Speaker 1: A femeral as a protection of I heard radio. Part
Speaker 1: of the interviewing great people is that you get more
Speaker 1: tape than you can use. Things you love inevitably end
Speaker 1: up on the cutting room floor. The following is my
Speaker 1: mostly uncut interview with our producer Matt Frederick. You might
Speaker 1: know him from Stuff they Don't Want you to know,
Speaker 1: or as the host of Monster is Aldiac Killer. He
Speaker 1: and I have worked together behind the scenes on a
Speaker 1: bunch of different things, including this show, in which Matt
Speaker 1: has been involved since the very beginning. Fun fact, he
Speaker 1: also married Victoria and I, and though we've had an
Speaker 1: uncountable number of conversations about all things ephemeral, we never
Speaker 1: had occasion to record it before. For the last episode
Speaker 1: of the season, Matt turned up this old family tape,
Speaker 1: a cassette his grandfather recorded in the nineteen nineties. Of
Speaker 1: older family recordings dating back as far as nineteen fifty one,
Speaker 1: it is incredibly rare to have home recorded audio from
Speaker 1: that long ago. Recording was on a dicta belt, one
Speaker 1: of many intermediary technologies between the invention of the wax
Speaker 1: cylinder and the proliferation of real to real tape. It
Speaker 1: reminds me of a fruit roll up bright red blue
Speaker 1: or purple, translucent final plastic sleeves, like a cover for
Speaker 1: a cylinder recorder. If they sound strange, perhaps they are.
Speaker 1: I'll post a video on our Facebook page. We and
Speaker 1: Matt's grandfather alternatively refer to these source recordings as Dicta
Speaker 1: belts and as tapes. If you haven't already, go listen
Speaker 1: to the season one finale taped over. We play some
Speaker 1: extended selections from this tape and a lot more. Here's
Speaker 1: my interview with Matt, starting with the sound check. All right,
Speaker 1: this is Mike's check on Alice, roll some tape. That's
Speaker 1: the tape. Check and check Matt's Mike cardboard box ahead
Speaker 1: checking mic some old dick to belt in it. They
Speaker 1: had been increased and badly neglected. And I've tried to
Speaker 1: rig up the machine. I tested everything happen you know,
Speaker 1: you set to your perfect put you on that one. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: this is perfect. Cross the adjustice slightly. Do whatever you want. Man, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is okay, this is two We can at least
Speaker 1: this sort of see each other. And this is good.
Speaker 1: Things in the way good yeah, Mike, check, Mike check,
Speaker 1: Mike check this is Matt talking, Yeah, it feels good.
Speaker 1: Fifty nine. Oh, I gotta plug this in here, Watch out, dude,
Speaker 1: d hight. I can make the sound effects for you.
Speaker 1: Here you go. I like that. I'll just open the
Speaker 1: episode like this. Or getting ready to move to sell
Speaker 1: the house and cleaning out a closet, we found the
Speaker 1: cardboard box that had some old dick to belts in it.
Speaker 1: They had been creased, and for the first minute they neglected.
Speaker 1: And I've tried to rig up a machine to the
Speaker 1: cassette recorder to see if we could pick up some
Speaker 1: of it. As near as your mother and I can tell,
Speaker 1: she's usually accurate on as the historian of our family.
Speaker 1: This first bit was probably recorded in nineteen fifty one,
Speaker 1: sometime during the middle or late fifty one, and it
Speaker 1: was I had brought the machine home. I remember to
Speaker 1: try to record joyce first words, and I made a
Speaker 1: considerable effort to get her to do that, And the
Speaker 1: longer I tried, the more she just batted the microphone around,
Speaker 1: and I kept using all kinds of baby talk and
Speaker 1: tricks to get her to do something, and resulted only
Speaker 1: in making her take the following first recorded protest and
Speaker 1: then you know, I think that the next thing is
Speaker 1: comes pretty clear that would you just describe that just
Speaker 1: described that this tape, that tape as set that he's
Speaker 1: making right now? What what is this? This is an
Speaker 1: old tan tape cassette that my mother found and it
Speaker 1: was apparently just a recording that my grandfather, I know
Speaker 1: him as Papa. His name is James Phillips. He uh,
Speaker 1: he was recording this after he found some old tapes.
Speaker 1: Well in this case, it was a real to reel
Speaker 1: that he wanted to find a way to transfer over
Speaker 1: onto cassette tape for posterity, I'm assuming and you can
Speaker 1: you can hear him so um, it's almost coldly narrating
Speaker 1: in a way. It has a lot to do with
Speaker 1: the nature of my grandfather. He was very philosophical, analytical man,
Speaker 1: and he's just narrating to anyone else listening. This is
Speaker 1: the process that he's taking. This is what you will
Speaker 1: be listening to. And this is why I performed these tasks.
Speaker 1: You can clean a lot about my grandfather just by
Speaker 1: hearing that one phrase. It I took considerable effort to
Speaker 1: do so. Uh. And when he's just when he's speaking
Speaker 1: about his you know, one year old baby, my mother
Speaker 1: and you know, attempting to get her to to say
Speaker 1: her first words. Um. It's so fascinating to me because
Speaker 1: it really does speak to him and his his character. Um,
Speaker 1: the type of person he was, just by listening to
Speaker 1: this tape after all of these years. You know, my
Speaker 1: mother was born on Christmas nineteen fifty Christmas Day nineteen fifty,
Speaker 1: and every year they would call to to the moment,
Speaker 1: to the minute that my mother was born. Every year
Speaker 1: they would call and I wish her a happy birthday.
Speaker 1: My mother was very, very important to them. What minute?
Speaker 1: What time is? It is the time of her birth.
Speaker 1: It's in the evening. I don't know exactly what it is.
Speaker 1: I just know for a fact that was just a
Speaker 1: thing that would occur. Um, guy, I want to say,
Speaker 1: is around six pm. I don't know if that's correct
Speaker 1: or not. No, I'm just just curious. Do you think
Speaker 1: your mom would know? If you asked us, she would
Speaker 1: know exactly. Oh, my mom would definitely know because it
Speaker 1: has been drilled into her head by my grandfather, my grandmother. Um,
Speaker 1: both of whom my grandmother and my grandfather have passed.
Speaker 1: Since my grandfather Papa worked in the juvenile. I guess
Speaker 1: it's justice system that I don't know exactly the terminology
Speaker 1: for it. But he was a psychologist and he worked
Speaker 1: at UM at a place where children would go that
Speaker 1: was essentially a prison right. And when he's performing these interviews,
Speaker 1: a lot of times he was recording them as technology
Speaker 1: became available, and you know, around this time it must
Speaker 1: have been, gosh, the late forties, very beginning of nineteen fifty,
Speaker 1: he had access to some kind of recording. He says,
Speaker 1: dicked about and he says nifty one according to your grandma,
Speaker 1: because she's the family historian. Well, I mean, my I know,
Speaker 1: so the facts here are the fact my my mother
Speaker 1: was born Christmas nineteen fifty. If she's making those sounds
Speaker 1: like that is a baby sound. As a father, I
Speaker 1: know exactly how old of a child that is. I mean,
Speaker 1: it really is between zero and I want to say
Speaker 1: six seven months like maximum. Um that that's that's that
Speaker 1: is the sound of a baby that you're hearing. So
Speaker 1: it must be in nineteen um. Just the fact that
Speaker 1: he had access to this hardware, to this new technology
Speaker 1: that he was going to bring home, you know, and
Speaker 1: try and get the first words from my mother. I
Speaker 1: can totally understand that we live in an age now.
Speaker 1: I have a three year old son, and I know
Speaker 1: early on when he was beginning to vocalize, my wife
Speaker 1: and I had our phones out all the time, attempting
Speaker 1: to capture this moment, this the first word or the
Speaker 1: first words or phrase or something to where this baby
Speaker 1: is um not just this babbling little being, but this
Speaker 1: thing that's attempting to communicate with us with the words
Speaker 1: that we use. It's a magical moment that you want
Speaker 1: to capture. And that's exactly what my grandfather was attempting
Speaker 1: to do, just with this older technology. So he can't
Speaker 1: just sit there and roll tape for hours and hours
Speaker 1: or days or days the way we can with our
Speaker 1: digital technology now. He had to very purposefully go to
Speaker 1: attempt to get those first words out of her, almost
Speaker 1: like in this weird way, almost this interrogation or this
Speaker 1: uh I I experimentation or something to where Okay, we're
Speaker 1: going to make this occur now, and it doesn't go well, No,
Speaker 1: it does not go well. The best thing about this
Speaker 1: tape is just hearing my grandfather then in the nineteen
Speaker 1: nineties or whenever that was, perhaps when he's recording the
Speaker 1: cassette of him narrating what was occurring in nineteen because
Speaker 1: the frustration that he has and thinking about it, in
Speaker 1: the disbelief that anyone ever would be interested in listening
Speaker 1: to this. There's a part where he's literally he says
Speaker 1: that he's erasing the old tape. It is still going on,
Speaker 1: So we will continue to erase. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: I think I'll begin at the beginning and erase all
Speaker 1: of this. Yeah, now that I don't really get. I
Speaker 1: don't know why he would do that. It feels like
Speaker 1: for me, knowing knowing Jim or Papa, he would want
Speaker 1: to preserve that recording in some way as a standalone
Speaker 1: and then as a secondary thing, makes something that would
Speaker 1: be presentable to someone else, rather than having to sit
Speaker 1: through the entire tape of my mother crying for an hour.
Speaker 1: And so that's the cassette tape, that's the nineties tape.
Speaker 1: I don't know why he says he's erasing the dickt
Speaker 1: about recording on tape. I don't. I don't know why
Speaker 1: he would be doing that, honestly, I don't. But it
Speaker 1: could also be him, you know, he's the kind of
Speaker 1: person that simultaneously wants so badly to hold on to
Speaker 1: the the real world artifacts of his experience and his life,
Speaker 1: but also to to shed himself of a lot of that. UM.
Speaker 1: He was very much I would use the word obsessed,
Speaker 1: but I don't think that's correct. He was UM tremendously
Speaker 1: fascinated with his own mortality and with the mortality of
Speaker 1: um of others around him, and he his bookshelf was
Speaker 1: filled with philosophical musings on whatever afterlife could be or
Speaker 1: reincarnation um on, you know, heaven and hell and all
Speaker 1: of these things. UM. I sometimes wonder if keeping those
Speaker 1: artifacts while he's alive, to have those memories feel real,
Speaker 1: to have something tangible to asp on too, even if
Speaker 1: it is just a cassette tape. But he can hold
Speaker 1: that cassette tape in his hand and remember, oh, this
Speaker 1: is this is my daughter's you know, first recording. Also,
Speaker 1: you do interact with it sensorally, you know, Yeah, fib
Speaker 1: rates your ear drums too, Yeah, And he can really
Speaker 1: experience it again if he wants to. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, he's making a recording where he's essentially criticizing
Speaker 1: his own efforts, is doing an edit on himself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in time like that, and now we're listening to it again.
Speaker 1: The first time I ever heard it was when my
Speaker 1: mom found it because you were making ephemeral Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I forgot about that. I'm just kidding, no, no, but
Speaker 1: I think this is worth exploring. And perhaps it doesn't
Speaker 1: even go into the podcast, but because you were making
Speaker 1: this show, I asked my mother to see if there's
Speaker 1: anything in storage somewhere that has an old recording that
Speaker 1: we could find, and in particular of my grandfather, because
Speaker 1: he liked to make recordings like that of just his thoughts. Um,
Speaker 1: I have. I had countless recordings of his thoughts when
Speaker 1: I was in college, just fascinating stuff. Felt like I
Speaker 1: was listening to a guru of sorts or a teacher
Speaker 1: or something, just listening to his his philosophical musings. Uh.
Speaker 1: I very much loved it. I got to bring it
Speaker 1: into a studio here and record it just to see
Speaker 1: if there was anything usable and I got to hear
Speaker 1: it for the first time. And he's been gone since,
Speaker 1: and um, it was very much an emotional experience for
Speaker 1: me two to listen to his voice again because I
Speaker 1: hadn't done it in a long time. And then also
Speaker 1: hearing my mother as a baby, knowing the joy of
Speaker 1: being a father, and knowing the feeling that my grandfather
Speaker 1: was having in that moment in nineteen fifty one when
Speaker 1: he's making that initial recording. Um, that really struck home.
Speaker 1: And I mean that pulses through the three layers of recording,
Speaker 1: four if you want to count this one. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: that whatever that spark is right, Like, I wonder if
Speaker 1: there's something special about getting the first words versus getting
Speaker 1: the second words, and there really isn't. There really isn't.
Speaker 1: It's just I think that's more societal, right, that baby's
Speaker 1: first words or something that benchmark. Yeah, but it's written
Speaker 1: down in places you know, they're they're manufactured books that
Speaker 1: come out where you're supposed to put in things like
Speaker 1: the first words, and there's no section for the second
Speaker 1: or fifth word. Now, I can't speak to exactly what
Speaker 1: was happening or why that my grandfather came upon this
Speaker 1: dickta belt this real essentially of the recording, but I
Speaker 1: do know, and he says it in the tape that
Speaker 1: the family is preparing to move and he just happened
Speaker 1: to stumble upon it, basically, And I can only assume
Speaker 1: you know when you're moving, think about how hectic that
Speaker 1: situation is, trying to get all of your worldly possessions
Speaker 1: into boxes, organizing things, getting it out of the door.
Speaker 1: I guarantee you that while they were planning to move,
Speaker 1: my grandfather stumbled upon this, and then late one night,
Speaker 1: he got out of his cassette player, he got out
Speaker 1: some old hardware that he had laying around somewhere and
Speaker 1: just began listening. And as soon as he stumbled upon it,
Speaker 1: he felt like he needed to to have it to uh,
Speaker 1: to share with, probably probably my mother as well as
Speaker 1: her brother, who was also named Jim. I think I
Speaker 1: think that's probably what happened, and I can't it's so funny.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you where they were moving or or like,
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly those facts. I believe it's when
Speaker 1: they were moving to their condo in Florida, but um,
Speaker 1: perhaps that's not true. That's where I remember them moving up.
Speaker 1: The only place, the only place I ever remember them
Speaker 1: living is a condo in Clearwater, Florida. Where were they?
Speaker 1: Where were they before that they were in I think
Speaker 1: I think I know there was some time in Ohio
Speaker 1: for sure. I can't remember if they were actually in
Speaker 1: New York or not. Um, and this is just problems
Speaker 1: with my family not having a very good history. There's
Speaker 1: gray spots and everybody's yeah, there's some there's some punks
Speaker 1: of tawny, I believe time, but I don't know exactly
Speaker 1: when that was. And so then he's he's got the
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just I'm picturing it, you know, house
Speaker 1: having boxes in the near the closet late at night.
Speaker 1: He's got rio to real on one side, and it's
Speaker 1: got tape deck on the other, plugged in and a
Speaker 1: microphone plugged in so he can narrate and play a
Speaker 1: little tape narrate basically djayang. Yeah, he is, he is,
Speaker 1: it's it's um. And I I know it was at
Speaker 1: night too, because that's generally when he would be really
Speaker 1: active with his writing, when he was like journaling or
Speaker 1: taking notes with something. Uh. And so yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: the tape plays that we really don't need to narrate
Speaker 1: because he he uh, he does all of them. He
Speaker 1: did all the work for us kind of um. But
Speaker 1: so the rest, so the tape that he's digitizing has
Speaker 1: other stuff on it. It's been taped over and you
Speaker 1: you can hear at one point my mother and my
Speaker 1: uncle a little bit older, and they're singing songs in
Speaker 1: a non exactly sequential order or not exactly. Um, what's
Speaker 1: what I'm looking for? When something goes in and a
Speaker 1: not exactly chrono logical order, they grow up. Yeah it's
Speaker 1: the tape. Yeah, um, it's it's fascinating to your mom,
Speaker 1: like as a let me, let me play a little
Speaker 1: bit of this, ahm Casand she's singing here a good day.
Speaker 1: Did you can hear it? She's a really good singer
Speaker 1: because kids don't sing like you know, perfect even though
Speaker 1: her vocal cords can't I'm start I'm talking over it.
Speaker 1: But even though her vocal cords can't quite do it
Speaker 1: like you can tell it, she's a singer. She sounds
Speaker 1: so much like my sister. When my sister was doing
Speaker 1: no fright mostra al Havend and your wife, I don't
Speaker 1: think I know the tune in dude of my sister
Speaker 1: has a three year old dog her it sounds like
Speaker 1: her too. It's it's so odd. Oh come and then
Speaker 1: you know uh uh they're also I mean your Grandfa's
Speaker 1: like leading them in song all the time. But so
Speaker 1: I mean because of the magic of time travel, which
Speaker 1: is you know, memory, and you know we have physical
Speaker 1: tape that will do that work for us. Uh, you
Speaker 1: know shortly after she's singing is awful talking to teenager?
Speaker 1: Is that hurricane O singing in French been cau regarded institution.
Speaker 1: She has lost in the talk and the ads and
Speaker 1: the features. Thank you ps in Jim's day like kids baseball,
Speaker 1: I was just slash by five before. But is that Jim, Jim,
Speaker 1: this is no those choice told me that she stole
Speaker 1: cars more I think it was, and that she was
Speaker 1: driving it and a police after she had a driving life,
Speaker 1: and of course she said no because she fell into
Speaker 1: her team and when she said she had to go.
Speaker 1: And today my father, Mr. Sell said that from the drawing,
Speaker 1: I don't know whether it's her or not, but it
Speaker 1: sure seems I could go into the top a lot
Speaker 1: of other steps and maybe they're true. Thank you for
Speaker 1: all courthouse not to stay and I didn't know anything,
Speaker 1: and I'm just losing my dad and we got a staining. Sheman,
Speaker 1: He said, Jim, I think that was going to cut
Speaker 1: in on this last part of this tape to explain
Speaker 1: that somehow, some way in doing these dicta belts, they
Speaker 1: got all messed up. We have Jim at a much
Speaker 1: earlier age finishing off the tape with joy, and he,
Speaker 1: of course, in the first part of the tape is
Speaker 1: ninety three, was singing songs and you can tell the difference.
Speaker 1: How the chronologically they got so screwed up. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I think it's funny like that he is frustrated
Speaker 1: by it, almost like it's an amazing fun He's like,
Speaker 1: why are they out of order? I mean, I'm curious
Speaker 1: too this little bit right here. I'm gonna just play
Speaker 1: just a couple of seconds on the end there. I
Speaker 1: think that that long tape gets cut in several times.
Speaker 1: It's been fascinating happens here that I don't know what
Speaker 1: ever crack the mystery of it, but maybe you're true.
Speaker 1: Thank you court not to stay so I didn't let
Speaker 1: anything that. I'm just being my dad and Dick Camy machine.
Speaker 1: And that's how many times do you hear? I hear
Speaker 1: like four times that those are four different recordings right there.
Speaker 1: I think you're absolutely right, because I know I heard
Speaker 1: Jim earlier, but then I heard my mom immediately after
Speaker 1: I heard him, and then it came back to jim
Speaker 1: He's saying he's visiting my dad at the courthouse. That
Speaker 1: hits home right for me, because I mean the tape
Speaker 1: that I used in the first episode that my oldest
Speaker 1: tape is is me and my Dad's office. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna play you just this. This is what I
Speaker 1: think is maybe it's this is one of the most
Speaker 1: amazing tapes I've I've ever gotten to listen to, but this,
Speaker 1: this is probably my favorite part. We've got it going out.
Speaker 1: We've got to see Mommy by Daddy, Bye, Jimmy, by everybody.
Speaker 1: I'm just listening to this take someday with this. It's
Speaker 1: a very hip talk problem and I'm so sorry to
Speaker 1: do well she knew so, I mean, besides that they're
Speaker 1: doing skits, besides the fact that just like all of
Speaker 1: your family is just like brilliant and really talented and
Speaker 1: multi lingual, and and they all like get it that
Speaker 1: this is they're part of this time travel continue. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know if they get it, but they at
Speaker 1: least knew that somebody later on will listen to it.
Speaker 1: I'd have to assume that my mom in that moment,
Speaker 1: is just thinking about heard her father listening to it later,
Speaker 1: or maybe somebody from the office listening to it. Um.
Speaker 1: I I mean, perhaps perhaps they knew. But it's it's
Speaker 1: really it's crazy how it resonates, like whether they knew
Speaker 1: or not. For For me, it's just saying those words
Speaker 1: into a recording in the nineteen sixties, Uh, saying, whoever
Speaker 1: is going to be listening to this, and now you
Speaker 1: and I in sitting in a room commenting on it. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then people on their phones walking around with their
Speaker 1: headphones in listening to that. Um, damn. And who knows
Speaker 1: if it would be the end. I mean, this tape
Speaker 1: or maybe this episode that we're working on gets mixed
Speaker 1: into something later the extraterrestrials use it as some form
Speaker 1: of research. Fire everybody. I haven't even asked any of
Speaker 1: the questions yet. Um, your grandfather calls your grandmother the
Speaker 1: family historian at some point, do you think that he
Speaker 1: was the family documentarian? Perhaps? I mean in a a
Speaker 1: in a way, my grandfather was so concerned with what
Speaker 1: comes next, for his life, for his children, for his grandchildren,
Speaker 1: for myself and my sister Kim. He was very concerned
Speaker 1: about protecting. He was concerned about um, the the the
Speaker 1: worry that he had for the next thing, whatever comes next,
Speaker 1: And a lot of times, you know, for him, it
Speaker 1: was the worst case scenario. Let's prepare for that. Let's
Speaker 1: make sure if the worst case scenario occurs, we're gonna
Speaker 1: we're gonna be okay, We'll be able to handle that.
Speaker 1: Then anything that happens that's more positive than worst case scenario.
Speaker 1: It's just it's icing on our our life cake whenever
Speaker 1: that is. That's a weird phrase, but um, for him,
Speaker 1: documenting these kinds of moments so that he can look
Speaker 1: back and have almost this almost a legacy, just a
Speaker 1: personal collection of legacy that would get passed down in
Speaker 1: some way. I think it was very important to him.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I would say my grandmother was more of
Speaker 1: the I can recall what occurred in any given moment.
Speaker 1: I will tell you exactly what happened when she was
Speaker 1: amazing at that. She can tell you, oh, no, that
Speaker 1: was that was seven. I remember we were, we were
Speaker 1: here and we did this. Does Diana do that? Does
Speaker 1: she remember the things that you forget? She has such
Speaker 1: better recall for when things occurred, you know, we were
Speaker 1: discussing our first date. We've we've been together. We're gonna
Speaker 1: be married for ten years this year, and we've been
Speaker 1: together since two thousand two, and I was trying to
Speaker 1: recall our first date and she rattled it, and she
Speaker 1: just rattled it right off, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's not the way I remembered it, honestly, because I
Speaker 1: think maybe we have a tendency to do that. I
Speaker 1: replaced our first official date with one that I found
Speaker 1: either more exciting and more enjoyable or more interesting. I've
Speaker 1: then took that bookmark and then shifted it over a
Speaker 1: little bit in my mind. And I wonder how often
Speaker 1: we do that. They say that as soon as something happens,
Speaker 1: I mean because I mean the moment when when is
Speaker 1: now it's gone. Uh, you have the memory of it,
Speaker 1: but then your next memory of a memory of that memory,
Speaker 1: and it just give and so it's just and so
Speaker 1: if if if bad data gets in there, you know,
Speaker 1: it can be replicated over and over take over like
Speaker 1: a virus. As well intentioned as it maybe it's one
Speaker 1: of the I think it's one of the reasons that
Speaker 1: having scratched the old tape can have such a profound
Speaker 1: impact because it just cuts through that even and maybe
Speaker 1: even especially when it's sort of can be ambiguous, like
Speaker 1: why is there why are the edges of this thing blurry?
Speaker 1: Like I can't tell how many times times that record
Speaker 1: button just got hit? It's sort of it raises all
Speaker 1: those questions. It's sort of calls, yeah, calls to attention.
Speaker 1: How bad are human memory is? Yeah? Yeah? Mine? In particular? Um,
Speaker 1: is I count on you'd remember so many things for me?
Speaker 1: Mad Well, that's why. Why do you think I take
Speaker 1: such copious notes so I can look at it and go, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's what was said. Um, do you think that you
Speaker 1: to some extent had the torch pass? Do you do
Speaker 1: you feel like you've followed in some way in your
Speaker 1: grandfather's footsteps? It was certainly that thought or in motivation
Speaker 1: was was placed on me a lot, and I think
Speaker 1: I took it to heart quite a bit. My I
Speaker 1: was my grandfather. Papa always would call me his one
Speaker 1: and only, so my one and only because I was
Speaker 1: his only grandson, and uh, there was a pressure I
Speaker 1: felt from that, But also at the same time, there
Speaker 1: was a a pride in wanting to to do right
Speaker 1: by him. To always wanting to um. He had this
Speaker 1: virtuous quality to him in in a way that I
Speaker 1: don't experience in a lot of other people. Not that
Speaker 1: not to say other people aren't virtuous, but it it's
Speaker 1: almost so deeply ingrained in him that I looked I
Speaker 1: looked to him on a pillar in a way. And
Speaker 1: I know he wasn't a perfect man, but at the
Speaker 1: same time, something about being so thoughtful and reflective was
Speaker 1: was very appealing to me. And that in combination with
Speaker 1: being called his one and only, like this person who's
Speaker 1: I'm going to inherit his earth that he's essentially created
Speaker 1: around him, even this small space where he existed in
Speaker 1: his family and all these people he's influenced and affected.
Speaker 1: I was going to be the lineage to that, or
Speaker 1: I was going to be the next essentially um. And
Speaker 1: I took that to heart for certain, and I feel
Speaker 1: I feel that now heavily. But some of that knows
Speaker 1: you well. I think some of the those profound qualities
Speaker 1: that you've found in him, I find in you. Uh.
Speaker 1: But see, I also cannot accept a statement such as that,
Speaker 1: right I feel my dad told me my family we
Speaker 1: do not have tapes. No one really taped my um.
Speaker 1: There's a story my dad tells, I think in this
Speaker 1: interview that I got with him, that my grandma or
Speaker 1: my great grandma I think would point OU eight elementary
Speaker 1: camera out the window on trips and so she filmed
Speaker 1: you know the interstate. Yeah, yeah, I still do that sometimes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean everyone knows that video. There's a little bit
Speaker 1: at odds and ends of silent films and stuff, but
Speaker 1: there's really not like Victorious family has everything on tape.
Speaker 1: We have like I have that old little tape there.
Speaker 1: There's no videos until I got a camera when I
Speaker 1: was thirteen and I started making sort of like skits
Speaker 1: and things. But my dad called me the family history
Speaker 1: or the family documentarian, and I'm like, I don't know, Hey,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's true. And be that feels
Speaker 1: like a burden, like I feel like i've I haven't.
Speaker 1: I haven't like handled that responsibility. Well like I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't do a good job documenting the things that happened.
Speaker 1: I just made things. I know what you mean. Do
Speaker 1: you have a video degree? I cannot, So you have
Speaker 1: a video degree. As soon as soon as I got
Speaker 1: my video degree, I felt and I know This is
Speaker 1: much later in life, but I felt this pressure from
Speaker 1: my family is like, well, you're gonna be the one.
Speaker 1: He was like taking movie quality images of everything we're
Speaker 1: going to be doing for the next you know, and
Speaker 1: for as long as we all live. UM and I
Speaker 1: have I have not been doing at because in a way,
Speaker 1: it's this separation of what you do for work, for
Speaker 1: an occupation or something like that, and then the quiet
Speaker 1: um moments you have with your family or you know,
Speaker 1: on vacation or doing something that doesn't require it doesn't
Speaker 1: require it to be observed to be enjoyed, if that
Speaker 1: makes sense. Does it require it to be observed to
Speaker 1: enjoy it? And there's no. He doesn't require someone to
Speaker 1: make a Facebook post. I I don't want anyone to
Speaker 1: instagram it. I don't want to see anyone live tweeting
Speaker 1: UM hanging out of the park with my family or
Speaker 1: going to a family reunion. I don't care about that.
Speaker 1: I want to be there with those people in those moments.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, if we don't record it
Speaker 1: in any way, then it is gone. And those those
Speaker 1: two ideas exists always together at the same time. I
Speaker 1: mean the question, I think that's at the heart of
Speaker 1: it that I've been considering and have no answer to,
Speaker 1: is how how do you choose when to hit record?
Speaker 1: Because like, I get this feeling that, oh, that thing
Speaker 1: just passed me by. I wish I had that, And
Speaker 1: then I get this other feeling like I've got my
Speaker 1: phone out and I'm recording my cat. Well that's never
Speaker 1: a bad idea, But I've got my phone out and
Speaker 1: I'm recording something, and I'm like, I wish I was
Speaker 1: just interacting with this moment and living in it, but
Speaker 1: I turned my phone off and I'm worried that I'm
Speaker 1: missing it. Yeah, and I don't think, you know, the
Speaker 1: phone makes the phone adds an element to that, But
Speaker 1: I don't think that it's it's new to that. I
Speaker 1: do think technology has made that has amplified that problem
Speaker 1: or that dilemma, I should say, certainly when it's also
Speaker 1: a I think there's a factor there with the sharing,
Speaker 1: the social media sharing kind of thing. So it's it's
Speaker 1: no longer to document it, it's to share that this
Speaker 1: is an experience you've had or are having in this moment.
Speaker 1: And in in a way I'm uncomfortable with that for
Speaker 1: some reason, it does sort of pack it, but you
Speaker 1: know it feels more you factored too. I think like
Speaker 1: your grandfather's trying to manufacture an encounter with your mother
Speaker 1: and it goes totally wrong because you can't you know,
Speaker 1: you can't tell the baby to say it's first words.
Speaker 1: It's just like now. I also, I find it uncanny
Speaker 1: how similar that tape is, that section of the tape
Speaker 1: to the first tape that's in the show that show
Speaker 1: Uncle Jack your Shoes tape that the whole thing started from.
Speaker 1: Can you say something, Hi, Ryan, Say Hi, Hi, you
Speaker 1: want a coke shoose shooth shooth dude. I remember listening
Speaker 1: to that. I'd never heard that clip before, that, that
Speaker 1: piece of archival tape um until you made the demo
Speaker 1: and then you shared the demo out with me and
Speaker 1: I listened to it. I can remember the exact moment.
Speaker 1: I was in my kitchen and my wife wanted me
Speaker 1: to come and watch TV show with her in our
Speaker 1: live room. We have this tiny little house. It's like
Speaker 1: right around the corner. But I started listening to it
Speaker 1: just with my phone speaker, and he was you know,
Speaker 1: it opens with that piece of tape, and I could
Speaker 1: not turn I told him I'm sorry, I can't. I
Speaker 1: told my wife, I'm sorry, I can't come and watch
Speaker 1: whatever this thing is right now. I need to listen
Speaker 1: to this because it was so intriguing to me hearing
Speaker 1: the moment, that fourth dimensional moment with those people in
Speaker 1: that in that I'm assuming living room. I've always thought kitchen,
Speaker 1: perhaps kitchen again, when I think about my house, it's
Speaker 1: literally kitchen, living room. It's all just one tiny little thing,
Speaker 1: and then like a couple of bedrooms over here. So
Speaker 1: I just imagined the living space right in like a
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties home or maybe maybe well I'm just imagining
Speaker 1: the home was probably m so just in my mind,
Speaker 1: I've created this picture of that moment and mhm. And
Speaker 1: a lot of it is manufacturing memories of my current
Speaker 1: you know, living space, like I'm how I'm describing it,
Speaker 1: memories of being a kid in the small house where
Speaker 1: I grew up with my family, um, the little condo
Speaker 1: that my grandparents owned. It's all these kind of things
Speaker 1: amalgamated into one. And I'm imagining that moment with the
Speaker 1: windows from my parents house and the couch from my
Speaker 1: grandparents condo. I don't know, it's just strange how our
Speaker 1: our minds do that. Um And at the same time,
Speaker 1: that was a real moment, however brief it was for
Speaker 1: those people and we we get to experience it now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we all know who Gail is now. It's so, you know,
Speaker 1: because shoes Victoria will walk around saying things that Gail said.
Speaker 1: What's the one that she likes to say? I mean,
Speaker 1: my favorite is and it's beautiful. I was the one
Speaker 1: of Victoria likes to say, and Lynn Fichet doesn't. It's
Speaker 1: nothing should just say. I'll just try to put like
Speaker 1: to find a point on it, because this is an
Speaker 1: unanswerable question. But like when you so when you're thinking
Speaker 1: about do I hit record or do I not? You know,
Speaker 1: you're at the beach with your son or whatever, you're
Speaker 1: on this vacation, this amazing thing is happening that he's
Speaker 1: just you know, existing, and this moment is just passing.
Speaker 1: How do you It doesn't have to be that instance,
Speaker 1: But is there any sort of rubric you can use
Speaker 1: for when to record and when not to record? For me,
Speaker 1: it's good to I think about it this way. My
Speaker 1: wife and I are a team, and in my family,
Speaker 1: it's my wife, myself, and my son. And if I
Speaker 1: know my wife is they're enjoying a moment with my
Speaker 1: son that she's she's so present with him that the
Speaker 1: thought of getting her camera out or any kind of
Speaker 1: recording device and hitting record is nowhere near where her
Speaker 1: mind is. But I'm, you know, a bit of a
Speaker 1: third party to what's occurring. That's when I will record,
Speaker 1: and my wife will do that too. My wife is
Speaker 1: much more thoughtful about it because she knows the rest
Speaker 1: of our family wants to also see these moments, so
Speaker 1: she will much more often record and remove herself from
Speaker 1: the situation a little bit to do that. Um. Quite frankly,
Speaker 1: I should be doing that more often so that she
Speaker 1: can have more of those moments. But I know she
Speaker 1: gets those, uh in her daily life because she's a
Speaker 1: she stays at home with him. So I just want
Speaker 1: to say that that's the burden of being the family
Speaker 1: documentary and that you're feeling right. Yes, you're absolutely right,
Speaker 1: because if you're the person recording it, then you are
Speaker 1: somewhat absent, or at least there's a percentage of you
Speaker 1: that it has to be absent. And the guilt that
Speaker 1: you feel when you're not doing at yeah, because other
Speaker 1: people want to know and see. It's It's tough, man.
Speaker 1: I think we just have to wait for the old
Speaker 1: black mirror technology where our eyes are the cameras and uh,
Speaker 1: everything gets recorded in our hard drive up there. I
Speaker 1: haven't written down here. Have you ever wished that everything
Speaker 1: would be recorded? If even if it was just an
Speaker 1: ephemeral wish, you just we're like, ah, I wish that
Speaker 1: you know, you you're playing the drums and you just
Speaker 1: played it perfect, and then you try to record it
Speaker 1: in the second time, just didn't have the thing. Oh
Speaker 1: so many times that has occurred. Um, I'd have to
Speaker 1: say no, because I think if we if that technology
Speaker 1: existed where every moment got recorded in perpetuity, you would
Speaker 1: lose the magic of it, of the moment. We'd never
Speaker 1: be able to watch at all. Well, you'd never be
Speaker 1: able to watch it all. But if you wanted to,
Speaker 1: you could go back and relive, relive anything, however many
Speaker 1: times you wanted always. And then if you if you
Speaker 1: imagine some one doing that a point of consciousness, a human,
Speaker 1: a single person living in a world where they're just
Speaker 1: reliving all of the memories, then where are they existing
Speaker 1: in the actual timeline, you know, the cusp of time?
Speaker 1: Where where where are they there? I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: Being at an editor, you can feel like that sometimes
Speaker 1: because you get lost, because editing is screws time up
Speaker 1: and screws your brain up. Like I'm sitting here having
Speaker 1: a conversation with you, and I'm trying not to think
Speaker 1: about how I'm going to edit this later. I know
Speaker 1: I can't see I can then see it, and I'm
Speaker 1: I'm trying very hard to help you have these moments
Speaker 1: where you can cut in yeah, no, and I can
Speaker 1: see you doing that too. Um, So what the heck
Speaker 1: do we do with that? I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Oh Lord, I just I think maybe I just have
Speaker 1: one more question here. Um, it's kind of specific to you.
Speaker 1: You have been recorded lot? Yes, Yes, I have been
Speaker 1: recorded a lot. Um. Do you have any idea how
Speaker 1: many times have you been recorded? Oh? Let's let's see
Speaker 1: if I can guestimate. So there have been about three
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy episodes of stuff they don't want you
Speaker 1: to know. And that's anywhere between half an hour or
Speaker 1: two an hour. Um, I've recorded drums. I don't even
Speaker 1: know how many times, only only professionally, maybe a hundred
Speaker 1: or so times, or something like at a live gig
Speaker 1: or in a recording studio or something. Um, oh, why
Speaker 1: all the videos that we used to make on the
Speaker 1: other podcasts and stuff, hundreds of times. And then if
Speaker 1: you can imagine just all the family videos and everything acting.
Speaker 1: I used to act all the time, and that would
Speaker 1: get recorded. Oh god, yeah, I exist out there. Nobody
Speaker 1: knows my name though, so that's the good thing. Say
Speaker 1: a number, I think I number at this guy. It
Speaker 1: would be let's just say around a thousand, probably true
Speaker 1: moments where I knew I was being recorded and I
Speaker 1: was actively participating. Okay, how about times that the record
Speaker 1: button the record button was depressed, that's a weird way.
Speaker 1: How about times that the recorded button was hit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and any time for anything in any medium, Yeah, you recorded.
Speaker 1: That's tens of thousands, easily, it could be more. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know. I have no I my brain
Speaker 1: can't really figure that out. And it simply is because
Speaker 1: of the recording that we're focusing on today. My grandfather
Speaker 1: made recordings like that all the time with with If
Speaker 1: he was hanging out with my sister or I, we
Speaker 1: would just sit with him, and he would just want
Speaker 1: us to talk so that he could because we would
Speaker 1: be in Georgia most likely where he's coming up to
Speaker 1: visit us. Then he would retreat with his wife back
Speaker 1: down to Clearwater, Florida, and wouldn't see us until maybe
Speaker 1: next year or you know, eight months from then. And
Speaker 1: we were very important to him. He he and my grandmother,
Speaker 1: Grannian Papa, they let us know how important we were
Speaker 1: to them every in every interaction. And I know for
Speaker 1: a fact from talking to my my grandmother that he
Speaker 1: would sit in his office and listen to those tapes
Speaker 1: of my sister and I just talking about nothing, just talking,
Speaker 1: you know, playing we're playing with my grandfather and he
Speaker 1: would just sit and listen and he would experience just
Speaker 1: to be with us. Do you think that there's something
Speaker 1: about the actual physical like the fact that it's on
Speaker 1: tape versus versus you know, at digital recording. Do you
Speaker 1: think there's something about the physical media inherently or do
Speaker 1: you think that it's just because we kind of grew
Speaker 1: up on the cusp of when analog was we're what
Speaker 1: five years apart, you're like maybe five years older than
Speaker 1: name yet and I'm nine yeah's six years. When we
Speaker 1: were kids, ever, you know, it was still VHS and stuff,
Speaker 1: but digital was coming digital. And then by the time
Speaker 1: you and I were in film school, it was digital, yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: and now it's all very digital. I think it all
Speaker 1: has to do with having a physical interaction. There is
Speaker 1: if you imagine that moment where you're going to the
Speaker 1: closet like my grandfather did, and you you open, you
Speaker 1: physically opened the closet. You smell, you know, maybe the
Speaker 1: clothes that have been there for a while, the boxes
Speaker 1: that are maybe a little bit dusty. You reach up
Speaker 1: and you pull out an old shoe box or something
Speaker 1: that has cassettes lined up in it, and you open
Speaker 1: that box and you pull out a cassette tape. In
Speaker 1: their sensory input with all of this, then you take
Speaker 1: it over you you hear the you hit the eject
Speaker 1: button on your cassette player and you hear it open.
Speaker 1: You slide that cassette and you make sure it's you know,
Speaker 1: perfectly in there and adjusted the correct way. You close it.
Speaker 1: You hear that you hit that play button, and it's
Speaker 1: a physical it's a mechanism that you hit and then
Speaker 1: this voice comes through of someone that you love. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a magical thing. Um and I I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's just because of when we grew up and
Speaker 1: what we experienced and living through that. But it's not
Speaker 1: the same as moving your mouths over your track pad
Speaker 1: over and clicking on a file or just hitting space bar.
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you what, it makes it a whole
Speaker 1: lot easier. It certainly when you get a show that's,
Speaker 1: you know, a hundred and fifty or two ques An episode.
Speaker 1: If I had to pull those all from down the
Speaker 1: off the shell off and get forty fives and tapes
Speaker 1: and reel to reels and line it up recording in
Speaker 1: real time. I have wire recording in there. I got
Speaker 1: wax cylinders. If that stuff hadn't all then digitized, this
Speaker 1: wouldn't be possible at all. You're absolutely correct. You're absolutely correct.
Speaker 1: But I think what I'm speaking to is the reason
Speaker 1: that cassettes. You'll you can find cassette tapes again. Now
Speaker 1: bands are putting out their music on cassette tapes. Final records.
Speaker 1: We have a new person who's working at our office
Speaker 1: named Seth. He runs a record company where he specifically
Speaker 1: will take your music and make a vinyl record out
Speaker 1: of it. That's what he does, right. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: there's a resurgence of it because you get to have,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, because you get to have that interaction.
Speaker 1: I think you're right. I mean, it's endlessly fascinating. It's
Speaker 1: one of the tenants of this show. It's one of
Speaker 1: the things that Sarah Wasserman, like, her whole sort of
Speaker 1: careers built on it. Yeah, and she can talk to
Speaker 1: it brilliantly. Yeah. I started just you know, blink my
Speaker 1: eyes and stare into the into the distance. But you
Speaker 1: made a show about it. And honestly, how often do
Speaker 1: we think about this stuff when we're when we're living
Speaker 1: our busy lives. You know, even I probably don't think
Speaker 1: about it near as much as I could, as much
Speaker 1: as I interact with that. It's like you're busy and
Speaker 1: you're doing things. You know. I'll tell you this how
Speaker 1: it's the reason why this show resonates with me so
Speaker 1: much is because of the philosophical nature of it. It's
Speaker 1: it's pondering ourselves and our experience and why it's important
Speaker 1: and how we record things and why things matter. That's
Speaker 1: really what this big for me. That's what the show is.
Speaker 1: And the tape that we're using just as an example
Speaker 1: in this episode is it's the same thing for me
Speaker 1: because it's what my grandfather was, It's who he was.
Speaker 1: He he embodied that spirit of uh, pondering, questioning, wondering,
Speaker 1: and he wanted to know what was going to happen
Speaker 1: to him. His biggest question was what happens to me
Speaker 1: when I'm gone? But you know, we still have him
Speaker 1: and he's still here. Isn't that spine shilling? It's cool,
Speaker 1: It's amazing. I think it's a great place to wrap
Speaker 1: unless you feel like we didn't anything. I think we went.
Speaker 1: I think we moved, you know, briskly, I'll break the
Speaker 1: corporate cords and cleaning on a closet, we found some
Speaker 1: old dick to belt. Just in case you haven't heard
Speaker 1: it yet, This interview, as well as interviews with my wife, father,
Speaker 1: and best friend, were used in the Ephemeral season finale,
Speaker 1: taped over. The full first season of Ephemeral is available
Speaker 1: now wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more at Ephemeral
Speaker 1: dot show. I've tried to rig up a machine to
Speaker 1: see if we could pick up This is an odd
Speaker 1: tape for the problem is thirty one years of magnetic decoration.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what it's gonna look like. These
Speaker 1: your role. These are about five different tapes. You are
Speaker 1: s twice together. Here they're a kid. The images were jumping,
Speaker 1: the sound got worked. I don't know whether it gets her.
Speaker 1: It sure seems I could. She was afraid she would
Speaker 1: forget what it sounded like forty years shorty one years later.
Speaker 1: I can't understand why I recorded so much of it.
Speaker 1: Disbelief that anyone ever would be interested in listening to this.
Speaker 1: How nice it is for us to be in the
Speaker 1: here playing with this machine, like years of recording over
Speaker 1: the same tape. Yeah, I don't think there's any audio really,
Speaker 1: so I don't think there's much