Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 74 - David Garibaldi

Episode Date: June 20, 2018

Performance painter David Garibaldi, exemplifies passion and purpose in his music-driven art through rhythm and hue. Dave has appeared in the seventh season of America's Got Talent, where he showcases his talent in music and art. In a few short years, and at 29 years old, Garibaldi raised over $1M for nonprofits and charities across the country through his art. Rewatch the live stream: https://youtu.be/QgVCNkNtlJI ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Stitcher Here: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play here: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud Here: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

dude, what, what's the deal? What's the deal with art? Like, what are we talking about here? What is, what is art? Because like, uh, you know, something like bodybuilding or powerlifting, people can't define what it is, or somebody might say golf, that's not a sport. And it's like, well, then what is it? Is it a hobby? Is it an art? Is it a, like, what do you think makes something an art? Uh, like in your, I guess in your eyes. I think it's very similar. You know, to me, art has no rules.

There is, I think principles that people believe in, but at the same time, it's not limited to that. Still. It's, it's some sort of form of expression. You know,

you have an idea up here. You have a vision of your body, of your life. You do the work to create it. You have a vision for what you see on a canvas or a sculpture. You are resourceful and you find a way to create it. So I think it's very similar. We're here today with David Garibaldi. He's a local. He lives in Sacramento. He's got his place in Sacramento and super excited to have you here. I first learned about you by just,

I think I was checking out Instagram. I was trying to look at girls' butts and then your ugly ass came up for some reason, which I interrupted my butt session. And then my ugly face is your algorithm, so we're even. Yeah, you threw me off there. No, I saw you, I think it may be making an image of like Steph Curry at halftime of basketball. Yes, that was probably the NBA finals.

You're just like chucking paint on the thing. And I'm like, what is going on? And then it turned into this amazing painting. Thank you. Yeah. That's pretty much how you describe what I do. It's I basically throw paint and hope for the best. Hope it all works out um but yeah I you

know that's uh very blessed to be able to you know perform these paintings all over the world and but you know I'm from here in Sacramento is it uh do you believe it's a gift uh in some way I believe partly uh it's part of it what's the other part well part the other part is just hard work. I mean, you know, yes, I was wired a certain way to, you know, do sketches like this or to draw certain things. But at some point, talent is not enough. And I was curious enough to take classes, to do some drawings and just, you know, figure out a way to get better so I can continue it. Otherwise, you kind of hit a wall and you get bored. There was other things in my life. It wasn't always art.

I was into music. And then at some point, I wasn't as curious about it. And I was like, I'm good. I'm done. Art was that thing. There was other things too. We won't get into the dance right now. The dancing was going for a little bit.

And then I got, again, I was like, I hit a wall. I don't want to progress beyond that but uh it's it's a mixture of how you're wired the gift and then just your curiosity to see where else can i take this kids are listening to this need to pay attention because you need to amplify your strengths you know people are always trying to work on their weaknesses and And of course you want to be a well-rounded person. You want to be better. Um, if you're so submerged in art, then maybe you're missing out on relationships, friendships, uh, business opportunities. Like there's a lot of people that are really, uh, amazing artists in a lot of ways, whether it be a musician,

photographer, somebody that paints, whatever it might be that are kind of living in their car,, you know, day by day because they're so obsessed with it, but they're not kind of, they're not living their life in some other ways. They don't have enough balance. You know, one of the number one questions I get from young artists or creators, they say, like, what advice would you give me? They're like, say they're teenagers. And I'm like, go create what you're inspired by. Go collect stamps, kid.

Or that. Get out of my face. Well what you're inspired by. Go collect stamps, kid. Or that. Get out of my face. Well, you're such an inspirational figure. But no, I just like, go, go live life. Go be inspired. Because at some point, if you do pursue this and you get busy enough, you get, you get tired and you need to be, know what to tap into to be inspired. So I'm like, first thing to do, forget creating, forget painting, forget trying to be like me. Go be inspired by life. Find out what you love, whether it's animals, music, In-N-Out cheeseburgers, which is one of my early inspirations.

Always comes back to In-N-Out. If I could make money painting In-N-Out burgers, I would do it. Yeah, so In-N-Out if you're listening. What about the french fries? You know, I mean, you can't compete with McDonald's. McDonald's french fries are amazing. Even though they're probably not real. Over time, this is my theory.

Over time, I feel like they have like slowly, they're not potatoes anymore. And we just are so hooked on them. We're like, I don't care what chemical it is. Something weird happened along the way. I love it. That's what that's called. I don't care what chemical it is. Something weird happened along the way. I love it. That's what that's called. I don't want to see how they make it.

How do you remain creative as you've gotten to be more busy? Because it seems like you're very busy nowadays. You're traveling and you're doing this all over the place

and you have obligations. It started out with things that you wanted to do when you wanted to do them on your time, on your dime. Now you probably are getting paid to do an appearance, paid to go somewhere and you have a strict schedule. Uh, I would imagine that you probably, probably have a little bit of trouble with, with the scheduling and stuff being someone who's creative, correct? Yeah. I mean, naps and wine help along the way.

A lot of coffee. We'll fill this coffee. Man, you know, I remember when I first started, it was in 2003. I had lost my job. I got fired. Actually, I didn't lose it. I won't say the bank, but I was a phone banker.

Like, you would call in, and you'd ask for your account balance. You got fired from that? Well, I like to round it up because i'm an optimist i'm like well you you have 35 cents in your account not you know 25 cents but uh apparently that's illegal hey bro you're doing good no no you don't need it this is the greatest thing though my manager called me into her office she sat me down with with my final paper. She's like, you know those drawings you do at your desk? I was like, yeah. She's like, you should go do that. So I had no choice because I didn't have a job anymore. But so I think because I started and also my car got repossessed.

I was about to be evicted from my apartment. Thank God the landlord let me trade a mural on the front of it for rent. Thank you, Gary. Which is a whole other crazy story. But I think as I started off, I knew that I had this passion to create, but I still felt this obligation to my gift and also to the opportunity now to create. So yes, I love the freedom, but I also love to just like work and get it done. So, so for me, you're excited about it either way. Yes. Like for me, I love to know there's a busy week ahead. And also I try to find that balance because I have two beautiful children. Uh, but to try to find the balance as well, that's, I think the beauty of it. But, um, I think again, cause I started off having to create, it's never really been like, I'll do it when I want.

It's like, I have to do it. Rent is due. You basically almost have like a skill set and creativity locked inside your body. And if you don't get it out, then you're probably not going to be very happy. Yeah. I mean, I, I honestly, I,

I would say that I would still be doing this, what I'm doing now, even if I was just in my one car garage when I started. Actually, I didn't have a garage. When I upgraded to a one car garage. When you're using somebody else's garage. Exactly.

I, I would still be doing it. Like, that's how much I love it. You know, when I'm, when I get extra time, I'm still in my studio creating. So how much I love it. You know, when I get extra time, I'm still in my studio creating.

What you got, Andrew? Did you ever go back and thank your boss for firing you? Let's do it right now. I forgot her name, but thank you so much for firing me. Samantha. Sam. That's pretty awesome of her to look down like, you should go do that.

Yeah. Quit lying to people about them being in debt being an okay thing. Exactly. Well, you know, I think as an artist, and I don't know if you can relate to this, but when you're constantly living and thriving off of inspiration, where everything you do is led by some life events or something you read or something you heard, so you're constantly hungry for what's the next thing that's going to be fed to me. And so something like that, I saw that as a source of inspiration.

I'm like, all right, I'm going to do that. Just like I saw. Yeah, almost like you're so blinded by it, you didn't even see the downside that you just lost your job. Yeah, I was like. You're like, oh, that's cool. I should do that. And yeah, I should also get another job, which I, you know, I wish I did.

But I just, you know, I believed enough. but I mean, do you feel the same way? Do you feel like you're, do you thrive off of inspiration yourself? Every day, man, every day I need to, I, you know, need to pull it from all different kinds of places. I feel for me, I feel that, uh, knowledge is a key, you know, and for me in school, I struggled with school. And so school wasn't a great place for me to learn. And so I'm doing all my learning now.

It's really kind of weird because I would have never thought that for myself. But I take myself to school almost every day by learning something on YouTube or through an audio book or something. I'm in search of it all the time. Did you do well in high school or did you go to college? Uh, I tried to go to college. It didn't work so well. Uh, I didn't never did very, very good in school. No. Okay. Yeah. Likewise. Yeah. Yeah. I always had, I always had art. It just like, didn't seem like it was for me, you know? Um, and luckily I had parents that, uh, were understanding and they were like, Hey, look, you know, school is the same for everybody.

Like, you know, they wanted me to work hard. They're like, don't get a zero, you know, like do your homework and do your work and, you know, show up to class. Don't skip and things like that. But all the little basics that you find out later on are really the actual key to life. Like show up. Don't be a dick. That should actually be in front of show up yeah work work hard right i mean it's like there's really really simple things uh that can take you a long way but when it comes to something like art you can't really just get away with just that because there definitely is a skill set associated with it i I heard Gary Vee talk about something recently, and he said

that if he played Roger Federer with a 1984, or if Roger Federer played against him with a 1984 John McEnroe racket in tennis, that he would still get his ass kicked because the skill set is there. How early was this skill set part of your life? as early as i can remember uh i mean i remember uh it's like a like a superpower i feel like it's just it was always there you know i i can't ever think about the time i didn't identify myself as an artist or creator even when i tried different things so in third grade i started playing the trumpet and i played the trumpet from third grade to high school don't ask me to play it. I can play the skin flute.

It's been a while. I tried, actually. The what? The skin flute. The skin flute. Yeah. They didn't teach me that in school. Majored in it for many years. That wasn't an option for me in school. School hard knocks.

Yeah, that's right. And then I got into dance in high school, but just paint, drawing, creating was always, you know, a thing that was there. I can never remember it not being there. So, yeah, it is kind of like a superpower, I guess. Yeah. And, you know, the class was asked to do something uh that was uh in your category you know painting or picture like when when was the realization of like holy shit david yours is amazing like when was there kind of that realization i remember uh i was in third grade and uh actually i didn't have to be asked i I think that was where I saw the value and the creativity was I would go,

whatever subject we were working on, I would go get an encyclopedia. Kids, those are big books that we used to have in classrooms. You call it Google now. We had these encyclopedias. I would go and grab one based on, say, we were learning about a certain animal, and I would find that animal in the encyclopedia, and I would draw the skeleton of it the best that I could in third grade right and then I would just turn it in like you're welcome like I would just give a teacher she's like what am I supposed to

do with this but she would give me like two or three extra credit points like I needed it to graduate third grade or something but um she you know and I and I saw this this exchange in value and creativity for something in return, and I didn't have to be asked to do it. So I just kept doing that. I'm like, oh, cool. I'm just going to turn in skeletons for the rest of my third and fourth grade years. I'll still do that. I'll draw your skeleton next. There we go.

Yeah, you don't have to ask me to do that. So just early, very early age, you were kind of recognized for that in particular. Yeah, I think. And then, and then you could, I think I probably just fed off of that. I'm like, oh, I just want to keep. Yeah, that's what happens. Somebody tells you to do a good job at something, makes you feel good. You try.

And you enjoy it too. Yeah. And you try to do other things and you get some resistance. So did you play sports and things like that too? Oh yeah. I tried. Yeah. Keyword, tried. So I was. But I think all these things are that too? Oh yeah. I tried. Yeah. Keyword, tried.

So I was, I was always a big kid. But I think all these things are important. They really shape who you are. Like the things that you're good at and the things that you have some real resistance at, it's really important because it also shows how bad do you really want to do it. Or how bad you are at sports. Yeah. Yeah.

How bad you are compared to everybody else. I think it's actually kind of a healthy thing. Yeah. Sometimes it's important to really, like I have a real hard, I can't draw or paint. We don't else. I think it's actually kind of a healthy thing. Yeah. Sometimes it's important to really, like I have a real heart. I can't draw or paint. We don't know. I haven't seen.

So yeah, it's really, I mean, you got to, we can do an art battle. Basically. I'm, I'm just trying to undersell it. I'm very talented.

I got some, I got some skills over here that would blow your mind. He doesn't want to show you up. You literally would say, how the fuck did you do that? How the fuck is that a deer? I don't understand. Show me how that's a deer.

How did you get into this in the first place? Especially like, you know, more modern day of you dancing and having music and going all in the way you're doing now. You know, so there was a time in 2003, the first, I started in March of 2003. And because I had to make money, I just would go paint live at jazz clubs and nightclubs. I would just show up. I talked to DJs and then a friend DJs.

And they're like, hey, why don't you come with me to all these spots? Well, I met this gentleman who's still a good friend of mine. He's got Kevin Costner. He's like, hey man, I know you're doing this live painting, but have you ever heard of a guy named Denny Dent? I was like, nope. He's like, he's like a rock and roll mine. He's got Kevin Costa. He's like, Hey man, I know you're doing this live painting, but have you ever heard of a guy named Denny Dent? I was like, Nope. He's

like, he's like a rock and roll painter. He's like on stage. He's like the show he's sweating and like just throwing paint. I'm like, that sounds ridiculous. Actually, that sounds so dumb. Why are you talking to me about this? He's like, well, if you need help with your website, just let me know. So I, he, I went to his place. He was helping me with this website. And then I saw this Denny Dent painting and I said how did he do this how did he create it he's like he's that guy that crazy guy it's on stage throwing paint around I honestly I saw that and I realized it was a collision of all my passions it was music it was art it was dance and I had a moment like that's

what I want to do this is I was in this moment of also searching. You know, I was just so open to inspiration at the time. I think, I mean, even still, but so much so at that time. I saw that and I was living with my dad at the time. The next day, I just went in the garage and put some black paper up and some house paint that was laying around. And I just tried it. And, you know, it was 2003. So YouTube wasn't popping you know it was really hard to find stuff on Google at the time and so or it at all there he is and uh yeah so this is Denny Dent and you know I I just

when the garage has tried it I had no idea his now I know techniques yeah now I can watch this I'm like ah I know what he's doing because I've gone through it. That's a cool technique that he has. It looks like he's almost scratching off the black surface of the canvas there. This is so raw. Honestly, I get chills watching this because he was so ahead of his time. And he didn't have an inspiration. He just was like, I'm going to do some crazy shit

and this is what he came up with. And now, he had one student, Brian Olson, who I've gotten to know over the years. I've also gotten to know, Denny didn't pass away in 2005, but I got to know his wife. And I met these people. Is this called something?

Does it have a name? Or is this painting? I call it performance painting. He called it rock and roll painting. I felt like it could be more than that. People call different things. I just kind of ran with performance painting. Because, for example, this,

he could just be on the side of a show painting live, standing there. But this is a show, this probably isn't the best example, but he's really engaging with the audience. He's going to the microphone, he's like screaming at them. And so to me, like that's a performance. So just add that to painting. And, um, you know, that's what it's, I feel like it's become.

When you first started to see this stuff, um, obviously the art is building confidence in you from, you were good at it from the time you were a kid. But getting on stage and dancing and throwing around paint is a whole nother thing. Was were you apprehensive about it or just so excited about it? You didn't really worry about it that much. I was I was super excited. So I think that's where, you know, I think about kind of the bigger picture where I feel like my life was leading up to this. The things that I got into, I got into dance at a very specific time in high school that

to this, the things that I got into, I got into dance at a very specific time in high school that really led me up to I would say from 2000 to 2004-ish. I was into dance maybe a little before 2000. But getting comfortable to be on stage, which I had never done before.

Can you floss? Can you? Hell no, I can't floss. I try. I can only kind of like floss to one side. It doesn't really work so well. My kids get really embarrassed. I can dabble. Switching to the other side is hard. I can't figure it out either.

That's like the whole thing that you have to switch from. Yeah, he's got it. Look, he's doing it. There you go. I'm also counting like in my head. And I just messed up.

Yeah. When did you? Jessica can't floss, I don't think. Right? Or can you? Have you broke through? Dude.

You should have floss battles. I know. At lunch. I know. I think we'll all fail. So, like, Danny right there, he's painting with both hands. Yes. When did you learn that you can do that?

Immediately. I mean, I saw this as like, all right, if he's using both hands, I need to learn how to do this in both hands. And, again, over the years, I realize why now. It's sort of like engaging your whole body. And you're painting with your body rather than being right-handed or left-handed. It's on, you know. Yeah, I think a right-handed and left-handed thing is a very limiting thing. Because you just think, oh, I'm right-handed.

My left doesn't do shit. Yeah, you have all these other parts of your body that you can use. Right. And when you play like baseball, you baseball, you catch with your left hand. So there's definitely plenty of coordination there and plenty of strength to do a lot of other things. Yeah. But it must take some time to get that left hand working well, huh? Yeah, I mean, you know, I didn't realize that I didn't know I could do that.

I just tried it. And then I realized that there were some techniques that I could do that. I just tried it. Then I realized that there were some techniques that I could apply. Again, it wasn't about just drawing with my left hand. It was positioning my body a certain way, which again, dance played a role into that as well. The other thing with dance too is being able to do something over and over again,

like when you're learning a dance routine, and you fail. And you're like, all right, this sucks, or I'm not really good at this. But I know if I keep doing it over again and learning along the way, I'm going to get better. So when I would practice these paintings early on, I would do a painting for 50-plus times over and over again until I got it down.

So I had this foundation of just practice, work, until I even performed or painted in front of people. When it comes to music, when it comes to art, you know, some of the greatest things, some of the greatest paintings, some of the greatest songs have been under the influence. Is there any performance enhancing drugs involved in performance art? I mean, define under the influence. I don't know, like you have a shot or something or even just. You know, I would say this before. Marijuana or something like that. Before most shows, I have like a glass of you have a shot or something or even just marijuana or something like that.

Before most shows, I have like a glass of wine. Just a little something. If it's a show like after noon, I'll usually do that. It's a morning show. They're getting like a coffee-infused day here. That's right. But no, I mean, I like a little wine. What was it like doing this at the NBA Finals? That was wild.

So we did it. I think we've done it three times now. Uh, the first time was with the Spurs when they were, they were in it. That was however long ago that was. Um, man, you know what? I started painting live at the Fox and Goose in downtown. Yeah. So that's the stuff that I think about when I have these moments.

And there's been other really awesome moments, but I think about, yeah, this is it right here. How do you deal with the nerves? You turn them into energy? Turn them into positive energy? Yes and no. Or have you always kind of thrived in this space? Honestly, I just start working. I think I use, like right now, if you're watching this.

I understand. So this would be like us lifting in front of a crowd. Honestly, I just start working. I think I use, like right now, if you're watching this. I understand. So this would be like us lifting in front of a crowd. Since we're comfortable lifting, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. We're used to it. And you know how to work through it. It's almost like any time that you've felt uncomfortable and you get so comfortable with that over time, you're like, all right, I know I'm a little nervous, but I've worked through this before.

I know I'm a little nervous, but I've worked through this before. And so the more you train that muscle of overcoming fear or overcoming being nervous, you become comfortable with that. And then as time goes on, I'm like, oh, yeah, I know how to do this. This is my home. So one thing you'll see on my videos, you'll see the carpet, you'll see the paint, you'll see the drop cloths. And that's always there in some form. So whether it's small, whether it's big, whether it's a huge production around. So I always look at it like no matter what's around me, we could be in a stadium of 75,000 people.

Or we could be in this arena or even a venue of 500 people. That's my home. Like this little area, this is where I feel comfortable. And it's got all my paints. And I feel like that kid again, you know? Yeah. There's a perfect analogy is, is a sport of like basketball, you know, where the, some of the best free throw shooters in the world, they, they'll dribble the ball a couple of times. They have a routine, you know, wipe the sweat off,

but they have a very specific way that they're doing everything before they do that shot. They dribble the ball twice or three times or however many times they spin it. They kind of feel the weight of it and then they shoot it. And many of them have been asked, the best free throw shooters in the history of the NBA, have been asked why they do all that. And they said it's to feel the weight of the ball. Well, obviously they know the weight of the ball,

but they're trying to create a similar circumstance like what you're talking about, where this is my environment. This is what I'm used to doing. It doesn't matter if there's some maniac heckler in the crowd or if the crowd's all for me. I'm going to dribble it three times. I'm going to spin it. I'm going to hold it. I'm going to shoot it. I'm going to make the shot.

Yeah. I had a quick question. Do you guys get hecklers at lifting events? At powerlifting events? I would not heckle the guy that's lifting a thousand pounds. That would be, that would be amazing. Oh my God. I think we have more trouble with hecklers in the gym than we do outside the gym. Yeah. Cause we always, uh, always are talking trash. Do you have, um, people that you get together with and do some of this stuff with

the people come to your studio and I have, you know, there's, there's two guys, uh, this guy, uh, Ricardo, Ricky, he'll come up, uh, Ricardo arts on Instagram. He was, uh, uh, probably one of my first students. Uh, he's an amazing dancer. Uh, he danced in the jab walk. He's Vegas show for a long time. Uh, he's an amazing, uh, break dancer. And I just thought I had this, I don't like, I wonder if I could teach someone how to do what I do. So he was actually my first student. Came to town.

I gave him a two-week course, crash course, in my studio. And by the end of that, he was able to do his first performance portrait. Oh, cool. Which is really cool.

And then another one of my... That must have been fun to be able to build him up. Oh, it's amazing to see what he's doing now. I mean, he's, you know, it's a hustle. I taught him the art, but the hustle is a whole different thing. But the other one is this guy, DK, who was my assistant for many years here in Sacramento.

He worked for me for free for a few months, and then I needed an assistant and hired him. And I just said, I'm not going to teach you. Just watch. Just watch what we do. Watch what I do if you really want to learn and then go try it. And so it was like maybe a year and a half ago, he started asking me all these questions. I'm like, dude, this is your time to just go try it. You've seen me, you travel with me, you've seen it all. Just go try it. So DK is another person. I wouldn't necessarily say we collaborate, but if they have questions or if they, you know, Hey, how do you work through this thing? It's such a small thing now, you know, it's, it's almost like being

the beginning of, uh, I don't know, like a new technology in a sense, a new way of thinking. Are there people that come to you and want to do this almost like for the exercise? And are you kind of like, uh, resistant to that? Or are you, are you down with that? I don't know if I would say I'm resistant to it. There's like sip and paint, you know, like people will drink and paint. Like I don't know if this is it. You know, I'm actually, I'm more apt to help someone if they've already tried. Okay.

So what I won't do is, and I get this all the time, get messages on Instagram from kids from all over the world. I'd love to try what you're doing. How do I start? And I'm like, start. I start? And I'm like, start. I'm serious. I'm like, go get paint. Go get a wall.

Go get paper. Just try it. And then you let me know what you're having trouble with. And we'll go from there. Yeah, actually starting, everybody makes a big thing about how hard it is to start something. But actually, it's always the easiest. Like any machine that you ever use in your life,

it always has a start button and it's the simplest thing to do is to hit the start button and that's all you have to do uh with anything that you you want to you want to read more just start like push the button you know and uh and and start putting in uh some of the work and you know i also realized too over time that uh you know it's a i know that's a really special thing to turn a few hundred dollars in materials in a few minutes. And then when these pieces are auctioned off or sold for tens of thousands of dollars, I'm like, this is a very unique gift and opportunity. So for me, I see the value in it. And that's why I protect it so much.

But also why I'm so open to share with other people. There's another guy, actually, Dave Sharp, who's in the the uk he's a good friend of mine he's a performance painter amazing artist he's you know been doing it for years and when i was in london we finally met up and you know we kind of talk about things with clients just like shop talk and it's you know you can probably do this with people that come in the gym i I don't get that often. And so when I do meet up with them, I really geek out. There's another guy, Vilas Nayak, based in India. He travels the world. He came to my studio and just, again, we just sat there for hours

and just talked about how we work through certain things or use certain materials and paints. And it's very interesting to see where this is going to go. And honestly, I always say this. I was not the first. I will not be the last. And if I'm going to live. And honestly, I always say this. I was not the first. I will not be the last. And if I'm going to live any significant life, I don't want to be the last. How do you know how to say no to some?

You must get a lot of requests of people wanting you to do images for them. Yeah. It just got to feel right to you? Yeah. I mean, I want to be inspired. Honestly, it could be a portrait of a family. And I'm like, this feels cool. This looks cool.

Or it could be a portrait of a family. I'm just like not feeling it. I mean, it just depends. It's on a case-by-case basis. Even with shows, we get offers all the time. Very blessed to have that. But there's a lot of shows

that we turn down because I'm just not into the organization or I don't believe in what they do or we just don't have time. Right. So, it's one or the other.

There's no, there's no formula. People probably want to hire you for like parties and stuff like that too, right? Like probably all kinds of stuff. Is this,

is this your ask right now? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is this your ask? All right, you're here. We got a party in 10 minutes. We got a podcast. Right.

This curtain opens up. There's a party back there. Let's go. And a canvas. Yeah, or we could paint're here. We've got a party in 10 minutes. We've got a podcast. This curtain opens up. There's a party back there. Let's go. And a canvas. Yeah. Or we could paint on this. We could paint your face on there. Can some of this be built over time?

You know, obviously, like, again, going back to the confidence thing. Yeah. You were able to have some confidence as a kid because you were good at it and you rolled into it. have some confidence as a kid because you were good at it and you rolled into it. But the hunger that you have now is probably increased a ton from when you were younger. So do you think people can kind of build upon some of the things they have? Yeah. Think about it like this.

Like you talk, I love the start button analogy. Wherever you press start, that's the beginning of your process of you building your confidence. I started very young and I was always advanced very young. So I had, I worked through a lot at a young age. I had an amazing animation teacher. And so the reason I was able to start my career at 20 was because I started so early on and worked through a lot. I was mentally working through a lot of things early on. So yes, wherever you start, it'll, the time will be different for all of us, but anything can be built up over time. Yeah, I agree with that. I think a lot of people don't, uh, don't always recognize that, that, that the skillset is one thing and

it's got to be worked on and refined. How did you, um, you know, you mentioned watching, uh, that one guy, but how did you, uh, refine the skillset? Was it really just to be worked on and refined. How did you, you know, you mentioned watching that one guy, but how did you refine the skill set? Was it really just a lot of trial and error? Oh, man. If you pull up, like, I mean, this maybe isn't one of the best paintings, but if you pull up really early paintings from between 2003 and let's just say 2008, like, they were rough. But, you know the the the performance i don't know

if you ever do this but i used to back in the day uh go on the youtube videos of me i'm like let's go see they're probably saying all these nice things about me and they're not they're like you suck uh you know they but also i'd read what's up with those dance moves exactly no they would say that i'm like damn that's actually, they're right. I was like, that's actually kind of weird. Or I would go to the microphone too much. And so honestly, this is what's cool is when I started, I just went for it. And I was just learning in front of people.

But then I would watch and I would address and I would listen to the criticism as something constructive. Whether they meant it to be constructive or not, I took it as, all right, I need to learn from this. So it was just learning in front of people what's your favorite kind of art what inspires you to get too excited I love stick figures are really just what I'm passionate about

no I love impressionism impressionism to me is wild so impressionism the best way I can describe it is if you went up close to a painting it all looks like colors mumbled together and mixed up and looks like nothing and maybe when you step back five feet still doesn't then you step back maybe 10 feet and it's so distinctive and clear it's like an organization of colors that gives the illusion that there's

an image there so and i feel i try to do that in my work. I try more and more to have less defined lines and more of a distinct feel. And that's why impressionism really sticks out to me. When you're doing your paintings, is that something that you're trying to create? Because you could probably do it faster, you could probably do it some other way where it's revealed what it is that you're doing earlier.

Are you trying to have it be revealed a little later? Is there kind of a climax to the whole thing? That's always the goal. There's times where I kind of give it away too soon. But learning over time is that people will stay and watch longer if they don't know what it is. So it actually, instead of giving it away early on, uh,

in their minds, I don't know if you've, if you've ever drawn some or watch someone draw. First thing people ask is what are you doing? I'm like, you gotta wait and see. And then they'll just kind of stick around. Like,

I want to watch this. We do these, um, Facebook live sessions in my studio. They're like 40 minutes long. We do two paintings, like these intros, these like transitions. And're like 40 minutes long. We do two paintings, these intros, these transitions. And then when we look at the graphs, more and more people start tuning in because of the painting process.

They just want to kind of stick around and see what it's going to be. So now what I'm learning, especially as we develop this production, we're going on tour, setting up a tour later this year. Awesome. I just put it out there right now, but more will be coming about that. But as we're developing that tour, and I think about the level of production and the experience, it's how can we make that process a mystery as long as possible for the audience and their experience. What's the coolest thing that has come from you doing this kind of work?

Your coolest experience, whether you went to a different country or just met somebody cool or whatever. One of the coolest things was performing for President Obama at the White House. That's a pretty big deal. It was insane. And we got like a two weeks heads up. We got a call and they said, the president's going to do this music festival. Were you just like, somebody fucking with me? What is this?

No, seriously. I was like, all right, mom. Did you call this in? No, he's like, they're doing a music festival called South by South Lawn. And your art fits perfect with the technology and the music and all this stuff. And I said, you have to pay your way. I'm like, I will pay whatever way I have to get there. And so we cleared the schedule.

We got there. And I remember cleared the schedule. We got there. And I remember we were just hanging on the South Lawn, just, you know, casually on a Tuesday. And I remember we got done with sound check around 1030. And then this, like, super smooth, like, guy just glided out of the back door of the White House. Just goes and kind of walking around, like, sits down on his bench.

And then he sat next to this, like, massive lego sculpture which you would never see on the south lawn and then i'm like guys that's him like oh i'm like that's the guy that's the president and i'm like why are we whispering so we just i was like let's just go say hi like you know he invited us like let's just go introduce ourselves so walked I walked over to him. And this was before there was like some volunteers before there was no one there for people realize that he was there. And then I went over and I just said, Hey, Mr. President, my name is Xavier Baldy. Thank you for having us. Like, Oh, thank you so much. And then, and then some people started coming over. We talked for like a minute, but then in like the smoothest, coolest way, he's like, Hey guys,

just no photos right now. I was like, cool, I'm going to get some selfies. Well, my assistant that I brought out, DK, I'm like, your one job is to get photos. That's it. Just take photos. So I meet him. We take selfies. He leaves. And I'm like, did you get the photo?

He's like, oh, sorry, man. I'm like, you had one job. So it wasn't until the next day I saw on the Today Show, they were showing pictures of the event. And the press corps had come out. It's kind of just chaotic at some point. And someone got a photo of me shaking his hand. So I pretty much printed that in life-size now. It's above my bed.

Your assistant is fired, right? I was very close. I was very close you know looking at some of the stats and information that we have that we gathered you've raised over 4 million dollars for charity that's awesome that's gotta feel good

I would say that's probably one of the coolest thing that we've been able to do over time when I was 25 I realized that this is a very unique opportunity. And I set a goal at 25 to raise a million by 30. And that became this like filter for my decisions, my life, just everything. And then working towards that goal, I'd never really set a goal doing what I do. It was kind of just guessing as I go. And then, uh, when we met that goal, I'm like,

what else can we do? So then we just kept going with that goal. Like let's do another million and so on. And so I think 4.5 million later, a lot of, we've been able to help a lot of people along the way in this journey. So what do you think the most misunderstood thing is about what you do? Um, That it's easy. People think maybe you just got a gift and you just wake up, roll out of bed, and go do it. Even when people say, there's comments that I read like, he probably did this a thousand times. That's why he can do it. I'm like, yes! I did do it a thousand times. If you did too, you'd be able to do this as well. I commend that. If you did times and if you did too you'd be able to do this as well and i commend that and

if you did and if you could do it better than me then i know the work it took to do it because there's no way around but practicing and so i think the biggest misconception is yeah that i just grew up as an artist comes natural i just like throw it up there i could but that's not why i'm doing this i wanted to be very be very specific. I like that sound effect. I want to grow. It's used a lot. I don't want to know why. How do you know how much your paintings are going to go for?

How do you put a value number on that? I don't. It's just kind of like real estate. I'm like, what did someone buy it for last time? And that's kind of the value. And then we average it out. So say if you were to buy a painting, I'd say, cool, well, the average is this for this size, but they've gone for as high as 50,000. And as, you know, as low as, you know, around a thousand when I started. Actually lower than that when I

started. But I got a friend that buys art and he said, it's like real estate. You know, he said, in most cases it's, you know, going to hold its value really well and a lot of times it's just gonna go up yeah i was like i never knew that never thought about it never because you only think about like the the really famous stuff right and you don't think about any of the other any of the other paintings that other people are doing but they do have a tremendous value um and then they have like a sentimental value yeah do you have some things that you've done that, you know, you're just, you hold onto because they have that much value to you. Yeah. So actually to go back to what you were just saying is what the value of art, I think, you know, I, I don't mind negotiating with people, you know, it's just part of just

business in general and living in a capitalist culture. But, you know, when someone is comparing something that's made by hand, that there's only one of one, and then they compare it to the price of, say, a sneaker, like a limbs edition sneaker that's manufactured by a machine or a company or some sort of marketing. And so for me, what's interesting is that that people as long as the artist is alive they compare you to a machine or a manufactured product and you know over time you just hope that you can kind of build the value based on you know the life that you lived or you know what your art went for but sounds it sounds really depressing by the way where somebody's like you're worth this like your work is worth that.

Obviously, you've made it to a more comfortable spot. But in the beginning, when somebody's like, I'll give you $50 for it. You're like, oh, $50. It does hit you in the heart a little bit. You're like, I just slaved my whole life over this. But that's also part of becoming an artist. You want to be professional? This is the shit you have to deal with.

I can take it. For me'm i'll take it all day like i have parents who were entrepreneurs and you know my i see my dad build it and lose it and build it again and my mom as well so for me i'm like that's just life you know have you ever gone to a show and sold art like a lot of people do that i know there's like western art and there's all different kinds of places where people go and sell their work. You mean, have I gone to show? Yeah. Not really. You know, I've tried to do the gallery thing

and it just doesn't translate as well. Right. They see something on a wall, they're like, how long was this made? In six minutes? And then you want them to pay X amount of money for it, but they didn't experience it,

so they don't know the value of the experience. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking in my head watching your performance it just wouldn't yeah by the way i realized i didn't answer your question before it's something that i hold on to there's paintings early on that i created uh in the first handful of years they're like really fine art pieces that uh inspired by kind of like urban jazz and i realized that that's what i was seeing because there was a time in my life like that that is done you know it's kind of like how people are like I love the old Kanye that Kanye is done like he's not the same person right and I realized that those paintings at that time that I'll never be the same person I may do something similar but there's going to be another

influence of life on that or skill set and so I would say even right now right now the paintings that I do right now will never look the same two, three years from now. And it's debatable on whether they're better or worse or whatever, but it'll never be the same. I think when you look at Sylvester Stallone writing Rocky, he's never going to write another Rocky. Or Eminem. A lot of these guys, they have that one, it's not like they have one thing that's great, but they have that one thing that was kind of their breakout thing that's very, very special to them and very special to their fans too.

Yeah. Yeah. What do people know you the most for, you think? I know you've been on TV and there's like, you know, you've been doing these things at the basketball games and. You know, I would say. Is there a particular painting? Oh, my underwear's showing in that.

I should pull up my pants. Wow. Nice G-string. Wasn't not in that. I should pull up my pants. Wow, nice G-string. Wasn't not expecting that. Wow. It is quite comfortable. It's airy. Especially when you get them up over the shoulders. That's what I like.

Oh, I should have wore that for wardrobe. All right, guys, this is our wardrobe for today. That's right. You're like, that's a string. Shit, man, we paid you to come here. This is what you're wearing. You're like, that's a string. Shit, man, we paid you to come here. This is what you're wearing. You're welcome. No, you know, I think probably America's Got Talent would be the broadest spectrum that really put me on it.

Even though I was doing it professionally for eight years before, we had a lot of great success before that. And then doing that when tens of millions of people see you at one time, they're like, oh, I remember you from America's Got Talent. So for me, I'm like, oh, I remember you from America's Got Talent. So for me, I'm like, that's cool because I enjoyed that process and we made it to the finals, lost to the dogs.

It's cool, but no. That's got to sting. That's got to stay with you. That's the thing that stings. Forget the $50 for my painting. You need a painting. The dogs beat me.

You need a painting of those dogs. Just like right when you walk in your place, studio you can be fired up to go practice yeah man guys you can't see but on my there's a tear rolling down my eyes he's crying profusely right now so you mentioned having eight years of success uh prior to that one thing i think people get confused about a little bit is that there's success in every single day. There's success at every corner and every turn of every single thing that you do. Everything that you do is an opportunity for success.

Maybe not to be great, maybe not to be spectacular. Food choices, drink choices, choices with who you hang out with, choices on what you read, choices on where you spend your time. There's these corners every single day where you can be, you got the option of being successful. It's a choice that you can make or not being successful. Eight years goes by and you're plugging away and plugging away some good some bad some good some bad uh a week of just shit just being bad yeah in your in your life and in your career a week turns around and starts to get a little all these things all these ups these downs a lot of downs a lot of downs a couple ups here and there yeah get a crumb thrown your way here and there and then eight years later you're on well probably even longer than that but

basically eight years later you're on america's got talent and now all of a sudden you are recognized that's all that happened you're not any more successful you didn't do anything different yeah you didn't do one thing special yeah except for have all these opportunities each and every day that you had. You tried to be as successful as you could possibly be with those choices. And you were, and then you got recognized for it eight years later. Yeah. And it's like, that's one of those things. It's like, motherfuckers, I've been here the whole time.

I loved you on America's Got Talent. Eight years for an overnight success. Yeah, I loved you on America's Got Talent. Eight years for an overnight success. Yeah, I love you on America's Got Talent. And it was, I'm sure it was a building phase of you learning what to do, what not to do, how to do it in so many different respects. Yeah, you know, I would say what was significant about America's Got Talent

is this is why I said, fuck what I've done for the past eight years. I used to do paintings in six minutes. I had to do them in 90 seconds. Each one. Dogs get it. Comedians get it. Musicians get it. That was my next challenge. I was hungry to figure this out. it hurt like the process of saying yes and then failing and not figuring it out until two weeks before the audition and then going and not knowing that it was all going to come together. Like that's the shit I live for. So I don't care. That's why I say like, I don't care what people recognize me for, wherever you recognize me for at that moment. I know I worked my ass off for it and it's a blessing to be doing it so right and whatever that next thing is

you know if it's something that I have to work my ass off for then I'll do it like so this is so funny so the we had this whole idea like alright let's do like music through time like the first one would be Beethoven if we get through we'll do we did Elvis Mick Jagger and then uh but but even like the paintings that we I wanted to progress through this process so everything was done in 90 seconds even the semi-finals I did the 16 foot tall Statue of Liberty and so to do something like that like you know I had to step out of just being an artist at that point now which I had to be a leader to my dancers, to my team, to the people that were helping us out, like really cast a vision. I never really stepped into that role before.

And I, so I feel like there was so much more than just the recognition that came out of it, but who I had to become as a person, uh, through, you know, learning and putting myself in a position. A lot of pressure. Oh yeah. Yeah. Cause you never, you don't know what's going to happen. Hey, you're up next.

I want to know, wait, hold on. Some, something, something else happened, right? Oh, wait, commercial break. Oh no pressure. Oh yeah. Yeah. Cause you know, you don't know what's going to happen. Hey, you're up next. I want to know, wait, hold on. Some, sometimes something else happened, right? Oh, quick commercial break.

Oh no, you're on. Right. Oh yeah. A lot of all that shit, right? There's, I could spend a whole nother two hours talking about that,

but yeah, it's, it's a lot of, a lot of stuff to deal with. It has nothing to do with art or creativity. You know, you're up there in front of, you know,

Howard Stern and Howie Mandel and they don't know. And the people, the people that run the show, they don't know or care. They're that's it's 90 seconds. You got 90 seconds. They don't care that you had to, you know, they don't care how you figured it out. You had to figure it out. Right. Yeah. And I think that's important for people to understand that people don't care how you come to your conclusion. They just want you to get there. Yeah. They want like even, uh, even work-wise, if you're just, you know, somebody asked you to do something, they don't always really care about how you got there, how you didn't get there. Yeah.

Um, you may have to say, Hey, like, you know, I was sick or something. There's things that happen, right. But in general, it's like, you just want the guy to get there. Just figure out a way to get there. Find a way. How would you compare that to lifting? Say, for example, you know, you've got this, you know, I don't know the right terms, but this massive deadlift that you have to do. Are you thinking about all the things that you should have done leading up to that point? Or like, oh, I should have added more weight on that day. Or are you just like, look, I'm just going to go for it. How does that work in that world of powerlifting where you've got to come to that conclusion and get it done? It really comes down to how bad do you really want it?

Like how bad. And that's not to say like if you want it more, you're going to make it because that's not realistic. You know, 400 pounds, 400 pounds or 800 pounds or whatever the weight we're talking about. It's heavy. And it probably hurts. But back to what we said earlier about how it does hurt. Yeah. It's very fucking painful sometimes, but back to what we said earlier about everything that you do in the course of a day has an opportunity to be heading towards success or at least heading towards your goal. And if you're doing too many things that aren't heading towards your goal, if you're doing too many things that aren't quote unquote, making you money and you're losing out. And when you go to rely on that reserve of strength, it won't be there because maybe you went to do this lift on a Saturday and on Friday,

you were like, Oh, I'm going to make sure I eat really good on Friday. I'm going to eat a lot. I'm going to get a lot of rest. It doesn't work that way. What about, what about the week before? What about the weeks before? What about the months before? You know, how, how, how deep down this rabbit hole does somebody really want to go? Yeah. Do you want to be good at it? Because it's pretty easy to be good at it. Or do you want to be great at it? Do you want to have, and the only way we can be great at anything in my opinion is have progress you uh mentioned half gift half half uh you know half talent half you working your ass off right and if you never really tried to manifest you never really tried to manage what you had because that's really the key you made a choice to be an

artist but that doesn't do anything. Yeah. It doesn't do anything for you. You got to manage it and try to turn it into something, right? Yeah. I mean, yeah, you can sign up to compete, sign up to, but you have to do the work. And I love that point you made, which is, you know, it's not just like the week before that you do this. I mean, when I think about in high school, I would go to the mall and I would take a

sketchbook and I would draw people in motion and movement. And my teacher at the time, Mr. Sullivan, he's like, go watch people, go be an observant person because that's going to benefit you later on. And now being observant, if I were to draw you, watching how you shift your weight. Hopefully you make my arms a little bigger. How beautiful this face is. Be observant. And even those little things, these techniques that you've got to just enact or learn over time so that in the moment when you've got to do a 90-second painting, okay, I'm observant even in that moment to fix something or to adjust or to continue. or to continue. You know, back to the workout analogy that we're talking about,

a lot of times people are like, oh, you know, I didn't have my pre-workout. Or they rely so much. Wait, did you hear my, that was my excuse. They rely so much on these pre-workout things. But I don't think, you know, nothing will ever matter. And people talk about performance enhancing drugs and steroids and these things, they have a profound effect on, uh, the muscle mass that

you carry around the body fat percentage that you have, of course they, they, and your mental state they're, they're, yeah, they're, they're a big deal. Uh, I'm not going to ever undersell that they're not a big deal, but nothing will ever, ever come close. Not even, it just won't even match up at all. Shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath as making the right choices over and over again, over and over day in day out. I mean, we see it in powerlifting all the time now where there's a lot of guys that are drug tested and they're breaking all time world records that are held by guys that aren't tested. Yeah. And so we, we see it and it's, uh, you know, it know, it's just to that same point, but a pre-workout is just a drink.

Your pre-workout doesn't, it's not a cup. It's not a shaker cup. It's not a product. Your pre-workout is, your pre-workout should start the second that your last workout ended. So if you have a shitty bench day, like we bench here on Thursday at super training gym, if you fall short, I'm glad it's not bench day. Every day is bench day. After this, we're going to go lift. That's right. That's right. But after you're, um, after you failed or after you didn't complete what you wanted to complete, that's where the pre-workout should be starting. What do I got

to do different? That's when you get with everybody else and you say, Hey man, like guys, you know, I want to be better at this. Like, what did I do? I'm like, Oh dude, you, you've been slacking off. You haven't been here. You haven't, they're going to point out everything. Yeah. And then some, and maybe even make up stuff and insult you, uh, unjustifiably probably.

Do you want to keep talking about it? Until you, yeah. Let it out. Let it out. unjustifiably probably. Do you want to keep talking about it? Until you, yeah. Let it out,

let it out. But that's, you know, that's, a lot of people think it's just the prep right before, you know, 30 minutes before, but you're not going to get that from.

Yeah. Now, I would say, even that, even if you did, for what I do, there's this, so when I did the NCAA men's championship halftime,

so the final four is the final game. And because of my schedule, I didn't have a lot of time to rehearse. So I showed up the day before my dancers. I was in my hotel room. I cut up these little pieces of paper and I'm like, all right, so the music is going to start. You guys are going to move around like this. And they're just looking at me like, you want us to do what tomorrow? So I said, no, just trust me.

Like, trust the process. So the next day. You're this little piece of paper right here and you're going to be going over there. Yeah. And I'm going to crush it. What is it? Meet the Millers? When he does that little. Did you ever see Meet the Millers So the next day. You're this little piece of paper right here and you're going to be going over there. Yeah. And I'm going to crush it. What is it? Meet the Millers? When he does that little.

Did you ever see Meet the Millers? No, no. Oh, damn. Which one was that? Anyway. Huh? Oh, we are the Millers? We are the Millers.

Can I pull it up? He's like drawn out a scenario to this kid that's on the bus with him. And they're trying to get out of a ticket from a cop. And so the guy is like, okay. He goes, we're here. And he writes in the dirt. He's like, we're here. And he draws like an X.

And he goes, the cop is over here. And he's like, there's a bush right there. He goes, you're going to swing around here and you're going to get blowed up. He tries to slip it in there real quick. And he's like, wait, what? He goes, yeah, here it is. He goes, quick and he's like wait what he goes i wait he's like yeah here it is there it is he's like he goes i'm yeah he's got the bottle cap the rock yeah god damn this is

a good movie so funny oh that's funny holy shit jennifer aniston so hot too what are we gonna do about family values right there i love that oh my god sorry to hijack everything no it's okay that's a great. Yeah. This has a lot to do with you. A lot to do with how you do your images, right? Well, no, no. So, so I basically was, I was in that position. I'm like, all right.

I just look crazy. The next day though, we showed up in the morning and we rehearsed. I'd never done the paintings before. And, uh, but I needed to make sure that my dancers because i know i can click into into that mode any i just need a certain prep time study and for them i want to make sure that they were comfortable with the movements so the first time i painted it was in front of 75 000 people oh this is uh i think for usc i'm not sure if there's video up of, what was I wearing? What the hell? Oh, my God.

Hey, you got to stand out, right? Someone stop me next time. Mark. Yeah. You see me in something weird. Dude, what's this leather getup you got going on? This came from the biker bar straight to my show. That's one of those things that you only wear once, you know?

It's like 485 bucks and you thought it was cool at the time. I'm sweating under that. Like, it's all just soaked full of sweat. Probably dying. But you can't take it off at this point because you're sweating too bad. I mean, I could. It's a different type of show. They did not pay me for that.

Yeah. People got to pay like. I will owe them money. Yeah. But anyways, yeah. So we did the show. It actually came out amazing. And, but I would say it only, you know, there are moments where you can tap into your experience

and trust the process. But even that was because of years of studying, showing up, practicing. And that's why we were able to pull that off in that moment. Thank you for turning that off, by the way. Years of being prepped beforehand. What's your favorite piece that you've ever done? Man, there's so many. Can I give you two?

Sure. All right. The first one, I would say, there's a painting called DJ Jewel. That was one of those fine art pieces, the ones that I just hold on to. It was my first published poster. It was just so representative

of a certain time in my life. So that was one. You can Google that, DJ Jewel, Dave Garibaldi. And then I would say the next one would be Einstein. And I think everywhere I do that one, it's just so universally connected. I mean, everyone sort of can connect to that. And my goal of the performance is to use it as a platform, as a conduit to either inspire people or to give as we go. So Einstein has become a great conduit for either giving or inspiration. What is it about him?

Is it the hair? Is that like a big part of it? He's ugly. Like, no lie. No, he is an ugly person. He's got some deep features. But that's what I love about him is the one thing I hate the most actually is painting really beautiful, pretty people. I would not be a subject.

I'll never paint you. No, and I say that because there's no shadows. There's no features. So many girls listening to this right now being like, he painted me. What the fuck? Put me on blast. No, and I only say that because usually, you know, conventionally beautiful people, they try to minimize shadows and selfie loomy lights. I like the shadows.

Like, I like the creases. I like the wild hair. I like the hair up in a ponytail or like just the the the laugh lines like to me that is that's great character that's where we're unique where do you paint these people off of usually like uh is it just images that you see in magazines or is there some because you're adding your own twist to it too obviously so i used to go before really i could like find a lot of stuff online. I used to go to libraries.

I used to go to Barnes and Noble and I'd get these like books on rock and roll or like photography books on celebrities. And I would go and I would scan them and I would put them in Photoshop and break them down. Now I just, I go on Google and, you know and I look up different images. And I've actually developed a library of literally thousands of images that I reference for various reasons, various things. It helps me keep a library up here because I can't always refer to it. So then what I do is I just kind of go to my library. You've done a lot at this point. And I look at it and I'm like, oh, yes, that one.

And there's this technique that I do there. So, yeah, I have a really weird, crazy process, but I just, to find the images now, I just kind of go on Google and then I just like chop it up, chop it down. It's like sampling a song, you know, what are some that you haven't done yet that like, uh, like, I don't know, Bruce Lee or Muhammad Ali, or is there, is anybody like that you kind of, it's been on your list, but you just have never gotten around to it yet? Justin Bieber. I've done that. I've done a lot.

I've done all those ones that you said. You know what? I haven't really done, I mean, I've done like illustrations of my kids, but I haven't done like a performance painting of my kids. No, that would be cool. And part of it is like, they don't know this.

I'm constantly looking at them and staring at them. They're like, dad, why are you staring at me? And I'm like breaking down their face and shadows and highlights. And I'm like,

how would I recreate this beauty? And to me, that's intimidating. It'd be hard because you see them so much. It'll probably be when I do it. And that's why I collect

so many photos of them. You'd be all crying the whole time. Like, what's wrong with him? Seriously, yeah. But that, to me, I haven't done my kids

actually like a performance painting of them. They probably just think it's weird anyways. So that's probably why I haven't done it. But as for like celebrities or icons,

man, there's so many. You mentioned earlier your parents being entrepreneurs, or at least you said your dad was, I think. Yes, both. Both. Did they help foster some of this creativity? Were they like, hey,

yeah, go for it, or was there some resistance where they're like, you know, we're going to get a job? There was solid concern. When my dad came outside. I like the way you put that, solid concern. When my dad came outside and I like the way you put that, solid concern. When my dad came outside and I'm throwing paint against the wall and he literally was like, this is your life dripping down the wall, David. Like he was very legitimately concerned. Yeah.

And I don't blame him. I also was into graffiti early on and I was like a lot of nights running from the police and my mom knew about this. So they were trying to like deconstruct and say, why don't you paint in your room or in the backyard? And so even though. No, that's a good move. Yeah. They were always,

they had a, they had a solution. There was always, there was never a, you're grounded, whatever it was. Hey, let me find a better way for you to do this.

So because my parents are so resourceful and creative themselves, they were just so encouraging And maybe to a fault. I could have used a little bit more discipline. I love my parents, but they know this is why. Yeah, my parents, same way. I could have been, honestly, I didn't do well in high school. I think part of it was I wasn't disciplined to get my homework done. It's part of my story now, but I would say that the encouragement,

there was no shortage of the encouragement with my parents. And again, my parents didn't show, they didn't teach me, they showed me. I literally, I watched my dad like just, you know, start this business and run it for many years. It was successful days. It was really hard weeks and just seeing go through. And I don't know why I'm like, I want to do that. I don't know why. Yeah, you're like, he's getting tortured by it and you're yeah you're thinking it's great yeah are you able

to do all different kinds of art uh I mean first of all are you are you into like something like photography which is totally unrelated to yeah but still related because you're taking uh you know a history of images and um and then what about what about just being able to do more traditional stuff? My mother-in-law, she does Western art. And so she'll take a photo. And then her art looks a lot like the photo that she did. That kind of stuff. Yes.

So actually, both. One, I'm really into video and photography. A lot of my videos, the recent ones have been done by a friend of mine, Chad Ross,

but there's a lot of videos in there that I edit myself. I'll kind of direct the person to like shoot them. An editor. We need an editor.

Do you do it? Hired. Oh, that's it. Yeah, we need another guy. I can only work Saturday evenings once every other month. Is that cool? And only one Saturday other month. Is that cool?

And only one Saturday per month. Is that right for you? That's going to be perfect. That's going to be perfect. Sign me up. No, I love photographer video. I wanted to be in animation. In high school, I took animation.

I wanted to be this, like, work for Disney or be an animator. So I love film, photography, video. Do you still have a desire to do some of that? I do. I do. I have a film, photography, video. You still have a desire to do some of that? I do. I do. I have, I have a dream, which I hope comes life.

Are you familiar with Fantasia? I am. Fantasia is like such a big inspiration on my, just career, which is music and color. And my dream is to

create or create a director or work on a, I would say a future Fantasia film or one like it. There was one. Maybe even like a video game or something too. Uh, yeah.

I mean, even that there's definitely, there's a lot of creative things that I, outside of painting that I love that I, I just, you know, even interior design, I love, uh, I love like picking out furniture and like textures and colors. So stuff that I just don't have any clue on how any of it works. Have you tried? Yeah, I've failed miserably. My wife asks me all the time, she's like, what do you think about this over here? I'm like, I have no idea. You're like, what is it? What do we throw out there? Machete? Oh yeah, throw in the axes and stuff.

We need an axe wall right there. I can visualize stuff okay Okay. But certain things like that, uh, I need to kind of physically see it like in our gym. Now I haven't, uh, in the gym we had previously over a period of time, I kind of put more and more stuff up on the wall, like a record board. And this time around, I've been kind of careful with it because I'm like, I want it to kind of just piece together naturally. Like we just got the MMA wall where we have the punching bags and the speed bags and the mats for jujitsu type stuff. And everything's just kind of piecing together now. And so as I kind of look at it, I can stand back and be like, oh, okay, well that wall is bare and we can put this on it and that on it.

I would say though, so I walked out there in the gym before you got here. It's very well organized. at it, I can stand back and be like, oh, okay, well that wall's bare and we can put this on it and that on it and that kind of thing. I would say though, so I walked out there in the gym before you got here, it's very well organized. Like I look at it and I'm slightly jealous because my studio is crazy. Like it's organized to a point. I know where everything is. My assistant knows where everything is. Outside of that, it's just chaos.

But I admire and I love order. It is so like clean out there. Yeah. Well, you probably need a lot of help because your mind is probably demented a little bit like mine is. Let's do that. Where everything's all over the place and these guys do an amazing job. Because the idea is to have a place that's a little rough around the edges, that's tough, but it's not so clean that it looks like a hospital. But you also want to just pop in and be able to do what you do.

Yeah, you want to clean and organize. The paint's always out. I do love about my studios that everything's ready to go. There's either a canvas up, a blank one. The paint is out on the ground. And it's always ready. I think as long as your space is ready to create or to work out or lift, I think that's really what's more important.

Who in your mind, other than your religious beliefs, is the greatest creator of all time? Oh, man. Whether you're looking at was a master painter, a master inventor. Let me say, like, his IQ was just, like,

off the charts. I mean, they say they call him the smartest person to ever walk the face of the earth. Some people. Yeah. I mean, and this is now

his story recorded through history, like the Bible. You know, it's been told and documented over time. And so I think that's what's amazing about it. It also gives perspective to time as well. We're so in our heads right now. Who's the smartest now? That's the smartest ever.

No, no, no. There's people that were probably not recorded as much, but he was at least recorded and documented. And he didn't have the technology or the tools to bring ideas to life. Yeah, like the dude that rubbed sticks together and made fire. Whoever that guy was, he had some pretty good ideas. Genius. Yeah.

Give him a computer and see what he does. Yeah. Burns it. But yeah, so I think, you know, to me, Leonardo da Vinci is an example of just a brilliant mind and he found outlets to get ideas out and he was, you know, special to this world. Favorite piece of art that's not yours? Or favorite pieces? There's a Leroy Neiman painting.

Leroy Neiman is one of my favorite artists. It's the desktop picture on my computer. It's his painting of these elephants. And again, it's an impressionism. He's a colorist. It's not defined, but it's so, it is distinctive of these family of elephants. So it's on my desktop, inspires me every day.

It's literally every color on the spectrum, but it's organized in a way to give you the illusion that there's... Is he still around? I'm pretty sure he passed away. Not too long ago. Have you had a chance to meet some of these artists that you've admired over the years? No. I haven't met... Ernie Barnes is another favorite artist of mine that was very influential early on. He very influential early on. He passed away early on. Denny Dent passed away. Yeah, Leroy Neiman, he was the last one that passed away that I was really inspired by.

Yeah, there was another artist, Justin Bua, who I greatly admire. He's an amazing urban artist. He was very influential on my early work. We haven't met. We've spoken. We've kind of had a love-hate relationship with each other. That's always healthy. But no, he's still, but that doesn't change anything, the fact that he's a brilliant artist.

Right. Have you ever seen a movie called Exit Through the Gift Shop? Oh, yeah. Banksy. Yeah. Well, Banksy and Mr. Brainwash. I did meet Mr. Brainwash. Oh, okay. Casually. That's a really interesting movie.

Yeah. To try to sum it up in some way from what I can remember is basically the guy gets discarded clothes, right? He gets clothes that are, you know that that people other people don't care about anymore right and he has like a thrift shop and he just puts a value on these clothes and because he puts a high value on these clothes they become more valuable yeah and it's really interesting because you're talking about like the value of art and some of these things it gets to be like what is the value but like he

you know might take a beat up v-neck and it might be you know 325 bucks now yeah and now someone's like

wow that's a really nice even though it's the same beat up thing that maybe he bought for 6 bucks yeah you know that I think that whole movie

is art alone I think that you know if you follow the story it was originally Mr. Brainwash doing a documentary on Banksy, showed it to him and then it was like

this really weird abstract film. That's right. He was trying to do a movie about a tiger, right? Yeah, and then Banksy turned it around. He's like, let me see all this footage. It makes you think like, well... Andrew, you'd dig this movie. Is the trick on us?

Yeah, you'd like it. And that it- Andrew, you'd dig this movie. Is the trick on us? I've got to check it out. Yeah, you'd like it. And that's what I love about these type of artists is they blur the line between what's fantasy and what's reality. Right. And then also people still think, is Mr. Brainwashed Banksy? You know, like that's- Right. There's so many layers to it.

Oh, yeah. The Andre the Giant. This is a classic. I mean, it's a many layers to it. Oh yeah, the Andre the Giant. This is a classic. I mean, it's a classic art film, you know. Dude, how good is that Andre the Giant image? That Obey image? Oh yeah, yeah. That thing's great.

And he's another brilliant artist. I've never met him, but I think also just how he branded himself and his ideas and how he had images to represent his thought process. Right. And he's not, I don't know what his drawing skills are, but he also shows that to be an artist, that there is no rules, no limits. You can be a designer and print this stuff out and paste it to a wall and you're still expressing an idea.

And that's still an artist. And I hope that more kids are exposed to different forms of art, you know, when it comes to whether it's arts media type of stuff, like virtual reality, or whether it's even poster art, that there's so many options, and you don't have to limit yourself to being great at using a pencil. It's a great skill, but that's not the only thing. Andre the Giant was ugly.

And it's all over the world but you know actually let's say this different looking he was different looking but because of the obey thing and it becoming so popular we're talking about einstein earlier he's got an ugly mug but it just became so popular that it's so distinctive that you couldn't imagine him looking any other way. Right. And it's almost like that character supersedes the person themselves. It actually makes a lot of sense. Now that I'm going through my head of images that really stick out, there's, other than for lack of a better word, there's some ugliness to all of them now that I kind of think about it.

Keith Richards, Mick Jagger. Yeah better word, there's some ugliness to all of them. Now that I kind of think about it, there's some. Keith Richards, Mick Jagger. Yeah. Yeah. There's some like hard lines where it's like somebody like Babe Ruth, who's, you know, one of the greatest athletes in the history of America. There's even, there was, there's video footage and there's photography of him, but he doesn't really stand out because he kind of had a, like a rounder, a rounder look. He looked really young.

Yeah. He didn't look, he didn't. Yeah. He didn't look old. He didn't look grizzled, I guess you'd say. You know who's hard to paint, actually? I thought about it. Michael Jordan. Hmm. His portrait, his face and his features.

This doesn't work. It has to be spot on. If you're not spot on, it's a whole different person. And also, I feel that way about, I didn't paint Marilyn Monroe for years. People would ask me, I'm like, nope, not going to do it. Marilyn Monroe on the bench press. Bench in the dumbbells back in the day. You ever see that image? No. Oh, I don't think Marilyn Monroe for years. People would ask me, I'm like, nope, not going to do it. Marilyn Monroe on the bench press. Bench in the dumbbells back in the day. You ever see that image?

No. Oh, it's great. I love that you can point over, like, could you pull it up, please? Yeah. I'm too comfortable with that. Andrew, get on it. Could you bring it up on the screen? But yeah, actually, that would be cool out there.

Yeah, she... I don't know if it fits the slingshot brand. It fits with everything. It's Marilyn Monroe. She's beautiful. But yeah, actually, that would be cool out there. Yeah, she... I don't know if it fits the Slingshot brand. It fits with everything. It's Marilyn Monroe. She's beautiful. But it's a cool image. And I think it was an image used by women's rights, women activists and stuff.

Just kind of showing, portraying women doing things a little different, right? And that's become another really popular image. and you know what's interesting is finding out what's become there she is that's a really cool photo crossfitting back in the day with the jeans sports bra I guess

oh yeah the jeans yeah I think she needs the short shorts actually when I'm on when I'm on stage performing I feel like I'm working out in like a leather jacket and

oh man tight pants it's not I wouldn't recommend it sweating in jeans feels terrible. It does. When you first feel like that your shins are getting wet. Yeah.

And it's like sticking. Is that a personal thing? Like wet shins? Yeah, wet shins. Like wet, my shins are wet, I'm done. Well, cause it's just, it just starts to like pull your pants all weird. You could blow, you could blow them out. We're in the deep, dark corners of Mark's mind right now.

You need that four way stretch. Just keep going. Right? Otherwise you're, otherwise you're going to blow it, blow them out. We're in the deep, dark corners of Mark's mind right now. You need that four-way stretch. Just keep going. Right? Otherwise, you're going to blow them out. That's true. No, I only wear stretchy pants now. Thank God someone realized that even guys want to wear stretchy pants. Yeah.

All right? Yeah, we got to be able to pull off our moves, right? Yes. Exactly, yeah. Have you ever gotten hurt doing this before? No. It's like you're slamming paint. You're like, oh, my God, my calf. No, no, yeah. Have you ever gotten hurt doing this before? No. It's like you're slamming paint. You're like, oh my God, my calf.

No, no, no. What the hell just happened? I had a show one time. I was in Vegas. I don't know if the night before anything to do with it. But I got up at 6 a.m. I had an 8 a.m. show for Microsoft. And I got up.

I do these stretches in the morning. Damn, those guys are early birds. I get to do like a 1 p.m. show when I'm awake. But I went up to go do this like kind of yoga stretch. And I just felt this little ping in my morning. Damn, those guys are early birds. I don't like, I get to do like a 1 p.m. show when I'm awake. But I went out to go do this like kind of yoga stretch and I just felt this little ping in my neck. I'm sure you've felt this before.

Oh yeah. And then you just feel it come on and you're like, oh no, oh no. Oh, and the stiff neck starts coming in. And I had to go do this show. What the fuck is that

when it happens? I don't know. I don't know. I was out for like two weeks. I had to, I did like maybe two more shows like that because I couldn't contract to get out of them. That don't know. I was out for like two weeks. I did like maybe two more shows like that because I couldn't

contract to get out of them. Skiff Neck is no joke. I couldn't drive. Somebody calls your name and you're like, what'd you say? And you gotta be like a robot the whole time

and you gotta be real careful. You don't want to fuck with that. Nah. It was, yeah. So outside of that. But yeah. So yeah. Not wow. What about movies? What kind of movies you into oh i mean i'm a big documentary person uh i love like i also love sci-fi type of stuff

like even like black mirror yeah i know it's a series not a movie but uh yeah what else uh i'm trying to think what i watched last yeah, the past six years of my life, I've watched kid movies. How old are your kids? Peter Rabbit is amazing. Great film. They're five and seven. Oh, okay.

Incredibles 2. I haven't seen it yet. They see all the movies before me, and they're like, Dad, can we take you to a movie? I'm like, that would be so sweet of you. That's great. I'm trying to think, though.

Movies. God. I'm like, that would be so sweet of you. Great. I'm trying to think, though. Movies. God. I'm blanking. Would you ever want to try to direct a movie or be heavily involved in a film or something like that? Yeah. Yes, I think to direct or create a director. I'm a storyteller. I think that no matter what I do, I want to tell stories

whether it's performance or whether it's through some other form of media. I'm more of a storyteller. I would actually like to do a TV series. And I like putting

stuff out in the world by the way. So I'm just going to put this out there. But you know, doing a series based on our art life theme that we have

and how art connects life and the art that happens in between and the life that happens in between it all as well, all around the world. The art for me has opened so many doors to meet so many different types of people like yourself, different countries that we've traveled to. Me and Obama. That's it. I'm hanging my hat. I'm done. Game over. Time to retire

but no I would even love to you know really even share you know more people's struggles and stories around the world

and even how art can connect or help that along the way I'm big into Braveheart Tombstone Rocky and then the other day we were talking about

Back to the Future and I think Back to the Future is like one of the greatest family films in the history of movies. You think so? Like it's just underrated.

It flies under the radar. Do you ever cry watching movies on the plane? Or is that just me? Oh yeah, I've cried. Yeah. Like that's the, I mean, I'm an emotional guy.

I'm a big baby. But I'll be watching, you know, Braveheart on a plane and I'm like, oh my God. It's so good how he killed so many people and got revenge. I don't know what it is. Yeah. I was watching The Millers and I'm like, oh my God. It's so good how he killed

so many people and got revenge. I don't know what it is. Yeah. I was watching the Millers and I was crying. Try watching Coco and not crying. My wife watched Ice Age. That's impossible even on flat ground.

My wife watched Ice Age on the plane and cried. Okay. You know, and the mammoth, that whole mammoth story and that's art. Do you remember it's drawn out

on the wall and it's like shows the progression of how they're like not around anymore. That sad actually it was really sad they're dead well i made fun of her but i was like that's so funny you're crying i was in this the last time i really had a good uh cry since we're on the subject i i went to go see ham. I love live theater, but I went to go see Hamilton. And I'm like, what's the hype about? And no lie, before they blacked out right before intermission, I'm just like, tears coming down.

They're going to finish the story, right? We're going to come back and sit here? And even near the end, I don't know if you've ever seen Hamilton, but man, it really is a very touching, incredible story. It hits all like the family, pride, ego, history, like just so many different aspects. Well, that goes back to what you said earlier about art having no rules. Yeah. You know, it's like told from such a different perspective.

And it's told at a good time. You know, these were all, these were all Caucasians, right? In history, at least. And now it's retold

in a totally different way with totally different people. I could imagine though, like maybe like people from the Midwest going like, let's go to Hamilton. And they're like,

what the fuck is this? And they're just like, back in the day. Why is he black? I don't understand. Like just getting up and being all loud. he black I don't understand like just getting up being all loud yeah

I just I'm at like the shock like hold on what did I say it's all rap it's all hip hop yeah it's really cool

um but yeah I was bawling awesome maybe I'll maybe I'm being dramatic I was crying a lot

yeah um on this podcast we talk about having like bad training days or coming back after a bad training day or missing a lift. Have you ever worked on a painting and it not coming out exactly how you thought it was going to be? Yes. How do you push forward after that? So I'll say this.

One of the last NBA finals that I did, it was for the Golden State Warriors. And God bless the Warriors. They're all about the team, like strength in numbers, all of us. And the creative that I want to do, I was like, well, I want to do one of your most popular players because I have six minutes. It's got to be distinctive, and I want the whole audience to buy into it. They're like, nope, we don't want to feature any singled-out players.

We want all these hands reaching up towards the trophy. I'm like, that's not fun to do. That's boring. And I said, I want to do a figure because it'll flow, it'll be a great entertaining performance. They're like, well, if you do a player, it's got to be like full body and can't look like any of the players. So I'm like,

alright, this is what I have to do. And I'm thinking like, alright, I didn't have, my gut was telling me no. Like, no, this does not feel right and I should have listened to it. We did it and there was other pieces to it.

But afterwards, like, I just felt like, like it was not a great painting at all. And mainly because it didn't connect with the audience.

The whole audience is like, who's this supposed to be? Is that Kyrie Irving on the Warriors? What did you learn from that experience? To follow my gut feeling. I had another recent... So maybe your assistant or whoever sets up some of these things would communicate on what it is you're going to do

before you get there, right? Yeah, I'll add another one. He's probably not going to do that, just so you're aware, but he might lean more towards, there could be some compromise. Yeah, just to get a better idea of the creative. There was another one, we did a huge show for McDonald's, it was for their global summit with all the owners from all over the world. French fries.

And again, we went back and forth on creative for months they and they probably changed their direction we're like all right this is a cool idea a week later like so we're changing the direction you're like i'm drawing the hamburglar he's underrated nobody ever talks about and and no like the the creative just got more simple and simple and simple and now here's the thing they're paying very very well all right And I wanted to give them my best. Like, America's Got Talent, you know, type of level of performance. And just very complicated and entertaining.

And they're like, nope, we just want the simple M on this, like, background. So, all right, let me try to complicate this, at least somehow. And honestly, when we were done, it was okay. And I just, I felt more like shit afterwards because I didn't believe in that. You almost felt like another artist could do it. Of course, and I think what's special about what I do

is I want to do something that people feel like no one else could do. That's where I feel like I shine and I work towards, and then I was like, I have to stick to my gut now because, so coming back from that I couldn't wait for my next show or the next thing

to just do something that I loved and it was it's like losing a it's like losing a game like I feel like shit when I leave walked away with an L

yeah it's huge L a big M a big M with everything going digital you know you have a Microsoft Surface Pro you can paint on it

where do you think art's gonna go like what's the direction now like especially like you know wet paint you know

yeah you know I was just having a conversation with someone about this the other day because

virtual reality painting is becoming more popular it's not as popular because it's so expensive like the

hardware's not expensive but the machine to run it is like three to five thousand dollars so it's not as accessible because it's so expensive. Like the, the hardware is not expensive, but the machine to run it is like three to $5,000. So it's not as accessible, but the minute it is, I feel like people, I,

at some point paint may be obsolete for a paint performance for what I do, at least. And so that's why I'm kind of dabbling into more virtual reality painting just to be ready, just to be comfortable with it, to understand what it is or what I can do with it. Virtual reality is weird. Oh,

it's, have you, have you put on an Oculus before? I messed around with some of it. It's weird when you're like, when you get done, I'm like, yeah,

what's going to happen with this kind of shit? I remember I, so I got the Oculus Go and cause I was getting this and they have this like painting program on there. I was like, what else is on here? And I'm like surfing the web, like sitting in they have this like painting program on there i was like what else is on here and i'm like surfing the web like sitting in my bed like no clothes on i was just gonna say everything switches the porn and i'm so everything switches to porn right away like somebody makes this billion dollar industry of like virtual reality and boom everything just

turns right right off the bat but like they have those, so there's this Netflix app on there and in the Netflix app, it's, uh, you're like in a theater or you're like in this like beautiful like cabin and I'm, I'm like just watching a movie and after a while I'm like, where am I? Hold on. You get sucked into this. And so I, I do not want to put it on my kid's head because, uh, I just, it, it, it does really suck you in and it's, it's sort of unreal and it's so endless now with that said being a creator

it's a great tool for the future and it's barely it's barely been tapped into and I think part of it is because of the accessibility but also the I think the user friendly aspect of it it's you know it looks

you look funny and you're alone you don't really do with anyone else yeah there's some other aspects to it that are weird like i've heard people talk about how you can be in a certain place and like take a selfie there oh that's weird and so like it but it but it wouldn't be you with the goggles on but like you could be anywhere like you can be in greece and you can you know you could you could just be wherever you want almost and so like that might become a like a social media thing which would be yeah you know you know, you could just be wherever you want almost. And so, like, that might become like a social media thing, which would be. Yeah, you know. You know, it just starts to sound crazy, right?

But I would add to that the positive side is storytellers. Say, for example, I'm just going to go down this rabbit hole. A good writer or something. You're walking into a room and then you have choices now. And there's something happening and there's characters that go each way. And whatever character you follow has a different outcome and so on. And it can just kind of keep breaking up. And every time you watch this movie or this play, it's a different outcome every single time.

And so for me, I'm like, there's so many possibilities. I would love to, even again, I would love to do something where people can put them on, tune in from around the world, and do a performance in my studio or wherever else we are. So there's a lot of great possibilities. There's also a lot of really sick aspects to it that I'm afraid of. What about using images? Have you ever done an image of somebody and they get all pissed off even though you just like we're kind of doing it for fun yeah so that's a great question uh uh so the Einstein estate reached out and they're like hey you know you can't do this because we were and really what we realized we can create original paintings when you create prints there's like this

fine line and so I had a my very well-paid attorney respond to them. And basically there are, thank God, there are laws that protect creators and creative people. And because it's altered a different way. And also it's, we're not using the Einstein name and copyright brands. Also like fair use, right? Of people that are popular, people throughout time, there's some fair usage of some of it or not really. You'd be surprised. To a certain point when there's no, I think when there's no estate or foundation that's managing the intellectual property, you can get away with it. Or if you're creative enough and you change some things up.

So yeah, we've had certain people reach out. We're just like, nah, here you go. Here's the law. Right. That protects us. And then my attorney's like, and here's your bill. What's up with your fitness? What you doing with your training and stuff like that? So before I came here, I ate 13 egg yolks.

A thousand pushups with a slingshot. That's not bad. Because you used to train at Ryan Soper's gym, right? Yeah. Yeah. So you used to train there. Man, I've done so many things. So my fitness history, I was always a big kid. That's when I played football.

I played with kids that were bigger than me. What are we talking about? Fat? I was fat. Okay. All right. I was a chubby kid. Breaking it down.

You had some chub. And we were the same weight, but they were muscle, and I was fat. And when we hit each other, I cried, and I hit the ground. You're like, man, I'm squishier than that guy for some reason. I've always fluctuated with my weight. I've never been thin, per se. Maybe there was a period where I was running a lot, but I love cardio. So when I was 21, 22, I was like, man, I need to change.

So I started cutting my food in half and like, at the time, I did everything, started running and I used to weigh 250 plus pounds, almost 260. And I lost like 50 pounds in like six months to like a year-ish, you know. And then I would say from then on, I've always kind of fluctuated between like 200 and a little over 200 and 220-ish. And then – and I kind of just – I don't know. I've always been in and out. I used to train with a guy, Keto Andrews, at Uriah Faber's gym.

Like Muay Thai and like CrossFit type of stuff. So I'm always in and out. But I do always stay consistent and do a lot of cardio. And I have a TR-rex set up at my house because what i do is so physical i mean literally if you watch a show i'm doing you can imagine even the practices uh it's a it's like a crossfit workout in a leather jacket so i do a lot of cardio i'm actually doing a thing called All City Ride with a friend of mine, Abs. He has a gym, and so we're going to test out this. Of course Abs has a gym.

I would hope so. He's a baker. So we're going to go do this. I love the team ride type of stuff. I love cardio. Do you love food? I love food! Yeah, why? It's so hard. Food's so good.

I just did a thing called Reset Health. I'm not sure if you're familiar with it. But it really helped me with my diet. Is it like an app or something? No, it's a program. It's here locally. There's a doctor that started this thing. It just helped me with like understand food better and so now it's

I mean I can keep the weight off or I like deflated basically from how I used to be maybe months ago but it's helped me just make better choices

and when to eat and when not to eat but I still love food do they do they teach you about food yes so it's like an education program

and is it online or in person it's online they do? Yes. So it's like an education program. Is it online or in person? It's online. They do meetups as well. It's kind of like community-based education. I mean, that's the biggest problem is that people don't have all the weapons that they need to kind of fight it off. Because people always think they're hungry. And it's like, yeah, I understand that you're hungry for now, but you have to, we got to get past this. You got to kill off that hunger hormone a little bit.

So even if you like foods that you view as being delicious and you're kind of, you know, quote unquote addicted to them. Yeah. Those are still okay as long as we're not, you know, overindulging and not moving. Yeah. And sugar was my big thing where I basically through the 90 days, I didn't eat sugar for the most part. I do love wine, so I would say that's where my sugar came from. That's a John Cena diet. Is that wine?

Yeah, his carbs only come from wine. That's a weird, I'm going to look just like him. Just give me like 18 years. But no, and I cut out sugar. That was a huge thing. Even just that alone. I, I say deflated because you know what it's like when you're like dieting,

doing everything. I just was like a little puffier. And then I cut that out. And then I started just eating more like high fat, high protein type of food. Started to feel better, I bet. Yeah.

I felt like I had more energy and also mental clarity. That was another big thing, taking sugar out of the diet. So now, after the program's over, I dabble a little, but not like I used to. I would eat like so horrible on the road. I'm like, it's 1130 and I earned this double Western bacon barbecue sauce cheeseburger. Right. And ice cream.

And pizza. Well, it's amazing because we have so much access. It's so convenient to get to it. And we're inundated with so many commercials and billboards. It's everywhere. Yeah. Well, yesterday I was watching something on Netflix. It's Why Diets Fail.

I was also ordering from Postmates at the time. I'm like, I wonder why. All right, get this to your butt. No, I, you know, since I started really my journey in early 20s of like losing weight initially, and then I think just fluctuating in a sense of just like. You look like you've lost weight from last time I saw you. Yes. But I didn't want to say that right away because I don't know you that well, so I didn't want

you to be like. I wore the white pants for you. You guys can't see this, but I don't know how. Yeah. I got the white pants on for you. Did you drop 10, 15 pounds from that time? Yeah. I just, again, just deflated.

I feel great. I always feel comfortable naked. So for me, I'm like, how do these clothes look? I'm going for European cut suit kind of weight. That's what I'm going for. And then for exercise nowadays, do you get a chance to do much or you haven't been? It's every now and then. I always do cardio.

I always run or ride. I've been riding. My assistant's just here. She can attest to this. I ride my bike into the studio. We're like 12 blocks from my house. Oh, awesome. I get a little ride in.

It's just getting in where I can. I love running when I can. Does running help you think? Do you throw on some headphones or do you just go and run? It makes me feel like I'm performing. So my my shows that are on average, let's just say 45 minutes, four paintings on average. I speak in between. It's like a cool keynote.

I didn't know you did four paintings in one night. And and so I'm constantly like used to going and then breathing. So what I do is to, in a sense, train for a show is I'll go for a run. I'll run like faster for say six to eight minutes and then slow it down a little bit. I don't know that there's a term for that, but. Yeah. Yeah. There's some sort of term.

Yeah. But I also love like circuit training. I love, you know, doing a, going hard. Yeah. You know, weight training is so beneficial because it, it'll last longer if you can have some consistency with some weights and you don't have to be a meathead. You don't have to be in the gym all the time, but some resistance training can just do your body some real wonders because your body will then kind of work for you rather than you having

to work the calories off all the time. So if you can simply just work on hitting a gym, you know, twice a week or something like that could be a huge benefit to you, especially down the road, as we get older, uh, the bone density and things like that. But when you go for a run, you basically just burn the calories at that moment. And there's been some research and sciences show that you may burn it throughout the day a little bit too. But that's kind of where it ends. So cardio, I always tell people cardio is for now. Muscle is for long-term.

And so if you have a little bit extra muscle, then you can afford the Western bacon cheeseburger. It's true. A little bit more. You're speaking my language. Here and there. So that would be my only advice is like, if you can, you can get in some resistance training here and there, it might, it might,

how do you feel about the TRX? Yeah, that's good. That's, that's resistance. That's resistance. Yeah. Any form.

It's just that you want to have, uh, enough resistance to the point where you're not like brutally sore, but the muscles should be pretty like kind of taxed. You know, you should, you should kind of feel it. If you don't feel it,

then the stimulus might not be great enough to, uh the same result but even if you have the trx um get a couple dumbbells and just do just a little bit can go a long way just doing some uh shoulder presses and bicep curls and just it doesn't have to be complicated yeah just bang it out and and there you go not everybody loves to do all these weird things that we do. I'm all for the, the T-Rex sells with the travel, but man, I feel like I've been

to every hotel gym in the world. Like, I mean, and they've seen some bad ones and there's some other that are like,

just on point. Yeah, they got everything sometimes. Yeah, we were just on the road. We were messing around at the hotel gym.

It was okay. But when you're talking about food, we were at IHOP in the hotel gym it was okay but when you're talking about food we were at ihob in the middle of the night sorry but uh so being on the roads it's tough to you know it's it's cool that you're being more conscious about what you're putting in your body yeah have you ever had to go from like eating something bad getting off a plane and rushing straight to one of these 45 minute shows oh. Oh, yeah. And something not sitting in your stomach. Oh, yeah. Possibly.

I try not to eat at least an hour before the show, but sometimes when I haven't eaten and I have this excuse mindset where I'm like, all right, I earned this burger 30 minutes before a show and I haven't earned it with working out. And yeah, I feel like, I mean, I cannot wait to get done with the show. Yeah, any epic poop stories from anything like that? Like post-show?

Whatever. Mid-show. Mid-show, yeah. I know, I would say this, when I change my diet. Adds to the paint. Yeah. When I change my diet, your poop changes.

Poop got better. You know, we get a lot of people, I promote a low- diet just because I think it really helps a lot of people that have struggled with their weight for most of their life. Uh, it helps them shift gears and it gets them into a little bit more comfortable spot where they can manage eating less food. Cause that really is what it ends up being all about in some, in some regard. Uh, but when I tell people about this kind of diet immediately, they're, um, they're like, man, I'm not going to the bathroom. And it's like, well, cause you're not eating crappy food all day. You spend, you spend a lot

of hours on the toilet when you're eating those junky foods. And when you're eating, uh, so frequently, have you ever messed around with, uh, some intermittent fasting before? Have you heard of that? Yeah. So part of the program that I did, the Reset Health Program. I really like intermittent fasting a lot. I think it works really well. That was part of it. And it was like, correct me if I'm wrong, but it was like waiting. I would basically, I would eat between the hours of like, let's say earliest 1130 to 12, kind of noon-ish if I got normal sleep.

And then I wouldn't eat past maybe 6 o'clock-ish. And then any food that I put in my body at the time was, like, high fat, high protein, like, just, like, good food. And, you know, obviously mixing in the greens. Steak, salmon, things like that. Yes, yeah, which I love. All that. And so, yeah, that was part of the program.

And I still kind of do that now as much as I can, you know, is just kind of eat during a certain time. And just I cut almost completely cut out late night food as well. Oh, that's huge. Oh, yeah. Cutting out stuff that's like 10 o'clock and you don't have a lot of great choices at that time. There's no great, nothing, even outside of food. There's no great choices after 10 o'clock. No, it's kids. Yeah, that's no great choices after 10 o'clock. No, it's, yeah.

Yeah, that's true. Get your asses in bed. You know, the interesting thing about, about healthy food though, is that I think maybe when you're a kid, you don't have the palate for it because, uh, you're exposed to some other things that are really flavorful. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You know, you have, uh, count chocula and, uh, fruity pebbles and all these like magical things that, that, uh, taste really good. And they just have so much flavor, a Dorito just popping with so much flavor. And so when mom says you got to finish your Brussels sprouts or something, it's really hard task. Cause you're like, I don't want to mess with that. But a lot of the foods that we end up using for diet and end up using to lose weight,

they taste really good. Yes. Like not everybody's a fan of fish, but salmon can be really good. Yeah. If you don't like fish, there's so many different cuts of steak that you can choose from. It can be seasons, you know. They can be, they can be awesome. They can be amazing. And when you, my point too is always like you go to a restaurant and like the most expensive thing on the menu is not the mac and cheese it's the steak you know the steak's nutrient dense and it's um it's it's prepared it takes a long time to even prepare it you know sometimes they're aged you know for x amount of days or whatever it is they're doing you know so i find it interesting and then whenever you talk to anybody and they say that they started to eat better, it was like, I feel so much better. But then there we end up in that same trap again. Yeah, I think, but that's also part of reality is just understanding

sort of the cycles of life. You know, that actually the thing that I was watching, Why Diets Fail, is a documentary. It's actually, Vox has a series of, I think it's called like Explained, something like that. And one of them was about diets. I know, shit. They said one of the biggest reasons why people don't finish or the diets fail is because people don't finish the diet. And then also they said on average, people do about five to seven diets in a lifetime.

And I can relate to that. Yeah, almost everybody loses weight too, by the way. Yeah. So America doesn't have a problem with losing weight. They've got a problem with keeping it off. Yes. And part of it is what they showed is as equally as we're being sold this easy one, two, three diet process, we're also sold as equally or even more this easy one, two, three convenient food as well.

And, you know, being on the road and one of my biggest pet peeves is being in a hotel where there's no food past 10. Uh, it's a good thing now for me cause I'm like, I really don't need to eat late night food. But, uh, but yeah, I just, it's, it's a journey, you know, especially like when I realized when I first lost weight and I was even conscious about it, I've fluctuated and you know, it's just part of life there's a movie called that sugar movie that's a documentary as well and i was watching it the other day and the guy he ordered some chicken and he just took spoonfuls of sugar and just was dumping it on there yeah and it's like whoa what is he doing but all he was doing is trying to trying to eat the uh same amount of

sugar that everybody else eats in a day yeah and so his point was like, this is what it looks like. In this film, he does like X amount of days of consuming sugar from things that you wouldn't really recognize having sugar. So he doesn't have any candy bars. He doesn't have any ice cream or anything. Like sauces? I think he has some sauces and some fruit you know, fruit juices and things, things that are kind of labeled.

Fruit was a big thing too. There's a lot of sugar. Yeah. And just things that are kind of labeled as like fake health, you know, they're not, they're labeled as being healthy. I mean, if you look at like kids stuff, does it all the time. Loaded with vitamin C. Yeah.

And you're like, well, that's a hell of a way of putting it, you know? There's 40 grams of sugar in there for somebody who's not even three feet tall yet. What's funny is, the other day I was with my kids in the car. I'm like, hey, you guys hungry? They're like, nope, not hungry. I'm like, you want ice cream? Yeah, I could go for some of that. I could eat that.

I'm just going to feel good for the moment. Yeah, yeah, you don't need to be hungry for any of that. What's next for you? What do you got going on? So I mentioned it earlier. We are working on a nationwide tour later this year. For my world, that's never been done. So I'm kind of into like what hasn't been done.

What's that tour look like so far with some of the sketching out of what you're doing? 60-minute plus show. So we actually did the first show at Ace of Spades last November. We'll actually do it again. Our Sacramento stop will be at Ace of Spades again. But we were blessed enough that it sold out. But we're going back. We go to all these cities across the country, and people were asking, like, when are you going to come to my city?

They're usually, like, private events or they're at colleges or it's hard to get tickets for. So we're working with these venues and with these promoters and presenters that can make it more accessible. So people can pay a $25 ticket. And the show is like going like a blue man group show, but it's paint. And I do about up to eight paintings in this hour-ish show. But there's also this story that happens over time. There's like this kind of voiceover that's leading me.

It's showing me how to happens over time. There's like this kind of voiceover that's leading me. It's showing me how to paint over time. And so that's happening later this year. I just started a nonprofit, CreatorX. So I partnered with my former high school art teacher, animation teacher. That's awesome. And we are doing an art camp in July, July 12th and 13th. It's about a month. 120 students from the Sacramento area.

They're all young and creative, but also maybe not have had the opportunity that other students have had. But we're bringing in professionals from, say, Pixar, this guy Van Partable, who started the cartoon Johnny Bravo. He's coming into, and there's others that are going to work alongside and teach the students, but also give keynotes as well. So it's like a tech conference, but for kids. And our goal with CreatorX is to kind of really grow that over time into eventually, hopefully, a school. One day, that's the ultimate goal. To be able to do stuff digitally, do you have to be gifted in the same way? It depends on what you're doing digitally.

gifted in the same way? It depends on what you're doing digitally. You'd have to be creative, I guess, but beyond that, maybe you don't need the same skill set as your hand-eye. I think you have to be observant. You think about 3D animation, because really anyone can carve something out or mold a shape on a computer.

But to be observant enough to know that you need to take a little bit more curve on this shape. Or if you're building a face, the eyes need to be in socket just a little bit more to observe the fact that what creates shadows is the depth of that object. Right. And where the lighting is from. And so being observant of those type of things in the world and life will help you go further

than actually just being able to draw. And also there's so many other jobs too, you know, being a director where, so Sullivan's class, the Canine Studios at Sheldon High School, that's where I went to school. It was named the best animation program in the world by the Walt Disney Family Foundation. That's crazy. So he's, he's on another level. Was that just by, I mean, was that, was that by design? It just, it's, you know.

Or you just ended up going to that school? No, I just, it was by a plan bigger than me, how I even ended up there. I wasn't supposed to go there. That's crazy. So, and even meeting him at a certain time in my life. That's, uh, Bill Gates, like the, his dad, like, if I can remember the story, his dad, like, lost his job or something happened where they had to move. And when they moved, they went to one of the high schools that was one of the first high schools that was equipped with computers.

And it's like, holy shit. And because Sullivan, again, is so curious about how can we change education through art, him and I are actually doing a keynote talk on Thursday to Sacramento area teachers about arts integration. And we're sharing about our story. And I'll be performing as well. It's kind of a new thing that I'm really doing with him, with CreatorX and growing this. But actually, if you go to creatorex.org,

there's more info about that. And so I'm really excited about that. This is a whole new venture that we've raised a lot of money for other people. And this is my first time dedicating my time to a really single cause. That's awesome. I think you'll have a lot of fun doing that.

Anything else over there, Andrew? I was just going to ask where you went to high school, but you just answered that. Before we started recording, you were talking about how much you love the area and we rep Sacramento really hard over here, so it's fucking awesome to meet you and west sacramento yeah yeah yeah you know the mutual love for sacramento is awesome yeah i really appreciate that you know i would add to that i i love this city um i was born in la my dad brought us here when we were five again i think

part of a bigger plan and uh you know just growing up here I would say even the past 10, 15 years to be a part of a city that we can actually be part of the change. That's rare in any, maybe there's some places in Ohio that are up and coming, you know, or maybe like in Florida, but Sacramento, it really is our time and we're creating a culture here. We're creating our voice. And I get to be an artist. I'm like part of this grand picture. The fact that you're here doing this across the street from me is a huge building of creatives that are, you know, living and working and creating. And the fact that that even exists, I'm proud to be from a city that provides that opportunity. Awesome.

I think that's all the time we got. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later.