Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 432: Joe Wong

Episode Date: April 9, 2021

Joe Wong, brilliant musician, wonderful friend and music producer on The Midnight Gospel, re-joins the DTFH! Listen to Joe's podcast, The Trap Set, and check out Joe's site to hear his amazing music! Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: Squarespace - Use offer code: DUNCAN to save 10% on your first site. ExpressVPN - Visit expressVPN.com/duncan and get an extra 3 months FREE when you buy a 1 year package. MeUndies - Visit MeUndies.com/Duncan for 15% Off your first order + FREE Shipping!

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If you've decided to continue listening, which clearly you have, if my voice is raining into your inner ear, I thank you for that. Thank you for listening to this podcast. And if this is your first time listening, welcome aboard this pulsating jellyfish rainbow colored super ship, which is traveling in the direction of an invisible sun

that our entire species is about to be devoured by in some form or fashion. These scientists at their particle accelerators, you all read about this, that they have discovered something to do with muons. And I'm not gonna pretend to know what a muon is. I mean, when I go on Reddit and read about this stuff, I have to look not just for the dumb down stuff.

I've got to look for the dumb down, dumb down, dumb down stuff. And somewhere in there, I'll get some kind of understanding of what's happening. The best explanation that I found from a clearly mildly frustrated intelligent person was, they have found something that doesn't match the rules. And so they might have to come up with new rules.

That's like the super dumb down version of what's going on over there. With the particle accelerator where they're investigating muons. But that's all daddy needs to extrapolate from that possibility, that we are clearly about to break through this universe into another universe,

which I think based on my own research via the ketamine particle accelerator, that that universe is filled with all kinds of wild, beautiful and ridiculous creatures that are very eager to come flooding into this particular realm, because they think we need some cheering up. Now, when it happens, and it is gonna happen,

I mean, if you really just spend any amount of time thinking about it, it's gonna happen. And just follow me here. Don't pull your earbuds out and throw them into the ground. Listen, it's gonna happen. Here's why it's gonna happen. Number one, let's face it.

Part of the universe are definitely going to die. There's just no way around that. I'm not trying to do that. You're gonna die, man. But you know you're gonna die. And everything that you've come to understand is you, if you're somebody who thinks that your arms and your legs and your hair and your boobs

and your nips and your, if you're me, your magnificent penis is you. Yeah, then that's, you're probably done. You're gonna be in trouble when that stops working. And then, but you're still around. And you're having to deal with being disembodied, sentience, and you're gonna be all confused. And maybe there'll be some, like, what the fucks?

This wasn't in the Carl Sagan thing. David Attenborough never talked about this. And then you're gonna get attacked by hyper-dimensional entities. And you're gonna freak out. And you're gonna gallop through some weird realm until finally you come to some place where you see all these people humping.

And then you're gonna get turned on. And you'll probably reach down to start pleasuring yourself. You're like, what the fuck? I don't have, I don't have a body. And then you're gonna go floating into one of those people humping. And those are gonna be your parents. And that, and then you'll be reincarnated.

Again, that's gonna happen to you. And so you're definitely gonna contact extra-dimensional entities via your own extinction as an individual. If that doesn't happen before this other stuff happens, and probably based on the whorfinkal Galvox analysis of my listeners that was recently done by the Prexinger Institute, 93.7% of you

are regularly vaping DMT. So you're encountering these entities anyway. And this probably doesn't seem like a real news flash to you because they've been explaining their plans and you know what's coming. But if you're that other 7.9536% of my audience, then you might not be aware of the fact that our society, our culture and everything

is getting convicted and hailed into a incredibly harmonic and complex extra reality. And as that happens and we head on down the wild river of time, we're all experiencing a kind of beautiful acceleration. We're having those moments of like, wow, time's really flying by, but it's not just that.

It's that as we zip towards whatever this thing is all around us, we're seeing these wild global seismic culture quakes, culturequakes.com. Yeah, you know, like the whole Trump thing was a culture quake. World War II, a culture quake. The pandemic, it's a culture quake, man. And that's to be expected as we get closer

and closer towards this thing. But it's not just like shitty things happening. It's also, we can expect a kind of cascade of wild discoveries and technologies. You know, like the, you know, you've got former, the former head of the CIA talking about how his aircraft of plane he was in just froze midair. Look it up, why would you believe me

after what I just said, but look it up. I mean, it's the guy who used to run the CIA saying, yeah, once I was in an airplane and it just, or a friend of mine was in an airplane who I trust. And he said that it just froze in the air, just stop moving. I don't know what that is. Or look up the high level government officials saying, we don't know what these fucking weird drone things are

that have been swarming our ships. We don't know what they are. It's just they're not functioning according to the way we understand physics. That should be enough to tell you that some weird shit is going on behind the scenes. And the more that that happens, the more behind the scenes stuff happens,

it leaks into the, in front of the scenes stuff via various secret channels. I know, I know what you're thinking. What happened, Trussell? What is this, fucking info wars? No, it's culture quakes with detrust. And, you know, let's face it, there's a fascinating relationship

that the super privilege and wealthy have with the artists of the world, you know, like all the zillionaires and billionaires, no matter how much access they have to stuff, they can't be Stanley Kubrick, can they? They can't be Stanley Kubrick, can they? They can't be Stephen King or Stephen Spielberg. They can't be Paul Simon.

You know, they can't, but you know what they can do? They can pay those people lots of money to come and hang out with them and talk to their kids. And they do that. Why wouldn't you? If you were, if I were a billionaire, you better believe I'd be like having Paul Simon come and like sing my child to sleep.

I don't, how much do you want, Mr. Simon? 100 million? Yeah, no problem. I make that in five hours. Anyway, the point is like, as the, this is a, by the way, a theory, I'm just guessing. You know, as above so below, you can extrapolate from your own experience

things that you haven't yet come into contact with. But, you know, I know comedians who have been flown to beautiful places to do shows by very wealthy people. That happens. And I know they don't just come in and do the show. They, they hang out. And, you know, if you're the other quality of human beings

is that we love to blab. You know, we love to like, like see people's eyes get big by disclosing to them some wild information. And so this is what I'm saying. Like when the weird backstage stuff is going on, it trickles in to the front stage. Because let's face it,

you can't keep your mouth shut if you're a person. At least if you're me. I don't care what your security clearance is. If you walked into some chamber in the CIA and saw some glowing, blobby, multi eyeball, telepathic, super intelligent thing. And it was like, hey, how are you? I'm from Lorvel.

It's the universe just next to yours. Do you want to waterloo? You're eventually going to tell somebody. Like there's no way you're not going to tell someone in your family. You're going to tell somebody. And probably after you've had a couple of like Kweyludes created by your in mansion pharmacist

and Paul Simon just serenaded your child to sleep because you paid him a hundred million dollars and you're having a cocktail with him and asking him what his inspiration for me and Julio down by the schoolyard was. And he tells you, you're also going to be like, you know, I saw this glowing or ball big multi eyeball thing that knew my name and like sparkling water under the CIA.

Don't tell anybody, please. We monitor everything you do. If you tell anybody, we're definitely going to, we're dead. But I just thought you'd like to know that. And then, you know, Paul Simon flies, gets flown back home and he's like trying to process the information. And then the next thing you know, you get like a new Paul Simon song

that happens to have in it a, I don't know, a lyric like this. Single parent, baby dreams and poor ladies, dirty jeans. Global clashes, diaper rashes. There's another universe right next to you. And that universe is breaking through. And that's how I think it happens. Little dribulits and rivulets and drools and perspirations from the hidden world come oozing into our reality via art.

Because most artists, I don't think they can keep their mouth shut probably. That would be my guess. I don't know. I have not been fortunate enough. Thus far to make contact with me. Powerful anything that would, that told me secrets. Sorry, got some water loose stuck in my throat. What a podcast we have for you today.

My dear friend, the composer that created so much of the beautiful music on the Midnight Gospel. Joe Wong is here with us. We're going to jump right into it. But first, this, a tremendous thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring this episode of the DTFH and for creating an incredible tool that empowers millions of dreamers, makers and doers

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Don't sleep on this. This is your path to glory. Thank you, Squarespace. We're back, my beautiful babies. Welcome back from that commercial. Listen, if you don't like commercials on the DTFH, it doesn't hurt my feelings. I understand.

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Again, if you go and look at all these things that have been happening to people who aren't subscribed to the Patreon, some of them are just mildly annoying. Some of them pretty devastating, at least from, like if I was attacked, say, by a raccoon, had to get rabies shots. You know, it wouldn't be the end of my life or anything,

but I think it would change my relationship with what is currently in my subjective opinion, one of the cutest dying animals that ever toodled in a dumpster. So I don't want that to happen to you. And I'm not saying that folks who don't subscribe to the Patreon are having weird accidents, because then I would be culpable.

And one of my attorneys said, just to make sure you just say, yeah, I don't even, there's no, it's an, obviously, come on, like how would I even have control over animals? It would imply that my grandfather had left my mom some kind of weird radio transmitter thing that he was given because of the work he did in World War II that lets you dial into the consciousness

of animals at the global level and program them to do your bidding. When I don't have that, that would be nuts. My dear darlings, today's guest is a brilliant musician. He's the reason the Midnight Gospel sounds so beautiful. He helped me produce some of the songs that you heard at the end, credits of the Midnight Gospel.

But not only that, he mentored me during the time that we were working on the show and really was like completely open with the process of making music for TV. And I've carried a lot of the stuff he taught me into this podcast and into other projects that I'm working on and not only that, he is a wonderful friend of mine

and a super cool human being. If you're a huge fan of music, then you must listen to his podcast, The Trap Set. It's so good and he has these amazing conversations with super famous prolific and brilliant musicians, all the links you need to find, Joe Wong will be at duckatrustle.com, but definitely subscribe to his podcast.

And now my dear friends, welcome back to the DTFH, Joe Wong. ["Welcome Back to the DTFH"] ["Welcome, welcome on you, that you are with us, shake and glory to be blue, welcome to you." It's the duckatrustle thing. Joe, welcome back to the DTFH. I feel like I never left.

I wanna start off by just diving into the deepest waters possible and ask you a question that I think is the question of the day. Are you embarrassed that you're a Peloton owner? No, I'm not, but that's because I also know that you are a Peloton owner. So in this moment, I know I'm communicating

with a fellow yuppie. Do you feel though like, and we don't even have to put this in the podcast, but do you feel like there's a few problems that I have right now as a Peloton owner. Number one, how much I love it and how addicted to it I've become and how trauma bonded I've become

with some of the instructors. But number two, just this general sense of like, is this what I've become? Someone in their underwear at 5 a.m., sweating on their Peloton. Is that who you've become or is it who you've always been? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

You know what? Let's think about other kind of exercise fads that you've tried over the years. What else have you done? Have you bought a piece of exercise equipment before? No, not that I can recall. I mean, I've, you know, I like, I like most people have bought like a kettlebell

that, you know, just lays out in the rain and you just kind of look at it. Nothing happens or a, you know, running shoes, which I've used here and there, but nothing is like, nothing like a pellet, nothing like a expensive fucking fad bit of workout gear. But I remember when you got your Mogue One and I feel like the excitement around that

was similar to the excitement around the Peloton because you called me when you got the Peloton. And I think spending that kind of money is like committing to some sort of transformative journey. It's, it combines capitalism and mysticism. You know, that's, that's an interesting, you know, that's an interesting point that I think a lot of people take issue

with whenever that happens is because everyone's fine when mysticism is not somehow wrapped up in the, you know, in capitalism or the marketplace, the moment the two meet, you know, lots of people think that that's a bad sign, which seems insane and limiting to me. Yeah, I suppose if it's exploitative or not, or if it dilutes the message,

or if the mysticism is being used as bait to bring you into something that's primarily nefarious. But I have a question. Was Ramdas a capitalist? Yeah, I think it would be fair to say that he, I mean, he was a capitalist in the sense that he was charging money for tickets, you know, his shows weren't for free.

And they were in like Hawaii, the retreats that you went to. Yeah, but even before the retreats, I mean, he was part of this loosely associated group of traveling spiritual teachers that became celebrities, you know, like Alan Watts, Chogyam Trumpa, you know, there was, there's so many of them that started, you know, for lack of a better word, touring on the spiritual retreat circuit, you know,

doing classes at Esalen and doing retreats in Hawaii or wherever, I mean, it's a, he was part of a, I mean, of an industry. I think it would be fair to call it an industry, which is, I think, even with the pandemic is still doing pretty great. But yeah, I mean, I think he was unapologetically in the marketplace, like he, and his teachings

were designed for people in the West. So there was an acknowledgement of that level or whatever you want to call it that we're all in, which is like, you're not photosynthetic, you got to figure out a way to survive and to sustain yourself in this, in the place that we're at right now. But if we were photosynthetic,

we'd probably find a way to charge for sunlight. Yeah, well, better grades of sunlight, probably. Organic sun. Yeah, yeah, or, you know, probably like methods of inhaling more light to become more energetic or something like that. You know, this is- Cruelty free sunbeams.

God, how terrible would it be if we found out that at the center of the sun was this immortal sheep, like a beautiful sheep. A burning sheep, yeah. That's just on fire forever and is purely innocent. And all of our light comes from abject infinite suffering. That would be pretty fucking rotten. I mean, what's your take on capitalism? I mean, how do you feel about the situation

that we all find ourselves in? Do you get squeamish about making money? I mean, that's, for me, it's like, you know, I think that's part of the Peloton embarrassment is, you know, they're fucking expensive and talking about it feels like almost braggy or something, but because they marketed themselves in an embarrassing way, I think most people, me included,

before I had a Peloton, when I looked at the commercials, would roll my eyes and be like, God, look at that. Oh, and your fucking high rise with your fucking Peloton, congratulations. Right, and what are you paying for? You're paying to be part of this kind of exclusive social network. That's what you're paying for.

I mean, you can find a rusty used bike for $5 at the Salvation Army and if the tires are flat, that's even a better workout. I mean, you don't need this piece of equipment to get in shape. You don't need any equipment to get in shape. You're paying so that, A, you feel obligated to make use of that piece of equipment

that you spent the money on. It's like committing through spending. And then you're part of this social network. And I would say the one thing I do find embarrassing about it is all the pseudoscience that people talk about when you're on the ride. I mean, like the new catchphrase is lactic acid. It's like, well, we're gonna increase

your lactic acid threshold today. Not Cody Rigsby. That's my number one trainer. He doesn't talk about lactic acid. But he, but like, cause I've, you know, you go through all the different trainers. Right. You know, and some of them you get,

and I get enraged with, I hate them. And some of them you're just like, what the fuck? This is, you're so boring. You figure out the ones you like, I guess. But I have yet to get it with a lactic acid professor. I almost exclusively work with this woman named Robin. She's kind of the head trainer, I believe. And she, she recently had a baby,

but she talks about increasing your VO2 max and your lactic acid threshold. And, you know, she has a whole kind of mythology around her rides. Like I only ride with royalty. That makes me squeamish when, cause I'm not into the, I'm, you know, capitalism is one thing. What does that mean?

Well, she's like, I only want to ride with kings and queens. Like she's trying to empower people, but I have an adverse reaction to monarchy illusions. That's the weirdest shit I ever heard. I, she, but she's using like the modern, like a confident being or people who have like, it's like the modern way of saying

that you're like a go-getter or something like that. She doesn't want to literally like ride with old withered, like fucked up people in a long line of exploitive mercenary types. Man, the more of to talk about this, the more embarrassed I am to have one of these things. That's what I'm talking about, man. I mean, this is like, I only, first of all,

I'm not blaming you, but you are, I think I didn't have a Peloton, did I? I didn't have a Peloton when you were talking about how cool they are. You were telling me you had a Peloton. See, this is, this is the reason I'm interrogating you in this, I'm not trying to embarrass you. Oh, it's because we were talking about it

when we were playing video games online together. Yes. Yes. And maybe I had already had one, but I wasn't using it, but your health kick is contagious. It has jumped into my life because like, and this happens, this is why it's, this, that's one of the things Ramdas would say is we work on ourselves

so we could help the people around us. So the best thing you could do for the people around you is to quote, work on yourself. And so when a friend starts doing something like regularly, like regular exercise, but more than just that, like you, you got into it for some reason, it like, it can, it's contagious, you know, like, and so I would like just randomly think,

fucking Wong's on his Peloton, what am I doing? It's the pandemic, Joe's running. Yeah, see, my latest thing, I haven't been writing that thing much lately, but it's really my girlfriend who's a huge fan of it and rides it almost every day. So I feel like it was certainly a purchase that paid for itself in the sense that we don't have

to pay gym memberships and that would have been expensive during a time when we couldn't even use them. My point is, I guess you don't need to go to the gym either. So my point wasn't like fucking glossy capitalist, hyper manipulative, super addictive workout technologies. My point was how cool it is when one of your friends starts getting healthy, like, you know, like the, cause we're all connected in this real way.

And so that's all, just because, you know, you got it or have gotten into this, it's once again, somehow I find myself addicted to exercise, which for me, it's like when it happens, those are my favorite times of my life cause I feel so much better. But how are you feeling now that you've been training for marathons?

I'm feeling good. I actually got up past the 20 mile threshold and then the marathon that I had been training for got canceled. So now I'm doing other stuff, like shorter runs and lifting some weights and things like that because I signed up for a marathon that's not for several months,

which hopefully will proceed. And then I'll start ramping up the mileage again in a couple of months from now. Well, you know- This is gonna be the most boring podcast that anyone's ever heard. No, cause wait for that. I've got this planned out, my friend.

Wait for the next question. The next question is where hopefully the many eye rolls from the listeners and people who maybe this is the first time they listen to the podcast and are feeling this dreadful sense of like, what the fuck is this horror? I think they'll like this next question, which is, if you had to describe the stereotype of the genius or prolific artist,

in other words, like the most cliche stereotype of that being, how would you describe it? Well, I've thought about that a fair amount because I've encountered people that have dispelled that myth, but I would say that the most prominent myth is that of the troubled, tortured genius who's so empathetic that they can understand the world on a level that few can and make a statement

that is at once like innately unique, but also universal. And I've actually met some people that are joyful geniuses. They're not really tortured. They might be on a completely different wavelength than some of the rest of us or the most people. And they certainly have that sense of empathy where they can understand people or things in a unique way, but they are not actually tortured.

And that was mind blowing when I first started encountering people like that because I actually think other people I've encountered in my life who may have been geniuses or close to it played into that stereotype. It almost like informed their relationship with self. Like their heroes were beat poets or something or whatever you name it or people, artists

that cut off their body parts. Right. See, this to me, I think is really an important thing to talk about because I feel like a lot of people are hurting themselves unnecessarily by imitating an almost non-existent entity, which is the not just tortured genius, but tortured artist, the wild, manic depressive, drug-addled, self-harming,

sex-addicted lunatic who somehow in between hangovers is producing some of the most incredible music or paintings or stories ever read. But when they're not writing or making music or painting, you know, they're just on some irritating manic freak out where they're falling on the ground, pissing themselves, you know, pulling their clothes off in the park, throwing rocks at like, I don't know

if they're throwing rocks at people, but kind of turning them into like more of a chimpanzee character. But you know what I'm saying? That I feel like this, anytime you run into someone who's really putting on that particular show, don't you get a little suspicious that I'd like to see what kind of stuff you're making?

Right. You know what I mean? Because it's like, to me, whenever I've run into like people like you or people who I would consider to be brilliant artists, they are living a relatively like disciplined life. You know, their attitude towards creation isn't like, you know, some like that doc,

what's his face and back to the future, that thing with the- Well, that's an interesting archetype there, the doc Brown archetype, because he comes from a wealthy family and he squanders all of the family's resources on his inventions until finally one of them works. And I think that that coincides with the,

you know, the troubled genius model that at least the manifestation of it from the 20th century, lots of these people, whether they were rock stars or poets came from privileged backgrounds and they were playing at being a vagrant for a little while. And then that short period of doing heroin

or whatever it was, came to define their work even though they were just, you know, like you said, living disciplined, relatively sober lives. A tremendous thank you to ExpressVPN for sponsoring this episode of the DTFH. I like ExpressVPN because it's easy. You just press a button and you can tell the internet

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That's expressvpn.com slash Duncan. Thank you, ExpressVPN. There's a lot of damage that these people have caused with their marketing campaigns because everybody- It's sexier, right? Like, as far as if you're running a record company, you wanna play up the fact that Keith Richards tried heroin rather than that Mick Jagger

went to the London School of Economics. Did Mick Jagger go to the London School of Economics? Yeah. Oh my God, that's fucking hilarious. Yeah, see, you don't wanna have him posing on the cover with a calculator, right? Oh my God, that's so incredible. Yeah, yeah, and because of that,

because, you know, making stuff like the whole process, my experience with it has been, there's some pretty mundane, awful parts of making stuff that I would view as very similar to, you know, just basic, like, I don't know, like, you know, digging like yard work or something, like mowing the lawn or something, you know, that it takes a kind of like,

well, you've gotta do it and you gotta push a lawn mower and it's gonna be nice, maybe, maybe not, but it's just, you're gonna have to keep doing it and you're gonna have to do it in this sort of geometric way or your yard's gonna look like shit and it's really not that big a deal what you're doing, you're just mowing a lawn. And a lot of it is like that.

You know, there's excited moments where like, oh my God, that's the idea I had, but even better, but those excited moments are usually, for me, followed by like, dialing that in and then editing and then getting bored with it, practicing and then it takes forever and there's nothing that exciting about it. And I don't think people,

I think people who are seeing the Mick Jagger, you know, humping a fucking albatross or whatever crazy shit they legendary, I don't know if he've humped an albatross, you know, Ozzy Osbourne's biting the head off a bat, Led Zeppelins like fisting a fucking seal at the beach or whatever, you know? Yeah, the mud shark.

Yeah, you know what, I was talking to Buzz, the singer of the Melvins about this and he likens the songwriting process to panning for gold, which I think is a great metaphor. Other people say fishing. I know you think about ideas a lot, like what's an idea before, you know, before it's an idea. So in that sense, I think of it kind of like,

you know, being a radio receiver, right? And all you can do is kind of build your antenna a little bit higher and make sure that it's clean and make sure that you're doing what you can on your end to receive the idea. Yeah. But yeah, all that stuff is just mundane. It's mundane, but because of your instruction,

you know, I have been able to make to like catch more fish because I now have, I mean, I actually had to pay someone to come and set my shit up so that I could, so it just works. Yeah. Also, I think that like this kind of real revelatory information regarding the creative process is really important for people because it's just, you know, I'm just sick of it, man.

You run into people who are like, because it's easier to be crazy than it is to make something good. You know what I mean? It's easier to be on some wild manic tangent, fucking yourself up over and over again, pretending that in that self-destruction, some unique thing is emerging when then to like actually sit

down and like work, which usually means some kind of, I mean, I don't necessarily work completely sober, you know what I mean? But, you know, it means generally like you're gonna have to take care of your body. You need to be healthy enough to work long periods and not get tired and freaked out, right? Like that, is that why you're exercising now?

Is that what has gotten you into this workout routine? That and self-loathing. I know, you know what? In our conversations, I've been catching some of that from you. Yeah, I mean, that's deep inside, but yeah, so I could just, that could manifest in unhealthy ways too,

and I could play into this tortured trope, but I don't think it would make sense for who I am. No, well, no, I don't think, I mean, yeah, well, I mean, yeah, because the thing is you've gotta, when you're getting jobs, I'm sure the last thing, someone who's making a TV show wants, is someone stinky with like holes in their shirts, covered in like dried Parmesan cheese

and old marijuana crumbs, you know? That's not who you want to make something for you. Yeah, although it is kind of like the idea of someone who does function that way, but they're so brilliant that people have to put up with it, is kind of a, you know, it's still a trope that finds its place in Hollywood. I'll just say, there's plenty of people

that are famous in Hollywood for being self-destructive, and if they're also really good at their job, then that makes their, it creates this mystique around them that's tolerated. Yeah, you're right. I mean, you know what, some of the people we mentioned when we talked shit for about two hours that we had to cut out,

one thing they all have in common though, is they work their fucking asses off. That's the thing, man, they're working, like some of the people you, we both probably agree on are some of the most diligent, hardworking people I've ever seen. I just want to get that out there is all, just because like, I wish that's, you know,

that embarrassing thing- And they're trying to actually treat their addictions. They're not like festering in it most of the time. It's a problem that they're trying to work on in their lives. Right, it's causing them trouble. They're in therapy. They're like, they don't want to be, they feel afflicted by that particular thing,

and the affliction is connected to probably an idea they had in their younger selves about how you're supposed to be to make stuff. They didn't need that at all, but it got stuck to them like an old piece of gum. It got all in their hair and shit. And so they're always sort of like struggling with it. I mean, I think there is something to be said for,

you know, big doses of psychedelics to have visions. And, you know, all the getting out there and the far reaches of whatever to like, you know, get inspiration. I'm not saying that that isn't a way to find inspiration, but, you know, also I think there's something to be said for like actual far reaches. You know what I mean?

Like it's as difficult as it may be to trip for 12 hours straight, depending on your personality. It's not that hard to get high. Let's face it, you put a tiny little square of paper on your tongue and you can like dissolve into eternity for some long seemingly infinite amount of time and come back to a human form and maybe you'll have some incredible epiphany that you can,

if you're really, really talented, you can then translate in a way that people on this side of the veil can see it. There's a lot of great visionary artists who do that, but they're all trained like Alex Gray. He's a trained, you know, artist. Like he to get where he's at took years and years and years of understanding human anatomy

and how to paint, but then also the visions he's had, he's been able, because of that work, he can capture them. But, you know, I think there's something to be said for the other places that are difficult to get to. You know, that you can't just put a piece of paper on your fucking tongue, like running a marathon. You know, like getting up early in the morning and running 20 miles.

What kind of things do you see in that realm? Have you gotten any artistic inspiration from? Yeah, for sure. I just like learning to do things that I haven't been able to do before. That's what I like. And I don't know, I think because art is harder, because I can, it's actually, I can schedule myself.

There's plenty of thousands and thousands of people that have run marathons before. I can take a schedule off the internet. And if I just stick to it, I know that I'll get to that 20 mile threshold. And with art, there is no guarantee, right? You can work really hard and come up with nothing but rocks for using that panning for gold analogy.

And you can come up with it over and over and over again. So it actually adds a sense of agency to my life, whereas art is more of like a sense of surrender. And humility. A big thank you to me, Undies, for sponsoring this episode of the DTFH. My loves, probably if you're like me, you're sitting on your ass all day long.

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It's time to upgrade your wear. Do you think there will be blood? Could be one of the interpretations. Could be it's about the creative process. Well, you just, just by saying that, I guess we could choose to interpret it that way. Like he starts off as like someone with a bad, like, you know, he starts off almost killing himself

in pursuit of this rare thing. It's the exact panning for gold metaphor that we're using here, except in his case, it's like ends up being oil or whatever. But it's about this sort of like horrific pursuit for this thing that takes completely like takes him over and ultimately spoiler alert ruins it. But, you know, when I think about like the art

and the hard, exactly what you're saying, God, Jesus, I don't know much of a more horrible feeling than those days or weeks where you're not, nothing's coming. You come into the fucking studio and it's shit in and shit out. There's not even something you could revise. I don't even know if this happens to you,

but I've had it happen where I, you know, and you know it always comes back because it's come back. But you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, but that's just a stone that you have to step on to get to the next place. That's a thing to keep in mind is like it's not reasonable to have a goal of making something great because you can't control that,

but you can set a goal of being ready for something great to come to you and you need to go through those shitty days in order to get to that place where you're receptive. That's the way I choose to look at it. If you had to name that place, what would you call it? Which place? The place where you're?

The place in between. Wait, what, what, the place in between? The place in between you deciding to make something and you finally getting through all the like horrible, seemingly never ending, low inspiration parts of the journey. What if you had to name that place, what would you call it? My life, I don't know, that's what it is. But I don't think, I don't feel as dramatic about it anymore.

I don't think, oh, this is never gonna end because I see it as a cycle. I know myself better now. I know that I tend to get really depressed or anxious when I'm starting a new project. Yes. Starting a new television project last week. And it felt like nobody knew exactly

what the identity of this particular show was gonna be musically speaking. And so I was kind of at a loss and I was just staring at the blank page and I was getting depressed. And I realized that happens every time at the beginning because that's like when your body is resting because it knows that once the idea comes,

then you get kind of carried away with the idea and you're working a lot. So I just see it as part of the process. I see it as like storing up, it's like creative winter. You know, I'm like hibernating and storing up that energy and then I'm gonna spring forward once I get a nugget of something. Anytime I start working on something

that's gonna be a big project, sadly my wife gets a little like oh fuck. Because same thing, I get depressed, like bummed and like, but I don't want, I've never, it's nice to hear you admit it. Because I never want to admit that that is happening because it feels like I, but now it feels good because you said,

but it feels, you know, I see it as like your body preparing your psyche to take something. Right, that's a cool way to look at it. There's so many parts of this thing that is like, I think it's like a beautiful, in any way to get to make stuff is the coolest thing ever,

whether it's professionally or just because you like her, you've decided to start making stuff. The whole thing is just such a fucking beautiful thing, but there's so many pieces of it that just don't make it in to the stories about people who create stuff, because it would be a fucking boring movie. You know, no one would want to,

no one wants to see that. No one wants to see, I wouldn't mind seeing like, oh cool, he's gonna shave his nipples off or something before he starts painting. That's intense, but nobody wants to see like just the mild depression, you know, a kind of like bored,

like if you made a story about Leonard Cohen, you just show him writing a single song for an entire year, that's the film. Yeah, are you gonna do that? And like eating and meditating, that's it. Yeah, just fucking eating, probably slightly messy, you know, having maybe rolling around in bed a little bit, like maybe watching some shitty TV show.

But the interesting thing is it took me a long time to figure out the correlation between, you know, those changes in my mood and the creative process and to see how they're kind of causally linked and to just recognize that it's a cycle that I go through a lot. And with working for other people, it kind of mitigates the ups and downs of that cycle

because I just have to get things done on a certain timeline. Right, and also it's like when you're collaborating, you're not flying blind, you know, like you've got somebody there who can at least give you some very fuzzy coordinates about where they like the song to go. Whereas if you're just making stuff on your own,

who do you refer to? Like maybe you have some friends that you could run ideas by, but that which brings me down. I like to think of composing for film and TV, like cooking for somebody else. That's the metaphor I like to use these days. Used to be like being an architect, but now I like to think of it like cooking for someone else.

And if somebody's coming over to your house for the first time, you've never met that person before and you're supposed to cook a meal and blow them away, it's anxiety inducing because you don't know what kind of food they like. You don't know what they're allergic to. You don't know what kind of diet they're on if they're vegetarian or vegan or whatever.

And so that's anxiety inducing, but the more you can get to know that person, then the easier it is to make a meal that they'll enjoy. Is, have you ever run into anybody that just didn't wanna collaborate at all? Like someone who is like being a fascist about what they wanted with you and that weren't interested in your ideas?

I think people that are more insecure tend to be that way. I think it's harder and it takes more life experience and creative experience to understand that when you're working in a collaborative medium, the best thing you can do is just pick the collaborators that you wanna work with and give them as much freedom as possible because then they would do their best work and they'll feel empowered and they'll feel valued

and they'll feel like they can add something of their voice to something to your project rather than just be a blunt instrument that you're using to exert your own will. There's another stereotype, by the way, the stereotype of the fascist producer person who's like, you know, it's the, it gets embodied in Stanley Kubrick. I mean, Jesus Christ,

have you seen that documentary as daughter filmed? I'm not sure, I've definitely seen it. The Shining? I've definitely, oh, I didn't see that one yet, but I've seen other documentaries about him. You just, when you watch that and you see that like everyone is getting sick from working with him and like,

but they wanna work with him because he's one of the great geniuses and they're so excited to be there, they signed on, but he's, there's a great moment where Jack Nicholson, it's the freezer scene, he's been locked in the freezer and he's like yelling at his wife and like, it's like, after they cut, she catches this look on his face, he's like, Kubrick is like, that was good.

And you see him looking at this, the great director with this, it's like a, he's hurting from playing this awful fucking character in this awful place that they're at. Like it's hurting him. And the look is like, I don't know, it's like a prisoner looking at their like, dungeon keeper or something like that.

But it seems like Kubrick sort of meets that the stereotype of the hyper controlling, difficult to work with, director, producer type who knows exactly what they want and makes great shit to make matters worse, what they make is incredible, you know? That, so it is sometimes people, I guess you do just have to do whatever people say,

but I know what you mean. It just depends, I mean, it depends on if somebody's putting that on because they saw the Kubrick documentary and they think that's what a director is supposed to do or if somebody is really has a vision for something and then it's my job to trust that person. And I think every project that I've done

is somewhere in between those extremes, but I definitely don't have any interest in working with people that are putting it on as a pretense because they think that's what you're supposed to do as a director is be in command of all elements of the thing. It's like, it just doesn't make sense. Yeah, there's all these stereotypes

are ruining everything. I mean, there's so many fucking people who see this shit and they think that's how they're supposed to be and then they just ruin, well, it also comes from a place of insecurity, right? Because it's like the only reason why someone would look outward on how to be is if they don't feel comfortable in some way in their role or in their body.

So then they look to somebody else and they say, oh, well, I'm gonna fake Stanley Kubrick until I make it, you know, I'm gonna fake that persona until I become a genius auteur and it usually doesn't work out. No, nobody wants that. I also think that that kind of like troubled genius trope comes from a place of privilege.

That's another thing I've noticed. And like this thing where it's like, also the idea of like art for art's sake and that you should suffer for your art, blah, blah, blah. It's like, well, I think that there's enough suffering in life if you're living it in an engaged way that you don't have to consciously add suffering through art.

I mean, it will come through. The suffering in your life will come through but this idea that you should be this weird self-flagellating island is strange to me. And I think it really does. Like as somebody who's interviewed lots of artists, people that don't come from a place of privilege and maybe don't get their idea of like

how an artist exists from an academic setting, they don't have any kind of qualms about hustling and making money doing music or doing whatever it is that they do. Whereas the people that come from this kind of art for art's sake perspective usually have trust funds or something. You know what I mean?

Yeah, they're like, you know, I don't, this is just something, this is my passion. And if, you know, if money comes, it comes. But yeah, they're not like- It's like being a farmer who doesn't, who's too lazy to harvest the crops and take them to market. You just like planting the seeds and seeing the pretty plants grow.

Wow. Yeah, that's fucking crazy. Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah. So yeah, that's, but that's intense, man. That's true though. That is a whole thing. Whereas like you meet someone who's,

but again, this goes back to like what I was trying to get out at the beginning. It's like, whenever you meet people who are like, you know, actually like working artists, it's just not, it's not what you would call exciting. It's like gritty and it's, and I, to me that discovery was one of my favorite discoveries when it came to making stuff,

because I was able to hang up a lot of the bullshit that I'd imagined it was supposed to be like. And I was relieved by the idea that like, oh yeah, if you just work really hard consistently, you can do this. It's not that you need some magic glitter. Well, the work is doing it. You know what I'm saying?

Like that's what it is. It's that, that is what it is, what it's all about. And if, so then the next thing is, can you, can you approach the work in such a way that you can experience joy in doing the work where you're not seeing this as like lifting a boulder up or even if it is like lifting a boulder up, can you lean into that feeling

so that you can make every day worthwhile? I just can't, you know, I just try not to get addicted to the joy. You know, I just, if joy happens someday, if I'm making stuff, that's great. It was a day of joy. But if I wake up someday and feel like I don't want to make anything today,

but I have to because there's some deadline, then yeah, I'm gonna go, then joy doesn't become the requisite. Right. Or no, there isn't a feeling that is the requisite feeling to make something, you know, obliterating all the requisite feelings, like, oh, I've got to be a certain level of stoned

or a certain level of high or a certain level of happy or a certain level of sad or this or that or I need these things arranged. It probably does help to be a certain level of present. Like if you want to at least try to be, hopefully what the work will do is make you feel present in the way that we're talking about with exercise where if you're working out really hard

doing something physically strenuous, it's harder to let your mind drift into like social media world or whatever. You're there and time slows down. And I think if you're working hard creatively, then maybe you can get to a similar type of presence. Yeah, this is why I think that getting yourself in some kind of shape, getting yourself healthy

is like anytime I'm healthy, I'm way more inspired. Anytime I'm drinking enough water, exercising every day, you know, taking care of earth shit, you know what I mean? Like not ignoring like stuff that needs to get taken care of, you know, like boring ass things, you know, like, you know, changing my address, you know,

Stu, you know what I'm talking about? The mundane earth shit, the more I'm at least spending some period of my day addressing all that stuff, the better the other stuff seems to get natural. I would agree with that. I would say even doing stuff that I historically have hated doing, but having it in order, it helps me with my artwork, like doing my taxes,

knowing that that's out of the way and that things are in order, you know? And that's why I think, you know, I've always been someone that resisted like making the bed in the morning because it seemed like completely pointless, but I actually tried it as an experiment to, you know, start making the, this was several years ago,

started making the bed every day. And I think it's like a little mini meditation that you can do. For sure. Wake up. It's like, you know, someone I fall on Twitter is very funny, I can't remember their name now though, tweeted something hilarious like,

making your bed is meaningless. It's just fabric or something like that, you know? It's like a superstition, but I'm in the bed making club. Like if I make my bed every day, I feel better for some reason. Like all these little like earthbound things are so fucking important.

But earlier, this is something I wanted to talk about if you want to talk about it on a podcast, if you don't, I totally get it. But I was surprised in a non-recorded conversation to hear the self-loathing thing, Joe. What is that? When did that start? Yeah, really early on I would say,

and I don't think I recognized it as such, but it's something I've been thinking about more recently. But I think I've historically sought out collaborators that are more of the dark, you know, troubled genius types. And then it, then those people kind of reinforced my own negative opinions of myself because they can hone in on that and use it as leverage to do whatever they wanted to do.

Anyway, yeah, I mean, it's kind of like from an early age, I always responded better to the teachers that were really strict or like mean, I would want it to gain their approval or the coaches that were like that or the bandmates that were like that. And I think that it actually served me really well for a while, like that's what I used

to kind of get myself up to speed. It's like first gear in a car, right? But if you stay in that place, you'll burn it out. So I've been working on transitioning to a different gear. In so doing, I've noticed patterns of people that were not kind and then kind of interrogating, all right, why was I gravitating towards these types of people?

So I don't know what the origin of it was, but I mean, don't you have that too? Well, I used to, and I used to think it was normal. It is normal, I think, to a certain extent. And I think it, well, for lots of people, but it's just part of, it's one of the voices in my head. There's other parts of me that are more confident, but I think like I can remember,

I started playing music really early and I can remember thinking, why would I ever be proud of this? Like what good would that serve to congratulate myself or be proud of it? I should always be thinking about the standards set by other people and how far away from the standard I am. And I think that was probably useful for a while

to just be like, I'm terrible, I need to keep working. There's an infinite expanse that I need to traverse before I'm allowed to even have an opinion. Then I think that in making a record, and well, I think that probably also explains, for example, why I was always playing a supporting role, either as a drummer or as a composer or producer or whatever, I wasn't making statements

that were entirely my own. And that's something I always really wanted to do, but that mentality kept me from doing it. So I had to kind of confront the source of that as I was making an album and then started to think about how as useful as it was to be hard on myself, it also was destructive and kept me from, it negated my own voice.

And again, as we were saying before, I think I thought of that as like egotistical to embrace one's own voice. And maybe it is to a certain extent, but. I mean, you could argue it's egotistical to hate yourself too. Yeah, and that's true. I mean, because to hate yourself,

you have to set up the thing that is hated and then the thing that hates it. And theoretically, the thing that hates it has achieved some superiority over the thing it hates, at least enough to administer hate. You could also argue that it's not egotistical to embrace your own voice at all, because even though it's your own voice,

you didn't, it's not wrought by you. It was given to you as a gift, right? So it's not as though you're admiring something that's your own creation. It's something, it's just your temperament. It's like, you didn't assemble the atoms in your body. You didn't put together your own life experience from scratch, you know?

It's just, you're a node and you're embracing the uniqueness of the coordinates that you're at. Yeah, yeah. And to claim that that's your voice anyway, it's like, well, the thing that you're hating or not, you know, like, I think a lot of people, me included when I was really caught up

in my own fashionable self-hate was not, hadn't quite figured out that self-hate is just another form of fixation on the self. It's just, that's all it is. It doesn't matter if the way that you're identifying with yourself is via some negative connection or a positive connection. If you have become the primary consideration in your life,

you're self-fixated or what's called self-cherishing is what it's called. And that's a painful situation to get into on either side, you know? Cause, you know, classic like self-loving or self-worshipping narcissists, you know, they're usually pretty, like they're agonized all day long. I don't feel good and they're lonely.

And self-hating narcissists, the same thing, which if I wear, that's where I fall on that spectrum or have, but then, you know, like you have to get it, like you get into the question, like if you're gonna hate yourself, you have to know yourself. That's the paradox of the damn thing. It's like, what is it that you hate?

What, you know, like what is the thing that you loathe? You know what I mean? Like what is that thing? And then you have to imagine, well, that's me. Right. Well, I think lots of it gets passed down from generation to generation, right? Like parents recognize traits in their children

that they hate within themselves and then they try to discourage those traits in some way or another and then it becomes ingrained. So how are you doing that with your children, Duncan? I, well, I, you know, I use the three, the two major tools of good parenting, shame and fear. Those are the, you know, best ways to sculpt. I'm wondering if that, if you have been surprised

to do that from time to time, because you're somebody that if I were to ask you about that, seriously, you would probably say that you're very conscious of trying not to repeat those kind of patterns, but I'm wondering if it. I fall on the wrong side. So then you become a reaction to the thing

that did that to you. So, you know, my dad would like body shame me and like was always calling me fat and, you know, like, oh yeah, oh yeah. Well, so that's why you have a Peloton, man. But dad-aton, I've got my dad's, I have a picture of my dad. A hologram of your dad keeping you in shape.

Yeah, he, he like, I got really, I felt so ashamed of my body for the longest time and still do, it still comes up, you know, like I'll look in the mirror and I'll squeeze like, you're like, I was riding my bike bike with my son and he pulled my shirt up and like pointed at what I'm thinking must have been some of my back fat and goes, baby, there, that's a baby.

Like when you're, I was so funny, but also, you know, I'm like in the mirror looking at my back fat and thinking, oh God, you've got back fat, but it's not, it doesn't have the poisonous edge it used to when I was younger, you know, it's just some kind of echo inside of me or something like that, you know, but it used to be really like, you know,

getting punched in the solar plexus, you know, I was like, I dreaded taking my shirt off in front of people and I felt ashamed of myself and it was all connected to what I think was like my dad's backwards attempt at getting me to get healthy, thinking, oh, I'll shame him into getting healthy. Like if I make fun of him for being fat, he won't eat as much and then he'll get healthy,

not somehow not realizing that like, that's a surefire way to make someone like go the opposite direction. Sometimes, or maybe it would, maybe it would make that person, maybe it could work and that person gets thin, but at the expense of like, devastating mental health issues.

Right, yeah, that's another thing that happens to people is they do get in shape, but they do it for it, they do it out of, you know, it's like Jack, this teacher Jack Cornfield talks about, like if you're gonna save the earth, save it out of love, not fear. You know, like that should be the energy that's fueling us when we try to do things, try to help.

You know, even though fear can be there, it doesn't have to be the primary fuel. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about with like the first gear, right? It's like engaging that kind of primal, flight or fight response to get yourself into gear. But after a while, you know, the adrenaline runs out, so you have to be able to shift gears

into something more sustainable, so that you're not like relying on always being jolted into action. I think, like, for me, they're like my reasons for right now for getting healthier, there's a few, but most of them are like, you know, I wanna extend my lifespan,

I don't wanna be like a out of shape dad who can't pick up his kid or keep up with his kid. So I'm able to like, But that's not because you're afraid to die, it's because you love life, right? Yeah, it's cause I want, it's cause like part of it is just cause I want, you know, I wanna be a good dad.

There's a lot of other like, completely fucking selfish egomaniacal reasons. You know, to this day, would be fascinated to look at my stomach and have actual visible abdominal muscles. That would be a pretty, you know, I mean, I wanna see that before. I wanna be in the shape of your father's face.

But, did your dad, was your dad in good shape? Did he, do you feel like he felt comfortable inside of his own body and would? No. Okay. Fair critique. I wish I'd thought of that when I was,

when I was any, if so, just we'd been friends when I was younger and you had simply said that, I probably would have saved me years of- So maybe his motivation was like, I don't want this kid to turn out like me, so I have to give him more discipline or something. No, he, no, what happened was he went to Vietnam. He went, got indoctrinated into the US military

and like so many other parents thought that it made sense to use techniques administered by people, trying to get other people to kill strangers to raise your kids. This is a unit, this, anyone out there listening who is in a military family knows exactly what I'm talking about.

Your dad makes you say yes sir and no sir. Your dad utilizes all these things that, I don't know that you would call it tough love, but shit that was cooked up in the military community to make people into like killing machines. And so you, you know, that's how you learned to find, that's, you know, how you learn to get strong. And so you come home from your war

with a little bit of PTSD and the natural confusion that goes along with being a parent and you think, oh, I'll just do the shit that they taught me in the Navy with my kids. I'll make them call me sir and I'll make them, you know, obedient and if they're not obedient, great punishment, you know, I think that's kind of the model for a military parent.

Yeah, but I wanna point out that that's not unique to the military necessarily because I feel like I, as someone who was raised in an atheist, relatively permissive household, I still had this like inner drill sergeant that came from, I don't know where it came from necessarily,

but that's, it made me seek out other drill sergeants, you know, whether it was my soccer coach or my, you know, my music teacher or bandmates later on. So I think it's probably related to the same kind of impulse that, you know, makes people get into religions, you know, it's this idea that the world is tamable and that if we just have enough discipline,

we can control the outcome rather than acknowledging that it's completely chaotic and that although we can try to control the outcome, it doesn't always work out. To me, it's like discipline. The problem is discipline, the way these fucking authority figures teach us discipline makes discipline seem, like, think about it,

like it's the word used for punishment, you know, discipline your child. How do you discipline your child? You know, that's punitive instead of- Yes. Yeah, and it's not, it doesn't have to be punitive. Yeah, that's right. No, we-

That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, and so we rob these people, we rob everyone of, like, what is one of the coolest feelings? Because, you know, when I was old enough to understand it, if people had explained to me, like, discipline is the same thing as freedom. You know, when we, most people, when they think of discipline, they think of having their freedom taken away

by an angry parent who's making them do some shit that they don't wanna do. But, you know, the traditional idea of discipline that I've come to understand is, well, if you can't control your body and you can't control yourself enough to not always be satisfying your fleeting desires, then you might as well be locked inside of a meat robot

or locked inside of some gargantuan beast that's just wandering through the land, putting shit in its mouth. Right. And that's- And there's a lot of evidence that, in fact, that's all we are is meat robots. And I think that the other thing that's appealing

about discipline is that it's, it requires like this faith that we do have an agency and we're not just the product of our genes and our experience, that there's some sort of mechanism in there that allows us to steer the ship. A soul, if you will, or whatever. But here's, so, okay, so you were getting at this a little bit before,

by the way, Jill, we've gone over an hour. I wanna make sure you have more time. I'm fine as long as you are. Okay, great. Yeah, I'm fine. So you were saying that you're also like trying to be cognizant of not over-correcting for ways that you were parented, right?

Yeah. So first of all, have you had the experience of like, oh, shit, I'm acting just like my dad. Yes. So you've had that. But then on the other hand, you don't wanna be so, you don't wanna go so far in the opposite direction

that you end up with like entitled brats for children either. So how do you find the, how do you, like, how do you, what's your philosophy as far as raising children? Well, you know, for me, it's like, because I don't wanna, like, I don't wanna, first of all, I have like anger problems. So like, I have to like be,

it's why I meditate. It's why I have to be careful because like I'll lose my temper, which has happened a couple of times where Aaron and I have gotten in fights in front of him and it's been horrible. And it's helped me understand my dad, who also had a similar problem,

probably a lot more intense, but similar. Like it's like an echo. Horrible, poisonous, shitty, stinky echo, like rolling through time. And when it comes to you, you have, like before it comes to you, you imagine, oh, I'll be able to handle that. And then when it, when you see yourself doing that thing

that you hear parents say, oh God, I'm acting like my mom or my dad, you realize, oh, Jesus, this is like, this is going to be a little more challenging than I expected, you know? So as far as like not creating a brat, there's a, when you're dealing with a toddler, you're dealing with an absolute maniac.

Like these are maniacs. They're savage, primal creatures that don't understand anything about sharing or patience. Or you know what I mean? Like they're, if they want a quesadilla, they are going to, they'll probably just scream quesadilla. Quesadilla! You know, and so you have to,

if I react to him screaming quesadilla, like maybe some parents do to their kids, which is, you stop that right now and sit down. And they get scared of me. Then all that I've done is created a scared person. A person who's going to, like, who's going to be disciplined, what we would call disciplined,

but really what they're subservient, they're afraid. They don't want to invoke the wrath of their parents. So they're going to act a certain way. Right, and that impulse, that impulse was probably evolved out of our need to like keep children away from the tigers, you know, back in the- Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. So it's not like an un, it's not like an unjust impulse necessarily. Not, no, it's not. But it's just something where it's like, you, if you're, like anytime I get stern with him, it's like, it's coming from a logical place. Like if I start feeling angry,

both Aaron and I have a kind of agreement, you know, which is, anytime she's getting super frustrated, she'll just say, can you be with forest? You know what I mean? Because the idea is more like, we're not trying, we don't want the anger to inform our decision about how to teach this child how to function in the world. But we want it to be logical, which is, you know,

it isn't a world where you can just randomly scream out quesadilla and get quesadillas. It's not a world where you can just decide to slap someone and that's okay. You know, you can't slap, it's not a world where you can just, you know, have a hypothesis or a curiosity about what happens if you bite the shit out of someone's arm.

You know, like you can't do, all these things are not pro-survival. So it's like, you know, figuring out its consistency, you know, more than like a punishment attitude of, if I can consistently teach forest not to bite, not to slap, not to scream a banshee scream, you know, before it's time to go to bed over and over again and do that in a kind of non-emotional way,

even if, when, even if his reaction to being restricted is like someone who just was told that they're like, home planet was destroyed by the death star. You know what I mean? Which is like the way a toddler will react to discipline is just to collapse, laying on the ground, weeping and screaming, because you, sorry, you can't have a cookie right now.

It's 8 a.m. You know, this isn't when we have cookies, you know, but maintaining like a kind of steady loving quality around them so that they know you love them, but also they know you're the boss. That's the thing, they have to know you're the boss. That's, I could have just said that up front, because if they think they're the boss,

they're gonna get stressed out. They get anxious. They're too tiny and uninformed to be a boss, to be in control. They don't wanna be in control, even though they act like it. So, you know, it's, and also I don't know if there's, I'm sorry, this is a boring rant. No, I like it.

I have yet to discover a sort of go-to way to be, you know, they're very clever, you know, they're so smart. This book that I'm listening to about toddlers, one of the things it talks about is like, you are going to find yourself realizing that you have been outwitted by a two-year-old. Like, you know what I mean? That you have compromised in a way you would never

have expected to compromise with his creature. And that helps a lot when you realize like, don't try, you know, don't think that just because they're two and their language skills aren't, adult language skills that they're not brilliant and, you know, manipulative, you know, in a sweet way. So, in this book that I've been listening to, one of the things is it says,

not to be the perfect parent, but the good enough parent. That's the goal. Because if you start trying to like, be some perfect Mary Poppins parent, you're just gonna feel guilty all the time. I think that that often holds true for art too. You know, at a certain point, like, is the cord that you're perseverating over good enough

to serve the function of expressing the idea. And you can always loop back around to it later, right? Like, with your kids, you're gonna have good days and bad days. And on some days, you probably feel like, wow, I did a really good job today. I said something really insightful and I'm seeing results. But then there's other days where it's like,

you know what, I did my best and it was good enough. The kid's still alive and now, now he's sleeping and he's safe. And that's good enough for right now. And I think the same thing goes with making art. You know, if you can just keep that impulse alive, keep it safe. Some days are gonna be more challenging than others.

To wrap it back around to our original idea. And I say that as somebody who doesn't have children. So it's pure conjecture. Well, you're gonna be a great dad. You already understand it, because that is it. That's it. I never, somehow I never just didn't make the connection between that kind of like patient,

sort of settling when you're making stuff. I mean, I think that's one of the big lessons that composing for other people has taught me is like, often I'll make something that's good enough. And if it serves the story well enough, and it's on time, I have to, you know, I usually don't have much time to do this. Wow.

You know, sometimes when I listen back to, what'll often happen is I'll write a bunch of music over a short period of time. Then months later, I see it when it's on TV or in the movie theater. And I don't even necessarily remember writing half of the stuff. I can, the melodies feel familiar when they come back.

But some of it, I'm like, okay, that's, I'm never like that was working. That's terrible. But sometimes it's just good enough. And then sometimes like, hey, that one's pretty good. And I just think it's probably not possible to only make perfect nuggets of music when you're on the timeline that I'm on

and you're in a collaborative setting. And so. Good enough. Yeah. Good enough to achieve whatever, you know, you're to get the idea out, right? Cause it's really just a medium for expressing an idea. Yeah, I love that, man. So if we're going back to this whole like radio thing, right?

It's like some days it's coming, the ideas are coming in crystal clear. Some days you get nothing but static. Some days like if you're listening to say a baseball game on the radio, but there's a little bit of static, but you're hearing the message enough, then that's good enough because, you know, it's just an abstract idea traveling over the airwaves

and then being reconstituted into sound anyway, right? And so. Yeah. So if it's a little bit hazy, but you can hear the game, then it's good enough. And that's a good enough place to end this episode. This is a good enough episode. Is it a great episode? Maybe not, but is it good enough?

Yes. Yeah, this episode's good enough. I'm going to say great. That was, thank you for tying it all together. And thank you so much for coming on the show again, Joe. I just wanted to have an opportunity to talk to you for an hour because it's been a while since we had one of our long chats.

I know, I felt so when we were talking last, you were like, let's catch, let's do a podcast so we can catch up. I felt so guilty. Oh, no. Is that the only way we could be friends? Wait, why did you feel guilty? Well, because like a lot of my friendships

and conversations happen via a medium that I monetize. So there's a sense of like guilt attached to that. You know, what's interesting is I was thinking about how every kind of project that I've gotten paid for over the years is the descendant of a friendship that I've had. Yeah. And that makes sense. I mean, it's just the communities that I'm in,

that I'm a part of are where I'm meeting people with whom I collaborate. Yeah, it's nothing to feel tear. It's just like, this is, we're in the entertainment world and we all are, we love what we do. And so it's going to get mixed in with recreation. It's just, it's the way it is. But you know, people always like I've been doing these

like online lectures for music schools and stuff. And the question that gets asked the most is, how do you get started in this business? How do you build a career as a composer? And my advice to people is to pursue things over which they have agencies. So, you know, start a band or write your own songs and try to find a community of people

that are like-minded. Like, don't worry about networking with the broader industry. Like just find your community. Because for me, that's where every, that's where every opportunity has come from. Same, same. 100%.

Like things that I wasn't even thinking would ever lead to anything or what led to having a career. Another thing that flies in the face of most people's idea of how it works, which is like, if you wanna see the most stereotypical stupid movie about how someone gets successful it's that dumb show about that cowboy country singer

who somehow like meets Lady Gaga. You know what I mean? And she sings them a song in a parking lot of like- Oh, you mean a Star is Born? A Star is Born. The most convoluted bullshit like- And it also plays on that troubled genius trope because he hangs himself in the garage.

Yeah, spoiler alert. That's actually happens in the beginning of the movie. The, I'm not in the time just kidding, it doesn't. I thought Dave Chappelle was good in that movie. He was great. I mean, it's an entertaining movie. And again, it's like you can't make a movie about this that's going to be entertaining.

But I bet if we, you know, I actually would hope that you would have Lady Gaga on the podcast. Are you kidding? Okay, I'll tell you my story about Lady Gaga in a second. Please. But I bet she would just talk about the same thing we were talking about like spending most days not writing hits and just trying to write hits.

Yes, I'm not, because I feel like a lot of people is, you know, like a Star is Born was a great movie. My wife thinks it's a great movie. I think it's a great entertaining movie. I think Lady Gaga was great in it. I have a similar problem with like whiplash the movie because I went to a school like that. I felt like that movie was emotionally fraudulent too.

Like again, the abusive teacher. I've had abusive teachers, but not in that same way. So it felt like it was just trading on that myth. And it felt hollow to me. But yeah, so I will say one time I was at a recording studio and I was hanging out with a friend who was making an album there. And Lady Gaga was making an album

in another room in the same studio. And she came in and started hanging out with us in this lounge area for a while. And I didn't even recognize her at first because she seemed so larger than life on screen. And so I didn't recognize her, but she was talking about cookies a lot and like how in her room they only had kale chips.

And she's like, I need a real cookie. Like give me something good to eat. So I don't know, maybe she would have some insights as far as like that body dynamic that you're talking about that began with your dad fat shaming you. I can't imagine what it would be like to be like a product. Your whole body is a product.

Your whole, you know, in the way that like a pop star is, you know, it's- I know. I had Phil Collins on my podcast. And we were talking about how lots of the other superstars of the 80s were dead already, you know, Prince Michael Jackson. People like that. And how that whole thing is so unhealthy.

And the reason why he's probably still alive is because it didn't happen to him until he was in his late 30s or even his 40s. And he'd been in weirdo bands before. What a fucking talented dude, man. He wrote one of the premier divorce songs of the 80s. You know that song? Why does it always seem to me, me looking at you?

That's all, yeah. That's all. It's like it was a divorce boom song. My mom used to listen to it. It was like one of many- He wrote a lot of, hey, my favorite, okay. Well, my favorite divorce album of all time is Marvin Gaye, Hear My Dear.

But I think Phil Collins- I don't know if I've listened to that album at all. Oh, that album is just tremendous. Oh, I'm listening to that shit. It's when he got divorced from Barry Gordy's sister. That's, I think it's actually, I would say it's reductive to call it one of my favorite divorce albums of all time,

because I think it's just one of the all-time best albums ever made. But I think a close second is Face Value, the first Phil solo album. And there's a song on there called, Do You Know What I Mean? Which is incredible. It's just him on a piano.

And then another one called If Leaving Me Is Easy, which is another great breakup song. He's a master of those. He must have gone through so many shitty relay. Do you ever think about that? Like when you're listening to, I don't know, Taylor Swift, and so much of her music seems to be informed

by failed relationships. And just you think like, my God, do you, like, if I were her, I would, or if I was like someone who was like in dating her, there's gotta be a piece of you that's like, God, I hope I don't die. I don't wanna end up in one of your songs. Like I hope this works out.

Well, one thing that was interesting was hearing you and Natasha podcast a few weeks ago because you were in a relationship together and it was cool to hear how you still have a shorthand because you had spent all this time creating together and you were in love at one point. And it was healthy to hear that you're, now you're both married and you have kids

and you're still friends. And I think that was really powerful. Yeah, she's one of my best friends. It's the coolest thing. Cause yeah, I don't think that happens that very often. Like usually you just sort of drift off or lose touch or talk here and there. But yeah, she's a really close friend of mine.

That's cool. Yeah, I feel lucky that we're still friends. Well, with that, should we cut it? No, we gotta cut it. You can't end with like, I'm feel lucky I'm friends with my ex-girlfriend. Well, you can cut off. I think that at the part where we initially ended it

was good. Yeah. Yeah, we'll cut it there or we won't out of laziness. I don't know. Do what you need, it's good enough. It's good enough. Joe, thank you so much for coming on the show. Will you tell people where to find you?

Yeah, people can find my album, Night Creatures in Record Stores on DECA Records. They can find me on the streaming services, Joe Wong, Night Creatures and I.T.E. And my- The Midnight Gospel. Midnight Gospel soundtrack, which features lots of collaborations

between Duncan and myself and other amazing people like Will Oldham and Joe Anna Warren, folks like that. And you can hear my music on the Midnight Gospel, Russian Doll. There's a new show called Chad on that just came out yesterday and the Kenan Thompson show on NBC. Cool.

You're busy. Because I'm a whore and I'll do, I'll work for everybody. You are my favorite whore. Thank you, Joe. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thanks.

That was Joe Wong, everybody. Subscribe to his wonderful podcast, The Trap Set. All the links you need to find Joe will be at duckatrestle.com. A big thank you to our wonderful sponsors, MeUndies, Squarespace and of course ExpressVPN. We couldn't do it without you,

but most importantly, I couldn't do it without you. Thank you for listening to this podcast, for subscribing to this podcast and won't you take the deep dive into the Patreon universe and feel the digital massage of your sweet, new, sexy, wonderful family? It's at patreon.com forward slash DTFH.

And guess what? I'm gonna see you tomorrow because we're releasing two podcasts this week. I love you and I'll see you tomorrow. Sweet dreams, my darling. Let me lotion your feet again. I'm thinking of thee. A good time starts with a great wardrobe.

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