Episode 25: Ghosts in the Machine

This week we're talking about the things that aren't there. Plus: Trash drafts, Parrot Face, the dog that didn't bark, well-dressed clowns, empty piazzas, terrible silence, Mike Birbiglia, and the smell of space. (It smells like steak, apparently.) 

This is the last episode of Season 3. We’ll be back soon with new episodes. In the meantime, keep your ears peeled for two Very Special Episodes™️ of our between-seasons experiment I Might Be Wrong But… , in which one of us tries to convince the other that some fringe cultural artifact he inexplicably loves is actually — y’know: Good?

Episode 24: Cynicism and Coffee

How do you know if what you're creating is any good? This week: Juggling the internal and external critics. Plus: Humility, shouting at clouds, Idiots vs. Fools, marrying up, Baby Shark, shame, brainwashing, sometimes it's harder to suck, The Well of Metaphor, fact checkers, and getting the brushes back out. 

Episode 23: Fred and Gene

People like to say the great ones make it look easy, but what are we really looking at when we see a great creator showing what looks like effortlessness? Plus: Spectacular failures, concerned murmurs, Jenny from the block, beautiful aliens, Henri Matisse, rubber band balls, drifting toward the abyss, ha cha cha and hot dogs by the sea. 

Episode 22: Watch Out For The Shoe

This week we're talking about doing what you're bad at. Why do some people charge blindly full speed ahead, and others try to shrink into their own shoes? And what's to be gained from what can be a traumatic experience? Also: Noble pain, sociopaths, Norma Desmond, tinnitus, bad steak, Christmas island, horrifying plunky sounds and more Mel Cooley. 

Episode 21: Somebody Hold Me Back

This week we're looking at limitations in creative work. When do they hurt? When can they help? And how can we become more agile creators by learning how to work with them, rather than around them? Also: Fake expertise, low ceilings, ukuleles vs. bowling balls, rich idiots, guitar control, speed wounds, bourgeois sharpnress, and I Kid Because I Love. 

Episode 20: Brigadoonish

This week we're looking at a part of the job that comes hard for many creative people -- self-promotion. Is there a way to be an effective promoter without feeling awkward and cheap? We suggest that there is, and tell you a way forward. Also: Big asks, mug's games, the SEO scam, wide boys, Chelmsford, crying in coffee shops, lost luggage, bonbons and juggling for Jesus. 

Episode 19: Less

It's one of the paradoxes of creative life: the longer you do it, the more tools you acquire, the more it becomes the goal to get simpler. To do less. This week we're talking about the quest for simplicity, and about finding the sweet spot between brevity and clarity. Plus: Slow TV, phantom limbs, Robot Margaret Thatcher, greening, a blow to the head, Wesley Van Wesleyson, promises and threats, and content cubed. 

Episode 18: Salad Bar

Every creator likes think they're shiny and golden, dancing with their muse in a singular act of invention. But is that true? Is that how it works? Or is all creativity an act of remix? Are we inevitably treading on ground others have walked before us? And if there's no such thing as originality -- why do we bother?

Also: Brain fizz and sparky fingertips, Woz, falling down, Pinwright's Progress, high blood pressure, how to breathe, grand larceny, DJ Kool Herc, Muskification, and 400,000 years ago (a Tuesday). 

Episode 17: Stupid o’Clock

This week we're looking at one of the hardest decisions a creator can make: When is it time to admit an idea isn't panning out and move on? It can be agonizing to put aside a piece of work in which you've invested time and care and effort, but sometimes it's not just the best choice, it's the only one that makes sense. 

Plus: Loud noises, Labrador footwarmers, Italian getaways, toboggans of regret, beans on toast, the world's longest putt, unconscionable delays and a big steely swan-like metaphor in the sky. 

Episode 16: Plagiarism Robot

When Apple announced its plans for artificial intelligence earlier this week, the presentation failed to make a minor point: AI, as currently constituted, doesn't work very well. Also, not for nothing, it's theft on a grand scale. So: Here comes the future, we guess?

This week, we're kicking off our third season with a deep dive on the role of artificial intelligence in creativity. Auto-summarized version: You can keep it.

Plus: Eliza, angry ducks, carnies, strike snacks and idea smoothies, rat snakes, juggling fatalities, bullet-headed Bond villains, clean smart data, the Eternal Return and alt-right Seinfeld. 

Bonus Episode: I Might Be Wrong, But... (Ch. 2)

This week, in the second of two Very Special Episodes™️, we're wrapping up our mini-series "I Might Be Wrong, But... " with a look at the 1973 blaxploitation demi-classic "Willie Dynamite." Bill takes the position that it's worth a second look; Mat argues the contrary, taking the classic dialectical stance he identifies as "Nuh uh." Wherever you come down on this cultural question, surely we can all agree on one thing: This episode is 33 minutes long. 

Imagination & Junk returns for its third season on June 12. 

Steven Seagal and Vladimir Putin meet the press

American action-movie actor Steven Seagal arrives for Vladimir Putin’s inauguration ceremony as Russian president in the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (Alexander Nemenov/Pool Photo via AP)

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Steven Seagal, who’s featured in the current episode of Imagination & Junk, recently visited Russia to attend the inauguration of Vladimir Putin. While Seagal was in Moscow the two old friends made a joint appearance for Western press. This is a transcript.

PUTIN (through translator): Thank you very much for being here. Can everyone hear me? Thank you for being here. We are grateful for—

SEAGAL: Wait. What’s that? Something’s not right. Who is that? (Adopts menacing karate stance, flurries air with hands) SHOW ME YOUR HANDS! HANDS, BRO!

PUTIN: That is the kid with the tea, Steven.

SEAGAL: Right. Okay. Stand down. Jesus, hang on. (Leans over from waist and puts hands on knees, puffing like a steam engine) I’m winded. That really took it outta me. Christ, I need a blow.

PUTIN: Yes, I can see. Would you like some tea? Would that help?

SEAGAL: I just need to sit down.

PUTIN: Please.

SEAGAL (sitting): That’s better. Kid really snuck up on me, you know? He’s quick. (Calls to tea boy) You got potential, brother. Respect. Just stay true to your beliefs and you’ll be all right. (Clasps fists to chest, bows shallowly)

PUTIN: If I may continue.

SEAGAL: Your country, bro.

PUTIN: It is a pleasure—

SEAGAL: …I just, you know… People all over the world know Steven Seagal. I like to take the opportunities to drop some knowledge on the young people. They’re the future, man. Wherever.

PUTIN: Of course. It is a pleasure to welcome my distinguished American—

SEAGAL: Hang on. (Stands slowly, narrows eyes) Something’s not right. (Listens) That humming. Hear that? That’s an ignition device. You probably don’t hear it. But I do. My hearing’s incredibly sensitive. I spent my life in martial arts, baby. I know how to be attuned to nuances when I’m in dangerous places.

PUTIN: Steven, we are in the Tchaikovsky Ballroom of the Four Seasons.

SEAGAL: Doesn’t matter. It’s a way of life. I was you, I’d evacuate the sector. (Executes low defensive stance)

PUTIN: I’m pretty sure what you heard is the ice machine.

SEAGAL (shrugs): If that’s what you want to believe, man. I’m just here to help, know what I’m saying? (Stands) Whoa. Spins. My blood sugar must be a little low from the flight.

PUTIN: Are you—

SEAGAL: I’m good. I just need to get horizontal for a quick sec. (Lies on stage, covers eyes with hands) Wow. That was a bad one. Can I get, like, a damp tea towel or something?

PUTIN: Perhaps after.

SEAGAL: Never mind. We good. (Gets laboriously to knees, stands. Surreptitiously wipes face with neck bandana) Carry on, bro.

PUTIN: There is much we can learn from one another, despite our differences…

SEAGAL: Sho you right. First time I met Van Damme? Let me tell you something, I’ll be very honest, I thought: What the hell is this? Dude’s about five feet nothin’ and he’s Belgian, you know what I’m saying? What’s he gonna teach me, how to make chocolate? But I learned from him. And he learned from me. I’m a teacher. He’d tell you the same. That’s the point we’re trying to make here (gestures to Putin).

PUTIN: Perhaps we should break for lunch.

SEAGAL: I’ll need to inspect the food.

PUTIN: Steven, my food is fine.

SEAGAL: No, I mean for me. I’m lactose intolerant. (Bows from waist) Namaste.

PUTIN {Leans into mic. In English:} The bar is open.

Is Steven Seagal, y’know… Good at martial arts?

Mat writes…

I have been asked, as the resident martial arts correspondent of the Imagination & Junk podcast empire, to write a short piece that answers this question. Happy to:

Not really.

Thanks, everyone – enjoy the podcast.

All right, Bill said that’s not enough words. Fine.

First things first – this won’t be a discussion of any other aspect of Steven Seagal’s life or career. To do that would require so many justified trigger warnings that Clippy would rise from the dead, pop up on my screen, and tell me he’s called the police. No, I’m just going to focus here on the man as a martial artist, as, after all, he does claim to be a great and important one.

Talking of claims – let’s go through a few…



One of the most well-known Seagal “facts” is that he was the first westerner to open a dojo in Japan. It’s not true, though – he just married someone whose parents already owned the dojo, in an effort to escape the Vietnam draft. He loves to tell stories of how he used his fighting skills to tangle with the fearsome Yakuza while protecting the dojo, but that same woman he married says the closest he came to that was yelling at some drunk kids.



His chosen martial discipline is aikido. He is, according to him, a 7th degree black belt. His ex-wife disputes this. She says that he is, at most, a 1st degree black belt, and only achieved this grading because the person judging him fell asleep. No shame there, mate. We’ve all fallen asleep while watching Steven Seagal at least once.



He has spent his life lying with the confidence of a man who never saw the internet coming – and now all his lies are easily disproved. Friends with Bruce Lee? Nope. An ex-CIA black ops frogman? I mean, come on. 



There is a truth at the heart of this, though - he did study aikido and teach in Japan. Although even there he couldn’t stop himself embellishing - he claims to have studied directly under the founder of aikido, Morihei Ueshiba, which would have been a challenge since Seagal first made it to Japan in 1971, a couple of years after Ueshiba had died.



But. He can, at least to some degree, do the martial art that he says he can do. And aikido can be a beautiful flowing art, with some techniques that can be effective, a nice philosophy underpinning it, and really cool trousers.



But it’s also the perfect martial art for a lumpy asshole to pretend to be good at. The joint locking techniques, when performed in serious combat, are designed to cause pain and/or snap bits of your opponent’s anatomy, so it's not really feasible to practice or demonstrate your skills for real, because people generally don’t like having parts of their body broken. So aikido has its own kind of sparring - randori. And here's where things get murky.



When demonstrating aikido there are two distinct roles - the nage (the person delivering the technique) and the uke (the person receiving the move). It's the uke's job to attack the nage in a predetermined way, so that the nage can apply the correct technique. Once a particular joint lock is delivered, instead of standing there, hearing a snap, and whimpering, the uke will fling themselves to the floor in a stylised breakfall, thus communicating the intention of the move.



It's an odd kind of choreographed sparring - the job of the uke is to make the nage look good. You see, of course, how this could lead to - shall we say - potential crookedness.



To anyone watching - friends, family, mid-level movie executives – the nage’s expertise in the martial art is entirely evident in the reactions of their opponents. Oh, I'm sorry, my mistake, akido doesn’t have opponents, it has partners.



Don't get me wrong. Aikido is a martial art with much to its credit, and I've studied a little of it myself. But when you see someone like Steven Seagal performing randori, and throwing his students around like ragdolls, well, it's pro wrestling, baby!

 When the proof of your mastery is in the way you stand there while bodies fly around at your slightest touch, fakery seems obvious.



Say what you like about the other martial arts studs who competed with Seagal for Blockbuster shelf space, but they could, for the most part, DO STUFF. Jean Claude Van Damme's training in karate, kickboxing and ballet meant that he could twirl his way into the air with absolutely gorgeous spinning kicks. Jackie Chan’s childhood spent in a Beijing opera school meant that his physical talents in Kung Fu, acrobatics and physical comedy would later enable him to literally do things that nobody else had the creativity to think up or the guts to do. Cynthia Rothrock, Michelle Yeoh, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, all of these absolute titans could - as they say in the kung fu world - throw some serious shapes.



Big Steve, though, chose a martial art where he can stand in the middle of cloud of people, and as they, one-by-one, run at him with their arm raised in a cartoonish attack, he will dispatch them to the floor with god-like power, with nothing much more than a wave of his wrist or a forearm slapping a chest. It's the martial arts equivalent of Bugs Bunny holding the matador's cape at a cliff edge and watching the bull run through it and pause for a self-reflective moment before plummeting. It's like that, and just as effective a fighting method.



Steve has a reputation for hurting stuntmen, in order to assert his dominance, because he’s an unpleasant toxic human-sized baby. It doesn't feel like it would be hard to real-hurt someone that has literally been paid to get pretend-hurt by you. Just a matter of… oh, what's the phrase? Deciding to be a dick.



This doesn't always pan out for him, though. There's a famous story that all Seagologists know, and it took place on the set of "Out For Justice," the movie that Bill and I are discussing on the latest episode of our podcast. So if you'll allow me?



Steve is on set, and he's telling anyone who'll listen about how it's impossible for anyone to ever choke him out. He apparently learnt a secret technique in Japan that makes him invulnerable to chokes.

 One of the stunt guys hears this and wanders over. Unfortunately for Steve, the stunt guy in question is the legendary fighter, wrestler, martial artist and all round tough cookie Gene LeBell.

Look at that face, right? He's the real deal. He didn't just know Bruce Lee - he taught him how to grapple.

 So Gene hears Steve say how he can never be choked. He chokes him. Steve passes out. And shits himself.



Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s embellishment. Either way it's more real than one of Steve's aikido demonstrations.

An Imagination & Junk Bonus Episode: “I Might Be Wrong, But… ” (Ch. 1)

Welcome back! This is Season 3 of Imagination & Junk, and we’re kicking it off with a Very Special Episode™️! It’s the first of two episodes we’re calling “I Might Be Wrong, But… ” We do this to give ourselves a flimsy gossamer layer of deniability, because some of what we have to say in this episode is definitely very wrong. We are arguing (by which I, Bill, mean that my partner, Mat, is arguing) that Steven Seagal’s 1991 shoot-em-up “Out For Justice” is… well… good? I guess? And yes, it’s this “Out For Justice” that we’re talking about:

Think of this episode and the one that follows as the soft opening of Season 3. Think of it as the throat-clearing we do before we get down to the real work of the show on June 12. Think of it as your podcast pals Mat and Bill inviting you in to the kind of conversation a couple of guys have late at night after a few pints — a conversation in which there are no right or wrong opinions but they are nonetheless expressed with A GREAT DEAL OF FIRMNESS AND CERTITUDE. And just so you don’t think it’s only Mat who’s gone right off his head, wait until you get a load of the cultural artifact I strive to make a case for in two weeks. (Hint: It’s from the ‘70s. Enough said.)

So with that, we give you an Imagination & Junk bonus episode: I Might Be Wrong, But… Ch. 1, “Out For Justice.”

Hey, one more thing: No. Wait. Three things.

Thing 1: We’d appreciate it if you’d subscribe. This gooses the algorithm, which encourages the robot overlords for whom we all now work to expose the show more widely. It’s also a big boost to us when you share the show across your socials.

Thing 2: This show continues to cost us real American/British cash money, so your material support of it will help us keep making it.

Thing 3: Was this episode a good idea? Or was it, alternately, and hear us out here, the best idea? We’d love to hear from you. And we’ll see you back here on May 29 for one more Very Special Episode™️ before Season 3 launches in earnest with episode 16 on June 12.

As always, thanks for listening. /BB

Coming back, baby!

Hello! Bill & Mat here, just popping in to collect the mail and open the windows and let some air into the place — you wouldn’t believe how much dust a website can pile up — and also to let you know that WE’RE COMING BACK, BABY, on May 15 for a whole new season of fresh, funny, thought-provoking episodes. We look at creativity from every angle, as you know, and to get back into the swing of things we’re kicking off Season 3 with a couple of Very Special Episodes™️. The first one features this guy:

And oh yes: We have thoughts.
See you May 15, wherever you get your podcasts.

Episode 15: Mousetrap

In the last episode of Season 2, we're recalling the worst things that ever happened to us as creative people, and trying to excavate whatever lessons we can from the wreckage. Featuring: Murder in Encino, and a near-international incident in Beijing.

We'll be back with a new season of Imagination & Junk after a short break.

Episode 14: The Gorgeous Notebook Store

In this episode we're talking about tools of the trade. Every creative trade has them. But they function in a variety of ways: As tools, yes, but also as signifiers of membership in a group, and as objects of desire. Also: Man purses, puppies, promiscuous scribbling, snappy suits, Japanese dining tables, Toots Thielemans, custom juggling balls and cricket.

Episode 13: Six Feet From Genius

Here's a creativity brain puzzler: Is it better to break new ground or to keep polishing the same act until it gleams? It depends, to a degree, on for whom you create in the first place. Also: Jackie Chan, treading water, private eyes, the changeup pitch, Eurovision, litigation, the verdict of history, singularity, space shoes, The Shipping Forecast and quite a bit, actually, about the eternal villainy of The Beach Boys' Mike Love.

Episode 12: Chaotic Playtime

This week we're looking at Getting Things Done, and at the cult of productivity that's sprung up around David Allen's original GTD methodology. It looks good, it sounds good -- but is it an aid to creative work or the exact opposite of what creativity calls for? Once again, we have thoughts. And this time we've put them in a nice list, with checkboxes. Also: Raccoons, stone tablets, Starfighters, making a mess and tidying up, disresepcting the Bing, shallots and where to put them, things that are too good to check, and the night Bobby Flay made a mockery of Kitchen Stadium. 

A city of creativity

Glastonbury is not my thing. That’s what I always said.

People are sometimes surprised that in three and a half decades of doing what I do, I’ve never performed there. But I never had, until last weekend. Now don’t get me wrong, they asked, but every year I politely declined, listing them the reasons why I thought I wasn’t the right booking. And they were real reasons. The older I get, the more I learn about myself, the more I know which situations are kind to my mental health, and which might bully it – and Glastonbury ticked a lot of the bad boxes. Being in the middle of nowhere surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people, unable to run away? Tick. Socialising with friends, colleagues and, frankly, not friends from all over the world? Tick. Camping? CAMPING? Bloody TICK.

But, apparently, what I’d been doing by saying “no thank you” annually, for decades, was playing hard to get, because they started making better and better offers. And I don’t mean monetarily, I mean emotionally. They understood my fears, and valued me enough to try to lessen them, and honestly, that alone made me much more interested.

The final straw came when they offered three things:

I could arrive the same day as my show;

I could leave the same night;

There would be good coffee waiting for me backstage.

They knew what was important to me. I said yes. And I’m glad I did.

So, if you’re unfamiliar with Glasto – or to give it its full name “The Glastonbury Festival of contemporary performing arts” – it’s, well, a city. A city that appears for one week only, on a farm in Somerset, England. A city made out of tents and caravans and food trucks and venues and fields and art installations and megalithic stone circles and overpriced beer and terrifying toilets. A city that was founded, and continues to exist, because of creativity.

The 200,000 tickets sell out almost instantaneously, and they’re not cheap. AND YOU HAVE TO CAMP. But people snap them up for one reason – whether they know it or not. I mean, sure, it’s a five-day party, and you hang out with friends, and get drunk, and get other things, and have awkward and regretful hookups in flooded tents, but the real reason it is what it is, is simple. People go to Glastonbury to see, hear, feel or whatever, something they haven’t seen, heard, felt, or whatever’d before. Something artistic.

And the beautiful part is that this is just as likely to be something like Elton John bringing thousands together in a perfect moment of everyone knowing the words to every song and sharing the now, as it might be an odd little forest glade of home-made automaton sculptures. And, of course, literally, actually, everything in between. I only had a couple of hours to wander around, and even in this short time, I saw kinetic art projects, flamenco ping-pong ball mouth jugglers, acrobats doing handstands on the roof of a cocktail bar, traditional African dance troupes, fake Australian life guards pretending the field was a swimming pool, crusty old folk singers covering Taylor Swift, a strolling Bhangra band who had become pied pipers for an ever-growing following of people lost in the drums and the dancing, a pretend grandpa with his walker decked out like a mod’s Vespa, and Blondie.

Even if you only go to Glastonbury to see Elton and wear funny sunglasses, you’ll find yourself wandering around, and you’ll discover something unplanned, that you love. There’s just too much going on, and too much wandering around required for that not to happen. The whole thing is a machine for organic artistic discovery.

Sometimes it’s easy, as someone who has eventually learned to feel alright with calling themselves an artist, to feel like it’s all a bit of an affectation. We call Imagination & Junk the “podcast about the hard work of creativity”, but occasionally, when I’m feeling less than, my mind lets those questions seep in. You know the ones: “It’s not really work though, is it? You’re not down the mines.” “I mean, is it actually of worth?” But Glastonbury shuts all that shit down really fast.

200,000 people who look forward to this all year, who barrage that website with clicks on ticket release day, with their fingers crossed so tight they turn white. All because they know that when they’re there, on top of the warm beer, pricey burritos, sunburn, mudslides, and TERRIFYING TOILETS, they’ll see some things that they haven’t seen before. Things people made.

/MR