The Digression Sessions - Ep. 65 - Brad Warner! (Strikes Back!)

Episode Date: February 26, 2013

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! We talk to Brad about Jesus, Hollywood's Zen, and the movie he's starring in - "Shoplifting From American Apparel.”  http://shopliftingfromamericanapparel.blogspot.com/ You can find Brad at - http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/ Find more Mike & Josh at DigressionSessions.com - TWITTER - @BradWarner @BetterRobotJosh @MichaelMoran10 @DigSeshPod

The Digression Sessions Podcast with Mike Moran and Josh Koderna. Welcome to the Digression Sessions Podcast, everybody. Hey, everybody. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for tuning in to your favorite podcast at your favorite hour on your favorite channel on the internet dig nation what's happening uh who's looking out for you we're looking out for you we're gonna get a couple uh plugs out of the way before we get to our wonderful guest of the week the author musician, musician, Zen priest, Zen priest, Mr. Brad Warner, movie star. Wow. Yeah, he's going to be going to be in a movie. We get into that. But some plugs for your

your lowly your lowly hosts. Some plugs for your wonderful hosts of the program. Mike and I will be performing Thursday, February 28th at the Strand Theater. It'll be a part of a improv and stand-up mash-up show. It's going to be super, super fun. We're going to have four troops and four comedians. A comedian will go up and do about

seven minutes of stand-up material and then we'll do a bunch of scenes that are influenced from the comedian's set. The last time we did it a few months ago, it was a lot of fun. It was so much fun. Josh is doing a really good job putting these things together. Oh, thanks buddy. I wasn't talking about you.

Josh Bocci is really doing well. Who runs the Strand. What about you, Mr. Morant? Well, Polaroid Rage will be playing at the Wrecker one of the last shows at the Wrecker Theater from what I understand like ever.

Yeah they're becoming just a straight up dance club thing. That's what I hear. That is what I hear. So we will be playing there on Friday. I think the show starts around 9. I think we're going on kind of early. And also I will be doing stand-up comedy with Color Me Funny

at the Dark Horse Saloon in Bel Air, Maryland on March the 6th. Hell yeah. And if you want all Mike Moran-related news, check him out on the Twitters. At MichaelMoran10, I'm at BetterRobotJosh, and you can find the podcast at Dig Sesh Pod and DigressionSessions.com.

And we ask that if you like the show, tell a friend, spread the word. You know, if you have some like-minded individuals, you think this is funny slash interesting, please tell somebody all about it. So now we're going to get

into the episode with Brad and we speak to him about everything from armchair history, armchair maintenance, armchair restoration, armchair theists, I guess, talking about Christianity. Yeah, I had no idea that Brad was so into the Bible. Yeah he seems to be a pretty deep and pretty spiritual guy and he's out in Hollywood and we talked to him about that and he also has a movie coming out

he'll be in Chicago March 14th that's right March 14th in Chicago at the Logan Theater at 7.30pm Brad will be there for a special screening of his new film, Shoplifting from American Apparel. Dun, dun, dun!

So go support Brad and go meet him and hang with him. He's a super nice guy. He's so nice. We're so grateful to have him on the show. Yeah, and he really helped you out a lot, right? He really did. I've been reading his writings for years. They've helped me out when I was younger.

And the fact that we get to interview him is just amazing to me. Absolutely. And you got to review his new book. Yeah, his publisher contacted me weirdly. His new book is called Hardcore Zen Strikes Again. Dun, dun, dun.

You can read my review of that at skeptic.com. That's so cool man And if you want to Reach out to Brad He is At Brad Warner On Twitter

Super super nice guy Super He's funny and smart And he's just He's what we should all Strive to be Yeah he's great Alright well let's get

Into the episode Urbade Thank you everybody Thank you Brad And thanks for listening Again tell a friend. We love you. We do. You don't have to put

pants on on account of us. In fact, we'd like it if you took them off. Please. Hold on a second. I've got to tell the person I was chatting with that I'm now unavailable. Never talking to them again. Hey, we can video chat you back. We'll video chat you back sometime.

Where am I? Okay, there you are. We're doing this audio-wise or what? Yeah, but I want to see your lovely face you don't or do i do if possible uh so you want to you want video yeah if we can yeah well not that it matters this is just an audio recording but let me see if I can I guess it'll work I got several things open and it's always dodgy

I'm going to close some of these things It's always dodgy in LA Hey, I spent time in England last year so you talk like that Right, it's a bit dodgy, ain't it? It's a bit of this and that.

It's a bit dodgy, isn't it? Isn't it? Right. Right. I don't want to close down everything because I could do it all in Cockney if you want. Right. Right. It's not bad, you know.

LA hasn't changed Brad Warner in a bit. He's still British for some reason. Yeah. Down to Hollywood Bowl. Brad Warner and a bit. He's still British for some reason. Yeah. Down to Hollywood Bowl. The Hollywood Bowl. That's right, yeah. Okay.

Now I can close Firefox. All right. Now where's the video thing? I don't even know where the camera thing is on this anymore. Oh, Jesus Christ. There it is. Here he comes. I'm just seeing two monkeys' pictures.

Oh, thanks a lot. That's what I'm getting. I'm getting a picture of two chimpanzees. Well, that's very kind of you to say. We're actually several steps above chimpanzees in evolution. Really? Do you see us now?

Do you see our opposable thumbs? No, I just see chimpanzees have opposable thumbs too, don't they? I don't know, but I bet I could beat a chimpanzee at a game of chess. Maybe. Or Uno. I'm not sure I could. No, I'm not seeing your picture. I'm just seeing

what about now now it just says digression sessions podcast I see my picture in the corner what the fuck pointing at the camera yeah we see you

we should yeah I feel like we should it's either your penis or your finger or both now both you gotta you gotta trim the nail

on your penis Brad your two roommates seem to be... Oh, there we go. Those are some finely groomed nails. You can't see us? That's odd. Are you okay with us just seeing you?

I suppose. I have to be, right? Yeah. That's the rules of this podcast. We're watching you. Brad's lost it. I could do puppet shows like this. Where Has My Finger Been is a popular improv warm-up game.

Well, Mr. Finger, I'm doing fine. That's right. You're doing fine. How do you know? Because I'm your finger. I know how you're doing. So Brad is perfectly normal and perfectly healthy. Glad to see you're doing okay. The L.A. sun hasn't gotten to you at all.

That's the L.A. sun right there. Oh, I see it. Okay, for the podcast listeners. That's totally natural. For the podcast listeners, Brad is pointing to the light in his kitchen. He thinks that's the sun. He's okay. He's doing okay.

Homer, that's not God. That's just a waffle that Bart tossed up there at breakfast. I know I shouldn't eat thee. Well, Mr. Brad Warner, can you hear us okay? Yeah, I can hear you, but I can't see. I just see two monkeys, but that's all right. Okay, sorry about that. Where are you guys? I don't even remember.

Baltimore, Maryland. Oh, okay. Maryland Monroe. Yep, that's where we broadcast from. The corpse of Maryland Monroe. Corpsecast. That's good. Are we a great podcast?

You're dead right. Huh? Wow, that was quick. Thank you. Some like it cold and decaying. My God, you guys are really pros at this. Yeah, we're comedians. Hey, don't make any bones about it.

Oh. Now you're reaching. There's no reason to formaldehyde your feelings. No, no, no. Yeah. That's the stop now. Just like Marilyn Monroe's face, we're blowing it away in this podcast, huh? Blowing it away.

She didn't shoot herself. No, she just overdosed, I think. Okay, like we're overdosing on jokes here. JFK overdosed her in some sort of conspiracy. Right? Wasn't there some sort of... What is that? Is that a Buddha donut? That's instead of a beer belly, you get a Buddha donut.

I'm sitting. All right. Well, hi, Brad. Let's be serious. Let's do it. Oh, hell. Did I lose you? We lost visual contact. Are you okay? Brad. Hi. Brad. Let's be serious. Let's do it. Oh, hell. Did I lose you? We lost visual contact.

Are you okay? Brad. Hi. Brad. Brad, are you all right out there? We have confirmed that Brad Warner has died on our podcast. You were born on October 25th, 1986? I was, yes.

Yes, I was. Skype tells me this. It gives me like a little cake icon. Cake con. So just in case you want to Skype me on my B-Day, now you can. I have to remember. You know, I can see you not writing this

down. I can see you. Let me type it up on my magical invisible typewriter. I'm pretending to write on it. Thank you, Brad. Thank you. Brad Warner, how are you? I'm fine, thank you.

And you? I'm well. How's L.A. treating you? So far, so good. It's warm here. Right. How warm is it? Actually, you know, the people here are complaining because it's in the 50s, and I'm like, it's February.

That's pretty cold. You don't get to complain. Yeah, it's not. It's cold? Really? Kind of. That's not too bad. That's not what I picture when I picture L.A. weather.

No, it got hot here like a week ago. Uh-huh. What brought you back out to la i don't know i just kind of woke up here yesterday but um yeah it just seemed like the thing to do uh at the time right it's good it's not like a major decision or anything either, so that's good. No. And you were living in Ohio, right? Yeah, I was in Akron, Ohio, which is where I'm from.

So I moved back there for a while. Okay, cool. Well, what are you doing out in LA? Sitting and talking on Skype. With your fingers? I hear that's the only place they allow Skype. Maryland and LA. So I'm glad you made it out there.

Yeah, I don't know. I'm just doing the same thing I always did. I have a new book coming out in June. And as soon as June rolls around, I'm going to start promoting that. And I'm in a movie called Shoplifting from American Apparel, and so I was traveling around with that movie. We're going to actually show it in Chicago on March 14th, and if I can afford it, I'm planning to go out for that screening too.

Cool. That's awesome. We did Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Cleveland, Ohio. out for that screening too cool that's awesome we did portland seattle san francisco cleveland ohio new york and los angeles and now we're doing chicago and i think philadelphia never heard any of those towns yeah um well is that movie a documentary or no it's a it's based on a novel by a guy named Tao Lin. And it was sort of a... The novel was kind of one of these hipster hits. You know, like certain people know about it and really are into it.

And then the rest of the world doesn't have any idea. And as soon as everybody else finds out about it, we'll hate it. Yeah, that kind of thing. And Tao Lin may be heading for that himself because he just signed a huge deal with like harper collins or something he was independently published for a long time so he's gonna cut his hair and make a bunch of power ballads now yeah what he's gonna cut his hair and make a bunch of power ballads now maybe maybe yeah they decided to take a chance on him because he seems to be like the next big thing and he

wrote this book shoplifting from american apparel and then my friend peruse kalea bought the rights to it and made a movie out of it and then and he was foolish enough to hire me to be the star nice probably the starring role value in me i i think that yeah well i don't know the star i'm like i i play the the main character of the novel although in the film it's arguable whether i'm even the main character but i probably have the most screen time of anybody uh you know but it's this weird sort of ensemble piece anyway so i I probably, you know, edge out a couple other people by two minutes of screen time or something. So it's not like, you know, Tom Cruise in whatever.

Tom Cruise stars in... Is your name going to be like over the title? Brad Warner is shoplifting from American Apparel. Tom Cruise as Brad Warner as Shoplifter. So what, excuse my ignorance, but what's the book about in the movie? Well, it's kind of what the title says. It's about a guy who shoplifts from an American apparel store and gets caught. And it's this weird sort of, it's hard to say what the novel is about because that's kind of the way it's written.

It's sort of – it's how Lynn, the author, actually did shoplift from an American apparel store and did get thrown in jail for the night for it. And this was when he was a struggling author in New York, I guess. He was living in New York. I'm not sure if the American apparel he shoplifted from was in New York or not. But yeah, he wasn't making much money from the books he was independently publishing. So he used to supplement his income by shoplifting. But he didn't. He only got, well, he got

caught a couple of times. Well, that's weird because American apparel clothing is usually so cheap. That's so odd to me. Yeah, I don't know. I think he actually shoplifted from the American apparel for something to wear. Right. No, I'm being

facetious as well sell before he apparently he made it's in the movie there's a line where somebody one of his friends mentions that he made something like fifteen thousand dollars one year shoplifting batteries so he'd shoplift batteries and then sell them on ebay you know yeah i've heard about that there there. There's some really bizarre case where the CEO or some bigwig at some massive company that we all know about had this battery scam going on where he made tens of thousands of dollars on eBay. Apparently, it's this big underground business. I would never think to shop with batteries. Yeah, it's weird. Or flip them on eBay.

Like, oh, I'm going to get that battery money now, son. Underground battery market. It just makes you wonder. I mean, the things you buy on eBay, you never know what turnip truck they fell off of. Well, that's cool, man. So you

got to be in a movie. You got a book coming out. You're in L.A. You're starring in pornography. You have the sun in your kitchen. You got a book coming out. You're in L.A. You have the sun. You're starring in pornography. You have the sun in your kitchen. Yeah. You're on fire. I am. Literally. Yeah, somebody should put me out.

No. Brad makes a funny face. You can put that in. What's, uh, so... Brad makes a funny face. This week on Digression Sessions. So how does the movie circuit thing work? Are you going to festivals, or how do you do it?

Well, we couldn't get it into any festivals, unfortunately. Oh, bummer. Really? Yeah, I think the festivals are kind of a political racket. You know, I shouldn't say that. Right. But I will. gathering of the juggalos political racket you know i shouldn't say that right but but i will because there's you know and it's it's sort of about who you know and so forth and i was really

disappointed there was one sort of independent festival the director sent it to that prided itself on independent films and then we didn't get in and then you know we got emails from this and the headlining thing was for this independent movie festival was lethal weapon six no it was even worse it was like oh it was that remake of beverly hills 90210 no no no no i'm sorry what's the one where the guys are cops and they're in a high school oh uh 21 21 jump street yeah yeah and i'm like really this is a festival of independent films and this is your this is your showcase movie you know that that mom and pop shop sony pictures good for them i'm glad that they're finally getting their break yeah what are the rules with with something being independent like a you know like a record company or a movie company because you'll hear about like are any

rules that you know they just make it up but yeah it just it was amazing that that they were this independent film festival and something is such an obvious piece of studio stuff right right well that's kind of a bummer but at least you can kind of shop the movie around and promote it yeah he put it out independently so it's now available as a as a download and stuff uh right and that's that's the cool thing about the the thing of technology of today is that it will be available online and people can download it and see it that way and word of mouth and things like that yeah right is it on itunes or anything yeah i believe so at this point i i haven't checked into it but uh i think it's on all the major sort of where you download films

netflix is working on this over the past week i think it just got up there oh awesome awesome well cool and then so you have the book coming out um but yeah i guess you you finished the book a over the past week. I think it just got up there. Oh, awesome. Awesome. Well, cool. And then so you have the book coming out. Yeah. I guess you finished the book a while ago? Well, yes. People ask me that question, and I don't know how to answer it because what happens with the book is you, the author, finish the book,

and then you send it in to the publisher, and then they have an editor go over it. And this is one of the good things about working with a real publisher as opposed to self-publishing because you have another set of eyes to look at the thing and fresh objective eyes yeah and make it and make it better and this is why generally speaking if you buy a book that's published the books that are published by real publishers are generally better than ones done by self-published, which is, you know, as a sort of champion of independent stuff, I hate to say that, but it seems to be the truth. And it's because you have other people,

you know, it's not just a single, I can't even check for my own spelling mistakes if I try to self-publish, you know, let alone polish up the text. So I sent it in, and they had some difficulties over there at the publisher. I sent it to them almost a year ago, and I just got it back like two weeks ago. So I've been trying to go through it and make it. I want it to be a... I don't know. I'm really picky with my books,

and I want them all to be great. I don't like to put anything out that's half-assed. A lot of people kind of... A lot of people think, ah, you can self-publish, and I did actually self-publish. Are there people from the 1920s out in L.A.? Ah, see?

Publish. Self-publishing. Are there people from the 1920s out in LA? Ah, see? Publish. Self-publishing, the wave of the future. I put up Hardcore Zen Strikes Again, which is just sort of outtakes from Hardcore Zen, and I put that out independently. And it's alright, but I feel like in terms of

you know, a real book, I feel like that's to come up from a big publisher somehow I mean I feel like Hardcore Zen Strikes Again is a good book but it's also sort of a stopgap between other books I liked it so what's this next one about

it's about God so I wanted it to be decent you realize god already published his own books yeah they're called the bible yeah well i mean that's that's that's part of it too i i've become a little bit of a home armchair scholar of the new testament oh really so years which is funny yeah me too actually formally studied it but i've read you know i've read a dozen books on the new testament yeah me too which is a funny thing it just become it's become a hobby of mine so i now probably know more about new testament history than i do about bud history. Really? Weird. Do you think that there's...

Historically, do you think... Dear God, what's going on here? This is... The folks listening at home will like that. Brad's eating his camera. He's hungry. Do you think that historically there was some link between Christianity and Buddhism?

Some people have said that Christ was influenced by Buddhist teachings. Yeah, I've looked into a little bit of that. It's not outside of the realm of possibilities, but it is sort of stretching things in terms of just what the history says about it. We don't know what Jesus did for the first 30 years of his life, and that's a substantial time and there was um there was commerce and there were even buddhist missionaries right active in palestine in in those days so it's not impossible but i don't think it's

necessary i don't don't think you there's nothing, there's nothing in the New Testament that makes me think it's for certain that he was influenced by Buddhism. But there are things in the New Testament that are intriguingly Buddhist-like. You know, the most striking parallel that I know of off the top of my head is that, you know, everybody, well, probably in America, almost everybody knows the story of Jesus as being tempted by Satan. You know, he goes up to this mountain and gets tempted by Satan. He says, get thee behind me, Satan, and comes down from the mountain and, you know, whatever. in the Buddhist literature about Buddha meditating gets tempted by Mara and then touches the ground and then Mara disappears. And it's really a striking parallel.

And then there's some of the parables that have analogs in Buddhism. And also what we have as the New Testament now, you know, it's no older than a hundred years after Jesus' death, you know, around a hundred years after Jesus' death. And possibly it's even newer than that because nobody,

none of those manuscripts survived. So the only ones that survived were ones that were written 400 years after. Right, right right they're all copies of copies of copies yeah we don't know what what might have been added into there so it's all yeah yeah like that like that uh blatant uh plug for uh denny's yeah denny's plug is and then jesus said i could sure go for the warm, fresh taste of Denny's family buffet. Let me ask you this.

Do you think... No, that is universally regarded by scholars as an interpolation. Yeah. The moon's over my hammy fallacy. It's commonly known. That comes in John 3, 24, I think. Do you... Grand slam. 324, I think. Grand slam.

Do you think there was some correlation? I've heard that some people think there's a correlation between the rise of the monotheistic gods like Jesus, Krishna, and Buddha simply because of the Bronze Age emerging and changing norms and kind of individualism. I'm sure all of that works into it. A lot of things were going on in human culture at that time all over the world. A lot of huge changes were going on. And so people were adjusting their philosophies to match what was going on, the way we always do.

And we don't know what – it's funny. We don't know what people believed in the past or how they understood these things when they were new right so you know even even buddhism you know you can go back to the original texts but you don't know what they meant to the to the people of those at that time or even if the people really read the texts you know right right because people were generally illiterate and and um so we we we approach it in such a different way that that it's sort of ridiculous to try to insist on some kind of original purity uh-huh without it being like anachronistic in a way you know yeah yeah so i think it's it's like one of the things that attracted me to Zen is the way that it doesn't depend on some sort of events in the past or texts. Yeah, me too.

No impending doomsday. Well, yeah, and it's also an evolving thing. It's allowed to change. Yeah. To me, Buddhism seems more of a scientific philosophy. Well, yeah. And it doesn't – I don't think it's necessarily just Buddhism. I think you could approach Christianity or Islam or any of these things the same way if you wanted to. I think the Buddhists did that with their philosophy. So they actually threw out a lot of the things that didn't work and allowed new things to become part of the tradition. You know, we've done that too. I mean, in Christianity and things have done that as well.

At a breakneck pace, too. If you look at Christianity, that we now regard as being original to it. You know, the story of the woman taken in adultery is not part of the original Bible. And it's like one of the most famous stories in the Bible. And it doesn't exist in the earliest manuscripts. It was probably something that was stuck in there in the early Middle Ages. And, you know, may not have been part of the Christian tradition at all. It may have been from somewhere else. Have you ever seen that YouTube video of Glenn Danzig

discussing the non-canonical books of the Bible that he came across? Oh, God, no. That's not hilarious. It's so funny. There's a bunch of stories that nobody's really sure if they were ever part of the real Bible or if they were written later on by people writing jesus stories of like jesus uh as a youth um using his magical powers for like wicked reasons like killing people and shit he kills a kid or yeah he like makes clay pigeons come to life and yeah he ends up like killing

somebody and it's kind of just like the lesson of he didn't you know know how to use his powers for good quite yet i like that it's like a super that's one about how he made some birds appear yeah he bashed them out of mud and then yeah yeah you know it's like it's crazy stuff you know and all of that's all that kind of lets you know the sort of things that were getting put in there. And Buddhism isn't immune to that either. There's all kinds of weird legends, not exactly the same sorts of things, but there's things of Buddha shooting laser beams out of the middle of his head and you know all that stuff that's when he had that residency in las vegas though right yeah yeah yeah that's true yeah at the mirage yeah but yeah you know so so most most buddhists these days don't put much stock in

those stories because it's kind of not part of the tradition to put you know we we understand that those are literary uh you know what's the word i don't know these things that people put in stories just to make them uh sound a little more more exciting and there isn't that's one thing that attracted me also is is the the aspect of it that we don't necessarily have to take what's written in the literature as having actually happened. That's not a significant part of the philosophy. Right. Not necessarily having a strict interpretation of the words.

Yeah. Right. It seems like for me, and I think a lot of Westerners these days, Buddhism kind of at least appears to be the religion that stands out from the other others and that it's uh more realistic and and concentrates on human suffering um and and the stories are taken uh more metaphorically but is that is that really the truth or is that just kind of like a current uh interpretation i mean can all religions kind of be looked at like that in your opinion yeah some people take them literally some people just you know take the uh the symbolic meaning certainly i mean it's certainly true that you can look at any religion that way and you could find examples of any religion including islam which you know a lot

of people think is is is uh very much you know into this strict literal interpretation of the word but there are even islamic people who don't take the Islamic scriptures literally in that sense. So yes, but I think Buddhism has a stronger tradition of that. And you could find examples of Buddhists who do take those things literally. There's a good book called The Making of Buddhist Modernism where the author looks into that there's a certain thing that is presented as Buddhism in the West that is not necessarily the same Buddhism that you would find in a village in Cambodia, you know, or to take one example, you know. So it's often significantly different. But the author says, and I agree, that this doesn't necessarily mean that the Buddhism we're getting here in the West is wrong.

It has, there's precedence in, within Buddhism going all the way back to the origin for, uh, revising it, which I think is a really healthy thing. We don't, we don't take, uh, Buddha as the final authority. I mean, there, there are, again, there are Buddhists who do take Buddha as the final authority, but I think they're mistaken because Buddha himself said things like, don't believe what's written in scriptures. You know, simply because it's written in scriptures. And so if the founder of your religion says that and it's enshrined in your scriptures, you've got some work to do to make it seem like he is your final authority and you must accept everything that's written in the book even though people do that so so i think i think it's it's there you know buddhism is a funny thing because people argue whether it's a philosophy or religion and it and

it it has aspects of both um and and it's you know to me i what i what always sort of comes down to for me is buddhism is more of an attitude than either a philosophy or religion it's it's an approach to things including buddhism itself you have to approach buddhism itself with a buddhist attitude or you can get uh you could approach buddhism with a sort of quasi-Christian or quasi-religious attitude. Let's not even say Christian. And miss the point. How would you define the Buddhist attitude? Buddhitude, if you will.

Buddhitude. The Buddhitude is sort of... Can you please call your next book that, by the way? Maybe I should. You're holding a surfboard and meditating. It's just approaching things realistically. And to say realistically is also a problematic word. But it's not accepting things just because they're handed to you in Scripture.

You have to test them yourself. But then again, it does require a certain amount of faith because you're going to be presented with things you don't understand. In my case, I trusted my teachers and that's the original meaning of the word that's translated in the Bible as faith is a Greek word that means more like trust and commitment than what has come to mean now, which is believing in stuff even though there's no evidence. Right. in stuff even though there's no evidence right this is what faith has come to mean in contemporary and a lot of contemporary christianity which is just that's a stupid kind of faith there's no you know that that's ridiculous right right there's no reason to believe in things that you can't verify that gets you in trouble you know but but there is a there is sometimes in my case, I had teachers I personally trusted who I knew were not lying to me. And so when they said things I didn't understand, I could go, okay, well, I know this guy isn't lying to me. So I'm just gonna go with it a little bit, you know, and see, but I'm going to see, I'm not just going to accept it blindly because they said it. I'm going to say, okay, it's like getting medicine from a doctor. You don't really know what's in that pill because you're not, well, unless you're a doctor yourself,

you're not, you don't have the qualification. You don't have the background to know what's in that pill. So you take it because you trust that the doctor knows what's in that pill and isn't lying to you. And then if your balls shrink, you stop taking it. Yeah, and if it doesn't work, you stop taking it and maybe you go to a different doctor. And I think you need to approach it with the same – if you find you can't trust your doctor, you you go to a different doctor. And I think you need to approach it with the same, you know, if you find you can't trust your doctor, you would go to a different doctor. And I think that's also a completely sensible way to deal with religious. You use anecdotal evidence to find true evidence.

You explore anecdotal evidence to find out for yourself. Yeah, and so when my teacher said this meditation stuff is good for you, I said, well, okay. I'm willing to give it a try. And I did, and 30 years later, I still think it's good for me. I don't really know too much about meditation, but I know that there's transcendental meditation and there's meditation where you kind of have a mantra that you repeat. What, uh, what type of meditation did you start

out doing and what are you doing now? Well, it's, it's in Japanese called Shikantaza, which means just sitting. And it's a very, it's kind of meditate. I don't even think the word meditation is a, is a good word for it, but it's a word I use because I'm stuck with it. But I think it's different from what most people call meditation because usually what people call meditation has a goal, and there's no goal in meditation. Just to be?

Yeah, you just sit there with yourself and just keep quietly observing whatever comes up. And sometimes that's pleasant and sometimes it's unpleasant. And you just keep looking at it and looking at it and looking at it. And after a while, you start to understand what you are. And that, I think, is useful. Are you trying to avoid internal thoughts and just focus on the external sensation of what's going on? It kind of doesn't matter what thoughts are going in.

You just ignore your own thoughts, which is easier said than done. Absolutely, yeah. And as far as what's going on externally, one thing about Zen meditation that kind of freaks people out who've done other sorts of meditation is that you do it with your eyes open uh yeah and and people are used to meditation which is very uh internalized right and and done with eyes closed will will have trouble with that but you you're you're also facing a wall so you're not looking at anything interesting but you do keep your eyes open as a way to not fall asleep in the outside world and not also get too into your own head, which is another sort of pitfall to meditation is you get too introspective.

I mean introspection is part of the process, but if you get too introspective, then you're also losing something there as well. Yeah, that's what I've always liked about the type of meditation that you write about is that it seems very much like not designed to take you to another world or to escape reality, but to just really look at what's real and learn how to deal with it. Yeah, that's the whole point of it, just trying to keep your contact with reality. And that's what, when I mentioned Buddha touching the ground when he's tempted by Mara, he's touching the ground to reestablish his contact with reality. And in your opinion, when you get lost in the weird kind of psychedelic experiences that people have with meditation, that's something you want to avoid, right? Personally? Yeah, generally. Some of those things can be fun

and sometimes even instructive, but in general, you try to avoid it or at least sort of ride it out if it happens. You don't get too excited about it because getting too excited about it is the kind of way of attaching to it. And then you get stuck in That experience. And once it's over, you're still wanting it. You're still back there 10 minutes ago or two hours ago or three years ago, craving some experience that's now finished. Hey, Brad, I think your ride's here. Oh, boy. oh boy this i seem to live on the preferred thoroughfare of uh i don't know if that's

fire engines or cops but they're always going down that street so you're in a nice nice neighborhood yeah yeah it's nice good good is it uh yeah uh. seems like the least Buddha meditation, self-reflection or inflection introspective place on the on the planet. I've never been. But I mean, that's a stereotype. Is that several movies? Yeah, it seems to be judging by this pretty woman documentary I saw once. N.W.A. straight out of compton gave me everything i need to know it's sort of accurate it is like that it's it's always kind of funny to me that san francisco has the san francisco zen center the berkeley zen center and several big uh places that have been running for you know since the mid 60s uh whereas los angeles nothing like that. But it's gigantic. It's gigantic.

I think it's probably bigger in population than San Francisco. It's way bigger, isn't it? Nothing. There are a few Zen centers here, but they're small. The biggest one here is the one that caters mainly to the Japanese immigrant population.

You're making L.A. sound like a tiny little town in Alabama or something. Isn't L.A. one of the biggest cities in the world? Yeah, it is. And supposedly there's more Buddhists in Los Angeles than any other city in the world or some crazy thing like that but that means that that that means there's a huge immigrant asian population i think is what right is what tips the scales there because a lot of asian immigrants end up in los angeles you know because it's on the west coast so it's accessible right um yeah but but as far as zen in in particular like the buddhism that you will find is, it tends to be Tibetan Buddhism or,

you know, there's a whole, there's a lot of hokey new age crap Buddhism around here. Right. Yeah. You know, I'm trying my best to get into that market. Got to patent something one of these days.

Right. So do you have a, do you have a bunch of friends out in LA, I guess, or like people that you're hanging out with or, or is it just us? I lived here for five years, moved away for two, and moved back now.

Oh, okay. So, I got sent to Los Angeles at first. I was in Tokyo working for a company that made monster films and they wanted me to be their liaison man in la because i was

the token american in the company right and that's how i initially got out here and then that job went away bummer yeah it was weird the company got extremely weird at one point i think they've i think they've more or less recovered from that, but they had a lot of troubles back around 2007 and 2008. Financially? Yeah, financially and management-wise and stuff.

The company actually ended up getting sold twice. It was a family-run business since 1962, I think. And in 2008, they got sold. And then 2009, it was very quickly after they got sold again. Oh, boy.

The first company that bought them couldn't deal with it. But now it looks like the people who are the current owners have managed to turn things around and to make it viable again. But it was a weird situation because we made this superhero Ultraman, which is arguably the biggest superhero character in all of Asia. It's huge in Asia. Yeah, I know. It's amazingly big, but it has not crossed over into the West. Right.

That was one of the reasons they sent me to los angeles yeah he talked about that but it still hasn't crossed over into the west but it's just phenomenal uh throughout japan and china and even korea where where officially they don't even allow the movies to be shown in korea there an underground Ultraman market? Yeah. Along with batteries being sold. There's all kinds of underground. I was there. We made a trip there and it was just amazing how much Ultraman was sold even though he's so

identified with Japan and the Koreans have a lot of trouble with Japan so they generally don't allow the Ultraman stuff to be officially sold. Right, right. He's like Superman. Right.

So you were sent out to L.A. to be the liaison between this company and, I guess, do they have American offices? Well, they did. And the office ended up just being me. It was a bit disappointing. I thought I was going to be the advance guard for something much bigger. And we actually had this office space, which could have held several people. Sure. But I ended up being the only one in that office.

Did the company get sold while you were in L.A.? They're like, hey, Brad, big things. Go across the ocean here. Oh, we don't work here anymore. See you later. They just did that to get you across. It was kind of like that. It was kind of like that.

Wow. It was a bit of a surprise. Okay. How long were you in L.A. before that transition happened? Let's see. About four years. Oh, okay. So you had established yourself in the city,

and so it wasn't too tumultuous. It wasn't completely devastating. It wasn't like it had, but, but, you know, I could see things were going wrong when I left Tokyo, but I had sort of hoped they would be resolved somehow. There were all sorts of factions fighting for dominance there. And initially, this first set of new owners wanted me to come back but they wanted me to move to Tokyo again and I kind of felt like that was a step backwards for me lifestyle-wise. Because my second book had just come out and the publishers wanted me to tour behind it and I knew I couldn't tour behind it if I was living in Tokyo because there are not too many people who want me to talk about Buddhism and English in Japan. So I had to be in America and I just chose not to accept their offer, which was financially a stupid decision because I ended up really, really, really losing a lot of

potential income on that. What, um, so do you think Ultraman will ever make it in America? Why, why do Americans not like Ultraman and everybody in Asia does? Oh God, I don't know if anybody wants to hear my answer, but I could go on for hours on that. It's, it's very, it's a very Japanese thing. I liked it when I was a kid and i was you know american but and there is a certain uh geeky fan base to it even in the u.s but right but it's it's

it's the thing about ultra man is is superheroes deal with the the common fears of the people that watch the superhero so so americans generally what they what they fear is like crime and and things like that so that's why superman is fighting you know criminals that's what we usually think of right superman fight super criminal um and ultraman in japan they don't really they have a very low crime rate. Ultraman is 100 feet tall, and what he fights are things that are sort of... Birds. No, no, they're giant monsters who represent natural disasters. Right, right. The Japanese are afraid of earthquakes and floodsamis, and that kind of thing.

That makes sense. And they're not terribly, and they're not really scared of getting robbed or beaten up because people don't beat you up and rob you in Japan. It's an amazing thing they got going then. So you're saying there's an untapped market for crime. Yeah, probably, yeah. Batteries on eBay, Ultraman in Korea. Oh, boy.

Sticking up people in Japan. Could put batteries in socks and rule that country. Just run around robbing them. You've inspired us, Brad. Thank you. Your next book should be about how to make money illegally in foreign countries.

You can do it. You can do it. Back to the Bible. Have you read the New Testament all the way through? No, but I actually just bought a book that is the New Testament rearranged in chronological order, which is fascinating. Oh, wow, like the Godfather trilogy. Yeah. It's interesting, though, when you read it in that order,

because that's not the way it's usually presented. The Gospels are not the very last thing, but they come towards the end if you read the New Testament in chronological order, whereas they come in the beginning and you read the regular version. The classic version. Yeah. It's like watching Pulp Fiction in chronological order or something, you know? Yeah, that would be weird.

They should do that. Basically the same story, too. I mean, a lot of overlap in the New Testament and Pulp Fiction. That's right, yeah. I've been listening to a podcast where the guy's reading the entire old testament um and it's yeah yeah it's really good he's really funny too i mean he's like you know he's like an agnostic type and he's like kind of making jokes about it but but he is actually reading it but it's it's so in i mean the the weirdest thing about it is that it's the most boring book you've ever read in your life.

You have to imagine. It's insane how I mean, we know like four or five stories generally from the Old Testament. And there's like thousands of pages in between of essentially lists. Lists of how to make

things, lists of who's related to who, and a whole lot of genocide. There's lists in genocide, four stories that we know, and that's it. Yeah, it's the most times the word begat has ever been used in a book. Yeah. Josiah begat a cup. Begat a

bee. And they don't just do that with the begats, too. There's like, when they list places, like, and on to, blah, blah, blah, there's just lists and lists and lists. And like with the big ads too. There's like when they list places like, and onto like the, there's just lists and lists and lists and like how to make things like how to make a tabernacle. And the funny thing is like the list, how to like,

God will be like, and make this three cubits long and make the ribbon purple. And it'll be like 10 pages of that. And then it'll be like, and then they went and made the ribbon 10 cubits long. And then it's ridiculous like how the hell like the buddhist texts are uh the poly canon the very earliest earliest ones which are written in a language called poly which isn't spoken anymore but it it um it preserves an oral tradition so

they basically wrote down uh this oral tradition that had been passed down for like 200 years. And in order to make the oral tradition work, there was a lot of repetition. So if you read most of the versions of the Pali Canon that exist in English these days are edited because if you don't edit them, it would drive you crazy. It's like somebody asked Buddha, oh buddha how should i meditate this is how you should meditate meditation should be done like this and this is the way meditation should be done yeah and you know and finally there's you know but usually those those repetitions are cut out but but they were there because that that was part of the oral tradition. That's how they kept it up was they'd repeat these things over and over. So what is – anything shocking that you've found in doing your armchair

scholaring of the New Testament? Let's hear the dirt on Jesus. Yeah, let's hear the Monday morning Messiah talk. No, well, there's some interesting things, like Judas is a very mysterious figure, and nobody, he's not mentioned in the letters of Paul, so either Paul didn't think it was important, these are the earliest things in the New Testament. It's the letters of Paul, who didn't even know Jesus, but he doesn't mention Judas at all.

There's some speculation that Judas might not have even existed and might have been invented later to make the story symmetrical. Right. I love that. And that's like a key

point in the whole story. Right. And they, you know, and that's like a key point in the whole story. Right. And they're in the pitch meeting. I got this guy. Everybody needs a villain, right? Somebody, one of the apostles who later decided after Jesus died to leave the group and go solo. Oh, sure. That's fine. We wish you well. We got this new chapter we're working on. That was interesting. And also there's a weird story from Japan that there's a place in Aomori Prefecture, which is northern Japan, where there's a whole tourist industry sprung up based on the idea that Jesus survived the crucifixion and ended up in Japan in Aomori Prefecture. And there's some really, there is evidence of a foreigner showing up in Aomori Prefecture at about the right time. And it's a big stretch to turn that person into Jesus. He survived the crucifixion. Well, you know, that's the other weird thing is that there are stories of people surviving crucifixions. Jesus Christ.

Jesus' story is weird in that people normally were hung up on crosses for like three or four days before they died. And Jesus was taken down after three or four hours. That's even enshrined in the New Testament. A lot of people have said, well, maybe he wasn't even dead.

Because they were declaring, in those days, people were declared dead who these days would not be declared dead. Right. You know, because they would just go, oh, he's cold and doesn't have a pulse anymore. He's dead. And a lot of people are cold and have no pulse, but then manage to, you know, their pulse is very weak and can't feel it anymore. But still, the heart is still pumping. You know, that sort of thing happens.

And so people have speculated that maybe he wasn't really dead and that when he himself woke up in the tomb, he thought he'd been resurrected. What a fucking day. I've been resurrected. Yeah. Do you? So, and I think that's an intriguing possibility maybe he wasn't

dead maybe he woke up maybe that's why he became like so legendary i just said that jesus christ i mean maybe that was like the confirmation like holy crap i really am god i like the guy that that takes him down He's like, ah, he's dead. And he has to explain it to his boss that he's not dead. So crucify me. I messed up. I made a mistake. Go talk to the guy who made up the story after Mother Mary got knocked up.

Oh, God. Dangerous stuff you shouldn't be saying. You're looking out your window. Like there's evangelicals looking. Yeah, I think I see some. Brad is looking out your window like there's evangelicals looking yeah i think i see brad is looking out his window concerned um so do you think uh there is evidence historically that jesus existed as a historical figure that he existed yeah uh i think so i there was a very convincing book called did jesus exist by bart airman who's yeah i love him he's great who later became an

agnostic but even though he's very adamant that he's an agnostic and doesn't regard jesus as divine anymore because he did start out as an evangelical he says he is certain that jesus existed that there was somebody behind those stories yeah he was actually the one that convinced me that maybe he did actually exist for a long time i was kind of of the mind that he was just a mythical character yeah why do you guys say he uh exists just because the bible mythologized but but i mean the main thing is there are there are a couple of references outside the bible to a guy named jesus who was who had a big following and was crucified and and the the main thing is is the way way Jews of those times thought of the Messiah, to try to convince somebody that a guy who'd been crucified was the Messiah,

you wouldn't make that up because that's... Yeah, crucifixion was like a shameful thing. Yeah, it's a very shameful death. And how could the messiah possibly be crucified he's he's god's representative on earth there's no way yeah you know so you you wouldn't you wouldn't make up a story like that unless unless it really happened well unless unless the guy really was crucified so there's there's plenty of evidence that there is a person behind all of this mythology, but it's also the mythology is so large that you can't take really any of it at face value.

Right. The two things that most scholars these days are sure happened to Jesus because they would be too shameful to make up is that he was baptized by John the Baptist and that he was crucified. Right. And that he walked on water. The rest of it is all speculation. Okay. Alright. Anyway, I don't know. I find this interesting. I don't know if your audience... Hello, audience.

Gives a shit about them. What the fuck have they ever done for us? Jerks. Jerks. Well, Brad, thanks so much for talking to us, man. I appreciate you taking time out. Is there anything else you got going on? You playing any musics while you're out there? Rock and roll?

I don't have anything coming up except the book coming out in June, so you'll have to interview me again in June. It's too early to promote the book. Well, we can promote the movie. You said you're going out in March to a few places? Yeah, March 14th I'll be in Chicago promoting the movie

Shoplifting from American Apparel. I don't remember the name of the theater, but it's check your listing. It's on the theater. And when will you be appearing at the Creationist Museum in Tennessee? Oh, I'd love to go there. I think it's in Kentucky?

I thought it was Tennessee. It's on a weird border. Really? Yeah. Okay. But yeah, thanks so much for taking time out of your day to talk to us, Nutballs. Okay, cool. Thank you so much, Brad.

We'll talk to you in a couple months then when the book comes out. Okay, groovy. Talk to you then. Thanks, Brad. We'll talk to you in a couple months then when the book comes out. Groovy. Talk to you then. Thanks, Brad. Bye. Bye. Thank you. you you