Cali Claptrap: Integral Conversations

How can you not be romantic about football? Many non-sports fans might be familiar with "moneyball" a theory popularized in the motion picture starring Brad Pitt. Analytics has changed the way baseball will forever be played. But what about football? Today's guest is Eric Eager. Eric Eager is a data scientist at Pro Football Focus (PFF). Eric explains how analytics is transforming the game of football: Should you sign running backs to lucrative contracts? Should you go for it on 4th and 1 with 2 minutes left in the game and you have the lead? Should you draft the best CB or the best EDGE rusher? If you love innovation, I hope you will love this episode. Please follow Eric Eager on Twitter @PFF_Eric if you're a fan of football. His insight and wit makes him a must follow. 

Mark Forman is an integrally-informed licensed therapist in the state of California. His book "The Monster's Journey: From Trauma to Connection" examines trauma using an adaptation based off of Joseph's Campbell transformational guide "The Hero with a Thousand Faces." 

An integral life practice requires us to examine our shadow and do the work of cleaning up. When we don't challenge and confront our own adverse childhood experiences, or trauma, our lives become fragmented. Our narratives become incoherent. Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader. 

Mark is transparent, vulnerable and bravely bears his soul by sharing his own traumatic experiences that led him to write The Monster's Journey, a book provides Ariadne's thread to those souls that have lost their way in the labyrinth and have become their own minotaur. Society calls them monsters, or anti-heroes. Mark dons the archetypal robes of the Healer in The Monster's Journey to help these wounded souls connect with their true selves so they can make their life story and lives integrated again. 

"We can discern in the auditory aspect of several verbs, used in their normal way, the acoustic-magic stress indicative of the extent to which power is expressed, not in a palpable but rather an auditory manner and appeals to the incomprehensible and prerational in us: to belong, to obey; and, to submit. These words and what they convey are always subordinated to power that we ascribe to things, events, or human beings, whether as possessions, authoritarian beliefs, or sexuality; and they are always connected to the loss of ego and responsibility. It is not the sun-related eye but the labyrinthine ear that is the magic organ; the sun represents diurnal brightness, whereas the labyrinth represents the cave-like nocturnal darkness of dormant consciousness.” - Jean Gebser, Ever Present Origin

"...you can feel the sound he records..." -Polly Jean Harvey

While INXS was Kicking on the MTV awards in 1987, Big Black, Steve Albini’s former band, put out an album called "Songs About Fucking." I was 11.

Steve Albini is the lead singer and guitarist of Shellac and recording engineer for some of my favorite albums of all-time, including PJ Harvey's "Rid of Me", Nirvana's "In Utero" and the Pixies' "Surfer Rosa."

I played the first song on Surfer Rosa, “Bone Machine,” loud with my children nearby recently and my 10 year-old daughter commented “it felt like her ears were bleeding.”

“Yes! That’s it! You get it.”

Steven’s work speaks for itself. Thank you Steven for sitting down with a fan and talking music. I hope the listener will experience the same joy I had recording this conversation with the one and only: Steve Albini.

P.S.: Stream "Dude Incredible,” by Shellac.

"What year is it?" 

These words were spoken three years ago by the protagonist Dale Cooper at the conclusion of Twin Peaks in 2017. As powerful as they were then, they have only become stronger with age. Perhaps, it is due to finding ourselves in the middle of a pandemic in 2020 where time has appeared to warp with its disruption of most laborious routines. 

"I'll see you again in 25 years," Laura Palmer informs Dale Cooper in the finale of the second season. 

Most Twin Peaks fans believed that was the end, including today's guest John Thorne, author of Wrapped in Plastic: the Essential Guide of Twin Peaks. And there is no better guest to invite on to speculate as to what was going on inside the minds of Twin Peaks' creators David Lynch and Mark Frost when they penned episodes 17 and 18 of Twin Peaks, the Return. 

Gary Lundgren is the writer and director of such films as Calvin Marshall, Redwood Highway and Black Road. I selected his most recent film "Phoenix, Oregon" because of the local connection to my hometown of Eugene, Oregon. I expected very little from it but gave it my promised 15 minutes assessment. I wasn't expecting to make past five minutes, truth be told, but Gary's film immerses you into his story with its engaging characters and subdued plot. Who cannot cheer for Bobby and Carlos' attempt to revitalize a foreclosed bowling alley? The subject matter reminded me of Gary Putnam's book, "Bowling Alone: the collapse and revival of American community." The book's theorizes that Americans have increasingly spent less time together due to a variety of factors in our society and culture. With 2020 being the summer of Covid-19, "Phoenix, Oregon" restokes the flame of our folk kinship that hopefully many Americans long to rekindle. The film has the feel of the independent cinema movement of the 90's when young auteurs Spike Lee, Kevin Smith, Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino brought their visions to the screen. The New York Times calls it "an ode to small-town joys" and that it "feels poignant during our current pandemic."

In this episode, Gary discusses the creative process that went into creating "Phoenix, Oregon", what inspires him as a filmmaker and his advice to blossoming artists.

I cannot express the joy I had interviewing Peter DiStefano, guitarist. I started this podcast for opportunities such as these. How often can we interview figures that played such a key role in our lives? If you haven't heard the riff of the opening song  "Sadness" of Porno For Pyros' epononymous album, then please take a moment to do so now. I was 17 and a senior in high school when I heard this. I was still in a post-drought melancholy suffering from the breakup of my favorite band, Jane's Addiction, when the PFP album came out. At the time I thought it filled a gap. Years later I realize it was another chapter of music for my budding life. The smiling devil that graced the cover bestowed its own song of Pan: be warned of the frolic and folly to those that follow. 

I never knew what happened to PFP following their second and last album, Good God's Urge-until now. Peter shares his struggles with addiction and the wisdom that comes from 23 years of sobriety. 

What I will remember most from this episode is when Peter breaks into an Italian song midway through. With song there is always a hope for humanity. I hope Peter's story gives you as much as hope as it did for me. Maybe, one day we might get a new PFP album. One can hope. 

Find Peter at: 

http://www.peterdistefano.com

https://www.instagram.com/peter_distefano_/?hl=en

On the inaugaral episode of Cali Claptrap, Yancy Scot Scwartz graciously stops by. Yancy found refuge in skateboarding growing up in in NYC and made a guest appearence in Larry Clark's Kids before moving to California to follow his career ambitions. Yancy's discovery of yoga put him on a path that led him to deepen his practice and become a certified teacher. Yancy shares with us his dharma and his advice on how to make the world a better place. 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yancyscotschwartz/?hl=en