal discovery become that personal growth, right? And so because it was filtered so much differently than it is now, like, now there's too much noise, and so you have to filter through so much garbage to get to what you really want to get to, right? You know, I mean, going to paint graffiti was about going out and finding the spot, right? And then going back out in the middle of the night and painting it and then going back the next day and trying to get a photo without anybody seeing you, right? So there were all these things that were physical things you went out and did, whereas again, man, nowadays, it's too much time spent on computers, you know, looking at screens. So if there is anything that's an equivalent, it's. It's. It's weak and horrible. And I feel bad for the youth of today. I know exactly what you mean, man. Like, I have an. I have an iPod that all the music is from CDs that I burned and ripped from, like, myself that I owned or, like, people that I own. Yeah. You know, and so, like, now you have Spotify, and you can listen to all those songs and anything really in the world, I guess, but that I still gravitate towards that ipod. No, man. Look, I think it's. What's important, man, is the things that define your personal journey, right? Like, that's, I think, what gives people character. Now, again, it takes certain character to just go out and hunt for stuff in the first place. Some people don't have that, you know, quality or trait. But, you know, man, because everything was manual, right? It's like going to find a skate spot, like getting chased off by, you know, like, cops or whoever, right? I mean, we went to paint places where the cops are the least of your worries, right? You know, you got to climb fences and go through sewer, you know, tunnels to get the spots. So, you know, I mean, I think. Because when you do that stuff, you have to work for it. It shows. It shows a true passion for it, right? Like, if I really wanted to go skate a spot and I gotta climb barbed wire fences and go through a sewer tunnel to get to it, I must really want to fucking skate that spot, right? Like, it's. It's not, you know, so it's the same, man, when you hunt for something, your discovery is different. Right? Now, again, I've just, like I told you, I've discovered plenty of things in web three that I wouldn't have that I find exciting, right, or interesting. So it's not completely gone. I just think that there's way more to filter through, which I think makes it more difficult, right. And I don't feel like it's. It's as special because of that. And again, that's just, you know, having experienced what I did in the past and experience experiencing what I do now, which I think is through the same lens. So it's certainly not a weird, jaded, older person point of view. You know, to be honest, man, I feel like I hustle twice as hard as people half my age anyways, man. So I don't. I don't think it comes from that perspective. I just think that there's just too much, and so it's too hard to. To filter and decipher and. Yeah, man. So we'll see where it goes. It should be interesting, but I don't. I'd be interested if someone else feels like, see, Seattle dogs my age. He knows, you know, I think a lot of Gen Xers live the same way. You know, I don't. I don't know about, you know, millennials or certainly not Zoomers, man. I don't know what my kids do. Get high and play. Yeah, we're right behind you guys. All right. I got a couple more, I think. What time do you have to hop off? I'm good right now, man. I'd rather you get everything you need. Okay. I appreciate it. So in a recent Ama, you said, you know, I think just being able to be an artist for the last 25 years full time, being able to focus on making our intake of that journey is still ongoing, and you're grateful that you're able to do this. So I wanted to kind of ask you for someone that kind of is just starting off on their journey and not really sure if they're going to commit to doing art full time, what are some tips or advice you'd give them on kind of. On committing to their craft, you know, full time. Yeah. I mean, it's. You just have to commit. I think that's the thing, man, is you have to go all in and just, you know, have the strength to understand that just because you have a talent or a point of view doesn't automatically mean people are going to receive it a certain way. Right. So I think that's part of it is, you know, that's an ongoing thing, and you have to be willing to evolve as an artist. Right. You know, but you got it. You got to just put in the work. You know, back when I started, like, it was really about sending packages. Like, you used to have to send packages of slides to galleries, right? So you'd make a bunch of work, photograph it, pay to get 20 sets of slides made, put them in slide, shoot with a cover letter, and send them to galleries, maybe one of those galleries, and get back to you. Right? And so in time, it's like maybe you get a. You know, you start with the. I don't know what the equivalent would be now, but, you know, you put a couple paintings in a coffee shop, right? And then you're in a group show, you get something a little bigger. You get someone to buy something or. But I think what it is, is it takes time, right? I mean, I've been doing it 30 years almost, you know, and it's still a grind. It's not like I just kick back and people send me money every day, you know, I still got to hustle and work and, you know, but I think that that's, to me, again, what I like about it, because there's that. There's that appreciation for the journey, because, again, you grind for it, you work for it, you know, Main. And I think being receptive and open, I think a lot of people get stuck in a point of view or perspective or way, and, you know, you have to just roll. And if you fail, you can't just try something different, right? Like, we're not Jimmy Buffett here, so, you know, it's. And I think that's what it takes. It's just if you really love making art, you're going to make art. And I think the people who don't really love making art will fall by the wayside. So I would make art. If I didn't get paid to make art, I just. I'd have to have a job, clearly, but I'd still make art, you know? So I think that's. That's really it. You got to have a real passion for what you're doing, you know, and a lot of tenacity, man, to just keep hammering and you got to put yourself out there, man. You can't. You know, there's this dude I knew in Chicago, man, probably one of the most talented guys. Dude was unfucking believable, man. But he was one of these weird, weird people who lived in a basement and couldn't talk to people, you know, just had no social skills, had crazy social anxieties. Yeah. Didn't matter how talented he was, man. He just obsessively drew all the time, but he couldn't put his work out there because he couldn't. He just didn't want to communicate with people, right? So. And again, I know I'm not the most talented person in the world, right? But I'll put myself out there time and time again. I'll keep pushing what I'm doing. And so I think that's it. You just got to have a passion for it, and you got to be open. You got to just keep grinding. But that's why I think I appreciate it is I get to get paid to do what I love doing, which is everybody's dream. So when I get up and make work and do that, like, it's great. Now, do I want to be on social media most days? No, you know, but, yeah, you do it. I do. I do like Twitter. Instagram's no fun, but what I've liked about Twitter and now warpcast is I feel like you can actually connect and talk to people, and there's value in that, man, having conversations and actual, you know, creating, building relationships. You know, Instagram just wasn't built for. For that, I don't think. Right. Like, you can share images, but it's hard to kind of talk to people there. So, you know, man, it. It's fun, you know, to be able to build relationships, meet people, especially, you know, meet people online and then going to meet them in person, so. Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. I think it. I think it's great because, you know, I don't think we interacted too much on Twitter and then on Forecaster, just a smaller pool, we were able to connect. Yeah, exactly, man. So, you know, there's. There's benefit there because that's what happens, is stuff gets lost, like the algorithms on, you know, and all the noise on Twitter now, like, when I got on Twitter, I was seeing exactly what I wanted to see, and now it's just filled with Lord knows what, you know, because if I like certain things, like, you know, because I'm doing different stuff, you know, or following crypto people or trying to learn about this or that or being involved. If you like things, it puts them in your feed, and then I don't know how it arranges them, right? So if I like art and I like something crypto based, it starts feeding me more crypto based, like, stuff. And, yeah, I want to know about that sometimes, but it overcompensates. Right? So there's no balance where it's like, at least with. I feel with warpcast, it divides it into channels. So maybe there's a little more where it's like, if I really want to just look at art, I should be able to go just look at art, you know, so that I'd like to see them do. Like, I like the idea of having a master fee, but I also like the idea of just, like, I just want to go catch up on these crypto people I follow. I'm going to go here. I want to learn about. Yeah. Like a curated feed. Yeah. So it's just something a little more, you know, because I don't always want to look at the same stuff every day. Right. And so when you jumble things up or you try to determine what I want to look at, which is what all this shit's doing, you know, again, it's just not the way people are built. Right? Like, everybody's into a little bit of everything, you know? And the algorithms are trying to give it some level of importance based on its own prioritizations, and it's just not it, you know? So I should be able to pick, like, hey, man, I want my feed to be 70% artist I follow and 30% this. You know, there should just be some more things where you have a little more ability to, you know, shape, you know, how you're viewing right on all these platforms so that you can filter out junk or go, you know what? I don't feel like seeing this stuff today. I just want to see art today. Right? So I'm going to put on the art filter so all the other noise is gone and I can just see art. Right. So, you know, that's the stuff I think needs to happen, man. There needs to be evolutions of these things to the point where you can really change, because I think that's it, man. Some days you want to see this, some days you want to see that. Other days, you don't want to see anything. And you certainly shouldn't be punished for not showing up for a couple days, because to be honest, man, I'd like to see an app encourage people to take two days off and go touch grass, get outside offline, and we'll reward you. That would be pretty awesome. Um, I agree. You know, like, give me a, like, let me take a one week pause and, you know, like you said, be out in the mountains and then come back and have, like, no penalties, you know, like, all your. Everything is there. Yeah, man, I think these are the things that, you know, hopefully, as time goes on, they get pulled into stuff because it's unhealthy, man. If people just become attached to stuff all the time because they're afraid, like, oh, if I don't. If I take a day off or I don't do this or I don't do that, then I fall back down the ladder. All this rankings based shit. I get it. But you can't penalize someone for. For leaving for a couple days. Man, it's just unhealthy. So, yeah, pause button or, you know, some sort of, you know, benefit for taking a couple days off, you know, not counting the weekends, whatever. It is right to say, hey, you know, this rankings and all these other things will be a Monday through Friday thing. If you want to post on the weekends, great. But we're not going to penalize anybody who, who doesn't, you know, by shooting, you know, down and stuff like that. So, you know, you just got to change metrics, man. I think a lot of this stuff is already dated. And again, favors bots and other things that are going to always adapt quicker than everybody else, you know, we'll see. I think warpcast can develop. You know, like I said, I like it so far. I think it's a good blend of a lot of things. You know, obviously it's super new, so, but I think it has potential. I mean, definitely feels like it has staying power for me at this point where I'm not going to just move off of it in another month or two. So, you know, I intend to keep using it and would love to be able to, I'd love to be able to get off Twitter and switch over to it completely, but that's clearly just not, you know, it's not going to happen anytime soon. Yeah, yeah, that would be interesting if they did like at office kind of thing. And since it's all on chain, all the other apps get plugged into it. So like, you know, Djen, Dracula, all of them could be like, okay, we see on, you know, Farcaster, you, you put that you're gonna leave for like 48 hours. Like, no penalties for 48 hours. Then, you know, yeah, yeah, something, man. Just again, encourage people to balance their lives. I think that's an important thing, right? Like, nothing's wrong with hustling and chasing. But look, man, you know, people get obsessive or they feel like you can't step away, they start getting fear, you know, then, you know, you create a bad system. So I think allowing time off, a pause button, something where people can step away or rewarding people for not posting for a day or two, you know, there's got to be ways to do it. It just doesn't, it can't be that complicated. Yeah, agree. Let's see. So the two more, the current meta and kind of web three or the last like year and a half has been dropping, you know, physicals with nfts. So, like, a bunch of artists have been like, the Vaughn art drops have been all like, you know, you get a physical painting or something, or a physical thing with an NFT tied to it. Have you ever thought about doing something like that? No. The problem with that is shipping, you know, because, again, it gets complicated. Right. You have. You have a global, you know, population using web three. It's. You can't just ship stuff all over the world. It's not that easy. Yeah. You know, and so you could do something, right where. But there's a lot of steps to it now, I think at a point in time where somebody like Shopify integrates that stuff, which I think will come right where you can purchase NFT and it's just part of a package. Right. Like, so right now you can go to my shop and buy a print or a toy or whatever. Right. So once there's integrations, well, maybe then you go to the shop and you purchase the NFT and it's just a package and it comes with the print, but you're basically paying for. You're generating the shipping labels as you would with the physical item. Right. Like, right now, I would have to generate, you know, different lists. Then I'd have to bring people over to the website, you know, to put stuff in. So I think it'll happen. It'll make sense for me when the integrations there that I can do it direct. And I feel pretty certain that shopify and others will start to create those integrations in the next year or two. Yeah. You know, I think we're close. Yeah. So, again, and it doesn't, this. I'm just using Shopify as an example. You know, it could go the other way. Right, where an opensea builds an e commerce platform. I think that's less likely, clearly. But, you know, I think that, you know, Etsy and Shopify and the big kind of, you know, e commerce sites like that, it makes sense for them to integrate digital assets. And then I think it gets simple. Then it's tied together in a way that makes sense where you buy it and it all just ships from the same place and you don't have to think about it. And so I'm just shipping orders as I would ship any order normally. Yeah, exactly. That makes sense. Yeah. Awesome. Uh, let's see. All right, so last one. Um, this one's different, just so you're. I don't know if you've listened to my previous episodes, but, uh, uh, I initially got started, uh, with this whole podcast or this newsletter that I was writing or that I am writing. It's like, uh, as snack sized, like web three content. So the question I've asked everyone, and the longstanding question is, you know, what is your favorite snack? Right? You know, I don't know if I have a go to snack kind of all over the place. Doritos. I like Doritos. You like Doritos? All right, what flavor? Nacho cheese. Always. It's always the go to. Ah, there you go. Okay. No cool ranch. No. No. I never liked cool ranch. I mean, they're always weird tasting. The original taco ones back in the day were super good, but they stopped making them. Yeah. I mean, it's endless, right? I love Cheetos. Cheetos are great. You know, microwave. I love it. Can't go wrong. I love it. You know, skittles. Can't eat Skittles. I can't eat any of this stuff anymore, man. It's no fun. No, I know. Yeah. You know, we shouldn't have it. We shouldn't have it. But, you know, now they're tempting nuts and apple slices. There you go. So true. So true. It's like you're hungry. Eat apple slice. Telling you, buddy, cholesterol is no fun, man. So, you know. Yeah, so I don't want any heart issues, though, man. You know, the doctors just. It's. You know, they catch that stuff so early now, but he didn't like my levels last year, so I'd stop. You know? I like eating cheese. You know? You can't eat cheese at a certain point, man. It's not good for the system. Damn. So, yeah, man, it's good fun, but again, man, I'd rather be healthy and fit and, you know, have issues, man. I don't. I really don't want to have hard issues or have no energy. That's no fun, man. I gotta. I told the kids, man, I'd be beating their ass until I'm 80. So, you know, it's important to file five boys that they know who runs the house. So there you go. And for the foreseeable future. Yeah, man, it's important they understand you can't knock the big man down, right? So I got to stay fit enough and big enough to physically beat their asses for at least 2030 more years. That's hilarious. I love that. Agreed. Yeah. So, apple slices for. For now? It is apple slices. It is. Yeah. That's all, buddy. Well, thanks again for doing this, man. I appreciate it. Yeah, no, it was a lot of fun, man. I appreciate you taking the time. All right. Welcome back. Really enjoyed that episode with daylight. Hope you did, as well. Before we kind of log off, wanted to do cast off. So cast off, for those that are new is a segment where I want to hear from you, the audience. So I'll have a link below where you can join the conversation. I'll be tipping Degen to people that comment on it. This week's cast off question is, what do you think is counterculture right now? Or kind of like the punk equivalent of, of like skateboarding back in the day? You know, that was counterculture graffiti. Like, what do you think right now in this age is counter, you know, counterculture or punk culture as a whole? Yeah. So thanks again for listening to the whole episode. I appreciate you making it to the end. If you're listening to this on another provider other than pods, make sure to collect this episode on pods media. And if you are on pause, make sure to subscribe on your favorite app so you're notified when new episodes drop. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Make sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. If you know someone that might be interested in this episode, make sure to share with them. Let me know you know which other artists or topics you'd like me to cover in the future. Get in touch with me via text messaging. Sms rates apply. There's a little hyperlink in the show notes. Or just reach out to me on social media. See you next time. Peaceful. See you. Take this.