Matt Furie
00:00Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now.I'm dirty little angel.You can get Dirty Angel anywhere you get your music.Ghost Towns, Dirty Angel, out now.New album and tour date coming this summer.Friends, are you feeling a little on the wavery side?Then it's time for you to check out onit.com.They produce some incredible supplements,
00:24including my favorite supplement, Alpha Brain.It's not Adderall, but it reminds me of Adderall.I feel like it helps me if I have a hangoverand it definitely helps me if I need to focus on something.They've got it in powder and pill form.They also have authentically delicious supplements,fantastic protein powders, and zombie head kettle bells,chimpanzee head kettle bells.
00:53They've got everything you need to transform your lifeinto that of some kind of modern day glory warrior.I probably am not ever gonna use those kettle bells,but I definitely am a big fan of Alpha Brain.Try it out.Go to onit.com forward slash DTFH,and you're gonna get 10% off your order.Onit.com.
01:15Hey friends, did you know that your brainis a hive of memes?It's true.Your brain is a habitat for all kinds of little bitsof living information that have climbed into your ear holesand your eye holes that have been carefully manufacturedby meme-mancers, wizards of memeswho have crafted certain memes, phrases,
01:38turns of speech, and imagesso that they become highly infectiousand take up some small neural spaceinside the meme hive that is your brain.At that point, you become a carrier of memes,and you might not even realize it,but you begin to spit these memes out of your mouthduring conversations and infect other brains with the meme.
02:05Do you guys remember the Where's the Beef meme from 1984?Why is the beef?Some hamburger places give you a lot less beefon a lot of bum.Where's the beef?At Wendy's, we serve a hamburger we modestly call the single.And Wendy's single has more beef than the Whopper or Big Mac.At Wendy's, you get more beef and less bum.
02:23Hey, where's the beef?Ugh, that meme created a fucking meme pandemic.That meme spread like the black plaguethrough the playgrounds of America.You couldn't walk six feet without some bullypunching you in the arm and grunting,hey, where's the beef?Where's the beef?
02:44I bet you don't have a dick.I don't know if you remember that,but fuck, it was everywhere.And it crept out of the playgrounds of the worldand it made its way into the Democratic National Conventionof 1984.Let's listen to Walter Mondale sneeze out a meme.Well, when I hear your new ideas, I'm reminded of that ad.
03:08Where's the beef?Yeah.He just wants to know where the beef is.Walter Mondale wants to know where the beef is.He's one of us.He said, where's the beef?And you could be certain when Walter Mondale said,where's the beef?
03:26A Wendy's ad executive came so hard,his jizz exploded out of his ceremonial underwearthrough his Masonic apron and burned a holeinto the pentagram he was worshiping in front of.Richard Dawkins coined the term meme, sounds like gene,and it's supposed to be something similar to a living thing.It goes through the process of natural selection.You can actually watch a meme pandemic spread,
03:57like amazeballs.Remember the amazeballs pandemic from last year?I think it was last year, maybe two years ago,when the term amazeballs suddenly ripped through the internetand made its way in all the shitty fucking hacky sitcoms.It was the kind of thing hip tech savvy dudes might sayto express some amazement over a brand new video gamethat they were quite impressed with.
04:19That game's amazeballs, man.It was like savvy and edgy.Now it's just an indication that somebody's an asshole.The meme has died.But at one point it was a great way,not only to express some sentiment,but also to express your allegiancewith a specific demographic
04:36that you feel represents you the best.Memes are powerful.They're a way that you can identify yourselfwith a certain group, like the safety pin.Remember that?That one came hobbling out of somebody's meme workshop,like a two-headed baby lambthat villagers stood around and stared at
04:57as it gasped its last few breathsand collapsed into the soil.Remember that?It barely had a life at all.But for a second, people were wearing safety pins,which brings us to Pepe the Frog.Pepe the Frog is an anthropomorphic frogthat no doubt you have seen.
05:19Donald Trump tweeted it.It's in a lot of people's Twitter profiles.And Pepe the Frog has become the mascotof the much-maligned alt-right.Pepe the Frog has become synonymouswith white supremacy, intolerance, homophobia,and even Nazism.There's Pepe the Frogs out there
05:45that actually have Hitler mustaches now.And what makes this particular meme fascinatingis that its creator, Matt Fury,never intended it to be a political symbol.Pepe the Frog started off on Myspace.It started off in a comic book called Boy's Life.Pepe the Frog was just supposed to bea slacker post-college anthropomorphic frog.
06:11That's it.But for some strange reason,Pepe the Frog became the main symbol of the alt-right.And also the nexus pointof some amazing conspiracy theories.One of them being that Pepe the Frogis actually the manifestationof an Egyptian death god named Keck.
06:33We're gonna talk about all this stuffwith the creator of one of the most notorious memescoursing through the inner webs today, Pepe the Frog.Matt Fury is here with us today, friends.We're gonna jump right into it.But first, some quick business.This episode of the DTFH is brought to youby hellofresh.com.
06:56Right now, if you go to hellofresh.comand use Africa Duncan 30,you're gonna get $30 off of your first order.Cooking is incredible.It's one of the primary primordial pleasures.Not to mention, it's gonna make you looklike the prince of summer.When you invite your lover over
07:19for a delicious home-cooked meals and delicious wine,you're gonna seem like you just stepped downfrom an erotic love planet.Oh, let me serve you this amazing meal that I cooked upand you're not gonna risk not having the ingredientsthat you needed when you went through that cookbookand tried to pick some weird recipethat was gonna make you look cool
07:40because hellofresh delivers farm to table foodto your door with all the ingredients perfectly measured outand these wonderful recipe cards that you can go throughstep by step by stepand make something amazing in under 30 minutes.I made a delicious hellofresh mealfor my darling, sweet Cora.And it was really good, man.
08:10Like it was a fancy, hardcore meal.It made me feel like fucking Anthony Bourdain.It really makes you feel powerful and accomplishedwhen at the end of like 30 minutes,you look down in your bowland you've made this incredible Thai bowl,this delicious, amazing bowl with ingredientsthat you've never heard of.
08:33That's what hellofresh offers you.And right now, if you go to hellofresh.comand use offer code Duncan30, you get $30 off.You're gonna get one of these amazing boxeswith all the ingredients perfectly portioned out for youand you can order three meals a week, five meals a week.You can order for one person or two people.However much or however little you want,
08:58you can actually get yourself back into the kitchencooking some delicious food.And if you're somebody who already cooks,then you could allow yourself the luxuryof not having to go to the grocery store,pick out spices and ingredientsand you could just make somethingthat maybe you normally wouldn't make.
09:17Delicious ingredients, fresh ingredients and awesome recipes.That's what hellofresh will give you.So make sure you give it a shot.Get back in the kitchen.It's really nice to get a box of fresh foodthat you can then transform into something deliciousand they've started serving breakfast.So think about that, special breakfast recipes.
09:42That's heaven friends.Hellofresh, offer code Duncan30.Head over there, check them out, sign up.You'll get $30 off your first orderand you'll be spooning your amazing culinary creationsinto the trembling lips of your summer loverbefore the week is through.Hello.
10:04Hello.Hello.Much thanks to those of you who have signed upfor our Patreon page.This is a great way for you to support the podcastwhile getting some extra stuff.If you sign up for $5 a month,you're gonna get early access to all the interviews I do.
10:28Right when I do an interview,I'm just gonna upload it to the Patreon pageminus the commercials and the opening rant.Takes me a long time to do these opening monologuesand this is a way for you to not have to waitfor that particular week's DTFHor multiple DTFHs to come out.For example, this coming Tuesday,
10:50I'm gonna be doing a live podcast with Aubrey Marcusand the next day, it's gonna be up immediatelyon the Patreon page and all you gotta dois subscribe for $5 a month.And of course, if you don't wanna say subscribe,just subscribe, download whatever you wantand then unsubscribe.However you wanna do it,
11:08it's a great way for you to support this podcastand much thanks to those of you who have been signing up.It's over at patreon.com forward slash DTFH.Another way for you to support the DTFHis to go through our Amazon link.Some people claim they can't find it.If you go to dunkintrustle.com and just scroll downor go in the comments section, scroll down.
11:34It's right there for you.All you gotta do is click on it.It says Amazon link.When you go through that link,anything that you buy on Amazon,they will give us a very small percentage of.And man, if you wanna make music and you wanna go deep,get an Ableton push too.
11:52I am so in love with this incredible thingand the more that I learn Abletonand the more I get into the push too,the more I realize just how incrediblea musical instrument it is.And that's at amazon.com along with literallyevery other thing on earth.Ostrich eggs, cock rings, it's all there for you.
12:13Just go through the link the next time you're heading overto amazon.com.Finally friends, we have a big live podcast coming upat the Bell House in Brooklyn with Aubrey Marcus.He's the CEO of Onit.He's also something of a shaman.He regularly travels out South Americaand imbibes ayahuasca along with other psychoactive
12:41plant medicines.He's got a great, great energy.He's a really cool person, a teacher and a friend of mine.And I hope you'll come out.Also, Emil Amos is gonna be playing some musicat that show.That's at the Bell House this Tuesday.Tickets are located at DuncanTrussell.com.
13:01All right friends, without further ado,let us dive into this episode of the DTFH.Today's guest is an artist.You know him from his comic book, Boys Life.He's also the creator of Pepe the Frog.And he is here with us today to reclaimthe sweet spirit of his mutated meme.Check out the Pepe Kickstarter, Save Pepe.
13:27Matt's making a new comic book designed to resurrectand purify Pepe the Frog.You can chip in by going to that Kickstarter.Links will be at DuncanTrussell.com.Now everybody, please spread your meme wings wideand spray as many astral memes as you canall over the glowing face of the beautiful artist,father of Pepe, son of Keck,
13:54and meme lord himself, Matt Fury.I think we have kind of similar voices.Yeah, we do.You have a more beautiful voice.Mine's too raspy.You've got a really nice voice.Mine's a little on the raspy side.I don't know.
14:34I was told in elementary schoolthat my laugh sounded like a wounded turkeyand I never got over that.Oh, kids are vicious.That's incredible that you survived that.I was thinking maybe we could just start offby you sort of telling folks about Boys Club.Yeah, well, I mean, the interesting note
14:56about Boys Club is that, you know,it's basically four anthropomorphic creatures.So they're kind of like 20-something muppets almost.So there's a land wolf.He's like the party dog.And then there's Andy, the kind of sarcastic dog guy.Then there's Brett.He's kind of like the more fashionable,
15:16dancy kind of guy.He's like the female of the group.And then there's Pepe.And he was kind of like the just kind ofthe everyman chilled out frog guy.He was like the little brother of the group kind of.And so it's just kind of a bunch of kind of lazy gagsabout just kind of post-college dudes hanging out
15:35and kind of living together and, you know,exchanging weird bodily fluids and farting and partyingand doing drugs and stuff like that.So it's just kind of gag humor,kind of loosely based around my own circle friendsliving in San Francisco after I graduated from college.That's when you started Boys Club is after you graduated?Yeah.
15:57How did you come, did you come up with these charactersone day or were you just doodling?What, how did it pop into your mind to throw them together?Well, you know, I just had an idea to do a comic strip.And, you know, I was really inspired by a lot of artists.You know, Robert Crumb, of course,and Jim Woodring, who I think you had on your show.I did, yeah.
16:23And he does some amazing frogs and frog lips and stuff.So, so honestly, he's a big kind of influence on me,kind of stylistically.I also really love how his comics,a lot of them are more abstract and, you know,wordless in most cases with those Frank comics and stuff.And, and I was really into the paper rad at the time.This guy, Ben Jones, who did these comics,
16:50like these kind of just really funny,pretty simple kind of stripped down approachto doing comics.So, so it's just kind of a mix of different things.I come from more of like a fine art background,but this was more of my attempt at entertainment.It's, and it's real, that's crazy.I had no idea you were influenced by Woodring.
17:09And I guess when I look at Pepe,I, and I look at those characters,I could see a little Frank in there, I guess.I guess there's a little of that in there, huh?Yeah, for sure.Yeah, I mean, I was, I was big into Woodring in that period.And, you know, I've naturally just really like drawing frogsand critters and creatures and things was fur and scales
17:30and things like that.So I kind of have this whole other side of me creativelywhere I'm doing more detailed kind of colored pencil drawings,but the boys club was just kind of really more simple,just black and white line drawings.How, what year was this?I started it probably in like 2005.And, you know, originally I was just doing it on zines
17:53and stuff, posting them on my MySpace profileand doing that kind of thing.Yeah, that's, see, this is like,this is deep internet stuff, man.Like you were posting, you were posting comics on MySpace,which at the time was kind of cutting edge.Yeah, yeah, it was cool.Like, yeah, during those days, I mean, I love,
18:18I kind of miss the interface of MySpace.It was really a lot more personalized.You know, people could pick their own backgrounds,you could have music playing.And then, you know, it would be more like a yearbookor something, people would like sign on and be like,hey, I have a great summer or something, you know?It was just kind of a rad thing that, you know,
18:35I feel like Facebook, I got off Facebookand a lot of other stuff,just cause it just seems kind of creepy.Facebook, yeah, I barely go on Facebook, man.It totally spooks me out.In MySpace, you know, all those old pages,I think about it sometimes,like what happened to my MySpace page?
18:57And one thing that, you know,that really gives me the creepsis when I think about the inevitable dead worldof Warcraft accounts,like when people die in the future,like the graveyards of charactersthat are just gone forever.I mean, it's a different thing to talk about,
19:20but MySpace is just gone nowand it was everything for a little while.And people are getting some success from MySpace.That's where, you know, the comedian, Dane Cook,got like, I don't know, a shit ton of MySpace friends.And that contributed to, at the time,what was this like brand new phenomena,which was a comedian filling up rooms from the internet.
19:46It was crazy at the time.Now it's normal, but were you,did you start getting some like internet fame right awaywhen you were putting Boys Club up on MySpace?I don't know.If I did, I was unaware of it.You know, I think what happened in the case of Pepewas, you know, people probably grabbed it
20:08from MySpace page and then just like,took a few of the, for some reason that, you know,they took specifically this one little gagwhere the frog, you know, he reacts to,he pulls his pants all the way to go peeand then one of the roommates walks in on himand then later he's like playing video gameswith Lane Wolf and Lane Wolf's like,
20:25so I heard you pull your pants down all the way to go peeand then Pepe's like feels good.Feels good, man.And then that kind of became like the early kind of meme.Right.Was that one of, I mean, do you know the history of memes?Was that one of the first memes?I mean, I'd like to say it was,
20:46but I don't really study memes too closely,but the internet meme was kind of early on.I mean, I think it was like 2010or something when that stuff was happening.Yeah, you are the creator of, you know,who knows, even if it's not the first,if it's the first of a thousand, that's still insane.That this thing popped out of your mind onto my space.
21:10And someone saw it and was like, oh yeah, that sums it up.That sums it up, feels good, man.And they sent it to somebody and that's the early days,the early evolutionary phase of Pepe.That's the proto-hominated Pepe.And then when did it get picked up by 4chan?I don't know, I think it was like,it was kind of like in the earlier,
21:43maybe a slightly more innocent time with 4chan.I don't really know too much about 4chan.I don't really go on there and stuff, but, you know,it was before, I'd like to think it was before 4chan,like went totally Nazi or whatever, you know?It was just like, I don't know,it's just like a place for anonymous peopleto really get together and start chat threads
22:04and share weird pictures and stuff.I'm assuming that's what was going on.But weirdly also that the feels good man thing was like,people would send me emails showing that it was likeon their weightlifting sites or like people do,like I just crunched my abs, feels good man.They'd use it on their fitness sites and stuff.Well, that's the way to explain their exercise.
22:32When this was happening, what was, what were you thinking?Like, I mean, how did you process the fact that yourart had taken on a kind of viral quality?You know, I was fine with it.It was all kind of new stuff and, you know,obviously it was kind of out, you know,that they kind of grew into being beyond me.Like took on all these other personas,
22:59like there was a smug Pepe and then like,and then a sad version of him also caught on.And that kind of became an even more popular onewas just him in the comic book.It's him like sadly eating a pizza bagel or something like that.It was like kind of a goof on the,you can have pizza on a bagel anytime kind of thing.And he was really sadly eating a pizza bagel.
23:22And it was the only time in the comics that he's ever sad.Oh, shit, man.So he's not a sad character.He was just sad for this one momentand then that caught on or resonatedfor some reason online.So I don't know, it's all kind of a mystery,but it's interesting, you know.
23:38What you, you were mentioning earlier that you,your background is fine arts.So that's, you were in college for that.Yeah, yeah, I'm from Ohio originally.I went to like a small liberal arts college in Ohioand studied painting and sculpture and photographyand figure drawing stuff like that.Did, when you were in college,
24:00did you ever study the occult at allor look into magic at all?You know, I've always kind of had a twinkle,you know, but I haven't really,I haven't really studied that stuff much.What do you mean a twinkle?I don't know.I mean, there's a special place for kind of the mystic elements
24:21in the world that are kind of getting lost on technology now,but I think there's magic all around us, you know?And I think that, you know, I believe in like energiesthat we don't understand and things like that,but you know, I don't really study it.Have you ever had any kind of mystical experiences?Do you, you know, I guess the better question would be,where do you think art comes from?
24:47Well, I mean, I think it's just, I don't know,I think I listened to a lot of Terrence McKenna talks and stuff like that.And he's a really a great way of articulating just like really kind of far out conceptsand really being able to explain them really beautifully.And he, he has a good attitude about creativity and saying it's basically like,in some ways, it's just a reflection of the, you know,where does just creativity in general come from?Like it's kind of a universal thing.
25:19And it's also something that separates us from all the other creators,you know, making music or writing and art and stuff like that.So, I don't know, I do think it's, it's kind of, it's like,it's about the only thing you can do just to keep, keep from, you know,just the doom and monotony of life, you know?It's just to be, to try to focus on positive creative stuff, you know?And that, that doom and monotony that you're talking about,when, do you think that creating transforms the doom and monotony or, or, or, or drowns it out?
25:58Well, I think it's just a way, I think it just opens up new channels for people and,and, you know, it gives people a way to, yeah, kind of connect and reflect and try to, you know,process the world and stuff.You know, talking about doom and monotony, like, for example, like,there's all kinds of beautiful hundred, 200, 300,000 year old forests around and it's like,there's a lot of talk about creating jobs right now in America and stuff like that.So it's like, yeah, sure, we can like cut down this forest.It'll be great for the economy, for that generation, but there's no thought about,
26:34you know, the future generations and stuff like that.So, you know, I trip about that, that kind of stuff.And I kind of have more of an ecological bend in my, in my own artwork.I like to draw like little characters that kind of, for me, kind of represent different aspectsof the natural world or different.I like to try to draw characters to kind of represent these kind of weird ideas I have about,you know, reality.Well, this, I'm just, I'm curious, because if it feels like this thing that you created
27:11has some kind of power to it, and maybe you didn't quite expect, like you imbued a thingaccidentally, something came out of you that was this seemingly innocuous character.But then when I read your comics, when I've been looking at your comics,and I have seen the most popular ones, the crying, the Pepe with the pizza bagel,all of them, all of them, there is more there.It's not just a comic.Like you've put something in there that's really quite poignant and kind of heavy.It feels like more than a comic to me, just like Woodring feels more than a comic.
27:55I mean, not to say any comic doesn't feel special, but there is,does feel to seem to be a little bit of an extra potency inside of these things.Am I just projecting that because Pepe has become such a notorious figure?Or do you think that when that maybe you're putting something pretty deep inside of this stuff?Yeah, I don't know.I mean, I'm definitely too close to it to really make that judgment.But I think that like, you know, there's a conscious effort on my part to not makeboys club about like kind of the more negative stuff about what's going on and to just focus
28:34on just like really kind of momentary situations that you have when, you know,you just graduate college or something.You live in a bigger city and you have a bunch of roommates and you're all just kind of likegoofing off and, you know, throwing up and indulging a lot and different substances andstuff like that.So, you know, I was just trying to, you know, make gag comics really.So I don't know why this thing caught on like it did online.But it's just the nature of the internet.
28:57Sometimes she like this just happens.Let's become overly meticulous in the analysis of this because seriously,I don't think Pepe has even come close to Pepe's final form.And so to get a chance to talk with the creator of this thing is really important.And let's, let me ask you a really annoying question.Well, do you remember the first time you drew Pepe?Well, I've been kind of just drawing different versions of the frog like forever.You know, I've always drawn little frog dudes, even when I was a kid, stuff like that.
29:33So I think it's just like, you can't really pin, right?I can't really pinpoint to an exact date or something like that.It's just kind of a, you know, I don't know where the missing link is in there.So you, as a kid, you were drawing little frog guys.But at some point you named the frog guy Pepe.Do you remember when that was?Yeah, that was just, you know, when I was just coming up with character names, you know,the four names have meaning for me, like a land wolf.
30:03You know, he's kind of like the party dude.He wears shades and, you know, he's kind of like the, he was kind of the star of the showas far as I was concerned.But he got kind of overcast by Pepe.But I don't know.Do you remember the year that you named that frog Pepe?Probably 2005.Yeah.
30:24But I thought, I thought Pepe just thought that was a funny name because it looked like pee pee.See, this is the thing, man.You don't, you don't, you realize what you've done.You're seeing it.But when I consider like, how often do you get a chance to talk to the guy who used todraw little elephants and name them Ganesh?Or how, you know what I mean?Like how often do you get to talk to the guy who drew little, little blue, little blue
30:51coward boys?And it's like, yeah, it's Krishna.He likes to have, he likes to have fun in the forest and like, and any, uh, he's got,he's got friends and he can do magic stuff and people back then were like, whoa, that's cool.Krishna.Wow.That's really cool.And then as time progressed, you know, we know what happened, right?
31:11And what's curious about the internet or technology is it's allowing us to sort of witnessthis, the formation of a thing that's still, I mean, I'm not saying it'sliterally a religious symbol.And yet it has taken on such extraordinary potency and it's such a funny thing.So it's because it's functioning on every single level from your POV.We have this benevolent, sweet depiction of a kind of naive time that happens beforethe world's jaws sink into you.And then from another perspective, people equate it with Nazism, white supremacy,
32:00you know, and then it's been used in so many different ways that it's probably going toinfinitely grow.Like you're, you know what you're like, you're like the guy who made the killer be, you knowabout that?No.What is that?The Africanized bee, how that happened.Like those things were, those things were created.
32:26They were created like somebody intentionally made them.I can't remember why.Maybe they thought they'd make more honey or something.And, but then, you know, some of the bees got out and, and, and they started breeding.And now we've got, I don't know if you remember, do you remember the time wheneveryone was afraid of killer bees?I don't remember that, but I can imagine it.Yeah.
32:49It sounds terrifying.It was, it was like, there were movies about killer bees.It was like the, it was one of the, you know, there's a million versions of Y2K.And killer bees, it was like, you know, as a kid, there was a couple of things you wereworried about in the woods, quicksand and killer bees, man.Like never saw them, but like the idea was that soon these swarms of killer bees weregoing to descend on the neighborhoods of America and, and just kill all of us.We're all, we wouldn't be able to go outside.
33:22There's going to be killer bees.One, the idea is you fucking like step on one killer bee and you're going to geta million killer bees attacking you.So you've, you, now there are these killer pepe's floating out there.Right.Yeah.And, and, and I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how the, how the people whohave taken Pepe as a symbol of Donald Trump or as a symbol of the alt right or as a symbol of
33:58white supremacy.How, how do these people deal with the fact that you, the creator of this characteror seemingly have opposite political leanings?Yeah.I don't know.There's, there's just this, this kind of a few people have articulated it pretty well.One guy, some, some guy like was explaining Pepe as having kind of this grand tapestrywhere, you know, it's, you could just kind of view them on many different levels.
34:27And there's another guy who said that Pepe was kind of like a mirror.So, you know, so Pepe isn't, I hate symbol Pepe is whatever.You want him to be.And I think like, yeah, when he was like weirdly politicized, like, you know,the president of the United States used like kind of us, like tweeted a spug Pepe thing.And that's, that's what, that's what really kind of supercharged that like, like if the presidentwouldn't have, you know, if Trump, but this was before he was president, wouldn't have done that.I don't think I would be talking to you or I wouldn't be having, you know,
35:01having to deal with all of this super negative stuff.It's all, it's all because of, you know, he tweeted that.And then Hillary issued a explainer saying that, you know, it was Pepe was much moresinister than it seems.And was actually a nod to the alt right or whatever.And I think like tragically, all it's really done is, is like made the alt right than thekiller be that, you know, everybody thinks that this alt right thing is kind of taken over.But really, I don't think it's as big as, you know, the media or whoever else makes
35:34it out to be, you know, and the thing that kind of like grounds me is like, like we'resaying that the perspective of like children, like kids, elementary school kids and middleschoolers and stuff, they're still into Pepe and think it's cool.And they don't really pay attention to the news and stuff like that, but it still hasthis kind of like that frog has some resonates with the little kids for some reason.And they're like, thank you.It's just a cool frog, dude.Yeah.
35:59Well, you know, I mean, I think the problem with all the labels, the alt right and allof it is that it's created this ridiculous black and white universe, which and, you know,like with anything, usually the, you know, a lot of these people, they grabbed, they depictthe alt right as it's called as just being one, one set of ideas, you know.And I don't know how much of the, I think one of the hilarious things about the altright is that there's some percentage of it that is just trolling.It's intentional chaos magic.There's no, you know, I don't know how many of these people really have a focused political
36:45idea as much as how many of them are experimenting with a kind of chaos magic.And Pepe being tweeted by the president is the ultimate victory of some troll or a cobbleof trolls.I don't even know if trolls the right word for it, but you know, the one thing I've beenthinking a lot about lately is influence.You know, the different, the way that we have this reality tunnel that we're all inside ofand we all have to kind of share.There's a shared reality tunnel and how we've got a bunch of different operatives who are
37:27desperately trying to paint the walls of this reality tunnel that we're in.We've got Russian operatives trying to create just absolute confusion by amplifying theappearance of disagreement between people in the United States.We've got our government trying to smear the news by making the news seem like it's puttingout bullshit information.Then we've got the news putting out bullshit information because it wants to make money.And so it's this vortex of chaos where symbols are being shoved in front of us and we'rebeing told, this is the truth.
38:09And then those symbols fade away and new symbols come.And when you add into that, that a lot of the things creating these symbols or pushing thesymbols to the forefront are literally artificial intelligence bots or bots that it's an AI.We are actually dealing with a few different what you could call covens,groups of sorcerers who are attempting to manipulate reality.We've got the government, the mainstream media.We've got artists.And then we've got like 4chan.
38:46Then we've got the internet, the chaos lords in the internet who are just sticking theirfingers into society to see what they could do.You follow me on this, Matt?No, yeah.No, I'm right there with you.You know, like, yeah, reality is really just sculpted by your own thoughts.So, you know, and there is kind of a group thought or like, you know, a consciousness orwhatever that is, that is a, it's more of a hive mind of popular culture and the internet
39:18and technology and all that stuff.So there, you know, I do believe you can manipulate and kind of pull the strings there.And, you know, that's kind of what politicians and news media and shows and whatever that'swhat everybody's trying to do is, you know, try to assert their version of reality or theirnarrative as they want to play it out.But yeah, it's not, yeah, like you said, it's not really as black and white as that.It's that you can see it on many, many different levels.So my approach to this whole Pepe thing is just to, you know, focus on the positive aspects of
39:51it and to use the kind of notoriety that he's attained and, you know, try to transform itback into something that's extremely opposite of what, how it's seen by at least probablyolder people that watch the news and stuff like that.But like I said, like kids and stuff, they still, they still think Pepe's, you know,and it's totally outside of how I made him in my comics and stuff like that.It means just his froggy face means something to people and that's something I don't quiteunderstand.But well, let's talk about that a little bit because, I mean, to not mention the Keck mythology
40:31here, we've got to talk about it.We've got to talk about the, the idea that, that you may be the sort of like theVirgin Mary, that you, you're the Virgin Mary man.Think about it.You gave like, you were chosen by an Egyptian God of chaos and death to be the messengerthrough which he emerged into this dimension.But yeah, the interesting part about this and about kind of memes in general is you don't,you don't, you can't usually trace a meme back to its source.
41:14I mean, there's a cue out there.There's like that.One of the early ones that I liked was that you ever seen techno viking?Oh yeah.You know that guy?Yeah, the guy though that kind of like.Viking looking dude.Yeah, who just like.
41:30And then that, yeah, that thing went bonkers and he didn't want anything to do with it.Right.Yeah, but it's such a funny meme.It's so funny.Like that, that footage of him, like, you know, grabbing water from a guy and dancing, he justhas such a kind of powerful assertive kind of raver dance.And there's just such power to this guy's just his movement and everything.And I think that really resonated with people and it's funny and some level, but it's also
41:59kind of badass on another level.And it's just, it's strange.And I don't know.It's, I don't know.I think in a lot of ways, all these memes that kind of catch on, they just kind of,like you said, have some way to grab people's attention.And, you know, it's all kind of nonsense anyways.It's all kind of distractions.
42:17And, you know, it's not, it's not reality, but it's something.Well, I mean, is it, is it, is it not reality?It's, it's a, it's, it certainly has become a, you know, I think about Pepe sometimes.Like I've looked at Pepe, I've tweeted Pepe to people.I've really, because I've enjoyed the kind of like, to me, what's really funny abouttweeting a Pepe is that if you tweet a Pepe people, like the super leftist people will be like,you're on the alt right.And then like, and then people get upset over art.
42:53And now you're upsetting people with art and it's hilarious because, you know, because,yeah, yeah.And to me, there's something really beautiful about that because it's like,you really are going to like, because I've decided to tweet this frog creature,you're then going to demonize me because it's like, you know, you'll know a witch when you seetheir cat or whatever.You know what I mean?I was going to say, my buddy Chris, who was just in here, he,
43:28he worked at a pizza shop in Los Angeles, two Boots pizza.And he's got a prominent, you know, one, this was like, literally like months beforethe whole kind of controversy kind of boiled up with the, with the Trump thing and everything.He just, we were at a buddy's house and he got a Pepe, a feels good man Pepe tattooed,like right under his shoulder on his forearm, right under his, you know, his short shirt sleeve.So it's, so it's just right there on his arm.And, and this kid who was performing at the Echo that night, he was probably 22 or somewas like buying some pizza and he's like, Oh wait, actually I'm good.
44:05I don't want to buy from a place that will hire Nazis or, you know, so like, and this dude islike a, he's like a tall, long hair hippie looking guy.And he just right off the bat assumed he was a Nazi.And it was, it was, it was sad, man.And cause it was, this was, you know, just a young rocker kid who was likeright off the bat thinking the dude was, you know, had some kind of like weird agenda with this, you know.Yeah. And it's like, that is evil to judge people based on that.You know, man, I remember I was at this comedy show and after the show,
44:41I got in this conversation with the guys getting kind of political.And then I realized the guy's wearing a Pepe hat.And I'm like, Oh shit, you're in the, you're in the, you're in the, all right.And like, and then he's like, yeah, I guess you could say that.And then I realized, well, by then it was too late.We'd already had this fantastic conversation.I was making points.He was listening to the points.
45:05You know what I mean?There was no sense of like stubbornness or violence or anything weird.And we kind of ended the conversation and I was like, Oh, okay, I got it.So it's like, I guess in a weird way, the alt right is another version of Y2K, right?It's like a thing people have kind of constructed.I'm not saying they don't exist.Obviously they do, but the vileness of it is probably more a representation of some,some of not the entire group, right?
45:38It's got, they can't all be vile or horrific beings where I've met some of them.They're not terrible.I think it's a little bit embarrassing the way that people in the alt right feel inclined toconstantly try to protect the president of the United States.I mean, I, you know what I mean?There's a kind of nerdiness to that kind of level of nationalism.You know, that's, to me, it just strikes me more as a kind of like, like nerd, like who the fucksupport you, American presidents are 90% of the time murderous.
46:13Yeah.You know, like, like all of them are murderous.They just inevitably, it's like, they're the captain of a ship that is sailing throughan ocean composed of babies.That's a weird way to say it.They just, you know what I mean?They're going to run over some babies.They're like, they're going to accidentally, if you become an American president,
46:38you're going to accidentally blow up some people like that's guaranteed.Yeah.Well, that's interesting.Like, you know, a few points on that, like, well, for one, you were actually talking,you were in physical reality talking to this so-called alt right dude.And I think that that kind of, in any case, will neutralize the situation when you'reactually in a room with somebody actually physically talking with them.I think the kind of power that the kind of troll culture or whatever, a lot of it's derived by
47:09the anonymous nature of the internet itself.You know, so, so you can kind of, you can go into these darker kind of versions of yourselfand comfortably post weird stuff on the internet and then you don't have to necessarily own up tothem right to somebody's face or something.So, so I think, yeah, a lot of that is neutralized when you're actually just trying to talk oneon one with somebody and you realize that, you know, there's more to it than this kind ofblack and white thing.But, and also talking about presidents, you know, I thought I was like really not into George W.
47:42Bush, but now he seems kind of cool.He's like, he's painting portraits of, you know, dudes that weremaimed in wars that he created and stuff.And he's kind of, he's dealing with that creative way.And it seems like he's also kind of like popping pills and going to funerals and stuff and havinga good old time.So, so I think that's kind of a weird twist on it.Like I never thought I would, I would relate to somebody like that ever.
48:10But, but it turns out like, yeah, he's just trying to be an artist now.And I think that's kind of cool.That's compassionate.I can't, I don't have that level of compassion for him yet.You know, it's like Jeffrey Dahmer probably painted pictures of the people he decapitatedwith their own shit and blood.That's true.You know, it's like there's something really sinister.
48:30It's like, oh, you're going to start some shitty fucking wars.And then you're going to paint the people who were maimed in these shitty wars.That's like though, you know, because it's like, you know how like they say,like if you're into S and M, like if you really want to make money in S and M,become a police officer, because you can like tie people up all day.You like, you're going to handcuff people.You're going to dominate people and you're going to get paid for it.Now that's not to say all police are into S and M, but in the same way, man,
49:02there's no perfect job for a serial killer than to become an American president,because you're going to get to kill, man.You can kill and kill an American president or probably most presidents,certainly Russian presidents, you could, you could kill someone in the White House.Like you could have, I bet there have been more than a few presidents who've had a littleaccident. You know what I mean? Whoops. Oh, I squeezed too hard.Darrell, can you have Darrell? There's probably a guy who like just,that's his only job at the White House is from time to time to dispose of like
49:40prostitute corpses that the presidents have strangled.But so they're murderous beings quite often.And then people get really upset when you say that, but it's like, it's verifiable.They're, they kill people. Obama joked about it.Obama has killed innocent people with drones and makes fucking jokes about it.George W. Bush paints maimed soldiers that were like exploded in a fucking, in his wars.You know, they, these people are murderous.So that's why I think any kind of fixation on the office of president at this point is
50:21is weird to me. It's fucking weird.And also while simultaneously it's weird to me when people are like,oh my God, I cannot believe the president's tweeting like that.It's like, what? So what is it?It's like, okay, they can be murderous beings, but they need to have sophisticated tweets.You know, like Trump's already blown, you know, Trump already called,he's killed people. He already ordered attacks are allowed anyway.So the point is, man, all presidents are fucked up.
50:52And I think the one cloying thing about the alt right is it's deep fixation on this presidentis somehow being different from the others or somehow playing a different game.When it appears it's the exact same game, maybe not.I don't know, but that's my take on them.Just relax on the fucking fetishizing the fucking president.Yeah. So I mean, presidents themselves, I mean, they're entangled in their own,you know, their need for power and their need for celebrity and their need to get their name,you know, just stuck on the timeline of American history forever and ever.
51:31And, you know, I think that the root of that on some level is suffering.You know, I think that I don't think it's a good life.I don't, you know, you saw Obama, like he like got a full head of gray hair after being inoffice and stuff. So I don't think he like, you know, I don't.It's what happens when you kill a bunch of people.Yeah. I mean, I think it's stressful.Man, I would never want to do something.Well, you can't sleep as well.
51:52Because it's like when, you know, like I've, there's some shitty things I've done in my life,you know, that I'm not proud of.Like I wish I'd been there for my mom or when she was dying.And like that affects me, that little bit of stuff.But like, I don't know what the fuck I would do if every time I went to sleep, I had to imaginethe intestines of toddlers splattered on some desert because some drone strike that I allowedto happen went awry. Like how do you sleep after that?How do you make sense of it all?
52:24Like how does it like process in your brain?Like, oh yeah, I guess that was the right thing to do.That wasn't the right fucking thing to do for what?You ask any, you ask anyone, what are we even doing in Afghan?What are we doing over there?Everyone's like, I don't know.Or this is just what we do.That's what we do.
52:41I was walking down the sidewalk today, man.I was thinking to myself, how if you were to say something publicly along the lines of,you know, I think it'd be great if the United States didn't kill people anymore overseas.You would seem like an asshole.Like people would be like, what are you talking about?The United States, the existence of the United States depends on murdering people.You know?Like that's how deeply indoctrinated we've become in the state version of reality,
53:12which is that war is an inevitable part of just being in the United States.You know?Yeah.I mean, you could just look through the timeline of just history in general.And it's just, it's bloody and it's bloody as hell, you know?So it just keeps going, man.I don't know.It's just part of life.
53:30You know, people just, people kill each other like crazy.And, you know, but there's select groups of people that decide not to kill people and thinkthat there's, you know, better ways to live.And it goes, it comes back to creativity in a way where like you, you know,everybody needs to be doing something.Some people need to be out there dominating and killing and stuff.And some people need to be out there creating and, you know, seeking love and peace.And, you know, so, you know, I try to, you know, you got to just try to focus on that stuff and try
54:00to, try to sculpt.You know, you got to curate your own reality, you know, and like be aware of all this stuff.But, but for as many, you know, toddlers brains are splattered everywhere.There's like a butterfly lands on the blank.Brains, you know, thinks it's, thinks it's like a bed of flowers.And George Bush paints it.And then there's some beauty in that too.All this, all this kind of terror and brutality is kind of makes the beautiful things more
54:29beautiful, you know?God, have you seen George Bush's incredible series of butterflies landing on exploded toddlerbrains?It's just beautiful.I mean, because you got to think, you know, like in the same way that that butterfly was oncea caterpillar in a cocoon, that toddler brain was just trapped inside a boring old toddlerhead.And now look at the colors, the blood, the viscera.
54:58It's like the, the, the, I have to at this point in my life reject the idea that we,that this murderous bullshit has to keep happening.I think what's going down is there's just a few assholes out there in positions of powerwho are intentionally creating confusion so that we don't realize that all of us, allof us are a lot like Pepe hanging out with friends, innocent, naive.Nobody really wants to hurt anybody else.Everyone's okay.Most of us are like that.
55:45When I walk down the street and I look around at people, I don't see too many evil people.It's a rarity for someone to be a real fucking monster.And I think that this, this struggle to control the reality tunnel is you cannot underestimatejust what you're saying, the power of art and creating and throwing on the walls ofthis reality tunnel is many depictions of the potential beauty of humanity as a species.How incredible we are and how powerful we are as a group, as like, as, as, as, as a group ofpeople connected not by our fixation on the state, but by on our fixation of wanting to likegive love to each other and to make art together and to create stuff together.
56:42You know, and your Pepe is an, I think an incredible example of just the power of, of art.You know how it can just escape, how it can escape into the world and spread out and stretch out.And, and I think there's something about it that's so incredibly beautiful.And, and what's your plan with Pepe, man?What are you, what are you going to do?Like how do you, you say take back Pepe, but how, how is that ever going to be possible?Well, you know, I just, I just believe that every moment, every new moment,this moment right now, every moment is a new opportunity to scope
57:20reality as you, as you see it and then to try to share that with other people and try to,you know, share your point of view with other people and make it like kind of,kind of a shared thing. So, you know, I'm, I'm doing various things right now.You know, I got, I mentioned, I did, I just started a Kickstarter campaign with my brotherand he's been helping me out kind of on the technical side, but he's also going to help meon the creative side that come up with a new, you know, we're just going really direct andreally simple with it and just trying to come up with a new comic to show, you know, a new versionof Pepe and how, how that would play out. So, you know, it's just like I said, you just continuing
58:01to use this notoriety of the frog and the power of it and everything and to try to, you know,to whoever wants to listen, try to paint a new, paint a new picture and that's all you can reallydo. You got to do, you know, it's like what Michael Jackson said, if you want to change theworld, you got to look in the mirror. You just got to do it yourself and be, try to set theexample for other people to make their own artwork and have their share their own ideas and, and to,to, in the hopes of inspiring creativity, you know.If you want to look in the world, you've got to look in the Pepe, right? Because he's a spiritualmirror of all of us. See, see, see how he's looking back. And this, do you know the story,
58:45if you come up with this, the story of this new comic yet?Well, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of in the writer's workshop right now and the think tankmode. So, you know, I've got a million different ideas. So I got to hone in on them. But, you know,I think it'll be kind of just back to, back to basics. It's just going to be gag comics, youknow, but with a, with a more positive twist. Are you going to, are you going to in any wayacknowledge the, are you going to in any way acknowledge the, what, the, what happened,the, the alt-right, the adoption of the character by the alt-right? Is that going to come into it atall? Well, you know, I mean, I think that's definitely part of the story. But, you know,
59:30my aim here is to just kind of transcend all this nonsense and try to kind of, you know, to try inmy own comic book kind of way to touch on, you know, to try to touch on some truths as I see them.So, you know, it's all very abstract right now. I just want to try to get, get kind of more psychedelicwith it and do a lot of, you know, I had an idea about like, you know, Pepe trying to teach hisfriends how to try to get out of their brain and live in their feet. And, you know, the beautifulthing about comics is you can actually kind of simply describe these kind of weird ideas in a,in a simple drawing kind of way where, where you can, you can illustrate their feet and littleversions of themselves living in their feet. And that could be something, I don't know, just weird
01:00:19shit like that. That sounds incredible. That's actually one of the great ways to get into themoment is just to feel their feet in your shoes. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, you know, I've beenkind of reading, you know, my own kind of philosophical or spiritual journeys, mostly justreading based at this moment. So I think I read that from, you know, one of these, one of thesespiritual authors or something. It's a female, I forget her name, but she's, she's affiliated withlike Rom Doss and that crew. And I know you, you are connected with those guys. I'm a big fan ofthat kind, that way of thinking and trying to be in the moment. Come to, come to December,you should come to the December retreat. I know. Are you going to be there? I'm going to be there.
01:01:04Why don't you come? I know. I want to, man. Just do it. It'll be, it's great. You got to come. It'llbe great. Oh, let's bring Pepe to Hawaii. I know. I got a button. Well, yeah, you have a little bitmore time. I've got, I tweeted that we're going to be talking and some people have got some prettygood questions for you. Can I ask some questions from Twitter? Dude, I got nothing but time.Okay, beautiful. Let's just go through these though, man, because there's a lot of good ones.The first question is from John Daly, really funny comic. He says, are you bummed, bro?I'm not. I'm not bummed. No, I'm pretty happy. I just live day to day,kind of like Bob Ross or something. How can you have a bad day if you're just sitting around
01:01:56listening to music and drawing pictures? It's nice. When I'm not doing that, I like to go onhikes and walk around and immerse myself in kind of just stuff that I think that peopleare kind of losing touch with in this kind of technological, computer-y, cell phone kind ofall these distractions that we have nowadays and to just try to appreciate geology or thebeautiful spectrum of all the different kinds of butterflies and insects and the way thatjust nature has its own memes that kind of catch on and flourish. A lot of that's lost now becausepeople are just more interested in watching TV or going on the internet or going on Facebookor going on their phone and checking their feed and all this stuff. I really do think it takes away
01:02:49from just looking up and trying to see the big dipper or something.Yeah. We've lost some kind of something really special, but there's something coolabout the low population density out there. There is something nice about the fact thatso many people are glued to their screens that it leaves a lot of this outdoor space prettyempty. That's kind of nice. Yeah, the outdoor space is empty. We have natural history museumswith just all kinds of beautiful collections and archives of all this stuff. They're empty andnobody's in there. Nobody cares. Some people do. I do think that, I definitely think psychedelicdrugs are a way to just quickly hit the reset button on whatever programming you've had throughout
01:03:51your life and to try to get in tune with whatever new messages are out there thatyou know, whatever the earth is trying to tell you because it's talking. It's trying to communicatewith us. It's trying to say like, hey, we're still here, man. We're still here. I don't know.No, I know. Listen, man. You're preaching the choir. I've got this garden. You know what I didyesterday? I don't care anymore. I've been doing enough Ram Dass retreats. I don't care. You knowwhat I did? I played flute for my tomato plant yesterday. That's great. And I swear to God.I swear to God, if you tune into nature, it responds to you. It knows you're playing. I don'tknow how. It doesn't have ears. It doesn't have a nervous system. I don't care what Neil deGrasse
01:04:46Tyson would have to say about whether or not my tomato plant could hear. Actually, he seems prettycool. So he might think it's, I don't know what he'd think. You might think, you know, who knows?But I'll tell you this, man. I can feel it. When I water the plants, I feel them thanking me. I canfeel this like we have a real relationship with the planet that people ignore. So no, you're preachingto the choir, brother. I know. Do you, it sounds like you take ayahuasca sometimes.No, I've never done that. I've, I've, I've read a lot about it. And I, you know,I probably saw that this, the spirit molecule document. Like I said, a lot of this, thesekind of ideas and stuff, you know, I get through listening to music and, and kind of researching
01:05:33it and reading it and stuff like that. And, and, you know, it's been a long time since I've actuallyindulged, but, but it's almost like you only have to do this thing like once or twice. And then youkind of get the picture and you can kind of take it with you the rest of your life. You know,you don't have to get trapped in some kind of, you know, pattern of, of continuing to do it. But,but it's good to check in every once in a while and see what's happening.It sure is. I love checking in. Do you, now I've got a question here in the same line ofconversation we're having. Joe Kelly wants to know, do you prefer LSD or mushrooms?That's an important question. Well, I think mushrooms by far, just because it's,
01:06:20you know, it's, it's, it's organic. It's natural. It just grows on cow shit or wherever else peopleare growing it. And, and, you know, it's all just chemicals, you know, I think I'm on the same kindof page with Terence McKenna in terms of like drug culture and it being like, you can't lump in likeLSD and mushrooms and this kind of stuff with like methamphetamines and, you know,whatever other kind of chemical derivatives, but, but also, you know, drugs aren't inherently bad,like, like everybody thinks that they are. It's just, it's just the patterns of behavior thatpeople get into and that become bad. But, but I think there's ways to, to use them in a responsibleway that will actually enlighten you to these kind of different levels of thinking and different
01:07:12really giving you a key to, to these new connections with, with nature, but also natureis like, it's a perfect place either. It's just as brutal and fucked up as war too on some leveltoo. And I think, you know, you wouldn't spend a long time being a predator. And I think that'skind of sculpted the way that we, we kind of are scared of a lot of things because we've, we'vebeen scared of things for millions of years. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I mean, that'skind of the tragedy of human beings is that we've got one foot in the bloody apocalypticOld Testament river of revenge and death and eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, violent sort ofsurvival related epigenetic echo ev, habituations. And then our other foot has the potential to step
01:08:11into a utopian river, a river of, you know, harvesting energy in ways that don't destroythe planet and figuring out systems of that, that where people aren't exploited for dough and, youknow, where, where we can like share a little bit more, but somehow not force that sharing,you know, like ways that we can give and give and give. And so that's what says that about humans.You look at a great white shark and it's like, that thing's just, that's what it does. It's a,it's a fucking, it's just a, it's a goddamn hole filled with knives that swims, you know,it just swims through the ocean, eats. It's not evil. It's not, you know, it's, it's what it does.They seem kind of sweet. I feel bad when people kill them, but that's what they do. They eat.
01:09:03There's, there's never going to be a moment when a great white shark swims next to a boat and likecoughs up the cure for cancer or some kind of beautiful book of poetry or, or, you know whatI mean? Or, or some incredible work of art, but that's to me, the glory and the tragedy of humanityis it's this meeting a human being is these two places meeting. And that's what drives, I thinkpeople who take psychedelics crazy is from that through the psychedelic lens. You realize thatwe don't have to be channels of destruction. We can be channels of love and connection.And, and, and you want, and if we were all a little more filled with hope and a little more awareof that, then this planet, man, this planet could be, wow, this planet could be something
01:09:59even more special. You know, we just, this could, this planet can really, reallyget a lot of Twitter followers if it. Yeah. Yeah. Like you can look at a place like, you know,I think an interesting metaphor for that, that kind of situation is like Three Mile Island.You know, it was a place that, you know, there's that big nuclear meltdown or whatever, and itwas a big disaster or whatever. And now it's just people aren't allowed in there anymore and,and nature is somehow thriving there. I mean, maybe they have an extra eyeball or something,but they're still, it's almost like it's through that destruction, it's become an oasis. So, so,sometimes I'll just be walking around, going on a walk or something and be thinking about how,
01:10:39like, we're just destroying everything. But then, like, there's always a patch of weeds that hasthe potential to grow into a new forest. You just got to, you got to just think about things on moreof a geological timescale rather than a human timescale. And then you realize everything's allgood. It doesn't matter. I mean, we're just a blip, or, you know, we're just a second on the,on the clock of, you know, the history of even the earth. And I think that's something thatpsychedelics kind of help you to understand too. It gives you a much wider lens to kind of transcendand view all this phenomenon that's happening around us and kind of, and then as humans, yeah,we can kind of, we can, we can go more towards, you know, love and, and understanding and
01:11:23interconnectedness and things like that. And it's just, it's really up to every one of us.And, and it, and it does go back to creativity. And that's a way to kind of hopefully inspirepeople through art and literature and music and dance and whatever else to, to be in the momentand to be creative and to, to, to strive for excellence. And to understand that others areout there. I think that's a really important piece of the puzzle that people have forgotten is thatthere are, there are people like, here you are, the creator of Pepe the Frog, this being that islike, becomes synonymous with evil. And here we see that you are this beautiful, peaceful personwho, who is connected to nature. And, and, and the, I think there's much more of you out there
01:12:18than people think. And that is one of the theories I have is that there is a concerted effort bysome group of people to try to make sure that there is a general sense of hopelessnessin the world, in the sense that people just think, yeah, this is what it's going to be like.This is how it is. It's going to be like this. I mean, maybe it'll just become a little moreauthoritarian. Maybe it'll become, maybe there'll be another world war. Maybe there'll be another,you know, a disaster, some kind of, or whatever the fucking sad story is, but pretty much thisis it. This is what it's going to be. And this couldn't be further from the truth. This countryis brand new. This is a relatively a brand new country. We just had a fucking revolution.
01:13:07And we, and, and, and it's only been a few generations since that revolution. And lookat what's happened, you know, and, and so this is an important thing for people to realize is thatfrom a grand universal scale, yeah, this is all of humanity, the flickering of a Nat's eye.But in this moment where we're all gathered together here, there is so much potentialfor connecting, for findingwhere we all agree. And I think that there are people out there desperately trying to keep usfrom doing that by creating the illusion that we're fighting more than we are. That's yeah,these fucking bots, you know, they're there, they represent both sides, you know, like on the
01:13:58internet, the bots that are popping up in threads, what people are calling Russian bots,maybe they are, maybe they're not, they probably are. They're, they fight on both sides. Becauseit's like they can't shut the internet down, right? They can't shut it down. To shut down theinternet is to probably invite a revolution. Like if they try to shut down the internet,there's going to be big trouble, big fucking trouble. So, so how do you deal with it? How doyou deal with like in the old days, you know, you say some shit to the media, the media publishesit in a newspaper and that's what people think is real. Now we don't do that anymore. The stateneeds a propaganda outlet to control the people and the internet is fucking that up in the most
01:14:43severe way. So what do you do, man? You get in the threads, you pollute the threads with bots andthe bots have these fights in the middle of these threads and the fights distract and they ultimatelykeep us from finding what we used to be able to find in a nice argument, which is like a commonconnective point. You know, that's what it used to be. We get in an argument, not so I could win,we get in an argument so I could be like, oh shit, I guess you are right. Wow, I didn't see it thatway, but fuck yeah, I see that now. And that's the potential of the internet is, is all these peopleon what's called the right and all these people on the left get some time, spend some time togetherconstructively. I mean, maybe I'm just a naive son of a bitch, but I have a feeling that we're
01:15:35more connected than we are broken apart by our ideas. And so that's what that's the creepy thing,is they're trying to fuzz us out with the background noise of bickering bots, right? It's like,imagine like that's what's what like it's like the noise of bots fighting is drowning out thesound of human beings coming together. Robots are fucking us up man. Yeah, yeah, it's robots andit's advertising and it's television and it's the internet, it's all this stuff in it, you know,it's kind of like it's keeping everybody kind of just looped into, you know, they've got theirfeed bag and they got their, their switch to hit and you know, we're all just fucking rats in a cagedespite all our rage, you know, and you know, I think there is power in kind of, you know, the
01:16:26internet kind of started off in this, you know, by like, you know, was invented kind of by peoplewith more of an idealistic perspective that, you know, nobody would have thought in the earlydays of the internet that this thing that was really going to bring people together in unprecedentedways would go to these really, you know, you know, anonymously dark places or these weird roboticalgorithmic places where we're getting, you know, I can't go online and look for a pair of sneakersand then check my email without seeing that pair of sneakers come up on an ad right next to myemail. It's like really weird that that happens, you know, so we're all kind of just, you know,and there's all this that talk about like the echo chamber, you know, that kind of came into
01:17:12fruition during this last election, you know, where people that are, you know, lean more towards theright and have friends like that, you know, they have their version of their news feed and thenpeople on the left had their version of the news feed and, you know, there isn't a common kind of,there is no common delegation anymore, everybody just gets spoon fed whatever the hell they wantand it's curated to their own tastes, so nobody gets another perspective to, you know, we don't getthe rights perspective and they don't get our perspective in a way that would be creative orproductive. We all just think this is how things should be and they're not this way and blah, blah,blah, blah, and you know, I think there's a missed opportunity there to like try to find some common
01:17:53ground. Like you said, we could create a lot of great jobs by, you know, utilizing new forms ofenergy and technology and stuff that will actually bring jobs to the United States and help theplanet and stuff like that, but a lot of it just has to do with the people that are in control ofthe resources trying to hold on, to grasp this control desperately and to keep us driving,keep us paying $100 a month to be force fed advertising right into our faces in our ownhomes, you know, and we're paying for this shit. That's right. Well, I mean, we, you know, the,this is to add to the weirdness of it all, like for example, like if people are listening tothis on their speakers, right, I could say like, Alexa, order butt plugs and you know, in people's
01:18:49houses, their Alexa will like try to order butt plugs, like they'll have to tell, they'll haveto tell the Alexa. No, Alexa, order 1000 rolls of toilet paper. Yeah. You know, it does that. Oryou could say like, Alexa, turn off everything. Alexa, let's, let's, let's watch some porno.Doesn't do that. You have to say like, you'd have to, you'd have to say like, Alexa, what's like areally annoying song? Wait, what is Alexa? I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, Alexa. Is thatlike a Siri thing? It's the Amazon Echo. And it's in a, it's in a bunch of people's homes. And it'sgot an, it's got an AI associate. I've got one. So all I have to do is say to the damn thing,you know, order like a toaster. And then a toaster shows up at my door. Oh my God.
01:19:42Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's cool. It's cool. But there is an, it's, it's one of the examples, likepeople say that we're headed towards like some kind of AI disaster and an example of an early,like AI problem is on some Super Bowl ad. Somebody said, I can't remember, did an Alexa command.And like in homes all across the planet that had a Lexus, it like turned off something. I can'tremember exactly what it was, but it was an example of like the strange future that we'respiraling into. And I think what you are experiencing as an artist is part of thatstrange future. The replication of a thing that came out of your brain that is now spread likewildfire. I mean, God, man, these Twitter, I've got so many questions on Twitter about Pepe. It's,
01:20:33it's incredible. Like, um, uh, here's one. This is a good one here. This is from a, this is fromDusty triple six. This is, it looks like we got a, an alt-right feller here, possibly,but I don't know. And he wants to know his picture. It looks like he's, you know,I don't know if it's really him or not, but he looks like, uh, looks like he's like 15 maybe.But, uh, he wants to know, uh, how do you feel about liberals who think that Pepe is a hate symbol?That's, that's a good question. Um, you know, I think that, uh, that's part of the tragedythat Pepe thing is that like, you know, I can understand the whole, the try to step outsideof it and see the bigger picture and like, um, you know, I see that there's a news story there
01:21:28where, you know, it's a kind of an absurd news story. But, you know, when, um, these kind ofa satirical, uh, left leaning kind of, um, television programs or something are trying toexplain the, this alt-right thing, which, you know, shouldn't be getting this much airplay,but it, but it just keeps going and going. Um, you know, it just, uh, it just kind ofcompetes the situation or gives, um, gives it more power than it really deserves.Right.You know, like now, now, now I feel like a lot of people are just kind of talking about the altright now. And I don't know if I'm too close to it because I got this Pepe frog thing that's like,
01:22:09you know, entangled in the, this thing. But, um, but I do think that, yeah, there is, um,um, there is, uh, some room for debate on whether that's a productive thing to continue doing it,um, or not, you know. So that's, that's, so that's why I'm just trying to do what I would do, um,just any other day, which is kind of ignore all this shit and just continue to be, um, creative,you know.Yeah, I get that. Yeah. That's what it feels like. You're just like following your art. You're notletting yourself get distracted by this, but no, but I am, but on some level I am totally,uh, entangled and distracted by it too. Like I'd like, you know, I'd like to, um,
01:22:54cultivate a personality of someone who doesn't give a shit about this stuff, but on some levelit does kind of wear on my soul that this thing that I created has been, you know, associatedwith, uh, despicable kind of distasteful stuff. But I also see the joke part of it too. And like,I'm just, uh, trying to take more lighthearted and more, um, you know, humorous approach to it.So you don't feel as though, when, when I, I mean, I know, I know it sounds crazy, but you don'tfeel like maybe the, if I were you and this had happened to me and I was looking at this frogand I was looking at Keck, the Egyptian God, part of me would wonder if like a spirit came throughme. Does that ever drop into your head? No, no, no, not really. No. I mean, I, um, I mean,
01:23:49I think creativity in general is kind of a reflection of some kind of spirit or something.Yeah. Where does, you know, where does it come from? So yeah, on some level it is, it is, um,you know, that's any artists or a creative person's kind of goal is to tap into something that'soutside of themselves and to kind of, um, um, you know, hit, you know, get into some kind ofgroove or get into the zone or they call it, you know, and, and for me, um, just my own artisticpractice, it's, it's been, uh, you know, I'm interested in meditation and stuff. I haven'treally done it that much. I'd like to get more into it, but, but for me, drawing in and of itselfis kind of meditative than there's this big kind of, um, you know, like adult coloring books are
01:24:32kind of popular right now because, you know, people are just working these bullshit jobs andkind of locked into these, this reality that they're not totally maybe, um, satisfied with. And, um,you know, at the end of their day, you can go home and, uh, you know, put on some pure moodCDs and bust out your colored pencils and color some kind of an intricate, um, you know, geodesicvortex with beautiful colors and that totally, um, focuses your mind and, and then you don't haveto worry about the alt-right or any of this other bullshit. And, um, so I think if more people werecoloring, you know, the world would be a better place.Man, thank you so much for letting me have this conversation with you. It's really, really cool.
01:25:16How can you- Oh yeah, I really wanted to come on this program because I really enjoy your, um,just your kind of general positive attitude and, you know, the, the, um, the way you speak aboutthings. And, you know, it's very, it's very cartoonish, uh, and, uh, very imaginative. So,so it's nice to talk to somebody that isn't just like so blah, blah, blah, blah, likejust has the same bullshit stuff to talk about.Thanks, man. Well, thank you very, thanks. I hope, I hope that there wasn't too muchbullshit in here. I think we covered some great ground and I hope that, I hope that our efforthere in some way or another is, is going to resurrect a beautiful, powerful, and, uh,
01:25:56untainted Pepe from the, from the depths of your mind. And how can people chip in for the Kickstarter?Um, yeah, it's really easy. Basically, you could just Google save Pepe, just two words,or you just go on Kickstarter and look up save Pepe, and it's just on there. And I think youjust plug in your info and you can give anywhere from a dollar to a million dollars, you know. Sothere's no, well. Just give me your credit card info. A million dollars. I don't know. I,actually, my brother's, my brother's kind of taking care of the technical side. What do you getfor a million? What's the reward for a million? Um, there actually isn't a, a reward for a million,but, uh, but we did get, um, uh, some dude actually paid, uh, 5000 bucks for the debt,
01:26:40the original death of Pepe comic that I did. So I was pretty impressed, impressed with that.It's worth it, man. You, you're the, you're the, you're the father of a myth. You're thefather of a God. You're the, you're the humble father of a God that will radiate out through time.And, uh, that's a heavy responsibility, but it sounds like you've got your head in the right place.Well, I hope so. Well, thanks, Duncan. It was great talking with you, man.That was Matt Fury folks. The links to that Kickstarter are going to be in the commentsection of this episode. Much thanks to on it for sponsoring this episode. Go to on it.comforward slash DTFH. You'll get 10% off and thank you. Hello, fresh head over to hello,
01:27:22fresh use offer code Duncan 30 and you'll get 30 bucks off your first order. Come see us atthe bell house, friends, sign up for our Patreon, but most importantly, keep listening. I love youbabies and I'll see you real soon. Hare Krishna. It's Macy's friends and family. Get an extra 30%off great gifts for her just in time for Mother's Day when you use your coupon or Macy's card andtake 15% off beauty essentials or shop specials she'll love while supplies last plus star rewardsmembers earn on every purchase except gift card services and fees at Macy's. Sign up today atMacy's.com slash star rewards. Savings off regular sale and clearance prices, exclusions apply.It's Macy's friends and family. Get an extra 30% off great gifts for her just in time for Mother's
01:28:18Day when you use your coupon or Macy's card and take 15% off beauty essentials or shop specialsshe'll love while supplies last plus star rewards members earn on every purchase except gift cardservices and fees at Macy's. Sign up today at Macy's.com slash star rewards. Savings off regularsale and clearance prices, exclusions apply.
There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click any sentence in the transcript to leave one.