Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - 245: Our Creative Spaces Over The Years | Ear Biscuits Ep.245

Episode Date: June 15, 2020

From dorm life to the GMM studios to the Creative House, R&L have shared many spaces together over the years. Listen to them reflect on their past creative spaces and the impact that it has had on their content on this episode of Ear Biscuits! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance.

Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamx. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Welcome to Ear Biscuits. I'm Rhett. And I'm Link. This week, boy, I've been waiting to say this again,

and I get to be the first one to say it because we alternate, and the lot was cast to me at the round table of dim lighting. Why are you looking at me like that? I just wanted to make sure you didn't screw it up. Now you're making me nervous. I wanted to make sure you didn't screw it up, man. This week, at the round table of dim lighting.

That's right. We are at the round table of dim lighting. We are back here with our microphones, with our table, with each other, talking at each other's faces and appreciating the places that have meant so much to our creativity over the years, starting with this table.

I mean, I'm so glad to be back here in this spot having this conversation because just like we talked about with Good Mythical Morning, shooting on split screen, man, I was gonna say that's overrated, but we never rated it too highly. No, it just, it got old real quick. It was nice to be back behind the desk.

It's nice to be back behind the table, man. Now, yeah, the's just, it got old real quick. It was nice to be back behind the desk. It's nice to be back behind the table, man. Now, yeah, the days of, well, I'm not gonna say the days, that time period of USB audio where people began to complain about my breathing, I noticed that people were complaining about my breathing. Well, hopefully those days are over for a while. Puffing and puffing and dad noises. We don't know what's gonna happen.

We don't know if there's gonna be a second lockdown. We don't know how this whole thing is gonna unfold, but we know that we are back in the space that we wanted to be in. Now we are wearing headphones and that is because Kiko, who would normally be worrying about all of this technical stuff is still in Texas. So when he gets back, I will go,

I at least will go back to my, take the headphones off. You're going canvass. Let it all hang out. But for now, this could all go wrong because we turned all these cameras on ourselves. We turned the audio recorder on ourselves and we are then going to be responsible for- I think it's working. Putting the cards.

They just, they make it so easy for us. Nick made a video. It was like walking two toddlers through the process. He almost used a baby voice. He could have used a baby voice and I would not have been offended because I like things to be made clear to me and Link. I'm confident that we've got it worked out.

And like I said, appreciating being back in this space has led to this conversation that we wanna have today, which is the importance of physical spaces to our creativity. It was something that I think we knew instinctively or we had these impulses to like build an environment around us that would enhance our ability to do what we wanted to do.

But it took a while to really come to grips with like, okay, this is a legitimate exercise. Yeah, so we're gonna take a trip through memory lane and kind of trace the spaces through our career, but also talk about some of the challenges that we've experienced because of how just unusual the year 2020 has been and what that has meant for Spaces. But I did, I've been sitting on a story.

I've been sitting on a story for a couple of weeks now that I've been wanting to tell you. Let it loose, man. So one of the things that Shepard and I do together is ride bikes. We don't do it so often for me to say that it's like our thing. I know that you and Lincoln have gotten

into mountain biking together. Yeah, he's not huge into it. Every time I ask him to do it, he reluctantly says yes. Well, not every, most of the time. Yeah. And Lando has a bike and I'll take them biking. And I mean, we all dreamed about the idea of as a dad, just being able to say, hey, let's go do fill in the blank

and the lights in our kids' eyes just turning on and then being so excited to go spend a day of adventure with dad, well, that only happens in the movies and it probably happens in their memories. They're probably gonna remember it finally, but in the moment it's like, do I have to go? When I mentioned riding a bike, the light goes off in their memories. They're probably gonna remember it finally. But in the moment it's like, do I have to go? When I mentioned riding a bike, the light goes off in their eyes.

What happened to us, Link? I don't know. Video games. But I have noticed that Lincoln, as we're starting to allow him to see some friends in very controlled open air environments, still with masks in the mix and distancing fully intact. He's riding his bike to meet his friends and like he and Locke are hanging out some and you know,

they're like hanging out outside and doing some explorations in the neighborhood and I'm like, yes, finally, they're doing some of the stuff that like we used to do. Might get you hurt a little bit. A little bit of innocent trespassing. Well, it's not, yeah, maybe, maybe. We don't know what they're doing.

There might be some fences that lead to some water. I don't, we don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know where they're going. We're not gonna talk about it publicly by any means. But I was encouraged that like they're out on their bikes, meeting each other. Right.

In like. It's like Stand By Me, they're gonna go find a dead body. Well, don't spoil it for me. Probably not. Well, that's kind of, I mean, you kind of learned that right at the top. Okay, good. So also you can't spoil a movie that's several decades old.

That's like an impossibility. I know, I was just playing into the link. But you should watch it though. And that's one, if you didn't think Ferris Bueller was, you know, would wow you, Stand By Me is a different level of movie. It is a intense, joyous, but sad. I mean, it's just, it's a beautiful, beautiful movie. Anyway, so I decided-

You and Shepherd are biking. To go biking with Shepherd, and this is the first time that we have, you just watered your dog with your mug. I didn't realize it was so full. So we decided to go out, and you know how it is, I mean, for some reason, when you make a decision to be like, I'm gonna go out, and I'm gonna ride bikes with my son,

you want it to be relatively easy. You wanna be like, okay, I'm gonna take his bike down from the place that it's hanging in the garage and we're gonna put it on the bike rack and we're gonna drive to the place that we're gonna bike. But no, but of course, of course, when I pull his bike down, out of nowhere, his tire's flat.

I knew you were gonna say that. Do you remember ever having a flat tire when we were kids? No, but it's something about California. There's some California spurs. Because I feel like I rode the same bike tires and inner tubes. Never once changed. Like my entire childhood,

or at least when I got a bike, I kept that bike and those inner tubes. Never had to, I had to pump up the tires occasionally. Let me tell you, Jack, they- Tell me, Jack. There were some sand spurs back in North Carolina too. But we never hit them. I don't know what it is, but yes, okay.

So had to patch, had to patch the inner tube because I didn't have a replacement. Of course, this requires taking the inner tube. Oh, patch. Because I didn't have a replacement. Of course, this requires taking the wheel off. And then I got to put it back on. It was the front tire, thankfully, a little bit easier. And then I'm like, okay. So I kind of got mad at that point. Did you invite Shepherd to help you patch the tire?

Because that was a dad choice. I thought about it. All right, son, you know what? We're gonna help you patch the tire? Because that was a dad choice. I thought about it. All right, son, you know what? We're gonna learn to patch a tire together because I don't know how to do it either. As I, no, and I do how to do it because I've had to do it like five times since living in California, but he would,

like I got the bike down, I was like, oh man, you got a flat tire. And he was like, okay, I'm going upstairs. Let me know when you're ready. And then I was just like, okay, I don't wanna fight him here because I'm having to fight him to go ride bikes. If you force him to change it, he's not gonna ride it. So let me, this is a key point,

I was already a little bit in a bad mood. Fix the bike, put the bike on the rack, we go to the place that we're gonna ride and Shepard's already complaining, he's like, "'Dad, my bike hurts me and my legs get cramped. It's too small. And I'm like, okay, well, first of all, it's not that small. And if you can go out and do the things

that I'm asking you to do today, I'll get you a new bike. I've been through all of this too. I mean, all of the flat tires, all of the bribery. Promising new bikes. Yeah. And so I said, Shepherd, the thing that we're going to concentrate on today is you being able to stand up and pedal because he'll do it,

but he doesn't quite get his weight. He's like really using his quads. And I'm trying to get him to understand, standing up while riding your bike is how you get power. It's how you go up hills. You know, this is a quintessential skill set that I'm trying to pass on to my kids. And by the time I was 11 years old,

of course I could stand up on a bike because all we did was ride bikes around. But the only time that we ride bikes as a family is when we ride bikes as a family. You know what I'm saying? It's like he's not riding his bike around the neighborhood. I don't know exactly know why. It's probably because we've got so many hills

and it would be really difficult. Yeah. But anyway, we get out there. Especially if you can't stand up. And we're in a relatively flat area. But instead of taking the concrete path or the paved path that we would normally take around this big area, I was like, let's go down into some of these little trails and stuff.

It's not like a mountain biking area necessarily. It's more of a walking area, but mountain bikes are allowed. And I just noticed really early on that Shepherd is lagging behind, right? And so I'll get ahead of him, then I'll go back and be like, all right, Shepard, you gotta keep up with me. I mean, this is flat. I mean, there's nothing, this isn't hard.

I kept saying, I was like, this is not hard. We haven't gotten to anything hard yet. He was like, well, I can make it hard. If you want me to make this difficult, I can do it. I wasn't there yet. Oh. And he was like, well, it's hot and this is hard. And he like kept having to stop and then he would stop and he would push his bike like on a flat surface and I was like,

Shepard, you're not getting a new bike. Oh no. I was like, you're not listening to me, you're not standing up, you're not doing any of the stuff that I asked you to do and so I'm not getting a new bike and then it just had this look of defeat. I felt bad but I was also like, I was texting Jesse. Tough love, huh?

You went with tough love. I was texting Jesse and I was like, we gotta do something. We gotta send him to bike school or something because dad is failing, I don't know what to do. Oh, I know this is good. I feel like I'm losing control. Bike schools, if you want me to write them down for you. And then we get to this long straightaway

and I'm like, There's a bike school. There probably is one. Shepherd, I'm like, there's this long straightaway and I'm like- That's a bike school. There probably is one. Shepherd, I'm like, there's this long straightaway and I'm like, Shepherd, okay, there's no excuse for you not being able to ride on this. It's almost like concrete, there's no sand because he was complaining about like the sandy parts and then I just, I was like, I was thinking like,

what is the fatherly thing to do here? What is the thing that he will remember? And so I thought about what happened with you when you got drunk in high school. What's that got to do with this? Well, and how I like dropped you off and made you walk and then I came back to meet you. Okay.

I didn't really formulate this plan. It kind of just came to me in the moment and then I was like, okay, I'm going to leave him on this straightaway. I'm just gonna bike this plan, it kinda just came to me in the moment and then I was like, okay, I'm going to leave him on this straightaway, I'm just gonna bike and I'm not gonna look back and I'm gonna disappear. Eat my dust, kid! I'm gonna disappear and I'm gonna see

if he's gonna react, if he's gonna respond, if he's gonna grab hold of this mama and- Stand up and pedal. And bike on this path. So I go, it's a long way. Okay. I go a long way. Just so you do know what you seem like to everyone listening at this point, right?

Listen. A tyrant. No, I'm not a tyrant. I know that- It was an opportunity for growth. I know the feeling, I'm with you, but everybody's not. And I was giving him an opportunity to respond, right? You think I'm a tyrant? Let me tell you some of the stories about what my dad,

I told you that I learned how to swim in the river when my dad threw me into the river. Yeah, that makes it all okay. Okay, but no, I'm like, if my dad's a 10, I'm a one when it comes to this. That's not true, but okay. So I- You're ditching it.

I drive off, or ride off. Do you drive a bike? Were you in a car this whole time? You left that detail out. I mean, but I'm commanding the bike. I'm not just riding on it. I am driving it. And I don't know the proper term.

I disappear over the horizon, and then I kind of stop under a tree and wait. And then I go back around this little bend and I look, and he is pushing that bike, and I am just not happy about it. Livid. But at this point I was like, I just can't, you know, what else can you do? I can't do anything.

I can't break his spirit anymore. You could go back to the car and leave him there permanently. Well. I mean, if you wanna abandon your son. So I go to him and I say, Shepard, I don't know what happened today, but we gotta get back to the car.

And so we start pushing the bikes. Oh God. And I'm still thinking about like fatherly things to say and like, how do I send a message here? How do I give him an opportunity to want to, I'm thinking about preserving his desire to bicycle. You know what I'm saying? We're in that stage at this point. And so I'm like, you know what I'm saying? Like we're in that stage at this point.

And so I'm like, you know what? He's going very slow. I'm like, let me push your bike. I'll push both of our bikes and all you have to do is walk. Okay. So I put my bike in one hand, I grabbed his bike in the other hand

and I begin to walk with it and two seconds into walking with his bike, I'm like, something is wrong with his bike. It is your tire, isn't it? Is it the tire? And it's my fault. You patched. No, no, no.

When I patched the front tire, You dispatched. I put it on, I pumped it up and you spin the wheel to make sure that the brake is not catching, right? But something happened between putting the bike on the rack and then giving him the bike that his front brake was catching. And so the reason he couldn't do anything

is because it was almost like he was going up a hill the whole time, regardless of the slope. Because he had this resistance in the front brake and I was like, Shepard, your bike is messed up, man. Your front brake is catching. That is why you've had such a hard time today. Yeah. And I was like, man, I am so sorry

for everything that I just said to you. I thought that you- But you should have found it. You should have noticed. No, I said, I thought that you had just completely given up and I was like, he's been playing too many video games. Well, he's lost his ability to be outside.

I've created a monster. And then he's laughing. Now we're laughing at each other. Okay. And I'm like, Shepard, this is just a sign that we need to ride bikes more because you couldn't perceive that something was wrong with your bike. And as soon as I touched it,

I knew that there was something wrong. We got to ride bikes more. I said, you know what, when we get home, I'm gonna pick you out a new bike. So we went home. But we're gonna break it and you have to figure out what's broken. My story's not done.

Oh, dang, am I spoiling your story? I buy a new bike. Yeah, because you offered the old bike. Rhett texts me and he's like, "'Hey, does Lando need a bike? "'I'm getting Shepard a bigger one "'cause he's too small for this one, maybe Lando.' And you sent me a picture of it."

But you didn't tell me that it was bunk. No, no, it's my fault. It just needs, the front brakes need to be adjusted. It's a good bike, it's a Trek. I don't want that bike. So I do have a bike available for anybody who wants it. So we get a new bike and you had bought your bike at the local bike shop, which is what I wanted to do.

Support local businesses. But I decided not to do that because I didn't want to, I'm trying not to go in places. Like I'm still not even going into grocery stores. Call me crazy, but we're still- I wouldn't call you crazy, I would just call you a bad dad and a bad shopper. Right.

We're trying to maintain, because we're coming into the office and we're working with each other and then working with a very small group of people, everyone who's doing that, we're just trying to maintain essentially an isolation until we come and work together. So everybody knows, hey, we're safe.

So I'm not really going into any place. Yeah. And well, so I ordered the bike online and I don't know, I've never bought a bike online. I thought this means, you know. Some dude's gonna ride up on your bike. Yeah, I thought UPS man just rode up,

put a kickstand down and gave it to you. There is no kickstand, didn't get that kind of bike. That's not what happens, a box shows up and it's called a box build, which is most of the bike has been put together, but some very key elements like the front fork is not attached to the frame. Like this is a, and that's a kind of a key part,

part of the whole process, right? Oh man. And I called the local bike shop and I was like, I just got this bike in a box. He was like, yeah, it's called a box build, a hundred dollars and we're a month out. Oh gosh. Apparently everyone's doing this.

And you could sense the bitterness in his voice because he's like, you jackass, you went and bought it online, you could have just bought it from us. And you know what, probably isn't even a month, wait. I called another bike shop, they were like, we're a month out. It's like, it's the thing they say.

Punitive, punitive. Tell them it's a month out. Do you think about returning it and just getting one from the local? No, I said, well, I'm gonna build it. Oh. I have YouTube. I actually make a living on it.

I brought up a YouTube video. And at this point, you had a dad choice to include Shepard in the building of his bike. I knew that I did not need Shepard to witness what was going to happen. Knowing how easily this could go wrong. Yeah. Seven minutes in, I break it.

I'm trying to attach the thing to the thing and I'm tightening it down and then there's like a little cap that goes on top of your dilly dally and it like broke. Can I ask you? Yeah, ask me anything you want. When this happens, are you an audible cursor or are you a mumbler

or are you a silent cursor? I think all of the above. So you do go to audible cursing range? Oh yes. And is it like full on like? No, it's not. Are you going like F bombs? Well, yeah, but I'm not, but it's more of just like.

I don't do that. I'll be like, and I'm very critical of myself when I make a mistake like this. I'm lying, I've done that. And I'm like Rhett, you effing idiot. I'll say things like that to myself. Yeah. Because I'm just like,

you shouldn't have done this box build in the first place and now you screwed it up. I hate that feeling. So now- It's worse when it's a car, which I know we've both also done in our early days of marriage. We thought we would impress our wives by fixing our own cars.

Yeah, I told her the car one time. Engineering degrees do not help with practical things like building bikes. And let me tell you, the YouTube videos were not helpful at all. At least the ones that I watched. So newsflash, I had to take the bike to the bike shop. Oh man, talk about the walk of shame.

And of course, first of all, I haven't been in a public place. So I like, like there's a, the bike shop that we go to, there's like, there's an open door, then there's the counter. And so I like kind of, I kind of go and I look in there and there's like three people in the bike shop. Everybody's got on masks. They're all standing really far apart.

And I kind of just stand in the doorway until a guy helps the people and he comes to me and he's like, I'm like, box build, I screwed it up. I need you to do it. He's like, you know, it'll be a month out. Yes, I know it'll be a month. It did tell you how much, a hundred bucks, I know. Yeah.

And then I said, is there any way I could pay extra to get it faster? He was like, ah, we've done that a couple of times. And you know, I can't make any promises. And also you end up doubling your investment in what you paid for this. At that point, he was just trying, he was pushing me off of it and I was like, okay,

just let me know when you're done. I'll shamefully walk back in here and get a bike for my son and then go bond with him. Meanwhile, has he been watching YouTube videos on how to stand up and bike? That's not how it works. You gotta just do it. Well, you still got the old bike.

Yeah, I do. But I have to fix that. I mean, it wouldn't be that hard to do, but I'm so mad at that bike. Are you mad at the bike or are you mad at someone else? It's one of those things that when you're in the midst of quarantine, and I think that everyone,

like the thing that we've been noticing is the family has just never been around each other this much. Oh gosh, I know it. And you're just like, usually there would be like, somebody would go somewhere, like a kid would go someplace. I mean going- School or anything. I've just learned that going places and interacting and doing other things, really,

even if you're an introvert, there's gotta be a certain level of like, at least getting away from the people in your home that then it's nice to realize there's more world than just the people in your own home. I mean, the thing that resonates with me is the first week of quarantine, I'm like getting water and ice out of the freaking fridge

and there's no ice. And the whole, my ice maker's broken. I haven't had ice. This whole time? The whole time, because I didn't want to call someone to come in the house and fix it. It's like the 1700s with your house. We're pouring ice into the little things

and then not refilling it, but leaving it in there so that when someone goes for ice and it's just an empty tray with no water or ice in it, everybody gets upset. And then, you know, all this wind's coming through and I look outside yesterday and the tree in front of my house, like the little tree that staked down, I mean, it's like a seven foot tall tree

but still pretty thin, it's like blown over because the stake that was holding it up broke. And here I am, I'm trying to like restake the tree and I can't even do it. Like we're not men anymore, man. We can't do crap. We can't do stuff that we thought, that you're supposed to be, oh, the tree fell over

or the bike's in a box, that's fine. Well, my son is a disappointment, I can fix this. I did do plumbing. I did plumbing this past weekend. You did plumbing? The garbage disposal had come loose and was leaking and- You tightened something. Well, no, it fell off completely.

Oh, wow. And I watched a YouTube video for that. And I got to a place where I was about to tell Jesse, we have to call a plumber. And, but I did it, I did it and I was so proud of myself. It feels good when you do it. I can do something. But it's just hard.

It's hard to actually get stuff done and not screw it up. It's, I mean, kids included. Everybody's fuse is a little bit shorter. And it's gonna take some kind of like, I know we're both thinking about doing some kind of vacation, like a local, somewhere in California, maybe taking a vacation at some point.

But boy, I think- It might be five separate vacations. I think we need that. I'm gonna call it a firework vacation where it's like, okay, go, and then everybody just goes in a different direction. Call that the firework staycation. Yeah, how do you take a vacation and then just

leave your kids somewhere? I think all of this, again, really brings me back to appreciating the spaces that we haven't been able to enjoy, like being back here and, you know, our offices and stuff like that, which is what we want to talk about. So we'll get to it. Shop Best Buy's ultimate smartphone sale today. Get a Best Buy gift card of up to $200 on select phone activations with major carriers. Visit your nearest Best Buy store today.

Terms and conditions apply. You actually thought of talking about space. Why did you do that? What made you think about spaces? Well. Me and Lincoln building the thing? Well, no, it was the fact that we were coming back. It was twofold.

Yeah, what we talked about, but what's the other fold? It was that yesterday, was that yesterday? Yeah. We were over in the creative house and the creative house, you know, the vision for the creative house of being decorated and moved in, of course, the virus also infected that process and has really slowed it down.

But furniture for different parts of the house, including the living room, and then some stuff in your office came in and Lincoln, Lincoln, we're putting some of it together. And so I was just thinking about, you know, it's funny because we designed this space here for ourselves. I mean, we didn't design this space

that we're in right now necessarily. We took advantage of the fact that it was like an awesome recording studio that happened to be here at the space we were renting. But we designed our space for our office. And then we've talked about this already, but how we came to the conclusion that we needed our own space again, ironically,

because this space doesn't necessarily say, Hey Rhett and Link, create. It says, Hey Rhett and Link. Have meetings. Be your business boys. Supervise and be business boys. And yeah, so getting this other space where it was a new zone where we could express ourselves

and we knew that that first meant like setting it up. Because we have a long history of setting up spaces. Like, I mean, I'll go all the way back to college. We really started to appreciate having our own space. I mean, remember how exciting it was when we moved in to our dorm room at NC State? And I remember the first few weeks of school, you're like walking around the quad

and like you're going to classes. And do you remember this? All of these vendors had set up, they were selling crap, mostly posters. You remember this? They were selling posters all over the quad and they were like huge posters, little posters, mostly just like band posters and cool movie posters.

And they knew that college students who were just moving into their dorm rooms would just go bananas. Oh yeah, it's like, ooh, Bob Marley. So many Bob Marley posters. I kind of felt like I needed to get a Bob Marley poster just because it seemed like the thing to do. But instead we got a Pulp Fiction poster

where Vincent Vega and- Jules. Jules were, I think it's after they were shot at and it miraculously didn't get hit, then they just opened fire. The scene with Brad. And then we also bought a meeting, a poster of a meeting between Elvis,

who seemed to be like in his like, Last days. On his last legs, meeting President Nixon. And I actually don't know the story behind that poster. The story behind that poster is- I was like, okay, it's kind of cool. No, it was a, I'm gonna get some of these details wrong. But my understanding is that,

it was an anti-drug meeting. That's what makes it so funny, right? It was an ironic poster. And I think that they may have even made Elvis like an honorary DEA officer or something. Like, I don't know how the legend goes, but they have been talking about drugs. And of course, Elvis obviously had been using a lot of drugs

and it's just like, and you've got like Nixon in a suit and Elvis in his suit, which is a very different kind of suit. Yeah. We loved that poster, man. Yeah, and I didn't even know the full story behind it and I just thought it was like odd and ironic. I could sense the irony. It didn't have to be explained to me.

That's where we got Mr. Fly from the thrift store, like the velour couch that then we would pose like Lionel and made Project Lionel. And then we decorated the wall with pictures of Lionel. I mean, if you don't know the story, you can get it in the book of mythicality. But you know, it was just so exciting to have this space, this hideout, this little dungeon space.

I mean, we had no light coming in. Our window was right under the steps to the first floor and it was pitch dark in the broad daylight. Which is good for college because you can just sleep and they're in the middle of the day and it feels like night. And it smelled like a basement. I like that smell.

It was very dank in that sense. And then we moved to an apartment with Greg and then the next year is when Tim moved in too, but the apartment was like, whoa, it's not just one room now. Like we don't just have to have this little fridge. I think it was Lily that asked me the other day, she was like, what did you have in your dorm room to cook with?

And I was like, Toaster oven and microwave. Yeah, we had a dorm fridge with a microwave sitting on top of it, and then a toaster oven sitting on top of that. The triple threat. Yeah. That's all you needed.

They should make that as one unit that they sell for college students. That's a good idea. It's probably a huge fire hazard though. And also like it'll- Fridge, microwave. Too much amps. Toaster oven.

I'd love to have a fridge that you could just put bread into the side of it and it pop out toast. That's pretty cool. Or it's a- Toaster fridge. No, what it is- It's a good idea. It's a fridge that's got a toaster and a microwave.

And when you place your hand on one of the objects in the fridge, it knows whether to send it to the toaster oven or the microwave. And then on top of that, it's got like a humidifier or like one of those, what's those vaporizer things that like our wives put around our house and I'm addicted to it. Yeah, vaporizer.

That makes smells, nice smells. That seems unnecessary. That feels like maybe that's in the deluxe package. That makes smells, nice smells. That seems unnecessary. That feels like maybe that's in the deluxe package. Deluxe package, man. You got to sell them up. We're going to put that on mythical.com. What was the last thing that filled you with wonder that took you away from your desk or your car in traffic?

Well, for us, and I'm going to guess for some of you, that thing is... Anubay! Hi, I'm Nick Friedman. I leo murray and i'm leah president and welcome to crunchyroll presents the anime effect it's a weekly news show with the best celebrity guests and hot takes galore so join us every friday wherever you get your podcasts and watch full video episodes on crunchyroll or on the crunchyroll youtube channel yeah but we always thought and this is,

we weren't seeing it as a creative space at the time. We were seeing it as a space to live in and express ourselves. But we ran coax cable to connect multiple televisions in multiple rooms so that we could have people over and watch movies in multiple rooms at once. Well, and we had the Planet of the Apes party, if I recall correctly.

Yeah. I don't know if we've ever told this story, I'm sure we have, but we got this idea that we were going to invite every woman, every woman that we saw on campus. This was a, sounds like a you and Greg idea. It was definitely a me and Greg. I mean, I was dating Christy, so I had to like,

I had to wash my hands of this plot. So Greg and I were like, all right, what we're gonna do is, But I was interested. When you see a group of women on campus, you just walk up to them and you say, hey, we're having a Planet of the Apes party, 3000 C, Gorman Crossings, Friday night, 7 p.m., whatever we said, bring whoever you want.

Yeah. Now keep in mind that- And they're like, Planet of the Apes party? It's like, yeah, we're gonna watch Planet of the Apes. Don't matter what room of the house you're in, you'll be watching it in sync with everyone else. Every TV would be playing Planet of the Apes party? It's like, yeah, we're gonna watch Planet of the Apes. Don't matter what room of the house you're in, you'll be watching it in sync with everyone else. Every TV would be playing Planet of the Apes. Now, let me just say a couple of things.

We're talking about the original Planet of the Apes, right? Because the new ones hadn't come out yet. Charlton Heston. And we weren't, because we were involved in the Campus Crusade campus ministry, as we have talked about extensively. We weren't drinking, so there was gonna be no alcohol, but not only was there going to be no alcohol,

there was going to be no anything, like no, and actually this was part of the experiment. Do you remember this? I showed up late. No, no. And I didn't help plan it. No, me and Greg, it's almost like a- No pun intended.

Me and Greg thought- I didn't help plan it of the apes, it's almost like a- No pun intended. Me and Greg thought- I didn't help plant it of the apes. Thought that it would be like a social experiment. It's so stupid. To not provide food or drink. No food, no drink, just planted of the apes. That's so stupid. And-

Like the worst party ever. I mean, if you take care of the big things at a party, the little things take care of themselves. Yeah. Like if you got a bunch of strangers things at a party, the little things take care of themselves. Yeah. Like if you got a bunch of strangers, I was gonna say a bunch of strange women, but I just, women that you don't know. You only invited women,

and then they can invite anybody they want. Because if you invite women, men will show up. I mean- They'll come out of the woodwork. Well, because we knew that our like dude friends are gonna show up, but first of all, I don't believe that any of the women that we didn't know who we just randomly asked first of all, I don't believe that any of the women that we didn't know who we just randomly asked on campus,

I don't believe any of them came. I think they saw through, oh, this is a typical planet. They ate this party, no food, no drink, no fun. They probably won't let us even use the restroom. I don't use the restroom. No need for it if you're not drinking. But it was so- There was a lot of people there though.

You knew that it was kooky. It was just, I mean, is that a fair word to say? It was just like, so it was intentionally odd. Yeah. And so it gave you the confidence. If I'm to go up to strange women on campus, you know, because it was just like, this is weird. So me going up to someone I don't know

is less weird than what I'm gonna say once I get up there. So it was like, you had to work up, once you worked up the gumption to have the party, inviting strangers was easy. It's kind of brilliant, kind of brilliant. I'm glad you think that, because I never thought of it that way. Execution, the whole thing was a ploy

to work yourself up to talk to strange women. But if it had been a good party and like memorable. It would have happened again. There was more Planet of the Apes movies. Yeah, well that was the idea. Let's show the first one, see what happens. I don't recall it ever happening. Disaster.

We're not really talking about the space beyond the coax cables like going from room to room and not well hidden. But also at that time, our idea of what a space was going to be was so like college dudes. It didn't matter. The washer and dryer were in the kitchen. In the kitchen, yeah.

I was doing the laundry when I saw that giant ass rat come out from underneath the refrigerator. Yeah, very scary. But our first workspace was not really that great of a space because after engineering, there was the stint working with Campus Crusade at the regional office. We were working in cubicles.

We went into like a meeting room and we would set up a camera and we would whisper into a microphone and those were our first videos. But it wasn't our own space. It wasn't and you know, and so we wanted our own space. It was around this time that with Campus Crusade, since we were, we had special roles. It's like we would travel and we would speak

and we were like resident videographers and like all the things that we talked about, like MCs and sketch artists, comedian guys. Sketch artists, that's a completely different. Yeah, not in that way. There was a conference that they put on just for the creative types within Campus Crusade. And this was a national conference,

and where they pulled together everybody from all the regions and- Creativity summit. Called the Creativity Summit. Because when you're in a, like a campus ministry, and or maybe this is true of any kind of group, but they like to put on conferences. Oh yeah. And we got, it was invitation only.

Most of the people who worked in the organization, they worked on campus. You know, they didn't, they weren't the creative type, like a graphic designer or, you know, a speaker or a filmmaker, videographer type like we were. So we were invited to this thing. It was in conjunction with a film festival out here in Los Angeles. Duh-maw. This was our first trip to this thing. It was in conjunction with a film festival out here in Los Angeles.

Duh-maw. This was our first trip to Los Angeles. Super exciting. I mean, we started meeting other creative types from other regions. It was very cool. It was very inspiring. And then they had speakers to talk about cultivating

and legitimizing creativity because our roles and everyone who was there their roles were kind of on the fringe of what the main type of job descriptions were with the organization, right? But I remember one guy talking and he might've been a former like Disney imagineer. He was and he's in that documentary, Imagineering.

Oh really? Yeah, because he was at Disney forever. I remember specifically, they talked about something that seemed so obvious and it's exactly what we're talking about now. It's the importance of space to foster creativity. And like I said, even though we had this instinct of like, I made hideouts as a kid and like, you know, my ex stepdad, Jimmy,

we built that tree house and we would, you and I would hang out back there. It's like having your own space where it's like, I can cook things up and I can do my own thing. That was, you know, that was part of who we were. But we came back from that knowing that the cramped little office that we were, you know, secluding ourself and was not adequate

for the creative ideas that we had for specifically- And it gave us permission. That guy gave us permission to want to have a space that was conducive for creativity. Well, and the BHAGs, because he's the one that talks about the big, hairy, audacious- Goals. Goals. Also Scott Derrickson was at that film festival

and spoke. That's right. Filmm Also Scott Derrickson was at that film festival and like spoke. That's right. Filmmaker Scott Derrickson. Yeah, he directed Dr. Strange. He directed a lot of horror movies. So yeah, so we get back and that's when we know we need a space. And I knew that my father-in-law had this,

you know, the basement underneath his, what at the time was sort of his like business headquarters for his dentistry. And you saw this in the LTAT video when we went back to North Carolina and you weren't able to go, but I kinda, it was open. So I went in there. But that was the beginning of us having a space

that was intentionally a creative space. And that's where so many of the, sort of the aesthetics of early Rhett and Link stuff, you know, a lot of this has, a lot of this has, you know, remained to this day, the checkered floor, which incidentally, somebody said on YouTube, that was like a Illuminati thing, so. Oh, give me a break.

No, no, no, I mean, I like playing into it. So yeah, it's an Illuminati thing, that's why we had the checkered floor. Give me a break. The original green. I don't know anything about it. The original green Rhett and Link green. Well, I think we-

Was really for a green screen. We painted a wall green screen and then we painted the other wall blue just so we could have a different background. Well, because you can do blue screen, you can do green screen. It depends on what color you're wearing. And that's when I started collecting

those Merle Haggard albums and we put them around the front office room. And since then, everywhere we've had an office, we've moved my collection of Merle albums. They're in the office right there now, but. Well, and there was, it's funny because there were basically all the elements that we've now always tried to recreate, we're technically,

if you think about it, we're in that space, right? You've got a workspace where me and you have desks together and can kind of develop the ideas. We've got a place where we shoot the things that we're doing. We've got a studio space, which it wasn't. It was just another room. Back room with no windows, which is nice. And we had a recording booth, right?

And because music was such a big part of everything that we were doing at that time. So we like turned an old closet into a recording booth. It was just nice to be able to go there and, you know, if anybody else stepped in, it's like immediately, this is weird, like what? In the middle of Harnett County, like people would step in. You know, some people would show up and knock on the door

because it was like a records office, like a government records office. It was right next to the DWI Center. Right. So if someone who had gotten a DWI had to then, you know, the county made them report to this place where they would get help. And many of them thought that we were the DWI center.

We didn't treat anyone. We would, you know, that would be irresponsible. We would just send them next door. Next door, yeah. But whenever we stepped in, I remember this feeling of, we can do whatever we want. You know, it was just like this exciting level of freedom. Well, and there's a pressure that comes too, I think.

And an expectation that like, all right, we set this up how we want it. You set the space up. If we can't start making stuff, if we don't make stuff, it's our own fault. And we made stuff. Oh yeah. And I think that that,

that getting the space that we needed, that was one of the most, I mean, not in terms of the amount of content, because now we create more content than we ever did. And it's sort of steadily increased. But that was sort of the beginning of us being very prolific in terms of the amount of stuff we were working on and creating.

No one that we saw on YouTube had a space and everything we shot, you know, if you watch our videos, you would get to know everything in his space because we shot everything there or on the street outside of it. Just look at the Facebook song music video. You'll see like the street corners of Lillington, North Carolina.

But on YouTube, it was, you know, it was younger people in their bedrooms shooting vlogs, shooting stuff like that. You know, it was, no one was doing it. No one that I knew of was set up in that way. And I mean, I couldn't imagine that. I mean, I have kids at home. You know, if I was gonna act like a fool,

I couldn't do it at home because there's babies crying. Well, you know, I do think that's a, we can jump forward and then jump back. But to contrast that, you know, there's been a few times in our lives where we've had to involuntarily step back into a restricted space, right? And I think that the two times that I think about most are,

well, I guess three times, moving to California, right? Because there was the studio space in Fuquay that was after the one in Lillington, which was another big space. That was even bigger. But then, and it had high ceilings, and no toilets above us. But we moved to California,

we were working with who became our good friends, Joke and Biagio at Joke Productions who produced Commercial Kings. And then we talked them into letting us have a little office in their production studio because we were just living in these furnished apartments and had nowhere to work. But that was, again, a constriction on the space. It was kind of like individual edit bays in a high rise.

That's exactly what it was. Yeah. So we were like in this basically windowless room with a couple of desks that like, okay, you come in and you work on this show for a few weeks or months and then you're gone and someone else will work here next time. You know, it was, there wasn't a lot of character there.

But you know the thing I remember- We were under a lot of pressure. But the thing I remember, the most were under a lot of pressure. But the thing I remember, the most significant thing that we created at that time, and again, it's just pretty obvious looking back that this constriction of the space sort of like pressurized, just the location was small. And we came up with the, what did when we-

Caption fail? Caption fail videos. Like the caption fail series, which was a little bit of a- The caption was small and we came up with the, what did when we- Caption fail? Caption fail videos. Like the caption fail series, which was a little bit of a- They were filmed around there, yeah. A little resurgence for us on YouTube because we were able to get a couple out kind of quickly.

Right. But I think that there's no doubt in my mind that that came from being in this place, like we can't make a music video really right now and. The only music video we made was we made the Harry Potter song, which I'm super proud of that song because I remember that we worked all night on it. It was one of the few times that we worked all night

on something in order to turn it around because we needed, like the reason why we made that song is because the last Harry Potter movie was coming out and we were trying to jump on that bandwagon and get the views from it in order then to attach an ad for Commercial Kings so that we could get more people to watch our TV show. And it, I mean, it got a lot of views and it was shot right there in basically the room And it got a lot of views.

And it was shot right there in basically the room where we were working. The ideas fit the setting. But when we showed up at that place, it was like, this is not, I mean- Wasn't our space. It wasn't our space and it really, there was like a desperation of what we were, we were just trying to find our way again,

especially once the show got canned. Well, and then when we decided to, and this is, I've never really tracked the content to the space, but we got our own space again, and I mean, own space using that pretty loosely because it wasn't anything compared to what we had in North Carolina when we decided that the converted garage or the guest house in my backyard would be our new studio.

And that's where Good Mythical Morning was born. And in a really small, I mean, I don't know what that room was, it was like a two car garage. It was the size of this room basically. And it was the two of us and Jason in there working on top of each other. And then there was a time, there was a few months, because it was also a guest house,

like when people came to stay with us, they would stay in there. Like where the relatives and then Antonio, when he first moved out, stayed in there for like a couple of months. He slept on our couch, that couch. Yes. The couch would lay down like a futon,

but we said like, hey, we gotta, you gotta be out of here before we get to work every morning because there's not enough room physically for the futon and you and all of us to be here. Right. Yeah, so it was- There was a bathroom with a shower, so that's why he was able to stay there, but then-

But we also had the yard too, you know, and that's where like Dope Zebra happened in that backyard. Right. Several other things that we shot happened in that backyard. The graduation song. Because we've been, you know, it's like there's a really good book by the Duplass brothers. I can't remember what it is.

I think we may have re-directed it, but basically they kind of talk about their story and their creative process. And there's a lot of parallels between the way that they kind of work with each other and the way that we've worked together. But they talk about the way that they approach independent filmmaking and it was to find the space

for the film, to find the location, to be like, okay, we can go to this town. This town has a sheriff's office and a gymnasium and a library. All right, let's write a screenplay where these locations are featured. Yeah. And so they let the space dictate the screenplay and that's where a lot of their like,

and that's why it was cheap. And that's why they were able to make a lot of money off of those or they kind of get going because they could actually make it. And that's sort of an extreme example. But I think that at each point, this sort of the constriction of the space or the openness of the space has then contributed to what we were working on and what we were doing.

Well, when you talk about openness, it makes me wanna skip ahead to this studio space here, which I mean, when you look at both sides of the studio and we got like, well, not all 80 people are working in here and of course, nobody's working in here now. And who knows, but we got this like open space where most everybody's working and then there's enclaves and offices

where people can go in to meet and have more private conversations and we have our office back here in the back but even this conversation is helping me really understand what we already knew instinctively. It's like to really get creative, we needed to step out of this space because it wasn't doing for us

what all the previous spaces did and what this space did at first. Yeah. Maybe it actually didn't, I mean. Well, I think that, again, this isn't necessarily directly creative, but what this space allowed and then what the next door space allowed is,

again, I feel like the decisions about the space have driven the specific decisions about what we do, right? So we got this space, we told the story on the Dell sponsored podcast, we kind of told the history of the business and we told the story of Ben saying, I know that this place is beyond our budget, but I wanna let you know that I think that we can take advantage of it. I think that this is the right place, I think that this place is beyond our budget, but I wanna let you know that I think

that we can take advantage of it. I think that this is the right place. I think we can use it. And we took a chance and we moved in here, not having any idea how we would fill it with a team. But again, you naturally fill the space. And so yes, we did some good creative work. We've done a lot of good creative work in this space.

But I think that what this has represented more than anything is the team building and the business building. And then specifically with the other space is what made the acquisition of Smosh make sense. Again, it was like, yes, we took the other space because we could- The other half of the building you mean, yeah. Yeah, yes, we took the other space because we could. The other half of the building you mean, yeah.

Yeah, the other half of the building because of GMM 22, the season that we did, the 22 minute version of GMM, we needed more space for more people. That only lasted one season, but then it was like, oh, we've got this space. And then I think that we were like, okay, we've done this business building, this team building thing,

but now we kind of got to get back to what it is that we're going to personally create, right? Not just the role, like we've created these products like Good Mythical Morning or Ear Biscuits, and we know what our role is and we come and we sit down and we fulfill that role, but what is the new thing that we're creating, right? And I think we had a sense that it was going to be easier

for us if we created a new space that was a trigger for those new ideas. And now we find ourselves decorating our own offices for the first time. Once we get some furniture in there, which is happening. Do you have any idea what you're putting in there? I put a big shelf up, because I'm like, I think I wanna put stuff on a shelf. I think I'm gonna find stuff that means something to me

and I'm gonna put it on this shelf. Yeah, Jesse's getting some shelves for some stuff. And like setting up the records and, shout out to my Instagram for a while back, I put the- You gotta say shout out to Link Neal on Instagram. Shout out to Link Neal on Instagram. You gotta actually give the plug to it. If you wanna look at my record shelf

that's in the main living room there. Makes me happy, makes me happy. Yeah, well, and I'm, you know, it's been weird because this has been such a, this has been another really constricted time, right? So we weren't really going, I mean, I've been going to the creative house more than you, but it's literally going over to an empty house.

I mean, anything that you saw me shoot over there, you see I'm in a chair in front of a blank wall. And I'm also, I value the creative space a lot, but I have a very difficult time getting motivated to actually do the things to have like, I don't like, okay, put this shelf together, put this couch, like I don't like doing that. I like it when it's done, but I don't like doing it, right?

But I very much look forward to what it's gonna be. I mean, you know, we'll talk more about this in the coming weeks. But one of the ways that we're sort of exercising our newfound creativity is we're doing original stuff on TikTok, right? Like that's one of the things that we're doing. We're writing these sketches and kind of getting back to this, it's this interesting thing that's happening on TikTok,

which is, you know, it's not a platform that has a partner program right now. It has this early days of YouTube feel to it where it just feels like people who see an opportunity on this platform and are figuring out how to build an audience and are trying creative things are doing it. And we've always approached new platforms as, for the past few years, we've approached it more

as a business or as a brand. Like what is Mythical going to do on this platform? Usually as an extension of what we're doing on YouTube. But for the first time ever, and really, this is a very fresh thing for us. I mean, we just got a couple of things that we've like written and put up there. We're saying like, what are Rhett and Link

going to create over there? And it's a totally different, it's a different exercise. But we're just beginning to be able to like be in the house together. Sounds like it's gonna be decorating videos. Shelf building videos, bike breaking videos. Yeah, well, I'm sure we'll talk more about that. But yeah, I mean, it's rounding out that space

and what we want it to be is makes it a playground for us to then make stuff that we wanna make. And so it is a hurdle that we're starting to clear and I'm excited about it. I'm interested for this space, as employees start to come back to work, whenever that starts to happen, starts working together, it's like, what's gonna happen to open floor plans?

Are we gonna revert? Everybody's talking about how open floor plans? You know, are we gonna revert? Everybody's talking about how open floor plans are gonna go away. But I mean, you know, the coronavirus isn't gonna be with us. I mean, it may be with us forever, but it's not going to be the threat that it is, even if it comes, if it doesn't go away,

it's not gonna be the threat that it is right now forever. And you know, I don't know, I think everyone's saying, well, we're gonna reevaluate the open workspace because you know what, by the way, people don't get any work done in open workspaces. Like that's one of the things that I've seen people writing is they're like, people are distracted and it isn't like everyone's working together,

it's everyone's working and they're together. And I mean, I don't know what the answer to that is. I mean, we've designed this space so that it's like, okay. And it was kind of as simple as which employees might need to have sensitive conversations and or be on the phone. Yeah, but it's- Those people get offices.

It is interesting that we build a space where people can connect and be collaborative and that's not how we work. I mean, we like to isolate ourselves, just the two of us, you know? Well, do you remember the time we went to- We didn't create a bunch of, if we would have created for our team

what we created for ourselves, we would have turned that open area, not into a desk, but a big living room where people just lay down on couches and stuff. Right. You remember when we went to, is it Rocket Jump? Was that Freddy's company? Yeah.

Remember the first time we went there and I was like, where's Freddy's company? Yeah. I remember the first time we went there and I was like, where's Freddy's office? And he just had a desk in the middle of everything with everybody. Yeah. And I remember feeling like questioning, questioning us. I was like, are we like-

Elitist? Some prima donnas that we've got this office in the back. And you know, it's got like a wall of now, what is now dead plants because no one has been taking care of them. But then I was just like, no, I couldn't. I understand the idea of being in the middle and being amongst everyone,

but I just wouldn't get anything done. And also me and you, because it's not one person, it's two people who are constantly talking through every single thing that we're doing. Right. Sometimes in a heated fashion, just whatever the creative process entails. You don't wanna watch that.

Yeah. You don't wanna try to do other work when that's happening behind you. That's for sure. You kinda actually want to, the idea of what it's like for us to create together is probably better than the idea of watching us create together.

Like, keep the mystery alive and see the product on the other side, but it gets pretty boring and monotonous and mathematical in the moment, I think. And I don't know, you know, up into this conversation, I hadn't really thought about like the different types of roles here and it's like, people are saying in general, some people are gonna start working from home.

Well, that's another thing, right? You know, so it's like, I haven't really, we haven't started to tackle that question for us. So I'm not, I mean. But it does change the conversation, both the fact that people are working at home, but also the fact that there's a change in the way people are seeing open spaces

that is changing the calculus on how long we'll be in this space, I think, you know? Because I think there has been a part of us that's like, okay, are we gonna need to get another space? Are we gonna need to get a bigger space? I mean, we keep growing, but a lot of things changed this year, you know? I mean, yes, there are certain jobs

that can be done from home. Some people may actually prefer it. There are certain meetings that could take place on Zoom. Does everyone really have to be here for an all hands meeting? Can some people join by video conference? You know, I think that we're gonna be answering those questions, but.

I've actually, yeah, and it's premature. So I guess the last place I wanna just verbally process it is on a podcast, but screw it, let's do it. My first reaction, like my knee jerk reaction is to be, oh, we gotta get back to the way things work as they were working. But it's interesting that, I don't know,

I have this, as a boss, I have this defensive stance that's like, well, are they gonna, you know, if people start working from home, are they really gonna get their work done? And I don't know, I just find myself thinking that, but I know that, well, there's other ways you can answer that. And people also work differently.

Some people can, if people work better and thrive in that environment, and there's easy ways to still have accountability for your deliverables, you know what I'm saying? But I also think that the work from home thing is complicated. Like I think about my house. Oh yeah, but a lot of our employees,

they don't have like two or three kids running around. Well, not only that. Some of them do, but most of them don't. Right, it's like it would be a different equation if I was a single guy or if Jessie and I just had Barbara and no kids. As we talk about the spaces that have meant so much to us, it's like, I bet you if I visited some of my employees,

unannounced, I'd be like, well, they've, this room is a, this is a, they've created a creative space for themselves. Well, you know, it's funny, I didn't even think about mentioning this, but you know, we've been talking about, all right, how long are we gonna stay in this house? Like we're doing that work, you know, outside

and we've had this open construction pit forever. Hopefully it'll be done in a month or two. But it's like, how long are we gonna stay in this house? Are we gonna stay here till Shepherd goes to college? That's another, at least seven years. And I think we're kind of leaning towards that. But Jessie and I have been talking about like, okay, you know, as you get older and as you live in a space,

you just start answering a lot of questions like, well, what do we want in a home? But you know, I still don't think we understood what we really wanted in a home. And I'm very happy with our house, but there's a number of things like just the idea of finding a place to get, you can't really get away because our house is very open.

And even in this little guest house, the guest room that is basically Jesse's office, but also our guest bedroom. It's very close to everything. It's like, I get everyone who comes down the stairs, every conversation that's in the kitchen. And I told Jesse, I was like, I don't know what our next home will have,

but I'll be 50 probably when we're moving into it. And I just have always had this idea that when I get to be kind of an old man, which I'm approaching that very quickly, I just wanna have one of those offices that's kind of like dark, there's a lot of wood, and it's away from everything, and maybe there's like a long hallway to it.

I mean, they don't make houses like this anymore, but I just have this vision of just being able to just have a retreat in my own home. And I probably won't even need it by that point because my kids won't be there. Yeah, you're talking about a panic room. I'm just talking about one of those offices like you see in a movie.

Like a bunch of books that you don't read behind you. Yeah, yeah, okay. Space is important, whether it's a cubicle, a little corner of your bedroom. It doesn't have to be big. It doesn't have to be like Rhett's talking about at the end of a hallway where you get tired by the time you get there and so your kids

will never bother you with their bike problems. I read between the lines there. Okay. I think everybody's gotta have a little nook. You know, if you got a little nook, that's like, this is my little space. I used to go, in my room, I would go inside my closet. And I had a little space in my closet

where I would just go in there and sit. And it just felt like, this is my space. My closet was too dirty. I would go in the attic. I had a little clean little space in my closet, man. There was a box full of foam. I don't know what this foam was for or from, but I would get into that box full of foam.

You get inside of the box? Yeah. It was open top. Yeah, see? Your little cozy spot, man. If you take anything from this conversation, take that. Take finding your little cozy spot. Find your box full of foam.

But I think just practically, especially for those of you who are in a creative field, I do think that it's important to just ask the question, what is your space? How is your space contributing to what you're trying to create? Because I mean, we look back and we got into a little bit of the detail,

but I just think that so much of what we happen to be creating at the time was largely dictated by the decision that we had made about the space. And that's why it's gotten, it's very important to us. And that's why we were quick once we realized, well, not too quick, maybe it took a year or two to realize, once we realized that this space had become representative of one side of our jobs,

we needed to push into the other side, kind of the thing that drives this whole thing. So think about that creative people. And I got a rec for you. Rec baby, rec baby, one, two, three, four. I highly recommend watching 13th on Netflix, just to continue the conversation of racial equality and the Black Lives Matter movement.

And again, keeping that as an active part of our lives is important to us. This is not just, you know, this can't just be a flash in the pan for us personally is what we've discussed. You know, we want to be actively engaged as part of the solution and not bystanders. And there's lots of recommendations floating around.

This has been one of them that I watched this documentary. I'll read the summary, filmmaker Ava DuVernay explores the history of racial inequality in the United States, focusing on the fact that the nation's prisons are disproportionately filled with African Americans. It was released in October of 2016, but I didn't know that when I watched it.

And I was like, man, they got this out quick. And that's just ignorance, right? That I would find myself thinking that, that like it's so important for this movement now, but like, I mean, again, it's like I embarrass myself left and right with the things that I think because I just have not been educated and engaged enough, but this documentary is, I mean,

97% on Rotten Tomato tomatoes, very well done. And it gives you an overview of the dark side, the ramifications of the criminal justice system for black Americans. Yeah, well, I think- And how it's set up, you know, it connects the dots. Yeah, because I think a really important aspect of all of this is, and this is something

that I didn't really understand for a long time and it was reading, you know, some black authors who explained this to me. some black authors who explain this to me, is just understanding that there, yes, in 2020, there continue to be a lot of policies, whether it's within our criminal justice system, whether it's within our voting system, political system, there are policies that if you're me,

you didn't understand why they were racist. I mean, you talk about, I mean, they talk about Nixon and his really planting the seeds for the war on drugs from the Reagan era. And he's talking about being the law and order president. Right. I mean, which is exactly what Trump is talking about now. Yeah, when you see the history.

They're intentionally using the same language in order to accomplish what they want. Right, and there's a way as a white person, you think about these things, because I was that white person who thought about these things and I was like, well, we talked about this two years ago. It was like, okay, voter ID laws. That's not racist, that's just having somebody,

that's requiring somebody to have an ID to vote. How could that be racist? But then when you understand the history of that approach and who is being targeted and what is being prevented and it isn't fraud, it's actually certain groups of people being prevented from voting. And once you understand the intention behind it, you're like, oh, that is why that's a racist policy.

So I- Well, I mean, when you talk about the war on drugs, it's like, how could that be bad? I mean, how could just say no be bad? And when you look at the policies in place for, the punishments associated with crack. Versus cocaine. Versus cocaine. Yeah. Which are the same thing,

but they're prevalent in different communities, white community versus the black community. Well, specifically it was five grams of crack gave the equivalent prison sentence of 500 grams of cocaine. And that was strictly because cocaine was a white drug and crack was a black drug. And again, all this stuff was happening when we were growing up, we were growing up in a little small town

where we just thought that everybody's got equal opportunity. I mean, the civil rights movement happened years ago. Everybody's, everything's equal now. And once you start realizing that no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's not, it's not. And that's the fight that is being fought right now. Right.

And it is a fight to change policy. It is a fight to change racist policy. And if you don't think that the racist policy exists, then I would, my argument would be you're not paying attention. And so you got, you- Just watch, I'm saying watch- 13th is a great place to start.

Yeah. It lays it all out. It gives you something to not, you don't have to agree with everything to be exposed, to educate yourself, to be exposed to it and then reach your own conclusions. But I think it's very well made and it was very eye opening for me.

Okay, well, we're back. We're here, we're in the studio. We're in the, at the round table of dim lighting. And if all goes according to plan, we will be here again next week. Who knows? What are plans? Hashtag Ear Biscuits.

Love ya.