Hello everyone and welcome back to People Do Want to Know
podcast. Today I'm testing out something
very different from my regularly scheduled programming and I want
to know what you think of it. I'm sharing with you a
completely impromptu, unplanned man on the street style
interview that I did with Ham, an artist who stands on the
streets all over the world in his underwear.
Yes, you heard that right. In this fast-paced episode,
you'll learn how I came across Ham.
And really, what I wanted to achieve with this segment is 2
things. One, as a host, I wanted to
challenge myself to do a more unscripted, spontaneous format
with an audience. And two, I wanted to see how
quickly and deeply I could form a connection with someone who I
just met off the street. Without too many spoilers, a Ham
and I do not share the same viewpoint on Israel.
At the same time, Ham is standing outside 4 hours at a
time with the Star of David on. He is an ambassador for the
Jewish people and he does put himself at risk whether people
know his views or not. It was interesting however to
learn about his anti Zionist relative who founded the
movement in Israel and how that influences views.
Usually when you think of ultra religious anti Zionist it's like
the Satmar religious Jews, A lot of their views are rooted in
theological reasons for not supporting the state of Israel.
However, from what Ham said it almost sounded like his relative
rather than having a strong theological reason, it was more
of like a political or ideological 1.
And that's one of the things I'm going to look into.
I'm curious kind of the basis for some of these ultra
religious groups what they think of when they think of Zionism
and anti Zionism. At a high level I understood
that all of these kind of rationales boiled down to not
wanting to have a secular state of Israel, but I wonder if
there's something more there. So excited to see what I come
across. Curious what you think about
this different format. Please enjoy this vlog or
episode. Hello.
He's in his underwear.
I'm here wondering why I'm up here and this is people, do you
want to? Know thank you for having me.
This is Ham. Ham has been doing this project
for over 2 years. He's a people.
Do you want to know? And I want to ask you.
Why? Originally it was to establish a
platform to share art with people, and I was happy just
standing on a pallet and chatting with strangers.
But when I was wearing clothes, no one would talk to me, and I
found that the more clothes I took off, the more people would
come and ask me what I was doing.
Here's how I came across HAM. I'm walking down the street to
my podcast studio, which is a couple of blocks away.
It is snowing, it is cold and the weather is horrible.
And here is standing a man in his underwear on a platform that
has a Riddle on it. This is an art project that also
ended up contributing to your engagement ring fund with your
now fiance. Soon to be, soon to be OK.
The proposal is happening. Yes, it has not happened yet.
She sort of knows. Like she knows it's going to
happen in May, but she doesn't know when and where.
And I've been scheming with I don't know if I can.
This is privileged information at this point, but I've got I've
got good plan. OK, I'm excited for it.
And so the ring has been picked out.
I assume the. Ring has been designed and I met
a so I designed the ring at the beginning of this project and
then throughout the course of it, I met a bunch of Jewelers
that asked to make it for me, one of whom seemed most aligned
with, you know, like what I'm doing in my trajectory.
She and I are in similar, similar places in our careers,
and she was the most enthusiastic about working with
me. And her name's Eliana.
Hopefully, she'll be here later today.
So to show me like, updates of the design so she can start
carving it. And so we're just kind of going
back and forth right now. Is it a big ring?
It's a big one. Excellent.
This time you're on a new platform than the one you were
on originally. What are you hoping to achieve
with the second platform that you're standing on?
So I'm establishing an ethical brand platform because one of
the experiences I had last year was companies coming up to me
asking me to pose for videos with their products as a form of
like marketing exposure for them.
And so I'm at a point in my life post engagement ring where I
need to interact a little bit more with capitalism.
And I've been trying to figure out how to do that in a way that
makes me comfortable. And so the best I could come up
with for now is creating a platform that invites companies
that can demonstrate that they're less than 10% evil.
And then if they can do that, they can use this project for
their exposure. What companies are doing that
today? Currently, Organic Basics and
this hat is called Earth Age. It's made by a woman in South
Africa who runs her own business and hand knits all of her
products. And then Axel Arigato has some
shoes that I'm in. Like, I wouldn't say they're
officially doing it. We're in conversation at this
point. They use really high quality
products. They know everybody in their
factories. And yeah, it just seems like a
positive, like they're trying to do something positive for the
world in addition to making good shoes.
Tell me about some of the highlights in standing on this
corner for two years, some experiences you have with
others. Yeah, I think the best
highlights are when someone actually stops and has a
conversation about the creative aspects of what I'm doing.
And it helps me better articulate this project to
people so I can hone my answers when I'm asked questions.
And it develops new ideas for how to grow the project.
Specifically, there is a like a mom and pop bagel shop around
the corner called Pops Bagels, and they came up to me yesterday
while I was doing the like the first, my first take with a new
form of expression where I've been journaling for a long time,
but I've only ever done that in private.
And while it's warm, people aren't as impressed by this
project. So I'm trying to figure out ways
to be creative and still be standing on the platform.
And so I started writing on the journal, but as if it were like
a children's book, facing out towards the audience and writing
upside down and backwards because that was something I
taught myself to do. And so I could write such that
the camera could read it. And then it kind of like hooked
someone in. They just like came up to me,
listen to what I were like, asked me what I was writing,
watch me writing it. We started having a
conversation. And the result was they're going
to start bringing me lunch with bagels and like, shooting videos
of me eating it as a way to like, give like, marketing
exposure for them and food to me.
And there's nothing I love more than free food.
You're also a nice Jewish boy and I'm curious if you can tell
me a little bit about your Jewish upbringing.
So my Jewish upbringing was not immediate.
My dad was bar mitzvahed, but we weren't raised in a Jewish
family. But I went to a school that was
formed in Baltimore so that Jewish kids could go to private
school but not go to a religious school.
So pretty much all of my friends were in kind of like modern
Jewish American families, and I was raised by a lot of their
parents, spent a lot of time at their houses.
And then 7th grade was the peak of my social life.
So I like to joke that I was bar mitzvahed through osmosis.
So I went to about 50 of them in one year.
OK, interesting. Do you have any message to the
Jewish people? Yeah, but this was going to get
a little heavy. OK Oh God, what is it?
How much more can we bear, folks?
I think it's important to not fall victim to the patterns of
society, recognizing that the Jewish people are have been very
persecuted throughout the years. I think it's very important to
be careful not to become the perpetrators of persecution and
to separate themselves from organizations of people that
have become corrupted and are hiding behind the like Jewish
plight to justify hurting other people.
You got to be a light upon the nation, folks, what can I say?
Just about my Jewish identity in the context for the nuanced
opinion that I have, my great, great great grandfather was the
chief rabbi of a Jewish Orthodox community that he founded in
Jerusalem. And to this day, they're one of
the few communities that rejects the Israeli government because
they're anti Zionists and they don't receive any funding from
them. And I've had that conversation
with people in New York before, and they've told me that they
studied him in Hebrew school and they couldn't have a
conversation with me anymore because he was a villain and
they could no longer talk to me. And I think it's interesting
because the reason he opposed the formation of Israel is
because he anticipated all of the conflicts that it would
create and saw it as a political tool for the West and not as
actually something that was the best case for the Jewish people
in Jerusalem because they'd existed there peacefully for a
lot longer than they have now. And so I think it's important
that people separate the religious ideologies that have
existed for thousands of years from the corrupted, personally
incentivized organizations that are just exerting force for
their own gain. OK, interesting.
What are you excited about? What's next for you?
Canada. You're going to Canada?
Yes, ma'am. OK, well I have an ethical brand
to share with you. It's the best one, if I may say
so myself, but I am a little bit biased people.
Do you want to know? Thank you very much.
Can you hold that sticker towards the camera?
Thank you for tuning to this impromptu episode of People.
Do you want to Know with Ham the Underwear Man?
Thank you for joining me on my corner.
Yay. We did it.
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