Marcus and Shawn The whole story

Hey, everybody.

Thanks for listening to we speak live. My name is Sean Keane, and tonight, this morning, this evening, this afternoon, whatever time it is, where you are, where you're listening, I'm doing something a little bit different. We're not talking about AI, necessarily. I mean, we might get into that topic. This is on a different topic, and I got a friend of mine here with me today. This topic is called synesthesia, and it's this weird brain thing where I. You associate colors with. It could be numbers or letters or a map. I mean, it's really bizarre, and we'll talk about it and go into a little bit more detail, but. So, tonight is not me playing with my AI tools and recording silly little skits. Tonight is actually talking to my friend, Marcus. Marcus is from Austin, and I'm not going to. I'm going to let him introduce himself. But, uh. Hey. Hey.

Sorry, I'm eating ice cream.

You could have waited. But what kind of ice cream is it?

Hang on. It is, um, heb creamy creations Texas campfire.

Okay, well, it's not blue pail, homemade.

I still node. It is basically s'mores with peanut butter cups in it. Chocolate. Chocolate Graham cracker, marshmallow and peanut butter cups.

So.

Yes, hello. My name is Marcus, and I know Sean.

I know Marcus since, gosh, the nineties. Yeah, I was telling you the other day, I remember you playing that recording of you playing saxophone on up in Boston or something.

Uh, there's a lot of those. Oh, the cockroach recording.

Yeah. That weird. Like. Yeah.

I should have sent you that.

You can. I mean, you always can. We can always.

I actually have that.

I could always clip it. I can always clip it. Pull it in here.

Oh, I can send you. Well, that's actually on my website, too. Okay, well, why don't you go to.

Everybody about who you are and give your little bio in 510 minutes?

Five to ten minutes.

Wow. Five minutes at least.

I was just going to say, I am a saxophone player, cat lover, cook, an overall nerd from Texas, and I have been visually impaired my whole entire life of 52 years, but blind for 29 of those years.

Yeah, because you were losing your vision when I first met you, correct.

Yeah. But I've noticed that I had this ability that is the subject of our documentary my whole entire life. I don't know if I call it an ability characteristic. Anyway, and I went to the school for the blonde, and I went to college in Boston to study saxophone and went to college in San Marcos to study audio engineering. And I have played in bands in Austin for over 30 years, and I play saxophone and bass, and I am a philosopher and a loudmouth. Yeah. And that's pretty much it. Anything else will be in little pieces. I like to tell stories, too, so I'm actually trying to rein myself in. I'm trying really hard. And little bits will get put into all the stories that we talk about. So that's why I'm not going to go completely off right now.

Somebody called that a weave the other day, but we won't go there. Oh, a weave telling a bunch of stories. And then somehow, and I do it, too. I mean, I'll get to talking. In fact, I was on a podcast two weeks ago, and my wife was listening to the recording, and I got asked a question, and she said, the way you started, the way you began to answer that question, I was like, uh oh. He didn't understand what was said. Or she's like, but, no, you took. You went. And I was like, yeah, you go in three or four different directions, and then you get right back on topic and end it.

Uh huh. Well, this ain't solo.

This is real. Yeah. So that's good, man. You got a real stories. You got good stories. And that's. That's kind of what we want.

Everybody knows, like I said, I'm a loudmouth. It's hard to get me to shut up.

So when did you realize you had synesthesia, man?

Long time before I even knew what synesthesia was. I had no idea what it was, and I. I don't remember when, but I remember vaguely the first time I was reading an article or reading something that talked about it, and I'm like, I have that. But it was when some. Whatever this article was, was talking about how people smell sounds or they see smells or something. And I have seen smells back in college, if you know what I mean, just during certain extracurricular activities. But I've never had that type of ability. I don't have perfect pitch. I don't see a green every time I hear an e flat in a car motor. It's nothing like that. But I was like, I have this weird version of it. Wherever every number is a discrete color, and every letter is a discrete color. I mean, discrete. I use that term loosely because they're. They're a discrete color to me. And you said you have it like that, too. But how we process, say, a name that has multiple letters or a number that has multiple digits, you and I differ on that, which we can discuss. But also, I have colors for days. Of the week, months of the year, things like that, too. And so it's very interesting. I just see it in my head and it's a little different with, say, music. I envision black and white shapes and scribbles as I hear music. But if somebody says, this song's in the key of d, then I see all the colors of the scale. Um, but I thought, wow, I must be different because I don't smell sounds, but I just have this in my own head and it's not really that useful, which just really cool. And then I start hearing that other people have it like that. And I'm like, whoa, that's pretty cool. Especially blind people.

Yeah. And that's what's interesting because I remember, like, where I was. I remember, I don't remember how old I was, but I actually remember what I was wearing. I was wearing a t shirt and underwear. I was like a kid. I was like eight or nine years old. And I was.

You were wearing your speed buggy t shirt. Yeah.

Yeah, man. Yeah. And I was walking through the living room. Like, I can see it in my mind. And that's what's weird, is, like, I have certain memories that always are consistent in my life, and not, that's not necessarily synesthesia, but anyway, I was.

That's just a good ass memory.

Yeah. When I get. I'm not going to let myself get side direct. There I was walking through the living room, and my mom was sitting on the couch watching tv, and there was this tv show on, and somebody was being interviewed, and they were talking about seeing colors in their mind when they, when they. With letters and numbers. And I was like, I remember thinking, well, doesn't everybody do that? You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, that's, that's so wild. So the, the actual name for it is graphene synesthesia. Okay. I've read about this and I've actually, there was a period in my life, um, maybe late nineties, maybe early two thousands, where I looked into this. Um, no, it must have been late two thousands because I remember they, um, wanted me to be on 60 minutes and I didn't get the cut, uh, which was kind of a bummer. Spent two times in my life where I was going to be.

That's because you have a race for radio, man.

There's been two times now in my life where I was going to be on a major network tv station. And the last time, a. I'll just say this. The last time was in July. And literally the week before I was going to be on Good Morning America and NBC Nightly News. Trump got shot.

Oh.

So I. I have a legitimate gripe there.

Fair enough.

But, um, so, I mean, I remember hearing this and thinking, oh, man, that's really. I mean, like, this. This is something, you know, and I was a kid, and I didn't really care, but I remember being curious enough to be like, oh, okay, well, you know, it's something unique. And I. I learned in the. In the. 2000, we'll say 2005. I think it was around 2005, when I was really doing a lot of research into synesthesia on the Internet and such. I was on an email list, and the. The host or admin, whatever of that email list was a guy named Sean Day. S e a n day. And I reconnected with him. Now on Facebook, there is a lot of synesthesia groups on Facebook, so search. There's a lot of good info on there, but what we have is called graphene synesthesia, and it really applies to, like, the letters, numbers, the days, the. I do like money. When I think of, like, it's weird. When I think of money versus just numbers, it's different.

I only started doing money when I encountered australian money because it is different colors.

Oh, and I went to Jamaica when I was a kid. I think they're. I think their money's different colors, too. And, yeah, that was.

I don't know. Nobody told me. I've been to Jamaica, and I have some Jamaica. I have a foreign money collection. I think I've got some jamaican money in there. So I should ask, but I don't think it's like, australian money is. Australian money is plastic, and it's different sizes.

Oh, wow.

So it's.

I'm boring. I've never been anywhere out of the United States.

Except you've been to Jamaica.

I've been to Jamaica and Cozumel.

Well, then you've been somewhere still.

I hadn't been to Europe. I'm gonna change that soon. Who knows? But that's. That's interesting. I wonder, because I do. Okay. Letters and we all. All of us, all synesthesia people have different colors for everything. Like, nobody's gonna be the same. That's normal. I mean, that's just normal. But. But you did say, you know, it's a. It's. It's a small percentage of people. Um, the whole synesthesia crowd is only, like, two to 4% of the population.

That's crazy.

Like, out of 8 billion people. Well, two 3% of. Of 8 billion people is, like, 300 million people.

So it's okay. I would have to do the math on that. But I mean, I understand what you mean, though, about different. People are going to be different colors, of course. But when you have something that's, like, as non ambiguous as three, like, have you ever seen Monty Python and holy grail? The count shall be three. No more, no less. I've heard of this should be one and two when on the way to three, but, you know. But three. I mean, three for me and three for you. It's three, but for you, your color for three is.

It's kind of this. Kind of this. It's like. And this is the weird part about mine is a lot of colors are similar, but I know the difference, you.

Know, that's the same way. Anyway, what's. What's your color for three?

It's like a sandy white brown, we'll call it.

Okay.

Like, I think of what sand, and I never have seen this, but I think of what sand looks like in Arizona.

That's fair. See, my three is like a taxicab yellow, kinda. But it's also interesting that, you know, you and I as blind folks, but we've both had vision, so we should probably have some blind sense birthers on the show to ask them what they think.

Well, I know some. I know someone that's.

Do you know any that have. That think of numbers as different colors?

No, as shapes. Because how would you know what color you know, I know if you're blind.

I just remembered this awesome story. So there's this cat. His name is Ray Paws. He's actually. He was Selena's keyboard player for a while, but he is a former student of the school for the blind, and he had this thing. You'd love to have this dude on your show. He associated colors with flavors, and it wasn't necessarily a synesthetic thing, but we talked about it for hours. It's awesome.

Well, there's 70 different versions of synesthesia, so it could be. It could be. I mean, there's a lot of people. So, like, my. My friend Dave. Dave. Leo Baker. He's done a lot of musical.

Dave's not here.

Dave's not here. He's probably really stoned right now, though. He really is.

Okay, maybe he's, you know, smelling some sounds, but.

But his. He attributes shapes to this stuff. So music. He's. He. He thinks of music and shapes.

Well, colors can also be just what a blind person has heard people discussing colors their whole life, so they can still think of a color. Like, for example, you know, everybody says red is hot, you know, and blue is cold. So a blind person could, I think a blind since birth person could have this thing where, you know, they think of, you know, I don't know, peppers as red or, you know, ice as blue. So that could happen. We should talk to some of them.

Yeah, that would be some really interesting conversations to have, for sure. Because I was thinking. I thought about AI here because somebody was saying the other day that they wanted to prompt AI to describe things without colors, and it's because they were born blind from birth.

And.

And he's like, color has no meaning to me. So why do I need. Why do I need to know? It's a white table. It's just a table.

Yeah. Okay, well, maybe it's a fuzzy table.

Yeah. A soft table. I mean, right.

Like one of those card tables with the little. Yeah, yeah, that's cool. Makes sense to me.

Yeah. Yeah. So let's see here. There's 70 different kinds. So sighted people have this, and just in general, sighted people will say the normal public is the two to 4% percentage of how many people have this in the world. But when you get to blind people, that changes. So it's even rarer. It's like one about one of out every 2000. That's what I heard.

Well, but. But is it. Is it relegated to the blind people who have had vision, though?

No.

And when you say blind, do you mean visually impaired or do you mind?

Or visually impaired or blind from birth or whatever it may be. That's what falls into this 1 hour every 2000. But what's interesting about that is I did the math, which had. Doing the math, really. I did it about four different times. So I kept getting the same answer. So it's. I think it's good.

That's the definition of insanity, doing things the same way and expecting a different result.

Well, but you're supposed to do that with AI because. Yeah, that's right. And it's done things before where I believed it, and I was totally bought. I was told it was so. It was so. It. Sometimes it does it so easy. But the number is, um, 200,000 people in the world. And that's bizarre because I know a lot of blind people that have this, so maybe I just know all the cool people.

I'll. I'll go with that.

Yeah. Yeah. Though, um, you and, um, Dave have it. And, uh, this guy Tony Gebhardt, he's this guitarist. He was a guy that interviewed me a couple weeks ago. He has it. I want to say Robert has it. Robert Kelly. A blue mist?

Really? Him play tonight, so I will ask.

Him talk to all of those guys.

But Robert Kelly had vision.

Yeah, but that didn't matter. I mean, it still, you know, applies. It's not a blind thing. It's not a.

You were saying just a second ago that, you know, blind people wouldn't have the color thing.

Well, no, but it's not all. It's not just color. It's. It could be shapes. People like.

Okay, I see what you mean. So now you're just talking about synesthesia in general. You're not talking about graphene.

Of people that smell shapes or. Yeah, it's really it. That it gets bizarre like that.

Like, there's no. I know it. I I haven't heard. I mean, I've never done any formal research, so you probably know more about.

It than me, but, yeah, people taste shapes, or it gets crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. And sit down with chat DBT some night and have a chat about synesthesia. It'll blow your mind because musicians. That's another common string in this of.

What triangles taste sweet.

Hmm. Not to me. Huh. I smell something. Mindy must be cooking something because what color is beef? It's brown.

I was gonna say the same thing. Well, if it's done, it's brown.

Yeah, but that's.

What, like, rare beef.

When you think of food, do you think of it in color?

Yes.

Me too.

But not. It's not synesthetic. It's more because I know what color the food is. Like if I think of a hamburger. Yeah, of course. The meats brown. The bun is like a sandy honey colored. Well, more like honey colored.

Is it. It's darker.

Well, no, like a golden brown.

Okay. Okay, I'll go with that.

Honey colored, whereas beef is just brown. Just brown brown. And, you know, lettuce is green. Well, lettuce is, like, bright green, and the pickles are, like, dark green, and the tomatoes are, like, reddish orange. And the onions, they would be white if they were raw, which I don't like, but they're light brown because they're grilled, which I do like.

See, I didn't know they were brown.

Well, when you grill them, they just kind of turn slightly brown. They're normally white if they're raw, but unless they're red onions or yellow onions. But then you have the jalapenos that if they're bright green, if they're fresh, but they're more closer to the color of pickles if they're pickles. So you got to have jalapenos. Mushrooms are, like, a grayish brown unless you saute them in wine and they're a little purplish.

Imagine if you had some weird synesthesia that I want to hamburger made you have some aversion to food because it was, you tasted the color or something. I don't.

Or it sounded weird. Well, there are people that don't like the way things sound when they chew them. Yeah, that's not, that's not synesthetic, but, like, that's my texture. Things like. Like, some people are really big on texture.

Yeah.

Like, they don't eat something just because they don't like the texture. Yeah, but it has nothing to do with the taste.

I'm like that. Like, I've had oysters, but it's not something I'm like, ooh, I'm gonna go have it. I mean, there's things I'll eat, but there's things I'm like, no, like that fruit of Darien I've heard of. You ever heard of Darian?

It's like, is, is that the one that's fuzzy and you break it open and it's got the little egg looking thing?

Yeah. Yeah.

I love those things. Those are good.

Yeah. That's too weird. I'm not an adventurous eater. I mean, I work with a lady that's an adventurous eater. I mean, surely she's like, I didn't even know what some of the things I've eaten.

Oh, I'm an adventurous eater, but I don't have any interest in eating liver.

I used to like liver when I was a kid. Love it. And. But now, no, no, but, so since.

Uh, you're, you're leading this conversation, where, where were you?

I was just kind of giving information, kind of what synesthesia was, and that it wasn't specific to blind people and, and all that. Um, but I am curious, because we've talked about some of this, and, and just knowing, like, what is, what has been your experience and how has it affected you? I mean, this is an interesting topic, so I think people really gravitate to this.

Well, how it affected me, I don't know. Like I said, I just thought it was just something that was cool and useless. Like, it, it makes, it makes life in my own head not so boring.

Yeah. You know?

Like, I'm sitting thinking to myself, you know, I mean, it's, it's, it's a colorful life in there, instead of just a bunch of, like, pages of black text on a white background. I don't know. I just realized that I always thought of Wednesday as yellow, and it's always in the back of my mind, and it's. It's just neat. And it's really cool that, you know, I no longer have vision, so I don't have constant visual input, but I still see colors all the time. So, I mean, I can say I wish I saw colors in the way that I used to see them, but I don't live in a world devoid of color. I don't miss colors completely because I. They still exist in my head, and I am thankful for that.

Yeah. And there's other syndromes that kind of go on here, too, that I've learned. I just learned this basically in two days from a lot of these Facebook groups I'm in now because I'm reading a lot about synesthesia and other things. There's this thing called hyper fantic or hyper fantasy. And it's when you imagine a place that you're in, you imagine what it looks like. And, like, sighted people do this, too, I mean, which is weird.

You mean like my living room right now?

I guess I mean, because we were.

Talking about that the other day, how I have never seen the living room that I'm sitting in right now.

I've never seen the room I'm in.

Right now, but I know everything that's on the walls. Therefore I see it in my head. So if I turn my head to the right, I know I'm looking at this painting, and then I know there's a plant in the corner, another picture above the speaker to the left of the plant, and then the home entertainment center in front of me with the cam Newton autographed football on the top and a little dancing fox. So I see all those things. Then I turn my head to the left, and there's a picture of Charlie Parker and Miles Davis on the wall and a base amp sitting next to a Papazon chair. Like, I see those things.

Yeah. What else? What else do you got on the wall?

What else do I got on the wall? I have a Salvador Dali's burning giraffes and telephones, Monterey Jazz Festival 2011, whiskey Myers at Red Rocks, nappy the band. And I have a Bernie Sanders and public enemy fight the power poster that has been framed. And I think that's it for the living room. Yeah, that's it for the lit. Well, no, no. There is a stone carving of the goddess of music.

We might have one thing on the wall in this house.

Terrible. Man, I would lose my shit if I went into your house because I would hear the blank walls. Part of the reason. I mean, I like to think of stuff being on the walls, but I also don't. I like the fact that it, it diffuses and deadens the waves that bounce around the room.

Yeah. I mean, I haven't really, I didn't really even get into, I guess, visual art, visual things, I guess, until the last ten years. And, like, I guess the most recent was this guy named John Bramlett, and he's a blind painter from, he's from Denton, Texas.

Oh, wow.

He's nationally known. Bramlett. Bramblitt.com. need to get him to pay me something.

I mean, I've done, done art where I take construction paper of different colors and cut it into shapes and glue them onto each other to make 3d representations of things.

Yeah.

And people say that it looks really cool. I've never seen it, but I have done it by feel and I enjoy doing it. I haven't done it in a long time, but it's super cool to do.

There's a lady up in New York, all these people I know, New York, New York. Her name is Chansey Fleet. She might even listen to this podcast. Who knows? Anyway, she's blind, and she, she works at a library there in New York. I mean, I've never been, but they have, like, art classes and, like, you learn how to do stuff like the origami stuff, and she does 3d printing, and you learn how to do that stuff. And, like, that's really cool.

Well, and when you 3d print stuff, you can think about what color it would be and have it made in a certain color to keep the synesthesia thing going.

Well, yeah. And we're going to do synesthesia and music here in a minute. Um, that's why I was getting you to describe what was on your wall.

Oh, yeah.

Well, there was a meaning to all that.

Oh, because. Yeah. And, well, it, come to think of it, let's see, everything on my walls except for one thing has to do with music. The Salvador Dali thing is not a musical thing. But there's Monterey jazz, there's Bernie Sanders, there's nappy, there's Bernie Sanders.

That wouldn't be musical.

Well, Bernie Sanders and public enemy.

Oh, public enemy would be. Yeah.

The goddess of music. Oh, and there is. I forgot about this. And it was weird. I noticed it when I turned my head and looked at it. Even though I'm blind as a rock, but a red metal cutout of a dragon above the fireplace.

Dragons are cool.

Yeah. It's like a red full body dragon with his tail and his wings, but it's cut out of red metal and it's hanging over the fireplace.

So John Bramlett is a blind painter. He went blind in 2002 from some kind of. He was. He was born with some other disabilities as well. I think it's like, I didn't want to say get it wrong and then get sued or something. No, but he, um, he, he has always been an artist. And when he went blind, he said, I just thought it was over. That was it. Never going to do that again, you know, just done. And I mean, he's got a great story. Check him out. Look him up on Google. He's got. He does a lot of speaking. The most humble and just coolest guy you could meet.

I want some of his work.

Yeah, I had some. I have some as well. That's why I was telling this story.

Oh. So is that the one thing that's on the wall in your house?

It's in the stepson's room, Zeke's room. It's like something from. It was from John Bramlin. And we had a few other things we're about to move. We had a few other things. They weren't on the wall. They were in the closet. We had them in the wall in our last apartment.

We have a couple of paintings there in the closet.

Yeah, they're prints. They're prints.

You put prints in your closet?

Yeah, I like prints. You know, the print you print, you can buy a print instead of buying a painting.

I was talking about the singer prince.

Yeah, I knew what you were saying. I knew, I knew I knew where that. Yeah, so John, he makes things really colorful. And I. He, he found out, um, how he could paint again. This is a really wild story, and I bet. I bet you anything he has synesthesia. This guy's gotta have.

Send him on the podcast.

Yeah, you're probably.

You're probably not on my podcast.

But he. So what he does or the way he fit, let me tell how he figured out he could paint again, because this is a good story. And then I'll talk about. Then I'll tell you about the way he paints now. And then we'll, then we'll get into the music and wrap this up for like 2 hours. I might cut this in half. I don't know. We'll see. Split it up. Small episodes. So he was learning how to be blind. He was learning to mobility and technology and all this stuff. And he was going to unt university in north Texas for those outside of this. So he said, I was thinking about how, you know, if I could walk to class using a cane, I can use this cane as a way to learn what's to navigate this area. Why couldn't I apply a concept like that to a canvas?

Okay.

So he. He's like, I started out really simple. Like, he's like, I'd spend weeks just trying to do a circle right, you know, or just stuff like that. He's, like, making a lot of spatial awareness stuff. And. And then he would add textures to his paint so he would find some. Something that was maybe that wouldn't change the color of the paint, like sand or something, and mix it with the paint. So, sure.

He also had to develop a technique where he could feel the canvas.

Exactly.

Well, with one finger.

Yep.

But then paint with the other finger, because if you. If you feel the canvas and you get your finger wet with paint, then you can't feel any of the canvas that you haven't painted yet, because then you.

Well, he has some kind of dryer. He has some kind of hairdryer he uses. So he'll paint. He'll dry it real quick so we can feel the colors.

Well, there you go.

He can feel the colors because he texturizes the paint. Okay. In different ways. So, like, white, he said, is, like, really thick and certainly. But, like, black, is sand rough or, you know, something like that. It's really bizarre.

We'll see. It's not that bizarre, because my version of that is when I. Because I used to love to draw. And when I discovered, you know, I was like, okay, I'm not going to be able to draw like that anymore, but how can I make visual art? And I'm thinking, well, I feel things now, and I have to create a picture in my head. So that's when I got this idea. I'm like, well, I went and bought a pack of construction paper, and I thought, you know, of that design. It's a visual design that anybody who's been able to see would know. And if you draw a six sided cube, but you only draw it in lines, and when you look at it, it looks two different ways. It looks like it's, you know, towards you on the right side and away from you on the left side and then towards you on the left side and away from you on the right. It looks either way, depending on how you're thinking at the time. It's an optical illusion. And I thought, well, okay, if I made a square that's red, and then I made a couple of parallelograms that are blue and put them on a green background. I could make that so somebody would look at it, and they would see that optical illusion. But I could make it by touch. And that's when I'm like, hmm. Maybe I could make, you know, a picture of a rabbit. Or, you know, because I started breaking pictures down to their individual shapes, and they're kind of cartoonish and trippy looking, I've been told. But I break a picture down to its shapes, cut it out in different colors, and then make a picture. And it has to do with what color I think things are, what things I should be. Now, to get back to the synesthesia thing, I think it would be really interesting that you and me have discussed. I mentioned earlier about how we envision letters that are each an individual color, but then somebody's name that has certain letters in it. You would envision that as a different way than me. My way happens to be that, you know, if my name is Marcus. So, you know, the m is kind of tomato colored, and the a is, like, lemon yellow, and the. The r is, like hunter green, and the c is, like taxicab green, and, like, the blue. Or the u is tan, and the s is forest greenhouse. But if I think of the name Marcus, I think of a piece of marble that is streaked with all those colors. It would be really cool to make paintings of people's names.

Yeah.

And then I would be, as a blind person, I would take a black piece of paper.

Yeah.

And then say, take the. The tomato colored paint, and I would streak it across the paper just randomly, because these, these things move in my head. They're not even static. They're like, kind of like a lightning ball. If you've ever seen a lightning ball, minor static. Then I'd take. Then I'd take yellow, and I would streak it across the paper, and then I would take some green, and I would streak that, and I'd be like, this is a painting of my name. And, of course, once I make the painting, it's going to be static. But while I'm seeing it in my head, it's moving to.

But that in my head, it's static. It doesn't move. It's. It's always in the same place because you're blocks.

You. You said something about blocks.

Yeah, but I just realized something. Our m is the same. The same color.

Like a tomato colored.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's kind of a reddish with a little orange in it.

Mine has a little bit more pink than orange.

Mine has no pink. It's just, it's almost like red tomato.

No, mine's like a tomato red with a little pink in it. That's how I. But I was like, wow.

So yours is like, kind of like a. Well, no, I was going to say a plum, but a plum is more purple.

Yeah, that's more purple. That's what I would think. Now, what's really bizarre to me is, um, like, cars have all these really bizarre colors. Like, I had a.

Had an acura, like, cypress greenhouse.

No, no. Like, I had this Acura RDX. It was a little suv, and it was. I remember anthro site metallic. It's like, what the hell is.

Yeah, well, no, what I mean is they have names. Have weird names, like camel Beige or, like, cypress green. But, yeah, anthracite metallic is pretty. Pretty alien praying mantis.

You know, it was like some kind of like, like bluish gray color or something. I don't know. But that's, you know, and. But in a way, those colors are kind of synthetic in a way. They, like, if I think of a name like that, like camel green, I.

Would think that's camel beige.

Camel beige.

No, you're going crazy, man. We got green camels. Okay, okay.

Camel beige.

Yeah.

Would think a camel color would be. And I guess camels are dark color.

Well, no, they're like sand.

Okay. Because they're light colored. Okay, so, okay, you like a bunch of trees, kind of a yellow sand. Sand color.

Like a number three.

Okay.

Isn't that your. You said.

Yeah, it's kind of similar. Yeah.

Well, my.

Yellowish. Right.

But yours is Arizona sand.

It is, yeah.

That's like a camel.

And I see them in, almost lit up. Almost. I almost see the colors. Like they're lit from within.

Mine are, like, written in really vivid paint on a black background, but they're not backlit to me. But anyway, so your number three looks like a camel. That's what I think.

We have to start doing this, like, once a month.

Yeah. My number three. My number three looks like a taxicab. Your number three looks like camel. We need to have more of these discussions.

Yeah. And we could talk about this. Do this once a month.

The anthracite might like it. The anthracite camel. Yeah. People. We'd get followers.

Yeah.

They'd be like, wonder what Sean and Marcus are going to talk about tonight, bro. Green camels.

Green animals.

Okay.

But I see places, like, um, you know, like in my house or like when I walk around, I see. I think I see the place I'm in, like, as if I'm walking through it.

That's what I'm saying. I'm turning circles in my living room right now, and I see it spinning around me.

Yeah, I can hear it. I hear you spinning.

Yeah.

At least you're not rocking.

No, but it can become.

It could be real relaxing to rock, but I gotta go down that rock, that hole.

Well, I rock when I have a bass in my hands, but it's a different kind of rock.

Yeah. And you took on bass. Oh, was that in the two thousands or.

No, I picked up bass about a year after I picked up the saxophone.

Was that in Texas? Hit school for the line when you got into music?

Yes. Well, no, I got in the first time I ever wanted to play an instrument. My mom played guitar when I was a kid. My granddad played guitar and my other granddad played harmonica. But I saw Daffy Duck play the trombone on a Looney tunes. And I was like, I want to play trombone. I have to do that. I want to play trombone. And they're like, well, you can't join band till you're in the 6th grade. Nobody thought to say we could get your lessons now.

Yeah, they did.

Me, this was Teksarkana in the seventies, but they're like, you have to wait till you're 6th grade and you can join band. And I'm like, okay. So I waited till 6th grade, and I was in elementary school. And one day, my friends, I'm like, I'm going to recess. Where are you guys going? They're like, we're going to band. I'm like, band? And I was like, I've been waiting for three years, you know.

Yeah.

So I followed them to the band room, and I said to the band director, I said, hey, I want to be in band. And he goes, should have came two weeks ago. And I said, I didn't know. And he's like, there was signs posted. And I was like, I'm blind. I didn't know the term visually impaired. I was like, I'm blind. I didn't see the signs, even though I could see. And he's like, oh, well. He's like, what do you want to play? And I was like, trombone. Trombone? And he says, we don't have any of those left. I said, well, what do you have? And he said, euphonium and french horn. Well, I didn't know that euphonium was the same range as trombone, or else I would have chosen. Well, I saw Peter and the wolf, so I chose french horn, and I was terrible at it. Terrible. And I'd missed the first two weeks, so I didn't have that time in class where they just told you how to work the instrument itself before you start playing music, they just teach you. So I missed that sitting next to my buddy Greg Lydell, who's a saxophone player, and I'm like, dude, I don't know what to do. And Greg goes, ah, just blast. That's what I do. It makes Mister D's mad. So I just started doing that, and Mister D's got mad. It was awesome. But then I found out that I was moving to Austin to go to the school for the blind, and my other friend Scott played saxophone, and I was like, dude, I want to do that. Because it looked. The instrument looked to me like you needed about 40 fingers to play it, just because I had keys all over it. And I didn't know to think, oh, there's the six finger pearls. I just saw stuff all over the whole horn. I was like, how in the heck do you play that with only ten fingers? I was like, I have to do that. And I told Mister Deez, I was like, I'm going to another school, and I'm going to pick up the saxophone. He goes, you'll never play saxophone. And I was like, well, I moved to Austin, and I picked up the saxophone.

Yeah.

And it was easy. Like, I wasn't immediately good at it, but it was easy.

It.

The instrument worked for me. And then about a year later, I was like, my friends were getting into rock music and starting to pick up instruments and, well, you know, playing, like, AC DC and stuff like that, and I wasn't eclectic enough to think, oh, man, saxophone is playing AC DC music. I was like, oh, I need to play with you guys. I guess I'll. The pace, it has four strings. How hard can it be? Well, I'm still learning 40 years later. So I started playing bass because of that, huh? Yeah.

No guitar? No, no.

I just, you know, everybody wanted to be the guitar player, and once I kind of started thinking about listening to the bass, and I just got interested in it, and I wasn't interested in playing guitar. I mean, drums would have been kind of cool, but I was just fascinated with the bass. It's like, oh, this is.

You need to check out YouTube. On YouTube is so this. This guy that I just. I just. This guy is great. This, um, Ella Stopperiano.

I knew you were gonna say it's Estepariano Siciliano, or whatever.

I can't even pronounce his name, so I'm not gonna try. When I get on YouTube, I look for your Spain drummer. You're just.

You're just hooked on that guy. He's.

I am.

I like him better reacting to other things.

Well, but no, I mean, that. That style of playing, and it's synthetic synesthesia. Whatever thing. I'm trying to make a synesthesia a different word. But. But I. I think, like, when. When I'm listening to him. When I'm listening to the covers, he does. Because he does covers of songs.

Yeah, no, I've heard.

But he's got a band, too. He's actually a couple of bands, but he's got this band called the cash.

Okay.

It's hime playing with a bass and a guitar. And a guitar. Lead singer, basically. So three guys.

Okay.

And they do. I mean, it's. It's. It's more. It's that kind of metal ish, kind of la metal sound. Kind of with the, you know, like the chords that drag on and they get that kind of. You just go check it out. Check it out. I think you'll kind of like it. And, like, I think of colors when I listen to that music. Like, when I listen to music, that's cool. I don't. Because when I could see, I always really enjoyed light shows.

Oh, I used to love the light shows, too. That went.

Gotta be the most amazing thing from ever, especially on stage.

Oh, yeah. I got to play a few years with vision and got to stand in the middle of some really cool light shows. But I don't see colors when I listen to music. I see black, scribbly, moving shapes. It's more rhythmic.

Well, if I'm listening, it depends if I'm listening to a cd or if I'm listening with headphones. I just see a dark room, and I rarely see any colors or lights or anything with just listening. But if it's a. If it's a band, something live, then I see it, like, colors attributed to it, and it's, like, different, like. Like our friends blue mist from Valentine lady. I see, like, a pink, almost like a pink cut curtain that's lit up. And on one side, there's, like, some kind of spotlight. That's the best way to describe it.

I would scientifically deduce, though, that probably part of that is just because you're thinking about Valentine's. That's why you see.

Yeah, yeah, I'm sure.

Because I thinkesthesia would just be. You're just seeing the colors because of the sounds, regardless of what.

Yeah. And it all. It's all related because February. February is painted. Yeah.

Okay. See, because February for me is more like a. More like a wine color. It's dark, purplish red. So, you know, I don't know, because when I discovered my synesthetic. Well, not when I discovered them, but when my synesthetic colors started happening for me, I don't think it was. It had to do with anything like that. I just think they just happened. Like, I have no idea why. February happens to be wine colored and march is green. Well, I mean, December is kind of, I don't know, whitish, like snow, I guess. I mean, maybe it was unconscious, but I. Summer is not, like, all red and orange and yellow. You know, July is kind of like lavender. Purplish lavender.

July, for me, is kind of like a. Kind of more of a red wine color.

Okay. So, like, august to me, like sun.

Like a bright white, like, really sharp white is August, and.

But June, August to me, is yellowish orange, and June is silvery blue.

June is, like, orange light orange.

August is, like, yellowy orange, but dingy, though it's not bright. And June is purplish or, I'm sorry, bluish silver. July is more of, like, a lavender purple, but September is green. But September is more hunter greenhouse, where march is more lime green. April is purple. Just. Just. April is like February without the red in it. May is probably. May is like fire. May is like orange. Bright orange ish, reddish yellow. Like. Yeah, may is like that. October is white.

People are gonna think we're insane. They might be right.

October is white because it all relates.

Kind of like, so valentine lady is pink, and then February is pink, but Valentine's Day is red. And because I attribute red to, like.

Love, when I think of Valentine's Day, if I think of a red heart, but if I think February 14, then I think of red, black, and green, because that's what February is, the reddish purple. One is black, and four is green. Now, if I think of them as February 1 and fourth, but if I think of Valentine's Day, then I get that marble kind of black marble streak with red and kind of a silverish and green. That's because the background is black and one is black. But if I streak the black background with the black of the one, it's. I still know it's there. So it kind of. It's kind of like silver edges, I guess. I don't know how to explain it. It's like, if you have a shirt that has black letters on a black shirt, but you just have the outlines of the letters visible. That's what I would see if I put a one on a black background.

Well, and it's interesting because that, like, when I think of February, if. When I think of the months, like, all January to April, whatever, it's like January's orange. Kind of like a ribbon. Yeah, it is for me to.

Brownish orange. Like a. Yeah, orange ish, tan kind?

Yeah, it's kind of an orange mine. Mine's kind of a. More of an orange. Orange color. Like a. Like, orange. But, um. Wow, that's. That's surprising. Some of ours are.

Some of them match up.

Yeah. But I see it as, like, a ribbon. So when I'm thinking of the month. So I'm thinking. I'm thinking, and I'm thinking right now of Valentine's Day, February 14. So then February 14 kind of comes into view more as if think of almost like it's zoomed in and zoomed out. And when I zoom it, when I think of February 14, it kind of zooms in, and I see all the numbers overlaid onto that February pink color.

Yeah.

In their normal colors. Like. Like, there's three, there's five, there's, you know, they're all normal overlaid on there. And then when I think of the 14th, it kind of comes into view, and as almost like, it's highlighted, I'm.

Similar to that, but mine is like a viewmaster. So, like, if, when you used to have a viewmaster and you put the disc down in it, but you'd only see the top of the disc sticking out, and as you'd pull the little handle, the disc would turn, and you would see certain parts of it. So if I think of the whole year, I see this circle, like a CNC with the blank spot in the middle, but it's a circle of the months of the year going around clockwise in the different colors, like I said, like the triangles and a CNC. But if I think February, I see the top of the circle with February in the center and maybe a little of the march color on the left and a little bit of the January color on the right. But then if I go February 14, it's like I fly a little closer to the top of the circle, and then I see the top edge that's kind of curved, but it's got black lines in it, like a ruler. And they're numbered, you know, from right to left, which is the interesting part, because we always read from left to right in America. But they're numbered from right to left. 123456. And then I zoom in further, and it's 14.

Yeah, yeah, that's the same. I mean, that's. That's similar, but it's a view.

It's not a ribbon. It is a circle, like a piece. Yeah, but. But it's not completely up high, because if I think of the whole year, the middle, this, I'm seeing the background through the circle in the middle, but the year is the same, or the week is the same way.

So when you play an instrument, when you play either saxophone or bass and you're playing in a band, do you see thing? Do you see as you play?

As I'm playing saxophone, I see the notes. They look kind of like a saxophone fingering chart. They're circles that go from bottom to top in my field of view. And the circles are certain colors based on the notes that they produce. Whereas when I'm playing bass, I see a grid that resembles the fretboard upside down, though, because if I look down at the bass, I would see the fretboard upside down. So I see a rectangular grid of frets. But saxophone, I see the circles that kind of remind me of where my fingers are on the instrument.

And then it changes according to, like, note you play.

No, because every key is a certain color, because it produces a certain note. Like, there is a. There is a d key on the saxophone.

Oh.

The right hand ring finger key is your d key. So that's green, because d is green, but then e is white. But then e flat, which is the right pinky. And it's the note between d and e. D sharp or e flat is the same note. It is dark green. I don't know why this is, but I have bright green for d, really dark hunter green for D sharp, and then white for e flat.

Wow.

But the in between notes are real dark because I have g, which is kind of, when I think of the letter g in writing, it's kind of a purplish red, kind of a wine color, kind of similar to February. But if I see the note g in music, it's red, but it's, like, bright red, like fire truck red. And then the a for letters has yellow, but then it has. It's a lemon yellow rather than taxicab yellow, but it's got a little tan in it. But the a for music is just straight up yellow. So you have, like, primary yellow. So you have primary red for g, primary yellow for a, but the g sharp or a flat, that's in between g and a is darkest, dried blood, Burgundy crimson. And then you have f, that is kind of wine purple, and g, which is primary red. But the f sharp that is in. In between f and g or g flat is really, really dark purple, almost black. It's interesting.

I.

Now a. Now b. B is primary blue. So g is primary red. A is primary yellow. B is primary blue. But then the b flat or a sharp, which is between a and b, is dark, dark navy. So the in between notes called accidentals. And, you know, you could go a, a sharp, b, or b, b flat, a. Like the note is both. Both of those according to which direction you're going. The accidentals are all really dark. D sharp, f sharp, g sharp, b flat, or a sharp. Now, c sharp's not really dark because c sharp is the open note of the saxophone. When you press no keys and you blow in the horn, you get c sharp. It's tan. I don't know why that is, but it is, huh? Yeah.

Because when I think of different instruments, I think of different colors. I mean, not specific to the instrument. And sometimes it's related to when I had sight, when I. When I could see. Because I remember, like, being up in the stands at, like, a marching contest and seeing another band out on the field. And I couldn't see the people individually, but I could see the reflection of the sun off their I instruments against the grass.

That's cool.

And, you know, I had vision enough for that from birth to 20, so. And I've always enjoyed music. I mean, I never. My parents gave me a guitar. I sucked that I always wanted. I played drums, but I never was really good. I mean, I was mediocre. I was okay. I played in jazz band in high school, and I was probably the highlight of my music career. So I really enjoy, you know, hearing stories. And I'm going to lead right into this for you. And you can tell. Talk about it, and then we'll close out for this, I think. Man, this fun.

No, we can. We can have a weekly podcast called, you know, weird stuff blind people say.

Who knows? And there's so much material. Yeah. Wow, that's cool. And we could find people to interview. I mean, like you said, that guy, the other guy you made.

I'll be the color commentator. I'll just say all, like, the funny stuff. And you.

You be the.

The more, like, question guy.

Yeah.

I can talk about anything, and I'll make just, like, corny jokes and stuff.

So when I was. And it's weird and some of this is not synesthesia. I mean, a lot of my stuff is also a really good memory. Almost like, I guess if I could see, I would have had a photographic memory.

You know, I used to have a pretty good one. Yeah. My friends used to tell me when I was a kid, they're like, you're like a history book. Can't you just, like, stop?

Just.

I'd be like, remember when this. Or, you know, this is the. What? This is the place we're so and so. And they're like, dude, stop. Like, yeah, yeah.

So I had a drum. My very first drum set was like this cheap sears just. I mean, it was okay. It was okay. It was really cool because I could turn my stereo up, and I'd play to these cover songs, like, you know, cindy Lauper, white snake. Yeah. And, and Debbie Gibson and, and warrant. And there you go.

Debbie Gibson to Warren. Yeah. White snake.

My favorite stuff to play back then was actually a Bon Jovi's. Like, you know, like the. That album shot through the heart.

Slippery when wet.

Yeah, slippery and wet. So that was my favorite music, him and Bruce Bernstein. I played a lot of COVID songs with him. And. But that. I mean, I've always enjoyed music, and so I really enjoy hearing things. And like I said, imagining. I mean, and it's funny because I just, sitting here and earlier I mentioned I was like, man, a light show. And being almost involved in the light show, I guess that's got to be insane. I mean, I think of what it looks like from the audience when it. And. And it's funny. Says I would go to rush shows and totally blind, but whenever they played, I'd always remember the light shows from when I could see.

Mm hmm.

So songs, you know, like, they play ghost of a chance, and I see it's kind of like, almost like a ghostly blue, kind of, like foggy kind of, you know, and different parts of the song have different vibes or different maybe almost like, I think of, like, shooting stars coming through this blue misty color or something.

Yes.

How my vision of ghost of a chance, you know, so. But songs that didn't have, you know, maybe. Maybe I never seen before, new songs, they would. I would just kind of make up my own thing for them. Not based on what the. What the light show was, but make.

Your own light show.

Yeah, but I mean, I'm really. I really like to hear, um, you know, uh, whiskey Myers. Whiskey Myers story, you know, like something like red rocks, and maybe talk about what, um, your experience was with, you know, just either from synesthesia or is just however you want to tell it. I mean, that's. I think that'd be interesting to hear.

What a whiskey Myers story of.

Of, like, like, playing with a, you know, a band. Like, playing, you know, at a. That's a. Wow, that's. I mean, that's an accomplishment, I think. Well, or is it just, like, just another gig? I mean, that seems like.

No, I mean, that's, like, working for envision for me. Yeah, right. I mean, I'm. I can say that. That, uh, the whiskey Myers thing, I mean, playing it. Playing at red rocks was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. So the first night that we played, even though I can't see a thing, I'm standing on stage in front of, you know, 10,000 people. It's sold out, and I'm on the riser at the back of the stage. And there's a part of the song where the guitar player solos for about five minutes, or, you know, three minutes. I don't know. But I whipped out my phone and started recording and started panning the phone across the stage and across the crowd. And I had posted that on Facebook, and I remembered my first concert. I could still see at the time. My first concert was journey with Steve Perry, and there was one time in the show where they had different colored spotlights just going all over the crowd. And I kind of envisioned that when I was thinking about the crowd, and I was like, oh, man. Wow. I probably see the crowd, you know, and I'm thinking synesthetically of these different colored spotlights just, you know, dancing all over everything. Well, it turned out when I showed the video to somebody, that's what was going on.

Wow.

That there was, you know, just different colored spotlights going all over the crowd. But they said, wow, this video is pretty good. That I was just doing what I thought would look good and envisioning where the crowd must be in my head. And I would start over at the left side, and I'd kind of pan it down to the stage and look at the people. Then I turn the camera to look at the other two horn players. Then I turn it back to the stage. Then I put it back up on the crowd, but then I slowly panned.

It to the right of.

Slowly panned it all the way back to the left. And then moved it up to look toward the back rows. Slowly moved it all the way across.

Yep.

And somebody's like, man, you can see everything, you know? And I was like, oh, that's pretty cool.

But. And spatially, that's what I would think, too. I mean, I would. Yeah, because I think spatially, like, that's.

What I was doing. I was thinking spatially.

Yeah.

But, uh, it it. It's really kind of cool to watch that video because, you know, I was really, really dumbfounded and really excited because, I mean, I was fortunate to be there. It was like, like nothing I'd ever experienced before. But I was also concentrating on my job to do and making. I had to keep a little cube in the back of my mind that was on task because I didn't want to be standing there with my phone when we were supposed to come back in. Right.

Yeah.

So you actually watch this video. It's on my facebook page, and, uh, you'll just see the guitar player kind of soloing in the crowd, cheering and all this. And then all of a sudden, at the very end of it, you hear the guitar go, and the video stops. Because as soon as he started playing those chords, I knew that I was supposed to come in here in about four bars. So it's like, oh, stop, drop the phone and continue to play.

Yeah, yeah. It's fun because, I mean, it's just like when I go to conventions and stuff, I mean, when you get up in the morning, so you go to bed at night, if you're in public, you're always on, you know, you're always. And. Oh, that's how I think of it, you know, like, when I work, when I'm in a position like that, is that you're always in the spotlight.

Well, yeah.

Everything you do.

Well, even when, like, when I was working for you and we were at that convention all day long.

Yeah.

You know, talking to everybody, but then we go to the bar at the.

End of the day, the same people and.

Well, talking to the same people, but the. The atmosphere is completely different.

Yeah.

Then everybody's, like, got a beer in their hand and they're telling dirty jokes and.

Yeah.

And it's. And it's one of your bosses.

Right.

That gets on you for being unprofessional.

Well, that was, that was somebody else.

I know, I know. I won't mention any names or anything. Yeah, yeah.

But, but, you know, I.

And you know what? I got gotten on because I made a joke about colors.

Yeah.

A synesthetic joke.

Joke. I was gonna, I knew I was gonna figure out how to make that a word. But, you know, that's a lot of fun. Oh, yeah.

It's a blast. Like, it's, it's so cool to, like I say, my, my impression of synesthesia is I don't have the. Like I said, I don't have the perfect pitch thing where I can't just be walking and I'll hear a strange sound, and since it appears yellow, I'll know it's an a. I don't have that. I actually went to college with somebody who had that. It wasn't synthetic or actually, I never asked her if it was synesthetic, if she associated it with color. But she could listen to a car engine and say, oh, that's an e flat, a slightly sharp f, and a c. And I'll be like, dang.

Yeah, I've heard of that.

I never had that type of annoying perfect pitch, for example, or I never had a utilitarian use for synesthesia. But the use of it for, for me is it just makes life less boring as, as a blind person. And I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to make a judgment on what blind people must think, because, you know, we blind people get offended when people say, oh, it must be terrible to be blind. That's not what I mean at all. No, I mean that, you know, since I had vision when I first lost it, the visual. The visual field did seem boring to me. And now that I have learned to, it's because my brain was just. Didn't know where to go from where it had been for so long. But now that I've learned. Now that I've learned how to perceive the world in different ways, I have as rich of a palette in the non visual realm as I did in the visual realm. But the synesthesia still gives it a little bit of visual flavor, and I appreciate that. And I never thought that I would find that type of use for just some superfluous colors for the days of the week and months of the year. But that's what it does for me. It's. It's just, you know, the world is. The world is more vibrant that way, I think.

You can't turn it off either.

That's the thing. I cannot turn it off. That is true. No, I mean, I can think of February without the red in it. I can visualize the word February in black. If I. If I, I can command my mind to do that. But if I'm not, if I'm not commanding it specifically to do that, then anytime I think of February, it's that whinish red color. You know, I can't command myself to think of a colorless world or, I mean, I can't command myself to remove the colors unless I'm consciously thinking about removing the colors.

It's almost like commanding yourself not to have an inner voice.

Something like that. Exactly. Like I can. Like, I can look at my living room, you know, and I can see the things that are on the walls and I can go, okay, what's my living room going to look like with nothing on the walls? I can snap my fingers and, oh, room has nothing on the walls.

Yeah.

But that's because I'm consciously thinking about it. The second I take my mind off of it, the things on the walls come back.

Yep.

So that's. Yeah, you can't. You can't turn it off. You can. You can conceptualize what it would be like if it were turned off. But it's not truly turned off.

No.

Like, I have a striped kitty on the footstool, and since I know that she's here, I can see her stripes. But if I think about the footstool without the cat, okay, I can conceptualize that. But I'm petting her the second I stop thinking about the stool without the cat. There's a cat again. Yeah, that's pineapple. She's laying on the footstool doing her thing.

That's wild. Well, go ahead and tell people how to find you and we'll wrap this.

And how to find me.

Like social media.

Oh, like, well, man, I don't have an ig. I don't have a tick tock.

You need a. You need a elite tree. That's what they say.

Everybody says that I need this, that or the other. Well, I have facebook.com, marcus Cardwell with no dots or anything, just all jammed together. And then I have saxosaurus.com or marcuscardwell.com dot. Either one of those will take you to my website. That is. It's kind of like my synesthesia. It's not really that useful. It's just something for my own pleasure and amusement. And it's got a picture of me. It's got all the albums that I've played. Well, not all of them, because there's some that I don't even have copies of. A little biography, biography of my music. And if you're really a nerd, it's got all my instruments, setups and equipment listed on it, and then it's got some stuff that's a real nerd. It is, dude. It's got. Yeah. It's got the specs of my saxophone mouth pieces and the gauges of my strings. And like, all that kind of stuff, but it's got albums that I've played on, and then it's even. There's a page that has old projects that I did in, like, early college and.

Making me laugh because I'm thinking about. Thinking about, you know, when somebody says, what kind of music do you like? Like, oh, God. And. And I was like, okay, I like rush. Oh, yeah, I like Rush. I'm like, great. I'm like, here it comes. He's like, you know? Cause Getty leave has that Fender grab, you know? And I'm like, shut off.

Yeah, well, he has a signature fender bass, but he actually plays a wall bass or a Rickenbacher. So, anyway, so it's just basically an electronic business. Cardinal. I don't even have a calendar of shows on there. It's basically, if somebody wants to know before they hire me, they're like, where can I hear you play? I'm like, go to marcuscardwell.com.

Yeah.

Or facebook.com. marcus Cardwell. That's the extent of my social media presence. You can google me and you will find videos that I've been on or other stuff, but it's not on my particular channels. The only things I officially endorse are the two things I've mentioned.

I mean, I looked my name up the other day on Google, and there's all these Vanderbilt and Coursera things out there now. And that's weird. Weird. I'm like, oh, man. And then vision and just all this stuff now out there that I'm just like, wow.

Yeah, well, I mean, people. You know, when you get involved in stuff. Yeah, people. Everything's online now.

Yeah.

Thank God. I know I didn't grow up with the Internet.

The Internet now seems like it works like it was supposed to. Like, everything's kind of smooth now. Like, I play around with a lot of different AI tools and stuff, and they have this deal now where you can just. When you go to a website, if you're signed into your Google account, you can log into this website via Google, and you just hit a button twice, and boom, you're in.

You just hit a button that says, login with Google.

Yeah.

The only thing about that is you have given that site your Google password.

I know, but I'm saying it's just simple. And if you have your card on there, you can just. You buy, you buy, you buy. It's done. It's too. It's too easy because you can spend a lot of money quickly or subscribe to ten different things.

That's why I like Apple pay a little bit better because you, if a place has Apple pay, you can tap on that. It doesn't give the website your.

And if I could get into the Mac in that way, I would. And see, I love the iPhone. I have Macs and I've tried really hard to get into the Mac and I just.

Oh, voiceover on Mac just cannot do it.

And voiceover sucks. It would probably make our life a lot easier within that respect if they.

Didn'T have to worry about getting sued by Jaws. That's the only reason voiceover on OS sucks, is because they're worried about getting sued by Jaws.

Yeah. And, and I feel kind of the same way about Android. And like, you know, Android has.

I haven't used it, but I've heard it's gotten pretty cool.

Well, they have image descriptions now in there that are built in. Like, they are like AI descriptions now that's added. And that should have been. That should. I mean, hopefully that's on.

But it sucks, though, because androids can get hacked.

I know.

And like, then the accessibility is a lot more spotty. You know, Apple is just a lot more consistent.

Yeah.

Because of their tighter standards. Their tighter standards are what developers complain about, but that's why the accessibility is as good as it is here.

I'll say it nice and loud. Y'all can clip me and do whatever. It just works.

It just works. Yeah. Oh, I know it does.

And, and I don't know why. In the blindness world, it seems like for the longest time since we've had two different smartphones that are accessible, that it's always like, hold on, iPhone, it's really good. And Android's good too. Like, no, it's not.

Well, from what, that's what I'm saying. From what I understand, it's actually getting kind of good. Now, I haven't used one exclusively.

I have a phone in here. It's one of their s 23 something Samsung. And I try, well, I had to use, I had to learn how to use it for, because I have to use envision glasses with both an iPhone and an Android device. And, you know, I can do it, but I don't like it. I understand, but it's like, painful. So anyway, man, let me, let me stop this recording and we'll definitely do this again.

Oh, yeah. And you said you. I sent you that music.

Yeah. I'm just going to go through and like, run a couple of filters and then I save it or not. Split it into two episodes, make it an hour or 30 minutes long. Probably, or something like that. Each. Okay, so I can post one tonight and then I'll tag you on like Facebook and everywhere. I can. But that's, social media is like the thing now. We, I mean, I don't know how many people follow you or whatever. That's the face. I mean, getting all your, that stuff built up is, well, I mean, I.

Have, I think, a thousand friends on Facebook.

Yeah, me too.

But I, but I know them all.

Yeah, that's the thing.

I don't friend, I don't friend people that I just don't know. I have, I have some friends that I've never met. Yeah, but I know them online. Like, I know who they are. I don't just friend people just because they sent me a request.

I got a personal profile now and I, I mean, people can either follow me, they can friend request me, but usually I just let them follow me.

See that, the thing is, is I can go to someone else's profile and it tells me how many followers they have, but I don't know how to see how many followers I have.

You go to your friends and then it says it'll show like mutual followers and all that stuff.

I've never seen that. I've, I've never seen the followers thing. So maybe you can tell me how many followers I have.

I have to look. I have to look. I was at 13 something the other day and like my AI group has 2100 people.

I'm just talking about my profile.

But yeah, my profile is at 1315.

Maybe because I've got 1010, 58 friends or something. Yeah, but there's people who follow you that aren't your friend. I think it's people that send you friend requests that you don't friend them back their followers.

I think so.

Then I probably, I probably have about two or 300 followers and they can.

See all your public posts, but. Right, well, my facebook is all friends only. But if you, but if you, yeah, mine too. And if you make it publish, if you make a post public, everybody sees it. Yeah, but if it's just friends and just your friends, not your followers.

I've just, I've never even done a privacy thing one time ever because I started messing with the, the proto Internet when I was in high school when, yeah, there was a 300 baud modem at the school for the blind and you have to call someone else's, you call their actual computer.

Uh huh.

I used to, but since I've been kind of into it so long, it kept me honest in the sense that I believed making. Keeping my page private would keep me honest, because then I wouldn't ever say anything that I didn't want everyone to read.

Yeah. And that.

That's important to me.

So.

So, like, I've never had the need to go and delete some old something that I've said, because I've always. I'm always prepared for everybody to read anything that I posted.

Now that I figure anybody might. Could be recording me at any minute. So I say anything. Always say things that you wouldn't mind having recorded.

Exactly. Actually act like you're being recorded. Now. That ties in with something I said a second ago when I was like, I'm so glad I didn't grow up with the Internet. So, you know, the Internet as it is didn't really start until I was, like, 24. So, you know, for my teenage years, I'm glad there was no Internet.

Yeah, me too. Like. Like, a friend of mine said one day he's, like, about that, like, find my friends and. And be able to, you know, put your kids on there and see where they're at and all that stuff.

Oh, yeah, sure.

Glad my dad didn't have that shit.

Well, I'm just glad that, you know, like. Like that. That player, I can't remember where he played, whether he was a and m or something, but he's a football player named Laramie Tunzel, and he. He was going to be drafted in the NFL, and people were, like, expecting him to go get an $11 million contract. That was the estimation for him. Right before he got drafted, somebody put out a picture of him at a party with a bong gas mask on. Doing, like, a bong hit with a gas mask?

Yeah.

And so he got a $4 million contract, and everybody was saying that that bong hit picture cost him $7 million.

Wow.

Well, if I was a teenager in the Internet, I'd be getting a $500,000 contract, because pictures would be. Yeah, they're. Yeah, I mean, I probably have some pictures of me, and I've been finding some of them recently and putting them up, you know. Well, 35. 35 years later, I've been scanning them into my facebook and being like, hey, everybody, check this out. But I don't care anymore.

I've been having a lot of fun making these AI images with. On these models now without any filters, where you really can make anything you want. Some. Some things, uh, Jaws picture smart won't even describe.

Oh, yeah. So anyway. Yeah.

That's funny.

Yeah. I'm not sure whether you're still recording, so I won't ask a question.

No, I am, but that's. That's all.

Yeah. Well, awesome. Yeah. Let's do this again. This is pretty fun. We need to do it sometime when I'm, like, cooking or something like that.

So many directions. So many different. All right. Three, two, one. Hold on. Wrong key.