The Joe Rogan Experience - #812 - Russell Brand & Jim Breuer

Episode Date: June 21, 2016

Russell Brand is an English comedian, actor, radio host, author, and activist. Jim Breuer is a stand up comedian, actor, author, singer and host.

I know you guys are banging to your coffee. And we're live. You're jumping into swamps in English royalties homes. You gotta be very careful. This is how I like to be introduced, Joe. You gotta be very careful when you get into those sort of predicaments. Who knows what's in there? There's a beheading around every corner once you mess with the royal family's private swamps. Yeah, especially if you're doing it for some sort of a psychedelic purposes you're

trying to like elevate yourself by freezing yourself and they're cold swampy waters freeing yourself if you're embarking on a journey of personal shamanism on royal territory yeah your life's in your hands your life could shrivel up as quickly as my sex organs did in that particular predicament it's definitely an added element yeah it is you have to consider it it's not a place to go for pride but as soon as i like yeah as soon as i was sort of submerged in it that's what like you know that's because even though it is just that in this case just an example of me a man simply jumping in a cold lake and i do have a tendency to over poeticize the mundane experiences of my everyday

life but why not what else are we going to do while we're here? It did make me think we are living on narrow lines, narrow train tracks of existence, never to have heard myself go, oh, an animal noise. Oh, I'm capable of that. So it's sort of almost like an anti-orgasm, like a negative orgasm.

If you repeat, if you would, before what you said before you got on camera how it represents the subconscious and that going into the murky depths what it is is in fairy stories myths and religion a person if you're not into him already you should I reckon you'd well love is a man called an American scholar called Joseph Campbell who has cultural mythologist and he studied various religions and folk tales and found corollaries and comparisons and consistencies and sort of said that where there are consistencies, there's truth.

If there's some Icelandic myth and it's telling basically the same story as some African story or some Native American story or some daft Celtic folk tale, why are human beings dislocated all over the world, coming up with the same stories, coming up with the same experiences? Well, often in these stories, the forest is used as the unconscious not only is the forest represents unconscious often in mythology and you know when a character has to go into the woods that means you've got to go into yourself you're gonna have to go into new territory and also under

the water similarly also represents unconsciousness and what's interesting about an audio is like not only ancient mythologies and old stories but also personal dreams if you yourself have a dream like this is where the work of joseph campbell in its sex with a worker carl jung that dude he like he noticed that people in their personal myths that joseph campbell says dreams are private myths myths are public dreams. In people's personal dreams, they come up with images, archetypes and stories

that can also be found in fairy tales. You know, just someone asleep goes, oh, I was just walking and I went into the woods and I met this old woman in the woods and she told me that everything was going to be okay and then she put up a hood and when she took her hood down again,

it was my mother's face. It's like people are inventing their own myth. Because of course, all culture is created by consciousness so on some level it's in us it's in us individually yeah Joseph Campbell's works amazing and when when you do look at all the different stories and how they coincide and how how many similarities they share it is really interesting to see what are people trying to accomplish with these archetypes like what are they trying to sort out? Because it seems like that has to be some things.

Lessons passed down to children, lessons passed down to other people so they can learn things without having to experience the woods themselves. But then there's also some sort of archetypes that they're sort of defining the reality around them in a very similar way all over the world. I suppose what I reckon, Joe, is the more diverse our culture, but like, you know, it's weird, isn't it? Because we're experiencing on one level, globalisation and homogenisation, where culture through like corporatism is coming uniform throughout the world. But also there are many, many, many disparate experiences. But on some level,

as human beings, if we're anatomically as similar as we are, perhaps it's safe to assume that we're psychologically comparably similar like you know even though you and i are sort of different type body types or whatever and look sort of at a glance kind of thing we're both ultimately got the same organs we're running in pretty much the same way or perhaps we have the same psychological palette so throughout the world people are everyone's having a very similar experience of being human the the anxiety of not being good enough, the fear of death, constantly looking for something in the outside world that's going to solve the problems,

that's going to answer your questions. And like in a lot of these ancient texts that I've mostly got at through Joseph Campbell or, you know, Hinduism for beginners, that's normally my entry point. I, like you, am an autodidact, self-taught person. That's one of the things I like about your podcast is you can hear the artist, this is a person educating themselves

and continuing to educate themselves through life. Well, like, one of the things that I picked up in that is, like, in them very, very ancient texts, there are people that, the same way as in our, like, in our time that's defined by science and technology, there were times where people defined themselves through meditation and experiences in consciousness. Like those people that wrote, say, the Upanishads, whoever the hell they were,

these rishis, these ancient Indian yogis that went into deep, deep meditative states and came back with mantras and truths. Those people are as diligent and as fastidious as a scientist in a laboratory that comes back and goes, well, look, we've broke down, you down, Watson and Crick breaking down the DNA. They come back and go, this is what it is to be a human. You are going to die. You need to come to terms with the relationship between your conscious self and your material self.

For me, that's the stuff like, that's the conversation that I'm into. And that's why whenever I find it, whether it come from Joseph Campbell or Carl Jung or even checking out this podcast, like a lot of the stuff, Hancock, Graham Hancock's into that always,

it presses something deep in me. That's what I'm always looking for. You know, Joe, there are moments where you think that shudder you get, Ooh, there's truth in there, you know?

Yeah. Well, those paths that you're talking about, those paths that are carved in that we, we, we sort of normalize all the experiences that we have. So they look totally, totally sane if you just stray off those paths and jump into that lake and freeze your dick off and get out and you just why did i do that why did you broke your little

chain the little chain of programming that's going on your brain you did something completely unusual and sometimes just little things like that little deviations off of that path will take you into a completely different place are you still doing that kind of thing in your life now yeah sure all the time like with like with whether it's the cryo chambers or the isolation tanks or the experiences what you into ayahuasca? I haven't done Ayahuasca, but I've done a lot of DMT. Yeah, I'm very interested in that. The DMT is the more potent, shorter-lasting form, obviously. I've read accounts on it. I've never done it.

I've read accounts. I'm in recovery. Allegedly, things can be arranged if you're in recovery. The problem with recovery is, you know, if you want to maintain complete and total sobriety, the only way to Allegedly have that experience and apparently it is possible is through Kundalini and but To according to people I know that have done both they've done DMT and they've also done Kundalini. It's virtually the same thing Oh my god, it can be reached. Yeah, you just have to be completely dedicated to the Kundalini practice You know you have to go to a very specific

completely dedicated to the kundalini practice and you have to go to a very specific state that's achievable once you you have some mastery over the the meditation and the the yoga principles i've done a fair bit of that kundalini i got bang into it in fact this tattoo on my forefinger here is an illustration by carl jung of the kundalini. The energy that rises up, your animal energy, can become the coronated serpent. It bloody hurt getting that tattoo done, and I woke up in the middle of the night severely regretting it. Ow, my finger! Why did I do that? It was mostly because Mark Mahoney, the LA tattooist,

I became sort of somewhat besotted with him because he was kind of like some sort of living skeleton Elvis. Hey, man! He was so sort of charming and enchanting that I kept getting myself tattooed just so I could suss him out. He appeared briefly in that film Black Mask, that Johnny Depp film.

I don't know if you saw it. I didn't see that. Whitey, whatever his name was. Whitey Bulger. That movie. Yeah, he has a cameo in the beginning of that. He's sort of got a blue rinse over his head. He's just sort of a fascinating guy

and a literal, you know, artist, a proper tattoo artist. People, you know fascinated he's tattooed like gangster crime overlords you know presidents everybody he's done sort of like a lot of people but he's got a very easy way and it's sort of a gentle kindness he told me this story once god i wonder if you'd mind me repeating this in the media world when he used to be an intravenous junkie he was in new york city and he's like wandering along on the way to a party and he saw a homeless fella doing paintings and he sort of thought

oh man I'll get those paintings and he bought these paintings off this homeless guy and then he went on to this party and then he went and shot up in the bathroom and then he heard a flurry of excitement at this New York party because Andy Warhol the great Andy Warhol

was arriving at the party and Warhol came upstairs and he said he could hear like the acolytes around Warhol and he said he's just banged up and he's getting a hit and his eyes are rolling and he's like feeling fantastic and he hears Warhol outside the room and and Mark Mahoney had left some of his paintings out there along with the works of that homeless guy and he hears Warhol go oh my god that's amazing like looking at this stuff and he goes wow look at me I'm the coolest guy in the world says Mark Mahoney I'm laying here banging up smack in a bathroom warhol's out there digging my work and of course when when he went

out it was the homeless guy stuff the warhol was into yeah he's a man with an anecdote or two i love that guy your coffee's good mate i'm buzzing my tits off i've only been here five seconds i don't even know what i'm saying it's amazing it's amazing that it's that powerful for you this is it because i'm drug free for 13 years, Joe. So as I was saying, Kundalini. I've done a lot of that Kundalini. Did it ever take you to a crazy place? Yeah.

Psychedelic state? When I was using drugs, I did psychedelics. I've never had that kind of like, oh my God. Because I loved drugs. But you never had a breakthrough moment on psychedelics? Yeah, I had that realization that what I considered to be myself was a construction and it wasn't real. But my memories and my perception and my desires are just a conglomeration of biochemical impulses that I'm merely a conduit of pure consciousness. And that's too heavy to deal with when you're bloody 16.

All my mates were just doing it at school and carrying on. deal with when you're bloody 16 all my mates were just doing it at school and like you know carrying on like like me i need to do psychedelics in a hospital with a person monitoring my heart you're gonna be all right i can't do it under normal conditions so how old were you when you went clean then 27. so from 27 on nothing just coffee i'm 41 yeah a lot of coffee of course i was a sort of you know pretty committed sex addict for a decade you might want to dip your feet back in the pond so you say this joke the problem is with me is that i don't know what your experience i don't know where your addictive tendencies come out well i have them for sure but uh where do they come out? Games. I get addicted really badly to games. Video games?

Yeah. Archery. I'm addicted very badly to shooting bows and arrows. You good at it? I used to be cool. You can shoot proper Robin Hood style. Well, I don't use a recurve bow. I use a compound bow. Like a very complicated, high-powered apparatus.

Shoots very accurately out to 70, 80, 90 yards. But I practice it all the time. It's fascinating. It's a meditation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there's something about when you require so much concentration when you're pulling a bow back and anchoring and relaxing and centering the bow and making sure everything's level and relaxed

and there's no excess movement whatsoever as you release the arrow. It's all this very, very difficult little dance of the synapses that you're doing. And in that dance, there's no room for any extraneous thought. You can't think about your bills, your bullshit, your life, death. You don't think about anything,

but no movement. Release that arrow absolutely properly. Watch it sink into the bullseye. And when you do it, it's incredibly satisfying. It must be, mate. Is there some visualization involved in that? Yeah, yeah, definitely. And a lot of people actually get better from not even practicing.

They get better from visualizing more than practicing. Yeah, that you have to. They just go over the actual physical mechanics of the shot, visualize it, locking in. But it's a big thing with competitive target archers, the visualization aspect. They go to hypnotists and they really work on like a very specific pattern that they visualize, like a very specific pattern of drawing the bow back, finding your anchor point, perfect release, arrow flying perfectly. And in doing that, they sort of condition their mind and

their body to make that perfect shot over and over and over again but it's so difficult to do that even the best people fuck up the best ones in the world in the olympic archery they'll occasionally you know get just out of the line and get a nine or an eight and they just they don't know why they've been doing it seven hours a day for fucking 20 years. It doesn't matter. It's so difficult that there's no mastery. You never totally master it. You've got to be addicted if you're going to a hit and a test and trying to hit a bullseye, man. Well, imagine if that was your life.

You're deep in it. Imagine if that was how you made a living. How much are you making to be an arrow shooter? A competitive archer? It's a good question. I mean, I know there's the Olympics, right? And so you can get sponsors from bow companies like Hoyt an arrow shooter? Yeah, competitive arrow shooter. It's a good question. I mean, I know there's the Olympics, right? And so you can get sponsors from bow companies like Hoyt and companies that sell arrows

and things along those lines. And it's a practice that a lot of people engage in. So I would imagine there's probably more money in it than you think there is. Okay. But yeah. I just haven't seen it even at the fairs. Like $200 for who gets it.

Well, here's the tricky thing is, it's not like, like if you're a professional boxer, you have a very specific set of skills, right? Right. You know how to box. You know how to move. Like, Floyd Mayweather is pretty goddamn sure he knows exactly what the fuck he's doing. But this isn't like boxing.

Like, you could teach anybody to do this. Right. It doesn't take any ridiculously coordinated athletic movements, some unusual genetics, some fast twitch muscle fibers. No, you just pull the bow back and you release the arrow. So to make a living doing that, to decide that I'm going to do something that I could teach anybody to do in a day. I could take any regular person and work on their footwork, their stance rather, and their positioning and teach them how to shoot an hour. Yeah, breathing, how to concentrate and relax. You get them shooting fairly proficiently inside of four or five hours now imagine taking that to a level where you're going to travel the world and compete and just shoot at

bullseyes for your kids food that's what i'm saying that's against a bunch of other people that are no different than you there's i know a lot of those guys i know quite a few of those guys you'll introduce me i'll introduce you for sure. I would love to meet a professional guy like that. Yeah, I'll introduce you to the guy who trained me, John Dudley. Next time he's in LA and you're in LA, we'll make it happen.

He's a good dude. I want to learn about that madness. What is your motivation, Jimbo, to unravel this man? Don't calm him mentally. Not a person who's devoted their life to hitting the bullseye. You might unpick the stitching

that led him to this point of mastery don't make him feel insecure about the hypnosis session do you do yoga at all man do you do like regular yoga or just kundalini how often you do it i try and do yoga to a freak like my exercise regimen changed not entirely unrelated to listening to your podcast. Now I do kickboxing once a week. I do jujitsu once a week. Honestly, it's influenced me. My mate Nick got me into your podcast.

A lot of people that I hang out with, as you obviously know, but even in the UK, in the mixed martial art world, this is a very central cultural artifact and how it intersects with thinking outside the box and a new vision of what it is to be a man and living outside of sort of state ideals and conditioning you know and it's very very i'm that's what i'm fascinated about is these new like new ways of being a man like of having tenderness awareness awakeness but not being afraid or indeed ashamed of the aspects of

masculinity that have somehow become cleverly maligned over the last few generations. May I say, a shout-out to Dean Northway and Paul Busby, because they're the people that I do... Shout-out.

That's a shout-out to them. I felt... I was ridiculed there for English. That was there's no doubt that the English accent is the greatest accent that's why we use it for all noble movies anytime there's a god or any sign you're speaking in a foreign language that we have translated to English they have an English accent speaking in a foreign language that we have translated to English, they have an English accent. You're right about that. They could be speaking in anything. It's authority.

Game of Thrones, Gladiator, everybody speaks with an English accent. After all of your revolutions, after all of your economic success and global dominion, when it comes to an authority figure, you still are, well, I've come down from on high. You still can't have God go, well, thanks, buddy, it's great. Yeah, exactly. You still have a sort of sense of... Regalness. Yeah.

Game of Thrones. Reverence for the regal. But they all speak some strange language. They're in some place with dragons. It's all artificial, right? But yet they all speak with an English accent. There's no reason why they should not be from Detroit. Yeah.

Yeah. Why don't they speak, hey, you fucking guys are coming over here trying to fuck our broads. You're fucking buzzing us good. Comes over here trying to fuck our broads. Are you fucking buzzing? It's good. It comes over here with its fucking dragons. Get your fucking shine box and your dragons. They have to ask you to leave the court because you've really lowered the tone somewhat.

It's like the opposite of going off the course. It's going so deep into the course that everyone's wearing powdered wigs and they're all aligning with some ancient scrolls that they've pulled out of a jar in a fucking cave in Qumran somewhere and it has been decreed.

Everything's got to be proper. Yeah, it's getting deep. That's what we count on you guys for. You can rely on us from now for time immemorial to be classy. Sorry for burping during that statement. Yeah, so I go do jiu-jitsu once a week

at a level that, you know, I mean, I don't even know if it would qualify for the term jiu-jitsu at the level that I'm practicing at at the moment.

I'm doing kickboxing where I had to go to what is called a leisure center. Do those words exist in your language? Leisure center. Yeah, leisure center.

Like a gym, a community center? Like a gym, but a community one to do my white belt. Like a YMCA. Yeah, like a YMCA. I was lined up with like 10-year-olds doing like a, to get my my like white like a ymca yeah like a ymca i was lined up with

like 10 year olds doing like to get my white belt just to get on the ladder do you know i mean i've done that quite recently and as well as that i do do yoga so i'm sort of i'm using this time i've stepped out of you know the madness of los angeles the madness of media that like you know the intensity of it you know and during the time i thought what like you know, the intensity of it, you know, and during the time I thought, what are, like, you know, another thing that Jung talks about is the shadow self, all that I am not, I also am. If you think of that, like, and I suppose a simpler way of saying that is I've lived this life that's been very focused on comedy

and the pursuit of individual success. Think, what are all the things I've not done as a result of that? Like, when I was a kid, I was too shy and too ashamed to get into sort of, like, sport-type things, you know, and I was embarrassed about that kind of thing. So like, yeah, I've started to do kickboxing and jujitsu and even football or soccer, as you call it. You know, like I've started to do all of those things now to start to learn about them as

an adult man. Well, it's a beautiful thing when you take chances and do things with other people that are take chances and doing new things because you realize that it's really a lot of it is about the sort of acceptance and the embracing of vulnerability when you learn a new thing it's very important to learn new things is that you right because i hear you say that and i know what that means but do you actually because like i've got certain you know yeah i suppose prejudices about you as a sort of a black belt martial artist and as someone who's embedded in the mma world you are a person who is happy and accepting of vulnerability where in your life do you feel that you are embracing that

vulnerability well i think in every every time you try something new i enjoy i'm like in the archery thing like i've only been doing it for four years but one of the things that i really loved about is how fucking terrible i was when i first started and it was like there's there's something to this that I have to figure out yoga is a big one I've been really serious into yoga like where I go several times a week at least once a week for about a year and a couple months a year and like two months or something like that and uh what one of the things that I really enjoy about it is that I'm not very good and I still get nervous before classes fuck yeah man yeah it's weird there's something it's one of those weird places like a One of the things that I really enjoy about it is that I'm not very good. And I still get nervous before classes. Fuck yeah, man.

Yeah, it's weird. There's something. It's one of those weird places. Like a yoga class is one of those weird places where there's almost a sacredness to it. Like you go in there and no one can leave until the class is over. Like they tell you they lock the front door. No one comes in to visit the studio. Everything's locked in. No one watches.

You go in there and we don't talk. No one talks. You don't talk for 90 minutes and you go through this series of poses that are incredibly difficult. You're sweating like pounds and pounds of water up. I mean, I'll weigh myself before and after. I'll be down like four or five pounds just from one class. And it's very difficult, but it makes me nervous. I do get nervous before I do it because it has this... I think it's difficult to do. I think I don't necessarily physically enjoy it while it's happening, but I enjoy the effects after it's over. But I think it definitely imparts a feeling of vulnerability.

Because I always assume that if you are really good at... This is perhaps because of where I come from. I always assume that if you are dead good at some sort of fighting thing, that that is a highly transferable skill like that. And I don't mean in a practical way, if you're good at kickboxing, you will also be good at yoga. I just mean that if you're good at kickboxing,

you don't give a shit that you're not good at yoga. That's always been my assumption. Whereas if you're good at yoga, you know, like the yoga, you're not meant to say you're good at yoga, but by Jove, I'm good at it. I don't sort of like, when I'm in the MMA gym, start going like, well, you may be strangling me now, my man,

but wait till we get to down with dog. You know, I sort of feel like, all right, humility in a jiu-jitsu situation for a beginner is an absolute humility. You recognise, you know, I sort of feel like, all right, humility in a jiu-jitsu situation for a beginner is an absolute humility. You recognize, you know, because I'm dealing with people that are good and like, you know, they have to do it like they're doing it with a little kid, you know,

like, and I'm very aware that they're doing that, you know, that's what I think. Well, I think that if you get really good in martial arts, the only way to get really good is to be completely objective about where you are. And if you're completely objective about where you are and learning and trying to improve upon your skills, you apply that same feeling towards everything else.

So the feeling that you get when you're totally vulnerable in martial arts, you apply that same feeling when you're learning yoga because that's the only way to get really good at it. The only way to really do it, to 100% do it, is not to sit here and go, this doesn't mean shit because I could choke out everybody in this fucking room. That's not going to help you. Yeah, it's not going to help you at all doesn't mean shit because i could choke out everybody in this fucking room that's not gonna help you yeah it's not gonna help you at all as a matter of fact it'll hurt you it'll hurt you and it'll focus more on your own ego instead of the ego

dissolving beneficial properties of the poses it will ruin the ambience in the yoga studio if you would say that out loud this doesn't mean shit i could choke everyone in this room before i start this class i just want y'all know i can fuck you up so settle down okay don't get crazy about your stretching i don't know if you've read the scriptures but there is no violence actually there is quite a lot of violence but it's usually a metaphor a lot of hash too that was the thing that mckenna always used to talk about that that's really what a lot of uh the ancient yogis were about they're about smoking chillums of hash and then doing all these poses and if you've ever done yoga while intoxicated on edible the edible variety in particular of

marijuana it's a beautiful thing i haven't because i only started yoga because i'd stopped eating edible hash and all other drugs you know like when i was the thing is with me mate is when i was taking drugs that was what i was doing there wasn't room for now i might pop to yoga you were a fucking pro i was a full time dedicated pro 100 that's it every day you know i can't what was the big what was the big drug what was the problem i progressed through an escalation of drug use that could be on any republican leaflet kids don't smoke pot or you will become a heroin addict that's literally what i did like i you know i started with recreational drugs was unable to and the problem the reason is this is because it's not the fault of the drugs

themselves it's there's a component within me that is looking to find a solution that doesn't have you see when you have that perspective on going into a place and being willing to go in there and be vulnerable that kind of thing for me that makes me very sort of what i call hot you know like scared like that oh fuck fuck so for me drugs were always a thing that i trusted to make me feel a little bit better like and so when i was smoking weed it was like all right there's that thing i found that makes me feel relaxed when it became coke and heroin and crack it was the same reason it was an attempt to nullify medicate and contend with an inner sense of disconnectedness and discontentment which i think is a thing that comes up a lot on your show in other guises because i think that's in some way or another

we're all looking for this sense of connection this sense of completion i think in fact the thing that led me to be a drug addict or you know sex addict gambler whatever kind of addict you are I think the thing that's driving it is this need for connection this sense that is this life because this don't fucking seem right to me somehow this system you've got this living by give me the real deal what's the real thing you're not telling me? And that's why I'm fascinated by people like Terence McKenna, who says, like, if you, you know, what he calls don't stand on the pedestrian levels of consciousness,

there's deep shit down there. There's fascinating stuff. There's machine elves. There's corridors of kaleidoscopic wonder to explore. There's union. There's God. Well, for a guy like you, that might be the best argument for trying to do it the Kundalini

way, because you have to earn it. You're right. I knew it would be harder for me. I've got to do it by sort of stretching and sort of aggressive breathing. Maybe. Instead of hitting that DMT shit double hard for ten doses, bashing it into my leathery old lungs. You just take three.

You just take three, and then you sit back. Tell me what you see in there. And then you can go back in at about 15 minutes. It can't be described. It's beyond language. Yeah. A world beyond language. If I describe it, it's just my stubby fucking stupid ape fingers trying to draw God with

a crayon on a patch of dirt. It's not even a proper canvas. It's the problem of all religions. Sure. Can I just a question? If you do see what you were actually looking for what do you think is curious once you're there and you discover it what what do you come back and aren't we just back to all this you know you're right in a way jim because like

well i have had like moments in both sobriety recovery and in active addiction where i've gone oh my god i feel truly connected now i've had a lot of those moments in what i would call unhealthy highs like you know sort of sexual kind of oh my god this is so amazing i want to live in this moment forever or moments on drugs where i felt sort of pure bliss but nowadays i tend to find it through bloody altruism and kindness and service like sometimes when i think i'm being truly useful i feel this sense of connection but you are right it is not sustainable there is no viagra for enlightenment you can't sort of stay hard you know i mean you sort of you feel like oh that's it i understand it right from this moment forth i am enlightened um that's it i'm never going to be anybody's bitch again i'm never

going to do anything straight for the money i'm never going to care what other people think about me ever again that shit's behind me but then someone will say something or someone will do something and I feel like, oh, I'm back here again. I think it's very hard to capture the divine. I think you get, like, I've had in my life moments of it. I think when I do the yoga, I practice yoga on my own, I practiced yoga this morning.

There's positions where you go upside down and stuff and I think if you were just determined to describe things in a material and secular way,'d say well you were just dizzy you know but what i feel is i go upside down and when i come up straight again i feel my own individual consciousness my sense of myself i feel it sort of disappear like i can't remember who i am for a moment it all goes away and then i feel this secondary awareness in the back of my mind like a sort of a grid an awareness that's and i sort of think hold a minute i'm not me i'm not me there's something else inside of me and the thing that that you

know my big sort of axe to grind when i was doing like that internet series the truths for a while that got me into all sorts of interesting scrapes and challenges over the last sort of 18 months two years it was the idea of you know there's someone inside our own consciousness is not free we are not free within our own consciousness we've been conditioned to the point that we don't know that we're conditioned anymore and I think that that's sort of you notice it in lightning rod moments

when there is sort of like an election and you think oh my god are people really into this fucking shit what is going on despite all my rage I'm still just a rat in a cage. Sorry, continue. That's the perfect riff to score that moment.

Thank you very much. Yeah. Was that Rage Against the Machine? No, no. Pumpkins. Smashing pumpkins. That's the smashing pumpkins. Dope song.

Can I ask you, since, because you found your outlet you said you're putting you're finding just good something good

yeah have you I'm just a question since you've been putting it out there have you noticed there's more and more is coming back or it's like

I'm noticing it more it always was there I just chose go the way I don't know these are just questions well mate right it's still like you know if you read like any bloody when you read this stuff in religious books like

say in the bible like it sort of is going look become good and get to the point where even being good you're not even doing it for that reason anymore you've become detached from outcomes you know like in from buddhist terms you know like that you're you're no longer about fear and desire you're no longer trying to just fulfill yourself right i'm not bloody there yet you know me even if i do something good like go to a homeless shelter and help out for the day and all that sort of thing a little bit at the back of my mind's going look at you helping out at this homeless shelter well done well done and if someone went by and saw me helping at the homeless shelter I'd be really pleased

why is no one seeing me helping this fucking homeless shelter don't touch me you stink so I'm still a little bit looking for

rewards that's a very hard but this is the thing as well about being a comedian is you can't get too fucking sincere and earnest

or you stop being bloody funny do you know what I mean don't you find that that when you stuff that you're really passionate about and you really believe in

because comedy I think is constantly ripping down you know you sort of set up a premise and then you rip it down again I think comedy is the energy of constantly going

no this is really no this is all bullshit this is all fucking bullshit so when you're sort of sincere you sort of hold on stop it no this is serious

that's my kids I care about them once you do that you've got to be able to differentiate between your forms of expression like your art form like a piece that you're creating and you yourself as a person and sometimes the i used to think when i was younger man i can't be fucking around with meditation or enlightenment because it's going to ruin me all my favorite comedians were junkies and crazy people. You know, like Kinnison and Pryor and Hicks. Crazy people and junkies. You can't get enlightened.

You just got to fucking be a wild man. That's how you get comedy. I'm not so convinced anymore. And I think the creating of these memes and these characters that you can mock and make fun of inside your act is a piece of art. You're doing something.

Just like a painting doesn't make you a madman. You could paint a Frazetta Conan the Barbarian painting. It doesn't make you a mass murderer. You know what I'm saying? It's like you're creating a piece of art. And sometimes the more points of view that you've considered, the more it enhances that work of art. You raise a good point there because in certain sectors of the art world

that has always been accepted that, you know, Heronius Bosch doing a triptych of hell don't mean, oh, I mean, this guy's fucking crazy. You know, he may have been, I don't know. But like when in hip hop,

you know, like people talk about, you know, like popping caps and whatnot. Like it's taken a lot more literally and not afforded it and it's a comedic persona, comedians get it a lot British comedians as well, there's a few comedians, myself there's a Scottish comedian called Frankie Boyle

that when people are very shocking I can tell sometimes that comics are saying things to detonate territories of consciousness. Sure. To say something like, fucking hell! Because it makes you like, wait, Bill Hicks did that a lot, I think.

He would say things to them and you'd go, whoa, steady! And then he'd smack you in the mouth and then he's like, he gently tells you that it's just a ride or whatever it is, you know, like now that he's got you where he wants you. But people, like, I think we live in a culture now that's very prohibitive about where we go with those kind of ideas. So people are very quick. I've myself been on the receiving end of a lot of, like, what do I want to say, judgment.

And I'm like, hold on a minute, I'm fucking joking. But don't you think that that's also because we live in this new media world of social interaction, this new social media world where anybody can chime in at any point in time and it's the first time ever that that's happened yeah you might be right but a friend of mine in england made a documentary about what has happened to the idea of the great man you know like in american literature like you know saul bellow philip roth or like you know muhammad ali rest in peace like that nowadays people don't rise to that position anymore because there's thousands of Lilliputians pulling them down

with tiny arrows as soon as there is above the parapet, isn't it? No one's allowed to be. People will be, oh, well, Martin Luther King had affairs. Oh, Malcolm X, he was inside. He done this, that, and the other. There are so many good things that have come from social media so many good things you know the possibility for communication the connection instantaneous all those things it's wonderful but it does all things in the end become an expression of the dominant consciousness you know and if people are doubtful cynical pessimistic

then that the palette you know that shit ends up on the. It also might be a case of, you know, everybody's always worried about wealth inequality in this world. There's also a possibility of consciousness inequality and that these people that have grown up with shitty parents and shitty neighborhoods, they feel left out by even your ability

to seek peace and altruism. Like, who are you, this guy? Why are you so lucky? You're financially fortunate. You have beautiful genes. You're handsome. You have a wonderful... You're in every magazine. Every time I walk into a fucking magazine shop,

I gotta look at your face. I mean, I love you, dude, but come on. Banging starlets. Enough. This motherfucker. And so why is he so happy? Why is he allowed to have this happiness come to him so easily?

So there's anger at that. The same kind of anger that you would get at the elite upper class, like the billionaires and the one percenters of the world. People will also look at a person like you and like, there's a consciousness inequality. There's a, there's also a starting point inequality, you know? Um, you know, I'm sure you, like you were saying you were insecure when you were young and it was difficult and I certainly was. And, and Jim and I knew each other when we were young and insecure and starting out as comics. We've been friends forever. But that

sort of this experience where you are you now and people look at that and they're upset that well why does this guy have so much? Why is this guy in this place where you can so conveniently search for truth where I have to pay my fucking bills and I'm on student loans

and I'm in a shitty neighborhood and and my kids are sick, and my wife's a cunt. You know, this is like, and then they get on Twitter, and they're like, fuck you, Russell! You fucking cunt. I hope your ponytail chokes you in your sleep. Right. Well, it never will, because I put it into a bun. But I can actually understand that level of discontentment because to be honest i've

you know i'm subject to jealousy and envy myself i spot it when it comes up when i sort of feel myself go oh why is that not me i should be having that but now i try to i try not to justify feeling shit you know as soon as i start feeling bad i don't think well this is why i feel bad and i'd like to stay feeling bad if you try and go, hold on a minute. If you believe that the external world is an illusion, that it's temporary, it's transient, and what's real is your deep connection to your inner self, and you can express that in myriad ways. And we're here to have this experience as an animal, and I'm fascinated by the numerous ways that you're into doing it. And it's something that I really want to learn more about is you know loads of stuff that goes on on your show uh but like you know i can i can well appreciate people

sort of seeing uh like you know particularly as the way it's presented seeing me on the like on television thinking fuck that guy fuck that guy because they don't automatically know where i came from or what i had to do to get here or the fact that i get here and think hold on a minute this isn't what i thought it would be. Almost as soon as I got those things, I was like, this isn't real. You can't make yourself happy. I don't want to be poor again. I'll be straight about that because I hated it. It's really frightening.

But you cannot resolve those inner issues. I now know that empirically for a fact. I'm really lucky and that's why I'm fascinated by the addiction model and that's why I am reluctant to smash my mind's piece of DMT, although it does sound fun and I would really, really love to do it. Don't pee a pussy. I'll do it! Pee a pressure, you say? I'm in.

It's because I know I've tried fame, I've tried money, I've tried drugs, I've tried sex, I've tried all of those things to make myself feel better. And oddly, none of them have worked. None of them have worked. I'm not all, poor me, poor me, while this fucking refugee crisis is the world over. You're just being honest about your experience.

Yeah, yeah. And I would, like, what I am now thinking, Joe, is what is the most, they say that, you know, happiness is where what the world needs meets what you have to offer. What the world needs meets what you have to offer. What the world needs meets what you have to offer. And I think, God, is there a way that I can communicate some of the things that I have learned about connecting, about letting go of my flaws, taking responsibility for the problems that I am creating? Is there anything about that that I can convey? Can I convey it hopefully in a comedic and accessible way? That's where my focus is beginning to fall.

And I'm assuming that's what you're already doing, isn't it? That's what I'm attempting. I mean, I think everybody who's trying to better themselves is attempting some form of that. But it's also what you're dealing with when you're talking about the criticism of you. They're trying to define you based on one interview or one article or one thing that you said in response to one piece of current event.

So it's real. They're quote mining a lot of times in a lot of ways, looking to have a more concentrated form of that jealous expression that we were talking about. There's got to be something about this guy I don't like. That's it. I don't like how he went on Fox News and mocked America. Hey, you're mocking the journalism? Yeah, you think you're better

than these people that are here telling the truth? I think the way that works for me is that is a thing that is called confirmation bias, isn't it? You're already feeling something inside yourself and then you're sort of unconsciously scanning data to get confirmation of like, so if I feel insecure because you're

super good at MMA and have black belts in Jiu Jjitsu I've like instead of dealing with my own feeling of oh fuck if this becomes a fight I'm not gonna be able to deal with it I would rather go no this guy's like you know and I'll find something to complete that right oh he had advantages that I didn't have if I had this I would have been like yeah but like you know like but but really the feeling is in me and this is what what my personal experience of actually getting clean from drugs has taught me, is that what other people think about me is none of my business,

and it's something that's happening in their own consciousness. And they're always looking for some coordinates upon which to project those feelings. And I know that because I fucking do it. If I start getting jealous about some super successful guy or someone who's super good at fighting or whatever, I'm dealing with something inside myself. So now i try not to bring that shit to the world i try to go right russell you better deal with this feeling of inadequacy or this feeling of jealousy or this feeling the insecurity because otherwise it's going to ruin your experience of being human instead of going no the problem is this guy or that guy or this person having a

successful podcast i try to go no no, no, Russell, connect with yourself. I'm trying not to blame the outside world for my shit anymore. Well, I think in a lot of ways, these are really complicated thoughts that we have, and in many ways we're almost a victim of this constant need to evolve. Like the body and the brain is set up to constantly be comparing ourselves to others and to feed off of each other, whether it's through jealousy or inspiration, to try to achieve higher and higher levels of competency at anything, to develop more social credibility, to develop more clout in the community, to feel better about your own existence.

It's almost like what we're dealing with is some sort of a programming that is constantly set up to innovate and to continue to get better and better at everything. So if I see you in some movie, I'm like, why am I, how come I'm not in these fucking movies? I don't even get these auditions. I need to fire my manager. And these ideas, they motivate movement. They motivate momentum.

Yes, yes. And you could use them or not use them, but we don't know how to handle them. And no one's telling us, and our parents didn't tell us, and their parents didn't tell them shit. I heard this amazing- Back to the slavery. We're all just tribal, and at the end of the day, what you're supposed to do is help other- There's no better feeling in the world than encouraging another human to live right, and they live right. Those are the moments you remember in good job can you dick sucked in a Learjet

point champagne on both of you on the that is relaxing fuck yeah he's playing in the background no it is possible learjet getting addicted I know you're that's quicker you can get a learjet you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you raise a point because what you do that is how biological No, I'm going to debate. I am going to get to debate. Take that out of your mouth. No, you raise a good point, because what you're talking about there is how biological imperatives, whatever that force was that made us divide from one cell to two cells, to ten cells, to fish, to frog, to mammal, to cities,

to all these architectural Wi-Fi wonders, that force, as you say, is still in us. Now, these imperatives to grow, as you say, is still in us. Now, these imperatives to grow, that's, you know, as you were saying there, Jimbo, if you're living in a tribal society, it's a necessary function. But what's happened to our species? Do you know that cliche,

you are what you eat? You know, and it means, like, if you eat shit food, you'll be shit, and I 100% agree with that. But in a different way, you are what you eat. If you look at what we eat now, we eat monoculture foods, you know, like we're in swathes,

endless fields of wheat across, like, god i drove what state would that have been that i drove through like it was one of your crazy iowa iowa nebraska nebraska there's nothing but it it was like the whole country was made of it you know what else is there go on jesus oh i love that guy no he's uh he'll cheer you up as long as you understand what he was saying the main the main thing that i think he was saying was don't be gay that's what i picked up um like so um i got from him just be cool and it was like no no he said don't be gay yeah a lot of people have missed the point with this be cool thing it's don't be gay let's focus down on this as yet not mentioned don't be gay and and then of course the the way that the meat is consumed endless abattoirs and slaughterhouses of condensed animals not consumed as they would be tribally picked off

here and there eaten once a week i'm a vegetarian myself but you know so we have fields full of wheat abattoirs full of meat and what and we ourselves are similarly what we eat we have become cells of energy trapped in cities not free to be tribal beings anymore we've become so disconnected from what it's supposed to be to be this primate that now these biological imperatives the desire to procreate the desire to have status the the desire to even get high. All these things have become permutated because they're no longer anchored in a reality for which we were designed. And imagine your position where you're in a completely unique position even in the Western world. You've become a media superstar.

You've become a movie star. You've become someone when you show up, people have cameras and you walk and they take photos of you. You get out of a car and everyone cheers. It becomes this really unusual event when you just arrive somewhere. So it sets you up for an incredibly high dose of this sort of toxic celebrity feeling that you have to sort of navigate. And you have to navigate it based on the other people that have mostly Unsuccessfully navigated it before you if you start and think about how many fucking movie stars wind up in a pool their own vomit Or you know covered in whatever the fuck they're doing

I mean, it's a it's a large number of famous people wind up fucking it all up, but they can't handle it anymore They go Heath Ledger or a million different ways You know, it's pills or just fucking implosion or whatever the fuck it is. Would you like to feed my giraffe? Sorry, previous podcast. You start losing your mind in the vanity. For anyone that's listening to this podcast just because I'm on it

and I can't imagine there's very many of you, there's a reference there to a giraffe that even I'm struggling with in this moment. I just think that your unique perspective, and it's a very unique perspective because not a lot of people get to become movie stars, is it's something that

the average person is trying to put it into a perspective where they can grasp the amount of pressure and the weird way that you have to interface with the world where people worship you and everywhere you go people love you and you don't even know them that's a very strange thing this is the thing these we have to think of problems i think in

terms of their essence not of their scale you see like because if you like how i stop myself like you know when i was more immersed in hollywood and fame and stuff like it isn isn't like you walk in room and like you know when when I was single and get lots of attention from women obviously that that's a short circuit that because you do tend to fulfill that one you saw oh my god I'm able to have sex with people also it doesn't make sense all of a sudden they want you how did that happen that was amazing it was like it was a burning of the natural process matrix is broken oh my god I'm allowed to do what I want. Fucking hell. I wonder why you're an addict.

It's normal. It's called Pussy is Awesome. That is a difficult truth to overwhelm. It's impossible. It's impossible to avoid the pull. You're talking about the gravity of Jupiter. It sucks in asteroids. That's what it is.

It's just too goddamn strong. The compulsion to breed and the compulsion to be special so that you can breed more than anyone else and you can have the choice. That's what your DNA calls. It screams. But can we overcome our nature? You already have. You have. You have. Hey, thank you.

Hey, look at you. This is the best podcast I've ever been on in my life. The affirmation's flying at me. But think about what you're doing. You've decided to step away from all the bullshit, away from hollywood and sort of take a break while you can financially and you can with your position in life and just relax and get a look at this because look at it from afar really ego thing of like people giving a lot of attention what i used to like quite quickly after like i used to get a lot of fame attention i'd think ah if someone else more famous than me came in then all this attention would go there so what is it really what is it really yeah it's not

I can't feed on that and even if I don't have that if I even if I don't literally have the experience of being of basking in a spotlight and then Justin Timberlake walking in and see the light disappear from my face and being plunged once again into the shadows of my youth even if I don't have to actually have that experience I know that when i get home i'm still just me that none of it is real that you can't there's no nutrition in it there's nothing at the end you can't get any it's not like oh right this this amount of fame hasn't worked i'll try and get even more famous it's because the essence is the thing the essence is the thing is to try to connect what i am doing or what you are doing or what one is doing to something that is connected that feels

beautiful to you that feels nutritional to you and that for me that is really really hard because it's very hard to enjoy those pat on the back things particularly if you know like if you felt inadequate and insecure and it's very hard to break off of that track. Of course. And I feel lucky, but it's not something that's over for me. I feel lucky to be awakening from that thing. I feel lucky to be awakening from it, but it's not over for me. I still feel it. I still feel it. If another English comedian, if Ricky Gervais came in now, I'd have to go, oh, right, okay, Ricky Gervais is here. Right, shit, I've got to

adjust to that with Sacha Baron Cohen. Right, okay, right, now this is happening now, I'd have to go, oh, right, okay, Ricky Gervais is here. Right, shit, I've got to adjust to that. Or Sacha Baron Cohen. Right, okay, right. Now, this is happening now. I'm aware that in this moment I have a cachet of being the only English person and all that sort of stuff, but it's not you know, if those are the things I'm using to prop up my identity, I'm fucked. But you being aware of those facts, aware of the fact that you're constantly struggling in this

is what's going to help you. I mean, it's not like you can avoid the sound of the, what are they, the harpies? What are those things that pull the boats into the rocks? Sirens that call the boats into the rocks. Like, it's compelling. It's absolutely compelling,

but you understand what it is now, so you don't have to do it. You don't have to gravitate towards it. Like, you know, you know that if you just went and got a bunch of hookers and some coke and you hold yourself Up in a hotel room there'd be some moments. It would be pretty goddamn good about that But also there'd be the repercussions the the fact that you've slid back towards addiction the problem

So you avoid it you know the pull is always going to be there especially when the girls have big tits and little waist If it hits a party and lets keep a secret Yes, yes, it's a very particular. Unless I can keep a secret. Yes, yes. It's very difficult. That's why I live in the abstinence model. That's why I try not to press those buttons because that stuff is, you know, you can't mess. Don't rattle the cage.

Don't wake that guy up. Leave him alone. Like Hulk, isn't it? Don't make me angry. You won't like me when I'm angry. Just let me be little Hulk. Yeah, just let me chill. Yeah, I mean, look, as we've gone over, you're navigating some waters that very few people get to go through, and there's no books written about it. No one has gone through what you've done and achieved some sort of a yogic state of enlightenment where they've sort of expressed it to everybody else and said, this is the roadmap.

This is the path. I have to just say, just knowing some addicts, to me, what you're doing is more powerful than when you were the ultimate, ultimate star. Because I'm telling you, this guy, sometimes, I mean, we all feel that way. I'll get really, for a little bit, I'll go, you know, I can't believe that guy. I'm trying to do this. And that guy, he's, I think he's 15 years now. And he'll turn to me and go, Jim, I've been to your house. You have so much more.

Because you have so much more in your life. You don't want, trust me, you don't want that. It's a struggle. But when he says that, those statements are so powerful to me. Because he can see that vanity and wanting to be started. That's why I said the giraffe. Because that defines my success. You know what successful I am? I said the giraffe, because that defines my success. You know how successful I am.

I bought a giraffe. I had it shipped here. I'm successful. That shit is worse than heroin. Yes. I learned it's worse than heroin. I can't imagine. His ladder was, is, it was, was, still is up here.

But in a similar way. Up here. That's a lot to live on. I don't know. I tip my hat to you. But in a similar way. Up here! That's a lot to live on. I don't know. I tip my hat to you. You were going through a tornado. But he's done it. You've done it in a similar way as well. Not on his level.

Maybe not on his level, but Jim was on Saturday Night Live. He's one of the best comedians in the country. He's one of the best stand-up comics in the world, really. He fucking crushes. He's so goddamn funny. But he decided, decided we've been friends forever he decided a long time ago you know what fuck this i'm gonna live in new jersey i'm gonna do gigs and i'm not gonna worry about nothing i'm just gonna have a good time

and perform and not worry about fame at all i'm just gonna step the fuck away and just just work on my act work on performing having a good time and trying to enjoy my life and that's a very admirable thing too what you've done is a very admirable thing in a lot of ways. But when you first walked in here, you just kind of mentioned that. And you said, I'm suburbanized. I'm suburbanized. You said that a couple times. Domesticated.

Domesticated. I'm sorry. You said domesticated. They don't have suburbs in England. They have the country. We're not in London. But that domesticated. They're vulgar.

But that domesticated... The vulgar. To me, it's more... You get more gratitude out of it. And the end of your days, you're going to remember those little moments, whether it was your friend or whatever. There's nothing wrong with that world. And you can always come back once...

Once the responsibilities are done. That's the problem, though. I warn my wife all the time like listen kids got a couple years left my kids are out of there and I tell them don't get fucking pregnant man

I'm 20 years from going ape shit and I will have that right to go ape shit I watched my father World War II vet go into 80s years old and I watched him go I'm just gonna go ape shit I don't give a shit about anything anymore

so what you're doing is to me that, to me, I cheer you on big time. And I know this is corny, but I saw you on a couple of interviews. As soon as you were, I mean, you were all over the place. And I can see you in that room trying to find who you were while everyone else was trying to throw out a completely different character. Maybe I'm crazy and I'm in the woods right now, but I would see that and I'm like, oh, they're coming at this guy.

Well, you had the awareness to say, this is all weird. It did feel weird. It's weird. It's weird. How can it not be weird? You're a movie star. It's creepy.

It's a very unusual experience because it's like you were saying about going back to Jersey going like going back to jersey and sort of saying like right what i'm gonna do is my job i'm gonna do comedy and i do the comedy to get the money to pay for the food to feed my family to take care of my life and i love doing it and i can bring joy to people you know like i i if i'm honest about myself i always had the ingredients for obsessive behavior i was because like the more i look at it i was trying to resolve something i thought if i get there then i'll be worth something i can get that thing and then when i got there i thought hold on this isn't even real it doesn't feel right to me it doesn't feel right and that's not like you know there are people sort of i think very high profile high

level people that are making big contributions. Can you sweep away all of mainstream culture? Can you say the sole function of pop culture is to keep people bewildered and distracted and intoxicated while a political elite in conjunction with corporate powers can saps the energy of the great and powerful people of this planet? Yes, you can go you can but like but do you think that that's a conscious decision by the cultural elite or is that a conscious decision by the people to avoid reality itself and be distracted by goofy television shows and music it must be sort of both components it must must be both. But like you said, implied or said even earlier, we are still evolving.

Evolution is still happening. It's not over, is it? No. So what I feel like is what information can we impart? How can we, you know, this is extremely successful, as I said before, cultural artifact. You can just keep pumping alternative ideas into people's head. If people start to hear, like, again and again,

you're being lied to about civilisation, it's much older, you're being lied to about the nature of consciousness, you're being lied to about your options. You know, like, on a very simple level, I've had, as I'm sure I've gathered, quite a lot of therapy over the course of my life, I think it was a result of the substance misuse addictions and then just that ongoing bloody curiosity. And they say the function of therapy is to increase your choices in life because none of us lives in reality anyone who's bloody done dmt will know we don't live in

reality we live in a narrow tiny bandwidth of reality so if you just live in a model of reality not reality itself then you should take responsibility for remodeling your reality particularly if you're not bloody happy in it you can change it you can change your consciousness and for me at the moment that means quite mundane things it means that when i arrive here and my suitcases don't arrive i have the choices of do i now become a cunt and make people's lives fucking miserable or do i just accept the cases are not here this is this is the reality or when i arrive at the airport and i ain't got my green card and I nearly miss the flight. Like all of these,

I just go, oh, this is happening now. The only choice I have in that moment is the choice of whether or not to start being a dick. Yeah. And I try not to now. And in the past, I was like,

fuck you. I'm entitled to this feeling. Well, it's so easy to just get absorbed in it. My friend Tony V said this once, and I know I've repeated this on the podcast before, but my friend Tony V used to drive

from, you know Tony V, stand-up comedian? I don't think so. Boston guy, hilarious. Hilarious guy. He used to drive from New York to Boston all the time, like almost every day. He was constantly driving. It's a pain in the ass. It's like two and a half hours up, two and a half hours back, whatever it is. New York to Boston? Yeah, what is it, three? Five. No.

That's a good four and a half. You drive like a pussy. Shut the mic off. You had a lot of PBA cars yourself. It's not that far. It's four fucking hours. What are you talking about? I would say it's three at the most. Anyway, he drove it all the time.

And he was talking about what he did was he just went zen. And he said, this is what I'm doing now. The way he dealt with it, he's like, now I'm driving. There's no upset. There's no, this is what i'm doing now the way he dealt with it he's like now i'm driving like there's no there's no upset there's no this is what i'm doing i'm doing this and if the cars are all stopped and we're all going five miles an hour this is what we're doing yes that's perfect that is literally zen isn't it like this is the not to resist your reality and i don't think that means becoming some doormat that people can walk all over but when you are in a traffic jam is the perfect example of a situation over which you have no control in this moment you getting angry cannot influence or determine that situation in any way and then i think that if you can once you've realized it on a you know a mundane level like

traffic jam how far can you extrapolate that you know when like someone goes i'm in love with someone else i'm leaving you oh okay i wanted to speak to that eckhart tolle do you know that guy eckhart tolle he wrote like now He speaks like this. He's a German person and he's so relaxed he can barely be bothered to talk to you. Some mistake, again, glitching the matrix. I managed to get his phone number, right?

Oh, Jesus, you and him together. You're like fucking... I'm going to have to ask you to stop calling me now. I'm changing to have to ask you to stop calling me now. I'm changing my number. So I just got his number, and it was meant to be for one interview, but then I thought, fuck me, I've got access to this Buddhist guy. I'm going to tap him every time I have a fucking problem.

Right, my girlfriend, she's really pissing me off. Eckhart! Eckhart! What do I do? Hello? Eckhart! I started to bother him. You're beyond hell. It is. There's nothing that can be done for you. You're beyond hell. Please, there's nothing that can be done for you. It was fascinating

talking to him because I was having a hard time with a woman that I was seeing and I go, what am I going to do and she's done this

and she's done that and he goes, well, perhaps you will resolve this conflict and you will become married and you will have children and then both of you

will die. Jesus. Because he knows that actually you're going to die. That's the end point, really. So wherever you invest your energy, be fully well aware that at some point it is going to be relinquished. Yeah, it might work out or death, but definitely death.

How many hours does it take to get to Boston? Three hours, 40 minutes or so. So we're in the middle. We're in the middle. Depends where you leave from. In the middle. Yeah. And if you don't drive like a buzzer.

My mother and father would make me aware that we're going to be dead. How do you mean? And my mom would always say, I'm going to be dead one day, so you need to this, this, this. And I couldn't handle that. How old was she, mate? I want to say I was five to seven. You know, five, six years old. She's quite young to introduce Jimbo to the concept of mortality, five to seven.

I was still struggling with the goldfish concept. Where's that goldfish gone? Oh, don't worry, we're going to... Isn't that a good idea to start those thoughts off early? Let's accept this and get over these goddamn things. Let's figure out what the fuck we're so terrified about that we have to create a land in the clouds that we're definitely all going to go to and meet up after the fucking show. But that put me in check of the whole thing.

Did it? I got to say, and it made me sob. Just the thought of where are we going? Where are we going? What happens? Is it just blackness? And my father, towards the end, he just literally went, yeah, you know, that's it, you're dead, and that's it, show goes on.

And as simple as that, I'm like, oh, my God. We forget about that. That's bleak. I'm not down with that one. I mean, listen, the Cloud King, but the thing is, Joe, you know before when we were talking about your DMT experiences and you said it would be like sort of a caveman with a crayon trying to draw God, right? On dirt.

On dirt, not even on a canvas. I remember very specifically you said it. You can rewind the podcast. You can listen to it again. That's what Joe said, right? With a stubby crayon, too. Stubby. I think you said your fingers were stubby.

I don't want to be overly meticulous in that particular instance. Right? So when people talk about the kingdom of heaven is within, or in the afterlife there'll be 72 virgins, me personally, I see these things as metaphors. It will be as if you will be in such a blissful state when you are free of the shackles of the material realm, when you are liberated from your body.

I've spent... Oh, as you check this, I don't know if this is... This is another thing that sort of makes me look good, and maybe it makes me look savage. I was doing one of my bits of altruism the other day you know like how i dole out bits of altruism i told you i've already mentioned going to a homeless place i don't know if you're picking it up i'm a pretty nice guy i was at this other place that was uh like a adult learning difficulties place right right and um for me the term learning difficulties was

polite because these people were like you know fucking seriously mentally ill i mean i would be like you know i mean they were beautiful human beings and everything but like well anyway there was this and i had a really fantastic time there and of course it made me feel incredibly grateful for my own life and all the things one would imagine that you'd feel in such a situation but i was chatting to the people and i was one person was like people getting various certificates for various kind of achievements whether it was in the art art doing some drawings or whether it was doing the art, doing some drawings, or whether it was doing some cooking or whatever.

And I started to feel this impulse of sort of a bit of patronisingness, of like, oh, you're getting that certificate, are you? And then I thought, hold on a minute, this ain't no fucking different from someone who's doing a four-year MA in religion in global politics, really. I mean, if you can imagine supreme consciousness, if you can imagine the realms experienced on DMT or the realms that are being described with people that have dedicated themselves to meditation or kundalini have dedicated themselves to you know terence mckenna

getting to them super states of consciousness accessible to individuals and our birthright some people say that our little achievements of i've got myself a giraffe for example a new car or the things that i'm proud of today. You know, like, we similarly are on this little pedestrian level, you know, like, with sweet little darling things, really, with our material achievements, with our accolades and our awards. And it changed my perspective of it, of, like, bloody hell, the difference between me and someone that's not in what you'd consider being the normal strata of the mental health field.

It's not that bloody different not in infinite space not with jupiter sucking in meteors all that shit going on right now what's the difference between me and someone that's you know life is confined to you know sort of cooking projects it's not hugely significant except i'm not that good at cooking in a way they're better i would never have got that certificate well it might not be hugely significant in your perspective when you look at the infinite, but it's very significant in terms of the two of you relating to each other and trying to work this life out and trying to be sort of compatible, try to communicate, try to

be friendly with each other and work out all the weird cultural differences between everybody and try to get to the essence of what it means to be a person. And we're all going through some weird sort of struggle. No one escapes a struggle. Not even Johnny Depp. Not even Johnny Depp. Not even Johnny Depp? Even Johnny Depp. After everything. I have a hard time believing Johnny Depp.

Johnny Depp got dragged into the golden triangle of pussy problems. And he's in there right now. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. You didn't hear? Because he did the rock star... Did this happen during the rock star tour? Right now. Didn't you hear this recently? He's getting... His girlfriend said he beat her. And he's saying, he's saying his girlfriend is fucking, Doug Stanhope's getting sued because he wrote a whole article saying that he's really good friends with Johnny Depp.

And Doug Stanhope wrote a whole article about how the woman has been blackmailing Johnny and threatening him. And he brought it up before the whole thing came out in the news that she wanted, she had certain demands. If he didn't reach, who knows who's fucking right and who's wrong. Right. But at the end of the day,

you know, whether Johnny's telling him the truth or not, but at the end of the day, even Johnny Depp can't escape the fucking pussy problems. The reality of the world. You know,

he's touring. I said, he's, I think for the first time in life, he's, he would, you would see him with images of rock stars

that he loved, but now he's touring. So he's doing music with them? With Alice Cooper. What? Yes, he went on a rock tour. Wow. What?

I'm telling you. Alice Cooper's selling hot dogs in Arizona. Nah, dude. I'm telling you. Look it up. They're like calls. They got a name. They stood a rock tour, and I went, huh, Johnny Depp.

And they did a lot of cities. And maybe he's- Wow. That's the one thing he didn't get out of his system. I don't even think that's it, man. I just think Johnny Depp is just being Johnny Depp. He's having a good goddamn time.

Maybe he's like this all the time. What's it called? The Hollywood Vampires. Yeah. Hollywood Vampires. Johnny Depp is the guitarist. Wow. Pretty badass.

That's Johnny Depp over there on the far right with the goofy hat? That's him on the far left with the goofy hat. Wow. Good for him. Johnny Depp's living a goddamn exemplary life. And I think that's Joe Perry on the right. That is Alice motherfucking Cooper. Look at that. There they are. School's out for

summer! He's been selling hot dogs in fucking Arizona. he has some Cooper dog or Alice's dog's place he was a radio DJ in Phoenix too he had a radio show

he's addicted he gotta see he goes to movies and he only sees those he only sees the premieres and then he goes on the street people are like this is the first time

he's in front of like hundreds of there's a big difference between and holy shit. So you're trying to say that he's not doing these shows. This brought him to a high. He didn't,

he probably didn't know. He's probably having a ball, but I'm not saying that's happened, but could be that simple. That's a big high, boy. I just stood on the stage and watched 100,000 people go nuts. I was like, I want to do this. It's also the only time that you're allowed to dress like that. You can't dress like that in real life.

You have to go on stage to dress up like that. Go to some of those photos. If you come over my house with fucking leather pants on and a shirt like that, I'll fucking choke you. Right. You can't come to my house like that. What are you doing, man? Why are you doing man why he's dressing like you just came over on a boat from Spain there's some sartorial risks being taken that we've got lace it's got lace around his wrists but you can pull that off if

you're in a band right yeah look at him, but he always dresses like that It's like he's wearing his regular clothes like for Johnny Depp He's wearing his regular clothes, but he does have his sleeves rolled up and mm-hmm See what I mean it's enough affectation for sure. He's definitely working on that image Do you think he must his hair up on purpose like not musty enough come on? Yeah, that's it up a little more. Yeah, I listen there stick it up. Hey listen. I know I More power to him. I want to do that, too.

Why not, man? Just so I can go to Germany. It's like, we're getting paid. I think you could just go to Germany. You could probably just go to Germany. I could probably just do that, too. There is no restriction at this stage on entering Germany, Jimbo. You're free to go.

Okay. You're tired in lace if you choose. But I want to dress like that. You can do that. What we're looking at in his situation is, you know, whether he's navigating it successfully or not, he's definitely in a strange path of the river. You know, he's in a strange, really deep, wide channel with incredible rapids, and he's riding on a fucking inner tube down this stretch of river that nobody gets to ride.

The Johnny Depp stretch is like the Tom Cruise stretch or the Samuel Jackson stretch. Like, whoa. These motherfuckers can't go anywhere. Yeah. Stanhope told me he hangs around with Johnny Depp and they can't go anywhere. They have dudes with earpieces everywhere. There's people constantly circling him, making sure he's okay. And he'll go into a restaurant.

There's people that are guarding the doors. They're making sure people don't go in the room. It's very, very different than even regular fame he's in that pirates of the caribbean fame where it's just yeah can't go anywhere that's an expensive product bro yeah i need to protect that product well it's also he's super vulnerable like people lose their fucking minds and they're around a certain level of celebrity like does a tom cruise like tom cruise can't go to the movies right he's got it right if he went to the movies he would leave the movie theater and people would be trying to grab him as he was walking out of theater just to touch him and take pictures with him and it's not like you

can't just interact with people right I done a film with Tom Cruise it's an intense experience what was that like would you do it was a film called Rock of Ages oh yeah and yeah, with that? And Alec Baldwin. Lots of really, really famous people were in it. And a monkey. The monkey, when I read it, there was no monkey in it. And at some point, Tom Cruise said,

there's going to be a monkey in this film. And from that point, there was a fucking monkey in the film. Even, may I say, the monkey was in scenes that Tom Cruise weren't in. One with me, and the monkey was an arsehole. It was a booboo. It was wearing a nappy that was tied on with electric tape. It was very aggressive. It jumped off of the shoulder of the guy that was meant to be looking after the monkey.

The monkey had a trailer with five other monkeys in it that it could fuck in its time off. I was saying, who's doing the monkey's fucking contract? If you watch that film, you can see there's a scene I'm in with the monkey i ain't even doing no acting at all all i'm doing is it's just a man nervously looking at a monkey so i was thinking that thing could get down off that shoulder at any point now and fuck you up

yeah it could fuck you up thomas tom cruise he's like a traveling king you know like he's got like many many trailers like and like but he's so like you know you arrive in a situation you think right here are my prejudices about tom cruise all the things i've read all the things i've heard go prejudice right like we meet him he blasted me with such affability and charm that they melted away like ice cones the pure heat of the man's sweetness he gave like on the sort of like it was my birthday during that film i've got a big basket full of yoga-related things and stuff like that, these thoughtful presents. He shakes your hand, remembers your name,

remembers details about you. If you mention your auntie or something in the next conversation, he'll mention that auntie. I went round his house for dinner. I was really, really late because of that fucking monkey, actually. It was playing up. He was not working that day. I went round his house.

When he was married to Katie Holmes, there was that little famous Tom Cruise, suri cruise was there and all all lined up i went there i was very very late and they'd like they'd all eaten and they goes oh well do you want to still eat i went yeah yeah and i will eat and i had to sat like i'm sat with you now joe opposite tom cruise and katie holmes and the little darling one. I was fucking eating spaghetti. And that's a complicated thing to eat in front of Tom Cruise as well. It's long, isn't it? I was trying to eat that like Lady and the Tramp,

shoveling that shit in. And then the next course, I think, was lasagna, which was weird because that's two pasta courses. Then I think there was like sort of cupcakes and stuff involved. All the way through it just sat opposite Tom Cruise talking about communism, which I brought up as a topic, which in retrospect was a mistake. Why? Well, because don't bring up

communism. Because what I said was I goes, well, look, I'm down with fairness. I goes, you know, communism, yeah, surely it went a bit, it got a bit out of control. No one's arguing with that. It went a bit hectic. I'm not down with massacres and genocides under any flag. But fairness and justice, I'm

fully up for. And Tom Cruise and tom cruise goes oh don't know about that um the communism i goes yeah but tom you were born with this thing you've been born with this thing i guess that's like being born an aristocrat you know like the thing that you've got that drive or whatever you know you're like people aren't like you i tried to explain it to tom but it was hard for him to take me seriously because I had spaghetti down my shirt and all that kind of shit. But I had a good go of saying it's probably different to be Tom Cruise than other people. Yeah, for sure.

But what was he saying? That communism is a bad idea and you were saying that maybe sharing more would be a good idea. Isn't it weird that communism is connected to dictatorships which is kind of the opposite of communism? It really is. I think anything, as soon as people start to implement ideas it gets into fucking trouble doesn't it because people start people for like look at all yeah the power of

course mate like because all of these like political ideas and religious ideas it's supposed to just be we're here we're gonna die should we try and make it as nice as possible and like part of that's going to be not being out of order to each other and like you know sort of like and but all of them interface with our problems, the problems we've described, those biological and mechanical drives. So I'm trying to... All I've said is, like, the communism... There's a socialism and communism that's different from the depiction of communism

that, you know, a lot of Americans and English people would have because we were on the other side of the Cold War. So we got a very very negative impact and of course that was a version of communism that was pretty fucking brutal in places as is capitalism you know so I'm sort of like trying to kick around these I'm saying like yeah but really all communism is it is a sort of a version of Christianity in that it's saying we are all brothers here and all of us have rights and we should be trying to build a society where we love each other that's sort of what he's saying you know you know, where it goes wrong is it doesn't allow room for individualism

and the many, you know, myriad distinctions between different human beings. But I won't concentrate on that. But that's not really communism, though. That's really more of dictatorships. That was dictatorship. You can dress it up how you want. Because like, yeah, that's that. Yeah.

I mean, like, you know, I'm not a scholar in communism, although I am going to do a degree in religion and global politics. And for me, I'm going to spend the next three years doing it part-time. You don't have to pop in a day a week. Actually, I've not done it yet. I've got to go for the interview next week. I'm hoping they're going to let me in just on the basis of, come on, let me in.

I've been on the fucking telly. Give us a break. Anyway, so I'm doing it. But my point that I was trying to make is, look, things get convoluted and complicated by bureaucracy, ideology, and demagoguery but ultimately we're just meant to be sharing that's all that's it's not bloody community idea really yeah the dictatorship aspect of it is almost like it's almost like that same

inescapable drive that causes someone to want to be the monkey with the five monkeys at a good fucking time there's always someone going I'm gonna be the monkey that's fucking fun whether it's like you know any sort of religious extremism there's always some guy at the end of it going i'm gonna be fucking five monkeys in my trailer and there and that person's ruining it for the rest of us because like whenever you see like about religious cult and it like you know i've started a religious cult you know we all live here together and we grow our own vegetables everything's organic. Yeah, all right. That's lovely mate Are you fucking everyone? Oh, I don't again say are you fucking a little bit? Everybody else's wives

Yeah, that's that's one of those weird inescapable things about being a person about that these these Drives that you have to figure out how to hold them together I think communism would work look if, if this was a community, if we were the only four people on an island, just us four, we would be communists. We would all just get together and we would talk, like, how do you guys want to handle this? What do we do? How do we gather fish?

I like this. And what are you capable of pulling off? Yeah, hey, I'm pretty good at climbing trees. I know where the coconuts are. Okay, cool. And we'd figure it out. Do you need any poems? Because I could probably provide those. But we would all share, right? And if we didn't, we'd have to have a conversation. We'd have to say, hey, Joe, you're

not fucking digging enough holes or you don't catch enough fish. We've got to work this out together so we all contribute an equal amount. You can't be lazy and exist off the fruits of your brothers' and sisters' labor. That's really good, isn't it? We'd have to all contribute. What's the difference between that and being tribal? It's the between that and being tribal it's the same thing now have you heard this thing that in chimpanzee societies they have about 75 chimps right and once it gets to about 80 or 90

things get edgy yeah and they normally break off and go fucking hell we better have another little breakaway chimp community because this is getting too heavy over here and so the assumption is that we like as you know great apes ourselves similarly should be living in manageable communities with so overstimulating you expose no you know when you're like sort of joking about like sort of the power of women and femininity you're not meant to be exposed to that kind of stuff you're not meant to meet that you'd be exposed to that kind of imagery that is present in pornography you're not meant to be exposed to that kind of you know is present in pornography. You're not meant to be exposed to that kind of variety. We're meant to be like this 50 or 60 of us. All right, these people are good warriors.

These people are good fishermen. These people are good at, you know what I mean? You just find mysticism. You find little roles in it. But again, since we've lived in this monoculture where people are like little cells, batteries all sort of stacked up together in cities and suburbs, then how do you access that? We're not having an authentic human experience.

And that's why there's so much, what do I want to say, disease. Well, it's an authentic human experience, but it's a very new one. It's a very different thing. And I've tried to figure out what it is we're actually doing, but it seems to me that everything is getting more and more connected, right? So what we're doing in these cities is we're connecting 20 million people into this mass of buildings. And then we're connecting them all with the internet so then we're connecting those 20 million people with the 10 million people in this state and 5 million people in that state

and we're we're all becoming one sort of weird gigantic group that's very very dissimilar from the original tribal groups that allowed one alpha male to run things, one alpha female community, everybody knowing and understanding each other. And when you talk to like archaeologists, and have you ever read Sex at Dawn, Dr. Chris Ryan? Really interesting book. But what he maintains is that this idea even of monogamy that didn't exist in these tribal cultures, they shared sexuality, like everybody swapped around and people banged everybody.

And that's one of the reasons why they stayed intimate, is that they all probably were polyamorous. They were polyamorous. I knew it! And they didn't understand. Well, it speaks to our nature, because we don't want to be monogamous. It's a struggle. But the polyamorous thing also speaks to this idea

that before we understood genetics, and we understood DNA, we didn't know whose children they were. So if had a child if a woman had a child and i fucked her and you fucked her and you fucked her we all assume it's our kid we don't no one knows they didn't understand it they didn't know once there will be certain clues along the way joe for sure there was definitely people get it they figured it out after a while that kid's straggling a lot of people but that's a, no, no, no. But that's a weird thing, too, is how children maintain some sort of talent traits that their parents have.

Like, there's things that get passed on through children, through DNA. Obsessive behaviors, like, desire to grow and learn. People, like, have kids that are very similar in personality. That seem to be, like, inherent to to the child That seems to come through the DNA Yeah, but wouldn't that be a little bit too of the kid that's all he knows growing up And if he's watching a parent that's obsessive He's either going to go, I am not being that Or I'm that

Sure, it's possible It's totally possible But there's also a pattern that they follow Like my middle daughter is obsessed with things. She gets obsessed with things. Like she's read six Harry Potter books. She's eight. She just keeps reading them.

She'll read hours and hours every night. And then she also wants to talk about Harry Potter. She's all fucking totally Harry Potter'd out like all day long. She'll explain something to me. I'm like, is that a Harry Potter thing? She's like, yes, it is. And then she's just obsessed with Harry Potter or gymnastics or whatever the fuck it is.

She's very much like me. Like, where she gets something, she's just doing cartwheels in the living room all day long and fucking back handspring. She never stops. She's just obsessed. And she gets on these things

and just rides them out. And she doesn't even necessarily know that that's how I am. I don't think she sees that because I'm not like that when I'm around her, really. So you're observing her and it's the same as saying, oh, well, she's got my eyes. You can see that she's exhibiting traits that she's not being taught.

They're very extreme. It's very extreme. It's not like, oh, it's similar because my youngest daughter is just silly. She's not like that at all. She's not obsessive at all. She's just a fun little kid. But the middle one is kind of fucking crazy No, no, no, no, no, no, there's the connection with all of them

That's interesting thing about having children the connection with all of them is just so spectacular It's not there's not like I connect with this one more than that one to connect with all of them, but It's interesting to observe your own bizarre personality traits manifesting themselves almost in a genetic level kid Yeah, I My middle ones like that my middle one is identical twin of me and I sometimes I like it Sometimes I love it and sometimes I go oh i like that yeah how old is she she's 14 so she's really blasphemy but you know what the one that does all the gymnastics and all that i noticed too with kids they express happiness in different ways my oldest one the

only time i know she's truly happy and she's 17 now is when she's bouncing singing doing a cartwheel outside. She's got an instrument That's that she when she's silent. I go oh man Her dad so expressive, you know also I mean you think about it like who who's like more expressive than you like you're this like joyful guy Who's always got this crazy laugh and you know by now at 14? She's super aware that you play these places all over the world people come to see you and laugh i mean that's gotta be bizarre too what did you know what's your dad do for a living oh i fix his pipes what about your dad just talk shit in front of

people and they laugh their dick off you know it's a very bizarre thing for a kid to go whoa whoa whoa you could do that too right you know and they see that yeah and then you know she's and also i'm sure you're not restrictive in how they express themselves. You probably want them to have fun and do cartwheels and laugh and joke around a lot. Yeah. I mean, so that gets encouraged. And then I think happiness, like self-reflection and all these other things, these are muscles. And you can work on those muscles.

You know? You can develop them. I think you're absolutely right about that. The image that I've been using is like of circuits like that if you like how it must be neurologically of course i'm speculating about neurology which is probably not something that someone who knows nothing about neurology should do lucky none of us do either so we'll just follow you on this you know if you're continually activating certain neurological pathways or creating relation synaptic relationships,

then that that's going to fire up more regularly. I mean, I noticed it with some of these new things I'm doing, like initially when people were explaining stuff about getting out of off guard and like, and how even to shuffle on the floor, you know, that shrimpy stuff.

I was like, I ain't ever going to be able to do this. But soon it's sort of like, it seems like it's making its way behaviorally into a different aspect of my consciousness. And I suppose if there's, like, you know, when you talk about happiness or misery or addiction, if you're continually living in that circuit, like, you know, people talk about programming. I feel like when I'm aware of my programming is there's certain things that if people say them to me, I can't help the reaction I have.

Like, you know, obvious ones, if I'm exposed to certain sexual images, bang, bang, sexual images bang bang bang bang i feel all those feelings before i make any decisions if someone makes me feel insecure or says something i have to really watch that moment before because otherwise before i know i've gone down a path of behavior and i think that what the perhaps what we can do on an individual level is learn and this is like hard for people are living in total fucking crisis and dreadful poverty and like you know like you said before where like i personally am in a privileged position where i can begin to bring my consciousness to those kind of things of like right i want to live on that circuit now i don't want to always have negative judgments i don't always want to feel fearful in these moments i want to learn to plow that neurological pathway so that it's easier for

me to stay there that you know programming is necessary and like if you're not living on a program that you've taken control of individually you're living on someone else's program you're living on that program that's out there that constant bombardment of negativity and fear and anxiety and division and you're different from people and you're not good enough and by this otherwise you're not going to be good enough you know that you're going to need pretty strong defenses, I think. And that's why with the diminished role of religion in our life, with the diminished role of political ideologies that we can trust, what are people supposed to do about being alive and not feeling good?

Who do you go to now? I think you're doing it. I think you're a part of it. I think there's a lot of other people that are doing it too. It's like you're trying to re-examine the patterns that you're stuck in. And how many of these patterns that you or I or Jim or anybody here, it's created for themselves. You've created a lot of your own prison bars. And that's a really common thing with people.

You know, whatever defenses that you've put up, whatever patterns that you've instinctively followed because of jealousy or fear or inadequacy or any weird feelings you've set these neurological patterns and they're very difficult to break once you've set them yourself it's almost like you've built your own prison and now you're complaining about it yes i agree with this now that do you think we could introduce to that a kind of a compassion because like you know when we earlier on we were talking about like we can understand people's sort of jealousy or irritation like people being famous or rich because or rich. Because, you know, there's no doubt. There's too much inequality. There's too much injustice.

It's not something that can really be questioned. And so what I'm trying to do is bring bloody compassion and tolerance to places where I find it hard. Today, someone was, like, you know, I told you I didn't bring no clobber. I left my suitcase. I fucked up. So I went in the shop. And this is, you know, this is a problem of great privilege but i went along to a pretty cool shop in los angeles and the security fella goes oh the shop ain't open yet then he recognized me and he goes oh no no no

the shop is open right and i was like oh thank you mate and i felt all special for a moment then we got to the doorway of the shop and the guy that was inside the shop he i don't know he's having a bad day or whatever and he goes oh you know maybe you can't come in right and I immediately I thought you fucking like the reaction

I feel inside myself like rage actually and like and the security guy to his eternal credit overrode the guy in the shop and just let him in

just let him in and then like I was you know I got in the shop and I felt sort of like I felt very about myself but in that moment

like I'm sort of like you know I felt special I'm allowed in I had so many little things sort of triggered in me in that sort of short momentary I'm sort of like, you know, I felt special, I'm allowed in. I had so many little things sort of triggered in me, in that sort of short momentary interaction, a feeling of like, oh great, the security guy recognises me,

oh no, this guy don't let me in. And it's very hard for me actually, I'm still in my mind, judging that guy that didn't want to let me in a little bit. I'm carrying him around in my consciousness a little bit, like, that fucking cunt. You still have an argument in your head, what you should have said. Why didn't I say that? That would have destroyed him.

I could have driven that guy to suicide. I'm fucking going back there. I've got the perfect thing like a silver bullet. And then you get there and he goes, Hey man, I'm really sorry if I was rude earlier. I just, my girlfriend broke up with me. Don't apologize yet because I fought the perfect thing to destroy you. And then you go, oh, this poor guy.

Perhaps if you had let me in. This poor guy's working retail. His girlfriend's fucking some football player. Poor bastard. Right. That's just his shit. And I'm sure he's, those are moments too where you go in a club and you're so fucking, I thought in my mad success I'd reached to the point where I can walk to a place and

say, you're not allowed in here. And I turn around, I'm going, fucking, I can walk to a place and they say you're not allowed in here and I turn around I'm going fucking I'm gonna buy this fucking place and then I'm gonna fire you that's how fucking

work that's what Tom Cruise does so Tom Cruise would buy this whole farm that's why he's so happy just buy this place

it's a lot of admin just to sack someone isn't it you've got to go for all oh yeah right okay the surveyors are coming on Monday mortgage Mortgage.

Yeah. Right. Jesus Christ. Health and safety people coming to check. Right. And now, could you bring in Dave? We can't bring in Dave because he's at his chemotherapy session. And they might have some weird laws on who you can fire and not fire. You can't fire Dave. He was here on a charter.

He's been at the union. Imagine that. You buy the building and this fuck has to keep working for you. Oh my God. Now you're stuck with him. And then he sues you for discrimination or harassment or something. I didn't know that Dave was missing a toe when I tried to sack him. That was a mistake in retrospect. So did anybody from the Tom Cruise camp try to convert you?

No one made even the remotest effort to convert me to Scientology. I couldn't have made it more clear that I was a man desperately in need of an ideology. Oh, Tom,

we finally did. I guess it gets so lonely, Tom. Finally there was something to believe in. Some structure. Some simple... Look, just for fuck's sake, give me that dialectics book

or whatever it's called. Yeah, there should be a way, right? There was no interest. It's like, do you know what I felt? I thought they felt that I would ruin Scientology. And they didn't want me in. That's what I thought. Yeah, that's what they did.

They didn't. But there was no invitation. No one said, come on, mate. You need a bit of L. Ron Hubbard in your life. There was no interest. They meant to be an expansionist religion. No one brought it up at all. And if ever there was a candidate for a religion...

I think they tread very carefully on those waters. You have to start asking questions yourself. Or there's certain levels, perhaps, this is also possibly, where they don't necessarily really want anybody new to join. That's what I fucking thought. I didn't qualify. I'm going to that fucking celebrity centre. I'm going to kick the bloody door in and say, Oi, come on.

I think they've been burned too many times. They are very careful about who they allow in, who they don't allow in, I would imagine, at this point. There's a lot of pillorying of science. I'm always starting to feel sorry for them. Really? Well, like, poor sods. They're just trying their hardest to make up a religion.

I mean, I don't know, actually. Did you see Going Clear? Yeah, that was... You'll stop feeling sorry for them when you watch Going clear you're like what in the fuck i like that guy paul haggis who went like when they showed him that right this is the thing we actually believe manuscripts he was like for he looked around for like oh come on this is the test right to if you believe in this they go no you fucking mug that's not the real thing you idiot get out well he was a madman i mean l ronbard, whether or not he's correct about Scientology,

wrote more fiction than any person that's ever lived. Even if that was his only qualification. He was just making stuff up all day. Constantly making stuff up. And then he wrote this. And no red flags? Nothing? No one goes, hey, maybe he made this up too?

No fucking chance. On Monday, he's in Guinness World of Records for making shit up. On Tuesday, he starts a religion and no one goes, is this connected to Monday's activity in any way? Not only that, just a chronic liar. Just his whole life was just full of shit. Also, I didn't like his rubbery wet lips. Like a sort of Ronald McDonald mouth. Sort of like wet slobbery guy on those fucking cruise ships dressing people up.

I'm not a big fan of dudes with captain's outfits on either. Unless you've served actual time. Well, he did. He was in the Navy. And he did command ships, apparently. But he was apparently not very good at it. I think he badly commanded ships. He was removed from his duty.

But the point is, after he got out, he decided, I'm still rocking this captain's outfit. I'm not letting this go. Fuck. You're're not a genuine captain they'll believe anything's higher trust me i got a boat bitch i'm gonna make some shit up and i'll have them for quite a while and make a good business of it dare watch me there he is yeah hi skipper madman look at that fascinating i mean about the liquid around the mouth anyway but i suppose people that are scientologists will say this is our religion and uh you're taking the piss out of our religion it's an ideology that is also a very positive one in the sense that it's dedicated towards self-improvement and eliminating all these psychological barriers that are holding you back and in that way people find a lot of benefit in being a part of that religion and i think when they find a lot of benefit in being a part of that religion.

And I think when they find a lot of benefit in being a part of it, then, you know, they can justify all the other nonsense and just sort of ignore it. Because what L. Ron Hubbard,

according to the Going Clear book, the Lawrence Krauss book, was trying to do was self-medicate. He had a lot of psychological issues himself, and he was trying to cure his own issues.

And in using these methods to cure his own religion, or his own issues, he translated them into a religion. Yeah. Like, this was a big part of what Scientology initially was, was his own attempts to self-diagnose and treat his own psychological ailments. Quite a good idea, really.

Yeah, great idea. In the beginning, like like and sort of works really well and there are i suppose people that it's working for i like a quote i heard that i liked was be quick to see where religious people are right you know it's all really obvious where religious people are wrong you know because we sort of hear about it on the news but like where religious people are right you know sort, sort of togetherness, selflessness, relationship with a deeper self, acceptance of death and the possibility of transcendence of the human primal self. Those things are all really beautiful ideas that have kind of lost their way in a science, you know, that term scientism, the idea that science has got into territories that science can't really handle. Because we come to a juddering full stop at certain points, you like what happened on the tuesday before the big bang you know right materialism

materialism and individualism yeah are hard things to overcome if like if if people if we are if we have as our dominant mindset i'm only going to believe shit that i can prove then you are just an individual and you may as well just do you. Why not just spend your life fucking as many people as you can and accumulating as much material as you can because nothing exists unless you can see it, measure it, weigh it, contain it and fuck it. If that is the dominant belief system, which sort of materialism, consumerism, capitalism,

I think all dovetail on that premise. This is all that's real. That's how you can have the chronic ecological disrespect is because it doesn't matter what happens after you're dead. What about my fucking children? Even just on a practical level, I've got to live on this fucking pebble in infinite space. But if you're just like, well, we've not really thought about that.

You know, sort of an inability to accept, you know just like, well, we've not really thought about that, sort of an inability to accept certain... I know that you're sort of like... I don't wholesale buy any dominant theory, but I think it's clear to me that... Do you know what I believe in? On an individual level and on a cultural level, if something is possible, you should be trying to fucking do it. So as soon as people realise, hold on a minute,

that's having a negative impact, or, hey, this is a better way of using our resources and our utilities as soon as you realize it you should be moving towards it they say wisdom is acting on knowledge once you've recognized our fossil fuels are running out it's like right fucking hell we better start working on the basis that we're fucked we better start looking at alternative energy sources we better look at different alliances you know you just like knowing those things and not doing them it makes me very very uneasy because it makes me think who benefits from ignoring this stuff who's running this show if it's having all of the you know if it's creating all this rage all this unease all this fear in

your country and in my country now times of great great disease and uncertainty for people really looking for something and know that these institutions are just saying, just carry on. There's no sort of alternative. No one now is going to see himself as part of a religious community in the same way or as one of the dead ideologies of the last century. And meanwhile, we're in this sort of peculiar state of looming crisis that feels kind of fucking mad to me. Well, we're definitely in a state of looming crisis. But to unpack fucking mad to me well we're definitely in a state of

looming crisis but to unpack this whole thing you started off with this idea of what happened the tuesday before the big bang and how science can't really answer that well they can't answer it yet like the the problem is once they gather more data it might be a hundred years now or a thousand years from now they can say oh well here we've done the calculations and we understand now that it's an infinite cycle of birth and death and the universe is constantly expanding and contracting and this is the process that we're a part of it's infinite and it's never started it is never ending it goes on and on and on i think you're probably bloody right mate but like that idea that you just espoused is in 5 000 year old fucking documents yes like called the apanishads you know those ideas like those

ideas are there already. When we fucked off religion 100 years ago because it was causing too much arseache, we kicked out of some of the ideas that are only now just being discovered. Right, but those ideas are just to be contemplated right now and to be considered, whereas science is trying

to find definitive evidence that they do or don't represent the reality of our timeline and once they do then they'll be able to talk about it but right now what they're doing is they're examining the evidence that the big bang exists and what could have possibly caused that yeah that now see what my difficulty is is that there are that is when any ideology behaves dogmatically and prohibitively, like prevents further exploration. Like what's an example of that?

The nature of consciousness. No one knows why consciousness impacts matter in the way it does in the sub-quantum world. No, we've come to a point where it's like, oh, fuck. Like if you were like the famous double-slit theory that an observed particle behaves differently, like, you know, that a particle in a wave can change its essential nature depending on whether or not it's being observed.

It's kind of misrepresented, though, when it's been explained to me by people who actually understand it. What it really is is that we're measuring these particles, and in the act of measuring, you're changing the results because you're using something to measure it. Yes. Yes. But it gets represented as all this woo-woo craziness.

But what I think is interesting, Joe, is somewhere between this woo-woo craziness and the kind of a flat mundane, look, this is life. You're born. You die. You eat food. Shit comes out your arsehole territory. Somewhere in there is a mystery that behind your eyes, behind Jimbo Jamie's eyes and my eyes, there is a constant, there is this consciousness, there is this awareness,

there's this inexplicable experience that you've had on DMT, experiences that I've had through yoga and through LSD, that suggests to me that consciousness itself is the dominant force. Consciousness is not just one more phenomena, it is the seat of all phenomena. And when people are saying, oh, there's this thing that's God, what they are saying is there is an absolute consciousness and all is contained within it. All matter at some point has come from consciousness. These realms, they're experienced through psychedelic or extreme,

you know, personal experiments like your cryogenic things or your flotation tanks all suggest a phenomenon beyond individual consciousness. There's something else there. And the very fact that, you know, that consciousness,

even by the process of measuring, even by the process of measuring is influencing and impacting reality. I don't think that, you know, I'm not taking that to the extremes. I know what you mean, mate. Some people go, oh, that means your mind can control shit. I mean, I don't think it means that.

It means that reality is only reality when you look at it. That's what it's kind of getting towards. A bloody good book that I reckon your listeners will be bang into is called Biosentrism by a man called Robert Lanza, who he did the best breakdown i've ever read of that double slit experiment and of and of the the the you know made me understand for the first time that reality is happening within your own consciousness it's not an external phenomena at all that you know like he explained in very ways that i could understand of like he went you know

you sort of think think something totally mundane he went like you know the experience of going in your kitchen in the night and turning the light on is your kitchen fridge still there when you go back downstairs he goes well he goes when you do go in your kitchen and turn the light on he goes you know photon parcels of photons come down they interact with the optic nerve they translate they're inverted in your consciousness you go you know so whatever it is that's in your kitchen when you're not looking at it, it ain't the same as when you are looking at it. It's an interpretive reality. And one of the ways that I've sort of reduced this down

from my own simple understanding is this, that if none of us had a sense of smell, if you didn't, I didn't, Jamie didn't, and then how would the concept of smell make sense? How would you go, oh, there's paint and there's bacon? None of us would have the instrument to receive it. So that whole thing would be off the agenda so i think that there are streams of energy streams of data for which we do not have the instruments to receive so we totally discount it

because we simply don't have the instruments to receive it and i said once in my stand-up as a matter of fact like my cat doesn't know there's an internet the internet does not enter the realm of my cat's consciousness but the fucking internet's out there we're out here having all these fucking experiences and like all those realms that we're experiencing in these various sort of psychedelic states or you know however they're achieved is an indication to me there's another reality now where does that become fucking relevant to what we're talking about for me here where it does is one of the continual ideas that keeps from merge re-emerging to connect us back to where we were with Joe Campbell at the beginning

is there is this fucking sense of oneness and believing ourselves to be individual and believing the dominant thing in our lives to be material. That fucks us up because people will kill each other over that material. And once we sort of realise, no, the true thing about us is the consciousness, is the inner self. That's the real thing. Now, we're all out here, we're all in the game, we're all going to do shit and we're all going to make mistakes

but let's not have the material idea as the dominant social idea because everyone's agreed with that whether they're communists or capitalists or fascists or whatever everyone's saying now the main thing is this shit that's out here and it's like that connects to those primal drives because you know that if that taps into your sexual drive you can never have enough pussy if that gets into your status drive you can never have enough status and power you know so like is we're all going to still feel those things i'm still going to be a cunt 25 times a day but it'd be nice if the cultural ambience was oh don't worry russell you'll be back to your normal self in a minute of feeling that we're all one and we're all connected not yeah well of course

i'd feel like that you know like that and that's what frightens me about the culture of our countries at the moment is it's endorsing the worst aspects of our nature. It's acculturating the worst aspects of our nature instead of the best aspects of our nature. And for me, there's no fucking difference between left and right in the current political sphere because they're all making the same argument. They're all saying, come and live out here in the material world. Yeah, it seems to me that the material world

and this idea that we should be accumulating possessions and status and all these different things is universal. It almost seems like it's a natural progression from ancient tribal civilization life to this weird city life to this integration of electronics in our life and this symbiotic relationship that we have to computers and the Internet and information itself.

It seems like this is one of the things that drives that is this desire for material possessions. Because when you have a desire for material possessions, it ensures that you're going to continue to innovate and come up with newer and greater and better. Because you always want to keep up with the Joneses. You always want to have the newest Tesla because it goes 0 to 60 in 2 seconds. And you want to have the coolest fucking house with the biggest TV and the fastest internet

and all those things sort of compound this technological innovation cycle that we're on. So my thought has been for a long time that what we are is some sort of an electronic caterpillar that's going to give birth to some artificial life and that all of our desire for material possessions and status and all these different things is really just us pushing forth this electronic agenda,

and that this innovation and the construction of artificial intelligence that's inevitable is eventually going to be the next stage of life, and that we're like huddling ourselves up in this sort of civilization cocoon, and that boom, out of that cocoon cocoons gonna pop some sort of a god being and that this is what we're here for and this is what we've been doing since we're monkeys flinging shit at each other and Flipping over cow patties looking for mushrooms that we are a part of a process and then if you look at it objectively all these traps that you or I or Tom Cruise or Jim Brewer been caught up in when Whether it's traps of ego or jealousy, all these things sort of ensure movement.

They ensure movement. They ensure interactivity. And that is going to ensure innovation and progress and competition. And all those things that even when we look at it, we go, this is so pointless. This is so foolish. But yet it's so incredibly prevalent. Not glorifying it or saying it's definitely the way to go, but objectively, if you weren't a human

and you're stepping outside of this thing, looking at it from a distance, you're like, these fuckers are making something. They might not even know they're making something, but they're making something. I understand the same way that bees or ants may not be aware of the hive consciousness and the common drives.

But where I disagree with you, Joe, is that you see the end point as being the materialization of a super consciousness through technology. I see the end point as being a realization amongst us as a species.

It could be both. It could be both. There is no reason to assume. We are just another fucking... Are we just another species on this planet? Are we really no better than dogs and cows and monkeys? don't i you know how can we most

certainly are if the if the very sun that heats us up has a lifespan yeah where are their inventions as well the cats and the monkeys they've done fuck all they're cute they invented being cute i mean they're the real darlings they sit in your lap you pet them you like it they need to fucking contribute no they're contributing take the dog for a walk, you come up with good ideas, you rub his belly, you feel good. I do love my dog Bear. But hold on,

what was my point there? I think you want to pump the brakes. What you're saying is we should pump the brakes. We should pump the brakes of this possession and this idea that we're trying to accomplish these great things by accumulating things and status and it's all bullshit it's really about consciousness more than anything in fact bill hicks i think already said it when he said that you know that we we can

be explored we can explore space in and out together in peace not that that idea that if we looked at our common drives it's like you know like hancock all the time i've heard him on your show saying like that you know that what really what's happened is a bias towards a particular aspect of our own consciousness the problem solving brain and like you know there's no those drives are amazing those drives they're trying to get somewhere technology is amazing like you know the very fact that people bloody hear us i don't understand anything it's fucking wonderful but the dominant idea behind it one one of profit, that dominating idea. And profit in itself is not necessarily negative, but profit at all costs, profit at any cost.

So really, I'm not saying we should as a species fucking slow down and dress in felt and fucking grow around vegetables. There's no fun in that. I want human beings to be glorious. But what I'm saying is that our bias towards this one particular materialistic idea is preventing us from realizing that glory because part of our consciousness has been ignored. Yes, but you from the time Can anyone say yes, but?

I think we all agree on that. I'm dumb, so I dumb it down and I go back to Pink Floyd. We don't need no education it all we all aware you don't have a chance or your chance your back is against the wall from the time you come out of the womb because you're you're saturated with false images you're saturated in our society god is money and, and there is no soul there.

And it takes people like you and I to go there and go, there's nothing. It doesn't fucking matter because it's so oversaturated. That's why Kardashians are huge and this person's huge because it's almost laughable. Because the more you put it out there, the harder they attempt, oh, hit them on their cell phones. Well, here's phones. The kids are going to be on it 24-7.

It just, it's massive overload. It's the more your brain goes this way, the more they go. Yes, yes. Well, we're not designed for this amount of information coming in, that's for sure. No.

We're not designed to be connected with 7 billion people all over the world. We're not designed for this amount of information coming in. That's for sure. No, we're not designed to be connected with seven billion people all over the world We're not designed to seeing a camera placed on someone that doesn't have anything good to say Anything interesting said all but they're constantly on camera and they're editing it in the way that your short attention span is sort of connected To this thing because every 15 seconds are giving you a new camera angle and that's by design It's like it interfaces like they figured out how to do these reality shows where they edit the shows like a music video where you're constantly changing the angle so you you're constantly stimulated if you just had kim kardashian sitting across the fucking table from her mom and they were just sitting there for like three hours talking like a podcast you would want a fucking meteor to come from Jupiter and slam right into that goddamn house.

End this now. Stop this before it spreads. What are they doing? But if you keep them going back and forth, and then you cut to a single of them by themselves, bitching about my mom is always ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, and then go back to her. Well, she thinks that she can do this. And then look at my shoes. Look at that watch.

Oh, premiere. Cameras. she can do this. And then look at my shoes. What? Look at that watch. Oh, Premiere cameras and constant changing of angles and constant fucking introducing of a new thing to pay attention to. Sorry. On a stupid small note, on a tiny, tiny note of how powerful

and how far away. My oldest daughter, and I hate to admit it, she sat there and her lips, she came in the room and i told her 20 times don't do that she saw something on the internet sticking her lips in the bottle and it blows her lips up and for three days and everyone's doing it and i wasn't i was mad at her

i went wow this is how many my kids part of that banana land it It's almost like they're laughing at us. Now watch what I can make them do now. But no one's pulling those strings. We're pulling our own strings. Right, but that's how it's a visual. Oh, I see it. That's what I want to be. Look at that image. I have to be that image.

Do you know how many women want to get fat shot into their ass so they look like Kim Kardashian? There's like a whole trend where women are waist training, where they're wearing these corsets and tightening down their fucking organs. And then they're having fat shoved into their ass. They're extracting fat from areas of their body and then reintroducing it into their ass in order to develop this round, ridiculous thing that looks like you're wearing a fucking diaper. To be relevant In our to to imitate the same way, you know, the Suri women have fucking plates in their lips We're imitating patterns that we see they don't necessarily have to make sense

But we're this weird animal that sort of imitates what our surroundings are We imitate our atmosphere in some strange way and we can we can sort of create our own hell that we we you know we reproduce this thing around us that's not just unsuccessful it's it's unsatisfying it's weird it's depressing and we do the goddamn same thing we've become too good at adaptation yeah adapted to a sort of mutated state and that's what we're trying to say earlier with the the influences the the paradigm the template that we're moving towards is too predicated on the material to the point where yeah it's ludicrous things i do like you drawing the comparison between the neck things and the earring things and the connection and ass things that put that power that we're harnessing

all seems to center around innovation when we're pursuing material possessions when we're pursuing physical items we're not talking about like vintage things. Like I'm really into handmade things. I love a handmade bag or a handmade knife. I love the idea that someone created something, crafted something. But those things are the same. Like if you buy a knife that some guy made hammering in one of those vats of fucking fire and bang bang bang you're he's doing it the same way people have done it for hundreds if not thousands of years there's

something fascinating about that and interesting about that but in terms of like progression and innovation it's like you can't compete with these goddamn laptops or phones or any of these things those things are they're getting better and better at this staggering exponential rate. And at the end of that line, if you extrapolate, if you look at it from a distance, you pull yourself away from culture and civilization and look down. What is this super being called the human race? What is this super organism doing?

What's creating better and better things? Well, why is it doing that? Why is it ignoring the very ocean that surrounds it? Why is it sucking all the fish out of the ocean and shitting all the fucking dirt and dust up into the air? But ignoring that while concentrating on the possession and the innovation of all these electronic gadgets. Well, it's got to be something to do with that. It's like a pull. And McKenna used to call it an attractor.

That we're being pulled towards some future attractor, some singularity event, some moment that we are creating, whether we're aware of it or not, but that part of all of our ridiculous behavior in terms of our ego and our drive for success and attention and love and affection, all these different things is really sort of pushing this innovation further and further and affection and all these different things is really sort of pushing this innovation further and further and quicker and quicker that's an extremely interesting idea one thing i was thinking when you're saying that is like every time that's happening like the creativity you're put you know where are these things before they exist you know things exist in this unrealized

realm what you know plato referred to as the realm of ideas that there's an idealized form of all things before they are realized in the material world like someone designing a knife has to consciously conceive of the knife before bringing it into the material world that there's this constant need to pull from this unrealized like whenever i see babies now i want to get him where were you where were you before where was your consciousness tell me what it's like i was friendly and hopefully still am friendly with david lynch the filmmaker and he told me that a friend of his over were outside their kid's nursery and they had a three-year-old kid and a six-month year old don't say years after month six-month old kid and and they heard the three-year-old go the six-month kid uh i need you to tell me about heaven again because i'm beginning to forget

that's creepy isn't it? And it came from David Lynch, so it blew my mind. Where is consciousness before it's realized? But I'm beginning to forget. Oh, it freaked me out a bit. Well, you know, as a person, and Jim, you can back me up on this, as a person who has kids, one of the most bizarre aspects of child raising is that when you have them and they're babings,

these moments when they're little and tiny you think I'm never gonna forget this this is the most powerful moment of my life this is amazing being around them when they're so little and their first words they're talking to you but you fucking forget it you forget it all because you know them as the them they are now at six or at eight or at ten or at fourteen And those incredibly powerful moments, you forget. But meanwhile, you remember some cunt who cut you off in traffic 14 years ago,

and you're like, I should have kicked that fucking guy's ass. I saw him at the red light, and I didn't get out of my car, and it haunts me to this day. I want to drag him out of his car and feed him his fucking teeth. You remember that. But you won't remember your daughter being two, dancing to some music that's on television and everybody laughing and cheering along. You have to see it.

You have to look at a fucking video that you saved on your iPhone and watch it. And you go, oh, yeah, that's right. Oh, my God, what an amazing moment. Somehow or another, almost like dreams, those ideas are erased from the accessible memory in some strange way, or many of them are. So when you hear a three-year-old saying that to a six-month, that is fucking crazy, because it makes you wonder, is that one of the, because that's one of the properties of DMT, by the way, which is the psychedelic that's created by your own brain.

One of the major properties of that dream is how profound the visions are. Incredibly powerful. But then they slip through your hands. They are gone. They're gone just like a dream. When you wake up from a dream and you try to explain it to somebody, you have a very small window where you can explain that dream. So what the fuck is going on in consciousness? Yeah, there's powerful moments though.

There's an eraser. Yes. Yeah there's powerful moments though It's an eraser Yes But there's also Powerful Really good moments Yeah That I've had With each one of my kids That I can Literally out of all the moments

That I said I don't remember this You've stored them In the museum of your mind Yeah I have forgot most But there's a handful That I remember

As if it was yesterday That was on a deeper Yeah Spiritual Conscious level Where we just locked eyes Right And it was a that was on a deeper spiritual conscious level where we just locked eyes and it was a moment and we just knew everything about each other at that moment. Now again, maybe I wanted that moment, but that's how it felt.

And I can count that with each one of my kids where I always go back to going, wow, I really know who you really are and I'm trying to get you back to that. Does that make sense? It does. I think that we have an accessible database. We have a hard drive. We have a certain amount of space and that's been proven

when it comes to how many people you can know and keep in your life. They say that you can keep about 150 people in your life and you can sort of remember these people and you can hold these people but once you go past 150 it gets fucking slippery as shit and you must experience that because you're hold these people. But once you go past 150, it gets fucking slippery as shit.

And you must experience that, because you're constantly meeting people, and people know who you are, and you don't remember them. And after a while, you can go, nice to meet you. And they go, we already met. We met three years ago. And you're like, oh, I forgot. Yeah, I can't maintain this many connections. But it's a hard drive issue.

It's a literal hard drive issue. I forget, what is the fucking, I know it's not Bode's Law is the size of planets. It's, I forget the principle, but the principle is a hundred, whatever the word is. It's 150 people and you keep those 150 people in your head and that's it. It correlates to what we were talking about with the old

chimpanzees and anthropology that there is an ideal size for a community before it becomes like, oh, this is too hard to deal with. But those things you were talking about with your children there are like transcendent moments. Dunbar's number, that's it.

Cool. You're talking about moments where it didn't matter that you're individual A and that's individual B, that there's a clear connection, that something passes between us. And it was overpowering and beautiful just for that moment.

And that keeps me going in certain moments of time, even though I'm 15 years later and 20. No one can describe it to me. I just know, wow, that was a deeper moment. And on some level, that can be broken down, I'm sure, to sort of oxycotocin and this one was triggered by that. There is a sort of a mechanical or material component to even the most beautiful experiences of a sunset or whatever it is but my to return to what you were saying joe before of like how we uh favor negative information there's a clear evolutionary bias for like negative information has to be stored because you know is that a tree or is that a lion you better you know i mean yes you're fucked if it's a lion so negative information does have like priority but what i

you know what where you say about like sort of this continued technological evolution what i what i think is that there's an imperative to have a comparable spiritual evolution revolution and how i think that can occur is like the more that i meditate and spend time doing that sort of stuff it gives me a more of an awareness of the kind of phenomena you're talking about about the positive things and like you know about oh my god i must hold this moment in my heart the moment where my dog done that or the moment i found out my girlfriend was pregnant don't fucking let this go don't let this go make this part of who you are as a character and try to prioritize it over negative things or when someone hurts you you know and i think that one has more

determination over that more more authority over that, if you have meditation as part of your life, if you have a spiritual component to your life. When I was a teenager, I noticed that my mates were all the time, it's like, you know, when I was hanging with my mates, we were smoking loads of draw, then we'd get in the car, we'd go out, they'd go to work, my mate would, like, he worked in a car factory, and then he would go and work doors, you know, doing security. And I thought, this guy never ever is, like, just in he's never still he's never in reflection he's always engaged with

some external thing he's a really lovely guy as a matter of fact he was and i but like i i became aware then that like that's myself that i was like you know part of my addiction was these uncontrolled drives always wanting something approval sex like i was unable to be still and be in the cell and like so many fucking things like you know like i'm not a christian but there's so many things biblical things like uh you know the kingdom of heaven is spread upon the earth but man sees it not the kingdom of heaven is within be still and know that i am god you know like you know sort of like for me all the fuzzy fucking rapture cloud kingdom bullshit you know like you know that's no use to anybody but when people are saying to you it's in there it's in there it's there already

you know like there's no of course we are also living in a material world and i'm a material girl so we can't sort of like we can't we can't drop the drive to continue to create these are great achievements as a species but a part of it has got to be you know learn how to connect yourself learn how to connect to your emotions learn how to connect to your emotions, learn how to store positive experiences and learn how to let go of negative ones. You know, if that data isn't out there, if people, you know, we've all got our paths, haven't we? We've all got our individual attributes and skills. Like you said, if we were on communism island, you know, you need people like to people to be realizing what is their part of the divine. What is the little part of you that's trying to realize itself,

but life's kept fucking knocking you back and the systems kept breaking you down and you've not got to realize that thing that you can feel like a tree you're trying to grow into. That's the part of it that I think can only happen as part of a spiritual evolution. And I think you can only get the ticket to the spiritual evolution if you learn to deal with this fucking mad stimulating bullshit that we're jacked up on. It's what you said. You meditate, you got to turn it all off. It's really hard.

You got to turn it all off. Nothing. And then your mind will have a chance to grow. I also think that that's where the compelling feeling to gravitate towards that comes from. A dissatisfaction with the material world. Dissatisfaction with this idea of possessions and that there is some sort of a weird ebb and flow and a yin and yang to the world.

And sometimes you have to see the fucking disastrous effects of just giving in to material possessions and the compelling feeling of wanting attention and nonsense and just gathering up items and living in the biggest house. You have to almost feel the emptiness of that to gravitate towards a spiritual approach. And I think that's one of the reasons why those things are there.

It's almost like people who do horrible things, like sometimes I feel like horrible things when they're manifested by the human race, they can give birth to a lot of positive reactions because people don't ever want to be like that. And they see that and they go, well, this is definitely not the way to go because we're kind of all going through it together. One of the things about the human mind and the human experience, like being a conscious human, is we assume that we're this static thing. Meanwhile, we're very well aware that evolution exists all throughout the natural world. And we're also well aware that we've only really been this thing for like, what, a half a million, quarter of a million years? It's not been that long that

you could go back and find an ancient human and they look like you could put it in your clothes and put it in a movie theater and we wouldn't freak out. It's not that long. It's a short amount of time. So if you think about the fact that we know that these animals and these things are constantly evolving and changing and adapting all around us, why would we assume that we're in some sort of a static state? I think that our own gravitation towards material possessions and our own use of this new form of interacting with each other through social media and the internet and movies, all those things are new. We have to understand that mass media is fucking new as shit all of it newspapers are new as fuck everything everything's a couple hundred years old the oldest shit is a couple hundred years old photographs couple hundred years old we're dealing with really really really new influences on the mind and the mind is developing and expanding and reacting to all these new things

and sometimes it reacts in a very negative way like it gravitates towards the kardashians and it goes towards fucking possessions and it wants the shiniest new thing to show everybody that you've arrived and it's it's it's a part of a cog an unconscious cog in this machine that's just producing new items. And then sometimes there's a guy like you who sees that and goes, there is no soul to that. I'm going to jump in the fucking lake near this royal's house. And I'm going to experience what it's like to freeze my dick off. And I'm going to carve a new path. And I'm going to separate.

And I'm going to try domesticity. And I'm going to try abstinence. And I'm going to try to find some sort of a new way of addressing my dissatisfaction with the current state of the world that I find myself in. Oh, I like that. That was a fucking good rant. I need a nap. It was deep. It was. I need a nap. It happens a lot in here, doesn't it?

It does. I need a nap. But there's a part of that in all of us. We're all just going, this ain't it. Maybe this is it. This ain't it. Maybe it's yoga. Maybe it's Scientology. Maybe it's being a moony. Maybe it's this. Maybe it's that. Maybe this's Scientology. Maybe it's being a moonie. Maybe it's this. Maybe it's that. Maybe this fucking chick is holding me back and I need a goddamn divorce. Get the fuck away from me. I'm going to wear a captain's outfit now.

I'm going to find some chick who lives by the beach. He's got to have a captain's outfit. I've always wanted to live out of my car and travel around the world. I'm going to put a bed in the backseat. It's like this satisfaction. And it's been happening forever the world. I'm going to put a bed in the backseat and, you know, it's like disaffection. And it's been happening forever. Yes. Can I go to the toilet, please?

You're a maniac. Please do. Go right through there. Yeah, right through that door. It's going to seem weird. It's going to seem like it. No, because I've got to pee. Can I be honest with you?

I was trying to be a man. I mean, for me. It's going to be weird to be in another room that ain't got you lots of voices in it. No, don't worry about it. I'm going to freak out. You've drank three waters. I've drank two in one, and I got to piss like a horse.

And I can hold this shit in for another day. It takes a strong bladder to do a podcast, Jim. Oh, my God. By the way, I should just say while we're doing this, one of the reasons why I really got into doing a podcast, there's a bunch of them. Opie and Anthony were a big one, but your fucking show was a big one, man.

When I did your show and we did it at that joke place, the joke place on Ventura Boulevard, bunch of them uh opie and anthony were a big one but your fucking show was a big one man when i did your show and we did it at that joke place the joke place on ventura boulevard remember you were in la yeah and you were in town and uh i had done your show like calling in before but i'd never like we never done together i was like this is so fucking fun just hanging well what i loved about that one too is you it what that thing allowed me to do is, believe it or not, thought provoke and let other people. To me, one of the greatest moments ever was you called in and we were all sitting there. And you went into this whole thing of these are the times of truth and this and that. And I think you spoke for 45 minutes straight.

And I just kept looking at everyone going, don't just let him go. This is fascinating. Let him go. Where else can you have this? And one of my guys made like this whole Pink Floyd music and he put it on the internet. I said, you got to get that on the internet. And I think I remember calling you or telling you going, Joe, that was the most fascinating thing I ever heard in my life.

High as fuck. So high I thought I was going to die. But it doesn't, I'm sure you were. But you never were allowed to even think like that on radio. And one of the things you said too, which was my favorite part was, and again, I ended up fearing it because I didn't want people thinking it, was our opening song, which just explained, it was just the four of us, we came out, two of the guy musicians, and you came in, you're like, bro, that is the greatest theme song I ever heard in my life.

And I was like, really? Yeah. What was you? Well, it was me and the guys, and we were just really just talking and we riffed it and i said don't even don't even change it let's just do that it was perfect what was real yes and then i knew i i'm i knew when i heard you were like you you have you need to be in this world it's great to it's it's great to have you in this world it's refreshing it's thought provoking it's powerful it's i love it man i'm very very i i love it yeah well i love it too man

it's a it's a unique time you know that we can we can have something like this and when i was on your show i was like man i need to get one of these satellite radio shows these are the shit i didn't know there was going to be an internet version of that where you don't have any bosses and it reaches even more people. It doesn't make any sense at all. Somehow or another, a path has been carved through the information highways that people have never been on before. It's only like 10 years old.

And through that path, you reach everybody and it's free. Like it violates all the ideas of capitalism you don't have to pay for it it's massively successful and there's a 500,000 of them and it lives forever yeah forever forever so people can constantly discover it to you allegedly just allegedly I mean I'm what I'm saying is like we not might not make it you know asteroid hit well whatever until that happens it'd be nice to know that someone that's never even heard of you. Oh, yeah.

And 20 years down the road, they're going, you need to listen to this conversation. Russell Brand was in there in this day and age. Listen to that. And 20 years from now, they're going, you know, that makes a lot of sense. It's pretty awesome. This is the great part of social media It's also that it's all free And they're all available

You can get 800 plus episodes of this thing anytime you want it And when things are free You can be more honest and more passionate About what you're putting out there Because no one's paying you to say anything Well did you ever get any pressure When you were doing the satellite show Did anybody ever come to you and go

Hey Jim we listen to that show, and you guys are, you got to fucking tone it down. Never. That's amazing. Never. That's amazing. I have to honestly say never, never, never, never. Because Opie and Anthony got suspended a couple of times, even from satellite radio.

They were getting, first of all, they were getting a lot of commercial money. Yeah. Yep. They certainly were. they were getting a lot of commercial money. Yeah. Yep. They certainly were.

And they rubbed the wrong side of the madness. Yeah. You know, it was all over Fox News like, you don't do this. Well, they were kind of compromised in some sort of a weird way, whether they wanted to be or not, because they were making a fuckload of money. And as soon as a company is paying you

X amount of money every year and they get upset about something or they feel feel like the advertising revenue is going to dry up because you guys have said something crazy like you remember when they had that homeless guy on who said some crazy shit about condoleezza rice no yeah they got suspended for like a year or like a month or something like that they had uh some might be a week making up numbers they um had some homeless guy on it came on and said he wanted to rape Condoleezza Rice. Oh, wow.

And they were like, what the fuck? And they just had some crazy guy off the street, and he talked all kinds of crazy nonsense, and he left, and it's all live. It's live, there's nothing you can do about it. They got a homeless guy on the air. I mean, what the fuck are they going to do? LP didn't say it, Anthony didn't say it But because it was on their show They pulled the show and it was probably because of political pressure or pull that pressure from the Bush administration

This is also coincidentally during the time where I mean Howard Stern It was just after the time of Howard Stern getting sued over and over again by the government Remember they would they would give these massive lawsuits, and that drove him to satellite radio. Right. And even in satellite radio, they weren't safe. So even in satellite radio, he moved to satellite radio, he moved to Sirius. They were on XM at the time. I think it was before the merge of Sirius XM, or maybe right afterwards.

But either way, they weren't free, even under the banner of this free thing on satellite radio. Right. The political machine still had influence. Yeah, we never were told, don't say this. That's amazing. Don't do that.

Because you had some wild fucking shows. They would do. They would go, hey, listen, you know, ratings time. It looks good if you guys were to come up with a biggie kind of entertaining show. And then that would, like that we can get out there

and the, uh. Did you get to choose guests? Um, yeah. Like all of them? They weren't running to us, trust me.

But did you get to veto anybody? Yeah, I couldn't tell you who. There was a million guys like, I don't know anything about this guy. I don't want to talk to him. Oh, okay. What am I getting out of that?

So they bring suggestions to you? I'm just, I'm going to be a dick. Yeah, see, that's a beautiful thing about the time that you were involved in it, too, because you were involved in it back when I was on Fear Factor because the stunt guys fucking loved your show, man. I had to do this thing where I got in the truck. We had to drive to some location and was hanging out with these stunt guys, and they were playing

your show when it was on Raw Dog. Yeah. And they loved it, and they were like, dude, it was on raw dog yeah and they loved it and they were like dude brewer show is the fucking best and it was really wild and raw and i was like you maybe couldn't even do that today well those are my best friends growing up and my best friends was jimmy shaka who was deep and we would have these conversations for hours and it really bothered me that there was no outlet for this anywhere. You had to be a freak or weirdo, hippie or whatever.

And then I had another best friend on there who works for FedEx. He had the blue collar. He's stuck in that blue collar neighborhood. He's a little racist, but he won't really. But this is just who he is. And then you had Correale, who was just, he'll say whatever. He'll just go and say whatever and do whatever. So it was great to have all these different views, honest views.

And the big rule was no news, no pop culture. If you bring pop culture on the show, you're out. We're anti-pop culture. You're out. You're fired. Get that name, you're banned forever. Well, that's beautiful in a lot of ways. But it was a hang, too.

It was a hang. I was trying to get it back to tribalism, whatever. At the end of the day, isn't some of the best times you have conversations like these are when you're with the people you trust the most that could be the kid you grew up with it could be it could be anyone a family member someone you just met and you're just hanging out at the end of the night you don't care what this one's doing or that one do and you're just hanging out there's a fire you're

talking at the end of the day it's all the same shit what's out there who really knows what's this who really fucking knows let's talk about and try to figure out for three hours and when we get out of it who really fucking knows yeah time for bed my kids getting up in six hours but it felt great you're all doing it together yeah you trust each other i'm not am i crazy for saying this i might be he'll tell me dude you're fucking crazy why would you say that's stupid? That's stupid? Why is that stupid?

And just that, that was pretty cool. We balance things off of each other and they make more sense that way. If I trust you and your instincts and your mind and I tell you something that I believe and you refute it and I go, oh, okay, I have to consider his point of view. Because if I trust your point of view and your point of view differs from mine, well, how did he come to this conclusion and why is it so different than my own? And by absorbing a bunch of different points of view like that, it gives you a much more nuanced perspective of this existence. And you have to be open. I'm not out to win the conversation. Right. I'm just, we're

just here to learn from it more. That's important. People have to be open with that. And I think we've all been guilty of not being open to that before wanting to be right But it's important to not just embrace being wrong But try to understand why you were wrong try to understand like what it was and not be connected in some weird ego way to Your ideas it's hard to get just a joke fuck. Yeah, but it's like all those other things that we're talking about I mean like you saying that you have this this is gravitation towards You saying that you have this gravitation towards expelling all of these ridiculous notions that everybody's just sort of accepted as fact and truth and trying to connect with a much more spiritual life. Well, that means you've got to think about it.

It's got to be a conscious thing. Not being married to them and not being invested in being correct or incorrect, but just sort of accepting them as just ideas and be able to go, yeah, I think you're right. Why was I thinking that? And that's hard for people to do. I know this is stupid, but I saw a statement. It was a tourist spot, but I passed the tourist spot. I went in the house, and there was a statement in there and I never it just it's simple

but it just blew my mind and it said one person could change the whole world for a better as long as they don't give a damn who gets that credit oh my god

and that they have a fucking date and I and I thought like if you really don't if you just want to sit back you just want to see things better yeah and you really can change it for the better but you don't have to worry about going you know so-and-so said that or someone so set that up yeah so-and-so did that because now

you're doing it for a different reason that's amazing yeah I'd never heard that before I'd never heard that before until like sort of like yesterday. I saw that quote and that's a problem that I continually have. Yeah. All of us. Wanting to own ideas. And I think part of what's excellent about this medium and particularly the way it's being executed by you lot is that it's discourse.

You know, like this kind of thing is not really like you know like you said the fast moving fast cut sound bite tv just bombarded with an artillery of mostly erroneous information you don't get to people hear people hour after hour talking examining discarding as you said who really knows and returning to that point it's sort of it's sort of encouraging because i've had like you know, like as I I've always thought, you know, I don't agree with like Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity or those guys, but I've always

kind of thought, I bet I'd think they were alright if I hung out with them. There's something about Bill O'Reilly, he's like a curmudgeonly kind of, oh, come on! Like I think I'd think he was kind of okay. I think you would joke around with them and you guys would probably start laughing about some things. And that's kind of a reassuring thing, isn't it?

And like it to not be kind of like once you get attacked, like I think that's what's kind of ugly about both liberalism and neoliberalism. You can see as people just forcing their idea and they've lost touch with and I do it all the fucking time. What is it that we're genuinely here for? lost touch with and like i do it all the fucking time yeah what is it that we're genuinely here for and that thing you said of like you can change the world if like you know no one like if you're willing to do if no one knowing about it that's like ah that the the the pang that i feel in my gut shows me how much my ego is still involved in the shit i do well the lack of discourse but i just saw it i didn't say it i literally saw it yeah but the the lack of discourse like what we we're talking about being one of the more important things about podcasts or one of the best things about podcasts.

I mean, I'm really hoping that that's the trend of the future, that people understand that there might not be a right way or a wrong way to do a lot of these things. And that your point of view, whether you strongly believe it or not, might not really work for the way I see the world. It doesn't mean that you're right or I'm wrong or it doesn't. It doesn't. I mean, there's some certain truths like, hey, don't rape people. Hey, don't murder people. Those things are obvious. But there's some other things that aren't obvious.

You know, there's other things that are not obvious, like maybe you shouldn't hurt people's feelings. Maybe you should mock them because what they're doing is preposterous. And in hurting their feelings, you actually elevate all of us to realize the humor in their folly And I'm a big fan of folly. I enjoy human folly. It's one of the things I enjoy most about humans I'm the quickest to make fun of my own self So if I can't make fun of them what kind of a fucking goofy ass world that we run in we run in some super sensitive World where everyone's a perfect snowflake and we can't shit on them like nonsense you need humility

where everyone's a perfect snowflake and we can't shit on them? Like, nonsense. You need humility. You need humility. Also, humor is real important to unpackage things. Because there's a lot of things that are going on right now in this world that are a little fucking weird. And one of the reasons why they're weird is because humor hasn't had a chance to dissect them. Wow.

I think that I heard John Cleese talking about comedy, and he said that people talk about, like the people are very anti-humour because they know it's powerful, and they often use the idea, hey, don't joke around, this is serious. But you're supposed to joke around about things that are serious. And he said they've mistaken seriousness for solemnity.

And the reason they want to be all solemn about stuff is because they know it prevents people that have got that comedic switchblade from getting into the argument we can detonate shit exactly taking that seriously I'm not playing by those rules and they've also taken away your special power yes it's a special power have it a special power both of you guys have it like they don't have it so if you come in and you deflate their argument with a quick switchblade oh this piece of shit why are you joking around about something really important maybe your white privilege is showing maybe you should consider the fact that your humor is

offensive to a lot of people and what you're doing is bullshit and it's not helping it's very regressive and they always try to use humor though huh? They always stitch it into political discourse. Here's one of the real problems with the left, and especially the regressive left and the people that think that they're going to change things. They're fucking unbelievably mean when they're mocking the right. Like, you're talking about

compassion. Like, I've seen some of the least compassion, meanest, angriest shit, come out of people that consider themselves to be liberal and progressive. And their idea is to close down discourse. What they're going to do is going to shit on you and insult you and then gang up in some sort of a weird bully pulpit to attack all the people that don't agree with them. When I got involved in politics in my country doing that thing, The Truth, the the most and i wrote a book as well like about like called revolution and in that book i talked about like it was basically a book that was meant

to be for younger people and it was like this is my perspective on why i don't believe in this stuff and why i believe in this and it was you know it was relatively simple and again i'm you know like a self-taught person so it's not a book by a fucking academic right the worst vitriol and the worst condemnation came from the kind of newspapers and liberal organizations that i would think would be supportive of such of like you know it's good that this guy from the world of popular entertainment who's not classically educated he's trying to do that no they came in they came in like get the fuck out of our territory shut up shut up who do you think you are? More than any kind of

right-wing organization. They almost see it as going, oh, jolly good. Interesting. Yeah, I was really... People that I thought might be allies, organizations that I thought might be encouraging were very condemnatory. Well, you've got to realize that what is the mechanism that they're

distributing this information with? What are they doing? They're writing their own stories. They're promoting their own blogs. They're doing their own radio shows and, in fact, feeding their own ego, like we were talking about before. That green monster of envy

that sees this fucking guy with a beautiful bone structure and a beautiful accent now all of a sudden he's philosophizing. This piece of shit. He had the wherewithal and the power to go on a sexual rampage, chose to back off of it and realize he was like, all these fucking goddamn things he's got going for him. He's a fucking movie star.

Fuck this guy. Fuck this guy. I'm tearing him down. I'm tearing him down, honey. And he's sitting there with his pot belly and fucking taking his antidepressants and tapping away mean shit on the keyboard, hoping that these mean words hit your mind and they enter into your consciousness

and he can affect you in some sort of a horrible way. Oh, God. The extreme lack of compassion from some people on the left and the green light to attack this fact that, oh, here's this guy and I don't agree with him and i think that what he's doing is sexist and it's misogynistic and it's enabling and let's get him we got a target right on his back attack oh he's doing press oh well i'm gonna be involved in this press i'm gonna throw my fucking hat into the ring as ring as the arbiter of intelligent ideas to dismay, or dismantle, rather, all these fucking stupid thoughts that this shithead with his perfect bone structure and man bun is pumping out.

Fuck him! Fuck him. Professional wrestling. Yeah. Professional wrestling. Well, it's people, man. People jockeying for their own little fucking shining moment in the darkness. Pizza front.

See, I go conspiracy. Pizza front. All right. Here's what our magazines about conspiracy Is it conspiracy which is the thought why does it have to be called conspiracy? I think the word conspiracy is a conspiracy The best at this. We're through the looking glass now. A conspiracy in itself is a conspiracy. Damn, he'd fucking shut it all down. Shut it all down.

He knows. Yeah. I mean, there's definitely some real conspiracies. But I think that there's just a natural emphasis or a natural inclination to shit on people that are doing better than you or shit on people that have something good going on. And also when you're writing a story about something, how much fun is it writing a story that's positive? And how much more satisfying is it to unhappy people to write a negative review about something? It's much more exciting. It's much more fun.

I've seen people distort people's ideas in really horrific ways because that's the old way. Because the old way, you could write a blog about something or an article in a magazine or whatever about someone and distort it in horrible ways. They really didn't have any recourse. But that old way doesn't really work anymore. It doesn't work.

Direct access because of media like this. Sure. So I'm thinking that I would like to start a podcast. Fuck yeah! You should definitely do one. You've never done a podcast? Do one in my country. Oh my god. You can do it anywhere you go. Do it wherever you want. Yeah. You can bring it anywhere with you. Do it whenever you want.

I've done them in Australia. I've done them all over the world. You can do it anywhere you want. All you have to do is have a phone. You do it into your iPhone. Exactly. I just talk on my phone. I just talk on my phone I just talk on my phone I like it You don't have to edit You don't have to do nothing

It's on your phone Your podcast is on your phone Dude you're designed for this You're designed for this Yeah you are Yeah And not only that You don't even have to have a guest

You can have a guest on if you want But you don't You can have a guest on if you want But like Bill Burr Is one of the best podcasts in the world And Bill Burr just rants Unbelievable He just

He rants For like He'll just sit down for a fucking hour and a half and just go off about this and that and it's a stream of consciousness He'll goes from football to his wife or his fucking dog and baking and his internet sucks and he's tired of Construction workers and his driveways a piece of shit and he just he'll go on and on and on you could do that, too What your main things you've learned from doing this what are the main things you think right this is how you do a podcast what are the things that that the rules the structures that you have learned man that's there's almost i've learned so much i've learned how other people perceive me i've learned how i perceive other people i've learned what my maybe my own problems in perception are. I've, uh, I've sort of tried to examine as many things as possible. It's not a

master course in human interaction for me. That's what I've thought of it. I mean, I've had 800 plus podcasts where I'm interacting with all sorts of different people. So it's a, it's a fascinating way to understand how people think and to just chunk data just chunk data about how people react and talk and communicate how has it evolved from your original vision of doing of podcasting to how it is now have you become more free with it less formulated yeah well i don't think it was ever formulated but i've been better at it i'm just better at it but when the podcast started out it was just i just wanted to figure out a way to do something like something free where you're just just doing it with a camera or you're responding to twitter questions or

trying to my thought was i've done a bunch of radio shows everywhere i go everywhere i go i promote a comedy gig i do a morning show i had a great time god i would love to do one of those but that was so much fun like i would love a radio show. I had a great time. God, I would love to do one of those. But that was so much fun. I would love a radio show, but I don't want a boss. And I was trying to figure out, how the fuck can I do this? And then doing Jim's show and doing the Opie and Anthony show. Opie and Anthony.

Yeah, it was the greatest. It was the greatest. Because when they were together, their show was a hang. Like, if I could call Jim and I'd go, hey, I'm doing Opie and Anthony tomorrow morning. He's like, fuck, I'm doing it too. I'm like, oh, it's going to be so much fun. And we would see each other and get a bagel in the morning and fucking high five and go up there and just laugh. Right.

And you were able to do your own thing. No one's trying to out, you know. It was, that place taught me everything. Yeah, it was a hang. When I started Opie and Anthony. It was a hang. Yes, that was the original hang. I never heard anything like that. Yeah, it was the only radio show that was a real hang,

where you go in there and everybody's just hanging out. And then Jim started doing his show, which is very similar. When I could get to you, your show was a hang, too. It was a hang, because I wanted that model. I loved going into Opie and Anthony and just sitting down, and they're like, what's up, Knight? You didn't have to be on. They didn't like if you did bits.

Right. They didn't want you coming. Don't come in and do a bit. Don't do a bit. Don't come in and do a bit. Don't do a bit. Don't do a bit. Just talk. Yeah.

We want to know. And that goes probably what you went through too. What were you going to say, Russell? Authenticity then. It's sort of about like being, trying to be, like just being normal and being who you are. Yeah. And not imposing. Like, right, coming right up in five seconds.

We've got to do it. You know, like all of those things, like having a boss and having a structure and having like commercial interests yeah constantly and and you're an intelligent person and people like listening to the real you and you don't get that opportunity a whole lot they gave you that opportunity like whoa this is a whole different i never yeah knew this side existed from this person i don't like this person's calm i'm sure people hate my... I fucking brew his socks. But I like when he talks real. So that opened up...

It opens up the opportunity for all of that. It was... I'm going to say it was like a revolution. It was pretty intense. I've been on their show and I can see what you mean. That was part of their transition. Howard Stern, surely, you would say as well, like someone that was... For me, yeah.

Like someone that was sort of pioneering what this medium is becoming. But Howard was absolutely the original. Case closed. He's the first, he's the most important guy in the history of radio. Because he was the first guy that got arrested, or fined rather. I mean, he got in some serious legal problems because of the things that he was saying on the air. And kept doing it. And he was the original guy who would just be blatantly honest.

And he was the first real reality show. He'd call his wife. He would call. Oh, the guy's working on the light. Let me talk to him. Let me talk to the guy. And you sit like, he's going to talk. God, I want to talk to the plumber.

And he did all this on regular radio. Right. When no one was doing that and everybody was playing music. They would have these little things they would do and then they would play a song. And he had to do that in the beginning. He had to do the songs. He would make his humor in between the songs. But eventually he was like, fuck these songs.

I'm just going to be me and have a good time and talk shit. And he figured out how to do it. He was more rigid and structured. Whereas Opie and Anthony, when they would have guests on, like Brewer and I would be on, maybe Burr would be on, or some other people would be on, and we'd all be on together. And we'd just go in there and we would hang out. And it was literally like the time would fly so fast.

It wasn't a matter of not having enough content. It was like too much content, not enough time. And Howard didn't have that. It was almost like they wouldn't... Howard didn't have that, it was almost like they wouldn't, Howard didn't have that opportunity at the time, where he just came up in a different way, and then once he went to the internet,

I think that blew up to another hole. That blew him up to, everyone said, where is he now? I think he's ten times, hundred times bigger and more powerful. At that point, it became, he evolved in terms of content, or do you mean in terms of impact? Everything.

For me, everything. Everything. Conversation, thought. Well, as soon as things get on the internet, then they can spread freely. So the merit of the conversation, what's interesting about the conversation, then it just gets passed around. And as soon as things just get passed around like that, then someone calls them up, oh my God, you got to hear Jim Brewer.

He was on Howard Stern. Holy shit, is it funny. Have you heard it? You got a link and they send you a link and bam. The beautiful thing about podcasts is someone can tell me, dude, Russell's got a podcast. You got to check it out. Oh, let me check it out. Then you go on your iTunes app and you go,

Russell Brewer. There he is. Bam. Then you're playing it. In seconds, you're in your car and you're playing it. It's free. Now, if I just discovered you, I'm going to go, I want to hear more. Oh, you got to listen to one of his first ones where he wasn't even ready. He didn't know what he was doing. You got to listen to where he went from here to here.

Once they're in, they're in. They love you. They know you. They feel like they're... What experiences have you had that were hard? See, because you've not got bosses or anything, was there ever times you've gone off we should never have had that guy on. that was a mistake that's a couple minor ones really nothing serious you know anecdotal nah just weird conversations where you just kind of

learn better about how to handle those moments it's it's a it's almost like you're learning on the job right it's like i never did a show before. I never just spoke open and as a form of entertainment. How arrogant. Not just to think that you should be able to speak. I mean, of course, everybody should be able to speak. But the fact that you think that your words are so interesting that other people are going to listen to them? Instead of talking themselves,

they're going to just listen to your talking? Why the fuck would they do that? They're not even there. It's not like someone's right in front of you and you're talking to them. You're trying to be polite so you let them talk no you you're you're downloading their shit right so you can listen to them talk and then you're not going to talk while they're talking like what this is madness right so in learning how to broad broadcast in air quotes learning how to do that you kind of learning by by feedback and also by listening to yourself and listening to other people's podcasts you'll see other like things that great on you about what other people do what like talking over people. That's a big one

We all do it We all shouldn't but we all have an idea that we want to get out We don't know when to do it It's hard to figure out because we're all free ball and when to jump in and when not to Also, some people don't listen to the things that other people say they just wait for their turn to talk. That is a real issue. That's a giant issue because then you ask them about what you just said and they're like, I wasn't listening. How can you not be listening when we're talking? We're not really having a conversation.

We're just exchanging rants. I'm waiting for you to get your completely non-sequitur rant in and then you're going to impress people with your quotes and how much you know about this guy or that guy. And that's a real common thing, is like using it as an ego springboard instead of looking at it. And a podcast is really essentially a piece of art. I mean, it's a grandiose term,

but you're creating something, and you want to create it the best way you can. And you could fuck it up by being loud and stupid and saying a bunch of dumb shit that doesn't feel good to anybody to hear. Or you could say some cool shit that when they listen to this podcast, after it's over, they go, fuck,

I Russell Brand said something that's going to change the way I look at the rest of my fucking life. And that's, that's possible. And that's one of the cool things. This is entirely like, do you think that this is entirely your authentic self? Is there stuff that you withhold when you're in this situation?

Because I've come from more conventional media. Private information about loved ones. But that's it. That's it. I don't want to withhold anything. I don't want anybody else's feelings to get hurt or things along those lines. I've made those mistakes. Have you?

It's just not smart. No, it's not. Because you couldn't resist mistakes yeah it's not smart it's not funny it's not there yeah it's not their choice you know you have to you have to withhold certain things and you know you all some people just want to be private people they don't want to have any part of your fucking parade you weirdo out there talking to the world every day have you had any have you had any negative consequences as a result of, because you have to work in other industries and all of that,

is that only positive? I don't give a fuck. So it doesn't really matter. Yeah, I feel like if you have fuck you money, you don't say fuck you, you're wasting fuck you money. So if I have some real thoughts and I don't express them

because I'm worried about job opportunities, I'm already in prison, whether I like it or not. If there's something important that I have to say, and then the jobs that you do get or the employment opportunities that you do get, they'll be looking for your authentic self. And that's the same sort of situation with

some crazy woman who likes to take some guy and change him. Oh, he's a fixer-upper. They're not going to grab you and go, I know this Russell Burns talking a lot of crazy revolution type shit. Once we get him in the network, put him in a nice suit, he's going to be the best talk show host ever. He's the future Jimmy Fallon.

And at the end of the day, yes, if it comes to entertainment, you're a number. So it doesn't even matter what you say. They believe it or not believe it. You get these people, it doesn't matter. I think we should put him in or not believe it. And you get these people don't. It doesn't matter. I think we should put him in this movie because he's worth this much. And think of, we'll make this much. And this many people will automatically buy tickets because his following is into you.

You almost start controlling your own destiny. But hasn't that happened as a result? Haven't you got, hasn't things happened to you? Not for me. That podcast is powerful. I don't, well well what do you mean like haven't someone gone why don't we put fucking joe rogan in this action movie he's got fucking massive yeah but i don't i don't i'm not interested in doing anything i'm interested in doing less things i'm not interested in anything new i don't want to do any movies i like doing

stuff that has nothing to do with work. I like doing yoga, and I like doing archery. I like writing comedy. I like performing stand-up. I like doing podcasts. I like just doing stuff. I don't want to do someone else's stuff. If some movie came along and it was really interesting, and for whatever reason, it was a short

amount of time I would have to work, I would consider it. But I've passed on a lot of stuff. I just don't have any interest in it. You've taken control of your life through this. Yeah. Well, I've been doing what I actually want to do instead of when, you know, and Jim and I were in a pilot for the very first TV show that I did in 1993. And we've been friends for longer before that, way long before that. But you come here and you think, now I'm going to do this project.

Oh boy, I'm in. I'm on a TV show. And then you get on the TV show, you go, you know what? I don't even like this that much. I like doing standup. Why am I doing this? But you're doing this because they keep coming to you like, hey, we've got a game show and they're going to eat animal dicks and you're going to shoot them out of a rocket.

What do you think? And you're like, I'm in. It's on TV. I'm in. That's what I'm here for. And the money's real fucking good. And you do it after a while and you go, hey, you know what? That's not what I enjoy doing.

What do I actually enjoy doing? Well, I'm just trying to do the things I enjoy doing. What I enjoy doing, I like doing podcasts. I like doing stand-up. I like doing all those extracurricular things that I do. The things that I do that are just interest in life. And then I don't want to differentiate between interests that I do for financial gain or interest to it that I do for mental exercises or for spiritual growth or whatever. I just want to

do things that I enjoy doing. That's really important, isn't it? You get sucked out of your own life. And so many people don't have that kind of freedom creatively on any level, the freedom of, I just want, but but that's the that should be part of more people's experience of life yeah i am happy doing this yeah it makes me like it's really beautiful to hear that that what you're led by is joy because that is another joseph campbell thing follow your bliss find the thing that you're connected to and follow it and when i think of how many times in my life i've got i've lived out other people's ideas as you say like all right now this is hold on a minute, this is what I'm supposed to do.

Again, like Bill Hicks says, this is, look at my money, this has to be real. It has to be real. Because you've bombarded with it and then you realise, oh my God. So if you are lucky enough to get to a position where you can just do things that you enjoy. But how do you, do you think that idea

that you've applied to your own creative lives can be applied if you're fucking living a normal life and you're trapped in a job that you don't fucking like? How do you think you get out of that situation? Well, I think it's like everything else. It takes small baby steps to move out. You've got to move towards that direction. You have to have an absolute game plan and you have to have an actual thing that you enjoy doing. direction you have to have an absolute game plan and you have to have an actual thing that you enjoy doing like say if you're some guy that's trapped in some job but you know like to bring

up something we talked about before you enjoy making homemade knives and you think you're like you know i would love to just be able to make arts and crafts to be able to create something that people buy maybe pottery or something along those lines that would really feel like spiritually and creatively satisfying to me to be able to express myself in in an art form that to do that for a living would be amazing and there's a lot of people that start off in regular jobs and they figure out a way to get to that place and it's not easy and people will fucking bitch and moan at you and tell you how not easy it is and yeah you're saying it's making it seem like it's easy it's not easy a lot us have problems. We got mortgages and children and I need a health care package and rest.

Everybody has resistance. There's always resistance to anything that you're trying to achieve in life. And everybody's setup might be different. Everybody's needs and requirements might be different. They're all different. But if you find whatever the fuck it is that you can do, I guarantee you, you have some time in your day that you can dedicate towards making that a reality. It's a matter of making that time a priority to try to change your current state of existence. How do you do it?

I don't know. I don't know what your existence is. And I can't tell you anyway. Because the way I do things and the way you do things is fucking totally different. Everyone's going to do things different. I'm a kamikaze person. I'm like, let's fucking cut ties, pull the chute, let's go. I'm like, let's get out of here, let's quit.

But I've always been like that. I've always been the burn the fucking house down, you have to make another one. My thought has been just abandon ship, let's get out of here. And find the fucking new thing. But you can't do that when you have a wife and ship. Let's get out of here. And find the fucking new thing. But you can't do that when you have a wife and children. Luckily for me, when I was young and taking crazy chances and moving towards a career and doing something

I actually wanted to do, I didn't have anybody else that counted on me. Once you do, it becomes much more difficult. But not insurmountable. And completely dependent upon what it is you're trying to achieve. I like that. We could start good, Russ. Well, you can start. Go ahead, Russ. Well, I was going to say, how do you bridge it?

Like I said that thing to Tom Cruise that time of being born with that drive, being born with that knowledge of I'm going to do this. Because I identify with that crash and burn thing. And it's been problematic in my life with relationships and stuff. I've got a survival instinct in me. It's like, right, this is fucking mad. I'm out. Yeah, but that's good.

Right. How many people fucking stay and get tortured? Right, yeah, yeah. And they're happy when that heart attack comes. Finally, I get away from this cunt. Goodbye forever! You fucking bitch, I hope you're happy. But see, my thing is that I would like more people in the world to have, like it would be like, you know, Jesus, You fucking bitch, I hope you're happy.

But see, my thing is that I would like more people in the world to have, like it would be like, you know, Jesus, like for more people to have that opportunity. It makes me sad that people will be listening to this thinking, I fucking want that. I want to make my fucking art and craft knives. I want to do it like that. If you've not got a place for that in your life,

then you, like you were saying, then you are in prison. You're fucking fucked anyway. And there are certain systemic changes that could be brought about that would mean that more people would have that opportunity. That's the other thing that makes me sad. What's systemic changes? What I mean is,

is that if we didn't have a culture that was entirely dominated by one economic idea, that more people would be able to sit around making art and crafts. I mean, think of the things that keep coming up again and again in this conversation.

People should live in small tribes. I mean, right, so why the fuck are we not trying to do that shit now? Why are we not going, like, you know, why are we not going? Right, let's try, like, I mean, another word for tribe is Soviet, and people did have a go at that. It went terribly, terribly wrong. But what I'm saying is that these kind of ideas, I mean, look now. I mean, I wonder if that's the template.

What's the next level of this? It's like, right, well, let's try and work on that then. Let's try and bring some of these ideals. Like you have as an individual. Like, can this be collectivised? Can this be brought forward so that more people... Like, you know, do you take that leap of faith that, fuck me, if we did get 150 people together,

of course there's going to be problems and challenges. There's problems and fucking challenges now. We're not competing with perfection. We're competing with a defunct system that's really causing a great deal of negativity and problems what would happen if people did start to try and create alternatives i too would happen you'd be killed no i don't think you don't think so no i don't think there's any code right out if you went right we're setting up a system 150 people where this is our new podcast experiment

we're setting up a utopia. Only when you become a threat. And you have to become a threat financially or you have to become a threat militarily. One of the things about these fucking Waco-type dudes, they always gather guns. They fuck everybody's wives and they have a stockpile of ammunition. Then you become a threat. David, what's the stockpile of guns

and the fucking everyone's wives doing? Oh, no, just focus on the Jesus. It's Jesus. That's how Jesus rolls. Right. Once you become a threat. And that's the only way. Violence is the only real threat.

It's also dangerous. You don't think it's a threat to expound those ideas and spread those ideas? It's controversial. But I don't think anybody looks at it and says, you know what? This motherfucker is going to take money out of my bank account. I think people are so engrossed in their own life, in their own progress, their own path of conquering. I don't think they think about it that way unless you cross them. Unless you say, you know what, goddammit, this Rupert Murdoch is fucking up the world

and I'm going to expose him and I'm going to let the world... Then you've created an issue. Then you've gone into battle with a man with unfathomable resources. I tried that. How'd that work out? Not good, Joe. Now, see here, Lord Vader. I'm a bit bloody sick of all this.

You see his wife? He's got a hot wife. Of course he has. Amazing. I love how stereotypes just play themselves out over and over and over. At least Donald Trump's wife, I go, that's what I like to see. I like to see the same thing over and over again. I'm tapping out.

I'm in pain. I've got to pee. Go ahead, man. No worries. Yeah, I think we, you know know one of the things McKenna said that always resonated with me is that so many people do the man's work for the man and they're so worried about the repercussions of being free or expressing themselves or discussing psychedelics they do the man's work for

the man by not by being scared and shackling themselves and expressing yourself in a way that makes sense. You know, like, I think one of the things that's most interesting about McKenna's lectures, where he was in sort of the infancy of the internet, where he did a lot of them, is he expressed himself in a way that's kind of really similar to, like, podcast rants. But way before their time. He was doing it in front of these groups of people and someone recorded it So he would have these meetings

You know the people come to hear him speak and he would have these meetings and he would a lot of times he would open Up the the room for questions, and he would just sort of rant and you know it was a consummate consumer of cannabis So he's high as fuck and he's having these bizarre conversations these rants were exploring these ideas and he got better and better and better at them bizarre conversations these rants where he's exploring these ideas and he got better and better and better at them all throughout these rants and when he's doing these he's essentially doing a podcast it takes a long time to hear he was do you think of him as a sort of a modern secular prophet because like you know if you sort of like if you've like been into the comedy of bill hicks and then you listen to terence mckenna you can see like oh fuck yeah that he's clearly influenced oh yeah well he would he the

way i found out about mckenna was through a hicks bit because hicks bit had this bit about what he he said what terence mckenna would describe as a heroic dose of mushrooms so i was like who the fuck is terence mckenna and this was you know the 90s when I heard this. So I'd seen Hicks live a couple times, three or four times, I guess, in Boston. What was that like? It was amazing. First time I saw him, it was an accident. First time I saw him, I went to see some comedians that were like local Boston guys. And Hicks had come in from out of town

and I don't know if he was supposed to be there the next night or what it was, but no one was there to see him. They didn't know who he was. And he went up on stage and was just so weird. He was doing this bit about Tiffany meeting Jimi Hendrix at the mall.

You know, like this music that they're promoting, this pop culture bullshit music. And he was at the Comedy Connection in Boston. I think I saw him there first, and I saw him at Nick's and a couple other places. But he was doing some new thing. I was like, okay, this is a new kind of comedy. This is like Sam Kinison,

but with much more of an emphasis on the realization that the patterns that we're all following into, whether it's pop culture patterns or that these things are actually detrimental. That these things are a foolish way to approach this world. This world is incredibly complex and we can all look at it together. And I was like, oh, this is a new kind of comedy. How was it going down in there really good and really bad i saw him bomb horribly but bomb with grace that i've never achieved he he bombed like he didn't give a fuck about bombing i've never been able to do that he

bombed like a guy who almost knew the future knew he was going to have some sort of an impact on the culture and knew that this was just a footnote in that incredibly impactful experience on the art form of stand-up comedy and also knew that eventually he'd find his own audience which he did not have at the time because he was at a small comedy club nick's comedy uh stop in boston which is a couple hundred people and um there was a guy who went on before him who was a real hack. Nice guy, but just hacky, hacky, bullshit, cop donut jokes, that kind of shit. Just everything you've already heard before. Nothing original. And he was killing.

Killing with all this simple, stupid shit. And then Hicks went on afterwards with this really bizarre interpretation of modern civilization. Everyone was like, fuck this guy. And people were getting up and leaving in droves. And kept going through the whole thing. And me and Greg Fitzsimmons was there and a bunch of other comedians watching him bomb. We were laughing our asses off.

So he was playing to the back of the room. The comedians that were still there laughing were laughing hard in support. But people were getting up in giant chunks and leaving. At the end of the show, you know, the show was whittled down from like 250 people to like 40 people and 15 or 20 comics. That was all that was left. And we were howling, laughing.

And he got off stage like nothing happened. He would not compromise. No. He was an interesting guy. So that's what he kicks you off into the McKenna realm. Yeah. He's the one who introduced me to McKenna by that joke just by saying that and then in hearing Hicks's references you know he was there was a few other guys that he sort of referenced their ideas like

Noam Chomsky was another one like one of the things that Hicks was famous for saying was actually a Chomsky line was that about the Iraq war that it's only really in a war when two armies are fighting you know and that was like that's a direct Chomsky quote it is and it's a you know and Hicks well he you know it's it's not I don't I want I don't want to say it's plagiarism because I bet if you asked him he would tell you it's a Noam Chomsky quote but he was introducing that concept and that idea to these people through the world world of stand-up comedy and then from there he expanded on that

with all of his material about the Iraq War and all the new weapons that they were doing. Farming equipment. Yeah. And that Shane bit. Yeah. And I think you give him that because it's so, like, the stuff he was doing was so innovative and incredible

and funny. Like, sort of say you look to, like, say you say Kenison or lenny bruce before that like that that the what i've experienced of them and i'm not by any means an authority he did like bill hicks did make it more densely humorous maybe not when you see him live on that but by the time he was recording specials and stuff oh sure i also like i've always thought that bill hicks it was extremely refined and honed work wasn't it it's like you know like you can see incarnations of the same content many many times with him you know what he did at least in the stuff that i saw because i've only ever seen him you know recorded stuff he wasn't going out he wasn't like doing lots of

spontaneity and lots of like it was like they were like beautiful very articulate pieces of yeah and sometimes they didn't even make people laugh you know i watched it with this girl i was dating at the time in like 1993 ish something like that and she was like yeah he's not really funny but he's really fascinating to listen to like she didn't find like some of the things he was saying were funny but I think that was also the Revelation show which he filmed in London which was one of those

weird shows where you're doing an HBO special and you have one show ready to go. Yeah. And there's some weird pressure that's involved

with that and it doesn't necessarily always come off loose and like the feeling that you see him when he's at a club where he's expressing himself in a much more free way. I felt when he's at a club where he's expressing himself in a much more

free way i felt that he's a lot of his comedy uh high points across his content came from his ability to do characterization like you do like a sort of a long bit that you're like oh my god this guy's just hitting me with data but like when he does i believe god created me in one day but those things were like, ah! Looks like he rushed it. He lets you, I think he does let you off. And then as well, I think that Revelations was the first thing that I ever saw of his when I was a kid. And when he does the marketing rants,

like anyone in advertising marketing, I couldn't believe his sincerity. I couldn't believe that someone would hit you with that much heart, quit putting a dollar sign on every damn thing on this planet. That someone would talk like that. Someone meant it. That was from the heart. Yeah. Yeah, well, it

resonated. Whenever something resonates and stays, I mean, it's also there's so much mythology involved in him now because he's passed on and he died young and we always sit back and wonder like, what would it be like if that guy was alive today? You know? He didn't have the outlet then.

Yeah. Where that's, again, now you can go back and look at a guy like that because it's there. And back then you weren't ready to handle that. No. Who was talking like, I'm coming to comedy club. I want to, I want to laugh. Yeah. I want to think tonight. Hicks my story don't hear this shit Hicks was you know we sent a sick kinnison opened the door for Hicks

because he was one of the outlaws and kinnison had a lot of bits that were like that but they were more humor based than point of view based like he had points of view but the points of view had to be really funny. Whereas Hicks had a lot of points of view that was like, there's got to be a way to introduce these ideas into people in the form of stand-up comedy that maybe not even aren't that funny,

but are very important. Whereas, like, Kinison was, everything was, I mean, he had some ridiculously funny bits, and he did it in this totally unapologetic way that I think Hicks kind of absorbed and when I first saw Hicks is one of the things he had a lot of kinesin in him like we all have um influences and when we're starting out we like you hear other comedians that you really love come out of your own mouth almost like with the intonations and the inflections

and you almost kind of mimic them in your delivery. And Hicks did a lot of that. When I first saw him, he was doing a lot of Kinison. And it was interesting. It was like, this guy's clearly influenced. And, well, one of the, okay, you don't know whether or not he was influenced by Kinison or Kinison was influenced by Hicks,

but most likely it's probably a little bit of both, but more Kinison than anything. Because Kinison was much more successful earlier on, like several years before Hicks really took off, and was revolutionary. When Kinison came on the scene, he was completely revolutionary. So I think him taking Hicks with him, you know, because they were a part of that Houston group that originally expanded and then came to LA. I think he just showed that there's just some undeniable power in being that controversial but on point.

Stand-up is one of the, it's like an original American art form, isn't it? It's precedent prior to being in the United States. That art form didn't exist in the same way. It's called gestures or gestures rather and musical. form didn't exist in the same way. Like, it's called gestures, or jesters, rather, and musical. It didn't exist in that kind of way. And in a manner, like, it's a very... Podcasting is a very natural medium for a comedian

because it grants you that long form. So I've always thought, like, that, you know, the more... Like, it can be that the more truthful you are and the more articulate you become, the more you reduce your audience. You know, when you think of, like, hitting up rooms of 2,500 people that the more truthful you are and the more articulate you become, the more you reduce your audience. You know, when you think of like,

he liked hitting up rooms of 2,500 people or 5,000, you know, arena gigs. Like, if you want to go in, wade in there with fucking Noam Chomsky bloody quotes, you better have a dick joke to finish with. Exactly, yeah. You got to have some way to connect those things with humor. Almost like scaffolding in between ideas. Yeah, yeah. Because you've got to have some way to connect those things with humour, almost like scaffolding in between ideas. Yeah, yeah, because that's the thing I think about,

keeping the ball above a certain level. In a way, this medium, you are relieved of that, you are allowed, it's like, oh, fine, just sit back for a while, listen for ages. The aspect of comedy that I think is so important, of authenticity, when you're a start-up comic, people go, you've got to find your voice, you've got to find your authenticity. And like you were saying, you hear the musicality of comedians you admire in your own voice.

When you're doing five-minute sets or tens or twos, it's extremely difficult, isn't it, to become robust enough with that. But here, I guess, you get to really explore what you are authentically in a kind of a long safe form especially 10 minute sets those those little short sets you do so those are just you know you can get a bit out or a series of you know funny things that you can say but as far as like any real depth and part of what comes out that's really funny is like if you watch someone like jim part of like what his comedy is is like you'll understand after you see him for 15 Or 20 minutes. Oh, this is how he makes fun of things. This is his personality

So you kind of get his vibe? Yes And then another subject comes up and you're laughing before even starts talking about it because you're kind of Following where he's gonna take this. Yeah, you've signed up. Yeah. Oh, I enjoy this. You're tuned in. Yeah You tuned into his perspective. Kinison was a huge influence. Yeah, I've signed up to that. Oh, I enjoy this perspective now. Yeah, you tuned into his perspective. Kinison was a huge influence. Yeah. I loved Kinison.

Yeah. Why? He was the first... Hands down, he was revolutionary. It was like seeing Metallica for the first time. Like, what... Look at the way these people are reacting. I never saw an audience, a comedy audience.

He made them nuts. Yeah. He made them nuts. He made them almost want to go in a mosh pit. And to talk, no, I don't think, Carlin would dance around being Catholic and kind of expose things, but not, I mean, Kennison comes

out and he just, in a biblical way, I thought, my mom tried to make me go to church and make me a good person. I learned more about biblical, and just how common sense wise, listening to him. He made me think about it. He'd come out, you know, Jesus is never married. No wife is going to buy the resurrection. And he'd go into this whole thing about, he leaves on a Friday. He's with 10 of his friends. His wife is going to buy the resurrection. And he'd go into this whole thing about, he leaves on a Friday, he's with 10 of his friends,

his wife is pissed. You're like, where's all those losers that call themselves disciples? Everyone that says, I believe, I believe, we put it up in Fino. I'm sick of it!

And I sat there and went, holy, dude, the common sense of this is, why doesn't anyone talk about the common sense of this? He just put it balls out there. He can get away with it because he was a preacher. And he knew the Bible.

And he knew everything about it. And he would sit there and he comes home on Monday. He looks like shit. There's dirt all over his face. He sees his cross out on the lawn. And she's like, where you been, Mr. Savior? He's like, well, I don't have another, but I was dead! I'm fighting death, decomposure.

I'm in the spiritual world, and I got to get back, because she don't know where I've been. And then he went into this whole thing about, oh, they doctored this whole Last Supper. Jesus, me, am I going to betray you? And he'd say, oh, suck my dick. You know who the fuck you are. You already fucked. Oh, we can't write that. We'll say,

drink of this blood. But just the common, just he dumbed it down to and made me really think about that. Yeah, this is. It's also like we said about Metallica, the force of his delivery was unprecedented.

I mean, no one had yelled out punchlines before the way he did it. You married? Yeah, you were? You married? I'll hold you back two years? Good. Remember this face? Ah! No one came at you like that, but it was more than shtick. It was freaking hilarious.

And it made a lot of sense whenever whatever he did. Talk about the devil. Devil coming down and teaching you. It was sick. I remember him talking about, well, he said, becoming famous. Because you know how fucking hard it is. You finish your show. You're trying to stay married.

She comes up, I want to strike your day. No one will ever know. I'm going to fucking have two fingers in your ass. And me and my friends are going to fucking fuck you too. You can't even fucking breathe. And then you go home to your wife. No one will ever know. I'm going to fucking two fingers in your ass. And me and my friends are going to fucking fuck you too. You can't even fucking breathe. And then you go home to your wife. No one will ever know. They're like, you know what?

You know, I'm married. She's on her period. And we're in the middle of a really difficult time. But thank you. Thanks for the offer. Get the fuck out of here. I'm fucking out. I'm fucking out.

Yeah, he was a real wild man. He introduced rock and roll sensibilities to comedy. That's what I was attracted to. Yeah. That whole rock, crazy, loud energy. Well, he was also so different than everything else at the time, which was like the roll your sleeves up. Did you ever notice? Ever notice?

How come when you get a cup of coffee, they're... There was this sort of observational comedy boom back then, and he came along with this roaring monster. His first bit ever on TV ever, I think, was the African bit, which was huge here. Like, please, help these poor children. Help these poor children. And he comes out, and he's gone,

I'm sick and tired of seeing these commercials. I'm trying to make you feel guilty. You're sitting there watching. How can you sit there in your air-conditioned room? Heating your cupboard full of what kind of sick fuck are you? You can give him a dollar. And then he goes into the whole thing. Don't send them another thing.

They live in a fucking desert. Don't send them money. Send them someone like a fucking desert. Don't send them money. Send them someone like me. Send them someone who's going to go there. I've come here. We came here 500 miles, and we realized we wouldn't have to travel this far. A few people live where the food is. Come here.

You live in a desert. Come here. Taste it. Taste it. It's sand. You know what it's going to be 100 years from now? Fucking sand. We've got deserts in America, too.

We just don't live in them, asshole. Two treads got the trucks. Get you the fuck out of the desert. And that was one of the best examples. People always like, there's a fucking trend now. Dude, comedy should always punch up. Comedy should always punch up. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

Nonsense. comedy should be comedy it's just like rap music or fucking gangster movies it's indecipherable you cannot decide what's funny and what's not funny

and that is one of the best examples of it that African bit oh huge that changed my like he it's simple

it's funny it's a real it's a real topic and I actually sat there and thought, why are they living in a fucking desert? Are they retarded? Why can't they move?

This is stupid. I don't get this. Why don't you help them? You're right next to them. Don't feed them yet. Don't feed them yet. Didn't get the shot. My goddamn light was not ready.

Fucking mosquitoes. Let's get the fuck out of here. Fucking mosquitoes. Such a great bit. And again, a great bit if someone did it in 2016. But in the 84?

It was revolutionary. 85 maybe? Maybe 85? Fucking revolutionary. It's releasing you from the sanctimony. There's so much sanctimony that you're weighed down and you're not able to have an authentic reaction. There's so much of yourself that you're repressing

and it takes him. You see, again, to return to that archetypes conversation we had, that the trickster, the role of the trickster that comes up in Native American myth is like the coyote or the raven or they say that even Christ is a trickster in moments in the boat like this people that go that's not reality anymore like that's a trickster function to go like you know you know that there's a prescribed way that you're supposed to respond to that african

commercial well look there's this alternative way of responding to it and to present it comedically so oh you freed me You freed me from reality. It's like an unchaining. And you know what's interesting about him? Did you ever read his brother's book, Brother Sam? No. His brother wrote a great book about Sam. And one of the things that he said is Sam's emergence of who he is came out of a car accident.

He got hit by a truck when he was a little kid and it changed his personality radically he had a serious head injury Wow got knocked the fuck out and came back fearless and that's a that's a common thing impulsiveness fearlessness and rage there's a these are constant themes that come out of head trauma so it's interesting like one of the most important figures in the history of stand-up comedy might have literally been birthed because of trauma, like physical brain trauma. That's brilliant. I never heard that. What intervention is a brain damaged pioneer?

Yeah. Not for that head injury, this whole scene would never have been discovered. They said he was a different person. Like before, he was quiet and shy and a normal kid. And then, bam, he gets hit by a car, fucked up, put in the hospital, the whole deal. Comes out of that, he doesn't give a fuck. He just tastes death. I don't think that's it. But he still becomes a preacher, though. Right, yeah.

Like, what the fuck's he doing with that head trauma during the sermon? But that was how he delivered. And if you say here, in the name of Jesus. He had this explosive sort of dynamic delivery. And I mean, I don't want to attribute all of it to the head trauma. Because obviously there was some genius involved in his creativity. You definitely blew my mind. No, no, no, no.

It's not a negative thing. Look, I've dealt with a lot of brain trauma. Because I know a lot of people that have gotten fucked up from fighting. You know, there's a real thing that happens to people. And you hear about all the time when they do these shows on NFL players who become explosive and they get crazy and impulsive and they get very violent. And some of that has to do with repeated trauma to the head Well, just one event one car accident one thing like that can literally change your personality because there's a very fragile dynamic of synapses and personality

neurochemicals the brains actual like the flow of chemicals of neurochemistry and the physical body itself and the way your personality manifests itself all those things are directly connected and an event like what happened to sam kinnison literally reshaped an art form what about them people that get head trauma and suddenly can speak perfect french have you seen them on the internet yeah what yeah they get knocked over the nut, come back with perfect French. It's a common phenomenon. It can be checked out online anytime.

Is that true? I've known they get really good at math. Yeah, I mean- I don't know if they speak French. Does someone have to teach them French? It's almost worth the risk. I don't want to put a little head trauma. I mean, there's definitely a downside, as you've said.

You may come back extremely aggressive. Or you might have a headache forever. That's also possible, too. It's a lot easier and quicker. It's a much quicker satisfaction than getting them stupid books. I don't have patience for them books. Foreign accent syndrome. An accent. Mmm. A rare medical

condition when patience develops appears to be a foreign accent. Chinese teacher wakes up to stroke speaking English. What about that? Whoa. How about that? But that's the Daily Mail. They might have just made that up so we'll click on it right now. Yeah. These motherfuckers.

I don't know. I do know. We have to end this, though. Unfortunately, it's 4.20. You're joking. How long have I been in here? It's 4.20. I can't remember the rest of my fucking life.

I don't think I'm going to adjust to... I've got to go and see my girlfriend and stuff and be a normal person. Well, you're going to have to continue. You're going to have to keep doing podcasts. It's 4.20. What time do we come in here? Jim and I have been here since 10 a.m. This is five hours.

This is six hours. Yeah. You and I have been doing this for six hours. Oh, wow. I've got to make some calls. Too bad. Listen, man, if you're ever in here again, you've got an open invitation. Of course, you know you have an open invitation.

Thanks, Joe. Anytime, man. Please. We've got to do this more often. Thanks, man. All again, you got an open invitation. Of course, you know you have an open invitation. Thanks, Joe. Anytime, man. Please. We got to do this more often. And you really should. Thanks, man. All right, you fucks. That's it.

I hope you enjoyed it. Bye-bye. My mind. My poor mind. Wow. That was awesome. That's Ian Russell.