0:04

Welcome to Big Questions. This is

0:06

Cal Fussman. As you know, I've

0:09

been doing a lot of you

0:11

know, I've been doing a

0:13

lot of episodes on artificial intelligence

0:15

to show how it's and and

0:17

affecting our daily lives. Today,

0:19

I'd like you to think of

0:21

how the world would look

0:23

to you you if you a highly

0:25

successful artist over four decades as new

0:27

new technologies reinvent the world. Matt

0:30

Mahern has photographs the permanent

0:32

collection of the Metropolitan Museum

0:34

of Art in New York

0:36

City. of Art in had almost He's

0:39

had illustrations on the cover

0:41

of Time on cover of Time most

0:43

influential magazines. Back in the

0:45

day when magazines were really influential, were

0:47

directed music videos for

0:49

YouTube, music videos for U2, Tracy

0:52

Chapman, Sting, Metallica, David Byrne,

0:54

Jody Mitchell, and one of my my Tom

0:57

Waits, with whom he's done

0:59

a book of photo

1:01

portraits. portraits. is made has made documentaries

1:03

seen at Sundance and Beat

1:05

Your Films, which leads to a

1:07

big question. a big mean, you I wonder.

1:10

What's it like to throw

1:12

an entire life into

1:14

art into then see then intelligence

1:16

come along? come along, Hoover all

1:18

the great ideas ideas of

1:20

all the great artists of the

1:23

past? and then put my computer

1:25

my I can type words

1:27

on my keyboard that generate

1:29

artistic images in a finger

1:31

snap. And I ain't even

1:33

good at stick a drawings. How

1:36

would that make good at

1:38

true artist drawings.

1:40

How would that make a

1:42

true artist feel? Well, Matt

1:44

Matt actually sees

1:46

himself as as AI proof. He's

1:49

He's at the top of his field,

1:51

and when you've you've done a single music

1:53

video that's gotten a billion views, you're

1:55

certainly entitled to to this way, but as you'll

1:57

hear in our conversation, looking he's looking

1:59

at our current life. landscape in the

2:01

best way for everyone, including

2:03

people like me. Matt teaches

2:05

workshops and gives lectures on

2:07

the craft of image making.

2:09

In fact, he's just finished

2:11

an opus on image making

2:14

that took him 25 years

2:16

to write. It's called the

2:18

Image Maker's Handbook. It's five

2:20

volumes. 700,000 words in total

2:22

covers the entire journey of

2:24

being a professional artist and

2:26

will be released soon on

2:28

Image Maker's Handbook Handbook. Anyone

2:30

who wishes to navigate the world

2:33

of art, and certainly to make

2:35

a living at it, can now

2:37

have the wisdom that Matt acquired

2:40

over four decades. It's filled with

2:42

business and personal advice, and I

2:44

think it'll be wiser just listening

2:46

to what a man who's been

2:49

at the top of his field

2:51

has to say in the conversation

2:53

you're about to hear. So let's

2:55

get straight to Matt Mahern. You've

3:06

been working on a book for

3:09

like nearly a quarter century. Yes.

3:11

And how many pages is that?

3:13

2,000 pages, 700,000 words. 700,000 words.

3:15

If a book is normally 60

3:17

to 70,000 words, that's like 10

3:19

books. It's five volumes and each

3:21

average is about 400 pages for

3:23

each volume. And this is all

3:26

about imagery. Yes, well, it's all

3:28

about image making. It's the document

3:30

I wished I'd had when I

3:32

was like 17 years old walking

3:34

around my career guidance center in

3:36

Simi Valley, California, and somebody would

3:38

have come up to me and

3:40

said, hey, this is the career

3:43

you're going to have. These are

3:45

the successes you're going to have.

3:47

These are the failures you're going

3:49

to have. And here's the document

3:51

that's going to give you some

3:53

guidance in how to navigate this

3:55

wild adventure that you're going to

3:57

be on for. me now, 40

4:00

years as a professional artist. So

4:02

you've been on the cover of

4:04

Time magazine, you've made music videos,

4:06

what other kind of images have

4:08

you created? Well, I published three

4:10

or four books of personal photographs.

4:12

I have four photographs in the

4:14

permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum

4:17

of Art in New York. I've

4:19

illustrated several children's books. I've been

4:21

teaching lectures and workshops, kind of

4:23

in professional organizations in schools like

4:25

40 years. Just magazine covers book

4:27

covers. I did drawing for the

4:29

intersection of the LA Times for

4:31

25 years. Actually, that's how I

4:34

paid my way through Arts Center

4:36

College of Design in Pasadena was

4:38

my parents said I had to

4:40

go get a job so I

4:42

took the semester off and did

4:44

like 20 political illustrations and went

4:46

in to see the LA Times.

4:48

And then I got a job

4:51

as one of the regulars. So

4:53

that was how I was able

4:55

to pay my tuition for the

4:57

last four semesters in my school.

4:59

So it's basically been, I started

5:01

as an illustrator, went to photography,

5:03

then on photo journalism, essays on

5:06

Nicaragua, Belfast, Haiti, abortion clinics, mental

5:08

hospitals, Texas prison system, you know,

5:10

struggling farmers. How many

5:12

of these images just came from you

5:14

being able to draw or is it

5:16

more you being able to see and

5:19

then figure out a way to orchestrate

5:21

an image? Well that's a great question

5:23

because you know thinking and talking about

5:26

the whole AI world versus you know

5:28

kind of making things with your own

5:30

two hands and there's kind of like

5:32

a hierarchy. of image making, what I

5:35

consider from the kind of pure estate

5:37

to the most kind of, you know,

5:39

evolved or elaborate technical abilities. So if

5:42

you just sit with a pencil and

5:44

paper and you draw something out of

5:46

your head, that was my first discovery

5:49

of image making. I would just imagine

5:51

things and I would just draw what

5:53

I saw in my mind, just my

5:55

imagination. Like any kids down with a

5:58

crayons are going to go wild. Then

6:00

you go to the next level, which

6:02

is maybe you see something and you

6:05

can copy it, whether it's plain air

6:07

painting or still life. So you're actually

6:09

being observational to what's going on in

6:12

the world. That's kind of the next

6:14

tier. And then after you go through

6:16

that, then you can go into drawing

6:18

or painting, you know, from like a

6:21

digital tablet where you like use technology.

6:23

And so you are still drawing on

6:25

your own power of your hands, your

6:28

own hand-eye coordination, but you're using this

6:30

kind of digital tool. And then beyond

6:32

that is like something like Photoshop, where

6:35

you combine your kind of hand skills

6:37

with compositing images, pulling in other things

6:39

and kind of cooking this image up

6:41

with all these different aspects. And then

6:44

there's AI, which is you don't need

6:46

any technical creative physical skills. You don't

6:48

need any kind of external world. It's

6:51

all waiting there for you to just

6:53

all you need is a keyboard and

6:55

an AI platform to type the images

6:58

in. So for me, I ran the

7:00

gamut of that. hierarchy of technology I'm

7:02

not interested in AI I mean I'm

7:04

not threatened by it worried about it

7:07

or mad at it's just not my

7:09

thing so I feel like now it's

7:11

happened as you evolve as an artist

7:14

you start to incorporate all these things

7:16

now what I do it's it's a

7:18

daily 24-hour day seven day a week

7:21

flow in my mind of images and

7:23

projects and it's making the decisions about

7:25

what tool am I going to use

7:27

it's really about the tool am I

7:30

going to use the tool of just

7:32

my imagination and just draw something out

7:34

of my head. that I've been doing

7:37

for my whole life. Or am I

7:39

going to go? And I'm going to

7:41

use Photoshop and I'm going to use

7:44

some post-production program to be able to

7:46

animate something in a video. So the

7:48

great thing is to build up the

7:50

ability to decide which is the best

7:53

tool and whether you want to create

7:55

a purely out of your own mind

7:57

or that you want to pull in

8:00

other resources, which AI is the ultimate

8:02

in that because everything is pulled, you

8:04

don't contribute anything that way than the

8:07

words from your prompt. See that's this

8:09

interesting thing for me because I'm a

8:11

word guy and it seems like for

8:13

somebody who I can't draw, this is

8:16

just a magnificent way to enter the

8:18

fray, because I wouldn't have got past

8:20

stage one, you work. I can't see

8:23

something, and with my hand, draw what

8:25

I'm seeing. Sure. You're saying like you

8:27

got nothing against AI and it's just

8:30

not the thing and I'm getting because

8:32

you're throwing like all your experiences everything

8:34

you've learned into every image that you're

8:36

creating. Whereas if I am using my

8:39

words to tell AI what I'd like

8:41

to see then The experience is coming

8:43

through me as a wordsmith to actually

8:46

get the right prompt to try to

8:48

allow it to deliver the best way

8:50

of seeing what I'm seeing in my

8:53

head. Absolutely. I mean, my whole life

8:55

has been spent the greatest joy in

8:57

my life really consistently throughout with all

8:59

ups and downs I've had is my

9:02

desire and ability to create. And so

9:04

the idea for me, anybody if they

9:06

don't either they don't have the skills

9:09

or they just don't have the desire

9:11

or the patience or whatever it is

9:13

to sit down and learn these skills

9:16

and goes through the facts and starts

9:18

of all that stuff. I'm thrilled for

9:20

anybody who has the chance to discover

9:22

something. And I think the differences, and

9:25

if you're an AI artist, basically you

9:27

try these prompts, but you still need

9:29

all the skills that somebody would need

9:32

if you want to be a successful

9:34

producer of AI images, you need to

9:36

have the inspiration and the determination to

9:39

explore the AI process. You need to

9:41

have the imagination and the communication skills

9:43

to type in the right prompts. You

9:45

need to have a discerning eye to

9:48

decide if the interest that AI is

9:50

spitting out or in alignment. your intentions,

9:52

you need to have the patience and

9:55

the persistence to stick with a process

9:57

until you feel like it's successful. And

9:59

then you need the ambition and the

10:02

strategy to be able to get this

10:04

AI product, this product of your creativity

10:06

out into the world. So I'm happy

10:08

for anybody, you know, they don't want

10:11

to go through all that stuff that

10:13

I'd love to go through then or

10:15

they can't because they just don't have

10:18

the abilities, then more power to them.

10:20

The only thing is that what their

10:22

job is, they're really not. It's a

10:25

creative process to decide what you want

10:27

to see in your AI prompting process.

10:29

That's creative. You're going into your imagination.

10:31

You know, I would think that some

10:34

people that are like you, people that

10:36

are masters of the word, would really

10:38

be able to once they got familiar

10:41

with this process. that would be a

10:43

true advantage to them and they might

10:45

even be able to work with AI

10:48

better than somebody who's dealing in just

10:50

visual impressionistic images in their minds and

10:52

they you know a lot of a

10:54

lot of artists are not very verbal

10:57

they're not they don't use language so

10:59

much they're responding to what's in front

11:01

of them so somebody who is really

11:04

has a command of words could really

11:06

gain a command of this. program and

11:08

that's great. That's going to be their

11:11

thrill. Their thrill is in the anticipation

11:13

of what this machine is going to

11:15

do. If I'm doing a plain air

11:17

painting on a 100 degree weather of

11:20

a seascate and you know there are

11:22

mosquitoes flying all around me and landing

11:24

my paint and you know the weather

11:27

is changing and you know. whatever it

11:29

is I'm going through, I have to

11:31

invest my entire being into that experience.

11:33

I have to get my easel, I

11:36

have to decide to stop everything I'm

11:38

doing, I have to get out the

11:40

door, I have to go to the

11:43

place, I have to mix up my

11:45

palates, I have to endure whatever the

11:47

weather is, and I have to do

11:50

that before the light changes and the

11:52

moment is gone. Whereas an AI person

11:54

you can go, you type in your

11:56

prompts, you go get a snack, whatever

11:59

it is you do, and the thing

12:01

is done. You can still look at

12:03

it and go, holy shit, look what

12:06

my mind and this technology created, which

12:08

is when I look at a plane

12:10

air painting or a video, I've done,

12:13

look at what mine and my camera,

12:15

my paintbrush, my whatever it is I'm

12:17

using, but like the thing that I

12:19

just can't get around is the physical

12:22

act of the doing, you know, the

12:24

making of the thing. That's what I

12:26

love is the making of the thing.

12:29

That's what it really boils down for

12:31

me. I mean, I love having my

12:33

work out in the world. I love

12:36

that I can make a good living

12:38

doing this. But really, the thing is,

12:40

it's processed, man, it's doing it. And

12:42

I don't want my art to be

12:45

made inside this platform of this basically

12:47

bottomless database of all the images of

12:49

time. I mean, when I finish an

12:52

image, I have to be grateful for,

12:54

I can be grateful for the people

12:56

that mix the paint or made my

12:59

paintbrush or design my camera. And so

13:01

I have gratitude for them. But that's

13:03

where the gratitude ends. Then the gratitude

13:05

switches over. to have gratitude to myself

13:08

for my determination, investment of time, the

13:10

struggles, the failures. And so that's where

13:12

the heart of my gratitude is. if

13:15

you're an AI creator, your gratitude goes

13:17

to the entire history of art and

13:19

every, and billions of pieces, and so

13:22

those are your collaborators. Those are the

13:24

sources that you have to pull from

13:26

and you couldn't, I couldn't make a

13:28

painting without a paintbrush that I want

13:31

to slap paint around, but if I

13:33

want to have the controller brush, I

13:35

need a brush, I need a camera,

13:38

I need a computer, AI artists need

13:40

AI platforms. Yeah, so your gratitude. might

13:42

not be different from my gratitude to

13:45

AI and all that it is scraped

13:47

up humanity to get these images in

13:49

front of me. The more I'm listening

13:51

to you, the more I'm really seeing

13:54

how time can be mastered. We talked

13:56

before, but I'll bring up example. in

13:58

Wizard of Oz, where there's this moment

14:01

where the witch has got Dorothy and

14:03

Toto and the straw man and cowardly

14:05

lion and the tin man like trapped

14:08

and the tin man notices there is

14:10

this big chandelier that's being held up

14:12

by ropes right where the witch is

14:14

and her minions and he just looks

14:17

up sees it and then in the

14:19

next second. He whips around

14:21

grabs the tin man's arms and together

14:23

they slush through a rope and this

14:26

huge chandelier comes down giving them all

14:28

a chance to run away. And that

14:30

all plays out. in it could not

14:32

have been more than two seconds, two

14:34

seconds out for me to describe that.

14:37

Look, it probably took me 30 seconds

14:39

to just describe that. Yep. Yep. And

14:41

so I'm really number one seeing the

14:43

power of imagery to make. the most

14:45

immediate connection. I don't know if we

14:48

can make a more immediate connection. And

14:50

now I'm being told, hey, hey Cal,

14:52

you, without really knowing much about art.

14:54

can just use your strength with words

14:56

to be an artist. This is obviously

14:58

a great moment for me to get

15:01

started. But how do you look at

15:03

that? That somebody like me after four

15:05

decades of learning about lighting, you know,

15:07

everything you got there. Yeah. 700,000 words.

15:09

is available to me to just hit

15:12

the keyboard and it's all there and

15:14

the best of human art has been

15:16

scraped up so that it can resonate.

15:18

my fingertips. It doesn't bother you at

15:20

all? Well, I go back into that,

15:23

like we were talking about that, that

15:25

scene took two seconds, but it might

15:27

have taken, it might have taken an

15:29

entire day to shoot it, it would

15:31

have taken the rider, the rider might

15:33

have gone through 20 drafts of writing

15:36

that, there might have been 20 or

15:38

30 people on the crew, you know,

15:40

people were uncomfortable, how many takes did

15:42

it, what mistakes were made along the

15:44

way, and then it gets down to

15:47

this one beautiful moment. this instant. Now

15:49

that's what AI is going to do.

15:51

AI is going to replace all those

15:53

problems and people and literally you're going

15:55

to, you could type into a platform

15:58

and say, you know, I'm in a

16:00

scarecrow grabs the tin man's axe and

16:02

they hack the rope and the chandelier

16:04

falls on the width. And literally within

16:06

seconds, exactly that it's going to produce

16:09

it in a absolute. fraction of what

16:11

it took to make it. And so

16:13

it just depends on really what your

16:15

choices are. I mean, I mean, I

16:17

wouldn't trade away the grind and the

16:19

glory of like what I go through

16:22

to make art because that's what I

16:24

love. It's like I wouldn't I wouldn't

16:26

trade away the grind in the glory

16:28

of being married. you know or the

16:30

grind and the glory of going for

16:33

in the mountains or whatever. I mean

16:35

I love the physical act of creating

16:37

of learning of growing and the making

16:39

of the thing but I'm like I

16:41

mentioned before I'm so excited for you

16:44

and for anybody that can go out

16:46

there and and have that feeling of

16:48

it and you're gonna I went to

16:50

reverse of that. One of the things

16:52

was that I had, you know, I'd

16:54

work for 15, 20 years doing illustrations,

16:57

photographs, and films and had movie in

16:59

Sundance. I had like, I mentioned, I

17:01

had photographs of the Metropolitan Museum of

17:03

Art. I'd done 30 or 40 Time

17:05

magazine covers. done photo sessions for Rolling

17:08

Stone, I done YouTube album covers, I

17:10

done all this kind of stuff. And

17:12

I was like, sick of it. And

17:14

I was like, nobody ever told me

17:16

that would happen. And I thought, what

17:19

can I do that's going to be

17:21

new for me and challenging? And I'm

17:23

going to have to start from the

17:25

absolute bottom. And I thought, what if

17:27

my next creative tool wasn't out of

17:29

camera or a computer or a paper?

17:32

it was actually the written word. And

17:34

I had no idea that sitting down

17:36

and typing out a sentence that I

17:38

could get the same rush, you know,

17:40

I've said, oh my gosh, that makes

17:43

sense. I think that's a cool idea.

17:45

And I just typed it out and

17:47

it's just these graphic symbols, these hieroglyphs

17:49

on this page. But I got the

17:51

same rush of what it was like

17:54

to see one of my photographs come

17:56

up in the alchemy in my darkroom

17:58

or when I do a plain air

18:00

painting and I capture the scene and

18:02

evokes that moment or I capture a

18:04

photograph of Bono for the cover of

18:07

one of their albums. It's like I

18:09

didn't know that I could get that

18:11

same rush and then I was off

18:13

to the races for the next 25

18:15

years and I'm not a natural writer.

18:18

But I work my ass off and

18:20

I just kept going and going and

18:22

I had that mission. So it goes

18:24

both ways. But the thing was is

18:26

I didn't use AI to write this

18:29

book, you know, and people make the

18:31

go and say, write, go into Mountmern's

18:33

career and write a two-page essay on

18:35

what it was like in his career

18:37

working with the baby, you too, over

18:39

40 years. And who knows what it's

18:42

going to pump out and then maybe

18:44

you wait 10 seconds or 20 seconds,

18:46

sitting pops up. So now in my

18:48

writing in my writing in these pages,

18:50

I went through the same hell. at

18:53

times of the same joy that I

18:55

went through in doing my paintings, I'm

18:57

doing my photographs. Wow, this is wild.

18:59

So you actually experience what I experience

19:01

as a writer, but I'm never going

19:04

to experience what you did as an

19:06

image maker because it's just going to

19:08

be handed to me. You will get,

19:10

but you will go through a creative

19:12

process. And if you really want to

19:15

do it, you'll look at your prompt

19:17

at those things I mentioned before, this

19:19

hierarchy of what you have to do

19:21

to be able to be an artist.

19:23

You have to have the determination. You

19:25

have to be excited. You have to

19:28

be inspired to start it. You have

19:30

to be inspired to start it. You

19:32

have to be able to examine the

19:34

anticipation. in my mind's eye. And who

19:36

knows through the course of humanity as

19:39

this develops, you know, and people who

19:41

use AI through using the interface, the

19:43

platform, they will, like any skill, like

19:45

I learned to be, I'm not a

19:47

great writer, but I'm a damn good

19:50

writer now, but I'm not a great

19:52

writer, but there is some great writing

19:54

in these 700,000 words. And I earned

19:56

that over thousands and thousands of hours.

19:58

I mean thousands and thousands of hours

20:00

of writing. And it was not a

20:03

natural communication thing for me. Like it's

20:05

like film editing. Like I could draw

20:07

down, I could draw anything out of

20:09

my head, my ability to compose a

20:11

scene as effortless, but I never had

20:14

any training about that. I rebelled against

20:16

that. I had, you know, whatever age,

20:18

D.O.C. or whatever number of collection of

20:20

letters I had after my. You know,

20:22

I was not built for that. I

20:25

didn't have the attention span. Just like

20:27

somebody doesn't have the attention span to

20:29

go out and stand a hundred to

20:31

be weather with mosquitoes flying around you

20:33

while you're just trying to paint a

20:35

damn palm tree, which is like heaven

20:38

for me. It really is just being

20:40

true to that desire, that inspiration to

20:42

create and then going out and using

20:44

your mind and your strategy to go

20:46

out there and find the right tools

20:49

to make this book. along the 25

20:51

years of writing this, I've been researching,

20:53

you know, if there's anything like it,

20:55

it's not. It's like, the analogy I

20:57

use is like, I'm the only person

21:00

in the world that has a blender

21:02

and ice cream and chocolate sauce, so

21:04

I'm like the only person who can

21:06

make like a milkshake. Like I've got

21:08

the only devices like that. People can

21:10

have soda and they can have whatever

21:13

they want, but I've invented this thing

21:15

that there's only one. And so the

21:17

thing is, but what I have to

21:19

do now is I have to convince

21:21

people what a milkshake is and how

21:24

great a milkshake. I mean, I've got

21:26

this product and I've got, and in

21:28

these pages is. the effort, the career,

21:30

the life that I lived, the failures

21:32

I had, the successes I had, and

21:35

just the determination to spend a quarter

21:37

century of my life and the amount

21:39

of art I could have made. amount

21:41

of money I could have made that

21:43

I instead invested in this. I had

21:45

hit up all where all I needed

21:48

to start over again, just like I

21:50

went from illustration of photography. I had

21:52

to start over again when I went

21:54

from photography to filmmaking and got into

21:56

music videos. I burnt out on other

21:59

sources and I just, the most terrifying

22:01

thing was not having some new tool

22:03

to be able to rediscover. the creative

22:05

process from the ground up. And that's

22:07

what my laptop did, you know, and

22:10

the 15 or 20 years of experience,

22:12

it had it to that point. And

22:14

then as I started writing the book,

22:16

it just grew and grew and grew.

22:18

So now it's this thing that somebody

22:21

can get when they're, you know, just

22:23

ready to start art school and they

22:25

can literally have it for 30, 40,

22:27

50 years of their career because the

22:29

topics that are covered. What are some

22:31

of the technical aspects? I could get

22:34

you writing about failures, successes, times, but

22:36

what will I get out of all

22:38

these volumes about lighting? Is there a

22:40

portion of the book that tells me

22:42

how to light even though I'm not

22:45

going to light, I'm just going to

22:47

type it into the AI and ask

22:49

it to light a certain way because

22:51

I know that Matt has spent thousands

22:53

of hours thinking about lighting and this

22:56

is what he says to do. Yeah,

22:58

well that's a great question. In the

23:00

course of writing the book, there's no

23:02

point in me doing this if people

23:04

weren't, if it really wasn't going to

23:06

be able to be this kind of

23:09

self-contained platform of its own kind. So

23:11

basically, the volumes are, what is called

23:13

the student, which takes you from the

23:15

moment of deciding that you want to

23:17

be a professional artist, on a granular

23:20

level, takes you for filling out your

23:22

application, putting your portfolio together, it takes

23:24

you to the whole educational process. What

23:26

if you don't like the teacher? What

23:28

if the teacher doesn't like you? What

23:31

if you're homesick? It takes you through

23:33

seeking out your quote unquote heroes in

23:35

the image making world and how do

23:37

you meet with them? Then it takes

23:39

you into preparing your work and to

23:41

get out. the working world to become

23:44

a success. The second book is called

23:46

The Professional, which takes you through the

23:48

journey of how to set up a

23:50

business, how to go through that process,

23:52

all through the initial failure, success, maintaining

23:55

success, creative burnout, create a rebirth, and

23:57

then it takes into kind of getting

23:59

a life. And then the book that

24:01

you're talking about is called The Work,

24:03

where I take 40 projects. and I

24:06

break them down like on a granular

24:08

level and that's everything from, I mean

24:10

there's 20 pages on how to illustrate

24:12

a children's book. I made a documentary

24:14

called I Like Killing Flies about this

24:16

restaurant in New York City. There's a

24:19

30-page. There's a 30-page. There's a 30-page

24:21

chapter on making a documentary by yourself.

24:23

There's a chapter on how to collect

24:25

your own history of your work and

24:27

put it out. There's a thing on

24:30

how to do storyboarding, how to do

24:32

animaticsatics. just 40 projects. In one of

24:34

the other books called the Universal, which

24:36

I didn't mention, is basically the techniques

24:38

that have to do with whether you're

24:41

a student or a professional, but they're

24:43

the universal themes of creativity, like there's

24:45

a whole thing on conceptualizing, on sketching.

24:47

And because you can, as an AI

24:49

user, you could just draw stick figures,

24:51

like the greatest director, like one of

24:54

the great directors, David Mamet. He had

24:56

a fantastic film called Mate One and

24:58

his storyboards were all done, a box

25:00

car on the train would just be

25:02

like a box with a little, another

25:05

little box with a door and then

25:07

he'd have stick figures jumping out. But

25:09

he, that was as far as he

25:11

had to go, but he had the

25:13

vision behind it. So this book takes

25:16

you through that process of how do

25:18

you storyboard something, how do you conceptualize

25:20

something, how do you take your muffin's

25:22

eye, you've set up a scene, you've

25:24

done, Okay, I'm going to tell you

25:26

the story of the three little pigs.

25:29

Now, you look at it from 360

25:31

degrees, not just like, where's your mind

25:33

going to be, where's your eye going

25:35

to be, but also like, where do

25:37

you want to tell the story from?

25:40

And what if you told the story

25:42

from the, if you're not of the

25:44

pigs or the wolf, but from the

25:46

point of view of the houses, like

25:48

that are going to get blown down

25:51

or destroyed if they're in anticipation why

25:53

they're vulnerable? So explaining how

25:55

to do all

25:57

these things, and in

25:59

terms of lighting of

26:02

mood and atmosphere, how

26:04

you combine things. So it's all. down

26:06

and people people could read about that. They

26:08

can read about all these different subjects. But

26:10

then in the course of writing these

26:12

four books, these four books, the the student, the professional

26:14

the the work, there were a lot of

26:16

topics that came up that had nothing

26:18

to do with being a successful illustrator, photographer,

26:20

filmmaker or filmmaker, designer. but they

26:23

had to do with being

26:25

a flawed human flawed was

26:27

somehow able to survive

26:29

himself to have this and have

26:31

amazing career over career over my

26:33

education my education almost like a half century

26:35

so Would I end up? up doing was

26:38

that this book is this book

26:40

is for people to

26:42

have that opportunity. I experience to go

26:44

what I have their own their own. then

26:46

they can go they can go and can can

26:48

read about how to ask for a lot

26:50

of money on a job. What happens a you

26:53

negotiate bills, when you what happens if somebody doesn't

26:55

pay you and so it goes through all

26:57

those kinds of things but on a creative

26:59

level it covers all those universal themes things. the

27:01

the passion, the motivation, purpose the purpose huge A huge

27:03

part of this book is about what is

27:05

your purpose? is your, I know, what is your, I

27:07

mean, would call, I what I would call, guess, is you have

27:10

to have the have to have the passion to create.

27:12

You have the initial passion. Then the the second

27:14

thing is you have have to have You have

27:16

to have have to have something you want to

27:18

stay with that talent. what you have to you

27:20

have to do is you kind of have to

27:22

have a plan. You have to be able

27:24

to find a way to get it out into

27:26

the world. into the world. And that's all about how somebody

27:28

can refer to this. It's like to this. It's like

27:30

we got the world book When we at our house.

27:32

I mean, I didn't look through every single

27:34

page of every volume, but if I wanted to

27:36

know how the I've worked I where Brazil was,

27:38

I could go to the E or the

27:40

B and I'd open it up. And that's what

27:42

this is about. I'd You know, and so And that's

27:44

covered this 40 years know, and so I a technical 40

27:46

years of, kind of kind of lack of kind

27:48

kind of spiritual, you know, know, level of level of

27:50

creativity and all the struggles and everything what

27:52

it's like, it's like. There's 30 or 40 pages

27:54

on what it's like to work with famous

27:56

people. What happens if they show up drunk

27:59

up they show they show up. they don't give

28:01

a shit or they're mean or whatever

28:03

it is. How do you navigate and

28:05

negotiate that? What's the difference between an

28:07

agent and a manager and how do

28:09

you navigate all those kinds of things?

28:12

And how do you deal with people?

28:14

How do you be a good boss?

28:16

When do you know that you've gotten

28:18

so busy that you've gotten so busy

28:20

that you need help? So it's really

28:23

broken down and I'm gonna be launching

28:25

the website for pre-sales within probably the

28:27

next month and then probably the next

28:29

month. How much of

28:31

this is the business side and how

28:33

much of this is the technical side?

28:35

And as you're talking I'm realizing, man,

28:38

it must have been pretty difficult to

28:40

be an artist through the time that

28:42

the internet came along, although I'm actually

28:44

wondering now, did the internet give many

28:46

more artists an opportunity to live the

28:48

way they wanted or did it kind

28:50

of dilute the world and pay artists

28:52

less and give more people a chance

28:55

to do it because they weren't doing

28:57

it the old school way where you

28:59

spent years learning how to operate the

29:01

tools and knowing the technology. You know,

29:03

I think it's only about 25 years

29:05

now, maybe a little longer, where like

29:07

movies used to be shot on film,

29:09

which cost a lot of money. If

29:12

you didn't get it right, you had

29:14

to do it over. Video really compressed

29:16

things, made it much easier, the equipment

29:18

cost much less. What has that done

29:20

to artists? Is it made it easier

29:22

to be? or more difficult? I think

29:24

it's like everything there's, it's a blessing

29:26

and a curse like everything in life.

29:29

I think if you go back in

29:31

the history of art. you know, going

29:33

back to like cave paintings, the people

29:35

that somehow are able to render what

29:37

like a spear look like, and a

29:39

person chasing an animal to hunt it

29:41

down, we're able to tell the stories.

29:43

It's really about storytelling. I guess an

29:46

example would be great going from, you

29:48

know, painting to photography. You've got a

29:50

portrait painter who's toiled in their studio,

29:52

you know, for, you know, possibly days

29:54

or weeks on a portrait of somebody,

29:56

struggling with the likeness and getting the

29:58

right. feeling like they're getting the quote,

30:00

quote, quote, truth of their subject. And

30:03

then some jerk walks in with a

30:05

little wooden box and a little bit

30:07

of flash powder and kind of nudges

30:09

the guy out of the way and

30:11

goes, poof. And you pull out this

30:13

to Garrett type or whatever and gets

30:15

a likeness that is, you know, is

30:17

more accurate than practically any painter could

30:20

create. You're going to think that person's

30:22

going to like, well, screw this and

30:24

they're going to take their brushes and

30:26

they're What's the point? When painting is

30:28

still as strong as it's ever been,

30:30

the same thing happened with photography when

30:32

it went from people shooting, you know,

30:34

on film to then the digital. And

30:36

then it's the same thing with filmmaking

30:39

and special effects. I mean, the things

30:41

that I can do now in my

30:43

little studio over here would have cost,

30:45

you know, I could do a video

30:47

for $50,000 that would have cost me

30:49

$500,000 to make 30 years ago in

30:51

terms of the effects. Now I'm not

30:53

doing CGI quality. you know, Hollywood level

30:56

things because that's not my style. I'm

30:58

like more hand-on visceral tact and anybody

31:00

looks at my work, but they're going

31:02

to see there's all kinds of the

31:04

fantastical worlds I create just completely by

31:06

myself sitting in my studio over there

31:08

without any crew or any extra people,

31:10

and I'm relying on that deeply relying

31:13

on that technology, and plus from a

31:15

business model point of view, I can

31:17

do you know i'll do a hundred

31:19

thousand dollar music video and i'll do

31:21

it i'll do the cinematography i'll do

31:23

the editing on on negotiate the fee

31:25

i'll upload the final video, I'll build

31:27

the props, I'll create the, you know,

31:30

and I'll use Adobe, I'll use Premier,

31:32

I'll use Afterfects, I'll use Motion, I'll

31:34

use Photoshop, I'll do paintings, you know,

31:36

I'll go into my tools, my paints

31:38

right here, this is a prop I

31:40

built for the Tom Waitch video, the

31:42

house. This is, I did a video

31:44

for another song. for Tom Waits called

31:47

a help broke loose with the same

31:49

thing and like this is just a

31:51

shark and I wanted to make a

31:53

shark so this shark is just made

31:55

out of like it's just wood and

31:57

I just in my mind's eye do

31:59

a little sketch and then I get

32:01

to make this thing and I've got

32:04

you know things like this which are

32:06

like oil paintings which are two-dimensional things

32:08

so I pull in all of these

32:10

things to be able to tell the

32:12

whatever story I need to tell and

32:14

AI now is going to make it

32:16

possible I mean I was doing a

32:18

little bit of you know research on

32:21

it and people are making you know

32:23

short films now and they're animating it's

32:25

coming to life and it's just a

32:27

matter of a couple of fears and

32:29

as I know if I mentioned this

32:31

before but one of our conversations but

32:33

I consider myself an AI-proof artist in

32:35

a sense that I create from the

32:37

inside out of course my influences and

32:40

there are people that I've been inspired

32:42

by and teachers and other fellow artists

32:44

and stuff, but I really my whole

32:46

determination is to create from the inside

32:48

out from my own life experience from

32:50

my own concerns my own fears and

32:52

hopes and that that's a thing that

32:54

motivates my process. And so AI will

32:57

be able to help people who have

32:59

all those same desires and concerns and

33:01

all those things to be able to

33:03

produce something that's going to be basically

33:05

But they don't, maybe they don't want

33:07

to say it, they're feeling it, they're

33:09

thinking it, they're shy, but they're going

33:11

to type all that stuff in their

33:14

bedroom or they're, they're going to, AI

33:16

is going to pop out this image

33:18

and they're going to be a whole

33:20

lot, hold this up and say, this

33:22

is exactly what I want to say.

33:24

This is exactly what I want to

33:26

say. This is exactly how I feel

33:28

about this. know, whether it's an oil

33:31

painting, still life, direct from life that

33:33

you do in a half hour, or

33:35

it's an AI image, it's spit out

33:37

in, you know, 20 seconds that takes

33:39

somebody two or three days. But I

33:41

think there are people that are suffering

33:43

from it, there are people, I read

33:45

a letter from a guy who worked

33:48

in production design and basically had like

33:50

six or seven people, or eight people

33:52

in this little studio, and they introduced

33:54

AI into it, and it cut down

33:56

to like two or three or three

33:58

or three people, And things that would

34:00

normally take days to do was done

34:02

in minutes. And how could you not

34:05

in times of things speeding up not

34:07

take advantage of that to some degree?

34:09

But that's why I consider myself, AI

34:11

is not going to take anything from

34:13

me. It's not going to hold me

34:15

back from monetizing my abilities or being

34:17

able to express my thoughts or feelings.

34:19

That's really the bottom line, is that

34:22

if this is the technology you need

34:24

to say what you want to share,

34:26

then more power to you. Interesting because

34:28

you were saying that you kind of

34:30

went through a series of burnouts where

34:32

you were drawing and then that kind

34:34

of led you to creating images from

34:36

magazine covers which led you to making

34:38

music videos. Was there no borderline right

34:41

around the time AI came out that

34:43

made you say you know what? I

34:45

really should jump on this or did

34:47

something happen where you say, you know

34:49

what, I've been doing this for 40,

34:51

close to 50 years, this is who

34:53

I am, this is what I'm gonna

34:55

be, you know, I really don't need

34:58

to move forward with everybody because this

35:00

is what brings me satisfaction. Yes, well,

35:02

I have a very kind of telling

35:04

example of that as I had a

35:06

friend who I went to art school

35:08

with who was brilliantly talented painter. I

35:10

mean, just beautiful. There were back, you

35:12

know, 40 years ago, where art school,

35:15

I looked at this guy's work and

35:17

he was so talented and I just

35:19

loved looking at his work over the

35:21

years. And then one day I was

35:23

looking at his work and I'm like,

35:25

oh, hmm. And I took a little

35:27

closer look at it and I said,

35:29

this looks like there's some AI in

35:32

this. And then I went on and

35:34

I kind of did a little investigation

35:36

on his kind of social media. And

35:38

I discovered that he had now introduced

35:40

AI and was thrilled about it. And

35:42

I was happy for him that he

35:44

was thrilled about it. But for me,

35:46

as somebody who had appreciated his work

35:49

for all that time, now going forward,

35:51

anything he ever does, I'm always going

35:53

to question how much of that is

35:55

his own amazing skills. Because if you

35:57

don't know what it's like to be

35:59

able to sit there and... you know

36:01

like somebody who plays an instrument beautifully

36:03

or somebody who has a tennis swing

36:06

that's just a killer that nobody you

36:08

know you maybe go out and you

36:10

just whack the ball around but if

36:12

you don't know what's like to hit

36:14

a hundred mile an hour serve and

36:16

get it right on the line you're

36:18

not you you'll have your own relative

36:20

rush but you're not going to know

36:23

what it's like to have level of

36:25

power that's in the one percentile of

36:27

the one percentile of people that make

36:29

images and that's that feels almost like

36:31

a superpower. That doesn't mean I'm an

36:33

alcoholic I've been sober for 23 years

36:35

I'm tons of money and I blew

36:37

it I made all kinds of mistakes

36:39

and I've had to apologize and all

36:42

I'm a deeply fucked up person in

36:44

a lot of ways but that is

36:46

part of my power. and that I

36:48

and I've cultivated this ability to draw

36:50

paint compose conceptualize that is is very

36:52

rare and I take great pride in

36:54

the fact that I've cultivated this exceptional

36:56

talent despite all my in fact in

36:59

spite of an addition to all my

37:01

problems that I was able to overcome

37:03

a lot of those things and still

37:05

survive myself which is what this one

37:07

book the essential is about which I

37:09

was talking about before were in the

37:11

course of writing these four books this

37:13

one book came up and it's called

37:16

the essential and that deals with that's

37:18

600 pages long and that's I don't

37:20

like the term self-help book it's like

37:22

a life skills book and that deals

37:24

with everything from health addiction, therapy, marriage,

37:26

death. I mean, I'm still alive, but

37:28

the anticipation of death, the power of

37:30

a handshake, making lists, the value of

37:33

time. It's just 600 pages of just

37:35

things I've had to learn the hard

37:37

way, which is going to be marketing

37:39

in a completely separate way, the four

37:41

volumes, which is included in these books.

37:43

That's going to be marketed separately because

37:45

this is something that if you were

37:47

to look at the reading of the

37:50

four books that are geared towards people,

37:52

it uses words like artists, professional image

37:54

maker, creative product. But if you look

37:56

at the essential, this is if I

37:58

was talking to a bunch of high

38:00

school students or a nurse or a

38:02

truck driver. And it's basically something somebody

38:04

can have like would be a great

38:07

something for a resource for somebody to

38:09

have when they graduate from junior high

38:11

school and they carry this book with

38:13

them and they say I want to

38:15

read about success or failure or how

38:17

scary money can be or you know

38:19

I think I might need to go

38:21

to see a therapist or whatever it

38:24

is or I think I might have

38:26

a drinking problem and I relate all

38:28

those things and I didn't pull any

38:30

punches on my successes and the accomplishments

38:32

that I had I mean the things

38:34

I've been able to achieve. flying on

38:36

YouTube's airplane, dropping off photographs of Metropolitan

38:38

Museum of Art that I used to

38:40

go to with my mom, and now

38:43

I've got photographs there, having a movie

38:45

premiere at Sundance Film Festival, you know,

38:47

doing 40-time magazine covers, I mean, all

38:49

these kinds of things that I've accomplished.

38:51

but I don't pull any punches on

38:53

what I went through to become sober

38:55

how I this managed my money and

38:57

what the whole I dug myself into

39:00

you know the point of where I'm

39:02

in my underwear digging my couch cushions

39:04

for subway fair to get up to

39:06

see my psychiatrist because I'm three months

39:08

behind in my pet half the apartment

39:10

rent and that was one of the

39:12

really low points but And I've gone

39:14

and done actually where I've told all

39:17

these stories and students have come up

39:19

to me afterwards and they'll tell me

39:21

about share their own addiction their own

39:23

struggles or whatever and say man if

39:25

there's something this is fucked up as

39:27

you can go off and have all

39:29

these experiences then like there's hope for

39:31

me and here I am getting ready

39:34

to turn 66 years old and I

39:36

still feel like I just got an

39:38

art school and I've got the most

39:40

important project of my life and in

39:42

contact with it just briefly. one thing

39:44

is I wanted to do a cinematic

39:46

companion piece to this image maker's handbook.

39:48

And over the years people have asked

39:51

me because I've got a, you know,

39:53

just like I've got a kind of

39:55

cool way of working or it's interesting.

39:57

They said, hey, could we follow you

39:59

around to a little documentary on you?

40:01

And I said, I appreciate them very

40:03

flattered, but the idea of being followed

40:05

around by a camera and having no

40:08

control. That's like, that seems like a

40:10

pain in the ass. So for the

40:12

last three years, I've been wearing a

40:14

goal pro-up. And I've been basically, the

40:16

documentary is called a creative life. And

40:18

it's basically, for better or worse, the

40:20

hook of the film is that the

40:22

viewer is trapped inside my head for

40:25

the entire film. Like you never see

40:27

me unless maybe there's a professor, me

40:29

in a puddle or walking by a

40:31

window, but basically you're living in my

40:33

body and watching me live and work

40:35

as an artist, making mistakes, making cool

40:37

art. and I'm narrating it and it's

40:39

expanded into creative life not just to

40:41

be an artist but be how can

40:44

you be creative in your marriage how

40:46

can you be creative as a homeowner

40:48

as a pet owner as a as

40:50

a friend as a brother as a

40:52

sibling or whatever it is so that's

40:54

going to be the kind of companion

40:56

piece so I feel blessed and you

40:58

know at this age with my Medicare

41:01

card in my wallet to be able

41:03

to feel like I am on the

41:05

cusp of doing the most important thing

41:07

I've ever done and I've done a

41:09

lot of cool shit already. And the

41:11

idea that I'm really at this place,

41:13

you know, to discover this new technology

41:15

and use this new technology to be

41:18

able to make this stuff is an

41:20

incredible gift. So I just got to

41:22

stop here because I got to hear

41:24

how you figured the situation out when

41:26

you were going through the sofa in

41:28

your underwear to get fair to get

41:30

down to your psychology. Yeah. you're living

41:32

in a penhouse, you're absolutely broke. How

41:35

did you get out of that? Humility,

41:37

the same reason I got sober, I

41:39

had no idea, because I had associated

41:41

power with this extraordinary career, this like,

41:43

you know, one in a million career

41:45

that I had and all the things.

41:47

there were times when I was thinking

41:49

hundreds of thousands of dollars in my

41:52

20s as an illustrator, and that's $19.85.

41:54

And I know what it was like

41:56

to have to be, you know, one

41:58

of the top music video directors. I

42:00

knew what it was. So that was

42:02

what power was to me. Klein first

42:04

class going to stay in cool hotels

42:06

standing up to the best artists and

42:09

telling them their idea sucks and then

42:11

directing them I mean did Tracy Chapman's

42:13

first video for fast car being able

42:15

to be at that inception moment I've

42:17

worked with you two and Tom Waits

42:19

for 40 years so I knew what

42:21

it was like to have that kind

42:23

of power but I had no idea

42:26

that you could gain power from humility

42:28

I had that was not a concept

42:30

that I was taught or even dared

42:32

to believe, but once I realized, you

42:34

know, that I was causing not only

42:36

pain to myself, and that wasn't enough

42:38

to know the pain I'd caused myself,

42:40

because I was able to endure all

42:42

kinds of bullshit and stuff to be

42:45

able to get what I wanted in

42:47

life. But the thing that pushed me

42:49

over the edge to make a change

42:51

was the pain I caused other people,

42:53

whether it was my wife or people

42:55

like family members or whatever. in admitting

42:57

that. I mean, I literally just woke

42:59

up one morning and turned to my

43:02

wife Lisa and Ben said, I'm not

43:04

going to drink anymore. And I said,

43:06

I don't think I'm going to drink

43:08

anymore. And she couldn't grasp that. And

43:10

that was, that was 23 years ago.

43:12

And I'm not been tempted for one

43:14

minute. I mean, I miss it and

43:16

I could wax politic about what it

43:19

was like and all that kind of

43:21

stuff. That was the most important decision

43:23

of my life because I realized that

43:25

everything I wanted in my career, my

43:27

life, my marriage, my health, everything went

43:29

through the portal of sobriety because I

43:31

was too weak and too damaged or

43:33

too biologically chemically dependent on this that

43:36

I didn't have a right to subject

43:38

myself, my body, my future, my hopes,

43:40

my dreams, and the people I loved

43:42

and cared about, I couldn't subject them

43:44

to this kind of pain. and struggle

43:46

and frustration and anger and sadness and

43:48

all that. And so once I stop,

43:50

alif I screw up and say the

43:53

wrong thing or do something dumb, it's

43:55

my... sober self it does it and

43:57

it's much easier to deal with because

43:59

I just got tired of the shame

44:01

not the hangovers I was highly functioning

44:03

alcoholic in fact when I quit most

44:05

people thought oh I didn't know you

44:07

had a problem but that that didn't

44:10

spare me from what was going on

44:12

inside of me and so I basically

44:14

that's what got me gaining the power

44:16

to go see a therapist I gave

44:18

me the power to take the chance

44:20

of getting married and going through that

44:22

compromise. I mean the two most humbling

44:24

things in life for me were sobriety

44:27

and matrimony because I had to be

44:29

humbled and I had to give up

44:31

all the things that are not you

44:33

know a lot of things that were

44:35

I had thought were completely tied to

44:37

my happiness or fulfillment when in fact

44:39

they were that would just they were

44:41

either immature or misguided or they'd lost

44:43

their thrill or that I burned them

44:46

out or whatever it was. And

44:48

that's what you know the therapy thing

44:50

was is I was just you know

44:52

the only thing I mean I'm a

44:54

deeply afflicted person with all these things

44:56

you know I've got I was an

44:59

alcoholic I have social phobias you know

45:01

some form of anxiety disorder what all

45:03

this kind of shit. But the only

45:05

thing that was more powerful than a

45:07

real collection of faults and that the

45:09

only thing was more powerful than that

45:11

was my my will to survive myself.

45:13

I was my greatest asset and I

45:15

was also my greatest liability and also

45:18

a super competitive person and a super

45:20

ambitious person and what I did was

45:22

I mean I did my first time

45:24

I didn't cover it 24 years old

45:26

and gold medals at the Society of

45:28

the Society of Religious. I mean I

45:30

every magazine had done an article on

45:32

me and I was And I went

45:35

to the top of each one of

45:37

these fields, you know, illustration, music, video

45:39

direction, pornography, but... the only thing that

45:41

was more powerful than all that stuff

45:43

was my if I wanted to keep

45:45

doing that everything went through the portal

45:47

of sobriety and humility and so I

45:49

have learned to nurture cultivate respect and

45:51

continue to be humbled every day by

45:54

the power that I got from admitting

45:56

my weaknesses and the pain that I

45:58

caused other people and it's all gone

46:00

through my art it's all in this

46:02

movie it's in I mean the image

46:04

maker's handbook has just horrific stories of

46:06

hilarious though, I mean hilarious, I mean

46:08

I'm a funny guy and they may

46:10

not come across through this process, but

46:13

I'm, these stories are really funny but

46:15

they are dark, some of them. And

46:17

so I'm, my goal is for this

46:19

young person who's got problems or struggles

46:21

or whatever, like I said before that

46:23

come up to me after lectures and

46:25

say man, if you went through all

46:27

that crap and you came out on

46:29

the other end and you're still going

46:32

strong, boy I really. I really feel

46:34

hope for myself. And that's, of all

46:36

the conversations I have after a lecture,

46:38

whatever, those are the ones that are

46:40

most powerful and lasting for me. How

46:42

do these books get published? How do

46:44

people get access to them? What's the

46:46

thought process behind publication? Yeah, thank you

46:49

for asking about that. It's basically, it's

46:51

all the Image Maker's Handbook. The film

46:53

is called A Creative Life, which won't

46:55

be out for a while, but it's

46:57

called The Image Maker Handbook by Matt

46:59

Maharin. And I would say within a

47:01

month, I'm going to have a website

47:03

of that's got, it's going to have,

47:05

I mean, the table of contents for

47:08

the. for the books is 50 pages.

47:10

That's going to be available. So you

47:12

can read the table of contents. I

47:14

think there's like 400 chapters or something.

47:16

Each book is going to have about

47:18

eight or 10 pages of sample text.

47:20

Then there's going to be, and there's

47:22

going to be a little film to

47:24

demonstrate what the books are about, and

47:27

then you're going to be able to

47:29

get access to it. So this goes

47:31

straight to that website. It doesn't go

47:33

to Amazon Barnes and Noble. No, it's

47:35

going to start out as a digital

47:37

download because I'm not going to go

47:39

through that whole process. It's going to

47:41

be a digital download and I'm going

47:44

to be like, I haven't had to

47:46

sell myself for 40 years. So I'm

47:48

going to have to start from the

47:50

ground up in this new world. And

47:52

then eventually, depending on what happens, whether

47:54

it's a university type press or whatever,

47:56

I certainly envision this as like a

47:58

suite of five in a slip case

48:00

down the road. But right now I

48:03

just want to get the document done

48:05

and it's a different business model to

48:07

be able to kind of do this

48:09

and just. it out there, and I'm

48:11

completely decided on the price yet. I've

48:13

kind of been doing my research on

48:15

that. But people, they can buy all

48:17

five books at once, or if they

48:19

can't afford all five books, they can

48:22

just buy one book at a time

48:24

or buy one and see how it

48:26

resonates to them. Well, I gotta jump

48:28

on that bandwagon. I'm going forward to

48:30

this fantastic conversation. It really is. Amazing.

48:32

The way you have conceived this, because

48:34

generally when people write books, it's kind

48:36

of about one subject. You're basically putting

48:39

together in one place what it means

48:41

to be creative, what it means to

48:43

be an artist, and just show it

48:45

through the whole wide arc. So you

48:47

got me very curious? And I'm happy

48:49

to hear that it all worked out

48:51

that day where you found the change

48:53

in the sofa and got down to

48:55

see the therapist. And I was, I

48:58

didn't remember to put my pants on

49:00

before I walked out the doors. And

49:03

I also think I want to thank

49:05

you so much for you know the

49:07

effort you made in inviting me into

49:09

your world and sharing this with me

49:11

because it's really these experiences for me

49:13

are the things that you're giving me

49:15

power as I you know and my

49:17

responsibility and my joy and you know

49:19

whatever is unknown out there to get

49:21

out in the world so this is

49:23

this is a really wonderful thing for

49:25

me so I'm really thankful to you

49:27

for that. Well let's stay in touch

49:29

and good luck with your launch. Thank

49:31

you. And

49:35

about wraps it up. I want to thank

49:37

Tim Ferris for nudging me to start this

49:39

podcast and my friend Arthur Hochstein, home to

49:41

my kids as T-O-R-Turo, who plays many of

49:43

Matt's images on the cover of Time magazine,

49:45

for helping me arrange this conversation. If you

49:47

have ideas on guests for big questions that

49:49

allow us to see the future in a

49:51

better way, please send him to me in

49:53

an email to Cal Busman.com. you you

49:55

have big questions about

49:57

the world world like

49:59

to see answered, see them

50:01

to me in an

50:03

email to an .com. I'm

50:05

very grateful that you're

50:07

on the journey with

50:09

me. Have a great

50:11

holiday season. me. Have a great

50:13

holiday season. Cheers!