The Rich Roll Podcast - The Misadventures Of A Professional Struggler — Mishka Shubaly Just Wants To Be Better

Episode Date: November 9, 2017

Devoted listeners are well-acquainted with my gravelly voiced, chronically self-deprecating, often tortured, but always charming brother-from-another-mother Mishka Shubaly – back on the podcast for a record-breaking 8th appearance. A writer oozing talent from his overactive sebaceous glands, Mishka pens true stories about drink, drugs, disasters, desire, deception, and their aftermath. He began drinking at 13 and college at 15. At 22, he received the Dean's Fellowship from the Master's Writing Program at Columbia University. Upon receipt of his expensive MFA, he promptly moved into a Toyota minivan to tour the country nonstop as a singer-songwriter, often sharing the stage with comedians like Doug Stanhope and musical acts like The Strokes and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. But mostly he drank. It sounds glamorous. It wasn't. At 32, Mishka hit bottom, got sober and laced up a pair of running shoes. In between ultra marathons, he began publishing a string of #1 bestselling Kindle Singles – short non-fiction novellas — through Amazon. The Long Run*, his mini-memoir detailing his transformation from alcoholic drug abuser to sober ultrarunner, to this day remains one of the best-selling Kindle Singles in Amazon history. He is also the author of I Swear I’ll Make It Up To You*. Brutally honest, fiercely emotional and muscular in its prose, it's the booze-fueled, opiated account of a precocious young underachiever trying to be good (and failing and failing) until one day he succeeds. It's about serial abandonment, school shootings, alcoholism, loneliness, artistic frustration, faith, guilt, sobriety, running, relationships, resentment, revenge, music, art, and creativity. It’s about one man’s attempt to reckon with the wreckage of his past and his journey to reconcile his relationship with his family, and most importantly, to forgive the father that jettisoned him. It’s been over a year since Mishka dropped in on the pod to share his latest misadventures as a touring musician and tortured artist. We're overdue for a check-in. And this conversation doesn't disappoint. Even if you have listened to all 7 of our previous conversations, this one is sure to surprise and delight. We discuss alcoholism, nihilism and depression. We talk about how he maintains sobriety as a touring musician. We get into the romance of one's drinking past and identity attachments that don't serve us. And we cover the trading of one addiction for another. Most impactful is our discussion about Mishka's recent diagnosis as pre-diabetic, and his decision to finally go plant-based. That is a sentence I never thought I would write. In response to my urging that Mishka get back to what he does best — writing — Mishka decided to crowd-source his oft-challenged motivation by launching a social media campaign designed to motivate all of us (but probably mostly him) to commit to spending a pre-ordained amount of time every single day in November to write. Join the brigade on twitter by posting your progress with the hashtag #writenovember. Finally, stick around to the end for a live musical performance by Mishka to take us out. I love Mishka like a brother. I love this conversation. I hope you do too. Enjoy! Rich

It's true that whatever after 35, 40, like things start to slow down and it's harder to do the stuff that we did when we were younger. So does that mean you roll over and just, you're like, oh yeah, all right, I'll gain 40 or 50 pounds and like, let's Netflix and chill, you know, for another 30 years before I die. Or do you push back? Do you turn and fight, you know, and do you say, no, I'm not done being a human yet and having a full life. And, you know, I still got a ton of shit left to do, you know. That's Mishka Shubali and this is the Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. What's happening, people?

What are you guys doing? Are you stuck in traffic on your commute? Are you on the treadmill? You're in the midst of a gym workout. Perhaps you're out on a trail run or you're riding your bike or maybe you're cooking dinner for your family. I don't know. But wherever this may find you, I am wishing you well. My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. This is my podcast. Welcome or welcome back. Glad to have you and very excited because today marks the return

of my gravelly voiced, chronically self-deprecating, often tortured, but always charming brother from another mother, the bon vivant at large known as Mishka Shubali, for what I think, if I'm not mistaken, marks his unprecedented eighth appearance on the podcast. For those who have been around for a while, Mishka needs no introduction, but if you're new, Mishka is a writer. He's an author. He's a musician who pens true stories about drink, drugs, disasters, desire, deception, and their aftermath. He is the author of a string of number one bestselling Kindle singles, which are essentially

short fiction novellas that are published through Amazon. essentially short fiction novellas that are published through Amazon. His perhaps most well-known work is called The Long Run, which is a mini memoir detailing his transformation from alcoholic drug abuser to sober ultra runner. And to this day, it remains one of the best-selling Kindle singles in Amazon history. It's also the work that brought us together initially for our very first podcast, which was many years ago. Mishka is also the author of a full-blown memoir called I Swear I'll Make It Up To You. It's a beautiful book, really brutally honest, booze-fueled, opiated account of addiction, abandonment, artistic frustration, faith, guilt, sobriety, running, resentment, music, and ultimately salvation.

So it's been about a year since Mishka dropped in on the pod, so I thought it would be good to check in on his latest misadventures, and I'm really glad I did. Even if you have listened to every one of my episodes with Mishka, this one is likely to surprise you. It definitely surprised me. And we're going to dig into it in a minute. But first, can I read you guys an email I got? I got it today.

It really impacted me. And I just wanted to share it with you guys. It goes like this. Dear Rich, I do recognize and appreciate how busy your world must be. I also do truly hope at some point this note of thanks finds its way to you. Well, it definitely did. Thank you for sending it. My 12-year-old son, Jensen, suffered from debilitating IBS that started when he was

nine years old. He missed over 200 days of school from the fourth through to the sixth grade. He was in constant pain. Countless trips to all kinds of specialists rendered little improvement, if any. One weekend last April, we watched a Netflix documentary where yourself and another athlete were featured. When it was over, Jensen said he wanted to try a plant-based diet. We bought a Vitamix, a juicer, and went straight to the farmer's market. Jensen went plant-based that day and hasn't looked back.

Three weeks after removing animal products from his diet, he was pain-free. He slept through the night for the first time in years. He's been a vibrant, radiant young man since. In conversation the other day, I asked him what, if anything, flipped his switch where going plant-based was concerned. Without hesitation, he said, rich roll. Jensen is enrolled in the seventh grade and doing just fine. Doctors and teachers alike are baffled at the change in him. He's been off all prescribed medication for better than six months. We primarily follow recipes from the Plant Power Way and have so enjoyed the fun, goodness, and wellness its pages have brought to our home. I've read Finding Ultra. I've listened to your podcast. I've heard you and your good wife share Thank you for staying the course. Your no-compromise commitment to your values, along with your sincerity, struck a chord with Jensen, who just a week prior had a doctor tell him he'd likely be on the wrong end of IBS for the rest of his life.

There really are no words for me that would adequately express the gratitude we feel. So we will say thank you instead. Sincerely, Wendell and Jensen. So, wow. It's incredible to receive an email like this. It just, you know, it makes it all worth it for me. It makes all the work that I do make sense. So the gratitude, in fact, is all mine. You know, this is why I do what I do. It's just incredibly meaningful to me that the work that I work hard to put out into the world actually has an impact and that people are taking it to heart, putting it into action and actually improving their lives. So very touched to receive this email. Thank you, Wendell and Jensen. Much love to you guys and your family.

Congrats to Jensen. That's so cool that you made the leap, Jensen. And now it's your turn to carry that message forward and inspire others. So again, thank you for that email and you guys out there. Thank you for listening. 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 find the right place and the right level of care,

especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you

decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life and recovery is wonderful. 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. 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 find the right place and the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers

to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you.

Life in recovery is wonderful, 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. Okay, Mishka, eighth time on the podcast. Can you believe it? Oh my God. Wow. In any event, like I said, this is a surprising conversation. It's a great conversation. We go deep. We cover a ton of terrain. We discuss alcoholism, nihilism, addiction, sobriety, depression. We talk about Mishka's struggle to be a touring musician surrounded by alcohol and clubs and bars and how he maintains his sobriety, eight years sober now. We talk about his attachment to this identity of being the starving artist, to the struggle,

to romanticizing his drinking past, about missing the lifestyle. And we also talk about trading one addiction for another. But the most impactful part of this conversation is when we delve into Mishka's health or his current struggles with his health, I should say, and wait for it. You're not going to believe this. Mishka's decision to go 100% plant-based. Unbelievable. That is something I never in a million years thought I would hear him say. And it's kind of an amazing exchange that we have around this. Before we get into it, three quick notes. First, this is really funny. Mishka texted me the other day a screenshot of

a Jeopardy question. It was just a photograph of one of those blue TV screens with the Jeopardy question typed out on it. And it said this, in the forward to the long run, this CEO remarked about how writer Mishka Shubali was helped by Kindle singles. Do you know what the answer is? The answer is Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos wrote a beautiful, I think he wrote the forward to the long run. No, maybe not the forward, but he blurbed it and he endorsed it. And hence, Mishka and Jeff had this little relationship going that was written about in the New York Times, I believe, if I'm not mistaken. So in any event, Mishka,

you have officially won the world with that one. You're now officially a cultural icon. So congrats on that. Second, another thing that comes up in the podcast is my urging that Mishka get back to the page, that he get back to writing, which is something he hasn't been doing lately. And he agreed. And he decided that he wanted to crowdsource his motivation to combat his laziness, I suppose. So he launched a little social media campaign called hashtag write November, W-R-I-T-E November to get everyone writing and to help motivate each other. So hit the page, hit Mishka up on Twitter or Instagram at Mishka Shubali with that hashtag and let them know what you thought. And if you're writing or if you're not writing, I don't know. In any event, stick around to the end. Finally, Mishka takes us out with a live musical performance,

which is really great. There's no outro on this podcast so without further ado let's roll around in the mud with my brother mishka shibali pass me the lampshade i'm drunk again all right man you ready to rock let's do this man the prodigal podcast son has returned my favorite little brother the adopted stepchild of the rrp the uh the black sheep or i don't know there's i don't know there's competition there's competition who's your competition jj yeah he's not well he's a different kind of black sheep yes he, he is his own. He's got the leader of the black sheep squad. But, dude, it's so funny doing this because we always like because we're both always off doing crazy things and crazy lives. And we rarely do the like, you know, oh, how was your day to day?

That kind of checking in. But I'll just show up here randomly and then if this is like we like lock and load into the chamber you know well i don't know what's going to happen here we don't have any agenda there's no uh you know there's no specific subject matter that i feel like we have to cover i just thought you're you've been on the show what like six times at this point i think i think it's six yeah i think you i think you have the record appearing on the podcast more than anybody else but at the same time i don't think you've been on the show for over a year at least

it's been a while it's yeah it's been um maybe a year and a half yeah i think so i mean you know since the book came out so we're due for a check-in yes there's been a lot of terrain that's been covered yes and the beautiful thing is you don't have anything to promote yeah that was one of the bros i that was one of the things i was like this is actually the perfect time to podcast because i have i have no talking points i have there's nothing that like i want to hit or i i have nothing to plug i have you know what i mean i'm not shilling for anything for once and we can just uh just throw down catch up talk shit bust each other's balls well you've been doing a lot of stuff but i i sort of conceptual i was doing a little bit of thinking like okay what you know what do i want to cover like there should at least be you know some overarching theme here yeah and i think that what's interesting about you and and maybe perhaps in part um why people connect with you when you're

on the show because these episodes are always super popular with people is that in certain respects you're you're in many ways can like a stand-in for the audience like i think your life experience or kind of your perspective on a lot of the things that I talk about, uh, comes from, uh, you know, a shared kind of, kind of viewpoint that a lot of people who listen to this show, uh, Harbor or have just in terms of like, okay, how do I like, I like rich, he talks about cool stuff, but like, I don't know if I'm there yet, or I don't know how to make this work and I'm still struggling. And you've had an interesting journey with all of these things over the last year. Yeah. Yeah. I, uh, I'm a professional struggler. I have, I have all the problems that the people who listen to your podcast have. And I, uh, that's your career. You're a musician,

you're a writer, but, but your vocation is struggling yeah yeah i i excel no we talked about this before like you're attached to certain uh lifestyle habits that i'm always encouraging you to shed and transcend and you nonetheless persist in hanging on to it's i have a hard time i'm an emotional hoarder like i don't i don't don't, I don't really hoard stuff. What does that mean? But I, I hang on to like feelings and things, you know, I, um,

I, I've been struggling with sobriety. I haven't, uh, I haven't relapsed, but I've definitely like, I think about that shit a lot. And,

uh, I was talking to a buddy of mine and I was like, man, yeah. You know, every once in a while, I just, I like get a Jones where I like,

you know, like I want to go to the bar and do six shots and then go blow a bunch of lines. All right. But hold on a second. Let me, let me give you his response. And he just looked at me and he was like, you know, that we don't do that anymore. Right. You know, that like you, you quit, but we stopped.

We're all 40. You know, it's like, even if you're not an alcoholic or an addict like people taper off people grow up you know right but you so let me let's explore that for a second here so when you have that craving or you feel that like sort of groundswell of you know compulsiveness rise up inside of you uh you're not acting on it but what the, what are the emotions that you experience? Like, do you feel ashamed that you feel that way? Or do you feel like I shouldn't feel this way? And how long have you been sober at this point? At this point, it's eight, eight years, eight and a half years, something like that. mean, I feel like, um, I, you know, I feel like we're,

we're both sort of success stories, you know, and, um, I want to close the door on that. And that's a pipe dream. You know, that, that doors will always be, it'll, if it's not wide open, it'll be a jar or it'll be a crack or it'll be latched poorly you know and like ready to spring back open and i know that i just need to uh you know to live with that um but it is frustrating to to feel like you're you've gone so far down the road with sobriety and then to have a craving like that. This is the thing. I've had a million opportunities to drink.

Jesus, on this last tour when I was in the- You're basically living in dive bars. I know, I spend more time in dive- You're not exactly in a high vibrating environment conducive to optimal sobriety. But the point that I'm driving at really that I wanna get to is, this is kind of an endemic thing with alcoholics. Like even people who have been sober for a long time, suddenly they have an urge and they feel bad about themselves.

Like I can't believe that I have that urge or that compulsion. Like haven't I moved past this? But you have to remember that if you're an alcoholic, like you're a true real alcoholic, that is your default state of mind and your condition. So you should just understand that that goes with the territory and it's a little kind of like red flag, like, oh, maybe I need to take a little contrary action to get back on track. But of course you're going to feel that way from time to time. You know, the miracle is that you don't act on that. It's like,'re gonna have those emotions. You're gonna feel that way Periodically, it's what you do in response to that that dictates, you know life outcomes and you know

The miracle is that is not that the alcoholic, you know, the sober alcoholic stays sober the mirror is the mirror Well jumbled my thoughts but essentially the miracle is that you're not drinking every day. Like you forget that, right? That's your default state. And you've put together eight years without doing that. So you have a craving from time to time. Congratulations, you're an alcoholic. You know, you shouldn't be ashamed of that. look at whatever is going on with me physically and emotionally that led to that craving so i can

um you know maybe shift my behavior or my environment a little bit to nip that in the bud so that doesn't come up next time it gets even more interesting uh on this last tour in england um i was uh i was traveling with this band bird cloud who are, uh, alcohol aficionados. They, they appreciate the sauce and, uh, and, and they're brilliant musicians and brilliant writers. And it was, you know, it was a privilege to tour with them. And also day after day, I was like, uh, and then, uh, you know, towards the end of the tour, we were in London and I had sort of like, you know, after you're on the road for a while while you get used to setting things up a certain way i put my capo here i put my slide here i put my you know my thing water or seltzer here and uh and then i got up um on stage and great

night like sold out room in you know and to be in a foreign country and have people singing your songs back to you i mean that that's like such a fucking great feeling yeah and um i went up and i like did my first song reached down grabbed my drink took a swig of it and it was pure vodka and like it's not the first time this has happened to you no about that other time and but that was a mixed vodka drink this was straight vodka which got me and i was like did did somebody do this to me on purpose or like what the but i i like felt it in my mouth and I, I spit it out back into the glass and I did the rest of the set, totally cotton mouth, like not drinking anything, you know? And that's weird to have something like that happen in the public eye.

And, and then you have to go through the rest of the show. And the whole time I was thinking like, well, I already got a little bit. Why not just, you know. Right. And you also have that millisecond thing where it's in your mouth. And it's almost like, what is your knee-jerk unconscious reaction? Like swallow or spit. Like it can go, that can go either way.

Yeah. Yeah. And so, and every alcoholic justification was going through my head of like, Oh, I already got a drop down my throat. It's already like, you know, it's already tainted or whatever. And, but I never did. I know I didn't take a drink. I, you know, as soon as I got off stage, I pounded a couple of bottles of water and that

made me realize that the cravings that I've had, where I like really want to drink, that's not what's going on. where I like really want to drink, that's not what's going on. I really don't want to drink because I had, I had everything teed up for the perfect excuse where I had accidentally taken a drink and then it would have been so easy. Oh, I'm on tour, like in a foreign country. I've ever, I had every excuse lined up to justify a good relapse and I didn't do it and i realized it's because i really don't want to drink and when i get those cravings about i really want to drink i really you know it's i miss being young i miss being 22 i'm having a hard time dealing with aging being like a 40 year old man it's fucking it's really bumming it's a romantic it's a romantic attachment or relationship with a bygone era in which you

were carousing around brooklyn and new york like doing whatever yeah yeah it it's it's it feels like a time machine in a bottle where i can just have a drink and go back there to being a kid to hanging out with my friends to you, falling down on the river or, you know, whatever bullshit we used to do. And, um, I,

you know, I, I, I posted something where I said, you know, um, I've lost more friends to parenthood than, you know,

alcoholism, drug addiction, and suicide combined. You know, please RT, if this scourge has affected you, like I'd be in a smart ass, drug addiction, and suicide combined, you know, please RT if this scourge has affected you and like, I'd be in a smart ass of court, but it's, it's true, man. Like I, you know, I friend, I feel like I'm one of the, one of the last, if not the last of my friends to,

uh, to not be married, to not have children. And it's to a point where like, I just, I, I, I had alienated all my friends and now I've sort of gotten them back, but then I've lost them again to parenthood. Yeah. And is it, is it parenthood or is it just growing up where the lifestyle choices, the free time entertainment choices have pivoted away from some of your cherished, most favorite occupations? The both. I mean, a lot of it is parenthood. A lot of my friends have, you know, young, you know, two kids under four or something like that.

And also people, I, the juxtaposition of the words dinner and party always bothered me because I was like, man, it's one or the other. Like they don't go together, you know, dinner or it's a party. If it's a liquid dinner, that's different. Like, I, I mean, I remember God, I remember like we threw some party when I was like 20 living in Colorado and like my roommate's girlfriend made all this like awesome food and everybody was just coked to the gills and hammered and by the end of the night almost nothing had been eaten there was just like cigarettes put out in the like you know penne pasta with right and this is

heartbreaking yeah but you look back on that and that's the good old that's yeah that's what you miss yeah well i i remember all the like the funny shit about it and you know and the times when we were just like laughing uncontrollably and i miss that you know i i'm glossing over the next morning right yeah you're not you're not playing it through to its conclusion yeah right so what's helpful to me when i start to romanticize the drinking days is to really like you remember those episodes but then just okay, okay, what happened after that? And what happened? Oh yeah. And what happened? You know, and then just, and then follow the thread and then you're like, oh yeah,

that's why I don't drink. Yeah. And, and listen, I mean, I, um, I, most of the time I love not drinking. I love, uh, not apologizing for the first half of the next morning to people is so great. Like to get into an argument with somebody to be able to say, well, actually I remember that I said this and to be able to remember it and not just have to, you know, I mean, that's, that's great. And like, I'm running again, I'm training for a 50 K in December. Like it's going well. I had like a real strong 20 mile run the other day where I was just like flying and um and I like you know I like to like at the end of the night when we're loading

out being like no I got this I can drive home or I can take care of this situation you know to be to make a positive contribution to be in control and stuff but I um for me my youth is so stitched through with uh with alcohol and cough syrup and all the other stupid shit that we used to do you know that i think in my brain that's the that's become a shorthand you know or a signal for youth you know the um i you know i i had actively planned to be dead a long time ago. And so I don't know how to live now or how to have fun. I mean, I'm starting to figure it out. I'm starting to get an idea. But I mean, a lot of, I don't know, I feel like a lot of people, like after like 38 or 40, they're like, all right, well now, now,

now we gained 40 pounds and we quit the band and we sell the gear and we, we don't do this anymore and we don't do that anymore. And we just sort of like, and they just sort of like, well, I mean, you know, that, you know, the over the hill, right. That they just like, all right, now we're just going to coast into. Have you seen that a TV show on HBO called Togetherness? No. That Mark Duplass created?

It's like it goes right to the heart of what you just said. Yeah. It's basically like a cast of characters who are all right at that age where they're making that transition from what their life used to be like single to trying to become responsible adults and parents and what gets baked into that i think you would i think you would relate to it oh i gotta check it out you should check it out it's cool but here's the thing man i mean i you know i couldn't do what you're doing i mean you spend an inordinate amount of time in like you know dive bars touring you know on the road and and hanging out with you know people that that are drinking a lot and doing that you know living that kind of lifestyle yeah i i mean that would wear me down

it it does wear me down i mean it it does tire me out um but i realized that from the experience i had of like getting sober and then three weeks later going to work in a bar and having to work in a bar and stay sober that, you know, I think, um, alcoholics in early sobriety, they have to build the, the castle or the fortress or the barricades in their outside life that you don't step into a bar. You don't hang out with those people anymore. You don't, you know? Um, and, um, and I, and I think that that's absolutely the right thing to do. Um, but I couldn't do that. So I, I had to build that barricade in my head and, um, and I think the risk of failure is really high when you're, when you're doing that. And I mean, there's a reason that my story is interesting is because most people who try and do what I did don't, it doesn't work. But now at this this point i have that shit in my head you know and and when i tasted that vodka in

my mouth i mean it tasted awesome you know i was like vodka ah i love you where have you been you know and also i was like you don't do that anymore and and it was just a gut reaction of like no spit it out that's not you know and like my body can finally reckon no that is poison dude you you went to you went to great pains to get that in the past but it is poison it is actually you know there's an adage in sobriety that you know if you're truly sober you can go anywhere like you shouldn't you shouldn't you you shouldn't have to avoid you know this place or that place because it might trigger you in a certain way um but that there has to be kind of a purpose for wandering into a location that you might imperil the you know the solidity of of your of your sober program

and what always mystifies me is that you do this alone. Like, I can't do it alone. I need other people. I need, you know, I need the secret society and everything that comes with that to stay sober. And I know what it's like to step outside that. And I've done so at my peril and it hasn't worked out. So, you know, I stay close. But, like, you still are holding on to this sort of self-will run, self-styled approach to sobriety. And I have no judgment on that. You're eight years sober, man.

Like that's amazing. But it's curious to me how you're able to do that, especially when your lifestyle, you know, finds you in all kinds of locations that aren't conducive to the highest vibration. Rich, know that you're with me everywhere i mean that i if you're not there you're still there you know you and a couple other friends are like definitely people who i carry on my shoulder in my head you know with me wherever

i go you know so that because i have moments of weakness and I have moments and I definitely have moments of, uh, nihilism, you know, where it's like my nihilism is in, uh, it's in regression, but it could easily come back, you know? And, um, I just think that, um, you know, that's not the life that you would want for me you would be worried you would be concerned um that you know i mean there's a lot of things that it would you know i mean listen i know at this point that i i can't i couldn't alienate you as a friend if i tried but i know too that if i started drinking that it would be really hard for us to be friends you know and um so i you know and i have other i have other friends like that you know but um so i don't go into these places alone i bring i bring you and a couple other people with me but um one i think

one of the things that that made me sort of bail out of running and the ultra community and stuff like that is i felt like um you know one of the the things I love about, about Dave Clark and I love about you is that, that the journey you travel on your feet is less important than the journey you travel, the distance you cover in your head, you know, and that it was about, you know, going out there and like, you know, having an experience like a vision quest or something like that, you know, the end and then, you know, sort of doing these races and interacting with people, you know, for them, it just seemed sort of like bootcamp or cardio exercise or, you know, and I would get into conversations with people. You mean in the ultra community? Yeah. Because I think there's a lot of seekers there, you know, there's would get into conversations with me in the ultra community yeah because i think there's a lot of seekers there you know there's a lot of people in recovery

for sure yes absolutely and and also you know what i was seeing may not be what was accurate i may have been looking for that dissatisfaction and then i found it yeah you have to you have to filter that through your own prism of perception. Whatever the opposite of rose-colored glasses are. Through whatever goggles Mishka's wearing. Welder's shades. Everything is terrible. Everybody's out to get me. That's true.

Wait, that's right. Um, you finally see my, uh, see how I feel. No, the, um, you know, so I, you know, and a lot of times I would find myself in these sort of like hitchhiker conversations, you know, like that when you're hitchhiking, if, if somebody says, um, Oh man, I'm glad we finally got Trump in the, in office. He's doing a great job. You would be like, yep. Uh-huhhuh man look at the beautiful day that we're having you know and because when you're hitchhiking you're at somebody else's they're helping you out you're not going to get into a protracted conversation with them about religion or politics or gun control or whatever the hot button issues are you're just going to toe the line you're just going to surf along you know and then i would find myself getting

into these conversations with people on the trails or whatever where you know oh i prefer this kind of gel or whatever and i was like man this is fucking pouring me to death and and i felt that and i and in hindsight i know that this is wrong but this is one of the things that led me to the current uh empire strikes back phase that i'm going through which is that i felt that it was time for me to move into like a life of the mind and that I really wanted to be writing more, to be creating more, to have new experiences, to, to, uh, to reinvent myself as an artist and as a musician and, um, make shit and produce stuff. And I, you know, I felt like, um, you know, I was, I was boxing and I

was kickboxing and I was going to the gym and stuff like that. And that just seemed like, it seemed like a waste of time. And in hindsight, it absolutely wasn't. But sometimes you have to leave the trail in order to be able to look back and be like, oh, that's where the trail was right there. That's where I left it. Right. I mean, well, I've always seen you as somebody who, you know, and this is clear in your writing, like you took up ultra running, not because you were just going to become a career ultra runner. This was an attempt to get out of your comfort zone and really, you know, shake things up in your life to,ame your perspective and recreate new habits that could set you on a new trajectory. And I think it did that, right? So there's something to be said for,

it's not that like, oh, you walked away from it. So it's a defeatist thing. Like, okay, what's the next thing that's out of my comfort zone that's going to challenge me in a new way? Once it stops sort of pressing you, you know, pressing the outer boundaries of your envelope, it's time to look in other areas perhaps. I mean, there's always, you know, I talked about this with David Clark and I'm sure you have as well. Like he kept pushing and pushing and pushing. It's like, dude, you know, at what point does it tip over into its own form of addiction and compulsion and obsession? Because there's always going to be a crazier thing that you can do. And like, what are you actually trying to learn about yourself?

Yeah. And when does it become, you know, the enemy of the thing that you aspire for yourself? Yeah. The, and that's, you know, the craving new things, craving new sensations. That's learning. That's curiosity, that's to be encouraged, you know, and expanding your realm of knowledge and putting yourself, you know, outside of your comfort zone. That's great. But also craving new things and new experiences

is how I got into trouble with drugs and alcohol. And, and also you can't spend your whole life questing for the new, looking for the new thrill. Sometimes you have to reach a point where you say, enough's enough. This is, I got there. But there's a distinction between chasing the thrill or trying to get high or trying to escape your reality versus putting yourself in a position to fail and grow as a learning experience for yourself. And sometimes I think those lines get blurred because they can, it's all in your relationship to them that will define whether it's one or the other. And so it, it requires a certain level of awareness to make sure that your, that your motivations are true and that you're not using it to escape or to numb

or to, you know, basically truncate your growth as opposed to, uh, amplify it. Yeah. I, I think that you and I both have the tendency to divide things into, these are the things that I can do. And these are the things that I can do and these are the things that i can't do and then every time um you move something from one category of the thing i can't do into the category that i can do then suddenly it loses meaning it loses well yeah i can do that it doesn't that it doesn't mean anything you know right what about the things that i can't i think that's a little bit through your prism you know like, like I had, I had this woman, Gretchen Rubin on the podcast who wrote a book called the four tendencies. And she basically through extensive study to her,

her, her thesis is that all human beings can be divided into one of four categories in terms of how they respond to external and internal expectations. And one of the categories is rebel, which is basically the person who doesn't like to be told, you know, when they have to show up or they want to be, they want to make that decision for themselves. And I could say without you having to take the quiz that would determine which one you would fall into. Tell me the other three categories I want to pick. No, you're clearly a rebel right so the minute it starts becoming institutionalized let's say ultra running or whatever like oh this it becomes sort of an identity defining thing i can see you as being somebody who's going to push up against that and

then move in the other direction yeah because you don't want to be boxed into a corner in that way yeah and and and i will jeopardize my own wellness just to not be in a box or i'll do damage to myself right just because you need because you have this incredible urge to say fuck you yeah yeah i do and that's that is like my deep it's like i have it on the back of my eyelids, man. And it's so hard. You know, I mean, it's not always bad. You know, I mean, with my sister and with her two daughters, that's one of the things that I work with on them is to know when to say, fuck you and like stand up for yourself and say, no,

this is where I draw the line. I'm not going to stand for this. I'm not going to put up with this. You know, this is not, this is not okay, but fuck you. Can't be your mantra. It can't be your default. You can't just do that all the time, you know, and I knee jerk to it so quickly all the time and I'm trying to overcome it and it's hard, you know, but, um, but yeah, I mean the, you know, I said, I was thinking about this, you know, as soon as something becomes a hashtag, it's over, you know, and like, what it is, what do you do when everything's hashtag? Well, that's, that is where we are right now. Right.

Well, that's when you need to revisit your, you know, you know, I also say like, you know, anything, you know, short enough to put in a tweet is oversimplification, you know, and that's short enough to put in a tweet is oversimplification you know and that's short enough to put in a tweet you know so like it's um you know but if if you look but but i'm wrong you know and i guess that's that's my point is i'm wrong when i say that that you know the me too hashtag that was that was incredibly meaningful that was like such a weird couple of days on social media where every woman that I knew was telling stories of how they'd been sexually harassed, abused, assaulted. And I knew that it was pervasive and I knew that it was everywhere

and I did not know that it was like nearly universal. And more than that, you know the that that was the kind of and the um the repetitive you know and a lot of my male friends have been assaulted as well um but the the real eye-opening thing for me with with that me too hashtag was how um it was almost every woman ever everywhere right and everybody has a story non-stop all the time like this constant barrage of harassment and uh and you know and serial abuse and stuff like that so the ability of social media to kind of galvanize and organize that you know that thought experiment was unbelievably powerful and the ripple effects of that, you know, culturally are massive.

Like I read just today that the Condé Nast family of magazines is no longer going to work with Terry Richardson. That is so, so long overdue. Because that's another like open secret. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I can't believe that that guy hasn't been like run out of the country. You know what I mean? Because like people in New York knew about that 10 years ago,

but people in Hollywood knew about Harvey Weinstein 20 years ago, you know? And that's, and that's the thing is that it seems like despicable male behavior is like this universal open secret. That's just sort of like, and that was an interesting thing for me. Because when it's merged with power,

then it creates fear and it becomes institutionalized. And it's amazing how it can be perpetuated for so long. But I feel like, you know, we live in a transparent age and that stuff doesn't fly anymore. And things get rooted out with, you know, extreme rapidity. with, you know, extreme rapidity. It was, it was so interesting to, for me to measure my own response to, you know, to reading all these stories and then to engage with my female friends who are sort of like, yeah, we told you, you know, none of that, none of them were surprised by the, you know, millions and millions of stories.

And the prominent women, the politicians, actors who had endured that. And nearly all of my male friends were like, holy shit. And it was just, I mean, I feel like it was a watershed moment. Yeah, Julie has crazy stories. I mean, she, she jumped in and shared a little bit, but, you know, she's told me over the years, some banana stories of guys that she worked with in and worked for working underneath in the garment industry. And it's appalling. Yeah. yeah but you said earlier you dropped this little bomb you said you're in your empire strikes back phase like what does that mean um so i got uh earlier this year, I turned 40, which is a colossal bummer.

As you know, life ends at 40. Come on, man. That's when my life started. I know. I know. And I had been feeling not just depressed. I mean, I usually feel a little depressed, but like just fucking run down, you know,

and like felt like I was going to sort of float away from the earth at any moment. And, uh, and I was like, okay, I've, I gotta go to the doctor and just like,

it's time. You need to physically run down. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, the, uh,

so the doctor did all the blood work and stuff. And, um, the, uh, you know, he went down my sort of test results. And he was like, your blood sugar is high. I mean, you're pre-diabetic. And this is a month after my godfather, my uncle, died of diabetes, complications from diabetes. And most of my family is diabetic.

And I knew that it was sort of waiting in the wings for me but i thought i had like another 10 years you know and um and he was like you have the testosterone of a 70 year old man and uh and he was like gruff polish doctor in greenpoint and i was like the doctor like you know my girlfriend's really young and hot and he was like gruff Polish doctor in Greenpoint. And I was like, the doctor, like, you know, my girlfriend's really young and hot. And he was like, you want me to cry for you? That's what he said? Yes. Only you would like retort to your doctor after being delivered that news by describing your girlfriend to him.

I can't turn it off, man. So that's pretty heavy, 40. And, you know, you're not like, I mean, you're a big guy. You're carrying a little extra weight around. But, like, it's not like you were, like, obese or anything like that. You're sober. I'm sure this was not. And six-time RRP guest.

I know. Despite all the influence and all the meals that you've had here and all the time that we've spent together yeah it took that for you to to shake you up and well it takes what it takes man it's like it you know when the pain or the news is dire enough then you wake up i i come from the addict school of learning which is don't learn anything until you're in maximum pain and terror and then be like okay i give up all right i'm in meanwhile up until that point exploit every uh yes opportunity yes twizzlers for dinner red wolf for breakfast yeah just yeah stupid shit well i mean you had this for a while there i haven't seen it lately but for a while there you would pride yourself on your Instagram posts of your dinner, which would be like a can of beans.

Like, you know, like you and a can opener sitting on the floor. I still do that. Their beans are so bad. At least it's not like, you know, some terrible chili or something like that. Marshmallow fluff or something like that. So, all right. Well, blood sugar high, pre-diab well blood sugar high pre-diabetic like how how pre-diabetic um well that's the thing is that it's you know it's just the one time you know test

which um you know it sort of measures your fasting blood sugar at that point but it doesn't give you a you know relative to time um but i did the test twice and both times i tested high i mean i think one time it was 110 and then the other time it was whatever 119 which is which is borderline which is right on the border but i was already having physical effects from it like what uh my hands would get like blotchy and itchy and i could i could sort of tell when when i was having like a high blood sugar episode and, um, and I started getting, uh, like, um, pins and needles in my legs and stuff. And I was like, really this quickly. But, um, I, I did the 23 and me genetic testing and it told me the two things that I already knew, which is that physically I'm basically bulletproof except for super elevated

risk for diabetes and late life dementia, which is those two issues are rampant throughout my family. And, you know, I talked to my sister and I talked to a couple of other, you know, other people and like read as sort of, and of course I was leaving on tour the next day. So it wasn't, it's just like, we're going to give you terrible news that you can't really do anything about or learn anything about two days before you leave to go on another month long European tour. And, um, so I read as much as I could and, and, um, did what I thought was the right thing when I was on tour and like, you know, and it made no difference, you know, what was that? What did you do exactly? Um, I, you know, I mean, know i mean i i tried not to eat sugar

you know which was um which i was i mean that is my that is my poison of choice man but you know over and above anything else and um you know and i tried to eat less but i didn't really know what i was doing and um and then when i came back i um i was at yale and i was like okay i'm just going i'm going to avoid all sort of like refined carbs and uh and sugar and that's going to do it and so i was you know eating eggs for breakfast and you know chicken salad for lunch and you know pork chops and whatever you know for dinner and uh and i packed on more weight and um and my blood sugar wouldn't go down and then i was like fuck it like you know i called uh i called dave clark shout out to dave clark for taking my call and when i was miserable and terrified and i was like what do i do like you

know and uh dave was like he was like i you know i don't want to preach i would never preach but since you're asking plant-based is the way to go that will that will fix you right up and um and he was right you know when i went back to uh when i went back to, uh, when I went back to Atlanta, I went like real hardcore of just, um, so, but first of all, after, after Yale and you trying to avoid all the sugars and the refined carbs, did you do your blood work again? And it was the same. Uh, I, no, I didn't, um, I didn't really have like time or an opportunity. No, I, you know, I did. I went on, uh, I went on Amazon. I bought one of those little like pinprick, you know, blood test things. And I would test it every morning after, you know, fasting and, and, uh, five times out of six, it would be high and sometimes really high. And I couldn't like

figure out what it was. And then, um, when I got back to Atlanta and I was settled i just did um like plant-based with no fruits no um no grains sort of no refined anything just sort of um just greens and vegetables and um that's pretty dull for a couple of days and uh but i think i did it for a week or two or 10 days or two weeks and then finally i had a normal reading and then i had another one and then it started being balancing a string of normal readings and that's amazing in two weeks yeah you were able to rectify it yep and then um i did it for i don't know 40 days 60 days something like that before I went back out on the road again. Lost 15 pounds without trying and stopped testing my blood sugar in the morning because what was the point when it's normal every time?

Yeah. I would also suggest you listen to my podcast with Dr. Neil Bernard, which was all about that which uh which book did he write prevent and reverse diabetes yes i have that book you have that book i have that book i bought that book yeah i haven't i haven't read it all yet but i have that and i have uh how not to die right that's a good one yeah and um yeah dude you're never gonna believe this but i've been doing everything wrong why didn't you tell me i can't i can't i don't i don't know what to tell you man you had to figure it out for yourself it's like telling a telling a drunk they have to get sober

like they're not going to hear it until they're ready to get sober yeah it's like telling a kid not to touch the hot stuff whip up the most amazing meals for you time and time again but until you're ready to kind of like look at it or your back is up against the wall but i'm glad you made that leap man yeah i would listen to that podcast i would read both of those books i'm not sure that you need to remove fruit from your diet i think you're probably okay with that yeah i i brought fruit back in after once i'd sort of gotten it normal and then it didn't affect my right my blood sugar at all um i mean i don't do dried fruit or something you know like because it's easy to sit down with a bag of dried cherries or something like that no no no real you know

fresh preferably organic fruit yes but so you've been doing this well Well, let me, for, as I am the sort of every man listener, let me say this, that it was hard. It wasn't an easy transition, but it was absolutely worth it. You know, so like I would say if, if somebody's on the cusp of trying it or if they tried it and failed, try it again and then try it again and then try it again because it's totally worth it. And I really, really struggled with it but now i like i got my mind right you know and i like i love having my oatmeal with stevia in the morning and i i'm like i make killer lentil dishes and like you know what i mean i know i do the knot wings the like sliced cauliflower prepared like wings and stuff and like yeah i have a couple of good recipes i can't even like believe that prepared like wings and stuff and like yeah i have a couple of good recipes i can't even like believe that you're telling me this is like blowing my mind

dude you know but like i think i'll hit you to a bunch of cool recipes man i should do like a right you know you should be you know yeah you're gonna do a cook you're gonna have a cooking show now on youtube but like let's walk through that because i think in certain respects like we said at the outset and you just reminded me like you are a stand-in for a lot through that because i think in certain respects like we said at the outset and you just reminded me like you are a stand-in for a lot of people that i think struggle with this transition and i think it is important to acknowledge that yeah it's hard you have to step out of your comfort zone you have to be willing to like weather a little bit of of discomfort to get to the other side like it's not like oh you snap

your fingers and everything's easy i know that's the culture that we all want for ourselves but if you've been eating a certain way your entire life and then you're faced with the prospect of throwing all that out the window and doing something entirely new it's going to be uncomfortable it just is so rather than trying to find a way to not make it uncomfortable, I mean, sure, you want, there's ways of, of, you know, sort of cushioning that fall, but, but understand that that's okay. But if you can get through like two weeks of trying to figure it out for yourself, like on the other end of that is freedom. So stop fighting the idea that maybe you're going to be uncomfortable and just accept that perhaps that's going to be part of that journey. Yeah. Yeah. There's, I mean, you know, there's,

there's nothing worthwhile that you, you know, that you get for free, except maybe like sunshine, you know what I mean? Like you have to work for good things. And, um, it, uh, yeah, I mean, it was definitely, um, it's definitely challenging. I mean, there were days where I would feel sort of like bloated or lightheaded or no energy or headachy and stuff like that. And do you think that's because your body's trying to acclimate to a new way or because you weren't doing it right or you weren't eating enough calories? Like looking back on it, like doing a forensic analysis. I think there's a know a bunch a bunch of different things i mean one thing is just you know you're radically trans you know in my case i was radically transforming what i was putting in my body right so what were you eating before

well you kind of mentioned it a little bit garbage yeah pork chops yeah yeah well i mean particularly when you're on tour in england not really an area known for its cuisine or commitment to fresh vegetables and stuff like that and then also just road food you stop at the gas station you like you know what i mean you sort of get and even if you're trying to eat healthy if you get the like trail mix pack you your your body is your body is an animal so you grab the trail mix pack that has the m&ms in it and it has like tons of that super sugary dried fruit. That's, you know, like one step away from candy. Um, so, um, you know, I mean, I would eat like

whatever was at, you know, um, a raisin brand with the like super sugary raisins, you know, that was at the continental breakfast at the hotel for, you know breakfast uh coffee with you know sugar and cream in it and then lunch is um whatever something at the gas station a pack of gummy worms trail mix if i'm feeling particularly uh but were you hitting drive-thrus too you go to mcdonald's and yeah you know hardies and wendy's and stuff like that yeah so i'm on the road with my friend star anna who i love and she and i would just bring the worst out of each other and stuff like that yeah so i'm on the road with my friend star anna who i love and she and i would just bring the worst out of each other and just like um smoking cigarettes drinking red bull oh man come on dude you're killing me so stupid and i'm paying the price man i'm you know it it terrified me and it you know it really depressed me to um um, to get that news from, you know, from the doctor. And, um, one,

one of the things I'll say too, is that like, um, there is all, there's all this sort of wave of stigma around being, being vegan. You know, I, I have a bit in, uh, in my sort of like comedy stuff that I do where I say, you know, vegan, you know, I i i treat it like the n word i can only say when i'm uh when i'm quoting a self-righteous closed-minded shithead or uh singing along with kanye come on man which is am i in that category no dude are you kidding come on no but this is the thing is that when somebody if you're trying to make a change for the positive in your life and somebody's like haha vegan that's where you take a lesson from me and say fuck you that's where that's where that comes in handy you know is is um it's my body it's not yours shut up right you know this is a decision that i've made

this is an amazing development in the life of shibali i have to say i'm super proud of you i wasn't sure this day would come i'm glad that it's here and this is fascinating but i think you know one thing that i think is interesting and i want to hear your take on this is that as an addict alcoholic in recovery whether you're doing that in the context of a structured program or more from a freewheeling approach like yourself there are certain rules that you erect to orient your life around and and those rules cannot be broken and if you're an alcoholic it means you don't drink that's just no matter what you don't

drink right you don't step over that line that's a non-negotiable thing and that rule can be very easily applied to diet you just say i don't eat you know this i don't eat i don't eat animal products i don't eat you know candy or whatever it is like you can erect a couple very you don't over complicate it it doesn't have to be like you know there doesn't have to be 20 corollaries to every rule but like if you just have like two or three rules and like this is this is like the marching you know this is the marching rule for my life it removes a lot of decision fatigue and because you have experience with that in other areas of your life i found that it's easy to adhere to that because you have that muscle has been flexed

and is developed so do you think about it in that context? You can just say like, well, I'm, you can even say like, look, I'm addicted to drive through or I'm, you know, you know, I just can't have that in my life. That does not serve me. I don't do that anymore. That's not who I am. Yeah. I, um, I think human beings have a tendency to take a lot of like subtle nuanced decisions and make it into a binary thing. And that's oftentimes bad. But in this instance, I think that's absolutely the way to go. It's just, you know, like I don't drink anymore.

I don't murder people. I don't, you know what I mean? You know, there are things that I don't do, you know, and drinking is one of them. And yeah, also now it's, you know, and drinking is one of them and um and yeah also now it's you know no animal products and particularly for me no processed food you know every once in a while like well like oh i'm gonna get pasta and i can feel it the next day man just like i don't i don't feel right it's it's awesome and it's delicious and i love it you know and like I can house a huge bowl of pasta and I wake up the next day feeling like, ah, I can, I can tell from the way my body feels that that was not what I should have eaten last night. And what has your experience

been with, with cravings? Like, is that analogous to drugs and alcohol? Have you noticed a shift? Like have the cravings for those crazy foods waneded do you still live with those and how do you confront and combat that um in the same way that now my body recognizes that alcohol is a poison you know if i you know putting you know gummy worms in my mouth i'm like this isn't food you know like you can sort of recognize that and i can tell when um You know, like you can sort of recognize that. And I can tell when there's no way for me to not be honest with myself anymore. You know, now I just know that like this is going to make me feel like shit tomorrow. Or it's going to make me feel like shit in 15 minutes.

You know, or I'm eating the right thing i'm gonna feel better dude i'm running better do you did you know this if you eat a plant-based diet you actually perform and recover better not know that i'm so it's such a pleasure for me to be here today to drop this knowledge on you wow i'm gonna really have to explore that in my life you should read a book telling you that i should write a book about that uh i'm glad that you're finally did you think that i was just bsing or did you no no i the whole time that i was or not the whole time i was drinking for most of the time that i was drinking i knew that i was wrong i knew that i was doing the wrong thing and i knew that that and i think i understood that i would have the wrong thing. And I knew that, that, and I think

I understood that I would have to quit one day or that, you know, that it would kill me. And I don't know how, how honest I was with myself about it because, but when I quit drinking, I was like, I quit drinking and people were like, Oh, you've quit drinking a million times. And I said, no, no, no. If you think about it, I've taken a break a ton of times. I've said, I'm not drinking for a week or I'm not drinking for a month or even I'm not drinking for a year, but I've always put an end date on it. Now I'm telling you, I quit drinking, you know? and um the so yeah that those those skills you develop as a sober alcoholic have been you know have been super helpful in you know in making this transition and also this is the other thing too of like try every day you know like i've i screw up sometimes particularly on the road it's

hard and like i still have a hard time being that guy who's like, I don't eat that. You know, I exercise the health cop out as, as often as possible, which is to say, I can't eat that. life at, you know, from, uh, a financial capital, um, uh, perspective, you know, that like I, um, my parents always said, don't let food go to waste. And like, this is what we have for dinner. You eat your dinner, you know, and that kind of thing. Um, but, um, but you know, you can use whatever, you know, in the same way that, you know, with quitting drinking, you can say like, oh, I have to drive or I'm working tonight, you know, and that was really helpful for me in the early days of, you know, like, oh, I'm on the clock. I have to drive tonight or I'm feeling sick. I, you know, I got to get over this. What you're saying, I mean,

between the lines here is it's less about you adhering to the commitment you made to yourself and versus navigating tricky social situations and having to explain yourself to others and the pressure that comes with being in an environment where perhaps people are going to be less understanding of the choice that you're making yeah yeah i've i've seen the light and like you know me man man, I wouldn't like, um, if it was something I was exploring or something I was trying, you know, I wouldn't come out and say it in this form that like, that I'm doing it, but, uh, but I'm doing it, you know, and I, and I've been doing it for a while, you know, and I've been a lot. So how long has it been?

I mean, it's been, what day is it today? What month is it over late? It's, uh, you know know three or four months wow um you know i've screwed up a couple of times um everybody does yeah it's hard like on the road and stuff like that um i struggle on the road you know on the road sometimes it ends up being closer to vegetarian than vegan but i whenever possible i try to and it's also it's one of those things where i said you know i've told myself you can't be you're what you're doing is admirable you can't beat yourself up for falling short on it someday because there was nothing else to eat or you were just starving or whatever you know but um but if i screw up it's like you know i'll eat a piece of

cheese pizza with vegetables on it. It's not like, oh, well, I screwed up, so I'm going to go hit Sizzler. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We should talk about the testosterone thing, too. But before we get to that, I do want to talk about that. Yeah. I'm interested in exploring the relationship between, like, food and emotions in the sense that when you get sober, you become more aware of the extent to which you medicate your emotional state through using

or checking out in various ways. So if you had any, you know, discoveries or epiphanies about, about how you used food in the same way or no. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I, i um you're never going to believe this but i found out that i'm a really like reward based why are you laughing i you know that i'm i'm i you know i'm like the rat that's been in the cage for too long that like i'm not

going to do anything unless i know that there's a treat at the end. You know, there's gotta be some reward. I'll only, I will never press the lever just, just for kicks. You know, there's gotta be like, if I do this, then I can have that. If I do this, then I can have that, that kind of thing. And, um, you know, and then I'm starting to realize that like, and, and, and I've, and this is, and this is one of the ways in which I sort of like ruined running for myself. And I ruin a lot of things for myself, which is that like, it's a great privilege that I have that I'm able to write. That should be its own reward. I should just write and then read what I wrote and say, well, that's good. There's an interesting part there.

That's a good line. That's a good sentence. I was like, yeah, that's a funny part. That should be enough reward. I should go out for a run and be like, oh yeah, that's good. There's an interesting part there. That's a good line. That's a good sentence. I was like, yeah, oh, that's a funny part. That should be enough reward. Should go out for a run and be like, oh yeah, it was nice. I saw some squirrels.

There was that weird snake, whatever, you know, like, and that should be the reward. There doesn't need to be a chocolate bar waiting for me at the end. Right. I'll do this run

and then I'll reward myself with a double cheeseburger or whatever. Which completely undoes the yeah any good that you know that the run does for you but it has uh it has helped you running oh absolutely dude yeah one of the things that i where are you getting your protein dude how is this happening the uh there's this i'm in a weird parallel universe right now like i'm trying to understand what's happening.

Freaky Friday. I'm glad I didn't. We, I'm glad we didn't go. You were like, what are we going to talk about today? I was like, I got a couple of good things. I got one or two things, you know? The, but yeah, the, the protein thing has never, I mean, it's early days for me, but it's never come up for me as an issue

of like, um, you don't have some deep rooted, like innate sense that you're lacking protein in your body. No. And I, and I didn't do any protein powders or, um, you know, cause I was just like, no, that's processed food, you know? And I, and dude, I, I mean, I didn't do the plant-based thing out of like, you know, let me try this or this would be a good idea. I was fucking terrified. I was just like, I was like, I'm going to die. And I just see my uncle die in a horrible way. How old is he?

62, you know, and he's my adopted sister's father. So she lost her father. He, and it was one of those things it was just this horrible experience of him like dying six times and coming back to life five and the last time there was nothing left you know and then they had to make the decision to pull the plug you know and this is a you know this is a young man with with children um you know i knew him my entire life he was always there with us you know when we were kids and he was you know and some of the uncles were cool and some of the aunts were cool and other other ones weren't and ed was always like i'm god i still have a letter that uh that he

wrote me when i was in graduate school that i haven't been able to locate and it's such a mercy that i haven't been able to locate it because i's such a mercy that I haven't been able to locate it. Cause I know when I find it, it will just make me, it will make me break down, but it was so hard to lose head. And, and, and I knew, uh, without knowing much about diet and nutrition, I was like, dude, you're 60 pounds overweight. If you're having health issues, that's it. You know, or, or even if that's not it, losing that weight isn't won't hurt. And it will probably help. You know, I feel like this is shit that's preventable You know, or, or even if that's not it, losing that weight isn't won't hurt and it will probably help. You know, I feel like this is shit that's preventable.

And, um, and so many people in my family, um, are, you know, diabetic or pre-diabetic and overweight and, you know, and that's, and let's, you know, let's be honest about this too. You know, I mean, so many people were like, you know, you know, you you're, you know, you're a young guy. How could this to you you're so skinny i'm not skinny i'm everybody in america is overweight i'm less overweight than a lot of the people that we know yeah and you're a big dude and you can kind of yes you know wear a baggy t-shirt and no one's gonna say you're overweight exactly it's not like you had a huge gut or anything like that and and

also it's like you're running all the time and you're running ultras so how dare you accuse me of this but you're a big run ultras and still be overweight and you definitely how much have you lost because you're you're the tremest that i've seen you uh i'm i'm probably down like 15 pounds um i want to get down another seven or eight um and we'll see if that happens or not, you know. But I'm back running. There's a lot of, I mean, I have been, you know, since getting scared, I have been far more. And, you know, props to my girlfriend, Maddie, too. I mean, she's really been like, you got to take care of yourself.

You need to, you can't do the things you you got to take care of yourself you need to that you can't do the things that you do without taking care of yourself um so you know but there's also sorry i don't mean to interrupt you but i gotta say this jump in and we've talked about this before but there is something deeply bred inside of you that prides yourself on you know your kind of rogue approach to lifestyle like you're you're you have an attachment like in a romance in the same way you romanticize your your past drinking life you kind of romanticize the beat-up van and the the crappy hotel rooms and the kind of lifestyle of of the traveling road show you know that you live yeah and and this

is sort of requiring you to re-examine that and perhaps let go of of that or at least not romanticize it yeah i mean i'm not saying change your i'm not saying you're not going to go do the things that you love doing i'm saying you're you're the pride that gets attached to like i live this way you know like sort of in defiance it's that rebel thing like i'm defying cultural norms and i'm gonna live this way and fuck you yeah i i mean part of it you know it there's it's a balancing act because part of it is um change and evolve and incorporate the the lessons that you learn in your life and respond to the wisdom that you're confronted with and also be true to yourself, you know. And I think you can do both of those things. And I'm trying hard to do both of those things.

But the I mean, I'm still playing out dramas from when i was a little kid of like you know young man you need to learn how things are done and i'm like no i'm gonna i'm gonna do it my way and like that has served me and it has hurt me you know incredibly and um so i mean let's put it this way though you know i, I, um, you know, I've been on the road a lot, you know, I'm in bars a lot. Um, I've, yes, I'm still the guy with, you know, both middle fingers in the air, but now I'm saying, uh, fuck you. You don't need to be drunk all the time to be a rebel. And, um, if you want to, if you want want to smash the state why don't you make sure that you have the tools to do it why don't you take care of the most important tools you have which

is yourself if you want to change things you know the um the i said this to a friend the other day and got shit for it but i'll say it again you know the uh the most the most the most dangerous thing that we could do in america is have healthy black people because you know poverty malnutrition and this system of you know government subsidies for meat and mcdonald's and stuff like that that being the only food that's available in low-income neighborhoods. You know, do your best to stick around, be healthy for a long time, and be a pain in the ass for your enemies. You know, I really believe that. Well, let's flesh this out a little bit because, like, that's kind of a loaded statement to say. I want to make sure I understand you.

Yeah. to say i want to make sure i i understand you yeah the so i mean i come from sort of a a culture of of of resistance of pushing back against you know corporate america mainstream america mainstream ideals and um the but then within that the sort of punk rock community there's you know there's this there's the there's the idealist wing of like we need to change things women need to have an equal say women need to have equal representation women need to have equal power um black people need to be allowed to own the places where they live and not white landlords and black tenants you know that there is this stratification in america of um and it's and time and time again it's people of color who come out on the losing end um every time that the law is

involved you know and so that so in the sort of punk rock community there's the like super idealist wing of like you know like let's change things. Let's move forward. Let's be progressive. And then there's this sort of the other side that like the nihilist side of like. Anarchist. Well, not even anarchist, but like nihilist. Just like not even like let's go out and smash it, but let's just get fucked up, you know.

And like real punk rock is like waking up and having you know a shot and a beer for breakfast and then like you know doing lines all day or whatever and um and a lot of people try to try to imagine that those are compatible things but when you're um But when there is a culture of self-destruction, of like, oh, we're just going to eat garbage and we're not going to do what you tell us to. We're not going to take care of our bodies. You don't have to. There doesn't need to be a villain. Because you're undermining yourself at every turn, you know? And if, um, if people, you know, there's a lot of,

a lot of musicians and comics with, uh, with political aspirations and, you know tweeting about shit but um but then in their own personal lives are um our alcoholics our addicts are massively overweight our ralphie may our friend ralphie may just died at 45 yeah and um it's you know that's the simple thing is that if you really want to, if you want to fuck shit up, if you want to upend the existing balance of power, be healthy. Right. So essentially like the sort of the punk rock of being healthy. We live in a culture in which systems are erected that are inherently repressive to a lower socioeconomic class because healthy food is not accessible or affordable. Yeah. And you can't use food stamps to buy healthy food. It's like it's so perpetuates and further entrenches the divide between the

haves and the have-nots which of course is further repressing people of color yeah and all of that so the punk rock thing is to is to find a way to somehow you know transcend those erected cultural barriers that uh stand in between that person and being healthy so that you, you can be physically healthy enough to stand up to the man. And that's what you're saying. Exactly. I get that. Exactly. And I mean, listen, I, I mocked the like vegan punks my whole life and I was wrong. You know, I was wrong. Do you want to apologize to JJ right now? you know, I was wrong. Do you want to apologize to JJ right now? I, uh, I, I probably owe him a phone call. You should. John, I'm sorry. You were right.

I was wrong. I don't know. You know, that's like, that's, that's a start, you know? So what about this testosterone thing? Oh, that's, uh, well, I mean, mean man you think there's a lot of like weird uh feelings tied up you know and attachments to the word vegan uh the testosterone is such a i mean i i just instantly felt like ashamed you know and when and then when i sort of got over that and i was like no if i feel ashamed about this i should just talk about it with people because um and then it was you know it was sort of the like like the diabetes thing of you know people were like oh well i i never thought you would have a testosterone problem you know because i'm tall or because i have a deep voice or because i have hairy arms or you know what i mean like or because i make raunchy jokes or something like that you know i don't know what the um it's weird how that gets tied into identity when it's really just a you know it's it's a biological physiological hormonal thing yeah and um you know

one of the things i learned is that you know um uh libido is not just testosterone and testosterone is not just libido you know and when i was talking to my doctor when you know when when he said like yeah your testosterone is terribly low um i was like really you know like um you know i i still like i can have sex and stuff and he was like well are you depressed i was like yes i would like to die right now and every minute of every day for the last 18 months i would love to die and he was like well yeah that's that is the first um the biggest the most lasting manifestation of low testosterone is depression um so did he put you on testosterone therapy or what is the protocol for, he tried to, and I said, let me see if I can remedy it on my own. Um, so I haven't

gone back in to get that retested. I'm going back to New York in December and I'm going to get that tested. I feel like it's rallying because I don't feel like dying every second of every day anymore. Um, and so I, I read a ton on, um, testosterone function and how it's, um, so if you testosterone is effective or it helps building lean muscle mass. And if you have lean muscle mass, you have higher testosterone. So, um, the, the first thing that I did to, uh, to try and remedy my situation was I did like the 5,000 squats in a month, you know, social media challenge and tried to rope a ton of my friends in to do 5 000 squats with me

because if you're going to do one simple exercise you can sort of do anywhere um squats are the best exercise and uh it's working the you know the biggest muscles in your body and that's what you need to work to uh um to build you know to build testosterone um and i feel like that has is that true if you do if you do like intense weight training that has a that will actually boost your body's natural ability to produce testosterone like i don't know enough about it what i mean everybody feel free to fact check me and debunk this so we get good information. But I've read stuff that points to old school, like Charles Atlas, strongman stuff, like deadlifts and squats and stuff like that. The real gym rat shit, that stuff.

And then high intensity interval workouts, you know, interval workouts, um, helping to raise your testosterone. So I've been doing the, you know, Tabata, um, uh, the Tabata Tabata stuff. I've been doing the squats and stuff. I haven't gotten a gym membership cause I hate the gym, but I am going to get a gym membership and do that stuff. And, but I also, and this is my own extrapolation, but something tells me that when, you know, when I stop eating cheese fries and Cheetos and gummy bears and start eating cauliflower and asparagus and flaxseed. And that, that's not going to hurt my testosterone that it's going to help my testosterone. I don't think it's going to hurt your testosterone. So you haven't, you haven't been back to that Polish doctor in, in Greenpoint since, since he delivered the bad news.

Yeah, no, I, um um well i mean that's that's the thing is that i like i i don't really live in new york anymore but that's where my health insurance is so i have limited access to it so i'm in that shitty gray area of like web md and you know in google and like i kind of feel um but i i definitely feel better um i feel better mentally i feel better physically um i feel like it's on the upswing i'll check back in in december when i get my results um you know i've been taking vitamin i was vitamin d deficient so i've been taking vitamin d i've been taking zinc um brazil nuts are supposed to be helpful too yeah that's helpful with uh the selenium in them it's they have a high degree of selenium that supposedly has uh an impact on boosting

testosterone but i another really interesting thing was how um how insecure men are talking about testosterone and testosterone levels. Yeah. Why do you bring it up? Well, no, I posted something about it because I was like, this embarrasses me. So I'm going to post it because every time I've done something like that before, the response has been overwhelming. And I had a bunch of guys write to me saying, oh yeah, my testosterone has been really low and it's been low for a long time.

And, you know, and either they're just living with it or they're saying, you know, let us know how it works. And, you know, we'll try the same regimen. And the or, yeah, I've been on hormone replacement therapy for four years you know and um you know i talked to my dad my you know my dad um you know had a similar thing in his 40s you know his he had really low testosterone and uh and you know and he a lot of guys are I just I'm 40 you know that seems to be too young to sign up for because once you start taking it you're on it for the rest of your life yeah I mean I don't know enough about it to speak intelligently but it's frightening to consider you know once you like you said like once you that, like what is the long-term impact on your body's own native ability to produce that?

Are you clamping down on that? Are you depressing it? And if you go off it, can your body rebound and take over? Or are there long-term implications to that? Like, I don't know. Yeah. It's enough to like basically when you give me pause before yeah when you start replacing your body's like testosterone your body

stops making its testosterone so basically if you do hormone what i understand is once you start down that road then that's it then you're on it you know for the rest of your life and um i i keep tiptoeing about around this and i hate it so i'll just come out with it i'm also taking fermented fish oil that was one of the things that uh tim ferris said i was like i'm not gonna try and hack the diabetes thing i'm just gonna do the right thing and do plant-based um and the notable exception is uh fermented fish oil. Because why? Tim Ferriss had a, his regimen for boosting your testosterone was Brazil nuts, zinc, vitamin D, and fermented fish oil. And that's what I found in a panic. I was like, I'm going to do this and see if it works.

I was like, I'm going to do this and see if it works. You might want to, well, first of all, you got to be really careful about mercury levels in fish oil. Even the purest forms have been found to be tainted. So you got to make sure that the brand that you might also want to look at Dr. Michael Greger's nutritionfacts.org website. It has some videos about fish oil and the differences between fish oil and algae-based oils. You might find that interesting. Okay. Yeah.

I know that there's more research that i have to do you know and like my methods of combating this are far from ideal you know because it sort of was sprung on me and then i just yeah but look at the look at the look at the changes that you've made in the last three or four months i mean that's pretty dramatic dude so don't undercut or undermine like yeah what you've done like i think it's i think it's amazing i feel better you know i like mentally i feel better um physically i feel dramatically better you know like to be able to run it you know i've had nagging issues and um with my my right foot my it band my hip my back you know and i've been like trying to tackle all that stuff

and it's been a it's been such a hassle and it's expensive and i hate like um the guy who goes to the chiropractor three days a week you know what it's fucking working it's working and it's totally worth it you know um why why did it take me so long to figure this shit out because you're a stubborn bastard you you know? Like we all are. Look, I say it all the time. Like pain is the great motive. People are like, you know, what caused you to change?

I was, dude, I was in pain, you know? Pain and terror. It's crazy how these choices are available to all of us all the time. And yet it's so difficult to access them until, you know, we're at that breaking point. It doesn't have to be that way. That's just the way that, you know, we're at that breaking point. It doesn't have to be that way. That's just the way that, you know, it generally tends to work. And with someone as

stubborn as you, like you're going to, you've got it. You've, you must've really been scared. Yeah. Yeah. I, um, you know, I mean, losing my uncle really helped, you know? Um, it's, uh, that was heartbreaking. And that was also, I was like, okay, this is what lays behind door, door a, if I don't do anything about this, that's where I'm headed, you know? And, um, and also, you know, I mean, the, it's true that whatever, after 35, 40, like things start to slow down and it's harder to do the stuff that we did when we were younger. So does that mean you roll over and just, you're like, oh yeah, all right, I'll gain 40 or 50 pounds and like, let's Netflix and chill, you know, for the, you know, for another 30 years before I die.

Or do you push back do you turn and fight you know and do you say no this I I'm not I'm not done being a human yet and having a full life and you know I still got a ton of shit left to do you know dude you're only 40 as someone who's 10 11 years further down the line come on well you know what and and i mean i kept that in my head too you know that you know you and jj you know that um you guys are living huge lives right now you know and and that's open to me that's that that is an option you know and and i i gotta like just run towards that instead of running fucking doug stanhope i love the guy so much one of the smartest people i've ever met in my life motherfucker has aged like 30 years in the last 10 and it makes me so angry how old is he now uh he's

he's probably your age oh yes i would imagine 50 or 51 something like that yeah yeah for people that are listening that that are maybe new to the show or don't know you know doug stanhope super famous amazing comedian who kind of inhabits this counterculture sensibility in a in a sort of hunter s thompson kind of way i suppose uh it's a hard hard yeah hard partying you know fun loving amazingly talented comedian and friend of yours you've opened for him he's been a huge mentor you've gone on the road with this guy you've had crazy exploits pre-sobriety with him and you still do you still do gigs with him from time to time you drop in on his crazy arizona compound we do gigs from time to time and um and you know like you know the friendship

is still alive and like you know i still whenever i finish songs and stuff i send them to him and i you know see him whenever i can you know i mean and i've had you know some of the um i shit on everything you know that's the way my brain goes, but there have been like, I've learned from Doug a couple of times, like on, you know, to be on the road playing a big theater, all those 700 people there, you know, to just stay open and just soak it up and be like, yeah, these people are here to listen to me play my songs. My, you know, my songs that I started writing when I was whatever, 20 or something like something like that and now and now people know the words and it's so cool or like you know i played a gig in his like fun house which is his bar in his backyard in bisbee and uh and like that's a weird

you know it's its own universe down there yeah yeah has its own time zone. Yeah. It's really, it's another world, you know, but to be there with, you know, in a, in a room this size with, you know, 40 people, like, you know, some of the, the smartest, most groundbreaking entertainers I've ever met, some of my closest friends and to have them all know the words to my songs and to be there with them and to be a peer, you know, and to, uh, to see Doug, you know, out in the crowd, like singing along, you know and to uh to see doug you know out in the crowd like singing along you know like a real smile on his face not a sneer or a leer you know but just like happy um yeah that's powerful shit man that is it's the good stuff yeah but also to to not overly you know get caught up in the i'm sure there's there's a, there's a, there's a charisma,

like a tractor beam, like a center of gravity around a guy like Doug Stanhope that makes it very easy to kind of just fall into that orbit and stay there and start sort of mimicking, you know, his habits. And, and, and so to be able to be part of that, but also erect your own boundaries around, you know, things that you do and don't do has to be able to be part of that, but also erect your own boundaries around, you know, things that you do and don't do has to be tricky. This, that's one of the things I wanted to talk about today too,

is, is the weird lives that we have, like living in public and expose, you know, exposing our foibles in public and to have to, to be a public figure and, and tow a certain line and, and, you know, people's expectations of us. And, um, I've really struggled with that lately, you know, between, because, um, because I'm friends with you and I admire you and I respect,

you know, respect your work. And because I'm friends with Doug and I admire you and I respect your work and because I'm friends with Doug and I admire Doug and I respect his work and people come to shows either having read the book or the long run or something like that or heard me on the podcast and Hope podcast or the stories I tell on the Stan Hope podcast and they're expecting that person and your fans and Doug fans by and large are very smart and very fluid people and they can I think they're able to accept that I'm a whole person better than I am I always feel like i'm disappointing people somehow like i'm letting people down you know and um because you feel like you have to be you have to live up to a certain uh persona that other people you imagine you're projecting you are projecting that they are projecting onto you yes i'm projecting their projection yeah and then i and then i that sounds like a lot of work yeah man i it's fucking tiring thinking about myself constantly yeah well that is the great preoccupation of every alcoholic yeah and this is where this is where just like well i could i could

you know help you with a few sober tools that to enable you to tackle that a little bit yeah but it's you know self-obsession is at the center of alcoholism right and when you're caught up thinking about yourself and how you're being perceived and what do they think of me um then inevitably you're not the person that a you want to be or that they want you to be they want you to be present and who you are yeah yeah people you know i think people want you they're in the first layer they want you to be the epithet that they understand you to be so you know rich the runner or the swimmer or rich the triathlete or rich the vegan you know and for me they want me to be you know mishka the drunk or mishka the ultra runner or Mishka the writer or whatever. But right past that layer is they just want you to be authentic.

They want you to be a real person. They want you to be a real human being, you know. And I think it's always fascinating for us to find out that like Neil Young is really into model trains. And I love that detail. I love Neil Young. He's such a treasure i celebrate that neil young is still alive and making records that he's made a million records and that he's such a weird guy that he's just like really into model trains tyler tyler saw him at the grocery store the other day oh my god i would have a hard time like holding myself back from just like

throwing myself at his feet and just, just tread on me. But the minute you're caught up in, how am I coming off to this person is the minute that you stop being authentic. I wish I had remembered the name of the person who said this, but I just read something on Twitter that said, you know, like you, you write a thing or you make a song and then somebody tells you you're an artist and that's when the problems start i just somebody tweeted that the other day and i saw that we got we got to figure out who it is it's so but it's oh you know who i think it was i think it was neil strauss yes

that's that's who it was who i'm seeing later today actually really yeah oh my god well tell them do you know are you a fan of neil's i i i know nothing beyond that tweet oh yeah he's neil's amazing but it's it's totally true, man. Because you know, I, um, I get caught up in my head about shit,

you know, about like, Oh, what are people expecting me to do? You know, or what, what song are my fans going to like? Well,

fuck, fuck the fans. I need to write a song that I like. And if I like it, they'll like it. And if I think about them and try to write to them, I'll write a shit song because I'm, I'm not being authentic. There's no, there's no question about that. You have to write from your heart. And as somebody who teaches writing at Yale,

it's shocking to me that you have to remind yourself of that. You know, that's how it is though. Like we give advice for all this shit. And then as soon as we give the good advice, it like leaves our brain immediately. And then you're like, i yeah i know i i need to i'm hungry i need to eat something i need to actually practice the thing that i tell other people to do all day long yeah there's nothing worse than having to take your own advice and on that subject like how is the writing going i want to talk about this man i i feel like and i'll just put i'll put the cards on the table my personal opinion and and maybe this is like unfair judgment or whatever, but I can't, I can't help it. I feel like you're a, you're a very good musician. You write

beautiful songs. You obviously love everything about touring and performing and the feedback that you get from, from doing it live. But I think your gift is writing. And I, I feel like, and please tell me if I'm way off base on this. I feel like at times perhaps the touring is a distraction from doing the thing that scares you, which is sitting down and looking at a blank page. My writing is currently frozen in carbonite, like Han Solo in the empire strikes back the uh i'm glad you you uh we pulled that back to the empire strikes back for another for a callback um my book flopped and that was incredibly painful to me um i still it flopped only in terms of how many people purchased it

it didn't flop as well as a work that you're not proud of or that doesn't have merit. So. No, and that, and that, and that to me makes it worse, which is that every time I open it and I go back and look at the, at the book and, and I'm like, I did it. I, I, I really, I wrote a great book and I'm so proud of this. And every person who's ever read it has come up to me and be like man i love the book you know and it's been so meaningful to people when they come to shows they bring their copies that are all tattered and you know that they've brought everywhere with them and or people buy extra copies to give to their friends and like that it has whatever 4.8 stars on amazon

you know it's been but um my publisher did not represent my interests well, and they did almost nothing to promote the book and it was lost in the shuffle. And, uh, I mean, I'll be honest about it. That was crushing for me. That was incredibly painful. And, um, and, you know, and I mean, and I did do, I, and I i and you know i owe you an apology for this i feel like at that time in my life leading up to the book i leveraged every friendship i had to do everything i could to get the word out about the book yeah but that's what you do i was myopically focused on that you know and i feel like apologize to me for that i mean that's what you have to do you have to be your own entrepreneur you have to be your own marketing team. And, and, you know, you can say like, well, the publisher is supposed

to do all those things, but ultimately that, that responsibility falls on your shoulder. So I don't begrudge you that at all. I wouldn't have done this, which you have to, you have to get very unabashed and unashamed when you have a book coming out and you got to throw yourself into all that. I didn't, I didn't think twice about that. I was happy to put a microphone in front of you. I love the book. You know, I can't say enough good things about it. If people are new to this podcast and haven't checked it out, I swear, I'll make it up to you. You should all purchase it. Well, there we finally got some product placement. Now we know why you're here today. But, uh, no, I mean, I love the book, man. And I think, and I, and I hear you and I know, and you know, I, I can only imagine what that

felt like, but you know, at least intellectually that the solution to that is to just start writing the next thing, you know? Yep. And, and when you take that break, it gets harder and harder. Yep. All right. So I'm going to outsource my motivation, which is, which is something I've gotten really good at. So we're going to, we're going to do this. The month of November, I'm going to write every single day. If you could see his face right now, should we create a hashtag uh yeah we'll we'll come up with a hashtag for when you're right the uh and please

everybody join me whether you're a writer or you're not a writer like let's all please write just sit down turn your phone off for half an hour 45 minutes an hour every day do it every single day for the month of november and something will happen and i and it's time i put it yes you're absolutely right i mean you're calling me out and thank you and that's why i'm here is to like because you understand and you get it yeah and that's exactly what i'm doing i've been i've been listen i mean i i also i did you know i did a live record that went to number two on itunes on the comedy charts you know i mean i like i have a live show now that is that did not exist a couple years ago. I have a ton of new songs.

That all counts. But I'm not writing. And that counts too. And I'm hiding from it because I'm scared because I feel like I'm out of shit. I feel like I'm out of ideas. And I don't know what the next thing is. But the only way to solve that is to begin the process of writing. And it's not about publishers and book agents or what other people think or sales or any of that.

It's about your relationship with yourself and the written word. And I think for you to not be writing is for you to betray not just the gift but yourself. Yeah, you're totally right. You know, I mean, I'm guilting a friend of mine into writing a memoir. And one of the things that I told him is that, um, not everybody can do what, what you can do, what we can do this gift of stringing words together and having it create meaning or create it, create a story or to be able to write a page and have somebody else read that. And then they can be in the same room that they, that we were in it in our head, feeling what we felt. And, and even if it's not inspirational,

even if it's incredibly depressing, just that experience helps because for them to read it, they're like, Oh, another person felt what I felt, or there is another person in the world. I need to practice empathy. I need to practice compassion. I need to know that I'm, you know, that communicates to us that we're not alone.

You know, writing shows us that other people exist, you know, and that there are other worlds out there and other lives. And yeah, I just need to suck it up. And just like, I've been licking my wounds about it for as long as I can. And it's time to just try again. And you can't transmit something you haven't got. So you can't try to convince some friend of yours to write a memoir or get up in front of students at Yale and tell them how to do this or that

if you're not doing it yourself. There is an inauthenticity to that and a disconnect that you need to resolve and it will make you a better teacher. It will make you a better writer. It will make you a better servant. But I think that there's some dissonance in yourself right now around this issue. And if you can heal that and resolve it by just committing to the page and showing up for it without, without knowing what that's going to look like, I think that is a huge, also a huge part of your healing process that goes hand in hand with these other things that you're doing to be more gentle to yourself and your health. Yeah, you're right. I mean, it's time for, I, you know, I went out

there and like beat myself up in every regard, you know, physically, mentally, emotionally, and like, well, I'm fixing my back and fixing the chronic pain issues that I've had. So I can run again, fixing my health. Like while I'm on this health kick, it makes sense to, to do that for my brain as well. And get back to, uh get back to uh you know just a just that little daily workout of you know putting the you know pen to the page for an hour a day i mean i think that's um i i don't know i think it'll i i think it will totally change i know it'll totally change where i am in my head if i can do that for an hour a day. One of the other things I've started doing,

and you'll get a big kick out of this, is that I've been speaking at high schools about drug and alcohol use. Have you? Yes. Give me the pitch. And how to succeed and how to fail. Uh-huh. I mean, one of the things is that i think we know now that to uh to preach abstinence to kids it's not going to work because they're smarter than that and they have access to

information they know that we drank or we partied or you know we um you know abstinence uh abstinence based sex education has been proven to be like a universal fear. That's a great way to have a kid when you're 16, you know? And, um, so I just approach it as a, as a time management thing that, um, all of you have things to do with your life. You have big things to do, whether you want to be an MC, whether you want to be a model, whether you want to be the president, whether you want to make a million dollars, you want to build apps, you want to build cars, you have stuff to do with your life. So when you're hanging out with your friends and somebody's like, yo, I got a bottle,

you want to go hang in the park and drink the bottle. Just say, no, to do because you have stuff to do and whatever you're trying to do with your life alcohol will be an obstacle it will absolutely it'll it'll prevent you from doing whatever it is you need to do whatever it is you have to do um and uh you share your own personal story oh yeah absolutely like get them to relate to you. Yeah, yeah. The tattoos go a long way with the kids. You know, they, you know, but I tell them about, you know, just how, you know,

I like couldn't even get a job as a bar back when I was 32. And I was like working off Craigslist and doing, you know, just about nothing, you know? And then now, you know, I did 145 shows on the road last year in five different countries. Um, you know, I had a live record come out, uh, went to number two on iTunes. I have two more records I'm working on right now. You know, one's almost done. Uh, the next one will be done a couple of months. Um, I'm an ultra runner, you know, I, you know, six bestselling Kindle singles.selling Kindle singles. I wrote a good book. None of that would have happened if I was still drinking.

We wouldn't be here. And also, I tell them to embrace their failures and say that failure is a necessary ingredient for success, you know, and that and every failure is actually a step forward, you know, and then that's that's how you learn to be who you are and what you're going to do with your life. Failure is such a terrible word. I know. I know. It's, you know, we got to sort of like reclaim it somehow, but that's the word that people understand, you know, that, um, it's,

you know, I, I call it a failing forward, you know, that it's, you know, you're not, um, it's not a mistake. Like you didn't, you didn't do a take wrong. It's, it's just a take, right. You know, it's a try try again you know i like that i like that i mean usually the stand-in is learning experience you know but that's still that seems kind of like weird that's like uh well i think that's like consolation prize yeah well in learning experience those are two words that you've heard together so many times that they start to lose their meaning so i I think you have to, sometimes, especially with kids, you have to say the same thing in different language. But I'm, I'm speaking to some juvenile offenders in a couple of days. So it's good that we're

doing this. I got to, I, of course I haven't looked at my notes. I have to sort of rehearse my pitch and you know, and figure out what it is. I'm going to do that. That's cool, man. That's gotta be gratifying. And it's awesome. awesome i mean the uh the most rewarding thing that i do now is uh is teaching and is uh talking to people you know and and you realize that that's service right that's giving back yeah and and and what is the you know what is the impact of doing that like being engaged we you know we talked about self-obsession earlier like the best way to transcend your self-obsession is to be in that service role whether it's teaching or getting up in front of kids or whatever because it gets you outside yourself and your little microcosm of problems and all of that. And the feeling that you get in the wake of that is priceless.

Yeah. Dude, I never feel more exhausted and more elated than I do when I'm at Yale, when I'm teaching, because that takes, that takes all of my CPU, you know, because, you know, a lot of times in class, it's, you know, it's, you know, it's nonfiction writing, writing about your life. And so everybody comes with some trauma that they've survived, that they're trying to use writing as the tool to work through that trauma, um, to move forward. And that's exactly what you and I did, you know? And so I have to, you know, sort of shepherd them through this stuff. And a lot of times it's, it's like above

my pay grade. It's, you know, it's just, it's more than like, I don't know the answers. I don't know how to comfort them. I don't know how to guide them. And sometimes it's just like, I'm here for you. Right. You know, like, give me an example of that. Um, rape, you know, always a woman or several women in my class who have endured being raped. But your job, your job isn't to be their psychiatrist. It's your job is to help them figure out how to translate that, that that emotion onto the page. Yes, absolutely. And I do try to draw a hard line in the opening of the class between like, I'm here to teach you writing and I'm going to do my best to teach you writing, but also I'm a human being. So when I see somebody in pain who's struggling with something, you know what I mean?

I'm always trying to provide them with the tools to move forward and there are some things that i just don't i don't know how to help them through it right you know um you know there was a woman who uh who lost her son like 20 year old son to an overdose you know nothing more unnatural than a parent losing a child and um you know so that's that's always Um, it's exhausting. I mean, after Yale, I have to sleep for like three days because I just, I'm so fried, but it's so good, man. It's, it's a real privilege to be able to, to be in that position to try and help people. Do they let you wear the hot wheels hat when you teach? Hell yeah, dude. I'm the, I'm the, I'm the dirty rock and roll teacher. Like they would be

disappointed if I didn't, you know, if I didn't show up in like the van falling apart and like blasting Guns N' Roses or whatever. I know. This is like part of the identity that you're holding on to, right? So this Hot Wheels hat, I think that's a replacement from the original one. No, dude. Is that the same one? This is the same one. From like you had that same hat like when I first met you.

I don't think I've ever been with you when you were not wearing the hot wheels hat it smells like a foot dude it's bad news dude what is it about that hat it's my hat but what is it like why that hat um i don't know i just i like uh the drummer my old band used to wear hats like this. And I was like, oh, that's a good hat. I should get one of those. And my hair started to thin. And then I was like, all right, now I need to rock that hat all the time. But I was like, I don't want to just be one of those guys with like the generic. I was like, it's gotta be a little personalized.

And I found the Hot Wheels patch. I got my mom to sew it on for me. And so you didn't buy that hat. You actually made it. This is one of a kind dude all right i have like a little bit more appreciation for it then yeah so when you get up and you know day one first day of class at yale and you get up and and you know i would imagine you're wearing a short sleeve shirt you see the tattoos you got the hot wheels hat on yeah do you

wear shoes uh i do i wear shorts i wear vans i i try to wear jeans as much as i can bear it you know when it's when it's not too hot it is sort of like bill murray in like you know uh meatballs era bill murray uh you know teaching a writing course you know bill murray in the robin williams role in dead poet society yeah yeah yeah that's good man well cool dude i think we gotta uh we gotta close it down here awesome awesome this is a good one see i knew we had there's plenty to talk about why do we wait a year and a half it's me it's me i've been yeah i've been busy i've been everywhere i've been scattered i've been what's next you're going on the road again how's living in atlanta i mean i'm not really there much um my apartment's

the fucking bomb dude it's crazy i have two bedrooms and two bathrooms it it was like you're a living miracle it just feels like a miracle sobriety it just feels like american opulence and you've you've been with your you've been with maddie your girlfriend for two years now a year and a half something like that yeah yeah is that the longest relationship you've been with Maddie, your girlfriend, for two years now? A year and a half, something like that. Yeah. Is that the longest relationship you've ever had? Sober. Yeah.

It's the longest relationship I've ever had sober. Yeah, she's the best. She's awesome. She's really full of surprises. Cool. Thanks for doing this, man. Dude, thanks so much for having me back. All right.

Mishka Shubali. It's easy to find the internet, at Mishka Shubali on Twitter and Instagram and everywhere. I'll make it up to you. You got all the Kindle singles. You can find all that. And we'll have a hashtag for the November writing challenge. We should decide that now.

What are we going to do? Hashtag Mishka writes. Well, it can't be about me. It's gotta be about us. It's gotta be RRP writes. RRP writes. Is that too long?

But then, no, it is about you, dude, because this is a challenge to you. It's a reminder to you, I think. You're doing it as a group thing, but Mishka... I just feel... I don't know, dude. Like, now I feel the pressure.

Yeah. I'm in a dead radio air here trying to figure it out. So, you know what? We Like now I feel the pressure. Yeah. Dead radio air here. Figure it out. So you know what? We'll, we'll, we'll decide off Mike and then I'll put it in the intro and the outro and I'll put it in the show notes. I, um, I have to, I should have shown it to you before too, but I have to show it to you when we get out of here. I have the guitar that was made for me by a ritual podcast fan,

Carl Adams in the UK. And he arranged to have this beautiful guitar made for me with Primal Roots, his company. And it's the elephant. I saw a picture of that. It's fucking amazing, dude. It's going to blow your mind. You didn't bring it with you? It's in the trunk of the car.

I'll show it to you when we're done here. Oh, cool. There's a guitar behind you. Did you tune that thing? Yeah, it's almost tuned. Do you want to take us out with a little something? Yeah, let me give it a shot. Yeah, let's do it.

What's the song called? This song is called You Are the Song. You Are the Song. Peace plants. Namaste You are the load in The sleepy sound engineer You are the green room carpet The stale smell of beer

You are the lingering presence as the sun died in the room. You were the drink tickets. You were the regular scowling at the band You were the laughing bingo ladies You were the hostile doorman You were the karaoke bros

passing one ID around You were the prettiest girl in this goddamn one muscle car town You were the words, you were the beat, the melody, the song Now you're everywhere, now that you're gone You were the poorly grounded microphone Chalk in my mouth You were the crowd getting restless as the show headed south

you were the shithead talking trash from the bathroom line while i was tearing my fucking heart out in three, four times You were the words, you were the beat, the melody, the song Now you're everywhere, now that you're gone You were the ashtray in a non-smoking room You were late checkout In the early afternoon You were something I've been chasing My whole wretched life

Something that won't let go of me No matter how hard I try You are the words you were the beat the melody the song yeah You are the words you were the beat the melody the song Now you're everywhere Now that you're gone Now you're everything Now that you're gone You're everything everywhere

Now that you're gone