Process Talk with Ty & Rich - Insider Reference Edition

"Everybody in their lives is really waiting for people to ask them questions so that they can be truthful about who they are and how they became what they are."

-Marc Pachter

Rich: Throughout our conversations and in between, I'm having an entire meta-conversation in my head about interviewing technique and storytelling and now I have two data points to think about.

Some observations:

The technology made for different conversations. The iPhone recording technique had a delay (which I tried to edit out of the final version) and I realized early in the conversation (and perhaps you did too) that there was not going to be a lot of back and forth. So I sat back interjecting only infrequently and you shouldered the load of story telling and the end result was good.

LP was something that happened to you that revealed character. SVC was something you did that both revealed and developed character. It made for very different conversations.

For LP, I knew the story. You had told me most of it already. For SVC, I knew a few details but I really didn't know much of the story. As a result, for the LP interview, I knew the story I wanted to get out of you and probably avoided some fruitful tangents because they seemed to me to be too derivative from where I wanted to go. Mistake on my part.

For the next topic, I have hardly any research. It's not the sort of thing I can find online. We'll see how that goes.

For now, the topics are personal history. It's fertile ground. But we're going to get away from that soon enough.

Ty: I am fascinated by the whole damn thing, really.

The technology vis-á-vis the SCV interview made it really difficult. But also the story.

Also, LP/GS was interesting because the pattern of me just falling into interesting shit. I certainly worked hard, developed cred, but at some threshold I just kind of waltz into incredible situations.

Rich: "There is so much to the story."

I was thinking that if the roles were reversed and you were asking me questions about an analogous topic/event in my life, there is NO WAY I would leave the conversation without regrets for what had NOT been said. There is so much to the story, indeed.

Fear not, we will circle back around to SCV sometime in the future.

Ty: So many tangential pathways. No regrets but realizations that the story is not complete.

What this informs me of is when we hear other people's stories or interviews we're probably missing MOST of the real story.

Rich: That's EXACTLY right.

Have you ever had the experience of being interviewed and then reading the ensuing article, or just reading an article about something with which you are intimately familiar, and feeling like the journalist missed the point?

That's the ONLY experience I have when reading articles after I've been interviewed. I don't blame the journalist. It's the nature of their job to jump from one topic to another and they can't possibly understand the subject matter with the same level of nuance that I understand it. But if I feel that way ALWAYS, what does that say about other articles I read? Every article must have an expert on the subject who thinks, "Nope, didn't get that right."

And then, given that so much of our context and worldview is comprised of information we've gleaned from newspaper articles and (gasp) teevee news, then can we really trust that we correctly understand anything outside of our immediate sphere of experience?

Nope.

Ty: Exactly. I've NEVER been quoted in the press as I intended or that made any sense. So when I hear famous fuck-ups say, "I was misquoted" or "It was taken out of context" I understand.

Rich: Which reminds me, I had a dream last night that you had developed a new way of playing banjo. The banjo was amped, you had grown your nails on your right (picking) hand, and you had a slide on both your index and pinky fingers of your left hand.

Ty: I'll work on the banjo thang (with a chicken wang/like a country twang). Dreams are a motherfucker, dude. And interesting that you mention it. Just the other day I walked over to Chloe's for a beer (I probably emailed or txt'd you from there). The sign said CLOSED because they closed at 7:00 that night. It was like 7:09 but Irish Pat said, "Come on in." He added, "I think I dreamed you came after we closed for a beer." I know people who claim they don't dream.

But I dream and dream with impunity.

Rich: God is good. Life is great. We reap what we sow. Thank Allah.

How every you want to phrase it, these are golden times.