Episode Transcript
Don Mock 0:20
Alright episode 89 We’re back Rob. We’re back coming in hot.
Rob Broadfoot 0:24
We’re back.
Don Mock 0:25
Alright, so in the last episode, we made a reference to the very popular KISS song. Let’s put the X in sex and we’re going to clarify What the deal is.
Rob Broadfoot 0:34
Yeah, on our own. I said in that podcast that I thought that Cuyler father had done some sound work on that song or that album or something. What we found out is that his father was the assistant audio engineer on the track. Lick It Up
Im sorry, the entire album Lick it up
Don Mock 0:55
Which is we were kind of right and kind of wrong.
Rob Broadfoot 0:57
Yeah it’s no makeup album.
Don Mock 0:59
It’s the first no makeup album.
Rob Broadfoot 1:00
That’s right.
Don Mock 1:00
Okay we’ve come to find out that let’s put the X in sex is not from that album.
Rob Broadfoot 1:04
Right. Right. So I think we were alright. We’re alright.
Don Mock 1:07
Yeah, I mean, what’s confusing about it is that song let’s put the X in you know, is actually the first single on a greatest hits album Smashes, Thrashes and hits. However, that makes no sense because it wasn’t on any other album so that I then realized that
Rob Broadfoot 1:24
I think we need further investigation on that one, I feel like but anyway, enough about KISS.
Don Mock 1:29
Yeah, but still, it’s pretty badass that Cuyler’s dad was an audio engineer.
Rob Broadfoot 1:34
It’s crazy.
Don Mock 1:35
So I think it was recorded up in New York
Rob Broadfoot 1:36
It was a big album. I mean, that was a big album
Don Mock 1:40
For saying that we’re not KISS fans. It seems like we talk about KISS a fair amount.
Rob Broadfoot 1:43
Well, I mean, they are marketers.
Don Mock 1:46
Yeah well, that’s a great point. That’s great, you know, I’m gonna slap a logo on it and sell it baby. Alright, well, Episode 89. We’re back. Enough about KISS. What we’re going to talk about Rob?
Rob Broadfoot 1:58
We’re gonna take a little trip overseas.
Don Mock 1:59
Yeah, let’s do it. I’m excited about that.
Rob Broadfoot 2:01
So I just got back from a wonderful. I’m gonna call it my belated honeymoon, canceled the first one. And so we just got back from a lovely, lovely vacation to Italy where we spent a few days in Rome and toured all the things and then went over to the coast and spent some time there just sort of relaxing.
Don Mock 2:26
Why don’t we put a bunch of your personal photos on our company Instagram and let everybody see the magical place
Rob Broadfoot 2:31
We absolutely can. I’m okay with that. As long as I can pick which photos we share.
Don Mock 2:36
No, I’m joshing here.
Rob Broadfoot 2:37
No, it was a great trip. And as anyone who has been to Italy. The immediate for me anyway, just the history. I mean, just the art and the history and the culture. And man, it’s all
Don Mock 2:51
It’s old, things are old there.
Rob Broadfoot 2:52
They’ve been doing stuff for a long time.
Don Mock 2:54
Yeah, I mean, you go into Europe, and you see some keystones on some building. It’s like, oh, eleven 23. And you’re like, wait a minute
Rob Broadfoot 2:59
We are a nation of newbies here, noobs. So anyway, one of the things that I so like I said, we spent the first few days in Rome, and we toured all of the things we did the Vatican, we did the forum. We did the Colosseum, we did the catacombs. And one of the cool things that we did was the, the Basilica of St. Clements And let me preface this by saying I’m going to butcher some of the names, butcher probably the story. So, just know that I know I’m butchering.
Don Mock 3:32
Well here’s the good news. I’ve pulled the numbers and our subscriber rate in Italy is not very high so I don’t think anyone’s going to be offended.
Rob Broadfoot 3:40
Alright, well, good to know. So one of the things that we did, and my wife really wanted to go see, I didn’t know much about it, going into it. But now I see why she thought it was so great was the basilica at St. Clements. Right? So it’s a church and it’s a church in three layers, meaning it’s a church on top of a church on top of another church. Why would that be? That’s crazy. Why would they do that? Because they’ve been around forever. So they originally built a church. Well, that collapsed over time. And then What the Romans do is just build stuff on top of stuff.
Don Mock 4:14
Yeah, it seems a very normal thing, I guess, in history is to just oh, it burned down or something. But then to just do it all over again in exactly the same spot.
Rob Broadfoot 4:24
And a lot of the reason that they do that is because they wisely use the foundation. So the thing crumbles, but the foundation is still there. So they follow, If you look at the overlays of the three different churches, the foundations are very much the same. So that’s What they did. So it’s this great, just sort of amazing church that you can walk into and then you just sort of drop down two floors and just sort of see historically
Don Mock 4:54
Yeah, so version one crumbled version two did it crumble as well? There was a fire in there?.
Rob Broadfoot 4:58
Fire. There was a fire was a car
Yeah that’s exactly right
Don Mock 5:02
Alright so how much because we’ve got a three layer sandwich. How much of the base bun and the next level?
Rob Broadfoot 5:10
it’s kind of exactly What you think. Right? Meaning you go all the way down in the basement and there are a couple of rooms that are preserved pretty well, where it’s like, oh, wow, I can like, there it is. I can see the benches where they sat and the whole thing
Don Mock 5:23
That’s insane
Rob Broadfoot 5:24
But then you walk through to other places, and it’s there’s part of a wall or there’s part of a mosaic that was left.
Don Mock 5:29
Okay. And do we know when the first one was built? Version one was built or?
Rob Broadfoot 5:33
do we do. It was a long, long, long time ago. I hesitate to put a number on it, it was a long time ago. So any who, one of the things that I thought was fantastic was within this Basilica. Way down low is the first iteration of the written Italian language along with a piece of art, So it’s a piece of artwork that has written Italian language. And it’s the first written Italian word
Don Mock 6:10
I love this
Rob Broadfoot 6:10
That they know of, and you’re gonna love this because it’s sort of the story again, I’m going to butcher it and apologies, apologies. But the story was St. Clement was in a battle and he convinced his enemies that he was a piece of stone and he talked them into fighting this piece of stone to distract them while he escaped which is a crazy story in and of itself, a little misdirection.
Don Mock 6:40
Hey, everybody, I turned myself into a piece of stone, meanwhile, I’m sneaking out the back door.
Rob Broadfoot 6:48
So he was called the martyrdom of St. Clement. So Sicinius I believe is his name. He instructs the servants to drag St. Clement who is convinced as a piece of stone off wall, so St. Clements can get away. Well, so you’ve got this..look it up or we’ll post a picture of it. It’s this lovely, it looks like your comic book panel in a way. Very old, old old comic, first edition
Don Mock 7:11
Okay. Those ones are worth money.
Rob Broadfoot 7:14
And these guys are dragging this column that they believe to be st. Clements and so there’s dialogue written right beneath it. And I’m not going to try and say it in Italian cause I’ll butcher it beyond belief. But the very first written Italian word along with the artwork was pull you sons of bitches.
Don Mock 7:34
Love it.
Rob Broadfoot 7:34
Love it. It’s pull you sons of bitches Mario, Alberto, get in there with the pole is the full translation. And I was dying. Because inside I’m still a 12 year old kid. At the notion that my wife does not like curse words and I’m like, sons of bitches. I’m like, Babe, the very first written Italian word was sons of bitches. It was a curse word.
Don Mock 7:56
That’s fantastic.
Rob Broadfoot 7:57
And she just immediately put her palm to her hand. Yeah, I was like, I know you’re gonna get home and tell Ian and it’s gonna be the greatest thing ever. And I still chuckle about it. But it was so cool. I’m making light of it. But just to see and try to fathom, like, as old as that was that they were depicting these scenes with Art and Writing, funny dialogue, but interesting dialogue to go along with this picture
Don Mock 8:25
Yeah, well, I mean, if you study the history of graphic design, you know, there is a tremendous, it coincides, obviously, with Gutenberg and movable type and the printing, and the first thing we print is the Bible. And so, you know, so there is a whole, but before all that it was all illuminated manuscripts, illuminated Bibles, and it really was okay. I know, not all of you guys can read, right, to your point about a comic, but It’s like, okay, Here’s the page of all the writing, this is What the scripture is telling us or what the writing is telling us. Right, What the prose is and then okay, Here’s the painted picture that you know, it’s a see say you know what I mean, Here’s actually what’s happening, oh we’re slaying the dragon, or we’re doing that or whatever the case may be. Right. So it’s interesting that this has survived. And is kind of get a chuckle out, the profanity of the story.
Rob Broadfoot 9:11
And that was the other thing that I thought was so cool was like going through the Vatican and everything else and learning about the different Pope’s and learning over the years and over the centuries and learning about each of their personalities, so you not only got just sort of the history and this Pope did this or did that but you got to see their personalities come through and some of the relics and the artwork and the tombs and stuff that were left behind, same holds true with the artists Raphael and Michelangelo had this great sort of dueling personality. One of the things that was funny too, was one of the I forget which Pope one of the Pope’s was buried in 19. Or sorry, 1491 and on his inscription At his tomb, he’s celebrating discovering the New World. A year before it was actually discovered, so he was this pompous sort of arrogant. You know, clearly they were planning the expedition but he just went ahead and claimed it.
Don Mock 10:14
Yeah, he’s like I did it, under my watch.
Rob Broadfoot 10:17
He’s like I discovered under my watch.
Don Mock 10:18
That’s fantastic.
Rob Broadfoot 10:20
So you get to see, you know, I thought that was really cool is through all of these things, whether it was the catacombs, whether it was the museum’s whether it was, you got to see sort of the personalities of these people come through even in Pompeii, and those guys partied in Pompeii, let’s just say that.
Don Mock 10:37
I don’t know a lot about Pompeii to be honest, I mean, I know it’s a topical
Rob Broadfoot 10:40
There was a lot of wine drinking, I mean, it’s Italy, the people of Pompeii were incredibly wealthy, majority of them so some of the old houses that you see are huge and I’m talking big by today’s standard. Like this one, I mean, it was probably 4000 square feet and then in the back, he had a vineyard, they had like their own vineyard, so they’d make all their wine. There was a lot of phallic, a lot of phallic art going on in Pompeii, a lot of phallic signage.
Don Mock 11:13
Yeah. Well, I think you had mentioned something about the brothels or
Rob Broadfoot 11:17
There were brothels
Don Mock 11:19
And if you want to talk about the universal symbols, right, I can’t read but I See what this is
Rob Broadfoot 11:26
I can’t read but If I see a wiener, a pointed wiener on a sign, that would direct you to the brothel. But I think also to just going back to like, and that was the other thing too in Pompeii was like, as old as that was the mosaics on the floor. I mean, even the floors it’s just the most intricate, unbelievable mosaics, you just think about the time again, that sense of time, and like how long it took these people to do this work. So so many years ago, and it was just incredible.
Don Mock 12:01
Yeah, it gives you, you know, you don’t really understand history until you go over to Europe, you know, and then there’s a little bit of a cynic in me that says, hey, What we do for a living is commercial art, you know, and we are work for hire, you know, I mean, companies hire us in order to execute their vision, right? Or to help them solve a communication challenge or an objective or to brand something, or advertising is the power of persuasion. How do we convince somebody that our product is better, or newer or whatever, you need it. You don’t even need it, but it’s our job to make sure you know you need it. Well, a lot of that’s You had mentioned Raphael and Michelangelo, and a lot it is the building is the client, you know, What I mean? Or the church is the client, they’re the employer, you know, What if it’s a, hey, I want a painting of this, I wanted this or that, you know, and that’s who pays the bills, you know, and a lot of the subject matter, and a lot of that stuff, you know, associated with a lot of those artists at the time was okay, hey, I mean, again, it sounds a little silly, but it’s like, Hey, I’m paying the bills by doing this, but I’m also doing all these other things on the side hatch. And that’s why we consider some of these artists, these great Renaissance artists, you know, but it’s like, okay, well, you’re still working for your client.
Rob Broadfoot 13:12
Yeah, no, Raphael was very much paid to come in and paint the apartment of the Pope In the upper thing, and I’m more of a Rafael fan I think than Michelangelo, it’s just my personal preference. I like his style a little bit better.
Don Mock 13:28
You may be swayed when you go back and you go to Fidenza and you go up to Florence and go to the, you know, the Michelangelo Museum and you see all of
It’s pretty incredible. I mean, it’s pretty amazing stuff, but hey, Raphael is not bad if you’re gonna pick a Ninja Turtle, Raphael is a great ninja turtle.
Rob Broadfoot 13:54
Well, I love that they were telling this anecdote our guide was telling us about how Raphael was very. So Raphael and Michelangelo, were working at the same time and same building, right. So Raphael was very warm and inviting. And when. Hey, Michael, yeah, come look at my work in progress. Check out What I’m doing now. Well, it didn’t go the other way. Michelangelo would not let Raphael see What he was working on.
Don Mock 14:16
Interesting. He covered it up with drapery and things
Rob Broadfoot 14:18
He covered it up and like wouldn’t like No, no, no, no, come in. Yet, in Michelangelo’s work, you see a lot of Raphael, like the figure in the way that he did some of the shapes. There was a couple of like, on the big ones, he poached a little bit of the sort of human form in a few places.
Don Mock 14:37
Interesting. Little shortcuts
Rob Broadfoot 14:39
Little shortcuts or a nod to someone who was doing great work. I don’t know. Yeah, who knows.
Don Mock 14:44
But imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It was the AI, it was the AI of the day. It just copied what’s happening down the hall. So yeah, it’s interesting to think about, sort of commercial art and In that respect and just the longevity of that, right and the timelessness, if you think about it, from a design perspective, a lot of that stuff is just timeless, you know, I mean, it’s, it’s as beautiful as it was back then. Now we do have the beauty of science and artistic preservation, so, but it’s pretty remarkable, pretty awesome stuff.
Rob Broadfoot 15:21
It’s just so intricate. Like, and again, you think about, like, the amount of time that it took to do these things.
Don Mock 15:28
Mind numbing, right?
Rob Broadfoot 15:29
It’s crazy. We were talking in the office the other day when I got back about the one the Vatican and the writing that’s around the top, up in the cupola is actually it’s eight feet. The letters are eight feet tall, and it’s all mosaic. And it took them, they stalled out because it took 80 years, just for that part of it. Think about that. 80 years, an entire person’s lifetime. Yeah.
Don Mock 15:54
A couple generations, right?
Rob Broadfoot 15:56
Yeah, just for that one 8 foot tall stretch of thing. I mean, put that into perspective.
Don Mock 16:02
Yeah. Can you imagine working on one client your entire life, Rob, and then just your part of it and then training your kid Hey, come to work with dad. We’re gonna cut some glass. We’re gonna make some mosaic letters. You know What I mean? And then uh, you’re gonna kick the bucket, and then your child is taking over for you. And that still doesn’t finish the project. Right?
Rob Broadfoot 16:25
Yeah It’s just really remarkable.
Don Mock 16:27
Yeah, it’s pretty cool. It’s pretty cool. What’s amazing to me, too, for those that have been there is to the cupola, to your point is the distance right? You see it from the floor, and you’re like, Wow, that is incredible. You know, it is, I mean, not necessarily photorealistic, but it is absolutely unbelievable, from an artistic value. And then you go up there. Yeah. And you’re like, What the
Rob Broadfoot 16:47
It’s like wonky and imperfect
Don Mock 16:49
The mosaic got grout lines as wide as your thumb, you know What I mean? And it’s like, well, you can touch that? Like how did this survive? Like, What in the world is happening here? Like, how did they do all this is really remarkable.
Rob Broadfoot 17:03
Yeah, and the scale I mean, it’s true, the scale of everything over there is remarkably ginormous.
Don Mock 17:05
It’s awesome. It does give us a really good appreciation for history and it’s interesting to think about how fast we are you know, like Oh, Amazon is gonna take a day to give me my such and such you know,
Rob Broadfoot 17:23
Those same day delivery?
Don Mock 17:24
Yeah, yet. We’re talking about 80 years on an eight foot tall letter so it’s pretty remarkable. So you know, but we turn client work so quickly
Rob Broadfoot 17:35
Right. There you go. Yeah, we’re like the opposite of that.
Don Mock 17:41
That’s interesting. Well, I can’t wait to hear more stories.
Rob Broadfoot 17:45
Yeah, I could ramble on and on
Don Mock 17:47
Yeah, we’ll do another one. We’ll do another one. Anything else for this one?
Rob Broadfoot 17:51
I don’t think so. Let’s leave it there for right now.
Don Mock 17:54
Ok. Cool, where can everybody find us?
Rob Broadfoot 17:56
Oh, they can find us on the internet of course mocktheagency.com or on all the social networks @mocktheagency.
Don Mock 18:03
Let us know your favorite Renaissance
Rob Broadfoot 18:05
Renaissance. Bye.
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