Monthly Archives: May 2022

What can be said about men? Their manipulative animalistic tendencies are inescapably suffocating. At least according to director Alex Garland. The strokes Garland paints with his brushes are broad, depicting the male sex as Harvey Weinstein like sickos.

After suffering the suicide of her husband, James (Paapa Essiedu), Harper (Jessie Buckley) lives with the immeasurable guilt of his decision. As she seeks solace from heartbreak, Harpers sense of comfort is challenged by the men occupying the English countryside shes vacationing. The owner of the residence is affable, if not too much so, but things quickly get weirder from there. Stalking Ms. Harper is a bald naked man. When reporting the nudists harassment, the authorities scoff at her concerns. If the naked guy sounds crazy, thats only the tip of the iceberg.

Garlands imagery will last long in your head.Menis pure body horror. The perverse nature of its grotesque imagery would make David Cronenberg jump with joy. From a lesser mind,Mencould play as coy, pretentious shock value. Just another flick left on Tubis horror selection screen. But its not. Alex Garland is more intelligent than that but not brilliant.

The simple yet complex nature ofMen states a straight point, then restates it, and restates it again. Yet its done so effectively that it can be enjoyed as a thrill ride. If the rollercoaster isnt fun, you wont forget the thrills. Strangely, on a commercial level,Menworks. Its a film that will elicit reactions likeThe Human Centipededid. The exception being this film has a brain. And like any brain, there are flaws.

Beyond men being sex-addicted pigs, what is the films heart? Are women saints and men the sinners; wolves in sheeps clothing? Even the comfort of a priest transforms into another predatory game of survival. Living with the suicide of her husband, Harpers memory of the destruction of her relationship haunts her. Meanwhile, every guy in this film wants to fornicate or scold Harper. All to remind her that men run the world and expect subservience to their thirst for power from women.

Living as a woman in a Mans world, Harper can find no comfort except when she FaceTimes her American friend Riley (Gayle Rankin). A character that cuts the tension, and lightens the mood, yet breaks the films atmosphere. Removing her character may have been a better choice. Riley feels like a cheap convention in an otherwise well thought out film.

The movie plays like your regular horror film. Someone heads to a secluded area for vacation. Shortly afterward, things begin to get strange leaving our protagonist defending herself from attackers by the midpoint. The movies Freddy Kruger or Michael Myers is its small town occupants. Have you ever seenStraw Dogs?If you have, then youll get the picture.

Garlands trademark cinematic nihilism is admirable. He can stumble at times, appearing pretentious. Others he sticks the landing. WithMen, Garlands filmography is 2-1. The stinker beingAnnihilation. If you can change my mind, Im open to discourse. Some films can be oblique, like a David Lynch picture where youre not supposed to get it because Lynchs intention is to keep the viewer actively guessing long past the credits roll. Annihilation didnt spark enough interest for me to care why Natalie Portman was being cloned. Garlands films work best when they make a clear point, somehow it is continually Alexs distaste for his own gender.

Theres a recurring theme of the male species containing an uncontrollable sex drive. Having seenEx Machinaonce, I clearly remember one aspect of it. Nathan (Oscar Isaac) lives in a secluded house full of sexbots. All of which want to escape. InMen, Harper goes to a secluded area filled with perverts. The main one is a naked guy who chases her around.

WhereEx Machinais filled with full frontal female nudity,Menfeatures even more skin from the opposite sex. And unlikeEx Machina, the nudity is off-putting. The guys are out of shape: older, some even dirty. InEx Machina, the nudity comes from what a straight man considers attractive. Nathan designs his idea of the dream women to pleasure him. Garland challenges the men in the audience not to be turned on by the nudity, yet is fully aware, despite these droids exploitation, he cant control how men will feel.

How the male figure in Men is depicted is representative of a womans objectification. There isnt a safe place other than home (if they have one) for women to go without a man wanting their body. By being surrounded by men who want to do nothing but shed their clothes, Harper cant evade the terror that is the male dominance of this world. That point is made loud and clear, if not anything on top of that. Vile, creepy, and mildly thought-provoking, Menis the perfect WTF flick to bring your friends to.

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Men: Goes for the Guts and the Groin - 25YearsLaterSite.com

It isnt every day the Chinese community or Asians for that matter see their stories writ large in Hollywood. You have The Joy Luck Club in 1993 and, more than 20 years later, Crazy Rich Asians, Shang-Chi, Turning Red, The Farewell and Minari. All great films. More recently, Everything Everywhere All at Once by the Daniels duo, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert was released in the US to critical acclaim, but the strength herein lies not in the blockbuster treatment Asian stories have recently benefitted from but in what it says about the Chinese immigrant experience and philosophies from far afield.

Beyond the kaleidoscope of multiverse madness, this film distils east Asian philosophies like no other before it. While it may seem that the great stories of Asian immigrant families build on the cornerstone of intergenerational trauma, its heart of Buddhist and Daoist thought is what makes Everything Everywhere truly great.

The bagel and the googly eye are two major symbols of this film. Not only is it a surprisingly apt and humorous take on yin and yang, but in the same stroke it explores concepts central to Buddhist philosophy. To boil down more than 2,000 years of Buddhist discourse it is thought that all things exist only through our perception of said things. Therefore, they are without inherent meaning. Theyre empty. This is expressed in the films multiverses. When its characters gain the power to manifest all the potentialities of their lives, they quickly realise that when every phenomenon and concept you can think of are smooshed together, it all becomes a smorgasbord of meaningless nothingness on top of a bagel. It loses inherent value.

This is where the bagels antithesis the googly eye comes in. It says that in the universe of meaningless emptiness there is value, joy and love where we choose to create it. Through the googly-eyed lens, we gain the power to control our infinite emptiness. Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), the dorky husband of Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh), reminds her through simple kindness that there is value where you want to create it and meaning where you choose to see it. In Buddhist thought, its our compassion that grounds us makes us human and emptiness isnt the mark of nihilism and despair but an opportunity to leave behind the bad and cherish the good. At least, in very simple terms that is what Buddhism aims for.

Unfortunately, these points are often missed by a western audience and even the near wall to wall positive coverage of this film barely touches on its philosophical significance.

In a roundabout way, its wholly emblematic of Hollywoods dismissiveness of Asian achievements and stories. One of the films stars, James Hong, who plays a grandfather referred to only as Gong Gong, is a veteran of Hollywood, with more than 650 acting credits under his belt. But he only received his Hollywood Walk of Fame star this year after a GoFundMe campaign launched by fellow Asian-American actor Daniel Dae Kim.

Actually, you might recognise another one of the films stars, Ke Huy Quan, if he were 30 years younger. In the 1980s, Quan was best known for being Indiana Joness sidekick Short Round and then went on to play Data in The Goonies. The former child actor told People that he was waiting for the phone to ring but it never did. With few roles for Asian actors at the time, he decided to step away from acting. It was only after watching Crazy Rich Asians that he realised he wanted to get back in the game.

The overt examples of Asians getting short shrift in the media arent hard to find, whether it be Marlon Brando or Mickey Rooney in yellow-face or Kunal Nayyar being the butt of many ethnic jokes in The Big Bang Theory. But its the more subtle examples that shortchange Asian excellence when its at its highest. The Farewell and Minari are victims of these, having been designated foreign-language films despite being produced and cast mostly in America. And going back to the black-and-white era, many a role was denied Anna May Wong due to the racial laws of the time.

Beyond being entertainment, or even allowing us an insight into the psyches of millions of people across the globe, Asian immigrant stories are valuable if you engage with them. As Asian hate crime rises in the United States and tensions flare between China and Australia, understanding the Asian psyche has never been more important. And with all things fraught with uncertainty in this world, it helps to broaden our philosophical appetite if we appreciate the people and things around us in a different light.

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The west misses the point of Everything Everywhere All at Once it gets the Asian psyche - The Guardian

Here are five crucial challenges Ukraine and its global partners and allies must tackle as Russian President Vladimir Putins criminal war approaches its most decisive phase.

Some are short-term, while others have generational consequences. But all five are necessary to transform Putins murderous authoritarian threat into a historic opportunity for the civilized world to shape a better future.

Thats a long listand its only the beginning.

The bottom line is that unanticipated Ukrainian resilience, resourcefulness, patriotism, and bravery have provided the free world an opportunity not only to save Ukraine, but also to reverse years of democratic drift and authoritarian resurgence.

If the democratic world is to avoid the rule of the jungle replacing the rule of law, now is the time to act.

It will be as important in the years ahead that the transatlantic community embrace Russia and Russians as part of US President George H.W. Bushs dream of a Europe whole and free. Policymakers should already be designing how to make that happen. In the meantime, however, Ukraines friends must quell Putins revanchist, historically perverted obsession with restoring some false notion of ancient Rus through whatever means necessary.

The past week underscored positive momentum toward this end.

Finland and Sweden moved toward NATO membership; the United Kingdom tightened sanctions that cracked Putins wall of secrecy around his family and rumored girlfriend; Russian troops appeared to be retreating from Kharkiv, Ukraines second-largest city; and Ukrainian troops began launching a counteroffensive toward the eastern city of Izyum, targeting Russian supply lines to the Donbas region.

On Sunday, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin jointly announced that their country would apply for Alliance membership.This is a historic day, Niinisto said. A new era begins.

Reportedly, Sweden could arrive at the same decision as early as Monday.

For those misguided voices who still argue that NATO membership destabilizes rather than secures a more peaceful Europe, talk to officials in these two countrieswho have watched the three Baltic members of NATO remain secure while Russia overran Ukraine, a non-NATO member.

Erdogan represents the greatest opposition thus far to Sweden and Finnish membership, based on what Turkey says is Swedens long-standing sheltering of Kurdish terrorists. Yet his language suggests this is more of a negotiating ploy than an immovable object: At the moment, we are following the developments regarding Sweden and Finland, but we dont hold positive views, he said.

Not only has Putins war failed to take Ukraine, but it has also prompted global shifts that go far beyond Finland and Sweden.

Upon receiving a Distinguished Leadership Award from the Atlantic Council on May 11, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said Russias invasion of Ukraine has caused a paradigm shift in geopolitics.

Added Draghi: It has strengthened the ties between the European Union and the United States, isolated Moscow, raised deep questions for China. These changes are still ongoing, but one thing is certain: They are bound to stay with us for a long, long time.

We must continue to support the bravery of the Ukrainians as they fight for their freedom and for the security of us all, he said. There should be peace, he argued, but added that [i]t will be up to Ukrainians to decide the terms of this peace, and no one else.

The threats of historic nature have been clear since Putin began assembling his troops last year for the February 24 attack. Now, Draghi argued, the opportunities are clearer.

The war in Ukraine has the potential to bring the European Union even closer together, he said. We must remember the urgency of the moment, the magnitude of the challenge. This is Europes hour and we must seize it. The choices the European faces are brutally simple. We can be masters of our own destiny or slaves to the decisions of others.

What makes Draghi optimistic is that Europe isnt tackling this alone, but is strengthened by the timeless bond of transatlantic relations.

The test now is whether the current unity and momentum of Ukraines friends can withstand Putins escalating brutality and their own fatigue.

This article originally appeared onCNBC.com

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on Twitter @FredKempe.

#1 World War II Is All That Putin Has LeftAnne Applebaum | THE ATLANTIC

Between the heroism of Ukraines defenders and his own wild miscalculations of Russias military ability, Putins attempt to create a propaganda narrative to justify his invasion of Ukraine has largely collapsed. That has left Putin only World War II mythmaking to fall back onand Applebaum illustrates how even that is based on lies.

In practice, Putinism is a powerful but ultimately empty ideology, she writes. Its propaganda divides people from one another, creates suspicion, and promotes apathy. State media put forth multiple nonsensical explanations for reality, including multiple nonsensical reasons for the invasion of Ukraine. In different tellings, Ukraine, a democratic state led by a Jewish president, is Nazi, is Russian, is a Western puppet, is nonexistent. Alongside these stories, Russians are spoon-fed cynicism, mockery, and nihilism.

Applebaum continues: If he wants to expand the current conflictif he wants to persuade millions of people to sacrifice their lives and their fortunes to fight across Europe once againhe will need to provide a far more powerful motivation, a far deeper reason to fight, something other than this wars alleged resemblance to a past tragedy. Read more

#2 America Must Embrace the Goal of Ukrainian VictoryAlexander Vindman | FOREIGN AFFAIRS

In Foreign Affairs, Alexander Vindman explains why the United States must push for a peace settlement that not only holds off Russiabut defeats it.

As it stands, he writes, the United States has missed one opportunity after the other to help precipitate a decisive Ukrainian victory and stop Russia from making gains in the Donbas. Instead of foreclosing the possibility of a Russian success, Washingtons strategy of metering incremental military aid to Ukrainebased on a flawed assessment of the risk of escalation and the potential consequences of a Russian defeathas provided Moscow with the time and space to continue its war, even as it now shifts to defending the territory it has seized since February 24. Read more

#3 How Ukrainians Saved Their CapitalLuke Mogelson | THE NEW YORKER

The Atlantic Council honored the Ukrainian people as a whole this week with a Distinguished Leadership Award for their heroism in the fight against Russias invasion. As President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his remarks, [W]e must say and remember that behind the courage and wisdom of our people, there are thousands of real stories, names, and heroic feats.

To understand the individual stories of their heroism more deeply, read Luke Mogelsons New Yorker narrative.

One such story is that of a violinist who volunteered for the Ukrainian military in 2014 after a policeman broke her hand during a political protest. Another tracks the life of an eighty-four-year-old woman with, Mogelson wrote, shrapnel wounds to her groin and abdomen. She did not cry out. When a medic commented on her grit, the woman said that she had also survived the Second World War. Read more

#4 Xi Jinping Scrambles as Chinas Economy StumblesKevin Rudd | THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

To more deeply understand how President Xi Jinpings leadership has damaged the Chinese economy, read this smart analysis by former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, one of the leading China experts writing today.

As Xi hurtles toward what he hopes will be his inevitable reelection as Chinas leader later this year, Rudd writes: Recent economic assessments have predicted a sharply slowing Chinese growth trajectory, to around 3% by 2030 and 2% by 2050. If this proves to be the case and Mr. Xi doesnt radically change course, the global strategic and economic significance will be profound. China would cease being the worlds growth engine. It may not surpass the U.S. as the worlds largest economy by decades end after alland if it does, it wont be by much.

Yet although Chinas economic woes are of Xis own making, dont expect him to admit that: As Rudd notes, the only way to a better economic future is for the leader to change course. But given his Marxist-Leninist ideological predilections, that will be hard, Rudd concludes. Read more

#5 Remarks by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi at the 2022 Distinguished Leadership AwardsATLANTIC COUNCIL

The Atlantic Council on Wednesday held its Distinguished Leadership Awards dinner, an annual salute to individuals whose leadership contributes to a better world. Atop the list of recipients this year were Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and, for the first time, an entire nation: the people of Ukraine.

The acceptance speeches by Draghi and Zelenskyy are worth reading for the insight they provide into our historic moment and the bravery and resilience of the Ukrainian people.

This is Europes hour and we must seize it, Draghi said. The choices the European faces are brutally simple. We can be masters of our own destiny or slaves to the decisions of others.

Zelenskyy, meanwhile, said: Do not be afraid and come to Ukraine. Hear thousands of similar stories about us, Ukrainians. Look into their brave eyes, shake their strong hands, and you will see that they are doing all this not for glory, that they need not only awards, but also concrete help and support. Weapons, equipment, financial support, sanctions on Russia, and the most important: the feeling that in this difficult struggle, they are not alone, that they are supported by you, by the whole worldfree states and free nations of our planet. Read more

Image: A woman from Ukraine, together with other Ukrainians, smeared herself with fake blood and chained herself with handcuffs to barrier bars in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin on May 13, 2022. Photo by Carsten Koall/dpa/REUTERS

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Five ways Ukraine's partners can defeat Putin and shape the future - Atlantic Council

Even after a quarter century and nearly 7 million equivalent album units earned from his bands first five albums, according to Luminate, formerly MRC Data, Third Eye Blinds Stephan Jenkins still feels like hes on the outside looking in. This folk musics fking me up/Makes me think I should quit/Maybe Im just scared of it, he sings on Silverlake Neophyte from the groups 2021 album, Our Bande Apart, a collection Jenkins says is his favorite thing he has ever done.

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Musicians are expected to plug the new one. But in Jenkins case, after years of battling former bandmates, managers and, in some cases, himself during dry spells he has emerged from the most fruitful period of his career with a new attitude and a fresh perspective on what and who his band is.

Fans of 3EB (as the act is commonly known) know that Jenkins, after years of working on his songwriting, burst onto the scene with the bands 1997 self-titled debut, which has generated nearly a billion on-demand streams in the United States (according to Luminate), featuring big-swing alt-pop staples Semi-Charmed Life, Graduate, Hows It Gonna Be and Jumper. His signature mix of NC-17 subject matter and earworm choruses heralded a fresh songwriting voice that blended the underbelly frankness of Janes Addiction with the guitar-forward hooks of peak Smashing Pumpkins.

The band followed up with the more musically adventurous Blue in 1999 and Out of the Vein in 2003, though its next two releases each came after six-year breaks that led to Jenkins most prolific period. Since 2019, the new-look 3EB whose only original members are Jenkins and drummer Brad Hargreaves have been on a tear, releasing two albums, a live set and two EPs in less than four years. To me, its very close to the first album in letting the songs be what they are without any of that nervousness of trying to make them into the thing they should be, Jenkins says of Our Bande Apart.

With 3EB setting out in June on its 25th anniversary Summer Gods Tour, sharing the bill with Taking Back Sunday and Hockey Dad, Jenkins talked with Billboard about how modern folk music messes with his head and the time Kanye West paid him a compliment.

What was the founding concept of 3EB? What did you want the band to be?

I wanted to be freed up from genre. I liked British riff rock and singer-songwriter stuff New Order, Joy Division, Cat Stevens, and I really liked hip-hop. I liked the space that hip-hop gave you for expanding the lyric and being really wordy. I didnt like the ethos of grunge where it was nihilism, everybody not caring and turning inward. I had more of a rage to live, to reshape my world on my own terms. My mindset was more eros, erotic, the ferocity of demanding to live on your terms.

What happens when you go from being unknown to having that kind of chart success with your debut release?

I definitely felt validated in a way to know I was going to be able to make a second record, which was amazing to me. To be a musician is to take a vow of poverty, and I didnt have a drivers license or a bank account. I really bet everything on doing music, with no fallback, so to have a gig was amazing.

You have a moment when you get success where you can turn yourself into the person who is talking loudest in the room and what you have to say is so interesting and youre making jokes and not asking questions. I think were all susceptible to that with success and early on I went through that. But I also decided I wanted to be living in a space where I had impact with people and engaged with them about the real, authentic friction of relationships.

This is what I think of. I have a picture its my favorite photo ever of an autistic boy whose parents brought him backstage and asked if he could meet me. His language was such that he doesnt say something at the time where its appropriate to say it. But he loved Third Eye Blind and his parents hooked me up to talk to him about it. We took a picture and he looked at the camera he also had a problem being touched. We smile for the camera and he made eye contact and for me I hated having photos taken of myself I looked at that photo and I said, Thats my real face, this is me, this is the full expression of myself. His parents were tripping me out because he looked at the camera, which was something he didnt normally do. They were nervous because they were meeting this person who was on MTV and the boy said bye at the right time and at that point they completely stopped caring about me at all. That was really wonderful because they were so fixated on their boy making this little milestone moment. That was a sense of what I was doing, my rendering of reality is traveling to somebody else and I felt that.

You seemed to capture that same explosive first-album energy on Blue, especially on Wounded. That ecstatic woo woo! and the gigantic guitar windup feel triumphant. When you write a song like that, do you know in the moment youve written something special?

Oh, for sure, yes. Its one of my favorite records, and during the making of Blue I felt free, truly free. Then what happens is it goes through mixing and mastering and gets shrunk down to this little fking CD and it all shrinks. But theres a moment where its ocean-sized in your head. That was a song about a friend who got raped and withdrew from our friend group and that made an emotional dent on me. Thats [the place where] I wrote from, and I was able to render something of her rage and triumph of ownership of self.

Youve never made it easy on yourself with your choice of topics: abortion, suicide, a pharmacopeia of drugs, oral sex. Do you ever try to wind it back for the sake of mainstream acceptance or radio?

No. Ive always felt that as an indie-rock artist, there have been very few times where Ive been radio-focused. Its about being in a kitchen under suspect light after midnight when the conversation gets real. For me, writing doesnt come from one particular place, its just about trying to stay in a cultivating space where things can actually make a dent on you emotionally.

There was a six-year break before Ursa Major arrived in 2009. What happened?

I produced and co-wrote a couple other albums [Vanessa Carltons Harmonium], produced for a few [Spencer Barnett], so there was that. I cant really account for myself. To make rock music, theres that, Heres what Im doing and I dont give a fk, fk your opinion. Thats the rocknroll mindset and I didnt have it. I felt judged and misunderstood. I also had been going so hard for so long for years before I got a record deal that I think maybe I was a bit stunned by the idea of going out and being subjected to evaluation and criticism.

You talked about the influence of hip-hop, which pops up across so many of your songs, like Semi-Charmed. Do you feel like a rapper at heart?

I just love the daisy age of hip-hop DeLa Soul, ATribe Called Quest and I just felt like rap music was punk and theres a music aspect to it that just immediately compelled me as someone who tends to be overly wordy.

After another long break, you came back with the EP We Are Drugs in 2016, which felt the least restrained you had ever been. Youre 57 could you have written those same songs at 25?

I think the real question is could I have written it without Drake? Drake is an amazing lyricist. I just stayed in my late 20s, thats what I did. (Laughs.)I dont have any wisdom. Im just interested in the music I hear now, and I pay attention to culture now. I dont have any old stories. Im always looking to go surfing with friends. Thats how I roll and thats the energy that comes back to me.

Third Eye Blind still has a young audience. How do you explain that?

Its a phenomenon, and one I feel like I have no control over. Certainly, I dont have any way of fostering it. Its a result of the socializing of music sharing, and what happens is our band turns into playlists and they dont have date stamps on them. People find songs that illuminate where theyre at and then they share them.

Do you see signs of your influence on bands out there now?

Yes. Theres a frankness and rawness in rap lyrics that inspires and repels me because of a lot of the violence and misogyny that gets a pass. But there is a lot of incredible, exciting raw sh-t in there. I was at a baseball game and Kanye [West] was there and he was talking about how he saw that in my music and found it inspiring. Hes a rapper who can do some really raw, genuine stuff where hes looking for that completely unhinged state of freedom, and to hear a nod [from him] like, I understand what youre on about and I dig it was so cool.

Silverlake Neophyte from Our Bande Apart has you questioning your place in music. Are you still wondering if you should quit after hearing some of the new folk music thats messing with your head?

I took this deep dive into the Los Angeles neo-folk scene [Phoebe Bridgers, Adrianne Lenker] and theres this hyper-realness going on there. It made me go, OK, are you being real? I imagined that feeling of being at an open mic night in Silverlake with other songwriters and really laying it down. You dont discover yourself; you make yourself up. We are inventions. [Our Bande Apart] is kind of my favorite album because, to me, its very close to the first album in just letting the songs be what they are without any of that nervousness of trying to make them into the thing they should be. Its not overthought, not overwrought.

Can we do a lightning round? How does it feel to sing those early songs today? Can you still tap into those emotions?

I tap into the audiences emotions and they keep it alive.

What is Third Eye Blind today? Is it you?

(Pauses.)Yes. Im Third Eye Blind and I have relationships with people who are in this band and they bring something precious and vital to it. Both things are true.

Who are the songs for?

Wow The songs are for themselves. They are for the universe. They are for the purpose of being brought into existence and they come with the hope of traveling to other people and bringing them into connection with each other.

Whats the song that came the quickest and the one that took forever?

[Blue album track] Tattoo of the Sun and Deep Inside of You.

What did you see when you look out now in the crowd?

People who feel the joy of knowing they are not alone.

Do you see signs of your influence on bands out there now?

Yes. There a frankness and rawness in rap lyrics that inspires and repels me because of a lot of the violence and misogyny that gets a pass. But there is a lot of incredible, exciting raw sh-t in there. I was at a baseball game and Kanye [West] was there and he was talking about how he saw that in my music and found it inspiring. The point was hes a rapper who can do some really raw, genuine stuff where hes looking for that completely unhinged state of freedom and to hear a nod [from Ye] like, I understand what youre on about and I dig it was so cool.

Best advice you got from a rock hero?

Bono said, Wait til the live album to buy a house.

Worst advice?

The drummer [in an unnamed band] said enjoy it while it lasts.

Best advice youve given?

I told a new artist, Adam Neff, that if you want to be a good musician, live like an athlete and keep writing songs.

Your favorite show?

There are so many, but there was a moment at Lollapalooza [in 2016] where we didnt know what was gonna happen because people vote with their feet and you can be on stage and there can be no one at your show. We set an attendance record for that afternoon slot for the whole weekend. And then some guys took a guy in a wheelchair and crowd-surfed him to the stage and the security guys were going to put him in the pit and I said, Let him up! They put him on the stage and I looked out at the audience at the end of the show and I said, Look how beautiful you are! And I meant that about everyone there.

You have consistently written songs about getting high/drugs, so I have to ask, do you indulge?

Surprisingly not. I think its so overrated. I like like to get up early and get a cold plunge in and go surfing. I like the feeling of being way, way in my body, but nobody likes a goody two-shoes either, so I certainly dont believe in the taboo. But the writing of the taboo can be a metaphor for other things.

Will you be singing these songs when youre Paul McCartneys age?

I dont see why not.

A version of this story originally appeared in the May 14, 2022, issue of Billboard.

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Stephan Jenkins on Third Eye Blind at 25: I Wanted to Be Living In a Space Where I Had Impact - Billboard