Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 465: JP Downer (AKA Pop Wonder)

Episode Date: September 25, 2021

JP Downer, rising star in the NFT world, joins the DTFH! You can check out JP's designs, shop for merch, and find things all Pop Wonder on his site, PopWonderCo.com. Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: Magic Spoon - Visit MagicSpoon.com/Duncan and use code DUNCAN at checkout to save $5 on your first order! Upstart - Visit upstart.com/duncan and see how Upstart can help you with your debt.

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I've been exercising. I've cut out sugar. I've cut out the booze. And what do you know? I feel great. I've been taking vitamins. I've been taking psyllium husk at night. Psyllium does for your poop what calling like an Uber black car

does for your driving experience. I'll let you interpret that as you will. The point is, I'm just feeling good. Been drinking so much water. Chamomile tea at night. It's great. Somebody should talk more about this. Somebody should put some books out or something

about how it feels good to not treat your body like some old bag of rats you found behind a dumpster and decided to tap dance on. I mean, look, you peer into the maelstrom of the world via whatever hell window you decide to open up, whether it's CNN, Fox News, Reddit, Reddit World News, Reddit conspiracy, Reddit politics, Reddit COVID ate my face, Reddit justice served, Reddit conspiracy,

whatever the hell it is. And you look out and what do you see? You see a hell storm out there. You see an infinite number of infinite bundles all strapped to each other with cords made out of human suffering. And it's easy to start thinking, what the fuck am I going to do to help the world? Meanwhile, you're riding around in this decaying thing.

Not decaying necessarily because you are in a mortal body, but decaying because you've been lavering yourself with all kinds of rot. You've been rubbing all this different hell creams and shit bombs on your interior core just by whatever it is you're chewing up. And I mean me, not you. I don't know what you're doing.

You're probably over there getting some kind of special prismatic vegan enema in your beautiful body, your sweet, beautiful, sweet-smelling, tight-toned, glorious, trembling, orgasmic, beautiful body. But for everybody else, you know what I mean? It's easy. You want to help.

It's a natural thing to want to help the world. You think, man, I want to do something. What's something I could do in the face of all this cyclonic horror out there? And it's easy to forget, like, oh, well, you know, like what Jack Cornfield says, tend to the part of the garden you can touch, you know? And for me, that part of the garden is like my 47,

am I 48 now? Your old body with asymmetrical love handles and slowing metabolism. And I'm not, I love myself, by the way. I'm not fat-shaming myself. I just don't want to be fat. But that to me is like the direct avenue towards like helping.

And look, I know there's other ways you could help the world. You can go feed people and do all the stuff the saints do, but maybe start with yourself, your body vehicle. Start with that, you know? It's right there in front of you, you know? Trim the pubes. Trim the pubes.

I still got to do that. God, I got to do that. I got my haircut today. They don't do pube trims, as far as I'm aware, barber shops in Asheville, probably somewhere I wouldn't ask for anybody to trim my pubes. It's a private thing.

I would never do that. A pube barber. We're just not there yet. I'm sure at some point they'll be pube barbers. But right now we just do it with our beards and our hair. But eventually when we get more comfortable with our human bodies and are no longer encumbered by the societal demands that we wear clothes,

instead of walking around naked as God wants us to, there's not going to be pube barbers. But eventually it will happen. And then there'll be like, you know, already there's like pube styles, which is kind of weird. If you've ever gone into like a fuck period where you're like having sex with a lot of different people and you start realizing there's like a similarity

in the way people are shaving their pubes, like what the fuck, where are you getting it from? Porn, I guess, right? I don't know. What was I talking about? Entropy. Quick Sam pits. Yeah.

It's just a wonderful, see, this is why I love what Sharon Salzberg says. The healing is in the return. And that's kind of the glorious thing when you finally like managed to sort of break out of whatever entropic momentum you've gotten into. You know, whatever weird gluttonous riptide you find yourself being pulled out

into the ocean of depression on, which is like, yeah, it sucks. But also there's this kind of like sweet possibility that happens when you just start making like little steps in a non-entropic direction. That is, maybe that's my problem is I like that. Maybe that's it. Maybe that's why I can never maintain a healthy form

like some of my friends. Maybe that's what it is, is because there's such a weird thrill in like getting inhaled halfway down the throat of the grim reaper and then clawing your way out. Well, we've got a great podcast for you today. Really good.

Now this is going to be a controversial one, friends. This is controversial. And, but I've been fascinated with non-fungible tokens. Doesn't sound like you'd be fascinated by them. Even the acronym sucks. Nifties, NFT, non-fungible token. Ununderstandable, mysterious, complex, arcane, and something that has produced

a lot of controversy out there. Here's a something from The Verge. This is a story on NFTs that was written by Elizabeth Lopato and Jacob Castronakis. It's on The Verge. And I'm just going to read the first part. Famed auction house Christie's

just sold its first purely digital piece of art for a whopping 69 million. For that price, the buyer got a digital file of a collage of 5,000 images and a complex legacy of greenhouse gas emissions. Individual pieces of crypto art, non-fungible tokens are at least partially responsible for the millions of tons of planet-eating

carbon dioxide emissions generated by the cryptocurrencies used to buy and sell them. Some artists, including those who have already benefited from the craze, think it's a problem that can be easily solved. Others think that the proposed solutions are a pipe dream. That being said, I love pipe dreams, they're the best. And I do believe in a lot of Kurzweil's prophecies.

I don't know if I'm quite a singulitarian, as Douglas Rushkoff has called people to subscribe to the idea of eventually uploading our consciousness into a machine or maybe the idea that there's some possibility of shifting what's happening on the planet all the environmental and ecological destruction that's happening using some as of yet non-existent

technological device or method. A lot of people say that's like just some kind of phantom pacifier that a lot of us are sucking on while the ice caps melt. And it was a real delight to chat with today's guest, JP Downer, aka Pop Wonder. Check him out on Instagram and Twitter. He is a rising star in the NFT art world.

His art is really cool. And the story of how he went from someone working in a warehouse to a self-sufficient independent artist is personally very inspiring for me. And I think it will be for you too. Before you go into the podcast, I'd like to invite you to join my Patreon. It's patreon.com forward slash DTFH.

You'll get commercial free episodes of this podcast along with a weekly or semi-weekly group meditation, our journey into boredom. It happens every Monday in our Friday family gatherings. And also if you sign up now, you might still be able to get into the book of erotic absurdist short stories that we're all currently working on.

I hope you'll check it out. It's patreon.com forward slash DTFH. And now everybody, please welcome artist extraordinaire, JP Downer to the DTFH. Voucher! Welcome upon you. That you are with us. Shake hands, don't be too cute.

Welcome to you. Bye, bye, bye. It's been Duncan Trussell. River Castle, River Castle, River Castle, River Castle, Kamila. JP, welcome to the DTFH. I am really excited to talk to you. Thank you for having me.

This is an honor. Oh man, look, first of all, I love your art. It's beautiful and I've got some questions. I wanna ask you about that first and then let's get into the NFT space, which I understand nothing about. But your art is really beautiful. It's to me, it's visionary and I'm just curious,

how are you making it? What medium are you using for that? Is it all digital or what is that? Yeah, it's all digital. And part of my thing is I kind of like try to recreate comic book printing, the old process printing of CMYK. Yeah. But I do it on an iPad with Procreate.

Wow. Yeah. And I wanna ask for your secrets there, but when we made the Midnight Gospel, watching the amount of work that went into making it not look like it was something made on a computer, it was like weeks and weeks of effort put into

how to do the frame rates and how to do everything. So holy shit, man, good job. Whatever you figured out is so beautiful. Is this, how long have you been working at that style? So I started, so I've been a musician my whole life, professionally, but then certain point when I was doing great and like gigging a lot, but you know, it's still really hard to make a living.

And I started doing graphic design and kind of getting back into illustration that I did as a kid and through that, like almost as a side project, I was doing illustrations. And then really, okay, so when the pandemic hit and all of our tours, I was gonna be touring a whole bunch last year and gigging a lot and that ended and like I didn't even wait one day.

I was like, I'm going full on with graphic design, illustration, I'd already been getting up at like 4 a.m. and drawing and doing work for clients and stuff. And I just like tripled down on it and started this collection of illustrations and I just tried to have it as pure as I could make it without any kind of outside, like, you know, not thinking about what other people would think of it,

just knowing that I liked it. How do you do that? How the fuck do you do that? It's so hard, but that's the way. So tell me a little bit about waking up that early, like what motivated you to do that? Well, so I've been, you know, I've been listening to podcasts and audio books

since like 2010, like religiously. And, you know, I came across like deep work if you're familiar, Cal Newport. No. Yeah, it's about getting into the flow state when you're working doing creative work and having outside distractions shut off and things like that.

And there's a lot about, you make a lot of decisions throughout your day, like 30,000 little tiny decisions. And so at the end of the day, you have this fatigue for making decisions and doing creative work is a lot about making decisions. Like when I'm sketching out a new piece, you know, as literal as that, like I'm deciding

like where this little thing's gonna go and everything. But when I wake up in the morning and go straight to work, you know, I'm a lot more free in my decision-making and they come a little easier to me. And also waking up at that time, how it ties back in with deep work is that that's the time that I with my lifestyle can only time I can get that uninterrupted time

because I have a wife and a daughter and she's like two and a half. And so I started doing it when she was about six months old. So because, so I knew that I needed like two hours of creative work before that, at least. So that once you woke up and then it was just all about her for the rest of the day. And then at night I'm too tired to like do that kind of stuff.

It's just the way I work. Yeah. Yeah, no, this is, I figured out the identical thing. And I think a lot of parents figure that out. But then also it just happens to sync up with what people like Kotler, all the flow state people, you hear them talk about this early morning wake up,

going to some place and just, that's when you do your artistic work. For me, it's like whatever the part of my brain is that's the censoring, insecure, you know, judgmental part of my brain, it just is not a way. It doesn't takes longer to get up. That's true. And it feels magical at that time of day too.

I mean, it's like you're conquering yourself or something. Yeah. I did like six weeks where I was getting up at three. Wow. And that's like a different flavor. It's weird. It's like, it's like a little bit darker, like, you know, mood-wise, like it feels weird waking up at three.

Four feels like positive. And three feels like you're doing something sneaky. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Three's creepy. It's creepy, dude. Because like my friends are going to bed and stuff.

Exactly. Well, you're, so that was when I was really getting into this. Did I lose you again? It froze up. There you go. Oh. Yeah. Okay, great.

I brought it out for a minute. Okay. So when I was like doing that, and you kind of get addicted to it and then you do start thinking like, what happens if I go back a little further? Exactly. Because fucking three, man. You know, I would take a drive at like three, wake up,

go for a little drive. And it's like, there's either these like hardcore joggers, you know, it's fully like, like just like out with their lights on running, or there's like people on speed running, you know, from themselves. But it's like before people start, you know, the mystical theory I've heard is that

there's more energy. It's like, because the day is just starting and it's all this fresh energy that you're consuming. And then as time progresses, everyone's kind of eating whatever that energy is, prana. And then it sort of diminishes. And so at night, that's why you're all tired and shit, but whatever, that's cool to hear.

I'll take that. Yeah, I'll take it. So, okay. So when, do you remember the first time you heard about an NFT? Oh yeah. When? It was like at the end of January,

and my buddy Muse Bandit on Twitter, he just texted me and he was like, hey, Justin Roiland just put out an NFT, you know, this thing is digital art and he made, you know, he made the X amount of money or whatever. And you can do this now. And he said that I think that your art is perfect for it. And yeah, I had just been creating for about a little less

than a year, these just square. And when I started the Instagram page, it was like a side project for my graphic design, like I said. And I knew that it was going to be like really cohesive because that's what I was looking for in artists that I admired, that they had a very cohesive style. They made very, very direct choices.

And so I kind of set up some constraints for myself. And then when you do that, it's like easier to start something, but then you can also just like move in and out of it and it doesn't change it too much. And so I unknowingly, I like created a pretty cohesive collection of illustrations that were like perfect for what we're doing now. And so my buddy hit me up.

I haven't really thought about much else since then. I have to force myself to break out of it and go and carry a shit in real life. But yeah, so I put together the ones that I wanted to start putting up and a couple sold right away. And then I had a lot of several months of ups and downs and slow times. And then I'd sell something and it was amazing.

But the whole time I'm doing my graphic design and my other life and gigging when I can, playing a few gigs here and there, but yeah. OK, so I'm going to go to your website real quick. And do you mind if I just kind of read what some of your art is selling for? Oh yeah, sure. One second.

Not to be completely like base, you know what I mean? But you remind me of someone who jumped timelines or something. I feel like this, I mean, talking to you right now is like the cherry on top of the simulation. I'm serious, because I never imagined. That's so sweet to say, man. Yeah, of course, man. OK, so over here at popwonder.io, it's your beautiful art.

I'm going to scroll down. So what you're looking at now are the additions. And so that means that any of these pieces, there's anywhere between three and 150 copies of each one. OK. And so each different one has a different size. And so they're kind of, you know, the values. OK, so these are like, this is like in the real world,

this is like when you're doing prints. This is what this would be, right? So yeah. And then if you go to popwonder.world, those are my one of one originals. OK, and OK, got you. So like I'm looking here at this stuff is so beautiful, man. Prismic Falls.

And so this is just a print, or not even a print, an FT that is $1,700. And so, but then we go to popwonder. What's the address again? Dot world. Dot world, OK. And look at like from Wentz, which is just nuts, beautiful. Folks, this is like, you got to go to this, it's just incredible.

It's like a skull, but flowers are growing around it. It's just, but it's impossible. How am I going to describe art? It's incredible. You got to look at it, but here am I reading this wrong? When it says $413,000 is what it's. The reason why it says that is because the person who collected it listed it back up at that price.

OK, but we go back and look at the trading history and it's still. Yeah, I mean, people. Go ahead, people. So Ethereum right now is is about $3,000. And I had a couple. I've had a few sales in the last few weeks that have been and they're secondary sales that have been, you know, 30, like 20 Ethereum, 30 Ethereum, so 100 grand sometimes.

So the people that collected my work and like people are buying them new for me as well. But the people that collect my work early on really got hooked up because a lot of people bought stuff when I first started and nobody really cared. They were still buying them for like a grand. Yeah. And that was like, you know, I mean, think about it as an artist and a musician, like, OK, I'm selling that piece of my artwork for $1,000.

I made it. It's fucking awesome. Yeah, just that. Yeah, that is like, holy shit. This is like I'm this is a dream come true. Yes. And that's the baseline, you know, like if you can sell your stuff. And so then some of the people that bought those for that price, like it's turned around and sold them for, you know, 100 here.

Like hold on, hold on and then the pieces and. Now, again, I'm not trying to like I don't want to. I think one of the wild things about NFTs and for me, whenever I hear these stories of artists, like suddenly, like, like not just like doing what any of us would just be thrilled with, but like, you know, exponentially leaping into a completely different reality. It makes me think of the singularity. It makes me think of Ray Kurzweil.

It makes me think of like dimensional shifting via some kind of technology. And I think that's kind of what is so wrapped up in NFTs is, is, is seeing, seeing this happen to people and it's spellbinding and confusing. And can you talk a little bit about that quality of it? Yeah, I mean, you're you're dead on because it doesn't, it doesn't make sense, you know, in the old ways of thinking. And now the whole decentralized aspect of everything that's going on with the blockchain and cryptocurrency and NFTs is all related.

Yeah, it makes it so that I I'm selling. Directly to the people that want it and the money goes directly to me immediately. And there's nobody collapse, you know, I do collaborations, but there's there's not somebody that like gave me the opportunity to do it. Yeah, I took the opportunity on my own. And yeah, and like you said, like just the. The insane trajectory of it and the way that it could go sideways for years and years and years and then shoot straight up.

Yeah, and I just feel very like grateful that and it's not the first thing that I've become obsessed with and tried to be a part of. But I, you know, because I got I'm 38. Some people think like I'm like 23. And this is an overnight success or something because because I'm somewhat anonymous online right on Twitter. But, you know, I've I've been rocking in bands. I've been drawing comic strips.

I've been doing graphic design and doing a million things. And I finally feel like I caught like a wave and like kind of like you guys did with podcasting that came out. Yeah. And so, you know, you get imposter syndrome and like why, you know, why is this happening to me? But, you know, if I step back and look at the hard work I put in and waking up at 4 a.m. and like knowing that, you know, like the outliers thing, like I was just kind of like in the right place with the right amount of,

you know, the right amount of preparation and the willingness to like do it right as like the wave was hitting. Right. Yeah. That's like definitely that that I feel the same way about podcasting, which is, you know, I like I started so long ago and I got just lucky based on that and did catch that weird exponential leap forward. But with NFTs, in particular, it's it's really caught my attention not just because of like that what I love, which is like anytime artists

are getting paid, something's going right. If you ask me, that's a that's a good sign in the universe. You know, and maybe part of the reason people are so shocked witnessing like, you know, the success that a lot of artists are having is because artists have been so devalued that that art has been so devalued by the parasitic entities that form in between an artist and the people, you know, engaging with that artist's work, you know, and that it's parasites upon parasites upon parasites.

Now, not all them are parasites. Some of it's a really important symbiotic relationship, you know, like a lot of people that I work with, I have to have them because I don't know how to do a lot of the shit they do at all. I would be fucked beyond. I need someone when I'm on the phone with them to tell me, you know, that might be the worst idea I ever heard in my life. Don't send that email. Are you crazy?

What are you talking about? You know, that that's but but you know what I'm saying? Like when you look at like the musician, you know this, when you look at a musician, the the many millions of like weird layers of people taking a piece of the pie between a musician and the person listening to musicians music, the people taking the piece of the pie, many of them they they wouldn't know a fucking C chord if like for a million dollars they couldn't they couldn't play a chord on a piano or a guitar, you know,

but they are they're in there somehow. And so this it just plugs the artist directly in with the audience that I love. It's glorious. And so maybe that's part of the reason. But but maybe it's something else entirely. You want proof? There's a force of pure love in the universe that has some kind of sentience and intelligence to it.

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They need to they want them to be billionaires. I want every all cereal manufacturers to watch magic spoon become the Amazon of cereal so that suddenly healthy cereal that people like me can eat whenever we want to starts appearing on the shelves. Thank you magic spoon for sponsoring this episode and thank you for making guilt free cereal. You're doing the Lord's work. But maybe it's something else entirely. I mean, because because like the other like romantic thing about I'm going to start

to stop going on and on about it is it's like we're witnessing some kind of implosion of the universe, like the universe is being vacuumed in to this metaverse where these NFTs are existing. And do you know what? And so maybe that's the other thing that I'm going to say is that and so maybe that's the other thing that's actually happening is like, oh, no, they're not. It's not just like they're art. They're fucking dimensional riffs.

You're looking at these tiny little output points that are now living in and expanding brand new liminal reality that are maybe not brand new. I don't know. But as far as we've been able to see, is that what they are? Yeah, I mean, it's relatively brand new. That's for sure. Yeah, it is kind of like psychedelic like that and knowing that it's it's immutable and it's there forever and it can be your legacy if you do it right. And it can be something you pass on to your

your family, these things people are already doing it. People are already setting up their wallets for their kids. Yeah, and collecting. And this is, you know, they believe and I believe that this is like a historic era and the stuff from this era is going to be that much more valuable. Fuck, yeah. I mean, is that is that what the blockchain is? Is it our cave wall? Is that what this fucking thing is?

Right, right. I mean, yeah, it could be so it's like a cave wall where they didn't like, but as the whatever the book is the blockchain. Now, correct me. This is where I get really confused. The blockchain, it's evolving, isn't it? Right. The blockchain itself is like becoming the sum total of all the different bits of technology and art that are

making up the links in that chain, right? Yeah, and I'll preface by saying I'm an artist and I've just been learning about the stuff just, you know, in this year, but basically it's a ledger of transactions. So yeah, it is. It's just you just keep adding to it and adding to it and adding to it. And it's all you go back and you look at the whole thing. And that's why, like, basically one of my pieces is like a transaction on the chain and it's there and it's going to be there forever.

It's a link. Yeah, is that right? It's a link in the chain. Yeah. And so so it's like, you know, the difference between like, OK, so one of the controversies about it that all these like get out of my yard, people are like, it ain't all paper. It's not you can't say you can't sell a JPEG.

Yeah, yeah. Sell it in JPEG. It's not all paper. If it's not all paper, it's not worth nothing. Right? Like saved it. Now I can sell it for a million dollars. Now I got it. Oh, guess what? It's on my computer now I got it.

You know what I mean? Like they're people are fucking pissed about these things. They're so pissed, man. Oh, I have everywhere except for Twitter and on Twitter. But like I I I carved out my own little like algorithm, just NFTs on Twitter. So it's to me, it's like another like I remember when I was like getting fascinated with NFTs, I made an NFT and just for fun because I was like, what's the process for making an NFT?

So like I and I just grabbed a piece of paper, drew some. It's called the seal of eternal value. And then I uploaded it. I don't even know what happened to it. Someone did bid on it, but then I felt weird about it. And then but I didn't know at the time all the controversy surrounding it. And so I post this NFT and it was like within seconds,

somebody was like, enjoy destroying the universe. Do you like destroying the planet? Do you know that that NFT used up 7000 years of like, do you know? Like, do you know how many koala bears were incinerated? You know, NFTs are made by tossing koala bears into a furnace. And then converts that into the blockchain energy. But like, but what was to me, what was mind blowing about it was how quick it was. Like somebody had just been sitting there looking at hashtag NFT and been like,

you just destroyed 7000 whales. You know, what do you think about that, man? I mean, isn't there some truth to the environmental impact that these things are having on the world or is that bullshit? Well, yeah, I mean, there's some truth to it because it does use electricity. It's like a network of computers that are running. And that's like basically everything is what we're using right now. And, you know, and I can't I can't sit here and like, say that it's perfect

or defended or whatever. But, you know, and also like any of the articles that I looked up and was like, yep, that sounds, you know, they're biased towards what I want to hear. Right. But but basically, you know, the the Ethereum network is is what, you know, we use for for buying and selling NFTs and it's there and it's going to be there so that it can create if you're in cryptocurrency and we're using the network,

you know, and the network is unfortunately, sometimes buildings full of computers that are running 24 seven. But that's that's what that's a server, right? That's Facebook and that's, you know, everything really. So but as far as I have have read and the stuff that I'm obviously gravitated towards believing, it says that it's blown out of proportion. You know, in the in the long run, it will it can save energy because using cash and transporting cash and housing cash and securing cash

and all these things causes uses a ton of energy. Right. You mean that like Brinks trucks? Yeah, everything. You know, like like add it all up if you want. Because that's the thing about the blockchain, too. You can actually go through and audit it and figure out exactly what it's using. But try to figure out how much just supplying the world with fiat currency in

every country it takes. You'll never know. Yeah, you'll never fucking know big secret, whatever the fuck that is. Who the fuck knows? No one knows that. I mean, it's arcane and weird and like creepy. You know, it's creepy when you see one of those Brinks trucks, you know, pulling up with their fucking magic paper and dudes with shotguns and stuff.

I mean, is it the conspiracy theorist? Part of me just thinks is it OK? Any time like if somebody like yells at me on Twitter, you know, usually I deserve it or I'm like, you know, that was a stupid joke, I guess or whatever. But like when it's instant, that makes me think, wait a minute, that's too quick. You can't just like right away send me a like calculation of how much the NFTs or whatever, just and again, I don't know, someone maybe it's just a real fan or something and just doesn't want me to make NFTs or something like that.

But it made me think like. Is there some kind of fucking like? Push like intentional pushback from bot farms against these things, because they it's an existential threat to so many different industries that they have worked out an ad campaign to like try to like make them make it not work because it's that would make more that would make more sense than what's probably going on, which is just people. You know, they they're confused by the technology.

They see, you know, making money is really, really, really hard. Like, you know, for most everybody in the world, like really hard. Yeah. And it's has been for me, my whole life. And and then they see these kind of things like somebody just sold a crypto punk for half a million dollars and they're like, oh, that's a scam. Or that's, you know, it's like a club they're not invited to, you know, and then the barrier of entry to get into this is so high that if they

tried to sometimes you I mean, it's it's easy when you do it. But, you know, you have to set up a few protocols and things like that in your wallet and, you know, you have to get the Ethereum in there. And it's a pain in the ass at first because it's so early. And the stuff just isn't like streamlined as it will be. And people are just like, well, I'm not invited to this party. And so I'm going to shit on it. Basically, it's fun, though.

Man, using it with hours. I was like, God damn, this is some Star Trek shit here. I'm going to like going on my, the whole like connecting to Ethereum through your phone and it's so confusing and so completely psychedelic. But it's more than just the technical weirdness of it that's upsetting these people, man. It's like, I think it's like, I don't know if it's just that whenever an emergent paradigm pops in that poses like a real structural possibility of like a massive structural change

of, you know, or I don't know if it's just some primordial power thing, which is like, you know, power structures don't want to lose that power. And the fucking industry around, you know, shepherding or helping artists sell stuff is like a trillion dollar industry, man. And if something springs up that not only like fucks with that, but like fucks with art galleries, fucks with every single level of how we understand this stuff, you know what I mean? You could expect if it's not a conscious pushback, a subconscious pushback.

But I don't know, man, I am too conspiratorial just because it's like, you know, trend analysis, you know, like these, like I remember reading this cool thing that like, you know, fashion companies like infiltrate little mini scenes. Have you ever heard this? Like they get deep in there, man. And they look at what these kids are like doing or where they're spies. Basically, you can tell when you go like to target like everything that was super hip like three months, six months ago is right there.

Yes. Yeah. And then in like the big fashion houses, they've got their fucking tendrils. Like, you know, like it's like, we know what what like, you know, big scenes look like, but they've got their fucking tendrils in like little mini scenes. You know what I mean? They're deep in kind of just trying to understand the trend before it's the trend because they got to make the shit, you know what I mean? And then they also push it forward a little bit, which is why anytime like Gucci

releases something, people are like, what the fuck? I never fucking wear that crazy shit. But then sure enough, you know, a year later, everyone's in target getting the exact same things. They're they're sort of expanding it. But my point is like that this NFTs represent the very beginning of pushing something so far beyond the business models are understanding of value itself.

Yeah. You know what I mean? That it's it's scaring people. It's upsetting people. It's and if it is causing environmental impact, it's also causing like it's going to burn down a lot of cultural, a lot of like institutions that you know, that will never come back, that will never recover from it. You know, traditional art gallery, the standard is like 50 percent that they take.

It's crazy. And they don't tell you who collected it. They don't want you to know. If the person doesn't tell you that collected it, the gallery doesn't want to tell you either. And if and also then if it sells again, you don't know because it's out there in the world selling again, it could sell for anything. So now I know exactly how much everything sells for.

Yes, I get a royalty. So you set it up for however you want. And I get 10 percent of everything when it sells again. So, you know, and that's like a that's like a huge revolution for artists because now I have passive income from digital art. And and before, you know, yeah, I mean, before that, it's like, yeah, you you could sell a piece for a hundred bucks and then you get famous or you die and then they sell it for a hundred grand and they keep it all.

You know, it's like, holy shit. So you don't even know your you don't know what your value is there. And they're intentionally keeping that from you so that they can get the art from you at a hyper discount and then inflate it and get and make more money. I mean, that's something that happens for sure. There's great gallery owners that help artists all the time, I'm sure as well. But, you know, this new paradigm, it's like more on us. And and I even, you know, wanted to have my friend like handle all the crypto

and MetaMask and all that stuff, you know, side of it. And like, because I was really busy and I was like, I don't know, man, if I could just make the art and then you handle all that. Yeah. But he told me, like, that's great and everything. But like, you can do this and you should do this. Right. Don't create another fucking generation of

de-skilled artists who have developed a dependency on someone doing like some technical thing, that's really your friends, really cool. That's super cool. Yeah. Right. Because that that's like, you know, another like the, you know, it's one of the archetypes that like I find to be like is like a sad, self-fulfilling prophecy is it's like, are you an artist? OK, let me go get you a bottle, little baby.

You don't know how to pour your own meal. I'm going to put it in your mouth and give you a bottle and, you know, here's some ketamine and you just go do your art, little baby. I mean, it's like, fuck off, I can figure out how to do this. You know? And so to me, that's the other thing I'm really excited about that for for artists, because it's that's how it's supposed to be.

It's just normal. Like if you're the one doing the work and you're the one who not just and that's the other thing like, you know, people are probably pissed at you because they're like, what would you do? You could just went to Best Buy, got yourself an iPad, sketched out a couple of robots and look at you now. Well, you know what I mean? I can do that.

Yeah. No, it's that stupid song. Oh, God, it came out a long time ago. God, do you know the song? I think Sting sings on it. You know, oh, God, you play the guitar on your MTV. That ain't working. That's the way you do it. You're money for nothing and your chicks for free because they wrote that song

because they're like, motherfucker, I'm a moving company. You know, if you're a musician, you're a moving company. You're not a friend. I'm a comedian. We got it easy. But anytime I friend email, I've gone to his shows and like after the show, I want to hang out with him and it's like, oh, no, no, no, no. I got to move.

I'm moving right now. I got to load up the fucking truck and make sure my fucking expensive gear doesn't get wrecked. Yeah, yeah, people like want to go to the bar. It's like, yeah, every single one of my friends has had their entire like loaded gear stolen out of the back of their car. I'm good. Yeah, I'm going home now.

Thanks. Bye. No, I don't get to do any of that shit that you think we get to do. I've got to fucking try to get enough sleep. But especially on tour, it's like, yeah, we got to drive seven hours tomorrow and like go to the hotel now and stuff. So yeah, get your shit in, get your food in, hope the fucking room service is working. You know, that's what stand up.

We got to do that. But then, you know, you just breeze into the club. You don't have to do some two hour fucking sound check and the sound guy comes in. I'll hungover or the sound guy didn't show up and the or the fucking some circuit blues. So like your microphones, it's a nightmare. But on top, but then also people don't acknowledge the process that even before that or like, they don't want to acknowledge like, yeah, I also was like almost

got I've almost had my car repossessed. I almost was kicked out. I was almost evicted. You know what I mean? People don't want to look at like all that stuff leading up to the point where and you get to where you get anything for your art. So, you know, I think it's a celebratory moment for artists. But and but probably I mean, do you think it's going to like you think it's going to

last? That's the other thing is like, you see all these like stories that look like they've been written by a fucking AI that come out and they're like, well, it looks like the NFT bubble is finally popped. I know, like every week, some asshole puts out one of those. I know. And after a week later, it's just like it's it's crushing. Yeah. I mean, obviously, like anything could happen.

The the valuations that we're seeing right now, people could wake up and be like, wait a second, this isn't this is a lot, you know, of money. Yeah. And also if if Ethereum goes way up and then suddenly 10 Ethereum is is 50 grand or 70 grand or something like that, then maybe you wouldn't want to spend them, you know, so so there's definitely ups and downs and I'm I'm keeping an open mind because I know this kind of these kind of things can can move. But the technology and us using it for digital art, it's almost like a warmup

for NFTs because. Yeah. Yeah, because the technology is going to be in everything. You don't know, I would love to be able to buy my next house as an NFT and literally just click on my MetaMask and send the Ethereum. And then I get the NFT and that's the deed to the house. And that can be. What's a MetaMask?

MetaMask, I keep saying it's your wall. It's like the most common kind of wallet for for using Ethereum and buying NFTs. OK. Yeah. OK, so you mean you don't mean like the you don't mean yet. You don't mean like buy like a house existing on the blockchain and the Meta. You mean literally a real house by the house and like just skip all the weird shit that goes into buying a house. Just nice when you've bought it.

I mean, keep going. Sorry, though, I feel like I cut you off. Oh, no. And also because you said like, is it going to last? It will last in some way, shape or form, I believe. And, you know, this could be like the golden era and the salad days that we talk about. Or it could be we're talking about this is the very beginning. And it was like and we'll laugh about it.

We I definitely think we're going to laugh about all the crap we'd have to go through to to do this stuff like setting everything up to set up. Because I think that in the future, it's just going to be like, you know, as easy as everything else is for us. But yeah. Yeah. And then you do and you don't you don't. We're using the chisel to go into the to right in the rock. We had to write on the rock. You don't need to use the chisel too much energy, too much time.

No one will carve on rock. Why are you? You know, it seems to be a similar reaction, which is like you like any time there's a new medium to hold our simple sets, there's controversy around the new medium. And usually these high controversy things like end up being like the future, right? Like, yeah, the things that get the most the strongest reactions out of people like the internet, people thought it was a fad.

And it also was really hard to interact with. And if you had a website or like a podcast and like, you know, I don't know if you did you have to pay insane bandwidth fees and stuff when you started your podcast? No, I skipped that. Thank God. Yeah. So that was like an era, right? And there's like used to have to have a bunch of protocols and devices to connect to it and the modem made this out and it's slow and shitty.

So basically that's hopefully just the era we're in now and everything's just going to go up from here. And music, NFTs are something that I believe hasn't even happened yet. Like there's been a couple of bands that release an album and there's been a couple of people doing cool stuff. But when touring comes back in full force and people are carefree going to shows and and also hopefully like some of this controversy blows over so people aren't afraid to offer it.

But I feel like having, you know, just like you buy a shirt with the tour dates on the back as a commemorative item from a show, you you would purchase or receive for free an NFT that says you were there. And it's proof of attendance and people are given amount for all sorts of stuff now. But for music shows, I think it's going to be huge because you you show up and you just basically go online, get your proof of attendance NFT and then next year when they come back

through your town, that one will get you other perks or discounts. And then you can get the next one and then you collect them, just like people collect ticket stubs, concert shirts, anything, you know, buy the record there and stuff like that. So and nobody's really doing it in full force yet. No, that's crazy, man. That makes me think of like the next generation of tombstones. It's like like you go to see your friend's tombstone, right?

It like clicks, it links up with whatever your device is. And then you get a little like miniature version of your friend and AR or whatever. You know, oh, yeah, yeah, you just put your glasses and put on your glasses and you see like, hey, what's up? And then your friend like, can I haunt you? Do you mind? And your friend jumps into you and now you've got this like little because this is the other thing is like, I think, you know, I've just been reading this awesome book about alchemy.

And it's just pointing out like in alchemy, when you're looking at a symbol, you shouldn't just, you know, it's meant to be contemplated in a 3D space with movement, not just, you know, looked at as some flat thing, you know, like any of these, like any sacred geometry when you like start imagining it. And that's the other part is like the imaginative process is like, according to this book at least is like activating like latent qualities in the human nervous system.

But the point is you should, when you're looking at these things, think of it in terms of 3D space and movement. And I, you know, I think when I'm thinking of NFTs, in general, I'm thinking, oh, these are still precursor beings, like an AI could easily animate any of these NFTs and then populate the, you know, the augmented reality world with them or populate the metaverse with them. You know what I mean? So really they're like eggs too.

They're not just, you know, and they're going to be living. That's, I can't, I'll tell you, man, as soon as you have an NFT, as soon as AR becomes as popular as I'm sure it will be, and you have one of your little NFT creatures that I could pick up and that will live in my house. I'm doing all that. Yeah. Cause yeah, for sure it's happening. Yeah. I want to thank Upstart for supporting this episode of the DTFH. Looking at your credit card statement,

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time. Thank you Upstart for supporting the DTFH. Well, what are some other, so what do you see is the like next year or two of this insane convergence of technology and art? Well, there's gonna be a lot of confusion with, whole home economics and crazy... Really poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo Well, there's gonna be a lot, lot more people getting into it on the artist side

and the collector and speculative, you know, investor side. Yeah, it's gonna be, it's gonna get a lot more saturated. Right now it's a small community, amazing community, and that's what it's really all about for this stuff. And people wonder like, why could it be so popular and engaging because the community is engaging in, and if you're part of a certain community of an NFT project, like people really like identify with it

and they make it their profile picture on Twitter and that's what their whole deal is, right? Like, and they feel like it's a, it's almost like a country, you know, like a country club, digital pass to a country club and there's limited editions, right? There's only 10,000 of them or there's only 3,000 of them. Oh, that's crazy. It's some kind of fucking tribal and like,

oh, and one of them literally, yeah, one of them's literally apes. And they're like, you know, they're like apes strong with each other and like, you know, so yeah. And so, you know, what's coming in the next year, it's people are gonna be trying to recreate that a lot and a lot of projects are gonna come out, but also like a lot of people are gonna come in

and be like, I can't afford a crypto punk or a board ape because there are hundreds of thousands of dollars, like what's next on the horizon? So people are gonna be trying to get that next big project and hopefully just as there's like an X or whatever that crosses, like where people become more and more into it and it becomes the barrier of entry lowers, so it's easier for them to get into it.

And then maybe the public sentiment will shift about it as people get into it because, you know, besides the environmental thing, then people think it's like money laundering or it's a scam in some way or it's, I don't know, but like, I don't know, I've never been a big complainer. And so when new things come up, I've always been kind of like, well, let me check it out, let me see what's up.

But then some people that are default is just to be like, oh, I don't understand it or I don't feel like I belong in it. I'm just gonna talk shit about it. Well, that's art, right? I mean, that's what I love about the whole money laundering thing is like, oh, really, are you just discovering what art is? You know what I mean? Like what, did you just, like that's,

it's like a bunch of people are like, wait a minute, I think this might be more than just a picture. It's like, yeah, it is, it's so much more. It's a fucking, like, you know, it's a cultural, some of them are time bombs. I mean, it's like, you know, like any one of us who, and like, gone into museums in a bad mood and looked at some incredible work of art, a toilet bowl,

just sitting there and we're looking at it and we're like, I could put a toilet bowl in an art museum. Right? And like as though the creator of that didn't know, it wasn't puppeteering you. Like you don't even realize, you dumb fuck, that you are, that puppet bowl is like just making you dance like a little fucking puppet in front of it.

Every time you say that, it's hijacking you, harnessing you and making you do what it wants. Fuck yeah, it has value. Fuck yeah, that toilet bowl is more powerful than you. And yeah, it's a scam and you just fell for it when you were like, wait a minute, I think this is a scam. Yes, he got you, didn't it?

And it's like, so that's the other thing I love about NFTs is like, my God, it's like the technologically hypercharged version of that. It's like making people seize up. It's just like freaking people to fuck out. And I think that's an indication of its power for better or for worse, for better or for worse. Yeah, and there's real art like you're saying

that like, there's a single pixel that somebody sold for I don't remember how much, that kind of stuff. So it's like, yeah, there's gonna be that kind of art that like pisses people off and it's like, I could have done that. It's like, yeah, you definitely could have, but you didn't and you didn't do all the stuff that that guy did for the last 20 years as well.

Yeah. To give you the point where you are gonna just sell a single pixel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I could have invented fucking toast, but I didn't, you know, I didn't, it's too late. Somebody was like, what happens if I put toast in this machine? Holy, don't put, well, don't put your bread in there.

Oh, you like hard bread, is that what you want? You don't like good old soft bread? I don't know who this guy is, but he's fucking awesome. Yeah, that's what they got. He's fucking up society. He's on Twitter. Yeah, he's there. Well, you know how many panda bears died

so you could eat your art, bread? Now, so, okay, so to me, it must be really a little bit kind of scary to be you in the sense that you're like getting, you really have just jumped in to this digital river and you don't know where it's gonna take you, man. And so I wonder if we could maybe just talk a little, and if it just is too weird, which I often get too weird,

maybe just talk about the surreal quality of your life now. And I would like to know, like when I say, if you seem like you've jumped into an alternate timeline or like you're doing some kind of dimensional navigation via technology, or you're one of the first people who essentially just like blew out of a paradigm of like, you know, this isn't how it works, man.

You're someone who just like popped out of a complete kind of like bogged down swampy terrain into, I mean, what seems like an abundant, fabulous kind of existence. Can you talk about that a little bit? Do you have any kind of like metaphysical theories about what happened to you? Well, I'm still, you know, I'm still processing it

and it's still very surreal, obviously. And just knowing that, well, just knowing that like my family's taken care of and you know, that like, I don't have to hustle as hard as I've been doing my whole life, you know, trying to find whatever the next gig is and negotiating with people

for how much they're gonna pay me to do it and things like that. Cause I'm not good at that, asking people for money because when I was doing graphic design, it was like a lot of times for my friends' bands. And so I would just do like whatever they could scrape up, you know, and like that's like, it was real.

Yeah, so now just knowing that like every day I just wake up and I wait for, you know, if I have something I need to, or I want to get done, or I have an idea that I just start right away, but basically it's wait for like the moment to strike and you know, like an idea to pop. And I'll have like half baked ideas for a while

and then one will come through that's fully formed. And I just, and then nothing else matters for the next, you know, however many hours kind of thing. But like to be able to do that and then put it out and then people love it and buy it. And then I just move on with my day, compared to what my life was like before that and what most people, you know, it's very surreal.

And I feel guilt sometimes, but I also know that like, you mean like the transformation you're talking about, like I truly feel like me waking up every morning at four and putting in the hours over the years was like, it was just like preparation for when this came. And I mean, trust me, like I feel nothing but grateful for what I have and what I've been able to build. But like, and like I feel nothing but just lucky

that like it all converged at the time that it did. And you know, to answer your question, I'm still processing it. Yeah. Cause it's been, and I've been doing it for seven months. Yeah. But I only actually like got the real like push behind me about two months ago.

So, or three, you know, maybe, but like, yeah. So it's literally been no time at all. Everything else that I've done before it takes years. And I've always thought, known that it takes 10 years to do anything and to be good at anything. Yeah. And I've always been drawing here and there my whole life, but like focusing on this pop wonder illustrations,

it's been a little over a year. And it's not supposed to happen like that in my head. You know, but that's the thing I've had like mediocre successes and failures and everything in between like leading up to my whole life. So I feel like, you know, and I've had like my friends that I have similar mindsets to me where, where we're always like pushing for something bigger.

Yeah. Because it's really easy to, especially like your musician friends, you can, it's a mixed bunch, right? Some of them are just like trying to not work, right? Which is great. And, and I don't want to work at a job or for somebody else or whatever, but I do want to like bust it every day, like, you know,

do something to like further make my life better. So, so the people that I've been in contact with, my friends who have that same mentality, we've been, you know, talking about it and working with it and workshop and stuff and throwing ideas back and forth to each other for years. So, so I have to, I have to remind myself that when I start feeling guilty or-

The guilt thing is like another, this is what technology is, this is one of the ways it's fucking with us culturally is it's like so much of our value system is based on this kind of weird quantification of suffering. So it's like, if you've, you know, if you suffered this much, then this is how much you should exchange your suffering tokens. Yeah, suffering used to be the ultimate Bitcoin.

It was like you've suffered this much. And look, everyone's suffering. So the value of suffering is really low right now. But you know, but the point is technology because of it's making it so that the amount of suffering required to get to some point is reducing. And that doesn't make sense. It fucks with our heads so bad.

It can't be like, I'm like, this is not, even though by the way, it's been like that for the billionaires and the trillionaires for as long as there's been billionaires and trillionaires. It's like, you know, they've been experiencing that reality and justifying it by like, you know, well, my great grandfather invented aspirin. All right.

That's how that's why I have 700 houses, you know, but like now, but again, I think it's this paradigm shift that threatens that. It's not supposed to, value isn't supposed to just instantaneously go rushing to people like you, like especially that quick. What the fuck? We got somebody in fucking tie-dye.

What the fuck? You can't do that. And you know what I mean? And so it's like, it's, you know, it's like apocalyptic in the best way possible, you know? It's like this beautiful thing. I just think of it as dimension hopping. It's like some kind of technological dimension hopping.

You shift it out of one timeline into another timeline. You're probably going to shift into another one. I wouldn't be surprised if time travelers start visiting you. You got to look out. You never know. I will, I'll be ready. It's one of the signs. You know, you start seeing people dressed

in weird shiny clothes following you around and shit. Yeah, I'm not that that's ever happened to me, but it's a dream. Look, do you, do you think it's the end of the world? I mean, in what way? Like in the Ray Kurzwell way. Oh, right. Like we're just like barreling towards the singularity

and then it's just going to go. Yeah. I mean, it makes sense with the way things are going. You know, like, I hope not, or I hope that if it does, and it's in a long time from now, but, but. Do you think that, and let me ask you this. What are your thoughts? Like if you had something to say to the people who,

the paper people, the people who are like, you digital, it's ones and zeros. You can't just do that. You're selling your JPEGs. What about, you know, these aren't canvases. You don't know how to paint. You don't know how to, you wouldn't, I bet you don't know how to put it in a,

like I remember when I took one art class, they were all, I stopped because it was like the amount of time spent on like how to stretch a canvas. Like, Jesus Christ, I just want to splatter paint on fucking paper. I don't want to stretch a canvas, but, you know, what do you have to say to the, to the negate, to the people of the negative fucking Luddites out there

who feel like you should be painting on paper and going down to your local fucking gallery and asking if you could get lucky enough to hang one of your beautiful works of art on a nail in their gallery. Well, I have, I've stopped trying to evangelize it, even though I know that it's important to reach out to the people in the naysayers and kind of like hear them out and try to, you know, so I do,

I wait for questions rather than, then try to come out here and evangelize. But basically it's, there's, okay. The fact that it's not a physical piece is irrelevant because kids these days know that are playing Fortnite and Roblox and things like that, that digital assets have value. Yes.

And, you know, the fact that, and when you do stop and break down to the right click, save as guy, which they're called, who says that all I have to do is save this and now I own it. But when you really do like reach out and explain to these people that like, okay, well, but it didn't come from me, you know, out of my, it says created by pop wonder.

Yeah. There's only one of them. It's up to me to be ethical and not create another one on another platform and sell it somewhere else. Right. But my reputation is everything for, because it's the community and people, you know, for the most part,

I feel like respect the decisions that I make because it affects them. Yes. You can, you can, you know, supply and demand. If I just like pumped out a bunch of crap, then the value of everything would go out. Right. Yeah.

Whoa, cool. Yeah. So I kind of try to keep it, you know, just the good stuff. I'm a slow drip, keep the demand there or whatever. But as far as telling these other people, so it's like, if you're not buying it, you know, out of my collection from me, then it's not for me. And then as far as just like the naysayers that want,

you know, these digital artists to like stick with traditional art or whatever, it's like, I'm not a painter and I'm not anything. I started drawing, I started drawing on paper, like in a pencil, but then like pretty quickly moved to an iPad and it's all been digital since then because I became an artist like in the Instagram era. And the, and I was doing my graphic design

as digital as well, you know, and just printed out. So it's like, basically I'm like, we have figured out a way for a digital artist like me who all of their work is ephemeral and like, you know, ones and zeros, like I said, to turn their piece into a limited edition piece and put it out into the world and make a living off of it, you know, which before, like I literally started my Instagram

so people would just like think I was good at drawing and like, that's it. Like, you know, like I never thought like it would become a commercial success at all. Wow. Yeah, I just wanted like, I was already doing my graphic design, that was fun, but I got so much, you know, so much input

from other people because they're paying you, it's fine. That I needed something that nobody was giving me any input on, so I created it, yeah. Yeah, input free, that's what you want, man. Like, no matter what, it's always better to be able to do that. Yeah, I know, man. Damn, I am so blown away, man.

You are so cool and thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you, man, thank you. Can I tell you something real quick? Yeah, please. So like, I used to work at a warehouse packing up boxes full of like acupuncture supplies, needles and herbs and stuff.

Yeah. And I'd listen to podcasts, go about my day, da-da-da, and one day I was listening to the family hour with Dean Delray. Yeah. And, you know, musician and I relate to him and stuff. And he was talking about how he changed his life and like went from working at the motorcycle dealership

to being an actor and then stand up and stuff, right? Yeah. And I like walked straight into my boss's office after that and I was like, I gotta go. I'll give you a couple more weeks. Really? Yeah. And it was so I could have more time to do graphic design.

And then, and that was four years ago this summer, this last summer, and yeah. And it was a scary decision, but it worked out like really great. And then, and now here I am. And so it's fucked up, man, right? It's fucked up. And now we're talking?

Yeah. It makes no sense. That's so fucking trippy. Yeah. Listen, listen, whatever is, we don't know. I will never understand this. What's happening in the world. It's weird beyond weird.

And whatever these forces are that are working to bring people like us together, I think they're wonderful. And I'm just glad that they exist. And that story, like, that fills me with a lot of joy. You know, cause that's, yeah, you jumped. That's it. You gotta jump.

You know what I mean? You gotta jump. I remember when I was working in the commie store friends with Rogan and he would fucking, we would get on the phone. I'm like, I got this desk job. I'm the talent coordinator there. And it's like, and he would all, he would just say like,

just quit. Just quit. You gotta jump. Just jump. And I would be like, well, oh really, just quit. I mean, come on, man, what am I gonna do? Just jump. Go for it.

You know? And sometimes I think that that is not a great advice to listen to. Sometimes you're not supposed to jump. But some, you know, so it's great to hear that you jumped and that it tumbled you into this incredible, bizarre new emergence of like, of art. It's like, that's incredible, man.

I'm, that's, that's, that's incredible. Yeah. Thank you. Fuck. That's such a mind fuck. Wow, man. Yeah. Well, who knows what's next?

You know, 2045, that's Kurzweil's prediction. Oh, wow. 2045. And before then it's gonna get really weird. Yeah, it seems on track, right? Actually, what's, what's crazy is if you read like the singularity is near, his predictions were actually off in the sense that they're happening sooner

than he predicted them. You know, the RNA shit in particular, the RNA, the, the COVID like accelerated people, like his prediction of like the RNA vaccines. And like, you know, next you're gonna, and you're already seeing it. You're gonna see like cancer getting cured. We're already seeing like the cure for AIDS.

So like, you're gonna start seeing all these like, again, it's in this, it's very, it's weirdly similar to the, like, okay. So I don't mean to go like, this is gonna be very confusing maybe cause I haven't fully groked it. But in this al, alchemical book I'm reading, it talks about this idea of separating the subtle from the gross, right?

So like, in other words, like you can look at water and you can separate from water itself, things that are like water, you know, like the Bruce Lee meme that's everywhere, become like water. If it's, so we can like, you don't have to have water to understand water ness, right? And so this NFT thing that's happening, it's got a quality to it that for just right now,

I would call like singularity ness. In other words, it's got this like quality to it that seems like anti-matter compared to the way we understand what it means to be a human, value, suffering, all the stuff we talked about. And so what is, what are the things that we understand about being human? Death is one of the things we understand about being human.

Aging is one of the things we understand about being human. But if you take this singularity ness out of NFTs and just look at it, it's like, well, look, here's something that no one fucking predicted. No one fucking predicted that all of a sudden people would be able to take digital art, singularize it. It's literally a singularity, you know what I mean? It's a one thing and then massively profit

from that singularity itself, right? Similarly, these other things that we think are gonna be with us all the time, death, old age, disease, it might not be the fucking case. Right. You know what I mean? The singularity ness quality might begin to sort of like show up in other ways that are so important,

not the shit you see on Reddit where it's like promising treatment for pancreatic cancer, but shit like, oh no, no, this is like penicillin for cancer. You come in, we give you the shot and your cancer is gonna go away. Like what the fuck? And then, and you'll see it'll have similar qualities as to what's happening with NFTs.

It will disrupt industries. It will fall the people who are making money on chemotherapy, which is great cause it heals people. I'm not knocking it like some weird or radiation therapy. All of a sudden it's like, yeah, congrats. You've got that fucking massive radiation gun thing. It's worthless now cause I can go. So it's gonna, so that's the other quality.

It fucking creates these seismic shocks that disrupt entire industries. And then also I think you can expect with all of these emergent things that are just down the line, massive pushback. Well, you know, guaranteed as soon as the, whatever the vaccine is for cancer comes out or whatever the anti-aging thing that comes out.

Oh, it's gonna be like, no, that should be fucking illegal. You can't reverse age yourself. Look at you. Oh, well, well, well, oh, you're 70 and you look like you're 23. Fuck you. Exactly. Do you know how many pandas had to die?

So you could look like you're fucking 23. You know what I mean? And in that, I think what that represents, I'm sorry, I'm really rambling here, is like a bifurcation of timelines. You're looking at like one old, musty, shitty, we rode on stone and your art goes on paper and you fucking die when you're around 80

and you can't take care of you. And the other one was just like, no, I'm whatever I wanna be. When you're born, when you have a dick, well, you're a man, you can't change it. You know what I mean? No, actually I did, I'm changing it. I can be whatever the fuck I want.

I'm gonna have a chameleon vagina in my butthole if I want to with the gene therapy that's coming out. You can go fuck yourself. You know what I mean? I'll do, I'll be whatever I want. I'll turn into a pigeon. No, you're a dad. You can't turn into a fucking pigeon.

So that, you know what I mean? Like that's what, it's like a meltdown or something. You know what I mean? It's a beautiful, glorious meltdown. I just think anytime, I'm sorry, I'm gonna wrap it up. Anytime you hear somebody doing that thing. No, no, no, no, no, that's not how it is.

That's what you need to start looking at. Exactly, that's how I feel. Something's coming from that, you know? Who knows what? That being said, you just start making, stop making these things, man. They're fucking out in the environment. Are you gonna stop?

Go back to the warehouse. Yeah, go back to the warehouse. So, do you have anything you wanna say to people listening right now who are most definitely thinking to themselves, I wanna get into making NFTs. I know a lot of artists listen to this and maybe don't understand it at all.

And I'm sure that some people listening are like, okay, what do I do? Make a Twitter account. And that was like the deal breaker for a lot of my friends back in like February and March. That's where everything's happening. People don't wanna go on Twitter or something. I made a fresh account and I think that's a good move too.

Cause I didn't have, you know, if you have a lot of followers, that's the thing, if you have a lot of followers, they are not into NFTs, most likely. Right. If you're an artist that has maybe a big following on Instagram or especially if you're just starting out and it's like make a Twitter,

it'll suck to have zero followers, but you just gotta get in there and you gotta follow some people that are doing NFTs and you gotta be looking at it and you gotta just, you know, keep making your art and observe the community and what's going on. The second would be to, you know, really think about having a cohesive body of work

and that's like something that doesn't come, you can't really force it. It's something that comes after like a long time of experimenting, but you can dial it in. You know, it feels like you're restricting yourself, but if you kind of dial in yourself with some constraints, like I was talking about in the beginning, then that kind of starts to sculpt what your style is

and basically what people are looking for when they're collecting this stuff is, you know, a cohesive style that they can recognize and also just somebody that's clear that they're in it for the long haul and that they're into NFTs and it's very organic for me, but it's been clear for me and like I said, it took a few months to build up for like people really started catching on,

but I've been buying these things and talking about them and like celebrating when I buy them and like also supporting my friends and retweeting them and, you know, and like talking to, you know, it's, I'm into NFTs and it's clear to people. Yeah. You know, because if I was just an artist that had a bunch of shit going on in the real world

and I just want to drop a collection and then you guys buy them and then they can just fuck right off after that. And just go and then that work, hopefully you liked it because you're probably going to own it forever because they're not promoting and creating new work. So that they become more popular and that, you know, because I was selling all my stuff.

The things you were looking at for like $1,700, like those would take me two weeks to sell out like 20 of them for like 150 bucks, right? Yeah. And so now they, you know, I have to like create new systems to sell them because they'll sell too fast or like, you know, like people will like lose their transaction fees

fighting for them or whatever, you know? But yeah, so the point is like, you got to be in it for the long haul and don't let little dips in the sales of your NFT and in the value of the cryptocurrency to affect you a lot and get your spirits down or whatever. You just got to just plug away. I mean, it's just like anything.

It's just like podcasting you, like we podcast because we love to podcast. I mean, that's it. Like, I love to, I'm a podcast. That's what I do. I love it. I'll never stop doing it. It's just my favorite thing.

So it sounds like that. It's like, don't get in it for a cash grab. Don't get in it for like, like you need to like respect because it's cool because it's more than just the, I hear you say it's more than the art. It's like a, the art is a fractal of this like growing community of artists. It's, wow, that's so trippy, Matt.

So cool. Hmm, cool. Well, where can people find you, JP? Yeah, Pop Wonder NFT on Twitter is the best place. Pop Wonder World on Instagram is a good way to like just see all the, all my past stuff in a row. But I neglected it compared to Twitter because there's a lot more action on Twitter

these days for this stuff. I love people. And I don't actually, I'm kind of actually like in the closet on Instagram. Weird, man. That's so, I get the, it's so funny. People are like, I'm not going on Twitter. He's like a cesspool.

How bizarre is that? It's so strange. No, it's, it's great. If you're in NFT Twitter as a, as a pop in place to be. I'm getting into it. As soon as I, I'm going to follow all the people you follow. As soon, so I've held back a couple of people or a couple of pieces in my collection

or I even bought one back one day cause it was listed for too low. I was like disrespectful. I bought it back from the person. And so as soon as you get your wallet set up and everything I got one coming your way. What? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I could not accept that. That's incredible. I accept it. You don't have a choice how to send it to you. Thank you. Holy shit. Thank you. Thank you.

It's been a real, real, real pleasure getting to know you. Thank you so much for doing this show. Yeah, likewise. Hare Krishna. That was JP Downer, everybody. Make sure you follow him on Twitter and on Instagram. Big thank you to all of our sponsors and thank you for listening to this podcast.

I love you and I'll see you next week. Until then, Hare Krishna. We are family. A good time starts with a great wardrobe. Next stop, JC Penney. Family get-togethers to fancy occasions, wedding season two. We do it all in style. We're wearing dresses, suiting, and plenty of color to play with.

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We are family. A good time starts with a great wardrobe. Next stop, JC Penney. Family get-togethers to fancy occasions, wedding season two. We do it all in style. Dresses, suiting, and plenty of color to play with. Get fixed up with brands like Liz Claiborne, Worthington, Stafford, and Jay Farrar.

Oh, and thereabouts for kids. Super cute and extra affordable. Check out the latest in store, and we're never short on options at jcp.com. All dressed up everywhere to go. JC Penney.