BrownTown gets philosophical with return guest CA Davis, multimedia storyteller and creator of a LATTO Thought, an audio docuseries revolving around the history of race in America. Halfway through 2024, the team discusses intimate journeys of introspection in the context of fractured and generative interpersonal relationships, current events, and cultural work in an effort to create a better world. From experimenting with psychedelics to familial proximity to the military industrial complex to Black Buddhism, BrownTown and CA unpack the uncertain future of the American experiment...and their place in it. After all, “The horrors of the world persist and yet so do we.” Originally recorded July 2, 2024.
BrownTown gets philosophical with return guest CA Davis, multimedia storyteller and creator of a LATTO Thought, an audio docuseries revolving around the history of race in America. Halfway through 2024, the team discusses intimate journeys of introspection in the context of fractured and generative interpersonal relationships, current events, and cultural work in an effort to create a better world. From experimenting with psychedelics to familial proximity to the military industrial complex to Black Buddhism, BrownTown and CA unpack the uncertain future of the American experiment...and their place in it. After all, “The horrors of the world persist and yet so do we.” Originally recorded July 2, 2024.
GUEST
CA is, above all else, a storyteller. His mediums range from filmmaking to sound design, documentaries, composing music, and essaying, all of which revolve around the history of race in America as well as broad existential queries and experiences of human life. Having taken a hiatus from his audio documentary series, a LATTO Thought, as well as from filmmaking as a whole, CA is currently rekindling a project about his dad’s and grandfather’s legacies of being Black in America and their roles (and benefits) being in the US military.
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Follow CA on his site CADavis.me, LinkedIn, and Instagram!
Follow and listen to a LATTO Thought Podcast on your application of choice; learn more at LATTOthought.com; follow on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter; and toss the bag on Patreon!
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CREDITS: Intro soundbite from Michael Pollan's "Same Brain" metaphor. Outro music Schism by TOOL from the movie's soundtrack. Audio engineered by Kiera Battles and Kassandra Borah. Episode photo by Joe Martinez.
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Bourbon ’n BrownTown
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BrownTown gets philosophical with return guest CA Davis, multimedia storyteller and creator of a LATTO Thought, an audio docu-series revolving around the history of race in America. Halfway through 2024, the team discusses intimate journeys of introspection in the context of fractured and generative interpersonal relationships, current events, and cultural work in an effort to create a better world. From experimenting with psychedelics to familial proximity to the military industrial complex to Black Buddhism, BrownTown and CA unpack the uncertain future of the American experiment...and their place in it. After all, “The horrors of the world persist and yet so do we.” Originally recorded July 2, 2024.
INTRO
[audio clip for Michael Pollan's "Same Brain"]
"The most beautiful metaphor of this I heard from a neuroscientist. He said, think of your mind as a hill covered in snow, and your thoughts are sleds going down the hill. After a while, your thoughts are going to keep getting drawn like attractors into the same grooves. And it's going to be very hard to get down the hill without falling into those grooves. Think of the psychedelic experience as a fresh snowfall filling the grooves, allowing you to take any path you want down. So I think it has to do with habitual thinking. Rigid brains, stuck brains. Because we think of all these diagnoses as actual, real things, but they're really conventions of the psychiatry industry. So I remember asking a psychiatrist, I said, isn't it a little weird that this same drug works on these five different things? You know, addiction and obsession? And he said, well, how do you know they're different things? Maybe they're all different symptoms of the same brain."
BODY OF EPISODE
[00:01:44.660] - David
I want to welcome everyone to another installment of Bourbon 'n BrownTown. It's your boy, David, coming to you from Harambe Studios in Chicago, Illinois. As always, I'm hanging out with my boy Caullen. Caullen, how you doing today, man?
[00:01:57.290] - Caullen
I don't know.
[00:01:58.650] - David
The breath.
[00:01:59.600] - Caullen
I don't know. No, things are fine. Just been in weird headspace today. Nothing terrible has happened. Nothing great has happened. Didn't get a lot of sleep and I'm realizing now, not now, it's always the case- as I'm getting older, I'm like, man, I have to sleep.
[00:02:16.170] - CA
I should sleep.
[00:02:18.370] - Caullen
It's effects how I perform the next day in ways that didn't when I was 25. Which like, duh.
[00:02:23.770] - CA
Yeah.
[00:02:24.210] - Caullen
But we're still doing things. Taught a bunch of fitness classes this morning, which was fun. Happy to not work out, do some timely work. But that's what happens sometimes. But I'm okay. Got some baklava here, and got some whiskey, got the fam so we're doing okay. The spirits are rising slowly. With that, how are you?
[00:02:43.590] - David
You know what, I was scrolling. Doing a little doom scrolling in between our meeting and this.
[00:02:48.480] - Caullen
Research.
[00:02:49.060] - David
And there's the meme of the SpongeBob character who goes:
[00:02:53.460]
[audio clip] Hoopla!
[00:02:54.450] - David
And then they throw a brick at his ass. That's how hard life is hitting me. That's like, the tagline on the caption.
[00:02:59.750] - Caullen
I wish I knew that reference.
[00:03:01.300] - David
Oh, my goodness.
[00:03:02.040] - Caullen
I'm sorry that you're that guy getting hit by a brick.
[00:03:03.110] - David
No, it's okay. It's okay. No, it's not a bad thing because he's also being obnoxious.
[00:03:06.820] - Caullen
Oh, so he deserves it? Oh, so you're being obnoxious.
[00:03:08.280] - David
Well, I don't know if I'm being- I don't know if I deserve it. Whoa, that's a little masochist there. But naw, we're just- there's a lot going on. We know it's summertime in Chicago, so it's exciting to get a little warm weather. People are out here. We've had an opportunity to kinda do more cool things and enjoy the city. Take moments of intentional rest. But also vamp up a lot of other areas of our work from production, on the documentary end, to working with high school students. And helping them craft their interviews, their storytelling. So kinda ranging all over the place, but definitely riding the high. Definitely riding the high.
[00:03:45.440] - David
And really excited to be back in the studio to be able to get an episode in. Because the last one, last one was fucking dope. And so if you haven't checked out Whiskey 'n Watching with our alderfolk, Rossana and Jessie, definitely peep that out. But it was a lot of fun. And so it's kinda like, we do this. We talk about movies, we make movies. And so it's really exciting here to kinda come into today. It's like, July, so we're literally halfway through the fucking year. Really excited to be blessed today with a B'nB alum. No, no, no. Because it's cool cause we've been able to have opportunities to bring people back in different episodes, but it's been years now.
[00:04:24.120] - Caullen
We have with us B'nB alum, it's CA. CA is, above all else, a storyteller. His mediums range from filmmaking to sound design, documentaries, composing music, and essaying. All of which revolve around the history of race in America. The American project, if you will, as well as broad existential queries and experiences of human life. Having taken a hiatus from his audio documentary series, a LATTO Thought, as well as from filmmaking as a whole, CA is currently rekindling a project about his dad and grandfather's legacies of being Black in America and their roles and benefits of being in the US military. CA-motherfucking-Davis, what's good?
[00:05:02.100] - CA
Hey, what's going on, guys? This is gonna be so different from the first time, let me just warn you.
[00:05:07.610] - Caullen
Oh.
[00:05:08.080] - CA
I feel like I've shed nine different skins in the past two, three years? Three years.
[00:05:14.080] - Caullen
Yeah, almost. Yeah, three years.
[00:05:15.630] - CA
Three years almost exactly. So what's going on with me? I'm doing a whole lot of nothing these days.
[00:05:20.110] - Caullen
Love it, love it. Fuck capitalism.
[00:05:23.730] - CA
But aside from that. So I have a day job. So I've been in New York for like, two years. Not anymore. I'm thankfully out of that city. Moved for love, love does what it does, and had to move on from that. And really reassessed my life in December, January. So I've been sitting on this project. I've talked to you guys about this project multiple times. It's a project that is about race, is about military- well, militarism in the United States. The whole machine of the United States is based on this idea of propagating itself off of essentially genocide, causing mayhem in other parts of the world. And my family benefits from that. And I'm dealing with that very interpersonally and intrapersonally and trying to figure out...
[00:06:17.890] - CA
It's brought up a lot of questions for me. Okay, so the first question is, what was I even making before? Was it about my ego? It was. Was it about trying to know more than other people? It was. Was it about trying to reconcile with my own insecurities of being mixed in America? It was. So it really kinda tackles all of that. And I have had a three year long brain fog of just, I don't know how to deal with this.
[00:06:47.700] - CA
You know, for example, I'm currently in between places, and I'm now living with my parents in a bucolic neighborhood in Indiana, in central Indiana. And every night I get to watch the sunset from the backyard. There's 20 to 25 different species of birds that I can watch. I'm recognizing how fucking privileged I am because of my dad's and my grandfather's legacies, who are men of color, who are- my dad's the son of an immigrant. He's also Black. He's Filipino, and his dad was Black from Little Rock, Arkansas. And both of them escaped a lot of the bullshit of America by being in the military. And by virtue of that, I have escaped a lot of the bullshit of America by being a beneficiary of the life created from that pathway.
[00:07:46.960] - Caullen
Do you mind giving the uninitiated a byline of what a LATTO Thought is?
[00:07:50.880] - CA
Yeah.
[00:07:51.000] - Caullen
Why you made that project?
[00:07:51.640] - CA
Yeah. Let's revisit, cause it's been a fucking minute. So a LATTO Thought is basically an audio documentary, anthology series about mixed race histories in America. So what makes the concept of mixed race? Well it revolves around the concept of race as a whole. And so what does that come from? It comes from the history of America's capitalizing off of the world. We all know these things from slavery, genocide, et cetera. These are old things hundreds and hundreds of years in the making. And today we deal with the shit that I'm talking about right now. Like, where do I position myself as a racialized body? And also, as I was saying earlier, privileged body in the schema of this country, in this world.
[00:08:40.480] - CA
So previous episodes were really about other people. They're about people that were not my people, but also people that were not my blood kin. So like, the Indigenous and Black histories, for example, the crossover there, that was a really great series. Felt like I was accepted into the Freedman's loose family of people who are in the know and care and support them. But for the most part, it wasn't about me, and I avoided that for the reasons that I'm talking about now.
[00:09:09.380] - CA
It's really hard to get into it. To realize like, oh, this isn't just about the color of my skin, it's about the fact that my family's benefited from these things, as do other peoples of color and other racialized groups. Cops have been talked a lot about. If you're Black and a cop, that's like, how do you reconcile that? So all these things kinda collide, and that's what I've been thinking about, and that's what I've been stalling on is like, how do I deal with that? And that's why I'm here, because I was hoping to talk to you guys about some of these things and kinda break some ground. And be honest about who I am and what I do. And also talk about, yeah, the other things that I've done, which is a lot of psychedelics and some ego melting, which I'm always very keen to talk about. So that's all of that.
[00:09:57.840] - Caullen
Love it. Thanks CA. Thank you for sharing all that. I appreciate you, and appreciate that. And I think there's a lot there as far as how you, and I think in a lot ways, we, see the world and how he got here as cis het men in this room. But also just the micro, the meso, and the macro. And a lot of what you said kinda had those levels, and they're all interspersed. And I have a question, I don't know if it's- not necessarily appropriate- but, I've known your work, the listeners now know your work. Hope they've listened to the previous episode with you on several years ago. And you mentioned the work you were doing, and I hope that you know that the work is amazing and beneficial to a lot of people. And it can be both. And I think the fact that you- I don't even like calling it success, I feel like that's a weird weighted term in different ways. But like, have made a beautiful cultural products consistently. People can learn from and understand the world a little better is magical and great.
[00:11:02.450] - Caullen
And then also, you're like, oh, this came from maybe a place that, maybe it goes okay, but maybe not so much the case. And you were like, tiptoeing around some things you maybe should have dug deeper into, but still made a great product out of that. And I think of the typical rockstar, music journey where it's like, did all these drugs, and all these bad things, and making beautiful music. Not saying that's you at all. Or us by any means. But I just commend you for doing that work the last couple years, even with having put out stuff that's good. And with that- and not that we should go into deep detail- but our journeys of love and partnership, or lack thereof, is tough. And I'm just kinda curious if- all that context, it's like, God damn it, Caullen.
[00:11:44.670] - CA
I mean, I opened the door, so this is my fault, too.
[00:11:48.080] - Caullen
You mentioned a shift in your purpose in your work, but also you. And that being very- something you're trying to be really vulnerable about. I'm curious if your relationships with others sparked the need to go on that journey? Or if that came from somewhere else completely? Because I'm seeing a timeline parallel is very similar.
[00:12:08.540] - CA
Yeah.
[00:12:08.960] - Caullen
From this conversation just now, and also conversations we've had in private. And so I'm just kinda curious. I think that's a thread we all kinda think about as far as the world and living out of politics and ideologies, and making the world a better place. But also being flawed beings, and trying to recognize that. Or- and being affected by other flawed beings. And recognizing that in a healthy way that's not pointing the finger, we're understanding that we're all in this together.
[00:12:28.030] - CA
Right, right right. Wait, so what was the question exactly?
[00:12:30.700] - Caullen
I don't really know, bro.
[00:12:32.140] - CA
What do you...
[00:12:33.130] - Caullen
I am saying, do you think that your new- not new- but renewed focus, working creatively, and the journey you've been on for deconstructing why you've done the work you've done the past couple years was started or initiated from what you learned about yourself through relationships?
[00:12:53.140] - CA
Can I rephrase just so I understand better? I'm gonna reflect back. So maybe you're looking for the crossroads between my creative career and ambitions with the interpersonal relationships I've had along the way, is that it?
[00:13:13.719] - Caullen
Sure.
[00:13:13.800] - CA
Okay, let's try it. We'll try that. Well, I'm not gonna name names, but I did... For a while, I was dating, before I moved to New York, I was dating a very brilliant, a very wonderful individual professor. And I talked about her work last time I was here, and that was a huge intellectual inspiration for me. But then after, well, there's so much about my personal life that like, is a mess. Let's just say that. I'm a mess. I'm a mess of a human being, and I'm the most messy with romantic relationships. That's just the truth. And that stems from something that I'm very game to talk about, which is my own insecurities. But the crossroads being that I kept finding myself looking for validation in other people in these kinda relationships, in ways that would maybe make me feel more secure about my- like, the things I was talking about earlier: the position of my existence in the historical analysis of this country.
[00:14:16.560] - CA
So what does that mean, practically? This professor is very brilliant. And a lot of that rubbed off onto me, and I became very analytical in my approach to understanding the world. But eventually, that kinda grew a little too... A little too sharp, actually, of a lens or a knife to a tool to understand what is really a human- a very feeling based thing. At least in terms of, like we're talking about interpersonal and insecure dynamics of myself. So it was too much intellectual mind. And then I started dating someone else who was very embodied and offered me a lens of trying to get back in touch with my body probably in ways that I did need, but also were a little- it was too much of a pendulum swing.
[00:15:04.820] - CA
And then- I mean, yeah, I'll say this, because this has been on my mind too, is like, as some... I mean, this is the fucking cliche being mixed in America. It's like, as someone who's mixed, I'm constantly thinking about the optics. Which, who the fuck am I? Who cares about my fucking life? Okay, let's just say that too. I'm nobody. I'm nobody. And yet I still have this insecurity. It's lesser now, but it's still... It's around. And it's like, if I'm not with someone who's Black or Asian-American, there's something about that that, there's a wall that comes up. And I'm just like, why should it matter if- who I'm with? If this person is just reflecting the good qualities of myself, why should it matter? And yet it does, for some reason, politically, in my brain. And that's also a crutch for doing the harder work, which is really what this episode is, which is examining my existence in an honest way and being kinda perplexed with, there's no answer, really. In terms of well, how should I feel about benefiting from the history of militarism in this country just by virtue of being able to sit and watch the sunset peacefully amidst a yet another life transition? I don't know. Does that explain anything?
[00:16:23.110] - Caullen
I think it does a lot. I know my question was a ramble with question marks sprinkled in. But, yeah, it's kinda exactly what I was kinda trying to think about and get at. Thank you for doing this thought experiment with me about you.
[00:16:34.560] - CA
Yeah. Part of it is kinda like, if we're talking about relationships, part of it is this insecurity of being a man of color in- a cis het man of color in this country. And there's this, oh, they always go for the white girls or whatever. There's something about that sentiment that's so undercutting of what it means to be a human being, which is... I'm frustratingly futurist to myself. Meaning: maybe I exist too much in the future in which all of this is finally past us.
[00:17:09.290] - Caullen
Ooh.
[00:17:10.230] - CA
You know what I mean?
[00:17:10.990] - Caullen
I do. I almost wish I didn't, but I do.
[00:17:13.910] - CA
Yeah. Because that's problematic because we got to get to that point. And what the fuck does that look like? That's a whole other discussion and a whole other can of worms that we can talk about, if we even can control that. But we're just a bunch of meat sacks wandering around on a floating rock in the middle of fucking nowhere, okay? That's what we are. We all want a world in which all of this abuse, all this oppression is no longer. And maybe I'm just too much in the future of that shit. And I don't know. I don't know. I mean, do you have this? I want to stop talking for a second. Is it like, do you guys go through this? Like, is this just me?
[00:17:54.380] - Caullen
We definitely do. I have thoughts, but I... You and I have been talking a lot, and I know David's wheels are turning, so I want to bring him in. And sprinkle any sauce that feels good as far as other things that are in this, which I think is everything. It's all fair game.
[00:18:07.250] - David
I don't know, I think... What I appreciate, I think oftentimes, I don't know... We need to find reasons to be vulnerable of one another. So from the get go, I second everything Caullen's saying in terms of like, choosing and finding this type of an opportunity to be the moment to share these things with us as the people in the room, but also our listeners. I second what Caullen's naming in terms of like, I feel like, as men, we've oftentimes used other people or women specifically for self validation. And so that's not a... It's not anything new here. And the goal is that when we became mindful of this, and then there's a time that we became mindful of this, and then the steps that we do beyond that.
[00:18:51.200] - David
I think it was interesting just to hear you're- kinda sharing your settings in terms of optics. I think the way I kinda fell into it was like, what are the things I want to hold to? And from there going. And I think for me it was- cause for a long period of time I refused to date Latinas, as a perfect example. Cause they all reminded me of my mom. I purposely do- you know, I'm talking about 20 year old David's for.... yeah, 20 year old David in his twenties. There's that type of mentality, which is, no one here is saying it's healthier. No one's saying think like that, move like that. But there was explanations to why those were decisions that I was taking in terms of partners and who I pursued, and for what reasons? Metamorphosis like the Phoenix coming and going. I think that's all of our lives. And the quicker folks accept that, the easier it is.
[00:19:47.780] - David
Because sometimes people, I think, feel, get so caught up in like, well, it's like this, and I'm like this; and it's like this, and I'm like this; and it's like this, and I'm like this. And you get stuck in that. It's like, no things can change. You can develop. We talk about restorative justice and all that looks like, but on a real day-to-day life scenario people have to be and allow themselves to have these moments in terms of reflection. Which seems very important.
[00:20:13.200] - David
But I think the other part is, is being able to then put things into play because I think it's interesting- you're naming you're taking this time off, you're doing nothing; but I'm hearing you're doing a whole lot of stuff. And so I think the- you know, we could talk about productivity and what that actually means or what have you, but I think these are those conversations that you either are ready for or you're not. In terms of how you're reflecting on your work, on how you're reflecting on- like, even your trip. Which I kinda want to take in to the next step of like, what things have you been doing in order to allow yourselves to reflect? In order to allow yourself to- you know, I said outside of this room, fill your cup with all this stuff. Because at this point, again, the concept of doing nothing doesn't exist.
[00:20:59.530] - David
And so, but those are just some of my thoughts. Some of the places that I'm just thinking about. And using the opportunity, as well, to look at my stakes. Because I think- I don't remember where I was in 2021, but it probably wasn't anything specific in terms of relationship versus myself. I find myself now with- a married man. Just on a legal standpoint, for the state. And that was not thought of, or conceived of in 2021. And yet my understanding and my interaction with love and relationships has been much of the same. If anything, just hardened. And so, I don't know. I think it's interesting for our listeners and just for ourselves as men, I'm pro these conversations. And they seem a little messy, they seem like- oh you're over here like, shying away from names and shit. Not that we want to call anyone out, unless they're politicians or corporations.
[00:21:50.290] - CA
I'm the one who's in need of being called out, in my opinion. But maybe that's just my own ego.
[00:21:53.750] - David
Yeah. But that's part of the process. That's what I'm trying to get at. That's part of the process. And I think this is a good opportunity to kinda continue to reflect on those things. But I'm interested to hear what Caullen- what his question was.
[00:22:04.730] - Caullen
There's too many threads, bro.
[00:22:07.530] - CA
I have a way of consolidating those threads, but I want to hear the wide open response from you first.
[00:22:12.870] - Caullen
There's a relationship bucket, and how I, and we, see them now. And I mean that intentionally in the broadest terms. But the bucket that has stayed since you last- you were last talking CA, was of kinda what you landed on. As far as like.... it's not nihilistic, but it's almost just like, when you really back up and look at everything as far as we're these meat sacks floating on this rock in space. But also, how you mentioned that, but the things that before that was just like, oppression and violence and all these horrible things and how they structure everything. And I'm curious, on a practical, more traditional Q&A level as far as your project you're working on about your dad and his great grandfather in the military in America. But separate from that, this idea of us living and being embodied by history and politics all the time.
[00:23:27.170] - Caullen
And I was asked, I was visiting my brother and some friends in Phoenix this year, and, yeah, we went out, we were drinking and hanging out, having a good time. And my friend asked me, she's like, hey why do you- I talked about Soapbox, and our work a lot because I hadn't seen her a long time and she was like, why do you do what you do? Like, or how is this what you do a part of how you want the world to be? And as flawed as you and everyone is? And I've been vulnerable with her about different things and stuff. And so it was just like, I heard my response, kinda what you were saying, as far as if- like, right now I feel great. I'm with people I love. I'm just hanging out. I dance a little bit. I don't do this very often. I just feel good. And like, I want to have this feeling more often, and I want everyone around me to have this feeling more often. What's stopping that? And when I unravel those layers, I get to not being able to enjoy or rest. And then not being able to do that because you have to work or something, and not being able to do that because you have to work to feed yourself. You can't feed yourself because this, even though food is plentiful, we throw away 34% of it a year.
[00:24:38.880] - Caullen
You know... I unravel the labels and I get to systems, I get to capitalism, I get to white supremacy, I get to war, I get to militarism. I get to the Cascades. I get to Palestine. I get.... It just unravels all these things. And a lot of those -isms are reflected in everything, but it reflects a lot in war, militarism, and throughout history; not even just the West in the past two centuries, or America as a project. But... And it's like, okay, so how do- okay, so if that's the problem- if that's why I can't feel like this all the time, then how do I stop that?
[00:25:12.810] - Caullen
And how I know- or how I have felt good about actualizing that and how I think it actually gets to that point is, changing mass consciousness. Not an easy job. But you can help and try to do that through storytelling. And since I've been on this earth, this spinning rock going through space, storytelling is accessible and being able to be digested on a mass level through movies and film. And I like those things. So how about I try to use that to change mass consciousness, to change these systems and levers that were able to, practically, to make everyone feel good more often all the time.
[00:25:59.740] - CA
Yeah.
[00:26:01.260] - Caullen
So actually hearing you say that was really validating. And then I say all that just now, and you say what you said, and I feel like, oh, look at the fucking ego on this guy. I'll make movies and change the world, mehhh.
[00:26:13.750] - CA
I see. Yeah.
[00:26:14.380] - Caullen
There's still that kind of fodder in my mind and stuff as well. And you know... I don't know. And, yeah. So I think part of- I forgot what you said exactly, but as far as like- but also like, who am I and what can I do? And this feels hopeless, and to think that I could have done a thing or...
[00:26:30.300] - CA
Yeah.
[00:26:30.700] - Caullen
Yeah, I don't know. Then also, I'm sitting with so much privilege too. As a Black man in this country, sure, but grew up with class privilege. Cis het, you know what I mean? So it's contending with that and then also know that I have to battle that every day. And normalize that privilege to understand it, to check it, and I'm still gonna mess up. And how you might get down on yourself because you have to keep doing it, and doing that's not really helpful. So I'm gonna stop talking. But that's what I was hearing for the most part. Other threads that, David, you mentioned too, thank you for sharing as well about some vulnerabilities you've had and do now in the past couple years.
[00:27:01.400] - Caullen
But, yeah, there's a lot there. But that's the biggest thing I took cause I feel like I now... As things are changing for Soapbox, and myself, and David and I, and whatever, for the better. But although the world's crazy and the genocides and all the things, so I'm just like- there's a lot of threads all the time. It's like, how do you sift through that? I want to close some tabs without feeling guilty for closing the tab.
[00:27:19.310] - CA
Oh, that's a great analogy.
[00:27:21.070] - David
I mean, I'm just thinking about if you haven't had your existential dread moment yet like-
[00:27:25.800] - Caullen
You're not human.
[00:27:26.520] - David
Well, I mean... cause at this point- and to that point... To- I mean, yeah, there's just... There's hella points. But the only one I want to sit on before we move on to what CA has to say is like, again, I think these thoughts are very, very necessary. In terms of allowing ourselves to move in a way that, again, the way I mentioned we sit with what we want, morally. What we sit collective.
[00:27:52.010] - David
And I think it's interesting- I mean, Caullen, I've heard you talk about Soapbox millions of times.
[00:27:56.930] - Caullen
*laughing* he rolls his eyes. He's like, ohh here he goes...
[00:27:58.270] - David
No, but that might have been one of my favorite ways that I've heard you break down why you do what you do. And CA, you're naming the purpose of your intent of your new project, of your new journey. And it's just like, I think a lot of times people think dope shit just comes out of nowhere. Or it's like, oh, well, you got to be connected to the right people. But oftentimes it's these things that you sit with and you marinate, you marinate, you marinate, you marinate. Because you've been doing this since 2013, and I'm curious if you would say you have- you would have had the same answer in 2013 when you talk about Soapbox as you did today.
[00:28:42.040] - Caullen
Definitely not. The nodes would be there. It wouldn't be incoherent.
[00:28:46.426] - David
Sure sure.
[00:28:46.840] - Caullen
But it's definitely developed over time. And I think now that I've gotten a chance to.... How do I say this? Like, right now, this past maybe year or so, I haven't done as much traditional organized organizing. Or like, "traditional" filmmaking as far as a script script, and narrative filming. It's been more like docs and more shorter docs. And you've been doing some longer stuff and whatever. And so those things that I like and enjoy, and I think I have a skill set for, haven't been practicing as much. Which is fine, cause I think the focus has been like, how do we build Soapbox's infrastructure? And it doesn't have to be my name on it, it can be whoever's name, I just want out in the world. I want these things to boil down and change minds and change policy and change power at the end of the day.
[00:29:30.110] - Caullen
But with that, I'm going to sit back and think about what I want my creative process to be in the fictional realm, scripted realm. Even this podcast itself, and taking more time to think through how we want to structure this. And then also with organizing and stuff. And so, am I doing that, and I like it. And I'll go back to it and have capacity, I need to recognize what I need for Caullen. But I've been able to sit back and reflect a little more. And I think with the millions of topics we can talk about with just this year alone, or just this month alone; politically, just out in the world and whatever, it still boils down to systems for me. But it's also really personal. So how do I always kinda tie those things together? Yeah, taking a backseat to a reflect is a good time to do that.
[00:30:22.370] - David
Yeah. And I think the beauty of this type of an episode is like, hearing- and I appreciate you naming you went from analytical, to way too spiritual is what I heard. Finding a balance in between.
[00:30:36.040] - CA
I think there's a-
[00:30:37.020] - Caullen
Cocaine is a hell of a drug.
[00:30:40.470] - CA
I think there's- a truer statement would be that I just kinda abandoned a lot in the past couple years.
[00:30:47.650] - David
And so here, let's bring that to the present. So how has- you mentioned since January, you're in this existential dread. You're sitting with the feels. What has the journey been like for you? And even coming all the way to Chicago as an example.
[00:31:08.200] - CA
Yeah. It's... Okay... There's three things in my mind we can talk about, and they do all kinda twirl together like a DNA molecule. So, like...
[00:31:22.010] - Caullen
Or a three loc braid.
[00:31:23.740] - CA
Or a three loc braid. Yeah. Exactly. And so...
[00:31:30.190] - Caullen
I was trying to think of a Black joke, since we're talking about race, but I couldn't think of anything. *laughing*
[00:31:36.730] - CA
I like three loc braid though, that works. So one of those braids would be-
[00:31:43.250] - Caullen
Afro Sheen.
[00:31:44.470] - CA
What?
[00:31:45.350] - Caullen
I'm just playing with you, bro.
[00:31:47.170] - David
Just go, you're good.
[00:31:48.270] - CA
Okay.
[00:31:48.580] - Caullen
When the edible kicks in.
[00:31:51.690] - CA
Oh man... I watched "Scavengers Reign", which is a beautiful animation on- it's now on Netflix. It was on HBO Max to begin with. It's a wonderful show. It's cool to me because it's super futuristic, sure, whatever. It's biopunk. It's all really cool. The soundscape of it really takes you into a different place. And I watched this during a breakup, and it was a long process, and I kinda realized what I wanted to do with my time in my world. The soundscape and the sound design was insane. And I realized I fucking love cartoons because they're realer than reality tv. Okay. MF Doom was right: cartoons be realer than reality tv. Because they're the most poetic allegory we have to dealing with raw human emotion. And a big part of that is how it sounds. So I'm getting more into sound design. I went to school for it- I went to grad school for it. I'm obviously an audio documentarist in addition to being a filmmaker, and I really care about sound. That's what I want to do. So that was one thing is realizing, what do I want to do with my career? Is, okay, I'm going to aim it at this thing that I just don't really seem to escape. And I really fucking vibe with, okay.
[00:33:19.040] - CA
There are other things that I can do in that realm, I think, writing. And this, to your point, Caullen, of how do I bring in the awareness that I have? Knowing the histories that we're talking about. Knowing the systems of power that we're dealing with and want to change. How can I introduce philosophies in as small of a way as possible through example- for an example, through the sound design of a show? That's a real thing you can do. And so part of that is realizing the scale at which we can work as human beings when we're fighting things that are impossible to fight alone or together. The powers that be is what's going to change this fucking world. I don't believe anymore, and this is my ego with a LATTO Thought, I don't believe that a podcast about my dad's life is going to change anything. But I do believe that it can impact ten individuals to think deeper about who the fuck they are. And then they talk about it, and then other people talk about it, that I do believe in.
[00:34:33.240] - CA
So, with the career, I want to focus more on things that just excite me and bring in these principles that I've thankfully learned over the past, especially five years. Okay, so it's one thing. The other thing is realizing through, as I mentioned earlier, psychedelics, how the horrors of the world and the universe persist, and yet, so do we. Okay, so like-
[00:35:01.520] - Caullen
Is that you or from something?
[00:35:02.950] - CA
I don't know. I think it's both. I think, because I feel like people have said this, who-
[00:35:07.330] - Caullen
They've had to.
[00:35:08.000] - CA
Yeah. I don't know how much of this you want to waste on an acid trip, but we can talk about that. But the main point of that is that I melted away. I melted away and I saw horrific things. To be more specific, I saw- I felt the power of the universe in my hand and then immediately was holding a pillar of ash, a child who was bombed. This is what we've chosen to do. Well, most- those in power have chosen to do with what seems to be, on this planet, at least the most influential capabilities of species that this planet has seen. We're making nuclear bombs, we're blowing people up, we're burning things, we're stealing resources. When things are bountiful and plentiful, why do we do that? What I experienced through going inward the past five months has been a realization that you can never escape suffering, you can never escape torment, you can never escape death. But what you can do is hold out a hand amidst that process.
[00:36:23.390] - CA
That's like, what we can do every day. As activists, I don't know what that really says. I mean, we need activists. We need people to raise awareness of what is happening and what is in need of changing and what we're not happy with. And then in a larger scale, I see the process of the earth just kinda fucking destroying civilization because civilization is destroying the earth. So are we going to change? Are humans going to change the systems that humans have built? Or is the earth just going to fucking change, and economics is no longer going to be a thing? We might, as a species, survive that process. We very well might, we're very adaptable. We've proven that through the ice age and on. This is what I mean by being too much of a futurist, because this doesn't help the immediate present. None of this thinking really helps immediate present.
[00:37:27.280] - Caullen
I don't think that's true. I appreciate, thinking you should be critical of yeah, for sure. We need the theory, and we also need practices and doing it. Fucking around and finding out.
[00:37:35.140] - CA
Yeah.
[00:37:35.410] - Caullen
But I think having a goal in mind, with anything, we talk about liberation on this podcast a lot; and I'm really scared that's gonna be co-opted and we'll have to think of a different word. But I hope it doesn't. But I think that's real and that's true, and I believe in that. And it's like, if we are- if anything you said and I've said- and thank you for saying all that too, and I have more to comment on. But if we think what we're doing on a small, piece and parcel way is part of a struggle for Black liberation and a collective liberation of all oppressed peoples, we think this podcast and Soapbox and whatever, and the 501c3 all the taxes, and all the bullshit we have to do to make it worth it. If we believe in that, I think that is important, and I think having that end goal in mind and being futurist in that way is important. And then it's, okay, how do we work towards that in a principled way, in a strategic way, and in a practical way? Us and the folks in my community with, I think, have asked those questions, too, and then do that. And then fail forward if that's the case, or progress and progress and progress and bring more people in. That's what base building is.
[00:38:34.890] - Caullen
And so, again, I mentioned being an almost seasonal organizer before, but it's people telling stories to get folks on board, folks who are affected. Who are like, we don't have time to go to the meetings, do the thing. But, Okay, I'm gonna tap in because you convinced me with this story. And, yeah, my rent is too much. You're right, that is fucked up. I do work really hard and still have to pay so much in rent, and then have to work more time I can't spend with my children. That's real, people put that all the time. And then stories and being in community, and that's another thing we say a lot, too, but I think that means something. And I think that is a way to get to those things.
[00:39:10.160] - Caullen
So I think having goals is a liberatory struggle and liberatory, I don't wanna say philosophy, but yeah. Like a heady thing, but it is real and grounded. When you stay there and only do that, that's when it's dangerous, I think. But we gotta keep reflecting as we go.
[00:39:26.590] - CA
That brings me to the third braid.
[00:39:29.430] - Caullen
*whispering* The third braid.
[00:39:31.150] - CA
The third braid.
[00:39:31.970] - Caullen
Open your third eye, brother.
[00:39:33.310] - CA
I keep thinking about Black liberation, Land Back, all the things. You know, de-imperialization of the world, and demilitarization- all these things, but specifically within America, Black Buddhism. Because that's a fucking- that's a.... That's a conundrum. Because Buddhism is all about sitting. Do you understand what I mean? It's just about sitting. That's all it is. Well, for Zen Buddhism specifically.
[00:40:06.890] - CA
But there was a Zen Buddhist that was a part of a panel that I listened to years ago. And this dude was- they were all Black. This about Black Buddhism specifically. And this dude was- I can't remember his name. Maybe we'll look it up later. But so, he was a Vietnam vet. All of his buddies died in the war, and he turned to Zen Buddhism soon after the war, perhaps after a stint of- as many soldiers did alcoholism and dealing with what the fuck they did. Turned to Buddhism. And what he said in response to a question about how do you reconcile, I'm paraphrasing. But I think the question was about how do you reconcile, essentially what we're talking about, the pain and the struggle of being Black in America with buddhist practice? And his response was unsatisfactory.
[00:41:09.740] - CA
All the responses were unsatisfactory. Because what we're looking for is how do you match up these really kinda amorphous, completely dichotomous ideas? Liberation takes action. Liberation takes direct action. Liberation takes daily interruption of operational practices. Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, at least specifically, is about staring at a wall. That's it. That's what it's about. So how do you reconcile these two things? Especially being in a Black body, in a minoritized body in this racist country? And this guy was like-
[00:41:49.960]
[sound clip from "Black & Buddhist in America" panel] seeing different races separated by signs to the Martin Luther King race riots, and losing a lot of friends in deaths. And 18, 19 years old in Vietnam, and losing a lot of friends, except myself. Going through the epidemic of drugs and so forth. At a certain point, the practice begins to teach you how to let go or to let things be. But I said practice. And after you reach five to 10,000 hours, you begin to let things be. And then when you go over 10,000 hours of practice, yeah, now you're smiling. You want it, but you don't want to do the practice. There you go. And it's the same for the person with the activist question. And this, the buddhist practice is not passive. It's very seriously active.
[00:43:04.460] - CA
And I've been thinking about that a lot, because what is so frustrating about Buddhist philosophy, Eastern philosophy at large, and then psychedelic experiences is that you can't actually really relay to people what you experience when you do these things. You have to experience it yourself. And when you do, you reach this state of understanding that, oh, there isn't much to do, actually. Which is not to say there's nothing to do, because everyone plays a role. And if you understand what your role is, whatever that role is, you're a part of the whole happening. You, as Caullen and David and Kiera, can only do so much alone. But if you find a role, if you find a part that vibes with you, let's say, okay, you're riding the frequency that matches yours. And it's toward a collective endeavor, now we're talking. For this guy, it's staring at a wall. For you guys, it's doing what you do. For me, it's figuring out how to combine all this stuff with something I care about, which is just like, how do I tell stories in more poetic ways? Doing just one fucking small part of that process. Just one. Just one. Not everything, because we can't do everything.
[00:44:43.480] - CA
And so I've been thinking a lot about that. And so when I kinda carelessly dropped acid. I mean, I had a pretty, I mean, crazy experience of just seeing how all of us are just dust in the wind. I mean, literally. We are all going to die. Joe Biden's going to die. Trump's going to die.
[00:45:03.210] - Caullen
Like, tomorrow.
[00:45:03.920] - CA
Like, tomorrow. Netanyahu's going to die.
[00:45:06.230] - Caullen
My fingers aren't crossed, what are you- what? No, we didn't say that.
[00:45:09.210] - CA
Yeah. All these people in power are going to die. We're all going to fucking die. That's real. That's true. Nothing's changing that. Nothing will ever change that. And the whole problem of all the things we're fighting is because people believe that that can be changed. I mean, whether they say it or not, they want the system to exist forever. It will not. It will not exist forever. Now the thing that we're trying to get through is, we want suffering to decrease. And that's really the rub. Like, how do we engage with each other in ways that decreases suffering, and yet at the same time accepts the fact that suffering is going to happen.
[00:45:48.220] - CA
Which is the rub of Black Buddhism. Because we live in a particular country in which those things are really pointed at specific people, and ends up hurting those specific people more than other people. And I guess that's where kinda the balance needs to be restored, so to speak. I mean, who are we just- I don't know. I mean, because on one hand, where I'm saying who are we to decide and change anything? And on the other, that kinda is giving people in power more power.
[00:46:22.410] - Caullen
Right.
[00:46:22.850] - CA
And it doesn't make sense.
[00:46:23.770] - Caullen
Like, yeah, you're right, you can't do anything. Or vote, and that's all you can do..
[00:46:26.920] - CA
But I also see that we do the things that they tell us to do, and it still doesn't work!
[00:46:30.330] - Caullen
Oh man, it's almost like they're telling us things that aren't actually going to change their power structure. Or how they can commit violence and benefit.
[00:46:36.590] - CA
I think if you tune out- or rather tune in and drop out, that's going to change a lot more. If we all stared at clouds all day, that would do way more.
[00:46:43.970] - Caullen
Capital would go down. Production would go down.
[00:46:45.820] - CA
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know, but that's where I'm at right now.
[00:46:51.220] - Caullen
I recently saw a quote from James Baldwin that stuck with me, at a particular time where I was thinking about these things. The kinda similar stuff we've talked about so far in this episode, so it was oddly timely. And I'm not a big, "everything happens for a reason person", but I don't discount it either. The quote reads as this: "The bottom line is this: you write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't. But also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world. The world changes according to the way people see it. And if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it. If there is no moral question, there is no reason to write. I'm an old fashioned writer, and despite the odds, I want to change the world" -James Baldwin.
[00:47:37.950] - CA
Yeah, I mean, that's why I'm not a writer.
[00:47:40.630] - Caullen
And I think you sub writing with filmmaking or audio documentation.
[00:47:46.890] - CA
Querying. Going to put it the way that it needs to put it.
[00:47:48.440] - Caullen
Yeah, exactly. And consulting is not something you can sub this with, so if you're listening and you're a consultant, that's not what this is. I'm on an anti-consultant kick. No, no. But I think, truly, as far as art and storytelling and in media making and things that are in that realm, I feel like things are intentionally or even not intentionally trying to change things. Understanding the power that that holds, whether it's explicit or not. And also knowing that, to his point, probably not gonna happen, we're so small, we're nothing, whatever, whatever; but also, it's only ever changed because people like us are doing this shit, and people across the board are tapping in any way they can, that looks so different and that's beautiful. I think that's how movements and revolutions have ever, always happened. So that quote, I just- I love it. And I saw it a couple weeks ago and I'm still going back to it, reflecting, having new learnings from it.
[00:48:45.560] - CA
I was thinking of James Baldwin when I was-, too. And there's- I think it was that exact thing. Yeah. Because that's what, I mean, that's the struggle. That we do things, it probably isn't gonna change things, but we do it anyway. That's the human experience. The consciousness is like- that's an interesting thing. Because if you think about yourself as a human being alone from anything else. Like, you're thinking about your own psyche and... Let's say you're in therapy for the first time ever, and you're just like, well, how do I change? One of my favorite- and this is speaking of tension, this is a controversial figure now, Alan Watts. But one of my favorites.
[00:49:26.450] - CA
I thought you were gonna say Bill Cosby. I was like, oof.
[00:49:27.540] - CA
No! God, no, no, no. Not that bad. He's just an alcoholic and a bit of a womanizer, Alan Watts is- or was. Anyway. One of my favorite things he said was: "you say you want to change, but who is it that you think is the one that's changing?" Something like that. Who are you to think that you can change you?
[00:49:51.110] - CA
And I think about that all the time because the human mind is kinda a bit of a paradox. What seems to work is a broader sense of awareness. And that's kinda what you're talking about. We are aware. I wasn't aware of Bolivia. This is the first I've even fucking heard about this is.
[00:50:15.480] - Caullen
This is like, days ago, bro. That's why.
[00:50:17.040] - CA
Days ago? Fuck.
[00:50:17.940] - Caullen
Maybe a week ago. Tops.
[00:50:19.410] - CA
Geez. I think people are more aware. I think people are more aware in ways that the regular population can receive that information. You know, they're not listening to documentaries, but they are seeing videos. So that awareness does something. Back in the day, boycotting- we can talk about the Montgomery bus boycott- did something to change awareness. The images. The tv. Tv was huge, man! That was like the first images the world saw of the shit that happened every day in Arkansas, throughout the south, in Alabama just at large, that changed things.
[00:51:02.400] - CA
Human awareness, just seeing something, just being aware of something, changes it. And what's wild about this is that that's what quantum physics is, too. If you're aware of an experiment, as the observer, it changes the outcome. In what way, we don't know. But you see the wavelength could do this, and then sometimes when you're not looking, it does that. Nothing changes about the experiment at all, just the outcome. Human awareness is that, our awareness does something. And that's really the only control we have. We don't have control over Biden. We try to have control through these systems that they set up, but it turns out the systems are kinda fucking rigged. We kinda know this. And more people are realizing this too.
[00:51:49.020] - CA
So that's important. And I think that's true. I think that's very true.Which is why we do what we do. Which is why I'm here. I could have just easily fucked off and be like, well, I can't do shit. I'm gonna just- I guess I'll just enjoy my life, which I am kinda doing to be honest. I'm just like, how can I be happy and yet still be honest and true to the things that I care about, about the world? And I think that just comes down to how do I make people aware in the small ways that I can without over egotizing it, overemphasizing the process? Being like, this documentary is going to change the world, man. No, it's not!
[00:52:35.280] - Caullen
I saw something of it the other day. All my things are references. After I talk, I'm like, the other day this happened- an anecdote. Something on the interwebs, from some lefty account, whatever, but it mentioned... I forgot the context, but I think a listener who's listening to B'nB will kinda know what this means. But they said the raising awareness industrial complex is failing around this.
[00:52:58.710] - CA
Oh yes!
[00:52:59.150] - Caullen
And so, I don't think that's what you're saying, just to be clear. But it's one of those things where we have- language is so expansive and beautiful, also so limited. So it's like, I hate the word "raising awareness", my eyes roll automatically. But to your point, if I don't know things happen, there's absolutely no way I'm gonna change it in a conscious way that's strategic and rooted in all things I mentioned earlier. As far as how we go from liberation to actually changing things. I can't know if I don't know at all.
[00:53:26.310] - Caullen
But to your point of the systems they give us, and when I'm talking about America, or any government system saying "vote, that's the only way to make change", which everybody knows isn't the case, whatever, whatever. You know, if that's the version of raising awareness, how the nonprofit industrial complex can use it. Or thinking of like, Be aware of this thing, but we don't do anything actually rooted about it. Or a virtue signal you care about this issue, or people, or this thing, and don't really do anything about it; but it looks to makes you better, and it feeds the ego, that we keep going back to.
[00:53:54.720] - Caullen
So thinking about that and, in what we do in this room too, is like, all of it starts to raising awareness, but then goes- pushes more. I really appreciate you ended it that way as far as the documentary. It's like, this thing is important.... Cause kinda the impetus of Soapbox- and listeners will know this as far as like, I watched more- a lot of more documentaries in undergrad and high school and stuff.
[00:54:13.800] - Caullen
And so it was like, the documentary, David's gonna roll his eyes, but, saving the whales. How do you save the whales? Beautiful doc, 90 minutes about saving the whales. It's emotionally gripping. You feel concern for these whales. You have empathy, which is what we've tried to do in stories, whatever. And then in the end, it's like, donate to this NGO or this national nonprofit. And maybe they're doing good work, I can go there, but I'm not gonna go there right now. Maybe they're doing good work, whatever, but donate to this thing, and that's it. And it didn't say, guillotine the corporate class for causing climate change for years. It didn't say, hey, the whales would be fine if we didn't intentionally offshore drill, and all these things that we knew to be true and have the research to know better and did it anyway for profit over people for generations. It didn't say that. I mean, I know everybody ain't got shit, but give me the bag anyway. It didn't say that. It said, donate and that's the only thing.
[00:55:06.480] - Caullen
And I'm being reductive in this example, whatever, but there's these knee jerk reactions, things where- there's things that... I don't even wanna say "they" because I think they're so good at propagandizing. Even co-opting the way we think we're fighting systems to the point that we just keep them afloat. And you pacify us even in the struggle that's not true liberatory.
[00:55:28.430] - CA
Yeah yeah.
[00:55:30.210] - Caullen
They do a good job of doing that. And I think that raising awareness industrial complex is part and parcel of that. And sometimes, I'll admit, it is hard to kinda distinguish between true rooted collective liberation that's willing to do anything and that's where action comes into play, to this more pacified view that sometimes they call aggressive real quick.
[00:55:50.950] - Caullen
And so I'm just swimming with all that as far as how I see media, as far as that. As far as being paired up with that thing. That's why I get so angry when I see "Soapbox Productions" on a something. It's like, no, it's "Productions and Organizing". It's Productions: The film, the narrative- what we're actually making, which is- making movies is hard. And the organizing, it's rooted in movement, rooted in these things. We're accountable to people, we're accountable as an organization. We're accountable to these practices. So when we don't fill them out, we need to be called out and we need to make ourselves better. It's rooted in that. So I need both those titles on the thing.
[00:56:20.550] - CA
Yeah.
[00:56:22.170] - Caullen
So I'm really glad that you brought up that idea of awareness in a good faith way like, start something. But also, how does it start with that? How does action come out of that? And David, what you mentioned about slavery times, the generations- I got that from Damon Williams. Shout out Damon. He may have gotten it from someone else, I don't know, but shout out Damon. But it's funny because- I'll read this real quick and I'll land the plane.
[00:56:46.520] - Caullen
But I wanted to read the Grace Lee Boggs quote. "What time is it on the clock of the world?" I think that speaks a lot to that anecdote, that real thing that David mentioned about the generations under enslavement. But googling real quick, make sure I had the quote right, I came up on this bigger cultural and civic archive from Chicago BIPOC and LGBTQ+ folks of healers and movement fighters in Chicago in the past several years or so. It was like, what time is it idea. And it kinda reads as: "'what time is it?' was inspired by Black organizers and philosophers Grace Lee Boggs and Jimmy Boggs. Together, they visualize the 3000 years of human history on a twelve hour clock where every minute represents 50 years. Building on this model of time, they theorized that revolution as the primary driver of social change is only five minutes old. They advocated for 'visionary organizing' rooted in re-imagining not only structures and institutions, but also ourselves and our relationships."
[00:57:47.820] - Caullen
What the fuck have we been talking about this entire time? It's these systems, all these big, heady, ethereal, philosophical stuff, a little more grounded stuff. Military industrial complex, nonprofit industrial complex, things we kinda name and see in real ways. And then our relationships with each other in this room, our lovers, our friends, our family, and then also within ourselves in the inter and the intra as you said earlier, CA. And so just... David makes fun of me for not the: "everything happens for a reason person." And then I look up this quote, make sure I got it right, wasn't gonna make myself look dumb on the podcast, and I read this thing that's exactly what we're talking about this entire conversation. And I'm just kinda like, stunned.
[00:58:33.050] - David
Thank you, Caullen, for reading that quote. I'm just sitting here processing all the information that y'all are giving out. And, I mean, I don't know. I think it's a very important conversation that we need to be having. I'm really intrigued that this is where our conversation took us. You know, I definitely think it's giving- or at least I hope it's not giving sort of like this helpless, end of the world sort of feeling. I definitely really hope that this episode isn't coming off hopeless, type shit. Cause it's heavy shit. It's heavy shit.
[00:59:07.680] - David
But I do think, everyone, I'm hoping, all of our listeners have had their existential dread moment. And I hope that all of our listeners in having that, are- you're fighting the Nietzsche vibes. Like, CA, I hope- you do understand that in doing the nothing and doing this unlearning and relearning, there's all this movement taking place. And so... Sacks of blood. Definitely go against that. And I don't know.
[00:59:34.550] - David
And to add on my perspective as a poet, there's a quote. "My responsibility as a poet, as an artist is to not look away". And I think in today's day and age, it's ever more prevalent. Because I think, Caullen, I don't remember when you mentioned this, but we talked about when we were growing up, there was, like 9/11 happened, and then the housing market happened, and then Obama was elected. And so there's these flashpoint moments that have kinda sped up and are moving at a more progressive rate. And yet, the world is having to respond, and not being able to respond, it's fucking nuts. It's fucking nuts.
[01:00:11.420] - David
But I really appreciate being able to have these conversations with y'all because it's been a hell of a first year. I think the first half of this year, whether we're talking about elections or whether we're talking about hip-hop beefs, whether we're talking about the Supreme Court making decisions that we don't necessarily agree in, whether that's with our food, with our bodies, with our schooling it does seem all hopeless to a certain degree. But I really hope that's not what our listeners are taking from it.
[01:00:37.300] - David
And I think CA, this experience that you're telling us about, while it's really interesting that psychedelics is what took you there. And I really hope that all of our listeners don't think like, oh, you gotta go take psychedelics to unravel and learn the mysteries of the world. I would disagree that that's how it goes. I think you named the other side in your comment of like, you need a personal trauma, and psychedelics can only be explained by the person who experiences it. And I definitely agree. I definitely agree with that. But I definitely also think that you also don't need to live something in order to know that something's fucked up. Or that something needs to change or that a system that you assumed was holding all inaudible.. You named being Black and being a police officer, and how you juggle those two juxtapositions.
[01:01:23.480] - CA
Yeah.
[01:01:23.910] - David
To me, I see that as a very clear opportunity to kinda sit in, what we talk about is like, the responsibility of every person. The responsibility of us to be able to take care of each other. Maybe that person- that Black man, that Black woman thinks that they're taking care of their community, they're taking care of their people in that route. And so can we necessarily bash them for doing what they feel is the right move? Not necessarily. But I think, again, it comes to us having these tough conversations, sitting with this raw emotion. And then moving accordingly, moving in terms of what we think is right, how we want to move. Moving away from what I constantly talk about is this pacifism that has been thrown on us. This individualistic mindset of I, I, I, me, me, me, me. Take, take, protect, protect, protect. Like, little caveman type attitude. That still exists, it definitely still exists. And for us to sit here and be like, nah, that's not true. Like, it's bullshit. And so us as individuals, I'm just listening as the learning and the relearning is happening in real time. And I'm not saying you're being negative or anything- or either of y'all, with your perspective, but I do think we can get bogged down in that tunnel type vision.
[01:02:30.520] - CA
Nihilism is not as negative as I think people think it to be. I think there's a pessimistic side and an optimistic side. The optimistic side is where I usually land, and I am very nihilistic. Okay? You're right in pointing this out, and you're feeling something that is true. The element of control that we have as individuals is so minuscule. That's why the presidency as a seat is more of a problem than the president itself, as an example. Because the presidency continues to exist when it probably shouldn't. A lot of things shouldn't. The people who inhabit that Darth Vader throne, they die. They have ideas, those ideas pass on, those ideas morph, those ideas propagate other ideas. Ideas themselves are kinda like the... I don't know, what is it? Like the fucking... The crack of the ego, are ideas. We think ideas can persist and change things for the better or the worse, et cetera. And, yeah, that persists. Things need to die. Life is about dying.
[01:03:48.250] - CA
And when I say that, I don't mean we should all die. No, we're here to experience what it is to be alive, which means at one point we die. And what I experienced in my trips throughout the year, but certainly during the acid trip is, death is something that everyone doesn't deal with. And that's really what kinda propagates a lot of the problems that we're talking about. While on the other hand, a lot of people in America do have to deal with death, and do have to deal with suffering.
[01:04:25.750] - CA
Again, in an imbalance of an ethos propping up this superstructure of government and country and nationhood and statehood and money and economics, these are things that can materialistically change very quickly. It could be chaotic, but at the end of the day, we don't have real control as human beings over what's happening because we've created these superstructures. And the superstructures think they can live forever, but they also will die. And that's what I mean when I say the earth is going to take care of itself. Really. We're the thinking parts.
[01:05:07.780] - Caullen
I see what you're saying.
[01:05:08.500] - CA
You see what I'm saying?
[01:05:09.070] - Caullen
That finally clicked for me. Yeah.
[01:05:09.900] - CA
Okay.
[01:05:10.710] - Caullen
Yes.
[01:05:11.060] - CA
Right. We as human beings, and this is to your point, David, you just said, can be human to each other. And we can relate to each other, and we should, because the horrors of the world persist. And it's terrifying what our bodies do in and of themselves. Our cells are dying every day, and they're being reborn every day. To your listeners, this is going to sound like mumbo jumbo. To anyone who has experienced this in any degree, whether it's through meditation, religious experience, practice of any kind, psychedelics, you know what I'm talking about when I say you're being reborn every day.
[01:05:49.940] - CA
And when your brain's aware of that process and the way that when you... the wall between the ego and the rest of the feeling parts of all of your body. And I mean like, your brain controls, so to speak, controls your hair growth. It controls your heartbeat, it controls your breathing. When you become aware of these processes, it is the most terrifying experience you can possibly imagine, because you're in control of everything. All the time. How do you maintain that? That is a psychosis. And so when I'm talking about these things from this nihilistic perspective, it isn't from this negative point of like- and I'm not saying you're saying that, but I want to be clear, it isn't from this negative standpoint of like, everything's fucked so we're just gonna walk away.
[01:06:38.190] - Caullen
What are you gonna do?
[01:06:38.510] - CA
What are you gonna do? No, it's actually, you deflate the power structures actively by being like, this doesn't fucking matter. Dollar bills don't matter.
[01:06:49.690] - Caullen
Dolla dolla bills, y'all.
[01:06:50.990] - CA
Oil doesn't matter. Going to work doesn't matter. None of this fucking matters! This is creating a superstructure of existence that doesn't matter because we all die. Everything dies. Everything's reborn. Literally. Your cells regurgitate- or not regurgitate- but your cells regrow because old cells die until one day, nothing regrows anymore. But then you become something else. You decompose. The cycle continues. Now, that's all up here. It's all pfff. It's all fucking up there.
[01:07:24.783] - Caullen
Fugazi.
[01:07:24.900] - CA
What is that? Fuga-zi. Fu-gazi. What do we do here today? We do the things that we're talking about. What Grace Lee Boggs is talking about, intrapersonally. How do we relate to ourselves inside and out? Give a helping hand wherever you can. Life is terror. But we don't have to experience it that way.
[01:07:49.450] - Caullen
We can choose something else.
[01:07:50.320] - CA
We can choose- and that's the point of nihilism. Thank you for saying that, Caullen, because that's the whole fucking point of what Nietzsche was saying: you have a blank canvas. That's nihilism, is a blank canvas.
[01:08:02.490] - Caullen
You know, there was a young philosopher that once said: "real niggas don't die, they multiply." Pushback, baby.
[01:08:13.240] - CA
Yes!
[01:08:16.940] - Caullen
Serving this invisible superstructure we've been so convinced we have to uphold, is a problem. I can hear someone saying like, yeah, saying don't go to work, it doesn't matter. But if I don't, then I don't get paid. If I don't get paid, I can't eat. If I can't eat, I can't live. Maybe it's- and like, I don't want to die because the semblance of humanity and joy that I've been able to experience is good and I want to hold on that and make more of that; but in order to have any of that- even that little bit that I have, I have to do these things. But I largely agree with you too, as far as like, if we don't construct all these bigger ideas that are powering structures and causing us harm, and that's making this person live through that, then we're not gonna go anywhere. But also they still gotta eat, in a very literal way, too, I think.
[01:09:04.990] - CA
Absolutely.
[01:09:05.490] - Caullen
That's what's hard about a lot of this.
[01:09:07.970] - CA
Absolutely.
[01:09:08.850] - David
No, I mean, I'm hearing you both. And CA, I really appreciate- and I mean, you named this at the beginning... But truly understanding and acknowledging the level of privilege that you have and the place that you're at right now, it's like, not a lot of people have that opportunity in order to find themselves. What I was hearing in that is like- and I don't necessarily think you were doing this, again- but there's- I'm seeing the dismissal or the removal of people suffering in real time. That also goes with me and Caullen and Soapbox acknowledging our privilege, we're in this fucking office on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. So like, there's levels to it.
[01:09:48.180] - David
And it's not just us, I think that's also something that I want to make sure it gets across. Like, every single one of us come into this world with some level of privilege. Whether that's: you're a man, you're white, you're class privilege, etc. Etc. Etc. There's some point that you come into it, and it's understanding, reevaluating. And for those of us that are and can understand when we're in those positions of powers like, how do we move beyond that? How do we take ownership? And that's why I think when I have a conversation with someone and they ask me like, why is this shit important? Like, why should anyone care about you and what's going on in Chicago right now? I get a sense of like, the importance of the work that we do, it's break the stereotypes that are implemented around Chicago on a national scale, but also on a local level.
[01:10:43.910] - David
Like, how many times have we heard Chicago is a murder capital of the world? Which we even know, statistically, is not true. However, what are we doing as a city to combat that type of a narrative? Are we being passive? Are we staying stuck in our fields about like, damn, we can't do shit? Or are we- have we actually seen movement pushing forth? And we have, let's not undermine the years of organizing, the years of violent prevention organizations like MASK. And we've seen- we know that these groups exist, and so are they feeling hopeless? Are they sitting and wallowing in their own suffering? Like, naw, they're understanding that they have some power, they have some privilege, and they're making sure and taking care of their communities.
[01:11:24.220] - David
That's what I'm trying to bring in. That's what I'm trying to understand; that even regardless of whether or not we come from privilege, in having the ability to sit in our thoughts and allow us to sit in our feelings, we have that ability. And again, that responsibility, that responsibility to do shit. Like, see, I'm hearing you- and low key, I didn't think- this kinda turned into a therapy episode that we were kinda planning on having, Caullen. So I'm curious if maybe we're not going to have that anymore, because it's kinda a therapy session. Or I might charge you, CA, for this later. But I don't know, I think it's just wild.
[01:11:55.330] - David
Again, and I'm grateful that you are in a mindset and in a space to be able to talk about these type of things with groups like us.Because as you know, Bourbon 'n BrownTown, we love chopping this shit up. And I think this has probably been the most, I don't want to say spiritual, but the most up in the air type of like, philosophical type of a conversation. Which as Plato says: all you need is time. All you need is time to think, and then that's how things are created.
[01:12:21.250] - David
And so, it's so interesting because I also understand- the last point I want to bring in, is like, it's hard to balance the narcissism or the egos along with the consciousness or the "wokeness", if you will, of every person. And sometimes it's hard. It's hard to find a balance between the narcissism we have as creative, the egos we have as producers, or what have you, tied with the consciousness. Whether that is class consciousness, whether that's Black liberation consciousness, whether that's- illegals- no one is illegal consciousness. Wherever you come in, I honestly do believe that at the center of that is love. We as human beings have that ingrained within our system in order to love one another and through that, create community, create relationships, create societies.
[01:13:14.890] - David
And I think, again, and Caullen mentions all the time that a certain few have grabbed it and moved it in a way to benefit them, but that's not how the world is. I say all the time, why the fuck am I paying for food? Why am I paying for water? Why is my shit being poisoned? That's another tunnel, I'm not trying to take us there. But I do think in all of this, and removing ourselves from this individualistic mindset and kinda taking us to this spiritual level. I do think, you're naming things CA, with your psychedelic experiences.
[01:13:45.530] - David
Caullen, I don't know if we have time for it today, but I'd love to kinda poke your brain and see what psychedelic experiences you've had, if any. Because I've had some, but they're not... I don't know, they weren't like that. They were what you're naming, CA. To me, I took acid with my boy and we stayed up, and then it was during the World Cup. Japan lost, it was a different acid trip, I guess, I didn't learn- I learned the things you're talking about through my own life. And so I think it's, again, I go back to that. But I'm not discrediting anything that's being said, I'm just making sure that there's an understanding there. Because if we were all in Palestine right now, again, it would be very, very different of an episode that we'd be having. And so I don't know, this whole idea of privilege and responsibility, it's kinda sitting in my mind right now.
[01:14:30.870] - CA
And yet at the same time, people who experience the worst of humanity come out of that and say like, all we can do is help each other interpersonally every day. Small, small, small, small, small, small. You know, it's just- you build that up enough, then you change the world. And that's kinda the point I think we're all making, is the weird axiom of like, how do you eat an elephant? Bite by bite. You don't eat the whole thing at once.
[01:15:04.820] - Caullen
I got a big mouth, I don't know.
[01:15:08.620] - CA
You know, but... I mean, first of all, who the fuck am I to say that? Okay. Because I'm not in a completely war torn, demolished country where there used to be olive gardens and beaches and beauty and now is fucking rubble. I'm not there. And yet at the same time, we see historical figures who go through that. It's the only reason I can even think this thought is because Nelson Mandela survived through prison for how many years to become the leader of his country and get through apartheid. Are things completely cured? No, of course not. The horror of the world persists, and yet, so do we.
[01:15:54.250] - CA
What do we do with that paradox? It is a fucking paradox to be alive, to be a human being. And to be, even, on this planet because we're killing all the other species. Let's talk about the genocide of the planet. How many species have died because of us? How did they fight? How did they resist? We have to reconcile with paradoxes that just cannot be reconciled. They cannot be solved. They cannot be solved. And it's the effort in solving them which actually continues them, which in itself is a paradox. I'm talking as if I have- I don't have answers. I just have thoughts to these things. And I have experiences that have kinda, embodied what has always been an intellectual process for me.
[01:16:40.220] - CA
But now... I mean, after you die and decompose and recompose for centuries, in your mind, it kinda changes your perspective of things. To be the cliche guy. I am the cliche guy who's like, I did acid, it changed my life. It's true. But the same thing happens for near death experiences, the same thing happens for people who exist through war torn times and famine and whatever the fuck it is, genocide. We live in a realm, and for whatever reason, the powers that be have continued to do the things that they do to keep the realm the way that it is. I mean, to put it into weird terms, but that's kinda what's happening.
[01:17:22.560] - David
We started this episode being like, we're literally halfway through the year. You're probably a third through this three year journey, you know what I'm saying, that you'll be taking. And while Soapbox is on the mission to do its thing, and so, I don't know. I'd like to kinda go around and see what are we- with understanding the world as we know it. We're understanding, again, we named the election just because it's July and the election is in November and that's gonna be a very critical, crucial thing.
[01:17:49.630] - Caullen
Hey, David, is it the most important election of our lives?
[01:17:53.180] - David
So far.
[01:17:53.544] - Caullen
Are you an MSNBC commercial right now?
[01:17:55.780] - CA
He says with a smile on his face.
[01:17:57.920] - David
Not that, but it's like.. I think, again, going back to this thing of being hopeless. I think the elections are, right now, a big place where a lot of people are feeling hopeless. I'm excited to kinda go around and maybe talk about, we're halfway through the year, we're seeing all these things taking place in our country, we're all Americans here. Whether that's the election or the Supreme Court completely deregulating what took years to build. In terms of protecting for ourselves, protection for small business; but then giving power to corporations, I'm curious to hear what is one thing that y'all are using or what is one thing that is keeping y'all hopeful so that the world doesn't take care of business before we do?
[01:18:41.750] - CA
Aw man, y'all should go first. Well, maybe I should go first so you can bring it up from what I'm about to say. Is that okay? Have you guys seen Civil War yet?
[01:18:52.072] - Caullen
Ahh, no....
[01:18:52.630] - David
No, I've heard enough things about it. That's the girl from-
[01:18:55.850] - Caullen
Taylor enjoys it, which I appreciate. I mean, I obviously honor his opinion.
[01:18:58.510] - David
Peter Parker's girlfriend's in it, no?
[01:19:00.470] - CA
Oh!
[01:19:01.110] - Caullen
Damn, she can't have her own identity, David?
[01:19:03.230] - CA
Yes. Kirsten Dunst.
[01:19:06.110] - David
I'm just being dumb, yeah.
[01:19:06.690] - CA
Yeah, yeah. Yes. Here's what I'm hopeful about, alright? I saw that movie, which isn't really about politics, it's about American journalism being- glorifying deaf, essentially, is what it is. However, this was one of the few, if not- I mean, for me- the only movie that I've seen that really thinks about a speculative war, civil war, that doesn't end in fucking pure annihilation of everything. So what I mean by that is no nuclear bombs are used. The conflict was contained to, let's say, 50% Washington DC, and then another 50% strewn throughout particular military strongholds throughout the US. The rest of the country is left alone.
[01:20:03.730] - CA
This is an interesting thing to see on screen, because both of these candidates are complete shit, in my opinion. I think you guys also agree. These candidates are awful because they are part of the machine, and the machine is blah, blah, blah. We all know these things. It's a self defeatist mechanism because it doesn't see how what it's doing is actually killing itself too. Eventually, it's not without- well, I don't have a lot of doubt that at one point, whether in our lifetimes or the ones directly preceding ours, someone is going to start some shit and there will be some civil conflict on this continent. That is not a stretch of the imagination.
[01:20:52.600] - CA
What is, is the way that Alex Garland played out his vision of such a conflict in that- and this is to answer your, "what is your hopefulness?" My hope is that things can change even in military conflict, even in civil war conflict in this country in particular, in such a way that doesn't leave everything in complete devastation. I do believe that is possible. It's kinda like, Doctor Strange threading the needle type of situation. But that movie kinda gave me hope in a really weird way of like, oh, maybe everything's not going to be completely blown up, maybe that is a possibility. While at the same time, always worrying about nuclear weapons. So yeah, that's my hope. Maybe a little civil war, just a little one, would be worth thinking about how that would take place and really planning that out. Because... Weapons are weapons, but I don't know... That that seems like a hopeful place for me amidst the chaos.
[01:22:19.890] - Caullen
Short answer is I don't know. The longer answer is, I see a lot of what you're saying, CA. I have not seen that movie, but I think I do actually really understand what you're saying. And I think about the moments and the times before it gets to what the movie showed, I guess. And- I don't know, I'm just full of myself or full of Soapbox, but it's like, I think about our work. I think about- and I think about... There's a school of thought that's like, things have to get so bad in the context of the socio-political realm, that you kinda used beautifully throughout this conversation, of wherever it is in order for revolution to happen. And I think that has happened in history for sure. And also it hasn't, it's gotten not close to dire chaos. People are like, no this is fucked up, and they fire back in really strong ways.
[01:23:20.600] - Caullen
Yeah, I can think of a couple examples: Hong Kong, France, Bolivia a week ago, and recent context that show that things got really bad, things got kinda bad. Like, one bad bill and people were like, in the streets. Whereas it's not really happened here. But I think about the moments the past several years for this country and for us, we've been experiencing: Covid, Trump, uprisings, Dobbs decision, Palestine, Khuza'a now, the upcoming election, whatever. And then even the radical- at least for me, the radicalizing moment or just big changing moments for our society growing up. For me, 9/11, I was ten when that happened. Hurricane Katrina, I was like 13 or 14. And especially being a young Black boy seeing that happen, seeing the coverage of it and stuff, made me think about the world differently.
[01:24:15.940] - Caullen
Thinking about these moments, these watershed moments, as David knows how I kinda classify them, and what- if we're saying that we believe that things only change because of mass consciousness shift; but also just collective struggle and lots of people doing great, huge, enormous things, but also lots of just doing little things in service of the same common goal or same common good in different ways. If you believe that's how things have ever changed and ever will change, then what I'm hopeful is that some of these flashpoint or watershed moments, that folks that understand this power of storytelling... And even if don't understand it, but just consume it in a way that allows themselves to be moved, and action to take place even without realizing why. Before these moments get so bad, we can put our minds together to solve them within ourselves and within the world in radical ways.
[01:25:22.300] - Caullen
In ways that were previously seen as not popular or not appropriate. Or pushing back on respectability politics and how we talk about things even, that- this is just Caullen talking, but taking up arms, doing something that will be considered violent by the oppressive class is more understood by the mass amount of people that we can do that in a way that- at least threaten that in a way. Maybe not getting to the point of civil war, but threaten that in a way where it moves power and it shifts power and that sustains itself.
[01:25:52.480] - Caullen
We've seen glimmers of that- uprisings is a good example of that shifting- or at least shifting what we think was power, but that shifting back in a lot of ways. I think a lot of those things- lessons we learned from the uprisings, both organizing wise and framing wise, I think has sustained itself. I think that's maybe not popular. I think we've seen a lot of revanchism, a lot of coming back from that and investing in carceral institutions. But I think we can point to those things now and say, hey, where were you in 2020? You said this and you did this, I think you still believe that, but the moment- the design is sexy now, but this is still happening in a broad way.
[01:26:22.710] - Caullen
There have been Cop Cities everywhere, and that's terrifying to me. I don't have hope in seeing that, but I do have some semblance of hope in that like, we were all in this moment together. And I know deep down there's something there that we can kinda keep clawing at and getting at. And I have hope in story- I have hope in story leading liberation, I guess to be very short. Not that that means it's easy by any means, but I think that's the only thing I can kinda say I have hope in. It's only thing I've seen or read or understood to change things.
[01:26:55.430] - David
Low key, this is one of those moments where y'alls answer didn't change my answer. *laughing*. No, no, man. I mean, and I appreciate y'all. I mean, I think this has been a hell of a conversation. Shout out to all of our listeners who have stayed with and/or- probably like I will when I'm listening back- have my google open, just be googling all these motherfuckers.
[01:27:13.740] - David
But I mean, I think to kinda leave it on my end, I think to me, us being able to be here is what gives me hope. Our being alive, in itself, is part of the revolution. Cause 100 years ago, motherfuckers see someone like Caullen, they'd probably mad as hell. Caullen in a world 100 years ago would not have been allowed to exist. And yet my man's out here doing what he's doing, and his existence is revolutionary. Your self-identity in terms of how you're- like, you would have been like, yo, like this... Why is this motherfucker in your family? Why is this- like you wouldn't- there would be different, different things that you would have been going through. And yet your existence now, being mixed, dealing with your things, is revolutionary. You're a part of that.
[01:28:04.960] - David
Me and my identity and how we come in as a Chicano- I'm very proud when we say we're first generation Chicano. Because, again, this goes back to this claiming, and so, therefore, that's what makes me hopeful in terms of us being here, is part of that. And that's what gives me hope, because if we've been able to, as you're going through your metamorphosis, Caullen and I have gone through ours, our listeners have gone through theirs, that's the hope. Because if it wasn't it, you would have stopped evolving. And it's the hope that we all continue to evolve like we have been evolving. Like, I myself have been evolving. That's what keeps me hopeful. That's what keeps me hopeful.
[01:28:45.400] - David
And that's the goal that we continue to do so. With each other, in terms of our relationship with each other. And allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, allowing ourselves to understand when it's our ego speaking, when it's our narcissism speaking, but when it's our soul speaking as well. When it's our intellect speaking as well, and allowing space for that with one another. That's what gives me hope.
[01:29:05.390] - CA
That's what our ancestors wanted. Us to be happy.
[01:29:08.730] - David
That's why we here. That's why we're here. We're pissing somebody off. That's what makes me hopeful. *laughing* And so with that, CA-
[01:29:17.420] - CA
It's true.
[01:29:18.100] - David
Yeah, yeah, yeah. With that, CA, though, I do want to give you last words. Any shout outs, any way people can get connected or what to expect with the work that you're doing in this journey of yours?
[01:29:26.170] - CA
Hmm. I mean you can follow a LATTO Thought, a LATTO Thought on Instagram. "L-a-t-t-o, thought". Look that up and you can follow there. Not a lot happens there these days. But I will be- I promise I am thinking about and will release something in the coming year. I teased it last year prematurely, but it is what it is. And then you can follow me, I guess. I have random musings and fun content on Instagram if I'm still there.
[01:30:00.030] - Caullen
He's a good follow. He's a good follow.
[01:30:01.510] - CA
Oh, thanks. Thanks. We'll see how long we're there for. I mean Meta is doing what Meta does. But it's @_CADavis. I have links on there to all my portfolio and stuff. You can see my films and keep up with the music that I'm trying to make, too, and just stuff like that. I'm just kinda a random guy at the moment. But let's see what else? Shout outs. I mean, I shout out you two and Kiera for putting up with talking to me about nonsense for an hour or two.
[01:30:31.790] - CA
No, really, though, for real, holding space is really important, and you guys do a lot of that. And I just want to acknowledge everyone in this room for putting up with that process and listening to people. And then also the listeners, too, for listening to all of this. If you didn't stop at the points that sounded dumb, which I'm sure there were a few of what I said, and listened all the way through, thank you. I hope you gained something from it, even if it's a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny thing. Yeah. That's about it.
[01:31:05.920] - Caullen
Yeah!
[01:31:07.200] - David
I love it. And with that, from Bourbon 'n BrownTown, as always, stay Black, stay Brown, stay queer.
[01:31:12.700] - Caullen
Stay tuned. Stay turnt.
[01:31:14.210] - David
We'll see you for the next one.
OUTRO
Music Schism by TOOL from the movie's soundtrack