Tattoos, Identity & The Font We Choose to Be

Mary · 0:01
Dylan, do you have a favorite moment from today's podcast?

Dylan · 0:05
Reggie found a lot more cars than I thought of.

Mary · 0:09
That was a fun extended sequence. What was your favorite part, Reggie,

Reggie · 0:13
talking about matchbox and Hot Wheels cars?

Mary · 0:15
Oh, Matchbox and Hot Wheels,

Tim · 0:17
it is Ruthless authenticity. Ooh, I liked hearing all about Reggie's weird lime green cars and everything else. I liked hearing about Dylan's special tattoo.

Mary · 0:30
Dang, you took mine. I liked the new name that Reggie came up with for what many people would call a tramp stamp, but we're rebranding, so listen to find out more long pants that would kill me like no where

Reggie · 1:02
sleep the topic

Tim · 1:05
we haven't even pulled the host I

Reggie · 1:18
said we already pulled our hose. It was Dylan,

Dylan · 1:23
all right. Yeah. Welcome to Age. We had an eventful morning here, and we're just excited to get started. I'm here with Mary, Tim, and Reggie, and I'm Dylan. We're gonna pull a topic, and we're gonna talk about it like we haven't already talked randomly

Tim · 1:40
out of the trash. What if

Reggie · 1:42
it is sleep?

Tim · 1:42
That would be

Dylan · 1:47
hilarious. Okay, a

Tim · 1:51
little novel on

Reggie · 1:52
it. If Dylan thinks it's cool,

Dylan · 1:54
yeah, I'm excited. So it's more of like a phrase I want to like you guys. Then it's like a phrase, yeah. Take me there. So, let's talk about that.

Reggie · 2:04
I'm not good with phrases.

Dylan · 2:05
All right, hold on. That sucks

Tim · 2:08
for you.

Dylan · 2:09
Same cloth, different font.

Reggie · 2:12
Same cloth, different.

Tim · 2:13
Oh, put

Reggie · 2:14
that in there. Mace

Tim · 2:16
killer. I am blank. It

Mary · 2:21
like takes me

Reggie · 2:22
to

Tim · 2:24
the

Mary · 2:26
first, just popped into my head when I read that was, we, I say this all the time, we live in the age of the remix, yeah, like 20,

Tim · 2:37
and if you could see, will we have the same shirt on, so there

Dylan · 2:40
is insert clip, and will

Reggie · 2:43
I didn't get the memo. Oh, I'm sorry.

Mary · 2:47
Yeah, you were busy French for

Reggie · 2:48
washing. Yeah, different font, same cloth, different font.

Mary · 2:54
Explain,

Tim · 2:55
do you know what it means? First, for I know what it means. I just think from, like, same cloth comes from the statement of like someone who they come from the same cloth,

Mary · 3:06
cut from the same cloth, but the same font is an

Tim · 3:08
interesting twist that I don't know what it means,

Reggie · 3:12
no different font,

Dylan · 3:13
different font, the

Reggie · 3:14
same cloth, different font, and what I think of is ultimately that we all share this, you know, synergy between fabric and fashion and life, but we all can also go off and have our own font, our own little thing that's just ours, it's like that we own, so you know, maybe I'm a Helvetica nude kind of guy,

Dylan · 3:42
maybe.

Tim · 3:43
What if you're not a font nerd? But go ahead. I want to hear what you have.

Dylan · 3:46
We said it a lot, and it's like, who's we

Reggie · 3:50
in college?

Dylan · 3:50
We, yeah, in college. Sorry,

Mary · 3:52
she's speaking for all the 20s. It

Dylan · 3:55
was for me. It's more of like, yeah, it was like the same thing, like that, you're cut from the same cloth, like a different font is like an alteration of

Mary · 4:04
it,

Dylan · 4:05
so it's like we're all cut from the same cloth, but today I'm a different font than Mary, and the rest of you guys

Tim · 4:12
like that,

Dylan · 4:12
so it's

Tim · 4:13
a nuance change,

Speaker · 4:14
yeah,

Reggie · 4:15
so it was a little bit about independence, like same

Dylan · 4:18
type, a different font, like that kind of, yeah,

Tim · 4:21
that's the play, right?

Reggie · 4:22
Yeah,

Tim · 4:22
same type, since fine and type are the same thing. It

Mary · 4:27
almost to me sometimes feels like somebody's two peoples or two things, like their purpose in the world is the same, like the things that they value and believe in are the same, and like the way that they move is similar, but the way they express themselves is different.

Dylan · 4:44
Yeah,

Tim · 4:45
but doesn't it drive you crazy that the font of any design font urgent will know this? It's a change only specific people notice.

Mary · 4:55
Yeah, well, logically noticed.

Tim · 4:57
Yeah, that people feel it. Yeah, but most people are like, I don't know what changed. Change, and it's like the font didn't run on their website, you know, like you have one of those issues, and it's whatever the basic font is on their computer, yeah, and they're like, they don't even get the change, but they're like different a little bit, dude. So it's like it's such a nuanced shift. So I wonder if that's playing into this idea, maybe to be a people nerd is like, what different font are we together?

Reggie · 5:23
Yeah,

Mary · 5:23
well, it's interesting font, and like typeface being the analogy, and of course we're the kind of people who can nerd out on that stuff, but I am not really well versed. I didn't come through design school, I don't really have that foundation, but having interacted with a lot of designers, I've come to appreciate the like fine art that is typesetting and like creating type faces, and I'm that person who's like, I can't tell you why, but it feels different now, even like,

Reggie · 5:52
remember that song,

Mary · 5:54
you remember

Tim · 6:00
that was a morning show,

Mary · 6:06
but the idea that, like, even to I can tell you serif or sans serif.

Reggie · 6:12
Yeah,

Mary · 6:12
I'm really proud of that. I know that lingo, but yeah, you two serif fonts couldn't tell you why one feels better than the other, couldn't tell you what's more readable, but it does make a huge difference. I feel like that's one of the things, there's like a threshold when I'm like, oh, I shouldn't be the one designing this, I should hand this to somebody, and one of the rules is like, I need like a sexy type system, I'm not your guy. I

Reggie · 6:37
think if you know, if you understand the anatomy of type, it kind of helps you understand why the little micro variants between them stand out, and like even if they're subtle, you start to be more aware of them. Is

Tim · 6:51
that how you tell the different font in people? Their anatomy, yeah, your anatomy, they got some sans-serif food, serif feed to come out,

Mary · 7:05
so that he couldn't read, he couldn't get his shoes,

Tim · 7:08
not that I couldn't, I felt myself not being able to reach them, I can reach

Reggie · 7:16
into that episode the other day, that was cracking up,

Mary · 7:21
watching and listening to this footage back is so humbling. It's like we don't know what the hell we're talking about.

Tim · 7:27
It's funny you bring that up, because I was driving in and I was like, how's it gonna be? Like, you know, you're thinking about it as you're driving in, and I was like, I'm not gonna talk as much

Mary · 7:37
too, because

Tim · 7:37
I don't let Dylan ever talk.

Mary · 7:39
Yeah, it's

Tim · 7:40
not something I do intentionally.

Reggie · 7:41
I think Dylan is the host, she should just talk this whole time.

Mary · 7:46
Dylan, go ahead. I just

Tim · 7:48
don't want that the generation to think that the old guys just talked over everyone.

Reggie · 7:55
That's what happens, because that's that's what we do.

Tim · 7:58
I know that's what

Dylan · 7:59
it's funny.

Tim · 8:00
It's accidental.

Reggie · 8:01
Now I couldn't have listened to the episode, because that's that one hadn't come out. Yeah, and we were having a conversation about it the other day, but I keep

Mary · 8:08
bringing it up. It's iconic,

Tim · 8:11
so I can't

Mary · 8:17
do this because then they'll see the back of my head, but I'm looking at you really hard,

Reggie · 8:20
and there is no back to her head, she just.. it's open, and that's how she gets her data chips in there.

Mary · 8:27
I just don't know anything about what's happening back there, and I'm not confident.

Reggie · 8:33
Just do like I do, shave it, and there's no mystery.

Mary · 8:36
I'm so close, Reggie. You don't even know the buzz cut is a different

Tim · 8:42
font every time you cut

Mary · 8:43
it, dude.

Reggie · 8:45
Oh, yeah.

Mary · 8:45
Can we.. let's not talk about the hair, it's so important. It's such

Reggie · 8:49
ad lib. It's kind of like ad lib. Oh, it's

Mary · 8:52
absolutely ad lib.

Reggie · 8:53
Yeah, for

Dylan · 8:54
sure.

Reggie · 8:54
I like

Mary · 8:54
it. I, my hair is such a.. I've decided I can't cut it all off because red hair is very memorable, and in fact, people don't recognize me when I like change my hair too significantly.

Reggie · 9:05
Mohawk, you're gonna do Mary Mohawk. We could call you Mohawk Mary. Yes,

Mary · 9:13
a lot of nicknames in my life.

Reggie · 9:14
What kind of type

Dylan · 9:18
would Mohawk Mary be?

Reggie · 9:21
That's interesting

Tim · 9:23
type standard, like when people look at that

Reggie · 9:26
fiery red mohan. My family, when I got my

Mary · 9:29
septum pierced, they were like nobody was like, I mean, my dad kind of shook his finger at me a little bit. Everybody's fine with it, but they're like that's edgy, that's really radical. I'm the one who went off to, like, a liberal arts school, and wait till you

Reggie · 9:44
see my tattoos.

Mary · 9:46
And, weirdly, I don't have any. Will, and I have talked about this, like, I feel like somebody who would have tattoos, but I'm not.

Reggie · 9:53
We had a whole conversation last night about tattoos.

Mary · 9:57
Does he have tattoos?

Reggie · 9:58
No, he does not. Oh. And we were all just saying how we don't really quite

Dylan · 10:03
really,

Tim · 10:05
I

Dylan · 10:06
used to have one in high school, it was on my bottom lip, but now whoa, I used

Reggie · 10:12
to

Dylan · 10:13
have a tattoo on my bottom lip, fun fact, my mom hasn't said

Mary · 10:20
Devin Devon,

Dylan · 10:20
it said hi with a smiley face on it.

Reggie · 10:25
Wait,

Dylan · 10:26
inside

Reggie · 10:28
it away,

Dylan · 10:31
because I was, what,

Reggie · 10:33
one of those like little sticker tattoos.

Dylan · 10:38
It was, I was 16. What did your mom have to sign for you to get it? Six years ago,

Reggie · 10:45
your mom just got even cooler, as if that was even possible. If

Tim · 10:51
that makes a mom cool to let their child get a tattoo in their lip. The reality, though, is

Reggie · 10:58
completely hidden, so it wouldn't affect her ability to get work or anything, like

Dylan · 11:04
the reason I haven't locked down on a lot of tattoos is because, like, style changes, and, like, like it keeps going, still

Mary · 11:12
there, it's like, will the me who's me today still like this tomorrow? Yeah,

Dylan · 11:17
I've just, I've had like some conflicting thoughts, and then also just like art changes, your style changes. I was like reflecting over when I was 16, it was so like Tumblr for me to go like this to my friends. But then,

Reggie · 11:32
did you have a grill too? I'm

Dylan · 11:34
getting a grill, actually. My friends, we went on a bachelorette trip a couple months ago, and I walked into this, like, in this, like, tattoo parlor. I got, like, one of these additional ones, or whatever. And this guy's like, "Yeah, I make grills, and I was like, "Oh, hell, right, brother? All right, is it

Reggie · 11:51
like removable? You can, like,

Dylan · 11:53
I want to get it, and I want it to be like half gold, half silver, to like match

Tim · 11:58
all the song.

Mary · 12:00
Let me see your grill. Yeah, okay. That was, I think, seventh grade, going to basketball camp,

Dylan · 12:07
but that's kind of like

Mary · 12:08
Honka Tonk, but Donkey Doc was also on

Reggie · 12:12
speaking a foreign language. We are like just past the cultural

Mary · 12:21
line myself, make sure I'm in this couch. Yeah,

Reggie · 12:25
I think you're already on that couch. Yeah,

Dylan · 12:27
that is true.

Mary · 12:28
I picked this

Dylan · 12:28
seat today. Yeah, I think the thing about like the phrase that I like truly love is it's like we can all find a common ground. Yeah, and then I can have my style, you guys can have your style. The one thing that does drive me crazy about it, though, is I think people can't get past like the same cloth, they're like, 'Oh, I see you as me. So then, when you do something differently, it's like, like how you were talking about, you were like, 'That's a little edgy, like your family sees you as the same cloth, but they're like, you got a septum piercing? Yeah, whenever we think this whole different, yeah, thing. So I think there's like some limitations to

Mary · 13:02
it, I think that goes the other way too, that sometimes I hear people say like the same whatever different font, and it's almost like they're kind of not judgy about it, but sort of like couldn't you get more original kind of thing, and I'm like, I don't know, I feel like we're in the fine nuance in the way that I think you and I were talking about, how far do you zoom in and keep psychoanalyzing something versus you just have to stop and be like, I don't need to know every atom that makes up that chair, it's for my purposes that's a chair. It's like typeface is the same thing, you can keep zooming in and looking at the kerning and all the whatever, it's like just let it be.

Reggie · 13:41
I love that phrase so much. You're gonna say something. No, yeah,

Dylan · 13:44
I was thinking of just like in the business world of anatomy, I see these like micro, like I wouldn't say micro communities, but like branding is now having to get very micro on some levels to like get the super niche people, because I feel like those are the people that haven't been like targeted in a very long time.

Mary · 14:03
Yeah, Tim and I were talking about this yesterday too, that like the idea of niching, I think puts people in a really weird head space sometimes. It can be really effective just to be like, what's our niche? But I almost feel like what's happening now is people who like one thing who also like this other thing that's completely unrelated are finding brands at the crossroads of those two things, so it's like a magical thing. They're like, oh, you like both these things too, like you can like punk rock, and that's something Pony

Reggie · 14:34
is such a great phrase, because I think, like, as close as Tim and I are, if somebody was like, are you guys cut from the same cloth, I would probably say no, because we have a lot of things, but if you use that phrase, I would say yeah, we have a lot of common ground, music style choices, but then we also have a lot of variation that's different, like he brought that runner in, and I was like, bro. And all

Mary · 15:01
I was wondering, what that was, and

Reggie · 15:03
he's like, yeah, but look, how cool it is, and I was like, I don't see it quite yet, you know.

Mary · 15:08
Where are you trying

Reggie · 15:10
to put it?

Tim · 15:10
In the hallway, I never saw

Mary · 15:12
it. Yeah, you might want to get a second opinion.

Speaker · 15:14
He's

Mary · 15:14
returning it.

Tim · 15:17
He said it's right outside my office. I was gonna say, I

Mary · 15:20
think he gets the strongest vote,

Tim · 15:21
I think taste is such a unique choice, because it doesn't. There are some people like me, I'm driven by like a vision, a fuller vision of what something could look like.

Reggie · 15:30
Yeah,

Tim · 15:31
so each step gets you there, yeah, versus one individually, all the style,

Reggie · 15:36
yeah,

Tim · 15:36
like to first, so for me it's like a collection of things, versus like this piece, so if this piece doesn't match a bigger vision for me, then I don't get the piece, and I don't understand why it's being there, why it's being used, right? But when I saw that piece, and I passed it by Megan, because she holds the mood board of what the space is gonna look like, and she loved it, and so I just went with it, and it was cheap, and what it was like to nice to know that it goes too far for Reggie, so it like helps to zero in on when you're working together to look a certain way. Everyone has a little bit different vision about where they think it ends up, and

Reggie · 16:13
same clock, different font.

Tim · 16:14
I think that's why the tattoo thing in my body, my person is a different story, because I don't know the vision of where I end

Mary · 16:22
up,

Tim · 16:22
so it's hard for me to put together the things now that come together to make what I am and what I will become.

Mary · 16:31
Yeah, sometimes I'm starting to, I'm like, what? How do you reckon with that? Like, how do you live day to day knowing that each little micro choice that you make is going to turn you into somebody ultimately, but I don't know who it is I'm trying to be, so I'm like trying to figure out different ways to navigate that. Most of them going really poorly, but one that I keep trying out is, would my I use my 50s because my parents just moved into their 60s, and so, like, that's a phase of life I can imagine. I was like, okay, if I'm 5560 yeah, sorry. My parents also had kids, like, kind of late for where they were living, so, but they, what will make me proud of myself? Like, what choices will I be really proud of myself for, looking back, and that starts to help me figure out values, like, oh, I think the things that are eternal about me are xyz. I can't see myself not valuing friendship in the future, so when I prioritize friendship, I can't regret that kind of thing.

Tim · 17:36
To bring it back to the font,

Mary · 17:38
you get two more

Tim · 17:40
monologs ready. This is number two monolog. When you were talking about the font, I, and how brands are trying to get more micro in their look and feel, is David Carson was a crazy font guy, like tried to break it. He had the Ray Gun magazine, and that magazine is known for its destruction of font, like he thought an interview he had with an artist, a musical artist, was so bad and boring that he set the entire interview in Wing Bat.

Reggie · 18:08
Yeah,

Tim · 18:09
that's hilarious. You couldn't even read it, was just symbols. Yeah, the entire article for pages was just symbols, and he would just give

Mary · 18:16
you the feeling of the interview, not the content. Yeah,

Tim · 18:19
the pictures would be in there, but this, it was all in a font you could read, and he would also do hand-drawn fonts or broken fonts, pasted in handset, and so there was his font, actually became not a nuanced change, it was the thing of Raygun, that magazine was built around the way he used fonts,

Reggie · 18:37
David on the show would be really awesome,

Mary · 18:41
yeah, dude,

Tim · 18:42
friend,

Reggie · 18:42
yeah.

Speaker · 18:43
I'm gonna be enjoying

Reggie · 18:46
David Carson. We were gonna have him come to the AIGA Asheville,

Dylan · 18:50
I think I'm associated by a third degree,

Reggie · 18:53
yeah,

Dylan · 18:53
to David Carson, because

Tim · 18:55
he's such a rebel.

Reggie · 18:57
Oh yeah,

Tim · 18:57
he did something, and this was gonna say about

Reggie · 19:01
when I was on the board for AIGA, he

Tim · 19:03
did what he wanted

Reggie · 19:05
to do,

Tim · 19:05
right? Like, he literally didn't give a fuck about the market, about anything. He literally just evoked emotion out of himself and did the thing. Brands now

Reggie · 19:14
going against the grain,

Tim · 19:16
but he didn't even do it against the grain, he just did what he wanted. Yeah, it was against the grain, it just

Reggie · 19:20
looked against the grain, because it wasn't like anything else anybody else was doing.

Tim · 19:23
Brands now typically will try and look at the market, and if they want to go against the grain, they will look at the market to figure out what is against the grain, right? Not like what is in me that goes against the grain, but they're like, and then the market will actually be drawn to the largest swath of people, so the reason they're not doing micro is they don't want to reach a small niche, they want to reach a big niche, even though niche kind of is counterintuitive to say a big niche,

Mary · 19:51
I mean, like it's all relative, right, like

Tim · 19:54
right, but they want to be as mainstream as possible, because it's the most money and profit as possible for the company, so it doesn't actually. Incentivize them to go micro until there's some level of validation in that micro niche becoming a full trend, and so I think it's like this backwards logic that we think we can get to someone because we think we know what they want versus doing what we are made to do, and I did a video on LinkedIn where it talks about the truth, the truth of who you are. What is your font like? If someone gave it to you and said, "What is your font? How could you answer that? Like, we're talking about,

Mary · 20:29
obviously,

Reggie · 20:30
obviously,

Dylan · 20:31
such an easy answer.

Speaker · 20:32
People don't even

Reggie · 20:32
legible, but imagine some people

Tim · 20:35
even don't even know what a font is. So that puts a whole nother meta understanding on what this may mean, is that they don't even know what font is, so like this is so Devil Wears Prada. This is that color was chosen for you by, I don't know, oh,

Dylan · 20:49
it was like the cerulean blue. Yeah,

Mary · 20:53
have you not seen it yet? No, you seem like you would have.

Dylan · 20:56
I, it's a sin, it's a sin right now that my life is looking to be

Reggie · 21:01
definitely go see it. Yeah,

Mary · 21:02
I'd like to see it. I interrupted you, but you were like, there are people who aren't even sensitive to nuance in

Reggie · 21:07
10 more seconds.

Dylan · 21:09
I think the phrase is more pivoted to creatives who understand the font

Tim · 21:13
totally, but I was wondering if there's a whole group of people who are never taught to know who they are. Well, there is, they don't even comprehend that they can do, you not see all

Dylan · 21:23
the 40 year old moms who are wearing the same jeans across when you go into Walmart and wearing the same, I yeah, this is like this is really bad, and someone, please forgive me, I like will go into Walmart and I'll like see everybody wearing the same stuff, and I was like, I know exactly where you got it,

Mary · 21:39
yeah, I know, especially in a small town, there's like a scarcity thing, although online shopping,

Dylan · 21:44
there is a scarcity, but there's also this like not knowing who you are is almost like a type of brainwash for then you're like, oh, I can be influenced by the people on my phone to buy this to look this way,

Mary · 21:55
and don't you think that not only is it that there's an absence of education or encouragement to pursue that for yourself, but I would say, especially in rural places, small towns, you are actively encouraged to conform. Like, homogeny is safe, homogeny

Dylan · 22:11
is easy. Yeah,

Reggie · 22:12
you blend in and you don't stick out. I've always been the opposite, even it's from my very first job, like everybody was wearing like Izad shirts and polo, and everybody had the same brand jeans and the same shoes, and I would intentionally go out and get different things, because I didn't want to look like everybody else. Why? Because I just didn't. I wanted to be different.

Mary · 22:38
Benches are opening up a whole new world for

Tim · 22:40
why, because I think looking different is like

Reggie · 22:43
homogenized, but it's an

Tim · 22:44
overvalued thing. Brands want to do it because they want to stick out. There's a strategy behind looking different. It's not because they just want to look different. I've never met a brand that goes, 'just make us look different, unless there's the back logo pop, the back end pop. There's a back end desire to stand out for success, say right, but as a kid you don't have the idea that you're gonna be more successful when you're different. Literally, you will be separated from the pack, and in nature you die when you're separated from the pack.

Reggie · 23:11
No, see,

Dylan · 23:13
cut up from underneath and the tree falls.

Reggie · 23:15
It worked because

Tim · 23:16
bring it back,

Reggie · 23:17
it worked for me. I got best dressed in high school, and it was because how are you going to get best dressed if you dress like everybody else, right?

Tim · 23:26
Wanted to be best dressed. I

Reggie · 23:28
wanted to be different. I wanted to, I wanted to be the guy that went out and find to find articles of clothing that was cool, that people go, 'Wow, that's awesome. I haven't seen that before. That, where'd you get that? Versus he's just wearing what every single other person is wearing.

Dylan · 23:44
Reggie was before the conform.

Reggie · 23:46
I just never liked that, and that's been my whole life. You saw, like, everybody's wearing those on cloud shoes. I have probably the only on cloud shoe style that I've not seen anywhere else. Everybody else's looks the same, and mine looks so different because I'm like, I didn't want what everybody else had.

Mary · 24:04
Yeah, I think that's

Tim · 24:05
interesting. This is getting to an interesting depth that I didn't think this

Mary · 24:08
well. I think when you're in the homogeny race, when you're like trying to conform, the only way to out is this. Tell me if you agree with this or not. I'm not. Sometimes I say shit, and I'm not sure where it came from. Here's an experiment. It does feel like the way you win in that version is just having the most money. When I was growing up, it was the brands that were in the mall, Abercrombie, oh yeah, American Eagle, but not just like, oh, I need jeans, like decking out and doing the accessories and stuff. Aeropostale, Aeropostale, I don't remember the name of

Dylan · 24:40
shoot, I remember, yeah,

Mary · 24:41
yeah, you wanted to have the, the, the, it version, there was like a archetype that you were chasing, and everybody was chasing the same archetype, and if you had more money, you could get closer to the archetype,

Tim · 24:54
so isn't the underlying desire to be special,

Mary · 24:57
I guess, so don't you be excellent, don't you want to be.

Tim · 24:59
Seen you're doing it to be seen, you got the word best dressed. You don't want to look like everyone else, because everyone else is not getting seen, they're being seen as a

Reggie · 25:08
mob. Yeah,

Tim · 25:11
and to stand out makes it makes the focus on you, which is why it's scary for a lot of people,

Reggie · 25:18
right?

Tim · 25:18
Because everyone looks at you and like, what are you going to do now, you're dressed different, are you gonna say something different, are you gonna act different?

Reggie · 25:23
Yeah,

Tim · 25:24
and so there's this, and then when you start bringing that up into our adulthood, it's like, what do you drive, where do you live?

Mary · 25:31
It all comes back to Tim's car eventually.

Tim · 25:33
Like,

Mary · 25:34
we're gonna do a fundraiser, and we're gonna crowdsource you a new car.

Tim · 25:38
We should put a picture of my car right here.

Reggie · 25:40
Think about that, but even my cars have always been

Tim · 25:44
Atlas is not different,

Reggie · 25:45
not the Atlas was different, no, no. Throughout my life, I had, so my first car was a Nissan 200 SX, nobody had that, it was the little Nissan that, though, a light step popped up, had the system in it, yeah, that got totaled by an eight eight in my neighborhood, who was drinking and driving. Then I had to probably not, couldn't even imagine, even I mean, I don't know, guys, he had a reckless life, but then I ended up with my grandmother's grand theory with nobody, that is

Tim · 26:20
a unique vehicle

Reggie · 26:22
was a British Honda called a Sterling. It was,

Mary · 26:27
it

Reggie · 26:28
was a Rover Sterling 825 proven

Tim · 26:31
himself 820 5s

Reggie · 26:33
was it was in Car and Driver magazine. It was the most in 88 It got the best touring vehicle in the world,

Tim · 26:42
1988

Reggie · 26:43
88 yeah, it was an 88 I had two two sobs, I had a 95 classic Range Rover, like, so, yeah, I have always MIT one, those were those are the most elite, the least unique cars that I've ever had,

Tim · 27:01
but you, so you must vibe with Volkswagen.

Reggie · 27:03
I do as a culture now, as a now culture, not the old Volkswagen, but like the I like the I like the ergonomics, I like the tag, I like the fit and finish.

Tim · 27:18
That's interesting.

Reggie · 27:19
Finish. Yeah. Oh, you didn't know about the

Tim · 27:22
key. He designed the Volkswagen, the first Volkswagen, the people's car to give to everyone.

Reggie · 27:26
Yeah, he called it the Piano's car. Well,

Tim · 27:28
it's commissioned

Reggie · 27:32
for

Tim · 27:34
everyone to have a car.

Reggie · 27:37
Imagine it's almost like Arnold Schwarzenegger sound,

Mary · 27:43
and why not?

Tim · 27:46
So it almost sounds like, though, in this explanation that you're a different cloth, same font, right? Same

Dylan · 27:53
font, different cloth,

Tim · 27:55
or same font, different cloth, because it was so dramatic the way you're looking at it. Yeah, fonts are so, so,

Reggie · 28:01
is the font the soul, like,

Mary · 28:09
we don't know what's happening, you don't know

Tim · 28:11
that we were ever gone. Oh, yeah, that's true. I'll recap, I was just saying, I feel like Reggie is describing a person that is of a different cloth, but same font, in that you're, you're a person, you're relatable,

Dylan · 28:24
you are a person

Tim · 28:25
on the exterior, which is the cloth, which is the cloth, like I don't know if that's the way to read it, but I feel like you were making more dramatic changes, like very different. My first car was a CJ five, actually it was not,

Reggie · 28:40
no, it was

Tim · 28:42
a terrible.. oh, it was a great grandma. It was a great car. Oh,

Reggie · 28:45
Grandma, I bought my

Tim · 28:46
grandma and grandma's car for $300 a Nissan Sentra from, like,

Reggie · 28:50
yes, a Nissan family, probably both our first cars was a Nissan. Yeah, mine was the Nissan 200

Tim · 28:58
it was a brown, not a great brown, mine was bronze, which was in the brown, yeah, and it was the paint was coming off the top and the roof and the back, yeah, so I had that for like I can only manage for a few months, and then I flipped it for $500 see, this may be the roots of where that came from, the car, remember

Mary · 29:21
at the time that you sold it, do you remember how many years old it was from its..

Tim · 29:25
yeah, it was already old. And this is like my first car ever, mean it was in the 80s, early 80s.

Mary · 29:31
Wait, so it was

Tim · 29:32
a car from the 80s, early 80s,

Mary · 29:34
and you were driving it in

Tim · 29:36
9515

Mary · 29:38
years. As

Reggie · 29:39
much as I'd like to say that my first car was a Nissan, I'm totally forgetting about my actual first. I told you guys about it when you

Mary · 29:45
were homeschooled. Your grandmother taught you to drive

Reggie · 29:53
green Buick Regal. This is getting good with a white vinyl tong sunroof, remember. I do the big long and I crashed it. I was at, we were leaving one of our varsity basketball games. I had three of my teammates in the car. We were downtown, and this

Mary · 30:12
wait, they made fun of you about it. Yes, this

Reggie · 30:14
guy ran into the back of me, and because it was my first time ever having an impact, I freaked out, and he stepped on the brakes and turned his steering wheel, and I ended up on these bank stickers. So, there was a photo the next day,

Mary · 30:29
but like a building bank

Reggie · 30:30
downtown St. Louis, like you,

Tim · 30:33
about to rob them with your car.

Reggie · 30:34
There ended up being a picture of my car on the, in the newspaper, in the post, especially. Maybe I mean, I doubt it. It's

Mary · 30:46
a microfiche. Everybody

Reggie · 30:48
was fine. The car lost its bumper, which then made it way more embarrassing to drive. It was like cool at first, because it was kind of like, I don't know, it kind of reminded me of the cars that we were watching, like Boys in the Hood, and a nice, stylish car didn't have a booming system or anything like that. But now I had no bumper. Did you

Tim · 31:09
ever play matchbox cars? What did you drive when you were driving match flux cars?

Reggie · 31:14
You actually drive them?

Tim · 31:16
Yeah, you do. You're pretending you're in it and driving it. That's what kids do. Did you play? Your

Mary · 31:20
son, I'm sure, is driving Matchbox. He likes

Tim · 31:23
a 71 Lamborghini.

Reggie · 31:27
Yeah, that's the year I was born. That's a good

Mary · 31:35
Reggie. Did

Tim · 31:36
you play Matchbox cars?

Mary · 31:37
Not really. They were in my grandmother's house, but that wasn't really our vibe, more of a Legos kid.

Reggie · 31:43
My were always the sporty ones, like the Ferrari. So I was Lamborghinis, yeah.

Tim · 31:49
So after I got my.. after I flipped my grandma's car,

Reggie · 31:51
horses great. He says

Mary · 31:53
flipped it, like he was doing a bunch of work on it. Do anything, she just for less than it was worth. I

Tim · 32:00
sold it for more, there's worth, and I went and bought a CJ five, the 1981 Jeep CJ fiveties colors on it, you know, like

Reggie · 32:08
the orange, yeah, red,

Tim · 32:09
and it was like a burgundy color with the black ragtop. Did

Mary · 32:12
you feel cool?

Tim · 32:14
Totally felt cool, because I take the top down, it was like this thick ride

Reggie · 32:17
that was the color

Tim · 32:19
that then I found this other Jeep CJ seven on a lot, and so I flipped gravity

Reggie · 32:28
early on. Look at that. Then

Tim · 32:31
I got married, and from then literally I have not valued my car until recently. I drove like a purple minivan for my work, I drove this green Ford Ranger, and I think that was the end of my car style essence, because I was working, it was very functional. I would say font, the font topic is a functional thing, like fonts are very functional, people think that they're David Carson cool, what's the right word, like expressive fonts, actually help people read better? Yeah, they're reading in

Mary · 33:08
less accessible options for that. That's why they have display

Tim · 33:11
fonts that get attention, and then they have reading fonts, which you can read long form, and it's less work for your eyes. Yeah, so that's a very functional decision. Yeah, so my car turned into a Ford Ranger, which I like, very functional. I worked in it for years, and after that car, but I tell, I did this deep study. I don't know why Mercedes,

Reggie · 33:33
I totally forgot about the Mercedes. That was a cool car.

Tim · 33:36
The reason I was bringing this up was that

Reggie · 33:38
are we over talking the card conversation because

Tim · 33:46
there are fonts that are, I don't know, I'm taking this on the fonts, so

Mary · 33:50
get in there, man. Our

Tim · 33:51
fonts that are available on everyone's computer,

Reggie · 33:53
yeah,

Tim · 33:54
they're system fonts, and everyone knows these fonts, and sometimes there's Comic Sans or Arial or Papyrus. Papyrus, we all love Papyrus. There's

Reggie · 34:03
never Comic Sans and Papyrus.

Tim · 34:05
Every every computer has comics,

Reggie · 34:08
but I always intentionally deleted.

Tim · 34:14
And so there is this movement to make, because you couldn't control in the early 2000s you couldn't control what font is on your website, because the computer would choose the font, so you started trying to design with system font, which is a very tight constraint, but now things can go crazy, like brands can actually do micro shifts, you can

Mary · 34:39
customize your own font to

Tim · 34:45
this,

Reggie · 34:49
I know some type designers, it's a lot of work,

Mary · 34:52
that's how I feel about being an astronaut

Reggie · 34:57
astronaut, no,

Mary · 34:59
no. It happened,

Reggie · 35:00
Tim's playing

Tim · 35:04
be an architect, and someone, and I thought about changing my career, like

Mary · 35:17
I just heard somebody basically do like a video essay on, like, being an architect sucks, terrible.

Tim · 35:23
So glad I'm not. I know a

Reggie · 35:24
ton of architects, they're really, they're always busy.

Tim · 35:28
No, but I have feedback from two architects to not change my career,

Reggie · 35:32
really. Yeah,

Tim · 35:33
it's terrible.

Mary · 35:33
Yeah, anyway,

Tim · 35:34
there's this conversation about scarcity right now, not scarcity in the way that I've been thinking about it, where you act differently because you don't have enough scarcity when you're very, very capable or wealthy, and you can buy things that are scarce, so an asset when money is being devalued by the printing of it, and by the,

Mary · 35:58
yeah, what is it, gold standard, gold is

Tim · 36:01
scarce, so a guy did this article about Ferraris, and which was one of my favorite cars is in Masterbox. I mean, every kid has dreamed about owning a Ferrari, and that is part of the scarce asset it is, because out of 330,000 Ferraris, which is the total number of cars they've made since they started as a company.

Mary · 36:19
I just want you to know how impressed I am that he remembered that number, that's just like something that could never happen. It's

Reggie · 36:24
also impressed that you were a matchbox gun, not Hot Wheels. Yeah, my

Tim · 36:30
son's Hot Wheels, though. I think they're a bigger brand now.

Reggie · 36:32
Oh, I didn't know

Mary · 36:34
they were different

Tim · 36:35
with a cool name for Max Box. Well, yeah, it's like Kleenex.

Mary · 36:40
There's a million kinds of tissues, but you call them all Kleenex

Tim · 36:43
putting on all the tracks that have built flipped in the racing. Yeah, I think that's why they're getting bigger. Did you say 30,300 30,000 See, I

Dylan · 36:53
can't even remember. There

Tim · 36:54
are 180,000 Ferrari owners in the world today.

Speaker · 36:58
Yeah,

Tim · 36:58
scarce. And

Mary · 36:59
they get together once a year, and I'm a big party.

Tim · 37:01
No, to buy their super car, you have to have already bought eight to 10 other Ferraris, and you are not allowed to edit. You're not allowed to update them

Reggie · 37:13
to customers,

Tim · 37:14
customize them whatsoever.

Reggie · 37:15
Really, you

Tim · 37:16
literally, you have to sign a waiver when you buy. Yeah,

Reggie · 37:20
if I pay a million dollars, the average price, do what the hell I want. You wouldn't

Tim · 37:24
be able to buy one, you know what? The average,

Reggie · 37:26
no, I buy it, and then it

Tim · 37:28
goes, it's contract. Wow, the average cost of a Ferrari over their entire lifespan is 500,000 per car, and out of the 300,300 30,000 that are made, 300,000 of them are still functioning 100,000 built

Mary · 37:45
into that, yeah. 330,000

Tim · 37:47
is how much a Toyota or a Honda makes in two days, yeah. And that's their lifespan from the.. I don't know, I don't even know the era, the year they were born, but that's a lot of difference. The

Mary · 37:59
durability thing, I think is really relevant right now, like it goes back to we talked about quiet luxury and like materiality and what is high quality and that kind of thing, and the idea that you're I didn't know that you couldn't like change trims or anything, that's like licensing IP, that's like you, if you're going to use Mickey Mouse, you're going to use Mickey Mouse in these approved ways,

Tim · 38:20
and that's it's like brand alignment.

Dylan · 38:21
Yeah, you know, if

Tim · 38:22
you're a Ferrari, you either live by the Ferrari standards.

Mary · 38:25
Wow, wow, wow,

Tim · 38:26
isn't that crazy? The reason, the way they did this, and this comes back to like you going to Walmart and seeing people that all look the same, that is the normal car. Ferrari is the one who looks different and is different, because not no one, very few people can actually get a Ferrari,

Dylan · 38:41
and that goes back to your money thing,

Mary · 38:43
but here's the thing,

Tim · 38:45
it goes back to the money. Yeah,

Mary · 38:46
it's like you just got to be excellent if you're going to be the same as everybody else, you got to be the most expensive version. And then there's a different kind of differentiation that starts to happen. It's like high fashion, and you can afford to be expressive, but I'm seeing this other thing happening in the opposite direction. Like, I'm about to go to Japan, I'm looking up like thrift and vintage. You were sending me some options for that. I put them on my Google map. We went to a thrift

Tim · 39:07
store in Japan, it was amazing. Yeah,

Mary · 39:09
nothing's gonna fit me, because I'm gonna be like three times the size of a normal Japanese woman, but I'm like, but I'm psyched to see like even just some like street style stuff, and I don't know, but I think that going in the opposite direction and being like, how do I give something new life is another way of doing that. We've talked about like thrift bundles and things. Yeah, I don't know, we're trying to give you space to talk, Dylan, but

Dylan · 39:33
I do appreciate it. I think there's just like a lot of like baggage that maybe comes with the phrase, and how that I'm like, anyway, just because

Mary · 39:42
send it to me, and I want to carry it with you.

Dylan · 39:44
I think there's just like such a pressure, it is different, but I feel like there's like feel like there's such like a negative connotation with like being different. There's like a positive, but then there's also like the back end, it's like I don't know, I don't know what like. The world would look like if it was just like that person was unique instead of being different, but I mean, I guess they coexist, so like interesting. Where I was like juggling when you guys were talking, it was like, yeah, like that person is on their trajectory to be themselves, yeah, they'll be unique, like all of our paths are going to be unique, yes, they're gonna be different, and like, maybe that comes with like some negative connotation of like maybe you didn't go to design school, but your brain thinks in different ways than mine do, but then that kind of puts me at like a not like I don't like when you say that you didn't like that doesn't put me down, but I'm like, oh, Mary didn't go to design school, but she's thinking in such a creative way that I didn't get taught at design school, so it's like it's like this balance of like creative, I do it's like that balance of like where I was thinking and like rewiring it, it's like it is a different, it's like the same cloth, different font, it's like almost like a justification, so I don't know, I was like toying around with those different ideas,

Tim · 41:00
but when you're so desperate to be seen, I think it creates a level of, you try to be seen.

Mary · 41:09
Can I put a finer point on that? Because I don't think, yes, I would like to be seen, but even more important than being seen to me is being understood, and I'm really struggling with that right now. It's like, I like, I've had red hair my whole life. I talk about, like, there's family members that I can't remember their names, but they can always remember my name, because Mary Beth had the red hair, and, like, I'm the only one in the family, and I feel that way in a lot of settings. Like, people will remember, remember me because my coloring is different, but I have always felt like the choices that I made had to be really calibrated, or people might see me as a different person than I am. So, I'll keep using the septum piercing as an example. My family was kind of like, "Yeah, why'd you do that? And I was like, "Well, I'm not really sure. I think, like, I wanted to.. I mean, like, why do you do anything? I was like, "I think I want to express myself, for one. I like jewelry, and whatever, and I like it that I could take it out, and you know, versus a tattoo that you're stuck with, right? But I think, in part, it was because I wanted to signal that I'm like a liberal person, that I am kind of edgy, I guess, but, like, yeah, that I think differently, but also that, like, I'm a safe person, because I look so.. if I'm not trying, I look so Karen. I look so like

Reggie · 42:26
worried about looking Karen walk up and ask me what I'm doing here.

Speaker · 42:30
Yeah,

Tim · 42:31
because people will think you're like something else, right? Yeah, see you.

Mary · 42:34
And so it's like I'm trying to find, calibrate the right like expression choices to give people enough information about me. It's like, oh, I don't want to look so buttoned up that I'm stuffy, but I do want to look put together like I care, but I will look comfortable, like I could do it. Like, too much

Reggie · 42:50
thought into it.

Mary · 42:52
Welcome to Mary.

Dylan · 42:56
No, I don't think it's too much thought, because think about it this way, if you did go to Walmart, didn't say never. Do

Mary · 43:02
I totally

Dylan · 43:04
do Walmart, and let's say if there was someone I don't know, there's like just such an opportunity in presentation.

Speaker · 43:13
Sure, I do

Dylan · 43:14
think all those thoughts,

Mary · 43:15
it does. And at the end of the day, here's the kicker, I hate this deep with a deep, fiery passion. People are gonna, they can only look at you through their own frame of reference. Yeah, and you will be someone different to everybody who's looking at you. So, you do just need to like put it all in wing dings and put it out there.

Tim · 43:34
Here's the thing, they won't look at you through their own perspective, they'll look at you through the culture's perspective. That's why Karen's even became a thing, bad to look like a Karen. It wasn't even bad to be a Karen. Someone had a bad day and got called a Karen, and then the meme started a

Dylan · 43:48
bad road.

Tim · 43:48
Now everyone's desperate not to look basic or be a Karen or do that, and so you start getting these labels like one of the previous episodes.

Dylan · 43:56
Go check it out,

Tim · 43:56
and I think that we're trying not to be seen as in one of those groups we don't want to be seen in, yeah, and

Mary · 44:02
yet also maybe chasing some labels that we do want to be a part of.

Tim · 44:06
True,

Mary · 44:07
I got somebody, let me know what those are, and I'll, that will help my overthinking.

Reggie · 44:12
I think it would be good if people went through the mental exercise of like envisioning who they wanted to grow into, who they wanted to be, and then they could maybe have at least a little bit of a roadmap to get there, you know, like, do I want to be seen as stoic and safe and comfortable and trustworthy, and then you think about what kind of imagery, what kind of fashion, what kind of cars, colors, what kind of things like lead to those things? Make your

Mary · 44:48
little mood board for your future. Yeah,

Reggie · 44:50
I think that would be a good exercise for people, especially for people that don't really know who they're becoming and they want to have a little bit more control over what that is.

Speaker · 44:57
Yeah,

Tim · 44:58
it's just hard in a world that's so. Visual and intense and focused on certain trends to kind of go internal and try to truthfully answer that question, because you have these things that look cool or look this way and that way, and you're looking at these - I would say these roles, these role models, that feels like an old school word - who's your role model, but literally we're looking at these different people and the way they dress as like a way that we could dress, you know, that's why all the advertising and the fashion, and my wife even told me we said that this was going out, but this year the the heroin chic is back, so people want

Mary · 45:40
on a bunch of things that we thought we had moved past, right? So, there's

Reggie · 45:44
last night,

Tim · 45:44
and this is so the culture is moving trends. Someone is moving it, and I know the incentive is money. It always is with fashion, because you got to get something that not everyone's wearing if you want to sell more stuff, because then they'll just keep buying the same

Mary · 45:56
level. The incentive is money at the highest levels. I mean, to

Tim · 46:00
be different

Mary · 46:00
at the highest levels, I think it gets seedier and uglier than that, like controlling women's bodies and creating power dynamics and subjugating. Should

Tim · 46:08
you think that it's, do you think it's men making decisions?

Mary · 46:10
We're wandering into Epstein Files territory here, which I am not well enough versed in to really have a discussion about it. Are you saying

Tim · 46:16
this new trend of skinniness?

Mary · 46:18
I'm saying that there's money to be made and power to be gained from keeping women fragile, frail, and contained, and self-conscious about their bodies, instead of empowering them. And do individuals do that, but brands, as like a system of oppression, do that.

Reggie · 46:36
I can vibe with that, mainly because, as what I was noticing is that I, at least through my observation, women were becoming way more confident as they were praising normal-sized bodies in fashion, and you were seeing normal size, and people

Tim · 46:54
were criticizing them.

Reggie · 46:56
I mean, maybe I'm a side, but here's the thing, women have often been driven, or at least my observation is, I see women are driven by fashion. They see what women look like, and they have insecurities that come from, like, oh, I don't look like that. But now you had all these ads where, oh, that's a normal-sized woman, she looks like me, I feel like I can be myself. And what Mary is saying is that wasn't obviously, I don't know if whatever that was, but maybe there's a power dynamic where they're saying no, we don't want women to feel empowered, we don't want them to feel comfortable in their bodies, so we're gonna push this other visual direction so that women can go back to, like, you said, feeling for there's an archetype

Mary · 47:42
that we're all trying to hit the same archetype, and if you have enough money, you can get closer, you can fill your lips,

Reggie · 47:48
you can, LA, man,

Mary · 47:50
what's it called, your buckle buckle fat taken out, you can modify your body, you can buy the right clothes, you can be in the right places, and if you don't have enough money, you're not able to achieve that archetype, and so you're second-class citizens.

Reggie · 48:03
Have you ever watched Selling Sunset?

Mary · 48:07
Oh no, the

Reggie · 48:08
women on there have some augmentation, they're all like

Mary · 48:14
a copy-paste in a different color. I

Tim · 48:18
don't think it's ironic, though, that just as Ozempic and GLP ones come out, all of a sudden it's trendy to be skinny. That doesn't seem like a money play to you.

Mary · 48:29
Say more, I think. Buy

Tim · 48:31
this thing to make you skinnier, because skinnier is cool. Doesn't it seem like the complete marketing ploy?

Mary · 48:37
Yeah, and I'm saying at the very top of that marketing chain are some of the most powerful happen to be men in the world, and that they benefit from not only the money that they make off of me being desperate and buying a GLP one, but also my inferiority complex about not fitting the society.

Reggie · 48:55
Yeah, yeah, I totally see that it's both, and that's a really interesting concept. I

Mary · 49:00
think they're inter money in power, I think they're connected. Yeah,

Reggie · 49:03
money and power, man.

Dylan · 49:04
So,

Tim · 49:05
so I mean, there are fonts that are super thin fonts,

Mary · 49:10
very hard to read.

Tim · 49:12
And Megan said to me, can you believe people are idolizing people that are really, really bony, skinny, and I said they're not, and I felt like confident saying that, but then she had to educate me, and we kind of had a fight about this, because I wanted her to know that I don't, and I know the trends of men who like and women who like bigger bodies,

Reggie · 49:39
right? I

Tim · 49:39
know that's an underlying trend that no one's letting be publicized,

Reggie · 49:42
right,

Tim · 49:43
and so it's this, and then the argument went to the place where I was like, listen, the culture doesn't define you, she's like, yes, it does, and I was like, there's this, there is this tension between I've never lived under the pressures of being a woman, so I don't know that level.

Mary · 50:00
Maybe you're coming into your, like, Tootsie era, and we'll put you in drag, or he's like, I was doing the thing, I was dressing up as a woman, and I realized I'm not a very pretty woman, but I'm an interesting woman, like when he was in that role, but sorry, he just

Reggie · 50:17
a pretty woman too,

Tim · 50:18
so I guess it's whatever. It's got this fun thing, be an interesting person is so much more important than having different clothes. Yeah,

Mary · 50:27
sure, absolutely.

Tim · 50:28
To be yourself, to be confident in yourself, even if you have to wear the same clothes that everyone else is wearing. Like, when do we get to the to the sci-fi movie where we're all wearing the same thing, like a team, you know, like that's kind of how Earth

Mary · 50:42
happened today, working our way there, in a sense. So next time, like monoclonal

Tim · 50:53
comments, you brought in, like

Reggie · 50:54
I love it,

Tim · 50:55
difference versus unique. Yeah,

Reggie · 50:57
this is a vibe I like. No, I think I'm just trying to become Dylan. I think some of my favorite people don't fit the, like, the mold of what society has, like, yeah, like some of my favorite people are like, question them, big, tall, goofy, look like,

Tim · 51:23
do you like them?

Mary · 51:24
That's Reggie's type. Do

Tim · 51:25
you like them before they're famous?

Reggie · 51:28
Yeah, no, no, I'm talking about personally. I thought about people I personally know. Let's make a.. I like it because of their personalities, and how fun and funny they are, and how like loyal and comfortable and confident, they are known in their own bodies, and

Mary · 51:42
you can make that list of, like, here are things that I value, yeah, here are things that mean something to me, and they may or may not match the archetype that we have in our head,

Reggie · 51:51
right?

Mary · 51:52
I think we pick and choose parts of the archetype, though, because isn't, like, at least in America, the like idealized anybody is confident, the idealized anybody is funny and smart and interesting. Yeah, yeah, to be beautiful in the exact ways that we want them to be.

Tim · 52:08
But think about, like, Tom Higgs,

Speaker · 52:10
yeah,

Tim · 52:10
he doesn't look good. Everyone loves him. Look at his old movies. There wasn't.. there's not like a really

Reggie · 52:17
nice eyes. But

Tim · 52:22
what I'm saying is people, but he's not. He never would have been a model.

Reggie · 52:27
No, he wouldn't have been a model. Michael Caine, or you know, there's a lot

Tim · 52:35
Michael Caine in his youth, like you do. I only know Michael Caine in his elderly era.

Dylan · 52:40
Oh

Reggie · 52:41
my gosh, you're only a decade.

Mary · 52:44
Tom

Tim · 52:44
Cruise is a model type guy, right? That is like the quintessential Brad Pitt,

Mary · 52:51
American beauty architect,

Reggie · 52:55
like we're not around him,

Tim · 52:59
like you're short, what I'm saying now,

Mary · 53:03
but now it's Tig Notaro. Tig Notaro is this comedian, I think she's still identifying she, her, but she gets mistaken for Tom Cruise when she's a lesbian, and she looks a lot like Tom Cruise.

Reggie · 53:18
That's hilarious,

Tim · 53:19
I guess. What I'm saying, when you say that everyone likes a strange person that gets famous because it makes them feel like maybe they can be their strange self, totally. But a lot of times it's natural for someone really beautiful, like who's the girl in this big bold beautiful journey? Have you seen this movie? It's me.

Dylan · 53:36
It's me, by the

Tim · 53:38
way, Margo Robbie,

Mary · 53:42
Margo Robbie, gorgeous, like

Tim · 53:44
the quintessential, like into my wife, and says she's so like there's this like I can

Dylan · 53:49
tell Megan, thank you for that compliment,

Tim · 53:52
obvious that she's everyone's looking at

Reggie · 53:55
really her is like I think of like Emily Blunt or somebody like that, who, like Marco, just kind of

Tim · 54:07
homogeneous. You just said you like different people. I'm telling you, the one that's not different. She was cast as Barbie. She is the quintessential beauty mark standard, so when someone rises up, like, who are the odd birds? They're like such beautiful odd bird women

Reggie · 54:31
activists. No,

Tim · 54:32
she's gorgeous too. Like, think about someone who doesn't look the right part.

Reggie · 54:36
Oh, what about the actress? Because

Mary · 54:38
it, like, it doesn't matter, it's all like, so personal. Who you think looks weird?

Tim · 54:43
Okay. CS, definitely. But I'm saying, I'm trying to see it from the.. I see it from the mass perspective. Yeah,

Dylan · 54:51
from the office,

Mary · 54:56
we could know her name, but

Reggie · 54:57
who from the office? Oh, Pam. I love Pam from the office. I always say from True Blood

Mary · 55:06
Paquin,

Reggie · 55:07
I don't always say Paquin, but it's

Mary · 55:10
she's like a little bit of a

Reggie · 55:14
beautiful way to

Dylan · 55:16
Emily Zoellinger. She has her sister, Zoe

Mary · 55:19
De Chanel, and Lee. and

Tim · 55:25
I love all these people too, because I think they rival the standard, and people put them up, and I think that we look at them and say, yes, we can be different, we don't have to look like Barbie,

Speaker · 55:36
yeah,

Tim · 55:37
we can be seen and loved as our different selves, that's I think why people like Tom Hanks, because he didn't, he wasn't like the intimidating, like

Reggie · 55:46
jock, he wasn't Brad Pitt, Brad

Mary · 55:50
Pitt is

Tim · 55:50
like the quintessential,

Reggie · 55:53
yeah, no, that's a good point,

Mary · 55:57
I think that's true, but I also think there's there is a standard, and depending on how progressive or conservative society is leaning in a given moment, the amount of like variation you're allowed between you and that archetype gets more or less. Right now, we're tightening, like, oh no, that you need to be kind of dialed, and we're all into the conservative and similar, and there's a lot of things that make sense about that, based on where we are in history. Like, what is American culture? It's so vast and so varied, and even just rural to metro is so different. Never mind if you've got different, like immigrant populations that are, you know, assimilating, for lack of a better word, it's like there's a lot of stuff that's driving us apart, and we're having to figure out how to hold together, so I can get why people are on this like Christian nationalist, let's all be clean cut and do it this certain way. There's a thing on the internet you've probably heard this about, like the Republican, like Christian woman, oh yeah, and they're all kind of chasing the same blonde southern kind of bell archetype,

Tim · 57:04
old school archetypes,

Reggie · 57:06
swini like jeans thing that happened.

Tim · 57:11
Well, it's funny because Tim said that the tattoo, the amount of tattoos that people get, the trend goes with the economy.

Reggie · 57:18
Yeah, well, they're

Mary · 57:19
also expensive way, yeah. downturns,

Tim · 57:23
people get more tattoos, right now people are getting more tattoos as the previously.

Mary · 57:29
Well, do you think there's a sense of.. I mean, I don't know. Well, I do think there's a sense of.. I'm curious what that is

Reggie · 57:37
too. Like,

Mary · 57:38
I don't have any tattoos, so I can't speak on this, but I will say, here's three things that I've heard. I've heard some people say, you know, tattoos - I get a lot of criticism for them, but I know that every time I get a tattoo, it feels like my body is more my own.

Reggie · 57:51
Oh, that's awesome branding themselves. I've

Mary · 57:54
also heard people say, yeah, when I get too stressed out, I need to go get a tattoo, because it's like this ritualistic sort of like calms me down sort of thing, it's like the

Reggie · 58:06
quintessential personal branding,

Mary · 58:08
yeah, I mean, literally, and then the last thing I'll say that I've heard is, you know, originally tattoos were like rites of passage, they were like you entering, being inducted into something like the Maori and tribal communities, that's

Reggie · 58:25
what they would do.

Mary · 58:26
It's, I think, all of those things are interesting when you combine them with something like recession, and then you combine them with something like, you know, when I was growing up, the idea that you, you couldn't have a visible tattoo because how are you going to get a job was sort of the narrative fed to me, and now I see people just wearing like sleeves when they're a cop, because if you're a policeman, you still are not supposed to show that kind of thing, but they do anyway. So, I don't know, is it a little bit of like, fuck it, I don't want to be a policeman, I'll get a tattoo.

Reggie · 58:56
I wonder if you hit the nail on the head with like when people are like, during a recession, most people are likely to be depressed because they don't have as much money to spend things, and they're, you know, their debts probably increasing, and it's one of the things that maybe makes them feel more like themselves when they can't like have control of other persons' lives, like, this is something I can control, yeah, it's me, it's my body, and this makes me feel more like myself.

Mary · 59:21
It's almost kind of like also, and I love tattoos. I think people who have them, especially if they've like thought it through, it's so cool, but it's like rings on a tree, you know? Like, oh yeah, I remember when I got this. It's like taking a picture or something, but I like the idea of it being art. I

Reggie · 59:38
get started on photos.

Mary · 59:39
We've gone too far. Another thing that I think has been limiting me from getting tattoos is that I really want the art to be good, and I don't just want like American style stuff that like everybody has, and so. I feel like it becomes this really personal thing. I want, like, the maker's mark on me, and I want to feel connected to that artist, the liquor,

Tim · 1:00:08
maker's mark, liquors for maker's marks, like it's a scratch and

Reggie · 1:00:22
snip scratch. scratch and snake tattoos. Now, wouldn't that be.. I don't think I could ever do a tattoo, because I think whatever I was sewed on, stamping on my body one day would, would just not have good shelf life within like two or three weeks. I'd be like, "Damn, I wish I got something else. I

Mary · 1:00:41
feel that way too. I will

Reggie · 1:00:42
just be constantly changing, but

Mary · 1:00:43
what if I could get super clear on the mood board, like you were talking about? What if I could get super clear on what if she's fine with a tattoo? What if a tattoo helps her

Reggie · 1:00:55
be like imagery? It would have to be like a personal brand, like for my ever change and it would be my own personal thing,

Tim · 1:01:07
but this is a whole different idea about multiple

Mary · 1:01:10
tattoos, but it's just that logo at different

Reggie · 1:01:13
sizes, it's a whole logo system based on my website so

Tim · 1:01:24
when we were getting countertops in our kitchen, we were gonna get marble, which is nice, right? But do you know that marble is easy to mark and to ruin? It's very.. you

Mary · 1:01:36
gotta.. the upkeep is very.. yeah, so it's like a very expensive top,

Tim · 1:01:40
but it's really hard to maintain. You can get really cheap ones that you can put pans on them, basically hot, right? And so I was kind of turned off, but it's like, why is it so expensive if you can just ruin it so easily? And someone said, because

Mary · 1:01:54
expensive in certain

Tim · 1:01:55
cultures, right? And I think it is in Japanese culture when something receives the marks of life,

Mary · 1:02:03
it

Tim · 1:02:04
brings history and value

Speaker · 1:02:06
to it.

Tim · 1:02:07
So, we also had butcher block countertops, which also can get marked up. Yeah, and so I just.. my someone said it to me, and like, my entire mind changed in an instant, and I started seeing these defects as part of its character and part of its life and part of our life story, my kids are now on this countertop and they're eating their cereal, and we had a glass of wine there, and we cut radishes on the butcher block, so all these markings feel lived

Mary · 1:02:35
in, right? So these tattoos

Tim · 1:02:37
aren't meant to be timeless and perfect all the time.

Speaker · 1:02:40
Yeah,

Tim · 1:02:40
there, I feel like maybe they're meant to bring you back to that, like you said, like that's when this happened.

Reggie · 1:02:46
It's nostalgic, which is why I

Tim · 1:02:48
like the ancient tradition, even because it's ritual, and you remember this is when I became a man. I

Mary · 1:02:52
passed

Reggie · 1:02:53
in Japan,

Mary · 1:02:54
I mean, I, I even with friends of mine that I've known for a long time. This whole episode, this whole podcast is just my lovely letter to Jake Springfield. So, Jake,

Tim · 1:03:09
Jake, no, Jake,

Mary · 1:03:11
if you don't know Jake, maybe he'll come to know him from these stories. He's a character, but I like, I, he's had several tattoos in the time that I've known him. He doesn't have very many, but I think he's working on it, and I can remember when he got every single one, and I'm like, oh yeah, you went to Hawaii, and you got that, and you let it get out in the sun, and so you're mad that it's not super crisp anymore, or like, oh yeah, you're doing your jungle arm, and that started that year that we went to the zoo in the rain, you know,

Reggie · 1:03:39
stories of a friend's

Mary · 1:03:43
tattoo we're very connected. I

Tim · 1:03:47
have a tattoo.

Mary · 1:03:48
Oh yeah, it's a weird thing. What does it mean to you? How do you connect with that?

Tim · 1:03:55
Well, when I was

Mary · 1:03:58
sorry, by the way, do you think anybody else in the world has that tattoo, or do you think it's custom? Okay, go ahead.

Tim · 1:04:03
It's custom, because someone - the letters are Hebrew letters for Yahweh - and it's in the shape of a guitar, and I played guitar, and I was a worship leader at church, my dad's church, and to me it meant that I belonged, and so it was a similar belonging, but it was something I love to do, but the letters are shaped into a guitar, so it was like it was like Yahweh to me in a way, so it's like you're gonna

Reggie · 1:04:29
take a picture of it, so Will can put it on screen,

Tim · 1:04:32
maybe, probably doesn't look great, and it's right in the middle of my back, which is kind of embarrassing back

Mary · 1:04:37
on my head running your business, I

Tim · 1:04:41
literally almost forget I have this tattoo, but there's something about it that's coming back around for me, because there were years I almost got it lasered off, or I almost added to it, because it, it said something about me whenever I had my shirt off at the pool, like it was like a mark, like I was marked,

Mary · 1:04:57
it wasn't like a mark,

Tim · 1:04:58
it was a mark. Right, but it wasn't like he's got tattoos, it was more that tattoo is something specific, like that's a mark that isn't just like this guy wanted to get his tattoo type of mark, so I think it's, but now it's weird because I thought I was never gonna come back to it, but I'm now coming back to it, so it's like bring brace back, it's not even I'm embracing, it's like I don't even think about it, but my life is coming back to when I got it, and something about it,

Mary · 1:05:28
you're like, I am cool, I was pulled in, I'm cool now, come on, the

Tim · 1:05:34
awakening of as we get older, we do awaken to ourselves being cool, even though we're not, because we're so uniquely different, there's not a standard for cool. We're all cool.

Mary · 1:05:43
Oh, I know to bring it back to the different font thing. I think that it's interesting to, like, you say, figure out who your role model is, and it could be yourself, it could be this custom design thing, but I don't know what. If we're like excited about the things that we share. What if it's not like I'm trying to separate from people, but I'm gonna throw one more thing out. I, when I was growing up, my mom would always - she said she had friends who, if you ask them where they got something, they wouldn't tell you because they didn't want everybody to glob on and get it. It sounds like something you would do, but these days I think like we're there's a divide happening. There's the people who are like it's exclusive, you'll never have one, and like there's some vintage stuff that I still feel excited about with that. But the other thing is like twinning, like, oh yeah, like you got a tattoo, I've got a tattoo, we connect on something, and I do think that a lot of people are taking those signals and running with it, you know, like the way somebody dresses teaches me something about what we maybe we share as like a mindset. Yeah, so I don't know. I think it's to take it as the compliment when two people share something and like vibe into it. I say, as we're wearing the same outfit, we're

Dylan · 1:06:56
vibing, but

Mary · 1:06:56
yeah, like I'm I'm very excited by it. I have good reason to be excited by this. So,

Reggie · 1:07:02
funny, I said I would never get a tattoo, but as you guys were talking, I was thinking when I had, when I had strep throat, when I was a kid, I got penicillin. No, no, I got penicillin, and I had a reaction to the penicillin. Now I have this like dark rash, like spot, like it's a scar from the rash that I had. Yeah, and oftentimes when my shirt's off, like, oh, is that a tattoo? And I'm like, oh, it's a rash from Penicillin. So I'm like, what if I got a tattoo to cover the rash,

Mary · 1:07:33
yeah, reclaim it,

Reggie · 1:07:34
except it's in like the tramp stamp kind of area. No shame

Dylan · 1:07:39
in a tramp stamp,

Mary · 1:07:40
absolutely not.

Tim · 1:07:40
Say that again. There is

Speaker · 1:07:42
no

Dylan · 1:07:42
shame in a

Reggie · 1:07:43
tramp stand. Will I call it that? Like, yeah, I got a tramp.

Dylan · 1:07:48
There needs to be a better term for the

Reggie · 1:07:52
name of it. What can we call it now?

Mary · 1:07:54
I think it's tramp, in the sense of like Dolly Parton emulating

Reggie · 1:07:59
a lumbar label, lumbar

Dylan · 1:08:11
label, 40 hearts resolve is that we are getting a lumbar label

Mary · 1:08:27
flash tattoos, it's the 40 with the heart in it. I

Reggie · 1:08:34
did a big 40 H over my back like that, my

Mary · 1:08:41
wedding ring finger, right here.

Tim · 1:08:44
Tattoos are the font we're talking about, apparently.

Reggie · 1:08:46
Yeah, apparently the

Mary · 1:08:51
idea that, like, now people do flash, and so you might have the same tattoo if you went to the same tattoo artist.

Tim · 1:08:57
They got a little selection that you choose, Myrtle Beach, like when you go to the beach, and they have that little list of tensions for $10 Really,

Dylan · 1:09:03
there's something about Myrtle Beach that just excites me. Just got excited. I go spring break. Yep, I go senior week. There's something about it. Anyways, this was fun. I'm gonna send this off because we got stuff we got to do. So, thank you for being here. We'll see you in the same cloth, but a different font next week.

Reggie · 1:09:25
Next time, bye

Mary · 1:09:30
guys, Dylan, when she hosts, Dylan kind of just holds court. Thanks for listening. This podcast was created and developed by our hosts Reggie Tidwell, Tim Scroggs, Mary Green, and Dylan Garcia. Produced by me, Mary Green. Live production and editing by Will Canady. Graphic design by Dylan Garcia and set design by Megan Scroggs. Today's episode is presented lovingly. By 40 hearts creators of enduring value.