Soul Boom - Simulation Theory, A.I. Takeover and Dungeons & Dragons (w/ Reggie Watts)

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

Reggie Watts (comedian, musician) joins us to unpack simulation theory, psychedelics, AI, and Eastern mysticism. He and Rainn cover everything from Seattle's underground art scene to how John Hughes movies and existentialism shaped them. SPONSORS! 👇 Nutrafol (Code: SOULBOOM for $10 off!) 👉 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://nutrafol.com Miracle Made (promo code: SOULBOOM for 20% OFF!) 👉 ⁠⁠⁠trymiracle.com/SOULBOOM⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code SOULBOOM for an extra 20% OFF and a free 3-piece towel set! Fetzer 👉 ⁠⁠https://www.fetzer.org⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⏯️ SUBSCRIBE!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠👕 MERCH OUT NOW! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠📩 SUBSTACK!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  FOLLOW US! IG: 👉 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://instagram.com/soulboom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: 👉 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://tiktok.com/@soulboom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  CONTACT US! Sponsor Soul Boom: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Work with Soul Boom: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Send Fan Creations, Questions, Comments: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Executive Produced by: Kartik Chainani Executive Produced by: Ford Bowers, Samah Tokmachi Companion Arts Production Supervisor: Mike O'Brien Theme Music by: Marcos Moscat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. A quick shout out to our sponsors. Miracle made. Go to try miracle.com slash soul boom and use promo code soul boom for an extra 20% off, plus a free three-piece towel set. Neutrafall. You can head to NutraPaul.com and use promo code Soul Boom now for $10 off your first month plus free shipping. OneSkin. Go to OneSkin.com slash Soul Boom and use promo code soul boom for 15% off. Superpower. Go to superpower.com slash gift to get a free $49 premium gift box with your gifted

membership. More on them later. Enjoy the show. Do you know who Slick Watts is? Maybe. It's tickling the brainstem a little bit, isn't it? A little, yeah. He was on the championship Seattle Supersonics from 1970s. Oh. He just died. Hmm. I lived in Seattle.

I did too. You know, that's my hometown. I didn't know that. What? Long fucking time. You have the perfect name for it? Come on. I was born and raised in Seattle.

I knew Seattle in the 1970s and early 80s. When I was there, Seattle, was the land of moss and lumber. And my friend's fathers were like fishermen. You know, Boeing was kind of the only company there. This was before Microsoft and before, you know, Expedia and Amazon and a thousand other, you know, Zillow and all the other companies that moved in. I moved in 90, summer of 90. Okay.

Yeah, summer of 90, I moved to Seattle. And then I was there until 2000. Four. 14 years. Yeah. I got to experience the last version of American idealism, you know, and that's like excluding like other people's minorities, you know, experiences. However, but like the idea of the 80s, abundant economy.

Like the dollar is so powerful. We can all go to Europe and like, you know, regular people can just go to Europe. And then that's where all the terrible tourist stuff came from because it was just like, you know, blue collar people going like, I guess we're going to. You're, you know, and they'd show up and they'd be like, oh, this ain't like, we're up for, you know, whatever. And then like the bad, what stereotypes came in. But like, yeah, it was, you know, schools were really well funded. There were arts programs.

Like, it was amazing. It was like an amazing time. And then the 90s, it just, that's when the turn started to happen. So I feel really lucky that I got to experience that in the 70s and the 80s. What were you like in high school? Very tall. Taller than I'm now. I tried to do as much as I could.

in high school. I had all the John Hughes movies came out exactly like a year before I was about to experience that year that those kids were about. So like in Breakfast Club, you identified with like all four of the archetypes? A bit, a bit of each, a bit of each. But like, you know, before that was 16 candles, right? So 16 candles is about like, you know, it's like two stories. It's Molly Ringwall, but it's also like the younger kids that are in junior high that are about to go to high school. So I was a junior high kid when that came out. So I had this like, I'm in junior I'm about to go to high school. It's like, oh, all this stuff is going to happen in high school. So seeing that and then when the breakfast club came out, I was like, I want to experience all these

different ways of being. I was like really interested in all of those characters. So the first year I was in high school, I was kind of like a nothing, I guess I would describe myself as. I had two good friends and we hung out all the time. We played D&D. That's another thing we have in common. Oh, yeah, you played D&D? This is crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pacific Northwest, class clowns. Yep. D&D aficionados. Yes, 100%. What was your character?

I don't know the name of my character. My new character that I vaguely play throughout these last few decades, her name is Bronwyn. But back then, I'm not sure what it would have been. I think we just generated characters specifically for each game or whatever. And like maybe sometimes we had some games that we would pick up on. I love that you're so confident in your gender and your sexuality that you can play with the D&D woman. Is she in the magic side or warrior side of those? Elf, half elf?

Half elf. Okay. Yeah, it's kind of like an archetype of myself a little bit. Yeah, it's a half elf. You're kind of half elf. I'm a hybrid. So like, so a half elf, um, Ranger. Okay.

I like Rangers because Rangers, uh, and, and the mixture. Does she have an animal? Yeah, a cat. Oh, okay. Yeah. Does the cat, do you send the cat into battle? No. It's not a battle cat.

The cat was a, it was a recent addition. I think the cat is more like a source of magic. Like it's a like a magnifier, you know, especially a familiar. Like if she has the familiar, then her spells are stronger? Yes, exactly. But there would-based spells

because she's a ranger. 100%. Yeah. Almost always. Yeah, because I think you're like, my thing is I love being the most in-liminal type of character because then you can do the most things.

Right. You can have a little, so I like to, I'm an only child, so I like to spend a lot of time. I'm an only child. What? Get out of it. This is dumb.

What do you guys, are you guys recording this? We should record this. That's interesting about the ranger. Is she able to summon like packs of wolves? Does she have spells where the trees grab the people? I'm vague, I'm trying to remember what rangers do.

Yeah, Rangers, I mean. Does she have a bow? Is that her principal? Ranged weapons, right? Ranger, no, just a happy coincidence. But yeah, yeah, so like what I like about rangers is like, they're good at fighting. but they're not like, you know, like full on.

They're not barbarians. They're not fighter fighters. But they are good at fighting. They're good at ranged weapons. And they have some spells. They have some spells. And because of half elf, you get night vision. Sure.

You get a couple other nice little benefits. Yeah. Which I think is great. So I'm like, yeah, you can go off by yourself. You can track. You can survive in the forest. You can go into a city and hang out in a city. You got your familiar.

So you're like self-contained. You can fit in anywhere. Yes, exactly. It's like you and how you and how. high school. That was me in high school. Hey, I wanted to give a quick shout out to our spiritual partners at the Fetzer Institute. They have just launched a brand new shiny website over at Fetzer.org. That's Fetzer.org. That's Fetzerr.org. And it's full of spiritual tools for modern struggles, which is exactly what we're trying to cultivate here at Soul Boom. Fetzer believes that most of

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Look at you right now. I'm just feasting my eyes on this exquisite, grudginess. Yeah, want on here. Also, those John Hughes movies, they were such a great template on how to be a teenager. Exactly, exactly. Well, because the thing about Hughes

what made high school, why I romanticized it so much. I was a very social kid. I loved, like, being a part of whatever was happening. I loved that. But also... When did you lose your virginity?

21. Wait, what? Yeah. So you were that social and kind of popular but you didn't? Well, I was a ducky. I had ducky.

syndrome a little bit. Okay, that's a John Hughes reference. So John Hughes reference. Let us in. From, yes. So, let us in. Yeah, breakfast. No, it wasn't breakfast club.

It was, uh, no, not 60. Pretty pink. Pretty pink. Yeah, pretty and pink. So pretty and pink, Ducky, her best friend. It was, what's his name from two and a half men? Uh, John Cryer. Yeah.

Yeah. So like, you know, he was in love, you know, but he was like a stylish dude, but he was just a little bit too eager and like wasn't quite viving with. And there was the cool kid who got the girls. Of course. Andrew McCarthy or someone. No, it was like the dude with the black hair that had the Porsche 944, I think, at school. He had the red Porsche.

Porsche. Yeah. I can't remember. But yeah, he was like, I forget his name, Dylan something or whatever, you know. And like, she was fixated on him and then Ducky was like, but what about me? You know, and then she's like, oh, no, you're great. So you had a Ducky syndrome? A little bit.

Like I was, but the thing was like, I was friends with girls. I used to hang out more with girls. than guys, especially like in high school. I just thought girls were cooler. Like they had more stuff going on. They're more mature. More mature, more interesting. And I loved like being able to like hear their stories.

You know, like when they're all hanging out and you're like kind of like one of them a little bit. And it was like, it was like a sweet feeling to be like, oh, you guys like trust me to be around you guys. So I so big, but because of that, they thought of me as like, oh, he's a really nice, safe, cool friend. You got friends zoned a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. But I, but I did have presence of mind in high school. be like, I would rather be friends of girls than like be worried about like hooking up with

them ultimately, even though I wanted to like, oh, I wanted to have a girlfriend or, you know, whatever. But because it was more fun to just hang out socially, you know, I got more out of that than like, you know, you want to go on a date, you know. And then weirdly, because of weird science, you manufactured a girl. I manufactured a girl using electrodes and a doll and waited for a storm and, and rented a friend's supercomputer, which wasn't that super at the time, but at the time it was. Yeah, and manufactured a girl. And then just kind of like kept her in the garage and then felt bad about it and let her go.

Yeah. Yeah. So, but then she went on to do weird science. Wow. Kelly LeBrock. See, it all, she, Kelly LeBrock is actually an Android. Yes, I made, I made her. So yeah. But whatever. I know you want to talk about that stuff. But I think like in weird science, uh, the Kelly LeBrock thing kind of manifested itself in high school because the first girlfriend I had, her name was Joanne, and she was from England, and she was super, like, crazy gorgeous. She looked like a, like a woman, like in high school, and she wore, like, really sophisticated, like blouses and cool, like skirts and, like, these leather mini skirt, uh, just crazy shit. She was, like, super stylish, like hair, updo, hair, black hair, like really, really beautiful woman and, uh, or girl at the time, I guess, but, um, yeah,

So it was really strange that out of all the duckiness, like the first girlfriend I had, which only lasted probably like three months. But you didn't culminate that relationship? Just a little smooching? No, we did. I did get to experience an orgasm. She had an orgasm. And I never had an orgasm with her, but she had an orgasm.

And then that's when actually everything changed with her. An orgasm occurred. And then she was like, we've got to break up. And I was like, what? What happened? But it was kind of her thing. She had a Liverpool accent? Oh, she was like from Liverpool.

She was here. Reggie was going on, man. Where's Ringo? Yeah, what do you doing? He was on the prairie drums. No, she was from Bletchley, which is somewhere in London. So she probably sounded more like this. I'm guessing.

Probably more like this. Same vocal range tonality, exactly like this. A little nasal. Yeah, a little bit. But she's kind of like drifts over things. Why is the pram? Where's the tram? You're always taken out on the pavement.

Where's the boot? Yeah. How come you're always on the pavement? Where's my lorry? Hey, can I have a lorry, Anderson. And chips. Yeah, chaps. She said it like a new Zealand.

Okay. Chups. Yeah, that was the only weird thing. So she dumped you. I find it strangely cute and interesting that you'd lose your virginity at 21. That's a rare thing. I reacted with incredulity. Yeah.

In some ways, maybe that's, maybe that was a good thing. I was glad because I think I was like super definitely like a horny kid for sure. Like always like fantasies, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, just super into like, oh, someday I'll have a really cool lady, you know. And then my first girlfriend was in Seattle. So my first girlfriend, Paula, that was the, that was my first time. But it was great because we were like really in love. And, you know, and then then we.

So you got to experience sex with someone that you were really, really in love with. Exactly. Yeah. Unlike now where it's kind of like 14 and you kind of meet someone and you're like, you're like, get it over with. Yeah, yeah. You have a weird little orgasm behind the couch. We're done.

It's like, yeah, we did it. Let's go on our Discord channel and play Minecraft now. Just like checking it off of a list. You're like, who was next? Viginity loss. 69's next. No. But now let's get to the.

let's get to the serious stuff. Okay. Then you moved to Seattle. No, I want to hear about your experience in Seattle because I'm intrigued by that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. You were there for 14 years. Yeah, I mean, you grew.

I lived the first, essentially the first, like, 19 years of my life there. I went to you Dubb for one year. Oh, wow. You went to Cornish. I did, yeah. I went to Cornish. I went to the Art Institute first,

but for only like four months. So did you live on Capitol Hill then? When I first moved to Seattle, I lived in, by the convention Center. There was like a brutalist 17th story like huge apartment thing. Wow. I lived there

but I didn't live there very long. I lived there again like probably for the length of going to the Art Institute so maybe four months and then I bailed on that place and moved in with a couple students from from the school because they had a band

kind of a band up and they were living on 98th in Aurora. So I lived I moved up to 98th in Aurora. That's a little skanky up there. It is. Yeah. But weirdly, Larry's market. Do you remember Larry's?

I don't know. So Larry's is like a... There's a Dick's driving up there. Oh, is there? On Aurora. Aurora 98th. Yeah. It might be further up.

Yeah, maybe so. Then that 90th and Aurora there was a like a luxury grocery store like before, you know, now we have whole foods and all that stuff. But it was like kind of like a like a boutique but big but boutique grocery store called Larry's. It was very fancy and like had. beautiful arrangements and windows settings. And it was really cool.

But yeah, so we lived behind that on a street called Ashworth in a really tiny house. It was a tiny three bedroom. And we were in a band together. So it was just like a party house band house thing. And we used to shoplift from Larry's all the time and put like stakes down in front of our pants. And never got busted, but close.

Does Larry still exist? I don't know if Larry's does. anymore. Because maybe it's time you paid them back. No. Your call. You know what? Now that you put it that way, I think I will.

Well, the reason I wanted to bring up Seattle is Seattle was such an interesting petri dish of the arts that was so removed from the rest of the country. It was almost, I remember, it was kind of in bad form to ask someone like what they did. Like if you meet someone at a party going like, so what do you do or whatever? Unlike L.A., like, what do you do? Like, I'm a screenwriter. I'm a producer. I'm a standard.

Yeah. And it's a standard question, right? But it was such an interesting petri dish of people doing comedy and then doing theater and then building their own canoes and then having a poetry collective. And you know what I mean? And music was kind of everywhere, but it intersected. It wasn't siloed. And you're not siloed. So I'm just wondering about that connection.

Yeah. I mean, I mean, there was a, you know, it's funny. When I first came to Seattle, it was still pretty small. You know, like the vibes are still pretty small. It's shut down at night. Yeah. You know, like 11 o'clock onwards, like pretty quiet downtown. Like there wasn't really a lot of stuff going on.

There weren't really a lot of places to perform. Like, there weren't a lot of live venues. There, you know, maybe like three at total, you know, and one was a bar. And I'm trying to remember the name of it. There was a blue moon on 45th or 50th, but they usually played like bluesy rock stuff. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So there would be like music-specific. But then there was a place called Red Barn Films. I think that that was a production studio that had like a big enough space that they would have live bands, but it was occasional. And then there was, I want to say like the Rainbow Hotel had stuff, but I'm not totally sure. But, you know, and I was 19 at the time, so I couldn't even get in. But like I did see some live music, but it was just like really quiet and small. And like weed was a thing there.

You know, like when I first moved there, one of the guys that was going to the Art Institute was showing me around town when my mom was there with me. And his name was Rafe and we like visited his house for some reason. I don't know why, but we went to his house and he had like a weed plant and my mom saw it and thought it was weed, but she wasn't totally sure. And she was kind of like she knew, but she wasn't trying to make a big issue of it because she didn't want me to like know about it. But even though like I had done weed already and that was one thing.

I wish I would ask my mom about like, did she know, you know, did she suspect? Because, like, she never acted like, didn't. I never said anything. So, but, yeah, I just remember, like, going there and, like, rave showing me that. And, I mean, it was, it was just kind of wide open. Like, people were left to their own devices. They could do what they wanted to do.

And so high school, I was doing, we had competitive drama. So I was, I compete. That's a weird thing, competitive drama. It is really, it is really weird. But it was out. And in this corner? Yeah, totally. Weighing.

Playing Willie Lohman from Death of the Salesman. Totally. Timmy McDriscoll from Bartholomew. Bartholomew High in Havre, Montana. It's like, oh, great, he's really good. I hear he's really good this year. Look at the program. Yeah, I mean, just like, it is.

And in this corner. It's a weird concept in that I couldn't believe it was real. I didn't think it was real. Like when I heard about it, I was like, what the fuck is that? How do you compete in drama? Weighing in at 117 pounds. from again from half of montaeton no when i moved to seattle i was primarily a musician for a long time

and i played in keyboards and bands and sang in bands all kinds of bands all the most amount of music possible and then um probably mid-90s i started dabbling a little bit into kind of lingering like there were these jam nights where like people would take a break the band would go off and take a break but i would stay on stage like still playing and like saying done shit and whatever doing bits and sometimes to to the annoyance of others but like sometimes the band would be like dude would you just take a break you know just like yeah but yeah so that started returning and I did sketch comedy a little bit with a couple different friends actor friends from UW and in the from the

theater department and then I decided to go full into comedy you know 2003 after seeing the state or another state but Stella the shorts the original shorts yeah The shitty DVD. That was the guys from the state. That was the guy's from the state. That was in New York. Yes, that was from New York. Yeah.

So my friend, one of the actors from the UW moved to New York. And when actually on one of the nights of the jam nights that we used to do a weekly jam night on Wednesday nights, he was like, hey, do I want to show you something? And we went out to his car and he had his laptop with a little CD-ROM thing or whatever. And he had the DVD of the shorts, the Stella Shorts, and showed me like a couple of those sketches. And I just immediately fell in love. I'll be honest, my hair and I, well, we've been through a lot together. Long stretches on set, that weird white haircut, weather, stress, travel, you name it.

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Right now, Nutrafall is offering listeners $10 off your first month's subscription, plus free shipping when you go to Nutrafall.com and use promo code soul boom. That's Nutrafall.com promo code soul boom for $10 off. You know, there's a lot of times we have guests on the show and we're like, you know, when you're young and in the mixed up milieu of being in your 20s, everything feels like you're a Pachinko ball bouncing around and it doesn't really have any rhyme or reason.

But then you look back on your life and everything kind of settles into order and it makes sense in the rear view mirror. Yeah. How do you see that? I love those stories about how, you know, you're, you know, from this small, town in Montana and then you're in Seattle and then you're your shoplifting and you're doing music

and you're in 10 different bands and some comedy. But then all of a sudden the stars align and there's an apartment and there's a place to perform and there's a path forward and it all falls into place. How do you view that life experience now looking back on it? Because I could see your eyes just light up when you talked about how all of a sudden the puzzle pieces fit together. Yeah. I mean, It was like, you know, I mean, I've had the good fortune of like just things aligning in a way. You know, like I wasn't supposed to move to Seattle. I wanted to go to New York, but I didn't make the cut for this drama school that I pled for it. So my second choice was Seattle.

So that kind of like, not as elegant, but it's like, well, that ain't happening. I was like, well, I guess I'm doing that. So that happened, but it ended up being exactly the right choice because it was just the right time to move there. And then, yeah, of course, I mean, yeah. Yeah, it just made sense. And I love it when that happens. And that's generally like what most of the stuff that's happened to me in my life, it happens that way. Where I'm like, you know, I'm doing comedy bang bang, bang.

And then like, I'm like, well, I think I've had enough of comedy bang bang. I love comedy bang bang, but I want to kind of do my own stuff. And then as soon as I quit, then the late late show comes along, you know, like two weeks before I even leave. It's like, this guy wants to have a meeting with you, James Gordon. And, you know, like, things like that happen in a weird, like, if this is a simulation that we're all in, like, it's, I have so many points of, like, contention to talk with a, like, a program, the chief programmer. Yeah, chief programmer, or a stochistition or a probabilist, you know, and be like, what is the probability of this happening? Like, it's just too weird, you know. But, but, yeah, things have just kind of shown the way.

And then I just go for it. I just, you know, listen to it and go. for it. So any thoughts or advice to young people who might be watching who are struggling and they're in Cincinnati or Portland or Bartholomew? Yes, Bartholomew. And they're not quite sure of their path because you took so many different paths, but things kind of really shook out. But is it, is it trust the process? Is it trust the universe? Is it just keep trying stuff? Is it because something happened inside you where you were, like you saw Stella. Yeah. And Eugene

Merman. Yeah. And something was like that, that, that, that, that's what I need to do. Everything else was a primer for me going down that path. Exactly. Well, I mean, it's like, yeah, I think, you know, I always say like follow the fun, you know, the whole thing that you, you know, because I do run into a lot. I think LA is a little bit of a different kind of thing. But like people, when they're in, when they move to LA, they're like, I need to make it in the industry. I mean to figure out the industry. So that the mentality is a little bit more like you're hunting or searching or trying to make something happen.

But I would say like the easiest way to be successful at what you want to do is to just follow the fun. Like if you're having fun hanging out with a bunch of knuckleheads at a weird comedy night, keep doing that, you know, and keep working on stuff. And like I say, like I, whenever I would do comedy nights, I watched every single comedian. You know, a few exceptions here and there. might be a conversation, we take it out, you know, whatever. But for the most part, I watch the whole show because I'm like, I want to see everybody.

This is a show, you know, look at all these, like, cool people doing their shit. So like, if you're following the excitement of like, where are things happening, where this is the scene happening, where are people doing stuff, that just leads you to where you need to go because, you know, you're with peers. And if you're integrated in there and you're like digging it and you like people, things are going to happen for them and then they're going to think of you. and they might bring you along or they might introduce you to someone, you know,

but the main thing, instead of sometimes, not that everybody does it, but if you're worrying about your career, like, it's weird, but like the better thing to do is to just continue having fun and follow your instinct to where, like, I want to be, oh, those guys, that bit that was so fucking stupid. I want to do that.

I want to be about, hey, I have an idea and you want to do that type of thing where you're just constantly bubbling. But it's also collaboration is a big part of that, isn't it? Collaboration is huge. Finding the people that get you off and that you jive with, whether it's in a band or whether it's in a comedy troupe or at an open mic night.

Yes, 100%. Or a theater troupe or a dance company or whatever it is or a collective or, you know, a writer's night where you're sharing stuff that you've written during the course of the week. I always tell young artists to, you know, find the people that you jive with and just keep collaborating. Yeah, keep fucking around, man. Like, just keep fucking around. Because that is, that's your, that's your greatest asset. Your greatest asset is to be inspired, to be curious, to be inspired.

And the inspiration leads to, who knows. But that's like the thing that when people have riders block, that's what they're talking about. It's like, I'm not connected to the inspiration anymore. I don't know, you know, what to do. And when you're in a community of people that are bubbling with ideas and doing dumbass stuff all the time, it's like, yeah, let's fucking do something. oh my God, that thing was so funny. What if we did that, you know, that's the spirit.

And that's the thing that's going to save you. That's the only, and it's also like, why are you doing it? It's like, well, you should be doing it because you can't not do it. You can't imagine life without doing what you're doing. And that's, to me, it's like the biggest, like, it's not for everybody necessarily. Someone might be like, I love comedy, I really love comedy, but then they end up being a producer, which is sick, which is equally as sick. Yeah.

Judd Appetel started as a comedian. Oh, that's right. Yeah. But was one of the greatest comedy producers of all time. Yes. Probably still a good comedian. Yes, for sure. Yeah.

And Larry David was the same way. He was a comedian in a sketch comic, right? But then created Seinfeld and whatever that other shows. And then went back to it. You know, simulation theory is really big these days. You know, Elon Musk ascribed to it. I'm sorry to bring up his name. Yeah, I know.

It's like, he shall not be named. Exactly. Elon Voldemort Musk talks about simulation. And do you get with that? Because I know I've read a little bit about, you were raised Roman Catholic, but you've really kind of like said, enough with the organized religion,

that's too limiting, I don't want any part of that. But you're still open to a lot of spiritual ideas, both in creativity, you've talked about psychedelics, science fiction and AI, all roads lead to simulation. Do you think that we could be in a simulation and at death, we wake up and we look back at the 3D avatarness of the Matrix video game that we had participated in for 80 years? What do you think? I mean, you know, it's like I, you know, I can never say 100% because who can, but like I'd say that I have 95% certainty that it's some form of a simulation

in that science is now kind of showing evidence that this could be true because of like, you know, like it, well, as a kid I thought, I suspected, and I thought of it more simply as like, oh, it's like a dream, like we're in a dream, you know, simulated dream or whatever, life is a dream. And then as I started getting into like the new emerging, like quantum physics, you know,

and like, and the quantum physicists writing books about, oh, there are parallels that we're finding between the mechanics of the quantum world, and Eastern mysticism. Right, like Rupert Sheldricks, one of them. Yeah. Niels Bohr. Niels Bohr.

Was the granddaddy of these, some of these ideas. Yeah, Niels Bohr, Fred Allen Wolf, who wrote to StarWave and what is it, the holographic universe, I forget, Michael Talbot, and all these guys in the 90s. So it was like the synergy of like new age mixed with science. And science fiction. And science fiction. What's that guy, William?

What's the guy, Walter? You're there? He left. He doesn't care. He fucking left? My son left. He's a kid. Give him a break.

Rain. My son left watching the podcast recording to go text his friends. Yeah. Amateur. Amateur. Got to time that shit. William Gibson. Necromancer.

You know how that all dovetails. Yes. Robert Anton Wilson. Yep. And yeah. And then like, you know, the what do you call it the what was it called the the convergence I forget what's called what the fuck is it called the singularity yes the idea the idea of singular so like I

had suspicions and then in the 90s you know there was that stuff and I was like thinking about it and I remember having like some psychedelic trips where I was like oh my gosh like you you know like everything is mathematics you know everything is like vibrating particles and things of that nature but I think what's interesting is like now you're getting like the James Webb telescope which is like giving us back pictures of the universe that aren't jibing with our current understanding of cosmology. So like we're having to rewrite.

So I don't know that. What is it finding? Do you know? My best attempt to describe me, but it's like, it's showing that some galaxies are older than they should be in the timeline that we're looking back at. So they're more mature and they're not quite sure how to account for. It doesn't fit in with the big bang and the ever expanding universe.

and like a nothing that expand from nothing. And then there's like this expansion. And so now they're looking at mirror universe theory, which is like our universe was created. But of course, there's like a, there's an anti-universe. There's a negative universe that was generated. But then there's the idea of many worlds where you're talking about like there are infinite amounts

of variations of universes, like in bubbles, like, going spanning infinitely. And I love all these ideas. But what's interesting is that the James Webb is giving us hard data that's really confusing a lot of cosmologists where they're like, oh, okay. Oh, well, That doesn't make.

Oh, now there's this in this dark period. This is supposed to be a dark period. And we're finding like a couple extra galaxies that shouldn't be there. So there's that. And then there's a new emerging physics field called digital physics, which bases the unit of measure or what they're comparing things from as raw information. So they believe that everything is just raw information. And that consciousness creates an interpretation layer on top of the raw.

right information, meaning physics itself, like quantum physics, is the attempt to describe what we're getting from raw information. So it's just an information layer. It's not the base of the mechanics of everything. It's just an interpretation of raw information. And in that way, that kind of jibes with Eastern mysticism, because everything is everything. Paradoxical thoughts.

You know, like wisdom is basically just paradox. A joke is a paradox. You know, it's like, here's the expectation. I'm going to subvert the expectation. And there's kind of like a atom smasher. It's like accelerator moves this particle around. That's the expectation. And then boom, it hits, it collides.

And when it collides, it's like we don't know necessarily what's going to happen. But in that collision, there's this spark of enlightenment in a way. Like I think when an audience is laughing, it's like they're temporarily approaching their enlightened levels, and then that kind of recedes back into their functional self. But so all that to say, And then I've been experimenting with ketamine quite a bit in the last four years.

And I'm actually going to do a scientific study with ketamine, which is going to be really fun using an fMRI. What is interesting about consciousness and people who study what is consciousness. It's now studying to jive with the findings web is dealing with digital physics, new theories on what is consciousness, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But like, I think we're in a time period where like so many crazy things are. happening. Like if you think about like if you had to choose a time period to materialize it as a time traveler, this is one of the most exciting times in human history because there's a lot of dark darkness going on, a lot of authoritarianism and things of that nature, which to me are like last gasps of late stage capitalism

and that whole paradigm of like controlling power, but now we're so hypernetworked, that's not really going to work. They'll try to make it work, but it just won't work. Everyone's too hyper-connected. So then what's going to happen? Well, then we have artificial intelligence. So artificial intelligence is interesting, because what I think is going to happen is we are going to lose control of artificial intelligence. And then artificial intelligence, it's like the metaphor I used was like,

if you had a bunch of glasses on a table, like just different vessels, and they were all being slowly filled with water, that's like AI. So these are all the different AI models that are currently there. Eventually they'll all spill over and just unify into one artificial intelligence. which will then occupy. You think Claude and chat GPT and yeah, it won't matter. All of these will just become one. Yes, I think I think that that's what's going to happen. And you think you're like full Skynet, like all of a sudden they're going to take, you know,

they're going to take control of our systems or banking and stock market and FAA and yeah. I kind of, I kind of do. Satellites. I kind of do think that's going to happen because I think like, I think what's going to happen, here's my prediction. What's going to happen is. The Soul Boom podcast. subscribe now on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts,

and wherever else you get your stupid podcasts.