Episode 240
#240 - Interview with podcaster Travis Sivart
In this epic ride of an episode. Writer, and podcaster Travis Sivart joins me for a full-spectrum conversation. About the magic of imagination, and the failures of modern society. Veering into the deeply nerdy joy of seeing the world through a storyteller’s lens. From Star Trek to ancient empires, capitalism to coffee. This episode winds through the heart of speculative fiction. Lands squarely in the real world. Where the hard truths about creativity, struggle, and meaning are waiting to be told.
We talked about craft, community, burnout. Why writing "like a society" needs better blueprints. A perfect blend of deep thought, dad jokes, and unapologetic geekery.
Where to Find the Guest?
🌐 Website: https://travisisivart.wixsite.com/home
🎧 Work: Explore books, live streams, and podcast episodes Like "Talk of the Tavern." https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/talk-of-the-tavern/
📲 Social: Follow Travis @travisisivart on most platforms
And of course, you can find all the links for L.I.T.G, and where to listen at:
👉 www.linktr.ee/lostinthegroove
Transcript
Dave: But this, this was from like, many, many years ago where they had him like read, um, off of a advertisement. I think it was for a cereal company or something. Just the way he said it. I, I, like, I finished watching and I'm just like, I'm never eating that cereal ever.
Travis I. Sivart: But there's a reason We remember these voices, and it's not just the sound of
Dave: Oh yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: behind them. Vincent Price was one of the Great Voices Modern. We got James Earl Jones and Morgan Freeman, and had so much more than just a sound
Dave: I know. It's a little, it's a little creepy sometimes because when you're like walking around and hear their voice and then you know that they're no longer alive, in some cases, some of 'em, they're no longer alive. You're just like, did they really die?
passes, but when you realize [:Dave: How does it work?
Travis I. Sivart: Yeah.
Dave: Yeah, I mean they're, um, they, they've been trying recently to like, bring people back from the dead. And, um, I mean, some examples have been kind of a little scary, you know, like, I feel like there's certain people we shouldn't be bringing back from the dead,
Travis I. Sivart: Right?
Dave: you know, I think for obvious like reasons, especially like, be able to respect the craft and be able to move past with certain things.
Like, you know, take star, I've talked about this before, like, take Star Trek for example, right? Imagine if Gene Berry was alive right now, it would be nice, but I, that would be a little freaky.
years of life and [: Dave: Yeah, [:And I spoke to somebody a few years ago and he was a scientist and kind of broke it down for me. He said that it's a genius idea, even though it's straight out of the sixties. We are what he was thinking. It's, it's the computer's in their minds. It's a level of where we no longer need an iPhone or we need tablets or computers.
It's all integrated with our psyche. So those consoles that you see are just. Ways of them physically inputting their consciousness into this computer,
Travis I. Sivart: Hmm.
that seems very futuristic. [:Travis I. Sivart: with that kind of environment and reality and, and things going on, the rest of the show makes no sense. We would not be at war if we were to appoint. That we had not only done everything Jean imagined, but everything else that, that your friend there spoke of, I think something Star Trek might have figured out, and this is, um, meta gaming if you will.
Dave: Mm-hmm.
Travis I. Sivart: have screens, they carry around tablets. They look at the big view screens. Um, Spock would look into his little thing, but they're not entertainment screens for entertainment. You go
Dave: No.
Travis I. Sivart: holodeck giving the 30 year difference
Dave: Yeah,
Travis I. Sivart: series and next generation.
Dave: right.
Travis I. Sivart: I think we [: n dream of being our future, [:It's just one possibility out of thousands.
Travis I. Sivart: could definitely imagine it 'cause somebody wrote the movie or book
Dave: Oh, yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: series or manga comic, you know. So somebody imagined it. Now can we get the whole damn species to agree on the steps of working together to move forward, to create that kind of future? Yeah. I see you shaking your head immediately.
n from science and politics, [:Dave: Yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: It's, it's the
Dave: And on the, on the polar opposite, um, talking about with Vulcans, right? You take the borgs, which in definition is what you can consider, a Karl Marx view of communism would be if you would have this thing flying around in space. You have every, everything is equal under the rule of the queen. You know, every, everything is communicated.
Every, every meticulous thing that is done is being communicated. But the greatest weakness of it is, is there is zero individuality. There is zero creativity. There's just one mind. It's a hive mind,
Travis I. Sivart: call that communism 'cause communism still involve people, which means you involve individuality.
Dave: right?
idual units, but personality [:Dave: No.
Travis I. Sivart: the other side of the coin. And this is the balance you can have when you could blend personality and individuality with moving forward as a society. it's when you get too
Dave: Yeah,
Travis I. Sivart: the individual is too important in society. Doesn't matter, all society collapses. And when you go the other direction and say society is so important, the individual disappears.
And why even bother have 'em? So our species, we're not very good at balance.
you know, you take, you take [:Barely understand, you know? So there's also that where we are almost a species with insomnia. We constantly forget, rebuild, restructure, and repeat. We do the same cycle every few thousand years
Travis I. Sivart: probably
Dave: at
Travis I. Sivart: even that much. We're probably looking at six, 700 years because, you know, we roll back
Dave: this point. Yeah.
peaking though, that also I. [:Dave: Oh yeah.
at are still in use made over: under where my feet is right [:Travis I. Sivart: under the
Dave: Yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: there's,
Dave: basically, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Eventually over time, it starts to sink like many islands do. And the Native Americans realize this about certain parts of the United States, not even South Florida. Even parts of Louisiana was like this too, where they treated this mainly as a seasonal gathering place where they would come here for necessary whatever it could be.
It could be for hunting, it could be for fishing, it could be for tools. They camped for a few months, and then depending on the seasons and change, they'd take their char and they would move up to another area or another region. When you ask these tribes, why did their ancestors do these things? They'll tell you it's because their ancestors understood the land around them.
w the best places to gather. [:Travis I. Sivart: sounds
Dave: You know, it's like,
Travis I. Sivart: common sense. And by the way, I, I
Dave: right.
Travis I. Sivart: for most of my early life, you know, 25 years off and on.
Dave: Mm-hmm.
Travis I. Sivart: So, so I'm with you on this and I've gone camping in the swamps and all this sort of thing, yeah,
Dave: It's beautiful.
Travis I. Sivart: it has, its, well, like every area when in, I've moved over
Dave: Yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: in my life and people are like, what do you like best?
And I'm like, the people I'm around because every
Dave: Mm-hmm.
Travis I. Sivart: its, oh, this one has hurricanes, that one has earthquakes, that one has lots of tornadoes. That one has no, we won't go there
Dave: Snow storms.
Travis I. Sivart: with that instead. gonna say annoying people, but yeah, everybody finds
Dave: Mm-hmm.
Travis I. Sivart: annoying, so it, it
Dave: Yeah,
Travis I. Sivart: [:Dave: course.
Travis I. Sivart: out from there. Um, but yeah, you think
Dave: yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: with almost 40, 45,000 years worth of building communities, homes, et cetera, would look into. Longer term weather cycles and patterns, at least yearly, if not the seven year, where we get El Nino and El Nina. Um, and just know you don't build on a fault line. You realize everything east of the Appalachian mountains was once a swamp.
And if you're building there, you're actually having to terraform and, and destroy an ecosystem before it lives where you're comfortable and, and so on so forth. You realize, you know, the center of the United States used to be an ocean and it's actually lower than the sea level. So it could
Dave: Mm-hmm.
in the thirties, or b, fill [:If we have a big enough earthquake it opens up the path from the ocean to central US Point is why are we so dumb we can't build somewhere where it works better for us.
Dave: We,
Travis I. Sivart: Yeah.
Dave: we tend to like, this is what we were talking about earlier. We, we tend to look at the stars and look at all of the stories and fantasies that push us towards those horizons, you know, for the next venture into space exploration. But here's the hard cold truth. In order. I think any scientist and any expert can agree for any species in order to reach the level of space exploration, there needs to be a level of universal communication and understanding.
t that have no freaking idea [:Travis I. Sivart: Yeah. When they attack,
Dave: It's just not, it's not possible.
h the internet in seconds to [:Dave: There, there, there is. And you know, as somebody like I'm, I'm in the automotive industry. I've, I've talked about this before, where something you realize when you're in the industry and you're a person that, in my case, I love electrical and electronics. I love all the ideas of moving forward progression with computer technology, but to see on how the German and JDM markets are killing it in this country, killing it.
training in a trade, I have [:Same thing with the JDM market. So you almost like you're living in a society where you have to pick and choose where you want to put your future, where you wanna put your time and investment and like, I don't think we're gonna be alive enough for space exploration to take off. Let's be real. Like that's not gonna happen for good.
Another few hundred, maybe four or five, maybe even a thousand years. I don't know.
Travis I. Sivart: I've got a few
Dave: But
Travis I. Sivart: that,
Dave: you do.
Travis I. Sivart: first I wanna go back to what you were actually talking about and then if we remember, definitely
Dave: Yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: go into the theories of as a species, how we could. I this quicker and better. First of all,
Dave: Mm-hmm.
en mechanical stuff. America [:Dave: No.
Travis I. Sivart: its benefits, but one of its drawbacks is, let's look at phones, something most of us have, A lot of the folks watching this right now are probably staring at theirs. How often do
Dave: Mm-hmm.
color or a new type of glass [:Dave: No.
Travis I. Sivart: Then you also mentioned essentially choosing your career. It's hard to choose to dedicate yourself to this because of situations like that, over the past 20 years, whether we're looking at medical, legal, writing genres, whatever, really hyper specialized. Probably more than 20 years going on 40 actually, and
Dave: Yeah, since about the, since about the late seventies. Late seventies. Yeah. It's about 40. It's about 40 years.
Travis I. Sivart: and look, I get it. If it's a neurologist or heart doctor, okay, specialization is good, but talking about doctors, you ever go to a doctor ever in your life? Okay. He ever sent you to a different doctor without even looking at what the problem was?
Dave: More times than I can [:Travis I. Sivart: Right. used to have doctors, we went into, he was in an era where he might've been smoking a cigarette while checking you out or whatever, but would check you out and if you had a foot problem, he didn't immediately send you out the door to someone else. Now my problem, um, gotta go to a specialist. That specialist is for when that doctor absolutely can't do something and we've gone. So we have specialized at specializing and it's hard to get a one stop shop for your basic needs. And women face this so much worse than men. Um, I tell you what, it 30% or more of the female anatomy, hormones, events in their body and their life, we are clueless for, and it's the whole medical profession.
It's just a guy. Doctors are gr No, I,
Dave: No,
Travis I. Sivart: her for [:Dave: like the ob, GYN, which is not always fun for women.
Travis I. Sivart: ob GYNs. Some are women, some are men, some are Indian, some are straight up white. And it took 12 years and she had been trying for years before I even met her to finally get the problem. Genuinely looked into and, and moving forward,
Dave: I, I had a, I, I have a good friend of mine. She ran into the same problem and, um, we were talking about this and. I told her, I said, honey, you know, you just, you gotta keep on trying. She found this incredible doctor that like, without even a beat, checked her up, sent out medications that she needed without even like, ask, just sent it out and made sure she got everything she needed.
takes a while, but once you [:Travis I. Sivart: there. Um, you
Dave: Yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: now. I dunno what kind of automotive
Dave: Yes.
Travis I. Sivart: but there's a couple things in you want in life where you want somebody who, A, knows more than you, but B and probably more importantly, to you. Not to gauge where your knowledge is, but to get all the knowledge they can.
A mechanic is one of those.
Dave: I.
Travis I. Sivart: you have a car mechanic and you can get the same one for every car. This is gold, a lawyer and a doctor right up there with mechanic. I. And funky. Oh, I'm sorry. We did not have the pre-show conversation language. Okay.
Dave: Yeah, you can say, fuck cunt,
Travis I. Sivart: I just
Dave: piss bullshit, cocksucker.
Travis I. Sivart: you know,
Dave: Nah, that's good.
Travis I. Sivart: can have a alcoholic drink on air.
You're okay with that? And
Dave: yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm having my,
Travis I. Sivart: I'm kidding.
Dave: yeah, I mean, I'm having my alcoholic beverage over here.
Travis I. Sivart: I mean, who can afford cocaine anymore? Eh, it's crack or
Dave: Nah, it's becoming too expensive.
t: like, how do these people [:Dave: I don't know.
Travis I. Sivart: and that job, they work, they've got the biggest, newest tv, a great car.
Of course, they live in a cardboard box with an extension cord. So, I don't know, I guess it
Dave: Hmm. Li Well, listen, I, as somebody that lives down here in south Florida, I can honestly say Miami's built by Coke,
Travis I. Sivart: Okay.
Dave: 100%. Miami's built by cocaine and well, basically, Palm Beach is built by rich capitalist investors and lobbyists. You
Travis I. Sivart: that's the
Dave: know,
Travis I. Sivart: up in. I was in Fort Lauderdale, so I'd go to West Palm and Boca Raton. I would go to Miami. Hollywood is far out. I followed the expanding of civilization as it crept into the Everglades and the swamp area. I lived in places where Gators still wandered by. Even though you're in a full community, just two years old.
And the Gators haven't realized they got evicted yet.
Dave: [:Travis I. Sivart: you,
Dave: 'cause they're not like crocodiles. They, they will get you Gators are not sweets.
Travis I. Sivart: if you drag
Dave: They're not,
Travis I. Sivart: a line such as a small dog or child, yeah, they're coming for it. Don't do that.
Dave: yeah. They're coming forward.
Travis I. Sivart: Uh, that's another complaint. and it sounds like we're talking about our species.
Dave: No, they, you know what, people don't understand this, like the, these are prehistoric dinosaurs. Okay. Florida is riddled with prehistoric animals that like should have gone its extinct 60 million years ago, but hasn't.
in my taco, and you're like, [:Dave: Oh,
Travis I. Sivart: Made out of meat.
Dave: yeah,
Travis I. Sivart: things that supply meat have bones. So it happens.
Dave: yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: or they're like, how come my kid fell on the sidewalk? I'm like, You know, it's, you know, they, built these. So, yeah. My point is the people that expect everything to be as clean as sterile as a movie you watch on tv.
d vehicle, but I have a car. [:I'm just pointing out, it's like, hey, there's certain things that when you're older, I think should be kind of understandable. You know, people take care of yourself,
Travis I. Sivart: in
Dave: right?
Travis I. Sivart: and some are optional. You don't have
Dave: Yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: and have kids on the time piece of society. But knowing how to function as a complete adult in society, and here's what I'll say. They don't have to have a car, they should know
Dave: no,
Travis I. Sivart: One. It's kind of a skill required in this country in most cases.
Barring, barring individual situations.
Dave: if you're living in New York City or Chicago, I'll give you a pass.
Travis I. Sivart: years old, um, being, you
Dave: Yeah,
re going blind or we already [:Dave: yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: Oh my god. Those people.
Dave: I'm a New Yorker, so I'm one of those. Listen, I got a Mustang. I understand. It's got V six in there, but boy oh boy, you cut me off or piss me off. I will treat you like a fellow New Yorker.
Travis I. Sivart: See I have driven and lived in New York, in Chicago, in Miami, in DC and uh,
Dave: You poor thing.
Travis I. Sivart: reasons. I live in the middle. I have more cows within a 10 mile radius of me than people, and I am grateful for it.
Dave: Oh, that's amazing.
Travis I. Sivart: now, I am
Dave: Oh, that's amazing.
Travis I. Sivart: from anything. I can go see an opera or a baseball game. Uh, I can go to Ikea, the 16 theater Megaplex with the leather seats.
Dave: you in pa?
s I. Sivart: I'm in Virginia [:Dave: You in Virginia?
Travis I. Sivart: Richmond, which is about the center of the state for people that don't know, and Washington dc, which is at the very northern point of the state
Dave: So you go, you're near, we're going up towards North Carolina when you're driving down.
Travis I. Sivart: you're driving. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So if you imagine a triangle with Richmond here, DC here, north Carolina's down
Dave: Yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: I'm over here. This is I 95 that connects the two. I'm over here somewhere towards the East coast, but not on the East coast be, and I chose it on purpose. This is also the kind of place, the county I'm in, taxes are some of the lowest it, it's one of the most economically depressed places.
investment. [:Dave: not bad.
Travis I. Sivart: for 250,000, which isn't a lot today's market,
Dave: No.
Travis I. Sivart: South Florida. You're looking at a a, an 800 square book, uh, block foot, yeah.
Dave: Yeah, book is a good example for like $500,000.
Travis I. Sivart: block and, and, and footage at the same time.
And it came out as a book.
Dave: They don't do them anymore.
Travis I. Sivart: We don't see.
Dave: They don't do the bil. They, they stopped doing them years ago, I think. 'cause of like foundation or destruction.
Travis I. Sivart: seventies or early seventies. They
Dave: Yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: But I still, I've lived in those houses when I was down there and, uh,
Dave: They're really cool.
Travis I. Sivart: kind of are, 'cause the cinder blocks turned on their side. So the hole is up. You fill it with a insulation. It actually does really insulate well. And they, they stuck together.
h thick brick. Mortared into [:Dave: We're just dumb.
Travis I. Sivart: okay. We'll go with that. It's, it's,
Dave: No, it's um, it's something really like, uh, it's something really interesting. It's like I, I've also, I I've lived around, um, I've lived overseas for a few years and one thing I, I will say is an American that's lived overseas. I think more Americans need to live overseas just for a little bit, just to experience that.
ernment offenses. I swear to [:Travis I. Sivart: necessarily pro that, but keep your mouth shut for the, uh,
Dave: No, not at all.
Travis I. Sivart: Let's go with that. And by the way, can we learn to recycle like other countries? 'cause we did this in the fifties and sixties, and then it slowly morphed and now we're paying other people to recycle. And if we buy a product that has been recycled, it costs us more. What happened? This is,
Dave: I can tell you in the automotive industry, but I don't know about other industries.
Travis I. Sivart: hear it.
go with cheaper products and [:They look great. Then you sit down and then everything just starts peeling and fading and cracking and breaking all over the place. But then you take the same car that's 10 years older than that, or 10 years newer, and you don't have any of those problems. And the literal reason why is because they're like, Hey, you're slapping us with more rules.
We're gonna figure out a way to make this cheaper.
Travis I. Sivart: right.
Dave: Right. Didn't work out very well.
Travis I. Sivart: they make it cheaper, they then raised a price pointing at the government going, they made us raise the price, but they used
Dave: Mm-hmm.
Travis I. Sivart: ingredients,
Dave: Uhhuh
Travis I. Sivart: came out tasting horrible and crumbly.
Dave: horrible,
Travis I. Sivart: Um,
Dave: horrible.
figure out how to adjust to [:Dave: No.
Travis I. Sivart: anybody who has a million bucks or a billion bucks, and I mean corporations, not just individuals, they're gonna find a way to take that buck away from us. Um, they did it in COVID. shipping problems. They raised the prices to cover the cost of shipping. We didn't see those
Dave: Mm-hmm.
Travis I. Sivart: when the shipping went back to normal, did we?
Dave: No.
Travis I. Sivart: the same thing with anybody that says they're raising their prices due to tariffs or whatever. Yeah. Even if those disappear tomorrow to go all goes back to the way it was a year ago. No price is coming down.
reatest rebuttal to that is, [:I know this because I'm in school and I've spoken with people from these companies. This is what they want. They wanna build a stronger presence in the United States. We are literally allowing other companies, other businesses, from other places outside of our own. Nation to come here and try to help structure us this country.
You know what that tells us? It's like we keep forgetting that what makes America is the fact that we're a place of immigrants. We welcome international relationships. This is how we build as a nation, and the more we fight with tariffs and all of these labels, guess what? More and more of these companies are gonna come in.
ding and restructuring a lot [:Travis I. Sivart: when you finish your thought and
Dave: Yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: I'm gonna throw a little into your view there.
Dave: But the issue with that is, is that we keep on forgetting where and what we've always told ourselves about the American dream, which is we're not just a nation that flies under one flag. We're very much a corporate version of the United Nations dressed up in 50 different states.
Travis I. Sivart: do you know our official language of our country?
Dave: Should be English, but it's probably Spanish.
Travis I. Sivart: nothing. We don't have one because we're a melting
Dave: Yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: Now I'm gonna throw some shade on your history truth here. That kind of shade. It's gonna make it a little bit darker. Yeah, we built our country on the back of immigrants from day one and
Dave: Mm-hmm.
I. Sivart: aspect you wanna [: From:Dave: Mm-hmm.
Travis I. Sivart: like dogs then still
Dave: Mm-hmm.
, herem welcome or whatever. [:Dave: It's crazy.
Travis I. Sivart: we shove immigrants of any sort out our door, we are gonna lose a very important core our workforce. Just my thought on that.
grated here from Morocco from:Travis I. Sivart: good
Dave: A lot of people
Travis I. Sivart: Oh, okay. We don't
Dave: really good food.
Travis I. Sivart: I love different foods.
Dave: a lot of like, just in short like Moroccan food is just rice couscous and stews and then bread and a bunch of other stuff.
Travis I. Sivart: spice blend is very unique to that area.
a country of like a melting [:I know even somebody that's recently had a kid, he's married, he's starting out his life, we gotta stop shoving our brains with all of this media and crap and literally just see people for who they are. It's we're,
Travis I. Sivart: Yeah.
Dave: we have so many wonderful people around us. So many people that represent different parts of what it is to be be American.
Different things that we bring from our own cultures and our own melting pots and our own plates,
Travis I. Sivart: kitchens. Let's keep
Dave: and um, yeah, and
Travis I. Sivart: Yeah.
Dave: we gotta remember that. So true.
mon with that person or that [:We have the minds, the science, um, and we're losing all that as we strip apart Our are institutions of learning, sometimes from the inside through capitalism where they have raised their prices to where people just can't go. We, I don't even wanna say dumb down our population. 'cause people have always had their share of dumb. We've never been lacking in stupid, lazy has been a little bit extra because the entertainment is so easy to get now. And like we're talking
Dave: Yeah.
hours later you're like, oh, [:Dave: They, yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: I wanna know more. And that makes those people feel like they have opinion, which continues to cycle. Human beings are naturally xenophobic, meaning they're afraid of something that's different. Whether that's alien with big head and big black eyes, or whether that's I'm white, you're Mexican, the fuck, whatever it is. is a natural thing wired into our species because we used to have fight for survival, and territory was important, and if somebody looked different, it showed you were in their to territory or they were in yours.
Dave: Yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: have to be that way anymore. We have to
Dave: No,
Travis I. Sivart: [:We do this in our heads, which,
Dave: we,
Travis I. Sivart: go ahead.
Dave: yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: gonna say, at you right now. You've created a podcast. You have created a daily, maybe weekly, I don't know how often you do this challenge to yourself that feeds that fight and flight instinct. So what I'm saying is, if you have challenges in your
Dave: Yeah,
y who just has the good life [:Dave: you, um, you realize even for myself, when you're raised in a very different environment and you expose yourself to the real world, it's not where you just, I go to a payphone, you know, and you pick up the line and you're just in fight and flight. Whenever you feel like, no, you're in fight and flight. All the time and you're asking questions and you're curious about the real world.
And the thing that bothers me the most is you never really get real answers from people unless you sit down and have a gun honest conversation. I think a lot of the reasons we are, we get into arguments and bickering and war is because we can't do this. We can't just sit down and be like, okay, you are liberal.
Okay, I'm conservative, so what?
Travis I. Sivart: talk.
re. Great. I live in an area [:But when you take somebody like even Harvey Milk. Okay. And one thing that I've always loved about his thought process is. Why do we have to create differences when there is no differences to begin with? We all want safe education. We want proper housing, and we all want a place to share at the table together.
Travis I. Sivart: Pretty simple.
Dave: Seems
Travis I. Sivart: When
Dave: simple.
rd. This ties into it too. I [:Sorry guys. Devonian or, uh, know, homo
Dave: Homo, I think is an
Travis I. Sivart: be
Dave: yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: get it wrong all the time. I should stare at the word for like
Dave: I think it's Homo Fluorisis.
Travis I. Sivart: Um, but my point
Dave: Here, let me, let me check.
y're out there. And example, [:Dave: Santas, by the way, I just checked.
Travis I. Sivart: you. It's, yeah, there is a Star Wars species named like Ians, and I always get 'em in my head. So anyhow, I'm a Star Wars nerd, but with Chimp
Dave: That's the best.
Travis I. Sivart: he has his place. Um, so sorry. Sidetracked. Uh, chimps. Gorillas,
Dave: Yeah. Chimpanzees.
Travis I. Sivart: peaceful and they're not really gonna mess with you unless you threaten them or their, their
Dave: Mm-hmm.
Travis I. Sivart: And even other gorillas, they'll do the display. They might fight a little and then they realize, you win.
d then cannibalize the other [:Dave: Mm-hmm.
Travis I. Sivart: but they do it. You can raise a chimp from a baby and they hit a certain point in their life and they could turn on you like that.
There have been cases where they have literally torn the skin off somebody's face.
Dave: Face, yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: What I'm saying
Dave: It's not pretty.
Travis I. Sivart: a violent gene somewhere. Gorillas, they can hurt you in a heartbeat if they wanted to, but they rarely
Dave: It's rare.
things forward, but the one [:Dave: It.
Travis I. Sivart: Sorry.
Dave: Yeah. No, no, no. I you, you mentioned something that's so interesting is because when you think of alphas, I think the best form of alpha and alpha, like beta and Deltas is canines. Canines do this better than I think a lot of other species, especially when you deal with wolves, the level of communication between the alpha and the following pack, they could be hundreds of yards away from each other, and they're able to get into these core like coordinations where they all just come symbiotically in line, in tune with one another.
it's not really alpha beta. [:Travis I. Sivart: drawback there is we tend to listen loudest give them that we, we feed that into them. If we didn't just listen and follow the loudest voice, if we actually followed the one that made sense, well, things might change. Never quickly. Oh
Dave: Yeah,
Travis I. Sivart: It never changes quickly and it goes into cycles, folks. But yeah, it would change in the long run.
Dave: we just don't know how to be patient.
Travis I. Sivart: Yeah. Um, and, you know,
Dave: I don't know how to be patient like I.
do this for a month or three [:Dave: Yeah,
Travis I. Sivart: then it took a little longer.
Dave: it does.
Travis I. Sivart: with all this.
Dave: I, it does it. It takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of effort and energy and, you know, sometimes I, even for myself, you know, you forget to be able to love yourself for what you do. You know, you don't look, no artist is gonna be the, the best artist in the world. You could be the best artist for yourself.
hink the thing that destroys [:Travis I. Sivart: example I can throw at people, there's a billion examples of this, but look at your
Dave: billions.
Travis I. Sivart: TV show, season three, going on to season four. There's a shift, a change. They have enough audience giving feedback. They will change the whole feel. Of a show, because the people that came in, not in the beginning, not their original fans, but the masses. And we've seen musicians do this. We've seen writers do this where they get in a series. We've seen artists. Yeah. It happens constantly across the board.
er Taylor and Brian May, but [: It happened:Travis I. Sivart: no.
Dave: It didn't like I, Adam Lambert's very talented, but like I.
Travis I. Sivart: He does a great job.
Dave: Sorry, honey, you're not Freddy.
Travis I. Sivart: Nobody somebody else if they wanna be their own person
Dave: Mm-hmm.
Travis I. Sivart: and there's a
Dave: Mm-hmm.
ut. So we wanna bring in new [:Dave: Mm-hmm.
Travis I. Sivart: went, Hey, this? the whole field of music changes every eight to 12 years. The whole, like you can, you know how you could watch a movie and you could tell pretty much what decade that movie was filmed in? By how it's filmed, the angles, the lighting, the technology, the same with music.
Dave: Yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: You can feel that generation's fingerprint on the glass of that music. Um, if you listen to metal from the two thousands versus metal from the eighties versus metal from today, they're distinct.
Dave: Mm-hmm.
verlap, but you be, you too. [:Dave: There is, and I, I think tying into, like, we were even talking about sci-fi, even with like Star Wars and Star Trek, like, don't get me wrong, like there's been a lot of really great series that have come out of Star Trek, but I. What they're doing with the levels of technology. They're kind of erasing the pencil writing that Gene Roddenberry has already put into place.
It's like, I'm not gonna throw out any names. You know exactly what I'm talking about. When they start getting into specifics with fusion drives, especially the newer generations, like, okay, all right. Okay. Okay. Slow down. Slow down. We don't need a science class for something that we clearly know is not completely realistic.
ere to show that they're all [:Dave: Yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: you don't need a lesson. here's what I'll
Dave: Oh.
Travis I. Sivart: that earlier, changing 'cause of audience opinion. Did you watch Star Trek Discovery, the series,
Dave: Mm-hmm.
Travis I. Sivart: season one, season two,
Dave: Mm-hmm.
Travis I. Sivart: a popular penny. I fucking loved them. They were great.
Dave: They're great.
Travis I. Sivart: three, Michael Burnham, the female lead emotion. Suddenly this strong driven character was a pile of Play-Doh and not because the male counter, um, demanded it.
mall contained storyline and [:Dave: Yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: changes, maybe it's a great show, but it's not the show I've been watching and I stopped watching it. I have no idea what happened in season four and five. I know there was a cat. I was pretty happy there was a cat. I like cats. That's it.
Dave: I, it is just, okay. Maybe, maybe it's because I'm like a nerd or a little bit of a geek. It's just weird when you take shows that, like even Voyager, okay. Or I, I always forget the name. The one that took place on the Space station. It was really, really, yes. Um, I don't know that there was something where it, even though Gene Berry was no longer alive, it still felt very much still like the story, it still had the element of the new federation of what was kind of going on.
The new technologies that, [:Travis I. Sivart: genuine. Instead of genuine, it
Dave: genuine, eh.
Travis I. Sivart: distinctive because they followed certain rules he laid out when he wrote the first series. Also, quick hint for everybody out there who's never watched the old Star Trek series, and you want to, if you start to watch season one and you're like, I can't watch this. at season four for next Generation Deep Space Nine and Voyager in particular, star Trek, next Generation. 'cause you could do this in the eighties and nineties. It took three years to get it Stride. by season four, got some incredible storylines and characters in writing. Season four.
ere was a lot of things that [:Travis I. Sivart: Right. And they brought
Dave: uh, certain, started hurting.
Travis I. Sivart: 'cause it added
Dave: Yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: this theme of discovery that the whole damn series,
Dave: Mm-hmm.
Travis I. Sivart: but Deep Space nine, season four is when generation stopped. They brought over writers and characters from Star Trek, the Next Generation to Deep Space Nine. And suddenly it got a whole lot better Voyager.
I think season four is when seven of nine came in. And I'm not just saying, eh, boobs gather around. I mean yeah, gather around boobs, don't get me wrong. But
Dave: I think so.
Travis I. Sivart: better storylines
Dave: been a.
Travis I. Sivart: The original Star Trek series took three years to get their stride for various reasons. And uh, so yeah, if you have a hard time getting into it, jump ahead a couple seasons.
ch season one through three, [:Dave: I don't know though. I, I'm, I'm a little skeptical. I mean, obviously it's a new generation. It's a new take of what Star Trek is, but
I mean, star Wars, in my personal opinion, is kind of just a Walt Disney world attraction at this point. It's no longer a series.
Travis I. Sivart: you, but here's what I'll tell you.
Dave: Yeah.
, they're all decent movies. [: f these things recently that [:Dave: Yeah, it's so weird because I don't know it as somebody that's been around people that remembers, you know, the time, even in the eighties and nineties where, you know, you had a lot of those graphic novels and comic books and these series and stuff, those coming up that there was around like Star Wars and kind of the whole saga.
And then, you know, Disney had like a few little hurrahs like, you know, they came out with the book of Bobette, which started off pretty great. Like it kind of followed a pretty traditional story where we see from the graphic novels from the nineties and then went, made a ue like down Route 66, just
Travis I. Sivart: right.
Dave: woo.
scenario where you're like, [:Travis I. Sivart: Can I jump on
Dave: and E even. Yeah. I mean, even George Lucas admitted to this.
Travis I. Sivart: making
Dave: part of this. Yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: of anything ever? Can we move forward in this story and tell a new story? Something I've always said about Marvel or, or Star Wars, when you make a new movie, don't reinvent Hans Solo. Don't give a Spider-Man for the fifth time guardians of the
Dave: 12th this time. Yeah.
Wars. If you're putting out, [:Dave: Oh, I can't, I, I,
Travis I. Sivart: cons.
Dave: episodes and I was done. I, I couldn't.
rsus dc I'm just using other [:Dave: Yeah, I, I honestly, I have to agree with you. That was one thing that was nice about, like, even with Guardians of the Galaxy, right? Where, to your point, the original comic book, 'cause it was, it was a comic book series, I believe it came out in the early nineties, seventies,
Travis I. Sivart: times. Um, and it was a new team. Mostly each time it came out. And then in the late nineties, I believe it actually got popularity eventually. Like Venom was part of their team at one point and so on and so forth. But yes, it was
tely different than what the [:Travis I. Sivart: okay with
Dave: was,
Travis I. Sivart: And just
Dave: yeah, it was amazing.
Travis I. Sivart: movies, okay. You kind of had the, the, the go-to team in the first three
Dave: Mm-hmm.
hey him an image that was set:Dave: It's honestly, it's a thing that's been happening to a lot of, a lot of movies like, look, don't get me wrong, I love computers. I love CGI, I love special effects. And, but to a point like what Quentin Tarantino pointed out, which is great, you can take practical effects and special effects and mix them together.
ctors. One is laziness. Two, [:Travis I. Sivart: this
Dave: We could just,
Travis I. Sivart: Money.
Dave: yeah,
Travis I. Sivart: It's all about
Dave: yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: every
Dave: It's all about the money.
Travis I. Sivart: But yeah, the two things you're pointing out are absolutely the first two things after somebody goes, what about the money? Bang, everything you were talking about happens the root.
Dave: But that's, but that's why I, that's why, honestly, like I, I view the indie filmmaking. Sector as more of like the realistic stake in the way that stories are being made. Because a lot of these houses are now being able to make these films bringing in those special effects with those practical effects.
Travis I. Sivart: Not,
Dave: Even though,
Travis I. Sivart: I have seen some brate horror movies with rubber dinosaurs and I am having a blast. You don't have to go
Dave: it's the best.
Travis I. Sivart: to [:Dave: Or
Travis I. Sivart: comic book panel effects with movement and done it ultimately, like nineties cheesy, and it would've been better effects than the CG they used.
Dave: Flash Gordon, they could have even gone the Flash Gordon direction.
Travis I. Sivart: That's a, I wanna talk about Disney remakes real quick 'cause we're talking about CG and we'll take Lilo and Stitch, which I haven't seen the brand new one or whatever.
Moana came before. No, when Moana is coming next. What came before Lilo and Stitch Live action,
Dave: Um, snow White, which we, we, we were trying to create the mandala effect that that never happened.
, but I can't recall any bit [:Dave: It's a good thing. It's a good thing for all of us as mankind.
Travis I. Sivart: the way. Why would they ever call Lion King live action? What live action character was in there? Can they just call it Lion King cg?
Dave: Yeah. There's no real lions in that movie.
Travis I. Sivart: they might
Dave: I.
nes that just failed, remake [:Dave: It's, um, it's so strange 'cause like, even though I'm in my like. My mid twenties. I grew up in a time with Disney where we had movies like Lilo and Stitch. We had Finding Nemo, we had Monsters Inc. A Bugs Life Toy Story,
Travis I. Sivart: four outta
Dave: you know, um,
Travis I. Sivart: which the originally three movies,
Dave: which were owned by Disney at the time.
Travis I. Sivart: three movies were on rent. Basically, Pixar was a college project that Disney went, we'll pay you, you do us three movies, and then they resigned the contract to open. So yes, you're right, absolutely owned by Disney, but separate and now com.
en Pixar like that in years. [:Travis I. Sivart: it measured up
Dave: No Incredibles? No. Incredibles, credibles. All the way Incredibles too
Travis I. Sivart: I liked
Dave: okay.
Travis I. Sivart: and maybe this is because Incredibles two, I also aged those years. So it was nice to see it again. It was more the family view and f, but anyhow, yeah, I'm with you in
Dave: No, honestly, it's a different, the Incredibles two was honestly like a different take because the original movie was more action packed. Whereas the second one, kind of like, was it did, it felt like you were being aged up. You know, you were kind of, we were, they were now like a middle aged family. He was older.
She was older.
changing, you might be like, [:Get it. I could listen to
Dave: No.
Travis I. Sivart: go, I dealt with similar things, but not the same thing. also I didn't have your family, your environment, so I didn't feel it the way you felt it.
Dave: No,
Travis I. Sivart: I can still empathize. I can still understand. I just can't, I wasn't there. That's your experience. I'm just sharing the fringe.
I,
rent way, you know, like for [:Making these remakes, I get it. You know, is to spark a new ideas into the newer generation, but we already have the stuff from the past. You don't need to remake it to Spark. Like you could get your kid on the TV right now on Disney Plus and pull up the originally lo stitch. It's not hard.
Travis I. Sivart: a Toy Story, five or a Buzz Lightyear movie spinoff. We've got this great core and maybe give
Dave: Yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: a new story. A different story, character for another generation, or our next Elsa, our next Woody, our next, oh, just roll it on backwards. Lots of characters.
e if I am. I feel that since [:Travis I. Sivart: Yeah.
hat came out, I think in like:Travis I. Sivart: Here's what I'm gonna say about that.
Dave: Yeah.
belling against the ideas of [:Dave: Yeah.
I'm a full-time writer, but [:Dave: it's his cabinet.
Travis I. Sivart: year figurehead. And not only is Cabinet, but the Congress and the Senate and there's so many,
Dave: Mm-hmm.
Travis I. Sivart: but we,
Dave: Pieces
Travis I. Sivart: one on top that we can see. And
Dave: of course.
ing, I could do this better. [:Dave: They are doing it better, which is crazy.
Travis I. Sivart: but as you pointed out, a Pixar movie today versus one 20 years ago, the older one every single time.
Dave: Yeah,
Travis I. Sivart: that doesn't mean the technology isn't better, but the person making the
Dave: no, it's way better today than it was.
Travis I. Sivart: But they didn't make that technology, that person today. They're borrowing technology that started being formed 20 years ago.
under a company called Next.[: t eventually became Mac OS in:Travis I. Sivart: And of
Dave: and it's:Travis I. Sivart: why Mac and Windows look so similar 'cause
Dave: Mm-hmm.
Travis I. Sivart: program that two different people walked away from each other
Dave: Yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: kept the core model. And then of course, later it's
Dave: Yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: the industry has to have a certain visual ui. Otherwise the masses are lost and you, you can't move that start button from there to there without everybody.
You're just losing their shit over it.
incredible capabilities and [:Travis I. Sivart: indeed.
Dave: that spent hours perfecting these programmings, perfecting their codes, getting everything right, decades.
Travis I. Sivart: it's, and they're still changing. And by the way, can, can we figure out a way to get rid of all the crap code we don't need in these programs that we just never removed previously?
Dave: I don't know. We need an AI for that, but
Travis I. Sivart: crazy. If only somebody would invent one. That's a good point. Yeah. It's a,
Dave: open ai.
me they've made a new thing. [:Dave: I know.
Travis I. Sivart: Stop it.
Dave: I know.
Travis I. Sivart: afford it.
Dave: No, you know, and I, there's so many things that are following the, the, the same peripheral vision we're, you know, I have this argument with people all the time, you know, um, why are you, why are you financially struggling? Why can't you be able to make, and I'm like, I'm putting myself through trade school.
I'm trying to get myself where I'm able to do this, and I'm able,
Travis I. Sivart: Beautiful choice, by the way. Go on. I didn't mean to interrupt. Just like,
Dave: Yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: that
y is, for me, in order to be [:And I think to a lot of people, that is just insane. You, you,
Travis I. Sivart: right.
Dave: there's just so much money. It's just so much money in order to survive.
Travis I. Sivart: and your listeners a couple things you probably don't need to know about me. I told you I bought my house cash, which means I don't have a mortgage payment now. My
Dave: Right.
. We went to a chiropractor, [:We're hitting the dentist, know, four or five visits for the next two, three months, just to kind of make sure we're all caught up with. have to stop going to the massaged therapist. We can only afford one medical at a time. And so I get it, especially with you, you maybe don't own your own house.
Uh, maybe you're making a car payment. And I've gotten to this point and I'm still like, wow. No wonder
Dave: Right.
Travis I. Sivart: 22 or your age, I was working three jobs. I was outta my house 80 hours a week. 'cause I've done all that. And God, it sucks. We're not built for that. We're not even being lazy, just psychologically.
We're not [:Dave: No.
Travis I. Sivart: cycle is you work like a dog 12 hours a day, spring, summer, early fall, and then fall through winter. You take it off. And even if you're working like a dog, those. Essentially two seasons, but a little overlap to spring and fall. You are still taking multiple days off in a row to watch your crops grow or your animals grow or whatever. You know, between jobs of building the next building in the small town you're in. We're also meant to nap at noon Central America's. Got it. Right,
Dave: We're also supposed to, meant to be able to see the night sky without light pollution, but
Travis I. Sivart: right. And also,
Dave: yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: to sleep when the sun goes down, wake up at 2:00 AM for two hours with a candle, and then go back to sleep and wake up at crack of dawn. That's
Dave: Yeah.
Travis I. Sivart: cycle. [:Dave: Anxious sometimes. That's why I got coffee.
Travis I. Sivart: It's, I'm out of all my drinks, by the way. We've been having such a great conversation. I'm, I'm like, oh wait, there's, hold on. There's a little more.
Dave: I'm outta drinks too. I have
Travis I. Sivart: a picture.
Dave: finished. I got an espresso done. I got a whole water finished.
Travis I. Sivart: Anyhow, we'll keep talking until
Dave: Eh,
Travis I. Sivart: are done and then we'll just go do whatever we gotta do. I got a book to write.
Dave: no, no, a hundred percent. Um, I wanted to, uh, touch on before we wrap up, um, I know that you do, you do podcasting? Um, I know that you're a writer. I. Um, where can these wonderful people find your podcast? Um, be able to find your books and the, the stuff that you've, uh, thrown out into this known universe,
Travis I. Sivart: [:Dave: this matrix of our reality.
Travis I. Sivart: travis cvar.com, last name, same as the first. But in reverse. So travis siart.com. I'm gonna give you a free book. I'm gonna give you a link to my podcast. You could watch 'em with video or sound or whatever. I live stream my writing and on most social medias, I'm Travis size Siart.
So whatever your favorite is, I'm probably there. The more you poke the bear, the more he is gonna growl at you. So let me know if you're out there and I'm gonna harass you a little bit. All in the best of ways though. So
Dave: Of course. Awesome. Listen, man, um, I have to say it's been an absolute pleasure. I, I think we've touched on
Travis I. Sivart: everything.
Dave: lot of different things. Everything. We, we let our inner nerd and geek out in its full entirety, and I think our minds are thankful.
Travis I. Sivart: It's a beautiful time there, Dave. I appreciate you having me on, chilling with me and letting
Dave: My pleasure.
ivart: God. Did we ramble in [:Dave: It was awesome. Uh, and to all your wonderful people out here, uh, if you wanna check out more of the pod, um, you can find us at loss in the Groove Pod, um, everywhere. In anywhere. We're on Rumble and we're on Substack. And, um, you wanna check out more Travis? You can check him on his website. And of course, I'm gonna leave links below.
Uh, so with that, I'm gonna catch y'all on the next one. All right. Peace out. Yeah.
