You Be Trippin' - New Zealand w/ Earle Birney | You Be Trippin' with Ari Shaffir

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Follow Earle on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/earle.birney/ SPONSORS: -Shop SKIMS Mens at https://www.skims.com/trippin #skimspartner -Download Cash App Today: https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/7chyhxwm #CashAppPod. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App’s bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. See terms and conditions at https://cash.app/legal/us/en-us/card-agreement . Discounts and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit http://cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. - Grab your own pair of The Dillon Freewaters flip-flops while supplies last at https://freewaters.com Thanks to YMH's very own Katelyn for help with this flipflop ad!!!! -Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at https://shopify.com/trippin On this week’s episode of You Be Trippin’, Ari Shaffir sits down with Earle Birney to revisit his wild trip to New Zealand in the ’90s; back when he was a wandering hippie hustling psychedelics. One bad break turns his adventure into an 18-month stint in a Kiwi prison, where he deals with terrible food, heavy gang activity, knife fights, and cranky guards. Earle tells Ari about sneaking in a little greenery, making a joke of kangaroo court, and meeting his unforgettable prison bestie, Caveman. By the end, he explains how discovering Buddhism behind bars flipped his whole world and eventually led him to become a meditation and philosophy teacher. You Be Trippin' Ep. 96 https://www.instagram.com/arishaffir https://www.instagram.com/youbetrippinpod https://arishaffir.com Chapters 00:00:00 - Intro 00:02:09 - Finding Your Freedom 00:15:04 - Caught Getting Trippy 00:31:01 - Food & Fights 00:45:38 - Kiwi Judicial System 01:03:53 - Passing the Time 01:14:53 - Getting Out 01:25:47 - Travel Tchotchke & Tips Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh, there's my grandpa. Oh, really? Yeah, he was a famous Canadian poet as much as you can be a famous Canadian and poet. Yeah. Who's the most famous Canadian? I think it's that guy who ran across the country. What is his name? Terry Fox.

Terry Foxx, yeah. My friend gave me a Terry Fox shirt and people like, like every 30th person, like, what the, how do you know? Clearly you're from Canada. It's the only way you'd even be like stopped with that. Is David by Earl Bernie a true story? Do you want me to spill the beans? Yeah, I mean, there is. proof of this was no fictional story.

Bernie's companion on that fatal mountain climb was a real David. Damn. Wait, so you're saying it was a lie? I'm saying, I'm not saying. Okay. I've just heard of this book. Where you've been and where you're going?

This is our East Travel Show. Yeah. We're going to talk about travel today. It's U.B. Tripping, yeah. All right, everybody, welcome to UB Trippin. My name is Ari Shafir. I'm the host of the podcast.

It's a travel podcast. Different guests to a different place every time. This is the only podcast that was convicted of starting off the Chlamydia epidemic in Kuala's in Australia. We are appealing that as we speak. Today, my guest is Earl Bernie. Great Canadian. Say it right?

The second most famous, Earl Bernie is Earl Bernie in Canada. that's crazy Ariel's dad my buddy is also a famous poet in Iceland yeah living in grandpa's shadow yeah in Iceland though everyone it's like 80 people in the country

so everyone's got a show like I know your dad he sold me meat um yeah slide that over so try to get a yeah something like that

yeah you'll figure it out but yeah if you're gonna face me it's okay it's okay Oh, wait, I see what we did here. There we go. Cool. There we go.

Yeah, all right. So where do you want to go today? Where do you want to tell me about? Yeah, let's go to Australia, New Zealand. Mostly New Zealand. So when, for how long ago was this? When did you go? Oh, this would have been mid-90s.

Mid-90s. Mid-90s. Yeah. Actually, did have a New Zealand, and it was just a guy who, like, bicycled around. So this will be far different. than that it will yeah mid 90s okay different times so no cell phones yeah no cell phones no internet back in that you know when you're traveling and you're like try to connect with someone and you're like well here's my parents number because it's the only number that anybody you know

called them maybe they can call you it there's a great divide in this podcast so it's been pre cell phone and post cell phone and it's probably a greater one for internet completely because at least you can go to in 2007 you can go to internet cafe and find out so many info yeah but the pre-internet stuff no we were in australia and i was traveling around with some buddies and we were going to go to new zealand and it was like okay we'll meet well okay cool okay we'll meet in two weeks in ockland oh that was it and it was like we're going to meet well we'll just like start looking around in the bars and that was our plan and that was it really how long did it till you met them did not didn't work at all it's terrible plan

i have this dream of going like hey i'm going to be traveling around if you wanted people like I don't want to join you. You ever get that? I'll be like, I'll meet you out there. And you're like, I've done this too many times. I'm not making any plans. I'll tell you where I'm going to be. You can meet me.

Too many people cancel, you know? Ah, shit, sorry, something came up. Fine, whatever. But I want to do a thing like, if I have no internet, sometimes I try to, like, leave my phone at home. I'll be like, all right, there's a coffee shop in Phnom Penh called this. I'll be there from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. on these three days. I'll stop in and make sure.

Does it work? No, that's a dream to do. And you can meet me there or not. but like you have an hour window if you get the later day i'll be the next day also and then that's it and then i'm like assume you're not coming yeah we tried that yeah didn't work so what were you doing in australia you're mother you know what you can go what happened was i think i was i was in university and i was it was a it was a program called leisure studies which i thought that was great leisure studies oh you know parents hate that totally hated it absolutely absolutely man you

Nailed it. We got to pay $800 a year for tuition in Canada for this shit. And so I was, it was a four and a half year program and I was four years in. Yeah. And I saw what was ahead of that was, in my mind, just go get a career, you know, get trapped. Saw what my dad did. Saw what, you know, his dad did. And it was like, okay, I got to work 50 weeks a year for the rest of my life.

You saw it. And I got to get a house. I got to get a mortgage. And I'm supposed to be in a relationship. And it just was like, that would just was like. What did you do, like, panic? Yeah, it was like, fuck that. I am not, I'm not into it.

Right. So I took out a student loan, four months left in my degree, and bought a ticket around the world and left. Whoa. And it was like this, you know, at that time in my life. Did you have a student loan and didn't use it on student? Wow, I didn't know they could even do that. Yeah. Nice.

So it was, uh, it was like this, you know, at that time. Were that 20? yeah something like that okay a little bit more okay 22 maybe damn what a time yeah and feeling like like that was like I was free you know and that was the last thing that I wanted I'm starting to like I'll get back to one second but I'm starting to like if lately I've just been like seeing the world through some like 18 to 25 year old's eyes my kid my friend's kid it's 18 she's going to Israel to like work with orphans and I was like well and she's like And all the Orthodox Jewish community

is like, that's nice what you're doing it. But I'm just like, you're going to be going to bars for the first time because of drinking age is 18. Like, no, I won't. Like, don't say this is one of my dad. But I was just like, everything's possible at that age. You're going to be in this brand new country making new friends.

I'm like, so fucking exciting. Yeah. Even like St. Mark Street here where it's like, remember like 2021? Like, let's buy a pipe. We can smoke weed out of it. And it's like, oh, it's just like, yeah. things are fresh and that's kind of what it was for me and it was for me I had this question of like what's life all about and it's clearly not about that and it really led into a lot of psychedelic use drinking drugs in Canada yeah like high school university damn really and it was you know half not it was part like trying to access new states of consciousness or trying to using that as a as a way to like what is the meaning of life

What's this all about and having all of these great experiences? And then half as a party drug and half as a... Yeah, it's funny. You start with like wheat for sure, but then mushrooms and acid too. We're like, let's get fucked up with my friends. But then like, you can't help. If you've done it 10 times, you're for sure going to have one time of seeing the truth of the universe. Yeah, at some point you'd be looking at the stars and the vastness and being like, oh, wow.

Yeah. Really 50 weeks a year, I'm going to work. Yeah, no fucking way. I was in Glastonbury Festival and my friend did mushrooms for the first time I got, it was my job to supply the London people brought the Coke I brought in from Wales

like two pounds of mushrooms for the for the little group like what? How do you even I was like you know I worked hard but he did mushrooms the first time and they did four days in a row at the festival yeah I just kept doing more and more totally lost himself in the festival life loved it

took his shoes off the last two days didn't have them on at all and then the On Monday, it's getting up, everyone's packing up. He turned his phone on. His phone had died like three days before. Turned on. All these messages came in from his boss. And he was like, and he just fucking threw it.

He's like, fuck this thing! Yeah. It was like, he saw it real. Yeah. Yeah. So it was like, that was my trip at that time. And it was the search for freedom. And my philosophy was really like...

Was that... Yeah, go ahead. Was really like life has no meaning. And that's why all these religions are trying to give meaning to life. And you should do this and you should believe this. and I was like, God, life has no meaning. Life has no meaning. Yeah, and so the only purpose for me was to have fun, you know,

because my time was the only thing I couldn't replace. Like, that was the most valuable thing to me was my time. And I was like, I'm not wasting it working. Yeah. And so I got a ticket and left. What is it? When you say search for freedom, what do you mean by freedom? I think it means different things, different people.

Yeah. At that, uh, I was just going to move it close to you. I can hear fucking Alan going, fucking move it in. Sorry. At that time, I didn't know it.

It meant, it meant not working. That was for sure. Not having a... I mean, some will just say, not in jail. Well, that comes later, yeah. Yeah, right.

But, but like, yeah, keep going, not working. It was more like anything that impinged on my time or what I wanted. It was very selfish

in some ways what I wanted to do. Like, very clear not hurt other people, not to impinge. on other people's right to have their freedom and their time and their thing but it was like I'm gonna have as much fun as I can

yeah there's a like a selfish kind of freedom where you're like if life's meaning if there's nihilism whatever but it's like then I don't care if it's kick an old lady get out of the road yeah or there's the other kind the more hippie kind where it's like I just want to have fun and also I want other people to also have fun yeah yeah that's where I was at

very much and and a little bit being lost also like I don't know what to do I'm fucking 22 I don't know what to do I guess when you see freedom It means freedom from and then fill in the blank. You know? So it's like freedom from a relationship and what else makes you want to break up? You're like, I feel more free now.

I'm on my own, I'm lost, but I'm on my own. It's like free or like freedom to vote. You know, it's like that's a different kind of freedom from totalitarian. But like I'm with your freedom, freedom from responsibility. It's huge, right? It's huge. I was trying to tell Joe Rogan about it.

And I was like, I just, I haven't been able to express it correctly. the long-term travel, you know, backpacking. We'll get into this in a second with you. But just like, I'm headed, you know, here. I'm in, let's say I'm in, oh, I got this open anyway. Let's say I'm in Melbourne and I'm going to go to Adelaide, you know. And it's like, oh, yeah, I got to take the highway. But then it's like, you know what?

I'm going to take this great ocean row. I'm going to go down this way. And it's just the ability to at a whim, go to a different. Yeah, there's only like five left. It's very nice. but um on a whim do whatever you want or somebody's like actually you know what up here in medora whatever there's a fucking tomato festival today i'm like oh wow go there just the complete lack of responsibility and then coming home feeling it again you're like oh right yeah but yeah that's that

it's a crazy freedom i think travel's so good that way because it's also for me was the freedom of aspects of like I don't like aspects of who I am at 22 and when I go like I always had an issue with my name Earl it sounded so weird

it sounded kind of funny to me it was like I'm named after my grandfather kind of got made fun of I don't love the name and I was like God I could travel I could change my name I could have a different laugh

I could be a different person I could be you know something freedom from everything that I am no one knows me and I have freedom to be someone totally different and that's another kind that I really valued at that time too was like I can I can be anyone I'm not stuck yeah people I think where my friend Ashley McComba did like a whole art series on these but it's like the mask people wear and it's just like you wear different like

when you're in front of your parents you curse less you're wearing a mask you don't do your normal and when you're with certain friends you act differently than other friends and man you can just be whatever you want. When you're, when you hit like, all right, I left Chiang Mai. Now I'm going up Phnom Pen and no one here knows me again. And I'm like, I want to get into hiking. So I'm the hiking guy now, you know? Hi, everybody. Well, I think I got one try at this. I'm a 3% batteries. I'm in the middle of nowhere and I've got to do my bumpers. It's, it's called having a healthy work-life balance. And I'm the number one comedian and comedy about it. Earl Bernie has gone from

Bandit to Bendie. Yeah, he's now a yoga instructor. You can find him. Instagram at Earl E-A-R-L-E-D-R-E-E-D-R-N-E-Y. B-R-N-E-Y. He's a yoga teacher and curriculum developer of the Yoga Studies Institute.

You can find his Guatemala Meditation Retreat at Nicole Autumn.com slash retreat or at yoga studies institute.org or YouTube slash at Yoga Studies Institute. I'm Orie Shafir, and I'll say, please subscribe, you guys. We're almost at 100 episodes. Wherever you're watching and listening,

be it YouTube, be it Spotify, go right now, do me a favor to help celebrate that nearing 100 episodes and subscribe. I would like it. I've got nothing else to promote. Oh, no, wait, I do have t-shirts at Rishfair.com for U.B. Trippin,

also at the bottom of the screen if you're watching on YouTube. And I'll just tell you this. Take a moment to tell you this. Trippies are coming. The Trippie Awards are coming. But I'll tell you this. You should be watching this one on YouTube.

This is a podcast. Actually, not this episode as much because there's not many photos from prison. But mostly, it's got an extra thing. The Ryan O'Neill episode from last week, Cambodia. So many good pictures. You're not getting those on Spotify. Now, listen, I'm not telling the Spotify listeners

to not listen. I'm saying you guys fucking suck you guys are wasting your fucking lives he may as well be jerking off in a nun's mouth you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean? I means you gotta go from afar I mean she's not gonna really suck it really hard means you gotta go from afar and like sneak up behind her and come in her mouth which I'm saying is still good but not as good

as fucking a you know an Atlantic study slut chick fucked trick sucked I'd say chick suck you didn't get suck you get chick sucked but still better than fucking come in and runs mouth listen i'm always sure i always make sense this early in the morning but i do make bucks so subscribe on youtube right now thank you let's get back to the episode yeah so you went so you so where did you how did you decide to australia you know it was the first stop on the round the world trip and so we went to uh i ended up in uh byron bay did you go oh so you went yeah you went that way from

Vancouver? Yeah. Where's Byron Bay? Up top? Byron Bay is in between Brisbane and Melbourne. It's kind of the hippie place to go back in the day. It's where all the New Year's Eve parties were and all of the... Oh, really?

All the mushrooms and all of the... Is it below Gold Coast? I know Byron Bay. I've never been there, but, yeah. It's where all the mushrooms are? Yeah, they grow wild there. And you had already gotten into them? I was kind of not out of that.

you know what I was selling so look so that was you know to fund my travel was you know I was buying hits of acid for a buck and go to Australia they're selling them for 20 25 bucks it's an island the coke there is the most expensive in the world for the shittiest unreal it's crazy how terrible it is and how much it costs and so it was just a an easy economic way to buy my freedom of time so what you buy a bunch in Vancouver and then and then would you go back to re-up not somebody was hooking me up sending him over no one checks for acid they check for you need for sure it's so smelly yeah coke they have but no one's checking for acid yeah what would you do it's so small it's the only it's the only it's the only drug i'll take internationally

in between credit cards and in a book yeah yeah so i got you know what one time i got to we went up a little bit north we went to uh i was apple picking outside of brisbane yeah you know trying to make a bit of money for travel and we picked for 10 days and uh at the end of 10 days everyone got paid okay and so i just sold everyone ass it because it's time to party everyone's you know everyone's got paid out yeah 20 bucks and uh you know i made more in an hour than i had in that two weeks of picking apples and i was like this is crazy it's almost like the picking apples is the job fair part like i'm just here to meet the clients thanks for for the $4, but like, I'm just here to meet clients.

I was like, I'm done. I was like, I'm out of here, I'm out. I'm just, I am now funding my travels through selling acid, I'm not doing this anymore. How much do you take with you? He would send 100 at a time. Which was, which was $2,000 worth. Yeah.

In 1995, too, whatever. Yeah. It's great. So yeah, then I was going to festivals and. Oh, you would, then your travel would have to be client, A little bit. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't.

You're like, I've got to go to the parking lot. Yeah, or we were at the hostel or whatever, you know. I wasn't trying to make millions of dollars. I was just funding my fun, funding my freedom, you know? By the way, I got a travel tip. I'm going to ask you for a travel tip later, but it's just general ones. If you're stuck in a country, whatever, you need weed, go to a hostel. Just find a hostel and then just inquire.

They won't be mad to you asking. And generally, they're like, yeah, someone here sells to somebody. Come back tomorrow or worse. Yeah, I was that guy. You were that guy. There's a fucking Canadian who's around. If you see this tall, fucking lanky Canadian, just like he's the dude.

Wow. You were the guy. Okay. Yeah, so that, you know, that was going on. It was cool. It was a very vibrant time of my life and creative and meeting a lots of people. And like you were saying, like everything was new,

you know, lots of being in a new. country being into new culture and uh you know i ended up i ended up at a festival outside of in sydney yeah and uh at the end of the festival i was sitting there on the bank i was you know coming down and just like counting the money i had made all this crinkled up cash kind of you know yeah and this guy was sitting there you know not that far away and he's like oh what were you selling today and it's like i was you know selling some trips you know i have him if you wanted it and he's like no i'm good but but you know you should uh you should be a little more careful you know like he he knew what i was doing and he's like you should probably be a

little more careful about that yeah and we got on talking he's like well you know what's where are you going next i was like i'm going to go to new zealand and he's like you know it's a little different there you should be more careful there too i was like okay cool you know and in my mind i'm like yeah yeah yeah i know what i'm doing okay yeah so you jumped to new zealand so go to new zealand and uh i was traveling with one little bag a buddy came up to me before i left he's like he hands me this handmade small duffel bag and he's like if you travel i've traveled the world with this bag three times if you put if you got more stuff than this you got too much stuff tiny no way really i was like all right i mean he has to take

up no space underwear's and so it's like new zeal a little colder so I bought this old hoodie secondhand and I went get on my flight, go to Zealand I got a chocolate bar in the front pocket of the hoodie. A chocolate, regular chocolate bar? A chocolate bar? Okay. Get there and the, going through customs and this

drug dog comes up and like sits down right next to me and I was like, oh that's cute, it smells the chocolate bar. And so they're like, they went through everything every every single seam on my clothing no they find these little flakes of pot dried pot from the second hand hoodie that i've got and they're grilling me and i've got this you think

not even yours it was just from the the charity show and i've got this journal that's just graffited and there's hits of that and i've cut out little letters lysurgic diethlam i'd written backwards on and there's like hit of acid like right between me and the cops and they're like not seeing it not seeing it wait it's how did you put it how did you do it it's just sitting on a journal and i've got you know on top yeah you know taped on and and finally they're like brush that off and they're like okay don't get any more trouble in new zealand i'm like okay they didn't find it no and so then so at this point you're like well that was a close call let me change my ways you know you'd think there's a couple big

signs right I barely escaped let me not it's like when you're like driving and you're tired you're like you swear like fuck far fuck actually let me just get a hotel but you're like now I'll go another three hours full speed ahead yeah no so I I you know I kept going and I sold some I met I was at the university in Auckland and met some guys sold them some acid traveled around a bit came back sold them a bit more and then the next day I was in a youth hostel and got this knock on the door and cops busted in what and you're already selling yeah and that was it the game was up what do you mean well they those guys had obviously got got busted and and ratted me out what did you get the acid they're like this this fucking

yeah yeah this guy down at the canadian down at youth hostel i want a pulitzer i don't know i looked them up yeah so what so they came in to get you yeah it's a wild i was there for another six hours i would have been gone so yeah so that was and so then i'm you know i'm being like marched to the to the cop shop wait wait what's your feeling so they they come in they like is a guy named earl here yeah it was wild you know there's some girl with me she's freaking out you'd hooked up that night yeah wow and uh i was pretty calm you know i was like this is interesting this isn't going to go well but this is interesting and that right away i had this moment of i'm on this i've had this sense of i know i'm on a search for freedom and now i'm like oh

this is interesting i'm i'm gonna do time on this i got a thousand hits i'm gonna do some time that's distribute yeah there's no way around yeah sometimes you're like like like they'll catch you with like, well, why'd you have it all bagged it out? I'm like, because it's like week by week, it's not, it's not that. But it's like, there's, you can't go through a housing. It's not a personal amount. Yeah, it's just, there's no way. Close.

Yeah. So, so then where do they, they find it? They go through yourself and find it. Yeah. Yes, you were just calm, huh? Sorry, it was 100. It wasn't a thousand. Okay.

Yeah. Still, I was, you know, so they're kind of walking. with me and I'm like there's part of me that's like I could outrun these guys you know if I just drop my pack and no guns right no I doubt it's Australia it's out New Zealand and what do you have to lose at that point but uh so I said in China when you get when they get caught with drugs they're like you should have to shoot your way out you're there you're being executed anyway if you're importing drugs I wonder about the states do like if you ran in that situation probably not good no probably not a good life decision at that point the cop would like thank you

for letting me do what I have been wanting to do. Yeah. So, yeah, that first night, it was like, interesting. I'm now... First night, what do you mean? So they took you... Go to jail for a couple nights, and then you're in a pre-sentence.

You're remanded in custody. You're in remand. So you can go home? It's like pre-sentence. No, no, no, no. There's no going home. you know certainly not if you're a trap not if you're foreigner what do you mean so not going home to like Canada but I mean like do you say like no you stay in prison yeah oh wow because

you I mean if you can get bail you get out but there's no way I was getting bail right damn what's your feeling at this point some degree of fascination some degree of survival some degree of like like there's so much like trying to figure it out like the cops are like you got to admit to this if you admit to this right now you know that's the best thing you can do we'll give you half the time and this offers on the table for the next 30 minutes what are you going to do and I'm like now I'll talk to a lawyer thanks yeah that's what a trap what a trap like why would be better for me to tell the truth right out of a movie man I was lying to a cop's not worse you guys aren't sentencing you're just arresting

yeah don't ever don't ever tell them anything so that was yeah I'll talk to a lawyer good thanks and and then it's like just trying to sort out like everyone's kind of scrambling you know everyone's kind of just got arrested everyone's in in this remanded in custody it's all fucking crazy yeah in a very slow monotonous weird way but it's all kind of crazy who else was in there who did you meet did you mean it was wild yeah man I met some amazing people uh you know when remand is wild because people are going in and out you're kind of allowed to have more rights because you're not convicted yet so you've got kind of you can have your clothes you've got more visits and we're in a prison in downtown

Auckland that was right kind of I got I guess kind of downtown and once in a while there'd be this tennis ball would come flying over the wall and everyone would run for it and scramble and you know someone's filled a tennis ball with some pot and throwing it over the wall really shit like that going on that's nice it's wild man Who was doing just a friend of whoever you'd see there was a pay phone in the in the yard so it'd be like okay yeah you guys outside yeah okay cool okay throw it okay good and you could like smoke it down as fast as you could like someone you just uh you know hide it on you know when i heard skim's underwear is finally making underwear for men i got to admit i was pretty disappointed i like wearing women's underwear and skim's women's underwear is the most comfortable you can find that fit a man yeah you're like to for oversized but I always had the excuse of couldn't couldn't find it in a men's size so I could have done whatever I wanted I had to get the women's underwear now now that they have men's well I'm screwed royally yeah I have to get skim's men's underwear

it's annoying because when you finally talk to a woman or hooker if you're in Brazil and she says you know get down to your undies well you want a shocker with skim's females underwear and then now it's just just men's underwear sure they're comfortable sure they're the most comfortable underwear they'll ever wear but is that really what you're going for well you got to ask yourself you really got to ask yourself what you're looking for in underwear is it shock factor or is it comfort if it's comfort sure absolutely get skim's men's underwear and if you want that if that's what you're looking for if you're kind of, I don't know, boring and unable to challenge social norms,

then absolutely get Skims Men to otherware. And if you want that, shop Skims Men's right now at skims.com. Let them know that I sent you. After you placed your order, select Podcasts in the survey. I select You Be Tripping in the drop-down menu that follows. And if you're looking for the perfect gifts this season, Skims Holiday Shop is now up into skims.com. That's right.

skim's underwear for women and now also, sadly, for men. I'm already sure. Hey guys, today's episode of Yuba Chippin is brought to you by Cash App. You know, carrying money around, especially where I go is a mistake. That's not the way you should transfer money. Yeah, you can't open up your wallet. By the way, I have Fluminense game. Oh, a wallet full of American bills and you're pulling it out, say, do you have a change of a 20?

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in your profile send $5 to a friend within 14 days and you'll get $10 dropped right into your account terms of apply that's money that's cash app cash app is a financial services platform not a bank banking services provided by cash apps bank's bank partners prepaid debit cards issued by sutton bank member fdii say promotions provided by cash app a block ink brand visit cash dot app slash legal slash podcast for full disclosures. Were you afraid of like, I mean, I don't know what the Canadian system is, but there's a big stereotype of the American prison system. Are you afraid of that at this point?

Or is that happening there? Not really. It's not that kind of thing. It's very gang related in New Zealand. And so there's, you know, the Maori gangs, there's the Pacific Islander gangs. Did they have all the fucking face tattoos and everything? Wow, those are tough.

Those people seem tough. tough yeah tough beautiful culture though man beautiful people and what a and the women are not great let's be honest but the culture sure I didn't meet any no one's saying a Polynesian late well no Polynesian actually pretty hot it's a tougher way anyway go ahead it's not derailed it was uh yeah I got derailed where what was a food like there terrible yeah like what do they give you gruel You get oatmeal in the morning, and it's wild. You get a different prison, four of us.

It's a four-seater. What do you mean? Like four seats at the little table. Okay. And you get. That's nice. That's not overcrowded. One quart of milk or whatever it is.

Then you get your oatmeal, and then, you know, you've got to only take your quarter. And so when I go. Oh, and they serve food just for the four of you? You go and get your food. And then there's some sugar, there's some milk at that table. And so when I came into that prison, the reason that seat was empty was because someone had taken more than his 25% and someone fucking punched him and killed him, died. Killed him on a, on milk?

Yeah, one punched. So, and then the other thing that was wild was, you know, there's like the system of someone's getting the sugar at the end of the day because that's how. we were making alcohol and so someone's kind of going around at the end kind of collecting all the sugar like and by the way guys don't take your full amount so we can have some booze yeah wow so yeah it's that you get a you got a sandwich for lunch it's so hard we're like I'm eyeball in it a quarter like I don't know shouldn't we pour out equally first and then add the coffee like wow you ever like scramble like four eggs for two omelets and then so then you're

pouring out the first one like i don't know where i do is anymore the first one's always like way light and the last was like this thick omelet jesus okay are you do your parents know yet it was yeah it was wild i didn't uh it's a bad phone call to have to make but the way they found out was because it came out in the paper and it was the you know son of the famous canadian poet oh oh you embarrass your whole family name yeah it was it was bad someone's calling my grandma and they're like you know your grandson's got arrested for selling acid in new zealand and she's like you got the wrong that's not my grandson my grandson's on the straight and narrow wow you got to disappoint all of them yeah afraid to fuck up yeah good for them

so did anybody pick on you physically no there was just in remand right in that you know right away that time this guy came up to me and there's this thing of you know trying to make especially for kind of the shittier gangs trying to make a name for yourself prospecting for the to be in the gang and uh so he came up and he was he was talking shit and then this other guy came up his name was caveman one of the most amazing guys ever made totally deserving of that name he was in a gang uh called the headhunters and he says this guy's talking shit about you or he said you were talking shit about him and I was like dude I've been in this country for a week I don't know anybody I don't know this dude I don't know who the fuck he is he's like hold on a second goes back to

this other guy comes back he's like yeah sorry about that man and we'd started walking around and he was one of the top guys in his in his gang and he was he was a him and i uh we got along pretty good really so he was uh he was an amazing character why like what tell me about him tough yeah a million stories gentle lover or or like both what both both yeah he had the you know those polynesian tattoos on the leg where they've carved it in with bamboo. He had all those. And he was just kind of wild.

He had these wild stories like the, like global warming was caused because we had taken so much oil out of the planet that the planet had shifted. And he, you know, he would tell me, I remember him telling me that story. And I kind of giggled and he's kind of stared at me like, and I was like, oh, shit. Sorry, K. He's like, I thought you were joking. Oh, no, no, no, you're right. You're probably right.

Were you, was anybody, was there like fucking going on in there? I don't think it's a thing. Okay. Yeah. I never heard of it. Yeah. You know, there was other, you know, there was like, not great to be a kid fucker in there. You know.

There's no kids. That's your one big joy and you can't get it, you know? If you're like a reader, like, prison's great. I can't get access not to every book, but there's some books and all the time you want. if you like working out prison's awesome for you if you're a kid fucker unless if they put you in a kid's prison game on game on but that's that's probably not what you meant okay okay yeah that happened a few times yeah i was a kid fucker so i can make these jokes yeah reformed though reform but don't get me around a kid anyway sorry go ahead can't be in a bad place to be in uh bad place to be

Yeah. And, well, you know what it was like? It was like it felt like there was, the room was always filled with gas. And it was only going to take a spark to ignite stuff. And it didn't happen much. But when it did, like everything's extreme. You know, everything is kind of extreme. And so generally the MO was, you know, all of these gangs are what was cool for me.

me is I wasn't part of a gang I wasn't part of this or that no one knew me no I had no I didn't go in having a problem whereas most people New Zealand's small gang scene is small people go in and there's there's problem you know were there any other non-New Zealanders or Pacific I mean no oceanians no so did that make you like exotic totally total anonymily anomaly were people interested in you in a weird way yeah like trying to it was very hard to put me in in the in a box you know everyone's got a box and it's like well what the fuck box does this guy I'm just a backpacker trying to make money yeah I'm actually not tough at any way I just saw an water bikes and guns I don't fucking yeah not my thing

wow yeah you're just a hippie backpacker yeah so that was great and but you know other people they go in and they got they got a problem to on the get and I was pretty clear like if I don't fuck anybody around there's no reason but you know it's It's not that easy. Did people pick on you? No. Did you see fights with their brawls and stuff? Yeah.

Whoa. Not often, but yeah, it would melt down a few times. What'd you do when shit popped off? Kind of depended, you know? Like there's times when I remember one time, you know, I'm now connected to my scene and and there's protection in that. But then if something goes down. What do you mean?

With Caveman and with like that? you're not in the gang but you're friends with them yeah so then if something goes down and there's a problem with with the crew you know they got my back i got to have their back and then you know we're kind of hearing stuff that you know in this prison there was this was a high medium security at that point so there's three different wings and we'd all spill out to the same yard in the day and you kind of hear a bunch of ruckus going on in the other wing and it's like word kind of filters back somehow, you know, like something's going down and then you've got to go to the yard the next thing.

You don't know what's going on, you know. Yeah, I hear a lot of stories of like Ali, Ali Sadiq had a story on my old show that's not happening about like the rumor going on and the Mexicans would start a riot against the blacks. But like, who's spilling the beans? Who's talking?

This should just be a sneak, everyone should be a sneak attack. You shouldn't get word. They're planning something today. Yeah. Talk quietly. Yeah. Both happen.

You know, it's a small, one of the things that was cool about prison was people don't talk shit because it gets around and then you've got to be and you get held accountable and you get held accountable at a level that's way more severe

than in the real world. You can't just be like that guy smells. Like that's gonna snowball. Yeah. And so, you know, there was one time there was a couple different incidents for sure.

There was this one guy, he was a white power dude from South Africa and kind of, that's a, that's another bad you don't want to be that dude in New Zealand. Oh, right. And he was, he was fit, he was strong,

and he got in a fight with somebody in the Black Power gang, and he beat him up. So then somebody else came at him, beat him up. Third guy came at him, beat him up. And I was working out every day. I was in the gym every day, because what the fuck else are you going to do? And that one day, I didn't go to the gym.

And I was walking laps in the yard. And there's always a game of, it's called Crash. It's like rugby, but it's like a variation of rugby. And the game's not going on. And so it's odd. And it's like totally odd. We're walking our laps. So this guy had, they had talked to him and they're like, look, let's figure this out.

Let's find some peace. And they were like, meet in the gym, meet on the state. let's sort this out so he goes to meet them and uh someone comes up behind him and fucking shibs him oh no he jumps up he jumps up like off the stage runs out and there's someone at the door is supposed to prevent him from getting out and he's like full speed runs through that guy runs through the door and they spill out right to the in the middle of the where the game of crash usually is going on and so i'm like been stabbed so i'm right there and this guy stands up he's bleeding and he's fumbling around and trying to get out this thing out of his shorts

and pulls out a knife and then they're just like having a knife fight lay right there damn and you're just like uh excuse me fellas yeah just got to get through a little bit a little bit it's like i don't want to see it you know i don't want to but it's like how do you not watch a knife fight you know it's like by far the most interesting thing going on pretty interesting yeah You're like, we're going to, we're going to show It's gone with the wind tonight, but this is a lot more exciting.

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Go to shopify.com slash tripping. That's shopify.com slash tripping. Make money, money, make money, money. money let's get back to the episode how who can I slurp on was there any wow was there any entertainment there do they work like could you get books yeah what's your day-to-day well and so this is just the holding place no this was this was after that okay I got a good tour of New Zealand prisons wait so so they they arrested you said okay we're holding you we're charging with this then how long

so you went to court for your case not long but I I pled, I don't know, I put it off a little bit, trying to figure out what to do for maybe a month. Yeah. And then I ended up pleading guilty. Just hoping it would lower? Yeah. Yeah. Did they give you a lawyer there?

They did. Yeah. What? That, you know, another long story, but they gave me, like, every lawyer in New Zealand has to take a turn at being a legal aid. Okay. And so, generally, you're legal aid. lawyers just some rookie you know somebody that's got way too many people on their caseload they go i've saw it over and over they meet you for the first time in the jail 10 minutes before you

go into front of the judge it's not the best i get like one of the top three lawyers in new zealand and this guy's got to take his turn to legal aid half the inmates are like you are the luckiest motherfucker in the in the world you got this guy and the other half are like fire him right way he doesn't want to be there doesn't want to be there he's not getting paid he's trying to like let's just deal with it and let me go back to my fucking high level work damn what he's done he's thought of that and that's what he says to me he's like if you don't plead guilty i'm not representing you he was he was an asshole he was just trying to do exactly that it's like i don't you know there's no money in this he doesn't have a name i'm just trying to

make a law to like help something but then the side effect of that law is people were to end up doing this, you know? And it's like, no, it'll be nice. We'll make everyone get real representation. It's like, it's not going to be real representation. Or when they're like, oh, heroin's illegal. I'm like, do you think it's going away because it's illegal? No, you're just creating violence on top of heroin.

So it was wild. So we get, I plead guilty. I go to sentencing. And the judge was old. He was, he died while I was in prison. That's an appeal. he's looking at me and you know so my lawyer he's just going on and on and how do you know were you track him because you were going to kill him you got out i saw it in the paper okay that's my guy

threw it threw my life he uh so my lawyer uh what's his name um what's the dude back in the 60s that was instrumental in in the in the LSD scene can kese no uh pot is my brain um we know this yeah oh I almost had it let's get it

turn on tune and drop out yeah Timothy Leary Timothy Leary he had just died and my lawyer's like going into like Timothy Leary and I'm pretty sure it's Timothy Leary

anyway I'm like at one point I'm like is he cross is he prosecuting me or defending me I'm not quite sure I'm on the stand like wondering if I should fire this guy right there because he's so disjointed and the and it's wild to see like uh to see how like the prosecuting lawyer's job is to present as bad a scenario as he can so he's basically lying like trying to make me out to be the worst person in the world within realism right and he's asking for seven years and then my lawyer is supposed to be yeah my lawyer is supposed to be you know

presenting on the other side. Come on, two weeks. Yeah. And then there's like a pre-sentence report that was just fucking full of shit. Said I'd been in prison since 1971 and it was like the day I was born. Like it was just all garbage. The cops had lied to me. Prison guards had lied to me.

The prosecuting guard lawyer was lying. My lawyer's lying. And I'm looking at the judge and I'm like, he's got to navigate in the court of justice. he's got to navigate a situation where no one's telling the truth and my whole vision of the justice system just crumbled I'm like this whole setup is fucking stupid wow and this guy's 75 he doesn't understand me he doesn't understand LSD he's lecturing me about how you know how dare you come to our universities and be corrupting our youth and I'm like look I'm just giving them a better price totally giving them what they want and it's exciting and it's fun and you know wherever I

was out with it and but you can't say that to him no so he uh where was this Auckland yeah so he gave me six years and six years brought it down to four what do you mean brought it down because I was because it was a first time offense so he goes I'm giving you six years but I'll make it four because of this yeah so he gave me four basically yeah four years that is so long So then in New Zealand, if you're in on a violent offense, you get out in your two-third state. No one does their full thing, unless there's like, unless it's murder, basically. Then you do 10, 10 or 12.

And if you're on a non-violent, you go up for parole on a third. So I knew I was up for parole on a third of that. Okay. Okay. So, 16 months. Still, that's a long time. I mean, you say like, if it's like, let's just say, it was like, I don't know, November 7th, you're like, all right, so Thanksgiving, I won't be here. And then next year, Thanksgiving, I won't be here.

And I'll also miss next Christmas. And then sometime around the end of ski season, maybe right after it ends, then I'll get out. I'm missing two full ski seasons. And it's not like I just couldn't ski this year if you can't do shit. God damn, it's a long time. They go, oh, you got out jail in just seven years? Like, that's a long time to be in prison. You know, they call it, they call it bed and breakfast.

All the people with a real sentence are like, anything under two years, you're just in for bed and breakfast. I mean, a week would be kind of cool, interesting, you know. It'd be like, as long as there's no violence or like, or like, it'd be like, this is interesting, you know, see the life. But you got to know you're getting out in a week. That was an aspect of it for me was, that was my mindset of like, well, this would be interesting, you know? Do you journal during this?

I did. Part of it for me was like. Blood on the wall. Yeah. How did you do it? Part of it was like this realization of everything I normally worry about, money, girlfriends, job, travel, feeding myself, clothing, washing my clothes, everything that I normally have to worry about. I don't have to worry about for a couple years. Wow.

And then to see, well, does that mean freedom from all of those things that afflict my mind, they're gone? So does that mean I'm suddenly in paradise? Is that nirvana?

You take away everything that you worry about normally. Now are you suddenly in like this afflictive free state? You know, and I had that realization. I didn't know what to make of that, But I was like, well, that's interesting. Everything I worry about, any, my friends, like, everybody I meet, I'll never see them again because I'm getting deported.

And they're not allowed to leave. So it was this fascinating aspect of like, huh, what? Now what? Yeah. Which is another sense of freedom, you know, which became kind of my trip of what I really realized was like, my sense of freedom was about my mind like people kept on trying to take things from me and the and the guards try to hold this over your head of like well we'll try to get you in line well we'll take away your visits or we'll take away this it's like oh yeah how do you punish

someone who's already in prison gets to be real hard yeah no meal today like fuck but also like you're legally obligated to give me that meal but but that's what happens and you know we kind to attach on to the things that we do have i remember i got uh we were in a we were in a high medium and a buddy was oh we were we were they had a farm and we had to go out and you know pick and carrots yeah we're like picking carrots or something and some guy goes up with the garden he's like i'm going to go get some water and the guard said no and i got in his face i was like fuck you get in the guard's face yeah like you don't fucking tell this person you you can't go have some water the fuck do you think you are and so he calls back to the uh to the prison

and they went and searched myself and we had had a going away party for a buddy the night before because he got out he was getting out and so you know we were smoking a lot of pot and somebody gave me a joint for a nightcap so i went back to myself totally forgot about it go out to work the next day that all happens they search myself find a joint uh so now so now you got to go to prison court within the prison and it's fucking hilarious there's like uh and i'd been through it once before so i kind of knew the the first time it's a little scary the second time you just see it's a joke and yeah so they come in and they're like and they want you to send on these little two footprint things like stand on the stand there like present yourself so i like

you know walking i'm like stand two feet over there and they're like no no no no you got to stand there I'm going to stand over here No no you got a stand And I'm like Shut up And they're like okay So here's the charges How do you plead

I'm like I'm not Nothing This is all bullshit Like you're gonna You're gonna find me guilty Like the whole thing's a kangaroo court I'm not I'm not playing

And they're like Well you got it I'm like well I'm not But you got to say guilty I'm not The whole thing's fucking stupid I refuse to even say it No

And they're like Well we'll take that As a not guilty then You do whatever you want so it's all this kind of charade and then they you know throw you in the pound for a couple weeks they throw you in what the isolation the pound for a couple weeks yeah that's the limit there a couple weeks they give you right to the limit every time they don't just give you like an afternoon ever uh i think it was like a week or two generally 10 days but did they ever go like well that was a

light offense so i'm just going to give you the day probably not no well how do they go for hard offenses you're like i got a week for fucking a joint that guy fucking stab somebody he gets a week that's not fair yeah they'll send you to a different prison or something so they are they're always holding like there is how was solitary how was that it's a nice break for me it's a nice break

yeah it doesn't make drive you insane some people some people hated it social people extroverts I don't know claustrophobic people you're 23 hours in a cell half this room wow really yeah

in New York they were cost seven thousand dollars a monster so yeah there's this thing of i've always and you know what happened to that guy this buddy mine was uh we all had a job and he had the guard that searched myself yeah we had this uh we all had a job and this guy he was one of the more hardcore guys i ever met awesome guy he was with a club called the filthy few yeah nice and uh i came into his cell one day and he was laughing and giggling and i was like what's going on man and he's like i can't tell you i was like come on man what's going on he's like nah i was like tell me what's up and he looks at me and he's like if i tell you and you tell anyone i'll kill you wow that's

real threat as like and he like I knew the guy you know and he uh I'd be like actually you know what just don't tell me no I wanted to know but now actually it's just not what if I slip up I just nah I was like no we're cool man and uh he had he had gone into like the where the guards hang out and he had found a printout of every guard's address and to him that was like the ultimate thing he could ever have got black i mean crazy and so this guy that had searched my cell a week later went home and they had emptied his entire house from his forks to his Harley everything robbed and blind took everything just because you were like give the got the fucking water basic human right by the way water is basically don't be a dick

yeah whoa it could be worse I guess but now it's like ah shit and you gotta move that's the worst part about prison shows is when they get you on the outside

when they send some other former prisoner hey go fuck with this guy on the outs or go fuck with that guy's wife you know this other prisoner's wife or brother or something you're like everybody's in prison now so

so this is all all do you remember the name of the prison Um, yeah, that one was called, uh, peremo, Remo. Wow. This is it? That's not the angle I ever saw. That's the prison. Oh, yeah, that's outside.

Whoa. It's big. There was three of them on that site. There was a, I think there was a maxi, a high medium and a low medium. Oh, good prison. Only specialist maximum security prison unit. Yeah, that was the only maxi of, in New Zealand.

Maxi. And so when you're in that prison, it's kind of, it was interesting in that way because now you can't hold anything over everybody's head. And so there was a different, a different feel there.

Because the inmates kind of had a different kind of sense of power. There's nowhere to sign. I remember we were at, they'd come around with these boards a couple times a day. And they'd just kind of check your name off. Like, is everybody still here?

Yeah. Battle the bands. one time this one time this guard came in and we were smoking a joint and I was kind of freaked out I was kind of freaked out

you know like here we are in the max he's smoking a joint and the guard someone dropped the ball looking out you know making sure that someone should be standing guard for the guards and he he opens the we had these blankets over the cells over the

it was like bars and he's like oh shit sorry and just keeps walking like he didn't want to know he didn't want to cause any problems so at the maxi I'm with people on heroin and it's like they look up

you're like not not going to join it like yeah you know some guards would be the opposite but he just worst male inmates will be kept like look at this is that the hallway yeah it looks familiar

they've upgraded it oh wow no that's not quite the ones i was in but you know same idea yeah we had bars instead of solid doors oh really so you could see out would you talk to each other through the you could a little bit it was solid on the side but open in the front and they in that prison they would just press a button and that all the doors would open same time yeah was there ever like fights ready to be had as soon as those doors open no well that was a thing because people were more chill there Because everyone had to be there for a long time, and everyone, you know you're going to be with those people for years. And so the guards knew they had to come to work every day with these same inmates for years. So who wants to start a problem, you know?

Yeah. So there's a different vibe, whereas as you go and go down, you get a point system, depending on your crime and your time and your previous and your escape for us. So you start at like I had 32 points or something. and then as those points drop you kind of the highest security prison is equal to this many points then you drop down to this prison is this many points and so as you go down there's different why they put you in maximum security prison if you're just a nonviolent offender um my points were up there it depends on what it depends what prisons are full and what prisons are full you know like is the high medium full then you got to send them in the max there's a range wow

oh that's nice so they have so they have gardens there and stuff no no could you how often yeah that's that's familiar

that that is is that what it looks like usually the the ones we had was like a metal sink attached to the toilet underneath it's like cold metal toilet that's how you have to shit every day

no toilet seat right nothing to pull up damn that is did you cry when you went in no the hard part was was making that phone call to my parents and you feel good about that could they come visit you how did it work they asked if they should and i said no let me just write it out save the money yeah what's it going to do yeah oof did you like i mean in the beginning was it just like hopeless

so you're like minimum 18 months on a four year which should have been six years sentence. Are you just like, that first week must have been like trying to grapple with like what your new reality was. I remember about a year in, I was working in an upholstery shop at that time. We were re-apolstering sofas and shit. And I remember looking out and being like, I'm bored. And that idea struck me as like the first time I'd had that moment.

It took me a year to get bored. and I was like oh I'm bored that's wild wow and I knew like I had this sense of like this is a waste of my time this whole thing is a waste of my time and knowing I had this ticket around the world just ticking away and and what I you know what my hopes and dreams were but damn but it was I was more it was fascinating in this freedom of my time and my mind freedom of my mind was a big thing and that kind of had fed into me getting into meditation getting into yoga that slowly how did you learn about it I was always interested you know I was like what's the meaning of life what's it all about and I was trying to read some books and could you get access to books

very very so like yeah I'm saying how to even if like I want to get a meditation here it's like all right go to the strand get a book or take a class yeah how do you even explore that it was inventing it hard and I just kind of got lucky I remember going back to this one guy and he'd give me some kind of new agey shit and I was like I'm not into that giving back he's like you should go talk to this guy Mike down the way he's a Buddhist and I was like a Buddhist that's that's weird but okay it's go to his house his cell yeah and uh wow so you'd learn from him and he's like well here's some here's some stuff and I I started reading the books he gave me yeah and he was wild he was a counterfeiter he was in for counterfeiting and uh he was a counterfeiter

and he brought his teacher in there's this Tibetan llama that he brought in a couple times and I met with him and um he he refused he was here we go I was in unit two this is this the hallways I guess so who's filming did you because there's no cell phones then right oh right oh that's this now I mean this is not good oh that's not a great video so he uh he he was just doing his hardcore Buddhist studies and at one point he's like hey we should order these these tapes from this guy named Geshe Michael Roach this Buddhist American guy and so we wrote God knows how he's God knows how he yeah I don't know how he heard of him but he had had this correspondence course

yeah and they sent us these audio cassette tapes and uh he are you about Buddhism well he was teaching this he had studied with a teacher named Geshe Lopes on Tarchin

he'd studied with a Tibetan dude in New Jersey in the Hale New Jersey and and had done a real serious course of Buddhist study learned Tibetan very authentic great teacher and he'd created this

the Geshe program as a 20-year study in Buddhist philosophy. And so Gish and Michael studied that with his teachers. And he'd created this kind of westernized summary of that 20 years of study. Oh, wow. And anyway, we wrote them. They sent us these audio cassette tapes all the way to New Zealand. And I just started studying those.

And that was kind of my entry into it. Into Buddhism. Yeah. in a fucking Auckland prison, Maxim Security prison. Yeah. Was anyone else interested? Yeah, we were in a low medium at that time, but... They would move around.

Yeah. Yeah, there's a very... You know, there was a few people doing yoga, but this was before yoga was really a thing. You know, I'm a yogi. I do. Okay. Glad you know.

A lot of yoga is about kind of like being in a mind state and, you know, like really clearing herself. I'm about bragging. I'm not that kind of yogi. New Wade yogi. So, yeah, so that was the, that was my entry into kind of this other sense of freedom was like freedom, can I free my mind

of like negative thoughts and negative emotions? And that kind of became my trip. While you were in prison? Last 15, 20 years of my life. It might be easier in prison than somewhere else. It was my first real retreat. You know, I've probably done 50 or 60 retreats. Silence and otherwise?

Depending on the kind. But yeah. Because it's like, it's all the, what's on your mind? Oh, I got to do this. I got to do that. I got to do that. That's still bothering me. I got to call my, I got to send my mom flowers for Mother's Day.

I got to all that. And then also just like literal noise of a city. Half of that is just gone in prison. You have nothing to do, take care of. And like, it's probably quiet or the same sounds anyway. similar sounds every day it's very monotonous yeah it's probably good training

where it's like lifting with with like a spotter yeah yeah for a while and then you're like now do this in Cambodia well yeah yeah it's interesting because it's like I said it's kind of like you watch your mind fill in the gaps of affliction and now you're just at war with guards or something you know so all of the emotional

turmoil is now just found a new object and then you kind of you can kind of get a interesting view of like oh that the problem isn't the outside job rent girls because now it's a totally different subset of the world

but my mind is the problem so now how can I now let's deal with the source and that kind of led me down this road of like okay let's work on the mind wow

can I get free can I get the freedom that's kind of my more interesting trip now is freedom from pride jealousy anger do you still do a bunch of acid no you still sell can't tell me actually there's no way you can tell me I retract the question it's like asking like if you cheated on your wife this week literally the only answer will be no regardless

did you ever read keith richard's biography uh-uh first chapter is amazing but in his text he's like he's racist that guy hates black people oh yeah no made it up how did i sound convicted like so did i sound like it was nice that's all acting he talks about how heroin kind of gave up on him he didn't give up on heroin and uh i kind of feel the same about psychedelics like i would If they got to me to where I used to get to, I would still do them, but they kind of gave up on me, you know? Simon Rex said this to me once. It was like, I did enough much.

I got there. I learned everything I needed to. You do it a bunch. You learn everything. And you're like, I'm just like, not even chasing a dragon. Just like. Yeah. So, yeah, I guess I'm chasing a different dragon.

Do you teach? Yeah. You teach classes? Meditation and yoga. Yeah. You're also a yogi. Yeah. I don't teach so much the physical yoga anymore, but I teach a lot of meditation.

I help people get in retreat. I teach philosophy a lot. I teach a lot of yoga philosophy. I'm going to make you an offer right now. All right. Do you know yoga with Adrian? Yeah, yeah, I've heard of that. She's pretty high level and she went way bigger age.

There it is. During the pandemic. She's one of my students. Would you like to also be one of my students? I would love that. You're in. Yeah, or Bernie and Yoga with Adrienne are both students in mine. I saw you had a rooftop class.

I'd do it all over, bro. I was doing it from the Amazon. Let's do it. I was doing them everywhere. I got to get back on it, actually. I really got to get back on it and start teaching them again. They're so stupid. And it's also like most of them are like, hey, I can't get to this move.

It's like you should be like foot down, head, like straight out. But you understand what I'm going for. You should also try it. You're probably better than me. Yeah. Rename all the moves Blown me up Like you did with her, man

Yeah, yeah, she's huge now She's famous Okay Let's see how many I'm so proud of her She got more followers than me, I'm pretty sure Yeah, me too

Okay, here last one Healing Yoga break 12 days ago 300,000 No, let's see How many subscribers is 12.8 million Amazing

I'm so proud of her Good job, Adrian I'm so proud And good job me For teaching her And allowing her this And now, Earl, It's gonna be good job

You. Are you on here teaching? Where are you? Yeah, I'm probably on there somewhere. Do you have a, like a, how do people reach you? Instagram best way. I teach. Is this you?

Round glass level? Yeah, that was one platform. You taught at three jewels? Yeah. I go there. Oh, yeah. Yeah, sometimes are pretty cool, the back of a coffee shop. Yeah.

Yeah, I teach twice a week there online. Online? Yeah. Did everything change for yoga during the pandemic? Totally. I realized online is actually just as good. it changed the whole change the whole world

well change yoga too yeah um yeah you shorter classes I don't know if I get it all in that's true you can go camera off what you can go camera off and take a break so you know like when you're on the Zoom take your camera off go get a drink

oh yeah right right right you can break easily yeah but I mean like you'll be so many more people there's no but as a student though right I get what you're saying but I see like oh it's gonna get there in 40 if I don't get there right now I'm fucked instead of like no i'll just take a dump i'll start 10 minutes later yeah the whole new world uh but no for me there's you know was i learned with a teacher and that was by far the best for me you know

she she busted my ass really yeah she was good damn imagine being in prison and talking about yoga is busting your ass how lucky you are in a way did you consider yourself lucky or unlucky towards the end of this and i want to talk about getting out too yeah both you know at first it's a lot a lot of anger you know these guys you know that principle of my time being the most valuable thing I own and some motherfucker sold my time for his and all I did was sell him the drugs he wanted yeah so there was a lot of anger and there was a lot of uh a lot of anger at the cops a lot of anger at the whole system you know I wasn't exactly a fan of the system to begin with right and then I think humans have an amazing capacity to adapt to their environment

and then prison, you know what? When I went up for parole, I didn't get my parole for pretty medium behavior. And by that time, it was, you know, they gave me four more months or something, and it was like, you know, that's fine, man. No problem. You already gotten used to it.

I wasn't going to let them, I wasn't going to let them win, you know, like, fuck, awesome, whatever, man. Wow. So you get out, how do you get out? How do they tell you're getting out? How much in advance do they tell you? When I went to my parole hearing, they gave me a date. They can either give you another parole hearing or they give you a date, so I had a date.

You're out this date? Yeah. And then can you then go like, so I don't know how it was in Canada, but in America, you apply to colleges, you have two semesters a year. You apply to colleges in the first semester and you usually find out where you got into. So your grades aren't, you're, you're, application process doesn't include your senior year grades but once you got in to your high level reach school or whatever you're like there's all they got to do is not fail this class and then it's

fuck off was it that totally that feeling a little bit of both you know just don't stab anyone you can kind of push the you can kind of push the envelope you can care like a little bit less now right so you can have a little bit more of a fuck you attitude like fuck you i'm i've got my date i don't have to go to another parole hearing but at the same time you can only push that so far so yeah there's a guy let's you with roach yeah yeah that's us teaching he's in he's in sidona now fucking amazing amazing guy don't a rules huh so it's for so such a hippie place yeah it's it's like it's a weird it's weird because it's like crystals and and like drunk natives and ufos yeah it's like people unrelated but all coming together and and and super rich and gated communities and

And you can't get a coffee after three because every cafe should die suit is our place. So, sorry, tell me more about getting up. So, yeah, so then they... Oh, I had some questions, too. They, uh, so then they handcuffed me, take me out. And they took me to break out? What are they going to handcuff before?

Well, they took me to the airport. So then I'm in the... Oh, because you're deported instantly. Yeah. So then I'm in the, you know, the airport hand, the only guy handcuffed. And they walked me right onto the plane in handcuffs. And then, um,

on handcuffed me and they're like see you later who got the flight they did to where do you say here don't want to go or they go we're sending you to Washington no Vancouver oh right right right and I didn't know if I would get arrested landing going back to can you ask for comfort plus or can you dude it was the very very back of the airplane and it was back in the day when you could still smoke I think did you and the walls just stunk like cigarette I remember being in the plane and the walls just like radiating cigarette smoke

and everyone in the front section that smokes can't smoke in the front section so they go to the back. But... Did you start smoking in prison? No. You didn't. It's wild.

How could you not? You know, I tried. That just doesn't work for me. We were smoking pot. We got, at one point, I got another story. I got to ask you about masturbation too. We, uh,

we you know I was kind of having to rely on other people a lot so at one point there was a woman that had come been coming in and to see me all that all that time and you know I wrote her a message had her take it out she sent you know back to that guy in Canada he sent another I can't even remember if it was a thousand hits I think it was a thousand and sent it to a guy that had gotten out he kept 500 sold sold 500 bought a bunch of pot and we're getting that sent back in he goes to the the prison grounds buries it outside and some people had these jobs for their you know you go work on the fields or you kind of mowing lawns or shit they went out and you know dug up the stash and so we had a half pound a pot in the prison half pound wow so it was hilarious it was like

where do you hide a half pound of pot in prison? Yeah, in the wall. How are you going to do this inside the prison wall? So it was hilarious. So we were like, we were smoking so much pot at that point. It was absurd. What do you got to do?

That's so funny. You got more in a pot. When you went back home and started smoking because BC weed is the best in Canada and possibly, at least then North America, maybe. Did it hit you? You're like, whoa, this hits different. I don't know what New Zealand wheat is like.

No one's ever mentioned it. Yeah. It was, you know, I got back and got into the same scene a little bit. I can't remember. You know, I was from B.C., so I knew what to expect. But I kind of slowed down a bit. Yeah. Somebody kind of offered me a job, you know, running pot into the States.

It was the heyday of pot in B.C. And I kind of was like, I don't want to get back into that. mainly because I didn't want to I didn't want to get back in the scene didn't want to get back into the paranoia of the scene I didn't want to potentially put my family through that again and so I kind of he finished my degree and kind of tried to move away from that scene and I was also getting into Buddhism at that time and there was this idea of not right away but you know maybe a year later of like half of me is still drinking yeah and

and smoking, and, and the other part of my life is meditating and trying to, trying to access these super clear states of mind. And I was like, what am I doing? This just, this is stupid. I'm trying to, I'm trying to, like, gain a lot of mental clarity and then I'm drinking and just kind of was like, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm the stop for the first time in my life. I'm going to, like, I'm going to stop for a year. I'm just going to go clean for a year and see what it's like.

There will always be another party I can go back to, but I'm going to. I'm going to go sober for a year and it took me a long time to get to I knew I wanted to do that but it took me a year to to kind of have the have the balls to do it and to make that announcement to my friends

once you say it then you're a bitch if you don't do it. I had to do it saying it to yourself is like whatever five days was good when you have to let someone else down I love those people who like I quit smoking and when they start smoking again you can just see them oh I got to call my daughter

and they will go around the corner a bunch because they just don't want to say like, ah, fucked up. Like, bite the bullet and just tell everybody, we're going to make fun of you. Right. Now we're in a year, but you can't hide it forever.

Yeah. Wait, so I don't want to keep, I keep forgetting this. How was the masturbation in prison? How did you do it? It's, uh, it's called foo-foo. It's called foo-foo.

Yeah. And so there's like, you know, it's almost like, oh, that guy, you know, too much foo-foo. But yeah, it's, it's kind of fucked up like the, the whole second.

sexuality thing. What do you mean? It's a, I don't know, it becomes what people talk about or degrading a lot of degradation of women or I don't know, like the energy is kind of fucked up. But yeah, I mean, it's what else are you going to do, you know, so yeah. Where did you do, shower and your bunk? Nah, you know, in your cell. Were you alone in the cell? Yeah.

The first place. you do it that that's pretty straightforward really yeah okay that's that's that's that's the jam then yeah okay yeah that's great if you have your own bunk it's like you're not bothering anybody great okay question answered um damn what a i'll tell you tell you a different story about that that i'm too too shy to share online but yeah yeah yeah oh afterwards you mean okay okay okay fair I'm like oh this is online though but okay um all right fair

well let's wrap this up I guess unless there's other stuff of this New Zealand part of the trip but that's interesting that it this fucking you go from backpacking which is a different thing the selling drugs is not like gang member drugs it's just a money thing

and then my friend Kurt Metzka did a joke about it where he goes like Batman you know he goes uh he goes the idea of things comic books are different than reality and he goes up batman's going like i'm going after the source i'm getting the dealers off the streets and and then metz goes like carl what do you mean carl's cool we put we listen to rap songs but he comes over and sells me weed oh don't don't hurt carl and it's just like oh yeah all right dealers have this terrible connotation but it's just like

it's a guy who's coming door to door with some weed yeah yeah yeah it's like it's just like so you go from that to this hardcore thing to like i mean honestly the buddhism is close to the backpacking part of you, then it's almost like the prison part was like an unrelated, like you could take that out and it's a natural jump from backpacking to Buddhism.

Yeah, I think the prison slowed me down enough to step back and to get into Buddhism in a way that I never, ever would have done otherwise. And then to come out and to be really, you know, taking a deep, deep dive into that and ended up in Arizona and started a retreat center. And I ended up doing a three-year retreat, silent retreat. Three-year retreat.

Where was that? In Arizona. In Arizona. Wow, that's another one. So, yeah, you know, and that idea of that search of freedom going to a different direction. Damn. All right. Well, before we stop then, this is all very interesting.

Does that sound sarcastic? It's kind of sarcastic out of my mouth. I want to see what this is. It's kind of a dream of mine was for people to bring. I never really got it because I got to tell them way ahead of time. But like I'm lining my walls with travel stuff from me. These aren't like fake ones, you know, stuff I picked up on my like journeys or whatever. But I was always at this dream of like, I have a souvenir.

I got nothing to do with it. Do you want to put it up? Yeah. Travel Chotchkes from around the world. And I didn't even tell you this is just on your own. What is this? This is, I was recently in Indonesia. Yeah.

Wow. Cool. And there's a place called Borobodore. in Indonesia. Burabador. Yeah, cool, cool spot. Barabador. It's an old temple.

No, it sounds like in Mongolia. What do they have? Burabapu. What is Mongolia? Oh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, this is more like, uh, that place in Cambodia. Um,

Oh, there we go. Open it up. Let me see this now. And what is this? So it's a site where they, have it's old a thousand years maybe and they built this site took them a hundred years finished it and then it kind of got lost to the jungle and uh was found i don't know maybe 150 years ago what is it and it's uh like the anchors similar but not as expansive and not

the big rock wait wait wait wait wait uh be be you are you that's oh my god this is a mimic of these yeah and so it's a fascinating site there you go what is this it's just an old temple yeah it is and it's kind of like a minimizing for sure yeah right it's just an old I was like oh dude no it's fucking amazing wow that's a human size what you got in your hand yeah buribador temples compounds and it's all these like bell type of things yeah wow so it's kind of reflective of Buddhist philosophy where there's like what wait oh this is one of those things with the top top yeah yeah different realms of existence going from like form to formless kind of or like this kind of realm of existence to form and then formless

and so it's it's got all these relief carvings if you scroll down you'll probably see some no like carved into the yeah like that one on the bottom yeah that one so they're carved into the into the wall all of these carvings that tell the stories of the buddha and tell the story of the wheel of life magic of barbador java i never went to Java and it's all in this massive temple area yeah yeah it looks like that but with a lot more tourists with a lot more yeah all these pictures all this shit like this it's like oh right way to get on a fucking not nobody's there day you're like wait hold hold I've almost got my perfect picture hold bro thoughts my buddy it's travel writer he's like uh embrace the

imperfections of stuff don't shy away from it don't try to make it like oh there's a homeless guy in there let's shift and it's like the homeless guys are part of this fucking I can include them. Yeah, so it's all volcanic rock. So this is from the earth there, a little relic, a little buddha in there. And so they carved it? Yeah. Took him 100 years to do.

What do you mean? Oh, not this. I want to see where this is. It's in Yogyakarta, not Jakarta is the main city. This is Yogiakarta. I never went there. I started over here in like, oh, Bali. and then I went east.

Uh-huh. I went to Zimbabwa, east Nusitagura and whatever, and then all the way to Timor. But, yeah, wow. This is awesome. Yeah, it's a cool spot. Cool spot.

So it's in the middle of fucking nowhere, too. It is, yeah. You went there? Yeah, I've been there a couple times. To meditate? Well, it's one of those sites. Is it like a magic spot? It's like, how do you meditate there?

There's 1,000 people there, 500 people there. Good point. but it's it feels very powerful it feels very cool it's a rare the the um it's preserved you know in in such a pristine way that makes it kind of unique it's not very popular they limit it now you're only allowed they only allow so many people on it at this at one to protect it yeah they make you get these those those sandals i was wearing today they make you buy these sandals and wear those sandals not to

Not to fuck up the... Dude, when I was in Myanmar, this is a place, I don't want to say the city, but, yeah. But, so I don't know anything. They don't give me anything. And it's like, you're like Indiana Jones exploring these things.

You're all alone. They're all each, like a kilometer away from each other. Just an own, every emperor built up, we want some super grand, somewhere in lean years, so it's smaller. If you go and you're walking around and then somebody, I finally went to like, I'm an eighth one.

I see somebody coming out and putting their shoes back on. I was like, oh, are my shoes supposed to go? Oh, shit. That's that place with the hot air balloons, right? Yeah. Yeah, amazing. God, it rules. What an amazing place.

When I went to South East Asia, four, five, four months maybe, I had two things I wanted to do, that place, and then where those, like, pillars are in the water off, off, um, Vietnam, pillars of, like, mountain-y, I forget what it's called. Just a massive pirate, like, you know, of, like, just rock. Yeah. But I didn't remember right to the other one. Well, you could, you could add this to your, add this to your, add this. to your list a place to go.

It's... God, yeah. I've got to get back. Asia's colony. Oh, my God. Thank you, Earl. Yeah, man. If I just smashed it again.

It was the funnier thing to do. I'm regretting it. Wow. Look at this. On the wall, bro. Where should I put this? Maybe I'll do it off to move this. This is from Myanmar, so I'll move this.

This is from that place. Oh, in, in Vietnam. No, in Myanmar. Oh, cool. I met Alasi. Helped with a sunset. finding a sunset spot and then she was like oh yeah the sunset that's the thing right oh but yeah that was great i'm moving this down there i think i have nothing from indonesia up here

yeah no nothing great fuck yeah dude no keep it on i'll just be watching over all these fucking podcast episodes Now before we leave. Dude, fucking great. Hey, the rest of the guests, where are the fucking you been? With the fucking gifts. Sorry, rest of the guess. Yeah.

Standard set. I try to ask what's calling you and like a travel tip. It could be a general travel tip or like, it could be specific to like, it's put stuff up your butt together before you get to prison. I mean, whatever it could be. It's fit anywhere from pack light. to if you need to smuggle acid inside the wheels of a skateboard is a good place.

Yeah, I would say my travel tip is what we were talking about before we started was to, you know, so much of travel, we can get caught up and never actually see the place, you know, so to spend some time to really see the place and to try to get off the beaten trail, like to try to get out and to meet the people and to not be scared to try to speak the language and to, you know, I've traveled so much where I need. never met anybody from the country because it's just easier to meet people from England or Australia or Canada I meet other Chinese Germans in Indonesia and then to to try to try to get off like the main trip at some point and to deal with the language barrier and

people are so beautiful and people are so accepting and people it's not like the states man people are I find so much more welcoming and want to are happy to sit there with Google translate to have a silly conversation. You think you're also more open to it because you're in the position of like everything's fresh here so you can lead a conversation like what's it like here and that's just infectious? So I would say that's what I try to do when I travel now to do that. Meet people. Yeah. Try to get into their real culture and even to make the extra little effort even though it's

harder. It is hard. Get off the tourist traps and, you know, tourist things are great. Like this place was amazing. but that you know i know what you mean i have a general rule is and i've said this before as a travel tip probably but especially in a place like this or anchor watt i always picture anchor watt when i say this advice when the bus load of chinese tourists come take one last picture and leave it is your experience is over don't it's as if it started raining don't be mad about it it's just

your time is over there now it's going to be unenjoyable should got there earlier whatever one here they go all right one last and then like let's get out of here lesson learned lesson learned so a place like this like sun got there early early before the real tour show up but so now but you in in new zealand though so a lot of times you're like let me get off the beaten path you talk to people a little bit but it's to me anyway it's like surface level things and i'm also like fetishizing the conversation to like it's cool i talk to a local but i'm not really meeting anybody so now in New York I'm like I met a local it's like I met a guy telling about a cool new like restaurant you know it's like that's like a real meeting

now I live in New York so it's not like I'm not wide-eyed about meeting someone here right so it happens it's real but you were like living with these guys for a year plus what what's your observations about about New Zealand people and I know it's a very specific subset of like hardened criminals yeah um First time in my life, I was a minority. So it was very interesting to see what that felt like, where I just wasn't, I didn't speak the language. I wasn't part of the Maori culture classes.

They spoke Maori? No, but it was, I didn't speak the language more metaphorically, you know? I heard you say. And so there was an exclusion that wasn't intentional. So that was interesting to kind of feel like that aspect of being a minority. Maori people I found like and it was a very tough scene but had a very strong value on family

so when they found out you know I'm not connected to a gang I'm in a different country you know I didn't have anything that culture was very do you need anything you know can I help you help you yeah to some extent

you know I wasn't part of that I wasn't part of then I wasn't being invited in but they didn't try to jump you in no no no no no no that's but so that was part of it that's interesting because even even like like pieces of shit

like the genera it's gang addicts whatever um gang members whatever piece of shit in the nicest way possible but like you know the dirt bags of society that's who I am

so it's like I'm not saying it with any disdain but like they still have that like your mom always told you to hold the whole dormant for an old lady you know you could have like killed someone in a gang violence day before but it's like here you go man let me get that for it's still like that's in you

So I could see that being like, oh, let's look out for this fucking foreigner. He's lost. Yeah. Fast, well, I mean, prison morality is, like I said, it's different, you know. In some ways, it's way better. Yeah. Truth, honesty. But, yeah, so that was an interesting part of New Zealand culture, getting to see kind of the Tongan Samoan culture, how that's different than the Maori culture.

And then, you know, they're different. Is Tongan Samoan? Or is that two different things? Two different things. And then Maori is a third. Yeah. So interesting people like, this country is like that. I'm like, what are you talking about?

Apply that to America. What do you mean? Like, East Village is different than the West Village. Don't say a country has one vibe. Wow. What were they different? How were they, or like, broadly? Physically, Tongans are just massive.

Wow. Samoans are also massive, but, and what was wild was traditionally, they have a history of, I think, as it was explained to me, a lot of violence, you know, each country, each island kind of at some point in the other, villageing the other. So there's traditionally conflict, but when you take the numbers of Tongans and Samoans in the New Zealand prison, it kind of equaled out the Maori population. So there's this balance of power in between these different kind of groups. And then once in a while, the Tongan Samoan conflict would kind of blow up. And then kind of settled down. And so it was all of this kind of interplay that was kind of fascinating.

And then the other cultures was just kind of the motorcycle cycle culture, the gang culture was super interesting to me to, that's not my world, man. I didn't. Motorcycle culture? Yeah, like, that's part of the gang. Yeah, like, yeah, exactly. That is weird. Like, I'm in a gang, but also we do love, like, we love motorcycles.

It's almost like, it's almost like pure. Guns and bikes. Yeah. Let's go bicycling with a motorized bicycle. Guns, bikes, tattoos. Yeah. Did you want to get one of those Maori tattoos? One of the, one of my best friends, he, he looked at me one day and he's like, dude, what's wrong with you?

I was like, what are you talking about, man? He's like, you're just a blank slate. I was like, I don't know what are you talking about. He's like, yeah, he's like, you got nothing on you. you got no tattoos you're just like a blank slate like fucking draw a picture and he was kind of covered and he was an amazing uh tattoo artist and uh he had uh canvas nothing on it he had a anyway he was just like i'm out of space you know i'm out i'm done but he just kind of would look at me like why don't you have any tattoos that's so funny it's like i don't and i really

wanted to because in new zealand there's a little bit more of a sense of who you get your tattoo from not only like what is it but like who you got your and i really would have got a tattoo from him but he's just into skulls and devil faces and guns and motorcycles and wasn't my thing yeah where else is calling you right now i in general southeast as a big one you've been plenty yeah is there yeah vietnam yeah i'm ruled yeah i was only in southern vietnam yeah but it ruled but honestly what's what's calling me right now a lot of my travel now it goes up and down right like certain ones like pop their heads up in your mind then go away for a while i'm people i'm now pretty people oriented in my travel it's people i want to go see but what i want to do right now

is spend more time on the west coast of canada and just be around the trees in the forest and be out in nature do you know those those pools i think they closed for a while don't say the name there's these pools of water that's like hot springs and then the waves come you know what I'm talking about the waves come in and kind of like they hit the bottom ones more they kind of go up in steps so the bottom ones are colder than the top ones because the water hits those more often yeah you know what I'm talking about in in BC yeah there's a yeah there's a bunch of that I can think of a bunch of that yeah hot springs cove what hot springs cove is one whoa I got to find those places yeah So that, yeah, that, uh, that's kind of calling to me to be out in nature.

In between Whistler and Vancouver is fucking, that drive is crazy. Unreal, man. Unreal. And if you go just past Whistler and then go inland, oh, that's my favorite trip. What, like, is that the Nimo? No, no, no, no, you go, man, I'm not going to remember the name, but you go, it's the Dewey Lake Highway. Uh-huh. And every corner just follows. Not quite, north of that.

Oh, interesting. And then you go down the Fraser Canyon, and then you hit the Okanagan. Wow. And that trip, that's that circle trip from Vancouver up Whistler, up into through the Dewee Lake Highway and then down into the Kudneys, into the, um, Cootneys and then that's just amazing. It's a driving is a great time to meditate. Like in a different way,

I was telling my friend Duncan Trussle was like a real Buddhist like that, like you. And we were just talking about meditation. And I was like, no. But occasionally I'll get like, I'll take an edible and I'll sit on it if I have a window seat daytime. So I can like, so if the clouds break, you can sort of see the difference.

And I'll just stare out. I have a notebook open. If I get a thought of like that's something I'll quickly write it down, then go back to staring. Just like clear. Yeah, that's it. It's like the low level.

But that's, yeah, that's what it is. Yeah. But when you're driving, I'll turn the radio off. and it's just like you're just mind is going at all at the same time a thousand miles and then nowhere you know it's cool like when you say like you know you're doing that and you quiet kind of quiet down and then something comes up and then you write it down i think that's the one of the cool things about meditation or silence or a retreat gives you a clear thought is like it allows kind of those

clear thoughts to bubble up and then it's like the the shit we hear in silence yeah right yeah it's just quiet moments where it's like allows you to like see something of beauty yeah you gotta be off your phone yeah got to be able to like totally totally that your mind be bored just the right level and then you're like oh yeah had a realization yeah or you see something yeah you know the obey giant campaign uh no shepherd fairy um interesting cool artist graphic maybe Illustrator I don't really know how he started. He started a campaign

in college at Risde maybe or somewhere else. I don't really know anything about him. Shepherd Frye, I'd love you to do this podcast. If anybody knows them. But there were these stencils, these Obey Giant stencils

that he'd start putting up and stickers that he'd get to people. You've seen him. It was about Andre the Giant. You've seen these, right? Obey. And a lot of this one, Andre de Giant has a posse.

and so they'd be up like in places like this people would put them up on like a watchtower or whatever like a water tower or just on a on a on a factory somewhere and one of the things it does it means nothing this guy was a wrestler but it means nothing it's just you're supposed to see it and then part of it is go oh what does this obey the what does obey giant mean and then you go what is this factory it passes every day on the way to work what do they even what do they even right yeah and it just allows you to like break from your fucking like every day the exact same thing and just for a second go oh i've never i've never seen it you see it without seeing it and then you go like oh do we need a water supply it's like do they not have underground water here it just makes you think about that and driving in those in those places make you think that like you see like a fox you're like i wonder who hunts foxes what are they who's their natural enemy what do they hunt oh actually and the whole wild It just gets you in, like, whatever it could be. Yeah, that's one of the, that's one of the main reasons I think I meditate

is to try to be able to train my mind to be present in the present and get out of all of that anxiety and worry and bullshit that's spinning around in my head and, and then be available for those moments of like, like I remember walking to work and I saw this garden in New York, saw this garden of flowers that had been planted. And it was like, oh, those have, they weren't planted yet. I've been walking by those flowers for like a month and I never noticed them and I'm like Because I'm just fucking mindless all the time. It's so funny you go into a store like a do tea shop or something in

Like this neighborhood or anywhere and you're like oh my god, how long you guys been here? Like about a year? I'm like wait What? And also I'm into whatever they're like you know so like I should have I'm the kind of guy who would notice this place a weed coffee shop. It's like okay This is like, this is, I'm the target market. How did I not notice it? I've passed it then. Yeah, yeah, like, yeah. A lot of it's the phone. Right.

Anyway, Earl, it was a fucking pleasure, but yeah, that was great. Thank you very much. Super fun. That was great. I'm glad you're out of prison and you're fucking got your life back together. You were a shifeless punk. That's true. I like your optimism.

Don't get back in a drug. Well, that's the episode, everybody. Ah, damn it. It's not straight. I went reset it. Now it's crooked. I've got it. I'm on 2% battery.

And now it's shaking in the wind. Thank you very much, Earl Bernie, for coming on today's episode. From Bandit to Bendy. That's what his book should be. He's a yoga instructor. You can find him on Instagram at earl eA-R-L-E-D-I-R-N-E-Y. He's a yoga curriculum developer, a Yoga Studies Institute. You can find at Yoga Studies Institute.org.

You can also find his weekly yoga seminars at YouTube.com slash at Yoga Studies Institute. Not to brag, but I'm also a yogi. And you can find my curriculum at YouTube.com slash at Ari Shafir. If you go to the Yoga with Ari playlist, I have over 100 yoga instructions. They are not for the high-level yoga people. They are for a break. They are to laugh and to stretch. Oh, yeah, breathe is my mantra.

I was studied at the feet of the great yogi, Dr. Shavasana, to Hatharajanaan, the University of New Delhi, West Campus. That sounds like a joke. I'm not joking. Legitably get in shape with yoga with art.

But that's not where you should subscribe. You should subscribe to the UB. Chippin'Pod. Instagram, U.B. Chippin'Pod. YouTube account at U.B. Chippin'pod on both those things. And, yeah, hit subscribe. Get me up to fucking. more subscribers and leave comments it's fun you get into the discussion any place you've been new zealand uh next week will be uh Israel for Hanukkah byron bowers um get a discussion

i was there i did this people like oh no oh i found it like this i'll never go because blah blah blah you know i mean you know what i mean god that's shaky um it's also bent so i got stand like that um yeah subscribe leave a comment and uh also we always post uh heather and and kately are always posting extra pictures from the episodes on the ubi chippin a podcast account also they're posting if people uh put up a ubi chippin sticker somewhere they're reposting it you do a close up you do a far away i should do it here you're going to put it on a tree um on a lake in new zealand that's where i'm going to be for the next uh well for this episode for the next to a month because of this episode, and then next week I'll be in Israel.

Thank you very much, Alan Caffey, for editing this episode so well. Sorry, I don't have a sock on this. I left it in the camper van. So you're getting a lot of peas and teas that you shouldn't get. And you're your mom's house for producing this podcast. We're almost a 100 episodes. Please leave in the comments. right here on YouTube,

or send in a message to the UB Trippin' a podcast, Instagram account for your Trippy Awards, best meal, best sexual adventure, also could be worse. Worst trip, best trip, best guest, all since the Paul Morrissey episode for the first week of January of 2025, up until today.

That's a trippy nominee for Best episode, just because it got me traveler. gave birth to this podcast I think that's all I have to tell you everybody I really love doing this thanks a little Bernie for coming in it was a while ago but it's out now

alright bye everybody get out there and travel and do some yoga while you're out there it's actually a fun thing to do I'll tell you a real quick memory one time I was in Indonesia yep on an island Indonesia not Bali I was doing yoga in the morning and it was fucking hot

and I'm doing yoga I fell asleep for a short time I fell asleep because it was so stretchy it was yin yoga because it's my favorite kind of yoga you just stretch and you go a little further stretch more did one of those in yoga with art then a herd of fucking monkeys go by yeah just a herd of monkeys

and I woke up and am I dreaming? Was I asleep or is that a herd of monkeys? And the yoga instructor said You were asleep, you were snoring. It was very distracting. Yeah, that's fucking monkeys, but who cares? They come here every day. What you find amazing, we find normal. That's what you get with yoga.

That's what you get with travel. Makes you think. Makes you think. It makes you fart, too. It really does make you fart. Really does make you fart. There's a lot of new foods you get. It really does make you fart. Travel.

Really makes you fart. I'm R. Javier. Until next week, Israel. Not the continent. Got a lot. It's bye, everybody. Boy, a.

I don't know. I don't know. Thank you.