Nostalgia, Legacy, and Finding What’s Next with Andy Clarke

Brad: [0:12] Mr. Andy Clarke, hello

Andy Clarke: [0:14] How the devil are you? This, was something familiar about this face that came over the internet to me. I can't remember the last time I actually saw you

Brad: [0:24] That's why we're doing this. That's why we're doing this. So, so this is, this is what we're gonna get into is catching up, and so that's why I'm going to get into the first question, which is, what has you waking up excited these days? It's been a while

Andy Clarke: [0:38] It has, it-- Well, it has been a while. I've, I've become very nostalgic over the past couple of years. And, uh, I don't know whether it's an age thing or a kind of, you know, state s- place in your life thing, I've been doing a lot of, um, a lot of dwelling and a lot of kind of, you know, remembering some of the things that I, I used to get up to. We can talk about whether collecting is a disease or not, because I'm sure that somebody would say that it's some kind of psychiatric condition. but I've actually started collecting things, and this is part… Sorry for audio listeners, but I will try to describe what this thing is. is part of a 1990s Sena P2 five-by-four-inch camera. this is the rear standard-bearer, the where the film went in the thing on the top of a, what we would call a view camera. And if you imagine those professional cameras that, you know, you s- used to see people using where, you know, there'd be a front bit and a back bit, and in the middle, there'd be bellows. Well, this is part of a Swiss camera from the 1990s, and I picked this up in a shop in Vienna, in Austria, um, a couple of weeks ago. And it was an absolute bargain because this thing is mint. I've got the entire camera. I've got it in parts on my desk, ' cause I'm kind of, you know, oiling it and cleaning it and, and, and doing the stuff. But this is… I used to sell these cameras. I worked for this company, back in the early 1990s, and this was a Swiss company, um, based in Schaffhausen in northern, Nor- northern Switzerland, southern Germany,

Brad: [2:31] Right

Andy Clarke: [2:31] the border on the Rhine Falls. Not very far away, actually, from where I think you and I last saw each other, which was Freiburg.

Brad: [2:38] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [2:39] an hour or there. And, uh, I've been collecting, bits of history, and this is… I'm putting this together at the moment. Um, it's all in pieces on my desk. but I have all the bits to make it work, except that, of course, you can't really shoot five-by-four-inch film anymore. Well, at least not easily. so this is, this is part of it. And if you want to know what the other bit looks like when it's on the front I picked this up. I had to have this shipped from Japan. That's how serious I've become on this kind of stuff. This is a 90 millimeter, Schneider Super-Angulon large format lens, which in the day would've been, oh, dear, well over 1,000 quid.

Brad: [3:28] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [3:28] it for a lot quick- cheaper than that. But this camera is my, is my baby. Um, it's gonna go on a tripod over there in the studio, and it's gonna look absolutely awesome, it's gonna remind me of the, the sort of stuff that I used to be involved with before the web and before all this other stuff. and you can't see unless you actually, you know, unless you get your hands on this kind of thing, but this is a serious piece of machinery. You know, the gears, the racking, all this kind of stuff is absolutely incredible. And, you know, this company was, was known for it. and I used to go to Schaffhausen quite regularly, when they would, you know, when they would have kind of, you know, sales events or new product launches or all this kind of stuff. So I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Schaffhausen, which is why I'm wearing a, an IWC watch as well 'cause they're based

Brad: [4:25] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [4:26] in Schaffhausen. but this thing is, is absolutely, um, incredible, it's just a kind of a reminder of, you know, not only kind of, you know, what I used to do all those years ago, but, you know, the stuff that we did and had to use to, to take pictures even as, you know, as little time ago as the, as the '90s. I say that and it's like, you know, that's like 40 years. This is what's getting me excited at the moment, is putting my Sina together, which hopefully by the end of the week I will, uh, I'll have done. But it's, it's, it's epic. This thing is so heavy. I mean, the whole camera

Brad: [5:05] it.

Andy Clarke: [5:06] Yeah.

Brad: [5:06] looks it. It, it, like you could, you could tell, you could see the craft, the machine, like the, the, the precision You could tell there's, there's the craftsmanship, there's the legendary Swiss precision and all of that stuff. But I, uh, you're, you're tying a lot together because, like you said, there's this nostalgia there. This is the… It, it doesn't just sound like, "Oh yeah, I, I worked in a, a camera shop for a hot second." It sounds like this was, like, a real part of your early career, I guess? Or, or was, was it… Yeah, this is, like, you, like, you actually going to this place, so you have this, like, connection to it that isn't just beyond like, "Oh, I think that this looks really cool." It sounds like y- you obviously have an appreciation for the craftsmanship and the, and the design of this thing, but it's also you're, you're tying the, the history and the geography and your, your life's journey together through it, as well as this, the, the format that is something that we take for granted now, that we can just generate and snap off, you know, a thousand photos in a second. and just the, just the size and the awkward, like, just, just how bulky it all is and stuff too. You're just kind of like, wow, it's, it's, it's difficult to go back to that place.

Andy Clarke: [6:24] I d- see, th- th- if you want a sort of a potted history, I, I went to art school back in the '80s thinking that I was gonna be, you know, David Hockney, um, a- and a fabulous painter. And it turned out after about three or four days, I realized that compared to everybody else, I was a terrible painter. And, you know, there were people that I was at art school with that, you know, were, like, super talented. Um, and I wasn't. So I'd kinda-- I think I'd, like most things in my life, I think I'd kind of blagged my way into it, ended up spending most of my time in either the printmaking studio making linocuts or in the dark room. was very seriously into photography for a long time. when art school finished, I moved down to London, and I thought I would go and work with a photographer, and the usual route was, was that you apprenticed and, you know, you spent several years working under a photographer loading film and painting walls and making tea. I actually ended up working in a car photography studio. And this place, it was, it was essentially like an Amazon warehouse in the scale of it. But if you imagine when you, you know, if you take a photograph of a, of a tin of beans, generally speaking, you know, in the, in the pre-digital age, there would be some form of kind of, you know, curved background, infinity kind of looking background, usually paper on a, on a thing. now, if you're photographing a car, that thing has to be, you know, 100 feet wide and, and 80 feet tall. So I ended up working in this car photography studio and, um, as an assistant, and it was hard work, and I got nowhere near photography at all. Um, it was all literally laboring. It was either painting the, the stage, after a shoot or before a shoot, or sometimes during a shoot. we did-- It was incredible the way that… I can still remember some of those things, how, how they were done. This is pre-digital. This is pre-Photoshop. It's

Brad: [8:32] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [8:32] retouching. And if you wanted to take a photograph of a car, and you wanted the impression that the wheels were moving, what you would do is you would, take a photograph with the wheels in one place, and then you would literally lift the car up, move the wheels, drop it down, take another exposure, lift it up, and you do, like, 80 exposures on the same piece of film to lift this thing up. the famous one was actually a shoot for, I'll never forget this, it was a shoot for a Fiat Tipo, which was like a little tiny, I don't know what you'd call it now, compact, And the campaign had this Fiat literally sitting on the top of a mountain Except that the mountain, the s- the sky behind the mountain was literally painted on this infinity curve. And it took a painter and his team two weeks to paint the sky. And then there was a scaffolding tower, and the, um, the Fi- was put on top of the scaffolding tower. And I was the only one of these assistants that actually coincid- weirdly had a forklift truck driving license. So it came down to me to actually lift this car on top of a, on top of this scaffold tower and just, like, drop it down. Really scary stuff. And

Brad: [9:49] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [9:50] the set designer took very, very thick, you know, one-foot thick 8x4 sheets of, uh, polystyrene and then carved it with a hot knife to create the rocks that were underneath the car. It was all painted, airbrushed, and, and painted up. And then to, to create the impression of, like, a, of a, of a load of kind of, you know, low cloud so that the, there was all the low cloud and then the car was on the top of the mountain just peeking out of the cloud. To create that effect, they got about eight shopping carts, strapped a load of chicken wire to them, and covered that chicken wire in cotton wool, and then got about eight volunteers to literally move the shopping carts backwards and forwards around for a, you know, like, a minute-long exposure, and it created this thing. And was how, that was how stuff was done. I mean, this would be probably '88, '89 So only a few years before, you know, before my

Brad: [10:55] Yeah.

Andy Clarke: [10:56] so I kinda got into photography like that, and this company, um, they, um, obviously lots of photographers came and went through the studio. And then I went to one of the big trade shows, and it was up in, I think it was Birmingham at the time. so I went to this trade show and I'm kinda talking to a bunch of people, and I'm talking to the, the company that sold Senar in the UK, got talking to them, and they were looking for a sales guy. But they wanted like a s- they wanted like… I don't know what we call it now. I suppose it'd be like the, the old, the old school equivalent of like a developer evangelist. They

Brad: [11:33] Okay, yeah.

Andy Clarke: [11:34] that knew a bit about

Brad: [11:36] That knew, knew the craft. Yeah, yeah, yeah

Andy Clarke: [11:39] Well, I didn't really know the craft, but you know, I could talk a good game. so I actually ended up working for this company and then the s- the Swiss, S- Senar. and that was my route into, into working in photography industry. and I, I took a complete detour away from the, the kind of the creative side and, and got much more into, you know, technical and sales and, and all that kind of stuff. And that was a big kind of career, career pivot a good few years. so yeah, so that's kind of one of the reasons why I, I, I think back to some of the stories that, um, some of the things that I remember from those days of literally going out selling this stuff, and it sticks with me today. There was my boss at the time, Kevin Turner, bless his soul, he, um, he used to have some real catchphrases. He was a, he was a natural salesperson would say things like, you know, "Well, the deal's not done until the checks stop bouncing." And, you know, w- we, we would lose deals to competitors, um, and he would not give up. Even after they'd said to him, "Kevin, no, we're buying something else," he w- he was like a dog with a bone. And there was one particular day I remember when, um, the competitor had actually delivered all of their equipment to this, to this client studio. Kevin struck a deal with them. and literally our van driver collected the competitor's kit and delivered it back to them. So it was a, it was a bit of a circus. But, you know, it's those kind of things that you kind of look back on and think, you know, it was sometimes really miserable at the time, but, you know, you end up with a few stories to tell

Brad: [13:18] Well, not just, not just that though. Like, 'cause as you're describing literally all of this and, and how I know you as art director, web person that, that cares about the craft, agency owner, someone out there that's been having to create, package, sell, deliver, do all of that over a long period of time, it's like all of that experience totally checks out, and I can s- totally see all of those transferable skills, as we call them, on, you know, it, all of that stuff. It's like, we kinda have no choice but to be shaped by those earlier experiences, and we carry all of it with us. And, 'cause a lotta people think, and I, I'm curious to get your take on it, because something like that, oh yeah, like I kind of had this, this journey in, camera equipment sales and- There's quite a few people out there I think that would say, "Oh, yeah, like, and that, and that was, like, a mistake," or, or like, or that, that was like a weird, like, detour. And yeah, it, uh, like, it, it doesn't seem like you, you see it that way

Andy Clarke: [14:28] No. Um, you know, I, I, there were lots of aspects of being in sales that I did not like at all. and, you know, I didn't like the pressure of having to meet numbers. You know, I found that to be, you know, not in my character at all. I loved the industry and the people and the craft the technology that, that kind of went behind it. you know, we-- if we, if you talk to, you know, you talk to a lot of people, they, they'll have a very, a very negative i- um, impression of salespeople. You know, we've all been sold to badly. I was attempted to be sold to very badly fairly recently because we're having double glazing fitted in our cottage for

Brad: [15:13] 'Kay

Andy Clarke: [15:14] time in 30 years. We might actually be warm in the winter. you know, we, we got three quotes to come round and, um, you know, there were three guys that came and one of them was, you know, very enthusiastic about the product and really knew things and had ideas and was a charming chap. But then there was the, then there was the, the other chap who sold badly. Um, and you know, he didn't quite-- he wasn't quite one of those salesmen that wouldn't leave unless he'd got a signature. But it was the sort of thing where, you know, he was then constantly pestering you afterwards to, you know, "Have you made a decision? Have you thought about

Brad: [15:48] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [15:49] we've got a special promotion coming up next week if you sign now." Uh, we've all been sold to badly, but the, being sold to well when you have a need is actually a, a really, a really good, really good skill. and I'll always remember Kevin saying that there are three types of customers. There's the customer that knows he's got a problem, he knows how to solve it, and he's just looking to buy something. Those are the customers that we don't want they know what they want. It's a race to the bottom, and it's, it's the lowest price wins. Then you've got a customer that knows he's got a problem, doesn't know how to solve it, and then you're in with a chance of being able to propose a solution and, you know, hopefully he believes in your, in your message. And the, the third type of customer is the one that doesn't know he's got a problem, of course he doesn't know how to solve it, and then he's there-- you're there to basically to, you know, cr- not just fulfill a need, but kind of create a need.

Brad: [16:59] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [17:00] And it's that kind of thing, I think, which is inc- it's just as valuable in creative or technical services than it is in selling cameras 40 years ago Because, you know, you're really thinking about, you know, what can I do that is going to actually meaningfully improve somebody's business or marketing or performance or guide or whatever it might be. Um, then being able to articulate that and take people along the journey with you so that they're able to then go, "Yeah, that was good. He knew what he was talking about." And then they're really happy with the end result and will continue to buy. That's, that's something that I've kind of, you know, carried with me all these years.

Brad: [17:51] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [17:52] and, you know, some people will say, "Yeah, you know, sales is just manipulation." I'm sure that our old friend Jeremy Keith would be, would, would be. We've, we've had lots of, of, uh, heated discussions about advertising over the years. Um, and you know, and what he considers to be evil or, or manipulative or, or whatever. But, you know, good advertising, good sales is, is, an art, not just a, you know, it's not even just a skill. It's an, it's an absolute art. And,

Brad: [18:23] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [18:23] we can-- It's not something which… know, if, if I c- if, if, if I'm designing your website and I say, "Look, I've had this great idea," gotta be able to articulate it, and I've got to be able to, you know, reason it out with you and tell you why I think that this is the better solution than a, another solution and, do that with, with conviction. And don't know whether, whether, whether young people, sort of appreciate that. you?

Brad: [18:52] it, there does seem to be, I think, a, a generational, dynamic in play. I think you have a lot of, uh, kinda like the, the digital side of things as well as now, uh, COVID and stuff when it comes to just kind of interpersonal communication. I think that, that, that some things have, have shifted for sure. all of this adds up to there's, there's… And I like how you just said it, it's an art form, but it, there's also just a real authenticity to it, and that's, that's, I think, the thing that I've come to appreciate over the years in my own career trajectory working for agencies where we'd, you know, doing work with, with Nike and Mastercard and whatever, and like, you know, you're, you're around the kind of like bullshitty kind of parts, but then you're also around the, oh yeah, like here's these, these kind of like real things that are, that are solving real problems. And, you know, you're kinda connecting the dots and like I got to see that at this like mega scale. But like bringing that into my own world and my own work to be able to have a conversation with somebody, and I like how, like how you got in- involved with the g- the camera company is it's like, yeah, you, y- you need to actually live in that world and be able to connect with people over the craft, and to be able to unders- genuinely understand the kinds of problems that they're up against. And I like how you, you said it, it's like to, whenever you are feeling the impact of those problems, so you're just like swimming or, or frustrated, or you're just… It, sometimes you do know the, what's causing that, but a lot of times, like, you don't, or you b- you have a directional notion. Having someone who's able to kinda come in and say, "Hey, looks like, looks like you've got some problems and I wanna better understand them, and I also have some ways that we can address those things." And it, and it is just, you sometimes just see the, uh, the, the literal shoulders drop. You know? You see that, like, tension leave their… It's like, oh good, like somebody who knows what they're talking about is here. They're actually invested in what I'm wrestling with, and there's sensible and reasonable, and there, there are solutions to these problems, and that's, that's design in a nutshell, right?

Andy Clarke: [21:15] I don't know whether you've seen it because obviously, I don't know when this is gonna go out, but as we record this, we are in the middle of the, the FIFA World Cup, which sadly is taking place in the US. This has been kind of all over the, the s- the socials over the last week or so, but the, um, Heinz's, Heinz condiment company, their response to not being able to, um, have their branded goods on display. Have you seen this?

Brad: [21:42] haven't, but Heinz is a Pittsburgh company, so I should

Andy Clarke: [21:45] the long and short of it is, is that FIFA, the world governing body of football, has its own sponsors, and when it comes to an event like the World Cup, only their c- only their sponsor logos are allowed to be visible. we've had this thing with, uh, with Levi's and with Gillette, who sponsor stadiums. you know, they've ha- it's gone from being the Gillette Stadium to the, I don't know, San Francisco Stadium or whatever it happens to be.

Brad: [22:12] Yeah, sure

Andy Clarke: [22:13] It might be Boston. they've had to cover up their signage on these stadiums. but w- the really, the really clever thing has been how they've covered them up. So Gillette, for example, covered up their logo in what looks like an enormous blob of shaving foam. you know, you know what the place is. But the best one, the absolute best one was Heinz, because if you go to, you know, the cond-, uh, the, um, the concession stand, you know, to get a hot dog at the, at the game, you're gonna want mustard or mayonnaise or ketchup to go with it. So they're using Heinz. You know, Heinz is the, is the brand that they're using, stadium's been forced to cover up Heinz on all of leaving, you know, leaving tomato ketchup or mayonnaise or mustard or whatever it is. But they put great-- they basically-- it's like the Epstein files, um, for ketchup, where, you know,

Brad: [23:10] ketchup. Yeah, yeah.

Andy Clarke: [23:11] k-

Brad: [23:12] Yeah.

Andy Clarke: [23:12] Hei-Heinz has been redacted. so what Heinz have done is they've actually launched their own range of, of condiments, um, and they're, they are for sale in Canada, I think, um, which have actually got the redaction printed on the label, and they're calling it Unofficial Stadium Ketchup

Brad: [23:34] Beautiful.

Andy Clarke: [23:35] Which

Brad: [23:36] Beautiful

Andy Clarke: [23:36] is great. And I, and should get a massive pay rise for that

Brad: [23:41] it's so fascinating, and it gets into the stew of, like, a lot of the world that we operate in, that the world of branding, the world of, of kind of visual communication, of, of… There, there's just all sorts of dynamics and systems and things in play that, that just lead to these really wild and bizarre situations. But it's like, it's that money, it's that money dance on full display. It's kind of hilarious, uh, 'cause it's…

Andy Clarke: [24:12] It, it, it was absolute genius. But you see, it makes me wonder sometimes where, you know, where on the web do we get that kind of high-level creative thinking? Um, you know, does it, does it purely happen in ad agencies? Because, you know, you don't see that kind of creative stuff, generally I don't, down to, you know, people's experiences of, of products or websites.

Brad: [24:37] there's… I mean, you, you touched on it, like, right out of the gate. You, you, you know, what you described with that Fiat photo shoot is, like, just straight-up set design for a movie, right? It's like there's a physicality to it. There is just, you know, multimedia art on full display, right? And it's obviously it's doing a specific job, right? It's through, you know, the lens of an advertisement, but it's like that's just a straight-up art shoot. And it does feel that over time and translated into the digital world and especially now, there has been this kind of flattening that has happened of a lot of the, the multidimensionality of the, the rest of just the, the world, uh, of, you know, physics of, of the world, the world of atoms, and does that actually translate into the world of bits? And I think that we've seen some really interesting things happen over the course of the last few decades of the web, where There is a utilitarian aspect to, "Cool, I'm coming on to this website to get something done," or, "I'm w- you know, working through a flow." And by all means, you know, like, yeah, get out of the way. Don't, don't try to, like, stuff your stuff. Don't, don't try to be whatever. But there's, there's a time and a place for, for a lot of things, and I do think that there is that more creative or inventive or whatever stuff that used to be kinda what I'd get into a little bit in the ad agency world, where you're like, "Oh, okay, this is, like, a little, like, clever thing for, for Tiffany and Company," where it's like you could, like, drop a pin and, like, be like, "Here's where you and your sweetheart met or where they proposed," and you ended up with this, like, beautiful kinda map all over the world of, like, where people's, you know, like, got together with their, with their sweetheart and stuff. You're like, "That's, that's, that's neat. I like that." You know? It's, it's, it's, it's special. It's, it's inventive. You're, you're, you're wielding the, the technologies available to us at the time that are emerging, and you're doing kind of things that are a little bit outside the norm. It's not just, like, totally there to just only get you into a checkout flow, but it's there to just, like, help with a bit of just, just storytelling or connection or just fun or all of that stuff, and it, and it feels like those things have been fewer and further between, I think, as the years go by.

Andy Clarke: [27:15] I've been very lucky, but over the last few years I've kind of developed an accidental niche working with composers, either, you know, movie composers or video game composers. And, you know, these are very talented individuals. Um, and they seem to think that when they come to me, they're gonna get something which hopefully reflects a little bit about their personality or demonstrates their work without just being, you know, an audio player or a h-

Brad: [27:48] Yeah.

Andy Clarke: [27:49] things, histograms or whatever. And

Brad: [27:51] Yep

Andy Clarke: [27:51] a lot of fun. I found those things really, really satisfying, because I, I do still think that there's a market for good storytelling online. And, you know, it doesn't really matter what you're doing. You know, I've just done a job with, um, a company that sells thermal printer cartridges, which, you know, it's, it's not Nike. but this company has a story to tell, and their story is all about, um, what they, they… You know, the stuff that they make gets printed onto packaging, generally food packaging. if the thing runs out, then the production line stops, therefore just-in-time delivery. And one of the guys actually said to me, "You know, it's, it's a bit of an art really knowing when somebody's gonna need something." And that kind of got me thinking, and I know it's a cheesy idea, but I ended up actually spending a week reproducing famous paintings using QR codes, which I'm sure is not a novel idea, but it

Brad: [28:52] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [28:53] you know, it, it was appropriate to the, to this particular job. That's the other thing, you know, going back to your kind of, you know, your original question about what gets you excited the morning, and it's, it's good ideas, you know, clever, ideas, clever storytelling. And it doesn't matter to me what the medium is. It can, you know, it

Brad: [29:12] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [29:13] film, it can be music, it can be the web or digital stuff or whatever

Brad: [29:19] do you see yourself oscillating between those different worlds? Is it a morning by morning thing, or do you feel like you get into… Do you go into a zone and kinda get tunnel vision when you're pursuing an idea, or do you find yourself kinda like a bee pollinating many flowers or kind of flitting across different mediums over the course of, say, a month? Or, or do you, like, get dialed in? Do you g- do you go deep or broad?

Andy Clarke: [29:49] I, don't know whether it's an ADHD thing, but I find it incredibly difficult to concentrate, and the older I get, the worse it is I am the world's worst multitasker. I will often have to set aside time where I know that I'm not dealing with anything else, and I really need to, actively focus on something. so this week is all about coming up with a whole set of graphic illustrations for, you know, for another small business client. so, you know, the web part of it was actually done within a few days, but, you know, out of a months-long project, you know, the vast majority of it is gonna be coming up with the ideas, and copywriting, and typesetting and,

Brad: [30:37] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [30:38] you know, doing all of that. And it's got to that stage in the job where I'm really having to kind of focus on kind of, you know, the look and feel. and that comes down to how do I illustrate the concepts, the real thing, the real benefits of what it is that this company does? How can I kind of illustrate that visually?

Brad: [30:57] It sounds like there's, there's a time and it, it sounds like you give yourself some permission to, to live in that w- world where you're, you're not, focusing, but then you're like, "Right, it's, it's go time." You, you kinda know when that threshold gets crossed and you need to, like, really actively design, like, like, the space and the time to be able to, to stay there. Yeah

Andy Clarke: [31:22] I mean, I've been traveling for the last few weeks, um, and I haven't really done any-- I've got a lot done over the last, you know, three, four weeks or so. You know, I've completely rebuilt my own website from the ground up. I've done some client stuff. You know, I've done, I've done some building, I've done some writing, I've done some bits and pieces. But that's all s- that's all kind of like busy work that I can

Brad: [31:47] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [31:47] do anywhere. It's the sort of thing where I can do that in a coffee shop or I can do it in a, you know, in a service station if I decide

Brad: [31:54] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [31:55] from driving for an hour. Um, but actually, I, I f- I do need this space to… or a space that I can kind of make my own if I'm really gonna sit and focus

Brad: [32:07] How do you find your environment, like that gas station session, how do, how do you find that, that, that environment influences your work, or does it? Do you feel like it does or, or not? Even if it, e- even if it is, like, busy work, do you feel the, the impacts of where you're at, especially if you are traveling, d- do you feel like that finds its way in somehow? Or are you … Andy Clarke: Not, not s- no, not so much. Not so much. Um, I mean, I had a very, very pleasant day on Friday. I decided, I said to Sue, you know, "I'm not coming out with you today," you know? "I'm gonna go and find a cafe and I'm gonna sit by a lake and I'm gonna, like, you know, do some stuff." I don't, you know, I don't, I don't find the environment particularly affects it. It's, it's much more about being able to get inside your own head.

Brad: [33:00] Yeah. Yeah

Andy Clarke: [33:01] I, I n- I actually do need a, a certain amount of distractions. It drives Sue nuts, but even when I'm, you know, designing something or, you know, I'm really trying to focus, there is always a film on. I've got an iMac sitting in front of me. There is always a film on. watch the same movie over and over and over again. or there's, or there's music on. And it's not, you know, some people go, "Yeah, I can only listen to Tchaikovsky when I'm working

Brad: [33:29] Yeah, sure

Andy Clarke: [33:29] But I've gotta have something. And I've learned actually that if, if, if your brain kind of, you know, there's 100% of it, if work takes up 80%, then unless I have something to fill up the other 20%, not productive. And if I don't have a film on or I don't have music on or something like that, it's then that my stupid brain starts to wander and I get distracted and I think, "Ooh, who was that actor that starred in that TV show?" And then I'm kind of in a fucking Wi- Wikipedia rabbit hole

Brad: [34:02] you need the entire thing to be filled up. Your en- your entire attention to be preoccupied, else

Andy Clarke: [34:10] Mm-hmm.

Brad: [34:11] It's gonna wander. Yeah. That's fascinating. I, I see that play out in my own work and stuff as well, where it's, it's, uh… There's something to beat and rhythm for me specifically that plays a real big part, right? When we talk about beat or groove or, or whatever, we're often talking about some- There's a, a directionality to it, right? It's, it's, it's going somewhere, right? There's, there's the passage of time, and there's this rhythm that's moving forward. Like, we feel a sense of, of movement forward. We d- we rarely feel music takes us backwards or keeps us standing still. It's, it's taking us somewhere, and it's, i- in my experience of it, it's always forward, right?

Andy Clarke: [35:06] Hmm.

Brad: [35:06] Uh, in, in, in, in, in the literal sense it, it is because it's, you know, sound produced over time. But there's, there's something experiential to it that you just kind of have this thing that when it's on, it's just kind of immediately moving me forward. And when I hitch that up to work or, or what I'm trying to apply my, my conscious mind to, I find that really helps me forward. It, it, it, it moves me forward. It's, it plays a role in moving my own shit forward

Andy Clarke: [35:43] Yeah, I don't, I don't find does that necessarily for me. Um,

Brad: [35:49] Hmm?

Andy Clarke: [35:50] it would be listening to, you know, country music or, or Motörhead, um, doesn't really make much of a difference. I don't work quicker when I'm listening to Motörhead than I

Brad: [36:00] Yeah.

Andy Clarke: [36:00] listening to Miranda Lambert.

Brad: [36:03] Right?

Andy Clarke: [36:04] but it's, it's, it's more about occupying the, the misbehaving, misbehaving parts of my brain

Brad: [36:14] Yeah. Yeah. You're, you're, you are using it as like a, to tamp down the, the kind of parts that are gonna distract or, or preoccupy you and, and, and kind of keep… It, it's a, it's a, it's almost like, like a, like a white noise machine that just kinda keeps that part placated so that you're able to focus on, on what needs to be done. That's, that's fascinating. I think that, I think that's, that's really cool.

Andy Clarke: [36:40] Yeah, musical cannabis.

Brad: [36:42] But, but it's interesting to say 'cause since you're saying that, you know, you'll often have a film running, now that's like, that's a visual experience, that's dialogue, that's whatever, and like, like you were saying with people and Tchaikovsky where it's just like, "Oh, yeah, I can't, can't work with, with lyrics or, you know, music with lyrics or, or other, or a podcast playing or something like that," that that feels like it's pulling, uh, yeah, that part, the language center of your brain away, but it sounds like that's not an issue for you.

Andy Clarke: [37:11] No, the only time when I've got to have everything completely distraction-free is when I'm writing.

Brad: [37:18] Hmm.

Andy Clarke: [37:19] And I, I can't have, I can't have anybody in the same room when I'm, when I'm writing. You know, somebody moving a chair is gonna really irritate me. well, actually I say that, Sue moving a chair. She's the only one that's in the house apart from me. she's gonna irritate me moving that chair. so I do have to have everything completely quiet because I've got this technique that I was taught many, many, many years ago, which is to actually have a conversation with the reader. So, you know, I'm, I'm writing for you, and I'm having a conversation with you about this thing. And, so therefore I can't have any kind of, you know,

Brad: [37:56] Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah

Andy Clarke: [37:59] But apart from that, you know But, but I quite like it. It's, it's, it's I, I, I do try to get out of the house, you know, at least twice a week I try to leave the house.

Brad: [38:10] Hashtag life goals. Get out of the house twice a year.

Andy Clarke: [38:13] Exactly. Well, you know, one day Scoob's gonna come up here and she's just gonna find me kind of desiccated at my desk cobwebs hanging off. He died at his Mac

Brad: [38:26] there is something… It's, it's a very strange sense of, uh, of perspective, 'cause I think about it a lot. You know, I'm, I'm hanging out at my house, you know, uh, for a good bit of my time. Yeah, I, I, I need to get out of the house, uh, more. We're, we're working on it. It's, it's been a journey, it's been a process. in certain respects, depending on how you'd look at it, right, if you're not at all in this field or don't value or, or, you know, work on the same things that I'm working on, you would look at that and go, "Oh, that just seems like what a, what a miserable and solitary existence." And yet I don't feel that way at all. It's like here are these, these just kind of rich worlds. Here are all the people that I know. Here are all of, like, the… It's, it's, it's very, very, very fascinating. I'm pretty good at exploring the physical world. Very, very bad at whenever I'm home. I'm usually a homebody. And there was a period of time where that was really, really necessary, but now I'm kind of, like, trying to overcome that and kind of just reconnect with just like a, "Oh, yeah, like, maybe I should just rather than make a yet another peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I should probably go out and, and get… Have, have a meal somewhere, uh, that isn't, isn't my house." So,

Andy Clarke: [39:52] Yeah. I mean, you know, it's not like we're s- you know, it's, we- things could be worse, couldn't they? I mean, you know, there's a very nice what looks… What-- Is that, is that the Rickenbacker that's

Brad: [40:00] Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep

Andy Clarke: [40:02] know, well, you know, you've got your Rickenbacker, I've got a Senar on my desk and, um, and a whole load of, um, Godzilla action figures lining the walls. So, you know, it's not like we're kind of, you know, working in a coal mine.

Brad: [40:15] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [40:16] so we mustn't grumble too

Brad: [40:18] Yeah. Well, but, but, but, but that is, that is, we've, we've kind of built these, these comfortable little cocoons. but they're creative cocoons as well, right? And I think I, I'm fascinated by that because, you know, for people to do impactful work, often for the benefit of others, it requires a certain level of solitude or focus or disconnection from other people. It's, it, it a- it almost seems kind of counterintuitive or counterproductive, right? It's like, oh yeah, if you're like trying to make good art or make good music or make good work or design good things that are in pursuit of helping other people or, or, you know, putting beautiful things out into the world for the benefit of others, you'd think, oh yeah, well, you, you wanna be out amongst them. in practice you kinda need that head down time. You need, you need that even if you're… Like you were saying, like even if you're in a cafe or something, it's like putting like the headphones on. I think a lot of people are like, it, it doesn't necessarily compute. And I could, I could see how there is this disconnect in perspective where it's just like, oh, look at how depressing this is. Like, you're at a beautiful lake and you're staring at a fucking computer, right? Like, what are you doing with your life? And it's like, well, living your best life, right? 'Cause you know that what's in that computer

Andy Clarke: [41:43] Whoa!

Brad: [41:44] is not, is not totally distracting,

Andy Clarke: [41:47] Well, no,

Brad: [41:48] from the, from the lake.

Andy Clarke: [41:49] Exactly. You know, and I'm sitting here for a few hours with my computer by the lake, but I'm not spending, you know, 50 weeks of the year, um, working in a grocery store. You know? So I'm, I'm very lucky to be able to,

Brad: [42:05] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [42:05] kind of thing. Well, have you ever worked for somebody or worked in, in a building with lots and lots of other people? Have you ever worked in like, you know, like a, a big open plan or whatever? Have you, have you done that?

Brad: [42:20] I, I have. My, my very first job I was, you know, in cubicles adjacent to the accounting department wearing, uh, business casual and going, "This is, this is what, uh, adult work is." I just kind of a- assumed that's what it was and, and eventually kinda changed out of that. But yeah, that wa- that was a, a trip. And then, but then ultimately I found myself in these rooms with a small handful of people, and that was very interesting. Kinda working in, first in, in New York City, a little Soho apartment with, like, six people tops. Like, I, I think I was, like, number three or maybe four whenever I got there, and then there was, you know, six or seven people by the end of it. And then working at RGA, my wife and I had different experiences in literally the same building, because she worked in a big kinda open plan part of the office where there's just all sorts of activity and people coming and going and passing through and all of that stuff, which is really tough for ADHD, I think. Uh, and then there was me, that I was in a converted, uh, conference room that got holed up with, uh, just a few, a handful of people, and we kinda created our little kinda subculture, uh, within that room. And, and that, I think back very fondly to those times because we kind of, like, were protected from what's since come out about, like, open, open plans, you know, open office plans and stuff, and just, like, how not conducive to good work they, they are in, in many respects. So it was like, oh yeah, I was kinda like holed up with, like, a little, like, family and, like, we had our own little culture going, so.

Andy Clarke: [44:20] I mean, the, the-- I worked for a-- I went and, went and lived in Australia for a couple of years, I worked for a, a fintech company d- down there in Sydney that had one of these great big open plan offices. There's like 80 people in there. You know, there's everybody from the CEO to the office manager to the and marketing and support and the technical teams and, you know, and, and me. and you know, on one hand you might think to yourself, "Well, I'm gonna find that really energizing." You've got all these people moving around, it's buzzing and kind of stuff. found it hateful and exhausting and after a couple of months, I discovered that this company had-- they rented, um, a flat, an apartment, a set of rooms above the barber shop, which was over the road, and it was sort of like a bit of an overflow space.

Brad: [45:16] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [45:17] And I discovered this space. So I would, I would go into work in the morning and pretend to enjoy it, then, you know, e-everybody would go for lunch, and then after lunch I would disappear,

Brad: [45:30] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [45:30] take over one of these rooms. Um, and ultimately I thought, yeah, it sound, sound like I'm sort of like a, I don't know, bird or something. But, you know, over time it got filled up with my shit and I, you know, and I, I took a bookcase. I bought a bookcase and put it in this space and had my books on it And they

Brad: [45:50] Hey, y- you, you,

Andy Clarke: [45:52] Anne?"

Brad: [45:52] yeah, you just like, uh, organically found and designed the space that you needed in order to do what you needed to do. It's, it's like your body rejected that env- environment and so you found the way to, to find an environment and design and create the environment that you needed,

Andy Clarke: [46:11] Yeah.

Brad: [46:12] that's beautiful

Andy Clarke: [46:13] it was not a very ex- a very successful, successful job or, or, or, or experience. But, it, it did, it did teach me that, um, I'm not cut out for working in any kind of space

Brad: [46:27] Yeah.

Andy Clarke: [46:28] at all

Brad: [46:29] Those th- those, those experiences are important, right? And I, I, I could say that about a, a good bit of my, my early career experience was learning what not to do. You know, you're shaped a certain way. You have a certain disposition. You have a certain mind. You have a certain dis- uh, you know, we, we all have preferences. We all have, you know… Our definition of comfort is different from human being to human being, right? So it does become this really fascinating thing, and that's why I think that, um, in this moment in time, I feel like there's, over the last, say, two years, there's been the trend of like, oh, yes, return to the office, right? After kinda post-COVID, where, uh, everybody kind of got comfortable with this, this flexibility, which is why it just feels so absurd almost to kinda go, cool, so everybody's got their own rich lives. We all have our individual preferences, our own individual comforts, our own individual working styles, our own individual just, just everything. Yes, we want to collaborate and coordinate and communicate with the other people that we're working with. That's, that's also an instinct that we all share. But that's why, like, those return to office decrees by management feel just so ham-handed and just coarse and just… It, it just, it just feels… It's this, like, flattening of it's like, For, for a lot of people, I think they got that taste of what we get to experience a lot, which is, ah, yeah, we're surrounded by our, our, our stuff, our comfort. We've created our own little, like, kinda creative cocoons. And, uh, now all of a sudden the boss is, is saying, "Nope, you gotta, you gotta make that commute and get back into an environment that's, like, been demonstrated to, to be counterproductive for getting things actually done."

Andy Clarke: [48:30] It is, it's, it's, it's strange when you sort of, when you sort of sit back and think about it. I always, I always sort of felt slightly rebellious, you know, even going over and, you know, like leaving the office and working on my own over the road, you know, felt kind of rebellious. but I, I think in, in hindsight that I have built a physical space and I've built a mental space and I've built a job around my need to work in a certain way or be a certain way. And, and I've sort of realized that no, you know, no, I'm not cut out to be around people every day.

Brad: [49:15] Hmm?

Andy Clarke: [49:16] and I'm not cut out for having to be, appear to be on all the time. You know, if I dec- if I decide that I wanna, I wanna get out of bed at 11 o'clock in the morning and, um, and, and work until 3:00 AM, well, you know, I will do, and I'll probably do my best work after midnight.

Brad: [49:33] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [49:34] and if I decide that I want to sit and fiddle with, you know, oiling large format cameras for an afternoon, well, you know, well, I can. and I've kind of built my working life ar- around that almost as a way of, I think either compensating for or coping with the, you know, the ridiculous blob of goo between my ears

Brad: [49:59] Yeah. ADHD in general is, it's, it's a very challenging thing in that in so many respects it's just, oh, well, I'm just, it sounds like you're just interested in a bunch of different things, and from moment to moment or day to day you feel like pursuing a certain thing. Or, or yeah, like, uh, it's time to play with some gear, or it's time to, that's, that is- it's like, is that a bad thing to have just vast and varied, like, interests and actually, like, act on them? It's like, no. But then there's like, oh yeah, then there's this thing called, you know, responsibility and cl- you know, clients are expecting things or people are expecting things from me. I think that, I think that that's the balance. But it, but it sounds like, like you, you've been able to just be … It's, it's a … Would you say that it's just, like, been, like, an iterative process to get to a place where you're able to arrive at that waking up at 11:00, going to bed at 3:00 AM on a certain day, but not necessarily doing that, you know, religiously or, or, or all the time, but to just, like, kind of meet the day and your energy and your head space where it's at for the day?

Andy Clarke: [51:10] do, I do tend to work late.

I rarely go to bed before 2: [51:12] 00 AM. Um, and, you know, quite often I will gravitate to coming back up here and, and, and, and doing various things. and it's just a, it's just a rhythm that I've kind of got into.

Brad: [51:29] Yeah. Yeah

Andy Clarke: [51:30] alwa- Sue's a morning person. She always used to joke that we could cover, you know, 24-hour technical support because, you know, she's up at 6:00 and I don't go to

Brad: [51:38] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [51:39] until 2:00. So, but yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's very, it's very kind of interesting and I know that, you know, it's, you know, there's the two of us, you know, living the dream surrounded by Rickenbackers and Godzillas talking about, you know, the perils of ADHD. I know that there are people that really, really suffer with this, this stuff and cannot, you know, cannot get through the day, cannot maintain a, you know, relationship or a, hold down a job or make sure that their bills are paid or whatever. and I've never had a, an actual diagnosis. I've never taken any medication for it. I just think that it sort of makes a little bit of sense when it comes to my of weird brain chemistry.

Brad: [52:26] Yeah. Yeah

Andy Clarke: [52:27] know, that's, that's not to, that's not to disrespect or play down, um, you know, the struggles that, that I

Brad: [52:35] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [52:35] of people have.

Brad: [52:37] Yeah. And in my experience of it, and as I've kind of, uh, gotten a formal diagnosis of it in, in recent years actually, it's that second D that becomes important. Because th- there is, there are certain qualities to it that a lot of people in this moment right now, like the, you know, the, the comm- you know, mental health community and science community in general is just like, "Is this even really a disorder?" Or more of just like it's kind of a way of being. And the disorder part is the, this is actually getting in the way of my ability to, to move things across a finish line in any way, shape, or form. Or, or like you're saying, like, hold down a relationship or being able, you know, to, to function, right? And so I think that it is important for the, the people who really feel that that is genuinely disrupting their lives, and that they're, they, they find themselves frustrated. That it's like, "Yeah, like I, I, I can't do that." Like, that's the stuff where it's just like, please address it. Like, the, the beautiful thing about it is, is that there are treatments for it. You know, go do it. Like, whenever I did it, it was, you know, it's kind of like a survey and they, they gave Melissa a survey as well. And, and as, as well as like, I think maybe even some, some other people. Um, like maybe my mom got one as well. But it was just like… And then I, like, returned it, right? And it was just like, they, they looked at it, and then they gave me a diagnosis. And we, you know, I got put on some medicine. And it definitely, like, helped. It helped get the parts where I'm just like, "Yeah, I feel like I'm just, like, treading water and not going anywhere," to a place where I'm like, "Ah, yes, I actually feel like these, these strokes are actually leading to some, some forward movement," and I get some, some clarity out of it. So it's like, it's, it's, it's very interesting because I still retain that same, I think what you're describing quite well, which is just this, this diversity of, of interests and wanting to be able to, like, kind of follow your energy in, in your head wherever it's pointed, and to have the, the space to be able to do that. Like, I think that's a beautiful thing. That just means, like, you're interested in a lot of things. You could play with things. You'll make forward progress on certain things. And the, the cool thing is, is through that diversity, through pollinating all those different flowers, you'd, like, bring all of that experience, that breadth to whatever it is you're doing. Versus if you're to totally put on horse blinders and just focus on that one thing, you're not going to- have that same perspective. So in many respects, I feel like the, the attention deficit part of it is, is pretty beautiful and is, I think a lot of people are rethinking that as a, as like a, well, that's, that's more just a, a way of being rather than a disorder. But it's, it's the whenever you're getting drawn and quartered and you're not able to get anything done, it's that, it's that second D that is the, that's, that's the tough thing.

Andy Clarke: [55:53] dysfunction, I think is part of it. And, you know,

Brad: [55:56] Okay

Andy Clarke: [55:56] know, that's not kind of, you know, executives in business. That's like actually executing something, you know, not literally not being able to, you know, sit down and, and pay a bill or, you know, or concentrate or whatever.

Brad: [56:09] Yeah. Yeah

Andy Clarke: [56:11] but it, but it's really interesting actually, because there's, you know, I w- you know, w-when I was, when I was dicking around in the '90s with, uh, with large format cameras, nobody, would ever… I mean, I don't even know whether the, the term had been, you know, invented at, at that point. Um, so it's a very short space of time where we've kind of become, you know, aware and probably accepting in a lot of ways of,

Brad: [56:38] Yeah. I, I wanted, I wanted to, to, to talk to you about this just because y- you were, I- to my knowledge, and I'd have to think hard, but I, uh, but I think that you were the first person that I really saw in any sort of, like, full-throated way kind of talk about mental illness and mental health think, a, a really

Andy Clarke: [57:02] would never, never have heard the words, you know, neuro and diverse in the same sentence

Brad: [57:09] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [57:10] back in the time. It's, it's actually, it's, it's funny you bring that up actually, because I've, I've been doing a bit of, um, a bit of family digging over the last year or so. Um, and you know, without kind of turning this podcast into kind of, you know, some kind of mournful exercise. but you know, back in, back in 1978, my dad committed suicide, and I was not around at the time, um, and never knew him particularly. I mean, I might have been one or two really when, you know, when we were together. I always grew up with about him in the context of what he ended up doing, and trying almost to kind of rationalize, what he did and what must have sort of taken him to that, you know, to that, to that place. And it's interesting, you know, if you look at, I think it was my-- one of my last books, which I dedicated to him, and I actually wrote, you know, he suffered from what we would call today, you know, bipolar disorder. Um, but actually I've been, I've been doing some really interesting thoughts. I thought to myself, right before, before they all die, I'm actually gonna talk to people that knew him, um, and find out a little bit more, even to the point where, you know, I found out that he supported-- He liked football and he supported Preston North End, you know, Football Club. You know, those kind of little details about

Brad: [58:42] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [58:43] you know, are, you know, to anybody else are completely meaningless. But I, I, I spent some time and I've actually, actually, I'm-- I need to write these up, but I actually recorded the conversations,

Brad: [58:54] Beautiful

Andy Clarke: [58:55] with, with people that knew him at the time. And he, he had a very, very tragic story. Um, he was around 10 or 11, um, and had a younger sister, and he was playing football on, you know, the community football pitch, which was near a canal. his little sister, who was probably about five at the time, was playing near the canal and fell in and drowned

Brad: [59:22] Oh my goodness

Andy Clarke: [59:23] And he was blamed by, you know, particularly by his father,

Brad: [59:29] Oh, no. Yeah

Andy Clarke: [59:31] of abuse and this kind of stuff.

Brad: [59:33] Friend

Andy Clarke: [59:34] And through talking to people and talking and thi- and listening to how they described him as an adult, um, has led me to the conclusion that he didn't necessarily suffer from a, you know, from a bipolar disorder or as they would call it back in the day, you know, manic depression, where you've

Brad: [59:55] Yeah.

Andy Clarke: [59:55] up highs and the lows.

Brad: [59:57] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [59:58] I think that it was much more of a almost like PTSD

Brad: [1:00:03] Yeah, trauma. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Unre- unresolved trauma. Like

Andy Clarke: [1:00:09] And his, his need to absolutely control his environment, um, the point where, um, you know, he was, he was obsessive and controlling and manipulative and, you know, would do things like count the number of slices of bread that were left when he went to work. On the very rare occasion that he went to work. He couldn't hold a j- he couldn't hold down a job. he would count the number of slices of bread and make sure that there was exactly the same number when he came home because he was controlling, know,

Brad: [1:00:49] Yeah.

Andy Clarke: [1:00:49] his family and stuff like that.

Brad: [1:00:51] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:00:52] but what became interesting, I've always just lived under the impression that maybe, you know, maybe a little bit of my, my kind of gelatinous brain chemistry was, you know, was, um, genetic. And I know that Alex has al- often wondered about, um, about their brain chemistry and thinking, you know, "Is this something that, you know, that is hereditary?"

Brad: [1:01:16] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:01:16] but I've actually come to the conclusion that it Um, and that's been quite a relief actually. I've been, over the last sort of s- three to four months, I've actually been really paring down my um, to the point where I'm on virtually none right now. I might take one pill a week. and that, you know, I might leave that another three months and then stop that entirely. Um, so that's actually been quite a, kind of a, a revelation really. Um-

Brad: [1:01:45] That's, that, that's fascin- like, 'cause it's back to what you're, what you were talking about earlier. It's, it's, there's, there's the kind of like storytelling and whenever, when we think about these things, especially with just such tragedy and all of that, you, you've… And we're told these stories that it's just, okay, yep, these things like are genetic, and if you convince yourself o- o- of that, and, and to be fair, there absolutely are genetic components to these things. But I think that one of the biggest things that I've learned since Melissa's now, like a licensed, like therapist, and so I've like learned a lot just by way of like kinda being on the other end of it. It's like, there's your, there's your genes, but then there's your specific lived life. And a lot of those, those genes, like either don't come online because you've never been in contact with the environmental things that would cause those, things to activate, those, those kind of, you know, chemical reactions to take place or whatever. So it's like you can even, you can share a, a bunch of genes even if you have some, some, you know, of that continuity there. But if you don't go through that same life experience, which we all have our own wholly unique lived experience, that it, it, it is nature and nurture and, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's biology and just life experience, and it's not either/or, it is like a both/and kind of thing. And I, and I think that, that, that being able to kinda pull away from that story almost as this like, oh, this is like a sentence or this is like something… Like, I don't know, do you feel that? Like, like it's like by way of like learning more like, uh, 'cause, 'cause that, that experience that he had what had to be just the most like heart-wrenching thing. And uh, no, no. And, and that's not something that you pass down through your genes. That is, that is like something that experientially happened, you know, that ultimately like results in a certain functioning

Andy Clarke: [1:03:51] Yeah, and but yeah, on one hand it was, it was quite a relief to kind of reach these conclusions and feel a little bit liberated that,

Brad: [1:04:03] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:04:03] know, actually no, I d- I sh- you know, I, I, I'm the way that I am because of the way that I am. I'm not necessarily, you know, dictated to by the, by the genes. Um, but it's, it was, it's been a f- a really fascinating experience and I always had… You know what it's like, you kind of build a mental picture, um, even if, even if it's like completely self-constructed.

Brad: [1:04:28] Yeah, yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:04:29] you know, and I always thought, you know, here's a sweet man that, um, you know, that really suffered with a, you know, with a

Brad: [1:04:35] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:04:36] Um, and it turned out that, yes, he was a very tragic figure. that wasn't down necessarily to, to, to mental health and, or, you know, to, to, to bipolar disorder.

Brad: [1:04:48] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:04:49] It doesn't excuse the things that he did, um, and, you know, and his behavior and stuff like that. You know, we all have to take ownership of that.

Brad: [1:04:58] Yep

Andy Clarke: [1:04:59] it, it was kind of liberating that, you know, I don't necessarily think, you know, "Hey, yeah, there's the, there's the mad genes."

Brad: [1:05:07] you're, you're finding out a- at this moment, like you said, like, like very recently and, like, getting closer to it and unpacking it, and are as a result changing even your own story as well as your behaviors and your, you know, need perhaps to, to rely on antidepressants even by way of, like, helping kind of, like, reframe things. But then you also, you have your offspring, and they don't need to… They- they're another step away from that origin story that they can be even further liberated from and sort of chart their own path rather than having to sort of say, "Cool, yeah, you have the scarlet letter as well, and you, you, you need to, to sort of endure this for, for all your time." You can… There, there's almost like, yeah, that… I love how you said it, that, that liberation or that, that ability to just say, even, even if, even if there is a part of that there and present, that doesn't dictate what your future holds, right? It's, it's not a, y- your destiny or your fate or anything like that to have to, to, to be that

Andy Clarke: [1:06:18] I mean, I don't know why, but I, I carried a lot of guilt for a great many years about, you know, what he did and, you

Brad: [1:06:27] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:06:27] my mom's decisions around, you know, us not being there and stuff like that. Um, and, you know, I've come to realize that I've got plenty that I've done that I should feel guilty about, but that's not one of them.

Brad: [1:06:40] That, that's fascinating. That's really fascinating. What, what caused you to go on that journey?

Andy Clarke: [1:06:47] I was-- You know, I've obviously thought on and off about it for, for a long time. But, think, I think what really prompted it was that I went to my little brother's wedding, and my little brother, my little half-brother has a, has a half-sister. Um, and she was around kind of early teens when my dad did what my dad did. Um, and, you know, she was, she was there and around, so, you know, she sort of saw this thing through her lens

Brad: [1:07:13] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:07:14] I actually met her at, uh, at, um, at my little brother's wedding. Um, and I'd never met her before. This was the first time that I'd ever met her.

Brad: [1:07:23] Wild

Andy Clarke: [1:07:24] and you know, she was like, "Oh my God, you look exactly like John," or, "You look like, you know, you look like John would have looked if he'd, if he'd lived 28

Brad: [1:07:32] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:07:33] so that was that kind of, you know… I think that's what kinda stimulated it. Um, but I'd, you know, I'd never talked to my mother about it. My mother's, what, 84, 85 now. I'd-- Do you know, I'd literally never had a conversation with her

Brad: [1:07:46] Mm-hmm.

Andy Clarke: [1:07:47] ever

Brad: [1:07:47] Wow

Andy Clarke: [1:07:48] 60 years, until like three months ago when I said, "Right," you know, "we need to, we need to talk about this. I need to hear your side of the story." Um, so you know, that was, that was interesting. But I suppose it's-- I don't know. The, the whole theme I think of this podcast, it to a certain extent is, you know, nostalgia. And, you know, I think you get to a certain point in life or your career where you do sort of reflect on things, take stock a little bit and

Brad: [1:08:19] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:08:20] you know, "Okay, so you know, I've done all of that, but what am I gonna do for the next hopefully 20 years?" that's kind of where I am at the moment, is, know, thinking about, well, you've done all of this stuff. You know, you've, you've, you know, you've worked every day. You know, you've run a small business. You've worked with all of these clients and managed to get away with it without anybody finding out that you were a total fraud.

Brad: [1:08:45] Fake it. Yeah, fake

Andy Clarke: [1:08:47] You know, you've managed to, you've managed to con all of these people for such a long time. Um, and you know, you bought the house, and you've paid for the cars, and you've put

Brad: [1:08:56] Yeah, yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:08:57] and you've done all of these things. Um, you know, but kind of like, you know, well, what's next?

Brad: [1:09:02] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:09:03] and you, you know, you do get to a cer- I suppose turning 60 was, know, one of those kind of pivotal,

Brad: [1:09:09] Sure.

Andy Clarke: [1:09:10] things.

Brad: [1:09:11] Yeah. The, the, you have this milestone. You've, you've got enough in your rear view mirror that you're able to look back and, and reflect, hold that up to the light to help inform the, the road in front of you, and that, that makes a lot of sense

Andy Clarke: [1:09:30] and it's, it's, it's making me think about, what am I gonna get next week or the week after or the week after that? What am I gonna wake up excited about? 'Cause I can only stay excited about oiling a large format camera for so long. I will have collected every piece of, of vintage Cine that you can possibly find on eBay I'm, I'm getting-- I'm at the stage now where I would really like to do something that I think is consequential outside of these four walls. Whether that would be, political or social or, or whatever it might be. I think that I would really enjoy, being able to these talents, in inverted commas, into something which can be more consequential than selling printer cartridges And I haven't found the thing yet. but I would really love to be involved in, um, you know, particularly in kind of, you know, anti-right-wing, anti-fascist, um, anti-populist kind of political movements, which we saw in this country in the, in the 1970s. You know, grassroots anti-fascist movements. and we're starting to see the kind of the stirrings of that again, um, along with the kind of, you know, the rise of the right wing. Um, and I think that's one of the things that I'd kind of quite like to be involved in. But I just wanna do something which is, consequential

Brad: [1:11:04] I think that that's great that that's where your head's at. I'll try something odd with you because this is a lot of, like, where my head has been. 'Cause I'm, I, I feel like I'm in an, i- in a similar space where it's just like I've done certain activities and done certain things. I've ticked certain things that objectively speaking feel like they, you know, it's like that's what some people describe as success, right? And, and it's like, okay, cool. Have I done that? Like, yes, I have done that. I've demonstrated, I've proven these points, whatever. What, what's beyond those things that feel whatever. But so much of my, my attention has been towards establishing, preserving, and fighting really hard to, create and maintain stability for my family

Andy Clarke: [1:11:54] Mm-hmm.

Brad: [1:11:55] that, that, that it, it forces you inward and kind of in, in- I- in a sort of an egocentric way that I don't like. I, because I, I, I know that that's not what this is all for, but I know that it is very, very important for me to make sure that my family is stable. So th- that's been, I feel like, where a lot of, like, my energy and, and attention has gone. And I want very, very desperately to have… To g- to go outward. Like y- like you're talking about, to basically go, "Cool. I, I have these things, I have these talents, I have these abilities, and I wanna point that at something." You know what? I, I found myself really, really jealous of Mr. Rogers recently. Of Fred Rogers. So Fred Rogers, Pittsburgh's own Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, kind of legendary children's…

Andy Clarke: [1:12:53] movie?

Brad: [1:12:54] Yes. Yes.

Andy Clarke: [1:12:55] the

Brad: [1:12:56] And

Andy Clarke: [1:12:56] I'm not familiar with the reference

Brad: [1:12:58] in, in the US, it- he's, like, as close to, like, a, you know, a, a saint as, as you can get, right? It's like, here's this person who dedicated their entire life to just the, the betterment of, of children's welfare and, and education. And there's just this rich, like, very, very, influential in the form of, like, elevating developmental psychology and helping people understand that no, kids aren't just like little, little adults, and you don't y- talk to- like, certain things come online at certain ages. And, like, all of, like, that stuff, right, was, was still pretty m- in its infancy in, in that era, right? And he was able to dedicate his entire life to this mission of, like, kind of, you know, advancing the causes and, and, and fighting for children and making sure that people, you know, they weren't being bludgeoned with advertisements and all of this other stuff, and that, you know, teaching parents how to engage with their children in healthy and constructive ways, not punitive and blaming ways. And all, all of that stuff, like, really, really consequential, impactful work that we continue to benefit from to this day. And I'm like, "That's awesome." And as far as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania goes, like, he, he, again, is just th- this, this, this presence and this, the, the, this person that we can hold up to the entire world as like, yeah, like, this is, you know, Pittsburgh's own, right? So, so it's like a big part of my upbringing and, and just kinda in the air and stuff. So I recently read his, his biography, and He grew up with a driver, with, like a, a chef, uh, and his, his family was, like worth, like millions upon millions of dollars through, through industry, right? P- Pittsburgh's like kind of Manchester, Birmingham, like, like very, very similar, like, working class, like cities, right? Like this, you know, rivers of steel and all of that stuff. And his family's, you know, built their fortune around that. And that was the world that he, he grew up in. But his family was very generous with their, with their wealth and stuff. But bec- throughout the entire biography, they j- they kinda talk about him taking these big swings and like, you know, here's this nascent technology called television, and he's like, "I think I wanna, like, go there. I think I wanna, like, do this. And I, I… And, you know, in fact, I wanna, like, use this as a tool to help children and, like, help educate children and, like, all this stuff." Like, pioneer-level stuff. But he didn't have to worry about making two and two equal four. He didn't have to worry about, like, providing that, that, like, s- that financial stability for his, for his, like, family so that he was able to spend more time on that impact. And it, and it… That… I found myself being so jealous, and I'm like, I've been, like processing it, 'cause I'm just like, it's very weird to be jealous of a, of a dead guy I guess here. But like, but it's like I see that, that work, I see that impact, I see that, like, that, that real steadfast dedication to a higher purpose, to a goal, to a mission, to a legacy, to, to really trying to move the needle on society, right? And I, and I, I want that, but I feel like I've been, like fighting so hard to just, like, just, just put the pieces in place so that it's like, is everybody safe? Is everybody healthy? Is everybody just, like, protected? Uh, is anything bad going to happen? And I feel like that's what I've been, like kind of directing my energy towards. And so it's like only now am I starting to kind of like look outwards,

Andy Clarke: [1:16:55] Yeah

Brad: [1:16:56] a deeper way.

Andy Clarke: [1:16:57] we have to put food on the table and,

Brad: [1:17:00] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:17:00] um, you know, fortunately Alex is, you know, or something, so, you know, is…

Brad: [1:17:06] That's wild. That's wild.

Andy Clarke: [1:17:09] It's

Brad: [1:17:09] Oh my goodness

Andy Clarke: [1:17:10] the time when we were in, the three of us were in, uh, Freiburg that time

Brad: [1:17:15] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:17:16] uh, I remember, you know, we'd, we'd had some correspondence and, you know, w- back in the day when we would comment on each other's blogs or something. So, you know, "Ooh, Brad Frost. Brad Frost. Uh, Brad Frost is gonna be at this event." So, you know, Alex comes along and, you know, you're like, "Right, let's go out. Let's go out drinking." So Alex is kind of, you know, Alex is out with you and I'm in the hotel room talking to Sue on the phone going, is out with his friend Brad."

Brad: [1:17:46] That's funny.

Andy Clarke: [1:17:46] it's always been Alex's friend Brad

Brad: [1:17:49] That's so funny.

Andy Clarke: [1:17:51] I, I'm, I'm struggling with, with what it is because whether it's… And I know what it is. It's a, it's a combination of wanting… It's not duty, it's wanting to provide, and provide a stable environment, and make sure that the kids have got everything that the kids need and all that kind of stuff,

Brad: [1:18:11] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:18:12] hand. And, you know, on the other hand, or in the same hand, I realize that it's not-- I, I don't work to the level or have-- I, I haven't worked to the level that I've worked purely to put food on the table. I've done

Brad: [1:18:27] Yeah, sure

Andy Clarke: [1:18:28] because it's been a way of kind of escaping from, you know, from negative thoughts or, or whatever it is. You know, I've, I've created this, this career and space and, you know, persona or whatever to a-a-allow me to be able to deal with myself in the way that I, I deal with it.

Brad: [1:18:51] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:18:53] but one of, one of the things that I've, I've been really struggling with is that, um, you know, cer- and certainly over the last couple of years, I've, I've had a lot less to do. I mean, this year's been decent, but, you know, the, the last couple of years business-wise have been bloody awful. So, I've been inventing things to do rather than, you know, rather than actually being paid to, to, to do stuff. And, you know, I, I was thinking, you know, it goes, goes back to your kind of, you know, what, what wakes you up, you know, what, what makes you wake up excited. Um, on one hand, you know, I say I want to do something consequential, but I don't know, in my heart of hearts, I don't know whether… And this is gonna sound terrible, but I don't know whether I care enough about people in the way that Mr. Rogers, obviously, or you actually cares about people. Maybe, you know, maybe my consequential thing is to come up with a, a, you know, I don't know what it might be. To come up with a thing that people remember. Who

Brad: [1:19:52] Yeah. yeah, you're, you're talking about legacy, right? And talking about sort of like something that, that feels You're putting something out into the universe that you feel transcends your four walls and the people in just your life. And that, that doesn't necessarily translate to you're going to go, you know, donate, uh, you know, break the record for donated plasma or something like that. It just, it just means that you're going, y- you're, you have a, your sights set on something beyond just, like, the next, like, kinda client project, which is, which is great

Andy Clarke: [1:20:30] whatever that thing is, I'm not exactly, I'm not exactly sure. because I think that what I've done over the years is that, you know, I've put a lot of my self-worth or identity onto the work that I do, and the

Brad: [1:20:45] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:20:46] say, and the writing, and the trying to, you know, things in certain directions. and I, and I, and I want to try to, I want to try to find whether it is photography, whether it is something political, whether it

Brad: [1:21:01] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:21:02] going back and doing, you know, printmaking again.

Brad: [1:21:05] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:21:06] I need to find that thing that I can do. You know, I wish-- I, I'm very jealous of people that, like… I'm very jealous of you that can just go, "I'm gonna pick up a guitar, and I'm gonna play it for the, for the pleasure of playing it."

Brad: [1:21:22] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:21:22] to, you know, I don't have to be The Rolling Stones. You know, I can just play this thing because I want to, to play it, and I'm gonna put on a gig, and we're gonna do a thing, and I'm gonna do a ridiculous conference talk where I d- you know, I set it to music or whatever the hell you did in Berlin. I can't for the life of me figure out

Brad: [1:21:41] But th- but this, this is, this is what you're talking about, though. This is what I think is, like, really interesting. What you're describing is that you have this, like, plethora of activities, right? You have writing, you have, like, you know, the client work itself, but all of, like, these, these activities that all kind of, like, ladder up and bring you all the way back to that salesman role, which is, like, all of these pursuits, all of these activities have been in pursuit of operating a business in order to provide stability for your family, and you've been doing that for a long time. And it sounds like you're, you're, you're understanding that you can kind of point those same things not at that sole pursuit. And, and that's, and that's, like, where I'm slowly getting to myself because, like, it, it… There's, there's, especially as an independent person, especially as, like, a, a responsible business owner and, like, all of that stuff, you feel like, "Well, if I'm gonna be doing these things, it should all help, like, ladder up and, like, help, like, the greater, you know, the, the greater good and, and put the, the food on the table." That could warp what you put your, your, all of your time and talents and abilities into, right? If you're, if you're not careful with it.

Andy Clarke: [1:22:58] I think the, the, the other thing is, is I've got to unlearn 30-plus years of behavior, um, when it comes to doing creative work. Because I've, you know, I've got all the tools downstairs. You, you know, you can't see it, but down- downstairs I've got a printing press. I've got all of the lino cutting tools that I would ever need. I've got a stack of lino. I've got a bunch of things that I want to, to, to make. And there's a voice in the back of my head going, "What are you gonna do with this? are you doing this?" You know, "What, what's the purpose of this?" You know, "Are you gonna, are you gonna try and sell these things?" Um, you know, "What,

Brad: [1:23:35] Where's, where's your Etsy shop? Yeah, where's your Etsy shop?

Andy Clarke: [1:23:38] know,

Brad: [1:23:39] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:23:39] what, you know, what is the purpose of doing it? And the purpose of doing it is just to sit there and, you know, listen to some country music, and sit and do lino cuts for the pleasure of doing it. Like picking up the Rickenbacker and picking at that purely for the pleasure of doing it, you know? You're not necessarily, you know, needing to make a number one album, but… And nobody's gonna hear what you're playing. And, you know, nobody may see what I'm producing, but that's-- And it's very hard when you've been working in creative

Brad: [1:24:12] Yes.

Andy Clarke: [1:24:12] for so long, there's, there's, there's the sort of the-

Brad: [1:24:16] Temptation or the, or just the, the, the pull, the gravitational pull or I don't know. I don't know what it is. Yeah.

Andy Clarke: [1:24:24] you start to, you start to overthink it, and you start to think, you

Brad: [1:24:27] Yep.

Andy Clarke: [1:24:27] why am I doing this? What am I gonna, you

Brad: [1:24:29] Yep.

Andy Clarke: [1:24:29] gonna

Brad: [1:24:29] Yep.

Andy Clarke: [1:24:30] blah, blah, blah,

Brad: [1:24:30] How does this foot, uh, how do, how does this all ladder up to me being successfully commercially or monetarily or financially or career-wise? It, it, like, bec- because we've been habituated to, to run our operations, and that's what you need to think in order to feed the, your family. yeah, so, like, letting go of that is fascinat- Like, uh, you should, you should totally, like, write about that, that detoxing process 'cause I wanna learn from you as you, as you learn this.

Andy Clarke: [1:25:06] I'm gon- I'm gonna have to learn it first. But you

Brad: [1:25:09] Yes

Andy Clarke: [1:25:10] 40, hopefully 40 years' time, you know, when I'm, when I'm off this mortal coil, nobody is gonna open a box and go, "Oh yeah, Grandad made websites. at that

Brad: [1:25:21] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:25:22] he made for a, for a, a print cartridge development company."

Brad: [1:25:26] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:25:27] open a shoebox and go, "Wow, he loved lino cutting

Brad: [1:25:32] Can I show you something

Andy Clarke: [1:25:33] Yeah,

Brad: [1:25:34] we're talking about this? I love my mom very much, but she has this tendency to drop off… It's been a steady drip my entire adult life. she just drops off objects from my life Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Quite literally, she was at our house, she was going on a trip with her, her college roommate. Her college roommate from the, the, yeah, the early '70s. Like, they were going to visit another college friend. She was at my house. She went back home. Later that night, she drove back to drop off… Remember the, the CD visors that you would, like, put on the top of your car, right? With, like, the little, like, sleeves? Yeah.

Andy Clarke: [1:26:24] Yeah

Brad: [1:26:25] was just like, "Here's this." She, she drove back especially, she made a special trip back to just deliver me CDs from whenever I was probably, you know, 16, 17, and then, and then left. I'm like, she's like literally getting up at 4:00 in the morning to go to the airport on a trip with her friend, and she felt… So, so it's very weird. I, and relationship with things and objects or whatever is, uh, very, very fascinating stuff. But one of the things that she recently dropped off was this. And this is her 1974, college yearbook. And for, for, like, audio people, it's, it's, it's this, like, beautiful, like, silhouette, of, like, a profile of a face, and it's, like, white, gray, black, and then this, like, collage-y thing. But she made her yearbook, and she just happened to, to just drop it off. It's kind of just like a never-ending show-and-tell, right, with my mom. But she, she just dropped this object off at my house, and she became an art teacher. Her own kind of, like, body of, of work is, is not her work has come to life through other people is, like, a lot of, like, how I, I think of her. Like, her own, like, artistic practice is, like, there's not a lot of, like, tangible artifacts of, like, like, the things that she herself made. And I was like, "Wait a minute. Did you, like, design this cover?" And she's like, "Yeah. Yeah." I was like, "What did, what did you use?" 'Cause I'm like, yeah, this is obviously, this is pre- pre-Photoshop, it's whatever. But just, like, this, this split of, like, the, the white and the black, you know, typography, and, like, the typography choice in all of that. I'm like, oh my God, this is this is awesome. And

Andy Clarke: [1:28:19] there's

Brad: [1:28:19] s- that's, that's the legacy, right? Like, that's the, that's the legacy

Andy Clarke: [1:28:23] we can probably guarantee that there is exactly one of those things left in the world, and you've got it. which I, I find really appealing.

Brad: [1:28:32] Hmm.

Andy Clarke: [1:28:33] and Alex joke about this, but, there's, there's one film which I cannot watch. I, I, I cannot wa- it just, like, it upsets me. and, you know, it's not the film that a lot of people will imagine this is. You know, it's not "Love Story" or, um, or, you know, any of these kind of tragic, tragic… It's not "Philadelphia," um, or anything like that. It's "Up" everybody will go, "Yeah, but you know…" I mean, I forget what the character's called now, but you know, he loses his wife at the beginning

Brad: [1:29:03] Yeah, yeah.

Andy Clarke: [1:29:04] is it because he loses his wife that you get so upset? No. No. I don't get upset at that part at all. I get upset when he loses his stuff at the end of the film, and the house blows away, and it's got all of the stuff in it.

Brad: [1:29:21] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:29:22] And, uh, and it, it's, it's weird. You know, I've got this scene now sitting on my desk. I've, I discovered and I renovated this iPod Classic the other day, which I found in a box and now works perfectly. I've got

Brad: [1:29:37] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:29:37] here, for the audio folks, can you recognize this sound Turn it off and turn it back on again. That's how you make stuff work You might have to amplify that. But

Brad: [1:29:49] Beautiful

Andy Clarke: [1:29:50] this is my 1997 restored i- uh, original Game Boy.

Brad: [1:29:56] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:29:56] just something, there's just something wonderful about objects. I don't know, I, I, I find, I find stuff really interesting, which is why there's a big hefty scene on, in

Brad: [1:30:09] Yeah.

Andy Clarke: [1:30:10] my desk

Brad: [1:30:11] it's important to note though that there's, that there's, it's not stuff in the consumer … Like, it's, it's for the meaning behind it. It's for the, the purpose. It's for, it's for the, the snapshot in ti- Like, it like, you're, you've been unpacking a, a lifetime of, of experience and making sense of the world and your own life and your own family history even through the lens of, of, like, these, these objects, right? And, and I think that that's, that's, that's really profound. That's not, that's not a, "I don't know, I just really like expensive bottles of wine." Like, it's like, no, no, no. There's, there's really, like, sort of something a lot deeper. I- there's an appreciation of craft, but there's also just the fact that these things come from a certain time and a certain place. And

Andy Clarke: [1:31:07] You know, I'm wearing, I'm

Brad: [1:31:08] yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:31:09] expensive, um, expensive IWC watch. you know, I could have bought any number of, of luxury watch brands, but, you know, a Rolex or an AP or a, you know, whatever makes, no sense whatsoever. Um, you know, I'm not, I'm not in it for the, you know, for the brand or for the object per se. I love this thing because, A, it looks nice, um, and it's not showy. also of that connection with Schaffhausen and how I remember the guys that were, that were working there in Switzerland when I used to go there would, you know, would all wear IWCs and, you know, because they were just down the road. Um, and there's this kind of, you know, th- they were, they were, you know, skilled engineers. IWC obviously has skilled engineers. Um, and it's, it's that reason. I d- I don't like the, you know… You sometimes you see this on social media where I t- I hate the algorithm where, you know, something comes across and unless you flick past it quick enough, you then start to get f- you know, a deluge of people buying or selling expensive Hermès handbags.

Brad: [1:32:21] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:32:22] You know, that kind of thing actually makes me want to retch.

Brad: [1:32:25] Well, there's, and there's something too, it's like I think that, yeah, consumerism and objects and luxury goods and just, just the phys- like, all of that stuff just, and the status that comes with it. Like, obviously that's been around, like, for, for a while. You know, go to any museum and you're gonna see some rich people's well-crafted stuff. but I do think that there is sort of something to, what you demonstrate really well with your appreciation of stuff is, is appreciation. There's appreciation of the design, appreciation of the craft. There's also kind of a scarcity, part of it. There's a, there's a nostalgia, component to it. But these are like living reminders that as you continue to produce work and put it out into the world, right, you're able to look at these objects from a, a, a previous era and understand the weight of it, and to try to incorporate that and try to capture some of that in the work that you're putting forward in- into the world that

Andy Clarke: [1:33:28] this, this Sena, I was, I was sitting outside in my front garden about a month and a half ago, and I get a video call from Alex, who is at a conference in Vienna, has a day off. Alex loves cameras and loves photography, so is milling, you know, mooching around with some friends around Vienna, stumbles across this camera shop and sees this Sena in the window. and is immediately on, you know, on a, on a FaceTime call with me going, "Is, i- is, is this what I think it is?" And half of me was really excited about the, uh, you know, the fact that, yes, here was a, here was a, a really brilliant example of a P2 that I could, I could own. probably a bigger part of me was Alex's reaction and the fact that Alex knew what this thing was and was, you know, interested enough or s- savvy enough to

Brad: [1:34:26] They, they see you. They s- they see you

Andy Clarke: [1:34:29] "My work is done."

Brad: [1:34:31] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:34:32] knows what a large format camera looks like.

Brad: [1:34:34] That's beautiful. Like, but they, they, they, they see you and to, to have that, that visceral reaction and to call like that, and that being, you know, across geography, you know, you're in different locations to have that connection over a, a shared love. That's, it was beautiful

Andy Clarke: [1:34:53] Yeah. No, it was, it was fabulous. And, uh, and I ummed and ahhed about it, and I found it online. Alex sent me a photograph. The, the shop was closed, um, so Alex

Brad: [1:35:02] There

Andy Clarke: [1:35:03] of the opening hours with the website address. And I'm-- for a week or two, I'm kind of umming and ahhing about this. And, uh, and Alex is like, "Yeah, y- you should just buy it. Just buy it." And I'm like, "Yeah, but there's plenty of other things that I can spend, you know, 1,500 bucks on. You know, there's more important things and whatever." So Alex said, "Just, just fucking buy it." And Sue's got this rule, which is, I think is brilliant, which is if you see something and you really like it, but you're thinking in the back of your mind, you're thinking, you know, A, you know, should I buy it? Should I buy it? It's like, if you were to come back tomorrow to buy it and it wasn't there anymore, would you regret it?

Brad: [1:35:40] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:35:41] think, I think I would definitely have regretted not

Brad: [1:35:44] Yeah, yeah,

Andy Clarke: [1:35:45] object

Brad: [1:35:47] yeah. I think it'd be fundamentally different if you just happened to be stumbling upon yourself. But the fact that, you know, your own kin s- just is able to channel and convey that, that enthusiasm for it, it's like, like that's, that's really what it's about, and I think that's freaking beautiful.

Andy Clarke: [1:36:06] And

Brad: [1:36:07] That's beautiful

Andy Clarke: [1:36:07] it. It got-- Well, we were staying at Alex's flat in, in Germany and, uh, and this thing, uh, we, we got it shipped there to, uh, don't tell the, don't tell the customs. but you know, we got it shipped there so I could drive it back to the UK. know, and we get the thing out of the box and I'm putting it together and, you know, I'm explaining what all the knobs do and, you know, how, you know, it controls the sharpness across, you know, different planes and does all of the kind of technical stuff that view cameras do. And that was just, again, it was just a very nice kind of shared experience.

Brad: [1:36:42] Yeah. No, that's great. we can bond and create connection and appreciate things together and use these things as, as ways to, to get closer to one another, and,

Andy Clarke: [1:36:55] yeah, you know, it's a commun- it's a cum- cumulative thing. You know, it's, it's, it's my history with the, with the company and the cameras and

Brad: [1:37:04] Yeah.

Andy Clarke: [1:37:04] stories around the

Brad: [1:37:05] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:37:06] that I was at and, you know, all of that kind of stuff. And it's the craftsmanship around the object, and it's the fact that we've got this kind of shared connection and all of those kind of things. I think

Brad: [1:37:17] I got,

Andy Clarke: [1:37:18] it's a joy

Brad: [1:37:19] I got, uh, I had a, had a friend over to play some music, uh, last weekend, and he brought out this Gibson Les Paul beautiful, beautiful guitar. And he says, "This is, this is a really special moment because this is my dad's, and this is the thing that I would be sitting on his knee, and he would be showing me, you know, the, the, the, the chord shapes and, and the rest of it." And he, he described how he had to rescue this thing from a pawn shop when his dad, uh, you know, kind of fell on some, some hard times. But he was j- he was like, "What do you mean you pawned the guitar?" And so he, like, he had to, like, really go in and, like, fight and, like, kinda get it, get it back, and that he was like, "One day, I never was like, 'Hey, Dad, could I, you know, have that guitar?'" But he, he was just like, he, he thought of it as, as theirs. And he said that, that recently his, his dad was, was like, "Hey, I would like you to, to have this." And he's like, "I wa- I wasn't…" He's like, "I wasn't prepared for, like, how emotional that would be. I just, like, kinda, like, thought that, I was like, this, this is this. I hold this thing, like, a- as this, like, sacred thing." But he said that he just, like, really, like, his dad, like, did a lot of… It, it sounds like a lot of, like, contemplation. And here's a son who's a damn good guitar player. Boy, oh boy, is he super talented and very deserving of an instrument like that. He… So he, so he busted this out for the first time in my, in my basement. And I was like, man, this feels like a, a really, uh, a special moment to, like, have this, this kind of full circle thing. But a- all to say is just, like, Words are often hard. It's hard to, to say, like, "I love you" sometimes. It's like, like, I don't really come from, like, a, a family like that, and there, there's other things. But there's, there's all these, like, just different vessels and ways to foster that connection. And, and these objects and stuff can do a good job at, at kinda shouldering some of that load or to make that connection a little easier.

Andy Clarke: [1:39:45] Well, hopefully, I am, I'm desperately hoping that the mailman will bring me a tripod tomorrow, that I can, I can properly assemble this thing. And, uh, and of course, me being me, I couldn't just go and buy a tripod on Amazon. I've had to actually find a 1990s Phoba tripod for this thing to go on.

Brad: [1:40:06] I mean, that checks out. That checks out. if you're skirting customs and, uh, driving across countries

Andy Clarke: [1:40:13] Don't, mention

Brad: [1:40:14] You, you, you, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't put, don't put that thing on a, on a $30 rickety tripod. Uh, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Andy Clarke: [1:40:23] Yeah. No, this thing's, this, this is, is gonna have pride of place just, just over there. I shall, I'll send you a photo when it's up.

Brad: [1:40:31] There we go. Please

Andy Clarke: [1:40:33] it would d- it'll definitely be on my socials

Brad: [1:40:36] There we go. Please do. Well, that, that might be, uh, we'll, we'll leave people… We'll steer people to your socials here in a second. But so, the, the only other structured question on this show is, is what music would you like more people to know about?

Andy Clarke: [1:40:53] See, I, I always joke that my musical, my musical listening stopped in about 1979.

Brad: [1:41:00] That's okay

Andy Clarke: [1:41:01] I, I have a very eclectic music taste. Um, I do listen to a huge amount of modern country music. So, you know, whether it's Megan Moroney or, you know, Miranda Lambert or, you know, a lot of these kind of country artists. I, I listen to a lot of country music. more actually, it goes against brand. My, my, my persona shouldn't really admit this, but, you know. I

Brad: [1:41:25] The mod, yeah, yeah, the mod style

Andy Clarke: [1:41:27] uh, well, I, yeah, I listen to an awful lot more country music than I listen to Motörhead. although I do love Motörhead. But see, Motörhead was a, was, was again, was a shared experience. You know, I, I grew up going to see, listening to Motörhead and going to Motörhead gigs. When Alex was old enough, despite the fact that I'm absolutely sure Alex d- really doesn't like Motörhead, we used to go every November and go and see them play in Manchester. So, you know,

Brad: [1:41:51] Beautiful.

Andy Clarke: [1:41:51] thing.

Brad: [1:41:52] Beautiful. Beautiful

Andy Clarke: [1:41:54] what would I, what would I want people to listen to more? We had this thing on the, uh… We did a, a crossover on the Unfinished Business, um, one-footer podcast that I do with John Hicks and, and Paul Boag and, and Richard Rutter and Marcus and, and Ellington. And we had a whole kind of musical episode. And my, you know, it's like, well, if you could have one, you know, which if you could take one or two tracks on a desert island or on a spaceship, if you were marooned on Mars, what would be the music that you'd listen to? And all of mine was like, you know, Bat Out of Hell and old Led Zeppelin tracks.

Brad: [1:42:34] You're bringing meatloaf to the desert island?

Andy Clarke: [1:42:37] I, I would, I would take Meatloaf to, to Mars. Absolutely. here's what people should listen to. It goes back to the, my kind of, you know, upbringing and resonates with today's political cultural problems, is I think people should listen to early Billy Bragg

Brad: [1:42:57] Hmm. Okay

Andy Clarke: [1:42:59] So lots of, um, you know, union-supporting, anti-Conservative, definitely anti-fascist stuff. This is way before he did the stuff with, uh, with, you know, the Woody Guthrie stuff with

Brad: [1:43:15] Yeah.

Andy Clarke: [1:43:16] and

Brad: [1:43:16] Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:43:17] so early, early Billy Bragg, "Life's

Brad: [1:43:21] Okay

Andy Clarke: [1:43:21] Spy vs. Spy," some of the early stuff, um, "Between the Wars," there's "Power in a Union," all of this kind of stuff. So go and find the first three Billy Bragg albums

Brad: [1:43:36] Fantastic. Yeah, that's great 'cause, 'cause that's, yeah, I, I come in at the, the Wilco part, so that's, that's gonna be good. That's my homework for, for, uh, after this. This is fantastic

Andy Clarke: [1:43:48] one bit of trivia is that when I was in a band many, many, many, many, many moons ago, we actually supported Billy Bragg on his first tour. Um, it was a coal miner's supporters gig during the miner's-- the big famous miner strike over here. and it was just Bill and his trumpeter. And, uh, I've still got the backstage pass. I wasn't any good, by the way, just in case anybody thinks I'm like, you know, I c- I could join your Frostapalooza. they literally only hired me because back in the 1980s, '70s, '80s, I still had cheekbones. I would be the, the enigmatic keyboard player that would stand behind a synthesizer, you know, sucking his cheekbones

Brad: [1:44:33] Hey, you're, you're do- you're doing an important service, uh, for the greater good there. But that's fantastic. That, like, but, but to have that continuity as well, it's like, it's, it's all lived experience

Andy Clarke: [1:44:45] well, I still, I still have this backstage pass which Bill signed for me back in, I think it was about 1981, '82, something like this.

Brad: [1:44:57] Beautiful

Andy Clarke: [1:44:57] Alex and I go to see Bill play. I've, I've, I've, you know, I, I will go relatively regularly if I can. but Alex and I went to see Bill play in Liverpool, at the end of the gig, I walked round to the stage door and gave this backstage pass to the bouncer and said, "Can you ask Bill if this is still valid?" And about five minutes later, the bouncer came back and said, "Come with me." So we ended up going back and, you know, Alex gets-- I've got photos of Alex looking very confused next to Billy Bragg

Brad: [1:45:32] Well played. That is very, very good. That's a, that was a smooth move right there.

Andy Clarke: [1:45:37] So yeah, so that was

Brad: [1:45:38] Oh, beautiful. Well, yeah. So all right. So listening to some e- uh, early Billy Bragg. I guess the, the last question then is, is where can people, uh, follow along with what you're up to and, and look at your, uh, camera progress as well as your, your online work and all of the, the rest of it?

Andy Clarke: [1:45:57] Well, obviously I'm a huge star on TikTok. No,

Brad: [1:46:00] Clearly.

Andy Clarke: [1:46:01] That's not true whatsoever. I don't think I've even got TikTok installed. people can usually find me the old-fashioned way, which is on my website, which is stuffandnonsense.co.uk. all of the links to my various kind of social meanderings are, are on there. But yeah, I'm just

Brad: [1:46:18] That is, uh, one of, one of the most influential websites in, in my career, so thank you for continuing to be old-fashioned and, and, uh, keeping Stuff and Nonsense going

Andy Clarke: [1:46:31] It's still there. It's still there. I think I ought to, um, when we finish this, I think I need to go and drink an old fashioned. I think that we- I've been wallowing in nostalgia for the last two hours

Brad: [1:46:42] Well, I appreciate that, that wallowing and, and going down there. But there's, there's something… I, I think that you did a good job at, at sort of wielding nostalgia for, charting a path forward. I think that there's, there's something really powerful in, that emotion and that sentiment that, that is, is a very directional, uh, force. So thank you for, for painting that picture

Andy Clarke: [1:47:07] I, I'm not gonna leave it with your listeners thinking that I'm in any way sentimental. That would be really bad for the brand Aren't I supposed to be some kind of hideous badass?

Brad: [1:47:17] the listener decide. No comment. Well, thank you. Thanks a ton for, for being here. This i- this is really great. It's great to catch up and,

Andy Clarke: [1:47:25] Yeah, it's

Brad: [1:47:25] to, great to chat again. Yeah

Andy Clarke: [1:47:27] are you heading over this way anytime soon to this

Brad: [1:47:31] I need to make that happen. I n- I need to make that happen. So, uh, this is, uh, this is my, the work in front of me. Not, not this year, but, but perhaps next year. So

Andy Clarke: [1:47:41] Well,

Brad: [1:47:41] we'll make it happen

Andy Clarke: [1:47:43] if you, if you come over to, uh, to this continent, let me know

Brad: [1:47:46] Love it. I love it. All right. Well, take care, and if you're still here, thanks for listening. All right, bye. All right