The Digression Sessions - Ep. 27 Dude, Where’s My Karma? w/ Brad Warner!

Episode Date: March 4, 2012

Hola Digheads! On this week’s show we have author and musician Brad Warner. Brad is a Sōtō Zen priest, author, blogger, documentarian and punk rock bass guitarist. Brad has played with Zero Defex and Dimentia 13 and published many books – such as Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate, Sex, Sin, and Zen: A Buddhist Exploration of Sex from Celibacy to Polyamory and Everything in Between, and many more!  Check out Brad’s blog - http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/ Don’t forget to rate, subscribe, and provide a nice comment on the iTunes! PLEASE! It’ll help the podcast climb the gosh danged charts! [e-mail] @DigSeshPod @JKuderna @MichaelMoran10

Is this like a real show or what is this? It's a podcast. Oh. All right, what's going on, digheads? What up, digheads? This is a very special episode of Digression Sessions. No, we don't tackle drugs or teenage prostitution or teenage pie stealing from windows. But we do have a very special guest, Brad Warner, author of such books as Hardcore Zen and Sit Down and Shut Up.

And the guy from the band Zero Defects in the 80s and he's also behind the musical project Dimension 13. A very popular Buddhist writer and we are very happy to have him on. Interview went really well. We did it over Skype. And so yeah, thank you so much, Brad. We're going to try to get him down here to talk at one of the Buddhist centers sometime.

And maybe Zero Defects would want to come down and play one of the little clubs too because they recently reunited. Okay, so here we are, Brad Warner. Thank you very much, everybody. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Can you see me? No, not yet. Should we do video? I really don't want to do video?

I really don't want to do video. I think he wants to do video. Why don't you want to do video? Hello? Hey. Hello? Hello. Let me see if I can get my camera on.

Probably not. We don't have to do video. We can just do audio. Okay. I don get my camera on. Probably not. We don't have to do video. Yeah, we'll just do audio. Okay. I don't know where the camera thing is anymore. Is that it? Okay. Why don't we just call you back with just audio? Change the icon.

Wait a minute. There it is. There you are. How's it going? Good. I'm ugly today. You're not ugly. No. You're 47, going? Good. I'm ugly today. You're not ugly. No.

You're 47, right? Yeah. You honestly don't look a day over 30. Well, thank you. What's your secret, Brad? Bradley, what's the secret? Be honest. You have got to tell us your secret.

Right? Haven't you read The Secret? You wrote that? Oh, my God. It's all positive. Yeah, I wrote that. Hardcore secret. I'm looking for my cat.

He was just here. What's your cat's name? Crumb. He's not really mine. I sort of inherited him. He's yours now. Is that your bass in the background? No, there's a guitar in the background.

There's an electric sitar in the foreground. It's a musical accompaniment. Sing the Brad Warner song. You told me that your favorite song off of Carnival of Souls by Kiss is Hate, correct? I don't know. Did I say that?

I asked you once and you told me that. Really? I was hoping you could play it for me on the sitar. No, it was probably my favorite song the day that you asked. Yeah. I think you and I were the only two people who bought that album. Probably, yeah, yeah. I like that album.

I like it too, honestly. It's probably the best Kiss music available. Did you get that album while it was a bootleg? No, I didn't even really know about it. I guess I heard that they were recording something, but then I didn't know about it until it came out, the real real version yeah there was something where it was it was like bootlegged for years and then they reunited with the makeup and then they finally like re-released it is the bootleg any different uh not that i recall i haven't listened to it since high school

no it was kind of like part of the era of 80s bands trying to sound like alternative bands yeah I mean it was that but it was good there was a lot of that going around wasn't there oh yeah it was systemic I once tried to compile a list

of like sort of classic rock bands that that went punk briefly right um and there were there were several there were several of them or went punk or went new wave alice cooper is the only one that comes to mind right really when did he go punk he did an album called flush the fashion which is his sort of new wave punk album. It didn't sell very well. Was that with the Alice Cooper band or was that 80s solo guy? This was in 1980. I'm trying to think. I made a list of them. I can't remember any of the others.

What about rockers that go rap for a while, like Didi Ramone? Yeah, there was that. Oh, Billy Joel. Billy Joel was another one. Really? What's the matter with the clothes I'm wearing? Can't you tell?

I mean, it's like what their idea of punk was. Stick it to the man. It's like your dad trying to write a punk rock song. I'll wear my dockers how I want. What do you think of that, society? Mwah. That's it. I don't know why they turned into a 20s gangster at the end there.

That's how they see punk rock. Mwah. That was punk rock in the 40s. Rock and roll. She, she, it's rock and roll. She. Well, cool. Thanks for joining us today, Brad.

Yeah, thank you so much this means a lot to me is this like a real show or what is this it's a podcast oh is the video gonna be part of it or is it

no no I don't even I'm not even sure why we're doing the video component I can see and you're where you're

Boston Baltimore Baltimore Beeston he said Bee City oh Bee City they all get confused yep Boston? Baltimore. B-City. Baltimore? B-City? He said B-City. Oh. B-Cities, they all get confused. Yeah.

My friend Laura is in Baltimore. Oh, yeah? And she does tattoos. Laura Rachel. So if you want a tattoo in Baltimore. You know, I think I know that name. Yeah? Where does she work?

Apparently, she's pretty good. Fells Point, maybe? She told me where. She was working in one of the sort of famous places. I think I know that name. Apparently,

she's in demand. Really? That's what she tells me. Right. She's enough to have an apartment in Baltimore supported by tattooing.

Yeah, yeah. That's true. So, what's going on with you? Are you working on a new book? Yeah, more or less. This one is called Kill All Monsters, right?

I don't know. Death to All Monsters was a novel that I wrote before I wrote Hardcore Zen or any of that. And I put it out because these people kept telling me how you could make $1,000 a day doing e-books. It was the creator of e-books who told you that? Well, one guy really did tell me, and I don't think he's lying, that he was making $400 a day with these e-books. Really?

But the thing was, he was publishing these Twilight rip-offs. Right. You know, like when you'd read all the Twilight books. Right. They're called Dusk. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, you know, that kind of thing. So he was making a lot of money with it.

So I thought, okay, I'll put out, you know, I made 200 bucks on mine. I think I made 200. Total? Yeah. Wow. You know, it's better than poking the eye. I didn't realize you had a fiction book out. Yeah, actually I have a different fiction book which I

am more hopeful about. It's Polish published. This company in Poland who put out the Polish edition of Hardcore Zen was interested in putting out one of my novels and I thought they were going to do it in Polish but no, they want to do it in English.

They've got the book and the cover's being worked on, and I don't know when it's supposed to come out, but it's supposed to come out soon. How much writing do you do a day? As much as I can grind out. I get up in the morning and I try to make something. You write in the morning? Yeah try to make something. You write in the morning? Yeah, generally.

It's easier. Right, yeah. I think I'm finding that too. Do you set a time limit for yourself? Are you like, I'm just going to write for two hours? Yeah, I actually used to set a word count limit, but now it's just more like time and I refuse to turn on the internet or Skype or anything until noon. I'm not allowed to look at any of that stuff, so I have to focus on the project at hand.

But if there's no project at hand, it gets a little nebulous, because I like to keep writing but if there's no specific project then I'm a little lost which is why a lot of things end up on the blog because I just write them and I'm like I don't know what to do with them I don't know where to put this I'll just put it here when do you meditate? usually right after I get up so I go right over there

into the closet into the closet? Into the closet, yeah. Where did that cat go? Maybe in the closet. Is she camera shy? I don't know. He's usually in this room, but I'm in this room.

Whatever. So it goes back to Kiss. What's that? Are you recording now or oh yeah oh all right all right i'll try to say something better you're fine dude am i loud enough i don't know yeah yeah you're good yeah you're good yeah anything controversial you want to say we're all about ratings it's almost sweeps dish the trash podcast sweeps

do I have to censor are you allowed to say dirty words on your podcast absolutely F it up that's encouraging I can't think of anything controversial usually the things I say that end up being controversial are things that to me don't sound controversial.

Tell me what you think about the guy who wrote Zig Zag Zen. Oh, that guy's an asshole. I told you. Whoa, whoa. We say a-hole on this show. I feel like that's the only thing that I've read in your books that you're really like resentful about well i just thought it was a stupid idea you know to try to kind of bring back the you know it's in the book if you read it it's sort of it's sort of trying to pretend that it's a balanced view of pros and

cons but it ends up being very pro-drug i thought and right you know god bless you if you want to get high but just don't tell me it's a spiritual quest. Then I'll leave you alone. If you're just saying, I want to get stoned, then that's your business. But if you start going, well, I'm going to get stoned and this is how I'm going to experience the truth of Zen. Does that guy claim that that's always been a part of Zen?

It's been a while since I read the book. His claim is that he had to write the book because so many people who got into Zen in the West started out getting into drugs. Right. I mean, you know, and for, I think, for the baby boomer generation, the generation sort of just before me, before people like me came in, you know, and I'm already old, but I think that… Oh, stop.

Oh, stop. Well, but for the people that got into Zen in the 60s and 70s, you know, which is a large part of what's still left there that that's what they they took they dropped acid they thought they got enlightened and then later on they tried zen right but i think that thesis kind of falls apart for people after that generation i don't i don't really think that that's what how people are getting into it these days they're dropping acid and having beautiful visions and then going to Eastern spirituality anymore.

They probably are making a more direct route. However you say it up there in Ohio. I'd say Warsh. You say what? Warsh instead of wash. Oh really? That's a Baltimore thing too. Yeah. You put an R in

Warsh? And Wooder instead of wash. Oh, really? That's a Baltimore thing, too. Yeah. You put an R in wash? And water instead of water. Water? Water. Worship and water. Is there a whole, like, regional... Do people in Ohio think that there's, like, an Ohio accent? Like, people in Baltimore think there is?

I mean, you get that sort of hunk of the Midwest, which... You know, it sounds arrogant to say it has no accent, but it's got this very sort of flat kind of way of talking you know and

between here and Indiana or wherever Montana I mean you can't really find you can't really tell just from listening

to somebody I mean the east coast has all kinds of accents west coast doesn't either I mean California doesn't I mean except for that you know dude kind of thing.

But nobody talks. Like the valley girl kind of thing. Yeah, my hair's all weird. No one will know. At least all three of us look pretty much the same. No one will know. We're an evolutionary chart right now. I call Homo erectus.

Elmo erectus. Elmo. Elmo erectus. Elmo erectus. So what else is going on? Do you miss wearing the monster suits? Do you miss that type of stuff? I miss working for the company. Wearing the monster suits was something I didn't do that often. So for listeners who don't know,

I suppose I probably should explain what that means, right? Because I used to work for 15 years or so. I worked for a Japanese company called Tsuburaya Productions, and they were founded by Eiji Tsuburaya, who was the guy who did all the special effects for the sort of classic Godzilla films

in the 60s and the 70s and the 50s. No, he died in the 70s, so he didn't do the 70s ones. But anyway, he founded this company, and they do basically Godzilla-style stuff, but mostly for television. They do a show called Ultraman, which is done in the same style as Godzilla. The Power Rangers was basically an Ultraman ripoff. The biggest difference

between Ultraman and Power Rangers is Ultraman is 150 feet tall, so he's as big as the monsters that he fights. Anyway, so I worked for this company and I was really into this sort of stuff. I got to wear the costumes a few times. There's one thing I just put up on YouTube because I just found the video of it after years of it being missing, in which it was a commercial the company put together for the company itself. And they wanted to have a huge line of every monster they'd ever produced. And the company had been in business for 40 years or so by then. It was 40 anyway, a long time. They had a lot of monsters. So everybody, almost everybody in the company, able-bodied person who was willing to do it

had to put on a monster costume and join this giant, giant dance number. And I was determined that if I was going to do this thing, I was going to be seen. And they put me way in the back. And I'm like, I don't know how I'm going to get seen way in the back. But I'm wearing this monster costume with these gigantic lobster claws that were about three and a half feet long, made of foam rubber.

So I just jumped up and down. Every time I heard them say rolling, I'd jump up and down and wave these monster claws in the air. Other people can't see this, but I'm kind of making this scissor fashion. And if you go on YouTube and look for it, I wish I could remember what I titled it.

Anyway, there's one shot where you can see the monster claws waving in the air. So I made it. Nice. Nice. Cool. Cool. You did writing for Ultraman, right?

I did writing for Ultraman, but none of it was, I'm going to say none of it was ever used officially. I wrote a script for an episode, and the episode went into pre-production, and then it got killed by the network just before it was supposed to start shooting because they thought it was too weird. Yeah, didn't you kind of try to push some zen? Yeah, I tried to get a little, well, I tried to get a little more,

less zen and more sort of Philip K. Dick. Actually, it was a rip-off of the old Star Trek, you know the Star Trek where there's evil Mr. Spock? Oh, yeah, the goatee. Yeah, the goatee. So I tried to do that where the Ultraman team suddenly switches dimensions and they're in a world. Oh, yeah, yeah, I remember you wrote about that.

So the good guy's an Ultraman is the bad guy's. Right, right. But they, yeah, they didn't. And I wrote a couple things that like ended up incorporated into movies and then nobody

ever said anything to me which you know it's a sort of a in a sense it's a Japanese thing to do that

but even beyond being a Japanese thing it was kind of a dicky thing yeah right you could sue for that technically right

yeah probably in the states I could I don't know if I could get anything in Japan because I was an employee and I was submitting ideas and they ended up using some of them but they didn't pay me they didn't say hey Brad we used that thing

that you wrote it was like a three year gap when I submitted it and I'd kind of forgotten and then I watched one of the movies and went hey wait a minute that's the scene i wrote oh man um wow these were ultra man movies these are ultra man movies one's called uh ultra man gaia the battle in hyperspace is the is the one movie where they just blatantly took something that i'd written uh and and just put it in and. And they reworked it and all. It was completely reworked.

But there's like one crucial scene in the movie is exactly the scene that I wrote. So it was another extra-dimensional thing where I have the idea was Ultraman. There's a guy, a human, who transforms into Ultraman. And in my version, he ends up in our world where Ultraman is just a TV show. He lands his plane

Like Wes Craven's New Nightmare? Maybe like that, yeah. Sorry, continue. Yes. Anyway, I like that. Should I talk about Zen stuff? Maybe I'm boring. Whatever you want, man. It's the digression sessions. We just go with whatever. Yeah, I like that. Should I talk about Zen stuff? Maybe I'm boring. Whatever you want, man. No, no. It's the digression sessions. We just go with whatever.

Yeah, I can digress about Ultraman all day because I dig that. Actually, this morning, Tricycle Magazine hired me to be their meditation doctor, so I had to answer people's meditation questions. Oh, yeah? Did you get any interesting ones um well you know there's the the question i always get is a variation on the same question and i think i think the people who ask it don't realize that they're they're giving the same question and it goes it starts off with a narrative of all the things all the ways that their meditation isn't like what they expected it to be like.

And ends with, am I doing it wrong? Right. And the am I doing it wrong part is almost verbatim in every version, every variation of this. And I always have to say, you're not doing it wrong. It's just the way it goes sometimes. Right. It's not always bliss and and uh and rainbows sorry my girlfriend just walked into the uh to the house sorry my girlfriend hi she can't hear

you but yeah brad warner says hi amanda says hi hi amanda you'll see her in a second. There she is. There she is. So, yeah, I guess is there a common misconception that people don't think about meditation as a thing that you have to practice? Kind of? Or is it something that you have to practice? I'm not really too familiar with it. It's a thing

you do and to the extent that you do it is going to determine the extent to which it resembles what you think it ought to be. That's kind of a weird way of putting it. Everybody, when they start out, is lousy. I don't trust anybody who starts off with a meditation practice and it's all groovy right from day one. Because if it is, then they're already in trouble.

It should be a little bit annoying. You got a dog over there? Oh, yeah. Is the dog going to attack my cat? It's possible. I don't think that's how Skype works, but maybe. Yeah, we're not too familiar with Skype, but yeah, maybe. Little guys in the computer. No, no she's she's outside so you think like enlightenment is something you do not something

you achieve right well yeah that's i guess that's one of my did i say that's probably one of my quotes yeah i think so something along those lines but yeah it is and and and there's a lot of a lot of the misinformation about uh the practice comes from this idea that there ought to be something that happens quickly and easily and everybody just slides right into it. I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought. My dog's big. She's a big fan. I'm sorry. Oh, good. But yeah, so there's a lot of this idea of enlightenment gets people thinking in the wrong direction. They think it's some sort of a psychological state and it's something that ought to be achievable, like a goal. It's not really a goal. It's sort of a, if anything's it's sort of a if anything it's sort of a byproduct of practice mm-hmm

rather all the practice I would say or something like that this is a comedy show so I should say something funny yeah I got a pirate joke let's hear it pirate I wrote walks into a bar and he's got a steering wheel sticking out of his pants. I know this one. You heard this one? Go on. That doesn't mean the audience has. Our millions of fans haven't heard this one.

Can we say it together? So the bartender says, hey, pirate, why do you have a steering wheel sticking out of your pants? And the pirate says, ah, it's driving me nuts. All right, here's the joke I heard yesterday. For some reason, I think it's freaking hilarious, and everybody else thinks it's a stupid Larry the Cable guy ask. My wife's going to shit when she sees that I fixed the toilet. God.

Jason told me that. And that's that. And then Brad realizes what the hell he got himself into. I've been on a lot of radio things and podcasts and cable radio things. There's a whole gamut. I was on the crazy Wacky Morning Drive Time show in Helsinki, Finland on a Swedish radio station. Nice. Wow. What I didn't know about Finland is there's a large Swedish speaking minority

in Finland so they have an all Swedish station. Oh. They have like a wacky drive time morning show, you know? That's sweet. That kind of thing. Right. That was actually one of the most fun things I did because it was so, you know. Unexpected.

Yeah. But they actually, the guy who interviewed me actually kind of had a clue about what I was doing, which some people who interview me don't seem to know who. Yeah, I don't know how they got assigned to interview me. Right. The idea of who I am, which I always think is, oh, why did you? Right, right. It's fine. Who are you wearing?

I mean, I'm not like a superstar or something that everybody ought to know, but I just feel like if you're going to go to the trouble of interviewing God, I would find out who they are. Right, yeah. So what are you working on writing-wise right now? Well, I'm writing a book called Is that the Wacky Working Driver?

Yeah. Hold on. Josh, get back in here. Sorry. Can you hear me? It was kind of a crazy feedback. I don't know if you were getting it. I think it was from Josh putting his headphones down or something. There was a weird like, I don't know. Sorry were getting it. I think it was from Josh putting his headphones down or something. There was like a weird

like, I don't know. Sorry, I had to let the dog in. That's fine. I was wondering it got all noisy. So the question is what am I working on? Are you going to edit this or just leave it the way it is? We'll see. I don't think it's gotten awkward enough

that we need to... No, no. We'll edit a little bit out. I'll probably edit all the noise and stuff out. That's fine. Well, the thing I'm working on now is a book tentatively titled There Is No God and He Is Your Creator. And it's about the Zen, what I feel is the Zen approach to the idea of God, which I think is kind of something that interests me. Can you explain that just a little bit maybe for our listeners? Yeah. I need to learn to put it in a nutshell because people are going to ask that once the book comes out.

Right, yeah. But I haven't really prepared my nutshell statement, so I'll do my best. There's a longstanding idea within Western people sort of trying to figure out what Buddhism is that says that Buddhism is an atheistic religion. Because this stems from people when they first started trying to read the Buddhist texts, finding out there really wasn't a concept of god in the sense that you find in islam or or christianity or judaism or even even a concept of god like you find in hinduism is it just like a one single entity is that is that what you mean like god well the thing is there's all these ideas of emptiness and um it's called shunyata is the word for emptiness

and there's a lot of other ideas and my contention is that the Buddhist concept of God isn't the white guy in the throne with the big beard but I think there aren't even very many Christians who believe in that I mean there are a vocal minority of Christians

who believe in that but I think by and large not too many people believe in that. I mean, they're a vocal minority of Christians who believe in that. But I think, by and large, not too many people believe in that anymore. So I feel like the God that's referred to by the Christian contemplatives and by the Islamic contemplatives and by, you know, these kind of traditions is kind of the same thing that we're talking about in Buddhism, only giving it a different name sometimes. And I also think the Western, the way things are translated to us, we're getting words like nirvana and enlightenment and Buddha nature and things like that.

And it causes a lot of confusion because we, I think a lot of us are taking that in and thinking, oh, they're talking about psychological states, like some kind of ultimate psychological state that's, you know, well, you can take acid and find nirvana, you know, or you can, um, you can go to a seminar, you know, one of these things I keep writing about these seminars that people have where they charge a couple hundred or a couple thousand dollars, uh, so that you go through it and you have a Buddhist enlightenment experience at the end of the seminar. Um, and that, that, that kind of, if you think of, if you think of the, if you're imagining it's some psychological state or some, you know, word like nirvana, which you don't even, you never even heard before, and you have no idea what it means except for the band, you know, then you're likely to make a mistake about it. But I think it's something much bigger, and I think the word God is actually useful in talking about it. Although I like to talk about God just about as much as anybody, which is not much.

I don't know. You've obviously never been south of the Mason-Dixon line. I actually have. My sister lives in Knoxville, Tennessee. Oh, really nice. Cool. Oh, and

also you prefer the old Nirvana band to the newer, correct? Well, I think I wrote that in a book, but to be honest, I never actually listened to the old Nirvana. Really? You're just trying to be cool? Snotty Mark. The old band's way better than the newer one. These Nirvanas today don't know what the hell they're talking about.

I like the first Nirvana better. But there was an English band, Nirvana, that did like four or five albums. Yeah, there was. Kurt Cobain just... He probably didn't. I'm sure those guys weren't aware. They were, in fact. I remember reading...

Yeah, I remember seeing some copy of a letter or something that they wrote to the record company or something saying... And we're aware that there was another band called Nirvana, but they suck dick or something like that. We don't care. I don't think anybody expected the Kurt Cobain Nirvana to actually

become popular. If they would have been just some little indie band called Nirvana, it probably wouldn't have mattered. They went through a bunch of names, one of which I believe was Skid Row. Really?

Yeah. Another was Fecal Matter. Yeah. Well, the band I'm in now, Zero Defects, apparently was originally called Activated Sludge, which I think is... I think that's kind of a cool name. So Zero Defects is together right now? Yeah, yeah.

We just did... We're working on an album, I guess. I know we're working on an album, but I mean, how to term it. We finished the recording. The mixing is pretty much done. And then we just had a meeting the other night to argue about how to present it.

Right. Because I'm trying to decide whether to even bother sending it to record labels or just press it up ourselves right I think the verdict was press it up ourselves only nobody has enough money to press up ourselves so I could always do the digital release first I mean yeah yeah we're thinking about that or doing like Kickstarter or one of those things to see if we can. That's true. Well, let us know when you have the Kickstarter.

You can come back on the show, and we'll inform all of our listeners. We have listeners all over the globe, Brad Warner. Do you? I think they're all accidental downloads. I don't know how it happens, but we'll have one download in Japan, three in Malaysia. It's weird.

That is funny. Several on the planet Vulcan. Yeah. That's impressive. Some in England. Yeah, it's good times. Good times. Let me know if you make money off this.

People keep saying, you should make a podcast. You'll make money. And I'm like, how? And they go, oh, you'll make money. And I go, yeah, oh, really? a podcast you'll make money and i'm like oh yeah well how and they go oh you'll make money and i go yeah oh really i think once you get a sponsor yeah it's advertising is what does it i think you have to be really huge to do that though i think like you know nerdist just got a sponsor like what a year ago or less and they're huge i've heard of that. That's Chris Hardwick, whom you might remember from MTV's Singled Out, one of the greatest TV shows of all time.

Never saw that. No, he's actually funny as shit, though. Oh, boy. Nerdist. Talks about nerdy sci-fi things and whatnot. So, are you still a fan of monster movies? Oh yeah. Is it just the giant monsters?

That's my main love is the giant monsters, especially the Japanese ones. I'm not that much of a horror movie fan. A lot of people sort of assume I must be an anime fan, like a Japanese anime fan. I don't follow that world too much. I feel't follow that world too much.

I feel like people assume that because I wear big glasses that I'm into nerdy stuff all the time and they'll start asking me about anime or comic books or something. I'm like, I just like to watch TV. I just like The Wonder Years on Nick at Night.

The Wonder Years? Oh yeah. The animated show The Wonder Years. The Nick at Night. The Wonder Years. Oh, yeah. The animated show, The Wonder Years. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's a superhero. Wonder. It's like the Wonder Twins, only time-based. So what else is going on?

You've got the album coming out. You're working on a book. Yeah, I got four books out. Sit Down and Shut Up, Hardcore Zen, Karma, Dipping Chocolate, and Sex, Sin, and Zen,

which is the latest one. Okay. I haven't read Sex, Sin, and Zen. I've got to pick that up. It's all about sex. I hope so. With a title like that. Yeah.

So you're going to yoga class? Yeah, yeah. Do you teach or do you? No, no. Just going to a friend's yoga class. What got you into that? It's been, I don't know, 10 years or something and I just got

into it because I wasn't, I was very stiff, you know, not stretchy. Yeah, me too. And I thought it might be a good thing to do and it has been. You know, it's kind of I kind of found it interesting because starting to do yoga class I became

much more, I was going to became much more aware of my own body and much more aware of how neglected my body had been. It wasn't just that I wasn't stretchy. I was not even feeling things the way you probably should. So it's been good. Has it helped you with your meditation? Oh, you know, to the extent of physically dealing with the posture, it does. But I don't know, yoga style meditation is slightly different from Zen.

There's usually sort of a goal to it. You know, that's the big hallmark of Zen is that there's no goal. Right. Alright. Anything else you want to add? I'm just trying to come up with the...

I don't know how much Zen to give a podcast like this because it might be a little bit esoteric sometimes. Although I don't think it needs to be esoteric. My whole goal in writing the books that I wrote was to try to

not dumb it down, but to... I don't think it needs to be dumbed down because I think Zen is actually kind of dumb already it's been elevated to this yeah it's been elevated

I mean it is it's kind of in a way the dumbest thing you could possibly do but it's there's a lot of literature and the literature requires you to understand Chinese or Japanese or some language like that in order to translate. So there's a lot of people who have a lot invested in presenting Zen as something extremely difficult and intellectual and requiring a lot of smarts.

But I don't think it does at all. It's really kind of stupid. You just sit in this posture and do nothing for a prescribed period each day. And that's pretty much it. Why do you think people have made it so complicated over the millennia? Well, I think in the West,'s been a it's a function of the people who first sort of discovered it like I said they had to be they had to be kind of smart to even translate the things that they translated so so they there was certain I don't think anybody had like a sinister of wah-ha-ha

sort of feeling to this but I think think that they had a kind of a vested interest in keeping it scholarly so that they, you know, that they could be sort of taken seriously or accepted within that world. And that's had the unfortunate effect of just making people think, well, I can't, this Zen stuff is too difficult for me, I can't possibly understand it. Whereas the things they're translating were originally kind of expressed in very colloquial, common language, you know, that just happens to be an ancient Asian language, but at the time was very common and very colloquial and was not intended for sort of ivory tower scholar types to be able to understand. It was just very straight.

Right. Yeah, it seems kind of antithetical to being Zen. It's like, let's study this and make it this literature and all this stuff, you know, like kind of breaking it down in that manner versus just letting it be. There's a certain, there's a lot of literature out there,

but I think the literature is just secondary. It doesn't, you know, it's like, you know, there's a lot of literature out there on baseball,

but you don't need to read all that literature in order to play baseball. Yeah. You mean I've been wasting all my time on these baseball books? Damn it! I mean, it's kind of like that, though. I feel like, you know, it's like people have a dozen books about baseball that they've

memorized but they never actually swung a bat. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. I'm finding that with stand-up, too. It's like you can read about it, you can write all day, but you just have to do it. That's really the important thing. Do it, do it, do it.

Stand-up is tough. That was my childhood dream was to be a stand-up comic. Really? Go for it, man. Oh, look, I failed. You what? I don't know.

It looks tough to me. I feel like, well, I try to tell jokes when I do my talks and things. Right, yeah. I mean, your books are like peppered with jokes and funny commentaries and whatnot. Yeah,

I try. But I never know what's funny. Sometimes, well, maybe you've seen, maybe you found this in stand-up. Sometimes you'll say something that isn't really... I would imagine this happens with stand-up. Sometimes you'll say something that isn't really, I would imagine this happens with the stand-up. You'll say something that isn't really the joke and then the audience just breaks up at that. And then you're just going, well, what happened? The worst is when they just start laughing

and you have no idea why, but you know they're laughing at something you did or said. I feel like that happens in real life sometimes too. Do you ever get that? Like people are just like laughing and you're like what did i say that was should i be laughing too like am i did i just embarrass myself really badly yeah so last night this guy it's like yeah and i try to pretend like i did it on purpose yeah well you know you got it you think you'll. You think you'll give stand-up a shot?

I don't know. I was thinking of moving back to L.A. and doing some improv classes. Yeah, we do that, too. Mm-hmm. That kind of thing. Mm-hmm. Those always look fun, but...

That's actually where we both started with comedy, was improv classes. Yeah, we're both members of the Baltimore Improv Group. Yeah? Yeah. Uh-huh. I joined when I was in college, but I was much too shy a person at that point in my life.

So I never spoke up, you know? Right, right, right. But I never said them. You were angry too, right? Didn't you used to be really angry? I think you need to be angry to be a comedian, you know? Not necessarily. Really?

I think it's's kind of a stereotype that's not necessarily true. You have to have an opinion. You have to be emotional and passionate about certain things. But I don't think anger needs to necessarily be part of it. It certainly is a lot of the time, and many times it works.

And just the angry guy thing has been done so many times. Who's that guy? I'm trying to think of the time and many times it works but yeah and just the the angry guy thing has been done so many times yeah who's that guy i'm trying to think of the guy uh did an album called the white album lewis black john lennon yeah yeah yeah lewis black yeah not john leon lewis black who's just angry all the time right yeah exactly it's i mean you know that's a good shtick for him but it's been done a million times yeah but then again what hasn't been done a million times in comedy you have to just find your niche and go with it yeah just whatever ultimately you just kind of have to do what you want to do you know yeah just tell the joke you want to tell be who you want to be yeah you could be the only comedian talking about meditation you know so does this ever happen to you when you're sitting zay's in folks

the fellas know what i'm talking about yeah it's like that steve martin there's a steve martin joke where he says uh you know sometime oh it's this thing he he does like he said he thinks there's a plumber's convention in the in the room and he does this this plumber joke that makes no sense at all you know and the punch line is sprockets i thought you said sockets you know right right nice nice yeah you could be the uh you could be the zen stand-up guy yeah nobody would understand what i was talking about yeah but yeah but you uh you teach meditation don't you yeah you take your take your classes to come see you. You ever about to reach enlightenment

and then your wife starts nagging? Come on. Come on. Maybe make a mother-in-law joke out of it. Yeah, exactly. And the mother-in-law

calls. My mother-in-law is so enlightened. How enlightened is she? She sits on the table and around the house. She sits on the table and around the house. She sits Sazen around the house. Cool.

That's terrible. See, look, I think you got a bright career ahead of you. You started with that. Wasn't there something in one of your books where you imagined the, what was it, Sid Hartha as Bill or Ted from Bill and Ted? I think there was something like that. Was that you or I think that was you? I think that sounds like me.

Because Keanu Reeves played him in that little Buddha movie? Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, he did. He did, yeah. Can you imagine the other guy as Bill? Well, I just thought, dude, where's my enlightenment? Dude, where's my enlightenment? That's the name of your next book. Yeah. Dude, where's my enlightenment dude where's my enlightenment that's the name of your next book yeah dude where's my karma karma oh geez i'm gonna write that down nice i bet that's been

taken though fucking everything's been taken that's the most frustrating thing about stand-up yeah well you know if the audience hasn't heard the jokes. Do you steal other comedians' jokes? No, absolutely not. But I have many that I've written and then realized that somebody else has already done. Not that I subconsciously ripped them off, but... Just similar premises.

Well, I mean, there's some where the actual essence of the joke has just been done before. It's really hard to write something original. It might be actually good to do that deliberately, though. Just take something that's been done to death and see if you can make something of it that hasn't been done to death. Yeah, that's true.

It's difficult to find that balance between talking about subject matter that people can relate to and something that they haven't heard a thousand times before. Yeah. Yeah, like Louis C.K. says, there are no hacky premises. Some comedians don't want to talk about airline food. Shake weight. Yeah, that type of stuff.

But if you can actually put your own spin on it and make it funny, then it's funny. If people are laughing, it doesn't matter if it's something that's been done to death. It's just your own spin on it and make it funny, then it's funny. You know, if people are laughing, it doesn't matter if it's something that's been done to death. It's just your own spin on things. So that's the cool part about comedy is that, yeah, you can take something that's been done to death and make it your own, possibly. Or you could make a whole persona out of just

dead routines that you just do. Who's not first? Bill Sincerity. I mean, Rod Dangerfield sort of did that, didn't he? Yeah, right. He did all the didn't he? Right, yeah. He did all the, you know, my wife jokes and all this. Right, yeah. Take my wife, please.

Who do you like comedy-wise, Brad? The Louis C.K. I really like. I just watched that one special he did, which I think he's really brilliant. I mean, there's some comedians who get really truthful. Right, yeah, that's what a lot of it's about. That's why I feel like someone like you might be good at something

like that, because it is kind of a borderline philosophical... A lot of it is, especially like Louis C.K. He's a good example of a guy who does... He's almost doing philosophy. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of existential. A lot of truth-seeking in comedy. In good comedy, at least. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of existential. You know, a lot of truth-seeking in comedy. In good comedy, at least.

Yeah, totally. Yeah, that whole thing about everything's amazing and nobody's happy. That's the first thing I ever saw by him. Really? Yeah, I love that one. Yeah, yeah. That was one of the things that I wanted to write. That was another thing that I wanted to write,

and then I found out somebody else did it with the airplanes. Everybody's so upset at the airports, but you're fucking flying, man. You know how long man has wanted to fly? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a... I mean, it's true. Yeah. Runway for two hours.

You're going to be flying people have dreamed about this since the dawn of man yeah it's a great bit he's complaining about the wifi he's like I didn't even know there was internet on the plane and this guy's complaining that we don't have it now you're complaining about a thing you didn't even know existed 10 seconds ago

ah fuck the wifi's down what the fuck? Bullshit. Yeah. Do you think as humans or as Americans we have kind of a victim complex and we can't be grateful for all the good things? Well, there's a lot of that.

I mean, a lot of what I face and what I do is that idea that things ought to be very convenient and very right it's like i have i have kind of a fairly robust just suppose is a good word for web presence you know i'm i have a blog oh yeah you're all over the place on the internet so people will ask me well you don't why don't you do an online sangha and there there there is a sort of emerging phenomenon of these online buddhist sanghas and i found out there's a lot of online churches and things too, so that it's not just the Buddhists who are doing this.

But the initial idea is to present it for people who don't have another option, but then it becomes too easy. Right. And a lot of what goes into the process of pursuing a meditative path is dealing with the difficulties of it. People, the funniest one, and I shouldn't keep bringing this poor guy up because I think he was sincere, but he wrote me an email saying, you know, I live in the, I won't say what city, I live in the suburbs of a big, you know, some major city in America.

Was it Mike Moran? It was Mike Moran, wasn't it? Sitting right here, Brad. Was it you? Well, I don't know. Maybe. Let's hear the rest. All right. You're off the hook, Mike.

But he was saying he didn't want to drive 45 minutes to get to the local Zen center. And I'm like, really? 45 minutes? I mean, sort of Louis C.K. thing. I mean, there were people who would climb mountains and travel on foot across China to find the one Zen master, and it took them 18 years to get there.

And by the time they got there, the guy was dead. So you're telling me it's 45 minutes, and you'd rather do it by Skype instead. You know, that attitude is just, you know, part of it is actually, if it's not worth struggling for, then, you know. I mean, if you make it too easy, people just, it has no value. Right, right. It's just come up. It's like, here, I got the Zen, and now I'm going to go on to the next thing.

Right, right, right. Why is enlightenment so far away? Gosh. It's got to be an easier way. Isn't there an app for enlightenment? There should be, yeah. Yeah, I mean, people really think that way, though. They want to have it.

And missing out on the whole human element of it, too. A Skype chat is not the same as a face-to-face conversation with somebody. I mean, it's okay for what it is. It's not a bad thing. But if you try telling people it's the same thing, it's not really the same thing. Yeah, right. Yeah. Like you might be a little weirded out if Mike and I weren't wearing pants and we're all in the same room.

But since we're on Skype, you can't tell. You can't tell. We were thinking about greeting you with both of our shirts off. You can't tell that I'm not wearing pants. I had an inkling. I had a feeling. Or what I'm doing now. Yeah, right.

Or what you're looking at at the other window on your computer. Or where the cat really is. Yeah, where is that? You tell us, Brad. You tell us. On the couch. So you moved back from L.A.? Well, yeah, I'm living in Akron now because it's cheaper.

I'm from Akron, originally Akron, Ohio, and lived in Tokyo, then lived in Los Angeles, and tried living in Brooklyn for a little while. I had kind of a good deal on an apartment in Brooklyn and the apartment itself fell through and I realized I couldn't afford anywhere else in Brooklyn. So I better go where I can afford a place. So I ended up here. I'm still looking hard about trying to get back to Los Angeles. I was just in a movie. There's something I can plug. Nice. looking hard about trying to get back to Los Angeles.

I was just in a movie. There's something I can plug. Nice. In a movie called Shoplifting from American Apparel. And it's not out yet, but it's done, and the director-producer is trying to get it into some festivals because that's the way you do it. And so he's hoping it gets into a festival this year and then he can actually because usually festivals insist on being the premiere

so then you can put it out on your dvd or or you know see who can who who else might show it right but it was it was kind of a cool movie it's based on a book by a guy named tau, and the book is kind of a weird existential thing. But Piroo, who's the director, gave me this big role in it. I mean, I'm the shoplifter of the title character in the film, so I'm pretty much like the main role of the film. Cool. And I've been involved in film, and I thought, well, that'd be nice. I had this kind of weird idea of one day, like a lot of Zen places support themselves by doing some kind of, sometimes it's art, sometimes it's like baking bread or making tofu. It's kind of a sort of a standard thing that's been a few hundred years old where these Zen places will support themselves by doing something.

I thought, what about a Zen place that supports itself by doing films? Get a bunch of people both interested in Zen and interested in movies and then try to support the center and the people that live there by making films. I don't know. Maybe I'll do that. That sounds awesome. Yeah, it's a good idea. It could be awesome or we could go broke trying. Right. Do you see yourself mixing with the Hollywood crowd at all? Are we going

to see a mainstream film owner? I've done it. I've done it to a certain extent because Tsuburaya Productions the way I originally got to Los Angeles is this Japanese film company sent me to Los Angeles to kind of represent them to the Hollywood film industry and so I was out there and I was doing a lot of that anyway

on somebody else's behalf and you know I mean it's all the horrible things everybody says about it it's all the horrible things everybody says about it. Really? It's all ridiculous and silly. But at the same time, you know, it's, they're just people, you know. Right.

Doing this. Very, you know, sometimes very deluded people who are in possession of way too many things and power. It's kind of a funny thing in Hollywood. These people will get into a position of power within the film studios and then start thinking they really have some sort of ability to judge the artistic merit of something when they don't. They don't have a clue in the world. But they end up being people you have to convince, which is...

Which is in a way it kind of makes sense because if you can't convince this idiot, you're not going to convince the idiots out there in Poughkeepsie who are going to watch the movie. Shout out to all the idiots. There go our listeners in Poughkeepsie who are going to watch the movie. Shout out to all the idiots. There go our listeners in Poughkeepsie.

Jesus Christ. Well, I'm not saying everybody's an idiot in Poughkeepsie. No, everyone's an idiot in Poughkeepsie. Just most of them. Are they? Fuck Poughkeepsie. It is good, though, with technology nowadays. You can do so much stuff yourself.

You don't have to kiss the man's ass too much yeah I mean that's the thing with zero defects trying to say I mean years ago you well I mean that was always the punk ethos was it was you right us you say it when that's to was to put something out yourself and and say screw it but that you know now that's the way everything

is pretty much done you know even sort of major bands are going out there and just saying, this, we'll just put it out ourselves. Why not? But then that also opens the floodgates. The downside of that is that sort of gatekeeper aspect of the entertainment industry did sort of work to filter a lot of things. And now we're just getting everything unfiltered. You go on the internet, anybody...

Right, right. Yeah, no sources. Anybody can get a blog. Right, yeah. Has anyone claimed that you've died yet? That seems to be a popular one on the internet. I've claimed it, but... No, no, I haven't heard that. I haven't heard that. Well, maybe we'll start that one on the internet. I've claimed it, but... No, no, I haven't heard that.

Well, maybe we'll start that one here. Yeah. Our first interview with a ghost. Make my death on Twitter or something. I'm dead. I'm dead. I should just put that up. Oh, wait.

I meant existentially. Alright, man. Thank you. All right, man. Yeah, well, thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much. I wanted to say your writings have really helped me a lot over the years. There was a, I think it was in Sit Down and Shut Up. There was a whole chapter about anger, and that really helped me out. I had kind of a problem with getting pissed off,

and I knew that I needed to do something about it. So I kind of read that chapter many times and meditated on it. And did some other things that really helped me get over it. I'm glad. I'm glad. I mean, that's always been my perennial thing. People still complain about it, that I'm the angry Buddhist, you know. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you seem pretty nice to me. Yeah. You seem genuinely...

Yeah, you've seen me when I'm... seem genuinely thoughtful of other people and seem like someone who wants to help other people and you seem like a nice guy. You've always answered my questions online and whatnot. You think you'll come to Baltimore anytime soon? I'd like to, actually. Seriously, maybe we could talk about this later,

but there were several people who were trying to set something up for me in Baltimore and none of them seemed to be able to do it. I should just put everybody together. It's just a matter of, I just don't want to lose my shirt on doing these out-of-town gigs, which happened to me a couple of times. Where I go someplace and I end up spending a couple hundred dollars just to go talk somewhere. And I'm like, oh, I can't do this anymore. So I just need to get that sort of stuff covered. And I'm glad to come.

What kind of venue do you look for? Well, it's usually... It's not really what I look for. I usually end up talking to Zen centers or Buddhist centers of some sort. But actually, the most fun gigs I've had, and I've only had a few of them, have been colleges, like universities.

Those are great, because you get an audience who aren't necessarily into what you're doing. And it's very fresh, and it's better than sort of preaching to the choir, which sometimes you're doing when you're talking in a Zen center. Yeah, yeah.

Have you ever done rock clubs? You know, that's been suggested several times. I've never done it. I would do it, although I don't know how I'd go over, you know. Right. Especially, you know, I did some talks in a coffee shop. I think I did three different at this place

Casa del Popolo in Montreal and the coffee shops in Montreal they serve beer oh yeah so it was like the time I've done

spoken to an audience who are you know drinking yeah show me your zazen yeah yeah but they say it

in a French accent up there oh right show me your zazen. Yeah, yeah. But they say it in a French accent up there. Oh, right. Show me your Zazen. Zazen. Zazen. But those were good. Those were actually really good.

Yeah, cool. I don't know what a rock... That's the closest I've done to a rock club. Right, right. Cool. Well, is Zero Defects going on tour? We just had a long talk about whether we were going to do that, Cool. Well, is Zero Defects going on tour? We just had a long talk about whether we were going to do that and then the answer was inconclusive.

Right. Everybody's got jobs. I'm the only one who has a, I mean, I guess I have a sort of a job but it's very flexible because I'm writing. The others all have jobs where they're supposed to be there five days a week. So it's difficult to get out of that and go on tour. But I really hope we get some out of town things going. We've been invited a lot of places. Yeah, I was thinking maybe if you do that, you could do two birds, one stone. If you're in town somewhere playing a show, you could set up maybe a talk or something. Yeah, but actually,

there's been a lot of interest out in D.C. in having zero defects. Oh, yeah, I bet. Which would be great, but we haven't got anything really conclusive in there. It's just sort of like, we'd love to have you. Okay, see you later. See you later.

Right on. Cool. Well, yeah, have you okay see you later yeah right on cool well uh yeah well thanks so much for uh taking the time out to speak to us brad do you have a website or a twitter handle or anything you want to throw out what is my twitter i think i'm just brad warner on twitter and the web the the blog is hardcorezen.blogspot.com okay that's main thing. I try to update that every few days. I try to get it every three days, but sometimes I don't get it that often. But I try to keep that one going. Cool. I'm one of the top 12 Buddhists to follow on Twitter.

Oh, yeah? Nice. Who else is on that list? The Dalai Lama is number one. Of course. Your homeboy. Come on. There's one woman I like named Joan Halifax who's up there. I don't think the Dalai Lama does his own tweets.

He's sold out anyway. Taking a shit right now, LOL. What is Madonna wearing? Yeah, that kind of thing. L-M-A-F. Laughing my ass off. Laughing my holy ass off. Yeah, L-M...

I don't know that. L-M-H? Yeah, yeah. L-M-H-A-X. Hashtag. What the hell is the hashtag? What does the hashtag represent? Like, where does that...

I tried to explain it. I know, and I didn't get it. You cut me off every time. Sorry. It always happens when I say a hashtag is a pound sign. You go, a pound sign is a pound sign. Right. I'm talking to my dad about a hashtag.

Back in my day, a pound sign was just a pound sign. I don't even know how that got to be called the pound sign anyway. That's the other... Right. That's pretty violent. We're not the star. Pound sign was a tic-tac-toe emblem back in my day. Red hot chili pepper symbol.

Yeah. No, it's just whatever statement you make and then a hashtag that just sums everything up. Like you were just doing with the Buddhists or the Dalai Lama. Like, take it to shit. Hashtag LOL or hashtag Zen, I guess. I don't know. What about a space? Can't you just use a space? Sure.

I'm just telling you how Twitter works. That's what it means to something else. If you click on that hashtag thing, you get all the other things. Oh, yeah. In a book where you have the... You can see what's trending. I guess if people are talking about a city,

if they're talking about Brad Warner, they would hashtag Brad Warner. And then you could see everything that everybody's saying about Brad Warner and stuff like that. Okay. I still don't get it at all, honestly. Remind me to Wikipedia hashtag later. I'm a bad teacher. We'll see.

All right, cool. Anything else? I'm good. All right. All right. Cool. Well, thanks so much, Brad. Thank you so much, Brad.

We really appreciate it. This is great. Yeah, we'll send you an email with the link. It'll be on iTunes, and we'll post it on our Facebook page and all that stuff. So cool. All right. Well, thanks so much. Enjoy yoga.

Yeah. Thanks a lot, Brad. Take care. Bye. How are you? Yeah, how do you end this? Oh, there it is. Thanks a lot, Brad. Take care.