Duncan Trussell Family Hour - Tait Fletcher

Episode Date: December 21, 2016

Tait Fletcher (Westworld, Pirate Life Radio) returns to the DTFH and we talk about his ascent into the world of action movies, sobriety, and the world of giving back.

Ghost 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. This episode of the DTFH is brought to you by Squarespace.com. Go to Squarespace.com and use offer code Duncan

to get 10% off a brand new website. Sign up for a year and you get a free domain name, Squarespace, set your website apart. Greetings, my dear sweet children of the winter wind. It is I, Detrust, and now we're listening to the Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast and this intro is being recorded on December 21st, 2016. The winter solstice, the shortest day of the year,

the longest night. This is the point in time where every subsequent day will be a little longer and every night a little shorter. This is why the Christians celebrate Christmas, the birth of the baby Jesus during this time of year. It's the representation of how no matter how dark your personal life may seem,

no matter how rotten the civilization you've incarnated into may seem, there's always a chance that from the most unexpected of places a miracle can happen and that's real. You know it's true. The best things that have ever happened to you in life have quite often come from the places you would never expect them.

Who would imagine that the king of kings would be born in a manger surrounded by filthy animals? Who would imagine that psilocybin would grow from cow manure? Who would imagine that life can in completely ridiculous ways produce answers to seemingly unsolvable problems at the very least expected time

in the very least expected place. And that is the kind of world that we live in and thus faith. The reason that no matter how miserable things may be, we can still subscribe to the transcendental truth that this is a universe where miracles truly happen. We live on a planet that's spun long enough that it produced hyper intelligent monkeys

that are currently creating spaceships and machines that are about to wake up. If that's the kind of planet we live on, then what can happen to you in your subjective life? All you have to do is let go. And remember these words I heard in a yoga class taught by Sarah Swaddy Marcus. At a Ram Dass retreat I went to a few years ago.

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Today's guest is a martial artist. He's an entrepreneur who runs a company called Caveman Coffee. He is also an actor who more than likely you've seen if you've watched any action movies for the last couple of years. He was in Westworld, man, and I've known him for a really long time and I have watched his ascent into the world

of action movie stardom, an ascent I believe that is only just beginning. Now everybody, please welcome to the DTFH, the great Tate Fletcher. Tate, welcome back to the DTFH, my friend. Thank you, man, great to be here. I gotta tell you, I kind of texted this to you, but I had a vision.

Oh, yeah, dude, God, we've been trying to get together for so long. Yeah, I remember the text. You remember the text and I was kind of embarrassed by the text, but you know, I'm not saying it's like a pay-outy vision where like, you know, I saw like- If there's anybody that had a vision

where I'm like, there's legs on that vision, it would be you. Well, here's what it was. So, I mean, it's hard to explain, but it's like, I was just like, driving to the comedy store. I guess I was thinking about Westworld and how one of my favorite parts of Westworld

was when suddenly I saw you and it just made me so happy because that show is so good. And I was like, man, that is amazing. That was a big part. That was like a big part for them. That linked a lot of things together. So anyway, this is a weird thing.

I had a vision. And I thought, shit. Now, where were you when you had the vision? Only the way you were in the car? I was just driving. But it was like one of those things where, you know, like your brain goes, oh yes, oh yes. Then all of a sudden it just all clicked.

I'm like, fuck, Tate's gonna be like a big action movie star, God. And it all kind of clicked. It was like, oh yeah, because I keep seeing him in these parts pretty much now. Anytime I'm watching and at lots of times when I'm watching an action movie, you're in there. And your parts keep getting bigger and bigger.

And then it doesn't take a fucking Nostradamus to like put it together. But it's like, whoa, wow. So anyway, enough of me yapping. What's, and I don't want to do like career talk out the gate, but Jesus Christ, Tate, I gotta tell you, man, I get so excited seeing you. And I want to know what trajectory you're on

and what's going on with you right now. It's, I wish that there were a way to mark it in a way that you could understand. Strangely enough, the biggest advice I'd ever heard, or it wasn't like great advice, but it was just like a matter of fact. Pauly Shore said one time when I was in like acting class, we're doing an improv thing and we're at the comedy store

in the middle of the afternoon, Pauly happens to walk through. And he says, you guys want to know the best advice there is. And which is weird coming from Paul, like cause it's not like a guy you would think to go to for advice really. He doesn't strike that in you. Not to get in the way, but I do have a couple of bits of advice that Pauly Shore gave me

that I hang on to to this day. I mean, I'm doing that too, but it's like, what my point is is that it was an unlikely source for me. And what he'd said was, you guys are all looking for the route like how to do it. Nobody knows. There's not one. And you know, just do it any kind of way.

Just throw it out there. And cause there's not really like, after he said that, I thought, I could tell you, I could put you on a course, how to get in the UFC and fight simply. I could not tell you how to get into film. Like I couldn't, like it's just, it's a weird deal. And there's like a catch 22.

There's like a huge barrier to entry to get in it. And then to be able to recreate it and do it. Like I'm just super grateful. I'm the one I guess I want to say is I'm just surprised as anybody and it's cool to see that there is a growth. Like it seems to be accelerating. I mean, it is. And I was just on the phone on the way here

to get an agent to start working with somebody. Cause I haven't, I've had an agent that signs stuff and everything, but like, if I've had a hundred jobs, 95 of them, I haven't gotten with an agent. How do you get them? Usually it's word of mouth. And it's like a second unit director, a stunt coordinator or something will say,

we need a guy that can act, that can also do the action and that's physical or a guy that takes care of the actor so they don't get hurt and they're in their spot. And like, and I've been putting those spots. Wow. And, and then it's grown from there. Yeah.

I mean, it, it's, I mean, I still remember when we were like, I was opening for Rogan. Dude, you moved out of his house and I moved in. I mean, really, you know. That's right. That is crazy, man. It's crazy. And I started looking at that dude.

When I drove up La Cien again, I look at Ari Shafir's sign and that, you know, condemned, crummy, section eight apartment housing that he's living in there. That's right. And, and then there's a billboard with his goddamn face on it over that building. I was like, this is beautiful.

And I just, I looked at that and I looked at all of us in that way. And like, there's not anybody that is straggling out of that. Like, you know what I mean? It's like everybody's doing very well. And I think the thing is, is that everybody's been like, and I don't know that they're correlated,

but you know, everybody's really friendly and everybody's very strong and everybody's dedicated to working hard and very kind and gracious. And like, those are all characteristics of like that whole crew of guys, you know? Whether that's Eddie or Ari, you, me, Brian, like it's this whole group of people, Joey Diaz.

And the first time I met Joey predated all that. Like I met him on the set of the longest yard in like 2005 or something like that. And it's just a trip. It's a trip. It's a trip. It really is. And you know, especially just knowing how circuitous

the route is to that place and knowing that you're doing that thing. It's just, it's pretty mind blowing, man. I mean, I don't want to keep going on and on about, I don't want to sound like a weirdo, but I got to say, you know the term compersion, you know that term? A lot of like people who were into like swinging say it,

but I don't mean it in that way, obviously here. Like I can tell you, man, every time I see you in a movie, I get an authentic burst of joy. And like it is just the coolest thing to see because you're acting, you're good at it, man. It's not just like you're like, you know, you're killing it.

So anyway. It makes me blush, but thanks, man. That's, that's cool. That's a, it's neat, man. And it's nice to like, you know, there's stuff I want to do. There's goals that I've got within that industry, but I'm having a lot of fun doing all the things.

And every time the phone rings, I'm just super grateful. And I'm like, right now, man, this is, you know, and I show up to do that. So it's not that I'm not looking to go somewhere, but I'm really enjoying the whole ride of what it is. Right. Yeah, that's cool. You're not getting freaked out by it at all yet.

Yeah. And then what, either at all, like, I guess I'm really like, it's why I do a lot of stuff. It's like, I've got K-man coffee. I've got that. I just opened a little tavern in New Mexico. I've got a gym there. And all of this stuff, all centers are on friends.

I've got these, you know, the concrete cowboy clubs in Texas and all that. And you're also doing, you know what I bet you're doing? I bet you're doing some kind of black ops shit that you won't talk about. I bet you- And, but like all this stuff, you know, because I know that anything goes away at any time.

And I don't ever want to be a victim of life. I want to be engaged in life in a way where it's like I'm proactive and moving the needle for people and showing people like this is all possible, but also like not that it's, the air is going to come out of it at the other end. If I don't take care of it or, you know, the stock market crashes or whatever, you know,

because like it's like the president or whatever. Everybody's freaked out about X, Y, or Z. Yeah. And I think they'll be freaked out. I mean, there's a whole nother group that would be freaked out if it were anybody else. That's right. So all that stuff can't bother me.

I've got to kill it regardless of who sits in that chair. Like I can't be a victim of somebody else's action. Like I've got to, you know what I mean? And there's something about mastering yourself, I think in that way where you can stay absolved of the external chaos for lack of a better term than and not unbalance you, you know? And I think that's the goal for us, for all of us, you know?

Yeah, but it's that beginning phase, you know, it's that thing where you're, when you're down the line, like where you're at right now and you've got all these plates spinning and you're seeing like the flowering of this amazing tree that you've been growing for a long time. It's, what about, you know, what about when you're not there at all?

Like I'm thinking of like young Tate, you know? You know, breaking the law. Right. A lot. And lost. And lost, right? Like lost, lost, lost. So, or even not, you know,

even not that romantically lost. Like that's kind of cool. Like you're lost, but it's kind of, it's weirdly in some weird way. You're still taking these risks. You're still throwing yourself out. It's the same. To me, dude, I was looking at it and I'm like, it's the same.

It's the, that, that adrenaline-wise, like wanting to have big dopamine burst, like having huge consequence from whatever action it is that you're doing. When I look at that and I look at whatever my life is at any point, it's all the same thing. It's just now for the last 20 years or whatever, it's been nothing criminal in that way,

but like still a life with huge consequences, huge risk. And I'm going to try to walk that rope anyway. All right. And, and. So kind of this is replaced. Yeah, for sure. Or it's feeding that, that. It's part of who I am.

That's my nature, right? Is that kind of hunger? And so it needs to be there. And I think also it's helpful for me because I think when you do that and you live a life that's got consequences like that, you are always confronting your ego, right? And I think that's really the root of where it is in life,

is to get our ego out of the way so that we see that we're all similar and we're all one in that way, you know? Yeah, that is the, how do you, what are some methods you use or have used in the past when you come face to face

with some really shitty part of yourself that you, that is shocking? You know when you're in denial, you know, like, and you, and you are, you just don't want to believe that you've become that person. And then suddenly you just can't help but face it. Right.

What do you do there, man? What, what, what is your technique? Surely in your process, you've kind of, I feel like there's choices, you know, like you got, you can either deny it, you can, and you see that a lot, right? Yeah.

And so I think a lot of it, I've had good training by seeing people and noticing that they're at that crossroads of that choice and going, oh, that guy did it this way. And that is not a good look. You know what I mean? And, and so you start to look at it those ways. And I think the other thing I would,

I benefited everything in my life really to my friends and to the people around me because without the people around me that I trust and that I love, it's hard to detach myself from my ego and be objective while I'm right in it, whatever the mud is. And so I need you to go,

hey dude, look at this and does, what does this look like to you? And I've got to then know that you love me enough. You're not malicious. And because I've got this mind that's going to be defensive right away. Right. And so I need to have somebody that I know cares,

that I trust in that. Yeah. And I need to learn to take their word for that and to look at it and go, okay, I'm going to look at this and I'm going to make adjustments. And it sucks and you have to eat it. But I think there's only one choice at the end of the day

is you've got to do the hard thing. Like the easy thing is to avoid stuff. Yes. And you've got to do the hard thing and you've got to face it and you've got to own it. And I think the only kind of light, it's like in, you know, whether it's relationships or whether it's whatever,

if you've been wronged or whatever, who cares? Nice story, tell it to read or digest kind of thing, you know? Yeah. The thing is it's got to be 100% on you because you're the only one like, if I'm not willing to take all the responsibility, then I shouldn't even be in the game

because it's all on me in that way, you know? And when I do that, the people around me then are way more gracious because they're like, no, no, there'll be the ones that'll be like, it's not all like, but I really, I really want to authentically look at it. And so now I've just, I've come to that battle enough to where I don't battle it and I just go,

it's all on you, take responsibility and let's move through this. So you're saying, and I've heard this from people at the Ram Dass Retreat event. Really? I've been wanting to go to this retreat with you. I mean, it's been in my head for the last six months or something.

You would love it. Yeah. Sorry to interrupt. No, you're repeating like what's come to me from them. It's, they say, you know, this is any human relationship that you get into. It's a very easy thing to want the other person to change. Right.

You start working on the other person. You start trying to... Or if only this were different about them. Yes. And that is usually what's going on there is you're projecting what you want to change about yourself onto this other person, but you can't deal with the fact that this is actually you.

So the idea is the thing you're trying to change is someone else. Make sure you look into yourself and see if there's a corollary there. Maybe it's not gonna be identical. And then if you start working on that, then suddenly the relationship becomes this, like you're sitting at the feet of the guru

and you're being shown all your places, you're stuck. And just essentially what they say is work on yourself, change yourself, perfect yourself, but don't perfect the person you're with. Right. I think that whole phrase to that own self be true and it's out of a Shakespeare play and it's really been ringing in my ears lately.

And that whole thing about, it doesn't matter who you are. Like whether you're a girl I want to date or whether you're an employer or whatever, it has zero bearing on the conversation. I'd like to be both of those to you. You kind of have been at different times. You know, there's a season for everything. But like, it's more important that I'm the fish

it's more important that I'm the fish I got to catch. You know, it's important that I come and like it doesn't matter who she is in the relationship. It's who I am like, like, oh, she were different. Like I'm not ready for that then. All right. You know, and knowing like, or going, you know, what I battled with forever is monogamy.

And so then I've just, and for a while I tried to pull, like at first it was confusing to me as a little boy. And I was like, seems weird that like Joey and Chrissy are dating and then Chrissy kissed Tommy and now Joey, everybody's like, ooh, you got to do something about that. And there's an impelling notion to be either violent or aggressive or whatever.

And you need to hate her. And then they do that. And then they, and this web weaves with all these people, you know, I'm like, this is fascinating. And, but they liked each other at the beginning. Why can't they just still like each other? And she also kissed him or whatever the thing is.

It always seemed weird anyway to me. And this ownership, this propriety we have over another person. And that that was a trust or an infraction in some way. And I thought, that seems so odd. And everybody I knew was divorced and whatever. And, but you go through life like that. And I think, well, for me then,

I tried to play in that serial monogamy kind of role that everybody is in. Yes. And it doesn't fit very well. And then you're a bad guy. That's the setup, you know? And nobody thinks you're a bad guy. If you're a woman, then you're just,

I'm craving to get married. I'm craving to have a baby. Like that's a normal biological thing. Well, so is the other. So is the dude trying. Like, it's all part of that whole conversation. And you can't demean one without demeaning the other. And how about nobody has to be wrong?

Right. And so then I start going, well, you know, I'd like to have more honest conversations about that and say, like, I love you more than anything, but at the same time, I'm not, I can't hold this to be my, this is not the mantle that I can carry, you know?

And so if that's what it looks like for you to understand that, so to my own self be true in that regard as well, of going, I need to own that. If that's part of me that I'm not willing to do, why am I making an agreement that I'm not gonna honor? Historically anyway, you know? Yeah. And maybe that changes over time or whatever.

But at the same time, I think that being true to yourself is so important that to not be true to my word to you is inconsequential in a way. Maybe it makes me look like a dick or untrustworthy or this or that, but really that thing about telling yourself, because what that does is imbue shame in you.

Like that you're a broken person and you can't do that. You know what I mean? Yeah, man. And it's like changing your eye color. It's like, if it's part of who you are, and it's not deleterious, except in the way that somebody else feels as far as they feel smited in some way,

but it's just your action and you're not stepping on anybody's toes. What is the problem, you know? Well, it's way better if you know that's how you function. Right. It's way, way better up front to just say, I'm not monogamous, I can't do it. Doesn't work, never pulled it off.

And also, doesn't mean that I'm out every night. It's like, it's all of that. It's an interesting thing, but we get scared. And so that thing too about like getting the ego out of the way of going, we're not that dissimilar and maybe we could be a little more gracious with each other, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. And this is like a piece of the puzzle for sure. It's always the ego though. Good God. And man, you can really run into trouble the older you get. If you're not like, if you let it slide at all, like if I let it slide for me, it gets bad fast.

It's scary how very quickly things can like suddenly like I've gone insane. Like I'm being dragged around by my ego. And then that sucks because now I've got to like go to the people I love, completely embarrassed and be like, you know what, I've, I went crazy. My ego got crazy. I lost my fucking mind.

That feels so bad because you're, you know that ego is in the Lord of the Rings. Do you watch those movies? It's Sauron. It's the Dark Lord. It's the thing that's just like, why would you apologize? Will you show your weakness to them?

Show your weakness to them and you will be exploited. And then you will regret showing this weakness. Better to be strong and wrong. You know, it's fucked. It's weird how it's all routed in like drug culture too. I think like Gollum is like the consummate junkie. Yes, yes, that's right. It's amazing in that regard.

And I've had that. I've had conversations like that guys come to me and they, so dude, you're sober and I go, yeah. And they go, I don't do it all the time, but I've been doing coke for a while. Like I'll call a guy and then I'll be out for three days. And then, and then I won't do anything for two days. And then I feel like shit.

And then I go back and then, and maybe it's two months and I don't do it again. And then I'm in the wrong, it's all in the cycle, right? That they're, and I go, listen, man, maybe you're just partying and you're bored and this and that. I don't know. Maybe it's not a bad deal. However, if it is, it'll be recurrent and it'll get worse.

And then there's options take, but right now what's going to happen is, you just did this last night. And so what's going to happen is in two days, you're going to be like, fuck, I snitched on myself to Tate. And then you're going to feel really weird every time you see me.

So let's not do that. I'm going to pretend like we didn't have this conversation. And if you really want to talk in a few days, cool. And if not, we'll never mention it again. You know, but like that, like that thing that Soran has done, it's just like that. It's like, you're going to out yourself and say your weakness and then you're going to be sorry and regret that you did that.

But that is the thing is like to show you, for me when I got sober, I was like, I just want to go ahead and, if it's between me dying and me showing my weak, I'll go ahead and I'll risk this because I already know what the other thing gets me. And when you already know the sadness that the other thing brings long enough,

you're like, well, fuck, I'll try something different then. You know, at a certain point you have to. What does it give you? That winning in that way. I don't know. Yeah, what's winning, right? Yeah.

It's eating ashes. It's like eating dead things. It's like you win nothing. What do you win? Like the ego wants you to win, at the cost of the self. Yes, at the cost of the soul. And the spoils of an ego victory

are so transient and bitter. It is ashes. It's ashes in your mind. It's just that. It's beautiful. It's scooping ashes in. And then you're looking out at the world and you see like devastated people that you've.

Well, that's the thing is like you want to go through life and you'd like, I don't want to hurt myself or anybody else. And then you moved contrary to that because you had a good idea or whatever. Right. It's crazy. You will hurt people.

For sure. Like if there's someone, like if you're about to be incarnated and someone sits down with you, they're going to say, you're probably going to hurt people. You're going to hurt yourself. You're going to end up doing something

that fucks somebody up. And any power is like that. Right. I mean, really. The president. I mean, you look at somebody, I forget where I read this, but they said their assertion was that anybody

that got passed like a governor, if you're in contention for the highest office in the land, you've done evil, which means you've been complicit in the death and murder of children and women. And like you've done horrible things. And that's everybody that gets to that spot

has like, you got blood on your hands. You can't get away from that. Cause that's what the office dictates, you know? And that's what power is. I was just listening. There's like a Beatles interview. I can't remember.

John Lennon, who's like, anyone who's successful has stabbed someone in the back. Anyone who's successful is very cynical. I don't know if that's- What year was that in? I don't know. It was, my friend was playing it in the car. I don't know.

It was like, you know, John Lennon, he's kind of, he's not, he's not- They're super interesting because of where they were and then where they evolved to through psychedelics really is what I think. Yeah. Yes, right.

But I want to talk to you a little bit about this concept of power being kind of inevitably dangerous or success hurting people. Have you, in your progress through life, have you run into a situation where you find yourself having to choose between like success and your integrity?

Have you hurt? If you want to talk about it, do you feel like you've hurt people accidentally or? I probably have. I always ask people to tell me. I mean, like if that comes up or if somebody is like at odds with me, I always want to see what it is.

I don't want to, I want to clean it up. I don't even like it. I mean, like, I don't even like trolls when they're like, get sad on the internet. And that, like, I, like every, like, I'm like, man, I would, I want to live in collusion with you. I don't want to be at odds with anybody. It's an impossibility to happen,

but it's like the ideal that I strive for still. You don't think it's good to have enemies? I was reading this. I guess it can be, you know. There's a school of thought, right? But it doesn't feel good. Doesn't feel good. And I want to feel good.

But isn't there a school of thought that having a few enemies is like, kind of like having access to a really great gem that if you have enemies, then you can sort of buy the survival that's being forced from, you know, because when you do get to a certain level. Anybody that I would see as an enemy

would be a weak person, though. They would be an unevolved person. The way I get stronger and go to the gym more in that regard, and whether that's emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, physically, whatever, is by the core people around me that I go, that fucker's getting ahead of you in this. And you need to keep up to be valuable

to be around the circle. You know, you want to carry your own weight. And also, you know, I think about it too, fuck, there's people counting on me. You know what I mean? It's like, I need strong legs, man. There's people that I need to carry through to the next thing, you know?

Yeah, that's cool. So when you're doing, you seem to be very community. For sure. Oriented. When you're thinking about stuff, you're not really, you're thinking about how it affects the people around you. I think it's the only way I can go through. It's the one thing that keeps me in check a little bit.

Does this come from, do you think it's a 12-step program that has taught you this, or was it, were you like that before? I think I've always craved a community, I guess. Or a core acceptance, maybe, right? How much of this is from, because everything you're saying is, sounds like a person with a strong spiritual practice.

And do you consider the 12-step program to be a spiritual practice, like chanting, or going to church, or anything like that? Is this wisdom that you, and also not just, it's like, you're not just talking the talk, you're clearly walking the walk. How much of it is related to the 12-step program?

I feel like, whether you talk about 12-step programs, or you talk about neuro-linguistic programming, or you talk about vitamin C, or whatever. It's like everything has a power to it, and I think that... Do you get into NLP? The juice, yeah. I've been just dabbing in that a little bit. I'd like to get it, make it a practice.

I don't know much about it. I haven't gotten in very deep. But I think all those things, you know, I try to immerse myself in stuff. And I see a lot of people that, every naysayer I know about almost anything, dips their toe in it, and is like, that didn't feel good, that's bullshit.

Right. So, yeah, I've immersed myself in things, and drawn what's out of it now. In whatever I've been in, whether it's been in some program, or in jujitsu, or in like a fitness modality, or a nutrition modality, or a spiritual thing, I mean, is the Catholic Church all evil?

No, do they fuck a lot of kids? Yep. Like, it's like all of that. It's like, sure, there's good to be extracted from that. Sure, there's terrific evil out of that. Like, if you go to any NA meeting or something, you're gonna find the most beautiful, altruistic people in the world,

and you're gonna find rapists, and junkies, and murderers. Like, it's just part of the deal. Right. And so... So you're taking it from everywhere. You get an opportunity to become who you wanna become when you get exposed to things and go, do I wanna get better, or do I wanna blame somebody?

And those are the choices you get. You cannot be a victim and recover, and so do I wanna get well, and do I wanna improve and continually grow into a better human? Or am I looking for somebody to blame? And I look at that as retirement. When I'm ready to blame somebody,

I'm not gonna do the work to take responsibility for that. So all I need is a good scapegoat, and I'm good. You know, and I've lived my life like that for a long time. But when you rot in cancer from living that kind of life, because that's what it gets you. And so at a certain point, you just go, I'm just gonna go ahead and take responsibility for everything.

Yes. Because it tastes way better. Way, way better. And I get benefits from it, and I can be helpful to people behind me for a minute. And yeah, it's like a dude that helped me a bunch, I guess, where I get that community from, or that wanting to help the guy coming behind me is a dude

that helped me a tremendous amount, and I talked about what I owed him, you know? And I thought, I don't have anything, man, but I recognize that, oh, you're not like a dick. You've done kindnesses and been gracious in ways I can't pay you for. And he says, you don't owe me, you owe everybody. And he says, and what you need to do is you need

to keep a spiritual life in your life, and get as well as you can, and you need to help the guy coming behind you, and you need to be a symbol for that. Wow. And that's been kind of the only thing I've been wanting to hold true to for a couple decades now is that kind of an oath to that guy, John Lowe.

And, because it was bigger than him saying that, you know? It seemed like that was a universal echo, that like, here's what you need to do, man. And in doing that, if I keep my eye on that, all these other things can grow, but like, that's the platform from which I come, you know? Well, this is very Buddhist of you. It's the idea of abstaining from true realization

until all sentient beings in the universe have achieved true realization. That's the bodhisattva vow. Would that be like, I don't wanna be rich by myself? If you were gonna give me a million dollars, I would rather, if I've got three best friends, have everybody have 250,000? Yeah. I want everybody to do well.

That's kind of it. Or it's like, how am I gonna enjoy it? In a real base, monetary, fucking shitty, capitalistic way. I can't enjoy this oasis that I'm in because I know that there's 20 people. Who were in the plane crash I was in lost in the desert. So I'm gonna go back out in the desert

to try to bring them to this oasis. And then once I've gotten all of them in, then I'll come and enjoy it too. So it's the idea of like, let's just help each other right now. And this is like a kind of confusing form of Buddhism that Sharon Salzburg teaches, which is this idea of meta,

like the idea of cultivating compassion, cultivating compassion. So compassion isn't, you don't, you're not born with it. You don't just get, you don't suddenly feel compassion for things, even though you can't, you feel sorry for things or you see something suffering, you want the suffering to stop.

It's not like it's not in people, but already it is there. So it's wrong to say we're not born with it, but the idea is in the same way we're born with muscles, you can develop those muscles. So in the same way you have a little bit of compassion, you can grow it and grow it and grow it. And so there's a practice that you do.

Now, what would an example of a, of minutia compassion be with a huge magnitude of compassion? Like what would a little bit of compassion look like compared to, you know what I mean? Like a little bit of muscle could move 10 pounds. A lot of muscle could move 400 pounds. Okay, a little bit of compassion would be, okay, like think of someone who's done you wrong.

Okay. And okay, and the ego, there's a question the ego does not want you to ask. It is an unforgivable question to ask if you want to achieve a state of being angry at someone. And that question is, why are they doing this? Like, why are they acting like this? If I was in their shoes, why would I be doing this?

And then you go in, right? You're like, oh, wait a minute. The reason they're acting like this is because they don't feel like I respect them because I haven't been showing them that I respect them. I haven't been giving them the love they deserve to show that I respect them. So the reason they're doing this right now

is not because of their an innate flaw inside of them. It's just a, oh my God, they just want love. They just want to be loved. Almost always the answer you'll get back is in some way, this person really wants to be loved. So the idea is that these retreats, they do this thing that I always duck out on because it's so cheese ball.

But I wish I did it and they make fun of me because I'm always like, whenever it happens, I feel like I can't do it for some reason. It's really lame. But you sit across from them, you look, and you say, you go through this thing, but you say, just like me, you have suffered. Just like me, you deserve love.

Just like me, you deserve to have a great life. You go through all the things. Is this what they used to do? It was like five minutes or something like that. It's a long time. And people start bawling because you connect with somebody and you realize like, oh my God, every single person you cross paths with in this world

deserves love. They've suffered. One of the things Jack Cornfield says is when he was a monk, they say, you have to bow. They, you have to bow to people who, it's like kind of a martial arts. You bow to people who have, who became monks before you, you bow to them.

There's a formality to it. And he was, he's like, some of these people I don't, I couldn't find what to bow to because I didn't like some of them. Like just cause you joined a monastery doesn't mean you're getting along with people in the monastery, you know? But then he realized, oh shit, look at that wrinkle. Look at the wrinkles in that man's face.

Where did those wrinkles come from? Those, that came from grief. That came from so much sorrow and suffering. I can bow to the wrinkles. I can bow to the, the, the, the, the manifestation of the suffering this being has experienced in this incarnation. So it's like that you, and it's,

I think they call it meta and it's the idea of like wishing or, I mean, I'm going to ruin this. So I'm sorry for those of you who are very familiar with meta because it's a real spiritual practice, but you remind me of that. It's the idea of like, how can I spread? How can I spread? How can I embrace people around me, no matter who they are?

How can I spread that out into the world? I got a, like a practice late on me a few, I don't know how many years ago, but, and the dude just said, just leave everybody with a gift. And like for me, it's like the simple things like that work really well, you know, like to not, to have it, not this huge explanation, but leave everybody with a gift and, and.

Yeah, like we brought this tea over or whatever. But like, or even, you know, he, he broke it down. Even, he says, even strangers in the street, you can smile, you're brave, you're friendly. That's it. Or when you're leaving somebody, even if you're not saying goodbye to them or whatever, or somebody in a car that is,

maybe has the potential to piss you off because of whatever happens in the car to leave them with a gift, a kind thought, even in your head. And I started, when I started doing this, man, I walked by this guy who's a friend of mine, but who's like a little bit too much. He's a little bit like high energy and like tough to be around sometimes.

And, and I was racing through my day. I saw him and we're saying goodbye. And I was, I was like, all right, man, later. And he said, bye. And he walked, and I'm like, that motherfucker, like in my head, right? And I'm like, that doesn't serve you, Tate. And catching my own thoughts.

And so like a lot of it has been like that reprogramming of my thoughts to have different pathways instead of just this automatic negative reaction to whatever. To take notice at least when it pops up. And that's the thing is you start noticing your mind. Yeah. And I think with that, I mean, it's like the one,

the big compassion versus the little compassion. I was like, yeah, if somebody does you wrong or something or you're bitter about someone, you go, oh, I love that person from across the street. That's a little bit of compassion. I'm going to avoid them forever, but and then a bigger compassion of, how can I be helpful to that guy's life or what?

Like, you know, I get what you're saying after you explain that. Well, they say you can train it. And they've done, apparently they've done scans of monks, brains who practice this. And it transforms the shape of your brain. So you're sort of like, there's a whole, you know, I'll look it up.

Like it's the meta, there's a meta prayer that people say, let me find it, because it's pretty interesting. You know, it's funny because it's like, let's see if we can find it. The meta prayer of loving kindness. This is what it's called. The meta prayer of loving kindness. And it goes,

so it goes, and in the way that Sharon Salzburg teaches this, or my, the way I've seen her teacher, she prays a lot of different ways she teaches it, is she recommends that you start small and go big with it. But it goes, the end of it is, may all beings be peaceful, may all beings be happy, may all beings be safe,

may all beings awaken to the light of their true nature, may all beings be free. That's the prayer. And so in meditation, there's a lot of different ways to do it. And there's different versions of this prayer too. You can look it up. That's just one translation.

But the way you would do it is instead of all beings, who the fuck understands what that means, right? So the way you would do it at prayer is you would think about like, I don't know, do you have any pets, Tate? Yeah. What kind of animal? A dog.

Okay, what's your dog's name? Hank. So you would think of Hank. So when, so first you just think of something that you just love no matter what. You love Hank. And I love my dog, Fox. So it's a direct connection.

And I can sit and think, may Fox be peaceful, may Fox be happy and really want that for him, right? So then you're exercising this compassion. Training the muscles. Yes, that's right. Cause you can easily do it with your dog. When you get to like whoever the fuck it is that you have like beef with,

that's where it gets trickier, right? Or even more tricky when you get to yourself. May I be peaceful, may I be happy, may I be safe, may I awake into the light of my true nature. May I be free. When you even, for a lot of people that's the hard one. Cause it's like, I don't deserve that.

I mean, there's stuff that I do to myself or like expectations I'll have myself that I would not have for anybody. I bet. You know? I mean, it's like, I think that's the nature of us, right? Are you hard on yourself? Oh, for sure.

Absolutely. Not a fan. Like, I mean, everything is like, I said to, I don't know, I was talking to Joe once and I was like, I said, it's weird. All the things that I have been my biggest failures have turned into my greatest assets. You know, and like just to,

we were talking about something earlier and there's a guy and you're talking about like, well, when we did these retreats in the 60s or something, what they're like, right? Yeah. And I look at it now, 2016 in the 60s. To me, it seems like, it's like the 90s were like five years ago.

It's like the 60s was like 20 years ago or something. It's like, that's not really where we're at. Like, I don't have a scope of that. But the scope that that guy has. Yeah. And that's the thing about being like a real adult is not like, you've got all this idealism and good ideas or it's a 16 year old or 24 year old or whatever.

But you've lived like four, five, six, eight decades. You've got scope of like, what a real big deal is, what it's not, how the nature of everything is kind of balanced and like, how do I want to be inside of that? All right. And because the thing of all this work, like when the question comes, well, why would I do that?

Well, because we find that a self that's run on ego is hurtful, it's uncomfortable, man. And when you get to that thing, why would I practice that stuff? Well, because I want to feel good, man. That's right. And that becomes the thing I want to, because I think that's what the soul craves is to be whole.

Like, and there is that craving. And I think with like, with alcoholism and everything, we go, yeah, I want to be whole. I want to be spiritually evolved or attain some kind of level or whatever. But at the same time, I'll settle for oblivion. So I'll go ahead and guzzle a bottle of Jack Daniels, and that will suffice for a while.

And then after a while, that isn't sufficient anymore and you're left with this empty cancer of your whole wreckage of your life. And if you can catch it in time, and there's like a window that opens where you're able to be listened to or able to listen to somebody else and go, hey, let's try this other thing.

And if you adopt that other thing fully, that's why I jump into things fully is because there's not another way. If you run the tape all the way out to the end on this side, there's only the one other way to go. And that's usually the way I learn this. Me too. By doing that, you know?

Yeah, that's the way I learn. It's called the Fool's Method. Right, yeah, like be a negative, I've heard, and all kinds of things. Yeah, I'm not alone in it. It's a brutal university. Because you don't have to go to that university of pain. There's so many other ways to learn

just by listening to people who have lived longer. And when those people say something, what do you say to them? I got it. Yeah, sure. You know, it's like, and that's all that ego shit that takes you down that. Like they're just saying that, you know?

And that's an easy thing to, when my teacher's in particular, it's a really easy thing for me to be like, yeah, all right, you're just saying that we should love ourselves completely and that everything's perfect and all is one. You're just saying that, but they are not just saying it. They've practiced it. This is their practice, so it's a different ball

of wax altogether, but the ego wants to believe that, no, no, no, that's not it. Because what they're talking about, the idea of completely loving yourself, not being hard on yourself, this is a quote Cornfield does all the time from a poet I think called Hafiz, which is fear is the cheapest room in the house.

I hope you find better quarters. And it's the idea that you don't have to hate yourself. You don't have to hate yourself. You don't have to look at yourself or even recognize what that is. Like a lot of the time, I remember when I was a little kid and my mom says, I don't know, I was doing some evil shit.

And she said, you know that only tarnishes your soul. Oh, shit. And then she said that, I was like, that is some corny shit. I was like, clearly it hurts them. Like it's got nothing to do with me. And when you cost it, it tarnishes, and I'm little, like I'm like 10 or 11 years old,

I'm a little kid and I don't get it at all until like I look back on that and I look at the wisdom of what that is. Like, you know, that whole corny shit that looks like, to hurt you is to hurt me. Like the night damage to your damage. But let me just say this, let me stick up for young Tate. Yes, please.

If young Tate, after hearing from someone he loved, is your soul as tarnished came to me, I'd be like, it does not tarnish your soul. It might make you look like a dick, but your soul tarnished, no. And this is you would, when we get these things, that sticks with you. And you think, oh, well then I must have a tarnished soul.

There must be something wrong with me. And it's like, but the truth of the matter is, nothing's wrong with you. You, like every single other person here on planet earth, we are in a very perplexing and confusing situation here. This is confusing as hell on every single level, from what's happening politically, to what's happening personally,

to what's happening with our realization that our media is completely bought and sold and the majority of what we've been learning is only like different shades of the truth. We knew, by the way, you and I, we knew this because in the old days for you, and maybe not such the old days for me, LSD teaches you right away, like, wait a minute,

I don't think. I'm so grateful. I'm so, I must have tripped acid, I don't know, at least a hundred times. Sure. A couple hundred times. And when you were talking earlier and you're like, well, you know, you can't just,

like we're talking about burning man. And you said, well, you can't just trip every day. And I go, oh yeah, because I remember if I wanted to have a big weekend, like a Friday and Saturday, usually it'd be reserved for like one night, you're gonna be able to drop acid. Yeah.

But the only, because the only way you can get off on it, if you haven't done acid before, is you need to at least double the dose the next day. And then it's a shoddy trip. It's like a facsimile of the first night. It's never as crisp and it's fun and it's not the same. It's like a dirtier, muddier journey, but you can get off on it.

You can still get high on the acid. But the third day, you're running into some obstacles. And like, but that- Particularly the part of the mind awoken by the LSD, which is saying, what are you doing this every day for? We're already here. Yeah. But that's the thing is that formation of your mind

to open up. And my question is when did you stop taking it also seriously? Cause clearly we're like in a magic trick or something or you're talking about that we're in a multiverse. For sure there's another universe where the gods are laughing going, this is crazy. Look at what they're doing now. Right.

Cause it's hilarious. Like it doesn't even make sense what's happening. The gods do laugh. And it's, well, it's a, so I think right now in particular, the problem is that not to completely switch gears, but the problem is that, so there were all these polls coming out

from the mainstream media, which had a bias, I think, and the bias was they wanted Hillary Clinton to be president more than they wanted Trump to be president because Trump was putting reporters in a bullpen. Like, I don't know if you've seen videos of what he was doing, hilarious, very post-apocalyptic, but he would take, he was, you can just look up the video. So he didn't like the media

cause the media were being shitty with him. Right. And he's like, all right, fuck you. I'm not a politician. I'm a New York mogul businessman. So if you fuck with me, I'm going to fuck with you. Just like I've always been doing. Right.

Like I'd fuck with the unions or like whoever. Whoever I perceive as an enemy, I'm going to torture them because that's what I do. You get in his books, you know, there's different, he talks, he's a, there's people have met him. He's, and by the way, I'm not making some judgment on him. It's just his part of his personality. Right.

And you can see it. He takes a very particular kind of glee. So what would he do? Well, he puts reporters in a bullpen in the back of the room. And then he would like- Like a little fenced off quadrant? Yes.

And he'd say to the audience, boo them. They're corrupt. They're, you know, these people are awful folks. Look at them back there. And then when they would ask questions, he's not taking any questions. He wouldn't let them ask questions. They just wanted to be at his rallies.

He just had a section in the rallies where everyone could boo the press. So the media clearly does not have- He had like a dunce room. He had a, yes. He was doing that to them. And so they were like, you know, clearly he's not making friends that way, right?

So, and so, so what happened is the media in this incredibly biased way, because they didn't want him to be president probably started putting out these polls saying, oh yes, Hillary's going to be president. Hillary's going to be president. Hillary's going to be president. For sure.

No doubt. We know it's for sure. We know it's for sure. But really what was happening is some kind of propaganda campaign designed to manipulate people into affirming some paradigm that no matter what, Hillary Clinton was going to be president. It feels like that.

Like there was a- It felt like that to me. Yeah, something was going on. And in this whole time, Trump was saying like, yeah, but like I'm getting hundreds of thousands of people- And he even bought it though. Cause he was like, watch the polls. Like he knew he was going to lose.

He's like, watch the polls. We're going to redo the polls cause they're going to cheat. Like he knew that it was a fixed game. Like he was sure of it. And I think what it was is it just wasn't as fixed as he thought it was. Right. Yeah, it wasn't.

Whatever we thought it was, how it was fixed, it definitely wasn't. And except maybe the media. Like maybe the part of the game that's fixed is the media because the media maybe is owned by corporations that donated to the Clinton campaign. Like the same two corporations. Right.

I mean, that maybe, I don't know. What about the aspect that perhaps with Hillary and Donald that they're on the same team? That one. And there's that, that they're in complete collusion with each other headed down the road together. And this is oligarchy. I don't think so.

There's that. And then there's another one. I mean, when you look at it and go, is he going to even take hospice? What's really going to happen? Is he going to be put in jail before that happens? Is that possible? Or what if it is neither of them

and it's whoever really runs shit and they're going, let's see how fucking horrible we can make this. He's going to be a puppet that's going to say horrific things that are going to be slanderous, that are going to be treasonous. And he's going to go ahead and be an enemy of the state in all the ways except he'll be the president.

So that will set a precedent for when our next guy gets in and he can do real evil. And we're going to put everybody in a bullpen. That's what's scary. That's what I think. I mean, that's what it looks like, right? And all that stuff is so big. I can just only laugh at it and go,

this is not even real. Well, I'll tell you this, man. He's got balls because he's apparently pissed off the CIA. And the FBI. And he's going to get killed by China or Russia or Mexico or somebody like. Not Russia. I don't think it can be safe that he leaves the country.

I think that it's when it comes to the politics of Trump and all this weirdos that he's assigning to these different places, right? That suck that, like, you know, as attorney general is like just staunchly against all forms of marijuana. Right. The guy that is hired for the, or that's notched for the EPA is a guy

that is a non-believer of global warming and he's a big proponent of oil and gas and all that, like all that. But meanwhile, in the last days of Obama's presidency, the DEA just made CBD, a completely non-psychoactive drug, a schedule-on drug. So it's like, that's not Trump. That's Obama.

That's a person. And that's why I say there's a bigger thing here that it's not about the person that's there. There's a bigger thing that's happening here that's outside of all that scope. Cause if you're going to ask Obama, like if you could sit in a room with him like this, maybe not recorded and go, what the fuck?

He'd be like, yeah, I don't know. Maybe he's got to answer for that. Cause he can't be for that. Like he's a stoner, right? Didn't he used to smoke pot or- I don't know. I mean- He pardoned a lot of non-violent drug offenders.

Like he's pardoned a lot of people. He's pardoned people who've been in jail, had life sentences for possession of LSD. He's done beautiful things like that. So it's particularly confusing that, but you know, maybe we're over- And that he keeps everybody in one ton of obey. I mean, all of it.

Yeah, he does that too. He's so confusing. He's like the whole, like it's clearly fucked up to the point where if Trump becomes president, it's, again, like I tweeted this a long time ago, I have to rewrite all my conspiracy theories because if a man who is now pissed off the CIA, he doesn't want to hear their security reports.

The security reports that he get- It's so crazy. The security reports that they give him, he's like, I don't believe it. I don't think it was hacked by Russia. So he's dissing the intelligence, what they call the intelligence community. So it's the intelligence community,

which is really very funny. Like a guy who can't spell unprecedented, like a guy who like can't spell on Twitter is pissed off a community called the intelligence community. But really, he's got fucking balls, man. Because to like, this is the CIA. This isn't the FBI. This isn't even the Clintons, however fucked up they may be.

They wiped Kennedy. Yeah. Like, they got priors for hitting the president. It's the fucking CIA. Like they, in the world, the eye on the top of the fucking Illuminati pyramid, if you look at it from the dark perspective and not the positive perspective, that's the CIA.

It's a shadow government of people who know everything about Donald Trump. Everything, they, he's gotta know that. Like you're pissing off somebody who probably has pictures of you taking shits from the perspective of under your asshole. The person who's shitting on you. Yeah, there you go, that too.

Exactly, you have like in fear, I mean, maybe I'm building up the CIA, but in my mind, the CIA has always been, for one, how often do you hear about the CIA? And they've got no breaks. I mean, that's the, you know what I mean? It's like, and the NSA, like all that kind of stuff. It's like, those are all complicit

and they don't answer to anybody. No. Really? They don't, and we don't know. Unless there's a fuck up. And then they throw a, they're like, nah, sorry, you're gonna have to burn for this one. And then it goes back to business as usual.

I mean, it's crazy. But the technology they must have. Oh. You know, the shit that they must have. It's gotta be amazing. Amazing. One of the worst parts, I think, about the whole thing, about how vile Donald Trump behaves,

like, to basically everybody. I mean, it's weird that people will argue, like, he hasn't said anything racist. He's hiring women. He's not against, it's weird that, like, that counters everything that he's said in his whole ethics. Like, it's like, well, those,

he can hire a woman and also be a rapist. Like, those can exist in the same room. Like, the fuck. Yeah. But the bummer, bummer part is the blowback that's happening with the online community. And whether it's, like, the caustic feminists that are out there or people just that are looking

for safe places or all these kinds of things that come up that get inflamed. And that anybody that is kind of like, I kind of want everybody to do well. And I don't think that, and I think competition is good. Nobody should really have a leg up on anybody else. And so if, you know, you twist affirmative action, like too far, it's dangerous for everybody

or whatever, all those kinds of things. And then you get the people that are on the far left, like this crazy allowance. And then all the midline people are like, somebody's got to counter the bullshit that's happening over here. For sure. And like, he's made that environment happen

in a bigger way. Whereas before you would just laugh those people off and go, whatever, you really identify as being a gummy bear. I have to refer to you as a gummy bear. That's ridiculous. Right. Now that person has credence. Well, you're looking at two extremes

that are both just rotten. And that's what I don't like about it is that it's, okay, this is something, I'm sorry, if I've said this on the podcast before, but there's this guy, Zizek is his name, he's a philosopher, and he's talking about the different forms of tyranny. Says there's two different forms of tyranny,

or he talks about two different forms of tyranny. And uses the example of a kid whose dad is forcing him to go see his grandmother. And he says, okay, there's two different ways that dad can do this. One way, pure tyranny. He could say to the kid, I don't give a fuck what you want to do.

Oh, you want to play Xbox all day? No, you're going to see your grandmother today because she wants to see you. Overt oppression there. And you don't have freedom. I'm taking you to go see your fucking grandma. The other form of tyranny is where the dad says to the kid, listen, your grandmother is getting old

and she loves you so much. You don't have to go see her today, but I think you know the right thing to do. In that situation, you not only have to do the thing you don't want to do, you have to pretend that's who you are, right? And that's a far more nefarious form of tyranny, right? So with the thing that's been-

Or you go to the thing and you go, we're all whores. Listen, I'm going to give you cake if you go see grandma. Oh, that too, you can get bride too. That's at least, there's that. But in the case of the idea of like, well, you know the right way you're supposed to be. Yeah, the manipulations. You do know, don't you?

I mean, you know you're a white guy, right? You do know- I also like the thing, the first one more, where it's like duty. It's like, this is what you do. This is your old person and you're going to go and take care of them and be nice and that's what it is. And it's your duty as a kid.

Or like, with Hillary Clinton versus Trump, you're getting this, you're getting, listen, we're going to take care of the environment. We're going to take care of earth. We're going to do just what we need to do to make the planet okay. Just ignore the fact that we're dropping bombs on Syria and possibly creating a nuclear holocaust

from a confrontation with Russia. Just ignore that. But we do care for the environment, but we are willing to posture against another nuclear superpower and risk a potential nuclear holocaust, which is going to be really bad for the environment. So it's like, you know what I'm saying?

So in that way, it's like, at least with fucking Trump, there's this like, idiotic and yet- You know what it is. Seemingly successful. Like, this is one thing I can't wrap my head around. And maybe I'm going to get blowback for saying it. But when Trump suggests the possibility of friendship with Russia-

That doesn't bother me. That doesn't upset me very much. Like, what exactly is it about Russia that I'm supposed to hate versus what I know the United States does? Like, in other words, the United States used bad information to go to war with Iraq. It used absolutely faulty intelligence

to rationalize going to war with Iraq, a war that they already had planned out. They already knew what they were going to do. They deposed Saddam Hussein, chaos spread through the Middle East. All these refugees have gone into different countries. Many of them radicalized Islamic terrorists who are doing rotten, who are driving trucks

into fucking crowds of people. Saddam Hussein sucked. Oh yeah, he was of Hyena, who had kill rooms underneath his palace. But God damn it, go to fucking Reddit, watch people die, and check out one of the well-shot ISIS videos of these psychopaths slicing people's throats and human fucking slaughterhouses

and you decide which one's worse. And then you realize, well, the United States, we did that, we created the instability, we created the chaos, we did all that. So if the concept is like, oh, Russia's terrible, it's like, really? Are they the people who? I'm kind of a fan.

Of Russia? Yeah, man, I think part of it is like, and maybe, you know, I don't know, I'm not like a political analyst. Me either. But God damn, man, he got swagger. Putin is a fucking G. Yeah.

Like the way, and I feel like when he looks at America, I feel like he's like, you guys are rotten bitches that are not very just in the way that you behave in the world. And I don't think that's Americans. I think Americans are a group of hugely righteous people that have ideals that are rooted back to 1776. And I think our government is a nefarious,

capitalistic, cancerous organism that wants to spread at any cost. And it doesn't matter the misery that it puts out. And I think that Putin looks at that and he's just like, I think it's laughable to him. And he's like, fuck this. And I think that like when you look at Russia, like I also think it's a horrible place.

You ever watch free running videos from Russia? Yes. They're the most dastardly things ever. Like there's guys that are willing to jump off four-story buildings onto cement to see if they can tuck and roll out of it. Risk death. Just hoping that somebody sees that YouTube video

that can take them out of fucking Russia. Russia is not probably an awesome place to live. It doesn't look like. Because people are dying to get the fuck out of there. That's good to say, because inevitably some are like, why don't you just move to fucking Russia and then if you love Putin so much? Right, exactly.

I mean, so there's all of that that exists, but it's kind of like saying, I don't really fucking Hillary, fuck her, and fuck Benghazi, what she did, and fuck all this shit. You could say that, and then you go, oh, so you're for Trump? Or fuck Trump and all this bullshit.

Oh, you want Hillary to be it? It's like, no, one doesn't mean the other. They're both horrific choices. Do you want syphilis or warts? Like, it's all horrible. And that wasn't a real question. You don't have to pick. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

May you never be asked that question seriously. But we kind of were just asked that question. Totally. And it's a, I think that it's a- I abstained. I go, well, I'm not gonna play either of those. And I'll vote for Derry Johnson. I don't think he's great either, but he's not them.

And I don't think, and he's just like a lovable Lumix, I think. Yeah, man. I abstained too. I didn't vote for either. I voted for a bag of tarantulas. And in retrospect, I would do the exact same thing in any state.

And I don't feel like the idea of like, oh, vote your conscience. Well, I don't think the idea of like vote. I used it in the beginning of the podcast. I was fully on board the pragmatic Hillary Clinton vote train. I started off there and I would, I had talks with people and like the idea was, listen, we don't know.

Trump's a loose cannon. Who knows what's gonna happen. So I, my idea was pragmatically vote for Hillary Clinton. Then more and more of the shit started getting dumped from WikiLeaks. And the more you look into what's going on there, especially the posturing against Russia that she was doing. And then when you realize like, this is war.

This woman is going to create a war. Like there is a war. It seems somehow certain that this woman is going to at least do some kind of air war in Syria to help the rebels. And a lot of those rebels are fucking ISIS. A lot of those rebels are like radicalized, Islamic potential terrorists, not to get sucked into it.

As our father, daddy, Donald Trump would say, they're not good people. They're bad, bad hombres. Bad hombres. So anyway, I don't, listen, I'm not a. I agree. I'm not a political. I'm clearly no one listening to this podcast is thinking,

wow, these two must be Harvard educated political. Maybe those are our new diplomats. No one's thinking that. God damn right we are. But, and I, and Trump's appointees are just wretched to me, but mother fuck man, Hillary Clinton and that global, the global is the policy of endless war. No more war.

That's happening regardless. You think so? Oh yeah. You think we're going to have a war forever? I think that the militarized, that whole complex is unstoppable. I think that is the NSA. That is the CIA. And all those people, I would like to look at her tax portfolio

and his tax portfolio and Michael Moore's tax, they're all the fucking same. It's all fucking, I bet in selling tanks, stealth bombers and warheads, like all those people are invested in all these things. Oh God. You know what I mean? And so like the people that really have the money,

they're selling war. They don't want to not be at war. That's good money for them. And then they can use American kids as fodder and then they trick the dumb people into going, oh, you're against the soldiers. You don't want the war. No mother fucker.

I'm for the soldiers. I don't want them to come back with no legs, you know? And that becomes the whole thing. And I think whether it's Hillary or whether it's Donald, I feel like it's the same cliff. The world's on fire. We're headed to the cliff. She's going to stretch it out

because she wants to suck every dollar out of it, she can. And he's going to get us there fast because he just doesn't know how to handle it. Like, he doesn't know, at first I thought, well, maybe Hillary's better because he doesn't know the difference between like, Shia and Sunni, he doesn't know anything globally. And maybe she does.

And I'm like, it's all just evil. And we're going to the same cliff either way. Isn't it possible though that like, I mean, listen, I've been, I'm a naive person. We're heading into reset button. Here's the thing. Because I'm naive. You know, my dream when Trump got elected,

I thought, you know what, maybe, maybe he's like going to like legalize marijuana on the federal level because he knows that'll create an economic boom. It's not helping. That would be death. Here's the thing about that though. I mean, not to interrupt the thought,

but the whole thing about, you know, you see all these knuckleheads that are like, fucking weed's legal, awesome. It's not really legal while there's still brothers and sisters that are locked up on weed charges. Like that's ridiculous to celebrate in the streets. You look like a fucking fool

and a self-obsessed little fucking kid. It depends, but it depends. Because that's crazy. But in California though, what they just passed, a lot of people are having their sentences commuted because of the- Great. So there are-

It didn't happen in Denver. It hasn't happened in Washington. It's just, it hasn't happened. So it's not really legal. The other thing is this. The only reason that anybody is making anything legal is to make real money off of it. Right.

And so that means that it's gonna be Pfizer and Upjohn and these characters. Monsanto. That are going, and Monsanto's already got dibs on it. That's what I heard. And they signed off in California for five years. The big companies, corporations won't get into it. Well, five years is nothing.

That will elapse. They're gonna power fuck the system. It'll be illegal for you to grow. There won't be any seeds except Monsanto seeds. And it's gonna give you fucking death. You're gonna find the first deaths from weed and you won't have any of the helpful aspects of weed anymore because that cuts into the Oxycontin thing.

The Oxycontin thing came out. The biggest opiate deaths that have happened in the last 10 years happened this year. And it's not heroin, it's Oto-Oxycontin. That's right. They start to fucking get bad press on that. So then did you see the, is the LA Times the other day? It was Oxycontin, little tablets over the whole globe.

And they go, we're doing a globalization of Oxycontin and we're really hopeful about the widespread proliferation to help all their countries. Like they're just creating junkies everywhere and they know it just kills people. They also know, like what I know from heroin use is the same for all the opiate use. It doesn't really negate pain.

It makes you more sensitive to pain. It makes the receptors more hot. You don't become like numb. You become hyper-pussy. You become hurt easily. Yeah. And so it does, it's fucking evil, man. Well, listen, I agree that the pharmaceutical companies,

especially the people who are dispensing Oxycontin, which is just amazing. It's amazing. That drug cartel, I mean, to me- And then they get it okay, yeah, if you're under 12, it's okay too. I love that. That drug cartel is so smart because it's this like

super powerful drug cartel sitting right in front of everyone- Fuck the war as cartels, you got nothing on them. Nothing, nothing. So what were you gonna say about it? You were hoping the federal legalization of marijuana? Well, I'm saying that the, well, yeah. My naive idea was Trump with like,

and it was clearly an absolutely idiotic thing that I've thought. I don't even know why I thought it. But so Trump continues to disappoint me, but at least with the people he's picking to run shit. It's fucked up. So, but my hope is only just because from the pure, just from the hilarity of it,

it would be, and that's not gonna happen probably. It's not gonna happen. It would be that the war's stopped, that the war's stopped, that the Middle East balances out, a dictator goes back into power, which fucking sucks, but at least it's not an endless air campaign.

The war's stopped. It just slows down, at least it just stops. And then, not only does the war stop, again, this is my dream. Go ahead and play it back after the first fucking nuclear attack happens. I'm sorry I said it. I'm naive, like we both said, we're not political analysis.

But my dream is this, only because if the war's stopped and then somehow the economy booms, which the stock market's doing great right now, the Federal Reserve just up the interest rate because it's apparently, now I know a lot of you guys are saying, no, it's a bubble, it's gonna fucking pop, but the economy, the stock market's booming.

So the dream is that what happens is we realize that we have been completely brainwashed by a media that's owned by a couple of corporations that wanted war to continue and wanted shit to stay fucked up for a long time. And this is, again, this is just a stupid dream. He's appointing people who are absolutely ridiculous to high positions of power, it's horrible.

But the dream is that somehow, all of a sudden the economy gets better. We see the end of ISIS and there is a period of prosperity and no war. They're, my dream date is that somehow, I'm gonna run for office. Through this lunatic, somehow through this person that we thought would be a lunatic,

over the next four years or eight years or however long he's in office, we get to see the first baby born in the last, what, 20 years in an American nod at war. And if that fucking happens, if that happens, that will be such an insane indictment on a political regime that's been in power for so long that we just thought it was normal

that it's gonna make me, it's gonna make a lot of people rethink a lot of shit. Now, all that being said, probably within the next six weeks, we're gonna be eating North Korean nukes. They're like, we've got our missile system designed. Yeah, bro, I feel like it, I mean, I had hope for Obama too.

And then I thought in the second term, I'm like, I had hope again. Yeah, me too. And then I was like, he's fucking us again. And then this, it's interesting about that whole thing about like the way we saved Iraq. I was on a movie with these Iraqi people that were, I was going to shake down,

like we were gonna search them for bombs and whatever, it was like a Navy SEAL movie. And talking to them. And they'd been, I think two years out of Baghdad at that time. And I said, well, what's it like? They're like, oh, well, when we were there, it was beautiful. It was like one of the most beautiful places. And it was like, it was like New York city or anything else.

And I go, was it scary? They're like, no. And I go, was it horrible? Like it was, you know, cause you hear, all we hear about is the rape dungeons and shit and Saddam's crazy kids and all that kind of stuff. And I said, she said, well, it's not good to be in opposition to Saddam.

Like, you know, those guys are who the rooms are reserved for. But those are like six guys. It's not like there's trains of people that are going down there being gassed. But they would make it seem the propaganda machine. It seemed like that. And so I'm talking to this lady and she's like, yeah, electricity running, like she's like, yeah, it's a city.

Like I'm an asshole for like, I'm like, I figured you're like, you know, I had no idea. And yeah, the vision of it. And she said, and now it's just warring tribe. And so we've created chaos. We've created, we've created ISIS. We've created all of this to happen through our first assault on them through George Bush.

And then, I mean, and I hate to even name George Bush. I used to think it was, I could put a name to it. It's whoever runs the show, man. Like, and then you talk about they want to destabilize like Arab Spring and all that kind of stuff. It's happening right now. Syria is one of the last things on the tick list. I mean, we go and we kill Qaddafi.

But it didn't, but Syria didn't work. It's coming. I mean, we're in the mix right now. We're in the mix in Syria, but because of this. All we need to do is destabilize it. Yeah, but it isn't, I mean, I could be wrong because I'm not following this. But I know like Aleppo, that rotten war

that's been going on in that city is ending. The rebels are burning buses that were supposed to get refugees out of there. They're burning the fucking buses. These are rebels supported in some way or another by the United States and they're burning buses to keep innocent people from getting out of there. So because of the Russian, the heavy Russian presence

there and Russia helping Syria because apparently Russia has an oil pipeline that runs through there and needs the port or some shit. And that's really what it's all about is they want to get it all the way to the Gulf. That's it. But what's happening is because the new president is coming in who doesn't fit into the plan.

Right. We're suddenly witnessing this thing that's been this conflict that's been going on. It's like simmering down a little bit. Why is that? Because why? Because maybe just fucking maybe whoever Clinton was working for

wanted this war to keep going on forever. And maybe whoever Trump happens to be in all his awfulness and brusqueness and what's the word? Just brutishness. Maybe he's like, I don't want to be at war. I'm a fucking New York businessman. I make stakes.

Until somebody gives him a check. You think so? Here's a billion dollars. Hey, would you like to be, here's 5% of our tank business. We're going to sell it all to the US defense. Would you like to be a part of that? You're going to garner a billion dollars.

Oh, you're right, Tate. Like if you make the money, if you're the Fed and you want somebody on your side, how hard is it to put a bunch of zeros in their bank account? Yeah, but he's like, I mean, again, man, I sound like I'm a fucking Trump supporter, which I'm not. I'm not a Hillary supporter.

You look like a Trump supporter. I fucking wear the red hat with pride. I just don't, you know what? I just don't want war. I'm sick of, I would love to live again in a country that's not at war. I think that would be great. I think the fact that war seems normal to people,

that in fact it's like, we just don't even think about it. It's just something that's just part of being an American is like dropping bombs on other countries. That's just part of what it is to be, I want that to end. I want that to end. And I think that starts inside though. Right.

Like, whenever I start thinking too much about fucking global warming or global extinction or whatever, those are things that, those are riddles that it doesn't even matter. All I'm doing is blowing air. Right. And at the end of the day, all I can do is impact the people that I touch throughout the day

and kind of imbue safety and love and kindness in that, right? Easy to forget. And then that goes, right? I think it's also easy to forget like being on the West Coast, like, or the East Coast or somewhere. Like, I grew up in Michigan. I got an idea of like what that's like, you know? Or like you travel through the world, you're like,

oh, this is, so the bigger question is, why is so much of America so disenfranchised that anything different is what we want? We don't, cause what we can say is that neither choice looked like a sane sound choice. So why is it when they give us two insane choices, people are actually for one or the other? That's an environment that's unsafe

and like, why is our own country, why are our own communities unsafe and the dialogue is so contrary to each other that we'll hate our brothers here. You know what I mean? Because if you believe, cause you have this bumper sticker. Right. Like there's people that'll get their windows broken out

for that bumper sticker. Why is it in the world like where there's, and also the press, the whole doctrine of that, like, you know, like the pipeline that's going through and the water protectors, that didn't get brought up once in the, like you could have really gotten people on your side. What, cause oil is so strong

and both of them are complicit in that. Or that massive Norwegian fucking pedophile ring. That's not happening. It's not getting brought up. Yeah. You can stop that Obama. It's not, you don't mention it once. Any reporter could ask Clinton or Trump that.

It doesn't get brought up. It's weird. Weird. And then what's really weird is I post a thing about it and then people are like, why do you want to stop progress, bro? Like they're talking about poisoning and it's like, they're like, what, you use oil?

I'm like, yeah, and I'll continue to. But I think there's a way to safely get it. And in the greatest depression that America's had ever, a few years ago, the oil companies had record profits again every quarter. That's crazy, man. And so you're looking at something that is corrosive. And also, I think a really important thing to remember here,

this is something that I keep forgetting cause it's so absolutely bizarre is that in the midst of all of us getting tangled up in Trump versus Hillary and all of these immediate considerations politically that we're having to deal with mentally, machines are waking up. Yes, last world, this is full circle.

Yeah, and jobs are going away. Oh, different. You know what I mean? It's the same, it's all, I mean, even all, I think one thing that with Trump that people are missing that isn't getting reported on is that Trump is an example of the technological disruption

that we're all experiencing. Because what happened was, what's his name? The Podesta got an email from someone saying, this is like Google, we have a security concern, click on this link and we've got to redo your password. That was the hack, it was just phishing.

And Podesta sends that to the security analysis to looks at it and writes back with a typo supposedly saying you should deal with this. When he was saying you shouldn't, you left out an NT or something. It was just a simple typo, apparently. Who knows, a lot of people, everything is questioned now. But anyway, the whole point is the medium

that allowed for the infiltration to happen is a brand new thing on the planet. And so this political victory has a lot of its roots in a relatively brand new technology. And so what you're seeing is novelty being generated from the acceleration of technology as we get closer to the singularity. I think that's maybe what Terrence McKenna would say

is that Donald Trump being president is a foreshock of the incoming singularity, of the weirdness that we're going to begin experiencing with such rapidity that it makes the Donald Trump, the weirdness of the host of celebrity apprentice being president, seem like nothing. And to add to it, another complaint that people are filing against Trump is him tweeting.

So it's again another technological disruption. He's using a brand new technology to express himself, no other president has done this in this way before. He's not being politically just saying how he feels through this brand new technology. And it's shocking to us. It's shocking not just because the guy isn't spell checking his tweets,

which anyone I do that, and I'm not gonna be fucking president, it's shocking because it's brand new. We've never seen that happen, a president doing that before. Again, novelty, novelty, novelty. And it all is an indication of what's in store for us as a species.

We don't know exactly what it's gonna be, but the next fucking thing is gonna make Donald Trump seem like nothing. Like he was a good guy. Or just, I don't think it will be like it'll, he'll seem like good or bad. I don't think it's an ethical thing. It's gonna be like, I mean, God.

Like we're not even in that existence anymore. It's gonna be like contact with an alien. It's gonna be a machine waking up. That's totally true though. I mean, I feel like technology's about to trip over itself, right? When, like whatever Kurzweil's ideas were, it's like that.

It seems like that's inevitable. Like when you look at like, that we rode a horse a hundred years ago. And I mean, cause that's transportation. And you look at like the only reason we don't run on air right now in our cars is only because oil and gas is so strong that they strangle any new technology that comes up.

So they actually stop evolution, right? They negate that from happening. And I think that's the, also the sad part is that they go, well, people are dumber and they're not as informed. If we can control the narrative, then, and we can make dumber people with pharmacy. Like it's all this whole thing that all works together. We can poison their food.

We can do what, they want a dumber populace and whoever this they is. And it's for what end? Like I don't, like I wish there was at least a big picture that was like an intergalactic picture that I don't know about instead of just some fucking green. Let me give you a new way to be fucking intergalactic theory. I'm ready.

So a lot of people say that the government, you know, the people who believe in aliens will say the government is in some way working with aliens to attempt to like to get new technologies or they have made contact. But what if the reality of the situation is the government, some governments of the world or these shadowy people are actively trying to suppress an alien invasion

that's happening in the form of emergent technologies that are manifesting in these ways that are making us become more tightly connected. So what's actually happening is the aliens aren't coming in the form of UFOs. The aliens are coming in the form of technologies that unify people and create a kind of unification that can't be tainted by the government.

It's created this, it's like the ultimate weapon. If you were going to war with a government would be to shoot something into a planet that would make it to the people joined together. We talk through the internet, we come up with our own ability to figure out what is true and what isn't true. Through that, it subverts all the governments of the world

and then in that level of connectivity, we can give birth to the super intelligence that is going to be the final subversion of all power systems because it will be exponentially more intelligent. I love it. So that's the idea. There's a war happening to suppress the birth

of a new consciousness that's growing out of technology and places where people gather together in a way that they aren't being suppressed or by ridiculous laws. And that's the real war that's happening and no one, no one can stop what's coming. No Vladimir Putin, no oil company executive, no Donald Trump, no Hillary Clinton

because this is a fucking spaceship. Do you think the biggest coup was when the internet went live? It's hard to trace it back. Was it when the internet went live? Was it when, who knows? Like there's no telling. You could, was it when the first single cell organism connected with another single cell organism

and began the march in the direction of like a brand new intelligence appearance? But now you're talking about stuff that can happen in one generation versus in the thousand generations. That's right. It's a spaceship. And this is what's really funny about it is because, and this is what humans do.

We think we know what a thing looks like based on our own technologies. And so because we think that it creates these massive blind spots in our ability to see things. So we're like, oh yeah, that's what a bad person looks like. Or that's what, you know what I mean? That's what a UFO is gonna at least have lights glowing on the side.

It's probably gonna, it's definitely gonna have lights. It's a little like the Millennium Falcon. Yeah, it'll look probably like a little more advanced than the Millennium Falcon. You know, it'll be close to that. It'll definitely have engines. No, you know what I mean? So when the UFO begins to fly out of the combined attention

of all the people currently working on technology and bioengineering, when the UFO is flying out of our own minds and appearing in the form of rapid increase and technological innovations and discoveries, all leading to the very obvious conclusion of a superintelligence appearing on the planet, when that's happening, we're just like, I don't know, I don't see it.

You know what we're doing? What we're doing is as a group, as a collective, we're going, that doesn't look like anything to me. Well, remember Westworld when they show up, that doesn't look like anything to me. I think we can't see it. It's like, this thing is a Trump, it doesn't matter because a fucking alien

is about to land here. It just isn't landing in the way we predicted it would land. And it's a weird motherfucker, man. Whatever this thing is, it's weird. Like it is exponentially getting weirder, you know? And so that's exciting to me. Do you think in the subconscious there's evil? Yeah.

I mean, evil in the sense of like what we were talking about earlier. Like nefarious thoughts and like wanting to hurt others and things. Well, certainly, I mean, if you haven't thought about throwing coffee onto a baby at a rest room. That'd be a conscious though.

What? Oh, deep down. Like I'm wondering, like if you're transcendent, like if you die, if the soul's a thing and you die and you're immortal, which I kind of think you are, like in this other verse, what does that, is there evil in that afterlife or in that next life type of idea?

You know what I mean? Like is there such enlightenment that we come together in a unified form like what you're talking about in a way? Or is there still room for greed and avarice and these kinds of things? Well, probably, I would say like, I mean, that's the thing is like the...

Cause that would be just another incarnation of this then. Well, that's, well, I mean, that's the... So the idea is, I just had this guy on a blue-eyed mind. Probably people are gonna get sick of me yapping about him, but this guy, David Nicktern, is just a Buddhist teacher. And he says, well, it's not, he doesn't say it, but it's a Buddhist idea. Anything based on causes and conditions

has to be impermanent. So is there evil? Well, there's gonna be impermanence. Like even if some super intelligence comes blasting through the combined imagination of the smartest people on the planet and presses reset in a way that we didn't expect at all by maybe allowing for a sensory apparatus

that we didn't even know we had to open up so that we can see things that formerly we couldn't see, if those things are based on causes and conditions, they're still going to be impermanent, no matter what it is. So some fundamental problem would probably still remain. Would at that higher level where, I don't know, let's just imagine that the economies of the world

through this as of yet non-existent technology triple quadruple quadruple quadruple quadruple quadruple. So now no one has any need for anything because anything they can think instantly appears in front of them, anywhere they wanna travel, they instantly appear in that place. They know that there's no such thing as death anymore. Essentially, heaven appears on earth.

Is there still gonna be avarice? Is there still gonna be jealousy, competition? Sure, but maybe that game won't seem so serious at that level. Maybe it'll just be like playing Monopoly with your friends. Maybe it won't, because how much of evil is really just based on the idea that there's a limited supply?

Certainly. So much, how much of exploitation comes from, I guess I'm thinking of it more like we go into like a gaseous, aqueous ether that we all become one in that. And there's not a other. You know what I mean? Yes, and then you take it one step further than that.

Which is that this thing that we're contemplating the possibility of this unified consciousness that then unifies with the universe that when then unifies with all potential universes and then unifies with everything. Now you're looking at just the thing waking up, waking up, God waking, it's like God coming out of a daydream or something.

Like, wow, shit, fuck. That was wild, what I was just fantasizing about. When I take LSD, I'll go deep into these thought spirals where you get lost in almost another existence down there and you come out of it for a second like, what the fuck was that? Like, I was witnessing mushroom clouds for a second. I saw the end of the world.

Whoa, that was amazing. So who knows? Will there be- How often do you take LSD? No, well, I mean, since I realized the consequences that come from taking schedule one drugs and realized that it's not worth the risk anymore, I stopped taking it completely.

Is that right? Yeah, I absolutely don't take it. Any time I talk about taking it on the podcast, I do it as a form of entertainment. But I certainly would never take- You won't risk it. Well, not only would I not risk it, but I think that-

You think there's answers there? In LSD? Yeah. Absolutely. I think that it's one of the most powerful neutropic drugs that is ever- So like you think it's neutropic in the way that it would nourish the brain?

Yeah, absolutely. No question. The more they do research on it, the more they're gonna find that out. And thank God they are doing the research. Is that right? Absolutely. It's a therapeutic chemical

or blessed that it has appeared on the earth. It's one of the great gifts of science. It's one of the great gifts of humanity. It's one of the- What do you think the best ones are? I mean- The great gifts? As far as those kinds of things,

if you were gonna go mushrooms, ayahuasca, LSD, DMT, like which transcendental experience? I think this is why we need to end the prohibition on these substances, is that trained psychologists can prescribe these things based on a person's needs. It's, there's no one substance

that is right for everybody. There are people who should definitely never, ever put LSD in their bodies. Ever. Ever- I remember there's always the stories like they're like, you know that guy that walks around with the bow and arrow on his back in the long trench coat,

they call him Batman. And he just wanders the streets because he had a bad LSD trip and he separated. You know, like there's always a guy like that in every town, right? Sure. Yeah, you'll hear that. And I think those are ghost stories.

Like there's like, nobody ever's like, there's other things going on there. It's always like they blame. You can do this. You can find, they did, I can't remember the name of this type of study, but basically they went through, they wanted to see is there,

what is the correlation between taking LSD and psychosis or schizophrenia or mental illness or whatever. And so you can look it up. They did this study and using just data, they gathered from mental patients. You know, maybe they, you know, who knows, maybe when they did the interviews, they lied about having taken LSD

because they felt like they would be like prosecuted because they're apparently, who the fuck knows? But apparently there isn't a correlation. You guys can look it up. I know that sounds insane. It's one of the many things that have been planted in our brains by this rotten war on drugs. Is it good to take a psychedelic non-stop to never,

to take massive amounts of a psychedelic over and over and over again, when you need to like be in the marketplace and work and have a productive life? You know, no, clearly not. Is it good to do anything like that? I mean, I feel like that about like push-ups. No, you need a recovery period.

You need to be able to experience it. You need to reflect on it. You need to grow into it. There's all that for sure. But with psychedelics, you know, someone I was talking to once came to me and said he was in recovery and they had read about the Bill Wilson being a-

He did acid, he was Timothy Leary's buddy. Yes, and this person came to me, he was in recovery and said, you know, I'm thinking about taking LSD. And sometimes people do that in recovery. They come to me because they know that I have a strong stance on psychedelics and they think that I'm gonna be like, yeah, man. Get it.

Do it, man. Or whatever they think, yeah. But what I say is, if there is a 1% chance that you take this substance and relapse, don't take it. You can't take it. If there's any, if there- If there's a risk of that.

If there's a risk that you're gonna start hitting the bottle again from this because it triggers some part of your brain that you conquer- And we just don't know enough. We don't know enough. Don't risk that, man. It's not, the thing is, are you enjoying your sobriety?

Is it working for you? Have you been working hard? Did you achieve the state of years of sobriety? Are you willing to risk being plunged back into that fucking hell? Because in other words, the reason you, now if somebody was in the throes of alcohol addiction and came to me and said, man,

I don't know what to do. Like, I don't know if you saw this terrible video of a guy who was euthanized himself because he couldn't stop drinking. In one of these countries where it's legal, and I see that and I think, my God, if only I had had a, with some, not me, but I know people-

Get a few days with them, yeah. With a trained psychiatrist from MAPS, with a nice satchel filled with pharmaceutical grade, LSD or MDMA or any kind of psychedelic, if only we had tried that before the person killed himself because he was suffering so much because he was pouring poison in his body. You know what I mean?

In that case, if someone came to me and said- Why not try? Yes, do it. That's what I say to everybody, like, before they, if anybody's looking at like, oh, I'd like to get sober, I'm like, have you tried everything? Because if you haven't tried everything,

you're gonna be unsatisfied. You need to try everything, burn down every bridge, and fucking, if it doesn't work, there's another option. But if, fuck, if you can do something else, if you can eat Twizzlers, and all of a sudden Twizzlers takes the place of that for you, awesome, enjoy the Twizzlers.

Do you, can I ask you, yeah. I have to ask you this, you know, we've been, this is like, we're going over a little bit, it's 553. You need to go somewhere? No, I've got no life. This is what I wanna ask you, Tate. Okay. Because for me, people like you,

who have achieved this sobriety, mean a lot to people. You know what I mean? Because it means a lot to people, because people see you and they think, you know what, if shit gets really out of control for me, like if, I think it. I think, man, what would happen to you if like,

you started, who knows? Let's just say, out of someone, one experimental weekend in New York, you decide to shoot heroin. Let's imagine, I'm not gonna, friends, I will never do that. I'm never gonna shoot heroin, nor will I snort heroin.

I'm not gonna take any heroin. I'm not gonna do that to me. But I do think, what did you say it did happen? Right. And I went off the fucking rails. And I went deep down some dark hole. It's really nice to know that people like you around who I can borrow money from.

Right, yeah. I'm just kidding. Yeah, perfect, perfect. I know, it's nice to know. People, this is, I just sober people to me remind me of these life rafts floating in the ocean. And you know that, so do you feel like a responsibility to hang on to your sobriety for everybody else?

100%. 100%. That's the one reason I think it's like, you know, I listened to, God, there's a really pretty blonde girl that talks a lot about ayahuasca as being a cure for alcoholism or drug addiction. There's all kinds of stuff around that kind of stuff.

Amber lion? Yeah, yeah, that's her. And I've read some of those things and it's interesting and whatever. And everybody, everybody points to the stories. The stories about Bill Wilson taking acid are now famous. They're lower at this point for anybody

in the drug community that's going to see. I mean, there's a lot of that. Whatever your agenda is, you could use whatever story to create a narrative for whatever you'd like. You know, awesome. Does that get you help or closer to your goals? Probably not.

It's just like, you know, it's like the guy coming that's sober for a long time going, what do you think about me taking acid? It's like, I love acid. What do you mean? What are you asking me for? Or whatever. And all he wants is some comfort of somebody else.

And that's the thing is like, we're always looking regardless of who it is or what they're looking for. They're looking for somebody else to defer their own responsibility and accountability for their lives by saying, well, Duncan said it was okay. So now I feel stronger and more confident

because now there's confidence in numbers and whatever. And it's just part of the human condition. I mean, I do it. I feel like you have to be on guard for that kind of thing and go, I need to own my own thing fully. I don't want to ever say what somebody should do because I don't want you to blame me later. I want you to go and pray to whatever God it is you do,

get right with the universe and ask for answers. And if you're not sure of your answers, then be real careful how you tread. That's right. And so I think that stuff that Amber does is cool. It's interesting. I think that if I'm not wrong, she's a person that has found a chemical salvation

kind of later in life. I think Joe introduced her to it actually. She hadn't smoked pot or done any mushrooms or anything up until that point of her life. And then it had such a profound effect. She's like, looks into all these studies and everything is a panacea, right? It's very nice.

Here's a weight loss pill. It'll also give you huge muscles and you'll be ripped and your tits will be big. Whatever the thing is, everybody wants the thing, right? And there's not the thing. There's just work. There's work, diligence, consistency, commitment, discipline.

Those are the things, man. And that's in a spiritual life. That's in a physical, whatever self you want to form, that's where it exists. And nobody likes to look at that because that's tough. And it's not like I can flip a switch, but I can take a pill and if I could take a pill, fuck, that's better.

And it's not, there's no result like that. I've taken a lot of pills in my life and I've seen a lot of people take a lot of pills. I've never seen anything that replaces diligence, hard work, consistency, discipline. I've never seen it. And now also, I think that one important thing to note is that Bill Wilson,

the idea is that when you're fucking addicted to something really, truly addicted, this is a spiritual disease. This is a malady that can't really be cured in the normal ways. And so the idea is, it really comes down to, sorry, but only God can save you now. That's the idea.

There's nothing anyone in this dimension can do for you. You need a transcendent experience. And thus, LSD. The idea was- I agree. I agree with that, but the thing that I'm careful about and just to finish up my thought on talking about those things as being curative is that perhaps,

but I would hate to give the impression that you can supplant this chemical plant, whatever it is, with the hard work, discipline, dedication, because what you know is what I know. I've had spiritual experiences before on drugs and off drugs and they don't have legs. No way. They don't last.

I need to stay in the conversation. I need to stay in the work if I want that thing to continue for me. And so I think it's the same way. And it's like, and you can't just stay on drug. Like that's not an answer, you know what I mean? And so like, I think that if you've got that, I think they could be,

because the problem with alcoholism is you get caught into a mantra where there's no help. There's no, like people will offer you sobriety. You're like, that's ridiculous. There's no way. And then there's a small window that opens, a little window of hope opportunity. People call it a moment of clarity sometimes.

With which you can maybe crawl through the other side and get a little bit of breath of fresh air. And when that happens, and maybe what you can do, maybe you can orchestrate that with ayahuasca or with LSD or something like that. Maybe that can happen for an al-Qaq. I don't know. I haven't had this.

Like it can create the moment of clarity. Right, right. But then you better get fucking busy, man. You better move your feet. Don't take that shit for granted. Cause I feel like it's like the athlete that comes into the gym and he's like a natural talent. Like he's fucking naturally gymnastic.

He's talented at jiu-jitsu. He's really good. He moves great. And maybe he comes in and he doesn't know anything. And maybe he finishes a purple belt or something or something crazy. Like that, that doesn't really ever happen. But like, maybe there's something like crazy.

Like he's a phenom. That guy never lasts. He never stays cause he almost got it for free. And so he never learns how to work hard. That's what happened to me. I know, I know. Ari Shafir also, same experience. Running in there was so easy for us.

It just all came naturally. And then you're like, yeah, what's the big deal about that? Eddie's like, please let me just give you the purple belt. I'm like, Eddie, you know, I've only been here for a couple of weeks. You don't even respect the art, really. I'm out.

Yeah, I gotta go. Yeah. I'll never forget the day that I left. Eddie Bravo's Dojo and he, I remember he cried, he wept. He's like, I, yeah, he's like, I've never seen a man so talented at Jiu Jitsu. He'll, I'm sure he'll vouch for this. And he's probably, you can probably find that on YouTube.

Yeah. I think it's on YouTube and testimonial. I feel like that will be on YouTube. But I learned, it's not right now. But I learned from, I mean, he taught me everything I know about Jiu Jitsu, which is that for me, it was one of those things like, you didn't need a lot of lessons.

I only needed like seven. Seven. Tate, man, this is so inspirational. And you always are. How can people find you? People are gonna want it. Oh, well, I've got a podcast called Pirate Life Radio. You can find me there.

I try to put something up every week. And you can find me at Tate Fletcher, T-A-I-T, F-L-E-T-C-H-E-R on all the social media stuff. And we forgot to talk about your, oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Well, and then you can find K-Man Coffee is a company I run with Lacey Mackey and Keith Jardine.

And you can find us at K-Man Coffee, C-O, K-Man Coffee Co on Instagram, all kinds of stuff happening there. I don't know. Cool, man. What were you gonna say? Oh, we forgot to talk about neuro-linguistic programming, which please don't use NLP on me, man.

I don't want to be sucked into some weird fucking vortex. And if you already have been doing it, stop. Don't you feel safer? Yeah. Instantly, yeah. I feel like you're my daddy. Okay, Tate, you're the best, man. I love you, man.

Thank you. Thanks for listening, everybody. That was Tate Fletcher. And a big thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this episode. Go to squarespace.com. Use offer code, Duncan. You'll get 10% off your first order. Hey, thank you guys so much for listening.

If you enjoyed this podcast, give us a nice rating on iTunes. And may God be with you. I'll see you soon. There'll be a new episode in a couple of days. Hare Krishna. Ghost Hound, Sturdy Angel Out Now. New album and tour date coming this summer.

Welcome to the CPAP Games Live from the Hayes Bedroom. It's another eventful night, Bruce. It sure is, Ron. Steve has been flailing everywhere, struggling with this CPAP. His wife, Michelle, is as tense as a fiddle string trying to contain her rage. Michelle's rolling Steve over.

There he goes, and the mask is off. Oh, my, the snoring. Michelle throws an elbow, now a shove. And if she's leaving for the couch, taking her place is the Hayes' 100-pound lab. Bask in that dog breath, Steve. With all this struggle, Steve should get inspired. Absolutely, Bruce.

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