The Soft Bulletin Transcript

https://bit.ly/TheSoftBulletin

Music Rewind welcomes Jack Robertson to discuss The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips.

A great conversation about this album represents a special place and time for Jack’s family and the impact one band has had in a lifetime.

Album: The Soft Bulletin

Artist: The Flaming Lips

Year: 1999

Our Guest, Jack Robertson, is the host of the following podcasts, and can be found on IG at @thekiltedjedi.

Musings of an ADD Mind

Kenyetta & Jack Save the World

Transcript as follows:

Participant #1:

Hello, and welcome to season two of Music Rewind, a podcast where we look to tell the stories behind our favorite albums. I'm your host, Steve Appley, and in each episode, I will invite a guest on them to tell us about their favorite music album, how they discovered it, and what makes it special to them. Joining me today is a family man, veteran and lover of music Jack Robertson. Jack is a fellow podcaster. You can find him as the host of Musings of an Add Mind podcast and also the co host of Kennedy and Jack Save the World podcast. Welcome, Jack, and thank you for being on the show. Hey, thanks for having me. Anytime I can talk about music, I'm game. I love it. Yeah, I'm ready to geek out and make your fans think I'm insane. This is going to be a fun one. All right, Jack, let's jump right into this. What is your favorite album and how did you discover it? My current favorite album is The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips,

Participant #1:

and I discovered it back in 2008. I was reading an article about the 100 greatest albums you don't Know About the Penguins had two albums on there. This one in Yoshimi Battles, The Pink Robots. And I thought, hey, they're a local band. I'm going to give them a listen. And I used to listen to them in high school. So I went and got the CDs, and I kind of like this. It's weird, because with The Flaming Lips, I discovered them almost two and a half times in high school. I had a friend that loved The Flaming Lips, got me into them, listened to their first three albums, then I graduated, got in the army, forgot about them. And then 94, She Don't Use Jelly. We got a lot of radio airplay. Yeah. And that was like the .5. And then the third time was this 2008, and I've practically listened to them every day since. What error was blistering the sun in there now? Blistering the sun is isn't that the violent fems? You're right, it is violent films. So then She Don't Use Jelly is the only song I really knew from them before you brought this album to the table. Okay. All right. That one was played on. I remember that. I think that might have been the first time I saw it to shamefully admit live on the air. That sounds long ago. Long time ago, yeah. As I mentioned before we got started, I do have kind of a love hay relationship with this band, mainly because I had an unfortunate live experience with them where they did a nighttime rendition of all of Dark Side of the Moon at Bonneroo, and it was a schedule for 02:00 A.m.. I was super excited about it, and me and my fellow councilorgoers went there, and it wasn't what I expected. I'll just say there were a lot of Flaming Lips fans that loved it, but it wasn't what I was expecting. I was expecting more of a traditional rendition of great Pink Floyd album that a lot of bands have done. But, man, they just completely threw a curveball on that whole thing. Not what I was expecting at all. Yeah. My favorite part of that redo is that Henry does all of the sort of backing voice of really? I'm not crazy. Who cares if you die? Everybody. That's Henry Rollins. Oh, that's neat. Tyler's thought is cool because they released that as an album, didn't they? They did, with his nephew's band, Stardust and the White Drawers. Because this one, The Soft Bolton, is their 9th studio album. Yes. Okay, I guess we're on the subject line real quick. I've seen them five, six times live. Oh, really? Yeah. I don't know if this makes me a good parent or a bad parent. My youngest daughter didn't like the Jonas Brothers or Miley Cyrus. She liked The Flaming Lips. So when she was nine, we took her to the Flaming Lips New Year's Eve concert. I'm sure that's a memorable experience for her. We made her wear an N 95 mask so she was protected from the weed. But my youngest daughter is always she doesn't dance to the beat of a drummer. She's in a different instrument section, which is fine. I love that about her. And before we go in, she's looking around and she grabs me and she goes, Dad, I'm finally around my people. So, yeah, that's a great memory. It's funny. And she enjoyed it. And that was the year they performed The Soft Bulletin live all the way through after the main concert. Oh, neat. Yeah, it was really cool because I did enjoy this album. I have no reservations. It wasn't like an album where I just kind of listened to it. Yeah. I have no reason to go back to it. No, I've listened to it several times now, and I do enjoy listening to it. Yeah, well, you have great taste. Wayne Coin, the lead singer of The Flaming Lips, is also unique. His ex wife referred to him as being married to, like, a grownup toddler. And he uses a lot of odd imagery in his writing. But if you look like the next level, you realize it sounds nonsensical. Nonsensical. Sorry, I can't speak. But it's actually deep a lot of times. And The Soft Bulletin is that type of album. He wrote it after his father had gone through a long battle of cancer. So it sort of deals with life and death and what happens after that person dies. And it's written in the unique Wayne Coin way. Yeah, I can see that. Definitely. What I usually do is I'll listen to the album and then I'll listen to it again at least once more with the lyrics in front of me and try to decipher some of these. It is a bit clear that's what he's going for. And then I also read that there was some turmoil in the band a bit due to some accidents and some other going zones. Yeah. At the same time, the bass player might Buy even was in a wreck and almost died. His car flipped around several times. It's in one of the songs, the Spider Bite song. And Steven I can never say his last name, droids. Draws, I'm not sure. He was a heroin addict and his infection site got infected. He told everyone it was a spider bite it and he almost had to get his hand amputated. And that was all taken place as Wayne's dad was dying. When you listen to The Spiderite song, it's about heroin. So what brings you back to this album? Is it the music side? Is it the lyric side? What pulls you this album each time around? For about the last year, it's been really deep because my mom passed away in March. She was on the hospice. That took like 21 days. And this song, because of what it's about, just sort of or not the song the album really hit home with because I was going through the same thing. Sorry for your loss. It's all right. We knew it was coming. As somebody who's not particularly religious, there aren't a lot of songs or albums that deal with death from the non faith side, if that makes sense. And this one is like that, and it speaks to me. That's a very good point. Most of the concept albums, if you will, that do have to deal with death. The ones that come to mind are the DMX album we did in season one, which is a lot about the hard urban life and death is quite evolved. But then there's also Ride the Lightning we did. And then also The Black Parade from MCR comes to mind. Those are not uplifting right. This one is. This one looks at it from a completely different perspective. Yeah, it definitely does. And it has the only song I've ever really seen. That's what it's like after a person dies, because it's just like you're folding your laundry and then, bam, you think of that person. We've all experienced someone close to us dying, and we all know that feeling that you're just doing something undang and all of a sudden you just are thinking of that person and start crying because it's something dumb. You're like, mom would be so mad, I'm peeling these potatoes wrong. Now, do you listen to this album front to back, or do you kind of skip around certain times? Yeah, there are about twelve albums that I do that with every time it's front to back, and this is on that list. Well, walk me through the album, how you listen to it and what you like about it. Okay, well, I see you've got notes there. Yes. You can prepare the first songs raised for the prize

Participant #1:

and it seems weird. It's like scientists trying to find a cure for a disease. But if you have somebody who's dying of cancer, you kind of would have man, it'd be great if a cure was found before this happens. And I think that's where Wayne was coming from when he wrote that song. But it, once again, is with Wayne Junior imagery. And then the next song is A Spoonful Weighs a Ton,

Participant #1:

which we know when a star dies, they always talk about, a spoonful of that star stuff now weighs a ton. And then there's The Spark That Bled, the aforementioned spider bite song about the infection he had. And then my least favorite song, Bugging. I like it for one reason. He uses incorrect grammar. And my wife is a grammar Nazi. And every time he sings the mosquito makes you itch, she's like, Scratch. It should be Scratch. And so I like to bug her with that. I didn't even think about that. That's true. That's just being a good husband. And then what is this like? Sort of deals with what makes a person happy, kind of, when you're going through it.

Participant #1:

I like this one a lot. What is the light? Is when they jumped out of me with the piano at the beginning. Quite wonderful. And it's a happy song. I put it as it's pondering the source of love. Yeah, love is a frequent topic of wings. Yeah, I like that one a lot. The observer is just musical. And then it goes to one of the deeper songs, waiting for a Superman.

Participant #1:

Basically, the idea of the song is we lived in a world with superheroes or Superman. If you're going through someone dying, the weight of that is more than Superman could lift. And I like that sort of imagery. It doesn't matter how strong you are. When you're going through an emotional thing, nothing can lift that through it. And it starts off with the line, it asked you a question. I didn't need you to reply. Is it getting heavy? And then the next line is, but they'll realize it is getting heavy. Well, I thought it was already as heavy as can be.

Participant #1:

When someone is in the hospital every day, you think, Okay, it can't get any worse. The next day you go, It gets worse. And so that whole song just speaks to me because of that imagery. It's definitely a song about carrying a burden. Yes. Wishing there was some way to help with it, but you kind of know there isn't. Yeah, exactly. It has a line there is it overwhelming to use a crane to crush a fly. It's a hell of a metaphor. It is. But just when someone's dying that you love, it's so heavy. But there really isn't anything anyone can do to take that away from you. Anyway, I'm starting to think about my mom, and the next song is Suddenly Everything Has Changed. That's the one I was talking about earlier.

Participant #1:

The first lyric is putting all the vegetables away that you bought at the grocery store today. And it goes fast. You think of the past, suddenly everything has changed. Yeah. And as I was saying, that is so on point. Especially like, for six months or year afterwards when someone dies. This is true. Seems weird. I'm this deep into something that is reminded me to live. My mom. Here we go. Anyway, well, the next track probably won't help with that because this is a very sad song as far as feeling yourself disintegrate. Yeah, well, the gash is in between there, which is strangely uplifting. Yeah, I skipped that one.

Participant #1:

It's about not giving up. You don't want someone to give up, but they're giving up because their fight is over. And it has some unique imagery. But, yeah, you're right. Then it goes straight into Filling Yourself disintegrate.

Participant #1:

No doubt about what that song is about. You are dying. It is about that. Yeah. It's a song of acceptance, really. Yeah. And then it goes to Sleeping on the Roof, which is an all right song. And then it's just two different mixes of Race for the Prize and Waiting for a Superman. Yeah. It was an interesting way to end the album with that instrumental track. It's a sleepy ambience to it. And hearing you talk through the album, I totally see the concept album that this truly is talking about his father, the race from The Cure, all the way to Feeling Yourself disintegrate. I mean, that tells a story. It really does. Yeah, it definitely does have great imagery. I love that kind of thing. Only Wayne Coin could write. Also, this let me backtrack a little. Some of the controversy at the time was also that Steven Draws basically does all the instruments on the album. Oh, really? He went and recorded him because he's the drummer. Right? Well, he started out as the drummer and then he moved to guitar and keyboard. And now he's still guitar and keyboard and now they have two drummers that drone in sync and it's crazy. Yeah, look at that. Now he's credited with drones, percussion guitar, keyboards, bass and backing vocals. Yeah, that's pretty much the whole gambit there. Yeah. Yeah, he is definitely a train store type. Is that due to the other guy getting in a car accident or is that just due to what was the reason behind that? I think he's better at playing the base. Nothing against Michael Evans, who actually just from the band. I just think Steven's better. He can play every instrument. Him and Trent Renzonor need to film or form a band together called We Play at all. I don't know if it was actually him, but I did watch the video for Race for the Prize and they were a lot older in the video that I was expecting. My vision of them was a much younger crew so it was kind of neat to see them middle aged doing these songs. And then his voice interesting to see that voice coming out of him. It just didn't fit. But then it did. But the guy playing the bass was a middle aged ball guy. Yeah, that's my life. Okay. It made me feel better seeing a middle aged ball guy playing a rock video.

Participant #1:

Actually, 64, I think. Oh, really? Yeah. He has, like, a three year old and I think his wife's pregnant again, which is insane because I'm almost 50 and I would die if I had a kid that young. That makes sense, because this album is from 99. So when I said they looked middle age, that's from 99. Yeah. They still are putting out music. They make videos for every one of them. They're a lot of times sort of cheaper videos. But why spend money on a video in today's world? That's true. They had an album come out in September 2020 called American Head, which I love. If you're a fan of songs about drugs, you won't like the album. I love it. But by my notes, they've got 16 total studio albums. Yeah, I think that's correct. They record a lot. Yeah. That's a ton of material there. Yeah. The lead singer, Wayne He, admits that he is not a world class singer, but his theory is, it's rock, I love it, I'm going to sing. And he does well. Just a caveat on that that's also been a trend on this particular show, is that you don't need to be all credit to Freddie Mercury with an amazing voice, but you don't need to be Freddie Mercury to be that lead singer. We've had tons of unique voices on here from Tom York and radiohead Eddie Venner. Pearl Jam got another episode for Neil Young, which is as unique a voice as you can get there. You don't need to be that operatic, perfect pitch type of guy. So, yes, in his voice, it matches the music very well. Yeah, for sure. Definitely. Especially in that first track, that Race For The Prize, because that sucker is an earworm. The way that song just kicks off, and that can go round and round in your head. I've been singing it all day, so I was like, I'd better listen to three or four times to have it fresh in my head for later. And I've been singing nonstop the three tracks that jumped out to me that I really enjoyed, track one, Race For The Prize, just because it's such an earworm. And then that leads well into track, too. Spoonful weighs a ton and in about a minute and a half, there's like a big celestial boom and the song kind of shifts for a while. And I liked that because it was unexpected and I was listening to it with the ear muff headphones on, so it just kind of came out of nowhere. And this is an album with a lot of those beeps and bloops in the background that you might not catch if you don't have some sort of headphones on it's. Like, Did I hear something on the left? Maybe now you're listening for it, then something comes in on the right. I like that sort of thing. But then also that track six, Where is the Light or what is the Light? Was really stand out for me. Yeah, that's a great song. It really is. Of course, like I said, all the bugging I really like, and I don't know, a song about bugs hitting your windshield just isn't my thing. It's actually the song on my notes that I have the least amount of notes for a song about bugs or whatever metaphor pesters you, I guess. I've always had a theory that Warner Brothers was, like, your shortest song. And Wayne was, like, driving to the studio, and he was like, Bugs on the windshield. He strikes me as a guy like, Hey, we need a song. All right, give me a minute. Yeah, I'm sure he could do that. Let me see what's around me. All right. All right. I got something. Let's record. Let's go. Stephen create music, which might be how that works.

Participant #1:

It was the final one, Sleeping on the Roof. The song itself came from one morning when Steve drew a musical staff, turned it upside down and asked the band to randomly place dots on the staff. He turned it right side up, and whatever they played was the song. Oh, wow. That's pretty awesome. That is I actually know that cool. That's something I've learned to do. And I've read the book about the Flaming Lips. I found it on the Internet, so you know it's true. Well, I mean, Abraham Lincoln said that. I guess one more story to geek out. I mean, not that I'm ready to show. I worked in a museum, and in 2010, we did an exhibit on Oklahomans and rock and roll, and the Flaming Lips, they were a big part of it. Donated all sorts of stuff for the exhibit, and they had a big party for the opening, so we had the kids. My daughter wanted to meet Wayne, so he's not talking to anyone. She walks up to him, punches him in the stomach. He looks down at her, and she goes, the Flaming Lips are my favorite band. My favorite songs are Yoshimi, Battles, the Pink Robots, the song, and this here Giraffe. Wayne responded, if this year Giraffe is one of your favorite songs, you are indeed a Flaming Lips fan. That's fantastic. Yes. And then she's showed them around the museum. That's really cool. Surreal. Yeah. I gave my son some advice. Told him how he worked it, longed on silvers for, like, ten years. Told him that they say, do what you love, and you'll never work a day in your life. And he's like, I always looked at it as love what you're doing at the time, and you'll never have a bad day. That is great advice. Pretty good advice. Yeah. Put that on the back wall of every Long John Silvers, right?

Participant #1:

Yeah. He might be getting the long term Long John Silver fried cook in the rock world. They're all from Oklahoma City, right? Or at least he was, him and Michael Ivans are, and they've had so much turn around in the band. His brother was originally in it. He left. They've had several guitars. Steven is actually from Texas. Is Michael Ivan the original basis, though? Yes, Michael Ivan and Wayne were in the entirety until Mike Olivia's retired June July of this year. Okay. Which I can see why in your 60s you might not want to tour anymore. Not everybody's. The Stones and will go after 16 studio albums and God knows how many live albums and company tours and everything is in the right to retire. I think so, yeah. If you watch them now, to me, it's amazing, though, that they have two drummers that are playing in sync. That's got to be difficult because every drummer, you know, their timing is slightly different to two go at it. It's a cool thing to see. And then if they did the bubble concerts because of the Pandemic and you could get one person, two person or three person bubbles, they blow them up. You'd be in there and then if you had a paddle, you felt you needed air and they come and put fresh air in there for you. If you need to go to the bathroom, they'd help you get out and you'd go. But no one has spent more time in the space bubble than Wayne Coin. The bubble on stage, though, wasn't that prior to isn't that something that they did before the Pandemic? Yeah, Wayne has done that for 20 years. Okay. Yeah. That's what I thought. When they did the Covet concerts, though, how many attendees did they do that? What was the capacity there? Those small intimate shows, some of them were smaller and only had like 100 people, and then some, I think, were like 500. It sort of depended on the space they had. And then the whole band were also in space bubbles. Yeah. I saw some pictures of it online and I was going to ask you if that was just a concert gimmick from the past or if that was something coven specific. Yeah, that was covent specific. And actually that gift you put up there on Facebook earlier, my friend Natalie, somewhere in that crowd, they did an NPR Tiny Dust concert in the bubble last year, too. Yeah. And I mean, no one knows more about space bubbles than Wayne Coin. He used to do the Halloween parade here in Oklahoma City and that was a two mile course. And he'd do the whole thing in the space bubble. It's dedicated. He'd get out and he just looked awful. It was cool. There was like 500 people in skeleton suits and tiki torches walking along, and then the rest of the band and then Wayne in his face. Bubble. The other funny thing about Wayne, he'll do his grocery shopping at a Walmart Super Center, and occasionally people know who it is and they just follow them around and talk to them as there's some green beans here's, some corn, need some barbecue sauce. And he talks to them the whole time, which is cool. That sounds cool. I don't envy that sort of lifestyle. He's got to look to him, though, that if I saw him in a store, I'd probably be thinking, that's a weird looking dude. And I go about my day, I wouldn't recognize him. You could say a rock legend. These guys have been around for a while, but if I saw Springsteen, I'd recognize them. That's a face everyone kind of knows. Yeah, definitely. But I guess if it's in Oklahoma City, he's probably well known there. Yeah, he is. They have an ally named after him. We have an entertainment district called Brick Town. And rather than name a street after the famous, people like this tradition. They named a back alley after the Flinging Lips. And Wayne was like, you know what? For us, that's perfect. Let's call it Bubble Tone. I want to say they had to put geo tags on the street sign because it kept getting stolen. I bet that's just life around here. The funny thing is he has, like, a complex of houses that are in sort of lower, maybe not income side of town. It's definitely not the expensive, wealthy people live there. He bought this house in the renovated bought the house next door and the house behind him and the house and the house next door. And apparently his friends referred to it as Stately Wayne Manor. He from the builder. Yeah, that's absolutely yeah. That's why he did the New Year's Eve concerts here for so many years, because he was like, when I'm done, I just go and go to bed. I don't have to go there until

Participant #1:

that's smart. Well, he was in his 50s then. And comfort is key when you get to be this age. It's true. So the Soft Bulletin made your top spot. What albums made your short list in Floyd? Animals, which I know you guys discussed the other. I did, yes. Is it the Pearl Jam ten that you guys talked about? The Pearl Jam versus was in season one, and then Pink Floyd Animals ended season one. Animals doesn't get enough credit for me. I agree. It's right there. Yeah, I love that. The whole thing just that only Pink Floyd would start an album with it's a minute long song and then have 320 minutes songs and then a minute song. Yeah, it's the diamond in the rough, you could say, because everyone will talk about dark side, which we're here in The Wall, but right in the middle of those is this amazing album. And I think I told my cousin, who I talked about on that episode, it's 40 minutes of just pure awesome. And so you can almost think of as one long track. It's wonderful. Really. You can. Yeah. Now that I've peaked out about Plain Floyd, the Wall also made my shortlist. Didn't He Ramble by Glenn Hansard? I don't know if you know who Glenn Hansard is. He's an Irish artist, kind of does bulk, but he just really does whatever he wants. Is that didn't he ramble in the vein of the traditional jazz song? No, this is about dinner ramble going on a bar crawl. All right. He is Irish, so he has a love affair with goodness. You almost have to when you're Irish. But once is a movie he made illegally in Dublin, and it was Oscar for best Song. And then it was made into a Broadway musical, and they won Tony's for that. And then he's done just soldo stuff. But he didn't start doing solo stuff until he was, like, 45. He was in a band called The Frames before that. And do you remember the movie The Commitment? Yes. It was that movie from the 90s about the Iron Man. He's in that. He's the long, red haired guitar player. Freddie Delips. Yeah, that's Glenn Hans. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I love The Commitments. If he comes to your town, go see him. He sings every song like it's the last song he's ever going to sing. It's amazing. He was bit old and they made The Commitment, so I'm wondering how old he is now. He's still touring. Wow. Yeah. He's been saying 56. If there's anyone out there who has not listened or watched The Commitments, please do. So amazing. You'll love it. It is. And the point that the Irish are Europe's black people is kind of true. You know anything about the history of Ireland? Yeah, it's a wonderfully awkward scene. And my last album was Nine Inch Nails the Downward Spiral. Good album. Very good idea. Yeah. I spent a lot of time listening to that in the deserts of Kuwait as I was protecting us from the evil of Saddam Hussein. Kuwait's not fun. I was out there for the second Iraq trip. I was in between. I went 96. Saddam moved bunch of troops to the border. Bill Clinton said, Hey, first cavs go stop them. And we did. There's a reason you never heard of it. Of the 96 deployment, we did teach a bunch of people from Pakistan incorrect English, which I'm both proud and horrified that I did. Because when the Marines came after us, all of the Pakistanis greeted you with, Hey, fruity nipples. I know that was wrong. Further your foreign relations the best we can.

Participant #1:

That was back in Walkman Days CD Walkman, listening to Nine Inch Nails pretty much every day and then also Smashing Pumpkins melancholyy and the incident sadness. Also, listen over there. When I joined the army in 98 and then 99, permanent station out in the field. So you got your disk man, and you got your biggest CD wallet, and you pick and choose, which ones am I going to bring to the field? But you got your regulars. But then by the end of my tenure in the military, I went from that disk man in the big S CD wallet to tiny little MP3 player. At the time I didn't have an iPhone yet, but just tiny little MP3 player with 3400 songs on it's. Like, this is amazing. That would have been awesome. It was great for those convoys up and down the roads there. Yeah. Where are you stationed at when you were active duty? I did active duty time in Hawaii for a bit and then DC for a bit, fort Stewart for a bit, and then my last year and a half was in Baghdad. I was at Fort Hood. I started in Oklahoma, Chicago, and then active duty at Fort Hood. And then I was tired of the military. After I got out, I made the, you could say smart or dumb decision. I became a contractor. So then I ended up going back and forth to the Middle East, like 30 times. That was good money, though, and also the US post. We were training Marines and soldiers on network equipment. So it was a good gig to have in your late 20s, early 30s, yeah. No, I understand. My son just got at the Air Force. It was in E four, so you know how low his pay was. But he deals with space and his civilian job is making like five times the amount, which is awesome to be 26, have no student loan debt on your own house and making that much money. And honestly, I got out for several reasons, but when I was in Iraq, here's me in network operations, and I'm managing my network. I got all my nodes out there and Signal Core, and I'm working side by side with a contractor. One of my best friends still lives around here today. He's a contractor doing exactly what I'm doing, but making four times as much. And while I'm doing counseling statements and other stuff, managing my team and the network, he's out here playing damn World of Warcraft, laughing at me. So as soon as he left Iraq, about a month before I did, and then when I came home, he was like, dude, I need your resume. And then he actually hired me, moved me down to Atlanta, and then the rest was history there. I don't blame you one bit. I don't regret any of it. Military pay sucks, and occasionally people try to kill you, and then the higher up you go, it just got so cut throat and it wasn't enjoyable anymore. I enjoyed being a soldier 100%. But then it's like corporate politics, but with a different tinge to it, and it's just not enjoyable also because they pay a shit. So that didn't help either. Exactly. I'm going to do a transition here, which is why you listen to England, the downward spiral when you're in the military, because you often feel like that. That was just in high school when I listened to it. That was my reason. That was fun here. And you got melancholy over here. It's like high school. Yeah, I'm a little older. That's a good short list. All those are great albums. I'm curious about the Irish guy for The Commitments. I'm going to have to do some YouTube on him. Well, before we wrap this up, please tell our listeners what you're working on, where they can find you, and anything you'd like to pitch. Well, I have two podcasts, as I mentioned, using Ad in mind, and I don't know if I'm a high functioning person with ADHD at this point, but I'm almost 50 and dealt with it for this long time, and I just had a bunch of odd random craps stuck in my head from 40 years of short attention spans and focusing on something and leaving. And I just sort of talked about things that are striking my fancy at that time. For example, my son is an expert on GPS. He came on, told us what they can and can't do. They cannot put a GPS tracker in you. They just can't. And I'm also required to say, if your GPS gets you lost, it's the software, not the satellite. He will slap me if I don't. But anyway, we talk about music, things going on, religion, just sort of whatever. And then my second podcast, Kennedy and Jack Save the World. We talk about the stuff that people don't want to talk about. Generally speaking. We're both Gen Xers. We've known each other since the fifth grade. As you can see, I'm clearly an old white dude. And Kennedy is lovely. I'm not going to mention her age black woman. And we talk about things from those point of views. And a lot of times people are afraid to talk about stuff like that, and we're not. We discussed several topics. We just did one on Haiti. If you don't know about Haiti, holy shit. It's heartbreaking. But we do that. And we both have a charity associated with that podcast. Mine is the Service Dog Project. They train Great Danes for people with mobility issues or stability issues. Because Great Danes are so tall and sturdy, they did a better job of helping somebody with balance. Okay, that's mainly it. I work at a museum, which is cool, to say the least. I see a lot of crap no one ever does, but you get blind to it. Not everybody has an Apollo capsule 50ft away from them, but I do. That is pretty cool. Yeah, that's kind of what I got going on and I'm going to keep listening to your show. I'm glad I saw it on that Facebook page. And I'll talk about music. I'll listen to people talking about music. So you've got a fan in me. I appreciate that. And I encourage everyone to check out both those podcasts using ADHD, Mind and Kenyetta. Did I say that right? Yes. Kennedy and Jack save the world. You'll have to come on my music episodes and return the favor. Absolutely, I will. Jack, thank you for your time today. It was a pleasure to sit and talk with you about the soft bulletin from The Flaming Lips. Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it. And hopefully your listener. Don't think I'm too big of a dork for being that hyped about The Flaming Lips. You've converted me. It was great album. My job was done. Thank you for listening to Music Rewind. a podcast from the Sidereal Media Group. As I always say, listen to the full album. Until next time,

Participant #1:

A podcast from the Sidereal Media Group backstage.

https://musicrewind.podbean.com/e/the-flaming-lips-the-soft-bulletin-with-jack-robertson/