131 - Bats in the Belfry!

Kurt Neiswender: 0:32

Hey, Jamie. How's it going? Good. That's the PG version. Oh, you know, I don't think anybody was watching the first three seconds.

Jamie: 0:41

How's it going? Just have to, we'll just have to talk to the editor and see if the editor can handle it. So,

Kurt Neiswender: 0:49

yeah, yeah, we might, we, we, we might have to do that. I I have their phone number on speed dial memorized or email maybe. Oh, you know, there's one thing before you know, well, two things. My dog is struggling to get comfortable with just stressing me out a little bit, but that's a story for another day. She's, she's fine, but also not fine. But the other thing is, I don't know if you've listened to our old friends at Arkiespeak, have you heard their latest episode?

Jamie: 1:27

All the way through I've not heard the latest one all the way through now.

Kurt Neiswender: 1:31

Oh, okay. So I'm putting I wanted to

Jamie: 1:34

drop this week. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Kurt Neiswender: 1:37

And I happen to be I was trying to do a bunch of drawings yesterday and it came came up and played and I listened to the whole thing. All the way through, Cormac and Evan, I'm sure they're listening, and a little shade was thrown my way by our friend Cormac. He made a mention about not yet receiving coffee beans. Coffee Sketch Coffee. He did not explicitly name names. names were named. However, implied a recent conversation that the four of us had about coffee and not receiving said coffee.

Jamie: 2:29

So well, he also he also did mention for my birthday. He's like, I hope no one promised you That the coffee was in the mail. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep. So, I'm just saying, that whole meme that I sent, with like the say anything, you know, holding up the, you know, instead of holding up the boombox, it was holding up a big thing of coffee beans. You need to go to gross point blank and just like, Gross Point Blank.

Kurt Neiswender: 3:07

That's right. The drive thru Gross Point Blank. Gross Point. St. Clair Shores. Gross Point. Shores. Grossie. Whatever. Chuck him out the wheel, window. He's, he's down there. Yeah, we'll see. I have had him in studio.

Jamie: 3:28

See now, if, if, if you turned in your studio and just were like, look, look, I've even got it right here with this, like a post it note on it for him. Like, then we all could go. Oh, yeah, totally. It's right there. You can make, you can make that in for the next episode.

Kurt Neiswender: 3:45

There is a presentation on next Monday. Props,

Jamie: 3:52

I'll bring

Kurt Neiswender: 3:52

it. Yeah. Yeah, put it in a really

Jamie: 3:55

you can put it in a really fluffy bag with like, you know you know cellophane paper kind of sticking out the top and

Kurt Neiswender: 4:05

Gift bag. Yeah I'm gonna blame I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm just throw the blame right on my dog And the disc injury to her

Jamie: 4:14

neck. I don't think, Ellie, I don't think Ellie needs any more blame, I think, I think insult the injury. You put the coffee in the bag with the cellophane and then you, and then you also buy a bottle of wine and you stick it in there as well. Wine, and then just, You just, and then he's overjoyed. I'm

Kurt Neiswender: 4:33

going to buy a bottle of wine for Cormac. I'm going to uncork it, let it get stale, then recork it. Oh, no, no, no. This is not, there's no shade involved in this. There's no, I don't know. Oh, oh, you mean the buck stops here? That I have to stop? Yes. I think so. I've got to stop the, stop the hate? Is that what the...

Jamie: 4:55

This episode really turned different.

Kurt Neiswender: 4:58

Direction and I thought you did. I forgot to mention that to you. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that that that's happened. That's out there this week.

Jamie: 5:08

Like, you know, dirt off your shoulder. Just just take care of it. It's done just like for those watching.

Kurt Neiswender: 5:18

So how about you? They didn't say anything about you. So. You're in the clear and the

Jamie: 5:24

birthday and that's it. So we're, we're,

Kurt Neiswender: 5:26

we're okay. Are

Jamie: 5:27

you drinking? I, I have been, I, I did have some of ours this week. But. Right now I am having the I, I was at the store and saw this and was excited because I haven't had it in a while. It's from Independence, Texas. Well, it's, it's Independence Coffee. It's actually from Brenham, Texas. Which is really close to Independence. But it's their backyard pecan. Which just feels like fall to me. So you know, and you know, it's Texas, it might've been 100 a couple days ago, so it could have been over 90 today. But you know, damn, if it's not autumn. So

Kurt Neiswender: 6:14

we did pass the equinox last week. So yes, it is fall, even though your temperature, your thermometer might not be saying so.

Jamie: 6:23

And, and fun fact, fun fact, yeah, fun fact. I did go back and listen to some highlights from a few years ago when we, when I, me, Jamie introduced you to the ARCtober, ARC Inktober, which is a fun episode for. People to listen to you because we go through, I don't know, it's a couple minutes of us arguing about, well, it's more like you, like, casting aspirations and shade against me for saying the word ARC versus architecture and ARCI, And like, there's this whole vocabulary thing going on there. Yeah, it's, it's really good. You, you, you got some good zingers in on that one. Oh,

Kurt Neiswender: 7:15

I'll have to go back and re, re listen to that.

Jamie: 7:18

Cause it's fun because we, we talk about, you know, the, the. You know, the idea of, you know, trying to draw with someone else's prompts. And and yes, we're here at the end of September, and so our next episode, 1 32 will be about arcing, tober, or arching tober, whichever one's the more appropriate pronunciation for Kurt. And you know, if you follow us on social media, we've, we've posted the prompts. We are not responsible for the prompts. But we have definitely invited folks to participate. We will be participating ourselves. I might have shouted out Chuck D because, you know, he is quite the sketcher and, you know, and then Sterling before had suggested Aesop rock. So, you know, I mean, there's. There's a couple.

Kurt Neiswender: 8:19

The, yeah, and it's always fun. It's kind of like, you know, every New Year's, we do resolution podcast. And then every October we do ARC in October resolutions. And Jamie always gets much farther than I do. You

Jamie: 8:35

totally stumble too. I love it. I love it. I'm not the only one. Not my Canadian ness, you know, all coming out. So, so what kind of coffee you got today? Oh, you know, I have

Kurt Neiswender: 8:49

our friends in Flint, Rootless.

Jamie: 8:52

Yeah, yeah, I know. I thought, I thought I might see the package coming with, with, with the light bright, but... I might need to talk to him about

Kurt Neiswender: 9:06

that. Maybe, maybe the, maybe it got mixed up by, you know, our friends at UPS. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, it's a, it's a, man, I'm really losing today.

Jamie: 9:27

Well, and cause you know, I did, I do remember talking about my, my love of the light break. You know, as a child,

Kurt Neiswender: 9:35

that's right, and it is your birthday. It has recently passed.

Jamie: 9:41

Yeah, I'm not one for like, like extending it. It's it. It happened. It's good. I had a good time. Like, what's going on?

Kurt Neiswender: 9:49

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, so what about you then? Let's change the subject over to your cup of coffee.

Jamie: 9:56

I said, it's the pecan. Backyard pecan, buddy.

Kurt Neiswender: 10:00

Oh, right. Yes, right, right, right. It's called the fall, the autumn. I'm getting a little nervous, so I gotta... It's Texas. Deflect, deflect, deflect. Texas pecans. So, I know you have to go. This is gonna be a bit of a short, a shorter one today. The short and sweet. But cause it's just Jamie, Jamie's got a thing. I've got a... I gotta make some food or else I'm going to get in trouble by nemesis. So there's that going on too. So let me, let me flip this on because this is almost as recent as Jamie's birthday is

Jamie: 10:40

Batman day. Yeah, there's like a, like a, a nice coincidence there. So I appreciate that about the, you know, the marketing, so making up made up holidays and then, you know, marketing them around the target audience. So I feel like I'm a, I'm a target part of the target audience on this.

Kurt Neiswender: 11:02

Yes. So is there some significance to the day?

Jamie: 11:06

I have no idea if there was actually, I mean,

Kurt Neiswender: 11:10

was it the first Batman?

Jamie: 11:13

I would love it to be the first appearance, but I don't believe so. I mean, I think it was the first

Kurt Neiswender: 11:19

comic book. Is it the first time Adam West was on screen or even older than there's older than Adam West, right? There's a version. There's like a predates him.

Jamie: 11:33

So I found a really cool photo of Adam West. In costume and in the Batmobile. And I almost did that as my sketch for, for Batman day. But my, my, but M's birthday is just a little bit in front of mine. And so I had done couple Batgirl sketches. Cause I've always sort of joked with her about that. She had kind of an affinity for Batgirl no surprise there. But so I, I, I'd done a couple of sketches of that kind of in leading up to that, and then had interspersed it with a few other different sketches for, for my daily sketch. And, but then for Batman day kind of did did one and then a second one. And, yeah, it turned out pretty good.

Kurt Neiswender: 12:25

The, yeah, and it's always fun to kind of celebrate this holiday that Warner Brothers invented. I don't know.

Jamie: 12:33

Probably, yeah, it's, it's, it's totally, it's totally fictional. I shouldn't

Kurt Neiswender: 12:36

say Warner Brothers. I, I, I should try and pay homage to DC Comics. Right. Where Batman emerged from, but, warner Brothers has that T that movie contract.

Jamie: 12:47

So, well, I mean, and that's the whole thing, right? Is like, you know, all these, you know, you know, comic book, graphic novel, you know, writer, artist. You know, creations have sort of, you know, migrated to film, which I have no problem with, absolutely you know, animation or film, but it's, you know, there's, there's a lot of storytelling. There's a lot of, you know digging in the crates. And, you know, kind of enjoying kind of all that creativity that, that came before in terms of the storytelling and, and art. So you know, it's, it's, it's one where I don't mind bouncing back and forth, you know, between genres and time periods and all that stuff too, because it's like, like, I remember being a little kid and. You know, and seeing, you know, reruns of, you know, Batman on TV, right. And going, you know, this is totally campy, you know, even as a little kid, you knew it was totally campy. But at the same time, I'm, you know, my. You know, the, the fun thing and, and if anybody who does follow me on Instagram has seen a, an image of a couple sitting on, like, it looks like almost like a model T Ford. And so that was, you know, that was for my you know, for my, yeah, for my, yeah, for my grandparents, my mom's parents. And so there was sort of an anniversary in there and it was just something that was super special and got reminded of some things that were personal and in talking to my mom and you know, she's telling me some stories about them. And I have this wonderful black and white photo of my grandparents. And so I turned around. Like after I got off the phone with my mom and did this sketch from the photo and then sent it to her. So it was you know, the you know, at some point in your life, you start to get, you know, a little sentimental and all that stuff. But my my, my, my grandfather. My mom's dad was a mechanic his whole life and always was fascinated with cars and just, you know, this photo with him, with my grandmother, you know, with a car, it just was, you know, they're like, you know, they're at the beach or something, you know, or some lake or, you know, whatever. And, you know, she's in a bathing suit and he's like in, like, slacks with his shirt off, you know, and it's, it's so classic for the two of them. And, you know, I only knew them when they were, you know, I'm, I'm the youngest grandchild, so I knew them when they were really, really old. I was fortunate to spend a lot of years with them. But it's, you know, these photos of them for me are really special and you know, and that's, that's the stuff that you, you think about, especially around your birthday and things like that as family and things like that too. So. But yeah, you know, I've been drawing a bunch of different stuff, you know, this last month and yeah, this, this, this particular sketch was kind of fun kind of, you know, like I said, I, I jump around with a lot of different varieties of things and some of them, like even the sketch that we got on the screen of them, you know, it was as intensive an image as it is. You know, graphically this one was fast. And I was, I was really proud of myself for capturing it as fast as I did. Cause I hadn't, when I start to do portraits and especially portraits of people that are like special to me that's when the nerves kick in. And you feel like you can't fudge it. And you're, you know, the biggest critic of yourself. But this was one that, that was special. And I was able, I was able to, you know, kind of give it to my mom. So that was cool.

Kurt Neiswender: 16:49

That's cool. It is a great sketch, actually, you know, the as you said, the, the sort of graphic intensity, it's very dark, darkly rendered. I wouldn't say it's not a dark emotional image. It's a positive. Uplifting, you know, it's a nice scene, you know, as you mentioned, your, your two grandparents sitting on the bumper of an old car and did you say it was a Model T?

Jamie: 17:14

Well, it kind of, it's not, but it kind of feels, it feels like that. It's got the old timey. It's kind of got that, you know I, I'm not a car person. Oh,

Kurt Neiswender: 17:24

I see. It's Americana.

Jamie: 17:27

But it's, you know, I mean, but that was the thing is like, my grandfather was the type of. He was the guy that could your car, you know, you could turn your car on and say there's something wrong with it and he would just listen. Oh, that's cool. And then he, and then he, then he would pop the hood and maybe listen some more and then tell you what was, what was up with it. And so, but like, it's, I think I've told you this is that like, you know, formula one. You know, and, you know, was his like Superbowl, you know, that was, that was his thing, you know, was you know, the Grand Prix and all that stuff. I mean, that was you know, otherwise, you know, he just was really happy to just be around his family, you know?

Kurt Neiswender: 18:17

Oh, that's cool. I think that's, that's definitely a skill set in a trait that probably doesn't happen. Or exists very much and even nowadays with all the technology and cars, you probably couldn't necessarily open a hood and be like, you know, listen for a type of vibration or something

Jamie: 18:35

like that. But no, and it's and that's, I think that's the fun thing about it is that, like, as much as. I think he would be absolutely amazed by all the technology of cars today. I, I think he would also appreciate it too. You know, cause it was you know, even as a car guy, I mean, he was, he was kind of conscious of, you know, not necessarily his mortality, but it was sort of conscious of like how much the world is changing. You know, I mean, all my grandparents have like, you know, had eighth grade educations, you know, it was like, you know so, you know, for them, You know, all of their grandkids, you know, on both sides, you know, all the things that we've done and places we've been, it's just, it's all fascinating, was always fascinating to them. And yeah,

Kurt Neiswender: 19:21

that's cool. And the, the, the multi generational, you know, as the wish to have the youth, you know, the younger generations sort of go farther or, you know, in, in career or education and things like that. And Yeah, your point about him, his appreciation of F1, you know, that's like the whole other, you know, the sort of this old car here and then F1, which then sort of represents like the epitome of technology in automotive engineering, because my brother is an engineer. And loves F1 for a lot, probably a lot of the same reasons because of the, and he's talked about the sophistication of those vehicles to points where I don't really, I, I, I can't even, can't even recall because it's complex stuff, but, it's complex for me, right? I don't know. It's

Jamie: 20:18

the idea of, like, you probably heard him talk about the pilots, you know? I mean, it's, you know, that, that level of love and passion and sophistication for, for that is, is really evident. And, and I think that that's the, you know, that's the thing about, you know, for me, even just in terms of our discussions about art and architecture and technology and influence, it's like you know, the last month. I mean, if anybody goes through my sketches, it's it's a real mixed bag. I mean, I've got portraits of family members who, you know, have passed away. I mean, my grandmother and grandfather passed away when I was a teenager. So you know, the you know, so, but, but they, they hold like a real special, you know, spot in my memory, you know, even today and, and then other sketches, like the Batman stuff, it's like, you know, that's, you know, reason why I bring up my grandmother is that she, she was the first person to sit me down and give me. You know, pencils as a little kid and let me draw. And my parents had gone like on like one of those, like, you know dropped the kid off at the grandparents and, you know, go out, you know, go out for a little bit and they came home and I'm laying on the floor with my grandmother and, you know, all I'm doing is just just papers everywhere and crayons and, you know, pens and pencils, and they're like, what have you guys been doing and You know, I just, I apparently had just been drawn. I drew like the whole time. I was the whole time they were gone. Like she just decided that that was something that she wanted to do with me. And and my mother, you know, and I kind of remember, you know, that, you know, my, you know, my nanny, you know, was always encouraging me to draw and do my art. You know, that was the way she referred to it was do your art. Yeah. And, but it was like, you know, some of that early stuff was, you know, comic books and Batman and all that good stuff. So, you know, when I, when I do these, I, I think about stuff like that. Yeah,

Kurt Neiswender: 22:36

that's cool. I mean, I think, I mean, I know you got to go, so I'll just say one last thing about the, the thread that ties it all together. Right. You know, I mean, the subject matter may, may sometimes not be obvious to the, the, the listener or the watcher of what we talk about. But I think you, you summarized pretty well right there is, is how these things sort of weave together in one's mind and then translate into. Pen to paper. And, and, and so in that, I mean, that's really the essence of a sketch, right? Is, is the fact that it's the generation of something from an idea, and our brains are complex enough to think about multiple things at one time, right? Or, or. Overlapping series of concepts, things like that. And, and that's, and that's the the manifestation is what is, you know, when we go through episode to episode is the sketch to sketch, right? It's like the manifestation of these sort of electrical impulses in the brain turning into something physical. So, yeah, no, thanks for the story. It was really fun. I know it's a bit of a short one, but I think that was really. Sort of concise way to sort of jump from Batman day and then go back in time and then back forward in time. So. Okay.

Jamie: 24:03

So, so one last question for you, and then, and then we can, we can, we can call it an episode is since we were talking about the sketch and talking about, you know, drawing influence and, and how that's migrated to film and animation and. Et cetera, et cetera. So of the actors who have played Batman, which one or, or just, and not just the actors, but I mean like the portrayal. So, so which is the one that's like, has like, is your, is your number one?

Kurt Neiswender: 24:37

Oh, well, oh man, this is a tough one. I think it's still going to have to be Tim Burton's Batman with Michael Keaton. So his version one, you know, his Batman and Batman Returns, like, cause then Michael Keaton didn't come into the trilogy, but he didn't carry through the three. So that would be me. Which I know we're running out of time here, but the here locally in Flint at the Flint Institute of Music, I have tickets to watch the Flint Symphony Orchestra play. The soundtrack to the Tim Burton Batman while the movie is playing behind them. Like they do in the movie thing with the movie symphony thing. And that's in February. So it's not on Batman day. It's in February of next year. So I'm really looking forward to that. And, and that's not why I chose that one, but it's great that it lines up with the symphony as well. But so what about you? Love it.

Jamie: 25:43

I love it. I love it. Michael Keaton is, is pretty great. And, and it was pretty seminal. I, I do remember seeing it in the theater and all that stuff. And it was, you know but I have to say that Christian Bale and, and Christopher Nolan, you know and I, and I love Tim Burton. I mean, it's like, you know, it's there's so many things about that that are, are pretty great. But I, I think that, you know, I, I'm, I think. Christian Bale really got it. I'm excited about it, but at the same time, Robert Patterson I mean, it's like, I don't, I don't want to discount that. You know, so I can, you know, I can appreciate them all.

Kurt Neiswender: 26:26

Yeah, yeah, I appreciate, I'm glad that you at least feel as torn as I had to. I mean, I mean, we can't pick just one,

Jamie: 26:34

Kevin Conroy from the animated series. You know, his voice of Batman was pretty great. Yeah. You know,'cause then you gotta then, then you get to nod that Mark Hamill, you know, was the Joker, you know, against Kevin Conroy's. Oh. And so, you know, we could,

Kurt Neiswender: 26:51

I love that. The cartoon. Yeah. Too.

Jamie: 26:55

So anyhow, this was fun.

Kurt Neiswender: 26:59

Yeah. Here's the next Batman

Jamie: 27:01

Day. Cheers to that.