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Man on the Street:
There is a guy who lives around this area.
Neil:
Yeah.
Man on the Street:
I mean, I always see him in the area. I don't know where he lives, but he dresses like a duck, like he has a big costume.
Neil:
He dresses up as a duck.
Man on the Street:
Yeah, you don't see his face.
Neil:
Why would someone do that? Why would someone dress up as a duck?
Man on the Street:
Just for fun, I guess.
Neil:
Man, I'm sitting here at the corner of Bathurst and College. He said there's a guy who walks around this neighborhood dressed up as a duck. And I know that's true because, I don't know, three months ago?
Six months ago.
Lewis:
It was probably somewhere between that.
Neil:
I made this coffee shop right behind me. I'm sitting on an orange bench. I'm leaning against a glass wall.
Up to my right is a sign that says El Rancho Restaurant. That's not this place. Behind me is a black sans-serif, Ariel Nero-type font with an orange shadow that says MANIC with the word COFFEE in an all-caps Areil with wide kerning underneath COFFEE. And I was sitting here. I was up inside. Tony was serving me the barista.
And he yells out all of a sudden, there's that duck. And I look out the window. And you are on the other side of the street in orange spandex, orange Chuck Taylors, a full, gigantic duck costume.
I'm like, what is this? What's going on? You come across the street.
I run out with my friend Ateqah. She knows you. She's seen you on social media.
Lewis! She says, hey, Lewis. Hi, Lewis.
And I run up to him like, oh, who are you? What are you doing? And you're just, what did you do?
Lewis:
I quacked at you.
Neil:
You just refused to talk to me.
Lewis:
No, I refused to use English words with you. Because? Because I was performing.
And I stay in character while I'm performing, almost in every circumstance I come into.
Neil:
How long is the performance?
Lewis:
How long was?
Neil:
How long is it? Are you walking around for like hours here?
Lewis:
It depends on my bladder. As soon as you have to pee, the show's over. When I get the feeling, I start to head home.
Neil:
So like, there's a viral media sensation in Toronto right now, covered on CBC, BlogTO. I know the Toronto Star was just taking pictures of you here, where you've done this, you've made this installation of like, you've taken over a streetcar track. Streetcar's going by now.
You can hear that. It says 506 Carlton on it. Red ribbons on the top and bottom, white ribbons in the middle.
Toronto Transit Commission. And you took over this station. So everyone's following you.
What's going, like, what is this? What are you doing? What is, what is Lewis Mallard?
Lewis:
Lewis is me. And it's something I created to get myself back into the art world full time. I always wanted to be an artist, ever since I could remember wanting to be anything.
And I'm just trying to figure out how to do it.
Neil:
Ever since I wanted to be anything. So go back for me. I don't know your age.
I don't know your real name. Your age and your real name will not be shared today. Secret identities are interesting.
And I heard you say before I hit record, secrets are good. So now go back in time. When, where approximately did you come into being?
Where did you start to exist?
Lewis:
Like my hometown?
Neil:
Yeah.
Neil:
I could have just said that.
Lewis:
St. Catharines.
Neil:
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.
Lewis:
Correct.
Neil:
And I'm gonna guess sometime in the 70s.
Lewis:
Late 70s.
Neil:
Okay. And what was St. Catharines in the 70s like? And what kind of family were you born into?
Lewis:
Well, I don't have any memories from the 70s cause I was too young.
And I would say I remember early 80s and onwards. And what was it like? It was, I think I didn't have any idea what it was really like, because I was so insulated from the real world until I could start wandering away from home probably about the age of eight.
When I had a little bit of freedom to roam.
Neil:
Yeah. Freedom to roam. Something we seem to be losing, but which of course we seem aware that we're losing.
So we're kind of trying to get it back. What was your home life like? Brothers, sisters?
Lewis:
My sister, one sister. My parents were together until I think I was like about 12 years old is when they separated.
But I spent a lot of time alone playing by myself and trying to get my parents' attention and not ever getting it.
Neil:
Why not?
Lewis:
Cause they were, were they fighting? No. And they weren't fighting.
They were just not super engaged, I guess. Not extremely interested in what I was doing.
Neil:
Hands-off approach to parenting.
Lewis:
Very hands-off.
Neil:
Not uncommon.
Lewis:
I spent a lot of time.
Neil:
The opposite of helicopter, we'll call it a flyby.
Lewis:
Yeah. Yeah. From what I was told about when I was too young to remember, my nursery was a closet and I spent a lot of time alone in there.
And when they would come and check in on me, I would throw shit from my diaper at them because I was probably angry of being left alone for so long.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
And yeah, I was, I find it, I mean, of course I don't remember doing that, but I think that it's in my personality to do that.
Neil:
Wow. A shit flinger at a young age. Not because of being interrupted in his artistic pursuits, but rather because it's just like, dude, what are you doing?
And I get that from my youngest kid now. Like, you know, that whole like classic scenario of like the dog kind of facing the corner when you come home because you didn't take it for the walk with you or whatever. Like my youngest kid is like constantly perturbed about the lack of attention and it's a heartbreaking thing as a parent too.
Lewis:
I can imagine.
Neil:
Yeah. Yeah.
So the history, are they, are the Canadian? Are you from Canadian lineage? I don't want to guess much. And I won't, I don't know if I should describe your features for people or not. Cause I want to keep your identity secret, which it is.
Lewis:
Yeah. Well, let's just say, I don't know how long my family's been in Canada and I've never looked into, you know, anybody older than my grandparents. And I know very little about them, but my family's been here for, I think probably three or four, maybe five generations.
Neil:
Wow. Five generations.
Lewis:
That's a long time. I've never heard of, I didn't remember when I heard about anybody immigrating here. It would have been 1800s, I imagine.
Neil:
Wow. 1800s.
Lewis:
And, but my, my parents met.
Neil:
From where?
Lewis:
England and Scotland.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
I'm kind of.
Neil:
Yeah. You can do it.
Lewis:
I've never done a blood test or anything, but this is what I've been told.
Neil:
Some Viking in there, maybe.
Lewis:
I don't know about that, maybe. But yeah, they met in Hamilton and they were both raised in Hamilton and then moved to St. Catharines to start a family.
Neil:
Right, right, right. Okay. So we're, I want to describe the scene a little bit more for people so they can kind of picture us.
A woman's walking by with green hair, green arms, a skull, headscarf wrapped around her waist and kind of paintball colored tights on. There's another woman by in a blue dress with about three purses walking by, very hairy legs and black flip flops. We're in a pretty urban part of the city here.
There is a TTB trading company with Chinese characters on it across the street with bars in the windows. There's a pub and eatery. There's a, I don't know what that's like.
That looks like a condemned building. I mean, there's just like spray painted signs all over the cover of it. I don't know. Maybe it's a nightclub.
Lewis:
It is a nightclub.
Neil:
Oh, it's a nightclub. Nightclubs look like condemned buildings during the day.
Lewis:
Yeah.
A lot of them do, for sure. Yeah. I've never actually seen it open because I don't stay up that late.
Neil:
Right. Yeah. You're more of a daytime person. On your Instagram, you describe yourself as an interdimensional folk artist.
Lewis:
Well, a psychedelic folk artist.
Neil:
Oh, it says psychedelic folk artist.
Lewis:
It does.
Neil:
Did I make up the interdimensional part or is that an old iteration I saw?
Lewis:
No, no, no. It is the active description.
Neil:
Psychedelic folk artist.
Lewis:
Interdimensional.
Neil:
Oh, it just says interdimensional.
Lewis:
Correct.
Neil:
So why did you say psychedelic folk artist?
Lewis:
Because you left that part out.
Neil:
Oh, interdimensional psychedelic folk artist.
Lewis:
We got there.
Neil:
We got...
Oh my gosh. We're standing... So we're facing College Street.
There's one lane in front of us. Then there's three lanes. And between the remaining three lanes, there's a giant, long, 100 foot, 100 foot concrete flat oval with giant erect glass rectangles, which I think in the old days used to call bus shelters, but they don't shelter you from much, a metal railing.
And this is what's known as a streetcar stop. At the corner of the streetcar stop is an orange triangle, like a triangular prism, and like a polygon, a square polygon. You have, in broad daylight, repainted this to look like your Lewis Mallard face with a bright yellow bill, a bright green head as the male Mallard, the Drake Mallard has, and a blue eye with the black pupil.
You did this in the middle of the day. The post of it went viral. It says, Toronto legend has his own streetcar stop now.
You were just interviewed by the Toronto Star here, up on there in costume. What, what, what, where did this come from? You're painting, you're painting subway stations now?
What's going on here?
Lewis:
Well, I...
Neil:
Is this part of your interdimensionality?
Lewis:
It's, yeah, part of my multidisciplinary, I've always liked street art, since I, you know, first realized it was a thing in my teenage years.
But I never felt comfortable participating in it in the kind of stereotypical graffiti style that you see most of the time.
Neil:
And... Most street art is graffiti.
Lewis:
Well, yes, I would say it is of that style. The vast majority that you see.
Neil:
Somebody's just yelling, give me my money. That's okay, we're not gonna give him his money.
Lewis:
Just a local guy. Just a local guy.
That guy actually, and I told you this before, but it wasn't on that particular man. I see him very often in the neighborhood.
Neil:
In the costume.
Lewis:
While I'm in the costume.
Neil:
And what does he yell at you?
Lewis:
He is convinced that I am a government psy-op.
That I'm part of CSIS.
Neil:
I shouldn't laugh. He's probably got major schizophrenia.
Lewis:
It's not just him, he's got a few buddies.
I think they're all in the same group home in the neighborhood. And they're all convinced that I am a government psy-op. And they'll yell it at me.
They don't chase me, or they're not aggressive with me, but they'll yell at me from across the street and single me out. And I think it's hilarious.
Neil:
Do they ever physically touch you?
Lewis:
No, no.
Neil:
They don't punch you or anything?
Lewis:
No, no, no.
Neil:
Yeah, because if I saw a government psy-op dressed as a duck in my neighborhood. If you really believed it was one? If I really believed it was one, I wouldn't just let him walk away.
That's interesting about the schizophrenics, not to label, but in this neighborhood, they don't ever hurt you. Like I've walked around the streets a lot here and it can be quite scary for newcomers, but I've never had anyone ever come up to me or hit me or anything like that.
Lewis:
No, I did hear a rumor like the other day here in the cafe though that there was one of the local guys was starting to take swings at people.
Neil:
Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
And I really, that caught my attention.
I was like, oh, that's an escalation.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
And I mean, he was a big man too. I just about didn't, nobody would want him taking swings at anybody.
Neil:
No, nobody would want that. So we've got a few seeds planted here. We've got, we've got Lewis Mallard, age kind of five, six, seven, not ignored, but you know, flinging shit from his diaper when left alone for long periods of time in the closet.
Lewis:
I think I was younger than five.
Neil:
We've got Lewis Mallard, based on my math, somewhere in his forties, interdimensional psychedelic folk artist sitting on an orange bench inside of Manic Coffee at College and Bathurst in downtown Toronto with planes and streetcars and delivery trucks and bikes and people. This is a busy, there's people with UHN tags going by right now. There are nurses probably at the Toronto Western Hospital.
There's a guy walking in with this Narky Puppy t-shirt, tight black pants and black boots. Maybe he played a show last night. There's a couple of people walking by, look like high school students with their orange juices and their lattes.
You know, there's a lot going on in this corner. You've decorated the corner, both with your performance art and you're now leaving marks on the city, physical marks.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
Which some people would call illegal.
Lewis:
Yes, technically.
Neil:
Just do these two together for me, you know?
Lewis:
Well, I see it as vandalism, of course, but I'm trying to do it, I wanted to clean the thing up.
Neil:
Oh, I wanted to clean the thing up.
Lewis:
Well, it was, it seemed like there must've been an accident here a while ago because you could see two different kinds of concrete and repairs that have been done to the cement barrier.
Neil:
I thought you were going to say blood or something.
Lewis:
No, no, no. I'm sure they washed the blood away. But accidents for sure, because it's like- Some kind of accident.
Neil:
It's a tough corner here.
Lewis:
Yes. And I'm sure there'll be another accident, you know, at some point in the future.
Neil:
Yeah. There's always bikes and cars yelling at each other.
Lewis:
The paint was falling off. It had been poorly graffitied.
Neil:
Oh, poorly graffitied? How do you judge that?
Lewis:
Sloppily, carelessly.
Neil:
What if that person's calling themselves a four title name on Instagram too?
Lewis:
I mean, it's fine. You can do whatever they want.
Neil:
But what makes you say sloppy?
Lewis:
Well, in my mind, it looked like it was rushed and it was not, there was no thought, real thought put into it on placement. And it seemed like somebody who was afraid of being caught and trying to do it quickly and get away when my approach is a little bit different. I prefer to operate in broad daylight, turn it into a little bit of a performance and just act like I am supposed to be doing it.
I like to get dressed up in coveralls and wear a high visibility reflective gear.
Neil:
Oh my gosh. So you look like you've been licensed to do this. You're wearing high.
Lewis:
I bring pylons.
Neil:
Oh, you bring pylons. You keep pylons. Where do you get pylons? Amazon?
Lewis:
Pylons, no.
You just find them on the street sometimes. You know, there's a lot of pylons in construction sites.
Neil:
Yeah. Yeah.
Lewis:
And sometimes they go missing.
Neil:
Right, right, right. Okay. Another form of vandalism, but it's all in contribution of improving the decorative quality of this corner, which I shall say, and we're going to link to the exact post, obviously, at Lewis Mallard, L-E-W-I-S-M-A-L-L-A-R-D is kind of your online home. That's an Instagram handle, Lewis Mallard. I get the mallard because you're a duck.
Why Lewis? Although it seems totally appropriate for a duck to be called Lewis.
Lewis:
I guess. I got the name from the biggest inspiration behind the whole project, which was one of my all-time favorite artists named Maude Lewis.
Neil:
Oh, Maude Lewis.
Lewis:
A Canadian folk artist from Nova Scotia.
Neil:
How do you define folk?
Lewis:
How do I?
Neil:
You've got folk in your name too. What is folk? F-O-L-K, what even is that?
Lewis:
Well, to me, when I first discovered folk art, I didn't really appreciate it because I was really stuck in this mentality as a teenager that art had to be as like high skill as possible. I spent a lot of time as a teenager developing my drawing ability and trying to copy reality as close as I could.
Neil:
Right, it has to be realistic.
Lewis:
Yeah, and this is how I valued things. And I didn't understand how something that was naively done was good. It wasn't until I got a little older and
Neil:
Is that a word that you would attach to the word folk, is naive?
Lewis:
Well, to me, folk art is kind of done by people who just aren't real artists. I think everybody
Neil:
Is it music? Is it visual? Visual, is it?
Lewis:
Yeah, well, there's folk music, there's folk art, there's
Neil:
What is folk art? Like, if I go to a folk art festival, what do I see on the tables?
Lewis:
Oh, I've never been to one, so I wouldn't know.
I think I'm specifically just talking about the art and folk art done by people who aren't necessarily trained.
Neil:
Oh, that's what it means. It's something akin to amateur.
Lewis:
Yeah, in a way. And so I think there's a lot of lovely magic that happens when people don't completely understand what they're looking at. And then depict it in the way that they are able.
Neil:
I think there's a lot of magic when people don't fully understand what they're looking at. Is that what you said?
Lewis:
Yeah, it was along that line.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay.
Lewis:
And so when I first discovered Maude Lewis's artwork, I was in Halifax visiting my sister when she was living out there, and I went into the museum there, and she had a very large retrospective show. And there was a little house in the middle of the gallery. It was a replica of a house that she lived in with her husband.
And it was so small, and it blew my mind that, first of all, somebody lived in there. Two people lived in there.
Neil:
What city was this?
Lewis:
This was Halifax.
Neil:
Halifax, Nova Scotia, a maritime region of Canada, kind of above Maine for U.S. geography people.
Lewis:
Yeah, and I think that she lived outside of the main city.
If I remember correctly, watching some of the footage from when she was alive, they were very poor. And she saw a reasonable amount of success in her lifetime. Refused to sell her paintings for a lot of money.
And just, she lived her art right up until the end. She couldn't help it. It was like she surrounded herself with her art.
I really admired her dedication to being an artist. It's like she didn't have a choice. She was a crippled and very small person.
Neil:
Small?
Lewis:
Yeah, she was a very tiny person.
Neil:
Very tiny person?
Lewis:
Yeah. Maybe five foot tall or shorter. I think I was just, I was in art college at the time, and I was just trying to broaden my horizons.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lewis:
To expose myself to different things.
Neil:
Oh, okay. So, what's Lewis made out of? Paper mache?
Lewis:
Largely paper mache.
Neil:
You've got like chicken wire in there?
Lewis:
No, that was the original. When I didn't know how to make a costume, and I made my very first one, I used chicken wire and paper mache.
And I didn't know how to do it, but I knew I could do it. And so I just threw it together in whatever way I thought it would work. And hoped that if it struck a chord with people, that I would have an opportunity to make a 2.0 and a 3.0. And improve upon the structure, the way it looked.
Neil:
And you began doing this in 2021?
Lewis:
In 2019, September.
Neil:
2019, in Hamilton, Ontario.
Lewis:
In Hamilton, yes.
Neil:
Where you were living at the time.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
Okay. So five years ago, you'd make a paper mache duck. You start walking around.
How'd you know? You said, if it struck a nerve, if it was popular, I would do a 2.0, 3.0. Well, how'd you know it did? What happened then?
Lewis:
Well, the pandemic happened. I launched the project at Supercrawl in September, 2019.
I was living in my studio right downtown Hamilton. I'd been thinking about this project for about a year, year and a half. About re-entering the art world full-time.
I was living in a city that I knew very well, but I did not know many people. I'd only ever visited family there. I had not taken up residence in Hamilton for a while.
I had not been there for any length of time to build a friends or community. And I wanted to stay and start my career in Hamilton again. I thought it was a smarter choice than trying to come into Toronto and compete with the way more artists here, people who try harder.
And this is more competition. And at Hamilton, I thought that, although it's a growing city and there's a lot of artists there that- It's historically known as like a steel town, like they made Stelco Steel.
Neil:
It was gentrifying for a long time. Now it's probably an up and coming artists, 500,000 person type of town, two hours or an hour and a half away from Toronto. Just a bit of, is that right?
Lewis:
Yeah, more or less.
Neil:
Please correct it.
Lewis:
I think that it, well, it's 60 kilometers roughly. Depending on traffic, it could be an hour or two.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah.
Lewis:
And it's certainly a city that is lifting itself up. A lot of people are moving there from Toronto, from, well, other places as well.
But it seems like the largest influx of people into Hamilton are Torontonians who can afford to buy a house there and have sold their house or their condo in Toronto for a lot of money and then move to Hamilton. And I thought, I knew people, many people who were doing this exact thing right as I was starting this project.
Neil:
Doing this exact thing?
Lewis:
Moving to Hamilton from Toronto.
Neil:
Okay, okay, not the art project.
Lewis:
No, no.
Neil:
Okay.
Lewis:
No, and having made, being able to afford something in Hamilton that they could never afford in Toronto.
Neil:
Right, right, right.
Lewis:
And so I thought, I understand the demographic of people that are moving here.
And I wanted to try to talk to them first, to build, this was my target demographic for audience was people who were in their 30s to 40s and who I would relate to. And I also knew about Hamilton that people who move there, they buy in really quick. They fall in love with the city.
There's a lot of charming things about the city. And before you know it, they've gone to the first Hamilton Tiger-Cats game and they're saying, Oskie-wee-wee.
Neil:
Oskie-wee-wee?
Lewis:
It's like a Tiger-Cats thing.
Neil:
Oh, okay. Yeah, Oskie-wee-wee.
Lewis:
That's a Canadian football league team. Yeah, I think it's some kind of chant they do at the game. I have been to a Tiger-Cats game, but only as a child.
Neil:
Hopefully not problematic.
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
We have no idea what it means.
Lewis:
I don't think so.
Neil:
Okay, okay.
Lewis:
I think if it was problematic- It would've canceled in two years.
Yes, it would've been gone by now. Yeah, no, it's synonymous.
Neil:
It changed a few sports teams' names up here.
Lewis:
Yeah, no, right now there's, I think the Tiger-Cats are okay. And so I knew people fall in love with Hamilton quick. And so I thought, if I can be part of that, then that will give me a bit of a boost early on.
I wanted to try to find the quickest way to developing an audience so that I could make a living off my art.
Neil:
Wow. I wanted to find the quickest way to develop an audience so that I can make a living off my art.
Neil:
Yeah.
Neil:
It wasn't like a pure artistic motive.
Lewis:
Well, it was also that.
Neil:
I'm not saying, I'm not trying to take that away from you. I'm just saying, you're using words like target market.
Lewis:
Well, unfortunately, I think the world we live in has forced me to think this way. I would rather not think this way. I would rather create purely for the sake of creating and not think too much about competing with other artists.
I don't like to compete with other artists, but I feel like I'm forced to if I want to make a meaningful living at something I'm passionate about. And so for me, Lewis was
Neil:
It's a good point. If you don't make it sustainable financially, then it's therefore not sustainable.
Lewis:
Yeah, well, it can be sustainable in that you do it just because you're passionate about it and you love to make things.
Neil:
The ghost in red beard has really given us the stare down here.
Lewis:
Well, this isn't a common thing that people see walking down the street.
Neil:
No, but he's giving us the angry look. He's walking away now, so I think we're okay. You're gonna have to protect me here.
Lewis:
You'll be okay.
Neil:
If you don't make it sustainable financially, it's not sustainable. If it's not sustainable, you're not practicing your art. So you're just, part of what you're pulling in here, and I've heard you talk in other interviews saying that your life goal is to be able to not look at prices on the grocery store.
I've heard you say that in multiple interviews.
Lewis:
Yeah, I mean, I would love to.
Neil:
So we're not talking like you're trying to make a billion dollars here. Your life goal is to not look at prices at the grocery store.
Lewis:
No, I want to make it, I don't want to be greedy. I want to be able to provide for a good life for myself and in conjunction with what my wife does and makes, and I want to be able
Neil:
An opera singer, I read. We're gonna get to that later.
Lewis:
An incredibly talented woman.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
And I would love to be able to treat the people in my life that I love and admire really well.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
And share anything I get in excess, I would love to share and contribute to making this world a better place.
Neil:
Wow, wow, I knew I liked you from the beginning. So now it's been five years. Are you looking at the prices on the groceries now?
Lewis:
Absolutely.
Neil:
Okay, so we're not at that point yet.
Lewis:
No, we're nearing.
Neil:
Five years as a full-time artist, as Lewis Mallard. Yes. You've got, I think as of this morning, 8,120 followers on Instagram.
Lewis:
Okay.
Neil:
I mean, I think that's what I checked this morning. Am I right?
Lewis:
I think it's somewhere around there.
Neil:
Maybe a bit higher.
Lewis:
It's always give or take five.
Neil:
Oh, you go up about five a day?
Lewis:
Well, I'd say it depends. Lately, it's been between five and 20 a day.
Neil:
Oh, wow. All the press is helping.
Lewis:
The legwork I'm putting in is helping.
Neil:
I see the sly grin on your face with the legwork. You're literally walking around the city for hours a day dressed as a duck. You're indulging people that want to take selfies.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
People are asking you for autographs. You quack at people. You dance.
When I saw you for the first time, you did a jump for me.
Lewis:
Nobody's ever asked me for an autograph. Actually, not true. I did autograph a beer can once inside the costume for somebody.
That was a very odd request, but I did it.
Neil:
Well, you had a beer named after you.
Lewis:
I did.
Neil:
See, that's another thing. So in Hamilton, a craft brewery has what, like the Lewis Mallard Ale?
Lewis:
Well, they did for a very short time, yes.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah.
You're so humble, though. Every time, I keep trying to lodge you with compliments and you keep trying to say, well, not every day. I don't work that hard.
Lewis:
Well, I mean-
Neil:
Yes, you do. I've seen you work it. You're painting a streetcar stop. How long does it take you to paint that?
Lewis:
Roughly three hours.
Neil:
In the coveralls, you have to get the pylons. You have to pilfer the pylons. That's the first step.
Lewis:
Pilfer the pylons.
Neil:
You gotta get an orange vest. Not many people have one of those handy.
Lewis:
You can buy them at the dollar store. They're real cheap. I'm resourceful.
Neil:
You're making merchandise. You're working hard at this.
Lewis:
Yeah, yes.
Neil:
You're working hard at this.
Lewis:
I want to build a
Neil:
Acknowledge your work. It's good.
Lewis:
No, I agree that I work hard, but I don't go out in the costume every day. I go out in the costume maybe twice a week at the most, weather permitting. Yeah, there's like kind of specific things.
Neil:
Okay, considering how rarely you're going out, you get a lot of press. You get a lot. Every time you go out, there's tons of pictures coming online.
People are, you know.
Lewis:
I'm trying here.
Neil:
Yeah, you're working hard.
Lewis:
Advertising is expensive. Yeah.
Neil:
So we've got two, I think, starting to come into focus photos of you right now, which is a wonderful way to do it, which I think is, you know, we've got this kid, fifth generation, from English guys in kind of small town, Ontario. Parents are kind of not that there. You're throwing shit from the closet when they open the door.
I mean, I'm really fixed on that image, as you can tell. Now we've got this early forties, married to an opera singer, Lewis Mallard today, who is doing graffiti and performance art, inter-dimensional psychedelic folk artist. We haven't got to the psychedelic part.
And somewhere in between the two is like this 30 to 35 years of growing up from then to now. And I have a pile of three books here. You were really kind enough to give us three formative books.
Is this one that I'm tapping the first one that came into the picture here?
Lewis:
Yeah, it's the first book I ever remember owning.
Neil:
Wow, the first book I remember owning. So if you don't mind, what I'll do for the audience here now is I will spend a minute giving them a background of the book, and then I'll ask you to tell us about your relationship with us. And I don't know if you don't mind, but if you could take us from the shit-flicking child up into this book, I wanna understand what your life looked like, the good, the bad, the ugly, the highs, the lows, like what was happening here?
This book is wonderful. I was really, really, I really loved reading it. So interesting and different.
The book is called Lu Pan, L-U space P-A-N, in brackets, The Carpenter's Apprentice by Demi Hitz, H-I-T-Z or Z, originally published in 1978 by Prentice Hall. The cover is pure red. I mean, mine that I found online is literally pure red.
It's just red.
Lewis:
It's just like the copy I had
Neil:
Oh, really? So it's just like a red linen thin hardcover. There it is hitting the microphone so you know what the book sounds like. But the cover online is fifth century BC, China, a woman holding an ax in one hand, a piece of lumber in the other with a big red and gold pagoda behind her. I say woman, but that's actually probably not a woman.
That's probably Lu Pan.
Lewis:
I think that is. I think that is Lu Pan.
Neil:
That would probably not be a woman then. Lu Pan not being a woman. I believe that the gender is not revealed, but I believe that's the case.
Demi Hitz is currently 82 years old. Did you know that?
Lewis:
I didn't know that. But I actually, I learned, I didn't even realize that Demi Hitz was the author until I was searching for this book to send you a link to it because I no longer have the copy I did when I was a child. I gave it to my nephew.
Oh, that's nice. And hoped that he would find something in it that I found in it. So I didn't realize what I loved about this book until I was older.
Neil:
Yeah, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You didn't realize what you loved about the book until, oh, that's interesting. So Demi Hitz, quickly, she's created over a hundred books for children.
Most of them are adaptations of Chinese folk tales, fables and nursery rhymes, interestingly. Lu Pan, the carpenter's apprentice, sets the tone for most of her later work. It's part biography, part adapted folk tale.
The book tells the story of a young apprentice growing up in China in the fifth century BC and how he ultimately becomes a master carpenter and one of China's greatest architects and inventors. So now we've got a real story weaved in. File this one Dewey Decimal under 694.092 for technology slash building slash carpentry semi-colon stair building. That is the exact Dewey Decimal category. That is a strange category. Carpenting and stair building.
You got to squish those together if you're Melville Dewey. Lewis, tell us about your relationship with Lu Pan, the carpenter's apprentice by Demi Hitz.
Lewis:
Well, this book was given to me by my grandmother and I only remember that because it's written in the book.
Neil:
I love inscriptions.
Lewis:
Yeah.
And I was obsessed with this book as a kid. From before I could read to, I would just look at the photo, the drawings. I love the drawings.
They're very delicate and detailed. Black and white line drawings. And then once I could read
Neil:
Demi does those as well, by the way.
Lewis:
I believe so, yes.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah. And- Delicate line drawings is a great way to put it.
Lewis:
Yeah, I think.
Neil:
Kind of like the Giving Tree a little bit type sort of style.
I mean, some of- I'm not sure what that is. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. I'm just noticing on some of the drawings, but also the pagodas, the lumber, the horses, the pastoral fields, the people in long flowing robes.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Delicate line drawings.
Lewis:
But once I could read well enough to understand what the story was about, I just loved the idea that this little kid had, was an apprentice to this master and was being- This knowledge was being passed down and I always wanted this in my life.
And I didn't really realize how much I wanted this until I think I was on my way through high school. And I was searching for this kind of person in my life that would take me under their wing and teach me everything they know. Because I, and I'm sure it has something to do with my relationship with my father, who never answered any real questions I had.
I would ask him why. I was a very curious kid and the answer was always like, because I told you so. Or something along those lines.
So if I ever wanted to know anything, I had to go find out for myself what it was. And my parents were not necessarily very artistic. They didn't, my father had a minor passion for carpentry when I was a child and, but he stopped doing that.
Neil:
What did your parents do?
Lewis:
My father was a salesman. He sold mechanical, industrial tools, that kind of stuff.
My mother always worked for the government. She was a, she worked at the post office when I was really young and then worked for the land registry office.
Neil:
She answered your questions?
Lewis:
A little bit. I think I
Neil:
Seems like you were kind of like ignored almost. I don't want to put words in your mouth.
Lewis:
Yeah, no, no, I feel like very much. Yeah, I was told to go, you know, go away, go play somewhere else.
Neil:
Did they not want to have kids?
Lewis:
I honestly don't know. I think that there was a short time in their lives that they were in love and happy and I never saw that.
Neil:
And so when your grandmother gave you this book, was this before your parents got divorced?
Lewis:
Oh yeah.
Neil:
They got divorced at 12. The memories, the earliest memories in the closet were probably like three, four, five. Take us through the seven years.
Lewis:
I don't remember, I don't even remember being in the closet.
I do remember having my own bedroom in the same house. I think the reason that my sister and I were put in the closet when we were kids is because it was close to my parents' room, but it was, and it was small enough and contained that, you know, I think they let us cry ourselves to sleep. That kind of thing.
Neil:
Yeah, of course, yeah. Cry it out.
That was the popular thing at the time.
Lewis:
Very, yeah.
Neil:
And did you not once tell me like maybe months ago when I was first getting to know you that your dad also did a lot of drugs?
Lewis:
Yeah, he certainly did. He liked drugs a lot. I didn't see it.
It wasn't like he was just getting high all the time at home. He kept it away from home. And I didn't really learn about this until later in life.
You know, I knew my dad liked to drink. He liked to party. Once I was old enough and I learned what marijuana smoke smells like, it kind of, I had a flashback to being like, oh, I always remember that smell coming out of the basement.
Neil:
Oh my God, yeah, of course.
Lewis:
You know, when I was a kid.
Neil:
Did you not tell me that they were also getting high at work?
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Like what kind of stuff was happening? So we're in Hamilton, we're in the 70s and 80s. Tell me what this workplace scene is like.
Lewis:
You know, a rare story my father told me about himself was it started with the time that he accidentally did heroin and he didn't intend to snort heroin. He intended to snort cocaine. And he would tell me that when he would go into the office, he worked in Mississauga.
He drove from St. Catharines to Mississauga most mornings and most of the time he would come home. Sometimes he would stay in Mississauga overnight. But he said when he would show up to work most mornings, there would be a line or two of coke on his desk.
And he would just snort it to get the day started. And then one time it wasn't coke and it hit a little different. And he's lucky that he didn't overdose because they're very different things.
Neil:
Yeah, who was putting cocaine on his desk?
Lewis:
I think it was a salesman or somebody that worked in his office. Just like, this is how we do it.
Yeah, I don't remember. The only employee or the other co-worker of his that I knew was his secretary, which I later found out he was having an affair with the whole time he was with my mother.
Neil:
You found out a lot later.
Lewis:
Sorry?
Neil:
You found out, you got a lot of scoop later.
Like you didn't obviously know this stuff.
Lewis:
Yeah, we had to pry. My sister and I had to like combine information, you know, that we were getting from different resources.
Neil:
That's a common sibling tactic.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
I hope, I hope my sister and I can continue to do that as my parents get very old.
Lewis:
Yeah, I hope your kids do it behind your back.
Neil:
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Because?
Lewis:
I think it's necessary and it's good relationship building stuff.
Neil:
Yes, exactly. So you find out your dad is having an affair with his secretary, snorting coke every morning at a sales job, accidentally did heroin once. You were not ignored, capital I, but you know, there's the tilt that way. You got a grandmother in the picture.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Who's buying you books.
Lewis:
Yeah, my family, my father was a big reader and my, I was never very close with my grandmother, either of them.
She lived in Stoney Creek. We would see her, you know, once a month, you know, a few times a year kind of thing. And, and it, it was for a birthday before I was old enough to remember or Christmas that I got this book.
And so it probably just sat in my room with like other books I was, you know, picture books. And so I wish I knew why she chose this book. And, you know, it, it didn't strike me as an odd book to have as a kid when I was a kid, but as I got older, I thought this is a little bit of a.
Neil:
I never heard, it certainly is, yeah.
Lewis:
A strange book to give a kid.
Neil:
Very unique book. This boy, you know, he's challenged by the carpenter to do all kinds of incredible feats, like spend a year, you know, lifting all these stones and, you know, building this crazy pagodas and he does it.
And then the guy's reward is like, do it again for another year. Like it was, you know, he's put through all these essentially Sisyphean type of feats, like, you know, like these endless challenges. You probably related to that though.
It sounds like because you had this desire to have a connection and a learner, learnee role with your own parents and your father, which was kind of replicated in this book, but you cultivated, it sounds like an astounding sense of independence from a very young age.
Lewis:
I always wanted, I hated being restricted. I never wanted to do anything necessarily bad. I just didn't want to be restricted.
I, you know, as soon as I could wander away from home, I started wandering away and pushing the boundaries and, but also trying to be respectful at the same time, you know, like not, didn't want to worry my parents too much. You know?
Neil:
What do you mean wander away? So you're eight, nine, 10 years old. What are you doing? Where are you going?
Lewis:
If I could walk around the block, if I could, you know, there was major streets. I lived on a major street in St. Catharines, which would have been, you know, dangerous for a young kid to be crossing willy-nilly. But once I was old enough and my parents trusted me to use crosswalk properly and, you know, then I could walk to a convenience store that was four or five blocks away and not one that was just on the same block.
Neil:
And this was all by yourself?
Lewis:
Yeah, it would be by myself.
Neil:
What was happening in your head? So an eight and nine and 10 year old today does not have A, time by themselves.
I mean, just B, but time in their own head. Like they've got screens and they've got video game systems and they've got, you know, there's, I don't see kids doing what it sounds like you did. And as you get older here, I'm picturing you as a kid, any artistic gleanings early?
What were the first demonstrations of your art history?
Lewis:
I distinctly remember a moment in daycare. It was either in a before school or an after school program at the YMCA. I spent a lot of my childhood also at the YMCA in St. Catharines. And I would spend time alone in the daycare drawing on paper with, you know, pastels and crayons. I was probably five or six years old and I taped a piece of paper on the wall and I was just drawing on it. And I thought, this is what I want to do forever.
Like, I want to be an artist.
Neil:
Wow.
Neil:
This is what I want to do forever. Where'd that come from?
Lewis:
I just, I really enjoyed any time I had when I was drawing.
I don't think that I showed any exceptional ability from a young child.
Neil:
Most kids must feel some of that when they're drawing. I mean, drawing is such a...
Lewis:
Yeah, it's a...
Neil:
I'm a big fan of Austin Kleon, who was a past guest on 3 Books. And he just really espouses like drawing as an adult. And, you know, adults are like, oh yeah, I guess I should, you know, we forget that kids love drawing. Kids love drawing. We all love drawing.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
You just never stopped.
Lewis:
No, I never did. I didn't, I mean, there was periods in my life where I went without drawing for quite a while.
And if I could go back in time and give myself a shake, I think I would.
Neil:
So what kind of student were you? A kid were you? What group did you fit into?
What, you know, how would you define yourself in regards to like student groups? Socially, I mean.
Lewis:
Early on, I didn't feel like I had a lot of say in who my friends were. It was kind of like, I was friends with whoever were the kids of my friends, my parents' friends. And you're just kind of stuck with those kids.
Neil:
And then as you get into high school, you know, in high school, there's like, I don't want to put labels on it, but most schools have like the jocks, the goths, the nerds, the, you know, how does this work for you?
Lewis:
Well, by high school, I was really starting to sort out, you know, who I wanted to be around or who I related to and who I didn't relate to. And I dealt with a lot of bullies as a young kid, as I think probably most boys do, unless you're the bully. That dynamic probably still plays itself out the same way.
And so once I was in high school and I started to really feel like I was developing my own personal style and slowly starting to realize like who I am and where I am, my place in the world, I fell in with a bunch of other students who were weird and didn't fit into that jock narrative.
Neil:
Whoa, whoa, whoa. So you fell into students that were weird. That's how you define your group.
Lewis:
Well, weird in that they were not like the stereotypical, popular in style dressing.
Neil:
Did I hear you once say in another interview, they were the only group that would have me? Am I putting words in your mouth?
Lewis:
That's how I felt, yes. It was something like that. You know, we all kind of fell in together.
We just got called the freaks basically by the popular kids. We would all move our lockers to be in the same hallway together.
Neil:
Oh, interesting. Probably weren't allowed to do that.
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
Early vandalism.
Lewis:
We had assigned lockers, yeah. But we found a secluded area of the school.
Neil:
Oh, wow.
Lewis:
And took the bolts off of the bolted up lockers and just put our locks on them.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
And then we would
Neil:
Took the bolts off? That's ballsy.
Lewis:
Well, I mean, I guess it felt like just the right amount of bad. It didn't feel like it was too bad.
Neil:
The right amount of bad.
Lewis:
We weren't doing anything irreversible. We weren't really vandalizing. We were just
Neil:
You felt like you were on okay moral grounds. This is for a community you're trying to develop here.
Lewis:
Well, we just wanted a place that we could go and be left alone.
Neil:
Oh, interesting. We wanted a place we could go, be left alone. And what we did to do that felt like the right amount of bad.
Lewis:
Yeah, I guess. And I think that plays itself out as we get further along here. But there was a fair amount of drug and alcohol abuse.
More than a fair, like a lot.
Neil:
What kind of drugs?
Lewis:
Everything.
Everything? Grade nine and 10? Grade nine and 10 was- Or 10 and 11? Alcohol, marijuana. Grade 10, 11, we're getting mushrooms, LSD, cocaine, heroin. And I think that I saw, I mean, by the time I was in grade 11 and grade 12, I knew multiple people that were shooting up at school, before school, after school.
Neil:
When you say shooting up, you mean heroin?
Lewis:
Heroin, cocaine, a mixture of both. I saw it all. Shooting up before and after school.
Neil:
So I'm sorry to say this in a, I don't mean this in a derogatory way, but like, if you're shooting heroin twice a day in high school.
Lewis:
More.
Neil:
But you're also going to school?
Lewis:
Yeah.
Sometimes, sometimes they wouldn't show up.
Neil:
I just, I just, I just would equate, sorry, like, am I way off on this? How does the combination of shooting heroin multiple times a day at age 15 or 16 tie together with being a studious person?
Lewis:
They weren't necessarily studious. They had to be out of the house.
Neil:
Okay. They just needed a place to go. Okay, so we've got a couple parameters of the freak class here. We've got the lockers moving together.
We've got the 10 or 20 students throughout the grades, or maybe over two grade splits. There's the drug and alcohol growth, but not for you. You're doing no drugs, no alcohol, right?
Lewis:
Exactly.
Neil:
Okay. What else defines that community?
I find this community really interesting. Like, it's a really nice window into the world here.
Lewis:
Grunge, like grunge music was starting to become very popular at the time.
Neil:
Oh, okay.
Lewis:
So the, you know.
Neil:
Pearl Jam Nirvana?
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Sound Garden, that kind of stuff?
Lewis:
All of that kind of stuff. So there was, there was the grungy, there was the grungy kids.
There was the.
Neil:
That's how you dressed too? Like the, like ripped pants and plaids?
Lewis:
Exactly, yeah. Ripped jeans. A lot of Salvation Army chic.
And there was the goth kids. There was always goth kids.
Neil:
But they were part of your group?
Lewis:
Yep.
Neil:
Oh, the goths were part of the freaks, a subset.
Lewis:
The punks.
Neil:
Oh, the punks.
Lewis:
And the ravers.
Neil:
The ravers.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Goths, punks, ravers.
Lewis:
Yeah, there was.
Neil:
Were you one of those three?
Lewis:
I probably fell in closer to the grunge.
Neil:
So there's grunge, goth, punk, and raver.
Lewis:
He certainly, there was.
Neil:
What's a raver and a punk? How do they differ in appearance and behavior? How do I identify the difference between a raver and a punk?
We're talking like, like lanolin mohawks here?
Lewis:
This is like 90s, 90s raver culture. So we're talking like humongous pants.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
A lot of fluorescent colors. And like big plastic jewelry.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah. Okay, I can picture that. And then what about the punks?
90s punks?
Lewis:
The punks, I.
Neil:
I heard Andrew Hieberman once in an interview with Rich Roll, by the way, that his childhood, he describes it as like the movie Kids.
Lewis:
Oh, I related to that movie so hard. When I felt like I was watching my teenage years go by.
Neil:
That's exactly what he said.
Lewis:
Just in a bigger city.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
Except in New York.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
I saw that same kind of violence, that skateboard beating. I saw that happen.
Neil:
Skateboard beatings?
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
But the skaters are not part of your group.
Lewis:
No, they were.
Neil:
Oh, skaters were also part of Freaks.
Lewis:
We were just about every subculture that didn't.
Neil:
Identify with the mainstream big ones.
Lewis:
Yeah, yes. We were kind of a catch-all for everybody who was left behind.
And.
Neil:
You saw the skateboard beatings?
Lewis:
Sure.
I mean, I.
Neil:
Who would you guys beat up?
Lewis:
Who?
We didn't beat anybody up.
Neil:
But you saw skateboard beatings.
Lewis:
Oh, yes.
I, well, that was, I was in Hamilton at a skate park when I saw that happen.
Neil:
Oh, it wasn't your friends?
Lewis:
It wasn't in high school, no.
Neil:
Okay, okay. There was a lot of fights and fighting. Stealing stuff from variety stores.
Lewis:
That's what happens in the movie.
Neil:
The drugs though, heavy, heavy drugs.
Lewis:
Yes. Most of that happened after school. It wasn't until later in high school when the real addicts were doing their thing.
Neil:
In the school lot.
Lewis:
Sorry?
Neil:
Where were they shooting up?
Lewis:
Oh, bathrooms.
Neil:
And where were they getting heroin from?
Lewis:
They're drug dealers. We all knew who they were.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
There were kids slightly older than us that either dropped out of school or had graduated school and not done anything.
Neil:
So if, I'm sorry, you know, so there's this, I think, well-held belief that we are most influenced by our culture than anything, you know? And Maria Popova, past guest on 3 Books, says that her number one piece of advice to her younger self or any younger person is to try to see the culture you are a part of and ignore its norms for your own benefit. You don't have to do X, Y, and Z as it may be propaned to.
She grew up in Bulgaria behind the Iron Curtain, so it's a little different, but that was her perspective. And yet you were surrounded by these kids who had a deep artistic sensibility like you did, but you didn't start drinking, you didn't do any drugs. And in fact, not to foreshadow here, I believe you have a large tattoo on your stomach that says the word straight edge.
Lewis:
I would classify it as a medium tattoo across my stomach that says straight edge. So it was my first tattoo.
Neil:
How did you resist this? How did you resist the drinking drug culture?
Your parents weren't around, they weren't cared, they didn't look, they weren't checking on you.
Lewis:
No, they would have been.
Neil:
They weren't looking through your knapsack.
Lewis:
My father would have encouraged it to a degree.
Neil:
Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
Not to a toxic, he wouldn't have encouraged me to do hard drugs, but I was free to try a sip of this and that and the other thing anytime I wanted as a kid. And I tried beer a couple times and it was always disgusting. And as I was in high school and I started to go to parties where people were drinking, grade nine, grade 10, I tried a beer, I just didn't, I thought it was disgusting.
Neil:
Yeah, it is.
Lewis:
And once I saw how people were acting, I was like, I don't want to act like that. I didn't, I just didn't have the, I didn't want to do it.
Neil:
I'm a parent of four boys who I desperately don't want them to try alcohol and cannabis and these drugs in high school. And you have managed to do this, even though you were immersed in a culture that did the opposite. So I'm curious for what lessons or ideas or principles or what actually created this behavior inside you.
Lewis:
I just didn't have.
Neil:
To the point where you identify with it. I mean, you just have a medium sized stomach that labels yourself as straight edge, that you got at what age?
Lewis:
At 18.
Neil:
You got at 18. So you already were labeling yourself sort of antithetical to the culture.
Lewis:
Yeah, I, you know, it was, it was a movement that the straight edge, I didn't know anybody else who was straight edge. I was just told by some of the punk rock and the hardcore guys that got to know me. And they're like, oh, you're straight edge.
And I was like, what is that? And then they would, they would tell me, it's like, oh, you know, somebody who doesn't drink or smoke or use drugs. And I was like, oh, I have an identity.
You know?
Neil:
Oh, interesting. It was partly that you connected with that label.
Lewis:
Yeah, in a way, you know, I thought, I listened to some of the music for a while. What music? Like hardcore, straight edge.
Neil:
Hardcore, straight edge?
Lewis:
Well, it was like in the genre of hardcore, which is like a subset of metal, I guess.
Neil:
Okay, so within metal, there's hardcore, within metal, hardcore, there's straight edge. Not to be confused with Christian rock.
Lewis:
So it would be, yes, more like straight edge rock, where they are talking about their values. And for me, it was all a little bit too preaching.
Neil:
Do you remember any of the lyrics or the bands or the songs?
Lewis:
I do not know.
Neil:
Straight edge music.
Lewis:
I would know it if I heard it. Even though you had no other straight edge friends.
Neil:
Yeah, so I was- They never forced you to, people weren't pushing alcohol and weed on you?
Lewis:
The odd person would offer. I would get teased a little bit, but I never felt real peer pressure. Yeah, there was never, nobody ever like put their arm around me and was like, you better take a hit of this.
Yeah, it sounds like one of the defining- We were pretty respectful of each other.
Neil:
Pieces of your culture was that we took anybody who wasn't welcome anywhere else. So by definition, that is a culture of acceptance. Yeah, we were- Maybe we all should envy hanging out with the freaks in high school, because they're the open-hearted, open-minded kindness group.
Lewis:
We were very, we tried to be. Of course, it wasn't all good, but-
Neil:
The odd skateboard beating. That wasn't your group though.
Lewis:
No, but we did get in fights from time to time.
Neil:
Really, over what?
Lewis:
Over being bullied.
Neil:
Oh, you'd fight with the other groups.
Lewis:
Well, if somebody was picking on you, if somebody had, I can't tell you how many times I got pushed into a locker, threatened to get beat up.
I mean, I was also antagonizing in my own way. I would make my own t-shirts that said, jocks suck.
Neil:
Oh, wow.
Lewis:
And I would wear it in high school.
Neil:
Wow, so the merchandise streak started young.
Lewis:
I did make my own t-shirts.
Neil:
You're wearing a Lewis Mallard red baseball cap now, I should mention.
Lewis:
Correct.
Neil:
For those that want to support your work and your art, you sell merchandise.
Lewis:
I do, yes.
Neil:
And so at Lewis Mallard, there's presumably a buy button, because I'm sure Instagram's got the mallification happening.
Lewis:
Yes, I don't have that set up, but I have a website.
Neil:
Okay, well, you got to get the buy button now that I just talked about it. Now there's some pressure on you. Oh, no.
Before this is released, the TikTok store is taking over Amazon. Haven't you heard, Lewis?
Neil:
Come on.
Neil:
Okay, so you were in a kindness-based group. You accepted everybody else. You accepted everybody.
You were in group. You were in the artistic nerve we can fear. Was it also like, did you have an art teacher anywhere in high school?
Was there some sort of art, you know?
Lewis:
I had one art teacher who tried very hard to keep me in school. I got suspended a lot. I neared expulsion a few times.
Neil:
What for?
Lewis:
For having a smart mouth, mostly. I did a lot of
Neil:
Any examples? Any memories? And anything you said to a teacher once that you can still recall, or others?
Lewis:
Well, one thing that got me, one of my suspensions was from wearing my hat in school. We weren't allowed to wear hats in school.
Neil:
Neither were we. That's it, just wore your hat?
Lewis:
No, it was after school. I was walking through the hallways after the bell had gone and was on my way out, and I just had my hat on my head.
Figured it was after school hours. I knew I was riding a line. I liked to ride the line.
And a particular teacher who I didn't get along with very well walked past me and snatched it off my head and said, you can have this on Monday. And I didn't like that. And so I snuck up behind him and I ripped it out of his hand.
And I said, fuck you.
Neil:
Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
And I said, I'll see you on Monday. And then I went home and I knew I was gonna get suspended. To me, it was worth it because I really didn't like this guy.
Neil:
And it was a moral thing here. I mean, even if you were violating the rules, you shouldn't grab it off your head. There's like, you know, that's a- It's a bit over the top.
Lewis:
Had he approached me in a respectful manner, I would have been in a completely different scenario.
Neil:
Wow. Yeah, as Omar Little says in The Wire, man's gotta have a code. Anything else that you recall?
Anything else your smart brain can remember that your smart mouth said to get you in trouble back then? And any other teachers like, you know, kind of light you up back then? Like keep taking us through that time period of your life.
It sounds pretty formative.
Lewis:
Well, the same teacher that I took the hat from, Mr. Meisner, if you're out there, I'm sorry I gave you such a hard time.
Neil:
That's nice.
Lewis:
You know, you gotta forgive and forget.
Neil:
I hope he hears that.
Lewis:
I doubt he will.
Neil:
Well, you doubt it, but you don't know.
Lewis:
I don't even know if he's alive.
Neil:
You're going Banksy, brother. This is like a secret identity performance artist in the city that's moving around and dropping stuff all over the place. Like, this is exact Banksy.
I mean, it was two years before.
Lewis:
Well, let's hope. He was substituting in an art class I was in. And I was doing an independent study at the time.
So I was going into the dark room in the photo lab in my high school. We were fortunate enough to have an old school photography studio in the school. And I spent a lot of time developing my own photos.
Neil:
Yeah. Dark room, that's great. Yeah, we had one too.
That's cool.
Lewis:
Yeah, so we got to take out cameras, take photos, develop the film, enlarge it myself. And so I was working on an independent study that was not in the actual classroom I had to leave. And so when he said, all right guys, just go about your work.
I got up to walk to the dark room. He said, where are you going? And I said, you could do my work.
And he said, no, you have to do it in the room. And I said, well, it's not in the room. He's like, well, do something in the room.
And I was like, but my work is not in the room. And it went on like that. And then I told him a couple of choice words.
Neil:
Motherfuck you.
Lewis:
Basically, and I just started to walk to the principal's office. And then he told me to go. And I said, I'm already going there because I know you're gonna send me
Neil:
You rendered his future advice moot by heading there already.
Lewis:
Yes, I knew where I was heading. I knew that as soon as I
Neil:
How many suspensions is an expulsion? For us, our high school was three. And we knew the kids that had one or two.
Lewis:
I don't remember.
Neil:
It was three strikes, you know, three suspensions, you're out of school.
Lewis:
Yeah, so Perry Vakulich, great dude. I admired him. I was getting in a lot of trouble at the time.
And the principal of the school had asked him to have a sit down meeting with me and try to convince me to rein in my behavior and finish school. And so he talked some sense into me. And he allowed me to do independent studies.
And I thought, well, what a nice challenging idea. I get to choose what I wanna study. I have to write my own curriculum and then study it and report back basically.
And just be present in school through the day. I don't have to be in any particular room. I just have to be in the building working.
Neil:
That's amazing. What an incredible Yoda-like teacher move to recognize a kid's potential for graduating, separate the suspension-laden behaviors of telling the same teacher to fuck off multiple times, and then just cultivating a curriculum for you that could allow you to do both, be independent, be learning, and finish.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
Because you were in danger of not finishing, I'm assuming. Constantly getting suspended is not a good sign towards finishing.
Lewis:
Yeah, absolutely. I was very angry at the world then. I didn't know why.
Neil:
You didn't know why?
Lewis:
No, not at the time. I didn't even realize I was angry necessarily.
But when I look back and reflect on my behavior, I was an angry young man.
Neil:
And you don't know why? Do you know why now?
Lewis:
I think that I was not reaching my potential. I was nowhere near reaching my potential.
Neil:
Oh, you were angry at how you were showing up in the world.
Lewis:
I guess. I mean, at the time, I knew I had a lot of anger in me and I didn't have many healthy avenues to express it.
Neil:
I had a lot of anger in me because I wasn't hitting my potential and nowhere to put it, so then it comes out in sharp, kind of dysfunctional ways.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
And once I started doing these independent studies, my marks increased dramatically. I went from a strong C to honor roll.
Neil:
No way.
Lewis:
And near valedictorian.
Neil:
No way!
Lewis:
I think a high 90 average.
I was highly engaged and interested because I was choosing what I could study.
Neil:
Oh my gosh, from a C student, that means your marks were in the 60s, to a high 90 average, almost valedictorian, meaning it sounds like your school anointed valedictorian based on the highest mark in the school?
Lewis:
It was something like that, yes.
Neil:
Right, not the peer elected thing.
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
Right, right. But you were, yeah, okay, so you, wow. Because, so how many years did you do the independent study stuff?
Lewis:
Well, by the end.
Neil:
Just one in the last year?
Lewis:
By the end of high school for me, I had gotten all of the mandatory stuff out of the way.
All of the English and science and math requirements I had gone through, and I'd just done the minimum. How many credits do I need? I did the minimum.
Neil:
Yes, yes.
Lewis:
And I was.
Neil:
Yeah, you need four credits and four electives, and then this teacher figured out that the whole last phase of your high school career could be all electives, basically.
Lewis:
Basically, it was all electives or other art programs.
Neil:
And you did photography, pretty much, and all this stuff?
Lewis:
I had gone through all of the photography programs the school offered, like a year ahead.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
I was doing grade 12 photography and grade 11, and.
Neil:
So it was all art stuff, though.
Lewis:
Pretty much all art credits. Any and all art programs, shop. There was a drafting class I took.
I took anything that was like making things. Home economics, I learned how to sew, I learned how to cook.
Neil:
Oh, home economics, that's a phrase I have not heard in a while. When I first had home economics, it was like, yeah, learning how to cook, learning how to sew, learning how to.
Lewis:
Yeah, I found it very valuable.
Neil:
What a terribly insulting name. Yes. Home economics. Yeah, they didn't really teach you any economics. Trying to merge the capitalistic economic value with home, but that home is, of course, sewing. You know, it's not.
Lewis:
Yeah, well, I mean, viable skill.
Neil:
I mean, it worked, though. I mean, Lu Pan, the carpenter's apprentice, is about building and making. You're learning about sewing.
You went from a C student to a high school valedictorian from.
Lewis:
Well, not high.
Neil:
Near, I put the place of nears back in there.
Thank you for constantly taking my hyperbolic phrases and bringing me back down to earth.
Lewis:
Yeah, we're going to keep you here on earth.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, but it all comes and it's home economics, sewing. And like here you are, you know, you're making the duck costume.
I saw your post on Instagram from the eclipse and like you clearly made like giant duck glasses. Like you're doing a lot of home economics today.
Lewis:
I like to make things, absolutely. I always did.
Neil:
What other words do you use to apply to your identity? We've got interdisciplinary. We understand that one.
We've got psychedelic. We do not yet understand that. We're going to pause that, but I know you're straight edge on your stomach, but I don't think you're straight edge now.
Lewis:
No, things have changed.
Neil:
Okay, okay. So there's psychedelic. Then there's folk, which you kind of got a taste of in the vein of sort of a non-professional heart forward type of art.
Artist. We're understanding artists. Now we're going to take a break.
You and I, this is, for those that are listening, you might detect this. This is a very challenging environment to do a podcast. There are house bears here.
There are chimneys just above us. There's people walking by with boom boxes playing. There's bikes flying by.
There's people looking at us. There's people's like, one person was waving at you. I think I saw another person waving at you.
Like, I think that, you know, inside they're kind of saying there's a podcast. So this is a very distracting. I need like a sensory reset.
I need to get a glass of water. I see the cops coming now down here. I need to get a glass of water.
I need to have a sensory reset. And then we're going to keep going with Lewis Mallard. Two more formative books.
I'm having a wonderful time with this conversation. I'm really, really deeply grateful for your heart and for your love, for the artistry you're doing. And thanks so much for doing this show with us.
Lewis:
Thanks, handsome.
Neil:
Okay, be back in a bit. It's called 3 Books. Yeah, 3 Books. The number three in the word books. And your name is Noah?
[Noah]
Yeah.
Neil:
And you're in like a jean shirt and a white t-shirt and a black jeans. And you're a reader because you got a book beside you. What book is that?
[Noah]
The Hidden Life of Trees.
Neil:
Oh, nice. How'd you hear about that?
[Noah]
I borrowed it from a friend this morning.
Neil:
Oh, you borrowed it from a friend this morning. And that's what we were just talking about. That when you borrow books, you fucking can't calculate.
Because I asked both of you in the break, how many people do you think are readers? And I was thinking in my head, five or 10%. And you guys were saying more like 50, 60, 70%.
Because it's more of a community that doesn't fully participate in the capitalist system with libraries and borrowing. Is that what you were saying, Noah? Am I putting words in your mouth?
[Noah]
No, that's right.
Neil:
Okay.
Lewis:
Yeah, that's how it went.
Neil:
That's how it went. Okay, okay. All right, we're gonna come back.
What's the scene look like now? It's getting a lot hotter, I'll tell you that.
Lewis:
The sun is brighter.
Neil:
I feel like I wanna put sunblock on my face. I'm sweating in my shirt, but you can't take a shirt off and just sit on a bench with a microphone. No, you can.
Lewis:
You would just get looked at a little funnier.
Neil:
It's hot though. It's getting warm. And what's your observation of the College and Bathurst intersection now?
I say, we're now in like a hot mid morning. We're recording in June. It'll probably come out in the summer. In July or August sometime.
Lewis:
The scene, it's not that much different. Just a little, it turned up a little bit in the heat.
Neil:
What's going past us?
Lewis:
Random cars, white vans, white trucks. A lot of white vehicles right now.
Neil:
Toronto called 311. A lot of four by fours. Four by four trucks with like people on their phone and guys sitting in the back, like cleaning park bathrooms and like shoveling. I saw them shoveling leaves off the corner of the sewers. And I talked to the guys and they said, we're the snowplow group. We've just been doing this all winter because there was no snow.
Lewis:
Cleaning, getting drainage. We need better drainage on these streets.
Neil:
Well, how would you describe the city of Toronto? It doesn't seem like you grew up here and the city of Toronto in 2024 is a pulsing, vibrating, like, you know, it's a city on the world stage. How would you describe this city?
Lewis:
A little bit of everything. He needs a little more than a little bit of everything. It's a...
Neil:
What's working, what's not. What's good, what's bad. You're leaving, I heard.
Lewis:
I'm moving.
Neil:
You're posting on your Lewis Mallard Instagram feed that you're moving to Montreal. Oui. We as in you and your opera singer partner or oui as in O-U-I?
Lewis:
Yeah, both forms. Yeah, that was a double entendre.
Neil:
Oh, nice. That could be the word of the chapter. At the end of every chapter, we have a word that was said that we go into the etymology of. That could be it. Double entendre.
Lewis:
Toronto, I moved back here after being away for about five and a half years.
And it's not the city I left. It's not the same city. It's changing rapidly.
I don't recognize it the same way. Many landmarks are being torn down. Many new buildings are being put up in place of them.
I'm a cyclist. The cycling infrastructure is growing, I guess, reasonably quickly, but it's kind of slapdash, bandaid, not really well thought out. And the amount of people riding bikes in the city is exploding.
And it is absolute chaos on these streets as a cyclist now, where before the chaos was other cars. And now I find the chaos is an inexperienced cyclist.
Neil:
Mm-hmm, that would be me. I'm on these bike lanes. I'm inexperienced.
I get dinged at all the time. Not honked at, dinged at. It's a much less abrasive form of vehicular communication.
The bicycle bell. No one's figured out how to put these big honking horns on bikes yet.
Neil:
Eh, eh.
Lewis:
There are, yeah. There's the few people who will do the air powered horn, the obnoxiously loud.
Neil:
They also bang, it should be said that Toronto cyclists bang on cars a lot. I've witnessed it a lot. Like they yell at drivers.
They pound their fists on hoods and things. And they're usually right. It's because someone's parking in the bike lane.
It's because someone's turning without seeing the bikes coming. They're usually right, but they do so very aggressively. Am I right about this?
Lewis:
I've seen it, unfortunately. I have also participated in it. I really try not to do that as hard as I can now.
I've tried to change that behavior and just move on with my day.
Neil:
There's a bit of 18 year old Lewis, fuck you teacher still left in there in his early 40s.
Lewis:
I think drivers who are not necessarily cyclists don't realize how threatening a car can be. Completely dangerous. And when they do things to purposefully put you in danger, it's extremely frustrating.
Neil:
Purposefully?
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
How are you going to evaluate intent when someone parking in the bike lane or turning in the corner by accident?
Lewis:
Well, that's not what I'm talking about. That's what you're talking about.
Neil:
What are you talking about?
Lewis:
When people will swerve to threaten you with their car.
Neil:
Oh.
Lewis:
Will purposefully cut you off.
Neil:
Oh, really?
Lewis:
To brake check you.
Neil:
Brake check you?
Lewis:
Absolutely.
Neil:
What does brake check you mean?
Lewis:
Like when you're following behind them and they will...
Neil:
In a lane, not a bike lane.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
In a car lane. Yes. But it's not a car lane. It's a shared lane.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
But people think it's a car lane.
Lewis:
One subtle one.
Neil:
They'll brake you because they think that you aren't going to brake and then you'll pound the back of their car.
Lewis:
Well...
Neil:
That's what they want to have happen is what you're saying.
Lewis:
I don't think they're thinking clearly. So I don't know.
Neil:
Right.
Lewis:
I don't really know what they want.
Neil:
Right. They brake check you though. And now I understand what brake check you means.
Lewis:
And another one that I've had many times is people spray you with their windshield washer fluid.
Neil:
No way.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
They spray you with their... Because they know that the windshield washer fluid on any car splashes the everywhere.
Lewis:
And so they do it as you're passing.
Neil:
Really? Just when you're passing?
Lewis:
Yeah. I've had that many times.
Neil:
So what is... I'm sorry to ask. What is it about you that's drawing all this ire?
Lewis:
I don't think it's me. I think a lot of cyclists deal with these things. It's just the frequency on the roads.
Neil:
You're like... I'm like an everyday... I'm like a drop my kids off at school kind of cyclist.
You're like a bike around town. You don't have a car.
Lewis:
I don't have a car.
Neil:
So you're using your bike in the winter.
Lewis:
All seasons.
Neil:
Right, all seasons.
Lewis:
And I also use it for commuting, for recreation.
Neil:
It should be said that the winter in Toronto, the streets can be quite snowy, slushy. You're on your bike.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
You're biking through, you're on the lanes. You're getting brake checked. You're getting washer fluid in your eyes.
You pound on cars. You try not to do that.
Lewis:
I try not to...
Neil:
But you'll engage...
Lewis:
Carry the...
I used to when I was younger.
Neil:
What's the highest amount of road rage you've been involved in? I should also say I've pounded on a few cars myself. I have done that because sometimes you're right.
When you're on a bike, it's like, what is this guy doing? He's trying to kill me.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
I do. I have felt that. But as soon as I've pounded on a car, I've only done a couple of times, I run away.
I bolt away. I'm like, I'm immediately regretful and fearful of what I've just done. I won't stand there and get into an actual fight.
I'll take off. Because I'm like a real... I can't believe I just did that.
It's out of character.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
I think, but I guess not.
Lewis:
Well, people get so irrationally angry in these road rage scenarios that I almost find it interesting to see somebody go from zero to a hundred in the anger scale over something so small.
Neil:
And we know this because George Carlin said, everyone driving faster than you is a maniac and everyone driving slower than you is an idiot. Everyone relates to this.
Lewis:
And how willing somebody who's in this state of mind is to seemingly throw away their whole life because they're angry. They're so angry about this one thing. And I recognize this behavior in people now where before I would try to, I would almost match their anger and things would come to, not come to blows, but come close to blows.
And in the most recent time that I was involved in a road range scenario, there was a driver who was threatening me with his vehicle. He was charging me and then stopping before he would hit me. He was swerving, cutting me off, not letting me pass.
I went away that he couldn't go up a one-way street with heavy traffic and I knew he couldn't follow me in his car.
Neil:
Why? So you ended up walking away from the fight?
Lewis:
I walked away from it.
Neil:
You could have been in a physical fight with him.
Lewis:
Oh, absolutely. It would have turned to blows without a doubt if I had gotten off my bike. And I was interested-
Neil:
And nobody else was around.
Lewis:
No, I-I landed into an alleyway.
Neil:
How long ago was this?
Lewis:
This was last summer.
Neil:
Okay, this is pretty recent. What have you learned over time that can help the novice rider navigate road rage better?
Lewis:
Oh.
Neil:
Just drive it away? Just get to the finish of whatever that story ended faster?
Lewis:
I think it's better
Neil:
Don't engage.
Lewis:
It's better to walk away?
Neil:
It's better to walk away.
Lewis:
If you did something wrong, apologize and move on.
Neil:
Oh, apologize?
Lewis:
I think if you actually are
Neil:
I always put my palm up. You know what I mean? When I do something wrong on the road, I put my palm up. I'm like, that was me. Like, am I bad?
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
I do that a lot. My palm is often up while I'm driving.
Lewis:
I think apologies go a long way. Apologies, yeah.
But for me, I really try to let it go. I feel like I have the power to absorb that anger that somebody else is giving out and let it go and so that it doesn't have to carry on through that branch that was just kind of created.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
Tributary or whatever you want to call it.
Neil:
Oh, tributary.
Lewis:
Of anger.
Neil:
Oh, we got to mark that one. That's a potential word of the podcast too. Tributary and double entendre popping out so far early in the conversation.
Now, here's the thing. You were in your early 40s.
Lewis:
Mid.
Neil:
Mid, okay. Okay, good, yeah. Because we never quite got the clarity on the blurry 70s.
But I'm September 17th, 1979. So I would agree with the 70s being blurry. You probably played that game I did of like, I've been around for six decades.
I'm 41. Anyway, maybe not. So we got kind of a book of your childhood, Lupin and the Carpenter's Apprentice.
I talked to you in advance. So I know that we also have a book kind of of your 20s and I know we have a book kind of of your 30s. I think what I'll do now is I'll introduce the book kind of of your 20s and we'll steer the conversation kind of towards that kind of post high school, pre-Lewis part of your life.
And then we'll talk about the book of your 30s after that. Does that sound like a good structure?
Lewis:
That is.
Neil:
You can feel free to, you know.
Lewis:
That is the structure.
Neil:
Chiropractically adjust the structure. Okay, the book of your 20s is, oh yeah, here it comes people. I'm excited for this because, you know, we're in the, we're getting into the 500s now.
Like we've counted down over 400 books on the show. So it's exciting to me that we're getting into the one and the only Moby Dick. Oh yes.
By Herman Melville, M-E-L-V-I-L-L-E. Originally published in October 18th, 1851 by Richard Bentley in the UK and a U.S., Harper and Brothers. And I love the old publisher names.
Harper and Brothers, not Harper Collins, in the U.S. This is, everyone's got different covers for this. The paperback I have.
Lewis:
It's a nice cover.
Neil:
You like that one? It's got like this gigantic white, almost like lino block kind of whale.
Lewis:
Yeah, it looks like an etching maybe. It's tough to say.
Neil:
Yeah, that's yours. By the way, you want that?
That's yours.
Lewis:
Okay.
Neil:
Okay, that's yours.
That's your signifying commemorative copy of the conversation.
Lewis:
You got it right in it though.
Neil:
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll sign Herman Melville's name in there. Yeah. So mine is like a kind of a white, gigantic, it's almost like a scary looking whale, but it's only like from the tip of its nose. I'm sure it's not called a nose, to like just past its eye.
Lewis:
That's the most recognizable part of a sperm whale.
Neil:
Yes. Oh, sperm whale. Thank you for specific.
And then it's an all caps kind of impact font, wide kerning Moby Dick with Herman Melville in an embossed all caps serif font.
Lewis:
That's debossed.
Neil:
Oh, debossed.
Lewis:
Or wait, which one? This is in, not out.
Neil:
Oh yeah, I think that is debossed. Embossed means pop, popping out.
Lewis:
And then you're debossed.
Neil:
Oh, that is interesting. So it's a debossed cover. Well, that seems like a competitor for the word of the chapter.
Herman Melville was a New Yorker. I didn't realize this. He's a New Yorker who lived from, listen to the years, 1819 to 1891.
Imagine that, 1819 to 1891. Flip the numbers around and that's how long I'll be here. He's an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance.
Came from a distinguished family, but after his father's death in 1832, his family was in poverty. From the age of 12, Melville worked just a number of jobs. It's gonna think I sound like a bit like your 20s.
Bank clerk, farmer, teacher. In the summer of 1839, he joined the crew of a merchant ship that sailed to England. Think about this.
Less than 200 years ago, Lewis, joining a merchant ship to sail to England. When he returned, he tried several jobs, but none lasted for long. He then signed on to a whaling ship that set sail.
There goes a mad vac beside us, sucking garbage off the trail. Melville, oh yeah. A whaling ship that set sail on January 3rd, 1841.
He then spent the next two years having adventures in the South Pacific. Nowhere close to New York or England. And by the way, Moby Dick, this book, which we're gonna get into, was a flop.
Only 3,715 copies precisely were sold during Melville's lifetime. Critics and readers didn't know what to take of the popular adventure novelist's turn towards dark, complex, psychological explorations. The total amount he earned from Moby Dick was $556.
Lewis:
Jesus, adjusted for inflation it's still bullshit.
Neil:
Essentially, the book more or less torpedoed his existing popularity, and the writer returned to New York and became a customs inspector in 1863.
Lewis:
That's unfortunate, Herman.
Neil:
Moby Dick torpedoed his career. What is this torpedoing book about? The sailor Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, P-Q-O-D, for vengeance against Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale that bit off his leg on the ship's previous voyage.
Moby Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopedia of whaling lore and legend, the book can be seen as part of its author's lifelong meditation on America, written with wonderful, redemptive humor. It's also a profound inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception.
Wow! File this one to 813.3 for literature slash middle 19th century literature. Not much goes in that slot that I know of. Lewis, please tell us about your relationship with Moby Dick by Herman Melville.
Lewis:
You know, this is a book that I'd heard of growing up through school. We didn't read it in high school.
I think it was a little, probably a little too heavy for that time in my life. And it was, I kind of thought of it as like a challenge. Like, oh, one day I would like to read that book, consume that book.
And I never, I was never much of a reader. I had a difficult relationship with reading through school. You know, I was in, what do you call it nowadays?
I was in like the remedial class.
Neil:
You were in like a, well, special education.
Lewis:
Yeah, I got put into the slow kid class for some of this stuff.
And I had tutors to help me with reading and writing as a kid. So it was always kind of a sore spot, especially since my father was such a voracious reader and my sister was the scholastically smart one. And so I kind of felt bashful about...
Neil:
Sorry to ask, but how does somebody with that background then wanna read Moby Dick? The most challenging novel of all time.
Lewis:
I like a challenge.
Neil:
Wow. So with that background, it made you attracted to it. How did you come across Moby Dick?
How did it enter your brain view? How did you even know it was a book?
Lewis:
Well, I don't remember.
Neil:
Noah's standing up, Noah's taking off. He's got the secret life of trees. Enjoy the book.
Lewis:
Goodbye, Noah.
Neil:
Great chatting with you.
Lewis:
I don't remember how exactly it came on my radar.
Neil:
After high school?
Lewis:
Sometime after high school. I'm sure I heard of it in high school. And I knew it was-
Neil:
Can I ask what you did after high school?
Lewis:
I went to college.
Neil:
You took art?
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
You took illustration?
Lewis:
I did.
Neil:
You were trying to find the program that-
Lewis:
I went to Sheridan College.
Neil:
Okay. So someone that wanted to figure out your identity could start tracing these trails. You know, Banksy's been really careful. He doesn't let a peep out about them.
Lewis:
Oh, well.
Neil:
You want us to bleep out the name of the college?
Lewis:
No, that's fine. It's Sheridan College. It's in Oakville.
Boring fucking city. Horrible place. I hated Oakville.
Neil:
Oh my gosh. Wow, you're going hard on Oakville here.
Lewis:
Didn't like it.
Neil:
Oh, wow.
Lewis:
Culture-less.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
Boring.
Neil:
We interviewed Dave Cheesewright, former CEO of Walmart in Oakville on an earlier chapter of three books. We won't pass this chapter along to him for his response to you on Oakville, but maybe he wouldn't protect it.
Who knows? Now, listen, you go after to Sheridan College. You take an illustration.
You're doing art. I know Moby Dick's coming into here. Take me through this period of your life though. What's happened in your life?
Lewis:
Well, I was in college. I was doing a lot of trying to figure out-
Neil:
Still straight edge.
Lewis:
Who I am, yes.
Neil:
Pre-tattoo or post-tattoo?
Lewis:
Post-tattoo.
Neil:
Post-tattoo.
Lewis:
I got the tattoo in high school.
Neil:
When anyone asks you to drink or smoke weed, you lift up your shirt and show them the tattoo?
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
No, you just were- But you were proud of it.
Lewis:
I just said, no, thank you.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
Yes, I-
Neil:
By the way, I was too. I was straight edge until my 20s, by the way.
Lewis:
But did you identify that way? Or you just happened to be-
Neil:
No, I was actually scared to identify that way. I hid it.
Lewis:
Oh.
Neil:
I hid it, yeah. Because at my college, if you didn't drink, it was kind of like you were a major outlier.
Lewis:
Oh. I never felt that at all.
Neil:
I think my closest friends all knew I didn't drink. And I started drinking in my fourth year, my last year. After I got my job offer from Procter & Gamble, we had a rager.
Lewis:
Oh, yes. And you drank a bunch of Smirnoff Ices.
Neil:
How'd you remember that?
Lewis:
Because I just listened to your podcast episode yesterday where you talked about that.
Neil:
Oh my God. I don't even remember talking about that. But yeah, Smirnoff Ice. I still, to this day, cannot drink. Smirnoff Ices are, for the most part, vodka.
Lewis:
You did research. I did research.
Neil:
You're coming in hot. Yeah, I'm quoting past interviews you've done.
You're quoting past interviews I've done.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
Okay. Okay, so you're straight edge. You're in college.
You're taking illustration. I know the city was boring, but did you learn a lot from the perspective of craft or artistry?
Lewis:
It gave me a lot of time to solely focus on those things. So yeah, I learned a lot.
Neil:
You seemed to, you deepened your connection with it. Like, I mean, you became more of an artist.
Lewis:
Certainly, I was starting to decide on what an art career might look like for myself or how I fit into that world. I flip-flopped on whether I was gonna go into animation or illustration. The school offered both.
They were both excellent programs that were very hard to get into. I knew that the chances of getting in were slim, but I was extremely confident I would get in. It was just a matter of doing the work, and so I decided on- That should be underlined for people, and I know this because I have one other friend that tried to go.
Neil:
So at this time in the 90s- Early 2000s.
Lewis:
Early 2000s. No, late 99.
Neil:
So Sheridan College's animation and illustration program had the global reputation for being strong theater schools into places like Industrial Light and Magic, Lucasfilm. They were getting scooped and going to California to make movies. It was a real strong-
Lewis:
Big time.
Neil:
Well-known. Very, very competitive. If you wanna go work in, not Silicon Valley, I don't know what, Hollywood, I guess, really.
You go to Sheridan, you take illustration, you take animation, and they want you because you come out knowing all these hard-to-know skills, like how to use all the 3D animation software and all the-
Lewis:
They were incredible. It was unbelievable what the animation students were capable of after three years.
Neil:
Three years, and that's it?
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Wow, wow.
Lewis:
It was such an intense program.
Neil:
So I can see why you wanted to go there.
Lewis:
The illustration program didn't have that reputation necessarily because it's not as glamorous, I think, as animating Disney movies, Pixar movies.
Neil:
Although all those movies start off as illustrations.
Lewis:
Yeah, in a sense. And at that time, I was very good at realism and not much else. Drafting, I was good at.
Mechanical drawing. These are things that came very natural to me. The creative, making up stuff out of my head and putting that down on paper, to me, that was amazing and I didn't understand how people did it.
I had never really tried to do it. And so I went into a specific program in illustration called technical illustration, which was mainly scientific, medical, and technical mechanical drawing.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
It was exactly where I excelled and where I naturally fit. And I was so bored.
Neil:
Oh, really?
Lewis:
I was doing very well, getting extremely high marks. And I could see exactly where I would fit into the art world there. And I didn't want it.
I was starting to realize it's not what I wanted out of art. I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to lean more into the fine art world.
And that was more of the vision I had of myself, I think, from a child.
Neil:
Well, how do you define fine art?
Lewis:
Well, making artwork to sell in a gallery was how I viewed it then.
Neil:
Oh, interesting. Making artwork to sell in a gallery.
Lewis:
Not doing a different kind of commercial art, you know?
Neil:
No street art was really coming out of you at this age either. It doesn't sound like it. You weren't spray painting in the alleys at night?
Lewis:
No, I was absolutely doing that.
Neil:
Oh, okay.
Lewis:
Oh, really?
Neil:
Okay, I didn't hear that yet.
Lewis:
Well, in high school, I was very active as a graffiti artist.
Neil:
Really?
Lewis:
I did what I think, if you saw it now, you would refer to it as just nonsense, vandalism, graffiti.
I was experimenting, I was practicing, trying to figure out. And even while I was doing it, I was like, I like the act. I don't like how I'm doing it, but I just continued doing it.
Neil:
What about the act did you like?
Lewis:
Well, I liked the altering my surroundings. I liked the danger of it.
Neil:
Transgressiveness.
Lewis:
You know, I like doing it.
Neil:
Doing something just the right amount of bad.
Lewis:
Something that was bad, but not like catastrophic.
Neil:
Can I ask about the moral compass you use to guide yourself? From a lot of people's perspective, you're engaging heavily and frequently in acts of mischief and vandalism and stuff, but you obviously have a code. Man's gotta have it.
I'm sensing it in you. So how do you articulate what you do and not do? What are your yeses and noes?
Lewis:
Developing a code then. After high school, I didn't participate for a little while in graffiti.
And then later on in college, I think in my second or third year, I started to do some stencil graffiti. So I would make my own stencils and then I would go out with spray paint and do this kind of stencil art.
Neil:
Any notable or memorable stencils? You're not the guy that does Post No Bills and posts pictures of Bill Clinton and Bill Cosby.
Lewis:
No, but I remember when that started in Toronto and it was very funny, very clever. I loved it. I think I like the sense of humor of that very much.
This was before Bill Cosby had been discovered.
Neil:
Yeah, for those that don't know, on all kinds of Toronto downtown construction sites, they would say Post No Bills, meaning Post No Posters. And somebody came up with the idea of posting stenciled, perfect, realistic versions of Bill Cosby, Bill Clinton, and other famous bills.
Lewis:
Other famous bills, it was very funny.
Neil:
Yeah, funny, and nobody got, I think I'm also sensing like, there's nobody gets hurt with your stuff.
Lewis:
Well, I mean, how many people get hurt by graffiti other than property owners who have to pay?
Neil:
Yeah, that's a type of injury, but I'm talking no one's actually like, aggrieved really. Unless it's bad graffiti and they have to clean it up, I guess is what you're saying.
Lewis:
I would say what I was doing back then was kind of, it was not refined. It was not really with the purpose I was experimenting. Ultimately-
Neil:
You defined your code, really.
Lewis:
I didn't like, I didn't-
Neil:
Do people do stuff in graffiti that you don't agree with and that you wouldn't do? Is there places that you wouldn't graffiti? You don't graffiti a storefront window.
Lewis:
Absolutely not.
Neil:
So this is what I'm trying to ask you, like, what are your things that you would do and what are the things that you would don't do? For someone interested in becoming a street artist and well aware that it's illegal to become one, how do you navigate the morals of it? The rights and the wrongs?
Lewis:
For myself, right now, I look for places, I look for places, objects that are not typical vessels for graffiti. They're not a typical target of a stereotypical-
Neil:
Atypical vessels. Atypical vessels.
Lewis:
So we're talking about this one in front of us here.
Neil:
Yes.
Lewis:
I saw it as- The concrete.
I saw it as a forgotten piece of street furniture that the city doesn't have the time or energy to repaint.
Neil:
They don't. That's why it's covered in graffiti.
Lewis:
And peeling paint. It had an old coat of paint that it was crumbling off and I scraped that off as best I could. Forgotten piece of street furniture.
Neil:
Hmm, street furniture. That's a phrase I don't think I've heard much before.
Lewis:
I think it's the graffiti landscape of this city and in most cities is very cluttered. It's hard to stand out. Most of the best spots are already taken.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah.
Lewis:
And so I look for the spots that nobody wants and that I see potential in. And I try to make them look nicer.
Neil:
Right. Oh, so there's a beautification here too.
Lewis:
Absolutely. I try to clean up and add.
Neil:
Clean up and add.
Lewis:
But also serve a purpose for myself.
Neil:
Clean up and add. And what's the purpose you're serving for yourself? Is this the competing with other artists, standing out from the crowd?
Because you did mention that earlier too.
Lewis:
I don't want to, I don't like to compete in like a, I'd rather compete in a fun way.
Neil:
Yeah. The way football players compete. The way Jonathan Franzen told us he competes with David Foster Wallace.
Lewis:
I have no idea who those people are.
Neil:
Sorry, I just mean like a writer competing with another writer on like writing something great.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Making something great.
Lewis:
I want to push people to, I would love to see more creative, more interesting and well thought out public street art, graffiti.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
Whatever you want to call it. I would like to see people really think about what they're doing and try to do it the best way they can.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
I understand.
Neil:
Like Nick Sweetman, who's a mural artist in Toronto we both like, who draws these hyper realistic looking birds, but giant pink walls with like bumblebees and hooded mergansers, beautiful stuff. Yeah. A lot of low rising, low rise military planes flying over us today for some reason.
Would you classify that as a military plane? Like what kind of plane is that?
Lewis:
It looks like it, it might even be like the Lancaster from Hamilton. The old World War II bomber.
Neil:
Something about that plane looks like straight out of World War II. I hate that shit. Meanwhile, yeah, it is fear inducing.
Lewis:
Yeah. Can you only imagine being from a country that, how many immigrants do we have here that come from war torn fucking countries?
Neil:
It's scary for them.
Lewis:
And then they hear these war planes flying overhead and it's like, objectively, I'm sure they know that they're not being bombed, but it triggers something. It's got to trigger something.
Neil:
I mean, we have a lot of Palestinian protests happening right downtown right now. Streets are gleaming closed left, right and center. We've got encampments here.
We've had a big story in the news here in the Toronto Star last year saying this military flyovers have got to stop. Like, what the fuck are they doing? Like, why is it?
Why are we traumatizing people? That actually came out. And some people reacted to that article and said, oh my gosh, what a soft culture we live in.
You can't even fly a plane anymore. Like, I'm just saying, like there's two sides of that argument. You're on the first side.
Lewis:
Well, I think, what a waste of resources. And who gives a shit?
Neil:
So you're going to, you go to Oakville, you're taking the illustration. You're in your illustration all the way through?
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
No, you change.
Lewis:
I was in technical illustration and I switched to interpretive illustration, which meant I had to go back a year. I couldn't continue into my third year. I had to go back and redo my second year.
And I felt like if I ever wanted to be good at drawing from my imagination, I had 10,000 hours to put in because I hadn't put really any hours into it. And so the start of that journey for me was dropping back a year in college, redoing my second year, in a way saying goodbye to the friends I had made.
Neil:
Oh, no.
Lewis:
Because they had moved on to their third year, which is a very intense year.
Neil:
That's the last year.
Lewis:
And I ended up in a class full of people I had kind of seen around school, but didn't really know.
Neil:
Oh, wow.
Lewis:
And once I was dropped into this class, I met three guys who I became quick friends with and we started our art careers together just a couple of years later.
Neil:
Oh, really? How did you do that? What do you mean start your art career?
Lewis:
Well, we met in our second year of illustration.
We formed a tight bond over that year. Because of what? Is it your work that you were attracted to each other about?
I think it was a sense of humor. It was a way of creative problem solving. I was trying to find a style to draw in, a creative imaginary style, which was really pushed on us by the teachers that you have to market yourself with a style.
And so I was really-
Neil:
Oh, interesting. It's like what they tell writers to find your voice, find your voice, find your voice.
Lewis:
Yeah, and I was really anxious about this. They say to find your style, find your style, find your style. I always felt like, one, I have to pick one?
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
Wow, there's so many I like.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
And I was capable of multiple. And I just, I wasn't capable of the imaginary stuff yet. And so I figured it's just a matter of, I was starting to figure out like, oh, this is just a skill I can learn if I seek it out, if I practice every day.
So in the summer between switching programs, I tried to unlearn, in a way, all of the drawing I did. And I tried to teach myself how to draw in a different way.
Neil:
How do you unlearn?
Lewis:
Well, I just tried to break all the rules that I had learned.
Neil:
How do you, how does someone do that? I probably have all kinds of rules about podcasting and about writing, and I can't even see them.
Lewis:
I don't know, I picked up a new sketchbook that I hadn't drawn in, and I just started drawing in it in a different way.
Neil:
Wow, so you just used your power of mind to redirect yourself.
Lewis:
I wouldn't let myself draw the things I wanted to draw.
Neil:
Yep.
Lewis:
And I'd spent a lot of time just thinking about, I knew I was going into what was gonna be a difficult new year, full of challenges. And so I was trying to set myself up for it and get ahead a little bit.
Neil:
Still straight edge.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
Graduated.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
Form an art collective with a few friends.
Lewis:
This is, yeah, this is about a year and a half after meeting them.
Neil:
Move to Toronto.
Lewis:
In our last year of college. And lived together. We moved to 888 DuPont Street, the corner of Ossington and DuPont.
We got a studio.
Neil:
That's not that derelict broken glass building.
Lewis:
That doesn't exist anymore. It was.
Neil:
But that's what it was, right?
Lewis:
It was.
Neil:
You lived in a derelict broken glass building?
Lewis:
Absolutely illegally.
Neil:
Illegally?
Lewis:
Yeah, it was a commercial building.
Neil:
Oh, you weren't allowed to live there?
Lewis:
Technically, no. The landlord, Carl, at the time, he was what I consider a pretty decent slumlord.
Neil:
Oh my God.
Lewis:
He was, I don't think he realized how much he was supporting the arts in the city.
Neil:
Tell me more.
Lewis:
Well, he was allowing artists, such as ourselves and many other people to live and work in a building that they weren't technically allowed to live in.
The building was safe for living and it was fine. It had its problems. It was noisy.
It was too hot in the winter. It was too hot in the summer. There was other people there that were living there that were also not allowed to be there.
Everybody.
Neil:
I'm assuming that kind of felt like a street community in some ways.
Lewis:
Well, we didn't, there was only a few of us that hung out together. Everybody was kind of pretty separate. There was a lot of people from different art scenes in the city that lived and worked out of that building.
Neil:
Like what?
Lewis:
Oh, there was musicians. There was performance artists. There were-
Neil:
Any big names come out of there?
Lewis:
Well, Will Monroe was, to us, the biggest name at the time. He was a very prominent artist and DJ in Toronto in the gay queer scene at the time.
He threw the biggest parties. Vaseline, Vaseline.
Neil:
What's Vaseline, Vaseline?
Lewis:
Vaseline was his dance night, his party night.
Neil:
Is that the one that was on the subway?
Lewis:
No, but for Will's birthday, I think it was Will's birthday when his birthday would come up, he would throw, him and his friends would organize a subway party where we would plan to meet on a specific train traveling in a specific direction. And we would all pile into one car and eventually the people who were just riding the TTC would switch cars because it all became very noisy.
Neil:
Yeah, you take over a subway car and you're taking it over with like
Lewis:
30, 40, 50 people, sometimes more.
Neil:
Doing what?
Lewis:
Dancing, decorating. People would bring decorations, hang them over the railings. There'd be boom boxes, a lot of, not a lot of clothing, but the clothing that was on was tight and colorful.
Neil:
Not a lot of clothing.
Lewis:
Well, you know, people were out to party.
Neil:
Flamboyant, queer community.
Lewis:
Yeah, yeah.
Neil:
Not a lot of clothing.
Lewis:
A lot of fun, you know, beautiful, amazing people having a, you're doing something that is illegal, but I mean, it's, we weren't, nobody was harmed.
Neil:
Yeah, exactly.
Lewis:
People were disrupted.
Some people joined in. Random strangers joined in.
Neil:
I think when you have a party on a subway car, you're taking that risk right up front.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Like it is the subway.
Lewis:
We welcomed it.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
You know, and eventually it would get shut down.
Neil:
That's how it has to end.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
There's no other way a subway party could end rather than-
Lewis:
I hope, you know, I hope that they still exist. I hope people are still doing it.
Neil:
Nobody got arrested.
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
Just get out of here.
Lewis:
Get out of here.
Neil:
Well, also it gets to the end of the line. Yeah, we would go- How long would this party last?
Lewis:
You know, back and forth a couple of times.
Neil:
Oh, really?
Lewis:
It would switch. You know, we would move trains.
Neil:
So this is, we would get broke up for hours then.
Lewis:
We'd get off at Bloor and Spadina and then get out.
Neil:
Oh, you had a plan.
Lewis:
And then go, yeah, of course.
Neil:
Oh, and that's how you keep it going.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Oh, you switch at Bloor and Spadina, you want to go North, South and then you have to catch the- Oh, wow. That's how you keep it going. You're jumping the line.
Lewis:
Yeah. And then you go, you do the loop down to Union, back up and- And jump the line again. Yeah, yeah.
Neil:
Oh, wow. You say this like we know what you're talking about, Lewis. Like just in general, with your life and your scene and your, because, you know, part of what I'm attracted to with you in your conversation is that you're just being so wonderfully outlandish about everything. Like you're not living within this, the skirted rules of any sort of system. Like you just well acknowledge that almost everything you're doing is outside, certainly the lines of legality.
Lewis:
I'd say a lot of my life has been lived in that realm.
Neil:
Yeah. I'm noticing that with your art, with where you're living, with how you're partying, it's all illegal.
Not to, I'm not saying that we need to live within those lines.
Lewis:
But those are the most fun things, you know, and we barely scratch the surface of, we don't have time to go into all of the various things.
Neil:
Give me two or three other things you guys would do, this crazy arts collective, what the scene was like.
Lewis:
Oh, I was thinking more like going back in time to high school, the places that we would hang out.
We would hang out anywhere that was away from other people's view. And one of our favorite places to hang out was inside of a bridge.
Neil:
Inside of a bridge?
Lewis:
There was, I think it was the 406, runs through St. Catharines. And from downtown, we found, it goes over, I think it's a 12-mile creek. This bridge spans over this creek.
And just through urban exploration, we found an area where we could physically get inside of this big cement bridge.
Neil:
Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
There was a cavernous area.
Neil:
I can picture it. Like a highway tunnel.
Lewis:
Essentially, it was all just this empty space. I think the bridge was probably prefabbed and then dropped in place. Like some military aircraft.
And there was a hole in a wall that led into a dark, open room, and we went and explored this space. And eventually, you know, we weren't the first people in there. I distinctly remember going in there the first time, jumping in and turning on a flashlight, because it was pitch black.
A low ceiling, smelled bad. You could smell urine. You could smell feces.
You could smell booze, cigarettes. So it's like people had partied down here. And the first thing we all saw when we turned the light on in there was a deflated sex doll that had been abused.
Neil:
Oh no.
Lewis:
And it was just like laying there on the ground.
Neil:
Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
And I took photos of it and I handed it in for a photography project and got a good mark.
Neil:
Oh my gosh. Wow. The connection of observation with kind of living in your own lines.
Lewis:
So we would go in here and people would party. We would have fires. In the center, we would walk into the center of the structure, probably about 400 or 500 meters, ducking under beams.
Neil:
The bridge was that big?
Lewis:
Long bridge.
Neil:
400 to 500 meters?
Lewis:
It felt about...
Neil:
That's a very long bridge.
Lewis:
Okay. Less than a hundred.
Neil:
Okay, okay. Tenth of a mile.
Lewis:
It felt long because it was a bit of an arduous journey.
Neil:
Okay.
Lewis:
Ducking under these things.
Neil:
You would have fires in there.
Lewis:
Yeah, and we would...
Neil:
That's skirting the definition of no one's getting hurt here.
Lewis:
There was lung pollution. Surely.
Neil:
Lung pollution.
Lewis:
When these kinds of things are happening, I would be present. I wouldn't sit very close to the fire.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
I found it unpleasant. But I also liked the wild atmosphere.
Neil:
Okay, now take us back into your 20s. You're at this arts collective. You're at DuPont in Ossington.
You had an outside the lines kind of upbringing and childhood. You certainly are defining the rules for yourself as you go. You're really trying to maintain kind of a wide canvas of kind of within which you live and function.
Now you're in this art collective. You're in your 20s. I haven't got...
We haven't got to Moby Dick yet. We haven't got to marriage yet, by the way, like, you know, cause I know you're married now. We haven't got to Lewis yet.
There's a few things missing here from the story. So is it... Give me what happened in the 20s.
Give me your 20s.
Lewis:
Well, we...
Neil:
I also haven't got to all the tattoos you're covered in yet. But I know... And also the straight edge tattoo, you're not straight edge now.
So that's another switch that I'm waiting for at some point.
Lewis:
Yeah. Well, after meeting Nick, Steven and Lockie, the three gentlemen that really like changed... Nick, Steven and Lockie.
Changed the direction of my life.
Neil:
I love the name Lockie.
Lewis:
Yeah, keep going.
Interesting name. Very boring guy though. No, I'm kidding.
He's a great guy.
Neil:
Old man walking by in a purple striped shirt holding a case of Coca-Cola over his shoulder.
Lewis:
Yeah, like it's a boom box.
Neil:
Yeah, I love that. That's a great look for that man. Yeah.
Lewis:
Yeah. And so we became fast friends and spend a lot of time together, making art together, critiquing each other's artwork, growing as artists, being honest with each other. And we were really trying to be the best in the school.
We were trying to be... We wanted to be competitive with each other. We wanted to do well.
We wanted to show off. And once we started to develop a plan for our future, we knew we wanted to work together. We would come up to Toronto as often as possible, the four of us.
We'd take the GO train into the city to get some culture. We were so thirsty for culture. And...
Neil:
How'd you define culture when you came in on the GO train to the big city? What were you looking for?
Lewis:
From Oakville.
Neil:
Were you looking to set fires on bridges?
Lewis:
No, no. We were just looking for culture. We were just looking to be around people from somewhere other than Oakville.
Neil:
Right, right. You'd walk up and down Yonge Street, street preachers, sex theaters, that kind of world.
Lewis:
No, we would go to cafes. And we would sit down and draw in cafes.
Neil:
Oh, okay, okay, okay.
Lewis:
And so there was one particular day at a store called Tequila Bookworm.
Neil:
Oh, I know that store.
Lewis:
The old location.
It's in a new, where it's been there for a long time.
Neil:
Bar slash bookstore.
Lewis:
Yeah. And we were sitting at a table for four and we started passing around a drawing.
Neil:
Oh.
Lewis:
And then Lockie wrote on the drawing, he wrote Team Macho.
Neil:
Team Macho.
Lewis:
And this became the name of our collective.
We basically formed our collective that day in Tequila Bookworm, sitting at this beautiful table, which I tried to buy from them when they were moving and getting rid of their furniture. I went in and offered way more money for that table than it was worth. And they refused to sell it to me.
Neil:
On what grounds?
Lewis:
They just refused. I didn't ask for a reason.
I just took, I was like, all right, I'm not, you know. I offered like $400 for a shitty old table. And I had no business spending that much money on a table at that time.
I was poor.
Neil:
But it had to do something with what happened after from that table.
Lewis:
The sentimental value of the table to us.
Neil:
So that means the collective had some value too. So take us into what happened with this collective, Team Macho.
Lewis:
Oh, well, we got our studio together.
Neil:
So you lived together, you're working together.
Lewis:
More or less, yes.
Neil:
No bedrooms though. Just what, sleeping on the floor?
Lewis:
Not at the time.
When we moved into the place, it had not been lived in in recent memory.
Neil:
Is there a bathroom?
Lewis:
Not in any formal way.
The landlord built us a bathroom.
Neil:
But no shower probably.
Lewis:
With a shower.
Oh wow. Yeah. There was no kitchen.
Neil:
No kitchen. That's a bit of a...
Lewis:
So our bathroom had a pink toilet, a standup shower, and a laundry tub for a sink.
But no ceiling. The walls went... If the ceilings were nine foot, they're about nine foot in there.
The bathroom ceiling or the bathroom wall was eight foot. And there was a lot of pipes running along the ceiling. So it would have been extremely difficult for him to build the wall up to the ceiling around all the pipes.
He didn't want to do it. He built it eight foot. So any noise in the bathroom, any smell from the bathroom came out of the bathroom very easily.
Neil:
Into the artist's studio.
Lewis:
And yes. So we had rules about being in the bathroom.
Neil:
What were they?
Lewis:
Flush, the goddamn toilet.
Neil:
Yeah, that's a good one.
Lewis:
Courtesy flush.
Neil:
Oh, courtesy flush. Immediately after the defecation.
Lewis:
Yeah. But also, since any noise could be heard easily, anybody who was shy about going to the bathroom, we had a CD player in the bathroom. And we always kept the same CD in it.
And it was a kind of like big band music.
Neil:
Oh, wow. A lot of tubas in there.
Lewis:
Yeah, exactly. And there was a particular song that if you got to that song, we basically started harassing. Everybody would be like, get out of there.
You're in there for too long. When the saints come marching in.
Neil:
Oh, yeah.
Lewis:
Came on. Everybody would lift their head up from the desk and be like, who has been in the bathroom forever?
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
You know, get out of there kind of thing.
Neil:
Wow. You're shitting a month. Yeah, they always say don't sleep where you shit. You've heard that phrase.
Lewis:
We didn't have a choice.
Neil:
No beds though.
Lewis:
Well, at this point we had beds.
We didn't have bedrooms. We were all sleeping in the living room with our beds kind of like tucked in together to save space and slowly building the space.
Neil:
What happened? What about no kitchen? How do you eat? What do you eat?
Lewis:
Well, we built ourselves a kitchen.
Neil:
You built a kitchen?
Lewis:
Yeah, well, we went and bought sinks and I built countertops and cupboards. We stole-
Neil:
What kind of food were you eating though? You didn't have any income it sounds like. Not much anyway.
Lewis:
No, I was eating a lot of... So Nick, his father has chickens he's from the country up near Muskoka and his father would come down every weekend to teach at a Japanese school. He worked at a Japanese school, a Saturday school nearby and he would bring us two, three, four dozen eggs.
And so Nick and I, who at the time were the only ones living there full-time, we were sharing a bed. We were washing our dishes in the bathroom and we were eating rice, miso soup and eggs like three times a day.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
It's all we could afford. Luckily-
Neil:
Nice hookup on the eggs though.
Lewis:
High quality, excellent eggs.
I learned how to make a really good miso soup.
Neil:
Oh, you were making the miso soup?
Lewis:
Yeah, we had the paste.
Neil:
Oh, okay. Sounds like your friend, Nick is Japanese. It sounds like.
Lewis:
Half, yeah.
Neil:
So miso, you're making miso soup.
Lewis:
Yeah, I mean, it's just paste and soup stock. It was pretty simple.
Neil:
And rice.
Lewis:
And rice and eggs, yeah.
Neil:
Wow, and the other two guys were involved but they're not always living there.
Lewis:
They weren't always living there.
Neil:
And what was Team Macho producing?
Lewis:
At the time, we were trying to figure things out.
We had just finished school, I'm 24 at the time and we were making zines.
Neil:
Oh, yeah. Zine culture.
Lewis:
We got the attention of a store called Magic Pony.
Neil:
Okay.
Lewis:
Magic Pony, at this time, they were on the second floor of Queen Street in a small shop that you wouldn't notice if you didn't know it was there. We'll start with the second floor. Not many shops people know are there on the second floor of anything.
Yeah, you had to know the door to go in and there was a small sign. And they just sold zines? They were very, no, they sold, at the time, the owners would fly to Japan with empty suitcases, buy a bunch of toys and bring them home.
Neil:
Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
And sell them and just mark them up. They weren't available here.
Neil:
Oh, wow.
Lewis:
But they knew that there was a market for them.
Neil:
Yeah, probably a Nervous Customs check at the border on that one.
Lewis:
I don't know, but they did well. And they had a small space in the back. We're doing a podcast.
Neil:
It's called 3 Books.
[Person on the Street]
Is it called what?
Neil:
3 Books.
[Person on the Street]
3 Books.
Lewis:
Do you have three favorite books?
Neil:
Formative. Formative, Lewis.
[Person on the Street]
Nice to meet you.
Neil:
You too.
Lewis:
So we, Podcasting.
Neil:
What was the first thing you said? Is something happening or are you just podcasting?
Lewis:
They, yeah. They had a small gallery space in the back that they would have shows in. They were a fan of zines that Lockie, Steven, and Nick were making.
I wasn't making zines at the time. The three of them were. They were really into this scene.
Neil:
Zine scene.
Lewis:
Yeah, the zine scene. Say that five times fast.
And they liked the zines and we just asked like, hey, could we do a show?
Neil:
How were they doing different things? I thought this was a collective.
Lewis:
But we were figuring out how it looked.
Neil:
This was very early on. It doesn't mean you just made art together.
Lewis:
We knew we wanted to make art together. We just didn't know how. We needed an opportunity.
So we got an opportunity to have a show and we were like, collectively, we were like, oh shit, what do we do now? I mean, we wanted a show. We didn't think about what we were gonna do for a show.
Neil:
The Magic Pony gave you a show?
Lewis:
Magic Pony took a chance and gave us a show. We had, I don't know, let's say for the sake of this, six to eight months to prepare.
Neil:
Wow, six to eight months. Which. That's a long time to prepare for a show for an indiscreet, second floor, not, you know. Well, you gotta plan these things ahead of time. Illegal Japanese sales store.
Lewis:
And so the four of us just put our heads together and we started to make work.
Neil:
What'd you make? I love, this is Seth Godin, by the way, chapter three. You know, the deadline creates the shipment. You know what I'm saying?
Lewis:
Oh yes, I.
Neil:
The deadline creates the product.
Lewis:
I agree with this.
Neil:
Start with the deadline.
Lewis:
There was a fifth member, I think, around this time.
We brought in a friend of ours named Jacob, who we met. He went to OCAD. He was a bit of an outsider from the group, but we brought him in.
He fit in well. And for the first few years of the collective.
Neil:
He didn't shit too long.
Lewis:
For the first few years of the collective, he was a part of it. And eventually he wanted to take his career in a different direction. And so he stepped away.
He knows that, we all signed a contract early on in our collective, that we would be friends for life. And we are still all very good friends. Because the contract decrees that.
That we are friends for life.
Neil:
Did you sign it in blood?
Lewis:
No, we didn't sign it in blood, but we did sign it.
And I think it's what we called.
Neil:
Thank you.
Lewis:
It's what we called our very first show, I believe, friends for life.
Neil:
Friends for life. So in the six to eight months, what'd you guys make?
Lewis:
We made probably 50 to 60 paintings, drawings. The idea of the collective was that we were gonna work on each other's work. That we were gonna try to remove the ego out of the art.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
Take our egos out of it.
Neil:
Remove the ego from the art.
Lewis:
And collaborate on things in a way that only we knew.
And that we wouldn't necessarily tell the audience who did what.
Neil:
Oh, kind of like Lennon and McCartney.
Lewis:
And so we would mimic each other's styles.
I saw it very much. I liked it because it was problem solving. I would be given a half finished piece.
And I could take it in any direction I wanted to.
Neil:
And no drug use here still. I don't mean to keep asking, but at some point you flip over.
Lewis:
The guys, although they did consume intoxicants, none of them did it in a way that was as abusive as my friends in high school did.
Neil:
Oh, okay. Yeah, they weren't letting the.
Lewis:
A slightly more mature approach. Maybe a little too much alcohol sometimes.
Neil:
Art came first though, would you say?
Lewis:
Art came first. We were all very dedicated to, yes, absolutely.
Neil:
Can I ask where this dedication to art came from? Clearly it wasn't financially based. No, I'm not.
Six to eight months to make the art for the.
Lewis:
No, well we all had part time jobs.
Neil:
Oh, you're all working on the side.
Lewis:
Oh yeah, yeah. The whole time through, even through college and high school.
Neil:
Okay, I guess I missed. What are you doing?
Lewis:
I was getting random kitchen jobs.
Neil:
Oh, you're working in kitchens.
Lewis:
I've worked in a lot of kitchens.
Neil:
Okay. Restaurants.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Okay. Did we skip over the part where you slept on Center Island? Did we miss that?
Lewis:
No, we're nowhere near that.
Neil:
Oh, that's coming later.
Lewis:
Yes.
Okay, okay. I heard about this. We're gonna get to that later.
So we.
Neil:
How did the show go?
Lewis:
It went better than our wildest dreams. You know, we sold almost everything. It was, we couldn't believe it.
We couldn't believe that so many people showed up for a group that nobody had ever heard of.
Neil:
Why did they?
Lewis:
Magic Pony was doing something cool.
They had a, they had a. This is 90s, 2000s? Early 2000s.
Neil:
Early 2000s.
Lewis:
Four, five, six.
Neil:
Pre-social media though.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
It wasn't like you were using social media.
Lewis:
But there's like MySpace or some shit.
Neil:
It wasn't like you were, I went to a concert recently in Toronto and I was like, me and my friend, my friend Flip from New York for it, Brian. He's like, I want to come see this, you know, concert. And it was like, he got popular off TikTok.
I didn't know that. And, but you could tell when you got there because it was all 23 year old women wearing the same denim cutoffs. And white tank tops.
Lewis:
Sounds like a Taylor Swift concert.
Neil:
We were like totally out of character. I was like, oh my God, it was Noah Kahan. K-A-H-A-N.
Lewis:
Never heard of him.
Neil:
Okay, well, I guess you don't go on TikTok because he's got like billions of followers and stuff.
Lewis:
Don't, don't. I downloaded it once when it was Musical.ly and I was like, this isn't for me. And I deleted it.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So the show, so.
Lewis:
So we prepared a show.
Neil:
We made a lot of work. You prepare for the show. You do the show.
You make a lot, you make a lot of work. You sell a lot of work.
Lewis:
Sold a lot of work.
Neil:
Nobody quits their job yet though. Their side job.
Lewis:
No way. There's no way that was possible.
So the gallery takes 50%.
Neil:
You're making like thousand bucks or something.
Lewis:
Not much, yeah. By the time our 50% gets divided by four, there's not a lot of money left over.
Neil:
Yeah, exactly.
Lewis:
But we were riding high.
We sold a lot of work. We couldn't believe it.
Neil:
And it's a sign of investment in what you're doing.
Lewis:
We were very much doing that.
Neil:
No, I'm saying like the world told you, you're doing, like, it's a belief check mark on being an artist.
Lewis:
It certainly gave us the confidence to do another one.
Neil:
That's what I'm saying.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Okay.
Lewis:
Absolutely.
Neil:
So keep taking me through the 20s then. And then also, I'm still looking, I'm searching for Moby Dick in here.
Lewis:
Okay. Well, I'm starting to read more for myself at this point. And I'm finding books that I'm interested in reading and I'm reading through them.
I'm not necessarily enjoying them, but I'm learning. And it wasn't until I started reading Harry Potter.
Neil:
Oh, Harry Potter.
Lewis:
And we had talked about this as, I mentioned this as- Might've been a formative book. Yeah, absolutely. In a way that it was the first series of books that I ever actually enjoyed reading, where I was looking forward to the next one and would read it and take time out of my day to read it and not just do it because I thought it was something I should be doing.
Neil:
What a gift Harry Potter gave to the world, turning so many, at the time, non-readers to readers.
Lewis:
Yeah. I kind of wished I had that innocent childhood, I think. That was something for me where I was like, I envied that school experience, that high school experience.
Neil:
Oh, interesting.
Lewis:
Because it was so different than mine.
Neil:
Yes. Yeah, nobody was shooting heroin at Hogwarts.
Lewis:
Yeah, it was a lot more innocent. And, but I thought it was great, great storytelling, great adventure.
Neil:
And I will point out to the listener, I hope this doesn't break your identity, but on the palm of the hand that you're holding the microphone with, is that not the Deathly Hallows?
Lewis:
Correct.
Neil:
So you've got the Harry Potter tattoo right on your palm.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
I would imagine that's a place you don't see, I don't see many palm tattoos.
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
Yeah. So what made you decide to get the Deathly Hallows tattooed on your palm? Deathly Hallows, for people that don't know, is a giant triangle with a big circle in the middle and a line through the circle, like kind of like a cat eye sort of thing.
Lewis:
An equilateral triangle with a line dividing.
Neil:
It's probably like the Elder Wand and the Invisibility Cloak and the whatever the third thing was.
Lewis:
And the stone.
Neil:
Oh, the Philosopher's Stone.
Lewis:
The, is that the name of it?
Neil:
I don't know, maybe that, maybe not.
Lewis:
It was the stone that can bring back dead people temporarily.
Neil:
Oh, okay, that's a different stone.
Lewis:
I forget the name of it.
Neil:
Okay. So what made you get that tattooed on your palm?
Lewis:
It was the only tattoo I have that was a spur of the moment decision. I didn't think too much about it ahead of time. I just got it done.
And I figured that since I use my hands a lot, that it would eventually, not completely disappear, but disintegrate to a point where it wouldn't necessarily be recognizable. And boy, was I wrong. It is very permanent.
I mean, of course I knew tattoos were gonna be permanent, but I thought that it would get beat up more than it has.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
And.
Neil:
Would you recommend a palm tattoo?
Lewis:
I mean, if you're in.
Neil:
You got tattoos, you got sleeves, you got arms. What else we got here?
Lewis:
Oh, stomach. I have a sleeve.
Neil:
One sleeve, a stomach, a palm.
Lewis:
I've got some on my ribs, a bit on my leg. Yeah, it's a painful process.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
I think that you, I tried to get into tattooing. I wanted to learn how to do it at a point in my life. And I'm glad that I never got accepted by anybody because I think I would probably have a lot more tattoos if it becomes an easier access thing.
I'm sure I would have be heavily coated. Not that I'm opposed to getting more. I just, I think that I, from going forward, I'm gonna put more thought into it if I do it.
Neil:
Ah, interesting. I'll put more thought. Which I normally have. And by the way, they say over half tattoos are now removed. More than 50% of tattoos.
Lewis:
I've considered trying. I've considered getting the straight edge tattoo removed from my stomach.
Neil:
Maybe just do strikethrough, you know, like a line and then underneath it, you now say psychedelic.
Lewis:
No, I don't think I would do that.
Neil:
Psychonaut.
Lewis:
It was a very painful place to get a tattoo.
Neil:
Your stomach? Oh my gosh. I can't even imagine.
Lewis:
The tattoo artist, you know, thought I was crazy for it being my first tattoo. But I don't know. It's like, it's gonna hurt one way or the other.
Might as well just get it.
Neil:
You know, get it where you want it. You get, so you get into Harry Potter and your toys. It gets you back into reading.
Lewis:
It got me back into reading.
Neil:
Your dad was a big reader growing up.
Lewis:
It got me into, Harry Potter got me into audio books too.
Neil:
Ah.
Lewis:
It, it was a bridge. I was listening to a lot of audio.
Neil:
Audio books was not big at the time.
Lewis:
At the time, no.
Neil:
You like doing CDs or something?
Lewis:
I listened to, well, yes.
I, a lot of my life, I listened to a lot of audio, a lot of talk radio. I loved late night AM radio, Art Bell.
Neil:
Ooh, late night AM radio. What a cool subculture.
Lewis:
As a kid, I listened to a lot of this. And as I got older, I listened to a lot of AM, just talk radio in general. I listened to Howard Stern.
Neil:
You were always a big AM late night radio guy. You were a big Stern person. You were a big listener.
You consumed the world through audio. So the audio book entry point for you to become an adult reader was natural for you.
Lewis:
Yeah. Well, I found that in the beginning, it was difficult to listen to audio books and do something else, to follow along with a story. But since I had physically read all of the Harry Potter books, when I listened to them for the first time, I already knew the story.
So I could just kind of, from then on, it was more like watching a movie, where I had already built a visual world in my head of what this looked like outside of the movies, also influenced by the movies, surely. And so just listening to the story, I didn't have to be present the whole time. And the more I listened, the better I got at listening.
And I was able to start listening to other books. And I thought, oh, this is a much better way for me to consume books, because I can do it while I'm drawing. Not in all kinds of drawing, or if I'm being creative, if I was actively doing creative work, coming up with ideas, problem solving, I could not listen to audio books.
It was too much of a distraction. I needed silence or music. But once I was doing the-
Neil:
This is part of the thing that prevents audio books from fully taking off, is it's hard to do it and do something else.
Lewis:
But once I was doing the grunt work, once all the problem solving was done, and it was just applying, finishing, rendering, whatever, then I could tune out and listen. And so that's when I would listen to books.
Neil:
Plus it's good for rereading, as you're pointing out.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
Uh-huh. But Moby Dick is not rereading. Moby Dick is a sizable challenge.
Lewis:
So I took on Moby Dick while I was painting a friend's house. I did a lot of house painting, indoor, outdoor. I started painting in school, and in my college, in the summer, I would do painting around the school in the summer, just refurbishing.
Neil:
So it wasn't a task that took all of your mental faculties?
Lewis:
Zero.
Neil:
So you could listen to Moby Dick while painting a house.
Lewis:
And so eventually, yeah.
Neil:
It's probably like a 25-hour audio book or something, I bet.
Lewis:
I think it was like 30 to 40. It was long.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah. How many hours does it take to paint a house? 30 to 40?
Lewis:
No, I think that the book was just part of that time.
Neil:
Okay.
Lewis:
But I distinctly remember listening to it in that phase of my life.
And I was somewhere in my late 20s, I think, maybe 30 at the oldest. And I really enjoyed the adventure of the book. I love the idea of this guy just changing his life, like being, I'm gonna join a crew of sailors and do something I've never done before for the sake of adventure, that kind of thing.
And I thought, wow, what a wild experience that must've been like, especially back in the day when they're using whale oil to light their lamps.
Neil:
That's why they're on a whale searching boat.
Lewis:
They were going after sperm whales, yeah.
Neil:
They're looking for the oil.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
That was the original- Spermaceti, I think. Was that not the original kind of start of like the oil industry?
Lewis:
I think it- Like, is that not the first energy- It was certainly an early, it was, I think it was easier to get.
Neil:
That was before oil was a thing.
Lewis:
Oil was a thing, I think it was just hard to refine and to deal with.
Ah, okay, yeah. And that the-
Neil:
There was no oil, there was no, nothing was running on oil though. I mean, whale oil, but not what we call gas today.
Lewis:
No, if it was, I think to refine it was very difficult.
Neil:
We've really screwed up the world fast is what I'm noticing here.
Lewis:
It's what we do really well.
Neil:
Like fast, like really fast. Like we're gonna put out more carbon emissions this year than we ever have in history. And that's the same for every fucking year.
It just seems- Since the last 50 years, we've been talking about it being a problem.
Lewis:
Yeah, it seems absolutely crazy.
Neil:
I'm very glad that we both walked here today.
Lewis:
Like such a beautiful animal, right? Like what a unique looking creature here.
Neil:
He's pointing at the cover of the book, the sperm whale.
Lewis:
You know, I was just like, although it was a book about hunting these animals, I just thought like, what a waste too. You know, like you're such a cool creature and all we can think to do with it is exploit it.
Neil:
Largest animal, amongst the largest animals ever on the planet historically. I think it dives deeper than any other whale. Dives deeper than any other whale.
Probably bigger than almost any dinosaur.
Lewis:
Yeah, likely.
Neil:
It's been around since the dinosaurs too.
I mean, arguably it is a dinosaur, is it not?
Lewis:
Battles mythical creatures at the bottom of the ocean. Giant squids and shit.
Neil:
Giant squids are real.
Lewis:
Yeah, well, you know, back then they were mythical.
Neil:
That's kind of cool that we proved one. Loch Ness never came through. Not yet.
Maybe it just went extinct.
Lewis:
Not yet.
Neil:
Yeah, exactly.
So you identified earlier in this conversation that the size and the challenge of Moby Dick was appealing to you.
Lewis:
Absolutely.
Neil:
To the point where at the end of these interviews, I sometimes ask people, what is your white whale book?
That's a closing question I have. A book you've been chasing the longest and many people answer that question by saying Moby Dick.
Lewis:
Yeah, I mean.
Neil:
And you fucking tackled it out of the gate. Like you become an adult reader. You go boom into, I know you had Harry Potter as your amuse-bouche, but pretty quick after you're going hard.
This is a huge, gigantic, overwhelming.
Lewis:
It was a difficult lesson.
Neil:
Big piece of literature.
Lewis:
There was certainly pausing, rewinding and re-listening happening.
Yeah, even just the language it's written in. It's of course English, but it's an old English.
Neil:
200 year old, yeah.
Lewis:
And yeah, I just thought that it's a book that was valued by people who were smart and that I looked up to. And I thought, if I'm gonna have a well-rounded education, at this point I was teaching myself things. I was very unsatisfied with the education I received going through grade school, middle school, high school.
And I decided to start seeking out the things I was interested in as soon as I had the wherewithal to do so and realized that I needed to because I wasn't being provided it.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah. And I love that you did so in a way that was both daunting, but also accessible because you went into Moby Dick from an audio book perspective while painting a house. I think that's good guidance for listeners like me who have not read this book like me.
I'm not gonna be ashamed of it because one of the values of the show is no book guilt, no book shame. But I've read the first 20, 30 pages and they're good. I really liked it.
I could tell it's challenging, but I really enjoyed the experience. So, but audio book would be great.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
I just need to find a house to paint now.
Lewis:
Yeah, or a banal task to tackle.
Neil:
Yeah, a banal task. You're throwing the words of the chapter out left, right and center. Now, Moby Dick is often described as being about one man's obsession. And as such, it can be read as a cautionary tale about hyper-focus on an individual pursuit. Is there a tension for you between that and being an artist?
What is the risk for you about too much hyper-focus on your individual pursuit? How do you avoid being like Ahab? Or Ishmael, I guess it is.
Lewis:
Yeah. Check in with my wife.
Neil:
Oh, that's good. Check in with my wife. I think she lets me know. Like go to bed, it's 5 a.m. kind of thing?
Lewis:
No, more like, you know, get out of your fantasy world and do some real life tasks.
Neil:
And you no longer have a part-time job, right?
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
So Lewis Mallard has achieved the goal of being self-sufficient financially. He has not achieved the goal of being-
Lewis:
I wouldn't say that. I am surviving off of savings. And when I make money, it's like, a lot comes in and then a lot doesn't come in for a long time. It comes in bursts, with shows, with I have to make a lot of my own opportunities. Right now I am-
Neil:
You're open for commissions. People can hire you to paint something, do something.
Lewis:
I open myself for commissions rarely because I'm heavily focused on other creative ventures.
I do take on commissions from time to time. Most often from people who have already been supporters of me, clients, customers, good customers, that kind of thing.
Neil:
So it's not self-sufficient financially yet, but- I'm trying to build- You want that, that's the goal you have.
Lewis:
Absolutely.
Neil:
So it's the question about obsession is you're kind of like, I'm not there yet towards my goals, but your wife will steer you away from falling too far into it.
Lewis:
Well, she tolerates it up into a point.
Neil:
Does her level of toleration work for you?
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
Not like you spite her for it?
Lewis:
No, absolutely not.
Neil:
You're grateful to have her pull you out of the abyss?
Lewis:
Yeah, she drives me to work away harder than I would for myself because it's not just me anymore, it's we.
She's also in a career path that isn't known for being extremely lucrative.
Neil:
Opera singing.
Lewis:
Yes, and she's in the beginning of her career. And we're building-
Neil:
There's not many operas.
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
Like in Canada, how many operas are there? Toronto, Vancouver, that's it?
Lewis:
Montreal. Well, we're moving to Montreal so that she has a contract with the Opera of Montreal.
Neil:
Oh, interesting. So Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, three operas in the country? There's small- A country of 40 million people that has three viable places an opera singer can work.
Lewis:
And maybe make enough to call it a living, yes.
Neil:
Right, yeah. I'm not counting the stuff you're doing on the street or on the side or the birthday parties.
Lewis:
In the small venues, yes.
Neil:
Wow, wow. I love how both of you are so, so deep down, very narrow niches.
Lewis:
It was one of the things that brought us together and that we related to each other about is how driven we are to succeed in our fields. Yes.
Neil:
Wow, okay. So I feel like I've got a nice little portrait of your 20s here. You're in this art collective, you're at 888 DuPont, what a cool number.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
You're eating eggs, you're eating rice. I think- You're yelling at people when they go to when the Saints go marching in, sitting in the middle of the studio, you're building kitchens, you're pulling people.
You told me in a past conversation that wasn't recorded that you were pulling people out of like, you'd wake up in the morning and there'd be like people sleeping in your place kind of thing.
Lewis:
Very often, we would have visitors, people from out of town that were coming by. I mean, with four or five people with keys and not all of them live there and it's kind of a 24 hour environment. You know, we did build bedrooms eventually.
Neil:
Was that not unsettling though? Was that not like somewhat trauma inducing to have like people showing up all the time?
Lewis:
I don't know, we were all pretty comfortable with it. We knew who they were.
Neil:
Yeah, and you're not on the street. Like this is one notch above living on the street.
Lewis:
Oh yeah, I'd say more than one notch, a couple notches. You know, it was not a place I think most people would want to live.
Neil:
Would your parents come downtown and visit you there?
Lewis:
I feel like my mother might've seen it once and was probably horrified by the whole thing.
Neil:
Dad never came by?
Lewis:
He might have come by.
Neil:
So the relationship with dad is still kind of, sounds like pretty distant here.
Lewis:
It was difficult to get them to come. If I had an art show, I really had to like voice my opinion that I wanted them there.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
For them to come and show interest.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
And that was a pretty common thing.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
Yeah. I don't think they really related. I was very different than they were.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
So I don't know if we really related to each other very much. Yeah.
Neil:
Even the straight edge thing was quite a different thing for your dad doing lines of Coke and when he gets to his job in the mornings.
Lewis:
Yeah. For me, I think it was a way of rebelling against my father.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
To be like just different than he was.
Neil:
Yeah. Yeah. How interesting that is, isn't it?
You know, you often see the kid that falls into abusing drugs as a form of rebellion, but here you have a drug abusing parent and your form of rebellion is sobriety.
Lewis:
In a way, I think. It certainly had something to do with it.
Neil:
Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. So parental advice for everyone listening, if you want, do be a functional alcoholic and casually consume just about any drug put in front of you. Ignore your kids so when you open the closet, they flip their diaper shit at you. Okay. Okay.
Okay. We have a nice portrait of your 20s. I know there was another big decade before we get into your 40s and I know there's a book that orients the decade around us a little bit and I know we're going to touch on it tangentially and we've done this way, but that book I just want to introduce to people is called Alaska by James A.
Michener. M-I-C-H-E-N-E-R.
Lewis:
Yeah. My father's favorite author.
Neil:
Really?
Lewis:
I grew up seeing his books, James Michener's books.
Neil:
On your bookshelf.
Lewis:
Yeah, on my father's bookshelves.
Many of them. He was a prolific author.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
He had a team that helped him write and research.
Neil:
He lived, here's another thing, he lived 1907 to 1997, another sort of numerical thing. He wrote 40 books, most of which were long fictional family sagas covering many generations set in particular geographic locales where he incorporated detailed history. Yes.
In the sweeping epic of the northernmost frontier, Michener guides us through Alaska's fierce terrain and history from the long forgotten past to the bustling present. As his characters struggle for survival, he weaves together exciting high points of Alaska's story, its brutal origins, the American acquisition, the gold rush, the growth and exploitation of salmon, the arduous construction of the Alcan Highway undertaken to defend the territory during World War II. As spellbinding portrait of a human community fighting to establish its place and voice in the world, Alaska traces a bold majestic saga of the enduring spirit of the land and its people.
Files 10813.54 for literature slash 20th century fiction. Take us into this book and to your 30s in the life of Lewis Mallard today.
Lewis:
Well, I mean, I'd always seen these books on my dad's shelves, never read one. I still haven't literally read one. Only listened to many of them. That counts.
Neil:
Yes. You have read Alaska.
Lewis:
I've listened to it a couple times.
Neil:
That counts.
Lewis:
And I chose this particular book. I mean, I would have just chosen the author had you given me the opportunity because although I didn't love every single one of his books, Alaska was one that I quite enjoyed. Hawaii was another.
Hawaii. Chesapeake, the source. There's been...
Neil:
Turkey vultures or red-tailed hawks are circling us. I'm just noticing that.
Lewis:
Yeah. No dead pigeons around us.
Neil:
No, or mallards, thankfully.
Lewis:
And so I didn't start consuming Michener until I was in my, well, very late 30s, just about to turn 40. When I was living, I had moved back. I'd moved to Hamilton to move in with my father and become a caregiver as he was approaching the end of his life.
Neil:
How did you know it was the end of his life? What happened? Was there an incident?
Lewis:
He was getting, he had dementia and it was getting progressively worse. My sister lived in Hamilton, lived in the same house as my father. She had moved my father into the house that she bought.
It was a two-unit house. So she was living upstairs with her partner and a newborn baby. My father was living downstairs on the ground floor.
Neil:
Can I ask what compelled you to be a chief full-time caregiver for a parent that doesn't sound like he was that for you ever?
Lewis:
I didn't see that I had any other choices that I could live with myself with. I was living in Toronto with a, well, now ex-girlfriend.
I was in a very confusing point in my life. I had quit my full-time job working for the YMCA, moving up through that organization, managing a group fitness department. I was very unsatisfied with my life.
I was making half-decent money. I had a salary, had benefits, had job security, and had a clear path forward.
Neil:
What were you doing for the Y?
Lewis:
I was managing fitness instructors, training staff.
Neil:
Outside the artistic world.
Lewis:
Yeah, this is a period of my life where I was not really creating much.
Neil:
The collective fell apart?
Lewis:
The collective didn't fall apart, but in our 30s, we had moved on to other things that we could actually make money in.
I, you know, in my 30s, I was like, well, art, I was working part-time jobs that were go-nowhere things, and I needed to make adult money. And I always enjoyed the YMCA. I grew up in a YMCA, essentially.
And I had great memories of being in a YMCA. And so I became a member of this particular Y, and enjoyed the environment. And I was on a, I didn't realize at the time, but I was on a journey kind of discovering myself as an athlete.
And I tried running, I didn't like it. I got into spin class and thought, I like it, I just don't like the way it's taught.
Neil:
You disagreed with the pedagogy.
Lewis:
And I thought, I could teach this better. And so eventually I was enough of a regular in the class that I got recruited by a staff member to be a volunteer, which is something the YMCA does. They love volunteers, and they recruit them.
Neil:
Not many people, not many organizations do that.
Lewis:
Not that I know of.
Neil:
Yeah. So you were a volunteer spin instructor.
Lewis:
I really liked the Y, and I became a volunteer spin instructor. And it was a challenge to myself to get over a fear of public speaking.
Neil:
Oh, wow. Because you had a little lav mic on probably.
Lewis:
Yeah, that or I just used my voice. I projected my voice.
Neil:
What didn't you like about how spinning was taught? I've only been to one spin class.
I didn't like that it was hard and I quit. What did you didn't like? Well, you didn't like the way it was taught.
Lewis:
I didn't like the music and the way the program was delivered.
Neil:
Oh, what was wrong? Why?
Lewis:
I didn't know what I didn't like about it. I just knew I didn't like it.
Neil:
You knew you didn't like it, okay.
Lewis:
I mean, the surface level was I didn't like the type of music. But I also knew that the type of music I wanted to ride my bike hard to would not be the type of music that the general public would enjoy riding their bike to.
Neil:
But it wasn't straight edge metal.
Lewis:
No, no, no. At this point, I wasn't listening to hardcore straight edge.
Neil:
I know, I'm just joking, I'm just joking.
Lewis:
Trying to do a callback to the one genre we've talked about. So when I did get my own class, I just copied in the beginning. I just mimicked what other instructors did so I could learn.
For me, getting over the fear of talking was the biggest hurdle. And once I was comfortable delivering a program and confident, I could start to be myself. And then once I learned how to be myself and deliver a class the way that I wanted one, I was also at the same time, I was becoming an avid outdoor cyclist.
I was learning about road cycling, off-road cycling, racing. I was making friends in the cycling community. I was becoming a very-
Neil:
So you're in Hamilton or Toronto?
Lewis:
Toronto. College in Davenport. Dover Court.
Neil:
Okay. So you're cycling, you're volunteering at the Y.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Dad gets sick.
Lewis:
I started working at, well, and I started working at the Y in the aquatics department. I wanted to work in the group fitness department, but I didn't have a degree in physical education, which they required.
Neil:
Oh my gosh. So here they go from being a volunteer organization, A, and B, now you need a kinesiology degree to work.
Lewis:
To work full-time in the fitness department. That's what they asked for.
Neil:
Wow, okay.
Lewis:
Leveling up here. And so I decided I wanted to work here. I liked the building.
I wanted to be there more. So I got in in the aquatics department. I learned how to swim well enough to become a lifeguard.
I basically had a chat with There was one woman there-
Neil:
Self-taught swimming. That's hard.
Lewis:
Who I admired.
She was in upper management. We became friends, and she wanted me to work there. She saw something in me, and she said, look, I can't hire you like this, but if you get your lifeguarding, I can hire you as a lifeguard.
Neil:
How'd you get a lifeguarding then?
Lewis:
Like, I- I took the courses.
Neil:
You just kept going until you got it.
Lewis:
Well, I was starting to get into swimming, because I thought it would be good cross-training for my cycling. I felt like I was plateauing in cycling.
And I knew how to swim, but I didn't know how to be an efficient swimmer. I hadn't learned, like, really proper technique. And there was a guy at the Y who was a lifeguard, an older gentleman, who was an ex-swim instructor, a high-level swim instructor.
And so he offered to show me. So I would come in and swim when he was lifeguarding, and he would just teach me how to be a better swimmer. And as I learned how to swim properly, with good form and efficient, I really enjoyed it. I thought it was-
Neil:
Man, you're inspiring me.
Lewis:
I was swimming at a level that I couldn't, I wouldn't have believed I could have swim at. And, and so this woman, Ika, she noticed my, me swimming, and thought that, you know, this guy's a good swimmer. He could easily become a lifeguard.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
And so she encouraged me to go get my lifeguarding. In my early thirties, it was uncomfortable to get it because I was only around-
Neil:
The oldest kid, probably.
Lewis:
By far.
Neil:
Yeah. It's all like teenagers, right?
Lewis:
Yes. There's one other guy who was as old as me, who had to get his lifeguarding for work.
And so we kind of just bonded, and we became each other's partners. He was a hulking, like, 230-pound dude. And for reference, I'm like 160 pounds, soaking wet.
Neil:
I'm 170. You're a lot taller than me. I got a lot of chub compared to you.
Lewis:
I'm built like a bird.
Neil:
I'm built like a bird. You are a bird.
Lewis:
I've got thin bones.
Neil:
I got thin bones.
Lewis:
I'm like, I've got my mother's frame. I got thin bones. I do.
Neil:
I've never heard anyone say that before. I'm built like a bird.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
I noticed your legs. That was one of the first things I noticed about you, the orange spandex.
Lewis:
Thanks.
Neil:
Yeah, and it's also like, you know, you're pretty close to, like, testicular level there. I mean, a duck paper mache costume doesn't go as low as you might think. You got, you're revealing a lot about yourself.
Lewis:
2.0 and 3.0, I built to be lower than 1.0.
Neil:
Because what was happening?
Lewis:
People were noticing stuff. I saw photos of myself in the costume where there was just a little too much junk showing. On a hot summer day, you know, the onesie, the orange onesie gets real hot. And I could see that I was uncircumcised. Or sorry, circumcised.
I could see that I was circumcised in a photo. And I was like, oh, dear.
Neil:
I like that the error was that you were uncircumcised. I could see that I was uncircumcised. I could see that I was, I would see that I was circumcised. Oh, we're getting a lot of looks right now.
Lewis:
And I thought like, okay, that's not what I didn't mean.
Neil:
That's not how you maintain a secret identity.
Lewis:
Yeah, and so.
Neil:
Okay, he's Jewish, he's Muslim, he's born in the seventies.
Lewis:
And so I was like, all right, well, when I remake this costume, I need to make it a little bit lower.
Neil:
Oh my gosh, you are so funny.
Lewis:
Although, you know, it's like, I'm not necessarily shy about it.
It's not a big deal. But I also, you know, I didn't make it for kids, but kids really like it. And it's not a bad thing to be kid friendly.
Neil:
I talk about you with my kids all the time. They are obsessed with you.
Lewis:
I hope it's not annoying.
Neil:
No, they love you. I'm gonna buy a bunch of these hats for them. Where if they're for sale.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
How much was it as a hat? It's a good quality ball cap, by the way.
Lewis:
$35.
Neil:
Oh, that's a deal for that hat. That's a really nice.
Who are you waving at here? You know everybody going by.
Lewis:
It was a friend of mine.
Neil:
Does he know your secret identity?
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
Oh, so how do you decide who you tell your secret identity to?
Lewis:
I've known him for a lot of years.
I used to ride bikes with him.
Neil:
Gotta know you for a lot of years. Start with that.
Lewis:
Not necessarily.
Neil:
Okay.
Lewis:
But he's just somebody I know and like, and you know, he knew me before Lewis, and he saw Lewis come to life on social media.
Neil:
Okay, okay, nice. Your dad's sick. He's got dementia. You move back home. You leave the life in Toronto.
Lewis:
I'm at a point where I wanted to, I desperately wanted to change something about my life. I wanted to be making art again. I wanted to be an artist again.
I felt like I.
Neil:
But I'm stuck here, because you said, it's the only way I could live with myself. I said, why are you becoming chief caregiver for a person who, no offense, doesn't seem like he was ever chief caregiver for you.
Lewis:
Well.
Neil:
And you said, it's the only way I could live with myself. Like, so why is that? A lot of people in your situation would say, you know, I didn't have a strong relationship, or, you know, that person was not in my life.
But you were like, moving back home, abandoning the cycling kind of, the YMCA job that you had making money, as your full-time gig. You're moving back home to be chief caregiver for your dying father. Like, I'm not, I'm not challenging you.
I'm just curious about your decision making here.
Lewis:
So also, at the time, the woman I was with, I think she realized that I was about to go into a very difficult time in my life. And she broke up with me. I was living in her condo.
I was unemployed. No, sorry.
Neil:
You're not working at the Y?
Lewis:
I was not working at the Y. I was working in my friend's bike painting shop.
Neil:
Okay.
Lewis:
I was painting bikes. Very niche job. And I wasn't happy there either.
I wasn't making art. I was making beautiful objects. And I thought that would be enough.
If I could make a living using my hands, making an extremely high-end product, I thought it would be enough. And it really wasn't. And so, when my father got to a point where my sister couldn't manage by herself anymore, and this relationship was clearly ending, and I was already spending a lot of my time in Hamilton.
I would go to Hamilton every weekend, and I would cook a week's worth of food for my father. And I would package it up, and my sister would give it to him. So he was no longer able to take his medication or cook for himself.
And so I thought, I've got to move out of this condo I'm living in in the Roncesvalles area. And I don't want to pay Toronto rent to spend all my free time in Hamilton working a job I hate. And also, my sister and I could not afford to put my dad in any type of home or anything like that.
So my father did not save for retirement.
Neil:
Where's your mom? Oh, she's not around.
Lewis:
No, my mom's gone at this point.
Neil:
Gone?
Lewis:
Cancer.
Neil:
Oh, I'm sorry.
Lewis:
That's okay.
Neil:
You mean she's dead?
Lewis:
Yeah, happened in my 30s, early 30s.
Neil:
You weren't caring for her at the end of her life, though.
Lewis:
We did a little bit.
She was married to a guy. She lived in Port Dover. And she hid her cancer from my sister and I up until near the end.
I got a call from her one day basically saying, sit down, I gotta tell you something. I just had a double mastectomy. I've had breast cancer.
It's gone. I've healed from the double mastectomy and the doctors have just found chronic lymphatic leukemia and say I've got five years to live. And so all this information was dropped on my sister and I in a casual conversation with her mother.
And we were both pretty upset about it because she didn't even give us an opportunity to be there for her. I was closer with my mom. But after that, I took every opportunity I could to be with her, to spend more time.
I tried to build like a bit more of a meaningful relationship with her.
Neil:
It's okay.
Lewis:
It's pretty serious.
Neil:
It's okay.
Lewis:
Go get them. And although she lived a little bit away it wasn't always easy to go and see her but I went as much as I could.
And the closer she got to the end the more time I spent with her.
Neil:
I kind of like this philosophy you have. I agree with it. I'm from Eastern cultures where parent-child relationships often in India historically, it's like they're living together.
I don't expect to live with my parents at this stage and age of my life. I don't know what will happen. They're both alive but in their seventies, not but, but are.
But I like this philosophy you have which is as much time as I can spend before they die. This is a thing you have.
Lewis:
I tried.
Neil:
Where's that coming from though? Like you have this sense of, it's not obligation. It seems like desire.
You are trying to soak up the relationship as much as you can.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
To make sure that for the rest of your life you can look back on those years and say, I did as much as I could.
I was connected to my family as deeply as I could. Is that the thought or the feeling?
Lewis:
I wish that I would have, it would have mattered to me more when I was younger or that I thought about it. Oh, I see. Because I didn't have a very strong relationship with either parent. It was almost like we were roommates more than anything.
Neil:
That's how I felt with my wife before my divorce, my first wife.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
That was the exact word I used.
Lewis:
We were like roommates.
Yeah. But also, I think that that was kind of natural for them too. It was just the way their family life was too.
There was a lot of stuff going on in my family that my sister and I never understood, never had an opportunity to understand. My mother was estranged from her mother and we never knew why. And many of her siblings were, and relatives on my mom's side, there was a lot of estrangement going on there.
A lot of trauma. Nobody ever talked about how, when, where or why it came from. And I still don't know.
My sister and I just kind of left to guess about this kind of thing.
Neil:
Thank God for siblings.
Lewis:
Yeah.
And so, I feel like I was fortunate to get to be with my mother when she died.
Neil:
And your father.
Lewis:
Yeah, and I was touching both of them.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Neil:
And your mama sounds like in your earlier 30s, your dad in your late 30s.
Neil:
Yeah.
Neil:
What age did you switch from straight edge and why?
Lewis:
It was when I was 36.
Neil:
What changed your mind about that? Your mama died, your dad was still around.
Lewis:
Yeah.
I had started dating somebody that, I think it was a bigger part of her life, the consumption of drugs and alcohol, but not in a toxic way. It just was something that she did responsibly. And I hadn't met many people who responsibly consumed substances.
I was very much of the mindset that if you're drinking, you're getting wasted. If you're doing drugs, you're getting fucked up. And I was kind of, I wasn't interested in getting wasted or getting fucked up.
And so, with this partner, I felt comfortable enough to experiment. I had been thinking about trying things. I had started to be curious about altered states of consciousness.
And so, I felt comfortable just trying. For the longest time, it was such a part of my identity that I was identified as straight edge or just somebody who didn't consume intoxicants. I didn't even really consume caffeine that much, aside from a little bit in soda pop or something like that.
And so, I started very slowly and tried a little bit of this, a little bit of that. And some things I liked. Some things I thought were okay.
At this time, marijuana was still illegal. And I couldn't believe, when I got high for my first time and I got drunk for my first time, afterwards, I thought, I can't believe that alcohol is the legal one. Because that one feels so much more destructive.
To me, it felt extremely destructive.
Neil:
Oh, I know exactly what you're talking about. I can't believe alcohol is the legal one.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
That's a great line. Or as cannabis probably felt, not that.
Lewis:
Yeah, that one- Sensory amplifying, perhaps. I thought, I am glad I didn't find this when I was a teenager because I would have over-consumed it. Because I really liked it.
Neil:
Ah, interesting.
Lewis:
So, I thought it was better that I let my mind form and mature.
Neil:
The research says, they say don't use cannabis or alcohol really before age 25, 27 now.
Lewis:
Yeah, so I'd never been high. I had a hard time even inhaling enough to get high. But I knew that.
I'd seen enough people try their first cigarette, try their first joint. I knew that there was gonna be a hack attack. But I was on board for trying it.
Neil:
And- Did this person become your wife or no?
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
Okay.
Lewis:
No, we eventually, she broke up with me before I moved to Hamilton.
Neil:
A lot of women are breaking up with Lewis.
Lewis:
No, just that one.
Neil:
Oh, okay. And the one before, the one that saw that the, you're going into serious- No, same person. Oh, that's the same person?
Okay, okay, okay.
Lewis:
Smart enough to get away.
Neil:
Yeah, so you're not, how much time did you have as your father's chief caregiver from the time you started chief caregiving to the time he died?
Lewis:
It was like almost a year and a half, exactly.
Neil:
Wow. And what does chief caregiving for a dying father with dementia look like?
Lewis:
It started off slow. I was still working more or less full-time in Toronto. I would commute.
I'd get up in the morning, I'd get my dad breakfast. I would leave him a note about lunch, where it was, you know. What it was, where it was.
Neil:
How to do it, yeah.
Lewis:
And my sister would help him out with like one of the meals, you know. And I'd get back from Toronto.
Neil:
Is it the YMCA job?
Lewis:
No, this is when I was painting bikes.
Neil:
Okay, you're painting, you're in the painting job. You come to Toronto. You don't have a place to live in Toronto, though.
Lewis:
No, no, I was, I'd get up at 5 a.m. I'd be on the 6 a.m. bus to Toronto with my bike on the front of the bus.
Neil:
Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
I'd show up at Union. I would arrive really early for work. I didn't start till 10.
But traffic was horrible. I didn't want to sit in traffic, so I opted to leave early.
Neil:
Get up with the ducks.
Lewis:
I was reading books at the time. I decided to read on the commute.
Neil:
With books or audio books?
Lewis:
Real, real.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
Yeah, real books.
Neil:
Seems like audio book is good for a bus, but okay, you go the other way now. You're left right on me the whole conversation. You're surprising.
Lewis:
And so I had a routine where I would, you know, get up, set my dad up, get on the bus, read, and I would then ride to a cafe that opened at like 7 in the morning.
Neil:
Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
I'd show up at the cafe.
Three hours early for work. Three hours early for work. I'd sit at the cafe, have a coffee.
I would read for another 30, 40 minutes, and then I would draw. I had a sketchbook with me, and I started.
Neil:
I've seen your sketchbook. It's unbelievable.
Lewis:
I started, this was the start of a project that's still going on, something I still do every day, where I draw patterns as an exercise to do something just solely for myself, and to develop a skill, and to see where it goes, and to see how good I can get at something. I'm now six, seven years into this practice. I've got a lot of sketchbooks full.
I've got a lot of skill that I built up.
Neil:
Who would you recommend a daily drawing practice for, and what could that look like for someone who's interested in developing one? What's the first step for that?
Lewis:
I'd say it doesn't have to be drawing. I think it's a valuable thing for people to develop more skills, to give yourself the time to go on this journey, because it's such an interesting journey from the beginning to wherever the end is. I don't know where that is for this, but I've gone past what I thought was possible in this realm of geometric pattern drawing without the use of any aids, like just freehand drawing.
Neil:
Even though it looks like you're using 10 rulers.
Lewis:
It does now, yes. It didn't in the beginning.
Neil:
So you're coming to Toronto, I'm sorry to say, you're getting to coffee shops at 7 a.m. You don't work till 10. You spend the day here, then you go back and take care of him at night.
Lewis:
I would catch the first train. I could get on with my bike back to Hamilton. I would arrive at like 8, 8.30. I'd get him dinner. I'd put him to bed and just repeat the next day. Okay, so that was the first iteration of it. Yeah, and slowly, as he progressively got worse, I would, I'd do three days a week, and then I did two days a week, and I was down to one day a week, and then no days a week.
Neil:
Working.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Coming to Toronto.
Lewis:
Yeah, and so this is when I.
Neil:
You're telling them, my dad's dying, I gotta be at home.
Lewis:
Well, they knew, they understood. These were good friends of mine, and they were very empathetic and patient with me.
Neil:
Yeah, but your life is rebalancing towards your father at this point.
Lewis:
I was going through one of the most significant relationships ending in my life. I was absolutely heartbroken. And my dad was.
Sorry?
Neil:
How old was your dad?
Lewis:
At the time, he was 76.
Neil:
Oh, he's pretty up there.
Lewis:
Yeah, he lived longer than he thought he was gonna live.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
He wanted to ride the bus until the wheels fell off, and he thought the wheels were gonna fall off in his late 60s, early 70s.
Neil:
Mm-hmm.
Lewis:
And so, I kind of forget where we were there.
Neil:
Well, I'm just trying to point out here is that, because I know that the genesis for Lewis Mallard, you have said in other interviews, came to you on a mushroom trip while you were doing chief caregiving for your father.
Lewis:
So.
Neil:
That's what I've read.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
So I feel like I'm near this point in your story.
Lewis:
Absolutely, it's all kind of coming there. So, as my father got progressively worse, and I was still working in Toronto, the commute for me was very difficult, the back and forth every day. And so, to combat that, on the days when it wasn't too cold or it wasn't raining, I would bring my camping gear to work with me.
I just left all my camping gear at work, and I would leave work up in the junction in Toronto, Keele and St. Clair area, and I would ride down to the ferry terminal to go to Toronto Island. I'd grab some kind of dinner on the way to go, and I'd jump on the ferry, go over to the island, and I'd just set up on the beach right near where the airport is. It's the clothing optional beach out there.
Neil:
Wow, you'd camp out on the nude beach rather than any park near the junction. Like, that's still a pretty hefty commute to get from the junction down to a ferry terminal, down to crossing a body of water. For those that don't know, there's about a 500 meter, maybe a kilometer wide channel right in front of the CN Tower in Skydome, where then there's a series of little islands with a tiny airport on it, there's a nude beach, there is like a amusement park, there's a life-size maze, there's a few hundred people that live there, there's all kinds of non-optional, like there's other beaches.
It's like a bird watcher's paradise as well.
Lewis:
There certainly was a lot of bird watchers out there, and I would move down the beach to be away from the people who were actually using the beach for the intended purposes of relaxing and suntanning and swimming. So this is also, I will say, like a not allowed to do, right? Not allowed to do, definitely not.
Neil:
Yeah, you never got in trouble, though, for just camping out on Center Island.
Lewis:
Yeah, I would move away from people, I would set up my tent only after the sun went down, and I would disassemble and be gone by 6.30 in the morning.
Neil:
Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
Because I would catch the first ferry.
Neil:
Weren't you scared?
Lewis:
A little, like, it was exciting, I would say. But also, I figured like- Exhilarating.
Who's, not many people are gonna approach a solo male doing something weird like camping on a beach.
Neil:
On a clothing optional beach.
Lewis:
Yeah, you know.
Neil:
You seemed like the crazy one. They're not gonna approach you.
Lewis:
That's kind of how I was like.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
Although I didn't feel crazy, of course, you know. But I just thought like, realistically, like if I was, would I ever go approach a random stranger doing something? No.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
And I was like, no.
Neil:
That's a good life rule. If you look crazier than the norm, you're not gonna be harassed in general. I think.
Lewis:
Maybe by only somebody who matches or exceeds your, so camping on the island, it wasn't great sleeping, but it was an amazing adventure. I saw some of the best sunsets of my life.
Neil:
Oh yeah.
Lewis:
Sitting out there.
Neil:
Right over the huge Great Lakes, yeah.
Lewis:
And I'd wake up in the morning to sunrise, although the sun was rising on the opposite side of the island.
But I'd wake up to like these kind of pink and orange mornings. I'd stumble out of my tent naked.
Neil:
Wow, you're nude here. Well, I guess it's summer. It's only fitting, you're on the nude beach.
Lewis:
Yeah, and I would relieve myself in the water, take a piss.
Neil:
And also get your bath in that way.
Lewis:
No, I would stop off at the Y.
Once I got to the mainland, I would come to the YMCA and have a shower.
Neil:
You're not just taking a lake dip.
Lewis:
No, no.
Neil:
Okay. Why pee in the lake then? Why not pee in the bushes?
For some reason to me, peeing in the bushes is cleaner than peeing in the lake. Even though I have no justification for that. I think it's six of one, half a dozen or the other.
Lewis:
Yeah, I'm sure you're right.
Neil:
It's a lake. It's a huge lake.
Lewis:
Yeah. But anyway.
Neil:
I'm anti-peeing in pools now, by the way.
Lewis:
Yeah, I don't like to.
Neil:
Yeah, I've switched on that.
Lewis:
I've definitely peed in a pool.
Neil:
Now you recognize the smallness of the body of water and the PPM of the urine.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Yeah, it's different than a pee in an ocean.
Lewis:
That's for sure.
Neil:
So where's the mushroom trip? So I did not.
Lewis:
So I guess this can tie into Alaska a little bit. So I went to, early on when my dad was still kind of manageable by part-time caregiving and my sister was around and could help, I had an opportunity to take a vacation. I knew I was gonna be doing this for, I assumed about two years.
Having seen my mother go through cancer and slowly deteriorate and knowing where my father was and how he was looking and how he was acting. And I guessed it was gonna be no more than two years. And so I was like, if I'm gonna take some time off I'm gonna do it now.
And so while I was still working at the bike painting shop, I decided to go to my cousin's wedding in Vancouver. Oh wow. She was getting married.
I had a lot of family and some very good friends out there. Most of my family on my father's side had moved to Vancouver. While I was at this wedding, I met relatives of mine that I'd only ever heard of and I never had met or talked to before. And they were two first cousins of mine that were raised in Haida Gwaii, which is-
Neil:
How do you spell that?
Lewis:
H-A-I-D-A. That's the first word.
Haida Gwaii, D-G-W-A-I-I.
Neil:
G-W-A-I-I, Haida Gwaii, which is a first nations indigenous community in Canada.
Lewis:
Like vast majority of the people that live out there are first nations.
Neil:
And they're known from a distance for their totem poles, I believe.
Lewis:
Yeah, the Haida people, I believe are the originators of the totem pole.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
That's what I came to understand.
Neil:
Bye, Rob. Bye, guys.
Lewis:
And so my uncle donated sperm to a lesbian couple, friends of his, and they each had a child of his.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
And so I have two first cousins that were raised outside of my family on this amazing island.
And so I met my cousins and their mothers at this wedding. And I was so interested in them. I didn't really participate in much of the wedding.
I didn't dance. I was just, I sat at the table talking to these people. Their life was so different than mine and I was extremely interested.
And they said, and they said, well, why don't you come and visit? And I thought. Why don't I?
Why don't I? It's a big trip. So I planned, I was like, okay, I'll come back at the end of the summer.
This was spring that I was out there. And so while I was out there in Vancouver for a couple of weeks for my cousin's wedding, I was staying with a very good friend of mine for most of my life who's living out there in East Van. He had his own apartment and I was just crashing on his couch for two weeks.
He had also, he had never done mushrooms before and I had not done mushrooms yet. Tried mushrooms. I had wanted to.
I was very curious. And I thought, what better place to try mushrooms for your first time than with one of your best buddies who has also never done it out in BC. So we got on our bikes and I brought my bike out there with me.
And I, we.
Neil:
On an airplane.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Wow, okay. Really into biking.
Lewis:
Very into biking.
Neil:
In front of the bus, on the GO train, on an airplane.
Lewis:
I've been riding a bike my whole life.
Neil:
Wow, okay.
Lewis:
Of one form or another. But I didn't find my passion in cycling until I was in my 30s.
Neil:
Okay. You take your bike out there, you go with your buddy.
Lewis:
Yeah, and we grab our camping gear and we ride kind of to interior. Somewhere in the interior.
It was a lake called Devil's Lake. Really small lake. You could almost throw a rock across it.
You could easily swim across any direction. It's spring. It's still kind of cold there.
We buy some mushroom chocolate bar off a random stranger. And we set up and we eat the mushrooms. And you know, it was quite a journey.
We had a great time. It was one of the most interesting experiences of my life at the time. I'd never, you know, mushrooms.
I think I maybe ate two grams at the most. I started thinking thoughts that I'd never thought before that didn't seem like typical thoughts that I had ever had. And they weren't scary thoughts or anything like that.
I had a difficult moment during the trip where all of the sadness from my relationship ending kind of came up unexpectedly. And I think I cried for maybe like 15 minutes. Extremely hard.
Like some of the hardest crying I'd ever done for about 15 minutes. And then it just was over. Wow, you got it out of you.
And I got something out of me that I didn't even know was in me. Wow. And it felt like in a very healthy way.
And I just accepted that it was like over and that I was moving in a different direction. And I just went back to having a fun time with my buddy. Even though, you know, we sat around our fire, we talked a lot, we cried a bunch, but it was a good time.
And eventually we, you know, came down and went to bed and we could hear wolves or coyotes howling around us. It was hard to fall asleep, you know, but we did, you know. We were completely alone out there.
Nobody else, we weren't allowed to camp. We were just wild camping. But we're, you know, we're respectful.
We left no trace. We, and we left the place the next morning and rode back. And when I came back to BC later that summer to go to Haida Gwaii, Haida Gwaii is up near Alaska, up near the banana belt of Alaska.
And you can even see on a clear day, you can see Alaska from the north side of the islands there. And I'd never been anywhere so remote. In order to get there, I took the ferry, multiple ferries, from Vancouver to Nanaimo.
And I took a bus from Nanaimo all the way to Port Hardy, other side of Vancouver Island, northwestern most town. Camped out there, was warned by the locals not to ride my bike down the trails at night because there's mountain lions everywhere. And so I took, I had to get up early in the morning to catch a ferry, a 16 hour ferry to Prince Rupert.
So I got up at like four in the morning in the pouring rain, packed up my gear, rode out to this ferry to get on at like 7 a.m. And it was a 16 hour journey.
Neil:
No mountain lions.
Lewis:
No mountain lions on the ferry, confirmed.
Neil:
No, I mean on the way.
Lewis:
No, I took the long way on the road. I took their advice.
Neil:
And you got on the 16 hour ferry from already a super remote location. There's no other way to get there?
Lewis:
You can fly.
Neil:
Oh, fly, okay.
Lewis:
I was interested in the journey. Yeah.
Beautiful scenery, slow moving, gigantic ferry, thousands of people on it.
Neil:
Thousands, okay.
Lewis:
Yeah, a lot of people.
Okay. Then you land in Prince Rupert.
Neil:
Is that a town in Canada?
Lewis:
Yeah, it's on the mainland. It is a very gray, rainy place. I think amongst the rainiest in the North America.
Neil:
Kind of a surprising settlement there, maybe. Maybe some sort of natural resources.
Lewis:
It seems like it's a port. Like, you know, a lot of goods come in on boat. And since it's on the mainland, there's a lot of trains picking up containers and that kind of shit.
Have a horrible night's sleep in Prince Rupert and then jump on a seven hour ferry to Haida Gwaii.
Neil:
Oh my gosh, you're not done yet? Okay, so then another seven hour ferry?
Lewis:
Kind of open water ferry, seven hours to Haida Gwaii. And then Haida Gwaii appears out of the mist like Jurassic Park. You know, it was one of the last, this is what I was told, it was one of the last settled places in North America.
Neil:
I believe it.
Lewis:
Because it was hard to find.
Neil:
Well, oh, hard to find. Because it was- Like it's shrouded in mist.
Lewis:
Yes, it's very gray and misty out there.
Neil:
Can't find it. They found it, all right.
Lewis:
Well, of course. And yeah, got off the ferry, had the address of my cousin, you know, rode to, I was with my bike, again, and went to my cousin's place, you know, met him and settled in.
Neil:
Is your cousin your uncle's sperm donor's kid?
Lewis:
Yes. I think they all met in the school system. My uncle was a teacher.
I think that one of them would have been a principal.
Neil:
What was that like meeting these people?
Lewis:
Oh, just interesting.
You know, their lifestyle was so different.
Neil:
How so?
Lewis:
Well, these two women were some of the most badass people I'd ever met in my life.
They hunted all their own meat, or fished. They drove around. They always had a loaded 22 rifle on the dashboard of the truck.
If they saw a deer, they got it. Donna would post up on the hood of her truck. She'd shoot the deer, walk over to it, gut it, throw it in the back of the truck.
It would be sausage 24 hours later. And then it would be canned or stored frozen, whatever. They didn't waste anything.
I went deep sea fishing with them. They ran a charter boat.
Neil:
Deep sea fishing?
Lewis:
Yeah. So I got a permit to catch a salmon and a halibut. I had a permit to get one of each.
You caught a halibut? Those are gigantic fish. Yeah, it was about 50 pounds.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
And then, so these two were married.
Neil:
A spear?
Lewis:
They'd been, no, it was a hook.
Neil:
Oh, a hook.
Lewis:
Heavily weighted, industrial gauge.
Neil:
Oh my God.
Lewis:
They had serious equipment. We were in a small boat, but they had radar.
They survived there for thousands of years. These women are very smart. They knew exactly where the fish were.
And they're very capable. They had more of a homestead. Their home was half conventional home, half log cabin.
They raised chickens and turkeys and bunnies. They grew vegetables. Everybody in the family had killed a black bear to save their own ass.
Neil:
Oh my gosh. Not as a right of passage, but as a thing that you just threw there.
Lewis:
There was a bear coming at them and they had no other choice.
The same way we would swat a fly or kill a spider. I was warned. They've all killed a bear.
I was warned many times to be careful about your surroundings, that the black bears are big and aggressive. They don't hibernate. They have food all year round.
It's essentially a rainforest.
Neil:
They don't hibernate.
Lewis:
This is what I was told.
Neil:
Wow, well, they would know.
Lewis:
Yeah. So big and aggressive. They can eat all year round.
Neil:
Black bears in Ontario are known to be not big or aggressive.
Lewis:
Yeah, these are very well-fed bears with no other natural predators around. So they got it.
They're not competing with people. Yes. So you gotta be ready to shoot them, to kill them.
And they all did.
Neil:
At least one. Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
And you're not allowed to do anything with it. You have to leave it.
Neil:
Why?
Lewis:
It's just, they don't want people commercial or, you know.
Neil:
Yeah, but you can't eat it. Like, isn't that more respectful to the animal to consume it?
Lewis:
You would think. But I think they just don't want any...
Neil:
Sport to develop.
Lewis:
Yeah, yeah.
Neil:
Because you got an island full of giant, big, aggressive black bears.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
Some people might.
Lewis:
Apparently.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah. It's a natural resource.
Lewis:
I never saw one.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
But we did go on hikes and my one cousin carried a rifle the whole time.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
We went to visit, you know, various hunting camps that they've used. And they were just kind of... So proximity to Alaska though.
Neil:
Very close. Is this the James Michener book?
Lewis:
Yes. And so I started listening. As I was caring for my father, I wanted to get to know him better.
I really tried to engage him more in conversation and talk about things that I wish we would have talked about. I wanted to get in touch with his emotional side more. His sensitive side.
I saw that he shared a different... His relationship with my sister was very different than his relationship with me. My sister got the sensitive, emotional side of my father.
I got... Let's talk about sports. And say derogatory things about women.
Neil:
Oh no.
Lewis:
Side of my father.
Neil:
Oh really?
Lewis:
Every woman driver was a cunt.
Neil:
Oh my God.
Lewis:
Or a fucking cunt.
Neil:
Oh my God.
Lewis:
That's kind of like...
Neil:
I'm so sorry. Oh wow. That is... Wow, that is...
Lewis:
And if I wanted to talk to my father, I had to behave this way or pay attention to sports I didn't give a shit about just to hang around him. If I wanted to...
Neil:
But it's still inspiring you the desire to care for him at the end of his life.
Lewis:
He's my father. I love him. What am I gonna do?
I can't help that. It's like born into me. And so like I was saying, I didn't see any other option that I would comfortably live with myself.
I was actively...
Neil:
Was he a misogynist to the end?
Lewis:
Oh yeah.
He would say things to the nurses, the personal caregivers that would come in and help.
Neil:
They must have refused to work with him.
Lewis:
No, no. They said he was not nearly as bad as most people. But they would come in and say, all right, Jim, are we gonna get you a shower today?
He'd say, nope, but I'll shower you.
Neil:
Oh my God.
Lewis:
And then I'd have to like chastise him and apologize for him.
And they would laugh it off. And then I would... As they were leaving, I'd be like, I'm really sorry.
If you don't wanna come back, I totally understand. And they more often than not came back. But funnily enough, he would only accept a shower from a male nurse.
He would not accept one from a female nurse. I think it was his pride there. But eventually that all got to be too much.
And he eventually let me do that for him.
Neil:
Shower him?
Lewis:
Yeah, help him out, that kind of thing.
Neil:
How did that feel for you?
Lewis:
I was happy that he was finally letting me do something I knew I was capable of doing. And it was just easier.
Neil:
Wow. Almost therapeutic for you.
Lewis:
In a way, I mean, it was difficult, especially when it got to the diaper phase.
Neil:
Yeah, you're wiping now.
Lewis:
Funnily enough, his podiatrist pointed out to me that he had diaper rash.
Because he wouldn't let me do anything hygienic. He was very stubborn. I took him to the podiatrist appointment.
He was sitting uncomfortably. And the doctor was like, what's wrong? Why can't you get comfortable, Jim?
And he said, ah, my butt hurts. And he's like, let me have a look back there. And so he took him into his office, and my dad dropped his pants, and the doctor took a look, spread the cheeks, and he recoiled right away.
And he's like, have a look. And he showed me, he's like, this is essentially extremely bad diaper rash. And he's like, you gotta help him.
And I had no idea that things were so bad. And so this was kind of the moment where he provided me with free medical advice outside of his thing. He said, go get a zinc paste.
It's an off-the-shelf thing. It's an old school treatment. He's like, I promise it'll work.
It's just like a thick, white zinc paste. He's like, you gotta wipe them, you gotta clean them. And then put this on like it's spackle.
Neil:
Spackle?
Lewis:
Like just the more the better. And so I got the stuff, I did the thing, and I couldn't believe how quickly he healed back there.
And it changed, like he could sit comfortably. It was a big improvement. I was very grateful to this doctor for doing that.
He totally didn't have to do it.
Neil:
It's hard later in life, I'm imagining, that you lose your, not just privacy, but in some cases, your dignity, right?
Lewis:
Oh yeah, he had to go with it. It was difficult for him. He wouldn't let my sister do it for the longest time.
But we had a routine, and I tried to make it fun. I would play music he liked. I tried to keep it as light as possible.
And really just like have fun. Try to find the humor in it. It was like the only way I was gonna get through it.
Neil:
And then you had a mushroom trip while you were taking care of your dad, too.
Lewis:
Yeah, and so later on through the thing, after I had a couple mushroom experiences, and I wasn't able to take time off anymore the same way. I needed to be more hands-on, and more or less 24 hours a day. So in order to get some time away that felt like a vacation, I would take a handful of mushrooms and go to Gage Park and take four or five hours off.
And that four or five hours high on mushrooms felt like 20, 30 hours away because it was a real mental vacation. It's when I really started to be like, oh, I am on a trip. You know, where I never really related to, the I'm tripping out, you know, it's like, oh no.
The metaphor became real. Yeah, it was like, oh, I never thought of it this way. It really does feel like a mini vacation.
And so on one particular trip in the park, I would set boundaries for myself because I knew that I had, I would get ideas when I was high on mushrooms and I would have desires to do things that were not what I would typically wanna do. I really wanted to be naked when I was high on mushrooms. And I knew in my mind, if I'm in public, I can't be.
So I would just be in jean shorts and nothing else. No socks, no shoes, no shirt, just shorts. I'd lay in the grass, it felt amazing.
Neil:
Do you think you wanna be naked because of the sensory experience of it?
Lewis:
I don't know. It was just like instinctually what I wanted.
Neil:
You said it felt amazing, yeah. Oh, instinctually, okay.
Lewis:
Yeah, I felt no, I wasn't worried about judgment. I didn't.
Neil:
Oh, that's interesting.
Lewis:
You know, it was something about that state of mind.
Neil:
Social mores fall away.
Lewis:
Yeah, but I also realized that they existed and I couldn't.
That I had to behave a certain way.
Neil:
Yeah, so next time I see someone in the park near my house in the middle of the night, totally naked.
Lewis:
No, middle of the day.
Neil:
Middle of the day, lying there naked, which I have seen multiple times, that they might just be high on mushrooms.
Lewis:
I mean, maybe. And so on this particular trip, I took a pretty healthy amount of mushrooms and went to the park, set boundaries for myself. And when I got to the park, there was a religious group that had gotten a permit to use a PA system and to use the main stage, the bandshell, a defining feature in this park, this blue semi-circle.
Neil:
I remember the old bandshells. There was one in Oshawa.
Lewis:
Probably.
Neil:
Yeah, just one, but in Whippy, where I moved to, there was none. So it's like a kind of a hundred year old thing.
Lewis:
It's an old thing, for sure. It had a bit of seating around it, but mostly open field there. And so, although the park is big, it's very flat and sound travels across it.
And there was no getting away from the noise of it. So I was just like, well, whatever. I'll just deal with it.
And as I started to get higher and higher, as I was going up, I was listening to people talk. And it seemed to me like it was kind of a born again Christian vibe. People were going up on stage and just talking about how they were going in a bad direction, and then they found Jesus, and it changed their life, and that they're on a better path now.
And it was all overwhelmingly positive. It was people that sincerely believed that they found this higher power, and it changed their life for the better. I was like, well, there's nothing wrong with this message.
You know? And so I just was like, that's pretty nice and innocent. And I didn't, I found my place, I laid down in the grass, and I was just looking at the band shell.
And as I got higher, I started to hallucinate, auditory hallucinate, which I learned, for me, is like a pretty common thing when I'm high on these substances. And I, all of a sudden, all of the talking on stage became Charlie Brown's parents-esque. So I was just hearing like, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.
But it was like, but I was feeling like the positive vibes wash over me. And I was looking at the band shell, and I thought, doesn't that look like the eye of a creature that's like stuck underground in this park? I bet it is.
And in fact, I'm gonna dig this creature up and figure out who it is. And I really liked this idea of that. And I carried that idea with me for a little while, and I thought about it a lot.
And I talked about it with some friends, about how I think that I might have figured out how to tie together all of these projects I'd been thinking of for a long time into one cohesive idea that I could do. And it was starting to make sense to me how I could do it. I wanted to tie in folk art, I wanted to tie in psychedelic art, things I was interested in but I didn't participate in.
Neil:
Interdimensional art.
Lewis:
I wanted to do performance art, I wanted to do street art.
Neil:
Street art, yeah, right.
Lewis:
And although I had done street art in the past, I wanted to do it in a different way. And performance art, I didn't understand it. I wanted to get in that world a little bit, but I didn't think I was able to because I wasn't a performance artist.
And so I just kind of was like, well, I'm the only one telling me that I can't do it. Right? So what the fuck do I know?
I'm just gonna do it.
Neil:
Wow, I'm the only one telling me I can't do it, so what the fuck do I know?
Lewis:
I was, right?
Neil:
Wow, what a barrier-eviscerating thought.
Lewis:
And I'd had that thought before about other things, and so I stopped telling myself that I couldn't be a performance artist, and I just was like, fuck it, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna tie it into this whole thing.
Neil:
And- I'm the only one telling me I can't do it. And what the fuck do I know?
Lewis:
I didn't know what Lewis was gonna look like. At the time, Lewis didn't even have a name.
It was like, I had to discover. I didn't literally go dig him up, but metaphorically I did. I spent time thinking about it and what this creature would look like, and what I needed it to be in order to make a costume.
And so over the course of the time I was with my father, I spent a lot of time thinking about this. A lot of the time I was drawing patterns in my sketchbooks, I was really thinking about this. I don't listen to anything when I do it.
I just, I'm usually in a cafe, and I just like to be around people and kind of pull ideas out of the air. And so I would plan and think about my future once my dad was gone. But what was I gonna do?
I knew I was gonna feel like alone. You know, it was similar to the feeling of leaving home for the first time. But like this time I'm really on my own, like no one-
Neil:
Untethered.
Lewis:
Yeah. And I was single. And so I didn't have to, for the first time in my life, I didn't have to think about somebody else being in my life.
And so when my dad eventually passed, I knew I was gonna have to move out of that house, and I wanted to restart my career in Hamilton. And so I got a studio downtown. I found an affordable place that I could live and work out of, again, not legally.
The landlord was very nice and let me sleep there. And his only rule was no candles.
Neil:
No candles?
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Not the one rule.
Lewis:
No open fire.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a good rule.
Lewis:
No smoking joints.
Neil:
It's just funny that that's the one rule.
Lewis:
Yeah, yeah. He seemed to really be-
Neil:
You can sleep in the place illegally.
Lewis:
Yeah, yeah.
Neil:
Just no candles. Practical guy
Lewis:
So I rented a room- A room above a bike store, 15 by 16 feet, with a decently high ceiling, couple windows.
I had no running water.
Neil:
Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
I shared a bathroom with the bike store.
Neil:
Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
That had no shower. So- Ah, what'd you bathe?
I did sponge bath, sink bath. Used a washcloth and I washed my hair in the sink.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
I washed my dishes in that sink.
Neil:
Get the armpits there.
Lewis:
Yeah, everything.
Neil:
Soap up.
Neil:
You could soap up your armpits in the sink.
Lewis:
I'm pretty like, you know, I had a whole routine. I experimented with different routines and I found one that worked really well.
Neil:
Which is what?
Lewis:
It was just required a washcloth, a bar of soap, and well, shampoo for my hair.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
And you know, just not- Hard to wash your lower half of your body in a sink. I was tall enough that I could straddle the sink in a way and wash, you know?
Neil:
Sink straddling.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
If you don't have a shower around, look into sink straddling.
Lewis:
Sink straddling.
Neil:
Yeah, I'm starting to picture that.
Lewis:
I was definitely a sink straddler. Yeah.
Neil:
You know, you're living more and more like a duck here, man. Like you just are. Like you're like a bird.
You say you're bird-like. You're living like a bird. You're flying all over the place.
You're landing wherever you want. Like, I don't mean that in a negative way, but you're like, you are like, you're like, behavior is more and more merging with this character.
Lewis:
Yeah. I mean, I think that-
Neil:
You are Lewis, man.
Lewis:
I wanted, I didn't want any distinction between like my art and my life.
Neil:
I wanted it to be- But you don't call yourself an anima thing. You don't, you know, the people that identify as animals?
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
You don't call yourself that.
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
In fact, I- You don't look down on those people, but you don't- You wouldn't get your eyes done differently and stuff like that.
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
You wouldn't shave your mustache into a beak.
Lewis:
No. No, absolutely not. It's really- No, I'm a furless non-furry.
Neil:
I'm a furless non-furry.
Lewis:
Well, I had that thought one day when I was in the costume.
Neil:
You call it a costume. You don't call it a skin.
Lewis:
No, yeah. It's a costume.
Neil:
It's a costume. But you're a furless non-furry.
Lewis:
We're wearing costumes now, you know.
Neil:
Oh, okay.
Our clothes, yeah.
Lewis:
We're presenting ourselves in a certain way.
Neil:
Oh yeah, sure, yeah. Furless non-furry.
Lewis:
And so I was in the costume one day, and I was pretty high. I like to hotbox a costume. Who wouldn't?
I mean, I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't, but if you smoke pot and you like to do wild shit, it's a pretty fun thing to do. And it's a great place to think, because again, I don't talk when I'm in there. I'm silent.
I'm alone.
Neil:
You will not talk to people who talk to you as I found out the first time I met you. You only quack at them.
Lewis:
Correct. Unless I- If I ran into you on the street now in a costume, I would probably say, hey, Neil, what's up?
Neil:
No, I think you shouldn't. Hold onto that integrity, Lewis.
Lewis:
Well, you know, sometimes I do. I'm sorry.
Neil:
Okay, okay.
Lewis:
But I usually make sure there's nobody around that's gonna hear me.
Neil:
Oh, there you go.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
No one's gonna see Lewis on film, like, talking behind an alley, smoking a cigarette.
Lewis:
It seems, well, you'd never see me smoking a cigarette, but. Yeah, okay. And so I was in the costume, and I thought, I hope people don't think I'm a furry.
Not that there's anything wrong with being a furry, but I just don't want to put out furry vibes. And I was like, well, of course they wouldn't think I'm a furry because I don't have any fur. I'm a furless.
Yeah, I was like, I'm a furless non-furry. I'm a furless non-furry. And I put a pin in that idea because I was in the costume, and I like that.
Neil:
And I- How do you take notes in there? Are you getting all these high ideas?
Lewis:
Just a mental note.
Neil:
Okay.
Lewis:
And so when I came back to the drawing board, I did a little drawing of what a badge, a little crest would look like, you know, for the National Federation of Furless Non-Furries.
Neil:
The National Federation of Furless Non-Furries.
Lewis:
And so that's what I called it. And it was one of the first merch items I ever made.
Neil:
Oh, how did it sell?
Lewis:
I did a painting of it, and the painting didn't sell right away. I didn't really try hard to sell the painting. I was more interested in the idea.
Neil:
Do you sell through Instagram?
Lewis:
I did, and I do, yes. Like, @lewismallard on Instagram is where your home is online. At lewis underscore mallard. Oh.
Neil:
L-E-W-I-S underscore M-A-L-L-A-R-D.
Lewis:
Correct. The other Lewis Mallard will not let go. I have tried- Numerous times.
To buy the real Lewis Mallard's account, but he refused to even reply to me. They, I don't, I shouldn't, you know. But anyway.
Neil:
Well, I think what we've just done in this epic conversation is we have finally come to the part in the road where Wild High on Mushroom, taking care of your dad, the James Michener reading, Alaska-inspired, final tethering you had to not living alone.
Lewis:
I love the adventure of that book. I learned about my father from these books. I learned that he liked the idea of going on wild adventures.
And there was a lot of like father-son bonding in these books that I was so jealous of that these fictional characters, these fictional fathers did amazing things with their fictional sons. And I thought, I wonder if my dad wanted to do this with his son. He would have read about it.
Yeah, he would have read about it. It's a cool thing to connect with somebody through reading the same thing that they've read.
Neil:
Yes. You know what I'm saying? You're in this interview now.
Yeah, we're doing a podcast.
Neil:
That's right.
Neil:
Okay. It's a lot of action here on the street. So the adventure of the book, the father-son bonding on the book.
Lewis:
Why is there a fight happening?
Neil:
Is it real or fake?
Lewis:
That's a real.
Neil:
That's a real fight?
Lewis:
He's being taught a lesson. That's a child.
Neil:
Looks like his mother, maybe?
Lewis:
Yeah.
[Person on the Street]
You don't know? You don't fucking know?
Lewis:
To let it go. That's something you let go. That is family business.
Neil:
Yeah, that looks like his mom, right?
Lewis:
I think we just saw a mother punching her son.
Neil:
Punching her son and pulling him into the car. It does seem like his mother, am I right? Like age-wise, race-wise.
Lewis:
He turtled and went with her. Went with her in the car.
Neil:
Head down, the friends kept walking. That was the guy that just yelled, I'm on this, I'm recording this. That was fucking crazy.
She screamed, you don't know? You don't fucking know? I guess he did know, potentially.
Lewis:
It turned out he knew.
Neil:
It seemed like it. This is the reaction. Yeah, oh my gosh.
That was a wild punch-up, though. You don't really see mothers jump out of their cars beating their sons often, I would say. What do you think just happened there?
What do you think? Okay, a woman in a hijab with a twin. Pardon me, what'd you say?
Lewis:
Good job.
Neil:
I don't know. Yeah. Okay, okay.
It didn't seem alarming at the end. We don't need to call the authorities, right?
Lewis:
I think that they would be pointless.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Lewis, we're more than three hours into this conversation here, man. We've gone all the way from the beginning to not the end, but to the end of the genesis of the project that you're now currently doing in and around cities in Canada where you're creating this performance art, this folk art, this psychedelic art.
You're taking over stations. You're dressing up as a duck. You're walking across town.
You've got a viral following online, eight, one, two, zero followers, or maybe it's getting more. After this comes out, get ready for a few more.
Lewis:
Whoa, the Neil bump.
Neil:
The Neil bump, the Tim Ferriss effect. We'll call it the Neil Pasricha effect. You got merch for sale.
You're gonna add the Instagram button. Okay, I wanna buy it only through Instagram. I wanna give Mark Zuckerberg a piece.
No, I'm just kidding. I wanna give you cash. I wanna give you cash.
So, I hope that this conversation has been inspiring to artists. We sometimes have fast money questions. I don't know if you're up for it, energy-wise.
You wanna do some fast money?
Lewis:
What's a fast money question?
Neil:
Hardcover, paperback, audio, or E?
Lewis:
Sorry?
Neil:
Hardcover, paperback, audio, or E?
Lewis:
Audio, we're talking books?
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
I prefer audio.
Neil:
How do you organize the books on your bookshelf?
Lewis:
I don't really. They just kind of fit in where they fit in by size. I don't organize them alphabetically or by topic.
Neil:
Do you have a white whale book or a book you've been chasing the longest?
Lewis:
What is a book I really wanna read, but haven't tackled yet?
Neil:
That's exactly it. I'll put Moby Dick for mine, because I wanna read it, and it was good, and it's just really overwhelmingly, dauntingly long. But length shouldn't, you know. The audio thing's a great idea.
Lewis:
Yeah. There's a few James Minchner books I haven't tackled yet.
Neil:
Are all his books 987 pages like this one?
Lewis:
The vast majority of them are very long.
Neil:
Wow, can you believe this guy produced these that long? I mean, it would take me a whole lifetime to research Alaska.
Lewis:
He had a team.
Neil:
Oh, he had a team.
Lewis:
He had to have had a team.
Neil:
He had to have had a team.
Lewis:
I think, yes.
Neil:
Okay, okay.
Lewis:
To help research and stuff, because he goes into, it's historical fiction.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah, you gotta.
Lewis:
So it was an interesting way to learn about places.
Neil:
It's a great, I would recommend this book for anyone who's going to Alaska or wants to go to Alaska. You get, you absorb the whole.
Lewis:
You certainly get some of the history.
Neil:
Cultural history of the place through a story that is not like reading the history in a history book. We're getting rained on now, by the way. I got microphones out here getting wet.
Lewis:
Little baby drops.
Neil:
What's this? Here's how we're gonna wrap.
Do you have a bookstore? What's your favorite bookstore, living or dead?
Lewis:
Favorite bookstore, living or dead?
Neil:
I don't really have a favorite bookstore.
Lewis:
That's okay, that's okay.
Yeah?
Neil:
Yeah, the audio books you're getting on CD are from the library, presumably, back in the day.
Lewis:
They were from the library sometimes. Sometimes they were downloaded.
Neil:
Do you have a favorite library?
Lewis:
Oh, yeah, the Hamilton Central Library.
Neil:
Hamilton Central, that sounds like one of those old school, big.
Lewis:
It's a brutalist building, right downtown Hamilton.
I always liked, I mean. I love old libraries like that.
Neil:
Robert McLaughlin Library in Oshawa, shout out to you. Never been there, but I would love to see it. Oh yeah, you gotta go there.
Lewis:
I spent a lot of time in the library in St. Catharines, just doing my homework. And when I met you, you were on your way to the library.
Neil:
When I met you in person, you were telling me, I just booked an hour at the library.
Lewis:
Yeah?
Neil:
You're a library guy.
Lewis:
I like the reference library in Toronto very much.
Neil:
Yeah, I like your like of the library.
Lewis:
Yeah, I think it's an extremely valuable, underutilized resource in the city, especially the one in Hamilton. The maker space there was extremely valuable to me in starting my business. It provided a very easy use and cheap use of their printers and computers.
And so I could start making my merch myself.
Neil:
Start making my merch myself.
Lewis:
Yeah, so with my ability to draw, plus the knowledge of various computer programs, and then the library having a vinyl printer and vinyl cutter, I could make and print my own stickers and make the packaging and sell them.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
And so it gave me the ability to make something for cheap. I did the labor myself and then I could keep all the money myself.
Neil:
Oh my gosh. You're well on your way to not looking at the prices at the grocery store, Lewis.
Lewis:
I hope so.
Neil:
Your jarringly left, right, you know, life story, slaloming the boundaries of societal norms, you know, basically living life from first principles, using the codes that you're developing to guide not just your art, but how you live, how you think about relationships. I mean, I'm really in awe of so much of your thinking and your articulation about how you do things. I wonder if you might close us off today with any hard-fought piece of wisdom, bit of advice, or any general reflection you wanna leave us with to be the final thoughts as we close off this deep and long conversation.
Lewis:
I think that you, not just you, anybody listening, is capable of a lot more than they think they are. And that if you give yourself a chance to amaze yourself, that you probably will. Give yourself a chance to amaze yourself, you probably will.
Neil:
Lewis Mallard, thank you so much for coming on Freebox.
Lewis:
Thank you, man. It's been a pleasure knowing you in this short time, and I look forward to keeping on knowing you in the future. I hope so.
Neil:
Hey everybody, it's just me, just Neil again, hanging out in my basement, my laptop flipped open in front of me, listening back to that wide and wonderful conversation with the one and only Lewis Mallard. I hope that you enjoyed that conversation like I did. So many quotes jumped out to me, like, when I first discovered folk art, I didn't really appreciate it because I was really stuck in this mentality as a teenager that art had to be as high skill as possible.
That really reminds me of chapter eight, way back in 2018, the conversation we had with Sarah Anderson, author of Sarah's Scribbles, where she called Hyperbole and a Half by Ali Broch, one of her three most formative books. And for those that know Hyperbole and a Half, that was number 980 in her top 1000. You know, it's like totally scribble drawings, right?
Like it's just totally messy scribble drawings. And for Sarah Anderson, that book did, I think, what the folk art did for Lewis, which is kind of just crack you out of this like, has to be perfect kind of idea of art, which is beautiful. Kind of related.
How about this quote? I think there's a lot of lovely magic that happens when people don't completely understand what they're looking at. I love that.
And then the third quote, I got lots of quotes here, you know, it's got some quotes about the poverty he was living in, altering his surroundings, but how about this one? I'm the only one telling me I can't do it. So what the fuck do I know?
I just love that. I'm the only one telling me I can't do it. So what the fuck do I know?
But like having an awareness that like you, we, I am the one limiting myself from trying anything new, doing anything new, and then having a healthy degree of skepticism about your own confidence, like that is a really beautiful mix. I love those three quotes. I love Lewis Mallard.
You can tell. I mean, I'm a big fan of this guy, the work, and just the grassroots nature of it, you know, it's a person on their own just choosing to do something and putting it out into the world. So I love really everything about this.
I'm really grateful to Lewis Mallard for coming on the show and giving us three more books to add to our top 1000, including number 595, Lu Pan by Demi Hitz, H-I-T-Z or Z. Number 594, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, also known as The Whale, but really everyone knows that as Moby Dick. And number 593, Alaska by James A.
Michener, M-I-C-H-E-N-E-R. Thank you so much to Lewis for coming on the show. Did you make it past the three second pause?
Are you still here? It's a long one. One of our longest, maybe the long, is this the longest chapter we've had ever?
It might've been. It was more of a hangout. I always wanted to do like a hangout, you know, just like a chill and sit and hang out type of show.
This is one of them. Doug Miller, I think chapter 99, you know, and Doug Miller's, Doug Miller books is also one like this. Maybe chapter 44 too with Kevin, the bookseller.
That one was all over the place, but hangouts are fun and I'm hanging out with you and you're hanging out with me and that's why we're back in the end of the podcast club. This is one of three clubs we have for three bookers, including the cover to cover club. That's people listen to or to attempt to listen to every single chapter of the show, the 333, the end in 2040, where you be then?
Maybe we should do a party for the last chapter. What do you think? And of course the secret club, which I cannot tell you more about other than you can call our phone number for clues.
Speaking of our phone number, please do call it. If you're listening to this, call the phone number. Tell me who you are.
Let's hear your voice. Tell me a formative book, a reflection, a poem, anything you want. Don't don't.
It doesn't have to be perfect. Just like the art. Just, just make a phone call 1-833-READ-A-LOT.
And as we always do, let's kick off the end of the podcast club by going to the phones now.
Neil:
Hi, good evening. My name is Shamina Hildreth, and I actually just, someone shared one of a, I think it's Harvard Business Review article that briefly touched on your untouchable day every week. And I just totally love that whole concept.
And I look to adopt it in some type of way, even if it's just in a small way. I work for a Fortune 500 company as an analyst. And so it's really hard to balance meetings and also the deliverables.
So and I know you kind of spoke to that in the article that I read about how you were to accomplish having an untouchable day and not compromising that day. So really inspired by that. I want to implement that into my life.
I don't work in a creative space, but I think that I would be a lot more productive if I wasn't just all over the place all the time. So again, I just want to leave a quick voicemail. I haven't done this in a long time.
So thank you for drawing me outside of my comfort zone and leaving this voicemail. Again, my name is Shamina. I'm here in the Minneapolis, Minnesota Twin Cities area.
And yeah, just leaving a voicemail as you asked. And thank you so much for all that you do and the books that you've written. Have a great day and enjoy your summer.
Neil:
Shamina from Minneapolis, what a beautiful voicemail. So nice to hear from you, Shamina. Yeah, I wrote that article, I want to say 2019 for Harvard Business Review, hbr.org has or you can just type in untouchable days and my name into Google or you can just go to the show notes on threebooks.co because we'll link to that at the bottom. But basically what I advocate is just taking one day a week where you're completely untethered, unplugged, not on email all day. As Shamina says, I think I'd be a lot more productive if I wasn't all over the place all the time. Yeah, you would be.
And so that's why it's so important to do this. But in the corporate setting, it's more difficult. The first thing I recommend, I don't think I put in the article because I think it came through lots of people asking me about this later, I mentioned the Rich Roll podcast though, is take an untouchable lunch.
It sounds so like obvious, but when I was at Walmart, you know, everybody is like piling into someone's Toyota Tercel like head over for sushi. And of course, we're all at the time with our work phones, you know, checking our emails like the whole time we're on lunch. So it is and what I do is when I started doing this at Walmart, I did so like brazenly I like leave the phone on your desk.
So if anyone comes by your desk to look for you, there's just a phone there knowing that they cannot reach you because the phone is left behind, you know what I mean? And I know it's different with remote work and so on. But let's just say you're in an office setting.
So leave the phone on the desk, try to go for an untouchable lunch. Now if you can pull up the untouchable lunch, then that means you can go from like, let's just say 12 to one with no contact. You come back, there's eight emails now instead of like, you know, one every six minutes.
And then you start stretching it a bit. Okay, if I can be untouchable from 12 to one, maybe I can be untouchable from 11 to one or 11 to two. And then what you do, here's the way to sell it into your boss is prepare some like half day piece of work that you really know you could crush, or maybe you crush in advance for the three hours.
And then say to your boss, after you just give yourself permission to take it, Hey, Jordan, I went I read this great article in Harvard Business Review. And I decided to take the person's advice I know we can't do untouchable days here at this office because everyone's working so hard. But I decided to try it and I took an untouchable half day I just shut off my Outlook and my email and left my phone at my desk and I went and worked in the boardroom for half a day or whatever it is.
I went and worked at home for half a day. And guess what? I finally got that like proposal that I said I was going to get to you three months ago where I finally like got back to I wrote that email to that CEO that required like deep time to like thoughtfully craft whatever it is.
And the person's like, Oh, great, great, good job. Then you keep doing that. You keep like selling in the results because the results will be there 100% like once you take a half day or a day off from like the the the overwhelming amount of ping ponging that happens in a corporate office like the busy work, you know, Cal Newport would call that pseudo productivity.
Well, it's amazing what you get done tons of stuff, right? So you keep using the results to sell in the permission, you know, and then you kind of tip off your boss, Hey, Jordan, why don't you take one too? You know, and this is how it kind of goes up grassroots through a company.
Use the HBR article. You know what, I think we should link in the show notes to the actual fancy like PDF version of it. If you don't have it, I can like send it to you like somehow when those things are sent around with the HBR logo on top with like the big square orange thing, it just looks more professional.
HBR is telling me to do it. Not this crazy podcast host. Anyway, you know what I'm saying?
All right. I use this website called chartable, which tracks reviews for every podcast around the whole world, no matter where people leave them. So just a nice new one here from P S three, five stars, interesting, heartening, love the podcast, love the concept and love books with a big smiley emoji P S three.
If you're listening, I owe you a book as you know, so you can drop me a line with your address and now it's time for the word of the chapter. Oh my gosh. How many cool and interesting words that Lewis Mallard use.
Hmm. Hmm. There was a lot.
Let's go back to Lewis now and then see if one jumps out for us. Here we go.
Lewis:
Psychedelic folk artist, my government PSYOP, vandalism. Of course I bring pylons, double entendre, tributary or whatever. It's debossed.
The forgotten piece of street furniture or banal task. It's a brutalist, uh, building, furless non-furry.
Neil:
Oh yeah. There's a lot of goodies to choose from there. That's for sure.
Why don't we go with double entendre, double entendre, Miriam Webster. Could you play it for us please? Double entendre, double entendre, number one in linguistics, a word or expression capable of two interpretations with one usually risque such as flirty talk full of double entendres or two ambiguity of meaning arising from language that tends that lends itself to more than one interpretation.
Okay. So first off, this obviously comes from the French entendre. That means, you know, uh, the verb is, what's the verb on Tante E N T E N T T here to understand to me.
It's a double entendre means two meetings, two hearings, two understandings. But what's interesting is that there's a huge entry on this on Wikipedia, um, and basically it says that, you know, one of the ways a figure speech is obvious, one of them is not obvious and it goes all the way back to like the odyssey. You know, when Odysseus is captured by the Cyclops, he tells the Cyclops his name is Odoesis, which I probably got wrong, which means no one, right?
When Odysseus attacks the Cyclops later that night and stabs him in the eye, the Cyclops runs out of his cave yelling to the other Cyclops, no one has hurt me. Right? Okay.
That's an old book. How old is it? Really old.
How old is it? Ancient Greek epic, uh, in the year eighth, in the eighth century BC. So yeah, we want to say that's about almost 3000 years old.
Okay. So that's one of the first double entendres. There's other ones from Canterbury tales, stage performances in, in Shakespeare, um, some of which I can't read on the air.
Well, you know, just C words and M just bad, bad words kind of hidden in there. Uh, there's a picture of Steve Carell who plays, you know, Michael Scott in the office and it says he often points out unintentional double entendres with the phrase, that's what she said. Also it's in the entry, which is pretty epic.
Howard Stern, the Howard Stern show in the 1980s began to use double entendres as a way to get around FCC regulations. Right? That's interesting.
So double entendres were kind of a way to like kind of secretly slip in things. Um, double entendres are also, uh, one notch below triple entendres. Triple entendres exist.
For example, Joe Harris, a professor of modern French at Royal Holloway University in London, uh, says in Shakespeare's Timon of Athens, Timon, who has realized all his fawning guests are only in it for the food and generosity, invites them to one last dinner at his house just before revealing the dinner plates are empty. He refers to them all as his present friends. To them, it just means friends who are present.
But we know it's alluding to the fact that they are only his friends for the time being at present and because they want to enjoy his generosity, his presence. A triple entendre! Yes.
Are other triple entendres possible? Yes, they are. In fact, we go to rap music, the kids and the rap music, right?
For example, Pusha T in the song Suicide says, I build mine off fed time and dope lines. You caught steam off headlines and cosigns, meaning number one, his lines are good or dope. Two, the lines he raps about are about dope.
And three, he has actually sold lines of dope himself. Three subtle things and other people are saying, what about Frank Ocean's line, I'm high and I'm bi. Wait, I mean, I'm straight.
In the song Oldie, because it's a lyric, so you can't see how it's spelt. Is it B-Y-E or is it B-I as in a sexuality, right? Lots of stuff like that.
Triple, if you type in like best triple entendres or favorite double entendres, there are entire threads online and we could go down a rabbit hole. I love that there is, I love that the internet is so big that you could literally just come up with the word of the chapter for a podcast that's strangely about formative books, right? Find your word of the chapter and then find people in chat rooms from 11 years ago on Reddit talking about their favorite double and triple entendres.
I mean, we live in a great time, don't we? I mean, you get to, you get to meet walking and talking ducks just walking around the street. You get to sit with them for an entire morning, hang out with them in the sun, talk to them about art, so much stuff there.
I just love the way we got, I love the time of life we're alive. I think that's what I'm trying to say. I love when we're alive.
I love when we're alive. I love that we're alive when I can talk in my basement. You can hear me in that basement gym of Mongolia on a long drive, on a long dog walk, wherever you are.
We can hang out on the full moons for a lot more years to come. Sixteen more years till the ways to go, everybody. Until next time, remember that you are what you eat and you are what you read.
Keep turning the page, everybody. Thanks so much for listening and I'll talk to you soon. Take care.
Listen to the chapter here!
chapter here!
Man on the Street:
There is a guy who lives around this area.
Neil:
Yeah.
Man on the Street:
I mean, I always see him in the area. I don't know where he lives, but he dresses like a duck, like he has a big costume.
Neil:
He dresses up as a duck.
Man on the Street:
Yeah, you don't see his face.
Neil:
Why would someone do that? Why would someone dress up as a duck?
Man on the Street:
Just for fun, I guess.
Neil:
Man, I'm sitting here at the corner of Bathurst and College. He said there's a guy who walks around this neighborhood dressed up as a duck. And I know that's true because, I don't know, three months ago?
Six months ago.
Lewis:
It was probably somewhere between that.
Neil:
I made this coffee shop right behind me. I'm sitting on an orange bench. I'm leaning against a glass wall.
Up to my right is a sign that says El Rancho Restaurant. That's not this place. Behind me is a black sans-serif, Ariel Nero-type font with an orange shadow that says MANIC with the word COFFEE in an all-caps Areil with wide kerning underneath COFFEE. And I was sitting here. I was up inside. Tony was serving me the barista.
And he yells out all of a sudden, there's that duck. And I look out the window. And you are on the other side of the street in orange spandex, orange Chuck Taylors, a full, gigantic duck costume.
I'm like, what is this? What's going on? You come across the street.
I run out with my friend Ateqah. She knows you. She's seen you on social media.
Lewis! She says, hey, Lewis. Hi, Lewis.
And I run up to him like, oh, who are you? What are you doing? And you're just, what did you do?
Lewis:
I quacked at you.
Neil:
You just refused to talk to me.
Lewis:
No, I refused to use English words with you. Because? Because I was performing.
And I stay in character while I'm performing, almost in every circumstance I come into.
Neil:
How long is the performance?
Lewis:
How long was?
Neil:
How long is it? Are you walking around for like hours here?
Lewis:
It depends on my bladder. As soon as you have to pee, the show's over. When I get the feeling, I start to head home.
Neil:
So like, there's a viral media sensation in Toronto right now, covered on CBC, BlogTO. I know the Toronto Star was just taking pictures of you here, where you've done this, you've made this installation of like, you've taken over a streetcar track. Streetcar's going by now.
You can hear that. It says 506 Carlton on it. Red ribbons on the top and bottom, white ribbons in the middle.
Toronto Transit Commission. And you took over this station. So everyone's following you.
What's going, like, what is this? What are you doing? What is, what is Lewis Mallard?
Lewis:
Lewis is me. And it's something I created to get myself back into the art world full time. I always wanted to be an artist, ever since I could remember wanting to be anything.
And I'm just trying to figure out how to do it.
Neil:
Ever since I wanted to be anything. So go back for me. I don't know your age.
I don't know your real name. Your age and your real name will not be shared today. Secret identities are interesting.
And I heard you say before I hit record, secrets are good. So now go back in time. When, where approximately did you come into being?
Where did you start to exist?
Lewis:
Like my hometown?
Neil:
Yeah.
Neil:
I could have just said that.
Lewis:
St. Catharines.
Neil:
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.
Lewis:
Correct.
Neil:
And I'm gonna guess sometime in the 70s.
Lewis:
Late 70s.
Neil:
Okay. And what was St. Catharines in the 70s like? And what kind of family were you born into?
Lewis:
Well, I don't have any memories from the 70s cause I was too young.
And I would say I remember early 80s and onwards. And what was it like? It was, I think I didn't have any idea what it was really like, because I was so insulated from the real world until I could start wandering away from home probably about the age of eight.
When I had a little bit of freedom to roam.
Neil:
Yeah. Freedom to roam. Something we seem to be losing, but which of course we seem aware that we're losing.
So we're kind of trying to get it back. What was your home life like? Brothers, sisters?
Lewis:
My sister, one sister. My parents were together until I think I was like about 12 years old is when they separated.
But I spent a lot of time alone playing by myself and trying to get my parents' attention and not ever getting it.
Neil:
Why not?
Lewis:
Cause they were, were they fighting? No. And they weren't fighting.
They were just not super engaged, I guess. Not extremely interested in what I was doing.
Neil:
Hands-off approach to parenting.
Lewis:
Very hands-off.
Neil:
Not uncommon.
Lewis:
I spent a lot of time.
Neil:
The opposite of helicopter, we'll call it a flyby.
Lewis:
Yeah. Yeah. From what I was told about when I was too young to remember, my nursery was a closet and I spent a lot of time alone in there.
And when they would come and check in on me, I would throw shit from my diaper at them because I was probably angry of being left alone for so long.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
And yeah, I was, I find it, I mean, of course I don't remember doing that, but I think that it's in my personality to do that.
Neil:
Wow. A shit flinger at a young age. Not because of being interrupted in his artistic pursuits, but rather because it's just like, dude, what are you doing?
And I get that from my youngest kid now. Like, you know, that whole like classic scenario of like the dog kind of facing the corner when you come home because you didn't take it for the walk with you or whatever. Like my youngest kid is like constantly perturbed about the lack of attention and it's a heartbreaking thing as a parent too.
Lewis:
I can imagine.
Neil:
Yeah. Yeah.
So the history, are they, are the Canadian? Are you from Canadian lineage? I don't want to guess much. And I won't, I don't know if I should describe your features for people or not. Cause I want to keep your identity secret, which it is.
Lewis:
Yeah. Well, let's just say, I don't know how long my family's been in Canada and I've never looked into, you know, anybody older than my grandparents. And I know very little about them, but my family's been here for, I think probably three or four, maybe five generations.
Neil:
Wow. Five generations.
Lewis:
That's a long time. I've never heard of, I didn't remember when I heard about anybody immigrating here. It would have been 1800s, I imagine.
Neil:
Wow. 1800s.
Lewis:
And, but my, my parents met.
Neil:
From where?
Lewis:
England and Scotland.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
I'm kind of.
Neil:
Yeah. You can do it.
Lewis:
I've never done a blood test or anything, but this is what I've been told.
Neil:
Some Viking in there, maybe.
Lewis:
I don't know about that, maybe. But yeah, they met in Hamilton and they were both raised in Hamilton and then moved to St. Catharines to start a family.
Neil:
Right, right, right. Okay. So we're, I want to describe the scene a little bit more for people so they can kind of picture us.
A woman's walking by with green hair, green arms, a skull, headscarf wrapped around her waist and kind of paintball colored tights on. There's another woman by in a blue dress with about three purses walking by, very hairy legs and black flip flops. We're in a pretty urban part of the city here.
There is a TTB trading company with Chinese characters on it across the street with bars in the windows. There's a pub and eatery. There's a, I don't know what that's like.
That looks like a condemned building. I mean, there's just like spray painted signs all over the cover of it. I don't know. Maybe it's a nightclub.
Lewis:
It is a nightclub.
Neil:
Oh, it's a nightclub. Nightclubs look like condemned buildings during the day.
Lewis:
Yeah.
A lot of them do, for sure. Yeah. I've never actually seen it open because I don't stay up that late.
Neil:
Right. Yeah. You're more of a daytime person. On your Instagram, you describe yourself as an interdimensional folk artist.
Lewis:
Well, a psychedelic folk artist.
Neil:
Oh, it says psychedelic folk artist.
Lewis:
It does.
Neil:
Did I make up the interdimensional part or is that an old iteration I saw?
Lewis:
No, no, no. It is the active description.
Neil:
Psychedelic folk artist.
Lewis:
Interdimensional.
Neil:
Oh, it just says interdimensional.
Lewis:
Correct.
Neil:
So why did you say psychedelic folk artist?
Lewis:
Because you left that part out.
Neil:
Oh, interdimensional psychedelic folk artist.
Lewis:
We got there.
Neil:
We got...
Oh my gosh. We're standing... So we're facing College Street.
There's one lane in front of us. Then there's three lanes. And between the remaining three lanes, there's a giant, long, 100 foot, 100 foot concrete flat oval with giant erect glass rectangles, which I think in the old days used to call bus shelters, but they don't shelter you from much, a metal railing.
And this is what's known as a streetcar stop. At the corner of the streetcar stop is an orange triangle, like a triangular prism, and like a polygon, a square polygon. You have, in broad daylight, repainted this to look like your Lewis Mallard face with a bright yellow bill, a bright green head as the male Mallard, the Drake Mallard has, and a blue eye with the black pupil.
You did this in the middle of the day. The post of it went viral. It says, Toronto legend has his own streetcar stop now.
You were just interviewed by the Toronto Star here, up on there in costume. What, what, what, where did this come from? You're painting, you're painting subway stations now?
What's going on here?
Lewis:
Well, I...
Neil:
Is this part of your interdimensionality?
Lewis:
It's, yeah, part of my multidisciplinary, I've always liked street art, since I, you know, first realized it was a thing in my teenage years.
But I never felt comfortable participating in it in the kind of stereotypical graffiti style that you see most of the time.
Neil:
And... Most street art is graffiti.
Lewis:
Well, yes, I would say it is of that style. The vast majority that you see.
Neil:
Somebody's just yelling, give me my money. That's okay, we're not gonna give him his money.
Lewis:
Just a local guy. Just a local guy.
That guy actually, and I told you this before, but it wasn't on that particular man. I see him very often in the neighborhood.
Neil:
In the costume.
Lewis:
While I'm in the costume.
Neil:
And what does he yell at you?
Lewis:
He is convinced that I am a government psy-op.
That I'm part of CSIS.
Neil:
I shouldn't laugh. He's probably got major schizophrenia.
Lewis:
It's not just him, he's got a few buddies.
I think they're all in the same group home in the neighborhood. And they're all convinced that I am a government psy-op. And they'll yell it at me.
They don't chase me, or they're not aggressive with me, but they'll yell at me from across the street and single me out. And I think it's hilarious.
Neil:
Do they ever physically touch you?
Lewis:
No, no.
Neil:
They don't punch you or anything?
Lewis:
No, no, no.
Neil:
Yeah, because if I saw a government psy-op dressed as a duck in my neighborhood. If you really believed it was one? If I really believed it was one, I wouldn't just let him walk away.
That's interesting about the schizophrenics, not to label, but in this neighborhood, they don't ever hurt you. Like I've walked around the streets a lot here and it can be quite scary for newcomers, but I've never had anyone ever come up to me or hit me or anything like that.
Lewis:
No, I did hear a rumor like the other day here in the cafe though that there was one of the local guys was starting to take swings at people.
Neil:
Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
And I really, that caught my attention.
I was like, oh, that's an escalation.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
And I mean, he was a big man too. I just about didn't, nobody would want him taking swings at anybody.
Neil:
No, nobody would want that. So we've got a few seeds planted here. We've got, we've got Lewis Mallard, age kind of five, six, seven, not ignored, but you know, flinging shit from his diaper when left alone for long periods of time in the closet.
Lewis:
I think I was younger than five.
Neil:
We've got Lewis Mallard, based on my math, somewhere in his forties, interdimensional psychedelic folk artist sitting on an orange bench inside of Manic Coffee at College and Bathurst in downtown Toronto with planes and streetcars and delivery trucks and bikes and people. This is a busy, there's people with UHN tags going by right now. There are nurses probably at the Toronto Western Hospital.
There's a guy walking in with this Narky Puppy t-shirt, tight black pants and black boots. Maybe he played a show last night. There's a couple of people walking by, look like high school students with their orange juices and their lattes.
You know, there's a lot going on in this corner. You've decorated the corner, both with your performance art and you're now leaving marks on the city, physical marks.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
Which some people would call illegal.
Lewis:
Yes, technically.
Neil:
Just do these two together for me, you know?
Lewis:
Well, I see it as vandalism, of course, but I'm trying to do it, I wanted to clean the thing up.
Neil:
Oh, I wanted to clean the thing up.
Lewis:
Well, it was, it seemed like there must've been an accident here a while ago because you could see two different kinds of concrete and repairs that have been done to the cement barrier.
Neil:
I thought you were going to say blood or something.
Lewis:
No, no, no. I'm sure they washed the blood away. But accidents for sure, because it's like- Some kind of accident.
Neil:
It's a tough corner here.
Lewis:
Yes. And I'm sure there'll be another accident, you know, at some point in the future.
Neil:
Yeah. There's always bikes and cars yelling at each other.
Lewis:
The paint was falling off. It had been poorly graffitied.
Neil:
Oh, poorly graffitied? How do you judge that?
Lewis:
Sloppily, carelessly.
Neil:
What if that person's calling themselves a four title name on Instagram too?
Lewis:
I mean, it's fine. You can do whatever they want.
Neil:
But what makes you say sloppy?
Lewis:
Well, in my mind, it looked like it was rushed and it was not, there was no thought, real thought put into it on placement. And it seemed like somebody who was afraid of being caught and trying to do it quickly and get away when my approach is a little bit different. I prefer to operate in broad daylight, turn it into a little bit of a performance and just act like I am supposed to be doing it.
I like to get dressed up in coveralls and wear a high visibility reflective gear.
Neil:
Oh my gosh. So you look like you've been licensed to do this. You're wearing high.
Lewis:
I bring pylons.
Neil:
Oh, you bring pylons. You keep pylons. Where do you get pylons? Amazon?
Lewis:
Pylons, no.
You just find them on the street sometimes. You know, there's a lot of pylons in construction sites.
Neil:
Yeah. Yeah.
Lewis:
And sometimes they go missing.
Neil:
Right, right, right. Okay. Another form of vandalism, but it's all in contribution of improving the decorative quality of this corner, which I shall say, and we're going to link to the exact post, obviously, at Lewis Mallard, L-E-W-I-S-M-A-L-L-A-R-D is kind of your online home. That's an Instagram handle, Lewis Mallard. I get the mallard because you're a duck.
Why Lewis? Although it seems totally appropriate for a duck to be called Lewis.
Lewis:
I guess. I got the name from the biggest inspiration behind the whole project, which was one of my all-time favorite artists named Maude Lewis.
Neil:
Oh, Maude Lewis.
Lewis:
A Canadian folk artist from Nova Scotia.
Neil:
How do you define folk?
Lewis:
How do I?
Neil:
You've got folk in your name too. What is folk? F-O-L-K, what even is that?
Lewis:
Well, to me, when I first discovered folk art, I didn't really appreciate it because I was really stuck in this mentality as a teenager that art had to be as like high skill as possible. I spent a lot of time as a teenager developing my drawing ability and trying to copy reality as close as I could.
Neil:
Right, it has to be realistic.
Lewis:
Yeah, and this is how I valued things. And I didn't understand how something that was naively done was good. It wasn't until I got a little older and
Neil:
Is that a word that you would attach to the word folk, is naive?
Lewis:
Well, to me, folk art is kind of done by people who just aren't real artists. I think everybody
Neil:
Is it music? Is it visual? Visual, is it?
Lewis:
Yeah, well, there's folk music, there's folk art, there's
Neil:
What is folk art? Like, if I go to a folk art festival, what do I see on the tables?
Lewis:
Oh, I've never been to one, so I wouldn't know.
I think I'm specifically just talking about the art and folk art done by people who aren't necessarily trained.
Neil:
Oh, that's what it means. It's something akin to amateur.
Lewis:
Yeah, in a way. And so I think there's a lot of lovely magic that happens when people don't completely understand what they're looking at. And then depict it in the way that they are able.
Neil:
I think there's a lot of magic when people don't fully understand what they're looking at. Is that what you said?
Lewis:
Yeah, it was along that line.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay.
Lewis:
And so when I first discovered Maude Lewis's artwork, I was in Halifax visiting my sister when she was living out there, and I went into the museum there, and she had a very large retrospective show. And there was a little house in the middle of the gallery. It was a replica of a house that she lived in with her husband.
And it was so small, and it blew my mind that, first of all, somebody lived in there. Two people lived in there.
Neil:
What city was this?
Lewis:
This was Halifax.
Neil:
Halifax, Nova Scotia, a maritime region of Canada, kind of above Maine for U.S. geography people.
Lewis:
Yeah, and I think that she lived outside of the main city.
If I remember correctly, watching some of the footage from when she was alive, they were very poor. And she saw a reasonable amount of success in her lifetime. Refused to sell her paintings for a lot of money.
And just, she lived her art right up until the end. She couldn't help it. It was like she surrounded herself with her art.
I really admired her dedication to being an artist. It's like she didn't have a choice. She was a crippled and very small person.
Neil:
Small?
Lewis:
Yeah, she was a very tiny person.
Neil:
Very tiny person?
Lewis:
Yeah. Maybe five foot tall or shorter. I think I was just, I was in art college at the time, and I was just trying to broaden my horizons.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lewis:
To expose myself to different things.
Neil:
Oh, okay. So, what's Lewis made out of? Paper mache?
Lewis:
Largely paper mache.
Neil:
You've got like chicken wire in there?
Lewis:
No, that was the original. When I didn't know how to make a costume, and I made my very first one, I used chicken wire and paper mache.
And I didn't know how to do it, but I knew I could do it. And so I just threw it together in whatever way I thought it would work. And hoped that if it struck a chord with people, that I would have an opportunity to make a 2.0 and a 3.0. And improve upon the structure, the way it looked.
Neil:
And you began doing this in 2021?
Lewis:
In 2019, September.
Neil:
2019, in Hamilton, Ontario.
Lewis:
In Hamilton, yes.
Neil:
Where you were living at the time.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
Okay. So five years ago, you'd make a paper mache duck. You start walking around.
How'd you know? You said, if it struck a nerve, if it was popular, I would do a 2.0, 3.0. Well, how'd you know it did? What happened then?
Lewis:
Well, the pandemic happened. I launched the project at Supercrawl in September, 2019.
I was living in my studio right downtown Hamilton. I'd been thinking about this project for about a year, year and a half. About re-entering the art world full-time.
I was living in a city that I knew very well, but I did not know many people. I'd only ever visited family there. I had not taken up residence in Hamilton for a while.
I had not been there for any length of time to build a friends or community. And I wanted to stay and start my career in Hamilton again. I thought it was a smarter choice than trying to come into Toronto and compete with the way more artists here, people who try harder.
And this is more competition. And at Hamilton, I thought that, although it's a growing city and there's a lot of artists there that- It's historically known as like a steel town, like they made Stelco Steel.
Neil:
It was gentrifying for a long time. Now it's probably an up and coming artists, 500,000 person type of town, two hours or an hour and a half away from Toronto. Just a bit of, is that right?
Lewis:
Yeah, more or less.
Neil:
Please correct it.
Lewis:
I think that it, well, it's 60 kilometers roughly. Depending on traffic, it could be an hour or two.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah.
Lewis:
And it's certainly a city that is lifting itself up. A lot of people are moving there from Toronto, from, well, other places as well.
But it seems like the largest influx of people into Hamilton are Torontonians who can afford to buy a house there and have sold their house or their condo in Toronto for a lot of money and then move to Hamilton. And I thought, I knew people, many people who were doing this exact thing right as I was starting this project.
Neil:
Doing this exact thing?
Lewis:
Moving to Hamilton from Toronto.
Neil:
Okay, okay, not the art project.
Lewis:
No, no.
Neil:
Okay.
Lewis:
No, and having made, being able to afford something in Hamilton that they could never afford in Toronto.
Neil:
Right, right, right.
Lewis:
And so I thought, I understand the demographic of people that are moving here.
And I wanted to try to talk to them first, to build, this was my target demographic for audience was people who were in their 30s to 40s and who I would relate to. And I also knew about Hamilton that people who move there, they buy in really quick. They fall in love with the city.
There's a lot of charming things about the city. And before you know it, they've gone to the first Hamilton Tiger-Cats game and they're saying, Oskie-wee-wee.
Neil:
Oskie-wee-wee?
Lewis:
It's like a Tiger-Cats thing.
Neil:
Oh, okay. Yeah, Oskie-wee-wee.
Lewis:
That's a Canadian football league team. Yeah, I think it's some kind of chant they do at the game. I have been to a Tiger-Cats game, but only as a child.
Neil:
Hopefully not problematic.
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
We have no idea what it means.
Lewis:
I don't think so.
Neil:
Okay, okay.
Lewis:
I think if it was problematic- It would've canceled in two years.
Yes, it would've been gone by now. Yeah, no, it's synonymous.
Neil:
It changed a few sports teams' names up here.
Lewis:
Yeah, no, right now there's, I think the Tiger-Cats are okay. And so I knew people fall in love with Hamilton quick. And so I thought, if I can be part of that, then that will give me a bit of a boost early on.
I wanted to try to find the quickest way to developing an audience so that I could make a living off my art.
Neil:
Wow. I wanted to find the quickest way to develop an audience so that I can make a living off my art.
Neil:
Yeah.
Neil:
It wasn't like a pure artistic motive.
Lewis:
Well, it was also that.
Neil:
I'm not saying, I'm not trying to take that away from you. I'm just saying, you're using words like target market.
Lewis:
Well, unfortunately, I think the world we live in has forced me to think this way. I would rather not think this way. I would rather create purely for the sake of creating and not think too much about competing with other artists.
I don't like to compete with other artists, but I feel like I'm forced to if I want to make a meaningful living at something I'm passionate about. And so for me, Lewis was
Neil:
It's a good point. If you don't make it sustainable financially, then it's therefore not sustainable.
Lewis:
Yeah, well, it can be sustainable in that you do it just because you're passionate about it and you love to make things.
Neil:
The ghost in red beard has really given us the stare down here.
Lewis:
Well, this isn't a common thing that people see walking down the street.
Neil:
No, but he's giving us the angry look. He's walking away now, so I think we're okay. You're gonna have to protect me here.
Lewis:
You'll be okay.
Neil:
If you don't make it sustainable financially, it's not sustainable. If it's not sustainable, you're not practicing your art. So you're just, part of what you're pulling in here, and I've heard you talk in other interviews saying that your life goal is to be able to not look at prices on the grocery store.
I've heard you say that in multiple interviews.
Lewis:
Yeah, I mean, I would love to.
Neil:
So we're not talking like you're trying to make a billion dollars here. Your life goal is to not look at prices at the grocery store.
Lewis:
No, I want to make it, I don't want to be greedy. I want to be able to provide for a good life for myself and in conjunction with what my wife does and makes, and I want to be able
Neil:
An opera singer, I read. We're gonna get to that later.
Lewis:
An incredibly talented woman.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
And I would love to be able to treat the people in my life that I love and admire really well.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
And share anything I get in excess, I would love to share and contribute to making this world a better place.
Neil:
Wow, wow, I knew I liked you from the beginning. So now it's been five years. Are you looking at the prices on the groceries now?
Lewis:
Absolutely.
Neil:
Okay, so we're not at that point yet.
Lewis:
No, we're nearing.
Neil:
Five years as a full-time artist, as Lewis Mallard. Yes. You've got, I think as of this morning, 8,120 followers on Instagram.
Lewis:
Okay.
Neil:
I mean, I think that's what I checked this morning. Am I right?
Lewis:
I think it's somewhere around there.
Neil:
Maybe a bit higher.
Lewis:
It's always give or take five.
Neil:
Oh, you go up about five a day?
Lewis:
Well, I'd say it depends. Lately, it's been between five and 20 a day.
Neil:
Oh, wow. All the press is helping.
Lewis:
The legwork I'm putting in is helping.
Neil:
I see the sly grin on your face with the legwork. You're literally walking around the city for hours a day dressed as a duck. You're indulging people that want to take selfies.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
People are asking you for autographs. You quack at people. You dance.
When I saw you for the first time, you did a jump for me.
Lewis:
Nobody's ever asked me for an autograph. Actually, not true. I did autograph a beer can once inside the costume for somebody.
That was a very odd request, but I did it.
Neil:
Well, you had a beer named after you.
Lewis:
I did.
Neil:
See, that's another thing. So in Hamilton, a craft brewery has what, like the Lewis Mallard Ale?
Lewis:
Well, they did for a very short time, yes.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah.
You're so humble, though. Every time, I keep trying to lodge you with compliments and you keep trying to say, well, not every day. I don't work that hard.
Lewis:
Well, I mean-
Neil:
Yes, you do. I've seen you work it. You're painting a streetcar stop. How long does it take you to paint that?
Lewis:
Roughly three hours.
Neil:
In the coveralls, you have to get the pylons. You have to pilfer the pylons. That's the first step.
Lewis:
Pilfer the pylons.
Neil:
You gotta get an orange vest. Not many people have one of those handy.
Lewis:
You can buy them at the dollar store. They're real cheap. I'm resourceful.
Neil:
You're making merchandise. You're working hard at this.
Lewis:
Yeah, yes.
Neil:
You're working hard at this.
Lewis:
I want to build a
Neil:
Acknowledge your work. It's good.
Lewis:
No, I agree that I work hard, but I don't go out in the costume every day. I go out in the costume maybe twice a week at the most, weather permitting. Yeah, there's like kind of specific things.
Neil:
Okay, considering how rarely you're going out, you get a lot of press. You get a lot. Every time you go out, there's tons of pictures coming online.
People are, you know.
Lewis:
I'm trying here.
Neil:
Yeah, you're working hard.
Lewis:
Advertising is expensive. Yeah.
Neil:
So we've got two, I think, starting to come into focus photos of you right now, which is a wonderful way to do it, which I think is, you know, we've got this kid, fifth generation, from English guys in kind of small town, Ontario. Parents are kind of not that there. You're throwing shit from the closet when they open the door.
I mean, I'm really fixed on that image, as you can tell. Now we've got this early forties, married to an opera singer, Lewis Mallard today, who is doing graffiti and performance art, inter-dimensional psychedelic folk artist. We haven't got to the psychedelic part.
And somewhere in between the two is like this 30 to 35 years of growing up from then to now. And I have a pile of three books here. You were really kind enough to give us three formative books.
Is this one that I'm tapping the first one that came into the picture here?
Lewis:
Yeah, it's the first book I ever remember owning.
Neil:
Wow, the first book I remember owning. So if you don't mind, what I'll do for the audience here now is I will spend a minute giving them a background of the book, and then I'll ask you to tell us about your relationship with us. And I don't know if you don't mind, but if you could take us from the shit-flicking child up into this book, I wanna understand what your life looked like, the good, the bad, the ugly, the highs, the lows, like what was happening here?
This book is wonderful. I was really, really, I really loved reading it. So interesting and different.
The book is called Lu Pan, L-U space P-A-N, in brackets, The Carpenter's Apprentice by Demi Hitz, H-I-T-Z or Z, originally published in 1978 by Prentice Hall. The cover is pure red. I mean, mine that I found online is literally pure red.
It's just red.
Lewis:
It's just like the copy I had
Neil:
Oh, really? So it's just like a red linen thin hardcover. There it is hitting the microphone so you know what the book sounds like. But the cover online is fifth century BC, China, a woman holding an ax in one hand, a piece of lumber in the other with a big red and gold pagoda behind her. I say woman, but that's actually probably not a woman.
That's probably Lu Pan.
Lewis:
I think that is. I think that is Lu Pan.
Neil:
That would probably not be a woman then. Lu Pan not being a woman. I believe that the gender is not revealed, but I believe that's the case.
Demi Hitz is currently 82 years old. Did you know that?
Lewis:
I didn't know that. But I actually, I learned, I didn't even realize that Demi Hitz was the author until I was searching for this book to send you a link to it because I no longer have the copy I did when I was a child. I gave it to my nephew.
Oh, that's nice. And hoped that he would find something in it that I found in it. So I didn't realize what I loved about this book until I was older.
Neil:
Yeah, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You didn't realize what you loved about the book until, oh, that's interesting. So Demi Hitz, quickly, she's created over a hundred books for children.
Most of them are adaptations of Chinese folk tales, fables and nursery rhymes, interestingly. Lu Pan, the carpenter's apprentice, sets the tone for most of her later work. It's part biography, part adapted folk tale.
The book tells the story of a young apprentice growing up in China in the fifth century BC and how he ultimately becomes a master carpenter and one of China's greatest architects and inventors. So now we've got a real story weaved in. File this one Dewey Decimal under 694.092 for technology slash building slash carpentry semi-colon stair building. That is the exact Dewey Decimal category. That is a strange category. Carpenting and stair building.
You got to squish those together if you're Melville Dewey. Lewis, tell us about your relationship with Lu Pan, the carpenter's apprentice by Demi Hitz.
Lewis:
Well, this book was given to me by my grandmother and I only remember that because it's written in the book.
Neil:
I love inscriptions.
Lewis:
Yeah.
And I was obsessed with this book as a kid. From before I could read to, I would just look at the photo, the drawings. I love the drawings.
They're very delicate and detailed. Black and white line drawings. And then once I could read
Neil:
Demi does those as well, by the way.
Lewis:
I believe so, yes.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah. And- Delicate line drawings is a great way to put it.
Lewis:
Yeah, I think.
Neil:
Kind of like the Giving Tree a little bit type sort of style.
I mean, some of- I'm not sure what that is. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. I'm just noticing on some of the drawings, but also the pagodas, the lumber, the horses, the pastoral fields, the people in long flowing robes.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Delicate line drawings.
Lewis:
But once I could read well enough to understand what the story was about, I just loved the idea that this little kid had, was an apprentice to this master and was being- This knowledge was being passed down and I always wanted this in my life.
And I didn't really realize how much I wanted this until I think I was on my way through high school. And I was searching for this kind of person in my life that would take me under their wing and teach me everything they know. Because I, and I'm sure it has something to do with my relationship with my father, who never answered any real questions I had.
I would ask him why. I was a very curious kid and the answer was always like, because I told you so. Or something along those lines.
So if I ever wanted to know anything, I had to go find out for myself what it was. And my parents were not necessarily very artistic. They didn't, my father had a minor passion for carpentry when I was a child and, but he stopped doing that.
Neil:
What did your parents do?
Lewis:
My father was a salesman. He sold mechanical, industrial tools, that kind of stuff.
My mother always worked for the government. She was a, she worked at the post office when I was really young and then worked for the land registry office.
Neil:
She answered your questions?
Lewis:
A little bit. I think I
Neil:
Seems like you were kind of like ignored almost. I don't want to put words in your mouth.
Lewis:
Yeah, no, no, I feel like very much. Yeah, I was told to go, you know, go away, go play somewhere else.
Neil:
Did they not want to have kids?
Lewis:
I honestly don't know. I think that there was a short time in their lives that they were in love and happy and I never saw that.
Neil:
And so when your grandmother gave you this book, was this before your parents got divorced?
Lewis:
Oh yeah.
Neil:
They got divorced at 12. The memories, the earliest memories in the closet were probably like three, four, five. Take us through the seven years.
Lewis:
I don't remember, I don't even remember being in the closet.
I do remember having my own bedroom in the same house. I think the reason that my sister and I were put in the closet when we were kids is because it was close to my parents' room, but it was, and it was small enough and contained that, you know, I think they let us cry ourselves to sleep. That kind of thing.
Neil:
Yeah, of course, yeah. Cry it out.
That was the popular thing at the time.
Lewis:
Very, yeah.
Neil:
And did you not once tell me like maybe months ago when I was first getting to know you that your dad also did a lot of drugs?
Lewis:
Yeah, he certainly did. He liked drugs a lot. I didn't see it.
It wasn't like he was just getting high all the time at home. He kept it away from home. And I didn't really learn about this until later in life.
You know, I knew my dad liked to drink. He liked to party. Once I was old enough and I learned what marijuana smoke smells like, it kind of, I had a flashback to being like, oh, I always remember that smell coming out of the basement.
Neil:
Oh my God, yeah, of course.
Lewis:
You know, when I was a kid.
Neil:
Did you not tell me that they were also getting high at work?
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Like what kind of stuff was happening? So we're in Hamilton, we're in the 70s and 80s. Tell me what this workplace scene is like.
Lewis:
You know, a rare story my father told me about himself was it started with the time that he accidentally did heroin and he didn't intend to snort heroin. He intended to snort cocaine. And he would tell me that when he would go into the office, he worked in Mississauga.
He drove from St. Catharines to Mississauga most mornings and most of the time he would come home. Sometimes he would stay in Mississauga overnight. But he said when he would show up to work most mornings, there would be a line or two of coke on his desk.
And he would just snort it to get the day started. And then one time it wasn't coke and it hit a little different. And he's lucky that he didn't overdose because they're very different things.
Neil:
Yeah, who was putting cocaine on his desk?
Lewis:
I think it was a salesman or somebody that worked in his office. Just like, this is how we do it.
Yeah, I don't remember. The only employee or the other co-worker of his that I knew was his secretary, which I later found out he was having an affair with the whole time he was with my mother.
Neil:
You found out a lot later.
Lewis:
Sorry?
Neil:
You found out, you got a lot of scoop later.
Like you didn't obviously know this stuff.
Lewis:
Yeah, we had to pry. My sister and I had to like combine information, you know, that we were getting from different resources.
Neil:
That's a common sibling tactic.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
I hope, I hope my sister and I can continue to do that as my parents get very old.
Lewis:
Yeah, I hope your kids do it behind your back.
Neil:
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Because?
Lewis:
I think it's necessary and it's good relationship building stuff.
Neil:
Yes, exactly. So you find out your dad is having an affair with his secretary, snorting coke every morning at a sales job, accidentally did heroin once. You were not ignored, capital I, but you know, there's the tilt that way. You got a grandmother in the picture.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Who's buying you books.
Lewis:
Yeah, my family, my father was a big reader and my, I was never very close with my grandmother, either of them.
She lived in Stoney Creek. We would see her, you know, once a month, you know, a few times a year kind of thing. And, and it, it was for a birthday before I was old enough to remember or Christmas that I got this book.
And so it probably just sat in my room with like other books I was, you know, picture books. And so I wish I knew why she chose this book. And, you know, it, it didn't strike me as an odd book to have as a kid when I was a kid, but as I got older, I thought this is a little bit of a.
Neil:
I never heard, it certainly is, yeah.
Lewis:
A strange book to give a kid.
Neil:
Very unique book. This boy, you know, he's challenged by the carpenter to do all kinds of incredible feats, like spend a year, you know, lifting all these stones and, you know, building this crazy pagodas and he does it.
And then the guy's reward is like, do it again for another year. Like it was, you know, he's put through all these essentially Sisyphean type of feats, like, you know, like these endless challenges. You probably related to that though.
It sounds like because you had this desire to have a connection and a learner, learnee role with your own parents and your father, which was kind of replicated in this book, but you cultivated, it sounds like an astounding sense of independence from a very young age.
Lewis:
I always wanted, I hated being restricted. I never wanted to do anything necessarily bad. I just didn't want to be restricted.
I, you know, as soon as I could wander away from home, I started wandering away and pushing the boundaries and, but also trying to be respectful at the same time, you know, like not, didn't want to worry my parents too much. You know?
Neil:
What do you mean wander away? So you're eight, nine, 10 years old. What are you doing? Where are you going?
Lewis:
If I could walk around the block, if I could, you know, there was major streets. I lived on a major street in St. Catharines, which would have been, you know, dangerous for a young kid to be crossing willy-nilly. But once I was old enough and my parents trusted me to use crosswalk properly and, you know, then I could walk to a convenience store that was four or five blocks away and not one that was just on the same block.
Neil:
And this was all by yourself?
Lewis:
Yeah, it would be by myself.
Neil:
What was happening in your head? So an eight and nine and 10 year old today does not have A, time by themselves.
I mean, just B, but time in their own head. Like they've got screens and they've got video game systems and they've got, you know, there's, I don't see kids doing what it sounds like you did. And as you get older here, I'm picturing you as a kid, any artistic gleanings early?
What were the first demonstrations of your art history?
Lewis:
I distinctly remember a moment in daycare. It was either in a before school or an after school program at the YMCA. I spent a lot of my childhood also at the YMCA in St. Catharines. And I would spend time alone in the daycare drawing on paper with, you know, pastels and crayons. I was probably five or six years old and I taped a piece of paper on the wall and I was just drawing on it. And I thought, this is what I want to do forever.
Like, I want to be an artist.
Neil:
Wow.
Neil:
This is what I want to do forever. Where'd that come from?
Lewis:
I just, I really enjoyed any time I had when I was drawing.
I don't think that I showed any exceptional ability from a young child.
Neil:
Most kids must feel some of that when they're drawing. I mean, drawing is such a...
Lewis:
Yeah, it's a...
Neil:
I'm a big fan of Austin Kleon, who was a past guest on 3 Books. And he just really espouses like drawing as an adult. And, you know, adults are like, oh yeah, I guess I should, you know, we forget that kids love drawing. Kids love drawing. We all love drawing.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
You just never stopped.
Lewis:
No, I never did. I didn't, I mean, there was periods in my life where I went without drawing for quite a while.
And if I could go back in time and give myself a shake, I think I would.
Neil:
So what kind of student were you? A kid were you? What group did you fit into?
What, you know, how would you define yourself in regards to like student groups? Socially, I mean.
Lewis:
Early on, I didn't feel like I had a lot of say in who my friends were. It was kind of like, I was friends with whoever were the kids of my friends, my parents' friends. And you're just kind of stuck with those kids.
Neil:
And then as you get into high school, you know, in high school, there's like, I don't want to put labels on it, but most schools have like the jocks, the goths, the nerds, the, you know, how does this work for you?
Lewis:
Well, by high school, I was really starting to sort out, you know, who I wanted to be around or who I related to and who I didn't relate to. And I dealt with a lot of bullies as a young kid, as I think probably most boys do, unless you're the bully. That dynamic probably still plays itself out the same way.
And so once I was in high school and I started to really feel like I was developing my own personal style and slowly starting to realize like who I am and where I am, my place in the world, I fell in with a bunch of other students who were weird and didn't fit into that jock narrative.
Neil:
Whoa, whoa, whoa. So you fell into students that were weird. That's how you define your group.
Lewis:
Well, weird in that they were not like the stereotypical, popular in style dressing.
Neil:
Did I hear you once say in another interview, they were the only group that would have me? Am I putting words in your mouth?
Lewis:
That's how I felt, yes. It was something like that. You know, we all kind of fell in together.
We just got called the freaks basically by the popular kids. We would all move our lockers to be in the same hallway together.
Neil:
Oh, interesting. Probably weren't allowed to do that.
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
Early vandalism.
Lewis:
We had assigned lockers, yeah. But we found a secluded area of the school.
Neil:
Oh, wow.
Lewis:
And took the bolts off of the bolted up lockers and just put our locks on them.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
And then we would
Neil:
Took the bolts off? That's ballsy.
Lewis:
Well, I mean, I guess it felt like just the right amount of bad. It didn't feel like it was too bad.
Neil:
The right amount of bad.
Lewis:
We weren't doing anything irreversible. We weren't really vandalizing. We were just
Neil:
You felt like you were on okay moral grounds. This is for a community you're trying to develop here.
Lewis:
Well, we just wanted a place that we could go and be left alone.
Neil:
Oh, interesting. We wanted a place we could go, be left alone. And what we did to do that felt like the right amount of bad.
Lewis:
Yeah, I guess. And I think that plays itself out as we get further along here. But there was a fair amount of drug and alcohol abuse.
More than a fair, like a lot.
Neil:
What kind of drugs?
Lewis:
Everything.
Everything? Grade nine and 10? Grade nine and 10 was- Or 10 and 11? Alcohol, marijuana. Grade 10, 11, we're getting mushrooms, LSD, cocaine, heroin. And I think that I saw, I mean, by the time I was in grade 11 and grade 12, I knew multiple people that were shooting up at school, before school, after school.
Neil:
When you say shooting up, you mean heroin?
Lewis:
Heroin, cocaine, a mixture of both. I saw it all. Shooting up before and after school.
Neil:
So I'm sorry to say this in a, I don't mean this in a derogatory way, but like, if you're shooting heroin twice a day in high school.
Lewis:
More.
Neil:
But you're also going to school?
Lewis:
Yeah.
Sometimes, sometimes they wouldn't show up.
Neil:
I just, I just, I just would equate, sorry, like, am I way off on this? How does the combination of shooting heroin multiple times a day at age 15 or 16 tie together with being a studious person?
Lewis:
They weren't necessarily studious. They had to be out of the house.
Neil:
Okay. They just needed a place to go. Okay, so we've got a couple parameters of the freak class here. We've got the lockers moving together.
We've got the 10 or 20 students throughout the grades, or maybe over two grade splits. There's the drug and alcohol growth, but not for you. You're doing no drugs, no alcohol, right?
Lewis:
Exactly.
Neil:
Okay. What else defines that community?
I find this community really interesting. Like, it's a really nice window into the world here.
Lewis:
Grunge, like grunge music was starting to become very popular at the time.
Neil:
Oh, okay.
Lewis:
So the, you know.
Neil:
Pearl Jam Nirvana?
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Sound Garden, that kind of stuff?
Lewis:
All of that kind of stuff. So there was, there was the grungy, there was the grungy kids.
There was the.
Neil:
That's how you dressed too? Like the, like ripped pants and plaids?
Lewis:
Exactly, yeah. Ripped jeans. A lot of Salvation Army chic.
And there was the goth kids. There was always goth kids.
Neil:
But they were part of your group?
Lewis:
Yep.
Neil:
Oh, the goths were part of the freaks, a subset.
Lewis:
The punks.
Neil:
Oh, the punks.
Lewis:
And the ravers.
Neil:
The ravers.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Goths, punks, ravers.
Lewis:
Yeah, there was.
Neil:
Were you one of those three?
Lewis:
I probably fell in closer to the grunge.
Neil:
So there's grunge, goth, punk, and raver.
Lewis:
He certainly, there was.
Neil:
What's a raver and a punk? How do they differ in appearance and behavior? How do I identify the difference between a raver and a punk?
We're talking like, like lanolin mohawks here?
Lewis:
This is like 90s, 90s raver culture. So we're talking like humongous pants.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
A lot of fluorescent colors. And like big plastic jewelry.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah. Okay, I can picture that. And then what about the punks?
90s punks?
Lewis:
The punks, I.
Neil:
I heard Andrew Hieberman once in an interview with Rich Roll, by the way, that his childhood, he describes it as like the movie Kids.
Lewis:
Oh, I related to that movie so hard. When I felt like I was watching my teenage years go by.
Neil:
That's exactly what he said.
Lewis:
Just in a bigger city.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
Except in New York.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
I saw that same kind of violence, that skateboard beating. I saw that happen.
Neil:
Skateboard beatings?
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
But the skaters are not part of your group.
Lewis:
No, they were.
Neil:
Oh, skaters were also part of Freaks.
Lewis:
We were just about every subculture that didn't.
Neil:
Identify with the mainstream big ones.
Lewis:
Yeah, yes. We were kind of a catch-all for everybody who was left behind.
And.
Neil:
You saw the skateboard beatings?
Lewis:
Sure.
I mean, I.
Neil:
Who would you guys beat up?
Lewis:
Who?
We didn't beat anybody up.
Neil:
But you saw skateboard beatings.
Lewis:
Oh, yes.
I, well, that was, I was in Hamilton at a skate park when I saw that happen.
Neil:
Oh, it wasn't your friends?
Lewis:
It wasn't in high school, no.
Neil:
Okay, okay. There was a lot of fights and fighting. Stealing stuff from variety stores.
Lewis:
That's what happens in the movie.
Neil:
The drugs though, heavy, heavy drugs.
Lewis:
Yes. Most of that happened after school. It wasn't until later in high school when the real addicts were doing their thing.
Neil:
In the school lot.
Lewis:
Sorry?
Neil:
Where were they shooting up?
Lewis:
Oh, bathrooms.
Neil:
And where were they getting heroin from?
Lewis:
They're drug dealers. We all knew who they were.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
There were kids slightly older than us that either dropped out of school or had graduated school and not done anything.
Neil:
So if, I'm sorry, you know, so there's this, I think, well-held belief that we are most influenced by our culture than anything, you know? And Maria Popova, past guest on 3 Books, says that her number one piece of advice to her younger self or any younger person is to try to see the culture you are a part of and ignore its norms for your own benefit. You don't have to do X, Y, and Z as it may be propaned to.
She grew up in Bulgaria behind the Iron Curtain, so it's a little different, but that was her perspective. And yet you were surrounded by these kids who had a deep artistic sensibility like you did, but you didn't start drinking, you didn't do any drugs. And in fact, not to foreshadow here, I believe you have a large tattoo on your stomach that says the word straight edge.
Lewis:
I would classify it as a medium tattoo across my stomach that says straight edge. So it was my first tattoo.
Neil:
How did you resist this? How did you resist the drinking drug culture?
Your parents weren't around, they weren't cared, they didn't look, they weren't checking on you.
Lewis:
No, they would have been.
Neil:
They weren't looking through your knapsack.
Lewis:
My father would have encouraged it to a degree.
Neil:
Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
Not to a toxic, he wouldn't have encouraged me to do hard drugs, but I was free to try a sip of this and that and the other thing anytime I wanted as a kid. And I tried beer a couple times and it was always disgusting. And as I was in high school and I started to go to parties where people were drinking, grade nine, grade 10, I tried a beer, I just didn't, I thought it was disgusting.
Neil:
Yeah, it is.
Lewis:
And once I saw how people were acting, I was like, I don't want to act like that. I didn't, I just didn't have the, I didn't want to do it.
Neil:
I'm a parent of four boys who I desperately don't want them to try alcohol and cannabis and these drugs in high school. And you have managed to do this, even though you were immersed in a culture that did the opposite. So I'm curious for what lessons or ideas or principles or what actually created this behavior inside you.
Lewis:
I just didn't have.
Neil:
To the point where you identify with it. I mean, you just have a medium sized stomach that labels yourself as straight edge, that you got at what age?
Lewis:
At 18.
Neil:
You got at 18. So you already were labeling yourself sort of antithetical to the culture.
Lewis:
Yeah, I, you know, it was, it was a movement that the straight edge, I didn't know anybody else who was straight edge. I was just told by some of the punk rock and the hardcore guys that got to know me. And they're like, oh, you're straight edge.
And I was like, what is that? And then they would, they would tell me, it's like, oh, you know, somebody who doesn't drink or smoke or use drugs. And I was like, oh, I have an identity.
You know?
Neil:
Oh, interesting. It was partly that you connected with that label.
Lewis:
Yeah, in a way, you know, I thought, I listened to some of the music for a while. What music? Like hardcore, straight edge.
Neil:
Hardcore, straight edge?
Lewis:
Well, it was like in the genre of hardcore, which is like a subset of metal, I guess.
Neil:
Okay, so within metal, there's hardcore, within metal, hardcore, there's straight edge. Not to be confused with Christian rock.
Lewis:
So it would be, yes, more like straight edge rock, where they are talking about their values. And for me, it was all a little bit too preaching.
Neil:
Do you remember any of the lyrics or the bands or the songs?
Lewis:
I do not know.
Neil:
Straight edge music.
Lewis:
I would know it if I heard it. Even though you had no other straight edge friends.
Neil:
Yeah, so I was- They never forced you to, people weren't pushing alcohol and weed on you?
Lewis:
The odd person would offer. I would get teased a little bit, but I never felt real peer pressure. Yeah, there was never, nobody ever like put their arm around me and was like, you better take a hit of this.
Yeah, it sounds like one of the defining- We were pretty respectful of each other.
Neil:
Pieces of your culture was that we took anybody who wasn't welcome anywhere else. So by definition, that is a culture of acceptance. Yeah, we were- Maybe we all should envy hanging out with the freaks in high school, because they're the open-hearted, open-minded kindness group.
Lewis:
We were very, we tried to be. Of course, it wasn't all good, but-
Neil:
The odd skateboard beating. That wasn't your group though.
Lewis:
No, but we did get in fights from time to time.
Neil:
Really, over what?
Lewis:
Over being bullied.
Neil:
Oh, you'd fight with the other groups.
Lewis:
Well, if somebody was picking on you, if somebody had, I can't tell you how many times I got pushed into a locker, threatened to get beat up.
I mean, I was also antagonizing in my own way. I would make my own t-shirts that said, jocks suck.
Neil:
Oh, wow.
Lewis:
And I would wear it in high school.
Neil:
Wow, so the merchandise streak started young.
Lewis:
I did make my own t-shirts.
Neil:
You're wearing a Lewis Mallard red baseball cap now, I should mention.
Lewis:
Correct.
Neil:
For those that want to support your work and your art, you sell merchandise.
Lewis:
I do, yes.
Neil:
And so at Lewis Mallard, there's presumably a buy button, because I'm sure Instagram's got the mallification happening.
Lewis:
Yes, I don't have that set up, but I have a website.
Neil:
Okay, well, you got to get the buy button now that I just talked about it. Now there's some pressure on you. Oh, no.
Before this is released, the TikTok store is taking over Amazon. Haven't you heard, Lewis?
Neil:
Come on.
Neil:
Okay, so you were in a kindness-based group. You accepted everybody else. You accepted everybody.
You were in group. You were in the artistic nerve we can fear. Was it also like, did you have an art teacher anywhere in high school?
Was there some sort of art, you know?
Lewis:
I had one art teacher who tried very hard to keep me in school. I got suspended a lot. I neared expulsion a few times.
Neil:
What for?
Lewis:
For having a smart mouth, mostly. I did a lot of
Neil:
Any examples? Any memories? And anything you said to a teacher once that you can still recall, or others?
Lewis:
Well, one thing that got me, one of my suspensions was from wearing my hat in school. We weren't allowed to wear hats in school.
Neil:
Neither were we. That's it, just wore your hat?
Lewis:
No, it was after school. I was walking through the hallways after the bell had gone and was on my way out, and I just had my hat on my head.
Figured it was after school hours. I knew I was riding a line. I liked to ride the line.
And a particular teacher who I didn't get along with very well walked past me and snatched it off my head and said, you can have this on Monday. And I didn't like that. And so I snuck up behind him and I ripped it out of his hand.
And I said, fuck you.
Neil:
Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
And I said, I'll see you on Monday. And then I went home and I knew I was gonna get suspended. To me, it was worth it because I really didn't like this guy.
Neil:
And it was a moral thing here. I mean, even if you were violating the rules, you shouldn't grab it off your head. There's like, you know, that's a- It's a bit over the top.
Lewis:
Had he approached me in a respectful manner, I would have been in a completely different scenario.
Neil:
Wow. Yeah, as Omar Little says in The Wire, man's gotta have a code. Anything else that you recall?
Anything else your smart brain can remember that your smart mouth said to get you in trouble back then? And any other teachers like, you know, kind of light you up back then? Like keep taking us through that time period of your life.
It sounds pretty formative.
Lewis:
Well, the same teacher that I took the hat from, Mr. Meisner, if you're out there, I'm sorry I gave you such a hard time.
Neil:
That's nice.
Lewis:
You know, you gotta forgive and forget.
Neil:
I hope he hears that.
Lewis:
I doubt he will.
Neil:
Well, you doubt it, but you don't know.
Lewis:
I don't even know if he's alive.
Neil:
You're going Banksy, brother. This is like a secret identity performance artist in the city that's moving around and dropping stuff all over the place. Like, this is exact Banksy.
I mean, it was two years before.
Lewis:
Well, let's hope. He was substituting in an art class I was in. And I was doing an independent study at the time.
So I was going into the dark room in the photo lab in my high school. We were fortunate enough to have an old school photography studio in the school. And I spent a lot of time developing my own photos.
Neil:
Yeah. Dark room, that's great. Yeah, we had one too.
That's cool.
Lewis:
Yeah, so we got to take out cameras, take photos, develop the film, enlarge it myself. And so I was working on an independent study that was not in the actual classroom I had to leave. And so when he said, all right guys, just go about your work.
I got up to walk to the dark room. He said, where are you going? And I said, you could do my work.
And he said, no, you have to do it in the room. And I said, well, it's not in the room. He's like, well, do something in the room.
And I was like, but my work is not in the room. And it went on like that. And then I told him a couple of choice words.
Neil:
Motherfuck you.
Lewis:
Basically, and I just started to walk to the principal's office. And then he told me to go. And I said, I'm already going there because I know you're gonna send me
Neil:
You rendered his future advice moot by heading there already.
Lewis:
Yes, I knew where I was heading. I knew that as soon as I
Neil:
How many suspensions is an expulsion? For us, our high school was three. And we knew the kids that had one or two.
Lewis:
I don't remember.
Neil:
It was three strikes, you know, three suspensions, you're out of school.
Lewis:
Yeah, so Perry Vakulich, great dude. I admired him. I was getting in a lot of trouble at the time.
And the principal of the school had asked him to have a sit down meeting with me and try to convince me to rein in my behavior and finish school. And so he talked some sense into me. And he allowed me to do independent studies.
And I thought, well, what a nice challenging idea. I get to choose what I wanna study. I have to write my own curriculum and then study it and report back basically.
And just be present in school through the day. I don't have to be in any particular room. I just have to be in the building working.
Neil:
That's amazing. What an incredible Yoda-like teacher move to recognize a kid's potential for graduating, separate the suspension-laden behaviors of telling the same teacher to fuck off multiple times, and then just cultivating a curriculum for you that could allow you to do both, be independent, be learning, and finish.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
Because you were in danger of not finishing, I'm assuming. Constantly getting suspended is not a good sign towards finishing.
Lewis:
Yeah, absolutely. I was very angry at the world then. I didn't know why.
Neil:
You didn't know why?
Lewis:
No, not at the time. I didn't even realize I was angry necessarily.
But when I look back and reflect on my behavior, I was an angry young man.
Neil:
And you don't know why? Do you know why now?
Lewis:
I think that I was not reaching my potential. I was nowhere near reaching my potential.
Neil:
Oh, you were angry at how you were showing up in the world.
Lewis:
I guess. I mean, at the time, I knew I had a lot of anger in me and I didn't have many healthy avenues to express it.
Neil:
I had a lot of anger in me because I wasn't hitting my potential and nowhere to put it, so then it comes out in sharp, kind of dysfunctional ways.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
And once I started doing these independent studies, my marks increased dramatically. I went from a strong C to honor roll.
Neil:
No way.
Lewis:
And near valedictorian.
Neil:
No way!
Lewis:
I think a high 90 average.
I was highly engaged and interested because I was choosing what I could study.
Neil:
Oh my gosh, from a C student, that means your marks were in the 60s, to a high 90 average, almost valedictorian, meaning it sounds like your school anointed valedictorian based on the highest mark in the school?
Lewis:
It was something like that, yes.
Neil:
Right, not the peer elected thing.
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
Right, right. But you were, yeah, okay, so you, wow. Because, so how many years did you do the independent study stuff?
Lewis:
Well, by the end.
Neil:
Just one in the last year?
Lewis:
By the end of high school for me, I had gotten all of the mandatory stuff out of the way.
All of the English and science and math requirements I had gone through, and I'd just done the minimum. How many credits do I need? I did the minimum.
Neil:
Yes, yes.
Lewis:
And I was.
Neil:
Yeah, you need four credits and four electives, and then this teacher figured out that the whole last phase of your high school career could be all electives, basically.
Lewis:
Basically, it was all electives or other art programs.
Neil:
And you did photography, pretty much, and all this stuff?
Lewis:
I had gone through all of the photography programs the school offered, like a year ahead.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
I was doing grade 12 photography and grade 11, and.
Neil:
So it was all art stuff, though.
Lewis:
Pretty much all art credits. Any and all art programs, shop. There was a drafting class I took.
I took anything that was like making things. Home economics, I learned how to sew, I learned how to cook.
Neil:
Oh, home economics, that's a phrase I have not heard in a while. When I first had home economics, it was like, yeah, learning how to cook, learning how to sew, learning how to.
Lewis:
Yeah, I found it very valuable.
Neil:
What a terribly insulting name. Yes. Home economics. Yeah, they didn't really teach you any economics. Trying to merge the capitalistic economic value with home, but that home is, of course, sewing. You know, it's not.
Lewis:
Yeah, well, I mean, viable skill.
Neil:
I mean, it worked, though. I mean, Lu Pan, the carpenter's apprentice, is about building and making. You're learning about sewing.
You went from a C student to a high school valedictorian from.
Lewis:
Well, not high.
Neil:
Near, I put the place of nears back in there.
Thank you for constantly taking my hyperbolic phrases and bringing me back down to earth.
Lewis:
Yeah, we're going to keep you here on earth.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, but it all comes and it's home economics, sewing. And like here you are, you know, you're making the duck costume.
I saw your post on Instagram from the eclipse and like you clearly made like giant duck glasses. Like you're doing a lot of home economics today.
Lewis:
I like to make things, absolutely. I always did.
Neil:
What other words do you use to apply to your identity? We've got interdisciplinary. We understand that one.
We've got psychedelic. We do not yet understand that. We're going to pause that, but I know you're straight edge on your stomach, but I don't think you're straight edge now.
Lewis:
No, things have changed.
Neil:
Okay, okay. So there's psychedelic. Then there's folk, which you kind of got a taste of in the vein of sort of a non-professional heart forward type of art.
Artist. We're understanding artists. Now we're going to take a break.
You and I, this is, for those that are listening, you might detect this. This is a very challenging environment to do a podcast. There are house bears here.
There are chimneys just above us. There's people walking by with boom boxes playing. There's bikes flying by.
There's people looking at us. There's people's like, one person was waving at you. I think I saw another person waving at you.
Like, I think that, you know, inside they're kind of saying there's a podcast. So this is a very distracting. I need like a sensory reset.
I need to get a glass of water. I see the cops coming now down here. I need to get a glass of water.
I need to have a sensory reset. And then we're going to keep going with Lewis Mallard. Two more formative books.
I'm having a wonderful time with this conversation. I'm really, really deeply grateful for your heart and for your love, for the artistry you're doing. And thanks so much for doing this show with us.
Lewis:
Thanks, handsome.
Neil:
Okay, be back in a bit. It's called 3 Books. Yeah, 3 Books. The number three in the word books. And your name is Noah?
[Noah]
Yeah.
Neil:
And you're in like a jean shirt and a white t-shirt and a black jeans. And you're a reader because you got a book beside you. What book is that?
[Noah]
The Hidden Life of Trees.
Neil:
Oh, nice. How'd you hear about that?
[Noah]
I borrowed it from a friend this morning.
Neil:
Oh, you borrowed it from a friend this morning. And that's what we were just talking about. That when you borrow books, you fucking can't calculate.
Because I asked both of you in the break, how many people do you think are readers? And I was thinking in my head, five or 10%. And you guys were saying more like 50, 60, 70%.
Because it's more of a community that doesn't fully participate in the capitalist system with libraries and borrowing. Is that what you were saying, Noah? Am I putting words in your mouth?
[Noah]
No, that's right.
Neil:
Okay.
Lewis:
Yeah, that's how it went.
Neil:
That's how it went. Okay, okay. All right, we're gonna come back.
What's the scene look like now? It's getting a lot hotter, I'll tell you that.
Lewis:
The sun is brighter.
Neil:
I feel like I wanna put sunblock on my face. I'm sweating in my shirt, but you can't take a shirt off and just sit on a bench with a microphone. No, you can.
Lewis:
You would just get looked at a little funnier.
Neil:
It's hot though. It's getting warm. And what's your observation of the College and Bathurst intersection now?
I say, we're now in like a hot mid morning. We're recording in June. It'll probably come out in the summer. In July or August sometime.
Lewis:
The scene, it's not that much different. Just a little, it turned up a little bit in the heat.
Neil:
What's going past us?
Lewis:
Random cars, white vans, white trucks. A lot of white vehicles right now.
Neil:
Toronto called 311. A lot of four by fours. Four by four trucks with like people on their phone and guys sitting in the back, like cleaning park bathrooms and like shoveling. I saw them shoveling leaves off the corner of the sewers. And I talked to the guys and they said, we're the snowplow group. We've just been doing this all winter because there was no snow.
Lewis:
Cleaning, getting drainage. We need better drainage on these streets.
Neil:
Well, how would you describe the city of Toronto? It doesn't seem like you grew up here and the city of Toronto in 2024 is a pulsing, vibrating, like, you know, it's a city on the world stage. How would you describe this city?
Lewis:
A little bit of everything. He needs a little more than a little bit of everything. It's a...
Neil:
What's working, what's not. What's good, what's bad. You're leaving, I heard.
Lewis:
I'm moving.
Neil:
You're posting on your Lewis Mallard Instagram feed that you're moving to Montreal. Oui. We as in you and your opera singer partner or oui as in O-U-I?
Lewis:
Yeah, both forms. Yeah, that was a double entendre.
Neil:
Oh, nice. That could be the word of the chapter. At the end of every chapter, we have a word that was said that we go into the etymology of. That could be it. Double entendre.
Lewis:
Toronto, I moved back here after being away for about five and a half years.
And it's not the city I left. It's not the same city. It's changing rapidly.
I don't recognize it the same way. Many landmarks are being torn down. Many new buildings are being put up in place of them.
I'm a cyclist. The cycling infrastructure is growing, I guess, reasonably quickly, but it's kind of slapdash, bandaid, not really well thought out. And the amount of people riding bikes in the city is exploding.
And it is absolute chaos on these streets as a cyclist now, where before the chaos was other cars. And now I find the chaos is an inexperienced cyclist.
Neil:
Mm-hmm, that would be me. I'm on these bike lanes. I'm inexperienced.
I get dinged at all the time. Not honked at, dinged at. It's a much less abrasive form of vehicular communication.
The bicycle bell. No one's figured out how to put these big honking horns on bikes yet.
Neil:
Eh, eh.
Lewis:
There are, yeah. There's the few people who will do the air powered horn, the obnoxiously loud.
Neil:
They also bang, it should be said that Toronto cyclists bang on cars a lot. I've witnessed it a lot. Like they yell at drivers.
They pound their fists on hoods and things. And they're usually right. It's because someone's parking in the bike lane.
It's because someone's turning without seeing the bikes coming. They're usually right, but they do so very aggressively. Am I right about this?
Lewis:
I've seen it, unfortunately. I have also participated in it. I really try not to do that as hard as I can now.
I've tried to change that behavior and just move on with my day.
Neil:
There's a bit of 18 year old Lewis, fuck you teacher still left in there in his early 40s.
Lewis:
I think drivers who are not necessarily cyclists don't realize how threatening a car can be. Completely dangerous. And when they do things to purposefully put you in danger, it's extremely frustrating.
Neil:
Purposefully?
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
How are you going to evaluate intent when someone parking in the bike lane or turning in the corner by accident?
Lewis:
Well, that's not what I'm talking about. That's what you're talking about.
Neil:
What are you talking about?
Lewis:
When people will swerve to threaten you with their car.
Neil:
Oh.
Lewis:
Will purposefully cut you off.
Neil:
Oh, really?
Lewis:
To brake check you.
Neil:
Brake check you?
Lewis:
Absolutely.
Neil:
What does brake check you mean?
Lewis:
Like when you're following behind them and they will...
Neil:
In a lane, not a bike lane.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
In a car lane. Yes. But it's not a car lane. It's a shared lane.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
But people think it's a car lane.
Lewis:
One subtle one.
Neil:
They'll brake you because they think that you aren't going to brake and then you'll pound the back of their car.
Lewis:
Well...
Neil:
That's what they want to have happen is what you're saying.
Lewis:
I don't think they're thinking clearly. So I don't know.
Neil:
Right.
Lewis:
I don't really know what they want.
Neil:
Right. They brake check you though. And now I understand what brake check you means.
Lewis:
And another one that I've had many times is people spray you with their windshield washer fluid.
Neil:
No way.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
They spray you with their... Because they know that the windshield washer fluid on any car splashes the everywhere.
Lewis:
And so they do it as you're passing.
Neil:
Really? Just when you're passing?
Lewis:
Yeah. I've had that many times.
Neil:
So what is... I'm sorry to ask. What is it about you that's drawing all this ire?
Lewis:
I don't think it's me. I think a lot of cyclists deal with these things. It's just the frequency on the roads.
Neil:
You're like... I'm like an everyday... I'm like a drop my kids off at school kind of cyclist.
You're like a bike around town. You don't have a car.
Lewis:
I don't have a car.
Neil:
So you're using your bike in the winter.
Lewis:
All seasons.
Neil:
Right, all seasons.
Lewis:
And I also use it for commuting, for recreation.
Neil:
It should be said that the winter in Toronto, the streets can be quite snowy, slushy. You're on your bike.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
You're biking through, you're on the lanes. You're getting brake checked. You're getting washer fluid in your eyes.
You pound on cars. You try not to do that.
Lewis:
I try not to...
Neil:
But you'll engage...
Lewis:
Carry the...
I used to when I was younger.
Neil:
What's the highest amount of road rage you've been involved in? I should also say I've pounded on a few cars myself. I have done that because sometimes you're right.
When you're on a bike, it's like, what is this guy doing? He's trying to kill me.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
I do. I have felt that. But as soon as I've pounded on a car, I've only done a couple of times, I run away.
I bolt away. I'm like, I'm immediately regretful and fearful of what I've just done. I won't stand there and get into an actual fight.
I'll take off. Because I'm like a real... I can't believe I just did that.
It's out of character.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
I think, but I guess not.
Lewis:
Well, people get so irrationally angry in these road rage scenarios that I almost find it interesting to see somebody go from zero to a hundred in the anger scale over something so small.
Neil:
And we know this because George Carlin said, everyone driving faster than you is a maniac and everyone driving slower than you is an idiot. Everyone relates to this.
Lewis:
And how willing somebody who's in this state of mind is to seemingly throw away their whole life because they're angry. They're so angry about this one thing. And I recognize this behavior in people now where before I would try to, I would almost match their anger and things would come to, not come to blows, but come close to blows.
And in the most recent time that I was involved in a road range scenario, there was a driver who was threatening me with his vehicle. He was charging me and then stopping before he would hit me. He was swerving, cutting me off, not letting me pass.
I went away that he couldn't go up a one-way street with heavy traffic and I knew he couldn't follow me in his car.
Neil:
Why? So you ended up walking away from the fight?
Lewis:
I walked away from it.
Neil:
You could have been in a physical fight with him.
Lewis:
Oh, absolutely. It would have turned to blows without a doubt if I had gotten off my bike. And I was interested-
Neil:
And nobody else was around.
Lewis:
No, I-I landed into an alleyway.
Neil:
How long ago was this?
Lewis:
This was last summer.
Neil:
Okay, this is pretty recent. What have you learned over time that can help the novice rider navigate road rage better?
Lewis:
Oh.
Neil:
Just drive it away? Just get to the finish of whatever that story ended faster?
Lewis:
I think it's better
Neil:
Don't engage.
Lewis:
It's better to walk away?
Neil:
It's better to walk away.
Lewis:
If you did something wrong, apologize and move on.
Neil:
Oh, apologize?
Lewis:
I think if you actually are
Neil:
I always put my palm up. You know what I mean? When I do something wrong on the road, I put my palm up. I'm like, that was me. Like, am I bad?
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
I do that a lot. My palm is often up while I'm driving.
Lewis:
I think apologies go a long way. Apologies, yeah.
But for me, I really try to let it go. I feel like I have the power to absorb that anger that somebody else is giving out and let it go and so that it doesn't have to carry on through that branch that was just kind of created.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
Tributary or whatever you want to call it.
Neil:
Oh, tributary.
Lewis:
Of anger.
Neil:
Oh, we got to mark that one. That's a potential word of the podcast too. Tributary and double entendre popping out so far early in the conversation.
Now, here's the thing. You were in your early 40s.
Lewis:
Mid.
Neil:
Mid, okay. Okay, good, yeah. Because we never quite got the clarity on the blurry 70s.
But I'm September 17th, 1979. So I would agree with the 70s being blurry. You probably played that game I did of like, I've been around for six decades.
I'm 41. Anyway, maybe not. So we got kind of a book of your childhood, Lupin and the Carpenter's Apprentice.
I talked to you in advance. So I know that we also have a book kind of of your 20s and I know we have a book kind of of your 30s. I think what I'll do now is I'll introduce the book kind of of your 20s and we'll steer the conversation kind of towards that kind of post high school, pre-Lewis part of your life.
And then we'll talk about the book of your 30s after that. Does that sound like a good structure?
Lewis:
That is.
Neil:
You can feel free to, you know.
Lewis:
That is the structure.
Neil:
Chiropractically adjust the structure. Okay, the book of your 20s is, oh yeah, here it comes people. I'm excited for this because, you know, we're in the, we're getting into the 500s now.
Like we've counted down over 400 books on the show. So it's exciting to me that we're getting into the one and the only Moby Dick. Oh yes.
By Herman Melville, M-E-L-V-I-L-L-E. Originally published in October 18th, 1851 by Richard Bentley in the UK and a U.S., Harper and Brothers. And I love the old publisher names.
Harper and Brothers, not Harper Collins, in the U.S. This is, everyone's got different covers for this. The paperback I have.
Lewis:
It's a nice cover.
Neil:
You like that one? It's got like this gigantic white, almost like lino block kind of whale.
Lewis:
Yeah, it looks like an etching maybe. It's tough to say.
Neil:
Yeah, that's yours. By the way, you want that?
That's yours.
Lewis:
Okay.
Neil:
Okay, that's yours.
That's your signifying commemorative copy of the conversation.
Lewis:
You got it right in it though.
Neil:
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll sign Herman Melville's name in there. Yeah. So mine is like a kind of a white, gigantic, it's almost like a scary looking whale, but it's only like from the tip of its nose. I'm sure it's not called a nose, to like just past its eye.
Lewis:
That's the most recognizable part of a sperm whale.
Neil:
Yes. Oh, sperm whale. Thank you for specific.
And then it's an all caps kind of impact font, wide kerning Moby Dick with Herman Melville in an embossed all caps serif font.
Lewis:
That's debossed.
Neil:
Oh, debossed.
Lewis:
Or wait, which one? This is in, not out.
Neil:
Oh yeah, I think that is debossed. Embossed means pop, popping out.
Lewis:
And then you're debossed.
Neil:
Oh, that is interesting. So it's a debossed cover. Well, that seems like a competitor for the word of the chapter.
Herman Melville was a New Yorker. I didn't realize this. He's a New Yorker who lived from, listen to the years, 1819 to 1891.
Imagine that, 1819 to 1891. Flip the numbers around and that's how long I'll be here. He's an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance.
Came from a distinguished family, but after his father's death in 1832, his family was in poverty. From the age of 12, Melville worked just a number of jobs. It's gonna think I sound like a bit like your 20s.
Bank clerk, farmer, teacher. In the summer of 1839, he joined the crew of a merchant ship that sailed to England. Think about this.
Less than 200 years ago, Lewis, joining a merchant ship to sail to England. When he returned, he tried several jobs, but none lasted for long. He then signed on to a whaling ship that set sail.
There goes a mad vac beside us, sucking garbage off the trail. Melville, oh yeah. A whaling ship that set sail on January 3rd, 1841.
He then spent the next two years having adventures in the South Pacific. Nowhere close to New York or England. And by the way, Moby Dick, this book, which we're gonna get into, was a flop.
Only 3,715 copies precisely were sold during Melville's lifetime. Critics and readers didn't know what to take of the popular adventure novelist's turn towards dark, complex, psychological explorations. The total amount he earned from Moby Dick was $556.
Lewis:
Jesus, adjusted for inflation it's still bullshit.
Neil:
Essentially, the book more or less torpedoed his existing popularity, and the writer returned to New York and became a customs inspector in 1863.
Lewis:
That's unfortunate, Herman.
Neil:
Moby Dick torpedoed his career. What is this torpedoing book about? The sailor Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, P-Q-O-D, for vengeance against Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale that bit off his leg on the ship's previous voyage.
Moby Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopedia of whaling lore and legend, the book can be seen as part of its author's lifelong meditation on America, written with wonderful, redemptive humor. It's also a profound inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception.
Wow! File this one to 813.3 for literature slash middle 19th century literature. Not much goes in that slot that I know of. Lewis, please tell us about your relationship with Moby Dick by Herman Melville.
Lewis:
You know, this is a book that I'd heard of growing up through school. We didn't read it in high school.
I think it was a little, probably a little too heavy for that time in my life. And it was, I kind of thought of it as like a challenge. Like, oh, one day I would like to read that book, consume that book.
And I never, I was never much of a reader. I had a difficult relationship with reading through school. You know, I was in, what do you call it nowadays?
I was in like the remedial class.
Neil:
You were in like a, well, special education.
Lewis:
Yeah, I got put into the slow kid class for some of this stuff.
And I had tutors to help me with reading and writing as a kid. So it was always kind of a sore spot, especially since my father was such a voracious reader and my sister was the scholastically smart one. And so I kind of felt bashful about...
Neil:
Sorry to ask, but how does somebody with that background then wanna read Moby Dick? The most challenging novel of all time.
Lewis:
I like a challenge.
Neil:
Wow. So with that background, it made you attracted to it. How did you come across Moby Dick?
How did it enter your brain view? How did you even know it was a book?
Lewis:
Well, I don't remember.
Neil:
Noah's standing up, Noah's taking off. He's got the secret life of trees. Enjoy the book.
Lewis:
Goodbye, Noah.
Neil:
Great chatting with you.
Lewis:
I don't remember how exactly it came on my radar.
Neil:
After high school?
Lewis:
Sometime after high school. I'm sure I heard of it in high school. And I knew it was-
Neil:
Can I ask what you did after high school?
Lewis:
I went to college.
Neil:
You took art?
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
You took illustration?
Lewis:
I did.
Neil:
You were trying to find the program that-
Lewis:
I went to Sheridan College.
Neil:
Okay. So someone that wanted to figure out your identity could start tracing these trails. You know, Banksy's been really careful. He doesn't let a peep out about them.
Lewis:
Oh, well.
Neil:
You want us to bleep out the name of the college?
Lewis:
No, that's fine. It's Sheridan College. It's in Oakville.
Boring fucking city. Horrible place. I hated Oakville.
Neil:
Oh my gosh. Wow, you're going hard on Oakville here.
Lewis:
Didn't like it.
Neil:
Oh, wow.
Lewis:
Culture-less.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
Boring.
Neil:
We interviewed Dave Cheesewright, former CEO of Walmart in Oakville on an earlier chapter of three books. We won't pass this chapter along to him for his response to you on Oakville, but maybe he wouldn't protect it.
Who knows? Now, listen, you go after to Sheridan College. You take an illustration.
You're doing art. I know Moby Dick's coming into here. Take me through this period of your life though. What's happened in your life?
Lewis:
Well, I was in college. I was doing a lot of trying to figure out-
Neil:
Still straight edge.
Lewis:
Who I am, yes.
Neil:
Pre-tattoo or post-tattoo?
Lewis:
Post-tattoo.
Neil:
Post-tattoo.
Lewis:
I got the tattoo in high school.
Neil:
When anyone asks you to drink or smoke weed, you lift up your shirt and show them the tattoo?
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
No, you just were- But you were proud of it.
Lewis:
I just said, no, thank you.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
Yes, I-
Neil:
By the way, I was too. I was straight edge until my 20s, by the way.
Lewis:
But did you identify that way? Or you just happened to be-
Neil:
No, I was actually scared to identify that way. I hid it.
Lewis:
Oh.
Neil:
I hid it, yeah. Because at my college, if you didn't drink, it was kind of like you were a major outlier.
Lewis:
Oh. I never felt that at all.
Neil:
I think my closest friends all knew I didn't drink. And I started drinking in my fourth year, my last year. After I got my job offer from Procter & Gamble, we had a rager.
Lewis:
Oh, yes. And you drank a bunch of Smirnoff Ices.
Neil:
How'd you remember that?
Lewis:
Because I just listened to your podcast episode yesterday where you talked about that.
Neil:
Oh my God. I don't even remember talking about that. But yeah, Smirnoff Ice. I still, to this day, cannot drink. Smirnoff Ices are, for the most part, vodka.
Lewis:
You did research. I did research.
Neil:
You're coming in hot. Yeah, I'm quoting past interviews you've done.
You're quoting past interviews I've done.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
Okay. Okay, so you're straight edge. You're in college.
You're taking illustration. I know the city was boring, but did you learn a lot from the perspective of craft or artistry?
Lewis:
It gave me a lot of time to solely focus on those things. So yeah, I learned a lot.
Neil:
You seemed to, you deepened your connection with it. Like, I mean, you became more of an artist.
Lewis:
Certainly, I was starting to decide on what an art career might look like for myself or how I fit into that world. I flip-flopped on whether I was gonna go into animation or illustration. The school offered both.
They were both excellent programs that were very hard to get into. I knew that the chances of getting in were slim, but I was extremely confident I would get in. It was just a matter of doing the work, and so I decided on- That should be underlined for people, and I know this because I have one other friend that tried to go.
Neil:
So at this time in the 90s- Early 2000s.
Lewis:
Early 2000s. No, late 99.
Neil:
So Sheridan College's animation and illustration program had the global reputation for being strong theater schools into places like Industrial Light and Magic, Lucasfilm. They were getting scooped and going to California to make movies. It was a real strong-
Lewis:
Big time.
Neil:
Well-known. Very, very competitive. If you wanna go work in, not Silicon Valley, I don't know what, Hollywood, I guess, really.
You go to Sheridan, you take illustration, you take animation, and they want you because you come out knowing all these hard-to-know skills, like how to use all the 3D animation software and all the-
Lewis:
They were incredible. It was unbelievable what the animation students were capable of after three years.
Neil:
Three years, and that's it?
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Wow, wow.
Lewis:
It was such an intense program.
Neil:
So I can see why you wanted to go there.
Lewis:
The illustration program didn't have that reputation necessarily because it's not as glamorous, I think, as animating Disney movies, Pixar movies.
Neil:
Although all those movies start off as illustrations.
Lewis:
Yeah, in a sense. And at that time, I was very good at realism and not much else. Drafting, I was good at.
Mechanical drawing. These are things that came very natural to me. The creative, making up stuff out of my head and putting that down on paper, to me, that was amazing and I didn't understand how people did it.
I had never really tried to do it. And so I went into a specific program in illustration called technical illustration, which was mainly scientific, medical, and technical mechanical drawing.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
It was exactly where I excelled and where I naturally fit. And I was so bored.
Neil:
Oh, really?
Lewis:
I was doing very well, getting extremely high marks. And I could see exactly where I would fit into the art world there. And I didn't want it.
I was starting to realize it's not what I wanted out of art. I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to lean more into the fine art world.
And that was more of the vision I had of myself, I think, from a child.
Neil:
Well, how do you define fine art?
Lewis:
Well, making artwork to sell in a gallery was how I viewed it then.
Neil:
Oh, interesting. Making artwork to sell in a gallery.
Lewis:
Not doing a different kind of commercial art, you know?
Neil:
No street art was really coming out of you at this age either. It doesn't sound like it. You weren't spray painting in the alleys at night?
Lewis:
No, I was absolutely doing that.
Neil:
Oh, okay.
Lewis:
Oh, really?
Neil:
Okay, I didn't hear that yet.
Lewis:
Well, in high school, I was very active as a graffiti artist.
Neil:
Really?
Lewis:
I did what I think, if you saw it now, you would refer to it as just nonsense, vandalism, graffiti.
I was experimenting, I was practicing, trying to figure out. And even while I was doing it, I was like, I like the act. I don't like how I'm doing it, but I just continued doing it.
Neil:
What about the act did you like?
Lewis:
Well, I liked the altering my surroundings. I liked the danger of it.
Neil:
Transgressiveness.
Lewis:
You know, I like doing it.
Neil:
Doing something just the right amount of bad.
Lewis:
Something that was bad, but not like catastrophic.
Neil:
Can I ask about the moral compass you use to guide yourself? From a lot of people's perspective, you're engaging heavily and frequently in acts of mischief and vandalism and stuff, but you obviously have a code. Man's gotta have it.
I'm sensing it in you. So how do you articulate what you do and not do? What are your yeses and noes?
Lewis:
Developing a code then. After high school, I didn't participate for a little while in graffiti.
And then later on in college, I think in my second or third year, I started to do some stencil graffiti. So I would make my own stencils and then I would go out with spray paint and do this kind of stencil art.
Neil:
Any notable or memorable stencils? You're not the guy that does Post No Bills and posts pictures of Bill Clinton and Bill Cosby.
Lewis:
No, but I remember when that started in Toronto and it was very funny, very clever. I loved it. I think I like the sense of humor of that very much.
This was before Bill Cosby had been discovered.
Neil:
Yeah, for those that don't know, on all kinds of Toronto downtown construction sites, they would say Post No Bills, meaning Post No Posters. And somebody came up with the idea of posting stenciled, perfect, realistic versions of Bill Cosby, Bill Clinton, and other famous bills.
Lewis:
Other famous bills, it was very funny.
Neil:
Yeah, funny, and nobody got, I think I'm also sensing like, there's nobody gets hurt with your stuff.
Lewis:
Well, I mean, how many people get hurt by graffiti other than property owners who have to pay?
Neil:
Yeah, that's a type of injury, but I'm talking no one's actually like, aggrieved really. Unless it's bad graffiti and they have to clean it up, I guess is what you're saying.
Lewis:
I would say what I was doing back then was kind of, it was not refined. It was not really with the purpose I was experimenting. Ultimately-
Neil:
You defined your code, really.
Lewis:
I didn't like, I didn't-
Neil:
Do people do stuff in graffiti that you don't agree with and that you wouldn't do? Is there places that you wouldn't graffiti? You don't graffiti a storefront window.
Lewis:
Absolutely not.
Neil:
So this is what I'm trying to ask you, like, what are your things that you would do and what are the things that you would don't do? For someone interested in becoming a street artist and well aware that it's illegal to become one, how do you navigate the morals of it? The rights and the wrongs?
Lewis:
For myself, right now, I look for places, I look for places, objects that are not typical vessels for graffiti. They're not a typical target of a stereotypical-
Neil:
Atypical vessels. Atypical vessels.
Lewis:
So we're talking about this one in front of us here.
Neil:
Yes.
Lewis:
I saw it as- The concrete.
I saw it as a forgotten piece of street furniture that the city doesn't have the time or energy to repaint.
Neil:
They don't. That's why it's covered in graffiti.
Lewis:
And peeling paint. It had an old coat of paint that it was crumbling off and I scraped that off as best I could. Forgotten piece of street furniture.
Neil:
Hmm, street furniture. That's a phrase I don't think I've heard much before.
Lewis:
I think it's the graffiti landscape of this city and in most cities is very cluttered. It's hard to stand out. Most of the best spots are already taken.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah.
Lewis:
And so I look for the spots that nobody wants and that I see potential in. And I try to make them look nicer.
Neil:
Right. Oh, so there's a beautification here too.
Lewis:
Absolutely. I try to clean up and add.
Neil:
Clean up and add.
Lewis:
But also serve a purpose for myself.
Neil:
Clean up and add. And what's the purpose you're serving for yourself? Is this the competing with other artists, standing out from the crowd?
Because you did mention that earlier too.
Lewis:
I don't want to, I don't like to compete in like a, I'd rather compete in a fun way.
Neil:
Yeah. The way football players compete. The way Jonathan Franzen told us he competes with David Foster Wallace.
Lewis:
I have no idea who those people are.
Neil:
Sorry, I just mean like a writer competing with another writer on like writing something great.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Making something great.
Lewis:
I want to push people to, I would love to see more creative, more interesting and well thought out public street art, graffiti.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
Whatever you want to call it. I would like to see people really think about what they're doing and try to do it the best way they can.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
I understand.
Neil:
Like Nick Sweetman, who's a mural artist in Toronto we both like, who draws these hyper realistic looking birds, but giant pink walls with like bumblebees and hooded mergansers, beautiful stuff. Yeah. A lot of low rising, low rise military planes flying over us today for some reason.
Would you classify that as a military plane? Like what kind of plane is that?
Lewis:
It looks like it, it might even be like the Lancaster from Hamilton. The old World War II bomber.
Neil:
Something about that plane looks like straight out of World War II. I hate that shit. Meanwhile, yeah, it is fear inducing.
Lewis:
Yeah. Can you only imagine being from a country that, how many immigrants do we have here that come from war torn fucking countries?
Neil:
It's scary for them.
Lewis:
And then they hear these war planes flying overhead and it's like, objectively, I'm sure they know that they're not being bombed, but it triggers something. It's got to trigger something.
Neil:
I mean, we have a lot of Palestinian protests happening right downtown right now. Streets are gleaming closed left, right and center. We've got encampments here.
We've had a big story in the news here in the Toronto Star last year saying this military flyovers have got to stop. Like, what the fuck are they doing? Like, why is it?
Why are we traumatizing people? That actually came out. And some people reacted to that article and said, oh my gosh, what a soft culture we live in.
You can't even fly a plane anymore. Like, I'm just saying, like there's two sides of that argument. You're on the first side.
Lewis:
Well, I think, what a waste of resources. And who gives a shit?
Neil:
So you're going to, you go to Oakville, you're taking the illustration. You're in your illustration all the way through?
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
No, you change.
Lewis:
I was in technical illustration and I switched to interpretive illustration, which meant I had to go back a year. I couldn't continue into my third year. I had to go back and redo my second year.
And I felt like if I ever wanted to be good at drawing from my imagination, I had 10,000 hours to put in because I hadn't put really any hours into it. And so the start of that journey for me was dropping back a year in college, redoing my second year, in a way saying goodbye to the friends I had made.
Neil:
Oh, no.
Lewis:
Because they had moved on to their third year, which is a very intense year.
Neil:
That's the last year.
Lewis:
And I ended up in a class full of people I had kind of seen around school, but didn't really know.
Neil:
Oh, wow.
Lewis:
And once I was dropped into this class, I met three guys who I became quick friends with and we started our art careers together just a couple of years later.
Neil:
Oh, really? How did you do that? What do you mean start your art career?
Lewis:
Well, we met in our second year of illustration.
We formed a tight bond over that year. Because of what? Is it your work that you were attracted to each other about?
I think it was a sense of humor. It was a way of creative problem solving. I was trying to find a style to draw in, a creative imaginary style, which was really pushed on us by the teachers that you have to market yourself with a style.
And so I was really-
Neil:
Oh, interesting. It's like what they tell writers to find your voice, find your voice, find your voice.
Lewis:
Yeah, and I was really anxious about this. They say to find your style, find your style, find your style. I always felt like, one, I have to pick one?
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
Wow, there's so many I like.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
And I was capable of multiple. And I just, I wasn't capable of the imaginary stuff yet. And so I figured it's just a matter of, I was starting to figure out like, oh, this is just a skill I can learn if I seek it out, if I practice every day.
So in the summer between switching programs, I tried to unlearn, in a way, all of the drawing I did. And I tried to teach myself how to draw in a different way.
Neil:
How do you unlearn?
Lewis:
Well, I just tried to break all the rules that I had learned.
Neil:
How do you, how does someone do that? I probably have all kinds of rules about podcasting and about writing, and I can't even see them.
Lewis:
I don't know, I picked up a new sketchbook that I hadn't drawn in, and I just started drawing in it in a different way.
Neil:
Wow, so you just used your power of mind to redirect yourself.
Lewis:
I wouldn't let myself draw the things I wanted to draw.
Neil:
Yep.
Lewis:
And I'd spent a lot of time just thinking about, I knew I was going into what was gonna be a difficult new year, full of challenges. And so I was trying to set myself up for it and get ahead a little bit.
Neil:
Still straight edge.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
Graduated.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
Form an art collective with a few friends.
Lewis:
This is, yeah, this is about a year and a half after meeting them.
Neil:
Move to Toronto.
Lewis:
In our last year of college. And lived together. We moved to 888 DuPont Street, the corner of Ossington and DuPont.
We got a studio.
Neil:
That's not that derelict broken glass building.
Lewis:
That doesn't exist anymore. It was.
Neil:
But that's what it was, right?
Lewis:
It was.
Neil:
You lived in a derelict broken glass building?
Lewis:
Absolutely illegally.
Neil:
Illegally?
Lewis:
Yeah, it was a commercial building.
Neil:
Oh, you weren't allowed to live there?
Lewis:
Technically, no. The landlord, Carl, at the time, he was what I consider a pretty decent slumlord.
Neil:
Oh my God.
Lewis:
He was, I don't think he realized how much he was supporting the arts in the city.
Neil:
Tell me more.
Lewis:
Well, he was allowing artists, such as ourselves and many other people to live and work in a building that they weren't technically allowed to live in.
The building was safe for living and it was fine. It had its problems. It was noisy.
It was too hot in the winter. It was too hot in the summer. There was other people there that were living there that were also not allowed to be there.
Everybody.
Neil:
I'm assuming that kind of felt like a street community in some ways.
Lewis:
Well, we didn't, there was only a few of us that hung out together. Everybody was kind of pretty separate. There was a lot of people from different art scenes in the city that lived and worked out of that building.
Neil:
Like what?
Lewis:
Oh, there was musicians. There was performance artists. There were-
Neil:
Any big names come out of there?
Lewis:
Well, Will Monroe was, to us, the biggest name at the time. He was a very prominent artist and DJ in Toronto in the gay queer scene at the time.
He threw the biggest parties. Vaseline, Vaseline.
Neil:
What's Vaseline, Vaseline?
Lewis:
Vaseline was his dance night, his party night.
Neil:
Is that the one that was on the subway?
Lewis:
No, but for Will's birthday, I think it was Will's birthday when his birthday would come up, he would throw, him and his friends would organize a subway party where we would plan to meet on a specific train traveling in a specific direction. And we would all pile into one car and eventually the people who were just riding the TTC would switch cars because it all became very noisy.
Neil:
Yeah, you take over a subway car and you're taking it over with like
Lewis:
30, 40, 50 people, sometimes more.
Neil:
Doing what?
Lewis:
Dancing, decorating. People would bring decorations, hang them over the railings. There'd be boom boxes, a lot of, not a lot of clothing, but the clothing that was on was tight and colorful.
Neil:
Not a lot of clothing.
Lewis:
Well, you know, people were out to party.
Neil:
Flamboyant, queer community.
Lewis:
Yeah, yeah.
Neil:
Not a lot of clothing.
Lewis:
A lot of fun, you know, beautiful, amazing people having a, you're doing something that is illegal, but I mean, it's, we weren't, nobody was harmed.
Neil:
Yeah, exactly.
Lewis:
People were disrupted.
Some people joined in. Random strangers joined in.
Neil:
I think when you have a party on a subway car, you're taking that risk right up front.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Like it is the subway.
Lewis:
We welcomed it.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
You know, and eventually it would get shut down.
Neil:
That's how it has to end.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
There's no other way a subway party could end rather than-
Lewis:
I hope, you know, I hope that they still exist. I hope people are still doing it.
Neil:
Nobody got arrested.
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
Just get out of here.
Lewis:
Get out of here.
Neil:
Well, also it gets to the end of the line. Yeah, we would go- How long would this party last?
Lewis:
You know, back and forth a couple of times.
Neil:
Oh, really?
Lewis:
It would switch. You know, we would move trains.
Neil:
So this is, we would get broke up for hours then.
Lewis:
We'd get off at Bloor and Spadina and then get out.
Neil:
Oh, you had a plan.
Lewis:
And then go, yeah, of course.
Neil:
Oh, and that's how you keep it going.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Oh, you switch at Bloor and Spadina, you want to go North, South and then you have to catch the- Oh, wow. That's how you keep it going. You're jumping the line.
Lewis:
Yeah. And then you go, you do the loop down to Union, back up and- And jump the line again. Yeah, yeah.
Neil:
Oh, wow. You say this like we know what you're talking about, Lewis. Like just in general, with your life and your scene and your, because, you know, part of what I'm attracted to with you in your conversation is that you're just being so wonderfully outlandish about everything. Like you're not living within this, the skirted rules of any sort of system. Like you just well acknowledge that almost everything you're doing is outside, certainly the lines of legality.
Lewis:
I'd say a lot of my life has been lived in that realm.
Neil:
Yeah. I'm noticing that with your art, with where you're living, with how you're partying, it's all illegal.
Not to, I'm not saying that we need to live within those lines.
Lewis:
But those are the most fun things, you know, and we barely scratch the surface of, we don't have time to go into all of the various things.
Neil:
Give me two or three other things you guys would do, this crazy arts collective, what the scene was like.
Lewis:
Oh, I was thinking more like going back in time to high school, the places that we would hang out.
We would hang out anywhere that was away from other people's view. And one of our favorite places to hang out was inside of a bridge.
Neil:
Inside of a bridge?
Lewis:
There was, I think it was the 406, runs through St. Catharines. And from downtown, we found, it goes over, I think it's a 12-mile creek. This bridge spans over this creek.
And just through urban exploration, we found an area where we could physically get inside of this big cement bridge.
Neil:
Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
There was a cavernous area.
Neil:
I can picture it. Like a highway tunnel.
Lewis:
Essentially, it was all just this empty space. I think the bridge was probably prefabbed and then dropped in place. Like some military aircraft.
And there was a hole in a wall that led into a dark, open room, and we went and explored this space. And eventually, you know, we weren't the first people in there. I distinctly remember going in there the first time, jumping in and turning on a flashlight, because it was pitch black.
A low ceiling, smelled bad. You could smell urine. You could smell feces.
You could smell booze, cigarettes. So it's like people had partied down here. And the first thing we all saw when we turned the light on in there was a deflated sex doll that had been abused.
Neil:
Oh no.
Lewis:
And it was just like laying there on the ground.
Neil:
Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
And I took photos of it and I handed it in for a photography project and got a good mark.
Neil:
Oh my gosh. Wow. The connection of observation with kind of living in your own lines.
Lewis:
So we would go in here and people would party. We would have fires. In the center, we would walk into the center of the structure, probably about 400 or 500 meters, ducking under beams.
Neil:
The bridge was that big?
Lewis:
Long bridge.
Neil:
400 to 500 meters?
Lewis:
It felt about...
Neil:
That's a very long bridge.
Lewis:
Okay. Less than a hundred.
Neil:
Okay, okay. Tenth of a mile.
Lewis:
It felt long because it was a bit of an arduous journey.
Neil:
Okay.
Lewis:
Ducking under these things.
Neil:
You would have fires in there.
Lewis:
Yeah, and we would...
Neil:
That's skirting the definition of no one's getting hurt here.
Lewis:
There was lung pollution. Surely.
Neil:
Lung pollution.
Lewis:
When these kinds of things are happening, I would be present. I wouldn't sit very close to the fire.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
I found it unpleasant. But I also liked the wild atmosphere.
Neil:
Okay, now take us back into your 20s. You're at this arts collective. You're at DuPont in Ossington.
You had an outside the lines kind of upbringing and childhood. You certainly are defining the rules for yourself as you go. You're really trying to maintain kind of a wide canvas of kind of within which you live and function.
Now you're in this art collective. You're in your 20s. I haven't got...
We haven't got to Moby Dick yet. We haven't got to marriage yet, by the way, like, you know, cause I know you're married now. We haven't got to Lewis yet.
There's a few things missing here from the story. So is it... Give me what happened in the 20s.
Give me your 20s.
Lewis:
Well, we...
Neil:
I also haven't got to all the tattoos you're covered in yet. But I know... And also the straight edge tattoo, you're not straight edge now.
So that's another switch that I'm waiting for at some point.
Lewis:
Yeah. Well, after meeting Nick, Steven and Lockie, the three gentlemen that really like changed... Nick, Steven and Lockie.
Changed the direction of my life.
Neil:
I love the name Lockie.
Lewis:
Yeah, keep going.
Interesting name. Very boring guy though. No, I'm kidding.
He's a great guy.
Neil:
Old man walking by in a purple striped shirt holding a case of Coca-Cola over his shoulder.
Lewis:
Yeah, like it's a boom box.
Neil:
Yeah, I love that. That's a great look for that man. Yeah.
Lewis:
Yeah. And so we became fast friends and spend a lot of time together, making art together, critiquing each other's artwork, growing as artists, being honest with each other. And we were really trying to be the best in the school.
We were trying to be... We wanted to be competitive with each other. We wanted to do well.
We wanted to show off. And once we started to develop a plan for our future, we knew we wanted to work together. We would come up to Toronto as often as possible, the four of us.
We'd take the GO train into the city to get some culture. We were so thirsty for culture. And...
Neil:
How'd you define culture when you came in on the GO train to the big city? What were you looking for?
Lewis:
From Oakville.
Neil:
Were you looking to set fires on bridges?
Lewis:
No, no. We were just looking for culture. We were just looking to be around people from somewhere other than Oakville.
Neil:
Right, right. You'd walk up and down Yonge Street, street preachers, sex theaters, that kind of world.
Lewis:
No, we would go to cafes. And we would sit down and draw in cafes.
Neil:
Oh, okay, okay, okay.
Lewis:
And so there was one particular day at a store called Tequila Bookworm.
Neil:
Oh, I know that store.
Lewis:
The old location.
It's in a new, where it's been there for a long time.
Neil:
Bar slash bookstore.
Lewis:
Yeah. And we were sitting at a table for four and we started passing around a drawing.
Neil:
Oh.
Lewis:
And then Lockie wrote on the drawing, he wrote Team Macho.
Neil:
Team Macho.
Lewis:
And this became the name of our collective.
We basically formed our collective that day in Tequila Bookworm, sitting at this beautiful table, which I tried to buy from them when they were moving and getting rid of their furniture. I went in and offered way more money for that table than it was worth. And they refused to sell it to me.
Neil:
On what grounds?
Lewis:
They just refused. I didn't ask for a reason.
I just took, I was like, all right, I'm not, you know. I offered like $400 for a shitty old table. And I had no business spending that much money on a table at that time.
I was poor.
Neil:
But it had to do something with what happened after from that table.
Lewis:
The sentimental value of the table to us.
Neil:
So that means the collective had some value too. So take us into what happened with this collective, Team Macho.
Lewis:
Oh, well, we got our studio together.
Neil:
So you lived together, you're working together.
Lewis:
More or less, yes.
Neil:
No bedrooms though. Just what, sleeping on the floor?
Lewis:
Not at the time.
When we moved into the place, it had not been lived in in recent memory.
Neil:
Is there a bathroom?
Lewis:
Not in any formal way.
The landlord built us a bathroom.
Neil:
But no shower probably.
Lewis:
With a shower.
Oh wow. Yeah. There was no kitchen.
Neil:
No kitchen. That's a bit of a...
Lewis:
So our bathroom had a pink toilet, a standup shower, and a laundry tub for a sink.
But no ceiling. The walls went... If the ceilings were nine foot, they're about nine foot in there.
The bathroom ceiling or the bathroom wall was eight foot. And there was a lot of pipes running along the ceiling. So it would have been extremely difficult for him to build the wall up to the ceiling around all the pipes.
He didn't want to do it. He built it eight foot. So any noise in the bathroom, any smell from the bathroom came out of the bathroom very easily.
Neil:
Into the artist's studio.
Lewis:
And yes. So we had rules about being in the bathroom.
Neil:
What were they?
Lewis:
Flush, the goddamn toilet.
Neil:
Yeah, that's a good one.
Lewis:
Courtesy flush.
Neil:
Oh, courtesy flush. Immediately after the defecation.
Lewis:
Yeah. But also, since any noise could be heard easily, anybody who was shy about going to the bathroom, we had a CD player in the bathroom. And we always kept the same CD in it.
And it was a kind of like big band music.
Neil:
Oh, wow. A lot of tubas in there.
Lewis:
Yeah, exactly. And there was a particular song that if you got to that song, we basically started harassing. Everybody would be like, get out of there.
You're in there for too long. When the saints come marching in.
Neil:
Oh, yeah.
Lewis:
Came on. Everybody would lift their head up from the desk and be like, who has been in the bathroom forever?
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
You know, get out of there kind of thing.
Neil:
Wow. You're shitting a month. Yeah, they always say don't sleep where you shit. You've heard that phrase.
Lewis:
We didn't have a choice.
Neil:
No beds though.
Lewis:
Well, at this point we had beds.
We didn't have bedrooms. We were all sleeping in the living room with our beds kind of like tucked in together to save space and slowly building the space.
Neil:
What happened? What about no kitchen? How do you eat? What do you eat?
Lewis:
Well, we built ourselves a kitchen.
Neil:
You built a kitchen?
Lewis:
Yeah, well, we went and bought sinks and I built countertops and cupboards. We stole-
Neil:
What kind of food were you eating though? You didn't have any income it sounds like. Not much anyway.
Lewis:
No, I was eating a lot of... So Nick, his father has chickens he's from the country up near Muskoka and his father would come down every weekend to teach at a Japanese school. He worked at a Japanese school, a Saturday school nearby and he would bring us two, three, four dozen eggs.
And so Nick and I, who at the time were the only ones living there full-time, we were sharing a bed. We were washing our dishes in the bathroom and we were eating rice, miso soup and eggs like three times a day.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
It's all we could afford. Luckily-
Neil:
Nice hookup on the eggs though.
Lewis:
High quality, excellent eggs.
I learned how to make a really good miso soup.
Neil:
Oh, you were making the miso soup?
Lewis:
Yeah, we had the paste.
Neil:
Oh, okay. Sounds like your friend, Nick is Japanese. It sounds like.
Lewis:
Half, yeah.
Neil:
So miso, you're making miso soup.
Lewis:
Yeah, I mean, it's just paste and soup stock. It was pretty simple.
Neil:
And rice.
Lewis:
And rice and eggs, yeah.
Neil:
Wow, and the other two guys were involved but they're not always living there.
Lewis:
They weren't always living there.
Neil:
And what was Team Macho producing?
Lewis:
At the time, we were trying to figure things out.
We had just finished school, I'm 24 at the time and we were making zines.
Neil:
Oh, yeah. Zine culture.
Lewis:
We got the attention of a store called Magic Pony.
Neil:
Okay.
Lewis:
Magic Pony, at this time, they were on the second floor of Queen Street in a small shop that you wouldn't notice if you didn't know it was there. We'll start with the second floor. Not many shops people know are there on the second floor of anything.
Yeah, you had to know the door to go in and there was a small sign. And they just sold zines? They were very, no, they sold, at the time, the owners would fly to Japan with empty suitcases, buy a bunch of toys and bring them home.
Neil:
Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
And sell them and just mark them up. They weren't available here.
Neil:
Oh, wow.
Lewis:
But they knew that there was a market for them.
Neil:
Yeah, probably a Nervous Customs check at the border on that one.
Lewis:
I don't know, but they did well. And they had a small space in the back. We're doing a podcast.
Neil:
It's called 3 Books.
[Person on the Street]
Is it called what?
Neil:
3 Books.
[Person on the Street]
3 Books.
Lewis:
Do you have three favorite books?
Neil:
Formative. Formative, Lewis.
[Person on the Street]
Nice to meet you.
Neil:
You too.
Lewis:
So we, Podcasting.
Neil:
What was the first thing you said? Is something happening or are you just podcasting?
Lewis:
They, yeah. They had a small gallery space in the back that they would have shows in. They were a fan of zines that Lockie, Steven, and Nick were making.
I wasn't making zines at the time. The three of them were. They were really into this scene.
Neil:
Zine scene.
Lewis:
Yeah, the zine scene. Say that five times fast.
And they liked the zines and we just asked like, hey, could we do a show?
Neil:
How were they doing different things? I thought this was a collective.
Lewis:
But we were figuring out how it looked.
Neil:
This was very early on. It doesn't mean you just made art together.
Lewis:
We knew we wanted to make art together. We just didn't know how. We needed an opportunity.
So we got an opportunity to have a show and we were like, collectively, we were like, oh shit, what do we do now? I mean, we wanted a show. We didn't think about what we were gonna do for a show.
Neil:
The Magic Pony gave you a show?
Lewis:
Magic Pony took a chance and gave us a show. We had, I don't know, let's say for the sake of this, six to eight months to prepare.
Neil:
Wow, six to eight months. Which. That's a long time to prepare for a show for an indiscreet, second floor, not, you know. Well, you gotta plan these things ahead of time. Illegal Japanese sales store.
Lewis:
And so the four of us just put our heads together and we started to make work.
Neil:
What'd you make? I love, this is Seth Godin, by the way, chapter three. You know, the deadline creates the shipment. You know what I'm saying?
Lewis:
Oh yes, I.
Neil:
The deadline creates the product.
Lewis:
I agree with this.
Neil:
Start with the deadline.
Lewis:
There was a fifth member, I think, around this time.
We brought in a friend of ours named Jacob, who we met. He went to OCAD. He was a bit of an outsider from the group, but we brought him in.
He fit in well. And for the first few years of the collective.
Neil:
He didn't shit too long.
Lewis:
For the first few years of the collective, he was a part of it. And eventually he wanted to take his career in a different direction. And so he stepped away.
He knows that, we all signed a contract early on in our collective, that we would be friends for life. And we are still all very good friends. Because the contract decrees that.
That we are friends for life.
Neil:
Did you sign it in blood?
Lewis:
No, we didn't sign it in blood, but we did sign it.
And I think it's what we called.
Neil:
Thank you.
Lewis:
It's what we called our very first show, I believe, friends for life.
Neil:
Friends for life. So in the six to eight months, what'd you guys make?
Lewis:
We made probably 50 to 60 paintings, drawings. The idea of the collective was that we were gonna work on each other's work. That we were gonna try to remove the ego out of the art.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
Take our egos out of it.
Neil:
Remove the ego from the art.
Lewis:
And collaborate on things in a way that only we knew.
And that we wouldn't necessarily tell the audience who did what.
Neil:
Oh, kind of like Lennon and McCartney.
Lewis:
And so we would mimic each other's styles.
I saw it very much. I liked it because it was problem solving. I would be given a half finished piece.
And I could take it in any direction I wanted to.
Neil:
And no drug use here still. I don't mean to keep asking, but at some point you flip over.
Lewis:
The guys, although they did consume intoxicants, none of them did it in a way that was as abusive as my friends in high school did.
Neil:
Oh, okay. Yeah, they weren't letting the.
Lewis:
A slightly more mature approach. Maybe a little too much alcohol sometimes.
Neil:
Art came first though, would you say?
Lewis:
Art came first. We were all very dedicated to, yes, absolutely.
Neil:
Can I ask where this dedication to art came from? Clearly it wasn't financially based. No, I'm not.
Six to eight months to make the art for the.
Lewis:
No, well we all had part time jobs.
Neil:
Oh, you're all working on the side.
Lewis:
Oh yeah, yeah. The whole time through, even through college and high school.
Neil:
Okay, I guess I missed. What are you doing?
Lewis:
I was getting random kitchen jobs.
Neil:
Oh, you're working in kitchens.
Lewis:
I've worked in a lot of kitchens.
Neil:
Okay. Restaurants.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Okay. Did we skip over the part where you slept on Center Island? Did we miss that?
Lewis:
No, we're nowhere near that.
Neil:
Oh, that's coming later.
Lewis:
Yes.
Okay, okay. I heard about this. We're gonna get to that later.
So we.
Neil:
How did the show go?
Lewis:
It went better than our wildest dreams. You know, we sold almost everything. It was, we couldn't believe it.
We couldn't believe that so many people showed up for a group that nobody had ever heard of.
Neil:
Why did they?
Lewis:
Magic Pony was doing something cool.
They had a, they had a. This is 90s, 2000s? Early 2000s.
Neil:
Early 2000s.
Lewis:
Four, five, six.
Neil:
Pre-social media though.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
It wasn't like you were using social media.
Lewis:
But there's like MySpace or some shit.
Neil:
It wasn't like you were, I went to a concert recently in Toronto and I was like, me and my friend, my friend Flip from New York for it, Brian. He's like, I want to come see this, you know, concert. And it was like, he got popular off TikTok.
I didn't know that. And, but you could tell when you got there because it was all 23 year old women wearing the same denim cutoffs. And white tank tops.
Lewis:
Sounds like a Taylor Swift concert.
Neil:
We were like totally out of character. I was like, oh my God, it was Noah Kahan. K-A-H-A-N.
Lewis:
Never heard of him.
Neil:
Okay, well, I guess you don't go on TikTok because he's got like billions of followers and stuff.
Lewis:
Don't, don't. I downloaded it once when it was Musical.ly and I was like, this isn't for me. And I deleted it.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So the show, so.
Lewis:
So we prepared a show.
Neil:
We made a lot of work. You prepare for the show. You do the show.
You make a lot, you make a lot of work. You sell a lot of work.
Lewis:
Sold a lot of work.
Neil:
Nobody quits their job yet though. Their side job.
Lewis:
No way. There's no way that was possible.
So the gallery takes 50%.
Neil:
You're making like thousand bucks or something.
Lewis:
Not much, yeah. By the time our 50% gets divided by four, there's not a lot of money left over.
Neil:
Yeah, exactly.
Lewis:
But we were riding high.
We sold a lot of work. We couldn't believe it.
Neil:
And it's a sign of investment in what you're doing.
Lewis:
We were very much doing that.
Neil:
No, I'm saying like the world told you, you're doing, like, it's a belief check mark on being an artist.
Lewis:
It certainly gave us the confidence to do another one.
Neil:
That's what I'm saying.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Okay.
Lewis:
Absolutely.
Neil:
So keep taking me through the 20s then. And then also, I'm still looking, I'm searching for Moby Dick in here.
Lewis:
Okay. Well, I'm starting to read more for myself at this point. And I'm finding books that I'm interested in reading and I'm reading through them.
I'm not necessarily enjoying them, but I'm learning. And it wasn't until I started reading Harry Potter.
Neil:
Oh, Harry Potter.
Lewis:
And we had talked about this as, I mentioned this as- Might've been a formative book. Yeah, absolutely. In a way that it was the first series of books that I ever actually enjoyed reading, where I was looking forward to the next one and would read it and take time out of my day to read it and not just do it because I thought it was something I should be doing.
Neil:
What a gift Harry Potter gave to the world, turning so many, at the time, non-readers to readers.
Lewis:
Yeah. I kind of wished I had that innocent childhood, I think. That was something for me where I was like, I envied that school experience, that high school experience.
Neil:
Oh, interesting.
Lewis:
Because it was so different than mine.
Neil:
Yes. Yeah, nobody was shooting heroin at Hogwarts.
Lewis:
Yeah, it was a lot more innocent. And, but I thought it was great, great storytelling, great adventure.
Neil:
And I will point out to the listener, I hope this doesn't break your identity, but on the palm of the hand that you're holding the microphone with, is that not the Deathly Hallows?
Lewis:
Correct.
Neil:
So you've got the Harry Potter tattoo right on your palm.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
I would imagine that's a place you don't see, I don't see many palm tattoos.
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
Yeah. So what made you decide to get the Deathly Hallows tattooed on your palm? Deathly Hallows, for people that don't know, is a giant triangle with a big circle in the middle and a line through the circle, like kind of like a cat eye sort of thing.
Lewis:
An equilateral triangle with a line dividing.
Neil:
It's probably like the Elder Wand and the Invisibility Cloak and the whatever the third thing was.
Lewis:
And the stone.
Neil:
Oh, the Philosopher's Stone.
Lewis:
The, is that the name of it?
Neil:
I don't know, maybe that, maybe not.
Lewis:
It was the stone that can bring back dead people temporarily.
Neil:
Oh, okay, that's a different stone.
Lewis:
I forget the name of it.
Neil:
Okay. So what made you get that tattooed on your palm?
Lewis:
It was the only tattoo I have that was a spur of the moment decision. I didn't think too much about it ahead of time. I just got it done.
And I figured that since I use my hands a lot, that it would eventually, not completely disappear, but disintegrate to a point where it wouldn't necessarily be recognizable. And boy, was I wrong. It is very permanent.
I mean, of course I knew tattoos were gonna be permanent, but I thought that it would get beat up more than it has.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
And.
Neil:
Would you recommend a palm tattoo?
Lewis:
I mean, if you're in.
Neil:
You got tattoos, you got sleeves, you got arms. What else we got here?
Lewis:
Oh, stomach. I have a sleeve.
Neil:
One sleeve, a stomach, a palm.
Lewis:
I've got some on my ribs, a bit on my leg. Yeah, it's a painful process.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
I think that you, I tried to get into tattooing. I wanted to learn how to do it at a point in my life. And I'm glad that I never got accepted by anybody because I think I would probably have a lot more tattoos if it becomes an easier access thing.
I'm sure I would have be heavily coated. Not that I'm opposed to getting more. I just, I think that I, from going forward, I'm gonna put more thought into it if I do it.
Neil:
Ah, interesting. I'll put more thought. Which I normally have. And by the way, they say over half tattoos are now removed. More than 50% of tattoos.
Lewis:
I've considered trying. I've considered getting the straight edge tattoo removed from my stomach.
Neil:
Maybe just do strikethrough, you know, like a line and then underneath it, you now say psychedelic.
Lewis:
No, I don't think I would do that.
Neil:
Psychonaut.
Lewis:
It was a very painful place to get a tattoo.
Neil:
Your stomach? Oh my gosh. I can't even imagine.
Lewis:
The tattoo artist, you know, thought I was crazy for it being my first tattoo. But I don't know. It's like, it's gonna hurt one way or the other.
Might as well just get it.
Neil:
You know, get it where you want it. You get, so you get into Harry Potter and your toys. It gets you back into reading.
Lewis:
It got me back into reading.
Neil:
Your dad was a big reader growing up.
Lewis:
It got me into, Harry Potter got me into audio books too.
Neil:
Ah.
Lewis:
It, it was a bridge. I was listening to a lot of audio.
Neil:
Audio books was not big at the time.
Lewis:
At the time, no.
Neil:
You like doing CDs or something?
Lewis:
I listened to, well, yes.
I, a lot of my life, I listened to a lot of audio, a lot of talk radio. I loved late night AM radio, Art Bell.
Neil:
Ooh, late night AM radio. What a cool subculture.
Lewis:
As a kid, I listened to a lot of this. And as I got older, I listened to a lot of AM, just talk radio in general. I listened to Howard Stern.
Neil:
You were always a big AM late night radio guy. You were a big Stern person. You were a big listener.
You consumed the world through audio. So the audio book entry point for you to become an adult reader was natural for you.
Lewis:
Yeah. Well, I found that in the beginning, it was difficult to listen to audio books and do something else, to follow along with a story. But since I had physically read all of the Harry Potter books, when I listened to them for the first time, I already knew the story.
So I could just kind of, from then on, it was more like watching a movie, where I had already built a visual world in my head of what this looked like outside of the movies, also influenced by the movies, surely. And so just listening to the story, I didn't have to be present the whole time. And the more I listened, the better I got at listening.
And I was able to start listening to other books. And I thought, oh, this is a much better way for me to consume books, because I can do it while I'm drawing. Not in all kinds of drawing, or if I'm being creative, if I was actively doing creative work, coming up with ideas, problem solving, I could not listen to audio books.
It was too much of a distraction. I needed silence or music. But once I was doing the-
Neil:
This is part of the thing that prevents audio books from fully taking off, is it's hard to do it and do something else.
Lewis:
But once I was doing the grunt work, once all the problem solving was done, and it was just applying, finishing, rendering, whatever, then I could tune out and listen. And so that's when I would listen to books.
Neil:
Plus it's good for rereading, as you're pointing out.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
Uh-huh. But Moby Dick is not rereading. Moby Dick is a sizable challenge.
Lewis:
So I took on Moby Dick while I was painting a friend's house. I did a lot of house painting, indoor, outdoor. I started painting in school, and in my college, in the summer, I would do painting around the school in the summer, just refurbishing.
Neil:
So it wasn't a task that took all of your mental faculties?
Lewis:
Zero.
Neil:
So you could listen to Moby Dick while painting a house.
Lewis:
And so eventually, yeah.
Neil:
It's probably like a 25-hour audio book or something, I bet.
Lewis:
I think it was like 30 to 40. It was long.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah. How many hours does it take to paint a house? 30 to 40?
Lewis:
No, I think that the book was just part of that time.
Neil:
Okay.
Lewis:
But I distinctly remember listening to it in that phase of my life.
And I was somewhere in my late 20s, I think, maybe 30 at the oldest. And I really enjoyed the adventure of the book. I love the idea of this guy just changing his life, like being, I'm gonna join a crew of sailors and do something I've never done before for the sake of adventure, that kind of thing.
And I thought, wow, what a wild experience that must've been like, especially back in the day when they're using whale oil to light their lamps.
Neil:
That's why they're on a whale searching boat.
Lewis:
They were going after sperm whales, yeah.
Neil:
They're looking for the oil.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
That was the original- Spermaceti, I think. Was that not the original kind of start of like the oil industry?
Lewis:
I think it- Like, is that not the first energy- It was certainly an early, it was, I think it was easier to get.
Neil:
That was before oil was a thing.
Lewis:
Oil was a thing, I think it was just hard to refine and to deal with.
Ah, okay, yeah. And that the-
Neil:
There was no oil, there was no, nothing was running on oil though. I mean, whale oil, but not what we call gas today.
Lewis:
No, if it was, I think to refine it was very difficult.
Neil:
We've really screwed up the world fast is what I'm noticing here.
Lewis:
It's what we do really well.
Neil:
Like fast, like really fast. Like we're gonna put out more carbon emissions this year than we ever have in history. And that's the same for every fucking year.
It just seems- Since the last 50 years, we've been talking about it being a problem.
Lewis:
Yeah, it seems absolutely crazy.
Neil:
I'm very glad that we both walked here today.
Lewis:
Like such a beautiful animal, right? Like what a unique looking creature here.
Neil:
He's pointing at the cover of the book, the sperm whale.
Lewis:
You know, I was just like, although it was a book about hunting these animals, I just thought like, what a waste too. You know, like you're such a cool creature and all we can think to do with it is exploit it.
Neil:
Largest animal, amongst the largest animals ever on the planet historically. I think it dives deeper than any other whale. Dives deeper than any other whale.
Probably bigger than almost any dinosaur.
Lewis:
Yeah, likely.
Neil:
It's been around since the dinosaurs too.
I mean, arguably it is a dinosaur, is it not?
Lewis:
Battles mythical creatures at the bottom of the ocean. Giant squids and shit.
Neil:
Giant squids are real.
Lewis:
Yeah, well, you know, back then they were mythical.
Neil:
That's kind of cool that we proved one. Loch Ness never came through. Not yet.
Maybe it just went extinct.
Lewis:
Not yet.
Neil:
Yeah, exactly.
So you identified earlier in this conversation that the size and the challenge of Moby Dick was appealing to you.
Lewis:
Absolutely.
Neil:
To the point where at the end of these interviews, I sometimes ask people, what is your white whale book?
That's a closing question I have. A book you've been chasing the longest and many people answer that question by saying Moby Dick.
Lewis:
Yeah, I mean.
Neil:
And you fucking tackled it out of the gate. Like you become an adult reader. You go boom into, I know you had Harry Potter as your amuse-bouche, but pretty quick after you're going hard.
This is a huge, gigantic, overwhelming.
Lewis:
It was a difficult lesson.
Neil:
Big piece of literature.
Lewis:
There was certainly pausing, rewinding and re-listening happening.
Yeah, even just the language it's written in. It's of course English, but it's an old English.
Neil:
200 year old, yeah.
Lewis:
And yeah, I just thought that it's a book that was valued by people who were smart and that I looked up to. And I thought, if I'm gonna have a well-rounded education, at this point I was teaching myself things. I was very unsatisfied with the education I received going through grade school, middle school, high school.
And I decided to start seeking out the things I was interested in as soon as I had the wherewithal to do so and realized that I needed to because I wasn't being provided it.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah. And I love that you did so in a way that was both daunting, but also accessible because you went into Moby Dick from an audio book perspective while painting a house. I think that's good guidance for listeners like me who have not read this book like me.
I'm not gonna be ashamed of it because one of the values of the show is no book guilt, no book shame. But I've read the first 20, 30 pages and they're good. I really liked it.
I could tell it's challenging, but I really enjoyed the experience. So, but audio book would be great.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
I just need to find a house to paint now.
Lewis:
Yeah, or a banal task to tackle.
Neil:
Yeah, a banal task. You're throwing the words of the chapter out left, right and center. Now, Moby Dick is often described as being about one man's obsession. And as such, it can be read as a cautionary tale about hyper-focus on an individual pursuit. Is there a tension for you between that and being an artist?
What is the risk for you about too much hyper-focus on your individual pursuit? How do you avoid being like Ahab? Or Ishmael, I guess it is.
Lewis:
Yeah. Check in with my wife.
Neil:
Oh, that's good. Check in with my wife. I think she lets me know. Like go to bed, it's 5 a.m. kind of thing?
Lewis:
No, more like, you know, get out of your fantasy world and do some real life tasks.
Neil:
And you no longer have a part-time job, right?
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
So Lewis Mallard has achieved the goal of being self-sufficient financially. He has not achieved the goal of being-
Lewis:
I wouldn't say that. I am surviving off of savings. And when I make money, it's like, a lot comes in and then a lot doesn't come in for a long time. It comes in bursts, with shows, with I have to make a lot of my own opportunities. Right now I am-
Neil:
You're open for commissions. People can hire you to paint something, do something.
Lewis:
I open myself for commissions rarely because I'm heavily focused on other creative ventures.
I do take on commissions from time to time. Most often from people who have already been supporters of me, clients, customers, good customers, that kind of thing.
Neil:
So it's not self-sufficient financially yet, but- I'm trying to build- You want that, that's the goal you have.
Lewis:
Absolutely.
Neil:
So it's the question about obsession is you're kind of like, I'm not there yet towards my goals, but your wife will steer you away from falling too far into it.
Lewis:
Well, she tolerates it up into a point.
Neil:
Does her level of toleration work for you?
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
Not like you spite her for it?
Lewis:
No, absolutely not.
Neil:
You're grateful to have her pull you out of the abyss?
Lewis:
Yeah, she drives me to work away harder than I would for myself because it's not just me anymore, it's we.
She's also in a career path that isn't known for being extremely lucrative.
Neil:
Opera singing.
Lewis:
Yes, and she's in the beginning of her career. And we're building-
Neil:
There's not many operas.
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
Like in Canada, how many operas are there? Toronto, Vancouver, that's it?
Lewis:
Montreal. Well, we're moving to Montreal so that she has a contract with the Opera of Montreal.
Neil:
Oh, interesting. So Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, three operas in the country? There's small- A country of 40 million people that has three viable places an opera singer can work.
Lewis:
And maybe make enough to call it a living, yes.
Neil:
Right, yeah. I'm not counting the stuff you're doing on the street or on the side or the birthday parties.
Lewis:
In the small venues, yes.
Neil:
Wow, wow. I love how both of you are so, so deep down, very narrow niches.
Lewis:
It was one of the things that brought us together and that we related to each other about is how driven we are to succeed in our fields. Yes.
Neil:
Wow, okay. So I feel like I've got a nice little portrait of your 20s here. You're in this art collective, you're at 888 DuPont, what a cool number.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
You're eating eggs, you're eating rice. I think- You're yelling at people when they go to when the Saints go marching in, sitting in the middle of the studio, you're building kitchens, you're pulling people.
You told me in a past conversation that wasn't recorded that you were pulling people out of like, you'd wake up in the morning and there'd be like people sleeping in your place kind of thing.
Lewis:
Very often, we would have visitors, people from out of town that were coming by. I mean, with four or five people with keys and not all of them live there and it's kind of a 24 hour environment. You know, we did build bedrooms eventually.
Neil:
Was that not unsettling though? Was that not like somewhat trauma inducing to have like people showing up all the time?
Lewis:
I don't know, we were all pretty comfortable with it. We knew who they were.
Neil:
Yeah, and you're not on the street. Like this is one notch above living on the street.
Lewis:
Oh yeah, I'd say more than one notch, a couple notches. You know, it was not a place I think most people would want to live.
Neil:
Would your parents come downtown and visit you there?
Lewis:
I feel like my mother might've seen it once and was probably horrified by the whole thing.
Neil:
Dad never came by?
Lewis:
He might have come by.
Neil:
So the relationship with dad is still kind of, sounds like pretty distant here.
Lewis:
It was difficult to get them to come. If I had an art show, I really had to like voice my opinion that I wanted them there.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
For them to come and show interest.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
And that was a pretty common thing.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
Yeah. I don't think they really related. I was very different than they were.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
So I don't know if we really related to each other very much. Yeah.
Neil:
Even the straight edge thing was quite a different thing for your dad doing lines of Coke and when he gets to his job in the mornings.
Lewis:
Yeah. For me, I think it was a way of rebelling against my father.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
To be like just different than he was.
Neil:
Yeah. Yeah. How interesting that is, isn't it?
You know, you often see the kid that falls into abusing drugs as a form of rebellion, but here you have a drug abusing parent and your form of rebellion is sobriety.
Lewis:
In a way, I think. It certainly had something to do with it.
Neil:
Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. So parental advice for everyone listening, if you want, do be a functional alcoholic and casually consume just about any drug put in front of you. Ignore your kids so when you open the closet, they flip their diaper shit at you. Okay. Okay.
Okay. We have a nice portrait of your 20s. I know there was another big decade before we get into your 40s and I know there's a book that orients the decade around us a little bit and I know we're going to touch on it tangentially and we've done this way, but that book I just want to introduce to people is called Alaska by James A.
Michener. M-I-C-H-E-N-E-R.
Lewis:
Yeah. My father's favorite author.
Neil:
Really?
Lewis:
I grew up seeing his books, James Michener's books.
Neil:
On your bookshelf.
Lewis:
Yeah, on my father's bookshelves.
Many of them. He was a prolific author.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
He had a team that helped him write and research.
Neil:
He lived, here's another thing, he lived 1907 to 1997, another sort of numerical thing. He wrote 40 books, most of which were long fictional family sagas covering many generations set in particular geographic locales where he incorporated detailed history. Yes.
In the sweeping epic of the northernmost frontier, Michener guides us through Alaska's fierce terrain and history from the long forgotten past to the bustling present. As his characters struggle for survival, he weaves together exciting high points of Alaska's story, its brutal origins, the American acquisition, the gold rush, the growth and exploitation of salmon, the arduous construction of the Alcan Highway undertaken to defend the territory during World War II. As spellbinding portrait of a human community fighting to establish its place and voice in the world, Alaska traces a bold majestic saga of the enduring spirit of the land and its people.
Files 10813.54 for literature slash 20th century fiction. Take us into this book and to your 30s in the life of Lewis Mallard today.
Lewis:
Well, I mean, I'd always seen these books on my dad's shelves, never read one. I still haven't literally read one. Only listened to many of them. That counts.
Neil:
Yes. You have read Alaska.
Lewis:
I've listened to it a couple times.
Neil:
That counts.
Lewis:
And I chose this particular book. I mean, I would have just chosen the author had you given me the opportunity because although I didn't love every single one of his books, Alaska was one that I quite enjoyed. Hawaii was another.
Hawaii. Chesapeake, the source. There's been...
Neil:
Turkey vultures or red-tailed hawks are circling us. I'm just noticing that.
Lewis:
Yeah. No dead pigeons around us.
Neil:
No, or mallards, thankfully.
Lewis:
And so I didn't start consuming Michener until I was in my, well, very late 30s, just about to turn 40. When I was living, I had moved back. I'd moved to Hamilton to move in with my father and become a caregiver as he was approaching the end of his life.
Neil:
How did you know it was the end of his life? What happened? Was there an incident?
Lewis:
He was getting, he had dementia and it was getting progressively worse. My sister lived in Hamilton, lived in the same house as my father. She had moved my father into the house that she bought.
It was a two-unit house. So she was living upstairs with her partner and a newborn baby. My father was living downstairs on the ground floor.
Neil:
Can I ask what compelled you to be a chief full-time caregiver for a parent that doesn't sound like he was that for you ever?
Lewis:
I didn't see that I had any other choices that I could live with myself with. I was living in Toronto with a, well, now ex-girlfriend.
I was in a very confusing point in my life. I had quit my full-time job working for the YMCA, moving up through that organization, managing a group fitness department. I was very unsatisfied with my life.
I was making half-decent money. I had a salary, had benefits, had job security, and had a clear path forward.
Neil:
What were you doing for the Y?
Lewis:
I was managing fitness instructors, training staff.
Neil:
Outside the artistic world.
Lewis:
Yeah, this is a period of my life where I was not really creating much.
Neil:
The collective fell apart?
Lewis:
The collective didn't fall apart, but in our 30s, we had moved on to other things that we could actually make money in.
I, you know, in my 30s, I was like, well, art, I was working part-time jobs that were go-nowhere things, and I needed to make adult money. And I always enjoyed the YMCA. I grew up in a YMCA, essentially.
And I had great memories of being in a YMCA. And so I became a member of this particular Y, and enjoyed the environment. And I was on a, I didn't realize at the time, but I was on a journey kind of discovering myself as an athlete.
And I tried running, I didn't like it. I got into spin class and thought, I like it, I just don't like the way it's taught.
Neil:
You disagreed with the pedagogy.
Lewis:
And I thought, I could teach this better. And so eventually I was enough of a regular in the class that I got recruited by a staff member to be a volunteer, which is something the YMCA does. They love volunteers, and they recruit them.
Neil:
Not many people, not many organizations do that.
Lewis:
Not that I know of.
Neil:
Yeah. So you were a volunteer spin instructor.
Lewis:
I really liked the Y, and I became a volunteer spin instructor. And it was a challenge to myself to get over a fear of public speaking.
Neil:
Oh, wow. Because you had a little lav mic on probably.
Lewis:
Yeah, that or I just used my voice. I projected my voice.
Neil:
What didn't you like about how spinning was taught? I've only been to one spin class.
I didn't like that it was hard and I quit. What did you didn't like? Well, you didn't like the way it was taught.
Lewis:
I didn't like the music and the way the program was delivered.
Neil:
Oh, what was wrong? Why?
Lewis:
I didn't know what I didn't like about it. I just knew I didn't like it.
Neil:
You knew you didn't like it, okay.
Lewis:
I mean, the surface level was I didn't like the type of music. But I also knew that the type of music I wanted to ride my bike hard to would not be the type of music that the general public would enjoy riding their bike to.
Neil:
But it wasn't straight edge metal.
Lewis:
No, no, no. At this point, I wasn't listening to hardcore straight edge.
Neil:
I know, I'm just joking, I'm just joking.
Lewis:
Trying to do a callback to the one genre we've talked about. So when I did get my own class, I just copied in the beginning. I just mimicked what other instructors did so I could learn.
For me, getting over the fear of talking was the biggest hurdle. And once I was comfortable delivering a program and confident, I could start to be myself. And then once I learned how to be myself and deliver a class the way that I wanted one, I was also at the same time, I was becoming an avid outdoor cyclist.
I was learning about road cycling, off-road cycling, racing. I was making friends in the cycling community. I was becoming a very-
Neil:
So you're in Hamilton or Toronto?
Lewis:
Toronto. College in Davenport. Dover Court.
Neil:
Okay. So you're cycling, you're volunteering at the Y.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Dad gets sick.
Lewis:
I started working at, well, and I started working at the Y in the aquatics department. I wanted to work in the group fitness department, but I didn't have a degree in physical education, which they required.
Neil:
Oh my gosh. So here they go from being a volunteer organization, A, and B, now you need a kinesiology degree to work.
Lewis:
To work full-time in the fitness department. That's what they asked for.
Neil:
Wow, okay.
Lewis:
Leveling up here. And so I decided I wanted to work here. I liked the building.
I wanted to be there more. So I got in in the aquatics department. I learned how to swim well enough to become a lifeguard.
I basically had a chat with There was one woman there-
Neil:
Self-taught swimming. That's hard.
Lewis:
Who I admired.
She was in upper management. We became friends, and she wanted me to work there. She saw something in me, and she said, look, I can't hire you like this, but if you get your lifeguarding, I can hire you as a lifeguard.
Neil:
How'd you get a lifeguarding then?
Lewis:
Like, I- I took the courses.
Neil:
You just kept going until you got it.
Lewis:
Well, I was starting to get into swimming, because I thought it would be good cross-training for my cycling. I felt like I was plateauing in cycling.
And I knew how to swim, but I didn't know how to be an efficient swimmer. I hadn't learned, like, really proper technique. And there was a guy at the Y who was a lifeguard, an older gentleman, who was an ex-swim instructor, a high-level swim instructor.
And so he offered to show me. So I would come in and swim when he was lifeguarding, and he would just teach me how to be a better swimmer. And as I learned how to swim properly, with good form and efficient, I really enjoyed it. I thought it was-
Neil:
Man, you're inspiring me.
Lewis:
I was swimming at a level that I couldn't, I wouldn't have believed I could have swim at. And, and so this woman, Ika, she noticed my, me swimming, and thought that, you know, this guy's a good swimmer. He could easily become a lifeguard.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
And so she encouraged me to go get my lifeguarding. In my early thirties, it was uncomfortable to get it because I was only around-
Neil:
The oldest kid, probably.
Lewis:
By far.
Neil:
Yeah. It's all like teenagers, right?
Lewis:
Yes. There's one other guy who was as old as me, who had to get his lifeguarding for work.
And so we kind of just bonded, and we became each other's partners. He was a hulking, like, 230-pound dude. And for reference, I'm like 160 pounds, soaking wet.
Neil:
I'm 170. You're a lot taller than me. I got a lot of chub compared to you.
Lewis:
I'm built like a bird.
Neil:
I'm built like a bird. You are a bird.
Lewis:
I've got thin bones.
Neil:
I got thin bones.
Lewis:
I'm like, I've got my mother's frame. I got thin bones. I do.
Neil:
I've never heard anyone say that before. I'm built like a bird.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
I noticed your legs. That was one of the first things I noticed about you, the orange spandex.
Lewis:
Thanks.
Neil:
Yeah, and it's also like, you know, you're pretty close to, like, testicular level there. I mean, a duck paper mache costume doesn't go as low as you might think. You got, you're revealing a lot about yourself.
Lewis:
2.0 and 3.0, I built to be lower than 1.0.
Neil:
Because what was happening?
Lewis:
People were noticing stuff. I saw photos of myself in the costume where there was just a little too much junk showing. On a hot summer day, you know, the onesie, the orange onesie gets real hot. And I could see that I was uncircumcised. Or sorry, circumcised.
I could see that I was circumcised in a photo. And I was like, oh, dear.
Neil:
I like that the error was that you were uncircumcised. I could see that I was uncircumcised. I could see that I was, I would see that I was circumcised. Oh, we're getting a lot of looks right now.
Lewis:
And I thought like, okay, that's not what I didn't mean.
Neil:
That's not how you maintain a secret identity.
Lewis:
Yeah, and so.
Neil:
Okay, he's Jewish, he's Muslim, he's born in the seventies.
Lewis:
And so I was like, all right, well, when I remake this costume, I need to make it a little bit lower.
Neil:
Oh my gosh, you are so funny.
Lewis:
Although, you know, it's like, I'm not necessarily shy about it.
It's not a big deal. But I also, you know, I didn't make it for kids, but kids really like it. And it's not a bad thing to be kid friendly.
Neil:
I talk about you with my kids all the time. They are obsessed with you.
Lewis:
I hope it's not annoying.
Neil:
No, they love you. I'm gonna buy a bunch of these hats for them. Where if they're for sale.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
How much was it as a hat? It's a good quality ball cap, by the way.
Lewis:
$35.
Neil:
Oh, that's a deal for that hat. That's a really nice.
Who are you waving at here? You know everybody going by.
Lewis:
It was a friend of mine.
Neil:
Does he know your secret identity?
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
Oh, so how do you decide who you tell your secret identity to?
Lewis:
I've known him for a lot of years.
I used to ride bikes with him.
Neil:
Gotta know you for a lot of years. Start with that.
Lewis:
Not necessarily.
Neil:
Okay.
Lewis:
But he's just somebody I know and like, and you know, he knew me before Lewis, and he saw Lewis come to life on social media.
Neil:
Okay, okay, nice. Your dad's sick. He's got dementia. You move back home. You leave the life in Toronto.
Lewis:
I'm at a point where I wanted to, I desperately wanted to change something about my life. I wanted to be making art again. I wanted to be an artist again.
I felt like I.
Neil:
But I'm stuck here, because you said, it's the only way I could live with myself. I said, why are you becoming chief caregiver for a person who, no offense, doesn't seem like he was ever chief caregiver for you.
Lewis:
Well.
Neil:
And you said, it's the only way I could live with myself. Like, so why is that? A lot of people in your situation would say, you know, I didn't have a strong relationship, or, you know, that person was not in my life.
But you were like, moving back home, abandoning the cycling kind of, the YMCA job that you had making money, as your full-time gig. You're moving back home to be chief caregiver for your dying father. Like, I'm not, I'm not challenging you.
I'm just curious about your decision making here.
Lewis:
So also, at the time, the woman I was with, I think she realized that I was about to go into a very difficult time in my life. And she broke up with me. I was living in her condo.
I was unemployed. No, sorry.
Neil:
You're not working at the Y?
Lewis:
I was not working at the Y. I was working in my friend's bike painting shop.
Neil:
Okay.
Lewis:
I was painting bikes. Very niche job. And I wasn't happy there either.
I wasn't making art. I was making beautiful objects. And I thought that would be enough.
If I could make a living using my hands, making an extremely high-end product, I thought it would be enough. And it really wasn't. And so, when my father got to a point where my sister couldn't manage by herself anymore, and this relationship was clearly ending, and I was already spending a lot of my time in Hamilton.
I would go to Hamilton every weekend, and I would cook a week's worth of food for my father. And I would package it up, and my sister would give it to him. So he was no longer able to take his medication or cook for himself.
And so I thought, I've got to move out of this condo I'm living in in the Roncesvalles area. And I don't want to pay Toronto rent to spend all my free time in Hamilton working a job I hate. And also, my sister and I could not afford to put my dad in any type of home or anything like that.
So my father did not save for retirement.
Neil:
Where's your mom? Oh, she's not around.
Lewis:
No, my mom's gone at this point.
Neil:
Gone?
Lewis:
Cancer.
Neil:
Oh, I'm sorry.
Lewis:
That's okay.
Neil:
You mean she's dead?
Lewis:
Yeah, happened in my 30s, early 30s.
Neil:
You weren't caring for her at the end of her life, though.
Lewis:
We did a little bit.
She was married to a guy. She lived in Port Dover. And she hid her cancer from my sister and I up until near the end.
I got a call from her one day basically saying, sit down, I gotta tell you something. I just had a double mastectomy. I've had breast cancer.
It's gone. I've healed from the double mastectomy and the doctors have just found chronic lymphatic leukemia and say I've got five years to live. And so all this information was dropped on my sister and I in a casual conversation with her mother.
And we were both pretty upset about it because she didn't even give us an opportunity to be there for her. I was closer with my mom. But after that, I took every opportunity I could to be with her, to spend more time.
I tried to build like a bit more of a meaningful relationship with her.
Neil:
It's okay.
Lewis:
It's pretty serious.
Neil:
It's okay.
Lewis:
Go get them. And although she lived a little bit away it wasn't always easy to go and see her but I went as much as I could.
And the closer she got to the end the more time I spent with her.
Neil:
I kind of like this philosophy you have. I agree with it. I'm from Eastern cultures where parent-child relationships often in India historically, it's like they're living together.
I don't expect to live with my parents at this stage and age of my life. I don't know what will happen. They're both alive but in their seventies, not but, but are.
But I like this philosophy you have which is as much time as I can spend before they die. This is a thing you have.
Lewis:
I tried.
Neil:
Where's that coming from though? Like you have this sense of, it's not obligation. It seems like desire.
You are trying to soak up the relationship as much as you can.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
To make sure that for the rest of your life you can look back on those years and say, I did as much as I could.
I was connected to my family as deeply as I could. Is that the thought or the feeling?
Lewis:
I wish that I would have, it would have mattered to me more when I was younger or that I thought about it. Oh, I see. Because I didn't have a very strong relationship with either parent. It was almost like we were roommates more than anything.
Neil:
That's how I felt with my wife before my divorce, my first wife.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
That was the exact word I used.
Lewis:
We were like roommates.
Yeah. But also, I think that that was kind of natural for them too. It was just the way their family life was too.
There was a lot of stuff going on in my family that my sister and I never understood, never had an opportunity to understand. My mother was estranged from her mother and we never knew why. And many of her siblings were, and relatives on my mom's side, there was a lot of estrangement going on there.
A lot of trauma. Nobody ever talked about how, when, where or why it came from. And I still don't know.
My sister and I just kind of left to guess about this kind of thing.
Neil:
Thank God for siblings.
Lewis:
Yeah.
And so, I feel like I was fortunate to get to be with my mother when she died.
Neil:
And your father.
Lewis:
Yeah, and I was touching both of them.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Neil:
And your mama sounds like in your earlier 30s, your dad in your late 30s.
Neil:
Yeah.
Neil:
What age did you switch from straight edge and why?
Lewis:
It was when I was 36.
Neil:
What changed your mind about that? Your mama died, your dad was still around.
Lewis:
Yeah.
I had started dating somebody that, I think it was a bigger part of her life, the consumption of drugs and alcohol, but not in a toxic way. It just was something that she did responsibly. And I hadn't met many people who responsibly consumed substances.
I was very much of the mindset that if you're drinking, you're getting wasted. If you're doing drugs, you're getting fucked up. And I was kind of, I wasn't interested in getting wasted or getting fucked up.
And so, with this partner, I felt comfortable enough to experiment. I had been thinking about trying things. I had started to be curious about altered states of consciousness.
And so, I felt comfortable just trying. For the longest time, it was such a part of my identity that I was identified as straight edge or just somebody who didn't consume intoxicants. I didn't even really consume caffeine that much, aside from a little bit in soda pop or something like that.
And so, I started very slowly and tried a little bit of this, a little bit of that. And some things I liked. Some things I thought were okay.
At this time, marijuana was still illegal. And I couldn't believe, when I got high for my first time and I got drunk for my first time, afterwards, I thought, I can't believe that alcohol is the legal one. Because that one feels so much more destructive.
To me, it felt extremely destructive.
Neil:
Oh, I know exactly what you're talking about. I can't believe alcohol is the legal one.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
That's a great line. Or as cannabis probably felt, not that.
Lewis:
Yeah, that one- Sensory amplifying, perhaps. I thought, I am glad I didn't find this when I was a teenager because I would have over-consumed it. Because I really liked it.
Neil:
Ah, interesting.
Lewis:
So, I thought it was better that I let my mind form and mature.
Neil:
The research says, they say don't use cannabis or alcohol really before age 25, 27 now.
Lewis:
Yeah, so I'd never been high. I had a hard time even inhaling enough to get high. But I knew that.
I'd seen enough people try their first cigarette, try their first joint. I knew that there was gonna be a hack attack. But I was on board for trying it.
Neil:
And- Did this person become your wife or no?
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
Okay.
Lewis:
No, we eventually, she broke up with me before I moved to Hamilton.
Neil:
A lot of women are breaking up with Lewis.
Lewis:
No, just that one.
Neil:
Oh, okay. And the one before, the one that saw that the, you're going into serious- No, same person. Oh, that's the same person?
Okay, okay, okay.
Lewis:
Smart enough to get away.
Neil:
Yeah, so you're not, how much time did you have as your father's chief caregiver from the time you started chief caregiving to the time he died?
Lewis:
It was like almost a year and a half, exactly.
Neil:
Wow. And what does chief caregiving for a dying father with dementia look like?
Lewis:
It started off slow. I was still working more or less full-time in Toronto. I would commute.
I'd get up in the morning, I'd get my dad breakfast. I would leave him a note about lunch, where it was, you know. What it was, where it was.
Neil:
How to do it, yeah.
Lewis:
And my sister would help him out with like one of the meals, you know. And I'd get back from Toronto.
Neil:
Is it the YMCA job?
Lewis:
No, this is when I was painting bikes.
Neil:
Okay, you're painting, you're in the painting job. You come to Toronto. You don't have a place to live in Toronto, though.
Lewis:
No, no, I was, I'd get up at 5 a.m. I'd be on the 6 a.m. bus to Toronto with my bike on the front of the bus.
Neil:
Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
I'd show up at Union. I would arrive really early for work. I didn't start till 10.
But traffic was horrible. I didn't want to sit in traffic, so I opted to leave early.
Neil:
Get up with the ducks.
Lewis:
I was reading books at the time. I decided to read on the commute.
Neil:
With books or audio books?
Lewis:
Real, real.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
Yeah, real books.
Neil:
Seems like audio book is good for a bus, but okay, you go the other way now. You're left right on me the whole conversation. You're surprising.
Lewis:
And so I had a routine where I would, you know, get up, set my dad up, get on the bus, read, and I would then ride to a cafe that opened at like 7 in the morning.
Neil:
Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
I'd show up at the cafe.
Three hours early for work. Three hours early for work. I'd sit at the cafe, have a coffee.
I would read for another 30, 40 minutes, and then I would draw. I had a sketchbook with me, and I started.
Neil:
I've seen your sketchbook. It's unbelievable.
Lewis:
I started, this was the start of a project that's still going on, something I still do every day, where I draw patterns as an exercise to do something just solely for myself, and to develop a skill, and to see where it goes, and to see how good I can get at something. I'm now six, seven years into this practice. I've got a lot of sketchbooks full.
I've got a lot of skill that I built up.
Neil:
Who would you recommend a daily drawing practice for, and what could that look like for someone who's interested in developing one? What's the first step for that?
Lewis:
I'd say it doesn't have to be drawing. I think it's a valuable thing for people to develop more skills, to give yourself the time to go on this journey, because it's such an interesting journey from the beginning to wherever the end is. I don't know where that is for this, but I've gone past what I thought was possible in this realm of geometric pattern drawing without the use of any aids, like just freehand drawing.
Neil:
Even though it looks like you're using 10 rulers.
Lewis:
It does now, yes. It didn't in the beginning.
Neil:
So you're coming to Toronto, I'm sorry to say, you're getting to coffee shops at 7 a.m. You don't work till 10. You spend the day here, then you go back and take care of him at night.
Lewis:
I would catch the first train. I could get on with my bike back to Hamilton. I would arrive at like 8, 8.30. I'd get him dinner. I'd put him to bed and just repeat the next day. Okay, so that was the first iteration of it. Yeah, and slowly, as he progressively got worse, I would, I'd do three days a week, and then I did two days a week, and I was down to one day a week, and then no days a week.
Neil:
Working.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Coming to Toronto.
Lewis:
Yeah, and so this is when I.
Neil:
You're telling them, my dad's dying, I gotta be at home.
Lewis:
Well, they knew, they understood. These were good friends of mine, and they were very empathetic and patient with me.
Neil:
Yeah, but your life is rebalancing towards your father at this point.
Lewis:
I was going through one of the most significant relationships ending in my life. I was absolutely heartbroken. And my dad was.
Sorry?
Neil:
How old was your dad?
Lewis:
At the time, he was 76.
Neil:
Oh, he's pretty up there.
Lewis:
Yeah, he lived longer than he thought he was gonna live.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
He wanted to ride the bus until the wheels fell off, and he thought the wheels were gonna fall off in his late 60s, early 70s.
Neil:
Mm-hmm.
Lewis:
And so, I kind of forget where we were there.
Neil:
Well, I'm just trying to point out here is that, because I know that the genesis for Lewis Mallard, you have said in other interviews, came to you on a mushroom trip while you were doing chief caregiving for your father.
Lewis:
So.
Neil:
That's what I've read.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
So I feel like I'm near this point in your story.
Lewis:
Absolutely, it's all kind of coming there. So, as my father got progressively worse, and I was still working in Toronto, the commute for me was very difficult, the back and forth every day. And so, to combat that, on the days when it wasn't too cold or it wasn't raining, I would bring my camping gear to work with me.
I just left all my camping gear at work, and I would leave work up in the junction in Toronto, Keele and St. Clair area, and I would ride down to the ferry terminal to go to Toronto Island. I'd grab some kind of dinner on the way to go, and I'd jump on the ferry, go over to the island, and I'd just set up on the beach right near where the airport is. It's the clothing optional beach out there.
Neil:
Wow, you'd camp out on the nude beach rather than any park near the junction. Like, that's still a pretty hefty commute to get from the junction down to a ferry terminal, down to crossing a body of water. For those that don't know, there's about a 500 meter, maybe a kilometer wide channel right in front of the CN Tower in Skydome, where then there's a series of little islands with a tiny airport on it, there's a nude beach, there is like a amusement park, there's a life-size maze, there's a few hundred people that live there, there's all kinds of non-optional, like there's other beaches.
It's like a bird watcher's paradise as well.
Lewis:
There certainly was a lot of bird watchers out there, and I would move down the beach to be away from the people who were actually using the beach for the intended purposes of relaxing and suntanning and swimming. So this is also, I will say, like a not allowed to do, right? Not allowed to do, definitely not.
Neil:
Yeah, you never got in trouble, though, for just camping out on Center Island.
Lewis:
Yeah, I would move away from people, I would set up my tent only after the sun went down, and I would disassemble and be gone by 6.30 in the morning.
Neil:
Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
Because I would catch the first ferry.
Neil:
Weren't you scared?
Lewis:
A little, like, it was exciting, I would say. But also, I figured like- Exhilarating.
Who's, not many people are gonna approach a solo male doing something weird like camping on a beach.
Neil:
On a clothing optional beach.
Lewis:
Yeah, you know.
Neil:
You seemed like the crazy one. They're not gonna approach you.
Lewis:
That's kind of how I was like.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
Although I didn't feel crazy, of course, you know. But I just thought like, realistically, like if I was, would I ever go approach a random stranger doing something? No.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
And I was like, no.
Neil:
That's a good life rule. If you look crazier than the norm, you're not gonna be harassed in general. I think.
Lewis:
Maybe by only somebody who matches or exceeds your, so camping on the island, it wasn't great sleeping, but it was an amazing adventure. I saw some of the best sunsets of my life.
Neil:
Oh yeah.
Lewis:
Sitting out there.
Neil:
Right over the huge Great Lakes, yeah.
Lewis:
And I'd wake up in the morning to sunrise, although the sun was rising on the opposite side of the island.
But I'd wake up to like these kind of pink and orange mornings. I'd stumble out of my tent naked.
Neil:
Wow, you're nude here. Well, I guess it's summer. It's only fitting, you're on the nude beach.
Lewis:
Yeah, and I would relieve myself in the water, take a piss.
Neil:
And also get your bath in that way.
Lewis:
No, I would stop off at the Y.
Once I got to the mainland, I would come to the YMCA and have a shower.
Neil:
You're not just taking a lake dip.
Lewis:
No, no.
Neil:
Okay. Why pee in the lake then? Why not pee in the bushes?
For some reason to me, peeing in the bushes is cleaner than peeing in the lake. Even though I have no justification for that. I think it's six of one, half a dozen or the other.
Lewis:
Yeah, I'm sure you're right.
Neil:
It's a lake. It's a huge lake.
Lewis:
Yeah. But anyway.
Neil:
I'm anti-peeing in pools now, by the way.
Lewis:
Yeah, I don't like to.
Neil:
Yeah, I've switched on that.
Lewis:
I've definitely peed in a pool.
Neil:
Now you recognize the smallness of the body of water and the PPM of the urine.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Yeah, it's different than a pee in an ocean.
Lewis:
That's for sure.
Neil:
So where's the mushroom trip? So I did not.
Lewis:
So I guess this can tie into Alaska a little bit. So I went to, early on when my dad was still kind of manageable by part-time caregiving and my sister was around and could help, I had an opportunity to take a vacation. I knew I was gonna be doing this for, I assumed about two years.
Having seen my mother go through cancer and slowly deteriorate and knowing where my father was and how he was looking and how he was acting. And I guessed it was gonna be no more than two years. And so I was like, if I'm gonna take some time off I'm gonna do it now.
And so while I was still working at the bike painting shop, I decided to go to my cousin's wedding in Vancouver. Oh wow. She was getting married.
I had a lot of family and some very good friends out there. Most of my family on my father's side had moved to Vancouver. While I was at this wedding, I met relatives of mine that I'd only ever heard of and I never had met or talked to before. And they were two first cousins of mine that were raised in Haida Gwaii, which is-
Neil:
How do you spell that?
Lewis:
H-A-I-D-A. That's the first word.
Haida Gwaii, D-G-W-A-I-I.
Neil:
G-W-A-I-I, Haida Gwaii, which is a first nations indigenous community in Canada.
Lewis:
Like vast majority of the people that live out there are first nations.
Neil:
And they're known from a distance for their totem poles, I believe.
Lewis:
Yeah, the Haida people, I believe are the originators of the totem pole.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
That's what I came to understand.
Neil:
Bye, Rob. Bye, guys.
Lewis:
And so my uncle donated sperm to a lesbian couple, friends of his, and they each had a child of his.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
And so I have two first cousins that were raised outside of my family on this amazing island.
And so I met my cousins and their mothers at this wedding. And I was so interested in them. I didn't really participate in much of the wedding.
I didn't dance. I was just, I sat at the table talking to these people. Their life was so different than mine and I was extremely interested.
And they said, and they said, well, why don't you come and visit? And I thought. Why don't I?
Why don't I? It's a big trip. So I planned, I was like, okay, I'll come back at the end of the summer.
This was spring that I was out there. And so while I was out there in Vancouver for a couple of weeks for my cousin's wedding, I was staying with a very good friend of mine for most of my life who's living out there in East Van. He had his own apartment and I was just crashing on his couch for two weeks.
He had also, he had never done mushrooms before and I had not done mushrooms yet. Tried mushrooms. I had wanted to.
I was very curious. And I thought, what better place to try mushrooms for your first time than with one of your best buddies who has also never done it out in BC. So we got on our bikes and I brought my bike out there with me.
And I, we.
Neil:
On an airplane.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Wow, okay. Really into biking.
Lewis:
Very into biking.
Neil:
In front of the bus, on the GO train, on an airplane.
Lewis:
I've been riding a bike my whole life.
Neil:
Wow, okay.
Lewis:
Of one form or another. But I didn't find my passion in cycling until I was in my 30s.
Neil:
Okay. You take your bike out there, you go with your buddy.
Lewis:
Yeah, and we grab our camping gear and we ride kind of to interior. Somewhere in the interior.
It was a lake called Devil's Lake. Really small lake. You could almost throw a rock across it.
You could easily swim across any direction. It's spring. It's still kind of cold there.
We buy some mushroom chocolate bar off a random stranger. And we set up and we eat the mushrooms. And you know, it was quite a journey.
We had a great time. It was one of the most interesting experiences of my life at the time. I'd never, you know, mushrooms.
I think I maybe ate two grams at the most. I started thinking thoughts that I'd never thought before that didn't seem like typical thoughts that I had ever had. And they weren't scary thoughts or anything like that.
I had a difficult moment during the trip where all of the sadness from my relationship ending kind of came up unexpectedly. And I think I cried for maybe like 15 minutes. Extremely hard.
Like some of the hardest crying I'd ever done for about 15 minutes. And then it just was over. Wow, you got it out of you.
And I got something out of me that I didn't even know was in me. Wow. And it felt like in a very healthy way.
And I just accepted that it was like over and that I was moving in a different direction. And I just went back to having a fun time with my buddy. Even though, you know, we sat around our fire, we talked a lot, we cried a bunch, but it was a good time.
And eventually we, you know, came down and went to bed and we could hear wolves or coyotes howling around us. It was hard to fall asleep, you know, but we did, you know. We were completely alone out there.
Nobody else, we weren't allowed to camp. We were just wild camping. But we're, you know, we're respectful.
We left no trace. We, and we left the place the next morning and rode back. And when I came back to BC later that summer to go to Haida Gwaii, Haida Gwaii is up near Alaska, up near the banana belt of Alaska.
And you can even see on a clear day, you can see Alaska from the north side of the islands there. And I'd never been anywhere so remote. In order to get there, I took the ferry, multiple ferries, from Vancouver to Nanaimo.
And I took a bus from Nanaimo all the way to Port Hardy, other side of Vancouver Island, northwestern most town. Camped out there, was warned by the locals not to ride my bike down the trails at night because there's mountain lions everywhere. And so I took, I had to get up early in the morning to catch a ferry, a 16 hour ferry to Prince Rupert.
So I got up at like four in the morning in the pouring rain, packed up my gear, rode out to this ferry to get on at like 7 a.m. And it was a 16 hour journey.
Neil:
No mountain lions.
Lewis:
No mountain lions on the ferry, confirmed.
Neil:
No, I mean on the way.
Lewis:
No, I took the long way on the road. I took their advice.
Neil:
And you got on the 16 hour ferry from already a super remote location. There's no other way to get there?
Lewis:
You can fly.
Neil:
Oh, fly, okay.
Lewis:
I was interested in the journey. Yeah.
Beautiful scenery, slow moving, gigantic ferry, thousands of people on it.
Neil:
Thousands, okay.
Lewis:
Yeah, a lot of people.
Okay. Then you land in Prince Rupert.
Neil:
Is that a town in Canada?
Lewis:
Yeah, it's on the mainland. It is a very gray, rainy place. I think amongst the rainiest in the North America.
Neil:
Kind of a surprising settlement there, maybe. Maybe some sort of natural resources.
Lewis:
It seems like it's a port. Like, you know, a lot of goods come in on boat. And since it's on the mainland, there's a lot of trains picking up containers and that kind of shit.
Have a horrible night's sleep in Prince Rupert and then jump on a seven hour ferry to Haida Gwaii.
Neil:
Oh my gosh, you're not done yet? Okay, so then another seven hour ferry?
Lewis:
Kind of open water ferry, seven hours to Haida Gwaii. And then Haida Gwaii appears out of the mist like Jurassic Park. You know, it was one of the last, this is what I was told, it was one of the last settled places in North America.
Neil:
I believe it.
Lewis:
Because it was hard to find.
Neil:
Well, oh, hard to find. Because it was- Like it's shrouded in mist.
Lewis:
Yes, it's very gray and misty out there.
Neil:
Can't find it. They found it, all right.
Lewis:
Well, of course. And yeah, got off the ferry, had the address of my cousin, you know, rode to, I was with my bike, again, and went to my cousin's place, you know, met him and settled in.
Neil:
Is your cousin your uncle's sperm donor's kid?
Lewis:
Yes. I think they all met in the school system. My uncle was a teacher.
I think that one of them would have been a principal.
Neil:
What was that like meeting these people?
Lewis:
Oh, just interesting.
You know, their lifestyle was so different.
Neil:
How so?
Lewis:
Well, these two women were some of the most badass people I'd ever met in my life.
They hunted all their own meat, or fished. They drove around. They always had a loaded 22 rifle on the dashboard of the truck.
If they saw a deer, they got it. Donna would post up on the hood of her truck. She'd shoot the deer, walk over to it, gut it, throw it in the back of the truck.
It would be sausage 24 hours later. And then it would be canned or stored frozen, whatever. They didn't waste anything.
I went deep sea fishing with them. They ran a charter boat.
Neil:
Deep sea fishing?
Lewis:
Yeah. So I got a permit to catch a salmon and a halibut. I had a permit to get one of each.
You caught a halibut? Those are gigantic fish. Yeah, it was about 50 pounds.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
And then, so these two were married.
Neil:
A spear?
Lewis:
They'd been, no, it was a hook.
Neil:
Oh, a hook.
Lewis:
Heavily weighted, industrial gauge.
Neil:
Oh my God.
Lewis:
They had serious equipment. We were in a small boat, but they had radar.
They survived there for thousands of years. These women are very smart. They knew exactly where the fish were.
And they're very capable. They had more of a homestead. Their home was half conventional home, half log cabin.
They raised chickens and turkeys and bunnies. They grew vegetables. Everybody in the family had killed a black bear to save their own ass.
Neil:
Oh my gosh. Not as a right of passage, but as a thing that you just threw there.
Lewis:
There was a bear coming at them and they had no other choice.
The same way we would swat a fly or kill a spider. I was warned. They've all killed a bear.
I was warned many times to be careful about your surroundings, that the black bears are big and aggressive. They don't hibernate. They have food all year round.
It's essentially a rainforest.
Neil:
They don't hibernate.
Lewis:
This is what I was told.
Neil:
Wow, well, they would know.
Lewis:
Yeah. So big and aggressive. They can eat all year round.
Neil:
Black bears in Ontario are known to be not big or aggressive.
Lewis:
Yeah, these are very well-fed bears with no other natural predators around. So they got it.
They're not competing with people. Yes. So you gotta be ready to shoot them, to kill them.
And they all did.
Neil:
At least one. Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
And you're not allowed to do anything with it. You have to leave it.
Neil:
Why?
Lewis:
It's just, they don't want people commercial or, you know.
Neil:
Yeah, but you can't eat it. Like, isn't that more respectful to the animal to consume it?
Lewis:
You would think. But I think they just don't want any...
Neil:
Sport to develop.
Lewis:
Yeah, yeah.
Neil:
Because you got an island full of giant, big, aggressive black bears.
Lewis:
Yes.
Neil:
Some people might.
Lewis:
Apparently.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah. It's a natural resource.
Lewis:
I never saw one.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
But we did go on hikes and my one cousin carried a rifle the whole time.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
We went to visit, you know, various hunting camps that they've used. And they were just kind of... So proximity to Alaska though.
Neil:
Very close. Is this the James Michener book?
Lewis:
Yes. And so I started listening. As I was caring for my father, I wanted to get to know him better.
I really tried to engage him more in conversation and talk about things that I wish we would have talked about. I wanted to get in touch with his emotional side more. His sensitive side.
I saw that he shared a different... His relationship with my sister was very different than his relationship with me. My sister got the sensitive, emotional side of my father.
I got... Let's talk about sports. And say derogatory things about women.
Neil:
Oh no.
Lewis:
Side of my father.
Neil:
Oh really?
Lewis:
Every woman driver was a cunt.
Neil:
Oh my God.
Lewis:
Or a fucking cunt.
Neil:
Oh my God.
Lewis:
That's kind of like...
Neil:
I'm so sorry. Oh wow. That is... Wow, that is...
Lewis:
And if I wanted to talk to my father, I had to behave this way or pay attention to sports I didn't give a shit about just to hang around him. If I wanted to...
Neil:
But it's still inspiring you the desire to care for him at the end of his life.
Lewis:
He's my father. I love him. What am I gonna do?
I can't help that. It's like born into me. And so like I was saying, I didn't see any other option that I would comfortably live with myself.
I was actively...
Neil:
Was he a misogynist to the end?
Lewis:
Oh yeah.
He would say things to the nurses, the personal caregivers that would come in and help.
Neil:
They must have refused to work with him.
Lewis:
No, no. They said he was not nearly as bad as most people. But they would come in and say, all right, Jim, are we gonna get you a shower today?
He'd say, nope, but I'll shower you.
Neil:
Oh my God.
Lewis:
And then I'd have to like chastise him and apologize for him.
And they would laugh it off. And then I would... As they were leaving, I'd be like, I'm really sorry.
If you don't wanna come back, I totally understand. And they more often than not came back. But funnily enough, he would only accept a shower from a male nurse.
He would not accept one from a female nurse. I think it was his pride there. But eventually that all got to be too much.
And he eventually let me do that for him.
Neil:
Shower him?
Lewis:
Yeah, help him out, that kind of thing.
Neil:
How did that feel for you?
Lewis:
I was happy that he was finally letting me do something I knew I was capable of doing. And it was just easier.
Neil:
Wow. Almost therapeutic for you.
Lewis:
In a way, I mean, it was difficult, especially when it got to the diaper phase.
Neil:
Yeah, you're wiping now.
Lewis:
Funnily enough, his podiatrist pointed out to me that he had diaper rash.
Because he wouldn't let me do anything hygienic. He was very stubborn. I took him to the podiatrist appointment.
He was sitting uncomfortably. And the doctor was like, what's wrong? Why can't you get comfortable, Jim?
And he said, ah, my butt hurts. And he's like, let me have a look back there. And so he took him into his office, and my dad dropped his pants, and the doctor took a look, spread the cheeks, and he recoiled right away.
And he's like, have a look. And he showed me, he's like, this is essentially extremely bad diaper rash. And he's like, you gotta help him.
And I had no idea that things were so bad. And so this was kind of the moment where he provided me with free medical advice outside of his thing. He said, go get a zinc paste.
It's an off-the-shelf thing. It's an old school treatment. He's like, I promise it'll work.
It's just like a thick, white zinc paste. He's like, you gotta wipe them, you gotta clean them. And then put this on like it's spackle.
Neil:
Spackle?
Lewis:
Like just the more the better. And so I got the stuff, I did the thing, and I couldn't believe how quickly he healed back there.
And it changed, like he could sit comfortably. It was a big improvement. I was very grateful to this doctor for doing that.
He totally didn't have to do it.
Neil:
It's hard later in life, I'm imagining, that you lose your, not just privacy, but in some cases, your dignity, right?
Lewis:
Oh yeah, he had to go with it. It was difficult for him. He wouldn't let my sister do it for the longest time.
But we had a routine, and I tried to make it fun. I would play music he liked. I tried to keep it as light as possible.
And really just like have fun. Try to find the humor in it. It was like the only way I was gonna get through it.
Neil:
And then you had a mushroom trip while you were taking care of your dad, too.
Lewis:
Yeah, and so later on through the thing, after I had a couple mushroom experiences, and I wasn't able to take time off anymore the same way. I needed to be more hands-on, and more or less 24 hours a day. So in order to get some time away that felt like a vacation, I would take a handful of mushrooms and go to Gage Park and take four or five hours off.
And that four or five hours high on mushrooms felt like 20, 30 hours away because it was a real mental vacation. It's when I really started to be like, oh, I am on a trip. You know, where I never really related to, the I'm tripping out, you know, it's like, oh no.
The metaphor became real. Yeah, it was like, oh, I never thought of it this way. It really does feel like a mini vacation.
And so on one particular trip in the park, I would set boundaries for myself because I knew that I had, I would get ideas when I was high on mushrooms and I would have desires to do things that were not what I would typically wanna do. I really wanted to be naked when I was high on mushrooms. And I knew in my mind, if I'm in public, I can't be.
So I would just be in jean shorts and nothing else. No socks, no shoes, no shirt, just shorts. I'd lay in the grass, it felt amazing.
Neil:
Do you think you wanna be naked because of the sensory experience of it?
Lewis:
I don't know. It was just like instinctually what I wanted.
Neil:
You said it felt amazing, yeah. Oh, instinctually, okay.
Lewis:
Yeah, I felt no, I wasn't worried about judgment. I didn't.
Neil:
Oh, that's interesting.
Lewis:
You know, it was something about that state of mind.
Neil:
Social mores fall away.
Lewis:
Yeah, but I also realized that they existed and I couldn't.
That I had to behave a certain way.
Neil:
Yeah, so next time I see someone in the park near my house in the middle of the night, totally naked.
Lewis:
No, middle of the day.
Neil:
Middle of the day, lying there naked, which I have seen multiple times, that they might just be high on mushrooms.
Lewis:
I mean, maybe. And so on this particular trip, I took a pretty healthy amount of mushrooms and went to the park, set boundaries for myself. And when I got to the park, there was a religious group that had gotten a permit to use a PA system and to use the main stage, the bandshell, a defining feature in this park, this blue semi-circle.
Neil:
I remember the old bandshells. There was one in Oshawa.
Lewis:
Probably.
Neil:
Yeah, just one, but in Whippy, where I moved to, there was none. So it's like a kind of a hundred year old thing.
Lewis:
It's an old thing, for sure. It had a bit of seating around it, but mostly open field there. And so, although the park is big, it's very flat and sound travels across it.
And there was no getting away from the noise of it. So I was just like, well, whatever. I'll just deal with it.
And as I started to get higher and higher, as I was going up, I was listening to people talk. And it seemed to me like it was kind of a born again Christian vibe. People were going up on stage and just talking about how they were going in a bad direction, and then they found Jesus, and it changed their life, and that they're on a better path now.
And it was all overwhelmingly positive. It was people that sincerely believed that they found this higher power, and it changed their life for the better. I was like, well, there's nothing wrong with this message.
You know? And so I just was like, that's pretty nice and innocent. And I didn't, I found my place, I laid down in the grass, and I was just looking at the band shell.
And as I got higher, I started to hallucinate, auditory hallucinate, which I learned, for me, is like a pretty common thing when I'm high on these substances. And I, all of a sudden, all of the talking on stage became Charlie Brown's parents-esque. So I was just hearing like, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.
But it was like, but I was feeling like the positive vibes wash over me. And I was looking at the band shell, and I thought, doesn't that look like the eye of a creature that's like stuck underground in this park? I bet it is.
And in fact, I'm gonna dig this creature up and figure out who it is. And I really liked this idea of that. And I carried that idea with me for a little while, and I thought about it a lot.
And I talked about it with some friends, about how I think that I might have figured out how to tie together all of these projects I'd been thinking of for a long time into one cohesive idea that I could do. And it was starting to make sense to me how I could do it. I wanted to tie in folk art, I wanted to tie in psychedelic art, things I was interested in but I didn't participate in.
Neil:
Interdimensional art.
Lewis:
I wanted to do performance art, I wanted to do street art.
Neil:
Street art, yeah, right.
Lewis:
And although I had done street art in the past, I wanted to do it in a different way. And performance art, I didn't understand it. I wanted to get in that world a little bit, but I didn't think I was able to because I wasn't a performance artist.
And so I just kind of was like, well, I'm the only one telling me that I can't do it. Right? So what the fuck do I know?
I'm just gonna do it.
Neil:
Wow, I'm the only one telling me I can't do it, so what the fuck do I know?
Lewis:
I was, right?
Neil:
Wow, what a barrier-eviscerating thought.
Lewis:
And I'd had that thought before about other things, and so I stopped telling myself that I couldn't be a performance artist, and I just was like, fuck it, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna tie it into this whole thing.
Neil:
And- I'm the only one telling me I can't do it. And what the fuck do I know?
Lewis:
I didn't know what Lewis was gonna look like. At the time, Lewis didn't even have a name.
It was like, I had to discover. I didn't literally go dig him up, but metaphorically I did. I spent time thinking about it and what this creature would look like, and what I needed it to be in order to make a costume.
And so over the course of the time I was with my father, I spent a lot of time thinking about this. A lot of the time I was drawing patterns in my sketchbooks, I was really thinking about this. I don't listen to anything when I do it.
I just, I'm usually in a cafe, and I just like to be around people and kind of pull ideas out of the air. And so I would plan and think about my future once my dad was gone. But what was I gonna do?
I knew I was gonna feel like alone. You know, it was similar to the feeling of leaving home for the first time. But like this time I'm really on my own, like no one-
Neil:
Untethered.
Lewis:
Yeah. And I was single. And so I didn't have to, for the first time in my life, I didn't have to think about somebody else being in my life.
And so when my dad eventually passed, I knew I was gonna have to move out of that house, and I wanted to restart my career in Hamilton. And so I got a studio downtown. I found an affordable place that I could live and work out of, again, not legally.
The landlord was very nice and let me sleep there. And his only rule was no candles.
Neil:
No candles?
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
Not the one rule.
Lewis:
No open fire.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a good rule.
Lewis:
No smoking joints.
Neil:
It's just funny that that's the one rule.
Lewis:
Yeah, yeah. He seemed to really be-
Neil:
You can sleep in the place illegally.
Lewis:
Yeah, yeah.
Neil:
Just no candles. Practical guy
Lewis:
So I rented a room- A room above a bike store, 15 by 16 feet, with a decently high ceiling, couple windows.
I had no running water.
Neil:
Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
I shared a bathroom with the bike store.
Neil:
Oh my gosh.
Lewis:
That had no shower. So- Ah, what'd you bathe?
I did sponge bath, sink bath. Used a washcloth and I washed my hair in the sink.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
I washed my dishes in that sink.
Neil:
Get the armpits there.
Lewis:
Yeah, everything.
Neil:
Soap up.
Neil:
You could soap up your armpits in the sink.
Lewis:
I'm pretty like, you know, I had a whole routine. I experimented with different routines and I found one that worked really well.
Neil:
Which is what?
Lewis:
It was just required a washcloth, a bar of soap, and well, shampoo for my hair.
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
And you know, just not- Hard to wash your lower half of your body in a sink. I was tall enough that I could straddle the sink in a way and wash, you know?
Neil:
Sink straddling.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
If you don't have a shower around, look into sink straddling.
Lewis:
Sink straddling.
Neil:
Yeah, I'm starting to picture that.
Lewis:
I was definitely a sink straddler. Yeah.
Neil:
You know, you're living more and more like a duck here, man. Like you just are. Like you're like a bird.
You say you're bird-like. You're living like a bird. You're flying all over the place.
You're landing wherever you want. Like, I don't mean that in a negative way, but you're like, you are like, you're like, behavior is more and more merging with this character.
Lewis:
Yeah. I mean, I think that-
Neil:
You are Lewis, man.
Lewis:
I wanted, I didn't want any distinction between like my art and my life.
Neil:
I wanted it to be- But you don't call yourself an anima thing. You don't, you know, the people that identify as animals?
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
You don't call yourself that.
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
In fact, I- You don't look down on those people, but you don't- You wouldn't get your eyes done differently and stuff like that.
Lewis:
No.
Neil:
You wouldn't shave your mustache into a beak.
Lewis:
No. No, absolutely not. It's really- No, I'm a furless non-furry.
Neil:
I'm a furless non-furry.
Lewis:
Well, I had that thought one day when I was in the costume.
Neil:
You call it a costume. You don't call it a skin.
Lewis:
No, yeah. It's a costume.
Neil:
It's a costume. But you're a furless non-furry.
Lewis:
We're wearing costumes now, you know.
Neil:
Oh, okay.
Our clothes, yeah.
Lewis:
We're presenting ourselves in a certain way.
Neil:
Oh yeah, sure, yeah. Furless non-furry.
Lewis:
And so I was in the costume one day, and I was pretty high. I like to hotbox a costume. Who wouldn't?
I mean, I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't, but if you smoke pot and you like to do wild shit, it's a pretty fun thing to do. And it's a great place to think, because again, I don't talk when I'm in there. I'm silent.
I'm alone.
Neil:
You will not talk to people who talk to you as I found out the first time I met you. You only quack at them.
Lewis:
Correct. Unless I- If I ran into you on the street now in a costume, I would probably say, hey, Neil, what's up?
Neil:
No, I think you shouldn't. Hold onto that integrity, Lewis.
Lewis:
Well, you know, sometimes I do. I'm sorry.
Neil:
Okay, okay.
Lewis:
But I usually make sure there's nobody around that's gonna hear me.
Neil:
Oh, there you go.
Lewis:
Yeah.
Neil:
No one's gonna see Lewis on film, like, talking behind an alley, smoking a cigarette.
Lewis:
It seems, well, you'd never see me smoking a cigarette, but. Yeah, okay. And so I was in the costume, and I thought, I hope people don't think I'm a furry.
Not that there's anything wrong with being a furry, but I just don't want to put out furry vibes. And I was like, well, of course they wouldn't think I'm a furry because I don't have any fur. I'm a furless.
Yeah, I was like, I'm a furless non-furry. I'm a furless non-furry. And I put a pin in that idea because I was in the costume, and I like that.
Neil:
And I- How do you take notes in there? Are you getting all these high ideas?
Lewis:
Just a mental note.
Neil:
Okay.
Lewis:
And so when I came back to the drawing board, I did a little drawing of what a badge, a little crest would look like, you know, for the National Federation of Furless Non-Furries.
Neil:
The National Federation of Furless Non-Furries.
Lewis:
And so that's what I called it. And it was one of the first merch items I ever made.
Neil:
Oh, how did it sell?
Lewis:
I did a painting of it, and the painting didn't sell right away. I didn't really try hard to sell the painting. I was more interested in the idea.
Neil:
Do you sell through Instagram?
Lewis:
I did, and I do, yes. Like, @lewismallard on Instagram is where your home is online. At lewis underscore mallard. Oh.
Neil:
L-E-W-I-S underscore M-A-L-L-A-R-D.
Lewis:
Correct. The other Lewis Mallard will not let go. I have tried- Numerous times.
To buy the real Lewis Mallard's account, but he refused to even reply to me. They, I don't, I shouldn't, you know. But anyway.
Neil:
Well, I think what we've just done in this epic conversation is we have finally come to the part in the road where Wild High on Mushroom, taking care of your dad, the James Michener reading, Alaska-inspired, final tethering you had to not living alone.
Lewis:
I love the adventure of that book. I learned about my father from these books. I learned that he liked the idea of going on wild adventures.
And there was a lot of like father-son bonding in these books that I was so jealous of that these fictional characters, these fictional fathers did amazing things with their fictional sons. And I thought, I wonder if my dad wanted to do this with his son. He would have read about it.
Yeah, he would have read about it. It's a cool thing to connect with somebody through reading the same thing that they've read.
Neil:
Yes. You know what I'm saying? You're in this interview now.
Yeah, we're doing a podcast.
Neil:
That's right.
Neil:
Okay. It's a lot of action here on the street. So the adventure of the book, the father-son bonding on the book.
Lewis:
Why is there a fight happening?
Neil:
Is it real or fake?
Lewis:
That's a real.
Neil:
That's a real fight?
Lewis:
He's being taught a lesson. That's a child.
Neil:
Looks like his mother, maybe?
Lewis:
Yeah.
[Person on the Street]
You don't know? You don't fucking know?
Lewis:
To let it go. That's something you let go. That is family business.
Neil:
Yeah, that looks like his mom, right?
Lewis:
I think we just saw a mother punching her son.
Neil:
Punching her son and pulling him into the car. It does seem like his mother, am I right? Like age-wise, race-wise.
Lewis:
He turtled and went with her. Went with her in the car.
Neil:
Head down, the friends kept walking. That was the guy that just yelled, I'm on this, I'm recording this. That was fucking crazy.
She screamed, you don't know? You don't fucking know? I guess he did know, potentially.
Lewis:
It turned out he knew.
Neil:
It seemed like it. This is the reaction. Yeah, oh my gosh.
That was a wild punch-up, though. You don't really see mothers jump out of their cars beating their sons often, I would say. What do you think just happened there?
What do you think? Okay, a woman in a hijab with a twin. Pardon me, what'd you say?
Lewis:
Good job.
Neil:
I don't know. Yeah. Okay, okay.
It didn't seem alarming at the end. We don't need to call the authorities, right?
Lewis:
I think that they would be pointless.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Lewis, we're more than three hours into this conversation here, man. We've gone all the way from the beginning to not the end, but to the end of the genesis of the project that you're now currently doing in and around cities in Canada where you're creating this performance art, this folk art, this psychedelic art.
You're taking over stations. You're dressing up as a duck. You're walking across town.
You've got a viral following online, eight, one, two, zero followers, or maybe it's getting more. After this comes out, get ready for a few more.
Lewis:
Whoa, the Neil bump.
Neil:
The Neil bump, the Tim Ferriss effect. We'll call it the Neil Pasricha effect. You got merch for sale.
You're gonna add the Instagram button. Okay, I wanna buy it only through Instagram. I wanna give Mark Zuckerberg a piece.
No, I'm just kidding. I wanna give you cash. I wanna give you cash.
So, I hope that this conversation has been inspiring to artists. We sometimes have fast money questions. I don't know if you're up for it, energy-wise.
You wanna do some fast money?
Lewis:
What's a fast money question?
Neil:
Hardcover, paperback, audio, or E?
Lewis:
Sorry?
Neil:
Hardcover, paperback, audio, or E?
Lewis:
Audio, we're talking books?
Neil:
Yeah.
Lewis:
I prefer audio.
Neil:
How do you organize the books on your bookshelf?
Lewis:
I don't really. They just kind of fit in where they fit in by size. I don't organize them alphabetically or by topic.
Neil:
Do you have a white whale book or a book you've been chasing the longest?
Lewis:
What is a book I really wanna read, but haven't tackled yet?
Neil:
That's exactly it. I'll put Moby Dick for mine, because I wanna read it, and it was good, and it's just really overwhelmingly, dauntingly long. But length shouldn't, you know. The audio thing's a great idea.
Lewis:
Yeah. There's a few James Minchner books I haven't tackled yet.
Neil:
Are all his books 987 pages like this one?
Lewis:
The vast majority of them are very long.
Neil:
Wow, can you believe this guy produced these that long? I mean, it would take me a whole lifetime to research Alaska.
Lewis:
He had a team.
Neil:
Oh, he had a team.
Lewis:
He had to have had a team.
Neil:
He had to have had a team.
Lewis:
I think, yes.
Neil:
Okay, okay.
Lewis:
To help research and stuff, because he goes into, it's historical fiction.
Neil:
Yeah, yeah, you gotta.
Lewis:
So it was an interesting way to learn about places.
Neil:
It's a great, I would recommend this book for anyone who's going to Alaska or wants to go to Alaska. You get, you absorb the whole.
Lewis:
You certainly get some of the history.
Neil:
Cultural history of the place through a story that is not like reading the history in a history book. We're getting rained on now, by the way. I got microphones out here getting wet.
Lewis:
Little baby drops.
Neil:
What's this? Here's how we're gonna wrap.
Do you have a bookstore? What's your favorite bookstore, living or dead?
Lewis:
Favorite bookstore, living or dead?
Neil:
I don't really have a favorite bookstore.
Lewis:
That's okay, that's okay.
Yeah?
Neil:
Yeah, the audio books you're getting on CD are from the library, presumably, back in the day.
Lewis:
They were from the library sometimes. Sometimes they were downloaded.
Neil:
Do you have a favorite library?
Lewis:
Oh, yeah, the Hamilton Central Library.
Neil:
Hamilton Central, that sounds like one of those old school, big.
Lewis:
It's a brutalist building, right downtown Hamilton.
I always liked, I mean. I love old libraries like that.
Neil:
Robert McLaughlin Library in Oshawa, shout out to you. Never been there, but I would love to see it. Oh yeah, you gotta go there.
Lewis:
I spent a lot of time in the library in St. Catharines, just doing my homework. And when I met you, you were on your way to the library.
Neil:
When I met you in person, you were telling me, I just booked an hour at the library.
Lewis:
Yeah?
Neil:
You're a library guy.
Lewis:
I like the reference library in Toronto very much.
Neil:
Yeah, I like your like of the library.
Lewis:
Yeah, I think it's an extremely valuable, underutilized resource in the city, especially the one in Hamilton. The maker space there was extremely valuable to me in starting my business. It provided a very easy use and cheap use of their printers and computers.
And so I could start making my merch myself.
Neil:
Start making my merch myself.
Lewis:
Yeah, so with my ability to draw, plus the knowledge of various computer programs, and then the library having a vinyl printer and vinyl cutter, I could make and print my own stickers and make the packaging and sell them.
Neil:
Wow.
Lewis:
And so it gave me the ability to make something for cheap. I did the labor myself and then I could keep all the money myself.
Neil:
Oh my gosh. You're well on your way to not looking at the prices at the grocery store, Lewis.
Lewis:
I hope so.
Neil:
Your jarringly left, right, you know, life story, slaloming the boundaries of societal norms, you know, basically living life from first principles, using the codes that you're developing to guide not just your art, but how you live, how you think about relationships. I mean, I'm really in awe of so much of your thinking and your articulation about how you do things. I wonder if you might close us off today with any hard-fought piece of wisdom, bit of advice, or any general reflection you wanna leave us with to be the final thoughts as we close off this deep and long conversation.
Lewis:
I think that you, not just you, anybody listening, is capable of a lot more than they think they are. And that if you give yourself a chance to amaze yourself, that you probably will. Give yourself a chance to amaze yourself, you probably will.
Neil:
Lewis Mallard, thank you so much for coming on Freebox.
Lewis:
Thank you, man. It's been a pleasure knowing you in this short time, and I look forward to keeping on knowing you in the future. I hope so.
Neil:
Hey everybody, it's just me, just Neil again, hanging out in my basement, my laptop flipped open in front of me, listening back to that wide and wonderful conversation with the one and only Lewis Mallard. I hope that you enjoyed that conversation like I did. So many quotes jumped out to me, like, when I first discovered folk art, I didn't really appreciate it because I was really stuck in this mentality as a teenager that art had to be as high skill as possible.
That really reminds me of chapter eight, way back in 2018, the conversation we had with Sarah Anderson, author of Sarah's Scribbles, where she called Hyperbole and a Half by Ali Broch, one of her three most formative books. And for those that know Hyperbole and a Half, that was number 980 in her top 1000. You know, it's like totally scribble drawings, right?
Like it's just totally messy scribble drawings. And for Sarah Anderson, that book did, I think, what the folk art did for Lewis, which is kind of just crack you out of this like, has to be perfect kind of idea of art, which is beautiful. Kind of related.
How about this quote? I think there's a lot of lovely magic that happens when people don't completely understand what they're looking at. I love that.
And then the third quote, I got lots of quotes here, you know, it's got some quotes about the poverty he was living in, altering his surroundings, but how about this one? I'm the only one telling me I can't do it. So what the fuck do I know?
I just love that. I'm the only one telling me I can't do it. So what the fuck do I know?
But like having an awareness that like you, we, I am the one limiting myself from trying anything new, doing anything new, and then having a healthy degree of skepticism about your own confidence, like that is a really beautiful mix. I love those three quotes. I love Lewis Mallard.
You can tell. I mean, I'm a big fan of this guy, the work, and just the grassroots nature of it, you know, it's a person on their own just choosing to do something and putting it out into the world. So I love really everything about this.
I'm really grateful to Lewis Mallard for coming on the show and giving us three more books to add to our top 1000, including number 595, Lu Pan by Demi Hitz, H-I-T-Z or Z. Number 594, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, also known as The Whale, but really everyone knows that as Moby Dick. And number 593, Alaska by James A.
Michener, M-I-C-H-E-N-E-R. Thank you so much to Lewis for coming on the show. Did you make it past the three second pause?
Are you still here? It's a long one. One of our longest, maybe the long, is this the longest chapter we've had ever?
It might've been. It was more of a hangout. I always wanted to do like a hangout, you know, just like a chill and sit and hang out type of show.
This is one of them. Doug Miller, I think chapter 99, you know, and Doug Miller's, Doug Miller books is also one like this. Maybe chapter 44 too with Kevin, the bookseller.
That one was all over the place, but hangouts are fun and I'm hanging out with you and you're hanging out with me and that's why we're back in the end of the podcast club. This is one of three clubs we have for three bookers, including the cover to cover club. That's people listen to or to attempt to listen to every single chapter of the show, the 333, the end in 2040, where you be then?
Maybe we should do a party for the last chapter. What do you think? And of course the secret club, which I cannot tell you more about other than you can call our phone number for clues.
Speaking of our phone number, please do call it. If you're listening to this, call the phone number. Tell me who you are.
Let's hear your voice. Tell me a formative book, a reflection, a poem, anything you want. Don't don't.
It doesn't have to be perfect. Just like the art. Just, just make a phone call 1-833-READ-A-LOT.
And as we always do, let's kick off the end of the podcast club by going to the phones now.
Neil:
Hi, good evening. My name is Shamina Hildreth, and I actually just, someone shared one of a, I think it's Harvard Business Review article that briefly touched on your untouchable day every week. And I just totally love that whole concept.
And I look to adopt it in some type of way, even if it's just in a small way. I work for a Fortune 500 company as an analyst. And so it's really hard to balance meetings and also the deliverables.
So and I know you kind of spoke to that in the article that I read about how you were to accomplish having an untouchable day and not compromising that day. So really inspired by that. I want to implement that into my life.
I don't work in a creative space, but I think that I would be a lot more productive if I wasn't just all over the place all the time. So again, I just want to leave a quick voicemail. I haven't done this in a long time.
So thank you for drawing me outside of my comfort zone and leaving this voicemail. Again, my name is Shamina. I'm here in the Minneapolis, Minnesota Twin Cities area.
And yeah, just leaving a voicemail as you asked. And thank you so much for all that you do and the books that you've written. Have a great day and enjoy your summer.
Neil:
Shamina from Minneapolis, what a beautiful voicemail. So nice to hear from you, Shamina. Yeah, I wrote that article, I want to say 2019 for Harvard Business Review, hbr.org has or you can just type in untouchable days and my name into Google or you can just go to the show notes on threebooks.co because we'll link to that at the bottom. But basically what I advocate is just taking one day a week where you're completely untethered, unplugged, not on email all day. As Shamina says, I think I'd be a lot more productive if I wasn't all over the place all the time. Yeah, you would be.
And so that's why it's so important to do this. But in the corporate setting, it's more difficult. The first thing I recommend, I don't think I put in the article because I think it came through lots of people asking me about this later, I mentioned the Rich Roll podcast though, is take an untouchable lunch.
It sounds so like obvious, but when I was at Walmart, you know, everybody is like piling into someone's Toyota Tercel like head over for sushi. And of course, we're all at the time with our work phones, you know, checking our emails like the whole time we're on lunch. So it is and what I do is when I started doing this at Walmart, I did so like brazenly I like leave the phone on your desk.
So if anyone comes by your desk to look for you, there's just a phone there knowing that they cannot reach you because the phone is left behind, you know what I mean? And I know it's different with remote work and so on. But let's just say you're in an office setting.
So leave the phone on the desk, try to go for an untouchable lunch. Now if you can pull up the untouchable lunch, then that means you can go from like, let's just say 12 to one with no contact. You come back, there's eight emails now instead of like, you know, one every six minutes.
And then you start stretching it a bit. Okay, if I can be untouchable from 12 to one, maybe I can be untouchable from 11 to one or 11 to two. And then what you do, here's the way to sell it into your boss is prepare some like half day piece of work that you really know you could crush, or maybe you crush in advance for the three hours.
And then say to your boss, after you just give yourself permission to take it, Hey, Jordan, I went I read this great article in Harvard Business Review. And I decided to take the person's advice I know we can't do untouchable days here at this office because everyone's working so hard. But I decided to try it and I took an untouchable half day I just shut off my Outlook and my email and left my phone at my desk and I went and worked in the boardroom for half a day or whatever it is.
I went and worked at home for half a day. And guess what? I finally got that like proposal that I said I was going to get to you three months ago where I finally like got back to I wrote that email to that CEO that required like deep time to like thoughtfully craft whatever it is.
And the person's like, Oh, great, great, good job. Then you keep doing that. You keep like selling in the results because the results will be there 100% like once you take a half day or a day off from like the the the overwhelming amount of ping ponging that happens in a corporate office like the busy work, you know, Cal Newport would call that pseudo productivity.
Well, it's amazing what you get done tons of stuff, right? So you keep using the results to sell in the permission, you know, and then you kind of tip off your boss, Hey, Jordan, why don't you take one too? You know, and this is how it kind of goes up grassroots through a company.
Use the HBR article. You know what, I think we should link in the show notes to the actual fancy like PDF version of it. If you don't have it, I can like send it to you like somehow when those things are sent around with the HBR logo on top with like the big square orange thing, it just looks more professional.
HBR is telling me to do it. Not this crazy podcast host. Anyway, you know what I'm saying?
All right. I use this website called chartable, which tracks reviews for every podcast around the whole world, no matter where people leave them. So just a nice new one here from P S three, five stars, interesting, heartening, love the podcast, love the concept and love books with a big smiley emoji P S three.
If you're listening, I owe you a book as you know, so you can drop me a line with your address and now it's time for the word of the chapter. Oh my gosh. How many cool and interesting words that Lewis Mallard use.
Hmm. Hmm. There was a lot.
Let's go back to Lewis now and then see if one jumps out for us. Here we go.
Lewis:
Psychedelic folk artist, my government PSYOP, vandalism. Of course I bring pylons, double entendre, tributary or whatever. It's debossed.
The forgotten piece of street furniture or banal task. It's a brutalist, uh, building, furless non-furry.
Neil:
Oh yeah. There's a lot of goodies to choose from there. That's for sure.
Why don't we go with double entendre, double entendre, Miriam Webster. Could you play it for us please? Double entendre, double entendre, number one in linguistics, a word or expression capable of two interpretations with one usually risque such as flirty talk full of double entendres or two ambiguity of meaning arising from language that tends that lends itself to more than one interpretation.
Okay. So first off, this obviously comes from the French entendre. That means, you know, uh, the verb is, what's the verb on Tante E N T E N T T here to understand to me.
It's a double entendre means two meetings, two hearings, two understandings. But what's interesting is that there's a huge entry on this on Wikipedia, um, and basically it says that, you know, one of the ways a figure speech is obvious, one of them is not obvious and it goes all the way back to like the odyssey. You know, when Odysseus is captured by the Cyclops, he tells the Cyclops his name is Odoesis, which I probably got wrong, which means no one, right?
When Odysseus attacks the Cyclops later that night and stabs him in the eye, the Cyclops runs out of his cave yelling to the other Cyclops, no one has hurt me. Right? Okay.
That's an old book. How old is it? Really old.
How old is it? Ancient Greek epic, uh, in the year eighth, in the eighth century BC. So yeah, we want to say that's about almost 3000 years old.
Okay. So that's one of the first double entendres. There's other ones from Canterbury tales, stage performances in, in Shakespeare, um, some of which I can't read on the air.
Well, you know, just C words and M just bad, bad words kind of hidden in there. Uh, there's a picture of Steve Carell who plays, you know, Michael Scott in the office and it says he often points out unintentional double entendres with the phrase, that's what she said. Also it's in the entry, which is pretty epic.
Howard Stern, the Howard Stern show in the 1980s began to use double entendres as a way to get around FCC regulations. Right? That's interesting.
So double entendres were kind of a way to like kind of secretly slip in things. Um, double entendres are also, uh, one notch below triple entendres. Triple entendres exist.
For example, Joe Harris, a professor of modern French at Royal Holloway University in London, uh, says in Shakespeare's Timon of Athens, Timon, who has realized all his fawning guests are only in it for the food and generosity, invites them to one last dinner at his house just before revealing the dinner plates are empty. He refers to them all as his present friends. To them, it just means friends who are present.
But we know it's alluding to the fact that they are only his friends for the time being at present and because they want to enjoy his generosity, his presence. A triple entendre! Yes.
Are other triple entendres possible? Yes, they are. In fact, we go to rap music, the kids and the rap music, right?
For example, Pusha T in the song Suicide says, I build mine off fed time and dope lines. You caught steam off headlines and cosigns, meaning number one, his lines are good or dope. Two, the lines he raps about are about dope.
And three, he has actually sold lines of dope himself. Three subtle things and other people are saying, what about Frank Ocean's line, I'm high and I'm bi. Wait, I mean, I'm straight.
In the song Oldie, because it's a lyric, so you can't see how it's spelt. Is it B-Y-E or is it B-I as in a sexuality, right? Lots of stuff like that.
Triple, if you type in like best triple entendres or favorite double entendres, there are entire threads online and we could go down a rabbit hole. I love that there is, I love that the internet is so big that you could literally just come up with the word of the chapter for a podcast that's strangely about formative books, right? Find your word of the chapter and then find people in chat rooms from 11 years ago on Reddit talking about their favorite double and triple entendres.
I mean, we live in a great time, don't we? I mean, you get to, you get to meet walking and talking ducks just walking around the street. You get to sit with them for an entire morning, hang out with them in the sun, talk to them about art, so much stuff there.
I just love the way we got, I love the time of life we're alive. I think that's what I'm trying to say. I love when we're alive.
I love when we're alive. I love that we're alive when I can talk in my basement. You can hear me in that basement gym of Mongolia on a long drive, on a long dog walk, wherever you are.
We can hang out on the full moons for a lot more years to come. Sixteen more years till the ways to go, everybody. Until next time, remember that you are what you eat and you are what you read.
Keep turning the page, everybody. Thanks so much for listening and I'll talk to you soon. Take care.
Listen to the chapter here!
