🎤 "Clayton Aiken, Bacon & a Pile of Mulch" 🥓

[00:00:02] What you want, when you want it, where you want it. This is The MESH. A.I.: Absolute Ignorance with Jon Reep. That's me, Jon Reep here, but I'm not alone. I'm always with my buddy, my pal, my compadre, my co-host, Mr. The Alan Jackson. How are you?

[00:00:30] Hey, I'm good, Jon. Good, good. How's it going? I'm good as well. How's the weekend been? Weekend was good. I was in Atlanta, Georgia, did the Punchline Comedy Club, did five shows there. I love that club. I've been going there for years. It's a half diner, half comedy club. On one side is like an old school diner, the one that Jerry Seinfeld would go to.

[00:00:56] And then right next to it, you go to a different door. It's a comedy club. Perfect. And it's, I think Seinfeld would have loved it because that's all he did was comedy and go to that diner. I mean, really, it just combines those two things into one complex. Yeah. That's pretty nice. So it was great. And yeah, had Adam Ray pop in and do a thing. And he invited me out to one of his shows. He does a Dr. Phil character. All right. He does the whole show like as Phil, right? That's his thing. That's great.

[00:01:25] Yeah. He does. Yeah. And then, I mean, it's, it's called, uh, it's very popular. So he has other celebrity guests come on like Brock Lesnar was on Zach Brown, uh, Finesse Mitchell, but it was a good weekend. But, um, good, you know, this is my, this is the highlight of my week. Well, I was going to say, I mean, and we even had to bump this a day later on schedule, which means there's building anticipation. So I couldn't sleep very good last night or excited, nervous.

[00:01:55] When I realized I was 20 minutes late, it really bummed the crap out of me. Yes. Oh yes. Well, let me back up. I was 10 minutes early. Let me explain that. Yeah. So we traditionally have been trying to record at one 30 and that was the time that was on the counter originally. Right. I did move the calendar time to one o'clock. I was under the impression that it would notify you in some sort of fashion to say, Hey, this moved to one o'clock and you'd be like, okay, cool. One o'clock got it.

[00:02:23] But obviously it didn't do that kind of notification. So you come in at one 20 thinking you're early. Yeah. You're all happy. Like, Hey, how's it going? Great. I see you set up cameras for a different show. I'm like, Oh, what's, uh, what's going on here? And I'm just like, all right, well we can, we got to cram this in or we could, uh, we could bump it either way.

[00:02:45] So it's a, it's a, we, we tried to rely on technology to, to handle scheduling communications and it, and it didn't, I should have so well. I do get alerts on the phone with the calendar, but I don't always read them because we're doing a lot. I just go, yes, I already know in my brain if it's the day of, right, that's what I'm doing. Yeah. So, you know, I'll take 50% of that one. Well, we'll split the split it up. Yeah. It was, uh, it was what it was. It was all good, but I'm very excited to be here. Got you here.

[00:03:15] We're in morning time. It's a, I know. I used to talking to him. Yeah. And we got, listen, I'm very excited because we have two, uh, I have some comments I want to read from last episode. Okay, great. You know, people, we've told people to go to the YouTube channel and leave us a comment. If you watch it, if you're watching the show, listening, if questions, things you want us to talk about our questions, Shane Flint outdoors. Oh yeah. He said, uh, exciting news on becoming a grandparent. Hmm. Yep.

[00:03:44] He said, I have six grandkids at 53 years old. Okay. Dang. All right. So he got a little bit of a jump on us on that. He got real early. He's a, uh, Mr. Flint's a year older than us. I just turned 53. You did turn, just turned 53. I'll turn 53 in a few months. Okay. So yeah. Um, but yeah, he, he, he got a good start on us. He did. Yeah. He said, it's awesome having grandkids. I was ghosted on Facebook marketplace scam. Very similar to Alan.

[00:04:14] Oh really? Oh, do tell. He goes, I drove over an hour to the address that the seller provided me. He told me cash only. Yeah. Stopped at an ATM, got 500 to pay for the item. Once I arrived until the seller, I was there in the driveway. He never answered me. I knocked on the door and an elderly man answered and had no clue what I was talking about. He said, I heard of that.

[00:04:43] They're Facebook thing, but I don't got one. I got scared. Don't got a face jumped in my truck and left quickly. How did he, is the scam that you just take out money from your account? I don't understand what the scam is. That's the thing I was questioning is even in Shane situation, this whole Facebook people selling stuff on Facebook and you make an agreement for a sale. You go to the person's place or try to get to the person's place.

[00:05:11] You've got the money in your hand and then they, they ghost you. It's like, what, what is the benefit to them? Like, what do they get out of this scam? Nothing, nothing other than the satisfaction of, oh, I just screwed up that guy's day. Yeah. If it's just a goof. Yeah. But I don't understand. It's a lot of work for a dumb goof. Yeah. Unless he works for the ATM company where they get fees. That's it. That's the, that's the game.

[00:05:37] These are people that work for the ATM companies and they have a incentive program where if they can get you to go to the ATM and get cash out, they get a little skiff off of every little, uh, all the little fees that you pay. Right. That's it. That's the only way they could benefit from this. Yeah. Um, Shane, make that one make more sense. I mean, yeah. Did you? Yeah. And I, I mean, Shane, if you're, you know, if you're listening to this episode and want

[00:06:06] to post up another comment, uh, what was it you're trying to get? Just curious. Just curious. I'm not trying to be nosy, but I mean, sound like 500 bucks. It's a pretty good little deal. Cash only. And it is something that you kind of had to drive a good ways to go get. I've seen a funny video on Facebook marketplace that I sent you via one of these apps. I don't know if you ever got around to looking at it.

[00:06:31] It was pretty funny about like if, if Facebook marketplace were real life and a guy is like, he's sitting in his front yard. He goes, Oh, I got some shoes here. I'm just going to make some sign. He goes shoes for sale. People walk up to his yard. Like, are those shoes? They're like, yep, these are shoes and they're for sale. And this is how it says like, you know, 20 bucks. He goes, how much you want for him? He goes, well, time says 20 bucks. He goes, yeah, I'll give you a dollar. He's like, Nope. And that guy goes away and comes back.

[00:07:00] It says the exact same thing. Or my favorite. It's like, I mean, this is the question I always ask is, does it still work? Like, yeah, does it still work? Yeah. And it was like, I mean, but I feel like I have to ask that because sure enough, there'll be some little caveat where they put up a listing like, Oh yeah, here's this treadmill. I'm selling it for 50 bucks. I'm like, okay. But what's the catch? But what's the catch? Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't work. Yeah.

[00:07:26] I mean, work Brooks ish, you know, it's a, what? There's a, it turns a little bit, but I mean, yeah, you can stand on it. You can stand on it. You can walk in place on it. Yes. It will move the belt. If you walk hard, hard enough on it. Um, Oh, one more comment. If you want to hear it. Um, I love these rich royalty, Robin, reckless records. Right.

[00:07:55] Is that his YouTube screen name or his given, given birth name? All one, no spaces. That's the at rich royalty, Robin, reckless records. I got to check out this dude's page. Yeah. Yeah. It says, maybe all three sellers already sold the item and they couldn't be bothered by responding. And I thought about that. He's talking about my treadmill situation. So again, I, I, to people who are just catching up, I had two different issues on Facebook marketplace.

[00:08:22] One where I had a sale negotiated and approved and I rented a truck and I drove an hour and the guy ghosted me when I showed up in his town. Don't understand why the other issue is I have been trying to start conversations with three different people selling treadmills. Yeah. In this area, like here in the area and all three have just completely ignored me.

[00:08:48] We'll not respond to my post, but they're, but they're listing is still up on the, on the thing. So they're still selling it. Right. They just, just couldn't be too lazy to delete. And that's what the guy's saying here on the comment, which I agree. That may be what it is. They're just like, yeah, I put it up for sale. I sold it. I don't really feel like going up there and right. Clicking a button to remove it, you know? But if Alan wasn't communicating with the sellers through marketplace, then that would be wrong. I don't know what he means.

[00:09:18] Oh, everything I was trying to do is through marketplace. I'm like going around that to find their profile, then messages on that. No, no. Everything is through, through marketplace. And if I go look at those treadmills, which are still listed and I go, it says, Hey, look, you've had to start a conversation with this person. I'm like, well, I attempted a conversation. A conversation has to be a two way thing. I am not getting the other side from them. So I'm just like, what is it? Is it again? I don't understand. Is it me?

[00:09:48] Is that my profile is alarming to them or something? They don't want to communicate with me. According to your story in these two comments here that this happens a lot. Okay. I think it, I think it's just people are lazy. Yeah. I think they throw it. They put something up online on a whim one day, like, Oh yeah, let's sell this treadmill. Yeah. And then like a few days later they forget all about it. Yeah. And they think ignore ignore it or they've already given it to somebody else or whatever. And there's like, I don't really want to go online and click a button to remove it.

[00:10:17] I think there's a lot of people who just don't take, and I'm one of them sometimes Facebook seriously as a real life thing. You know, it could be like people will say, Hey, John, I sent you this message on Facebook. You never responded. Yeah. Cause I didn't ask you to say, I don't know you. I didn't ask you to send me anything. I'm not looking for that. I mean, I just because Facebook allows, I don't take them seriously. Yeah.

[00:10:42] Somehow go to my website and then you contact me through the proper channels and I will do it that way. But I don't really, it's very rarely do I take it seriously myself. So maybe there's, I don't know. Is that maybe some of it could be, it could be, I really tried to add some legitimacy to myself. I mean, I wrote them. I'm just like, hi, I'm, I'm a professional podcaster with, with Mr. John Reed, actor, comedian. We work together. I know this guy is like, come on.

[00:11:12] I'm legit. Give me a chance here. I just want to buy your treadmill. What if you bartered with him? I'll give you how, however much money you want for the treadmill and free mulch. I could definitely give them free mulch. There's a whole story there. Have you tried marketplace for the mulch? Uh, no, I have not. So John's referring to the fact that I have a, uh, front yard right now that, um, We had a tree fall down. It's a pretty, it's a pretty yard. My wife has done an amazing job in our yard.

[00:11:41] Honestly, the other day when I told you your yard looked nice, I wasn't even referring to the mulch. Okay, good. But then you brought it up. I'm like, oh, that's right. But there is a giant mound of mulch piled up in the middle of my yard because I had a very large tree, like 150 year old tree. Yeah. Uh, that cracked right before Thanksgiving crack split down the middle. Yep. It was threatening to fall. If it just leaned a couple more inches, it was going to fall on my house. So I had to have an emergency tree crew come out and take it down. And, and they grounded it up.

[00:12:10] Of course they asked me at that time, they're like, what do you want us to haul all the, the mulch that we grind up out of the way? They said, it'll be like another, you know, $300. I'm like, nah, I'll take care of it. It's like, I got this. Just leave it. It's mulch. Somebody's going to want the mulch. I'll use some of the mulch. I'm going to put a sign out in the yard. Hey, free mulch. Help yourself. And, uh, I did that. And by God, there's still just this giant mound of mulch in my yard. I cannot get rid of. You know, it's funny.

[00:12:39] It kind of looks like now, because it was a bigger mound at one point. Yeah. It kind of looks like it's part of the landscape and if you just put flowers in it, I thought about that. You know, uh, I told, I told Suzanne, like, you know, up in Virginia beach, we used to go visit a Mount trash more, which was like a place where they just took trash. It was like a trash dump and they just built it up into like this like big, uh, area, like park. They made a really good grass and soil all over. Like they've shoved trash into the ground.

[00:13:09] Oh, wow. And then they built a park on top. I'm like, honey, we could totally do this. Just, just, we, let's just make it like a big mound in our front yard. We'll put grass on it and we can shove trash into a hole in the back of it. And well, you can have your own mulch more Mount mulch more, not mulch more. It's just, you just keep, just plant things in it. But yeah, I mean, it kind of reminded me too.

[00:13:33] Like remember, uh, uh, bugs, bunny, coyote road runner, all those. I think it's mostly road runner. Okay. Well, he was trying, the coyote was trying to trick the road runner and he'd put like a mound of bird seed and put a sign and it said free bird seed. I mean, you just need some kind of road runner mulch bird to come by. I mean, I had a sign out. It's like free mulch. Help yourself.

[00:14:02] I think I even put please on one of the signs. Like, please take this. I think my neighbors are getting so annoyed by me because not only have I had wooden signs with painted free mulch on the front, just like sticking in the front of my yard for a while. But I've also been like selling and working as selling a bunch of cars lately for a whole another story. I forgot about that.

[00:14:29] So every week there's been another car like with a for sale sign sitting in the front of my driveway. I'm like, guys, I'm sorry. I don't mean to turn this into, you know, it'd be the funniest thing ever. Was that someone listening to this who has a good sense of humor and a lot of time on their hands? Yeah. Were to somehow find out where you live and just one day you woke up and there's a treadmill in your foot. And no mulch. No mulch. Mulch is gone. Treadmills in its place. And we never know who it is.

[00:14:57] And it's some, one of the dudes in the marketplace somehow. That would be fantastic. It's a clean swap. I will swap a mound of bulge. I've got sitting in my front yard for a treadmill. I used treadmill does. I don't need anything fancy. I really don't care about any bells and whistles on it. It just needs to press a button and it turns rotate. I would like for it to do a little incline up and down. That's, that's the only requirement I've got on it. But are you trying to do it like a gym area or you want to make like a walking desk type situation?

[00:15:26] No, I can't do the walking desk. This is for my gym area. I have a home gym. I turned our unfinished basement into like just my little gym that I don't use as much as I should, but it's nice knowing it's down there. Yeah. And I can at least refer to having a home gym, which was really the whole point is just to be able to tell people I have a home gym. This I created. Yes. And now you have a Lanai. I have a Lanai. Yeah.

[00:15:54] I was surprised you knew what that was when I said the word. I got married in Hawaii the first time. That's right. When I moved, when I lived in California, Hawaii was right there. Yeah. And my ex at the time drug, I mean, drug me to Hawaii too many times. Like she loved it. Andrew Killian lived in Hawaii for a long time. I didn't know about that. It was a high school friend of ours. So yeah. One of the, uh, when I visited Andrew for the first time, we stayed in his Lanai. In the Lanai.

[00:16:24] We stayed in it. I wonder if many people knew, I did not know what a Lanai was before I built one. Yeah. Um, we had a, the house we, uh, we own right now that we live in is a 1950s style house and it has a carport, like a two car carport connected to the house, which we're like, well, we didn't use that because we have a separate two car garage, a separate building, right? Well, we don't need the carport and we're not going to park the cars in the carport. The carport is what you made the little. Yeah. We turned in the Lanai.

[00:16:52] I, uh, I turned it into a screened in porch and my wife painted it and all that. And, uh, yeah, we have a nice, uh, cause that's bigger than some Lanai. I mean, yeah, it was a, I mean, it's a pretty good, it's the size of a full two, two car carport area. Wow. So that is our outdoor area. Uh, the floor, it's concrete. Yeah. It's a concrete floor and she just painted it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I got a TV hooked up out there. I got a, we got a little bar area out there. It's like, uh, yeah, it's a, it's nice. Great.

[00:17:28] I don't want to call it a carport. I don't want to call it a porch. Yeah. It's not a porch. Yeah. So I look it up. Porches and me, my brain in the front. I would think so too. Yeah. Cause you say front porch. Everybody calls this a screened in porch. I'm like, what's not a porch? It's like porches on the front. Yeah. So I looked it up elevated. Yeah. I Google searched it. I'm like, what do you call this? And then the word Lanai came up. I'm like, Ooh, that's cool. That's nice. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. Of course we called it Lanai for the longest time. Cause we never heard it pronounced.

[00:17:57] So we went out telling everybody, look, we got a Lanai. It was like, what the hell are you talking to? We drink a lot. Right. I know. Somebody finally told me, it's like, I think it's pronounced Lanai. I'm like, Oh shit. Okay. Got it. That's awesome. Well, you got a lot going on over there. I can't wait to see that. We like to stay busy. So like I said, my buddy, our mutual friend, Andrew Key and lived in Hawaii. For a while. Mm-hmm .

[00:18:23] And some of the best sleep I ever had was in his Lanai because it was tropical, outdoors. Mm-hmm . He had all these different nature sounds going off. And it rained for like just an hour. Yeah. At one point. And it was fantastic. Wow. Very cool. So you have to spend the night in your Lanai one night. Okay. Which really is going to be awesome because it's screened in. You're not going to get hit by mosquitoes. You'll hear the nature. You'll feel what it's like. Yeah. And you'll still be in your house.

[00:18:53] I mean. You'll still be in our house. Yeah. I mean, I cannot wait to sleep outdoors in my own backyard when that time comes. But I know I'm going to get killed by mosquitoes because I don't have a screened in. Do you like, what's your whole status on sleeping outdoors? Like camping. Yeah. Tents. Just sleeping outside. I mean, what's your take on it? Seriously. The only, well, not the only, the worst part about it is the tent getting down onto the ground. Yeah.

[00:19:23] At this age. Oh, the lowering of your body down to the ground. Yeah. Okay. I'd rather, you know, when you get in bed, it's, it's raised. Right. It's kind of like a, it's a lateral move. The bed is made for us to just easily. Kind of lean over. Wop over into it and it's right there where you go. Yeah. But when you're camping, you get, you got to get down on the ground, you know, unless you got like a little thing that you bring, which I would, I don't camp that much, but I do enjoy the sounds of nature when I'm outdoors.

[00:19:52] Like, I guess I could just open a window in my house. I was going to say, I kind of get you the same effect. Right. But I haven't, I haven't done that yet. But you're looking forward to the idea of maybe on your back porch or deck. Yeah. Like falling asleep. Yeah. Outside. Just to look at the stars. Yeah. Do that whole thing. But yeah. We haven't talked about AI yet. That's true. We haven't. Yeah. Hey everybody, this is artificial. No, hang on.

[00:20:21] Absolute ignorance, which makes sense. Yeah. I mean, we definitely lean more into the ignorance part. So. But that's fine. This is what we do. We get to, we dabble. We choose whether or not we're going to go there or not. Um, but yeah, I, I am looking forward to doing some sort of outdoors under the stars thing and looking up at the sky and you know, that whole thing, but you know, it's what is it? As I'm talking, it's April the 3rd. Yeah. You're kind of losing a little bit of time there.

[00:20:49] I mean, you've got, I mean, it'll get obviously warmer, but at some point it's going to get too hot. There's a lot of rain too. Yeah. Rain, rain sucks on that. So. Yeah. All right. Well, let's, let's talk some AI stuff because I think we need to. And, uh, you know, I think every time we get together and we talk about AI, we, we typically find some person's career that we think is no longer needed because of AI. Yeah. And I think that's still kind of the path run.

[00:21:16] I know we talked about counselors using AI as kind of a, like a little bit of a personal counselor, therapist. Yeah. I'll admit I've, uh, I've dabbled a little bit more in that. So, just the idea of, uh, you know, I've been doing a lot of things. Yeah.

[00:21:46] Yeah. I've, uh, I've, uh, I've had to kind of have him, uh, count, console me on a couple of a couple things lately where I like use him as a sounding board as a counselor to kind of give me some, some feedback on what I'm feeling or some, some maybe doubts or concerns I'm having. And, uh, I gotta say, John, it was, uh, it was pretty good. Was it, um, the advice or just the tone or just the empathy or was it, um, it's, I mean,

[00:22:16] it was a little bit of just the whole package and that it's not that any advice he's giving me as any like revolutionary advice, like, Oh my God, I never thought of that. No, it's all pretty. It's what, I mean, look, if you can, if a, if a, if a, so I came up to you, John said, okay, I got this issue. I got this problem. You know what things to kind of just say boilerplate things to say, they may not be the most insightful, but it's just something to say. Yeah. Like, uh, yeah, my condolences. If you go to a funeral, you know what to say. Right. Exactly. Three things you get.

[00:22:46] That's kind of what AI is doing. It's like, it's giving you the basics. It's like, all right. Yeah. Here's what you should be thinking. Hey, you're, you're doing great with whatever you're doing. And you just need to kind of get on this and focus on this. So I wish it was a little more critical. You know, I kind of need somebody to be like, Hey, look, dude, right. You suck at this. Like, don't do this again. Like I, I, I kind of need that kind of feedback. You need like a bill Parcells football coach.

[00:23:15] Oh, could we, you know what I mean? Like, uh, well, who's the meanest Lombardi? I don't know. Like these hard old school red iron football coaches that were just mean. I mean, I was in the basketball world. Get Bobby Knights, personality to be in there and just kind of berate you. Yeah. Do you remember when they had the, um, it was a little bit of a thing for a while. I don't think anybody uses them anymore. We're in your car, the navigation system.

[00:23:45] They had some ways where you could like buy somebody's a celebrity voice to do all the navigation. Yes. Yes. I remember. So you'd have like Samuel L. Jackson, like barking out and navigation instructions to you. Right. I don't, I think we need to get to a point where if we're going to use AI as kind of a, our confidant as our sounding board, as our, as our like little mock therapist, I want to, I want to have a voice. Yeah. Somebody like attached to it. Yeah. Why, why did that go away?

[00:24:13] And why can't we use it for AI? I mean, I remember, so I did the show called redneck road trip. Right. And I think it aired once or twice on TBS or, you know, outdoor channel or whatever it was. But those people that crew, we rode around in a van together and this guy had a GPS, the old Garmin thing. Yeah. And you could download and he had Gary Busey. Oh, yes. It was great.

[00:24:43] So why can't, why can't Gary Busey go? Well, I'd like to also opt into lending my voice to an AI counselor. Right. I mean, you already did it once. What's the, what's the difference? I'll tell you the, probably the little bit of the difference or a little bit of the, the, the challenges when you're doing the navigation stuff, there's like probably only so many words and sentences and phrases that you got to be able to have that, that person record. Right. Now here's the difference.

[00:25:12] That was back in the time where we weren't able to recreate people's voices with AI. You were actually having to get Samuel L. Jackson going in a studio and recording, go left, turn left here, you know, wait three minutes or go three stoplights and then turn right. You had to have somebody recording all that. Nowadays though, we can create those voices for any celebrity and have them say whatever you want. So that's, we're at a point now where we could totally do this. So yeah. So the, yeah.

[00:25:40] So Gary would have to not only, well, it'd be less work for Gary Busey because he was, he would just have to say, yes, you can use my voice and I don't have to come in there and do anything. Right. But how does he get paid? Is it a one-time fee? I think it's, I mean, yeah, that, you know, there was a whole deal with, uh, Scarlett Johansson. Do you remember that? That was a kind of a, a big thing where chat GPT was going to roll out a voice. Yeah, that's right.

[00:26:09] That sounded a lot like her. Her. They asked her first. They asked her and she said no. And then they kind of did one anyway that sounded just like her and they got into trouble for it and they got some back and forth on it. So that's a little bit of the issue is, I mean, the celebrity has to endorse or get paid or sign off on having their voice turned. But once they do that, it's fair game. You can totally create their voice and we could have our AI friend, our AI friend, our

[00:26:37] AI chat bot sound like any person we want talking to us. Yeah. Um, I mean, the last time I went into chat GPT to try and do an image of myself, because when it first came out, I was doing a lot with discord and, and what was it called? Um, the one bit bit journey mid journey. Yeah. And I would be like, I wanted it to like, I would go to X or Twitter and go like, what's trending? Okay.

[00:27:05] So it looks like, um, kites are trending, whatever. And I go like, Oh, uh, create an image of John reap flying a kite. And then in, uh, you know, uh, Clayton, North Carolina to promote a gig. I was going to try and do all of that. And then whatever image it would create of me does not look like me. It was a redheaded person with a beard, but it wasn't my face.

[00:27:32] And for legal purposes back in the day, that's what it was, but I haven't tried it again. And I know they're updating it all the time. Can it be more accurate if with my face, if I give it permission, shouldn't that be something that we could do? I think there's a way to do that. Yeah. Um, I don't know for sure. I've been playing with your, your face on, on chat GPT lately. Yes.

[00:27:59] So chat GPT rolled out a new, uh, new upgrade. You know, they keep updating this chat. I know there's a whole bunch of other chat AI bots out there you can use, but I mean, chat GPT is still kind of like, it's the Mac daddy one. It's the one I still use. It's the OG. Yeah. It's the one I'm in every day. It's kind of the main one that I think is getting the innovations a lot quicker to it. So they've rolled out some updates where they have new image generations where it used to be

[00:28:29] you'd have to go to like mid journey or some of these other places, John, to get a image made. But chat GPT will do it inside of chat GPT. Now you can just say, create an image of this and describe it and it'll create the image for you. Um, and you can upload images, upload photos. And that's what I've been doing. So I've uploaded photos like of you and said, Hey, turn this photo of John into like a cartoon style or an anime style or whatever. And it does it. Okay.

[00:28:59] And it works really good. So plus you can have it create original images. So you can say, all right, uh, I want an image of actor comedian, John Reed. So it's going to have to go online and figure out who you are and see you. Yeah. Yeah. And now make it an anime style or make it a, uh, like a 1950s comic book strip style. Yeah. And it's totally doing it. It's like really good at these styles. Have you seen all these people putting pictures online?

[00:29:26] Like, you know, Facebook, Twitter, whatever of their themselves in anime style. Like it's called studio. Get Ghibli is like, I mean, I know that's a big deal. Yeah. Not a recent. I've seen a lot of them. Yeah. It's like a lot of people are starting to do it just because they can go on chat GPT and say, make an image of me. That's in this style. And I mean, it's pretty good. It looks just like the, uh, it's like, you know, these movies that, that, uh, Japanese, uh, anime movies. Yeah.

[00:29:56] It's in that style. So, yeah. Yeah. I saw one, uh, I generated video of soup, like, um, Superman, the league of the halls. It was at the, all the characters from the Superman universe, whatever that is, the hall of justice, hall of justice. We're walking on a sidewalk and bump into a guy and the guy goes, and then he turns into all of the very popular. I don't know them. Anime superheroes. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:30:24] Like whatever they are, you know, and then it was like a fight between them. Nice. But, but that's probably because of that. That's trending right now. It could be. Yeah. Yeah. Because basically chat GPT, that is one of the new photo styles that you can request. Yeah. Is it's called studio Ghibli. Ghibli. I think it's G H I B L I. I believe it's a Japanese movie studio that has made a lot of famous anime movies over decades.

[00:30:52] And that's kind of the idea is that that's the way it looks. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, I, it's just, it's been fun. I mean, I'm still amazed at how much I'm using chat GPT right now on a daily basis. I'm wondering if, if I give you a project, if you could either do it right now or figure out the best way to do it. Okay. For example, I'm going to Clayton, North Carolina, Clayton, North Carolina, which is right next to Raleigh. Yes.

[00:31:19] Uh, one of the celebrities from Raleigh is a guy named Clay Aiken. Clay Aiken's from Raleigh, not Clay Aiken's not from Clayton. Correct. Okay. Anyway, that being said, I wanted to produce an image of me and Clay Aiken on stage together.

[00:31:39] Like I want to do this campaign where I'm pretending to have the city of Clayton renamed, uh, Clay Aiken or vice versa, where I'm trying to get, uh, Clay Aiken to change his name to Clayton Aiken. Wait, that would sound better. Yeah. We got to get Kevin Bacon and Clayton Aiken together.

[00:32:08] That just sounds, that just rolls off the tongue. No, that's just great. Very good. All right. So you're saying you want a photo of you. Yeah. Actor, comedian, John Reed with, um, I'm going to say American Idol. American Idol winner. Winner. Clay Aiken. C-L-A-Y-A-I. Clay Aiken. Yeah. On stage together. Yes. Doing what? Like, like, uh, performing. Just see what it does.

[00:32:39] Because it knows I'm a stand up and it knows Clay Aiken is. All right. Well, we're going to, uh, I just requested it. So let me, we'll see what it does. I don't know. I'm curious. Every, every week when I hop on here, I'm always kind of intrigued by what I can now do that couldn't do a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. So we'll see. I do notice it is, it does take a sweet little time on generating photos. So it's going to be a few moments here, but we'll, it is working right now on something. I just want to see what it does. Yeah, totally. And I know this is an audio podcast.

[00:33:08] We're not gonna be able to show what we're doing, but if it looks good, we'll put it up on somewhere. So we're on a, why don't we, why don't we really utilize my Twitter or my X account for this. Okay. For this show specifically. Yeah. You know how the other show it's mostly YouTube. Yeah. We'll make this with mostly X. Okay. This will be an extra. Cause we can really use the hashtags. Yeah. Hashtags.

[00:33:32] So if you're not on Twitter or X, get on it and then follow me at John Reap, J O N R E E P. Alan's making faces. I'm not looking at his screen, so I have no idea what, what this thing is. No, it's so it's generating. It's a, it's like doing a line at a time. Old school. Like dial up internet. It's, it's very weird what it's doing, but I think you're going to be intrigued by the results. Okay. I'm just going to say that. I think. Here's another thing. Which clay is it choosing? Cause.

[00:34:02] Oh my God, John. Clay Aikens had some surgery. Oh no. I'm nervous to look at it. Okay. It's not perfect, but my gosh, actually it is the closest. This I've seen. Okay. It's almost done. It's almost done. I'll show it to you. Well, there's something in here with a joke. Okay. Cause here's another thing. Now, while you're looking at that, just think of this. Clay Aiken is a political dude. Like he ran for like mayor or something. Was it Raleigh?

[00:34:32] I don't, I forgot what it was, but he's in the political world. Right. Okay. I have pretended to run for mayor of Hickory. Yeah. Um, so if we start a campaign, that is something that's political. I'm trying to connect dots. So how can we create a meme or an image or a video or something to where I'm trying to get Clay Aiken to change his name to, to, to, to forget that he's from Raleigh and focus on Clayton. So Clayton changes name to Clayton Aiken.

[00:35:01] I think it'd be funnier. Maybe, maybe we pretend that is his full name and he just goes by clay. Maybe his full name is Clayton. I mean, it could be already. Right. I mean, Clay, Clay is short for Clayton, right? Is it? I think so. But it's clay. I mean, is clay short for anything? Yeah. Why would you name yourself? Clay? Clay. Just, you just like silly. I feel really bad. I've got an entire family. No, I seriously, I got an entire side of my family. Last name, or first name? Last name Clay. Last name, I'll give you the last name. I mean, last name's cool. Yeah.

[00:35:30] You're saying first name Clay is kind of. Well, cause that's a choice that you've made. It's true. It's got to be. You're stuck with your last name, but if you purposely name your first name, your child first name Clay. Just Clay. Yeah. I don't like that. But I know some Claytons. I think you're right. I think it's short for Clayton. I know some Claytons. Yeah. No, we're going to, I got to look up. All right. But you want to see this photo really quick? Yeah, of course. Okay. Look, let me just preface this real quick. I just got, cause I know you, John, and I got to set you up for something here.

[00:35:59] Um, I don't think you're going to be completely enamored with your look in this photo. I'm never am. Okay. No matter what. No matter what. But I will say for a photo realistic, this is a real photo is generated. Okay. Not like a cartoon. Yeah. I mean, it is you. I absolutely know it's you. Oh my God. And does Clay Aiken, does he wear, uh, like suit and ties? Sure. Yeah. He does. He does. Okay, good. Well then, here we go.

[00:36:26] Here's the photo of you and Clay Aiken as generated by AI. What is it? Tell me before I look at it, what you typed in. The prompt was, um, exactly. I said, create a photo. And I did say photo. So it's not a drawing or a animated thing. It's a photo. Got it. Of actor comedian, John Reap with American Idol winner, Clay Aiken on stage together performing. Okay. Okay. I'm ready. Are you ready? Here's the photo it generated for you. Oh my God.

[00:36:55] It's pretty good, right? Wow. It's pretty good. That is. What's different about. Yeah. It's got my beard. Yeah. It's got my mouth. I think it's the forehead. The forehead a little odd in your, your squinting eyes are not quite a little bit off. Yeah. But I mean, but somebody looking at it just on first glance, they would say that's John Reed. I need this picture. Okay. We can, I'll send it to you. Now.

[00:37:24] So you already have this. Yeah. Now you can download it. It's yours. It's mine. It's yours. I mean, it's ours. We just generated it. Chad GPT just gave it to us and said, here, have this. That's pretty good. And this is Clay Aiken, by the way, after his surgery. Oh, I mean, he's had a lot of plastic surgery. I'm not familiar enough with Mr. Aiken's surgery. So this is post surgery. You're saying they pulled the, by the way, I'm not making fun of Clay Aiken. I want everyone to know that. Yeah. I think Clay Aiken, number one, is a great singer.

[00:37:53] Number two, he's very smart. And I only know this because he's been on Adam Carolla's podcast a couple of times. Okay. And he was on Celebrity Apprentice with Adam Carolla. Okay. And that's how they became both. Ah, that's how it is. And Clay Aiken totally surprised a lot of people with how smart he actually is and how into, you know, politics he is. But anyway. He's a North Carolina guy.

[00:38:23] So he's good by that too. Yeah. Anyway. That's pretty good. Look, everybody's got the right number of fingers too, which I know that was a thing with chat GPT is it was generating weird images with weird number of fingers on people, but I'm counting five fingers on your hand holding a microphone. Mr. Aiken also have five fingers on both hands. Everything looks like in good proportions. I mean, it looks like it's a good photo. I honestly, if I glance at this at first glance, I'd be like, yeah, this is real.

[00:38:52] John and Clay were on stage together. At the Clayton Center. At the Clayton Center in Clayton, North Carolina. Now, can you have, can you say, have John Reap eating bacon looking at Clay Aiken? All right. You have to give me a second, but if you went up, if you went up, talk here and entertain our audience, I'll do this. Today, as you're listening to this, it's Friday. My show in Clayton, North Carolina is Saturday.

[00:39:21] So we have time for the listeners that be you to come up with a funny meme of me utilizing Clay Aiken, Clayton. I like bacon. It rhymes. I like the fact that we're trying to get him to change his name to Clayton. Maybe it already is Clayton. I don't know. Somebody be very creative with this and let me know.

[00:39:50] Maybe you could use AI because we're just using chat GPT. Maybe you have another one that we're not familiar with that could do a better job of all this. And in the meantime, because I really want to find out. I'm going to type in Clay Aiken myself and I just want to know because it'll take me to his Wikipedia page most likely. And I want to know what his whole story is. All right. Clayton. Is he from Clayton? No, no, no.

[00:40:19] His full name is Clayton Holmes Aiken. So it's a natural connection. You just got to get him connected with your show and Clayton. That's his name. Right. His name is Clayton. All right. So we're, we're happy. So now I got his natural born name was not just Clay. Right? Yeah. We're, this is good. We're happy with this. I'm happy with this. I'm not mad at his parents for naming him after silly putty. But, and by the way, putty, isn't that a name too? That's a Seinfeld character.

[00:40:48] That's a putty. Is it putty? No, didn't they have? No, I know who you're talking about. It's the, uh, was it putty? Putty. I think it was. Putty buddy. I think you're right. We need, uh, Clayton Aiken. I need, I need someone to reach out to Clayton, to Clay Aiken. I want him to be aware of me and know that I'm close to his town and that I want to brainstorm

[00:41:14] this idea of him running for mayor of Clayton. I think it would be great if the Clayton mayor's name was Clayton or we name, rename the Clayton center, the Clayton Aiken center. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That rolls up. I'm just, I'm obsessed with this idea. No, I mean, it's, it's all the stars are aligning in one point and you got to grab ahold of this, John. Right. I mean, this is an opportunity.

[00:41:41] And I'm just because bacon rhymes and Kevin bacon is a funny sounding name. I agree. All right. So are you, are you wanting to see a photo of you? I asked chat GPT, uh, create a photo of actor, comedian, John Reap eating bacon while sitting on stage and watching American idol winner, Clay Aiken singing on the same stage. Yeah. Okay. Great. Okay. We got that. Yeah. Now here's what I'll go and tell you. I've already, half the images rendered.

[00:42:10] I'm seeing it halfway. Okay. Okay. Chat GPT made a couple of choices in generating this image. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Okay. Your hair looks a little more like what I would expect John Reap to look like. All right. Um, you're eating bacon. Got it. Maybe not the most flattering shot of you eating bacon. That's okay. Okay. But here's the choice that chat GPT made. Clay Aiken is sitting just a couple of feet away from you on stage. Okay.

[00:42:40] He's sitting on like a stool, I guess. I think you both are on stools. He is singing into a microphone. So he is performing in this photo. Clay Aiken is also holding a piece of bacon, which I did not tell jet GPT to give Clay Aiken bacon, but it did because it felt like, I guess if you're sitting there eating bacon, it would be awkward if Clay Aiken was not also eating bacon. Yeah. Yeah. I can't just, otherwise it looks like he's a novelty and I'm just watching him like a, like Michael Jackson eating popcorn at a movie.

[00:43:10] Yeah. Yeah. Or it looks a little, it would look a little weird if Clay also did not partake in the bacon. Okay. So here's the photo that, uh, I was referring to, and this is what we got again. You're not going to like your look, but it's anyway, they got a few things, right. Few things wrong. Here we go. There it is. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. I mean, the face of you is not as, not as good. It's hard to see the bacon in front of my face.

[00:43:38] The bacon is kind of color as my true beard. You have to kind of assume that you're eating the same thing that Clay has in his hand because Clay has a clear piece of bacon in his hand. I mean, can you just, I mean, you can literally go in there and go like, say, say something to the chap and you're like, that was great. Can you make the bacon in John Reeves hand a little farther away from his face? I mean, can you adjust it that way? I can tell it to take the same photo and just make it. That's what I mean.

[00:44:07] Like, so I want to say, all right, take the same photo. Oh, that's funny. Take this while you're doing that. Yeah, I'll give you a little bit about Clay Aiken's political. In 2014, Clay Aiken ran for the United States House of Representatives in North Carolina's second congressional district.

[00:44:27] Initially considered a novelty candidate, Aiken won the Democratic primary but lost to Republican incumbent Renee Elmers in the general election. In January 2022, he announced a run for the Democratic nomination in the fourth congressional district, but he lost in the primary to Valerie Fouché.

[00:44:53] But he has a passion for the political world. And perhaps he could give me pointers when I do decide to run for mayor of Hickory. Some do's and don'ts. Because I've been told that the mayor is not a political, it's not a party thing. It's sort of, what do you call it? It's not Democrat. It's not Republican. It's nonpartisan. Nonpartisan.

[00:45:23] Yeah, mayors I think are supposed to be nonpartisan. Right. So it should be. It's like a cheerleader. Yeah. Okay. So I have asked JPT, I said, take this exact same photo. So I want to be clear. I like the photo. Right. I want you to use that. But please make it to where we can clearly see the bacon strip in John Reap's hand as he is about to place it in his mouth. That's what I'm looking for. Yeah. I want to see the bacon, but it's not quite gone in your mouth yet. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:45:53] Okay. I like that. Like you're eating it. My mouth might be open. Right. Yeah. The bacon's going towards the mouth. Mm-hmm. We know you're about to eat it, but we can clearly see it's bacon. Right. Everything else I hope it stays the same. Is it working on it now? It is working on it right now. Or does it already come up with it? Okay. It's doing it. That's pretty fast though. Yeah. That's pretty good. And I didn't know that you just had to write the word photo. Yeah. If I said make a picture. It could be a drawing. It could be illustration. It'll do what it wants. Whatever it wants. If you say a photo, photo is like, okay, I got it. That's real.

[00:46:23] That's a real thing. I like that. That's good. I have a question while we're rendering this photo. And I just noticed I did this. When I typed in this prompt to chat GPT of what I wanted, I used the word please. Like I asked it please to do something. Yeah. And now question, like why did I do that? Well, it says a lot about you. Okay. You just have good manners. Yeah. Number one. And while, yeah, you didn't need to. No.

[00:46:53] But I wonder if it'll consider that in the future. Like if it treats me kind of nicer because I used her. Yeah. And occasionally I'll even type in thank you. Maybe we'll give you two photos, you know, for the price of one. Maybe we'll give you duplicates. But yeah, that just says that you're, you know, it's more about you being a good person. By the way, did you know, you cannot spell Aiken without AI. I'm spinning it back to the subject matter, the podcast at hand.

[00:47:23] Yeah. A I absolute ignorance with John Reap and Alan Jackson. So my first attempt to get this re-rendered photo, Chad GPT did come back and say I wasn't able to generate it with the visible bacon strip due to an error during the process. If you'd like, you can resubmit it. So I'm trying to do that. It just says there's an issue processing edits to the existing image. As a workaround, it says I can generate a new image from scratch showing John Reap on

[00:47:51] stage holding a strip of bacon near his mouth while Aiken singing in the background. Would you like for me to do that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, yeah, sure. Let's do that. Okay. So it's having problem doing the exact same image with an edit. Maybe that's what it is. Yeah. Okay. All right. That's good to know. Good to know. There are still some limitations we're dealing with. Interesting. Yeah. All right. Okay. All right. Well, it's just, it's taking a moment. That's okay. Yeah.

[00:48:20] It is rendering at this time now. I'm getting a new photo. I'm going to go on X right now and find Clay Aiken. Okay. So that when everybody is listening to this who wants to participate in my campaign, I'm going to go ahead and follow him. He's got 196,000 followers on X. He's verified. Clay Aiken, at Clay Aiken. Alan is laughing very hard at something.

[00:48:48] I can't see the image yet, so I don't know what's happening. All right. We're going to put all these online, right? I mean... Yeah. Oh, we have to. I mean, we have to. Yeah. All right. So... I'll put these on my Twitter page. Okay. All right. Well, here we go. Oh, yes! My nose is a little big. Yeah. Not bad. It's not bad. I would ask it to put a hat on me, but... Oh, yeah. But that's good. That's a way better picture than the one.

[00:49:17] That is definitely closer to you. It's got... You got a little more baggy wrinkles around your eyes than you do naturally. Yeah. Like in the photo you do, it generated. So what I'm going to... But you are eating a piece of bacon. You are in mid bite of a bacon strip while Clay Aiken is singing right behind you on stage, singing his heart out. Oh, yes. Now, okay. What song would Clay Aiken be singing in this photo?

[00:49:48] Hmm. What are some popular songs about bacon? I mean, is there any? I mean, I know that Kevin Bacon has his own band called the Bacon Brothers. Yes. A song's about bacon. There's one called Bacon in My Beans by Joe Mullins. Hmm. Bacon by Nick Jonas.

[00:50:17] Nick Jonas has a song called Bacon? Yeah, apparently so. I didn't know that. First off, I'm not quite sure who Nick Jonas is. The Jonas Brothers. Were there three brothers? Three brothers? Yeah, they were like... Yeah, I think in the early 2000s, the Jonas Brothers were like the new sort of like, you know, boys to men or something. I don't know. Hmm. All right. But Nick Jonas, he's kind of went on his own. He went solo. Yeah.

[00:50:47] And he has a song called Bacon. Apparently. Um, I'm going to try and find it so we can hear it. Yeah, I'd like to, I'd like to hear this song. Because maybe that's what I'll say. Has Clay Aiken ever covered the song Bacon while John Reap is eating a piece of bacon in Clayton with Clay Aiken? Oh, this is an old episode.

[00:51:16] Oh, I was gonna say, I heard myself. I'm like, am I in this song? Here it is. Oh, no, that's not it. No, I was gonna say, I already hate this. No. No. Okay, I was gonna say that. That's not. I hate that already, but no, I did find, I did find the song Bacon by Nick Jonas. Is that what you're referring to? Yes. Okay, here. Okay.

[00:51:49] Hmm. I hate this too. Yeah. It's featuring Ty Dolla sign. But how do you weave the word bacon into this song? Hmm.

[00:52:18] This sounds like an AI song. Throw some bacon on it because she's so hot, like a skillet. Okay, so that's... So they're trying to say that bacon... Throw some bacon on her. Yeah. Like I'm gonna put bacon on my girlfriend. Yeah, because she's so hot. Because she's so hot. Yeah. That is... Alright, that may be one of the dumbest songs I've ever heard. Um... Already. Yeah.

[00:52:48] Okay. I mean, why call the song Bacon though? Like, okay, I get the line. The line's in the song. I put some bacon on it. Eh, it's kind of funny, whatever, I guess. But you call the song bacon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's nothing... It sounds like a song trying to be sexy or whatever, but that's a song called Bacon. When I think of bacon, I think of a fat pig. Yes. And I think of just gluttony, cholesterol. Yeah. I think of a good flavor, but... I don't think of a Jonas Brother.

[00:53:16] Yeah, I don't think of hot, steamy sex. No. Like the opposite, I think of with bacon. Yeah. But I mean, obviously he's found a way to... He's found a way to get off on bacon. More power to him. That's great. That's great. Doesn't that sound like an AI-generated song? It did. I mean, it sounded like... It did sound fake. A generic thing. Like John Heffron will create these random songs all the time about, it's date night,

[00:53:45] come see John Heffron, and it's a perfect date night thing. And he said date night in there. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. Anyway, we didn't get far enough in the song to hear a Ty Dolla sign perform. No, we'll have to get back to him. No, we're fine. I think we're good. Apologies to Ty Dolla sign. Yeah, we'll circle back on that later. If that's how it's pronounced, I'm not sure. Bacon.

[00:54:10] All right, so you're gonna try to contact anybody that can get Clayton Aiken to acknowledge your trip to Clayton. Yeah. Possibly weave in some bacon. I wonder if he's on Cameo. Can you look up to see if Clayton Aiken is on Cameo? Because if he is on Cameo, I can pay him to say something about Clayton. And Bacon. And Bacon.

[00:54:43] I mean, I love bacon, by the way. I mean. No, I do too. I'm not knocking bacon. How? I just. Right. The song was doing no. We don't want big bacon coming after us. The song was doing no justice to the joy of bacon. Yeah. So. All right. I'm on Cameo. I don't think he's on there because it didn't come up in a search, but let me just check one more thing. No, he does not appear beyond the Cameo network. So. Yeah. I can't make him do it. Yeah. You can't.

[00:55:11] Can't make him to make him sing bacon about Clayton Aiken. Hmm. Now, now, now I'll do this. Yeah. Since we're using AI and we're about to wrap this one up. I'm kidding. Yeah. But if you were going to chat GPT and say, write a song about John Reap performing in Clayton

[00:55:35] with Clayton Aiken about bacon. I don't know if you were to type that into the prompt. It'll write a song. Will it not? I think we can get it. I mean, it'll write the lyrics, but it won't create an actual melody or will it? I don't know. There are some apps that do. Look, I think that's going to be our homework. Okay. So let me write this down. I just want to make sure. Because I don't want him to sing it, you know? Right. I'm going to, I'm going to work on this like right now.

[00:56:02] So you want a song that is about Clayton? No. Or do you want it like a song? You want it in style. It's about John Reap. It's about John Reap. Performing with Clayton Aiken. Okay. In Clayton. But what about bacon? How do we get bacon involved? Bacon's got to be featured somehow. No. Just a, how about John Reap and Clayton Aiken eating bacon in Clayton? Okay. That's the song.

[00:56:33] So the song is. It's about us eating bacon. Okay. You, you and Clay Aiken. Clayton Aiken eating bacon. Yeah. In Clayton. North Carolina. North Carolina. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever that. In the style of Clayton naked. Right. Okay, good. So I was going to say, we could be a song much like a song that Clayton would sing. This is what AI is for, by the way. It really is.

[00:57:00] This is why, this is what most people are going to do with it. All right. That'll be. All right. We're going to circle back on that when we get back together. I will. I know you will have already played in Clayton. Yeah. Cause you're going this weekend, right? Yeah. I'll be there Saturday night. All right. If I can get it to do the song before you go, I will send it to you the song. Okay. But we'll definitely follow up next week and let people know what we came up with. And you can let me know how it played for you in Clayton. Gotcha. This weekend. Clayton's number one song, by the way.

[00:57:29] I mean, I've just typed it in. Yeah. Song called invisible. Just, just so you know what his tone is, because it's really on American Idol. You seeing other people's songs. Yeah. I pretty much hate that too, but. Yeah.

[00:57:59] Oh, I've heard this song. You have? Oh, invisible. I thought you said invisible. No, I've, I've heard that song. Invincible. I don't like it. Yeah. I maybe like it a little bit better than bacon I was hearing earlier. Yeah. Yeah. But it's a close, it's a close, close race between the two. Well, there we go. There we have our homework. Our listeners have their homework. We will post these pictures on my Twitter slash a. X. At John Reap. Yep.

[00:58:29] At J O N R E E P. Go there, follow me. Uh, I will do always hashtag absolute ignorance. And then I'll put definitely these pictures up. Yes. We need to share, share these cause these are good. Yeah. These are really, really good. Okay. All right. All right. Sounds great. And, uh, thanks for, thanks for most. Thanks for Alan Jackson. And thanks for you for listening and, and subscribing and rating and reviewing and sharing.

[00:58:58] Until next time. I'm John Reap saying goodbye. You demand John Reap.

[00:59:25] You've been listening to the mesh and online media network of shows and programs ranging from business to arts, sports, to entertainment, music, to community. All programs are available on the website, as well as through iTunes and YouTube. Check us out online at the mesh dot TV. Discover other network shows and give us feedback on what you just heard. We'll see you next time. Bye.