The Rich Roll Podcast - “Of Mice and Me” — The Journey From Being Loved To Giving Love

Episode Date: September 15, 2014

Safe to say I am mildly obsessed with Ganesh, the famous Hindu elephant boy god. Even if you don't know anything about this odd creature or what he represents, you likely know who I'm talking about. The iconic youngster’s unmistakeable visage is ubiquitous these days — adorning yoga studios, hanging around people’s homes, emblazoned on t-shirts and even splayed across brick wall street art in hipster neighborhoods across America. But how does this have anything to do with this week’s guest? Patience. I’ll bring it around. I always do. The thumbnail fable of Ganesh goes something like this: young boy warrior fiercely devoted to his beloved mother Parvati meets his match in Parvati's abusive husband Shiva. Defending Parvati from Shiva's angry rage late one night while Parvati bathed, Shiva up and just decapitates the young boy. Cut his head straight off! Inconsolable and furious, Parvati is determined to bring her boy back to life. Towards this end, she strikes a deal with Shiva that (inexplicably) involves replacing Ganesh's missing head with that of a young elephant (again, don't ask me how this works, it just does). Rejoice! It works. Not only does Ganesh return to life, he ascends the covetous deity pecking order, becoming one of the most worshipped of ancient Hindu devas. Ganesh the remover of obstacles. Ganesh the patron of arts. Ganesh the deity of intellect and wisdom. Ganesh the Lord of success. The elephant head represents the displacement of individual ego with Universal ego – the idea that before we leave this life we must no longer identify with the limited individual self, but rather with the large universal Self. In this way, our spiritual life is renewed, maturing into one that can truly benefit Creation. Associated with mental agility, Ganesh’s single broken tusk represents the “pen” he creates to transcribe epic poetry — the vast learnings he has experienced. What I'm saying is that Ganesh was a writer. Ganesh was also a god of astounding appetites. And – most importantly for today's discourse — a god that befriended a tiny mouse, often depicted under his foot as his ever present companion. The mouse is commonly interpreted as a symbol for those seeking to overcome powerful low vibrating desires and become less selfish — the quest to find greater meaning and purpose in life. Here’s where things get weird. The life arc of todays guest Mishka Shubaly (in his fifth appearance on the podcast – more co-host than guest at this point) bears more than passing similarity to our little Hindu friend. Sorry Mishka, but I would go so far as to call you guys doppelgängers. Metaphorically at least. Like Ganesh, Mishka is a man devoted to the arts and greater self-wisdom. A man devoted to his mother and scarred by a troubled relationship with his father. A man who has made his mark on the world by transcribing his broken past and attraction to destructive appetites as a primer for greater self-knowledge with a fearlessness that evokes Ganesh’s broken tusk. A man now ascending to become foremost among literary talents. Mishka's words serve up someone toiling with identity, his place in the world, and the conflict that breathes between ego and Universal Self. A man grappling with his own obstacles on a path towards maturing into one who can truly benefit Creation. An appealing yet reluctant determination for greater self-wisdom I think we can all — on some level — relate to our own personal challenges and life experiences. And yet quite ironically, Mishka is also man who just just weeks ago knew little to nothing about this Ganesh character. This despite the huge elephant tattoo covering the better part of his left arm. Enjoy! Rich

Welcome to the Rich Roll Podcast, Episode 104 with Mishka Shubali, again. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody, Rich Roll here. Welcome to my podcast, to the RRP. Thanks for listening. Thank you for sharing the show with a friend. The Rich Roll Podcast. richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. This really helps us out a lot. And I'm so appreciative to all of you who have made the effort to do just that. It keeps the lights on here, keeps us going, puts wind in our sails, and I greatly, greatly appreciate it. All you have to do is find the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com. It's on the homepage, it's on the podcast page, just click it or bookmark it in your browser better yet. And then just use that whenever

you're going to buy something on Amazon. It doesn't cost you a cent extra. It kicks us some commission change and goes a long way. So thank you. All right. What do we do here? What's the mission? Well, the mission is just to help you live and be better. I realize that's broad. That's vague. It's maybe even a little pedantic, a little self-righteous or ridiculous, perhaps. I mean, who am I to sit atop Mount Olympus and tell anybody how they should live? I don't have all the answers. That's why I ask so much of my guests. That's why I probe deep and I go long because just like you, I want to learn and we're in this together. The truth is, I'm not here to tell anyone what to do.

I'm just here to share my experience and to share the experience and the wisdom and the knowledge and the tools of my esteemed guests in hopes that you and me can glean a little more insight into the inner workings of the human condition so that it can help all of us improve our experience in our short time here on earth. That's it. So along these lines, each week, I sit down with people who inspire me, thought leaders, fine artists, entrepreneurs, world-class athletes, doctors, nutritionists, trainers, and even everyday people who have managed to do amazing things to transform their lives. Paradigm Busting Minds here to motivate, inspire, and hopefully elucidate these certain truths about what it means to be alive that can assist all of us in raising our vibration

and send you on your own unique path to discover, uncover, unlock, and unleash your best, most authentic self. Okay, I wanna talk about Ganesh. I know it sounds weird. I'm not Hindi, but I'm kind of obsessed with Ganesh, the elephant boy Hindu God. Many of you have probably seen this iconic youngsters image in posters or sculptures and yoga studios or in people's homes. We have a whole bunch of them. My daughter Math Mathis, even likes to collect them. Or maybe on t-shirts or in street art

in like hipster neighborhoods somewhere in Brooklyn or Portland, perhaps. But how does this have anything to do with this week's guest? Patience, bear with me. I'll bring it around, I promise. First, in the storied tales of Hindu tradition, the fable goes something like this. Young boy

warrior fiercely devoted to protecting his mother. Decapitated by his rageful, entitled, and abusive father trying to save his mother from the ravages of his out-of-control behavior. Outraged, Ganesh's mother strikes a deal with her husband, Shiva, to have him brought back to life. Now bearing the head of an elephant, Ganesh becomes foremost among the gods, one of the most worshipped of ancient Hindu deities. Ganesh, the remover of obstacles. Ganesh, the patron of arts. Ganesh, the deva of intellect and wisdom. Ganesh, the Lord of success. The elephant head represents the displacement of individual ego with universal ego. It's this idea that before we leave this life, we must no longer identify with the limited individual self, but rather with the large

universal self. And in this way, our life is renewed, becoming one that can truly benefit creation. Associated with mental agility, Ganesh's single broken tusk, you might notice in the posters or in the sculptures that one of his tusks is broken off. This represents the pen, the pen he uses to transcribe epic poetry and the learnings he has experienced. In other words, Ganesh was a writer. Ganesh was also a god of astounding appetites, and most notably, he was a god that befriended a tiny helpless mouse. Often depicted under his foot, this mouse was his ever-present companion. The mouse commonly interpreted as a symbol for those seeking to overcome powerful, low vibrating desires and become less selfish. So here's what's weird.

This week's guest, Mishka Shubali, my friend, in his fifth appearance on the podcast, more co-host at this point than guest, in so many ways has lived a life arc that bears striking similarity to our little Hindu friend. I might go as far as to even call them doppelgangers. Mishka is a man devoted to the arts. He's a man devoted to greater self-wisdom, as painful as that might be for him. And he's a man who has gotten used to using a pen to remove his own obstacles. He's a writer and a warrior of huge destructive appetites, a friend. Mishka is ironically a man who just two weeks ago had never even heard about this Hindu legend, despite the huge elephant tattoo that's splayed across his left arm, the elephant t-shirts with his name on it that he gives out and sells at

his musical shows. He's a man devoted with his name on it that he gives out and sells at his musical shows. He's a man devoted to his mother and marked by a troubled relationship with his father. He's a man known for transcribing his broken past as a primer for greater self-knowledge with a fearlessness that evokes Ganesh's broken tusk. Words that serve up a man toiling with identity, his place in the world, the conflict of ego with universal self, a man maturing into one who can truly benefit creation, and words that evoke a determination for greater self-wisdom that we can all enjoy. Then there's the mouse, the tiny mouse that just as Ganesh, Mishka befriended that became his constant companion, a mouse that broke his heart wide open, a symbol for his gut-wrenching wrangling,

and a mouse that became the central subject in this writer's latest confessional that pits Mishka's low vibrating desires against his yearning to be less selfish. The number one best-selling Kindle single titled Of Mice and Me, and a main focus of today's conversation. So Mishka, the modern day Ganesh, I like the ring of that. I told you I'd bring it around.

If you're a longtime listener of the podcast, then you've treated yourself to several of our conversations. You know this guy at this point, he doesn't need much formal introduction. But if you're new to the show, all you really need to know is that Mishka is my brother from another mother. If you want his resume, it goes something like this. After receiving an expensive MFA from Columbia University, Mishka Shubali promptly quit writing to play music. He lived out of a Toyota minivan for a year, touring non-stop, and has shared the stage with artists like The Strokes, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and The Decembrists. His Kindle singles, short non-fiction novellas, have all become bestsellers. He writes true stories about drinking and drugs, disasters, desire, deception, and their aftermath. His work has been

praised by everyone from the New York Times to the Huffington Post for its grit, its humor, its fearlessness, and its heart. The long run, his mini memoir detailing his transformation from alcoholic drug abuser to sober ultra runner is one of the best selling Kindle singles in Amazon history. I urge all of you guys to check out his canon of Kindle singles. There's links in the show notes to all of them. And no, you do not need a Kindle to read what he has written. You can read all of his offerings on basically any computer device, your desktop, your laptop, your iPad, or even your phone. There are even free Kindle apps for both iOS and Android. So no excuses.

If you want more, if you want a little more background or context for today's conversation, check out my earlier conversations with Miska. They're in episodes 27, 31, 65, and 95. Otherwise, just sit back and let's enter the world of Mishka Shubali. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to

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and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. How many times is this number five on the show? I don't, I feel like I hold the record for being. You definitely hold the record. It doesn't even really make sense to call you a guest anymore. Like I think if, well, if you've done, if this is number five and we've done a little over 100 episodes, you're— A significant chunk of those.

Your RBI percentage is pretty high. I think it's just you're sort of co-host in residence or something like that. I like to think of it as sort of like one of the recurring guests they would have on the Flintstones or the Jetsons or something like that. Or like when Joan Rivers would just do a stint hosting Carson for aons or something like that word. Or like when Joan Rivers would just do a stint, you know, hosting a Carson for a while or something like that. I basically am. So I can leave and you can do your own guests. I'm going on vacation. You step in and handle it for me for a while. I'm the male live Joan. You're right. So you'll be working all the way until your very last day. Yeah, that sounds great.

Torturing the public. I love I hate working, but I do love torturing the public. So here you are again, back in the garage after I picked you up at Union Station. Thanks for making a point to swing through in your on your California trip. Thanks. Thanks for picking me up. Thanks for making a point to swing through in your, on your California trip. Thanks for, thanks for picking me up. Thanks for having me. It's funny, like the ride back here, both of us trying, wanting so badly to be like, oh, and another thing I have to tell you this, I have to tell you that. And then just, okay, no, shut up. I hold out this, this idea that, you know, in a perfect world, I would have the studio all set up and then I would

just walk into the thing and the guest would be sitting there and we could just pick it up immediately. Cause that's the most spontaneous and natural when you haven't seen the person and you can just naturally delve into a conversation, but it never works out that way anyway. So yeah, we were, we were in the car for 45 minutes. Trying not to talk about certain things, but it just is what it is. I tried to cuss as much as I could in the car. To get it out of the way? Yeah, to get it out.

That's all right. You can cuss as much as you want. I know. I guess JJ broke the seal on that. Yeah, right. We're in the explicit category occasionally. But most of the – I know we did three in New York. Did we do four in New York? Is this the only time you've done it in LA? Well, uh, yeah, this is my only one here.

Right. Uh, we did, uh, the, the, the sweat box with me, you and JJ, we did, uh, two in my apartment and one in your hotel room. Right. Exactly. So, all right. So they've all been in New York then. Yeah. Yeah. So here we go. LA style. So this is going to have a whole different flavor. You're sitting here eating dried grapefruit slices from the dehydrator, which you would assume I'm foisting on you, but actually you're the one who brought them. Well, no. And it's a good thing that I did because I always live in shame about my apartment because there's like an onion. Appropriately so.

There's an onion that's sprouting in the fridge and then like a little bit in the bottom of a thing of mustard from like 2012. Yeah. And then we walk into your place and there's like three skinny teenagers with two mustaches between them. And you're like, dude. And they're like, dude. And you're like, is there any're like dude and they're like dude and you're like is there any food here and they're like no there was a thing but we ate it yeah there's no food in the house right now but i mean we can go to the grocery store and spend hundreds

and hundreds of dollars and three days later there's no food i mean that's there's seven people in our house with our nephew now who's basically living with us most of the time it's there's seven people and you know three of them are between the ages of 18 and 22 and they eat a lot. You basically just throw food at them and stay back. You know, right. Exactly. My nephew is 12. He has size 14 feet and he's like six foot tall now. No way. Is I swear it's horrifying. Every time I see him, I push down on his head to try and prevent him from growing. But, yes, it's terrifying. At that age, yeah, who knows what the future holds. He's going to be like 6'6".

That large at age 12, that's crazy. Yeah. And he's already deep into the world of martial arts. He's going to be like an assassin or something terrible like that. Well, his dad's in the Marine Corps, right? Yeah, yeah. He's like a high like an assassin or something terrible like that. Well, his dad's in the Marine Corps, right? Yeah. He's like a high-ranking, you know, dude. Yeah.

Mick is a good kid, though. He's a nerd. He likes reading books. Uh-huh. So I want to continue. So he has that aspect of the Mishka genetic pool coursing through his blood. Yeah. I mean, it's good because, you know, reading books always kept me out of trouble.

Yeah. Exactly right. That never out of trouble. Yeah, exactly right. That never went horribly wrong. Well, it allowed you to escape into your imagination and then act on that imagination in certain unhealthy ways, I suppose. Right? Yeah, yeah. I think when I was, it's funny, you know, you read these things about social media and about how, how harmful it is for people because they're seeing a polished aspect of their, the lives of their friends and neighbors and our associates. And they always think like, oh man, my life is so

much less fulfilling than the life I see so-and-so living on Facebook. That's not something new to me, you know, cause when I was a kid, I was always like, man, my life is so boring compared to Davy Crockett's life, you know, or whatever book you're reading, you know, Huck Finn or something like that. Man, you know, my life is so dull. Like, you know, I wish I would get orphaned and then be raised by a pack of bears. Well, I think it's, it's, uh, look, there's no question about it that when, you know, on Facebook people try to, you know, project an idealized version of whatever their life is. And I think there, yeah, there's like studies out there that that has been linked to enhanced

depression in people that see that and, you know, sort of compare their own lives to that experience. But at the same time, I think it's all about your filter and your perspective on your life also, because if you have, if you're, if you're walking around in your life with a sort of tweaked prism and you're filtering everything through this, this, you know, churning machine of less than, you know, that I know what that's, you know, that I know what that's like. I know that you know what that's like. It doesn't matter if you're looking at pictures on Facebook or you're seeing somebody get on the bus, you're thinking that my life's terrible. You're always running that comparison and you always somehow end up on the, on the, uh, you know, the negative

side of whatever mental calculus you're running. I remember getting off a plane, coming to California once to visit my family, and I was like high on cough syrup, and I think I'd been up for 36 hours or something like that. That's such a weird high, too. It's bizarre. It's like being underwater on acid. Yeah.

It's terrifying. They got robo-tri tripping. Well, it's called we, this, this will clue you into the type of snobbery that's persistent amongst my friends is that, um, you know, only the like cough syrup, uh, tourists call it Robo tripping. We would buy the, instead of buying Robo Tussin, we would buy Tussin, which was the generic brand, which was so much cheaper. So we just called it Tussin. Interesting. Yeah.

Because it was like gauche to call it robo-tripping. Right, right. But, so yeah, I was getting off the plane and I told my mom, I was like, just come by yourself to pick me up at the airport. I don't want a big, like, welcoming party. Don't bring everybody. Of course, that's exactly what she did. Right. How long ago was this?

It was probably 12 years ago. Mm-hmm. Or maybe 11. And she brought the whole family, so everybody's there. And I'm, you know, out of my head. And I'm out of my head. And the first thing that happens is I walk off the plane, and my sister deposits her new baby in my arms, who's probably like eight or nine months old.

And I remember holding him and looking at him and thinking, someday you're going to grow up to be a real asshole. That was your first thought. Isn't that fucking horrible? Right. I still don't forgive myself for that. It's the broken filter, right? Yeah. Looking at an innocent child and projecting some kind of crazy ideal onto that entity that has no relationship to reality. And it's so difficult to try and fix that filter because you're looking at that broken lens with the broken lens. Yeah. So you can't have a

conscious awareness of what you're doing, which is, I mean, that gets into, yeah, this sort of meta conversation of, of the nature of five minutes. of meta conversation of the nature of five minutes. Well, it is because if you don't like, look, if you, if you are suffering from some kind of mental disorder, mental defect, whether you got a concussion, that's creating memory problems for you, or you have a depression problem, or you're an alcoholic, it's impossible to have self-awareness about that. And, you know, what was amazing is if you meet somebody who's suffered a real traumatic brain injury, like we, Julie and I had the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time with this guy, Kevin Pierce. We've talked about him on the podcast before, but he's a guy who was a world-class snowboarder, World-class snowboarder, was poised to win an Olympic gold medal, beat, what's his name, Sean, the Flying Tomato.

You're off in a strange land at this point. Come on, you know, the famous snowboarder guy. The Flying Tomato. Sean White. Yeah, I can't believe it. Sean White. Like, he, on a training run, on this ridiculous, like, half pipe, he landed on his head and suffered a cataclysmic brain injury. And he's been on the road to recovery ever since. It's been several years.

And there's a documentary about his life called The Crash Reel. It was on HBO. It was an HBO doc. It's an amazing documentary. Anybody out there who's listening should definitely check it out. But, um, in the course of spending like a weekend with this guy and we went to an elementary school and we spoke to the kids and seeing Kevin like present, you know, his story and what happened to him and his recovery, you, you begin to realize, and also in watching this documentary that when you've suffered that kind of injury, like your perspective is tweaked. Like he, in the documentary you see this,

like he's not aware of the reality of his situation. Like he thinks that he can go out and snowboard at a world-class level after his injury. And then you see him do it, and it's like he has almost zero coordination. But he doesn't have an awareness of that. So to bring it back to what we're talking about, it's a similar thing, right? If you're, if your prism is broken or your perspective on life, I mean, it's a less dramatic example, but it's

really the same thing. Like you're, you're seeing everything through this negative, you know, hue, right? And you don't even, you're not even aware that you're doing it. It's sort of like people that are walking around as victims, you know, everything is like, oh, the world's against me. And, you know, like they don't even know they're doing that like 99% of the time. It's just a, it's a program that's running that is running them as opposed to them being in control of that. And, you know, it's like, um, I would compare it to the experience of wearing those polar, uh, polarized glasses where you're, you know, where you're wearing like yellow tinted glasses or something. And then after a while, after you've been wearing them for a while, it just seems to be normal. That's what the world looks like. And it's only then when you take them

off that you're like, Oh, holy shit. I was seeing everything totally different. And, um, or if you've never had glasses and suddenly you get a pair of prescription glasses for the first time in your life and you're like what i can read everything looks different everything has a hard border that's why there's actually a very revered text in recovery called a new pair of glasses maybe you should read i'll have to these days i'll have to check it out the next time i continue to not go to aa well now that you've discovered that there's cake in Alcoholics Anonymous, we have a new, uh, that should be, that should be the first step. Step one, there's cake, dude, there's cake. What? There's cake. I didn't know that. I have to rethink this whole thing. You posted something like that.

I don't know whether I'm more embarrassed for me only finding out now that Cake is involved or embarrassed for whoever calls the shots at AA for them. Bad marketing. Yeah. It's like I would have gone years ago. Think of all the people you can help with cake. A lot of people, I guess. So here we go. So maybe next time I'm in New York, you'll take me to a meeting.

Absolutely. You and I have promised to do all sorts of things on this podcast that we haven't yet done. And I'm happy to add that to the list of things that we promised to do. What have we promised? We were going to, well, I was going to do a triathlon. We were going to run a hundred miler. Yeah. I was going to go to AA. I mean, I'll, I'll, I'll call myself out on this. Well, I'll call myself out too. You know, life is in session and life is busy. You're too busy hitting number one, uh, you know, in, on Amazon with all your Kindle singles and, you know, we're busy doing what we're doing and there's only so many hours in the day, man. You know, but I aspire to do all of those things with you. And if you were staying one more day, we could go out and do a super long run

tomorrow, but you got to catch a flight in the morning. I know. I know it's too bad. Well, we'll get out for a short one anyway. Right. I need one to shake the cobwebs off from yesterday where I almost killed myself before the podcast. You went five hours. How many miles did you do in five hours? I don't know. Nothing impressive because it was so hot and it's really hilly there. I would say it might be like 22 or something like that. hilly there i would say you know like might be like 22 or something like that but um it was just that like sauna heat on the side of the highway yeah like east of san diego right or where your

sister lives uh yes east of san diego well east uh northeast of san diego um and yeah i mean in the i was like right on the side of the highway and like up and into the mountains and stuff a little bit and brought a handheld for what I knew was going to probably going to be an epic run and then ran out of water. Yeah. And you're sucking on dried up grapefruits on the side of the road. Yeah. I found I found this grapefruit that had rolled down the hill from an orchard and it was like seeing the sun for the first time and i just i ripped into it like man it was it was a beautiful thing just like juice dripping down my chin i mean if somebody drove by at that point

and looked at me you know they would like shield their children's eyes from me this guy has stumbled out no he's he was like a you crossed the border and you finally made it to from from haiti yeah well you look good you look tan you look fit you look thin you look happy i feel great i feel great i have uh i have the chub rub or my fat thighs run together when i run but other than that it's a little reminder that there's always work to be done yeah i don't have the thigh gap yet. Well, we're here to celebrate today because your newest Kindle single just hit number one. Was it yesterday? It was on Friday.

Of Mice and Me, which we're going to talk to about, get into in a little bit. But if you've been following Mishka on Facebook or Instagram, you might recall a couple months ago. How long ago was this happening? Five or six months ago? It was March. I can't remember any date, but I remember it was like March 12th that I think I found him. He starts posting pictures of this embryonic-sized baby mouse that he found and decided that he was going to nurse back to life. And hence was born the new story that is now topping charts on Amazon as of a couple of days ago. In fact,

it cracked the top 100 of all Amazon books, right? Yeah. That's huge. That's so hard to do. It's really crazy. Most people pay money. They buy their own book to get into the top 100. You laugh, but it's true, actually. So the fact that you're in the top 100 is unbelievable. And I know if you look under, like, memoirs, it's right now to bring it back. It's you and Joan Rivers, right, up there. I feel terrible about that. Sharing the spotlight.

Well, you know, the postmortem thing. People are interested in her story. So there's a lot of energy around that. But congratulations, man. That's huge. Thanks. It feels good to hit number one while I'm still alive. So this is your, how many Kindle singles is it now?

Six? This is my sixth. Sixth one, right. Has every single one of them hit number one? I think so, yeah. Really? So you're the king of the Kindle single, pretty much. I mean, first of all, nobody else has done six Kindle singles, have they?

At least not in the top ranking. I think Stephen King has done five. Oh, he has. Interesting. No, he's done five. So I think I sort of squeak him out on this one. Do you think he goes on Amazon and goes, God, Mishka did another one of them?

Dude, nothing would make me happier. If I like got punched out by him in a bar, that would make my day. Just any interaction whatsoever, no matter how negative? Yeah. Okay, back to the filter thing. Isn't it funny that the first experience that comes out of my head when we're talking about like, oh, you could meet, you know, you know, sort of like the writer of, the writer I grew up on. The first experience that I go to is he would punch me out. Right.

Or I would welcome a negative experience. You know, like that's crazy. You know, that's insane. Right. Or I would welcome a negative experience, you know, like that's crazy. You know, that's insane. Right. And I think that that that really honest and vulnerable about, you know, these emotions that you struggle with and, you know, where you see yourself in the world. It's beautifully written. And I think it's, you know, it's the most mature of all of your works to date. And I think it's something to be very proud of because I think your other stories are all, they're all great and they're all super entertaining, but there's a,

uh, there's a conceit, especially in like shipwrecked or, uh, the long run where there's an event that is by its very nature, like almost supernatural, you know, it's like, yeah. So it's like this huge thing happens and it's the drama of, of being, you know, a crazy alcoholic and all the fun stories that kind of revolve around that. Or just the inherent curiosity of something like being shipwrecked would provoke in a reader. So it's kind of conceit-driven in that regard. And this, the conceit is much more tempered. It's like, oh, I found a baby mouse and now I'm going to sort of nurse it to health.

And what does that bring up in me emotionally? That's not a big conceit thing. This is more a character piece. You know, it's a more internally driven, reflective kind of, you know, comedic, how would you call it? Like sort of. It's a real slice of life thing. It's sort of like my life as an episode of Seinfeld or something like that. But Seinfeld is less. I think it's more like tonally it's not Seinfeld at all. Tonally it's more like David Sedaris. I'll take that.

I love David Sedaris. Yeah, I mean it's taking something that's relatively mundane and using that as a springboard to speak to something universal in all of us. And I didn't try to do that. I just stumbled into that. You know, I mean, the process, I mean, you know, remember the last time we spoke, that was it. I was signing off for good. This is my last Kindle signal. Right. And also the last time I'm going to be doing these, you know, sort of like soul searching ones as well. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then I, I just, I found that little mouse or he found me or however it happened, we found each other and I had this crazy experience and the And the experience itself was rewarding enough. And, you know, I was like, no,

I'm not going to, I'm not going to turn, I'm just going to live this part of my life. I'm not going to turn it into a story. But then from posting pictures and stuff online, I felt like I'd brought so many people along for the ride that I just put up a little blog post, um, on my website, um, with, you know, with some of the pictures of Mish Galito and, uh, you know, just a real, you know, a 99 cent or a, a value menu, uh, uh, version of the story, just, you know, telling it in the smallest way possible. Five minutes after I posted it, Amazon emailed me and they were like, what are you doing? Take that down. That's the next story. And I, and I sort of kicked and screamed. I was like, ah, no, you know, I mean, I'm done. And then I half-assed it, which is my way. I turned in a,

you know, a version of it that was just about the mouse that, you know, where I was, you know, a small player. And then, and my editor rightly so bumped it back to me and was like, dude, this is not a story about a mouse. This is about you figuring out your place in the world. And then I was like, Dave, you're a jerk. I don't want to do this. I'm tired of doing these. I'm exhausted. But, um, but I did it. And, uh, it was, it was definitely scary to write. I mean, there's a lot of, a lot of the like gooey stuff in there that I'm so much better. I'm so much more comfortable writing about times in my life where it's incredibly dark or painful or something, you know, or I was humiliated than it is for me to write about hope. A redemptive episode. Well, we talk about this a lot, right? Like you, you know, whether it's you saying, I want Stephen King to punch me out in a bar, you know, your story that you that you tell about yourself and kind of reaffirm over and over and over again, you know, is the story of the

drunk and, you know, I'm the dry guy. I'm the, I'm the angry, you know, guy who can't show up and, you know, I'm a rambling man, you know, like all this kind of thing, you know, and you're very, you're, you're attached to that narrative in a way. And I've said to you in the past, like, you can let go of that. It's okay. You're not going to like, you know, sort of melt like the wicked witch of the West. If you decide you want to change the story that you tell about how you're living your life or who you are. And I think this was a work in which you, I can't say that you let go of it, but you are grappling with that very question. And so it's not really, you know, for the listener out there, it's not a story about a mouse.

It's a story about you trying to learn how to grow up and what's important to you. Like, what are your priorities? How do you want to live? Are you capable of being a responsible human? Do you want to have a family? Do you not want to have a family? If you don't want to have kids, what are the reasons behind that? Like, what is motivating that? Are those selfish reasons? Are those bullshit reasons or are they true? And grappling with questions

that I think we all grapple with, you know, as we age and try to figure out what we want to do and be. I mean, you know who I am. Yeah, it's, I am sort of dragged kicking and screaming towards self-knowledge and towards progress. You know, I mean, I, you know, I do, I want to move forward, but I'm scared, but I want to move forward, you know? So it is, it gets a little torturous sometimes. Yeah, well, you're developing, what comes across is that you're developing a greater awareness of the extent to which fear is dictating some of these decisions in your life, right? But at the end of Mice and Me, you really embrace this idea that so many of these reasons you've thrown up about not doing this or not doing that or saying to yourself and others, I don't want to be that guy, is really a fear response as opposed to any kind of legitimate commentary on who you are as a person or what your character is. I was talking to a standup comic the other night, you know, on the sidewalk after a show and I was sober and he was pretty plastered and he was

saying, you know, I, yeah, my life's a mess. You know, I'm drunk all the time. It causes problems. But how do you get up in front of people without having four drinks in you? Like, aren't you just, you know, what, like, how do you deal with the fear? And he was like, how do you, you know, how have you been able to make the fear go away? And I was like, dude, it doesn't go away. You just, you just get to, it's like your neighbor's dog or something like that. You just get to know it like, oh yeah, that's, that's just the neighbor's dog you know it's it's just it's just the fear you know and man the last you know when I did those shows with Stanhope in New York I mean definitely you

know the first night when I got up there I had the like cocaine rabbit leg that was all jittery and I didn't know what I was going to say or how I was going to, you know, perform. And like my hands were just like locked, you know. And then by the third show, I was like, what's up, Apollo? You're my people. And just loving it, you know. And fear is just fear, you know. I mean, of course, it's easy for me to say that. And then, you know, when I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm like, oh, there's something in the closet, then I'm terrified.

Yeah. Well, yeah, my friend Sasha, you've met my friend Sasha. He always says fear, whatever emotion it is, these emotions, they're just emotions. They're not going to kill you. You can feel them. But they will pass. And so it's not about not being afraid. It's about whether that's influencing your behavior or the extent to which it's influencing your behavior.

But I will say that as an alcoholic, as a sober alcoholic, you become more and more cognizant of the extent that fear persists in your life. of the extent that fear persists in your life. And you start to realize that so many of your behavior patterns and your character defects are fueled by fear, like fear of other people, fear of institutions, your insecurities, all these kinds of things. There's fear behind all of that. And recovery, the sort of tools that recovery avails you, allows you to, you're never going to eradicate it altogether, but you can anesthetize

it, right? You can put it to sleep. You can quell it. You can tame it, you know, tame that angry beast so that it doesn't occupy the same presence in your consciousness that it does when you're not sort of taking care of yourself in the way that, you know, the tools of recovery provide you with. Rich, you're so insightful about this stuff, and you know so many people who are so insightful about this stuff. I almost wish there was like some kind of organization where we could all just get together and sit in a room together. If only such a thing existed. And cake. We could eat cake and talk about all this stuff and help each other. If only such a thing existed. And cake. We could eat cake and talk about all this stuff

and help each other. And then afterwards we can call each other and talk about it. We should, I mean, we should get this going. No, you laugh, but I really think this is a great idea. This could be like, this could be like worldwide, dude. Unbelievable. We just need to come up with a catchy name for it that's right and a book maybe you'll write the book for it right a little call up your people at amazon see if they're interested uh yeah no one will read it but you know it'll just be for us and this small group of people oh my god yeah because you you open up you know you open up uh the single and you kind of talk.

I was paging through here trying to find it in here. I can't because I should have highlighted it, but I didn't. But where you kind of say, you know, I'm anxious. You know, I'm the guy who's all too often, you know, anxious, unhappy, angry. Like those are the those are the qualifying characteristics of the dry alcoholic. Like that is that is how I am If I'm not like tending to my sobriety, not prioritizing my sobriety, my natural default state is to be hungry, angry, lonely, tired, self-defeating, um, anxious, nervous, you know, all that, all that stuff. So it's less about

not drinking. It's not about like, Oh, you know, another day without drinking. It's about like, how do I, how do I go through my day with a higher quality experience and not be angry and not be reactive or at least as angry or as reactive? It's it's funny, you know, because you have a choice. You don't have to be, you know, doesn't have to be that way, man. That's all I'm saying. saying the, um, it's funny because, you know, two of the subjects that I think that we keep returning to are, um, you know, my lack of AA and I'm not, I didn't even say that. No, I know. Just hear me out. Just hear me out. I just, it's just a funny story. It's just a funny story. And my, um, my absolute belief that there is no, you know, organizing spirituality to the universe or anything like that,

that nothing happens for a reason. So one night, you do talk about in this single as well. Yeah. So one night I was like, Oh, I have a, you know, I was supposed to do this thing tonight and then it fell through and now I have a couple hours where I'm not doing anything. And I was like, this is it. I'm going to, I'm just, I'm going to walk out the door and I'm just going to go to an AA meeting. I've been threatening to do it forever. I've been promising to do it forever. I'm just going to go. I'm just going to do it. Sometimes

the fastest and easy way to do something is just to do it. And I was walking there and I was really like a block away. And then my buddy texted me and he was like, yo, I have a show tomorrow. Can you like set up my base for this show? And then I was like, everything happens for a reason. This is the hand of God reaching down. Say, don't go to that meeting. Instead, go help your friend set up his base. And steering me back to my apartment.

That was the message that you divined from that. It was a test. How important is this to you, Mishka? Yeah, no, I'm, I'm actually, I'm embarrassed because honestly, I want, I really wanted us to sit down like this time and say, and me to say, yeah, I went, I did it, you know, and I didn't. That's okay. I mean, just for the record, I don't have, I'm not invested in you doing that or not doing that. And I'm also not saying that that is the only way to get sober. You know, I know lots of people that get sober in many different ways.

All I know is that, you know, I know the way that has worked for me. And so that's my only point of reference. That's my experience. know, the way that has worked for me. And so that's my only point of reference. That's my experience. And that's the only place from which I can, you know, sort of reach out and share in a way that, you know, it may be helpful to other people because I don't have any other experience with it. But, you know, when I see, when I see you talk about these things that you are suffering from, and I'm like, well, actually, you know, I have a possible solution for you for that. I can't not offer that up, but it's not, I'm not saying like, I'm not like judging you or shaming you.

I'm just saying this is an alternative for you or an option. Absolutely. And I know that it's, the reason we keep coming back to this AA thing is because I'm curious about it, not because you're pushing me. And you know, the, the, the one person who my friend Eben, who was like the biggest, uh, influence or role model, or just sort of positive, um, you know, played a huge role in helping me get sober,

never, ever told me to stop drinking. He just looked better and lived better and had a happier life. And, um, you know, just led by, and I was like, what, what, what are you doing that your life is so much better than mine that like, you're bailing me out again. And, and he was like, I don't know. And it's, he wasn't drinking and he wasn't using, you know, and, um, took me a long time to figure out. I took as long to figure it out as I could. Yeah. Well, we all do, you know, it's usually longer than everyone else would prefer, you know, know, but you got to figure it out for yourself because the reason that you've been able to, it's been five years now, right? Yep. So the reason you've been able to stay sober that long is because you wanted it for yourself.

You didn't do it because your mom wanted you to do it or you had a girlfriend that was, you know, on you to stop. You did it because you were ready and it was the right time for you. And that's the only way that it sticks because it's for people that, you know, it's for people that want it, not for people that need it. There's a lot of people that need it, that don't get it. And there's a lot of people, you know, that want it, that still struggle terribly, you know? So it's, it's the lucky few who want it and are able to get it and hold onto it and make it work. It's, it's ironic because in the last couple of months, I've found myself advocating for AA not once, but twice, you know, a friend of mine was like,

you know, I understand that I have to stop drinking. I really don't want to go to AA. stop drinking. I really don't want to go to AA. How do I do it? How do I do what you did? And I said, well, um, you know, for me having a, um, having a therapist I could talk to, um, you know, that really helped. So you need to get a therapist. And I know how easy it is to punt that decision, particularly when you're paying for therapy out of your pocket. So if you really want to stop drinking, go to an AA meeting every single day until you get a therapist. And he was like, well, I don't want to go to AA. And I said, if quitting drinking is so important to you that you will even go to AA, then you're showing that you're serious about quitting drinking.

He goes to AA all the time now, and he loves it. That's the thing. Usually when somebody says, I want to quit, but I don't want to go to AA, it's like, well, why don't you want to go to AA? Because they've concocted in their mind some kind of judgment about what it is or isn't, and they have some resistance built into their ideology about it. So my first question is, well, why don't you want to go? Like, you don't even know what you're talking about, you know, and like, if you want to get

sober, you're going to have to sort of suspend your contempt prior to investigation. And you're going to have to be willing to do things that make you uncomfortable. And you're going to have to reserve your judgment about them. And that's the key to, you know, change. That's the key to taking that first step and, you know, allowing yourself to walk through a scary open door into new possibilities for yourself. I think the process of getting sober is learning to do a lot of things that you don't want to do, you know, and just sort of lining them up one after the other and then going through and doing all those things that you didn't want to do, that you don't want to do, things you've put off forever. And doing things that even if you think they're not related and not drinking, doing them anyway, like acting as if. And even if that's something like, oh, I'm going to go pick up this dude and bring him to an AA meeting or I'm going to make coffee at an AA meeting, or I'm going to tell myself that I'm not a piece of shit, you know, that I actually have value. Even if I don't believe that, even if I really believe that I don't have anything to offer, I'm going to tell

myself something different. I'm going to act as if I'm going to pretend that I believe that and try to reinforce a new pattern, a new pathway, a new story about yourself. Like all of these things are scary. They're intimidating. But again, it goes back to that thing of like, it's not about being afraid. It's about taking action in the face of fear and doing it anyway. And then developing a habit around that where you're like, oh, I did another thing I was scared of.

I'm still breathing. I'm here. That actually felt good. I feel better about myself. This idea that mood follows action. If you want to change the way you feel about yourself, you got to take the action first. The mood, how you feel about it changes after. And if you want to have self-esteem, you have to do esteemable acts. You know, it's like, these are, I didn't

invent any of these ideas. These are all things that I've learned myself through this journey. Yeah. The, um, you know, and I, when I think about it, the way that I approached running when I, um, when I got sober is very much the way a reluctant, um, newly sober alcoholic would approach an AA meeting is that like, I don't want to do this. I, I, I feel a lot of dread going into it. I know that it's going to, it's going to be difficult while I'm there. I don't know what's going to happen, but I know that doing this unpleasant thing is an important step into me getting better. Um, and I, and I, I, I believed in running. I thought that I could, I was like, I don't know, I don't know exactly what's wrong with me, but I know that this will help. And it did. It has. And it continues to, right? Yeah.

As long as it doesn't kill me like yesterday. Yeah. I mean, what is the relationship of running sobriety, running and sobriety or whatever combination of that with creativity and your writing? It's funny, man. They really, really, they all talk to each other. I was afraid of getting sober because I thought that I would run out of ideas or not have stuff to write about or not be able to write. a writer or you're a stand-up comic or a painter or any anybody you know like you think you if you if you get rid of that thing that you've lied to yourself and told you told yourself gives you that edge that allows you to tap into your creativity and do what you do if you remove that then you're going to be exposed as the fraud you are not be able to tap into that creative source. Well, I mean, to, to, to really

get meta, I remember being a young man, you know, living in New York and having a burn, like a burning desire to write and to write specific stories. And I really like, oh man, I'm, I'm jonesing to like, get home and write tonight. I really have to write tonight. And not that I was going to force myself to write, but that I had some stuff I had to get down on paper. But that was terrifying, the thought that I would try to do something and try to write and maybe fail or well, probably fail. I wouldn't get the idea down or I would get the idea down, but it wouldn't be a good idea. Or I'd get the idea down and it would be a good idea, but nobody would see it. Or I'd get the idea down and the idea would be good and somebody would see it, but it wouldn't take that next step to transforming my life, you know? So there was just all these, um, all, you know, all these monsters that I created my own projections that scared me out of writing. So when I couldn't write,

I drank and that was a great way to take one urge and, and sort of bump it off the track onto another track and do something else that I felt, well, if I can't express this voice, at least I can shut it up. And then now. But did, sorry, did that work for a while before it stopped working? Yeah. Because, you know, one or two. It worked intermittently.

A couple of drinks and the ideas kind of flow and you're like, man i just cracked the seal now i'm going well yeah but then you kind of like then after the fifth drink you know it starts to it starts to decline of course but uh but you develop this pattern and habit around it where then you start to become dependent upon it yeah exactly right so it's like this hunter s th. Well, and it's and also the very thing that will get you going will derail you. And I actually I had a teacher who knew Hunter S. Thompson, and she said that he never wrote a word messed up. That he always was sober every time that he wrote. always was sober every time that he wrote? I have, uh, I'm inclined to believe that because I, I, I can almost guarantee you that the reality of that guy's life probably doesn't meet the hype that you read, but you hear so many stories like, what did I just hear recently? Somebody talking

about how they followed him. A journalist followed him around for a day and just chronicled what he did like every half hour. And literally, you know, from the first breath he drew in the morning until he went to bed, he was loaded in some respect. I don't think you can write about chaos in a compelling manner without total clarity of thought. And I think that's what, that's what he was trying to do was write, write about chaos in a very organized manner. Um, so I definitely think that he went out and did, um, he was a journalist, you know, so he went out and he reported on this event, which was him getting obliterated. But then when he came back to transcribe his reporting and write up his article about it, he had all the notes that he had taken at the

event, which was him getting obliterated and, you know, made a pot of strong black coffee and sat down and just ground it out like the, you know, the old newspapermen used to. Right. Interesting. So one of your professors knew him in some respect? Yeah. And knew him well enough to know that that would be, because that is very interesting. Yeah. It was one of those things that she just said with such authority that I never even questioned it. It also, it just rang true in my mind reading his writing. I mean, you know, if you read, you know, the sort of some of Kerouac's stuff and writing that people have done in state, it's not terrifically entertaining or coherent or plot driven or. I mean, when you're reading it,

you're really like, man, what are you on? Right. But with Thompson, the wit is so incisive. Yeah, and his observations about humanity and culture are so spot-on, so finely tuned in such HD focus. I can't imagine that. I mean, maybe he was on amphetamines or something like that, but that's not a drunk. Right, right, right. Interesting. So, so when it came time for you to get sober, I mean, did you have to grapple with this idea of like, how am I going to write now?

Or was that not, I mean, for a lot of creative people, that's the fear, right? Like I can't get sober. I can't, you know, stop smoking weed or whatever it is. If I do that, then I'm not going to be able to tap into my muse. You know, I'm going to be lost. I'm going to be adrift. Well, yeah. And ironically or not, when I stopped drinking in the same way that I had short-circuited that urge to write by drinking, it's been really effective to short-circuit the urge to drink by writing. What's more, I went to school for fiction, and then I felt like, man, I feel like all this pressure from the nonfiction in my life that wants to get out. I feel like all this pressure from the nonfiction in my life that wants to get out. Like I have a lot of stories about myself and my family that I need to tell before I can get to the made up stuff. I'm starting to get through that stuff.

And I was talking to my friend, Josh Mallerman, the other day who just published a book, Bird Box, on Harper Collins. And I know him from touring with his band, The High Strung, where we were just a couple of dudes and bands out on the road. And just in a G chat with him, I had like two or three different ideas for short stories and stuff like that. So hopefully I'll do something with him. We'll do like a split single of two stories together or something. Right. But yeah, the fiction, the drive to write fiction is coming back.

But just the overall kind of ability to be productive and in the flow of your creativity, you know, has not been tampered. It's been the opposite, right? You've been able to sort of crank out these, you know, has not been tampered. It's been the opposite, right? You've become, you've been able to sort of crank out these, you know, these works with incredible frequency. Like you're in your, you're in your creative power, I guess is what I'm saying, right? So, so that fear or that hesitance or that, that like idea, like, oh my God, you know, I get, I'm going to get sober and it's going to be, I'm just going to be living this boring life. I'm not going to have anything interesting to stay, say, I'm going to lose my facility to tap into my career. All of those are like illusions and being in Los Angeles and being,

you know, an active member of the recovery kind of community here. Like, you know, there's a lot of creative, interesting people in this town that do all sorts of things. You mean musicians, actors, writers, you know, whatever. And when you meet these people sober, it's the same thing. They're like they just they just explode creativity, creativity, creativity, creatively. There you go. That's what I'm trying to say. Once they have that kind of foundation of sobriety laid down. And it's so great to see that happen. You're going to laugh at me for this because this is such a California thing.

But I wanted to get an elephant tattoo because my sister was always obsessed with elephants. Because you're such a Republican? Yes. And, you know, my sister and I have had this like cold war that lasted most of our childhood and young adulthood. And then, you know, it's just in the last couple of years that we sort of put things back together. And since I came back into her life sober, we've never had an argument, which is kind of bizarre. But so I wanted to get this I wanted to get an elephant tattoo. Um, and then this, you know, yoga teacher pointed me to something about Ganesh. And then I started

reading about that. And, um, one of Ganesh's titles is the remover of obstacles. And, uh, that's why there's a Ganesh right out front out there. I don't know if you saw it when you pulled into the driveway. And, you know, one, you know, one of the stories is that he lost his head protecting his mother from his father. And then that's and then she replaced it with the head of an elephant and that he has a broken tusk because he was a writer and he needed to break his tusk off to to write. writer and he needed to break his tusk off to to write um and it's funny because i was just i was talking to tyler about the schedule that he has right now with between you know working full-time and then you know busting his ass with the band and how how much it wears him out and how it's like working two jobs and i and he also produces this podcast too yeah yeah well i hear i hear his boss for this podcast is a real slave driver. That's a problem. But it's funny, when I was talking to him, I was thinking, I was like, man, it's just too bad like you're not an alcoholic because then you could get sober and get an extra four hours every day.

He's the furthest thing from that, ironically. He's such a good kid and he's so balanced and he's so mature in a way that just flabbergasts me when I look at him and think about what I was thinking about and doing when I was his age yeah we were we were sort of bonding about you know what he's doing right now and I was like how old are you 19 and I thought back to what I was doing when I was 19 I was like oh dude you're you're gonna you're gonna be fine gonna be just fine. Yeah, I think it's gonna be okay. So I want to tie this back to, to the, the Kindle single, because all of these sort of issues, you know,

kind of come up in the narrative. And it's really you, it's you grappling with these traditional notions of manhood and family, right? And at the core of it really is this idea of like, do I want to be a parent? Do I want to have kids? But that's really just kind of almost an allegory for all different kinds of things that come up when you're approaching, you know, middle age or what have you, and you're surrounded by other people that are living, you know, sort of suburban lives with children and looking on it from the outside and being mystified by how someone could possibly be happy from your perspective,

living that way, and then entering that world and seeing it from a different perspective and having the willingness to challenge your own assumptions about a certain way of life that maybe you always thought you wouldn't choose. Is that accurate? Yes. I mean, I think you took it a lot further there than I have in my mind. But yeah, it was just, you know, the difference between the difference between I will never, ever do this thing. And well, maybe I'll do this thing. And well, maybe I'll do this thing. Um, it's the, the greatest difference in, in numbers you will ever see is not the leap from one to a million, but from zero to one, because that, that that's when you go from no possibility to possibility. And, um, I don't solve any problems in this piece.

I think all I do is identify them and confront them. And finally, and, um, you know, knowing is half the battle, but there's still the other half the battle. Um, but they're still the other half the battle. So through this process of adopting this little mouse and raising it and then going through this crazy mind trip about having children or not having children and basically what to do with the rest of my life, I had to confront a lot of stuff that I've been punting forever and, um, you know, just having that epiphany, at, at the very core of it, the, the Mishka Shabali that you see in the Mishka Shabali that I see are, are two very different people that I see meaning me or just the external world in general, the external world,

you know, and that's one of the things that I was actually sort of going over this in my head, uh, you know, on the run yesterday, there's, there's this great,

uh, moment in, uh, uh, the Batman comic book where, uh, two face, um,

they, you know, they pronounced him, he's's been his face has been surgically repaired and they've freed him from arkham asylum and uh then he goes right back to committing these horrible murders and uh you know and he and batman have this moment together and he's like and batman's like harvey you know you're you're you're fixed like why are you doing this and he says you know batman like are you crazy you know look at me i'm deformed and he steps out of the shadows and he looks completely normal you know he's been that

damaged person for such a long time that he internalizes it. And then when he looks in the mirror, that's what he sees. That's who he is inside. Undoing that shit takes a lot of time and a lot of work. And I know that, that I have a lot of work ahead of me, you know? But, but I know what I need to do now. I think that the experience of, you know, it seems so silly, like, you know, raising this baby little mouse. But in a symbolic way, in a metaphorical way, and having that occur in the context of spending time with your sister and her children, who you've, you know, you're the beloved Uncle Mishka, and you have a relationship with these

kids, you know, brings up a lot about, I'm trying to think how I want to articulate this. It's a mirror for the gap that exists between how you see yourself and how others see you right which is kind of what you're just saying right now and your idea of you know i don't want to like a big reason that you said like i don't want to have kids is because you come from an experience that you describe in the single of feeling like you weren't wanted and and having that be explicitly expressed to you as a child like you're like you know what I mean and and carrying that your whole life this this terrible you know scar of of uh you know being damaged in such a profound way and the incredible fear that comes with passing that on and then seeing and identifying certain behavior patterns in your dad that resonate with who you are, I think is probably

at the core of what terrifies you the most and is the thing that is blocking you from entertaining a new possibility and understanding that you have the capacity to not repeat that and to grow and change and, and develop into a person that doesn't, that is not going to repeat or perpetuate the pattern of your predecessor that so, that so damaged you in that way. I'm going to tweak your analogy a little bit. Cause you said that my, you know, my sister's and her family is like the mirror that reflects, um, you know, my experience, but it's, uh, it's more like through the looking glass. Because I really remember, um, you know,

one night when I was getting, I was, this is a year ago, a couple of years ago, I was about to roll out the next morning to come back to New York. And I was like, my dad made this awesome big pine dinner table. Um, and when we, you know, when we were kids, we would always, you know, every night it was family dinner and we'd sit down around the, the dinner table and you just, you don't read, you don't watch TV, you don't listen to music. You talk about your day and we all bonded together. Um, and, uh, you know, I had a black lab and my sister had a yellow lab and you know, it was, you know, when my, before my family fell apart, there were times where it was really awesome, really idyllic.

You know, I, I loved us. Um, So we're sitting there at my sister's place, and, like, Bill, my brother-in-law, is sitting at the head of the table, my dad's place, in my dad's old chair. And, like, I'm sitting at the table in, like, my old chair. It's still the same table. And there's a black dog and a brown dog and a bunch of kids and a mom.

And I had to go upstairs and just fucking cry and cry and cry because I knew that I had to leave and I wasn't ready to leave, you know, that like, it's sort of, it's like I could, you know, I could like blur my, and I was just back there in whatever, 91 or something like that, before my family fell apart. So that was really brutal. But what was it about? What was the specific trigger that made you have to go upstairs and cry by yourself? What was it about that? That was so emotionally powerful to create that response. Maybe my fucking brother-in-law. I mean, he is, uh, he's definitely part of the puzzle. Um, you know, I've, I've known him for 12 years now and, uh,

you know, the first thing he does when he wakes up in the morning is like, um, you know, like on the weekends, you know, he wakes up and he's like cooking breakfast for the kids, making jokes with the kids, you know, doing little dances with them and like, Oh, you know, maybe the kids would want to do this today. Maybe they would want to do that today. today. Maybe they would want to do that today. And, um, he loves it, man. You know, I mean, we, uh, you know, there's, you know, a couple of nights on this trip and my favorite nights of the whole trip, you know, I mean, a friend of mine was texting me and he was like, uh, he's like, dude, you're, you're fucking number one on Amazon. Like, are you going to go out and get like mad pussy tonight? And I was like hell no dude like

I'm gonna hang out with my family and we're gonna eat like crappy pizza and like get crumbs all over the floor in the den and like just all all of us just sit there together and watch Avatar or dude they could turn the movie off and I would just sit there with those people the whole night happily, not, not watching a blank screen. Cause I'm just, I'm happy to be there with my family. So, so the emotional loves that stuff, right? So, so it's a twofold thing. Like on the one hand it's, it's, you know, somewhat baffling to see this, this adult male who just gravitates towards a selfless act without provocation or reward. You know, like, right?

What's his fucking problem, man? As an alcoholic, like being wired to kind of be selfish and self-oriented, to see this person just effortlessly do the right thing. So that's baffling to you. But then at the same time, I would imagine, I mean, based on what you just said, this is an emotional reaction of gratitude to feel comfortable with this group of people in a way that is a new experience for you to say, you know, I don't have to be out in Brooklyn until three in the morning loaded to celebrate in the way that I thought was the only way that you can or should celebrate some kind of victory like this, that there's another possibility. And how confusing

and beautiful and bizarre to feel that that has greater value, like that just dropping crumbs on the, you know, in the den and eating crappy pizza would be the thing that you would crave as opposed to what club are we going to and where's the happening party tonight in New York? Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm glad I did all that shit in New York. Um, but I did it. It's done and it's over. I don't wonder about it anymore. You know, what's new and, like, what's blowing my mind now is, you know, I mean, I remember maybe last year I was sleeping on Micah's floor. And I was watching, like, Breaking Bad or something on my phone. And he just walked into the room, like, flopped down right next to me, like, put his head in my armpit. And he was like, what are you watching? And I was like, I said, man, this kid is so comfortable with me.

It's almost like I'm family. And I was like, oh, yeah, like I am. We are, you know. And I was like, well, let's watch The Simpsons. You know, maybe not Breaking Bad or Law and Order or whatever I was watching. But and then we just hung out there just like, you know, watching, you know, some crappy tv show on my phone until my arm got tired and went to sleep you know um you know that stuff's awesome and it's still like um it's still happening we're still going through that process, like when, uh, a lot of times like Bill will pick me up from the train station

because he's closer because, uh, uh, because of his work. And either I like put my hand out for the handshake and he goes to give me a hug and it's awkward, or I go for the hug and he goes for the handshake and that's all. Yeah. And we, we have teddy bear Mishka and then you have military guys confusing, you know? Well, no, it's like sometimes he like, well,

he'll go for the hug and then I do the handshake. And it's like, it's like a normal Gilligan and evil Gilligan. And they can't like quite get the dance routine figured out. Let's pause for a minute though. And just explore this in general, because I'm, I'm like,

I talk about this all the time. Like in, as like men navigating the world, like, and you go, you go and, I talk about this all the time. Like in, as like men navigating the world, like, and you go, you go and you meet people. It used to just be, you hit, you stick your hand out and you shake someone's hand. Now it's like, I don't know. I don't know what, you know, like, it depends on who the person is. Like, are we fist bumping? Are we, yeah. Like, are we hugging? Like what do you know? And you have to do this instantaneous, like micro second, like read of like the social context that you're in and make a decision.

And, you know, four out of 10 times you you're making a move one way and the guys that you're jigging and he's jagging. And then you have that uncomfortable, like, like, how are we resolving this? Like, how did it get so complicated for us all the time in the future? I think I'm just going to do everything. for us all the time in the future i think i'm just gonna do everything i'm gonna do the hand the like straight handshake i'm the fist to the fist bump to the hug kiss on both cheeks spin around three times and then you're like is this ending or can we keep going i'm gonna give you one of everything i know yeah it's a bizarre like like our dads didn't have to worry about this oh yeah you know, it was just a

handshake and steely gaze. Right. Like in a, in a, in a, uh, you know, a madman era, there was no confusion about how you would interact and, uh, you know, meeting someone for the first time. Now it's baffling, but anyway, I digress. And I took you away from this beautiful story that you're telling about getting picked up at the train station by your brother. this beautiful story that you were telling about getting picked up at the train station by your brother. That was it. That was it. That was the whole thing. Well, I mean, to get to the heart of it, really, you know, you have this emotional experience with this mouse, which is really, you know, means, as so eloquently pointed out to you by your friend in that story that you recount near the end,

this is not, you know, this is about so much more than that. And it brings, you know, the fact that you could be so emotional about that, you know, what would that feel like if you were actually responsible for a child, you know, in its most beautiful way and also in its most terrifying way. And this idea that the mouse is this low risk, you know, trial run for what it might feel like if you emotionally invested all of yourself in someone other than yourself. Yeah. What's weird coming out of writing this story is that a lot of people I'm talking to are saying, oh, now you've discovered that you do want to have children or so are you going to have kids? No, I didn't get that. I didn't get that. Well, some people have. Um, and no, what I discovered is just that I want to make this decision on the grounds of this decision and not out of fear. Or to understand why you're making whatever decision

that you're making and to know that you're fully cognizant of whatever those reasons are. Yeah. You know what I mean? I think that you go into it saying, I don't want kids because I don't want kids, or I'm too selfish. I can barely take care of myself. And then you're exploring, well, is that really true or not? And I think you get to a place where you begin to realize that the emotional landscape is a lot more, is a lot more treacherous and filled with landmines than maybe you originally realized when you start to touch on those buttons about your experience with your dad and the fishing and all of that. It brings up so many different kinds of emotions that it raises the stakes for you. And you realize like, this is not as simple as I've been telling myself it is. And just the simple fact that

you're grappling with those ideas to just get to a place where you have a greater understanding of what's motivating you with respect to this choice that is, you know, looming in the future or not, at least you are asking yourself those questions and exploring them rather than having some knee jerk reaction of yes or no. I, you know, I was talking to my sister about it and she said, um, she said, Mishka, I think you'll be an awesome dad, but I think what's more important is that right now you're an awesome uncle. And, and I was like, oh my God, thank you so much for saying that. Because, um, not that she's, she's not sort of like letting me off the hook or giving me a pass or saying you don't have to answer this question. You don't have to make up your mind one way or the other, because I absolutely have to. Um, but one of the things that I think sober alcoholics do is that we're always looking forward, always trying to get better, always trying to get better. And we, I think we have a hard time

looking at ourselves now and saying, man, look at how much progress I've made. Look at, you know, and I, I think that is an important part of, I mean, it's, you know, a lot of the stuff that you talk about and a lot of the stuff that I would like to talk about eventually of being present, being in the moment, um, self-actualization and self-love, You know, I mean, I'm healthy enough now that I have an awesome relationship with each one of her four kids. And we all have like a different relationship. I have a different relationship with each one of them.

Yeah, and I've seen how you act with my kids. And I have no question in my mind that if you choose to have children that you will show up for them and you know be a great dad it I don't even think that that's really what the debate is about it's about whether this is something that you really want to take on because when I see how you interact with you know young people my children and I could tell that that you know you're a sensitive guy. And if when you do that, you're, you're making yourself vulnerable, you're exposing yourself

emotionally, and you've had some trauma and your pain, and some pain as a younger person with this kind of thing. And so that's a frightening prospect. So I think really, that's what it's all about for you is like exploring that and whether you have kids or not, you know, getting to a healthy place with what transpired in the past and understanding that, you know, you're not genetically hardwired to necessarily repeat that the unhealthy aspects of of that history. of that history. Yeah. It's, it's difficult because sometimes there are times where I'm aware that like, you know, the interest on that original pain is capitalizing. Um, my, uh, you, my brother-in-law got promoted this last week, um, to chief warrant officer five, which is sort of a big deal in the military. That's like a big badass job in the Marine Corps. Like he counsels generals.

It's just, it's fairly elite. It's, you know, it doesn't have, it's not like being a Navy SEAL or something like that. You know, there's all this folklore around it. But it's one of those things that the people in the military are like, oh, oh, wow. Like that's legit. Yeah. Yeah. And he's earned it. He's been in every bad situation that the United States has been in or created or taken on for the last 25 years.

But, you know, so for, you know, his promotion this week, my dad and his wife came down and it was awesome because I wanted to see them and, you know, and I love them and enjoy their company. But he my dad and Teresa were leaving yesterday morning and I was like asleep on the floor in the den. And as they were leaving, they were talking and I sort of half woke up and half slept through it. But my dad was going on and on, you know, telling Bill how proud he was of him and, you know, Bill's accomplishments. And he is and he should be. And I'm proud of Bill and we're all proud of Bill. But when I told my dad that the new single had gone to number one, he said, that's great. Have you seen the Windex? Right. Yeah. But what's, what's awesome,

I think about that story is that you can laugh about it and it doesn't carry the same charge. You know, I would imagine that not too many years ago, that kind of remark would have provoked you, uh, in a very different way. Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, I mean, at the time I was like, Oh man, come on, dad. You can't just like, can't give it up. You just click your heels together in the air for me once. This is a big deal, man. Come on. It was great. Yeah, I know. I know. And then he asked me where the Windex was. All I wanted was the thing of Windex. I was like, dad, I will drink that Windex.

No, I mean. I'll find it for you, but only if it's to polish my award that I'm going to get. This is the thing. My dad loves me. I know that he loves me. And he's weird sometimes and he's off putting sometimes. And,

um, I took it as, um, I have much greater understanding of my father now than I did when I was younger. If he, if he said, that's great.

Where's the Windex? I think what he may have been saying is, your accomplishment is so impressive that I feel threatened, so I'm going to defer it. I don't want to threaten him. I don't want him to feel threatened. There's enough oxygen in the room for both of us. You know, I don't i don't want him to feel threatened there's enough oxygen in the room for both of us you know i don't um but i can't control that i you know i'll do everything and anything i can

to make him not feel that way but at the end of the day it's his decision to feel that way or not or or maybe this is completely wrong it is of course it's number one, because when my boy Mishka writes a new thing, it's always number one. So what's the big deal? Like I've, you know, it's become like, that's my, that's my boy. Well, this is the thing though, is that whenever, uh, whenever I go out to visit him and we go to his like little geriatric old people gym in, uh, in Northern California, they have like a mountain bike competition. And I always like destroy the competition. And every time, congratulations, a bunch of like 80 year old guys. Well, no, in my age category

and overall. And, um, every single time that I do it, my dad is like, um, can we get somebody down here to write down his, you know, like it's a big deal. Right. You know, and I think it's because it's a small, it's okay for him to get excited about a smaller thing like that. Right. But the idea of something that actually has implications outside of the little world that he knows is scary. world that he knows is, is scary. So when he asked for the Windex, I went ahead and substituted in my brain, the reaction that he has when I win that corny little exercise cycle race. Um, but that's an awesome, like sober experience, right. To be able to, basically what you did was you paused

and you said, okay, I have a choice about how I'm going to react or respond to this. I could do what I've always done and like get mad or whatever, but I'm going to substitute this other reaction and I'm going to see him in his best light and I'm going to proceed that way. Like there's a whole mental calculus that takes place. Yeah. Well, and it happened really quickly. And then, and then I went outside and I sat with the dogs and the dogs are always like number one, top of the charts, happy to see me. So if you want your affirmation, I could tell them, I can tell them my story hit number one or it's Tuesday and they're, they're either one, they're going to react with the same amount of a hundred percent enthusiasm. Yeah. So then you just go right to that. Yeah. You know where to, you know, where you need to go to get what you need. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's beautiful, man.

I mean, you know, just to have the cognizance that, you know, he, he loves you and he's got his whatever going on with him. But at the end of the day, that's all just, you know, small stuff because deep down, you know, where you stand with him. Yeah. And, and I know not from filling in the blanks on my own, I, you know, he's told me that he loves me and he tells me that he loves me and he does things that demonstrate it, you know, and I finally, you know, I get it, you know. Right. But as you'll see to the listeners out there that are listening, when you read the

Kindle single, there's some, you know, there's some other not so great stuff that happened earlier on between you and him. And that informs this fear that provokes the question of the book, which is, do I or do I not want to have kids? And seeing some of the choices that your dad has made about how to live his life and then identifying how you've made similar choices and drawing that nexus between him and yourself, like, oh, I am my father's son. If I decide to be a dad, am I going to make those same choices that he did that so damaged me? And the fear that comes along with, with, you know, the possibility that you might do that to an, to a small person. Yeah. Yeah. I, um, you know, when you drink, you, you don't care who you hurt.

And then now I just live in fear of hurting anybody else. And, you know, the thought that, you know, when you're a kid, you always tell your parents, you know, I didn't ask to get born. And you can't use that line when you're a kid. No, I'm sorry. It's just because if you didn't get born, you wouldn't even be able to complain or eat Cheerios or do anything to just stop it. But by the same token, when you're an adult and when you're a parent, your kid didn't ask to get born. And the same way that the kids can't articulate that to you in their defense for not cleaning their room or whatever, you have to articulate it to yourself when you're making the decision to abandon them or not. When you're making the decision to prioritize your career over your family or whether you're making the decision

to be like, yeah, screw it, we're having fun. Let's do another day of water skiing or whatever. skiing or whatever. Um, so it's, it's a, it's a big question, man. It's, uh, you know, there, there's just, it's, it's the kind of thing that I, you know, when I try and think about it, I don't even really know how to approach it because it's so thick and it's so dense. It's the kind of thing that I, you know, when I try and think about it, I don't even really know how to approach it because it's so thick and it's so dense. It's like the Gordian knot. Like you can't even, you don't even know where to start working on it to start unraveling it. But I know that, I guess what happens in this, in the Kindle single is I find a way to start working on the Gordian Knot. I know that I need to get to a place where I don't hate myself before I can even consider bringing another life into the world.

And the mouse is the vehicle in. The mouse is the transport system that allows you to begin to grapple with these things. And I find that so interesting. There's something about, you know, the tiny, innocent animal. I wish JJ would read this story because I think he would love it. John Joseph? Yeah, man. Because why? would love it. John Joseph? Yeah, man. Because why? Because I feel like, I mean, and call me out on this if I'm completely wrong, but I feel like there's something Buddhist about it, about the idea that a tiny being can unlock vast amounts of knowledge. Well, and above and beyond that,

when you invest yourself completely in something outside of yourself, that's when you are, you are rewarded with, you know, unpredictable value beyond your expectations, right? So, so when you set aside your selfish agenda or what it is that you need to do for yourself, and you suddenly are in a position where you have to care for this innocent little thing or it will die. And just by virtue of the way it's rigged, you have to get out of yourself and invest yourself in something else. It takes you on this journey. And that journey leads to an unpredictable place of mental, emotional, and spiritual reflection. And, and you, you would have not, you would not have predicted that. Right. And I think it's a, it's a,

it's a certainly wouldn't have signed up for it. Well, it's an, it's an allegory for what happens when you, when you act selflessly, I think, you know, it had me reflecting on something that happened when I was in rehab. I'd been there for quite a while. And this guy was coming in as a brand new patient. And they had to like, tell everybody like, okay, this guy's kind of rough and tumble, like he's kind of a hardcore dude. So everybody kind of needs to be watching themselves a little bit. And we're going to be looking out for you guys a little extra closely because he's temperamental and we're not sure how this is going to go. And so this guy comes in.

He was like a gang leader, drug dealer from Oakland, like a super, like a pretty gnarly guy. Tattoo sleeves, you know, with the white T-shirt and the flat brim hat, like the whole thing. Like he had the uniform like dialed, Right. And he was having none of it. Like he just was not going to like be opening up or, you know, like he just did not want to be there. And a couple of weeks into it, we were in some kind of group session and, uh, he was provoked into telling a story about how his dog, a pit bull, of course, right?

If I had said what kind of dog he was, something happened. My memory is failing me. I don't know whether the dog got shot or somehow the dog died or was harmed in a certain way. And it was like his seal was cracked and this guy just fell apart emotionally. He just started bawling uncontrollably. just fell apart emotionally. He just started bawling uncontrollably. And he had related stories about friends dying and being shot and other friends that had died of overdoses without moving the needle at all on his emotional state of mind. But there's something about, you know, the pet or the helpless animal that is able to penetrate that hard exterior in a way that a human being can't because of other things that human beings bring to that mental equation.

That's interesting. You know, it's weird. I've seen it a couple times over the years, too. I've seen it a couple times over the years, too. It feels sort of like it's safe to put a secret into them because animals can't speak. So it's like, all right, I have, you know, and the secret is love. And so you're like, I have this thing inside me that needs to come out. I'm just, I'm going to put it into this little thing and put it into this tiny little container and it'll be safe there. And, um, I, you know, because, because animals don't

express their opinions and they don't, um, you know, they don't ask you when you're leaving the house, you know, are you really going to wear that? Like they don't, they don't ask you when you're leaving the house, are you really going to wear that? They don't hurt your feelings or shit like that. Well, they don't have judgments. They don't have resentments. They don't hold grudges. And they don't make mistakes that they have to be held accountable for other than they're just doing what they're supposed to do as animals, right?

Dude, the minute I walked into your house, I missed Bodie. I know, right? I was just like, there's something not here. And then I was like, I don't say anything. Yeah, it's definitely a gap, you know? And especially the little girls, they want to get another dog right away. And I just thought, we have to, out of respect for Bodie, we have to pause for a little bit on that. I mean, we will get a new dog, but, yeah, it was super sad not to have him around.

Yeah. And I, you know, I had to go and have him put down, and I just broke down uncontrollably. Oh, dude. You know? I've never cried as hard in my life as I have over animals. I mean, I remember like our old dog princess is buried, uh, at our old house in New Hampshire that the bank took away from us. And I remember driving by there, um, a couple of years ago and thinking that it was just so unfair that somebody else had custody of her her remains

her bones and i was like well if i if i own the property like what am i gonna do like fucking dig her up you know and then that made me think of her skull and what her face looked like. And she just had this beautiful, elongated, um, graceful brow and nose. And, and I thought that,

you know, you could line up 20 skulls from 20 different dogs and I could pick her out right away because I just, I knew her face so well. And that made me fucking cry so hard, dude. I had to pull over. I was just like, I just lost it. And that made me fucking cry so hard, dude. I had to pull over. I was just like, I just lost it. And you know, and that's the thing, that's the thing about animals is that we feel safe letting them into our hearts or letting our

hearts into them. But then once there's that crack, man, you know, the smaller the crack is, the greater the pressure of the liquid coming out of it. You know, the smaller the size of the aperture, the greater the pressure builds. That's an interesting way to think about it and to put it. I just have this guy on the podcast. I'm putting that episode up tonight. It's posting tonight. This guy, Preston Smiles, who's a really interesting guy. And he, he, uh, I've never met a man who is more comfortable expressing love as a concept

and as an act in public than this guy. Like he, his whole thing is like, we need to love more, you know, like men need to understand that it's cool. Like it's okay. It's not threatening. And he has this thing that he founded with some other people called the love mob, where they do these like flash mobs and they show up places and they hug people and they promote, you know, like, it's just amazing. Or like, it's, it's such a, you know, something that I've, you know, I've never had experience with, but to meet somebody who, who really like was comfortable with that in a way that men aren't and that we're in a way that we're not really encouraged to be was refreshing, you know, and his whole mission is to like, I need to break this paradigm. Like,

you know, I'm a really, you know, he came, he came through kind of a rough experience growing up to become like, you know, a pretty actualized human being who is incredibly happy and giving and selfless and just exuding like positivity in his life. And he, from a very pure place, just wants other men to like experience what he's experiencing. And there's something really refreshing about that. It's also like, whoa, you know, like I'm not used to seeing men talk about love so comfortably. Like, you know, you have that kind of reflexive like thing, you know, as a guy, yeah, like, yeah, but it's like, but he's right. You know? Yeah. And I think that your story starts to, you know, explore that a little bit. Like, can I talk about these things? Can I be vulnerable about these emotions?

Can I, you know, like the mouse cracks the seal, and now it's time to take it to the next level with human beings, this emotion that I'm feeling. Let's not get too crazy. Yeah. Come on, man. emotion that I'm feeling. Let's not get too crazy. Yeah. Come on, man. You know I'm right. No, I know.

I know, Rich. I don't have any beef with you because you're wrong all the time. I have beef with you because you're right all the time. Yeah, but I'm not asking you to do anything. I was just making an observation. No, you're right. You're right. But I mean, but with, you know, that's this, and this is the thing. I can't go back now. I can't go back. That's the, that's the great thing. And that's the shitty thing about epiphanies, you know, in the same way that like my dad kind of set me free when he told me that he didn't want us.

You can't unspeak that. You can't take it back. And, you know, this experience that I had with the, you know, with the little mouse, I can't, I can't undo that. I can't unthink that. I can't unlive that. You know, despite my best efforts to the contrary, it taught me something. Well, and that's what progressive sobriety is, you know, these old behavior patterns and ideas that no longer serve you have to be cast aside in order to grow. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes it sucks and it's painful, but that is the gestalt of getting better. Yeah, that's the thing is it's not just like a snake shedding its skin. It hurts, dude.

It's a crucible of pain, usually. The hilarious thing, too, though, is that this is all purely academic because you don't, you know, like in the story, you talk about how the sort of your relationship with your girlfriend is being dismantled at the same time that you're grappling with these ideas. And now you don't even, unless you didn't tell me something in the car, I don't think you even have a girlfriend right now. So all these ideas about children and all of that are purely academic at this point. Unless you have a child out there being gestated that I don't know about. I mean, that's the thing, Rich. I mean, about all this stuff is, you know, that 90% of it is just in my head. Just me being a freak being like, Oh God, is this going to happen? You could read it and just go at the end of it, just go, just fucking get over yourself, dude.

I know. I can't wait to read that review too. If people are like, that's it. Somebody will say that. Some dad out there will leave that review on Amazon. Yeah, yeah. In the book, you talk about being this sort of heartless tin man, you know, as your history of being, you know, the callous, self-serving alcoholic. as a writer, rightfully so, for being very vulnerable in your prose and very self-confessional and kind of raw and, you know, at times self-deprecating, you know, as you sort of have these crazy adventures. In other words, you've allowed yourself to be very emotionally vulnerable on the page. And people have responded to that. And now this single is really about you asking yourself that question of whether you're willing to take that off the page, right? So it's the difference between the

vulnerability, the safety of, of typing it and, and, and having it, you know, kind of, I'm done with that and people can take what they want from it versus actually applying that in a real life context vis-a-vis another human being in a one-on-one kind of way. Right? Correct. You have it with me. There's nothing to be scared about. No, I mean, I...

We're doing it right now on this podcast. I know. A lot of people are going to hear us. I know. Thanks. It's like you talk about the cat being out of the bag and you can't go back. So it shouldn't really be that scary to actually do that with face-to-face to another human being. If I wasn't on edge before, I am now.

Well, you know what? This is the perfect time for this. Every time we do a podcast, you do this awesome thing with me where you tell me, oh, Mishka, you're such a great guy. You're such a worthwhile human being. And it makes me profoundly uncomfortable. And I never, it's the worst thing ever. And I never, ever know how to respond. You want me to reaffirm your story.

No, no, no, no, no. So I'm going to tell you, Rich, I love you so much, man. You play a singular role in my life. I don't have any other friend like you. I don't have any other friend. You're just your own thing. And you've been a hugely positively positively a huge positive presence in my life in what has it been a year that we've been friends you're in a maybe a year and a half i

mean longer than that i think it feels like 10 years but it's it's just been a very um you know short intense time but um i really wish we were like recording this live so I could be like, you know, call in if Rich Roll has had a positive influence on your life because Hey, our switchboard is lighting up. You know, I mean, you've just, uh, you've done, you've done a lot of great things for a lot of people, but more importantly, you've done a lot of great things for me. That's what's important. And I, and I'm totally grateful, man. Thanks, man. I appreciate that. But you know, I've, I'm, I've gotten as much out of this relationship as you have, you know, I've really enjoyed getting to know you, you know, and this is, I love you too. It's been amazing. And if you live, we lived in the same city, we would be doing live podcasts.

We would be like Kevin Smith, and we'd book a little theater. And once a week, we'd get up and do it in front of an audience, which there's another reason why I should move to California. And we could make that happen, which actually would be really fun. Plan's down the line. But, yeah, it's been amazing to get to know you. And I know from, look, I've done 100 and some out of these podcasts. I've met a lot of amazing people. And I walk away from every single interview that I've done enriched in some way or another.

But that doesn't mean that I become like total bros with every single person. with every single person. From the moment I went to your, I schlepped my gear like 20 blocks from the subway station to get to your apartment, thinking this guy was further from a subway station than anybody else in the five boroughs. You know, you took me into your house and we did that podcast.

And I was like, I knew immediately, I was like, even before we started recording, I was like, there's, and the emails that we had had before we even met, I was like, this is going to be cool. Like, I'm going to, this guy's on my wavelength. Like, we're going to vibe. It's going to be, it's going to be cool. And to be sitting here a year and a half later, five podcasts, you know, under our belt, however many hours of talking and spending time together and to witness your growth and to see your success as a writer and what's going on with your music

and everything that's happening and blossoming in your life right now. It's, it's beautiful thing, man. And to be able to kind of observe that and to play a small role and just kind of being, um, you know, there for you has been a pleasure and an honor. You, you stay in my head, man. I mean, it's, um, one of the things that I felt when I was a kid, I, you know, I was able to articulate that, you know, the dichotomy within myself that, you know, there would, I would be presented with a decision and there would be like, you know, the devil on one shoulder. That's like, do it, man, do it. And then I would go to look on the other shoulder to see the angel being like, no, no, no. And there would be another devil who's like, yeah, come on, man. What are you waiting for? It's two against one. And I was

like, well, shit. All right. You know? Um, but you know, there are so many times where I think about something you've said or something you've written or something that we've talked about or disagreed about or argued about and to, and always continuing that conversation in my head. You know, I mean, I, um, I discovered this new thing, uh, I mean, I discovered this new thing when I was in Brooklyn. My friend Ben, he and his wife Mariko just had their baby, and I helped them move a little bit. And when I was coming back after helping them move, I felt really good. And then my friend Bill, this is great, My boxing partner, his name is Bill W.

And he's in the program. Of course. I'm inside the metaphor. Yeah. You know. And he's actually physically boxing with you. Yeah, exactly. I'm fighting.

You're grappling with him. We were having a fight and an AA meeting broke out. But, you know, we've been fighting in the park. And, like, every time I'm fighting with him, like he's getting better and better and better. And I've also been working with him as a writer over the last couple of years. And like the last story that he gave me, I was like, Bill, this is, this is beautiful, man. I can't do this. You know? So I, I, I was like service. It's this great idea that I had of like a thing you can do helping other people rich. Sometimes it makes you feel better too. It's crazy, man. You should give it a shot sometime. Right, right, right. This is my second great idea after I just invented the secret society of people

who get together and talk about their, right. Exactly. Yeah. What an epiphany and the beautiful thing about it is it can be completely driven by a selfish desire like i talked about this on the podcast before but but basically the idea of being of service not out of some like holier than thou sensibility but because i know if i'm of service to somebody else then i'll better, which makes it a purely selfish act to be selfless in a con, you know, like it's this weird, vicious cycle, but it works. It works in spite of itself in that regard. Yeah. I mean, what's, what's weird is that I wasn't, I wasn't doing it. I wasn't doing it to help anybody really. Um, or no, I, let me rephrase that. I was, I walked into it blindly. I know it's hard for you to imagine me walking into something blindly. Without an agenda.

But no, I mean, I just like moving's a drag. And Ben and Mariko just had their baby and they had to move. And I knew it was going to be a hassle. I had a van. I've known Ben for 22 years. I was like, oh, I'm just, yeah, of course. Why wouldn't I? But then when I was driving home from that, man, like, I felt so good.

I felt higher than I felt in a long time, man. It's funny how that works that way, right? It's crazy. It's crazy. Yeah, and if you develop a habit around that, like saying yes to things like that, then your life really starts to get crazy. It gets really cool. I don't know, man.

It's been, I've had all the crazy. But, I mean mean, you do it all the time. Like you don't give yourself enough credit. Like when last time I was in New York, you're like, Hey, I'm picking you up at the airport. Like I didn't even ask. And you know, you were just, you were there. So I think you do more of that kind of stuff than you even recognize that you do. It wasn't like, Oh, I'm too busy. Cause I'm a big, important writer. And like, too busy because i'm a big important writer and like call me when you get settled in the city and like maybe i'll come and see you but i'd prefer it if you come to me it wasn't like that at all yeah uh well that's i mean that's part of the lens issue that we were talking about you know i mean that the lens conceals all the good things that i do and

magnifies all the bad things that i do and i'm all the bad things that I do. And I'm trying to equal it out, but that's, that process can take the rest of your life, man. Right. But it's, that's, that's a good thing too. This is what your life can be about. Again, it's not, you know, it's not about arriving at a certain place. This is like, you know, this is about the rest of your life and the journey and the tenor and the color of what that will take on. Right. I think a perfect example is, is what just happened with the whole Stanhope thing. Like I was so excited to call you like the night, the morning after and find out how that all went down. So tell, tell that, like paint the picture of your history with

Doug Stanhope and how that kind of all came full circle? If you don't know Doug Stanhope, you should. He is... I think a lot of people listen to Joe Rogan's podcast, listen to this podcast, and Joe has Doug on all the time. I think they're buddies. Yeah, Doug Stanhope is the greatest living comedian, period. He is a true intellectual. Um, and I think sometimes his,

um, he's an astute social critic. And I think sometimes his observations are concealed from people because they come, uh, in a thick haze of vulgarity, but you know, he's a road dog. He's been on the road since he dropped out of high school, basically. So like 30 years. And he is a mind like a rabid Doberman. He's just one of the sharpest people I've ever met. And he played a huge role in getting me sober by having me come and open up for him on the road and getting me every single drink and every single drug I ever wanted until I thought I was going to die. Well, being on the road with him has to just be right out of the playbook of fear and loathing. It's got to be insane. Oh, I remember walking over to him in Portland at a club, and I was like, Hey, Doug, does anybody have any cocaine?

And he just like threw his head back and like cupped a hand to his mouth and was like, does anybody have any cocaine? And right, right, right away, like four people walked over to me and I was like, okay, thanks. I, now I understand what kind of a ride I'm on. Right. Um, it was fucking awesome. And it, and it was until it sucked. And then I had to get off the ride, but, um, you were forcibly removed from like, he was like sort of, you know, Doug being a legendary partier and somebody who really does carry on the Hunter S Thompson sort of ethos of being like a bottomless receptacle for any number of, you know, mind altering substances for him to say to you, Hey, Mishka, like you got it. It's too much, man. You got it. Like, is that, that's a,

that's a very large horse pill to swallow. Yes. That is the red badge of courage. That was so, yeah. So then basically he was like, you're not coming out on the road with me anymore. And that was how many years ago? That was 2008, 2009. So yeah. And then, you know, we hadn't done anything together since I've been sober because it's weird because, you know, people don't see this part of my life fitting with that part of my life. This is the thing. That part being, being, uh, being Doug and his crew. Um, this is the thing, um, more than drinking or drugging or getting fucked up or any of that. What's most important to Doug is thinking for yourself and not being a intellectual coward. Um, and, uh, you know, so in that regard, you and he, you know, in my mind,

I sort of set you guys up as like two polar opposites, but you really have a lot in common. Um, and you know, when I went to, you know, so I did this weekend of shows, you know, shows with Doug, uh, in New York, opening up for him, sold out shows at Highline Ballroom. Fucking awesome. Just to be clear, you're playing music. You're not doing a standup act, right? It's, it's, it's funny. Like a car accident is funny. And, um, you know, I mean, I thought that my sobriety was going to be, you know, tested in sort of the worst way. And I got offered a drink once and the drink was orange juice. Uh-huh. Well, they even put like a, a drink called Mishka on the menu,

right? Like, like a Shirley temple type. It was, it was a bottle of water. Yeah. And then Doug gave you some, he flipped you some shit from the mic,

right? Like when he got, like in a loving way. Oh yeah. I mean, he always, to have the greatest comedian of your generation mocking you on a mic is a rare honor. And that was the thing is, you know, I got up there and I played, you

know, three of my old songs that are naked praise of oblivion and destroying your life and throwing everything away. And I felt like a total hypocrite doing it. Um, and then Doug got up right after me and just made fun of me for two minutes for my old life and my new life. And then he went on with his act. And by doing that, that put me totally at ease for the rest of my life or not the rest of my life, the rest of the shows. Right. Um, you know, it was just the three shows. shows. But hopefully, you know, I'll be doing more stuff with him in the future. But, and that's the thing is, you know, I don't believe that alcohol is a poison. For me, it's absolutely a poison. You know, I have my clarity about where I've been and what I've done and what I need to do.

And like, you shouldn't destroy your life, but if you want to, that's your right. I'm not going to, I'm not going to stand in anybody's way. If somebody needs help and if they will take the first step to being a help to themselves, I'll do everything and anything that I can to help them. But, you know, I'm not, you can't save everyone. Even if you can save one little mouse or one person, you can't save everyone. You know, and some people, you know, I was hell bent on destruction. And every time that somebody tried to save me, that just added a year to my drinking career. And it was people like you who don't preach and

who don't proselytize and instead just say, well, you know, this is my life. Um, those were the people who helped me. Yeah. I mean, I don't know that you can save anybody. You can, you can share. I saved Mishkalito. You saved Mishkalito. A little bit. For a minute. But Mishkalito wanted to live. He did. That's the thing. That's the thing. He wanted desperately to live.

Right. He cared as much about his life as I didn't care about mine, you know, back in the day. Yeah. And you show up and you're of service. You carry the message. You share your experience. You're the tools that have worked for you. But you stay divorced from attaching yourself to any kind of result that that has on another human being. There's been an interesting divide recently with Amazon and the rest of the publishing industry. And people are saying Amazon is the devil and all sorts of nasty things.

And this is the thing is that by publishing through Amazon and finding success and getting some money, I was given freedom. I was given a tool. That money was a tool for me to do with what I wanted. I could buy a ton of drugs and go back to where I'd come from, or I could, you know, do what I did and buy, you know, a house for my old mom, you know, and like, and do good things. And, you know, I'm still wearing the same pair of jeans that I, I know you're pretty well, you're wearing a different black tank top or like, it's not really a tank top. You've cut the sleeves and the neck on it, but it's different from your misfits one that you usually wear the last year and a half or the

Batman one. Or how many, how many of those do you have? You probably have like three t-shirts that you wrote. I got a new one. I have my ritual podcast on but i'm about to cut the sleeves off you did you haven't yet i'm so disappointed that means it's not in heavy rotation yet well no i had to keep it nice because i had to do that photo shoot with tom oh that's right and then i was like that was cool the pictures came out great from that well i thought too like it would be nice to have one nice black t-shirt to wear to like formal events. And then I was like, fuck that, man. I want to wear this t-shirt out. I got to make it comfortable. So that's what's so funny. We were talking before the podcast, cause you had just done an interview. We have a mutual

friend, Anna David, who, uh, she's got a podcast, the after party podcast, and she writes a lot about addiction recovery. And she was one of the founding members of a website called the fix the fix.com which i think is not really anymore but it's kind of moved over to this other website uh called it's called after party chat after party chat.com right and they did a profile on you and they ran the photo of you from you're wearing a suit and a tie and you're at the what was that? Hoity Toity National Arts Club, the National Arts Club. Right. And I'm like, I'm looking at that and I'm like, this is the least representative photo of Mishka.

This is Clark ever captured on film. This is Clark Kent. Where's Superman? But that's really funny. So you had this amazing opportunity to go and speak to the silver haired set about your writing in a place that's sort of like the Harvard Club or the New York Athletic Club, like a very old blue blood kind of scene, right? You have to wear a suit like you invited JJ. He wouldn't come because he wasn't going to put a tie on. He doesn't own a blazer yeah it had to be and you were you were grappling with this idea of like how profane can i be i need to be who i am but i'm also intimidated by this bizarre context of of everything that represents everything that scares me or that i'm not you know about the world like this this sort of you know traditional publishing and and the literary world and it's you know and it and it's and it's sort of traditional publishing and the literary world and its sort of Woody Allen finery.

Yeah, and I said if they're going to love me or if they're going to hate me, I want it to be the authentic me that they're going to be judging one way or the other. So I just went out there and I just let it rip. that they're going to be judging one way or the other. So I just went out there and I just let it rip. And I, you know, I think the,

you know, the first, you know, I still, you know, told stories about, um, how my path as a writer came to me when I was throwing up in somebody's bathroom in Ohio and like waking up in your own urine and shit like that.

And they fucking ate it up. I've, I have never, like a, you know, 65 year old woman like gasping and, youping and dismissing herself or was it all fine? No, the opposite happened. After the end of my speech, all these like little old ladies came up to me and like put a hand on me and wouldn't let me go.

It's crazy. It's probably so refreshing from the boring, you know, cobwebby lectures that they're used to hearing at that place. Yeah. I mean, I thought that they were going to hate me. I thought I was going to be run out of there. But it was totally the opposite. And it was awesome. It was great.

It was such a blast. And I was so happy and relieved to take that suit off and be like, all right, you're getting hung up until the next time I have to go to court. Which is on 9-11, right? No, for a traffic citation, everybody. Yes. Yeah. Very minor. Um, yeah, no, it was, that was such a cool thing to have happen. And you're, you're finishing up the new album, right? Uh, the new record is done. Hopefully we'll have... And you're going on tour. Hopefully we'll have... Tyler will slip a song in at the end of this podcast. Yeah. Which one do you want to have him put in? We'll do New Jersey Valentine's Day Orphan Blues.

And yeah, it's a song off my new record called Coward's Path, which will be out in February. It's coming out on vinyl in the UK. That's super cool. So it was being mastered at Abbey Road. Yeah, you posted that picture of some technician or artisan. When I mentioned that to my dad, he didn't ask where the Windex was.

That meant something. He couldn't not be impressed by that. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, it's so great. How did you hook that up? My friend Charlie. I've had the weirdest experience in the music industry, which is mostly empty promises and sleazy people,

in that I've met the two people who I work with are the, um, the fairest, kindest, most generous, most giving people, uh, Alex Steininger in music. We trust. Who's the guy who hooked me up with Stan hope and puts out my records here. And then Charlie Kennedy who puts out my records in the UK and they um they're just guys I got to meet through the scene I mean Charlie put uh Fresh Kills up the first time we went to the UK in uh 2009 and then he and I just stayed in touch I didn't even try and sell him on the record he was like we should talk about me putting out your record and i was like oh i had no idea that you had any interest yeah all right here's a copy and he was like okay yeah let's do this so yeah my life is overflowing with good things

right now you're gonna be able to get the vinyl in the u.s though or only yes absolutely absolutely but it's just being manufactured over there yeah pressed and everything and hopefully that means i'll have to go over there and do a tour. So is that coming? So will that be February also? Yeah. At the very latest, it'll be February. But I mean, the record will probably be available digitally before that. And do you have tour dates locked down?

Yeah. I'm doing, I'll try and get you tour dates to put up when we post the podcast, but I'm doing a run from New York down to Austin up through Dallas, stuff like that. Hopefully all the way out to California in January and February. Cool, man. That's exciting. Yeah.

Right on, man. So congratulations on the new single. Thanks, man. Thanks. It's beautiful. And again, it really does show your maturity as a writer. I loved it. And I see you stepping into kind of new, more complex terrain of dealing with the emotional landscape, which really seems to be your sweet spot. And I can't wait to see what happens when you, when you finally step into writing fiction,

which I think is the progression of where you're going. You've, you've exercised, you know, plenty of demons here, and I'm sure you could continue to do that. Of course, there's no end to that exploration, but I've kind of, I've kind of made my peace. Yeah you know? Yeah. So, you know, what is next? Dude, I have no idea. No, I, um, I'm, I have a memoir coming out in 2016 on public affairs, which will be sort of a lengthy exposition of it's, it's basically going to be like a book version of the long run um public affairs being

the publishing imprint not the subject matter yes correct yeah i love that i love that i love that my publisher is named public affairs because to me that just sounds like a sleazy porno mag like leg show or something like that like it would be i think it's cool i think it reminds me of uh like irs the record label like it has a sort sort of tongue in cheek, you know, kind of political overtone to it. Ralph Nader is published by Public Affairs, which is awesome and weird. That's cool. So, yeah, you, Ralph Nader, Doug Stanhope. That's your core crowd.

That's your board of advisors. That's your core crowd. That's your board of advisors. That's my target demographic. Triangulate that one, motherfuckers. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, so you're writing in the long version of the long run, but I'm more interested in the next evolution. But I guess you're figuring that out.

I'm just going to take it as it comes, man. I'm going to just try and keep inching forward, you know, on all the sort of various avenues that I'm trying to. You and I have talked a lot about balance. And so that's something that I'm really trying to do is achieve. I don't want to say achieve balance, achieve more balance, you know, in my day to day life between writing and running and doing all the other various things that I do, playing music. Right. I mean, that's something I've been talking a lot about lately and grappling with as well. And, you know, you and I share that sort of, you know, pendulum swinging to its extremes, like whether you're hold up writing a book and nothing else can penetrate that or, or, you know, you're putting in these gargantuan runs and, you know, clocking, you know, ridiculous miles.

gargantuan runs and, you know, clocking, you know, ridiculous miles. But how do you live day to day, long term in a healthy way, where you're exercising, you're expressing your creativity, you're taking care of your daily responsibilities, and, and, you know, navigating sobriety and relationships and all those sorts of things and, and, and, and maintaining, you know, a level of happiness and contentment. You know, that's the prize. That's the real prize, figuring out how to crack that. And I know that you had played around with this idea of I'm going to exercise every day. I don't have to go out and run these ridiculous long runs.

I just need to go out and, like, even if I want to go out and run for five hours, I'm just going to run for 45 minutes or whatever it is and get back to my writing. But I'm going to do it anyway. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing thing. Yeah. It's been great, man. You know, the exercising a little bit every day has been wonderful for me. It, you know, helps my mood every day. And then also like yesterday when I was like, I'm going to go out and run for as long as I want.

Um, it felt like such a treat, you know, it wasn't something I felt obligated to do because I'd signed up to do some event or whatever. Or dreading it like, Oh my God, such a long run. Yeah. I have to do this run because I'm training for this thing. Like you were choosing to do it. Like you wanted to do it. Yeah. I, um, no, one of my friends was like, how are you going to celebrate your, uh, you know, hitting number one, you know? And I was like, I'm going to go, going to go run until I can't run anymore. This is a blast, dude. It was like, I was like a one man party. People were just like, who is that guy listening to things on your earbuds or just no no no i um actually maybe this is where we should end it is because you know i've been thinking a lot about what you wrote about um not hacking your life

or even unhacking your life and doing the work and taking the hard route and enjoying that, enjoying that process of doing the work. And then I also, you know, I always field questions from people about like, oh, this runner's high, you know, like, oh, you've substituted one addiction for, you know, for another. And one of the things I really admire about you is that I think you're really good at connecting the dots. You're able to see things both up close and then zoom out and see the pattern between those several things that you've seen up close. And it made me realize that getting drunk is kind of the ultimate, the first and the ultimate life hack. And, and by characterizing the good feeling that you get after exercise as

runner's high is totally ass backwards. What people are trying to do by drinking alcohol is hack their lives. And what they're trying to achieve the good feeling that we get naturally from human connection, from exercising, from doing things that are good for us. And they're taking a shortcut. And so, you know, it's not, I need to find the right lexicon to phrase this, but it's, um, the good feeling you get that good feeling pleasure. the good feeling you get, that good feeling, pleasure, that's the first thing. That's what alcohol is trying to mimic, is trying to give you a shortcut to. It's not the other way around.

The runner's high, to call it runner's high, is putting it secondary to the original high, which is whatever alcohol or heroin or whatever your problem was. or the original high, which is whatever alcohol or heroin or whatever your problem was. But we have to unhack the thought and the language as well. Yeah, I never really thought about that, but it's true. I mean, taking drugs or drinking alcohol is a shortcut to achieving a state of mind that, you know, listen, if you take, if you take, uh, you know, some hallucinogenic DMT or mushrooms or something like that, that's a shortcut to a state of consciousness that somebody could spend their lifetime trying to achieve through meditation or meditation where, but it doesn't require the work. It's an automatic response. So do the work.

Or drinking is that automatic social lubricant or what have you without having to really— Invest in relationships. Yeah, or to deal with your social skills in a way that you feel comfortable enough to look somebody in the eye and have a conversation or whatever it is. That's really fascinating. You should write an article on Medium on that. You could tease it like, I've discovered the ultimate new biohack. Just some sort of title that will be provocative enough to bring people there. And then it's almost like an Onion article, like the new hack, drugs. It's almost like an Onion article, like the new hack, you know, drugs.

I'm only going to write that article after I invent the secret society and then this concept of service, the new thing I invented. Those are other, yeah, it could be great Onion articles as well. Those are good, man. I like that. You got to do that. Yep. Another thing that you're're gonna follow through with before we do no more our live show next time you're in la before we have the traveling road show or maybe if i come could we do a live show in new york do you have a room that we could do yeah no problem

sidewalk cafe maybe yeah piece of cake that would be fun actually that would be really fun to plan it ahead of time and do a live show live podcast me and you and jj will do a puppet show that would be really fun to plan it ahead of time and do a live show live podcast me and you and jj will do a puppet show that would be good let's let's think about that let's try to figure that out great to dig it cool awesome all right man thanks for doing the pod again rich thanks for having me great to be back man you're an inspiration you're my co-host i love you mishka i love this new uh kindle single so So everybody should go check it out. If you're new to the podcast, go back and listen to our other interviews. I don't know what numbers they are, but there's four or five of them out there, something like that.

There's all kinds of them. So, yeah, like you can learn a lot more about. Obviously, we didn't get into all of Mishka's background because we've covered all of that. But go to Amazon, check out, use the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com, of course, right, if you want to support the show. Check out his new Kindle single of Mice and Me and go back and read his other ones too. If you're new, you might want to start with The Long Run, which is probably the one he's most known for, but there's plenty of good stuff out there. And this piece really does mark like, you know, a quantum leap forward in

your talents and in kind of really looking at the universal themes of, you know, the emotional interior landscape that we all kind of deal with, especially at our age. So I commend you. And I'm not surprised that it's number one. Thank you. And I think it's going to be staying number one for quite some time. And by the way, in the long run, still kicks Finding Ultra's ass on Amazon. And don't think that I'm not pissed about that. We can take it out on the trails tomorrow. I know. All right, man.

Thanks. So if you want to connect with Mishka, MishkaShubali.com, at MishkaShubali on Twitter, at Mishka Shubali on Instagram, right? Yep. It's all the same everywhere. Yeah. Facebook. There can be only one. There is only one. Not to be confused with that reggae singer Mishka. Or the talking husky. Who's that? Yes. Well, as you say in your single, you kind of talk about this idea of micro celebrity, but we're working hard to transcend that limiting title for yourself. Yeah. All right, you guys, that's it.

That's the show. My conversation with Mishka is over. We're done for the day. I hope you dug it. I love that guy. I could talk to him all day. And if he lived in LA, I would probably have him on every other episode. I love the idea of doing a live podcast with him. I think that would be great. I'm trying to get out to New York at some point this fall or perhaps winter, and we're going to make that happen, which would be super cool. And maybe even try to do it somewhere in L.A. before then. But I'm going to think about it, and I'm going to look into it because I can't stop thinking about that idea, and I think it would be really fun. Okay.

If you're in the Los Angeles area, the West Valley area, be sure to go check out Joy Cafe. Angeles area, the West Valley area, be sure to go check out Joy Cafe. We've partnered with our friends Joy and Nick in a new restaurant that is fantastic. It's 100% organic, 100% plant-based, gluten-free, 100% awesome. The food is delicious. We're so proud to be associated with this new gathering place to enjoy amazing, healthy, high vibrating foods. And we look forward to seeing all you guys over there. So again, it's in the Westlake Village area of Los Angeles. You can find it on Yelp or wherever you find your restaurants. But it's really cool. And it's worth the trip, even if you're in town, and it's a little bit of a trek or whatever. We love it. And we're going to be talking more about that in the future.

If you want to stay current with all things plant powered, subscribe to my newsletter at richroll.com. If you haven't already, it's the only way to get exclusive content, deals, sales, discounts, giveaways, and a weekly podcast update. No spam, just good stuff. Check out my two courses on MindBodyGreen,

The Art of Living with Purpose, and The Ultimate Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition. Both contain hours of streaming video content, tons of downloadable tools on everything from how to get more plant power to how to set and achieve goals. An online community where you can interact with us and the other people that are taking the course. It's pretty awesome. You can find all of that on the homepage at MindBodyGreen.com. What else? We've got our new app, the iOS app for the podcast. Go to the app store, search Rich Roll Podcast, you'll find it. It's the only way to access the entire catalog of the podcast all the way back to episode one. As you know, if you get your content from iTunes,

they only have the most recent 50 episodes. And this is a free and easy and simple way to have all of the content in the palm of your hand. We're really proud of it. If you've been digging it, make sure you go to the iTunes app store and give us a review. We appreciate it. Also, go to richroll.com for all your plant power provisions. We got t-shirts, we got caps. We got beanies. We got nutritional products. We got signed copies of Finding Ultra. We have our digital e-cookbook, Jai Seed.

We have a meditation program. And we have cycling kits that are coming soon. We're going to be offering those up for pre-sale soon. So stay tuned for that. They're not quite ready, but we are on the cusp of being able to put that out there. We're pretty excited about that. Thanks for telling a friend. Thanks for supporting the show.

Thanks for using the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com. We love it. Keep posting those Instagram photos. I totally dig that. Just tag my name in it, at Rich Roll, or hashtag RRP, or hashtag Rich Roll, and I'll be sure to like it and share it around. hashtag RRP or hashtag Rich Roll, and I'll be sure to like it and share it around. As always, you can follow me on all the social media places, Twitter, Instagram, I'm at Rich Roll pretty much everywhere except Snapchat, which I'm totally digging and having fun with. And my name on Snapchat is IamRichRoll, I-A-M-R-I-C-H-R-O-L-L, so add me there. All right, this week's assignment.

We all have opinions on things. If you listen to today's episode, there was a lot of discourse about preconceived notions about how we feel about certain things. You know, the sort of template discussion of today's show was really about whether or not Mishka wanted to have kids. kids. But it made me start thinking a little bit more about all the ideas that we kind of harbor and why we harbor these particular points of view on certain issues and things. So many of our opinions are just that. They're just opinions. They're often based on nothing more than what it is that you've always been told your whole life, what you were raised to believe, or worse yet, based on some latent lurking fear that you might not even be conscious about it. In other words, like, why do you feel the way you do about certain things? What is the story you tell yourself about why you believe

you do what you do? I'm not saying that you should change this idea or that you should change your opinion or perspective, but only that you develop enough self-awareness, self-understanding, self-knowledge that you can back up your opinion with reasons that make sense to you and that are objectively sound. In other words, true for you. What are the inherent motivators? What is the basis for that idea or opinion? So this week, my assignment is to list out three to five opinions, and then write out in longhand, not on your computer, but in a journal, why you believe them to be true for you. And the idea is to get to the bottom of it, to be fearless in searching. And I think that you just might find, much like Mishka did in the process of writing Of Mice and Me, that you will develop an

awareness that the idea you harbor is just a choice, that maybe there is a new way, maybe not, but maybe, and at the very least, it'll put you in touch with yourself in a new and better way. All right, you guys, see you next week. Peace. Plants. Well, you sure got a big mouth And you know how to use it For screaming and howling and swearing And sobbing and boozing But lay down your weapons We're ready to give in to your demands.

The getaway cars packed with cocaine and whiskey are better to kill. Happiness is as dull as it seems, and the company loves misery. You'd be happier being unhappy like me Cause I'll be cutting my milk chocolate heart out Just for you The girl with the New Jersey Valentine's Day orphan lose Oh Oh Oh

Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh

Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Well, I always do the right thing When I've run out of wrong things to do But God, everybody's made a few mistakes Everybody's buried a body Or two Or three You said with your hatred in my hangovers

That we'd bring the world to its knees I'll pull my head out of the toilet Long enough to say that I disagree Me with my black market net And you with your tremors and heads Who's gonna look after the kids? Cause I'll be cutting my milk chocolate heart out Just for you.

The girl with the New Jersey Valentine's Day orphanage. Cause I'll be cutting my milk chocolate heart out just for you. Just for you The girl with the New Jersey Valentine's Day orphanage