SPEAKER_02 0:34

Welcome to the Better Two Podcast. I'm your host, Donna. Today's guest is John Andrew Frederick. He is with the group The Black Watch. And I find it funny today that we actually he is in a coffee shop because I always joke that the podcast is like you sitting us sitting down in a coffee shop and talking while he was actually there. We talk about his new record, we talk about Marilyn Monroe, we talk about Dolly Parton, we talk about AI, and we talk about music and creativity and teaching and books and so much more. So tune in. Hi, John. How are you doing? Very well, Donna. Nice to see you. Nice to see you. You, you know, I one thing when I was doing my research, you have a very diverse background as far as things that you've done. And I know we're here to talk about the music, but most people, when I bring them on, I talk about their career. And you do have a long career because next year it'll be 40 years that the Black Watch has been around.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Um I think you're quite accurate in that in that um numerical assessment. It just I tallied it up yesterday because I don't like numbers very much as an ex-English major and professor. Um yeah, but it's kind of startling to think how lickety split the whole thing's gone by. Um, but you know, I mean, there's I mean, one time uh a drummer in a in a Los Angeles band, I ran into him somewhere. I hadn't seen him for years, and he asked me if we were still carrying on, and then he goes, he goes, You guys have been around forever. As though there was an onomonopoeic kind of use of the word forever. Just it's it kind of stung a little a little bit because the uh the um the the the the sort of uh um assumption or assertion behind it or inference, you know, was like, why are you doing why are you doing this? Haven't you made your statement just yet?

SPEAKER_02 2:33

But the thing is, and I mean, you know, I was I looking through the the PR packet that I got, you have eight or seven or eight songs left from the session that you just done, you just did. Um, and that would allow you to actually put out a little EP to celebrate that landmark. And here's the thing about that though while some people say, you know, the beast won't die, you know, it it when is this going to end? As long as you are enjoying it, why should it end? I mean, does anybody ask about the Rolling Stones? I mean, look how long they've been around.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Well, I wish they'd stop because I love the stones up to you know 74 or 5 or what have you. But um, no, you can't really wish that upon someone. And it's I don't I'm I'm very hyper-aware of the idea of just being um of of eschewing any kind of sense of self-indulgence, like just just because somebody wishes to make music, it's not necessarily there's a uh there's a purpose. It seems like a dialect between dialectical the dialectic between, you know, is there a purpose for you to be a band or is there not? But I'm a very harsh critic of myself and of everybody else, as anybody who knows me even casually could tell you, maybe not always kindly. Um, so I mean I want to make sure that we keep on if we do, because that EP that you've suggested is blossomed into or festered, who knows, into an another follow-up LP that we're going to call the other end of the lollipop. Because there were some songs left over, and I've gone in and done four more um with Scott Campbell, who's been in our corner for forever. Um so it looks like the the the end is not quite inside. Forgive me, people, but yeah, I mean I think there's new there are new songs and new sounds that you know we we we really feel as though but then again, we're terrible critics of ourselves in terms of uh objectivity. I mean, I I I I I think that that's important to acknowledge that that I'm just another listener when people say, like, what's your favorite record or your best record? You know, stuff I'm just another listener, so it doesn't really matter that much. I don't think. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

Well, I mean, I I get that question because I'm an author, I get that question a lot. So who's your favorite character? What's your favorite book? And it's like they're each a piece of you. So how do you how do you sit there and pick one and say, oh, this is my this is it? Because they're all your baby, whether it be music or books, because I know you're a novelist as well. Um you it's hard to to to pick one when they're all a part of you.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Of course, and um it's it's lamentable when you find people like John Lennon was who would say like he'd like to record all the rest of the Beatles songs all over again. I mean, that seems a tad excessive. And then maybe with your own books, you think, well, this one's my favorite for now, but I reserve the right to um advance another one to candy candidacy and then put that one in a timeout or something, you know. Um, so I think it just it depends on one's one's mood. Um, and again, you're just a cre another critic of your own work. So um that you're I I don't believe in any authorial intention kind of kind of thing or a or a authorial assessment, really. Um so objectivity is very difficult to we all you know fancy that we have a certain objectivity with our work, uh we might be just having ourselves on, perhaps.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

But how many times have you you seen an interview with uh uh when a musician puts out a new record? And this is going back since I was a teenager, so the 80s. Um, and you hear the musician say, well, this is our best record yet.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Uh every single time. If I ever get up the husband to say, this is the worst record we've ever done, I think that would be a gambit perhaps worth pursuing. You know, you have a great smile, by the way. Well, what a nice smile you have. Thank you. Mine's mine's just because I'm jolly to be, you know, happy to be in not my sweltering apartment with an actual cup of coffee. Um, but I'm happy to talk to you too. But yeah, keep smoking, keep smiling to this Donna.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Um try to have a good time.

SPEAKER_02 6:59

The the one thing I that's one of the reasons why I do this is because I enjoy talking to people. Um, that's the only reason because it's kind of you know, it's not that I'm this big, huge, successful podcaster. I do it because I get to enjoy it. And you know, one thing I looked when I was reading through your stuff, you were talking about endings and how you know you want to end the band sometimes and you just don't. And and I have found myself because in November I'll be at 250 episodes. And I'm at I I love doing it, but it's like, why am I doing it? I have some listeners, I have I have people that listen, but you know, it's just one of those things where it's like, when do you say when? And almost like I'll keep going, but it's just one of those moments that just like you with the the band, when do you say when? And am I ready to say when? And and all those questions come to mind.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Well, as long as you've got the enthusiasm for it still, then I would say carry on. And you know, and those are whether it was well, if if one has an eye or a mind to having to becoming a mega success or becoming viral in that occurrence term, um, I don't I don't know that that that way lies satisfaction anyway. So, I mean, I didn't start uh my other tagline is I didn't start a band in order to become famous or rich, and I've succeeded admirably in both the categories. So I mean, it's just just the the very it's like the Theodore Redka, you know that poet poet from the 50s who taught at the University of Washington and he taught tennis too. I love his stuff. It's sometimes very childlike. He says, you know, I learn by going where I need to go. So um, you know, I think that that's that sort of deal. I'm that's one of the reasons why you may be most artists, writers uh as well, maybe depressed after you finish something because the process of it was the was the gist of it rather than the finished article that you know has to has to eventuate unless you're one of these sad people and I'm number them in my life, who just can't can't judge something over and done with and let it go. I mean, how many people, maybe perhaps of your acquaintance, you know, have have you that just you know they're very creative, they're very artistic, but they can't seem to finish anything, uh uh forever staving off a judge a final judgment that this is done or this is ready to be go out, go out on into the world and be judged, etc. I mean, it's for me, it's that you know, any advice that they ever you know try to perhaps elicit from me is like kill your idol, stop looking at other people. And you know, if you compare yourself to two the greats like the stones, like forget it. You're doomed. You want to be doomed?

SPEAKER_02 9:51

I had a 30-year novel. I had a 30-year novel I started when I was in college that I did not do, I did I kept rewriting or or overpainting as the painter would say. And my late husband, he ended up with in dialysis, and I ended up at Barnes and Noble. So I was putzing around working on this, and one of my characters says to me, I got an idea for you. Start a journal, start a journal with me. I'm a side character, but start my journal. I'm an addict, I am a rock star. You will have a high time, it'll be great marketing. That turned into my first book. And I got and I had really cool, I had the push because I got to know the people at Barnes and Noble and they were closing that location. And one of the workers is like, we're having a new writer's night. If you can get that book finished by this, you know, and and have it printed and everything, you can participate. So I had that goal. It was the kick in the the ass that I needed. Yeah, right. Very good.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

But so I understand where you're at. And I and even I just finished two great two books that I got five-star reviews on and everything, and I have one more book to write. And I started writing it, and I I can't do it because I know once I finish that book, those characters are done. So I understand what you're talking about. It's like I don't I'm not ready to let go of them yet. So I'm on to another project, but I know I have to let go of them. So it's part of it.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

I can relay, sure. Yes, and good luck with all of it. And and maybe we don't know that that you'll be finished with them. Maybe they'll branch out and have like like tentacles that that will reach somewhere else.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

They'll be in other stories, but their main story will be done. And that's the thing. It's like, and it goes back to music, writing, everything. It's all part of our us, and it's all our babies, and we all have this creative niche to make something happen. Which I mean, I I have to ask, because I know you were an English professor at one point. How do you feel about the AI taking over music and writing and all the creative spaces?

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Um I don't feel great about it. Um, I could even just go to the the the extent to say the extent that I feel it makes me faintly sick. You know, I I was um uh a producer, a guy, a guy called Kevin Dippolt, who's from the Midwest as well, great guy. I was playing tennis with him because he's another tennis fiend. And um about four years ago, he uh I just have a flip phone, I'll show you to prove it. Um that everybody either they say they envy it, but I don't see people joining me in the Luddite you know category very soon. But Kevin pulled on his phone one time when we were taking a break from hitting, you know, he said, Hey John, you know, do uh let's let's let me show you this chat GPT thing that could write a Shakespeare sonnet, you know, um almost instantly. Why don't you give me give me a subject? How about you know, like your kid's a surfer? Why don't you, you know, a surfer go surfing or whatever. I'm going, Kevin, I don't want to even, I don't want you even show me this. I don't I don't want to see this. He was so keen to you know to to to do it. He went ahead, you know, uh contrary to my wishes. Of course. It's it's something of a toy. And I mean uh years ago, a bandmate of mine, Scott Taylor, said convenience is killing us. And I think this is, you know, notwithstanding all this stuff, a chap we use in Manchester who has done a bunch of collage like in uh videos for us because they're affordable and I don't like doing them, even though I've been in a few. It's just the camera shy. I don't like it even for a ham that's very oxy or moronic or whatever. Um but you know, he there's uh uh somebody's just to turn this guy, Ian's just turned in a video um of the the first single uh proper, which is going to be a song called Never You Mind, very penny lane uh Piccolo trumpets, up be really funny. And he's he had his cat star in this AR video where the cat just leaves his house and goes on the tube in London and rides one of the double decker buses and goes to a show. And I just thought, like, it's really charming, especially for people who like cats, and we've got cats on the cover of Only Record and uh and the whole motif, and just kind of going, okay, well then Uncle, I you know, um just if that's if that's what it has to be, if that's if that's gonna be the the motif, then fine, fine for now. And we could beg off saying like we don't have the budget to just go and do me have me do a big old dance production number downtown or on Broadway or in you know Piccadilly Serpent circle.

SPEAKER_02 14:43

Well, we can't put you in a cat outfit, you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

I think it's been done before. Um, like most things. Yeah. Um yeah, it's too hot to wear any outfits other than a t-shirt today.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

Trust me, there was one day a long, long time ago I worked at Chuck E. Cheese and I got to dress as Chuck E. Cheese. That was when it was still a video game place more than the kids' palace it is now.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

That was not fun, and it was inside. So I I would not want to wear anything like that outside. Um so the cats on the cover, is that just a stock image or are those your cats?

SPEAKER_01 15:20

No, no, that's that's no, there's no AI involved there. Those are the studio cats that Rob Campanilla has. And he took this picture of them, and I thought, okay, that's that's just brilliant. They look like a band. I have a prejudice towards bands that have four people because of my Beatles Jones. I I'm I'm disturbed sometimes by uh trios, unless it's Z Z Top or the police for Coosco do. You know, um, so I always think like four people, not five on stage. Four we've got to have, and the four cats are so fluffy and so cute. Um, I don't have one, but you know, my son has one, you know, and uh most of the people I know have have have cats, and Scott Campbell, the other, another producer and master, he says, you know, not everybody likes cats, but everybody likes pictures of cats. And I thought, oh, very good, because the publicists are all dead keen to have me talk to cat lovers and stuff. And you know, I'm they're great. I love other people's pets, but I you know, I'm not a sort of person who has one or wants one. Um, but I just thought, oh, that looks like a menacing band. And then I told the Jim Scott, the art director, well, on the back cover, let's have you know, let's have a chamiri so it looks like they're you know staring down this potential prey or whatever whenever and whether anybody are gonna is gonna get that or not, it's who knows. But you know, I just thought it was another, you know, inside joke, as it were, or some subtlety or not subtlety. Who knows?

SPEAKER_02 16:47

When you talked about uh never you mind, you mentioned in the write-up about it that it everything's you know, it's gonna be okay. And I think that right now we're in a time where there's a lot of uncertainty. So the song would be kind of timely.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

I think um, and that could be said about almost any time there's upheaval, whether you just you know look at look at us or Britain or what's going on in various forums, you know, sure. You can all you can always say that just, I mean, but it's more it's more personal than that universal or political. I mean, maybe in universal in a in a personal way, um, of the idea of just most of my songs are about trying to console people for the vicissitudes of life, um and for myself as well. It's not to say that they're therapeutic necessarily, but they certainly do help me, you know, um feel as though that there's a reason for the Black Watch to be to be a band. Um but I think that's the most most thing that the the most the most valuable thing that people could get out of um inspecting, if not, you know, analyzing in detail the l the lyrics and not in a not such detail either, because they're not poetry. I'm one of these hickory stick traditionalist person who goes like lyrics are lyrics and poetry is poetry and and they're the twain. So yeah, I mean they're that's a song that's just meant it's meant to remind people not to take things too very seriously as a recovering control freak myself. I could say that with authority. That is authorial intention right there, Donna.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

So how does one be in a band and yet be an English teacher? Oh wait, sting, but never mind.

unknown 18:40

No.

SPEAKER_02 18:41

Um but but my whole my whole point is it seems it seems different, but yet I would think there's still some commonality because you are a lyricist.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

Well, I mean uh gosh, I mean, those are just my twin interests. I broke my leg uh when I was 10 and playing football, uh tackle football, which was forbidden by my father, who was a college football player. And but of course, you know, my friends and I uh played tackle football at this field, and I broke my leg so badly that I spent a year in bed when I was uh 10 or 11, I can't remember. And um my parents quite astutely and at the heyday of television for children, the late 60s, said, like, look, you're not gonna watch more than an hour, maybe two, of television a day. You're not just gonna run away. And so, you know, I was already an uh keen reader, so I just read everything I could, mostly about wars, history, et cetera, or just the hardy boys or stuff that was appropriate for my age. And then I'd been taking guitar from a hippie chick in in uh Montecito who was teaching me like where are all the flowers gone and some Donovan, etc. So I just started taking guitar, and my cast blitzed all the way up to my hip from my toes because the break was so bad. And so it was a perfect way for me to balance my little silver tone guitar on you know, on my cast, and it was an entire year that I spent in bed, like a mini, you know, like a miniature proust, like not as good as proust, but you know, it's just thought so. I made the most of it, and it really made me who I am as a person who's equally involved in music and and literature. Um, so it's not it's not that far-fetched. And furthermore, the years, the 25 plus years that I taught at universities, like a glorified migrant worker. Um, I never got a I had a couple chances for full-time physicians, but I didn't uh one in particular at USC that that that I remember making a big mistake because that's a glory school. I was there for four years part-time, and they enriched me three times for a full-time job. And I remember one of the last things I said was, Well, you're not gonna get any glory out of me. I'm just a great professor. You know, I love the kids and and I love turning them on, and they give me great reviews as well. Um, but that was before I published any books. That was pre-2008 when the Knucklehead Chronicles, my first, you know, love length short stories thing came out. I thought, oh my God, after you know, the third time going, the USC's all about glory. Look around. I mean, this is a rich kids school, and I loved it there, and they didn't behave like rich kids. They were fantastic, but mistakes were mistakes were made. But then again, was it really a mistake? Because had I had a full-time professorship somewhere, I mean it wouldn't leave, it doesn't seem like it would leave me enough time to um you know pursue writing and recording songs, doing as many gigs as we possibly could.

SPEAKER_02 21:46

You know, whether some going on and that no, that's the thing. It's like sometimes when we think we've screwed up, it actually is a better pos puts us in a better or different position. Because while while teaching most Likely was great and the kids were great and everything. At a certain point, would that have become soul sucking for you?

SPEAKER_01 22:07

I think so. David Foster Wallace, another of my favorite writers, uh another guy who was obsessed with tennis, he always said it's only after maybe the first only the first two years that the cliche is true that you learn more from the students than they learn, they learn from you after that becomes um rather rather rote and banal. I mean, but I used to get so psyched up every September when we went back to school thinking, God, I'm just gonna turn these kids on to Keats, and I you know, I'll often teach film, so we're gonna do some lynch and we're gonna do some Hitchcock, and you know, and then a couple weeks in when you see the lassitude or you know that notwithstanding all of my song and dance to try to inspire them somehow, that you know, I wasn't getting the always the results from everybody, you know, because I didn't teach to them to them to the median at all. I just tried to you know pull them all out of Plato's cave as much as I I could, maybe by the hair sometimes. Um and then you know the the inevitable the disappointment kind of kind of sits in, uh sets in. Um so I mean I loved I love professing. People ask me, like, do you miss it? Yes, I mean I miss talking about literature and film for money, um, but I didn't miss the politics whenever I never went to meetings hardly at all. One time I went to one at USC and the chair of the department goes, John, what are you doing here? Well I check in. You know, somehow I'm not a joiner. I can't like hay crowds, you know, all that kind of stuff. So but I mean it was you know, it was it was it was use useful, I think, in lots of lots of ways because I helped a lot of students, some of with some of whom went on to have PhDs and keep in touch with me still, even though I think it's seven years since I or six years since I retired seven uh from from uh being a profit.

SPEAKER_02 24:06

But I mean and this takes us back to the AI thing. I've seen more people, teachers, professors talking about the fact that AI is in, you know, uh entered the classroom and is taken away education. So why are you even paying for an education if you're gonna use that?

SPEAKER_01 24:28

You know, um near the end of my tenure, as it were, uh they were they asked us to use this thing called Turnitin. And I'm a total lead. I can barely I showed you my flip phone, I can barely check my email. Uh I can't follow directions. When I cook something, I I don't follow a recipe. I just look at the ingredients and hope for the best. But near near the end of the they were saying, like, okay, we've all got to use this app that you know checks something for plagiarism and you can make the corrections online. I'm going, I I I'm, you know, I'm again that Ickry stick who's like, I'm gonna write, I'm I I write countless notes on the kids' papers. I wanted them to read my writing and and my my end note, which was sometimes as long as the uh their their pin their paper almost. Uh like I can't do I can't do that and be the professor that that that I was. So these kind these kinds of obligatory uh you know maxims or gestures or procedures would have resulted in my obsolescence anyway. I mean my little brother who's a little big shot criminal defense lawyer, he said to me the other day, he goes, Look, you know, there aren't going to be any jobs left. So socialism is an inevitability. People are gonna have to, I mean, I'm a workaholic, I'm a burgo, we love to work. You know, it's just sort of like what without work, what will people, what will people do? And what and then how will that gap be filled for their self-worth as well? Even the laziest person, some of whom are my close acquaintances, you know, like does feel feels gets a gets that sort of you know, uh that that dopamine hit of someone's going like, really good job. You really feel very thorough here, and the the uh the the outcome's very much worth your effort, etc. Where will that where will that go? Yeah. The way of dodo, you know, perhaps because of all these um potential ills that we could lay at AI. There was a guy, the guys, the the trigonometry guys who have a very famous podcast too, um uh asking all to all manner of intellectuals and artists, politicians on, you know, have this guy called Dr. Arthur Brooks, who teaches at Harvard, who's Catholic. And he said, you know, one of the things we have to worry about the very most is uh not just the ways in which young people are not connecting with each other in real life and that notion of this egregious term lived experience. Like it's experience. What do you mean lived? But there may be a robotic way in which we are becoming like these automatons. And um I'm sure I'll be dead by the time it's you know it's it's it's true, it's true, it's true, truly, you know, uh uh eventuated, but it just seemed it seems like we were we're at a crisis, uh, a crisis point where you know um saying never you mind isn't the answer, that something has to be done to cope with the idea, the Kubrickan almost idea of you know of automatons taking over that would have been you know ushered in perhaps uh in some way by uh uh no contact gas pumps or ATM machines or whatever it was, perhaps the harbinger of the whole thing. So it is it is concerning, but gosh, you know, what can just a couple of authors and artists like you and me do about it other than acknowledge it? Well, I mean and and rant. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 28:03

Well, and you know, you're talking about your phone. I've heard that that the younger generations are like turning away from they don't want a smartphone, they want to flip photographs.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

That's what they say. That's what they say. It'd be like someone saying, like, I don't really want to be a heroin addict, you know, I don't want to, I want to quit. Or if a person says along the lines of like, I hate my job, or I hate my marriage flick, no, you don't, you haven't quit yet. Yeah, you're still in it, you don't really hate it enough to to to set something in motion. So I get that lip service thing whenever I pull out the flip phone, and people just go like, oh, I'm gonna get one of those. Like, I doubt it. Sorry, love.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

What's mortifying for me is I occasionally, you know, I'll watch something on TV, and now Chat GPT is putting like older ladies having conversation with Chat GPT, and I'm just like, oh, so you're marketing it to the boomers now. No offense to anybody, but they're marketing it to the older generation because it's like the younger generation sees the crap it is, but now you're gonna market it to the older generation and the people that are lonely. And the fact of the matter is there's studies showing that it affects your brain to a detriment.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Right. Sure. I mean, that's not to say that um just because I don't have a smartphone, that doesn't mean that I spend my time when I'm not writing or playing tennis, um, you know, surf surfing around the internet or trying to discover new new things and ideas uh on YouTube in particular, which would be uh typical of my demographic to do that, you know, a number of friends. But then, you know, other friends who seem to be playing around with this AI thing and taking their photographs and turning them into cartoons, etc., and going, like, uh, I wonder, you know, what's the purpose other than just kind of a mental masturbation masturbatory kind of motif? I don't, you know, but then again, I I don't know, there's so many temptations here, you know.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

Well, I I think part of it is people that I because okay, so I I have been a professional tarot reader on the side, so I'll put that out there. And I will have read for clients, and a lot of them will tell me something will come up, and I'm like, you know, you need to work on some being more creative. You need I'm not creative at all. And I think ChatGPT and the AI allows them to feel like they're creative, even though they're not. They're not really the illusion. Yeah. And so I think and and for some, like the big cash grab with authors, I see creating these books that there's one author I think that wrote 300 books in in two months. Well, they didn't really write 300 books in two months, they did it with this. But the problem is that they're flooding the market and they think it's a cash grab. But the fact of the matter is, you don't, there's not a lot of money to be made in publishing, just like music. And and so we're just gonna flood the market thinking we can now say we're an author, but are you really? Are you really a musician? Are you really in a band? And that's the thing. It's it's the reality versus the non-reality, because I can sit here and say I'm a published author because I am just like you. You can say you're a novelist, so can I. But Joe Bob, who just did something on Chat GPT, puts it out and says, I'm a novelist. No, you're not. You're a prompter.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Yeah, and that's sort of like one of those things where you can't let it you can't. I was thinking about this, uh, about the vogue phrase imposter syndrome, you know, that's kind of that's very that's very occurring. And it's and I thought, gosh, it's interesting to as far as the zeitgeist goes, that there are, of course, that's going to be a term that's thrown around because there are so many posers, um, so many impostors. So might give them pause to just go, you know, like, okay, wow, you know, they know deep down that they've cheated, um, or not even deep down. And maybe in some cases don't care. You're too you're sending you you're sending you seem to be whimm here. Um, but I think that's that's that's really it's very, very interesting how phrases that that um come into come into play and uh go out of fashion um really re reflect the the sort of universal mindset or whatever. But yeah, there's a lot of imposters. But I mean, just to pay them very much never mind isn't gonna isn't gonna help other than just going like sorry, or you're gonna kick against the fricks in that respect. And just go like you're not, you're not what you you profess to be. Fool fool the people all you want, be an Instagram model, etc. Go go for it. Go ahead. But it's not it's not gonna legitimize you, except in the eyes of you know fools. I mean, I don't think we're getting any smarter, Donna. So you know, maybe a little a little bit more savvy, but you know, you have to be on a little, you know, theory of of things, not just to jump into something like, look, isn't this like what my tennis friend and producer by Kevin Ewans didn't like? It's no, it's not cool. And it didn't, it's not gonna it didn't stop him there, which is a harbinger, it seems, of you know, uh the thing the thing writ large.

SPEAKER_02 33:09

I mean, I as a writer, my first several books, even recently, I still have that that little bit of imposter syndrome of is my next book gonna suck? But that's a totally different type of imposter syndrome than what you're describing. And I think here's Yeah, I think that's different.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

That's different. That's just uh that's just an un an uncertainty uh of the uncertainty that comes from newly, newly ventured terror territory. That's not an imposter thing. It's just you know the idea of still having the magic to create something. This is why I don't want like to explain when people say, like, how did you come up with that? How did you how did this eventuate? Like, I don't want to know. The same thing goes for the technology in the studio. I would say, I've I've only touched the faders now that there aren't any faders anymore because of Pro Tools, about four times back in the days when we needed to have five people hands-on to make a mix of a song. I've only I've only touched the board. I mean, there are people who are trained to do that. That's not my role. I don't want to know anything about engineering, you know, uh other other than just that it's gonna get done by somebody whose expertise lies there. Um so it's just like that mystery goes away. You know, sounds very mystical to do it, but I don't want to know how I do this kind of stuff. To to I mean, how what good has come other than in the realm of science, of that whole Pandora's box of to know, to know, to know? We sometimes how many times have you just thought, you know, maybe in the romantic realm where we've gone, like, I've got to know why this happened or why she left or he left or whatever. Uh and you go, like, what good is what boots it? You know, it's not gonna help you just because, like, oh, I know this now. It's useless knowledge, like so much knowledge somehow.

SPEAKER_02 34:58

So you know it's like the thing of okay, so are you a pantster or plotster? Okay, I can sit here and I can plot out a story, but I guarantee you my character's gonna drive the bus somewhere else.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

Yes, exactly. Yeah, I've read the right. I always say plots, plotser for graveyards. If if character is destiny, as Novalis told us, you know, forever ago, then let that destiny, let that destiny be half, you know, happen. It's like when people ask me, like, aren't you you you guys have had you know minor radio hits and unbelievably glowing reviews. Aren't you upset that you're not bigger? I'm going like, maybe it's not destined to be. And I have to have a kind of Buddhist acceptance of that, which is, you know, from time to time it smarts a little bit when I'm I'm not vigilant about myself and looking at other people rather than than myself. But I think that gosh, um it's just like that that's that could just be fate, which I believe it's you know, somehow it's not to say that you know we don't uh that character isn't destiny and we don't control our fate, but once again, like you don't you don't want to know that any more than you want to know the day that you die.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

No. No. And I mean the thing is sometimes being able to do what you love and and be able to at least live is worth more than all the accolades and all the success because guess what? You still get to have a life, you still get to be a private person, you don't have people saying things about you. I mean, you know, Dolly, yes, I'm we're taping this, and Dolly Parton died yesterday, and this is going to air later. But the the massive amount of of outpouring of grief, and yes, she was an amazing woman because of the things she did. But at the end of the day, she tried to keep her life as private as possible. And for somebody as big as her, persona, because it was a persona.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Oh, for sure. Yeah, I met her twice. Uh-huh. Uh that shit. There was a Mexican restaurant in Silver Lake that she frequented on Sundays, and she was just very uh forthcoming about people coming up to her table and saying hello, as long as they didn't try to sit down with her and her husband or uh or manager, whoever was with her. And a couple of times uh I went over just to say hello and to say hello again, like I met you two years ago or whatever at this restaurant where she famously went went on sun on Sundays. Um, and um, she was you know incredibly gracious. Whether, you know, even if you weren't a fan, how couldn't you how could she not pick up on that? And you know, something that I just saw that the her little song she wrote for Johnny Carson on the Johnny Carson show, that that the famous little adorable Diddy. Just like, yeah, I mean, she was a universally you know respected artist and and wonderful person of things. And you know, again, we should brace ourselves because more and more of these icons of Americans and British music are gonna go. And you know, it's just like they're we we can't help but be affected affected of the you know by by the loss of you know people we we grew up with and fancied that we knew them somehow, which we didn't at all. Um but yes, you know, it's such he was an incredible artist.

SPEAKER_02 38:19

But then we go to another icon which ties into the name of your record, Fuzzy and the Lollipop. Yeah um Marilyn Monroe.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

Yeah, right. Sure. And uh yeah, just I'm in, you know, giant, giant fan of the comedies that she was she was in. And uh just I just when I re-watched some I could hot, I just thought, you know, so I've gotta I've gotta nick that phrase. I have to use that um some somehow because it is it is the sort of thing, and you know, and and if anybody investigates that little scene, to to think of even somebody as gorgeous and charming as Marilyn Monroe can feel as though she's got the uh the not the sweet part of life. Um so just put the but the tattered and fret and prayed uh part. So that's something good to re to remind us too once again that we're not alone in in our in our in the dance in the doldrums cave model.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

Well, I think I mean I was fortunate enough my friend uh won a meeting with George to not George Takay, um the gentleman who played Chekhov, the original Chekhov, and I can't think of his name offhand. Um it's right there, and I can't remember it. But I I was doing housework, she had won this thing, and she calls me up and she's like, Hey, I I won this meet and greet. It's at this party at a hotel. Can you come? And I'm like, okay. So I shower, I doll myself up and everything, and we go and meet. There's a reason why I'm saying this. Because even while we're doing this, we do the meet and greet and everything. And it wasn't so much as a lineup, it was walking around in a hotel ballroom, and you're getting to talk to different people and everything. And there was something in that moment that I realized that you can be in a room full of people yet feel totally alone. And I think I think that happens a lot with celebrity that we don't acknowledge.

SPEAKER_01 40:18

Yeah, I'm just in the middle of reading Rachel Cuss's new novel, which is Life of M, which is based on Natalie Porkman. Um notoriously, you know, just a lot of a lot of writing about Rachel Cuss in the new in the news now. And I mean, it it really does limb a very a very seemingly fetid but deeply lonely lonely person in the midst of that. And um so I mean, yes, it that makes the what you you know that makes it make sense to to think about that that sort of motif. Um to remind us that the the veneer of all of the glamour, etc. Like Tim Bowland, who produced was in the Black Watch for three records and produced two of them. Um Irish guy, really funny guy. You know, he just reminded me the other day, you know, that Instagram, he just goes, John, it's all fake. It's all of it fake. So maybe not every bit of it, but you know, a lot of it. So we've got to have these reminders uh of not not to look, you know, not look how outwardly, but look more inwardly. Um that sounds very cliche, but no, it's true though. I mean, sometimes it's apt.

SPEAKER_02 41:34

Well, I think it goes back to the authenticity thing, you know, you have to be authentic. And uh the world we're living with algorithms and everything, it's not authentic. 95% of the time, somebody's got a filter on their face. And it's like, but if I meet you in public, I'm gonna look at you and go, what the hell happened to you?

SPEAKER_00 41:54

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 41:55

But but look, I look good in my picture, do you? You know, I I mean it's it's I I think as we prove I mean, photo retouching has been going on forever, but it's a different that you can just do it yourself.

SPEAKER_00 42:10

Right.

SPEAKER_02 42:11

Um, I do want to talk about there, you know, the fact of if we step back from the the the weird world that we have, all the fake stuff, you do things that allow you to be very real. I mean, you're a part-time tennis teacher, so you're still teaching. And I mean, that still has to be bring you some joy as far as teaching because you get to watch these young people start to learn and improve their game.

SPEAKER_01 42:36

Yeah, yeah, that's that's very gratifying. Um, if they're not really bratty, and some of them are terribly bratty, and tennis brats are notorious. Um, so you know, and just that it gets me, you know, uh uh uh just involved with I love kids. Um and my another of my of my Irish friends, Brendan, he always says, like, I love kids, but I couldn't eat a whole one. He's just kidding.

SPEAKER_02 43:02

I know, I know.

SPEAKER_01 43:03

Uh but you know, it's just uh another another activity and brings in some money as well. So um, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

So when you were writing your novels, um Mike, the King of Good Intentions, it's a trilogy. Did you base any of this on your own experience in the music business?

SPEAKER_01 43:22

Oh, of course. Yeah. I mean, the first the first one's all about a struggling indie band in the in the 90s and a love story and a story of a substitute teacher, which I did when I um when we toured a lot more often. I I took a long time, about 10 years off of teaching college and did and subbed for about four years. And uh because it was a job you could turn down. Uh that I made something like 150 or 170 bucks a day, but I didn't have to do that if we had gigs up the West Coast store or a national tour. Um I can turn down the work. So it was convenient. There's a price for everything I turned in for four years and The sort of person that needed a cigarette and a and a drink when I got home from dealing with the kids of greater Los Angeles public school system. That's some horror stories, but I got a novel out of it as well. I mean, Martin Amos said, I think quite memorably, a novel should be about two things. And so I got the second thing of a band forming and a love relationship forming, and also uh, you know, uh a maddening but often hysterical kind of career because some of the kids that things that the kid kids did were just unimaginably horrific, which can turn into comedy. So I got something out of that as well, other than uh um a short-term addiction to meeting a cigarette and a drink, which I don't have anymore, thankfully.

SPEAKER_02 44:48

Uh when I was working my job as an insurance uh claim supervisor, I was so stressed I would come home and I would play Grand Theft Auto.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

Don't I? However, whatever addiction you got have you have to use to cope, it seems and as soon as I left that job, guess what?

SPEAKER_02 45:03

I haven't played it since.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

Wow, that's funny.

SPEAKER_02 45:06

So I I had my own vice. But you know, I mean, I think that's the thing. We find a coping mechanism and we run with it because whether it's good or bad, it's something to escape. And I think that's for me at least, that's part of what writing is for me, is an escape.

SPEAKER_01 45:22

Of course. Um and yet it's not an escape, it's an entrance. Yeah, it's a passion.

SPEAKER_02 45:29

If you you don't, if I don't write, I don't know about you, but as far as being creative, if I'm not creative, then there's a problem. I I I feel myself getting agitated that I need to put that out there, that energy needs to go somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

Truly, yeah. I don't I write almost every day. Um if I don't, I have to I have to carry on.

SPEAKER_02 45:51

So the stars at last. Is I I know light pollution is a big thing, and and light pollution is becoming more of a problem worldwide. But do you ever find yourself driving out to the country so you can just embrace that?

SPEAKER_01 46:07

Uh when I go back to Santa Barbara where I grew up, um lots of friends left there, no family, but lots of friends who are like family. So that puts me back in touch with with the sky. But in Los Angeles, yeah, you've got you've you you've gotta you've gotta find a really, really dark neighborhood, and there are a few. Um, and and have a friend with a telescope, a high-powered one, um, to get back into in in touch with astronomy. Uh but yeah, so yeah, I do I do that. But I just thought, you know, I don't do it as often as the song might suggest that there's a yen for that, um, somehow. So I mean it just I think it I I think it's you know, just intermittently it just strikes me like, gosh, you know, maybe you're watching a film and some people are looking up at the stars, and you're gonna like, when's the last time I did that? You know, like there was a beautiful full moon that seemed you know bigger than one's head, uh, you know, out there the other night. But that's about the extent of it that we get in a city like Los Angeles that isn't that does sleep, unlike New York, but um fitfully sleeps, I guess you could say.

SPEAKER_02 47:20

Well, there is gonna be an eclipse this uh Friday. Oh, really? I think you're gonna only see a partially I don't it's gonna be early for you guys, so I don't think you're gonna get to see it full, but I think it is like a blood moon eclipse, which I've seen before, and they're pretty cool. Um yeah. And this year, this year I got to actually see the northern lights. Oh, did you really? Here's the weird thing. You walk outside, the sky looks fine. You put your you you set your camera up on your phone, and there it is, dancing and just amazing. But it was just like, wait, there's nothing going on. But then if you changed it, look through your camera, it was there. And it was amazing to see.

SPEAKER_01 48:03

I and I envy that that that seems like a magical thing to have experienced.

SPEAKER_02 48:09

The interesting thing is I lived in a smaller town and I went out in the middle of a farm field a couple of years ago to see this, and I couldn't see anything. So this time it was just like, all right, finally I get to see it, and it was absolutely amazing. Um as far as when you look at uh what song did I want to talk about? Sarrow's crown. What was what was kind of going on when you wrote that?

SPEAKER_01 48:34

Um I can't really I can't recall other than that I got a nice couple of chord changes, and I was thinking about the lie that people and myself tell ourselves sometimes about a paramour that we miss and that we lament more than others, that how we that we kid ourselves thinking, I hope you're I hope you're doing great, I hope you're doing really well, when the the lesser part of us, as it were, thinks, I hope you really fucking miss me so badly that they know occasionally that that it almost uh inspire inspires you to reconnect somehow because I miss you terribly, is my way of saying saying that. So I thought, okay, I've lighted upon another another sort of motif that I can exploit and um and put to a uh a melody that's you know without it necessarily being maudlin. Um because that's something that I'm you know I'm very aware of. I kind of don't want to do anything sentimental or sappy. Everything always has you know kind of a twist of like, you know, you are wonderful, I miss you terribly. I hope, I hope you're that you're having a massive time. So there's a you know, there's a there's a mean streak in in in in lots of artists, you know, who can it's not necessarily cruel, but it's sort of one of those things where I you felt so deeply that you hope that that that the other person does, even though it doesn't matter whether they whether they miss you at all. Um it's it's just wish perhaps wish wishful thinking and cold comfort. But then again, to turn it into something that's profitable in terms of one's own, I don't know, uh well-being, I could I guess you could say, or satisfaction. Um it's it's a cold kind of revenge. You know, um that that's not really a that's not really an act of revenge. Uh and it's not like you're gonna I'm gonna go and send this song that was written about somebody I dated about five years ago. Um that's not like I'm gonna send send that. I've wrote enough songs about her for a lifetime. So anyway, and again, you know, it's the sort of the the title of the that song, uh, of the idea. I mean, they're once again my king complex of the king of good intentions and a crown or the crown, the crowning kind of thing about a relationship that was so hopeful that became so you know hopeless. Um that that really is sort of sort of like the uh the idea that we are we are all kings and queens of our domain. Um somehow sort of fancy that, you know, in a solipsistic way um is interesting enough. But I just hope people um you know like the song. And like my kid Chandler um wrote it with me. That's very rare that I ever collaborate with anybody, but he came up with some things that really ushered that song along. And I love how it turned out, and I love that we turned it into a dance mix as well. And um yeah, I mean, well, I think there's I think there's gonna be that will be the third single, so yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_02 51:55

Well, I think you know, when you're mentioning how we we take revenge as a creative, well, you know, they always say don't piss off our author.

SPEAKER_01 52:04

Yeah, I mean, Joan Joan Didion quite famously said uh authors are always selling someone out. You know, we're dangerous, we're dangerous friends um somehow, and there's certain people I vowed. Um, there's a family that I stay with when I go to London, they have an extra extra bedroom for me and save me scabs of money, and they have a band as well. And um that you know, they're still they went to Oxford and they're really smart and very well read, and we make this great food, and we do all this stuff. We've done uh travel to Italy um with them, and my son knows them really well. And I've just vowed to myself I will never ever exploit them. I know them incredibly well, notwithstanding the fact that they're quite shy English people who um are not like us super open book Americans. Um but just yesterday I thought, I wonder if I could take you know the father and and the son and write something akin to what what their dynamic is about. I thought, no, no, no, no, John, you're not gonna do that. You promised yourself you'd never sell sell them out. So you know, let's think of some other people to sell out rather than these great friends who've been some unbelievably wonderful wonderful to me.

SPEAKER_02 53:15

Well, I think when you're and the other thing I I want to mention is when you're talking about looking back, reflecting back on a past relationship, it doesn't necessarily have to be a love relationship, it can be friendships. Oh yeah, of course, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've recently found I've had people that want to be friends. I have a neighbor that's kind of I don't know, she listens to me, I don't think she does, but she reminds me of Mrs. Kravitz from Bewitched.

SPEAKER_00 53:38

Yeah, sure, right.

SPEAKER_02 53:39

And I don't I don't want that. But then I'm I'm looking back at friends that I don't have anymore, and I'm like, well, you know, I should call them, but I don't really want to call them. And I came to realize the only reason I'm thinking about them is because I know what I'm gonna get. If I became friends with them again, I know what they are, I know who they are, and I know what I'm gonna get. Mrs. Kraffit's across the street. Not sure what I'm gonna get.

SPEAKER_01 54:06

Except being in my business. That potential jadedness is something I think about, and there's a song on the other end of the lollipop that's called N-O-K-D. That's you know the preppy phrase for not our kind dear. That's about a friend that I've let go, and I've let go a number of friends. And you know, Chandler, my son talks, asks me about this all the time. Like, why don't you ever talk to these people anymore that you hung out with for 10 years or something that that fads like, not that they're expendable, but people kind of run their course. We we get to the point where you know what they're gonna say, the that that whatever sort of uh um perhaps different angles of them are gonna be part of the prismatic kind of thing of the same the same uh angle. And if they don't make an effort to hang with you anymore, um and you know, I've become more and more of a recluse uh like uh as the years gone by, I'm very content just to stay at home and um drink and read and read and um write. Uh and so I just thought, like, well, yeah, sometimes I just go between you know hanging out with a bunch of friends I used to hang out with and Dostoevsky, good old Feodor is gonna win most of the time. Um so which is which is okay, it's just the way it goes. I mean, not not to be wax sent everybody perhaps waxes a little bit sentimental about that, you know, or misses that sort of person or that time, but that time was that time. And um, you know, so I I don't I don't I don't like to go backwards really, or I mean, uh people have asked me like, well, you know, what regrets do you have? Like nothing other than the times I've unwittingly or maybe even wittingly hurt someone, but I don't regret that I didn't do that or I didn't do this, or I should have done that, or other doesn't seem to be fruitful. And the same thing goes with people, like right. Don't you miss talking to or seeing those people that you saw that that much? Well, like they ran in their courts, they served their purpose. Not that sounds very utilitarian, like they served me somehow. But I like serving people, you know. I brought up the Virgo thing, like the I serve is the full Virgo thing. I'm a great friend. Um, and and so, but then again, my great friendship with something I pride myself on, like my ability to make enchiladas verdes. It's like, you know, that's that's something that's of its uh of its time. I served them for the time where we were very close, and uh, you know, um they might still be there. You might be able to rekindle it, but if you don't, that's quite all right as well. You know, now we are back to a Zen acceptance I think. So there again, okay. That's enough from me.

SPEAKER_02 56:50

Well, no, I mean it's totally fine. I mean, I have a friend who I met because we both were guests of people who won the tickets to Live Aid. We we both put in the work to go, but we met at the airport and we're still friends. However, that being said, I can go years without talking to her. And like as soon as she found out I had cancer, she called.

SPEAKER_00 57:12

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_02 57:13

So it was just like she called, we talked, we reconnected, and we still reconnect.

SPEAKER_00 57:17

You're all right now, you're in remote. I'm in remote. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 57:21

That was that was last year. Um but the it was, and but the the fact is I saw who actually were my friends. And the funny thing is, people that were actually in my life in the present end up not in in the long haul were not. So I I think I think friendships, like you said, they show us when they need to be there and when they don't. And it's not a matter of use, but it's a matter of our growth. I think people come into our lives to help us grow.

SPEAKER_00 57:49

Well put. Yeah, sure. Well put.

SPEAKER_02 57:51

And so yeah. But is there anything that we haven't talked about that you'd like to ask?

SPEAKER_01 57:59

I think so. I think that's enough for everybody, including the both of us, to to take in and and perhaps ruminate. But it's been a pleasure talking to you. How charming, you know, and thank you for doing the research and uh you know asking really good questions and providing nice answers or intimations of your own stuff. So thanks again.

SPEAKER_02 58:21

Well, thank you. The conversation, as always, kind of went all over the place. And the thing about it is, I think as a creative, you have to look at the bigger picture. I mean, when I sit down to an interview, I do research, but I just have a sheet of notes. And so I think that's part of the reason why the conversation goes different places because I want that authentic feel of us sitting down at a coffee shop. Um, what would you do if you sat down with a stranger and you had the opportunity to say, hey, um, let's talk about this. And then off you go. When you're thinking about creativity, and I know there's a lot of people that love AI, but when you think about creativity, it's about you being the creative one. It's you using your mind. I mean, it's funny, like this morning, I was asleep, I woke up, went back to sleep, and got up again, and then I went, it's like, okay, I'm gonna go back to sleep. And so I'm laying in bed, and while I'm laying there, my characters start, hey, here's some ideas, da-da-da. Once that happens, all bets are off, unless it's way in the middle of the night. And then I have to basically say, we're not doing this right now, which kind of sucks because if I don't write it down, the idea will go. Some ideas will just keep going and going and going. But it's my mind giving me those ideas. It's the musician who has the lyric or the harmony or the melody stuck in his head. That's creativity. An AI is not going to give you that. An AI is going to give you what it's learned. And I know I mentioned about Dolly Parton. Well, yesterday I was on the phone with my friend and I was looking for an article because she she had mentioned to me that Dolly had died. I mean, she immediately knew I didn't. And so I do not use Google, I use a different uh search engine. And sometimes the AI will kick in an answer, even though I have it turned off, and sometimes it won't. But anyway, the AI kicks in because I I had said typed in Dolly Parton's death, and it comes back and says, Dolly Parton, that's false. Dolly Parton is alive. She, you know, there was a false rumor going around, and I forget what year. I think it might have been 2025. I don't remember. But it was like emphatic that she was alive. And I'm just like, well, but this shows you that ChatGPT or any AI, because that's not what I was using. I have never used Chat GPT in my life. I don't even know how it works. I, you know, I didn't see a prompt until we was working with an author, which we've had that conversation here too. Um, but AI only knows what has been fed. So until that AI was updated, Tally Parton was alive. Which, you know, we have a society now where it's instantaneous. So when you look at AI, you have to remember it is not that it is it's generative, sure, but it's taking everything that has been placed inside of it into its knowledge panel, knowledge, however you want to circuitry and using that. It's not creating something from scratch. And that's what you have to remember. The things that are created from scratch, from an author's brain, and granite, granite, whether it be music or books or a painting, it's all been done before, and we all know that. But the thing is, our interpretation of it that's what makes art important, the human aspect of it, the messy aspect of it. You know, and that goes with any art, whether it be music, whether it be a visual cover. And I understand the and I and when he's talking about doing the video, when John's talking about doing the video, I'm kind of sitting here thinking, you know, in the back of my head, I'm not gonna lie, there's been times where like, well, and I get hit up hit in emails all the time. We can make a book trailer for you. It'd be very simple for me to type in something on a prompt somewhere and have a video trailer made for me. I'm not gonna pay somebody if I were to do this, but I could do that. I could use uh AI to do it. But at what cost? And that that's why I haven't done it. Because at what cost does this play? I understand that people lose jobs, I understand more so the environmental impact, and that's what worries me more than anything. But I'm not gonna sit here and rant because the interview was great and I enjoyed talking to John, and I think you should check out the record. It's it's it's a good record, it's an enjoyable record, and it has something to say. So I would definitely check it out. It is called The Fuzzy and Diddle Lollipop. And yes, being a Maryland fan, that was kind of a fun little nod. And you know, give it a listen. He's got 26 records, and he's got three books in the trilogy, plus, he's also got a film book called Fucking Innocent the Early Films of Wes Anderson, and he's also got the Knucklehead Chronicles. That was his first foray. So we have the King of Good Intentions, which is the trilogy. So check those out too. They're available, and you should check his diversity out because I think that's the important thing. I mean, if you're an artist and you can diversify, that's even more. I like me with the podcast, and as well as doing my books. So embrace what you know, embrace your creativity. And then when I say embrace what you know, I mean your passion. And I know we are so pulled in many different directions nowadays, but step back and try to find your passion. And on that note, I'd like to thank Fast Susie for the intro and outro music. I'd like to thank John Andrew Frederick for coming on the show and wishing much success on his record. And I'd like to thank you, the listener, whenever you're listening morning, noon, or night. I really do appreciate it. So thank you guys for tuning in, and I'll catch you next time. Bye.