On today’s episode of Creative Space, we have the pleasure of speaking with Jimmy DiResta, a New York-based designer, builder, and maker who’s often referred to by fans as the “Maker Godfather.” A virtuoso craftsman, Jimmy has been working with tools from a very young age and followed that passion to study and later teach at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City.

His creative journey has taken him from the classroom to toy making (remember Gurglin’ Gutz?) to two decades in television, after successfully pitching his first show with his brother, “Trash to Cash.” (His latest TV show, “Making Fun,” is currently available on Netflix and we cover the origin story for that as well.)

Today, he inspires his two million YouTube followers to make and create for themselves, with behind-the-scenes footage of his day-to-day work.

Apart from getting a glimpse into Jimmy’s life before television and YouTube, we cover so much ground, including the impact of technology on creativity, Jimmy’s process when it comes to creating content for social media, and the importance of maintaining a childlike curiosity in creativity and in life.

For more on Jimmy, visit: jimmydiresta.com and follow him on YouTube at jimmydiresta.

To sign up for the weekly Creative Space newsletter, visit: eepurl.com/h8SJ9b.

To become a patron of the Creative Space Podcast, visit: bit.ly/3ECD2Kr.

SHOW NOTES:

0:00—Introduction

2:45—Jimmy’s literal creative spaces in his life so far

6:53—Growing up in Woodmere, NY

8:10—When Jimmy first started working with tools

9:52—The influence of his dad with carpentry and technology

11:40—Creating content before the digital revolution

13:47—”I want to inspire my audience to make and create.”

15:30—Stepping out of your comfort zone

19:45—Studying (and later teaching) at SVA

28:35—The success of the toy, Gurgling Gutz

32:00—Consistency is the only way you develop an audience.

34:00—Jimmy’s definition of creativity

38:00—Why art is important

40:45—The 3 artists he’d listen to on a deserted island

41:42—What drives Jimmy as a maker?

43:00—His thoughts on the impact of technology on creativity

46:39—On developing content for YouTube

50:00—Sam Jones shoutout

51:15—What’s a typical day like?

55:40—On buying a house with a graveyard

58:15—How the ‘Making Fun’ TV show came about

1:02:00—Jimmy’s first TV show and collaborating with his brother

1:04:00—On starting his YouTube channel in 2011

1:09:00—What’s next for Jimmy?

1:11:00—His advice for creatives

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Jennifer Logue: 0:10

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Creative Space, a podcast where we explore, learn and grow in creativity together. I'm your host, Jennifer Loge, and today we have the absolute pleasure of chatting with Jimmy Doresta, a builder, designer and maker that is known as the Maker Godfather.

Jimmy DiResta: 0:30

Oh boy.

Jennifer Logue: 0:32

For over 40 years he's been making things for a living and teaching people along the way. You may have seen Jimmy on his Netflix show Making Fun, or know him from this massively popular YouTube channel, jimmy Doresta. Welcome to Creative Space, jimmy.

Jimmy DiResta: 0:47

Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here. Thank you so much.

Jennifer Logue: 0:51

Oh my gosh. I had to start off by saying you're so cool. In the process of doing the podcast, I'm getting to explore creativity from different angles. I personally don't have any experience with tools, carpentry, everything that's in your world, blacksmithing out of my wheelhouse completely but it's so cool to see you build anything. You can build everything it's absolutely so cool.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:18

I keep experimenting. Yeah, you know what the way I put it is. If I have a set of skills for one thing or another, I just play a game with myself and see how I could apply that set of skills to some new material or some new process. It's almost like if you could tie your shoes, you could make pasta. If you could make pasta, you could run a dishwasher. If you could run a dishwasher, you could Like that little game of dexterity and experimentation. I just play all the time.

Jennifer Logue: 1:46

Oh my gosh. In a perpetual state of play, yeah, which we need so much in this world. So many adults lose that sense of play.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:57

Yeah, I've been accused of being a big baby, big child. That's a great thing to do.

Jennifer Logue: 2:02

That's something I'm aiming for.

Jimmy DiResta: 2:03

Yeah, I think a lot of people. Sometimes it's not a compliment.

Jennifer Logue: 2:08

Okay, Balance, I guess right.

Jimmy DiResta: 2:12

I'll take it yeah.

Jennifer Logue: 2:15

Where are you calling from today?

Jimmy DiResta: 2:17

I'm in upstate New York. I'm about 30 miles north of Woodstock, new York, about 30 miles to the west of Hudson, new York and about 30 miles to the south of Albany. I'm in a little town called Eastern that nobody's ever heard of, but most people have heard of those other three towns, so that's why I triangulate.

Jennifer Logue: 2:35

Love it. So can you give us, for people who may not know, your creative space? Do you want to give a high level overview of what your space is like?

Jimmy DiResta: 2:45

Yeah, I worked in Manhattan for many years. I started out on Long Island. Well, I went to the School of Visual Arts in New York City and I graduated the School of Visual Arts in 1990. I got right into the toy business In and around 1992, I moved from Long Island because I was there trying to save money for college. From there I moved to Lower Manhattan, East Village, Alphabet City, which we were just talking about.

Jimmy DiResta: 3:07

Then, while I was in Alphabet City, I moved around a little bit. I had a shop in a storefront, then I had a shop in a basement space. At one point we had a shop at ground level inside of a big garage. Then we ended up I might say we, because I talk about my brother and I were mostly working together, oh cool. But my last shop my brother got married and moved out of the city. My last shop was mine alone in the basement of a tenement building. I had the whole basement, which was two tenement buildings combined, so it was a basement that had a step down because the basements were two levels. It was a fun basement, but occasionally the deeper basement would flood with sewage, oh God. So I always had that to contend with. The menators would complain about the smells of welding and grinding and resins and stuff. It was always a give and take, when it could work and how noisy it could be.

Jimmy DiResta: 3:57

A lot of times they'd go up on the sidewalk and make noise. But I was in that space until 2017. Even in around 2004, I bought a farmhouse in upstate New York 40 acres and 12 bedroom farmhouse. Wow, I bought it as an investment where property up here was still very cheap. I paid really good price for it. So I was like you know what? I can swing that mortgage. It's kind of like a second rent. So I was able to keep this house until 2017, when I moved up here full time and gave up all my space in the city. So I've been up here since 2017 full time and up here I expanded into a big shop I built from scratch with some friends who are better at building than me, but I had hired them to do this big barn and if you happen to ever see the TV show Making Fun, that's the barn I'm talking about. It's on the Netflix show.

Jennifer Logue: 4:43

It's really cool.

Jimmy DiResta: 4:44

That's my main workspace. But while that was being built I rented a big shop down the block Really cheap. I rented a shop that was like a rundown warehouse that had been unused for many years. So I got a good rent on it from the landlord because it was just sitting empty and I took it over and put electric in lights and put a new door on it. So I was willing to take a chance and for what I pay for, a 5,000 square foot secondary shop was about half of what I paid for just a few hundred square feet in the city. So location, location, location.

Jennifer Logue: 5:15

Yes, and it's so important to have that space.

Jimmy DiResta: 5:18

Yeah, so I got a big grungy space down the street which is where I just took a delivery with a forklift. That's what I was telling you about. And then the clean spaces in my backyard I call the TV shop in the backyard. I call it sort of like the television studio, because that's where we shot the TV show, and I keep everything somewhat. Although it's crowded now with projects they're going to be out soon. I keep the place somewhat sparsely full just so I could move things around and make room for cameras, because I still shoot my own YouTube channel in there most of the time now.

Jennifer Logue: 5:48

Yeah, so you like to have another space, to just keep things a little bit separated.

Jimmy DiResta: 5:53

Yeah. So I said I've been very lucky. And now me and my business partner just bought a house down the block for a business investment and it came with a big barn. It's a real antique barn, so it's post and beam cool post and beam barn, so I'll probably be shooting some stuff in there for fun. Awesome. I have a lot of places to choose from, which is all stuff I never could have done in New York City.

Jennifer Logue: 6:14

Yes, now you can spread out. That's beautiful, yeah, love it.

Jimmy DiResta: 6:19

So I have the 40 acre farm here on the television shows the best example, because we would do all the silly builds in the big new barn and then we would do the third act of the show out in the grass playing around like a bunch of big kids and you could see that on the show. That's all my property is birds running around, my chickens are running around and we're all having a goofy time in the grass.

Jennifer Logue: 6:39

That's absolutely beautiful and we'll talk about the show a little bit later in the conversation, but you guys look like you're having so much fun.

Jimmy DiResta: 6:47

Yeah, of course we were. It was a summer of 2021. So it was a great time.

Jennifer Logue: 6:53

Awesome. So let's go way back to your childhood. What was your childhood like? Where did you grow up?

Jimmy DiResta: 7:03

I grew up in Long Island in a town called Woodmere. There's a small town called the Five Towns and Woodmere was one of the Five Towns but collectively they called the Five Towns. It's right outside of Queens. I was born in Queens right near Rockaway Beach is where I was born and the town is near Rockaway Beach. So I grew up right outside there and my whole family's from Rockaway and Brooklyn and growing up my dad was a carpenter and a fireman a New York City fireman and a carpenter.

Jimmy DiResta: 7:26

So his workshop was in the basement of our house. So he would be a fireman most of the day and then the days he had off he would do carpentry work for people. So he always had two jobs and I was. Of my two older brothers and my younger sister, I was the one that spent the most time with my dad because I shared the most interest. All of us all four of us to a varying degree have developed skills of building and problem solving through my dad's inspiration, but I spent the most time with him and I took it up the most, and while I was in high school I took on jobs that involved building and making stuff more often than my other siblings. They would take various jobs like restaurants and stuff, but I always try to find jobs that involve building.

Jennifer Logue: 8:07

So when did you first start working with tools?

Jimmy DiResta: 8:11

When I was like five or six years old.

Jennifer Logue: 8:12

Wow.

Jimmy DiResta: 8:14

Yeah, I joking because I'm really good on the band saw and I'm always showing off on the band saw online for fun and I like cutting out letters and lately I've been cutting out little three dimensional animals and having fun with that. And I started working on the band saw and I was like six or seven years old, wow, and most parents wouldn't let their kid near one of those tools until they were young adults. But my dad was. He was not a helicopter parent, he didn't care. He was like, if you get cut, just put some black tape on it and keep moving on.

Jennifer Logue: 8:40

Nice, the toughness.

Jimmy DiResta: 8:42

Oh my gosh, I'm like the opposite.

Jennifer Logue: 8:47

I can't even work the power drill that I bought. I'm working on it. I'm working on it.

Jimmy DiResta: 8:51

Yeah, you can. If you're not confident and you're not, you can get seriously injured. With all tools, even just the kitchen knife, you can get seriously injured. But my working with my dad, I just developed a sense of confidence and a sense of healthy danger and I had a healthy respect for the danger of the tool and holding it in the right direction and my dad also instilled in all of us anticipate what could go wrong. So when you grab something you know with the biggest risk with the drill especially if you're drilling holes is you know the drill could grab and twist and break your wrist or pull out of your hand. You know twist your fingers. So you anticipate. Sometimes drills come with that extra handle and it's important to use that extra handle to keep the drill from twisting out of your hands.

Jennifer Logue: 9:33

Yeah, definitely don't want that happening.

Jimmy DiResta: 9:34

Yeah.

Jennifer Logue: 9:37

And my walls. You know, they look so nice. Right now I'm like oh. So your dad was obviously a huge influence on you back then. Yeah, did you have any other influences when it came to building and craft and Well, it's my child, like curiosity.

Jimmy DiResta: 9:55

I owe it really all to my dad because my dad's still my dad's 83 years old. He's getting a little bit out of there. My birthday was yesterday. He called, he called me. He called me the day before my birthday was April 3rd. So he called me on April 2nd. He said is your birthday today? I said no, it's tomorrow. He said oh okay, the whole day yesterday I didn't hear from him. We texted a little bit and he said happy birthday. And then this morning on April 4th, he calls me and says I wanted to call you to be the first to wish you a happy birthday. I said my birthday was yesterday. So and then I had to convince him that I wasn't kidding with him because he thought I was kidding. So he's getting a little senile, but he's, he's mostly there. But growing up my dad had a really childlike curiosity about most things. My dad was the first person I know to buy a computer.

Jennifer Logue: 10:39

Wow.

Jimmy DiResta: 10:40

I just turned 56 yesterday. So I was around when the computers became a novelty. That suddenly became, eventually became a necessity. So when computers were just a novelty, my dad would go to. My dad went to radio shack and bought a computer and I said, what are you going to do with this? And he was playing games and show me, like all these high, pixelated video games that he was playing and like, look at this. And he was explaining to me what an app was. I was like I don't, I don't, I'm never going to need that. I make things with my hands. I won't need an app to make things on a computer. That was probably 89, 90. But my dad had a computer and it's. He would collect apps and him and his friends would exchange disks full of stolen apps off the, you know, off the. I don't even know how they would exchange. I don't even know if the internet was around then, but they would exchange apps on floppy disks and floppy disks.

Jimmy DiResta: 11:30

And my dad was always proud to show all the new apps he got this one can do that, that one can do that. It was like it was almost very similar to the way like the apps are on the phone now.

Jennifer Logue: 11:38

Yeah, it's so funny too, because you know you're working with your hands now, obviously building things, but then you also do all this content online, so it's interesting how those two worlds have come together for you.

Jimmy DiResta: 11:52

Yeah, I was building things my whole life and then in and around 2000. And I was also always doing photography, taking pictures and collecting video, but not really having anywhere with all to edit it. I never really I, I, I maybe I knew I'd edit one day, I can't remember exactly, but I knew editing was going to be a complicated situation because there wasn't a digital revolution yet. I was shooting a lot of video and I know you could have a video, but I'd really know how to do it. And then Robert Rodriguez came out with a thing with the name of his movie was what Robert Rodriguez came out with a book about just before the digital revolution, or like right at the revolution, about the film he made on VHS and that was inspiring to me. And then, right around that time, Final Cut Pro became available in 2000 or 99, 2000.

Jimmy DiResta: 12:42

And then editing became accessible to everybody. There was digital editing but you had to go rent a suite and you had to go rent an avid. You know, an avid was a computer program that was put up on special computers that you had to go and rent space at, you had to go rent time at, and now you can add it on anybody's pocket phone, but this is 25 years ago. You had to go and know somebody that had access to avid the avid machine, and you'd had to go, and then Final Cut Pro came out and basically put video editing on everybody's and everybody's hands by via Apple. And then, shortly after that, they came up with iMovie, which was a scaled down version of that same app that was accessible to anybody that bought an Apple computer.

Jennifer Logue: 13:26

I still alive movie to this day.

Jimmy DiResta: 13:28

I use iMovie to edit all my movies. I was using Final Cut Pro but there's just so many choices and I'd find myself playing around with spinning a logo and I was like this isn't really I want it to be about the content, and so I stopped using Final Cut Pro just because it was. It was too many choices and then I just became used to just use an iMovie. I can breeze through and edit really quickly in iMovie and it does exactly what I need.

Jennifer Logue: 13:49

Yeah, if it has what you need, you're good.

Jimmy DiResta: 13:52

Yeah, and it's, and the good thing is it's on, you don't have to pay for it. So I could just pull a hard drive and move it to another computer in my house or even at somebody else's house, and open up my movies and still edit, which you know. On a rare occasion and I'm in an emergency situation I have to plug a hard drive in someplace I'm not familiar with and I'm able to open it up and do it.

Jennifer Logue: 14:10

Oh cool, I never thought of that before. So you mentioned a few lessons your dad taught you are there any others that come to mind. Well, just my dad over the years my dad was always just work hard.

Jimmy DiResta: 14:24

Be curious. I mean, he was almost, like we jokingly called my dad, a worker B or worker, and he worked so hard and he almost didn't even know why. He just worked hard just to pay his bills, really. But you know, I'm motivated to work hard because I'm deeply curious about new processes. I want to bring my audience new, interesting things that I make and create and inspire them to make and create and inspire others. But when we were kids, my dad just worked hard just because he was almost pre-programmed to work hard. And that's how we all work, that way, even though we don't all do exactly what I do but my siblings, we all work very hard. And it's funny when we meet people that don't work hard or just like end the day at three o'clock and they just go home and put their feet up and do nothing. I don't know how their brain functions.

Jennifer Logue: 15:11

It's a different mindset. You know, I find when you're doing what you love, it's not even it is work, right, but you put hours into it way beyond a normal job, but you don't feel it because you're like driven by.

Jimmy DiResta: 15:30

It's almost like if you have a love of solving puzzles like I know people that like to make puzzles and put puzzles together, and so they have like a dedicated table in their house and they just spend hours just trying to search for the right piece. I'm the type of person that looks at every bit of work I do as a puzzle, and I'm just constantly solving those puzzles. So I'm getting the satisfaction of solving puzzles and also getting the satisfaction of completing work and creating work, and at the same time, I'm also creating income.

Jennifer Logue: 15:56

Yeah, and inspiring people.

Jimmy DiResta: 15:58

Yeah, and inspiring people, that's a big part. Like this weekend I met with some people. I did an event called the Make 48. It was a TV show that will run on the internet. That was a mentor helping the people. It's a contestant show where people try to come up with inventions within 48 hours and a couple of people that will like ask me because they think I'm famous and I don't think I'm famous the way they do. But they said what is it like being famous? I was like, well, first of all, I don't think I'm famous. But if I was to give into your answer and think that, okay, what's it like being famous or do I like? The question was, do I like being famous? And I said, well, I don't necessarily think I'm famous, but to answer your question in a practical way, it's nice to be able to inspire people.

Jimmy DiResta: 16:39

Yes, as someone that's so-called famous. Because I meet people just like the people I was talking to that thought I was famous. They said they do certain things because I did them and it was all good, wholesome, learning, fun stuff and to know that I'm the type of person that can show how I do something because of my curiosity, because my child like curiosity. And then they do it because they've gotten out of their comfort zone or I've inspired them to not be scared of doing something. And a lot of people are scared to do something different because they're self-conscious, so they might have an overbearing friend or family member or spouse. That's like stay in your lane. People say that all the time to other people. People say all the time, stay in your lane.

Jennifer Logue: 17:19

I've heard that so many times. Oh my gosh.

Jimmy DiResta: 17:24

And sometimes I say that to myself. When you're dealing with interpersonal relationships and you're like, for instance, you know your best friend's cheating on somebody, You're like, stay in my lane, I'm not going to be the one to blow this out of the water, Let them figure it out on their own. Stay in my lane. But when it comes to working and designing and developing things, I like being on a four-lane highway and learning all different things all the time. And it's a big problem for most people that they're in an environment that doesn't nurture that need. So when somebody wants to be that type of person, or somebody wants to stop their computer programming job or at least take a break from it and do woodwork, you know their spouse or their father or their mother might say what do you know about woodwork? What do you know? What do you? Just stick to what you're good at. And that's and I say it all the time it's that particular person who's being the criticizer, it's the critic, it's the critiques personal fear that they don't have the ability to control.

Jimmy DiResta: 18:24

And they think to themselves go, wow, I couldn't do that. I don't have the ability to step outside my comfort zone and step outside my lane so they have to impulsively verbally criticize somebody else that's doing it.

Jennifer Logue: 18:38

To keep them feeling comfortable and safe. It has nothing to do with your journey, your path. It's all about them and their insecurity.

Jimmy DiResta: 18:45

And it's sad because I get young students. They're like my dad wants me to do this, he doesn't want me to do that. And I'm like and I remind him, like he's putting his own fear into you. I mean he loves you and my dad did it to me. My dad, he's like you, sure you want to be an artist, because it was such a blanketed term in the 80s when I decided to go to art school.

Jimmy DiResta: 19:04

Nobody knew what a commercial artist was or even what a graphic designer did. I didn't even know and I signed up for school. I just knew like it felt like the right place to be. He's like maybe you want to take a police officers test so you have something to fall back on. I said I don't know a lot, but I know I definitely don't want to be a police officer. To me, being a police officer is the opposite of being an artist and I was being more compelled to being an artist than being a police officer. I mean, it was something I never wanted to do, but my dad just encouraged it and he pushed my brother John. So my brother John, the comedian actor, he ended up becoming a police officer because he sort of succumbed to my dad's pressure.

Jennifer Logue: 19:39

I didn't he did. So you went. You went, walked your own path.

Jimmy DiResta: 19:44

I did, I did, yeah, happily.

Jennifer Logue: 19:48

So when you were at the school of visual arts, what did you study exactly?

Jimmy DiResta: 19:52

I was in school for graphic design for the first two years and I didn't really know what that meant. But we did foundation year. I think most colleges do a foundation year in most art schools and just get your hand, eye coordination used to sculpting, painting, spatial awareness, composition, art history. You know all those things as foundation stuff. That's important. We took a couple of classes in media whatever that meant at the time and then the second year we stuck getting more into specific classes, like I took a class with a teacher who had designed several packages beer labels, wine labels, potato chip labels, you know like practical things, and then a real deep study of fonts and letter forms and where they became, where they came from and why the popular serifs and serif. You know all this like a deep education on. So that's basically graphic design, commercial art, composition. You know what an editorial spread is and doing blocks of type and blocks of font, all this stuff.

Jimmy DiResta: 20:51

And this was in 86, 85, 86, when you still would get like a photo stat you would have to call out to a company. You'd lay out the spec, the type you want and the columns you want. Now you just drag and your columns change shape on the computer right in front of your eyes and you change your letting right in front of your eyes. Back then you'd have to get a galley, a type galley, which was just a big photograph of all the fonts you needed for that particular layout, which might have been the side of a packaging, and then you'd slice them apart with an exacter knife and stick them on a big board and lay them out exactly how you want. Then that gets photographed and the color gets added in the print process. You know, nowadays you just do it on the computer and hit send and it goes right directly to the print press and they look at, you go oh, they run a two of them and they go okay, it doesn't look right, let's change it again.

Jennifer Logue: 21:34

I wonder if, like just the satisfaction of doing it by hand, some of the magic is lost. Like I know, technology is amazing because it's faster, it's more efficient. But I just noticed if I work too long on the computer I feel a little dead inside. No matter, what I'm doing Like. I always feel more alive if I'm playing music off the computer.

Jimmy DiResta: 21:54

Well, I'm old enough to be able to say I worked doing mechanicals the old fashioned way. I never really had a job doing it. I did it more as a student. So I did it as a student mechanicals. But then right after school I got into the toy business and then I would look at mechanicals. I would look at for people that were working for the toy companies that I was freelancing for. They'd bring in, paste up some mechanicals for the packaging, these big boards, and you'd flip back the cover sheet and you look at where the placement of the photography was and usually there was an envelope in the corner and that had all the proper photography for the printer that the printer had. This whole process. That was kind of secret. He did it.

Jimmy DiResta: 22:29

And then that artist that was doing our graphic design got a computer and everybody in the office was like oh, I can't believe they got a computer. It's going to ruin the design process. And the first couple of packages he brought in it was like stiff and clunky and he didn't have a paste up to look at. He would bring in a printed out thing and we'd like it's kind of it looks a little bit like made on the computer, kind of lost that human touch. But shortly thereafter, once the simplicity and the ease of the computer started to really become aware of the practice, once you begin to practice and you get outside of the computer these sort of rigid constraints you think you're stuck inside of.

Jimmy DiResta: 23:08

And then as you get deeper involved in using Illustrator and Photoshop and you start to realize you could pretty much do anything your imagination will dictate. But getting there is a difficult part because the computer programs are so deep. So in the beginning, when we first made that transition in like 93, 94, the artwork did look a little clunky, a little like a little sterile, almost clinical. But then as we got on like you learn how to put in drop shadows and deepen the letters and outline stuff and then some of those effects got overused too. But then I used to do these walkthroughs in Walmart on my Instagram and I'd look at all the fonts and type and graphic design and I would say like the different tricks used in Illustrator and Photoshop to accomplish that, I mean, my fans always liked that.

Jennifer Logue: 24:01

It's fun.

Jimmy DiResta: 24:04

I'm just coming off a cold, so my throat's a little dry.

Jennifer Logue: 24:07

Oh my gosh yeah, I feel you, I just got over COVID Like it was fun, not anyway, but the pace of some mechanicals.

Jimmy DiResta: 24:17

I'm sure if you speak to anybody that was in between both of those errors, they would tell you that the computer is a lot easier, Cause I could sit on an airplane and design stuff. I could sit in a waiting area and design stuff. I could email somebody a quick what do you think? Here's a screen grab of the direction. I love it. There's no meetings, no heaven send the only airport that exists in the FedEx, and hopefully it comes back without either damage or being lost. So the digital world has really made life a lot easier, I'm sure, in millions of ways.

Jennifer Logue: 24:47

For the mobility alone, you know, and just the ease of just getting things done. What did you do after you went to school? What were your first three jobs?

Jimmy DiResta: 24:57

Well, right after school, right before I graduated school I should say just before I graduated school I took a class called toys and games. I had all the credits I needed. So then it was for me. The last semester was sort of a gravy train. I could do whatever I wanted. I was paying my full tuition so I could pick.

Jimmy DiResta: 25:12

I graduated with like 10, this is so foreign to me now to talk about credits and graduating with soon. But I knew that I can graduate with a lot more credits, cause I was always a overachiever. I just want, I was just thirsty for knowledge. So my last semester I took a few classes that I didn't necessarily need but they seemed interesting. So I took one classical toys and games and I met a guy and then in Mark said at Ducati, and Mark became my toy teacher. I was going to go into three dimensional illustration and that involves anything like prop making, anything where the photograph in editorial or photograph on a print ad is three dimensional stuff. You know, like, for instance, the great example at the time it was all the absolute vodka ads in the 80s and like absolute tennis or absolute this and it was like a 3D model of like. Like I remember absolute Maryland and like the bottle skirt was blown up and all the letters were blown off the bottle.

Jennifer Logue: 26:07

I remember that.

Jimmy DiResta: 26:08

I see absolute Chicago and all the letters were blowing off of the bottle. So all the absolute vodka ads were all real 3D models that were photographed. They're all 3D objects that were photographed on a set. I actually worked for the company that made those for a minute as an intern, so I got to see them up close. So I was going to go into that world.

Jimmy DiResta: 26:27

And then when I met Mark, mark encouraged me to stick around the toy business and he said come, hang out with me, I'll give you freelance work. And that's really what I started doing with Mark is freelance work. He would say I have this invention, take it, give me four versions of the way you see it should work. And then once we decide a direction of like the play, the action or the game play, we'll come up with a cool mechanism that will illustrate or show the prototype. And then we'll go and try and sell the product to a toy company. And you go and you pitch the product as like you pitch a television show or a movie idea and we go and pitch the product and sometimes you sell them. Most of the times you don't, but in the process you learn how to make anything, to do anything, because toys is just an open-ended game, just anything you could think of.

Jennifer Logue: 27:11

I didn't even know that. I had never thought of that industry before.

Jimmy DiResta: 27:15

Yeah, it's really just like. You look like just like, like, really like the TV and game business. Sorry, deep like the TV and movie business, you're always looking at the other successes and be like, okay, I have an idea that's like that. It's not exactly the same as Jaws, but it's similar to Jaws. It's like about a dog that kills people on land. So, yeah, so that was what the game business was like. It's like oh, a hungry, hungry hippos. I have another game. It's not hungry, hungry hippos, but it's like snakes will get you and it's like the snakes are gonna eat all the eggs or something. So those I'm just making up examples.

Jimmy DiResta: 27:49

But in the toy business, like all the explicit examples that were successful, inspired people to come up with things, including me. That was similar. You know a lot. You have like an action game for kids where it's like a hungry hippo's, where it's just like a lot of slap action and it's loud and noisy, and you have games like Monopoly where it's more of a social interaction game. Those are a little bit more heady. I never really did those type of games.

Jennifer Logue: 28:09

I love Monopoly. Yeah, I mean, I had a lot of those, so probably that's why.

Jimmy DiResta: 28:14

And those games are difficult to sell because they had to have. You know there's rules and strategy and you know you have to educate the audience and so but like a game, like, but that's also like from like 10 and up and hungry hippos is from like 10 and down, you know. So there's age categories. I fell into the category of making novelties like squishy balls that, like eyeballs, pop out of. My big success was a toy called Gurgling Guts, which it's a squishy eyeball and you squish and squeeze on it. It makes a slurping sound like a gross squishy eyeball and it's got a clear skin on it. So you squeeze it and the ball inside sucks and spits on blood. So it looked like a squishy eyeball.

Jennifer Logue: 28:51

You still have a prototype of it.

Jimmy DiResta: 28:52

Yeah, well I. They kind of deteriorate because of the blood in the rubber, so it was fun. They would go bad and like squirt blood on people. It was great.

Jennifer Logue: 29:00

Oh my gosh, that's awesome. It sounds very Nickelonian.

Jimmy DiResta: 29:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was in 95, 96 when gross was like a big trend in the toy business.

Jennifer Logue: 29:09

Oh yeah. So your journey did you ever? Did you ever have a goal when you came out of college, or have you just organically followed your curiosity?

Jimmy DiResta: 29:21

My very loose goal and I think about it was more like, even though I got into commercial art and I call toy business commercial art because you got to sell products, you got to design, develop and the invention, and you got to design, develop the packaging, design, and then you got to design and develop and invent the marketing. So it's very commercial. What I always wanted to do was come up with something that I thought of and was able to sell it, and then that's a very broad thing, but to me that encompasses fine art, where you have someone like Damien Hearst that puts animals in formaldehyde and sells it for millions of dollars. He has the whim to make whatever he wants. He's a gallery that will support him and exploit him and he makes money and then so in a roundabout way through the toy business, then in the television business, then in YouTube.

Jimmy DiResta: 30:09

I got to a point now whatever I make every week, I have to make whatever I can make, whatever I want. Sometimes I have requirements because there's an ad placement in my video. As a matter of fact, this recent video I put out the other day was where I made a model of my workshop to do an exploration on what the second floor would look like, which doesn't exist yet in real time. But in the model I made a second floor In that video I exploited some usage of type on glue and they pay me to exploit the glue and to promote the glue. So in that video was an excuse for me to do two things Figure out what I want to do with the floor and see it in real time through the camera and exploit some type on glue. They're satisfied and I get to just do whatever I felt like doing.

Jennifer Logue: 30:55

And you've built your own empire. Now it's like this is your. Yeah, you have more control to go where creativity takes you.

Jimmy DiResta: 31:05

Yeah. So, for instance, in about five days from now, I'm going to post the video and right now I have three loose ideas of what that video is going to be about. Over the next five days, that video is going to get focused, shot, edited and posted. They ask me right now it's a Tuesday, I'm not sure which one it's going to be.

Jennifer Logue: 31:24

Okay.

Jimmy DiResta: 31:25

But I have three ideas. I think I know which one I'm going to go with, because it's a more of a simpler video to shoot and I'm going to pick that just because it's more of a practical video. But next week I can pick one of the other two because I'll have a full week to work, because yesterday I was in Kansas City yesterday so I lost Monday, which is a critical day to get started. So every week I produce an episode of my TV show one man. You know it's not huge, it's not a huge production. It's me alone with a camera and some tools, alone in my shop for the most part, but it does get done.

Jennifer Logue: 32:00

Yeah, and it's amazing how you're able to do it all on your own Like when you're not filming a larger production?

Jimmy DiResta: 32:07

Yep, so the funny thing was is I shoot most of the YouTube videos alone, but when we were doing making fun in the backyard, there was 253 for trailers. Every morning there was about 40 people in my yard like eight cameramen, two directors, people monitoring the time code. There's so much going on Makeup people and PAs running and getting food and getting props and getting materials. It was crazy. Every day was a chaos.

Jennifer Logue: 32:41

It's amazing to see the arginists of the production.

Jimmy DiResta: 32:44

They did a great job. I mean, it was great. It all came together beautifully in the edit. But every couple of nights I would shoot my own YouTube movie when everybody left, because we were still even though it was the set of the show was my home. So everybody was like, hey, we're going to the pub over in Wyndham, what are you guys doing? What are you guys doing? I'm gonna work, I'm gonna do a video in the outhouse. So you guys go, I'll work, you gonna work all night. I'm like I wanna keep my YouTube videos alive.

Jennifer Logue: 33:10

Yeah.

Jimmy DiResta: 33:11

On YouTube. You gotta kind of feed the monster, but it's a healthy addiction, if you ask me.

Jennifer Logue: 33:17

I agree, I agree, Even with the podcast. It's just getting started. But my friends will be like, oh, I wanna hang out. I'm like, oh, I'm working on my podcast. You're always working. And I'm like, yeah, I mean but, I enjoy it. It's fun. I get to meet cool people and talk about creativity.

Jimmy DiResta: 33:34

So and consistency. That's the only way you'll develop an audience. And, when it's all said and done, we're developing an audience so that we could either share with them great cool things, sell them things, share in selling them things, inspire them to sell things. Yeah, it's like one big. In a way, it's like one big advertising ruse, but at the same time, we're all learning and having fun.

Jennifer Logue: 33:57

Yes.

Jimmy DiResta: 33:58

People learn from me that they could do things on a Jigsaw or a Bansaw or a CNC or a laser and they leave the job and now they're selling laser stuff on Etsy. Well, they're making Bansaw things on Etsy, they're doing pottery on wherever, and so I sold them in the lifestyle that they bought into, and now they're happy.

Jennifer Logue: 34:15

Yeah, you're planting seeds in people. Yep, they can grow, you know, yep. So this is creative space, and I love asking this question of everyone, because everyone has their own perspective on what creativity is. But what is your definition of creativity?

Jimmy DiResta: 34:36

Hmm, Creativity, I think, is problem solving. It's as basic as that. I think creativity is problem-solving when you see somebody that says I can't draw a stick figure.

Jimmy DiResta: 34:49

I don't know how you do it. But then they are the same type of person that could make a beautiful dinner, you know, complicated Indian food or something like that. They don't realize they're creative. Well, they, you know. Creativity is really just always outlined to everybody as hands-on creative drawing, painting. That's creative. But creative is problem-solving, engineering, making dinners.

Jimmy DiResta: 35:13

I think people who can clean a house creatively, you know, like I have people like the girl I'm dating. She makes my bed it looks like a hotel room. When I make my bed it looks like I'm covering up a murder scene. We had a joke about that yesterday. But it's like I don't understand the problem-solving ritual that she goes through to make the bed perfectly, versus what I go through. You know I could make a car. She can't make a car, but she can make a beautiful bed. And you know she could also read and write beautifully. She writes, you know, endlessly like. You know, like chat GPT, she could write and I can't. I write any. We've been going back and forth with the emails. I just go cool, right, awesome.

Jennifer Logue: 35:57

We all have different abilities, yeah, so I think so.

Jimmy DiResta: 36:01

The reason I bring that up as an example is most people say I'm not creative, but they do other things that I, so-called creative, could never, ever do. But everybody would define me as the most creative because I could do all these physical, visual, artistic things.

Jennifer Logue: 36:18

So, because it's what we you know think of when we think of creativity.

Jimmy DiResta: 36:23

Yeah, so I mean create, like people say. You know a lot of people might argue that a producer isn't creative. You know, producer of a TV show. But no, like, when you see the TV show that we did, it's funny. Derek, who's one of the cast members of the show, he said to me when it began he'd never been on TV. He just goes, what is the role of the producer? Like, what is it? Because? Aren't we on camera? Like, by the end of that show he's like I 100% now understand the creative input a producer could do.

Jimmy DiResta: 36:49

You know, mike would tell us Mike was the producer of the show, michael O'Dare, and we would do something. Mike would go you know what guys do it one more time, but this time say this at the end and then when you see it in the edit, you're like, oh my God, that lands so much more funny. And so he problem solved that through a creative process. He didn't build a dinosaur, he didn't get up there and paint and screw and cut wood. He gave us a couple of ideas to say something in a funny way, or move in a funny way, or hand this to him and then, when he's done, hand it back over there and then that gets a laugh. So you know, and then, as far as the whole entire overall reach overarching concept of the show, mike thought of the of me being grumpy and me taking pictures from kids about what they should make and being grumpy and mean to them because I don't like kids. You know that was all Mike's vision. That's so impressive.

Jennifer Logue: 37:38

The show was so well put together. I just thought it was crafted brilliantly.

Jimmy DiResta: 37:44

It was so it was by the. You know, I just showed up and did the best I could, but the guys did a great job and they did a great job with the edit. The edit won an Emmy.

Jennifer Logue: 37:52

The editing Wow.

Jimmy DiResta: 37:53

Congratulations, yeah Well, congratulations to them.

Jennifer Logue: 37:57

They did a good job. Yeah, why do you think creativity is important?

Jimmy DiResta: 38:04

Well, creativity is important because it's what the world innovates. The world is innovating all the time. It's the reason why 20 years ago, we didn't have an iPhone, and now the iPhone is a critical part of everyone's life. It's the reason why the computer didn't exist, and now it's. How could we live without a computer? How could we live without GPS? Like I didn't even know? Oh my gosh, how could we? How do we get anywhere 25 years ago? I don't even understand it.

Jennifer Logue: 38:27

I don't even know.

Jimmy DiResta: 38:28

Like you go. You just listen to dad's directions and try and write them down. It's like crazy. Look for the red flag and make a left. It's like crazy.

Jennifer Logue: 38:36

Yeah, I'm lost without my GPS.

Jimmy DiResta: 38:38

Creativity is important because it makes the world go around. And then, but you might want to say, why is art important? Because art is important because it expands people's consciousness. It expands people's curiosity. It expands, you know, like, there's mechanical jobs, like guys that are creative in a way that they could, you know, keep a hospital clean or keep a library clean. I believe those guys are creative because some people are really good at that, but they might not consider themselves artists, and so even people might say, why is art important when the world goes around all these other ways?

Jimmy DiResta: 39:06

If it wasn't for art, we wouldn't have cool looking objects, we wouldn't have cool innovation, we wouldn't have, you know, pottery. People say pottery. You know, pottery was such an important part of society a hundred years ago, 200 years ago. You know, it's like pottery was like, you know, the beginning of saving seeds and developing farming techniques. And you know, and now pottery? People think it's like, you know, something you do at the rehab to keep people busy. But you know, pottery was such an important part of the evolution of humanity. There's so many little things like that. So when you see it in like an artistic ceremonial urn that has decorations on it, you're like, oh isn't that cute. But they don't realize like that was a pivotal part of, like that culture's existence.

Jennifer Logue: 39:52

Yeah, part of. Well, I'm not sure if their urn is part of survival, but what I meant to say, like a pot like a pot that would you know, carry seeds and stuff.

Jennifer Logue: 40:01

Yeah, so I also think like the emotional part, those people who don't think of themselves as creative. I feel I forget who said it, but music is the emotional life of most people. You know, because I've encountered people in my life who don't have any, they're not able to look within, but when they listen to a song, that's how they feel, like the song connects them to what they're feeling which is beautiful.

Jimmy DiResta: 40:30

Yeah, no, I listen. I love music, all kinds of music, and there's so many times in a day it'll happen to me at least once a day where I'll hear a song and it kind of pangs me emotionally and I didn't bring a tear to my eye, even though it might be just like an instrumental.

Jennifer Logue: 40:42

Yeah, do you have any favorite artists in terms of music?

Jimmy DiResta: 40:47

I like everybody. You know it's, I really do conf. I can find some pretty good reasons to like most bands, most music. There's a couple of indie bands that I listened to and I could find, you know like you get like a tape from somebody like what is this, am I going to really listen to this? And you pop it and you're like, oh, wow, that's actually something cool. And then you say to your friend, do you know, stevie Stiletto and the switch plays Like who? Like never mind, you know, like things like you'll never. But in general I like if I had to live on a deserted island with one musician, it would probably be jazz, like Chet Baker and Coltrane and that kind of music and Nick Cave. So it'd be Nick Cave, coltrane and Chet Baker. Those would be my musical.

Jennifer Logue: 41:33

Your soundtrack. That would be my soundtrack. I love it. What drives you as a maker? You talked about this a little bit, but Curiosity.

Jimmy DiResta: 41:45

You know, curiosity, well, there's a couple of things. There's some practical things that I have to keep my audience intrigued and I have to keep myself intrigued. And curiosity, and trying to find new interesting things to do Every day. I keep peeling the onion a little bit more and more and more. Sometimes I'm out of age now. I'm repeating things, but I'm doing things that I did before, but I'm doing them differently. I'm doing them with a better education and having spent so many seven or eight, nine years later doing it again and I could say I did this this time, but now I'm doing it differently because I have so many more resources or so much more learning under my belt. So what keeps me going is just curiosity and the need to just really keep myself entertained and keep the dollars coming in. Honestly, but more than anything, what drives me is not money, not fame. None of that is really just my own personal curiosity. It's like I get an old machine and I'm like I wonder if I can get that to work again. Let me see what it takes to get that to work again. And that's really, that's really the question start. Can I get that started again?

Jimmy DiResta: 42:52

The other day we got a year ago I bought a 1920s Johnson boat motor. It's a little tiny, it's all aluminum. It looks like something that would be hanging in a museum. It's beautiful. We just me and my assistant, rob Rob polished it up. So it's beautifully aluminum and brass. It's like gorgeous and we just got it running. It's like we literally like resurrected a dead object, like a dead person. We like brought this person back to life. It's crazy because it was just like a beat up dirty thing that would look like it would never be clean and, piece by piece, rob cleaned it a little bit at a time and then, boom, beautiful.

Jennifer Logue: 43:28

What is that feeling like?

Jimmy DiResta: 43:30

It's great. I was away in Kansas City over the weekend and Rob sent me a picture of it running. He's like watch this video tape starting it. It was great. A big smile on my face.

Jennifer Logue: 43:40

I love it. So do you think it's harder for people today to be creative with the distractions from technology? Technology is a tool, but do you think it can sometimes take away from us being present?

Jimmy DiResta: 43:55

Well, I think you and I are comparing. I don't know how old you are, but if you might remember time before iPhones were prevalent, you might be asking me because we're comparing it to when they weren't around. But young people, they're in an environment now where iPhones are there. They can film themselves singing. When we were kids we had to sing in a bar.

Jimmy DiResta: 44:16

I hope somebody noticed us, we had a record, we had a rent space and a recording studio. We had, like all those hurdles and we still were creative. Now somebody can literally point the phone at themselves, sing a song and become a hit singer overnight. So I don't think creative is hindered, creativity is hindered in any way. I think of anything that the rails are greased, but people who are doing it don't realize how the rails are greased. So I think human creativity is going to find a way. It doesn't matter what it takes.

Jimmy DiResta: 44:45

So, like I said, back in the day when there was a million gay keepers and a million hurdles, we had to find a recording studio. We had to find someone that knew how to run the board. We got to find two inch tape and we got to this and we got to that. I remember when I was a teenager and I wasn't a musician but I had lots of friends were and then when they got the coveted four track recorder like the task cam yeah they got the task cam four track recorder and it was just like you don't understand the possibilities.

Jennifer Logue: 45:11

Yeah.

Jimmy DiResta: 45:12

And like then. You know, even you know, grow up with some hip hop guys too and like to them. That was like. That's it. We are on the road to success with our task cam. Four track recorder, a couple of microphones, a quiet room. Now people can produce an Emmy award winning album on an Apple and an iPhone and.

Jimmy DiResta: 45:32

but the people that are doing that don't realize they still have their own hurdles to go through and it might be more. You know, less often than gay keepers. Now it's more personal. It's like dealing with that was always prevalent, but that might be more prevalent now because there's less hurdles but there's more. You know people step in and say they comfort zone people, inspiring them to stay in the bucket of crabs. You know that kind of thing, that's really true Getting out of your comfort zone.

Jimmy DiResta: 45:59

Yeah, I don't really think that because I don't know what the I know I'm a generation X and there's millennials and then I don't know what's after that, but there's two more after that. But I think that group is wildly creative and we're only seeing it on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube now. I don't know where we used to see it before.

Jennifer Logue: 46:19

I guess the TV set, If you got there if you were able to break through, Break through.

Jimmy DiResta: 46:23

Yeah, and now it's. I was talking to somebody the other day, a young woman who's I met when I was in Kansas City, and she's like what do you think about getting on TV? She's trying to promote young women in technology. She's like TV show, this TV show that I was like Don't even bother with the TV show, because the TV show is going to basically encapsulate these several episodes if you get there, which is impossible. But once you get there, they're going to give you six episodes of this boom, this thing. They're going to air it and then, if it doesn't go well, they're going to bury it. It'll never be seen again If you slowly develop your own audience on YouTube. I have 700 episodes in my YouTube video. Do you think any network TV would ever have allowed me to make 700 episodes of anything?

Jennifer Logue: 47:04

Wow, yeah, and so you control.

Jimmy DiResta: 47:06

I'm in total control. Every single day someone's like hey, how can I do it? I'm like, give me a minute and I send them three links to three things I've already done. That can help answer some questions, get them on a path. I said to this young lady I was like, if you just start developing content in different categories how to program an Arduino, how to set up a breadboard test model, whatever it is and she's an electronics major you slowly begin a library that's yours and in five years from now, when production companies don't know what to do anymore because none of them had a YouTube channel, they're going to look to the YouTubers and start licensing their content, and then you will be ahead of the curve. I encouraged. I was like, even though it doesn't seem successful to make a rinky-dinky YouTube video in every once in a while, I was like you begin to start developing a library of content that will be more valuable to you than any TV show in your resume, in my opinion.

Jennifer Logue: 47:59

Yeah, I've been. A friend of mine is pushing me to put the video of my podcast online, because I've just been doing audio so far, because I'm so like oh, but I don't have like a cool fancy studio like these other podcasters. You know, it's just out of my room.

Jimmy DiResta: 48:14

But then you get to see what all of us knuckleheads look like. You know what our rooms look like.

Jennifer Logue: 48:18

Yeah, that's true.

Jimmy DiResta: 48:20

Are you recording all the videos as well?

Jennifer Logue: 48:22

I am recording video for everybody.

Jimmy DiResta: 48:24

Oh, good, so you have it. You have it if you need it.

Jennifer Logue: 48:26

Yeah.

Jimmy DiResta: 48:27

That's good.

Jennifer Logue: 48:28

I'm recording out like I didn't have my camera tilted the right way. So, like, every video is either progression of like just total disaster, to like getting a little bit better, but you know in this day and age and that goes back to you know what people more or less creative.

Jimmy DiResta: 48:41

I think what now is more important than it was in the 80s and 90s. Right now it's the actual, it's the heart and soul of the content. That's most important Because you could have an amazing like. This is an example I listened to. This is a bad example because I listened yesterday. I liked the Whitney Cummings podcast and she had on David Tal, who's a comedian I love I've actually met him a few times and I was like, oh, david Tal. And then she patched in somebody on like a on a Zoom call, so it was the two of them together in the studio and somebody on a Zoom call and didn't record well, so it was a horrible piece of content. So there that's. So I said that's a bad example because that's a negative of the point I want to make.

Jimmy DiResta: 49:23

And we're so forgiving of content these days because it's more about the content of the content and not necessarily the presentation of the content. So if you have some really good interviews, as long as the audio is good, that's really the most important thing in any of this. If the audio is not good, like the Whitney Cummings was a bad example of what I was saying. The audio is not good. It might not even be worth publishing. If the video is not great, it doesn't matter. You could get a look and a feel of what's going on and that's cool. Like people want to put a face to my voice if they've never seen me or whoever else you interviewed Sam. Right, that's how I found you, cause did you interview?

Jennifer Logue: 50:04

Oh yes. I was going to say I didn't realize you knew Sam, the legendary Sam Jones. I adore her so much.

Jimmy DiResta: 50:11

Sam lives in my neighborhood and we made friends this year. In the beginning of at the end of last year we made friends at her bagel shop.

Jennifer Logue: 50:17

Oh my gosh, I haven't been yet, but like she just creates so many cool things.

Jimmy DiResta: 50:22

I mean they're commercials.

Jennifer Logue: 50:23

And then she's making things with her bagel shop and she's just oh my gosh.

Jimmy DiResta: 50:29

She's so animated when she talks. She's like I'm in New York. I'm moving my hands around, I'm trying not to bang the table, yeah. So I think even if the video content isn't high quality or you're in your room, I don't think it matters.

Jennifer Logue: 50:45

Cool.

Jimmy DiResta: 50:45

I mean she was on the podcast and she was hilarious, I mean like If anything COVID brought us, it was what is the inside of Seth from live with Seth Myers House of Cycle? What is the inside of Trevor Noah's house? Look like that's true, it doesn't matter. We're all just humans that have like a weird space we live in.

Jennifer Logue: 51:07

And this is so true it's not perfect.

Jimmy DiResta: 51:10

Yeah.

Jennifer Logue: 51:13

So back to your life. What's a typical day like for you?

Jimmy DiResta: 51:19

Well, today I got up and today is the day my housekeeper's here so I kind of stick around with her in case she needs help. But I'm kind of picking up my after my own self. My brother lives here during the week because he's up here utilizing my workshop, so he stays at home in the week. And since it's like really first nice day of spring, I did some backyard cleanup. I had to go out and collect the eggs because I was away in Kansas City. So I collected the eggs and the chicken coop, I washed them off, changed the nozzle on the hose because the album was broken from this frozen winter and cleaned the eggs off the back deck drying on the porch. Then the cats played around with the cats got rid of some garbage that accumulated.

Jimmy DiResta: 51:58

What picked up a delivery? I got a bathtub delivered to me, a cryo tub from a friend that wants me to look at her cryo tub invention and fix it up. So that's why I had to go pork lift off a cryo tub off of an 18 wheeled truck 10 minutes before we started. And then I shot back over here and I kind of knew I didn't want to get too deep into anything because I knew I had two o'clock with you, I typically I would get deep into something and completely forget everything, and then I'd get a call from you at three o'clock. You're like are you coming on the podcast? One thing I did tell you when I agreed to do this is you just have to remind me multiple times because I'll forget.

Jennifer Logue: 52:34

I get it, we get in the zone.

Jimmy DiResta: 52:36

Yeah, but I played with. I got a new sewing machine so I played with a sewing machine. But after today I guess every typical day is me just like putting some of my projects. I have several projects that are longterm, some projects that are short term. So I have two longterm projects.

Jimmy DiResta: 52:49

I'm working on a boat that is actually a bar unit. It's a mobile bar unit that's shaped, that is built in an old boat. It does not come off the trailer, it's just a. You like pull it up to a, an outdoor summer event and you walk up to the boat and order a beer. And I'm building that. It's already built but I'm restoring it because it's got quite, quite deteriorated over the years. It's about 10 years old, so I just give it a refresher. Construction wise. It was falling apart, so fix that up, rebuilt the windshield, repainted it, and so that's kind of ready to be put outside, but it still has some work to do.

Jimmy DiResta: 53:21

And then the my own boat. I'm building a boat from scratch. So that's another longterm project. That's a row boat that's going to actually go in the water and I built that from recycled material. So that's a cool little row boat that I'm building and I might make a set of oars. That's in one of my three videos I might make, so just gather in the material for that. My new sewing machine. I played with my new sewing machine today just to understand it a little bit. I do a lot of playing with things before I actually ever really use them on camera, just to sort like get comfortable with them.

Jennifer Logue: 53:49

See how they work and you know, see what's possible.

Jimmy DiResta: 53:54

And so it's the beginning of the week and I might begin to start collecting footage, maybe after we talk on this video idea that I'm going to do. I'm going to do a video with bandsaw tips how to use the bandsaw.

Jennifer Logue: 54:05

Oh, if you, if you notice, you're an instrument of origin.

Jimmy DiResta: 54:09

Yeah, so if you happen to notice my Instagram, lately I've been doing a lot of little bandsaw videos and so a lot of people are asking questions. So it's like let me just answer some of those questions and so that might be this week's video that I was talking about. It's the easiest one to make, so that's a video where it's like me talking to the camera, so I'll slowly collect. I won't do it all in one shoot. I'll slowly collect the video, because then I'll go look at the footage and you're like you know what. This is a good idea, but let me do it again in this angle. So I just slowly inch my way through the longterm projects and the short term projects and now that it's so beautiful, I like I sat in the chicken coop today for about 20 minutes checking messages, with the birds walking around me.

Jennifer Logue: 54:46

That's so nice.

Jimmy DiResta: 54:47

That was fun yeah.

Jennifer Logue: 54:48

Oh my gosh, how do you spend your free time? I mean, does it?

Jimmy DiResta: 54:53

exactly the same way, yeah.

Jennifer Logue: 54:56

Love it, love it, and you're drawing inspiration from nature, from music, anything in particular lately.

Jimmy DiResta: 55:04

You know, I went for a walk the other day with my friend. We went to Beacon. There's an art museum in Beacon, new York, called Diab Beacon and there's lots of beautiful contemporary art there, so contemporary art from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and current day. So I went and looked at all that Some very well known artists, some new artists. So it's good to go get some inspiration from that. But I derive inspiration from everything all over the place. It's a lot from nature because I'm in the country. There's lots of lots of country scapes up here and lots of driving.

Jimmy DiResta: 55:37

I just bought this old house with my business partner that has a graveyard on it that hasn't been used since like probably the 50s. So like the last person of the last, like the last person who knew. The last person buried there is most likely dead. So this graveyard has no connection to anybody living or alive at this point that I know of. So none of the graves seem to be up, kept and there was no flowers anywhere. So that graveyard inspires me. I was in there yesterday it was yesterday was the first spring day when I returned home from my flight and I walked in the graveyard to show my brother he hadn't seen it yet. So we were just walking and reading gravestones and it was. It was really. I was like really relaxed. I really enjoyed that.

Jennifer Logue: 56:20

It's interesting. I was listening to Deli Parton's autobiography and she likes, she loves graveyards. You know she'll go there to write, to get inspiration for songs and stuff.

Jimmy DiResta: 56:31

Oh yeah, well, it's fine. Now I, I I a graveyard. This is a graveyard on my property. I don't technically. I always joke. I say I just bought a graveyard but it technically belongs to the Green County, but it's on the property. It's on my property and I will be making sure that I upkeep it. And we we uprided two or three stones yesterday.

Jimmy DiResta: 56:48

Oh but we'll. I'll do that much more in depth. The the graveyard looks just like a haunted house graveyard you'd see in Disneyland. In fact they brought a friend to show it and he goes is this a real graveyard? Of course it is. Why would you think it was like a fake haunted house graveyard, like plastic stones? Because it's so so cliche Wow.

Jennifer Logue: 57:07

I'm getting a picture in my head what it could look like.

Jimmy DiResta: 57:10

Let's see my phone. I'll show you one. But yeah, I know it's a, it's a beautiful place and that inspires me just to sit and look and it's it's new to me. I know I'm going to really get into it, I'm going to really start to really enjoy it. So this is the house, and the house is is seen across the street. Oh, wow, yeah.

Jennifer Logue: 57:30

Whoa yeah, do you? I don't know. Oh, that's crazy oh the stones are broken.

Jimmy DiResta: 57:38

A lot of them are broken, a lot of them.

Jennifer Logue: 57:40

Oh, all those stories like who are these people? Who were?

Jimmy DiResta: 57:44

they. You know this one particular grave which kind of looks like a mess in the picture. It says died at 78 in the year of 1790. Wow, yeah, Amazing so long ago. Yeah.

Jennifer Logue: 57:57

Like this isn't like 1900, something Really old.

Jimmy DiResta: 58:03

Yeah, yeah, amazing, crazy yeah.

Jennifer Logue: 58:09

So now I want to get more into your projects. We talked a little bit about making fun. How did it come about?

Jimmy DiResta: 58:18

Making fun started in. We started shooting in April of 21. We shot this, the episodes, april of 2021 to July of 2021. But the germ of the idea came when a production assistant or a talent scout for a production company named intuitive entertainment found a picture of me in the cast online and she reached out to Paul and now this was in the beginning of 2018. She found a picture of us online and said you guys interested in making a TV show? She found Paul's address and wrote to him and he said no, we don't want to, we're all on YouTube, we don't need TV.

Jimmy DiResta: 59:00

And she's like well, let me speak to each one of them. Maybe, you know, maybe maybe I could talk you guys into something. She was very nice, she was like pushy, but in a good way, and so we she ended up reaching out to each one of us and we were all very kind of like nah, tv is such a pain in the ass. And so she put together, she talked us into it to at least do in a pitch, and so it took so long they did a sizzle reel based on our interviews that we did, and you know some of our existing footage, and that got interest of Discovery Channel.

Jimmy DiResta: 59:28

So then, in the fall of 2019, we shot a physical reel while we were all together, pertaining to the pitch concept of the show, which would have been about us making things for fans. So we would have made like. People would have wrote in it's like you know, whatever you wish for, we'll make it. And then we made that, and then Discovery passed on it. Once they saw the footage, they didn't like the idea. At least something about it wasn't for them but they showed it to Netflix that same reel.

Jimmy DiResta: 59:54

And Netflix was like I love this show, we love these guys. Let's take on this concept and figure out what to do with these guys. We don't necessarily love this idea, but we love this group of guys and we were just about to shoot in the, going into the into, say like October of 2020, but then COVID complications would become more restrictive for shooting shows and stuff. And we were going to shoot this idea where we make things for fans. They were like they went with it. But then I got a call from that current producer at the time and he said we're going to put the show in hold till the spring of 2021. And we all like it's like every hurdle in the million, there's a million hurdles. It's not going to happen. And so then we started getting calls around February of 2021. It's like okay, we want to put the show together. We put a new guy on the show named Mike. Mike's going to come back to you guys and interview each one of you and he's going to come up with a new idea for the show.

Jennifer Logue: 1:00:46

And it was for Discovery.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:00:48

I mean, it was for Netflix and and Mike came up with a show where we do shark tank for kids and then he talked to each one of us individually into doing it because we didn't want to do it.

Jennifer Logue: 1:00:59

Oh, wow, yeah, you know, it's just the idea got even better, like I just think it's such a unique concept and, like kids are so creative, they don't have any barriers on them. Yet Society hasn't gotten to them yet as much as adults.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:01:13

Yeah, and so that's, and that's really that's how it happened. Mike pushed the concept and then the whole, while we didn't know what it was going to look like. Ultimately we he did have fun shooting it. We knew there was going to be some special moments, but we still hadn't seen the edit. We didn't know what the transitions were going to look like and obviously it turned out okay. It's becoming even though we're not making any more. It's sort of like a cult. It's like a cult. It's got a cult following.

Jennifer Logue: 1:01:37

Yeah, I mean it put a smile on my face. I was watching it. So it's just, it's different and it's refreshing.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:01:44

A funny thing is Derek and I and mostly Derek and I spend a lot of time together and Paul and Pat spend their time together. Graz is a little bit of an outlier. He kind of spends time with his wife because we all live in the Northeast. We don't necessarily near each other, but we make special time to be together and this weekend we're all going to be together, so it's going to be funny.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:02:03

But a couple of weeks ago Derek and I were in Atlanta for a show having to do with YouTube. We had a thing called WorkbenchCon and we were walking up and down this Esplanade in Atlanta and a couple of kids recognized us. Like you're the guys from that show. Will you act like an idiot? But it was like, cause we dress exactly the same as we do on the show, like we, just we, just who we are. And especially since Carhart gave us all the clothes for free, we just told me where is the same clothes that we wore on the show? Oh my gosh. And we look the same and act the same. So when we see kids out in the street they recognize us. We always have a laugh with them.

Jennifer Logue: 1:02:35

Cause you're just being you.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:02:36

Just being us yeah.

Jennifer Logue: 1:02:38

So now, this wasn't your first foray into television. I mean, you've been doing TV since, like the early 2000s.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:02:45

Yeah, in fact, my first television show was in the summer of 2003. We shot a show called Trash to Cash that aired in September of 03. So this is my 20th anniversary on TV right now. Wow, yeah, I did. We did seven episodes of Trash to Cash was the name of that show on FX network and then a few years later we got we sold that show based on a video that I made.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:03:06

My brother and I made that video together of us doing garbage picking and making fun stuff. And a few years later we made a show that was kind of more like a cooking show but we were making things, not food, but we were making soup. Like today we're going to make a park bench and this is how we make a park bench, but all the while, hilarity and sews and problem solving makes things funny. And we shot our own episode and that episode get picked up by HGTV. There was no YouTube or anything at the time. We shot it and we were going to try and figure out how to put it up somewhere to publish it. We didn't know where, but we had a meeting with HGTV and, like you, got anything interesting and we sent them that and they loved it. It took a year, but we eventually sold the show in 2005. And we got that on the air in 2006 and seven.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:03:50

We did 28 episodes of that show. They changed the name it was called making it with John and Jimmy. They changed the name of it to hammered. And then I got a relationship developed with DIY network because it was HGTV and DIY network was the same company. And then I did a show, for DIY network was against it was called against the grain with Jimmy to rest in 2009. And then in 2010,. Well, in between we were always shooting ideas. So we had several ideas in the hopper and one of them was a show called Lord of the fleas, where we find garbage and we fix it and sell it at the flea market and that's on my YouTube channel.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:04:24

That's on my YouTube channel Now you can go back and look it up. It's way back. And so Lord of the fleas became dirty money and we shot that show in 2010 and aired in 2011 and aired on Discovery Channel in 2011. And then the show was doing well in the ratings, but all the executives that were on our team got fired or laid off, and so the new executives had no interest in doing anything that the old team was working on. So, even though our show was doing well in the ratings, they didn't pick it up again, and then I started doing YouTube in 2011.

Jennifer Logue: 1:04:59

Awesome. And when you first got in front of the camera, like was there an adjustment period for you or were you a natural right away?

Jimmy DiResta: 1:05:10

By the time I was in front of the camera for the first time, it was in 2003. I had been teaching art college for 10 years at that point, to art students 20 year olds. I started in like 92, 93 teaching art college, so by that point I was so used to just talking about what I do, how I do it, ways of doing things. I was teaching art college every Friday for three hours from 93 to 2017, when I moved up state full time. So I have hundreds of students pass through my class and plenty of time to hone my ability to public speak. I'm not great at it, but I'm not shy about it.

Jennifer Logue: 1:05:49

Cool, that's brilliant. And did you ever think you're going to do TV, or is it just kind of? No, it's really just.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:05:56

I guess, like they happen, that it is a funny story. My brother got on TV in the 90s. He ended up doing a selling a TV show and he was on a sitcom. Oh wow, he was being a goofball and he was a comedian police officer comedian.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:06:10

Everybody said to me at the time I was young and single and living alone in Manhattan and everybody's like are you going to follow your brother in Hollywood, are you going to follow John in Hollywood? And when people rhetorically asked me the question, I would answer it honestly. I was like I would only do on camera stuff if I could just be myself. I wouldn't want to be a character Like my brother plays his characters. I said I would only ever want to be myself and I didn't think that I would ever be myself instructing. I didn't know why I thought I would ever be myself at the time. I would just be like I would only ever do Hollywood stuff if I was ever just able to be myself, I guess I might have just thought I would be on some kind of reality show, but I didn't know what and I never pursued it until my brother came up with this idea and he was out there because he was in the thick of pitching shows and I was just beginning to make videos.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:06:59

So the very first show, the trash to cash show, I went out there and I shot a sizzle reel of the show, the concept reel. I wasn't in it, I just shot it and produced it and then we brought it to through John's agent. We brought it to Fox, a Fox affiliate programming production company. It's called like Fox independent or Fox. It was like it was called Fox independent or something like that. Fox alternative was an event. It was a production company owned by Fox TV and the guy loved it.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:07:26

And then in that meeting he said to me he goes, why don't we do this thing? Because you, what do you want to be on the show? I was like I just want to be behind the scenes art director, producer. He goes well, you make everything right. I go yeah, that's what I do for a living, because I had the toy business resume. Yeah, he said, why don't you just make stuff on camera? Why don't you just be the host? Because you better at just being yourself, being silly and stupid, and you could just do stuff together. You could make stuff, but mostly you do the hosting duties and you do the building duties. What do you think of that, and right there where I was, never thought I would ever be on TV for any reason.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:08:00

This producer put us on TV together as a duo came together just like that, and he goes let's shoot an episode and see if it goes. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. If it works, it works, he goes. So let's shoot a pilot. We got that pilot in April of 2003 and by July we were shooting the whole season.

Jennifer Logue: 1:08:17

Wow, I love that organic journey. It's cool to see how things unfold.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:08:22

I really never like. I never walked into that meeting, ever planning on being on TV.

Jennifer Logue: 1:08:29

I love it and.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:08:29

I left booked on TV.

Jennifer Logue: 1:08:31

I love it and there's so many people out there who have that as their goal, you know, and it doesn't work out for a lot of people.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:08:40

It's a difficult one.

Jennifer Logue: 1:08:41

It's a tough industry and it's, I guess, following that spark. When you follow that unique spark for you, it'll take you places you don't expect.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:08:52

Yeah, yeah, and I say nowadays talk about the gatekeepers of days gone by. When I see a creative writer or a creative actor or comedian that's not actively produced, producing content for Instagram, youtube or anything like that, they just wait to be discovered. They're going to never be discovered because they don't discover people. You know, no one gets discovered like by somebody being funny online at the bank anymore. You get discovered because you have a silly video that goes viral and people. That's how Sam got picked up. I think Sam was a lot of that success of putting stuff on YouTube and being discovered by people that think she's talented and giving her a shot.

Jennifer Logue: 1:09:39

She's awesome, oh my gosh.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:09:41

Yeah. So like I think it's important, I see people kind of stuck in the old way of being like I'm super funny, but I don't know how to use a camera. Like you better learn. Yeah, if you want to compete, you better learn.

Jennifer Logue: 1:09:51

And they don't jump into that beyond the comfort zone and they stay stuck where they are because this is where we are as a society. This is how you got to do things and you got to be disciplined about it. Do you have any projects you want to talk about that are upcoming?

Jimmy DiResta: 1:10:07

Well, we have the Graveyard House. It might be a TV show about that. It's just so early right now. I just had a few interviews recorded, interviews to put together a sizzle reel and we haven't even shot a walkthrough of the house yet. But that's going to be next and then there might be a potential TV show pitch about the Graveyard House. In the meantime I'm going to still work on it anyway for my YouTube channel. And there's another TV show which I swore to secrecy, but it's another funny silly show. It's a hard-to-show kind of like that would take place on people's farms, so it would involve animals. It's a fun, stupid show that somebody else thought of and they asked me to be the host.

Jennifer Logue: 1:10:43

So that's a pitch.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:10:45

I don't know where it's going to go and in the meantime, I'm buying an antique car. I'm buying an 1947 car. I'm going to restore that coming up soon. I'm buying this while I bought this house. I'm going to finish my boat, take my boat on the water. Hopefully in the next two weeks That'll be with that little old school motor.

Jennifer Logue: 1:11:04

Perfect timing.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:11:06

Yeah, exactly. So beyond that, I don't know, the house and the old car are going to keep me really busy.

Jennifer Logue: 1:11:14

Cool, and do you have any advice for creatives starting out in their journey? Maybe they want to take that leap of faith, the next step, but they feel a little stuck in their comfort zone.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:11:26

Yeah Well, I always tell people don't share your ideas with small-minded people. Don't share your ideas with people that you know will respect your ideas. Don't share your ideas with the. If you have a, Whoever that could be. Sometimes you share your ideas with the closest person to you when they shoot them down. Sometimes it's better off to just do what you want and then show them later. So you want to see what I did and then they go. I never knew you were so talented. But if you ask them, hey, you know what I want to do, I want to record a song They'd be like you don't sing, what are you talking about? And that might throw you off your game. So ask for forgiveness, Don't ask for permission.

Jennifer Logue: 1:12:03

Love that Awesome. And what's next for you Professionally, personally?

Jimmy DiResta: 1:12:08

I don't know Really. Honestly, I just keep my eyes and ears open and just find cool things to experiment, restore, fix up. I have a barn in the backyard, a horse barn. I want to finish my horse barn. It's half built Cool, so that's fun. I'm going to do some blacksmithing on all the hardware for that. Every day it's just on phone slowly.

Jennifer Logue: 1:12:28

It's like just playtime.

Jimmy DiResta: 1:12:30

It's always playtime. It's always playtime.

Jennifer Logue: 1:12:32

I love it For more on Jimmy Duresta visit jimmydurestacom and thank you so much for tuning in and growing in creativity with us. I'd love to know what you thought of today's episode, what you found most interesting, what you found most helpful. You can reach out to me on social media, at JenniferLogue, or leave a review for Creative Space on Apple Podcasts so more people can discover it. I appreciate you so much for being here in the beginning stages of this. My name is Jennifer Logue and thanks for listening to this episode of Creative Space. Until next time.