Lost Xplorers

198 - Be Weird, Survive, and Get Back To the Campfire

On this episode, Kris and JDO talk:

Uneasiness at work, the notion of time passing, teachers moving on, how to create amazing life stories, working on fishing boats in the North Sea.

What is the psychology of someone who chooses to be homeless? How are some people built for adventure and others aren’t?

Japanese cholos, psychotronic imagery, syncretic religions, and abandoned asylums.

“Memory is what’s happening when you’re not forgetting.”

Looking to other world traditions for a way forward. The beauty in imperfections. The importance of aesthetics is not what you think. What’s blue and smells like red paint?

The Christian Reformation was the most significant thing to happen to the Western World. Modern myths are the fertile ground of modern morality. JDO explains Berserk to Kris.

Female- and male-centric energy in mythos. The connection between Maimonides and Spinoza.

JDO draws dead phones. Reverse the steps. Tang tonguelers. The oscillation between immersive storylines and passive experiences in dreams. The ghost disease of language. Emblematic strength.

197 - Rewilding the Social Sphere

On this episode, Kris and JDO break down a lot of the overly-complex cultural conversations to a brutally simple (but not easy) question: why can’t we just be courteous to each other?

We also talk about “rewilding” social situations, keeping things fresh, and not taking people for granted. Bringing back the sacred.

What does it mean to a child when their parents are too involved in their phones to talk to each other, let alone the child?

JDO is given an imaginative challenge as a gender swapped John Wick, and we discover the ultimate hack for writers’ block.

Revising opinions on art.

(This episode was recorded before the Kent Axell episode, but JDO wanted to get that one out ASAP. Same thing for the next episode.)

196 - Crafting Magic w/ Kent Axell

We have a very special guest for this episode of Lost Xplorers. The great Kent Axell, Vegas stage magician and all-around cool guy, joined us to chop it up.

On this episode, we talk about the different types of magic, paranormal phenomena, the writing process of a magic routine, James Randi's Million Dollar Challenge, the need for mystery in These Capitalized Times, choosing to believe, and the creative process.

One of the most interesting conversations I've had in a while. Kent's a fascinating dude. If you're in Vegas, check out his show Ghost Stories. You can find out all the information you need on him via his website.

195 - The Crusonaut

Kris and JDO talk about the strangness of passing time. JDO talks about the biggest viral scam he ever fell for. “Americans love nothing better than to be fooled.” JDO continues his path to becoming a cult leader by channeling Alan Watts. The strangeness of Florida. The World Weekly News as the ultimate American newspaper. What would an American Tory look like?

Philip K. Dick vs. Alan Watts. There’s something in the searching. We are all still children who want to stay up late at night. Speaking in metaphors.

Degrees of compassion. Focused and tactical intimacy. Conversion is a drug. “Language determines the world.”

194 - Stop Me If I Start Making Sense

Red-headed robins, challenged by the weather, and Oklahoma mythology, including serial killers, mass murders, and werewolves. Imaginative subversion of the terrain. Students are not co-teaching. Two-headed chickens. A homeless freestyle rapper named Big Weiner.

And from the notes of Kris Saknussemm:

-Rapper 50 Cent, age 48 and trying desperately to look like a cartoon version of someone my students’ age, says to his 12 million X followers, “It’s almost over,” as in Humanity. This while he’s embroiled in collateral flak from the federal investigations of Puff Diddy for sex trafficking, rape, domestic abuse, drugs, guns—the usual. And where did all the playground-sounding names come from? Puff Diddy. Charlemagne Tha God. Megan Thee Stallion. Strange mix of adolescence (if not childishness) and sexual perversion.

-Sawfish. Improbable creatures that look like they were designed for sheer novelty. They’re somehow going crazy and committing communal suicide in the shallow waters of Florida’s beaches. Perhaps a strangely apt metaphor.

-Weirdly echoed by parents (particularly white parents) in epidemic numbers seeking professionally certified diagnoses of their kids as being autistic, ADHD, clinically depressed, or neurodivergent. Why? In order to secure more time on tests like the SATs and ACTs.

-Meanwhile, Harvard, the jewel brand in the Ivy League (and the pressurized Holy Grail of the test taking frenzy) sees the first drop in applications ever. Antisemitism and plagiarism scandals are credited as causes in the decline. The Harvard Corporation (note that term) has also come under legal fire for DEI discrimination against Asians, artificially promoting underqualified African American applicants—while it’s been revealed that a disturbing percentage of white admissions are solely legacy based—children of alumni, faculty, and staff, who are in the main unable to compete outside the nepotism advantage.

-On a broader, global scale, scientific experts from many fields debate the concept of the Anthropocene as umbrella label for the current era / epoch. But what no one ignores is that the Human Impact in question is viewed as entirely destructive. And on perhaps the principle of compounding interest, a great deal of the “damage” has occurred since the mid-20^thcentury, which mirrors the rise of Environmentalism and green ideologies. Say one thing, do another.

This inventory of Dysfunction could go on and on. We know. But like many curious and concerned thinking people today, you and I have talked about the Dysfunction often in terms of mass psychosis. A spiritual, psychological vortex-disease on the Cultural scale. I now wonder if the truth isn’t conceptually much simpler.

Let’s take our sawfish death spiral despair as the emblematic end result of the ambient, atmospheric Dysfunction. If 50 Cent says world doom is at hand, what hope do sawfish have? Talk about a marginalized community. But what links these other crises (and so many more)?

I’m coming around to viewing the “problem” as a fundamental collapse / erosion of Morality. Morale. Moral. How often do we connect those two notions? Are our problems today really all that complicated? Don’t they in fact amount to people knowing what the right thing to do is and not doing it? Each of the above examples from recent news is about a failure of moral conscience and basic decency. Perversion arises from selfishness.

We can break down or address each of these issues (selected from far too many others) in almost child-level moral terms. Many people (particularly NPR followers) now embody a genuine hatred of Humanity for our environmental destruction. Does this mean they’re trying to live and consume more sensibly and sensitively? Nope. For the most part, they just complain about what governments and corporations are doing or not, while they go on consuming like it’s 1999 or 1979.

Ivy League schools, and now so many downstream schools, companies, and government departments know that DEI policies are inherently unfair, divisive, and illogical. Racism in the name of combatting racism? Victimology in the supposed service of reducing victimization? Doesn’t work. Can’t work. At the same time, admitting mediocre white candidates because of legacy loyalty is actually an advertisement of total failure in the institution’s nurture of academic and intellectual excellence. How is it that legacy applicants are mediocre if Harvard is such an incubator of brilliance and achievement?  All of this is just disingenuous maneuvering for personal, political, and identity politics gain. It's in the realm of lying and cheating—basic morality. Nothing complex or clever about it.

Same with parents (especially parents of underachieving white children) pleading to psychologists to designate their kids as Special Needs. Work the System, milk the System. Everybody else is.

Could it be that our core problem at this point in history isn’t nearly as interesting as technological mass delusion or a giant masquerade festival of psychosis? What if it’s just moral sloth, devious self-interest, and everyday spinelessness?

What if, as a Cultural community, we said, “Man up and try to be the best, humble, heroic leader in your house and in your neighborhood that you can be. There’s honor in that. And you’ll live longer.” Black millionaire and billionaire celebrities aren’t doing black people at large any good. More black teachers, social workers, professionals, skilled tradespeople, and small business operators would.

What if we eliminated all legacy advantage across the board? Radical individual meritocracy, as in sports?

What if our activism regarding complaints and protest against corporations and governments turned to activism in our own habits and purchasing behaviors?

What if we could tell the truth to each other? A good example might be: yes, there are key levels of society where females need to be encouraged and “empowered,” but there are also many levels where they wield far too much power.

We need to bring back Morality and Ethics as essential…completely transcendent of any Right / Conservative frame, or Leftist rebellion. Hypnosis and Hysteria are more exciting than Hypocrisy—but mundane Hamburger Helper level hypocrisy is creating an Hypocracy.

No, it’s not nearly as cool a calamity as mass hallucination and simulated Matrix realities. It’s really just Laziness Hard at Work.

And as to the Left’s exhaustingly shrill and repeated claim that Morality and Ethics can only enter in when the “playing field is level,” that’s not a social belief system or program of coherent public policy—it’s a secular religious mania that’s so clearly not working as social program, only more mania will do. To me, the mania isn’t as intriguing as I’d hope. More and more, it seems purely pathetic.

193 - Travel vs. Tourism Part 3: Education as Tourism

From the notes of Kris Saknussemm...

Travel becomes Tourism. This Sacred - > Profane style degeneration is hardly an isolated phenomenon—in fact it might seem to be a Deep Algorithm. But I think the progenitors of the Tourism Age can to some extent be forgiven. It’s fine to say now that they should’ve extrapolated—seen ahead to what large-scale, organized, budget-minded transportation of people around the world for the purposes of recreation or information, fulfillment of some kind—what that would mean. What impact. Think of Tahiti and Hawaii, Venice and Dubrovnik. Yellowstone National Park.)

The problem is the Education has so much more to do with Tourism than with Travel—and has for several decades. Public Education tried to apply the values of Trade School (standardization, consistency, certification) to a Liberal Arts model…while wholesale abandoning the Trade School and apprenticeship streams. Meanwhile, Liberal Arts succumbed to customer service.

Here's the concluding sentence of one of my students’ analysis of the essay “The Loss of the Creature” by Walker Percy, which is as much about this theme / crisis as anything can be.

“If you don’t know the significance of William Faulkner, the story of Robinson Crusoe, the message within A Brave New World, or the man who discovered insulin, it may be very difficult to understand, and Percy’s true message may never be revealed to a 21st century student.”

192 - Travel vs. Tourism Part 2

From the notes of Kris Saknussemm...

We said last time that we were going to investigate further how the distinction b/w Travel and Tourism might help us understand what’s happened to the project of national public Education in America. An odd proposition to some perhaps.
     But I think this is easily done, although it’s also easy to be very hard on Tourism. Travel can take many forms, but it’s never crass. Tourism can’t escape that tinge, that odor. Looking deeper, Travel suggests an openness to experience, a willingness to take risks, and to confront unexpected situations, even illness, violence, natural calamity, or falling in love. Tourism is precisely focused on at least managing risk, streamlining possibilities, reducing the unexpected, and delivering a consistent experience. Experience as Product (right off the conveyer belt).
     This Sacred - > Profane style degeneration is hardly an isolated phenomenon—in fact it might seem to be a Deep Algorithm. But I think the progenitors of the Tourism Age can to some extent be forgiven. It’s fine to say now that they should’ve extrapolated—seen ahead to what large-scale, organized, budget-minded transportation of people around the world for the purposes of recreation or information, fulfillment of some kind—what that would mean. What impact.
     But they had no precedent—nothing on the scale that would emerge. They weren’t far or deep thinkers and didn’t claim to be. But while there was a lot of greed and foolishness (and still is), there were good intentions too. I believe some early Tourism champions genuinely thought that exposing ever more middle class Westerners to beauty, culture, and wonders around the world would do them good—and wouldn’t degrade the points of interest, destinations, and ports of call. (In addition to the interesting philosophical questions involved, there are very practical physical matters of traffic congestion, inflated prices, resentful locals, and clogged toilets. The list is long, but think of Tahiti and Hawaii, Venice and Dubrovnik. Yellowstone National Park.)

191 - Travel vs. Tourism

From the notes of Kris Saknussemm...

Temporary tattoos and the latest Oscar’s night—two more examples of why we’ve entered the Post-Civilization Age. People who say the Oscar’s have been in “decline” for quite a while are the kind of folks who wouldn’t draw much distinction between Ted Bundy returning to have sex with a corpse three days after the murder, or three weeks. I maintain there’s a difference.

Moving along, it’s struck me of late that there’s a relationship between Education (public school system) and Tourism, which often goes unnoticed. We know there’s a connection between Education and Travel. Travel is how humanity has educated itself about the human globe (and all this means), the planet Earth, and the larger world / universe we’ve been able to comprehend. All good. Tourism? Hmm, not so good. Why? What is the difference between Travel and Tourism?

Many interesting people have tried to speak to this issue, including well-traveled writers such as Mark Twain, D.H. Lawrence, Somerset Maugham, Tennessee Williams, and Jack Kerouac—hell, the list goes on and on. What a great list. But it doesn’t go that far back in time…because “tourism” in anything like the sense we mean it today really only fired up after WWII. Up to then, “travel” frequently meant adventure—both intentional and inadvertent. Calamity. Discovery. Decadence. Plunder. Escape. To be sure, the English fascination for a Tour of the Continent (Europe) was fashionable curriculum for the upper classes. But generally, Travel was a more eccentric endeavor. Hoity-toity or rough and ready. It was selective. A curious club.

I’ve recently had my students read Walker Percy’s wonderful essay “The Loss of the Creature.” It has a lot to say about reclaiming personal experience and sovereignty—and not sacrificing validation to a shadowy priest caste of so-called experts. It deals directly in the connection between Education and Travel or Tourism?

So, taking my view that Tourism arises as an industry (and as a system of social values) post-WWII…isn’t this about when the commitment to a fully national public school system takes off? I think before then, any sort of structured public education program was very porous and unevenly distributed even within states. More an idea than a system or a network. Is there a connection? What can the difference between Travel and Tourism possibly tell us about how the public education experiment is faring?

Kris's music piece at the end is titled "Recurring Dreams."

190 - Representation vs. Reality

FROM THE NOTES OF KRIS SAKNUSSEMM...

If people haven’t read Jung’s work on Flying Saucers (as modern myth), I recommend it. I hadn’t looked at it in some time, but I think it reads even better in this age of social media. He completely skirts the issue of “real” or “imagined,” and focuses on the sheer popularity of the mythology. This is the view I took of cargo cult beliefs when I was a failed young anthropologist in Melanesia. Real/Unreal misses the point if something is deeply vivid at the social level. Jung’s short book makes a nice pairing with Randolph Stow’s remarkable novel Visitants, which is set in the Trobriand Islands during a UFO-cargo cult crisis. Stow was a young patrol officer, and the book provoked a nervous breakdown of lifetime impact. You can see why. In something like Melville, the strangeness starts early, and then Stow takes you right off any map.

To me, this strangely ties in with a larger phenomenon. Representation vs. Reality. Representation as Reality. It’s interesting to me to note how far we have degenerated from Schopenhauer’s ideas put forth in The World as Representation and Will. I think all forms of German idealism have a lot to answer for in Western thinking, but Schopenhauer had a lot more on his mind than we do today.

Case in point. Google’s Gemini AI image generator has recently caused a stir for ludicrous depictions of black Popes, black female Popes, black Vikings (although they look kind of cool), and images of the Founding Fathers as blacks and Native Americans (which rather contradicts the revisionist history program of today). The Right scorns the images as overzealous wokeness or outright historical misrepresentation. The Left dodges and weaves, and claims this is how stereotypes get broken down. The larger and deeper problem, however, is the notion that image alone is what counts.

This isn’t what Schopenhauer meant as “representation.” He meant a magical human capability of imagining all of existence. It was humancentric to be sure, but it was deep conceptually and structurally. Now what we mean is “optics.” Pure visual surface. We mean the artificial world of media and entertainment. Yet we know people aren’t really fooled by this. Just frustrated.

American black people know that one black President and a few millionaires and even billionaire celebrities don’t equate to genuine structural change. How can this discordance not cause confusion and anger?

189 - Beneath the Neon (w/ Matthew O'brien)

Today on the show we have a special guest: author/teacher Matthew O'Brien! We chat about the expat lifestyle, finding love through a language barrier, and the lives of people who live in the flood channels beneath Las Vegas.

It's a great conversation. Matt is a fascinating guy. Here's his bio from his website, Beneath the Neon:

Matthew O’Brien is a writer, editor and teacher/tutor who lived in Las Vegas for twenty years and is currently based in San Salvador, El Salvador. His latest book, Dark Days, Bright Nights: Surviving the Las Vegas Storm Drains, shares the harrowing tales of people who lived in Vegas’ underground flood channels and made it out and turned around their lives. He’s also the author of Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas and My Week at the Blue Angel: And Other Stories from the Storm Drains, Strip Clubs and Trailer Parks of Las Vegas. Matt has taught at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and Escuela Americana in San Salvador and is the founder of O’Brien Editing Services and Shine a Light, a nonprofit organization that provides housing, counseling and other services to the people living in the drains.