Episode 10: Folk Art with Ted Wright

want to talk about it. From homemade rock pens, two jello coverage, slipping slides from retro mint julip cups, to sidewalk chalk guard from breakfast club costplayed to video game marathons, tell me what you love, why you love it, how you got into it, and what makes it awesome. Each episode is presented in three chapters. In chapter one, my guest and I will have a conversation about their passion.

In chapter two, we play a game I call trade Jo, where my guest and I turn each other onto something cool we've recently discovered. And in chapter three, I closed the show by talking about music that I am currently geeked out on and why I believe that curiosity is contagious us and that life is better with the soundtrack. So let the geeking begin. Chapter one. Today's guest is Ted right now. Ted is a word of mouth marketing guru and founder of Fizz Marketing, who lives here in Atlanta.

We met at a play group when our kids were much smaller than they are now, and we became friends because we were the only two dads in the group. When he came over to my recording studio to tape this episode, I assumed he wanted to talk about R. E. M. Because he is one of the few people I know who is a bigger fan of that band than I am. But in fact he had something even cooler in mind. Enjoy ted right, how are you, my friend, I'm good Christian?

How are you? I'm great, Welcome to the podcast. Thank you. I like I have a squeaky chair if you can hear it, that's his your famous Tell me where we are? Um, we are here in lovely Decatur, Georgia, in your cool ass but secret a little studio that you have hidden down here. I like that. It sounds a little bit like a bat cave. That's nice. It is, It's super cool. That would be cool if it was a bat cave.

We can put this actually underground. Yes, yes, I have to tell you about the house that I went and saw this guy spend forty million dollars and he built a bat cave. Yeah, a real bat cave. It's a little north of the city. Crazy for here in Ata, here in Atlanta. UM. He spent a very long time with it. It's ridiculous, but he the drive in he actually has a fake waterfall and when you go up the driveway his little clicker, the water stops flowing, the

garage door goes up and you drive in. Click. I was like, I want forty million dollars because I want a bat cave. It'd be great. I love it. So welcome to the podcast. Thank you Geeking Out. So I know the rules have been explained, but I'll say them one more time just to get them in your head so that they hold their um. What I want to do is I want to talk to you about something that you are completely into, obsessed with deep diving on that has nothing to do with your job. Okay, okay.

So first that that does is it beckons that you must describe your job. So what do you do for a living? So I run a marketing company that specializes in word of mouth marketing, which is basically getting people in North America UH to talk to their friends about things that they think are cool. Okay, so that's basically like the Internet. It is right, it is the Internet, except it's most of that work is face to face, so that's without really technology. It's it's it's how would

I know? I've been word of mouth marketed to um so you wouldn't know by that. But you've got a friend who loves to talk to you about restaurants they love, or movies or great music, and they come to you because they know you like restaurants, movies, or music, and they say some version of hey, I know this about you, I know this about this thing. You should totally get together. And here's why. And it's the way the humans have been communicating and sharing stories with each other for at

least a couple of thousand years. It just happens to be that in America we live in now, most people don't believe the companies or brands tell the truth and they're advertising, but they're still trust their friends. So this is a really really great way to share stories about things. And it's how bands grow. It's how brands grow. It's how why you buy one pair of shoes versus another. It's it's got a fun that's super cool. Okay, So um,

you're we've been friends for for a while now. Just a full disclosure to the people out into the world. And our relationship is one in which are firstborns. Uh. Children were in the same play group together. That's true way back when, right, yeah, they were like three. Yeah, And I remember I remember looking across the yard being what I thought I would be the only man there because you know, I had a job being an artist, and so what was another guy doing here? And that

was you? So we met there and so the world when you close your eyes here and imagine us here indicator Georgia uh. Ted and I've known each other for a while, but I really have no idea what you're about to say of what it is you're totally into, so tell me. Yeah, that is true. So hello America. So Christians like, Hey, come over and I've got three questions and we're gonna do it on tape and I'm gonna show to everybody. So I did not know what the questions for it until you all listening also heard

so very fun. Um ask me again, Christian, Okay, what is it that you are totally geeking out on that it has nothing to do with your job? So a thing that brings me just rate joy. These days, UM is wandering around the world of folk art. Folk art, folk art so just okay. So for all you don't know, his whole forehead just rembled like I wasn't thinking. That's what folk art, so f o lk art folk car

okay so also known as outsider art. Back in the day, it used to be known as art brute if you were French, or art of the insane, because there were a lot of people in insane asylums and prisons that didn't everything else to do. And it turns out that they were artists and they would produced pieces. So I first got in touch with outsider art, with folk art um when I was a boy scout. So in northern Georgia.

We were coming back and there was a guy in a place UM called Somerville, Georgia, and he needed help UM digging out a ditch that had gotten filled up with like cat tails and so. And that person his name was Howard Finster, and the reverend or the Reverend Howard Finster, and so Reverend Finster. UM was this man and he um, God talked to him, he thought God talked to him. Whatever, don't know it wasn't there, and

he decided he would do paintings. And so he took his front yard and he created and made something that he referred to his paradise garden. And so he drew and wrote and painted just how he felt he should be doing this. And what is so amazing to me about folk artists and do this is that some are trained, and most of them are not trained. Most of them just pick up appresh and like, oh, this is kind

of fun. But when you see their pieces, it's so obvious that if they don't express themselves and get this out on canvas, their heads going to explode. And you can just feel, I mean, you're a you're a singer songwriter. You know, people are like, look, if I'm not singing, I'm dying a little bit on the inside. Like I have to write this song down even if I don't are using, even if no one ever hears it. If

I I'm doing this for me. So there's a whole bunch of artists, and it's interestingly a lot of people were in the American South. Um also there's some Midwestern and there's some California, but they're all sort of very different and and they just do this art because they

have to. And the first time I saw a Fenster piece, Um a band that I know you and I both greatly greatly enjoy UM Howard Finser their album cover because Michael Stipe saw some fence to work because where Reverend Finster lived was not too far from Athens, and they'd seen each other, and he was kind of famous in the in the very early eighties late seventies of the art worlds kind of find him, and I totally remember seeing that album of Government, going oh, that's pretty cool.

And then over over time I saw different pieces that he had done and I was like, Wow, this is really interesting. And I've always liked art. So do you remember when we were growing up, remember those Richard Scary books with all the there're all the little animals that like drove the little sucks around, like the inch worm was the fireman, and there were always in every illustration there was like twenty thousand things going on there. So a lot of outsider art has a lot of little

tiny details all over it. In my A d d Addull brain, I really like like lots of different stimulus, and I like lots of different things going on. So about five years ago, you know, I had a couple of extra dollars, you know, in my pockets. So I said, I'm gonna buy Howard Finster piece. And so for me, like I just I'm going to go buy one. And so I talked to some people, and it's kind of hard to find his work. Reverend Fencer has now passed

and some of his like extraordinarily expensive. Um So somebody told him at about this auction that actually happens once a year and it is the greatest art auction in the world and it is for for folk art and outsider art and it is in but for Georgia. Actually it was just this weekend and it is literally in a shock and this guy ends it up twice a year and it is it's like a garage sale for every artist you've ever seen in this genre. And it

is craziness. And so there was this Finster piece that somebody had dropped and they were gonna cut it up. They dropped it on the ground and had broken in half. Reverend Finster didn't paint on canvas. He painted on stuff

that he just found on the street. Or so this is a piece of like old dry wall that he had done this great painting on and then somebody had dropped it, so it kind of broken in half, has had a big section missing, and somebody said, oh, we're just gonna cut this up and make key chains out of it, and I said, you are not. And they were like, oh, what's going on? Who are you? And I introduced myself. I said, if you put in the auction, I promised that I will um that I will bid

on it. And nobody wanted what was basically the art version of a piece of trash. And it was beautiful and wonderful to me, and so about it for like eight hundred bucks. And that was the first Finster piece and it still hangs in my office and it is not the most lovely thing that has ever come down

the pike, but I love it. And so from there I've kind of taken off in My wife is, you know, kind of come along with me, and so we've broken out into sort of professional artists that will sell you stuff, but also people who do busking on the street or even or panhandling. Sometimes they make signs in order to um basically announce what they're raising money for or what they're doing or explaining about their lives. And so now I traveled a lot for my job, not quite as

much as you do, Christian, but you know enough. And so now I travel always with a ten dollar bill wrapped around two sharpie pens with a rubber band, and I buy people who are buskers or who are you know,

asking for money on the street. I buy their signs from them for ten dollars and two sharpies because you can always find something, Yeah, you can always find something to write on which you can always find something to write with, and they're always glad that you know, a people are glad to sell their sign for ten dollars. And I so this is a sign that maybe they're holding up at this side of the road when you're

at the exit, like I'm on ramp to here. Sometimes it is and sometimes it is I'm a musician and this is what I'm doing. And sometimes it's you know whatever. And I don't buy them all, but if somebody is, you know, just very intent about what they're doing, or they've taken a time and they're doodles all over the place. So I have one that says, you know, help, I'm raising ransom and I'm nine cents short, and I I

read I totally remember right. I walked by the sky was in San Francisco, and I walked by him and I thought about the sign. I turned around, I said how much for the sign? And it's the first one I ever bought. And so we negotiate a little bit because you have fifty bucks and I was like no, and I walked away and he's like, in so ten bucks and he was very happy to sell it, and to which I was. Then I took in my hand and I walked back to my hotel and this guy.

I get like two streets down and this guy comes up to hand me a dollar. It's this tough day, and I was looking at him because he looked like I was I was panhandler, but I was because because I had to sign in my hand. So so now we have a So I have kind of this collection. And what what is interesting to me is that art is everywhere and you can see art, and so that

has kind of led me into an interest again. Because I travel a lot, I also take pictures of street art, and so particularly if I'm in somewhere, it's a completely strange time zone for me. So instead of being noon,

it's midnight, so my timing is all messed up. So I sometimes in strange places like Paris or whatever, I'll go take a bus or a train way out into the middle of nowhere, uh, you know, right out at way onto the bourbs and where a lot of artists live, and I'll just go early morning shoot stuff, you know, take pictures up. Now you're talking about graffiti. Are you talking about the art that they're painting while they're on

the street. Is it like so and and so that to lovely for those of you are listening her superendu street ar is like, now we're gonna start the different I'm curious. So there's a there's a whole fight, like what is country music? So that could be like whatever that is. But but for me, graffiti is more about tagging or making a political statement. And on street art sometimes people just love to go paint a beautiful thing somewhere and it has morphed into their people that professionally

paint murals. But there's also people that are artists that want everybody to see their art, but they don't really have a place to show it where that many people can see it, So they climb on top of the building. They just painted up there and then they walk down and they leave it for everybody. And what is amazing is you see these works out and you're like, you know, anybody could come by at any point and just paint over that. So you're putting all this effort, You're putting

all this work. Sometimes you're gonna see your putting all this emotion, all this thought into this, and it could be gone tomorro And so I think that's also kind of interesting that you love something so much that it doesn't matter that it disappeared tomorrow or that it has no economic value to you. You just have to go do this thing. So do you feel like a voyor when you do this? Is are you like? What are you getting off of this? Is it? Is it moving

energy into you? Just say, look, I'm looking at someone super express and I love watching that. So I think. So I've watched a couple of people. I think where I get out of it is I get I think it's so fun that somebody else loves something so much that they're just gonna go do it. I mean, you and I both have careers where it's not really this is not the really straight path to you know, even being able to afford anything much less riches than fame.

There's a lot of people that do what we do that never really you know, make it, so it's highly risky. So I also I also think it's kind of fun that people went out and did something just because they wanted to and it didn't matter if nobody else understood. It's like, if this is for me, then I'm gonna go do this and not consequences be damned. Because that's a little bit you know, it's a little bit angry.

But like, look, I mean, you know, a little Tom Petty there, you know, damn the torpedoes full speed ahead. R I p Tom because so sad when he passed such tough anyway back to art or deact to that kind of art. That was what I think is so interesting. I just really am fascinated by people who love something so much that they are just compelled to do this. Have you have you branched out past Finster? Soody? Are you starting to collect other folk art people? And how

deep are you? So? Huh, So it depends on who you ask. Um, we're kind of running out of wall space at the house, so unfortunately owned the office building built tiny office building there in so it's also kind of spilling over into that. Um. But we're you know, we're trying to keep it under the you know, we're trying to keep it, keep it okay, We're not going

to be weird about it. Also, you know, there's so I watched sometimes, I watched this TV show called American Pickers, and you know, people sometimes they go from collecting to hoarding, and I'm not really sure again where the line is between that. So I'm not like the guy in Philadelphia who loved impressionistic guard whose last name was Barnes, and so he just covered walls with every painting he possibly

could get fined. And because he was the right place at the right time, he bought some beautiful stuff, but he'd run out of space on the wall, so he started, you know, nailing stuff to the ceilings and yeah, oh yeah. The Barnes collection is really famous. That's the one that Um in his will, he left all the money to take care of everything, but he said you couldn't move

any paintings from where they were. And then they had a roof leak and they were literally undreds of millions of dollars of paintings that by law, because of the way the will was written and how wills are enforced, they could move them, and they had to get a judge to basically adjudicate whether or not they could take these things out from where there. Oh yeah, yeah, So anyway, so people who sometimes collect art, so it's it's fun to think we collect art. I don't think Christine and

I Christine is my wife. I don't think Christine and I are art collectors because I don't know evenna know who those people are, except you know, you see about him in movies or read about them. But I do think that we go out and we see things and it doesn't matter if they cost some a little bit of money or a lot. So Christine and I we really buy the art, and I buy my the art that I love just because we love it. So I probably right now have as many fensters as I need

right this second. Although I did see one the other day. I was like, oh, but I just the last that the last one I bought. He had painted on one of those old school um windows, remember those storm windows with a little two aluminum things that you pressed and raised up. Yes, so he painted a beautiful work on the glass of one of those, so it's easily broken and really hard to display. And so of course I bought it because it was a crazy piece that was

haunting me, and so I bought it. And then Christine is like, what are we gonna do with this? And I was like, we're gonna find a framer who's willing to take on the challenge of doing this, and we're going to take it. We're gonna display it, and if it gets broken, then we're gonna pick up the glass pieces and put them back together if we can, or we'll do something else. But that's what we're gonna do,

because this is a piece that everyone needs. And now it hangs by the back door in our house, so my fourteen year old and all of his friends just like run by it every day and kick off their shoes and like hey, and I don't know if they notice it, but every day I walk in and it makes me smile. That's awesome. If I was trying to get into this, how would I start get into art or get into folk art, get into folk art. If was trying to get into folk art, how would I start?

Like where would you point me? Is it like a website. Is it a thought? Is it a do I have to type in folk art into Google and see what happens? Like, help help me get in if if someone's listening to this, all right, So for those who listening, so as you want, like we'll come over the house and let me show you something that America. Come on over. Christian will send you the address. It's great. Um, I think you know,

for me, it's just about exploration. So I think I would go to my local museum and I would look at say, hey, have you got any folk art I can look at? If this sounded really interesting to you, I mean, the interwebs or is an awesome place, and certainly if you do folk art and you can find a list of folk artists. Um. There is a great museum, little shop, nonprofit organization in Chicago that I have been into before. They have thirty or forty pieces there that

are amazing if you like this kind of thing. I mean, some people look at it and it seems crazy. There was a guy his name, his name is Royal Robinson, but he always went by the prophet Royal Robinson and the prophet um. I don't know, because I'm not a psychologist. But he seemed to have had an issue in his early twenties, and so he kind of took a break from reality and his wife at the time, um she left because she had had after five or ten years

that she had had about enough. And for the rest of his life he wrote about her and drew about her, and he had he had an amazing like almost draftsman like skill, so he would do these poaches is very angry, like you left me, and women are terrible and divorcee, and he would use all these words that people use in this season seventies to refer to these people, and then on the back he made his calendar and this is what he was going to do for the week.

So some of these people, some of these things still survive. So this is a little bit like the Dr braun Ners label if you've ever had that shampoo or that soap and you read it and it just becomes preaching and then it goes into like the dark dark hole of whatever that yes and so and so. Actually, so I only wrote on one roll Robinson peace because if you read them, they're like super angry and super misogynistic, and you would never even think about other people like this.

But the reason I like them is because he just had to get this out and even though it wasn't appropriate, he thought it was appropriate. This is what he's gonna do. And there's these great drawings. And sometimes the women are like fifty ft tall and monsters and like lasers are shooting out of their eyes, and sometimes they're demonic. Oh yeah, it's it's the prophet roll Robinson for you. They're listening,

go look at them. But on the back then he'd do his calendar and it would be like, you know, he would just draw straight lines and he there's some

Bible quotes in there. There's he liked to zeke Eel a lot, and so he talks about Ezekiel and then he would say, oh, and you know, I gotta go get my car and you know at the at the oil change place or or eggs, milk and butter on one day and I was like, how great is that that somebody can kind of makes you want to just look at the calendar side well and hang it up backwards.

So the one that I have, UM actually had to work with a guy because we had to engineer a frame because that is what I said, I said, I like the calendar as much as the other, and so most people just do the other. But I need to have this both sides. So the frame is actually super heavy because his glass on both sides. And my wife is Christina for those of you who haven't met her before. She's awesome. Um, Christina and I flip it every once in a while. She's like, you think we should flip

the Robinson. I'm like, yeah, let's hang with the calendar. And it's it's way upstairs and so we don't see it, but yeah, so you can see both sides because it's awesome. So so um, I'd say to two more questions, I'd say, where is the line for you? Like you mentioned this a little earlier, Like you're you're not really gonna nail them to the ceiling, and you probably are well stocked on what you've your curation, but it sounds like it's

a very big passion. So is there a point at which you started pre apologizing to your son for the amount of folk art you've just purchased with his college, Like, where's the line for what you're doing? Hey, what point do you become crazy? At what point do I become crazy? I think the point that you become crazy is for collecting, probably collecting anything where you start to disregard everything else in your life, and there's not much of a balance,

you know. I'm just thinking about, like, how many stamps is too many? Once I have all the damps, are all the cars? I mean, do you really need fifteen? I mean a guy who taught me in business school, you know, he a beautiful collection of Porsche um and you know, now it's a lot of work for him because you gotta keep driving him, you gotta rotate him and all the rest of that stuff. So I'm sure

there's a point. I'm sure that my son will one day come to me like I recently did with my mother, and I said, okay, she my mother likes pets, and so I said, Mom, you can do anything you want. But the day I walk in here and there's an albino python cruising around the house, that's it. You're done. So so when your son comes to you, what is he gonna say. He's like, look, I see that you You took a screwdriver out and you were trying to take the light switch off the wall to make more

space for more folk art. Yes, dad, you need to sit down, there's there's a number, or there's an activity, and if you hit that, then that's it and you can And with my mom, I was like, look, you can walk up to the line. You want to have dogs that are paralyzed from the back forward, and you're gonna take care of him the next five years and you're gonna hold them every time they need to go outside. Who am I to be in your if that brings

you joy? Oh my gosh, But I'm telling you and so now and now, and so I tell that it's like four or five years ago. And so now every once in a while she'll say something. I'm like, I'll buy a python just and so now it's shorthand for moms, totally shorthand for you know. I'm kidding until I'm not, and then that's it. That's funny. So have you ever considered becoming a folk artist? Oh? No, I'm terrible. I

couldn't be an artist to save my life. I've tried a couple of times because I think it would be cool to be able to produce some of these things. And I look at my work and I'm like, that's awful, do you doodle? No, I'm not. I mean, I'd make a lot of boxes. So basically, um so instead of being an artist, I'm an artistic supporter. Okay, that is

that is that is my job. But I think it's interesting that people can do things that I can't do, Like you can sing and you can play guitar, and you can write songs, and you can do all these things and if you break them down, I mean hemming ways a little bit like this as well, you know, to break it down. None of those words are new. They were all in the dictionary and everyone knows what

everyone where it does mean. But y'all did that song about you know, Tennessee, you know and called into the radio show and tell her I love her and a girl called Tennessee. And every time I hear that, I'm like, man, think about how cool that must be to take words that we all know and notes that already pre exist and being able to know how to put them together and evoke a whole story. And it runs like a movie in my head. And I mean, I think artists are like that, and I think I think people who

were chefs that are like that. Like I'm trying to voke a particular feeling, so I'm gonna figure out how to make this cocktail or tying to make this food. I'm gonna make this movie, I'm gonna write this book. I think I think it's neat that people can do that because I totally cannot That is not that is not my gift. So I think I think it's cool that people gonna do stuff to I can't do. So I like to hang out and watch. Maybe that's why

I like sports too. I'll never be Julio Joe, but dude, the guy can stretch out and he'd stick his feet out there. I'm like, how he do that? And so I will totally pay eighty bucks for a ticket or I'll sit there for three hours on TV and to watch twenty minutes of people do stuff that I can't do. And I think it's neat that they can do it. That's awesome And I love that you probably I imagine you walk around your house and look at the walls and go, that's stuff I can't do, but stuff that

these people couldn't keep from doing. Yeah, you really do. Kind You're you're walking around compulsion and kind of it's kind of beautiful knowing you and and knowing that you said this today. It's all is a nice beautiful bow of of Ted Wright. And thank you for being here, thank you for having me. Apter two in every episode of Gigging Out. I see if I can trade one thing I've discovered recently with one thing that my guest has discovered. Anything is admissible in this friendly exchange I

call trade you. All right, So this is the section of of the podcast that I call trade you. And this section is I'm going to trade you one thing that I'm currently into in exchange for one thing you're currently into, a right, okay, And I'll go first, which will give you a little bit of time for you to kind of figure out what you want to trade me. I think you know this about me already that I am a board game guy. I am interested in board games,

which is not necessarily Clue or Monopoly. This is like a whole different level and a whole different section of Barnes and Noble, you know. And um, what I have found is there is a new type of game that I didn't know existed until recently, and it has been developed. I mean, it is a new idea. This is not an old idea. And interestingly, I think the idea itself kind of came into board gaming from the computer gaming world. I think it came backwards, which is a very weird

way to develop. This particular new kind of board game has a designation, so you'll you'll see the name of the game and then you will see this designation legacy after it, and a legacy board game UM is a game that changes while you play it. So, for instance, the one that I'm going to recommend to you, and I'm only saying this because it's the they've just released

season two of the board game. Board games come in season well they now, so this is a little bit like neck Netflix, but a board game UM season one. The name of this board game is called Pandemic, and

it's uh what you need to get. There's there's Pandemic, which is normal Pandemic, which is a game in which you see a map of the world and you start at the CDC here in Atlanta, and there's an outbreak that goes on across the globe, and the players are cooperative, so you're not playing against anyone, You're you're all playing characters. They each have different skills or different special powers, and you have to combine them with the in a certain number,

it turns to save the world. Well, then they kept saying, well, have you played Pandemic Legacy. I was like, no, already played it, and they're like no, no, no, no, no no, you gotta do the legacy bit. So I bought it because it was on the shelf, and I brought it home. And what happens is after the first time you play, it says all right, open up box number one, and you dig into the thing and there's a box with

a perforated top. It hasn't been opened, and you open it up and it has stickers in it, and it has new cards and it has new rules, and you put stickers on the actual game board on top of things that were already there that you thought that's how it worked. And one of the cards says, these are the new rules. Tear up the card for the old rules, So you actually destroy You tear up the card and you throw it in the trash can. Right, And then now you're playing a game which you kind of know

the parameters of, but it just changed. And then once you do that one round, you said, okay, you're on round number three. Did you survive? And if you survived, then suddenly they're like, open up box number two, which suddenly says, tear up your characters, throw away this, and these are your new rules, so and here's new stories,

and here's new interesting things about where you are. So there's a story layered over the top of the game, which is also changing every time you play it, so you can't go back to the beginning and play it again like you would a normal board game. So Pandemic Season two Legacy was released really a week and a half ago, okay, And of course, now that I'm a dork about this, I pre ordered it and it showed up and I'm like seven games in and no one

can touch it at the house. No one is allowed to because I have to remember where I am and done. So if I had to turn you onto something right now, I would turn you onto the Pandemic Legacy series board games. Do I start with the very first Pandemic? No, you can. So the way that works is when you first open up the box, it says, pray play a pregame. But for you, do you think, as the person who's recommending to me that I should do Pandemic and then Pandemic

just but just don't start when you get there. It tells you to play two or three games so that you understand the mechanics without opening up any of the legacy pieces and just followed the directions. I mean, it's unbelievable. What an experience this will be. Okay, Okay, now it's return.

So I want to talk to you about water because it is so it has come to my attention that water is not always water, that there's a lot of stuff that floats around in water, and that we use a lot of water, especially here in America where we're starting to drink less and less soda. And I got a little loud there for Christian just for fun. He hasn't. He has a diet coke thing that he has. He's

it's gone, all right, very good. So water is kind of interesting, right because it's everywhere, and also you use in lots of places, like when you make rice at home, rice is sixt water, or you're making pasta, or you're drinking you know, milk is seventy water water, um, depending on what is you're doing. So you know, it turns out that we really need to make choices about where we get our water from and what are we doing

with that water? So like there's tap water and it depends on where you are and not like Flint, Michigan gross stuff or like like obviously grows stuff where you got like flames coming out like a Simpsons cartoon, but or in real life when that happens that people. But you know, there's so there's tap water, and then you can get water out of bottles and you could do it.

Different companies have filters. And then there's this company out there that have you know, those big machines that you see at the grocery store where you can go up and you know, you can fill up a gallon jug for fifteen cents, or you can get big those big five gallon things delivered to your house. So it's interesting

to me. So somebody brought this up to me about six months ago, and so I've been kind of looking at it, and I'm starting to be a big fan of getting those big things of water at the grocery store and then having a dispensary um at your house and getting your water that you drink and you news out of those And I'm interested in this, and this is for real. I'm interested in this because one like consumption so average, So I got kind of went down

the rabbit hole and looked at all of stuff. So water and if you if you have one of those dispensers in America, this is one of those five gallon things and you've got the little dispenser in your kitchen or whatever, um, and it's those ones that you have to take off the top and you have to go really fast, you know, splash all over the floor. That's

what we're talking about. So people drink like like your kids will drink more water if that's just out there in front of them, right, And there's there's a guy out there. His name is Dick Taylor, and he just won the Nobel Prize for Economics. But his idea forty years ago, which he then wrote in a book called Nudge, and basically his concept that he won the Nobel Prize for it because now it has been proven, is if you make it easy for somebody to due to the

right thing, they'll do it much more often. So water is it turns out we should be every American should most likely be drinking more water than they already do. And so water because water is everywhere, because we need to consume all out of water. Water really becomes a choice like why am I drinking water out of this place? And do I need to make sure that that is

something I want to do? So an average, so one of those five gallon if you drink your water out of one of those five gallon things, and that's how you consume much of your water. Your a praise like fifteen hundred of those water bottles that you buy, you know, in the big case packs and so and if you get one of those. So there's particular matter, and there's stuff like chlorine and stuff that is put in big lots of water and municipalities. But do you really want

to be putting all that chlorine in your body? So maybe you want to use you know, some company who has a filter where you put the stuff in the top up and then the water kind of percolates down with gravity. So that's one way of filtering. But do you want more filters because maybe that doesn't take out everything.

So do you want a company to filter the water for you, like you know one of those companies that has the big water and you just go to lows or you go to you know, when your whole foods and just pull one out and put the empty back and you go do that. So water you really need to think about. So my gift to you is you really need to be thinking about where it is you get your water and how you get your water and what does that mean for what you are trying to do.

Like I know you're on the road a lot, right, So this is why I'm talking about you. If there's no water, you need to drink more water. And also you burn You've told me before, you know you burned six or seven thousand galleries during the show. So you've got water coming in and out all the time. So what is the quality of the water that you're putting in and out of your system? So for you in particular in America, you can listen in if this works

for you too, we really think about it. And for us at our house, you know, since we're recommending stuff, we have moved to that big water thing, the diyant water thing, and we're putting it and we got one of those machines and my wife does not like the machine, but I put over in the closet. We drink on a lot more water. And for me, and who knows it's if it's mental or not, but I can I feel better. I'm no, I'm drinking more water. I'm probably more hydrated. I got them for the office we have.

I put four of them into the office and I ripped out. We guys blow through a bunch of water on that, and so we're probably blowing through, you know, to on the gallons of water that I know of, probably a week. I accept your gift. Pandemic and water. Two things are made for each other. Thank you for being here man, Thank you, Christian. I appreciate it's a lot of fun. Chapter three me geeking out on music the long way. There's nothing quite like cheering for your

favorite team. Where in the shirt, knowing the chant, following the story, you feel like you're a part of something, a tribe. You give the team your support and exchange. They carry the flag, and the dreams of winning. Bands from your hometown functioned kind of like sports teams. If you're from Texas, maybe it was Robert O'Keene or Seattle. It was Pearl Jam or Mud Honey Portland, the Decembrist Minneapolis,

maybe it was the Replacements or Prince. Their bands from the place you call home, and as they become successful, you cheer them on until They're almost like an extension of you, an extension of your hometown, part of the town's identity and yours. This brings me to Athens, Georgia and their home team, not the Georgia Bulldogs, but r E M M. The culture of going the long way is what is birth many, if not all, of the significant bands in America, and each of these bands I mentioned,

you're likely to hear the same story. A group of people gathered in a basement, played music together for a determinate amount of time, invited their friends over to listen, and said basement eventually played somewhere for free until enough people that they didn't know started enjoying listening. Then they kept playing, and eventually, between playing house parties and local clubs and bowling alleys, learned how to parallel park of van and a trailer, make a T shirt, and even

learn to make collections of songs and release albums. R M started in nineteen eighty and went the long way. They learned which songs made people sing along, which made them dance, which board their audience to tears, and which songs they had to finish their show with every night. This is them in Raleigh in two songs for some people will tell you that you need to learn the ropes, pay your dues, put in your ten thousand Gladwell hours to get there. Truly, in my experience, you're just trying

everything you can to get a big break. There's a certain amount of pride when you start to see something from your hometown show up on the radio or even on television. But to get there, these bands are putting in thousands of hours touring and even more making music together.

This is R E M three years in on their national television debut on Letterman Please Welcome R E M. R E M actually spent seven albums of Time getting better and better and better on an independent label before they ever signed with Warner Brothers and release their major label debut Green. Their most successful albums actually came as their two follow ups to Green, Out of Time and Automatic For the people. They were going the long way.

You can actually hear it if you go backward in their catalog, from the Sounds of Murmur, two Fables of the Reconstruction and to Life's Rich Pageant, and then to an album called Document. They released an album a year and toured like crazy. I looked up to people like R. E. M. I came to college in Atlanta in and was able to not only here but actually see the habits that they had formed. I saw clubs where they played and

the bands after them. They were actually playing the same clubs, college stations that played their music, who welcomed new bands to send them music, bands who R. E M Had helped that were in turn now helping me. I could actually feel what going the long way actually created in its wake. It created opportunity, encouragement, so coard, and most importantly,

someone saying that this crazy dream is not impossible. I've lived in what they taught, from coffee houses to clubs to frat houses across the South to rock clubs in Berlin or even arenas in the Midwest. Work harder to make a better song right, thousands of them constantly try to find a new audience. Understand you may play to no one in each city or country until people start

to become fans. Never stop moving the dream forward, Never take your fans for granted, make a better T shirt, help those who come behind you, be the team from your hometown, and never forget it. I still can't believe that my name is even next to their name and the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. I owe them so much as a fan, as a student, as a creator. I'm not sure I would be who I am or where I am without their music. It's a shame that nowadays very few bands to get the opportunity to go

the long way. No one gives young bands a chance anymore. Even if you have a big break and a successful radio song, if your sophomore album tanks, you're kind of considered over. What if we said, hey, how about you put out an album for a year, for five years, play a hundred and fifties shows a year, and then decide, if you're any good, what kind of music do you think would be created? What kind of culture? There is

some good news. College bars still exists, and people like Luke Combs or Ashley McBride have been playing them and building fan bases for years. The dreams not dead. The technology that many say is a setback to the music industry might be the same technology that can give the next R. E. M the chance to make their first five records without anybody's help. But most importantly, there are basements everywhere in every hometown that still have dreams in them where a group of people will make a band

and maybe go the long way. If you want to help find a band, support him, tell your friends, bring your friends. This is how things start. You never know where things might end up. You never know where your favorite song might come from. You never know if something from your own street might change the world. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Geeking Out and we are all hard at work here on the next one. Are you obsessed with something amazing? I want to tell us

about it? Right to us at geeking Out with KB at gmail dot com and you might be a guest on an upcoming episode. Come find out more about me and this podcast at Christian Bush dot com, Christian with a K, follow me at Christian Bush on Twitter, Christian Bush on Instagram, Christian Bush on Facebook, and Christian M.

Bush on Snapchat. Thanks to Bobby Bones for the opportunity to build this podcast, for In a Bush for the editing and the soundtrack, Tom Tapley for the audio wizardry, and Whitney Pastrick for being a great producer and making this whole thing possible. This is Christian Bush gigging out. Thank you for listening.