Ep. 67 - The Artist's Future with Jerry Cannon

So I think that the flow state that you talked about that makes us connected is the release of our right brain. The letting go of the negativity and that 100 pound stress vest that we've been wearing all week. And then the left brain aspect of heart is like I said before much like playing piano. It's like learning the scales and practicing every day. You add more things to your repertoire. You're getting better at it. This is synchronicity. This is synchronicity. Welcome to episode 67 of synchronicity. I guess this week is Jerry Cannon from Infinite Bit, and I'm going to be honest here about nine or ten takes at this intro.

I'm having a hell of a day. Hell of a day. I'm going to play some Bob Marley. So we can all listen to that for a little bit and then I'm going to come back and tell you what's going on in this episode. I'm going to play some of my favorite things because I'm just going to play some of my favorite things. I'm going to play some of my favorite things because I'm going to play some of my favorite things because I'm going to play some of my favorite things because I'm going to play some of my favorite things because I'm going to be honest here. I'm going to play some of my favorite things because I'm going to play some of my favorite things because I'm going to play some of my favorite things because I'm going to play some of my favorite things because I'm going to play some of my favorite things because I'm going to play some of my favorite things because I'm going to play some of my favorite things because I'm going to play some of my favorite things because I'm going to play some of my favorite things because I'm going to play some of my favorite things because I'm going to play some of my favorite things because I'm going to play some of my favorite things because I'm going to play some of my favorite things because I'm going to play some of my favorite things because I'm going to play some of my favorite things because I'm about what's going on in Synchronicity World this week. I don't know why I chose to say that.

Synchronicity Book Club is starting on February 1st, 2017. We selected a book in the Facebook group. If you don't know what I'm talking about, all of the information you will ever need about this show, this podcast, anything that's going on is on syncpodcast.com. S-Y-N-C podcast.com. But there is a Facebook group for this podcast. In that Facebook group, we have selected a book democratically, and the book is The Toltec Art of Living and Dying by Don Miguel Ruiz. This isn't actually a book that I put up for auction. No, that's not right. In the poll, but I'm really excited to read it. It's starting in February. Pick up that copy if you want to get involved. Join the Facebook group. We're going to talk about it. We're going to do some Hangout, some video stuff. I think it'll be cool. I know it'll be cool, actually. I don't think it's going on. I know it's going to be cool. So that's going on. Before I go any further with anything related to this podcast or me, I want to talk about Jerry. Jerry is super fucking cool. My friend Michelle introduced us. I want to say two months ago, Jerry was actually in the middle of moving to Colorado, I believe from Philadelphia. Correct me if I'm wrong, Jerry. Let me know.

He was going through his move, but he'd found the time right when he moved to Denver. None of his stuff had arrived to sit down and chat with me about a lot of stuff. In particular, one of our common interests is trying to figure out how to create systems, models, paradigms that allow creatives and creators to benefit financially, socially, so they can create art without necessarily having to be totally on top of running a business. Nowadays, in case you haven't noticed creative professionals, that's the thing. It wasn't just you're a creative person. I had to be a creative professional if you want to live in the world with your graphic designer, whether you're a writer, whether you're a musician, whether you're a painter. These are all things like you either hire someone to help you with some of this stuff or you do it yourself. So creating things that benefit artists and creators is something that Jerry and I are both passionate about and really protecting artists and creators too, because one of the things, and this is if you listen to any of the podcasts with Big Burger, we've alluded to it, but people steal his stuff all the time. And Jerry even talks about in this podcast, a company who worked for stole his art and just sold it. And that's a big issue.

So we touch on a lot of that, which is to me, since I've gone out into the world and made money by working with and for other people, the ethical component of business and trying to figure out for the people who really seem like they deserve it, how to get those people rewarded. So that's what this is about. More to the point, Jerry is just a really, really nice dude. We've been connected on Facebook for a while. He's funny, he's cool, he's incredibly creative and he's grounded and he talks about some dark times in his life, he eludes to them. But I can tell you from from speaking with him, he's got his shit together. So without further ado, we're getting to it this week because overwhelm has hit the Lampert household without further ado. Here is Jerry Cannon.

It's going on, man. How are you? How are you doing? I'm good. How are you? How was the move? Oh, it's I'm getting my moving pod tomorrow. It's going. You're just not in charge of it going, it's coming. It's better on this side of it. I'll tell you that much being out in Colorado. Yeah, I bet, man. Dude, I'm super happy we can do this and I'm glad. I mean, even though your stuff's not there, at least you can connect. Where specifically are you in in Colorado again? So I'm in Erie, which is about 25 minutes east of Boulder and say 35 north of Denver. Anybody that's from here, sorry, wrong on that. I don't, I mean, I have friends who I think live in the Denver area, but I haven't been to Colorado ever. And I know that it's just like a really cool place now. Like how, why did you decide to move to Colorado? Um, a number of things.

Actually, I have some help out here that are some of my closest friends that would be more than willing to help with my company as it grows. I might not have the money to bring in people that I don't know that don't care about my business. Yeah. Scratch to get by in Philadelphia. You know, I mean, there's some great people that I've had in awesome time, but I did a Cosm class with Chris Dyer. I want to say things last summer, might have been summer before, if my memory is not always the best. Um, but he, one of the things he said about becoming an artist and about furthering your journey is if where you're at isn't doing it for your art scene, if it's not where it's the most celebrated, then you need to work to get there. And then that was kind of the point that I started looking around going, okay, I'm going to pick a couple locations. I'm going to see how these pan out and see where I end up. And at the end of the day, Colorado, it's got a lot of artists, you know, and I got the migration. I think it's a wonderful place. So let's just consider that we got started, even though we're just meeting face to face, although we've spoken a couple times on the phone. So I do want to start primarily with your business, but more as kind of a exposition into this creative community, artistic, artist driven systems that are starting to emerge, right? We've all heard, if you've been involved in any creative scene for a long time, that, you know, artists are going to have to survive in this creative professional future. And you know, it behooves all artists to understand business in some sense. But then you and I, even in our conversations, we're like, you know, we're lucky enough that we're both artistic and have some semblance of an idea how to sift through and process some business stuff, right? But I know a lot of people on the spectrum who just have either little to no tolerance, which is where I'd probably put myself in the little tolerance to absolutely none being like, it's not a question of them not wanting to learn it or they don't have the patience or they just don't have that part of the brain where it's wired together to be like, Oh, this is how I build my business as an artist. And then we'll get into like the function of art and why this stuff isn't just like us pursuing fancias because we just want to entertain ourselves.

But I definitely want to start, like, because you have a business infinite bit. You've been in and around creative scenes. And I would just love your perspective on kind of, and I also just want to say before we get to that, I totally relate to trying to identify a place you want to center your business and your life and pick and, you know, that's why we chose the Hudson Valley, like specifically, and it's awesome. You mentioned Cosm because we're like 40 minutes away from there. It was a huge reason I've never been. I haven't I've met the grays like behind stage at a Duncan trussle thing once they were super cool. But I know what's going on there and I can feel the vibes and energy and like not to get too about it. But like I know that that is like a cultural hub for where I want to be. So okay, I know I said a lot. But maybe you could start about kind of the creative communities that are emerging and how that fits into your life and what's going on.

So I've seen a lot of different, yeah, as you said, movements kind of emerge over the years. And I don't think the talent is the identifier and what the longest lived thing is. And that is like this gut disappointment. I've seen somebody that is working so hard. And as you said, maybe they don't have the part of the brain that's wired to understand how to pick up and run a business and what's necessary to do. And as far as I do want to comment on that too for a second, I think it's like anything. It's like riding a bike. It's like maybe like learning a piano would be better. You're not going to sit down and learn all the scales in one day. But as technology improves and grows, a lot of what even the goal of artists in tech is to make this more user-friendly, to make it so the people that didn't design this but are there to use it are going to be able to understand what they're doing. Yeah. Yeah. They're struggling artists, maybe make friends with that.

I know we're right. But I think as far as the movements go, I wanted to be able to bring a fair and equal platform for these artists to create apparel and prints and all sorts of different things without having to worry about like, "Hey, who's behind this? This person now has my art prints. They have my raw art. What are they going to do with it? How do I see where they're actually selling this?" To be completely honest and to any other business out there that might be listening to, it's $30 to $60 a month for a pretty in-depth vendor tracking app. But artists feel comfortable. I'm not holding that as a trade secret. That's something I feel the entire industry should move forward with. You should see your sales. That's it. You're the artist. You caused this to sell and that's it. You say it as though it's a novel concept, although we know it shouldn't be. That's base level, especially when we're going to get to this. But when you're talking about direct-to-consumer or direct-to-fan or direct-to-customer relationships, you definitely need to know what's going on.

You don't have to be a statistician and an analytics guru, but to have some idea of the response and the signals you get from your stuff, it's like, "Yeah, I totally get him in." I think I've had some experiences and I'm not going to drop names, but I've had some experiences where people have even taken my art. There's several companies that are out there and there's a lot of artists that reach out to me now because they know some of my experiences with like finding that, "Okay, my art got stolen. I'll run into get copyright, so I get my copyright." And then I find out, "Hey, if I had them before, I could have gotten like six figures, but because I got them after, I'm only entitled to what profits they're going to show on the books." And then the time it takes for an artist and the amount of money it would take in lawyer fees to fight someone like this, it's kind of become something people have preyed upon. So there's probably five to 10 companies that have popped out of these emerging art scenes where other people are realizing that, "Hey, people want to immerse themselves in their art beyond the experience of looking at art on the wall." And I think that's where my time in college was too. I went for interactive art and design and I strongly feel that everything art should, it evokes an interaction. Whether you're at a piece or not, the one that you love when you look at it, it evokes an emotional response.

It is an interaction between you and that piece. And at the same time, I think that these pieces of clothing and the things that represent the artist having a bit of an artist touch behind the scenes and being able to know where your sales are. If you could solve those two things, there'd be a lot of companies flourishing doing this and artists would have a lot more money. Yeah. And I mean, it's just like a basic thing that follows suit that like the more power we can put in the hands or can be put in the hands of people who are creating this stuff. And the easier it is for them, because like, I think anyone who's a creative or a non-creative, there's this flow state you get into, right? I mean, it's commonly talked about with athletes, particularly because there's not a lot of thinking going on at peak level physical performance. You're reacting and training is paying off and you're in this flow state. And the same way with artistic endeavors, like I know this from making music for 15 plus years on my computer. If you don't have a high proficiency in the tools you're using and you have to keep going back and analyzing or checking something and how do I do that, that'll fuck up your entire creative process, whether it's learning the guitar, selling something online, painting something like that needs those barriers. And this is what you're talking about. I think with technology is technology can be used as a tool to make that part of the process easier for people. So they don't have to devote a ridiculous amount of time to learning and crafting a whole new set of tools that aren't necessarily applicable to their creative process. I actually did take a couple of notes to us listening to a few of your tops and things. I'm going through this here for a second. I wanted to start this whole thing too. If you want to say to any artist anywhere, go to LegalZoom.com or do a Google search for websites similar to LegalZoom.com. It costs $150 per work or $170 for every work up until that point to be copyrighted and then you're protected. And then if something happens, you really have some force behind your cease and desist and say, hey, you know, that's a lot of money right now.

I think that's the only way to stop the whole best thing and I'm going to touch on what you just said in a second too. Yeah, no. And it's incredibly important to point out the legal ramifications. My mom is a lawyer. My grandfather was a lawyer. I know I have friends, good friends who are lawyers. I could never be a lawyer, but I do recognize that we do have the legal system in place, however faulty it can be, to protect people if you use it. And tools like LegalZoom and getting like the right certifications and corporations if you need to is super duper important. So I'm glad you pointed that out. And as far as obstruction, what I think left and right brain is, I think that the staying focus and realizing that a business does require a whole lot of left brain focus isn't always the easiest thing for the artist type, especially those that might smoke some pot. You know, I had a whole lot more creative, lofty building that I like that I work with her that way and that are wonderful people. And I couldn't expect them to try to micromanage Google AdWords for, you know, so I think that the flow state that you talked about that makes us connected is the release of our right brain. It's the letting go of the negativity and that hundred pound stress vest that we've been wearing all week. And then the left brain aspect of art is like I said before, much like playing a piano, just like learning the scales, practicing every day, you add more things to your repertoire, you're getting better at it.

And the same goes for art. It's about learning something new being the best you every day. It's not about achieving that totally realistic sense. It's, but I think the combination of the left with the right brain is what creates that true sense of accomplishment in a piece that is relieved you of that emotional, whatever the negativity we want to call it is. And it also allowed you to further your progress at the same time. And that's like that happy place for artists that I think of. Well, this is a fascinating thing because I'm getting to this point with my own creativity and my own projects where I'm becoming more and more satisfied each step of the way. And then now actually in completing works and projects. And I've noticed that there is a balancing, I'm someone I ask, I'm asking a lot of my friends who are both artists and business owners. The question I've been asking them like, do you consider yourself more of a person who like intuitively figures out what their next step is? Or do you plan out strategically exactly what's going on?

Because I, my natural tendency is to be far more intuitive and kind of like figure out what's going on. But recently, in the past year, two years, partially because of where my business is gone, but also partially because this is just for my own, I'm recognizing the value in this, I've started to specifically plan strategic things out. And the balance I've noticed exactly like you said, I think this is a fascinating thing I never thought about like this. You are able to let go of the more kind of unpredictable emotional components that go into art, which can be very limiting. I mean, I can tell you without a fact, I've never not finished a piece of music, because I didn't have a plan in place to finish it. I've not finished it because I've let emotions in my own perceptions color, what I'm doing at the time, where even if I go back and listen, like two years later, I'm like, Oh, shit, why did I stop? This is fucking good. But my emotional content and surrounding. So being able to drop that by integrating and kind of bridging these two hemispheres of what's going on really does it. I think it counterintuitively helps with everything.

It helps with getting the work done, appreciating it, satisfaction, then you build momentum. And it's this very interesting thing that I think a lot of people are noticing. Okay, all right, listen, this is all we're talking about these theoretical I want to find out about you specifically and kind of I knew I know where you're from. I know you're into hockey from our Facebook chats, but like, how did and I know we have our mutual friend Michelle who's amazing. But how did you kind of get onto this path where you are now? For people who can't see what you look like, you're wearing pretty fucking awesome clothing. I'll try to get a picture. You got to send me this, like take a selfie or something and I can include it with this episode. But obviously a very creative person and focus on, you know, enriching people who are artists, not enriching, but like just financially, but really allowing people to integrate into the process of being an artist and be successful and be content. So how did you get on this path? Like, what was the trajectory here?

I went down the wrong path first. It always seems to happen, right? Yeah, the question that done went some wrong places went through some heartaches, you know, and I had some rock bottoms a couple times there and decided that I wanted better than that. And I looked at a lot of the people around. Like I said, they had amazing talent and that weren't prospering. And I thought, you know, I went to school for computers. I understand at least a little bit about how design integrates into that part of the world. And I started kind of seeking more similar-minded people then. That's sort of when I kind of even ran into Michelle was, she was sort of starting her endeavor solo bloom around the same time. The infinite bit had just popped up. And we had a long talk for like 12 hours at Freeform. That's the whole probably.

Well, years back, just about how, you know, our vision for where art is going to go. And I think even in that actual instance of communicating with somebody else that shared a vision like that, it opened my eyes to just how connected it was. So I went and I worked for some other companies too. Rewind a little bit here. And one of the things that did some diselocation work and worked in the clothing industry. I've worked for some people that do e-commerce at a larger scale. And then I spent some time vicariously working within a large sublimation facility for company within a company there. That's one of the bigger ones in the country. And really saw how it runs and how the focus on efficiency, I didn't think was innovating new products at all.

And I kind of made that decision there as a digital artist that there's only so many ways that I can physically hold my artwork. And I started being like, I love this. Like, I can, I can throw colors all over it and wear it and go out and be awesome. And the reaction I got was fantastic. And I started sharing that with other artists who related from some sense of, oh, I want this product. Oh, I tried this before and it didn't work out because I didn't trust the person or whatever that was. I think it was the big boost of enthusiasm there. It kept it going in the beginning past where I've seen some other people kind of hit some rocky points.

But I think opening it up to the other artists to really get involved in the beginning was the success. Yeah, I guess paired with some talks with a lot of other people becoming a necessity versus are paired with loving what I do in that sense really fueled it some knowledge from the actual industry, some influence from all the artists that I know. You know, it's hard to like really pinpoint like, you know, what was that moment that I was like, I know I want to do this or like, what was the key thing that geared me towards it? Yeah, it's some people have those, but some people, like I, there are certain things sometimes you can look back and identify those, but especially if you're still going through the transitional process. I mean, we could argue that that's always going on. It does feel kind of more like a confluence of like factors and situations and circumstances and obviously intent and work and practice are involved in it, but I know exactly what you're saying. It's not like, oh, I can look back to this one specific thought I had and oh, of course, that put me on to this trajectory, but it does feel like these things going. But I mean, what were some of the other things? I mean, you mentioned also, and I can tell you, this podcast has been the biggest teaching for me and this is talking with other people about whatever it is. It doesn't have to be for business ideas. It doesn't, it could be anything.

That teaches you more, I feel like, than almost anything else, having some another person to bounce ideas off of and just discuss things. So that's huge. Yeah, I mean, I get that your own teachers is probably most fulfilling things in life, too. Joining learning and experiencing, like in my case, the creative process with a lot of these other people that have dedicated so much time to what they love and what they enjoy about their creative process and getting to kind of openly share that with each other. And I missed that after our school, like, you know, have one of my buddies over the other day and I said, what do you think about this piece I bought the other day? What do you think about this artist? He's like, oh, it's cool. I was like, yeah, fuck you. Like, don't tell me it's cool. Tell me why it's cool. Tell me what you like about it. Like we did four years of school together and he was a pain major. There shouldn't be any speech there. I love him to death. He gave me the real one after. Yeah, of course, of course. I mean, it's it's in discussion. Well, and you mentioned, before we I was asking you about this, like this quality of and I don't think it's just art. Art is such a nebulous term that we can use, but really anything that is created with intention. I think the reason I just had Simon Haiduk on and T we were talking about this and I know a book that you picked up on my recommendation, who I had on John F. Simon, who's amazing. We discussed this too, which is this idea that what you're actually communicating with a piece of art or any work isn't the actual piece itself, but it's the process of what was going on as it was taking place that's ultimately communicated and really effective artists quote unquote like successful ones. And John is very clear about this. He says, really successful ones intuitively or artificially creates stories around the process itself to create meaning for the work. And some of it is authentic, but some of it is manufactured. And I think that's why we see, I mean, because like, I mean, who hasn't on Facebook seen and this just just always bothers me so much. And I always point it out and flag it. But like, I'll see Tim and Eric fans, you know, Steve Bruel fans. And what it is is people who have taken images from Steve Bruel and Tim and Eric, they're just manufacturers. They've blazing the them on their apparel and are pretending to be official licensing of the Steve Bruel and Tim and Eric stuff. And like, it's just a rip off. Like, and they're Tim and Eric get no benefit from that. John see Riley doesn't, but this is obviously now this is an art in the sense of trying to fulfill some, you know, existential need and communicate some authentic truth. This is art being commerce. I mean, I would argue is obviously not art and it's just a product that's being sold. But like, what do you say about this stuff? Yeah. Yeah. So I actually really recently watched and I think everybody can go find it on YouTube. There is a talk on fan art and copyright from the owner of deviantart who's normally a trade lawyer. And he was talking a lot about basically he came down with the hammer and was like, you cannot sell anything fan art at all. And what you can do is you can make it, you can display it, you can show it on these platforms. And if it gets big enough, these people might reach out to you and he gave a story about one of the big comic, you know, owners coming and saying, Hey, you've made this amazing fan art. I want to sell these for the next year and do an entire run of these rights. But when we look at the percentage of people that are going to get that offer, it's not right. And that's why I think there's this really hard discrepancy that there needs to be more ethics in the people that are in these positions to handle the manufacturing and stuff. Like, I'm really on the fence when an artist that has two kids that's struggling to get by comes to me and says, I've got this awesome piece of fan art that I spent 20 hours drawing. And it happens to have something that was a piece of power that is her favorite show or something. But it's done in her own way. And there's always that fear that's like, you email to the person and you see, and I think the answer is always yes, you know, it's gonna be a letdown.

I have I have a side parallel story to this that I've dealt with a lot in my career. So in representing various teachers, I can I can mention this specifically the rhombus foundation is there's a lot of people who really love rhombus and they'll go and they'll put up videos of talks or books. And some people are just copyright violators. There are people who are turning on monetization and they don't give a fuck about this. They know that people care about it and they'll try to make their 50 bucks off, you know, you know, 25,000 views and they're happy. Some people are just doing it because they genuinely love rhombus and want people to see this. And this is a age old discussion, especially with wisdom teachings that Socrates had with the sophists, which was you shouldn't be charging people for wisdom. And I 100% unequivocally agree. That said, there are many different permutations of communicating wisdom now. So I'll tell you how we dealt with it. And this is something I had a spearhead and kind of come up with. We developed the stock letter that we would send out to every person who we could clearly see wasn't doing this necessarily maliciously.

Some people were doing it to create a product that they were intending to sell and this still goes on and I won't mention people's name, but I got in some disagreements with people online who were upset when eventually we had a copyright flag, a few people. But we would send out originally this letter that said, listen, we totally understand that you love rhombus's teachings. We understand that you want as many people to see this as possible. We share this mission with you. Right now, we're in the process of organizing, collecting all of rhombus's teachings and putting them on YouTube for free. So we're not holding this up behind a paywall to gate it. We don't believe in that. But because we're doing that, we want it to be unified and organized. So when someone searches for something, they go, no, A, this is official. B, this is something that is organized and named correctly. And C, we're going to provide extra information and resources that are further enhanced experience. So we hope you understand that we're asking you to remove this. No problem, no worries. Obviously, some people would get back and they'd be like, okay, I totally get it. Like, no problem. Sorry, I didn't even know this was an issue. Some people would be like, you know, I spent a really long time getting this together. And I put it together myself. And I think it's really fucked up that you don't want to have this up. And I can't believe you're doing this. And I'm like, listen, I understand what you're saying. But in this day and age, I understand that a lot of people don't focus on copyright violations in law. But like, when you create something that is on your own, that you love, you have to eventually understand that if you plan to make any money from it, the first step is like getting in touch with the people who own the copyrights. And if you don't, and this is echoing what you said, if you don't do that, it's not necessary. It's not like guaranteed that you're going to run into a difficult position. But something like that happened with something else of Rhonda says, and we had a flag a guy, and he was basically doing this pattern. He was a big fan of Rhonda's Terrence McKenna, all of these people. And he was putting together some pretty good movies about them. But it was just aggregated clips. And I was like, man, like, I don't have a problem with it. Okay. But understand that if someone does, you're totally out there on a limb. Like you're, I wouldn't, if it was me, if I love something, and I wanted to make like a 20 hour investment into a project, I would know that I don't ever plan to make any money from that. But if I still want to do it, and I really doing it for the love of it, it wouldn't matter.

So I also understand this is like a very weird line to fall in. But like most things, I think it falls in line with intention. And the channels unfortunately aren't here that there's like a direct fan art profit system yet. But I'm sure as artists, creators, creative professionals get better at this stuff, these systems are emerging. I know you're specifically working on them. I'm specifically working on them. Like there's a lot of people who get that these are the issues that are kind of preventing a lot of people from even believing that being an artist, being a creative is even a viable profession, right?

So heartbreaking. And that's really where we're at in this country too. You've seen so much of that in the last few months, especially like the business in this country aren't being valued as much, you know? Yeah. Hey, man. I hear you. Well, okay. So back to your creative path, like what, you're also an artist, like what, what got you, what got you started in that? How long have you kind of had that? I mean, I kind of know the answers to these. But like, what, what a, what got you into creating your own stuff and be what kind of propelled you forward once you're like, I like doing this and what we were like, you know, you know what I'm asking. I'm gonna give you a couple little answers about this too. So the beginning of when I started making art, I mean, a lot of people too, I was young, very young, started making art, loved it. I was like, I want to be an artist, or I want to be a zookeeper. And you get biology. I'm like, nah, science and animals dying. I'm an empath. It's not gonna work. Yeah. It's not gonna happen. But I don't need to surround myself on the daily. So I went to a tech school. And I was filming skate videos for my friends at the time and making band flyers for the shows that we book for our local rock bands and stuff. And yeah, it really looks like I'm gonna do this three periods a day in my high school. So I opted out of some science classes. Like I had to drop down levels and things because there wasn't enough time in a day for labs. And then I was kind of geared into being committed to that by the time of sacrificing my academics in high school for art. I went to Micah for interactive art after that.

I mean, I did a handful of university arts pre-college and Saturday classes in Philadelphia, portfolio prep. I grew up going to museums. Like I've been very hard focused a lot my whole life. I guess after Micah, I was a little bit dejected because the amount of student loans were being an artist and the difficulty of trying to make it as an artist at that point in time. It was rough. So I took a hit some rock bottom and did some bad things and made my way around the festival circuit for a while too. And after that, I was like, this is not, I miss the art. I need to go back to what I love. And it was that real big tear between I need to make money. Yes. I need to do what I love. And we talked about this when we spoke before. I think I mentioned the Justin Rose and steamed talk that do great things. Which, you know, he has the rose colored glasses on a little bit and he has placed the opposite side. But ultimately finding that middle ground between what helps humanity thrive and what helps you thrive. And he gives the example of Gandhi and the businessman and says, make some event diagram and says, you hit right in the middle and that's where you're happy. And that's one of the things to that talk that spoke a lot to me, that right there. And I started thinking about it and realizing my networking I did and being, you know what, there's some good people I've met in my travels, some amazing artists that I've come across and I love making art myself. So I got heavily back into it at that point.

And I found a piece of art. I started making when I was in college on an old external hard drive. Digital collage. And it was about eight feet, maybe six when I found it. Now it's about eight feet by four feet. You can zoom in different levels of it. And my whole idea behind this, I mean, I'll reveal some of the process too. Like, I still so many Googled images for my underpainting. It's going to see it's not it's building a textual layer in the beginning. But that choice of what am I Googling? I'll sit in a room with my friends and go, yeah, a lot of work. Give me something else. Tell me something cool. And everything that we search, we're learning about something. We're looking at what comes up and out things. And then again, that's the left versus right brain. I try to focus on finding that intermediate area where it's still fun, because I think I'll actually be fun.

Oh, hello there in the middle of the episode. Now, just felt like saying hi. I don't have anything to tell you to sign up or do purchase, get, find out about. Just have a good time. Just have a good day. Relax. This message is as much for me as it is for you. But seriously, take it easy. There's no reason to worry about anything. You're listening to a podcast. It's a fun conversation. And back to the show. One of the things I just did not understood working with a lot of organizations is, and regardless of what sector or industry they're in, is that so many people just stop having fun. And I get, when we make things habitual, I understand we can lose some of the fun, but purposely injecting that into our lives is really, really, really important.

Because if you don't, you just get burnt out and you just take everything seriously. I take everything seriously, and I'm probably one of the more lighthearted people I know. And I'm really still taking shit seriously. I can only imagine what a clusterfuck it is for most people. So like, I get it, man. Yes. I went up to, I went up to the artist, Caliph, this house where he's like, no, I left this as he says himself. He loves to break all the rules, but he'll have his daughter paint with him. And then he will throw painted things. He taped a bunch of paper towel rolls together and put a palette knife on the end of it and was just swinging painted things. And because it's so much fun. And like, I wanted to add that too.

So, you know, that's the type of art that I really love too. And I think there's another artist shed us to find mirrors set the other day. He said that there's things that digital artists can do, but there's that one stroke that you make that might have even been accidental that would have taken years to replicate or however long, you know, it's that one thing that you make that you know, that couldn't be replicated digitally, at least not easily, you know. Right. And it makes those two things together. That's what it is. It's this alchemy of bridging things and putting things together that creates the magic. And you're talking about like that googling thing. It's like something I like I have a book of symbols. And once in a while, I'll just randomly flip open one or like tarot cards randomly do it. It's it's fostering the serendipitous circumstances, the synchronicities that can be like beacons or guides that we can look to. And I think trying to like have that be more of an accepted part of how we approach life is very important, because it breaks down these barriers of how we're told things function. And like, in case anyone isn't questioning the nature of their reality at this point in history, like, I don't know what you what you're paying attention to, but the electors are voting as we're speaking right now today to put Donald Trump in office.

So like, we're through the fucking looking glass. You talked about wisdom and compassion last week with Simon, let's hope they have that too. You know, that's the same. Why would God kill children? Put a pipeline there, allow Donald Trump to be president. I mean, you know, terrible things on the search right now. So I mean, it's and they've and by all accounts, there's there have always been terrible things. And I think this this tension that terrible things like I don't get into the karmic reasons for these things. I do believe that everything that we see is perfect in a sense. And that includes Aleppo, the horrors that are going on, like, just indescribable. Like, when I had to watch a video of Aleppo, when I don't have to, but when I choose to, of like a kid who's holding his infant dead brother, and like, there's all these kids without mothers around, I'm like thinking of my like seventh month, those upstairs and like the dichotomy there. Like, there's always horrible shit going on. But the reason I say it's all perfect is I think these situations exist. And like, without getting into the karmic implications of why these things exist, because without this friction and this tension in the world, we would live in a state of complacency, right? I always use the samsaric realms of existence and Buddhism and the Vedas too, because there's a higher level, there are two higher in the cyclical, illusory world of existence, the six cycles, there are two stations that are higher than human, right? There's the jealous gods and the gods. Both are viewed as less beneficial or advantageous than humans, because ultimately, if you're a god, everything is fucking great. You don't have any worries in the world. There's nothing going on whatsoever. But guess what? You're still in cyclical existence. You're gonna die someday, whether you realize it or not. So imagine the sheer fucking terror, the sheer agony of realizing that moment that your life as perfect as it has been is going to end. That's worse than kind of contemplating and somewhat being able to prepare for death. The jealous gods, while their lives are, you know, we could use celebrities as a manifestation of jealous gods. Well, their lives are seemingly amazing. They're constantly fighting for power, success, fame with each other. Humans, and we could say this is a very egocentric way, of course, humans would put ourselves at the center, and I'm highly aware of that. However, human birth is looked at is so precious, because we have this ability to move through all of these realms psychologically, spiritually, but also have the opportunity to dictate where we want to go while being aware of them. So I think the reason things are fucked up on earth, and we have all these horrible things, is because I do believe this is like a spiral of evolution of consciousness. And I think that ultimately, we look at these fucked up things and not say, oh, they're fucked up, the world is a shitty place, but we looked up at these fucked up things and go, how do we make sure this doesn't happen? Like, how does this not, how do we make this like, really not better? And ultimately, realizing what that part is where I'm in a grace with you now. And I'm like, you know, that's like, I would love to kind of feel like that everything has a reason you need something better, but like, no, that how to make it better part. Otherwise, yeah, without that, I mean, like, because listen, one of the biggest lessons I've learned, whatever spiritual successes or, you know, poignant moments I've had is service is one of them.

I think if anyone who's truly served in anyway, and I'm like, I'm not at soup kitchens every week, I rarely volunteer in person, but whenever I am actually being generous of my time, spirit, attention, money, whatever, I feel the fucking best. Like, that's what it is to me. And like, there are probably many other reasons why it's important, but service, like, that's what it's about. So like, my, my cosmology and conception of what the world is and what the universe is, is based on principles that I think hold up. But like, I love when people like, like, I also don't ever want to be perceived as like a eternal optimist for no reason. That's fucking delusional.

Like, that's not what I believe. But I do believe that things fit in in a way that makes sense. Yeah, feel this and an optimist. Yes. Yes. Work. Yeah, it definitely is, man. It definitely is. It's doable though. That's the thing. It's, that's what I've realized over time and like, it's doable. And it doesn't mean everything works out. In fact, it means everything doesn't work out sometimes, but your perception of what doesn't and does work out really pretty much determines what's going on, right? Okay. So, okay, back to infinite bit and your kind of a creative process. So at what point as an artist and realizing you kind of had this network of people, you've had some shitty experiences, what, what point did you kind of, and I know again, it might not be a specific instance, but at what series of events kind of led you to be like, okay, now I think I can actually create something that supports artists and really maybe it's something for the future that is going to help like a lot of people because I think that's ultimately why we connect so much and why Michelle thought of connecting us. So, yeah. So again, it's the two things. And this is why I've been trying to tiptoe around this question too, is that I did work for a company that stole my stuff and I'm trying not to give them any press here at all. Yes, I get that. Seeing all of the other companies and the way that businesses work at a certain scale and seeing just the way that artists could be profiting and that they could all be doing this, that though this isn't that difficult, why we just hire the artists to do it. I mean, you know, let them make their own money on it.

Like that would be perfect. That was like a really big kicker into where my ethics fall and how a business on a larger scale runs. So, I mean, it's never too late to do internships, it's never too late to take a job somewhere like if it's in an industry that you want somebody. Obviously, if somebody's working a nine to five or they're working at McDonald's right now and they don't have the money to get up and move to LA to try to live their dream, we'll find what's closest to you that is a better alternative. And even if you can't do it yet, that's the goal. That's what you're looking for. I feel like I did that mentality a lot of times even when I left that company. My father also is an entrepreneur. He owns some construction business. So, I've watched him and his struggles and his successes throughout my whole life, I've grown up around it.

And that was also a point that, you know, I've been the one that when I was younger and my friends are talented musicians and they were always playing in bands. And I was the one that was organized in the shows. I was helping them figure out how to put a tour together or make a flyer, build a website or whatever it was. I can feel you. And it was still, you know, my parents, you know, hey, make this work. What's the road to? This is our station in life, my friend. Do we just have to help people with their technological needs? In our school too. I smoke some pot in our school. So I had a lot of people that would come by and hang out. But because of that, they'd be like, oh, you're techy. We're required to take this computer class. Can we help you with something?

And at a certain point, I'd be like, yeah, I've got this final and I'm really struggling with figuring out how this works. And I'd get a lot of help and not to, you know, be like, yeah, pot, save my life and introduce me to people. But you know, I mean, you're talking to someone. Yeah, I mean, I am a self profess daily cannabis ingestor. And the truth is, is that there are many things that marijuana has done for me that some I can adequately express in words that make sense to other people. Some I still am trying to figure out how exactly to put them into words. But I mean, I have no problem saying, you know, in any way, she performed that as a social lubricant, for lack of a, I wish there was a less gross term for that. But if there as something that has that function, I mean, marijuana is probably one of the best things I've ever found. I know alcohol, a lot of people like, and that can work too. I personally never liked the effects of alcohol.

I like getting like, I like being buzzed. But even buzzes now at this point, it's like, I always end up paying some type of physical price. It's not even that heavy. It's just like, I'd rather not. Like, can we just not? Like, if weed was legal, like just in your Colorado now, so it is, but it was federally legal and like, you'd just grow your own plants. I mean, that would, I mean, I would never touch alcohol. Imagine how it would be if it was like craft brews, too. Oh, man. I haven't drank a lot of years. I mean, I will have a drink as a celebration once in a while. Sure, exactly. Not my choice. Like, it's just not, it's not something that does it for me. And I don't, I'm not one of these people, like, and I've been on this fence. And when I was a vegan, I was very anti everything that wasn't vegan. I'm not anymore. So I try to really say this with, you know, recognizing many people have different proclivities for different things. But like, alcohol, I don't think is like the devil. I don't think it's as bad as the replicates. I think the way it's legislated and how culturally we fit it into a lot of our rituals and things we do is pretty dangerous. I mean, I think that the data supports that, which is why, I mean, I posted it in the synchronicity group today on Facebook, I was really shocked and saddened to see that they're classifying CBD as schedule one. I mean, this is like, it's not psychoactive. Like, this is something that literally is saving people's lives, not only like their actual lives, but also saving like their day to day experience of lives. Like, it's, it's my line. First family members of my need that. So I'm very, I'm very affected by that too. It's, it's, you know, and here's what I'm saying. Essentially with all of this stuff is, I think we're in the midst of this every, I don't think there's even like a brilliant theory at this point. We're obviously in the midst of some transitional period of history, right? And you could argue that that's maybe going on all the time, but we're really in the crux and throws of run right now. And I think as we're seeing kind of this old draconian top down legislative, you know, intrusive government, you know, laws, rule system, patriarchy, putting as many words as I can in here, systems start to kind of crumble. I always like Daniel Pinchbeck's analogy of a car that has been driving on the highway, that it's engine broke, but it's still moving because of forward momentum. But people in the car like don't realize that their car just broke down, they have to get into another car when it stops. That's kind of where we're going with a lot of the systems that are in place. I mean, I'm personally, again, relatively optimistic from marijuana legislation in this country. And I think as that begins to happen. And I think the reason it's going to happen is the groundswell of support from people who just know that it's not a bad thing anymore can actually be very helpful. What?

Like Bernie supporters, sorry. Jesus Christ. I mean, you know, I mean, the thing is, is like, as I mean, and this is this is where we get into when we're talking about the potential pitfalls of these groundswell of things. Like this is what you're pointing out is you have to make sure you have your own shit straight before you go and try to change everything outside in the world. This is why I think you and I and a lot of other people really like creativity and art as a process, because it's such an internal mechanism for it's like a mindfulness practice, right? I mean, that's what John Simon's book is exactly that. And when you go inside and constantly have to reevaluate your reactions, your intentions, your aspirations, then you can maybe get to a point where you could go to like a protest and be like, okay, I know I'm at this protest. I'm not here just because I'm angry and pissed off at every circumstance in my life. I'm here because I believe in this. And that's the Gandhi's. Those are the Martin Luther King's those people. Yeah, man, and they're not perfect people. They did fuck up. People need to be the ones leading. Now, not to say that there's some exclusivity to who should be allowed to protest over what I was like, angry at your government.

Yeah, you know what, you might not be the most intelligent, but you should still be able to be angry at your government and show that. Oh, no. And I just want to. Oh, no. And I think that's totally important to say like I'm not saying it's a prequel like you have to have all your shit figured out because God knows if that was the case, like no one would ever do anything because no one's really figuring all this shit out. What I mean is is that you should be aware of your intention for doing these things. So when we're talking about legalizing weed, I am not saying we should legalize weed just because I like to smoke weed. And it's been beneficial to me. I think there are clear reasons that I have thought about and analyzed that I think are, you know, you could bring up in a debate that I think are logical and make sense.

My point is with all of this shit, right? Trump, marijuana legislation, CBD artists not having collectives, businesses, and corporations that have kind of co-opted the artistic process. What we're seeing down though now and I can, you know, validate this in conversations with you and other people like people get this shit is going on. There are people who understand that there are other alternatives and there is a shit, there's a tremendous amount of people who are working on this. And they're starting to come together. I mean, I know we spoke about, I mean, like, you know, five to 10 people now every week who are just doing some really fucking cool shit. And will they all be successful in exactly the way they hope to? No, maybe not. But collectively, the fact that this is going on, that's enough proof for me that this shit is going to change at some point. Maybe not even our lifetimes, maybe not for 30, 40 years. Who knows? I don't think it's going to be that long.

But it's definitely, this is, it's happening. It's a very exciting time to be alive and doing this shit. I agree. I couldn't remember that. Cool, man. Anything else you want to cover before I get to my questions specifically? I feel like there is, but I'm looking for you here. I mean, I would like, obviously, we'll stay in contact and, you know, we'll probably do other ones of these. And also, I just started gathering information and data on for a project I'm working on centered around creativity. And I definitely would love to have you involved in various stages of it, because I think it's going to be pretty cool. Because I'm, it's essentially the, my intention behind it is a, I'm trying to figure out where people's pain points are with creativity and what segments of the population are dealing with those. Are you creative professional? Are you someone who does this for a hobby? Are you someone who doesn't think they're creative, but would like to be, and then try to offer up some solutions on how to deal with those? And then third part, which I'm not specifically stating except here, when you get enough people interested around a topic, you can then kind of funnel them to other places, maybe where they resonate with people and really exactly, exactly.

So other ideas on that for next time. I'm sure, man. All right, so let me get to my questions. And then we will connect soon. I'm super thrilled. And I'd like to point out, I don't know where I'll edit this one in that you just moved, you're waiting for a pod of all of your stuff to arrive. So I really appreciate you taking the time to do this in this blank canvas surrounding. I totally got it. So, I believe, man. I can't wait to see it. Okay, so first question. What's your favorite color? I can't answer all of them. That's so hard. You can you can purple. Like if I had to pick like a color, yeah, I go towards purple. Awesome. Love it. Love it. What's your favorite number?

Nine. I love that too. What's your favorite animal? Maybe either a large cat or an otter. Otter. Why an otter? Otters. I just always like watching them. They're just having fun all the time. They are. It's true. They are. They frolic in the water. I volunteered at a zoo once and they had a line on the ground in the back room where like you pull them out to clean their cages that sit in the cell there or whatever and they add their own little toys and everything. And there's a line and I'm like, what's this line about? And they put a stick and they hit it on the ground over the line and the claw, the otter, whack. Like because they cut a fish mid stream. So then that was the point. I was like, all right, I don't know if otters my animal, but I've been saying that for a long time. I don't know. I don't think I count for that sharp. Well, you never know, man. I own those claws, man. All right. Last question. What's a practical tip that has helped you in your life that you could share with other people? Practical tip in my life. You can only do as good as you can do every day. And that is the number one thing that I've had to remind myself all the time is that you can your best is per day. You know, you can only do that. And we're such future oriented creatures. And that's where we lose ourselves sometimes in the anxiety and the stress of the day to day. And that's where even in my move here to Colorado, I found some, you know, some personal solace and some ability to, you know, sit back and be calm about this is that, you know, I do what I can do every day. I love it. I love it. It reminds me of Ashanti Dave, a quote, which is, if you can't solve your problem, what's the use in worrying? If you can solve your problem, what's the use in worrying? Do what you can do. All right, man, dude, thanks so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. Let's connect soon. I gotta say one more. Yes, of course, of course, shout out to that dope records. So if anybody else wants to go listen to some really psychedelic bounce music, that store records and spankalicious come out of the Midwest.

I'm going out with a whole lot of clothes. Also, I'm pulling some artists around on tour with them too. Do me a favor. Email me anything you would want in this episode. I'm going to leave this part in, but anything you want included, I'll make sure it goes out and people can get tuned in to what you're digging in. Peace, buddy. Thanks to Jerry for coming on and talking. Thank you for listening. I really appreciate it. If you like the show, subscribe to it on iTunes, Stitcher, overcast, wherever. Check out the website, syncpodcast.com. There's stuff on there that's not just the podcast. Sometimes I'm on other podcasts. I actually, I don't know if I mentioned this. I probably did, but I had an excellent time on Zach Leary's It's All Happening a couple weeks ago.

Really, he loves Zach. He's going places this kid, I tell you. But truthfully, thank you for listening. Thank you to everyone who's donated, rated and reviewed, synchronicity. You guys, really, you're the best. Patrick, you're the super best. I will see you guys next week. Right, soccer. Polymarket is proud to be the world's top choice to trade soccer. Know the game better than the market? You can earn cash trading on tournament and game outcomes, golds, assists, saves, corners and much, much more. Download the Polymarket app and use code free50 to unlock $50 free for your first trade. Trading not available in all jurisdictions.

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