Duncan Trussell Family Hour - Brian Girgus

Episode Date: October 3, 2015

Duncan is joined by his barber, Brian Girgus, from the New California Barber shop who tells him the story of a personal miracle.   this episode brought to you by squarespace.com use offer code duncan to get 10% off your first order

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This episode of the DTFH is brought to you by Squarespace.com. Go to Squarespace.com and use offer code DUNCAN to get 10% off your first order. Hello, friends. It's me, Duncan Trussell, and you're listening to the Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast and I'm traveling right now. I'm visiting my dad in Fairhope, Alabama. I'm recording this into the on-board microphone of my laptop, so I'm not going to spend too much time doing an opening monologue, and in fact, I thought I just won't do an opening

monologue at all, but I had what I would consider to be my only ghost experience while in New Orleans, and I want to briefly share it with you guys. I welcome any kind of refutation. Is that a word? Refutation? Is that a word, Cora? Any of you skeptics out there, I want to shoot it down. I welcome your volleys of truth, but I want to tell you what happened to me because I keep

going through my head trying to figure out how I could have had this experience and it not be somehow supernatural, so here's what happened. We're staying at this hotel in New Orleans. I won't name the hotel, fuck it, I'll name the hotel, The Omni in New Orleans, a very nice hotel, and the first night there, I have a dream, and in that dream, I'm in the arctic, sleeping in a tent, and something wakes me up coming from a tent in front of my tent. It sounds like something's shuffling or scuffling around, so I open up my tent and look out,

and then one of my friends' tents, this black, shadowy, cat-like thing, goes running out of the tent, and as I'm sitting there, staring out into the arctic, I have no idea why I'm there, there's the sound of something hitting the ground, and basically it's a body, like a body kind of in a body bag that has fallen out of the sky and landed in front of me. It's really spooky, and in the dream I'm tired, so I think to myself, well, that's a dead body, what's the point in bothering with it now, I'll just go back to sleep, but rather than going back to sleep, I went to the body, to the body bag, opened it up, it was like a blonde-haired guy laying in there, and in his pocket was a suicide note, and the suicide

note was written about my girlfriend, which pissed me off, because I'm like, what the fuck are you doing, how dare you commit suicide as a form of hitting on my girlfriend. Jealous even in my dreams, but the, so, I sort of like, I'm like, getting angry about this when the dead body wakes up, like kind of reanimates, and the long and short of the dream is I sort of escort the dead body out of this camp that we're staying at, I'm pissed, and it was such an intense dream that I woke up and wanted to wake my girlfriend up to tell her, it was really shocking, so the next night, we're hanging out at the Omni, and we're talking to someone who works there, asking her, you know, is the place haunted, what do you think

about Voodoo in New Orleans, anything spooky, and she tells us that at that hotel, after Hurricane Katrina, this guy had, for whatever reason, strangled his girlfriend to death in a Voodoo shop, in an apartment above a Voodoo shop in the French Quarter, cut her body into pieces, shoved the pieces into a mini fridge, and when the pieces started stinking, took his remaining $1,500, spent it on drugs and strippers, went to the Omni and jumped off the roof and killed himself with a suicide note in his pocket. The guy's name was Zachary Bowen, and he kind of looked like the person I saw in my dream. Now, normally, I'm completely skeptical, somebody had told me the story of Zachary Bowen's suicide

after Omni prior to that dream, I just would have thought it had gotten into my subconscious mind, but as far as my recollection goes, I have never dreamed of a body falling from the sky with a suicide note in its pocket, and the fact that I had that dream in a hotel, possibly next to the balcony that this son of a bitch jumped off of, to me, is a verifiable ghost experience. So let that rattle around in your ghost cans, sweeties, because it can happen. Don't let these skeptical miracle leeches suck the goddamn ghosts out of your universe. That can happen. You get too pulled into the gravity of the people who think they know exactly

how everything works, the next thing you know, you've accidentally blinded a very ancient part of the human sensory apparatus. You have limited your ability to experience the transcendent. You end up turning into the very thing you thought you were fighting against. You become a superstitious skeptic, and you ignore or revoke all data that doesn't fit in to your normal version of the universe. It's a problem, and I think it's something that happens out there, because so many people, people who theists, loon-loon worshipers, people who are in cults or organizations that have unprovable concepts, become so invested in these organizations that they can't back down or change whatever it is that they've believed in their entire

life based on an overwhelming amount of data proving that whatever they think is wrong. But in the same way, I think some people get so invested into the skeptic's mindset, so invested into the material universe, a universe of atoms and explanations. Everything is explainable, and that which is not explainable will soon be explained, but ultimately everything is just some kind of void filled with atoms taking on certain configurations from time to time become sentient, and those sentient configurations are called human beings, and that's it. They don't configure in the form of fairies, ghosts, gnomes, aliens, little green men, whatever you want to call it, angels. And maybe, because people get so invested

into that mindset, they somehow end up missing out on an entire data set that is accessible only to the mystics and the mad man. It's worth thinking about. Honestly, I kind of like the skeptical universe because it's safe. I like a world of just atoms and provable data. It's safe. It's safe. I don't want to live in a universe where there's the disembodied, disincorporated, phantasmal specter of murderers floating through my hotel room late at night. I want a good night's sleep. I don't want to deal with the implications of the possibility that when we die, some residual energy could hang around the place where we died, especially if we died violently there. That's a disturbing thought. That's not a, that's not, that's,

to me, that's less desirable than a universe where upon your expiration you just evaporate into infinity and all traces of your memory, all traces of your consciousness, all traces of your personality, all traces of your ego are eternally obliterated by the cessation of your organic life. But that might not be the way it is. And that's kind of spooky to think about. You read the Tibetan Book of the Dead, you read any of the, any hippie literature, you read any religious scripture, and they all point to this terrifying concept that there is some residual trace of us that remains after the body dies. It's particularly terrifying in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and if you want to see a, a wonderful visual representation

of what happens after you die with some pretty awesome DMT visualizations, check out the movie Enter the Void. Okay, that's enough of my rambling. Sorry for the bad audio quality here. I'm recording it into my laptop. I'm in a hotel room in Fair Hope, Alabama. So forgive me. We got a great podcast though. My barber, Brian Gurgus, is a super cool guy, and I've got my hair cut at his barber shop, the new California barber shop on Sunset Boulevard many, many times. And suddenly I realized, man, we have these great conversations. Why not have them on the podcast? I also wanted him to tell a story, which he tells in this episode, which to me is one of the most amazing stories of how if you go for it, the universe

will provide. It's a really inspiring story. So listen for that. We're going to jump right into it. But first, some quick business. Today's episode of the Duncan Tressel Family, our podcast is brought to you by Squarespace.com. If you go to Squarespace.com and use the offer code Duncan, you'll get 10% off your first order. And if you sign up for a year, you'll get a free domain name. Not only has there never been a better time in human history, for starting your own business, but there's never been a better time in human history for pranking your friends or parents with a serious seeming website. It's so easy to create a website centered around some dark crime and your father's past. Once I sign my father up to receive emails

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who knows if it's good enough, I might actually talk about it on the show. We're also brought to you by Amazon.com. The next time you're thinking about trudging out into the dark existential hell that is human civilization to buy some bag, some garbage bags or paper towels or sponges, remember the fact that you can go to Amazon.com and they will deliver that stuff to your house at lightning fast speeds. There's no more need to go into those bacteria filled mazes and risk getting blasted by some infested toddler who's rotting with a as of yet unidentified disease. It's going to make your internal organs liquefy and come blasting out your asshole like a bloody old faithful. Go through our portal. We'll go

to the Amazon.com. They have everything you can need. You could buy automatic dog throwers for your poodle or you could buy butt plugs for your mom or dad or sister, whatever you need. It's there. Just make sure you go through our portal and bookmark it, won't you? A big thanks to those of you who have been donating to the podcast and to those of you who have been buying our shirts and posters, which are located at DuncanTrustle.com. And if you live in Australia, don't forget to come see Johnny Pemberton and I. We're coming for a comedy tour in November and I am going to be in Atlanta within two weeks. That's the middle of October at the Laughing Skull. All right. Thanks for hanging in there, everybody. I would now like

to introduce you to an amazing human being. His name is Brian Gurgis. He runs the New California Barber Shop, which is located in Echo Park in Los Angeles. If you or someone like me who's got a beard and doesn't trust himself to cut his own hair, this is where you need to go. Gurgis is amazing. We've had so many awesome conversations and so I decided it made sense to have him as a guest on the podcast. So please, everyone, squeeze out as much happy juice as you can from your pineal glands and send blasts of transcendent ephemeral love vibrations through the as of yet unidentified, holy matrix of truth that connects all organic life, not only on this planet, but in all known and unknown planets in the all regions of the multiverse, so that it

comes raining down on the sweet and beautiful Brian Gurgis. Brian Gurgis, welcome to the Dunkin Trussell Family, our podcast. Thank you for coming over here and doing the show. Yeah, it's my pleasure. Thank you. How long have I been getting my haircut over your place? I would say probably one year and one half, maybe, yeah, probably something like that. Man, I gotta tell you, like it was before you were, you did a show at the shop because I had met you then and that was that was a year and a half ago. So before that, you're in eight months. But you like that fascinating thing about you as my barber is like you hear like all these old school things, which is like how important it is to have a good barber and like the weird friendships

you develop with your barber, we become friends. Like I, when I have to get my haircut, I don't just want to get my haircut. Like I look forward to coming in because of conversations we have. It's nice to hear. Thank you very much. I feel the same way when you come in. I'm like, oh, all right, Dunkin's here. It's not like back to work. Yeah, but you've developed a skill of like having conversations with people as you cut their hair. Like how much of being a barber is about cutting hair and how much of it is about holding a conversation? I mean, shit. Both are so important. You can't have one without the other. It's like, you know, you got to be a good barber, right? It's like you can't just be a barber. You could be any kind of barber, a shitty barber, you know,

a good barber. But if you want to be a good barber, you have to be able to talk to people. And you have to, you have to like people. You have to look forward to seeing you and not like pretend I'm looking forward to seeing you. You know, it's like there's nothing worse than that. Like what is it? It's just like patronizing like at your service, Dunkin's. You know what I mean? It's like you got to be like interested in the people that you're going to develop, you know, relationships with. Because you end up with like knowing people for years. Hopefully, you know, I'll be getting my haircut at your place forever. That'd be ideal. I mean, shit. Well, probably not forever. It's going to fall out as long as it's up there. And the

barber shop, it'll be like gone in 10 years. Who knows, you know, it's out of our control, like the future, obviously. But when, so when did, when did you decide that you were going to start cutting hair? When I realized I'd had enough selling groceries, I guess, you know, so I mean, I was just racking my brain trying to decide what I liked in life. When I was, when I knew that I didn't want to sell groceries anymore, you know, like, oh, shit, how do you mean sell groceries? I worked at a grocery store for 11 years as a cashier, pretty much. I did a lot of stuff there. What grocery store? It's called Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco. Wow. Have you ever heard of it? Nope. It's a worker-owned co-op. It's a great place. Big. It's like a Whole Foods, you know.

How does that work, a worker-owned co-op? Well, this one's unique because the workers split the profits. Wow, that's cool. It's cool. So at the end of every year, we'd get like five to $10,000 each. And of course, you'd have to pay taxes on that, you know, and it would also be dependent on how much you worked, how serious you were about the job you did kind of reflected. A lot of times, or there were people that would like steal to, you know, they'd like pad their time cards, you know, so they'd get these huge chunks of money. And it was full transparency. At the end of every year, everybody's finances were posted on the wall. So you'd see who got what? Who got the most? Usually a guy who essentially started the place 30 years prior

and was always there, like, you know, maybe like 50 to 80 hours a week, you know, and he was on the head of the board of directors for the store, you know, and he was just always there. So he clocked a lot of hours, had high hourly pay, and all these things were in a lot of seniority, because he was an early, like an early worker. So the seniority adds to the profit margin? Totally. So not just the hours, like if you've been there longer, you start getting more money. Yeah. Which makes sense. Yeah. The whole thing made sense to me. How much would he get? I can't quite recall, but I remember there being some hefty sums. I would guess like 20 grand to 30 grand at the end of every year. I mean, yeah. So you worked there for 11 years?

11 years. Yeah. San Francisco. So anyway, that's not a normal grocery job, though. That's like, you're hanging out with, that's a different kind of person you're hanging out with. Totally. You're not getting exploited in the normal way. Well, no, but, you know, like a lot of the grocery cashiers and everything are like union workers and stuff. So who knows? I've never actually been like a cashier at Safeway. So I don't know how good or bad that is. I do remember like romanticizing the fucking grocery guy when I was a kid, though, you know, like I was like, man, that looks like a great job. He's like, I don't know. He was actually the boyfriend of a girl that I knew, you know, and he was like

18 and I was like 14 or something. Maybe he was 19. And he just seemed like a professional. Yeah, sure. And I was like, I think that'd be a cool job to have one day. So, but I never like thought about it again. It was kind of like with cutting hair to, you know, complete the thought. I guess sometimes I still think it's a cool fucking job. Like when you go in there, there's something that seems like hypnotically awesome about standing there, scanning the items, the weird little bleeps and clicks and that kind of just constant stream of humanity coming in front of you and watching this weird photo. I wonder if everybody feels like this or is this just like you and me having a strange idiosyncratic thing in common? Because

to me, I feel the same way. It's always been like a draw. Maybe that's the way everybody likes to shop. Everyone just inherently has like the the want to be in the store for whatever reason. Well, yeah. And this whole goddamn hierarchy of fucking labor that exists in people's brains where it's like, ah, a clerk or like, it's like, shut the fuck up, man. It's all badass. Like I've said on the podcast before, but my favorite job outside of podcasting, but right up. Forgive me, guys, but right up there at podcasting, but this only means how much I liked it, was washing dishes and chilies. That was like one of my favorite jobs of all time. And it was a, it was, you know, exactly what you think it is. It's a assembly line style job, plates come in,

you wash the plates, you put them down, you know what your work is, you know when the work starts, you know when the work's done, there's no question about it. When you get off work, you're covered in dish grease and slime and you smell funny, but God damn it, you feel good, because you've worked, you did a hard days work or hard nights work rather, and you go home and you take a shower and get fucking worked. It's great. Yeah, I like that feeling too, man. Seriously, it's like, are we unique in this? You know, I don't think so. I think this is like a huge, I mean, this is like, but I know so many people who refuse, like who refuse to find any joy in, in a fucking day of work. And for me, I'm like, I fucking enjoy, pardon me, you know, I enjoy

a day of work. I just do. I feel good when I'm done with it, you know. Yeah, it's, and that's a, that is something that is, I don't know what, when that becomes that big Christian Republicans, we're Christian Republicans. We're like, are we working class heroes? I was listening to a job, Duncan got a job. I was listening to John Lennon as I was driving and he's singing that song, a working class hero is something to be. Oh, yes, dark, dude, it's heavy. It's a dark fucking song, but it's like, they beat and they scare you for 20 long years. And then they expect you to choose a career. It's really like this, you know, this anthem of rebellion against, you know, the exploitation of the worker, you know, but goddamn, if it doesn't sound pretentious coming out of the lips of

somebody who's probably sitting in a bubble bath. Such a fine line though, right? It's like, um, being part of that and being like, like rebellious to it as well, you know, it's like, I mean, you know, opening the shop was like major for me for that, you know, it's like, you know, having a job, right? It's like mundane working for the man. It's mundane. It's like, just the fucking wheels spinning and you're just a, you know, a gear in it, I guess, or whatever, you know, uh, but it's like, well, I like it though too. So how do I do it on my own terms, you know, and you're never on your own terms because you're paying the IRS, you know, and it's like, you're always, uh, you know, you're always plugged in basically, not necessarily just to

the internet, but not, you know, that too, but, uh, you know, to the grid PG or whatever, you know. But so having the shop, it's like a major commitment to that cycle, but also a more major for me in my mind step in my own, maybe it's just my head, but in my own direction, you know. How terrified were you when you first? Not at all. I mean, not at all. What's there to be scared of? It's like, um, I didn't think it was going to fail. I knew I liked to do it. I knew I was a good haircutter. I've gotten enough compliments on like, you know, the way I could arrange a house or something, you know, that I didn't think the place was going to be nasty. I always like, I've always kind of been a, a bitch, I guess, about like, like appearance, you know. So when I walk into a room,

it's like, I really get like, uh, either annoyed at the lack of thought put into it, like, ah, fuck, they could, ah, you know, or I'm so blown away by right, like how cool the thought was or, or whatever, you know. So, so I knew that I was like, picky enough to like, create a good space, you know, I don't know. I didn't have any fears at all. I mean, no fears, but that's terrifying. I, like, the, the idea, for some reason, it's really weird, but, and I don't know. It didn't come without panic attacks. I think that might be different, you know, but uh, I never felt like the shop was like, not gonna do, become a stable way for me to pay for life, you know. Well, I, I was not raised in a way where you were taught, you know, you could start

your own business. Like that was never anything that, I was in, in a middle-class family where you just had a boss, you know, that's just the way it worked, like you. Well, what did your folks do? Well, my dad is a real estate manager for, uh, shopping centers, he got in a real estate, and my mom was a psychologist, and my mom, at one, eventually- That's having your own practice. I mean, that's like- But for a long time, she was working at other people's practices. And before that, she was just in college, but you know, it's like a lot of people, they're family-

But look at you, your fucking independent business. But, but it became an, it was an accident, and it's, and I remember when I started discovering- Well, hang on, but then you do comedy and you act and stuff too, so it's like- But I had a desk job for years, I worked as a talent coordinator at a comedy store, and then- While you were on your way though, to become an independent- Before that, I was a telemarketer. That's the bigger fear. I mean, it's like, you want to talk about like fear of failure,

it's like, you know, when you put your money and your time and your life into like, uh, being an entertainer, you know, I mean- It's a terrifying, ridiculous proposition. At least I have a shop, I can blame everything on the shop. Yeah. But that, you know, it's like- It's still, I just, what I love is hearing stories about people who manage to start their own business, become their own boss, because I think that there's so many people completely unaware of the fact

that for all the horrors that our country is responsible for, and for all the very bleak and dark aspects of capitalism, we're inside a machine. And you get to pick what part of the machine you want to hang out at, and this is a machine that is developed in a way where it's completely normal to start a thing called a business, which if you study, if you look at Karl Marx, as I did in the most rudimentary way, but now I've decided I'm a Karl Marx expert, he points out the fact that, uh, the way it works is, it's completely normal to, if you've got the money, if you have the funds, you can use that money to create a machine, whatever the machine may be, whether it's a barber shop or fucking Halliburton,

and that machine creates some kind of product, and you hire people to run the machine for you. And unlike the grocery store you worked at, the normal way that that works is, they get something called a living wage, and you get a profit. And the more profit you get, the more you invest in another machine. That's a very difficult thing to come to terms with, honestly. Like when you're a business owner, an employer, and you've been an employee for your whole life, you know? Because you're cutting those checks.

Yeah. You're cutting those checks, and you know what you're making, and you know what they're making, and you've got to rationalize in your mind that your profit is, that you deserve your profit, and that they don't deserve that profit. Yeah, it's strange. It's a strange thing. I'm not fully comfortable with that at all. It's hard to get used to.

Because it's like eating meat. You have to like, if you're going to be able to- Which I know nothing about because I was a born and raised vegetarian. That's cool. Well, for me, eating meat requires either a healthy level of denial about what's going on. That shit's dangerous, but necessary, but fucking dangerous. Denial? Yeah.

Well, yeah, it is. Yeah, it's dangerous to deny, but then, or you can go to the other side of the spectrum, which is instead of denial about the suffering of the meat products that you're shoving into your mouth, you can think the suffering of this animal is worth it for me to enjoy this meat. And some people say, well, that's- it's a survival issue. You know, like, I eat meat for survival. I eat meat because- and that, of course, is the- that's the biggest pile of- that's the- I love that.

My- if you're going to eat meat, like- It would imply I'm dead, you know? Well, it's just like, shut the fuck up. You ain't starving, bitch. What are you talking about? Like, you hear- you hear, like, a meat eater being like that. I- we need meat to survive. Shut the fuck up!

Yeah, you can survive with that. You can survive with the jar of peanut butter probably for, like, a hundred years. Don't act like when you're pulling up to that Carl's Jr. Your hands trembling with, like, fatigue and- I'm just getting so hangry! For real. No, it requires either denial or you just have to think, I so enjoy the taste of meat that I am willing to- to cause the suffering of countless innocent

helpless beings. That's the truth. See, I can't identify with it on that level, so I have to take it to, like, something I do that is, like, where I deny myself, like- or where I deny, like, the repercussions of what I'm doing. You know, because with meat I can be high and mighty about it because I was born and raised vegetarian. Every now and again I'll have bites of stuff just to see, like, what it tastes like. And there's certain things I romanticize, like, maybe, like, um, cured meat, cheddar cheese, soft

roll. I've never had a bite of that, but it sounds and looks good. So, um, so yeah, so it's like, I can be- I don't- it's like, I don't identify with it, so I think that you should have that same power to not- to not identify with that, you know? It's like, I'm not special because, like, of that, it's like, we all, like- Right. It's like, you make the choice. You're strong and you understand the negative, like, ramifications of this, so get off the

fucking, like, cycle, you know? But it's you- every single- this is where you get into, like, you know, the cycle, as you're saying, is like a really curious cycle because it- I love the Hindu trinity because it represents the different points in the cycle, the- the point of the present moment or the thing holding every single moment together. The harmony that creates the potential for there to be a planet with an atmosphere that we exist in. That's Vishnu, right?

That- that's represented by the preserver, Vishnu, the preserver of time or whatever you want to call it. And then you've got the creator, Brahman, the creator- creative force, the pre-singularity conditions, that the spinaret, that the stuff that is preserved by Vishnu comes out of. And then you've got the part of the cycle that most people really don't like thinking about, which is Shiva. And this is when you look at the National Geographic video of the fucking hyena taking a bath in the stagnant water that's accumulated in the carcass of an elephant that has died

on the savannah, and it's just, like, just loving it. Yeah. Like some terrible thing when you look at the, you know, the way that certain animals hunt, fatigue hunting, where they like- It's like dogs and socks, you know, used socks or like used underwear. You're like, why are you- why are you hoarding that? What are you exactly? All of those distasteful things.

Yeah, they're all exactly- they're exactly part of the universe. They're all part of this beautiful universe that we're in. And so we- Okay, okay, go ahead. Well, my problems don't even remotely come from eating meat. Like, you know, or my imagined, my perceived problems, you know. Like I fully believe that the human beings are omnivore, right? And it's like the hunter-gatherer, like, you know, like that's how you get food.

A certain amount of all food is probably very important. And me lacking meat is like, you know, maybe if I had it, I'd be a more rounded human being, you know. But, uh, what do you think about hunting? Well, that's just the thing is in this day and age, it's like so many of those ideas are convoluted. So it's like at the base, it's all good, right? But like so many of the ideas are convoluted by like money-making schemes. And that's where shit is- and that's why it's so hard and why a big problem,

you know, with having a small business, maybe not a problem, but a big thing to deal with is, you know, like we just talked about the paying, the people that work for you kind of thing, you know. So as soon as you start putting money behind like something like hunting, I mean, what do I think of hunting? I think it's great, you know. I think it's great if you want to take a bone arrow and go and shoot a deer and then eat the deer and feed yourself and your family.

Way better than getting hamburger meat at Gelson's. But if you want to like, I mean, I think hunting gets ridiculous when you are the dentist and you, you know, and you spend, what do you spend? 25 grand at least on that whole vacation just for sport. It's like fucking go play catch. Fucking necrophiliacs, man. Yeah, it's like necrophilia. It's like a deep schism.

It is like necrophilia. Like is what you see, to me, it's like when you see those big game hunters and it's the post-kill pictures where they're doing these weird poses with them being- Seriously sick, dude. But it's like, is it sick or is it like when- It's as sick as necrophilia. But my dog, if my dog comes upon a nice patch where a thing has died, my dog likes to roll in it.

He's going to do it. If he comes upon some nice stinky bit of where an animal has left this dimension, he's going to be like, oh, let's roll around in the remnants of this thing. So it seems to be something deep inside a person to want to like, to want to like, it's- It might be, is the best I can like, agree to right now. Because you know, same thing, my fucking dog, you know, like a mouse came into my house the other day. Yeah. Shelly Long just like stopped and like stared at the mouse for a little bit.

You know, there was no like kill instinct happening, you know, and it was really unique. I was like, whoa, and I was relieved. So I'd have to clean up like a dead mouse or something, you know, and it's just like, there are so many examples of either one you get to pick. But there's got to be one fucking uniform thing in you, right? There has to be, right? Like what connects us? There has to be a uniformity, I think.

I think that's what makes me feel like a part of society, you know? It's like, I have so many things that I can identify in other people, and hopefully those other people can identify these similar things in me. But what are they, you know? Right. Well, I mean, you don't have to, the thing is the problem is like using the excuse of like, well, my dog does it. Then it must be okay.

Yeah. You can't really do that. It's just a human being gets to decide how much suffering that the human being, the idea is like, one question you can really ask yourself. Like before we started recording, we were talking about budgeting and like, how much money do I actually need to be spending? Well, imagine there's a currency of suffering and imagine that every day you spend a certain amount of suffering dollars in the world and induce a certain amount of suffering in the people

around you, either directly or indirectly. And just a simple question is, how much can I reduce the suffering on a daily basis? What are ways that I could reduce the amount of pain I'm causing people in the world? And there's some real obvious answers to that, you know? For me, it's like, don't drink. You know, if I want to reduce suffering, if I stop drinking, then the amount of suffering I experience the next day is instantly reduced and the amount of emotional suffering that I might cause to the people around me, just because when I drink, something goes wrong in my brain sometimes

and I decide to turn into, I went from having, it sucks, man, I went from having fun to turning into, is there anything worse than a drunk who feels slighted? You know what I mean? Like a slighted drunk, a drunk who's like bitter, who gets self-righteous because somebody looked at him the wrong way or is like, what do you mean by that? You said that. Unpredictable. Unpredictably bitter, you know?

It's like, oh, it's the worst. And god damn it, if like, I didn't find myself going into those places when I was drunk and it's like, well, I can't fucking drink anymore, even though from time to time I still do. And every time I do it, the answer I get back from the universe is you can't do this anymore. Well, I was going to say, I mean, I think that ultimately is the truth. But like, get control of it more than don't do it anymore. I think it's a task a lot of people obviously. I don't want to roll the fucking dice.

And I still will. But it's like, I don't want to roll the dice that whatever stupid synaptic vesicle in my brain that's producing the bad juju juice that's making me into a little sour little prick, if I drink too much, is going to activate. I mean, maybe it won't activate and I'll just be a jubilant, happy, sweet guy. You know if it's there though, not to fuck with it. Why? There's so many other better drugs out there.

But you know, that reduces the suffering to some degree. In the same way, one thing that I haven't done yet that haunts me is that I know if I stop eating meat, damned if I'm not reducing some pretty intense, insane, hellraiser levels of suffering in the world. Maybe start like, like if that's a goal of yours, you know, start nothing. I don't even know how you eat, you know, but it's like, if you want to stop eating meat, then maybe start thinking harder about the meat that you're eating first, you know, so make it like, and then it becomes maybe a little more rare and then after you maybe

realize that, then maybe, then maybe you'll have less of an interest in it. I'm just, you know, I've been, I don't know, it's such a cheat. I don't know, God, I'm not even going to give this fucking excuse for causing innocent little beings to go through the hell. And I don't even know why I would try and convince you to not eat meat. It's a good thing to convince people of because it reduces suffering and there seems to be an instinct in humanity to reduce the amount of suffering. It's large.

I think it's large. It's large on the environment and the economy on, on soul to soul contact. You know what I mean? Like animals are, they're, they're souls. They're it's like, it could be your soul. Well, yeah, man. And like, have you ever done the thing where like sometimes when I'm looking at the rotisserie chicken I'm about to eat and I pluck the leg off the chicken and slurp that thing back.

Sometimes as I'm plucking the leg off the chicken, my unrelenting mind will say to me, imagine if you are pulling the leg off of your poodle like that. That's the same kind of leg. You're just ripping the leg off a creature right now. And then that's pretty bad. Pretty bad. And that makes me know. I have almost no.

Well, I'm a big appreciate. I appreciate. I'm a big appreciator of the egg. I eat a lot of eggs. I love eggs. So I do, I appreciate the chicken for laying the egg, but a fucking chicken. It's like, are we going to get into an animal rights conversation about chicken? It's like, that's one that doesn't motivate me.

So I'm like, ah, fuck it. Duncan eat the chicken. But you know what I mean? It's like, but it's like, is it where is that soul worth saving the chicken soul? It could just be like, and then it dies. Just some kind of like just a robot. Yeah. Just some kind of, well, that's what Descartes thought.

That's what the scientific materialist thinks is that and the guy who came up with, I think therefore I am, and please someone refute this if this isn't the case, but that motherfucker from what I've read was like Jeffrey Dahmer level sadist where he would, like without anesthetizing them, cut open dogs, like vivisect dogs while they're alive and hold their hearts as they stop beating. Like that, that's where he was at because he thought the whole thing was an automaton, that there was no soul, that there was no spirit, that it was just that if you could put together just the right combination of cells, then metallic cells or whatever,

then you would have a little robot dog that would just be the same as the living dog. That's what he thought, man. It's too cold for me, but it's like I can be cold, but that's too cold for me. That's pretty fucking cold. But that POV can lead to a lot of serious fucking problems when applied to the world at large. What is that called? Is that being like a sociopath? Cutting open animals? Just being able to be completely devoid of like

emotion towards a thing, like you can perform a task like no. Yeah, that's a sociopath, but it's like a logical sociopath where it's like you want to be able to excuse your violence in the way you've come up with the method to relieve the sense of the cognitive dissonance that comes from knowing that because you like fried chicken, some being has gone through what would be the most intense and incredible saw level, like saw for level birth and death that any human being on earth could imagine. And because you like fried chicken and the taste of that fucking shit that you put in your mouth, you have decided the reason that it's okay for me to do this is because the chicken

is like a clockwork thing made of meat. Doesn't love its kids. Doesn't have any affection for its chicks. Its chicks don't love the mother. They're just little meaty, little delicious robots meant to be fried up and eaten. You either have to do that. Purpose servers. Yeah, purpose servers for my stomach.

You either have to do that. You have to do what I'm doing, which now the more I hear myself say this shit, I want to put a gun in my mouth, which is like some level of denial mixed in with a little bit of like neilism or some kind of just lazy thinking, or you've got to have a real reason for it. Like, man, because of my particular genetic makeup, if I don't get this kind of protein in my diet, I get really sick. Or you just have to make the decision my life as a human is more important than the life of animals. Okay, so stop there.

Because I immediately say that and I imagine the worst shit in my head all day, right? It's like, a dog is going to get hit, or my dog, and then the human, do I save my dog and let, you know, and I mean, shit, can you imagine? You saved the human. But yeah, you got to save the human being. But you're not saving any, the thing is, again, the argument of eating for survival if you're in America, eating meat for survival, just shut the fuck up. You're not eating meat for survival.

You're eating meat for pleasure. I think that you've got to admit you're eating meat for pleasure. I don't know. I really fucking don't. And I don't, well, and I know you're alive. You seem vibrant. You don't seem close to death. When was the last time you had meat?

No, it's true. It is a luxury. It's a luxury. But like, what is an omnivore then? Like, you know, like, is it fictitious? Like, what is a carnivore? Is it, is it nothing? Like, well, I mean, again, we can't, I mean, an omnivore.

I mean, there's a lot of things human beings did in the distant past that if we decide to live like that, because our evolution had as one floor on the great skyscraper of human evolution on one floor, we were hunting and eating meat. And therefore we say, OK, well, now let's hunt and eat meat on this floor. It doesn't, that argument doesn't necessarily work because the times have fucking changed. If you want to adapt, that's the bottom fucking line, dude. Adapt.

Adapt. Don't live like, you know, well, you just have to do it all the time. You have to adapt, you know, because life's going to change. So if you're 50, learn the fucking Internet, you know what I mean? Yeah, right. It's like, yeah, that whole thing, the whole like, I don't know, you think, yeah, yeah, that is, you better learn. That is not a, to me, that is not, that is no longer like that.

And a lot of people do that in the same way like you have, like, and you're not one of these people. But, you know, you do have the like, so people, the pleasure people are getting from not eating meat is not just the empathetic connection they have with all of nature in the sense that in their own small tiny little way, even though it might be like shit into the ocean, they have in some very small, small way transform the universe for the better. And that gives them a good feeling.

A lot of people, when they're vegetarians, the real joy they're getting from being a vegetarian is having a platform that they can look down on other people. Instagramming their vegetarian status. Yeah, right, right. Telling someone, I'm so vegetarian today, man. Yeah, it's so great. Oh, it's so great. It's so fucking great because boy, you can really like, you've got something to.

I'm proud of it, though. You know, it's like, it's a fine line. It's like, you want to be proud of the thing that you are doing and excited and tell people everything. So it's like, but you also don't want to be a fucking turd about how proud you are of it. You don't seem like a turd, but you do seem like an animal rights person. I am to some degree, but I wear leather, but it has to be secondhand.

You know, like, I mean, there's probably a pair of shoes I'll buy out there someday that are new and made of leather. But, you know, I figure like by that token, I'm like, you might as well use all the fucking thing. You already killed it. Motherfucker, you might as well fucking skin it and give it to me. Right, right. So I don't, I'm not like, sew up my own ass about it, but I definitely like, you know.

You're not Peta level. No, but it was the first place that I ever gave money to as a kid. You know, like I, Patrick, I gave them like, I don't know, 10 or 20 bucks. Like just because I was into it. You know, I was like, it was about their euthanization thing, right? Like how they like adopt or people give them the animals and then they kill them. Yeah. But doesn't everybody do that?

What they have to euthanize what's left over, right? What's not adopted. Yeah. But the difference is fucking Peta. It's like when you bring your animal to Peta, you don't think it's going to get a goddamn injection. But if you think that you're, that Peta is going to keep it and give it a good life where you couldn't and you're just passing the buck and you're kind of like,

Yeah, but that's a fair thing to think. It's like, if I, It's a kind of a blind thing to think, you know, I mean, Peta's, Well, they don't announce it. They do it. Yeah. You see that thing? It's like, they do it in the back.

Like, you know, and these like gnarly dark incinerator things. Yeah. If Peta was like underneath their slogan, if they were like had like, you know, McDonald's has number of people served. If they have the number of animals, they'd euthanize. Yeah. Oh, shit. It is one of the insane ironies in life that like Peta is like a massive murderer of animals.

But the bottom line there, too, is there's just too many fucking animals. What are you going to do? It's like, there's too many animals. There's too many people. There's too many fucking animals. It's like, we're breeding animals. Yeah. For people who want to fuck you, get the dog that's, that's, that needs a home.

No, look, man, I'm totally agree with there's too many animals. But the Peta thing in particular, if there are rationalization for killing fucking animals, basically, secretly, is that there's too many animals. Peta sucks, dude. I have nothing good to say about them. They're snotty like to me as a human. And it's like, and they do shit like that. And you're just like, you're just a fucking million dollar corporation.

And once you're face on the magazine, the first time you stuck a fucking youth needle into a puppy's neck and killed it, you ruined all the great hard work you did. And they did, they did. To me, like a lot of the good that they do is like, whether you like it or not, they shove into your face the reality of your decision to eat meat. Oh, it's true. No, it's true. And they shove into your face the reality of like the laboratories,

experimenting on animals. There's so much good work that they've done. It's all good work. But then, god damn it, why the fuck do you have to have a Freddy Krueger boiler? Freddy Krueger, dude. It's like the brutalist of two-faced shit, you know, like not just like, they slapped a dog. There's video of them kicking a dog in the office.

It's like, no, they fucking exterminate them underground in the cellar. They pick them up in vans and they kill them. Now, I'll tell you, this is an interesting facet of the universe to me, because now I don't believe in Satan. But things like that do kind of make me think, my god, it does seem as though there is a refraction in the lens of the universe that takes a thing and will warp it inside the thing. Because you hear about this version of this again and again. Like, take, never ending, never ending conversation.

You know what I mean? It's like, you get every, it's like the seedy underbelly of everything that seems beautiful. Bill Cosby. Jared. Oh yeah. Well, if you, I guess Subway never would like said, our mascots don't molest kids. So you can't like. I never put them on that high of a pedestal.

Cosby though. But the church or like, you know, again and again, you have a thing, like almost inevitably, like if someone has got some very strong opinion that they're very vocal about regarding some thing, then you're like, who the fuck are you euthanizing in your basement, man? Because it's almost like an organization that is very vocal about whatever it is. Fucking SeaWorld. You know, SeaWorld.

This, when I was a kid, we'd go to SeaWorld. It's a wildlife preserve, isn't it? Yeah, and they've got these super intelligent creatures who are withering away in these shit aquariums. Yeah. And like, but the United States, and the free home of the brave. It's like a party that, you know, it's like the greatest party ever. The only thing is, don't go in the basement because you'll find out that the generators

for the party that are creating the great music and lights and delicious, the equipment to make the delicious food are being run by death. They're being run by the destruction of human beings. Feed it a heart or a soul, you know? It'll go on forever. No, it's so true. Fuck, it's like, so don't look. There's no answer.

I mean, that's the thing. It'll go on forever. Just don't look too close. Don't look in the basement. Yeah. Just know it's there. Know that there's probably a shifty ass underbelly. That's why being a human is so hard.

We walk around with all this like, oh, the fucking, all this guilt. I know all this horrible shit. And I pump gas and like, God knows what else I do. You know, like I buy airplane tickets and I fly at places and I leave this horrible footprint and I just want to kill myself because I don't want to be part of the problem anymore. Or you just decide I'm a fucking locust. Like, which locust do you want to be? Well, as soon as you decide that then, then you have like carte blanche to like be like,

whatever fucking horrible kind of locust. And now you can be the person who prays on everything because you just decided that, YOLO, you only live once? What's up? It's like no big deal. I'm a locust. Like, you know, no, I'm not saying I am, but in a way you are, if you are. As a human being.

If you pay taxes. Yeah, every human being's a locust. Every human being's a locust. So it's like, here are these locusts, these very, very intelligent, creative, amazing locusts swarming this planet that have somehow, and we don't know how, climbed out of the skin of the planet like maggots. Only it's like we, the skin that we climb out of looks like the human vagina. You can see the face I'm making.

We do. We clamber out of these, we clamber out of these little greed, these, these bloody gushing holes in between the legs of the females that have emerged from other gushing holes in this planet. And we climb out and then we proceed to transform the matter, the biosphere, the matter of the biosphere into technology or into whatever industry. That woman was a massive birth dust too, so she was already like fucking the whole universe too.

So it's like, we're just like, here we come to like do it again. You know what I mean? My mom was ruining this like years ago. Years ago, we just keep this, we keep doing it. All you can be is a carrot. It's fucking all you can be. What do you mean a carrot? Just like you're a seed, you get planted, you do nothing at all.

You just wait until someone grabs you and eats you. It's like, that's it. Yeah. That's like the most like, I don't want to fuck anything up, just I'll be a carrot. Well, you got to, you know, you can, or, or, I mean, this is the weird thing. It's like, or you just decide, I'm going to reduce the suffering as much as I can. And then once you've made that decision, whatever that decision may be, enjoy your fucking life, pick your battles.

Who knows? Maybe that's like, I mean, the, this is like that great George Carlin joke, one of the, my favorite of his jokes that a lot of people really hate, which is like, you know, people on this planet, I'm going to fuck it up. But it's like, you know, people on this planet are like, animals, the animals going extinct. It's like, there's, that's what this planet does. Things go extinct all the fucking time. They say that we're in the midst of like, I don't remember which extinction,

the six or the seventh extinction on this planet. Number six, there's been five before us. That's the way it works when you're on a fucking ball in the middle of space. I don't shed too many tears when I hear stuff like that. You know, like, oh, the bar that's been there for 30 years is closing. I'm like, yeah, you know what I mean? The owner probably wanted to do something else who cares. Like, I hope you all got your drinks there while it was open.

That's the way it works. That's the way it works. Maybe sometimes you just got to spread those vampire bat wings out and go flying in the direction of the next juggler vein. You're going to suckle and stop fucking mulling about it. Get it early. Get it early so the blood is like, yeah, hot and warm. No, I think there's something to it, man, because it's like,

this is in the Bhagavad Gita, the verse that is so abhorrent to a lot of hippies who haven't maybe read the Bhagavad Gita and then finally sit down and read it. It's not a book about peace. It's a book about God telling someone why he needs to kill a bunch of people. And the essence of it is Krishna is saying, I've already eaten these. These men are already dead. I've already killed all of them. Early Krishna appears in the universal form and Arjuna, the warrior, is like,

I see in your teeth the bones of humanity. I see, you know, you're eating the entire universe. Like a giant fucking Pac-Man eating this whole fucking thing. And so this is the messages. Listen, man, all things are vanquished. All things are destroyed. Do your duty. Follow your dharma.

Do what you actually are and discard all this silly, sentimental fucking weakness for the wise man. Mourns neither for the living nor for the dead. I'm trying. I'm trying. As a 39-year-old adult, I'm trying to do that. Yeah, me too. And it's such a glorious place to be.

But god damn it, are you a sociopath if you mourn neither for the living nor for the dead? How many times like, you know, caught in the middle so much, like, you know, it's like, you're always kind of caught in the middle. It's like, you know, on your best day, you're caught on the right side because the photo wasn't a view pumping gas, you know what I mean? Like on your worst day, it's like, you know what I mean? It's like you're caught like doing the, like, you know, maybe you're hungover or something, you know what I mean?

But it's like you've been caught doing the vice, doing the terrible thing that's ruining everybody, you know? And just let yourself, see, this is why I think it's fun and where the divergence happens between popular normal consensus reality and the freaks of the world is that there's something really exciting about the concept of allowing yourself to place the handbags of guilt that you've been carrying around with you down and just fall backwards into your own vice. Not as some kind of, not as long as you're not doing it in an ambience. Like, so the reason that guy on the airplane recently you pissed on the people in front of him.

No, I didn't even hear about this. How'd I miss this? Sounds good. So the reason that guy is not as interesting as he could be is this guy on an airplane wakes up, takes a piss on the people in the seat, drunk, just wakes up wasted or something. Ambien, he's on Ambien, you know? Or he's wasted, who knows? He's like, I don't think that he autonomously made that decision to piss on the people in front

of him. So he was just in a kind of hypnotic stupor, had that man woken up, clear as a bell, lucid, completely awake, looked around and been like, fuck this. I'm going to take out a nice, hot fucking piss on the people in front of me just because I'm bored on this plane. That would be one of the most- Well, of our flight, that's like hour eight, right? No, that's hour seven or something.

Because right after, you know, you can get to New York without doing that. But once you're going to like Europe, those other six hours, just fucking heavy boredom. So hour seven, you're like, what am I going to do? Seven more. We are over the fucking Pacific Ocean. Five hours of this shit, dude. And we've got another seven hours, and these people are going to have to deal with my fucking piss.

It's the only thing I can think of that sounds exciting right now. That man, that man suddenly, he's not a good man, but that's an interesting man. That's a man you want to interview. That's a man you want to read his manifesto. Because there's something in that decision, like, I'm just going to do this. I'm just going to piss on the people in front of me. So he turns out to be the drunk guy, though, who just like- Just ambient.

Yeah. I didn't realize where I was. Ambienes. Did he even whip his dick out, or he just like stood up pissed on himself? No, he whipped his dick out and pissed in between the cracks of the seat, apparently. Can you imagine sitting on the plane? You're just sitting there halfway on your way to Hawaii, wherever you're going. And suddenly you're like, what the fuck?

That doesn't- What are you doing? What are you doing? But they say that he just went back to sleep. But you know, is that worse than the plane going down? That might be worse than a crash. If you're sitting in front of him, it's not a good flight. For the rest of your flight, you've got to deal with some man's piss on you.

But the point I'm trying to make is, if you're living in a lucid way, if you're not blundering through the dimension, fooling yourself, living in a state of denial, pretending that you're somehow better than you are, but if you just come to terms with the fact that you are a destructive, locust-like force burrowing through the sweet flesh of Mother Earth, destroying thoughtlessly- It helps. To me, it's more noble than to be like, I don't know what I'm doing, man.

I don't know. I just eat meat, and I just fucking drink and say shitty things to people. I don't even know. If you're in that callus-like hypnotic stupor, there's really not much interesting about you. Just as bad, almost just as bad. Or being hyper-aware, right? So you're hyper-aware of the situation, and you get out and you are yelling at everybody, but you're doing the bullshit, like, you know what I mean?

Like, oh, you got Taco Bell with your friends after you went to the fucking rally. Yeah. You're a vegetarian, but you still went to Taco Bell, and you didn't get the meat food, but you were just at the animal rights rally with your friends, and so you got vegetarian. You know what I mean? Yeah. If you're standing there yelling at people, or, you know, not even yelling at people, but if you're standing there speaking out loud about this is the way it should be,

and then you just go and subvert, that's why, like, I went to an anti-war march in San Francisco, like, maybe once, maybe twice, but I can only, like, remember once. It seemed like, oh, maybe it'll do, maybe it'll do, there's never been one. So it's like, but, you know, I went and marched in the streets for like two hours, fucking walked off the path of the thing, and went to a movie. Right. You know, it's so stupid, such a dumb way to end that day. Like, you know.

What were you supposed to do? Exactly. There's nothing else to do except for what you normally would do. That's the absurdity of it. You've got to sink back into your normal life. Totally. So it's just, it's like, it's such a shallow feeling, though. I don't know.

Maybe just like being, I don't know. I mean, you have to revolt. You have to stand up. You have to talk shit, but no one cares about talk. Talk is cheap. Talk is cheap. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, what is there, because the rebellion has got to be like,

the revolt or the rebellion has got to be an internal revolution. It's got to be. It's got to be economic. I think straight up period and a discussion first. It just has to be where you don't spend your money first. Ah, right. I think that that structures the gnarliest thing. I think that the human being has built is the economic like, you know,

I've always thought classism before racism, like, you know, I think one. Right. Classism, poor people, it's like about poor people and rich people. You know, it doesn't matter what color the rich people are or the poor people are for a minute, for about one, for about 30 seconds, because it's just about rich and poor first. And then you go, and then when the poor people are all together, then it becomes even like, well, we need something to be above someone else.

Right. We'll take color on this one. And so, you know, it's like the economic structure is the first thing where it's like, watch where you fucking spend your money, please. Doesn't mean you can't get gas, but maybe, maybe don't, like, maybe just don't do, maybe, I don't even know what you would do to make any kind of impact. I have no fucking clue. It's an app.

I think that the, the, the, it's, it's crazy and I don't see how it could happen, but it could theoretically, right now, there's the opportunity for an economic rebellion that was never possible in any other period in human history. Something that makes marching look like just a fart in the wind, which is some genius, and I don't know who it would be. There's two things that have to happen. One, a genius has to implement some kind of app that allows millions and millions of people to boycott certain organizations with the aim of creating transformations in society,

according to whatever is the right thing. Would the app spread information only, you think? It's some way to organize boycotts. It's an app that organizes boycotts. Because, you know, close is kind of the thing where you can, like, I don't, I don't use this and it seems silly, but it's also really useful. Like you scan a, like an item, right, at a grocery store and it tells you that whatever it's, wherever it is, if you're trying to diet, it'll tell you if it's

good or bad for your diet or if it's owned by some, if it's owned by, fuck, general mills, you know, it'll tell you, oh boycott this because this little, you know, so there's apps that do that kind of stuff. So it's like, oh, interesting stuff. It's a universally accepted version of that. Now, maybe it's like we're looking at, like, 15 years down the line when everything's augmented reality and everyone's wearing glasses that projects some kind of data field on top of everything so that when you go walking through a grocery store,

just what you're saying happens so you recognize which products are being supplied by corporations that are funding politicians you don't agree with or so that the corporations experience a direct impact on their profit margin based on the lobbyists that they're paying off to create. We have to invent this thing. I already just invented the name for it. What? The app of righteousness, like an act of righteousness, maybe? App of righteousness, yes.

That amour of right. TM. Someone will invent this. I mean, this is the horror of the, this is the horror of the, of fascist corporations is that technology does inevitably subvert and give a tool to poor people that has never, ever existed. It's just the organization has to happen. I mean, can you imagine, and again, this is just like a thought experiment, but imagine if somehow there was some app and I don't know the mechanism, the means,

I don't know exactly what it would do or how it would organize. But if there was some app that convinced 10% of the human population on earth to no longer buy for a certain period of time some product, let's say Coca-Cola or BP, oil or, I don't know, what's an evil corporation? Both of those are plenty evil. So, somehow, 10% of the human population, I mean, this is like huge numbers, but just as a dream, imagine 10%, somehow stop doing, stop buying whatever the fucking thing was in the name of some cause so that all of a sudden some massive corporation begins to

experience on a daily basis the loss of billions of dollars. Like what the fuck, the whole car, yes. Even better would be if, if these people that were making the billions of dollars would have one conscious thought in their fucking head and do something. For one day, Coca-Cola is going to give all of the money, not just the profits, all the money it makes to a country, you know, to a city, you know? One day it's going to be like, oh wow, like Bloomington, Indiana just got a check for two billion dollars from Coke, period, you know?

And Coke guy, Dr. Coke, will still be a filthy fucking rich megalomaniac and the town might be able to like feed a homeless or pave a road, you know what I mean? It's like, that's the bigger issue. It's like, how do we like change the mindset of humanity, right? So, it's like, I think that we're going in that direction, honestly. If we had kids, we'd be going more in the direction. Like the office, like, you know, there's like an evolution of humanity. It's happening slow, but it's there.

It seems to be happening. I mean, that's the dream. The dream is it's happening. Now, whether it's really happening or not, we don't know. I mean, you do see the... We're in the wrong part of the cycle to tell because it's so like the 80s and like 70s and Reagan and everything is like so fresh, like Bush. It's like, Jeb Bush is running for president.

That's not very far from Ronald Reagan. Bernie Sanders is apparently doing really good. And that commie son of a gun has got some ideas that are definitely moving in the direction of what you're talking about. I'm down, Bernie. But we do see the other thing that's happening is how very overt it is when you run into the invisible barrier set up by the power structure. Because when enough people run into that invisible barrier set up,

the men in the Darth Vader outfits and the tanks come into your town. Like you do see that, you know, like Ferguson, Occupy Wall Street. One thing that's been really cool about these protests is it activates a certain level of the defense mechanism of this invisible fortress that produces these strange looking Darth Vader people in the riot gear with a fucking poison gas. It's the hand of God. Yeah. And it comes out of nowhere.

Like so, like everything's running smooth. Everything's super cool. We've got this normal day to day existence happening and unplanned. But every once in a while, a certain group of people will trigger something. The trap door fucking opens and like these psychos, these thugs and fucking crazy fucking military gear who are just like, no, no, no. Guess what? No, it doesn't even fucking matter that you have weapons.

It doesn't matter that you've got your AR-15s or your shotguns or whatever the bullshit amendment is that let you have all these weapons that you think is going to defend you. And you could really, you're not going to be able to rebel against us. We have the most advanced military technology on the fucking planet. We have micro, they have these weird microwave weapons. We got a vote for Bernie. Everybody, we got a vote for Bernie. Vote for Bernie if you want to.

But those sons of bitches are still going to come out of the fucking woodwork. Those guys, as long as those guys are appearing whenever people are like. But in, see, this is a thing. That's why we're caught in the middle because we'll see that maybe in 80 years. Like, you know, we'll see that diminish. Hopefully. Well, maybe. I mean, I don't know.

I mean, that's the big quite the bit. So it's like the, I, who was it? There was a senator. This is always stuck with me. Who is the senator of California? What's her name? I don't fucking know. Pelosi.

Nancy Pelosi. She's senator. I don't know. Who is Nancy Pelosi? If they think Nancy Pelosi. She was like a Sanford. I think she's that's how it makes sense. Let's see what she is.

She's a congresswoman. She is the US representative for California's 12th district. Nancy Pelosi. Sounds like a senator to me. Minority leader of the United States House of Representatives. So Nancy Pelosi said something that is stuck with me for some reason, which is weird to have anything that Nancy, as somebody said, stuck with me though.

She said power is never given. Power must be taken. Power is never given away. So if it is true. Sounds good. If it is true that one 10th, or what is it? One 10th of a percentile of people on the planet own 90% of the wealth, or I don't remember what the awful math is,

which totally makes sense based on the idea that as long as we have a system where workers don't get the profit of the corporation and the profit goes to the CEO and a few top people in the corporation, then that creates a situation where all their resources and all the money go to fill up this balloon controlled by a very small group of people. So if that is true, then one of those people, if Nancy Pelosi is right, then those people aren't going to be like, you know what, you guys can have the fucking balloon.

They're never going to do that. They're never going to do that. That's never going to happen. It's never going to fucking happen. Which means that, and God, I'm sorry for going on this ramp. This is why we've got this supposed revolution that's supposed to happen every four years in this country where people vote to create a new power structure because the idea is that pressure that fills up the fucking balloon.

What ends up happening is once that balloon gets too big and all the resources have been sucked away to a very obvious level, then the people who've had the resources sucked away from them wake up to the fact that there's infinitely more of them than the people controlling the fucking balloon. And that's when a violent, bloody revolution happens. And that's an inescapable, unavoidable bit of political physics that the founding fathers hope to subvert by creating the idea of a vote every four years.

But since now all these motherfuckers are bought and sold and they're not really representing the will of the people, but they're representing the will of corporations, then this apparently puts us on a trajectory that can only lead to some kind of fucking awful, bloody, shitty, crap revolution. But that's where technology comes in. And that's why- Well, I would agree with that.

Obviously 100%, but people are just their force-fed complacence in the most huge helpings. It's like complacence is going to take the place, there seems to be, I mean, idiocracy, the movie. It's like by the time that there's enough people that are, if we continue on this terrible path that we're clearly on, then when the numbers get so skewed that the people would then be forced to revolt, those people will be like, man, out my balls, you know?

Like TV program, like, I don't care, man, program. And that's kind of, that's like, I'm like- I don't know, man, I think that's, I don't think you have to, I think it's just, the problem is it's just disorganized, chaotic, and ultimately results in like some kind of like, you know, subvert yourself to the will of the particular government that you are being controlled by or get executed. And in between that, there might be some uprisings that essentially get vanquished. But I don't think people get-

It's just like, you know, who's not dumbed down, a father who can't feed his kid. That's not a dumbed down person who's like, let's just watch TV. If it gets to the point where there's enough fathers or mothers who can't feed their fucking kids, or there's enough fathers and mothers who are living in like those kinds of conditions, then revolution happens. It's just the way it works. Now, if the shit has to get really bad, I mean, way worse than it is right now, shit has to get really, really bad, but man, I- I think we're 80 years from anything really like good or bad happening, you know?

80? Yeah, maybe like 80. I don't think it's 80. I think it's like the, so the idea is, here's where it gets really creepy. So, okay, I'm a, I'm a fund, I'm a factory owner. I've built a factory, whatever the factory may be. And because I built a factory, I've employed workers to create some product, which I'm selling at a profit.

And I'm taking the money from that I'm getting as a profit, and I'm investing it into research to try to mechanize my production, so I don't have to pay the workers anymore, because the more that I can mechanize the production, the more my profit margin increases. So I start figuring out little ways to mechanize the production, so I now, now I can lay off this person, that person, that person, my profit margins increase.

Now I'm applying that money to figure out even more ways to mechanize my production, etc., etc., until finally we hit the point which people are saying we're going to hit in the next 15 or 20 years, which is full automation of something like 35% of the current workforce, thanks to artificial intelligence and robots. And this is the end game in capitalism. That's why I became a barber. It's like, how can I not be phased out by a machine, you know what I mean?

In my lifetime, you know what I mean? That gets phased, easy, easy, easy, easy. They tried it once, dude, the flow bee didn't stick. Wait till you see the, wait, it's true though, man. It's like, are you need to, to... 3D download. The one thing that will, that cannot be replaced yet, as far, and if it can be replaced, then shit man, everything's over as far as we know it,

is the human connection between you and your fucking barber. But then on the other hand, if I know that I can go to some barber, no offense, but if I know I can go to some robot barber and sit down at some weird futuristic barber shop and like a drone is going to come and like place something on my head, scan my hair, and give me like some exact cut. But prior to doing it, show me images of myself with that cut, so I can dial in exactly the haircut that I want. Okay, so it's like we're dealing with lasers and blades at this point.

I'd rather the laser cut than the blade, you know, of these swings. Oh yeah, there's going to be some disasters. There's going to be some fucking disasters in these barber shops where someone's going to, like all of a sudden you'll feel a little like mosquito thing on your head and then it's like, wait what? Brains. Man, they're optimized. Yeah, by the, by the, but, but so, so the, so this is going to happen fairly, fairly quickly,

according to a lot of people and, and we're experiencing the very beginning of it in the Uber strikes. When you see an Uber strike, when you see the taxi drivers threatening the Uber drivers, you're witnessing the very first tumult in what is going to be the catastrophic disruption that comes from huge swaths of the job market becoming automated or becoming transformed through technology, which means that the hope, the hope is that somehow using technology, we come up with a way to do a digital revolution that creates the shifts that we're interested in having in the world through what you're talking about, through economic upheaval coming from the

people and being organized by some kind of device app website that makes it very easy and obvious for enough people to boycott corporations to create the kind of changes that we would want. That's going to happen, man. Someone will definitely invent one of those things and that person is going to have a little fucking brake accident when they're driving home one night. Dude, I just don't know, man. My fucking car just started accelerating. His car accelerated and ran into a tree.

I love how that shit happens. Davey Jones, the man who invented the righteous app, was found dead today. Suicide. He committed suicide. He was a depressed dude. He was obviously kind of a little cynical and jaded. He was a fringe. He subscribed to fringe ideas and I guess that he had manic depression.

And yeah, he ended up somehow. We still don't know how, but he hung himself with his hands tied behind his back. By the same token, don't bother following who's a Tesla guy. Elon Musk. Don't bother following him on Instagram. Kind of boring. You'd expect it. I follow him because I think Elon Musk is really cool.

He's cool as shit. Yeah. I'm like, man, this guy is fucking awesome. I love Elon Musk. I'm going to follow him on Instagram and I'm going to see great photos of shit. I like it's nothing. It's like, well, A, literally he posts almost nothing. And it's like, hey, man, I'm following you.

Give me my money's worth. And then like the other day he posted like he posted a bunch of stuff and it was like seven like pictures that were like this thing landing. But it wasn't even like a real thing. It was like, you know, animated yet none. Just like, it was like he was reading some book that had seven cool pictures. He just took pictures. I haven't posted them all.

Musk! What the fuck are you doing, man? That's like, I never see you. You show up like, you know, in force today and I don't even want to see anything. I want to see like Musk's like pantry. I want to picture what the fuck he's eating. Exactly. What's in your refrigerator, Musk? What do you think's in his fridge?

La Croix or La Croix. Yeah, just all La Croix. I think it's like, here's my guess. Elon Musk's fridge, some La Croix, some kind of like yogurt snack. Definitely yogurt, yogurt. Uh, what else? What else is in there? I think he's probably living off that.

He's got to boil down to his science. All I need is one bowl of this and one gulp of this. What do you think? He had two boiled at hard boiled eggs. I see you in 2000 years, Duncan. He doesn't know it's in my way. Musk doesn't know it's in his fridge. Musk has got to assert, like someone like Musk is like,

he's probably hasn't seen his fridge in a month because he's got a living chef who like makes him these delicious hummus bowls and like wonderful savory brown rice. The more we talk about him, the more I love him. I love him too. I'm just like, I love him. I don't even, I don't know any fucking thing about this guy. I don't know the slightest thing about this guy, but I'm like, I love him.

He owns SpaceX, right? SpaceX, Tesla, PayPal. He wants to get a... What does he want with PayPal? That's what he's, I think he started. That's not very spacey. He started PayPal. I think that funded it.

It's convenient. I use it. I do too. But he, like the cool thing that he wants to do, apparently... Not at the barbershop. Did you hear that, what, you don't use PayPal at the barbershop? Oh, you can't. Do you have to use a...

I probably could. You could actually. Yeah. So when we just be like, oh shit, I like, my phone's stuck. I don't have any money. Yeah. Home Depot takes PayPal. I was at Home Depot.

Like while you're there? When you do the self-checkout, you could choose to use PayPal to pay for it. Whoa, that's crazy. And they say shit's going to go towards Bitcoin eventually, where you could use it. No, Bitcoin already came and went. That's gone already, right? I don't think it's gone.

I think it's gone. I think it's still there. Really? Yeah. I think Bitcoin stuff. Some alternative crypto. No, at the end something happened and like, there's no worth in the Bitcoin anymore.

It's very sad, man. I remember like when the Bitcoin bubble happened and like, there was that guy who like, I don't know if you heard about it, but there was a guy who had us in his hard drive somehow, like millions of dollars worth of Bitcoins, but he threw the hard drive away and he knew it was in a landfill and like, people were speculating about like,

spending like $100,000 to try to dig up the hard drive. That does not count as buried treasure. No, I guess it does though. That's sad. This is a modern era and that counts as buried treasure. Oh, the horror of like some tech nerdy like, ended up like, oh yeah, fuck it, Bitcoin. It's like a penny each.

It's a scandisk flash drive about two inches by one inch. Yeah, in a landfill, in the like, in the mulchy soil, like maybe you'd be able to decrypt it. It's got a billion dollars on it in Bitcoin. I think Bitcoin still works. I do. I've never spent one, I've never seen one. I don't know anything about it.

I try and stay like, blissfully ignorant to as much dumb shit as possible. I don't think, do you think that's dumb? I don't think it's, I got to, it seems cool, fuck. Like it's like, some kind of like, it's like, I'm dunking this stink out right now. There's no way, dude. Come on, what's interesting about it? Because it's like, for Bitcoin,

I mean, it's interesting. I'm not going to lie. It's interesting. So it's some kind of like, I don't understand it that well, but apparently like, there's these chains of numbers that require processing. It's like magic to gathering, but computer money. Well, yeah, or yeah, I mean, if you ever read Ready Player One.

Sounds good, though. It's a great book, but I've just started reading. I've people have been advised me to read this forever, but it's sort of about the future when virtual reality is basically everyone's hanging out inside of virtual reality. And there's a main world called the Oasis that everybody hangs out in. But the currency of the Oasis, the currency that they're using,

the digital currency is a completely valid currency. So like, and there are valid digital currencies right now, and I can't remember which one it is. Like, you know, there's World of Warcraft Gold, for example. And I don't know if you could still do it. See, all I know about that is that World of Warcraft's a game. Is it? So I've never...

So there's gold in World of Warcraft. And with that gold, you can use it to obtain items inside of World of Warcraft. So... Can you... Are those real items you can buy and use in everyday life, too? Well, you can... Can I get a toaster oven? But you could sell...

People used to sell the gold. So in other words, you could like... Oh, shit, all right. You could convert the currency in the same way if I had Canadian dollars. Like on Craigslist, if I look up like World of Warcraft Gold, yeah. I bought... I remember when I was addicted to the game, what is it like a PlayStation or was it computers only?

Computer, PC. But when I was addicted to the game, and you would see like people would inside the game... Is it a gauntlet type game with swords and shit? Yeah, it's like a first-person game. What's called a massive multiplayer online role-playing game. How massive? Fucking giant, man.

Like how many people are you playing with at one time? Well, now the numbers have decreased, but I don't know the statistics for the server population when it was at its height, but there was a lot of people playing. And it took a long time to get gold together in World of Warcraft. So you would be sort of traveling through this fantasy realm, and you would see people saying buy 500 gold for five bucks here, and there'd be a website.

And so I'm like, you know what? Fuck it, it's five bucks. I can't remember the amount for five bucks that you get, but it's a lot of gold, right? A lot of gold. So I'm like, I'm going to try this just because it seems interesting, weird, and why not? It's five bucks.

I don't know why I wasn't afraid of getting hacked or my identity stolen, but I went through one of these websites. There's a number you call, and someone with an Asian dialect answers, and it's like, what do you want? I'm like, I want to buy gold. Here's the info. I think I gave my fucking credit card. Maybe I paid.

You're fucking crazy. Maybe I PayPaled the money to them. I may have PayPaled the money. It was, I know whatever I did was not safe. So I PayPaled the money to them, and they're like, okay, meet me. There's a place in World of Warcraft called Ogremar, and they're like me. So you're like, your characters meet each other? Yes.

And it's like a drug deal. They're like, meet me outside of Ogremar at this time, at this coordinates for the deal to go down. So I go to the coordinates. I'm sitting there. This is pretty fucking interesting. It's fucking trippy. I'm like, you know, you're looking around in Ogremar, and it's like,

you're in it basically. I guess it looks like, I don't know, Utah or something here. It seems to be based on Utah. Ogremar. Ogremar, hang out in this little village. Ogremar, Ogremar, Utah. And Ogre comes up to me, offers to do a transaction. I accept, bang, I've got a fuck ton of gold all of a sudden.

For five bucks. For five bucks, I'm loaded. Hell yes. He vanishes. Now here's where it gets very curious. And it gets back into our idea of how a lot of profit comes from evil. As it turns out, supposedly in China, like political prisoners and prisoners were being forced to mine

gold in World of Warcraft and sell it. It was a job. It was a job online. So somebody, with someone's job, you better find that gold. Find the fucking gold. Online. You better find that gold online. Chinese gold harvesters.

So one part of the population of World of Warcraft was composed of Chinese gold miners getting gold from different places in World of Warcraft and selling it to the West. And that was a job. That's pretty far out. It's like, you'd think, come on, let the peasant worker be the rich guy in the game. And it's like, no, you would be a fucking peasant mine digger in the game too.

Yeah. You're a mine. Yeah, they're still miners. They're just in real life and fake life. You're a mine digger. Digital miners. Yeah. And Bitcoin was the same way.

So Bitcoin, you have to like to get a Bitcoin. But what are you buying with the Bitcoin or the gold? You're paying for people to get killed. You're buying drugs. Bitcoin is really cool because it's an untraceable currency. So. But can you buy a car with it? Like that you can drive tomorrow?

Buy fucking anything with a Bitcoin. It's just like any other bit of currency. Only the difference is it's untraceable. So that's why there's the dark web, which I've never been on. But apparently there's a thing called the dark web, which seems awesome. But you use something called a tour browser. Soon as you fucking type in dark web, dude, choppers. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm terrified of the dark web, but it seems super cool. But you use like a tour browser is what it's called, which is some special browser, which allows you to get to like the. So the internet that we know, I'm sure you're aware of this, is the very tip of the iceberg of the actual internet. I'm sure. I've never thought too hard about it, but I can only imagine. We only see the websites that the search, the crawlers.

I know which websites I only see. It's like three of them. None of them are, you know, good to mention. Porn. They're all they're all embarrassing. It's like the Yankees, my email and some porno. Yeah. Same here.

Same here. The cycle of like, you know, Reddit, Facebook, X, Hamster. Just refresh, you know, every five minutes. Maybe there's some new email I got. But there's a whole dark web and you get to it through some weird browser. And that's where the Silk Road and all the drug accessories. And so the currency that people use to buy shit on the dark web is Bitcoin.

Well, crazy. Cryptocurrencies. I get into less trouble being a simple idiot. So it's like, you know. Yeah, right. You're not a simple idiot. All smart people say they're simple idiots. It's one of the first adaptation mechanisms.

Smart people adopt so they don't get their asses kicked. So I wanted to, and I'm meant to do this in the beginning of the podcast. I hope you have. Do you have a little bit of time? Oh yeah, I like it anyway. So, um. And I like your health. Thank you, Sarah.

So I wanted to, could you tell that story of the time you found all that money in the pocket? Which time? No, yeah, definitely. But that's the thing is like, that's not as much money as then it took to open the barbershop and I was like, you know, almost found money too. But how much money did you find? 6,000 paper dollars.

No Bitcoin. No, uh. You found $6,000 in the pocket. Of a suit coat at a thrift store. Talk about that. Can you talk about that day? Yeah, yeah. So it was like Memorial Day or Labor Day is a national holiday.

And me and the girl I was going out with at the time had decided to go thrift store shopping as we always did. And so we went to San Jose and went to a thrift store there. And you know, she was like, you know, kind of shopper who pours over the store. You know, I'll be like in and out in like 10 minutes. If I don't see a couple good shirts, I'm like, I'm done, you know. So I was done. And she was like, oh, I'm not done yet.

And I was like, all right. So I started just like, you know, shopping more and more in depth. And you know, I just put this coat on and I just felt this like chunk in the hip. And I thought it was like an alarm, you know, like a store alarm from a department store. And I opened it. There wasn't anything in there. Put my hands in the pockets and felt on the inside. But you know, it wasn't in the pocket, but it was like the inside breast pocket that

there was like something substantial in there. So then I opened it up and put my hand down the breast pocket. And as soon as I touched it, I was like, that's a wallet, dude. Like that's a fucking wallet. You could just you could just feel the stack, you know, like the sandwich of money, you know. And I fucking pulled it out. And it was a hundred dollar bill with a rubber band around it. Like with many bills underneath it, you know.

And, you know, I was immediately just like scared, you know, like, oh fuck. Like it was just a weird feeling, you know. And I didn't even grab the coat. I just took the cash out. I put it in my pocket and I walked over to her and I was like, let's get the fuck out of here. And she was like, you look like you've seen a ghost. And I showed her the money and she was just like, good Lord, man. So she bought her stuff too.

I like stood in line with this like cash in my pocket, you know, just thinking of all the different like, you know, scenarios like how it could have gotten there. And she paid for her stuff. We went outside, got in the car and I threw her the money and I was like, count it. And she takes the rubber band off and it just crumbles off, you know, like, and it leaves just residue. So it had been like that for years, you know. And the newest bill was 1996 too.

So this was 2007 or something like that. 2006. She just starts counting and it's just one after another. All $100 bills. Were you crying? Did you start crying? I don't even remember. I just kind of was just staring at it.

Just like, like excited shock. It's like, what the fuck? Yeah. And and she just got to the end. It was $6,000 and $100 bills from the thrift store. And it was just like, well, it's what we're going to do. There's no idea. There's no anything.

I'm not going to like someone leave. $6,000. You know, I was just like, I needed the money too. You know, I was going to go to Barbara. I was going to Barber School, you know. And I just started the $7,000 tuition. I just started to get like Bank of America loan shit going. I was doing paperwork and like, you know, getting my.

So you also the universe suddenly funds. Funds Barber School. So I don't have to be in debt. And it's like, oh, this is great. But that's this is happening as you're about to get a loan from the bank. Yeah, exactly. So wait, I mean, now think about that. Like in a movie, if that happens in a movie, no one believes it.

Real life is if you live it and enjoy it and you're like, you know, out the house, real life's 10 times more interesting than a movie. But but that level of like, so if I'm watching a movie about a guy who is working at a grocery store and wants to start his own business at a Barber School. And he starts getting loans out from a bank. And then he happens to be at a thrift store where he finds what happens to be almost exactly the amount of money he needs to go to Barber School. Yeah.

You're you're in the movie. You're gonna be like, that's lazy fucking writing, man. Yeah. Like, yeah, sure. He finds $6,000. But that actually fucking happened to you. Yeah. Like it's so it's so weird.

It is so weird. Because it's it's not as though the window within which it's not like you've always been applying to Barber School. It's not like for your whole life you've been trying. It just happens. Dude, it was a small window. I mean, it was a tiny window, you know, like six weeks, you know, from when like,

I mean, I work quick as soon as I realize this is a direction I'm going to go in. It's like, you know, I wasn't like, I should be a barber for years. You know, I mean, it was a it was like April to July, like, you know, decision process. I remember going on this tour with this girl who was going out with a band member that I was with. That I was in the band with and she owned a salon in San Francisco and she was cool. You know, she was like just kind of like,

you know, she didn't seem like a business owner or whatever that might mean. You know, she just didn't seem like she was overly busy with stuff or like, you know, overly stressed about her business or anything. You know, and I was like, you know, wow, that seems like a pretty cool lifestyle. She had her apartment and she had like her her shop, you know. And so she was on the tour and that's when I really started talking and she was like, oh, do it.

If you're thinking about it at all, do it. You'll never regret it. And I knew it. I knew it like almost immediately, you know, and then started looking for a minute just to find where I should go, you know, and then it was the Barbara College. Because if you ever saw like the website for Paul Mitchell or whoever Vidal or, you know, whatever, if you ever saw any of these websites, you'd be like,

yeah, I'm going to be a grocery clerk for the rest of my life, you know, you wouldn't want to be a. It's just that kind of school seemed terrible. I'd actually done that before, too. Like I'd been like, like, you know, friends had gone to like stylist school, like cosmetology school is what it is. That's the difference. Cosmetology, you have cosmetology school and barber school.

Yeah. So I had friends do that and I would let them cut my hair. So I'd go down to the fucking, you know, Paul Mitchell school and, you know, give my friend all of like three hours to cut my hair, which was no better than this, you know, and she was like learning her way through and it's like short hair. So it's so I'd seen it already known that like lifestyle and was like kind of turned off by. Yeah. Like this is drag.

Right. Like just a bunch of smoking, like bleached tips, like 19 year olds, you know, that sounds awful. Yeah. But then barber school was definitely no better. It was like a bunch of like kicked out of school for stabbing, like, you know, like, like, you know, they went to high school, got kicked out in 10th grade, went to continuation, got kicked out in 11th grade and now they're getting paid by the state.

That was the other insane thing. Like, you know, you got to be so down and out to get free money. Yeah. Right. If you're like, if you have a job and you're actually paying your own rent and everything and you want to make a conscious change, then it's like, you better do it yourself, asshole, you know, no shit, which is maybe beautiful because you need it. Then you'll you can get it, you know.

But this but if it's a luxury, if me changing my job is a luxury, then it's good luck, you know. But you got, but like, the universe gave you what the government gave some other people. Yeah, totally. And the, and it's, and they're, to me, I had this dream. It's really frustrating because in the dream, some being was saying to me, Duncan, what do you think you're here to learn?

And I answered the being, but when I woke up, I couldn't remember what my answer was. Interesting. But if you think about, if you look at the idea of the universe as like a training program to help you overcome fear, take risks or dive into the unknown, then what would happen is, if you did these things, then the, you would get points, right? And it's again and again, again, I keep hearing stories about like this, where somebody dives into the unknown and almost instantaneously as if it's programmed into the fucking machine itself, there's this huge reward.

Like, oh yes, that's it. Like, people are, they're, you know, they're afraid because they're impatient a lot of the time too. It's like, you know, you can't give yourself, like the, you got to always look big picture, right? Because you're going to be here for so fucking long. If you die tragically, the odds of that happening are this big compared to you living to some 70, 80 year old, right?

Like, you know, so it's like, if you're always thinking like, I didn't see any payoff in two months, you know, then you're always going to be like, you just got to not think of, you got to do other stuff so that you're not thinking about that thing though, you know, but God, what was the fucking ultimate point? You were talking about the payoff. It's the fucking, it's the idea is it's like big picture when you take, when you, when you set out into the great unknown, go ahead. No, I just remembered the, the, the weird point that was like this on a small scale.

This is like, it's like, where do you, where do I start learning the lesson that you get, that the chance you take works your way? Like, you know, where do I start learning that? You know, and it's like, you know, a bunch of different places, but one thing that I always, that sticks out to me, it's always been interesting is since I moved out of my folks house, you know, like at 18 or something, it's like you pay rent, you know, and you don't have a job that, you know, I didn't have a job the first time I moved out. I also didn't have much rent.

I was moved to Santa Monica and was like moving, like moving in with a friend of mine whose grandma owned this cool place and she didn't have to pay rent and I wasn't paying rent. That's cool. Yeah. So then I moved to San Francisco though. And to do that, I went home first to the desert and I worked for three months at Walden Books. Um, and then I took, you know, a couple of paychecks and I moved to San Francisco to pay $400 of rent, you know, right?

And it's like, uh, you know, scary. Yeah, scary. $400 of rent. So now I'm, you know, I take my job with me. I transfer and I'm making like $800 a month and paying like $400 and the well time burrito like I was talking about, you know, it's like, um, but so then after you pay 400 bucks for a while, maybe you find something better. It's 600 and you're still like, ah, it's expensive, you know. And so then you're paying six and you're like, oh, shit.

But then after a while, it doesn't matter. Like, you know, you work enough hours, like you figure out a way to figure it out. Yeah, it just doesn't, like, you know, and then you move into the $800 studio and that was the big one. Like, dude, dude, $800 rent. I've never paid this in my life. This is insane, but it's a becomes a non issue. You just, you know, and it's just like, it just works.

It just works. It works. You know, like, I have to move back to the one bedroom because it's, you know, it just works. It works, right? Take the plunge. That's the thing. And the really cool thing is if it doesn't work, if for whatever reason you meet catastrophe as you're pursuing these endeavors, you've still won because you have, like, what is

the most glorious way to die according to all mythology? To die on the battlefield, right? Yeah, in battle. To die on the battlefield for a righteous cause is the great glorious way to die. And it's like, well, this is the battlefield. But it's not as romantic when you don't die. You just move back into your mom's house. Oh, that's worse than death.

Yeah, totally. But you've still, the thing is, like, when you move back to your mom's house, when you go back to a lower level, you can tell people, I reached too high. I went for it, man. And it didn't work. But guess what? I'm going to go for it again. Exactly.

You start again, you know? Man, people are so timid. They're so scared of, like, of immediately not, this is the patience thing, immediately not having to pay off, you know? You ever looked at a skateboarder's leg? Just, like, bolts and scars and, like, you know, how'd you get that? It's like, well, I ate shit 2,000 times, you know? Yeah, look at a professional skateboarder's fucking leg.

And you will written on that professional skateboarder's leg is the truth of what it's like to go for it in this universe. And those are beautiful scars. Every single one of those fucking scars on that skateboarder's leg, they don't look at that in shame. They don't point out, oh, yeah, that's where I broke my fucking leg, trying to do some backflip off a building. They're like, I went for it.

We're so fucking insane as people. It's like everybody has to go through the same fucking thing. If you want to get good at something, you have to do it to death and be so bad at it when you start. So you have to go through that, like, humiliation of, like, I can't do this thing and people see me. Yes. And it's so in everybody that, but we have then no patience for.

And once you get good at it, you have no patience for the kid trying to get good at it. You know, it's like, we have just no compassion. We have, like, it's like, everybody's got to go through this. We all understand what it takes to be there, but we're all, like, once we're there, we just want to, like, look at that and look down and laugh at you like you're trying your best. Trying. It's so embarrassing. I don't have to try.

Yeah, right. I just do. You don't do that, though. No. Well, I try not to, but, you know, it's tough when you work around. If anybody ever work with is ever going to hear this, they're going to be like, you fucking, but, you know, if I ever work with anybody that can't cut hair, right, I'm like dying.

I'm like, I hate looking at your fucking haircuts all day. You know, it's like, it's just like. I'm the same way. And I've been there. Like, I got my job because people just liked me. Like, you know, I got a job at the shop that I had no business working at. You know, I could not cut hair to save my life, but I was a decent company. Well, you got to understand that the pressure exerted by people we respect to become

excellent at whatever the particular profession is, is actually part of the propulsion that moves us in the direction of getting better because we so want those people, you know, in comedy, like the first time like a successful comedian told me, man, you're pretty funny. Oh, it's like amazing. But also the fuel that it's fuel and the it's so it helps, you know, and maybe there is something built into the universe where people have gained success aren't always like, oh, you're doing a great job when someone's not.

I mean, it's like when your kid brings you a crayon drawing, you don't want to be like, this fucking sucks because your kid isn't going to become a professional crayon drawer. But in the same way, it's like my friend was, I guess I can't say, my friend was over at a famous comedian, a very legendary. Seinfeld. I can't say. Jerry Seinfeld. A super famous comedian.

It was Seinfeld. Even more legendary than that. And this comedian has like kids or maybe even grandkids by now. I just think he got had sex with by Bill Cosby. That's all that means. But no, he was not Bill Cosby, but he he was saying that this comedian's kid was trying to crack jokes at the dinner table. And the comedian's response to the jokes was he would be like, no, that's just not funny.

And that's because the comedian wants his kid to be a good comedian. He knows that the way a comedian is forged in reality. I'm not just like staring at their haircuts like, you know, I mean, I am. No, in reality, that is what I'm doing. But in the grand scheme of things, you know, I'm like, I am trying to get through this with the person and giving them like the best pointers I can and like, you know, part of me can be a good teacher. Another part of me wants nothing to do with the process.

Once I've gone through it, you know, yeah, right. But, um, that's true. Nothing to do with the process once you've gone through. And that's right. Yes. It's just too like too bad going through it. It's part of isn't it part of like beautifying the universe is like when you see somebody. I'll pat you on the back for going through it.

You know, like great job. I'm really proud of you for doing this. And I'll be here for you. But you know, I mean, don't drag me back to that place. God, man. Thank God there are people who fucking decide to go through it again because there are. And those are the mentors. Those are the patrons.

Those are the teachers. Those are the teachers. There's like a 20% part of my abdomen right here. They're on, you know, where I'm like, I'm going to become an instructor of a Barbara College. So I know that it's a place I could go and feel like, yeah, like good and useful, you know. And I mean, not just that, but like, you know, I mean, I don't think being a barber is like really anything. It's just a job. So it's like, if I talk about it, like, it's just, it's just the most recent process I've

gone through and live, you know, so, you know. But it's cool. I mean, that's the thing. And small things, all things. That's, you know, so it's like the. I had to go backwards, right? Because if you keep going this way, so you got to go, I'm going back to some small things here. And I don't think you should de-emphasize being a fucking barber.

It's like one of the most important parts of my life. So you can't like. Mine too. And when I have a hair out of place, I'm freaked. So it's like, you know, I know. Come on. I mean, I would love to exist in a universe where I didn't give a shit about the fucking weird protein strands blasting out of my head.

I want you looking good. See, that's how I know I should be a barber is because Duncan, I fucking, I need you to look good. So bad when I see you on the street, Duncan, if you don't look good, I'm going to be like, come on. I'm so glad you found that money. Come and get a haircut. I'm so glad you found that cash, man. And I think that, uh, yeah, I think it's super cool that we've gotten to be friends.

Oh yeah. And, um, I hope folks listening, if you live in Los Angeles and you want to get a bad ass fucking haircut, we'll do it. I'll do it. New California barbershop on Sunset Boulevard right down the street from the American apparel. That's like the biggest, uh, landmark you can give it down there. Cause I'm always trying to explain that. I'm like, well, you know where that American apparel is?

Oh yeah. And then it's like, yeah, that was right there. As for Brian Gurgus or, you know, Eric Rodriguez or Nasty Nancy Rodriguez, you know, Danny, Ryan just hired that guy. You know, so there's like a bunch of good people working there. A bunch of good people, but you're talking to the best. I'm the best. I'm sorry.

I don't know if you are. I don't know if the, by the way, I don't know if those guys, I'm sure they're great. I'm sure they're amazing. I'm just a better listener. How can people find you? Um, you're not on Twitter, are you? No, but they go to the barbershop, you know, they go down to the barbershop. But you know, the shop has an Instagram, you know,

so you could go to the new California and follow it on Instagram or, uh, basically like, uh, you can email me. What's, what's, you don't want to. Nobody would want to email me. Just come down to the barbershop. Go to the Instagram, go to the barbershop. Tell them hello. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Yeah, I appreciate having me. Thanks. Howdy Krishna. Appreciate it. Thanks for listening, everybody, and a big thanks to Squarespace.com for supporting this episode and a giant thanks to all of you who continue to listen to this podcast. I love you. I'll see you next week.

We've got a great episode with the creator of drunk history, Derek Waters. Howdy Krishna. I'm dirty. I'm dirty. I'm dirty. So I can't see you. That's too bad. Hey, are you tired of the irritation you get down there from pads and other bladder

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