#241 - Interview with documentary film maker Neil Laird

Dave: Logical, understanding and like perspective and like being able to clearly see the story for what it is, instead of just like, well it has this, well, it has that. Why does it have this? Why does it, I'm like, listen, you can't nitpick. You gotta be able to like listen to the person, hear what they have to create and then, you know, like reciprocate.

You know what I mean? Like, you know, you're not the one that wrote the story,

Neil Laird: I learned that when I was asking people to read my book, you know, beta readers or just early reviews, some people know how to look at something in, in that hole. Like this is what Neil Laer has decided to write. Others want to give you notes on only what they would've written or the things that, why didn't you talk more about Ramsey?

it an agenda, it's just that [: 00:01:00

Dave: It is also the fact that about history. Okay? Where, when, even, for example, even in your case where it's a fiction, fictional story and there's a lot of history that's based and baked within it, a lot of these figures existed in a time that we don't exist any, we don't live in it anymore, okay?

We don't live in a, in a, in a place where we're in the middle of Africa, smack dab between the the Red Sea the Mediterranean, and there's an empire that's ruled by kings that think they're Gods, and people literally worship them, like as if they're, God. This kind of stuff doesn't exist anymore, man.

We got the freaking

Neil Laird: We talked, we're going back, you know, thousands of years too. So those of us who are looking for, looking for historical veracity, it's like, look, we're all trying to do the best here and we can talk about this, I dunno if you wanna do a setup or whatever, but you know, this is some of the stuff we'll get into.

But clearly [: 00:02:00

Dave: It is

Neil Laird: It's okay to make some stuff up.

Dave: nothing, nothing needs to be perfect. But you know what also kind of works in its own enemy, and I'll give you a great example of this. You have, because I know you make documentaries, you have those, uh, people that make those documentaries on like bizarre ideas. You know, even going as far as like the dinosaurs or even alien life on other planets, and a lot of this you need fiction because dinosaurs were around like 60 million years ago.

We have somewhat of some fossils. We have

Neil Laird: Yeah.

you get those people that go [: 00:03:00

Neil Laird: You, you, you have to decide what story you're telling. And if you wanna create a total fiction of like why aliens came here and both the pyramids, whatever you, you're already in a word of fantasy. So you tell the audience's all supposition. But if you are telling a story about the rise of the New Kingdom and you start creating stories of what they thought and what they said.

And it's a very difficult thing. And not particularly in my TV business where we have to footnote everything. But again, you know, I, I worked on shows like how the Universe works or um, ancient mysteries and stuff. Well, you said we don't know what happened in the, in the next Cosmo Over. You have to tell a narrative for people to get hooked.

ave to script it. It doesn't [: 00:04:00

So you have to blend the two sometimes seamlessly, sometimes not.

Dave: Yeah, and also there are times in those instances where those things do come up to light. Like for example, Nero, this, this, the city of Nero. Like we, we thought it was a myth for years until it was actually proven to be a real place. Now did, can you theorize that? Okay. We should have known that it was a real place from the beginning. No, because based on the information, like you said, based on scripted, the data, the archeological artifacts, the, the books and things that were written around that time. That's where we came to a logical conclusion. We didn't have any hard fact evidence until we actually found the place

y, well, there's a lost city [: 00:05:00

But you could still find some evidence of that. So therefore, I think people can kind of take those concepts too far. But then conversely, you have something like Quebec Le Tepe, which, you know, like Nero is a place where people never thought that. People always assumed up until the nineties, that the rise of cities, the rise of culture, as we know it started about six or 7,000, uh, BC because there was no evidence to prove otherwise.

we have to recognize we are [: 00:06:00

And there's, and that's just by digging around the dirt. At the end of the day, archeology is digging around the dirt. And if you happen to dig over here instead of here, you may miss that beautiful portal that takes you to the center of the earth, you know, or the lost city that collapsed 10,000 years ago because you dug three meters too far away.

Dave: Well, there's

Neil Laird: it's fascinating. It's still mystery,

Dave: it is, it is very much a mystery, but also in the sense we are. Religion has played a very key role of controlling narratives. Okay. I come from a Jewish background and I know that within Judaism there is this concept of weird, the world is only 6,000 years old. It

Neil Laird: right?

Dave: made in seven days, like very bare bones, materialistic, set in stone ideology that if we look at the facts, there's nothing really that's backing that, backing it, like,

de by DNA and, and by carbon [: 00:07:00

Dave: Right. And also the idea of seven days, first off, by the way, like in a lot of different cultures, the idea of days you take even, for example, we were talking about this when we did the pre-call, like with Mayan and Aztec culture, view of days were cycles. So what does that mean? Does that mean 24 hours? Does it mean that it was a thousand years? Does it mean it was a billion years? Like that's what I'm saying. It's like we're, you can go according to, there's a lot of writing and historical, like for example, even um, diagrams, hieroglyphics and, and stone tablets. A lot of different things that have writing on 'em. But there still needs to be some level of, okay, is there a structure? Is there something maybe like in the ground itself, like we were talking about, like being able to check out the geo, like within geo with the rocks itself to see the different layers of the earth. There's all of these different elements.

You can't just [: 00:08:00

Neil Laird: But then, you know, other people that are, that are kind of coming out elsewhere and they're using different. Expertise and different technologies and they're seeing something very different. One of the last shows I did is Science Channel, before I left the Network a few years ago, was a great show about the, um, when humans first came to the Americas.

And it's a fascinating story 'cause it's very much about not just when humans came to the bearing Strait, but also about how the paleontology community didn't like to have their paradigm shifted in any way. So people were finding evidence that humans came tens of thousands of years earlier. They, they found evidence of them in, in the North America and Central America.

ecame, these people who dare [: 00:09:00

Have you seen that? And, and,

Dave: Yeah, yeah.

Neil Laird: and they were able to carbonate that because it was like they had underneath human footprints following mastodons or other large beast, there was organic material that had rotted, they were stamping on weeds 'cause like a swamp. So they could carbonate that, that those weeds and say, oh my God, I forget the date 30,000 years ago or something.

Shifted it by tens of thousands of years. So why? I'm very wary of the pseudo scientists that come out and they brazenly claim that, oh, just because, you know, the scientists can't prove this, that I'm gonna create a total fictional account on what I want to believe. I think those people was just lazy and they're, and they're, and they're chasing their own sort of book deals and things.

g tens of thousands of years [: 00:10:00

Dave: it's, it, it's so intricate and it's so complex and there are so many different layers of what civilization and our story as people are on this planet. I, something that I really find very interesting is we're, when you look at, for example, our makeup as human beings in many, many senses, we are chemical creatures.

art of Egyptian culture. And [: 00:11:00

Neil Laird: Right.

Dave: Bizarre, bizarre visions.

Neil Laird: Yeah. Okay. Right, right.

Dave: So there are a lot of conclusions that can come up exactly where this is coming from, but like we said from the very beginning is keep in mind where these people were living, what type of conditions they were under, what they were exposed to. That in itself could tell a lot about why they were saying these things.

Neil Laird: I what

Dave: Why they were saying these things. Why, why were they telling these stories?

ed limited in terms of like, [: 00:12:00

So they're still living in a bubble. They're, they, they, they, they really can focus very strongly on certain things about the world and other things they don't see yet, because it took thousands of years of science to catch up with them and answer those questions, why the sky is blue, whatever, you know, you can't answer that until you get to atmospheric science in the, in the 20th century, those kind of things.

So those are fascinating when you look at their mythologies and things. 'cause quite often that is a way, like any religion to explain away the unexplained. To me, that's what religion is. It's like, why on earth do we suffer? Why on earth does there rain? Why on earth does it, you know. Did, did, did Grandma die the way she did?

major reason for religion to [: 00:13:00

There has to be a point of this.

Dave: Oh God, I do not wanna be that person. Like that thing has big enough teeth as it is. Oof. All I'm

Neil Laird: be over

Dave: basically to be the crusher.

Neil Laird: bite.

Dave: Yeah, and I mean, it's just, it's just, again, it's bizarre to even fathom, okay, we live such a cushioned life in the sense we are, we don't have any understanding of predators anymore. Like, I mean, we are the predators. Okay? We kill every living, breathing thing in front of us, but I. Being alive in a time where you, in front of a tiger, you're not coming out. Like the chances of you getting eaten by a tiger is a lot higher than getting killed

said to go to their world as [: 00:14:00

We just went through COV. No one could figure out how to figure that out. That hit us sideways. So there are still enemies out there. We haven't tamed, but in terms of the great beasts, we've been killing them off for so long. There's a lot left than there were

Dave: But know what, you bring up something that's, that's really interesting is that like even the smallest of things have become our greatest enemy we're, was, uh, a a lot of people know this. Mosquitoes are responsible for killing more humans than any other living thing on this

Neil Laird: Malaria. Yeah.

Dave: Yeah. And. They're tiny.

nk that's just an example of [: 00:15:00

Neil Laird: Keep in mind, you know, we didn't know what a germ was until like, you know, the 18 hundreds. They could chart the stars and know exactly when Venus was, was, was circling Mars or whatever.

Dave: a shower was in the 18

Neil Laird: They were shot while they,

Dave: sake.

Neil Laird: you know, they're eating shit off the ground and they were getting sick, you know, from like not washing their potatoes in the ground.

So it's like, wow, that seems such an obvious thing now. But we went through most of history not understanding the germs kill 'cause you couldn't see 'em. You can see this saber tooth tiger.

hat's a stupid thing to say. [: 00:16:00

Neil Laird: Anyone who says that is their head of their ass. Yeah.

Dave: it's constantly changing and I think it's okay to science to say, Hey, we made a mistake five years ago. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Listen, religious, religion, religion denies doing that. And guess where they are. know, like, I think science and archeology should be the set example.

Neil Laird: Well, they may try to be,

Dave: wrong,

Neil Laird: the good ones. And because I work in that community with my films, obviously I'm not a scientist, an archeologist, but I've made so many films about them and I.

Dave: are working around those people. You, you working around those people to be able to make these tours.

Neil Laird: I mean, they have agenda only they, they have to publish and they have to get funded. So like anybody else, they gotta hustle for the job. But they know that. And any, any archeologist I talk to knows that what we found is our theory and it has to be peer reviewed. But we, we, for the moment, this is all we know, a scientist and what looks at what a bone they found of an early human ancestor.

think they know that in time [: 00:17:00

Dave: Until the day they figure out how the, how the hell did alligators and crocodiles manage to survive as long as sharks. I wanna be the first one to find out. Okay. I'm just saying 'cause

Neil Laird: You need that time machine baby, and a lot of time on your hands to watch evolution.

s the testament of time, the [: 00:18:00

Neil Laird: Some things just, and you, you just built, you think about a, I mean, again, this is now, this is me like going off script 'cause I, I am no biologist, but you look at like how a crocodile is shaped, it's pretty simple. It's a long tube. It needs to, it does exactly what it needs to do. You know, it's got big teeth to eat, it's got a long tube to digest and then it just ships it out in the end and a big, so it doesn't really need to be improved.

It. It's not really an evolutionary dead end. You know, it, it pretty much works. I'm sure there's much more complicated reasons for why it survived than that, but in a way it's like It's pretty well designed already.

ve survived the testament of [: 00:19:00

Neil Laird: Yeah.

Dave: than any

Neil Laird: It wasn't like, go on, sorry.

Dave: nature, look at the species and creatures that manipulate in the environment and see how they survive, they flourish single one of them.

Neil Laird: Yeah. I mean, look, we had the brain, so we are able to, we, yeah, we are able to take over and ride rough shot over other culture, other creatures and things where like a three toed sloth, the laziest most, you know, craven critter on, it's been around for millions of years. It doesn't need to evolve. It doesn't need to build cities or, or motorways or, or, or kill other, other creatures to survive.

It's just fucking hanging in a tree and then eventually it falls out of it and dies. And they've been doing that for billions of years.

Dave: [: 00:20:00

Neil Laird: Oh, that's brilliant. Yeah.

Dave: it's gonna be a sloth. Of course it's gonna be a sloth.

Neil Laird: I, I, I just had to get my license renewed in like downtown Brooklyn and it's like, oh, it's like everyone behind the, the, the Bulletproof Glass is a sloth. It's so obvious where they, somebody who wrote that clearly had just gotten their driver license renewed too.

Dave: It's like when you think about a sloth in the real world environment. Okay. Any predator's, just like is a quick meal. I mean, you don't even have to chase it. You know, you could take a

Neil Laird: No,

Dave: you could swing

Neil Laird: no.

Dave: back and forth. Hit the flies

Neil Laird: It's just doing it thing, and again, it's, I dunno how long it's been around. I'm sure. A long ass time. And it, it's, I don't think it's evolving, you know.

's such an interesting thing [: 00:21:00

And then as time goes on, they either mix more, they just kind of stayed the same,

Neil Laird: And when you try to tell the narrative of it, of course there's huge gaps of sometimes billions of years. So it's impossible to connect dots of a large. I remember one of the most,

Dave: that even mean?

Neil Laird: one of the most exciting experience,

Dave: It's crazy.

Neil Laird: see, I, I did a show years ago for History Channel called Evolve. And we, we looked at the evolution of sight, the evolution of, um, hearing and whatever else.

n northern Canada called the [: 00:22:00

And it was, it was actually, you know, you still had some of the uh, the skin on it because I guess it was frozen, the permafrost for so long. But if you Google it ol or whatever, and it is a missing link in that it still has gills. It still looks like a fish, but it's a fish that can crawl on land, which is one of the big questions.

How did we go from fish to mammals to reptiles? Well, here's one early example that someone actually found it.

Dave: Oh my. Wait, I'm trying to, I'm trying to,

Neil Laird: I dunno how to.

Dave: try, whoa. What, what

Neil Laird: You got it

Dave: this is. Yeah. This is very interesting.

. It's a, it's a, and and it [: 00:23:00

Dave: you know, it reminds me though of like, um, like crocodiles and alligators, particularly lizards,

Neil Laird: yeah. Those are so reptiles they could come up and breathe this thing. Apparently, if I recall, you had to Google it and look more still was a fish that could live under water, but it had legs. So somehow it came on land for other reasons as well. So again, it takes us back to we, um, the absence of evidence doesn't prove anything else.

And it, here's an example of it, out of a needle in a haystack, they actually found a creature that explains one of the biggest evolutionary questions. In our, in our plan is history. How did we go from the water to the sea? That may not just be this creature, we don't know when it falls on the scale, but here is a creature that did both though at some point, some, some critter who was swimming around decided, you know, let's get some legs and let's go and eat the berries and avoid the sharks and the, and the, uh, and the mastodons, or not the mastodon, what do you call the, uh, big sharks?

The, [: 00:24:00

Dave: went extinct because they were too big for their, uh, for them to eat. Kid you not, that's,

Neil Laird: I'm not sure why.

Dave: hilarious thing about ev.

Neil Laird: I'm not sure if, if they got,

Dave: of their size.

Neil Laird: they came after, actually, they came much after that. The K two explosion, the dinosaurs. Right. They were more, I forget why they died out, but they were after the whole, uh, asteroid event.

a scientist and he was kind [: 00:25:00

Neil Laird: Right about

Dave: lot of

Neil Laird: temperature and

Dave: creatures that

Neil Laird: the oxygen, all the other things that are in the water too. It's not just water itself, as you say. Yeah. And again, that's not my, that's not my area of expertise. Um, but yeah, certainly like our waters were perfect. It was

Dave: we're just having

Neil Laird: the golden,

Dave: We're just having fun.

Neil Laird: yeah.

Dave: Yeah,

Neil Laird: that?

and your perspective. Right? [: 00:26:00

Neil Laird: Mm-hmm.

Dave: a different narrative that we, we haven't seen in a very long

Neil Laird: And it's a different angle too. And I've made over a thousand hours of tv, and so much of it has been history, archeology, and history mystery shows. I mean, that's my bailiwick and the, the golden recipe for that really is, yeah. I mean, if you look at like, let's say the archeology of Troy, the ancient city of Troy or whatever.

's changed the narrative and [: 00:27:00

But could this really have been the same street that Achilles walked on? You know, that alone shifts it. And you can talk about. Homer in a different way. You can talk about how roads were built by the Romans and as Roman Road versus Trojan Roads. It's a way to kind of get in and make an old story feel fresh.

It's the questions you ask and the roads you lead down, lead people down, no pun intended. And that's why these shows can usually feel fresh. 'cause you're taking sometimes the same batch of information and you're just telling it in a different way or a different character. You're following around. So I've done Titanic, I've done a dozen Titanic shows.

w did he keep him fresh is a [: 00:28:00

All that stuff hasn't changed, but it feels fresh merely because you shifted your POV.

Dave: Yeah, I think that's, I think that's honestly like brilliant because oh my God, I have a friend of mine and we were going back and forth with Titanic and it's hilarious because like recently they were able to do that full scan of the ship and they were able to answer some of questions that were been asked for ready for a long time. So this is one of those conspiracies and I, I love, I love this stuff because some of it's like just, you gotta understand some information where the Titanic was actually the Olympic, which we know is not true. But um,

Neil Laird: This is, this is the theory.

Dave: this is the

Neil Laird: Okay.

at it was the Olympic and it [: 00:29:00

Neil Laird: Right?

Dave: So, okay. And then the other thing is like, you understand that people in the 19 hundreds were arrogant as shit? Like they, they clearly had an, an engineer that told them that you have compartments that are not fully sealed. Yeah, that's fine, but it's not, it's not gonna be pretty enough. So don't put those doors. So

Neil Laird: Mm-hmm.

Dave: there's a lot there, there's a lot of stupidity that came into this to begin with,

Neil Laird: And money

Dave: not just

Neil Laird: and, and cost saving. Nothing to change there, right? That would cost too much. So let's ignore that bit.

Dave: Yeah, so [: 00:30:00

Neil Laird: Well, and here's the, here's, you know, there's a, just to use that as an example. Here's the big problem with the conspiracy theorist. I remember I talked to a, a friend years ago that said, you know, he was convinced that, uh, the earth was flat and I was able to send him to like three or four different places to prove in seconds why

Dave: flat,

Neil Laird: he said, there's no, there's no proof of it.

e money, they were gonna kill: 1500

he Olympics was around until [: 00:31:00

I did a show on that. And they're actually diving it this summer and bringing up the bell. Um, and then the, you know, that, and then the, the, yeah, I'm a member of the Explorers Club, but a bunch of guys there are gonna finally dive it. Someone actually bought the ship 'cause it's still in Greek waters and the Greeks have not allowed them to go and finally dive it.

But this year, because it's now, and they're gonna go get the bell and they're gonna get like the SOS um, you think that still exists? And obviously they, they won't get any information about the Titanic, but they can see what it looks like. 'cause the, uh, whatever that system is, the Morse code or whatever it was, and the Titanic was destroyed, they don't have that.

So it's gonna be a big thing in a couple months when they go down. But again, it's like all this information is out there. So you can very easily disprove so many of these theories just by doing a little research on your own. But people like to choose these conspiracies 'cause it flies in the face of what's being told.

d in narrative. They like to [: 00:32:00

All you had to do is Google and you'd find on your own or just talk to some people. The information is out there if you really care to.

Dave: It is. It is. And you know what, on, on the flip side to that, also, you have, again, in that realm of we with even conspiracy theories, right? You have. MK Ultra is a great example of this, or Operation Paperclip. We're the, these are actual real events. It is true that Americans did bring in Nazi scientists and doctors from Germany,

Neil Laird: Mm-hmm.

Dave: they helped construct a lot of stuff that we use today.

had a project MK Ultra where [: 00:33:00

We have

Neil Laird: Right.

Dave: trails. We know

Neil Laird: yeah. I would never say the government. I mean, listen, we also know this, you, we, you know, I was born in the sixties, so I was a little too young for it, but I remember my parents watching the Watergate scandal unfold. It's like there's an eyeopener. Oh, here's our government. Prove being proved.

They're lying to us, they're sneaking around, and the cover up, and all that stuff. So there's no reason why we should trust the government. Totally on their own. We should definitely have an independent thinking. So bully for people who question the authority in that regard. But if the information is out there independent of the government and you still claim a conspiracy, then the joke's on you,

you look the fool.

e, like you said, being able [: 00:34:00

Neil Laird: Mm-hmm.

Dave: of them have been proven to be true. And again, that kind of comes into being able to tell the story through a new lens.

Neil Laird: Yeah.

Dave: we can now ask those new questions. We can be able to look at things a little bit more deeper.

Neil Laird: And it gets trickier. I'm sorry, I.

Dave: no, but I think you can honestly answer this perfectly. Like, just because it's on Facebook doesn't mean it's true. That's all I'm gonna say.

Neil Laird: Yeah, and then and some and has, it has to be the kind of information you're looking at.

Dave: Right,

Neil Laird: you're showing me some ridiculous video of some guy who says, here's proof that the NASA moon was the NASA fake, the moon landing, and some guy with no credentials who's just being smug and jokey and manipulating footage, then you have to question the source.

of the scripts I wrote, um, [: 00:35:00

And if you know who Caligula was, he was an emperor, you know, in the early Julio clad Dynasty in the first century. And you know, he's considered with Nero the worst emperor he was. He was.

Dave: was that me if I'm wrong? That's the Roman Empire or the Greek Empire? Roman Empire. Okay.

Neil Laird: The reputation of the craziest, he kind of set the agenda for all crazy Caesar afterwards, he made his horse a member of the Senate. Apparently he sent his, his, uh, troops to go battle the sea when it, when it was angry. He had to take the swords and attack the waves. You know, he killed his sister. He was, he was just getting, he was out there for four years and he went on in history as a mad emperor, and he probably was.

a way he was, he was, he was [: 00:36:00

. So the only history we have: 2000

So now today it is quote unquote proven fact that these, these emperors, who I'm sure one great guy, they were still frigging emperors, but. It's taken as fact really, because one source cannot be DoubleCheck, you know? So I understand in that case, or we only have one source, you have to be kind of questioned about what it is.

ve.org and find obituaries in: 1901

Dave: there's,

Neil Laird: no excuse for lazy thinking.

ve: much information online. [: 00:37:00

Neil Laird: Yeah,

Dave: much information

Neil Laird: and it's not all bs. A lot of it is, you know, you, you have to go in and question everything and see exactly if there's a narrative being built, but then you gotta have independent thinking. So, you know, I mean, everybody does. We all have our narrative. You wanna answer if, if, if you go off a theory, we're looking just to prove that theory.

We're gonna cherry pick what we find, what we don't find.

when they went to the moon in: 1969

Neil Laird: A lot of it's our own ignorance and like, well since we can't do it, they could do it.

Dave: I.

Neil Laird: And look, I can take it even further in my, what? The pyramids, you know, everybody says the pyramids, there's no way. And they could have gotten it so exact. You can't take a credit card between the boulders and the pyramids, which mean it had to been made by, you know, some other culture that came down.

No, the Egyptians were just super frigging smart and focused. And they were engineers and they follow the stars and they follow the patterns. And why do we have to disbelieve, why do we get dismiss out of hand that a group of people just 'cause it was, you know, four and a half thousand years ago, couldn't possibly build something.

ramids because we A, because [: 00:40:00

From Malfa Centara. No, it was just a collective minds of the people at the time who came together for whatever reason, God or belief for bringing a culture together and created something magnificent. So it's no, it's no different than what the Germans were doing in a way. It's like, it's focus and brilliance and a lot of it comes down our own ignorance.

Thinking that, well, since I can't pull it off, neither could you.

is electromagnetism. We know [: 00:41:00

Neil Laird: Yeah.

Dave: they

Neil Laird: They're not gonna say, let's wait for electricity exists so we can create irrigation or aqueducts. They'll find some other way to do it, you know, that has, that uses leans into what they have at their disposal

Dave: The Romans did that too. I mean, they created aqueducts and they created their own technologies without the lack of using electricity.

Neil Laird: and we, we, you know, we survived a long time, so we don't need it.

electricity as an accident, [: 00:42:00

Neil Laird: Well, the one, one of the things I have learned over and over again, one of the things I like to bring in my books too, and I could say time travel, is we definitely have this arrogant attitude that history is a trajectory that, you know, people before us were stupider than us. They're on Neanderthals.

Until we created xx and X. They didn't know what germs were like, how dumb they are. But they also could create amazing aqueducts and they could irrigate fields in India for thousands of years. You know, they just did. So just because they didn't have one thing doesn't mean they have anything else, but, but history does not go like this.

ning them, and we're kind of [: 00:43:00

So I never believed that. I think you could go, you could take a guy from, you know, ancient Greece and plop him down at Harvard and teach him an education, and he'd be just as smart if not smarter than us. Just because they came, he's been dead for 4,000 years or whatever, does not mean that they were any way inferior.

So, I don't, I always hate the idea. It's like, well, they're too primitive to have created X. How do you know that? How do you know how they thought? Just because they were living in, you know, in, in stone buildings and Hadn created glass and fortunes. Yet, you know, that does not mean that they were primitive people.

elium and different types of [: 00:44:00

Neil Laird: Yeah.

Dave: It's just a, a different lens of human civilization is

Neil Laird: And what we need versus what they need. Yeah.

Dave: exactly.

Neil Laird: our needs are not theirs. We need planes and we need technology and mechanics, but they did need it for thousands of years. So to them, a world without an iPhone seems like an empty cool place. But you go back 30 years ago and no one had one. So we often forget that we do live in our time and our place.

ers in the book are gay, and [: 00:45:00

And I did that because I'm gay and I wanted to talk, you know, give some, make an Indiana Jones like character just happens to be gay as well. But also too, what I've learned traveling and all that part of the world is in many ways the ancient culture was far more enlightened with same-sex love than it is now.

So while we think that they are more primitive people in terms of love and acceptance and tolerance, in many ways it was far more open then. And I kept seeing examples that over and over again in the holy land, even in Israel and in and in Egypt and in in, in Badda and all these places you would think would be corrupt and today are very, very oppressive.

Back then, they didn't give a toss who you loved. They didn't give a toss what your relationship was. And that was forgotten. That was changed with Christianity, other things. So once again. Culture does not go up. It goes secular. We give and we take, we may, we may pop up here and run some great technology, but we go downhill somewhere else.

Dave: We do. [: 00:46:00

Neil Laird: Exactly. Yeah.

Dave: But at the same time, we forget of how in the ancient cultures and how it didn't need to be, you know, the, the talk on every single freaking social media post. You know, it didn't need to be the, the, the golden pillar at the goddamn table. You know, it's just something that people had, you know, that there was just a part of their life. We tend to forget that we as humans, when we cultivate, when we come together as a community. It's not about the color of our skin.

ty or our, you know, lack or [: 00:47:00

And I was telling you this before, this is something I loved about even looking at the Greek pottery. It's not that they're just showing nudity. It's like as you go around those VAEs, a story. You know, like you see the old days where you used to roll this film, and then you see the horse kind of rolling around. yeah, yeah, yeah. So they would kind of do this with this vessel, and even if there maybe was gay depictions, it's like, it's just, it wasn't the main thing. It's just you're going around the

Neil Laird: It wasn't an issue back then. It was, it was just, it was just, you know, the way it was. I mean, we think there's a word for gay in ancient Egypt. You know, people don't talk about it, but they probably didn't talk about it because there was nothing to talk about.

Dave: Nothing to talk about.

my characters travel through [: 00:48:00

Dave: Mm-hmm.

Neil Laird: on a, one of my favorite tombs in Egypt, one of my favorite places in Sakara, which is um, north of Giza.

Brothers. And when they found: 1964

They are there on the fresco's nose to nose, which is the Egyptian form of kissing. They're holding hands, they're going to banquets together. They had little small wives in the background, which probably means. They culturally they had to have kids and, and, you know, wives and things, but this clearly is, is, is two gay men who went off to eternity together.

ropolis in the shadow of, of [: 00:49:00

acceptance because no one in: 1964

One theorist, contended, they were Siamese twins and that's why they were so close to one another. They literally could not walk away from each other. They were born nose to nose, touching nose to nose, and they're bending over backwards to, to show their homophobia. So again, history doesn't always march forward.

Dave: No. And you know, like even though we, we've been talking about ancient history, the, the harsh reality, especially in the community is the fact that what hit the hardest was the AIDS pandemic.

Neil Laird: Yeah.

Dave: I mean, that's pretty [: 00:50:00

Neil Laird: Yeah. I was a,

Dave: fact that I can, I'll be honest with you, the, the amount of people that I've run into that are now in their fifties and sixties that remind me of people that they remembered my age back then, that they just kept on gonna funerals every single week,

Neil Laird: yeah.

Dave: day without failure. We don't understand. But like that small little hiccup that happened in the late seventies throughout the eighties and nineties, that destroyed nearly, I, don't even know how much years of

Neil Laird: A generation.

Dave: in that generations just gone.

Neil Laird: Did a.

Dave: And that's what, that's 40 years ago.

kills, you know, millions of [: 00:51:00

And you go to Africa, you see it even worse 'cause they're not on the medications that we can now afford here. Um, and we forget about it. You know, I went, I did a show years ago, it's actually a weight loss show, which is very strange. I was trying to do reality tv, so I branched one weight loss show and I quickly went back to doing, I'm gonna do factual.

This is not my cup of tea, but it was, it was interesting. It was about, it was about a gay guy and Chelsea and this happy husband and he was very heavy set and, um. One of the reasons that he started eating weight. He says, uh, I'll show you when you come out to my house for Thanksgiving. We had a big scene there where like, we're trying to create, you know, will he eat baby carrots or will he go for the chocolate cake?

You know, we try to create the drama in the shows. It was, I was, I, it's like I'm thinking I have a master's of fine arts and here I am trying to get him to, you know, I'm trying to make drama out of, will he eat the carrots? You? Yeah. Or will he eat the chocolate cake? This is for all,

Dave: You gotta zoom into

beautiful men, [: 00:52:00

Look at them. They're all gorgeous, beautiful men, and they all, they all died skinny and emaciated. And so I went to so many funerals and saw so many skinny people when I was in the early eighties and I saw a skinny man. I knew they were dying. So I've been feeding my face ever since. As long as I'm fat, I'm healthy.

That's the psychological scar he got from having to live through it. And he was a survivor. He didn't have HIV and he survived. But again, I remember looking in that wall, the wall of beauty, all these beautiful young men, the prime of their lives that were 30 years gone when I saw them on the wall.

Luckily, you know, I, I was born a generation too late for that, or I might have joined them. You know, it's like, it's all about timing.

lly four, four years. 'cause [: 00:53:00

We got planes, we've got all this technology, but yet what do we got? We got a communicate a community that's devastated with boxes and categories and labels. was bought in Staples. Okay. Not Office Depot guaranteed. there's no direction anymore. It's like, I don't understand. It's like we, we as people, don't, we wanna be able to have a life.

uried together nose to nose. [: 00:54:00

Neil Laird: I think. I wasn't even out yet when all the AIDS stuff, but I remember on the news, you know, they couldn't even say the word aids, couldn't say the word gay, you know, it was like Reagan wouldn't even acknowledge them 'cause it was just a gay disease. No one really cared at the time. It's like, wow, that's only within my lifetime.

So yes, we made great strides. I'm married to my husband, who I've been with for 25 years, and we got married as soon as it became legal in New York and I think 13 or 11 or something. And I never thought that would happen, but I also really feel like we won't get this down a political road. But I also feel a lot of that is being eroded right now with the current situation's happening.

ng of history. What we think [: 00:55:00

It often goes several steps back again. And it's not just sexuality, it's all manner of things. In terms of, okay, again, COVID is a perfect example. We thought we could, we could conquer anything and here's this disease that came out of nowhere that, that, that blindsided us. And it really makes me angry when I, I got a western, my, I was born in Western Pennsylvania, which is now a very, very sort of conservative and very Trumpy and things like that, where in New York, because of my bubble.

And I remember going back and being in a bar, visiting my parents in my small town of Greensburg, Pennsylvania. And there was some guys at the bar that's saying that COVID was all conspiracy and never existed. It was all, no one died of it. I hear 'em in downtown Brooklyn, across the street from Brooklyn Hospital.

. So in, in early: 2020

They kept entire families, dead people on ice. So don't you tell me it was bullshit. Boy did I snap in those guys at that bar. Your ignorance, just because you live in some place that didn't see it, does not mean it didn't exist. And just 'cause you don't wanna get a jab and get your vaccine, that's your choice.

But stay away from me and don't say as a conspiracy. 'cause I can prove in a flash of an eye that I know people who died of it. You know, it's like, it makes me angry that. People's conspiracy sometimes ride a rough shot, other people's experiences, and that's just, that's just, you know, selfish and insensitive.

not gonna lie, he had health [: 00:57:00

Okay? For political or skin tone or all this bullshit, it's like, this is ridiculous, man. It's like, what is destroying us is the fact that we can't sit down and have a goddamn count conversation regardless of our differences.

Neil Laird: Exactly. Yeah. That's the greatest. That's the greatest disappointment. We can't talk anymore.

Dave: no,

gry, everybody's fragmented. [: 00:58:00

All these years of evolution and and culture, and we're still having this conversation, so it's like, are we any different than Caligula? Probably not.

mission to talk to different [: 00:59:00

Neil Laird: Yeah.

Dave: me is just the most way of not just making the puzzle, but figuring out why all those pieces go where they go and

Neil Laird: It's trying to find common ground. It's trying to find common ground. It's not just about sexuality. It's not just about politics. It's not just about, you know, do you live in this part of town or that part of town? It's. I, when I was a films teacher, I went to film school and I taught 1 0 1 classes, and I always showed the times of Harvey Milk, the documentary, um, that came out.

And I reckon everybody see it because, you know, milk on it. And there's a wonderful sequence, remember where he like gets the teamsters on his side because nobody else can get like Coors Beers taken out of the bars in San Francisco. But he went and he listened to them. And these are a bunch of white dudes who are probably homophobic and, and they've never met a gay guy in their life.

in and he convinces them to, [: 01:00:00

It just seems like it's almost impossible to listen to anybody right now and it's, you know, even the days of Obama seems so long ago already. I feel like you've come so far from someone being able to listen to both sides of the, of the story. Yeah.

Dave: it's, it's also something like I. I

Neil Laird: Yeah.

unities and stories of being [: 01:01:00

Neil Laird: And I mentioned each of,

Dave: pieces.

Neil Laird: I shoot there a lot. But yeah, it's all the world and we don't know, there's so many stories that are lost. We have no idea what happened in the Indu Valley or ancient China, whatever. 'cause that those stories are written down as people all forgotten. Most what we know about people is sort of tombs, which is what they want to the world to be like as opposed to what it is really like.

, why do you decide to write [: 01:02:00

I wanted to not see just a bunch of bleach, dead ruins in the desert with one or two hieroglyphics on it or, or some broken papyrus. I wanna bring that world to life and get people excited about what it looked like. Then I wanted to live in that world and I wanna take a film crew back there and and parody what TV is like and the media is like by taking them back.

I blended those two worlds, but it was also liberating because I could, I guess I say earlier, me, it make some stuff up, but still based on fact. My second book, primetime Pompeii, is all about the eruption of Pompei in 79. And again, I made so many documentaries there, but I did so much research. So even though it's about a film crew trying to win an Emmy by going back and making a documentary with drones over Vesuvius.

that everything is based on [: 01:03:00

I guess that was my point. Trust. It's hard to believe the narrator, the narrative anymore. You have to everyone. Everyone questions? Everybody. Motives.

Dave: Oh yeah. every and everything has to have a reason, you know, there, there, there has to be a reason as to why this is in there and a reason why this hasn't to be in there. And something I've, I've even realized, especially when I, because I, I have a tendency to write, I write my own music, you just sometimes have to get gritty.

ood. Like, come on. Not, not [: 01:04:00

Neil Laird: Right?

Dave: very, nah, nah. You do, you know, I, I, I think also something that people tend to forget is one of the ways that we advance and we create new things is kind of doing really bad stuff like. Really, really bad stuff. Like, you know, advancements in medical treatments and stuff. Like, there's a lot of experimentation and a lot of people

Neil Laird: Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Dave: Yeah. Like a lot of people

Neil Laird: Yes. And usually it's the people on the fringes. You know, my husband is black, so he has a very different idea of the government, you know. What they were doing, you know, all, all the experiments they had on the black skin in the, in the 17, 18, and 19 hundreds. So it's like he has more suspicion about government and medicine than I do because he has more, you know, experiences in the past in terms of what happened to them.

ess. But a lot of, there's a [: 01:05:00

Dave: no, and I, I, I think you said this earlier, is like being able to have an open mind, you know? Um. The truth is like, yeah, there's gonna be crap and shit that's gonna exist around you all the time, right? But you can't let that control your life. You know, you know that it exists and it's a reality and it's a part of it.

So you know what things to be careful to look out for, but you don't let that control you. You know, that that's, that's, that's dangerous water's right there.

Neil Laird: Which is the reason why you love superheroes, and I love time travel and stuff. We need escapism. We need to get away from it sometimes and just way we can't change it. So let's have a bit of fun. Let, let let you know. Let's go create some stuff and have an adventure, which is why I just love fiction and I.

ryteller too, because it, it [: 01:06:00

Neil Laird: Would, you know, archeologists would kill. I say, I know I'm gonna die and, and and, and be, you know, evaporated. But I still would give it up just so I could see there's people by live and breathe that ruins of Palm Bay. They would give up their life just to see it. And, and the TV people, I mean, you know, that's why I make a film crew.

You know, one of the things that I think works in terms of living, I wrote another book that all, my first book, which I never published, was about ancient Egypt. And it all took place in ancient Egypt, and I loved it. But some friends said it was a bit too hermetic. They couldn't visualize, they couldn't relate to the people, they couldn't see it like somebody living in that world.

hey describe it as you would [: 01:07:00

We can see it like they see it and hopefully it transports people and it creates the we in case the, the, the world building that allows you as a 21st century denizen to be transported back with them and see it through their eyes.

Dave: Have you, have you seen the, the videos have been flying around where I, I think somebody used AI to create where imagining like Moses holding up a phone then like recording him right after the bush and then having to talk to, I

Neil Laird: I haven't seen that.

get that idea you're talking [: 01:08:00

Neil Laird: It wasn't, it wasn't like the Old Testament described. They didn't, you know, the Old Testament doesn't say, Moses stood about five foot eight, had a long flowy white beard, walked with a slight limp. They weren't concerned about that stuff. So we make it up. Jesus. We didn't know Jesus. You know Jesus. He was from Judea, so he probably didn't look like this white guy from Scandinavia that we made him kind of look like today.

written by the winner. So if [: 01:09:00

So it's happenstance too. There's this, um, one of my favorite accidental discoveries of, of, uh, all time is a cash of letters. Again, Egypt. Have Egypt on the brain. Forgive me, and I'll make this a short story, but the middle tingle,

Dave: I love Egypt.

Neil Laird: okay. Um, the middle tinkle of Egypt is, is, is about 800 year period. No really knows too much about, but.

One of the greatest, uh, evidence we have of what life was like, was not from a tomb or a temple, but it was from a cache of letters that a father had sent to his son. That through happenstance of history, got saved because a pillar fell on it. And what everything else about that culture disappeared. These two little squabbling men back and forth, their letters are preserved to tell us more than we know about kings and queens and all.

phis up north, and he's left [: 01:10:00

So what probably happened was the son went to the, uh. The mailbox or whatever letters were delivered at the time, they had mail service back then and he read them and he tucked them under this little temple that he was reading. And he never, we never got the response to the course 'cause he sent them off to Memphis.

But we get these more angry and angry letters from the father saying, how come you just, you treated my new wife with such disrespect. And then it went, what happened to my wife? Why is she not there? Where did she go? So you have this squabble, 4,000 years old of these two forgotten people. You wouldn't know anything about it.

, all got swept away through [: 01:11:00

And that pretty much is. Yeah, exactly. And that again, that is true just to an accident of history that survive and all the huge temples and o they built are long gone. I just love that happenstance of history. Like Agatha Christie wrote a novel based on, on it, like I think it was called Death Comes at the End and, and it is, it all takes place.

Dick these's characters and, and it is about the ex-wife being, the new wife being killed and who did it, you know, it becomes that famous, but it's, that's history. It's just some things survive and ths, some things we think will survive forever disappear.

ime case for this car and the: 1950

like, you know, letters from: 3000

Dave: We, we don't realize, but like this idea of ance is such a rudimentary return in the sense we are, what are you supposed to preserve? You're supposed to preserve nature taking over like it does. Like you, you leave a house alone for five, six years. There's no house. I mean,

Neil Laird: yeah.

like, where the hell are all [: 01:13:00

Well, the trees ate up the freaking houses,

Neil Laird: Things are reclaimed very, I mean, the earth is going to win. And, and what's fascinating is the bitch that re remain a bitch that don't, you know, because you know, they could, there was this great book, a parody book that came out think in the eighties called Mysteries the Hotel or something. Do you remember this book?

Dave: okay? Mm-hmm.

Neil Laird: And yeah. What it was was, it was, it was written as a scientist in like the 22nd century or something, as if it was an archeological report. And he had found what he thought was a temple, this great temple to the 20th century culture, which just was wiped out by an atomic bomb. And they finally found some archeological evidence of what it was like.

And what it was is a motel six. And they're going through and all these archeologists are looking at all this shit in this crappy motel. And I remember the best bit was they find a toilet seat. They say, well this must be the crown for the king. This must have been what went around him in a necklace that proved he was the king and his throne must be this strange porcelain thing here.

So it was making fun of the [: 01:14:00

It's like archeology doesn't get it wrong all the time.

Dave: They do. And you know what, again, you're just, you're going off of just what you have. And you know what think way I would wanna tie this in is that one thing I've noticed, especially like even in your own work, it's like, it's not just being able to tell the story with all the information, being able to have the narrative and have the script and be able to get all those pieces together. It's understanding, just like that example, it's, we're looking at this as if it's a temple this king's seat and you know, necklace that he's wearing, even though it's a motel six, we don't have any more information.

Laird: we got. That's all we [: 01:15:00

Dave: that's all we got.

Neil Laird: Yeah. And people always wanna, uh, import great importance to thing and must be, you know, I don't know how many times if you find some sort of strange figure and they say it was religious motive, you know, it was, it was a mother goddess figure for all we know one have been porn, but, but they call you, they call it, you know, whether a mother goddess figure, I don't know.

It could have just been some, a blow up doll.

Dave: And I mean, you know, again, like even in our own modern, modern culture, there are so many different things that are a part of our past. Even for example, in New York that they don't exist anymore. We, we just have like quote unquote historical evidence from photos and people's, like Kansas City, you know, studio 57, you know, Stonewall in, which technically still exists, but it's not really the same that it

Neil Laird: Yeah, not the same, right? Not, yeah. Now like couples falls, go there and get the T-shirt.

Dave: yeah. Yeah. But the gift shop,

Neil Laird: Yeah, [: 01:16:00

Dave: shop in: 1969

Neil Laird: I don't think there was,

n't know that that existed in: 1969

Neil Laird: right, because it's otherwise, you know, I wasn't around them. But otherwise just a regular hidden gay bar that was trying to be anonymous as opposed to stand out. And if Stonewall hadn't happened there, it would've been disappeared. You know, when it wouldn't have forgotten, like all the other bars or whatever, and you walked down Christopher Street.

Now I remember going there as, as a gay kid in the eighties and being doled by all the. Gay bars and, and porn shops and bathhouses on Christopher Street and they're all gone now. Now it's all like Mark Jacobs and, you know, all this kind of like high-end, um, bag stores or whatever. And there's, there's history of that.

but things get swept away so [: 01:17:00

Thank God we're an age now where things are electronically recorded forever and people are writing about it 'cause we are leaving much more evidence for obvious reasons. But the technology we have, and we were even 50, 60, a hundred years ago where things just kind of disappeared because, you know, Charlie Chaplin movies rotted away because they left them in a, in a canister somewhere in Jersey and it got wet and it's gone forever.

And that's just a hundred years ago. So, you know, let's hope that some of this stuff survives.

many ways, like our history [: 01:18:00

Neil Laird: they,

Dave: big.

Neil Laird: if they, if they base our life on like, you know, whatever they see on the reruns of Gilligan's Island that are coming through the, uh,

Dave: What is this?

Neil Laird: well, that's a, let's just blow them up. They're

Dave: or Green Acres.

Neil Laird: exactly right. What a primitive planet.

Dave: Hillbillies. What's this?

Neil Laird: Thanks a while for these waves to travel. So they're just getting like click comes from the sixties just now?

Dave: I think though, if they get I love Lucy, we should be okay because they'll be

Neil Laird: Yeah. As long as.

Dave: Yeah. All right. We're okay.

Neil Laird: Yeah, we, we'll, we'll, we'll get, we'll get through

Dave: were thought we were

Neil Laird: it. It's gotta wait until the, the, uh, you know, the Sopranos and Game of Thrones shows up, whatever. It's gotta get to the seventies and kind of get through all the cheesy, I magennis. Just sit tight. You'll get there. Just, you know.

Dave: They'll land, you know, they'll be like, you know, they'll come down there and they're like, alright, where's Hawaii 5.0?

Neil Laird: Right.

Dave: This is a [: 01:19:00

Neil Laird: Yeah. Well that show, oh, that show was years ago that they're real people. Right. That's why I love a Galaxy quest. People think like they, the real deal.

Dave: no, no,

Neil Laird: All right.

Dave: It's

Neil Laird: I might have, I'm, might have to wrap it up. I have a few things to do, but we did talk for nine minutes.

Dave: percent man. Before we, um, wrap up, I wanted to just ask you, uh, we mentioned your book. Um, I know that you also have a bunch of documentaries. You have a bunch, um, different, um, TV networks. Where can these people find all of your stuff in

Neil Laird: Well, my books are, um, independently publishing and 'em on Amazon. So if you Google Neil Laird or I call 'em the Primetime Traveler Series, there's two out now Primetime Travelers. The Primetime Pompe, Amazon has them both. Um, they're my distributor. And then I'm writing Primetime Troy right now, the third one.

ably, or Discovery or BBC or [: 01:20:00

first to, you know, go into a: 2000

You know, all that kind of stuff is in there. So my website in neil aire.com would take you there.

Dave: Love that man. And Danielle, I, I have to say I really appreciate you taking the time to coming out and like literally laying out all the history, even going back 8,000 years, man. 'cause that's,

Neil Laird: We.

Dave: It's a lot. We did. Um, and if anybody out there, um, you could find the podcast at loss of the Crew pod everywhere.

substack though, there'll be [: 01:21:00