Stan: How can you keep a straight face right
now?
Marshall: Oh [Laughter] I've been having a
great time.
Stan: You are?
Marshall: Yeah. I'm gonna leave mine on.
Stan: I'm not.
Marshall: Is it OK, can I talk through this
thing? I feel less nervous when I'm behind a mask.
Stan: Uh, you're probably gonna sound crappy.
Marshall: Yeah, so
Stan: I'm gonna take mine off, because I get
Marshall: Well boy, that was a dramatic entry.
Stan: Yes.
Charlie: We should say for the listening
audience.
Stan: Yeah, I was about to say, like people
listening have no idea what's going on. We
have our set completely covered in plastic
wrap. Well, kind of plastic sheet -
Marshall: Yeah.
Stan: - bag, whatever.
Marshall: Kind of pointing out the obvious.
Stan: Well, for the listeners.
Marshall: Oh...
[Laughter]
Stan: I said "for the listening audience".
Marshall: I don't think about the listening
- I'm so sorry.
Stan: Oh yes, it's the entire set is covered
-
Stan: And then we're just wearing yellow hazmat suits.
Marshall: Yeah, we are here in a visual medium
here on YouTube.
Stan: Celebrating Breaking Bad.
Marshall: Yeah. So, we should have made more
noise when we came in and more rustling in this kind of thing.
Stan: Yeah, we could - we could record it
now and then put it in for later.
Marshall: You should look at the pictures,
those of you who are listening to it with
the audio version, look at the pictures, we
look great.
Stan: We do.
Marshall: Yeah.
Stan: Are you excited like me for the Breaking
Bad movie.
Marshall: Actually I have not watched the
television series. [Laughter]
Stan: I hate you so much.
Marshall: I watched the first six or seven
episodes and I thought it was great but then
I - it came to a low
Stan: Wait, you did?
Marshall: Yes, and I recognized I don't have
time to watch this whole thing of whatever
it is, 70 episodes or something. I thought
if I watch another episode, this train is
gonna get going and I'll never be in town
for my classes, I'll never have time for anything else.
Stan: Ohh, so you were getting into it?
Marshall: I was getting into it, yeah.
Stan: Oh, come on!
Marshall: Yeah.
Stan: It gets so good.
Marshall: I bet.
Stan: Why Marshall, why don't you watch it?
Marshall: I will watch it.
Stan: You will?
Marshall: Yeah. You have to watch it to take
Robert McKee's TV day, his TV genre day, you're required
Marshall: Yeah, you're not supposed to take
it until you've watched all episodes. It used
to be the Sopranos then he changed it to Breaking
Bad because he sets such a great example of
characters that go through multiple arcs.
And so, I am interested in it and also everybody
tells me it's great. But then, enough about
Breaking Bad, I've never seen it, so I guess
-
Stan: We're gonna talk about drugs.
Marshall: That's why we're doing this. [Chuckles]
Stan: You're not surprised
Marshall: Yeah, yeah. I am not surprised.
You told me we were gonna talk about drugs.
I was a little - how do few misgivings about
dressing up in the hazmat suits and the Breaking
Bad thing and also, we have a suitcase here
-
Stan: Oh yeah, I've been making a lot of money
lately.
Marshall: Yeah, Stan, if you want to do the
honors and we have a whole bunch of uh -
Stan: Franklin's.
Marshall: Yeah, money and - what's the blue
stuff?
Stan: Come on... You must know what the blue
stuff is.
Marshall: The blue stuff is rock candy.
Stan: No, it's meth.
Marshall: Oh, it's meth.
Stan: It's crystal meth.
[Chuckles] you want to try some?
Marshall: Is it edible? Should we do this?
Stan: It's meth.
Marshall: Should we do this on camera?
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: I don't know whether this is a metaphor.
Go ahead.
Charlie: First one's free.
Stan: It's um, grape?
Marshall: I taste artificial flavors.
Stan: Yeah, obviously yes.
Marshall: Wow, this is one of those things
in a mindful eating class that it would be
sort of to turn you off to it.
Stan: This uh, this bill says "The United
States of Halloween".
[Chuckles] oh and - the treasurer of the state
is the Grim Reaper.
[Laughter]
Marshall: Hmm.
Stan: And then "in spirit we trust".
Charlie: From the Spirit Store.
Stan: The Spirit Story, yeah.
Marshall: Oh...
Stan: Yeah, I'm sure they made this.
Marshall: Yeah.
Stan: Anyway...
Marshall: Anyway, here we are.
Stan: Marshall, what have you been up to?
Marshall: Well, I've been traversing Southern
California to teach; Pasadena for concept
design Academy, Inland Empire for brain storming
-
Stan: So it's the same thing every time.
Marshall: Fullerton, I come down here... In
fact, just in the last three days, I have
the whole Southern California route from where
I am and this is the one that goes out to
the rest of the world. All the other stuff
is the -
Stan: All the other stuff -
Marshall: For local people.
Stan: - it doesn't matter.
Marshall: No, it does matter.
Stan: Oh, sorry.
Marshall: It's just - it's smaller, it's more
personal.
Stan: Mm-hmm.
Marshall: How have you been? What are you
up to?
Stan: Little leagues, little league stuff
huh.
Charlie: Stan, are you playing in little
league?
Stan: I'm I playing in little league?
Marshall: Are you dissing?
Stan: No.
Marshall: Are you dissing my live classes?
Stan: How is this going back to me?
[Chuckles]
Marshall: This little league stuff...
Stan: I'm joking obviously.
Marshall: I know you are. [Chuckles]
Stan: God! Uh -
Marshall: What have you been up Stan?
Stan: Let's see, we've been filming some Halloween
stuff.
Marshall: Mmm.
Stan: Scott Flanders, was here for three-
Marshall: Oh good, Scott Flanders, yeah.
Stan: He recorded three videos for Halloween.
Marshall: Great.
Stan: We might combine two of them into one
video, I don't know. Charlie, are we combining
two of them, do you know yet?
Charlie: Remains to be seen.
Stan: Remains. Yeah, we don't know yet. There
might be two or three Halloween specials.
He did an awesome job. His first video is
a digital like poster, very graphic shapes
design. Charlie, can you bring it actually,
I want to show it.
Marshall: Oh yeah.
Stan: There it is.
Marshall: Oh wow! Yeah.
Stan: It didn't print very but, we'll show
a digital version of it as well but um, you
can see the inside - inside the darks, there
is actually some light, the blues and stuff.
Marshall: I can see.
Stan: In the original it's - it's much lighter
than blue.
Marshall: Yeah.
Stan: But yeah, it's pretty cool huh?
Marshall: It is.
Stan: So, he does a digital -
Marshall: So he starts that digitally?
Stan: Then he does a sculpture of the same
idea, different poses but very similar idea
-
Marshall: Uh-huh.
Stan: And then he does an oil painting, so
he kind of have three very different mediums
-
Marshall: And the sculpture is traditional
hands sculpture with clay?
Stan: Yeah, he used monster - monster clay.
Marshall: Monster clay?
Stan: Yeah.
Charlie: That's all Swamp Thing.
Stan: Yeah, all Swamp Thing.
Marshall: Mm-hmm.
Stan: Well, Swamp Thing and a little boy with
a pumpkin.
Marshall: Mm-hmm.
Stan: Yeah. That's what I've been up to.
Marshall: Okay.
Stan: So Marshall, drugs...
Marshall: Drugs... Since you've had your hat
off, it's time for me -
Stan: Okay.
Marshall: To join the real world.
[Chuckles] I was raised in an environment
where anti-drug propaganda was a huge part
of my upbringing. About the time I was 12,
13, 14 years old, when my son was going to
elementary school, when he was in sixth grade,
I asked him what they did today and he said
it was "a say no to drugs day".
Stan: Yeah "PRIDE DARE" right?
Marshall: Uh, I think it was, yeah, it was
DARE. And I had mixed feelings about that
and I remember asking him "what do you think
about it?" and he said "it was good". And
I said - he said "did - did you take drugs"
[Chuckles] and I decided I would tell him
the truth unless there was a reason not to.
Stan: "Yeah, I still do drugs son".
Marshall: No, I said "I did", he said "do
you now?" and I said "other than prescription
drugs and coffee, no." and he said "well,
I think that's good". And that was the end
of the conversation at sixth grade.
Stan: Oh that's it?
Marshall: Yeah.
Stan: Okay.
Marshall: Yeah. And then it came up again
years later but that was the sixth grade conversation.
It was kept that simple.
Stan: Cool.
Marshall: But I was aware though that what
they were doing was they were - they were
warning kids about the dangers of drugs -
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: And the thing that bothered me about
the warnings about the dangers of drugs when
I was - this would have been 1970-71, so I
was 12-13 years old, is that they didn't tell
the truth -
Stan: What do you mean?
Marshall: It was purely to demonize the dangers
of drugs. There were reasons for that... This
was the era that Timothy Leary had said that
everybody should turn on, tune in and drop
out. He was saying that everyone should take
LSD. It was a big cultural deal and the US
government had opinions about it and they
harassed him. They - they treated him, I mean,
they were gonna shut him down and everybody.
There were two things that happened, the grown-ups
who saw the dangers of drugs - there was a
guy who had a television program named "Art
Linkletter, People Are Funny" or something
like that and there was a thing called "Kids
Say the Darndest Things" and this guy was
a really amiable guy, everybody liked him.
He was very well known and his daughter took
LSD and apparently during a flashback, she
threw herself out a window and killed herself
and he blamed LSD for it. It became a polarized
issue. The grown-ups were against drugs and
they gave us pamphlet after pamphlet after
pamphlet to tell us the dangers of marijuana
and the dangerous of everything else and the
Beatles were for drugs -
Stan: Uh-huh. Lots of bad recipes.
Marshall: And they used marijuana and they
used LSD. As early teenagers, we looked back
and forth between the leaders in our lives,
the establishment with the suits and the haircuts
like that and the rock-and-roll artists with
the hair like that and their guitars like
that and our immediate response was drugs.
[Laughter]
Stan: Yeah, okay, no, definitely the - the
approach kind of sucked.
Marshall: The propaganda approach.
Stan: The propaganda, because eventually you
kind of find out that like wait, that's not
completely true, kids aren't stupid like if
you say all these bad things about marijuana
and then - and then you try and then none
of them are actually you know -
Marshall: Well actually some of them are actually
-
Stan: Absolutely yeah.
Marshall: But, have you ever seen 'Reefer
Madness'?
Stan: No.
Marshall: Oh, these were anti marijuana films
that were - they were - I can't remember who
funded them but they ended up being popularly
shown in movie theaters in the 70s because
they were so over-the-top about the dangers
of marijuana and they - yes, they were meant
to be laughed at years later.
Charlie: That's a well known, so bad it's
good kind of thing
Stan: Okay, I haven't seen it.
Marshall: They we're famous - they became
famous camp where everybody would go in and
get stoned and watch them and [Laughter] laugh
at them because they were so over the top.
Stan: You hear one bad thing about it and
then you figure out that's not true, you start
not believing anything and you're like well
screw that, right?
Marshall: That's exactly what happened.
Stan: That's a bad way of teaching people
not to do drugs.
Marshall: They lost their credibility.
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: In the 70s Consumer Reports came
out with a whole issue as I recall, devoted
to marijuana and I remember reading the entire
issue before I had ever used any drugs and
I remember part of it was, they were very
objective about the pitfalls of marijuana
use and I remember that scared me when they
got to comparisons between that and alcohol
and I thought, one thing I'm never gonna do
is drink because - [Chuckles]
Stan: Okay.
Marshall: - alcohol has been so studied and
its effects are so - can be so over the top
when it goes bad that you know, it really
scared me. It scared me away from alcohol,
put it that way, the consumer report.
Stan: Forever?
Marshall: Not forever. I'll tell you one story
-
Stan: I'd love about here that.
Marshall: -alcohol, this is one, I need to
gather my composure.
Stan: Mm-hmm.
Marshall: I got drunk when I was a teenager
-
Stan: Oh oh, that's illegal.
[Chuckles]
Marshall: I know but I'm figuring the statute
of limitations is covering me here.
Stan: Okay.
Marshall: I got drunk when I was a teenager
and I got really drunk. It was uh, it was
the kind of alcohol that doesn't affect you
and then you drink more and you drink more
and I remember everything spinning and I remember
saying [Speaking gibberish]
Stan: You still do, you do that when you're
sober.
Marshall: I remember my friend looking at
me and saying "youuurr'e drunnnnk" and his
face going all over all weird and I think
I passed out because the main thing I remember
was waking up in the night a few times feeling
like I might be dead and my head was throbbing
and - it was both throbbing and numb and when
I woke up in the morning after 10 hours of
sleep or so, I remember moving my head and
feeling that the brain had shrunk and that
there was space between the brain and the
skull case and that if I went like that it
would go phoom phoom phoom phoom phoom...
Stan: What!
Marshall: And I remember hearing the DJ in
the morning, the guy that was supposed to
be there was not there and DJ that was taking
his place saying "Shadow Stevens is - is a
little late today but we're waiting for him
and he'll come in" and then he showed up a
half hour late and Shadow Stephens got in
front of the microphone and he sounded as
if he was miserable, he said "sorry, I had
a rough night last night" and I thought "this
is what they call a hangover" and I had my
first hangover and it cured me of my desire
to drink anymore after that.
Stan: Really?
Marshall: That's my story.
Stan: I had a similar experience.
Marshall: I want to hear [Chuckles] this has
been too much about me.
Stan: The worst was my 21st birthday.
Marshall: Yeah...
Stan: I had a party at a restaurant for my
21st birthday and people were buying me shots
and I was like "is that all you guys got?"
[Laughter] That's so stupid right? I was like,
"I can handle more" and then everyone just
kept buying me shots. And so, in a matter
of like, I don't know, 45 minutes, was definitely
less than an hour, I had like 13 or 14 shots.
Charlie: Oh, you got to do 21 for your 21st
birthday.
[Laughter]
Stan: Oh yeah, 21 shots in an hour. That's
a lot. Like, I'm not a big guy.
Marshall: Mm-hmm.
Stan: I can't handle that. So, I was gone
after an hour.
Marshall: Huh...
Stan: I don't remember very much but the stories
are funny.
Marshall: I've heard that drunks are like
small children, they don't remember what they
said but everybody else does. Do I get to
hear any of this stories?
Stan: I could tell one, it's pretty funny.
So, we were in the car, I was in the front
seat - not driving, I was in the back of the
seat, [Chuckles] you know, shotgun.
Marshall: Good.
Stan: They put me there, um, they opened the
window and uh, I don't know why but - so,
Melissa, she was my girlfriend at the time,
now my wife, she was in the back seat behind
me, also had the window open -
Marshall: Mm-hmm.
Stan: I throw up out of the window -
Charlie: No!
Stan: And we're like on the highway, so it's
like going right f - you know, the air like
shhhhh, shot everything back through the her
window and I went like in her mouth. [Chuckles]
Marshall: And she's still married you.
Stan: She married me.
Marshall: Oh man!
Stan: I know. That's when you know she's a
keeper.
Marshall: That is a worthwhile story to hear.
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: I'm glad you told that story.
[Chuckles]
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: My story was boring by comparison.
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: That one had real consequence.
Stan: Yeah. And then we stopped - I threw
up like 10 times I think that night. They
went to, I think it was 7-Eleven -
Marshall: Uh-huh. [Chuckles]
Stan: And I had to throw up again while we
were inside and they were like "go to bathroom,
go to the bathroom", and instead of throwing
up in the toilet, I threw up in the sink.
[Laughter] I didn't know what I was doing,
but at least I threw up in the sink you know.
This is bad. I hate alcohol now though. It
actually - the reason I said it was - I had
a similar experience is because after that
the hangover like just made me hate alcohol.
I didn't want to drink for years. I mean I
still did, but I never really got that drunk anymore.
Marshall: Yeah.
Stan: I just like "no, I'm good, good with
two".
Marshall: Yeah.
Stan: Good with two drinksfor the night. Yeah,
I've only been drunk a few times since then
like really drunk.
Marshall: Yeah.
Stan: Most by accident.
Marshall: Yeah.
Stan: At Coachella... I thought I was drinking
like a cocktail but it was just pure whiskey.
[Chuckles]
Marshall: Yeah.
Stan: Yeah. I had a full water bottle with
me -
Marshall: Oh god!
Stan: Of whiskey. I thought it was like 25%
whiskey and like 75% coke -
Marshall: Yeah.
Stan: And I drank the whole thing.
Marshall: Yeah...
Stan: Yeah. I have more stories.
Stan: I hate drugs, no I seriously, I really
don't like drugs. But I think we should make
this episode fun.
Kristian: Are you gonna connect it back into art?
Stan: Yeah, oh yeah, art. Are we talking about
art today?
Marshall: I don't know what we're talking
about.
[Laughter]
Stan: I have one story that's drugs and art,
and I can tell that story.
Marshall: Okay, well tell that. That'll get
us started, so that we've at least got something
like a focus here.
Stan: Okay. This is my first time getting
high...
Marshall: Okay.
Stan: Marijuana, and it's legal now in California,
so I can say that, but it wasn't legal back
then. I shouldn't have said that.
Marshall: Yeah but you've been just incriminating
yourself again and I don't care about that.
Charlie: Cops are on their way.
Stan: Cops are on their way...
Marshall: Okay.
Stan: I was at a party, there was some marijuana.
It was - it was a very relaxed party, it was
more just like friends getting together.
Marshall: Mm-hmm.
Stan: It wasn't even a party, just friends
getting together. And they had marijuana,
I smoked some and then I pulled out my sketchbook
and I started sketching, everyone went to
sleep, I was still sketching and I was just
going crazy I was like "these are amazing!
I got so many great ideas". And it was just
like I was like numb and I couldn't stop.
Marshall: Mm-hmm.
Stan: I couldn't control myself.
Marshall: You couldn't stop what?
Stan: I couldn't stop drawing.
Marshall: You couldn't stop drawing?
Stan: I couldn't stop drawing. I was just
like - kind of had to draw everything and
I had these crazy ideas. It was my first time
getting high too, so it was like a very different
state of mind that I've never experienced
before. So it was just interesting and I kept
going with it. And then the next day I looked
at my drawings, they were horrible. They're
like super scribbly messy chaos that just
didn't look bad. The ideas were funny though...
I drew a karate chair -
Marshall: Mm-hmm.
[Laughter]
Stan: You know, just a chair doing karate.
Marshall: Uh-huh.
Stan: Yeah. And then in the background or
I might have been a different drawing, there
were clowns playing - what's that one game
called? Little circles on the ground and you
have to put your arms and legs -
Marshall: Twister?
Stan: Twister, yeah. There was a bunch of
clowns playing twister.
Marshall: Uh-huh.
Stan: It's funny but it's not a good drawing.
Marshall: The drug affected both the content
of what you draw, the subject matter.
Stan: And the quality of the - the execution
of the craftsmanship. But at the time I thought it was great.
Marshall: Yeah.
Stan: That's why I kept going.
Marshall: That's a comment that Stanley Kubrick
mentioned about LSD is that it puts a person
in a state where they're so fascinated by
everything that they have no discernment about
what to be fascinated by and if they do their
work in a state like that, they expect this
to be as trippy to everybody else as it was
to them when they were in that state. But
that brings up - where are we going with this?
This was your first - you don't like marijuana
for the drawing process.
Stan: That's - where I'm going with this is
that I don't like to do drugs in order to improve my art.
Marshall: How does coffee fit into this?
Stan: Are you going down that path?
Marshall: Yeah.
Stan: Are you going down the caffeine as a
drug? I mean, I know it is.
Marshall: Caffeine is a drug.
Stan: I know it is. I know it affects your
central nervous system, makes you happier,
makes you energized. I know, I get it.
Marshall: It is an addictive drug and I have
done my ten to fifteen thousand doses of that
drug so I'm intimately - of all the drugs
I know, it's caffeine. This was one -
Stan: I know.
Marshall: This was one of the hypocrisies
that drove me crazy when I was a kid is that
we had people saying "drugs bad! Drugs bad!
Drugs bad!" and yet they had certain drugs
that were okay and that they justified.
Stan: What's the definition of a "hard drug"?
I know, I've heard that term.
Marshall: Okay, here's where we've got a problem
with this episode...
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: We've got two people who are in
a state of - dressed up in clown costume - [Laughter]
Ignorance who are taking on a subject that
people devote their lives to with responsible
research -
Stan: Yes.
Marshall: And we're gonna discuss this and
give enlightenment to the world -
Stan: I don't want to give enli - I don't
want to be all like teaching people about
drugs because we are not the role models for
this. We are artists and we are teachers.
Marshall: But yeah, I wanted to take it around,
how do you deal with caffeine and you said
"oh caffeine ain't a drug" and I said caffeine
is a drug.
Stan: I know it's a drug, but come on, is
sugar a drug.
Marshall: No, sugar is not a drug. But - but
- okay, well let's do this, let's do something
that amateurs -
Stan: You gotta stop it at some point.
Marshall: Let's do something amateurs can
do -
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: There's all kinds of drugs with
all kinds of effects and they affect people
differently at different times in their life
too and at different times of the day even
but caffeine is a stimulant and marijuana
is a mild hallucinogen and psilocybin and
LSD are strong hallucinogens. They are psychedelics
-
Stan: People are taking notes right now, "yeah,
I gonna do that one".
Marshall: Yeah, and then some drugs affect
mood and some drugs inhibit. In fact, marijuana
is famous for being something that makes people
more self-conscious.
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: But it affects people so differently,
whereas alcohol does the opposite. Alcohol
almost always loosens inhibitions which is
why some people who feel too tight feel I
need to have a drug to loosen up. Some drugs
do the opposite of a stimulant, they'll put
you to sleep. So, every one of them, people
are going to them for a reason. They want
some - the drug makes some promise, it says
"if you take me, I'll give you that magic
feeling, I'll open up your mind, I'll do this
thing for you" and that's that's one of the
things that they never seemed to deal with
when I was a teenager is that there was an
allure and an interest here that I always
felt like the best way to deal with it is
to address the allure and the interest.
Stan: My biggest thing is the risk factor.
Marshall: Yeah.
Stan: Like if a drug promises you something
but you're risking your health or - or your
life, that's not - it's not worth it. Coffee
isn't risking my health or my life. What?
Marshall: Go ahead, go ahead. Well, I was
gonna disagree that it -
Stan: What?
Marshall: Coffee can take a toll on your hea
- caffeine can take a toll on your health.
Stan: Too much.
Marshall: Too much over too long.
Stan: I've heard coffee is good for you.
Marshall: There was a study that came out
about 2000 and -
Charlie: Wine is healthy in small doses.
Stan: Yeah, small doses. I'm not - I'm only
having - by the way this isn't even co - I
don't even have coffee anymore, I have caffeine
with tea.
Marshall: Okay, yeah.
Stan: Because it's not as much caffeine, it's
enough for me.
Marshall: There was a study that said that
if you drink coffee, you are less likely to
die and it - [Laughter]
Stan: What?
Marshall: It hit the news, and I thought "what
does that mean?" and they said it doesn't
even make any difference whether it's caffeinated
or not, even decaf. They had done a stu - a
study where apparently I'm doing - I'm doing
this from memory -
Stan: Okay.
Marshall: Apparently they found out that within
a year's time, people who drank coffee were
less likely to die than people who didn't
drink -
Stan: From what?
Marshall: Well, that's what -
Speaker 1: They simply become immortal.
Marshall: It was a - it was a -
Stan: It's that simple.
Marshall: We discussed it with friends. I
remember buying extra coffee that day [Chuckles]
gonna be less likely to die...
Stan: Sponsored by Starbucks.
Marshall: It was a - yeah, it's the kind of
thing that I suspect that it was a funded
study and they told the truth but nobody looked
at the details of the study, all they knew
is "I drink coffee and I feel bad about it.
I drink too much coffee". And yet, the scientists
have shown us, its new research, if I drink
coffee I'm gonna be less likely to die. I
don't want to die, I gonna drink more coffee
today. And you times that by millions of people
who are responding to it. That's what I think
happened there.
Stan: Okay. Do you think that tea has negative
health - negative - does it have health risks
that I should be concerned about?
Marshall: I am told that tea is better for
you than coffee.
Stan: Okay, so, there's a drug that I'm comfortable
having, whatever, I'm not a scientist, I'm
not a doctor, I'm just - this is - I'm talking
about my personal beliefs of why certain drugs
to me are just too risky, I don't think it's
worth it, and others like caffeine are okay,
you know, one cup a day it's fine to me, but
- what is it? what is that?
Marshall: I don't know. What is that?
Stan: You wouldn't inject umm, -
Charlie: Oh, injecting like heroin or something?
Stan: Heroin, yeah, that's what I was thinking
about.
Marshall: What is - what -
Stan: I'm sure the effects are amazing...
Marshall: What is that gesture you were doing?
Stan: I was injecting it into my vein.   
   Marshall: Oh, injecting, okay yeah yeah.
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: Yeah, Lenny Bruce said that his
experience with heroin was that the first
time he used it it was like kissing the face
of God and I thought, the problem with that
is that it very well may be a goodbye kiss.
Stan: Yeah, that's exactly - yeah you're dead!
Marshall: Yeah yeah and so heroin is way over
on the extreme that everyone who uses heroin
either ends up dead or the rest of their life
is all - is entirely devoted to it and - and
every - everything revolves around it.
Stan: Yeah, unlike LSD, you're risking jumping
off a building.
Marshall: Well, I know a number of LSD advocates
who would really want to enter this conversation right now.
Stan: There's bigger risks than drinking tea.
Marshall: Oh, there are bigger risks.
Stan: Would they agree with that at least?
Marshall: Yeah.
Stan: Okay.
Marshall: Okay, so there's a spectrum.
Stan: Yes, there's a spectrum [Chuckles].
Marshall: There's a spectrum -
Stan: I was exaggerating with the like you
- you know, you have LSD, you'll jump off
a building. I'm just saying, there's a greater
risk and it's something I don't think is worth
it to me.
Marshall: Stan, I feel terrible I'm ruining
our drug episode. It was supposed to be fun
and Marshall is turning it into a teaching
opportunity.
Stan: You're trying to tell people to do drugs.
Marshall: No, I am absolutely not doing that.
Stan: You already hear folks, Marshall Vandruff.
Marshall: Absolutely not. I've got the solution.
Stan: Alright, yeah, go ahead.
Marshall: I've got this solution. Here is
what happened in - in my upbringing; we had
a very simple paradigm; drugs bad, no drugs
good. And we found out that it wasn't that
simple. And if we had known about what scientists
use to figure out genetic patterns, that it
could be four corners... Up here you have
a person who uses drugs and they are ruined
by them, you've got another person who uses
drugs and they benefit from them. It's still
too simple because there's going to be complicated
-complications in there. You got people over
here that they're using - they never use drugs
and they do very well and people who never
use drugs and they suffer from not having
used them. They miss out on benefits and of
the four boys in my family, of me and my brothers,
we each one of us fit on one corner of that
-
Stan: Really?
Marshall: Yes not perfectly -
Stan: Which corner are you?
Marshall: Because there's counterpoint - I
know you were gonna ask me that -
Stan: I know you do.
Marshall: And I'm not gonna answer you..
Stan: Should I guess?
Marshall: But I will tell you this, but it
gets -
Stan: So, I know you've done drugs, so you
- I've narrowed down to two.
Marshall: Yeah, you've narrowed down one thing.
But no, I am not gonna deal with this. You
are - [Laughter] because also -
Stan: I can probably guess.
Marshall: My brother's don't watch this podcast,
they're too busy with other things. Maybe
because they've been damaged by drugs maybe
because they've been damaged by not using
drugs, maybe because they're doing well because
they didn't use drugs, maybe because they're
doing well because they did use drugs, I'm
not saying. But even that overlay, even that
overlay is not enough because you've got to
have - each one of those can have a counterpoint.
But at least it gets us away. It gets us away
from this simple paradigm of the spectrum
as one - one side is good, one side is bad.
And in my family, two of the - two of the
brothers really went for drugs, two really
didn't go for drugs. They used them but decided
that that is not what they - they liked. It
was an interesting thing to see how that - that
- the economy happened. It's a - it could
even be analogous if you really want to make
this argument to playing football in high
school, because everybody in middle age that's
got knee problems, that's the way you do the
Sherlock Holmes thing of saying "you played
football in high school, didn't you or you
went skiing" because there was just - there's
so much fallout from concussions and all that
kind of thing but there are people who even
when they know that, it doesn't make any difference.
If I'm gonna go down, I'm gonna go down doing
this and to forbid them or to demonize them
if they will take responsibility, the problem
is that if the responsibility then spills
over to other people in their lives that they
have to take care of them, that's one of the
issues. But I think that a person who really
is interested in drugs, if they think twice,
think three times with counsel, take responsibility,
those are the people who you're going to do
the experiments. Those are gonna be the ones
that find out what works and what doesn't,
it's always been that way. Anyway -
Stan: Cool.
Marshall: Have I gotten too serious?
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: I guess I have -
Stan: What the hell man?
Marshall: So what do we do now? Eat more rock
candy?
Stan: Bitch!
[Chuckles] I had to do it. I had to do the
- can you do the Heisenberg -
Marshall: I don't know, how does Heisenberg
talk? Can you do an impersonation of him for
me?
Stan: You just did it.
Marshall: I mean, does he have a low voice?
Is he - is he kind of tough?
Stan: That
Charlie: "Stay out of my territory!"
Stan: Use that voice and say "I am the one who knocks".
Marshall: Yeah, okay.
Stan: Do it right now.
Marshall: "I am the one who knocks!" [Laughter]
Stan: That's funny, that was good but it was
the different execution but you haven't - you
know, you gotta hear it.
Marshall: This episode sucks! [Laughter] this
is the worst draftsmen podcast we have ever
done including the ones we threw away.
Stan: Marshall, can you tell a story about
drugs and art.
Marshall: Let me bring up something. Here's
something that we've talked about before when
we did the uh, the Heinrich Kley video for
stewarding. It has not yet gone public.
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: But it was - it is the assumption
that if a person does surreal artwork that
they must be on drugs. You were the one who
asked "do you think Heinrich Kley was on drugs?"
and I gave you my opinion was "i don't think
so", it's just an opinion, I don't know but
Salvador Dali, oh he uses drugs, he's gotta
use drugs and he said he does not use drugs,
"I am the drug" and we've seen this happen
a number of times with people who have very
trippy work and we assume that they are on
drugs. I started keeping a sketchbook at almost
the age of 40, and about two or three years
into this sketchbook, it took a turn where
I started to find a style in there and this
style was a trippy surreal psychedelic style,
and I poured out scores of pages over and
over. I mean, it was my constant outlet during
Stan: Were you sober?
Marshall: This was during my midlife crisis
and there was never at one time, any time
in my midlife crisis that I used any kinds
of psychedelics or mild hallucinogens, no
marijuana at all, no alcohol at all. I was
never on any drugs that were - that affected
consciousness perception, no mind-altering
drugs.
Stan: No caffeine?
Marshall: I drank a lot of coffee during that
time.
Stan: Okay. But you excluded it.
Marshall: No, I was drinking - I drunk -
Stan: Yeah, but you just said that "I didn't
have any of mind-altering drugs" and then
- but you had -
Marshall: That's because the first thing that
people say when they look at, if they feel
comfortable saying is, "were you on drugs
when you did this?" and the answer is no.
Stan: But you tried to prove to me that caffeine
is a drug and now you're excluding it from
your answer.
Marshall: I was on drugs, I was on a stimulant
known as caffeine but that is not what they
mean when they ask.
Stan: I know, that was my point earlier.
Marshall: Your point is taken.
Stan: That's what I was saying.
Marshall: Yes.
Stan: Ohhhh!
Marshall: I have been on drugs 90% of my life
and it's been 89% caffeine.
[Chuckles]
Stan: Nice. The reason I - one of the reasons
that I don't really do drugs to make me happier
and kind of alter my state of mind, right?
Marshall: Mm-hmm.
Stan: Is that - is because the most - the
best experiences I've had, it kinda sounds
good. That feels - it looks like it feels
good. Take off this. Oh my god, supper sweaty in here.
Marshall: Yeah, my hands can breath now, yeah.
Stan: Oh! And they stink!
Marshall: Mine smell good.
[Chuckles] coconut oil.
Stan: Yeah. The reason that I don't like or
don't go to mind-altering drugs and drugs
that make you happier is because, from my
experiences, the best moments of being mind
altered have been with natural ways of doing
it.
Marshall: Like what?
Stan: I woke up early, like two hours earlier
than normal and it's like just right before
sunrise and go for a run and my gut is just
going crazy. I mean, dopamine rush, all these
creative ideas coming out, my mind is at a
100%. Everything's connecting, it's amazing,
it's like I'm on drugs.
Marshall: Yeah.
Stan: But it's natural. I'm exercising, I
got up early and being productive -
Marshall: Yes.
Stan: So much better than a drug, and I didn't
even have caffeine.
Marshall: I understand. Exercise - I'm told
exercise make us so you produce your own drug.
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: It's a healthy way.
Stan: That's why I leave people, is try that
first.
Marshall: The thing is that you have to do
the - the drugs are always easy. I mean, once
you get past the initial weirdness of it or
that you have to pay money for it or you have
to do it illegally, it's just to do the magic
thing and it makes the magic effect and then
the payoff is later. That is one thing I definitely
would say to anyone, if you're young, it's
the kind of thing you'd tell somebody who
you care about, who's young and impressionable
and that they look to you for advice is that
it's always - drugs are always a trade-off,
that you will get a benefit and then you ask
whether I'm trading up or trading down. But
there are some things that - the only downside
for exercise is that it's hard. I mean, there
may be other things that you have to do it
cuz you're injured or whatever, but for the
most part it's just that you have to get past
the initial inertia of holding still and saying
"I will just go. I will just go to the yoga
class even though I don't feel like. It's
all I got to do, I can do a lousy job there"
and then once you go, you've got the thing in motion.
Stan: Yeah. But you know, it's much harder
to deal with the effects of drugs later when
they - the negative side effects.
Marshall: Yeah.
Stan: Than to go for a run. It's just - but
yeah, in the moment, it's easier to just -
Marshall: In other words, it's hard to get
up and do the exercise. It's much harder to
deal with the fact that you've lost control
of certain body functions because you've been
sniffing glue for a long time.
[Laughter]
Stan: Exactly.
Marshall: We had friends - we had friends
who told us about their sniffing glue trip
-
Stan: What!
Marshall: Their sniffing glue trips.
Stan: What kind of glue trips. What kind of
glue?
Marshall: Oh, I don't know what kind of glue
but they gave us a pitch how awesome it was
-
Stan: What!
Marshall: And they continued to do it and
it was like Paul McCartney would say, that
when somebody explained to him about what's
the draw - he want to know what the drawback
of heroin was and the guy said it's expensive
but he said that's no problem for you and
he said there was something in his brain that
went Kachiiinggg, that maybe that's something
I shouldn't open up that door. Now, should
we get to a positive alternative?
Stan: Yes.
Marshall: I know a really really useful alternative
to drugs -
Stan: Please.
Marshall: And it was specifically because
of the different kinds of drugs that I was
interested in as a teenager, I wasn't interested
in heroin, I wasn't interested in cocaine.
One of my brother's tried every. He made it
and he said it's okay to say that public.
Stan: Which one? What's his name?
Marshall: One of my brothers tried everything
but heroin. He made it a point to experiment
with all of them, and he experimented seriously.
He took LSD every day for a year and made
it a point to keep track of how it affected
him. I was around him during that time. So,
this is something that had a profound influence
on me and I was interested in mind-altering
drugs more than I was interested in stimulants
or depressants or any of those things, and
inhibitors. But what I found out is that keeping
a dream journal, which in my - in my 20s when
I it was about the time that I stopped using
marijuana, I fasted for a few days knowing
that fasting has an effect on the brain that
in intense situations, again, fasting is dangerous.
There are people who fast for weeks at a time
and it can be dangerous. But I knew that it
had an effect on the brain that is similar
to what hallucinogens do is that it heightens
sensitivity, it expands awareness, it helps
you get perspective on things and I did. I
went off to the forest with a friend and we
did not eat for three days and I remember
I came back and I started keeping a journal
and I hadn't planned this, it just - it happened.
As a result of the fasting, I started keeping
a journal and then that journal turned into
dream journal. And for a total of maybe six
or seven years of my adult life, and I do
it for two and a half years at a time and
then when I got married I stopped keeping
a dream journal and then I went back to it
again in another stage of my life and then
pulled back from it. But I would wake up in
the morning and I would write in my journal
for a half hour to an hour and the first thing
I would write is what I just dreamed. And
what came of that is that most people, the
edge of a shadow is called the penumbra,
where the shadow ends and then the light begins.
And most people when they wake up quickly
to an alarm and then have to get right to
work, the shadow is hard edged; I was asleep,
I am awake. But if you take the time when
you wake up to soften that shadow and look
back at what you've been doing for the last
20 minutes or 10 hours that you've been asleep
and actually write it down or tell it to somebody
and then doing that hundreds and then even
thousands of times, I found out that was somewhere
around middle age that I was able to tap into
the high mind instantly by opening up my sketchbook,
moving my pencil around and I could find within
10 seconds it wasn't as intense as a chemical
drug but it was certainly as real and then
I could come out of it instantly if I needed
to and then go right back into it -
Stan: Are you somehow while you're sleeping?
Marshall: No no no, I'm talking about when
I was working in my sketchbook, I was able
to tap into that dream part of the mind, the
altered states of consciousness. Because dreams
are surreal experience, right? Dreams are
physcadelic experiences.
Stan: Can you do it right now?
Marshall: Can I do it right now?
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: Well, you know when I'm in a - with
a camera on me and everybody looking at me,
it changes the dynamic a little bit -
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: But I could conceivably but I am
not going to do it right now -
Stan: Why? Do you -
Marshall: Because what would be the point?
I'd start moving the pencil around and say
"I am now in -" hey, Tim gula did it. Tim
Gula went right into it.
Stan: Oh, so you don't like fall asleep and
it's like [Mumbling]?
Marshall: Tim Gula went right into it. I showed
that to my students.
Stan: Really?
Marshall: The meditative drawing one.
Stan: How do you - how can you tell he went
into it?
Marshall: Can you not tell that when he starts
going [Mumbling].
Stan: What?
Marshall: [Mumbling] he's in a zone -
Stan: Oh, you're just talking about a zone?
Marshall: I am talking about a zone, but it's
an altered state -
Stan: It's a very focused - it's just being
super focused on something.
Marshall: Super focused, open to little drifts
of wind that might make you go this way or
go that way.
Stan: But how is that being like in a dream?
Marshall: Do you not see it as like being
in a dream where you - you know, also the
imagery that he was coming up was surreal
imagery, some of it kind of made sense, some
of it didn't make sense.
Stan: To me a dream is like watching TV.
Marshall: Okay.
Stan: It's like I'm just kind of experiencing
this thing, whereas when I'm in the zone I'm
the puppet master. I'm doing this thing and
I get to make all the choices, I'm in control.
In a dream, I don't feel like I'm in control,
I'm just - I'm in it and things are happening.
Marshall: Which is fun, right?
Stan: Yeah, it's fun.
Marshall: Yeah.
Stan: I know.
Marshall: There's lucid dreaming where you
can take control of your dream.
Stan: I know but I'm - I have - I don't know
how to do that. So, to me, a dreamlike state
is more just kind of like you know, falling
asleep and watching TV, whereas being in the
zone is being super focused on one thing and
I'm in control.
Marshall: Okay, now this again - this again
brings out into relief that we've got two
ignorant amateurs.
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: Here's what we're finding out as
ignorant amateurs, there's more than one kind of zone.
Stan: Okay, okay yeah, sure.
Marshall: Tim Gula was in a zone and he went
into it instantly and currently he didn't
use a chemical while he was doing that.
Stan: Whatever, we don't know that.
Marshall: And I - we don't know that, but
we're gonna assume that because I've seen
it happen many times and I've had it happen
in myself countless times where if I go into
this zone, it's a matter, of I can tap into
the part of my mind that lets this connect
to this that connect to this, very much like
two and three-year-olds do where they don't
- have you ever read 'Axe Cop'? Do you know
anything about the comic 'Axe Cop' written
by a five year old?
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: This five year old is brilliantly
creative in making combinations about how
Axe Cop, who was a cop, who holds an axe and
says "I'll chop your head off!" and he - he
mingles the genre of a cop story with Dinosaurs
and fantasy and outer space travel and - and
all sorts of other things. Anyway, he's a
five-year-old and like many a five-year-old,
there's nothing in his brain that inhibits
him from making a connection that a grown-up
would say I don't know, well we should -
Stan: No, that's stupid.
Marshall: Yeah, he's in the - the first half
of the creative state. He's in the divergent
state and that is a - that's one reason why
artists, writers, musicians are so attracted
to these drugs is that they take that magic
thing, it opens up that zone and it gives
them to them instantly. I mean, why else would
they be so attracted to it as creative people.
Charlie: Marshall, if you're gonna bring
up Axe Cop, you have to mention that it's
illustrated by the older brother. [Chuckles]
Marshall: Yeah it's illustrated - the whole
Axe Cop thing.
Stan: How old was the brother?
Charlie: He's a professional artist, so,
much older.
Stan: Okay, he's an adult.
Marshall: There was like a 27 year gap between
the five-year-old and the twenty something
year old. Older brother is a professional
comic book artist.
Charlie: Yeah, but he's drawing inspiration
from the crazy ideas that the little brother
comes up with and - and just gives it a professional
glean to it. [Chuckles]
Stan: Wow!
Marshall: It was just over the top. When those
things were coming out, that kid must be a
teenager now but when they were coming out,
they were over-the-top funny. They were the
kind of thing where several people, grown-ups,
would get together to read these things and
they'd all be falling all over the floor at
the things that go on in Axe Cop knowing that
a five-year-old who has no sense -
Stan: Right. You have to know that, right?
Marshall: Yeah.
Stan: Otherwise you be like "who is this idiot?"
Marshall: Yeah, I have wondered - in the comments,
let us know if you read Axe Cop not knowing
that it was written by a five-year-old. Whether
it did anything for you. The ease of slipping
into an altered state of consciousness, the
zone is an altered state of consciousness.
Stan: Okay. Altered from what? What is the
unaltered state of consciousness?
Marshall: The only altered state of consciousness
is the waking mind that if you divide the
creative state into the dream mind which is
the - it has no inhibitions, it'll play way
like little kid, divagene and the waking mind
which is the grown-up mind, the responsible
mind, that's a good idea to think
about flying out the window but we can't actually
do that and no, we won't really be able to
fly. Those two sides are the two sides that's
the dichotomy of the creative process. If
you take any one of those away, you damage the creative process.
Stan: Hmm.
Marshall: You're questioning this.
Stan: I'm questioning that definition because
I could have caffeine and be in an altered
state of mind, right? But - and decided not
to jump off a building because it's stupid
and I'm an adult and I don't want to do that.
So, which - which state of mind am I in? Am
I altered or unaltered?
Marshall: I don't know.
Stan: When I have caffeine?
Marshall: I don't know.
[Laughter]
Stan: Is that a stupid question?
Marshall: I was hoping I had something of
value.
Stan: No Marshall.
Marshall: Give me one minute on the argument
for drugs.
Stan: Oh boy.
Marshall: For creative people, because it
was the argument that convinced me.
Stan: Uh-huh.
Marshall: When you look at how many creative
people that you admire and they say "I use
drugs. I use drugs as part of my process",
that is one of the strongest recruiting mechanisms
that I know. It certainly worked on us, but
yet at the same time, if you look at the greatest
creative entities who have ever lived, even
- even right now. I mean, Kim Jung Gi has
taken over the whole world for nobody does
it at his level and Bobby Chu asked him if
he used drugs and he said "no" and he said
he doesn't even drink. And when you look at
these great composers, I mean, so many musicians
that used marijuana in the 20th century when
it was becoming popular. Beethoven used caffeine,
he used no mind-altering drugs that we know
of. Mozart, Schubert - Schubert I mean, Schubert
died at 31, his music is some of the most
ethereal marvelous stuff any human ever produced.
I know, I know, he's not that well-known and
he had a creative trick which he said that
"I - I remember a tune that I've never heard
before". So that was his little trigger to
go into the zone. Pretend like you're remembering
a tune you never heard before and he came
up with this stuff that Lynne Harrell, the
cellist said Schubert was in touch with something
that we other mortals are not. Beethoven claimed
the same thing for himself. But you look at
these giant entities of history that reached
the highest levels of creativity and they
seemed to have done it completely without
the use of or at least without the use of
the chemicals that people now associate with creative enhancers.
Stan: Yeah, because your mind is very powerful.
You can get to that state without chemicals.
Marshall: Yeah. One thing I am sure of, I
am certain of this, you don't need drugs to
be creative. And if you think that taking
drugs will make you creative, it's a real
bad bet. Drugs don't make people creative.
Thinking metaphorically makes people creative.
Thinking ironically makes people creative.
Coming up with a divergent discipline, the
discipline of many different solutions that
can all be bad, those are the things that
are more likely to make people creative. Enjoying
the process makes people creative. This may
be the main reason why people use drugs for
creativity is that when you feel good, you
tend to do better work. I think that people
are most creative at the beginning of their
vacations when they know I'm off, we're leaving
the house, we're getting in the car, we're
off, I've got two weeks of goofing around
and they start looking at clouds and noticing
that they're shaped like other things, they
start becoming funnier, more playful. I think
that that is a great thing to tap into for
the creative process is making it fun and
I also think it's one reason, one comedy writer
said, "the reason I smoke marijuana to write
comedy is that I'm funnier when I feel good
and marijuana makes me feel good", and so
that's what he - that's his - his little trigger
is to use that. Anyway, I'm done talking.
Stan: I can't tell if you're - if that little
speech was for or against drug, I can't - I
can't - or it wasn't for or against, it was
just -
Marshall: It gets confusing when we can't
just turn it into a simple paradigm of good
bad. And as soon as you start to make caveats
and say "these have this benefit and they
have this price to pay", it makes it so that
it does confuse people. I just want you to
simplify my life. I come from a family where
teetotaling was the way to deal with it. It's
just the way you deal with alcohol -
Stan: Did you just -
Marshall: Teetotaling, don't drink at all.
Teetotaling means no alcohol at all.
Stan: Oh!
Marshall: Yeah, teetotaling is to abstain
from drugs altogether. It certainly simplifies your life.
Stan: Yeah.
Kristian: Marshall, this episodes all over
the place. You must be on drugs.
[Chuckles]
Stan: Yeah. I can't tell like where this episode
went and where it currently is.
Marshall: I can't tell either.
[Laughter] and that's the waking my need for
closure with me.
Stan: Yeah.
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Marshall:  Where do we go? Do we go to a voicemail?
Stan: Yeah. Charlie sounds like he's got
a voicemail for us. Charlie!
Charlie: Yeah, I got something for you.
Marshall: Do you guys recommend drugs?
Stan: Hopefully it's not that question.
Voicemail: Hello Marshall and Stan, hi. My
name is Warren I'm from India. So my question
is about abstract painting. When I look at
paintings - when I look at abstract paintings,
I'm really not sure what I'm looking at. I'm
really not sure what is - what are technical
aspects that I'm supposed to appreciate. So,
my doubt is have this abstract painters put
in so much time to learn gestures or Anatomy?
Or probably maybe not anatomy but - so, what
- what do abstract painters focus on? What
do they learn? What do they practice? Thank you.
Stan: Basically his question is what do abstract
painters study. Like if you're - if you're
a representational figurative painter, you
study anatomy and proportions and I don't
- I don't remember what you said -
Charlie: Gesture.
Stan: Gesture, but what about if you're an
abstract painter, what do you study?
Marshall: That's a great question.
Stan: I don't know if my answer is correct.
Marshall: Give it a shot.
Stan: But I would think that abstract painting
is so wide in what it can be that you can
study anything. You can study anatomy and
proportions and all that stuff and then use
that knowledge to do abstract figurative paintings,
right? Like who's that guy who does very deform
kind of... Wow, man!
Marshall: Sir Francis Bacon?
Stan: No.
Charlie: Egon Schiele?
Marshall: Egon Schiele.
Stan: Yesss. Well, that kind of goes into
like abstract a little bit, I mean not really
but I just feel like you can use some of your
knowledge of anatomy and how the body is designed
to design shapes and gesture and all sorts
of stuff. I mean, you could just do like a
bunch of weird muscles all over the place
and that's an abstract painting. Like, I mean,
whatever, it's like you could be as creative
as you want and put whatever you want on paper
and you're an abstract painter.it's like it
depends on what you're trying to do. You could
just study color and composition or you know,
you can study perspective and your abstract
painting is all about just like weird forms
going through space but you, you know, you
know how form works and so you're able to
control that part of your drawing. It could
be anything, I don't know, I don't think there's
like a set list of things that abstract painters
have to learn. Is that wrong?
Marshall: That makes sense.
Stan: Okay.
Marshall: You can study anything. Study what
you love and you mentioned Anatomy -
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: Have you ever heard of Wallace Smith?
Stan: No.
Marshall: Vance introduced us to Wallace Smith
in last night's class. This is a drawer or
painter illustrator from about a hundred years
ago and he did these gnarly line drawings
of - they're the kind of icky in some way.
A lot of emaciated kind of animals and people
but they are a wandering line that shows his
knowledge of anatomy and has a certain aesthetic
and that's not non-objective, that's not purely
abstract but it's very abstract by comparison
to a person who works more -
Stan: Yeah, it has elements of abstract, but
Marshall: Yeah, but there's one part where
he had the hawk of a horse and they were like
shrink-wrapped bones you know, and it's like
he's letting the line wander around -
Stan: Did you find it in the laptop?
Marshall: I did find it and we can - we can
show clips.
Stan: Oh, can I see it?
Marshall: This is - if you - if you hit the
down button.
Stan: Oh, that's definitely not abstract.
Marshall: No, it's not. The technical term
for subject matter that has - paintings that
have no subject matter is non objective, it
used to be the technical term, terms change
but it is abstracted.
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: It's not as - as - its stylized
put into something that is pulling away from
really representational.
Stan: Yeah, like if you just zoom in on like
a piece of it, it just - it's a bunch of random
shapes, you can't tell what it is at all.
Or when you pull back, it's actually pretty
obvious what it is.
Marshall: Yeah, but here's why I brought it
up, because you were mentioning Anatomy. This
is someone who knows Anatomy so well that
when they scroll around and make abstract
marks, they almost look like they are bones
and muscles and the relationships including
scale relationships and one thing wraps around
another, how to get that idea. Well a supinator
wraps around an arm kind of like that, so
I'm gonna make a line that's abstract sort of like that.
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: But, it can be seafoam, it can be
the constellations of stars, it can be volcanic
explosions, it can be the way hair flows.
There's just - there's anything that you're
interested in and then reduce these things
that you love to the elements that Stan has
talked about in his video and that - I teach
those seven elements, line, tone, shape, texture,
form and space, color and you add edges in
there and you look even just take any one
of those things I mentioned, hair, sea foam,
volcanic explosions, you'll find that some
parts have crisp edges, some parts have softer
edges and that becomes the language with which
you're messing around. And I can hardly imagine
a person working non objectively abstractly
that they don't have some secret thing in
mind, some metaphor in mind.
Stan: They're making connections in their
mind that were made from something in reality,
right?  
  Marshall: That's right.
Stan: Like here, like he's got this drawing
of this pile of bodies and if you just like
crop the image here -
Marshall: Mm-hmm.
Stan: That's kind of like an abstract painting
where it's just like a bunch of bodies that
kind of - like puzzle pieces.
Marshall: Have you ever seen Christoph Niemann's
Abstract-O-Meter?
[Laughter]
Stan: No. Sounds amazing.
Marshall: He shows - it's great. It's just
one illustration of a broken heart or an arrow
through a heart and on one side he's got it
too literal and too abstract and just right,
right in the middle and too abstract is a
red square with a line through it, but you
can't tell what it is. The other one it's
- it's actually a literal rendering of a heart
with an arrow through it.
Stan: What's in the middle?
Marshall: And in the middle is the abstract
design, the think you'd do for a graphic design.
Stan: So like is it a symbol of a heart like
an emoji heart?
Marshall: Yeah, a symbol of a heart like the
emoji of a heart and that's just right on
the abstract ohmmeter.
Stan: Okay.
Marshall: And there are you know, some artists
that devoted themselves to it. Uh, Mondrian
you know, he was doing trees that were fairly
representational and by the time he gets done,
he's turning them into just pure lines, you
can't even tell that they aren't city streets
or circuit boards because he's abstracting
out of this love of trees and branching systems.
He's abstracting something to really reduce
it down to that. Point is, artists when they
work abstractly, got something on their mind
and it might be a piece of music. That's a
great way to do it, to have a piece of music
just like some artists - some musicians will
- Mussorgsky pictures in an exhibition were
musical descriptions of his friend Victor
Hartmann's artwork and Saint-Saëns Carnival
of the Animals, great piece of music, is each
- when I first heard it, I didn't know it
was supposed to be animals. I heard it on
the radio and it was "oh, this is so - this
is that tri - what is this?" and then found
out that if you go back and find out there's
a title to each one of them and there's a
gag with it, that it's supposed to be a particular
animal. But that's taking an image and making
music. You can take music and see if you can
turn the elements of music into visual elements.
Stan: Well, I hope that answers Warren's question.
Marshall: I hope it does too. It was a good
question, thanks for asking that question.
Stan: Yeah, Marshall, do you want to tell
us about your thang?
Marshall: I had several things that I was
gonna choose for this episode but I think
I'm gonna land on a guy whose name I don't
dare say because I've mispronounced it twice
and somebody's pointed out that I - I think
they said I butchered it or slaughtered -
Stan: Can you say it wrong twice again?
Marshall: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi or something
like that.
Stan: Okay.
Marshall: But he is the one who wrote the
book "Flow".
Stan: Okay.
Marshall: Which I read in the 90s and it was
important in my life and it has to do with
the psychology of well-being, which is kind
of why a lot of people take drugs. And one
of the things he mentioned in there is that
there are certain activities as you were mentioning,
that are unpleasant that if you embrace them,
take them on, exercise obviously, then you
get a rebound effect. It's the opposite of
a hangover, that you get the pleasure first
and then you get the pain later, take the
pain first and you can get the pleasure later.
And it doesn't apply to everything but there
was a philosopher, Gregory Bateson who talked
about - I don't know whether it was original
with him but he said that "if the hangover
preceded the inebriation, alcoholism would
be a virtue practiced y only by very disciplined
people who devote themselves to it".
Stan: That's pretty funny.
Marshall: Yeah. But the book 'Flow', if you've
got the energy to read, I mean, I'm not necessarily
recommending the book, I just - it just came
up to me. There were a number of other things.
He has scientifically looked at what characteristics
are embedded in activities that create flow.
Reading was very high on the list. Certain
jobs are more likely to bring flow during
their work than other jobs, but there were
ironies with that too, some of the jobs that
bring the most flow are the ones that people
have the most trouble with or go into depression
from. Anyway, I'm -
Stan: That reminds me of - I'm listening to
Victor Frankel's 'Man's Search for Meaning'
right now and it reminds me of what he said
about - he survived Auschwitz.
Marshall: Yes.
Stan: Yeah. Um, and it reminds me of what
he - he told the story on there about - actually
it might not be from that book, it might be
from a podcast I just listened to but basically
the story is, there was a guy who grew up
in Germany, right? You know, during the time
of the wall, the Berlin wall, he was in Berlin
and he escaped or he was trying to escape
and he got put into prison for many years
and then finally he escaped and then now when
people ask him about it, he says he's very
glad that he went through all the hardships
in his early life because of how much better
life is now, having experienced the shit.
Marshall: Mm-hmm.
Stan: It's like you know, in comparison it's
a you know, it's amazing. He has a much higher
apreaciation for just regular things that
we just take for granted and he thinks that's
a gift. He looks at it as a gift, all the
crap he went through.
Marshall: Isn't that amazing?
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: To look at the worst things in life
and say "that's actually a good thing" -
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: - for me because of the way I responded
to it. Which -
Stan: Yeah.
Marshall: - that's what Viktor Frankl was
very much about though, right? Is that it's
-
Stan: Yes.
Marshall: - there's a great courses right
now that I'm enjoying, I'm just starting it
on how to make stress work for you and that's
- she references Viktor Frankl, and so - the
point that she's making there is that the
circumstances can be so bad that they ruin
us, but a very important factor is our response
to the circumstances and the proof of this
is give somebody the worst possible circumstances
and see how that person responds positively
and it becomes a Viktor Frankl. Yeah, but
when you take the most extreme horror that
can be imagined and say somebody survived
it and came out, what can we learn from them?
That's someone who's very special.
Stan: Yeah, I'm not done with the book, but
it's really good so far.
Marshall: Yeah.
Stan: Yeah. So that could be my thing, or
it could be matcha green tea.
Marshall: No, I like - [Laughter]
Stan: My drug of choice.
Marshall: Yeah, I like the Viktor Frank story
better.
Stan: Okay. All right, what's the question?[Laughs]
Oh man!
Marshall: Ohhhh!
Stan: What's your favorite drug? No, that's really
bad.
Charlie: I think if you focused on those
alternatives to drugs but -
Stan: Oh yes.
Marshall: That would be great. 
 Stan: That's a great question.
What's the best drug alternative that you know of?
Marshall: That's a good question.
Stan: That's a very good question, I like
that. And something we're trying to get them addicted to...
Marshall: You take it on this one.
Stan: Giving five stars on iTunes. Create
fake accounts you guys. [Chuckles]
Marshall: I feel like I'm in a real-life Breaking
Bad.
[Laughter]
Stan: We gotta - we gotta play this game.
Marshall: Just throw your ethics away. Fake
accounts.
Stan: Fake accounts, five stars from all of
them, buy iPhones just so you can create
iTunes accounts.
Marshall: You could make a little more out
of your little blue rocks here for to gather
five star votes.
Charlie: Think, what would Walter White
do?
Stan: Yeah. What would he do?
Charlie: Whatever it takes.
Stan: Whatever it - yeah, that's right.
Marshall: We're done.
Stan: Okay. See you guys.
[Chuckles].
I'm waiting for you to make some weird sound
again.
Marshall: [Zipping the hazmat] [Laughter]
Stan: That's exactly what I was hoping for.
[Laughter] Wow
