A funny thing happened at Tall Tree this year. I was asked by no less than three separate people if I knew Jim from Rebel Cause Films. (The mighty Everyman was effusive in his praise of the good Mr. Vanderhorst.) Apparently, because I like bass music and live in Victoria, I MUST be know and work with Jim. I didn't know who he was, but I was familiar with some of his work – as is pretty much anyone on the west coast who digs bass music and/or attends festivals and parties fuelled by such music. His work capturing the diverse beauty of musical audiences is, frankly, unparalleled. Turns out he's one hell of an interesting cat as well. I figured someone so entrenched in this community that I think I'm becoming a viable part of (?), a guy who has so much experience and so many stories, would be the perfect homie to kick off 2018. So, in an effort to blast off another year of 5 Questions with Rags in style, I dug up a large portion of the guest questions that got asked over the last year and let this incredibly interesting human being tear through them like some kind of fascinating buzzsaw.

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1. Colin from Pigeon Hole – What's the most vegetable and why?

Potatoes because to take the amount of time needed to describe everything you can do with potatoes would feel like like the shrimp montage from Forrest Gump. There are just so many things you can with potatoes...scalloped potatoes, mashed potatoes, french fries, baked potatoes... Potatoes are so goddamned versatile that when there were no potatoes, Ireland collapsed and turned into a joke for hundreds of years.

2. Jennay Badger...What's your go-to album for a good cry/emotional cleaning out?

I would say my go-to is probably Underdogs by Matthew Good Band.

3. Mike Love...What will you do now, to make the world a little better?

I really want to help spread the message that fear doesn't help anyone. I want to figure out ways to help people move beyond listening to fear. I want to make narrative feature films and I want them to share the basic theme of overcoming fear. Fear of useless, of lack of value. Fear is what we needed to save us from jungle cats when we were primitive stone-age animals. Now fear only drives us to bad decisions.