Yo, kid.

You there?

Alright.

Yes Sir, I was just tweeting it out about to jump on my computer and get the United way already. Account in here too, so.

Nice.

Awesome, we got a newcomer.

Fred art world.

Tell Frederick. I hope you'll.

Come up and tell some of your stories about documenting.

Documenting existence.

And we got our wonderful.

Ancient shapes as arrived.

Right.

Wait couple minutes, let some other people get here. At some point I'm going to figure out how to use.

OBS and pipes and music into this.

But in the meantime, I'll let you know, kid, I I just got off of a call with some of the folks from Seoul City Radio.

And we're going to sponsor the entire month of January. Hellbenders is.

What?

Yeah.

Let's fucking go.

Exactly. And it's perfect. You know, just because our launch is early February, so we're basically going to.

Oh, my buddy Calico is here, all right.

Hey.

Have you ever met?

One of my fave artists right there.

Ohh, you know him. We hung we.

Ohh.

Yeah, I it's it's sad. It's a sad story. But I lost my calico piece and my wallet drain. I collected a a beautiful piece that he had made with his wife and.

Ohh.

It's called soma. I remember, you know, I remember the day I bought it and it was one of my favorite, one of one pieces that I had in my vault. And my dumbass clicked that link and boom, it was all gone and I lost my calico piece. But I'll give me another one, one of these days. Don't you worry about that.

Tell you what, kid. I'm. It's great to see you, man. I'll admit you. Another one of the of the same one. I'll send it to you.

Ohh, beautiful. Look at that. Yeah.

Wow, awesome.

Well I mean part of what we're doing here there are a couple of people who are new so I can I can give you a little context of part of this was actually inspired by the kids wallet drain how we're doing this I mean I've we've all known for a long time that.

The scammers and.

The Ruggers, and you know, they're they're so many bad actors in the whole ecosystem, not to mention the centralized exchanges and all that.

And there's so much strife around things like royalties and this and that.

What we really wanted to do was.

Get.

Essentially a safe space to Co create, just like the people who've hung out to together, who know each other could all be part of a token gated community that's also governed by smart contracts. So that if someone within that ecosystem without sharing links, it's all going to be within mobile apps, it's all going to be on chain. We can start just doing all kinds of shit. I mean not just.

Minting and trading, but really deep collaborations that involve music and games and visual arts and 3D and all that. So that's what we're doing here. And and what I heard about kids Wallet drain, I mean, I called them. I think it was probably the next day or the day after.

You know, a couple days later and I was just like, look, we've got to make lemonade. I mean, this is, you know, we've all been through some shit and now this is the time. So we got this.

It's a lot of mobile grant.

We're building from scratch and we're going to build for the saga, for the for iOS and for Android, and we're doing it from the ground up in just a way that's super safe and secure and that starts with us, so when we go live.

Well, next week we're going to have our with the essentially a whitelist system, but it's actually a photo booth where you make your fake ID and that fake ID is going to get you into the app, but it's also going to essentially be your white list to be able to mind hellbenders and we have our whole protocol people you know are going to get revenue when when this all blows up.

And the collection is a Co-op, so all the people who actually own hellbenders are going to get shares of the profit at the end of the year. And because it's a Dow, you're going to be able to vote over the course of the year on what we collect, what we invest in technology.

What we decide to sell, and basically, you know, we're going to run it as a cooperative, as a collective on chain. And if we do this right, on February 3rd, we're going to have a hella treasury, which we can really do stuff with and, you know, fly people to to hack our house in Istanbul and all kinds of cool shit. We're actually going to be too late for Istanbul. I'm bummed because.

That's very that's like the first five days of February, but beyond that.

We're going to be good. So that's the plan. So I'd love Calico since you're new to this group, can you put some of your work up on the on the Jumbotron? Where we usually start is we just we find a willing.

Artist, creator, builder to put some some stuff up and and and tell us their origin story.

Yeah, absolutely. I I will. I will look for some tweets to to post up there for everybody to check out. I have a lot of older work on exchange art that's in the most of my black and white work, but other than one.

Election on form function my new work is is still in progress. I've been creating a whole new body of work that I'm really excited about. So I'll have to dig a little bit and pull up some of that older work from from exchange art and I'll get that up there for you. But until then, hi guys. It's really great to be here and meet everybody. Great to see you kid and and great to see you sentient shapes. I'm really enjoying talking to you as well Moto. Like.

It's been a bit since since Lisboa, that was that was a great time.

It sure was. It sure was. And I mean just that experience of being in that at that huge table, you know, it's just very much like a Twitter space except it's, it's, you know, you get to actually literally break bread. And it was just, I mean what amazing.

Group of people just unsurpassed.

No.

Absolutely. Yeah. I'm going to I'm going to try and keep my mic unmuted while I while I hunt for stuff. I'm I'm in bed with a sore throat right now. I'm actually I find it a a total provenance from the universe that I'm even able to talk right now. It's like this. All of a sudden I feel better enough to talk. I was literally like half an hour ago just like frogging it up over here. So I'm really glad that it worked out. So I I I consider that to be a little stroke of good luck. So I will talk wh

Browse my my media page here and and pull up some of the work that I have available still but but until then I I guess you said origin story like when would you like me to start origin on Salana or origin with art?

No, what I really like to to hear is what was that moment like if you're if your life was a?

Feature film. There are a couple frames where.

It went on. The heavens opened.

The sun shined down and you're like, Oh my fucking God, I'm an artist, you know? This is what I'm going to do. And what was that? How was that? What did it come out of all super?

Powers have their kryptonite, you know, what's that kryptonite? I'm just, you know, we we want to hear that that origin story.

Amazing, man. Yeah, I was. I guess I'll start as a kid, because I was really.

Privileged to be homeschooled like my entire life up until college. And my mom was really into it and she she gave me hella art to to like chomp on when I was really young. And we used we would do outings to all the galleries in LA really often as a kid. And so I was exposed to fine art and the masters from a really young age.

And and had art lessons like a tutor and stuff like that. So I I was really, really pleased to have like art instruction from a really young age and art inspiration from a really young age. Like. Like I think I was taking, I was tutoring under somebody when I was like 6 or 7 and it went on for like 10 years. And I think that the big aha moment of I'm an artist, not just arts, really cool.

Came with computers, actually.

Somewhere in the early 90s, ninety one or two.

My dad made available one of his, one of his, I think it was a Mac.

Plus or a Mac Mac 2E or something. You know like the early all-in-one Mac modules. And I was given access to that and a software called Canvas Three. And I had played a lot of kind of like adventure games in early like 80s and 90s like PC and Mac games and and I just was in love with video games, man and and with programming and.

I got that software and I I swear I spent like three years, like every waking moment. I was home schooled. I didn't have a lot of friends. It was just me and my computer and like cranking out artwork for video games. You know, everything was pixel art back then. So, so it was a ton of pixel art going on and and which is why I'm rocking my pixel puff PFP right now. I love, love, love all things pixel art, even though I don't currently make any.

But.

I mean Fast forward I all through the 90s I used you know now pretty archaic softwares long before Photoshop and Painter and procreate I was using Bryce 3D all the all the kind of low tech but at the time very high tech 3D modeling and graphics systems and and so just it was kind of just like a Playland.

For me, and I would just crank it out. And so by the time I hit like the 2000s I was.

I was on the Internet and and just putting my art wherever I could find a place to get it and being in the early kind of BBS forum communities of concept artists and and digital artists of all kinds and and just that's really my community.

I went to college for fine art after that. But like, but my roots are in digital art, computer art, pixel art, video games and concept art. And so that's really where my, like, my love for all the different styles comes from is concept art is like you make you make art for what you feel. You know? I don't have just this one medium that I'm that I'm forever addicted to.

I just love to dance with all the different mediums and and so yeah, so that's that's how I find my way here.

But yeah, sorry, I had to cough.

So.

Yeah, that's cool. I actually just went on mute for a minute because I was.

I've been diving deep into your your, your timeline. I've posted some stuff there up at the top, just, you know, some things that.

That jumped out at me. I'd really like to ask about the last one that I put that I posted up there. I mean, it's so mysterious, those shrouded figures and the fog landscape.

Which is sort of rolling down into into that.

Into the crevasse, you know, just can you talk a little bit about that one and and go a little deep because that seems to me.

I mean that is very much of a concept piece and you were talking about concept pieces just when I scrolled to that. So is this kind of what you're talking about in terms of?

So this piece right here is a collection that I created called natural Portal and it came through me playing around with AI.

Really was upset when when I started seeing a ton of AI work everywhere and was like, oh, I was definitely very much into this is not art category. And like, oh, it's just a Google deep dream and you're just typing something in and it gives you an image. And so at some point I decided, well, I I love to to go into the shadow, right? Like whatever I'm made uncomfortable by. I want to go into it and understand it first and foremost.

And so this piece is one of the later pieces from the natural Portal series, which are all created with a stable diffusion AI. And I wrote a really long post about it. But essentially I chose to use AI for this series after I read about the 18th century or excuse me, 19th century engraver Gustav Dore. And he's famous for engraving like Paradise Lost, the Bible like before there were.

Any sort of digital or television media, everything was printed for hundreds and hundreds of years. And he was a he was an engraver. And I've always loved his work. But when I found out that he had been employing something to the tune of 50 or 60 engravers, and he would just give them, he would give them a block of text and a little sketch and say, OK, this is what it's going to be now.

Make it in my art style.

You know and.

That's awesome.

Yeah. And so it was really surprised by that. I was like, wow, that's kind of like an AI program.

It's analog analog AI.

Yeah. And so and instead and instead of using, you know, all of amassed human artwork and photography, it uses, you know, he used, you know, living beings as his, as his, you know, software. And, and I thought that was really interesting. And so all of these, all of the images in that series I utilized at the very end of the prompt I put by Gustav Dore, you know, because I want to, I wanted to collaborate with him. I wanted to use him, you know.

In my in my story there and. And so I played around with it for a while until I started using colors and then I was like OK, this is turning into something. And at the time I was, I was camping all over England and Scotland and so I was outside for like four or five months was that I was tent camping out of my car with my family all over England and Scotland all summer, this summer.

And and so I started producing these images to evoke the feeling that I had of being anonymous in this wide landscape and being part of nature, you know, without an identity of just being this kind of traveling person in communion with nature. And if you and if you check out this collection on on form function, there's a poem that goes with each of the of the images that's to this effect and gives you an idea of what I was going for with that.

And so, yeah, so very much meant to evoke that communion with nature and also to speak a little bit about like.

You know we're in this space and we're anonymous you know with the because all of my all of my work all summer was done through crypto Twitter and through Solana NFT's. And so I've provided for myself and my family all summer on on NFT's in a bear market. And so and I was really struggling with this idea of anonymity and like how we're all so separate but so all that ties into that, into that series.

Well, well so.

Because it's really interesting. I mean with a lot of.

AI generated art.

You can quote tell it's AI, and there's very much you can also tell.

If the person is really a trained artist or someone who's just goofing off and it's just, it's really interesting because some of your.

So much for your work that you clearly did manually.

You can see that.

It's still an outgrowth of your deep relationship with the computer. Like after you told us more about your origin story, I can see that evolution of video games, pixel art, and some of these vary.

Beautiful abstract architectures. You know what your work reminds me of. I just realized what it is. It's it's that book, a pattern language.

I'll have to check it out, I haven't read it.

Oh my God, Google it. It's the most amazing thing, a pattern language, and he wrote these other books on community and other things, but basically it's set up clear, this long conversation over dinner about.

Spore and and Sims and all that and.

It's it's very much.

There I see in your work complete world like even you know this series will of the oversaw or this one, you know the Dome of Salt series.

It's like whether it's an individual or, you know, confluence of the Domo, I mean it's such a complete world, it's almost like.

Miyazaki absolutely, yeah.

He's saying miyaki. Not easy. Miyaki, the guy who did Totoro, you know it's Miyazaki. Yeah, yeah. It's like and it's not like his.

But your worlds are just as complete.

That's really means a lot to me, man. Yeah, the domicile series is probably the most fleshed out idea I've had. And we did have a long conversation about it about this, like this world of builders and imagineers and and all of their different tribes and and cults and and groups of of builders and alchemists and and things like that and and yeah, you're right. It feels like a full, a full world to me. And so whenever I'm working in that, in that world, it feels really fleshed out and there's so m

For me to to gather from and I really see a lot more coming for that from that world down the Pike.

You know, there's a there's a guy on Twitter.

I'm following them, following too many people, so he almost never shows up anymore, but he's doing. I think he started some company that's actually doing.

Games now using AI where he can very quickly generate once he has.

You know a couple houses, for example, he can generate a whole village once he has a couple crests for warring clans he can generate.

An insane number, you know.

Robots, vehicles, you know, and it's a really interesting thing, but.

My very good friend Nat Jones who is the illustrator of Hellbenders. You know I'm never on Facebook anymore but I just for some reason I clicked on it and I saw he had done this post.

You know, there was still.

Bemoaning AI and how he started to see more and more of his work. I mean he did like.

He illustrated Frank Frazetta's death dealer, which is a very.

You know, among illustrators and graphic novel aficionados and Frank Frazetta did the cover of the Molly Hatchet albums, you know and and.

Nat Jones did the covers of his graphic novels and, you know, drew in in, in the graphic novel. So he's extremely accomplished. And now all these people are, you know, typing in Nat Jones and then some prompt and they're, they're getting you know, results that it's like Nat Jones illustrated and he's bemoaning it and I just see like.

The incredible flourishing that's about to happen when?

Because you still need those creative, I mean, to creativity is just going to be amplified.

By the creators and the fans and the readers and other artists.

All Co creating completely new worlds.

Absolutely. Yeah. That's that's exactly how I feel about it. I, I, I can feel it in my bones that were not very far away from like like like you said, like it like fully AI, like game generation where you just plug in what you want to play and the elements that are there and it surprises you entirely every time. And and you have a completely custom game experience and of course it's going to draw on all of the games of the past, you know, that's the database of the collective.

Be conscious of all game creators of all time. Like that's where we need to draw from in order to get our ideas. That's where, that's where game designers today draw their ideas from. Is the game just the games of the past. And it's the same with art. The artist. I I was having a conversation with a gal here on crypto Twitter about the same thing just the other day about like like well don't we draw from the artists of the past and and plug them into the code of our brain and decode them and say

You know, like I wanna create more art like so and so and, you know, we need that. And so I think that the AI is just showing us a little taste of or maybe a much bigger taste of what we do internally as artists in the analog space.

Exactly, exactly. So I a quick commercial interruption. So I just pushed to the top of the.

The tweet which I would like everybody to retweet, the one promoting this.

Space because at the bottom of the hour which is in.

Almost exactly an hour. We're going to be doing a drawing for a hellbender and.

We're also, you know, we would like everybody to also retweet. If you go down the thread a little bit, there's a.

Shout out to the kids auction this evening and really want everyone to get get involved in that. But if you retweet that first one and you're still here, in an hour you're going to be in the drawing and these.

These hellbenders, hopefully you know, really will be the center of a whole new ecosystem for for artists, musicians, promoters, and builders. So dwip to please.

Hop up on the stage. Good. Take yourself off mute. Hey.

Yo GMGM, everybody. I'm I'm at work. I'm a bit of a hurry, but I just wanted to give you guys some to think about the whole AI thing. Right. Just so let's just say you take the last 100 years of art and that is your you know your sample for for for what you output. And now how much of that has been is art that's been created by black people, how much has been created by women? How much has been created by.

LGBTQ community. And so if that's the sample that you take from for the next 100 years, suddenly new creators are going to be less motivated to create their own work since they can quickly just, you know, type something in. Why go buy a paintbrush and a canvas or a digital camera?

And now suddenly this is what we're stuck in and this is what art is going to be and it's going to be very rare that anybody, you know something new comes of that. And and there's a, you know, there's a whole, there's a whole representation thing that that I think that a lot of people don't consider when they're thinking about this AI art thing.

So Twitter, that's an awesome comment actually, I hope you don't have to run too fast because I really want to dig into this a little bit. So I was listening to.

A I think there's actually a.

An even greater danger of.

What you're really talking about is the reification and reinforcement of hegemonic culture. You know, this what people consider reality and the the dude who's the CEO of stability dot AI who came up with Dable, stable confusion diffusion stable confusion he.

He's talking about doing.

Different models and datasets. It's all about the data set for different cultures. But instead of really figuring out what those cultures are, he's doing them country by country. So all of a sudden you have this, oh, we're going to go and reinforce the hegemony of Brazil by coming up with a Brazilian data set which could and most likely is going to completely discount all of the indigenous peoples.

Of the Amazon.

You know, the same thing's gonna happen. You know, here's your American data set, you know well, what about the first peoples? So I I think it's it's not so much what because I mean, you look at at artists, right? I mean, artists fuck shit up, you know? I mean, who was the first person who took this industrial machinery of the amplifier that was used so effectively by fascists and said, OK, I'm going to put a guitar.

Into this. And I'm gonna attach this whammy bar and these petals, you know, and you turn that industrial machinery into something completely different. What did they do? And what did end WA doing, Compton? You know, real artists and real voices are going to breakthrough what? What concerns me more is how.

Jamie winds up dignifying everything like they did in New York City.

You know where Times Square is just this dystopian commercial wasteland, so I totally get what you're saying. I just think it's actually even a bigger danger than we're looking at. And I think it's really the responsibility of artists who as quickly as possible get in there and and wrestle control of these datasets and start really fucking with shit.

Absolutely, man. That's great point as well. And thank you for bringing this up to a tote. Like what I'd like to comment to is what you said about like, nothing new because because every if everybody starts getting into AI art, but like I was an artist myself and as somebody who's been paying close attention to it, I've seen in my art.

Myself become inspired by some of the outputs that I've been generating to do more intricate and detailed work, to take more time because, you know, like I have an output and then I'm like, wow, this is amazing. It would take me so long to paint that well, what if I just went for it, you know? And so I've actually been learning quite a bit about spatial relations and lighting from the AI, and I've been kind of making it an exercise to be like to allow myself to be, to be informed or even taught.

If you will, by some of the outputs that I'm generating, and I've also seen around me with some of the, the people who aren't artists, you know, quote UN quote are not artists who play around with AI for a while. And something clicks and they're like, ohh, because I've been looking at all of these images over and over again, I am starting to see how spatial relations and color theory and composition kind of work, and all of a sudden they're able.

They say, oh, well, I'm gonna stop using AI and I'm going to pick up procreate or Photoshop or sketchbook or a painting a canvas and then they put something out. Whereas they may never have done so in the past because they never would have considered themselves an artist until they started making art, quote UN quote, again making art with an AI data set. And so I think it's a really interesting conversation and and I think that there's a lot of validity in the points that you raised and hellbend

Really well, well put as well.

Well, it's it's kind of interesting. So my wife is a professor of motion graphics and graphic novels and all kinds of digital media stuff.

At a university. But she also takes art classes. I mean she's always been an artist and and she really likes working on the big machinery. She's doing, you know, laser cut sculptures and using rhino and all that stuff. And when I showed her.

Umm.

Few months ago stable diffusion and mid journey.

She said, you know what, I'm going to actually do a sculpture that I'm going to prototype. And so she started putting these prompts in because we have this glade behind our house in the woods. And she started describing these organic shapes and it produced all these amazing prototypes that she could then.

Pick from and use and she wound up just doing this incredible steel sculpture.

That was just.

Incredibly organic.

In her relationship with the AI. So I I think people are just, this whole thing is just getting started. It's not going to go away and it's just going to be amazing what what people wind up doing with it. Yeah, dueto, please keep going.

Yeah. No, I was just uh, no, I agree with you 100% on the, you know, it's just, it's just kind of, yeah homogenizing everything. But I was trying not to sound too much like a Luddite. So I didn't want to go too far initially but but but it's so see sometimes I like to try to think like 50 years, 100 years out from now and I don't think that it is unimaginable that the, you know, like the idea of all right I do want to try going out and painting so.

I'm gonna go buy a canvas and some oil paints or some shit like that, or or a digital camera or something. But since the demand for that has gone down so much because everybody just uses AI, that now the barrier to entry for that is skyrocketed. So like look at like film photography, right? So the barrier to entry, if you want to go out and shoot film and develop it yourself or or any of that stuff, that barrier to entry is so high that it is, you know it's going to, it's going to keep people fr

For the first time and I see that happening with something as simple as, you know, a canvas and some paint.

Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, that's how we got here, you know, as soon as Romulus built the wall around Rome and killed his brother Remus for crossing that wall and said, OK, this is civilization and all that shit out there is stuff to kill, you know, which happened to be nature and druids and, you know, everything else. They built roads and built this and built that. I mean, that is.

You know, that is what has been happening for 4050 thousand years and.

If we don't do something, it's going to keep happening and and that's really what the matrix was. It was just sort of the ultimate fulfillment of these same.

Lines and same. Same grids and same.

Colonial.

Enslavement systems that just, you know that's exactly we're talking about now I think and this is literally the reason for hellbenders because I think we're at this inflection point and if you think about what just what's happening on Twitter right now and.

The fact that someone can spend $44 billion and claim a whole bunch of things about how things were and then just say, here's the new way the algorithms are all going to be changed and all of a sudden.

You know, different voices are suddenly amplified. Like, that's freaking dangerous. Like, this whole thing is dangerous. Like, I thought when I was growing up, atom bombs were dangerous. So now, like, everything's dangerous. So what? What I see happening. And, and, and I admit I'm an absolute hopeless optimist, but I think people like us, I think the punks of the world, you know, the rejects, the outlaws, the artists are going to take.

These things and no matter what is given to us is we're going to do something amazing. So you know if if we could create worlds.

The gesturing with our phones and those are all on chain and they're just connected with the people that are doing magical things then.

The ones who are not in that world.

Are simply not going to be in the world, and they're still going to be masked in these death cults of Western civilization following some sort of leaders on some death March to some conflict. But I I just.

There's just no way that the spirit of creativity is going to let.

It's just going to allow the disneyfication of everything. It's just not going to happen. There are just too many rebels in the world. So I agree with you on all your premises. I just think the outcome is going to be much more interesting than than than you're describing.

I love how you use the word rebels right there. I just, I just watched the Star Wars movie.

Are you everyone doing?

Yeah, exactly.

Alright. So so do I hope you know, I I'm not contradicting you. I I totally agree with your premise on the dangers of this. I just, I'm just counting on you. I mean, you told your amazing story like nothing was ever going to hold you back from becoming a great artist. It just wasn't you know, that's that's how the universe operates. It was going to get you there, the forces with you. Right. And that's the thing, the Fort. Like when I was growing up. OK. This totally dates me.

That summer 1976, I was at the beach with my mom. My mom had a friend who opened the shop at the beach, and we stayed at the beach that whole summer. 1976, I think it was May 77. I don't remember exactly, but I went. I saw Star Wars 11 times, like every day. My mom would give me a $5 bill. I'd walk down to the movie theater in town, I get a milkshake from tasty Freeze, and I still had enough to watch it right. And I come home and I would draw.

Fighters and I would draw that hover craft, you know that Luke Skywalker Road and I would make my own T-shirts. And I absolutely, 100% believed in the force. Like there was no doubt.

That Sunday I was going to be a Jedi knight like that was 100% real to me.

And it wasn't until I spent time on the Pine Ridge Reservation that I realized that, yes, Jedi Knights are still there. There just happened to be called, you know, medicine man or or Shaman or, you know, whatever. And they're still just as connected to the force and.

You know, and they're not worried about anything. They're not worried about climate change. They're not worried about.

You know, the conflict with Russia there and Ukraine, they're not worried about nuclear war because they just know how everything works.

So anyway, that was a ramble.

But I I'd actually would love to. Because what we try and do here, just for those people who join, let me just reset the room. Then I'm going to. I'm going to ask if I know.

Idell Frederick was was up earlier. I would like to hear from some other artists in the room. So what we do is unlike a lot of these shelf spaces, we really try and go deep into the lives and and psyches of creators.

And.

What we're doing overall is we're going to be building a new generative collection on on the blockchain, a new Dow called Hellbenders, and it's a creator cooperative, so we're going to share in all the profits. We're going to vote on what we put into R&D, what we put into collecting, what we put into distributing at the end of the year. We're really trying to create this.

50 Net this you know, real.

Collective where people are going to be doing interesting things on the Solano blockchain. We're launching on February 3rd and at about 45 minutes we're going to do a giveaway. So if you're still here at that point.

Where going to?

Well, we'd like you to retweet.

The thread and then we're going to do that giveaway, so.

Calico, anything you'd like to add at this point to to this conversation?

Well man, I'm still just blown away by the last thing you said and now you're talking about resetting the room. But but it really, it always, it always strikes me when somebody when somebody lays it out like that because I feel very strongly I think I think since I was a young age and like going to like going to like museums when I was younger all across America, a lot of like the Native American first people's museums and like hearing the the music.

The songs of these of these tribes and and the indigenous peoples of of all of the world. It's like it's kind of the music I vibe with the most music of like Ecuador Guatemala Bolivia that that down to Peru and the Andes like the the kind of like the music that comes from these ancient peoples is like always my favorite all throughout Europe all across the world and so like I've always been drawn to that and.

And so it it really, it always strikes me as very unique when I hear somebody in this space echo a sentiment like that. I know it's actually a very rare thing to find somebody who's in touch or as in touch with the with the first peoples of the world like and and.

A lot of you know the artwork of Mesoamerica and South America like really influences me just as much as the surrealists or just as much as any anybody else. So I mean I I think that that's some that's something really important to to hear from some from somebody in the space that's that's moving and shaking like you are. So I just wanted to thank you for that.

Ohh. Well, thank you for the acknowledgement. Yeah, I we had those conversations in Lisbon and, you know, definitely got that connection. Do you mind?

Telling the folks about some of the.

Their ceremonial background what what ceremonies you like to participate in.

Sure. Yeah. Well, I mean my wife has always been engaged with like with medicine ceremony in England and obviously in England it's a really interesting thing because these medicines are coming overseas back to the the, the very people that were colonizing in the 1st place. So it's really amazing that she was able to find you know, connection to these ancestral medicines like and so just for anybody who's not.

Familiar like talking about like soy in in Mexico and much of of America, like they use the peyote cactus Hickory in their ceremonies as as a method to you know get them in touch with spirit and to and to pray and so like so I I really do I love to sit up all night with the with the POD medicine in a in a closed container in a teepee or a lodge to to pray you know.

For my family and for for the people in my life and for the world and things like that and and it's it's really special. I have yet to go down to South America and sit with the tribes there and do any of the ayahuasca medicines but but I'm I'm familiar with the molecule and and it informs a lot of my artwork and and so yeah so I mean it's really important to me. I've always been in some way I guess religious but I wouldn't really call it that.

I'd call it more like just like in touch, you know, I've always been very sensitive to subtle vibrations, you know, big electrical towers and and big groups of people and big, big metal shows. And you know like I've always been like really, really sensitive to to, to, to vibration and and I think that that's kind of one of the main things that has pushed me further and further into art and further and further away from.

You know, being in a giant office building, uh, you know, crunching numbers on my on a computer is not how I like to interact with the computer. You know, making music in the studio is how I like to interact with the computer. Making art on my tablet or my my desktop is, is how I like to interact with the computer. So, like, and I definitely am a some, you know, all of these things aside, I'm quite in an alchemist when it really comes down to it. Like, I enjoy playing with.

The materials, right. And what is a computer? But this like crazy alchemizing of all of the metals and molecules of the world? Like man, when I when I use a computer, I I'm astounded. Like that they figured it out or received the message like we're going to do this now or or allowed it to continue once they figured it out. You know, like it's it kind of astounds me.

So there's actually an amazing podcast I listened to recently. It's called the dig, and there was one episode which was all about the psychedelic foundations of.

Basically, counterculture and cyberculture is pretty much what it's called, and it just.

It's it's incredibly fascinating how.

Completely intertwined.

The whole emergence of psychedelia in Haight Ashbury was with.

Silicon Valley, I mean just it was literally the same movement and they went and it it went through a lot of the philosophical and cultural foundations of it. So definitely recommend that.

I.

Yeah, this is.

This and other kind of.

Similar story but.

When I mean I remember in high school when my friend.

Gave me electric Kool-aid acid test like that book and I read it and it was like.

It was like reading the Bible, I imagine for for some people.

And it was just so obvious.

That.

The way.

Just how absurd our civilization.

Looks.

From.

Inside this concept of.

Psychedelia. Like when you when you step out, whether it's through.

Whether it's in ceremony or it's, whether it's through chemicals or.

Umm.

Natural medicine.

What's always bothered me is how.

Challenging it's been.

To have both of those at the same time to have.

The bones, the material, the streets, the.

Corporeality of civilization and the spirituality of indigenous or psychedelic experiences.

And, and I don't there isn't really a reason for that, because if people can live a certain way of Burning Man, if they can live a certain way in rainbow gatherings, if they can live a certain way.

In ceremony.

There's really no reason you can't be in.

A ceremonial worldview.

While you're quote at work and treat people with that level of honor and respect and have that same understanding that.

We are all one Organism and that, you know, time and space and illusion. I guess the summary is.

At the same time, I mean dueto mentioned this.

Further time when.

AI.

Runs things or controls things, or or or. There's this incredibly dominant culture, but what I see there is.

There is going to be a time when people look at time and space with the same.

Skepticism that we now look at.

The idea that the sun went around the earth and that the earth was flat, like we're just going to look at this time and say God, these idiots.

So what were they thinking? Like that you would have someone work for you?

That somehow one persons.

Ability to feed themselves is more important than another persons ability to feed them.

You guys aren't all just facets of this one.

Organism or one jam. Like they're just gonna look at our they're gonna look at us like we're still in the dark ages, which we are.

Another rant.

No, I'm. I'm sorry. I should, I should have not stopped you. But I was, I was looking at calicos.

Co vessels.

I'm just like what? Like mind blown about the the discord one uh when two or more groups are are in discord.

Oh oh, use discord as a oh OK, I see you use it as a verb there. Engage in argument or violently opposed or feeling or hatred, a chaotic anxiety inducing field may be generated. This may even be preferable to groups engaged in such exchanges and harmony may seem.

Odious slash bland to them and this piece right underneath it I was like it looks like 2 gears grinding.

And.

Yeah, that's like how it feels.

It's like 2 communities trying to like.

It's like trying to get the clutch in the manual, you know? Like it's like trying to stick your car into second gear when your clutch is out.

O.

I don't know if anyone can relate to that one.

Yeah, definitely. I'm looking at that right now and I just posted at the top. That's an incredible work.

Thanks guys.

What? What's your technique? What's your technique for these Co vessels 1 to 8?

These are all 3D. These are three 3D modeled in a really old software that every once in a while I like to dig out. It was popular in the 90s called Bryce 3D and and I love to dig it out because it was the 1st 3D modeling software I ever used. So I'm I I really enjoy using it as our, as a like a as a medium to create artworks. And this is probably the last. Last time I dug it out was like, you know over a decade ago and I created this series.

And it's always just it's always lived in a folder and I've always revisit it. I think that pieces of it has been an album cover for a long time or or a long time ago was an album cover of mine. But I never never released it until I started doing NFT's and I was like this this needs to be out there and I'm going to I'm going to mint these on exchange art. And so as you were as you were talking your your last quote UN quote rant there Moto I I it just struck me like oh I got a post code.

Missiles and and pioneer spirit up there too.

So did you?

You said it's the first time you you've published these works. What about the music? Did you?

Have you brought that to the blockchain and did that ever get released?

Well, sadly that some of it did get released over the years, but sadly like I've notoriously bad about backing stuff up. So like a lot of my old music has been kind of like lost to to time. And I have like a I have a bunch of old music that you know, I definitely have thought about putting up onto the blockchain but but I haven't gone that route yet. I mean so Solana was my first. Well, I guess that's not true. I minted a few things on etherium.

A few years ago, just when I was first getting into trying it all out, but Solana is like my first foray into into this kind of idea of of of blockchain art and and I haven't quite gotten into the music side of it yet because I haven't been producing for a long time. I've been playing a lot of frankly a lot of medicine songs on my guitar and doing backup for like yoga classes and meditations and things like that on my guitar. So I haven't really been recording.

Much lately, but I definitely have like some big inspirations coming through at this time. So in the future I really hope to be releasing some music on the blockchain.

Nice. The kids been doing a lot of music as well, guitar music, so we're hoping to get.

Some of you visual artists.

I.

Yeah. No, speaking on guitar, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Yeah, I just.

Uh.

I'm just waiting. There's a couple pieces I need. I have to get audio interface and A and a microphone and and I'm off to the races with the music in FT because the the the songs are there.

I.

And then just a little bit of knowledge of of working with the digital audio workstation, but through a couple friends, one of which is in there, Ducky down there, who's one of the amazing artists that donated to the charity auction, he's, you know, showed me this Reaper one that I've that I'm looking at that was free. So I'm trying to learn that. And then, yeah, another friend showed me this really cool microphone setup that will almost make it look like you're in a booth but without being in o

Pieces away from being able to at least do some acoustic recordings with some simple additions to it, but.

Yeah, I I really want to eventually do like audio visual with the music, but I mean.

I'm not quite sure we're even there yet infrastructure wise, so we'll see it. It's all good. It's allana's coming. We're making moves fast. So pretty soon these file size limitations and things of that nature will be a thing of the past and.

But.

Yeah, there's this amazing artist, Michael Garfield, who?

Sent me just some incredible animations he did along with his music to go with them and I don't know how many times I had to reduce the file size and by the time I got them.

Blockchain ready. But that was, you know, in the ancient days of almost a year ago where we just had I PFS and not shadow drive like it was, it was almost impossible. But I agree, I really think we're we're almost there. Where.

You know, animations, images, music.

And then ultimately 3D are all going to be part of the.

The chain experience.

Why did you have something to to kick in?

Well, actually I was gonna shout out Ducky too. To be quite honest. I wasn't gonna like I was like music NFTS. That's the first person that comes to my mind.

Ohh.

Can we all just take a moment? Let's just have a moment for Ducky. Let's just yeah. I mean, if you haven't checked out Ducky, you gotta do so because.

What we see right now on chain is this really beautiful works of photography and poetry, but what we are about to see is a lot of stuff he's been doing behind the scenes with some really cool music. I've had the privilege of listening to some of this music, and the true test of whether or not instrumental music is good is if my if my lady will listen to it, because she notoriously hates music without words. But she's there and listen to.

She sat there and listened to duckies music and was like, hey, I actually really liked that. So you got the the toughest stamp of approval that you can get for instrumentals.

Wow.

I love that.

Well, I'm looking at duckies.

Can can someone put some of his his?

Work up because.

He.

Yeah, I got it. And then he's actually up right now to speak. Ducky, you wanna speak?

OK. OK. Yeah, please.

Hmm.

I'm currently pushing photography because, you know, that's something I've been doing since I was a kid, as well as music, but it was actually last December we launched a music NFT and an answer to the question of like music and visuals and animation. Just MP4 dude.

You can fit a surprising amount of fidelity in an MP4.

Cool.

And then get um, what is it called? Handbrake, I think. Just a program that will compress it like a good one though and you won't lose.

Any noticeable fidelity and you can drop that file size really well, you know, like I've fit 2 minute animations and songs together.

Yeah.

Yeah, totally agree. Handbrake is an amazing tool. So tell us now that now that you have the like, you're up on stage, can you just tell us a little bit about your your origin story and your journey?

Ohh well.

I've always played music. My mom's trying to put down a guitar fondling.

Wow.

My mom is a gospel singer, so I grew up traveling around doing that.

And then when I was like 15, I bought a plastic camera.

I was later given a nice one, and recently I've gone back to that plastic camera. A little bit modified, but yeah.

Was it like a Diana camera?

The holga.

Holga. Ohh yeah. So my mom was a professional photographer. She was also an art photographer and photo writer of Washingtonian magazine. And she had a whole gun of Diana that she would just take everywhere at our house is filled. They're just so beautiful. The the soft edges like.

When? When she died about six years ago.

Instagram was just coming on and, you know, we had a.

At her wake.

In the presentation I I gave her credit for, basically.

Popularizing what now? Everybody was doing at that time with almost all their photos, like making them look like they were taken with one of these plastic lenses, but I just love it. I'm looking through your feed now, and there's just some incredible work here.

Well.

To keep going. You you were traveling. Um, you got a plastic camera. What? What came next?

Wrong. Next of friend's mother ended up giving me a yashica FX3 and that's the contacts. Yashka come out and you can buy M42 screw mount adapters for it.

So like all this, Iceland uses and yashica lenses from that era and then you can it's backwards compatible with M42 mounts, so that's.

That's the platform I work on. I've worn out a bunch of them.

You know, it's just a like you could beat someone down with it if somebody tries to rob you.

Umm.

Well, and and what part of the world are you in?

Um, I'm in Central Florida. I'm up in the woods.

Nice.

Nice near the Everglades or north of that.

Um, north of that is actually kind of horse country.

Cool.

Yeah, I was, uh, privileged enough to meet Ducky. I think you might have met him too. Their motto in Miami.

O he was probably with me or what? Cardboard, mostly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nice.

So yeah, we we had. I have a actually a couple of pictures of you, dude. I should probably send them to you.

Well, we'll remember you're going to do your Miami collection.

Ohh yeah that's right. I gotta. I'm. I'm actually preparing some stuff to send to you kid. Like I have like a folder of just like I'm picking pieces because I have way too many film photos. I realized because I've just been holding them for like 3 years I think now at this point. So.

I need all the pictures I could get in Miami, because I'm not gonna lie to you. I don't remember much of of Miami.

I.

I mean, that's why I use pictures for references, right?

I was a little off the rails by that point and, well, it's not even. It wasn't Even so much about the party. It's just so much like sensory overload, like I was a madman running around like.

Doing just so active and then on top of that partying at night and then waking up first thing.

Yeah.

Because anybody who's known me at those things is I show up early and I'm there. So it doesn't matter how much I go a party at night. I'm still coming early and I'm still gonna make like, because to me it was work and I was there for the artists and I did get a little wrapped up in the party of it, which as a recovering addict was very detrimental to me. And it and it's, you know, it, it took its toll. But.

I still made sure I was there early to to. But yeah, Miami was just so much man. I I it's really foggy for me. I'm not gonna lie to you guys. The whole this whole last year that web three makes my like, my brain foggy. It could be that or just, you know, just my brain's not working too well anymore. But yeah, it seems like it's hard to I think of all the people I interviewed on United we are in and sometimes all I've reached out to people be like hey, can I interview you and then be like you alr

Like that.

It's like my brain, dude. Yeah, that's like definitely the web three brain. I I call it, um, what is it? Web three time. It's essentially like we live on a we live in UTC minus whatever time, and then accelerate that time curve by, you know, 1.5 X, then regular.

But also just think about when Miami was. I mean, that was March, right? Like it was.

Pretty much the peak of all the insanity, you know, just and hype and everything else. And that's what I really like about where we are now.

It's just.

It is just so much more grounded. It's not people.

Just running around like.

Insane, because they've gotta cash in, you know, there's just some window and.

These folks did it this way, and I've got to do it that way. I mean, it's just.

You know.

It was a good learning experience, but I'm, as they say, thanks for all the memories. But glad those days are over.

Yeah.

Yeah, I I felt this obligation at the time to be.

As. As.

Hmm.

Available as it could be to everyone and to be of everyone and.

I just stretched myself too thin and now I'm at a place in the space where I'm learning to be selfish. Like, I mean, it sounds kind of it sounds kind of ironic considering I'm hosting a charity auction today, but.

You know, I do. I'll always be. I'll always be somebody who wants to help people. But I'm learning that I also have to make sure and take care of myself. And and sometimes with those hacker houses, I would be so all over the place trying to help this person and do this and do that. And on Twitter helping this artist and doing this and doing that. And yeah, I really, I really forgot to take care of me. And you know, when you're in recovery, you can't ever do that. You always got to take care of y

I'd love to travel again and come to these some of these IRL things and meet more people, but I'll never go back to like what I was where I was just one hacker house to the next party after party. No the those days are done for me.

I I just wanna be with my family and make art and help some people and maybe have some good experiences here and there, but yeah.

Anyway, I'm.

If you.

Yeah, I think, uh, sorry, was that calico? You can go ahead.

That's alright. I was just going to say it feels a bit like what I imagine Hollywood to be right? And once you're in it for a while like you learn and like like you're saying like like you're saying kid. Like you're saying that self-control and like boundaries around like no. Like I'm. Yeah, I'm going to show up at the party for a bit and say hi to everybody but I'm not going to be the last person there. I'm not going to take every drink and snack that's offered to me and like I'm and I'm going

Own goals, right? It's hard to hear 100 people in a day talk about their passion and their and their Rd as an NFT artist or a builder. It's it's a lot of work. Lisbon was Lisbon was a a very compressed time, dilated kind of a kind of time for me as well.

Yeah, I I love how you use time dilation right there. That's the word I was looking for. The, the, the, the, the the 1.2 X multiplier or the 1.5 X multiplier on time.

But yeah, no, I mean definitely that that's how it is. I mean, I live in Las Vegas, so, you know, it's it's a little bit crazy where I am. I mean, crazy is a light way to put it, but.

You know I can like walk or drive like 10 minutes down the road and I can find the wackiest things in the world, right. So I'm just a it's trying. It's it's hard to like and going back into like you know our conversation or like what you were saying earlier, calico like about the like and I think you said something about like radio towers or something.

It's like.

There's this industrial complex that's like built around Las Vegas that you can just see it.

And it's like, can I please get out of this? Like I don't like it, it's just constraining so.

I don't really go to the strip that often. I'm usually in like red rocks and things like that.

Cool.

That's awesome. I'm only about 9 hours away from you here.

Oh, so are you based in, I'm assuming like Reno or like somewhere around Cali?

Just over the, I'm just over the border from Reno into Cali like Truckee area.

All right on that's awesome dude. I've heard that area is like a very spiritual, I actually know a couple like 3 or 4 alchemists and they they actually define themselves as alchemists from Reno. So it's interesting that you say that. So you're you're adding to that statistic.

Yeah, this is the area for it.

I guess they're continuing in the in the tradition of.

Instead of digging for gold and Reno, they're now.

Transforming into gold so it could have been one of those gold towns.

Yeah, Reno.

Yep, that's right. I'm at. I'm right at the heart of the gold rush in Nevada City, CA.

Umm.

Like the IT was.

Yeah, I've never.

Sorry, go ahead.

Which is good. It was like the richest gold mining town, Grass Valley, Nevada city. Like everything is still all the old brick buildings and stuff. It's pretty cool.

Yeah, someone. Someone told me.

So sentient shapes has, you know, just want one.

Welcome you to also hop off mute and jump in.

I always try to hop in and then I either rug or I cut somebody off. I was gonna ask you guys if you guys ever heard about like people, because you all were talking about vibrations and stuff. Have you guys ever heard about people?

That like can't wear watches. Like Battery operated watches. Not like the new.

Watches.

OK, so I kind of wanted to ask.

You wanted to ask.

Ohh OK OK OK.

Before I I haven't, I haven't asked before you even finish this question, like are we talking like Better Call Saul? Like you know, like where it's like that like, you know, Better Call Saul like his old Saul Goodman's older brother. He's like got this like anxiety issue where he's just literally cut off all power to his house because he's like, I can feel electronics or something.

Umm.

But like, I don't know.

No, I'm talking about like mechanical watches. Like a real clock that has mechanics in it and, you know, like not like Apple Watch it. That's all. Like a computer. I'm talking about like, you know, like a clocksmith type of watch.

Gotcha.

Yeah, actually, the the first medicine man I ever went met the guy who put me up on the hill, mentioned early on when I met him, he had and I was, I wore a watch at the time. I was like, you know, 2003 or something.

And.

He actually just suggested to me that I not because that's where your pulse is and.

Really don't want something mechanical with even just those vibrations communicating.

To your nervous system and to your vascular system, um, something that's not organic, he said. You know, you're just not going to be able to.

To connect in the same way if you're wearing a lot. So I took off my watch and I never wear it again. So, you know, now I I have an Apple Watch, but.

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a thing where you're talking about.

Wait, I had. I had no idea.

I didn't know about like not wearing it but as far as like.

When I personally wear a mechanical watch, the mechanics will stop.

Awesome.

And then when I take the watch off.

That will begin to tick again.

That's awesome.

I don't know.

Setting up super powers, that's what it is.

I wish I could harness them. Maybe I can. I just don't know yet.

Ohh but I wanted.

You are. You are. You know what I was going to say to go ahead, go. Please.

No, I wanted to show you all. Um, the piece I had made for the charity auction and.

Maybe read you all the poem?

Please.

And I have to find it. I've been retweeting or tweeting rather all the auction links today so people could.

Easily find it. And I'm just like really excited. I've been lit all day long. I think I like messaged kid at like 5:00 AM. So sorry kid.

Would.

Ohh.

Yeah, I I'm like, my brain hurts. I spent eight probably, I mean, hours and hours uploading all that stuff. And then this morning I spent about an hour on a thread, like highlighting each artist in the piece. And then as I was on the last artist, my computer froze and the thread went away. And I had like, did it was so.

I was like ready to throw my computer across the room, but.

Yeah, my I I realized one thing I I don't really enjoy organizing things, but.

I am so grateful that I had your help, because if I wouldn't have had your help, I wouldn't. I don't think I'd have been able to do it. No way. Because, you know, just all the work that goes into it and.

But it's, I guess that's where it's really key to be doing something you're passionate about. So, but yeah, please tell us about the piece and the description.

So this is actually in the classic in my classic black and white style. I love to do art in black and white because.

It black and white is just simple and I try to make everything as simple as I can and so obviously I love the Grinch because.

He's cool. He's misunderstood. People just don't get him, you know, yadda yadda. So I wanted to make my piece something that people could recognize easily, but also that was a shape. So I turned the Grinch into a triangle. And of course I wrote a poem because every single one of my pieces that's ever been minted either has a poem.

On the piece or is written in the metadata or both, sometimes so.

If you look at the photo there or the photo the nfte, it says don't be a Grinch. Ones man's toxic sludge is another man's popery. That's that's a line from the Jim Carrey movie and it's one of my favorite ones.

And the poem is called Resting Grinch Face.

Don't be a mean one. Be a kind one, even with the termites in your teeth. Smile when it's time to greet. If your heart has grown too small. Remember back when you had love for all.

I love that. Wow.

That last part just gave me frisson. When your heart grows too small, remember when. Remember that back to the times when you had love for all, I believe. Like, wow.

Ohh.

They're like, sit on that for a second.

Yeah, everybody that reminds me of like, where I was at when I first started my journey in this bit. That's why I named. That's why I chose the name kid. Kid on the Phoenix was.

Because I was at a place where like through years of being a drug dealer in a in a criminal like my view of the world became very hardened and the way I viewed people.

You know, I hate to say it, but especially like women, just from being in that world and seeing the dark side of it for so long with the way they were torn towards me. But like, and I just, I reached that place where I was like, man, I really need to restructure my brain and view the world differently again. And, you know, a passage from the Bible that always stuck with me was when they went to Jesus and said, hey, how do we get to heaven? And he was like.

You know, you become like one of these and you pointed to the children and it just makes you realize, like, you know, yeah, you got to get back to that time when you were just innocent before the world jaded you and you had a pure heart and you didn't care, you know, what gender or color or or economic status or or, you know, sexual identity or whatever like that people were. You just loved them, you know? And like, you just felt the vibes. And that's where I went with the kid thing. So you kind

Mindset that I was out when I did that.

When you read that.

Yeah, that was absolutely beautiful. Like now, now, kid, you're talking. I'm, I'm thinking about all those old VHS tapes of like me playing soccer on the on like the field when I was like 3 or 4 years old and stuff like that. Like those those quote UN quote good times when you were young, right?

I'm just imagining you at three or four with that full beard.

Ohh dear.

Oh my God, I have to draw that now. That's the next thing I need to draw.

Little flaws.

I mean, I have a I actually have a pretty dope meme. It's it's baby Yoda with like my my face like kind of integrated into it with the beard and the hair. It just it just looks so funny and it it's just it yeah no one. One of my old coworkers made the meme when Mandalorian first came out and.

Yeah, it's just, it's just baby Yoda with my like white, black hair and a beard and it's it's just, it's absolutely hilarious.

I'll have to share it here soon.

Well, it's beautiful, you know? And about that quote you just shared, the kid is what Jesus was saying. It's 100% still available to us, you know, fucking idiots. Like, just.

You know.

No, you're you're you're definitely right there. I'm not. I'm not gonna lie. Because I was.

I had you know personally like in if you guys don't mind me tangent thing here a little bit, but on my life just I left my family like you know and I was like what 20 years old so I didn't really.

Live with my family that much like I, I guess like, you know, I yes, I was blessed. And, you know, I grew up in a household with like, you know, where I had, I was, you know, fed every single day. But I didn't take advantage of that when I was younger.

And now understanding when you live alone, you're like, you know, I'm 27 now, kind of like, you know, 30s peaking up there, I can hear, I can feel it.

And I'm like.

Am I getting old? But I just tangent Tatsu super hard. I had a I had a point, I promise, but let me get back to this. Hold on one second.

Well, I'm just gonna do a quick commercial interruption cause it's 422.

And.

Was it? It might not be might be a good idea for you to load up the little Twitter giveaway thing just so we can see how how close we are.

I am right ahead of you.

To having.

OK.

I got it. I got it loaded up right now. We we need, we need three or four more retweets. I will say that so.

Well.

Umm.

Guys, feel free to retweet the the tweet on let me pin it up here.

Ohh sweet.

Yeah, I just hit the pin, so it's it's.

The most recent one that just went up there.

So if everybody could.

Retweet that now.

Do you know how far off we are?

Alright, we are at 17 and 19 now, OK?

That worked.

All right.

Let me load up the tweet.

And yeah, we're ready to go, I mean.

Whenever are we are we drawing right now?

Yeah, may as well.

Alrighty.

Well.

So continue.

State if you win again. I swear this is like some like weird luck. We got 15 entries loaded.

I'm gonna be. I'm gonna shit my pants.

Yeah, 17 is only one. Giveaways on Twitter apparently through me. So, uh yeah.

Alright, beginning the draw now and the winner is it's brick Ashley who isn't here unfortunately.

Redrawing that one and it's calico.

Congrats, calico.

Alright, that's awesome.

It's a calico. Just send me your your Solano address and I will get you a hellbender. Umm, I need to to reload them. I got a mint. A few more and then I'll. I'll get one over to you.

Just tweeted that out.

We got 5 minutes left. Yeah, thanks. We got 5 minutes left. So I really would like to maybe sentient or kid or both of you.

Can you just walk us through, maybe put one at a time up on the Jumbotron and just tell us a little bit about the art and the artist because this evening I hope everybody joins at 8:00 o'clock Eastern. I think it is 7 central, yeah.

Yes, at eight, yeah.

Yeah, go do your promo.

Uh, well yeah, so.

The auctions are time to end as the space will be wrapping up. So the space is just kind of to celebrate all of the artists that contributed, allow them to come in and share their art and talk about it for a bit and just kind of have a just a just a hangout, you know, I mean.

Just kind of a cool place where all the artists can talk about it and celebrate the end of the auction and and just go over what we were able to raise and then.

Uh.

But yeah, as far as the pieces, there's um.

Yeah. If you go through that thread that I pinned up to the top earlier, I have. There's all the pieces of the art and the different artists. I mean, Ducky did two photographs that have really beautiful poems with them. Um, sentient did hers. She talked about. We've got some some cool photography work from Kirk Englehart, Rich Herman Cuban. We've got transitory mask, who's done in. The listener submitted a really cool piece that resonated really deeply.

Took me there.

Let's see. Uh, I, don't I? My brain is so fried.

Yeah, yeah, please.

We have sugar. I can help a little bit. I just did a huge one piece. I just tagged a bunch of them. I'm gonna tag him as I go. We have a blue haired ninja. It's actually really awesome. You guys take a look. I did pin it up to the Jumbotron. We also have the jester by Red Rabbit Colts of the classic Red Rabbit colt style. It's really nice. I want this one. I will. I was already out bid on most everything I've bid on so I have to go back in and put in some new bids.

You can see I also pinned up there, heading out by Kirk Englehardt. That's a black and white photograph. Also the one that kid was talking about there. It's up at the top, grateful for the rain. It's a really cool, kind of comically inspired piece by transitory mask. Next we got up sugar skies. It's called all paths lead to love. This one's actually really pleasing to look at, too. It reminds me of like a old scene from like a.

Like a cool 80s movie, I don't know, but.

And here's something yeah.

Yeah, it's really cool. And then actually we have a piece by tattoo fingers as well. It's called helping hands and I really like the little sketch work in this. I love like dark backgrounds with white sketches. We got a buggy from Saturn liqueur. This one is called Sultan.

And we have a photograph from Zochi accompanied by a song. It's called Mr Sun, and it's a black and white film photograph. It's taken on a cannon. And I really like that one too. I can't remember if I bid on it yet, but I'm going to play some more bids today.

1.

And I think that is everything that I have posted so far, but I am missing quite a few.

One that I just thought of. Uh, I'm gonna see if I can find it was Manu Williams. I don't know if I'm saying that right. My.

Submitted this piece.

Called the infinite and hold on, give me one second. I'm gonna pin it. I'm gonna go to her.

Profile here. Yeah, there it is. I this one. I can't stop looking at it when I start it says there's so much detail to it.

And I really dig that one.

Yeah, that's just that's a beautiful piece too. But yeah, there's a there's so many.

Ohh yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, there's a chain in there. I'm trying to think who else? There's a Zion taxi.

I love the.

A rich Herman.

I love the mist of sun, honestly. Like the the the shadow work done on that is is absolutely like beautiful. I don't know if that was like actually like I don't know what that is, but like wherever that is, that's that's so awesome.

Just as like a photographer myself, sorry for sorry to cut you off, sentient.

Yeah, the photographers really showed up. You know, a lot of photographers donate a piece, so shout out that. But we've got all all mediums, you know, like whatever medium you're into. Well, I don't know if we have any 3D art, but just about, you know, we've got abstract, we've got photography, we've got some, you know, illustrations. So yeah, a lot of stuff. And, you know, I think it's cool because.

Hmm.

I know a lot of artists in this space, like I could call John, John Lee on the phone or sleeper guys and I could ask him like, hey, can you do this piece? And they would probably do it, but I didn't. I just wanted it to be something small to start and I never expected to get 27 pieces.

But I.

Kid has no idea how many people that I actually messaged to donate a piece.

He had no idea.

Like, I didn't expect. I didn't. I didn't realize I'd be spending 10 hours minting all those. But when I was doing it, I was like, that's a great problem to have. You know, like, I mean just the fact that that many people were willing to want to be a part of it. And then there was a few that last minute last night were hitting me up and I really didn't feel like uploading anymore, but I couldn't turn them away because how can you tell somebody no when they want to do something good? So I did it

Right before the auctions went live, I did. I had to do the last few, but Umm, but yeah, there's there's a lot of different arts and then also we can't forget that there's 4 hellbenders in there. So you have an opportunity to mentor Hellbender which will give you, which will give you a free mint and access to the mobile app. So could be the the, you know, great I mean much cheaper way to get a hellbender than it would be to met one comment day.

So um.

So yeah, those were donated by by Dave there and.

Yeah. If anybody's around tonight, jump into the space, it should be really cool. I mean, it's gonna be a vibe, like all those great artists coming in and hanging out, like it's going to be cool. United we are. It's always a vibe, so.

And and I do want to give some credit, you know like Nat Jones like people sort of brush off generative art, but he is a quote real artist. Like he really puts like the character, you know in these in these creatures and doing that.

The.

Santa costumes and the Devil costumes just for this. I mean, it's really a.

These are some really cool they're cool art in their own right, not just as part of a collection. So I definitely hope.

Hope people appreciate those and and pick those up since we're since we're getting towards the end. One thing I really wanted to mention about this is one thing that's very different about this space and what we're doing with Hellbenders is.

Our whole goal is for this to be.

A community and relationships that just deepen and deepen overtime.

We use the mycelial metaphor system a lot, but that's really what what I see happening here is that we're going to get to be just like those really ancient creatures.

That.

Necked up throughout the world and just have this incredibly efficient way of distributing resources.

My favorite author.

As energy, time, money, art, materials, whatever it is to, to where they're going to, as can, keasey said. Put your good where it's going to do the most. So I really appreciate you guys. What's that?

Uh, you just quoted my favorite author.

Awesome.

That's my one flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is my favorite book and to anybody since it's since it's just naturally brought up. If you've seen the movie and you like it, you have to read the book because that is one of the greatest examples of how they butchered the. I mean the movie was great, but the book was like the way it's narrated from the Chiefs brain. Like oh it's so beautiful. I love king.

Exactly. And sometimes a great notion is an amazing book, too.

Umm.

Yeah, uh his his quote. I I turned to time and time again I say from one flew over the Cuckoo's Nest where it says when a man's lap lost his laugh, he's lost his footing and that is never it's so true in my life when I lose my ability to laugh I I'm slipping and I'm I'm headed for a fall. And yeah, anyway, yeah I love Ken.

Have you read electric koolaid acid test?

No, I have.

I have not personally, but I'm going to.

Oh my God, you've got to read it. It's Tom Wolfe's book about Ken Kesey. It starts when he gets out of jail and covers the entire like.

His whole merry prankster thing hooking up with Cassidy Neal Cassady.

That's.

Like it's amazing. You really get to know him. Um, I actually have. This was very early days of the Internet, but Ken Keesey and Ken Babbs who was also in that book, so it was right hand man. They took footage from the bus and they put on videotapes and they.

Made these like colorful sort of like tie dying the the VHS covers and they sold them on a website. This is probably like 1997 you know 1996 I don't know but I I have a copy of the of his of all this footage from the bus.

Which they called further. Uh, sitting in my videotape collection. But definitely, like, it's gonna just, like, get it today. Seriously. Like, get that book. It'll be, you know, 299 used on Amazon. Get some old beat up paperback. But read it. You're just going to freak out.

Sure.

Always get the used ones too. Like don't don't get the new book. I mean, unless it's like a brand new book that comes out. This is like something that I sorry, I just that's my motto. I always buy the used books because they like you never know what's gonna use book. There's a great.

Bookstore up in Detroit. It's like massive. It's like 4 stories high and it's all used books.

I picked up. I believe it was. It's on my shelf right now. I just don't have my glasses on.

I think it was.

It was the four agreements. I picked up the four agreements and like.

Umm.

That's I I read that to the kids all the time. That's it's almost it's almost like a buy. It's almost like a Bible for me. Yeah.

I'm not 100% sure it was a four agreements, but I have read the book. It's a fucking amazing book, but uh, it was it was something that had a similar cover to it, but it was from, it was very age. It was from like the 1980s or 19 like 70s.

And the receipt on it said so that the bookmark was still there and it was a receipt.

And the book was purchased from a like I don't even know, some like local brick and mortar store and I have that receipt somewhere just stored because.

I'm going to use it one day and you know as as we've been in these spaces, I'm actually thinking of.

A collection that's like not Solano, Miami, and I'm looking through my film photos. I've been looking through my film photos throughout this whole time.

And I've noticed that like I take a picture, I take pictures of a lot of lines.

Parking garages, fences, there's like just lines like that and I'm like.

This is interesting, kid. I might have to talk to you in a bit.

At 8:00 I gotta head out, but I just wanted to thank y'all for having me. I appreciate all the love and shout outs. Y'all have a good evening.

Thank you for joining us. We hope you come back. We we definitely want your work as part of the the Hellbenders clubhouse.

Love you, Dougie.

All right, everybody, we'll see you guys all on the United. We are auction in just a few hours.

Poop. Poop.

Amazing. Thank you all. Great time. Thanks for having me.

I love you guys.

The other night.

But.

Have a great one, everyone.