IST001 - Transcript

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Oh, it's literally still dripping out of my keyboard. Fortunately, this is my...
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From
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the foothills of Maryland, I'm Andrew Linke. And in such times as these, I find myself thinking about... The symbols which represent us. False starts. And making excuses.
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for ourselves.
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Maybe even to ourselves.
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So let's dive right in and see how far we can get.
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Those of you who are watching the behind the scenes probably are noting that we are on minute...
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Wait for it...
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13 of this attempt to record.
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I just spilled half a cup of coffee into my keyboard and it's probably still leaking.
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Today is the 15th of June 2025. And it's really kind of shocking to me to say that phrase. Like, five years ago, I guess six years ago now, I was posting screenshots from Blade Runner every day. It didn't last all day. It didn't last all year. 2019, I believe that was. Yeah, 2019.
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It didn't last all year posting those screenshots. I kinda lost steam when my life went crazy around about April or May. But I had a lot of fun. Because... That's one of the great things about science fiction. It lets you... without even necessarily
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Noticing it right away. Science fiction lets you look at the life you're living now compared to the life you could be living in the future and hopefully find some positivity. Hopefully find some uplift in that comparison. Hopefully there's enough difference between
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your own existence and...
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the dystopias that so many of us enjoy reading about that...
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that you will not...
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I'm gonna stop following that line of thought, aren't I?
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Yeah, because cyberpunk happens to be one of my favorite genres.
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And a lot about my life is becoming more and more cyberpunk every day. But I'm thinking about flags today. Because yesterday was Flag Day. And here in the United States, a lot of the news was about a military parade in Washington, D.C. And I, frankly, I just checked out of the news, y'all.
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I had to. I woke up to news of there being a politically motivated assassination in the Midwest. And I had to just step away because what am I going to do? What am I going to do for my farm in Maryland if another January 6th happens?
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any point in the next few years. That's the point of a representational
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government, isn't it? That our representatives are supposed to stand
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for us. I'm going to leave politics there.
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This is why I have to be careful. This is why I'm
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trying to talk about symbols instead of
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freedom. Because it's hard to
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talk about freedom when we're constantly being bombarded by things that make us not want to express ourselves. Now what that means to you might be different than what it means to me. Here I sit, painted nails, weird hair, talking about living in the foothills of Maryland,
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And you're gonna, if you stick around, hear tales of sheep and chickens, dogs and dungeons and dragons, video games, vultures, all of those little bits of a nerdy American life.
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All those melting pot fusions that we should be proud of as Americans. And the very fact that I get anxiety talking about my personal, and I shouldn't even say personal, the very fact that I get anxious talking about the life I enjoy, which
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causes no harm and brings joy and help to others. That says something about either our political climate or about me. And I'm not going to directly explore that on camera. I don't believe in using social media as therapy.
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It's kind of like that old thing where you might say, "Well,
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I'm not gonna talk about how my candidate likes to eat puppies for dinner, but it turns out that he's also bad on immigration."
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I struggle to speak directly about politics or current events without becoming intense.
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I don't want to do that. That's not what this show is about. This is about creativity. This is about remembering. And this is about inspiring. As we leave Memorial Day and Flag Day behind us and head towards Juneteenth and Fourth of July, I'd ask you to think a little bit.
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About what each of these days, what each of these holidays, what each of these symbols means to you. And if you're not sure, that's fine. You don't need to start with big things, just like you don't need to start by writing a novel. You can start small. Think wedding rings.
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of wedding rings or wear different symbols. I know people who never wear them because they work in machining environments. So it's a crush hazard or a degloving hazard. So think a little bit about that this week. It was a surprise for me when I first started teaching. I had to readdress how I
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thought about handkerchiefs. They're so large you can use them for making a sling, for bandaging a wound. They're so useful. They also are really great for indicating your gang affiliation if you happen to be a member of the Bloods or the Crips. And my school is having a little bit of a...
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We'll call it an interviewing process. Yes, a process in which the gangs were kind of coming through our neighborhood and realizing that there wasn't really much to be gained because, yeah, other than a few more people to sell drugs to, it was a very, like, isolated, gerrymandered neighborhood.
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So you didn't get a lot of power by controlling my school. So they kind of eventually just moved on and I went back to being able to use whatever handkerchief I wanted. And some of you might be thinking of your own handkerchief coats or other ways of subtly indicating
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Subtly indicating things that people may or may not immediately recognize.
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I doubt any of you have worn white to a wedding. I mean, that's just gauche, right?
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And some of us remember when Obama got in so much trouble because, oh, he wore a tan suit after Memorial Day.
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And, well, who can forget whatever the hell I was going to say next? Because I didn't actually have another example. Ah, that's because I was skipping over the example that I wanted to give. Because the other example of a symbol that can be really powerful and really subtle is earrings. Now, if you go back in history, earrings,
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were usually associated with status, wealth, slavery, ownership. Depending on where you were in the world and what kind of earring you had and where it was placed in the ear, you might be a wealthy pirate, a courtesan of great renown, or a slave. A loyal one.
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But a slave nonetheless. For me, earrings have always had this kind of intense position as an indicator of gender or sexuality. And they're becoming less so. Throughout the 90s and the 2000s, more and more and more,
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More men have been wearing earrings I've seen.
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But in my head,
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anytime I thought of a man wearing an earring,
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I was back in
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Cape Island Baptist Church in, say, 1993.
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And I'm standing there and you can smell the wood
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and the old
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carpeting, the tapestry, the draperies. Yeah, the draperies. You can just smell the stain and the oil and the old wood floors and the wood paneling on the walls. That opulent but aged scent of the drapes.
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Framing the baptismal font. The subtle creak of the stairs. As folks go up or down on their way to the various Sunday school classes and I'm standing there about two steps up.
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I can see out the back door.
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And the front door is this beautiful arch.
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Cape Island Baptist Church has this strangeness to it.
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It sits in the middle of an island that's known for its Victorian houses.
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These cute ice cream cake decorative houses. In all sorts of pastel colors. And right there, at a kind of odd triangular intersection, is a yellow stucco church.
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With bars on some of the upper windows. Not the lower windows, the upper ones. And there I'm standing two steps up from the front entrance, listening to the creaking of the floor, watching as old ladies with their frizzy hair and old men with their broad-shouldered suits thump and creak their way.
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up and down around me as I stand there with one of my friends, a short kid. In my head he's filed away as looking kind of like a younger Will Smith, but it's probably because he was
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black
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and had a flat top haircut and an earring. And I don't remember his name.
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But I remember that he had
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an
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earring, and
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I remember... I remember that we had to be careful. Because he, he could have an earring, because he had it in the right ear.
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Which might have been the left ear. Or was it the right ear? I don't remember. But he had it in the correct ear. And he had had to be very careful about that.
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If you put an earring in the wrong ear, you're gay. And you don't want people to think you're gay. I've been thinking about earrings ever since. They're that little symbol of whether someone is straight or not. And I don't think I ever got a clear answer. Because after all, the internet is full of arguments. I feel like I lost energy a little bit during that story.
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because it's one of those strange symbols, like a flag, that's handed to us. We don't necessarily know why earrings are queer or straight. We don't know why one placement makes us a slave and the other placement makes us a pirate.
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culture given how much we tend to fall back on the Apostle Paul who told us, if I remember correctly, that women should not adorn themselves. Of course, he also said that in Christ there's neither man nor woman, slave nor free, and well... Transitions have always been hard for me. I realize that now. I...
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I've known my entire life, but I didn't have the words for until... someone literally said that phrase. I notice that transitions are difficult for you. Simple, basic transitions like walking in or out of a room. And I've always known this about myself. I have known that when I walk into a room,
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There's about a 20% chance that I will forget why I walked in there. Or forget that I walked in there to do something at all. But that's a question you need to ask yourself. How do you handle transitions? And what is a transition? Like, that's...once you start asking questions, the questions begin growing.
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or try to question everything,
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because if you question everything, then you will find the answers within yourself as you climb the mountain of life.
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I've known that I had trouble with transitions, with changes, for a long time, but I managed to structure my life in such a way that
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I didn't have to deal with them terribly often. I had methods of encapsulating those moments of intense change and not excusing them, but giving them a reason. And then here was the important part. Here was the part that kept me sane for the longest time. I could put those things in a box.
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And I could poke at them now and then. And come up with methodologies for improving my reaction. Let's talk about September, for example. September sucks in my brain. Which is really kind of bad because I love September and October. The weather in September and October are wonderful.
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is wonderful. I really enjoy that time from where summer is letting go and fall is just taking hold. But September is the beginning of the school year, and I was a public school teacher, 7th grade, for 13 years. Technically, I started in January, and so I only did 12 Septembers.
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And every September I was sick, exhausted, and on the edge of losing it. Because I had to learn a whole bunch of names, do a whole bunch of beginning-of-the-year paperwork, update my entire curriculum to fit whatever the latest political standards were, and...
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Just like the very most surface level of work that had to happen every September.
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But I was able to put it in that box of "This is September." And did it really start in August? Yeah, I was usually depressed for about half of August.
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And did it usually continue into October? Yeah, I usually had a chest cold well into October.
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But even though I was uncomfortable, I had managed to build a box around September. Having built that box around September, I could manage my fall. I could manage my descent into the winter times.
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When everything about the Affordable Care Act and the state's reaction to it and then the insurance
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company's reaction to the states and then the city's reaction to the insurance company, all of that process that took about three years to stabilize and meant changes every open enrollment period, I could handle it because September was in a box.
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resentment.
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But it's important to find those structures that will help you get through those hard times.
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Whether those structures are symbols, thinking back here to those flag things,
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Why do we care so much about flags here in the US? Because we had one flag that represented all of us. One flag that represented freedom. One flag that brought freedom to the rest of the world.
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And this is the story that we told ourselves for so long. And if you believe that story, good. Because we should believe in stories. And if that story seems a little broken right now, if that flag seems a little tattered, if there seems to be a transition occurring that is uncomfortable for you,
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Maybe one that caused you to spend the last six months writing and rewriting the beginning of an episode. Writing and rewriting a course description. Writing and rewriting and avoiding the talking. Avoiding the recording. Avoiding the dancing, the singing, the drawing.
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I've been overwhelmed by. Breathe. Take your
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time. You're gonna get there. That's where we are right now. I've wanted to have a radio show since I was a teenager. I would sit at my desk
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during my first year at college.
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And I know it was my first year at college because I was using my old Dell computer.
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And I would have iTunes open on the screen.
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And I would sit there and I would build playlists and I would talk to myself.
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And I would pretend that I was DJing a show on college radio.
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But I didn't know how to join the college radio station. Even though I knew where it was, even though I had gone to it, even though I had the sign-up flyer in my backpack for months. Even though it would have been an interesting change in my life pattern, seeing as my eventual
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My first wife had a show on that college radio station for years. So we would have met in a different context. I just couldn't go out there, sign up for the initial tour of the
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radio
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station,
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a couple of classes that you had to take about how to use the equipment and then pick a time slot. That's all I would have had to do. But I didn't know what I wanted to say with my words. I only knew what I wanted to do with my music. I only knew that there was a pattern of experience that I wanted to guide people through.
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through in listening to a playlist of songs. But I couldn't figure out how to do it. I couldn't find the system. And I worked on finding that system for many years. It's funny, I really dislike public school curriculums in some ways. For a dozen years, I
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taught a package of short stories and poems and novels, which were fine. They were fine. But if you hear people arguing about stuff getting banned in middle schools, I'm talking about genderqueer here. It was the comic book. It was the
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Journal, it was the memoir. There's the word I'm looking for. It was the memoir that shook America in, what was that, 2023, I think? Maybe 2024? And I'll admit, when I read Genderqueer at the tender age of 37 or 38, it messed with my head a little bit.
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But the reason that genderqueer messed with my head when I was 38 years old was not because it's an information hazard. It's not because the woke mind virus is going to destroy America and corrupt our children. No. It messed with my head because I realized that genderqueer messed with my head when I was 38 years old.
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I realized that I had spent 30 years fighting myself. I realized that that first time that I wanted to peel back this skin, specifically this arm, and see the real
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me that was hidden underneath. But that I couldn't, because I already understood what death was. And I already understood that I didn't want to die. I just needed to be something else. I knew enough from Sunday School and James Herriot audiobooks that I did not
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want to die.
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And I knew that the world outside of my home was different enough from how my mind works that I was already going to have to put myself into a particular container in order to fit in that world.
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I couldn't just leave my hair wild and refuse to brush my teeth. I couldn't just let my zits go and wear homemade clothes all the time.
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I had to sometimes wash my face, put on a suit and tie, and go to a friend's family wedding.
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This is all linked together, I promise. Because when we think about the symbols that make us who we are, and when we think about the places that we go to to find peace, when we struggle through
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a transition, whether that is
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A transition of
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work? A transition of phase of life? A transition of gender or government? Or
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financial situation? Or that good old
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Life Cliff of Turning 40. That one's coming up for me in two months.
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Whatever transition you are facing right now, and whatever roadblock seems to be getting in the way of you being creative, it's time to step around that.
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that is a symbol.
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And think if there's a way to get around that roadblock, to recognize that the roadblock is just a symbol.
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You don't have to comply in advance.
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You don't have to let go of what makes you fundamentally who you are. As you try to find the shape that you fit in. As you try to find the shape that your art fits in. As you try to find the way that you're going to function tomorrow.
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that I wanted to be a radio DJ or I wanted to have a radio show of some sort when I was a kid. And when I was in college, I've always known that I want to tell stories. And ever since my 20s, I've known that I was good at bringing people together and helping people tell stories. It's what I've always done in my Dungeons and Dragons campaign.
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It's what I've always done in my best lesson planning. It's the art of bringing people together and prompting them, guiding them, providing just enough of your own experience and your own art
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people off in their own creative journeys. That's what I want to do with this show. I've been doing a really intense journaling project for about a year and a half now. It's part of an overall effort to work with my therapists and work with my family and work with my self to find that place
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of rest, to
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find that spot of peace, to find that moment of light in the darkness where I can still create, where I can still find hope for myself,
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Even when everything around me feels dark. And sometimes you have to start small. I think back to one of my first
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stories I told. It was a comic book about a kid who was a rock star and an astronaut.
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And in my abysmal, sketchy, stick figure crayon art style, we go through probably like eight pages of a story that has very, very little actual text to it. But as I recall, the narrative went something along the lines of Andrew rockets off in his spaceship, goes out among the stars, splashes down, and rocks.
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rushes to get on stage where he will be a rockstar for Jesus and mom. It was cool. And those aspects are still interesting to me. Going out into space, trying to grow, trying to achieve. And the attention aspect of
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Being a rock star, I don't really like that. I don't really like attention. But what I do like is knowing
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that... Knowing that I have helped people figure something out. Or knowing that people are getting a thing done because I helped them.
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And I still like to think that someday my parents will be kind of proud of this project I'm building here. And that's your task for this week, y'all. If you are interested in following along
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on this journey that I am starting here, if you're interested in
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Finding your way to step through the transitions, to step through the political mire, to step through the personal struggles, to step through those transitions of time or place or mental state.
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that little tiny symbol that means something to us. That little crystal of memory that we want to take out and polish. Because it really matters. So that's my challenge to you this week. Think about something that really matters to you. Think about an event
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or a person that you really care about.
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Or a story that you've always loved.
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And you don't necessarily have to revisit it.
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And you don't necessarily need to write an essay about it,
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Proving to the world and YouTube why your favorite TV show from 1993 contains the greatest episode of all time. Because, y'all, there's only so much good television from the 90s, and a lot of it's already been dissected pretty well. And I'm not saying we don't need your perspective on it.
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300th episode about the Golden Girls. Go for it. Some of the best YouTube essays I've listened to are from people who just sort of let go and admit that they are not the first and maybe not even the best, but this is their perspective. And that is what we're looking for. That is what we're trying to build to. That's what I'm trying to do.
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So if you would like to join in, join in building something brighter, building something better in such times as these. Think about those symbols that are important to you as a person, to your family, to your state or your nation.
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And try to bring them down to a more personal level. Or push them out to a more general level. Try to change your perspective on them in some way. Because recognizing that somebody could be patriotic
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While struggling to find joy and watching a parade of... A parade of soldiers going off to fight in wars that maybe we don't believe in. That a person could
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feel wistful looking at the flag because they believe in the dream of America, but...
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America stole their land.
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Or enslaved their people.
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Or kicked them out of the military.
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Or is threatening to annul their marriage.
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Think about
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whether those symbols mean something to you personally.
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And if they do,
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if those earrings mean that you're queer,
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okay, talk about it.
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If those handkerchiefs need to change until you work in a different location, write about it and then buy some white handkerchiefs, you're fine. Think about those moments of
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frustration and difficulty. Those moments when you feel like other people have betrayed you.
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And try and see it from their perspective for just a few minutes or just a single poem or just a single photograph that you take where you look at the night sky and imagine that you're looking at it while standing in the sky.
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Standing right next to somebody who believes
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totally different things than you do about Medicare.
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And ask what you can do in such times as these.
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Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
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Ask not why we live in such times as these, but ask what you can do with the time you've been given. It's a comforting thought, and it doesn't have to be big. You don't even have to follow the seven
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scripts that you've written. Just start.
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And tell us about it in the comments.
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Thank you, everybody, for watching.
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This has been my attempt at doing a kind of one-shot, working-from-an-outline episode of In Such Times.
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And I don't know how good it is, but I'm going to do my best to edit it down and release it very quickly,
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because that is the core of what we're trying to do here.
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We're trying to talk about taking charge of our creative lives and letting go of those fears about who might be watching or why we might be making the art we want to make. And just digging in and doing our best.
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for watching, listening, or having your AI companion summarize this episode into your brain for you. I invite you to please go on over to andrewlinke.com. That's L-I-N-K-E dot com. Head on over to andrewlink.com, where you can find various essays, bits and pieces
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of art, novels, and, of course, ways to support my work.
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