569 - Making Things Happen, Create on Command, Changing Direction with Asher Perlman

Creative Pep Talk - Andy J. Pizza

In this episode of 'Creative Pep Talk,' host Andy J. Pizza sits down with acclaimed cartoonist and writer Asher Perlman to explore the art o

Key takeaways

• Creative flow can sometimes lead you to places you no longer want to be—recognizing this is crucial for growth.
• Circumstances like job loss or creative block can serve as powerful briefs that guide your next project.

Main topics

• Creative flow vs. intentional creation
• Navigating career transitions and creative burnout

Notable quotes

"My life is not in shambles. It's now, it's now, it's now." – A mantra inspired by a lyric from Yoni Wolf.

Conclusion

This episode is a powerful reminder that creativity isn't just about inspiration—it's about discipline,

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:04) The Speaker 1 (0:05) city moves fast, but your vibe, that's different. Sharper, smoother, more alive. Speaker 3 (0:15) The new Speaker 1 (0:20) Honda City isn't just made to drive, it's made to feel. The new Honda City, all new vibe. Speaker 5 (0:29) What do you do when going with the flow goes wrong? Speaker 2 (0:32) Go with the flow. No, I gotta get out of the flow. Well, then get out. I'm in the flow. That's what got me here. If Speaker 5 (0:38) you're creative, you probably love the flow state. You're probably open to experience. You like just seeing what comes to you next. That's a great way to live. I try to live in that state as much as possible. However, sometimes going with the flow goes wrong. Sometimes you find yourself in a circumstance where... You were flowing and then you hit a dam, you hit a brick wall. The work that you want to do is no longer possible. The opportunities aren't coming your way. You don't enjoy it anymore. There's a whole bunch of reasons why going with the flow can sometimes take you to places that you don't really want to be. What do you do when you get to that spot? Today on the show. We have a phenomenal cartoonist, Asher Perlman. You most certainly have seen his work all over the internet. So funny, so poignant. Just a huge fan of this guy's work. What you might not know is he was also a writer on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He's been in comedy for a long time. That's been kind of his journey. He had a best-selling book called Well, This Is Me of his cartoons. And we had a blast today. We started conversing on the internet because we have a shared love of the band Y and Yoni Wolf, the guy who does all the music for the show, arguably my favorite band of all time. He's been on the show a couple of times. Asher's also a fan. We geeked out over that and decided to record an episode. And in this show, I think there's just a lot about the power you have to kind of make things happen, to be creative on command, to shift gears. in your creative journey when necessary, when the circumstance calls for it. And so this is just such an inspiring chat. I could have talked to Asher forever, for forever. I hope that he comes back on the show sometime. So much stuff to geek out about. Stick to the end of the episode for our CTA, our creative call to adventure. It's called Product of Circumstance, and it will help you make decisions on what to take action on next. And it might be a different take on that than you've heard before. So stick around for that. And it's based on this conversation. For now, let's get into this great chat full of all kinds of really interesting takeaways, I might say. I'm going to be thinking about this one for a while with Asher Perlin. Speaker 2 (3:00) It's easy to get lost, but don't worry, you'll lift off. Sometimes you just need a creative pep talk. Speaker 4 (3:20) The Speaker 1 (3:21) city moves fast, but your vibe, that's different. Sharper, smoother, more alive. Speaker 3 (3:31) The new Speaker 1 (3:36) Honda City isn't just made to drive, it's made to feel. The new Honda City, all new vibe. Speaker 6 (3:45) There was a song, I found a song. So I love the band Why. And if your listeners don't listen, they actually do because they just heard, either they're about to hear or they did just hear a song from Yoni. Speaker 5 (3:58) Yeah. And all of our music is Why. And if you've listened to this show for a long time and you've never, you know, taken the step to listen, I'm judging you because I give them a shout out every, at the end of every episode. I'm always like, he's been on the show a couple of times. Speaker 6 (4:13) Well, this is your wake-up call. If for some reason you've slept on it all this time, please take the chance to listen now. But I love WOD and I've listened for a really long time. And then all of a sudden I found this song of Yoni's that I didn't know about because it wasn't a Y release. It's something he did on James. Speaker 5 (4:33) A caster. Speaker 6 (4:34) Yeah. It was a musical album. I don't think there was any comedy to it, unless I'm wrong. Speaker 5 (4:40) No, it's just, it's called Temps. And it's like, it was like his COVID project, which you kind of, I mean, you have a similar story, except his didn't really, his music career didn't really blow up or anything. Speaker 6 (4:53) Well, it blew up in my personal space because I found the song Slow Return featuring Yoni Wolf. And there's a line in it that I just really loved. I asked him to make sure, you know, I asked him if it was cool. Then basically made an illustrated version of it. And it is literally something that I say to myself, not every day, but most days. I think I do still think about it most days. Speaker 5 (5:19) Will you say the lyric? Speaker 6 (5:21) Okay, if we're okay with me possibly misquoting it, it's basically, my life is not in shambles. It's now, it's now, it's now, each of which I can handle. Which is a very, very, you know, Buddhist, you know, the present moment is all we have, that kind of thing. But for some reason, the way he... phrased it just really hit me and it's it's it's like a comforting mantra yeah Speaker 5 (5:40) it's great he's such a great lyricist how did you get into why do you remember oh Speaker 6 (5:45) man it was i mean i feel like it was in college maybe i'm trying to remember when like elephant eyelash came out maybe or alopecia i can't remember what album it was and uh my buddy lauren bauhorn shout out lauren bauhorn um brought it over and just played it and i was like oh this is so good and then i think i went to There was another anti-con artist in town that just happened to be in town that weekend. So I went to a concert and then just got really into that whole world. The anti Speaker 5 (6:13) -con thing, yeah. I was really into it in college as well, and I still am super into why. I was thinking about it today, and I was thinking, they have a super great diehard bass, but lots of people don't know about why. Most of the time when I ask someone about them, they don't seem to know them. I mean, their SEO Speaker 6 (6:31) is so fucked. Speaker 5 (6:32) I know, man. I like them and I can't Speaker 6 (6:35) find them. Speaker 5 (6:36) It's very true. It's like, man, it's a great band name, but not for SEO. Definitely not. Speaker 6 (6:42) It was like when I, when I, there was a movie called Asher and it stars the actor Ron Perlman. And when that movie came out, I became approximately impossible to find. I think, I think since then I've, I've sort of like, you know, beat out the Ron Perlman Asher movie, but. Yeah, why has God changed their name just to make it easier to find? Because again, I'll literally Google like, why the band or whatever, and it's still like, it's like autocomplete. It's like, why is the band, you know, the Beatles so popular? And I'm like, Speaker 5 (7:12) no, that's not what I'm... That's not it. Yoni Wolf has maybe better SEO. But I think Speaker 2 (7:16) I Speaker 5 (7:17) have two, there's two illustrators in my industry that had this happen to them. I'm hoping because I took the name Andy J. Pizza, that'll never happen to me. But... There's a guy named Mike Perry who's a really renowned illustrator. And then some UFC guy came along and is Mike Perry. And so now it gets flooded with that. And there's a guy named Stephen Harrington that after Stranger Things is just like flooded with Stranger Things, Steve Harrington stuff. Oh, Speaker 6 (7:44) my gosh. Speaker 5 (7:45) It's a weird like job hazard that you really can't – there's not much you can do to prevent it. Speaker 6 (7:51) I mean you have such a great name. I feel like you're safe because – I mean, hopefully I'm not, I won't ask this just in case. I mean, is pizza your actual name or did you, okay. So you go, you go by Andy J pizza. You picked the perfect name because like, that is just like, I remember seeing that in my inbox and I was like, Andy J pizza. That's a great. Speaker 5 (8:13) Listeners have heard this a million times, but I just took the website. I'm Andy J. Miller. My old website was andy-j-miller.com, which is a ridiculous website. And when they got .pizza instead of .com, I just made it andyj.pizza for the ease of that. And then everyone thought that was my name. And I was already like halfway through my career and I was like, all right, whatever. Like I have books with my old name on it and everything. And this is like, yeah, whatever. I'm not tied to Speaker 6 (8:37) my name or Speaker 5 (8:37) history or whatever. And it's kind of worked, I think. Speaker 6 (8:40) That's so funny. I just found out that Albert Brooks, do you know Albert Brooks, Albert Brooks's birth name? Speaker 5 (8:46) No. Speaker 6 (8:48) I swear to God, his Albert Brooks's birth name is Albert Einstein. Speaker 5 (8:53) And he was Speaker 6 (8:54) named after I should confirm this, but he was named after Albert Einstein was famous. Like this wasn't like, you know, being born in 1990 and being named Michael Jordan or something. Speaker 5 (9:03) Oh, my God. Speaker 6 (9:04) But he was like, well, Albert Einstein was had already written like his his his main work. Speaker 6 (9:12) It Speaker 5 (9:12) also takes a certain kind of parent to name your kid that because you're like, look, you're not going to be a great, you're not, this isn't going to be a problem for you. Okay. The best thing about you is going to be this name. It's going to be kind of, you know, it's going to be funny. Speaker 6 (9:25) Basically. Speaker 5 (9:27) That's hilarious. That's crazy. You should also litter this whole chat with fake facts that I'll go look up later and they're completely untrue. I Speaker 6 (9:35) played two truths and a lie with you this whole time. Every third one, but you don't know which of the three. There's Speaker 5 (9:41) a Speaker 6 (9:41) lie embedded. Speaker 5 (9:43) That's a great idea. One of the things I was thinking about is you were a writer on Colbert all the way to the end, right? Speaker 6 (9:50) Yes, sir. So until two and a half weeks ago or something? I Speaker 5 (9:54) was going to say, it's been a weird month for you then. Speaker 6 (9:57) You were catching me at a very strange time in my life, for sure. Speaker 5 (10:01) I thought that might be true. Are you going full time doing your thing? looking for other jobs or like, what are you doing? Enjoying your time off? I Speaker 6 (10:09) think all of the above, I guess. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm pitching things. I'm submitting myself for other, other staff writing gigs. And in the meantime, I, you know, I still draw every day and I have some, some other book ideas. Yeah. I don't know. I, I actually, I mean, I lived at this gear for a long time, the sort of freelancing gig to gig gear. I, so I know how to, I know how to, how to drive at that on that, but. It did take me a second. The first week where I was unemployed, I was like, oh, wait, I have to make my own schedule. Right. Okay. I remember how to do this. And then it's like coming back to me, the freelance lifestyle. Do Speaker 5 (10:47) you feel like you're in the center of a hurricane of a cultural moment because of this? Like, I just can't imagine being on the show at this time, especially like when it first hit that it was going to. go off air and all of the kind of controversy around that. What did that feel like? Speaker 6 (11:09) It's so hard to know in this algorithmic age whether or not what I'm seeing is representative of culture writ large because my feed became 100 % stories about the late show. Mine was too, and Speaker 5 (11:24) I don't work there. Okay, okay. I can say, yeah, it was a big deal. Speaker 6 (11:27) That's a good control group. But it was really weird to be... you know we we've covered the news for years that was the job so we would follow follow the news and it really was strange to be the news for for a brief period of time yeah it was weird i mean i think i was a little insulated from it because it wasn't my name on the building but i can only imagine for him that was even even more surreal but Speaker 5 (11:51) you must feel a little bit like forrest gump or something where you're like going through these You're going to have this crazy history of like being there right in the moment. Speaker 6 (11:59) Yeah. It's a crazy thing. Yeah. I'm going to bring ping pong to America. That's Speaker 5 (12:04) your next thing. That's the Speaker 6 (12:05) first thing. You're going to Speaker 5 (12:09) like reinvigorate ping pong. How about that? That could be your next thing. Speaker 6 (12:13) Exactly. Speaker 5 (12:14) Do you, so most people know you from your cartoons. Did you draw a lot when you were a kid? Speaker 6 (12:22) I loved drawing as a kid. My dad is an artist and specifically he loves cartooning and painting, but he doodles a lot. And so from a really early age, I was exposed to it a lot and I really liked it. And I think it was something I did sort of, you know, in my free time, basically until high school, I think is kind of when it stopped. But when I was in elementary school age, I was making my own comics and I actually found some old cartoons from that era that are all dog shit. But, you know, cute. They suck. Yeah. How stupid was this seven-year-old trying to be funny? What a moron. But, yeah, no, I always loved it. And just consuming it, I also loved consuming it. I mean, you know, all the classics. Speaker 6 (13:14) Farside, Calvin and Hobbes, Foxtrot, that kind of thing. Speaker 5 (13:16) You know, having done a little bit of homework, did you stop drawing then? Because you were homeschooled or unschooled. Did you stop doing art when you went to school? Was it correlated to that? Because you went to school in like 11th grade, right? Speaker 6 (13:32) I did. That's so funny. I never thought about that. I wonder if, well, I did. I mean, I took art classes in high school. So I guess maybe I lied to you before because I kept drawing. Okay, Speaker 5 (13:41) right. Speaker 6 (13:43) Yeah. All right. First fact check of the day. And you take a piece of Gabi now. Boom. Gotcha. All Speaker 5 (13:48) right. That's number two. Definitely not Albert Einstein. That one's definitely not real. And we got the second one that you definitely didn't quit drawing in high Speaker 6 (13:55) school. You're so right. Because in high school, I did explicitly take art classes. I don't know what I'm talking about. Speaker 5 (14:00) Oh, really? Did you stop doing cartoons then? I think that's Speaker 6 (14:03) probably. Yeah. Okay. Because I think we mostly focused on painting and. It was like an art studio class. We did painting and metal work and sort of a bunch of random things. I don't remember drawing as part of it. So I think that's what I was thinking. So there was truth in the middle of the lie. Okay. Speaker 5 (14:21) Because I will catch you. Speaker 6 (14:22) Yeah. I know. I know. I know your style. Gotcha, Journalism at its finest. Yeah. Speaker 5 (14:27) That's my whole thing. Were you like into comedy as well when you were younger? I think a lot of – I didn't really know how much. comedy was a huge part of your journey. I had discovered you through your cartoons. Obviously, they're a type of comedy, but I didn't really know anything about your comedy journey. Was that something that also came from childhood or did it happen more as you got into society through high school and that kind of thing? Speaker 6 (14:55) I mean, I was definitely exposed to a lot of it when I was a kid. I mean, my dad really liked the... I mean, well, he liked like the Marx Brothers, that kind of thing, which makes me sound like I'm 65 years old. Speaker 5 (15:07) Love the Marx Brothers. Speaker 6 (15:08) It was old at the time he liked it. But so, yeah, I really I really enjoyed it. And I really enjoyed making my family laugh. I have a twin brother and we would basically looking back on it, annoy everyone. But in the moment, what it felt like was entertain everyone. Speaker 5 (15:25) Yeah. Speaker 6 (15:27) Reflection Speaker 5 (15:27) out there. Killing. Absolutely. My God. Speaker 6 (15:32) Please. Speaker 5 (15:32) One more show, okay? One more. Speaker 6 (15:37) But I think and then, I mean, I obviously loved like SNL, that kind of thing. And then when I