Soul Boom - Channel 5's Andrew Callaghan: Iran, Trump, Palestine, Nick Fuentes, Hunter Biden & Broken News

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

SPONSORS!👇 🛒 Grow Therapy 👉  ⁠⁠https://growtherapy.com/soulboom 🛒 Get 25% Off Cowboy Colostrum with code SOULBOOM at ⁠⁠https://cowboycolostrum.com/soulboom⁠⁠ 🙏 Fetzer 👉 ⁠⁠https://fetzer.org⁠⁠ Channel 5’s Andrew Callaghan explains why he believes Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter damaged our informational ecosystem, making lonely people vulnerable to misinformation & what de-platforming taught him about online extremism. They get in to Nick Fuentes, Hunter Biden, QAnon, Epstein, Iran, Israel and Palestine. MERCH OUT NOW! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://soulboom.com/store⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Sign up for our newsletter! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://soulboom.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ SUBSCRIBE to Soul Boom! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/Subscribe2SoulBoom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ FOLLOW US! Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://instagram.com/soulboom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://tiktok.com/@soulboom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Sponsor Soul Boom: [e-mail] Work with Soul Boom: [e-mail] Executive Produced by: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kartik Chainani⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Executive Produced by: Ford Bowers, Samah Tokmachi Companion Arts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I have natural bias like everybody does. If journalists were a bit more honest about that, we'd have more trust in media. People literally don't know where to get their news. Channel 5. We are a news organization, but I would more call us like a documentary organization. The interview you did that blew my mind is Nick Fuentes and Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden has broken media containment. He told Gavin Newsome he wanted to talk to Nick Fuentes to see how the anti-Trump, anti-Zionist,

young Gen Z far right feels about American affairs. For someone who's already been on Tucker Carlson, it's better for him to be confronted and grilled by Hunter Biden. Alex Jones or Nick Fuentes, these guys are huge media figures, some of the biggest on the right. In an area of polarization, it's refreshing just to see a group of people sitting together, not as a debate panel, but just people with different opinions talking to each other. I think those kinds of dialogues are crucial. There's this old establishment liberal idea that if you de-platform people, they will fade into obscurity. and go away. But exile doesn't banish people. It just pushes them into a tighter echo chamber than they come back with a vengeance. Now the mainstream voices on Twitter,

Elon Musk, who uses this massive platform as a megaphone to hypnotize and poison the minds of the public with this terrible, useless negative shit every single day was probably the worst thing to happen to the online infrastructure. You have the richest man in the world who needs a permanent underclass of people. It's the reason Gen Z support for Trump on the right has cratered to the lowest it's ever been. Even MAGA people are like, oh my God, he duped us. He said he was going to be a no new wars president, get the Epstein class out of power. He's done the complete opposite.

They were wrong about things. Can we also have a conversation about what a path to peace might look like? There is no path to peace, though. There's not going to be a path to peace there, man. This is where we profoundly disagree. This is our main point of contention for the episode. Hey there, it's me, Rain Wilson, and I want to dig into the human experience. I want to have conversations about a spiritual revolution.

Let's get deep with our favorite thinkers, friends, and entertainers about life, meaning, and idiocy. Welcome to the Soul Boom podcast. Our show would not be possible without our sponsors, Grow Therapy, Cowboy Colostrum, and Fetzer, links and promo codes on screen and in the description. Enjoy the show. The interview you did that blew my mind more than anything I've seen in the last five years is Nick Fuentes and Hunter Biden, how did that come about? What is going on in this universe that that happened? I just thought of it.

Yeah? That, yeah. And why those two specifically? Well, I mean, Hunter Biden has broken media containment. He's been doing like every podcast under the sun. And he told Gavin Newsome he wanted to talk to Nick Fuentes because he wanted to see how like the anti-Trump, anti-Zionist, young Gen Z far right feels about American affairs. And Nick Fuentes said he wanted to talk to Hunter Biden. He's like, Hunter's cool.

Hunter's a Chad, Hunter Mogs. So I just thought, well. What's a Chad and a Mogs? A mog is when you kind of like blue steel. It's the same thing as blue steel from Svalander. Yeah. I'm not the best of it. And then what's a Chad is just an alpha male.

I had a contractor named Chad Van Landingham. Wow, that's really, it's an amazing name. It's a long name. Was he good at his job? He was great. Yeah. And the conversation was pretty civil and intelligent. and has done very well.

I think those kinds of dialogues are crucial, you know? Yeah. Because in an area of polarization, it's kind of refreshing just to see, you know, a group of people kind of sitting together, not as a debate panel, but just like just talking. People with different opinions talking to each other about. Well, I think Hunter Biden has done an incredible job

of being really self-deprecating and at the same time, very vulnerable about recovery, about drug addiction, about all the mistakes that he made, and about how his very, very worst parts of himself were just on display for everyone to see. Yeah. Did you get blowback for having Nick Fuentes, who has, he's like Mr. Hitler lover,

and you don't really know if is he doing, does he really think that or is it just kind of, is he doing it for the clicks? But did you get pushback on having him on? Yeah. And how do you stand with that? Well, there's far right. And then there's like someone guy who's literally saying Hitler is cool.

Well, I think that, um, there's this old, I guess, like, establishment liberal idea that if you de-platform people and don't give anyone a seat at the table because they have problematic viewpoints that they will kind of fade into obscurity and go away. That's why they banned so many people conservative specifically from the big four in 2020. And what we've seen is Trump was elected. And speaking at college campuses. Yeah. And Trump was elected. You know what I mean? And so I witnessed in real time what happens when you shut. people off from the conversation. They go into tighter echo chambers.

Nick admitted this on camera. He was like, I was radicalized after being de-platformed to other. And after being de-platformed, he transitioned to like parlor and rumble and gab and these environments that are only populated by like, you know, Nazi race scientists. And that becomes their community. They have been kicked out of the public square. But exile doesn't banish people. It just pushes them into a different tighter echo chamber.

elsewhere. They grow their power level, then they come back with a vengeance. And right now, those same people that were pushed off social media platforms

are now the mainstream voices on Twitter. So we're not in an era where I probably wouldn't have interviewed someone like him in 2020. Or in an era

where we were still seeing what would happen if you shut people out of the conversation. And what you learn is there is no shutting people out of the conversation. You can only ban

them from social media platforms and they'll go elsewhere. So my perspective on platforming is different now than it was before. But also, my policy is this. If someone is already a major media figure that everybody knows, I don't see a problem with bringing them on to Channel 5. If they are some obscure random racist YouTuber who has almost no following, and I bring them on to prove a point and, you know,

show how crazy they are and I accidentally make them into mega influencers. You get them millions of followers and whatnot. That's a signal boost that I do. don't do. Right. You know, but Alex Jones or Nick Fuentes, these guys are a huge media figure, some of the biggest on the right. So most of the people criticizing me for platforming them are just people who don't see

them often because they're in different informational algorithms. So they're like, what? The real question is, how did you not know this guy was already this poppin? They're mad that I put Nick in their algorithm. I don't know, man. It's a, there's no actual negative impact with me platforming somebody like that. I mean, I agree. I kind of feel, especially for someone like that who's already been on Tucker Carlson, like it's better for him to be kind of confronted by Hunter Biden.

100% and grilled in a way that Tucker Carlson is never going to do. Right. I didn't shepherd this guy out of obscurity into the mainstream. Hey, everybody, make sure to click subscribe. It's right over here somewhere. Please, pretty please. It would help us at Soul Boom. So much. Click subscribe. How is what you're trying to do on Channel 5 sticking it to the man? Because I think so much of the problem is people don't know where to get their news. They literally don't know where to get their news. Yeah.

And, you know, I have to, I get like the AP news feed. That's actually pretty good. Because it's actually like, okay, there's like actual statistics and data here and like things that are happening. It doesn't seem to be any kind of spin. Yeah. On top of it. Yeah, I read the AP Newswire every morning.

Yeah, me too. Yeah, it's funny. Like, we are a news organization, but I would more call us like a documentary organization. We don't run a breaking newsroom. But you have a Channel 5 new thing that you started. But like if Ozzy Osbourne dies, rest in peace, like we're not going to be the ones to tell you cause of death.

Like there is like a need for breaking newsrooms. Like it's not like we're making documentaries about the tunnel people in Vegas and be like fuck the Associated Press. Like there's a need for traditional newsrooms in the world. I think people take it a little over more when they're like, channel five is the reason that we don't need any other news stations i'm like no you do i only have 10 employees yeah yeah so yeah i think we sticking it to the man is just it's easy for us to do because we don't have a boss like we're entirely run by patreon dollars and like limited

ad reads that we do with companies who like can't really tell us anything we just have midroll reads yeah like i'm sure it's on this podcast you know it's kind of keep the lights on so i think yeah it's just people, it's refreshing for people to know that Channel 5 is totally independent. And like, we're talking like no outside involvement. Like not one sponsor, not one funder, not one investor. It's all me. It's all Patreon. Yeah.

So it's cool for people to know that, but it's an authentic operation. I think it's not too common. Was Channel 5 pretty small right now? Yeah, I think it's like 12 people. It's bigger than it's ever been. Because after the lawsuit money was raised, we were able to hire like a ton of people. What's your mission behind? your journalism. I mean, going back to the very beginning, it was to be able to, like, travel for free

and continue exploring the country and having a vehicle to do it content-wise to, like, keep the money coming in. You literally had a vehicle to do it when it was all gas, no brakes. Yeah, I had that camper van. But before then, I wanted to be a hitchhiker author. I wanted a hitchhiker in the U.S. and write books, but then I figured out nobody really reads anymore. So I had to kind of... Don't say that. I mean, people do, but not to the extent of it. We need a Channel 5 book club. I want to write. I mean, writing is the most pure form of, like, reporting because the presence of the machine that is the camera modifies human behavior so much. So it's kind of hard to have authentic on-camera experiences because, like, the cruel gaze of the Internet is the camera.

So it's like if you're in a room with just somebody, that camera is an avatar for like three and a half million people. So people, you know, it makes the interactions kind of high pressure. But one thing you've always been great at is getting authentic reactions and interactions on camera. And is that just because you look so goofy? Yeah, probably. Obviously, you had your years where you were in your suit. Sometimes you go towards the suit. My recommendation, stick with the suit.

Yeah. It's a good look for you. I think if your intentions are pure enough during conversation, people can sort of pick up on it. There's an old Louis Thoreau technique that I kind of borrowed from him. Well, I thought that it was intentional, but apparently he actually just has social anxiety. It's called the toddler nod. You go like this. You know, you don't have to close your eyes, but you like, you kind of are a firm.

without like being too charged. Like if you're like, yeah, man, true, hell yeah, they get a little weirded out. And then if you're super defensive and you ask like CNN style like or Fox News style punch in loaded questions that obviously makes them turn away from you and stop talking. So the toddler nod is a vehicle for people to open up.

The toddler nod. Yeah. I got to learn that toddler nod. What do people like the most about your work on Channel 5 and like the least about it? Probably the heaviest criticism is that like we sway a little bit too much to the left or that we don't give conservatives fair airtime but i think now that you look back like

now that no one likes trump like even maga people are like oh my god he duped us he said he was going to be a no new wars president and that he was going to you know get the epstein class out of power yeah and he's done the complete opposite now they're saying we were wrong so it's kind of funny to look back and they're like why didn't you give equal air time to the maga side during 2020 and it's like well because they were wrong about things and now they're self-professed in being incorrect about certain stuff. So I try to do my best, but I have natural bias like everybody does. And I think if journalists were a bit more honest about that, we'd have more trust in media. Everybody says they're unbiased. I mean, I try my best, but the conditions that I grew up around and the world that I was

raised in in Philadelphia and Seattle obviously informed the way I do the world. Like, that's just a fast. Sure. Yeah. What scares you more of misinformation or the mental health epidemic? mental health and loneliness epidemic because that leads people to buy into misinformation but they're kind of part and parcel but the mental health one comes first you know that kind of opens up the pathway for you to be hypnotized by miss or disinfo but you definitely see a link between the two yeah for sure i mean almost everybody who falls down any rabbit hole becomes a political radical in some capacity you know a mental health is coming from a place of imbalance yeah otherwise of a need of a hunger that's not being met because when people jump off the deep end they they They already have a catastrophized worldview. Everything's wrong. The good guy is getting screwed over. Society is in decline. The good days are over.

Make America great again. So things have to have already gone wrong for that type of logic to even compute. Like my life's going great. Someone was like, make, you know, Andrew, make America great again. I'm like, what, I'm having a good time. You know? Maybe that's a bad example. But that kind of rhetoric works best on people who are in a tough spot.

But isn't Elon Musk doing that on Twitter? I mean, Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter was probably the worst thing to happen to the online infrastructure. Our informational pipeline? Yeah, it's disastrous. Yeah. How do you see that? Folks, personal growth isn't some overnight transformation. It's realizing halfway through an argument with your partner that you're being an idiot.

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including immunoglobulins and growth factors. And yes, the baby calves get all the colostrum they need before cowboy collects the surplus. Nobody's walking into a barn and stealing breakfast from an infant cow. So lower your pitchforks, America. So for a limited time, our listeners get up to 25% off their entire order. Just head to cowboy colostrum.com slash soul boom and use the code soul boom at checkout. That's 25% off when you use the code soul boom at cowboy colostrum.com slash soul boom. You know, you have the richest man in the world who has obsessively fallen for every meaningless

culture war issue under the sun, a person who needs a permanent underclass of people to provide him with his essential services, who uses this massive platform as a megaphone to hypnotize and poison the minds of the public with this terrible, useless negative shit every single. single day and to have someone with that much power falling for just basic uh what used to be fox news slot that is now like within the online reactionary right wing echo chamber for him to be such an avid consumer of that and to propagate it is just a nightmare for all of the struggling people out there who are sad lonely because of how things are designed now and need someone to blame and instead of criticizing the structures themselves the structure of you know late stage capitalism that people like

Elon benefit from, they direct that anger toward, you know, immigrants or people who have nothing to do with that. Or trans athletes or people like Christopher Nolan. Yeah, you know. He's going to remake the Odyssey. Whatever happened to that, like the outrage over the Odyssey and then like, it didn't really catch on. And then they're like, oh, the Odyssey.

And they're like, oh, I've made a lot of money. It's kind of a good movie. Okay. Anyway, what's next? They need something. And it's crazy because you can go to the most disenfranchised place in the country right now. let's say the coal fields of West Virginia, 50% unemployment, white working class, blue-collar place, totally disenfranchised, screwed over by Union Busters and jobs leaving. You go to a dive bar there. Dollar bills on the wall. You sit down at the bar. Almost everyone around you is going to be like grumbling about Britney Griner or something or trans athletes. They have fallen for it. It's worked. And it's really sad to see cultural issues dominate the conversation when there is so much imminent change that needs to.

to happen. And Elon Musk is one of the worst offenders as far as moving the needle the other. If you put it in a science fiction novel at the world's richest man who kind of invented the electric car, really, and or at least how to make a car company like that profitable and is maybe sending people to Mars and controls the outer space. And then that richest person is then going to also own one of the biggest disseminators of information on the planet. Then they're going to going to get hired by the government and tasked with firing people and gutting programs. Yeah, man. Like, if you put it in a science fiction novel, if you had put it in 10 or 20 years ago,

you'd be like, well, that's never going to happen. But, whoa, that's kind of chilling. No, totally. It does feel like dystopian. Yeah. And I think once people have a certain amount of money, they have nothing else to worry about, I mean, there's obviously the companies they have to run. And so they just spend their time twiddling their thumbs and freaking out about whatever

just comes their way because they need something to grovel. on in this dystopian future where he would go on the largest podcast Joe Rogan podcast and say the biggest problem with Western civilization is empathy yeah I saw that um real alpha move there what conspiracy theory do you find the most fascinating um flat earth because of the logic required to believe in it okay like I remember I showed him like a picture of earth like from a satellite And I was like, look, this is around Earth. And they were like, is that a picture or an image? Because it looks like an image.

And I was like, what do you mean? Like, if it's a picture, that means you took it. And since you didn't take that, that's an image. And images are composed of pixels, which can be fabricated. Yeah. And they go, and where'd you get that picture from? I say, Google images. And they said, what are the first three letters of Google?

I said, G-O-O. And they said, Jew. Whoa. Wow. They think the Jews are hiding the truth about the earth shape. But is there a biblical foundation for flat earthers? Does that have something to do with it? Like the Garden of Eden?

It's all, it's all. No? Yes, they're all very religious and anti-Semitic. That's every flat eartherther is anti-Semitic. There's no, not anti-Semitic flat-Ethers. Wow. I had no idea. That's a weird intersection to me.

It makes perfect sense to me. Wow. Okay. Anti-Semitism is the poor man's anti-capitalism, you know, generally, because it assigns, It's basically like all the power structures in the world that you could criticize and you just pick one of them. You're like they control everything.

Not all of the other rich people, evangelical Christians, Chinese, Russians, Saudis. There's so many different kinds of power. Sure. But they focus on one group. It's the Rothschilds. Yeah, yeah. Which there is shady corrupt power

in the Zionist lobby, but there's shady corrupt power in a lot of different lobbies. And when you focus on one and you make everything simplistic, you lose the plot and that's flatter. Yeah. And it's sad.

It's sad. You see it. Even well-intentioned people, you know, everything like the, even in Mexico right now. Like, you know, the popular music is Coridos music. Yeah, and it's the gunslingers, the drug dealers, and they're the legends of them. Yeah. Like, there's now, like, under every Coritos video on Instagram, almost all the comments are, like, this is Jewish propaganda. To, like, destroy the Mexican family with, like, bad death energy.

Like, people are just, I don't know, it's just a. So it's really spreading. Wow. It gives people a simple solution to a complex issue. Right. Because if you think, oh, my God, how do we resist late-stage capitalism and undo the destructive forces of economic globalization? And I sound like Jayden Smith here. That's a harder question that requires a restructuring of society.

Sure, sure. But if you just say, no, everything's good, but this one group, they're messing things up, that allows the status quo to continue and for people to feel like they've done something or cracked the code without actually thinking of any. Wow, yeah, that's really well said. Yeah. Yeah. It's really shifted in my perspective. I noticed all the time. I'm like, you really think that they're behind this? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Billionnaires, not to sound like Luigi Maggioni here, but like billionaires, Bernie Sanders, like I sound like all the leftists right now because I probably because I am one. But Bernie, like the billionaires, it's all about making more money. Everything's about making more money. Like everything bad that happens in the world is for money. There's nothing evil that happens in the entire world that is not about making money.

I can't think of one bad thing that's happened to me that didn't have money at the core of it. Every betrayal I've been through, everything, is because somebody wanted to make some fucking money. I would just, the only tweak that I would offer to that is that power as well, which is its own currency. But some people like power. They don't care that much about money. Yeah. They could have a couple hundred grand in the bank, but they want power. Yeah.

But typically money is the way to hack power. Because you can have power over somebody if you have money. You can pay them to, you know, listen to you. So I don't know, man. Like, it's exhausting for me as a journalist, especially recently. people are doing more research than ever, but oftentimes coming to a number conclusion. Is it getting worse?

What? The conspiracy world that you're talking about? No. It was that it's worse in 2020. Worst. Really? So it's gotten better. Yeah, people are more rooted in reality now.

It's just sometimes their perspective on reality is a little bit warped. But back then it was just like fucking nuts old land. But isn't it strange that in the United States right now, you can tell kind of where people get their news from. instantly. Like for instance, you can have a relative and like my son is living in Chicago right now. And like, oh, how's your son doing? He's living in Chicago. Holy shit. Like, you know, is there, is there, is there, is the other gangs after him? Like, is he, is he going to be all right? Is he safe? And it's like, and like, where do you live? California. Oh, fuck. You have homeless people on your lawn. You know, has Gavin Newsome, you know, screwed your wife. You know, like, and you, you know, immediately where they're getting. their news and it's like, come on, man.

The Chicago. Can't you see through it a little bit, just a little bit? The Chicago one is especially funny because of how segregated the city is. Right. Like the south side of Chicago is so isolated geographically, culturally, and public transportation wise from the rest of the city that most people who live past the White Sox Stadium won't even ever go to somewhere like Lincoln Park or Wicker Park or Pilsen. They will always be there and sometimes downtown into Miracle Mile for work if they get a good job.

And so it's just interesting when people say Chicago is dangerous, I'm like certain parts of it. And the parts that are are like disenfranchised, redlined, food deserts. You know, people ask me what's the most dangerous place in the country. I'm like, the closer you have the rich and poor living right next to each other. That would be the place where there's the most danger because you have a lords and peasant style thing going on where you have the hungry next to those with too much. As far as so many home invasions in Los Angeles and hills, you know. So that's how I would measure it. Like murder rate doesn't determine danger for someone like you or.

Like Memphis may be the most dangerous or St. Louis may be the most dangerous, but like you and I would never have a problem because we're not from those communities involved in those sort of disputes that lead to homicide and robbery. So like as a pedestrian, SF's pretty rough. Philly can be pretty tough. Philly gentrified corridors are where there's the most capacity for random street violence for sure. So you've spent years talking to people like flat earthers, certainly MAGA, Q&O, Q&O. folk, fringe people. Sometimes. Has talking to any of those folks forced a reckoning in what you believe and your own beliefs? Like in terms of me switching viewpoints?

Yeah. No. No. If anything, it's maybe go the opposite direction. I mean, okay, more humanity for people like that. I mean, I have greater empathy for people that maybe growing up in Seattle, I would have thought were just like insane evil lunatics or something. Well, I think that's important.

Yeah. So that was a belief that was challenged of like it's easy to see these people as kind of deranged, fringe kind of, you know, tongue-chewers. And to get to know them, you're getting to know someone on a deeper level. Yeah, you can front your own bias and, you know, you see the, not that I didn't see the humanity, but I actually understand now how these viewpoints are molded. And it almost always comes from, you know, economic stability being threatened, community collapsing. And then those grievances, those grievances being sort of like monopolies. or like taken advantage of by politicians and media outlets who make them think here's why your life sucks.

Immigration is not due to economic globalization. It's because those people want our dope shit. And they don't like their own stuff. So they want ours. I'm like, bro, do you know how poor and desperate a person must be to leave Mexico where there's such strong culture and community to come to a subdivision country full of cul-de-sacs and maga people? just to work at like family dollar or like in a field like that you sacrifice your connection to a motherland that you have so much pride and admiration for and about.

And have you ever spoken to an immigrant about how much of their paycheck they are wiring back home to family members? They're not sitting here living high on the hog. Do you know what I mean? Like they're working these shit jobs that no one else wants and 80% of their paycheck is getting wired back. to whatever town they came from that they walked 1800 miles from yeah yeah they've been through stuff that we can't even imagine yeah and that's probably uh the one issue that i'm extreme about is immigration yeah like to be anti immigration you're just not an american but it is interesting you know the in the 70s if you believed in uh UFOs you were considered

uh just freaky tin hat wearing freak and nowadays i kind of I kind of feel like if you don't believe in unidentified aerial phenomenon, like, there's something wrong with you. I mean, I totally agree with you. I just think that most of the time, it's just the government testing out some new aircraft. Really? Yeah, man. You see the videos with the stuff stops and then goes in the direction. It's a government.

It can be a new stealth drone. I think, see, I think this is where we profoundly disagree. This is our main point of contention for the episode. I just think that like the government's testing out military technology and then people get a glimpse of it. They're like, it must be a gray alien up in there. Why? Why would they keep floating around without coming a ticket? Because these ships are defying the laws of physics time and time again. And they're being seen by people in the military who have seen a lot of the top, you know, secret military stuff going on. I hope you're right. We're talking about Air Force pilots, you know, that have been in the Air Force for 20 years seeing, you know, whatever it is like, you know, octagonal objects stop in midair and then go straight up in there and then go down into the ocean

and this is eyewitness testimony yeah where's the video it's this is stuff i'm going to show you some youtube videos okay send it up send me a youtube video and you know just for all for the record i hope you're right and i want to believe yeah so you went to the nr a conference uh what blew your mind about that um that it happened like five days after the u valley shooting like a few hours away and And the NRA conference just blew my mind on all levels. The gun debate is just a tough one for me, though, because I would understand the gun debate more if it was being had around the time of the invention of the gun.

There's 400 million guns in America. They're not going anywhere. So we have to figure out how to live with them. And I think that was my main takeaway from that. We have to everyone should have firearms safety training. Everybody should know, you know, I'm not saying everyone should have guns, but it's way too optimistic to think we could live in a country without air. But what about like concealed carry?

That's happening. Should it happen? Yeah. Well, if one, if the cops got him, we need them, brother. I say we, I don't have a gun. Strong disagree. Yeah, but of those 400 million guns, there's like 20,000 people that own all those guns. No, the numbers aren't right.

But you know what I mean? Yeah. There's five million people that. own 300 million of those guns. Do you know what I mean? There is that population of hardcore gun enthusiasts that have gun closets and their gun collectors. Yeah, I grew up in a place where the only guns

were on the street in Philadelphia. You know, there's no gun-owning patriots in Philadelphia. It's kids shooting each other. So that's a whole different conversation too. How are you going to get those guns off the streets? Because they buy most of those at like gun shows and stuff in Arkansas, rural America, or even central western PA so i don't know the gun debate i got to come back with some some better talking

points on that all right but i don't like them but they're here that's all i know don't like them they're here but it's got to reach a point where you you know right gangs were invented just to like disrupt the black panther movement and you know stop the black liberation cause in its tracks during the 70s i mean raymond washington who made the cribs was literally like a CIA asset so and it worked quite well you know it's like a kill switch especially with the crack up epidemic that, you know, turned communities against each other. You're really sounding like the people that you interview right now. No, this is real shit.

You know what Cointel Pro is, right? Yeah, I know what Connell Pro is. Yeah, I didn't know that that gangs came out of Cointel Pro? Yeah, absolutely. 100%. Yeah, I mean, that was the goal, you know, after they assassinated Fred Hampton, you know, about the Iran Contra affair with crack and, you know, freeway Ricky Ross and everything. Yeah, the whole goal was to turn the black community against itself. And then the music industry followed behind pretty closely to promote certain stuff.

I listen to that stuff. It's pretty good. I like what they call gangster rap. But, you know, the net societal impacts haven't been too positive. Yeah, it's a whole scheme engineered to destroy whatever populist movements existed in the post-Vietnam or mid-Vietnam era. I mean, they destroyed the hippie movement with acid. Was that a conscious choice, do you think? Yeah, if you look at MK Ultra and Timothy Leary in his relationship with the Hells Angels and when they introduced acid to Haydashbury, you know, before the summer of blood,

actually in 62. It was because most of the hippies were dropouts of industrial society. You know, children of the white collar respected elite class of landowners in the U.S. who decided to kind of tune in and tune in, tune in, drop out or whatever, get off the assembly line and live in communes in Hayd Ashbury. And they picked it because it was cheap because they were supposed to build a freeway through Hayd Ashbury, which they ended up, you know, not doing, but it made it so the property was basically vacant. There were squatters. It was a real resistance against industrial society. It was a real, spit in the face of the American machine,

which in the post-war era was all about conformity and suburbanization. And so quickly, acid turns everyone into soul-searching, ego-death, egomaniacs, as I call them.

But do you think that there were really like meetings at boardrooms and kind of like, how are we going to counteract these hippies forming communes and dropping out? Like, here's a cheap drug,

let's drop it off. Yeah, there was. Just like crack. I mean, you know, it wasn't just the hippies. It was the whole populist movement, you know, which had multiple fronts, weathermen, black panthers, brown berets, animal liberation, American Indian movement, you know, they were all working together.

The eco movement. You had the whole youth of the country ready to actually have an armed revolution at that time. And they said it and they were about it and it was going to happen, you know. But then boom, 80s come, top down economics, trickle down economics, mass corporatization, strip mall society, death of the American hitchhiker, you know. And it all comes back to the road. Decades of conformity. And now we're back.

And we're going to fulfill the mission of the 60s before the Summer of Love and tie-dye t-shirt salesman besieged Haydashbury with their big plans. With their big t-shirt. T-shirt. So do you think the revolution is coming and it's not going to be televised? The revolution is coming. It'll be live streamed. I don't know if it is. It sounds cool to say the revolution is.

coming. I don't know if that's true. Okay. The revolution in media is happening right now. Yeah. I like to think that's something that we're a part of. Yeah. You know, taking back, you know, the means of production. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. I think that any reactionary online movement sure. Sure. It's very two-dimensional when it comes to critiques. I was really attacked by Q&on back in the day. Oh, that's terrible, man. I'm sorry. There were a lot of, yeah, there were a lot of stuff. They took a lot of, like, old tweets out and jokes from Twitter out of context and put my name on it. And they're like, you see Rain, along with Tom Hanks and Oprah is smuggling children. Oh, they put you in the baby eater category. They put me in the baby eater. Yeah. You know this well. I mean,

that was a population. I would say even more vitriolic than vegans. Wow. It's interesting. And what are some of the things they said to you? Well, they just, I mean, they threatened my life. My life was threatened on social media. I was scared for a while. I met with Twitter in the pre-Elon days, and they were actually very helpful and reasonable. But I met with a lot of the social media companies because I was getting lamb-baseded. And I was kind of scared. Like, I could just walk out the door and someone could pop me because that that's when that guy unloaded that gun in that pizza parlor.

Yeah. So. Comment ping pong you're talking about in D.C. Yeah. I think the left is more armed now. Okay. especially after the operation in Minneapolis, but probably then, no. But that's pretty scary, man.

I'm happy that you made it out okay from the... Yeah, that all seemed to pass. What happened to QAnon? Well, none of the predictions that were laid out by QAnon.Pub ever came true. But don't they wonder, like, where did Q go? Q&ON was a psychological operation that was done by the U.S. government to muddy the waters ahead of the Epstein file release. Really?

This episode is brought to you by Fetzer. You know, there's this tendency in modern life to believe that every problem as a material solution, more technology, more productivity, more money, more apps reminding you to breathe while you ignore the fact that your soul feels like a raisin. But the folks at the Fetzer Institute believe something deeper. They believe that behind humanity's biggest challenges are spiritual ones. Loneliness, division, disconnection, our inability to see each other, the planet, or even ourselves as sacred. And they're asking a really beautiful question. What if shared flourishing begins with the sacred? Fetzer supports stories,

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of the release of the, I guess, the germination of QAnon because they have this plan to create these useless rabbit holes for conspiracy theorists to jump down in the hopes that they would never... And basically in the hopes that the greater public would always associate Epstein with, like, flat earth. And it worked for a long time, even on me. Like, I only ever heard about Epstein from Cranks.

You know, so when Rochana and Thomas Massey got that act passed, the Epstein Transparency Act, and those files came out. I was like, oh, my God, everything else was not true, but that was. It took me a second to change my thinking. But now I look at Q&N totally differently because I now see that it was very deliberate. And it totally worked.

You're sounding a little crazy cray-cra right now. Well, this is all real. I mean, I was there for, I remember watching the Q&ON. But wasn't Q just some, I think it was that kid and his father or something like that. And then it changed hands. And they would just do this thing. And then people latched on to it. it like as if q was like this truth qanon started on eight chan people think it was the watkins family

and then it became qanonon dot pub where they would post like the last of the mohican's theme song and uh some texts that said like be there or be square and then they would put it in a gematriar calculator and figure out where the vowels were and you know maybe they would compare that to trump's birthday and they'll split the difference and they'll decide that in 72 days god will come down and he will take hill i mean there was all these kinds of different things theories. It was very mystical, very astrological. And it was perfect for some of these sort of Facebook Karens and stuff. We like got into the Q stuff because it was like a hobby for them. They could sort of decipher and decode this stuff. You had bakers who would take Q&ON drops and

basically bake them and try to like decipher the hidden meanings. It was a whole thing that I wondered for so long, where is this coming from and why? Because it wasn't as simple as getting Trump votes because Trump lost the election to Joe Biden. So, but now it makes it makes perfect. sense because, you know, and I probably do sound a little crazy, but as someone who is there and someone who's here now, I will say you have been on the front lines with this from the get-go. And I've seen now the fracturing of the right post-Ebstein file release. And I'm like, oh, that's what Q was about. They knew that there was only a matter of time until this information got out there. So they were like, how do we make all this sound as dumb as possible?

But they haven't released all the Epstein files. They've released enough for people. people to kind of get a gist of what's going on. Okay. You know, and the fact that they haven't been redacted is the reason that Trump will never be reelected, and it's the reason that, I mean, obviously, he can't. It's the reason Gen Z's support for Trump on the right has cratered to the lowest it's ever been. I mean, Trump has fallen from grace almost, grace almost entirely.

He still have some of the boomers who like just love Trump because they're, you know, just like loyalists, magloyalists who are like one issue of gas price people, but I'm not, I guess not gas price, but they're like, you know, cultural warriors. But yeah, no one my age who's conservative likes Trump. And it's because of that. Do you think that the Iran war was kind of fabricated to kind of delay the next release of Epstein files? I think the Iran war was mainly waged to weaken Iran's ability to fund Hezbollah so that Israel could further make territorial gains in the south of Lebanon, which they did at the exact same time. I also think that it's an oil play.

control over the Strait of Hormuz gives us an advantage against China, who's our natural petroleum rival. There's a couple different reasons. Also, if you go back for a long time, I mean, it was always the U.S.'s goal to take control of Iran. That's why we installed a dictator in 1953. That's why after 79, the sanctions were so severe that it weakened their economy. And, you know, I'm not saying Iran's perfect. I mean, they've done some pretty terrible things, too. It's a police state. They execute people constantly, and there's no press freedom. But I think America has always wanted to reduce the power of Iran. I mean, they are enemy. Like, they ideologically oppose us in every way. I went to a death to America rally in Tehran two months ago.

They're not playing. So I see why America's freaked out. Were the people at the death to America rally and Tehran, they weren't like paid to be there or anything like that? Oh, no, no, no. I mean, not paid. I would say maybe 20% of Iranians support the regime. I would say around that. Like, probably one in five people you talked about there support it.

And, you know, the government doesn't allow pro-examination. obviously against the regime. Right. But if they'll host a pep rally for the Supreme Leader every night. So that's what I was going to. And I went to a death to America rally. I was like kind of scared because I'm an American. I don't want to die.

So there was like this dude with like a burning American fight. And I was like, what's up man? He's like, hey, brother, where are you from? And I was like America. He goes, okay, awkward but cool. I'll never forget that. Like it was all just like, it was a pep rally. It wasn't there weren't like seething with hatred.

It was just a. It's a tragedy what's going on in Iran right now. And they're getting it from both sides. The war is decimating them and the government is decimating the poor Iranian people who are some of the sweetest, most wonderful people for the most part, hospitable kind. Poetic. Poetic. Yeah.

Yeah. And the country has such natural resources, you know, in terms of oil and natural gas, but minerals like copper and magnesium and, you know, other things that you need to make, you know, all the gadgets, but also human resources, you know, the amount of like doctors and poets and architects and thinkers from Iran that have all fled the country. Yeah. And their human resources have just been squashed. Yeah, Persians are awesome. Yeah. And I think it's sad how many of them are cut off from the world. Yeah. Especially with the internet blockade. You know, 98 million people haven't been able to communicate with the outside world except for these VPN boxes that are super

expensive because as soon as that happened the VPN companies that like run stuff in Tehran like obviously did like a 2,000% premium so not only the richest people in town can afford the internet and with Gen Z especially e-commerce is the main hustle like I think more than half of Iranians like my age make their money online through like you know different well they make music or they do influencer stuff they have some hustle that's woven into international online commerce really if we want to change the regime you should just like air drop VPN boxes into all across Iran. Yeah. And I think that, you know, there have been positive changes in Iranian society since the protests related to the killing of that woman like four or five years ago.

They don't have to wear the hijab in the same way they did a year and a half ago. I saw women riding scooters by themselves in Iran, you know, which is something that you never would have been able to see 10 years ago. So I think that they, a lot of Iranians, even those critical of the regime, don't want like a regime changed. They want a fast modernization, but they don't want the insulation of someone like the Shah. You know, so it's kind of of most people like most people my age are like they don't like America or their government they're just like we want i don't know i would be very curious to know what the iranian take is on uh on on on the clergy and theocracy that kind of is really making the decisions behind the scenes well the

hardest part is that you have the iran diaspora in the west is almost comparable to the cuban diaspora in florida to where the perspective that they have you know is so vastly different from some fundamentalists in the motherland that you're only really getting two extremely polar opposite opinions. You know, like I went to a Reza-Palavi rally in Vancouver, B.C., where you have... And he's the son of the Shah. Yeah, who was actually installed by the CIA. This is a real thing.

The Palavi family. Yeah. So you have people up there. Because Iran wanted to privatize its oil industry and take the rights of its oil away from the United States and the United Kingdom. I didn't know that. Yeah. Okay.

So that the coup was because... Iran wanted to control its own oil. That seems to be a consistent theme. But the Persian and Canadians, they're like waving Israeli flags talking about how they want to reinstall this CIA-backed electionless monarchy to solve the problems in Iran. And then in Iran, you have people being like, you know, we love the regime. They've never done anything wrong. The protests that happened last December.

That's all propaganda by, you know, Zionists in the West. So you have these. And the 80,000 people shot by the government of Iran. So you have the estimates provided by Western media is 60,000. And then in Iran, they say it's 3,000. And then in Iran, they say the joblessness rate is 7%. But in the West, they say it's 57%. And even human rights groups still estimate the death toll in Iran between 25,000 and 60,000.

And I'm like, they're so cut off that even the data can be impossible to decipher. There's like, because American mainstream media and Iranian state media are. both pretty compromised by outside interests. They're both proxies of the militaries and different larger corporate interest groups that fund the whole system. So like the state of journalism when it comes to the Iranian war, Iran war is so difficult. It's so hard to find nuance between those two polar opposites. Tell me about your recent trip to Israel and Palestine and the work that you're doing there. What have you uncovered? Hey, everybody. Make sure to Click subscribe. It's right over here somewhere.

Please, pretty please. It would help us at Soul Boom so much. Click subscribe. I went to the West Bank through Jordan and just the extent of settler violence is terrible. And the world is against it, but the system is set up to where you can't really do anything about it. I mean, you have the PA who effectively cooperate with the Israeli occupation there, the Palestinian Authority. Sure. You have really no representation or ability to protect Palestinians whose land is.

being actively stolen by gangs yeah they have no recourse right no there's no pa hotline if you if you if you call the cops there it's the israeli army who picks up and that's typically just the settlers in green outfits so it's a dreadful situation never seen anything like it never seen that kind of hatred and situation on earth before uh hope to never see it again but unfortunately things do appear to be getting worse you know especially because there's no accountability i mean you enable people to terrorize attack torture kidnap and steal the homes of Palestinians, you know, and that spreads like wildfire. You have Ben Gavir and Smotrich providing basically machine guns to all of these settler kids

and sending them into the Palestinian communities to clear land so that they can bulldoze it and build subdivision-style homes to sell at auctions in places like Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Boca Raton, and New York so that they can move more Americans and foreigners into area A, B, and C zones in the West Bank. So it's crazy to see with their own eyes. Israeli society has a lot of layers to it. And the settlers, who are illegally living in the West Bank, are not like the people living in Tel Aviv or Haifa or parts of West Jerusalem. They are ideologically driven. They think Palestinians have no right to really live. They think it's an ideology and not a population. They think it's Judean, Samaria. They hope for the total annexation and expulsion of the Palestinians living there.

So they refuse to talk to us because we are with Palestinians, or as they call them the bad guys, because they're separate license plates, separate highways. And so the settlers wouldn't talk to us. But I mean, I interviewed Louis Theroux about them. And he did a pretty extensive documentary. I understand where they're coming from because I understand how propaganda works. I mean, we deal with it here. You know, most people think they're doing the right thing. That's why I don't believe in evil necessarily. I believe in self-interest, eroding people's ability to think rationally. And I would say maybe there's one percent of the population who's truly evil in like

the angels and demons binary sense. But I think most people think they're doing the right thing. And that goes for people even perpetrating a lot of these, you know, land acquisitions. You know, they think that they are God's people and that they are taking back what's theirs because they're being. But what about the people in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and Haifa? What do they think about it? What is your average Israeli?

They're actually a view this situation. The settlement expansion. It's actually pretty interesting data. They're pretty divided on it. But within the Israeli left, there's a lot of resistance to the settlement expansions. And a lot of the volunteers who help Palestinians resist settler violence are Israeli. I don't know if you saw no other land that documentary. But that's about a Palestinian and Israeli activist who helped patrol, who joined forces to document the situation outside of Hebron and Massifriata,

which is a collection of villages under siege toward the southern border of the West Bank. So I talked to a couple, but I mean, I haven't really spent much time in mainland Israel. But I know Israelis, I mean, most of living here. No one chooses where they're, you know, born. So I don't have any kind of hatred toward anybody, really. Well, you know, we recently had an episode,

I think that you saw on Soul Boom with a Palestinian, and an Israeli peace activists and both had lost family members to the other side. And in the teasers for the video, maybe my producer, Kartik can remind me, like, I think we've had just hundreds of thousands of views of the teasers about the episode with thousands and thousands of comments, vitriolic, angry, outraged, that we were even showing an episode with an Israeli and a Palestinian sitting down and talking about peace. Yeah. And so few people actually watched that episode.

It's almost astonishing. It's got like 3,000 views on YouTube. Really? And like 600,000, you know, views on the teasers. Kartik, do you know? Do you have that information? The clip on Instagram has 1.5 million. And on TikTok, it's got a little over a million.

and what are people saying? How dare you be even having this conversation? And I'm not saying that these two guys are the best way or the right way or whatever. And I'm not saying that Israel isn't doing some really heinous shit out there. But can we also have a conversation about what a path to peace might look like? Yeah. And that's where my problem is. It's like people want to watch the clips and comment.

And they don't want to sit down for an hour and really dig into the issues. Yeah, that must be a bit frustrating, especially because I'm sure you had good intentions in making the episode. Sure. Yeah. And there is no path to peace, though. There's no path to peace. No, not there. There's just no path to peace, bro.

I mean, if you think, like, I hope that there was a good conversation had there, but there's not going to be a path to peace there, man. I mean, right now, Israel's in control of 80% of the Gaza Strip. Hamas has agreed to the UN disarmament plan, which means they're going to hand over control of the Gaza Strip to Trump's border. of peace which is led by an executive suite that contains people like Jared Kushner and Tony Blair from the UK former prime minister Jared Kushner has said that he wants to turn Gaza into an AI powered smart city like Abu Dhabi for Formula One racing and he wants to move all the Palestinians from Gaza out of the territory forever probably to Jordan or something like that on the other hand in the West Bank the Palestinian Authority controls less than

18% of the land and they're losing ground every single day and those people the PA I just interviewed the general of their army have agreed to trump's board of peace plan which means a total acquisition of all Palestinian territories so the idea of Palestinian statehood is unfortunately something I don't think is going to happen which is a shame because the struggle will continue it just is a matter of where but I don't see any you know path to peace and the big problem right now is that there's no recourse for Palestinians who are victimized and I think that's probably why people get a little upset when they see like people sitting down to like find common ground because even if those people come up with a good plan, you know, ideologically.

It doesn't change the fact that, like, since October 7th, not one Israeli person has been sentenced to a day of jail time for the murder of a Palestinian in the West Bank. And there has been 875 murders. And the government knows who these people are. The Palestinians have documentation of it. And you know what happens when they post it online? They get their YouTube channel scrubbed.

You know, and so it's stuff like that where you're like, man, path to peace. It's not looking good. And I wish it was. but you know after so much time there you just got to be realistic and you're like god this is a nightmare yeah but i think you could you could take that same point of view and you could ascribe that to the entire globe you could kind of look at north korea in the same way or what's happening in the Congo or you know south china sea and you could find all of these conflict zones you know cashmere and be like there's no way we're getting to peace and you could rattle off all these statistics and stuff like that

but at the same time, there has to be, I believe, an ability to visualize peace. And when I say peace, I'm not talking about a two-state solution. I don't know what the solution is because that seems to have been obliterated. But we have to be able to talk about it and attempt to visualize it because some of the biggest steps humanity has taken

toward peace have defied real politic. Do you know what I mean? So you might be right. You're probably right. Maybe we're talking 10, 20 years from now. Maybe we're talking 57 years from now. I don't really know, but I still think a conversation is worth having. 100% man.

And, you know, it is true that visualizing a better future is the only way to manifest it. You know, it's just tough because you got to think, like, even if the Palestinians were to act in good faith, like the PA has tried to do many times and say, you know what, Israel? We'll give up our arms and we'll sign a permanent ceasefire if you guys agree to a good faith sit down. They're not going to do that, man. Because the extremist element is in power. I think that realistically, if there was any chance at peace, to go back on what I said, if there was any chance, the first thing that would have to happen is a significant moderation of Israel's government itself. This fringe Ben-Gavir, like, insane, like, bloodthirsty element has to go.

You know, and if that went away, there'd be less hostility toward the Israelis on the Palestinian side. For sure. You know, those people are antagonizing an already traumatized population. And it's a nightmare. But if that's out, I could see positive change. And I think, I don't know. I haven't spent much time in Israel. I don't know how that you feel about the fringe element there.

I do know that Netanyahu is not particularly popular amongst the youth. You know, but man, yeah, I don't know. There's certain conflict zones that I feel like are just destined to an eternity of back and forth. And I hope to God that's not the case, but the more time you spend in Palestine and Israel, you think to yourself, I can't imagine resolution. But, you know, I think 20, 30 years ago, the same thing would have been. been said about Northern Ireland and somehow or other that has mostly worked out. It's still, I'm sure, not without its injustices.

There's no car bombs. At least there's no car bombs. And yeah, so, you know, it was in the 70s when I was growing up, that was unimaginable, unimaginable that there could be peace in Northern Ireland. Well, that's crazy to imagine. So, like, that was on TV all the time? All the time. the car bombs and the, you know, baskets blowing up and, yeah, all the guns they pulled from the IRA

and, you know, making them out to be terrorists and, and. It's crazy that some of those IRA guys are still like active politicians. Yeah. You know, like, what's that one guy's name? Jerry Adams. Yeah, I was like, I was never in the IRA. Yeah. No, we have photos of you.

I was never in the air. Yeah. Pay no attention to the band behind the curtain. I love it up there, man. Belfast. over the last couple of years, you've had some really pretty heinous accusations come your way around sexual harassment and real sexual inappropriate stuff that you vowed in your statement to undertake a transformation, looking within getting help in AA. You've talked also about how it was you're kind of like this idea of this kind of like raucous partying life. style that was integrated with your journalism that you needed to kind of disentangle those two things yeah

i've talked a bunch about it you know if i could probably revise certain elements of that public statement i would have yeah you know i also didn't know um everything that had happened behind the scenes with that whole situation up until relatively recently so i'll talk about that at some point in the future but i will just say that as far as personal lifestyle choices not getting drunk at random dive bars every night and having relations with your own fan base as a young kid on the internet yeah has chint taste has removed that problem and where are you in terms of like your recovery or dependence on alcohol well I mean I started an AA a little bit during this is all like four years ago now I started in a a for a

little bit and then I I guess realized like it wasn't a silly an alcohol problem I mean my biggest issue I think was like the inability to be alone you know especially traveling all the time needed constant companionship which caused me to do whatever i possibly could at all times to have somebody to go to a bar with you know so we're talking about meeting up with a new person almost every night for five years so do you think that that in itself could be an addiction like a sex and love addiction kind of situation like it got to the point where it was like you know and instagram dms became like a way that that I could meet up with someone new every single day.

I'm not exaggerating. Like it was like that was just, if it was 5 p.m., I was, okay, I haven't gotten nothing to do tonight. I'm going to post my location, see you wants to hang out, find someone to hang out with. I said, what wasn't even always like romantic companionship? Sometimes it was just like some people. I don't know.

I mean, most of the time it was, but it was just like this fear or just inability to spend time alone. And that ended up, you know, leading to some issues. Well, one thing that I, I've talked about my sobriety and I've had lots of addiction issues throughout throughout my life and I'm in AA. But I do think that one thing, one level that I relate to that is fame is a weird son of a bitch. It's something that almost everyone wants and longs for. And for me, awkward, weirdly antisocial grew up in a crazy,

petri dish of this dysfunctional family longed for approval found out i was pretty funny and i could like do this and make people laugh and then you know had an acting career and then all of a sudden and i'm struggling in my acting career struggling struggling struggling struggling in years and years then 15 16 years into my acting career i get dwight shrewd and then i'm walking down the street and people are like i love you we love you we love you and i remember my nervous just like going off like a like a Roman candle you know at that and of course knowingly they don't love me they love Dwight Shrut but how confusing that could be and then your head swells up like a macy's day balloon float and and at the same time you feel like no you don't love me

fuck you leave me alone sometimes you want to be sometimes you long for it sometimes you like get out of my face and it can really fuck with your head. I'm not saying that gives you like cart blanche to do whatever it was that you did, but at the same time, I really relate to that. And I don't think that's something that people understand. Yeah, I think for me it wasn't so much of, you know, having a big head. It was more just not understanding the power dynamics that came with newfound fame at such an age. I didn't, you know, because I didn't realize that people would, you know, I guess do things that to me appeared to be normal and, you know, consensual. I don't know. It's a strange situation.

So where has that journey taken you to now besides learning how to be with yourself more? I mean, just to be hyper conscious of like, you know, the line between fan and friend and really like thinking about if somebody, like I remember one time I was outside of a bar. I needed a cigarette. And I asked this guy, I was like, do you have a sick? And he looked at me and he goes, no, I don't, but I can get one.

And he ran as fast as he could down the hill to get a cigarette and just came back with a pack. And he was like, shaking with excitement. He was like, here you go. And it's those kind of things

where you just, like, you don't want to put people in this kind of, like, you know, you have a certain level of sway over people. Yeah. But he got to tell a story

for the rest of his life that he got Andrew Callah had a cigarette. That guy got him a cigarette once. Yeah. So I guess I just, yeah, just don't ask people for things i don't know man it's like sometimes i wish that a lot of that stuff

was more true i guess because it would most of it is not yeah uh the thing said about me and if because if it were i would have a more clear path but there's just too much there's not enough clarity and there's too many unanswered questions there for me did you have any mental health struggles during some of the dark nights of the soul that must have come up around yeah this how did that work and how did you get out of it well i mean there's definitely a time where i thought i would have rather never have been born and go through this so sure you hear that but because i'm alive i'm not going to throw life away if that makes sure so i don't think i was ever suicidal because i was like well life is cool you know but i definitely would have rather still would have rather never been born

Yeah, I relate to that. I have been in times in my life where it's like, would it be better if I were just not here or had not ever been here? And that doesn't mean that I'm like going to go kill myself, but it does get pretty despairing. Yeah. You know, especially because all I want to do is like make cool videos and give people's perspectives to the world. And so that was the hardest part.

It wasn't so much that, oh, my God, people don't like me. It's going to be harder to date. Oh, you know, it was because I was like, I can't do this thing that I think benefits the world. Yeah. And that was the worst part about it. Yeah. Yeah. I don't really remember much from the past couple years.

But, you know, working helps. What did they say in that song, Cream? To explain, working hard may help you maintain to learn to overcome the heartaches of pain. One of the Wu-Tang members said that in the song, Cream. Hustling is the only thing that I found. I thought you were quoting, like, Cream, the band with Eric Clapton. No, I never heard of that. Yeah, working.

It's the only thing that works for me. I mean, you don't think about things when you're working. I don't want to think about anything. Well, I appreciate your work in what you do and the stories you tell. What does America need more right now? Truth, meaning, or community? Community, 100%. Mm.

Because you get truth and meaning when you have community. Yeah, it's the main source of meaning. How else can we build community? Well, I mean, people say that, oh, get off your phone and meet people in person. You could also use your phone to meet people in person. You know, subcultural choice is also a big thing. Find what you actually like. Find, you know, activities you like.

Maybe you like parasailing or you like house music, whatever. Find a community. Warhammer. Yeah. Totally. You could be a pinball machine enthusiast. You could be anything. You can be a cobbler.

Like Daniel Day Lewis. Meet up with those people in person. Just go hang out of people. That's why I like living in a small town because you have to know, like this is kind of the opposite point of subcultural choice. It's the reverse.

When you live in a small town, you have to know everybody. The old man who picks up the recycling. I know him. I know everyone in town. The young, the old. People I disagree with and don't have any subcultural choice in common with.

And they're very, very different than you. You're choosing not to live in a community of like moustachioed espresso sippers. Yes. You're living in a pretty raw small town. Yeah, it's awesome. It's the best. I wouldn't have it any other way. But I like to have a place in the city to come to if I need.

Sure. Yeah. You're always welcome to crash here at these studios. Yeah, it's a nice place, man. Pretty homey. I know you're probably sick of talking about the office because, you know, you lived in that role for so long. Lay it on, man. Like, have you ever thought about, like, how.

many people that show kept company like during long periods of isolation. Believe me, I know. Believe me, I know. Like that's one of those shows that just like really gave people something when they needed, I needed it. I just was talking to a woman the other day and she was on a plane ride with her family and for some reason they all got divided and they were on different rows, her husband and two like teenage sons. And she heard them like all laughing and she went back and looked and all three of them were watching the office in different rows. like one on the phone, one on the seat, one on this laptop, and laughing at different episodes at different times,

but all of them. So the amount of laughter, like billions of laughs over 20 years? Maybe a trillion. Maybe a trillion. What's that number greater than a trillion? The data center investment number? Yeah, we need to figure that out. Yeah, billion.

I am so grateful to have been a part of that. And the fact that that has lightened, and lifted people's hearts and the corners of their mouths for a good decade and a half is, it means a lot. It means a lot. My favorite, I guess, office scene isn't even in the show. I don't know if this is for an award ceremony, but when Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman pulls up to the office set and he's like, yo, is Creed here?

That's just so funny, dude. I don't know why. I think that was Conan O'Brien hosting like the Emmys and he did a sketch with the I think about that all the time. Just the fact that they would be friends. Like, I don't know why that's funny. That's the crossover that you want. That would be the one, any breaking bad cast member, I would lose my mind if I saw in person.

And I've actually become friends with Jesse Plymonds in real life. Whoa. Yeah. He's cool. He's such a good actor. Yeah, dude. We auditioned Jesse Plemons before he was, like, famous for the farm, the Dwight spin-off that we were kind of trying to do. and as a shrewd as my brother shrewd and we wanted him so bad and he was like oh no i'm gonna go be a movie

star i'm not gonna play a shrew yeah well he probably made a smart move i mean he looks like kind of at that time he had a farm boy yeah yeah he's got a shrewd aesthetic definitely which um cast member were you the best friends with off camera i mean i'm good friends with so many of them um if you had to live in a studio apartment for the rest of your life and only leave once a day like a studio apartment just you and one cast member creed really that's awesome yeah i think i'd go with creed yeah yeah out of character i would say angela and i kind of like get along the best i wouldn't want to share a a studio apartment with her it'd just be a little it'd just be weird have you ever gone to scranton i wouldn't want to like hear her poop you know what i mean i would i would have you i have gone to scrinton

yeah that must be the place where i mean i can't yeah i can't imagine yeah it's like zeus going to Mount Olympus. I don't know what the metaphor is. It's, yeah, it's, it's outrageous. I would do anything to see that. Yeah. Rain Wilson goes to Scranton. We had, when the office finished, a lot of people don't know this, we had an office weekend in Scranton. So this was 10, 12 years ago when the office finished. And there was a parade down the main street. The mayor was there, gave us the key to the city. Creed's band played on the stage. We had a Q&A at the baseball stadium. There were panels. And these were the diehard office fans,

but there were like 10,000 office fans there just screaming like they were, you know, K-pop fans. It was nuts. Yeah. It was so much fun. Definitely, man. Yeah. Shia LeBuff or clavicular, who was harder to figure out?

Clavicular. Okay. Yeah. Why? Well, Shia is more of a composite of every character that he's played in every movie. Okay. Wrapped up into one person. All right.

clavicular would oscillate between like vulnerability sort of cosmetic science and just sheer steroid anger steroid anger all the time yeah so you didn't know there's no way to figure out conversationally which route he was going to go down which mode he was in yeah um like the interview turned and he cut it short when i asked him oh you do live streaming like uh what's security like for live streaming like do you need security because you're posting your live location? And he was just like, he like freaked out and was just like started grilling me being like, don't you, you aren't going to ask me about looks maxing. You aren't going to ask me about what you can do to ascend to have a better facial harmony score

and increase your ROI on life and get your streams up, date a bunch of Stacey's, get off the PSL forums. Do Chad's date Stacey's? Is that how it works? Yes. All right. I didn't know that. Naturally.

One question we ask everyone who comes on the show, what's your definition of the word soul? Something that can exist without the body. The thing that will rise when the body perishes. I don't know if that's going to happen, but I got to think that we are more than flesh and bones. And there's something inside the skin suit that we'll live on. Peace, brother. Soul Boom is also on Spotify video. If you've got Spotify premium, you can enjoy it free.

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