Duncan Trussell Family Hour - NICK YOUSSEF BUYS PAGODAS

Episode Date: September 23, 2014

Comedian Nick Youssef joins the DTFH to discuss not putting off happiness and his new album!

Ghost Towns. Dirty Angel. Out. Now. You can get Dirty Angel anywhere you get your music. Ghost Towns. Dirty Angel. Out. Now. New album and tour date coming this summer. Here's some more. This is day five and I did a copy in Emma and it released a bunch more of this plaque from Michael and it's like rubber literally. This is clogging up our digestive system and it's what is being absorbed into our blood. Toxins. Creating cancer.

Here's some more. Look up how to give yourself a copy in Emma and then give yourself a copy in Emma. That is my opening monologue. The Dunkin Trussell Family Hour podcast is going on tour. I'm going to be in San Francisco on the 30th of September with Chris Ryan, the author of Sex at Dawn. Also going to be in Portland in October 1st with Chris Ryan. Then off to Seattle with Johnny Pemberton on the 2nd of October. And finally in Vancouver at the Northwest Podcast Fest with Daniele Bolely.

I'd love to see you guys out there. You can go to DunkinTrustle.com and get tickets to any of these live podcast recordings. I'm also going to be in Calgary on October 5th at the Laugh Shop doing stand-up comedy. You can get tickets at DunkinTrustle.com and for God's sake, don't procrastinate. Go get the tickets right now. There's no sense putting it off and then not being able to get tickets if the show sells out and they're moving really fast. So go do that now. The Dunkin Trussell Family Hour podcast is brought to you by Amazon. You can go through the Amazon portal located at DunkinTrustle.com.

Anything that you buy, they'll give us a small percentage of whatever that happens to be. So instead of risking getting Ebola or getting beheaded by someone from ISIS or running into an old friend from high school the next time you are thinking about heading down to the drug store to get paper towels or toilet paper, go through the portal at DunkinTrustle.com and let those sweeties over at Amazon deliver a nice, gigantic, cargo-sized box of toilet paper. Why buy one toilet paper roll at a time, especially if you're going to give yourself a coffee enema, which, by the way, will transform your life. It probably will have the same effect as sitting down and reading Alan Watts for a year and a half.

Just one simple coffee enema. Blow out all the chiba-choo crust that is accrued inside of your colon. If you're somebody like me who enjoys eating edible marijuana you will be shocked, horrified and somewhat delighted to find that the stuff that comes spraying out of you smells like edible marijuana and you'll realize that that has been caked inside of your large intestine for countless months. So buy your enema bag from Amazon. Go through the portal located at DunkinTrustle.com. Transform your life.

Avoid Ebola and support the DDFH all at the very same time. We're also brought to you by Audible. You can go to audibletrial.com forward slash family hour. If you sign up for a trial membership, you'll get a free audiobook. You can cancel at any time. You still get to keep the audiobook. That's an incredible deal when you think about the fact that these audiobooks are upwards of 30 hours long. One of my favorite things to do is to listen to a Michael Beckwith audiobook while running on the treadmill.

The combination of the two things make you feel as though you are evolving to become some kind of superhuman godling. We also have a shop located at DunkinTrustle.com. Go there if you want a t-shirt or a cool poster. Alright, that's it. Today's guest is a brilliant comedian and a friend of mine from the comedy store. His name's Nick Youssef. He's got a new album out on iTunes. He's not owning this.

You can also get that at All Things Comedy. You can check him out at his website, NickYoussef.com. These links are going to be up at DunkinTrustle.com. If you want to go see him live, he's going to be performing September 26th to the 28th at the improv with Bobby Lee in Washington, D.C. If you're out that way, go see him perform. Say hello and tell him you heard him on the DunkinTrustle Family Hour podcast. Give him a big hug. Pull his lips down and lick his gums.

Flick your tongue against the whites of his eyeballs and use that glowing black skull you keep in your purse to open an interdimensional portal. Carry him there into the land of gargoyles and introduce him to the great Dark King so that he can know truth as we all know truth. Everybody, please welcome to the DunkinTrustle Family Hour podcast, Nick Youssef. Welcome to the DunkinTrustle Family Hour podcast. Here's some more. Nick Youssef, welcome to the DunkinTrustle Family Hour podcast. Hello. Hello.

It's good to be here. It's good to be here. Yeah, you know, man, I'm excited to have you on the show because you actually outside of, like, Ari, are one of the, and I haven't had Ari on forever, but you're one of the only people from the comedy store that I've had on the show yet that I can think of and only roll through my head. Yeah, for some reason I haven't had a lot of people from over there on the show. Really? I got to start doing that, but that's, for those of you listening, I never say that. You know, I came up at the comedy store and I still perform at the comedy store and Nick is what they call comedy store family.

Yeah. Which is an actual thing because it's kind of a community and you get to know people there in the same way you get to know members of your family, you get to know everybody's ups and downs. We see each other probably, or for a while we did, probably more than our own actual families. Absolutely, yeah. Me and you, it was five days a week. Yeah. Every day in the phone room, you were upstairs as the talent coordinator.

Yeah, that's, oh my God. It was every day. Every day. Yeah. And the place is like a fascinating place because it's so sticky, isn't it? Oh yeah. It's a sticky place. People, you get to see like not just comedians come and go, but you see some people who've been there forever who show up and will probably be there as long as the place exists.

What's your prognosis? How long do you think the comedy store is going to be in existence? That's one of those questions where every guest you have is always like, well, I was wrong about that because every time something happens, like Mitzi is, you know, ill. You're like, oh, she's only got a few years. It's going to be shut down. And then it, like it goes another four or five years. Right. And then it ends up like, it starts doing better.

Like business is good. And then comedy in general is good. So business there gets better. And you're like, is this place just going to keep going? I don't know. Nobody knows. People try to predict this. Now, here's what's interesting about the comedy store.

I think it's a fascinating thing. It's a bubble. It's a, it's a bubble of power. And for people who haven't been inside a bubble of that, a bubble like that, you don't, you can't possibly understand the level of drama that is always seething through that place. And I can remember when I was working there talking to my brother as the talent, I was talking to my brother. I'm the talent coordinator. And something had happened where Joe Rogan, they were going to reduce the amount of time that he was going to be able to work out there. Yeah.

I remember talking to my brother and with this kind of like furious intensity, being like, Jeff, I don't know why they're doing this, man, but like Joe, like, bought a sound system for the place and they're going to, they're going to, they're going to fucking, they're going to take away some of his time. And I was like really caught up in the temporal drama that was happening to my brother. I remember that I still remember this long pause and he's like, Duncan, you got to quit that job. Yeah, exactly. He's exactly right. Yeah. He's exactly right. You can't, and it goes with almost everything.

If you can't let yourself get too emotionally involved with just one aspect of, of the, in this case, like the entertainment industry, which is something you're, you know, you're trying to get into at the time, you know, you're younger. You're like, I need a home. I need somewhere to work out and develop my craft, but you can't just spend all your time focusing everything just in one place because it only is one place. You know, like if you only live in one city and you think that city is everything and the culture of that city is, is everything, you start to travel a little bit and you go like, wow, there are people that have never even been to Los Angeles. Right. The lives are all here and there's a culture there and then they have friends here and, and people that they know and places that they go to and like, to them, that's, that's, you know, the world, but it helps to just get a little bit of, of everything. You want experience and whatever you're doing, like, everywhere. It can't just be one place.

No, I mean, absolutely not. And it's, and it's important or real because, you know, these, it's like in every single little, every place is a bubble of drama. A Starbucks, the White House, whatever it is, raging within that place is a life and death struggle or what people perceive as a life and death struggle because I know that not, not even at the comedy store, but other jobs I've had or other situations that I've been in. My mind will focus in on this one point of self, which is usually identified with your home life or relationship, your job. And it's so easy to forget what you're saying, which is right now all over the world. There are these wildfire drama is burning at all the different jobs and homes across the world, but none of it is really that important. Yeah, it's all just like, it all just exists in that bubble. That's right.

And the more you travel around and talk to different people and see different places, you get to like peek into those different bubbles and you go like, oh, that's just as important. Your problem here is just as important as mine there in that bubble. But like the more I've just kind of traveled all over the country, for example, and met different people and performed in different comedy clubs, you realize that like, sure, those things are like, they're kind of important because they do involve your friends and people that you've developed. Like emotional connections to on whatever level. But to take it that seriously, like your brother was sitting there going like, wow, this this moment right now where where they're taking away this person's stage time is not that big of a deal for you. Right. You know. And also, and it all completely worked out for the better anyway, because I think Joe is completely happy.

Oh, yeah. It's just like a nice little ice house and like selling out whatever shows he does there. All over the country. Yeah, all over the country. I think for him, the drama in his mind was probably less than the drama in my mind, my mind had just decided to fixate on that particular thing. But from a bigger perspective, like, I was just reading this book Cosmic Trigger by Robert Anton Wilson. You ever read that? No, no.

Fucking cool. But he writes in the book. Spoiler. I don't know how long, but he writes about how his daughter was murdered at the store that she worked at. And how as he was meditating on suddenly losing a daughter, which for a parent they say losing a kid is just nothing like that, that you can experience as far as pain goes. He was still cognizant of the fact that all over the world in every moment people are losing their children, their daughters, their sons. They're constantly kids are constantly dying, but those deaths seem irrelevant to us compared to the deaths of our own children. Like, we can't spread our minds out enough to feel the pain when, you know, when you hear like a airstrike accidentally kills 20 Palestinian kids.

Yeah. You don't feel anything more than kind of a nausea or like your God humans are fucked up, but there's your, your life isn't crushed. Yeah, it's too distant. Too distant. But like if you're, if your dog died, you would feel the pain you probably should feel for 20 humans. Yeah. You'd feel that same pain. We're like, Oh, it was my dog, though, it was part of my bubble.

You know, I had it for 12, 13 years and that's like emotionally devastating. But when, you know, people die because of missiles falling out of the sky just by accident or, you know, for whatever other reason, you're just like, man, this world's cold. Yeah, that's it. And your reaction is cold. Yeah. You know, it's like, wow, but it's hard to feel that that same level of, you know, emotion for literally everything that happens. Like I think like in a way there's a part of your mind that kind of like that blocks that out because it's, it's too much. It's too overwhelming.

If you actually did feel all the pain in all of the world, like you would never get anything done. And that's a funny thing, you know, that idea of productivity being the most important thing, you know, like productivity being more important than empathy. And I think that is a kind of part of the programming of the industrial revolution is that the most important thing is to tighten up your belt and you're put on your tie and don't feel for the next 30 years. Yeah. If you're still feeling tighten that tie a little tighter. Yeah. Don't feel produce production over empathy always because it's true. If the world began to feel true empathy or began to really connect to the terrible truth that all beings around this planet are suffering in some way or another.

And if you could tune into that and survive whatever that felt like, then yeah, you would probably, it wouldn't be important anymore to go to work. Yeah. Or you wouldn't really probably want to do anything for yourself anyway. You'd probably get into a place where you just wanted to start doing stuff for other people. Yeah. I mean, it would be hard to, yeah, it would be hard to live the like the life you're supposed to live, you know, where it's like you look out for yourself, you make money, take care of yourself, buy nice things, you know, get a, you know, raise a family and all this other stuff. But if you did put all, yeah, all that time and energy into thinking about all the pain and suffering in the world and how it's not fair and how it's, it's, it's a terrible way to exist on a planet, you know, we all share. Like you would, you would either never get anything done as far as like, you know, productivity over empathy goes.

Or you hopefully would just like realize like, you know what, all this, all this time and effort I'm putting into like making all this money because money is important and buying a nice car is like, maybe I'll just buy less things and donate more. Maybe I'll just give to others, but it's hard to find enough people around you that are like even supportive of that. And, you know, to do it with you, it becomes just like, I'm, I'm doing this on my own or like, where, where should I do it? Should I physically go to Africa and like help people or do I volunteer for a habitat for humanity? Like what, what direction do I lead? I know. Like my, my life. And then it just kind of becomes easier to be like, you know what, there's too much, there's too much going on out there.

I'm only one person. I can't make a difference. So I'm just going to try and like be a good person in my bubble. In my bubble. In my bubble. Yeah. Or in the bubble of this, of conditioning and whatever society that you're in. Because what you just described is going, it's like going outside the safety of the campfire light that is whatever the particular operating system you've been assigned by the culture you were born into.

Yeah. And your wheel, like, yeah, same here. When I started thinking about that idea of like, well, yeah, okay. So what would it be like if suddenly I only took what I needed to barely survive. And then the rest of it, I just started giving to people who desperately need food, regardless of where they're at. Yeah. Just start trying to feed people. When you start thinking about that, you're like.

It's overwhelming, right? It's overwhelming. It's like, well, how would I, like, how, you know, how would you be doing a podcast? Because you'd have to put money into that. You'd have to put money into driving places. How would I buy thermal imaging fucking cases for my iPhone so I could see my dog's heat signatures? Right. You know, this is the, this is a very curious place to get your mind into.

And I think it's a place a lot of people don't like to spend much time in is really considering that kind of like the idea that when you, if there is an afterlife, which maybe there isn't. But if there were, people are just going to look at you like, well, you got to go back into the training academy again, because the only thing you're supposed to learn here is that you help other people. Yeah. Maybe that's the one big lesson of this human incarnation is the only important thing is to give more than you receive. I don't know. I don't know about it. I think guilt starts coming then. Then you start getting into a guilt place.

And there's some people who say, okay, well, great. Now you're just a fucking, now you got white guilt. Don't you? You've got just a honky guilt right now because you're upset because you're, you're, you're doing great. That's even worse. That's the worst thing you can do. It's like, so now not only do you have more than like say people in 90% of the planet that we live in, which if you live in America, isn't the idea that you're better. Okay.

Isn't the idea that you basically have more than like, or if you live in the, what they call the, what the first world, isn't the idea that we have more than more material luxuries than the majority of the planet. Like there's, yeah. The rest of it combined. Or we also consume more of the earth's natural resources than I think all the rest of the world. Was it maybe not China at this point, but there was a time where America consumed more of the earth's natural resources than like all of Africa and, you know, parts of Asia and South America combined. Because there, a lot of those countries were living with nothing. Right. Some were oil rich and they would be able to, you know, pull that out of the ground, but we would just, we'd buy it.

We'd take it and we'd use it because we, you know, we need to be on top. Yes. We have ourselves to take care of. Right. You know, and then that trickles down into like, you know, teaching your children the same exact thing. Right. Just like, you need, we need to be on top. You need to be number one.

You need to be making money. You need to be successful and wealthy and immaterial. You need to be productive, motherfucker. Yeah. You need to be productive because I don't want no scrub. A scrub is a guy who won't get no love from me. Yeah. You need to be taking out the passenger side of your best friend's ride, trying to holler at me.

Yeah. Are you fucking serious? You don't even, you're not even in debt to the banks for the car that you're riding in. Yeah. You need to be deeply in debt to some kind of bank and paying them a high monthly rate on the thing that you don't even own. If you want to put your cock in my pussy. Yeah. That's sad.

And it's all part of this conditioning. Have you ever gotten into that place where you find yourself not doing something and then are immediately assuaged by guilt? Have you ever felt that? Not doing what? What type of thing? Anything? Laying in your bed. You're laying in bed and there's nothing to do and you're not doing anything.

You're not sending emails. You're not doing anything. You're sitting down for a little while not doing something and then some part of your mind starts attacking you. I feel that feeling from the moment I wake up and then intermittently throughout the day until I go to sleep. Wow. Because you are, you're supposed to and now more than ever with what we do. It's a do it yourself. Yes.

Industry. Yeah. It's like you got to be out there. You got to be making shit. If you're awake, you better be writing something. You better be recording a podcast. You better be filming a video. You better be doing stand up.

You better be taking an acting class. You better be auditioning. And that's, those are all like supposed to be the most important things. And then it's all the other stuff like, well, what if I just want to read for enjoyment? What if I want to hang out with friends and not have it be because it could be some opportunity that I could be, you know, it's, there's so much going on. And there's so much you're supposed to be doing. It's hard to like find time to actually just sit down and be like, well, what just makes me happy right now? What do I just want to do that brings me enjoyment?

Because those thoughts and like that, that mindset is actually what will bring you long term happiness. It's not just what you're supposed to be doing because you hear these stories all the time where it goes, well, millionaires aren't happy. The most successful people in the world are actually miserable. And I always hear those stories and I go like, I mean, it's got to be, there's, there's truth to that. There's these people that sacrifice literally everything in their life just for success. All their friendships are based on, is this going to make me successful? Everything they do from the moment they get up until they go to sleep is just because they need to be successful. And then they get all that money and they have the cars and they have all their debts and they have all these other things.

And then they're not happy. And I think like the guilt that I feel comes from that kind of thing where since I was younger, I'm like, I want to, I want to do this for a living. I want to be an artist. But at the same time, you're like, I also want to be successful because that way people will know about you as an artist and you'll be allowed to continue to do more of what you want to do. But over the years, it's just like one starts to take over the, like how much of this work work am I supposed to put in for something I just wanted to do for the love of it? Yeah, there's a great, I can't remember who wrote it, it's a famous short story. And it's about this rich guy who kept saying like after he gets, when he gets some time, he's going to start buying some pagodas. And I guess it's like some rich guy in a Buddhist country and buying a pagoda is like a kind of like charitable thing that you do.

And he's always putting off this time when he's going to do, you know, start, it represents a true spiritual practice. And always putting it off, always putting it off. And then he just dies. But yeah. Oops. You never got, you never got around to that, did you? Yeah. You never got around to it.

And it's one of, maybe one of the satanic aspects of being an artist in Los Angeles is that you actually, this terrible helix emerges where there's the thing that wants to express itself, which is your stand up, and then there's the business side that gets wrapped around it. Yeah. And you can actually, you know, look at every single comedian and see the balance there of like some comedians are all business and a little bit of comedy and some comedians are all comedy and no business. Yeah. And there's everything in between, but the two get mixed together so much. And, you know, that this is the, to me, like that, you know, that song, Jen and Juice. Yeah. It's almost describing paradise, rolling down the street, smoke and endow, sipping on Jen and Juice.

Layed back. And then what's the next line? With my mind on my money and my money on my mind. What the fuck? Yeah. That's like almost paradise. And then that lyric comes and just shits all over it. It's like you're driving down your street.

You've managed to feel okay drinking fucking booze while you drive. That's cool. I was doing that. Whenever one of my friends jumps in my car and they have a beer, I'm always like, you got to go to fucking AA right now. If you got to drink beer while you're driving. That's how neurotic I am. I can never do it. Much less smoking at joint.

At the same time. At the same time. I'm getting fucking wasted. Layed back. He's relaxed. With my mind on my money and my money. And now it's, wait, you're just thinking about money, you dick? Yeah.

That sounds stressful. Yeah. Yeah. The next verse was like. Retired. Retired. Yeah. You're like, oh, okay.

Well, that's fine then. With my mind on Picasso and Picasso on my mind. Yeah. Anything. There's a cool quote about him from him actually that says sometime it's something that the effect of sometimes it's just better to lay down. Which I always found, I always found reassuring because of a guy like that who's a world renowned respected artist. Yes. Right.

He did it all. One of the coolest people on earth. Yeah. So if he can say something like that, well, you know what? Sometimes it's just better to lay down. Okay. Maybe I don't need to be just clawing my fucking eyes out all day going, what do, what am I supposed to do next? Sometimes you're like, you know what?

Just I'm going to put everything down. I'm going to clear my mind and just lay here and just let whatever comes to my mind. Yeah. Surface. And then I'm just going to think about that and then think about something else or just nothing. Yeah. And then like you kind of, you kind of like spiritually recharge. Yeah.

I feel like, because then you're like, you know what? I'm going to take it easy today. I'm going to like, I'm going to write whatever I feel like. I'm just, I'm going to watch a movie. I've been always meaning to watch. Yeah. And then like later that day or sometimes the next day you wake up and you feel a little more centered. And you're, you're just kind of reminded a little bit of what is actually important to you.

You're like, you know what? I'm not going to perform anywhere tonight. I'm going to hang out with a friend of mine who I haven't seen in a while and we're just going to talk. We're just going to laugh and talk about something funny, sad, serious. We don't report for a podcast. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. See the, what you're talking about, I think is the, is what's considered to be the, the state mystics are in all the time, which is they have identified that money or the pursuit of material success is or not the pursuit, but the, but material success itself is a byproduct of a deeper connection to a thing that is primary to whatever particular way that the culture that you're born in during whatever part of the time space continuum you got shot out of a pussy into whatever way that they're using it, which right now are these like rectangles and not digits.

That's how we're representing this stuff. And so your mind getting caught up in rectangles and digits as a way to make you happy is like trying to get a tan by looking at pictures of the sun. It can't possibly work because these are symbolic representations of potentialities. That's all money is, is a potentiality. It's nothing else. So this is like Meister Eckhart talks, he was this Christian mystic. He talks about the idea that your boss, I'm putting this into my own words, but you're

job is an intimate deep connection with God. Now, if you're an atheist, you don't like that term. You could say it's a connection with the life force. It's a connection with universal consciousness or it's just the, it's waking up to the fact that you are literally the entire universe or one will piece the quadrant of the universe experiencing existence. And if you make that your focus, then the other stuff naturally starts coming. You know, it's like the other, then that's when you'll get the big ideas.

I have, man, I have noticed again and again and again, the most success I experienced in my life is happening in the moments of least activity in my life. Really? That's when phone calls come in. That's when like suddenly job opportunities pop up is when I loosen up and relax. That's by the way, sex, sex. Think about the difference between sex when you're thinking about either making her come or you coming versus sex where you're just thinking about the moment itself and the

experience of that moment. It's two different fucking feelings altogether. Oh yeah, absolutely. There's way less stress in the latter. Yeah. You know, you're just, you're, you're just experiencing each other and nothing else. You forget the room is even there. You forget that you're on a bed.

You're just involved with one another. It's like, it's like the one of the most when done right, you know, it's not just like, I'm wasted. I want to get laid. You know, when done right, it's like one of the more spiritual experiences you can have with another person without having to be, you know, praying or doing anything like directly spiritual. It is praying.

I think it is praying. I think it is spiritual and I think it is a meditation and there's, in fact, it's more, I mean, like, yeah, that is literally a meditation. You're connecting to another being and you're creating a circuit that your life energy is rolling through and that, and it's one of the most powerful things is when it's, it's you're creating like a love echo chamber where like love is like being amplified and amplified and amplified. Yeah.

That's a whole different thing. It's just like that idea of if I, if we go to a nice restaurant together, there's this great place, man, in Culver City called In Naka. It's the nicest place I've ever eaten. You got to get a reservation. They only let people with reservations in. You can't even walk up. See, and the reservations are sometimes like months in advance to get a reservation.

I went to this place. It's like ridiculously expensive. Like you really have to have had some kind of big payday to make sense of it or just be a rich person. Yeah. Or recently like robbed someone. Yeah. But you go there and they bring out these tiny little portions, but I don't remember how

many courses, man, so many courses and every, every bite that you take is the most incredible, perfectly balanced mixture of flavors that you've ever experienced. Now, if you were rushing through that, I mean, what, what are you doing? You're just wasting the whole point of the experience, you know? Yeah. And I think that this disease that people in the West have, this sense of like, fuck, man, I got to keep going. On to the next one.

I'm running out of time today. This week's almost over. I can't believe it's already September. Yeah. What did you do this year? What did you enjoy this year? Like I remember last year, I, I had wanted to do this, this charity bike ride, right? And I was like, I need to, I've been wanting to do it for like a few years.

Yeah. And I usually use this as an example for like when I feel like I'm, I've been living a life that's, you know, too selfish, too self-involved and it doesn't make me happy. Yeah. So what can I do to feel connected with other parts of the world or other groups of people that I, I'm never in contact with? What are other people experiencing and feeling and, and, you know, how can I help? How can I do something that just isn't for me, you know, just, it's just giving.

It's just putting out into the world, you know? So I wanted to do this, this, uh, this charity bike ride, right? It goes from San Francisco to Los Angeles and it's all for charity. You ride your bike for seven days. It's badass. Yeah. So I wanted to do it for years and I was like, you know what? I keep noticing with myself is that, and it reminded me when you told me the story of

that guy who was going to get that, whatever you call it, that thing. Pagodas. Pagodas. Yeah. And he died. Um, I keep telling myself, I'm going to do it. But you know what? Not, not yet.

Cause I have this other thing to do. Yeah. That's supposed to be important, but I could do that whenever, you know? Yeah. This is only going to take seven days. One week. How many weeks are in a year? 52 of them.

All right. I can't just, I can't put aside one week out of the year to help other people. When it's something that deep down inside, I keep telling myself, I need to do this. This would bring me fulfillment because it, I want to help other people. I really want to. It's not just, and this, it's the argument that people make with charity all the time. Well, no charity is ever selfless. It's always a little, but those are usually the people, by the way, that aren't charitable,

that don't want to do anything. So they, they find a way out. They go, you know what? It's never selfless anyway. So what's the point? It's like the drudge report always posts stories about how exercise is somehow harmful. Like any kind of anything like that. Cause the people who go to the drudge report are all fucking fat, lazy shit.

And they know they'll click the link. Like, I knew exercise was bad. And they go like, well, you spent all your time at the gym. Like, yeah, you know what I'm doing? Fucking reading. It's like, you can do both. Yeah, no shit. You can do both.

No shit. Especially since after you exercise, you're more mentally alert and you feel good. And that's just more time for reading and doing other things. Yeah. So anyway. Yeah, we live in a fallen world. So no matter what you do, there's going to be a little bit of the contaminant of greed on it. I don't know of any way to escape from it because that's, we are selfish because we're a self.

And there's no way around it. Go on though. Yeah. So I decided, I was like, you know what, I'm, I'm going to do this. I'm going to sign up and I'm going to raise money like as much as I possibly can. And I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this bike ride and it's going to be great. And that's what I told myself.

And then I did, I spent like two months training, going all these like training rides all over LA and just really like pushing myself physically to these limits where I was like, this is going to be difficult. But it's like, you know what, just, just get out there and do it and try. There's no failure in this. There's no failure. None. You just try and if you don't do it, it's like, well, then tomorrow, the next day.

And I trained and I trained in between that you're, you know, raising money, you're calling people, you're emailing people, you're asking for money and help. And then I raised more money than I thought I ever could now. And it was a feeling of like, it brought me like the satisfaction where I was like, I actually, I never thought I could raise this much money. You set a goal at like, it's going to be 3000. And then you're like, you get to that goal and you're like, wow, and you keep raising it to five to 10, higher and higher and higher.

And, and it just felt good and you'd get phone calls from people that you've never met saying like, thank you for doing this. Wow. And you're like, wow. And you, then you have conversations with people that you already know that are like, Hey, you know, HIV has affected someone in my family. I think it's, it's great that you're doing this and more people should be doing things like this.

And you're like, all, all this time I could have been, I could have done this three years ago and then two years ago and last year. And what, what, what has it done to hurt my life? Nothing. There's people that like, I have no time for anything else except moving upwards in my own life. And it's like, I, I was able to do this and it's brought other people happiness and joy and me as well.

And nothing has changed. I only feel better about living in this world. Yeah. And it's like, and I've been putting it off for, I've been putting off the feeling of making the world in even the tiniest way, slightly better. I've been putting that feeling off because I'm like, I should be going on stage more or like talking to the right people and hanging out with the right people and going to certain parties.

And I couldn't just put seven days off. And this was before even the bike ride happened. Then we're driving up to San Francisco and then you're riding your bike in, in, through the, in, in road, back roads. I'm sorry, through wineries and mountains down through the coast and back. And every day you're stopping at a different location where they'd set up all these like tents and like, it was basically like this tent city. Sounds like heaven.

And you're meeting people and no one, no one has their phones. No one has computers. You're just, They tell you no phones. You're not allowed to have your, your, uh, headphones on while you're riding. Wow. And there's really no charging stations. So you're, you're basically have your phone off all day.

You take a few pictures here and there that you could post at night if you want or just to have, but you, you realize, well, I, I need to obviously save all my battery just in case of an emergency or whatever else. So you're just not using it. So then you get up at five AM and then you're out just smelling fresh air, riding through farmland and winery, stopping at little random places where people, this ride goes through every year where people are just out on the street side, giving you free food. Like here's free strawberries that we grow.

Have like, here's little sample sandwiches cause we grow avocados here and here's like an avocado or whatever sandwich. It sounds literally like heaven. Yeah. It sounds like an surreal experience of being in heaven. Yeah. And that's an idea, you know, this, that's like an idea that is in the, the really mysterious thing in the New Testament that Jesus says, which is the kingdom of heaven is at hand

and is, it's here, the kingdom of heaven is here. And that's the idea that there is a frequency you can tune into and the dimension that we exist in right now that is paradise. Yeah. But you can't tune into that fucking frequency as long as you're serving yourself. Somehow, the moment you start serving other people, immediately, it's as though somebody put or took off shitty glasses that you'd been wearing, like you've been wearing fogged up craft glasses.

With the dollar signs on them. Yeah, you've been wearing those shitty dollar signs. That's all you see is the fucking shadow of a dollar on all things. In the moment. There's money there. There's some more there. You'll get it. Yeah.

Then you take it off and then you see, you're like, oh, the world isn't tinted green. There's many colors. Yeah. There's red. There's blue. There's yellow. There's white. There's, there's many colors.

And the feeling, man, there's a feeling that suddenly you begin to experience and it's a brand new feeling and there's nothing better than a brand new feeling in a world where most people think they felt everything. So many people think they felt it all by the time you get to a certain age, you just know everything, man. Yeah. This is that concept that Zen, the state of enlightenment or awareness is, it's the beginner's mind.

It's the feeling of not knowing anything for the first time of suddenly being like, oh, shit. This is a bigger universe than I expected, but you can only do it, man. The only way into that motherfucker is by helping. Yeah. Somehow. It's just a simple thing. It seems kind of obvious.

Like it really doesn't seem, I mean, it seems pretty much like the most obvious thing ever. If we're, if there's a house fire, you, if you saw a house on fire and you heard kids yelling inside, what would you do? You'd go in there and help. Well, you're a pussy. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, yeah. That was just a dumb.

You idiot. Trick question. No. You'd go in and help. Yeah. No, it's a no brainer. Anyone would do it. Right.

If you were at the beach and you saw somebody drowning, if you were a strong enough swimmer, you'd go and try to save them. If you were in any situation where a person needed help, and I think this is for the majority of people, though I'm sure there's some pig shits out there who wouldn't do anything, but I think the majority of people, if they see suffering in front of them, they're going to go and help the suffering, the majority of people. But somehow, if the suffering is one state away, or if the suffering is just something you read about, but you don't see it, that's when you're like, ugh, I just don't have time

to do that kind of shit. I just don't have time to help. I really don't. Or you write it off as like, well, there's people out there that are there to help. There's something in place. Yeah. Someone will help. Or some people even think like, well, America is going to go help.

Do you still do that bike charity? I did it last year. It's just once a year. Are you going to do it this year? It just happened in June. I might do it next year. What's the name of the charity? It's called AIDS Lifecycle.

AIDS Lifecycle, guys. Why don't you sign up for that? Because there's some people I know who listen to this who are serious bike riders because I yap about it all the time because it's paradise, man. That's great. It's a, but you're like a hardcore cyclist. I try to be. You are.

Like you are, man. You're, you're a fucking like, you could tell you, you obviously are like constantly right. How many miles a week do you think you're right? You're right. Um, if I'm not on the road or something, I try and do like 10 miles a day. Wow. Which is not a lot.

It's, it's. On a bike, it isn't. That's a, that's a, that. If I remember the first time I rode 10 miles on a bike, I felt like a goddamn Lance Armstrong. Yeah. I felt like a bad ass. You're like, I can conquer anything. Yeah.

I remember I did like 14 miles one day and my legs were sore and I got home and I'm just like, well, this is all that life is. This is all I'm, I can do. I want to do. Um, yeah. I, it's, I think that that's, there's, you don't have to like be high. You don't have to be highfalutin. You don't always have to.

You don't have to be going, bringing food to the poor or whatever. I think you can serve yourself too in a non-selfish way and that's by exercising, doing stuff like that will give you experiences outside the, uh, green shaded life that so many people live. Right. You know? Cause come on. Where is the energy coming from, man?

Where is the energy coming from? Is the energy coming from the banks? Is that what we want to believe? Cause if you're somebody fixated on money, then you might as well just kneel down in front of Bank of America and just start giving it a big fat, wet, sloppy blow job. Right. Cause that's what you're doing. If you think that money equals, if money's what you're out after here, then you are a

slave to the banks. Yeah. You're, you're not serving any higher power other than something that's clearly fragile, temporary, and destined to be forgotten. Yeah. I mean, you leave it here. It doesn't do anything. Unless you're one of those people that uses all the money to, to help others.

If you're like the most charitable millionaire or billionaire in the world, like you can, you can take all that money and do some good. Like Gates. Yeah. Gates and Warren Buffett, I think is, is pretty charitable. Yeah. All those people, but I'm, I'm thinking about like, you know, like if you flip God, man, Jesus Christ.

My, my wonderful girlfriend flipped to the iTunes popular music to listen to what's, what music's popular right now, just cause we both thought it, like we'd get a kick out of it. Yeah. And it was, it's horrifying. Oh yeah. But when you listen to the lyrics, I would much rather the popular music be songs about throwing babies off of cliffs, you know, or like dark slayer style lyrics than singing

about money or singing about anything to do with like the obtainment of wealth or the, or things in the material universe. It's terrifying to hear the kind of hypnotic anthems that are rolling out of radio stations that are inviting people into a life where what you own is the thing that defines you as a person. It's scary to think about that. That's what turned me off to hip hop years ago when it was all, when it was every, back when there were music videos on MTV, it was like you turn it on in every hip hop video

or popular hip hop, at least it was like, it was, it was cars rolling down the street with, you know, huge rims and like money being thrown around and women and all the lyrics were about those things. And I was like, I'm like, I cannot, I can't identify with that. I don't have all those things. I don't want all those things. And I'm like, what, I don't know what I'm listening to. I remember me and a friend, Emil Amos, who's on this podcast sometimes took some LSD.

Is he the musician? Yeah. Yeah, listen to one of those. We took some acid and like watched MTV. This is years and years and years ago. And I remember tripping on acid watching, because we just been watching an HBO show about autopsies. I can't remember what it was. It's a series, but they had shown, we're on acid, we're watching a show about autopsies.

It shows some woman's limbless torso rotting by the side of a river. And we're both like, oh, that's fucked up. Yeah. Then we turn to this fucking hip hop video. And it was five million times more horrifying than the limbless torso. It was just because you're seeing these people covort around holding gold and paper. And like, they're so, they're so clearly believing that this is the most and this is it. They're at the top of Pleasure Mountain.

Yeah, we've arrived. We've arrived. Yeah, we're done. We're rich now. But you know that they, the musicians themselves, the artists themselves, when they're sitting alone, all they feel is that same aching emptiness that all human beings must feel if they haven't faced the truth of their predicament on this planet. The moment they're no longer distracted by the illusion of wealth.

And by the way, none of those guys were that rich anyway, because I'm sure MTV isn't like pouring money into their coffers. The majority of them are fucking broke. It's like when people think that, when you see a comedian have a Comedy Central special, you automatically assume that they're like... He's a millionaire now. He must be a millionaire. He's on TV and he had a special.

He's broke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably broke. Yeah. They've passed that long and half of it goes to the agents and the feds. They're broke. Yeah. They're broke.

So it's a lie that they're spitting out and they don't even know why they're spitting it out. But they've become the hypnotic spiral eyes of whatever reptilian system is currently making people run on this ridiculous treadmill and smack them. Yeah, they get up there. They get... That phrase, it's lonely at the top, has to come from that sort of attitude where you just claw your way up and the people that do that the best are usually...

As far as humans go, pretty shitty. Shitty. They just are stabbing people in the back on their way up and just clawing their way through everything and fuck you, fuck you. I got to get there first. I got to get there. And then you get there and you've just destroyed relationships and friendships and business opportunities because you're like, this is the most important thing and it's for me.

So fuck everybody else. I got to get there. And then you get up there and you're like, it's only a small group of people that have made it to this level, that have this much success and they're all alone too. Yeah. And then you're just sitting there at the top with your Rolls Royce and your gold chains and your giant house that you're alone in and then you just sigh and go, well, now what? Well, don't forget the very beginning of the neurological disorder, the weird tremble

in the tips of your fingers because you're at your nervous system short wiring. Don't forget that. Don't forget the fact that you're actually melting down a little bit. No amount of anything is going to help you because you're experiencing a psychic disease. You're experiencing something sick. Now, here's the coversely, the illusion of this person that we just invented. Thank God. I don't know this person.

I've never experienced it. It's a bit of a stereotype. I do know they must exist. Generally when I meet very wealthy people, the most wealthy people I've ever met are always the most generous people that I've ever met and they're always the kindest people I've ever met and they're always like really fucking cool. I can think of one person, but I'm not going to fucking say who it is, who I ran into once, who was this person that you're talking about.

It was so entrancing to be around that finally, to be like, oh cool, you're the disease. It's badass. I get to sit down with a fucking walking cancer cell for a second. You really do think this stuff matters. You really do think this car that you have matters and you really do think that where you're at is a place you deserve to be. You really do think that people who aren't at the place that you're at just aren't doing the right thing.

Right. Oh, it's so fun to be around that person. Oh God, it was fantastic to be mutually judging each other. Right, right, right. Because I know they were judging me as much as I was judging them. They were looking at me as some kind of like stoner, drug addict, commie and I was looking at them as some kind of shield of the fucking corporation. Yeah, some giant piece of plastic.

Yeah. And they were melting on this rotting on the inside. So we are both guilty. We're just guilty in different ways. We're both guilty of the same kind of thing, which is creating a hierarchical system of ethics that ignores the true identity, what we true, what we are, which is one consciousness expressing itself in a bunch of different meaty tendrils. Right, right.

Yeah, I mean, I feel like the best way to, if you are looking for success and you do want a lot of money, it's like sharing it is the best way to do it. It's like it's more fulfilling that way. When you meet or hear about those people that do do that, their lives seem more fulfilled. Then you're not lonely when you get up there, because on your way up, you're bringing other people with you and then you get to the top and you're like, there's a community up here now. Suddenly you get to the top and you're surrounded by your friends who are having success that

you were part of getting for them. And then those people are always like, I have people like that who mentored me and my success is directly related to their presence in my life. And whenever I tell them, man, I haven't forgotten that this life that I'm experiencing is because you gave me my start. They're always like, no, it's not because of that. They will always deny that they even did that. So that's the other part of it is they've become so part of the flow that they're not

caught up in the fucking like, yeah, you're right, I did do that for you and you owe me forever. They're never thinking that. They're never like writing down like, all right, so I helped this guy and if he doesn't acknowledge this at some point or do something for me, then you know what, fuck him. They're not thinking, they're not, because it's not for that reason. It's just a part of their nature where it's like, oh, he's my friend. He looks like he needs some help or I would love to have the world know about him too.

I enjoy what he or she does. Let's let others do the same thing. It's fucking cool, man. I think what you're seeing there is the recipe for true success in this universe is counterintuitive to the way that you might think that you get success because one version of how to get success is what a lot of people think, which is like stab a bunch of fuckheads in the back, climb up that bloody human mountain to get to the top, lonely peak, and stare out over you.

And piss all over it when you get there. Piss down. But when you start realizing that you are part of a unified whole and whether you want to get spiritual and say it's one universal soul or whether you just want to look at the fact that we're in an ecosystem we're all inextricably connected, then you look at successful people and what are they? Always generous. They do a lot of the, no, I'm sure there's people listening and thinking they're a fucking

uncle dick who is like a greedy shit head and like splits tabs all the time and stuff like that. I'm sure they exist. But I think that there is a metaphysical principle in the universe where the more you stop caring about yourself and trying to help the people around you, the more amplified your own material success becomes and that what you will actually get into experience is such an acceleration in your material prosperity that you will lose track of how you got there and get greedy again.

Like that's one of the road bumps that can happen is you hit this accelerated place and suddenly you start, you get to a point where you're so fucking poor that you don't care anymore and in that place you might accidentally start becoming very selfless because you've hit the bottom so much that you really don't care anymore and you do start doing stuff for other people just because there's nothing else to do and then all of a sudden you start getting weird phone calls that are coincidences start happening and all of a sudden you start getting this weird success and you don't really quite understand it and then all of a sudden that hits and you start, that success starts amplifying and somewhere along that way you

might suddenly be like, shit, I'm going to lose all this shit and be poor again and then you clamp down and stop giving anymore and you start giving out more than you're getting and sure enough you spiral back down to the bottom. But if you can maintain this state of constantly expanding and amplifying the amount of, that you're helping people around you, that's when you get in the big updrafts and end up in the- You stay just as open and just as generous no matter what level you're at. No matter what, you just are a goddamn cave.

They say that like the poor are more generous and charitable than the wealthy by like what they, comparatively speaking, like what they make, they give more than the wealthy do. Yeah, I've heard that. I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't be surprised. I don't know. I mean, no matter what, you can't, the idea is you have a right to your action.

You do not have a right to the fruits of your action. The action itself is where the glory comes from. The moment where you like, oh man, there's so many chances to do this, man. The whole like you get bad service at a restaurant and you tip them double what you would have tipped somebody else, shit like that. There's so many stupid chances to play these little alchemical games to play around with the energy of the universe where you start doing shit that you normally wouldn't do to see the results.

You know, Alistair Crowley would consider that stuff a kind of magical practice and a cult practice and he recommended keeping a notebook where you would record stuff. So like with your bike ride, not only would he say, yeah, do the bike ride, but recognize that you're working magic here, that what you're doing is not just, you know, you're calling it charity, it sounds really boring, but that's what you're really doing is casting a spell by putting out a new signal into the universe to see if you get an answer back. It's like right now, you know, we're like listening for radio waves coming from other planets and the way we might transmit messages to other planets to see if there's alien intelligence

is based on our technology that we have right now, but that's one signal we're sending out to see if we get an answer. Alistair Crowley was all about send out a signal and then see what answer you get from the universe. Echo chamber. See what happens if you yell in this direction or that direction, what comes back to you. So this thing that you did, the bike ride, it was casting a spell, that's a spell. And he would say, he would add to what you did, maybe you did keep a journal, but he

would say keep a journal and write down everything that you felt on the bike ride, write down everything that you felt leading up to it, write down everything that happened afterwards. Were there weird synchronicities, strange coincidences, did stuff come to you afterwards that you can't explain? Was there any kind of, was there a new response from the universe that you normally haven't gotten before? And if there was, record that and then see if you can amplify the signal that you sent out to get more of that response.

That's magic. That's really all magic is. Yeah. It's like, you know, did you see that video? I'm sorry to keep, I'm sorry for this rant. Did you see the video of the guy calling to coyotes? No. So badass, this guy's in the woods, hunter, he does a coyote call, nothing, does another

coyote call, nothing, does another coyote call, and all of a sudden, man, it sounds like a hundred fucking coyotes are around him. They all just start howling back. Yeah. It's fucking cool, man. It's fucking cool. That's what magic is. Magic is, this is what Timothy Leary, which is, Timothy Leary was really just a Alistair

Crowley meet science. He was just as much a necrol as anybody else. In fact, he considered himself as maybe some kind of reincarnation or part of, oh yeah. But the, his thing was like, what signal are you putting out? What signal are you putting out? And then can you change the signal that you're putting out? And if you can change the signal that you're putting out, what responses do you get with a change in signal?

And that's all we're talking about here, which is like try sending out the signal that is called charity and watch where the response you get from the universe. It'll be fucking insane. A big part of it too is looking for it, because some people just do things. Some people are charitable in whatever way, just because they think they have to be. So they all do it. And then they shut themselves off from a response. They just go like, okay, I'm going to do this, good, I feel better, now to go focus on other

things again. But you, in order to get, because it's like, it's a cycle, you know? You put something out there and something will come back, but you have to like remain open to the possibility. You got to catch the boomerang, motherfucker. Don't just throw it out. And that involves a lot of like, you have to come at it. You have to go into whatever you're doing, like with a positive attitude and an open

mind that like, I'm going to do this and it will make the world a better place. Yeah. And they think like, well, I'm going to make the world a better place and change it. They immediately think like, oh, you're going to be like a Martin Luther King or Jesus or Gandhi or something. It's like, why does it have to be on that level? No one's thinking that. No one's like, I'm going to change the entire fucking world.

It's like, no, I'm going to do a little thing and it's going to change something. It doesn't have to be to a large degree. I'm just going to do it and then watch the return. And there will be. Yes. Those three people you mentioned were assassinated. Yeah. Let's skip being there.

Yeah. Try not to get assassinated. If you want to get fucking shot, get shot. If that's a signal you want back, that's a signal that the people at the very top will get back. I mean, that's a curious thing is along the path, you'll receive all these beautiful, beautiful signals. But if you start sending out a big enough signal that it actively begins warping civilization

to make people more loving and peaceful and kind and gentle, then you will get a signal back in the form of a fucking bullet. There's all these signals flying by me right now. No, no, no, this is what people learn and people are evolving and the smart people, the smart people are real, you know, the smart people watch what's going on in the world and they see what's going on and they evolve just like anybody else. And they're very good at strategy and they're recognizing at this point that they don't need to put their faces on the front page of newspapers anymore, but it's the little behind-the-scenes

stuff that will create the great acceleration towards what could potentially be a transformation in human civilization, unlike anything ever experienced. But you don't need the big, the mascots anymore. And I think people are recognizing that, that the mascots are no longer necessary. It's behind-the-scenes work that is where the work is to be done, I'd say. You do have to realize that if enough people just start doing charitable bike rides, if enough people do just start doing little things, then there is the potential for the planet that we're living on to experience a shift in the direction of something that's incredible.

I feel like it's more possible than ever given like, that's one of the good things that things like social media have allowed us to experience is other bubbles in other parts of the world where you're like, oh, other people do think this way. And there are people in these countries that aren't for whatever dictator is running their country and they don't all think this way. And they're not all terrorists and they're not all backwards and they're not all misogynists and homophobes and this and that and this and that. And that kind of thing creates empathy when you look at these countries that are like,

Israel and Palestine are constantly destroying each other and you think when you don't know the information, 100% of Israelis think this way and 100% of Palestinians think this way and that's why they're fighting. But then when you when you look into it enough, like you get user accounts instead of just like, here's what the news is telling you. These two countries are just going at it and that's just the way it is. And you're like, well, that doesn't seem right. And then you see you watch videos and see pictures of people's actual Twitter accounts

or their own like websites or whatever. And you see like, there are Palestinians that don't think this way, that want peace, that want to broker negotiations. And then you think like, is it the people in charge that want war to continue? Is it is it all political? But it's whoever's making the fucking bombs, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's sadly what it all boils down to is it's like a little political and a lot of people who fucking make a shit ton of money every time the bomb gets

dropped. You know, we can't. I don't know what you could do about that. I mean, either I was just using that as an example of like, like going behind the scenes which is something you can do now with, with, you know, having access to the internet. You can see what individuals think. By the way, man, what was the name of that really powerful and famous weapons manufacturer who got assassinated for manufacturing the weapons? What was that guy's name?

You know what I'm talking about? He was like a billionaire and he like manufactured tons of weapons and came up with new weapons systems and got assassinated. What was his name? What? When was this like before the? Never happened. The fucking weapons manufacturers never get fucking assassinated.

It's only the humanists. It's only the people giving things to the world. There's no Martin Luther King's of weapons manufacturers. Why are those guys fucking taking bullets when they go to the goddamn park? The people who are like actively taking shit with bombs on cities all over the planet. They're fucking fine. Why? Because no one knows who they are.

You never, you wouldn't, as far as I know, no one's, there's no famous, like the guy who invented the fucking hellfire missile. What's his name? What was the team that worked on that? You never hear about them, do you? The last team you heard about was the guys behind the Manhattan Project. The guys that developed the nuclear weapon. That's it.

Yeah. Those were the guys. And then after it became like the source of all evil, it was like, yeah, let's not talk about the weapons manufacturers anymore. Let's just keep those guys quiet. Let's stay quiet. Yeah. Let's pay them under the table.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we got to squeeze those bitches out. I'm not saying, obviously, I'm not recommending shooting anybody because that just keeps the cycle of violence going, but there's got to be a fucking, I don't know, man. Don't you feel like there's something in the air, man? Don't you feel like there's like a positive shift happening or am I just like at the phase of my like aging hippie life where I actually believe that there's some kind of global transformation

that's happening? I mean, I feel like I feel that way more too, but I also feel like maybe I'm at like entering a phase where I'm less about myself and more about like how can I just live a happy life and help make the people that I love and care about around me happy too. And then I think when you start thinking that way, you put yourself on a path where you try and see those things more. Right. You know, when you're younger and more idealistic, there's a lot of anger that comes with that

where you're like the world's a terrible place and fuck this and fuck that and fuck this and fuck him, fuck her and you're just angry. So that's all you see is the war and the devastation and the hopelessness and you're like, you know what? Anarchy is the only answer. That's what you think when you're younger. And then when you're you're older, you understand the world as like there are problems, but there's also there's a light that comes with the dark and you focus on a little more on

the light and you try and you try and just bring a little more, you know, a little more light into the world. And in that way, it reminds you that there is, I think, for the most part, a lot more good in the world than most people think, especially when you open a newspaper or turn on the news. It just all seems bad, you know, but when you you actually go to these places or talk to someone firsthand, again, like when you go on, you can go on Twitter and like see what people's lives are like in Israel and Palestine, how they feel about the opposition.

You go like, you know what, they they're not all full of hate from one another. A lot of people do want peace. A lot of people have friends from the other side. A lot of people just want to be happy. I think the majority of people, I think the majority of people want that. Yeah. I went to New York this last week for like two weeks and I hadn't been there in almost a decade, right?

So a lot of the things you see and hear about New York are like, avoid all these places. Don't go, you know, walk around at night and you're going to get mugged and there's all the subways late at night or like this. But I get there and I'm walking around and I'm like, there's no, I don't feel unsafe anywhere at night. And people are nice. It's not like in a movie where you're constantly being elbowed by people trying to get somewhere and get the fuck out of my way.

Subways are crammed and there's crazy people on everyone, you know, there's someone pissing in the corner of a subway car and everything's expensive and brutal and everyone's out for themselves. It doesn't work. It never sleeps. It's overpriced. It doesn't even want you there. And then I'm there and I'm like, this isn't, it's nothing like what you hear on the news

and on TV and depicted in movies because they're looking for emotional responses, even with just a city. Right. You know what I mean? So of course, like when you, when it's like the rest of the world, when it comes to like war and devastation and there's no news out of like, well, everything's pretty cool over here. But it also could just be that you're putting out a nice signal into the world and you're

getting that signal bounced back, you know, cause I imagine that like right after you walk through that place, some, somebody embroiled in some tiny drama in their own little comedy store, whatever their life happens to be, probably walked through that same place, followed your path and all they saw around them was depravity and shit and horror. And that person was me because I was in New York recently. And that place was a nightmare. But that's it, man. It's like, you know, this is the whole thing.

We carry that place with us. So if you're sending that sweet signal into the world, then what you're going to get a response, the response you're going to get back is all going to be reflections of that signal. And that's the essence of magic. And that's why magic isn't such a mysterious thing. It's just like, what signal are you sending out? Figure it out.

What's the signal? Listen to yourself throughout the day. What are you saying the most? Are you saying, do you hear yourself saying this a lot? I love you. I'm so happy that you're here. I'm so glad that you're in my life. This is a beautiful day.

I love my dogs. Do you find yourself calling people and when they fuck up being like, no big deal. I get it, man. Shit happens. Or do you hear a lot of like, that motherfucker, did you talk to, did you talk to Paul? Yeah. Have you talked to him? He's such a fucking dick.

Yeah. He's a piece of shit. What a dick. Why is he happy? He shouldn't be. Fuck him. Is that the signal you're putting out? Because I hate animals.

They're annoying. You might as well be finding a passage from the Necronomicon and summoning demons because it's the exact same thing that you're doing. Every time you hiss and mutter about the horrible world you're living in, that's an incantation and through it, you're summoning spirits. Yeah. You're only seeing the darkness. When that's what you're putting out, you only see that in return.

If you're flying into New York or you're headed to the comedy store or you're going on vacation and all you're thinking about is like, oh, there's so many fucking terrible things about this place, when you get there, that's all you're going to see. Yeah. You summoned it, bitch. Yeah. If I went on that bike ride and all I thought was like, oh, 545 fucking miles is so long. I'm going to be so tired.

There's all these hills. I would have had a terrible time. I would have had a terrible time. It's like, aren't those like the fundamentals of karma, essentially? Yeah. Yeah, karma is another name for it too. It's the fundamentals of resonance. It's the fundamentals of ... There's lofty ways to put it and there's

not so lofty ways to put it. I like to call it magic. It's just people want to think that magic involves finding secret spells where you say the names of the Inokian spirits to try to cause some of the friction. You need witch hazel and the thumb of a rabbit's foot. Those aren't the spells. But if you think that about karma too, they think that's also magical. They think like, oh, yeah, if you do something, then like something magically is going to

happen. It's like, no, it's the simple action of walking down this path instead of that one. It's the positive path versus the negative path. The longer you walk down the positive on a long enough timeline, you will lead a more positive life. Another way to put it would be, if you fart, you will smell something bad. It's as simple as that and it's like it's not a metaphysical principle.

It's because some foul gas has emerged from your anus and is now in the air in the same way. If the energy that you're outputting verbally, linguistically into the world is the equivalent of a fart, or if another way to put it would be, if you're an asshole, if you've decided to make what you are a series of habituations that as there's some total equal one asshole, then probably everything you do is going to smell like shit. Don't be a fart cloud is what you're saying. Yes.

Don't be a fart cloud. And you can reprogram and retrain those habituations so that you begin to start playing around with putting good stuff out into the world. And then once you get good at that, then start intoning the names of the great Anokian Spear, is that a good word, too, but first start with like before you get into that shit, just worry, you know, just make sure that you're like in tune. Yeah. Man, I am sorry, this took so long, I wanted you put an album out not that long ago and

I wanted to get you on right away to help plug that album, but it's fine, it's only been out a month, like six, seven weeks, which like nowadays seems like forever because everything's happened so fast, but it's like still, it's pretty new. Yeah. Well, no one, now you, people only want to buy out now it's probably like it's the sound has gotten bad. I know, I know. It's because it's like.

I didn't use the new technology that came out two days ago. Yeah. And now an iPhone 6 can record a better album than all the equipment I use for mine, probably. That's so weird. This sounds like garbage, dude. Well, it doesn't matter if this sounds bad, man, because you're a funny motherfucker and you got a great album out there and everybody listening, please go immediately to iTunes and download this amazing human beings comedy album and check it out because I've, Nick

is a peer of mine at the comedy store and he's brilliantly funny and you can tell from listening to him, these are super smart guys. So this is a comedian that you should be aware of and a comedian that you should be supporting and as part of the signal that you're sending out to the universe, why don't you drop? What is it? How many? What is it? It's a 999.

999 for literally an hour, 52, 53 minutes, 52 minutes, which equals countless years of a person working on it. I know. I know. That's fucking cool, man. Yeah, that's my first one, too. So yeah, it's like if it's years of material, anywhere from like six months old to like three or four years old, the material varies from there.

What's the name of the album? It's called Stop Not Owning This. There you go. That's brilliant. I like it. And where can people find you on Twitter? My Twitter is at NickYusef, N-I-C-K-Y-O-U-S-S-E-F. The album is very, very soon going to be available in vinyl, too.

It's going to be like a limited run of vinyl. I want one of those, man. Yeah, I'll give you one. Put me on that list. Yeah, of course. Badass, Nick. But I'll announce all that stuff on Twitter and my website, NickYusef.com and all that other fun stuff.

And I have that at DuncanTrustle.com. All those links will be there. Nick, thank you so much for being on the podcast. You got to come back again. Yeah, this was great. Hare Krishna. That was NickYusef. Don't forget to go to his website, NickYusef.com.

See him live by his album. And if you like the DuncanTrustle family, our podcast, give us a nice rating on iTunes. And hopefully I'll see you in a week out there on tour. Shampoo your mom's hair this week and give yourself a foot job. I love you. Meet the Bed by Thuma, the perfect platform bed frame. Thoughtfully handcrafted from upcycled wood, the bed is strong, backed by a lifetime warranty and ships directly to your door.

Assembly takes five minutes, no tools needed. To get $25 towards the bed, go to Thuma.co. That's T-H-U-M-A-DOT-C-O to receive $25 off your purchase of the bed. Shop the bed at Thuma.co.