A Bit of Optimism - The Brilliance of Boredom with creative polymath Elle Cordova

Episode Date: August 12, 2025

We’re wired to chase the next spark - scrolling, swiping, refreshing - but some of our brightest ideas sneak in when we stop chasing, let boredom settle in and give our minds room to wander.Elle Cordova knows the power of that pause. When the pandemic hit pause on her life as a touring musician, she stumbled into new creative territory - making offbeat comedy videos about delightfully nerdy topics like particle physics, grammar, and fonts. Those sketches went viral, and suddenly she was thriving as a social media creator with a devoted following. In this episode, we talk about finding what truly lights you up, pushing through writer’s block, working with anxiety - and yes, Star Wars makes an appearance (because of course it does). Plus, Elle treats us to a live, in-studio performance of her song Roswell.This…is A Bit of Optimism.For more on Elle, check out:ellecordova.com/

True Classic is sponsoring today's episode. Fun story, I met Ryan, their CEO, over lunch. And I was like, I really like this guy. That's why we're proud to work with them and have them as our sponsor. I've been backed off and banned from probably close to like six, seven casinos now in Vegas. And unfortunately, they're all my mom's favorite casino, so we can't go there anymore. She's told me to stop. So I love this.

All you wanted to do was be a good daughter, celebrate your mom's birthday, and now you're banned from half a dozen casinos in Las Vegas. I know. It's a funny turn of events. But, yeah, I blame my mom. She brought me there. I mean, it's always childhood trauma. Exactly.

I just wanted to sit with her longer and have more drinks. Two introverts walk into a bar. Let's be honest, that's not happening. But here's what did happen. Two introverts sat down for a conversation about creativity and the importance of boredom. Yes, boredom. It turns out boredom is underrated. It can actually be a remarkable source of calm and creativity,

which a lot of introverts may already know. That was definitely the case for El Cordova. She's a singer-songwriter, a poet, and a certified nerd who in the isolation of lockdown discovered a creativity she didn't know she had. The result? Well, I'm sure a lot of you have seen her sketch about fonts at a part. or her poem about the Big Bang, both of which went very viral. Before the Big Bang, there was no up, there was no down, there was no side to side.

There was no up, there was no down, there was no side to side. There was no light, there was no dark, nor shape of any kind. There were no stars or planet Mars or protons to collide. There was no up, there was no down, there was no side to side. And furthermore, to underscore this total lacking state, there was no here, there was no there because there was no space. And in this endless void, which can't be thought of as a place, there was no time, and so no passing minutes, hours, days. I first learned about Elle when I stumbled on her song, Roswell, which, if you stick around, she plays live for us at the end of the episode.

And if you're a nerd, you'll appreciate our chat about Star Wars archetypes and how we need to give boredom a rebrand, which turns out isn't boring at all. This is a bit of optimism. You are a perfect example of why it's important to meet your heroes. Aw. I'm not sure if I'm taking this the right way. Because you know, they always say never meet your heroes because you're always disappointed. I found you and your work from music. I found your song, Roswell, when you had a different name.

What was your name? Rina del Sid. Right. Yeah. It had a stage name. I had a stage name. You had a stage name. Then I found out that's not your name.

So I knew you as a musician, started following you on the Instagram. Then I find out that you're a poet and a smart person and a nerd and you are the personification of a polymath. I reached out to you on the Instagram, slid into your DMs. You did. And said, hey. And you wrote back and we got together and nerd bonded, I guess. Yeah. Turns out you're cut from a similar nerd cloth.

You are even better than I thought you were. when I saw you on the internet. Aw, thank you, Simon, and the same is true of you. Oh, thanks. And we just, I think we can just cut right here. Our work is a job well done. But going back to this idea of a polymath, a polymath is somebody who is, has diverse interests, learned it across many things, and you have curiosities and talents in many places.

You are, I think, have become famous for your poetry. on social media. You've done a TED talk about your poetry. You are a musician. You are extremely well read. You know a lot about science. You are a lover of science fiction. You seem to know not a little bit about a lot of things,

but a lot about a lot of things. Intimidatingly so, I might add. Were you always, like, where is that from? Like, what's your journey of discovery discovery and how you have so many curiosities, but also that you're good at those things. It's not just, you know, good at one thing and have a couple things on the side. Yeah, well, I don't know how much is what you just said is true. All of it is true.

Okay. Well, we'll go with your premise. I think for me, it's just I've always been a very curious person. So curiosity, and you've said the word a couple times when you were speaking just there, curiosity is like sort of my motivating force in life. And what I'm trying to do with the content or art or whatever that I put out on the internet or put out wherever for people to consume is to try to spark a little bit of the same curiosity. And I want people to consume, you know, whether it's music or poetry or just, you know, random inane thoughts that I post to the to the Instagram, whatever it might be, I just hope people see that, get this little bit of like resonant spark of curiosity in themselves and then are either motivated to create their own thing or to like look up the concept I'm talking about. And I wouldn't say I know a lot about a lot of things. I just think I've been very curious about a lot of things.

You know more than a little. Well, okay. And I've gotten to know enough about enough things that it just like keeps lighting the fire. And I always find like new things to. Where did the curiosity come from? Was it nature or nurture? Well, my dad is a really curious person. So he was like a really like one of those guys that's like breaks teachers' hearts where he was really smart and he was curious.

But you couldn't get him to finish an assignment or something. You know, but he would like read on his own. He'd read the things you're not supposed to be reading about. He'd just go and check out a book about trigonometry when they were trying to teach them about, you know, algebra or something. So it's like if you taught him, if you tried to teach him something, he wouldn't learn it. But if you let him loose in a place of knowledge, he will be hungry and he'll do it. So I think I got a little bit of that from him, although I'm more of a rule follower. So I went and got the degree and everything, less of a rebel.

Would you get your degree in? I majored in English, so I got a degree in English literature from the University of Minnesota. So that makes sense. Yeah. So English, I mean, to me, that's just like a gateway to books, like all kinds of books and knowledge and stories from everywhere. So it's kind of like majoring and everything. And how did you, because you grew up in Fargo? Yeah.

Grew out in Fargo, North Dakota. Shout out to Fargo. Shout out to Fargo. Did growing up in Fargo, it's cold, there's a lot of snow. It's not big. Right. Did that contribute? Is that the nurture part of the curiosity?

Like, it's Ack Perlman, for example. He has polio. So when all the other kids go out to play, he can't go out to play. So what does he do? He stays home and plays the violin, and he becomes one of the best violinists in the world. Yeah. Or like Isaac Newton, you know, coming through his breakthroughs during a time of plague, because what else are you going to do?

He's, like, trapped in quarantine, you know. Oh, right. Yeah. Sometimes I think restrictive environments can definitely lead to, like, an expansion of mind. And was that the case for you? I think so. I mean, I think probably more than the cold environment, although that's definitely true of Fargo. And if you ever go there, you'll see it's like it's not, it's just this unrelenting bitter, bitter winds coming across the plains with nothing to stop them and it's very, very cold. Less so now because of certain global changes that are happening. But yeah, I think that's part of it. But I think probably the bigger part is just this just introversion, you know, just I have always been so cripplingly shy. And it's just easier for me to, stay in on a Friday night with a book than to like make myself go out and socialize so I was even before the age of social media I was probably spending too much time you know alone and not with

a phone but with you know books and paper paper device and like notebooks and so basically the polymathitude of it all is a defense mechanism to not wanting to socialize yeah and so you accidentally because like it's like pro men it's like you accidentally become incredibly good at something when all you're trying to do is not do the other thing yeah exactly scapism maybe Escapism, yeah. That's, I mean, I remember when you and I first got together, we're both socially awkward for first time meetings and second and third. You are not.

You say that, I've heard you say that elsewhere. You are so warm and welcoming and you're like actually an introverts dream when you first, you know, when I first met you, I was like, oh, this person puts me at ease. Well, that's very kind of you say, but it is all, it is all practice. That makes sense. like if I'm not working, because that's work, I'm not naturally like that. Yeah. So if I'm not working, I will sit there awkwardly and sort of be like, be funny, be funny, say something, say something, you know? Right. And so it's only through practice that I've learned to sort of ask

questions and create an environment where, but by the way, it also produces insecurity being the introvert because I don't, I don't want to hold court. If I create a space and your sort of one word answers and sort of head nods, I'm like, I've done something wrong. Yeah. You know, it's like, so it does, all of the introvert weirdness inside my brain is still happening. Well, you hide it very well. Well, thank you. Yeah. Makes it much easier to talk to you. Well, thanks. Yeah. Maybe you should start a podcast. Yeah, it would be good. Yeah. A podcast by introverts for introverts. I mean, that's basically what it is. We just sit here awkwardly and people driving on their commute just listening to sort of two people fidgeting and without the inner thoughts.

Wouldn't that be even better if you could have the, like if the concept of like a cartoon with a thought bubble, if there was a technology that you could hear the actual thought bubbles of people. Yeah. I would love that. I would too. Although I'd be really anxious about what my thought bovers are saying. So you'd have to have a thought bubble of the thought bubble.

Like the anxiety of what my inner thoughts might be. I hope it doesn't catch that one. Mm-hmm. Then we've got an infinite thought bubble going all the way down. Very meta. Yeah. Very meta. It's like those like being in two mirrors.

Yeah. But with thoughts. Anyway, there are people who are actually appreciating this conversation. Others have already changed the channel. Speaking of changing the channel, another thing I just learned about you literally minutes ago. You are a gambler. I wouldn't call myself a gambler. I would call myself an advantage player.

There's a difference. A gambler is somebody who sits down at a slot machine or a table game just playing by the rules of the house and playing without an edge. And then an advantage player has an edge. edge. But you were engaging in gambling. Yeah, sure. I guess if you want to know. Somebody who drinks is a drinker and somebody who gambles is a gambler. Yeah. I think if you talk to like the world of the advantage players, like they get really prickly about being called. It's a world out there. They're just trying to distinguish themselves from like the tourist at Vegas sitting at the slot machine. Or the degenerate gambler. Or the degenerate gambler. Okay. Okay. So you're an advantaged player and

Blackjack is your game? Yeah, and this all started because I see, I was like, you know, phobic of casinos, I would say, like, you know, in the way where it's just like, that's a, that's a place where you go to lose your money. Like, why would anyone spend time in casinos? But my mom is a big fan of Vegas. She's a gambler and she loves doing that. So she goes there every year for a birthday. When I was 16, she told me, when I turned 60, you're going to come with me to Vegas. And then when she turned 60, I kept my word and I came with her. And I looked, I just Googled like, what is the game that I can play while I'm in Vegas that's going to lose me the least amount of money. It turned out to be blackjack. And that's because you can have, you can literally just memorize, they call it basic strategy, memorize the right hand for every, right play for every hand. It's your, it's, there's odds. Yeah. It's like this, it's math. The statistics of whether you're likely to hit, get an advantage or disadvantage based on pure odds. There's more 10 cards than any other card in the deck, et cetera, et cetera. Exactly. So if you memorize that. Yeah, there's a right play for everything.

Also known as counting cards. Okay, well, that's not counting cards, but memorizing is the first step. Well, memorizing the shoe is the counting the cards part. Like, how many have to have to have? Well, you don't have to memorize the whole shoe. So this is so much easier than people think it is, by the way. This is not a difficult thing. It's just a thing that you maybe have to spend a little bit of time to do.

So you memorize the tables. Memorize the table of like the right play for every hand. Then if you're going to go to the length where you're memorizing the right play for every hand, then you might as well just go one extra step of just keeping track of when high cards are coming out versus low. So you just add, you assign a value of one to everything that's high and then a negative one for everything that's low. And then for like a medium size card, it's just zero. So all you have to do, if you can add and subtract by one, you can count cards. It's literally that simple. So you don't actually have to memorize which cards have happened. No, definitely not.

Because they keep adding more cards to the shoe to make it difficult to remember which cards have happened because it just go to be on. And so to get more accurate. So if you're going to do that then, if you're going to start doing the ones and everything, then you might as well make even better for yourself and look and see the like discount tray and then you can kind of divide by the number of decks that are left in the in the in the shoe because they've these days they're using six eight decks you know so to really get an accurate count you're waiting to the kind of the end and whatever so it's just like I got into this because I was like first just not wanting to lose all my money and then second I want to be able to hang with my mom so I'm going to be at this

blackjack table anyway I might as well just like tip the thoughts you're just trying to make it so you can sit with your mom for as long as possible without losing all your money. You're just trying to make a nice night of it. Just get some free drinks and like at least just come out even. But as it turns out, you can come out ahead, you know. And it's not cheating. It's just using the information that's available to every player.

You know, so they can't arrest you. There's nothing illegal about it. It's not cheating, but the casinos don't like it. And I read somewhere, and you probably actually know the answer, which is the odds of winning in Blackjack are like 50, whatever, like whatever the number is. I'm making it up, but like 50% let's just. call it. And if you, if you count cards, it's like 50.1. Yeah, it's barely, very, very small

percentage. Exactly. Exactly. But over the course of an entire evening, that point one adds up to an advantage versus the casino. Exactly. And if you were betting a lot of money and you did this for long enough, yes, you're going to take a lot of money from the casino. But I'm just betting pennies, you know, or not pennies, but, you know. Small dollars. Yeah, small dollars. So it's like they're, for the most part, they know you're counting cards. They actually have machines. They have cameras in the sky, like watching your plays. They even have chips inside of chips, you know. So like little devices that track, you know,

how is she betting? How is she changing her bets based on the count? And their computers are counting the cards. So if your bets are changing based on the count, they know that immediately. They don't even have to watch anymore. They just know. But they'll let you-

Chips in the chips? Like they have QR, not QR codes. They have, they're called RF tags, RF chips. Oh yeah, so I didn't even know. Yeah, so that's how you use a, looks like a credit card piece of plastic. Yeah. In there is an RF chip that opens up your hotel room.

Yeah. That's the same chip. It's probably a similar thing. Yeah. I didn't even know that they're doing that. So the old days in the 70s where they had the pit boss just coming, like standing over your shoulder, counting to see if you're counting. That's gone.

They don't even have to let on that they know what you're doing because the computers are doing it for them. So I've been backed off and banned from probably close to like six, seven casinos now in Vegas. And unfortunately they're all my my mom's favorite casino So we can't go there anymore She's told me to stop

So you're now playing at Circus Circus Because no one else will let you in Right well those are bad odds You only play where they have good blackjack But anyway My mom is like why can't we just go have fun And I'm like okay That was the original intent anyway

So I love this All you wanted to do was be a good daughter Celebrate your mom's birthday And now you're banned From half a dozen casinos in Las Vegas I know It's a funny turn of events But yeah I blame my mom

She'd brought me there I mean, it's always childhood trauma. Yeah. It's always like childhood trauma. It's exactly what it is. You're a ban from casino because of... I just wanted to sit with her longer and have more drinks. So, yeah.

But this is what I love about your brain, which is 99.9% of people on the planet would, if mom says, come to me with Vegas, I just want to have a nice time with you. They would say, fine, I'll spend $100 and then I'll just sit with you or whatever, you know, whatever's in their limits. and maybe they'll play somewhat seriously and slowly to maximize like no big bets all minimum bets to just maximize the length of play they would probably not have figured out which game can I lose the least amount on which is blackjack they'd probably play something where they'd guess they can lose the least amount on or just play the game that their mom likes but the fact that you did that and then your brain works in a way that you could not help yourself but to find the advantage to prolong the game and learn to count cards, this is what I love about you.

It's not the bite of the apple you take. We all take the first bite. It's that you always find a way to take a second bite of the apple. And this is what I love. There's always something in addition to the thing that you started to do. And I'm just trying to think now, like, even your own platform, like you always find a plus one in everything. Even in the way you're trying to, sort of like make a, you have accidental fame. Is it fair to say? Yeah. Or was it a little more prescriptive than that?

I think I was trying to reach people with my music before I started this whole social media thing. But in a different way. You had fame-ish. Yeah. From the music. A very small. It's small but loyal group from the music. But when the poems started, and I think it was the font poem that really put you on the map.

The font skit, and really was the before that, it was the Big Bang poem, which is a space poem that I wrote. That was probably the big thing that launched my new direction. Who's the other guy? Hank Green. We were just talking about it. Yeah. That's Hank Green. The lovely Hank Green, yes. Okay. Okay. So yes, the space poem, the Big Bang, which is by the way, brilliant poem. So the poem and the skit really launched you. You had viral success. Yeah. Twice. Did you know that was going to happen? No. No, I definitely did not. And really what happened was that I was very much just all in on the musician career. That's what I did for 10 years. I was touring and and then, you know, I was kind of picking up steam as we went along. We were slowly growing and we had these tours

set up in like Europe and Australia and then bam, the pandemic happened. Everything got canceled. Everything we had planned out for that year got canceled. And my first thought was like, oh no, all the money that we're going to lose and like how will we pay the bills. And then my second thought was like, thank God, because I really needed a break. I was like getting sick all the time on the road. I had no time to create anything new. I was just playing the stuff I had written sometimes five years ago. There just was, I had a schedule that did not allow me to be a human being and certainly not a creative human being. So when everything got canceled, it was such a blessing in disguise because then I rediscovered my creativity and then discovered that it was like,

it went beyond music. I could write other things. Did you not written poems? I'd always written poems. I mean, I think every English major has written some poems at some point, but I never shared anything publicly with anyone. And I had never allowed myself to be playful online. It was always just like share your music and, you know, and TikTok and these new vertical format apps just, they really encourage something in me, just like, and a lot of people, I think, it's just like, share yourself, share, you know, be silly. Like, who cares? We're all just killing time in the pandemic. It doesn't matter. So I shared this comedy side and that seemed to, well, like an earnest poetry side and then also a comedy side.

I should probably niche down at some point, but, you know. Because you're a polymath. There's no niching down. We love you for your diversity. But various things, you know, just throwing things at the wall, and it turns out, like, other things were sticking. And I was just getting a lot of fulfillment from it. So I haven't really gone back to the musician lifestyle,

although I'm starting to dip my toe back into it now. What's so interesting is, and I don't think people appreciate the value of space for a creative person. Like you said, you're sort of going about this music career, and then when you get a gap, where you can't do the thing. You can only think about doing the thing. Yeah.

And we saw it, like, I remember Bo Burnham, you know, when he wrote inside during the pandemic. And it was of a time. I'm not sure it holds up anymore. I don't think you couldn't watch it in 10 years. Some of those songs still will. No, the songs, yes, but as a piece of art, you know, I don't know if it's timeless or not. But it is a work of sheer genius. And I'd seen his comedy before, and I think he's a brilliant committee.

But this was something, this was something else. That only could have been made in that time. that time. And I'm thinking about my own creative process and people like, how do you come up with ideas? And what they would I, it's hard to explain, which is the way I come up with ideas is when I'm not thinking. I get ideas sparked in conversation. But it's the rumination, the space, the gaps. You know, I like to describe my writing processes is days and weeks of guilt and self-loathing punctuated by hours of sheer brilliance. Yeah. If only I could predict when those hours would happen. Yeah, and the trick is to be ready for them.

And the trick is to be ready for them. And I sat at home going, can't go out in case it strikes. And then I just end up watching TV and be like, I should have gone out. And then I go out and then it starts happening. And I'm like grabbing anything I can write on napkins. I literally have sugar packets because I couldn't find anything to write. And I know that one loses ideas as quickly as they happen. And so if I don't capture it immediately, I will lose it even if I wait a minute.

The muse is not patient. The muse is not patient. And so literally I would take a sugar. packet and open it delicately, dump out the sugar, grab a pen, and start writing. I have binder clips of sugar packets with ideas on them. Yeah. And the thing that I've learned is I can't be precious. Yeah, you can't be precious.

You know, 99% of the ideas are shit, and the other one percent I can't read my handwriting. Right. So it's the act of the writing that is actually more important because I sometimes go back and read them. Yeah. But once they're written, for some reason, they get stored somewhere else. But this idea of gaps in space, you said it during the pandemic, you know, watching TikTok, it was unbelievable how funny people were.

Yeah. And how creative people were. Like, I didn't realize that people were that funny and that creative of every age and every disposition and just people are really funny. Mm-hmm. You know, and I don't think anybody guessed that from you, did they? No, no, definitely not. So, yeah, and I think that's true.

And also when you're when you're contributing to that and trying to, to be your own brand of funny and your own brand of witty and, you know, smart or whatever and to try to contribute to the conversation, part of what I find is helpful is to remember that your audience is also that. It's not just the people making this content, it's also the people consuming. And when you reach out wide enough audience, like I can say confidently that all, even my best work, the work that I've spent the most time on that I've put a lot of myself into that I've made intentionally very, you know, I've tried to make it witty. I've tried to make it funny. Nothing I've ever posted will beat the top comment underneath the

posts, you know, because you get the hive mind and people are so funny and they're so smart, you know. So it's a good way to stay focused and just stay humble and, you know, and just to realize like you're part of a species that's really innovative and smart and funny. And I think with these platforms, a lot of that rises to the top. You get, you get really smart and funny top comments. But you're also attracting smart and funny people. I've been really lucky with the community. I mean, well, you're attracting, there's a lot of people like us.

There's a lot of nerds who really like your stuff because you have to know a little bit about something. Yeah, exactly. So appreciate your humor. And I've pushed it a little. I'm like, could I make a really weird obscure skit about like particles hanging out in the saloon universe, you know, and talk about like the Higgs boson? Loved it.

And a lot of people in the comments are like, I didn't know what that was. And then I Googled it and looked it up. and now I know what it is. And that makes me happy. You know, it's like a sort of gotcha. Now we know more. But this is the genius of your work because we live in a world

with unlimited access to unlimited information. And yet still we see a post online or we hear a comment from a politician or some CEO said something. And in the span of 10 seconds, we can verify that statement or not. Yeah. And we don't.

I mean, I joke about it. Like, I go around saying, So I read the study I think it's true I don't know But here you go I literally could verify it any day But I don't

Yeah There's just like It's amazing how the momentum of laziness When we have the access And what I love about your work Is it forces somebody to go What is that? And they do go look it up

Not because they want to be smarter It's because they want to get the joke Exactly exactly You dangle the joke as a carrot Dangle the joke as a carrot Where all the other criteria Of like all the other circumstances of like, what's that politician saying?

What's that CEO saying? It's like, oh, I have to go be smart now. Oh, forget it. Yeah. You know, I'd rather just react. It's easier. But if the reward is getting in on a joke and getting to be part of this little community

where everybody's joking in the comments, then, yeah, maybe it's worth looking up what's a Higgs boson, you know? I want to go back to this idea of space because I'm so fascinated by the gaps in space. Do you force your schedule because you're busier now than you ever have been? Do you force gaps in space?

because for you, lockdown was a thing that unleashed this new, new creativity. Do you make mini lockdowns for yourself? Yes, absolutely. Well, it taught me the value of that. So how do you do that? Like, do you schedule space? Like, do you put a blank thing in your calendar where, like, there's presence and absence, right? It's like...

Yeah. I mean, I would love to tell you that I'm really disciplined. And I have my phone and it's locked in a safe, like, from my creative hours every morning. I would love to tell you that. I don't. I'm just as addicted to everything. I'm addicted to the supply that I give out, which is social media, dopamine, whatever, as the people who are consuming the stuff. But I think what I do try to do, though, is I try to consume more of the things that are going to fill me up creatively so that my output is better.

So instead of spending, you know, four hours a day just combing through social media, you know, trusting the algorithm to give me the things to fill me up, which it will not, you know, I will try to minimize that amount of time and try to, instead replace it with like rereading Virginia Woolfs to remove one's own or something. Something I know is going to, especially if I'm going through a rut, I'll revisit the things that I know are going to light me on fire. And they're going to create better output for me. Okay. So this is, this is, okay, this is good. So I'm not a reader, which we've talked about. I'm over the shame, but I still have embarrassment.

I'm not a reader, but I do still need those things. I've had to recreate my creative process every time I've had to do something creative, because what worked before doesn't work again. I don't believe in writer's block. Okay. Right? I believe that the format or system

that you're using to create in the past isn't working anymore. So you're not having writers block. It's not that you're having no ideas. The system is broken. Okay. And so what we do when people have writers block, they keep doing the same system

and blaming themselves. And I say, okay, I know I have ideas. I know I'm an idea guy. So if I'm having no ideas, am I broken? or is the way I'm attempting to have ideas broken

and so I have experimented with every time I lock up on ideas I break down on ideas I change the way I'm coming up with ideas but this idea of space like I

when I realized I needed time and so here's the thing so I learned this a bunch of years ago which is the our rational brains our thinking brains the part that weighs the pros and cons and access our expertise

that has access to the equivalent of about two feet of information around us, right? Our subconscious brains, our limbic brains, have access to the equivalent of something like three acres of information around us. Every conversation we've had, every movie we've seen, every book we've read, get stored somewhere. You just don't have access to it.

And so the value of the brainstorming session is not to solve the problem, it's to ask the questions. Because your brain won't ruminate on things that aren't presented. It won't just solve problems that don't exist in your life. You're not going to just, you know, come up with some random idea. like a problem must exist or a question must be asked.

And then you can quote unquote think about it. But if you think about it, we have our best ideas when we're falling asleep or when we go for a run or we're standing in the shower or, you know, sitting in traffic. Like it's when we're not quote unquote thinking, but the brain is still ruminating in the subconscious and it gives you the idea. And it seems like divine intervention, but it's not as just your limbic brain. It's been working on the problem the whole time. And it's been working on the problem the whole time. And so the problem is is you need those gaps. for your mind to give you the ideas

and in our modern world we have filled in all those gaps so we don't sit on the subway on our commute and just stare off into space anymore we're on our phones we don't just sit in the car in traffic and just sort of let our minds wander we make a phone call

I mean you go out for dinner with a friend and they go to the bathroom we don't just sit and like look around the room or talk to somebody or talk to somebody we pull out our phones because it's too uncomfortable to just sit And so I have worked very hard to force myself, like if I go out for dinner, I give my phone to someone else, be like, here's my phone, put it in your back. So when they go to the bathroom, they take my phone with them.

That's smart. And so I'm forced because I have no willpower. I'm addicted like everybody else. But if you take away the crack, can't do crack. Yep. I do the same thing with daily walks. So I don't allow myself to bring a phone. But you're creating space and gaps.

Yeah. And those moments, and by the way, space and gaps can also be created going to a museum or, you know, it's just engaging in other passive stimulation. Not playing a game, not doing work, not surfing the internet, passive stimulation has been absolutely invaluable to my idea generation. Almost all my ideas happen in crazy random places. This episode is brought to you by True Classic. And this ad won't sound like regular ads because it's not. Instead, I sat down with Ryan and had an hour-long conversation with him, and we pulled out some of the best clips so that their ad is real content.

I hope you enjoy. When people troll us online, I will find out who they are, and I will find something in their timeline that signals something that they're into, and I will always come around and figure out, even if I have to spend, like, if I spend 45 minutes on this, here's a good example. Some guy was trolling us a couple of years ago, said, like, stop sending me out. And I just replied with, I hope your dad gets better soon. And what I figured out was he had a GoFundMe account.

And his dad had cancer. And I made a big donation, a couple thousand bucks. And I just completely won him over. And the next week, he made a video about it. And he posted it. And he was wearing all true classic with a true classic hat. And he told the story. And it just was like, this is how you're supposed to respond to this kind of stuff.

Not just like, let me block the guy, get out of my ecosystem. I don't want to talk to you. Just like, let me show this guy what true empathy and kindness looks like and let me just go overboard and I didn't know if I'd ever hear from him again It didn't matter But now he's lifelong true classic now we follow each other like we've become friends So like you build these unbelievable connections with people and when I was growing our customer service team It was the same thing it was guys you've got to have a big antenna that just goes deeper than like this is the issue You know that I'm solving tracking whatever like you've got to find

find out where are they? What are they into? And just probe a little bit for some questions that you can show up for them because that'll last a lifetime. But I think another important piece of it is something you said earlier where you said a question must be asked. We can't expect our brains, the brain that's ruminating and doing all this work behind the scenes to be working on a problem that we haven't presented to it. It won't. It won't just spit out random ideas like you said. So I think our brains are computers. There needs to be an input. You know, we need to be. We need to ask it something. We need to ask it to solve a problem. And the problem might be, what is my next idea? What is the thing I want to write about next or whatever? But we need to

actively feed our brains those questions and give them something to work on. I think more specific than that, too, at least for me, you know, that's where the conversations happen because the backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, you know, yes, there's answers in those conversations, but it raises more questions. And so it's not like, what's my next idea, but rather like, why are we friends? And then you start saying, why are we friends? Okay, They're like, I understand the biology, I understand the anthropology. I can look that stuff up. That's pretty written about.

What is a friend? Now it gets complicated. Yeah. So it's not just asking a question, what is my next idea? It's asking specific questions about specific. And it can be big problems. Like, help me understand the world order, as we know it, post-cold war. That's something I've actually thought about, right?

Like, what is the new world order? And it's such a big question that it's not going to be one. And that's why all the conversations and all of the articles I'm reading and all of the people I'm interacting who have different points of view, I'll either ask directly, so what do you think about the world right now? And it's all feeding that until at some point you go, aha, I have an idea. You need, I guess, two things. You need to ask three things. You need the question to be posed, big or small. You need to feed it with data through conversations reading whatever your chosen, preferred way of intake is.

And then, and only then, do you need space and gaps? And we do the first, we do the second, we don't do the third. Right. And I think this is the thing, and there's been stuff written about this. There's a basic global decline in ideas. Like the number of patents that are filed these days is vastly fewer than in the past. Wow, that's terrifying. And the quality of the patents is lower.

And so, like, we know that there's fewer ideas that are happening. And I think this idea of space and gaps and if we're going to be a hyper-scheduled, hyper-connected world, not rebelling against it, just it is what it is, then schedule gaps. See, now, I know you are an optimist. This is sort of central to you. It has been, I've been accused of such. I will say the pessimistic take on this is, and I'm not calling myself a pessimist,

although I have tendencies, is that now that we have the technology we have, we won't, in any meaningful way, be able to make those spaces the way that you're saying. And instead, I think what will happen is we'll channel our decision-making, our idea generation into our technology. Soon we're going to have, you know, you talk about the decline in patents. We're going to have AI coming up with a lot of solutions for us that we simply haven't devoted the brain resources to think about because we don't have to anymore. We have a much bigger, smarter brain to sort of solve those problems for us. I don't think it's either or. I think it's both. I think, you know, just as the calculator or the abacus could help us do calculations faster,

the calculator up that ante, certain things in mathematics or going to the supermarket, got quicker. And so I think where math got quicker, ideas will get quicker, but that doesn't mean that the machine has to lock on all the ideas. Right. And I still think that a human-generated idea will always be the kind of idea that it's the asymmetrical idea. It's the idea that nobody could see happening because, and maybe I just either underestimate the power of the machine

or overestimate the power of the brain, the human brain. I have a more pessimistic view in general of like, you know, I think that machines will take a lot of our purpose, you know. But I do think there will be ways for us to work with them and alongside them to also, you know, generate ideas, continue generating ideas. There'll always be a premium on human-made creations, human-generated ideas. But I do think that a lot of the really heavy-lifting, problem-solving, the things that you'll need patents for, that's all going to, I think we're going to see a major shift toward.

And then the question is, can you put a patent on the thing that a machine came up with? The company who made the machine will probably get the patent. That's where IP law is going to get completely destroyed. Have you found this in your work yet? I know in the art world, artists are being asked to sign affidavits to affirm that this was designed and produced by them and not by AI. Have you found that in your work yet that people are asking you to say, did you actually come with this or did the machine come up with this for you? Not yet.

I'm sure it's coming. And I'm sure I've signed some agreement already that's signed away all my creative rights. It's not just the creative rights. It's they want the affirmation that the person came up with it. That it wasn't AI generated. So like, hey, this little cute little skit you wrote, this little poem that you write, like that is in many contracts, yeah. So they want to know that you wrote it and you did not write it with AI.

Yep. So that's what I mean. Yeah. Which is we're not buying the product. We're buying the story. Yeah. Well, you're buying a piece of the creator. You're buying a piece of it, but you're buying the fact that, hey, she did this.

Right, exactly. And that there's a premium on the human, on the man made, the human made. Yeah. And I'm not saying that all like AI assisted art is worthless and should be thrown in the trash. No, no, agreed, agreed, agreed. But I do think they'll always be a premium on human. human, fully human-made things. I mean, we don't watch, we don't sit around for fun watching computers talk to each other,

play chess against each other. We watch humans play chess. It's more interesting to us. Yeah, they're better at it, but we watch humans. Because we like watching the mistake, the potential for the mistake. Right. It's true. Isn't that beautiful, though, that the reason we find a human game more interesting,

even though they're not as good, is the drama of the pressure and the mistake. Yeah. Is the part that we find entertaining. It's not actually the gameplay. Right. It's the human drama. Oh, I love that. I think one of the really good sides of the AI.

And by the way, I can't have a freaking conversation with that AI coming out. Oh, I'm sure this is just all over the podcast. Every conference, every other talk is AI. But I think it'll help us appreciate it. Because we have this, at least in America, we have this sort of vomit reaction to the concept of bored. like that it's some sort of you cannot be bored you know and I think boredom is the ultimate space where you sit there staring off at the clouds not knowing what to do and you're kind of like how are you I don't know a little bored I got nothing to do

and I think there's joy in the appreciation of boredom because as I was saying before for a curious mind that goes right back to the beginning for a curious mind there's always questions and problems being asked, and yet there's not enough solutions to all the questions. Yeah. And I think boredom and joy of boredom is the thing that not only keeps us human, but helps us see things, find things, invent things,

write things, paint things, sing things that the machine never can and never will. And I think in this hyper-creative, not hyper-productive, hyper-productive world that we live in, where the machines are just making us even more, productive that our creativity comes from being bored not from being active hmm yeah I think I agree because boredom is the very space you were talking about we need to create spaces where we can allow ourselves to and I don't know if boredom is

exactly the right word but allow our brains to be freed of distraction by boredom I mean I have nothing to do yeah I have nothing to do at most walking mm-hmm yeah and that's why I take my I guess you could call them boredom walks I take my enforced boredom walks so that I'm forcing my brain to think, to just, whether it's problem solving or just thinking about the world around me or whatever it is, I think it's really important that I don't have my device and I'm just forced for the next 45 minutes, however long the walk is to my destination, to just ruminate. And the important thing here is that it's okay if nothing happens. Oh yeah, absolutely. By applying pressure to the boredom is the paradox, is the exact problem

we're trying to solve for. Or giving permission for boredom. I can just be bored. I don't have to solve problems on my walk. And that's one of the things that people don't realize, which is I actually, I won't schedule anything in my calendar for Fridays. And I work on Fridays, but I will not preschedule anything on a Friday. It has to be blank.

So that if I choose to have three hours or four hours of whatever I want, which includes staring off at a wall, that is my prerogative. And this is expanded because I used to do hour, like I would literally put an hour break in my calendar. to do nothing. I would schedule nothing. Not that I'm scheduling nothing. I'm scheduling to do nothing.

Yeah, that's important. The act of nothing. And I think in any job, I don't care what your job is. I don't care if you're a homemaker. I don't care if you're a caretaker or a parent. I don't care if you're in a creative job, a non-creative job.

I think all problems are solved. And maybe boredom just has bad brand. Yeah, it does. What should we call it? Because we can't call it creative space because that creates pressure that the space has to be creative and it doesn't.

Maybe a period of stasis or openness. Good nothing? Yeah, good nothing. I'm going to do good nothing for an hour. Yeah. Hmm. I like good nothing. What are you doing right now?

Good nothing. You want to do something? No. It's my good nothing time. I'm doing my good nothing time. Yeah. I like that. Yeah, it's better than boredom. It's better than boredom.

Because I'm not bored. I mean, sometimes I am. Right. I mean, I went out for dinner with a friend last night and, you know, she went to the bathroom and I sat there and just stayed around in the restaurant. And yeah, I was bored and started wondering, like, is she okay? Like, she's been gone in a long time. I wish she'd come back.

I'm kind of bored. Do you have the same paranoia that I do when you go out for dinner with a friend, especially if it's a new friend and there's a line at the bathroom in a restaurant? or somebody's in there for far too long and you're just waiting for them to come out and so you find yourself waiting for a very long time and then immediately you have the paranoia that the other person thinks that you have like

stomach problems or something because you've been gone a long time and I always come to be like oh my God the line was really long with somebody was in there it's not me it's not my stomach problems I was really quick in there I have that intense paranoia that somebody thinks that I'm sick because I was gone a long time

well sometimes I do have stomach problems and I'll say it even then no such a long line sneaky sneaky okay i have a couple more questions okay what's the thing you've dealt with what's the challenge you've for me it's it's anxiety it's an intense you know panic disorder i get panic attacks um they used to be incredibly bad when i was a teenager and then into like early 20s college um almost crippling i had intense agoraphobia could barely leave my apartment and and was like untreated you know during those times and and i kept thinking

Phobia is afraid of outside? Yeah, like not. Not being able to leave your place because of fears of anxiety, panic attacks, which are happening anyway. So, yeah. So, yeah, I think just thinking back to those memories, it was just like, again, like a warning sign. Like, if I don't get my stuff together and I don't get treated, this is the ultimate reality.

And it's going to tear our family apart and, you know. How old were you when you started to be? like, I think I need someone to look after me. Well, that's a good thing about having, you know, grandparents that have gone through stuff like that is you realize early on that, you know, this is a, this is a thing that needs to be treated. It's a condition, you know. So I was probably 16 when I finally started to ask for help because I was having such

intense panic attacks at school. I was having to leave classes, which is, you know, like we said earlier, I'm afraid of authority. I like to be a good student when I can. and having to, like, run out of class and look like I'm skipping or something was not. Which only added to the anxiety. Yeah, yeah, knowing that you have to be in class.

Is it under control now? I would say it's, like, as under control as it probably ever will be, to the point where I can live a normal life, but I just always have to deal with panic attacks. How often do they happen now? It depends. If I'm traveling, if there's, like, a lot of going on, especially if I'm traveling,

I'll have them regularly in my travels. So maybe every few days. or sometimes multiple times a day but if I'm home in my routines and I'm taking care of myself and everything then maybe once once in a month is there a reason you choose to talk about it I mean I just think we could all just talk more about our mental health I think that there I feel two ways about it because I also think there's like an over maybe an overdiagnosing overdiagnosed things yeah yeah like everybody who's a little bit you know everybody's OCD, right?

Yeah, like we don't realize what real OCD is, which is deep, deep, deep superstition like your grandmother had. Yeah, yeah, there are so many forms of it. But yeah, that's how her is manifested. But yeah, I think, you know, on one hand, we have people, I think, over-diagnosing themselves and others and their friends and talking about it. And then I think there's another side of it where, you know,

people who have really struggle with severe debilitating mental illness still don't really want to talk about it. And I think it's just better for everybody if we get the word out there that these things happen because, you know, if you don't, it just gets worse investors and then we have negative outcomes, you know, so. Have you ever written a poem about it? No. It's weird how I find that the things that are the most personal and then go down the deepest are things I can't seem to get myself to write about. Maybe that'll change. I don't know. Maybe one day. But I like to just find solace. in humor and distract away from that stuff. I do find it ironic that you are such a rule follower

and you sort of respect authority figures and running out of class, created more anxiety. It's not that I respect authority figures. Fine, but you like rules. I am afraid to break the rules. Yet you count cards and are banned from casinos. But that's not a good feeling when I do, I see the suits swarming because they get the pit bosses together.

They start swarming. I hear the telephones ringing. I know they're coming. I hate that. I get all sweaty and then I... Do you try and anticipate it and leave before they throw you out? No, I just let it happen because, yeah, it's just better to know. Because sometimes you're wrong. Sometimes they're actually just hanging out talking about something else, you know,

and then they all disperse. So, no, they'll come over. And they're generally pretty nice, I will say. They haven't broken the law. Well, right. They'll say something really sweet. Like, ma'am, I'm sorry, but your play is just a little too advanced for us. We won't be able to take your action here.

But you're welcome to, you know, enjoy yourself at the bar or any other, game in the casino. They invite you to play craps. You're welcome to lose your money at our other places where you don't have the advantage. Other ones ban you, though, from the whole premises. So it just depends on them. If you get a mall cop type pit bull, pit boss. Yeah.

By the way, I have to like insert a warning. Like, if you're listening to this podcast, the conversation is going about to get incredibly nerdy. And we're going to talk about Star Wars and archetypes and in-depth characters. And if you don't know what we're talking about and you don't like Star Wars, perhaps go listen to a podcast, another podcast right now. So you and I,

the first time we met, we very quickly bonded about our love of science fiction. You skew Star Trek. I skew Star Wars. I mean, I love them almost equally. That is not true. If you put a gun to my head

and you told me I had to only keep one, I would say Star Trek. I know that because no one, it's like there's no such thing as I love Star Trek and Star Wars equally. It is impossible and it doesn't exist for anyone. I come very close. Well, you're the one. But you still skew.

It's just, and only because there's more of Star Trek. I've spent more hours. I've logged more hours. There's more to consume. Whatever. Whatever the reason. I just want to belong to both fandoms. No one is 50-50 on Star Trek and Star Wars. Everybody skews one way. I like Star Trek. I love Star Wars. Hmm. Yeah. I like Star Trek and I like different Star Trek's. You know, like I'm a trekker or not a trekkee. Okay. Which means I like Next Generation. Ah. Which apparently they called themselves truckers. I didn't know that. I mean, maybe I'm not a real member of the community. Maybe maybe I'm wrong or it's outdated because there've been so many Star Trek since then. So I don't

know what the new bifurcations are. There wouldn't be bifurcations because that's only two things, but I don't know what the new delineations are, but it was my understanding when next generation came out that you were a trekkur if you were like into next generation. You're a trekkie if you're into the old Captain Kirk stuff. Okay. I learned something new. That's, that's amazing. didn't notice my bedazzled yeah this is amazing and I don't know how the camera angle is but I love that I'm I'm associated here with the dark side you are associated with the lone rebel hero yeah I like that because in my mind I think I've said this elsewhere Star Wars Star Wars is not the story of the Skywalker's

it's not even the story of a beautiful rebellion against an impressive regime It's the story of a brilliant political strategist named Sheev Palpatine whose Machiavellian plans were foiled by dumb luck and familial relations. And if I get canceled for anything off of this podcast, it's going to be for being a Palpatine apologist. I just love Palpatine as a character. I know you do. Yeah.

I mean, yeah. You just have to admire the man. It's like he lays. at nothing. He stops nothing, like most villains, but he goes so much further because he lays the most intricate plan and it's just airtight. I mean, he creates the clone wars. He's orchestrating things on both sides, you know. No, he's an evil genius. Just an intense genius. And also, one of the most gifted force users of all time happens to be both, happens to be an evil mastermind and a gifted force user. It takes both, you know, Anakin and Luke, it takes a cheap shot betrayal to

kill him in the end and that even that doesn't kill him and and a great actor oh pretends to be good when he's really bad and like got everybody fooled his genial senator yeah he's just like what a sweet old man you know so charming and then his like dark horrible voice right it's such an incredible like it's the perfect amount of camp in that voice it doesn't go too far somehow but it's just perfect and one of the things i think that the reason star wars is important in the the world is because the the archetypes of all the characters are so true so consistent that everybody you can learn about anybody by saying which one are you and like are you a hon solo you look skywalker you C3PO or you R2D2 or you Darth Vader like everybody knows who

they are and you can know everything like I have a friend who's like oh I am so C3PO like that's I also have a best friend who is 100% C3PO. Okay, so let's compare. I'll just tell you what my friend was like and you tell me if your friend was the same. Okay. Like, service-oriented, like,

loves to, like, take care of people and, like, do get things done for them. Finds joy in, like, getting through the checklist. Extremely organized. Yes. Right? Yes. This is what I'm saying.

They're archetypes. So you can learn everything about a person simply by them telling you which Star Wars character they are, they find most like them or most drawn to. So which Star Trek character, or start war's character are you? So I am an equal lover of Boba Fett and Han Solo.

Okay. Interesting picks. You know, if you force me, like, gun to your head, pick one. I mean, I had two computers at a laptop and a desktop, and one was named Han Solo and the other one was named Boba Fett. But if, I don't know how to choose, can you guess why? why I like those. No, I'm trying to imagine.

You and I have hung out a little bit. We're not besties, but the, but you know me enough, I think. I mean, I can tell you, I thought about it plenty. Well, why Boba Fett? Tell me that one. Okay, well, I can't talk about Boba Fett without talking about Han Solo. They're both incredibly independent, right? Like, Boba Fett is just, he's a bounty hunter, but he works for himself, right?

And Hans Solo, super independent. I guess maybe I'm more like Han Solo than Boba Fed. Bobveth's just so damn cool. He's just so damn cool. He is. So I guess more like Hans Sala, which is fiercely independent, begrudgingly, like, really wants to be a part of the group, but really wants to be himself. And it's in constant battle. It's like, I want to be my own person, but I want to be a part of the team, but I want to be my own person, but I want to be a part of that team. And as independent as he is, always goes everywhere with a friend. Mm-hmm. Chewy.

Just, yeah. So that's where I'm different than Boba Fett. Boba Fett's a total loner. And really loyal to those friends. I'm super loyal to those friends. And plays up the independent, like, I don't really care about you guys, but he really does. But he really does a lot. And so it's the hyper independence, but the constant struggle of I want to be my own self,

but I also want to be a part of the group at all times, that paradox, but also as independent he is, he goes everywhere with a friend. And that I'm just, and that rebel spirit of let's just give it a try, to me is I am, I so identified with Hans Sola. Yeah. I think for me it's, well, I love Palpatine. I love to say I identify. I mean, obviously, in the real world, authoritarian regimes, tyrants, ew, gross, don't want anything to do with it. In the world of Star Wars, he is such, I won't call him a dynamic character because he never changes. Like any, you know, a dynamic character is one who, like, discovers something about themselves and has changed. And in the process, we as viewers change, too, because we learn something about ourselves. That's not Palpatine. He literally never changes. He's static throughout. but that character is so well drawn. And so... So what about you is Palpatine?

Well, he's a planner, and I like to be... I like to be a planner, you know? His plans tragically did not work out. Through real no fault of his own. But, yeah, I'm inspired by his scheming. I won't say that I see myself in him entirely. I think if I really had to pick a character, I would say R2D2.

Okay. Because R2D2 is also... By the way, the original... It's the original episode 4, 5, 6, that are the perfect archetypes. It's those, those are the characters, the original characters. Although you really see Palpatine shine in one, two, and three. Exactly.

But you and I have had this fight, which is you can keep you one, two, three, and I'll start Star Wars. As a Palpatine fan, you got to watch the prequels. Oh, no, no, I watched them. No, I know, I know. I won't watch them again. But they're worth it for Palpatine. Okay, so what is it about R2D2? R2 is, R2 is incredibly underestimated.

And I like that. He always seems to know exactly what's going on. He's, like, privy to more information than we are even aware. Like, everybody's writing him off as this little droid. It's like, oh, get out of the way you trash can, you know. But he's always saving the day. He's prepared. He knows where the map of where, you know, Luke Skywalker is at.

He's just behind the scenes, just so instrumental to everything, the entire mission. Are you underestimated? And I want to say, like, what I like about him is that he's not out there being flashy about it. He's just... Get the job done. Yeah, it gets the job done. He's really capable, really, like, much smarter than people think, and humble about it. And he's funny.

And I just think that, I don't know, I relate to R2 in that way, you know. Unexpectedly funny. Yeah. Good planner. Yeah. Always lurking in the background. But like, yeah. Not a big bragger. No, he doesn't. That describes you. Yeah. I mean, we, to be fair, we don't know

what he's saying. Only C3PO can understand. Right. But see, we assume that C3PO is accurately translating because that C3PO's nature, he's a translator. And I love the relationship between them because R2 is always like checking C3PO, who is kind of braggadocious. Right. But anyway, I just, I really like R2D2. He's probably the most secure character in all of them.

Yeah. He's, all of them have their baggage, and he doesn't. He's kind of like, he just gets the job, he just gets his shit going and gets the job done. And there's a reason why Anakin, you know, bends over backwards to, to protect him and through the Clone Wars, you know, the animated series. And take him with. Yes. He's the chosen.

There's an episode where he almost gets left behind and it's like, oh, it's a lost cause. It's just a droid. Just let him get destroyed with the ship or whatever. And Anakin's like, nope, I'm actually going to go risk my life to get, because he's my friend. Right. Yeah. So I think that that's a perfect way to end this and to move into Roswell, which is, I think you are a friend that everyone would be lucky to have you by their side.

You are R2D too. Thank you, Simon. I won't call you a C3PO because you're not that. I'm not that. But you're Han solo. So yeah. I am. Can I ask a favor?

Yeah. This is totally selfish. Totally selfish. I've discovered you because of this magical song called Roswell. Oh, yeah. My favorite thing about the song is it's accurate. Yeah. It's intensely accurate.

Every line and I knew the story of Roswell. Yeah. And how it became a thing that it wasn't. It's not aliens, but it's funny. And I love that every line of that song is an education. If somebody sings along, they're smarter. Here's one thing, though, that I kind of got slightly wrong, and I'm going to take this opportunity to correct myself.

So I mentioned the CIA, and technically, the CIA was created like a month after. It was the OSS. Yeah, I don't know. Was it? I don't know the exact. I mean, it was CIA-ish. Right. It was the precursor.

But the CIA was formed kind of in the wake of this event. So maybe because of this event. We don't know. But I did mention that they called the CIA, which technically they couldn't have done that. They couldn't have done that, but they called the AOSS. But it's a fun line. It's a fun line to put in there. So let's just be clear what happened at Roswell.

I mean, well, actually, we don't have to. My ask is, can you please sing the song? Yeah. And I can tell you exactly what happened in Roswell by singing the song. But first tell us the origin story of the song. How did that song come to be? So Tony and I were, Tony's a lead guitarist in my band. And we were coming back from Minneapolis, having played a show, and we decided, since we're coming close, we're going through New Mexico to get back to L.A.

I was like, we have to visit Roswell. Like, that's, that's, as a space nerd, you know. It's mecca. I'm less into conspiracy theories, but whatever. I just wanted to see it. So we stopped through Roswell. We were there for two days, and then on our way out, we were actually about to leave. The van broke down.

So, and it broke down hard. Like they had to get like a, some obscure piece that they needed to send in. And we ended up being there for 10 full days while the van was being fixed. 10 days. 10 days. I mean, that's like a, okay. That's a long time to be. It was a lot.

And they kept saying, oh. And Roswell's in the middle of nowhere, right? Yeah, there's not much to do other than learn about the incident and go to the museum and all the, like, kitsy, alien things. It's great. I mean, even the McDonald's there has like alien. It's like a spaceship. And it's really, it's really a cute town.

liked it a lot and everybody was super nice so I would I was asking locals about it I was going to the museum I was reading books about it like what else are you going to do for 10 days in roswell and then I was like we have to write a song over here so before we left we we wrote the song and then we filmed it in front of the roswell like water tower I hate to point this out okay but roswell was your lockdown it was your blank space it was your good nothing yeah it was and good nothing you had nothing to do you're bored because you've exhausted it everything there is to do in Roswell. The only thing left to do was to be creative. Exactly. That's exactly right. Maybe we shouldn't call it good nothing. Maybe we should call it

Roswell time. I like that. I need some Roswell time. Yep. I like that. I need to be stuck in Roswell to create something. I like it. It's great. Roswell time it is. Okay. So amazing. We have El Cordova and Tony Lingren and they're going to perform Roswell for us. Yeah. Yes, we have to do it. Back in 47th in the first week of July, there was lightning in the desert had explosions in the sky. An unknown flying object came to crash into the earth, and a cattleman had brazzled found the wreckage in the room. He gathered up some scraps and then he brought them in town. And the people gazed and wondered at the marble he had found.

They found the county sheriff and they called the Air Force Base. They called the D-O-D and then they called the CIA. There's big news today out in Roswell that's sleepy New Mexico Attire. In Major Marcel, what can you tell us about Roswell? Well, the Roswell Army Airfield sent their finest personnel. A ranking file officer was a young Major Marcel. The Major told his story and it echoed round the globe.

Flying saucer captured at No, New Mexico But the artist came from Washington, materials were changed The town was hushed in silence and black razzle was detained They scooped up all the evidence that flew into Fort Worth staged a couple of photos and the headlines were reversed There's nothing to see here in Roswell The torn up all the weather blue And Major Marcel was mistaken as well about Roswell

Get it, Tony Many years pass on in Roswell, but the story still persists. Rumors turn to theories and theories turn to myth. But to his dying day, the majors swore on my head. There's no way in hell. A thing that fell was made by theory. And then it's a piece. So the mystery lives on out in Roswell

at creepy New Mexico Town Major Marcel What could you tell us about Roswell? The story of Roswell. Yeah. Thank you. Yes.

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