#66. From Tape to Timeline: John Hauser’s Mission to Protect Humboldt’s Digital Heritage

Scott Hammond: Ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbors, it's Scott Hammond with 100% Humboldt with my new best friend, John Hauser.

Scott Hammond: Hi, John.

John Hauser: Hi. Hi, Scott.

Scott Hammond: How's it going?

John Hauser: Good.

Scott Hammond: John, who are you? What do you do? What do you want?

John Hauser: Well, according to a Christmas card I just got mailed, I'm… It was addressed to everyone's favorite archivist.

Scott Hammond: Ah.

John Hauser: And so I'm a digital media archivist.

Scott Hammond: Nice.

John Hauser: And, uh, I wound up doing that while, excuse me, while I was working with Access Humboldt.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: I retired from Access Humboldt about three years ago.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: And I'm still doing it-

Scott Hammond: Wow

John Hauser: … because, as we say, that video's not gonna archive itself.

Scott Hammond: Right. Right. And do what you love. It sounds like you love it.

John Hauser: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. So you worked with Sean for all the way through-

John Hauser: Yep

Scott Hammond: … uh, when you were back at-

John Hauser: Yep

Scott Hammond: … Eureka High School?

John Hauser: I, uh, I met Sean when he was here to interview for the post in

John Hauser: 2006-

Scott Hammond: Oh, wow

John Hauser: … at a Redwood Technology meeting.

Scott Hammond: And I worked at the advertising division of Suddenlink when they, uh, they enact… With the, with the Cox sisters, actually.

John Hauser: Okay.

Scott Hammond: It was Cox Cable.

John Hauser: Sure.

Scott Hammond: And they got, uh, granted the, uh, s- whatever that is, um, those channels.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: The bandwidth.

John Hauser: Right.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. That, that agreement has some name, right?

John Hauser: Yes.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. That predates everybody, so.

John Hauser: Right.

Scott Hammond: Uh, l- let's talk about Access Humboldt real quick.

John Hauser: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: So what is, what is it, and then how do you fit in? And then we'll talk about the archive.

John Hauser: Yeah. It's a, uh, it's a nonprofit media, uh, organization, and their, their role is to, uh… They, they do a couple things. One of them is they broadcast the government meetings.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: They have a contract with, uh, seven jurisdictions. Uh, and so they wind up broadcasting the government meetings.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: And then the, uh, there's a, uh, public access part of it, which is the, um, local media makers-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … come to ac- They, they have an idea. They come to Access Humboldt. They can, uh, access the tools and the training in order to make their idea a TV show-

Scott Hammond: Right

John Hauser: … a reality.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: Uh, and this is, this started out as TV, and particularly

John Hauser: cable TV.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

John Hauser: Uh, we have a low power FM station. You've had Matt Ki- uh, King on the show.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: M- Sorry, Matt Knight-

Scott Hammond: Matt Knight

John Hauser: … on the show.

Scott Hammond: Yep.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Hey, Matt.

John Hauser: Hey, Matt. Shout out.

Scott Hammond: Hey, Sean.

John Hauser: Right.

Scott Hammond: Yep. Hey, Nat.

John Hauser: Sean.

Scott Hammond: Is he Nate or Nat?

John Hauser: Nate.

Scott Hammond: Nate Dogg.

John Hauser: Nate Dogg, yep. Nate Dogg, yep.

Scott Hammond: Yep, got the tour. It's so cool. So you guys were at Eureka High for a long time, and now-

John Hauser: Yes

Scott Hammond: … now you're in the old CR Admin building, which is-

John Hauser: Exactly

Scott Hammond: … quite spacious, right?

John Hauser: Oh, yeah. It's-

Scott Hammond: It's all that old wood, too.

Scott Hammond: It's cool.

John Hauser: Yep. Yeah. One of our, uh, employees actually worked in that building when she was a work study student at CR.

Scott Hammond: Oh, that's funny.

John Hauser: So it's back to the same building, uh, 20 years later.

Scott Hammond: I'm back to my old desk.

John Hauser: Right.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's really impressive. So, uh, we've had Ray on the show, Ray Olsen.

John Hauser: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: And of course Matt, and it's, it's so cool to see people do… create content that's localized, and some of it's, uh, some of it's, is, is okay, and a lot of it's

Scott Hammond: great.

John Hauser: Right.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: It's fun.

John Hauser: Yeah. It's, it's really refreshing to see, uh, you know, the, the public access, the, the typical idea of public access is Wayne's World, you know. It's guys-

Scott Hammond: Right

John Hauser: … in the basement making a local access show that nobody watches and nobody

John Hauser: cares about.

Scott Hammond: Hey, don't say that.

John Hauser: But it's local. But it's lo-

Scott Hammond: Probably the biggest access show ever.

John Hauser: But it's local voices, and in the old days in the c- it- when your cable system was just local-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … it was a local audience.

Scott Hammond: Right.

John Hauser: And then the internet came along, and one of the things that I-

Scott Hammond: Oh

John Hauser: … that I've done as, as I archive this on the internet archive-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … I talk to the producers and I say, "Hey, it's a local voice, but now you've got a global audience."

Scott Hammond: Right.

John Hauser: "And so how about, you know, how about you up the production quality?"

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: You know? How about you wind up considering people that might not know what the acronyms, the local acronyms mean?

Scott Hammond: Ah.

John Hauser: Um, but it, uh-

Scott Hammond: Maybe spend a little bit of money and have some good whatever-

John Hauser: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … added.

John Hauser: And, and sometimes you don't need to. Sometimes you can use the professional equipment at Access Humboldt to up instead of just doing it yourself.

Scott Hammond: Sure, having to go buy it.

John Hauser: Yep.

Scott Hammond: I love it.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: So it's, it's really something that I enjoy, uh, participating in, and I wound up getting involved because when I first got here, uh, to Humboldt in 2004, there was no public Wi-Fi at the, at the main branch of the library.

Scott Hammond: Really? None.

John Hauser: And I, I was used to that. Well, the reason why was because the entire Humboldt County was backhauled over a microwave link. There was no fiber. This was two years before fiber went, came up 101.

Scott Hammond: Right.

John Hauser: And so the Redwood Technology Consortum- Consortium, you might have remembered that-

Scott Hammond: Sure

John Hauser: … their goal was to get fiber in.

Scott Hammond: Was that Goldberg who was leading that group?

John Hauser: Yeah, Larry Goldberg-

Scott Hammond: Okay

John Hauser: … Don Wolsky, uh, Chris Crawford, Tina Nair, a bunch of people who are either passed or-

Scott Hammond: Kind of pioneers really in a way.

John Hauser: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Then we got the redundant fiber over to Red Bluff, right?

John Hauser: Exactly. So once we get one, then their focus-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

John Hauser: … shifted to the other.

Scott Hammond: So when I worked for Suddenlink, and the fiber would get chopped by some yahoo-

John Hauser: Oh, exactly

Scott Hammond: … in a backhoe-

John Hauser: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … in Willits.

John Hauser: Yeah, or a windstorm or the fire-

Scott Hammond: Oh

John Hauser: … in Willits. We had that one year when-

Scott Hammond: Right

John Hauser: … we had six outages or eight hour outages in a single year.

Scott Hammond: Terrible.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Okay. Well, the whole thing shut down.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, it's, it was awful, the, the olden days.

John Hauser: Yep.

Scott Hammond: Not all the olden days were that great.

John Hauser: So in that original agreement with, uh, with Cox Cable, uh, we had fiber going to 21 different sites around the county-

Scott Hammond: Hmm

John Hauser: … um, anchor institutions like City Hall, the county board of supes, the library, uh, main branch library.

Scott Hammond: Arcata.

John Hauser: Arcata, yeah, absolutely. Arcata Library, Access Humboldt.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: And as a matter of fact, uh, Access Humboldt started in the Judo Hut-

Scott Hammond: Oh, is that right?

John Hauser: … which is the backside of-

Scott Hammond: The ballpark there.

John Hauser: Exactly, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Arcata Ballpark, yeah.

John Hauser: And that's where I met, that's where I met Jerusha and Jesse the first time I-

Scott Hammond: Oh, that's funny

John Hauser: … I went up there.

Scott Hammond: Small world. Hey, this is where I use my prop real quick.

John Hauser: Okay.

Scott Hammond: So Arcata's right over here, folks.

John Hauser: That's right.

John Hauser: By the bay

Scott Hammond: It's at the top of the bay.

John Hauser: Yeah. And-

Scott Hammond: Home of Cal Poly, u- formerly known as Humboldt State University.

John Hauser: Right. That brings up an interesting point. You know, Humboldt is 100 miles long and 40 miles wide.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: But the only people that get cable are f- stretch from, you know, Arcata down to what?

John Hauser: Fortuna-ish.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: So it's less than … It- it's about a third, a third to 40% of the county. 30 to 40% of the county-

Scott Hammond: Right

John Hauser: … can get the cable. We actually wind up having a channel on the cable system in Garberville.

Scott Hammond: Oh, that's cool.

John Hauser: And, uh, Seth Johannesson helps us out, and we back all that over, over microwave to, uh-

Scott Hammond: So there's a cable system down there.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: Right. Yep.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Okay.

John Hauser: Yep, used to be a little system. And, and, uh, I believe Jerusha programs a special channel just for them, which is a mix of the government meetings that matter-

Scott Hammond: Oh

John Hauser: … to them-

Scott Hammond: Wow

John Hauser: … which would be the Board of Sups. Uh, they wouldn't necessarily care about any-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … of the city council meetings, but the Board of Sups, and then she'd have some educational programming. She'd have some other things. Uh, some public access shows on there as well.

Scott Hammond: Let's say some nice things about Jerusha.

John Hauser: Oh.

Scott Hammond: She's so cool.

John Hauser: Hey.

Scott Hammond: So easy to work with, and shout out to Jerusha.

John Hauser: Yeah, shout out to Jerusha.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. She's cool.

John Hauser: My job actually was to keep… was to make her job easier.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: And-

Scott Hammond: Did that… Did you succeed?

John Hauser: I, I, I'd like to think so.

Scott Hammond: Well, it depends who you ask.

John Hauser: That's right. Yeah. In the old days, we were a file place-based workflow, which meant that if we were going to get, uh… Well, everything was based on a file. People would hand us DVDs or VHS tapes.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: We'd have to convert those to digital files-

Scott Hammond: Sure

John Hauser: … and then we'd air them. Uh, if we wanted a show, if we wanted a show from NASA TV, we'd have to record that show.

Scott Hammond: Mm.

John Hauser: We'd have to get that and then put it on the air.

Scott Hammond: And convert it?

John Hauser: Yeah. And nowadays, the, the equipment that we use to beam the channels out to Suddenlink-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … to the headend-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … that's basically a computer with a fancy, uh, card that does four channels out in it.

Scott Hammond: Got it.

John Hauser: And so what that… Because streaming is now the norm-

Scott Hammond: Right

John Hauser: … we can… All we need is a URL.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: And we can pull in a URL for a YouTube channel or for a YouTube show-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … or from some other thing that's streamed-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

John Hauser: … and we can wind up capturing it and recording it.

Scott Hammond: So this show, when I, when I pull it up on my TV-

John Hauser: Mm-hmm

Scott Hammond: … on YouTube, it's, it's digital. Nick does a killer job. But I pull it up when I watch it on cable channel

Scott Hammond: 12-

John Hauser: Mm-hmm

Scott Hammond: … Access. It's, it's more, uh, uh, uh, not digital. It's probably digital, but it, it looks muddier just 'cause it-

John Hauser: Yeah. It's because… Uh, yeah. It, it's be-

Scott Hammond: 'Cause Suddenlink didn't give you the right channels?

John Hauser: Suddenlink ha- hasn't given us, uh, high def channels.

Scott Hammond: Oh, I see. They're all-

John Hauser: And so w- in the old days-

Scott Hammond: Right

John Hauser: … everything was standard def.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: Uh, and that was fine.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: But, but now that the producers are using standard def-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … everything has to be down-resed to, from-

Scott Hammond: Right

John Hauser: … from high def to standard def-

Scott Hammond: Interesting

John Hauser: … and sent to Suddenlink.

Scott Hammond: Are there cable systems that give away high def channels?

John Hauser: Yeah. Very few-

Scott Hammond: Access?

John Hauser: … very few of them. Um, but it's, it's a growing movement because nobody can get parts for the standard def stuff anymore.

Scott Hammond: You would think they would give them away 'cause they have such… There's more of them.

John Hauser: There, there's more of them, but that means there's, uh, more chance for them to sell advertising on those.

Scott Hammond: Correct. Yeah.

John Hauser: And, and so they're-

Scott Hammond: Yeah. That means they make money.

John Hauser: Right.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: Right.

Scott Hammond: Oh, boy. Yeah. It's, it's really interesting. I, I worked there for 10 years on the sales side-

John Hauser: Okay

Scott Hammond: … inserting on, you know, CNN, Fox-

John Hauser: Mm-hmm

Scott Hammond: … ESPN, et cetera.

Scott Hammond: And, um, yeah, the media's changed a lot.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: The biggest thing if I, uh… I think at the 10-year point I looked back and said, "What's, what's the biggest thing that's changed?" And really the biggest thing that's changed is bandwidth.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: You know, when, uh… Think back to 2004. As a business owner, you would've been nuts if you bet your business if, if your data was at the other end of a communications

John Hauser: line.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: You know, that wouldn't have worked-

Scott Hammond: Right

John Hauser: … for Humboldt County-

Scott Hammond: Right

John Hauser: … uh, for you to be a business owner and say, "Oh, the internet's down. I can't, I can't transact any business today."

Scott Hammond: Right. I'm dead in the water.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Uh.

John Hauser: And, and now that's gotten… I mean, we still have outages-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … but it's just incredible where now cloud makes way more sense.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: The licensing for you as a small business owner, it probably makes more sense for you to store it in the cloud-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

John Hauser: … than it does to pay Microsoft licenses, server licensing, IT

John Hauser: guy to-

Scott Hammond: Yeah. We have no files

John Hauser: … managing.

Scott Hammond: We have no file cabinets.

John Hauser: Right. Y-

Scott Hammond: Insurance offices used to be f-

John Hauser: Exactly. Yeah

Scott Hammond: … 19 file cabinets.

John Hauser: That's right. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: It's like, no, I don't, I don't wanna see one in- ever again. So let's talk about the Internet Archive.

John Hauser: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: But before we do that, how did you get to Humboldt? What's, what's the John story?

John Hauser: Anything that's not nailed down slides off, has a tendency to slide off to the West

John Hauser: Coast.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: And once it hits the- … West Coast, it tends to drift northward.

Scott Hammond: Oh.

John Hauser: So, you know, people that, uh, light out for… They, they wind up in LA. They wind up-

Scott Hammond: Right

John Hauser: … in San Francisco, and they do it for a while. It's, it's great to live in a city when you're young.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

John Hauser: And then, you know, you get a couple of kids, you know, and then it's, the hassles become more and more.

Scott Hammond: Oh. The commute to the airport-

John Hauser: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … from downtown San Francisco, forget it.

John Hauser: Right. Right.

Scott Hammond: My son lived there. He hated it.

John Hauser: Right. It's not that I had kids, but, uh, I wound up… But, well, the story was I was living in San Francisco, and I was in San Francisco because my sister moved in, l- moved there. Um, she started dating a guy from Eureka.

Scott Hammond: Oh.

John Hauser: And I had driven out in my grandparents', you know, 1980, 1973 Chevy Impala.

Scott Hammond: Perfect.

John Hauser: It's about as long as they made them.

Scott Hammond: Lowrider, man.

John Hauser: Before… Exactly. Yep.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. We were raised with those in San Diego.

John Hauser: Okay. Oh, absolutely.

Scott Hammond: Oh, the cholo car, you know?

John Hauser: That's right. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: That's great. Yeah. Yep.

John Hauser: But what happened was the, uh,

John Hauser: um… Next time, yeah, about two weeks later, I looked at the odometer, and there were an extra six… She asked if she could borrow the car- … to go up to Eureka. And I said, "Yeah, sure." Next time I go find the car, it's, uh, got an extra 600 miles on it. Where the heck is Eureka?

Scott Hammond: We should go.

John Hauser: I had the… Excuse me. I had the normal San Franciscan's view of geography. Anything named San other than Santa Rosa was

John Hauser: south.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: And there was Santa Rosa And San Rafael was right across the bridge, but you had no idea of how far-

Scott Hammond: It's another nation.

John Hauser: Exactly.

Scott Hammond: Jefferson, state of Jefferson.

John Hauser: Right. Yep. Uh, I started coming up for, uh, because my sister was dating this person up here-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … and I got introduced to some folks up here in-

Scott Hammond: Hmm

John Hauser: … 1982, I think-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … was probably the first year I was up here. And you know, I was making a living in the Bay Area, and-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … things were going well.

Scott Hammond: Were you doing media stuff?

John Hauser: No, I was a, I was a suit. I worked in IT as-

Scott Hammond: Oh

John Hauser: … uh, specifically IT auditing.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: Uh, both at, uh, first in public accounting and consulting-

Scott Hammond: Hmm

John Hauser: … and then working for the Clorox company as their IT audit manager for-

Scott Hammond: Oh, wow

John Hauser: … seven years.

Scott Hammond: Were they based in the ci- in the city?

John Hauser: They were based in Oakland. They-

Scott Hammond: Okay

John Hauser: … they were originally-

Scott Hammond: Clorox.

John Hauser: Yeah. They were a, an Oakland company, The Electro Alkaline

John Hauser: Company-

Scott Hammond: Oh, boy

John Hauser: … 1911 or something like that.

Scott Hammond: Big company there.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: Yeah. Yep, worldwide now.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: And, uh, yeah. So,

John Hauser: um, my wife was a friend of the person, a- as Ted and, uh, Maureen like to say, "We were friends before we were in-laws."

Scott Hammond: Ah.

John Hauser: So they, uh, this was somebody in the person that my sister was dating, somebody in his circle, uh, I wound up becoming friends with and more and more. And, uh, she moved down to Oakland in

John Hauser: 1988, and, uh, we moved back up in 2004.

Scott Hammond: How about that?

John Hauser: So it was the, the tech crash had happened in 2000-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … and in the Bay Area, there was a lot of outsourcing going on.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: So we looked at it, tech winter kinda set in,

John Hauser: uh, and we said, "Hey, let's, let's move into the, let's move into the house, the rental house in Humboldt."

John Hauser: So we, uh-

Scott Hammond: Came north.

John Hauser: We, we came north.

Scott Hammond: Welcome home.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Welcome to Humboldt.

John Hauser: Yeah. So I'm a recent arrival. I've only been here 20 years.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. You're, you're a new guy.

John Hauser: Yeah. Exactly.

Scott Hammond: Nick, keep an eye on the new guy.

John Hauser: Right.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, no, I, I get it. In Ferndale, you'd just be, uh, same day. Yeah, um, w- love you guys in Ferndale. Uh, so what do you like, what do you like about living here? Assuming you like it.

John Hauser: The, the difference, the difference between here and the Bay Area is that in the Bay Area, everyth- the relationships are anonymous or transactional.

Scott Hammond: Ah.

John Hauser: And up here,

John Hauser: they aren't.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: And, and they, they better not be. You know, you can't treat someone the same way you treat them in the Bay Area-

Scott Hammond: No

John Hauser: … because you're gonna be seeing them for the next 40 years.

Scott Hammond: That's right.

John Hauser: You're gonna be running into them.

Scott Hammond: What are you doing here at Safeway again?

John Hauser: Right.

Scott Hammond: I've seen you five times this week.

John Hauser: Right.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: It's true.

John Hauser: Yeah. I-

Scott Hammond: No, it's true

John Hauser: … at this Thanksgiving that I would come up to, that I've been going to for 42 years now, um, I was shocked. This guy shows up, and four of his ex-wives show up as well.

Scott Hammond: How about that?

John Hauser: And they all get together.

Scott Hammond: Oh. And they're friends.

John Hauser: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Because why not?

John Hauser: 'Cause, you know, 'cause you gotta work, 'cause you gotta live with these people.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, you might as well figure it out.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: I like it.

John Hauser: So that was, you know, this was in the '80s, and I went d- back down to Oakland and told my friends, you know, "Man, this is some sorta, you know, Mormon thing, like Big Lu-," Big Love wasn't around yet, but-

Scott Hammond: That's-

John Hauser: … they do things differently up in the hills.

Scott Hammond: It's kinda weird up in here.

John Hauser: Right.

Scott Hammond: Humboldt's a little strange, man.

John Hauser: Yeah. But you really know that, uh, you really know that you've arrived when you fly back from going back east or wherever home-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … used to be.

John Hauser: And for me, it's about Ukiah, north of Ukiah.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: You know, all of a sudden, the tension starts coming out of your shoulders as you get rid of the traffic. You know-

Scott Hammond: Hmm

John Hauser: … Highway 20 splits off-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

John Hauser: … and, and goes over to Lake, uh, Lakeville, Lake County.

Scott Hammond: Yep.

John Hauser: And it's just, "Ah."

Scott Hammond: Yeah, where you smell the air.

John Hauser: Yeah. Oh, absolutely.

Scott Hammond: You could actually smell the air.

John Hauser: Yep.

Scott Hammond: You know, I thought Medford, we go up there a lot. You know, I thought they had great air. Came home, and it's, like, sunny and 60 and perfect here, and, and it, it's, you could smell it, s- smell it. It's beautiful. So, uh, tell you my story about Internet Archive. Let's, we'll segue to that.

John Hauser: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: Um, so the Internet Archive, which you know a little bit about, you'll talk about here in a minute. My friend David, we would s- uh, sit up at his house in Fickle Hill, and he has a deck. It overlooks everything, and we listen to music-

John Hauser: Nice. Mm-hmm

Scott Hammond: … and play the hi-fi and listen to The Archies and all the… Anyway, he loves Bruce Springsteen. He goes, "Check this app out. You gotta get this app." Hey, David Turner, by the way. And he goes, "You gotta, Internet Archive. It's great." I go, "Sure," I'm downloading. He goes, "You wanna hear the show from Bruce Springsteen that I was at in '79 at the Cow Palace? I was at that show, dude. And he did this one song, and he hits it." And it's like, what are you talking about? You could… How about the Grateful Dead? Now we're on-

John Hauser: Uh-

Scott Hammond: Now the roll, I mean, sure, they're, they're somewhere. Are, are they on the archive?

Scott Hammond: Um,

Scott Hammond: so then, then the mind starts to expand, and you go, "Oh, what about that Neil Young show in San Diego when I was 15 that they recorded live?" And, and on and on it goes. And so as I've scrolled through, I guess there's, uh, tell, give us a, a non-techie nerd speak-

Scott Hammond: … the common man what this, what this tool is, what this cloud is. It's, it's, it's-

John Hauser: It's-

Scott Hammond: … inevitably-

John Hauser: It's a digital public library

Scott Hammond: … it's a library.

John Hauser: It's a library, yeah. And, and the founder is a books guy primarily. He loves books. He loves text.

Scott Hammond: 'Cause there's a lot of literature here too.

John Hauser: Oh, absolutely.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: Yeah. He's, um, he, ever since he graduated from MIT, he's been obsessed with recreating a Library of Alexandria.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

John Hauser: And so-

Scott Hammond: Wow

John Hauser: … he's, um, so he started out doing books, but then there were a bunch of people on college campuses trading tapes, um, tapes, bootleg tapes of shows, or not even bootlegs, but soundboard

John Hauser: recordings.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

John Hauser: Because of course, the labels own the rights to the studio recordings.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: They don't own the rights to the soundboard recordings.

Scott Hammond: When you say that, are you referring to the Dead, Grateful Dead specifically, or

Scott Hammond: just any-

John Hauser: No, any, any band. This is how it works.

Scott Hammond: And some bands you could plug into their board, right?

John Hauser: Yeah. Yeah, and it's, uh, uh, well, almost all boards, you know, the sound guys are making recordings. They're- they're recording the mix.

Scott Hammond: Right.

John Hauser: And so these are beautiful. It's not some guy under a poncho in the rain outside.

Scott Hammond: Cassette player.

John Hauser: Yeah, exactly. The mono or the mono-

Scott Hammond: Terrible.

John Hauser: Yeah. All you can hear is the rain, you know-

Scott Hammond: Right

John Hauser: … because he's bootlegging-

Scott Hammond: The cars going by

John Hauser: … he's bootlegging the show. No, this is great. You know, it's, this is professional equipment, mix. So Brewster reached out to these, uh, college groups and said, "Hey, storage for your tape library for free forever." And people go, "Who is this guy? Oh, he's gotta be like a narc." You know?

Scott Hammond: Free?

John Hauser: Free forever? But that's, that's Brewster. He's, he, you know, sees something cool and wants to help, and

John Hauser: so-

Scott Hammond: I like it.

John Hauser: Yeah. So I can't remember how many shows they've got on

John Hauser: the, uh, on the live music archive now, but that's kind of just one leg. So there are music enthusiasts know about the, the live music archive.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

John Hauser: He's hired a guy that's, uh, c- bills himself as the free range archivist, and this guy is responsible

John Hauser: for, um, the software collection on the internet archive. So being able to play the Oregon Trail in a web browser-

Scott Hammond: Far out

John Hauser: … you can do that now.

Scott Hammond: Pac-Man in an old-

John Hauser: Pac-Man

Scott Hammond: … format.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

John Hauser: You can do all these games and, and, uh, arcade consoles you can run in a Firefox web browser now.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: So that's all been collected and developed by one of the folks at the internet archive.

Scott Hammond: That's valuable, yeah.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Museum stuff.

John Hauser: Yep. And, uh, magazines, uh, collections of-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … of magazines, collections of kind of everything other than books has been developed by something, somebody with an interest, an enthusiast.

Scott Hammond: So how would he cr- recreate the Library of Alexandria? 'Cause those are… Were those books scrolls?

John Hauser: They were scrolls, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. So would he scan those and have… Uh, would he-

John Hauser: I, I think it's just metaphorically-

Scott Hammond: Oh, I see. Okay

John Hauser: … that the… Yeah.

Scott Hammond: I, I, I speak metaphor. I just didn't catch it.

John Hauser: Right.

Scott Hammond: Thank you.

John Hauser: Yes. Well, Sean will insert a, a b- Hey, Sean. Uh, Sean will insert-

Scott Hammond: Hey, Sean.

John Hauser: Now that we know what metadata is, what's a metaphor?

Scott Hammond: Oh, nice.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Good one. That's a funny one.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: That's, that's high-level humor right there.

John Hauser: Hey, hey, hey, Sean, Scott laughed at your joke.

Scott Hammond: Did you ever ha- hear the one about the guy that could get a m- uh, a job as a cartographer 'cause he had no sense of humor? That's my, that's my dad joke that everybody shakes their head and goes, "What?" So, so, uh, data on shows, on t- television shows, would television be archived? Uh, would this-

John Hauser: Yeah, uh, actually the archive had… Uh, s- they started recording,

John Hauser: um, actually during 9/11 they started recording, and they recorded… They, they record 125 TV channels 24 hours a day.

Scott Hammond: Crazy.

John Hauser: And they have an East Coast recording site. They have a West Coast recording site.

Scott Hammond: How do you find a thing with that big of a brain to store that data? 'Cause it's video data, right?

John Hauser: Yeah. It's, um… There's an interesting thing of when Brewster started the internet archive, Brewster Kahle is the founder.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: When he started it, there's an, uh, a cute interview with him where he's, you know, he's got most of his hair.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: And he says, "Yeah, I think it'll take about two years to, to finish this project." He's got one little Solaris computer.

Scott Hammond: Uh-huh.

John Hauser: And instead of hard drives, he's got a, uh, storage array, this disc… uh, sorry, tape cartridge storage array because he knew he needed offline storage to store-

Scott Hammond: Sure

John Hauser: … this much data. Um, and it's, it just kind of has evolved from there.

Scott Hammond: Then the technology came for lots and lots and lots of data storage.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Huh, and compression of data.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Crazy. So if I wanted to write a paper, I could go here and

Scott Hammond: do-

John Hauser: Ab- ab-

Scott Hammond: … some research?

John Hauser: Absolutely. I've met people on airplanes when I talk about what I do with the internet archive, uh, they go, "Oh, I love the internet

John Hauser: archive."

Scott Hammond: Right.

John Hauser: "There's a… I, my PhD thesis is on renaissance" something or other, and there's three copies of this book in the world, and one of them is in the Vatican Library.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: And the other one is in-

Scott Hammond: Oh, that's cool

John Hauser: … northern Italy, and the third one's been scanned and it's available on the internet archive.

Scott Hammond: For free.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: For free. And so they're able to research it. The bad news is they don't get the trips to Italy-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

John Hauser: … that they used to. They don't have to book two-

Scott Hammond: Talk about it

John Hauser: … two months in, in northern Italy.

Scott Hammond: You know, speaking of somebody that did, did that, um, my friend David Reed, uh, at Food For People, just talked to him half hour ago. "Hey, David." He goes-

John Hauser: "Hey, David"

Scott Hammond: … "Ask him about the WayBack Machine." I said, "The WayBack Machine?" I go, "Yeah,

Scott Hammond: I got the-

John Hauser: The WayBack Machine is another part

Scott Hammond: … I got the guy that invented the internet archive."

John Hauser: No. No, no. He's, he-

Scott Hammond: He helps.

John Hauser: Yeah. Right.

Scott Hammond: So the… What is the WayBack Machine?

John Hauser: So the WayBack Machine is, uh-

Scott Hammond: It's a cart- it's a cartoon allusion to-

John Hauser: Uh, yeah, absolutely

Scott Hammond: … the WayBack Machine in, uh, was it P- uh, Peabody and Sherman?

John Hauser: Peabody and Sherman, yep. Yep.

Scott Hammond: Man, we're old, dude.

John Hauser: That was, that was spelled with a C. There was no K on that, you know? It was WayBack Machine.

Scott Hammond: WayBack. The WayBack.

John Hauser: And one year… Ev- every year the, our internet archive throws a public celebration, and they celebrate the birth- the birthday of the internet archive. It's the third week in October usually.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

John Hauser: And one year they actually had the thing… They had the WayBack dial-

Scott Hammond: Sweet

John Hauser: … uh, set up, and they had-

Scott Hammond: Recreated it

John Hauser: … fog machine, and they recreated it.

Scott Hammond: From a cartoon.

John Hauser: Yeah, from the cartoon.

Scott Hammond: That's cool.

John Hauser: So, uh, let's see. Life imitating art, uh-

Scott Hammond: Yeah, exactly.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: So Peabody and Sherman go back to Roman times in the WayBack Machine book.

John Hauser: Exactly.

Scott Hammond: If you haven't seen it-

John Hauser: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … Google Peabody and Sherman. Was the show called Peabody and Sherman?

John Hauser: Uh, it was actually a segment of a show called Fractured Fairy

John Hauser: Tales-

Scott Hammond: Thank you

John Hauser: … probably.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: But… And it was the Rocky and… It was a segment in the Rocky-

Scott Hammond: It's the-

John Hauser: … and Bullwinkle show.

Scott Hammond: Thank you. It was the Rocky-

John Hauser: I think

Scott Hammond: … and Bullwinkle was the umbrella.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: There's some real talent. Dudley Do-Right.

John Hauser: Yep.

Scott Hammond: And Nell.

John Hauser: Yep.

Scott Hammond: Oh, I'm feeling old right now.

John Hauser: Boris and Natasha.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, those are huge.

John Hauser: Natasha complaining about w- why is she rowing so much, and-

Scott Hammond: Right

John Hauser: … Boris turns to her and says, "Well, it's just that your half is bigger than my half." And as a kid, I just cracked up at the idea that halves could be different sizes.

Scott Hammond: Such an allusion to, to Russia, the whole thing. It's, like, so funny.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: So, uh, so the internet, uh, archive would have cartoons?

John Hauser: Yeah. They have, as a matter of fact-

Scott Hammond: Animation.

John Hauser: Yeah, they have animation. They have cartoons. They have, if you're interested in old commercials-

Scott Hammond: Oh, boy

John Hauser: … they have old commercials, and I've got about 40 gigabytes of old commercials-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … saved off because when you look at the early ones, they didn't know what they were doing.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: Uh, Groucho Marx pimping, uh, Plymouth automobiles.

Scott Hammond: Right.

John Hauser: It goes for-

Scott Hammond: Cig-

John Hauser: … you know, five, six, seven minutes.

Scott Hammond: Or cigarettes.

John Hauser: Cigarettes.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: It's, it's really interesting to see-

Scott Hammond: Huh

John Hauser: … kind of-

Scott Hammond: Different world

John Hauser: … yeah, what's, what's going on there, uh-

Scott Hammond: So-

John Hauser: … in terms of the evolution

Scott Hammond: … Saturday Night Live, SNL, goes back 50 years now.

John Hauser: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: Uh, that certainly… Do you… So would that have an archive for all those even though they're NBC proprietary or…?

John Hauser: I, I'm not sure because the large media corporations-

Scott Hammond: Mm

John Hauser: … you know, in the early days they were cool with it, but as they consolidate and… You know, the worst thing to come out of the 2000s was the concept of intellectual property-

Scott Hammond: Right

John Hauser: … and the idea of locking up culture.

Scott Hammond: Right.

John Hauser: Because, of course, everything builds on what's come before.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

John Hauser: And the idea that you take fairy tales and you strip-mine them and turn them into Disney movies or you, uh… Star Wars, you know? Good versus evil. It's like, oh, but with lasers and pew, pew, pew.

Scott Hammond: And now we can protect it intellectually.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: For too long in, in the future.

Scott Hammond: It's the same darn story from whatever.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: Yeah, from, from myth makers and, and-

Scott Hammond: Yeah, and musically that's happened too. A lot of people-

John Hauser: Right

Scott Hammond: … copy songs and tweak them and-

John Hauser: Sampling.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: You know? It's-

Scott Hammond: Sampling, yeah.

John Hauser: So there are, uh… So the Internet Archive, they wind up doing certain functions-

Scott Hammond: Mm

John Hauser: … and the rest they depend on people following their own muse and-

Scott Hammond: Mm

John Hauser: … uploading their, uh, uh… The archive isn't the one collecting this. In this case, they just provide a platform to pe- for people to upload.

John Hauser: And so-

Scott Hammond: And so you and I could upload this show-

John Hauser: Right

Scott Hammond: … Saturday afternoon-

John Hauser: Right

Scott Hammond: … at some point inter- independently.

John Hauser: Right. And you and I wind, just as you and I wind up submitting a show to Access Humboldt since we live in Humboldt County-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … we can submit a show. And in Access Humboldt submission guidelines it says, you know, "You have the rights," you know, "Uh, you're following copyright, and you have the rights to this show to be, that you're uploading."

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: And so that would be where people aren't following those guidelines when they're uploading old TV shows.

Scott Hammond: I see.

John Hauser: So, so there are some, uh, collections of TV shows on the Internet Archive-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … that have been contributed, and they haven't been taken down yet.

Scott Hammond: Got it.

John Hauser: But a lot of the things that have been covered by DVD releases, uh, box sets of DVDs-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … you won't find. I don't think you'll find Friends on the Internet Archive, for example.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: Um, but-

Scott Hammond: Perfectly fine with that.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: Yeah. But t- but some, some minor things.

Scott Hammond: Seinfeld you might. I don't know.

John Hauser: I don't know about that either.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. So you're… So tell me what you do then at, at CR in Humboldt-

John Hauser: Mm-hmm

Scott Hammond: … as your, your, your corner of the archive.

John Hauser: So my corner of the archive, I, uh, I got involved with the Internet Archive because Access Humboldt wanted to wind up getting information out to members and stakeholders in the local

John Hauser: community-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … that weren't cable subscribers.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

John Hauser: Because remember, the whole funding for Access Humboldt comes from, a big chunk of it comes from the cable company.

Scott Hammond: That's right.

John Hauser: And so

John Hauser: as prices have been raised over the years-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … and as the average able, age of cable subscribers has

John Hauser: increased-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … you know, no young person has, has cable.

Scott Hammond: Subscriberships dropped.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: No young person has a cable.

Scott Hammond: Any idea what the local subscribership is now?

John Hauser: I don't. Um, I-

Scott Hammond: I think we were at 19,000 or 20,000 about 10 years ago.

John Hauser: Yeah. I think we're probably-

Scott Hammond: I thought we were really somehow-

John Hauser: I, I think we're probably half that now.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: Clo- uh, approaching half.

Scott Hammond: The Daily was 25,000 homes, and now it's

Scott Hammond: not.

John Hauser: Uh, well, when you have to put rocks in your local, in the baggie to get the paper- … out past the car window.

Scott Hammond: Some lead.

John Hauser: Right. I mean, hey, I was a paper boy back in the day.

Scott Hammond: It has to throw.

John Hauser: Right. If it doesn't throw, it's…

Scott Hammond: Yeah, no, it's poor, poor, poor print-

John Hauser: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … media, but yeah. Eh. It's, uh, welcome to the '90s, folks.

John Hauser: Yeah. I mean, people, people ask me about, "What happens when you're not archiving anymore?"

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: "And what happens?" And I said, "You know, are you better off than when you were?" You know, "Are you better off before I started this

John Hauser: project?"

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

John Hauser: You've got something now. And I started archiving this because access centers around the country were going out of business-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … uh, because of dropping subscribership-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … because the incumbent, uh, internet service providers or telecom companies, the cable TV companies-

Scott Hammond: Mm

John Hauser: … were, got laws passed in about half of the country that said, "Local communities can't negotiate with us. There's one blanket law on the state level."

Scott Hammond: Wow.

John Hauser: And, and nowadays what they're arguing for is, "Why should we have to pay franchise fees for cable TV when YouTube doesn't have to pay?"

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

John Hauser: And so the same guys that used to have, uh, the cable TV things are now just internet providers, and one of the reasons they're doing that is because they don't have to pay the five-

Scott Hammond: The fees

John Hauser: … or 6% or whatever.

Scott Hammond: So-

John Hauser: They've also gone from a unionized workforce to a non-unionized workforce.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

John Hauser: Very little of the internet infrastructure is maintained

John Hauser: by-

Scott Hammond: Hmm

John Hauser: … union labor these days.

Scott Hammond: So that means there's less access channels when those-

John Hauser: Right

Scott Hammond: … guys go bye-bye.

John Hauser: Right. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: And the, uh, Comcast and those guys are all huge.

John Hauser: Yep.

Scott Hammond: Yep.

John Hauser: And it, it, you know, the state of Connecticut, there's still c- uh, access presence in Connecticut. It's almost entirely volunteer.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

John Hauser: Or the local citizens have decided to tax themselves, and they-

Scott Hammond: 'Cause it's no longer funded.

John Hauser: Right.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

John Hauser: 'Cause it's no longer funded through the state level.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. I watched Optimum take over Suddenlink and just, uh-

John Hauser: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … who took over Cox-

John Hauser: Well-

Scott Hammond: … who took over-

John Hauser: Let's, let's call it what it is.

John Hauser: Altice-

Scott Hammond: Altice

John Hauser: … took over. Yes. And they had a terrible… You know, if Comcast's reputation-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … is sterling-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … compared to Altice's reputation over in Europe and, uh-

Scott Hammond: Oh, yeah

John Hauser: … some of the places that they operate.

Scott Hammond: Let's cut half the workforce, and that-

John Hauser: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … feels so good. Let's cut a little more.

John Hauser: Yeah. Let's unilaterally renegotiate contracts and ex-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

John Hauser: … expect the other di- Other side to accept 35% less

Scott Hammond: Well, let's raise rates.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: It's like-

John Hauser: 'Cause, 'cause hey, my kid has to go to private school.

Scott Hammond: Yes. Somebody's gotta fund my Jag.

John Hauser: Exactly.

Scott Hammond: Come on, man.

John Hauser: Right.

Scott Hammond: What is this?

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: So, so you are, as, as far as you're an archivist, you're, you're archiving all the content on Access Humboldt, and, and then some? Is there other-

John Hauser: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … things that you're-

John Hauser: Well-

Scott Hammond: … you find-

John Hauser: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … locally that you dri- drive in?

John Hauser: So take, uh… First of all, I only access, on the Access Humboldt submission form, we have, in the old days we had a thing called, "Is it okay to put your, um, program on a DVD and, or CD and distribute it to members?"

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: And we have something on there that says, "Okay for web distribution."

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: So if a producer says-

Scott Hammond: Seen that, yeah

John Hauser: … Yeah. If a producer says, "No, I don't want my show on the air-"

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … "I, I'm sorry, on the web," it, I don't archive it.

Scott Hammond: Right.

John Hauser: So it's only the stuff that winds up, um-

Scott Hammond: Hmm

John Hauser: … okay for internet distribution that I archive.

Scott Hammond: Okay.

John Hauser: Now, take Access Humboldt and multiply it by

John Hauser: 2,100.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

John Hauser: And that's what I do.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

John Hauser: The Community Media Archive takes

John Hauser: 2,100 channels around-

Scott Hammond: Ah

John Hauser: … the country-

Scott Hammond: Ah

John Hauser: … and collects them in o- one, one place.

Scott Hammond: And that's you?

John Hauser: And that's me.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

John Hauser: I am the Community Media Archive.

Scott Hammond: That's remarkable.

John Hauser: So right now we have 2.7 million videos online.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: They've been viewed or downloaded a hundred and seventy-three million times.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

John Hauser: Now, let's say 90% of that a- is bots or AI training or whatever. It's not, because this, these numbers, uh, I've been tracking these numbers for 15 years.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: It's still, again, it's more exposure than you are getting in your local cable-

Scott Hammond: And it's global

John Hauser: … system. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: Yeah. Exactly. So people, um, we had a guy,

John Hauser: um, his show was called Portugal de amores. Every week he would do two hours of the local news in Portuguese. That show was watched-

Scott Hammond: Here, here in Humboldt?

John Hauser: Here in Humboldt, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

John Hauser: Yeah. Uh, and so he had, you know-

Scott Hammond: Huh

John Hauser: … 300 episodes of, of this thing.

Scott Hammond: Who was the guy?

John Hauser: Um, I, I-

Scott Hammond: Was he up in Arcata?

John Hauser: No, I don't think so. I think he…

John Hauser: Well, I don't know where he came from, but he did it on VHS tape.

Scott Hammond: Azores.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, probably.

John Hauser: And so he, he would, he would, uh, he would give us two tapes a week, and one week we only aired one of his tapes. And he says, "I give you two, you only air one." "You only want one, I only give you one." I was like-

Scott Hammond: Good Portuguese.

John Hauser: … "Jose, Jose, you know, the end of the tape was blank." This ta- this tape, he would reuse these tapes so much that they would be… And I was showing this at a film festival in Austin, Texas. And the first question I got asked was, "How do you get that old VCR filter effect?" And I said, "That's because they're using-"

Scott Hammond: Wore out

John Hauser: … "old, used video tape."

Scott Hammond: He's a cheap guy.

John Hauser: Wore out the tape. Uh, Costco-

Scott Hammond: That's pretty funny

John Hauser: … Costco was clearing out videotapes.

Scott Hammond: But it looks really cool.

John Hauser: Yeah.

John Hauser: Yeah. To 20-somethings, it looks cool.

Scott Hammond: That's funny.

John Hauser: So we had, uh, when Costco was clearing out videotapes, we bought him a 12-pack f- one year for Christmas-

Scott Hammond: Just to help him out

John Hauser: … so, so that he could wind up giving us new-

Scott Hammond: It's your present

John Hauser: … right.

Scott Hammond: I love it.

John Hauser: Yep.

Scott Hammond: That's, that's a good story.

Scott Hammond: So I, um, so help me out here. So you got this system. There are 2,100 of Access Humboldt-like systems-

John Hauser: Mm-hmm

Scott Hammond: … that are, uh, throughout the nation.

John Hauser: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: Canada?

John Hauser: Yeah. Actually, I'm involved,

John Hauser: uh… Canada is, is, is m- much smaller-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … obviously because of their population, and community television is usually broadcast television in Canada because the distances involved. Cable, uh, cable doesn't really work except with, uh, very close to the US border or in Toronto-

Scott Hammond: Right

John Hauser: … Montreal, Vancouver.

Scott Hammond: Not in the tundra of Saskatchewan or-

John Hauser: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … Saskatoon.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. No way.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Right.

John Hauser: So, but in, uh, Canada, I'm working with the national organization there, and, um, they had a federally funded local journalism initiative.

John Hauser: And so there are, I think, 50 different, uh, media outlets I'm working with in Canada. L- again, nonprofit-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … locally funded. But there, they've decided that from a public policy or a social policy, we want locally produced news. We l- want locally produced content.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

John Hauser: And they build it into their system rather than, you know, relying on free market, quote, unquote.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. So s- one of the guys that I always g- uh, look at on Channel 12

Scott Hammond: is, um, the w- the, the, the weird preacher guy. I, I don't even think he's a preacher.

John Hauser: I, I was gonna say-

Scott Hammond: Is he the Eck-

John Hauser: … which weird, which weird preacher guy?

John Hauser: I'm sorry.

Scott Hammond: I love preachers. I l-

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: I'm a preacher. Uh, the, I think he's the Eckankar guy.

John Hauser: Oh.

Scott Hammond: And this-

John Hauser: Mm-hmm

Scott Hammond: … this guy's been reran for, like,

Scott Hammond: decades now.

John Hauser: Oh, yeah.

Scott Hammond: And he's got that weird, soft, lilting voice-

John Hauser: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … and he's telling you about, I, you know, I'm not here to rip on Eckankar, but come on, man. It's like… Anyway, may-

John Hauser: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … maybe that's my own bias speaking, but some of the stuff is reran and,

Scott Hammond: um-

John Hauser: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … not my, not my, not in my lane talking about it really.

John Hauser: We have, um, it's interesting because we generally, if it's nationally syndicated shows, we don't wind up re- we don't wind up collecting that or re-airing that because w- I'm sorry, we'll air it on the cable system.

Scott Hammond: Right.

John Hauser: But, um, we won't wind up, if it's already on the Internet

John Hauser: Archive-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … let's say, or if it's already on the internet-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … we aren't gonna add another copy of that because-

Scott Hammond: Right. It would be redundant

John Hauser: … there are syndicate, well, there are syndicated religious shows out there.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: They're already there, uh-

Scott Hammond: So this guy's not local, so this is content filler for Jerusha to put something on that channel.

John Hauser: Yes. A representative of a, a, a national group can distribute

John Hauser: media-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … and they have to have a local person submit it to… The national organization can't ask Access Humboldt-

Scott Hammond: I got you

John Hauser: … to air it.

Scott Hammond: Is it paid in any way? Is there-

John Hauser: No.

Scott Hammond: Is there hush money involved?

John Hauser: No. No.

Scott Hammond: I'm just asking.

John Hauser: Access would look very differently if, if there were.

Scott Hammond: You'd be, you'd be driving a Jag-

John Hauser: Pay-

Scott Hammond: … instead of your Honda

John Hauser: … pay to play. And I'm driving in my wife's Honda, not my 2007, uh-

Scott Hammond: The beater

John Hauser: … right.

Scott Hammond: Okay, s- so but local people could request on behalf of Assemblies of God America to bring a, a local show

Scott Hammond: on. Okay.

John Hauser: Right.

Scott Hammond: Gotcha, okay. Cool.

John Hauser: Yep. The problem is, is that most religious organizations, since they've got a funding stream of donations-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … they've got better studio equipment than Access Humboldt does.

Scott Hammond: Correct, yeah. They do.

John Hauser: You know, in the old days w- when a camera cost 30,000, a camera on a tripod cost 30,000, you needed three of those-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … and, you know, studio space, nowadays many of the religious organizations have better. So we, we've seen a drop-off in certain types of programming-

Scott Hammond: Huh

John Hauser: … in the public access space because they don't have to wind up coming through Access Humboldt for the tools.

Scott Hammond: They can buy it on TBN or something-

John Hauser: Right

Scott Hammond: … that's gonna be national.

John Hauser: Yep.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Saw Joel Osteen live and his show i- in, in, uh, Houston at the old-

John Hauser: Okay

Scott Hammond: … Rockets arena. Oof, quite the show.

John Hauser: Yeah, how was that?

Scott Hammond: Nice band. Get to meet him afterwards, you could shake his hand, and his hair, his hair is beautiful. He's got these… He, he was actually… He gets a lot of bad press, but he's pretty nice guy.

John Hauser: Nice.

Scott Hammond: The Californians, they got to sit up front.

Scott Hammond: It was cool.

John Hauser: All right.

Scott Hammond: But it was very highly produced. There was equipment, like, everywhere.

John Hauser: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: It was like… And you could tell you were on The Ed Sullivan Show. It was, uh, it was something. So let's talk about you and Humboldt for a minute. Let's do… Actually, let's do the quiz. Are you ready?

John Hauser: There is a bell. See?

Scott Hammond: There is a bell.

John Hauser: I… Let's ring the bell. I'm going-

Scott Hammond: We'll do it again.

John Hauser: What bell? Because I'm not watching the video. I'm only reading the transcript.

Scott Hammond: Does it, does it-

John Hauser: Oh

Scott Hammond: … does it say something?

John Hauser: Yeah, it's… Well, it says-

Scott Hammond: Bell ringing?

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Bell ringing.

John Hauser: Bell ringing.

Scott Hammond: Okay. F- so for all, all the dollars, ready?

John Hauser: Woo, woo.

Scott Hammond: This is it, baby.

John Hauser: Okay.

Scott Hammond: The brown butter. Dick Choc- Dick Taylor Chocolate, Eureka, California. So let's, uh, uh, question number one. Uh, John, you get the day off with a friend, whatever, unlimited amount of money to go do your thing in, within the borders of the map now, we gotta qualify the question. What are, what are you gonna go do? It's sunny, it's 70, it's… Go do it. What, what would you, what would your day look like? John's, John Hauser's dream day. I've never asked it this way. I like, I like this.

John Hauser: If it's, uh, if it's the winter and it's a sunny day, uh, drive out to, uh, Table Bluff, to the south jetty. I don't know if the… I don't know what condition the road's there in.

Scott Hammond: Probably okay.

John Hauser: Uh, it wasn't the last time.

Scott Hammond: It's pretty pitted out.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: It was,

John Hauser: it was-

Scott Hammond: Oh, wow

John Hauser: … large potholes.

Scott Hammond: Oh, wow.

John Hauser: But anyway, uh, uh, on Table Bluff looking out over the

John Hauser: jetty-

Scott Hammond: Oh, yeah

John Hauser: … that was, uh, the hang gliders might be out.

John Hauser: Uh-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

John Hauser: … that's fun. Um,

John Hauser: it's, uh… So that's a good part of it, uh, just hanging out there and watching the way the, uh, water as, the, the water changes color as the sun moves.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: Um, you know, I went to Hawaii, I, uh, actually for, for work. Uh, the Maui Access Center brought me out-

Scott Hammond: Oh, very nice

John Hauser: … for two weeks. And, uh, I-

Scott Hammond: Are they right in the main town there?

John Hauser: They're in Kahului.

Scott Hammond: Kahului, yeah.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Or the airport.

John Hauser: OGG.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: Is the… They've got a couple of airports on Maui, but-

Scott Hammond: Yeah, on OG.

John Hauser: Yeah. But, uh, yeah, but the problem with Hawaii is, let's see. It's hot. There's tons of people.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: It's got water. It's green. Oh, wait, Humboldt has water. It's green.

Scott Hammond: Mm.

John Hauser: It doesn't have people.

Scott Hammond: No.

John Hauser: So-

Scott Hammond: Also, you cannot swim in it.

John Hauser: Right.

Scott Hammond: Well, you can, but you need a wetsuit that thick.

John Hauser: Yeah. But, but the, but the point is, um, one of the things we didn't get to about the Bay Area was that, um, in the Bay Area, you know, it was busy when I was there.

Scott Hammond: Mm.

John Hauser: And 20 years later, it just seems more frenetic.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: And so-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

John Hauser: … I don't… I used to enjoy the, um, energy. Again, do it while you're young.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

John Hauser: Everybody should in-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

John Hauser: … but, you know, it's-

Scott Hammond: San Diego's not as much fun anymore.

John Hauser: Right.

Scott Hammond: It's just freeway grinding.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: Yeah. Yeah, so that's what I love about Humboldt, is, is how you can get out and just-

Scott Hammond: Mm

John Hauser: … enjoy, uh-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

John Hauser: … you know, smell the air, sunshine.

Scott Hammond: Yep. We live in McKinleyville. Our date night is Hoota Point and scenic drive there on the way, and-

John Hauser: There you go

Scott Hammond: … it's, um, it's magical. We pop up in the van and, uh, p- throw out the lawn chairs

Scott Hammond: and-

John Hauser: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … uh, they built, uh, uh… We have a secret spot now.

John Hauser: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: So it's just, it's magic. So you, you get the refraction of the sun. It's 75 degrees on the cliffs. The sun goes down, it's 32.

John Hauser: Yeah, right.

Scott Hammond: And you, and you throw all the crap in the van and go home back to-

John Hauser: Right

Scott Hammond: … back to McKinleyville.

John Hauser: Right. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: So but yeah, you're very right, so good comparison. So question number two. So that's your day. You're gonna go to Table Bluff.

John Hauser: Mm-hmm, yep.

Scott Hammond: There's a lot of good w- hiking around there too. The, right below it to the south end is a really cool new, uh, parking area that you can walk all the way down the spit.

John Hauser: Nice.

Scott Hammond: Pretty close to Centerville. I don't know.

John Hauser: Okay.

Scott Hammond: The, the Eel transects that in some big way.

John Hauser: Yes. Okay.

Scott Hammond: So, so question number two. Here comes the bell. Bell ringing. That'll be on the transcript. So, uh, meal of your choice. Where do you go, where do you go out to eat when you, uh-

John Hauser: Our new favorite place, we live, uh, S Street, uh, Henderson just off of S, uh, between Q and R.

Scott Hammond: Great, yeah.

John Hauser: And so our, our favorite place, our new favorite place to go is, um, the Diver Bar & Grill-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

John Hauser: … in Henderson Center.

Scott Hammond: Delicious.

John Hauser: And we walk down there for lunch.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: Uh, our neighbor is newly retired, and so sometimes we'll, we'll ask her, and we'll walk down there-

Scott Hammond: Oh, that's fun

John Hauser: … especially when it's nice.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: We haven't been back to Brick and Fire, I don't think since COVID. They were going through some rocky times, uh-

Scott Hammond: They're back. Delicious.

John Hauser: Okay.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Doing good.

John Hauser: That was, that was another place. Again, we like doing it… The idea of having to get in your car and drive places is-

Scott Hammond: Right

John Hauser: … uh-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

John Hauser: … we'd rather, we'd rather walk.

Scott Hammond: My, my wife loves to take the bus from McKinleyville to Eureka.

John Hauser: Oh, good.

Scott Hammond: I'll meet you.

John Hauser: Oh, great for her.

Scott Hammond: I go, "Sh- good." Shout out to Joanie.

John Hauser: She said, "Joanie."

Scott Hammond: Yeah. We did , we did really good in Amsterdam 'cause there's trains all over

Scott Hammond: Netherlands-

John Hauser: Yes

Scott Hammond: … and Belgium and-

John Hauser: Yep

Scott Hammond: … it's really cool. Um, but I, I don't, I think I'd rather drive my Toyota, thank you. Uh, but that's just me. Uh, question number thr- so I love Diver Bar. It's delicious. They have some, I think they have linen napkins if I remember.

John Hauser: They do.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Which is, no everybody does that anymore. Uh, question number three, here comes the bell. And this is for all the chips. Where would you take a hike if you could hike anywhere? Uh, provided you're a hiker. Well, you're a walker.

John Hauser: Yeah. Yeah. The easiest, uh, the, the quickest answer is, uh, I walk up to Sequoia Park and walk through Sequoia Park.

Scott Hammond: Ah.

John Hauser: And that's not, uh, that's not great compared to some of the hikes, but again, I don't

John Hauser: have-

Scott Hammond: Hey

John Hauser: … to get in the car and drive to the place, to the trailhead.

Scott Hammond: It's fair.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: The trade, the tradeoff's really nice.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: And working in IT, if I've, if I've got a problem, if it's a, it might be a technical problem or a coding problem and-

Scott Hammond: Take a walk

John Hauser: … or it might be a people problem.

John Hauser: You know?

Scott Hammond: Sure.

John Hauser: It might be, "Oh man, what do I do with these folks?" It's like get, just, hey, get out of the house, walk through Sequoia Park. Yeah. And it's especially great now that, uh, they've turned the, uh, you know, they've got the, the gates closed for a lot of it.

Scott Hammond: Right.

John Hauser: Because it used to be that-

Scott Hammond: Cars would go through there

John Hauser: … yeah, cars would go through there.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: It's, it's kinda tough to, to walk and allow cars on

John Hauser: that.

Scott Hammond: Well, and you got the skywalk too.

John Hauser: Yeah. That's-

Scott Hammond: Which is really bomb.

John Hauser: Yeah. That's, that's, uh, incredible. And I thought it was, you know, man, what a waste of a couple million bucks, and then you get up there and you go, "Oh, nice."

Scott Hammond: See what they do, see what they did.

John Hauser: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: See what they're doing here.

John Hauser: Right.

Scott Hammond: Oh, at Christmas-

John Hauser: And-

Scott Hammond: … it was lit.

John Hauser: Yes. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Oh.

John Hauser: They light it up. And the other thing is that nobody's gonna come off a 101. People are coming to the neighborhood all the time asking how to get to the

John Hauser: skywalk.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: And so we s- you know, they got a little bit off, and so we send them back over to-

Scott Hammond: Sure

John Hauser: … S Street and get them back on the way-

Scott Hammond: Oh, that's cool

John Hauser: … to the zoo.

Scott Hammond: I like that. Yeah.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: No, I was really impressed. We, we've been on a couple times, but doing it at night during the holidays when it was all lit-

John Hauser: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … and we did it on this really cool moonlit night where it, the, I got some really cool photos of my s- my iPhone. It was gorgeous.

John Hauser: Fantastic. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Oh. And I think it is, ultimately it's one of those things that'll draw people-

John Hauser: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … to the county.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: "Hey, let's go, while we're there, let's go do this."

John Hauser: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: You know, "Let's go to the this and that, and we'll go see that."

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: And it always gets me, Trees of Mystery still is a d- not only are they in business, they're killing it up there.

John Hauser: Exactly.

Scott Hammond: It's like a dead day and the f- the lot's full of cars-

John Hauser: Yeah. Right

Scott Hammond: … in the winter.

John Hauser: Right.

Scott Hammond: Go, "How does this guy do this?" And, and it's, I would, I gotta go back. It's, he's got a quite a museum.

John Hauser: It's been-

Scott Hammond: He's an archivist and a curator-

John Hauser: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … of some amazing art and, and Native stuff that I, I understand they've donated a bit of it back.

John Hauser: Ah.

Scott Hammond: Um, so hey, y- winner, winner, chicken dinner. Uh, for you, the, the, uh, Brown Butter-

John Hauser: Great

Scott Hammond: … Dick Taylor.

John Hauser: Thank you.

Scott Hammond: Good job. Uh, so as we kinda wrap it up here, tell me more about, um, um, with a process. Let's, let's say, um, h- here's

Scott Hammond: a file-

John Hauser: Mm-hmm

Scott Hammond: … from Saskatoon of the, you know, the, the, um, uh, the SNL guys in the basement.

John Hauser: Right.

Scott Hammond: Their version. So how do you… What, what's your typical process of getting that put up on the, on the archive?

John Hauser: Well, what I do, because, because I wind up going, uh, broadly rather than deeply, um, the first thing I do is I wind up saying, "Look, the easiest way to get this on the archive-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … is to add it to your YouTube or your Vimeo channel."

Scott Hammond: Ah.

John Hauser: Because what I did was I figured out, uh, that there was a tool that I could use. The first step is the same no matter what video site it's on.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: I use the same tool to pull it down.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: And then I wind up creating some-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … some scripts, and so that winds up working out

John Hauser: pretty well.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: It works out less well recently because YouTube thinks I'm an AI startup trying to download all this video-

Scott Hammond: Ah

John Hauser: … to train my large language model. So they've banned my IP, and it's kind of this cat and mouse game with-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … with YouTube these days.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Scott Hammond: Interesting.

John Hauser: So it's, it's gotten, just since the beginning of December, it's gotten really difficult compared to… And, and so now I think what will happen is I'll wind up distributing the upload of, to, to the archive where-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … it'll be running my software, but it will be local or regional, so there'll be-

Scott Hammond: I see

John Hauser: … you know, a Northwest version and a California version and-

Scott Hammond: Okay

John Hauser: … and that way, so that, so that the community gets their stuff up-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … and they may do a couple of neighboring communities as well.

Scott Hammond: I see.

John Hauser: So-

Scott Hammond: So you can go to a whole YouTube channel and sweep it.

John Hauser: Yeah. That, that's-

Scott Hammond: Or you, or you were able to do that.

John Hauser: That, that, yeah, that's what I do.

John Hauser: And, and-

Scott Hammond: Why create more work when you-

John Hauser: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … could do the whole thing?

John Hauser: Well, and the-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

John Hauser: … and the point was d- talking to them is that, uh, this gets you… Think of the community media archive as your plan B or your plan C. When the point comes when YouTube says, "No, we don't

John Hauser: want, uh, amateur productions anymore. No, we don't want, um-

Scott Hammond: Huh

John Hauser: … the, we only want s- people that have 100,000 subscribers or more. We don't want any of this other stuff that we're having to pay for." And that's happened with other video providers in the past where they were fine with local content, amateur-produced content, enthusiast content, and then they needed to make money, and so they wound up banning it.

John Hauser: And so-

Scott Hammond: Is that Vimeo or are they more professional?

John Hauser: Vimeo started out that way. They g- they got bought by, uh, I believe venture capital money, and so they're, they were always way smaller than YouTube.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: And th- but they were f- uh, filmmakers, creatives. They had a better, they had some better things than YouTube did early on.

Scott Hammond: Had some early quality, right?

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: Yeah. And so they were highly pre- uh, they were highly preferred by filmmakers and that sort of thing.

Scott Hammond: I remember a lot of our commercials at Suddlink were produced and put up there, and we could pull them down from… Is, is that gap closed now? Are they pretty-

John Hauser: Y- yes. Um, uh, yes, it has closed. Um, y- you've got 8K on both, you know, these guys shooting drone

John Hauser: footage.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

John Hauser: They've got, you know, 20 seconds of drone footage, and they've got, you know, 100 gigs up there.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

John Hauser: It's like, "Guys, you don't need to… You don't need… Y- your drone shoots in 8K. You don't need 8K."

Scott Hammond: You don't need that definition.

John Hauser: Even as B roll.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: You don't need that.

Scott Hammond: Right, right.

John Hauser: You're not, you're not a professional filmmaker.

Scott Hammond: Right.

John Hauser: But that brings up an interesting point, is I would get, uh, threatened to be sued by filmmakers, you know, about once every month-

Scott Hammond: Wow

John Hauser: … because they found their production up on the Internet Archive. What they had forgotten was that they had allowed the access center to air their film.

Scott Hammond: Therefore it became public domain?

John Hauser: Well, i- it's not public domain.

Scott Hammond: Mm.

John Hauser: It's just that, uh, the access center that they wound up uploading it to is one of the ones that I s- scrape into the archive. I sweep everything into this channel.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: And the filmmaker might have specified to the access center that this is not for internet distribution.

Scott Hammond: Oh. Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: It went up there anyway, so-

Scott Hammond: Yeah

John Hauser: … you know, "Hey, guys, you know, we'll take it down."

Scott Hammond: It's not a big-

John Hauser: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … relax. Take it easy.

John Hauser: Right, right.

Scott Hammond: Call off the lawyers.

John Hauser: Right. Yep.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. No, I love it. So any parting shots? What, what else would you tell us? What are, what have we not talked about that we should? I, I read, I read something here about the Open Library Initiative. I don't know what that particularly is.

John Hauser: It's… Yeah, the Open Library was, uh, one page for every book in existence, and it was talking about commercially produced books.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

John Hauser: And that's what led to the publishers…

John Hauser: Uh, essentially, that's what led to the publishers' suit against the Internet Archive-

Scott Hammond: Hmm

John Hauser: … that the Archive's lost.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: And they've lost on appeal.

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm.

John Hauser: And they're… I haven't heard if they're, uh, appealing to the Supreme Court on that case.

Scott Hammond: Huh. Have you met your founder, though?

John Hauser: Oh, ab-

Scott Hammond: That's the guy?

John Hauser: Oh, absolutely, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

John Hauser: Uh-huh. Brewster.

Scott Hammond: Has he ever been up here?

John Hauser: No.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

John Hauser: Not that I know of.

Scott Hammond: Where's he live now? He-

John Hauser: Sa- oh, San Francisco.

Scott Hammond: Oh, he's in the city.

John Hauser: He, he lives… Yeah, walks to work, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Mecca.

John Hauser: Yep.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: Yep.

Scott Hammond: Mecca of tech.

John Hauser: Right.

Scott Hammond: Teca.

John Hauser: Right, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Something to do with that shot? Yeah.

John Hauser: He, uh, he wounds up, uh, uh… Because he can't pay people, you know, $300,000 and $400,000 salaries like a tech company does, what he does with his employees is if you've worked there for three years, you get your own three-quarter, two-thirds size statue, clay statue made.

Scott Hammond: Whoa. That's a big thing.

John Hauser: It's, it's creepy. I'll send you a link on this thing. Uh, the archivists of the Internet Archive have-

Scott Hammond: Have a statue?

John Hauser: Yeah. And, and, and I've met, I met the artist, and she said- … "Yeah, when Brewster came to me, he talked about this." I s- I said, "Yeah, whatever. It, it… Yeah, that's…" And, and she figured it'd be done in six months, and 10 years later she's still doing these, uh-

Scott Hammond: That's funny

John Hauser: … these statues. But, but-

Scott Hammond: But it's an heirloom piece for the family.

John Hauser: Well, it, it lives at the-

Scott Hammond: It's always something

John Hauser: … it lives at, in the Internet Archive-

Scott Hammond: Oh, it does

John Hauser: … at, in the great room.

Scott Hammond: Oh.

John Hauser: And you can actually recog- if you know the people-

Scott Hammond: Key people

John Hauser: … and the personalities, because she asks them to come with, uh, something that's important to them.

Scott Hammond: Oh.

John Hauser: So there's one person who makes jewelry- … who you can recognize Alexa, uh, I'm sorry, Alexis-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … because who's like the second or third employee of the Internet Archive, has been there from the beginning.

Scott Hammond: She was a jeweler.

John Hauser: She's… Yeah, she's got this great necklace.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

John Hauser: Guy I know who, uh, bikes to work, loves bicycling, he's got his bicycle helmet under his arm.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: So you can recognize Aaron.

Scott Hammond: Sure.

John Hauser: Um, yeah.

Scott Hammond: And then the guy with the bong.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: There's that guy. The tech guy.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Are you, are you… Do you have a, a bust created yet?

John Hauser: I'm not a employee of the Internet Archive.

Scott Hammond: You're not an employee. Okay.

John Hauser: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Hammond: So this is all volunteer?

John Hauser: Oh, absolutely.

Scott Hammond: Oh, that's cool.

John Hauser: Yeah. Yeah. This is the, you know… It's like, what would you do if you didn't have to get

John Hauser: paid for it?

Scott Hammond: You would do this.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: We didn't even talk about my heart attack. But basically, after my heart attack nine years ago-

Scott Hammond: Tell us about the heart attack.

John Hauser: Okay. Well, um-

Scott Hammond: Nine years ago

John Hauser: … January 19th, 2016-

Scott Hammond: Hmm

John Hauser: … I wound up-

Scott Hammond: Wow

John Hauser: … "Wow, that felt funny."

Scott Hammond: Huh.

John Hauser: And, uh, my wife went off to work, and, uh, I realized an hour had gone past and I didn't, uh… You know, it's like, gee, I'm sweating. You know, I was so lucky. I presented with all the classic symptoms.

Scott Hammond: Uh-huh.

John Hauser: Uh, arm pain, jaw pain.

Scott Hammond: Did you have the, the elephant under the chest pain?

John Hauser: Oh, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Okay.

John Hauser: Yeah. Got, called 911 and-

Scott Hammond: I heard that's the one. When you have the elephant, then you're there.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

John Hauser: Called… I, I'd taken some aspirin or whatever, uh-

Scott Hammond: You were here nine years… You were here, yeah.

John Hauser: Yes, yeah. In, uh, living on Henderson Street, you know.

Scott Hammond: Yeah. Could walk-

John Hauser: Half a mile. Well-

Scott Hammond: … walk to St. Joe's.

John Hauser: Yeah. But-

Scott Hammond: Today you could.

John Hauser: Yeah. Uh, through the, through the Gulch.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: Uh, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Huh.

John Hauser: But, uh, yeah, I told the, uh, I told the, the thing. I said, "Look, I, the door is open. I got my insurance card on my chest," you know?

Scott Hammond: I'm ready to go.

John Hauser: "Come, come get me." And she said, "Uh, okay." You know, it's like, you, uh… I could hear through her headset the ambulance siren. She was attached to the EMTs, you know.

Scott Hammond: Wow.

John Hauser: I could hear them through the front door, so.

Scott Hammond: Here they come.

John Hauser: Yeah. Um, I actually flatlined there.

Scott Hammond: Whoa.

John Hauser: And so they brought me back.

Scott Hammond: Was there a white light or any- anything special?

John Hauser: Oh, yeah. Oh, I've got a… That's a whole nother podcast about-

Scott Hammond: Oh, you saw the white… Oh, you saw the white light.

John Hauser: Saw the white light, yep. I-

Scott Hammond: Was there, was God in there somewhere?

John Hauser: No, the old dude with the white, uh, the long beard, no, he wasn't. He wasn't in there.

Scott Hammond: No, Colonel Sanders was not there.

John Hauser: But I was up Uh, I w- it was out of body and, uh, next day the, uh, the, the cardiologist comes in and he's got a stack of eight by, half by 11s. I said, "You don't have to show me those. Those were on the overhead." He goes, "You're not supposed to remember that."

Scott Hammond: Huh.

John Hauser: "We gave we gave you Versed to, to, you know, which affects, it's anesthesia that affects your short-term memory."

Scott Hammond: It's supposed to erase things.

John Hauser: But there are these… Yeah, there's these 42-inch monitors that they've got above the table in the cardiac cath lab-

Scott Hammond: How about that?

John Hauser: … where, you know…

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: So you were aware?

John Hauser: I was aware, yeah.

Scott Hammond: Hmm.

Scott Hammond: Good story.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Glad you're still with us.

John Hauser: Well, e- exactly. I am too. And so now, you know, every day is a gift, and what would you do if you didn't have to, uh-

Scott Hammond: Brings up a story. S- my wife's had heart issues, and she, we just got back from

Scott Hammond: UCSF.

John Hauser: Ah.

Scott Hammond: So, uh, we're, we're getting that addressed. Uh, but what would you do if you loved it?

Scott Hammond: Um-

John Hauser: Mm-hmm

Scott Hammond: … I have a friend that plays pickleball, Pickleball Mark up at Medford.

John Hauser: Okay.

Scott Hammond: He's, he's super old. He might be 70.

Scott Hammond: So

Scott Hammond: he-

John Hauser: I, I'm knocking on the door-

Scott Hammond: Yeah. So Mark's-

John Hauser: … this next, this year

Scott Hammond: … we're talking pickleball, and he goes, "Yeah, my friend plays baseball." And he goes, "Hey," uh, he goes, "It costs me 10 bucks to travel with the team." Or no, "10 grand a year."

John Hauser: Mm-hmm.

Scott Hammond: And he, he goes, "I don't love it." And Ma- he looked at Mark, and Mark looked at him, and it was an epiphany moment,

Scott Hammond: and he goes, "Why are we doing things we don't love?"

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: He goes, "Scott, if you love it, go do it."

John Hauser: Yep.

Scott Hammond: You know, if you love, uh, if you love archiving, do it. And I kinda think of us as a little bit of an archivey, um, uh, ve- venture here for sure, man.

John Hauser: You guys, you guys-

Scott Hammond: 'Cause Peter Starr said, "Hey, you're an archivist of pe- Personalities of

Scott Hammond: Humboldt."

John Hauser: Yeah. It's, it's a really impressive achievement that you guys have got, you know, 65, 66, uh, of these things done.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, couldn't have did it without Nick and Nick's-

John Hauser: And they're get- and they're getting better, Nick.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: And Scott. So-

Scott Hammond: And Nick's tri- and Nick's tripled me, so I, we're just, I was gonna give s- the chops to the, the master, the-

John Hauser: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … just the Padawan learner here. Well, what's the name of your podcast, Nick? It's called Growing Pains. Growing Pains.

John Hauser: Growing Pains.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: Okay.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: Yeah. And the great part is I believe the, uh, Lost Coast Outpost has an elsewhere page where they point to local

John Hauser: podcasts.

Scott Hammond: Yeah.

John Hauser: And I think both of you guys are listed in that.

John Hauser: Um-

Scott Hammond: Yeah, we are. Yep

John Hauser: … and it's, and it's up to date.

Scott Hammond: Hank Sims has figured out how to wire-

John Hauser: Yeah

Scott Hammond: … the internet up.

John Hauser: Yep.

Scott Hammond: Have you met Hank?

John Hauser: I, I might have met Hank. I don't know.

John Hauser: I-

Scott Hammond: You'll meet him. We'll have him as a guest here and-

John Hauser: Sure

Scott Hammond: … coming right up.

John Hauser: Okay.

Scott Hammond: Hear that, Hank?

John Hauser: Okay, Hank.

Scott Hammond: Okay. Hank, Hank, you're, you're, the pressure's on, bud. We pay really well, chocolate.

John Hauser: Right.

Scott Hammond: Well, what a delight, man. Thanks for coming, man.

John Hauser: Yeah. Thank you, Scott.

Scott Hammond: Yeah, thanks for the education, and, uh, love to chat some more about that, uh, for sure. Uh, beyond that, I, I… Any, any sort of plug you wanna give to the, uh, the archive? How do we get ahold of you? How do we donate money, cash, gold, bullion?

John Hauser: Uh, you can donate directly to the Internet Archive. I think it's archive.org/donate-

Scott Hammond: Mm-hmm

John Hauser: … I think is how they, uh, is how they accept donations.

Scott Hammond: Okay.

John Hauser: And you can donate to Access Humboldt.

John Hauser: Uh-

Scott Hammond: Easy to find.

John Hauser: Yeah.

Scott Hammond: Google it, man.

John Hauser: Yep.

Scott Hammond: Yep. Okay, cool. Uh, donate out there. Uh, hey, wanna thank everybody, uh, Scott Hammmond, 100% Humboldt. Uh, find us, uh, subscribe to us, like us, make comments, and nice ones, on, uh, all the podcast, uh, platforms and YouTube. Turns out we're on YouTube. I just found that out. Um, and, uh, love, love you to subscribe, and thanks to Dick Taylor Chocolate and all the, uh, great guests, including you, John. And, uh, we'll talk real soon, and thanks, thanks again for being here.

John Hauser: Thanks, Scott. Stay curious.

Scott Hammond: Yes, sir. Thanks.