Aldis Hodge (Actor)¶
Published on Mon, 4 Feb 2019 11:00:00 +0000
The actor talks about his deep love of all things horological and how he is designing a few watches of his very own.
Synopsis¶
In this episode of Hodinkee Radio, hosts Stephen Pulvirent and Jack Forster sit down with Aldis Hodge, an actor, watch collector, and aspiring independent watchmaker. Recorded during Hodinkee's 10th anniversary weekend in New York City, immediately following a talk by Jean-Claude Biver, the conversation explores Hodge's multifaceted career and his deep passion for horology. Known for roles in Friday Night Lights, Hidden Figures, and Straight Outta Compton, Hodge has been acting since age two but has simultaneously pursued watchmaking with serious dedication, studying classic horological texts like Saunier's treatise and George Daniels' work, and even owning one of the few rose engines in North America.
The discussion delves into Hodge's philosophy on watchmaking, where he emphasizes creating watches that reflect his DNA and vision rather than mass-market appeal. Drawing inspiration from brands like Greubel Forsey, F.P. Journe, and independent watchmakers like George Daniels, Hodge is designing watches from the ground up—including movements, cases, and dials—with plans to debut his first collection in 2020 or 2021. He speaks candidly about the challenges of being an American independent watchmaker without direct access to Swiss infrastructure, his refusal to compromise on quality, and his desire to build a micro-boutique brand producing perhaps 50-100 pieces annually. Throughout the conversation, Hodge also reflects on representation, the intersection of art and engineering, the impact of social media on culture, and his commitment to creating timepieces that will outlast him and establish a lasting legacy.
Links¶
Transcript¶
| Speaker | |
|---|---|
| Unknown | Here on Houdinky Radio, we've had guests that are actors, we've had guests that are watch collectors, and we've had guests that are watch designers and makers. But we've never had a guest before who's all of the above. Well, until today, that is. Aldus Hodge is a pretty special guy. You probably know him for his career as an actor. He was on Friday Night Lights, he was in Hidden Figures and Straight Outta Compton. But he's also a watch collector and a watch designer. The guy has sketchbooks full of design ideas and technical drawings for new watches and new movements he's dreaming up. And he's also the custodian of one of the only Rose Engines in North America. I mean, this guy is deep. I remember the first time we met about two years ago, he walked into our office, got the little tour, and then proceeded to sit down with Jack to talk about Sonye's 19th-century treatise on watchmaking for the better part of an hour. For the record, that's not usually how visits to our office go. We've known since launching Hodinky Radio that we wanted to recreate some of that magic, and during the Hodinki 10th anniversary weekend in New York City, we were able to make it happen. Just minutes after Jean-Claude Beaver finished his amazing talk on Saturday night, we hopped in a car, sat down in the studio, and poured ourselves some whiskey for a good conversation. We were all still kind of basking in Jean-Claude's proverbial glow and were ready to get seriously nerdy about all things are illogical. With Aldous's latest movie, What Men Want, hitting theaters next week, now seemed like a perfect time to air this episode. It's unlike any other we've done before. I'm your host, Stephen Pulverin, and this is Hodinky Radio. This week's episode is brought to you by Bohm and Mercier. Stay tuned later in the show for a look at the Clifton Baumatic Cosk, a high-tech chronometer that offers phenomenal value for money. You can also learn more at bowem at mercier.com. Thanks for joining us guys. It's a busy, busy weekend we got here, but uh it's good to get you both in the studio. Absolutely busy weekend. It's a good weekend. It's a great weekend. Ye |
| Unknown | ah. It's uh it's really been something. Um I am I'm not not proud to say actually kind of ashamed to admit I had absolutely nothing to do with any of the planning |
| Unknown | or the logistics. We're talking about H ten, by the way. We're recording this uh on Saturday night, fresh off uh almost an hour and a half of pure unadulterated Jean Claude Beaver. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That that's uh he's he's an intense individual. He is an intense and wonderful individual. I brought some folks, some friends uh not to see my own panels, but to see Jean Claude Bieber I said, you know, you not being watch people are in the industry, you you'll never get another chance to hear this guy and you you just have to see this human being. Oh shit. Don't don't lie, you brought 'em to see you. Yeah, all right. Okay, so I brought them to see me. |
| Unknown | I'm I'm the the appetizer for uh guys goes on at four. Um be there at No, no, I mean interviews online, but I've never seen him uh in person. Uh never really uh speak with with such passion and and ferocity. Um but I I can kinda tell I'm like, oh his pictures make sense now because he always seems like uh sort of a jovial kind of happy person in his pictures, but you he's kinda got a spark about life. Yeah. Um and you know, giving us some of his past and and his some of his experience and what how he had to think in order to get to where he's at, it makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. You know, he had to be as sly and and beguiling and innovative and and just you know uh |
| Unknown | humorous as well, I think. And you know, I mean one of my one of my favorite things about uh his uh you know early days um when he was trying to find distribution in the US uh you know he was he's very proud of having been a one man dirty tricks department Yeah. |
| Unknown | Spe speaking here, I think you're talking about the fact that he called Tiffany and said, We'd love I'd love to take a meeting, I'll hop on the Concord, I'll be there tomorrow and they were like, Oh, okay, you're you're really dedicated. He was already in New York. He was calling from a payphone down the street. Uh but that's a good thing he was this big operation. But that's business. It works |
| Unknown | . have |
| Unknown | done things like that and that's what we call innovation. Actually I mean honestly I think we'd be uh it would be a much more interesting watch industry if there were a few more people floating at the top who'd done stuff like that. I mean a lot of the time nowadays it's guys who came up through finance school and like you know they could be working in pharma or selling you know candy bars you know there's different passion that's applied to the future |
| Unknown | of a company when your beginnings have to be creative. Yeah. Yeah. And also, I mean he's a watch guy. Like I mean we've obviously we've featured him on Tkaling Watches and other things, but he's he's a watch guy. He loves watches, whereas a lot of these executives we interview all the time, they don't like you said, they don't care. They could be selling drugs or chocolate or you know, whatever. It doesn't matter |
| Unknown | . You gotta love it, man. It's I mean, if you're in the business of watches, watch selling, watch making, whatever, if you want to see a real future out of it, I think you have to love it. It's an essential element because otherwise you're not going to be a part of the growth. You're not going to push the growth. You're just gonna sit there and sell whatever, you know, get shoveled out. But man, you gotta love it enough to know this is how I wanna see it evolve and this is how I want to see make |
| Unknown | it better. You know, it's it's a part of it. I agree with you and I think over the long term that's the only way to go. But it's also possible to kind of sell um mass produced mass luxury goods a a little bit cynically and um you know still make money for the shareholders from one year to the next, you know. |
| Unknown | Yeah. So I look at it two f two two two different ways 'cause there is that which I definitely agree with you in that you can build financial success. Um but I think in the in the in the market of of uh watch making there's two different there there's is the financial success which kind of envelops the commercial success of a brand but then there's also horlogical success. Right. You know me I'm a I'm a watch designer, very, very novice, horologist, uh you know, and when I study I'm looking towards w what can be contribute what can I do that can contribute something to the world of horology. So if I make one great watch and only sell one watch, I've still succeed |
| Unknown | I just have to say for context, by the way, uh I think you're um short selling yourself a little bit. Yeah, I would I would agree with Jack on that one. This is this is this is literally the only person who came into the office and asked me uh if I'd uh read Sonier. So that that stands out to me we we were talking ahead |
| Unknown | of Treat us treat us on horology. It's a classic. Yeah Claudia Sonier, yeah. Um still still dipping through that. Um of course George Daniels book uh the uh you know, watchmaking. Um uh that's the basically the Bible. Um George Daniels has uh book, sort of a thesis really on on escapements and and then he has another one on Bregay. Um interesting things about the verge escapement in that book. But uh yeah, man, it's it's how I taught myself 'Cause I I can't afford the time to spend two, three years at Woe Step. I would love to, but you know, as also an entertainer, you know, I'm doing a TV show and they're like, look, bruh, you got six, seven months, you gotta knock this down. You can't go nowhere. It's a little hard to shoot from uh these swish jura uh yeah exactly |
| Unknown | . I got I got catching up to do and I got a lot to prove, man. People don't take this seriously. Can we just give people some context? Can we back up and can you tell us a little bit about your career as an entertainer and then kind of maybe how you got into watchmaking and that |
| Unknown | became a serious part of your life? Yeah, yeah. So I mean entertainment, I've been an actor since I was two years old, so I've been in the game 30 years now. Started actually here in New York with my brother Edwin Hodge, still an actor. Man, went through everything, Sesame Street to Showboat on Broadway. You know, died with a vengeance as a kid and then we game to LA to do more TV things. And uh some people may be m familiar with my work from uh Leverage, which ran for about five seasons, underground for two seasons, uh straight out of Compton, hidden figures, Jack Reacher. Um Friday night lights. Friday night lights. You know. Uh all steps through the years, man, um, steps towards the bigger picture. Um my friend actually asked me tonight, he's like, Well, what was your big break in acting? I don't believe in the big break because I see these opportunities that come and you think that it's going to be the big break but then the reality of it sets in where it's like oh I have this much more work to do, right? So you just go at it with the mentality that these are all gradual steps to whatever the bigger picture is, and the bigger picture is always going to be outside of my own um service. And that I mean what I'm doing is meant to put me in a position to do more for others than I can actually acquire for myself. Uh because that is where the big sc scope is, you know, to be a show runner, to produce things, to to to represent artistically and creatively the areas of culture that are being ignored, the people that are being ignored, also to create real jobs, you know. So you're talking about helping other other people actualize their creative potential is the big picture. Yeah, I I think think whatever field that you're into, I mean we can all service ourselves, which is great, but if you really want to be dominant in the space of creating legacy and contributing something you have to put the service of others sort of at the forefront or at least make it a conditional part of your motivation. Um because that's how you grow personally, 'cause you never stop learning, but um that's So you know for me I'm I'm trying to get there. But um yeah, you know, acting is treating me well. Uh next year's a good year. Three films coming out, which I'm I'm very fortunate to be able to say. And then I start shooting my series, uh it's called City on the Hill. It's a showtime series. That uh we start shooting that in January. So it's it's a really you know, life is shaping up well next year um 2019 but watchmaking uh was 19 when i started designing watches at art center um college of design and that came across because i was into architecture first uh and I couldn't quit acting to become an architect so I chose watchmaking to keep it with me because it satisfied my need for architecture. I still love architecture but you know I could create little small cities within these watches using uh well manipulating movements. So first it was watch design, and then after years of doing uh watch design and trying to hustle up jobs working for big conglomerate brands, they put me on the path of independent watchmaking because they said what I was designing and doing was not um necessarily typical for what they did in terms of mass production. They were like, bruh, did y yeah, get out of here. But what you need to be doing you know, they were very, very kind about helping me set my path. So um it's a much more difficult path, especially being American in America, where I don't have direct access to the infrastructure, the the world, the factories of this or that, you know. So it's it's been it's been taking a sweet time. |
| Unknown | But Roger Smith was actually talking about that uh earlier today. You know, he's kind of he was kind of in the same position. Roger Smith the GOAT. Yes. Greatest of all that. infrastructure that supported watchmaking. It was a handmade product until it finally, you know, faded out of existence uh around the mid twentieth century. And you're kind of and people don't realize it, but in the if if you are an American and you're in the US, it is extremely difficult to do um a really, you know, handmade, hand finished, personal design artisanal watch because the industrial base is just not there. We had I mean everybody thinks there was a huge American watch industry and there was, but it was like three companies. There was Hamilton, Elgin, Waltham and you know, and Linda. Which they are now all acquired by Swiss conglomerates. for watching India Spanish. So, you know, like what like what do you do? |
| Unknown | Uh ma well, you pray. Um no, so through the years I've uh you know, look you you hop on a plane, you get to Switzerland, you meet, you know, the people that you need to meet. Um the very first watch that I produced was with a um i uh inferior manufacturer um i'll retain that name but i'm sure they're grateful. The work that they did, uh, and I say inferior in terms of uh you know just the quality. Um it was not the quality I wanted to put out so I've never shown that watch. Um I remember uh I was in a relationship with my ex for five years and she never saw the w watch once in five years. Wow. Yeah. So you kept it really tight to the west. It's just not what I wanted to put out. I could have, but it's not what I wanted to put out. I was like, let me do it right. So then over the years, met a lot of great people and finally landed on meeting the manufacturing partner I have now and sort of a dream for me because I admired their work for quite some time. And when I sent them a concept design, I didn't think they were gonna take me seriously. So, you know, I sent it to to one of the co-creator, co-c co-owners of of the company, and um he actually hit me back and I was like, uh what? You know, all right, well let's get the conversation started. So uh, you know, we met uh some time after, you know, we we'd been talking online, but we met some time after he uh saw my whole portfolio and um looked over what my vision was and he said, all right, you got potential, you understand, watch design, things like that, you know, work on this, work on that, but how about this? Let me, you know, try to help, you know, work with you, sh help you strategize and then when you're ready, uh, we'd like to work with you in terms of manufacturing your product. I was like, Hell yeah. So right now I'm holding on to that because um there are other places I can go to get the work done cheaper. I don't really care about money though. I care about the quality that I'm gonna give customers. I wanna give them the vision I see in my head so that when it lasts and cause this this is built to outlast me. I'm not, you know, you know, a hundred years from now I still want you to see the first watch that I made and be like, God dang. You know, damn. You know, um and I'm supposed to be handing this down to my kids, so I need to hand them something substantial, real foundation. That's a part of the whole point of building a company. Um so for me, I'm willing to be patient enough to get it done right, willing to sacrifice what I need to get it right. There's a a watchmaking community spread across America, not all hold in one place, but some great guys here in New York and Connecticut, some great guys that I got out in in Los Angeles, some even in the Bay Area and San Fran, like, you know, we spread out, but we here. It's just it'd be it would be a massive effort um sp primarily financially to uh establish in-house manufacturing here at the level that I'd like to achieve. So over, you know, maybe |
| Unknown | over 20 years, 15 to 20 years, I could have. When you talk about, you know, your watch and and you' desreigning it I want to make it clear to people like you're you're not taking a movement from an eboche manufacturer and you know putting a different case around it like you're designing a watch from the ground up you're designing a movement you,'re designing a case you,'re designing a dial. You're you know, going really you talked about being inspired by Daniels, but like you're you're making a watch. |
| Unknown | I can't show pictures of that book, but that's my Bible. So I design everything. I even designed my presentation box, but hands, logo, straps, case, dial, movements, uh different pieces of the movements like my barrel, my escapement, all these things that I would love to eventually produce one day. But um right now, you know, that is the eventual goal. But I have to learn all these things because I cannot do them all. I'm a watch designer, a movement uh a composition theorist. I I have to put people in the positions to know m of course more than me in the space, but when they get it done, you know, I can know enough to know that's getting done right. Yeah, right. Right. R.ight So here's a question for you |
| Unknown | . Yeah. People who know you from your public persona, people that you meet professionally. Yeah. Um, you know, uh when I first got interested in watches, this was back before there was a watch internet and the magazines were on the newsstand next to the doll collecting and the model railroad magazines. Right. And you know, back then if you were a guy who was interested in watches, you really had to like explain why you or you know, you had to try to explain why you were interested in this like, you know, really like super weird hobby. Why are you interested in this thing? Yeah. Yeah. This weird thing. And uh you know, like somebody like you who has to I mean you've taken a a a really, really, really deep dive and made a swipe I made a made a real, you know, sort of life commitment. I'm in there, yeah. Yeah. To building something that has historically it's never really existed in the United States. So you're a pioneer in that respect. So what happens when people find out about this aspect of your life? Are they like all this men? Why don't you just like concentrate on the stuff you know works |
| Unknown | ? Well, yeah, so many different things. Most people like to uh reserve their idea of me or the limitations of me to what they know. They're introduced to me as an actor and that's fantastic. I love acting. I'm gonna still die an actor, you know, at like a hundred and five years old in the director's chair, but wearing the watch that I made. Yes. Um most people it's hard for them to wrap their brains around the idea that somebody can be proficient or as passionate, equally passionate about faceted uh interests, right? So when it comes to uh well multifaceted interest. When it comes to to acting, it's s simply an art to me. The same as watch making, the same as painting, the same as automotive design, architecture, all these things I'm into. They're just different conduits for execution set art. So when I'm uh executing said art, when I'm acting that's an emotional art, when I'm uh designing that's uh uh that that's uh sort of an aesthetic art, when I'm dipping into watchmaking that's a scientific, you know, they satisfy different things in me, but you know me I I grew up at between New York and Jersey, a little poor kid in Jersey, and a lot of cats thought I was gonna be lessening my potential and and a part of what I'm doing this and why I needed to be an engineer of some kind was to defy the negative ignorant stereotype that intelligence and intellect and value was not closely associated with black and brown skin. It pisses me off that it'd stay, it pissed me off when I was eight years old. I was like, yeah, part of my language. I was like, fuck all y'all. I'm gonna do it. Because of the fact that this is normal for my culture, but I've always stood up against people who treat me as though I'm some uh anomaly. It's one thing to be surprised that I'm an engineer or a watchmaker because maybe I'm American and or maybe I'm an actor. Yes. It's it's insulting to be surprised that I'm black. And and and that pisses me off. So um there's that element. But also outside of defying people's perspectives, I never wanted to have my work associated with entertainment. My name is Aldus Alexander Basil Hodge. So at first my company was called Basil Time Piece because it is a family name on my father's side. All the men have it in their name. Um passed around passed down traditionally and I was like still co carries the weight of legacy. Um but I didn't want people to associate my efforts getting into watch world with being an actor who just wanted to slap his name on a product, right? Oh, you're a celebrity. Like, I'm not a celebrity. I don't know the hell that is, but that's not me. Like, that's not my job. I'm not in the business as a celebrity. I am an entrepreneur and a businessman. However, um some of my associates who happen to be namesakes of their own brands, um, very successful independent brands all counseled me to possibly just consider changing it to my surname. Saying, you know, hey, put Aldus Hodge on there because when people see the quality, it will be synonymously linked to your name, but people will understand it then. And I said, all right, you know, so I didn't want to work against myself in the marketing at first, but um I just, you know, kind of stepped outside of that preconceived notion of fear and said it is what it is and I actually like the way it looks on uh my uh my wat |
| Unknown | ch now. So there's gotta be a sense of pride, right? Like you you look at this thing that came out of your brain and it has your name on it. |
| Unknown | Let me backtrack a little bit um to something you you you said a few minutes ago. There's uh negative stuff And the sub-narrative is isn't it cool that you've achieved what you've achieved because you wouldn't have actually worked that hard if there weren't negative stereotypes for you to overcome. Is that true or is that also possibly just total bullshit because it actually just makes things harder. |
| Unknown | I'm not sure. I think uh I I've had that conversation before and to a degree that perspective may justify people living in an unnecessarily hard environment or existence whereas, you know, they shouldn't have to. I mean, in this country especially, the idea of equality is the most terrifying idea or notion to so many people. Say that again, the idea of the idea of equality is so terrifying because there are so many people who grew up with the actual realization of superiority being their concept of equality. So when equality starts raising up for other people, they feel threatened because they're like, wait a minute, this is different. Like, no, no, no. You you get to eat too? No. It is like they're like, yeah, I I meant equality, but I didn't equality equality. And you're like, you mother. So uh you look, uh stepping into the horological world is is difficult for all intents and purposes, uh, just from this perspective of of engineering. Like the math there's so much first of all, most people don't realize as as a as a watchmaker, um, you have to be a uh uh have some sort of proficiency with w when it comes to understanding physics, chemistry, metology, uh micromanical engineering. Now I'm not uh a hundred percent proficient in all of these these trades. Um I do have machines I've played with making some parts here and there before, but my primary knowledge is vested in design and movement, composition, and manipulation. So that's difficult enough to learn that on your own. Then you you have to couple that with the fact that you need the the investment wing of it to to fund something that may or may not possibly get uh uh well produce uh revenue but it's not like you're gonna spend twenty dollars on a prototype. You're right. Closer to two thousand or depending on what that is, twenty thousand or two hundred thousand or you know, you know what I mean? Um I mean my RD costs are exorbitant. They're insane. But I don't care because it has nothing to do with that. That's not why I'm motivated. It's about there's a dream and whatever the cost is, I will earn that, sacrifice that for whatever to achieve the dream. Um which is where I'm at in you know my current stage now with my brand is you know raising capital. So that doesn't that doesn't phase me. But the the inequality as it presses into the unfairness or the hardship of um of certain ordeal of trying to get into to you know this business or whatever, it's just uh unnecessary static, but you you make it necessary by using it as as motivation, use it as energy. Um as I stated earlier with with my previous question this evening, I do think that I've learned that there's always an opportunity in in the idea of loss or deficit. When you think an opportunity is gone, if you lost something, what like don't most people spend their time focusing on what they think they've lost, which is why they can't see the opportunity that's right in front of them. You know, think of like the doors closed. It's not true. That's never true. Doors are evolving when it comes to the universe, how it speaks to you and life. You know, I've been fired from jobs on TV where I was like damn and then I realized months later with the next job I'm like oh this is why God wasn't taking something from me God was moving something out of my way so I could walk my straight narrow path that I need you know what I mean get me the to where I need to be fast |
| Unknown | Steven actually said something to me uh uh we we we were talking about um meetings a few days ago um and saying yes to things and saying no to things and uh he said that it had occurred to him um and I thought this was a super interesting observation that um the problem with saying yes to uh a meeting or a commitment or an interview or whatever it is, that that becomes something that's set, but it also closes off the infinite number of other possibilities that could exist in that sp |
| Unknown | ace. And to be fair, this idea is from our friend and hodinky radio guest, Jason Freed. This is not my idea. So Jason, I'm really sorry, I'm not taking credit for your idea. Yeah. I did not steal your idea |
| Unknown | . But I thought that was uh I thought that was a really interesting um you know a really interesting observation. You know, uh to your point. Right. Um it looks like you know when if if a door shuts, that shuts down one thing, but uh the universe is not just one thing. |
| Unknown | Yeah, I mean I I also for those who can't see what we're doing, I'm handing off my uh phone to show 3D renderings of my watch. So if you hear random things in the background, that's what that is. This is amazing. Thank you. Can we can we talk about these? Uh a little bit. I will say what we can say about them. Alright. So um the two that I'm prepping for my flagship models, one is a turno well not exactly a traditional turno case, maybe a turno shape that I've modified and it has um uh jumping indications. I can't say which, but uh the second one is a round case shape uh chronometer offset indications, offset hours and minutes with um well I can't say that yet. But with some other stuff too. Uh wa look, when I can make things public I will let you know as soon as possible. But um you know, those are those are the angles I'm working at right now. And um it's hard, man. It's it's designing is is tough because you're trying to basically it's almost like reinventing the wheel. Like how much can you do that hasn't been done, attempted, or whatever, to some degree before. But what it becomes is it it's a test of finding out what your true relationship with yourself is because you have to know your DNA well enough to put it and infuse it in something. And most people will tell you along the way, oh, this is cool, this is not cool, you should do this, you should do that. And I've run across that where I almost gave up on these projects because somebody's like, Well, you know, it's this, it's that, or it won't sell, it will sell, or there's this that looks like it. And you know uh th whenever somebody tells you no um or gives you advice, which I do take uh uh with all respect any sort of constructive criticism I take it to heart, but it's also it's a moment for you to test your own potential. In that space, are you going to allow somebody else to tell you to make you think no about something you fervently believe in. If the no it comes off of somewhere that actually advances you, uh if the no comes from from a position that would help you excel and you feel in your heart it's the right thing to agree to, then do it. But if the no makes you question and makes you hesitate to say, I understand the no, but I don't know about this and I still like it, and that da-da-da. If you love it, if you love it, do it. There is no other answer you or validation you need because guaranteed when it comes to art, take a hundred people in a room, savey 50 people love it, 50 people hate it. If you're developing something and you meet the 50 people who hate it first, those 50 people who will love it will never have had the chance to even get to see that piece of you. Yeah. So you have to take it all with a grain of salt, and just whenever anything like that happens, whenever that conversation comes up, you gotta search your soul and say, well, do I still believe in it? And if the answer is yes, still attack it, still, still accomplish it |
| Unknown | . And now we'll look at this week's sponsor. One of the things that makes Beaumont Mercier's clip The caliber BM13 is new for this year, and it's a high-performance movement built to be both precise and reliable over time. To do this, the BM13 makes use of a special silicon escapement, a single power barrel that's sized for optimal efficiency, and a new type of lubricant, all of which adds up to a caliber with five days of power reserve. Additionally, a chrome ring shields the movement from magnetism up to 1500 Gauss, alleviating one of the prime culprits of poor timekeeping. The Clifton Bomatic Cosk promises performance of minus 4 plus 6 seconds per day and won't need any service for at least 5 years. To learn more about the Clifton Bomadic Cosk and the entire Bomadic Collection, visit Bowmanmercier.com. Alright, let's get back to the show. There's a photographer who I know, who I heard, he he was on a podcast the other day with Hype Beast, and uh he was talking about the the culture of social media. It's this guy, Steven Venasco, who's who's an amazing, amazing photographer. I'm a big big fan of his work, and he's a super nice guy. There you go. Um and uh Stefan was saying that, you know, we're so looped into the the currency of likes and things on social media and we always think about volume. It's about how many likes can something get. And people say like, oh well you know,, mm, I put this photo up and it only got five hundred likes, so I'm gonna I'm gonna pull it down. Yeah. Put five hundred people in a room and see how that feels. Like we we think of this as such an abstract thing, but in in actuality, like you don't need twenty thousand people to think something is is interesting for it to be valuable. Like if it impacts five people, ten people, a hundred people, that's a lot of people for for a piece of work to imp |
| Unknown | act one of our uh one of our other guests uh today, um Mr. Alton Brown was talking about somebody asked him um at the end of the conversation um that he had with us uh you know what do you think has changed about food culture? And he was talking about Instagram. He said, You know, it's a it's a really weird thing. Uh people put pictures of food up on Instagram all the time and nobody nobody really cares how food tastes anymore. It's just how it's all about it's all about how it looks. Pretty and I've heard from um there's a the Italian designer, Bernello Cuccinelli um has you know said several times that he thought this year's Pete Womo was uh he sits the worst he's ever seen. Everybody dresses like a clown because they're just dressed Well you know what's crazy? I think |
| Unknown | that social media has definitely shifted the way we communicate with ourselves and uh with others. We we verbally communicate with others and think of others differently. We spiritually connect with ourselves much differently than we would if there was no lens to compare, you know. Um and when what most people compare themselves to is is false, falsified. We see pa somebody in a moment, they could be crappy, feeling bad all day, and they take two seconds to take a snapshot where they're just smiling and oh my life is great on Instagram you. You look like out there balling, right? But um I think the way people have used social media is a reflection of them. So I wouldn't say that social media has been inherently responsible for the damage uh that has been done. It's sort of revel a revelation of how people um deal with themselves and deal with others. You know, you cannot blame the substance for the addiction if you can you have the power to say, look, I'm gonna stop this thing. And when it comes to to what people think of themselves, that's where I think the the majority of the damage is done because now I have to do this da da da da in order to look like it to get these likes to get you know there's when people first get on it's like two likes is great but then after a while if you're used to a thousand likes you get five hundred you, know like, you were saying on on a picture, then it's like, oh man, what happened? But you know, like you much to your point, five hundred people in the room, you can feel that energy. And you can feel how how powerful that is. I just did a stage play reading where there was like 30 people in the room. That was still powerful because those 30 people we felt that. And what social media does is it replaces experiences with the idea of an experience. With the illustration of an experien |
| Unknown | ce. Yeah. And it's it's do you find that impacts you in in your art? I mean you said you did a stage reading and there are thirty people there. Yeah. Do you find that whether you're acting in a play or whether you're um you know in a movie and you s you get to see people experiencing the film, the fact that people are are like constantly distracted and looking at things and even if they're not looking at something while they're watching the film, you know that as soon as it ends, they're pulling their phone out, they barely silenced their phone before the movie started. Does does it impact how you as an artist express yourself knowing that people have all these other kind of like inputs going on constantly? Wh |
| Unknown | ich uh first of all, you brought up a pet peeve of mine. Look, if you go into a movie and your phone rings, what are you doing, fam? What is wrong with you? Like take two seconds to put it on vibrate. I can't say and then some people have the nerve to answer the damn phone and have a conversation. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm in I'm in the movies right now. Nah, nah, nah, nah. He just broke out. Now the the building blew up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Alright, I'm gonna hit you like spam. Shall I like come on, you know what I mean? Um I don't understand that. But as far as it impacts me, I try to not I I try not to be consciously aware of someone else's experience of that which I do. And and the reason is as much as I can appreciate someone who appreciates my work and I love that, um, it's not my job as an artist to engage whatever that means for them. You know, when I watch a film, it's gonna mean something different to me than it does for somebody else. I was there, I was shooting the thing. I'm looking for different things. You know, you're looking for an emotional experience, I'm looking for that, but also technical things. I'm looking for a growth. You know, I'm looking all these different things. But it's the same reason why you should not ever read reviews. A good review can be as damaging as a bad review. And I don't discourage reviews. I think they're necessary in the space, but it is not our job as artists to allow to read those reviews because it's gonna sink into you and what you do and you're gonna change what you do, how you do it, based off of the idea of appeasing someone else. But that's the same in the watch world. You cannot make watches for customers. You have to make watches for the intended purpose of the brand's DNA, the spirit of the brand and the people who support you are going to come. But you cannot sir possibly service everybody or else you have no brand. You have no |
| Unknown | identity. So here's the question. Here's here I mean I I agree with you. That's a start. Yay. You got Jack on your side. You're set. You know, on our side of the uh on our side of the equation, we're we're we're we're the reviewers. Right. Right? So what do you think a reviewers' jobs should be? I mean I I have my own ideas about uh you know what we should and should not be thinking when we re when when reviewers review anything, whether it's a film or a watch. Um but what do you think the orientation should be? Man, fuck the reviews. No, |
| Unknown | good So here's the thing I think about reviews. When when it comes to reviews, I think the responsibility on the reviewer is is honesty because you are if you know your audience you can't take responsibility for everybody but if you know your audience and you know what you're doing and what you're saying and how you're saying and I think there's a responsibility to understand you are setting a tone and teaching people how to think about something or experience something. So in the case of you know m merchandise, you know, particularly uh we can talk about watches, I think that having a a candid open review is is necessary because you should not pull punches. But being honest is not the s it's it's about how you do it. It's not the same as being um negative negatively uh negatively accusatory or or demeaning. You know, it's it's it's none of these things. And I think that's where sometimes reviewers take their liberties. Um this sucked because of da-da-da-da-da. Like, you know, hey, there's this product, this is what I think is good, this is what I think is not so good, whatever, what do you think? If you're this kind of person, da da da, you know what I mean? But sometimes and you know, I can speak primarily from, you know, film reviews, you know, people it i it'll mess with people, man. When when when reviewers get get too too personal. And I think at the at the core of it, it's like, yeah, honesty has to be there, but you're still doing a job at the end of the day. So is your job to educate the world and open up the w the eyes of people, or is your job to destroy certain people's efforts, right? And and and sometimes people don't make the distinction and that's where it gets a little dicey because you know I know me. I'm coming to the table thinking I know this and I know this, you know, know know this and that about a certain subject. But I want to, I'm interested to see somebody else's opinion and when I can get a good quality educated opinion personal review that allows me to say maybe I'll look at it from this perspective, but at the same time I can still own my own opinion and not feel bad for it. Right. Right. I can rock with that. But sometimes you'll like something and somebody else will be as terrible dah da da. And if you like it, you suck too. Like fall back. Yeah. Like what is going on in your life? Yeah that you need to shut people down like that. Um Yeah, you know uh uh feelings are not facts. I think people forget that. Yeah, exactly. And I'm okay with feelings so long as you're honest with yourself and with your audience and saying, look, I'm a little bit emotional. I'm in my feelings right now about this. So let's discuss it. Because then you can have a human conversation that is there's clarity where people coming to reviewers think that you do this all day. You review that you know the best of the best out there, this, that, and the other, and sometimes your feeling will be taken as professional grade fact. Right. Yeah. Because you have not expressed that. Or as an endorsement. Right, exactly. Yeah. And you're saying regardless of what I've been through, what I know, what I've experienced, da da da, regardless of how much I may know about said product, at the end of the day this is just how I feel. I'm not saying this is a professional opinion, a technical opinion, da da this is a personal opinion. Because not everything is gonna speak to your soul. That doesn't mean that it's not |
| Unknown | good.. Yeah We talk we talk about two things all the time on our end because this is something we struggle with genuinely. Right. Aldus Hodge and Aldous Hodge. That's it. Yeah, exactly. That's all we say. Look, I know, man. I know. It's all right. We weren't going to blow your spot up. But uh Yeah, we we talk about uh respect and responsibility. You know, it's two really basic things. One, I I had a professor in in grad school who told us, you know, in an arts reviewing class that, if you're gonna talk about something being bad, it needs to be bad in an important way. Yeah. Otherwise, you're just punching down. Like there's no there's no reason to trash something. If it being bad doesn't matter. It's a little e |
| Unknown | asy. I mean it's easy. It's a little easy to mistake negativity for authenticity. Yeah. And it's not. And it's it's it's awfully easy to be funny at somebody else's expense for a short term laugh, but |
| Unknown | you know, what do you really have to do? If you're reviewing something, it needs to be something that at the base base level is you you're approaching it from a respectful standpoint. It needs to be something that you think is sort of culturally valuable enough that you need to give an opinion in the first place. If that if you don't respect it enough to think that people need an opinion on it, then don't review it at all. And the other thing is is responsibility. And you know, we've we've had this before. We hear from readers that they buy watches because we give them good reviews. Yeah. And we talk about this like if we say a watch is great, like that day, somebody is gonna go out and spend five, ten, twenty, a hundred thousand dollars because we said it was good. And we need to make sure |
| Unknown | And now I think I think the thing with that there, though you may be responsible and understand your influence, um if somebody spends that money they can't blame you because they still made a personal choice. I hope they don't yeah. You know Nikki |
| Unknown | made me did no you you still made that choice. I sadly do not have all of our readers' credit cards, but uh I wanna I wanna dig into your personal watch collection a little bit. I mean we we can't we're a little limited in what we can talk about about the watches you're designing right now, but I think maybe we can give people an idea of the sorts of things you're into through your own watches. So I'll t |
| Unknown | ell you about what I have and then I'll tell you about what um I aspire to have. I do have this uh wonderful beast, this Arnold and Sun golden wheel on my wrist right now. I have a Gerald Genta octobi retro. I have a Bugari. You have an octoberetro? Yeah. That's wild. Only like real watch nerds have that watch, man. I'm talking about enamel dial with Gerald's name. Oh man, man. Um I haven't even seen one of those in a long time. Oh man, next time I come out, I should have pleased. I should have brought it up. That's a cool that's a super cool watch. Yeah, that um I sent it to get service. It took them a year to get back to me. I was a little more um I do have a uh uh a Gelou Coutre Reverso uh papillon viagger from uh Bugari, i.e. the Daniel Roth edition. I do have a Daniel Roth coming to me. This is the Turbillon. This is a real old school Daniel Roth. I have a uh black ceramic, Jacques Dro, Grand Second uh I have a uh a Mont Blanc Nicholas Riesek, which is one of my very first large purchase acquisitions. Um but in this space, I mean I got a couple of headers. I you know, uh I I would love to own anything from Group of Forcey, I would love to own anything from Garywood Lennon, FB Jorn, MB and F. I have my particular eye on the Legacy Machine series. I don't care which one, just anyone. Um I do think with uh FP Jorn my eyes on the Tobillon Soren or the Resonance uh Group of Forcey, anything, I don't care. Um I kind of have like look, the signature one is a beast. I love the uh twenty four seconds contemporane, I love uh the double balancier, but the thing is I don't really like to speak on in terms of group of force, I don't like to say, oh, I love this, love it. Because then it's like, well, what don't you love about the others? No, I love everything they make. What what is it about Grupo 4Z that you love so much? Because of the architecture, they think the they they make what I think. When I think about design, right? Um it's the perfect synergy between uh mechanics and architecture. And you know, with the exposed gearing, it's not a it's not a skeletonized watch. It's very different. Skeletonized is when you take uh uh a base movement and you carve out the base plates, right? So you can expose movement underneath. They build, you know, their little architectural, you know, structures, right? Um and it's it's the perfect sort of uh homogenous relationship for me in my mind when it comes to engineering, architecture, art and and and watch |
| Unknown | making, right? But it's a funny thing. We don't have um you look at the history of mechanics and uh you know, there was a time when making a machine and making a beautiful machine, these were not diametrically opposed goals. You know, right. You you if you you were making a machine, it was natural to try to make it a beautiful object as well because the idea that there was a difference between the two sort of y it just wasn't part of how people think. And then at some point mass production comes along and you can make something that is ugly as hell and has absolute So there's |
| Unknown | there's uh the different there's uh there are two very different mindsets set in there and um I think that they need um to find a cohesive relationship quite more often because the golden rule of any design foundation is that form follows function. And sometimes people focus way too much on form that they're willing to sacrifice in terms of function. But look, if you don't know how to make it work well, then you don't know how to design it well. Um but at the same time it has to be aesthetically beautiful and appealing to the eye. Most people have, and I say most people just in my personal council of engineers, have the constant discussion of like, okay, most if you're trained as an engineer fully, sometimes you kinda m lack the design taste aesthetic. And then sometimes designers who don't understand the mechanics will design something, you know, really interesting and cool to look at, but it would work like crap. Right. Yeah. And um that's why I think you know you have to in especially why I try to learn the way I learn, you have to have a command of both the mechanics and and and the the beautiful yeah the the idea of beauty that you're trying to achieve because they they complement one another. They they don't s one doesn't survive without the other one. |
| Unknown | So I so and getting back to your own designs, I mean, you know, we're not going to talk about specifics, but you're actually trying to do something that is purely from an engineering and a technical standpoint a little bit difficult to do. And you are trying to um you you're not trying to make an object that is pretty to look at. You're trying to make something that expresses the beauty of machineness. Yes. Yeah. And you |
| Unknown | said earlier that you've experimented and you have some machinery and you're like actually making stuff, not some of the final pieces that'll end up in these produced watches, but you're making stuff. Can you well I I |
| Unknown | own a uh I own a bowl of. two Two of of them them in fact's broken though. Um I you own two lathes. Yeah, but the one of them that's broken was shipped to me uh in pieces and I was just like, what the hell? And I I ended up getting my money back. However, they allowed me to keep the lathe because it they said it couldn't fix. So I think there might be somebody out there who could fix it. But um I have my lathes, I have my um my Rose engine machine, my my guichet machine. And then I have a uh uh straight line milling machine, um, both of which achieve uh uh guichet carvings just at at um uh uh different uh different pinch points. You know, I mean one's up and down, one's circular, but um you know, so so got those. Uh you know, I for a time I was working with a buddy of mine at a uh factory where they had a bunch of C and C machine set up so we would make base plates and things like that. Um we would experiment with it. But you've got to be |
| Unknown | one of the only guys in this country with a Rose engine. Like one of there can't be more than |
| Unknown | five or six of them in the country. All right, yeah. I well I know two you know two of it. Myself and then my buddy who sold me my machine. His name is Joshua Shapiro and he's insane. He's one of the only people that I know that's still doing old school gears by hand the way he's doing it in America. Um He's up in the Bay Area, right? Uh he's in LA. He's in LA, okay? Okay. Um I know a couple folks in the Bay. I'm not sure if they got the the engine turning machines, but uh he you know he probably travels up there because we gotta you know it's a connection is there is the bay then there's Santa Barbara then there's LA was a few of us um so I don't spend as I don't get to spend as much time on my machines because with entertainment most of my work is outside of state. You know, just like like I said, next month I gotta move to to New York for a few months after that, may have another job lined up where I gotta be gone for a whole year. Yeah. So you know, I get to it when I can, but most of my work is in practical theory. I'm always sketching. You ever say to yours |
| Unknown | elf, I'm gonna take a year. I'm gonna take a year and I'm just going to spend the entire year with my hands on my machines. I'm not gonna worry about acting, I'm not gonna worry about directing, I'm not gonna worry about painting, I'm not gonna worry about it. Sounds like you have this fantasy, Jack |
| Unknown | . |
| Unknown | I'm I'm I'm just keeping 100 with you, man. I can't afford to. Yeah. But there's something appealing about that on a certain level. I wish I could, but if I could get to a point where I could take a year off from acting and come back into the game and know that there's still uh demand for me, great. But I can't do that yet because my career is still growing. It's at a good place now, but it's it's to that place where it's almost there. And if you take your finger off the pulse for just a second, you know, it it could die out on you. So I can't really afford the time. That's why I engage other people who can do the job better than me to do the job. And I just keep pushing. Plus, I mean acting is how I earn my bones, so like I can't afford this financially without acting. Yeah, I mean I'll be living in a closet. Yeah. But eventually I want to get to a place where I can be comfortable enough to say, Yeah, I am going to take you know at least like nine months to a year |
| Unknown | and just I mean it's nice to it's nice to have the option, isn't it? I mean and uh I mean obviously it's it's not as if you don't find acting and directing creatively fulfilling. I mean Well the difference is I've been do |
| Unknown | ing it for so long that I d it's out of place when now it's more comfortable than than the watch business because the watch business is in such uh uh uh uh uh uh uh state of infancy that it does need so much more work and so much more hustle and and and help. You know acting right now still need the hustle but I'm at a place where you know people can guarantee or assure themselves on the work that I've done based on what what I've done in the past. I've proven myself in in many varying stages in in acting. I haven't yet with watchmaking, so that's why I need so much more hustle. But I love them both equally. I I would never I can't seemingly quantify more love for one than the other, but um I just know that, you know, it's like you got, I would imagine I'm not a parent yet, but you know see my moms do it. And you know, I would imagine it's like you have, you know, a grown child and then you got a little five year old. That grown child is off to college. You still gonna worry, but you don't have to worry as much, because you know what, you're gonna take care of yourself, but that little five year old it's going it's gonna eat up some some time and energy, you know what I'm saying? Right now, you know, this this watch |
| Unknown | brand is is my little five-year-old. Yeah. When when do you think we're gonna see the first watches available for sale that say Aldis Hajj on the B. I hope tomorrow. I don't know |
| Unknown | . Um so look, it's uh 2019, I plan a capital raise, and if uh actually I'll say knock on wood, when I'm successful, I will begin production then and most likely it should only take me two to two and a half years of of uh R and D time and in and full on production for completion. So I'm hoping uh hoping I'm hoping um that I can debut twenty twenty twenty twenty one, like late twenty twenty one, um at the earliest. But uh it all depends on like I said, just li lining up the financing which uh I'm ready to go. So um but you're but you're viewing this as a as a long term thing. Like you're not long term. You don't want to |
| Unknown | just push something out the door. Well that's why I' |
| Unknown | ve been taking so long now. I I could have put my my own personal because I've been self-funded up to this point, but now that I need to step up to the next level, I do need the financial capital for you know expansion. But for what I've done before, if I wanted to push a a mass produced piece to market that didn't have emphasis on hand polishing, finishing, and i if I was using a prefabricated movement, I could have been to market already. I could have produced a watch that could sell maybe five hundred to a thousand or even a watch that hits the two thousand to five thousand dollar market. And and I mean that not I'm not saying the financial terms in in terms of actual value, but what it I'm cost, I'm thinking as an engineer in in in terms of what it cost to make that, um I could have been to the market now. Right. But what I want to do the reason I haven't done that is because I say, look, I can do that, but that company was is only gonna last maybe if if anything, five years. Because I'm not gonna love it. And I can't give people something that I don't love. I want to make what I want to make. I designed a very particular way because when I came into the game, you know, I started studying, well, I studied Group of Force it because of the fact that I could see the gears. So I could count what was what and I could see how everything's were uh how everything was associated and then I studied Breget, I studied uh Francois Paul Jean, you know, those those were kind of my guys. I study George Daniels and what he did in terms of his movements. So I I think about watches in a very particular way and and these guys are my influences. So when I design watches I want to you know, I can tell you exactly what I feel makes a George Daniels significant or a Group of Force or an FP Jarn. And then I look at the histories and I see what they've done. Now granted they're all, you know, have fabulous watchmaking histories, which got 'em to that point. I don't have that history. But I want to make what I want to make. And that is going to take time, patience, extra resources. And I would rather put that effort there because it's going to take an equal amount of effort to do something that is mass produced even at a subpar level of quality, it's going to take as much effort there and I'd rather put it where I want to be happy because I want to build something that is going to outlive me |
| Unknown | . Yeah, I mean that makes complete sense. I mean you mentioned a couple of guys in there, you know, Jorn, Dr. Forzi. Are these the kind of brands that you are modeling yourself off of? And that not just in terms of the the the mechanics of the watchmaking, but in terms of the kind of like structure of the brand, the sort of message you wanna send, the kind of like um I guess brand attitude and brand perspective. W |
| Unknown | ell I I don't want to misconstrue my message or confuse people when I say uh I don't look at any particular brand and say I want to be them. I know that's not what you're asking but I you know just for the audience I I I don't say that okay one day my brand is going to be like this, da da da da I'm saying that I look at certain brands for what they've done well in the market space and I want to develop a brand that does that has that resounding effect but my way. So I would sit um I don't believe of of uh in in competition in the space either because I think that, you know, for me like I love certain things. When I can afford them, I will get them. You know, if you put uh a Philip Dufour simplicity in front of me and then you put uh uh FP Jordan Toby on Silverane and then you put uh Carrie with Lane and Vink eight and you say, Well, pick one, choose one. If I can buy them all, I'm getting them all. If I and and the thing is if I can't get them all, I'm going to strategize to work to a place where I can get them all because I have a healthy respect for them all, but there's nothing uh uh competitively discernible there. I'm not gonna say, well, this is better than this because of da-da-da. I'm gonna say this is great because of this, this is great because of that. And you know, so I don't find myself being in competition against anybody. However, I would be I would sit somewhere comfortably between somewhere between uh FP Jorn and Gruble Forcey. That's a that's a pretty good place to be sitting. Well I I hope that my um my designs are are good enough to demand that uh semblance of uh |
| Unknown | respect. So you know I'm working at that. I've got to say having seen you know the renderings you just showed us in the the sketchbook, I think uh I think people are in in for a treat. It's uh it's a shame we can't show them more now. But uh ye |
| Unknown | ah, we wouldn't uh I mean obviously you know we wouldn't nor would you want to give |
| Unknown | Well a part of it also is being able to you know not not exposing it for the world to see just because for whomever does uh snatch up the you know that first collection, I want to be able to give them um something a bit more personal with the experience. So if you're gonna be able to get that for the first time and you want to show the world. I want you as the collector to be able to have a piece of that experience. Of course I'm gonna, you know, when it's done, I'm gonna market it, but you know I want the collector to be able to enjoy some of that. Oh hey, what is that on your wrist? Right. Let me |
| Unknown | tell you about it. Right. You know what I mean? And that's how you build a community, right? Like it ends up not just being a product that a a handful of people buy, you you really build a dedicated collector base like a lot of these modern brands have done |
| Unknown | . Right. Exactly. Look, I I don't see myself exceeding uh well let me not be irresponsible and give hard numbers, but I I I don't think that I would be a very large brand in terms of output. I'm gonna be a micro boutique brand, you know. We'd be lucky if we made a hundred botches a year, probably closer to fifty. Um you know, in terms of the goal. Um I I do wanna mitigate my numbers specifically to manage well to develop and manage my customer relationships because I do wanna create a a a a community. Um I would like to be able to manage these relationships well into um you know uh well into the maturation of the brand and then uh ultimately with my demise and when uh whoever takes over my kids or the my kids' kids or whatever, I want them talking to the grandkids of my collectors. You know, so how do you cultivate that? There has to be some sort of personal relationship there. And then however the brand spreads out in terms of influence, I can't control that, but I do hope it catches wildfire. Yeah. You know, spreads all over |
| Unknown | . So we're gonna get kicked out of the studio in a couple minutes, but uh staying. I know it's a shame. I feel like we can keep this conversation going for another hour, but uh we end every show, we ask a couple kind of like quick lightning round uh questions and then we'll do our cultural recommendations and hopefully get out of here before we get thrown out of the street. |
| Unknown | Sorry for the uh uh profanity for the kitties and the ladies out there. Pardon me. I'm a gentleman, I swear |
| Unknown | . First question is what's a watch you've seen recently that really caught your eye that you just can't stop thinking about? Daniel Rolf Perpetual Calendar. Perfect. What's uh what's the |
| Unknown | best place you've traveled in the last year? Italy. We went to Rome, Venice, Florence. I can't say which one is my favorite. I like something about each one of those places. Perfect. My mother, uh she said as a young child, she said they can take anything in this world away except for what you know. Meaning that all your possessions, all your whatever you have, that can be taken away. However, when you educate yourself and you learn what you need to learn, you can always gain or acquire or build back up. So learn as much as you can to accomplish everything. And when somebody takes your worldly possessions away, they have not taken away your value or your power. Your power is in what you know. Perfect. And do you have any guilty pleasures? Um solitude. I love being alone. Um it I'm alone with my thoughts. I like to design alone. I you know, I go sit in a corner and and sit in the back room and I'll I'm ducked out hiding and uh it's not good because I need to give more time and attention to my friends who love me, to my family. You know, my family, we we're very close. We spend a whole time together. But, you you know know to, to my to my missus and and you know, it's like I I do think it's necessary to have time alone, but um I think I may also love it a bit too much |
| Unknown | . Well we'll close things off with a cultural recommendation. We always have have everybody kinda give something people should check out when they're done listening. So it can be a a book, it can be a movie, it can be a place to go. What uh what should people go take a look at when they're done? I can't recommend a film because I'm gonna be hella biased |
| Unknown | right now. You're allowed you can plug you can plug something. Shoot. Um there happen to be three movies coming out next year that just I s I think they're awesome. I I mean they're think they're gonna be good. You know, there's a movie called Brian Banks that I think everybody should see, and then there's a movie called Clemency that's you know, if you're gonna be in Sundance, it'll be there. And then uh there's a movie called What Men Want that's coming out February 8th, you might w goanna check it out with your sweetheart. You know, uh I mean, you know, it just just these little things. You know, I mean it just happened to be there. Um in terms of uh a book. Well this might be a little heavy. I don't know, but I'm I'm reading it anyway, uh I'm gonna put it out there there. Uh's a book that I'm reading um by Chancellor Williams uh written over fifty years ago, I believe. Uh well he did his research over fifty years ago, uh called The Destruction of Black Civilization. And the reason that I started reading it was because I look at the influence uh of you know black culture and and of course in these times and I'm like we have influenced so many things. We are very small. We're not the dominant percentage of of people in this country. However, we command one of the larger spending percentages in this country. Uh we influence so many things when it comes to finances, when it comes to, you know, culture, music, television, arts, uh, uh, athletics, you know, and and why don't we reserve or retain that power um financially or or or or even uh influentially. You know, we we are seen as less than and subpar. And this book I picked up just because it was you know, it sir it i helped answer some of those questions of how we even got to this point. Um with invasions, you know, colonization, things like that. So it's it's much more educational and actually more i interesting than I'm making it sound. It's you know I'm probably making it sound all dreary and drab, but you know, it's it's one of those where, you know, growing up in in school as a kid, the history was not there for me because uh it just wasn't written. Yet, you know, I gotta learn about English history and I gotta learn about uh Asian history, but I don't learn about African history. I'm like the hell is going on, right? So, you know, just educating myself and I think it's quite an interesting book. It's it's um man, it it explains a lot about why things are the way they are. You know, I mean look, if you go to Italy, you'll see Egyptian obelisks staying at the town centers all over, in Rome, all over. And then you forget that there's an obelisk standing in Washington, DC. You're like, where did this come from? Why is there a pyramid on the dollar? Like, do the research. It's there. You'll see where it came from. But um it's an effort to educate myself in order to educate other people on how mm my culture, you know, should be respected and should be included in the identity of American culture. So, you know, just trying to tryna keep myself up. So when somebody has some some mess to say, I'm like, hey bruh, let me talk to you. You know. Um No, I just I just like to uh keep the facts going. So again, it's you know, like my mom said, they can take everything away from you except for what you know and as of late it seems like people have been trying to take a lot away. I swear I'm I'm a much happier person than I sound. I swe |
| Unknown | ar Jack, how about you? What are you recommending? Uh well uh the last time uh you had me on the podcast, I recommended a giant shark movie. So uh talking about shark natal? Oh no, the magic. Oh the magic. Oh man. Maybe I should I should maybe I should just do that again. No, you know what? Every episode Jack just recommends the mag. Go see the mag. It's got it's a love story. It it actually is kind of a love story. That's that's the subtext. Um Jason Statham and the Shark. I mean there's you know what? There's a there's a lot of possible uh readings. Uh it's what my uh lit crit friends uh call a multivalent uh presentation. Um but speaking of speaking of history, I I actually just finished uh what was almost a year-long project. Uh I finally finished reading all five volumes of Gibbons, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which was really wild to read. It's considered, you know, by l it's sort of generally considered to be the first piece of real, like quote unquote, modern historical writing because it was all based on primary sources which nobody had ever really done before. And the most amazing which it sounds super dry, but the amazing thing about it is like all of these people, you know, you realize that these people were, you know, human beings, Scipio Africanus and, you know, Tiberius, I mean you know, all of these emperors. Most people don't realize that Africa was named after Scipio Africanus. Um to your point. And then you find out why. Yeah. And you know, it's like and it made me realize, I mean, uh, you know, the Roman Empire was the Roman Empire, but it did not take the actions of too many really horrible people to uh burn the whole thing down and it just made it it it made me realize a lot of things but one of them was the you know um just the notion of and you were talking about this earlier uh you know like s sort of uh us having a sense of custodianship about what we do rather than a sense of personal personal promotion and ownership and if there's an antidote to the to the to you know to the kind of um self serving mentality that really can destroy uh an empire and cause us to lose uh an amazing part of our cultural heritage. I think it's realizing that we actually do have um we're we're we're custodians of things and we need to we need to bear that in mind. How about you Ste |
| Unknown | ven? So I'm gonna actually plug something oh Altus's? So this wasn't my plan coming into this episode, but uh I'm gonna go back and rewatch Friday Night Lights, man. Oh man, I dig it. Thank you. I I I grew up in expecting that. I grew up in Texas. Uh oh what part? Uh Austin. Oh, little bit different. We shot in Austin. Yeah, exactly. So actually the uh the like malt shop, the uh is Alamo Freeze, is that the name? Something like that. Something like that. Was a uh was a dairy queen, like three bucks from my high school. And you could tell when Friday night lights was shooting because they literally switched the entire sign out. So sometimes you'd like drive by for lunch on Monday mor like Monday afternoon, you'd go to pick up lunch and you'd realize they'd been shooting over the weekend because they hadn't switched the sign back to a Dairy Queen sign. Uh and you'd be like, where the hell did the dairy queen go? But uh yeah, I just it's it's one of those things that I watched it when it was originally on. I watched it again maybe five years ago with my my wife. Uh I gotta go back and rewatch it. Just it's an amazing piece of television and if you haven't seen it, uh it's great. It's it's so engrossing and it's such good storytelling. Soundtrack is unbelievable. It's a soundtracked by Explosions in the Sky, which is a band I love. Um believable band. Um but yeah, it's just a great, great piece of TV and and something that I think is something we're gonna look back on in you know, like fifty years and we keep saying we're in a golden age of television. I think that's gonna be one of the pieces of television that really stands stands the test of time. There you go. Texas forever. Yeah. A man awesome. Well thank you guys for for doing this. I know it's been a long day for both of you uh and it's not over yet. We're off to a a dinner, but uh free food, man. I'm not gonna be mad at you. Perfect. No, no, no. I think we'll probably keep this conversation going in the car over there. But uh yeah, we'll have to have you back uh sometime soon. This was awesome, man. Hopefully when I'm back I have a watch to show you. I would love that. Awesome. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thank you, man. This week's episode was recorded at Mirror Tone Studios in New York City and was produced and edited by Grayson Korhonen. Please remember to subscribe and rate the show, it really does make a difference. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next week. |