Alma Martyr

Alma Martyr Final Episode (with Pat Flynn)Recorded @ Harvard Medical Center 12/27/20Discussion: Louis Pasteur, AN at 242 main. 4/19/02. Bernie, Amelie & AxCx, Where are the Tough Guys Moshing?, Jumanji, Dartmouth vs. Woodward, & New England French, The Crucible, Herpetology, CHNOPS, Toxinology & Fish eating snails, Memes vs. Genes,  digital revolution, Anthropocene, & human things, smallest unit of life, & differentiation, stem cells, Viruses, Central dogma of biology, Proteins, & biomolecules, LUCA, Influenza & animal domestication, origins of Covid, Preventing pandemics, wildlife trafficking, & rhinos, Borneo, Sumatran Rhino,  1918, Imagine, POPULATION,MARXISM, lajoie et al, Antibodies, Vaccines, Stop wildlife trafficking.

Amy Michael Professor in the Anthropology at the University of New Hampshire PhD in Biological Anthropology at Michigan State. Recorded July 11th, 2020 at Moseley Woods, MAAttending a religious high school in Morton Illinois. Seeing Sick of it All in Peoria when you were 15 and having your mind blown. Booking Hatebreed, One King Down, and Kill Your Idols in Peoria.Applying to the University of Iowa in 2001. Declaring a sociology major blindly. Almost failing out your first few years until taking an intro Anthropology course and finding your passion. Australopithecines, race/ancestry, and having your mind blown at 19. Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) and Homo Sapiens existing at the same time in Europe about ~35000 years ago. Amy has a tattoo of Shanidar 1. Demonstration of neanderthal cave art, intentional burying, and community care.  The first peoples of Europe. The out of Africa vs. Multi-regionalism hypothesesMonte Verde site in Chile: Provided evidence showing that the human settlement of the Americas pre-dates the  Clovis culture by roughly 1000 years.Mayans had no beasts of burden, all labor done by hand using stone toolsLiving in Iowa City 2001-2006: Seeing My Pet Robot morph into Modern Life Is War,  Slipknot & Mudvayne. Challenging dogma and why that feels punk. Graduating with a BA in Anthropology, getting into forensics to challenge injustice. Using Outrage as motivation. Forensic anthropologists: Hard tissue analysis: Bones. Attending Michigan State for Forensic Anthropology Dissertation: dental microstructures in Mayan remains buried in different caves. Forensic odontologyOsteology and Iconography and lack of evidence for both in Mayan Sacrifices Discovery ancient burials in Belize and the issues of working with indigenous peoples remains. Imposter syndrome in Graduate school Lack of meritocracy in Job hunting and Professor jobs in the age of Covid. Confrontation in the classroom and 2020 teachable momentsHelping to solve a 106 year old Cold Case with the DNA Doe Project, The oldest homicide case solved through forensic genealogy. Video interview on the news.  Putrefaction and using Dermestidae beetles to strip flesh

Steve Von Til (Primary School Teacher, Poet, Guitarist of Neurosis) B.A. Sociology. San Jose State 1993. Recorded June 27, 2020. Steve in Idaho. Dan in Boston. -Atheist parents enrolled young Steve in a catholic high school in east San Jose. -Trading demo tapes in 1983.-Being lent a 4 track by your high school english teacher. -Mark Twain and Jack London and walking on hot coals. -The American Indian Movement, The Black Panther Party, and SDS. -Attending San Jose state in 1987. Joined Neurosis in 1989-Graduating in 1993, taking every other semester off for tour. -Recording Neurosis demos for The Word as Law in the electro recording lab at college. -Finding Throbbing gristle and Coil-The sound section at the college library and its importance for Neurosis. The composers Harry Partch and Philip Glass’ Koyaanisqatsi, -The poets: William Blake and Seamus Heaney-Carl Jung, Primal Therapy and The Primal Scream-Joseph Cambell -The rare book section, Nordic Mythology, and Runic Inscriptions -Children’s literacy, the Prison industrial complex. and wanting to teach. -California Class Size Reduction and rare male teachers in the primary grades. -Teaching all subjects at the 4th grade level, in CA and ID. -Decision to stop touring full time during Times of Grace -From the Mission to Idaho. The desire to see real nature-William Burroughs and Brion GysinA reading of “VI Untitled” From Harvestman: 23 Untitled Poems and Collected Lyrics. Accompanying album:  No wilderness deep enough. 

Kurt Ballou (Engineer: music / biomedical)Bachelors in Engineering, Boston University 1997. Record on March 16, 2020At GodCity Studios in Salem MAhttps://www.isolatecreate.com/Playing Sax at Andover High School marching band. Wanting to be involved in the creation of things. "White Boy Rap attack."“I knew that basic principle of life is: Start out by imitating something you like, and What you see is what you get.”-V.  ValeStarting college at Boston University in 1992 and having a full stack in your dorm room. Changing majors from electrical engineering to aerospace engineering.Writing The Saddest Day in your dorm room alone out of frustration and procrastination.Taking a semester off and dropping classes. Boston Scientific: making a pressure valve for stent deployment. College is not so much about learning the material, as it is about demonstrating that you have the ability to learn the material. Most research and development ends in failure. Moral conflicts with animal testing while working as a biomedical engineer. Wanting to learn to record because of the desire to want micromanage converge’s sound. Eventually an apprenticeship under Brian Mcternan. Recording Fit For Abuse ‎– Mindless Violence EP in 1996 with Matt KellyRecording Until your Heart Stops in 1998. Not trusting yourself (yet) to do a record on your own. Recording When forever comes crashing with Steve Austin in 1998. The making of Jane Doe with Mathew Ellard. Berklee College of Music talk. The importance of being “Peer Reviewed” in music writing and recording. Potentially recording Jane Doe with Steve Albani. Analog versus Digital Sound recording and Audiophile nerds. Jake Bannon’s rank your records, and the importance of ‘Axe to Fall'Tone searching with effects and always finding new ways to be creative with gear swapping over the years.Being discouraged by electronic theory but being pulled into the study by making your own guitars.Making the Brutalist Jr. PCBs into business cards based upon The Providence Stampede pedal and the birth of God city instruments 

Sean “Bombs” Mckendry, JDGuitarist of Shipwreck AD / LawyerRecorded February 28th, 2020 in Cambridge MAWhat we talk about: Terror, Ramallah’s first show (with Jake Bannon), Embrace Today, and Guns Up! April 15, 2003 was the most terrifying show I’ve ever been to. Starting to play guitar in 7th grade Jerry CantrellJ.D.s, Cleveland hardcore, and the department of History at Emmanuel College. Starting law school in the summer of 2007 and unfortunately not being able to do Have Heart’s last tour. No majors or focus in Law School, but practicing Civil Litigation Criminal law has more time in court than civil litigation, often requires you to “think on your feet” Legals systems of the worldCommon Law (British empire) Civil Law (Roman / Napoleonic)Religious lawPrecedentNegligence (duty, breach, damages, causation)The similarities between lawyers and historians. Oddball cases and persuasive authority Statute (a law statement) When would you not have a Jury? Equitable RemedyQ: What is the Bar exam? A: two days of hellFrank AbagnaleFact PatternIssue SpottingClerkships torts, contracts, and property lawNeed a lawyer? Find someone you know, remember most cases don’t go to trial. 

Sunny Singh of Hate5Six.comRecorded December 29th, 2019 at Hate5six Headquarters in South Philadelphia, PA. What we talk about: Songs by RATM that Sunny will actually skip. Rage as a gateway band and the legacy of Bulls on Parade. Grew up in Jersey, but Philly is the home city. High school, Native American Mascots, and causing fights. The early 2000s allure of the new internet, internet relay chat, and the desire to archive music. Learning C++, Java, and how to code competitively. Being rejected from MIT and having to attend Haverford College. Eventually realizing its not the school that matters, its what you do with your education. Darren Aronofsky’s ‘Pi’The OCD satisfaction of studying math and absolutes. Quantum, the misunderstanding of the word, and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Wanting absolutes but in Nature there are no absolutes. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braidby Douglas Hofstadter 1979 Gödel’s incompleteness theoremsAlan Turning and The Halting Problem Fermat’s last theorem Riemann HypothesisNumber TheoryFactorization Natural Language ProcessingSentiment analysisMachine Learning Markov model (hidden) N gram Starting to film in 2001, 2006  comes Youtube, the Canon GLT 2 and the startup of Hate5Six. Being rejected from 13 math PhD programs. Computer Science Masters from UPENN, trying to be recruited by the NSA, 2011-2015 in Boston. Predictive fertility tracking programming and the perils of being a contractor. Word2vecRandom Walk SAGE, a program wrote by Sunny, with input Data from Last.fm Play counts and possibly Discogs Collaborative filtering Hate5six and GDPR complianceDeep walk Knowledge is the sum of all parts. Hate5six goes full time because of people like you: https://www.patreon.com/hate5six2019 a huge year for Hate5six: Two Japan tours, ETID home for the holidays, and of course: Have Heart ReunionsReleasing 700 videos a year. Hate5six is a large digital footprint and having too much internet.racists and narcissists = NARACISTS All that matters is view count, that Peloton Ad

Eating Vegan Tacos with the Darkest Cowboy Alma Martyr Thanksgiving Special 2019. Featuring Eric Wagner Guitarist of Gatecreeper, and a 2019 modern day Cowboy. Recorded Wednesday November 13th at Taco Party in Somerville MA. Born and Raised in Tucson, AZ Being an Undeclared Major at University of Arizona until taking an “Arizona Plant Life” class by a rangeland manager. Math was scary, dyslexia Getting a Scholarship to go to Toronto, and scamming credits. What is a Rangeland Manager? It is ecology in areas where there is generally cattle ranching. How many cows can you keep in a certain area with out completely ruining the environment? Comes from Rangeland research. Burning the Amazon for cattle. Feedlot operations vs. the Way of Rancher. The wettest desert in the world: the Sonoran desert, yet Arizona is running out of water. The Central Arizona Project and how water no longer flows to Mexico Being a federal contractor, Yellow-billed cuckoos, and being out in the middle of nowhere. Stepping on rattlesnakes and being shot at on the Hopi Indian reservation. How borderland politics are dictated in Washington by people who know nothing of what it is like to live in the southwest. Finding bodies and drugs along the borderland, and the horrors of human trafficking. Thermal sensing lasers in the Obama era and how it to circumvent it with rock piles. Wild horses of Arizona starving to death because of Seabiscuit. Incorporating your environment into your musical sound: The Desert Muse. Telling the seasons by shadows and the Tucson Gem Show. Writing riffs by watching Kamikaze WWII videos. Gin Blossoms are the greatest band from Arizona not mentioned in this podcast. Scott Maynard and the haunted hotel in Jerome Arizona and the bad new TOOL record. Gatecreeper touring everyone in 2019 and 2020, go see them.

Evan Engisch SPACE XRecorded July 16th, 2019 in Los Angeles, CAThe first day at Space X and the RamonesVermont, Problem Child, and Stay Home Music and Astronauts and Jazz Mechanical engineering from RPI. Hayabusa2, the Japanese led team lands on the Ryugu asteroid and collects sampleshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayabusa2https://phys.org/news/2019-07-japan-hayabusa2-probe-touchdown-asteroid.htmlPlanetary resources and astro-mining for water Designing a hybrid race car from scratch in high school and knowing the sum all parts Rocket science, neurosurgery, and astrophysics, all complicated but not difficult NASA is a partner, not a competitor. Space X in 2002, NASA space shuttle program stopped in 2011. Demand is needed. The current field of space travel. The Soyuz rocket family out of Russia. Launched from Kazakhstan. Currently the only means for crewed space flights in the World since the space shuttle program stopped in 2011. Heavily used in the ISS program. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_(rocket_family)Lance Bass from N’Sync spent months training with the Russian Space Agency to go to the ISS, but ultimately did not go to outer space in the endhttps://www.businessinsider.com/nsync-lance-bass-on-space-travel-dream-2016-12Why Space X is different: starting from scratch. Elon Musk and making a profit. The Falcon 9 launched on Oct. 8th 2018, LA thought it was Aliens. Recycling rocketshttps://nypost.com/2017/12/16/spacex-launches-recycled-rocket-for-first-time/Space X Dragon and the future of a crew capsule, probably soon. “It is inevitable that humans will become multi-planetary species” The fossil fuel industry, rocket combustion, and methane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_(rocket_engine_family)Why Space X is in LA? Launch Pad 39A: Apollo Mission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_Space_Center_Launch_Complex_39#Launch_Pad_39AWhy are launches at Cape Canaveral? In Orbital Mechanics, you want to be as close to the equator as possible. Punk confidence and DIY ethics. The ethics of populating Mars and growing green on red planethttps://areomagazine.com/2018/07/02/life-on-mars-the-ethical-implications-of-colonizing-the-red-planet/The Apollo programs not only expanded our understanding of science and technology in space travel, but also greatly expanded our collective human consciousness of what is feasibly possible. Who will get to Mars first ?The punk DIY ethos: you want something done you do it yourself.You want to go to space? you build the rocket. 

Alfred Brown IV http://www.alfredbrowniv.com/https://www.instagram.com/alfredbrowniv/MFA Columbia, BFA Princeton, PhD USC (?)Lead Singer of DANGERSFiction writer, photographer, teacher, gym and soccer coach, and Recorded July 15th, 2019 at Gate 14 in El Segundo, CA A renaissance man…or a Jack of all trades…Alfred does not sleep. Ninja Turtles Pizza has marshmallows. Being a wandering nomad around all the beach cities of California as child. How a competitive edge and doting grandmother drove Al’s scholastic endeavors. Al went to Mira Costa High school: Alma Mater to Keith Morris, Bill Stevenson, and Greg Ginn of Black Flag; Jim Lindberg of Pennywise, and Robert Hecker of Red Kross, and members of 98 mute. Theologian records. Sneaking in to see RATM during the battle of Los Angeles tour. Despite academic accolades, 18 year old Al only wanted to play music and had no interest in going to college…yet eventually gets into Princeton for English, Einstein’s classroom, Cornel West, and Joyce Carol Oates at Princeton…and the proximity to Philadelphia and New York City with out needing a car. 9/11 as the first day of college. Dangers is a California band, but started at Princeton with “Tim” the bass player.The Miracle Mile. Never start a band on the east coast, never date on the east coast, never live on the east coast; California calls you back. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/09/nyregion/yale-black-student-nap.htmlWrote a book at 22 for a dissertation at: “The end of me is the beginning of You” Books have been written, but Al hasn’t published full books. Princeton: 2001-2005.In 2002, Al starts Sink With Cali with a grant from Princeton. Sink with Cali, Sound and Fury fest, and the Have Heart “Smoke with Cali” T-shirt. From the Beach, not downtown LA. 2005, enter graduate school at Columbia for a MFA in Fiction. Jonathan Safran Foer and being $200,000 in debt. Photography electives and Jocelyn Lee https://www.jocelynleestudio.com/Communication transcends every art “The writer is one who, embarking upon a task, does not know what to do.” -Donald Barthelmehttps://www.brainpickings.org/2014/04/07/donald-barthelme-not-knowing/Learning by Failure and treating negative outcomes as data. HOMELESShttp://www.alfredbrowniv.com/home-less-blogLA vs. NYC / BEST COAST vs. BEAST COASTWHAT DO YOU DO? Prius, Toe Shoes, and shopping at Whole Foods. “The Problem with Centaurs”- Short story collection for dissertation fulfillment at Columbia. Moves back to LA, gets involved with special needs, and “The grapes of wraith.” 2013: started a PhD in creative writing at USCPursuing your own desires, encouraging your own curiosity, and our societal inability to empathize.  money, not living comfortably, and the privilege of time. Good use of emojis and wanting to be a writer. songs you like, songs you don’tcancer and laughter and owning up to your mistakes and the future of dangers the most dangerous think you have is your mind and the pale blue dot. The worst teachers are the ones that don’t listen. 

Dan GonyeaPhotographer, Future-Breed, XBOX programer. Recorded July 12, 2019 in Los Angeles, CA. What we talk about: Dan Gonyea is mainly a live concert photography. Works at Xbox as a software developer. Grew up in small town Goshen, NH. Started shooting photographs at 15. Sneaking in cameras to warped tour.The story behind the name “Future-Breed,” circa 2004. 2006: Start at North Eastern: Double Major in Multimedia Studies and Computer Sciences.                                                  Became a ‘game engineer’ for XBOX. XBOX is an acronym. Dan is a code fixer and fluent in 10 programming languages. A time of pre-internet, Facebook written in Java, and different code ‘languages.’ Object oriented coding: Java, C++, great for gaming. Functional language space: mimics lambda calculus (lisp). Computers run on 0,1 (i.e. True/False), but there are “translators” for these computer languages to explain to the computer how to run a game….but the faster the translator, the more you can do. Assembly code = Job Security Vice News: the Future of Work. The future is automated. What humans and robots see as ‘challenging’ are often vastly different. Quantum Computing, molecular entanglement, and text messaging. Stingray phone trackers, loss of privacy, and machine learning. Edward Snowden, terabytes of data into data center, and not needing a warrant to store data (only  need a warrant if you USE the data, it’s legal to collect). Bucketing in machine learning is used daily now in our modern era to order everything from drone strikes to target advertising.  Transatlantic communication cables carries the internet across the ocean from the New World to Old World. It has been literally tapped into. Privacy mode on your computer does not mean you aren’t being tract. You are being tract by machine learning constantly. Data scientists are highly sought out in tech. If you can sell someone something with out them knowing that they are being advertised to. Google Glass, constant VR, and personalized ads tailored directly to YOU.  How do you make a video game? Option 1: Craft the story first: make the universe.  Option 2: Start with the program first…then make the story around it, actually more common. You need to mimic physics (light/gravity) to make a game realistic. Takes a lot of work. E-Sports. Why and How? In 2019: More people in the world watch E-sports more than they actually play video games. Twitch tvIn the future, will we be watching computers play each other? Probably not as computers are poor at experimenting and making impulse decisions. It’s hard to program “randomness” “Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected” by Werner Herzog. Solar flares knocking out the internet. What does a “post-internet” world looks like? We need an updated power lines/ infrastructure. Countries that had to rebuilt in the last century have the fastest internet speeds. The richness life is not on the internet. 

Dan Yemin Recorded March 3, 2019 at Dan’s house in West PhiladelphiaIn 1986, Dan Yemen went to college at U. Michigan in Ann Arbor. Laughing Hyena’s was the biggest band in Ann Arbor at the time, no one was interested in playing fast / hardcore at the time in Michigan.Seeing Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Swans, and Dinosaur Jr. at the Blind Pig in Michigan, a very small venue, but would go home to NYC on vacations to go see Gorilla Biscuits and Anthrax. Why U. Michigan?…that seemed “the coolest” at the time. “The best thing that can happen in college is to go to class and get your mind blown.” “Find what you love and let it kill you”- Charles Bukowski Allen Ginsburg and his association with NAMBLA. Can you appreciate the art but not the artist? Marquis de Sade and Roman Polanski. Mein Kampf and should you read your enemy? Conservative punks and feeling like a crazy person in mainstream America. Chappaquiddick vs. ViceBachelors Degree in Psychology, why? Careers can break down into categories: altruism vs. obtaining capital. Rarely they overlap. “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” -Edward Abbey Attractions to Psychology: -Help people. -Work from home. The idea of consciousness, which drives much of psychology, can be a nebulous concept for some. What are the molecular forces that dictate consciousness? Metaphysics? quantum? The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Humans are predictable. Wanting to understand why human’s are so self destructive.Reagan’s and W’s second term re-elections. Liberal elitism and Conservative propaganda. “If you find the rhetoric comforting enough, your critical thinking skills about outcomes go out the window.” Introverted and Extroverted is a grossly misunderstood concept. Bachelor’s degree U. Michigan finished in 1990, moved back to NJ and started Lifetime. Started Graduate School in 1992 at Widener University in Chester PA outside of Philadelphia in PsyD program to be a clinical therapist. The difference between the PhD and PsyD. Psychoanalysis is now considered an antiquated methodology. Being in therapy for five years in grad school while being trained as a therapist. As a therapist you speak colloquially, not scientifically. Vertical vs. Lateral thinking and giant pacific octopi. How do you approach a very complicated problem like a mental health trauma as a diagnostician? Well you become a listener first as a therapist. SSRIs and the placebo effect. “We are afraid of conflict, but always at war...And we no longer feel pain, that’s what the medicine’s for” It’s good to feel pain and prozac nation. You can not shoehorn or typecast people. Depression and forecasting the future. Don’t treat the disease, treat the person. Feeling threat from lower brain function. The Lone Wolf Myth and other American delusions. No one is going to save you…but that does not mean that no one is going to help you. Lifetime broke up in 1998 during Grad School, Kid Dynamite starts. Juggling internships, grad school, studying in the van, and extensive touring.  The cynicism of Paint it Black and reconciling anger. 2001: 33 year old Yemen: Has a stroke, gets diagnosed with an auto immune disease that requires prescription blood thinners, gets a divorce, 9/11 and Iraq….Dan starts a new band…Grief and Fury Cultivating authentic dialogs through therapy. Depression in Hardcore and why you should go to therapy.&n

Blake FarberDirector / Film Maker and Guitarist of Olde Yorke http://blakefarber.com/Recorded 3/20/19 at the Eliot Hotel in Boston, MA in snow storm. Blake had just flew in from Singapore the nigh before, gave a talk the Berkley college of music, and then was just about to fly back to New York. What we talk about: Blake played guitar in Olde York. Played Europe, Japan, all over the states. Always lived in Manhattan. Born and Raised. One of Blake’s first show was Youth Brigade at CBGBs. How the closing of CBGBs marked a demarcation of a changing New York. Is New York the center of the world? Blake has been to 42 countries, his base is New York as the world and the diversity is there. Blake went to LA in 2002-2003. Dropped out of LA. Wrote a film script at 16, guidance counselor told him he would be working at IBM soon…a discouraged Blake left and went to work on movie sets as a gripper and making his own movies with friends in LA. Decided to go back to NYC. That was his “film school.” At age 17, got a fake ID on St. Mark’s place (Punk)…met some older dudes in a bar, started old yorke with his brother on drums.  That led to tour but decided to make music videos to promote his band his tour. From there, networking through hardcore and punk to shoot music videos.  When the DSLR world came out (Digital single-lens reflex camera), the technology allowed for easy travel and to make high quality videos. How did Blake made this life: -Networking / Travel. Invested in trips. -Made a portfolio-“Being cool”…attitude helps -Ingenuity-DIY Ethos. Blake’s two most ‘punk’ things he ever done: -Got fired / kicked out from MTV-Gave a talk / guest lecture at Harvard…Blake is a high school drop out. Go to school / university because you want to, not because you feel like you need to. I Origins, 2014. Movie quote: “To me, the best thing about living like a lab rat is that sometimes, really rare times, you actually discover something.” Directing Beyonce’s “Countdown” music video in 2011. https://youtu.be/2XY3AvVgDnsMTV in Times square and the dentist appointment. Shooting a Kotex commercial in Bangkok on Christmas day.https://vimeo.com/284929001A lot of recent jobs have been in commercials in Asia recently (at least once or twice a year). Ad agency goes to a production company and then they go to a director. How do you shoot on location in Asia when you live in New York? Filming in Singapore airport. Learning photography by trial and error and visual cues. Director cuts vs. what is actually released. Always shoot extra film in digital. A minute long commercial is at least a two to three day shoot with at least three different locations.Directing and filming the Oppo RealMe commercial in New York.https://vimeo.com/29538957…in only two days. How commercials these days are mini movies. Working on directing his first full length film. The curse of being self critical and its importance. Directing an ad campaign for peace for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games https://vimeo.com/163687351…and paying off the main drug lord with cash so that he could shoot in a Favela. City of God and Elite Squad. “Just Do It”

Hayden Menzies https://www.instagram.com/hayden_menzies/Artist and Drummer of the Band METZHolds his BFA with Honors from Concordia University in Montreal.  Recorded February 2, 2019 in Montreal Quebec. What we talk about: Montreal: What a weird city. Canadians are different people. They really are. Hayden was born in Winnipeg and was an army brat. The Phoenix Coyotes in Kingston?Hayden started out as a science nerd, dabbled in Biochemistry…but science is an all or none commitment. Being disillusioned with “the academic treadmill.”  but “pursuing anything art related is probably not going to be lucrative.” Hayden transferred to Montreal Concordia. The Canadian “art nerd school,” but close to Ottawa. METZ the band: a band that talks to each other while playing. Beatles or Stones: are you a studio band person or are you a live band person? The Rolling Stones album: “Blue Lonesome” Hayden: team Beatles, but listens to podcasts more…but listens to music while playing. Hayden the artist: Cartoon charactures, flash sheet aesthetic, no negative space, reminded me of Keith Herring. Was told in college to choose between painting and drawing…Hayden did the opposite and did both.  “rubberhose animation”Large paintings only. At Eternity’s Gate…you can’t fake real. Picasso: It takes a lifetime to cultivate the necessary skills to be able to paint a masterpiece in 30 seconds.  Real masters are student’s first, you must constantly be studying. Rembrandt Hayden has easter eggs hidden in all of his works: three Houses and a Hand. Egon Shiel and Alberto Giacometti : artists who deliberately distort body proportions. Huge influence on Hayden. spaghettificationWilliam Kentridge, Andy Goldsworthy, and Tibetan sand art. The dangers of narcissism: sometimes the end product is not the point. The journey and the creative process is the important part.No one owes you a fucking thing:  That fact is either a motivation or a daunting curse.  FUGAZI Occupation: Musician / Artist…how weird is that to say? Pearl Jam Music Doc choices: Hayden: -Runnin Down a Dream: the 4 hour movie on Tom Petty. -We Jam Econo -Who Is Harry Nilsson?Daniel: -Gimme Danger -Filmage -Crossfire Hurricane -Gimme ShelterMonkey See, so Monkey DoEconomics of painting. 

Patrick FlynnHistory Teacher and Singer of the band Have Heart Fiddlehead Recorded March 14, 2019  Introduction by Luke Kelly and The Action Taken. What we talk about: We are in Pat’s Classroom, he teaches the following courses: AP World History Modern world History Holocaust and Human Behavior. Pat does not consider himself a musician. Why we decided to redo this episode: Have Heart sold out 4 shows around the world in 2 minutes when they first announced their reunion shows this summer.  Interested attendees were bummed that they couldn’t get tickets and wondered why the band didn’t understand that they “were the biggest hardcore band ten years ago.” But there is large difference between memory and actual history.10/17/09 was large show for Have Heart, thousands of attendees. One month later, 9/14/09, Have Heart played to 8 attendees. What is the Historical interpretation of Have Heart versus the actual memory of the band? How would you actually analyze that. The memory of Have Heart may have been skewed versus the history of that band. HH spent a lot of time under the radar. Appreciation of History teaches you that change is interesting. History and Memory are step siblings. Playing in Bogota to thousands of people on a festival stage, but then playing the next day to no one.American Nightmare played 242 Main in Vermont in 2004. That was the only time I saw until 2011. My 16 year old self remembers it being a crazy show, but video footage on youtube reminded me that it wasn’t as insane as I remember. Have Heart was DIY. No management. Never asked Bridge 9 for a single dollar. Bridge 9 actually helped Pat Flynn through his graduated career in terms of finance when he was 28. Pat was literally living and sleeping in his car when he was studying at Columbia / during grad school, but it was all worth it as it helped Pat become a teacher.  Anyone can be a teacher because there is always a need for teachers. However, not anyone can be a good teacher. To be a good teacher takes risk and trial and error. Discussion versus debate. Canadian Peter Seixas and Samuel Weinberg at Stanford changing the game in history education.  There is a process for historical comparison. The skill of determining historical significance and the Haitian revolution of 1791. Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Pastby Sam Wineburg. Primary versus Secondary sources. SSA: Single Source Analysis. PLATO IS PETES CAPTAIN Have Heart last show: “LIVE. LOVE. LEARN.” Was Pat a positive guy? “People who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it…and History repeats.”  Not really true. Apathetic. The holocaust exhibit at the British Imperial war museum. Make eye contact. Time is not the past, it is also the future and it is also now. We need radical actors to initiate change, but radical action can become counter intuitive. Richard Flynn, the new Flynn on the way, and the ten years that have past. The song Bostons. Have Heart is only playing this summer and playing eight shows only. Pat only wants to do music if there is a pro

Dr. Milo Auckerman (Biochemistry / Plant Biology)Recorded Saturday October 27th, 2018. Music by The VenturesWhat we talk about: 1982: The album “Milo goes to College” is released and 19 year old Milo actually starts college at UC San Diego (graduated high school in 1981). The Descendents were still based in LA at that point, Milo was commuting from SD to LA for shows. “Are you a Scientist or are you a Musician?”The vision to go to college for science came from a high school book report on DNA.  The enigma of DNA continues to this day. Science in the 80s: Pre-internet and the pre-genomic revolution. Recombinant technology had not really taken off yet. The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee, 2016Milo the botanist? Not quite…plants were more of just a model system to study developmental biology. No undergrad project, but Milo did work for a biotech for a time practicing his molecular cloning techniques. The Descendents really start to tour in 1985 (the first national tour during Milo’s summer). 1986, Milo graduates and then the band really tours hard from 1986 to 1987. But Milo wanted the PhD…applied while touring to various schools, but ended up going right back to his undergraduate Alma Mater to UCSD to pursue his doctorate. Milo wanted to work on development with a molecular biology standpoint, but the model organism didn’t matter; however, ended up in the lab of Robert Schmidt. Started to study transposons and zein regulation in Maize. Milo’s graduate project: Studying one of the first transcription factorsevery identified in plants. Milo started to characterize this protein structurally and functional. Discovered that a mutant allele that resulted in a single conservative replacement completely abolished DNA binding activity (made a splash ;) 1987-1995… The reign of ALL.  Milo is a scientist. Descendents are on hiatus. 1992: Milo graduates with his PhD in biochemistry from UCSD, but also becomes involved with a lady that would later become his wife. She went to U. Wisconsin for a graduate program, Milo followed her in 1992. The postdoc: scientific purgatory. Milo’s postdoc: went to working on Arabidopsis with Richard M. Amasino at the department of Biochemistry at U. Wisconsin studying flowering time in angiosperms. The mysterious search for “Florigen.”Postdocs can be very frustrating and can result in a lot of false starts and a lot of scientific aggravation. About three years in, Milo is starting to feel like…”Everything Sucks.”1995: Milo had not produced publishable work in his three years at UW. Milo had some songs written as a way vent some of this scientific frustration. ALL was on a break, Milo takes a postdoc “sabbatical,” and and followers of the “all-o-gistics” are treated to “Everything Sucks”  “This place sucks” is about UW. “I haven’t found a single thing to call my own” is about the frustration of wanting and needed an independent, exclusive, scientific research program. Postdoc is a trial by fire. After 7 years, Milo got a single paper on the gene that he came to study at UW. Why not go back to the band? From 1996-1997 Descendents tour extensively on a commercially successful record while Milo takes a break from his postdoc…but the reality is that his salary is just about the same. Milo’s wife goes U. Delaware after finishing her doctorate to become a professor of philosophy there. Milo follows and ends doing a postdoc for a year at U. Penn. Starts knocking on the door of Dupont….ends up in industry chasing flowering time again. Works and creates “GMOs” Genetic engineering: a quicker way to bring about selection.  A new technology that has benefits and also down sides (such a monsanto and the terminator technology). 

Ross Farrar. Singer of the band Ceremony. Also a published author and poet.Recorded. May 18th, 2018 at Syracuse University where Ross is pursuing his studies in the Department of English there.What we talk about: Ross is actually French. We are in Syracuse in NY. Orange Men. Ross the Writer. Article in Nosey about Ranking of Ceremony’s records. Society Verse and the L shaped man books. Ross moved to San Francisco in 2005. Music really got Ross into writing.Why poetry over creative writing? …wasn’t really like that. Was more short fiction at first. Ross applied to Joyce Carol Oates workshop. (I didn’t actually know who that was)Writing lyrics and poems are totally different. Society Verse, published 2010. Scared people ep: really when the poetry started to flow in Ceremony. Direct lyrics. The importance of being concise in writing. The stigma of poetry as being too abstract. “Still nothing moves you” as trying too hard.Is trying too hard a bad thing? Experimentation in the arts is difficult as you can loose your audience. Pollock and Rothko…anyone can paint that…but you didn’t. Andy Warhol as the anti-try hard and the importanceof nuance. “Learn Without” and the importance of being a witness. hallucinogenics and ego death. SEX“If you get the message, hang up the phone”-Alan WattsTake everything in moderation, including moderation. Rohert Park, open head, and the western muse. The spires of Syracuse and hyperboreans. New England, Robert Frost, and “the best way out is always through.” Christina’s world by Andrew Wyeth…strange and nuance at the same time.  Nuance is everything. “When you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it”- B.F. Skinner. Can you recite at least one poem from memory? Dan couldn’tHenry’s Understanding by John Berryman and interrogating what you love. The L shaped man book and how writing lyrics is nearly nothing like writing poems.  Lyrics often don’t stand on their own as poems because poetry is a solitary art and lyrics are often with other musicians. Iggy Pop and 30 words or less. “A poem is never finished, only abandoned”- Paul Valery. Poetry: limiter vs. form. Why the Syracuse writing program? YOU and 4 by 4 structure. Why is “Rollercoaster” a good poem? Why narrative is important in evoking a mood. Ross and Dan don’t like Emily Dickinson. Why does Art need to make sense when Life itself doesn’t make sense? “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”- Theodosius Dobzhansky…not Gould Big Bang. You can see the edge of the universe expanding, but people always want to know what is before that. “Theory” as a concept to a writer and as a concept to a science. A privilege to self destruct as a young man, its danger and beauty. Ross reads his poem: “Good bye forever”